Friday, October 12, 2007

Page 1

The Brown Daily Herald F riday, O ctober 12, 2007

Volume CXLII, No. 87

Strong job market awaits class of 2008

After Grad School policy change, TA shortage strikes some classes

It looks to be a good year for graduating seniors at Brown and around the country — employers nationwide are planning to hire 16 percent more new college graduates this year than they hired last year, according to a recent survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. The NACE survey, which compiled responses from 203 of its employer members, has been conducted for at least the last decade, said Andrea Koncz, employment information manager at NACE. Nearly 58 percent of responding employers said they plan to increase their college hiring, while only six percent expect to trim the number of college graduates they hire in entrylevel positions, according to a Sept. 13 NACE press release. “For the most part, it’s telling us that there are a lot more positions open for college graduates because of retirements. The companies are growing, and they have more positions open to hire new college graduates,” Koncz said. This is the fi fth consecutive year that employers have projected double-digit increases in college hiring. “There haven’t really been many major changes within the last four or five years. We’re continuing to see increases across the board,” Koncz said. “It’s really just more of the same good news.” That national trend bodes well for the class of 2008 at Brown. “We see every indication that there will be strong hiring of Brown graduates across industries in the year ahead,” said Barbara Peoples, senior associate director of the Career Development Center. “We have a continued on page 4

places an emphasis on reducing graduation time. As grad students face increased pressure to complete their degrees more quickly, balancing teaching responsibilities and graduate work is proving difficult for many grad students — and large undergraduate classes are feeling the unintended consequences. Professors teaching some of the University’s most popular lecture courses have been forced to either reduce the frequency of section

Sections replaced by online films, and professors ponder setting new course caps By Chaz Firestone Senior Staff Writer

By Erika Jung Contributing Writer

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

A shortage of teaching assistants that has hit several large classes across many academic departments may be the result of recent policy changes in the Graduate School, which now guarantees five full years of funding to each grad student and

allows individual departments to allocate funds as they please. The five-year funding guarantee, which was announced in 2006 and took effect this semester, was designed to make the Grad School more competitive with peer institutions. Though funding may be available to some grad students beyond the initial five years, the new policy

Internationalization, construction on agenda By Michael Skocpol Senior Staff Writer

portance to college students because they are targeted as a primary source of piracy. The Recording Industry Association of America has taken particular notice of this demographic, serving pre-litigation letters to universities around the country found to have students engaged in illegal file-sharing. In April, The Herald reported that RIAA served pre-litigation notices to the University accusing 12 undergraduate students of illegally downloading music. Vijay Raghavan, the DFU program director, mentioned the litigation as he began the event before posing questions to panel members representing the so-called “content industry”: David Green, vice president for public policy development at NBC Universal; Jason Oxman, vice

At its regular fall meeting this weekend, the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, will focus on construction plans and hear reports on internationalization, the Task Force on Undergraduate Education and faculty hiring. The University also plans to announce the appointment of the new vice president for international affairs this weekend. The Corporation will discuss a number of building projects slated for completion in the next few years, possibly finalizing sites for the proposed Creative Arts Center and a cognitive and linguistic sciences building and discussing architect selection for upcoming renovations that will turn Faunce House into the Stephen Robert Campus Center, said Secretar y of the University Al Dahlberg and Director of Media Relations Molly de Ramel. The Corporation will also decide how to accommodate plans for a new swim center in the University budget, said Elizabeth Huidekoper, executive vice president for finance and administration, in an interview last week. The Herald reported Wednesday that plans for a new aquatics facility — necessary after the Smith Swim Center was closed last year due to structural instability — may have led University officials to table plans to construct new student housing. The University’s internationalization efforts will also play a prominent role this weekend. Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 will focus on the subject in his report to the Corporation’s Committee on Academic Af fairs, Dahlberg said, and the University plans to announce this weekend its selection for the newly created position of vice president for international affairs. First announced in October 2006, internationalization is ex-

continued on page 9

continued on page 9

Tai Ho Shin/ Herald

The Graduate Center Bar, which operates underneath Grad Center, is not financially affiliated with the University.

Beneath Grad Center complex, a happy haven By Gaurie Tilak Contributing Writer

“Find the door that looks like it belongs to a nuclear bunker, and take the stairs down,” read the instructions to the Graduate Center Bar on the Web site for the Graduate Student Council. You might not expect it, but beneath

the nondescript concrete towers of the Grad Center complex lies a privately run, fully functioning bar. Unlike the Underground in Faunce House, which is recognized by the University as an undergraduate student organization, the GCB is run as its own corporation. It leases its property

By Catherine Cullen Contributing Writer

A sparsely attended debate last night in Salomon 001 kicked off Digital Freedom University’s evening at Brown, featuring a panel discussion about consumers’ rights in the digital age followed by a free concert at the Underground. Digital Freedom University is an offshoot of the Digital Freedom Campaign, a political group founded three years ago and based in Washington, D.C., that seeks to protect and expand consumer rights to use digital entertainment. The group’s DFU program is in its early stages and will appear at several universities along the East Coast to spread awareness about entertainment issues in the era of the Internet. Digital freedom is of particular im-

Chris Bennett / Herald

Everyone But Pete vocalist Jim Fanale speaks with Vijay Raghavan of Digital Freedom University in the Underground before the band’s performance.

3

ARTS & CULTURE

www.browndailyherald.com

continued on page 8

Corporation to meet this weekend

from Brown and holds a Class D liquor license. The GCB corporation, officially known as “Brown University Faculty-Graduate Student Club Doing Business at the Graduate Center Bar,” is run by a board of governors and a manager. Board members can continued on page 6

Digital ‘freedom’ debate questions consumer rights

INSIDE:

meetings led by grad students or scramble to find more TAs. Sections in HIST 1740: “Civil War and Reconstruction,” which enrolled 151 students this semester, now only meet every other week, and students are asked to watch films online on off-weeks instead of discussing course material. “With three TAs and 151 students — and a TA in our department is not expected to teach more

NOT BLACK & WHITE Thulani Davis discusses her family’s complicated past in Civil War-era America.

5

CAMPUS NEWS

next stop: Mars Col. David Scott, Apollo 15’s commander, tells Brunonians that Mars colonization is in the future.

11

OPINIONS

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

no place to study Sean Quigley ‘10 thinks the University’s libraries are hideously and distractingly ugly.

12 SPORTS

Tackle & Turnover Men’s football looks to turn around its three-game losing streak this Saturday, when it hosts Princeton.

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com


T oday Page 2

Friday, October 12, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

But Seriously | Charlie Custer and Stephen Barlow

We a t h e r Today

TOMORROW

rain 66 / 44

partly cloudy 62 / 46

Menu

Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — BLT Sandwich, Roasted Eggplant and Tomato Sandwich, Creamy Cappellini with Broccoli, Clam Bisque, Vegetarian Liz’s Vegetable Soup, S’mores Bars

Lunch — Chicken Fingers, Vegetarian Grinder, Sticky Rice, Summer Squash, S’mores Bars, Enchilada Bar

Dinner — Coconut Tilapia, Basmati Rice Pilaf, Vegetable Stuffed Peppers, Focaccia with Rosemary

Dinner — Salmon Quiche, Grilled Chicken, Cheese Raviolis with Sauce, Roasted Herb Potatoes, Fresh Asparagus Spears, Focaccia with Rosemary, Pumpkin Pie

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

Aibohphobia | Roxanne Palmer

Nightmarishly Elastic | Adam Robbins

RELEASE DATE– Friday, October 12, 2007 © Puzzles by Pappocom

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

C

osswo d Lewis Edited by RichrNorris and Joyce r Nichols

ACROSS 1 High-quality diamond attribute 8 Brittle flatbread 15 Used force, in a big way 16 Big name in art glass 17 Mystics 18 See 20-Across 19 With 21-Across, extreme will power, literally 20 With 18-Across, be unsportsmanlike, literally 21 See 19-Across 23 Uncooperative Clydebank chorus 25 Franc fraction 26 Treats specially, in a way 30 Encumbered 31 Zapped surgically 33 Eminem genre 34 Had too much 35 Salon treatments 36 1988 self-titled C&W album 37 Web address letters 38 Babble 39 “The View” cohost Joy 40 Prepare for testimony 42 Pitchers, at times 44 Type of 1940s suit 45 See 47-Across 46 With 48-Across, crème de la crème, literally 47 With 45-Across, drops out of sight, literally 48 See 46-Across 52 Nursery youngster? 55 “Aw shucks” quality 56 Got ready to confess, maybe 57 Baja breaks 58 Workplaces for plant managers?

DOWN 1 There are 91.44 in a yd. 2 __-di-dah 3 Fall duo 4 Paid 5 “Sign me up!” 6 (In) single file 7 Jr. and sr. 8 Düsseldorf direction 9 Greece airport code 10 Giggled 11 Georges Braque’s movement 12 Stand lookout, say 13 Kenan’s comedy partner 14 Tolkien’s Treebeard, for one 21 Grassland 22 Plymouth K-car 23 It’s saved for later use 24 Lets go 25 Backs up 27 Adapted for grasping 28 Knight wear

29 Gets ready for a fight 32 Hill builder 35 The Stooges, e.g. 36 Stopped at an island, maybe 38 Fast or march 39 Bit of unintended humor 41 Some blues 43 Leia __: “Star Wars” princess

46 Decide not to keep 48 Distinguishing mktg. symbols 49 __ polloi 50 RR depot 51 Cobb and others 52 DreamWorks __: film studio 53 Former Giants closer Robb __ 54 Mdse.

Octopus on Hallucinogens | Toni Liu and Stephanie Le

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Classic How To Get Down | Nate Saunders

xwordeditor@aol.com

10/12/07

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

Dan DeNorch, Secretary

10/12/07

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 Friday, October 12, 2007

Page 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Thulani Davis opens Great Nonfiction Writers Lecture Series By Daniela Postigo Contributing Writer

The Great Nonfiction Writers Lecture Series kicked off Wednesday evening in MacMillan 117 with an inaugural lecture from author Thulani Davis. The series, presented by the Nonfiction Writing Program in the Department of English, will bring four internationally recognized nonfiction writers to campus this year from the genres of historical memoir, personal nonfiction, science narrative and film documentary. Future scheduled speakers include Brown alums Scott Russell Sanders ’67 and Davis Guggenheim ’86, producer of “An Inconvenient Truth.” At her lecture, Davis spoke about her latest book, the memoir “My Confederate Kinfolk,” in which she investigates her family’s black and white roots in Civil War and Reconstruction-era America. Her lecture focused on misinformation and missing records apparent in both journalism and historical documentation. Davis’ memoir recounts the history of her family’s bloodlines in Mississippi — the black Davis lineage and white Campbell family line. Her book seeks to reassess “the Campbell family mythology” by examining inaccuracies in the family history, including the family’s denial that they bought and sold slaves, she said. Davis said she discovered that both the family and local newspapers took pains to cover up the lynching of a black member of the Mississippi House of Representatives on the Campbell family farm so that a member of the Campbell family could succeed him in the position.

In writing the memoir, Davis said she ran into the same problems of “missing documentation” that occurred in writing her earlier novel, “1959.” Problematic Reconstruction-era newspaper articles were sometimes completely removed from the newspapers’ records, she said. Davis recalled an instance when she had to unearth newspaper articles from an alternative source: a man’s personal scrapbook. Davis was already familiar with finding gaps in published information. Growing up in 1950s Virginia, Davis said, the events of the civil rights movement in her town rarely appeared in the newspapers. As the desegregation movement in her neighborhood grew, “the newspapers reported less and less of what was happening,” she said. Davis said she learned from elementary school to be skeptical of journalism: “We couldn’t believe everything we read. Our own textbooks could not be trusted.” Through the writings of W.E.B. Du Bois, which she encountered in her later education, she also realized that “I knew I would have to find history for myself.” Discussing the state of journalism today, Davis lamented that “corporate takeovers have created a reduction of information.” Americans today are getting their news from three or four sources that are usually repetitive, she said. She commended “the margin” that is alternative journalism such as blogs and encouraged them to keep being creative and finding more ways of reaching people. continued on page 4

Chris Bennett / Herald

The Sarah Doyle Women’s Center Gallery will feature the exhibit “In Remembrance of the Ladies” until Oct. 26.

Ghosts of ladies past fail to impress Sarah Doyle exhibit underwhelms By Catherine Goldberg Staff Writer

“In Remembrance of the Ladies,” an art exhibit featuring work by Boston-based artist Jane Ehrlich, opened Oct. 5 at the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center Gallery. But despite the artist’s indisputable technical talent, Ehrlich’s paintings do little to captivate or hold the attention of the viewer. In her oil paintings, Ehrlich depicts traditionally feminine articles of clothing, such as bustiers, gloves and lacy camisoles, often accompanied by heart-shaped windows, flowers and doily designs. In reproducing these items on wooden surfaces,

Ehrlich reveals her strong technical ability to render fine details. “Lace Jacket,” a painting portraying a delicate white jacket displayed on a mannequin, demonstrates the artist’s understanding of texture and weight. “By their close investigation of articles from an earlier era, (the

REVIEW paintings create) a glimpse into my past, filtered through the lens of time,” Ehrlich said in her artist’s statement. Yet Ehrlich’s paintings hardly convey her personal history — the images she uses are the generic images of a little girl’s makebelieve land, rather than anything specific to her own past. In “Let’s Pretend,” for example,

the artist paints images such as white high heels decorated with feathers and a frog on a lily pad, each framed by heart-shaped lace, on a black background covered with white doily designs. While the images in the painting do say “girlhood” to the viewer, it is a struggle to see into the personal world the artist is attempting to convey. Putting aside Ehrlich’s personal intentions, the paintings themselves still fail to stand on their own. Ehrlich simply presents the viewer with the general objects of girlhood fantasy ­— ribbons, roses and silky nightgowns — entirely without critique or commentary from the artist. The exhibit, which consists of 21 paintings, will be on display in the Women’s Center Gallery until Oct. 26.


Page 4

Friday, October 12, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Recruiters say class of 2008 can expect strong job market continued from page 1 wonderful and very robust campus recruiting program. I think we’re competitive with the other Ivies and other local colleges.” Recruiters from over 90 firms participated in last month’s career fair, which Peoples said drew 1,150 students on the first day and 850 on the second. The recruiters included 100 alums, Peoples said, and other alums have conducted information sessions and interviews on campus over the last three weeks. Koncz said the most demand for recent college graduates seems to be coming from employers in accounting, information science and engineering and technical fields. The NACE fall sur vey did not collect data on trends within specific fields — that information will be

included in the organization’s final report in the spring, she said. Kimberly DelGizzo, associate dean of the College and director of career development, said the job market is good for students in all concentrations. “Generally speaking, (employers) are not looking for particular concentrations — they’re really looking for intellectually curious people, people who are willing and interested in learning,” DelGizzo said. “So they say they want to hire people with particular competencies, and then they can teach them whatever specifics they need to do that job successfully.” Pay is going up, too. The average starting salary for a member of the class of 2007 majoring in chemical engineering rose 5.2 percent over the previous year, to $59,218,

according to NACE data posted on the Web site of the Computing Research Association. Computer science students made 4.5 percent more in 2007 than the previous year, with an average starting salary of $53,051. English majors, on the other hand, saw only a 1.7 percent pay hike in 2007 from the previous year, to an average starting salary of $31,924. “Computer science for the past several decades has been a major engine of economic growth,” said Professor of Computer Science Rober to Tamassia, chair of the department. “After the dot-com bust at the beginning of this millennium, our enrollments initially dropped and then picked up again. Brown has been one of the leading institutions worldwide to have this

pickup in enrollments. This was very encouraging also because we are trying to train the leaders of the profession.” The job market for Brown’s CS grads is improved by the department’s close ties to a number of major employers in the industr y through alums and the Industrial Partners Program. “These are companies that have a special relationship with the computer science department,” Tamassia said. “We have a continuous pipeline of students going to work for these companies and then in turn coming to recruit our students at all levels.” Despite the optimistic statistics, seniors still expressed mixed feelings about the job-search process. “I’ve been rejected a bunch

of times,” said political science concentrator Cyprian Kibuka ’08, adding, “Career Ser vices here is serviceable, but you have to do all the work yourself.” Daniela Alvarado ’08, an urban studies concentrator, said she finds conversations with professors and the CDC’s services helpful in her job search. “I know there is a big hierarchy in the design field, and it might be challenging for me to find a job where I would get to do exactly what I want, mostly because I don’t have a professional degree,” she said. DelGizzo said the “vast majority” of seniors enter the labor force after graduation, though about a quarter go on to attend graduate school. Other post-matriculation options, she said, include travel, volunteer work and military service.

Davis’ lecture addresses her history and identity continued from page 3 “Journalism may be needed now more than ever,” Davis said. In her historical research, Davis said she tried to look at “aspects of life in a microcosm” and strived to be able to “understand what is not in the books.” She said examining daily life in the Reconstruction-era South helped her gain “a more writerly sense of how someone’s day was spent.” For example, she said, she noticed during a visit to Mississippi that the ground was loaded with rocks, and this helped her get a better sense of what it was like to be a slave working there without shoes. Davis said her research forced her to reassess her identity. She found that many of her white ancestors, largely unknown to her, possessed character traits and physical features more akin to hers than her familiar black forebearers’. She noted that her own distinctive hairline — a trait absent in the black relatives she grew up with — was ubiquitous in the family photographs she found of Campbell women. As a Buddhist priest and cofounder of the Brooklyn Buddhist Association, Davis was also surprised to find evidence of a spiritual awakening toward Buddism and Taoism in the writings of one of her white Reconstruction-era ancestors, who was herself a writer. Findings like these have made her realize that “some of what I am comes from places utterly unknown to me,” Davis said. “I am the logical conclusion of the Campbell story and the Davis story,” she said. Davis is a writer of books, plays, films, musical works and several award-winning PBS documentaries. She has written for an extensive repertoire of national publications, among them the New York Times, the Village Voice, the Nation and the Quarterly Black Review.

thanks for reading


C ampus n ews Friday, October 12, 2007

‘Hip-hop theorist’ explores social justice By Helena Anrather Contributing Writer

Professor of Africana Studies Tricia Rose MA’87 PhD’93 is called the “hiphop theorist” by many media outlets for her work on music, politics, racism and sexism in popular American culture. She is well-regarded for her widely read book, “Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America.” Rose is currently working on a new book about particular visions of social justice that have emerged from poets and musicians, focusing on the ethics and politics of interpersonal behavior. She will teach a seminar next semester on the issues she is pursuing in this book, focusing on music and poetry. “How we treat each other has implications on social systems,” she told The Herald. Instead of the hard-line political approach of the 1960s — “Are you willing to die for the revolution?” she said, describing 1960s rhetoric — she is approaching social change from a black feminist revisionist perspective, she said. Or, as she puts it, “Politics you can live with and live by ­— not politics about destruction and rage and impossibility.” Citing the American playwright Lorraine Hansberry, author of “A Raisin in the Sun,” as an influence on her work, Rose is interested in the “internalization and interpersonalization” of racism. Like Hansberr y, Rose values “strategies for social justice that emanate from centering interpersonal relationships” to combat segregation, she said. This semester, Rose is offering for the first time at Brown her signature

Page 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Courtesy of brown.edu

Professor of Africana Studies Tricia Rose MA’87 PhD’93 examines the role of language and interpersonal connections in social change.

lecture course, AFRI 0880: “Hip Hop Music and Cultures,” which she previously taught at New York University and the University of California, Santa Cruz. “It’s been really lively and dramatic,” Rose said of the course this semester. She recently guided the class through a discussion of music sampling and intellectual property and said she was surprised at the students’ acceptance of sampling as an art form, calling it “status quo talk.” “How can you transform what’s going on if you don’t even have a language that suggests change?” she said she asked them. Rose said she likes teaching students at Brown, who she thinks tend to have a good sense of agency and intellectual drive. She said students here are “hungry for some things, but don’t want to be fed others.” Students are eating up Rose’s course. “It’s a great class, I’ll tell you that,” Paul Graham ’09 said. “I think that one of the keys to her popularity is the success of her lectures. Not for a second would you be in her class and think that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. And she has a great sense of humor.”

Apollo 15’s Scott: Keep your eyes on Mars By Simon van Zuylen-Wood Contributing Writer

At 10 minutes to 4 p.m. on Thursday, MacMillan 117 was already packed with students, professors and community members awaiting a lecture by Col. David Scott, commander of the 1971 Apollo 15 lunar mission and the seventh man to walk on the moon. Scott first traveled to space in 1966 with the Gemini 8 mission — the first spacecraft to dock in space — and flew on the 1969 Apollo 9 mission, launched in preparation for the Apollo 11 lunar mission later that year. Scott’s lecture, “Voyage to the Moon: The Apollo 15 Mission to Hadley Rille and the Apennine Mountains,” was part of the Thomas A. Mutch Lecture series. Mutch was a professor of geology at Brown from 1960 until 1980, when he disappeared while climbing mountains in the Himalayas. The lecture series commemorates Mutch’s accomplishments in the field of geological space study. Before the lecture began, Professor of Geological Sciences James Head PhD’69 spoke about Mutch’s passion for space study — a recurring theme throughout the event. “Tim inspired and tutored a countless number of students with his imagination, intellectual rigor and commitment to resolve,” Head said. Scott then examined the geological aspects of the Apollo 15 mission, speaking extensively about both the level of education and adventurous spirit necessary for significant space research. Scott came to NASA for space training in 1963 after six years as an Air Force test pilot. Though he knew little about geology, Scott

Oona Curley / Herald

Col. David Scott, commander of the 1971 Apollo 15 mission, spoke Thursday about his education and experience as an astronaut.

was soon tutored in the field by Leon Silver, a California Institute of Technology professor employed by NASA who “made geology fun” and inspired him. Scott’s geology education at NASA not only improved his knowledge of geology but sparked a passion for it. Scott, who operated the first lunar rover with fellow astronaut James Irwin, marveled at the millions of years of history contained in a single boulder. “We sampled the boulder and brought back the history,” he said. “This has been here for 500 million years, and you’re the first person to touch it.” Later in the mission, Scott came across an orthosite rock and, though he was told to report back to the launch, said he was so struck by its beauty he could not resist gathering it. NASA told Scott

he could only delay the trip back in the case of a seatbelt malfunction. So feigning a malfunction, Scott obtained the rock forever known in NASA circles as “the seatbelt rock.” Though the anecdote was humorous, it also spoke to the passion for geology Scott had obtained through study. “We could find an orthosite because someone taught us how to find an orthosite,” Scott said. Looking to the future of space exploration, Scott concluded the lecture with his thoughts on a human mission to Mars. Scott emphasized the importance of getting humans to Mars, both for the sake of scientific research and exploration. Shuttling to Mars and back would take two years and eight months continued on page 6

Richards ’80 fights for abortion rights, encourages student activism By Carol Celestine Contributing Writer

Chris Bennett / Herald

Cecile Richards ‘80

For over 20 years, Cecile Richards ’80 has been a crusader for American women’s reproductive rights. Now, as president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Richards continues to work vigorously to protect abortion rights. In a packed List 120 Thursday at noon, Richards discussed her views on reproductive rights and other healthcare issues, her experiences in the field

and her concerns about the future of the United States’ pro-choice movement. Richards’ political activism began during her time as a Brown undergraduate. Though she was not involved in reproductive health issues while on College Hill, she was actively involved in other hotbutton political issues of the early 1980s. “This really dates me, but I was really involved in the divestiture from South Africa movement, and I lobbied against the building of the Seabrook Nuclear Plant in Seabrook, N.H.,” she told The Herald. “I lost the second battle.” In her lecture, Richards spoke not only about reproductive rights, but also expressed concern about the current state of health care in the nation, the 2008 presidential election and the need for greater organization at the grassroots level among pro-choice proponents. Richards also spoke about the politicization of choice and reproductive freedom, which she said are primarily health issues that have no place in the political arena. “It’s been this way for a long time,” she said of the controversy over reproductive rights. “There’s a small but vocal minority that doesn’t want women to have the right to access birth control.” She also suggested that political wrangling over the issue is far from a moral or an ideological bat-

tle. Rather, she said, the issue has been raised by the political right as a “wedge issue,” a bone of contention intended to divide Americans and “garner votes.” She also charged anti-abortion activists with promoting a double standard. “Those who oppose choice usually tend to oppose other programs that would help children,” she said, citing such examples as school lunch programs, state and federally supported child care programs and children’s healthcare legislation recently vetoed by President Bush. “The U.S. should focus on taking care of children that are already here as well as preventing future unwanted pregnancies,” Richards said. But Richards said she does not believe that the American public is buying into these divisive politics, and she described the United States as being a fundamentally “pro-choice country” that respects a woman’s right to choose irrespective of the circumstances. Richards also voiced her concern about state and federal courts’ increasing role in shaping reproductive health policies through adjudication and the Supreme Court’s apparent steps toward overturning Roe v. Wade, such as the Court’s recent decision to uphold the ban on partial-birth abortion. “The freedom to choose hangs in the balance,” she said. “Right

now the Court is 5-4, and there is always the possibility of new (conser vative) appointees to the Supreme Court.” Even if Roe v. Wade is not overturned on the federal level, Richards said states’ own stringent limits on access to birth control and abortions are threatening women’s right to choose. Some states, she said, are anticipating an eventual overturn of Roe v. Wade and have preemptively instituted laws that will immediately outlaw abortion if that 1973 ruling is overturned. Though she seemed to have some reser vations about the nation’s direction on a number of issues, Richards was optimistic about the implications of the upcoming presidential election, calling it “historic.” “I encourage all of you to volunteer for a campaign,” she said. She called former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the only pro-abortion rights Republican candidate, an exciting candidate. Despite the heated debates surrounding reproductive rights, Richards said she embraces her role. “As an activist, if I’m not pissing someone off, I’m not doing my job,” she said. “There are many people who oppose this right and turn to harassment and intimidation in order to get their point across. But (Planned Parenthood) serves over 5 million patients yearly, and that’s what really counts.”


Page 6

Friday, October 12, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Future lies on Mars, astronaut says continued from page 5 and, Scott jokingly estimated, a cost of “about 1 zillion dollars.” Most of all, Scott emphasized the human element of traveling — and eventually colonizing ­— Mars. “If you plan to live on Mars, if you go anywhere in the solar system, you have to take the Earth with you,” Scott said. “You can’t colonize Mars without taking the Earth with you. You are an Earthling.” This doesn’t simply mean bringing food, water and oxygen to Mars, Scott said, but furthering human knowledge through exploration. Scott said he believes in a mission to Mars for the sake of humanity and knowledge. Scott ended by commemorating Mutch as an emblematic explorer. “He was an adventurer, an explorer,” Scott said. “He climbed the mountains and went to the planets. When you think about going to Mars, think about Tim Mutch. Would he go to

Mars? You bet he would. He’s an example of what the rest of us should be.” Scott is currently assisting Head at Brown’s immersive virtual reality center, “the Cave,” in creating a projection of what a trip to the Moon or Mars would be like. The project will simulate conditions and research activities for a 500-day trip to the Moon — the amount of time necessary to spend on Mars for a future mission, according to Head. Schuyler Maclay ’10 said he enjoyed Scott’s talk and viewing the slides of his had taken on the Moon. “I thought it was excellent. He went to the moon — that puts him in a small group,” Maclay said. But one student at the lecture questioned whether colonizing Mars makes sense. “I’m not going to disagree that the adventurous nature of man has led to many scientific discoveries, but it’s pretty senseless to say we should be promoting a mission

Courtesy of NASA

Apollo 15 astronaut Dave Scott stands in the open hatch of the Command Module “Gumdrop,” docked to the Lunar Module “Spider” in Earth orbit.

where we’re spending billions of dollars,” Emmett Fitzgerald ’10 said. “He admitted that there was no real reason (for the mission). He himself made the point that we here

on Earth have our own problems.” But Scott said dedicating resources to space exploration is not about tradeoffs. “Mars is so close,” he said. “You got to go to Mars.”

Beneath Grad Center, darts and a cold one continued from page 1 be graduate or medical students, faculty or staff. The bar is registered as a nonprofit private organization. “This works out pretty well for all those involved, as the prices per drink are also cheaper than most of Providence,” said Theodore Przybyla GS, treasurer of the Graduate Student Council and occasional GCB patron. While the Underground has had problems in the past with underage drinking, the GCB has never faced such problems. “We actively discourage people under 21 from coming here,” said GCB manager Susan Yund. “It would be a huge liability for us,” she said, adding that the bar tries to cater to an adult crowd. Graduate students, particularly those who serve as teaching assistants, often want a place to relax away from undergraduates. “It’s nice to have that separa-

read share recycle

tion,” said Christopher Harwood, president of the GCB board of governors and a biosafety officer for Environmental Health and Safety. “We do allow undergraduates that are 21,” he added. “But we’re very strict about the drinking age.” One of the ways the GCB monitors its patrons is through its membership requirement, which is one stipulation of the Class D liquor license in Rhode Island. According to R.I. state law, any bar or club with a Class D liquor license must limit the sale of alcohol to “members of the licensed club and their guests.” The annual GCB membership fee is $30. The Graduate Student Council uses money from their student activities fund to buy a bulk membership — which costs about $2 per person — for all medical and graduate students. Graduate and undergraduate students make up most of the bar’s patrons. “There are very few people outside of the Brown community,”

Yund said. Out of roughly 1,700 graduate students at Brown, Yund estimated that between one third and one half visit the GCB at least once over the course of the year. The composition of the bar patrons varies by night, but the bar is almost always busy after 9:30 or 10 p.m. on Wednesday through Saturday nights, Yund said. “Thursday nights are often heavy with undergrads,” Yund said. The bar is open from 4 p.m. until 1 a.m. every day. The GCB first opened in 1969 and was located under the Bear’s Lair, in what is currently a computer cluster. In 1986, the bar moved to its present location. Yund said she has been working at the GCB for 17 years and has been the manager for the past 14. During her first three years at the GCB, Yund bartended and said the bar wasn’t very busy — but since then, business has grown. “There were times maybe 14

years ago when we had financial difficulties,” Har wood said. But since Yund has been manager, the bar has seen a lot of business. “For the past five or six years, we’ve been doing very well,” she said. Some of the annual revenue from the GCB is used for maintenance and improvements of the bar’s facilities, while some is reser ved as part of a security fund. The remainder of the revenue is donated to charities including Amos House, Little League and the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, among others. When asked about the University administration’s perspective on having two bars on campus, Associate Vice President of Campus Life and Dean for Student Life Margaret Klawunn said the bars are models for responsible drinking on campus. “There is some value in modeling responsible behavior with alcohol,” she said.


C ampus n ews Friday, October 12, 2007

Ne

ws

i n

Br

i e f

Carcieri ’65 appoints Annenberg Institute director as head of urban education task force By Thi Ho Staff Writer

Jean-Yves Chainon / Herald File Photo

The intramurals program now includes a point system that rewards good sportsmanship.

Intramurals focusing on sportsmanship ‘Good sportsmanship in intramural sports is no longer just expected — it’s required. Since Diane Yee, intramural and facility coordinator for the Department of Athletics, took the helm of the program in April, she has instituted a number of changes, including a point system that rewards good sportsmanship. After each match, the intramural supervisor and referee — both students — rate the participating teams in sportsmanship on a scale from one to five, with five being the best possible rating. The points will be averaged at the end of the season, and teams averaging fewer than a three will not be allowed to participate in playoffs. “It’s about respect for officials and for other teams,” Yee said. “Unless you’re rude and inconsiderate, you shouldn’t be affected by the sportsmanship ratings,” Yee added. Student responses to the ratings were mixed. “I think it’s a good system because bad sportsmanship should definitely be discouraged, ” said Dhruv Rajashekaran ’11, who plays intramural soccer. “Things used to get out of hand because there was nothing to hold over people’s heads. There were no repercussions,” said Jimmy Tasso ’09, the student intramural coordinator. “We tried doing it in the past, but we never really followed through.” Ben Nicholson ’11, a soccer captain, wasn’t sure that bad sportsmanship was even an issue before. “There’s been a few instances where someone’s had a knee-jerk reaction and said something that might not be positive, but at the end everyone shakes hands, and there are no hard feelings.” “We haven’t had a problem with teams being bad in the past,” said Sam Zimmerman ’09, a flag football supervisor. “If there’s a problem, we deal with it, but most time people are up there to have a good time.” Yee has also made some formatting alterations since arriving at Brown from Villanova University, including creating female and co-ed leagues. While all of the teams used to be open to women, the new co-ed league requires an equal number of males and females on each team. Yee remarked that the additional leagues were intended to “give the females on campus more of an opportunity to participate in intramurals.” Lack of interest is forcing the co-ed and female teams to play in the open category, Yee said, but she is hopeful that participation will increase with time. Yee has been “really ambitious. She’s been a good addition to the intramural program,” Tasso said. Other changes include a revamped Web site with daily score and rank updates as well as three new activities: A rock-paper-scissors double-elimination tournament, a trivia bowl and the Hasbro Olympics, a board game tournament. Intramurals, according to Yee, are about more than athletics. “They’re about meeting new people, making new friends and trying new things.”

— Melissa Shube

enjoy the weekend

Page 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Gov. Donald Carcieri ’65 announced new graduation requirements for Rhode Island high school students and a new urban education task force at an education panel held Thursday on College Hill. Warren Simmons, executive director of Brown’s Annenberg Institute for School Reform, will head the state’s Urban Education Task Force, which will undertake an evaluation of education in Rhode Island cities over the next 18 months, Carcieri said at the Hope Club on Benevolent Street Thursday morning. The task force aims to incorporate teachers, students, administrators and parents in a discussion about urban education. Beginning with the graduating class of 2008, Rhode Island high school students will need to meet three major standards of proficiency in order to receive diplomas. Students must successfully fulfill at least 20 courses in six core areas, demonstrate proficiency on state assessments in English, language arts and mathematics and complete an exhibition or portfolio that applies skills they learned in high school. The exhibition or portfolio will allow students who might not ordinarily test well to demonstrate proficiency, Carcieri said. Other requirements for graduation include the creation and completion of an individual learning plan that plots each student’s course of study and extracurricular activities, as well as special projects adapted to each student’s interests. Before this year, Rhode Island did not have state-wide requirements for high school graduation. A school’s principal determined whether a student could or could not graduate. Efforts to improve public education in Rhode Island came in response to concerns in 2000 from colleges and employers about low student performance levels. The state’s Board of Regents led an evaluation of schools using standardized tests, classroom assessments and student projects that demonstrate applied learning. As a result of these evaluations, the board concluded that many students in Rhode Island fall below grade level in reading, writing and mathematics and are not prepared to meet the demands of higher education or the work force. In addition, the board found that schools are not meeting students’ individual needs. Rhode Island united with Vermont and New Hampshire three years ago to form the New England Common Assessment Program, Carcieri said. This year, teachers from all three states helped develop a new standardized test to evaluate students’ learning. The test allows Rhode Island schools to see how they “stack up” with comparable schools in the rest of the state, as well as schools in Vermont and New Hampshire,

Carcieri said. According to Carcieri, scores on the NECAP’s standardized tests for elementary and middle school students in Rhode Island have improved by about 5 percent over a three year period. On the most recent tests, 62 percent of students met average reading proficiency, while 53 percent met average math proficiency. Carcieri estimated that average proficiency for students in suburban and rural areas is 70 to 75 percent. The test will first be administered to high school students this year.

METRO A different test evaluated some high school graduates two years ago. Rhode Island high school graduates matriculating at the Community College of Rhode Island were tested on their proficiency in reading, writing and math. “What came out of that was 55 percent ... of the freshmen going to CCRI required remedial work in either math, reading or writing in order to be brought up to a level where they can be successful in college,” Carcieri said. Students who do not score as proficient on the NECAP tests will need to “bite the bullet” and commit to meeting proficiency requirements, said panel member Peter McWalters, the state’s commissioner of elementary and secondary education. In most states, schools allow students to take standardized assessment exams more than once if they fail them the first time, said Kenneth Wong, professor of education at Brown. He said he expects Rhode Island will follow this example. “How to deal with these students raises the question of capacity and instruction,” Wong told The Herald. Schools will need to coordinate the curriculum with the support of teachers, Wong said. “If they fail it a second time, it might be that students are not benefitting from the way teachers are teaching,” he said. Forty-five other states employ

similar systems of standardized assessment, Wong said. “Rhode Island is part of a national move toward examining student performance before graduation,” he said. Though improving suburban and rural education is important, improving urban education is a greater priority for Rhode Island, Carcieri said. “At the end of the day, if we can’t get all the youngsters in our urban communities coming out of those schools with the skills that they need, we’re in big trouble,” he said. “What we’re doing is not working,” Carcieri said. “It’s not getting us to where we need to get to.” Carcieri added that the sooner the state starts working on “intervention” in urban schools, the sooner Rhode Island will see results. McWalters backed the call for urban school reform. “We can’t afford to have disposable kids,” McWalters said. He attributed the disparity in test scores between students in suburban areas and those in urban areas to “unwritten community standards.” McWalters said that though the state hasn’t mandated academic proficiency, suburban and rural areas have established their own community standards. “As you get progressively into the urban core, the standard starts to float,” he said. “(Public education) is a selfserving, insidious system,” he added. “The state is stepping in and saying, ‘Does that have to be? Do I have to predict student results by income, class, family or race?’ The answer now is, ‘No.’ ” Simmons said school officials should also consider focusing more on students’ post-graduation opportunities. “After getting kids to reach basic proficiency, how do we provide the opportunities to kids to participate in the economy?” he asked, adding that education does not end in the classroom. “The task will be how we create a playing field that supports learning inside and outside of school,” Simmons said.


Page 8

Friday, October 12, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

TA shortage in some lecture classes may lead to course caps continued from page 1 than two sections — we’re talking about large sections,” said Associate Professor of History Michael Vorenberg, who teaches the course. “And these are supposed to be discussion sessions.”

CHEM 0330: “Equilibrium, Rate and Structure” had such a poor student-to-TA ratio that Professor of Chemistry Peter Weber, who chairs the department, had to convince grad students on research assistantships to teach part-time. “Chem 33 was 10 to 15 percent

larger than usual,” Weber said. “I have a small number of full-time TAs and a large number of half-time TAs/ half-time RAs, and with that we are able to cover everything.” Though Weber was ultimately able to accommodate all of the students interested in taking CHEM 0330 without reducing section frequency, some worry that professors faced with an ongoing shortage of graduate TAs may be forced to cap the size of popular courses that are currently open-enrollment. A blessing or a curse? A move from not guaranteeing funding to providing five full years may seem beneficial to grad students, but the result may be trickier than it first appears. In order to shorten the notoriously long process of earning a Ph.D. — it takes American students an average of 8.2 years, according to a recent National Science Foundation study — students received, in addition to their checks, the message that they should graduate in a timely fashion. With many trying to complete their degrees a year or two faster than they might otherwise have, some grad students are finding it difficult to devote as much time to teaching. “I’m in an almost perverse situation where I have to say, ‘Wow, five years,’ and at the same time, ‘Only five years?’ ” said Professor of History Joan Richards, who is the graduate adviser for her department. “No matter where you are, it often takes more than five years to get a Ph.D. in history. A dissertation in history takes time to ripen.” Richards said one consequence of the new guarantee is that a rising fifth-year grad student may be placed in an awkward situation. If the department assigns the student to TA a course, the student would be unlikely to complete a dissertation that year and may not be funded for a sixth year. On the other hand, if the department grants the fifth-year student a dissertation fellowship — allowing the student to devote all of his or her time to scholarship — then graduation would be more likely, but the student would have missed out on a potentially valuable teaching experience — and the College would lose a TA. “If I see the choice as being that they can TA in their fifth year and possibly get cut off without a cent, I’m not going to make them TA,” Richards said. “My graduate students are my primary commitment.” Gabe Rosenberg GS, a fifth-year grad student in history and one of Vorenberg’s TAs in HIST 1740, agreed. “The Graduate School’s insistence on only funding people for five years means there is a pool of individuals who have to choose between teaching and finishing their degrees, so there just can’t be enough TAs,” he said. “I’m busier this semester than I have ever been.” Rosenberg emphasized that while grateful for the Grad School’s generosity in guaranteeing five years of funding, he feels some interests are not being considered. “I’m very happy that the Graduate School is trying to make sure everyone is funded — I think that’s a wonderful goal,” he said. “But the heavier the teaching load, the harder it is for us to complete our degrees, and it also means we have less time for our own scholarship.” However, Dean of the Graduate School Sheila Bonde told The Herald the Grad School does not insist on a maximum of five years of funding. As both Bonde and Richards pointed

out, all of last year’s requests for sixth-year funding were granted. “We want students to finish in a timely fashion,” Bonde said. “But we recognize that certain projects and fields may not permit that to happen.” But Bonde and Richards also agreed that current late-stage grad students might feel more pressure than incoming grad students, who haven’t had to deal with a changing system. “All current graduate students have been grandfathered into the new policy,” Bonde said. “The pressure on them might have been keener than for the graduate students who just entered, since it was a new system.” A blanket policy with a variety of effects Though the new five-year guarantee applies to every incoming grad student in every discipline, departments have felt the effects of the new policy differently. Now that the Grad School’s financial commitment has increased, University officials have been careful not to over-enroll students — an unexpected increase in the Grad School’s yield would cost millions of dollars. To avoid such a costly situation and to counterbalance the large incoming classes of the last few years, Grad School officials slightly lowered the matriculation targets of the entire school, resulting in 23 fewer incoming students this year. Though most first-year graduate students don’t teach, the Department of Chemistry is a notable exception, and the department suffered a TA crisis when enrollment in CHEM 0330 was much higher than usual. “Chemistry is a little unusual because our first year graduate students do TA,” Weber said. “The budget for our teaching assistants remained constant; however, the number of offers the department was able to send was reduced by about 30 percent. That then led to a very small incoming class, which led to our problem with TAs.” In order to solve the problem, Weber worked with Bonde to create a split RA/TA fellowship, allowing some grad students to spend some of their time conducting research and some of their time teaching. But for the students under the joint fellowships, the consequences may be more severe than just delaying graduation. Most research funding in the sciences comes from external grants that can’t simply be diverted to teaching assistantships. “If grant-supported research does not get done or gets done on a slower schedule, that harms our ability to secure future funding,” Weber said. No easy solution The TA shortage is somewhat of a misnomer. Despite a lack of TAs in certain large classes, the overall number of TA appointments actually increased from Fall 2006 to Fall 2007 by 11 percent. The problem, according to Bonde, is in the distribution. “It’s partly a result of choices that the departments made in allocating fellowship support and designing courses of a particular size,” Bonde said. “Moving to a system of five years of guaranteed support takes time for everyone to understand, as it took time for our budget to metabolize.” Vorenberg said he doesn’t think the blame should be put squarely on the departments. “If the Graduate School’s motive, as stated, is to make our graduate program competitive with our peer

institutions, then not only must the financial package be the same — which they have made it, and for which we are grateful — but also, our second-year students must not be asked to teach,” Vorenberg said. “The number of TAs that Dean Bonde gives now is accurate, but it is a distortion to say that that number is likely to remain the same in years to come, if we are indeed to make our graduate program competitive with those of our peer institutions.” With so many interests needing to be adequately considered, it may prove difficult to solve the TA problem. Every potential solution has its drawback. Admitting more grad students could strengthen the Grad School and allow for more TAs, but that move could also saturate the job market for Ph.D.s and ultimately do grad students a disservice. Hiring part-time section leaders and lecturers may lessen the grad students’ teaching responsibilities but could rob them of valuable experiences and may also dilute the high-caliber faculty at Brown. Increasing the Grad School’s funding guarantee to six or seven years might ease the pressure on grad students and give them more time to teach, but — like all of these solutions — it begs the question of how to procure the funds. Consequences for the College “The simplest, most effective and least expensive way to solve it is for an increasing number of professors to cap their courses to avoid the situation that I am currently in,” Vorenberg said. “All signs point to me never teaching a class of this size again — in fact, never a class larger than 50. It is very hard to see who is well-served by my teaching large history classes.” While Vorenberg’s might be the most pragmatic solution, its necessary consequence would be fewer spots for undergraduates in some highly sought-after courses. Vorenberg said he and other professors might have to use Banner’s course restriction capabilities to filter the pool of students by seniority and concentration, potentially preventing underclassmen from taking popular lecture courses. But not all large lecture courses would be affected. Popular introductory classes like NEUR 0010: “The Brain: An Introduction to Neuroscience” and ECON 0110: “Principles of Economics,” which enroll hundreds of students and use undergraduate TAs to lead sections, would be immune from the change. Still, the prospect of dramatically restricting classes that rely on graduate TAs may be worrisome to undergraduates. “You cannot do what they are trying to do — which is to increase the prestige of the Graduate School — on the cheap, unless you sacrifice to some extent undergraduate education,” Vorenberg said. Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron, who is part of a working group led by Bonde that is tackling these questions, said she recognized the risk to the College, but she said she may be willing to accept it. “I’m not utterly opposed to what might be called ‘sensible enrollment management,’ ” Bergeron said. Bonde, a professor of history of art and architecture, said the situation is delicate, but that all interests are being considered. “No system is perfect,” she said. “We’re looking very carefully at what is best for the curriculum as a whole.”


Friday, October 12, 2007

U.’s top governing body arrives on campus

C ape wind

Athlete of the Week: Grandstrand ’11 continued from page 12 On penalty shots, I’ll do a — I’ll call it an educated guess. You’ll have to read the shooter, if they’re looking at a corner, if their hips are pointed a certain way. And basically, you have to pick a side to dive before he shoots the ball. And sometimes I’ll guess wrong, but hopefully the majority I’ll guess right.

continued from page 1 pected to be a top administration priority in coming years. The announcement of a vice president represents the next major step forward in that effort and has been anticipated since early September, when the University’s internationalization committee released its final report. University officials had identified a final candidate as early as this summer, but ongoing negotiations and administrative hurdles have prevented an official announcement. In its strategic planning session this afternoon, the Corporation will hear an update on the work of the Task Force on Undergraduate Education from its chair, Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron. Launched in March, that group is due to conclude its comprehensive assessment of the undergraduate College with recommendations in the spring. President Ruth Simmons “doesn’t want the administration to go to the Corporation and say, ‘Here’s what we’ve done,’ ” Dahlberg said of the task force. “She wants a process involving many different constituencies from around the University.” Tonight, following that session, the Corporation will host a dinner in Sayles Hall to discuss education and campus life at Brown, a theme designed to fit with its earlier discussion of undergraduate education. Approximately 60 students are among the invitees, Dahlberg said. “The idea is to the make sure there’s an opportunity for dialogue,” he said. Simmons, herself a member of the Corporation, always addresses her colleagues at their tri-annual meetings. Marisa Quinn, assistant to the president, said Simmons’ remarks would echo those she made at last week’s faculty meeting, which called for the University to pause and reassess the progress of the Plan for Academic Enrichment, the wide-ranging blueprint that has provided the backbone for Simmons’ presidency since it was first announced in 2002. At the faculty meeting, Simmons said she expected to report the results of that reassessment to the Corporation in February. Among the major initiatives set out by the plan is an aggressive expansion of the faculty, and Corporation members will hear a report on the progress of that effort this weekend. This meeting is also the first led by Chancellor Thomas Tisch ’76. He recently took over leadership of the Corporation from Stephen Robert ’62 P’91, whose nine-year tenure concluded in June. The schedule for the weekend calls for the Corporation to break into smaller committees today, followed by the strategic session and dinner later in the day. Tomorrow, the entire Corporation will gather for its general business meeting, when it will conduct official business, including accepting large gifts and naming endowed professorships. The Corporation will meet again in February and May.

Page 9

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Tai Ho Shin / Herald Providence Journal editorial page editor Bob Whitcomb, co-author of “Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound,” discussed the proposed Nantucket Sound wind power project on Thursday evening.

You’re an engineering concentrator at Brown. Is it tough to balance engineering and soccer? When I came and visited here, they asked me what I wanted to study. I said engineering, and a lot of the people on the team, as well as the coach, said that’s a lot of time. That’s probably the most time-consuming major. Currently on the team, I think there are two others ... who are doing

engineering. It’s been a lot of work, but I’ve been able to manage it so far. What do you like to do when you’re not playing soccer? I like computers. I spend a lot of time on a computer. Does your expertise in engineering or computers ever help you on the soccer field? Um, probably. That’s a good question. One of the big things as a goalkeeper is playing your angles correctly and getting lined up for shots in the center of the net based on where they’re coming from. So I guess there’s something there, perhaps, with geometry. That’s quite the engineer’s response.

Digital ‘freedom’ debate questions consumer rights continued from page 1 president of communications for the Consumer Electronics Association; Jennifer Hardin, director of the music law group at Berklee College of Music; and Jim Fanale of the band Everyone But Pete. The discussion focused on changes that must be made within the content industry to adapt copyright law to the digital age. Introducing the central conflict facing the entertainment industry, Oxman said current legislation regarding digital media “restricts the ability to make full and free usage of the devices in your pockets, on your desk, in your living room.” DFU’s proposed solution, supported by Oxman, is to legislate for “free and unfettered use of content (that consumers) lawfully own,” specifically by adapting digital media to be usable with all personal entertainment devices. Apple Inc. was the subject of much criticism. In a phone interview with The Herald, DFC spokesman Jake Ward described an “entertainment monopoly” created in part by the popularity of the iPod and its affiliated technologies, including the iTunes Store. The music and video files used by Apple are protected by

Digital Rights Management, a type of access control which limits the extent of a copyright to certain media devices. Oxman criticized this limitation, saying that the public demands digital media “at a fair price and the ability to do what they want with it,” theorizing that this solution would “kill any desire for file-sharing.” Green, crediting himself as the “designated corporate tool,” defended the RIAA and the Motion Picture Association of America, explaining that the recent flurries of litigation against people illegally downloading entertainment is intended to counteract the “$18-billion-a-year movie studios lose to piracy (and the) $6 million lost for the music industry.” Though Oxman asserted that “the recording industry seems to think it’s a good business plan to sue their most viable customers,” and added, “I would argue that it’s not,” Green was prepared with a rebuttal. “The RIAA did lots and lots of focus groups on what would educate people about the illegality of file-sharing,” Green explained. The focus groups found that what might work is “the fear of being caught, hence lawsuits.” Debate between Green and Oxman dominated the panel discussion,

W. rugby team looks to continue winning ways continued from page 12 The NERFU’s leader in scoring agreed with Sylvester’s goals. “I just hope that I can work hard to contribute my part and use my experience to help our team,” Bydwell said. “(Hopefully we’ll) win the big games we need to to return to the national championships again this season.” The Bears’ 15-person starting lineup is made up of mostly upperclassmen along with four sophomores. “The team is fairly experienced this season,” Sylvester said. “We did lose a lot of strong players to graduation, especially in the scrum, but luckily we had some younger players ready to step up.” Sylvester said she was especially impressed by the new players. “One thing that stands out in my mind is the strength of our new rookie class and how well they’re playing already” she said. Most new players have no

previous rugby experience, which is common for most teams. “It is not unusual to have players with very little to no experience coming in because high school rugby is limited in this country,” Carlson said. “Often players from Canada or overseas have some rugby experience, as do a few players from the States lucky enough to live in regions with high school rugby.” At Brown, the rugby team is an intercollegiate club sport and the coaches are unpaid. The team has to schedule its own buses, make its own hotel reservations and set up the fields. With higher expectations, the rugby team will continue its regional play when its hosts Yale tomorrow at 11 a.m. “Brown has worked hard to be become the team to beat in the Northeast,” Bydwell said. “We will move forward through the rest of the year continuing to raise the bar with every game we play.”

as the two represented the entertainment and electronics industries, but Hardin and Fanale added their comments as well. Green promoted litigation against consumers, but Hardin responded that, as a student, she thinks popular reaction to industry litigation has been contrary to what groups like the RIAA had hoped for. “It’s pissing students off,” she said. “The perception is that the RIAA just decided, ‘Yeah, let’s scare our customers.’ ” Everyone But Pete’s Fanale admitted that he knew little about the legal side of the music industry, but he said that he did not have a problem with file-sharing because it is the cheapest medium of “getting (their) music out there.” “The Internet is huge for us in this stage in our careers. ... (It’s) the one tool we use to reach out to everyone we can,” he said. The band, which self-promotes on MySpace and their Web site, has not signed with a label. Fanale explained that even online distributors take a lion’s share of the profits. “So for us, file-sharing is a positive thing.” But NBC’s Green was unsympathetic, emphasizing the negative impact of illegal downloading. “A

single person can cause enormous damage to an entire industry, and that’s never been the case before,” he said. Speaking on behalf of the CEA, Oxman’s remarks were more positive. “People are basically good, people are basically law-abiding and given the choice between a legal option and an illegal option, people will choose the legal one,” he said. DFC spokesman Ward echoed his view, emphasizing that while the DFC is advocating that the Internet is an opportunity and not a threat for entertainment, the group is “absolutely against piracy.” “We don’t condone piracy, but the best way to combat it is to provide a legal venue” to acquire entertainment, he said. After the event, DFU program director Raghavan told The Herald, “We are at an unbelievable tipping point in policy making, the policies made today could be in effect 100 years from now.” The evening was organized by DFU in conjunction with Brown University Free Culture, the Brown chapter of Students for Free Culture. DFU will continue its campus tour tomorrow night at Northeastern University and Monday night at Boston University.

Football takes on Princeton continued from page 12 In order to record a victory this week, the team will have to be consistent on both sides of the ball. Despite the abundance of offensive talent, in each of its last two games Brown has had a possession on which it failed to score after penetrating the opponent’s 10-yard line. “We need to be more efficient in the red zone,” Dougherty said. “We’ve been putting up a lot of yards and getting into the red zone, but we’ve been having trouble scoring near the end zone.” Scoring early is also a challenge for this year’s squad. Against Holy Cross, the Bears’ offense took a long time to hit its stride, scoring just 10 points in the first half before rebounding with a 27-point second half. In order to snap out of the threegame skid, the defense will have to play to its full potential. Last week, the defense allowed the Holy Cross offense to score on each of its first five possessions, which led to a 31-10 halftime deficit. In spite of its struggles, the defense has shown it has talent in a variety of areas. This season, seven

different players have recorded sacks for Brown, and three players have made interceptions. But whether the Bears can turn around their season will depend largely on defensive execution and consistency. Princeton enters this weekend’s game with a 2-2 record, 0-1 in the Ivy League, after suffering a 48-27 loss to #21 Hampton University last weekend. The team’s offense, which comes in averaging 27.5 points per game, features a balanced running and passing attack, both of which are led by versatile quarterback Bill Foran. But the Tigers’ defense has struggled, giving up an average of 31.5 points. This week the Bears will look to get their season back on track in their Ivy League home opener. To do so, they will need to capitalize on every offensive opportunity and make stops on defense. “We’re looking for a win,” Morgan said. “We want to do better offensively, defensively and on special teams. We’ve made a lot of mistakes, but all the mistakes don’t glare back at you if you win. At this point, the season’s not lost. We have a good chance to get some wins back.”


E ditorial & L etters Page 10

Friday, October 12, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

S t a ff E d i t o r i a l

Diamonds and coal A double-D diamond to Christi Andersen ’97 for designing specialty bras. We’re sure pre-professional students at Brown could use that kind of support and comfort — too bad the University has consolidated its pre-law advising. Coal to Stanford’s Hoover Institution for appointing former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as a senior fellow and member of its “terrorism and ideology” task force. It’s the closest thing to oil we can offer. A cubic zirconium to the toy gun-toting subject who told Providence Police and DPS officers he had a firearm. That’s like saying that you’re getting a diamond — which you’re not. A thankful diamond to the Army and Navy for resurrecting Providence’s very own Russian sub from the depths of the Providence River. With this week’s panel on the fifty-year legacy of Sputnik, maybe it would make more sense to call this column “Diamonds and Cold War.” Sixteen diamonds — or rather, Cristal magnums — to Buxton International House to replace the empty bottles DPS discarded last Wednesday at 3:40 a.m. We’d give you coal, but with all that chain-smoking at late-night parties there’s enough fire to go around. roxanne palmer

Diamonds — or rather ice — to the Brown Concert Agency for bringing RJD2 and a host of rap acts to this year’s fall concert series. A cubic zirconium to the University’s new siren, whose MP3 sounds were sampled in The Herald’s office this week. We’re not sure if mediumpitched continuous sirens are better than the high-pitched repeating of traditional sirens, but we’re pretty sure UCS could spend a few weeks discussing it. A diamond to UCS’ Corporation Liason Martin Bell ’10, who encouraged representatives to dress well and clean up for today’s Corporation meeting. If you’re looking that dapper, be careful — too shiny and they may not think you need that new dorm. A thrown-down diamond to the College Hill ’Dependent. You may take the week off, but The Herald never sleeps. We’ll see you on the kickball field tomorrow — prepare to face the tiny, powerful feet of our first-years. Two months in, and even they know not to negotiate with school-sponsored rags.

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

Executive Editors Stephen Colelli Allison Kwong Ben Leubsdorf

Senior Editors Jonathan Sidhu Anne Wootton

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

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

photo Christopher Bennett Rahul Keerthi Ashley Hess

Photo Editor Photo Editor Sports Photo Editor

Business Mandeep Gill General Manager Darren Ball Executive Manager Dan DeNorch Executive Manager Laurie-Ann Paliotti Sr. Advertising Manager Susan Dansereau Office Manager production Steve DeLucia Catherine Cullen Roxanne Palmer

Design Editor Copy Desk Chief Graphics Editor

post- magazine Hillary Dixler Melanie Duch Taryn Martinez Rajiv Jayadevan Sonia Kim Matt Hill

Managing Editor Managing Editor Managing Editor Features Editor Features Editor Associate Editor

Letters Meyers ’09 disputes Shakespeare’s ‘genius’ To the Editor: In her recent column (“On Shakespeare and the nature of genius,” Oct. 10), Lindsey Meyers ’09 cannot avoid the pitfalls of examining Shakespeare’s authorship through the muddled prism of “genius,” rather than the reliable lens of historical context. Meyers’s assertion that “it beggars the imagination to suppose that the extraordinary sophistication of Shakespeare’s works somehow arose from the ordinary intellectual circumstances of his life” in effect removes the Shakespeare corpus from its vital context in the Elizabethan theater and catapults it into the nebulous sphere of “genius,” in which historical evidence is of less value than overly general presupposition about Shakespeare’s personality, his life outside the stage, and the like. By pursuing such a tack, the critic is no longer focused on Shakespeare’s contributions to literature or how he and his works exist in an historical context, but rather who he “should” or “must” have been, despite any facts to the contrary, and how such a make-believe person squares with our modern readings of his verse. This approach to authorship appears to hold the implicit belief that Shakespeare’s plays have less value as the tangible products of an historical writer, working in tandem with preeminent actors of his day and remaining conscious of contemporary literary trends, than they do as the collective issue of some “genius” isolated in his private library, spouting universal truths between his sips of stout. It is no wonder, then, that some proponents of Meyers’ “local favorite,” the 17th Earl of Oxford, have no problem ignoring chronology, literary trend and even Oxford’s documented history as

a lackluster lyric poet, when attempting to loft Oxford up onto Shakespeare’s perch and then ornament him with the distressingly vague mantle of “genius.” If one were to consider the historical record, she would see strong affirmation of Shakespeare’s stage career, his authorship and its coincidence with political and literary trends; the record is stronger even than that for Marlowe or many of his contemporaries. In particular, fellow Elizabethan authors time and again affirm the historical Shakespeare’s poetical habit: William Basse’s assertion that Shakespeare “dyed in Aprill 1616” is particularly striking, since it connects the Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon with the man whose mug appears in the First Folio. Perhaps, then, we should consider what Meyers terms “intellectual circumstances” not in terms of what hypothetical ambience would have been necessary for the birth of “genius,” since that word is so slippery, but rather in terms of historical contexts and facts, and how these may have affected literature. “Genius” as a term just seems too anathema to serious literary debate, since it cannot contribute much of anything to the evaluation of literature itself. We have Shakespeare’s works, and we have the facts of his life; the fact that the latter seems to reveal little about the mind behind the former is perhaps disappointing, but it should not be a springboard for sweeping, academic reconstructions of Shakespeare’s person and works, not to mention the history of the Elizabethan stage, all in pursuit of a term as vacuous as “genius.” Alexander Boone Cox ’08 Oct. 10

Chaz Kelsh, Steve DeLucia, Designers Jennifer Grayson, Seth Motel, Elena Weissman, Copy Editors Senior Staff Writers Rachel Arndt, Michael Bechek, Irene Chen, Chaz Firestone, Isabel Gottlieb, Nandini Jayakrishna, Franklin Kanin, Kristina Kelleher, Debbie Lehmann, Scott Lowenstein, Michael Skocpol, Nick Werle Staff Writers Amanda Bauer, Brianna Barzola, Evan Boggs, Aubry Bracco, Caitlin Browne, Joy Chua, Patrick Corey, Catherine Goldberg, Olivia Hoffman, Jessica Kerry, Cameron Lee, Hannah Levintova, Abe Lubetkin, Christian Martell, Taryn Martinez, Anna Millman, Marielle Segarra, Matt Varley, Meha Verghese Sports Staff Writers Andrew Braca, Han Cui, Kaitlyn Laabs, Kathleen Loughlin, Alex Mazerov, Megan McCahill Business Staff Diogo Alves, Emilie Aries, Beth Berger, Steven Butschi, Timothy Carey, Jilyn Chao, Ellen DaSilva, Pete Drinan, Dana Feuchtbaum, Patrick Free, Sarah Glick, Alexander Hughes, Claire Kiely, Soobin Kim, Katelyn Koh, Darren Kong, Christie Liu, Philip Maynard, Ingrid Pangandoyon, Mariya Perelyubskaya, Viseth San, Paolo Servado, Kaustubh Shah, Saira Shervani, Yelena Shteynberg, Jon Spector, Robert Stefani, Lily Tran, Hari Tyagi, Lindsay Walls, Benjamin Xiong Design Staff Brianna Barzola, Chaz Kelsh,Ting Lawrence, Philip Maynard, Alex Unger, Aditya Voleti, Wudan Yan Photo Staff Stuart Duncan-Smith, Austin Freeman, Tai Ho Shin Copy Editors Ayelet Brinn, Rafael Chaiken, Erin Cummings, Katie Delaney, Jake Frank, Jennifer Grayson, Ted Lamm, Max Mankin, Alex Mazerov, Ben Mercer, Ezra Miller, Seth Motel, Alexander Rosenberg, Emily Sanford, Sara Slama, Jenna Stark, Laura Straub, Meha Verghese, Elena Weissman

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 Friday, October 12, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Page 11

Overheard on College Hill By Spencer Amdur and Jacob Izenberg

Do you think Brown has a drinking problem? Kristin Cuthberson ’09

Cody Auer ’09

Dobbs Hogoboom ’08

Sam Novacich ’08

I think the biggest problem Brown has is having inconsistency between what they get you in trouble for, and what they are relaxed about. You can walk down the street with a Solo cup, and the cops won’t say anything, but the second that your music’s too loud, they come and bust you up, even if you’re not drinking. I think they need to just decide how strict they are going to be and stick to that, so that it’s not just from cop to cop to decide what’s right and what’s wrong. I think they need to make a more universal idea of what is wrong on campus and what isn’t. They’ve gotten a little stricter this year I think — there are more cops around campus. But I don’t think there’s been that big of a change. I do think it’s a safe environment. A lot of my friends at big state schools are in frat parties, and that’s a lot worse than a frat party here, or a sports house party. The administration isn’t that strict, which allows people to have fun and do their own thing, but when there is a problem, you have EMS right there. They do a good job of taking care of things when it gets out of control.

I I think a majority of the problem — I don’t want to single out freshman and sophomores — but the big problem is people getting here and not being used to the freedom of being able to drink without any restrictions. People who never really drank in high school, or middle school for that matter, end up being kind of overwhelmed with this new opportunity. And it’s not to say that I’m advocating binging in high school, but I think appropriate alcohol consumption in high school may even level out some of these people that go crazy once they get to college. That’s been my experience. I guess there are juniors and seniors that have issues of reaching their limits. I guess it’s also important to have friends around who can, if not protect you, keep you in line and tell you to shut up when you need to, and tell you to go home and sleep when you need to. I personally love DPS and EMS. As opposed to other schools or outside of academia where they adopt a zero tolerance policy, it doesn’t really prevent people from using substances. It prevents them from getting the help they need after using the substances. I have no problem calling EMS on somebody who’s vomiting, if I don’t think I can take care of them myself. And I know that DPS isn’t going to get me kicked out of school for being high or being drunk somewhere. I really get the feeling that they’re actually there to protect and serve you, rather than discipline and repress you.

I think Brown is a unique university, and one of the reasons students love it so much is because there is so much leniency in every aspect of life. There’s leniency in creating your classes, and doing what you want, and creating your own curriculum. And I think it’s also shown in the social life of students. Brown trusts its students. Students obviously had to have good decision-making skills to get into the University in the first place. I think they are lenient on their drinking parties, and from my personal experience as a college student, I’ve appreciated that. I see most of my peers making the right decisions most of the time. Obviously there are going to be those occasions when people over-consume and abuse it, but I think for the most part, students are pretty responsible in their drinking habits, and appreciate that they don’t have to worry about getting written up by their residential hall counselors. Looking at my peers at other universities, they seem to have less leniency in their residential life, and abuse alcohol more outside of their residence halls. I think everyone benefits from the system Brown has set up.

There are quite a few different perspectives and ways to consider drinking. You have the Greek life, which takes drinking to another level compared to the average Brown student. But either way, the safety of drinking is obviously a concern. I’ve always compared the drinking at Brown to the open curriculum, where at the end of the day, it’s personal responsibility. So you can go through taking some random classes, you can pass some classes, you can fail some classes, but you need 30 classes to graduate. Same thing with drinking, I would say. It’s up to you. You can have a beer, you can have 8 beers, but at the end of the day, you have to facilitate a safe, healthy environment. I can’t really speak for what Brown was like before I came, and the administration’s drinking policies. So far as I can tell, they seem good: they facilitate quite a bit of safe drinking. The way that Brown University police, who are the enforcers ultimately, the way that they handle the situation is very decent. They don’t make kids fear them. They are there, not to crack down on under-21 drinking, but rather just to be sure that it’s a safe environment where kids can drink.

Aesthetics matter SEAN QUIGLEY Opinions Columnist

Brown University prides itself on being a free, open and welcoming environment — but one would never know that after a visit to a University library. Our campus libraries are, on the whole, wretched oases of the aesthetically repugnant type, with little value beyond being landmarks where parties can rendezvous, with the sole intent of going elsewhere. The administration needs to get this through their heads — aesthetics matter, and neither beauty nor cultural worth is entirely relative. After spending many a night in the cavernous carrels of the Rockefeller Library, on the bland levels of the Sciences Library or in the blindingly bright free-for-all that is the Friedman “Study” Center, I have come to realize that our University has not the slightest clue as to what beauty and high culture truly entail. Certainly I have left out several other libraries on campus, such as the Orwig Music Library, the Art Slide Library, and a couple others, but their relative lack of use should not merit serious consideration as a study area in dire need of renovation. Plain and simple, the University’s major libraries and study areas are grotesquely ugly. The Rockefeller Library is a sullen place

where, I believe, the misguided notion that naked utility ought to trump beauty has been given free rein. It is a barren environment where inspiration is hardly to be found. When studying there, I am often distracted by the sheer hideousness of the library itself, as well as the rather musty odor that permeates every room save a few. The noisiness of a supposed study area is likewise not conducive to concentration on a paper, book or problem set. In many ways, being at the Rockefeller Library makes me feel as if I am still in high school, studying in a boisterous library ostensibly designed by a person who thought that libraries were merely places to visit and that their sole purpose was utilitarian. Perhaps I have a vision that is too old-fashioned for our coarse modern world, but I have always regarded libraries as cultural epicenters, where knowledge is to be absorbed, theories proposed, enlightenment reached, beauty acclaimed and the Infinite contemplated. Cold, callous utility should not be that which we seek in our libraries. Instead, spiritual, intellectual and social fulfillment, whose realization is far more important and whose roots are indelibly ingrained in human nature, should be sought. Our status as rational beings necessitates the satiation of an innate thirst for civilized culture, but the Rockefeller Library provides little more than a place to sit and further cheapen whatever remnants of high culture remain at the University. The Sciences Library is, in virtually every respect, even worse than the Rockefeller Library. The building itself rivals the Pompidou

in its architectural inanity; the actual study areas are breathtakingly repulsive. Am I the only one who thinks that a cheap carrel, a squeaky chair, insipid floors and dingy stacks are an aesthetic problem warranting some sort of remedy? The Friedman “Study” Center is, however, the most disappointing study area on campus, largely because it is so new. The University had the chance to design a quality study area that actually served as a study area, but instead the students received a quasi-hippie hangout, bereft only of strobe lights on the ceiling and a lava lamp in the corner. The furniture is horrible, both for studying purposes and simply for sitting. The lighting in the downstairs area is awful. And the layout of the room itself makes quiet isolation nearly impossible, for a friend will invariably see you and offer the customary salutations. In my time at the University, I have only noticed two libraries that are worth anything as study centers or as quiet cultural areas where one can reflect. Those two libraries are the John Carter Brown Library and the John Hay Library. The former is not officially part of the University system, and has regular business hours, consequently making it useless for many students. However, I suppose that it has a rather nice stoop, where one can observe campus life during the day, and the drunken riffraff during the night. The latter is an amazing library, clearly the best on campus. The magnificence of the statue of Dante has even compelled me, as a Protestant, to rethink the matter of purgatory.

This library is a marvelous example of what our University can produce, if it does not get swept up in the moment by architectural fads that come and go with the wind. It has an aesthetic beauty to its design, on both the inside and the outside, which is truly timeless. Yet, like the John Carter Brown Library, the John Hay Librar y is rarely open. The University has recently extended its hours, adding one hour to ever y weekday and a four-our slot on Sunday. Yet, studying there is still a chore, even when one can manage to go while it is open. Bureaucratic nonsense forces one to waste precious time storing away one’s bag and accessing the study areas. The more elegant rooms upstairs are usually inaccessible to students, as well. $160,000, huh? There are several solutions that the administration could pursue in order to ameliorate the present state of affairs. One solution is simply to make the John Hay Library open just as often as the Rockefeller Library. Another is to aid students in purchasing memberships to some of the nicer libraries in the area, such as the Athenaeum, at the intersection of College Street and Benefit Street. Yet another is to renovate the Rockefeller Library — money would be much better spent on our academic infrastructure than on a superfluous “Walk.” After all, this is a university, right?

Sean Quigley ’10 is a granola conservative. He wrote this column after spending an afternoon reading Russell Kirk and hugging trees.


S ports W eekend Page 12

Friday, October 12, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Rookie goalkeeper Grandstrand ’11 controls his goals By Stu Woo Sports Editor

ATHLETE OF THE WEEK

Paul Grandstrand ’11 may be a rookie at the toughest position in soccer, but please don’t call him green. Splitting time with Jarrett Leech ’09 as the team’s goalkeeper, the Orono, Minn., native has been stellar in helping the Bears to a No. 20 ranking. On Saturday, Grandstrand entered a game against Princeton with the Bears trailing 1-0 late in the second half and made two key saves that allowed the Bears to come back for a 2-1 overtime victory. He was named the Ivy League Rookie of the Week for his performance. Grandstrand followed that performance with a shutout in the Bears’ 1-0 overtime win over No. 11 Boston College on Wednesday. With these two performances, Grandstrand is our Athlete of the Week. Courtesy of Kyle Coburn

Fly-half Whitney Brown ’08 and the women’s rugby team are off to another hot start a year after a trip to Nationals.

No. 4 w. rugby looks to continue winning ways By Hari Tyagi Contributing Writer

The national spotlight is nothing new for women’s rugby co-captain Keisha Carlson ’08. She has led the team to a 3-0 start this season after qualifying for nationals last season. But, she says, it still takes times to get used to the limelight. “Personally for me, it is absolutely surreal,” Carlson said. “I am so honored to be a leader on this team regardless of our ranking, but being top five in the country just makes me unbelievably proud.” The Bears have had a dominating start to the season, beating Dartmouth 34-0, Vassar College 36-21 and Harvard 57-0. Even with shutouts against Dartmouth and Harvard, Carlson considers the win over rival Vassar on Sept. 29 to be the most critical game so far this season. “Beating Vassar 36-21 was a huge highlight,” Carlson said. “We lost a ver y disappointing game to them last spring, and to

come back and prove ourselves felt amazing.” In its matchup with Vassar last month, Brown jumped out to a 14-0 halftime lead and never looked back. The Bears started the second half with even more vigor, running through Vassar’s defense with ease. Scores by prop Andi Payne ’10 were followed by two touchdowns from center Emilie Bydwell ’08, putting the Bears up 31-0 midway through the second half. “It was sweet,” said Head Coach Kerrissa Heffernan of the game. “Vassar was ranked higher than us and we beat them soundly in all phases of the game.” The rugby season starts in the fall and resumes in the spring. The team will compete in the New England Rugby Football Union playoffs at the end of October and the Northeast Rugby Union playoffs in November. In April, the team will play in the Ivy League Tournament. Matches are dispersed throughout both the fall and spring.

As defending Ivy League champions, the Bears are looking to repeat their recent success. With highly ranked Army and Vassar joining the NERFU this season, the Bears will have to take on stronger competition to defend their title. “We lost to Army in the Northeast Championship last fall and they are the biggest obstacle in our way to winning (NRU) and going back to nationals,” Carlson said. “I know we have the talent and the drive to beat them and we would love to do that.” The team would secure a return trip to nationals by placing in the top two in the NRU tournament. “A big goal is to qualify for nationals again,” co-captain Kristen Sylvester ‘08 said. “We’re working ever y game to tr y to put things together and really click as a team so that we keep improving over the course of the season.” Bydwell is a two-time All-American and a women’s hockey captain. continued on page 9

Herald: So far this season, the soccer team has beaten two top-25 teams and has tied another. What do you think of your team’s performance? Grandstrand: We started off strong, and we kind of relaxed a little bit, and that was pretty obvious. We had a couple of easy opponents that we should have put away much better than we did. But we’re starting back on the upswing now, starting with a win Wednesday night. As a freshman, are you surprised to be playing so much, especially for a top team? Personally, yes. Coming into the season, I didn’t expect to play much, but I’ve taken advantage of the opportunities that were given. How do you feel about your performance so far? I think it’s been pretty good. There are a few areas I could improve in, and there have been a few mistakes in games that I need to fix, but overall, I’m pretty pleased. When did you start playing soccer?

After three consecutive losses, the football team (1-3, 0-1) will try to start its remaining six Ivy League games on the right foot when it hosts Princeton this Saturday at 12:30 p.m. After earning Ivy League Offensive and Special Teams Players of the Week honors despite Brown’s 48-37 loss to the College of the Holy Cross, quarterback Michael Dougherty ’09 and kicker Steve Morgan ’08 will look to carry the Bears to victory this weekend. Dougherty was recognized as the Offensive Player of the Week after completing 42 of 65 passes for 422 yards and two touchdowns in only the fourth start of his collegiate career. The 65 passing attempts broke a Brown record formerly held by current quarterbacks and receivers coach James Perry ’00. “It’s a nice honor,” Dougherty said. “But we didn’t get the game, so it’s hard to be happy about it.” Morgan ’08 was named Special Teams Player of the Week in recognition of his three field goals and four extra points. Morgan eclipsed the previous Ivy League

record for kicking points on a 30-yard field goal with 10:44 to go in the second quarter. The senior finished the day with a total of 240 points for his career. “It was nice to not have to think about breaking the record anymore,” Morgan said. “People were talking about it for a while, so I’m glad it’s over.” Morgan also was recently named a semifinalist for the 2007 Draddy Trophy, a National Scholar-Athlete Award presented by HealthSouth and the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame. The finalists will be announced later this month, and the winner will be announced in December. Behind Dougherty’s excellent play at quarterback, the Brown offense has averaged 39.5 points over the last two games, with Dougherty passing for over 400 yards in each game. A deep receiving corps has also emerged as tight end Colin Cloherty ’09 and wideouts Buddy Farnham ’10, Paul Raymond ’08 and Bobby Sewall ’10 all have registered 100-yard receiving games. Brown’s passing game is ranked fourth in Division I-AA at 336.5 yards per game. continued on page 9

Have you always been a goalkeeper? I’ll say yes, just because when you’re young, you don’t really have a goalkeeper, you just kind of rotate in the goal. But once I got to the age where one guy does the job, I took over. Since there’s so much attention on your position, how do you bounce back after giving up a goal? The biggest thing as a goalkeeper is that you can’t let things get to you. You have to be mentally tough. You obviously have to realize that once in a while, you’re going to make a mistake, but you can’t harp on that too much. You have to quickly evaluate what you did wrong and make sure it doesn’t happen again. But otherwise, you can’t let it get to you, and you have to keep doing your thing. How come in movies like “The Big Green” and “The Mighty Ducks,” goalkeepers are portrayed as fat and lazy? Usually, when people think of goalkeepers, it’s someone who usually stands there and doesn’t do much and never has to run and doesn’t need to be in shape because of that. Does that description fit you and Leech? Not at all. I know (Jarrod) Schlenker (’10), the (third) goalkeeper, is one of the fastest on the three-mile on the team, and he’s a goalkeeper. So it obviously doesn’t fit. What’s your strategy on penalty shots? continued on page 9

Sp

Football takes on Princeton By Benjy Asher Assistant Sports Editor

I started playing soccer probably when I was seven. One day at recess, I remember seeing some kids play soccer and I decided to join, and I instantly fell in love with the sport. I begged my parents to let me join a team, and ever since then, I’ve been playing.

o r t s

B

i n

r i e f

LeBeau ’09 wins honor for work on West Coast

Ashley Hess / Herald

In addition to setting the Ivy League record for points by a kicker last week, kicker Steve Morgan ’08 is also handling kickoffs and punts this season.

On Wednesday, Grant LeBeau ‘09 was named Player of the Week for the College Water Polo Association Northern Division. LeBeau scored in all six games of the Bears’ road trip over the weekend, including five goals against Santa Clara University and a pair of tallies versus California Lutheran University. LeBeau finished with 11 goals on the weekend. LeBeau, a native of San Diego, Calif., and a graduate of La Jolla High School, is second on the team in assists and ejections for the year and first among nongoaltenders in blocks. He is the second Bears water polo player to win CWPA Northern Division Player of the Week this season, following Mike Gartner ‘09, who won it Sept. 11. — Peter Cipparone


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.