Thursday, November 15, 2007

The Brown Daily Herald T hursday, N ovember 15, 2007

Volume CXLII, No. 111

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

Seeking feedback, task force meets with UCS

Early Decision applications up 6 percent this year

By Rachel Arndt Senior Staf f Writer

The Office of Admission received 2,449 applications for early decision this year, almost a 6 percent increase from last year, according to Dean of Admission Jim Miller ’73. The University also received 75 applications for the recently announced Brown-RISD dual degree program, which is accepting its first class of students for the 2008-09 academic year.

Last year the University received 2,316 early decision applications — a 2.5 percent decrease from 2005.

“We didn’t have a whole lot of time to get it out and describe it,” Miller said of the dual degree program, so he’s “gratified” by the number of applications received.

The increase in early decision applications to Brown may be in part because of the elimination of early acceptance programs at Harvard and Princeton universities in the fall of 2006, Miller said. “Some of the early action schools,” like Yale and Georgetown universities, “have significant increases partially due to the end of the Harvard and Princeton programs,” he said.

Still, “it’s hard to tell how much of that is the product of the Princeton and Harvard (decision),” he added.

Miller explained that he is not sure what the ultimate early acceptance rate will be. “We’ll just have to see how the reading goes.”

For the class of 2011, the early decision acceptance rate was 22.7 continued on page 4

By Evan Boggs Staf f Writer

Tai Ho Shin / Herald

Students rallied on the steps of Faunce House yesterday, dressed in black, to demonstrate solidarity with North Korean refugees.

Students march on the Green for N. Korean refugees

By Brian Mastroianni Contributing Writer

“In reality we all live in one big, broken backyard,” said Soyoung Park ’09, reading from an anonymously authored poem, before she and about 20 other black-clad students began their silent march around the Main Green Wednesday at noon. The peaceful march protested the treatment of the roughly 500,000 North Korean refugees who the protestors say have escaped to China only to suffer continued abuse.

The march was par t of a two-day program spearheaded

Undergraduate gender gap at Brown narrows slightly

By Hannah Mintz Contributing Writer

The gap between the number of men and women on campus was smaller last year than it has been in recent years, and the University’s growing emphasis on the sciences may have something to do with it.

In the 2004-05 academic year, the percentage of female undergraduates was 53.7 percent, but in the current academic year 51.9 percent of undergraduates are female, a 1.8 percentage point drop, according to data from the Office of Institutional Research.

Despite the decrease in female enrollment over the last several years, however, the percentage of female undergraduates is slightly up from last year, when 51.4 percent of undergrads were female.

OIR conducts its annual census in October of each academic year.

The narrowing gap may be partly explained by the University’s growing commitment to the sciences in facilities, the curriculum and

INSIDE: www.browndailyherald.com

admission.

Brown is trying to increase the number of students interested in the sciences and engineering, said Dean of Admission Jim Miller ’73.

“We have been focusing a bit more on the sciences in the admission process,” Miller said. “At least at this point, men tend to be more heavily represented in the sciences.”

Miller added that Brown is looking for female scientists. The Women in Science and Engineering program, founded in the 1990s, seeks to generate and maintain interest among women in the sciences.

Many more women apply to Brown than men. Last fall over 60 percent of the applicant pool was female.

That number is slightly higher than the previous two cycles, in which women made up 58 percent of the pool.

Though the acceptance rates for men are higher than for women, Miller said the University’s admission process is “gender-blind.”

by the Hanuri, Kasa and newlyestablished Mission North Korea student groups. Running under one hour, Wednesday’s march was organized as a precursor to tonight’s program, which includes a screening of the 2004 documentary “Seoul Train” at 7 p.m., followed by a lecture by the Rev. Chun Ki-Won, Director of the Durihana Mission and a human rights activist, at 8 p.m.

For students involved, these programs provide a chance to raise awareness about causes important to them. “As a South Korean, we should pay attention to these important issues. I saw

‘Seoul Train,’ and it made me feel as if I should do something to help raise awareness,” Jihoon Yoon ’09 said.

The refugee situation is one that is “shameful and inhuman,” said Peter Jeong ’11.

The march was preceded by a series of speeches and poetry readings honoring the refugees while attempting to spur action and generate awareness. As part of the readings, eight students lined up and each read a statistic on the plight of North Korean refugees. “Four out of ten children are chronically malnourished” continued on page 4

S e x , D ru g s a n d m e tcalf

Discussing their activities so far this year, members of the Task Force on Undergraduate Education met Wednesday evening with the Undergraduate Council of Students.

Following a short summary of the committee’s work by the task force members in attendance, the meeting was opened to questions from the audience.

“I’m interested in seeing how UCS would be able to help engage the campus in conversations about (the preliminary report) of the task force,” Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron told The Herald Wednesday afternoon.

The task force, which is undertaking a broad review of the College and its curriculum, comprises 10 faculty members and four undergraduates and will release a rough draft of its findings early next semester for the campus to review.

“It went really well,” UCS President Michael Glassman ’09 told The Herald after the meeting. “I’m always impressed by how the members of the task force have thought about the issues at hand.”

The entire task force meets every two weeks, while its subcommitcontinued on page 6

Taking advantage of the New Curriculum Over half of ’07ers graduated with fewer than 32 credits

By Leslie Primack Contributing Writer

Kim Perley / Herald Chuck Klosterman, author of “Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs” and “Killing Yourself to Live,” spoke in Metcalf Auditorium on Tuesday evening. The event was sponsored by Brown Lecture Board.

Even when it comes to graduation credits, Brown students don’t fit the mold. Only 19.9 percent of members of the class of 2007 graduated with the standard 32 graduation credits. The majority — 56.7 percent — had fewer, while 23.4 percent earned over 32 credits.

“A statistic like that makes it so easy to assume that we’re lazy,” said Nina Mozes ’08. “My hope is that a statistic like that says something about how we’re taking advantage of opportunities outside of the classroom.”

Though only 30 credits are required to graduate, the University’s recommended course load is four classes per semester, totaling 32 credits by graduation.

University Registrar Michael Pesta explained that the 30-credit

continued on page 6

post- MEETS POLLARD post- rocks out with Robert Pollard, mouths off to ... the world and does its own binding.

5

CAMPUS NEWS

continued on page 4 RISD Bling The Rhode Island School of Design offers a jewelry and metalsmithing major for undergrads.

11

OPINIONS

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

No more pork Rachel Forman ’09 and Colin Lentz ’09 examine ways for America to make its elections more fair.

12 SPORTS

Hoops heartbreak The men’s basketball dropped its season-opener to URI at the Pizzitola Center last night.

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

T oday Page 2

Thursday, November 15, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

But Seriously | Charlie Custer and Stephen Barlow

We a t h e r Today

TOMORROW

rain 59 / 38

partly cloudy 49 / 32

Menu

Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Cheese Tomato Strata, Wild Colonial Risotto, Green Peas, Louisianastyle Calzone, Hot Ham on Bulky Roll, Apple Turnovers

Lunch — Sloppy Joe Sandwich, Falafel in Pita Bread, Cauliflower au Gratin, Enchilada Bar, Swiss Fudge Cookies

Dinner — Spinach and Rice Bake, Oven Browned Potatoes, Cajun Corn and Tomatoes, Spice Rubbed Pork Chops, Ice Cream Sundae Bar

Dinner — Roast Turkey with Sauce, Shells with Broccoli, Mashed Potatoes, Stuffing, Butternut Apple Bake, Stir Fry Station

Sudoku

Aibohphobia | Roxanne Palmer

Nightmarishly Elastic | Adam Robbins

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

Octopus on Hallucinogens | Toni Liu and Stephanie Le

RELEASE DATE– Thursday, November 15, 2007 © Puzzles by Pappocom

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

C

o s and sw or d Lewis Edited by RichrNorris Joyce Nichols

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12 Gym apparatus 13 Hall of Famer Sandberg 18 Ocular malady 21 “Good __”: 1966 #1 song 22 Leo’s sitcom nephew 23 Lime or rust, e.g.

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26 Contract details 27 Personnel list 29 “See ya” 31 Stacked

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Classic Deep-Fried Kittens | Cara FitzGibbon

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Classic Deo | Daniel Perez

xwordeditor@aol.com

11/15/07

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-

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By Timothy L. Meaker (c)2007 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

11/15/07

The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown demic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once during Orientation and P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Offices are located at 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. E-mail herald@browndailyherald.com. World Wide Web: http://www.browndailyherald.com. Subscription prices: $319 one year daily, $139 one semester daily. Copyright 2007 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

M etro Thursday, November 15, 2007

Page 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Hands on RI health care State finances will likely worsen Med School trains housing crunch, expert says students in low-income health centers

By Nandini Jayakrishna Senior Staf f Writer

While some medical students spend all their time buried in books, Alpert Medical School first- and second-year students are getting real-world experience working in under-served communities.

Since winning a $2.6 million federal grant in 2004, the Alpert Medical School has established a program to educate, train and recruit students and healthcare professionals to work in low-income communities in Rhode Island.

The Area Health Education Center program, based out of the Med School, has branches in Woonsocket, Cranston and Newport that work with community health centers, clinics and hospitals on projects and training workshops for healthcare providers, said Robert Trachtenberg, associate director of the program. Trachtenberg said the AHEC program gives students the opportunity to “get exposure to community health centers in underser ved communities (and learn) about compelling issues in the health care industry.”

The center gives grants to students in health-related studies for projects and to local clinics to support their operations. Staff at the Newport center are working on two projects to examine respirator y diseases prevalent among public-housing residents in Newport County, identify the sources of pollution in surrounding areas and develop inter ventions, said Marilyn Moy, executive director of the Newport center.

Currently, there are about 215 AHECs in 47 states that receive funding from the federal Department of Health and Human Services, Trachtenberg said, adding that the Rhode Island AHEC program is “one of the newer ones.”

Last December, the Medical School received a renewal grant of $3.2 million from HHS to continue and expand the program, Trachtenberg said. The AHEC program also receives support from the Med School, in addition to the grant.

Trachtenberg said the Med School “contributes a great deal” to the program, providing “in-kind, administrative support.” Trachtenberg, Associate Dean of Medicine Arthur Frazzano and Roni Phipps, community-based mentor and cooridinator, staff the center’s main location at the Med School.

In conjunction with the AHEC program, the Med School offers a two-year “doctoring” course required for all first- and second-year medical students, Phipps said.

As par t of the course, each student works with a community-

based physician at health centers in underserved communities to “practice their (medical interviewing and physical diagnosis) skills in the real world,” Phipps said.

Students work at sites like the HIV/AIDS clinic of Miriam Hospital, the Thundermist Health Center and the Rhode Island Free Clinic, she said.

Programs like the AHEC are “much needed and impor tant,” said Associate Dean of Medicine Stephen Smith, a physician-mentor in the doctoring course and a volunteer at the Rhode Island Free Clinic. “(Today) ample numbers of doctors are going into areas overpopulated with doctors, but rural and inner-city areas have a shortage of doctors,” he said.

Angela Sherwin ’07 GS MD ’13 worked with a medical studentunder Trachtenberg this summer to educate Rhode Island businesses about sex traf ficking. Over the summer, she created a brochure about sex trafficking to educate businesses and organizations near alleged trafficking sites like spas and massage parlors, she said. She also created a guide to conducting medical interviews with victims and potential victims of sex trafficking for health-care providers. “(AHEC) is a fantastic program that really connects students in medicine and health to the community and provides support for building those community relationships,” Sherwin said.

Kirsten Spalding ’04 MD’09 said she received a grant from AHEC for the summer of 2006 to survey medical students and staff at underserved community health centers about rotating third and fourth-year students through these centers to gain hands-on experience.

If medical students are given the opportunity to work in underserved communities they are more likely to pursue careers in similar areas, Spalding said.

The center in Woonsocket has held workshops for healthcare providers to increase their awareness of minority cultures and languages so they can better communicate with patients, said Executive Director Yvette Mendez.

Randi Belhumeur, executive director of the AHEC in Cranston, said her center encourages minority youth to pursue health-care professions. For example, the center provides stipends for high-school students who work in health-care centers in the summer.

The Rhode Island Free Clinic, which provides primar y and preventive care to uninsured adults and educates students about healthcare professions, received a $10,000 grant from the AHEC to buy computers and build work areas for volunteers in 2005, said Lisa Smolski, executive director of the clinic.

By Max Mankin Staf f Writer

Brenda Clement, executive director of the Statewide Housing Action Coalition, discussed the future of affordable housing in Rhode Island with 25 students in Smith-Buonanno Hall Wednesday night.

Sponsored by the Roosevelt Institution, the forum allowed students to share opinions and ask questions about local and national affordable housing efforts in a casual atmosphere. The Statewide Housing Action Coalition is a nonprofit organization that advocates for and organizes affordable housing in Rhode Island.

Recently released statistics detail a state debt of over $400 million, and the statewide cost of living has inflated six times faster than income, Clement said. Those numbers have made more people concerned about the state of affordable housing in Rhode Island, she said.

“The problem in Rhode Island is that the fastest growing jobs are all ser vice-based jobs, retail jobs and low-wage jobs, and those jobs do not pay enough rent for a family to support themselves,”

Clement said.

Building an affordable housing unit costs about $200,000, which an average of seven or more sources generally fund, including the state and federal governments and private non-profit organizations, Clement said. “Rhode Island land costs are so high because Rhode Island has a finite amount of land,” she said.

The mismanagement of the state budget impedes funding of affordable housing, she said. “Rhode Island does things very wrong in its budget,” she said. Clement emphasized that “this year is going to be horrible — worse than ever before” for the homeless and the subsidized housing campaign because of the state’s debt.

One student questioned how the Statewide Housing Action Coalition rates quality versus quantity of housing with its limited budget.

“Some of them are easy choices — you have to meet fire codes and building codes, and those you don’t have a choice on,” Clement said. “We’re trying to build units that families are going to be able to maintain and afford over the long haul, either through rentals or home ownership,” she said. “So we want to make sure that they’re

good, solid (homes).”

The affordable-housing debate is relevant to students because many high-end condominiums downtown are expensive, Clement said.

“It’s a particularly large discussion in Providence because none of the housing being built in Providence is affordable,” she said.

“It’s also critical for students. My guess is that when you come out of college you’re not necessarily going to be earning $75,000 right away and you’re going to need to be earning that to buy or rent (a home) downtown right now.”

Clement also asked the audience, “What’s the first thing you think of when you think of affordable housing?” Answers included “dilapidated buildings,” “project housing” and “housing put in notso-nice neighborhoods.”

“It (normally) looks like we’re setting up families for immediate failure,” Clement said. “But we’re trying to get away from that image by building affordable houses that fit into their neighborhoods.”

Clement passed around images of affordable homes in more affluent towns such as East Greenwich and Barrington that defied such notions.

thanks for reading

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Thursday, November 15, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Almost 2,500 hopeful Brunonians apply early continued from page 1 percent, though the rejection rate was only 12.7 percent. The remaining applications were deferred into the regular admission pool. That marked the second year in a row that Brown was the most selective school in the Ivy League for early decision.

Yale, which has a non-binding, single-choice early action program, saw a 13 percent decrease in early applications last year and accepted 19.7 percent of early applicants.

Last year, 26.2 percent of stu-

dents who applied early decision to Princeton were accepted, a two percent increase from 2005.

Data on the number of early applications received by other Ivy League schools were not yet available.

“The hardest part of the admissions process … is balancing your time,” wrote Doug Bensimon, a senior at Weston High School in Weston, Mass., in an e-mail to The Herald. He applied early to Brown because he thinks the school fits well with his learning style as “someone who really likes to expe-

rience new things on a daily basis,” he wrote.

“In the end, applying early seemed like the most reasonable choice; I wanted to go to Brown and had no doubts about it,” wrote Jason De Stefano, a high school senior from New Jersey, in an e-mail to The Herald.

De Stefano thinks the hardest part of the application process is what he’s doing now — waiting. “I have an online countdown in my AIM profile that I check along with the Brown Web site ever y day,” he wrote.

Most ’07ers didn’t graduate with 32 credits continued from page 1 minimum allows students to take two “risk” courses far outside of their concentration that they may have to drop. “You wouldn’t be holding your degree hostage to your desire to sample dif ferent parts of the curriculum,” he said.

Prior to 1969, students paid per course, were required to take exactly four courses each semester and needed 32 credits to graduate, Pesta said, adding that the flexibility of the current curriculum reflects the diversity of Brown students’ lifestyles and experiences.

“It’s an attitude toward education that emphasizes student choice,” he said.

Mozes has taken a course load of three classes twice in the past.

Once, she opted to drop a class — a choice that many Brown students make. “It was hurting my course load, my life load,” she said. “I knew that nobody would care whether or not I took oceanography when they looked at my transcript.”

Mozes said she views senior year as a transition between academia and the job market. “I am finding that my work outside of the classroom is certainly taking precedence over my work inside the classroom,” she said. A literary arts major, Mozes is currently writing a screenplay as well as acting, volunteering at off-campus theaters and writing a column for post-, The Herald’s weekly arts and culture magazine.

Students inter viewed by The

Heraldcited many reasons for taking fewer than four classes a semester. Seniors often have to focus on graduate school applications or independent research, while others drop classes or take a lighter load to balance their schoolwork with jobs or activities outside of class.

“If you’re a senior and you only need one class left to graduate, it’s pretty hard to rationalize taking a fourth class just because it’s a fourth class,” said Katherine Costa ’08, though she said she has taken five courses multiple semesters to fulfill requirements for a joint bachelor of arts and bachelor of science degree.

For some students, enormous time commitments outside of class can limit their course load.

“It’s not something I feel I’ve ever been able to do,” said Mateo Mancia ’09 about taking five classes. He juggles work and school, to the extent that he had to take a two-year leave of absence because he couldn’t afford the tuition. Mancia described a particularly brutal semester when he worked 40 to 50 hours a week at Antonio’s Pizza in addition to his four courses. He plans to graduate with 32 credits, and he also contributes time to a campus literar y magazine and the College Hill Independent.

Many students emphasized that the number of courses is not necessarily indicative of work load.

“Five easier classes could ver y well be equivalent to three more difficult courses,” said Rosalind Bogan ’08.5. “One of my humanities

classes I’ve barely cracked a book for this semester and I’m doing fine. But it’s such a joke because another class that I’m spending 20 hours a week on, I’m barely getting a B.” “Even five classes is not necessarily always hard,” said Douglas Benedicto ’08, a neuroscience concentrator. He has taken five courses for the past three semesters to fulfill extra requirements for his degree.

“I think most people here take five classes at one point or another,” Costa told The Herald. “My friend is shaking her head,” she added, laughing.

Dale Jun ’08 took five classes for three semesters because he simply could not choose which class to drop. “I was just really interested in all of them,” he said.

He recalled one semester when he attended six classes for about three weeks without realizing it. “I was just swamped with work. I didn’t realize why,” he laughed.

Despite the extra hours at the librar y on top of numerous extracurricular activities, Jun said his extra classes were rewarding. He and other students enthusiastically recommended choosing the “Satisfactory/No Credit” grading option to alleviate stress, especially when taking five classes in a semester.

“Even if I didn’t need so many classes to graduate, I’d still probably be doing five,” Benedicto said, echoing students’ willingness to take on extra courses if they are particularly interesting.

Students march for North Korean refugees continued from page 1 read one speaker, while another said “only 10,000 have managed to make their way to South Korea.”

Following the conclusion of the speeches, the walk began in complete silence. After students walked around the perimeter of the Main Green, they met back outside of Faunce House. “Let’s not stop marching. It doesn’t have to end here,” Park said at the conclusion.

For Park and the other members of the joint Hanuri, Kasa and Mission North Korea event committee, the march was an important method for spreading awareness of the refugee issue throughout Brown. “We are just a group of people who feel passionately for our cause,” Park said, citing the coordination of the three groups that comprise the roughly 25-member committee.

“For me, this movement is about breaking complacency. It shows that

there are issues in the world that are happening apart from us,” said Hye Gi Shim ’09. “Brown is a good place to start breaking the silence.”

Both Shim and Park were involved in organizing Wednesday’s march and said they plan to study abroad in China and Korea, respectively.

Heavily involved in raising awareness on campus, Shim and Park said they recognize the relationship between different activist groups and causes on campus. In relation to the campaign to support protests in Mynamar held on campus earlier this semester, “our cause is to combat a different form of oppression,” Park said, “but both causes reveal that Asia is not just a place that produces model minorities in America — we don’t usually think of Asia as a place of suffering.”

In order to raise awareness, the group is presenting events like tonight’s, with Ki-Won’s speech as the highlight. Known as the “Asian

Schindler,” according to flyers distributed at the march, Ki-Won is known for leading hundreds of North Korean refugees safely across China by way of the Chinese “underground railroad.”

Shim said overcoming misinformation is an important challenge in combating the refugee problem.

“I face ignorance and jokes about North Korea around me regularly.

Even in (The) Herald’s April Fool’s issue last year, there were jokes about the North Korean situation,” Shim said. “There should not be jokes made about the North Koreans without their knowledge.”

For other students, education on important world issues through events like the march needs to be at the forefront of student life. “I’m Korean and this hits close to home. It is imperative that we raise awareness and make this an issue that we are all collectively passionate about,” Britta Han ’10 told The Herald after the march.

C ampus n ews Thursday, November 15, 2007

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

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RISD blinging jewelry major to masses

By Joanna Wohlmuth Staf f Writer

Chris Bennett / Herald File Photo

Students will again brave the depths of winter to take January@Brown courses.

Still no academic credit for J-term This year’s January@Brown program — the second time the winter term is being offered — will offer new classes and social events, but the courses will still not carry academic credit, to the disappointment of some students.

“January@Brown is educationally worthwhile but not high pressure.

It’s not for credit — it is for the pure joy of learning,” said Associate Dean of Summer and Continuing Studies and Director of Leadership Robin Rose, who helps coordinate the winter term.

Participation in the program will cost $640, and the fee will cover course costs as well as room and board. Students receiving Brown Financial Aid may be eligible for financial aid for the January@Brown program.

But students told The Herald that while the winter term is interesting, the lack of academic credit deters them from participating.

“I think credit gives more motivation for students to stay on campus,” said Alexandra Feldman ’11. “Without credits, the program is a waste of time for me. You’re better getting a job or internship.”

“If you’re getting credit for the classes, it could count for graduation requirements, whereas otherwise you’re working for nothing,” said Casey Kelsey ’11.

Mark Tumiski ’08, who was involved in last year’s initial planning of January@Brown, said it is unlikely the question of credit will be resolved because the University would have to extend winter recess to allow for a sufficiently long January term.

Last year, January@Brown was launched as a pilot program and enrolled 19 people. This year, a student steering committee worked with the Office of Summer and Continuing Studies to attract more students to the program. Tan Van Nguyen ’10, a member of the committee, said the group hopes to increase awareness about the winter term. The schedule has also been adjusted to allow more athletes to participate.

The winter term will also incorporate activities such as salsa dancing, ice skating and trips to Boston. In the future, the student steering committee hopes to broaden the array of courses and even include GRE test preparation.

January@Brown will take place from Jan. 9 to Jan. 18. Participants will enroll in one non-credit seminar of 20 students or less, and most classes will meet from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. everyday. Course topics include creative nonfiction, chemistry, persuasive communication and alternative dispute resolution. Students who successfully complete the alternative dispute resolution course during the winter term receive a certificate of completion from the state of Rhode Island.

—Tanmay Misra

Diamonds are an art student’s best friend? Well, what about rubies, silver, gold and cubic zirconium? Students majoring in jewelry and metalsmithing at Rhode Island School of Design usually work with many precious and semi-precious gems and metals during their four years on College Hill.

The jewelry and metalsmithing department has 35 to 40 undergraduate and 12 graduate students at any given time. At RISD, students must declare their majors prior to their sophomore year and begin work in their chosen degree program during their third semester. Though some students may have previous experience with jewelry or metalsmithing, it’s not necessary to enter the program.

“Sophomore year is rigorous training for a strong foundation,” said Department Head and Assistant Professor Tracy Steepy. “We are building from the ground up.”

In addition to studio courses in jewelry and metal fabrication, sophomores take a seminar on the history of adornment and a design class to learn about the use and application of design principles. Students learn cutting, piercing, filling, sanding and a number of other foundational techniques.

In their junior year students explore more specialized techniques like enameling and casting. They maintain a focus on technical skills and can develop their individual

creativity while working within the structure of the program, Steepy said. Juniors take classes in rendering by hand and by computer and can also take electives in computeraided design and milling.

Many students do professional internships and interested students may apply to study metalsmithing abroad in Germany, Sweden or Italy during their junior year.

Seniors pursue individual research and creative approaches though they still have studio classes and meet with professors regularly.

By the end of their senior fall, students must submit a proposal for a degree project, typically a jewelry collection with a given theme. Depending on the size and intricacy, students generally make seven to 12 pieces for the project. They then write a degree project statement describing their approach and artistic inspiration, submitting it along with digital photos of the work.

In the spring, seniors exhibit their work at RISD’s Woods-Gerry Gallery. Exhibition is not simply for bragging rights. Steepy said it’s important because students must consider how their work should be viewed. Jewelry presentation in a store or museum may seem simple, but the students have to learn how to present it in an artistic context.

As a final component of the senior year curriculum, students choose a selection from their degree project and create a production line that may be picked up by retailers or sold at the RISD Works store.

Though students receive a de-

gree in jewelry and metalsmithing, most of the department is “pretty jewelry-centric,” Steepy said, describing it as “all jewelry, all the time.”

Though the department has now shifted away from metalsmithing, it was founded by a Scandinaviantrained silversmith, John Prip, who taught at RISD until 1981. “It is really important that history continues,” Steepy said. Students still receive instruction in metalsmithing through their first two years in the program.

With roughly 50 students at any given time, jewelry and metalsmithing is one of RISD’s smallest departments. Its two full-time and eight part-time faculty give students a lot of individual attention. Faculty members also come from extremely varied backgrounds. “There are lots of different voices in the room in terms of feedback,” Steepy said.

Though students in other American programs may only interact with a few faculty, RISD follows a more European model of training, where students are exposed to a wide range of techniques.

“I consider undergrads (at RISD) in some way (as) graduates with a mini-masters compared to their peer group,” Steepy said.

The department is also very active about bringing guest artists and critics to RISD’s campus, particularly during midterms and final review. On Tuesday night, jeweler Lola Brooks and silversmith Joost During gave a lecture, discussing their work and careers with students.

Page 6

Thursday, November 15, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

UCS discusses College curriculum review with task force members continued from page 1 tees schedule their own individual meetings. The subcommittees are divided into teaching and assessment, general education, concentrations and advising.

Kathleen McSharry, associate dean of the College and dean for chemical dependency, gave the council an overview of the general education subcommittee’s work, dispelling fears that a core curriculum was being considered.

“There have been zero conversations about that,” said McSharry, who staffs the committee.

McSharr y told UCS that the aim of the subcommittee was to determine “what does the open curriculum mean for today’s students” and how the University can support students in navigating their education.

Discussions have also revolved around the growing phenomenon of students completing their concentration by the end of their junior year and how the University could work to provide for upperclassmen courses similar to first-year seminars.

Task force member Jason Becker ’09, speaking on behalf of the concentration subcommittee, said the group is trying to define “what does it mean to have a concentration.”

“It’s important to understand why you have something before you talk about it,” Becker said.

Becker also mentioned the possibility of strengthening the College Curriculum Council’s abilities to review entire concentrations and the possibility of each concentration requiring a well-defined “mission of purpose.”

Task force member Michael Par-

adiso, professor of neuroscience, said the subcommittee on teaching and assessment has been focused on what elements of a course students were attracted to or disappointed by, as well as the importance of course evaluations as a method of professor evaluation.

Responding to a council member’s inquiry about greater faculty involvement in student life, Rakim Brooks ’09, UCS academic and administrative affairs chair and a member of the task force, said, “It’s a fine line. ... Is it too much to perhaps move back to Faculty Fellows with faculty (in) dorms? Or faculty near campus off-hours?” Brooks explained.

Discussing the freshman advising program, task force member Hannah Pepper-Cunningham ’08 said the advising subcommittee was concerned with “how we can make that initial relation more robust.”

The subcommittee has also discussed concentration advising, sophomore advising and training support for faculty advisers, PepperCunningham told The Herald.

Other concerns voiced by UCS

members included rumors that the University will hire professors known for seminal work in their field, regardless of their abilities as lecturers, to boost the University’s standing amongst its peers.

“As long as we continue to maintain we’re a university-college where teaching is important, it won’t change,” said task force member Sheila Blumstein, professor of cognitive and linguistic sciences, who has served in the past as an interim president, provost and dean of the College.

Blumstein also described a case in which an applicant said teaching courses was something he did only because it was required. “He was never invited here,” she said.

A council member expressed concern about communication between the task force and the student body, and Glassman closed the council’s discussion with the task force by urging UCS members to “think about ways we get students involved.”

Becker told The Herald that he found the apparent lack of student interest in the committee’s My-

Courses page and the task force section of the dean of the College’s Web site frightening and said he was “concerned that people aren’t using the outlets we’re providing.”

“I would say that we are dying to hear student opinions,” said task force member Fiona Heckscher ’09.

To boost student input, the student members of the task force have organized a series of focus group discussions. Becker said the first one will take place this evening and will be a chance to discuss with small groups of students specific issues and broader concepts the task force is discussing.

A Facebook group created by the student members, informal one-onone conversations and larger open forums — the first one to be held Monday — are other methods the task force is employing to receive feedback from students on the committee’s work.

UCS also elected Tyler Rosenbaum ’11 as a representative-at-large and Harris Li ’11 as head delegate to IvyCouncil, an organization of Ivy League student governments.

Brown’s gender gap is narrowing continued from page 1

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Between 2004 and 2006 the admit rates for men were 3 to 4 percent higher than for women, according to data obtained from the Office of Institutional Research’s Web site.

“We’re trying to admit the best class we can admit, and gender falls where it falls,” Miller said. In 2006 the University admitted 1,341 women and 1,190 men.

Some of the factors that affect the gender gap are out of the University’s

hands. Miller said Brown does not control the composition of two of the three components in the admission process: the people who apply and the people who matriculate. “The composition of the class, ultimately, is who shows up,” Miller said.

The percentage yield of women in the Class of 2011, for instance, was higher than for men, Miller said.

The gender gap at Brown reflects a national trend, as more women than men across the country are seeking undergraduate degrees.

Brown is in line with its peer

schools.

The Herald reported in April that the percentage of female students at Brown is slightly larger than it is at other Ivy League schools. Last year, Yale University’s female enrollment rate was 49.3 percent, and the University of Pennsylvania was 51.9 percent female.

Tracy Barnes, coordinator for institutional research, said that it takes many years of moving data to indicate a trend. “Change from one year to another,” she said, “may or may not actually reflect a trend.”

W orld & n ation Thursday, November 15, 2007

House Democrats revive Iraq war measure

By Noam N. Levey Los Angeles T imes

WASHINGTON — Nearly two months after Democrats suspended their legislative push to force a withdrawal from Iraq, House Democratic leaders restar ted their campaign Wednesday with a measure to compel President Bush to bring troops home.

But with Republican resistance to congressional intervention in the war stronger than ever, there appears little chance that this gambit will advance further than previous failed efforts.

On Wednesday, a $50-billion war-funding bill that would order the president to start withdrawing troops within 30 days and set a goal of completing the withdrawal by the end of next year passed, 218 to 203.

It attracted just four Republican votes, dozens short of what would be needed to achieve the two-thirds majority needed to overcome a certain presidential veto. And in the Senate, many Democrats concede that they probably won’t get close to the 60 votes necessary to end a promised filibuster, which effectively would kill the bill.

“They seem determined to keep bringing up resolutions that they know the president won’t agree to,” said Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, a moderate Republican who has urged Bush to adopt a new strategy in Iraq but has rejected all timelines. “We look pretty silly when we lecture Baghdad on being in political stalemate and insist on staying in one ourselves.”

Earlier in the day, White House press secretary Dana Perino accused congressional Democrats of planning “to send the president a bill that they know he will veto.”

“This is political posturing and to appease radical groups,” she said.

Democratic leaders countered that they have the broader public on their side. “Democrats are committed to bringing the American people what they deser ve and demand,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “An end to President Bush’s 10-year, trilliondollar war.”

The new showdown over Iraq war funding comes after a period of relative quiet in the congressional war debate, following the September demise of several Democratic efforts to alter the course of U.S. policy.

Measures to set withdrawal timelines, limit funding and mandate more rest for troops failed to attract enough GOP support to overcome Republican-led filibusters that were bolstered by an upbeat report by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

Meanwhile, Democratic leaders turned their attention to legislation to expand health insurance for children and fund the federal

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government.

But faced with an emergency request for $200 billion to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Democrats decided to renew their push for a withdrawal as condition for approving further funding.

The legislation, drawn up by Pelosi and her lieutenants, limits funding to $50 billion, enough to fund the wars for about another four months.

Like earlier measures, it imposes a date by which withdrawal must begin and sets a nonbinding “goal” — Dec. 15, 2008 — by which most troops should be out.

The measure would allow some U.S. forces to remain in Iraq to protect American personnel, provide limited support to Iraqi security forces and engage in targeted counter-terrorism operations.

And, in an effort to prohibit coercive interrogation techniques such as water-boarding, House Democrats added a provision that would require all detainees in U.S. custody to be interrogated under standards laid out in the Army Field Manual.

The new Iraq legislation might offer some comfort to the Democratic party’s liberal base, whose disappointment over the inability of the House and the Senate to end the war has helped drive down public approval of Congress this year.

On Wednesday, the bill received critical support from staunch antiwar lawmakers. “While this bill is not perfect, it is the strongest Iraq bill to date,” said Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., a leader of the House Out of Iraq Caucus, who has been pushing the party to challenge the president more forcefully.

Democratic leaders also see the new anti-war initiative as a way to further showcase their differences with the White House over domestic priorities such as health care, school aid and new road construction. Those initiatives, they argue, are being neglected as the price tag for the war grows.

“The president has run this war on borrowed money, leaving it to future generations — my children, my grandchildren and my great-grandchild — to pay for this war,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., a leading architect of the new political strategy.

“Generations to come are being put deeply into debt.”

Opinion surveys show Americans deeply concerned about rising costs of health insurance, the state of the economy and other domestic problems, as well as the war.

But the new Democratic effort shows no signs of swaying Republican lawmakers.

“I want to end this war as much as the next guy,” said Montana Sen. Jon Tester, who was elected last year. “But I just don’t see how we don’t fund the troops.”

Agents get bomb components past airport security

by Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post

Undercover investigators carried all the bomb components needed to cause “severe damage” to airliners and passengers through U.S. airport screening checkpoints several times this year, despite security measures adopted in August 2006 to stop such explosive devices, according to a new government report.

Agents were able to smuggle aboard a detonator, liquid explosives and liquid incendiary components costing less than $150 even though screening officers in most cases appeared to follow proper procedures and used appropriate screening technology, according to an unclassified version of a report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s audit arm.

The report concludes that the U.S. Transportation Security Administration needs to adopt even more stringent security measures, despite “a significant challenge in balancing security concerns with efficient passenger movement.”

The report provoked sharp criticism of TSA from congressional lawmakers just days before the start of an expected record Thanksgiving holiday travel week. The House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, which requested the investigation, plans a hearing on the subject Thursday morning.

“These findings are mind-boggling,” committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said. “In spite of billions of dollars and the six years TSA has had to deploy new technology and procedures, our airlines remain vulnerable. This is unacceptable. The American public deserve better.”

Two years ago, TSA officials said they needed more time, more resources and better technology

to provide adequate security, Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., the panel’s senior Republican and former chairman, said in a written statement.

“Unfortunately ... TSA still cannot consistently detect or prevent prohibited items from being carried onto aircraft.”

TSA Assistant Administrator Ellen Howe played down the GAO’s conclusions, saying that in same three months that the GAO conducted 38 tests, the agency conducted 200,000 tests of its operations even as screeners cleared 2 million passengers a day. She said TSA deploys and continually refines 19 layers of security, including bomb experts, behavior observation teams, personnel trained to review identity documents and new generations of detection equipment.

“There is nothing in the report that is news to us . ... that we were not working on, or don’t already know,” Howe said. “It’s like a combination lock. If you get through one layer of security, it doesn’t mean you get through all layers of security.” She added, “We don’t change security procedures in knee-jerk fashion.”

The unclassified version of GAO’s statement, citing security concerns, did not disclose exactly how many times investigators evaded detection at 19 airports tested, nor precisely how they did so. But it described three series of tests in March, May and June of this year in which agents distracted screeners by committing relatively minor violations of rules that allowed them to smuggle dangerous items without detection.

The GAO suggested that TSA establish special lines to screen passengers with different risk factors and special needs; introduce “more aggressive, visible and unpredictable deterrent measures” such as

pat-down searches; and develop and deploy new technology.

Investigators initiated the study after security was tightened in response to the detection of a United Kingdom-based plot in August 2006 to blow up trans-Atlantic flights with improvised explosive or incendiary devices, using liquids smuggled aboard modified sport drink containers, cameras and batteries.

Under the new rules, liquids, gels or aerosol items are prohibited from passengers’ carry-on luggage except in containers smaller than 3.4 fluid ounces held in a clear, 1-quart plastic bag.

However, in one set of tests, investigators were stopped for putting items in a bag larger than 1-quart, but were allowed to proceed through a checkpoint without being forced to transfer the items to a smaller bag. At another airport, a screener stopped a tester carrying a small, unlabeled bottle of medicated shampoo saying “it could contain acid,” but did not identify an actual liquid explosive carried separately by the tester.

In other examples, an investigator carried coins in his pockets to trigger a hand-wand and pat-down search, but brought bomb components through without notice.

The report follows the disclosure by USA Today in October that an internal TSA review found that screeners in 2006 missed 75 percent of simulated explosives and bomb parts hid under testers’ clothes or carry-on bags at Los Angeles International Airport, 60 percent at Chicago O’Hare International Airport and 20 percent at San Francisco International Airport. The study prompted TSA to step up security testing nationwide in September 2006 and expand procedures piloted in San Francisco that improved results there, Howe said.

Stem cell researchers clone monkey embryos embryos

By Rick Weiss Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Researchers in Oregon Wednesday reported they had created the world’s first fully formed, cloned monkey embryos and harvested batches of stem cells from them — a feat that, if replicated in people, could allow production of replacement tissues or organs with no risk of rejection.

Successful creation of the cloned embryos, each from a single monkey skin cell, effectively settles a long-standing scientific debate about whether primates — the family that includes monkeys and people — are biologically incapable of being cloned, as some had come to believe after years of failures.

That fact alone could reinvigorate a stalled congressional battle over whether restrictions on human embr yo cloning should be tightened or loosened. Currently such work is legal with private funds but off-limits to federally funded scientists.

The Oregon researchers did

www.browndailyherald.com

not transfer the embr yos to female monkeys’ wombs to grow into full-blown clones, as has been done with several other species.

They destroyed them to retrieve the embryonic stem cells growing inside.

Those cells can morph into ever y kind of cell and tissue in the body, and the Oregon team has already coaxed theirs to become monkey nerves and heart cells that spontaneously beat in unison in a lab dish.

Because they were grown from cloned embr yos, those cells are genetically matched to the monkey that donated the initial skin cells. That means that any tissues or organs grown from them could

be transplanted into that monkey without the need for immune-suppressing drugs.

“We only work with monkeys,” said Shoukhrat Mitalipov, who led the research at the Oregon National Primate Research Center in Beaverton. “But we hope the technology we developed will be useful for other laboratories working on human subjects.”

Practical and ethical hurdles to growing personalized tissues for people are still great — because the still-inefficient technique requires large numbers of women’s eggs, whose retrieval poses medical risks, and because the process would incontinued on page 8

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Researchers Bears challenged in the paint in loss to URI clone monkey continued from page 12 first half, and 22 times in the game, which allowed the Rams’ athletic wingmen to get out on the fast break and get easy buckets.

“They went to a very athletic lineup and got up and pressured us,” McAndrew said. “Our offense is predicated on getting backdoor cuts and easy buckets. They did a great job getting up and shooting the passing lanes.”

Brown’s inability to execute its backdoor cuts forced it to rely on a mostly perimeter game for the night.

When Brown did drive the lane, it faced URI’s bigger, more athletic interior players who either blocked or altered shots inside.

“They did a good job getting out on the 3-point shots, but also having guys to help,” said McAndrew, who was consistently challenged by URI forwards in the paint. “When you did get the drive, they had guys waiting there in the paint to reject you.”

The Rams’ pressure enabled them to extend their lead to 39-28 at the half. Bruno pulled two points closer on a pair of free throws by Chris Skrelja ’09 to open the second half, but never got closer the rest of the way. Brown played URI evenly and the lead hovered around 15 for the entire half. The Bears were never able to get more than two hoops in a row to take a significant chunk out of the deficit.

Turnovers were the main problem, with four of them coming on

offensive fouls. One URI steal led to a fast break for Ulmer, who electrified the URI half of the crowd with an impressive windmill dunk launched from just inside the free throw line.

Despite the 75-61 loss, there were a few bright spots for the Bears. Scott Friske ’09 led Brown with 13 points, in addition to his six boards and four assists.

“Scott Friske gave us great energy offensively and defensively,” McAndrew said. “He can score in the paint and hit the open three which is something we definitely need.”

Brown was very strong on the boards against the bigger Rams. The Bears out-rebounded Rhody, 37-29 for the game and allowed only four offensive rebounds, while grabbing 12 of their own.

“I’m happy that we are not getting out-rebounded because then you lose games like that by 30,” Robinson said.

Robinson refused to get down on his team, recognizing that the team’s play is a work in progress.

“We are trying to get to a point where we are playing consistently at a high level,” he said.

The Bears will have to get to that level quickly because their schedule doesn’t get any easier. After the Thanksgiving break, they travel to Evanston, Ill., on Nov. 24 to take on another power-conference team — Northwestern University of the Big Ten.

embryos

continued from page 7 volve creating and destroying human embryos, which many social conservatives reject.

“Thousands of women’s eggs will be required just for scientists to work on improving the technique for use in humans,” said Rep. Dave Weldon, R-Fla., who has repeatedly filed legislation to ban human embr yo cloning. The research, he said, “would take us down the treacherous path where women are exploited for their eggs.”

Even short of such applications, experts said, the work could prove medically invaluable by yielding monkey cells and organs with human diseases, which scientists could study and test therapies on.

“This technology potentially allows researchers to look at the early stages of many human diseases,” said Sean Tipton, president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, a Washingtonbased group that advocates for embryonic stem-cell research.

The new work, to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Nature but released early to quell a wave of Internet-fed rumors, echoes the fraudulent 2004 claims of South Korean researchers that they had isolated stem cells from cloned human embryos, an episode that gave a black eye to the “therapeutic cloning” field.

“This paper represents a major recovery for the field,” said Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer at privately funded Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Mass., which is pursuing human embryo cloning as a source of curative cells.

The Oregon team used electrical shocks to fuse skin cells from a nine-year-old rhesus macaque with monkey egg cells whose own DNA had been removed. Perhaps accounting for their ultimate success, the team used a new DNA-removal technique that did not involve the chemical dye usually used to help scientists see the genetic material.

They had concluded the dye was harming the fragile eggs.

As is always the case with cloning, fluids in the eggs “reprogrammed” the skin cells’ DNA so that the newly fused entities began to divide and grow into embryos.

Of 304 efforts, 213 embr yos formed, of which 35 grew into five-day-old blastocysts — the stage when stem cells appear. The team fished for stem cells from 20 of those and succeeded in two, for an overall efficiency about the same as is seen with mouse cloning today.

Both of those colonies are growing well in lab dishes, Mitalipov said, but one is genetically abnormal. The other is healthy.

In a reflection of the skittishness in the field since the Korean scandal, the team sent their stem cells to the University of Southern California, where researchers from Monash University in Australia compared them to cells from the nine-year-old monkey.

“Beyond any doubt” the cells are a match, those researchers wrote in an accompanying paper, and thus the concept of making stem cells from primate clones “is now firmly established.”

Alan Trounson, president of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, praised the work and tried to allay fears that it would speed the creation of a cloned baby.

W orld & n ation Thursday, November 15, 2007

In Pakistan, Gen. Musharraf positions his army heir apparent

By Laura King Los Angeles Times

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — While Gen. Pervez Musharraf was preparing earlier this month to issue a sweeping emergency decree, his No. 2 in the military was nowhere to be seen in the corridors of power.

Instead, Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kiani was far afield, visiting Pakistani troops engaged in a demoralizing struggle with Islamic insurgents in the hills along the Afghan border.

In Kiani, Musharraf’s heir apparent as head of the Pakistani military, Western military officials see a competent soldier who has little wish to involve himself in affairs of state — a refreshing antidote, in their view, to Musharraf, who is deeply entangled in the repercussions of his emergency decree.

Kiani, 55, was promoted in October to full general and vice chief of the army staff, positioning him to replace Musharraf if and when the president quits the army as promised.

Tall and taciturn, and a chainsmoker, Kiani rose through the ranks from a humble background — unusual in an army in which senior officers often are the sons of the military aristocracy.

Yet he is a product of military tradition, hailing from a powerful clan in Punjab province, a longtime army recruiting hub.

Among his army mentors as he ascended to infantry commander was Musharraf, an ex-commando a decade his senior. But Kiani was not part of the general’s inner circle of senior officers who helped him seize power in a 1999 coup.

Still, Kiani’s closeness to Musharraf was apparent in 2003, when he was made corps commander in Rawalpindi, the seat of army headquarters just outside the capital, Islamabad. In the past, that job had been a springboard for staging coups, so the posting demonstrated the general’s trust in him.

The following year, Kiani became head of the Inter-Services Intelligence,

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Pakistan’s spy agency, notorious for its historic ties with the Taliban. By the time of his tenure, the agency’s senior ranks largely had been purged of insurgent sympathizers, but under Kiani, the militants regained strength and territory in Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal areas.

In another sign of Musharraf’s reliance upon him, Kiani was handed the sensitive task of investigating two assassination attempts against the general in late 2003. Nearly a dozen conspirators were convicted by a military tribunal, including at least one member of Musharraf’s security detail.

In an army that generally dislikes and mistrusts opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, Kiani has longstanding ties with her. He was a member of her Cabinet, serving as her deputy military secretary during the early 1990s, and, at Musharraf’s behest, acted as a go-between between her and the general during months of power-sharing negotiations.

Kiani has studied at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., has met Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and is acquainted with senior staff at the Pentagon and CIA. He is, however, a man who keeps his own counsel and reveals little.

A Western military official who has spent time with him noted his ability to maintain a poker face even in times of tension.

“He listens, and he process(es) information. You see him in `receive’ mode,” the Western military official said.

Kiani is considered firmly in Musharraf’s camp now, but if history is any guide, the general will need to keep his guard up. A string of Pakistani leaders have been brought down by close aides.

“If the army thinks Musharraf has to go, I think Kiani will act against him,” said Saijan Gohel of the AsiaPacific Foundation, a London-based think tank. “In Pakistani politics, the person you trust most is often the one who will betray you.”

‘Dr. Doe,’ banned from executions in Mo., helps in Ind.

By Henry Weinstein Los Angeles T imes

A doctor who was barred from taking part in executions in Missouri because of concerns his dyslexia would interfere with his ability to administer lethal injections is helping the federal government carry out death sentences in Indiana, according to court documents.

The physician was sued for malpractice more than 20 times, was barred from practicing at two hospitals and was publicly reprimanded by a state agency for failing to disclose malpractice suits to a hospital where he treated patients, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which identified him as Alan R. Doerhoff of Jefferson City, Mo. U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan of Kansas City last year banned Doerhoff from participating “in any manner, at any level” in lethal injections in Missouri. The judge said earlier he was “gravely concerned” that the doctor responsible for “mixing the drugs which will be responsible for humanely ending the life of condemned inmates, has a condition (dyslexia) which causes him confusion with regard to numbers.”

Federal officials, however, have made Doerhoff part of the execution team at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., where all federal death penalty prisoners, including Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, are executed, according to court papers filed on behalf of several inmates prisoners there.

Doerhoff is designated to place intravenous lines in inmates, to monitor their levels of consciousness and to sign death certificates, according to the papers.

Doerhoff did not return messages left on his home telephone.

Justice Department spokesman Erik Ablin declined comment.

Traci L Billingsley, chief public information officer for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, said the agency does not comment on pending

litigation and does not make the names of staff involved in lethal injections public.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons did not respond to telephone and e-mail requests seeking a response.

Washington D.C. attorney Paul Enzinna, one of the lead lawyers for the Indiana inmates, also declined comment.

Doerhoff’s role in federal executions emerged in one of dozens of challenges to lethal injection filed in U.S. courts.

Three dozen states and the federal government use a threedrug cocktail to execute capital defendants: the fast-acting sedative thiopental, a paralyzing drug and a heart-stopping drug. Although ostensibly more humane than prior methods of execution, lethal injection is often performed by untrained, unqualified prison employees using inadequate equipment, creating an unnecessar y risk of excessive pain in violation of the Constitutional bar against cruel and unusual punishment, the suits allege.

The U.S. Supreme Court is set on Jan. 7 to hear a challenge to Kentucky’s executions by lethal injection.

During the court challenges, officials have cloaked Doerhoff’s identity in extraordinary secrecy.

In the Missouri case, he was referred to as “John Doe One,” and allowed to sit behind a screen during a deposition so that lawyers for condemned inmate Michael Taylor could not see him while they questioned him.

In the latest challenge, filed in Washington, D.C., the inmates’ lawyers refer to Doerhoff as “Protected Person Number 2.” About a dozen lines in their October brief were redacted.

Doerhof f was cited as “Dr. Doe” in a friend-of-the-court brief filed Tuesday in the lethal injection challenge before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Written by lawyers from the death penalty clinic at the University of California, Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law, the brief asserts that lethal injection executions in this countr y “are performed by untrained, unqualified” persons.

“The most well-known example of a jurisdiction entrusting its execution administration to an incompetent individual is the infamous `Dr. Doe’ in Missouri,” the brief says.

E ditorial & L etters Page 10

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Staf f Editorial

The spirit of 2007?

Though the members of the Task Force on Undergraduate Education have tirelessly tried to solicit student feedback, it’s become clear that their review of the New Curriculum isn’t going to generate the same ardor as the “spirit of 1969.”

Almost 40 years ago, a wave of genuine student-led fervor for curricular change swept the campus, and the result was a uniquely flexible curriculum that has become the hallmark of the Brown experience for decades of students. The current review of the curriculum, which was formally launched last March with the creation of the task force, has been met with a mixture of disinterest and trepidation, and both reactions are unsurprising.

Time and again, we’ve seen students largely ignore important administration-driven efforts. The October 2006 release of the final report by the University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice had the potential to be a dramatic moment in University history and make a lasting mark on President Ruth Simmons’ legacy at Brown. Instead, the campus response was decidedly muted. It seems that the campus’s attention is only captured by intense — and short-lived — student-initiated movements, whether in response to a proposal to outsource the Brown Bookstore, alleged incidents of police brutality, the supposedly pernicious introduction of an online course registration system or a plan to ax the American Sign Language program.

Facebook activists and Main Green protests garner students’ attention. It’s clear campus-wide e-mails sent from University Hall do not.

The distrust of the curricular review among some students is more curious. To be sure, we’ve observed that Brown students tend to be surprisingly resistant to change — recall that nearly 15 percent of undergraduates joined the “Brown Against Banner” Facebook group last February, expressing concern about an effort to bring the University’s registration system into the 21st century. Yet even as administrators and, especially, students on the task force have made a concerted effort to solicit feedback, some students whisper with suspicion that the “review” will alter the unique curriculum that drew many of us to Brown. Students seemingly cared enough about the perceived impact that online course registration might have had on their Brown experience to speak up, yet virtually none discuss, much less publicly articulate, their thoughts for the comprehensive review of academic life on College Hill.

In this space, we’ve strongly supported the task force’s mission and made the case for reviewing the not-so-new New Curriculum. We’re eager to see what the task force — and the campus — will ultimately decide. But before any decisions are made, a lengthy public discussion is slated to take place.

And we hope that both students who care deeply about keeping things as they have been and those who support adding new ideas to the discussion will speak up. It’s not hard — visit a dean, chat about it in the Ratty, submit a letter or column to The Herald or, as task force members invited students to do in a campus-wide e-mail Wednesday, author a 1,000-word personal statement.

It’s easy to ignore the discussion, and many current students will not be around to experience the changes the task force might bring. But Brown isn’t just about the four years you spend here. As the students living with the New Curriculum at this important moment in the College’s history, we can passionately defend it or aggressively fight for change, just as our predecessors on College Hill did nearly 40 years ago.

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 Arthur Matuszewski

L e tt e r s Harrison ’08 sees sexism where none exists To the Editor: In his recent column (“Ira Magaziner ‘69 P’06 P’07 P’10 is not your daddy,” Oct. 31), Patrick Harrison ’08 made a throwaway comment that Adam Cambier ’09 was being “unimaginatively sexist,” since in his Oct. 23 column, “an ambitious woman is compared to a witch.”

Though Cambier’s column (“We’re not on College

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

Hill anymore: Dean Bergeron and the New Curriculum,” Oct. 23) may not have been the best thing to publish in The Herald, it was nevertheless not sexist. Reading sexism into places where it is not is childish and indicative of the larger problem of hypersensitivity at Brown.

Michael Sokolovsky ’10 Nov. 11

Brown and UCS need to reevaluate funding priorities To the Editor:

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

jason li

I was shocked and disappointed to read that the Undergraduate Council of Students voted to recommend an increase in the student activities fee (“UCS votes to increase student activities fee by $54,” Nov. 8.) While the proposed increase is small change compared to the overall cost of attending Brown, it is merely a band-aid on a significantly larger problem.

Indeed, the proposed increase could be misconstrued to represent student assent for the University’s poor hierarchy of financial priorities. To put it bluntly, the University is being cheap when it comes to allocating its money for the educational and extracurricular experiences of its current students. Student activities are not a luxury, but rather a basic and integral part of a university education. While long-term goals like capital improvement and endowment expansion are admirable, such improvements have little effect on my own

Brown experience. Indeed, contrary to rhetoric from above, Brown is still one of the richest universities in the world. When I see widespread capital improvement on campus and hear of Brown’s endowment-to-student ratio, I question why relatively small-change funding of student activities is so lacking.

Brown’s fragmented and confusing administrative bureaucracy often kills radical and innovative ideas from above, and thus the responsibility for formulating such ideas and asking controversial questions falls upon the students — established representative bodies like UCS in particular. The UCS vote to blindly give in to the University’s philosophy of “cheapness” is not the sort of student representation that I expect. I encourage fellow students to express their displeasure with UCS support for an activities fee increase as well.

Graham Anderson ‘10 Nov. 8

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O pinions Thursday, November 15, 2007

Page 11

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

‘What if Iran persecuted a religious minority and nobody cared?’

ZACK BEAUCHAMP Opinions Columnist In February 1991, Seyyed Mohammed Golpaygani, then-secretary of Iran’s Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council, wrote a letter to Ayatollah Ali Khameini on what he called “the Baha’i question.” The letter details a systematic means of crushing the Baha’i religious minority, including a prohibition on individuals who “identify as Baha’i” getting an education or holding a job, a ban on Baha’i holding any “position(s) of influence,” a new government policy of “confront(ing) and destroy(ing) (Baha’i) cultural roots outside the country” and a general commitment to stopping the “progress and development” of the Baha’i.

Since this directive was approved by Khameini — making it official government policy — government persecution of Baha’i believers has intensified significantly, especially after Mahmoud Ahmedinejad brought his brand of fundamentalism to the Iranian presidency in August 2005.

Roughly two months after Ahmedinejad took power, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Ministry of Information and Police Force were ordered to create a detailed information database on all of the country’s Baha’i citizens. 2006 saw an expulsion of all Baha’i students from 81 Iranian universities, as well as an expansion of the surveillance inaugurated in 2005.

In April 2007, while incidents of school officials harassing Baha’i students were on the rise, another official Iranian government report ordered that all Baha’i business in an enormous number of sectors be shut down.

Further, according to Iranian law, the Baha’i are “unprotected infidels,” meaning that they can be attacked or even killed without any threat of punishment for the attacker. And this

only hints at the sordid policies of the Iranian government towards its Baha’i minority — since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, hundreds of Baha’i have been killed, and thousands have been arrested.

However, official executions and arrests have declined significantly in recent years, resulting in a shift to the persecutions described above, which were explicitly designed to be implemented in ways less likely to attract international attention. But the Iranian government hasn’t succeeded in covering this up, have they? Human rights organizations must be onto Iran’s game.

Unfortunately, that is not really the case.

Searching Amnesty International’s Web site for “Iran Baha’i” gives only 16 results, many

nor Human Rights Watch has a word to say about the 2007 directive calling for the functional end of Baha’i participation in the Iranian economy.

So if I didn’t hear about the increase in persecution from human rights organizations, where did I find out about it? I gathered some of it from dedicated Baha’i rights organizations, but most of the facts came from the column that alerted me to the issue, a recent piece by Paul Marshall in ... William Kristol’s The Weekly Standard. That’s right — the archconservative magazine owned by Rupert Murdoch and widely known for its insistence on a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda has done more recent reporting on discrimination against a religious minority in a

Why is it, exactly, that a human rights issue is getting more press among conservatives than the predominantly left-wing human rights establishment? of which are repeats. Only one of those 16, a four paragraph letter asking the Iranian government for “clarification” about the 2005 surveillance memorandum, is exclusively devoted to the Baha’i situation. Human Rights Watch does somewhat better — the same search outputs 121 results, including a press release from September criticizing Iran’s expulsion of Baha’i university students. However, it also has no dedicated report on the intensification of economic and social discrimination against the Baha’i, and neither Amnesty International

third world country than have two of the largest human rights organizations in the world.

So why is it, exactly, that a human rights issue is getting more press among conservatives than the predominantly left-wing human rights establishment? Marshall’s piece gives us a clue — at the end of his article, he writes that “Iran’s actions are reminiscent of the Nazis in another way: Even while under great internal and external pressure, the regime is still committed to diverting resources to pursue an ideological and religious campaign that con-

forms to no realist evaluation of any national interest. The mullahs’ Iran is not a normal country.” The arguments — that Iran is like Nazi Germany, that Iran takes actions against its national interest to pursue its ideological aims — are central theses of the argument for why Iran will use its nuclear weapons, which in turn is a key claim in the case for tough action by the United States against Iran.

In short, it seems that Marshall’s interest in the Baha’i situation is less about the actual persecution and more about the implications of this persecution for American policy about Iranian nuclear weapons.

When viewed in this light, the reason for the low levels of attention toward the Baha’i in Iran on the part of human rights organizations becomes clear: They don’t want to be seen as helping the hated Bush administration’s case against Iran. This aversion points to a greater problem in contemporary politics: Human rights have become political weapons, where one criticizes the abuses of one’s political adversaries but remains silent or even commendatory (see conservatives on Guantanamo Bay) when it is politically inconvenient to do so.

This attitude is unacceptable. Human rights are universal rights and cannot be discarded on the basis of political expediency. What is needed is a political consciousness that refuses to play politics with human rights and insists on their universality, a view that fits naturally with liberal ideals but cannot fully be implemented until the left is willing to get past its current Bush-phobia. The left needs to realize that the enemy of my enemy can also be my enemy too and that the only people hurt by its silence on these issues are people like the Baha’i.

Zack Beauchamp ‘10 is annoyed that he had to imply something marginally positive about Rupert Murdoch.

Fair Elections: The cure to an ailing political system

BY RACHEL FORMAN AND COLIN LENTZ Guest Columnists The New York Times reported last week that despite efforts to cut pork barrel spending, “House lawmakers still tacked on to the military appropriations bill $1.8 billion to pay 580 private companies for projects the Pentagon did not request.” Meanwhile, presidential hopefuls Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani continue to waltz around the country, trying to raise the enormous amounts of money necessary to remain competitive in next year’s presidential race.

Candidates are winning elections and lining the pockets of private contractors at the expense of the American people. Our political system needs help.

Of course, the influence of money in politics is nothing new. Calculated fundraising and lucrative paybacks, often in the form of earmarks, have been part of our political system for many years. Private financing of elections infects our electoral process from start to finish. Money determines which candidates can enter a race in the first place. After Election Day, conflicts of interest arise when an elected official is forced to choose between policies that will benefit his constituents and policies that will benefit the donors who helped him into office and who can offer the same monetary support when the next election cycle rolls around. Americans are aware of these problems, and the resulting disillusionment may be one of the reasons that voter turnout

is depressingly low year after year.

It doesn’t have to be this way. A movement for Fair Elections — a voluntary full public financing system in which candidates who refuse private donations can receive a stipend from the government to run their campaign — is gaining strength around the country. Fair Elections (also known as Clean Elections) has already been implemented on the state level in Maine, Arizona and Connecticut with tremendous and inspiring results. In both Maine and Arizona, the number of competitive races

system on the national level for U.S. Senate races. A candidate who volunteers to opt into the system and refuse private donations would first collect a specified number of qualifying $5 contributions in order to establish herself as a viable candidate. She would then receive a sum of public of money, determined by state population and number of congressional districts, to run her campaign. If a publicly funded candidate faces a privately funded opponent and the privately funded candidate’s raised funds exceed the publicly funded candidate’s

Elected officials who are accountable only to their constituents, not wealthy donors, will be in a better place to make decisions about policy.

— races in which more than one candidate has a reasonable chance of winning — and voter turnout have both increased dramatically.

With more candidates seeking office and more citizens heading to the polls, Fair Elections has shown itself to be an effective antidote for some of the more worrisome problems plaguing our democracy.

The Fair Elections Now Act, sponsored by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Sen. Arlen Spector, R-Penn., would establish a similar

grant, the publicly funded candidate can receive matching funds, up to 200 percent of the initial allocation.

Public financing is good for candidates in several ways. Candidates can spend more time talking to constituents instead of wining and dining a small minority of wealthy donors.

Publicly funded candidates are also more appealing to voters because after being elected, they don’t face the conflicts of interest that result from dual loyalties to big money cam-

paign donors and the general voting public.

In states where Fair Elections is already in place, candidates recognize these advantages and many choose to participate. In Maine, 81 percent of all candidates for state office ran public campaigns in 2006. This impressive figure suggests that after several election cycles, candidate participation in a national Fair Elections system could exceed 50 percent.

Supporters of public financing know the Fair Elections system isn’t free. The total cost of campaign grants is estimated to be $6 per citizen per year, and ultimately this money comes from taxpayer dollars. Fortunately, the price goes down as more and more candidates opt into the system and less money is needed to match the funds of private candidates. Even in the early stages, however, the price of Fair Elections is worth paying. Elected officials who are accountable only to their constituents, not wealthy donors, will be in a better place to make decisions about policy and allocation of government funds. In Arizona, Fair Elections-elected Gov. Janet Napolitano said recent heathcare legislation that increased access to prescription drugs would not have been possible before Fair Elections removed pharmaceutical companies’ influence over campaigns. Good government is a good investment.

This week is the Fair Elections Now Act week of action. Democracy Matters invites you to visit us on the Main Green and write a letter to your senator in support of this important legislation. Our system is sick, but that doesn’t mean we can’t heal it.

Rachel Forman ’09 and Colin Lentz ’09 will dance for democracy.

S ports T hursday Page 12

M. hoops dunked by Rams, 76-61

By Jason Harris Assistant Sports Editor

For 10 minutes the men’s basketball team hung with the team picked to finish second in the Atlantic 10 Conference. But a lapse at the end of the first half put the University of Rhode Island ahead for good, en route to a 75-61 win at the Pizzitola Sports Center Wednesday night in front of a packed house.

The Bears started off scorching from a 3-point land, hitting three of their first four in jumping out to a 14-3 lead with 16:02 to play, and forcing their in-state rivals to take a timeout to stop the bleeding. Shooting guard Mark McAndrew ’08 hit two treys and added a layup in the opening run, but added just two more free throws the rest of the game, finishing with 10 points to go along with two rebounds and an assist.

But after Brown’s fast start, the momentum quickly shifted to the Rams. URI scored eight straight points that began a 26-7 run which put Rhody up 29-21 with 3:26 left in the first half.

The run was spearheaded by forward Lamonte Ulmer, who threw down two dunks, including a put-back dunk following a missed alley-oop. Ulmer and guard Keith Cothran came off the URI bench to score 12 and 17 points, respectively.

“We had them for a little while,” said Head Coach Craig Robinson. “As soon as (Ulmer and Cothran) came in, we wilted like lilies. They were much more physical and they imposed their will on us.”

Ulmer said he felt he and Cothran, both Connecticut natives, fed off each

The men’s and women’s cross country teams bolted to impressive team and individual finishes at the NCAA Northeast Regional Championships over the weekend, improving upon last year’s results. The men’s team took fourth place at the event and the women placed fifth. The competition, which was held at Franklin Park in Boston, was highlighted by a standout performance from Smita Gupta ’08.

Gupta claimed seventh place individually to advance to Nationals. She clocked in at 20:54 on the six-kilometer course to mark the first time since 2001 that a runner from the women’s team has qualified for Nationals. Gupta’s finish was a 15-place improvement on her finish last season, and three and a half minutes faster than her previous performance on the course, at the 2005 Regionals.

Overall, Providence College tallied 73 points for the win, and Stony Brook University took second with a total of 118. Boston College took third with a total of 132 and Syracuse University took fourth with a total of 139. The female Bears were close behind with 142 points, putting them in fifth place. Brown outran Ivy rivals Columbia, Cornell and Harvard, which finished sixth, seventh and eighth, respectively.

Teammates Ariel Wright ’10

Sp

o r t s

i n

Br

i e f

Sheehan ’09 is Ivy Player of the Week after goal clinches Ivy title The men’s soccer team is still bringing home the hardware. In addition to the Ivy League championship he helped win on Saturday, Dylan Sheehan ’09 earned the Ivy League Player of the Week award on Monday.

Sheehan received the honor in part because he scored his 10th goal of the season in the 83rd minute of Saturday’s game, giving Brown a 1-0 win over Dartmouth to clinch the Ivy League title. Off a flip throwin from teammate Darren Howerton ’09, Sheehan got his head on the ball and sent it into the back of the net to break the scoreless tie.

Sheehan now leads the Bears with 26 points this season, good for second in the Ivy League. His 10 goals leave him in a tie for second place in the league, along with teammate Kevin Davies ’08, and his six assists are tied for fourth.

With the win, the Bears earned an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, where they will compete for a shot at the national championship.

They have one game remaining at Columbia this weekend.

Footballs’ Sewall ’10 steals national spotlight

points to go with six rebounds. Daniels is one of 33 players named to the Naismith Award Watch List, from which the best player in the country will be selected.

Brown aided the URI effort by turning the ball over 11 times in the

After a brilliant all-around performance in the football team’s 56-35 victory over Dartmouth, Bobby Sewall ’10 was recognized at the national level for his outstanding play. Sewall, officially listed on the roster as a wide receiver, caught 18 passes for 141 yards on Saturday. The 18 receptions in a single game were the fourth most in Brown history.

But even more remarkable were Sewall’s contributions outside of his normal responsibilities. Against the Big Green, Sewall also served as the Bears’ primary running back. He carried the ball 15 times for 144 yards and four touchdowns.

On a day when quarterback Michael Dougherty ’09 set a school record by completing 82 percent of his passes (41 of 50), Sewall even upstaged his own quarterback. The play after Brown recovered a Dartmouth fumble with only 20 seconds left, Sewall threw a 41-yard touchdown pass to Buddy Farnham ’10 on a trick play to boost Brown’s lead to 28-14 at the half. Sewall even saw action as a defensive back on Brown’s last defensive series of the game.

In recognition of his performance, Sewall has been named the Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week, the College Sporting News National Player of the Week and the winner of the New England Football Writers/Boston Globe Gold Helmet Award.

The Bears close out their season at Columbia this Saturday.

continued on page 8

— Benjy Asher

Ashley Hess / Herald

Adrian Williams ’11 went 3-for-3 against the Rams Wednesday, scoring eight points.

other’s energy, which helped spark URI. “Our chemistry is pretty good,” Ulmer said. “We are from the same neighborhood so we have played a lot together.”

Besides that duo, most of the Rams’ scoring came from senior forward Will Daniels, who dropped 26

Cross country teams impress at Regionals

By Erin Frauenhofer Sports Editor

Thursday, November 15, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

and Jenna Ridgway ’10 claimed All-Region status. Wright finished in 21:03, good for 11th place, and Ridgway was right on her heels, posting a time of 21:05 for 13th place.

Kesley Ramsey ’11 and Megan Fitzpatrick ’11 rounded out the Bears’ scoring by taking 44th place and 69th place with respective times of 21:50 and 22:18.

On the men’s side, No. 4 Iona College captured the title with a team score of 37, followed by the No. 18 Friars with 46 points and Syracuse with 132 points.

Brown accumulated a total of 188 points to snag fourth place, two spots higher than last season’s finish. The Bears narrowly outpaced Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, and Yale, which took fifth through eighth place, respectively.

The Bears were headed by Ari Zamir ’08 and Christian Escareno ’10, who both placed in the top 25 on the 10-kilometer course to earn All-Region honors. Zamir clocked in at 30:27 for 20th place, while Escareno recorded a time of 30:31 to place 24th. Both Bears improved upon their performances at last year’s meet, with Zamir finishing seven spots higher and Escareno gaining 42 places.

Ryan Graddy ’08, Brian Schmidt ’09 and Steve Chaloner ’09 also had strong showings.

Graddy placed 39th in 30:58, Schmidt placed 43rd in 31:06, and Chaloner placed 64th in 31:26.

Yale vanquishes Bruno in volleyball finale

By Amy Ehrhart Assistant Sports Editor

The four seniors on the volleyball team closed out their careers on Tuesday night with a narrow four-game loss against Yale. Katie Lapinski ’08, Lizzie Laundy ’08, Rachel Lipman ’08 and Julie Mandolini-Trummel ’08 all played valuable minutes in the team’s final match of the year, which ended 25-30, 30-26, 18-30 and 27-30.

“I’ve had a great time playing and had a very great senior year experience,” said Lipman, who tallied 18 digs.

Lapinski, the team’s captain, led the team in digs for the 21st time this Ashley Hess / Herald File Photo season, putting up 21 digs to go along In her last match for Brown, Katie Lapinksi ’08 managed a team-high 21 digs. with two aces. She finished the season with 5.71 digs per game and 525 digs Right side hitter Lillie Cohn ’09 added every day.” overall, which are second- and third- to the attack with some well-placed In the fourth game, Brown got best for an individual season in team tips and hitting combinations through some good shots in before Yale history, respectively. Her career aver- the middle on her way to a match total reached 30. Down 6-9, Cohn drilled age of 4.79 digs per game smashed the of 14 kills.

Yale libero Kelly Ozurovich for a kill. old record of 3.85 to give her another “Lillie can really perform,” Mando- Ozurovich had to shake out her hand mark in the Brown record book. lini-Trummel said. “Our junior class after her dig attempt in order to reMandolini-Trummel finished the is just phenomenal.” gain feeling. After Natalie Meyers ’09 season with 2.54 kills per game and Cohn returned the favor, add- tallied an ace off her powerful jump a team-leading .252 hitting percent- ing, “Our seniors stepped up and serve to put Brown up 16-14, she set age after turning in 14 kills and four showed amazing leadership (during Megan Toman ’11 for another specblocks. She grabbed the Brown re- the game).” tacular hit. Toman hit a Yale player in cord for career hitting percentage Cohn had some crucial kills to give the face to give Brown its last big lead at .278.

Brown a lead after a 21-21 tie, and before the Bulldogs put together a “It’s a world of a difference from Lyndse Yess ’09 finished the game 14-6 run to set a comfortable distance the beginning of the season to to- with a kill and an ace. for the win. Toman finished with 10 night,” Mandolini-Trummel said of For the last two games of the hits, and Meyers put up 44 assists to their league-opening match against match, the Bulldogs outblocked go with 18 digs.

“Our record didn’t reflect what a Yale, which they lost in three straight Brown 14-5, which proved to be the great group of girls we had this seagames. “We adjusted much better to- big difference. night.”

“We didn’t have the energy we had son,” Meyers said.

After the first game the Bears in some of our other wins,” Laundy Brown finished fifth in the Ivy adjusted to Yale’s big blockers by in- said. “But we have improved through- League, winning the tiebreaker with creasing their coverage behind their out the season, especially with our Cornell, who had a similar 5-9 league hitters, a strategy that contributed winning streak in the middle … I’m record, after beating the Big Red twice to their victory in the second game. going to miss seeing my teammates this season.