Tuesday, February 26, 2008

The Brown Daily Herald T uesday, F ebr uar y 26, 2008

Volume CXLIII, No. 23

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

Huckabee tells Rhode Islanders he’s not done yet

By Simon van Zuylen-Wood Senior Staff Writer

WARWICK — Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee dropped by Rhode Island yesterday, telling supporters at a Warwick rally that he was not going to give up his long-shot campaign just yet.

The former Arkansas governor spoke to a few hundred chanting

supporters at the Crowne Plaza Huckabee then began his Hotel here, focusing a 40-minute speech by telling voters he would speech on tax policy and family not end his run for the Republican values. presidential nomiHuckabee nation, which Sen. METRO opened the John McCain, Rrally by showAriz., has all but ing off the laid-back and playful wrapped up. demeanor that has become the “I never believed you get to the trademark of his campaign. Before finish line by quitting before you his speech, he played two songs on get to the finish line,” Huckabee a bass guitar. told his impassioned supporters,

who rarely took a break from cheering on their candidate.

Though Huckabee often referred to his underdog status in the Rhode Island primar y elections, which will be held March 4, he focused mainly on promoting himself as his party’s quintessential candidate.

On abortion, Huckabee said he continued on page 7

Segall ’01 makes House bid

Senior class gift may get big boost

By Isabel Gottlieb News Editor

By Melissa Shube Staff Writer

An anonymous donor has challenged the Class of 2008 to set a new participation record for its senior class gift.

If 72 percent of seniors donate, the donor will contribute $25,000 to the Brown Annual Fund to go along with the seniors’ gift, said Johanna Corcoran, the fund’s assistant director for student programs.

Just less than 10 percent of seniors have donated so far, for a total of 122 gifts.

“We’re on a good pace so far.

We’re going to get most of our gifts near the end of the year,” said Gordon Pels ’08, co-chair of the senior class gift committee.

The 72-percent goal would set a new record for participation. The previous record is 68 percent, currently held by the Class of 2005. The Class of 2006 achieved 65 percent participation, and 64 percent of seniors contributed in 2007, according to the Brown Annual Fund Web site.

President Ruth Simmons is contributing to the class gift as well. She plans to donate $20,008, a dollar more than the $20,007 she contribcontinued on page 9

Rahul Keerthi / Herald

The Brown Taiko group has been drumming on campus since 2004. The group currently has seven members.

Taiko keeps beat of Japanese tradition

By Catherine Straut Staff Writer

On a quiet Tuesday evening, in a seemingly empty T.F. Green Hall, sounds echo down the hallways and shake the walls as a group of students throw their weight against a set of enormous drums.

Building these drums and learning to play them has been the focus of

the Brown Taiko group since its inception in 2004.

Taiko drumming was brought to Brown by Raiki Machida ’07, who learned it in middle school in Singapore and went on to train intensively in northern Japan after high school. When he arrived at Brown, Machida raised funds and created the group, which has been performing and making drums

ever since.

“In the past two years, it’s kind of blown up,” Machida said.

“I’m pretty excited about that.”

The group currently includes six Brown students and one Rhode Island School of Design student.

Taiko has been a par t of Japanese culture for more than continued on page 6

U.S. and Caribbean nations share goals, diplomat says

By MattHEW Varley Staff Writer

Suman Karumuri / Herald

Roland Bullen, deputy chief of mission to the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic, spoke in Macmillan 117 Monday night.

3

METRO

Bed bugs are back Blood-sucking mattressdweller seeks host for parasitic relationship

Courtesy of Josh Segall

Josh Segall ’01 may soon be in Congress.

5

CAMPUS NEWS

The United States supports Caribbean nations as they transition economically and politically into the 21st century, U.S. Ambassador Roland Bullen told an audience in Macmillan 117 Monday night, kicking off Caribbean Heritage Week.

“A resonant commitment to democracy, the rule of law and the promotion of private sectorled, market-driven economies” is shared by the United States and English-speaking Caribbean countries, said Bullen, the deputy chief of mission of the U.S. Embassy in

1337-letes Students will face stiff international competition at programming finals

11

OPINIONS

the Dominican Republic.

Bullen, a Grenada native, is the former U.S. ambassador to Guyana and has served throughout the Caribbean in a 30-year foreign service career. His lecture, co-sponsored by the Third World Center and the Center for Latin American Studies, focused specifically on American relations with the Caribbean Community, a 15-member economic coalition.

Though Bullen said “the Caribbean and the United States have had a long and vitally beneficial relationship over many decades,” continued on page 4

Defending suburbia Matt Prewitt ’08 thinks suburb-hating is thinly veiled classism

While a student at Brown, Joshua Segall ’01 used his organizing savvy and penchant for policy to build support for Al Gore, among others. Now, he’s putting that skill to more personal use.

On Feb. 7, Segall, a 29-year-old lawyer, announced he is running for the U.S. House of Representatives.

If he wins the seat in Alabama’s 3rd Congressional District, he would be the only alum currently serving in Congress. Segall, a native Alabaman, is currently the only Democrat in the race. If he wins the June 3 primary, he will run against the Republican incumbent, Mike Rogers, on Nov. 4 for the seat, which represents east-central Alabama, from the suburbs of Montgomery northward along the Georgia border, past Talladega and into rural Cherokee county.

After Segall formally announced his candidacy, he immediately garnered the support of Alabama Democratic Lt. Gov. Jim Folsom Jr. Folsom’s support is significant, Segall said, because there is still time for other Democrats to enter the race, yet Folsom has already chosen to throw his support behind a young candidate.

Beyond building support among Alabama’s political elite, Segall’s history as an organizer and “policy wonk” at Brown have helped him build a network of supporters — many of whom have more ties to College Hill than to rural Alabama.

An organizer at Brown As head of the group of Democratic students on campus, called the College Democrats, Segall was able to generate a new level of political interest in the student body, those who knew him at Brown say.

Mushtaq Gunja ’00, who was on the board of the College Democrats with Segall, said the group was not particularly active before Segall’s leadership, but “he really spent a lot of time and energy trying to make it a big deal.” continued on page 9 tomorrow’s weather Snow falls as steadily as the beating of Taiko drums in T.F. Green Hall

snow, 39 / 18 www.browndailyherald.com

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

T oday Page 2

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

But Seriously | Charlie Custer and Stephen Barlow

Menu Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Pasta Spinach Casserole, Grilled Tuna Sandwich with Cheese, Sundried Tomato Calzone, Sweet Potato Fries

Lunch — Shaved Steak Sandwich, Vegan Stuffed Peppers, Mohegan Succotash, Enchilada Bar

Dinner — Sesame Chicken Strips with Mustard Sauce, Vegetables in Honey Ginger Sauce, Sticky Rice with Edamame Beans

Dinner — Roast Pork Ouvert, Pastito, Baked Potatoes with Sour Cream, Beets in Orange Sauce, Boston Cream Pie

Sudoku

Enigma Twist | Dustin Foley

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

Opus Hominis | Miguel Llorente

© Puzzles by Pappocom

RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Los Angeles Times Puzzle C r o sDaily s w oCrossword rd

Vagina Dentata | Soojean Kim

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Put to shame 6 Commotions 10 Manxman’s home, e.g.

14 “Same here!”

15 “__ Smile Without You”: 1978 hit 16 Hotel employee 17 *Observe Arbor Day, say 19 Move with effort 20 Living roomdining room shape, perhaps 21 More compassionate 23 “__ questions?”

24 Where Apollo was worshiped 27 Avarice 29 Give a new title 32 At one’s limit 35 Reagan wore a red one 38 Wipe away the chalk 39 Hearth residue 40 *Auto safety device 43 “By all means!”

44 Spicy bean dish 46 Trattoria brew 48 Worn (away) 49 Ballerina, at times 50 Birdie beater 52 Was very fond of 56 Hole-punching tool 58 Summer footwear 61 Inventor Whitney 62 Home in the woods 64 *Ding-a-ling 67 It may be halfbaked 68 Della’s creator 69 Zest 70 Midterm, e.g.

71 Gets a glimpse of 72 Cretan, e.g.

DOWN 1 Excited, slangily, with “up” 2 Ball honoree

3 In any way, shape or form 4 Dad’s lad 5 Fresh from the oven 6 Start of a play 7 “Doggone it!”

8 Stressed out 9 Handle the wheel 10 Little troublemaker 11 *Time of youthful inexperience 12 Safari sighting 13 Rapids phenomenon 18 Comparable with 22 Sent for a second opinion 25 Historic intro?

26 Red ones are misleading 28 Always, in verse 30 Feel poorly 31 Free-for-all 33 A Swiss Army knife has many of them 34 Mexican money 35 Walk back and forth 36 Workplace stds. enforcer

37 *Little deceptions 41 Merit badge gp.

42 Shock 45 Grassland 47 Suffix with ranch 49 Lost love in Poe’s “The Raven” 51 Toll booth accesses 53 Oscar winner Witherspoon 54 Tickle pink

55 Was fairly successful 56 Touched down 57 Cross a creek, e.g.

59 Ration (out) 60 Citrus drinks 63 Fink 65 Word that can precede the starts of answers to starred clues 66 “Ben-__”

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

War and Peas | Linda Zhang and Eli Jaffa

xwordeditor@aol.com

2/26/08

Dreaming in Focus | Max Abrahams

T he B rown D aily H erald

By Gail Grabowski (c)2008 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

If you do one thing on College Hill today...

Showtime at DTau with Starla and Sons, Brown Bellydancers and more DTau Lounge, 9 p.m.

2/26/08

Editorial Phone: 401.351.3372

The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown

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M etro Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Page 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Bed bug infestations plague Providence

By Sophia Li Senior Staff Writer

Laura Buckman / Herald

The Providence Preservation Society, founded in 1956, helps preservation projects in low-income historic neighborhoods.

Progress and preservation at Brown, in the city

By Meha Verghese Staff Writer

When Peter Green House was moved down Angell Street last summer, it was the first time many students had heard of Brown’s preser vation efforts. But the University and Providence have a rich tradition of historic preservation that spans the last 50 years.

“I’ve heard many people refer to Providence as the Charleston of the north,” said Sara Emmenecker ’04, director of preservation services at the Providence Preservation Society, referring to the historic South Carolina city.

“Providence is really at the forefront of the preservation movement,” said Patrick Malone PhD’71, associate professor of American civilization and urban studies, as

well a member of the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission.

“All you’d have to do is look at Benefit Street or the new, adaptive use of industrial buildings in Providence,” he said.

The Providence Preser vation Society was founded in 1956 in response to proposed demolitions on Benefit Street. The collection of colonial homes was considered “blighted” and the area was “more a slum,” Emmenecker said. “In that day and age, the philosophy was to get rid of the blight by tearing it down,” she said.

Nowadays, PPS and the state government are approaching the issue of preservation differently. The Providence Revolving Fund, established about 25 years ago by the PPS, extends low-interest loans to

preservation projects in low-income historic neighborhoods, Emmenecker said.

Malone said the state of Rhode Island also provides several programs that create incentives to preserve historic buildings, including tax credit programs that are “essentially supportive of preservation,” he said.

As part of these efforts, Providence is divided into a number of historic districts, including areas in College Hill and the Jewelry District.

While the Jewelry District does not boast traditionally historical buildings, “what’s historical is more the industrial history — it’s the history of the area as a center of industry that gives it its value (more) than any particular building,” said Richard continued on page 6

R.I. court will decide fate of teens tried as adults

By Nandini Jayakrishna Senior Staff Writer

Delinquent 17-year-olds tried in adult courts between July and November of last year should have their cases transferred back to Family Court, according to a ruling by Superior Court Judge Daniel Procaccini earlier this month.

Attempting to reduce the state’s $450 million budget deficit, Gov. Donald Carcieri ’65 passed a law last July to send 17-year-olds to adult prison instead of the Rhode Island Training School in Cranston, the state’s juvenile detention facility.

State legislators thought the annual housing cost at the Adult Correctional Facility was $40,000 per person, compared to $98,000 per person at the Training School, said Joseph Cardin, deputy superintendent of the Training School. But they failed to realize that a prison inmate under 21 is required to be housed under maximum security, which costs $104,000.

The law was repealed in November. This created more than 500 “gap kids” who had been tried as adults between July and November, according to a Feb. 6 article in the Providence Journal. A judge ordered the misdemeanor cases back to Family Court, the Journal reported, but it is unclear if more than 100 youths who committed felonies in that period would also be sent down to the

juvenile court.

Procaccini put his Feb. 5 ruling — clarifying what would happen to the gap kids — on hold for 20 days, allowing the attorney general to appeal to the state Supreme Court.

The ruling is an “important first step” in bringing the gap kids back to the juvenile court system, said Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Brown said Carcieri’s law was “counterproductive” and risked exposing juveniles to “physical harm” in adult prison.

Darrell West, professor of political science, said it was “short-sighted” of the administration to pass the law in the without first assessing the cost of sending juveniles to adult prison.

He said overturning the legislation is “a good decision” since the law “created inequity in terms of how people were treated.”

The stigma attached to being sentenced to adult prison threatens the juveniles’ prospects in terms of getting student loans or getting jobs, said John Hardiman, the state’s chief public defender, who is representing almost 200 juveniles in district and superior courts.

Hardiman said he is “happy” with the ruling and hopes it will be upheld by the Supreme Court.

“I’d like to see (the gap kids) at the Training School,” he said.

Cardin said many offenders at

the school commit serious crimes such as felony assaults, sexual assaults, child molestation and firearm possession.

“This is in essence a youthful offender prison,” Cardin said. When “you take all the window-dressing away, all the euphemisms ... guys come here for serious things.”

But he added that the school provides them with many resources for rehabilitation.

“We do provide the opportunity for kids who want to turn their lives around, for kids who haven’t had good experiences in school or good experiences managing their behavior,” he said.

Some juveniles at the Training School said they are thankful for the chance to reflect on and learn from their mistakes.

An 18-year-old youth at the school said that though this is his fourth time coming back to the school, he is not as “wild” as he used to be.

“I think a lot more,” said the youth, who did not want to be named in this article. “(I’ve learned) people skills, how to respect another person.”

But he said it’s only a “possibility” that he will use the school’s help to get a job in the future.

“Everything’s not on a silver platter for me,” he said. “If I don’t do what I do (there’s) the possibility of going hungry, not having a place to live.”

Bed bugs are back in town — and no one’s sure what to do about them.

In the last few years, bed bugs have been making their way into Providence homes, with little official response. But on Jan. 16, the Rhode Island Department of Health ran its first training session about how to handle the pesky critters. More than 100 people were in attendance, including landlords, students and employees at homeless shelters, according to Dhitinut Ratnapradipa, program manager for the Health Department and a Brown clinical assistant professor of community health.

But Ratnapradipa said the Health Department does not have a pest control program and lacks the authority to go to anyone’s house to exterminate pests.

“It was clear that there was no concerted, organized group in Rhode Island that would be taking charge of this,” said Samantha Marder ’09, who attended the training session.

Marder first heard about Providence’s problem with bed bugs over the summer when volunteering at Hasbro Children’s Hospital at Project HEALTH’s Family Help Desk, which assists low-income families with housing, food, employment and other issues affecting their health.

A volunteer at the Family Help

Desk since her freshman year, Marder said until this past summer, the organization had encountered many of the problems that come with low-income housing, like cockroaches, rodents and lead poisoning — but not bed bugs.

Marder, now a program cocoordinator for the Family Help Desk, said she had no idea what she could do to help. Still, residents call the Department of Health when their homes have a bed bug infestation since it is a public health concern, Ratnapradipa said.

But according to Rhode Island’s “Housing Maintenance and Occupancy Code,” the infestation is the tenant’s responsibility if it is in one dwelling unit, but the owner’s responsibility if it is in more than one dwelling unit.

“I’ve been doing pest control for 31 years,” said Tony DeJesus of New England Pest Control. He said he never had a call about bed bugs in his first 25 years in the profession. “Now people are coming down every day.”

Bed bugs 411 Bed bugs are “small wingless insects that feed solely upon the blood of warm-blooded animals,” according to the Harvard School of Public Health’s Web site. Their bites are painless and look like mosquito bites, said DeJesus, who was a guest speaker in the Departcontinued on page 4

Page 4

Lecture highlights U.S.-Carribean relations continued from page 1 he added that “the strategic importance of these countries to the U.S. … has declined in recent years” with the rise of globalization and free trade.

Bullen said English-speaking Caribbean nations have “by and large … maintained an enviable record of stability, electoral democracy and peaceful coexistence with their neighbors” since gaining independence from their “mother countries” in Europe.

But he cited abundant foreign markets for agriculture and the rising Caribbean drug trade as sources of strain on diplomatic relations.

“Drugs and the trade from drugs threaten the integrity and political stability of these proud and vulnerable democracies, while economic shifts erode the fragile foundations of prosperity they have built up,” Bullen said. Responding to the drug trade has shifted spending from social programs to security needs, while high-interest loans have caused a rise in the national debt.

In light of the contemporary challenges, Bullen said the United States is “a convenient focus of regional frustrations” in the Caribbean.

In par ts of the Caribbean, “globalization is viewed as a U.S.imposed problem and not as an

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

inevitable, technologically driven development,” Bullen said. “Beyond the vocal criticism, there is deep-rooted suspicion of the United States,” which has affected “an array of potentially beneficial proposals such as open skies, telecommunication reform … and bilateral investment treaties,” he added.

Bullen said Caribbean countries tend to blame the American demand for narcotics for increased drug cultivation and trafficking in their nations. He also said some believe U.S. deportation policies for foreign offenders are the reason for rising domestic crime rates.

These allegations lack “serious evidence,” the ambassador added.

“Frankly, I think it’s an excuse for not being more proactive in solving the problem of crime,” he said.

But Bullen also gave examples of a “public relations failure” by the United States in the Caribbean, citing a controversy over the lucrative banana trade after a wave of Caribbean independence from Europe during the middle of the century.

Bullen said the United States has recently implemented a “more positive agenda for the region” and has almost doubled assistance to the Caribbean since 2001. The U.S. government has supported everything from World Cup cricket to recent natural disaster relief, he

said.

“If we look at the extent of our countries’ common interest, it is almost impossible to conceive of anything but a close, mutually beneficial and friendly relationship,” Bullen said.

“The U.S. recognizes that our Caribbean friends and close neighbors are faced with the prospect of unsettling changes by the forces of globalization,” Bullen said. “Today’s challenges are not yesterday’s. …

Recognition of the need for change and the local ownership of that process (is) fundamental” to reform, he added.

In a question-and-answer session following the lecture, Professor of Sociology Paget Henry, who introduced Bullen, criticized the United States for failing to acknowledge the history of Caribbean “democratic socialism” in its foreign policy.

“The idea that we have to downsize the state and make it conform to the liberal model when you have, during the period of British rule, the legitimacy of this intervention state” is a fundamental problem, Henry said. “The U.S. fails to recognize that the private sector in the Caribbean cannot lead — it has not led. All of the major transformation in the Caribbean took place when the States had the driver’s seat,” he added. “This is a phase America never went through ... and it must understand.”

City residents try not to let the bed bugs bite continued from page 3 ment of Health’s January training session.

“They don’t stay on you,” DeJesus said. “They feed for about 15 minutes.”

But the short period of time they stay on the body makes them difficult to detect — as do their size and shape. “They’re so flat they can hide in a lot of cracks and crevices,” DeJesus said, and added that a bed bug is about the size of the period at the end of this sentence.

Bed bugs can also live up to several months without feeding on anyone.

They are not only confined to the area that gives them their name.

Bed bugs can be found on nightstands, picture frames and on the baseboards of walls, DeJesus said.

“We’ve had to take the covers off the electrical outlets,” DeJesus said, highlighting the unusual places the bugs can hide in severe infestations.

“Fortunately, ever y bit of research is not implicating the bed bug at all in the transmission of blood-borne diseases,” DeJesus said.

DeJesus said bed bugs are currently a problem in dormitories, hotels, homeless shelters and private homes, but said he believes bed bugs can spread to other places where large amounts of people congregate, like movie theaters and public transportation systems. He called long cross-Atlantic flights the “perfect place for bed bugs.”

But much about bed bugs remains a mystery.

“We’re just now star ting to scratch the sur face,” DeJesus said.

Bed bugs come to Providence “The problem is exploding in the city of Providence,” DeJesus said.

But he added, “It’s a problem that involves the countr y. Ever y major city is having a problem with it right now.” Bed bugs were nearly eradicated after World War II through the use of pesticides like DDT. But DeJesus attributed their resurgence to the increase in travel since then.

“We’ve become a global society,” he said. He added that travelers can inadvertently carry the pests with them in their baggage or clothing.

“About four years ago we became aware that we had bed bugs in one of our properties,” said Michelle Wilcox, senior vice president of housing and facilities at Crossroads Rhode Island, the largest organization in the state that provides services to the homeless.

“I immediately used my network to talk to other shelter programs and other housing providers to find out what they had done,” Wilcox said.

During the process of extermination, Wilcox said, everyone’s clothing had to be washed in one day. The shelter now treats its rooms for bed bugs routinely.

Because the homeless population is constantly moving, controlling bed bug infestations in shelters is especially difficult. But Wilcox said the shelter has taken other measures to prevent new infestations.

“When a new person arrives, we

www.browndailyherald.com

ask them to launder everything that can be laundered prior to coming into the shelter,” she said. “You’re tired, you’re weary, you’re coming into a shelter. But first you have to launder your clothes.”

But Crossroads’ precautions come with a cost.

“Any dollar that we’re having to spend on bed bug extermination doesn’t go to something else — social services, whatever it might be,” Wilcox said.

Ratnapradipa said bed bugs especially affect low-income families that have less choice of housing because they are limited by what they can afford. He added that mattresses are expensive. “Nobody wants to throw (them) away.”

The Department of Health recommends always using professional ser vices to get rid of bed bugs, which, DeJesus pointed out, families with lower incomes will have more difficulty doing.

“Obviously wealthy people do get bedbugs,” Marder said. “It’s just a matter of having the resources to deal with it before it gets out of control.”

What’s being done Ratnapradipa says the goal of the Department of Health’s is to educate the public about bed bugs. He is also trying to organize an April meeting for people who are concerned about the issue — representatives from pest control companies, Public Housing Authorities, community health centers, colleges and shelters.

“This is not a Department of Health problem,” Ratnapradipa said. “This is a community problem. I think that we all have to do something.”

At least one student is. Marder has an idea for a “low-cost team of exterminators,” possibly staffed by student volunteers.

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management runs a program in extermination that requires only 24 hours of training, Marder said.

Marder said she wants to create an organization that would cover the cost of extermination even if the tenant is not able to immediately pay. The group would wait to be reimbursed after finishing legal proceedings to hold the landlord accountable, recognizing that they might not ever be reimbursed, Marder said.

“At this point there’s nothing for low-income people with bed bugs to do before their landlords can get held accountable,” Marder said, “and in the meantime it’s just going to spread like wildfire.”

Marder said most families just move out — only for another family to move into the same, bed buginfested housing.

“A lot of the landlords have little income themselves and want to help but can’t,” Marder said.

Marder is speaking with the Department of Health for advice on developing her idea, but said there are many concerns, like liability, that she doesn’t know how to manage yet.

“This is all very much an idealistic dream, but it’s worth pursuing, I guess. I hope.”

C ampus n ews Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Widespread flu hits R.I., but misses Brown 9 8

National flu reports

7

R.I. flu reports

6 5 4 3 2

9

16

19

26 Feb. 2

12

29

Jan. 5

22

8

15

Dec. 1

17

24

10

Nov. 3

20

27

13

1 0

Week ending category of activity.

“It is considered a pretty bad flu year, and we’re also at the peak of flu season,” said Bagnall Degos, adding that the past few years have been mild in comparison.

Rhode Island State Epidemiologist Utpala Bandy said the usual reason for a high level of flu activity is the emergence of a strain to

which greater numbers of people are susceptible.

“That’s ... because maybe those (flu virus variants) have not come by in a long time or simply because people haven’t been vaccinated,” Bandy said.

Vaccination is an item of concern, continued on page 6

Cooking House may lose residential status

By Christian Martell Staff Writer

Two years ago, a group of individuals formed a community with a simple goal: to live and cook together. Now, that community is looking to change its home, while still maintaining that mission.

Cooking House, which is currently located in Olney House, expects to lose its official status as a program house because of an insufficient number of returning members. The house, created two years ago, had 22 original members, but its membership has since dwindled to just four who plan to return next year.

The criteria for program houses are set by the Residential Council.

According to ResCouncil’s Web site, program houses are required to return a minimum of five inhouse members each year. Other guidelines include sponsoring two on-campus events and two community service events per semester and maintaining a minimum of 22 or maximum of 30 members.

Cooking House fell just short of the minimum membership this

Former asst. provost to lead DePauw University

BY Hudson Leung Contributing Writer

National baseline (2.2%)

Oct. 6

This year, Rhode Island is one of 49 states reporting widespread flu activity, according to the Centers for Disease Control. But the widespread activity hasn’t yet struck College Hill — Director of Health Services Edward Wheeler said that a normal amount of students have been coming in for treatment and testing positive for the flu.

“I don’t know if we’re lucky or if it’s going to hit us later,” Wheeler said. He added that this year, like every year, Health Services has seen several students whose symptoms fall somewhere in the range between “little more than a common cold” and a full-blown flu. Wheeler said that tests often reveal these symptoms are caused by other winter viruses instead of the flu.

Andrea Bagnall Degos, spokeswoman for the Rhode Island Department of Health, said over the past few months, the incidence of flu-like illness has been high in at least three of Rhode Island’s five counties. She said this places the state in the CDC’s most elevated

2007-’08 Weekly Percent of Influenza-like Illnesses

10 % Influenza-like Illnesses

By Alessandra Suuberg Contributing Writer

Page 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

year, drawing 20 residents, but was allowed to retain its status.

The four returning Cooking House members, along with nine other interested students, are making plans to take the house from a purely residential program to a University-recognized club with some dedicated members who opt to enter the housing lottery together.

Christine Sunu ’09, one of the original founders of Cooking House, said there had been some interest in forming a club to complement the house because “a lot of people were interested in participating in our activities but already had living arrangements planned.”

Sunu said she believed the change from a program house to a club would be a positive one.

Another member of the house, Jason Leung ’09, also said he is optimistic about the change.

“I really like the idea of a club.

The program house was a good start, but the club will offer more opportunities,” Leung said.

Leung said the time spent organizing community service events such as “Pie vs. Poverty,” a charity

bake sale Cooking House held last year, might now be allotted to other “community-building events.” Some of his ideas for these events include forming bonds with local restaurants and setting up cooking classes with professional chefs from the area.

Leung, Sunu and the other members held an information session Monday night to discuss plans for dealing the loss of a designated living space.

“We are looking for housing that is conducive to building a community around cooking,” Sunu said.

Two locations being considered are Slater Hall and Plantations House.

She said that one reason for the change was that the current location of the program house was not “ideal for carrying out their mission.”

“Living on Wriston is kind of like living in New York. There can be a lot of noise and a lot of things going on at any time. People who are interested in being part of the house may not necessarily be interested in living on Wriston,” she said.

Besides complaints about noise, Sunu said the distance between living space and the kitchen was an issue. The Olney House kitchen is in the basement, and Cooking House members live on the third floor.

The house’s current location in Olney was necessary because all program houses must be in handicap-accessible buildings, said ResCouncil Chair Alexander Dean ’08.

Dean said Cooking House leaders had informally approached the council earlier in the semester for advice, after realizing they would not be able to meet all of the program house guidelines.

“Returning members are a really important part of (recently created) program houses,” Dean said, citing a lack of continuity as the reason for the demise of Games House two years ago.

So far, ResCouncil has not discussed whether they will be re-evaluating program houses this semester.

Its last program house reassessment took place in November.

Brian Casey, a former assistant provost, has been appointed the 19th president of DePauw University, the school announced last Thursday.

Casey, currently the associate dean for academic affairs in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard, will succeed Robert Bottoms, who has served as president of the Greencastle, Ind., institution since 1986. Casey was chosen following a nine-month international search after Bottoms announced last April that he would retire at the end of this academic year, according to a Feb. 21 DePauw press release. Casey will begin his term on July 1.

“I’m terribly excited. I’m daunted by the responsibility, but looking forward to beginning,” Casey said.

“I’m not exactly sure what can prepare you for it because the scope of presidential responsibilities is so wide — I mean, from alumni affairs, to admissions, to athletics, to student life, so you know I’ve had experience in these areas — but as far as the working with faculty to develop intellectual enterprise, I feel ready and happy to be engaged in this.”

In 2005, Casey left Brown, where he “played an important role in furthering initiatives in the Plan for Academic Enrichment,” said Deputy Provost Vincent Tompkins ’84, who has been good friends with Casey since attending graduate school with him at Harvard.

“Brian’s been a friend for more than 15 years. He’s one of the most talented, energetic, thoughtful people I’ve ever known, and I think this job is a terrific fit with the skills that he has, and I think he’ll do a great job,” Tompkins said.

Casey was “instrumental in the conceptualization and creation of

Courtesy of DePauw.edu

Brian Casey will be the next president of DePauw University. the Commerce Organizations and Entrepreneurship program as well as the (Rhode Island School of Design) joint-degree program,” Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Elizabeth Huidekoper wrote in an e-mail.

Professor of Sociology Mary Fennell wrote in an e-mail to The Herald that she remembers collaborating with Casey on the creation of the COE concentration.

“He has a lot of energy and a ver y positive, can-do attitude, which motivates those around him to work hard and to reach for higher goals,” she wrote. “He cares deeply about the future of higher education and the quality of the educational experience offered by our colleges and universities.”

Casey, who spent seven years as a Brown administrator, said, “What I would love to bring to DePauw is a sense of intellectual curiosity and engagement that you’ll find with Brown faculty and Brown students.

That’s the hallmark of Brown — it’s that the students particularly are — they’re curious, they’re interested, they’re willing to be creative in their own intellectual endeavors.

And if I could bring even a small part of that quality to this liberal arts college out in Indiana, I think I will have done my job.”

C.S. students prepare for international competition

By Colin Chazen Contributing Writer

Considering that they will be competing against the best collegestudent computer programmers in the world this April, the three Brown students heading to the International Collegiate Programming Contest Finals were surprisingly calm.

“We might meet as a team, go through problems,” said Greg Pascale ’09, referring to how they are preparing, because the students do not regularly meet and because one is studying in New Zealand this semester. “I’m pretty happy just to have made it this far.”

Last fall, the team placed first in the pre-regional contest and then placed second, behind a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the regional contest, according to the Web site of the Association for Computer Machinery, which ran the contest.

This qualified them for the world finals in Alberta, Canada, where they will be competing against students from 83 countries.

The contest, held annually since 1977 by the ACM, tests students’ ability to design programs capable of solving a packet of six to eight problems within a fivehour time limit, according to the association’s Web site.

Each team of three students is assigned one computer. One student typically writes code for an individual problem, while the other two students think about how they will solve the next problems before switching off. Once the easy problems are completed by an individual student, the task becomes more of a collaborative effort, with the three bouncing ideas off each other and working together to debug code.

The contest is “equal parts pure problem solving and ... programming ability,” said Pascale.

Dimitar Bounov ’09 will fly in from New Zealand for the competition. But the team does not expect his absence until then to hurt their performance.

“You can’t really prepare for continued on page 7

Page 6

Delicate balance in preserving buildings continued from page 3 Spies, executive vice president for planning and senior adviser to the president.

Providence contains both local historical districts and nationally registered ones that sometimes overlap, said Jason Martin, a preservation planner in the city planning department who also staffs the Historic District Commission. City districts are empowered by state law, while national designation does not impose as many restrictions on historic buildings, he said.

In 2002, Providence, with input from the PPS, created the Industrial and Commercial Buildings District, “the region’s first non-continuous, thematic local historic district,” according to the city’s Department of Planning and Development’s Web site. It consists of a number of 19th and 20th century buildings from around the city.

There are eight historic districts in Providence, according to the Web site, and buildings in the districts face certain restrictions regarding renovations, additions and demolition. “We do about 200-plus applications per year and staff handle about three quarters of those — when I say staff, I mean me,” Martin said.

Brown’s preservation efforts “Essentially the whole campus is in one or another historic district,” Spies said. Brown interacts with the PPS and the city planning department on a regular basis, especially with ongoing construction projects such as the Creative Arts Center and the Walk.

“We have advantages from being in a really rich and active community, (but) with advantages come some constraints and that’s just a fact of life,” Spies said.

Brown has come before the PPS and the Historic District Commission with their Strategic Framework for Physical Planning and is currently seeking advice from the PPS on construction and renovation projects such as the planned renovation of Faunce House. “They’re working with us now with what to do with the houses on Angell Street which are in the footprint of the Mind Brain (Behavior) building,” Emmenecker said.

In recent years, Brown has won PPS Annual Preservation Awards for “excellence in preservation projects” for the Maddock Alumni Center on Brown Street and the Cabinet Building on Waterman Street, Emmenecker said.

A number of Brown-owned buildings have also been recognized as having historic importance by the federal government. Six University buildings are listed with the United States Department of the Interior’s National Register of Historic Places — University Hall, built in 1770;

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Nightingale-Brown House, in 1792; Gardner House, in 1806; Hoppin House, in 1855; Corliss-Brackett House, in 1882; and the Ladd Observatory, in 1891.

“It is something to be proud of,” Spies said. “I’d like to think that we would have taken the same care of those buildings and seen them as historically and institutionally valuable even if they hadn’t been designated,” he said.

Brown studied the question of “the preservation of the campus and the community that we are a part of” a few years ago with a grant from the Getty Foundation, Spies said.

The Getty Foundation awards grants to “strengthen the understanding and preservation of the visual arts,” according to its Web site. With the grant, Brown attempted to develop a set of principles regarding preservation and to identify “monumental spaces” on campus, Spies said.

One of the study’s outcomes that Spies calls “really important and smart,” was “a set of ground rules for the maintenance of (historic buildings) so as part of the training program for the facilities staff ... you don’t find a plumber or electrician come into Corliss-Brackett House and say we need to knock down this wall and run a raceway along this wall,” he said.

The University spends a significant sum on preservation and renovation, “more money than if our only goal was to use the space,” Spies said. Administrators often must decide which buildings are worth preserving and which aren’t.

“It wasn’t just about saving old things just because they were old and preventing change. It was about new developments enhancing the old and making good judgments about what to preserve,” he said.

Spies cited Antoinette Downing, the founder of the PPS, as someone who inspired Brown’s attitude toward preservation.

Historical value factors into preservation decisions, Spies said.

“There will be a day when Prince Lab will have outlived its usefulness and we should just tear it down without a moment’s hesitation — it doesn’t have any of that historic and aesthetic value,” he said. “There isn’t a hard-and-fast rule,” he added.

Controversy in conservation Though some University and city officials say they value historic preservation, both entities have made controversial decisions regarding old buildings. “Actions by the University really stimulated much of the preser vation movement in Providence because we cleared or demolished parts of neighborhoods on the East Side to expand our campus in the 1950s,” said Malone, the urban studies professor.

“The Rockefeller Librar y — where that stands there were

some beautiful mansions that were knocked down ... and larger projects like Wriston Quad and Keeney Quad took out whole blocks of neighborhoods,” Emmenecker said.

“Some of that I think we would not do again,” Malone said.

The University has shown a commitment to preservation since then, Malone said. “That’s the 1950s, let’s not leave it there — Brown has done a wonderful job with key buildings on our campus and continues to pay attention to preser vation when it does campus planning,” he said.

“Because of some mistakes that might have been made in the past — I’m speaking 60 to 80 years ago ­— they have come to us almost as a consultant when they are planning projects,” Emmenecker said.

A much more recent preser vation controversy currently surrounds the Providence city government’s and local developer Carpionato Properties’ demolition of the Harris Avenue Food and Produce Terminal. Carpionato Properties purchased the terminal building for $4.5 million from the Department of Transportation last year, and obtained a permit in Januar y to demolish the 1929 building on the grounds that it was unsafe, according to a Jan. 27 Providence Journal article. Despite some outcr y, the company has already started demolition, a move Malone calls “an outrageous action.”

“Developers found a loophole in the city zoning ordinance that, under state law, if a building is declared a public safety hazard, the city officials can issue an emergency demolition order that bypasses regulations that have been set in place,” Emmenecker said.

The original understanding was that the old building would be reused in future development projects and January’s events created a bitter dispute between local preservationists, state officials and Carpionato Properties, the Journal reported.

According to a Jan. 31 Providence Journal article, the Department of Transportation has accused Carpionato Properties of “demolition by neglect.” The firm struck back by pointing out that the most significant damage to the building happened under the DOT’s ownership, the Journal also reported.

“Neither group made enough of an effort to secure the building,” Emmenecker said.

“In preservation, unfortunately, most things are reactionary and it’s a reactive type of thing instead of a proactive type of thing. A lot of people were upset about the produce market and so the mayor issued an executive order and formed a working group that looks at demolition policies in the city — demolition vs. demolition by neglect,” Martin said.

The group is exploring ways to be more proactive about preservation and how to increase regulations for nationally listed buildings that don’t fall under local historic districts, he said.

It is always difficult to strike the right balance between historical preservation and change. “You can move something, you can demolish something, you can alter something for a new use and you have to decide which is in the best interests of the University and the community,” Malone said.

“People shouldn’t see preservation as an obstruction to progress ­— it really helps to create a satisfying urban environment when we can preserve the things that are significant and attractive,” he said.

Taiko group goes oldschool to build drums continued from page 1 1,400 years. Originally used for religious purposes and wartime ceremonies, ensemble Taiko drumming has become a popular form of entertainment in recent decades.

Drum building is an integral par t of the Taiko experience, group members said. Dr um builders use a chain saw to cut down a large tree, which they carve out and paint. Cowhide is then strapped around and nailed onto the wood, a feat that often requires a car jack because of the weight of the wooden barrel.

Though Machida brought several of his own drums from Japan when he founded the group, members have built additional drums to accommodate the growing number of players. This process began during Machida’s junior year, when he raised funds to bring his former teachers from Japan to the U.S. for six weeks of drum building. Members have since continued working on the drums.

“Since we’re just beginner drum builders, we’re just experimenting,” Machida said.

The experiments have not always gone well. The group decided to order the cowhide this year after procuring hides from a Providence area slaughterhouse and tr ying to prepare them on their own once before. After removing all of the fat and meat from the skins and attempting the tanning process, the students found they were dissatisfied with the results.

“I hope there aren’t many vegetarians reading this,” Machida said.

Peter Sheppard ’09, a member of the Taiko group, said “a lot can go wrong” in the difficult and lengthy drum-making process, but he and Machida both said the process is exciting.

The group is currently building five more drums, each about three to four feet long and approximately 100 pounds. Machida said the group is committed to using traditional methods to build the drums, even though modern

techniques can be faster.

“The whole process of building the drums builds up to the fun of actually playing them,” Machida said. He added that building the drums from scratch deepens the players’ passions for performing.

“There’s a certain spirituality in the creation of a Taiko,” said RISD sophomore Miles Endo, another member of the group.

The spiritual component of Taiko is tied to the Shinto religion, he said.

The group’s commitment to Japanese tradition extends beyond drum building and influences their performance style. Sheppard said Brown Taiko models itself after Kodo, a well-known professional Japanese Taiko group. Though Sheppard said this is the style he knows and loves, he added that the group is “tr ying to branch out a little bit this year into some more American styles.”

Still, Endo said, “Brown Taiko has more of a traditionally and truly Japanese style.”

Group members said the fun of performing motivates them.

Machida said traveling to different schools along the East Coast to perform something students have never seen before is the best part.

“You see the looks on people’s faces, (and) you get an incredible reaction that’s very, very genuine and very fresh. For us, that feels good,” Machida said.

The long road trips are often bonding experiences for the group.

Machida remembers the trips — including once getting lost minutes before they were scheduled to perform — as highlights of his experience with Brown Taiko.

“Everyone in the group likes to have a lot of fun,” Machida said.

“The performances are always a good time.”

Many of the group members plan to continue Taiko drumming after they graduate. Machida said he hopes to pursue it professionally, but added that its appeal stands on its own.

“At the end of the day, it’s very representative of Japanese culture,” he said.

Flu season spares College Hill — for now, at least continued from page 5 with the CDC having announced that this year’s vaccine fails to cover several strains of flu virus that are currently circulating.

Bandy said that college students, given their busy schedules, have “notoriously low rates” when it comes to vaccination campaigns in general. But Brown students seem to be an exception to that rule. Around 1,500 attend free flu shot clinics that the University offers in late fall, Wheeler said.

Students who do contract the flu should wash their hands frequently, stay rested and hydrated and avoid close contact with other people, Wheeler said. He added that if certain symptoms, such as respiratory distress and significant coughing, arise, students should call Health Services.

Wheeler also addressed one common vaccination misconception: “The flu shot will give you the flu — that’s a myth.”

He said that people should not be discouraged from getting vaccinated, adding that the flu shot is beneficial on two counts: It helps prevent the flu in individuals, and it also decreases the amount of flu circulating in the community.

“The main thing here is prevention,” he said, noting that a college campus is the ideal environment for the spread of viruses.

While Brown no longer offers flu vaccinations at this point in the season, Bagnall Degos said students can still get immunized at many doctors’ offices in the state. Though flu season has already reached its peak, she said, circulation can continue into the spring, as late as May.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Americans need lower Survey: More Americans change faith taxes, Huckabee says

By Michelle Boorstein and Jacqueline L. Salmon Washington Post

continued from page 1 was the only candidate in favor of a “human-life amendment to the Constitution.”

Though he did not talk about the war in Iraq, Huckabee contrasted “the culture of death of the Islamic fascists” to America — a “country (that) always needs to be a country that stands for life.”

The former governor also went into specifics on his domestic policy plans. He pointed out his successful education reforms in Arkansas, criticized the healthcare system — or “disease-care” system, as he called it — and called for lowering taxes, a message likely to resound with Rhode Islanders, who have some of the highest taxes in the country.

Huckabee argued that taxes hurt both “free enterprise” and individual Americans.

“There’s a reason the average American is less afraid of getting mugged than getting audited,” said Huckabee. “If you get mugged, it’s over in just a minute,” he joked.

The candidate then offered his own solution: Eliminate the Internal Revenue Service. He won over the crowd with his suggestion that “April 15th could be just another beautiful day in Rhode Island.”

Huckabee has been advocating a “Fair Tax” plan, in which a national sales tax would replace the current income tax system.

Huckabee ended his remarks on a light note by stressing the moral obligation of Rhode Islanders to support him — even if it takes immoral methods. The Southern Baptist minister joked that the crowd should not only vote for him, but also “let the air out of the tires” of anyone who wouldn’t.

Huckabee acknowledged that the odds are stacked against him, both in the national race and in Rhode Island, but that didn’t seem

to dampen his support at the rally.

Richard Wilford, a former Brown student and a current pastor in Providence, told The Herald that Huckabee’s emphasis on family values and religion are potential solutions to the “breakdown in family” in black culture.

Wilford, who is black, chuckled when asked if his vote for Huckabee would be wasted, since McCain needs about 200 delegates to secure the Republican nomination, which requires 1,191 delegates. Huckabee would need nearly 1,000 delegates to get his party’s nod.

“It’s not over until the fat lady sings — I think she’s warming up,” Wilford said with a smile.

One supporter, David Hathaway Sr., the coordinator and chairman of Huckabee’s Rhode Island Delegate Selection and Steering Committee, said his candidate was primed for a strong Ocean State showing and that the negativity surrounding his chances was media spin.

“There’s been an attempt to marginalize his support base to only evangelical Christians,” Hathaway said, while acknowledging that the campaign might not be quite ready for a nomination victory. Citing Ronald Reagan’s failed 1976 bid for the nomination, Hathaway said of the Huckabee camp, “it takes time to fully form what they’ve got.”

Despite trailing in national polls, Huckabee sounded optimistic about his chances of at least prolonging the race until the Republican National Convention in early September. The candidate said that wins in Rhode Island and Texas and a strong Ohio showing could bring the campaign to the Minneapolis convention.

A recent poll sponsored by the American Research Group shows Huckabee trailing McCain in the state, 18 percent to 65 percent. The poll was conducted from Feb. 20 to 21.

Brown team to program in ‘real-world’ situations continued from page 5 these types of contests in a short amount of time,” said the team’s adviser, John Jannotti, associate professor of computer science.

The two team members at Brown this semester, Pascale and Adrian Vladu ’11, said they might prepare by doing some mock problems on an online site, but that their time is limited. Having a strong background in problem solving, programming and the computer language C++, which they will use at the competition, is far more important than training specifically for the event, Vladu said.

Although only in his first year at Brown, Vladu, who attended a computer science high school in Romania, has been competing in ACM contests since he was in ninth grade. Though the there are more problems — and more difficult ones — at the college level, the nature of the contests is similar.

The most significant change is that he receives less attention here compared to Romania, where the high school contest is closely followed and highly publicized.

“In high school, it was pretty fun,” Vladu said. “Being a high achiever gave you a certain social status.”

Since 1997, the contest has been sponsored by IBM. In addition to providing computer infrastructure, volunteers and funding, top company programmers write problems for the contest. IBM recruits heavily from the contest, which mimics a real-world job by forcing students to work under time pressure in cooperation with other programmers, said Margaret Ashida, director of IBM’s University Talent Programs.

Participating in the competition distinguishes students by showing that they have the “social skills to complement the technical skills” necessary for programming jobs, Ashida said.

Vladu hopes the contest grows in popularity and that “people will start appreciating programming contests like they do American football.”

America has always been a competitive religious marketplace, but a major survey released Monday shows a country increasingly exploring different faith identities and ways of worship. More than 40 percent of respondents told pollsters that they had changed their religious affiliation since childhood.

Experts say the growth of religious minorities, American mobility and intermarriage are key factors in the churn documented in the Religious Landscape Survey, one of the largest such polls ever done, with 35,000 adults interviewed.

Conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the survey confirms on a grand scale trends that demographers have noted for years: the slipping percentage of Protestants, now down to 51, and the rise of people who call themselves unaffiliated, now at 16 percent, up from similar surveys.

The survey also lays out, just weeks before Pope Benedict XVI’s first papal visit to the United States, the Catholic Church’s challenge here: no American faith group has lost more adherents. Among U.S. adults, about the same percentage — 24 — call themselves Catholic as in the past, but that statistic masks significant turnover. The percentage has held up primarily because of the huge number of recent Latino immigrants, who are largely Catholic, the survey found.

Sixty-eight percent of people raised Catholic still identify with their childhood denomination, compared with 80 percent of Protestants and 76 percent of Jews.

Millions of dollars are being pumped into such research as religious institutions — like hospitals, universities and social ser vice organizations — watch Americans increasingly dismiss the importance of denomination, long a key societal organizer. Old barometers of religiosity such as church membership are becoming less important as Americans craft a more bottom-up, individualized concept of faith. The new landscape has nondenominational megachurches, worship services in movie theaters, Episcopalians speaking in tongues and independent rabbinical schools.

“When it comes to religion, there is believing, belonging and behaving, and they don’t always correlate,” said Barry Kosmin, a co-author of the 2001 American Religious Identification Sur vey, which polled 50,000 people but asked fewer questions than the new Pew poll.

Pew’s survey also includes a basic sketch of each state’s religious profile. For example, compared with national percentages, Virginia has relatively more white evangelicals and fewer Catholics.

The sur vey is likely to feed the debate raging among scholars about what is happening in American religion. Some think that secularism is underreported as people may check a box correlating to a faith group without actually believing its tenets or following its practices. Others think the growth of the unaffiliated (sometimes called “religious

nones,” because they check “none” when asked their faith on polls) disguises the number of people who consider themselves “spiritual but not religious.”

Tom Smith, director of a major sociological survey at the University of Chicago, estimated that 25 percent of U.S. adults think of themselves as spiritual but not religious. “Some trends show there is less support for organized religion but either a steady or, by some measures, rising support for personal religious beliefs,” Smith said.

Some Catholic researchers played down the survey’s finding that about 10 percent of U.S. adults are former Catholics and said that the church has always been significantly impacted by immigration.

They also said the church’s membership has increased by about 20 million since 1965.

Mary Gautier, a sociologist at Georgetown’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, said Catholics are more likely than members of other denominations to say they “left” their faith because the bar of being a “practicing Catholic” is high.

“They feel guilty,” she said. “If you’re a Methodist and you only go to church occasionally, you don’t consider yourself no longer practicing, but Catholics tend to do that.”

But Oscar Mendez, who coordinates charismatic renewal for the Arlington (Va.) Diocese, said he sees evidence of Catholics leaving, particularly for Protestant denominations. According to Pew, one in 10 Protestants was raised Catholic.

Too many Catholics, Mendez said, fall back on the label but don’t engage with the church and don’t have a “mature” faith. Protestants, he said, have been better at creating conditions for people to “have an experience” with Jesus.

www.browndailyherald.com

More than anything else in the poll, Pew highlighted the fluidity of identity, noting that faith groups constantly gain and lose members.

Twenty-eight percent of Americans have left the group they were raised in, switching, for example, from Protestantism to Judaism or from the Orthodox faith to Catholicism.

When peoplewho have switched from one Protestant denomination to another are included, the number jumps to 44 percent.

America has always been very religiously vibrant, said Pew political scientist John Green, but today there are more options, more “things you can move from and to.”

Fred Kurth, a retired aerospace engineer, was married at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. He later became a Unitarian Universalist and led several congregations as he moved around the world with General Electric. After meeting his second wife in Morocco, he had to face a hard choice: convert to Islam or forgo marrying her. “I was soul-searching. I had to answer, How far is it? If I’m a Unitarian, I believe there is a direct link between me and God, and no third party to go through, how different is that from Islam?”

Today Kurth, who took the name Ibrahim, prays ever y day at the mosque near his home in Fredericksburg, Va., and carries a prayer rug in his car.

The group that has grown the most is made up of those who are unaffiliated, including people who call themselves atheist and agnostic. Also included in this group are those who said they are “nothing in particular” — some of whom went on to say religion is “very important” to them. Seven percent of survey respondents said they were raised as unaffiliated, less than half the percentage who call themselves unaffiliated today.

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Tuesday, February 26, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

No coach is no problem W. hockey sends off seniors with a sweep for w. tennis in home win continued from page 12

continued from page 12 Vucetic ’10 breezed to a 6-1, 6-2 win. No. 5 Marisa Schonfeld ’11 won 6-1, 6-3, and No. 6 Emily Ellis ’10 took her match, 6-2, 6-3.

Dubusker encouraged the team not to get discouraged in its singles matches after being in an 1-0 hole after doubles play. She said the team showed strong singles play and a good mind-set in the week’s practices.

“I knew that we were playing with more confidence than we had” in the past, Dubusker said.

Winning both three-set matches as well as coming back from an initial deficit are good signs of the team’s emotional strength.

Dubusker noted that the Bears players were more supportive of each other — vocally and physi-

cally — than were BU’s players.

“We’re doing the team stuff really well,” she said.

But it’s not time for the team to get complacent, as the squad has a busy weekend coming up. The team will play in two competitions on Saturday and one on Sunday.

All three contests will be played at the Pizzitola Center.

On Saturday, Bruno will play Rhode Island (1-0) at 9 a.m., followed by Bucknell (1-4) at 1 p.m.

Brown will play Syracuse (6-6) on Sunday at 11 a.m., a matchup Dubusker said should be an “interesting test.”

After missing a dominant victory last weekend, you can count on Wardlaw to be on the courts this weekend. It might be another 23 years before he’s elsewhere during a competition.

W. lax ‘feels the beat’ in 17-7 win in home opener continued from page 12 9-4 lead over the Pioneers.

But Bruno’s lull came to an abrupt halt with a four-goal scoring streak to open the second half.

Vitkus netted two more goals and Caldwell scored the first of her career. Though Sacred Hear t broke the streak with a goal off a free-position shot, Markwoski and Kelly followed with their second goals of the game, giving Brown a 15-5 lead.

With 14:43 to go, play was back and forth, with additional Brown goals by Nunn and Ali Holland ’08. Milliseconds after the buzzer, Caldwell fired a final goal that did not count toward the score, but served as additional proof of the Bears dominance.

Though Bears’ offense dominated the game, Noelle DiGioia ’09, Val Sherry ’09 and Tori Conway ’11 held the defensive end together. Kelly had four ground balls while Vitkus had four draw controls. Goalie Melissa King ’08 kept Pioneer scoring to a minimum with three saves.

The Bears demonstrated a higher level of play and determination to defeat an opponent who last year forced them into overtime. Their play was marked with impressive give-and-go sequences through the midfield that were finished with an impressive number of goals. Staying true to the team’s 2008 motto — “Feel the Beat” — as expressed on the sleeve of their warm-up shirts, the Bears fought as an impenetrable unit, moving in tandem with the rhythm of their teammates and coaches.

“We are really looking to build off the momentum of this win,” said Justine Lupo ’08, one of the game’s co-captains. “We’re looking forward to North Carolina where we face some tough competitors.

I think today was proof that this team is ready to make a statement this season.”

The Bears will travel to North Carolina to face the No. 4 Tar Heels on Feb. 28. McDonald said the team is “really looking forward to playing a ranked opponent. The team is really fired up.”

two minutes left in the first period.

Whitney Naslund broke up the right side and beat the screened Stock.

“Those are always tough shots because your defenseman doesn’t close a gap the right way, and then they use them as a screen,” Stock said. “She made a nice shot, right inside the post. Sometimes you’ve just got to hand your hat to them and move on.”

Stock and the Bears did just that. In a penalty-filled weekend in which Brown was whistled for 18 infractions and its opponents for 17, the Bears had to kill off a pair of five-on-three advantages in the second period to preserve their 2-1 lead.

As the Bears clung to the tenuous lead, Stock made 15 of her 35 saves in the third period, including a nifty move with her glove that deflected one high shot “like a little rainbow over the net,” as she described it. But the pressure really mounted with 3:38 left, when a slashing call on Jenny Cedorchuk ’10 gave the Engineers a power play.

Brown killed it, but Rensselaer pulled Mayr for an extra attacker and called a time-out with 1:31 left.

The coaches tried an unusual ploy to keep the Bears loose.

“We drew up a play that we typically do when we’re down a goal to clear it out of the zone,” Murphy said. “(I said), ‘Let’s be aggressive and try to make a play as opposed to defend a play.’ … You look in their eyes and they’re hungry, and you know that they have the ability to do it now and it’s just about executing.

I was really proud of them.”

The Bears never quite cleared the puck, but they did sufficiently disrupt the Engineers’ offense. After Stock pounced on a rebound sitting loose in the crease with 24.2 seconds left, Rensselaer couldn’t manage another shot.

Brown tried to take some mo-

mentum into its second game, against Union. But the visitors struck first, scoring in a four-on-four situation only 2:59 into the game.

From that point on, the Bears mowed down the Dutchwomen as if they were a field of tulips. Brown answered with the tying goal 1:43 later. After passes by Olewinski and Moore, Van Muyen took a shot from the right point that appeared to deflect off of Olewinski’s skate in front of the net and past Union goalie Lundy Day. The early offense quieted down until Brown took advantage of a power play with 1:27 left in the first period. Moore took the puck in from the left side to the front of the net and waited before beating Day with a low shot for her 13th goal of the season. Andrea Hunter ’10 and Cedorchuk picked up assists on the play.

The Bears padded their lead with an insurance goal in a fiveon-three advantage 2:33 into the second period on Kromm’s sixth goal of the season. Moore added her third point of the game on her 15th assist of the season, while Olewinski tallied her second point on her ninth assist. Still, a two-goal lead wasn’t enough for Murphy.

“I kept hammering them to try to get the fourth (goal), because I was trying to get the fourth line in,” she said. “A two-goal lead, they say, is a deadly lead, because if the other team scores then they’re knocking at your door.”

The Bears had two more good chances to get the extra tally. As the power play continued after Kromm’s goal, Jaclyn Small ’11 took a shot from the point that appeared to hit the crossbar, dropped to the ice and caused a scrum in front of the net that ended when Connors was whistled for goaltender interference. Then, midway through the third period, Moore appeared to score her second goal, but the play was waived off because she

committed a tripping penalty just before the shot.

Ultimately, it didn’t matter that Brown wasn’t able to score the fourth goal, partly because Stock made the lead stand up. Early in the third period during a Bears’ power play, Stock stretched out to deflect a shot with her leg pads, tallying her 1000th save of the season on the play. After making 17 saves in the game, she finished the season with 1004 saves, shattering the previous Brown record of 681, set by Ali Brewer ’00 in 1999-2000. Stock also joined Union’s Day as the only two goalies in the country to eclipse 1000 saves this season.

After the game, the Bears held an emotional ceremony on the ice honoring the seniors. Moore, who finished her career at Brown eighth all-time in goals (69) and points (133), was awarded the Panda Cup for “outstanding team spirit, good sportswomanship and dedication to playing ice hockey,” as the media guide describes it.

Both of the captains expressed a wide range of feelings about the end of their careers.

“It’s a lot of mixed emotions, I guess,” Moore said. “It’s really tough because I’ve had such a great time here with all my teammates for four years, but it’s nice to see that we finished on a good note.”

The season may have just ended, but already Murphy brims with optimism about the prospects of next year’s team.

“I think we’ll be pretty run-andgun,” she said. “I think we’re going to be a team that just comes at you; we’re going to have a lot of depth. We’ve got Stock in the back.

The D’s going to be a year older, so they’re going to be that much more confident. I think we lose a lot with our seniors, but there are a lot of other teams that are going to lose a lot more. I think we’re definitely going to finish, I’d say top half, minimum,” in the ECAC.

M. icers beat Big Green, lose to Crimson continued from page 12 tender to give Brown a 2-1 lead.

“If you let Dartmouth get up by a goal or two, they’re a completely different team, especially at home,” Prough said. “We took the crowd out of it, and that gave us the confidence to get right back in the game.”

In the middle of the second period, the Bears got themselves in trouble with a pair of penalties, to give the Big Green a five-on-three advantage for two minutes. Technically, the Bears were able to contain Dartmouth for the entirety of the two-man advantage, but a shot finally got past goalie Dan Rosen ’10 to tie the game at two, just as the two players were returning to the ice.

“That was a little deflating, but our guys did what they had to do, they reared back and went after them again,” said Head Coach Roger Grillo.

Less than two minutes later,

though, Dartmouth got slapped with a five-minute penalty, and with 6:36 remaining in the period, Ryan Garbutt ’09 beat the goaltender to give Brown the lead for good.

In addition to the goal, Garbutt had two assists on the night, assisting on Pietrus’ goal and later on a goal by David Brownschidle ’11.

With 5:10 to go in the second period, Chris Poli ’08 added to Bruno’s lead off a pass from Matt Vokes ’09. Poli received the puck near the crease and fired a shot past the goaltender to make the score 4-2. But Dartmouth kept fighting, and answered back with a goal just more than a minute later, putting the score within one at 4-3 going into the final frame.

Brown killed three power-play opportunities for Dartmouth in the first half of the third period, and with 7:14 remaining in the game, Brownschidle knocked in a rebound off a shot by Garbutt to regain the two-goal cushion for the Bears.

Only 1:03 later, the Big Green capitalized on its ninth power play of the night to make it a 5-4 game, but Bruno held on for the win, to complete its first season sweep of Dartmouth since 1997-98.

Rosen finished with 38 saves to contain a Dartmouth attack that outshot the Bears, 38-19.

On Saturday, the Bears again fell behind early, when a Harvard player knocked a rebound past Rosen to

give the Crimson a 1-0 lead just 6:51 into the game. Late in the period, Bruno tied the game when Prough redirected a Hurley shot past the goaltender to make the score 1-1.

But from that point on, the Brown offense was unable to muster any kind of attack, as Harvard’s trap defense, with three defenders back in the zone at all times, limited the Bears to just five shots in the second period and two shots in the third.

“We seemed to run out of gas,” Grillo said. “We were in the same situation as the night before, in a tie game on the road, and we fell flat. We just didn’t have the jump we needed.”

A bright spot in Saturday’s game was a brilliant performance by Rosen, who made 34 saves, including a blocked penalty shot late in the second period to keep the score knotted at 1-1.

But the Crimson grabbed the lead just 50 seconds into the third period, and the game ended with Harvard on top, 2-1.

Brown will host Rensselaer and Union this weekend, in the team’s final regular season series in preparation for the ECAC playoffs.

“As long as you’re playing your best hockey towards the end, that’s all that matters,” Prough said. “We’re feeling pretty confident, no matter who we’re playing, and that confidence was the biggest positive to come out of this weekend.”

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Seniors consider class gift contributions continued from page 1 uted last year, and thousands more than the $2,006 she contributed in 2006.

The donations from students aren’t usually quite so large. In fact, the amount of money donated is less important to the University then the act of donating itself, Corcoran said.

She added that University officials hope participation in the class gift will encourage current seniors to give money to Brown on a regular basis after they graduate.

“We ask people to make a gift that they feel represents their time at Brown,” Corcoran said. “We find that most of the gifts that come in are a gift of $20.08 to represent the class.”

“It really comes down to just showing your support for the University, ” Pels said.

Seniors who spoke to The Herald had mixed opinions about donating to the gift.

“I don’t know much about it. I

$25,000 20,000

Annual class gifts President Simmons’ gift Senior class participation (Anon. donor challenge)

68%

65%

$20,007

100% $20,008 (72%)

64%

15,000

90 80 70 60 50 40

10,000

30 20

5,000 0

$2,005

$2,006

'05

'06

don’t really have extra money I feel like donating,” said Andrea Titus ’08.

“I was planning to donate a little,” said Dana Frankel ’08. “It would depend on what it was going to.”

10 '07

'08

0

“I am going to donate,” said Rebecca Silverman ’08. “I’ve heard from friends of mine who donated last year, and they told me that most people give to it.”

Seniors who choose to donate to the fund must do so by June 30.

Alum’s candidacy focuses on the economy continued from page 1 During the 1998 midterm elections, he set up canvassing trips to Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

And, in what Christopher Hayes ’01 called a “triumph of organizing,” Segall convinced a large number of students — Hayes remembers about 60 — to travel to Pennsylvania to canvass for Al Gore in the 2000 presidential elections.

“It was a tremendous trip that Josh singlehandedly put together,” Hayes said. “Everyone (who canvassed) was so happy they had allowed Josh to cajole and bully them into coming.”

As leader of the College Democrats and a member of the Brown Lecture Board, Segall brought a number of prominent political speakers to campus, including former Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., and Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, according to Gunja.

Segall also organized multiple debates on campus between the College Democrats and the College Republicans and put together “issue-based focus groups,” where 10 to 20 people would gather to discuss readings on topics like Social Security or trade policies, Gunja said.

Segall said that his goal was to make Brown students more politically active. “The ability of your average college students to get involved in politics in a substantive way is enormous,” Segall said.

“Students have a big impact on the process.”

“It was all (Segall’s organizing) and it was a lot of fun,” Gunja said of the reading groups. “At heart, he’s a policy wonk.”

Building an agenda Segall’s next organizational challenge came when he started a localfood movement at the University of Alabama School of Law, from which he graduated in 2006. He called the group “Homegrown Alabama” and created a farmers’ market that still comes to campus once a week in the spring.

After working for several political campaigns, including that of Gov. Mark Warner, D-Va., and observing many others, “you get a sense you can do a little better,” Segall said.

This mind-set pushed Segall to run for Congress himself.

Moreover, he said he believes in the ability of politics to make a difference. “I feel strongly that there are things government can do for people: it can create jobs (and) help provide opportunities,” Segall added.

Segall’s interest in farming extends past the farmers’ market to the wider political issues of his state’s agriculture. He said Alabama is in the midst of its worst drought in 100 years and is in a “water war” with Georgia. The drought was so extreme at one point that only 120 days’ worth of drinking water remained in some counties.

Another crucial issue on Segall’s platform is employment, specifically the 10,000 jobs that have left his congressional district in the past five years — and “that’s a conservative estimate,” Segall said. The movement of textile plants overseas, mostly to Central America, has caused most of the job loss, Segall said, and plants in Alabama just can’t keep up.

“Essentially, we’ve signed a free trade agreement with no protection in it for us. (The other countries) allow child labor and have no working wage requirements,” Segal said. “It’s impossible for us to compete.”

Segall is positioning himself as the candidate who can solve these problems. On the water issue, Segall said he would want the government to fund more reser voirs in Southern states like Alabama. “It may not excite the average person, but the economic impact ... would be billions of dollars.”

As far as creating new jobs and stopping the disappearance of existing ones, Segall proposes investment in the state’s basic infrastructure: “roads, sewer systems, office parks.”

“The most important road in the district is two lanes, but should be a four-lane highway,” Segall said.

“Lacking that, we don’t have an environment where we’re likely to bring in business.”

Segall said he often gets asked about his age and level of experience. He is not worried that those factors will dissuade voters, though.

“For the most part, I think people are willing to give you an oppor-

tunity ... Being young is in many ways a real advantage these days.

I’m not beholden to my party or to my donors.”

Furthermore, Segal said, voters in Alabama are “ticket-splitting voters (who) vote for the best candidate. They’re open to change right now, much more than they have been in the past.”

“For the most part, people are so disappointed in what we have in Washington right now,” he added.

“We have an incompetence problem these days. Wars have been run ver y poorly, (the administration has been) terrible stewards of the economy, bankruptcy reform — all of that has been a problem.”

Support from alums Segall’s former classmates and fellow College Democrats remember his enthusiasm. Hayes, who half-jokingly called Segall “my first friend from the South,” said he is a “very effective organizer” as well as “one of the greatest conversationalists that anyone will ever meet.”

Segall’s former friends and acquaintances from Brown are now helping with the campaign. A growing network of young Brown alums has been donating money, hosting fundraising dinners, making phone calls and creating Web pages with the site ActBlue.com, which allows users to fundraise and generate support for political candidates, Molly Tack ’02 said.

Tack added that Segall will often personally call individuals who are unsure if they will support him and discuss his stance on policies with his friends “to make sure he has all the bases covered” and receives maximum input.

Segall’s old friends and acquaintances say they are not surprised he has gone into politics. “The question was always when it would happen,” Tack said.

“I expected he’d be involved in public service,” Hayes said. “That was incredibly evident.”

“A lot of us would basically do anything for Josh,” Hayes said. He admitted “personal loyalty” to his friend, but added, “to the degree you can have a disinterested perspective, this is someone with boundless energy, judgment, smarts, the sort of integrity and qualities you’d want to have in an elected official.”

Page 9

E ditorial & L etters Page 10

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

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

Squatters’ rights On Monday ResLife approved changes that will make squatting an option for more students. But try not to jump for joy — you need to stay put to take advantage of these new rules.

The policy change will give students — sophomores and up — the option to stay in the on-campus housing they obtained through the lottery, with the exception of a few dorms. You heard right — a new way to skip out on the stressful and unpredictable housing lottery.

Rising juniors who are satisfied with their sophomore housing now don’t have to join obscure program houses or go Greek if they want assurance of a decent room with friends before the lottery. Essentially any student who wants to avoid the lottery simply because it is hectic and unpredictable has the option to do so through squatting. Before the lottery each year, students face the difficult questions of whom to live with, where to live and the relative priority of each. This policy will give students more options as they approach these decisions, and if students value living with their current roommates above all, they have an easy option to do so.

For those who still choose to do the lottery, the process will be simpler, as there will be fewer students entering it and fewer housing options to choose from within it.

Other schools have more intimate and homey housing setups, in which students live in their colleges or houses for several years. Brown’s firstyear units system fosters a sense of community based on living location, but after that, students often feel little attachment to a given building. The dorm experience is drastically different for first-years and upperclassmen.

Allowing students to stay together in a given dorm for several years will make communal, neighborly living no longer just a first-year experience.

Plus, the University frets over campus becoming decentralized as students move off-campus. This new policy will, in a small way, allow students and their friends to stay together in the same room for more than one year, closely linking their Brown experience to it.

We recognize that freshmen receive the short end of the stick with this policy. As they leave their first-year units and scramble to figure out the lottery for the first time, they will have fewer options of appealing rooms when rising juniors choose to squat the housing they picked sophomore year. Come next year, when sophomores are living in less desirable housing because of this, fewer will then want to take advantage of the new policy.

But the University has opted to keep the current sophomore-only housing as such, which we applaud — it guarantees the availability of some appealing housing to freshmen entering the lottery. We believe the new policy change is for the better, overall, since it makes the lottery smoother and can offer students a room that may come to feel more like a home within Brown during their years here.

T he B rown D aily H erald Editors-in-Chief Simmi Aujla Ross Frazier editorial Arts & Culture Editor Robin Steele Asst. Arts & Culture Editor Andrea Savdie Higher Ed Editor Debbie Lehmann Features Editor Chaz Firestone Asst. Features Editor Olivia Hoffman Metro Editor Rachel Arndt Metro Editor Scott Lowenstein News Editor Mike Bechek News Editor Isabel Gottlieb News Editor Franklin Kanin News Editor Michael Skocpol Opinions Editor Karla Bertrand Opinions Editor James Shapiro Sports Editor Whitney Clark Sports Editor Amy Ehrhart Sports Editor Jason Harris Asst. Sports Editor Benjy Asher Asst. Sports Editor Andrew Braca Asst. Sports Editor Megan McCahill

production Steve DeLucia Production & Design Editor Asst. Design Editor Chaz Kelsh Catherine Cullen Copy Desk Chief Adam Robbins Graphics Editor

Senior Editors Taylor Barnes Chris Gang Stu Woo Business Darren Ball General Manager Mandeep Gill General Manager Susan Dansereau Office Manager Alex Hughes Sales Manager Lily Tran Sales Manager Emilie Aries Public Relations Director Jon Spector Accounting Director Claire Kiely National Account Manager Ellen DaSilva University Account Manager Darren Kong Recruiter Account Manager Katelyn Koh Credit Manager Ingrid Pangandoyon Technology Director

jon guyer

L e tt e r s Poor writing can be found just about anywhere To the Editor: I applaud your suggestion that Brown institute a new writing requirement, but it’s too bad no one caught the grammatical and spelling errors in Wednesday’s editorial (“Our writing suggestion,” Feb. 20). Call me a pedant (maybe I don’t blame you), but perhaps I can point the finger at my uncompromising Brown University training.

Maybe I’m the only person under the age of 50 who is bothered by split infinitives, but I couldn’t help noticing your admonition that “aspiring authors and journalists aren’t the only ones who need to rigorously develop (writing) skills.” Further on, you worry that if professors contact a dean too late, “a student will leave their course and possibly take no other writing-

intensive ones.” If, by “their,” you’re attempting to refer to the student, you’d best avoid the plural; if you mean the professors, the plural “courses” is necessary.

Lastly, you misspell the word “assessment,” leaving out that pesky second “s” in the middle. Maybe we should agree to call them misprints. Let’s look on the bright side — at least they’re errors in spelling rather than judgment.

I could go on, noting your abrupt switch from the subjunctive to the indicative in the penultimate paragraph, but I think I’ve made my point. Finally, I repeat your challenge: Got writing game? Prove it.

Claire Leonard ’08.5 Feb. 24

photo Rahul Keerthi Meara Sharma Min Wu Ashley Hess

Photo Editor Asst. Photo Editor Asst. Photo Editor Sports Photo Editor

post- magazine Matt Hill Rajiv Jayadevan Sonia Kim Allison Zimmer Colleen Brogan Arthur Matuszewski Kimberly Stickels

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

Allison Kwong, Designer Paula Armstrong, Ayelet Brinn, Joyce Ji, Jenn Kim, Lisa Qing, Copy Editors George Miller, Michael Skocpol, Joanna Wohlmuth, Night Editors Senior Staff Writers Sam Byker, Nandini Jayakrishna, Chaz Kelsh, Sophia Li, Emmy Liss, Max Mankin, Brian Mastroianni, George Miller, Alex Roehrkasse, Caroline Sedano, Jenna Stark, Joanna Wohlmuth, Simon van Zuylen-Wood Staff Writers Stefanie Angstadt, Caitlin Browne, Marisa Calleja, Zachary Chapman, Noura Choudhury, Joy Chua, Catherine Goldberg, Ben Hyman, Erika Jung, Sophia Lambertsen, Cameron Lee, Christian Martell, Anna Millman, Seth Motel, Evan Pelz, Leslie Primack, Marielle Segarra, Melissa Shube, Catherine Straut, Gaurie Tilak, Matt Varley, Meha Verghese, Allison Wentz Sports Staff Writers Han Cui, Evan Kantor, Christina Stubbe Business Staff Diogo Alves, Steven Butschi, Timothy Carey, Jilyn Chao, Pete Drinan, Dana Feuchtbaum, Patrick Free, Sarah Glick, Soobin Kim, Christie Liu, Philip Maynard, Mariya Perelyubskaya, Paolo Servado, Saira Shervani, Yelena Shteynberg, Robert Stefani, Lindsay Walls, Benjamin Xiong Design Staff Jessica Calihan, Aubrey Cann, Serena Ho, Rachel Isaacs, Andrea Krukowski, Allison Kwong, Joe Larios, Joanna Lee, Aditya Voleti, Pete White Photo Staff Oona Curley, Alex DePaoli, Austin Freeman, Emmy Liss, Tai Ho Shin Copy Editors Fariha Ali, Paula Armstrong, Ayelet Brinn, Rafael Chaiken, Stephanie Craton, Erin Cummings, Katie Delaney, Jake Frank, Anne Fuller, Josh Garcia, Jennifer Grayson, Joyce Ji, Jenn Kim, Tarah Knaresboro, Ted Lamm, Max Mankin, Alex Mazerov, Seth Motel, Alexander Rosenberg, Madeleine Rosenberg, Emily Sanford, Elena Weissman

C o r r e ct i o n s A graphic in Monday’s Herald (“Corporation boosts financial aid,” Feb. 25) depicting University expenditures for fiscal year 2009 omitted spending on sponsored research. Brown has budgeted $122,153,000 for the upcoming academic year to spend on funded research.

A photo in Monday’s Herald (“Tisch ’76: The man on top,” Feb. 25) should have been credited to Rahul Keerthi.

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

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

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O pinions Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Page 11

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

The overachiever’s dilemma

BY CHLOE LUTTS Opinions Columnist “We find time and we find money for the things we value,” Michael Pollan told a packed Salomon 101 last week.

The bestselling author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” Pollan was talking about food, generally, and cooking good food, specifically. His argument was that Americans are suffering from a gross undervaluation of food’s role in our lives. Our focus on nutrition has undermined other, culturally significant reasons for eating — from enjoying food to bonding over it. The quality of what we eat is suffering, as is our health, happiness and general welfare as a society.

I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I would extend the argument even further.

Brown students could use his advice more than most. Ask any Brown student how they are, and more often than not, the answer will be either “tired” or “busy.” Sometimes both. If you don’t believe me, just ask one.

We’re tired because we undervalue sleep.

Stop by the Friedman Study Center at 3 a.m. and you’ll see evidence sound asleep in the armchairs and staring blankly at the computers with carry-on sized bags under their eyes. Pulling an all-nighter to finish a paper or studying until you pass out on your books isn’t just bad time management — it’s a clear statement of values. Grades over sleep.

We have more complex, more individual reasons why we’re always busy. But the bottom line is an undervaluation of so-called “free time” — time spent with friends, time spent

eating a pleasant meal, time spent doing things we enjoy. Time spent, basically, doing things we can’t put on our resume. Too often, we see these things as optional, as indulgences, even as a waste of time.

Brown students are a competitive, overachieving bunch — we wouldn’t be here otherwise — and it follows that the things we value are frequently those that make us feel accomplished. We value achievements that show up on our transcript or our resume.

percent of all your daily vitamins and minerals, you’re still suffering. There’s more to food than nutrients — and there’s more to life than winning.

I come home to my little third-floor apartment every night and cook dinner with one of my roommates. Usually we spend 10 or 20 minutes cooking — on occasion we’ll spend an hour or more making something special.

We eat at the kitchen table and talk or read the paper. Rare is the night when either of us

I know most Brown students don’t have a stove to cook on or even a kitchen table to eat at. My point isn’t that everyone should whip up a fourcourse dinner every night, then put on an apron and bake a souffle.

Things that say, “this person has spent their time doing something important.” Many of us feel irresponsible if we don’t pack every minute of every day with productive activities.

Forget about breakfast and lunch — a granola bar during class and another before going to a practice or a club meeting will have to do.

Pollan’s point and the one I’m trying to make, is that even if that granola bar has 250

brings homework or a computer to the table.

This is dinner time, time to ignore the million things we both have to do. Then, after the dishes are washed and the leftovers are in the fridge, it’s time to get back to work. (Usually.

Sometimes we bake cookies.)

I know most Brown students don’t have a stove to cook on or even a kitchen table to eat at. My point isn’t that everyone should whip up

a four-course dinner every night, then put on an apron and bake a souffle. You should find your own hour of the day — just one out of 24 — where you can do something other than work, and not feel guilty about it. Take some time to think about what you’re undervaluing — what would make your life better? Maybe you have a friend you don’t get to see enough who wants to sit and talk over coffee. Maybe you’ve been dying to get off the hill and go window-shopping at the mall. Maybe you just want to curl up in bed with a book that’s not on any syllabus.

In all likelihood, you’ll find that taking even a short break from what you “should” be doing will translate into better productivity when you do eventually get around to it. Rather than forcing yourself to stay at your computer and then wondering how you wound up spending the last 40 minutes on Facebook, you’ll resent your work less and get it done faster. You might even realize it doesn’t matter as much as you thought it did.

If you’re reading this and wishing you had time to follow Michael Pollan’s advice, you need to rethink your values. Every single person on this earth has the same amount of time in his or her day. That includes you. So if you think you’re too busy to sit down to dinner, find out why. What are you spending your 24 hours doing? Is it something that makes you happy, or is it something you think you “need” to do?

Humans need to sleep and eat. Once in a while we need to move about a bit. Other than that, what you do with your time is up to you.

Make the most of it.

Chloe Lutts ’08 gets cookie dough on her face when she falls asleep over her work

Suburban people are people too

BY MATT PREWITT Opinions Columnist Dear New Brown University Freshman, Are you one of the roughly 150 million Americans from suburbs? If so, you should manage that information carefully. Don’t reveal your origins to city-dwelling peers until your intelligence and sophistication have been firmly established, because a lot of people — especially people from fancy cities like New York or Paris — will immediately think less of you. If an introductory “where are you from” conversation veers into specifics, exaggerate your proximity to an urban center and change the subject. Most suburban kids figure this out rather quickly, but I hope to spare you some grief with an early heads-up.

Also, be careful around your professors.

The suburbs catch a lot of flak from the urban studies folks. And the environmental studies folks. And the cultural studies folks. Actually, the American suburbs are a rather versatile academic whipping boy. They get blamed for global warming (car culture), racism (white flight) and more generally, American closedmindedness, homogeneity and insularity. And these days, the suburbs are further sullied by their association with the real estate bubble.

So, if you’re from the ’burbs, and you remember your upbringing fondly, just keep it to yourself.

But don’t worry — you’re not alone.

Regards, Matt Prewitt Moraga, Calif.

In all seriousness, many critiques of the suburbs are completely valid. Like cities, rural areas and anywhere else, the suburbs have serious flaws.

However, suburb-hating often turns ugly and vitriolic. Furthermore, anti-suburban ideas get in the wrong hands, and they dovetail with outright classism. Specifically, anti-suburban ideology is often a veil for upper-class hostility toward the middle and working classes.

If you pay close attention, this is sometimes obvious.

are being gentrified by the day. Criticizing people for not living in cities is therefore inherently classist unless the criticism exclusively targets the suburban ultra-rich, which it never does.

The oft-repeated notion that suburbanites are rich families who have spurned the cities is dated and false. That narrative applies somewhat to wealthy suburbs close to economic boomtowns, like Silicon Valley’s Atherton, Calif., or isolated rich communities like Jupiter Beach, Fla. But it is utterly inapplicable to the

Anti-suburban ideology is often a veil for upper-class hostility toward the middle and working classes.

Suburb-hating disguises itself as a populist narrative — it claims to be criticizing the rich.

That’s a straw man. Greenwich, Conn., is not representative of anything. Most people in the suburbs are card-carrying members of the American middle class.

We must remember that in recent decades, it has become all but impossible to raise a family in an American city on a middle-class income. Increasingly, cities are starkly segregated by wealth — they are the dwellingplaces of the very rich and very poor. The few remaining urban middle-class neighborhoods

outer-ring suburbs and “exurbs” that are the butt of the ugliest cultural condescension.

When it comes down to it, a lot of suburban people are simply clustering around cities for the work opportunities and cannot afford to live any closer. Nobody likes commuting, and this is reflected by the fact that real estate prices decrease as you get farther from urban centers. Sure, many suburbanites could hypothetically sell their car, go back to renting and live in a small urban apartment.

But it is faintly absurd to fault people for not making that decision, especially if they have

a family.

Critics of the suburbs gleefully trumpet the virtues of public transportation and the evils of car culture. This is well and good.

I, too, wish that suburban cul-de-sacs were underlaid with a subway network. But it isn’t possible. Furthermore, outlying areas that are blessed with superior public transportation have matching real estate premiums, which reinforces the notion that anti-suburban reasoning dovetails with classism.

Much ink has been spilt satirizing, criticizing and lamenting suburban culture. Much of it comes from within — there is a lot of angsty suburban self-loathing. But when educated urbanites criticize suburban culture, it grates, because the issue is inextricable from household economics. The condescension is offhand and unconscious. The average urban studies concentrator from Manhattan does not perceive himself as an elitist, but when he turns up his nose at strip malls and tract housing, he is rubbing salt in a class difference.

If we could rebuild the world from scratch, we would build the suburbs differently. No question about it. But, in the 1950s and 1960s, this country built a whole lot of highways connecting cities to suburbs. These neighborhoods are still inhabited by fine people who commute to work, by automobile, because it is their only option. Not so long ago, gas was cheap, and no one realized the extent of the problem with petrol consumption. So let’s work for a better world, and also accept that suburb-dwellers are not a corrosive cultural element.

Okay, I’ll admit it. I really like driving.

Matt Prewitt ’08 has a white picket fence and enjoys vandalism

S ports T uesday Page 12

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

M. hockey splits in New England trip

W. icers send off seniors with weekend sweep

By Benjy Asher Assistant Sports Editor

The women’s hockey team concluded its season and capped the careers of captains Rensselaer 1 H a y l e y 2 Brown Moore ’08 and R ylee 1 Union Olewinski 3 Brown ’08, assistant captain Emilie Bydwell ’08 and Heather Lane ’08 with a weekend sweep at home.

“It was awesome,” Moore said.

“There’s not any other way that I would rather have it.”

Playing only for pride after being eliminated from playoff contention the week before, the Bears earned a 2-1 victory over Rensselaer on Friday and a 3-1 triumph over Union the following day to secure their first wins at Meehan Auditorium this season.

The sweep improved Brown’s record to 5-19-5 overall and 4-12-4 in the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference, placing the team 10th out of 12.

Still, the Bears needed a little luck to beat the Engineers on Friday.

“I think it was about time the hockey gods smiled favorably on us,” said Head Coach Digit Murphy. “I’m not going to say that was the best game we ever

By Andrew Braca Assistant Spor ts Writer

On Friday night, the men’s hockey team started out the weekend with its first win at Dartmouth’s Thompson Arena in eight years, but the 5 Brown Bears came Dartmouth 4 up just short on Saturday 1 Brown as the offense sputtered in Harvard 2 a 2-1 loss to Harvard. The split this weekend puts Brown at 5-18-4 overall, with a 5-12-3 record in the Eastern College Athletic Conference.

The Big Green grabbed an early lead with 6:40 left in the first period, but the Bears turned that deficit into a lead in the blink of an eye. With 6:10 remaining, Jordan Pietrus ’10 took a pass from Matt Palmer ’09 and lofted the puck into the net on a wraparound goal that tied the game.

Just 48 seconds later, Bruno struck again, this time on a goal by assistant captain Jeff Prough ’08, who was coming off his 100th career point last weekend. After receiving the puck from captain Sean Hurley ’08, Prough skated around his defender and, from the bottom of the left faceoff circle, fired a shot past the goalcontinued on page 8

Ashley Hess / Herald File Photo

Ryan Garbutt ’09 scored a goal and contributed two assists in Brown’s win against Dartmouth on Friday.

played. We’ve lost games that we should have won or that we should have had some luck in, and finally maybe the tide’s turning a little bit.”

Fortune played a big role as the Bears opened the scoring 3:08 into the game. Erica Kromm ’11 took the puck out from behind the net to the right side, where she lifted a shot that hit Rensselaer goaltender Ashley Mayr in the chest, dropped to the ice and trickled in behind her.

“Jumping on them early and getting them down on the road was a big, big thing for us,” said assistant captain Nicole Stock ’09, a Herald contributing writer. “We did a really good job of forechecking there in the beginning, and we got a bounce our way, finally.”

Shortly after failing to take advantage of a long power play that included 57 seconds of a five-onthree advantage, Brown doubled its lead at 15:12 when Sasha Van Muyen ’10 passed from behind the net into a crowd of players in front of the crease. Erin Connors ’10 was there to one-time the pass into the back of the net, giving the Bears goals on their only two shots of the period. Maggie Suprey ’11 also picked up an assist on the play.

But Rensselaer cut the lead in half with a power-play goal with continued on page 8

W. tennis smashes BU In opener, w. lacrosse breaks Sacred Heart

By Seth Motel Staff Writer

Women’s tennis Head Coach Paul Wardlaw isn’t used to missing competitions.

The family wedding he attended last weekend? His first absence from a contest in his 23 years of coaching.

Equipped only with text-messaging capabilities, he kept in frequent touch with Assistant Coach 1 BU Cecily Dubusker Brown 6 throughout the Saturday afternoon matches. Eventually, he received the good news: Brown defeated Boston University at home, 6-1.

After losing two out of the three doubles pro sets and the doubles point, the Bears had their work cut out for them against the Terriers (3-2). But after BU’s first bark, the America East Conference team showed little bite.

Brown (2-4) cruised to its second 6-1 victory of the year after winning all six singles matches.

Undaunted by the 1-0 deficit at the start of singles play, Bruno smashed out strong victories against BU. At No. 1 singles, Bianca Aboubakare ’11 won in convincing fashion over BU’s Francine Whu, 6-1, 6-3. Aboubakare showed her progress this season by handily topping the opponent who beat her in three sets last September.

“I just focused when it counted,” she said. “I feel like I’ve matured a lot mentally.”

No. 2 Sara Mansur’s ’09 comefrom-behind victory over Vanessa

Steiner didn’t come as quickly. After losing the first set 6-3 and trailing 4-3 in the second set, Mansur turned the match around. She won three games in a row to take the second set, 6-4.

In the third set, the two women traded holds in the first five games.

Up 3-2, Mansur broke Steiner’s serve in the sixth game to take a 4-2 lead. But Steiner came right back with a break and a hold of her own to make it 4-4. Not to be outdone, though, Mansur held at 4-4 and broke at 5-4 to capture the set.

Mansur said the shift in the match occurred after she recognized a simple way to put a lot of pressure on her opponent.

“Basically, don’t hit anything toward her forehand,” she said.

Brett Finkelstein ’09 fought through her own three-set battle.

Faced with a bad headache and a tough opponent, the No. 3 seed won the first set 6-4 before losing the first five games of the second set en route to a 6-1 defeat. As the headache persisted and the match score was tied at 1-1, she tried not to show her opponent she was weak.

“I think she thought she was going to win the third set,” Finkelstein said. “I think I caught her by surprise.”

Down 4-3 in the final set, Finkelstein took back the momentum and stepped up her play for a 6-4 victory.

The No. 4 to 6 seeds took their matches rather handily, with quick straight-set wins. No. 4 Tanja continued on page 8

By Elisabeth Avallone Staff Writer

With only 1:25 shaved off the clock, attackman Jesse Nunn ’09 scored her first of four goals off a free-position shot in what would become a decisive victory for the women’s lacrosse team 17 over Sacred Brown Sacred Heart 7 Hear t University. On Sunday, the Bears defeated the Pioneers with a final score of 17-7 in their 2008 season opener at the Berylson Family Fields at Brown.

Despite inclement weather that postponed the game for a day, the Bears controlled the ball and the tempo of the game from the start.

Following Nunn’s goal, Brown netted four other goals in the first 10 minutes, giving them a 5-0 lead.

“Jesse has developed a ton since she’s been here at Brown,” said Head Coach Keely McDonald.

“She’s a tremendous athlete, and she’s improved her overall work ethic on the field.”

Lauren Vitkus ’09 had her first goal less than a minute after Nunn’s and would follow up with three other goals later in the game.

Alexa Caldwell ’11 earned her first career point with an assist to Nunn for the third goal. She finished with a game-high three assists and an additional goal for the Bears.

After a long draw, Kiki Manners ’10 received the ball on defense and wove through the entire Sacred Heart midfield and defense for an unassisted goal only 14 seconds after the Bear’s third goal. Kara Kelly ’10 finished the five-goal scoring streak for the Bears with yet

Ashley Hess / Herald File Photo

Lauren Vitkus ’09 scored four goals in the Bear’s home opener on Sunday against Sacred Heart. another goal at 8:23.

“I am thrilled with how strong our team came out. It was an incredible start to our season,” Vitkus said. “From the freshman class all the way to the seniors, ever yone came out ready to compete.”

Sacred Hear t, forced to use a timeout after an embarrassing start, followed with its first goal of the game at 10:37. But Brown immediately answered and Mimi

DeTolla ’08, Meghan Markowski ’10 and Nunn each added a goal to give Bruno an 8-1 lead.

Despite the strength at the beginning of the half, Brown’s dominance faded for the remaining 13:45,when Sacred Heart out-scored them 3-1 to end the frame. Despite controlling the game for the vast majority of the half, the Bears boasted only a continued on page 8