Wednesday, October 1, 2008

The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, O ctober 1, 2008

Volume CXLIII, No. 82

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

Trays soon to be a memory at V-Dub Increased aid budget falls just short of actual costs

By Christopher Baker Contributing Writer

Following a national trend, the Verney-Woolley Dining Hall plans to stop using trays in an effort to reduce energy, water and food waste.

The pilot program will begin Oct. 15 and is scheduled to last until the end of the semester.

“Removing the trays means that we don’t have to wash those trays,” said Facilities Management Student Recycling Coordinator Kai Morrell ’11, who is also a coordinator with EcoReps, a student group that advocates green initiatives on campus. “We save all of that water.

We save all of that energy to run those dishwashers. We save all of the chemicals that are in those soaps that wash the dishes.”

According to Aramark Higher Education Food Ser vices, which distributes food at hundreds of dining halls, it takes a third to a half gallon of water to wash one tray. continued on page 4

By Gaurie Tilak Senior Staff Writer

Quinn Savit / Herald

Starting Oct. 15, this image will be a thing of the past, as the Verney Woolley dining hall begins a pilot program for trayless dining.

New program matches grad student awards

By Anne Simons Senior Staf f Writer

Twelve graduate students are now receiving extra financial awards from the University, thanks to a new program launched this semester. The Graduate School’s new incentive program is designed to encourage students to apply for external funding by giving them additional

awards, Dean of the Graduate School Sheila Bonde said.

Under the new system, the Grad School will match external awards under $3,000 and give students who win more than that a percentage of their awards.

The program was announced last semester and went into effect Sept.

1. While all doctoral students receive guaranteed financial support from

the University, Bonde said the Grad School encourages students to seek outside funding as well.

Students also are featured in an awards ceremony and have their names published to recognize their success, she added.

There are two purposes to the incentive program, which was crecontinued on page 4

The University increased its financial aid budget 21 percent for this fiscal year, though that may fall slightly short of the actual costs of providing aid.

The financial aid budget for this year is now $69 million — up from $56.9 million last year, said Susan Howitt, associate vice president for budget and planning. She said the increase was due mainly to the financial aid policy change.

But the actual financial aid costs for this year are expected to be around $70.5 million, said Director of Financial Aid James Tilton. The figure is based on students’ current financial aid packages, though it could change as the year progresses because the University continues to meet demonstrated need throughout the year, he said.

Though the difference between the budget and the expected costs is small, any additional increases in the cost of financial aid this year will be drawn from a reserve pool of several million dollars that has been allocated to cover any unexpected changes in operating costs, Howitt said.

“We think we have enough cushion built in to be able to cover everything,” she said.

“This year we’ve been talking to families about their options in case something comes up,” Tilton said.

As a result of the recent economic troubles, there have been more families approaching his office with concerns about their finances for the rest of the year, Tilton said. But, he said, there has not yet been an increase over last year in the number of families that have requested additional aid.

“I think families are concerned, but I don’t think families are panicking,” he said.

The Corporation approved a new financial aid policy last February that eliminated the family contribution for students whose families earn under $60,000 per year and did away with loans for those who earn less than $100,000 a year. The new plan also reduced the proportion of aid that all students receive in loans.

Despite the University’s increased expenditure on financial aid, not all students have noticed a drop in their personal contributions to their tuition.

“It’s been about the same since I was a freshman,” said Alice Alpert ’09. She said that although her younger sister has also just started college — a factor that usually influences aid payments — her family contribution has not decreased.

“The family contribution was equivalent to what they usually gave me in loans,” said Aubrey Cann ’10, who added that, effectively, she’s paying the same amount that she continued on page 4

RPL program restructured Two full-time CDs replacing nine graduate students

By Nicole Friedman Contributing Writer

The Office of Residential Life has restructured the Residential Peer Leader program this year, adding two full-time professional community directors and four graduate advising fellows, who will replace the nine graduate CDs that have advised RPLs in past years.

New CDs Michelle Thrasher and Sarah Linz live in residence halls and serve as the “primary contact to the RPLs,” Associate Director of Residential Life Natalie Basil said.

“They also work as a liaison to the (ResLife) office.”

The change was driven by recommendations from the Committee on the Residential Experience that there be an adult presence in residence halls. The committee’s report, published in May 2008, said that Brown students reported having good contact with faculty but little opportunity to meet other adults. The report recommended the change especially for upperclassmen, who have less residential advis-

3

HiGHER ED

ing than first-years.

“Including the Minority Peer Counselors with other RPLs, our ratio of students to counselors in first-year units is 1 to 19,” the report said. “By the sophomore year, our ratio of counselors to students is 1 to 90.”

Thrasher attended Quinnipiac University as an undergraduate and received a master’s degree in higher education from Old Dominion University. Linz attended Beloit College and Michigan State University for graduate school. Both have experience working in residential life at various schools.

Thrasher, who worked two summers ago as a CD for the Summer@ Brown program, said she “really enjoyed the environment” at Brown.

“One of the things I really enjoyed was the atmosphere and community,” Thrasher said. “Brown has a unique system and I think it’s really exciting to be a part of that.”

Linz also said she enjoys the college environment.

“I like getting to know college students,” Linz said. “One of my favorite things about working in residential life is that every single day is completely different. It makes the job very interesting.”

USE THAT ENDOWMENT The Senate FInance Committee is continuing to lean on colleges with hefty endowments.

www.browndailyherald.com

continued on page 5

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CAMPUS NEWS

Chris Bennett / Herald File Photo

University officials say the January@Brown has not had enough participation to justify continuing the program.

J-term in peril from low enrollment

By Ben Schreckinger Contributing Writer

The Januar y@Brown program could be threatened by insufficient participation, according to Dean of Summer and Continuing Studies Karen Sibley MAT’81 P’07 P’12. Tuition increases, the need to double the enrollment and the continued lack of credit offered are some

LET THE MONEY FLOW Funding will begin today on a $12.5-million grant for math and science teaching in R.I.

11

OPINION

factors contributing to concerns about low participation and the fate of the program, she said.

January@Brown, a three-year pilot program started in 2007, offers non-credit courses for 10 days in between the holidays and the beginning of the second semester.

University subsidies for the program were only for the initial two years, so tuition will jump almost

COMMON APP Justin Cohen ‘07 argues the Common App can improve accessibility for applicants.

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

12 SPORTS

50 percent to $900 and will need about 50 students to break even this year –– twice the enrollment of last year, Sibley said.

In an attempt to broaden the program’s appeal, the College Curriculum Council voted to support a proposal granting half credits for January@Brown courses, but there continued on page 4 BERNSTEIN’s WEEK Rhett Bernstein ‘09 won three athlete of the week awards after his game-winning goals.

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

T oday Page 2

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

We a t h e r

Vagina Dentata | Soojean Kim

TODAY

TOMORROW

rain 68 / 53

partly cloudy 68 / 46

Menu Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Falafel in Pita with Cuke Dressing and Tahini, Cornish Pasty, Barley Pilaf, Rice Krispie Cookies

Lunch — Steak and Pepper Fajitas, Vegan Roasted Vegetable Burritos, Frosted Cookie Squares

Dinner — Baked Stuffed Pollock, Red Rice, Golden Eggplant Curry, Thin Fries, Chocolate Carrot Cake

Dinner — Red Thai Chicken, Tomato Basil Pie, Savory Rice Pilaf, Whole Green Beans, Chocolate Carrot Cake

Brown Meets RISD | Miguel Llorente

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

Epimetheos | Samuel Holzman

Enigma Twist | Dustin Foley

Puzzles by20, Pappocom RELEASE DATE– Wednesday,©February 2008

Los Angeles Times Crossword Puzzle C r o sDaily s wo rd Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 “Green Eggs and Ham” pusher 4 Popular pop-up fare 9 Cut off 14 “Movies for movie lovers” network 15 Naturalist John et al.

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32 Card often swiped 34 Belt out 36 Narrow inlet 37 Under-the-gun spot 41 Deodorant option 43 François’s friend 44 Took from the deck 46 Purged 47 Band improvisations 49 Windy City paper, familiarly 51 Botanical swelling 55 Resistance following Saddam’s downfall 58 Selene’s counterpart 59 L.A.-to-Tucson dir.

60 Burn in a big way 61 Two-time U.S. Women’s Open winner 65 Victoria’s Secret offering 66 At a standstill 67 A nurse might take it 68 Put down 69 Inclinations 70 Go over the limit 71 Bighorn female

53 Country singer DOWN 38 “A Jug of Wine 1 Doesn’t tip Tim ...” poet 2 Biology 101 54 Sailor’s OK, and 39 “Home protozoan a phonetic hint to Improvement” 3 __ Laboratories, this puzzle’s star company that theme 40 Shore flier introduced 56 Some OKs 42 More of a Tylenol 57 She played June character 4 Voltage letters in “Walk the Line” 45 Gets the 5 Jury’s 61 Triangular sail message determination 62 French article 48 Pipsqueak 6 Classic action 63 Mil. mess 50 Move about toys workers excitedly 7 Colorful birds 64 Rare color?

52 Empower 8 FICA stipend 9 Baseball ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE: commissioner since the ’90s 10 On cloud nine 11 Napa bigwigs 12 LAX update 13 Hi-__ graphics 19 Dreidel, for one 21 High-note hitters 25 Famous 26 Luke’s sister 27 Award named for a Muse 28 Ben-Gurion lander 33 “The War of the Worlds” foe 35 “Lyric Pieces” composer 37 Muslim pilgrim 2/20/08 xwordeditor@aol.com

Alien Weather Forecast | Stephen Lichenstein and Adam Wagner

Fizzle Pop | Patricia Chou

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h igher E D Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Wealthy U.’s defend endowment payouts

By Ellen Cushing Contributing Writer

As the cost of higher education continues to rise dramatically, some wealthy colleges and universities are facing increased scrutiny over the percentage of their endowments being invested in student aid.

Earlier this month, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee and one of the fiercest critics of these payout rates, held a roundtable forum to discuss the issue.

Brown’s Director of Government Relations and Community Affairs Tim Leshan was there, as was Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., as well as presidents and policy experts from other universities. Jill Gerber, Grassley’s press secretary for the Senate Finance Committee, said the senator “is arguing that there’s a lot of money in academia and there are a lot of colleges with significant endowments. They should take a look at whether they can (be) doing more to hold down the cost of education for students.”

Since 2007, Grassley has called for reform of endowment spending, including requiring colleges and universities to spend a minimum of 5 percent from their endowments.

However, according to both Leshan and a representative from Grassley’s office, no legislation is on the immediate horizon.

Grassley’s 5-percent figure comes from the standards to which other non-profit organizations are held. “Endowments are tax-exempt, and in exchange for tax-exempt status, these groups have an obligation to use their assets to advance their charitable mission, which in their case is to educate students.”

Gerber said.

Gerber added that Grassley was “not just picking out the top10 wealthiest” schools, nor was he “critical of universities for investing

well and amassing funds.”

In January, Grassley and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, mailed letters to 136 of the nation’s richest universities asking for more detailed information on their spending. Brown was among the schools and complied with the request.

On Sept. 11, the Internal Revenue Ser vice announced that it would be sending a questionnaire to 400 colleges and universities asking for detailed information on various aspects of spending and budget. Neither Leshan nor Susan Howitt, associate vice president for budget and planning, could confirm that Brown had received one of these letters yet.

According to Howitt, Brown’s endowment, which topped $2.8 billion this year, “is basically a collection of thousands and thousands of gifts” that the University has received. When donors make a gift to the endowment, Brown must keep that money but is allowed to spend the interest earned on it. This year, the University spent about 5.9 percent, or roughly $130 million, out of its endowment, Howitt said, adding that these payouts comprise about 21 percent of the revenue in Brown’s operating budget.

Brown’s payout percentage rate, set every February by the Corporation, Brown’s highest governing body, always falls somewhere between 4.5 and 5.5 percent of the endowment’s average market value over a period of 12 quarters, Howitt said. The University uses a 12-quarter average to control for market fluctuations, she added.

Many colleges and universities, however, argue that putting a minimum on endowment payouts does not allow them to make smart financial decisions.

Schools “have to balance current needs with future needs.

When they make spending deci-

sions, they have to do it for the long term, so that they can weather the ups and downs of the market,” said Brian Flahaven, director of government relations at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, a nonprofit lobbying group.

“The whole point is that the original investments will last forever,” Howitt said. “We want to spend as much on our students today as we spent 20 years ago, adjusted for inflation.”

Furthermore, many endowment gifts are restricted — for example, a donor may set up a specific scholarship fund or establish a particular professorship. Thus, these gifts cannot legally be applied to things like student aid.

Gerber, however, said Grassley believes “some universities overstate (donor) restrictions. Donors who love their university are, many times, likely to respond to what their university needs.”

Carly Devlin ’09, a member of Students for a Democratic Society, which has been fighting for financial aid reform, said she supports Grassley’s initiative and would like to see more of the University’s resources going toward student aid. “Brown comes at a ridiculously expensive cost and it’s a huge burden for a lot of students and their families,” Devlin said.

She added that she viewed increasing endowment payouts as only part of a larger educational reform: “I don’t think it’s the only thing they should be doing, but it’s a start.”

“To be frank, there is no direct connection between endowment spending and tuition,” Flahaven said. “Mandatory endowment payouts is not going to be the silver bullet that’s going to solve the whole issue,” he added. “It needs to be a more comprehensive discussion.”

Congress renews student aid commitment

By Stephanie Bernhard Staf f Writer

College students may continue to have easier access to federal student loans through July 2010, following a Sept. 17 vote by the U.S. Senate to extend the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act, first passed in April. Originally set to expire July 2009, the renewal passed by an overwhelming majority because of concerns about the current economic fallout.

The bill is designed to protect students and their families from the current instability of the private lending market and solidify access to student loans.

“With our economy facing some of its darkest days yet, we must take every possible precaution to protect the financial interests of American families –– especially low- and middle-income students and parents who are working incredibly hard to pay for college,” said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee and a sponsor of the bill. He said the bill, if signed by the president, would guard the federal loans of millions of Americans from future crises in the credit market.

The extension of the ECASLA

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

bill, should not, if passed, have a huge impact on Brown financial aid because the University is a direct lender, according to James Tilton, director of financial aid. He said Brown students apply for loans directly to the federal government, without using outside sources.

“We don’t have to depend on banks or lending institutions to get federal loans,” Tilton said. He added that recent financial aid initiatives, announced in February 2008, have reduced the number of overall loans offered in Brown’s aid packages.

Tilton said ECASLA allows Brown students to borrow $2000 more in unsubsidized loans than they could in the past and offers increased flexibility in repaying federal Parent PLUS loans, which Tilton said could be a boon for families struggling in the economic climate.

Overall, the bill “really helped (Brown) parents in a big way,” he said, adding that access to federal loans is particularly important now because of severe strains on the private loan market.

Alex Korzec ’10, a Massachusetts native, felt the squeeze of the lending market. Korzec thought he had this year’s college costs covered when he took a private

loan from the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority, which offers low-interest fixed-rate student loans to over 40,000 students. But on July 29, the non-profit lender announced it would have to stop offering private loans for the 2008-2009 academic year, due to the “disruptions in the capital market.”

“My dad called and said ‘Hey, guess what? You don’t have student loans,’” Korzec said. He searched the internet for new ways to secure funding for his third year at Brown, browsing the Web site of giant student lender Sallie Mae, but had found no definite solution when classes resumed in September.

“It boils down to, ‘you need to do this to go to school’,” Korzec said. “There’s no other way.”

Luckily for Korzec, MEFA regained its footing and announced in a Sept. 16 press release that it had raised $400 million through the sale of bonds, meaning the organization would be able to offer loans for the school year. Now, he said, his concern about the economy remains distant and abstract.

“I know the headlines,” Korzec said, joking that he had too much work to read the full stories. “One continued on page 5

College papers’ revenue down Some say they’ll dodge any downsizing

BY Debbie Lehmann Staf f Writer

Wednesdays are slow news days this year at the University of California at Berkeley. Or at least that’s how it might seem to students and community members looking for copies of the university’s independent student newspaper, the Daily Californian.

Faced with waning ad revenue and fearing “falling into the red,” the Daily Cal decided in late August to stop publishing a print edition of the paper on Wednesdays, said Editor-in-Chief Br yan Thomas.

Though the paper still publishes content online, the change has been “a slow adjustment” for the paper’s staf f and the university in general. Thomas said students still stop him around campus on Wednesdays asking where the papers are.

Newspaper ad revenue has been declining for commercial papers for the past several years. The downturn in the real estate market has caused an especially large drop in real estate ads, and as advertising continues to move online, newspapers have been feeling the pinch in their budgets.

In 2007, newspaper ad revenue fell 7.9 percent, with revenue from print advertisements falling 9.4 percent — the largest drop since 1950, according to the Newspaper Association of America. Papers like the San Francisco Chronicle, the Seattle Times and USA Today have downsized significantly, switching to smaller page sizes, running fewer articles, and cutting jobs, according to a Feb. 7 article in the New York Times. The Baltimore Sun, for example, recently closed its last foreign bureau.

The Providence Journal cut its entire part-time news staff and five full-time employees last week, the Providence News Guild reported Sept. 24.

But despite the grim outlook for the future of commercial newspapers, college papers have always been more resilient. As niche publications, most without subscription fees, college papers have been steadily attracting advertisers who want to reach the student community. At least until now.

“College papers are only now starting to see ad revenue dwindle,” said Logan Aimone, executive director of the National Scholastic Press Association. “But they are suffering from a shortfall in advertising revenue. If people aren’t advertising in local papers, they’re not advertising in college papers either.”

The shift from print to online advertising has “definitely affected” some college papers, Thomas said.

But it is the combination of this shift and a general economic slump that has led to recent declines in ad revenue — and budgets — for a number of student newspapers, he said.

At the Daily Bruin, the student newspaper at the University of California at Los Angeles, waning ad revenue is largely due to budget cuts within the University of California system, said Editor-in-Chief Anthony Pesce.

Over the past six years, the Daily Bruin has seen a decrease

of several hundred thousand dollars in ads taken out by the university. And Pesce expects university advertising to decline much more drastically this year. As the UC system gears up for a 10 percent budget cut, academic departments are making cuts, and things like advertising in the Daily Bruin are “taking a backseat,” Pesce said.

Though Pesce said budget cuts and the state of the economy could “very well do a lot of damage to our budget this year,” he added that the paper does not plan to cut a day of publication, calling that strategy a “huge mistake.”

But for other college papers faced with tight budgets, cutting a day of publication is one of the only ways to stay afloat. The Daily Orange, the independent student newspaper at Syracuse University, decided in August to stop publishing the Friday print edition because of budget problems. Fridays have always been a financial loss for the paper, since few students take classes on Fridays and readership is low, said Editor-in-Chief Stephen Dockery.

“Advertisers don’t want to advertise when they know students aren’t going to read,” Dockery said.

“We could no longer handle that loss, and we had to make a decision that would put us in the black for next semester.”

But Dockery said the cutbacks at the Orange are not part of the larger trend affecting commercial papers. Rather, he said the paper’s budget woes were due to unexpected production costs. Ad revenue has been fairly constant, Dockery said, adding that on the days it still goes to print, the Orange has just as many local and national ads as it used to.

“College newspapers are ver y different,” Dockery said. “They’re like a bubble. People are always on campus, always near a newspaper. We have a real target demographic that online advertising (can’t reach).”

Indeed, not all college papers are hurting. The revenue stream at the Harvard Crimson is “strong,” and the paper has no plans to cut content, said Managing Editor Paras Bhayani. Ad revenue for the Crimson has actually increased over the past few years, he said.

Bhayani added, however, that attracting adver tisers might be more challenging this year, since a large portion of ad revenue comes from Wall Street firms recruiting students.

At the Daily Cal, Thomas acknowledged that college papers are different from commercial papers, noting that advertising for college papers is “generally strong,” while metropolitan papers are “dying all over the place.” For this reason, he said he is not concerned about revenue for the Daily Cal in the long term.

Still, Thomas said, college newspapers have been steadily losing money. The Daily Cal has seen a five-year trend away from print advertising, especially from national advertisers. The publication cuts this year, which came along with salary cuts for editors and staff members, are a “one-year fix,” Thomas said, meant to give the paper time to come up with a 10-year plan to shelter it from fluctuations in the market. continued on page 6

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Grant incentive takes burden of grad students continued from page 1 ated by “an internal decision,” Bonde said. First, it relieves the Graduate School’s budget if more students receive external funding.

“There’s money out there,” Bonde said. “And money begets money.”

Second, and more importantly, Bonde said, applying for external funding is a necessar y skill for graduate students to learn.

“Practice makes perfect,” she said, adding that wherever students are going, knowing how to write grant proposals is a useful skill and that winning external funding enhances a student’s curriculum vitae.

“The grant incentive program is a necessary action to increase interest in applying for outside grants,” James Doyle GS, a second-year graduate student in the Department of Anthropology and president of the Graduate Student Council, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. “The Graduate School can ensure professional development for those grad students who take advantage of (the program).”

Eduardo Moncada GS, a fourthyear Ph.D. candidate in the De-

partment of Political Science who receives funding through the new program, said he feels fortunate to receive additional support from the Grad School. The new program provides “a great incentive to develop and submit funding proposals,” he wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

“I think the incentive program sends an important signal to current and future Brown graduate students that Brown University is investing in research designed and carried out by students,” Moncada added.

Ever y doctoral student currently receives a $19,000 stipend per year and has a five-year guarantee of support. Because of this, Doyle wrote, “the actual need for outside funding might be perceived as less.” He wrote that he thinks the program will be “extremely” helpful because “it is always beneficial to take the financial burden off the students.”

Andrea Actis GS, a first-year Ph.D. student in the English department, has already begun to benefit from the program. “Already it’s taken the edge off monthly bills,” she wrote in an e-mail to The

Herald. “It’s just extra money in the bank — quite a happy thing!”

Following the announcement of the incentive program last spring, the Office of Sponsored Projects recorded “an upswing in applications” for external funding, Bonde said.

Applications generally have a high success rate, so the increase in total applications may create an increase in grants won, she added.

Though the program is still very new, about a dozen students have already benefited from it, she said.

The Graduate School Council will play a role in “publicizing this effort to all graduate students,” Doyle wrote.

Moncada wrote that he thought there were “a few communication glitches” that may make it hard for students to understand the program and how it can affect them, but that those in charge of the program are “doing wonderful work” to improve the degree to which students understand the program.

The Grad School will monitor the success of the incentive program, though it may take some time before full results can be seen, Bonde said.

J-term’s fate resting on this year’s enrollment continued from page 1 was opposition to that move and to a move to mention courses on transcripts, said Arthur Matuszewski ’11, a CCC member. He said there was concern with among the administration with the inconsistency of acknowledging these January@ Brown courses but not academic experiences such as semesters abroad on transcripts.

There was also concern credit would encourage students to participate in the program for the wrong reasons, said Matuszewski, an associate editor for post-, The Herald’s arts and culture magazine.

There is currently “no consensus” within the CCC for continuing efforts to get January@Brown on

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

transcripts, said Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron, chair of the council, who initially supported half-credits.

Many students voiced concern that the change would affect the explorative academic environment of the program, both Bergeron and Sibley said.

Some other institutions with winter break programs offer credit.

Williams College has featured a mandatory, three-week, for-credit Winter Study with grades of fail, perfunctory pass, pass and high pass. The program is intended to allow “a student to concentrate for one month on a single subject in ways not usually found in a traditional curriculum,” according to Williams’ Web site.

Brown’s program is considered

especially attractive to international students who cannot return home over winter break and mid-year transfers who would like to acquaint themselves with Brown, Sibley said.

Veiko Aunapuu ’11 of Estonia decided not to enroll in January@ Brown this past winter, opting instead to work for the admissions office. He said credit would not encourage him to participate in the future.

Katie Jennings ’10.5 attended Januar y@Brown last year as an incoming transfer student. She said she enjoyed her class on the history of Providence’s neighborhoods and relished the opportunity to acquaint herself with Brown and the city. She added that she would recommend the program, “especially to transfer students,” but that she would like to have received a half credit, noting that students put in more than half a credit’s worth of hours.

This is the “last chance” for the student body to display their interest in the program, said Tyler Rosenbaum ’11, Undergraduate Council of Students academic and administrative affairs chair, and a Herald opinions columnist.

“I would push for a transcript mention next year” if enrollment proved higher than expected, Rosenbaum said.

Regardless of January@Brown’s fate, the Office of Summer and Continuing Studies would like to offer students opportunities for productive winter breaks in the future, Sibley said. She said proposals include the creation of an alumni network connecting students with short internships and “travel learning” in which small groups of students travel with a faculty member in an informal academic setting.

Aunapuu said the idea of travel learning “definitely sounds interesting” and that he welcomes any chance to see more of North America.

Support for the program has yet to translate into participation, according to Dean Sibley, adding that now is the time for students to “vote with their feet.”

Going trayless met with mixed reviews by students continued from page 1 Aramark also found that trayless dining can reduce food waste by 25 to 30 percent. There was no data available on Brown’s specific resource usage.

“There’s something about having to actually carry your plate back to your table that makes people take less food,” Morrell said.

Dining Ser vices will stress this environmental message. Dinner on Oct. 15, the first trayless meal, will have a “Waste Not, Want Not” theme. “The focus of the meal is going to be sustainable foods, like fresh, local foods, and the trayless dining is going to go in with that,” Morrell said.

“Those benefits are real and important to dining and the University financially, but more importantly, to everyone environmentally,” said David Mittelman ’09, a summer sustainability intern with Facilities Management who pushed for trayless dining.

In making this change, Brown joins the national trend of colleges eliminating trays from their dining halls.

On March 19, The Herald reported experiments with removing trays at the University of Connecticut, Nor th Carolina State University, Colby College and Alfred University in New York, all of which yielded favorable results.

In July, Aramark announced that it estimates that over half of its 500 campus clients will take trays out of their dining halls this year.

The no-trays movement has gained attention from USA Today, Time Magazine and National Public Radio.

In spite of the national trend and environmental and financial benefits, Dining Ser vices anticipates mixed reaction.

“We know this will represent a significant change, and change can be difficult to deal with,” wrote Ann Hoffman, Dining Services’ director of administration and human resources, in an e-mail to The Herald.

“We will survey the customers and evaluate how well it’s going before deciding whether or not to make that a permanent change.”

Mittelton was optimistic: “I understand the concern with change, but people adapt really quickly.

There are a lot of students that forgo the use of trays to begin with.”

Since the trayless dining initiative was announced, V-Dub staff has already stopped using trays.

“They know that it’s possible, that it’s easy, and it’s not really that big

of a change,” Morrell said.

Some V-Dub diners have their reser vations, though.

“I don’t appreciate it because I always get more than one plate of food,” said Aaron Ruffin ’12.

James Williams ’10 was initially stunned, saying, “Woah?! How am I going to get my food?!”

Williams added he thinks the idea is “terrible,” saying, “Trays make it easier to carry everything.

I hold my silver ware, my drinks and my plates at one time.”

“Students at Brown are always going to waste food. It doesn’t matter if you have a tray or not,” he added.

Hoffman wrote that Dining Services “will certainly take suggestions from diners as to things we can do to make it easier for them immediately upon startup.”

She wrote that trays will still be available for students with disabilities or medical issues.

Some students are starting to come to terms with the change.

Brendan Checkett ’11 acknowledged that trayless dining “is a good idea, but it’s kind of a hassle.”

“I don’t even use a tray that often because they’re really bulky,” said Katrina Toal ’12.

For now, trayless dining will only be implemented at VerneyWoolley. “We like to use VerneyWoolley as a guinea pig,” Willis said. The Sharpe Refector y is not only much larger, but trays are necessar y to transport dirty dishes to the lower level for washing. The V-Dub, on the other hand, has only one level and uses a conveyor belt system to transport dishes.

“What works at Verney-Woolley doesn’t always work (at the Ratty),” Willis said.

Student groups with environmental agendas are excited about trayless dining.

“If there were a way to expand it that (emPower) can play a strong role in, I would go back to people and say, ‘This is something that we should really focus on,’” said Michael Glassman ’09, former Undergraduate Council of Students president and leader of emPower, a group that aims to reduce Brown’s contribution to global warming. “It sounds like this is already happening, which is awesome.”

EcoReps, which focuses on making Brown a greener campus, will help implement trayless dining.

EcoReps members will be at the V-Dub to hand out informational flyers and answer questions the week before trayless dining goes into effect.

Extra endowment draw helping pay for aid hike continued from page 1 was last year.

Nolan Broussard ’11 also said that his financial aid package has not changed from last year.

The Corporation and the University Resources Committee made the decision this year to draw 24 percent more from the University’s endowment than it has in the past to cover operating costs, of which financial aid usually draws a large portion, Howitt said. Last year, the University drew $104 million from the endow-

ment, but this year it will take $130 million.

The URC’s recommendation rests on the fact that, until the recent financial crisis, strong financial markets had contributed to solid growth in the University’s endowment — about 14 percent per year for the past 10 years, Howitt said.

The URC will begin discussion of next year’s budget over the next month, when it will examine the issue of financial aid and determine how the economic climate will affect next year’s budget.

C ampus n ews Wednesday, October 1, 2008

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NY Sun prints last issue today The New York Sun published its last issue Tuesday, citing unsustainable finances. The six-year-old conservative newspaper, backed by, among others, Chancellor Thomas Tisch ’76, was reported to be losing $1 million each month and could not afford to stay in publication.

Seth Lipsky, president and editor of the Sun, announced Sept. 4 that the paper would have to fold unless it found new investors. The timing could not have been worse: The Sun was looking for backers as the economy fell into a recession.

Lipsky announced that the newspaper was shutting down the same day the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 778 points.

“Among other problems that we faced was the fact that this month, not to mention this week, has been one of the worst in a century in which to be trying to raise capital, and in the end we were out not only of money but time,” Lipsky said in a speech to the Sun’s staff.

In 2004, Tisch headed a team of backers who invested $30 million in the paper, according to an Sept. 4 article in the Press Gazette, a journalism newspaper based in London.

“They invested in the ideal of the scoop, the notion that news is the spirit of democracy, and in the principles for which we have stood in our editorial pages — limited and honest government, equality under our Constitution and the law, free markets, sound money, and a strong foreign policy in support of freedom and democracy,” Lipsky said in his remarks.

— Melissa Shube

Economy affecting some students’ ability to pay continued from page 3 of my first priorities after school is to pay off student loans,” he said, but added that he hopes a degree in computer science will give him an edge on the job market.

Other students feel less secure counting on loans given the turn the economy has taken. One girl –– who spoke anonymously because she did not wish to reveal her financial status –– has been on medical leave since last spring and said she will decide whether to return this spring based partly on the status of her financial aid package, which includes student loans. The amount of aid she receives from the University has decreased since her older brother finished college, and she is unsure

how the banking crisis will affect her family.

“I don’t really understand it very well as far as what it’s going to mean,” she said. She hadn’t heard about the passing or the extension of the ECASLA bill, but said she’d been reading the “main headlines” about the current financial situation.

“I want to talk to my parents about what they think this means for them,” she said. She added that her friends have occasionally discussed the drama on Wall Street and in Washington, but said in general, the issues seem removed from campus life –– for now. She would like to move abroad after college.

“I was watching the news the other day, and I thought, ‘I have to get out of here!’” she said.

CDs and fellows provide increased support to RPLS continued from page 1 Thrasher and Linz are more available to RPLs than CDs have been in the past because they are available both during the day and in the evenings, Basil said.

“They’re definitely a strong support system for us,” said Jamal Hill ’11, who is a Residential Counselor this year. “They have expertise on how to build a safe, open community on college campuses.”

The CDs each advise about half of the RPLs on campus. They also collaborate with the MPCs, who work through the Third World

Center.

The four graduate advising fellows, who live in Hope College, Olney House and Morriss and Perkins halls, serve as a “resource and role model for residents as someone who is a continued learner,” Basil said.

The fellows work with the Faculty Advising Fellow program and with RPLs. Although ResLife has not solicited any feedback yet about the new CDs and graduate advising fellows, RPLs so far have expressed appreciation for the extra support and feel that the CDs have been very responsive, Basil said.

$12.5 million grant to help RI teachers

By Shay O’Brien Contributing Writer

Funding begins today for a $12.5-million National Science Foundation grant aimed at upgrading math and science instruction in Rhode Island’s secondary schools. The grant will enable a new initiative, the Rhode Island Technology Enhanced Sciences program, to facilitate improvements in instruction following the recent release of standardized testing results that show less than a fourth of middle and high school students are proficient in science statewide.

Brown will play a key role in the project, providing training for Rhode Island science and math teachers and conducting a comprehensive evaluation of the program’s progress through the Education Alliance.

Rhode Island College and the Community College of Rhode Island will also offer training for teachers, while the University of Rhode Island will administer the grant money. Brown’s role is unique in that it is the only institution involved with a department specializing in educational evaluation.

“It seemed a natural fit,” said Elliot Krieger, spokesman for the Rhode Island Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

“Governor Carcieri ... was pleased and proud to have Brown be a part of it.”

While the University is already engaged in several science education programs in the Providence area, this new grant is aimed at improvement statewide. Along with

Meara Sharma / Herald

A $12.5 million National Science Foundation grant will help upgrade math and science instruction in Rhode Island.

training teachers, it focuses on taking science and technology software, adapting it and putting it online to facilitate classroom learning. “(The program) helps you better pull together ... institutional practices that will best address all students’ needs, not just those that are already doing well,” said Deborah Collins, director of research and evaluation at the Education Alliance. Because it is Web-based, students who have been held back in the past by a lack of resources at home will be able to access the educational software from any computer.

“The tempo of Brown’s science education outreach is accelerating,” wrote David Targan, associate dean of the College for science , in an email to The Herald. “Now is a great time to help build programs that will be consistent, enduring and create lasting excitement about science among the students of Rhode Island.”

The Education Alliance is hoping Brown students interested in science and math education will apply for internships and part-time positions to help with the evaluation of the grant program.

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College papers cutting budgets as revenues fall continued from page 3 Though Aimone said the Daily Orange and the Daily Cal are the only college papers he’s heard of that have made “dramatic, visual” cuts, a number of papers have been “trimming things internally,” he said. Papers are cutting travel budgets, hiring fewer writers and paying staffers less. The NSPA holds an annual convention in October, and Aimone said several schools have mentioned that they are planning to send fewer people than in previous years.

“I think if I had to bet, I’d say college publications will stay around in print longer than commercial newspapers,” Aimone said. “But they’re ultimately going to have to find a way to make it work financially, just like commercial papers.”

And at least some are doing just that. The Daily Bruin received a $275,000 grant from the Knight Foundation in May for online development. The project, which will “build a new online way to deliver

the news,” will hopefully allow the paper do better financially, Pesce said. The Daily Bruin plans to use the grant to incorporate social networking devices into its Web site, making the site a “news hub for ever ything on campus, even if it’s not something we’d traditionally cover,” Pesce said. The Daily Bruin also plans to provide Web site hosting and development for student groups.

“If you’re extremely relevant to your readers, you’re going to be able to sell ads,” Pesce said.

“There’s still a market for ads out there.”

But the existence of such a market doesn’t mean college papers are in the clear.

“Ever y college paper out there has to be worried,” Pesce said.

“Papers cutting back should be seen as a canar y in a coal mine, not something out of the ordinary.

Eventually, ever ybody’s going to have a problem, and if they’re not proactive they’re going to end up in the same boat.”

More than 168 dead, 425 injured at temple stampede

By Emily Wax Washington Post

NEW DELHI, India — At least 168 people were trampled to death and more than 425 were injured in a massive stampede at a Hindu temple in Jodhpur city, officials said, the third such tragedy in India in three months.

With no crowd control, more than 12,000 people had gathered at dawn to celebrate Navratra, a nine-day Hindu festival to honor the Mother Goddess, Jodhpur Police Superintendent Malini Agarwal told reporters. Witnesses said the early morning stampede began as false rumors of a bomb spread among the crowd.

“Everyone was yelling, `there’s a bomb, there’s a bomb,’ then I heard horrible screaming. It was the sound of total panic,” said Vikki Koshi, who manages Yogi’s Guest House ver y close to the temple.

The temple’s floor had become slipper y when devotees in a maleonly line broke hundreds of coconuts for offerings, officials said.

“Someone slipped,” Home Minister G.C. Kataria told reporters. “Then people just kept falling over one another.” Most of the dead were males.

Also contributing to the pandemonium was a power outage and the collapse of a wall on the narrow path leading to the temple, officials said.

Television images of the scene after ward showed chaotic crowds hoisting limp bodies through the air. Hysterical women slapped the faces of husbands, trying to revive them, and wept over their bodies as paramedics tried to push through the crowds.

The tragedy occurred in the Chamunda Devi temple. It is nestled in the narrow passageways of

the historic 15th-centur y Mehrangarh fort, a sprawling hilltop monument that overlooks the town.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje called for an inquiry into what could be done to prevent similar events in the future. Local business leaders and emergency rescue exper ts said India has a growing need for better planning at major religious festivals and stricter crowd control.

“People die simply because they are being suffocated by the crowds,” said Mahesh C. Misra, a trauma surgeon with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, who is tr ying to train people across the country in disaster management. “I think everyone realizes that we all want to do more to prevent these tragedies.”

Koshi also saw a need for action: “We can save lives if we just learn how to control these events.

Maybe by only letting a certain number visit at a time.”

Across major cities in India, ner ves have been rattled by a series of bomb blasts in busy markets since May. The latest occurred late Monday night in the western city of Malegaon, killing six people and wounding 45. On Saturday, a bomb exploded in a New Delhi market, killing two people and wounding at least 22.

Stampedes have long been a frequent occurrence during festival periods at Hindu temples in India, where colossal crowds -- sometimes up to 100,000 -- squeeze into mazelike areas.

One hundred forty-five people, 50 of them children, died in a similar crush at the Naina Devi shrine in Himachal Pradesh this year. In July, six devotees were killed and 12 injured in a stampede during a pilgrimage in the eastern Indian state of Orissa.

www.browndailyherald.com

Andrea Bruce / Washington Post

A man spotted by a Sons of Iraq patrol and accused of planting a rocket is questioned by U.S. soldiers.

For Sunni allies, despair at Shiite takeover

By Ernesto Londono Washington Post

BAGHDAD — First Lt. Justin John, 6 feet 4 and built like a linebacker, plopped down on a sofa in front of Ibrahim Suleiman al-Zoubaidi, one of the leaders of the mainly Sunni armed groups that have helped the U.S. militar y quell violence in Iraq since last year.

Al-Zoubaidi, a small man armed with a revolver, had one thing on his mind: This week officials of

Iraq’s Shiite-led government will assume authority over the groups, which have been backed by the United States.

“They will kill us,” al-Zoubaidi declared. “One by one.”

Across Baghdad, leaders of the groups speak about the transition in similarly apocalyptic terms.

Some have left Baghdad, saying they fear that the Iraqi government will conduct mass arrests after the handover. Others are obtaining passports and say they

will flee to Syria.

John, a 24-year-old platoon leader, tried to reassure the Iraqi.

“It’s a new thing,” John said. “It’s going to take some time to get used to.”

Recognizing that the government has been wary from the outset about the creation of armed, mainly Sunni groups under U.S. control, American militar y officials are taking several steps to continued on page 8

Japan, seemingly in recession, jolted

By Blaine Harden Washington Post

TOKYO — Wall Street’s plunge jolted Japan on Tuesday, as dismal new data here showed that the world’s second-largest economy, already contracting, has almost certainly fallen into recession.

Analysts said Japan’s troubles are likely to deepen as turmoil grows in the United States.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei stock average fell 4.12 percent, closing at its lowest level in more than three years. But most markets in Asia absorbed Monday’s historic drop in U.S. stock values with considerably more resilience. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up nearly 1 percent and South Korea’s market nearly broke even. The Chinese stock market was closed for a holiday.

In Tokyo, nerve-rattling news from Wall Street dovetailed with the release of worse-than-predicted government figures showing that factory output and consumer spending fell sharply in August, as unemployment rose to a two-year high of 4.2 percent.

Japan’s economy started shrinking in the second quarter of this year, ending its longest period of sustained growth since World War II. A decline in the third quarter now seems certain, several economists said.

Car shipments to the United States nosedived in August, down 30 percent as Toyota, Honda and Nissan all cut production.

Exports, the main engine of growth in Japan’s phenomenal

postwar rise, have stalled this year.

That fizzle, together with high fuel and food prices, gave Japan a rare trade deficit in August. In trading Tuesday, Toyota fell nearly 5 percent and Sony was off by more than 6 percent.

How the Japanese government will — or can — respond to the contracting economy remains an open question.

Politically, the government, now under the leadership of its fourth prime minister in little more than two years, continues to struggle with a parliamentary deadlock.

Prime Minister Taro Aso, who assumed power last week, used his first speech to parliament on Monday to dress down the opposition Democratic Party of Japan for gumming up the government with political gamesmanship. Aso’s Liberal Democratic Party controls the lower house, while the opposition controls the upper house.

“The opposition thinks primarily of the political situation,” Aso said. “The lives of the people are a second or third priority.”

In a substantial break with his three predecessors as prime minister, Aso has announced plans to revive the economy by cutting taxes and increasing government spending.

Critics fear this will revive porkbarrel spending on unneeded dams, bridges and roads — a hallmark of the ruling party’s governing style in the 1990s and before.

Aso is also considering a “very large investment tax credit” to entice Japanese companies into borrowing money, making new invest-

ments and perking up employment, according to Richard Koo, chief economist at the Nomura Research Institute and an Aso adviser.

“We have got the right prime minister just in time,” Koo said.

Unlike in the United States or Europe, banks and many major companies in Japan are awash in cash. There is more than $14 trillion in personal assets on deposit here. Money is widely available for borrowing at interest rates below 1 percent.

Still, corporations are reluctant to borrow money. Koo said it’s a legacy of harrowing memories from Japan’s own economic meltdown, which lasted throughout the 1990s and into the early years of this decade.

“These corporate managers are in a state of trauma,” Koo said. “Until they die, many of them will be in no mood to borrow money. That is what happened after the Great Depression, and something similar is happening in Japan.”

If corporations do not step up their borrowing and investment, Koo said, the government will.

“Mr. Aso’s government will have to increase debt activity, that is to say, borrow and spend,” Koo said.

As a legacy of its economic debacle, Japan already has the highest debt burden in the developed world — 182 percent of its gross domestic product. Some economists warn that if the government increases its borrowing, the nearzero interests rates that make the debt affordable could rise — and sour the country’s credit rating.

W orld & n ation Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Both candidates rally behind rescue plan

By Seema Mehta and Maeve Reston Los Angeles Times

DES MOINES, Iowa — After trading barbs over the financial crisis and the collapse of the rescue package, John McCain and Barack Obama on Tuesday softened their rhetoric, at least in their public appearances, calling for bipartisanship and pledging to work with reluctant members of Congress to craft a palatable solution.

The two senators acted as pitchmen for the bailout, arguing that the rescue of financial institutions was vital to the fortunes of the middle class. Both campaigns said the candidates would return to Washington on Wednesday to cast their votes if the Senate took up the legislation, as expected.

“One of the reasons why Congress failed to act, in fact, is because it hasn’t really sunk in that the people who are hurting and are being hurt are Main Street — families, small businesses,” McCain said during an economic round table at a manufacturing plant here. As examples, he cited Sonic drive-in restaurant franchisees and students at a technical college in Wisconsin whose access to bank loans had been cut off. “Those kinds of people that are the engine of our economy,” he said.

Both men sought to reassure voters wary of risking so much taxpayer money.

“This is not a plan to just hand over $700 billion of your money to a few banks on Wall Street,” Obama said at a rally on the sun-splashed quad of the University of Nevada at Reno.

“If this is managed correctly, we will hopefully get most or all of our money back, possibly even turn a profit on the government’s investment — every penny of which will go directly back to you, the investor, or will be going into drawing down on

our national debt,” he said.

It was a marked change from Monday, when Obama mocked McCain’s long-standing support for deregulation of the nation’s financial markets, and McCain accused Obama and Congressional Democrats of injecting partisanship into delicate negotiations.

Tuesday, a little over a month before Election Day, the candidates adopted a somber tone, and neither mentioned his rival by name.

But while McCain and Obama themselves were showing restraint, both their campaigns unveiled new critical television advertisements. McCain’s blames Democrats and Obama for the nation’s economic crisis, while Obama’s criticizes McCain’s tax policy and paints him as a continuation of the Bush administration.

Obama campaigned in the Silver State, his fourth visit since the general election campaign began. Bush won Nevada by 21,500 votes, or 2.5 percent, in 2004. It is expected to be a toss-up this November.

Obama told the crowd that under normal circumstances, he’d be tempted to give a “big, rip-roarin’, rah-rah speech.” But he said it was not a time for partisanship after a day in which a trillion dollars of wealth had been lost by the time markets closed. “Let me be perfectly clear: The fact that we are in this mess is an outrage. It’s an outrage because we did not get here by accident. ...

This financial crisis is a direct result of the greed and irresponsibility that has dominated Washington and Wall Street for years,” he said. “While there is plenty of blame to go around, and many in Washington and Wall Street deserve it, all of us now have a responsibility to solve this crisis, because it affects the financial wellbeing of every single American.

“There will be time to punish those who set this fire, but now is the moment for us to come together

and put the fire out.”

Campaigning in Iowa — a state that strongly is tilting toward Obama — McCain lambasted Congress, saying lawmakers’ inability to pass a rescue plan could put the nation in peril.

“We are in the greatest financial crisis in our lifetime,” he said. “Congressional inaction has put every American in the entire economy at grave risk.”

But the GOP nominee said now was not the time for finger-pointing or blame.

“We cannot allow a crisis in our financial system to become a crisis of confidence. I call on everyone in Washington to come together in a bipartisan way to come together to address this crisis,” McCain said. “I know many solutions to this problem may be unpopular. The dire consequences of inaction will be far more damaging.”

Obama and McCain both spoke with President Bush in the morning Tuesday, and both urged the FDIC to increase deposit protection to $250,000 per account. House Republicans claimed that the proposal was rejected by Democrats in the midst of negotiations, before the bailout package was voted down Monday in the U.S House of Representatives.

The FDIC provision is expected to be included in the Senate bill that is to be voted on Wednesday.

“That’s just one idea,” Obama said, adding that both parties should be open to all ideas to get the deal done. “We must act now. We can’t have another day like (Monday). We can’t risk another week or another month where American businesses are afraid to extend credit and lend money. That has an impact on housing right here in Nevada. That has an impact on the small business owner who has got to make payroll. And if he can’t make payroll on Friday, he may lay you off on Monday.”

New leader chosen for Pakistani spooks

By Mubashir Zaidi and Laura King Los Angeles Times

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — In a move that could herald changes in Pakistan’s policy toward Islamic militants, the government on Tuesday named a new chief of its powerful intelligence agency.

Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shujaa Pasha, the director-general of military operations, was appointed to head the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, which has worked closely with the CIA and other U.S. intelligence organizations. But the Pakistani spy agency has also been tainted by historic ties, alleged by some observers to extend into the present, with the Taliban and other militant groups.

The change in command at the ISI appeared to signal a desire on the part of the Pakistani government to alter at least the image, if not the fundamental mission, of its premier intelligence-gathering organization.

The previous agency chief, Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj, held the position for less than a year, an unusually short tenure at the helm of the ISI, which is sometimes described by critics as a “state within a state.”

Pakistan’s new civilian government has attempted to assert some semblance of authority over the ISI, but so far has had only limited suc-

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cess. Earlier this year, Prime Minister Yusaf Raza Gilani was forced to back down on an effort to bring the agency’s command and control under the civilian Interior Ministry.

The announcement of the highlevel shuffle was made by Pakistan’s military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, himself a former chief of the ISI. Kayani made it clear that the military would retain control over the agency’s day-to-day operations, although it ultimately reports to the prime minister.

Although the ISI is believed to have provided crucial assistance to the United States in hunting down some senior figures in al-Qaida and the Taliban movement, its loyalties and motives have been widely questioned.

Afghan authorities earlier this year accused the ISI of helping militant groups who bombed the Indian Embassy in Kabul, the Afghan capital, and who tried to kill Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The Islamabad government denied any involvement in those attacks.

That government’s willingness and ability to crack down on militants sheltering in the tribal lands along the Afghan border have been sharply questioned by senior Bush administration officials in recent months.

CIA Director Michael V. Hayden met with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari during his visit to the United

Nations in New York last week, the latest in a series of high-level meetings involving intelligence officials of the two countries.

In previous encounters, U.S. intelligence and military officials have accused the ISI of tipping off Taliban targets to planned U.S. missile strikes, and providing support to militant groups that have fueled a dramatic increase in violence in Afghanistan over the past year.

Still, officials from both countries sought to downplay suggestions that the move was engineered by the United States. Pakistan experts said the sudden switch reflects Kayani’s desire to assemble a leadership team that he trusts.

The ISI nurtured the Taliban movement in the 1990s as part of a regional strategy meant to counter India’s influence. The movement, which was toppled by a U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan nearly seven years ago, has since staged a resurgence, proving an unexpectedly resilient and resourceful foe in the battle against Western troops in Afghanistan.

Pasha has made public statements that reflect an awareness of Western unease over the ISI’s historic links to militant groups. But he has also been critical of what he describes as excessive use of military force against insurgents, particularly when wielded in a manner that exacts civilian casualties.

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Ads target demographic groups WASHINGTON — Let’s say you’re a smoker. What might persuade you to try to quit?

Would it be an ultra-cool warning from former Redskin Darrell Green, sleek in a black suit, backed by an equally hip graphic artist?

Maybe an upbeat riff from a local go-go band?

Or would it be sinister warnings of poison and disease, featuring a satanic figure made of cigarette smoke?

The answer, the American Lung Association of Washington, D.C. believes, depends partly on the culture you come from. So it is aiming two flashy anti-smoking campaigns in two very different directions: one in English, targeting African Americans, and one in Spanish, for Latinos.

“These are the populations that have the highest rates of smoking, and of tobacco-related health disparities — heart disease, stroke, cancer — particularly in the Medicaid and under-served population,” says Debra Annand, director of the lung association project that launched the ad campaigns two months ago.

The radio and television spots, plus bus shelter and Metro posters, mark the first big push to come out of the $10 million the District of Columbia allocated for anti-smoking efforts in mid-2007, using its portion of a 1998 national settlement by tobacco companies. In both languages, they try to get smokers to call the local lung association’s “QuitLine,” where staffers offer free nicotine patches, lozenges and counseling.

The difference in tone between the two campaigns is striking.

The English-language version, designed by Global Advertising 1st of Lanham, features the friendly, dapper Green. He warns of the “250 deadly poisons “ in cigarettes, but the theme is more about getting smart than getting scared. A taped message from “your old friend Darrell Green” also greets callers to the English-language line at 800-QUITNOW and says encouragingly that just by making the call, a smoker demonstrates “wisdom and strength.” In a similarly lively vein, radio spots by the Washington go-go band Mambo Sauce lead off with an exuberant “What’s up, D.C.?” and band members say they couldn’t make music if they smoked.

In contrast, the main character in the Spanish-language campaign, devised by Elevacion, a Georgetown-based Hispanic ad agency, is the villain: a dramatically anthropomorphized vision of smoking itself.

Besides the print ads featuring the gloating face of a devil, a television spot will chill anyone who remembers the Marlboro Man: A glum immigrant sits at a table, saying, “I have no one in this country.” He is approached by a lanky cowboylike character who offers him solace — in the form of a gun. As the dismal figure puts the gun to his own temple, the weapon turns into a cigarette and the cowboy dissolves into cigarette smoke. “Who needs enemies when you have friends like this?” asks a voice.

“The data showed us that these immigrants get here and they are alone; that is the excuse for why they’re smoking,”’ said Jim Leonard, Elevacion’s president. “We wanted to demonize those excuses — and we’re going to make this (Marlboro) man the demon.”

Annand says both campaigns are successful. “We’re seeing a tremendous increase in calls ... from 350 two years ago to 1,400 last year, and 2,000 so far this year.” And 70 percent of callers, she says, take steps to get help in overcoming their addiction.

Next month the agency is planning to launch a new campaign, this one targeting youth smokers. Annand says that one of the biggest deterrents to teenage smoking is price, and that means the anti-smoking effort is going to get a boost before it even starts: On Oct. 1, the District’s excise tax on cigarettes will double, from $1 to $2 on a 20-smoke pack.

You might say there’ll be the devil to pay.

—Nancy Szokan

Page 8

Frosh golfer grabs second place at Yale Invitational continued from page 12 Kendalle especially was killing the ball,” said Restrepo. “We actually had a tougher time with our short game than with the length of the course. That was really one of the big differences between Heather’s score and everyone else’s. We all hit the ball well but we weren’t scoring well except for Heather. She was the only one who not only hit the ball well but scored really well, too.”

Heather Arison attributed her success to placing the ball well and strong putting early in her round.

“I was hitting it straight, which helped a lot because it was a placement course and you needed to be able to hit it to the right spot,” she said. “I also putted pretty well, especially at the beginning, which helped a lot.”

The Bears will certainly be focusing on continuing to improve their putting, as well as the rest of

Rochelson ‘09: NL ‘a bunch of losers’ continued from page 12 the on-field action will be pretty one-sided.

The Verdict: Sweeeeeeeep.

Cubs win series, 3-0.

National League Championship Series, Cubs vs. Phillies Here’s where “clutch” counts. The Cubs hit a healthy .278 in “Close & Late” situations this season, while the Phillies hit a measly .249. Cubs third baseman Aramis Ramirez is frighteningly good in these vital scenarios, hitting .423 when it counts the most. A-Ram will hit a walk-off home run in game seven, sending the Cubbies to the World Series for the first time since 1945.

The Cubs will have a chance to shed the reputation as the Lovable Losers of baseball.

Their opponent in the 2008 World Series will be revealed… after the break. I mean, in my next column.

Ellis Rochelson ’09 is calling it now: So Taguchi will make headlines this October.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

their short games, over the course of this week. It will be the team’s first weekend without a tournament since the start of its fall season.

“We all have things we individually need to work on, but I think we’re still going to keep drilling on the short game because ... it’s always something you can improve on,” Bennett said. “But this week off should be really good for us and should give us the rest we need to do well at Virginia.”

The Bears have only two tournaments left in their fall season. They will next play a week from Monday at the University of Richmond before closing out the season at the Sacred Heart Invitational Oct. 26-27.

“We feel really good about where we are at as a team right now, especially compared to last year,” Restrepo said. “We feel strong and we’re looking forward to performing well at the last two tournaments of the season.”

Water polo dominates St. Francis Saturday continued from page 12

second quarter, the Terriers continued to attack the Bears offensively and came out two goals ahead.

“The guys kept us in the game with great defense and aggressive offense in the first half,” Gartner said.

St. Francis focused its defensive effort on taking out Gartner, the Bears’ main whole set, but Gartner fought back, drawing seven ejections throughout the game to give the Bears big opportunities on offense.

“Mike played absolutely amazing,” said Corey Schwartz ’11. “He was a stronghold, he opened up the entire offense.”

Down by two goals entering the second half, the Bears came out swinging and, for the second time this season, came back from behind.

The third quarter saw Bruno outscore St. Francis, 5-2, bringing the score to 8-7 at the end of the quarter and giving Brown its first lead of the game.

“Our training kicked in during the second half and people were

executing perfectly,” Gartner said.

The teams traded goals in the final quarter, fighting it out until the final seconds. But the Bears held on to their lead to finish the game on top 9-8.

“When the buzzer ran out in the fourth quarter was a highlight for me,” Schwartz said. “It was such a close game throughout, I don’t think anyone wanted to let up.”

After using some of their early games to give their bench players playing time, the Bears were able to depend on their depth throughout the game.

“We were really relying on our bench to give our starters a break,” McBride said. “I give our bench a lot of credit.”

Gartner echoed these sentiments.

“It was one of the most brutal games I’ve ever been a part of,” Gartner said. “It’s great having those players who aren’t afraid to go in.”

CWPA North Player of the Week Gordon Hood ’11 led the Bears in goals, scoring three times through-

out the game, while Hank Weintraub ’09 tallied an additional two goals and three assists. Schwartz added another two goals and Gartner and captain Grant LeBeau ’09 rounded out the scoring for the Bears with one goal each.

“It’s so nice to have a team like we have with so many weapons,” Gartner said. “Everyone is willing to give 100 percent for their teammates.”

On the defensive end, goalkeeper Kent Holland ’10 came up big with nine saves.

“Kent played really well,” McBride said. “He had some one-on-nobody blocks (that) really raised the confidence of the guys.”

While happy with the win, both McBride and Gartner recognized the need to stay focused.

“It was definitely the most rewarding game of my career so far,” Gartner said. “But we still have a long way to go.”

The Bears will hit the road this week and be back in the pool Wednesday night to take on Harvard.

U.S.’ Sunni allies concerned, afraid at Shiite takeover continued from page 6 prevent their sudden disintegration. American of ficials see the Sons of Iraq as a central factor in the reduction in violence, along with the temporar y increase in U.S. forces, a year-long cease-fire imposed by a Shiite militia leader and the stepped-up assassinations of key insurgents.

John’s unit — 2nd Battalion of the 4th Infantr y Regiment, attached to the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division — has set aside funds to pay Sons of Iraq guards for 90 days in case the Iraqi government does not. U.S. soldiers say they will sit in as Iraqi officials hand out salary payments during the first few months. And the Americans have demanded that the Iraqi government refrain from arresting any of the Sunni fighters, many of whom are former insurgents, unless authorities have arrest warrants issued within the past six months. That will make it harder for the Shiite government to arrest Sons of Iraq leaders for acts committed before they joined forces with the Americans.

In recent weeks, U.S. militar y officials began shrinking the ranks of the Sons of Iraq by offering members micro-grants that amount to early-retirement packages. This month alone John’s company has handed out more than 30 grants totaling more than $60,000.

“The big issue that concerns us is what happens if the government drops the ball and stops pay-

ing these guys,” said Capt. Parsana Deoki, 32, of New York. “You’d have up to 400 SOI without jobs, without an income. That presents a problem. They have militar y training and access to weapons — unemployed, with weapons, young men with an established chain of command. You can fill in the blanks.”

Dora, a southern Baghdad district that is roughly 75 percent Sunni, was one of the most tattered and dangerous places in the capital in early 2007. Heaps of garbage collected on the sides of streets, making it hard to detect roadside bombs. Commercial areas and many residential streets were on virtual lockdown. People stopped going to work, fearing kidnapping, an explosion or a sectarian killing.

The Sons of Iraq, also known as Awakening Councils, began in Anbar province in western Iraq in 2006 when tribal leaders joined forces with U.S. troops to fight the growing influence of al-Qaida in Iraq, a largely homegrown insurgent group that imposed a dogmatic brand of Islam.

Desperate for solutions to curtail the endemic violence that gripped Baghdad and several Iraqi provinces in early 2007, the U.S. militar y sought to replicate the Anbar model across the countr y.

Awakening groups sometimes formed overnight, especially in places where networks of insurgents had weapons and a chain of command.

Mohamed Abdul Hussein al-

Kurtani, a Sons of Iraq leader in Dora, had been running a local cell of the 1920 Revolution Brigades, an insurgent group that opposed the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq and had been dueling with the local cell of al-Qaida in Iraq.

“He decided it was a fruitless battle to work against us,” said Sgt. Brian Bailey, 31, of Holbrook, Mass.

“Instead of hiding in the shadows, they came out.”

Al-Kurtani, like most leaders, wears civilian clothes. The guards under his command wear tan uniforms and carr y battered AK-47 assault rifles. Most Sons of Iraq are assigned to the neighborhoods where they live and earn $300 to $500 a month.

“At first, the SOI were just guys on street corners,” said Lt. Col. Bryan Mullins, 39, of Bristol, Va., a brigade operations officer. “We started integrating them into the security program. They knew the bad guys and they knew who was in the community.”

As violence declined this year and Iraqis began demanding more control over security matters, U.S. officials began exploring ways of shrinking the Sons of Iraq.

But getting Iraqi army and police units to work with Sons of Iraq groups was initially impossible and remains difficult, U.S. military officials say. The Iraqi government has pledged to hire at least 20 percent of the guards as soldiers or policemen and has agreed to keep the rest on the payroll until they find other jobs.

Capt. Zaid Ayad Obaidi alRubaie, one of the key National Police leaders in Dora, spoke glowingly about the Sons of Iraq in his area during a recent visit, as U.S. soldiers listened in.

“They are Iraqi,” the captain said, smoking a cigarette in his small office. “We understand each other. From the beginning, the collaboration was very fruitful, and it continues.”

But Sons of Iraq leaders say their relationships with police commanders have been forged under heavy U.S. pressure and remain beset by mutual distrust.

“I feel sorr y to say this,” said Zaied Subhi, a Sons of Iraq leader.

“There is no trust between us.”

First Lt. Greg Garhart, 26, who

super vises more than 400 Sons of Iraq in the Dora area, said the guards who work under him have all but lost hope. None has been admitted into the National Police.

“They kind of see the SOI as a dying organization,” he said. “I’ve had a few quit recently. I don’t know if they lost their faith or are afraid of the NP.” Of more than 54,000 Sons of Iraq guards in the Baghdad area, roughly 3,400 have secured jobs in the Iraqi security forces, according to the U.S. military. Despite their misgivings, the vast majority have registered to continue getting paid by the Iraqi government.

U.S. soldiers see Sons of Iraq leaders as extraordinary sources of intelligence, but what makes them so attractive as allies — their connections to the insurgency — is also what makes the prospect of their dissolution so alarming.

John recently visited al-Kurtani to seek information about a Katyusha rocket that narrowly missed the small outpost in Dora where his platoon is assigned.

“How does a (expletive) rocket the size of two of my weapons get into the `mahallas’ without SOI seeing it,” John asked teasingly, using the Arabic word for neighborhood.

After a lengthy back-and-forth between al-Kurtani and his aides, John’s interpreter quietly told the lieutenant that a cousin of one of alKurtani’s deputies may have been involved.

The next day, another Sons of Iraq group spotted two men fiddling with a small billboard fixed to a light post along a main road.

Police arrested the men and found, inside the double-paneled billboard, a rocket attached to a triggering device.

Under stern questioning by John, one of the men began to weep and said he knew nothing about the rocket. But field tests for explosives residue on their hands were positive.

“How much did they pay you to do this?” demanded John.

In one of the men’s pockets, police found two crisp $50 bills.

Later that day, John told his men to keep looking for similar booby traps and found a billboard disguising a mortar launcher.

W orld & n ation Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Page 9

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

In a hungry Africa, foreigners once again reaping heavy bounty

By Edmund Sanders Los Angeles T imes

WAD RAWAH, Sudan — Africa’s abundant natural resources long have invited foreign exploitation.

Over generations, foreign empires and companies stripped the continent of its gold and diamonds, then its oil. Rubber and ivory were plundered from Congo. Even Africa’s people were exploited: captured and sold into slavery abroad.

Now foreigners are enjoined in a new scramble in Africa. The latest craze? Food. Amid a global crisis that for a time this year doubled prices for wheat, corn, rice and other staples, some of the world’s richest nations are coming to Africa to farm, hoping to turn the global epicenter of malnutrition into a breadbasket for themselves.

Lured by fertile land, cheap labor and untapped potential, oil-rich Persian Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, where deserts hinder food production, are snapping up farmland in underdeveloped African nations to grow crops for consumption back home.

“It’s a perfect partnership,” said Idriss Ashmaig, manager of the Sudan office for Hadco, a Saudi agricultural company that made its first foreign foray with a $95 million deal to lease about 25,000 acres near the Nile River north of Khartoum. “Here there is water, land and climate. All they need is the capital.”

By next spring, Hadco hopes to be exporting wheat, vegetables and animal feed to Saudi Arabia.

The Emirates government recently signed a similar deal in Sudan for up to 70,000 acres south of Khartoum, the capital. Investors from Qatar are fattening sheep and chickens not far away. Egypt and Ethiopia are touting their agricultural potential, hoping to draw foreign interest.

The deals are bound to raise eyebrows, because countries targeted by the investors often are struggling to

Edmund Sanders / Los Angeles Times

”They took our land and gave us nothing,” says farmer Ahmed Mohammed Abdallah, 80. feed their own populations. Although Sudan has thriving exports of cotton and gum arabic, it imports more than 1 million tons of wheat annually and has suffered recent deficits in another staple, sorghum. Regions in the south and west, including Darfur, are heavily reliant on international food aid, provided mostly by the United States.

“It’s not as easy as siphoning oil out of a country,” said Joachim von Braun, director of the Washingtonbased International Food Policy Research Institute.

Ethiopia, for example, is marketing its farmland to Saudi Arabia, yet the Horn of Africa nation has a history of famine and is suffering serious drought. Under such circumstances, foreign growers planning to export food might face protests, even riots, by hungry locals, experts said. Even as it tries to lure foreign investment, the government recently slapped a ban on all food exports, in response to domestic shortages.

“It would be unimaginable for a foreign investor in Ethiopia now to simply ship out large amounts of grain,” von Braun said.

He stressed that foreign partnerships were likely to benefit everyone, by increasing worldwide food pro-

duction. “We should not look at this trend with alarm. The more capital that finds its way into agriculture, the (bigger) the total pie.”

Sudanese officials say the new deals will help, not exploit, their country by creating jobs, promoting commercialization and pumping much-needed investment into its agricultural industry.

“These partnerships can help lift our farmers,” said Abdadaffie Fadlalah, agricultural commissioner at Sudan’s Investment Ministry.

In Sudan, like much of Africa, decades of neglect have driven down crop production per acre to just onethird the international average. Even though it boasts the confluence of the White Nile and Blue Nile rivers, only 10 percent of Sudan’s farmland is irrigated and only 20 percent of its arable ground is cultivated.

Government officials say they see foreign investment as a means of jump-starting the sector, expanding total output and introducing cuttingedge technology, such as new seed varieties and planting methods.

By watching and sometimes participating in foreign enterprises, local farmers will learn improved techniques, Sudanese officials said. And if international prices stabilize, some

of the food earmarked for export probably will be sold locally, boosting domestic supplies, they added.

To lure foreign dollars, Sudan eliminated duties on imports of agriculture-related goods, such as seed, fertilizer and tractors. Export taxes, once 30 percent, were removed. The government, which owns most of Sudan’s land, is granting 99-year lowcost leases.

“The government is not interested in making money,” said Salah Mohammed Taha, investment director at the Agriculture Ministry. “It’s interested in developing the area.”

Since the beginning of the year, he said, Sudan has leased nearly 2 million acres to foreign companies.

Saudi interest in Sudan picked up sharply this year. The Persian Gulf country invested a fortune in technology to enable its own farmers to grow wheat in the desert. But the nation began to look outside, worried about long-term depletion of its underground water.

Investors with a longer history in Sudan say the country already has delivered impressive yields. By introducing a technique known as “zero tillage,” in which seeds are planted without tilling the soil, the Arab-Sudanese Blue Nile Agriculture

Co. said it drove cotton and sorghum yields up nearly threefold.

“That’s a remarkable increase,” said the project’s deputy chief, Suleiman Shugeiry.

Officially, investors in Sudan are encouraged to assist communities by sharing irrigation systems, lending machinery or setting aside land for local farmers. But such benefits don’t always materialize, and those snubs can lead to bad feelings.

For generations, the green fields of Wad Rawah, south of Khartoum, were used by Ahmed Mohammed Abdalla’s family to grow sorghum.

When the Emirates-owned Zayed al Khair moved next door, his family lost the rights to more than 50 acres without compensation.

The foreign company constructed a network of canals from the Nile for its crops, but it has refused to share the water. “They took our land and gave us nothing,” said Abdalla, 80.

The company hires about 300 locals as day laborers and permits herders to graze animals during the off-season. It also built a mosque.

But locals said foreigners should do more. “We don’t need a mosque,” Abdalla said. “We need hospitals and schools.”

For investors, security and stability pose additional risks, analysts say.

In the 1970s, Arab nations struck similar agricultural deals with Sudan, but most pulled out amid the country’s worsening north-south civil war and a shift in government policy that nationalized some private ventures.

Sudan’s political problems, including the Darfur conflict, U.S. economic sanctions and an International Criminal Court genocide prosecution, could similarly threaten the foreign partnerships, said University of Khartoum economics professor Ibrahim Sobahi.

“This kind of investment tends to be shy, because investors are sensitive to national and international hazards,” he said. “The next three or four years in Sudan could be rough.”

At 81, Japan’s force for the world’s poor

By Blaine Harden Washington Post

TOKYO — Sadako Ogata, the diminutive woman who is one of Japan’s bestknown and longest-serving public figures, is 81.

That number, though, does not interest her. Like death, taxes, and the dizzying rise and fall of Japanese prime ministers, it is beyond her managerial control.

What she can manage is a Japanese government agency that gives assistance and expertise to the world’s poorest people. As of Wednesday, she will ride herd on the world’s largest bilateral development agency. The Japan International Cooperation Agency, which Ogata heads, is swallowing a government bank that offers grants and low-interest loans. That will give the agency an estimated $10.3 billion in available financial resources, an amount it says is about 2 1/2 times that of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Ogata will be in Washington on Oct. 10 to talk with U.S. officials and the World Bank about how her expanded agency can collaborate with them to fight poverty, especially in Africa. What she wants to do with Japan’s beefed-up aid bureaucracy is to move aid and manpower into crisis

areas such as Sudan, Afghanistan and Iraq. And she wants to do it fast.

“Unless you are there on the ground at the crucial point, you cannot meet real needs,” she said in an interview, noting that for decades, Japan’s aid bureaucracy had a well-deserved reputation for avoiding dangerous trouble spots, as well as for having far more employees sitting at desks in Tokyo than working in the field.

Her manner was dignified, her voice calm and her English diction impeccable. But she has a very unJapanese habit of saying exactly what she thinks, no matter whom it offends.

Shuffling papers while people die is something that has always ticked her off.

As the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, a position she held from 1991 to 2000, she angered her boss, Secretary General Boutros BoutrosGhali, and embarrassed the U.N. Security Council by demanding in 1993 that the United Nations either break the Serbian siege of Srebrenica, in eastern Bosnia, or carry out a largescale evacuation.

She was ignored, but she was right. Two years after her warning, 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in Srebrenica by Serbs in the worst massacre in Europe since World

War II. Ogata was born into one of Japan’s most distinguished families. Her greatgrandfather, Prime Minister Tsuyoshi Inukai, was killed by ultra-nationalists in 1932, an assassination that halted party politics in Japan and ushered in the military-dominated governments that propelled the country into World War II. She came to the world of big-league diplomacy in her 50s, after raising two children. She had no choice but to wait that long. When she was young, Ogata said, women were not permitted to join Japan’s diplomatic corps.

With a master’s degree in international affairs from Georgetown University and a doctorate in political science from the University of California at Berkeley, Ogata became a professor of international relations in Japan.

After she was selected in 1990 as a compromise candidate to head the U.N. refugee agency, multiple regional wars erupted around the world, producing a record high 27 million refugees. With people in need from the Balkans to Rwanda to Kurdistan, her staff swelled to more than 5,000, and her budget topped $1 billion. But unlike many high-powered U.N. officials, Ogata never mastered the art of speaking at length while saying nothing. She even chided Japan for

Blaine Harden / Washington Post

Sadako Ogata heads the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

failing to be serious about humanitarian work.

“I think it would be pretty good if Japan, in becoming an economic power, becomes a humanitarian power as well,” she said just before she took office.

Years later, she is still chiding Japan. What upsets her now, she said, is the government’s failure to address the country’s extraordinary demographic crisis. Japan has the world’s oldest population and is projected to lose up to 70 percent of its workforce by 2050.

Yet Japanese leaders have done “nothing” to increase immigration, “nothing” to ease the strain on working mothers and “nothing” to change a work-obsessed culture that keeps

many young couples from having children, she said.

“Everybody knew this was happening,” she added. “Nothing was done. Do we have political leaders who are farsighted? No!” Japan’s government has cut total spending on overseas development aid by 40 percent in the past 11 years.

But Ogata did not complain about the cuts. She has made do, closing all her agency’s offices in Europe and shifting resources to Africa, where needs are greatest.

As for retirement, Ogata laughed, shook her head and said she will stick around for at least another year to oversee the agency’s expansion.

“I am used to moving people and moving things,” she said.

E ditorial & L etters Page 10

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Staf f Editorial

A special responsibility In the midst of a financial crisis, journalists are being more careful with language. A recent New York Times article writes that journalists –– often accused of “hyperbole and sowing alarm,”–– are now choosing their words carefully. By using the word ‘panic,’ to describe the current market situation, journalists are in danger of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. In a decisiondriven market, words have been imbued with their own form of currency.

A sentence is a simple construction of noun and verb. It’s the subtleties of language that allows us to use the different words that create nuance and meaning in poetry as well as prose. Eskimo-Aleut languages are commonly known for a partially exaggerated notion having over 100 different words for “snow” –– subtle distinctions based on a worldview surrounded by a certain environment.

The journalism profession thus faces a bountiful selection of words, each with its own connotations and contexts. Readers also bring their own experiences to the understanding of each word, a further layer of meaning on top of a single word. The connotations of a word binds people together within a language and within communities; these socially constructed meanings invests fear into words like panic and collapse.

Journalists then have the responsibility for not simply reporting on established world views, but shaping them. Journalists, charged with the responsibility to report objectively, must also consider the suggestive power of words within their community. The addition of social responsibility to questions of objectivity adds a new layer of meaning to the definition of journalism, redefining a journalist’s role as both objective critic and cheerleader.

Communication and transparency become more significant in a situation where most of the deal-making decisions are happening behind closed doors. Yet many students admit that due to their busy schedules, most of their knowledge of the current financial crisis is based on headlines. The lack of time in many people’s lives has further restricted journalism’s ability to represent complex issues to short headlines.

Market forces have played out in the demise of major financial institutions, but the ripple effect of a weakened economy on the newspaper industry have been quietly devastating. Our society values a quick turn-around of information, to keep up with a global community that is constantly in flux, and with an economy that forces people to work harder to make more money, even less time can be devoted to the simple act of reading –– heralding a declining reliance on forms of print media.

As college newspapers, we have been able to cling onto this tradition for a longer period of time than most other print media. We recognize the ability for the Herald to continue in print as a continued sign of our readership’s dedication to engage in a form of social communication which binds us together through shared experiences and terminology like ‘taking a class S/NC’ and ‘eating at the Ratty’.

There are many words and ways to express gratitude — definitely more than we have for “snow” — but we will simply say “thank you” for your continued readership.

T he B rown D aily H erald Editors-in-Chief Simmi Aujla Ross Frazier

Executive Editors Taylor Barnes Chris Gang

Senior Editors Irene Chen Lindsey Meyers

editorial Ben Hyman Hannah Levintova Matthew Varley Alex Roehrkasse Chaz Firestone Nandini Jayakrishna Scott Lowenstein Michael Bechek Isabel Gottlieb Franklin Kanin Michael Skocpol Ben Bernstein James Shapiro Benjy Asher Amy Ehrhart Megan McCahill Andrew Braca Han Cui Katie Wood

Arts & Culture Editor Arts & Culture Editor Higher Ed Editor Higher Ed Editor Features Editor Metro Editor Metro Editor News Editor News Editor News Editor News Editor Opinions Editor Opinions Editor Sports Editor Sports Editor Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor

production Production & Design Editor Steve DeLucia Asst. Design Editor Chaz Kelsh Copy Desk Chief Kathryn Delaney Copy Desk Chief Seth Motel Graphics Editor Adam Robbins

C arly hudelson

Letters UCS debuts a monthly newsletter To the Editor: On Monday evening, the Undergraduate Council of Students sent out the first issue of the UCS Monthly, an e-mail which aims to be a monthly collection of useful announcements and updates for the undergraduate community.

In the past, the random and frequent UCS e-mails haven’t been particularly popular. We’re hoping to change this by making them more concise and relevant — and if you still find them annoying, at least they’ll appear less frequently! We’re excited to be establishing a publication that provides regular updates to the student body. This is part of our effort to increase our accountability and transparency to the student body. In

addition to The UCS Monthly, we are also maintaining and enhancing the UCS Web site, and exploring taking out ad space in The Herald.

UCS meets every Wednesday at 7:30 PM in Petteruti Lounge, Faunce House. As always, our meetings are open to the public and we encourage you to come and share your thoughts. And we would love to hear how you would like to hear from UCS. We want to keep you informed and need your suggestions.

Clay Wertheimer Communications Chair Undergraduate Council of Students Sept. 30

Business Darren Ball General Manager Mandeep Gill General Manager Shawn Reilly Office Manager Alex Hughes Sales Director Emilie Aries Communications Director Jon Spector Finance Director Claire Kiely Local & National Sales Manager Ellen DaSilva University Sales Manager Philip Maynard Local & Recruiter Sales Manager Katelyn Koh Asst. Finance Director photo Meara Sharma Min Wu

Photo Editor Photo Editor

post- magazine Matt Hill Rajiv Jayadevan Arthur Matuszewski Colleen Brogan Kelly McKowan Monica Huang Kristen Olds Ellen Cushing Reshma Ramachandran

Managing Editor Managing Editor Features Editor Features Editor Off the Hill Editor Layout Editor Layout Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor

Joanna Lee, Anna Migliaccio, Jessie Calihan, Chaz Kelsh, Designers Tarah Knaresboro, Jordan Mainzer, Janine Lopez, Copy Editors

Correction

Franklin Kanin, Melissa Shube, Gaurie Tilak, Night Editors Senior Staff Writers Mitra Anoushiravani, Colin Chazen, Chaz Kelsh, Emmy Liss, Brian Mastroianni, George Miller, Melissa Shube, Anne Simons, Sara Sunshine, Gaurie Tilak, Caroline Sedano, Jenna Stark, Joanna Wohlmuth, Simon van Zuylen-Wood Staff Writers Zunaira Choudhary, Leslie Primack, Connie Zheng, Christian Martell, Alexandra Ulmer, Lauren Pischel, Samuel Byker, Anne Deggelman, Nicole Dungca, Olivia Hoffman, Cameron Lee, Debbie Lehmann, Sophia Li, Seth Motel, Marielle Segarra, Kyla Wilkes, Juliana Friend Sports Staff Writers Peter Cipparone, Nicole Stock Business Staff Maximilian Barrows, Thanases Plestis, Agathe Roncey, Allen McGonagill, Ben Xiong, Bonnie Kim, Cathy Li, Christiana Stephenson, Corey Schwartz, Evan Sumortin, Galen Cho, Han Lee, Haydar Taygun, Jackie Goldman, Jilyn Chao, Kathy Bui, Kelly Wess, Kenneth So, Lee Chau, Lyndse Yess, Margaret Watson, Matthew Burrows, Maura Lynch, Misha Desai, Stassia Chyzhykova, Webber Xu, William Schweitzer Design Staff Jessica Calihan, Amy Kendall, Joanna Lee, Rachel Isaacs, Angela Santin Ceballos, Marlee Bruning, Rachel Wexler, Maxwell Rosero, Katie Silverstein, Shara Azad, Jessica Kirschner, Jee Hyun Choi, Heeyoung Min, Andrea McWilliams, Anna Samel Photo Staff Alex DePaoli, Eunice Hong, Kim Perley, Quinn Savit, Justin Coleman Copy Editors Rafael Chaiken, Ellen Cushing, Younhun Kim, Frederic Lu, Lauren Fedor, Madeleine Rosenberg, Kelly Mallahan, Jennifer Kim, Tarah Knaresboro, Jordan Mainzer, Janine Lopez, Luis Solis, Ayelet Brinn, Rachel Starr, Riva Shah, Jason Yum, Simon Leibling, Rachel Isaacs

An article in yesterday’s Herald (“Biden speaks at Cranston fundraiser,” Sept. 30) identified Democratic vicepresidential nominee as a senator from Connecticut. Biden represents Delaware.

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

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

L etters to the E ditor P olicy Send letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters for length and cannot assure the publication of any letter. Please limit letters to 250 words. Under special circumstances writers may request anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed. advertising P olicy The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.

O pinions Wednesday, October 1, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Page 11

Liars and hypocrites

BY TYLER ROSENBAUM Opinions Columnist The presidential election isn’t over and already it has been a real disappointment. The process fell far short of my expectations. Obama’s historic campaign was supposed to be about transcending partisanship and political “business as usual.” I’m not sure if anyone ever bought into that, but it is still a letdown to see that ideal shattered.

Of course, Barack Obama isn’t the only one at fault; almost everyone acknowledges that the Republicans deserve most of the blame for this, having run a remarkably dirty and dishonorable campaign. This isn’t just my humble opinion: Even the fiscally conservative Economist magazine (whose previous endorsements include both Bob Dole and George W. Bush) published a stinging indictment of the Republican campaign.

McCain’s political transformation is perhaps the most regrettable feature of this election. He used to be respectable. I might even have voted for maverick McCain. You know, the straight-talker who defied his party and nearly beat Bush for the Republican nomination in 2000.

Unfortunately, that man has long since passed away. What we are left with now is a war hero (and a senior citizen to boot) who has thoroughly besmirched his name and honor. McCain sank to a new low when he adopted the same Rovian dirty politics that

Bush used against him in the 2000 election.

Evidently McCain would rather lose his soul than lose an election.

In almost every election Democrats and Republicans distort each other’s records mercilessly. Obama takes McCain’s quote on spending 100 years in Iraq out of context and brutally teases him about his houses and cars. McCain claims his opponent would like to teach kindergartners comprehensive sexual education.

and months, Obama based his bid for the presidency on change, and then selected a man who has been in the senate since Obama was 11.

McCain’s campaign stressed the importance of experience and judgment right up until the conventions. Then, it picked a vice presidential candidate with even less political experience than Obama (one who thinks that living between Russia and Canada is a legitimate foreign policy credential). This all

Politicians tell lies because they can get away with it. In fact, they are often rewarded for it!

When confronted with an advertisement made by his campaign that quite literally spread lies about Obama, McCain refused to acknowledge the falsehoods. Sarah Palin continues to claim that she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska in her speeches, even though she admitted a few days after the convention that she supported it.

What’s worse, the campaigns refuse to tell the truth about themselves. For months

comes on top of the Republicans’ miraculous recognition of the evils of sexism in American society and the Democrats’ newfound disdain for the public financing of elections.

It is distressing and problematic that America’s most powerful politicians repeatedly distort the truth and abandon their values. It’s gotten to the point where readers no longer blink upon reading the words “lie” and “hypocrisy.”

Should we lay the blame on politicians in general and resign ourselves to continued electoral deception? That doesn’t seem completely right. Politicians are rational people.

They do not lie for the pleasure of it and they probably do have fundamental values. Politicians tell lies because they can get away with it. In fact, they are often rewarded for it!

Some people heap scorn on the Daily Show or the Colbert Report for being “cynical” or “snarky.” But these shows serve an important purpose. To date, they are the only news outlets that regularly call politicians out for lying or being hypocritical. These shows specialize in showing archived video footage of a politician or commentator saying one thing juxtaposed with more recent footage of the same person completely contradicting himself.

Conservatives can whine about the shows’ liberal bias, but their time would be better spent creating their own version of the Daily Show. In fact, I encourage them to do so. Satirical programs reduce politicians’ incentive to lie by making them look ridiculous.

That is a laudable purpose. If a politician lies about her record or abandons his values he should not get a pass. But the mainstream media do not hold politicians accountable for their dishonesty or fluid principles. Someone should. Because if they don’t, American politics will become completely dominated by liars and hypocrites. And that’s the word.

Tyler Rosenbaum ’11 only lied about being a hypocrite.

Common sense

BY Justin Cohen Guest Columnist In his column on Brown University and the Common Application (“Tragedy of the Common App,” September 25), Dan Davidson ’11 downplays the benefits the Common Application provides for first-generation and low- and moderate-income students, as well as some of the ways in which the University is already, “[focusing] its resources on the…pressing problems that income disparity in college admissions creates.”

While I have no official opinion on the decision of the Office of Admission to use the Common Application for undergraduate admissions, the Common App makes a selective institution more accessible by bridging college knowledge gaps and indirectly saving time and money while enabling application to college.

The first benefit is increased accessibility. The Common Application is already wellknown and understood. Guidance counselors at schools unaccustomed to sending their students to elite institutions may have no familiarity with any particular, distinctive “uncommon” application, but have guided scores of students through the Common Application. The “marginal benefit of uniformity,” as Davidson puts it, is actually quite substantial.

Schools that traditionally funnel students to elite colleges and universities will have numerous resources available. Students at these schools know to request applications early and (with guidance) are able to meet all deadlines. Students who attend schools less accustomed to sending graduates to elite colleges (or to college in general) encounter more challenges.

With the Common Application, an effective

one-stop-online-shop, a student can still submit eight different and distinctive essays to eight different schools if she or he wants to. But a student can also decide to apply to a selective school electronically that she or he may have only learned about recently, having already done the bulk of the application.

By welcoming the Common Application, Brown opens itself to these (often highly qualified) students and implicitly commits itself to such openness. With an information or “college knowledge” gap, accessibility matters.

For students who will be the first in their families to attend college, this school-based familiarity and support is critical: No matter how supportive a parent is, there is no replace-

and money. Low- and moderate-income, firstgeneration college-bound students have substantial demands on their time, often working to help support future college expenses and their family’s budget. Each additional application gets in the way of family obligations, work commitments, extra-curricular activities and school itself.

Many college applicants from middle and high income families benefit from privileges not limited to SAT preparatory courses, private education and the national policy of financing public school districts by local property taxation. The Common Application does not address any of these issues, but it still makes applying easier for students and their families,

With an information or “college knowledge” gap, accessibility matters. ment for informed guidance on college applications. Any college’s adoption of the Common Application makes the logistical consideration of that school that much easier.

For low-income students uncertain about their academic competitiveness — the ones schools lose before they even (or don’t) apply — the Common Application reduces one barrier to application: intimidation. With only one supplemental essay to write, Brown’s application becomes no different from the applications for numerous other colleges and universities, selective and non-selective alike.

Students also benefit from saving time

and thus more likely to actually happen.

On the subject of what Brown is doing, I would like to mention the National College Advising Corps (NCAC) and its work in Rhode Island.

In Rhode Island, 15.1 percent of children (35,456), just under the national average, live in poverty, as determined by Rhode Island Kids Count in 2008. In the cities of Central Falls, Newport, Pawtucket, Providence, West Warwick and Woonsocket, the child poverty rate ranges between a low of 26.8 percent (West Warwick) and highs of 42.5 percent and 42.7 percent (Providence and Central

Falls), all well above the national and state averages.(1) The Advising Corps is addressing the issues of income disparity and education equity with respect to college access nationally. The Rhode Island Corps is based at the Swearer Center for Public Service, which provides full-time College Guides and part-time Access Scholars with extensive training, resources and support throughout the year.

Twelve recent college graduates serve as College Guides in Rhode Island’s urban public high schools, assisted by ten Access Scholars (current undergraduates). The Advising Corps works with guidance counselors, administrators, teachers and families to expand pathways to higher education for more low- to moderateincome, first-generation college-bound high school youth and to cultivate college-going cultures in each of the partner schools and communities.

With a clear mission to make post-secondary education available to more high school youth, the College Advising Corps works with students as they file FAFSA forms, write college essays and fill out applications, both common and uncommon.

The Common Application alone will not end the effects of income disparity on college attendance, persistence and success.

College is a beginning — not an end —and any qualified applicant should be able to tell the admissions committee why in 500 words.

Brown students will continue to be anything but uniform regardless of the application. In consideration of students with limited time and monetary resources, why make it harder to apply?

Justin Cohen ’07 is the program assistant for NCAC and a former College Guide.

He encourages you to spread college knowledge.

S ports W ednesday Page 12

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Men’s water polo hacks MIT, drowns No. 11 St. Francis

By Anne Deggelman Sports Staff Writer

After crushing MIT last Thursday night, 15-7, the men’s water polo team added another win to its record Saturday afternoon, upsetting No. 11 St. Francis, 9-8, at Connecticut College.

“It was a good win for the program,” said Assistant Coach John McBride. “We were two evenly matched teams that day. We just happened to be the winner.”

But after a tough opening to their season, the Brown men were ready for this win.

“The game was great for our morale,” Mike Gartner ’09 said. “They were the number one team on the East Coast. It’s great for the team to know we’re at that level.”

The game was a battle back and forth from the start, as the teams traded goals during the first quarter that left the teams even at 3-3. In the Ashley Hess / Herald File Photo

continued on page 8

Goaltender Kent Holland ‘10 had nine big saves in the water polo’s bout last weekend.

On wet course, Arison ’12 shoots 72 at Yale Invitational

By Megan McCahill Spor ts Editor

The football team wasn’t the only Brown squad that had to deal with difficult weather conditions this weekend. The weekend’s pounding rain also affected the women’s golf team at the Yale Invitational.

Both the Bears’ practice round Friday and their opening round Saturday were cancelled, shortening the tournament to a one-round showdown Sunday. The difficult conditions, however, didn’t seem to bother Heather Arison ’12 at all, as she continued the impressive start to her college career by shooting a 72 on Yale’s notoriously difficult course, good for second place individually in the tournament.

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t s

“We’re all really proud of Heather,” said Susan Restrepo ’11. “To shoot a 72 on Yale’s course is impressive on any day, but for her to do that after two days of pouring rain — and on top of that she’d never really seen the course before — that makes it that much more impressive.”

While the cancelled rounds did not allow Arison and the other freshmen to get a chance to practice on Yale’s course, Arison did not think it was much of a disadvantage.

“For me, sometimes not playing a course beforehand is better because I don’t worry about certain holes and I can just play the shot in front of me,” said Arison. “I had heard it was a tough course but I just tried to take it one shot at

i n

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a time.”

The rest of the Bears also tried to put the frustration of not being able to play Friday and Saturday out of their minds as they headed into Sunday’s one and only round.

Bruno’s focus resulted in an overall team score of 325, good for 14th place in the 19-team field. Sarah Guarascio ’11 was the Bears’ second leading scorer, coming in at 83 on the day, and Kendalle Bennett ’10 and Carly Arison ’12 both shot rounds of 85 to follow her. Rounding out the scoring for the Bears were Restrepo and Megan Tuohy ’12, who both finished the round at 87.

“I was really proud of how our whole team stayed focused and steady throughout the weekend,”

Bennett said. “We really concentrated on not worrying about the other stuff and focusing on the 18 holes we did get the chance to play on Sunday. Unfortunately, we all had a bit of a pattern of playing strong on the front nine but had a more trying time mentally on the back nine.”

While there wasn’t any rain Sunday, the course conditions were still difficult as a result of constant rain soaking the course over the previous two days. Yale’s 6,100yard course was already considered to be one of the toughest in the country, but the course played even longer due to the soaking wet grass.

“We all hit the ball really well — continued on page 8

i e f

Two football players grab Ivy honors Buddy Farnham ’10 and Chris Perkins ’10 won the Ivy League Offensive and Defensive Player of the Week awards, respectively, for their contributions to Brown’s win over Harvard on Saturday.

Farnham made several huge plays to help secure the Bears’ first win over the Crimson since 1999, including two touchdown receptions and an onside kick recovery. Farnham’s first touchdown catch was perhaps the highlight of the game. With Bruno down 13-0, Farnham somehow managed to haul in a 25-yard reception over the head of a Harvard defender who was holding his jersey. Farnham made the touchdown grab despite Harvard being called for pass interference on the play. In the third quarter, Farnham added another touchdown grab that gave the Bears a 21-13 lead, and he closed out the 24-22 victory for the Bears by falling on the Crimson’s onside kick in the game’s final minute.

On the other side of the ball, Perkins led Brown’s defensive effort against Harvard’s high-powered offensive attack. Perkins broke up two passes and made a team-high nine tackles, one of which went for a loss and six of which he made on his own. Like Farnham, Perkins also made a couple of game-changing plays by forcing two fumbles,

Bernstein ‘09 earns three sets of honors Defender Rhett Bernstein ’09 was named the Ivy League’s Player of the Week, Top Drawer Soccer Player of the Week and College Soccer News National Player of the Week after scoring two game-winning goals to give Brown victories over No. 13 Boston College and UNC Greensboro last week.

Last Tuesday, Bernstein scored the first of his consecutive gamewinners in the 47th minute of play against BC, giving the Bears a 1-0 win. His game-winner on Saturday against UNC Greensboro wasn’t quite as dramatic, as he headed a shot past the goalie 16 minutes into the game, but the goal was key in jump-starting the Bears to their 3-0 victory.

Bernstein and the rest of his Brown teammates will be back in action Saturday at 4 p.m. at Stevenson Field when they take on Columbia in their Ivy League opener.

Justin Coleman / Herald

Buddy Farnham ‘10 was named Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week after making two touchdowns and onside kick recovery against Harvard on Saturday.

October baseball: National League The National League is a bunch of losers. The four teams from the Senior Circuit heading to the 2008 playoffs have no recent histories of success. The Los Angeles Dodgers haven’t won a championship for 20 years. The Phillies have won only one Ellis Rochelson MLB Exclusive World Series ever, and that was almost 30 years ago. The Milwaukee Brewers have never won it all. And the Chicago Cubs haven’t taken the crown since 1908 – exactly one hundred years ago – when the legendar y Tinker, Evers, and Chance manned the infield at Wrigley.

One of these losers will make it to the World Series, delighting a fan base starved for success. Sorry to ruin the surprise, but here’s how the 2008 NL playoffs will shake out: National League Division Series, Milwaukee (90-72) vs. Philadelphia (92-70) TBS must be thrilled because these games are going to be great to watch. The Brewers and Phillies powered their way to the playoffs with flame-throwing pitchers and larger-than-life sluggers. Think Milwaukee’s C.C. Sabathia and his 1.65 ERA is unstoppable? He’ll be facing the team with the most home runs in the league, led by Ryan Howard (48 HRs) and Chase Utley (33 HRs). Think Cole Hamels will continue to dominate? Sluggers Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun have his number, slugging almost .700 against the Phils’ ace.

Both teams have power, both teams have starting pitching, but only the Phillies have a dominating closer. When the pressure is on, the Phils send out NL Comeback Player of the Year Brad Lidge (1.95 ERA, 41 saves in 41 chances). The Brewers have to turn to soft-throwing 36-year-old Salomon Torres.

Expect a handful of blown saves

by Torres to hand the Phillies a series victor y.

The Verdict: Phillies win series, 3-1.

National League Division Series, Los Angeles (84-78) vs. Chicago (97-64) Everyone and their mothers are rooting for the Chicago Cubs to win it all this year after 100 years of disappointment. It won’t be hard to take one step closer, as the Cubs face the barely-above-average L.A. Dodgers. The Dodgers made the playoffs due to their fortuitous location – the lowly NL west. Their 84 wins would’ve earned them fifth place in the NL Central, where the Cubs dominated as the best team in the league. The Cubs are the highest-slugging team in the league; the Dodgers are 13th. The Dodgers have a terrific bullpen, but their rotation is no match for Rich Harden (1.78 ERA), Ryan Dempster (2.96) and Carlos Zambrano (3.91). It will be fun to watch the cameras pan from Cubs manager Lou Pineilla to L.A. skipper Joe Torre – both legendary managers with diametrically opposed temperaments – but continued on page 8