Tuesday, October 7, 2008

The Brown Daily Herald T uesday, O ctober 7, 2008

Volume CXLIII, No. 86

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

Bailout author: Package shouldn’t affect taxpayers

Faculty mull proposal for Watson tenure

Frank defends necessity of measure

By Sarah Husk Contributing Writer

Financial innovation has outstripped financial regulation in the United States, therefore necessitating new regulator y policies, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Ser vices Committee, said in a talk Monday afternoon in Salomon 101.

Frank is considered a major player in the bailout legislation that passed last Friday, which he said was absolutely necessar y.

“The bill that we just passed is the consequence,” he said.

“The question is, how did we get here?”

Frank, who has ser ved in Congress since 1981, said the absence of financial regulation had allowed investors to practice the risky behaviors that caused the crash. Strengthening regulations on investing, he said, will ultimately help the market by renewing investor confidence in the market.

“When the Chairman of the Federal Reser ve and the Secretar y of the Treasur y say there will be a crisis if you don’t do something, then if you don’t do

By Jenna Stark Senior Staf f Writer

both the final report of the Task Force on Undergraduate Education and a draft of the self-study report for Brown’s accreditation by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.

The task force report called for a review of every concentration in the next three years, improved advising, a new science resource center and increased resources for international studies, among other recommendations. Becker began the

The Faculty Executive Commit tee is planning to examine its policies on tenure this semester in response to a proposal made last semester to offer tenure at the Watson Institute for International Studies. The request — made by the Watson Board of Overseers — met with dissent among faculty, and the University looks to make a final decision about it in the spring, said former FEC Chair Ruth Colwill, associate professor of psychology.

Cur rent University policy states that only departments can recommend a professor for tenure, Colwill said, adding that this policy excludes interdisciplinar y programs and institutes such as Watson from recommending their professors.

The Watson Institute’s ability to grant tenure to faculty would strengthen both the institute and related departments, said Vice President for International Affairs David Kennedy ’76, a member of the Board of Overseers.

“The feeling that only with tenure could one be assured of building and retaining the highest quality faculty” motivated the board, he said, adding that the ability to make appointments at the Watson Institute would “bring new people to Brown who wouldn’t otherwise come.”

Tenured faculty at Watson would have greater teaching responsibilities, thus strengthening the international relations pro gram, Kennedy said.

In Januar y, Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 created a working group to evaluate the Board of Overseers’ proposal to grant tenure to professors at the institute.

The committee recommended that tenure be available to professors at Watson.

But when the issue of tenure

continued on page 4

continued on page 4

Justin Coleman / Herald

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said a lack of financial regulation allowed investors to engage in risky behavior that led to the current financial crisis. Frank spoke in Salomon 101 yesterday.

something, there’s a crisis,” he said. “We had to act.”

The massive bailout should not af fect taxpayers, Frank said. If there is a net loss, legislation will likely pass to move that charge from the general taxpayers to the financial sectors, he added.

Along with the bailout, he said,

Congress is looking to cut down on CEO compensation and to take away incentives that reward risktaking.

But Frank also said it was necessary to note that Democrats and Republicans disagree about these economic matters.

Repeating what he said was an

oft-quoted adage among Republicans — “the rising tide will lift all boats” — Frank said this ideology is misleading. He quipped, “people are not boats and the economy is not the tide.”

A succeeding economy does continued on page 6

Liberal studies forum reviews task force ideas

By Chaz Kelsh Senior Staf f Writer

Photo courtesy of NASA

The Messenger spacecraft sent images of Mercury to Earth. Brown scientists and NASA scientists were among the first to see the pictures.

A forum on the future of the Brown curriculum drew about 20 attendees Monday evening.

Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron, Associate Provost and Director of Institutional Diversity Brenda Allen and Undergraduate Council of Students President Brian Becker ’09 led an open forum entitled “Liberal Studies in a New Century.”

The meeting was held in the wake of the release last month of

Brown scientists among first Lone Star State annexing Olney House?

DTau being made to glimpse Mercury images ‘honorary Houstonians’

By Chris Duffy Contributing Writer

At around 2 a.m. this morning, NASA scientists and a team from Brown University were the first to see images of Mercury sent back from the Messenger spacecraft.

“We’re going to really see the details for the first time,” NASA Project Scientist Ralph McNutt said yesterday. McNutt said the images would cover about a third of Mer-

3

METRO

cury’s surface, never before seen from space. “This is exploration and new science at its best, unknown and unseen territory being seen for the first time.”

The Messenger spacecraft flew

by Mercury yesterday for the second time, taking measurements and recording images, as it swung just 125 miles above the smallest planet in the solar system. The first of three flybys occurred on January 14 and

Bring on the bailout Rhode Island’s Congressional delegation unanimously voted for the bailout package

www.browndailyherald.com

continued on page 4

5

CAMPUS NEWS

By Hannah Moser Contributing Writer

Though new students from the class of 2012 have already settled onto campus, an influx of Texans could soon hit College Hill.

The mayor of Houston sent a letter to the Delta Tau fraternity on Friday saying he is taking steps to make them honorar y Houstonians — an honor bestowed upon foreign dignitaries,

Delayed doctorate Dual degree program for a math doctorate is postponed until additional funds can be found

11

OPINIONS

prominent individuals, entertainers or artists, according to the mayor’s Web site.

“It’s a little surreal, almost,” DTau Treasurer Matt Kahn ’10 said of the honor. “We feel pretty honored to be recognized by someone so important as the mayor of Houston.”

In the letter, which Mayor Bill White sent DTau Vice President David Tagle ’11 via e-mail on Friday, White thanked the members of DTau for donating the proceeds from a Sept. 19 charcontinued on page 6

hitting where it hurts Zach Beuchamp ‘10 argues that, in order to save his campaign, McCain needs to fight dirty

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

12 SPORTS

Courtesy of HoustonTX.com Houston Mayor Bill White invited the

brothers of Delta Tau to move to his city.

the harder they fall The football team takes a hard hit after losing to URI last Saturday

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

T oday Page 2

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

We a t h e r TODAY

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Lunch — Enchilada Bar, Spinach Strudel, Shaved Steak Sandwich, Sugar Cookies

Dinner — Sesame Chicken Strips with Mustard Sauce, Beef Shish Kabob, Vegetables in Honey Ginger Sauce

Dinner — Baked Potatoes with Sour Cream, Carrot Casserole, Roast Pork Ouvert, Boston Cream Pie

Free Variation | Jeremy Kuhn

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© Puzzles26, by2008 Pappocom RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, February

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

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

14 “Same here!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

37 *Little deceptions 41 Merit badge gp.

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

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

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

Alien Weather Forecast | Stephen Lichenstein and Adam Wagner

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Fizzle Pop | Patricia Chou

xwordeditor@aol.com

2/26/08

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University community since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the aca-

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

2/26/08

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M etro Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Page 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Ceremony marks new life for Nathan Bishop R.I. delegation votes ‘yes’ on bailout package

By Simon van Zuylen-Wood Senior Staff Writer

By Anne Simons Senior Staf f Writer

Last week, as the financial crisis brought the economy to its knees — in Rhode Island and across the nation — the Ocean State’s fourperson Congressional delegation all voted in favor of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, commonly known as the bailout package, with the hopes that it will help avert the worst effects of the crisis.

The bill in its original form was rejected by the House of Representatives in a Sept. 29 vote by a margin of 228 to 205. A revised version was approved by the Senate on Oct. 1 and the House on Oct. 3. Democratic Congressmen Jim Langevin and Patrick Kennedy voted “yes” on both versions. Democratic senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse both voted “yes” on the Senate bill.

“The economic crisis we are faced with requires action,” Kennedy said, via an e-mail to The Herald from press secretary Kerrie Bennett.

Though he voted yes on both versions of the bill, Kennedy wrote that the original plan rejected by the House “did not include sufficient protections for taxpayers.”

He praised the Democratic leadership for their “tremendous job ... (in) extracting enormous concessions from the Administration” during their negotiations on the legislation.

“This plan is a decisive step towards correcting the damage inflicted upon our nation’s financial markets through the lack of regulation and fiscal oversight by the current Administration,” Kennedy wrote. “This crisis needs to be addressed before its consequences become irreversible.”

At a press conference yesterday, Kennedy acknowledged that many Rhode Islanders are probably suffering. Rhode Island’s unemployment rate is 8.5 percent, about 2 percent higher than the national average. The state “cannot afford to be in a further credit crunch,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy said he guessed that Rhode Island has more colleges and universities than any other state per capita and that he’s con-

cerned about the condition of student loans. Recent rate hikes were “a tell-tale sign” of the impact of the financial crisis, he said.

In the e-mail, the senator wrote that if the financial rescue package had failed to pass, “the economic situation for Rhode Island families and small business (would) become much worse.” If not for the bailout package, Rhode Island families could have expected to see lowered credit card limits and higher interest rates, higher auto insurance rates and greater difficulty in taking out a mortgage or student loan, Kennedy wrote.

David Weil, professor of economics, said the causes of the current economic crisis can be broken into two main parts. The first is the burst of the housing bubble. Housing prices increased to “unsustainable levels,” he said, which led to an extension of credit to people who normally couldn’t have gotten loans. Now, home prices have fallen 20 percent, which is hurting the people and the economy. Secondly, mortgages that can’t be paid back are held by major financial institutions which keep the economy going, he said.

It is these loan-holding institutions that the bailout plan was designed to aid, Weil said. The latter problem is more severe, because the economy cannot function without healthy credit markets.

“Saving the financial system is a bailout for everyone,” Weil said.

Even if it fixes the credit market’s problems, “there’s still a fair bit of economic pain” for individuals who are suffering under the strains of the bad economy, he said.

While he said there’s a small possibility the country could avoid a recession, “it would be pretty good if we got out of this mess with only a recession.”

Despite the perceived necessity of the bailout bill, Kennedy said at the press conference that the plan was seen as “repugnant to so many here in Rhode Island.” In the e-mail, Kennedy wrote that his vote required a lot of thought but, “I know that if we fail to act, if we fail to ease a potentially devastating credit crunch, our constituents will ultimately be the ones to pay the price.”

A redesigned and energy-efficient Nathan Bishop Middle School will reopen next fall. A ceremony Thursday kicked off a $35 million restoration effort for the public school, which will feature architectural improvements and incorporate higher level classes in the curriculum.

Nathan Bishop, which has stood across the street from Brown Stadium since 1929, closed temporarily in June 2006 in part due to low test scores, dwindling enrollment and student suspensions. Efforts to revive and improve the school were spearheaded by the East Side Public Education Coalition — a group of East Side parents and residents.

Thursday’s ceremony featured such speakers as Providence Mayor David Cicilline ’83, new Providence Public School District Superintendent Tom Brady and other city and state officials.

When it reopens, Bishop will be the East Side’s only public middle school and will feature a 20,000 gallon rainwater collection system, highefficiency mechanical and electrical systems, two 3,000-square-foot gymnasiums and a two-story library and media building, among other technological improvements, according to a press release from the mayor’s office.

Nathan Bishop’s restoration and renovation come when Providence public schools are struggling with particularly low test scores.

Of the city’s seven middle schools, six issue progress reports on student performance. For these schools, the percentage of students performing at or above expected “grade level” for math is 26.5 percent, with 19.5 percent for writing and 32.3 percent for reading, according to the school department’s Web site.

The two elementary schools from which Nathan Bishop will receive most of its incoming students scored far higher on science testing than most Providence schools, the Providence Journal reported last month. Forty-one percent of Vartan Gregorian Elementary School fourth graders and 26 percent of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School students scored proficiently in science, while only nine percent of fourth-graders were proficient in Providence overall.

Thursday afternoon, Cicilline, surrounded by a fidgety and excited crowd of local children, attributed the

success of the project to a partnership between the community and the city.

Reviving Nathan Bishop was “not just about another building or one school,” but about providing a better education to children throughout Providence, Cicilline said.

House Majority Leader Rep. Gordon Fox, a Nathan Bishop alum, said decades ago, the school was a “dark, dank, uninviting place.”

“This is a new dawning on public education in Providence,” he told the crowd.

Councilman Cliff Wood, a Democrat from Ward 2, said Providence residents must take advantage of the opportunity to improve a middleschool system saddled with low test scores.

Wood, who later told The Herald he “lives and breathes to demonstrate middle schools can work in Providence,” said the broad goal of the new Nathan Bishop will be to “do this right, learn new lessons and spread that to the other seven middle schools” in the city.

Tom Schmeling, a coalition member who teaches political science at Rhode Island College, said a thriving Nathan Bishop was more than just an East Side project.

“When we got organized in the beginning, it was around the sense

that people in town had abandoned the public schools and gone to private school,” Schmeling said. “When (residents) move to Barrington or head out to private schools, the children and parents who are left behind may be less able to place high demands on the public school system.”

The more students a school system has, the more likely it is to improve, Schmeling added.

Wood, a father of two elementary school children, said many did not want to leave cities just to find good schools.

“Contrary to what many believe, an awful lot of people — my constituents — have the means to send their kids to private school, but like the notion of public school,” Wood said.

“A larger group of us, like me, don’t have the means but want to be here in the city.”

Strengthening Nathan Bishop and the city’s public education is important for adults as well as children, Schmeling said. For example, a poor public school system deters potential business-owners from moving to Providence.

“A lot of people think all (businesses) care about is tax rates,” he said. “Education is a very high priority for their kids and their manager’s kids. Failure in public education is economic failure.”

News tips? herald@browndailyherald.com

Page 4

Profs skeptical about merit of Watson tenure

Images show ‘enigmatic’ planet

continued from page 1

continued from page 1 provided scientists with a wealth of new data about the planet, which they’re hoping will be augmented today.

“Mercury is really enigmatic in a lot ways,” said Jim Head, professor of geological sciences and chair of the geology working group for the Messenger mission. “One of the big issues was whether Mercury actually had volcanism or not. On the first flyby, we got unequivocal evidence that there were volcanic vents.”

Head is spending the week at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory outside Washington, D.C., analyzing data with a team from Brown including David Baker GS, post-doctoral research associate Caleb Fassett and research analyst James Dickson.

“Studying Earth is like studying the last two chapters of a book.

You know the ending but you don’t know what came about to make it that way,” Head said. “Mercury has a very ancient surface. It’s solidified and stabilized and preserved the history.”

Head said that he and the team had been “eagerly awaiting” the images and called the mission a “real success.” He cited color photographs that provided “distinctive data” about impact craters and the sediment that’s filling them, as well as evidence of faults which indicates that Mercury is shrinking, as among the most significant geological discoveries from the Messenger mission thus far.

Thomas Zurbuchen, professor of space science and aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan and member of the Messenger team, said, “The biggest strength of the Messenger mission is being able to connect measurements. It’s really truly interdisciplinary.” Zurbuchen has made some of Messenger’s most surprising discoveries with his fast

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Courtesy of nasa.gov

The surface of Mercury, which a team of Brown scientists is examining. imaging plasma spectrometer, which scoops up and measures samples of Mercury’s atmosphere. “We found water essentially blowing off the top of Mercury which was a big surprise to a lot of us,” he said.

“By the time we get the images down (today), we’ll have imaged pretty close to 95 percent of Mercury,” said Sean Solomon, principal investigator for the Messenger mission.

The spacecraft relies on Mercury’s gravitational pull to slow itself down with each of its three successive flybys, until it is finally traveling at a speed low enough to enter into orbit. A third flyby in late September 2009 will further slow the craft down, and NASA scientists expect that Messenger will be able to enter stable orbit around Mercury in 2011, allowing for more long-term, detailed research to be done.

“These flybys are not only testing our instruments but are also bringing us close to Mercury at the equator. The flybys are giving us observations that will not be repeated in orbit,” Solomon said.

Solomon emphasized the time and effort that’s been put into this mission and called the flybys “a wonderful validation” of more than a decade of planning. Both Solomon and Zurbuchen praised the work of

the group from Brown, which also includes what Professor Head called a “home team” — a group of graduate students who help to process and compute the data sent back from the spacecraft, based in the Geological Sciences building on Lincoln Field.

Head discussed the Messenger mission via teleconference with students in his class, GEOL 0050 “Mars, Moon and the Earth” yesterday afternoon, using images from the first flyby to illustrate geological concepts.

Head explained to the class how the color photographs taken

by Messenger were able to provide far more detailed and significant data than black-and-white photos taken by another NASA mission, Mariner 10, in 1975.

Students in Head’s class expressed enthusiasm about the opportunity to learn from cutting-edge research. “That’s one reason I took this class,” said Anna Kentros ’09.

“It’s cool that he’s so prominent in his field. That’s what I like to see from Brown professors.”

Andrew Underberg ’09 agreed.

“It gives the class a lot more credibility.”

“Science is all about exploration and discovery,” Head told The Herald. “This shows the students what the payoff is for scientific inquiry.”

offered outside of departments was brought to faculty, there were several comments against the proposal, Kertzer said. Consequently, Kertzer and Kennedy decided to postpone addressing the matter until this coming spring semester.

The FEC plans to discuss the issue of having tenure lines outside of departments in a broader context this semester, Colwill said, rather than making the discussion specific to Watson or to Kennedy’s proposal.

If the Watson Institute were granted permission to recommend tenure, there would be two kinds of professors who could receive tenure: professors in other departments at the University who would receive joint appointments and professors who do not belong to already existing departments, Kertzer said.

Kertzer said the University is currently waiting for more information from Watson about the number and “kind” of professors the institute would recommend for tenure.

This information will be crucial for faculty when the issue is raised by the FEC, he added.

Still, some professors and depar tment chairs said they are skeptical that giving the Watson Institute the right to grant tenure is a good idea.

“I’m against stand-alone tenure appointments at Watson in the way that the institute is currently configured,” Professor of Political Science Alan Zuckerman said.

“At Brown University, all tenure appointments ought to go through a depar tment because academic research primarily works through a department and Ph.D.s are produced through the disciplines that are linked to departments.”

Zuckerman said that if tenure were offered at the institute, there should be joint appointment with a depar tment so that “members at Watson ... and members at the

department would agree” whom to recommend for tenure.

Andrew Foster, professor of economics and the department chair, said the issue of granting tenure in institutes other than departments could cause problems if there isn’t a core group of faculty to evaluate the new hires.

“Tr ying to build up tenure from scratch, you don’t have those appointing judges, and it won’t be in the long-term interest of the University,” he said.

Foster added that professors who have joint appointments could feel disconnected from the departments, and that the departments would do the best job of hiring professors in their respective fields.

“The way to get the best economists on campus is to have them brought in through the economics department,” he said.

Robert Kreiser, associate general secretar y of the American Association of University Professors, said that tenure is granted by universities as a whole.

Whether an institute can grant tenure should not be an issue, he said.

However, Kreiser added, “the normal procedure for faculty peer review should not be bypassed in order to consider candidates for tenure” at institutes.

Kennedy said that Watson would follow the University’s normal procedure when reviewing faculty for tenure.

Only tenured faculty would be allowed to review the new tenure candidates, necessitating a “transitional arrangement” for the institute’s first appointments, he said.

The Watson Institute would not be the first institute to recommend tenure — Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs also has tenured faculty, the school’s spokesman Steven Barnes wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. Woodrow Wilson is considered a department at Princeton for tenure purposes, he added.

Bergeron, Becker pleased with forum on curriculum continued from page 1 meeting by addressing the audience briefly about the importance of the report.

“I think this is a really important time that does necessitate community involvement,” he said, adding that Brown is “uniquely positioned” to maintain a university-college — focused both on graduate research and undergraduate studies — despite their “wholly different missions.”

Bergeron described the nine recommendations, of 15 contained in the report, that are already being implemented.

She said the University is “poised” to create a new science resource center in the Sciences Library. She said planning for the center will be finished by the end of the year and that it could be complete by the end of 2009.

She also discussed improving preparation for first-years coming from underser ved high schools, including the implementation of a week-long program called “Excellence at Brown” before freshman year. This year, the program, which included about 20 students identified during the admissions pro-

cess, gave them an intensive crash course in academic writing and resources available at Brown.

The task force recommended Brown “reformulate (the writing requirement) so that it makes sense for students,” she said, adding that its implementation is often unclear to students. She said the University commissioned an external review of its writing programs by faculty from Yale and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose report will be delivered shortly.

Bergeron also discussed the creation of the faculty advising fellow program. “We want to find out from students how it’s working and how we can make it better,” she said. “We hope this program will grow and meet the needs of students.”

Allen discussed the role of the self-study in evaluating the University. After the self-study prepared for the NEASC accreditation, “We can feel very good in saying (that) we actually provide an excellent education for our students” she said, adding that the study helps Brown evaluate the impact of the investments it has made to expand its programs.

UCS Student Activities Chair

Ryan Lester ’11 asked whether a previously discussed “professional adviser” was still under consideration. The adviser would be a staff member whose job is to advise students who don’t feel connected or supported by their assigned advisor, he said.

Bergeron said there wasn’t a “groundswell of support” for such an adviser, and that she hoped faculty advising fellows would be able to fill part of that need. She also said other options are being considered to improve advising for students in need; for example, she said, her office e-mailed first-years who selected especially difficult course loads to inform them of the academic support resources open to them.

UCS Vice President Michael MacCombie ’11 suggested the University offer mini-courses during January@Brown that could provide intensive versions of introductory courses like ECON 0110, “Principles of Economics,” or CHEM 0100, “Introductor y Chemistr y,” to help shore up enrollment.

Bergeron replied that the program was never intended as a “mini-semester,” but rather as a time to offer courses different from

“I think this is a really important time that does necessitate community involvement.”

Brian Becker ’09 UCS President

the normal semester’s.

The forum was sponsored by the Office of the Dean of the College, the Office of the Provost and UCS, and held in List 120.

Both Bergeron and Becker told The Herald they were pleased with the forum.

Becker praised the “interesting and insightful conversation,” adding that it was “unfortunate that so few students came out.”

Bergeron said she thought students had “very good ideas” about the implementation of the task force’s recommendations.

“You don’t have to have a hundred people here,” Bergeron said.

C ampus n ews Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Page 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Dual math doctorate in Paris on hold

Harvard med professor explains doctors’ mistakes

By Melissa Shube Senior Staff Writer

Medical mistakes go beyond operating on the wrong limb or administering an incorrect dosage of a drug, Jerome Groopman said Tuesday in MacMillan 117. Groopman, a professor at Harvard Medical School, said he’s interested in the medical mistakes that don’t make headlines, and which he said are far more frequent­ — misdiagnoses.

Groopman, also the chief of experimental medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and a staff writer on medicine for the New Yorker, was the keynote speaker for the Harriet W. Sheridan Literature and Medicine Lecture. Groopman was supposed to speak last spring but a personal injury forced him to reschedule. Speaking from a seat on a stage, he said the lecture would be more like a “fireside chat.”

MacMillan 117 was packed with a variety of community members as well as undergraduate students, students in the Program in Liberal Medical Education and medical students­.

Groopman spoke about the ways that doctors form their medical diagnoses, which is also the subject of his recently published book, “How Doctors Think.”

Doctors think like magnets, he said; they gather a wide range of information and draw conclusions quickly. “The average doctor interrupts a patient within the first 18 seconds of asking them what’s wrong,”

Groopman said.

Doctors’ diagnoses are correct 80 to 85 percent of the time, Groopman said. For a stock broker or baseball player, such a rate of accuracy would be considered a success. For doctors, however, he said being wrong 15 to 20 percent of the time is “very high.”

“The delay in diagnosis or the failure to make a real diagnosis leads to real harm to the patients” in half those cases, Groopman said.

Groopman said he researched cognitive psychology and experimental psychology in search of ways to improve this percentage. In his research, he developed a theory of three cognitive biases that affect the ways in which doctors diagnose patients.

These “thinking traps” are what he called the three A’s: anchoring, availability and attribution. Anchoring occurs when doctors fixate on the first piece of information they receive, even if it’s not the most important. Availability occurs when doctors diagnose patients according to what they have recently seen in other patients, or simply thought about. Attribution, the last bias, occurs when doctors rely on social stereotypes to make diagnoses.

For example, it can be tempting to diagnose a Marine with a swollen liver as an alcoholic, even if it’s not the case, Groopman said.

He also said he hoped that cognitive science would be taken seriously by physicians and educators.

By Paula Kaufman Contributing Writer

Min Wu / Herald

Jerome Groopman, a professor at Harvard Medical School, spoke yesterday on the nature of medical misdiagnoses.

While Groopman said that doctors must take time to reflect on the way they are drawing conclusions, he also noted, in response to a question, that part of the problem lies within the design of the current medical system. “People are not being paid to think well,” he said. The current system rewards taking action and does not incentivize doctors to take time to think about preventative measures, he said.

After the lecture, students and community members reconvened in

a tent outside MacMillan for a book signing and refreshments.

“I thought he was phenomenal,” Nitin Aggarwal MD’11 said. “It was good to hear so we can keep in mind what to know when we’re training to be physicians.”

Kevin Liou ’10 was especially interested in the new ways of thinking Groopman encouraged. “He teaches us to think outside of the box, to take into consideration those other factors that affect our thinking,” Liou said.

“I just feel like medicine needs to expand its perspective.”

Iraq veteran relays the trauma, tragedy of war

By Christopher Baker Contributing Writer

Tuesday night, Iraq War veteran Kristofer Goldsmith tried to describe what a dead human body smells like to a wide-eyed audience of more than 50 students, professors and community members.

“I can tell you that it doesn’t smell like a raccoon that got run over a week ago. It doesn’t smell like road kill. There is a very, very distinct smell to a dead human.”

He said he experiences this smell ever y time he sees gore in a movie like “Saw.” “The smell isn’t just your nose.

You can taste it. You can taste the iron of the blood floating in the air,” he said.

Goldsmith, 23, came to Brown as a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, a group that advocates for veterans’ rights and the end of U.S. involvement in the war in Iraq, to speak about his traumatic experience ser ving in the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantr y between 2005 and 2007. The talk was sponsored by anti-war group Operation Iraqi Freedom, Students for a Democratic Society, Brown Democrats, Rhode Island Mobilization Committee, Active Minds and Brown American Civil Liberties Union. It took place in MacMillan 115.

Goldsmith, a Long Island native, joined the army when he was 18 in response to the Sept. 11 attacks. He was first deployed to Iraq in Januar y 2005. By the time he returned to the United States in

December 2006, he had developed post-traumatic stress disorder and severe alcoholism.

“I didn’t feel human anymore,” Goldsmith said.

His contract, which was set to expire in May 2007, was extended indefinitely as part of the troop surge announced by President Bush in Januar y 2007. On Memorial Day of that year, the day his infantr y was set to redeploy to Iraq, he attempted suicide.

“You’re looking at someone who couldn’t even get killing himself right. I took enough Percocet to kill a f*cking cow. I don’t know how I survived,” Goldsmith said.

Goldsmith was critical of the army’s mental health services. He had sought mental health counseling prior to his suicide attempt and was diagnosed with adjustment disorder, a mental disorder similar to PTSD but with fewer healthcare benefits. He was only diagnosed with PTSD by a Veterans’ Affairs hospital four months after being kicked out of the army for “malingering,” or faking a mental illness.

The army also took away his college benefits, he said.

Goldsmith vividly described the horrors of war in Sadr City, the slums of Baghdad, from the perspective of an on-the-ground intelligence reporter tasked with documenting major events in the area. He showed photos he had taken of giant puddles of sewage that filled streets, surrounding hospitals and polluting elementar y schools. According to Gold-

A dual degree program for math doctoral students who would split time between College Hill and the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris VI, cannot begin until additional funds are allocated, according to Professor of Applied Mathematics Jan Hesthaven.

The program, approved by Provost David Ker tzer ’69 P’95 P’98 and Paris VI President JeanCharles Pomerol last May, was slated to debut this fall.

Brown doctoral candidates have their tuition covered by the University, according to Sheila Bonde, dean of the Graduate School.

But living expenses in Paris and travel costs require additional funds, Hesthaven said, and the discrepancy between those costs and costs for a student staying in Providence remains to be addressed.

Doctoral students may apply for research assistance, but these grants are capped at $500, far short of the extra costs students would incur studying in Paris, Hesthaven said.

Hesthaven said the Department of Mathematics had not made an effort to recruit for the program because the University had not provided appropriate funds, though a student willing to pay additional expenses out-of-pocket could participate in the program now.

A few students did express interest in participating in the program this fall, he said, but decided not to pursue it after Hesthaven informed them of the additional costs.

Hesthaven said he would like Brown to fund a few students initially as part of a pilot project, in hopes that other funds from external sources such as the National Science Foundation will be easier to secure.

“This is a program where students experience an extraordinar y exchange of ideas. There are dif ferent academic cultures and educational systems that math students will greatly benefit from,” Hesthaven said.

Min Wu / Herald

Kristopher Goldsmith spoke to more than 50 people on his experiences in Iraq.

smith, the American militar y had destroyed every sewage and water treatment plant in Sadr City during the invasion.

As an intelligence repor ter, it was his job to photograph the faces of tortured and murdered Iraqis found in mass graves for identification purposes. He placed the pictures of these mutilated faces in a neat row on the desk in front of him for all the audience to see.

“Ever y one of these pictures in its most intimate detail was burned into my head the second that I saw that flash,” Goldsmith said.

Goldsmith said he was lucky because Iraq Veterans Against the War gave him the opportunity to

help people better understand all veterans, including those who are less open about their war experiences.

This May, Goldsmith became the youngest person — “and the only person with a mohawk” — to ever testify on the state of war before Congress. He said he has spoken with politicians such as Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, about the need for withdrawal from Iraq.

He criticized both presidential candidates for voting against increased funding for the Veterans’ Affairs hospitals.

Students said they were deeply affected by Goldsmith’s lecture. continued on page 6

Happy Birthday Stu!

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Tuesday, October 7, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

DTau members initially skeptical of Texan letter continued from page 1 ity auction toward relief for the victims of Hurricane Ike. DTau’s “Date-a-Delt” auction raised more than $800 for the Gulf Coast Ike Relief Fund, part of the Greater Houston Community Foundation. The fraternity was put on probation Sept. 30 by the Greek Council for failing to register the event, since organizations that host parties that sell alcohol or have more than 100 attendees must be registered. Kahn said DTau members did not have time to register the event because they were tr ying to aid Ike’s victims as quickly as possible.

In his letter, White said though he did not “advocate violating good rules,” DTau’s ef for t to send aid quickly showed a Texan “can-do spirit.”

He suggested that some of the brothers consider moving to Houston after graduation. “After

Frank fields audience questions

all, we have great jobs; we hate bureaucracy; and we have many great women who will be willing to ‘Date-a-Delt’ without even a benefit auction,” he wrote.

Tagle said that when he received the letter, he immediately forwarded it to the DTau listserv.

He said at first some of the brothers were skeptical, but when they found their tale mentioned in an Oct. 3 Houston Chronicle article about the total $7 million dollars that have been donated to recover y from Hurricane Ike, they were convinced the letter was legitimate.

Tagle said a public relations person from the city of Houston got his contact information from President Ruth Simmons’ office and contacted him to find out the names of DTau’s members.

The letter came out of the blue, Tagle said. But, he added, “It kind of makes us feel like we’re doing something right.”

continued from page 1

Financial system continues to melt down after bailout

By David Cho and Binyamin Appelbaum Washington Post

WASHINGTON — What went wrong?

Last week, the nation’s political leaders said the financial system would collapse unless they passed a $700 billion rescue package for Wall Street. On Monday, the first day of trading after the plan passed, the financial system continued to melt down anyway.

Here’s why: The plan developed

by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. to buy troubled U.S. mortgage assets might not start for another month.

And, despite its huge price tag, it already seems paltry compared with the scale of the rapidly evolving global crisis.

“People are realizing that the Paulson plan is not going to be nearly enough. It’s not because the plan is ill-conceived. It looks like it’s the right thing to do, but the problem is just growing astronomically,” said Martin Evans, a professor of finance and economics at Georgetown University.

The bailout plan is focused on buttressing U.S. financial institutions.

But it was global markets that plunged Monday, as investors sold off commodities in Brazil, currency in Mexico, bank stocks in Russia and the short-term debt of the state of California.

Robert B. Zoellick, president of the World Bank, said the global financial system may have reached a “tipping point” — the moment when a crisis cascades into a fullblown meltdown and becomes extremely difficult for governments to contain.

The mushrooming problems “will trigger business failures and possibly banking emergencies.

Some countries will slip toward balance of payment crises,” he said Monday, speaking at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

The crisis threatens to reverse years of prosperity that financed

the economic growth in developed and emerging countries through a global financial system that made credit widely available.

Banks and governments were able to borrow money on an unprecedented scale by selling debt in new kinds of packages, allowing even the least credit-worthy consumers to borrow and spend.

China exported goods and then loaned the money back to the United States by buying those new debt packages.

The story was similar for Russia, which exported massive amounts of energy to Europe, and for Brazil, which exported commodities including orange juice and sugar.

All used the massive inflows of borrowed money from the developed world to fuel economic expansions and stock market bubbles.

Monday, trading on the major stock exchanges in Russia and Brazil was halted after prices crashed.

China’s major indexes fell about 5 percent. The bubbles appear to be bursting in rapid succession.

Faced with these developments, the markets have not been in a mood to cheer the passage of the Paulson rescue package. At one point Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average had fallen nearly 800 points, more than 7 percent. It ended the day off 3.6 percent, below 10,000 for the first time since 2004.

“Quite frankly, what the market is looking for is some kind of coordinated action from central banks around the world.” said Kathy Lien, director of currency research at GFT Forex. The Paulson plan, she added, is like a “Band-Aid for a problem that stretches way beyond the banking system now.”

Treasury officials say that ramping up the rescue package will take time, and that they are working as fast as possible.

Monday, the department released the contracting rules for the asset managers they expect to hire to oversee its rescue program, requiring interested parties to apply

by Wednesday.

The Treasury also named Neel Kashkari as the interim assistant

secretary of the Treasury for financial stability to oversee the rescue program until January when the next administration takes office.

Despite the mammoth bailout, Zoellick and other leaders are now urging central banks from the leading economies around the world to devise a coordinated response.

They don’t have a lot of time.

It’s been nearly three weeks since Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke warned lawmakers that the nation was at risk of a full-blown meltdown.

Since then, the same problems have afflicted Europe.

Governments have bailed out five large financial firms, including two this weekend, triggering fears of additional bank collapses in Europe.

Hypo Real Estate, a German real estate lender, is collapsing under the weight of its own bad loans, forcing the German government and leading banks to announce Sunday that they would lend the company up to $68 billion.

The rescue follows the nationalization of one of England’s largest real estate lenders, Bradford & Bingley. Iceland also has been forced to rescue one of its largest banks, Glitnir.

And several European countries were forced to invest billions of dollars in Fortis, one of the largest banks on the Continent, in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to stave off its collapse.

Fortis, too, has now been nationalized.

With confidence in banks basically shattered, governments increasingly have been forced to issue explicit guarantees that bank deposits will remain safe.

Ireland last week guaranteed all deposits and liabilities, totaling about $540 billion, at six domestic banks.

The pledge included branches of the six banks outside of Ireland, and excluded branches of other banks in Ireland, raising concerns that deposits would now flow from rivals into the coffers of the six government-protected banks as investors

fled to safety.

Germany promised Sunday to guarantee all private savings accounts, which hold at least $800 billion. Denmark Monday announced that it would guarantee all deposits as well.

The economies of Ireland and Denmark have officially fallen into recession. Investors meanwhile are worried that Pakistan and Argentina might default on their debts.

In India, the average interest on loans between banks jumped above 11 percent, reflecting a breakdown of trust.

The bailout has not even thawed critical segments of the U.S. credit markets.

U.S. corporations sold $1.25 billion in bonds last week, marking the sharpest drop in sales volume since 1999, according to Bloomberg.

Short-term commercial borrowing fell to $1.6 trillion, down 9 percent in the past two weeks, almost entirely because of a massive decline in borrowing by financial companies that cannot find lenders at any price.

September saw the worst monthly losses in the history of the hedge fund industry.

Investor withdrawals could lead to the collapse of major funds, triggering further sell-offs and exacerbating the financial crisis.

Investors are also increasingly concerned that more U.S. banks will fail before the Treasury can launch the rescue program.

Shares of National City, a regional bank based in Cleveland, fell 27 percent Monday.

Bank of America said its thirdquarter profit fell 68 percent, largely because of losses on mortgage loans and credit cards.

The company reduced the dividend on its widely held shares by half and said it would try to raise another $10 billion from investors.

Its shares were down about 7 percent to $32.22.

“These are the most difficult times for financial institutions that I have experienced in my 39 years in banking,” chief executive Ken Lewis said in a conference call.

Houston, we have some surprised Delts.

not mean each individual in that economy is reaping the benefits of success, he said. “If you’re standing on tiptoe in the water, the rising tide is not good news,” he added.

Frank said partisanship is “essential” and “necessary” to democracy. He cautioned against what he termed “excessive partisanship,” but said it is “a much-underappreciated commodity.” He added that partisanship is particularly relevant in light of next month’s presidential election.

“As I hear people denounce partisanship, saying we need postpartisanship, I get post-partisan depression,” he quipped.

Frank also fielded the audience’s questions, which covered the economic crisis and his liberal stances on social issues.

He told the audience that he expects the militar y’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” stance, which blocks gays and lesbians from ser ving openly in the militar y, to be repealed within the first term of a potential Obama administration. The policy is “probably generational,” said Frank, one of two openly gay members of Congress.

Frank said the balance between commitment to his constituents and his own philosophical beliefs is the “central question of a democracy.”

“Listen to your constituents and pay attention to what they say. ...

They’re ver y important as input, but in the end I think you have to make your own judgment,” he said.

The event was part of the Noah Krieger Memorial Lecture Series, a program that sponsors annual lectures in honor of Noah Krieger ’93, who died shortly after graduating from the University. Past speakers have included Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., former Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois and former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois.

Iraq vet tells personal story continued from page 5 “He has such a unique and harrowing stor y to tell. I had no idea what I was getting into,” said Will Lambek ’09.5, who saw an IVAW member speak at Brown two years ago. “Every chance that one has to hear from somebody who has been directly affected is an opportunity to really humanize one’s own opposition and one’s own resistance to the war.”

“I think (the lecture was) a little bit overwhelming,” said Daniel Patterson ’12, “but in the best way possible.”

Rick Ahl ’09 of Operation Iraqi Freedom was pleased with the turnout. “Nothing is quite as personal as this,” he said. “I think we need to be listening to more veterans tell their stories without the filters of other media sources.”

Ahl said that Operation Iraqi Freedom plans to have Camilo Mejia, another veteran, speak at Brown on Oct. 30.

w orld & n ation Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Iraq too perilous for some professionals

By Tina Susman Los Angeles T imes

BAGHDAD — Naqi Shakir sits on a sagging mattress pushed against a wall. His wife and two daughters perch on tattered sofas and chairs crowded into the one room of the house with signs of family life: personal photographs tacked to the wall, a TV, books and knickknacks on dusty shelves.

Except for a folding table and chairs in the kitchen, nearly everything has been sold so the family can bolt as soon as someone rents the two-stor y home in a relatively safe Baghdad neighborhood.

At a time when the Iraqi government is encouraging its citizens to return and the U.S. militar y is highlighting security gains across Iraq, the Shakirs nevertheless want out. They see no future here for Iraqis such as themselves: well educated, affluent, secular or nonMuslim.

Their imminent departure is a major concern facing Iraq, which has suf fered a traumatic brain drain in the last five years and is struggling to lure back or hang on to educated professionals.

In June, the government raised civil ser vant salaries 50 percent to 75 percent to bring back state employees such as teachers and doctors, many of whom were fired after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Iraq’s Ministr y of Displacement and Migration says tens of thousands of people have returned to Iraq since last fall.

But with more than 2.5 million Iraqis having fled the countr y, political and business leaders believe it will be many years before the loss of professionals can be reversed.

Many people continue to leave.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said it monitored numbers at the main border crossing linking Iraq to Syria from Januar y to July 2008 and found that 7,200 more Iraqis left than entered. And some say a new U.S. policy opening the door to more Iraqi refugees each year is exacerbating the situation.

“It’s counterproductive,” said Raad Ommar, president of the Iraqi American Chamber of Commerce and Industr y in Baghdad.

“They’re tr ying to achieve their goal on one hand of taking Iraqis to the United States, and on the other hand they’re tr ying to get Iraq stabilized and improve the economy and everything else. The flight of qualified Iraqis is not going to help that.”

In the years since the fall of Saddam, the chamber would receive 200 to 300 applications when it placed a newspaper ad seeking a staff attorney, public relations executive, engineer or administrative worker. Now, Ommar is lucky to attract 20, usually from people sorely lacking in experience and with checkered resumes resulting from wartime upheavals.

Ommar used to say it would take Iraq a couple of years to recover economically.

“Now, if I say five years, I’m not confident,” he said. “I think, in general, people don’t really have much confidence in the future.”

More than 7,000 physicians have left Iraq since 2003, including virtually all who had 20 years’

Page 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Saad Khalaf / Los Angeles Times

Members of an Iraqi family wait for a taxi to take them home. or more experience, said Mustafa Hiti, a member of parliament who sits on its health committee. About 600 have returned, he said, but none are top-flight specialists.

Most specialists were Sunni Arabs who, to achieve their professional status, were members of Saddam’s Baath Party. Even if they did not adhere to its ideology, they were ostracized and forced from their jobs after Saddam was ousted.

Now, they do not feel comfortable in a country run by Shiite Muslims, said Hiti.

At the Ministr y of Higher Education, spokeswoman Siham Shujairi said 6,700 professors have left Iraq since 2003 and only about 150 have returned. About 300 have been killed.

Shakir, 65, used to make good money as a customs clearing agent, but he closed shop after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion because of security worries. The family smuggled his son out of the countr y in 2005 after two failed kidnapping attempts. The Shakirs’ car has been riddled with bullets in a random shooting on a Baghdad street, and a car bomb in the neighborhood damaged their home.

“There is nobody upholding justice here,” Shakir said as a soap opera flickered on the TV and the family’s dog ran excited circles across the floor. “You live your life according to chance. Anyone can do anything.”

His daughters Rafah and Raghad, both in their 30s, feel pressure to wear veils outside even though the family is Christian. Rafah Shakir tucks her small cross pendant into her shirt when she goes out.

“I used to have an import-export business. I used to be able to go to my office and work on my own,” said Rafah, who is studying to be a human rights lawyer. “I can’t do it anymore. I can’t even wear short sleeves anymore.”

Even though security has improved, professionals continue to be targets of assassinations by extremists who see them as being pro-Western or religious infidels.

In addition, the power in Iraq lies with conser vative Shiites, and

there is no sign that it will change any time soon.

Even if provincial elections, considered key to balancing power among Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and others, take place later this year, the parties now in power probably will come out on top again. That’s because of name recognition and because the provincial election law likely to govern the vote allows parties to use religious symbols on the ballots.

“I’m sure it’ll play in favor of the Shiite Islamist parties,” said a senior U.S. official.

This scenario, combined with anger over Iraq’s failing infrastructure and distrust of its stability, does not encourage moderate Muslims such as Ali, 26, who has a medical degree and hopes to immigrate to the U.S. “Nothing is guaranteed. That’s the problem,” said Ali, who asked that his surname not be used to avoid problems with his employer.

“Here, ever ything is possible — but in a negative sense.”

Ali ticked off the frustrations of ever yday life: power outages, lack of clean tap water, hours-long waits to buy fuel for cars and generators and the lack of social life because of most of his friends’ departures and the closure of late-night restaurants, nightclubs and cinemas.

“Even if it’s safe, if the ser vices are not available it makes life hard,” said Ayad Abdul Ameer, an electrical engineer.

“The gas lines — people just sit there for hours and hours, like they’re dead,” Ali said, growing visibly infuriated as he spoke. “It’s like a Stage 4 cancer,” he said of Iraq’s growing problems.

Ahmed Farhan, who works as a chef in Scotland, returned to Iraq for the first time in 14 years this month and couldn’t wait to leave again. He and his family are Shiites, but Farhan said he found the atmosphere stifling and the sight of armed police and soldiers on street corners unner ving.

“It’s a losing battle,” he said, arguing against the idea that educated Iraqis such as himself are the best hope for reversing the brain drain.

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11,000 same-sex marriages in California More gay couples were married in California in the first three months that same-sex marriage was legal in the state than were married in the first 3 1/2 years it was legal in Massachusetts, according to a new study.

The data, released Monday by the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that an estimated 11,000 same-sex couples were married in California between June 17, when the California Supreme Court began allowing the weddings, and Sept. 17.

Next month, Californians will vote on Proposition 8, which would amend the state constitution to define marriage as only between one man and one woman.

Predictably, the two sides in that battle had dramatically different reactions to the study.

“People have waited for so long to be able to do this. ... I’m sure that is the reason for the big response,” said Stevie St. John, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. She added that she thought the huge number of marriages was “great.”

The Rev. Jim Garlow of Skyline Church in La Mesa, Calif., who has been rallying voters to pass the constitutional amendment, said: “The fact that there are big numbers doesn’t change the reality that it is still bad for the country.”

Garlow, who along with hundreds of other Christians is observing a fast until Election Day as a way to show his support for the proposed amendment, added: “There are enormous numbers of people doing cocaine right now. ... Simply because large numbers of people are doing something does not make it right.”

Gary Gates, a demographer at the Williams Institute, a think tank devoted to the study of sexual orientation and the law, said the number of marriages, while large, represents only about 10 percent of the samesex couples in California.

“Who are these people getting married? What the other studies tell you is they are people in pretty long-term, stable relationships,” he said.

There are more than 109,000 same-sex couples in California, an increase of 19,000 couples since 2000, according to a Williams Institute analysis of the U.S. census. Nearly one-quarter of these households have children — all together, there are more than 50,000 children living in same-sex households in the state.

There is no way to know exactly how many same-sex marriages have been performed in California, because the state no longer collects information on the sex of couples who register to marry.

Gates said researchers arrived at their estimates by comparing the number of marriages in each county last year, before gay marriage was legal, with the number this year. Any increase in the number of marriages was assumed to be from same-sex couples tying the knot.

The only exception is San Francisco, which is keeping an exact tally of same-sex marriages: 2,708 since June 17.

Gates speculated that many of the marriages in San Francisco and some other counties might be attributed to out-of-state couples. That’s because many of the places with the biggest increase in marriages — Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Riverside counties — are also top tourist destinations.

California and Massachusetts are the only two states to allow samesex marriage. Until recently, Massachusetts allowed only legal residents to marry.

— Los Angeles Times

Survey: Some wild animals face extinction BARCELONA, Spain — At least one-quarter of the world’s mammals in the wild are threatened with extinction, according to an international survey released Monday that blames the loss of wildlife habitat, hunting and poaching for the steep declines.

The survey, assembled over five years by 1,700 researchers in 130 countries, is the most comprehensive yet to assess the status and future of mammals on every continent and in every ocean.

The “baiji,” or Chinese river dolphin, faces extinction and already might have joined the species that have vanished from Earth.

Others are not far behind, such as the “vaquita,” a small porpoise that is drowning in fishing nets in the northern Gulf of California; the North Atlantic right whale, and various monkeys and other primates hunted by poachers in Africa.

Scientists have determined that about one-quarter of the world’s 5,487 species of mammals are threatened with extinction. The proportion of marine mammals in trouble appears to be higher, with an estimated one-third facing a serious threat of being wiped out. Many are killed when they are struck by ships or entangled in fishing gear.

About one-half of the world’s remaining apes, monkeys and other primates face threats from hunting or destruction of forests to make way for farming, said Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International.

“Chimp and gorilla meat fetches a higher price in many markets in Central African cities than beef or chicken because it’s considered a luxury item,” Mittermeier said. “We are losing many of these animals that otherwise could survive because they cling to relatively good habitat.”

Scientists find mammal extinction worrisome because a diversity of species stabilizes the planet. Each extinction disrupts this balance and ripples through the food chain, making it difficult for other species, including humans, to survive. The bleak assessment was released in Barcelona at the World Conservation Congress, a meeting of 8,000 scientists, conservationists, business leaders and representatives from governmental environmental ministries.

— Los Angeles Times

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Players: Football’s loss a wake-up call Cross country to compete in Boston this weekend continued from page 12

missed blocks and a few penalties really set us back on drives and prevented us from getting things going,” Dougherty wrote in an email to The Herald. “They also did a good job pressuring us and getting us out of our comfort zone, but we beat ourselves.”

Things did not get any better for Brown after intermission. The Rams put themselves in a second-and-25 situation with an illegal blocking penalty, but Cassidy found running back Jimmy Hughes for a 45-yard touchdown pass, increasing URI’s lead to 20-0 less than two minutes into the third quarter.

On the following kickoff, returner Nkosi Still ’09 put the Bears in good field position with a 22-yard return to the Brown 37, and a 28-yard completion from Dougherty to receiver Bobby Sewall ’10 moved the ball to the URI 35 on the first play of the drive. Once again, though, Bruno came up short, when Dougherty’s fourth-down pass from the 31 was intercepted at the 17.

On their next drive, the Bears finally found their rhythm. On thirdand-six from the Brown 36, Dougherty passed to running back Dereck Knight ’08.5 for a 25-yard completion, and on third-and-five from the URI 34, Dougherty and Sewall connected for another big play, this one resulting in a touchdown for the Bears, to cut the lead to a manageable 20-7.

“URI tried to play press man-to-

man coverage on our wide receivers,” Sewall wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. “Anytime we see this, we like to take advantage and throw the ball down field because we believe we can win those match-ups.”

At the end of the third quarter, tackle David Howard ’09 came up with a sack for a 10-yard loss on thirdand-eight from the Brown 41, forcing URI to punt, but the Rams caught another break when Farnham fumbled on the return and URI recovered the ball at the Brown 9-yard line. The defense held strong, though, holding the Rams to a field goal.

On Brown’s next drive, with the Rams up 23-7, Dougherty found Sewall for completions of 15 and 32 yards, and a 13-yard touchdown run by Knight cut the lead to 23-13 with 10:36 remaining. But the Bears would not come any closer, failing to convert a two-point attempt.

Ranney’s kickoff went out of bounds, giving URI the ball at its own 40, and the Rams completed the 60-yard drive in just eight plays, including a 43-yard completion in a third-and-21 situation. URI eventually increased its lead to 30-13 on a 2-yard touchdown pass.

“You have to give URI credit, they took advantage of big plays on their special teams and great field position,” Linebacker Steve Ziogas ’09, who led Brown with eleven tackles on the day, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. “We played a little foolish at times with costly penalties. You can’t play good defense if you can’t get off the field, and we gave them too many

free yards and downs.”

The Rams capitalized on another Brown turnover when tight end Colin Cloherty ’09 fumbled at the Brown 28. Three plays later, Cassidy fired a 23-yard touchdown strike to Bellini, putting the score at 37-13.

On a day in which the offense struggled, Sewall was a bright spot, finishing with nine catches for 130 yards and a touchdown. On the defensive side, Howard finished with a sack and two tackles for losses to lead the Bears.

Though the loss comes as a major disappointment to the team, some players say they see it as a necessary wake-up call early in the season.

“We have been quite humbled as a team and realize that if we don’t play how we’re capable of playing we aren’t going to reach our team goals, which is win an Ivy League Championship outright,” Ziogas wrote.

The Bears will travel to play Holy Cross next weekend in their final non-conference game of the season and their final chance for a tune-up before resuming Ivy League play the following weekend at Princeton.

“There’s a lot of people who are angry and frankly embarrassed about Saturday’s game, especially the seniors,” Dougherty wrote. “It’s our responsibility to make sure we’re ready for games and keep focus on the team, and we didn’t do that last week, and we’re not going to let that happen again. The loss doesn’t change our goal of an Ivy League title, but I think it’s definitely refocuses the team in a positive way.”

Harvard beats field hockey in home game continued from page 12 left on the clock.

“We weren’t recovering hard and we got caught a few men down, and they just slipped in the back door, and we weren’t ready for it,” LeClerc said.

Harrington said the play should never have happened.

“We should have stopped the play at the 50 (yard line),” she said. “We should have made a quick foul and stopped the play, and we didn’t.”

The Bears went into halftime with a 1-0 deficit despite their strong play.

“We really felt strongly that we could get back in it, but we came out

of halftime flat,” Harrington said.

Harvard came out gunning in the second half, racing out to a 9-3 advantage in shots. Harrington said that the key difference for the Bears was that they failed to secure the ball after passes.

“Harvard always hunts in pairs,” she said. “When we were receiving and it was falling off our stick, there were two Harvard kids there to always receive the ball.”

The offense broke down when the passing links buckled, and the team was forced to become more defensive because the Crimson picked up so many loose balls, Harrington added.

Still, Bruno kept Harvard from breaking the game open, surrender-

ing only one goal on a fluky play. With just over 10 minutes left, McCoy took a crossing shot from the low right side that deflected off a Brown player and found the back of the cage to produce the final 2-0 score.

Washburn made four saves and Katie Hyland ’11 added a defensive save, while Leslie Springmeyer ’12 led a balanced offense with two shots on goal.

The Bears will have to shake off the disappointment of the Harvard game quickly, as they travel to Fairfield, Conn., to take on Sacred Heart today at 4 p.m.

“We’ll take the good stuff out of this game and just try to string everything together so we can play a full 70 minutes,” LeClerc said.

First-years play well at Bruno Classic continued from page 12 Au earned an 8-6 victory over Joel Samaha and Dawson, while Posner and Crystal edged out Jordan Abergel and Schimmel 9-8 (6). Pearlman and Yazmer rounded out the doubles success with an 8-5 win over Berman and Santoro.

Harris was pleased with the Bears’ performance Saturday against the Bulldogs, noting that the team “won an impressive 10 of 12 matches against Yale.”

Brown’s collection of victories grew the following day, as the Bears notched three more doubles wins, this time against BC. The pairings of Gorham and Posner, Pearlman and Posner and Garland and Gardner all triumphed over their opponents by identical scores of 8-4.

“Everyone worked really hard and played really well,” said Lee, who spent the day supporting his teammates.

In singles play against the Bull-

dogs, Pearlman had a 6-3 victory over Samaha, and Au defeated Berman 7-6, closing out the match with an ace.

While their teammates took on Yale, the freshmen were busy trouncing Binghamton. Yazmer routed Gilbert Wong 6-2, and Crystal demolished Danielsson 6-0.

Overall, the freshmen made a strong showing at the tournament, with Yazmer going 6-0 and Crystal going 6-1.

“The underclassmen stepped up,” Assistant Coach Nestor Bernabe wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

Crystal, meanwhile, was likewise impressed by his teammates’ performances. “Everyone else did equally well, so as a team we played great,” he said.

The Bruno Classic marked the first time this season that the freshmen and seniors have competed at the same tournament, and Crystal said that he enjoyed the experience.

“My teammates are great,” he said.

“I am looking forward to an exciting season with them.”

Brown’s next competition is an important one — the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Regional Championships, beginning Oct. 16 in New Haven, Conn. There, the Bears will fight for a chance to compete at the National Indoors in November at the University of Virginia.

Last year, the doubles duo of Lee and Ratnam advanced to the semifinals. Lee expressed disappointment at not being able to compete this year.

“I wish I could compete at Regionals, since it’s my senior year,” Lee said. “I think I could have done well.”

However, Lee has faith that his teammates will make a big statement at Regionals, especially after their performance over the weekend. “The guys are really ready to compete at Regionals,” he said. “Hopefully, they’ll do well so they can represent us at the National Indoors.”

continued from page 12 and looks to build on that success next weekend.

“We are gearing up for the New England meet (next weekend). It is our goal to win the women’s meet.

(Boston University) and Harvard on the women’s side will be our toughest competition, and we may not race our entire team as some people are not feeling 100 percent right now,” Lake wrote.

The men’s team had the same success as their counterparts, also finishing first at the Br yant Invitational. The men finished with a combined score of 27 points with the second place team, URI, finishing with 53 points. Bryant (58), American International (104), and Southern New Hampshire (125) rounded out the top five.

Going into the race on Saturday it was unsure how many Bruno men were going to be able to run due to illness among the runners, but even with a shallow team the Bears were able to pull out a win.

“I feel the race really helped the team going into next weekend as we showed people how gritty and tough our team is when members race sick, and rather than use it as an excuse as to why we didn’t do well, we view it as an added challenge for us to overcome as a team,” said Sam Sheehan ’11. “Scott Cary (’10), Alex Stern (’10) and Chris Collins (’11) all epitomized what our team’s about by racing sick and racing well.”

The men had several top finishers — three out of the top five runners were Bears. Taking first place overall was Sheehan, crossing the line with a time of 16:35.08. This was a building block for Sheehan, as he will use this race to continue improving.

“The biggest thing that helped me win the race was being able to run with confidence,” he said. “Any time you can toe the line and know you’ve got a chance to come away with a win for your team, it really helps your confidence.”

Sheehan posting the time that he did was no shock to Lake, as she expected him to help this young squad progress.

“Sheehan was not a surprise, we have expected him to be a big part of things here since last year when he was on the bubble of making our top seven,” Lake wrote.

Following him closely was teammate Cary who finished second in 16:46.27, while Stern picked up fourth with a time of just over 17 minutes.

Other notable finishes for the men were Eric Marceau ’12 in sixth and Collins in 14th place.

“In order for the men to win the New England Championships — we simply have to run to our potential. We have five guys that can run around 25 minutes or under on this course,” Lake wrote.

Both teams will compete on Oct. 11 in Boston for the New England Cross Country Championships at Franklin Park.

E ditorial & L etters Page 10

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

S t a f f E d i to r i a l

Realistic in our cocoon We recognize that some at Brown may take satisfaction in the current misfortunes of Wall Street. And we understand that this reaction may result from a principled opposition to corporate greed. But the harsh reality is that this economic upheaval is not limited to Main Street and Wall Street.

Indeed, it impacts our cocoon of Ivy League privilege as well. Consider how the Wall Street turmoil has already resulted in markedly fewer investment bank positions for graduating seniors and hence increased competition for graduate and professional school admission and lucrative post-graduation jobs.

The growing national economic crisis poses sobering challenges for Brown’s future. While peer institutions such as Har vard and Yale have endowments of almost $37 billion and $23 billion respectively, Brown’s endowment is a relatively modest $3 billion. Even worse, this disparity may grow if contributions to the Brown Annual Fund diminish and the normally robust rate of return on the University’s endowment slackens in a deteriorating economy.

We believe that President Ruth Simmons will address this issue with concerted fundraising efforts such as her innovative Boldly Brown Campaign for academic enrichment. But we also fear that these commendable efforts may sink in the lowering tide of economic recession.

We wonder how the economic downturn will impact the stated priorities of the Boldly Brown Campaign to hire new faculty and increase financial aid. Will a potentially deep and long-lasting recession cause Brown to modify, postpone or abandon these laudable goals? If so, would hiring fewer new teachers negatively impact Brown’s academic standing and restrain its ability to provide an Open Curriculum with as much academic flexibility as possible? Would a possibly diminished capacity to provide financial aid put Brown at a competitive disadvantage in attracting the best and brightest students?

While The Herald reported that the administration reassured the community that the capital campaign was on track despite the economic crisis, we are curious how the University in general and its annual fund in specific can be immune from an economic downturn that seemingly threatens ever y sector of our economy. After all, if the economy as a whole retrenches, how can Brown alone boldly move for ward?

One of Simmons’ great strengths has been her willingness to address tough issues. Just as she has openly confronted Brown’s legacy of slavery and the necessity of greater intellectual diversity on campus, we ask her to provide greater transparency on how the University intends to address the economic crisis. Nothing less than the immediate and long-term future of the University may be at stake.

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

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CHRIS JESU LEE

L e tt e r s Attack on activism falls short To the Editor: Boris Ryvkin’s ’09 incredible comparison of student environmental activism to Soviet-style totalitarianism (“More nonsense from Brown activists,” Oct. 2) would be laughable if it were not such an important issue.

Ryvkin’s assertion that campus initiatives aspiring to make Brown a leading example of sustainability, such as energy usage monitors and the Real Food Challenge, are “affronts to individual liberty and tolerance” relies on a faulty assumption: that students living on campus already enjoy total freedom of lifestyle choices. In fact, Residential Life and Dining Services have a nearmonopoly on housing and food.

If Ryvkin rents an apartment, he likely pays bills for his energy usage. Neither is electricity, heat and water usage free in dorms, and ResLife would be fully justified in discouraging consumption of natural resources on campus. Likewise, Brown students on meal plan are limited in their dining choices, and those who want

higher-quality and more sustainable food are often out of luck.

As for the reality of anthropogenic climate change, a scientific consensus does exist, and refutations of the misleading arguments of climate-change skeptics that Ryvkin has recklessly embraced are detailed elsewhere. For example, the National Academy of Science in 2006 endorsed, not debunked, the evidence (not a model) behind the “hockey stick” graph. Much recent research suggests that even the IPCC report was far too conservative in its predictions.

No, disagreement with alarmism is not tantamount to a mental defect, but denial and inaction in the face of potentially the most serious crisis humans have faced is certainly tantamount to a collective moral failure.

Nick Hagerty ’10 Oct. 5

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O pinions Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Page 11

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

McCain’s ‘last hope?’ Fight dirty Zack beauchamp Opinions Columnist When the Associated Press starts prewriting your political obituar y, you know you’re in trouble. Its article this Saturday, “Onus on McCain to turn the presidential race his way,” ought to have Sen. John McCain’s campaign quaking in its collective boots.

The content of the article belies its relatively restrained title. McCain, the article notes, is far behind in almost ever y metric. National sur veys, swing state polls, questions about who can best manage the economy — you name it, Sen. Barack Obama wins it. Couple that with reports of dramatically understaffed McCain campaign offices and Obama “shatter(ring) all fundraising records” and it starts to look like McCain is going the way of Michael Dukakis.

So what’s a despondent McCain campaign to do? Contrary to the hopes of some Republican insiders, it’s not going to be enough just to “speak to (McCain’s) strengths.” In the public’s eyes, John McCain’s “strengths” are experience and foreign policy knowledge, and with the dual specters of Gov. Sarah Palin and economic catastrophe haunting the campaign trail, neither of those are going to be big selling points.

Nor is Palin, as Frank Rich argued this Sunday, McCain’s “last hope for victory.” Her favorability ratings have tanked in recent weeks, and post-Vice Presidential debate polling was decisive: Voters preferred Biden by at least 15 and at most 22 percent. When the poll was restricted to just independents, Biden won by a whopping 34 percent. So much for the swing vote.

Palin can still energize the Republican

base in ways that McCain can’t. However, in a year where voter party identification favors the Democrats by as much as 20 percent, turning out the faithful simply won’t cut it.

McCain needs something to convince independents and moderate Democrats to dump Obama, and barring a terrorist attack or a war with Iran, he’s only got one option: hit Obama until he bleeds.

According to the AP piece, the McCain campaign gets it: “It’s clear McCain’s campaign believes that making Obama supremely unacceptable in voters’ eyes may be the Republican’s best — if not only — shot at

much one might disagree with their content, at least these ads stick to issues.

That, however, is pretty much all they stick to. They have been running since McCain “suspended” his campaign, and Obama’s numbers have only gone up since then.

Is this proof that the negative strategy isn’t going to work? Hardly. If McCain really wants to win, he needs to start aiming his punches below the belt.

Some independent organizations have already started going there. The Judicial Confirmation Network, a group ostensibly

If McCain really wants to win, he needs to start aiming his punches below the belt. winning the presidency.” Their campaign expenditures reflect this attitude; a recent report found that “virtually 100 percent” of the McCain campaign’s national ad money has gone to anti-Obama spots.

As far as political advertising goes, these spots have been pretty mild. “Obama is a big government liberal,” “Obama sent jobs overseas,” “Obama doesn’t get the economy” (pretty rich coming from the guy who said “the issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well I should”). However

aimed at moving the judiciar y even further to the right, has put out a spot highlighting Obama’s connections to Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright.

But third party groups can’t match the McCain campaign’s reach or resources. If they want to shift the campaign discussion from Wall Street woes to Britney Spears and “God Damn America,” they’re going to need to get their hands dirty.

Cut an ad featuring a Wright sermon and Michelle Obama’s allegedly unpatriotic

comments. Talk about Ayers’ bombing of the Pentagon (perhaps making use of a Sept.

11, 2001 profile that conveniently quotes Ayers’ as saying that “I don’t regret setting bombs.”) and Hamas’ “endorsement” of Obama] while showing him in “Muslimlooking” clothes.

Or take Biden’s remark that “in an Obama-Biden administration, there will be absolutely no distinction from a constitutional standpoint or a legal standpoint between a same-sex and a heterosexual couple” out of context and re-fight the culture wars.

Since the Wright scandal has so far been the only attack that has done Obama significant damage, it seems like McCain’s real “last hope” lies with an angr y preacher and an artifact of the politics of 40 years ago.

McCain has to know that these tactics are the worst type of political slime — to a tee, these accusations are at best extraordinarily misleading and at worst pure, unadulterated lies. This understanding, along with McCain’s deep belief in the importance of honor, may explain why his campaign, despite being one of the most mendacious in recent histor y, hasn’t yet stooped to character assassination.

However, an ever-shrinking calendar and fading political hopes are forcing McCain to make a choice between sacrificing the last remaining shreds of his dignity and abandoning his fleeting electoral hopes. There are already indications of which way McCain is leaning: Both Palin and some McCain aides have been quite explicit about their intentions to make Obama’s connection to Ayers central to their campaign strategy.

Don’t be surprised when Jeremiah Wright shows up on a TV near you.

Zack Beauchamp ’10 didn’t know he was such a cynic until he wrote this column.

Brown: the great radical Puritan university

BY Graham Anderson Opiniones Columnist One evening recently, reading WorldNetDaily. com (home to works by Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter) in an effort to make myself angry about something, I read Ellis Washington, a professor at Savannah State University, ask “How did the eight so-called “Ivy League” schools... go from being training grounds for Christian missionaries and ministers and respected citadels of higher education to what they are now — propaganda factories for every leftist, perverted, radical, tyrannical, failed ideology known to mankind?”

Of course some extreme conservative miscreants, in lamenting a past that never existed, like to implicitly and explicitly remind us that the Ivy League universities were founded as great religious institutions. One need not be an strong student of history to know that such a claim is only marginally correct.

But then I read Washington ask, “Did you know that America’s oldest and most venerated colleges and universities like Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth were founded by the Puritans?” and proceed to give a fake history about the demise Puritanism.

Puritanism is something that I know better than most. I am a history concentrator, and I have spent much of my time at Brown studying Puritanism in England and North America.

Puritanism, as I define it, is a broad term for an exceptional and dynamic mind-set and world-view that extended into the political, social, religious, moral, economic and — as relevant to what I wish to demonstrate — educational realms. No other intellectual tradition in the pre-modern and modern world has had

such a progressive and revolutionary impact.

And our own Baptist — meaning very radical Puritan — Brown University can claim a part of this tradition.

Puritanism roughly traces back to the question in the 16th century of how far to take the English Reformation. Puritans, again roughly, came to mean those who wanted to bring “pure” religion closer to the people. Calvinist predestination theology also demanded constant self-reflection, entailing a heightened moral awareness. Puritanism helped spark the English Revolution and temporarily overthrow monarchy.

Brown likes rebellion. Brown likes advocating on behalf of “the people.” Brown sure likes community; as our great drinking song reminds me: “I’m a Brown man born, and a Brown man bred, and when I die, I’ll be a Brown man dead.”

Indeed, Brown does not really have a code of rules; we have the Principles of the Brown Community which sets out the ideals of the way we live, work and behave. And Brown really likes self-reflection, most recently in the notable forms of our Slavery and Justice Report and Task Force on Undergraduate Education.

History does explain Brown’s current political temperament and world-view, and one key is looking at our role in the Puritan past This Puritan tradition came to North America and is famously expressed in John Winthrop’s City upon a Hill sermon: “We must delight in each other, make others conditions our own rejoice together, mourn together, labor, and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, our community as members of the same body.”

Things should be starting to sound familiar now.

Brown students live in a constant state of knowing that we are morally “good,” but we can constantly become morally “better” — which is both satisfying and frustrating. Indeed, sometimes we can fall into a bit of moral paranoia, like witch hunter Cotton Mather, whenever something has even the slightest potential to threaten the New Curriculum. Still, everything is done with a clear personal conception of what’s right and what’s wrong.

Continuing with my history primer, Puritan

theology became less and less relevant during the 17th century as denominational pluralism and Enlightenment thought expanded.

Nonetheless, this Puritan world-view remained pervasive and was a critical component of sparking the American Revolution.

It came as no coincidence, after all, that the American Revolution began in Boston, with Rhode Island (the dumping ground for the most radical Puritans) rebelling like hell even before then.

The anti-hierarchical element of Puritanism also entailed a radical notion of equality. The abolitionist movement and our whole array of modern civil rights movements rightly trace back to this Puritan world-view.

It should thus be no surprise that Brown, with its historical roots in the most Puritan of American Puritan thought, is a 21st century center of progressive thought and tolerance.

Despite my occasional jabs at our Ivy counterparts, I believe that the other Ivies can obviously claim a part of the great American Puritan tradition as well — thus the occasional incorrect stereotyping of us in the collective.

I would not dare to make a claim along the lines that we “have history on our side,” just as few would dare to claim we have “God on our side.”

But history does explain Brown’s current political temperament and world-view, and one key is looking at our role in the Puritan past.

By no means is Brown today a perversion of our past, or an erasure of our religious roots, or a diversion from the purposes of our founding. Let us not allow others to steal our past and retell it as lies.

Graham Anderson ’10 is known for Cotton Mather-style paranoia.

S ports t uesday Page 12

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Bruno drops Governor’s Cup in weekend showcase

XC dominates weekend invitational

By Benjy Asher Sports Editor

By Nicole Stock Spor ts Staf f Writer

The men’s and women’s cross country teams had a successful weekend with both teams winning the Bryant Invitational. The women’s team had another strong performance as they showcased their entire squad for the first time this year. They earned first place with a combined score of 16 points. URI had the second best combined score with 50 points.

Following URI was Central Connecticut State (65), Southern New Hampshire (121), Bryant (123) and American International (167).

The Bears dominated the race with eight girls finishing in the top 13 and posting the four top times.

Samantha Adelberg ’11 led the way for the Bears, crossing the finish line with a time of 19:43.97 in just her second cross country race of her collegiate career.

“Adelberg has a lot of talent as a distance runner,” Head Coach Craig Lake wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. “We recruited her primarily as a middle distance runner and that is how she sees herself, but we are hopeful that she will be able to do what it takes to reach her potential in the longer events as well. She has the talent and ability to be a fantastic distance runner, and she showed a little of that by winning the race. ... But she has a lot more in her.”

Amanda Herrmann ’12 followed Adelberg with a second place finish of 19:48.57 and only two-tenths of a second behind her was Brianna Rogers ’12, placing third. Rounding out the top four was Galia Deitz ’12 crossing the line in 20:03.17.

Another notable finish was that of Megan Fitzpatrick ’11, who finished sixth only seconds behind Deitz. The team had a strong race continued on page 9

Justin Coleman / Herald Bobby Sewall ’10 led the Bears with 9 catches for 130 yards in the team’s 37-13 loss to URI.

Coming off its win over Harvard, the football team was brought down to earth with a 37-13 loss to URI on Saturday. Brown’s sloppy play conBrown 13 tributed to the 37 URI loss, with the Rams capitalizing on two interceptions, two fumble recoveries and a blocked punt that set up a touchdown near the end of the first half.

Bruno had a chance to get on the board first when the offense moved the ball to the URI 29-yard line in the first quarter, off of a 52-yard run by receiver Buddy Farnham ’10. But on a 46-yard field goal attempt, the kick from Robert Ranney ’09 sailed wide right, and the Bears gave the ball up to the Rams. Later in the quarter, safety Chris Perkins ’10 came up with an interception, which he returned 19 yards, to the URI 21. But once again, Brown failed to get on the scoreboard, when a series of unsuccessful runs pushed the Bears back to the 30, and Ranney’s 47-yard kick attempt was

blocked.

URI got on the board first with 5:32 left in the first half, when quarterback Derek Cassidy led the Rams on a 65-yard drive, culminating in a 9-yard touchdown pass to receiver Joe Bellini, to put the Rams up 7-0.

With 1:07 left in the half, Brown began a drive at its own 29, and three consecutive incomplete passes ran almost no time off the clock. On fourth down, Ranney’s woes continued, when his punt was blocked and recovered by the Rams at the Brown 17-yard line.

It took URI just two plays to get into the end zone. Cassidy gained six yards on a run and then fired an 11-yard touchdown pass to receiver Brandon Johnson-Farrell. After a missed extra point, the Rams were up 13-0 with just 27 seconds left in the half.

A squib kick gave the Bears the ball at their own 48, and quarterback and co-captain Michael Dougherty ’09 completed a long pass to Farnham.

But Farnham was pushed out at the 6 as time ran out, and Bruno headed to the locker room trailing 13-0.

“Bad throws, dropped passes, continued on page 9

Field hockey falls to Harvard despite strong offense

By Andrew Braca Assistant Sports Editor

The field hockey team suffered a heartbreaking 2-0 loss to Harvard Saturday on Warner Roof. In the first half, the Bears (2-7, 0-3 Ivy) produced what Head Coach Tara Harrington ’94 called “some of the best field hockey that we’ve played as a team,” but they went into halftime down 1-0 to the Crimson, leading to a frustrating final loss of 2-0 that left them wondering what could have been.

“We played well today and we were definitely the better team,” said Ann LeClerc ’09.

The Bears began the game with a bang, challenging the Crimson with their most aggressive attacking so far this season. Brown employed the bold strategy that Harrington said the team was emphasizing in preparation for the game. The strategy involved the defense joining the midfielders and the forwards in creating offensive pressure ­— something that had faltered in previous games. Developing this connection between all three lines, Brown outshot Harvard by a margin of only 7-6, but had a crucial 6-3 lead in shots on goal.

But the Bears were not able to capitalize on any of their chances,

a product of both misfortune and strong play by Crimson goalkeeper Kylie Stone. Bruno’s best chance came in the fourth minute on a penalty corner, when Abigail Taft ’12 redirected a shot by Victoria Sacco ’09 from the top of the circle near the front of the cage, but Stone stopped the ball before it could reach the cage to rob the Bears a golden opportunity.

Brown created other chances, recording the most shots on goal in a half this season, but it came up empty.

“In any sport, (controlling) tone and tempo are great, but you’ve got to convert, and we did not,” Harrington said.

Harrington said the team knew that committing so many players to the attacks would be risky if Harvard had produced a counterattack. Their new aggressive strategy finally came back to bite the Bears in the final minute of the first half. It all broke down in the blink of an eye when Leigh McCoy and Maggie McVeigh quickly brought the ball upfield. McCoy sent a crossing pass from the left side across the cage to McVeigh, who knocked it past Brown goalkeeper Caroline Washburn ’12 to give the Crimson the lead with just 14 seconds continued on page 9

M. tennis honors fallen fan with many wins

By Erin Frauenhofer Sports Staff Writer

Herald File Photo Jonathan Pearlman ’11 won three single and three double matches at the Bruno Classic to help the team top the tournament.

When the men’s tennis team took to the courts over the weekend, the Bears were fighting for more than just match wins and rankings. They were competing to honor the memory of Margaux Powers, a longtime friend and supporter of Brown tennis, who was killed in May at the age of 26.

According to Head Coach Jay Harris, Powers, daughter of Michael Powers ’73, could always be seen cheering on the team at home and away matches and always participated in the men’s tennis alumni events.

Harris said that in addition to hosting the Bruno Classic in her honor, the team will also plant a tree dedicated to her in the spring and will begin awarding an annual team spirit award in her name.

The tournament included players from Yale, Binghamton University and Boston College. Georgetown University was also slated to compete but withdrew due to a norovirus outbreak at the school.

With captains Chris Lee ’09 and Basu Ratnam ’09 out indefinitely due to injuries, it was up to the underclass-

men to step up to fill the voids, and they proved themselves ready to handle the pressure, as the Bears went 16-4 against Yale, 3-1 against Boston College and 9-3 against Binghamton over the course of the weekend.

“It was so much fun finally competing as a team and being a part of Bruno tennis,” Jimmy Crystal ’12 said.

“As a team we did really well.”

The Bears hit the mark right from the start, opening the tournament Friday with five wins over Yale and four victories over Binghamton. Jonathan Pearlman ’11 and Charlie Posner ’11 defeated the Bulldogs’ Calvin Bennett and Connor Dawson 8-5, while Crystal and Andrew Yazmer ’12 breezed by Erik Blumenkrantz and Ryan Berman 8-2. Bennett and Berman later fell to the Bears in singles play as well, with Skate Gorham ’10 taking a 7-5, 6-4 win over Bennett and Posner outlasting Berman 7-5, 7-6 (5). Captain Sam Garland ’09 added to the Bears’ pile of victories by trouncing Tom Santoro 6-2, 6-2.

The underclassmen continued their winning streak in singles action against Binghamton. Pearlman prevailed over Sven Vloedgraven for a 6-1, 3-6, 10-5 win, while Yazmer trounced

Andreas Danielsson 6-2, 6-2 and Crystal dismantled Jay Bartishevich by a score of 6-1, 6-0.

The Bears matched that success against the Bearcats in doubles play, where they won one of two matches on Friday and three of four matches on Saturday. Kendrick Au ’11 had two victories over the duo of Danielsson and Evan Algier, crushing them 8-1 with Gorham as his partner, and earning another win, 8-4, when he teamed up with Gardner. Gorham and Garland defeated Vloedgraven and Arnav Jain in a close 9-7 match, and Crystal and Yazmer contributed an 8-1 win over Bartishevich and Ted Chakos.

On Saturday, the Bears also continued their dominance — this time against Yale. Pearlman outlasted Bennett 5-7, 6-2, 1-0 (8), while Gorham, Yazmer, Au and Posner blew by their opponents in straight sets. Gorham defeated Dawson 6-3, 6-4, Yazmer defeated Josh Lederman 6-2, 6-4, Au defeated Santoro 6-0, 6-4 and Posner defeated Matt Schimmel 7-6 (3), 6-3.

The Bears were equally unstoppable in doubles play. Gorman and continued on page 9