Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Daily Herald the Brown

vol. cxliv, no. 10 | Tuesday, February 3, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891

Planned budget cuts concern faculty

By Nicole Friedman Senior Staff Writer

The proposed budget cuts outlined in President Ruth Simmons’ e-mail to the Brown community last week came as no surprise to some members of the faculty, who had already anticipated slowed hiring rates.

But the cuts could make it difficult for the University to meet faculty and student needs, especially in popular departments, said Professor of Philosophy James Dreier, who chairs the Faculty Executive Committee.

In her e-mail, Simmons announced a “reduction in the planned increase in the size of the faculty.”

Faculty growth was a major component of the Plan for Academic Enrichment and the University now boasts a faculty of 689 members, compared with 589 in the 2002-2003 academic year, Dean of the Faculty Rajiv Vohra wrote in an e-mail

to The Herald.

Dreier said this rapid faculty growth worried the committee last January.

During its review of the Plan for Academic Enrichment, the committee found that faculty growth had not been matched by increased research funding, graduate school growth or infrastructure support, Dreier said.

Some faculty members said that the postponement in Graduate School growth could hurt departments, especially those that already have few teaching assistants. Those without graduate programs, such as the International Relations program and the Center for Language Studies, could also feel the pinch as they depend on other departments for graduate TAs. “We’ll have to work closely with the grad school to make sure that continued on page 2

ta g tan g l e

Courtesy of Brown University

Patrick Corey ‘10 (left) and Kelly Glaser ’10 install energy efficient lightbulbs as part of Project 20/20, which is partly funded by Walmart.

$15k donation stirs controversy

By Jenna Stark News Editor

The University spent $15,000 to register Vice President for International Af fairs David Kennedy ’76 for the Clinton Global Initiative’s annual meeting last September, according to a list released by the Clinton F oundation in mid-December.

Questions were raised over the circumstances and purpose of the contribution — which appeared as a donation on the Foundation’s Web site — when the information was released.

Despite the then-declining economic conditions, Kennedy’s registration fee was covered by the President’s office, said Marisa Quinn, vice president of public affairs and university relations.

“Fifteen thousand dollars is a fair amount of money,” Quinn said, adding that it allowed “for this tremendous opportunity to meet with people from around the world and engage in thoughtful dialogue on issues of interest to higher education and the broader society.”

President Ruth Simmons also attended the annual meeting, but did not have to pay the registration fee as she was an “invited guest,” Quinn said.

The University chose to send Kennedy to the meeting to “enhance Brown’s profile in the international community, and to make valuable connections with world leaders,” Quinn wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

Kennedy said the meeting provides “a terrific oppor tunity to

meet a wide range of people who could be helpful to the University in one fell swoop.”

“There’s no conference like CGI,” he added.

But the $15,000 registration fee, or so-called donation, has sparked some controversy, highlighted by a Dec. 23 Wall Street Journal column that raised questions about nonprofits making charitable donations to the Foundation, and mentioned Brown by name. The Herald had reported two months earlier that the University received $205,000 in grant money from the Foundation in September, through the Clinton Global Initiative University, a program started by the Foundation to promote leadership on college continued on page 2

Psychiatry resident talks cadavers

By Britta Greene Senior Staf f Writer

Frederic Lu / Herald Many building around campus have been vandalized by graffiti.

inside

See Metro, page 5

News.....1-4 Arts........5-6 Spor ts...7-9 Editorial..10 Opinion...11 Today........12

www.browndailyherald.com

A body, bearing racist tattoos, is donated to a medical school for dissection. One shoulder bears a swastika. On the other is written “KKK.” Should the body be presented to the students for anatomical dissection? Should the tattoos be cut off first? Should students even be doing dissections when they could just use computer models of the human body?

Arguing for the continued use of cadavers in medical training, Christine Montross MD’06, a resident in psychiatry, discussed these questions with thoughtful reflection and poetic eloquence before a small crowd in Salomon

101 Monday night.

Her lecture, entitled “Dissection and Doctoring: What The Dead Teach Us About Healing The Living,” followed the 2007 publication of her book “Body of Work: Meditations on Mortality from the Human Anatomy Lab.” Montross argued that using cadavers in medical training prepares students for the physical and emotional stress they are likely to face in their careers.

Human dissection is “at times awe-inspiring and at times profoundly upsetting,” she said, adding that calmness in the face of emotional distress is a “learned response.”

Her own experience with dissection, she said, recorded in full in her book, was at first terrifying,

but in the end extremely valuable.

She said she holds deep respect for those who donate their bodies to science, though she is unsure of whether she would do so herself.

She went on to examine the evolution of attitudes toward medicine among medical students, many of whom enter the field out of altruism and empathy, she said.

Over time, after prolonged lack of sleep, loss of personal time and continued exposure to emotionally traumatic experiences, many students begin to lose this empathy and personal connection to their patients, she said.

She said students are often “depleted,” and that the fears of failure and inadequacy force members of the medical field to push continued on page 2

Metro, 5

Sports, 7

Opinions, 11

Medicine for Ri A new deal gives the Ocean State control over its Medicare program.

rough weekend The women’s basketball team suffered two tough losses over the weekend.

Nothing to ignore Nick Werle ’10 thinks restricting Morning Mail will reduce event attendance

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

C ampus N EWS

Faculty reacts to budget cuts continued from page 1

Frederic Lu / Herald

Christine Montross delivers a lecture in Solomon 101.

Montross draws insight from ‘inevitability of death’ continued from page 1 themselves too hard. “We should allow the inevitability of death to remind us that we are every bit as human and every bit as fallible as our patients,” she said.

The cadavers — “lying on their stainless-steel tables” and donated out of sheer philanthropy — can themselves “ser ve as symbols of

the altruism of young doctors-tobe,” she said.

Montross received a master’s of fine arts in poetry from the University of Michigan, and her manuscript “Embouchure” was a finalist for the National Poetry Series.

She told the crowd of her struggle to balance her medical training with her “stolen treasure” — her writing.

sudoku

departments that provide the most TAs for IR-related courses, such as political science, don’t experience more of a TA shortage than is already the case,” Peter Andreas, associate professor of political science and international studies and director of the International Relations program, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

Though the University has extended the staff and administrative hiring freeze in place since November, Simmons has refrained from freezing faculty hires. But in her e-mail she noted that some departments may not be able to fill vacant spaces “in order to pursue targets of opportunity or meet extraordinary teaching needs in other areas.”

According to Andreas, any vacancies in the IR program would have to be filled immediately.

“The current faculty ‘supply’ simply does not adequately meet the high student ‘demand’” for the IR program, one of the University’s largest concentrations, Andreas wrote. Simmons’ e-mail implied that it might be more difficult for the department to fill some “gaping holes” in its curriculum, he wrote, adding that the program might not have funding to hire short-term visitors to teach “key IR courses not offered by regular faculty.”

The IR program, which is housed in the Watson Institute for International Studies, could be more vulnerable to the Univer-

sity’s endowment loss than other departments, since the institute, unlike the rest of the University, “relies largely on its endowment to cover operating expenses,” Andreas wrote.

In its report on the Plan for Academic Enrichment last January, the Faculty Executive Committee also noted that language classes at Brown are “significantly larger than those of our peers” and that there “seems to be no normal or explicit mechanism for adding lecturers as enrollments grow.”

The Center for Language Studies is offering classes in Persian this year due to outside funding, but the donation will only cover three years of instruction, said Merle Krueger, associate director of the center.

The faculty seemed divided on the importance of the Target of Opportunity hiring program, which gives the University the flexibility to hire academics who are leaders in their fields.

Dreier said “some people are skeptical” of the program because it would allow the University to hire a famous professor instead of filling several vacancies with junior faculty.

“Sometimes when you try and recruit a superstar, those superstars are not inspired to teach undergraduate classes,” Dreier said.

But Professor of Applied Mathematics Jan Hesthaven said that not hiring the best professors if

the opportunity arises would be a “mistake” for Brown, placing it in an “environment of stagnation.”

So far, the program has not prevented the school from hiring most of its faculty at the junior level, Vohra wrote in his e-mail, adding that the program is now “more important than ever.”

Simmons’ proposed budget cuts should not affect students in the short term, since most of the planned faculty growth is complete, said Hesthaven, who is also a member of the University Resources Committee.

But “all the things that go along with a better faculty student ratio,” like smaller class sizes, more research opportunities and better advising, will “not be improving the way we had hoped,” Dreier said.

In her e-mail, Simmons also recommended a salary freeze for “essentially all faculty and staff.” She noted exceptions for pre-existing contracts with built-in pay raises and base salary increases associated with promotions. She also made an exemption for “specific market pressures,” retaining the University’s ability to compete if a faculty member is offered a position elsewhere.

While the proposals outlined in Simmons’ e-mail may not be met with enthusiasm from the faculty and staff, Hesthaven said, the most important part of Simmons’ plan was her effort to avoid placing the financial burden on the students as much as possible.

Universities’ donations draw scrutiny continued from page 1 campuses, and the Wal-Mar t Foundation. The grant was meant to expand a partnership between Brown and Dillard University in New Orleans. The initiative also granted $2,000 each to four Brown students — more than any other university received.

Apart from Brown, universities such as Columbia, Tufts University and the University of California at Los Angeles gave money to the Foundation, according to the Foundation’s donor list.

The column also raised questions regarding the transparency of the Clinton Foundation, noting that the organization did not have to release its donor list

prior to this year and still does not specify the intended purpose for the money. The donor list was released as part of President Barack Obama’s vetting of Secretary of State Hillar y Clinton, who was then being considered for her current cabinet position.

But there is no law barring universities from donating money to a foundation, said David Brennen, professor of law at the University of Georgia School of Law. “I am not aware of any prohibition on a university donating money to a foundation and the foundation in turn providing a grant back to the same university,” he said.

The Clinton Foundation could not be reached for comment.

In addition to the registration fee, conference attendees are expected to donate more money, FoxNews.com reported in September 2007.

“Those who attend pay a $15,000 registration fee and are also expected to commit time or money to the conference’s big issues. Those who do not fulfill their pledges are not invited back,” according to FoxNews.com.

Still, the University only gave the Foundation the money needed to cover the registration fee, Quinn said, adding that she is “not aware” of plans to donate further funds.

Kennedy said he does not plan to attend the conference again.

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Tuesday, February 3, 2009

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS

Page 3

“We rarely ever get positive feedback.”

— Adam Cambier ’09, Brown Daily Jolt site manager

Continuing Ed turns to Facebook

By Talia Kagan Contributing Writer

Courtesy of DailyJolt.com

The new Brown Daily Jolt announces events on a “flyerboard.“

Daily Jolt makeover to go live today

By Dan Alexander Staff Writer

The Brown Daily Jolt, an online forum for the University community, is unveiling a new look today.

The Web site’s new design aims to increase participation and build community among student users, said Daily Jolt General Manager Max Woolf.

The new Jolt’s centerpiece is a “flyerboard” — a bulletin board which will feature events, announcements and classified ads. Directly below the flyerboard is a forum where users can post comments.

“Right now, the events and announcements and all of that are kind of hidden in the back parts of the Jolt,” Adam Cambier ’09, site manager for Brown’s Jolt site and a former Herald opinions columnist, said. “The way the new Jolt works out, there is a lot more opportunity to see what people around the Brown community have to say — things they’re promoting, things they believe in — just all kinds of stuff.”

Cambier said the new Jolt will be “a lot like eating at the Ratty minus

having to eat at the Ratty.” He likened the flyerboard to a table full of slips advertising events, activities and student groups. The forum is designed to emulate Ratty conversation, he said.

The Jolt released a beta version, a site that looks like the new Jolt but is still not fully functional. The new Jolt has caused complaints on the Daily Jolt blogs, Cambier said, and some users have threatened to never visit the Jolt again after its new version goes live.

“We rarely ever get positive feedback because people who are happy don’t feel the need to say anything, whereas people who are unhappy feel the need to say a lot,” Cambier said.

“A lot of what we’ve heard back from people directly at Brown is that they hate the new site and that it’s going to be awful,” he said. But, according to Cambier, the Jolt has launched its new format at all but seven of the 200 Daily Jolt campuses nationwide, and it has been well-received thus far.

Jolt user Justine Stewart ’11, who has accessed the site’s beta version, said it was an improvement. “I think continued on page 4

Researcher makes two face breakthroughs

By Luisa Robledo Staf f Writer

Michael Tarr, professor of cognitive and linguistic sciences, had a vision ­— or two. Conducting two research projects simultaneously regarding visual perception, Tarr and his fellow researchers concluded not only that visual training can lead to a reduction of racial bias, but also that it is possible to distinguish men from women using only color patterns shown on a person’s skin.

In the first project, Tarr, codirector of the Center for Vision Research, and Sophie Lebrecht GS used research conducted at the University of Victoria to analyze the “unconscious biases” that Caucasians have toward other races and performed visual training exercises

on subjects to help them identify members of the opposite race, according to the study released in the journal PLoS One on Jan. 21.

Jim Tanaka, professor of psychology at the University of Victoria, and McGill University graduate student Lara Pierce conducted the experiments on 20 Caucasian volunteers.

“Our emphasis is the idea of face recognition as a form of expertise,” Tanaka said.

The experiment used the Affective Lexical Priming Score, a test designed to measure unconscious social biases, Pierce wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. The test subjects were presented with a series of African-American and Caucasian faces, which were followed by a continued on page 4

The question is familiar to many an event organizer or program coordinator: how do you keep Brown students informed? For University offices, the answers are also familiar — table slipping, posters, mailbox flyers and Morning Mail. But for one office, add to that list: Facebook.

The Office of Continuing Education has used the Facebook paid advertising feature to inform students about Summer Study Abroad programs and resident advisor hiring for Summer at Brown, a summer study program for high school students.

Facebook first introduced its targeted advertising initiative in November 2007. The ads appear on the right-hand side of the screen when users view profiles. They can include an image and allow for a maximum of 135 characters.

Jacqueline Newcomb, assistant director of continuing education, said she first ran a Facebook ad last February to invite Brown undergraduates to apply for an RA position for Summer at Brown. The text-only ad ran for a week.

Newcomb, who is listed as a member of “Brown staff” on Face-

book, said she decided to use the site to advertise at the suggestion of a graduate assistant. Judging the ad a success, Newcomb said when she interviewed students for the RA position last year, many mentioned hearing about the job application through Facebook. She said she plans to run a similar ad again this year.

Geoffrey Chisholm, director of marketing for the office of continuing education, also began running Facebook ads for Summer Study Abroad programs after personal experience with the site. Since last November, he said he has run seven ads for the program, “with nearly a million total impressions,” or the number of times the ad has been viewed. He is also experimenting with running ads for the office’s pre-college programs.

Newcomb and Chisholm said that advertising through Facebook is very cost-effective, especially because their offices are more concerned with the number of impressions that an ad gets than with its number of clicks, which are more expensive, they said.

Chisholm said he sees the ads as “a paperless flyer, not an ad” since they are meant for “creating awareness and reminding about (program application) deadlines” instead of

selling a product on the spot. But unlike a flyer, Facebook is a reliable presence, he said, adding that the site allows him to continue promoting deadlines during the holidays — a time when many students make decisions about vacation plans.

Facebook advertising is also effective because “it is highly targeted, so our ads can be relevant and contextual,” Chisholm said. According to Facebook, advertisements can have specific “demographic and psychographic filters” for its 150 million active members, including those for location, education, sex, age, relationship status and relationship interests. Another filter option for advertisers can be “keywords,” which are part of the information listed in a user’s profile, such as favorite music or movies.

Chisholm and Newcomb said they both targeted their ads at Brown undergraduates. Chisholm has also run his ads for college students at peer institutions.

It is difficult to estimate how many students have noticed the ads. Sasha David ’10, said she saw the Summer Study Abroad ad, and clicked on it for more information, though she is still unsure about her summer plans. She has also seen continued on page 4

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

“I don’t know anyone who looks at the ads. I know I haven’t.”

— Jake Maxon ’12

Summer@Brown on Facebook continued from page 3 several local Facebook ads for jobs in Providence, as well as advertisements to sell college class notes.

On the usefulness of Facebook ads, David said, “a lot of times we try to block them out, but people do read them,” noting the success of the Obama campaign’s Facebook ads.

Katharine Mead ’12 said that

usually “we’re trained to ignore ads online because they don’t apply to us, but Facebook seems to have identified that and made them apply (to) us.”

But Jake Maxon ’12, said he didn’t find advertising on Facebook to be effective. “I don’t know anyone who looks at the ads. I know I haven’t,” he said.

Despite the positive initial response to their Facebook ads, Ch-

isholm and Newcomb said they will continue using traditional methods of campus advertising such as tableslipping and mailbox stuffing, along with Facebook.

As for the future of targeted ads, Chisholm said he has noticed an increasing number of commercial ads on Facebook.

He said, “Will those ads become less effective over time when there’s more noise?”

Mixed reviews for new-look Jolt continued from page 3 it’s a lot easier to read,” she said.

But Stewart had some complaints.

“This home page is still really long.

Who is going to scroll through all of that?” she said.

Cambier said he had doubts about the new Jolt initially, though he now supports the changes.

“Nobody likes change, you know.

I’ve been working at the Jolt for two and a half years, and it’s always been the same format,” Cambier said. “So it’s tough to readjust, but I think it will be worth it.”

The new site has been a long time coming. Cambier said he first heard of impending changes to the site’s design when he started working for the Jolt in 2006. But Woolf, the site’s general manager, said they began making changes to the site in the fall of 2007.

The Jolt began by surveying users on all the campuses it serves and asking them what changes they would like to see. A team at the Jolt headquarters in Boston began coding for the new site, keeping in mind users’ suggestions.

The site’s administrators at Brown had limited influence on the new design, Cambier said. “We’ve helped to show them what people want out of the Jolt, and what people come to the Jolt for, but as far as direct input, we haven’t had as big of a say.”

Woolf said the Jolt headquarters held off on implementing the changes at Brown because Brown’s Jolt has such high traffic, and they wanted everything to run smoothly when it launched.

“We’re saving the best for last,” he said.

Prof: training reduces bias continued from page 3

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string of letters from the alphabet that formed either non-words or words with a positive or negative connotation.

“If racial bias is present, Caucasian participants are faster at responding to a negative word when it is preceded by an African American face,” Pierce wrote.

The participants then underwent training during which they learned to identify and name the different African-American faces, Tanaka said. The team concluded that after such training, participants were less likely to identify African-American faces with negative words.

“I think it’s a ver y optimistic result,” Tanaka said. “Hopefully, it’s a way for us to break racial stereotypes.”

Lebrecht and Tarr said this training might be used to decrease racial profiling by police and immigration officers in the future.

“By learning how to tell (races) apart, they are less likely to stereotype them,” Tarr said.

Lebrecht has already begun using the knowledge gained from her and Tarr’s research in a “real world” study. As part of a collaborative project led by Leslie Roos ’09, Lebrecht visits Amos House, a soup kitchen and shelter in Providence, to improve the staff’s “social interactions,” Roos said.

Amos House is a ver y “multicultural environment,” Lebrecht said, adding that she and Roos “are going monitor how the training affects interactions of the staff.”

In addition to his work on racial biases, Tarr also collaborated on a research project with Adrian Nestor GS that examined the differing skin

Courtesy of Brown.edu

Training in face identification mayreduce covert racial biases at play in racial profiling.

tones of men and women.

Tarr and Nestor analyzed over 200 images of Caucasian male and female faces to determine that, contrar y to popular belief, Tarr said, men have more reddish skin while women have more greenish skin.

The researchers’ findings, which were published in the journal “Psychological Science,” could help determine why women wear make-up, he said.

“Women may be putting on red make-up to highlight green areas,” Tarr said.

The information could also be used in advertising and facial recognition technology, according to a Brown press release.

Metro The Brown Daily Herald

“The biggest thing we can do with murals is take away their canvas.”

— Dauna Noble, local mural artist, on preventing graffiti Tuesday, February 3, 2009 | Page 5

State grapples with new changes to Medicaid

By Melissa Shube Senior Staf f Writer

Min Wu / Herald

The Providence Police are working with the College Hill Neighborhood Association to prevent and remove graffiti from local buildings.

Fighting Hill graffiti a group effort

By Rachel Starr Contributing Writer

The College Hill Neighborhood Association has teamed up with Providence Police to revamp graffiti removal and prevention on College Hill in response to a perceived increase in tagging.

All of the major historic homes in the neighborhood have been hit by taggers, according to co-chair of the CHNA Graffiti Initiative Susan Hardy.

“They’re just opportunists out there to destroy private property,” Hardy said, adding that the initiative “doesn’t consider them artists by any means.”

The group has focused its efforts on raising community awareness about graffiti, Hardy said. When the CHNA first created the initiative three years ago, she and Co-Chair Steven Heck compiled information about graffiti removal and made it publicly accessible on the Internet.

The initiative’s page on the CHNA Web site provides the phone number of the police graffiti hotline and tips to help residents clean up hard-toremove spray paint. Calling to report an incident or a suspicious behavior is “a great way for the citizens of College Hill to help out,” Hardy said.

In addition to providing information on the Web site, members of the initiative distribute informative

flyers and brochures at community events.

According to Hardy, Lieutenant John Ryan, commander of District 9, which includes Brown and much of the East Side, “has made graffiti one of his priorities,” because he recognizes that it is an ongoing problem and receives “plenty of complaints” from residents. The Police Department has “really reached out to the community” due to Ryan’s “style” and his desire to listen to neighbors’ concerns, she added.

Ryan agreed that the police department has adopted graffiti as “a top priority” due to its “good working relationship with the College Hill neighborhood.” He said the amount of tagging has increased significantly, especially “within the last three months,” which has forced the police department to dedicate significant time and resources to the “sometimes daily” problem.

At a meeting Monday night about graffiti on College Hill, members of the CHNA, public safety officers from both Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence police officers and local mural artists joined Ryan in discussing solutions to tagging. Dauna Noble, one of the mural artists in attendance, said Providence needs to have a “public education campaign,” echoing the objectives of the CHNA initiative.

“It seems to me that the only

thing that’s really going to help with the really gratuitous tagging is getting them caught much more often,” Noble said.

Providence Police Officer Nicole Darling said it is nearly impossible to know when tagging occurs. She said taggers do not limit their activities to nights and weekends.

Due to the difficulty of catching perpetrators in the act, the group discussed alternative deterrents to vandalism, such as painting murals around the city on walls that taggers would normally claim.

“The biggest thing we can do with murals is take away their canvas,” Noble said.

Jennifer Rydwansky, the other mural artist at the meeting, said murals would “get the neighborhood to respect the wall and respect the artwork.”

RISD Public Safety Officer Kris Paglio said the “rush of getting away with it” could be “channeled into doing something positive for the community,” adding that art programs at schools could serve that purpose.

Hardy said it is both important and effective to educate the community about “how destructive this mode of so-called ‘artistic expression’ is.”

Darling agreed, saying the best way for citizens to get involved is to call the graffiti hot line if they observe someone tagging.

Rhode Island became the first state to gain control of its Medicaid program last month when the General Assembly approved an unprecedented deal between Governor Donald Carcieri ’65 and the Bush administration. The Medicaid waiver provides the state with greater flexibility in exchange for a cap on federal funding for the program.

“The waiver takes (Medicaid) out of the federal bureaucracy and gives the state the ability to run it itself,” said Amy Kemp, Carcieri’s press secretary.

Medicaid is a federal aid program which pays for medical care for low-income families and individuals.

Before the waiver was passed, the state had little say in how Medicaid operated, and the federal government contributed just over fifty cents for every dollar spent by the state on Medicaid. With the waiver, the federal government’s spending will be capped at $12 billion over the next five years in exchange for fuller state control of the program.

The rising costs and inefficiencies within the program made an overhaul necessary, Kemp said, calling the expenses “unsustainable.”

The waiver will help decrease the costs of the program, Kemp said. Rhode Island will be able to cut costs by sending fewer people to long-term care facilities and obtaining better prices for medication and medical services, she added.

Previously, Medicaid did not pay for home care, so an elderly person in need of additional care had no choice but to move into a nursing home, Kemp said.

Allowing able individuals to be cared for at home is “much more cost-effective,” she said, but added that no one will be forced to leave his or her institutional facilities under the waiver.

Mary Linn Hamilton, president of the Visiting Nurse Association of Rhode Island, said her organization supports the waiver, adding that if possible, “everyone would prefer to be taken care of at home.”

Steve DeToy, director of Government and Public Affairs for the Rhode Island Medical Society, said his organization supports the flexibility of the plan but is concerned

about the spending cap.

“Giving elderly, disabled people and others the opportunity to have a more appropriate site for their care is what we need to do,” he said.

“We didn’t need to take the cap in order to get the waivers we needed.”

If the need for Medicaid funding exceeds the $12 billion allocated by the federal government, the state will either have to find additional funding or cut the number of people on Medicaid by adjusting eligibility requirements.

“When the federal money runs out, the state will be responsible for the Medicaid costs and more than likely they will start decimating the entire Medicaid system,” DeToy said. “That is what we’re most fearful about.”

Edward Miller, assistant professor of Public Policy, Political Science and Community Health, said the waiver was risky in light of the economic downturn.

Noting Rhode Island’s high unemployment, Miller said, “People lose their jobs and they lose their income, so there might be a growing demand for people to be on Medicaid.”

“This could become something, I think, that would come back to bite them in the rear end down the road,” he said.

Kemp said the state is “ver y, very comfortable” with the agreement to cap federal spending.

Though the waiver has gone into effect, it could take some time for issues of oversight and implementation to be addressed, she said.

“In general, the assembly does not act very quickly,” DeToy said.

“I’m a little fearful that they swing the pendulum a little too far and create a bottleneck in the state’s ability to keep making the changes necessary in a timely fashion.”

The Providence Journal reported Monday that the governor didn’t yet have enough personnel, including long term care specialists, nurses, case workers and implementation aids, to move for ward with the changes to Medicaid.

While Hamilton is concerned about the state’s ability “to manage and efficiently execute the waiver,” she remains positive. “I think it’s a really good opportunity for the state of Rhode Island to do really new and different things to provide services and stay cost effective.”

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Senate opens $885b stimulus plan debate

By Janet Hook and Maura Reynolds Los Angeles T imes

WASHINGTON — With the economy still spiraling downward and the political landscape in flux, the Senate on Monday opened debate on an $885 billion stimulus plan that faces bipartisan questions about whether it spends too little on housing and infrastructure and too much on other things.

President Barack Obama’s ambitious plan is headed for more than a week of robust debate in the Senate, where it faces a stronger possibility of winning at least some bipartisan support than it had in the House. Not a single House Republican voted for it last week.

Senate Republicans will propose a panoply of amendments to make the bill more palatable — including moves to strip out spending they consider inappropriate in an economic stimulus bill. One such target: $75 million to help people quit smoking.

Such changes, if accepted, could win support for the plan from conservative Democrats such as Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., as well as Republicans. Both groups want to keep the program focused on short-term job creation.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., suggested that Obama also believes the bill could be focused more sharply — or that the president is at least open to compromise. “Republicans agree with President Obama that we should trim things out that don’t put people back to work,” McConnell said as he opened debate.

To increase the bill’s focus on problems in the housing market, members of both parties are considering liberalizing and expanding a tax credit for first-time home buyers that was approved last year in other legislation but had little immediate impact.

Under the reformulation being discussed, the credit would be doubled, to $15,000, and it would not have to be repaid, as the earlier measure required.

The home-buyer provision reflects a seeming paradox: Although Republicans and conservative Democrats complain that the bill’s price tag is too high, the Senate probably will produce a bill significantly more expensive than the House’s $819- billion version.

The Obama administration is keen on passing the bill as soon as possible, not only to speed relief to the economy but to avoid having the plan become entangled in another, far more difficult and divisive issue: new action to shore up the still-unstable financial system.

The possibility that at least two of the nation’s biggest banks might be in danger of collapse could force the

administration to ask Congress for another eye-popping bailout.

Tactically, the White House wants to have the stimulus plan approved and out of the way before any such proposal is made. Given the widespread anger over Wall Street bonuses and what are seen as other excesses, proposing to shell out more tax dollars could trigger extreme sticker shock in both parties.

Treasur y Secretar y Timothy Geithner is expected to lay out the framework of the administration’s financial sector plan early next week.

Obama met with top Democratic congressional leaders Monday to discuss the stimulus bill and other upcoming legislation. A Democratic source familiar with the meeting said that there was a consensus that when all possible additions or changes to the bill have been decided, the total cost should not exceed $900 billion.

That means some of the spending items would have to be jettisoned.

Congressional Democrats indicated that they would be willing to drop some of the business tax breaks in the bill, but that the administration wanted to keep them in hopes of attracting Republican support.

Republicans plan to propose additional income tax cuts for middleclass workers, McConnell said.

That might be hard to pass in the Democratic controlled Senate, but the GOP might garner more support for efforts to strip out spending that they do not believe will generate jobs quickly.

Nebraska Democrat Nelson is a fiscal conservative who is working with Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and other senators to identify spending proposals that could be removed — such as the smoking cessation funding or $400 million for testing and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.

“I’d have a great deal of difficulty voting for the bill as written,” Nelson said, “but I am looking for a way to say yes.”

Once the Senate passes the bill, expected early next week, negotiators will have to iron out differences with the House version.

Members of both parties have complained that both the House and Senate bills give short shrift to funding for highway construction and repair, the traditional cornerstone of efforts to spur job creation. Only $27 billion was included in the Senate bill for road projects.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., plans to propose another $25 billion for highway, transit and water projects.

In providing aid to workers who have already lost their jobs, the House bill is more generous.

It provides more far-reaching expansions of health insurance coverage.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 | Page 6

Daschle’s network one of D.C.’s largest

By Ceci Connolly Washington Post

WASHINGTON — As he battles this week to save his nomination to be secretar y of Health and Human Ser vices, one thing is certain: No one in Washington has a better-positioned network of allies in the Obama administration than Thomas A. Daschle.

Over three decades on Capitol Hill, including 10 years as the Senate Democratic leader, Daschle has nurtured one of the largest, most experienced talent pools in the city. They guided Barack Obama from his first days in the Senate, through the presidential race and into the White House.

His tentacles, moreover, stretch far beyond the agency Obama picked him to lead, reaching across the entire administration from the upper echelons of the White House to mid-level departmental positions to Obama’s kitchen Cabinet.

The network is being tapped this week as Daschle and his allies scramble to explain why he did not pay more than $100,000 in back taxes, primarily for the use of a car and driver for three years. After a 75-minute closeddoor meeting Monday with the Senate Finance Committee, he emerged ashen-faced and apologetic. His confirmation vote has been postponed until at least the middle of next week.

Republicans remained noncommittal Monday, weighing the cost benefits of perhaps killing the nomination of a former colleague and close personal friend of the president. Democrats rose to Daschle’s defense, including, most notably, the man who would be without much of his top staff were it not for Daschle.

Asked Monday morning if he stands by Daschle, Obama said firmly: “Absolutely.”

If he weathers the tax controversy, Daschle probably will take office as one of the best-connected Cabinet secretaries in the administration, if not histor y.

At least a dozen Daschle alumni are stepping into the highest positions of the federal government. Already, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have tapped Daschle veterans to manage their staffs, guide foreign policy and craft public relations strategy. In addition to the new HHS chief of staff, the chiefs of staff to Biden, the National Security Council and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner all worked for Daschle. His allies oversaw Obama’s transition team — including vetting Daschle himself — and one ser ves as the president’s personal lawyer.

“This is notable for the breadth and scope and number,” said Chris Jennings, who was the Clinton administration point man on health

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care and knows the challenges of navigating the White House bureaucracy.

As news broke over the weekend that Daschle had made several tax errors, many of those former colleagues and aides helped mount a defense, praising his integrity on talk shows, in press releases and whispered asides. Not a single lawmaker has called for him to withdraw.

But the real potency of the network will come if Daschle is confirmed, said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University. With such well-placed, trusted advisers, he would be in a position to promote his priorities and shape policy well beyond the contours of his department.

“The fact that he has eyes and ears in the White House, rather than way down in the HHS bureaucracy, is really an advantage,” Baker said. He likened Daschle’s sphere of influence to the broad power that Secretary of State Henr y Kissinger held in the Nixon administration.

“Geography is determinant of influence,” he said. “To have people proximate to the president is a real advantage.”

Like Daschle, Secretar y of State Hillar y Rodham Clinton can lay claim to an impressive network of insiders, developed during her husband’s eight years in the Oval Office and her eight in the Senate. Many have worked for Daschle as well. But the Clinton coalition has become fractured and she carries the lingering scars of a contentious fight with Obama in the Democratic presidential primaries.

By contrast, Daschle and Obama share an uncommon bond, forged during the 2004 campaign. Many — including Daschle’s aides — had expected him to seek the White House. But the South Dakotan lost a nasty re-election fight and the young Illinois legislator burst onto the national scene and into the U.S. Senate.

“Tom was the first guy to go with Obama” in the pre-presidential campaign season, said Frederick Graefe, a Washington lobbyist and one of Daschle’s oldest friends. “He told him, `Run now, don’t wait, don’t make the mistake I made. I’ll give you ever ybody I have — the campaign team, the personal staff, leadership staff, fundraising lists — lock stock and barrel.’

“It was a ready-made team,” Graefe added.

As a Senate leader with authority over not just his personal staff but several policy and campaign committees as well, Daschle employed more than 100 people at any given time. From 1994 to 2005, even more than the Clinton White House, “the University of Daschle” was the place to learn the inner workings of governing, Baker said.

More than half a dozen Daschle veterans hold high-ranking White

House positions, most notably Pete Rouse, who was his chief of staff and is now senior adviser to the president, and Phil Schiliro, Obama’s legislative liaison.

Daschle-ites are also taking positions at the Agriculture Department and the Democratic National Committee. Some of his closest allies are among Obama’s most trusted outside advisers, a select group whose influence comes not from a title but from a personal bond. They include John Podesta, president of the Center for American Progress who masterminded Obama’s transition, lawyer Robert Bauer and political consultant Anita Dunn.

“The spokes of the wheel all lead to Pete Rouse,” said Dunn, who has deep ties to both men.

“When Pete went to work for Barack, what Barack got — and I don’t think he realized it — was the only network in Democratic circles that from both a policy and political perspective came close to the Clinton network.”

Rouse got his start in Washington in the early 1970s when he and Daschle were young aides to then-Senator James Abourezk, D-S.D. In 1986, he began an 18year stint with Daschle.

When Daschle lost in 2004, he encouraged his team to sign on with Obama. Rouse agreed and eventually recruited many of Obama’s top aides, including Schiliro and the husband-andwife team Dan Pfeiffer and Sarah Feinberg.

If confirmed, Daschle will be “HHS secretary plus,” said Dunn, referring to the additional role as head of the new White House Office of Health Reform, which has a small but well-situated office in the basement of the West Wing.

If Daschle were working at HHS headquarters, his “embeds,” as Dunn calls them, could provide “an extraordinar y level of information and access that most Cabinet secretaries don’t have.”

“It’s a matter of him not having to go in and forge relationships,” she said. “Daschle gets to deal directly with people he knows and is comfortable with.”

If as HHS secretary he wanted to tweak health tax policy, his longtime chief of staf f, Mark Childress, would need only pick up the phone and call former colleague Mark Patterson, Geithner’s chief of staff. If there were an international health issue to resolve, Childress could contact Daschle alums Mark Lippert at the NSC and Denis McDonough on the White House staff.

And if Daschle needed assistance from Biden, he could turn to Ron Klain, the vice president’s chief of staff, who oversaw the Senate Democratic Leadership Committee for Daschle in 1995.

Biden was making calls on Daschle’s behalf Monday.

The Daschle hires that Obama has made are the “cream of the crop” of the Democratic establishment, Jennings said.

SportsTuesday The Brown Daily Herald

W. basketball struggles in N.Y. trip

Strong finish for track and field at Harvard

By Nicole Stock Sports Staff Writer

By Benjy Asher Spor ts Editor

The men’s and women’s track and field teams both competed at the Harvard Select Meet on Saturday afternoon. The women’s team earned second-place out of four with solid showings across the board. The men had several strong individual performances, but as a team finished fourth out of five teams.

Leading the way for the women’s team was Nicole Burns ’09, who competed in the 200-meter dash and the 400-meter dash. In the 400m, Burns ran to a first-place finish in 55.53 seconds, just over half a second ahead of Cornell’s Jessica Weyman.

“I was satisfied with the 400.

I think I held back a little, and I could’ve run faster, but the most important thing was to beat Cornell,” Burns said. “I wanted to hit 55 flat, and I was a little short of that, but it’s a good start early in the season.”

Burns also turned in a secondplace finish in the 200m with a time of 25.29, but was disappointed with her race, particularly her start.

“I wasn’t happy at all with the 200 — I was a little hesitant off the blocks,” Burns said.

The Bears also dominated the 800m in which Samantha Adelberg ’11 and Roseanne Fleming ’12 managed a one-two finish, with times of 2:10.29 and 2:14.89, respectively.

Galia Dietz ’12 was close behind in 2:16.49, good enough for fourth place.

Kesley Ramsey ’11 continued the strong middle-distance running for Brown, earning a second-place finish in the mile with a time of 5:00.59.

The Bears also got strong contributions from the field athletes, led by Br ynn Smith ’11, Danielle Grunloh ’10 and Natasha Smith ’11, who finished first, second and fourth in shot put, respectively.

Natasha Smith, a pentathlete who is currently limited to shot put due to a foot injury, threw 11.70m, while Grunloh threw 13.73m, and Smith took the win with a toss of 14.76m”.

“Harvard has a really good circle, so traditionally I’ve been able to throw well there,” Smith said.

“I was really happy with how the team’s placing turned out.”

Smith also competed in the weight throw, where she finished fourth with a distance of14.93m, behind Molly Hawskley ’09, who came in third with a personal-best throw of 50’.

“Hawksley had a huge (personal record) this weekend, and she’s been working so hard, so that was very exciting for her,” Smith said. “ The throwing squad has such great potential,” she added.

The jumpers performed well, too, led by Grace Watson ’11, who continued on page 8

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 | Page 7

Justin Coleman / Herald

Natalie Bonds ’10 gave a strong performance under the basket this past weekend, averaging 14 points and 8.5 rebounds per game.

Strong point guard play from Cornell and Columbia handed the women’s basketball team (3-15, 1-3 Ivy) two more losses this past weekend.

Brown looked evenly matched with both teams, but lacked consistency and was unsuccessful in pulling out a victory.

In the match-up with Cornell (7-9, 3-1 Ivy) the Bears came out of the gate strong, matching Cornell basket for basket in the beginning of the half, but the Big Red started to pull away from Brown at the 12-minute mark when they opened up a sixpoint lead.

Cornell would continue to attack on the offensive end, boosting its lead to as high as 13 with less than four minutes to play in the first half.

Although the Bears fought back, the Big Red scored six points in the last minute of the stanza to head into the locker room with a 38-25 lead. Cornell shot 60 percent from the field in the first half, while Bruno shot just 31 percent.

Brown turned it around in the second half, outscoring Cornell 37-36 in the final 20 minutes of play. Courtney Lee ’10 and Nataile Bonds ’10 led the way for the Bears. Lee ended the

game with her first career doubledouble, scoring 11 points and picking up 10 rebounds, while also recording three steals and four assists in 40 minutes of play. Bonds also sparked the Bears offense with 18 points and nine rebounds of her own.

“Coming into the game we knew how they played post defense, so we isolated Natalie down low, which allowed her to score, and once the inside scores, it opens up the outside shots,” Lee said.

The duo combined for half of Brown’s points in the second half, as the team shot 50 percent from the field and held Cornell to just 36 percent.

“Consistency from both Courtney and Natalie is something that the team depends on,” said Head Coach Jean Burr. “They have faced the challenge and stepped up.”

The Bears would come no closer than nine points to the Big Red, and their second half push was just a little too late as Brown fell by a final score of 74-62. Despite the relatively lopsided final score, the Bears had strong showings in other aspects of the game as Brown out-rebounded Cornell 34-32, while the teams finished with an even turnover margin, continued on page 8

M. basketball stumbles on weekend road trip

By Katie Wood Assistant Spor ts Editor

The men’s basketball team (6-12, 0-4 Ivy) continued the middle portion of a five-game road stretch by taking on Cornell (14-6, 4-0 Ivy) and Columbia (7-11, 2-2 Ivy) this past weekend. But Brown could not overcome the defending champion Big Red and the physical play of the Lions, losing both games.

Cornell showed it was a team on a mission to repeat its success from last season, handling the Bears, 90-58, and extending its conference winning streak to 18 games — now at 19 after a win over Yale on Saturday. Brown kept the Columbia game close throughout but could not pull away with the win, falling 65-59.

The Bears headed to Cornell in search of their first conference win, as they came out ready to play in the first five minutes, building up a 14-9 lead. Tri-captain Scott Friske ’09 spear-headed the quick start, contributing six points and an assist during a 12-2 run early on. But the Big Red answered the Bears’ hot start with a 14-0 run to build a comfortable lead, 23-14, with 10 minutes remaining in the first half.

“At that point, they stepped up their intensity on defense, and we didn’t match the intensity,” Friske said. “When a team shoots as well as they do, it feels like ever y shot

Justin Coleman / Herald

Tri-captain Peter Sullivan ’11 led the Bears in scoring with 16.5 points per game in their two losses to Colombia and Cornell this weekend.

is going in.”

The Bears found themselves down by a margin of 18 points shortly before the half, but Matt Muller y ’10 stepped out from his

normal position underneath the basket and canned a three-pointer with seconds remaining to close the deficit to 15.

Mullery scored 13 points in the

first half to lead the Bears, while Cornell’s Louis Dale, reigning Ivy League Player of the Year, added 13 of his game-high 23 points before the break.

The Big Red picked up right where they left off as they opened up with a 17-6 run, extending their lead to 57-31 with just under 14 minutes remaining in the game.

They continued their domination of the Bears as they finished off the game with a 90-58 rout, including an impressive 54 percent from the floor and an 11-of-22 performance from behind the arc.

“Obviously Friday night we ran into a great team,” Friske said.

“For anybody to beat Cornell, they have to play great basketball — we didn’t do that.”

Tri-captain Peter Sullivan ’11 led the way for the Bears with 15 points, to go along with four rebounds. Muller y, the Ivy League leader in field goal percentage, managed just one point after intermission to finish with 14, and a team-high six rebounds while Friske finished the game with eight points.

The Big Red held a 43-25 rebound advantage over the Bears, who, only one day later, out-rebounded Columbia by a margin of 42-25.

The Columbia game got of f to a slow start as each team recorded one field goal in the first continued on page 8

Page 8

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

S ports Tuesday W. hoops drops two over weekend continued from page 7

with 18 each.

“The biggest differences were the uncontested shots we gave up, especially behind the arc,” Lee said.

“They also got a lot more points from the free throw line than we did.”

Cornell’s Shanna Scarselletta scored a game-high 22 points, followed closely by teammate Lauren Benson’s 20 points. Benson contributed solid point guard play with a 50 percent mark from behind the arc with a 2-for-4 effort and a solid 10of-14 showing from the free-throw line.

“It was disappointing that the point guard and center came away with the best games, and we knew they were their best players. We needed to make other players step up on their team,” Burr said.

Columbia 76, Brown 51 The next evening the Bears faced the same challenge from Columbia (9-9, 2-2 Ivy). Strong point guard and center play by the Lions would end up being the deciding factor in another hard fought game. Columbia’s Sara Yee had a career-high 20 points, along with seven rebounds, to push Columbia past Brown, 76-51, on Saturday.

The first 10 minutes of the game were tight with neither team able build a substantial lead. Christina Johnson ’10 helped keep the Bears close with strong outside shooting.

It wasn’t until the last five minutes of the half that the Lions would pull away from the Bears, going on a 12-4 run to open up a 31-21 lead.

In the final minute of the first half Sarah Delk ’11 drained a three to pull the Bears to within seven points heading into halftime. In the first half the Bears shot 36 percent from the field,

while Columbia managed to shoot slightly better at 42 percent.

“We could have been more aggressive against Columbia, but we did a good job breaking their press and we got good looks at the basket on offense,” Burr said.

Bruno started the second half on fire, creating offensive opportunities and cutting the Lions’ lead to just three. Sadiea Williams ’11 and Lee sparked the Bears in the early going, but Columbia’s Yee and Judie Lomax proved to be too much to handle as they took over the game. Lomax ended the game with 18 points and 15 rebounds, to compliment Yee’s 20 points on the night.

The Lions extended their lead to 53-35 with nine minutes remaining to put the game out of reach for the Bears. Rebounds turned out to be costly for the Bears, as they were out-rebounded 41-28 by the Lions, whose rebound total included 13 offensive boards.

“We worked hard to force missed shots, but we just needed to grab the boards,” Burr said. “It is a team effort to limit rebounds. We need to bring confidence and fight to that part of our game.”

Johnson and Delk each finished the game with 11 points to lead the Bears. Bonds had another strong game finishing with 10 points and eight rebounds.

Following the two losses, the Bears have begun to prepare for this weekend, when they will take on Ivy rivals Harvard (10-7, 2-1 Ivy) and Dartmouth (8-9, 3-0 Ivy).

“This week the emphasis will be on defense and holding ourselves accountable for forcing a weak shot, a contested shot, but never an open shot and also limiting teams to one shot and done,” Lee said.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

“We’ve definitely got a long way to go.”

— Matt Jasmin ’09, hurdler

Track and field teams raise the bar continued from page 7 grabbed second place in the high jump by clearing 1.70m. Anna Cook ’11 also had a strong day in high jump, finishing fourth at 1.55m. Rachel Biblo ’11 rounded out the field performances with a pair of fourth-place finishes, with jumps of 5.46m in the long jump and 11.23m in the triple jump.

The top per former on the men’s side was Matt Jasmin ’09, who continued his excellent season with a first-place finish in the 60m hurdles, in a time of 8.18.

“I didn’t have the greatest start, but I’m happy with how it turned out,” Jasmin said. “Getting the win definitely helps my overall confidence with my running, and boosts the team’s confidence, too.”

Marc Howland ’11 claimed third place in the 60m dash in a

time of 6.98, drawing praise from Jasmin.

“Marc Howland ran great,” Jasmin said. “He’s come in the top five in a few meets now, and it’s good to see him do well.”

Brown also had a strong showing in the mile, where Duriel Hardy ’10 and Anthony Schurz ’12 finished fourth and fifth, respectively, in 4:17.45 and 4:19.21.

The only points in the field came from Andrew Chapin ’10, who jumped 14.47m — good for second place in the triple jump.

Though it is early in the season, both squads already have their sights set on the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships, which will take place at Harvard on Feb. 28 and Mar. 1.

“We’ve definitely got a long way to go, but we’re getting there,” Jasmin said. “Our team has a lot of

potential, but we need to be more confident.”

The women’s team, which finished second at the 2008 Indoor Heps, will have to step up in order to beat Cornell, who took first place as a team this weekend, but Brynn Smith is confident that the Bears will see the pay-off from their training schedule come championship season.

“Every single one of the girls is working hard right now, and we’re at a weird point in the season where, while we want to be competitive, all of our training is focusing on Heps,” she said.

“People might not be seeing the times or distances that they want to see right now, but I know it’s going to be there.”

“This team has the best heart out of all the teams in the Ivy League,” she said.

M. cagers trip over road challenges continued from page 7 seven minutes of play. Ten minutes before intermission, Brown extended its lead to 12-6, the largest lead for either team in the first half. Adrian Williams ’11 closed out the first half with a three-point field goal to put the Bears on top, 29-28.

“We had it in our mind that we weren’t going to be out-rebounded,” Friske said. “We need to learn how to sustain that effort throughout the whole game.”

The Lions came out with a 24-9 run to open the second half, and led 59-46 with 5:11 remaining.

Midway through the half, however, they got into foul trouble, and Brown put together a 10-1

run of its own to pull the game to within four. The Bears could not close the deficit as the Lions prevailed, 65-59, with some strong defensive stops and impressive free throw shooting in the game’s final minutes.

Sullivan led the way for the Bears with a game-high 18 points and Friske put together a strong performance and had a doubledouble, with 11 points and a game-high 12 rebounds. Williams joined them in double digits with 12 points.

Muller y struggled down low as the defense converged on him and held the Bears’ leading scorer to just eight points, seven below his season average, on 2-of-11 shooting from the field.

“We knew they were going to be physical, probably the most physical team in the League,” Friske said. “We really wanted to pound the ball inside, but they buckled down.”

The Bears will end their fivegame road trip next weekend as they travel to Dartmouth (4-14, 2-2 Ivy) to face a team fresh off a win over Penn for the first time in 23 meetings, and Har vard (99, 1-3 Ivy), who owns a win over the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Boston College.

“We have a group of guys capable of winning games,” Friske said. “We’re last place in the league and that is what it is.

By no means are we going to go away.”

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Editorial & Letters The Brown Daily Herald

Page 10 | Tuesday, February 3, 2009

e d i to r i a l

To the 2011 Class Board Look around you. This is Brown University, a member of the prestigious Ivy League and a veritable bastion of feminism, in the year 2009.

Gone are the days when female students had to return to their dorms by a certain hour, and along with those days went the idea that women exist for the pleasure and ser vice of men.

Even if we did have to write this editorial from Pembroke College under the watchful eye of a house mother, your planned event for the Super Bowl halftime show would still have been vulgar.

The Herald reported that the planned halftime show for the Super Bowl watching party in Salomon 101 was to be a “lingerie fashion show,” but that the event was cancelled after nine of the 15 models dropped out at the last minute. One might hope that the decision of over half the models not to participate would cause the Class Board to re-think the philosophy behind the concept. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case — sophomore class president Neil Parikh ’11 said he hoped to re-schedule the event for Spring Weekend.

Let’s be clear — this isn’t Brigham Young University. Students who consent to participate in fundraising or other events that involve posing or performing nude or semi-nude (such as SuFI’s Ripe calendar) should have the right to do so, provided they are in compliance with University policies. But, Class Board of 2011, you really should have a little more taste.

The Super Bowl, already a hyper masculine institution, doesn’t need any help perpetuating gender stereotypes. Some of the commercials during Sunday’s game seemed to have been reading from the same gender studies textbook as the Class Board: One notable commercial featured Mr. Potato Head using a particular brand of tires to stop his car on a dime, causing Mrs. Potato’s Head mouth to fly out of her head so she would stop nagging him. And let’s not forget Sigma Chi’s Super Bowl party last year, featuring two “exotic dancers.” Class Board of 2011, you may not have gotten the memo that went around over the past few decades. Watching sports can be enjoyable even when women don’t take off their clothes. Brown is typically known as a school where women are respected on campus, and not for their performance in wet-T-shirt contests. Let’s keep it that way.

Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.

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Clarifying Graphic Services’ ‘Brown First’ policy To the Editor: Regarding the editorial board’s condemnation of the Brown First policy (Desperate measures, Feb. 2): Student groups are not mandated to use Graphic Services for printing; our purpose is to be a resource for students. We provide preflighting of files and estimates for print projects.

There are several student publications printed through Graphic Services while some student groups independently handle others.

Just to explain, our estimation

process includes our print shop inhouse estimates and two estimates from external printers to hold them to the lowest possible rate and to benchmark our own. Our external print partners consist of printers that pay living wages and benefits to workers and use environmentally friendly processes.

We make every effort to be socially responsible. Graphic Services print shop is FSC certified (Forest Stewardship Council Chain of Custody Certification). This certification indicates to recipients of printed

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We enjoy working with students and their publications and happy to be of assistance.

Deb Berlo Director, Brown University Graphic Services Feb. 2

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Opinions The Brown Daily Herald

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 | Page 11

Don’t banish student groups from Morning Mail Nick Werle Opinions Columnist I’ll admit, it’s been a long time since I read ever y word of Morning Mail ever y day. I think the mountain of listserv e-mails I received after my first fall activities fair may have crowded out that pastime. Yet for me, and I believe most of the Brown community, Morning Mail remains an unrivaled connection to the happenings on campus.

It’s true. Each issue of Morning Mail presented me with more activities — whether academic lectures or mid-day backrubs on the Green — than I could ever attend. But seeing how many different things happen on campus every day reminded me of the Brown Community’s dynamism and diversity.

All of this, however, is threatened by the University’s new Morning Mail policy, which restricts use of the system to events expecting more than 300 people. The restriction was intended to combat the rapid growth of Morning Mail, according to Marisa Quinn, vice president for public affairs and University relations.

While it is undeniable that some of last semester’s Morning Mails were quite long, this solution does more to harm our vibrant community than help clarify what’s happening. We need Morning Mail to remain accessible for Brown student life to remain accessible. The new restriction should be overturned as soon as possible.

As a founder of the Critical Theory Project, I can testify to the primary importance of Morning Mail to anyone running a student group. Even with a fairly large listserv and

a budget that permits us to make posters and table slips for our events, Morning Mail remains the most effective and reliable way to get Brown students’ attention.

Few student groups consistently sponsor events that would meet the 300 and up requirement to make it into the newly slimmeddown dispatch. To compensate for this drastic loss of free publicity, student groups will be forced to resort to more expensive, labor intensive and wasteful advertising methods.

Both posters and table slips, the media most

posters, sustaining a proper advertising campaign on campus is a nearly Sisyphean task.

Between Facilities Management’s regular removal of posters hung on unapproved doors and walls and the race to keep other posters from covering my own, I usually need rehang posters every day or two. Table-slipping is even more time consuming.

Worse than the cost is the waste generated by these 20th century advertising methods.

Eliminating access to Morning Mail will only increase the University’s use of paper and

We need Morning Mail to remain accessible for Brown student life to remain accessible. likely to make up for groups’ lost access to Morning Mail, are expensive to produce, especially considering that the administration’s Brown First procurement policy functionally requires all University organizations to patronize the Metcalf Copy Center instead of possibly cheaper community vendors.

While the Critical Theor y Project has enough support from Brown departments to afford to blanket the campus with posters for ever y event, many student groups will not be able to keep up. At a time when we are told that Brown’s severely limited resources demand all possible cost-savings, it seems foolish to require student groups to spend more money to just attract people to their events.

And even if a group can afford to print

energy just as there is an growing emphasis on conservation.

The events that do qualify for inclusion in this shorter Morning Mail are hardly the ones that need advertising help. The majority of the events held in Salomon 101 and Sayles — just about the only non-athletic venues that can hold more than 300 people — are well funded and already have access to unique adver tising oppor tunities including big poster boards on the Main Green and snail mail invitation cards. But Mike Huckabee’s speech last semester certainly didn’t need the Morning Mail to be a success.

Obviously, these big University-sponsored lectures are some of the best events on campus and I’ve always been grateful for the high-caliber speakers that come to the

University. But what makes Brown a great community is the huge range of things that happen every day.

Student groups’ events are direct reflections of the interests of the student body and are responsible for much of Brown’s mid-week vitality. The administration should aim to foster an environment in which a small group of people with a common interest and an idea can start a successful student group.

After all, the University heavily advertises this ethic on the campus tour.

Indeed, this policy’s greatest victims are probably the student groups that haven’t even started yet. Before a club qualifies for official UCS recognition and advertising money it must show that it has developed sustained interest from the community at large. Without access to Morning Mail’s free publicity, it’s hard to imagine how a new group might be able to gain enough traction to get moving.

However, the biggest loss might be a beloved part of Brunonian culture itself. Morning Mail is more than a mere list of daily activities; it is a crucial connection to the University community. Every night at 1:00 a.m. the next day’s Morning Mail arrives in inboxes and triggers a wave of beeps, chimes and vibrations from Gmail notifiers and Blackberries. This shared experience is a comforting one. I like knowing what’s going on tomorrow. And even if I can’t make it to the Main Green to pet sled dogs, I’m glad to know it’s still happening.

Nick Werle ’10 is a physics and modern critical philosophy concentrator from New York. Read more at www.runningthezoo.com/blog.

If you can’t stand the surface plasmon resonance, get out of my class

BY MIKE JOHNSON Guest Columnist Say you’re in your biology class and your neighbor asks the professor, “What’s a phylum?”

The Undergraduate Council of Students, in its infinite wisdom, is petitioning the University to lift the restriction on Banner that prevents a student from registering for a class if he or she has not taken the prerequisite courses. They claim that this is an effort to protect Brown’s vaunted “New Curriculum” and preserve the ideals of academic and intellectual freedom that are the very essence of our University.

However, what UCS is proposing threatens to destroy the very source of the freedoms we enjoy. The “New Curriculum” is not merely freedom for the sake of freedom — rather, it is an effort to free the students at Brown from the need to take courses in which they have no interest.

The thought behind this innovative approach to learning is that, when armed with the power to take only those courses he or she chooses, the student will take more ownership of his or her studies. I seriously doubt that when the Curriculum was conceived and proposed, students had any ambition to jump into courses of study for which they

had not been fully prepared, simply because they could.

Now, a quick survey of the course catalog on Banner will reveal that most of the courses requiring prerequisites are in mathematics and the sciences. As a literary arts concentrator, I do not pretend to know the plight of the chemistry or neuroscience concentrator.

But it is obvious that prerequisites protect the integrity of the upper-level classes in those disciplines.

The prerequisite courses for a class are merely shorthand for the concepts needed to fully appreciate a course — in order to pro-

their time wasted explaining concepts that an over-ambitious student should have learned in a prerequisite class.

Additionally, those patient students who have taken prerequisite classes and mastered the “building block” concepts are enrolled in higher-level classes in order to expand their knowledge of a certain topic. They would not want their time wasted as the professor is forced to explain a concept that a student skipping prerequisites should have learned beforehand. Would you?

Now, this isn’t to say that all students must be forced to follow certain programs of study

It is obvious that prerequisites protect the integrity of the upper-level classes. ceed effectively, one must have a mastery of these concepts. Surely one would not presume to take organic chemistry without a cursory knowledge of chemical reactions.

Extreme examples for the sake of rhetoric aside, it is imperative that these benchmarks for study remain in place. Professors of these high-level classes are among the best in their respective fields; at an Ivy League institution we should expect no less. They do not want

simply to fulfill checkboxes on their transcript.

That indeed would be against the spirit of our delightful “New Curriculum.” But there are already measures in place to allow students to skip introductory classes if they can prove a mastery of needed concepts.

For example, incoming freshmen can use their AP scores as indicators for placement. For those who didn’t take the AP test, there is a placement exam. In literary arts,

enrollment into intermediate and advanced workshops is done on the basis of a submitted writing sample. These measures have long preserved the quality of classes above the basic level.

Granted, there are no placement tests to get into, say, PHYS 0170. This is where it gets potentially dicey. Students interested in the class would have to physically meet with the professor and prove a mastery of the concepts on which the class is based. Professors at Brown are reasonable people; they teach here, after all. I’m quite sure that upon meeting with a prospective student and being assured that the student knew the prerequisite concepts well enough, he or she would gladly enroll the student, overriding Banner.

The true issue at stake is whether or not we as students wish to take the time to protect the integrity of the learning environment we pay so much for. Prerequisites help ensure that the higher-level classes remain just that.

We should be wary of freedom for freedom’s sake, lest we lower the high standards that make Brown an environment of rigorous learning and academic enrichment.

Mike Johnson ’11, a literary arts concentrator from New Jersey, plans to take MATH 2720: Multiple Dirichlet Series next semester. He can be reached at Michael_Johnson@brown.edu

Today

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Neighbors enter graffiti turf battle

The Brown Daily Herald

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to day

to m o r r o w

36 / 17

27 / 16

Hoopsters go 0-for-4 over weekend

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Page 12

the news in images

3

5

7 six more weeks

c a l e n da r February 4, 2009

4 P.M. — “Israel in a Changing Middle East” with Nadav Tamir, Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute 6 P.M. — “Nitrogen: A Story of Food, Fuel and Fiber” with Dr. James Galloway, 115 MacMillan Hall

4:30 P.M. — “Geographies of Latinidad,” John Nicholas Brown Center 7 P.M. — “Freedom Beyond Sovereignty,” Janus Conversation with Professor Shannon Krause Courtesy of Schwartz Labs

February 3, 2009

menu Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Tempeh Fajita, Vegetarian Lentil Soup, BBQ Chicken Pizza, Chicken Fingers with Dipping Sauces

Lunch — Spiced Chicken Wings, Baked Manicotti with Sauce, Corn and Broccoli Casserole

Dinner — Acorn Squash with Curried Rice and Chickpeas, Hot Dogs, Cheese Pizza, Orange Turkey

Dinner — Roasted Honey and Chili Chicken, Egg Foo Young, Sticky Rice, Vegetarian Corn and Tomato Soup

RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Los Angeles Times Crossword Puzzle c r o sDaily swo rd Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Floats through the air 6 Improvisational singing style 10 Bursts into tears 14 Bonus 15 Astronomical ring 16 Je ne sais __ 17 “Unleaded” beverage 18 2000s Chevy 19 SOS responder 20 Soul mate 23 Smart, to 99 26 Rummy 27 Group within a group 28 Attack 30 Attack on the fridge 32 Nostalgic 1934 Mae West song 34 Vegan staple 38 Mickey, for one 39 Altar oath 40 Abates 41 Manual alternative 42 Forge a path 44 Paraphernalia 45 “Catcher in the Wry” author Bob 46 “Fair” heroine 50 ID with hyphens 51 Pomposity personified 52 Frank McCourt memoir 56 Nursery rhyme tumbler 57 Set (on) 58 Zoo equine 62 Melville story set on Tahiti 63 Diva Horne 64 Hit “Send” 65 Classic autos 66 River of central Germany 67 Eleanor in a Beatles song DOWN 1 Come together 2 Something to grind 3 Agcy. concerned with false advertising

4 Snare 40 First name in 49 Site of an oracle 5 Area for the misanthropy of Apollo 50 Comparatively cautious 42 Possible to 6 Ray, as of light defend cool red giant 7 Den site 43 Rife with 53 Ranking 8 Actor Baldwin vegetation tournament 9 Sweetums 44 Hair goo player 10 Edible pigeon 46 College 54 Green Gables girl 11 Banishes declaration 55 Huge hauler 12 Italian bowling 47 Japanese 59 Shopping __ game cartoon genre 60 Bone in a cage 13 Viewing sense 48 Inuit home 61 One of the Khans 21 Massage therapeutically ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE: 22 Slinger’s weapon?

23 “__ Mia!”: ABBA musical 24 Shakespearean title starter 25 Crosses off 29 And 30 Control tower tracking device 31 Mine, in Metz 33 100 centesimi 34 Skin-soothing powder 35 Japanese metropolis 36 Hats with tassels: Var. 02/03/09 xwordeditor@aol.com 37 Ones logged on

Punxsutawney Phil says six more weeks of winter An official statement was read on Phil’s behalf at sunrise yesterday, according to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club Web site: Hear Ye Hear Ye On Gobbler’s Knob this glorious Groundhog Day, February 2nd, 2009 Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of all Prognosticators Awoke to the call of President Bill Cooper And greeted his handlers, Ben Hughes and John Griffiths After casting a joyful eye towards thousands of his faithful followers, Phil proclaimed that his beloved Pittsburgh

Steelers were World Champions one more time And a bright sky above me Showed my shadow beside me.

So six more weeks of winter it will be.

comics Enigma Twist| Dustin Foley

Cabernet Voltaire | Abe Pressman

By John Lampkin (c)2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

02/03/09