Tuesday, October 6, 2009 by The Brown Daily Herald

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vol. cxliv, no. 79 | Tuesday, October 6, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891

Pool, gym may be combined

After rapid growth, faculty size flatlines

By Brigitta Greene Senior Staf f Writer

The Jonathan Nelson ’77 Fitness Center and a new aquatics center may be combined under one roof rather than being constructed as separate facilities, top administrators said recently. A combined and somewhat scaled-back facility would cost approximately $40 million, about $25 million less than the combined price tag for two buildings, said Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning and senior adviser to the president. Built separately, the fitness center could cost $40 million and the swim center

By Seth Motel News Editor

Nicholas Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald

Officials may fold a permanent replacement for the temporary aquatics bubble, above, into a planned new gym.

another $25 million. The University is in conversations with the lead donors for each project, and the buildings remain in the initial stages of planning, Spies said. Donors for both proj-

ects have been “receptive about the idea,” he said, but want to see more detailed plans before moving for ward. Administrators will present a detailed proposal to the Cor-

poration at its October meeting next weekend. If the University’s highest governing body approves the proposal, construction could continued on page 2

Future streetcar system may connect Brown, downtown By Brigitta Greene Senior Staf f Writer

From Seattle to Cincinnati, streetcars are rattling back onto U.S. streets — and Providence may not be far behind. A streetcar system connecting Brown to the hospitals and medical centers downtown could be operational within 10 years, said Tim McCormick, former manager of the

planning department at the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority. The Metro Transit Study Working Group, which comprises city and state representatives, RIPTA, development organizations and local universities, has been working on plans for a circulator y transit system to connect Providence’s medical facilities to its educational institutions — or “meds to eds,” said Amy Pettine, RIPTA’s special

projects manager. The working group, which was created in March 2007, plans to release the results of its study next month. Though route plans and funding options have yet to be finalized, the project is “not a pipe dream,” McCormick said. “This is something that’s not outside the realm of possibility.” In a 2007 report on the city’s

In hiring, hallmark of a broader push on Africa By Sophia Li Features Editor

inside

When the University announced it had hired famed African writer Chinua Achebe last month, it brought into its Department of Africana Studies one of the world’s highest-profile thinkers on Africa. But rather than an isolated move, the hiring is just the latest indicator of a consistent effort to enhance the University’s contribution to African scholarship. “Brown is moving towards … establishing itself as a leader in scholarship on Africa,” said Anthony Bogues, professor of Africana studies and the department’s former chair. “There’s no way we can consider ourselves a leader at this point.” Recent hires, such as Achebe, suggest that “Brown is willing to spend serious resources on scholars who are of and from Africa,” said Associate Professor of Anthropology Daniel Smith, whose own research focuses on HIV/AIDS, reproduc-

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transit projects, Mayor David Cicilline ’83 gave his support to the system. “Future economic growth requires reversing the congestion that increasingly clogs our roads and highways,” he wrote in the report. “The real solution lies in creating a great transit system.” Because of the permanence of rail infrastructure, streetcars demcontinued on page 4

she d d ing li ght on a bu se

tive health and marriage, mostly in Nigeria. But despite those efforts, the University has its work cut out to establish itself as a destination for African scholars. The faculty, academic departments and University centers that have long focused their work on the continent are looking to Professor of Anthropology Matthew Gutmann, the new vice president for international affairs, and Michael Kennedy, the new director of the Watson Institute for International Studies, to lead the way. Bogues said he expects the two new leaders of Brown’s internationalization efforts to bolster the University’s reputation for scholarship on Africa. “I’ve been in discussions with both of them, and both have expressed support for movement in this direction,” he said. The University’s Africana studies department, which houses much of continued on page 3

Eunice Hong / Herald Hundreds of purple and white flags were planted on the Main Green over the weekend to raise awareness of domestic violence.

For the first time since an ambitious effort to expand Brown’s faculty began earlier this decade, the size of the University’s faculty has declined slightly this year, losing a net of three members. The University began the year with 686 faculty members, down from 689 at the start of the last academic year, according to data released by the Office of the Dean of the Faculty last month. The size of last year’s faculty represented a 20 percent increase over the 573 faculty on campus in 2001-2002, the academic year immediately preceding the boom in faculty hiring that later became a foundational element of the Plan for Academic Enrichment. That wide-reaching blueprint, whose core elements were first outlined by President Ruth Simmons in Februar y 2002, calls for 100 new faculty positions, including 25 “target of opportunity” spots, which enable the University to quickly hire especially distinguished professors when such opportunities arise. Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 said 82 of those 100 positions have been filled so far, including 20 of the 25 “target” spots. But faculty expansion is nearing an end, he said. “There was a fairly intense period of hiring,” he said. “We’re kind of past that heyday.” The size of the faculty had increased by about 18 members per year from the 2001-2002 academic year through the 2007-2008 year, but last year the faculty grew by only nine members. The three-member decrease in faculty for the 2009-2010 academic year did not differ greatly from what had been an anticipated “modest growth” of about four members, said Dean of the Faculty Rajiv Vohra P’07. “Quite apart from the economic downturn coming at this time, I think that in the normal course of implementing the Plan for Academic Enrichment, we would be slowing down growth,” Vohra said. continued on page 2

Metro, 4

Metro, 5

Opinions, 7

Survey says... Nine out of 10 Providence residents call city economy ‘not so good’

Stone Cold Thayer’s financially troubled Cold Stone Creamery shuts its doors

anti-anti-meat Michael Fitzpatrick ’12 sinks his teeth into the case for vegetarianism

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

herald@browndailyherald.com

Page 2

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

C ampus N EWS

Faculty shrinks by three members continued from page 1 This year’s new data are not necessarily indicative of a certain pattern of faculty growth, said Faculty Executive Committee chair Chung-I Tan, a professor of physics and chair of the department. “At a given year, a slight drop of this sort is not to be an alarm,” he said. “Ever y effort has been made to maintain the momentum we’ve gained.” By aggressively growing the faculty before waiting for the $1.4 billion Campaign for Academic Enrichment to meet 100 percent of its goal, President Ruth Simmons “did something rather bold,” Kertzer said. Considering the economic effects of the past year, Kertzer added, “We’ve been remarkably successful in staying on track.” Herald File Photo

The unexpected condemnation of the Smith Swim Center in 2007 has complicated plans for a new fitness center.

Future gym, pool may be combined continued from page 1 begin in about a year, said Stephen Maiorisi, vice president for facilities management. It would take approximately 18 months to complete, he said. But combining the facilities would require scaling back some ambitions for the fitness center. The biggest change in the unified

project is that plans to include three indoor basketball courts would be scrapped, Maiorisi said. “We will have to compromise a bit on the program,” Spies said, emphasizing that the core plans for each project would remain intact. At its Februar y meeting, the Corporation recommended that the University look to complete its capital projects within the limits of

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funds already raised, Spies said. “It’s not quite true to say we’ve already got the $40 million” to pay for a combined building, Spies said. But if the current lead donors maintain their relationship with the effort, “we assume we can get there pretty quickly.” That the number of donors for each project “is not huge” makes compromise easier to achieve, he added. The new aquatics center, whether built as a separate project or as part of a combined fitness center, will house Brown’s first permanent pool since structural deficiencies unexpectedly forced the Smith Swim Center to close in December 2006. The structure was demolished a year later. Peter Brown, head coach of the men’s swimming and diving team, said he thought the developments in plans for a new building were a positive sign. “There’s no question it’s great for Brown,” he said. “It’s great for athletics. It’s great for the aquatics program.” Since Januar y 2008, Brown’s swimming, diving and water polo teams have been competing of f campus and practicing in a temporar y indoor pool built behind the Olney-Margolies Athletics Center. “You don’t really have a true home until you have your own pool,” Brown said. “You’re in a little bit of (a) vagabond mode.” The new fitness center — which has been in the works since 2004 but was officially put on hold by the Corporation in Februar y — was originally to feature a gymnasium, five dance and fitness studios and a 11,900-square-foot space for cardiovascular and weight-training equipment.

Salary freezes Kertzer said flattening faculty growth coincided with the salary freeze implemented this year for most faculty. “To be adding a lot of faculty while freezing salaries, from a faculty point of view, would have been questionable,” he said. The new repor t by Vohra’s office showed a slight increase in the median salaries of professors at ever y level between the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 years, though both Vohra and Kertzer said the change in median salary in the current academic year will be close to zero because of the salary freeze. According to the data, the median salary of full professors rose 3.2 percent last year, from $131,127 to $135,424. Associate professors saw their median salar y go up by 3.7 percent, from $84,000 to $87,213. The median salary of assistant professors increased from $73,500 to $75,328, or 2.4 percent. Vohra cautioned that median salaries can be misleading because in any given year some faculty are promoted, while others leave the University and are replaced. A more accurate measure is the total salar y increase of returning faculty, Vohra said. That number was about 4 percent last year and had been 5 percent and higher during the early years of the Plan, he said. Last year, the growth of salaries of full professors at Brown was four th-highest in the Ivy League, while the growth of associate and assistant professors’ mean salaries at Brown ranked seventh, according to data from the Chronicle of Higher Education. Still, Brown remains the lowest-paying Ivy League school at every level. Faculty are generally understanding of the salar y freeze, Tan said, but a prolonged freeze

might undo some of the positive changes that have occurred underSimmons’ leadership. “At some point, in order to remain competitive, you have to address that issue,” he said. Searching and ‘targeting’ Vohra said endowment losses across the country have eliminated some of the “usual suspects” among peer institutions that are typically looking to hire faculty, which makes it easier for schools like Brown to attract talent. But despite many active searches in different departments, administrators have told depar tments to be “particularly selective,” he said. Many department chairs said they have not encountered much difficulty in hiring new faculty. Department Chair and Professor of Histor y Omer Bartov said he saw “no contradiction” between a drop in the overall number of faculty and the University’s pursuit of new high-profile senior faculty. Because the overall growth of the faculty may remain limited, recruiting prominent and established faculty makes sense, he said. But Bartov added that he has concerns about the use of the “target” program. Such hires, typically older professors, often do not stay at Brown for ver y long, and can make a department “top-heavy,” he said. Bartov cautioned against moving too far in the direction of prioritizing more senior, “target” hires over younger faculty. Andrew Foster, professor of economics and department chair, said he appreciated the flexibility that the “target” program has given departments. “It used to be the case historically at Brown that you had to argue for how many FTEs you had,” Foster said, referring to “full-time equivalent” faculty members. “You just never know when you start the year who’s going to be available.” The new data show that most new positions since the 2002-2003 academic year have been at the level of assistant professor. The number of assistant professors has jumped 51.6 percent, while the number of associate professors is up 11 percent and full professors have increased by 10.2 percent in that time. The number of lecturer positions at the senior and junior levels saw a 4.3 percent increase. For Kenneth Wong, professor of education and chair of the department, the key issue now is not the size of the faculty, but the amount of support available. Increasing resources for the growing faculty has been one of the Plan’s primary goals. “I think that that’s one area that we need to think through more carefully,” Wong said.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS

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“Brown is not going global. Brown is global.” — Matthew Gutmann, vice president for international affairs

Students contend with Programs boost African scholarship overcrowded classes continued from page 1

By Anita Mathews Contributing Writer

Sit at a desk in your last class? Consider yourself fortunate. Many sections are experiencing overcrowding this semester, so much so that students must sit on the floor and, in some cases, windowsills during lectures. Enrollment in these congested classes ranges from the 28 students of GNSS 1960B: “Health and Healing in American History,” crowded in a Wilson Hall classroom, to the whopping 261 in a single section of ENGN 0090: “Management of Industrial and Nonprofit Organizations” in a Barus and Holley auditorium. Classroom scheduling is usually based on an estimated 120 percent of pre-registration numbers, Michael Pesta, the University registrar, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. Once classes begin, however, “enrollments can fluctuate unpredictably,” he added. Anthony Adams, a visiting assistant professor of english, requested that his 53-student class, ENGL 1210: “History of the English Language,” be moved from Wilson Hall 205, which has a maximum capacity of 42, to a larger room in an effort to retain interested students. Riley Blanton ’09.5, a member of the class, said he thought some students may have dropped the class during shopping period because of the crowded space. “It got to the point that people couldn’t even open the door to get in,” Blanton said. The class eventually moved to a larger room in the Center for Information Technology, but Adams said the bigger space has cost the class

the “campfire quality” it had before the move. He added that while he was surprised by the turnout, he prefers teaching one large class to two smaller sections. In a big class, “you feel like you’re on stage at a rock concert,” he said. For some professors, overflowing sections are not unusual. Professor Emeritus of Engineering Barrett Hazeltine offers three sections of ENGN 0090, a perennial favorite among students. Hazeltine acknowledged that enrollment is up from last year, but he said enrollment numbers fluctuate from year to year. He also said he polled the class regarding a room change, but despite the fact that the 261 enrolled students in one section far exceed the room’s capacity of 140, “the consensus was to stay.” Now, with students taking turns sitting on the floor, Hazeltine says he thinks people are more involved and engaged. Though students like Blanton described the overcrowding as distracting, he and others said they did not think the tight space detracted from their education. Colette DeJong ’11, who takes INTL 1280: “Global Security after the Cold War,” a weekly lecture class with roughly 20 students more than chairs, said the lack of seats in class doesn’t bother her too much. “I’m always late, so I’ve never had a seat yet,” she said. But that has not hurt the level of student participation, she added. “Global Security” may soon be moved to a bigger room, but in the meantime, DeJong said the seat shortage might even be beneficial. “It encourages people to get there on time,” she said.

Brown’s interdisciplinary scholarship on Africa, has proposed to introduce a graduate program, an offering that could galvanize Brown’s academic reputation in the field. The proposal has been in the works for more than two years, according to Dean of the Graduate School Sheila Bonde. The proposal for an M.A./Ph.D. program in Africana studies has been approved by the Graduate School Council, Bonde wrote in an e-mail to The Herald, and is slated for review by the Academic Priorities Committee on Oct. 20. If the committee approves the proposal, it will be reviewed next by the faculty and then by the Corporation, Bonde wrote. The proposal is one of a host of programs drawing attention to the importance of Africa as a subject for research, teaching and collaboration. Last year featured a “Focus on Africa,” a series of events and speakers sponsored by the Africana studies department that was similar to the current “Year of India,” said Bogues, who directed the series. Bogues considers each year’s focus to be a part of the University’s commitment to internationalization and to providing understudied regions such as Africa and Latin America, which enjoyed a similar year of attention two years ago, with “some kind of intellectual home at Brown,” he said.

Smith, the associate director of Brown’s Population Studies and Training Center, said the center recently received renewed funding to recruit and train young scholars from the developing world — and will now focus exclusively on subSaharan Africa. The center provides stipends and scholarships for preand post-doctoral population scientists, and plans to support African scholars in their early careers so that “they’ll actually be able to go home and benefit their places of origin,” Smith said. The University also recently created a scholarship fund to support undergraduate students from Africa. Such investments in academic support for African students augment a long history of academic interest in Africa at Brown. Since the mid-1960s, Professor of Anthropology Philip Leis has directed the Africa Group, a loosely organized network of faculty, undergraduates, graduate students and outside scholars that usually hosts events on topics related to Africa. But this year, Leis said, the Watson Institute has not allocated any money to the Africa Group, an indicator of the University’s tight financial situation. Nor have further plans to create a center for teaching, research and collaboration on Africa materialized, though the University’s internationalization committee made establishing such an institute one of

its central recommendations more than two years ago. Still, Leis said he thinks the University’s commitment to internationalization, particularly as it pertains to Africa, is “not just lip service.” With Gutmann and Kennedy still new in their posts, the University’s road ahead is unclear. But Bogues listed several specific ways he thinks Brown could improve teaching about Africa: regularly offering African languages for study, or hiring faculty who can teach about the political economy of Africa and who specialize in the politics of Africa’s regions. Bogues said he recognized the limitations on how quickly Brown can build its international reputation. “The process has begun,” he said, “but you can’t become a global university in two years.” “I’ve been on the job for four weeks, and in four weeks I have not set policy on everything,” Gutmann said. Calling Brown’s work in Africa “extremely important,” he added that “we plan to build on the successful work we have in South Africa, Tanzania, Ghana, many other places, and build these into signature programs for Brown.” Gutmann emphasized that Brown faculty and students are already doing important work in Africa. “It’s not a question of starting from scratch,” he said. “Brown is not going global. Brown is global.”

Metro The Brown Daily Herald

“It’s obviously great for us.” Michael McCormick, asst. vice president of planning, on streetcar project Tuesday, October 6, 2009 | Page 4

Stimulus seen as ineffective, polls show By Sydney Ember Senior Staff Writer

Leaves aren’t the only things falling in Providence. According to a poll released Thursday by Brown’s Taubman Center for Public Policy, Providence residents have become increasingly frustrated with both their city’s poor economy and with Mayor David Cicilline’s ’83 job performance. More than half the 480 registered voters polled also reported their families were worse off financially than they were a year ago. The poll — conducted Sept. 16 through 19 — found that 87 percent of respondents said they thought the city’s economy was “not so good” or “poor.” Only 23 percent of respondents thought the city’s future would bring “continuous good times,” down from 64 percent in 2006, the last time a similar poll was conducted. More than 53 percent of respondents thought the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which the survey referred to as “the economic stimulus program,” has not made a difference

for Providence, and nearly 70 percent thought the federal stimulus funds have not helped their personal financial situation. Forty percent of respondents rated Cicilline’s job performance “excellent” or “good,” while 45 percent rated it as “only fair” or “poor.” And despite Cicilline’s 2002 campaign promise to “have a City Hall free of cronyism and corruption,” 43 percent of respondents said they thought he had not lived up to his pledge. But the poll also was marked by a significant number of “don’t know” and “no answer” responses across the board — 14 percent of respondents chose not to rate Cicilline’s job performance and nearly 27 percent did not know or had no answer regarding the results of Cicilline’s promise to clean up City Hall. Taubman Center Director Marion Orr, professor of political science, said he attributed the declining approval ratings to the “major challenges the city is facing,” such as the “huge number of foreclosed properties” that he said indicate that the national housing crisis has hit the city particularly hard. But Orr added he was surprised

by the high percentage of respondents who were dissatisfied with the city’s economy. Cicilline could not be reached for comment, but wrote in an e-mail to the Providence Journal for an Oct. 2 article that “these poll results reflect the very serious economic challenges we’re facing in Providence, as well as some important improvements made in city services.” Last time the Taubman Center administered a similar poll, 67 percent of respondents approved of Cicilline’s job performance, Orr said, adding that the decline could be a product of citywide pessimism caused by the recession. “Generally speaking, it’s just really the uncertainty of the state’s economy,” he said of the poll’s unfavorable responses. Attention in the local media has focused mostly on state and national policy issues, such as health care, which Orr said could be the reason there were so many “don’t know” and “no response” answers in the poll. “The coverage of the mayor and the city are not as extensive as it used to be,” he said.

Courtesy of Transit2020.org

A proposed streetcar system would have two lines whose terminals are shown above. They would interest at Kennedy Plaza.

City eyes streetcars for cross-town transit continued from page 1 onstrate a greater commitment to economic development than RIPTA’s traditional bus ser vice, said Michael McCormick, Brown’s assistant vice president for planning design and construction in Facilities Management. Local developers recognize this commitment and are more likely to invest in the community, Tim McCormick said. He pointed to Portland, Ore., one of the first American cities to establish a major modern streetcar system. Between 2001, when that system was first built, and the spring of 2008, $3.5 billion was invested in the area within two blocks of the streetcar tracks, according a report by Portland Streetcar Inc. The city will most probably look to federal funding for the estimated $66-$86 million initial cost to construct the system and buy streetcars. But RIPTA might ask private sources — including Brown — to cover the system’s annual operating budget, estimated at approximately $2-$3.5 million, Pettine said. RIPTA’s current operating budget is funded by the state’s gasoline tax. Brown pays RIPTA about $360,000 a year to allow students, faculty and staff to ride for free, according to Elizabeth Gentry, assistant vice president for administrative and financial services. Institutions and individuals along the route will have an economic incentive to fund the budget, Pettine said. The streetcars will cater largely to University community members traveling from College Hill to the medical school and hospitals. An exact path for streetcar remains to be finalized, but the most

recent Metro Transit Study draft report shows two interlinked routes serving Downcity and the Jewelry District — connecting Rhode Island Hospital and Providence station with College Hill via the existing bus tunnel. The project would include approximately 2.1 miles of rail along existing paved streets traversed by five electrically powered streetcars, which would be powered by overhead catenar y lines. Cars would run ever y 7 to 15 minutes for at least 14 hours a day, according to the study’s Web site. Brown’s plans to establish a greater presence in the Jewelry District represent a key opportunity for Providence, Tim McCormick said. “You might call it the only thing going on in terms of a major investment in the city,” he said. “It’s obviously great for us,” said Michael McCormick, who has represented the University in planning discussions. The streetcar project will be closely related to planning for community and economic development that city government, educational and health centers are currently undertaking. As Brown expands its medical school in the Jewelry District, it will look to further develop the area. Frances Halsband — an architectural consultant to the Corporation who envisioned the Walk and has done much of Brown’s recent long-term physical planning — will present a report to the Corporation when it meets next week detailing potential developments in the area. Included in the report are recommendations to restore historic streetscapes — widening sidewalks, allowing for corner cafes and planting greenery — along parts of the streetcar route, Halsband said.

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Metro

“I am bitter toward that. It wasn’t really fair.” — Kristina Gedutis, Thayer’s Cold Stone Creamery owner, on the opening of a rival nearby

Like it, love it — can’t have it By Lauren Fedor Senior Staf f Writer

Cold Stone Creamer y on Thayer Street closed its doors last week, leaving College Hill ice creamlovers disappointed and a handful of local students out of a job. Kristina Gedutis, who coowned the Thayer Street franchise with her husband, Craig, for five years, said the store’s sales were down 30 percent from 2008. Though the location’s rent remained the same, dwindling revenues made it difficult for the owners to make payments, she said. “I’m not sure why sales were down,” she said. “Ever yone always blames the economy, but I’m sure there were other reasons.” Gedutis said she and her husband decided to vacate the location, though their lease guaranteed them use of the space through this December. The couple run another ice cream parlor in Cranston, which has not suffered as drastic a decline in sales, she said. In Februar y, Cold Stone — an international chain of ice cream parlors known for its trademark “mix-ins” with more than 1,400 franchised locations worldwide — formed a partnership with Tim Hortons, the Ontario-based restaurant chain. Gedutis said the opening of a joint Tim HortonsCold Stone location on Dorrance Street downtown negatively affected her Thayer Street parlor’s

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

No layoffs, but unpaid days likely for state employees Unions voting on governor’s new proposal By Zung Nguyen Vu Contributing Writer

Nicholas Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald

Thayer Street’s Cold Stone Creamery closed last week in the face of declining revenue.

business. “When we first opened, business was great — we definitely had our following,” she said. “There wasn’t another Cold Stone in Providence, so we got most of

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the area’s business.” Gedutis said when the downtown Cold Stone opened, she saw revenue drop. “I am bitter toward that,” she said. “It wasn’t really fair.”

The month-long standoff between Governor Donald Carcieri ’65 and state employee unions over his plan to meet budget cut requirements may soon be over. After weeks of negotiations, union members have begun to vote on a proposal to save $36 million by making all public employees work without pay for eight days this year and four days next year. The plan under consideration would also delay a promised 3 percent pay raise for six months. In return, no layoffs will be made for the next two years. Workers will be compensated at retirement and receive additional leave days. When Carcieri’s original plan to send nonessential state workers home for 12 days of the year without pay was put on hold by the state Supreme Court last month, Carcieri threatened layoffs and began negotiating a new plan with the unions. The largest of the unions, Council 94 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, expects to have members’ votes in today, said Council President Michael Downey. Members of the second largest union, the Rhode Island Alliance of Social Ser vice Employees, Local 580, approved the

proposal by a 2-to-1 margin, according to the union’s Web site. The agreement represents a major piece of Carcieri’s overall plan to make $67.8 million in state budget cuts in the face of soaring unemployment and declining tax revenue. The state of Rhode Island currently employs about 13,000 workers, said Amy Kempe, a spokeswoman for the governor. Union leaders had to approve the agreement before other members vote on it. Initially, the unions thought they could strike a better deal by prolonging the negotiations, Downey said. But after the governor “went on TV to say there was no chance,” the union moved ahead with the vote, he said. If the proposal is passed, it will be implemented immediately, Kempe said. Both Downey and Joseph Peckham, acting executive director of Council 94, support the plan but declined to predict how the union’s members would vote. The union’s staff has been working hard for the last few days to provide members with sufficient information on the proposal, Peckham said. “As a democratic organization, we felt that the union members had the right to vote,” Downey said. “No more layoffs, no more shut down days. … That is good to know in a difficult economy.”

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Save the tutors Last week, Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron buried the funeral announcement for a Brown institution in the middle of a seemingly innocuous e-mail. While informing the student body of the creation of “facilitated group study” and “academic coaching,” Bergeron casually slipped in a notice that “individual tutoring will also be available by application on a selective basis,” seemingly providing notice of a new form of academic assistance. In actuality, students were being notified of the termination of Brown’s free and widely available one-on-one tutoring program, which Brown students were only informed of in the next day’s Herald. This sort of duplicity by omission has characterized the rollout of the new tutoring regime. As the head CSCI0150: Intro to Object-Oriented Programming and Computer Science TAs noted in a letter to the editor, no notification was provided to the leaders of the course, which used individual tutors, and repeated requests for information went unanswered. They had to wait for a taped note on the tutoring office’s door to find out that the service some of them had relied on would be discontinued. And when we say “relied on,” we don’t mean figuratively — CSCI 0150 Professor Andy van Dam believes that individual tutoring is so essential to his course, the introductory centerpiece of the computer science program, that he was willing to pay tutors out of pocket to make sure his students would still have access to them. The new system, according to Van Dam, “will not be what I need.” He has a point. Students who use tutors count on them to discover what their individual weaknesses are and to help correct for those particular mistakes in future work. Such a relationship requires an intense degree of one-on-one interaction that seems unlikely to occur in a group setting where a tutor has up to five other students demanding her attention. Further, in classes like CSCI0150 where collaborative work is

banned, no student could attend a study group without violating course policy. Academic coaching is no more useful for substantive help, as its individual sessions cover solely “study habits and learning strategies.” Bergeron’s defense of her decision against such attacks was unpersuasive. Tutoring doesn’t work in every case? Provide study groups as an alternative, not a replacement. Tutors take advantage of lax oversight to over-report their hours? Then restrict tutoring sessions to particular hours in specific locations monitored by an electronic log-in system. The most plausible justification she could have given — budget constraints — was the only one she explicitly denied was a factor in the decision. The arguments provided by Yolanda Rome, director of co-curricular advising and tutoring programs and a supporter of the decision, were also specious. Rome claimed that research has shown study groups to be “more pedagogically sound.” This may be true, but we sincerely doubt that necessarily broad academic research is a better means of assessing the usefulness of tutoring in a specific course, such as CSCI0150, than the judgment of that course’s professor. Professor of Chemistry David Cane’s testimony regarding the effectiveness of study groups in his department is good evidence that the University ought to support a study group program. However, there is no reason this must trade off with allowing Van Dam to employ tutors if he believes that they are more effective. This core failure, taken together with the opaque disclosure of the decision to eliminate tutors, means that the University has made a number of mistakes in its handling of the issue. We hope that the tutoring program can be at least partially reinstated to make up for it. Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.

Anne Speyer, Jenna Stark, Night Editors Senior Staff Writers Dan Alexander, Mitra Anoushiravani, Ellen Cushing, Sydney Ember, Lauren Fedor, Nicole Friedman, Brigitta Greene, Sarah Husk, Brian Mastroianni, Hannah Moser, Ben Schreckinger, Anne Simons, Anne Speyer, Sara Sunshine, Alex Ulmer, Suzannah Weiss, Kyla Wilkes Staff Writers Shara Azad, Emma Berry, Alicia Chen, Zunaira Choudhary, Alicia Dang, Juliana Friend, Anish Gonchigar, Sarah Julian, Christian Martell, Heeyoung Min, Jyotsna Mullur, Lauren Pischel, Kevin Pratt, Leslie Primack, Luisa Robledo, Dana Teppert, Gaurie Tilak, Caitlin Trujillo, Monique Vernon, Senior Business Associates Max Barrows, Jackie Goldman, Margaret Watson, Ben Xiong Business Associates Stassia Chyzhykova, Marco deLeon, Katherine Galvin, Bonnie Kim, Cathy Li, Allen McGonagill, Liana Nisimova, Thanases Plestis, Corey Schwartz, William Schweitzer, Kenneth So, Evan Sumortin, Haydar Taygun, Webber Xu, Lyndse Yess Design Staff Gili Kliger, Jessica Kirschner, John Walsh, Kate Wilson Photo Staff Qidong Chen, Janine Cheng, Alex DePaoli, Frederic Lu, Quinn Savit Copy Editors Sara Chimene-Weiss, Miranda Forman, Casey Gaham, Anna Jouravleva, Geoffrey Kyi, Frederic Lu, Jordan Mainzer, Madeleine Rosenberg

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Opinions The Brown Daily Herald

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 | Page 7

Honest to blog IVY CHANG Opinions Columnist It’s getting more and more difficult to attract the attention of kids these days. Now colleges, too, must make the effort to keep up with the times. The University of Pennsylvania invited actor Kal Penn to teach, Brown is adopting Tweeting in class and Harvard has even tried putting out a clothing line. A recent New York Times article reported that MIT, Wellesley, Amherst, Yale and numerous other colleges are beginning to feature student-written blogs on their official websites. I had half-joked that it was unjust for Harvard rather than Brown, the “most fashionable” Ivy League university, to have a clothing line, and a rather formulaic and poorly designed one at that. Learning that we’ve been left behind on the blogging trend as well seems an even greater tragedy. Given the technical troubles we’ve been having with Banner, Mocha and other school-related Web sites, perhaps our tardiness is for good reason. Plus, with our reputation as the pot-smoking hipster of the Ivy League, blog links on our main Web site could be seen as a bit too predictable. However, technical impediments and stereotype affirmations aside, student blogs could actually be extremely helpful in both enriching our school’s image and fostering a greater sense of community among the student body. Students narrowing down their college

choices these days do not want to rely merely on U.S. News rankings and the usual, impersonal laundry list of location, class size and programs of study. Studies show that about 60 percent of high school-age students use the Internet for “education-related topics,” including college planning. They want to see what’s behind all the smiling faces in glossy college brochures, to know about the social scene, surrounding college town, dorm conditions and all the ups and downs of student life that aren’t obvious from looking at a school’s

Student blogs are an accessible, reliable resource for snapshots of campus life and valuable interactions among students. MIT student blogs receive hundreds of comments from prospective students, and many current students claim that the blogs were an important influence in their college decision. As of now, it seems that the only Web address for community interaction at Brown is Facebook, and prospective students looking to get an idea of what Brown is like have limited access to the network.

Student blogs are an accessible, reliable resource for snapshots of campus life and valuable interactions among students.

main Web site. The influence of sites like College Confidential cannot be ignored. Students and parents use these sites extensively to discuss “insider” information, which is a mix of rumors and tips from current college students. College visits can only help so much. They can meld into a confusing blur and are often too short to allow students to form an accurate view of a school. The most honest and personalized impressions they can get before they arrive are definitely from students on campus.

Although Brown does boast a wide array of student-run newspapers and literary journals, the information provided is scattered across many different Web sites. The curious will more often than not be unable to locate many of these sources of student opinions. Student blogs would not only aid prospective students but the community at Brown as well. Information and opinions get posted instantly, with no editing or approval necessary and facilitating a rapid exchange of ideas between bloggers and readers. Bloggers could write about whatever topics they

wish, whether they be serious screeds on politics and school policies or more lighthearted ruminations about daily routines, fashion trends on campus and where to find cheap, good meals on Thayer. As I’ve mentioned before, there isn’t really a central Internet space at which Brown students can interact with each other. Not many students frequent Brown’s Daily Jolt page, with useful postings mostly limited to unwanted items for sale. The time we spend on Facebook and Twitter reading the same people’s feeds over and over can easily be supplemented with something new. Many students would probably jump at the chance to blog for Brown, and I’ll bet that quite a few of us already have personal blogs. I’m sure that the usual misgivings about offensive or poorly-written postings will not apply to us. We probably won’t have to worry about students self-censoring too much either, given the many examples set by outspoken student groups on campus. The Internet has become undeniably important to fostering communication and disseminating information. Student blogs can help us get to know people that we might otherwise never meet. They can expand not only our conceptions, but also those of prospective students, parents, and anyone else who wants to know about what students think, feel, and care about here at Brown.

Ivy Chang ’10 had to walk uphill both ways to find out about colleges back in her day. She can be reached at ivy_chang@brown.edu.

The vegetarian delusion Michael Fitzpatrick Opinions Columnist Anyone who wandered through the Main Green this past week was granted a rare opportunity to see some profoundly horrifying images: a seal being brutally clubbed to death for its fur; an innocent piglet being castrated; a poor cat being pinned down on a dissecting table. In a stunning juxtaposition of moral outrage and disgust-inducing tastelessness, the Brown Animal Rights Club, in conjunction with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, brought to our campus an exhibition of the Animal Liberation Project. In a nutshell, the ALP seeks to inform the public — in particular, the youth — about the injustices that human beings inflict upon animals. Armed with an arsenal of hyper-sentimental quotes from human rights leaders such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., the group has launched a campaign against societal tolerance of speciesism — the belief that other species are inferior to our own. The campaign fashions itself as a revival of older liberation fronts, from abolition to feminism. But instead of boycotts, protest marches and petitions, the Animal Liberation Project proposes a decidedly unorthodox protest method: vegetarianism. Vegetarianism? Are they trying to waste our time? To clarify, I have nothing against dietary vegetarianism. Nutritionally speaking, vegetables are far more valuable than animal

flesh as sources of fiber, vitamins and minerals. Moral vegetarianism, on the other hand, is not only a failure as a form of activism; it’s a failure as a lifestyle choice. Let’s focus on vegetarian activism for a moment. Vegetarian activism operates on the same principle as a boycott: activists refuse to purchase a product or use a service and urge others to do the same. To convince others to make that sacrifice, activists need to make a statement about their cause. Un-

the focus of the animal-welfare cause. If you refuse to eat meat, any reasonable person would assume that you protest the killing of animals for their flesh, or the harvesting of animal byproducts (e.g. eggs, milk and honey) for food. But in terms of cruelty, eating animals is relatively mild compared to other inhumane activities. Animals eat other animals — lions eat antelope, eagles eat rabbits, dolphins eat fish. Eating is a natural process.

Instead of boycotts, protest marches and petitions, the Animal Liberation Project proposes a decidedly unorthodox protest method: vegetarianism.

fortunately, swearing off meat isn’t a particularly powerful statement when other people do it for selfish reasons, like improving their diet or fulfilling their religious obligations. Compare this with Mahatma Gandhi, a vegetarian who went on several hunger strikes to promote peaceful resistance to British rule in India. Vegetarianism was his lifestyle, but self-starvation was his protest method. It brought the attention he wanted. After all, apart from the occasional anorexic teenager, people generally don’t starve themselves unless they want to make a point. Furthermore, vegetarianism constricts

Humans, on the other hand, are exclusively guilty of killing animals for reasons other than eating. Remember that seal clubber? He’s going to leave the skinned seal carcass on the ice pack for some polar bear to eat. Eating meat has nothing to do with the fur industry, vivisection or animal abuse, because in those cases the animals do not end up on your plate. To be an effective vegetarian activist, you need to loudly proclaim to everyone within earshot that a) you refuse to eat meat because it’s cruel, and b) you also strongly disapprove of fur coats, experimentation and

animal abuse. But would you believe me if I told you that you also had to grow your own food? That’s right: millions of rabbits, mice and other rodents die each year when wheat combines and other farm equipment harvest the crops. The problem is that machines do not pause to allow the vermin to escape. Only handpicked food is truly safe for animals, and that means finding a way to hire millions of farm workers to gather, process and package your dinner without forcing the farmers into bankruptcy. But you could grow your own food, right? Subsistence gardening is extremely ecofriendly, and you can harvest on your own terms. You’ll never have to kill another rabbit again, unless you find the little backstabbers munching on your vegetables. For those that remember Beatrix Potter’s “The Tales of Peter Rabbit”… Well, you’ll suddenly feel a strong sympathetic connection with nasty old Mr. McGregor as you chase the vermin away with a rake. In terms of animal welfare, moral vegetarianism is an insufficient response to animal cruelty. It exists as a cheap alternative for people who are too apathetic to participate in a real protest against a real problem. Do something productive with your time: protest the seal clubbing, the experimentation and the abuse… and please pass me a steak knife.

Michael Fitzpatrick ’12 thinks that “Roots and Shoots” should be renamed “The Guiltless Grill.” He can be contacted at michael_fitzpatrick@brown.edu

Today The Brown Daily Herald

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comics Birdfish | Matthew Weiss

Tuesday, October 6

Wednesday, October 7

5 PM — Grade option deadline

5:30 PM — Lecture: “Re-inscribing the Colonial Dilemma in a Conscript of Global Modernity: CLR James and Moby-Dick,” Pembroke Hall 305

8 PM — “Meet Israeli Soldiers: Women in the IDF,” Salomon 101

6 PM — Lecture: “Graphic Knowledge: Creative Mining of Embodied Experience,” Orwig 315

menu Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Chicken Fajitas, Spinach Enchiladas, M&M Cookies

Lunch — Chinese Chicken Wings, Artichoke Pasta Medley

Dinner — Breaded Pork Chops with Apple Sauce, Tomato Quiche, Chocolate Cream Pie

Dinner — Pulled Pork Sandwiches, Pacific Vegetable Stir Fry, Chocolate Cream Pie

Cabernet Voltaire | Abe Pressman

RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Los Angeles Times Puzzle c r o sDaily s w oCrossword rd Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Washing machine sequence 6 Pirate’s booty 10 Twilight time 14 Start of an old Army slogan 15 Rock group’s trip 16 In the past 17 Jack of rhyme 18 Against 19 Persia, now 20 2005 Margaret Peterson Haddix children’s thriller 23 1958 #1 hit sung in Italian 25 In error 26 Hot tub 27 Lyricist Gershwin 28 Title holder 31 Classic language, and with 61Across, hint to the puzzle theme found at the starts of 20-, 37and 57-Across 33 Property measure 35 Moray, e.g. 36 Yak 37 Accumulate wealth 42 On Soc. Sec., say 43 Simpson judge 44 Schoolbook 46 “Beak” for “nose,” e.g. 49 100 bucks 51 “__ the ramparts ...” 52 Trip segment 53 Thurman of “Kill Bill” 55 Fashionable 57 Non-remunerative athletics 61 Cherish 62 Aussie greeting 63 Singer Baker 66 Till bills 67 Fish organ 68 Prepare to advance after a fly ball 69 Computer adventure game 70 Oxen connection

71 Ed of “Lou Grant” DOWN 1 Network with an eye 2 Slangy assent 3 Parking lot siren 4 Andean beast 5 Matador’s foe 6 Men-only party 7 Refuses to 8 Writer 9 Reaction to personal loss 10 “__ What Comes Natur’lly” 11 Pre-riot state 12 Garlicky shrimp dish 13 Nairobi native 21 Most recent 22 Key above D 23 By way of 24 SeaWorld attraction 29 Teachers’ org. 30 Fairylike 32 Lie alongside 34 Bring in 36 Capri’s Blue __ 38 Transition to the next subject 39 Ear: Prefix

40 Las Vegas Strip feature 41 Marked, as a ballot 45 Sample 46 Sinuous ski race 47 Tart, as a citrus drink 48 Mescal sources 49 Aerobic exercise, in gym-speak

50 List of mistakes 54 Seriously humid 56 Old lab burners 58 Final grade factor 59 Polio vaccine developer 60 War journalist Ernie 64 Election Day: Abbr. 65 Mo. for fools?

Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Hippomaniac | Mat Becker

xwordeditor@aol.com

10/06/09

Classic Deep-Fried Kittens | Cara FitzGibbons

10/06/09