Thursday, February 24, 2011

Daily

Herald

the Brown

vol. cxlvi, no. 20

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Prof dies Students allege assault after long by Colosseum bouncers illness

By Jake Comer Senior Staff Writer

By Greg Jordan-Detamore Senior Staff Writer

Meiqing Zhang, a senior lecturer in East Asian studies who had taught Chinese since 1988, died Saturday after a long illness.

“It is a huge loss for Brown and especially for East Asian studies,” said Dean of the Faculty Rajiv Vohra P’07.

She was a “highly regarded figure in the field of Chinese language pedagogy,” according to a statement on the East Asian studies website.

Zhang — who taught CHIN 0910A: “Academic Chinese I” last semester — “had been ill for some time” and was on medical leave this semester, Vohra said, but he declined to specify the illness.

Though she was struggling with her illness, “she really wanted to be involved in her work in teaching,” Vohra said. She was “very well known for her devotion to her students.” Zhang was also known as a mentor to junior faculty members, he said.

“One of her jobs was to help teach the teachers,” said Kerry Smith, associate professor of history and chair of the East Asian studies department. Others sought advice from her about continued on page 4

Two students alleged they were physically abused by bouncers at the Colosseum nightclub around midnight last night. Michael Quinn ’13 and Jonathan Smallwood ’12 said they were dragged down a flight of stairs from the second-story club by their necks.

Colosseum bouncers outside the club around 1 a.m. declined to comment. The bouncers said the club management would come outside for comment, but management did not appear before the bouncers asked The Herald to leave.

Providence Police Sgt. Tim McGann said that according to the club’s staff, the two students were dancing on the bar and did not comply with requests to stop. Bouncers

escorted the students outside, McGann said. The Providence Police filed a disturbance report.

But Quinn said he and Smallwood did not dance on the bar and were instead dancing on the stage.

Bouncers were kicking men off the stage, trying to limit it to female patrons, Quinn said. The students began dancing on the floor near the stage, he said, at which point a bouncer took Smallwood by the neck and dragged him towards the door.

According to Chris Lisiewski ’12, a friend of the two students who was present for the altercation, two bouncers stood on the stage above Smallwood while he danced “very provocatively at the base of the stage.” continued on page 9

Since 1891

Click it for ticket

Herald file photo

The Brown Concert Agency is test-driving a new ticket distribution system today in the hopes of avoiding long lines for Spring Weekend.

See full coverage on page 2.

Humanities departments tout practicality

By Aparna Bansal Senior Staff Writer

Though faculty members said they are not concerned about the level of student interest in the humanities, University data show Brown is not immune to the decades-long nationwide decline in the proportion of bachelor’s degrees granted in the humanities.

While the number of humanities concentrations declined by 12 percent between 2009 and 2010, a

longer-term look at the numbers tells a less dramatic tale. For the first half of the decade, between 2001 and 2005, students completed an average of 466 humanities con-

NEWS ANALYSIS centrations per year. The average over the next five years was 452, a 3 percent decline. The average total number of concentrations completed was constant between the two periods.

The University’s Office of Institutional Research includes 29 concentrations in the humanities category.

The lines in the mailroom may have looked never-ending, but the quantity of packages behind the doors was overwhelming. Last Friday morning, employees rushed

There are no new leads in the disappearance of Denis Chartier, an assistant coach of the women’s soccer team, according to Lt. Kevin San Antonio of the Town of Burrillville Police Department Chartier, 56, was last seen Feb. 6.

“We’re basically at a standstill right now because we have no new leads to go on,” San Antonio said Wednesday afternoon.

Chartier’s Dream Card — a Foxwood Resorts Casino rewards card — was used at the Connecticut casino Feb. 6 around 11 p.m., according to an article yesterday in the Providence Journal.

San Antonio said the police department has “been following up communications with the family,” but has made no progress in locating Chartier.

“This is still an active investigation,” San Antonio said.

“Until we find Mr. Chartier, we’re going to follow up on any leads we can get.”

Chartier has been on the coaching staff of the women’s soccer team for 16 seasons, according to the athletics department.

The women’s soccer team held a candlelight vigil for Chartier Feb. 15.

continued on page 2

— Tony Bakshi

From classroom to boardroom

Though students may be apprehensive about the employment consequences of a humanities-based education, humanities departments have begun stressing the practical applications of a liberal arts educontinued on page 6

Mailroom catches up with package backlog Tasting a warm pistachio muffin from the Blue Room, shopping for that perfect fourth class, running into everyone you know in the Sharpe

Feature

Brielle Friedman / Herald

inside

The mailroom was overwhelmed with packages this year, creating long lines.

news....................2-5 editorial.............10 Opinions.............11 City & State.......12

In Harmony

Cogut Center helps create ‘orchestra without borders’

Campus news, 5

Refectory — these are a few of the nice things about returning to campus for spring semester. Waiting in line in the mailroom for 25 minutes to pick up a box of textbooks is not one of them.

The mailroom faced an unusually large backlog and longer lines this semester due to weather complications and an increased influx of packages, said Fred Yattaw, manager of University Mail Services. Mail Services processed 17,148 pack-

ages between Jan. 24 and Feb. 17, compared to 15,816 during the same period last year, according to data provided by Yattaw.

Mariah Gonzales ’13 waited over a week to pick up a package because the line in J. Walter Wilson was consistently excessive, she said.

“I actually made my brother pick up a package for me because the line was so long,” she said, adding, “I think he thought he was going to get something out of it because the package was from my mom.”

Backlog and delays

Forever

Alums could hold on to U. e-mail accounts CAMPUS NEWS, 4

weather

By Brielle Friedman Staff Writer

Ne ws in brief No leads in search for asst. women’s soccer coach

t o d ay

tomorrow

41/ 35

43/ 22

2 Campus News calendar TODAY

February 24

5:30 P.m.

Ne ws in brief

ToMORROW

February 25

4 p.m.

“Hiroshima: Testimony by Atomic

Piano Workshop,

Bomb Survivor,” Salomon 101

Grant Recital Hall

6:30 p.m.

7 p.m.

J.M. Bernstein, “Torture and

Ayyam-i-ha Party,

Modernity,” Pembroke Hall 305

J. Walter Wilson 411

menu SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEy-WOOLLEY DINING HALL LUNCH

Falafel in Pita with Tzatziki, Chicken Pot Pie, Zucchini and Parmesan Sandwiches

Cavatini, Falafel in Pita, Marinated Cucumbers, Rice Krispie Treats

DINNER

Spice Rubbed Pork Chops, Cheese Tomato Strata, Cajun Corn and Tomatoes

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, February 24, 2011

Pastel of Tuna Fish, Mango Chicken with Mango Salsa, Sweet Potatoes in Madeira

Sudoku

acr oss to bear

BCA to end Spring Weekend lines The Brown Concert Agency is test-driving a new ticket distribution system for Spring Weekend today in hopes of avoiding the long lines and lost tickets of years past. With the new system, students will purchase all Spring Weekend tickets online, including the extra tickets released if the concerts are held outdoors. Students will then be able to print scannable tickets from their computers instead of picking them up from the Brown Student Agency office.

The idea for the new system came about this summer, according to Sandy Ryza ’12, BCA’s director of ticketing. The new system was developed partially in response to last year’s line, which stretched for hours around George, Brown, Benevolent and Benefit streets.

Starting at 8 a.m. today, students will be able to log on to bsa.brown.edu and order a free waiver from the Brown Marketplace to test the online system. The waiver will be sent to students’ Brown e-mail addresses. Students can then bring printed e-mail confirmations to the Main Green entrance on George St. between 3 and 5 p.m. March 1 to be scanned for entry in a raffle.

For every 200 waivers ordered, BCA is planning to give away a free two-day ticket package. The number of waivers is not limited — any student who signs onto the website will be eligible.

The Brown Student Agency website crashed last year during the ticket-purchasing period.

“One would hope that we won’t have the same problem this year, but there’s always unexpected difficulties,” Ryza said.

Though BCA is not yet able to confirm when tickets will actually go on sale, the system is being tested now to ensure it will run smoothly in the coming weeks, he said. BCA also plans to implement the system at its upcoming “Get-Off-The-Hill Party.”

“The goal is not to have it fail majorly on Spring Weekend,” he said.

— Amy Rasmussen

Daily

the Brown

Mailroom copes despite backlog, weather continued from page 1 around cataloguing items and sorting letters into mailboxes. Boxes were everywhere.

The beginning of the semester always brings mailroom chaos. The mailroom received and processed 1,332 more signature packages between Jan. 24 and Feb. 17 than between those dates last year, according to data provided by Yattaw. The figures for blue card packages, which do not require student signatures, also increased this year, Yattaw said.

A possible reason for the greater number of packages may be this year’s larger first-year class, Yattaw said.

“In the old days when everything was notices in the mailboxes, we’d also get rushes between classes. Now it seems like whenever we send out a batch of e-mails, the line appears,” Yattaw said.

But the larger number of packages is not the only reason the lines at the mailroom have been long. At the beginning of the semester, one employee was absent for six weeks due to a broken leg, Yattaw said.

Weather is another factor. “We had two back-to-back days where I had several employees leave work early or cancel because of the snow,” Yattaw said. “That’s a significant time loss.” Employee absences caused Mail Services to fall behind in processing packages. “Once you fall behind, it’s very hard to catch up,” he said.

Because of the backlog, packages were delayed in the mailroom for many students awaiting textbooks and other items. In some cases, students received package arrival notifications from Amazon but discovered their packages had not yet been processed by Mail Services.

Unusually chaotic

The September influx is even worse than that of the spring semester, but Mail Services accommodates the fall rush by opening a separate location in Graduate Center for UPS packages.

“Last September, we handled 30,000 packages,” Yattaw said. “That many packages — ­ we couldn’t even process them and get them in (J. Walter Wilson) if we tried.”

But Yattaw does not think using the second location in February would help ease the backlog. The overhead door at the Grad Center location would not be usable in snow

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and rain, he said, and using the Grad Center location in the spring would force him to split up his staff.

To prepare for the beginning of the semester, Yattaw hired five temporary employees for February.

Mailroom employees are also not allowed to take vacation time during the beginning of the semester.

Yattaw has never seen this much mailroom chaos in January or February — “and I’ve been here awhile,” he said. “If we continue to have this kind of situation going forward, then we’ll have to reassess.” But Yattaw said the number of deliveries calms down each year after Valentine’s Day. “We just always have two really busy periods a year,” he said.

Please, Mr. Postman

Alex Crane ’12 said he left J. Walter Wilson and came back about five times before finally picking up a package early last Friday morning, a time of day when lines are generally shorter.

“The students have been very cooperative,” Yattaw said, adding that Mail Services has been able to help individual students with special circumstances. Yattaw personally helped a student locate two packages that contained textbooks she needed.

“Some students are impatient, but we try to keep it in perspective that they are under a lot of pressure.

Nobody’s ever come to me and complained about a staff member being rude or unhelpful,” Yattaw said.

“I did get a mother who was very upset because she sent boots to her daughter,” he said. The student’s box number had been changed, so the package had not reached her. Yattaw looked into the case and found the package. “Her mother sent me a nice appreciation note with a Starbucks card,” Yattaw said, smiling.

“I know what it’s like to be a parent and have a child in school. So I try to understand.”

Back on track

As of last Thursday, the mailroom is fully caught up with the backlog and will be processing packages as they arrive, Yattaw said.

“I don’t think we should have a problem now,” Yattaw told The Herald Friday. “Going forward,” he said, “we’ll be in regular operational mode.” If a package arrives in the morning, a student will probably receive a notification by noon, he said.

Yattaw commended his staff, adding that on several of the busiest days this past month, staff members did not take a break the entire day.

Scout Willis ’13 echoed the praise.

Even during busy periods, “they’ve always been really nice to me,” she said, adding, “they’re doing the best they can do.”

The Mail Services staff has been very understanding about letting her leave packages in the mailroom for extended periods of time, she said.

Willis has not picked up a package she received over two weeks ago — a small but extremely heavy box filled with graphic novels sent from a family friend.

She knows it is there, but she still does not want to carry it.

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, February 24, 2011

Campus News 3

Chafee ’75 returns from Houston tour

By Caitlin Trujillo Senior Staff Writer

Governor Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14 returned Monday from a two-day tour of the Texas Medical Center.

The trip to Houston was the first in a series of tours that Chafee hopes will provide models for technology-fueled growth in Providence’s Jewelry District.

President Ruth Simmons, University of Rhode Island President David Dooley, Providence Mayor Angel Taveras and Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation Executive Director Keith Stokes accompanied the governor.

The Texas Medical Center, with its 49 institutions and hospitals, is the largest medical complex in the world, said Richard Wainerdi, the center’s president, chief executive officer and chief operating officer. It includes 13 hospitals and two medical schools making it “a mecca of sorts” for medical facilities, said Mike Trainor, Chafee’s spokesman.

Chafee’s first visit to Houston several years ago sparked the idea for a similar urban model in Rhode Island. The Jewelry District is poised to undergo considerable change in the coming years with the official opening of Brown’s new Medical Education Building and development of the land freed up by the relocation of I-195, Trainor said.

Businesses looking to locate near hospital facilities could take

Caitlin Trujillo / Herald

Gov. Lincoln Chafee ‘75 P’14 recently visited Houston’s Texas Medical Center.

advantage of the highway plots, Trainor said, sparking economic development in the district.

In Houston, Chafee first met with corporate officers from the Texas Medical Center. He then met with research, academic and workforce enhancement directors as well as community leaders to discuss how the various institutions have affected the surrounding community, Wainerdi said.

The medical center’s success hinges on collaboration between its institutions, despite a potentially competitive business relationship, wrote Vice President for Public Affairs and University Relations

Marisa Quinn, who also accompanied the delegation to Houston, in an e-mail to The Herald.

“It was an inspiring day, and while we have many challenges ahead ... it is clear that we have significant assets, too — not the least of which is our capacity for collaboration,” Quinn wrote.

Chafee plans to visit four more cities within the next 60 days. His tentative next stop is Baltimore — home to Johns Hopkins University.

Future visits will include Cleveland — home to the Cleveland Clinic — as well as Pittsburgh and Worcester, Mass., which boasts a sizeable medical district, Trainor said.

Writing Center to hire ESL specialist

By Nora Orton Contributing Writer

The Writing Center hopes to hire a specialist in English as a Second Language by July 2011 to meet an increasing demand for writing support, especially among international students.

This year, the center has already held 2,300 appointments, 34 percent of them requested by students who do not speak English as a first language. Ten years ago, the center held about 1,200 individual conferences with students per year, according to Director of the Writing Center Douglas Brown. This increase, along with the University’s announcement in March 2010 that it would require all seniors to show writing competency, led to the decision to create the specialist position.

Despite an increase in demand for the center’s writing fellows among international students, the center currently does not have an ESL specialist. “We all feel strongly that you can’t say writing matters, so much so that it’s actually going to be a graduation requirement, and then not provide adequate support,” Brown said.

Brown said non-native speakers come to the center with a unique set of challenges. “There is a terrible pressure to turn in work that is completely idiomatically correct,” Brown said. “What we end up doing out of necessity is helping them with these smaller-scale concerns because, if we don’t, they’re … turning in work that will be graded poorly regardless of content.”

To address challenges faced by students who do not speak English

as a first language, the specialist will take on various tasks, including holding conferences with students, conducting workshops and teaching other writing fellows how to better help internationals, Brown said. The specialist will also work in conjunction with professors. “We’re inviting all of these international students to our campus,” Brown said, “but do faculty actually appreciate the challenges they face in the classroom?”

The specialist will begin the upcoming school year by enhancing the pre-orientation programs.

For the past few years, the University has offered Excellence at Brown — a week-long academic preparation program for students whose high schools may not have provided them with adequate colcontinued on page 4

Rachel Kaplan / Herald Robert Krulwich addressed natural camouflage in a Wednesday lecture.

Radio host ‘plays’ with science, octopi, Saddam

By Esther Kim Contributing Writer

What do Saddam Hussein and an octopus have in common? If you are stumped, Radiolab’s Robert Krulwich could give you a clue.

Radiolab, a popular radio program, explores a range of phenomena, from the mechanisms behind spousal spats and the common cold to reasons why people who lie are happier. “Saddam Hussein’s Octopus” is just one of many unconventional topics that Krulwich, co-host of the show, tackles regularly.

The Smith-Buonanno auditorium was packed full of students and professors yesterday, eager to hear Krulwich’s engaging stories.

Krulwich played a short clip of an octopus, known as the “master of disguise” due to its camouflage ability. If plastic surgeons knew how to mimic the octopus’s natural tendency to blend into its surroundings, Hussein’s life would have been a lot easier, Krulwich said.

“Play is important to us,” said Krulwich of Radiolab’s style.

“We clearly don’t know what we are talking about,” he joked. The purpose of the show is to ask the questions that people want to ask of scientists but think are inappro-

priate or ignorant, he said.

“It’s really exciting to see stories put first in talking about science.

Radiolab has been a great leader of that,” said Casey Dunn, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.

“I really like the topics they discuss on Radiolab. There is definitely a science component,” said Asya Rahlin ’12, a biology concentrator.

In Krulwich’s words, Radiolab is not afraid to “take these scientists off the pedestal, to a certain degree.” When asked how he gets scientists to “play,” Krulwich replied that he and his co-host Jad Abumrad “make a mood that would be impolite to resist.”

According to Krulwich, the best way to present a science story is to empower listeners to make discoveries on their own. “If people are feeling smarter than you are, that’s exactly where you want them,” he said.

“We do not target people who love science, but we target people who love stories,” Krulwich said of his intended audience. “We do this for everyone,” he added.

Brown is “a good school for people who are willfully curious,” Krulwich told The Herald, adding that Brown students are selfmotivated and “able to search for things on their own.”

4 Campus News

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, February 24, 2011

UCS considers permanent e-mail addresses for alums

By David Chung Senior Staff Writer

Stephanie London / Herald

The Writing Center hopes to hire a specialist in English as a Second Language by July to help meet the needs of international students.

ESL specialist coming to Writing Center continued from page 3 lege preparation — and the International Mentoring Program to help new students transition to life at Brown.

Adwoa Hinson ’14, who is from Ghana, said she attended Excellence at Brown, where she received a writing fellow who has helped her considerably this year.

“It’s easier when you have someone there for you one-onone,” Hinson said.

Brown said he hopes to expand these programs through the addition of the ESL specialist.

“What I’m looking at doing next summer is working with (the Office of Student Life) to integrate an academic component to the IMP program. It’s really important that they get an introduction to academic culture,” he said.

Dean of the College Katherine

Bergeron said the new specialist will also be a resource for graduate students. “We have graduate students who need to undergo further training to improve their language skills when they are here as (teaching assistants),” she said.

TAs can use the Writing Center to improve their written English and can also take courses in spoken English through the Center for Language Studies.

With the addition of an ESL specialist, the language center hopes to increase collaboration with the Writing Center, said Barbara Gourlay, coordinator of the English for International Teaching Assistants Program.

Hiring a specialist is only the initial step in expanding resources for ESL students, said Jose Rodriguez ’12, a receptionist at the center whose first language is Spanish.

He recommended that, in addition to support through the Writing Center, the University establish an official undergraduate course for ESL learning. “No class is specifically tailored for ESL students,” Rodriguez said. “Brown is really lacking in that sense in terms of addressing the needs of ESL students.” Rodriguez said he felt compelled to take a summer course at Columbia, where there is an entire American Language Program that offers classes specifically for non-native students.

International students accepted to the University have a “sophisticated understanding of English,” Gourlay said. But true understanding requires much more than mastery of grammar and vocabulary. For example, students must know idiomatic expressions and the cultural assumptions behind them.

“We thought the position would have a nice home in the Writing Center,” Bergeron said. “It would give it a certain visibility, and there are lots of undergraduate needs that it would serve.”

The ESL specialist will also aim to help international students outside the classroom, Brown said.

“I very much want this person to play a prominent role on campus,” he said. “I want international students to be completely aware of who this person is and to feel comfortable turning to him or her.”

The Undergraduate Council of Students reviewed a proposed project to allow alums to maintain their Brown e-mail addresses, approved changes to its Student Activities Code of Operations and discussed the agendas of its constituent committees at its general body meeting Wednesday night.

Jake Heimark ’11, a fifth-year student who pushed for the University’s adoption of Gmail as a first-year, has been working with the Admissions and Student Services Committee, Computing and Information Services and Alumni Relations to establish a system under which students would have access to their Brown e-mail addresses indefinitely after graduation. Heimark said he believes that this change could allow alums to have a continued association with the University and that recent graduates, who may frequently change jobs but need to maintain a stable “personal, but professional” e-mail address, could especially benefit from the change.

Students and alums who share names will have different e-mail addresses, regardless of whether or not they are concurrently enrolled. “There doesn’t seem to be too many roadblocks,” Chris Collins ’11, chair of the Admissions and Student Services Committee, said. He said he hopes the project will be approved this semester and added that President Ruth Simmons has been notified about the initiative.

Heimark assured UCS members that he is in no way attempting to replace the alumni.brown. edu e-mail addresses available to alums but is trying to offer them an additional choice.

UCS also continued reviewing minor changes to its Code of

Operations made in response to the new student group application. Following a few additional suggestions by UCS members to clarify the code, the council approved the changes submitted by committee chair Ralanda Nelson ’12 and Anthony White ’13.

The Admissions and Student Services Committee plans to work with the Department of Facilities Management to improve satellite gyms across campus. Its current goals are to renovate the Bears Lair, garner increased funding to replace athletic equipment and shift the duty of cleaning gym equipment to regular University custodial staff. The University frequently repairs old, broken equipment and currently hires temporary outside staff to clean equipment, said Abhi Reddy ’13, a member of the committee.

Aaron Zick ’11 of the Campus Life Committee said he will continue efforts to improve Blue Room services and will meet with the manager to review issues regarding staffing and lines. The committee is also planning to work with the Office of Residential Life and Brown Dining Services to increase the number of garbage cans on campus as spring approaches.

The council as a whole is preparing for UCS elections and student appointments to University committees. UCS has already received applications for a student representative position on the University Resources Committee and will be reviewing them and conducting interviews in the coming days, UCS President Diane Mokoro ’11 said. A number of information sessions regarding positions on approximately 25 University committees will also be held throughout March, UCS Appointments Chair Michael Schneider ’13 said.

East Asian studies prof dies after illness continued from page 1 teaching Chinese, he said.

“The many students who were fortunate enough to have her as a teacher, and all who knew her

as a mentor, together benefited from her commitment to their success,” Smith wrote in a statement that Vohra e-mailed to the faculty yesterday. “We have lost a wonderful teacher and a good friend and miss her very much.”

Zhang first joined the department in 1988 as a teaching assistant and was later promoted to lecturer and then senior lecturer.

She coordinated Brown’s Chinese language program from 2002 to 2007 and received the University’s Harriet W. Sheridan Award for Distinguished Contribution to Teaching and Learning in 2007.

She also helped direct the summer program in Chinese at Middlebury College.

There will be private funeral services for Zhang, and plans for a campus memorial service will be announced “in due course,” according to a statement on the East Asian studies website.

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, February 24, 2011

Campus News 5

Student musicians connect with Israeli-Palestinian Orchestra

By Clare de Boer Staff Writer

The Cogut Center for the Humanities has teamed up with a group of Israeli and Palestinian musicians to create a summer institute in Berlin. A pilot program will send Brown students to the German capital this spring break to collaborate with musicians from Nazareth, Israel.

Brown has been developing a relationship with the group, the WestEastern Divan Orchestra, since its December 2006 visit to campus, according to Michael Steinberg, professor of history and music and director of the Cogut Center. That visit, which included a performance and discussions, led to an invitation to partner with the orchestra.

The University asked, “How can we make this a more ambitious program?” said Steinberg, who is spearheading the project in collaboration with Nabeel Abdullah Ashkar of the orchestra as well as the Daniel Barenboim Foundation in Berlin. He is in the process of developing a curriculum that focuses on educating through music.

The mission is “learning to hear” and to develop a “capacity for understanding people different from ourselves,” Steinberg said. “Everyone is converging to build something that is truly synthetic and original in its disciplinary connections.”

“Exactly what we’re studying?” said Dylan Nelson ’11. “That’s a good

Courtesy of Luis Castilla

The Cogut Center for the Humanities plans to send six Brown musicians to Berlin to pilot a collaboration with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.

question.”

“It’s about bringing people with diverse interests together — not necessarily with a scripted conversation — but to experiment with different forms of discussion and raise open questions in pursuit of knowledge that could then become a positive force for the world,” said Nelson, a Cogut fellow who has been involved in the planning of the project and was selected to participate in a pilot program during spring break.

Klaus Wowereit, the mayor of Berlin, offered to provide space to Daniel Barenboim, the orchestra’s conductor and co-founder, to use for a purpose “that embraces the values of democracy after the fall of the Berlin Wall,” Steinberg said. The building, which is located next to the Berlin State Opera House, is currently under renovation, and worldrenowned architect Frank Gehry has

made an “extremely exciting offer” to participate in the design of the building as a pro bono project, Steinberg said.

The orchestra, which according to its website is made up of an equal number of Israeli and Arab musicians, meets each summer in Seville for rehearsals, lectures and discussions, followed by an international concert tour.

The nascent program’s first session is scheduled to take place in the summer of 2013 or 2014, contingent on the renovation of the space. It will be staffed by Brown professors and involve around 40 students from the Middle East. A pilot program, running during this year’s spring break, will include six Brown students and six musicians from Nazareth.

Nelson said it is “unclear how the relationship with the students from Palestine will play out.” It is a “pretty

formidable” task to bring students of different ages and educational backgrounds together, he said, but “the general aim is to have an openness of discussion that would not necessitate rigorous academic thought.”

The program’s use of classical Western music has received some criticism, according to Henry Peck ’11, a leader of Brown’s Common Ground who will participate in the pilot program. But Peck added that the music provides a “clean tool” for dialogue. “I see classical music as a neutral medium with no particular resonance for either community,” Peck said.

Nelson also voiced support for the choice of medium. “To communicate globally, one must open oneself to global modes of communication, and at this point, classical music is that global means,” he said.

Steinberg has selected students

for the pilot who have interests in music, international relations and Middle Eastern studies, he said. He hopes that the students who attend the pilot will remain involved with the project at Brown.

Nelson said he is applying for an AT&T New Media Fellowship from the Watson Institute for International Studies to continue working with the orchestra in Nazareth this summer.

Peck said he intends to remain part of the initiative “possibly afterward in Europe, or from here,” he said.

The Cogut Center has received a gift to pay for the students to attend the pilot, Steinberg said, and the Daniel Barenboim Foundation has taken financial responsibility for the renovation of the space. The financial plan for the second phase — the program itself — has yet to be developed, he added.

Peck described the project as an “orchestra without borders” that is using “music as a language to redress mass injustice and connect communities that have historical disagreements.”

Nelson also said he saw significant potential for the project. “By bringing together people on the ground with scholars, this project could integrate different forms of knowledge into a meaningful message for the world,” he said.

Steinberg called the initiative a “real education project.”

“It’s very Brown, it’s very original, it’s very interdisciplinary,” he said.

6 City & State Ne ws in brief Student robbed at Brown and Barnes The Department of Public Safety e-mailed a crime alert to the campus community at 7:59 p.m. last night regarding the robbery of a male student. According to the alert, the robbery took place near the intersection of Barnes and Brown streets around 1 p.m. yesterday.

The alert notified students and employees that the victim was struck from behind before his tablet computer was taken. The alert described the suspects as three “unidentified black males,” all between 15 and 17 years old.

According to the e-mail, two of the suspects fled north on Brown St. and the third ran east on Barnes St. after the incident.

DPS Sgt. Bob Mackisey told The Herald that the Providence Police Department informed DPS of the robbery.

— Jake Comer

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, February 24, 2011

Career anxieties spark double concentrations continued from page 1 cation.

“A liberal arts education prepares a person to live in this world.

To think, write, read and critically evaluate … is exceptionally valuable,” said Gale Nelson AM’88, assistant director of the literary arts program and the concentration adviser for the literary arts program.

In September 2007, the English department conducted a survey to find out what careers alums who had concentrated in English were pursuing. The results were then posted on the department website.

The survey was “a way of answering a question often posed in many departments — ‘What am I going to do with X major?’” said Coppelia Kahn, professor of English. “The answer is really ‘anything you want.’”

Several departments and universities have conducted similar studies in recent years, Kahn said.

“It definitely made me feel more confident,” said Yuli Zhu ’12, an English and neuroscience concentrator. She said she felt reassured seeing that English concentrators had gone on to careers in science and medicine.

“I think there is a practicality

in anything you choose to major in — it’s up to the individual to find what that is,” she said .

Last semester, the comparative literature department also posted information on its website showcasing past concentrators and their career paths. The project was not intended to attract more concentrators, but instead to inform current ones, said Stephanie Merrim, professor of comparative literature and the department’s primary concentration adviser. The project was in part a response to a November 2010 Herald editorial suggesting that all departments follow the English department’s lead and provide first-hand accounts from past concentrators.

“I’m not particularly worried because our concentration is robust this year,” Merrim said. “It’s a very Brown kind of concentration, with a lot of latitude. … It prepares you well for the economic times because it prepares you broadly.”

To illustrate the practical applications of a literary arts degree, the literary arts program also holds panels on small press publishing, Nelson said. Many students who concentrate in literary arts take on second concentrations or take

Percentage of B.A.s granted in humanities nationwide 1966-2007

Number of humanities concentrations completed at Brown 2001-2010

Gili Kliger and Julien Ouellet / Herald

clusters of classes in other areas, he said. Concentrators then go on to graduate school for related study or go into publishing and writing, he said, adding that one recent alum is now a writer for the New York Times.

“Brown attracts the type of student who resists equating what they’re studying to a job,” said Joseph Pucci, associate professor of classics and the department’s concentration adviser. “That doesn’t mean they’re not thinking about it, but there doesn’t always have to be a correlation.”

He said that the majority of classics concentrators go to medical school, law school or graduate school after graduation, though some get jobs in finance, teaching and even airline piloting or comedy writing.

“There are some students that are hesitant, and almost always it is a discussion driven by their parents,” Pucci said, adding that he advises students to take classics as a second concentration if they are concerned about career paths.

For love or money

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Natan Last ’12, who creates crosswords for The Herald, said he decided to concentrate in economics in addition to literary arts, to “pragmatically pad (his) resume” and to “learn something useful and appear hirable.”

“I asked my friends, ‘If money wasn’t an issue, what would you major in?’ and many said, ‘History,’” he said. “But the hard truth is it’s not going to get you a job.”

Last said students should take advantage of the curriculum and

concentrate in something practical while also taking interesting classes in other areas.

“If you decide your concentration early on, there is a lot of room to try new things,” he said.

Last is not the only student hedging his bets by double-concentrating.

“I love English so much, but I wasn’t sure what a career in that meant. Becoming a professor or writing books seemed scary and tentative,” said Catherine McMarthy ’12, who is pursuing a double degree in English and psychology.

She added that many of her friends in the humanities took up second concentrations in subjects like economics and were interested in finding financial internships for the summer. The number of economics concentrators has nearly doubled since 2001, from 96 to 180.

“It’s far more important to take demanding subjects,” said Mary Gluck, professor of history and a concentration adviser. The University categorizes history as a social science. Some other schools, such as Yale, consider it part of the humanities.

Gluck said she recognizes career anxiety on campus, but feels that a liberal education and the “intellectual perspective” it provides are invaluable for any career.

Despite career anxieties, many students recognize the value of concentrations in the humanities.

“You’re going to be best at doing what you’re most passionate about,” said Jacob Combs ’11, leader of the English DUG. “There’s so much of life you can’t measure in disposable income.”

City & State 7

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, February 24, 2011

R.I. Republican Party to select new chairman next month

By Amy Rasmussen Senior Staff Writer

Four months out from the November elections, state Republicans have turned their attention to the party’s future in Rhode Island. After four years under the leadership of Giovanni Cicione, the party will pick a new chairman next month, and speculation has begun about potential challengers to Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in 2012.

The Rhode Island Republican Party will hold its biannual elections March 19 for five leadership positions. Kenneth McKay, a former chief of staff to Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, and Patrick Sweeney, the former deputy campaign manger for Republican John Loughlin’s failed congressional bid, are the two candidates vying for the chairmanship.

McKay resigned last April following a high-profile controversy over a $1,900 outing to a California lesbian bondage-themed nightclub attended by young Republican donors. The outing was billed to the RNC. He did not authorize the reimbursement of the expense.

McKay’s resignation will reflect positively him as a candidate, because he accepted responsibility for a scandal in which he was not officially involved, Cicione said.

Cicione, who has filled the unpaid position since 2007, said he is stepping down to spend more time on his law practice and with his family. As chairman, Cicione spearheaded the 2010 Clean Slate initiative ­­— a push to elect a group of Moderate, independent and Republican candidates to the Democrat-dominated General Assembly.

The chairman will be selected by more than 300 elected officials and delegates from around the state.

One of the party leader’s first challenges will be to address the GOP’s dire financial situation. According to Cicione, there was roughly $5,000 in the Republican Party’s bank account when he first took office. The GOP now has only “a few thousand” in its account, he said.

“Fundraising is always the number one priority — we spent all of our money and more at the last election,” he said. “It’s going to be a hard start.” Cicione said he plans to make himself available to the new chairman in the hopes of “a smoother transition.”

Sweeney said he realizes fundraising has to be “an immediate thing.” Until sufficient funding is available, “you’re spinning your wheels,” he said.

But McKay is “better positioned” to raise the funds that the party desperately needs as it heads into the next election cycle, said Victor Profughi, Rhode Island College professor emeritus of political science and director of the polling firm Quest Research. McKay is “coming into this run as a seasoned veteran,” he said.

Formally trained as a lawyer, McKay served as former Gov. Donald Carcieri’s ’65 chief of staff through two successful election cycles and worked as a campaign consultant for Florida Gov. Rick Scott. He also brings experience on the national level — from 2007 to 2010, he served as chief of staff to Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.

Setting priorities

McKay, who has recently been making the rounds on local radio talk shows, was direct with his priorities when speaking with WPRO’s Dan Towne. “I’m into campaigning, and I want to see more Republicans get elected,” he said.

Sweeney, 14 years McKay’s junior, said though he lacks national experience, his drive to successfully reorganize the party is just as strong.

“Our resumes are pretty similar,” he said. Besides his experience as the deputy manager of Loughlin’s campaign, Sweeney is also a practicing attorney and has served as an aide to Carcieri.

“Winning races is my number one priority,” Sweeney said. “It’s the sole reason for running.”

One important advantage Sweeney has over McKay is his close as-

sociation with the Rhode Island Young Republicans. He serves on the group’s board, and “that potential base is a strength for him,” Profughi said.

Travis Rowley ’02, the Young Republicans chair, endorsed the young lawyer as the group’s preferred candidate in early December.

Sweeney’s recent accomplishments with the Young Republicans include helping elect Christopher Ramsden to the Barrington School Committee in early January.

Republicans now control the board three to two, which Sweeney said has not happened since 1972.

“We put our money where our mouth is,” he said.

A ‘stealth movement’

Sweeney said he plans to accomplish Cicione’s 10-year goal of gaining a Republican majority in the General Assembly in just six years.

He wants to immediately double the GOP’s representation in the state legislature, which currently stands at 10 seats in the House and eight seats in the Senate. Among Sweeney’s first targets would be General Assembly races the party lost by less than five points and the 20 contests that did not have a Republican challenger in the last election, he said.

McKay, who did not respond to requests for comment, expressed his confidence that the Republican Party could eventually gain a majority in Rhode Island in a recent interview

on former Mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci Jr.’s talk radio show.

“I think it can be changed or I wouldn’t do it,” he said.

Though the candidates may speak of grand plans to counter the long-standing Democratic majority, Profughi said the current number of General Assembly seats held by the Republican Party speaks for itself.

Republicans hold no statewide elected offices. Democrats occupy 29 of 38 Senate seats and 65 of 75 seats in the House.

“If they have some kind of a stealth movement going,” Profughi said, “then those that are part of the movement don’t know about it.”

One of the most important priorities of the incoming chairman will be to rebuild the credibility of the party. Thus far, “it has not been seen as a very viable alternative to the Democratic majority,” Profughi said.

Still, if the Republican Party works to “shore up its grassroots efforts in various communities across the state,” there are certainly “populations that could conceivably be receptive to an alternative” he said.

In Cranston, Republicans gained three council seats and retained the mayor’s office in the November elections. Cranston and Warwick are examples of communities the new chairman might effectively target, Profughi said.

Challenging Whitehouse

Potential Republican challengers

to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse in 2012 have already been considered. The race is of critical importance to the state GOP as it hopes to increase its national prominance.

While both Sweeney and Profughi agree that it is too early to speculate credibly on the 2012 race, Carcieri, Cicione, Superintendant of the Rhode Island State Police Col. Brendan Doherty and Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian have been suggested as potential candidates.

Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, whose name also surfaced as a possible challenger, recently told WPRI that he is not considering a run in 2012, citing the sheer expense of the proposed campaign without the support of national Republicans.

“Unless the national Republican Party plunks down $5 million, it’s going to be a very expensive race,” he said.

As of this month, Cicione said he has made no plans to run for office. Carcieri, who recently finished two terms as governor, has publicly announced his intentions to spend more time with his wife in Florida.

He has not discounted a 2012 Senate bid.

Profughi said Whitehouse has taken a step in the right direction by increasing his visibility. “He’s out there, and he’s going to have a good war chest,” Profughi said of the junior senator’s current fundraising efforts. “He’s doing what he needs to be doing.”

8 City & State

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, February 24, 2011

Med school reprograms for health care reform

By Kat Thornton Senior Staff Writer

Provisions of federal health care reform have begun to take effect in Rhode Island, and the University is adjusting to the changes.

The Alpert Medical School is changing the way it teaches future doctors, encouraging students to pursue primary care and focusing its curriculum on patient interaction, said Edward Wing, dean of medicine and biological sciences.

Administrators have also imposed important changes to University-provided health care for students and employees.

Learning to care

Because federal health care reform now requires all individuals to carry health insurance, officials expect demand for primary care to increase. A resulting shortage of primary care doctors could have a detrimental effect on the system.

And because radiologists and sur-

geons earn more than three times as much as primary care physicians on average, doctors have been disincentivized to pursue primary care, Wing said.

In response, the Med School is attempting to combat this shift away from primary care by offering programs that encourage patient interaction. Thanks to a recent grant, students in the school’s primary care department can now spend one afternoon per week in a doctor’s office, Wing said. “For the first time now, doctors are teaching the students,” he said. In addition, the Med School now requires students to practice “doctoring” — interacting with patients in a doctors office setting — all four years, said Jeffrey Borkan, professor of family medicine and chair of the family medicine department.

Borkan said the Med School, like any educational institution, has to be responsive to changes in society. A common complaint is that medicine is taught “in a vacuum,” devoid of real-world experience, he said. The

school will now place more emphasis on learning bedside manner, working in teams and using electronic health records, he said.

“Curricular reform is an ongoing process,” he said. “All education should respond to changes in society.”

Though the University cannot solve the salary gap between primary care doctors and higher paying medical professions, Wing said, health care reform does authorize a 10 percent increase in Medicare funds paid to primary care doctors.

University care

In addition to seeking more funding for graduate medical education, the University has lobbied for provisions related to student health insurance plans, wrote Marisa Quinn, vice president of public affairs and University relations, in an e-mail to The Herald. “We continue to monitor the rules and regulations issued related to student health insurance,” Quinn wrote.

Jeanne Hebert, director of the insurance and risk office, said there have already been a few important changes to student health care in response to the federal health care legislation.

Provisions of the law that eliminate limits on “essential benefits,” put caps on prescription coverage and the amount insurance companies will pay for care during a patient’s lifetime and stipulate denials of coverage for pre-existing conditions and patient co-pay for preventive care will have the most impact on institutions of higher education, she said.

Hebert said the University will not have to change its policies significantly because student health insurance is already better than at most universities.

Premiums for students will increase initially but will stabilize in a few years, she said.

The University also recently changed the employee health care coverage in response to federal reform.

Drew Murphy, director of benefits for the human resources department, said the University extended coverage for children of employees up to age 26 and eliminated the requirement that covered children be students. The University now covers an additional 100 children, he said.

Over-the-counter medication, unless prescribed by a doctor, can no longer be purchased with a taxexempt flexible spending account, driving up costs for some employees, Murphy said.

It is difficult to know how the new health care mandates will affect University hiring, Murphy said.

Because the law caps the amount an employer can charge employees for health insurance premiums, businesses may be incentivized to hire wealthier employees.

“Employees need to become part of the solution to keep health care costs low,” he said, adding that he wants to encourage frequent checkups for employees, as they cost far less than emergency room visits.

Hearing examines public school curriculum Climate commission to continued from page 12 parent-teacher conferences or attend a conference requested by a parent.

Zurier also noted that the city may be out of compliance with the minimum school day length mandated by the state. In 2008, the state required that all secondary school teachers have one to two hours per week of planning time. The current contract does not allow the district to extend the teacher work day. Instead, students are now sent home early on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Despite the report’s discouraging findings, the meeting also contained a note of optimism. Com-

mittee members recognized that many Providence teachers went above and beyond the requirements and mentioned two “ideal” teacher contracts — in the New Haven, Conn. and ABC United districts in California — ­ that could serve as models for Providence.

Councilwoman Sabina Matos ­— who is not on the subcommittee — attended the hearing because her children are entering public school.

“Right now, I believe (my son) is going to get a better education at a charter school in Pawtucket than right here in his own neighborhood,” she told The Herald. “What happened here today is a piece of the puzzle. We also need to look at

curriculum and administration.”

Zurier reminded the committee that the union has in the past expressed the need to improve teacher quality and eliminate the seniority-based assignment system.

“Maybe this will finally be the year that these noble sentiments will provide tangible changes,” he said.

The next hearing will be March 2 at 4:30 p.m. at City Hall. Matthew Clarkin, Providence’s internal auditor and former chief financial officer of the school department, will discuss how to increase teacher salaries without increasing the overall cost of the contract.

hire organizational staffer continued from page 12 addressing a number of topics, including planting more trees in Providence and the development of plans that would more successfully evaluate the impact of natural disasters.

The commission has yet to settle on a specific direction, Roberts said.

“It’s taken much longer than I expected already,” he added. “We have to come up with some way to move this thing forward.” The grant, awarded in December, provides enough funding for one year.

According to Roberts, the group applied to several organizations for outside funding, but no one else has

“jumped” to fund them.

The grant will allow the commission to hire a staffer who will, among other things, “help people know what they’re supposed to do and gather the information that the commission needs,” Roberts said.

“The students have done a lot of research,” he added. “We’ve got a lot we can give this commission.”

The Medical School was awarded $87,631 for “promoting primary careers” in Rhode Island, an area in which the Rhode Island Foundation has chosen to enhance their funding.

Representatives from the Medical School declined to provide further details on the implications of the award until publication of their own press release.

City & State 9

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, February 24, 2011

Chafee to review bill for Police called to nightclub altercation undocumented students continued from page 1

continued from page 12 documented students,” she added.

Stalled impetus for national immigration reform has triggered more state-level legislation. Ten states currently have legislation granting in-state tuition rates to undocumented students.

The federal Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, which would have granted a path to citizenship for undocumented students who came to the United States before the age of 16, was defeated in December. Experts say larger immigration reform remains unlikely.

“The DREAM Act was the only hope for these students,” said Pichardo, who added that he has introduced a bill to grant in-state tuition to undocumented students for the past nine years.

Both he and Diaz were born in the Dominican Republic and have advocated for immigrant rights. “We must not let up on our struggle,” Pichardo said.

Advocates are optimistic that

Gov. Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14 will be more supportive than former Gov. Donald Carcieri ’65, whose 2008 executive order to combat illegal immigration was heavily criticized by immigrant rights groups. Chafee, who has stated that he is in favor of the DREAM Act, repealed the executive order last month.

Chafee approves of the “underlying concepts” of the Student Equal Economic Opportunity Act legislation, said Michael Trainor, director of communications for the governor. But Chafee wants to review the bill’s specifics before making a statement, he said.

A public hearing to discuss the bill should occur within six to eight weeks, according to Diaz.

In the meantime, undocumented Albizures divides his time between working as a soccer coach, mentoring urban youth and advocating for undocumented students.

“I’m very hopeful,” he said. “I’m going to keep fighting to get my education.”

One of the bouncers then seized Smallwood in a headlock, Lisiewski said.

“I was told I was dancing too femininely,” Smallwood said. He said the bouncer dragged him through the room and down the stairs to the first floor. In response, Quinn said he asked the bouncer to “please let go of my friend.” According to Quinn and Lisiewski, a second bouncer then also grabbed Quinn by the neck.

Smallwood said he was “basically screaming to let me go.” The bouncer threw Smallwood out of the club, and he walked directly back to his suite on Vartan Gregorian Quad, he said.

Lisiewski said the second bouncer “took (Quinn) to the ground” before dragging him down the stairs.

Quinn said he told the bouncer, “I can’t breathe,” as he began to lose vision, at which point a bouncer said, “Put him to sleep.” Quinn has visible bruises from the bouncer’s

grip on his neck.

Lisiewski said after Smallwood and Quinn were taken away, he asked the bouncers why they had thrown out his friends. He said the bouncers told him that Smallwood and Quinn had been “giving them the finger and mouthing off.” But “neither of them were doing that at all,” Lisiewski said. “They were just dancing.”

comics BB & Z | Cole Pruitt, Andrew Seiden, Valerie Hsiung and Dan Ricker

Cloud Buddies| David Emanuel

Dr. Bear | Mat Becker

Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline

— With additional reporting by Herald staff

10 Editorial Editorial

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, February 24, 2011

Editorial comic

b y a l e x y u ly

End prohibition The coming weeks could bring big changes to Rhode Island’s marijuana policy. Not only are state Sen. Joshua Miller, D-Cranston, and Rep. John Edwards, D-Tiverton and Portsmouth, pushing to decriminalize possession of up to one ounce of pot, but the state Department of Health will soon select up to three applicants to open medical marijuana dispensaries. This announcement will begin the state’s transition to a medical marijuana system more like California’s.

We supported decriminalization efforts last spring, and we encourage lawmakers to pass Miller’s and Edwards’ bills. As we wrote last year, decriminalization will reduce expenditures on enforcement — Edwards estimates $1 to $4 million in savings, while Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron predicts savings could exceed $10 million — and also allow the criminal justice system to spend more time dealing with greater threats to public safety than someone lighting up a joint.

We agree with Edwards that another important reason for decriminalization is the adverse impact criminal penalties can have on youth.

It cannot be argued that experimentation with drugs precludes success later in life — see our current president — but a criminal record can significantly hamper a young person’s aspirations. We must stop saddling people with impediments to success for possessing a drug that many agree is less harmful than tobacco and alcohol.

The state will also benefit from replacing the current medical marijuana structure with one utilizing dispensaries. Currently, those granted the right to use medical marijuana can grow it themselves or buy from a licensed “caregiver.” But it can be difficult for patients to find reliable caregivers, some of whom use a medicinal front to grow more plants for illegal sale. And even legal operations make prime targets for robbery, putting citizens at risk.

If a bill introduced by Rep. John Carnevale, D-Providence and Johnston, passes, only dispensaries will distribute medicinal marijuana by 2013. Replacing over 2,000 caregivers with a handful of dispensaries will make it easier for the state to prevent crime and abuse and ensure standards of service. But we are concerned with a portion of Carnevale’s bill that would put state police instead of the Department of Health in charge of “inspections and records reviews.” Patients who are entitled to medicinal marijuana under state law should not have to encounter police at a dispensary — particularly since marijuana possession would remain a federal felony — just as we do not run into cops at a pharmacy.

It is disappointing that few public officials are suggesting that the state go further and legalize marijuana. Legalization is more radical than decriminalization, but given Miron’s estimate that the state could save upwards of $40 million by doing so, we believe the option should at least receive more serious debate. Miller told the editorial page board that legalization is neither politically realistic nor viable given federal law prohibiting marijuana. But opponents of legalization and federal officials will not be persuaded to reconsider without any proposals on the table.

Nevertheless, decriminalization and dispensaries would constitute important progress. Besides the practical benefits these measures promise, they could help reduce the stigma surrounding marijuana that stifles open debate on more ambitious ideas like legalization. We allow adults to responsibly use tobacco and alcohol. Marijuana, which is no more dangerous, should be treated similarly.

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

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quote of the day

“Brown attracts the type of student who resists

”

equating what they’re studying to a job.

— Joseph Pucci, associate professor of classics, see humanities on page 1 C O R R E C T I O N S P olicy The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.

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

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Opinions 11

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, February 24, 2011

Time to tame tuition Ethan Tobias Opinions Columnist Funding a Brown education is already hard, and it isn’t getting any easier. The Corporation just accepted a 3.5 percent increase in tuition for the next academic year, raising total undergraduate tuition and fees to a voluminous $53,136. And that’s only for next year. Given the Corporation’s past increases in tuition, it is sure to continue going up. How high it will go is impossible to know, as the University reserves the right to increase tuition on current students and even students on study abroad programs.

The expense created by continually raising tuition is not insignificant. It especially hurts students whose current finances are sound but whose financial outlook is uncertain. Given the economic turmoil of the past three years and the impending fights over budgets around this country in the next few months, this is precisely the wrong time to increase the burden on students.

President Obama froze the salaries of government employees for the next two years, which means that while the tuition of the children of government employees will increase, their salaries will not. And with the looming showdown over the federal budget deficit and the threat of a government shutdown, families that rely on government subsidies — Social Security,

unemployment, federal grants — or government salaries, could suddenly be out of luck.

The children of state employees, including the sons and daughters of millions of teachers, are in equally dire straits. Governors around the country are threatening not only to slash budgets and lay off teachers, but limit collective bargaining, which means weakening the ability of teachers to negotiate future higher wages for themselves. This is a crisis and it will mean more

when he thought the tuition was only an outstanding $51,339. If tuition were to keep rising at the same rate, by senior year that imaginary student could be paying almost $59,000.

A future Brown student might have some money saved up in bonds, certificates of deposits or in stocks. At today’s dismal rates — Bank of America features one year certificates of deposit accruing 0.60 percent annual interest — a student whose family has been saving for college

Fortunately for all those hardworking middle-class families that had been saving every nickel to fund an elite education, there is a much better investment — take an elaborate and expensive vacation and maybe buy a car while you’re at it. middle-class families will struggle to make ends meet for years to come.

Everyone at Brown surely knows someone who will undoubtedly be affected by the onslaught of cuts. While it is too soon to know who will get laid off, whose salaries will be frozen or reduced and who might survive unscathed, one thing is for certain for these families — tuition goes up while income stagnates at best.

And the pain of tuition hikes is not limited to current students. A recently accepted early decision applicant is already locked in for the coming academic year, despite the fact that he pledged to Brown

since birth will find that tuitions are steadily becoming less affordable.

Even the stock market is not such a good bet. Despite months of growth, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is only back to where it was in January of 2007. That means that the average rate of return on stocks for the past four years has been nil.

Meanwhile, Brown tuition in 2007 was $43,754, almost $10,000 less than it will be next year.

Fortunately for all those hardworking middle-class families that have been saving every nickel to fund an elite education, there is a much better investment — take

an elaborate and expensive vacation and maybe buy a car while you’re at it. Flush away any hint of having money in the bank and Brown will be forced to subsidize your tuition bill with financial aid. A family that makes under $100,000 a year will not have any loan component of a financial aid package, and can expect to get a big discount of over half the cost of tuition.

It is this dichotomy of rising tuitions compounded by rising financial aid packages to offset the increased tuition that is eating away at the old middle-class standbys of college trust funds and savings accounts. It no longer makes sense to save for college when you’re a family making under $100,000 a year because any extra assets will be accounted for in the formula of financial aid.

The University must face the fact that it is raising tuitions on families precisely at a time when their economic futures are least certain. It is increasing a major expense while salaries are barely budging. And it is putting in place a perverse set of incentives that could discourage families from saving for college. A Brown education is becoming increasingly inaccessible to a middle class that does not qualify for substantial financial aid, and yet does not really have the money to afford Brown’s exorbitant tuition.

Ethan Tobias ’12 wonders what happened to all the savings from last year’s budget cuts and layoffs. He can be reached at Ethan_Tobias@brown.edu

Energy, ingenuity and arch supports

By Stephen Wicken Opinions Columnist You, dear readers, are a tough lot to keep up with.

Perhaps I ought to clarify. After an absurdly long time as university students, my Graduate School classmates and I are starting to have to think seriously about re-entering the outside world. Once upon a time, it would have been likely that we’d all be jumping to grasp the bottom rung of the academic ladder. Once upon a moredistant time, we might even have hoped to get hold of it.

Today, however, the academic job market in the humanities is much like Iwo Jima, Will Ferrell’s post-Saturday Night Live career or Thayer Street late on a Friday night — a cruel and desolate wasteland littered with the corpses of hopes and dreams. Each year, thousands of qualified candidates emerge blinking from a decade of misery and malnutrition to find that there are, on average, three full-time jobs for which they can apply.

Those earnest souls who genuinely cannot countenance a career outside higher education bolster their curricula vitae with teaching experience by adjuncting at each of the six closest colleges for a pittance per class. I dimly remember friends having hit the tenure-track jackpot — or tenure-trackpot, if you will (which you shouldn’t) — straight out of graduate school, but they have immediately disap-

peared under a cloud, leaving my Gmail contacts, like rational people in Arizona, a little fewer and further between with the passing years.

One of the few comforting aspects of the academic job track is that there is an established set of criteria by which one is judged, much as in law or medicine. Publications and conference papers, teaching experience, a good dissertation — these are the basics from which everyone works.

Outside of such regimented professions, however, is a whole world of projects and experiences. After a decade spent in aca-

held positions in student associations and conducted research in multiple countries.

A friend and I once hitch-hiked from England to Morocco wearing blond mullet wigs, and despite a night spent in a bus stop outside a French, ahem, gentlemen’s club, we arrived physically unharmed — a crowning achievement, I’m sure you’ll agree.

But next to you, dear, intimidating readers, I feel like something of a waste of space. By the time you graduate, most of you have worked for members of Congress, hosted radio shows or studied in

I suspect that one or two of you enjoy the occasional malt beverage, but honestly I can’t see where you find the time.

demic blinders, like a particularly bumbling horse, I must confess that it is here that you lot have me worried.

Despite having been a university student since the turn of the millennium, I prefer to think that I haven’t been completely wasting my time. In addition to picking up degrees, I’ve worked as a teaching assistant, written for and edited newspapers, organized conferences and edited book manuscripts. I’ve won fellowships,

Tajikistan. At an age when my immediate ambition was to captain the college cricket team, you start nonprofit organizations, write books and intern on Wall Street.

You wrap your minds around languages, philosophies and computer codes while throwing yourselves into political parties and protests. I suspect that one or two of you enjoy the occasional malt beverage, but honestly I can’t see where you find the time.

The prevailing stereotype of the university student in my native Britain is that of a feckless layabout in a dressing gown, watching daytime television and eating breakfast cereal between sessions of excessive drinking. In France, the caricature is of a perpetually smoking, black-clad waif, cycling jauntily between cafes and revolutions with a scarf flapping poetically in the breeze. Such typecasting inevitably is sloppy: Let me expose immediately one glaring inaccuracy when I say that my classmates and I ate more toast than cereal.

The popular picture of the Brown student — a Converse-shod, skateboard-toting, interpretive-dancing hippie — might have a kernel of truth to it. It is your privilege, as young, healthy beings, not to need the arch support so lacking in trendy footwear, however much you may live to regret it. Even so, your energy and ingenuity sometimes genuinely shock me, something I didn’t think was possible once I became accustomed to my dog eating his own waste. I realize that as a group you’re not in desperate need of a boost of collective self-confidence, but I find the prospect of bumping into you out there in the desperate hunt for jobs genuinely frightening.

One piece of advice, however: Get yourselves some orthotics. You’ll thank me in 10 years.

Stephen Wicken GS, a fifth-year doctoral candidate in the Department of History, has only been likened to “a particularly bumbling horse” three times prior to this column. He can be reached at stephen_wicken@brown.edu.

Daily Herald City & State the Brown

Thursday, February 24, 2011

I ’ v e g ot s o u l ( f o o d )

R.I. Foundation awards three grants to U. By amy rasmussen Senior Staff Writer

Talia Kagan / Herald

Students sampled the peach cobbler, collard greens and musical stylings of Lil’ Wayne at last night’s Soul Night at the Ratty, part of Black Heritage Month.

The Rhode Island Foundation recently awarded the University three strategy grants, ranging from $25,000 to $87,631. The grants will be allocated to the Department of Education, the Center for Environmental Studies and the Alpert Medical School.

The foundation has invested more than $245 million in Rhode Island organizations over the past 10 years and awarded an unprecedented $29.2 million in 2010, according to its website. Its grants provide funding for Rhode Island organizations dedicated to arts and culture, economic and community development, education, health, environment and human services.

One award, worth $40,000, will provide funds for the education department to hire research assistants to aid in a study of Rhode Island charter schools, said Kenneth Wong, professor of education and chair of the department.

Deborah Gist, commissioner of elementary and secondary education, approached Wong in 2009 with a request for a comprehensive study of the charter school system in the

state, he said. Since that meeting, his team has been working to design a study that is “relevant to the current debate going on in the state right now.”

The charter school system is currently a point of contention in Rhode Island political and educational circles. In recent years, Gist has pressed for rapid expansion of the system, but Gov. Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14 has announced his intentions to take a “thoughtful pause” to better assess the advantages and disadvantages of the system. Wong said he hopes his study will provide some of the data necessary to make a more careful judgment on charter schools.

The department’s study is a collaboration between the Rhode Island League of Charter Schools, the Rhode Island Department of Education and Brown researchers.

Wong’s team has been working with the league of charter schools to standardize its lottery admissions process, which will take place March 1.

Starting next month, the study will follow the New England Common Assessment Program scores of all students who apply to Rhode Island charter schools — whether

they matriculate or not — for the fall of 2011, Wong said.

Test performance data will be available by the end of the calendar year, and Wong said he hopes to share the findings with Gist and the charter schools by Feb. 1, 2012.

Wong praised the foundation for “addressing some of the challenging issues” across the state. “Education is a priority for the foundation,” he said. “They were delighted to support the project.”

The foundation also awarded $25,000 for the Rhode Island Climate Change Commission, which will work closely with the Brown Center for Environmental Studies.

The commission was established last fall to address the effects of climate change in response to legislation initiated by graduate students in the Center for Environmental Studies, which was passed last June.

The center applied for the grant after realizing “there was no money in the state budget,” said J. Timmons Roberts, director of the center and professor of sociology and environmental studies.

The commission has proposed continued on page 8

Hearings address Prov. teacher contracts Bill aims to grant in-state

By Katherine Long Staff Writer

At a Providence City Council hearing Tuesday night, Amit Jain ’12 presented chart after chart ranking Providence among the worst school districts in Rhode Island.

He aimed to provide ideas to improve the Providence Teachers Union contract, which will expire in August.

The contract hearings are unprecedented — the city council does not normally involve itself in contract negotiations with the union. Councilman and former Providence School Board member Sam Zurier, who organized the hearings, said they are intended to “get out of the comfort zone of incremental change.”

Tuesday’s hearing was the second of a series of four held by the subcommittee on finance and education. It fell on the same day all Providence teachers were issued dismissal notices alerting them that their jobs could be in jeopardy.

When approached by a Providence teacher at the hearing, Zurier said he was not aware of the notices. But he said the move likely gives the school district maximum flexibility in laying off teachers. The school board will hold a meeting today for teachers to voice their concerns.

The subcommittee’s first meeting was Feb. 17. Providence Teachers Union President Steven Smith, Superintendent Tom Brady and School Board President Kathleen Crain were invited to answer questions about the strengths and weaknesses of the current contract and to reflect on what they wanted to see in the new contract. Smith was the only one of the three to

attend the Feb. 17 hearing — Brady and Crain were in Denver for a conference on labor management.

Smith, who did not attend Tuesday’s hearing, has expressed concern that asking negotiating parties to come up with a “wish list” for the new contract would lead to adversarial talks in which opposing sides are more concerned with their demands than with student performance. The Providence Teachers Union and school board have been noted for their unusually collaborative system of collective bargaining, according to the Providence Journal.

At the start of the hearing, Zurier emphasized cooperation in finding solutions for Providence’s ailing school system. No negotiations will take place in public, he said.

“The council is trying to bargain so that more people are satisfied,” Zurier told The Herald. He pointed to the ineffectiveness of last year’s state mandate that all teacher assignments be issued without regard for seniority as an example of the importance of bargaining. The Providence Teachers Union sued the city for enforcing the mandate, which they argued violated their contract.

The terms of the contract directly affect the quality of education in Providence. The current contract stipulates a system giving senior teachers an advantage in hiring and firing, the process for evaluating teacher performance and the practice of bumping.

If one teaching position becomes available, teachers across the district are shuffled — or bumped — to ensure that the most senior teachers hold the prime jobs, Zurier told The Herald. Bumping can lead to a cascade

of layoffs.

“If you choose to remove a French teacher at Mt. Pleasant, teaching assignments all the way down to the elementary school level can be disrupted,” he said.

“This means serious discontinuities in students’ educations.”

Evaluating and retraining teachers is tied to teacher assignment.

“How can we take poor teachers out of the system if there’s a seniority-based system?” Zurier said. “Who gets laid off?”

The city also faced a $57 million deficit last year, and the school district is confronting a $40 million shortfall for the coming academic year. This does not necessarily mean teachers will lose the modest salary increases they gained in the last contract negotiated in 2007, Zurier said.

“We’re going to study how to increase teacher salaries by cutting costs on other things in the contract,” Zurier said. In return, the city could seek higher contributions to health and pension plans from teachers, Zurier said.

Part of that process began Tuesday night. Jain, an intern for Zurier, examined teacher contracts in 36 school districts across Rhode Island, including Providence, and compared their provisions.

The Providence Public School Department placed in the bottom third in all categories of the assessment. At 181 days, the district has the shortest work year in the state. Teacher salaries rank 27 out of 32, according to Jain’s analysis.

Providence teachers are required to show up five minutes before class and leave five minutes after, and have no requirement to give continued on page 8

tuition to illegal students

By Alexandra ulmer Staff Writer

Antonio Albizures and his family left Guatemala in 1992, illegally crossing the Mexican-American border by foot and ultimately settling in Rhode Island. He graduated a member of Blackstone Academy Charter School’s class of 2009 and nursed the desire to pursue political science and sociology at the University of Rhode Island. But as an undocumented student, he would have been charged $25,720 in annual tuition — roughly three times the rate for state residents.

“It was basically impossible for me to go there,” said Albizures, though he said he could afford instate tuition. “I didn’t even apply…

And this is the state I call home.”

Albizures is a member of the Brown Immigrants’ Rights Coalition. Along with hundreds of other undocumented students in Rhode Island, he is keenly monitoring the progress of a bill introduced this month that aims to grant in-state tuition regardless of immigration status.

If the Student Equal Economic Opportunity Act passes, undocumented immigrants who attended a Rhode Island high school for at least three years and can prove they are in the process of changing or planning to change their immigration status will be eligible for in-state tuition.

“Many of them are brilliant, but when they don’t see an opportunity, they get discouraged,” said State Rep. Grace Diaz, DProvidence, who introduced the bill with State Sen. Juan Pichardo, D-Providence. “Instead of sitting

down and waiting for immigration reform, we’re moving ahead,” she added. “Education is always something good.”

According to Rhode Island Kids Count, a children’s advocacy group, 130 undocumented students stand to benefit annually if the bill is passed.

Taxpayers would not shoulder any financial burden, as undocumented students would pay their own tuition and remain ineligible for federal aid, Diaz said. The state would actually benefit financially, she added, as college graduates tend to contribute higher taxes while needing fewer social services.

But critics charge such legislature could attract more undocumented immigrants, weaken state revenue and unjustly favor foreigners.

“It’s really sending a message to the illegal community that Rhode Island is the state to be in,” said State Rep. Peter Palumbo, DCranston, who opposes the bill.

“It shows we’re getting very soft on enforcement of illegal aliens.”

Palumbo was adamant that the bill would not succeed, while Diaz and Pichardo said they were optimistic it would.

“It’s definitely a bill that deserves to pass. I’m hoping there will be traction,” said Alexandra Filindra, a postdoctoral research associate in public policy who is an adviser to the Brown Immigrants’ Rights Coalition.

“It makes good economic, political and social sense for states to support the education of uncontinued on page 9