Thursday, April 21, 2011

Daily

the Brown

vol. cxlvi, no.53

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Professional degrees to debut in fall 2012

By Lindor Qunaj Senior Staff Writer

The University plans to offer professionally oriented master’s programs, two to four of which are projected to begin enrolling students as early as fall 2012, according to a report published by the Office of the Provost March 14.

Designed for mid-career professionals who often cannot be on campus for long periods of time, these programs will feature a blend of technology-based pedagogical methods. While their exact models and instructional formats are still being worked out, Karen Sibley, dean of continuing education, said there will probably be intensive periods of traditional class time on campus for a few days at the start and end of each program, while the remainder of the instruction

By Alex bell News Editor

The Office of Residential Life changed the locks on the first floor lounge and basement common spaces belonging to Delta Tau fraternity at approximately 4 p.m. Saturday during Spring Weekend “to prevent a recurrence of unauthorized folks attempting to host parties that were not registered events,” wrote Richard Bova, senior associate dean of residential life and dining services, in an email to The Herald.

All on-campus events where alcohol will be served or attendance is expected to exceed 100 must be registered with the Office of Student Life three weeks in advance.

Students confirmed a DTau party was shut down at least once Friday.

Michael Spector ’13 said he remembered the party getting shut down around 11:30 p.m. Pablo Arturo Galindo ’13, a DTau pledge, also estimated the party was shut down around that time.

Hayley Sparks ’14, who recalled the Friday party was broken up twice, speculated the party was shut down because students had not complied with earlier instructions to end the party and some were on the awning outside a second-floor window.

When she returned to the fra-

inside

continued on page 2

featUres................3 news....................4-6 editorial............10 Opinions.............11 CITY & State.........12

Since 1891

State sued over school funding formula

Brown is green

will be done online.

The new programs will be held to the same standards as any degree-granting program at the University, and quality assurance will play an important role in their planning and implementation, Sibley said. “They better not be watered down,” she said.

Classroom and online learning cannot be directly compared, just like a story told live cannot compare to one film, Sibley said.

“A movie is simply a different conveyance of entertainment than a theater performance,” she said. “It’s not about something being better or worse.”

By REbecca ballhaus City & State Editor

The school committees of Pawtucket and Woonsocket filed an amended petition to a lawsuit April 7 against the state for allegedly failing to provide the districts with adequate funds for education under its new funding formula.

city & state

University’s Hispanic student population over the past decade, Bhattacharyya wrote. In the 198889 academic year, there were 337 undergrads who identified as Hispanic, according to the Office of Institutional Research. Last year, that number had increased to 550, a 63 percent increase in 21 years.

The University also felt there was a need to help Hispanic students who were struggling academically.

The suit was originally filed in February 2010, before the General Assembly passed the funding formula. “The concern was there was a mismatch between what the state expects from school districts in terms of providing quality education for kids and the resources that the state makes available to do that,” said Samuel Zurier, one of the districts’ two attorneys.

“We like the performance standards that the state department of education is developing, and the school district would love to … be able to give the kids a shot at meeting those standards,” he added. “The problem is there’s not enough resources to do it.”

The state funding formula divides $682 million in education aid among 53 districts annually.

Some districts will receive increased funding, and others will

continued on page 6

continued on page 7

‘Promising areas’

Biomedical technology, business analytics and health care managecontinued on page 4

Stephanie London / Herald

Hordes of Brunonians descended on the Main Green yesterday at 4:20 p.m. to celebrate the unofficial “4/20” holiday by toking up. The Blue Room reportedly recorded its highest ever single-day sales total.

Support for Hispanics scrutinized

By Joseph Rosales Senior Staff Writer

Though the University has made efforts to increase support for the growing Hispanic undergraduate population, students, faculty and administrators still feel that issues remain.

The Office of Institutional Diversity and the Office of the Dean of the College hired a consultant in spring 2009 to conduct conversations with students, staff and faculty to learn about the experi-

ence of Hispanic undergrads at Brown, according to Maitrayee Bhattacharyya, associate dean for diversity programs.

“We are interested in understanding the experiences of all of our students and what we can do to support students having the best overall experience at Brown,” Bhattacharyya wrote in an email to The Herald.

The University hoped to gain a better understanding of the Hispanic experience at Brown because of the increase in the

Oldest alum Coleman ’25 celebrates 107 years

By Jordan Hendricks Contributing Writer

“We never get old. Every year you’re more beautiful,” Reverend Naomi Craig of Providence told Beatrice Coleman ’25 at her birth-

Features day party yesterday. And if Craig’s words are any indication, Coleman is certainly the most beautiful living holder of a Brown degree.

Presumably Brown’s oldest alum, Coleman celebrated her 107th birthday yesterday at a small gathering of students and faculty at Tockwotton Home at Fox Point. continued on page 2

Inspired

Mark Baumer GS uses oddity in teaching fiction Features, 3

Courtesy of John Marciel Beatrice Coleman ’25, the University’s oldest alum, celebrated her 107th birthday at a party yesterday in Fox Point.

Post-

mourns Michael Scott, is going to read this summer Post-, inside

weather

ResLife locks DTau out of frat lounge

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2 Campus News calendar Today

april 21

6:30 P.m.

ToMORROW

april 22

6:30 p.m.

Free Final Cut Video Editing Class,

“Floorgasm” Breakdance Showcase,

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8 p.m.

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An Evening of Food Porn,

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VERNEy-WOOLLEY DINING HALL LUNCH

Chicken Pot Pie, Falafel in Pita with Tzatziki, Zucchini and Parmesan Sandwich, Rice Krispie Treats

Italian Sausage and Pepper Sandwich, Grilled Cheese and Tomato Sandwich, Rice Krispie Treats

DINNER Earth Day Dinner featuring Visiting Chef Jody Adams ’79

Baked Chicken, Shells with Broccoli, Sweet and Sour Pork Saute, Country Wedding Soup, Frosted Brownies

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The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, April 21, 2011

107-year-old alum an ‘inspiration’ continued from page 1 Organized by Brown’s undergraduate chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha — a non-residential black sorority — Coleman’s birthday party featured some of her biggest fans. In attendance were family members, current members of AKA and three former presidents of its graduate chapter, faculty from the Office of Alumni Relations and Craig, who at 94-years old, was one of Coleman’s former piano students as a “youngster,” she said. Coleman joined AKA, the oldest Greek organization for black women, during her years at Pembroke College and continued her involvement in the organization for the rest of her life.

Even at 107 years, Coleman — affectionately known as “Bea” to most — was still the life of the party, sporting a large birthday balloon on her wheelchair and chatting happily with attendees.

“Do they know the alma mater?” Coleman almost immediately asked of the sorority members. Originally from Rhode Island and passionate about both Brown and history, Coleman is known to scold those who do not know the words to two songs — Brown’s alma mater and “The Star-Spangled Banner” — both of which she sang to the crowd and later played on the piano. Party organizers provided copies of the lyrics for the less-prepared guests.

“She’s 107 and still so full of pep,” said Beverly Ledbetter, vice president and general counsel and a former president of Iota Alpha — the graduate chapter that advises AKA undergraduates.

But Coleman’s resume hardly ends at AKA and the quality of “pep.”

“Such a tiny girl so deeply involved in history, but Beatrice smiles blissfully and says, ‘History is — beautiful!’” the 1925 yearbook says of her. She devoted much of her life to teaching history. After she graduated in 1925,

Courtesy of John Marciel Brown’s oldest alum Beatrice Coleman ’25 is still the “life of the party” at 107.

unable to find a school for black children in Providence, Coleman moved to Philadelphia to teach at St. Mary’s Academy for Girls.

While she never married or had children, Coleman continued reaching out to youth by teaching piano lessons, acting as an assistant leader of a Girl Scout troop — one of her former troop members was also in attendance — and of course, maintaining involvement with her sorority sisters at AKA. “She never missed a sorority meeting until she was 101,” said Bettye Williams-Clanton, current graduate adviser to AKA and a former president of Iota Alpha.

On display was a poster with Coleman’s graduation picture and two large cards with the signatures of over 200 Brown students. Williams-Clanton said this was appropriate, as Coleman was always “making sure absolutely everyone in the sorority got a birthday card on their birthday.”

The sorority members organized the cards for her by asking students in J. Walter Wilson, the Sharpe Refectory and EmeryWoolley dining hall to sign. The

group asked each signer to donate $1 and raised about $150 for Breeze Against Wheeze, a 5K run and 3K walk in May that supports Hasbro Children’s Hospital’s Asthma Camp.

The cards included comments from undergraduates from “all walks of life,” Ledbetter said.

Coleman is “the stuff of legend,” wrote Saudi Garcia ’14, and she is a “hero,” wrote Margaret Connelly ’14.

“You are an inspiration. Thank you for leading my way!” read a message from “Yeshi ’12.”

“Congrats! Here’s to 107 more!”

Shawn Patterson ’12 wrote in thick blue pen.

Of course, no birthday party is complete without presents.

Coleman received a Brown throw blanket, a “Trailblazer’s Certificate” calling her an “icon who courageously and independently embarked on an education at Pembroke College” and an official certificate signed by President Ruth Simmons congratulating her on her birthday and for being “one of our ever-truest alumnae” and an “inspiration to black students.”

Future access to lounge unclear continued from page 1

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ternity Saturday, she said she found “literally 60 cases of beer” in a sophomore’s room. She said a member of the fraternity moved it from a basement closet when he saw the locks being changed on the common spaces. The University’s decision to change the locks “seemed pretty extreme,” she said.

The fraternity’s leadership declined to comment on the situation.

Bova would not comment on whether similar action has been levied against other Greek houses or whether DTau will regain access to its common spaces.

Theta Delta Chi member Bradley Griffith ’12 said administrators have restricted Thete brothers’ use of their common spaces this semester.

Feature 3

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, April 21, 2011

Fiction teacher Baumer GS draws inspiration from ‘weirdness’

By Sarah Forman Staff Writer

In most courses — even at Brown — it would have come as a bit of a shock for an instructor to announce that for the first 60 minutes of a seminar, no one was allowed to speak or leave the room.

But not one of the students in Mark Baumer’s GS fiction writing workshop seemed particularly fazed by Baumer’s proclamation after he wrote, in uneven, capital letters, “The art of subtle weirdness” on the board of his classroom in the Rockefeller Library Monday evening.

“He acts like that every day,” explained Ana Almeida ’12, a student in the class, after the hour of silence. The political science concentrator had divided her quiet time between napping and doodling. Other students passed notes, read from textbooks, meditated and covered their bodies in sheets of newsprint. For several minutes, paper airplanes marked with comments and messages flew through the air.

“You never know what to expect, obviously,” said Ryan Provencher ’12, a mathematical physics concentrator sitting next to Almeida. “I mean, this is unlike any class.”

Baumer himself is unlike any other instructor.

Since graduating from Wheaton College in Massachusetts in 2006, where he majored in English and was a designated hitter on the baseball team, Baumer has hitchhiked from Maine to California, walked across the country on foot and eaten pizza every day for a three-month stretch. He blogged about these feats, and others, and he continues to post videos and short pieces of prose about his life in Providence as a graduate student in Brown’s prestigious Program in Literary Arts.

“I’m really big on just doing things,” he explained, sitting beside a life-size but headless pink mannequin that happened to be in his office.

For example, on the first day of class this semester, he wore a white, full-body, hazmat-style suit to class. Perhaps as a result, half of the 40 students who shopped the first class failed to show up the following week.

Baumer said he often takes on unconventional tasks or intentionally breaks social norms to spark

creative ideas for his blogs and more formal writing.

“There’s nothing more uninspiring than just staring at a blank Word document,” he said. “A lot of times when I can’t think of anything to write about, I’ll just do something.”

Both this semester and last fall, Baumer encouraged the students in his fiction workshops to take similarly experimental and unconventional steps to improve their writing.

“Mark takes a different tact than most professors,” said Kelsey Shimamoto ’13, who took Baumer’s class last fall. She said students wrote profusely and explored new literature styles through reading assignments like Urs Alleman’s “Babyfucker,” but that the class never used the conventional method of collectively critiquing students’ work. “We had almost no criticism for the entire course.”

Instead, Baumer gave his students experiments and assignments that taught them how to think differently and expand their minds to help them come up with material.

“I think most people in that class didn’t need to be taught how to write. … Anyone can write a story,” Shimamoto offered. Instead, Baumer’s class was about “learning how to write something interesting.”

Nick Gomez-Hall ’13 was enrolled in Baumer’s class in the fall and said he thought it was “the most consuming, stimulating course that I’ve taken at Brown.”

Gomez-Hall insists that the more novel assignments he received — like creating a diversion as a class so someone could sneak pizzas past a door guard into their classroom at the Rockefeller Library — were exercises in drawing meaning out of everyday things.

During other class periods, Baumer instructed his students to take a two-hour walk, convince a stranger in the library to give them a dollar and walk from the basement to the second floor of the Rock with their eyes closed.

But not all students are fans of Baumer’s unconventional teaching.

“I imagine that some people wish there was more instruction — and I do as well — but I can understand why there isn’t,” said Edward Friedman ’14, a prospective literary arts concentrator currently in the course. “I can definitely under-

stand why people wouldn’t like it.”

After rarely finding the writing workshops he took as a student useful, Baumer said he thought it would be better to “abandon that atmosphere” of conventional critique and instead give his students a safe space to try on new methods and ideas.

“It’s tough for the students,” Baumer said, because they end up needing to take more initiative and independence in their writing.

“It’s just better for me to create something different.”

Baumer still gives his students some feedback, and he spent the second half of Monday’s class holding individual conversations with each student about the writing he or she had turned in while the rest of the group responded to short writing prompts generated by other students.

Sarah Marion ’12.5 — a visual arts concentrator — said she was impressed by the level of encouragement he gave during her individual conference.

“You can tell that he really cares about his students,” she said, adding that Baumer had referenced specific sentences she had written weeks earlier during their conversation.

Baumer’s course is one of four sections of LITR 0110A: “Fiction I” workshop being offered this semester, all of which are taught by master of fine arts candidates.

“Each 0110 class is taught differently and very much based on the instructor,” wrote Brian Evenson, director of the literary arts program, in an email to The Herald. “Considering the varied interests and approaches of Brown’s undergraduate writers, we find that students tend to be able to find instructors well suited to helping them grow as writers, as well as instructors to challenge their unexamined assumptions about what writing is or can be.”

Natasha Katoni ’12, a student in Baumer’s class, said her roommate is in a different Fiction I section, and the two classes are “totally different.” Because Baumer is graduating this May, and since every section of Fiction I has its own structure and syllabus, Brown may never see another class quite like Baumer’s.

Baumer said he is “looking forward to just working a job for a year” and taking a break from academic writing and teaching. He might take a boat down the Mis-

Sarah Forman / Herald With his unorthodox, and sometimes downright unusual, teaching methods, Mark Baumer GS aims to teach his students “how to write something interesting.”

sissippi, hit a golf ball from Texas into South America or spend some time traveling through Antarctica after graduation. While Baumer said he still does not know what he wants to do over the next few

years, he is sure he will not go into academia.

“When I’m ready to wither and die, that’s when I’ll be a teacher,” he said. “I’m not ready to wither and die.”

4 Campus News

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, April 21, 2011

New professional master’s programs to boost revenue continued from page 1 ment are examples of the “likely and promising areas” being investigated for potential degree programs, but specific fields of study have not yet been defined, said Rod Beresford P’13, associate provost and professor of engineering. The University’s goal is to develop programs in markets that are “established” but “have not been saturated,” he said at a March 22 faculty forum held to elicit feedback on the initial planning of the programs, according to the forum minutes.

Over the past year, the University has looked at specific programs being offered at other institutions as examples of potential directions it can take but does not intend to copy from them directly. According to the report from the provost’s office, “it may be informative to consider some of these peer programs, not necessarily to suggest particular models for emulation, but simply to gain an appreciation for the variety of activity that is taking place.”

In the report, possible professional master’s programs are compared to existing offerings at other universities, including Northwestern University, the University of California at Santa Barbara, Penn and Yale.

The market for such programs has grown significantly as the number of adult students earning graduate degrees has “approximately doubled” in the last 10 years, according to the report. “Although this growth surge has largely bypassed Brown, many peer institutions have benefited.”

While Sibley said Brown has seen its peer institutions building up these sorts of programs over the past decade or more, it has not actively pursued such initiatives until more recently. “Up until now, we

haven’t had the capacity for whatever reasons,” she said. “But we’ve reached a juncture now where we have the capacity.”

There were discussions about professional master’s programs in the past, but these talks “became more serious” six to nine months ago, Beresford said.

Fitting in at Brown

Due to their highly interdisciplinary nature, the programs could be affiliated with several related departments, such as computer science and applied mathematics.

But faculty members questioned whether the programs’ lack of affiliation with departments will isolate them, according to the faculty forum minutes.

The University will bring in adjunct faculty to design and teach some of the courses in these new programs, so the programs will not be “an imposition on existing Brown faculty,” Beresford said. But non-adjunct faculty members will be consulted during the creation and implementation of the courses and will need to approve major decisions. Some professors have also expressed interest in being more closely involved with and teaching in these programs, Sibley said.

At the March 22 forum, faculty members raised concerns that it may be difficult to find an adequate supply of adjunct instructors in the area and “ensure quality of faculty who are hired by a committee” instead of a department, according to the minutes.

When professional master’s students are on campus, their classes will meet during evenings and on weekends to avoid interfering with scheduled classroom use, according to the report. Students will also stay in hotels and not require oncampus housing, according to the faculty forum minutes.

The professional master’s programs and the University’s atmosphere of liberal learning “fit together perfectly,” Sibley said. The new master’s programs, she added, are meant to “contend with a world that is global, fast-changing and requires a lot of humanistic thinking.”

Sibley cited the popularity of the new IE Brown Executive MBA program as evidence of the importance of liberal arts in the professional master’s program initiative. Stu-

office’s report.

“We want to generate a new revenue stream, of course, but we want to do it in a mission-centered fashion, and we want to make a difference in the world,” Sibley said.

“These are people who can immediately transfer their skills from degree to difference.”

Though it is “premature” to specify the tuition and fees students will pay for these programs, the University’s biology master’s of arts

Possible professional master’s degrees • Executive master of business analytics • Executive master of information technology • Executive master of technology management • Professional master of biotechnology • Executive master of environmental entrepreneurship • Professional master of environmental management • Executive master of health care management • Professional master of public health — Provost’s Initiative in Executive and Professional Education Prospectus dents came to the MBA program because “it wasn’t that standard box of tools” that any business program will provide, she said. “They wanted it because of the liberal arts content.”

Richard Fishman, a professor of visual art who was heavily involved in the development of the IE MBA, explained that though he was initially skeptical about professional master’s programs, his experiences with the business program were positive and “allayed concerns about eroding Brown’s reputation in order to leverage a revenue stream.”

Diversifying revenue

One objective of the new master’s programs is to address the goal set in the Plan for Academic Enrichment to diversify the University’s revenue sources and lessen its reliance on undergraduate tuition money, which contributes more to University income than at peer institutions, according the provost’s

program currently offered to Pfizer Pharmaceuticals employees is “probably a good model,” Beresford wrote in an email to The Herald.

That program charges $4,991 per course and requires eight courses to complete the degree, according to the Office of Continuing Education website.

While financial aid was part of the budget for the IE business program, most students did not require this support. Beresford wrote that “financial aid is not expected to play a large role” in the new programs, because the majority of students in these programs will be professionals whose employers will pay for their education.

At the forum, Sibley and Beresford stated that the “initial investment is high,” but the University should “break even in two years” if each program enrolls a minimum of 15 students. Most of these startup costs will go toward creating online course material and hiring program leaders and instructors.

Factoring these expenses into the financial model, Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 said to the faculty that one-third of the programs’ gross revenue will be “netted” by the University, according to the forum minutes.

Along with boosting revenue, the professional master’s programs will benefit the undergraduate experience, Sibley said. “I don’t know exactly what it will produce, but we believe that it’s going to bring a valuable new understanding about teaching and the use of technology.”

The programs will also bring “high-achieving professionals in contact with campus and regular Brown faculty” and reach out to a “very different audience,” one that is less drawn to the University’s current degree offerings, Beresford said.

The road ahead

Though there is “strong interest in seeing these programs develop at the level of the president and the Corporation,” Beresford said the new programs will not begin to enroll students until fall 2012 at the earliest.

“There is an increasing demand for education at the master’s level, and Brown needs to be responsive,” wrote Peter Weber P’12, dean of the Graduate School, in an email to The Herald. “If many students seek an education in an area where Brown has strength and expertise, then it is in keeping with Brown’s mission to provide such educational opportunities.”

Interest in master’s programs among students and administrators across the country is not limited to these professional fields, where Sibley said the “demand curve is already huge.”

The University’s current master’s programs have been growing at a rate of 10 percent per year, Weber said. Compared to PhD programs, which provide stipends to students, most master’s programs are not as constrained in size by funding concerns.

Before a new degree program is formally introduced, the initiative must be supported by the Academic Priorities Committee, the Graduate Student Council, the Faculty Executive Committee and the faculty before being sent to the Corporation for a final decision.

The report proposes moving forward at a “brisk pace” and bringing proposals for new programs before the Graduate Council at the beginning of the fall with the goal of gaining full faculty approval by the end of the semester. In contrast, the proposal for the IE MBA program took 15 months to develop, according to the faculty forum minutes.

The planning and implementation process for these new programs will be overseen by the provost’s office, but the Office of Continuing Education will also supply “managerial staff and resource support,” according to the report. An “advisory council on executive and professional education” could also be established immediately to coordinate the process, according to the report.

Campus News 5

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, April 21, 2011

UCS supports ‘brain drain’ bill

By David Chung Senior Staff Writer

The Undergraduate Council of Students passed a resolution at its general body meeting last night urging the Rhode Island General Assembly to approve the “Opportunity RI” legislation.

The bill, which has garnered bipartisan support in the General Assembly and at colleges and universities around the state, addresses the “brain drain” currently affecting Rhode Island, said Jeremy Feigenbaum ’11, president of the College Democrats of Rhode Island and a former Herald opinions columnist, at last week’s UCS meeting. If the bill passes, it will grant tax credits to graduates of Rhode Island universities and colleges who are employed in the state. The bill aims to create more skilled jobs and boost the economy by providing an incentive for students to remain in Rhode Island following graduation, Feigenbaum said.

The Admissions and Student Services Committee has been

Herald File Photo

UCS discussed plans to set up SciLi patio seating at its meeting yesterday.

working with Matthew Tsimikas, assistant director of athletics and physical education, to evaluate satellite gyms. Abhinay Reddy ’13, a committee member, said administrators have expressed support for the project, but funding remains a limiting factor in effecting change. Campus Life Chair David Rattner ’13 said his

committee is working with the Office of Residential Life to supply bathrooms with sanitary napkins for females. Rattner added that temporary tables will be set up at the Sciences Library patio by early May and that once permanent seating is introduced, the temporary tables will be moved to the Andrews Hall patio.

www.browndailyherald.com

6 Campus News

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, April 21, 2011

Students, profs seek more Hispanic faculty and student support continued from page 1 “We were having a sense that some of our students were not doing as well as they could,” said Cynthia Garcia Coll, professor of education. “The question was, were we failing to provide some supports that are needed?”

With information gathered from the consultant, the University has begun working on initiatives to improve the experience of the Hispanic student population, according to Bhattacharyya. These initiatives include amplifying efforts to recognize the varying academic skill sets and personal circumstances of incoming students, establishing a stronger advising program and increasing communication with students about the University’s resources.

The consultant recommended a system to provide immediate supplementary financial support to students who need assistance closing modest gaps in their financial situations, Bhattacharyya wrote. The Office of Campus Life and Student Services is currently working on establishing such a system.

‘A rare breed’

For Garcia Coll, the lack of Hispanic faculty at Brown is “pathetic.”

Out of 682 faculty members, 20 are listed as Hispanic on the

Office of the Dean of the Faculty website. This 2.9 percent is lower than the national average of Hispanic faculty in private four-year institutions — 3.2 percent — according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

“We feel like a rare breed,” Garcia Coll said.

Evelyn Hu-DeHart, professor of history and director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, also said she believed there is a need for more Hispanic faculty. The University needs to be clear on its definition of Hispanic because it is unclear if those 20 faculty members selfidentify as Hispanic, she said.

“I think the University has a responsibility when they claim there are 20 to make sure that the 20 are meaningful, because we stake a claim on diversity these days in higher ed — that it is an educational asset and that we benefit in higher ed when there’s diversity,” Hu-Dehart said.

Students have complained to Garcia Coll about the small number of Hispanic faculty members, she said. During Puerto Rican Heritage Week in March, a student told her she felt she could not learn about her Puerto Rican history, because there is no Hispanic professor in the history department who can teach it.

“We’re nowhere to be seen in the curriculum except for some

Enrolled Hispanic Undergraduates

Gili Kliger / Herald

very specialized things,” Garcia Coll said.

Ana-Irma Patete ’13, president of Machado House, also said she has noticed the lack of Hispanic faculty. “We need more Latinos in academia,” Patete said. “It would be nice to find more of our people in our faculty.”

But Hispanic staff and faculty are very supportive of one another, said Maria Suarez, associate dean of student life. Though she said

she feels the University needs more diversity, she added she will sometimes “look at quality over quantity,” Suarez said.

Overcoming challenges

Students and administrators also agree there needs to be a strong advising system for Hispanic students because their college experiences tend to be different than those of other ethnicities.

There is a divide between the Hispanics who come from middle-class, second- and third-generation homes and the Hispanics who are some of the first in their families to go to college, and the University needs to address that gap, Garcia Coll said.

“They are sitting side by side and expected to perform at the same level as everybody else, when they haven’t had the tools to do that,” she said of first-generation Hispanic students.

Mercedes Domenech, associate dean of medicine, minority recruitment and retention, has seen Hispanic applications rise immensely since she started in 1988. Her first year, the University received 547 applications from students who identified as Hispanic. This year, there were 2,963 Hispanic applicants, a 442 percent increase.

She sees cautiousness among Hispanic students when she recruits in communities that rarely send students to Brown, she said.

“You have to go where everyone goes, and then you have to go where no one goes” when recruiting, she said. “Talent is everywhere.”

“That’s what education is all about — giving people the chance,” she said.

Part of the discrepancy has to do with the differences in culture, Patete said. Some Hispanic students feel they are not capable of being successful because of their backgrounds, she said.

“If you got into Brown, there’s no reason why you can’t graduate other than insecurities,” she said.

Patete has also noticed there is some self-segregation in the Hispanic community. Though she

said she finds self-segregation to be natural, she still thinks opening up to other groups would be better for all involved.

“I think it’s important for the Latino community to show solidarity but not to alienate,” she said.

Looking ahead

Students have been working with administrators to find solutions to these issues. Holly Doerflinger ’13 has informally met with administrators this semester about improving Hispanic student retention, hiring a Hispanic dean and increasing support for the Hispanic student population.

“Right now, it’s such a crucial time” because the Third World Center is in the process of hiring a new director, Doerflinger said.

Through her conversations with various deans, she and other members of the Brown University Latino Council, a student group, have thrown around ideas that she hopes will eventually become a set of recommendations for the University.

Patete said it is the duty of the Hispanic students to fix problems they see. Students need to start a dialogue within the community about how to improve support for Hispanic students, but they should also be confident in their abilities to succeed academically, she added.

“We need to be confident because we deserved it, not because of our race,” she said.

Because the students are part of the University, they have every right to give opinions about what they feel needs to be changed, Garcia Coll said. “There’s nothing like students organizing and standing up and giving a good rationale for why things should change.”

With the Hispanic population in the United States continuing to grow, Garcia Coll said improvements in the Hispanic undergrad experience will be good for the University.

“As I say,” she said, “it’s not a coincidence that our ATMs are in English and Spanish.”

City & State 7

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, April 21, 2011

School funding formula provokes lawsuit amendment continued from page 1 experience a decrease, according to the formula, which will go into effect July 1. All changes will be phased in over a period of seven to 10 years.

Pawtucket and Woonsocket are slated to receive increased funding, by $1.5 million and $1 million, respectively.

“While it’s better than not having a funding formula … our opposition is that even when fully implemented over a seven-year period, it is still not going to provide equity and education,” said Thomas Conlon, business administrator for the Pawtucket School Department. “There will still be some districts that will be able to spend more per pupil to provide an adequate and meaningful and equitable education.”

Until recently, Rhode Island was the only state in the country without a funding formula.

“It is the responsibility of the state to make sure that the children in the state of Rhode Island would have access to schooling opportunities and high-quality instruction,” said Kenneth Wong, professor of education and chair of the department. Wong, along with several graduate students, was heavily involved in the development of the funding formula.

“I was very pleased to see that actually 71 percent of students in the state received more funding as a result of the state funding formula,” Wong said. “It would be nice if 100 percent would receive more money, but 71 percent is still a strong number.”

He added that education funding is the responsibility both of the state and of local governments. “Woonsocket and Pawtucket are going to get more fund-

ing, but at the same time the local (communities) also need to think about how they would prioritize education in their community and then to think about how many resources they would want to spend on their own.”

Pawtucket and Woonsocket are among the top four highestfunded cities in the state, receiving over 80 percent of their education funding from the state, Wong said.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys also cited the fact that the formula does not automatically allocate money for educating special needs students as a fundamental flaw.

But the money will be given in categorical funding outside of the formula, Wong said. “There is a lot of additional funding … and there are other commitments the state is going to provide to the two communities.”

State funding is based on specific data incorporated into the funding formula, Wong added.

“The formula is based on a very careful analysis of how much it costs to provide core instructional services to the children. It also takes into consideration the local fiscal capacity and the concentration of low income children,” he said.

The formula counts low income children as needing an increased 40 percent in funding.

Because data on special education and English as a Second Language students is often unreliable, Wong said, the formula concentrates on more concrete data such as income. The formula’s creators found overlapping needs between ESL, special needs and low income students. “If we consider the concentration effect of low income children in our formula, … then I think that would ad-

Herald File Photo

The cities of Pawtucket and Woonsocket are questioning the state’s school funding formula, which will redistribute money among school districts.

dress a substantial amount of the problem,” Wong said.

Three Rhode Island cities filed a similar lawsuit about 15 years ago, Zurier said. The plaintiffs won at the trial level but the case was thrown out by the state Supreme Court. “One of the challenges of bringing this case was making a case for why things are different now,” he said.

“We ought to let the formula run for about three years and then see if there are ways that we can fine-tune and change it,” Wong said. Education funding is “both a state and a local responsibility, and we need to see how the cities respond and work with the state in terms of prioritizing education.”

“We knew that not everyone was going to be happy with the formula, but we felt it was fair and equitable,” said Larry Berman, spokesman for House Speaker Gordon Fox, D-Providence. Fox will continue to look at the formula and “tweak it” with time, Berman said.

“Pawtucket and Woonsocket did get more money, but I think they want even more,” he said.

“But it’s the best that the General Assembly could do.”

8 City & State

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, April 21, 2011

Health dept. grants three licenses to sell marijuana continued from page 12 investors that have pledged financial support through personal nonguaranteed loans.”

Its application projects that Greenleaf will generate $1.9 million in total revenue by 2012, employ nine full-time employees and provide medication to 533 patients.

Summit, the largest of the three centers, will be located in Warwick.

According to Summit’s application, Cuttino Mobley — a former University of Rhode Island and NBA basketball star — will be the sole funder of the center and the only one to hold a security interest in the center’s property. He is donating $500,000 to the center as well as providing a $3.5 million line of credit that is available for immediate use.

By the end of its third year of operation, Summit plans to employ 80 people and service 8,000 patients.

The center projects total profits of $16.5 million.

Assessing the need

JoAnne Leppanen, executive director of the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition, said she was in favor of Greenleaf ’s application from the start because its less central Portsmouth location means it can serve patients that otherwise could not access medical marijuana.

Though Summit’s application was “impressive,” it came as “a bit of a surprise because there is so much out of state involvement,” Leppanen said, pointing to the fact that the center’s entire line of credit comes from a person “with no authority” over the center’s leadership.

The Department of Health estimates 40 percent of medical marijuana patients are Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income or Social Security Disability Insurance

recipients, according to Greenleaf ’s application. Nick Testa, a caregiver from South Kingstown, explained that some patients currently receive their medication for free from friends or family.

“If it’s one dollar, it’s too expensive,” he said of these patients.

Though the centers plan to charge prices ranging from $40 to $80 per eighth of an ounce depending on the strain, all three plan to provide reduced-cost or free medication to patients who demonstrate financial burden.

Summit’s board of directors will determine the amount of capital necessary to reinvest in the operation. The remaining balance of net income will be used to provide discounts and free medicine to those living with cancer and AIDS, as well as those on medical, state or federal disability.

Ultimately, Leppanen said, she hopes the relationship between the three centers will be a collaborative one. If one center runs out of a particular strain of marijuana, for example, it should feel comfortable enough to call on another center for help.

While Bock said the three centers have communicated about plans to collaborate, they have been preoccupied by preparations for their respective official openings.

After the centers are up and running, he hopes to sit down with the other two teams to find ways to work together, he said.

Marijuana education

Some patients, given the option of a compassion center, might still choose to resort to an individual caregiver. For some, growing their own medication is more than a hobby, “It’s a lifeline,” Leppanen said.

For patients who are unable to grow their own marijuana and who

would otherwise face chronic pain each day, caregivers are “unsung heroes,” Leppanen said.

Testa said he began to grow the plants for “personal reasons.” His friend was “extremely sick” and providing him with a reliable source of medication was one of the best ways to help.

But patients must find a doctor willing to sign off on their medical marijuana cards, which can prove difficult.

According to Beardsworth, the Health Department is legally prohibited from informing patients of doctors willing to prescribe medical marijuana.

The current application, available on the Health Department’s website, requires a physician to check off one of six conditions that would make a prospective patient eligible for the card.

“The education level is fairly low,” Bock said, pointing to the Rhode Island medical community.

One of the most important goals of his center is to provide doctors and patients with the knowledge necessary to understand the basics of the program. But there will be no direct connection to physicians, though he hopes the center will gain a better understanding of which doctors regularly prescribe marijuana, Bock said.

According to Leppanen, the more doctors know about the program, the more receptive they will be to the drug. Often, patients have to educate their doctors about the benefits of medical marijuana.

Leppanen said her organization tries to promote medical marijuana as a chance for people to regain their lives from pain, rather than an opportunity for profitable drug distribution. “We want them to talk in terms of medicating, not smoking,” Leppanen said.

“We don’t need people trying to hijack this program for their own personal goals,” she added. “This is a medical program, and it has to be respected for that.”

In the future, Leppanen said her organization hopes to be able to screen qualifying patients at the center and call doctors with the option of either taking the patient or rejecting them. In this way, “there’s not the risk of the doctor falling

under the category of ‘pot doc,’” she added.

‘Pot doc’

Josiah Rich, professor of medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School, is one of ten physicians whose name was published in the Providence Journal in March 2010 as a top prescriber of medical marijuana in the state.

Though some doctors were outraged by the article, Rich said he was not because it’s part of his practice.

While some patients approach him for the card for instances of nausea and pain, others are looking for recreational use.

“In both these instances,” he said, “I’m happy to fill out the paperwork.” Rich said that he feels it is unhealthier for his patients to get arrested than it is to smoke marijuana legally.

Rich said he thinks the centers will provide doctors a level of comfort. “Now patients have a place to go,” he said.

Caregivers and patients across the state have also voiced concerns that three centers won’t be sufficient to satisfy the demand for medical marijuana. Beardsworth said the department plans to monitor the need on an ongoing basis. If there is more demand than the centers are able to fill, the department will raise the issue with the General Assembly.

According to Leppanen, there are currently about 3,500 patients in the Rhode Island system. Greenleaf ’s application projects the number could increase by 40 fold.

Rich expressed surprise at the number of patients that the centers expect to be serving. “I can’t see a whole lot of physicians running to prescribe a whole lot of marijuana in Rhode Island, but I might be wrong,” he said.

A database of physicians provides a way for the Health Department to monitor overall prescription trends, Beardsworth said. “If we see anything that raises a question mark for us, then we can take a look.”

‘Nightmare scenario’

Rep. John Carnevale, D-Providence and Johnston, recently in-

troduced legislation that would end the individual caregiver system by 2013, allow the state police to conduct unannounced inspections of compassion centers and prevent anyone with a drug conviction from being licensed as a caregiver.

Should Carnevale’s bill pass, patients would have no choice but to get their medication from the compassion centers.

Leppanen called this a “nightmare” scenario, saying a compassion center with unlimited money could bring on what is known as “the Wal-Mart syndrome.” A center that charged far lower prices could run the others out of business and secure a monopoly.

Bock was quick to express his distaste for the bill. “I think that there is a way for the compassion centers and the caregiver and patients to work synergistically together,” he said.

Rep. Edith Ajello, D-Providence, said she sees the legislation as a “typical law enforcement response,” adding that “moneyed interests” seeking to profit from the marijuana industry could be a driving force behind the bill.

“Somebody keeps pushing this bill,” Leppanen said. “We want to know who.” She said most people she has spoken with think the legislation has almost no chance of passing.

On the other end of the spectrum, Ajello introduced a bill last month that would legalize marijuana in Rhode Island for everyone over 21 years of age.

Bock expressed concern that a move to legalize marijuana could “diminish” the center’s work.

Though Ajello said members of the bill’s committee were “clearly interested” in the proposal, she does not expect it to pass in Rhode Island for at least a couple of years. This would give the compassion centers time to “get up and running,” Ajello said.

But it is important to remember that these centers have yet to prove themselves, said Moffat of SSDP. Despite the optimistic patient and revenue projections of the applications, there is no guarantee that the centers will be efficiently distributing medication or even still running in two to three years, he said.

City & State 9

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, April 21, 2011

Despite unpopularity, PPD chief stays on continued from page 12 outsider to become chief in the department’s history. Esserman has never been a street officer.

A Dartmouth College graduate, he holds a law degree from New York University and worked as an attorney in New York City before becoming assistant chief of police in New Haven, Conn. He later served as chief of police in Stamford, Conn. Former Mayor and current Rep. David Cicilline ’83, D-RI, appointed Esserman upon taking office.

Guido Laorenza, chief of police before Esserman, said there were some isolated problems in the department prior to Esserman’s tenure, and little has changed since then.

Esserman has attempted to create the impression of doing more to eradicate corruption than he actually has, Laorenza said, adding that Esserman cares more about his self-image than the department. “He is certainly not what he appears to be,” he said.

Laorenza said most of the other police chiefs in Rhode Island and many of his own officers do not like Esserman.

But Horwitz said Esserman has earned many supporters during his tenure. Esserman’s ambitious agenda for turning around the department meant he was “not going to be a popular person,” Horwitz said.

Multiple former and active members of the Providence police force declined to comment.

While Esserman has not been able to fully address all the department’s problems, “he has made a lot of positive changes,” Horwitz said.

According to the press release, Esserman was tasked with “leading the department’s efforts to increase public safety through a citywide community policing model that would re-engage the public in a meaningful way.” The report cites the implementation of this policy as one of Esserman’s most significant achievements.

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policing model that the department has put into place and look forward to working with Chief Esserman and all members of the force to continue with programming that reduces crime, enhances public safety in Providence and deepens trust between police and the community,” Taveras said in a press release.

Laorenza said he does not think Esserman has been very effective and cannot be given all the credit for moving the department forward. Esserman is merely “presenting a front,” he said.

Overall, there are still problems in the department that have not yet been fixed, Horwitz said.

Pare’s report includes 17 recommendations and eight new goals for improving the department.

“I believe (Pare’s) analysis and recommendations set the right direction as we move forward to build on the Department’s strengths and address areas where we can improve,” Taveras said in the press release.

10 Editorial Editorial An unwelcome diversion

Editorial comic

At the beginning of this month, the state Senate took up an uncontroversial bill that would start the process of setting up a state health care exchange. The legislation is necessary to comply with the federal health care reform law President Obama signed last year. In fact, the Providence Journal reported that the exchange must be established by summer, or Rhode Island could lose out on “millions of dollars in federal planning grants.”

But the bill has become a lightening rod of controversy. At the behest of anti-abortion advocates, Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport and Jamestown, added an amendment restricting abortion access “moments before the bill came before” the Senate Health and Human Services Committee for a hearing. On its face, the amendment seems to simply echo federal law and prohibit any tax dollars from going towards abortion.

But in actuality, the new language is an aggressive assault on abortion rights. If the amendment becomes law, women receiving even the smallest federal or state subsidy could not purchase insurance covering abortion through the exchange. Furthermore, insurance plans could not offer abortion coverage to non-subsidized individuals if they enroll even a single subsidized person. As a result, it is likely that no one purchasing health insurance through the exchange would be able to get abortion coverage.

Lest anti-abortion forces forget, this is a medical procedure deemed a fundamental constitutional right by the United States Supreme Court. Preventing women from purchasing insurance that covers this legal procedure, even if they use their own money, is outrageous.

It is especially insidious that this policy targets low-income women — the most likely to be receiving federal or state subsidies — many of whom will be the first users of the state exchange.

How Paiva-Weed went about adding the language is in many ways as unsettling as the amendment itself. Members of the Senate committee only realized how drastic the last-minute language was after it had been passed to the floor, where the whole Senate approved it.

Such a divisive issue deserves open debate, not sneaky maneuvering.

But the real question is why our Senate president would even insert such a polarizing matter into a straightforward, non-partisan bill in the first place. Why risk derailing legislation that is essential to Rhode Island’s compliance with the federal health care law? Why reignite the abortion debate at all at a time like this? Rhode Island’s economy and fiscal health are in dire straits, and citizens are as divided as ever on a host of political issues. Leaders should strive to bring people together, not drive them apart. Sadly, Paiva Weed’s amendment does the latter.

Fortunately, the amendment is not guaranteed to become law. The House is considering a bill right now that would set up the exchanges without the abortion language. We strongly urge the House to pass this clean bill, which would give the Senate an opportunity to concur and leave this sordid episode behind. Let’s start down the road toward providing insurance to the thousands of Rhode Islanders who lack it and put aside a debate that can only serve to divide our community.

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

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“I’m happy to fill out the paperwork.”

— Professor Josiah Rich, on requests for medical marijuana cards See marijuana on page 12.

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Correction An article in Tuesday’s Herald (“Case raises questions of research ownership,” April 19) incorrectly stated pharmaceutical companies might lose $50 million in revenue this year as drug patents expire. In fact, the industry stands to lose $50 billion. The Herald regrets the error.

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Opinions 11

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, April 21, 2011

AG dishonestly uses semantics to obscure truth By chris norris-leblanc Opinions Columnist In his recent guest column (“Secure Communities will protect all communities,” April 19), Attorney General Peter Kilmartin informed us that “it is not and has never been our mission to crack down on illegal immigration.” He justifies this statement by stating, “That role is limited to federal officials, not the Office of the Attorney General.”

Since most of Kilmartin’s column is dedicated to an unduly verbose, dogmatic and painfully one-sided description of how exactly the Secure Communities program operates, it is important to first clarify this jumbled mess.

In actuality, Secure Communities allows for one basic process to occur — whenever someone is arrested, their fingerprints will be run not only through the national FBI database, but also through the records of the Department of Homeland Security. After this, if the person who was arrested is found to be here illegally, his or her case is forwarded to Immigration Control and Enforcement for a deportation recommendation.

When removed from Kilmartin’s rhetoric, the purpose of Secure Communities is completely transparent. It is about identifying undocumented people after they are arrested and very obviously has no effect on documented U.S. citizens. Furthermore, on

ICE’s website it clearly states the purpose of Secure Communities is to “quickly and accurately identify aliens who are arrested for a crime and booked into local law enforcement custody.”

Though it seems as if Kilmartin assumed his citizenry is incapable of performing a Google search, I am going to go ahead and give him the benefit of the doubt. Hell, I am going to throw the guy a bone and even assume that he both read and understood the purpose of Secure Communities. But the implications of trusting his intelligence lead

This rhetoric fails to stand up to any sort of critical analysis and only holds weight in the purview of hysteria. But Kilmartin is not alone in using and supporting arguments framed in this way.

At the root of Secure Communities is the assumption that illegal immigrants are, above all, the single greatest threat to the safety of the American people. In fact, the document on ICE’s website entitled “How does Secure Communities benefit law enforcement?” states explicitly that it “prioritizes enforcement action toward the greatest threats to

At the root of Secure Communities is the assumption that illegal immigrants are, above all, the single greatest threat to the safety of the American people. directly to a lack of trust in his integrity. If Kilmartin is a competent public official, it means he tried to obscure the truth by appealing to his community’s fear of crime.

By going on to say the power to enforce immigration law will continue to be restricted to ICE, Kilmartin uses an utterly semantic difference to try and bolster his previous untruth. Though in the end, ICE will technically have the final say as to whether or not an undocumented person is deported, they would have no input at all if normal law enforcement officers did not have the ability or right to check on someone’s immigration status.

This is, once again, a dishonest and disingenuous representation of the situation at hand.

public safety.” As this program only makes changes which pertain specifically to undocumented immigrants, the assumption of that sentence is fairly implicit.

As is usual for issues involving undocumented immigrants, this one breaks down to the same core component — xenophobia.

Sure enough, Kilmartin’s greatest defenders as he introduced Secure Communities were the local champions of anti-Hispanic hysteria and bigotry, the Rhode Island far right and specifically the Tea Party.

The question we must ask, then, is this — how did Democrat Peter Kilmartin get himself tangled up in the far right ideology of xenophobic immigration policy? Or possibly, if

a staunch Democrat can be aligned with this sort of bigotry, are the two parties really as different as we often like to think they are?

I would like to finish with a final header from the document about how Secure Communities benefits law enforcement — Secure Communities “reduces opportunities for allegations of racial profiling.” Notice the language here, specifically that the issue is not racial profiling but rather those nagging allegations of it happening. By this logic, the real problem is finding a way to reduce the credibility of racial profiling allegations against law enforcement officers.

Whereas xenophobia provides the cultural logic for this program, this gives us a glimpse into the ways in which it will practically serve to protect racist behaviors on the part of law enforcement officers.

This law is dangerously close to Arizona SB 1070 in that it gives, albeit indirectly, the power of ICE officers to every law enforcement officer where it is enacted. Former Gov. Donald Carcieri ’65 got voted out for a reason, and one of Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s ’75 P’14 largest campaign promises was to change the way the Rhode Island government was dealing with undocumented immigrants. Chafee — please keep your promise. And to Kilmartin — next time you want to address your public, remember that we are not mindless children ready to accept any ideology, even if it is made more palatable by rhetoric.

Chris Norris-LeBlanc ’13 is from Rhode Island. He can be contacted at chris.norris.leblanc@gmail.com.

The gender wage gap

By Michelle Uhrick Opinions Columnist I remember sitting in one day on one of those ad-hoc social experiments that professors often conduct to prove a point. The professor asked the women in the lecture hall who wanted to have children to raise their hands. A handful went up. The professor then asked for the same show of hands from the men. More than twice as many shot up.

If this experiment were replicated in almost any classroom at Brown, the result would probably be the same. Women are less likely to say they plan on having children because, for them, children require a careful plan. Recent studies have revealed this is not something that can be overcome even at the most elite education level. A survey of Harvard Business School graduates in their 30s and 40s found that nearly a third of female graduates were only working part-time, and another third were not employed.

Although no survey of Brown alums exists, a recent study of Yale graduates found that, of women in their 40s, only 56 percent were still in the labor force. Of the men in their 40s, 90 percent were still working.

This gap is huge and shows why so many women were unwilling to say that they wanted children without serious consideration, even in an informal classroom sur-

vey. The fact that this gap extends all the way to the top proves that no measure of success can make this commitment easier.

Unsurprisingly, the male-female wage gap reflects this. The average woman with a bachelor’s degree earns $37,800 per year.

The average man with a bachelor’s degree earns $66,000 per year. The gap between men and women with college degrees may be even larger than that of their less-educated counterparts because educated women are more likely to have high-income

women face the same world and the same options as men — they just make different choices.

But the fact of the matter is that the options for women are actually not the same as they are for men. Even life-long, dedicated, childless career women do not face the same world. The most grueling — and highest-paying — jobs are easier if dinner is ready and the laundry is done when the breadwinner arrives home at 11 p.m. on a Friday night. These benefits are not pure

What would men do if having a career automatically precluded them from having a family and home life?

Some might say all men would have a career anyway, and not whine about it, but I am not so sure.

spouses, meaning they have greater financial flexibility to stop working. Plenty of articles have lamented the plight of the modern working woman who cannot, as it turns out, have it all. Is that just the way it is? The wage gap is simply the result of women’s desire to have children and to raise them and the incompatibility of this desire with the corporate world. In the modern day,

conjecture, either — in 2010, an analysis of census data revealed that married men with children actually made 14.3 percent more than their childless counterparts, which is probably due to both the support of having their other halves stay home and the pressure of being the primary breadwinner.

Many women might happily embrace the option of simply dropping in every couple

weeks to go with the kids to an amusement park or the zoo while pursuing their careers, safe in the knowledge that their children are being well-raised. But for the vast majority of women this possibility is simply not available to them and will never be no matter how educated or accomplished they become. What would men do if having a career automatically precluded them from having a family and home life? Some might say all men would have a career anyway, and not whine about it, but I am not so sure.

Radical feminists and hack psychologists alike are quick to blame women for their own impractical choices and even for the unhappiness that can come from being put in a position of being unable to do two things well. But women know they cannot simply focus on their careers and expect all the other aspects of their lives to fall into place. Even the exact same level of success will not bring women what it brings men, and women likely internalize this early in their careers. The lifestyle of which both genders dream does not end in lonely desperation. Everyone wants to be Jack Donaghy, not Liz Lemon. But the fact of the matter is that almost no one is actually given a choice between the two.

Michelle Uhrick ’11 is an international relations and economics concentrator about to be flung out into the big wide world. She can be contacted at michelle_uhrick@brown.edu.

Daily Herald City & State the Brown

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Three marijuana compassion centers to open in R.I. Taveras to retain Esserman as police chief

By Amy Rasmussen Senior Staff Writer

In less than three months, Rhode Island’s first compassion centers will open their doors to the thousands of patients seeking a state-regulated source of medical marijuana.

After months of careful deliberation and an initial rejection of all 15 applications in the fall, the Rhode Island Department of Health announced its three selections from the second pool of applicants March 15.

A 2009 amendment to the 2006 law legalizing medical marijuana allowed the department to license up to three non-profit compassion centers, according to the Department of Health’s website.

The law defines a compassion center as a non-profit organization that cultivates and dispenses “marijuana, or related supplies and educational materials,” to card-carrying patients who have designated the center as a primary caregiver.

Until the amendment was passed, patients lacked a stateregulated source of marijuana. The act allowed patients to designate up to two caregivers — often family members or friends — to cultivate and provide them with the drug.

Each caregiver is allowed to cultivate up to 24 plants and service up to five patients. A center may provide marijuana for an unlimited number of patients, but like individual caregivers, it is only allowed to dispense two and a half ounces of usable marijuana per 15 days to each qualifying patient.

Though there is still work to be done, the compassion center selections signal a move towards broader acceptance of marijuana, said Jared

By Sarah Mancone Staff Writer

Herald File Photo

The recently licensed compassion centers will provide patients with a state-regulated source for medical marijuana.

Moffat ’13, president of Students for Sensible Drug Policy. “We’re trying to re-contextualize this plant,” he said, “to put it in a place where we can have it as a part of community and society without treating the people who use it like criminals.”

The Department of Health is currently receiving 50 to 75 new applications per week — up from around 30 in November 2010 — for both caregivers and patients, according to spokeswoman Annemarie Beardsworth. With the recent licensing of the compassion centers, she said the department expects the number of individual caregivers in the state to decrease.

Not-for-profit?

All three centers are required by law to operate as non-profits. Compassion centers must allocate profits to fund the centers’ operations or donate them to a charitable cause.

Revenue projections for all three centers are expected to top $1 million by 2012. Summit Compassion Center, projected to be the most profitable by far, expects to generate revenue in excess of $25 million by that time.

The Slater Compassion Center, named in honor of the state rep who served as a primary sponsor of the bill to legalize medical marijuana, will be located in Providence. The center estimated that it would need $1.6 million in start-up funds.

The center plans to serve 550 patients beginning in July 2011.

The application projects that Slater will provide marijuana to 1500 patients, employ 32 full-time workers and generate a total revenue of $3.9 million and $206,570 in profits by 2013.

Slater has budgeted approximately $3,700 per month for advertising purposes, according to

the application. The majority of this money will go to advertising that medical marijuana is available in a safe and legal manner through the center. Slater plans to take out advertisements in the Providence Journal and Rhode Island Monthly, along with various other publications.

Dr. Seth Bock, a current caregiver and owner of an herbal dispensary, will head the Greenleaf Compassion Center. The center, which will be located in Portsmouth, expects to serve a chronically ill patient population in Newport and Bristol counties, according to its application.

At $400,000, Greenleaf ’s startup funding need is the smallest of the three centers. According to Greenleaf ’s application, the money has been raised from a “group of continued on page 8

Student sues public high school over prayer

By Sophia Seawell Contributing Writer

Jessica Ahlquist, a sophomore at Cranston High School West, filed suit early this month against her school because it refused to remove a prayer painted on the wall of its auditorium.

At her high school — which Ahlquist described as “predominantly Catholic” — she and a friend first noticed a prayer painted on the wall in the auditorium about a year ago. “I thought, ‘I don’t think that belongs here,’” Ahlquist said. “But we weren’t about to say anything as freshmen, and I was still kind of in the closet with my atheism.”

Ahlquist did research on the topic and discovered the presence of a prayer in a public school could be illegal, she said. She then discussed it with her father, who asked her if she wanted to take action. During this time, a mother of two children in the Cranston public school system filed a complaint with the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU wrote to the school asking for the prayer’s removal, and the school subsequently estab-

lished a subcommittee, made up of community members, to evaluate the ACLU’s demands. The ACLU threatened to sue, Ahlquist said.

Ahlquist attended the subcommittee’s first meeting and told the group, “As an atheist, I have the same rights as any religious child to feel like I belong here.”

“I knew atheists weren’t really liked, but I didn’t expect the gasp that I heard,” she told The Herald. She described the meetings as “hate-filled.”

“People were really immature and rude,” Ahlquist said. “Fullgrown adults were trying to make me feel ostracized and ridiculed.”

Administrators at the high school did not return request for comment.

Ahlquist quickly began receiving attention from local media. “It was all over the Internet and (the Providence Journal) — it was kind of crazy and weird for me,” she said. Soon after, Ahlquist received an email from the ACLU asking if she would be a plaintiff in the case against her school. The original plaintiff “backed out because she didn’t want her children to be targeted,” Ahlquist said.

“When I got that email, there

was no doubt in my mind,” Ahlquist said. She wanted to join the lawsuit. Though she initially feared the reactions of her peers, she “didn’t think for a minute that was a good enough reason not to do it,” she said.

At a second meeting months later, the subcommittee voted 4-3 in favor of keeping the prayer and fighting the ACLU. One member who voted to remove the prayer said she “wished she could keep it up, but she knew they would lose to the ACLU,” Ahlquist said.

“There is a strong, persuasive precedent” for the case, said Lynette Labinger, one of Ahlquist’s two attorneys. Both Labinger and Ahlquist cited the court case Lee v. Weisman, in which a Providence parent sued a school over the inclusion of a prayer in its graduation ceremonies. The case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled the prayer was unconstitutional.

Ahlquist’s case was filed in early April, Labinger said, and the school has until May 20 to file a response.

Labinger called it a “considerably daunting task” for a sophomore to take part in such a lawsuit.

“I’m very much in awe of her ma-

turity,” Labinger added.

“I’m certainly optimistic about this,” she said. “Our case is too strong — we have more evidence than the other side could possibly even lie about having. There are so many other cases like mine.”

Ahlquist, who is the only active plaintiff along with her father, because she is under 18, plans to continue to spread awareness as she waits for the school’s response.

“There are so many more atheists than people think there are,” she said. “Three friends have recently told me that they are, and I think it’s a really important thing that atheists can feel comfortable in school and in society.”

After Ahlquist was contacted by a high school group coordinator of the nationwide Secular Student Alliance, she began to investigate starting a secular group at her own high school for atheists to come together and “realize they’re not completely alone.”

“It’s more that just taking the prayer down. It’s more than the tiny little issue of what hangs on a wall in a public school,” she said.

“It’s about people being willing to fight for what is right and do the American thing.”

Despite mixed reviews of Col. Dean Esserman’s tenure in office, Providence Mayor Angel Taveras announced April 12 that he will be keeping him as the city’s chief of police. Esserman’s contract expired Jan. 1 this year.

The decision came following the release of a report by Public Safety Commissioner Steven Pare that recommended retaining Esserman as police chief. The report praises positive changes under Esserman, including his “efforts to diminish political influence in the hiring process, a reduction of crime in Providence and adoption of a community policing model that has garnered national recognition.”

But Esserman’s time as police chief has been marked by controversy. He was suspended Feb. 7 following a “verbal altercation” at an officer training session.

According to multiple press reports, Esserman threatened to throw coffee at an officer when he coughed repeatedly during the chief ’s speech.

Esserman’s contentious relationship with the police union culminated in an overwhelming “no confidence” vote in June 2009.

The union pointed to Esserman’s unpredictable behavior and tendency to publicly criticize lowerranking officers.

During the 2010 mayoral campaign, Taveras was the only candidate to say he would consider retaining Esserman as chief.

When Esserman assumed the position in 2003, he took the helm of a “very, very troubled police department,” said Andrew Horwitz, president of the Rhode Island Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and associate dean of academic affairs at Roger Williams University School of Law. Corruption in the higher ranks, inadequate training, a long history of violence and a serious morale problem plagued the department when Esserman took charge, Horwitz said.

The police department has seen a number of high-profile corruption cases in recent years. Last June, 24 people, including four Providence police officers and one Department of Corrections employee, were charged in Operation Deception, an FBI investigation of a cocaine operation led by an officer’s brother. The trial of Providence Detective Robert DeCarlo, who was accused of police brutality following an arrest in a College Hill parking lot, is still ongoing.

Esserman did not come up through the ranks of the Providence police, and this unconventional route made him the second continued on page 9