Thursday, April 28, 2011

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vol. cxlvi, no. 58

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Since 1891

‘Renaissance’ reporter mixes media and medicine Driver gets eight years for death of Schaefer ’13

By Shefali Luthra Senior Staff Writer

Sanjay Gupta is lucky, he says. He has always been good at telling stories.

It was a skill that came in handy far more often than many doctors might expect. From writing for the hospital drama “ER” to drafting policy speeches for former President Bill Clinton’s administration to his current job as CNN’s chief medical correspondent, Gupta has frequently found himself bridging the gap between medicine and media.

But it is a gap easier to bridge than most people think, Gupta told a packed Salomon 101 last night.

Both in medicine and the media, you have to do a lot of reading, he said. You can “improve the quality of people’s lives.” You need to maintain your credibility. And you need to know and understand the people you work for — whether they make up your audience or your patients.

Once upon a time, Gupta said, doctors were “renaissance folks”

Rachel Kaplan / Herald

CNN reporter Sanjay Gupta told stories of his career in Salomon 101 yesterday.

— along with medicine, they were knowledgeable about politics, culture and writing.

“Nowadays, things have become so hyper-specialized,” Gupta said.

Gupta’s own journey to reporting

was the result of a “strange confluence of events,” he said. As a student in the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor’s seven-year medical program, Gupta spent his free time writing about medicine and health

care. After graduation, while completing his residency, Gupta worked as a White House Fellow, advising current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and writing speeches on health care.

It was at the White House in 1997 where Gupta met Tom Johnson, CEO of CNN at the time.

Johnson wanted to create a medical unit on the news network and asked Gupta if he would help him.

But Gupta, who did not quite understand what the job would entail, turned him down.

Then, four years later, he ran into Johnson at an airport. Johnson was still interested.

And this time, so was Gupta.

Since then, Gupta said he has earned the “dubious honor” of being CNN’s most traveled reporter. He has reported on Hurricane Katrina, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and most recently the tsunami in Japan.

And with each trip, he said, he

ty-three years had passed, and Brown was a very different place.

Kertzer was a professor of social science, anthropology and Italian studies before taking on his current position as provost in 2006. He remains on the faculty — though his duties as provost do not allow him the time for classroom teaching, he said he has continued to serve as a first-year and sophomore adviser.

Recently, the resurgence of the debate about allowing ROTC back on campus has brought about renewed discussion of Kertzer’s activist past.

As a student, he was a leader in the fight to get ROTC off campus.

Daniel Gilcreast, the driver who struck and killed Avi Schaefer ’13 last February, was sentenced to eight years in the Adult Corrections Institution in an emotionally charged hearing yesterday.

Magistrate Judge William McAtee handed down a 15-year sentence for Schaefer’s death and a 10-year sentence for injuring Marika Baltscheffsky ’13 in the same incident. Gilcreast will only be required to serve eight years for both sentences. He was also sentenced to pay a $6,000 fine and have his driver’s license suspended upon release from prison.

The 24-year-old Gilcreast was arrested Feb. 12, 2010, after striking Schaefer and Baltscheffsky at the intersection of Hope and Thayer streets. A passenger in the vehicle warned Gilcreast of the pedestrians, but he did not stop.

Gilcreast was the first person in Rhode Island forced to submit to a blood alcohol test under a law passed in November 2009.

Gilcreast’s blood alcohol content was .220, more than three times the legal limit, at the time of the accident.

Gilcreast pleaded no contest to two of five counts — driving under the influence, death resulting, as well as driving under the influence, serious injury resulting.

The remaining three counts — driving to endanger, death result-

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To finance Kertzer reflects as term winds down projects, U. to take on more debt

By Mark Raymond Senior Staff Writer

The University’s debt has risen by almost $500 million over the past decade, largely to finance infrastructure improvements on campus, according to Beppie Huidekoper, executive vice president for finance and administration. The accumulation of debt is part of a broader trend in higher education, and Brown plans to borrow more in the coming years, Huidekoper said.

In 2000, the University’s debt stood at $115 million. This figure has since increased about six-fold — to $609 million.

Administrators in 2000 saw a need to repair infrastructure flaws they viewed as liabilities. The University decided to fund these projects largely through debt, Huidekoper said.

Universities and other nonprofits began accumulating large amounts of debt about 40 years ago, when the government began to incentivize borrowing as a means to fund institutional growth. For example, the federal government began to pay debt services on certain

inside

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news....................2-6 CITY & State.....7-11 Sports............12-13 editorial............14 Opinions.............15 ArtS.......................16

When Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 steps down from his post June 30, his five-year term as the University’s second-ranking administrator will draw to a close, though he will remain on the faculty as a professor.

He leaves after a term marked by a national financial crisis, a heated tenure debate and a renewed interest in his own activist past as the University revisits its relationship with the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.

As as undergraduate, Kertzer was one of the most vocal members of the Campus Action Council — an activist organization founded in

1966 and a successor to Students for a Democratic Society and other radical student groups — and served on its executive board during his senior year.

He actively protested the Vietnam War and fought for civil rights, said Robert Cohen Jr. ’68 P’13, a college friend of Kertzer’s and fellow campus activist.

But despite his past, Cohen said he was not surprised Kertzer returned to Brown as a faculty member. “David was a scholarly kind of guy,” he said.

When Kertzer came back to the University to teach in 1992, not many people remembered or remarked upon his political past, he said. Twen-

Suspects in two-night robbery spree detained

By Lucy Feldman Staff Writer

Five armed robberies occurred on or near Brown’s campus early Tuesday morning and yesterday morning.

Two suspects, one male and one female, were identified by victims and arrested yesterday morning.

The robberies yesterday occurred within a four-block radius between Brown Street and Hope Street, according to Providence Police Department reports.

Around 3:28 a.m. yesterday, three Herald editors — two male juniors

and one female junior — were approached on Charlesfield Street by a male and a female in a light-colored sedan. While the female suspect remained silent, the male got out of the vehicle and asked for directions to the Fish Company, according to statements filed with the Providence police by the victims. Wielding a wrench or other tool, he then demanded money. The students gave him $40 and two cell phones. The male suspect then returned to the vehicle and fled eastbound on continued on page 13

Jarret t on Gender

Stephanie London / Herald Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to President Obama, spoke of policy, political change and passion during her talk in Salomon 101 yesterday.

See full coverage on page 5.

Editors’ note

D&C

This is The Herald’s last issue of the semester.

For updates, see browndailyherald.com.

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Schaefer’s ’13 killer to serve eight years continued from page 1

7 p.m.

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Hot Turkey Sandwich with Gravy, Mashed Potatoes, Chicken and Lo Mein Noodle Stir Fry

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ing, driving to endanger, personal injury resulting and possession of marijuana, first offense — were dismissed.

Schaefer’s parents, his twin brother Yoav Schaefer and several of his friends attended the sentencing. In lieu of a statement from the attorney general, the family presented a video in Schaefer’s memory before speaking to the court. The video contained clips of Schaefer being interviewed in Hebrew, photos of him and friends and brief statements from friends about how he inspired and taught them.

“Avi Schaefer was — and continues to be — my hero,” one friend said in the video. Sami Jarbawi ’12, who identified himself as Schaefer’s Palestinian friend, spoke of how Schaefer “proved to me that friendship has no limits.” Schaefer, a former Israeli soldier, worked to improve Israeli-Palestinian relations on campus.

The video also displayed written quotes, including a statement by President Ruth Simmons. Several

Courtesy of the Providence Journal

Daniel Gilcreast was sentenced yesterday to eight years in prison.

of Schaefer’s friends were moved to tears by the display.

Laurie Gross-Schaefer, Schaefer’s mother, spoke of her final conversations with her son and the void his death caused. She expressed concern for his three brothers, including his twin, “who can stand at the mirror and see Avi’s face but not feel him by his side.”

It is important to nurture the seed Schaefer planted in his short life, she said.

Schaefer’s father, Arthur GrossSchaefer, spoke about the Avi

Schaefer Fund, created to support constructive dialogue about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at North American universities in his son’s memory.

He described the fund as the family’s way of continuing Schaefer’s legacy, and he encouraged Gilcreast to find his own. “Be Avi’s voice, as Avi has lost his voice,” he told Gilcreast.

“I do not seek excessive punishment,” he said. He then described the four steps he believes Gilcreast needs to take for redemption — none of which involve imprisonment or financial restitution.

Gilcreast said in a statement to the court, “There is nothing I can say or do to make right the horrifying events.” He acknowledged through tears that his actions “have drastically changed the course of many families and friends,” including that of his own family and those of Schaefer and Baltscheffsky.

McAttee described this case as among the most difficult he has ever heard in 22 years on the bench.

He told the court he could “certainly appreciate what an incredible person (Schaefer) must have been.”

Kertzer to return after sabbatical continued from page 1

Crossword

But he has mostly stayed out of the current debate. “It was another epoch, and those were different times,” he said. “Obviously, as provost that hasn’t been my task.”

Though his academic career was rooted in the humanities, Kertzer said some of his biggest accomplishments as provost were expansions in the sciences. He spearheaded the task of combining the Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences and Psychology departments into one program — the Department of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences. Accompanying the project was the renovation to the Metcalf Chemistry and Research Laboratory, a renovated site that will provide a home for the CLPS department when it opens next year.

Another major accomplishment stemmed from unlikely circumstances. Like most of the academic world, Kertzer was surprised by and unprepared for the 2009 financial crisis. “All our models were ‘keep expanding,’” he said. But after the University — along with many of its peers — lost 25 percent of its endowment, he had to devise a new plan.

“A good part of my middle years

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as provost were spent trying to protect the academic programs and the student experience,” he said.

In the midst of the economic downturn, Kertzer was “able to stay focused on key academic priorities,” said Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning and senior adviser to the president. “He insisted that what needed to be done be done with the right standards,” Spies added.

Throughout the process of deciding what could and must be cut, Kertzer remained conscious of the fact that “it wasn’t just a decision to be made for the moment. It was a decision for the future,” said Arthur Matuszewski ’11, who served with him on the University Resources Committee, a committee chaired

by Kertzer and tasked with recommending the University’s annual budget.

Another more controversial hallmark of Kertzer’s final year as provost was the introduction of new standards for faculty tenure. At the heart of the issue was the fact that the University has a substantially higher rate of approving faculty tenure than peer institutions. So Kertzer, following a recommendation from

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the Corporation, proposed a new time line for the tenure process that would add a year to the probationary period for assistant faculty members while beginning the review period a year earlier.

Kertzer cited faculty quality as one of his priorities during his years as provost. Students “want to study with some of the great scholars in the field,” he said.

But the response from the faculty to Kertzer’s proposal was mixed.

“We had very different visions of what the problem is,” said Cynthia Garcia Coll, chair of the Faculty Executive Committee and professor of education, adding that she views a high tenure rate as a positive.

“He represents the Corporation.

There are going to be places where you’re going to clash,” she said.

“I give David enormous credit” for raising the issue of revisions to the tenure plan, Spies said. “The process by which faculty are appointed and promoted and supported is the most important thing we do.”

On July 1, Mark Schlissel P’15, dean of biological sciences at the University of California at Berkeley, will officially take over Kertzer’s duties as provost. “From my point of view, there’s a value in passing the torch, to let someone with new ideas look at things,” Kertzer said.

Schlissel’s experience at Berkeley will help him adapt well to his new role, Coll said. Brown and Berkeley “are both institutions that have thought and acted outside the box.

I’m hoping that vision will prevail here,” she said.

Kertzer said he plans to go back to teaching, but his immediate next step will be a year-long sabbatical, during which he will go to Italy and work on his latest book. “I think of myself first and foremost as a scholar and teacher and a writer,” he said. “I just need to get back to my writing.”

Campus News 3

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, April 28, 2011

Renovated Metcalf to open in October New TWC director to be announced this month

By Greg Jordan-Detamore Senior Staff Writer

The Metcalf Chemistry and Research Laboratory, currently under renovation, will reopen in October as the new home of the Department of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences. The project’s final completion is set for Sept. 30, and the department will move in the next week, said David LaPlante, program manager for Facilities Management.

The project is currently on schedule.

The $42 million renovation of the 74,000 square-foot building is progressing “very well,” said Stephen Maiorisi, vice president for the Department of Facilities Management.

The CLPS department was formed by the July 2010 merger of the cognitive and linguistic sciences and psychology departments.

“Bringing them together physically was an important part of bringing them together as a department,” said Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning and senior adviser to the president. The consolidation will “move the academic program forward for students and faculty,” he said.

Hunter Laboratory will be mostly vacated when psychology faculty relocate to Metcalf, he said. Administrators are drafting plans to renovate Hunter, a project that “wouldn’t be possible if we didn’t undertake the Metcalf project.”

A possible use for Hunter, once renovated, will be to help house the School of Engineering, which will need more space in the near future due to the University’s commitment to increase the size of the engineering faculty, Spies said. But any use of Hunter for engineering would only be a short-term solution. The University needs a major new facility for engineering, Spies said.

By Joseph rosales Senior Staff Writer

Leers Weinzapfel Associates

Opening in October, the renovated Metcalf Chemistry and Research Laboratory (above) will house the Department of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences.

Metcalf’s chemistry and research buildings — built in 1923 and 1938, respectively — are connected by a space that will feature new lounges on each floor and new conference rooms. The design will “give the building a new core, a heart,” LaPlante said. A glass wall will look out onto Lincoln Field, with doors on the other side opening onto a central public courtyard, also accessible from Waterman Street. A glass public art installation will also make for “a great addition,” he said.

The part of the building most frequented by undergraduates will be the 225-seat auditorium — a “state of the art teaching space,” according to the Facilities Management website.

The research building on Lincoln Field will mostly house faculty offices. The chemistry building, which sits on Thayer Street, will consist of laboratories and will also house a departmental library and a skylit “dome room” for faculty conferences, LaPlante said.

The former attic, which held unused exhaust fans, will be transformed into graduate student offices, a graduate student lounge and showers for bicycle commuters. “It’s going

to be beautiful up here,” LaPlante said.

Labs and offices have already been assigned to specific faculty members, and labs have been “designed to their specific needs,” he said.

Metcalf will be “very energy, environmentally conscious,” LaPlante said. The goal is to get a LEED Silver rating from the U.S. Green Building Council.

New sidewalks and street trees will be placed around the building, he said, and the portion of Thayer next to Metcalf will also be repaved.

“A mix of gifts and debt” will be pay for the project, Spies said.

The Metcalf renovation was not the first plan for a new home for CLPS. A new building at Angell Street and the Walk, on the site of the Urban Environmental Lab, had previously been proposed to house the new department. But financial realities in 2009 made the cost of a new building prohibitive, and controversy over eliminating or displacing the environmental lab added to the site’s problems. The Corporation approved renovation work on Metcalf

The Third World Center’s yearlong search for a new director is coming to a close, said Ricky Gresh, senior director for student engagement.

The search committee hopes to make an official announcement before finals period ends May 20, Gresh said.

Since Associate Dean of the College Karen McLaurin ’74 left the position last spring, the center has been under the guidance of Associate Protestant University Chaplain William Mathis. The University chose to postpone the search until the start of this school year to focus on preparing the center for the fall semester.

The search began in October when a search committee and a student advisory board were formed. Gresh, who chairs the search committee, said it was important for the administration to have a strong collection of diverse student perspectives on the advisory board.

After a series of interviews, four finalists were selected from the pool of applicants before spring break. When classes resumed, the four candidates participated in a two-day program on campus — taking tours, attending welcome receptions and speaking at community forums on the mission and objectives of the center.

Student participation has been crucial to the search, Gresh said.

About half the audience at each of the four forums were students.

“We wanted to have not just

casual, but intensive student feedback,” he said.

Gresh said he was glad to see so much response from the student body because the center director will work closely with students.

“People that are looking for these kinds of jobs are looking because they love to work with students,” he said. “I think there was really the desire and also the expectation on our end to have their involvement, and the expectation on their end that they would have an opportunity to have their voice heard.”

Saudi Garcia ’14, who will be a Minority Peer Counselor next year, said she hopes the new director will help the center become “a place with more dialogue.”

The new director should have an open mind about the role of the center on campus and should be willing to work with other departments and community efforts, Garcia said. She said she hopes the director will make an effort to draw more support from graduate students of color, as they do not have as big an input at the center as other groups.

Gresh said the process has been “really exciting” because of the possibilities open to the new director.

“There are both opportunities and issues that students in particular, but also the institution, alumni and faculty, see and can be addressed,” Gresh said. “We’re ready to really get in there and work with someone.”

The University hopes to have the new director start July 1.

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Project seeks to spark religious dialogue

By Daniel Sack Contributing Writer

Every Tuesday this semester, about 20 students gathered in J. Walter Wilson for the Brown Religious Literacy Project, a non-for-credit class designed to promote dialogue about world religions.

Ben Marcus ’13, the creator of the project, said the name of the project is slightly tongue in cheek because it is impossible to become fully religiously literate in any one religion in one semester — or ever.

“The goal is to make people in a way realize how little they know and to give them the hunger and the skills to further their knowledge about one tradition or multiple traditions,” he said.

The project followed a 13-weeklong schedule and primarily covered five religions — Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Islam. The class covered each of these religions for two weeks, the first of which involved a visit from a chaplain from the Office of the Chaplains and Religious Life and a professor from the Department of Religious Studies, who offered views on different approaches to

religion. Every other week, class was dedicated to student-led discussion.

During the 12th week, participants researched and presented on traditions not covered during the class.

The student wrote journal assignments and completed weekly readings. They also took part in two field trips, attending either a religious service­— like Mass or a Shabbat service — or a meeting of a religious association, like the Brown Muslim Students’ Association. Marcus said he provided texts from news sources and asked the chaplains and professors to provide reading material, which ranged from text books to scripture, to foster discussion.

Marcus said he decided to create the project last year when he tried talking to friends about Switzerland banning minarets, an architectural part of Islamic mosques. But he said his friends did not know what minarets were.

“That was sort of a wake-up call to me that there are a lot of intelligent people at Brown who are woefully ignorant about matters of faith,” he said. “So this is sort of a project in

bringing together different people from different academic paths to sort of talk about religion and why it’s pertinent to our society.”

The Department of Religious Studies does not offer its own course on world religions because many professors feel the constraints of teaching a class would prohibit it being truly fulfilling, Marcus said.

The class had “the luxury of trying things that wouldn’t necessarily be possible in a credit-bearing course” because it brought together perspectives from the office of the chaplains and the religious studies department, he said. Because the course was not offered for credit, he said it also allowed “students who had a full courseload but were interested in issues of religion to take part without stress or anxiety about grades and to be more open.”

Maddie Johnston ’13, a human biology concentrator, said her courseload was primarily filled with science courses, so the project offered her a different venue for discussion. “I feel that this has been a missing part of my education, to just get to talk about big questions that don’t have answers,” she said.

Thanks for partying!

4 Campus News Gupta recounts travels, CNN reporting in lecture continued from page 1 learned that some things are universal — that compassion comes from “all sorts of different places” and that “hopes, dreams and aspirations are evenly distributed across the world.”

His worlds of media and medicine come “crashing together,” Gupta said. For example, when he was reporting in Iraq, the naval doctors he was with came to him with a marine who had been shot in the head. Originally declared dead, the man — named Jesus — was found to have a pulse.

They asked Gupta if he would step out of his role as a journalist, just for that moment.

“There (were) no tools to do what I needed to do,” Gupta said.

But he was able to open Jesus’ skull, removing a blood clot and the shrapnel lodged inside.

After the procedure, he looked for something to clean the wound and protect it from infection. He used the only sterile thing they had — a used IV bag. He said he did not know if he would ever see Jesus again.

After he returned home, Gupta received a call from San Diego. It was Jesus’ doctor. Jesus was doing great, the doctor said, and he would love to see Gupta.

In 2009, Gupta was considered for the position of surgeon general.

But he turned it down. The surgeon general cannot practice surgery, Gupta said, and if he left neurosurgery for four or even eight years, there was no guarantee he would be able to return to it. Medicine, Gupta said, is his first and primary love.

But still, Gupta said he is interested in health care reform. The current health care debate, which he characterized as “ideologically charged,” will go down as an “embarrassing chapter” in American history, he said. For now, he recommends that Americans look at health care “broadly,” perhaps redefining the culture of American health care.

Ultimately, though, he said it is most important to emphasize a “more healthy America.”

“We have an obligation to do what’s right by our bodies,” Gupta said.

The talk, hosted by the Brown Lecture Board, was followed by a question-and-answer session in which one student asked Gupta what gave him the confidence to apply for a job at CNN — especially when he had no prior experience in journalism.

“I’m pretty confident with failing,” Gupta said in response. “I enjoy having the dreams. I enjoy having the ambition.”

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, April 28, 2011

Q&A with Sanjay Gupta Sanjay Gupta came to campus yesterday to speak about the relationship between media and medicine. After his lecture, he sat down with The Herald.

The Herald: What do you hope students took away from your talk today?

I think it’s my own life experience, as someone who wasn’t entirely sure where their life was going to lead, and when it was going in different directions. And I think that that story can sometimes be helpful when people are trying to make their own decisions in life about what they want to do.

How did you end up choosing to combine medicine and journalism?

You know, it’s interesting.

Because I really thought that when I started, I didn’t know what I’d be doing exactly. I thought I’d be covering, as I said, the health care discussions of George W. Bush’s presidency. It really was a pretty unusual thing because of what happened in the world at that time.

With the attacks of 9/11, and then I essentially was going to Afghanistan and all of that. I think I really enjoyed it and thought it was valuable to do, so I thought it was a worthwhile thing to incorporate in my life. So that was really it. I mean, I never trained as a journalist. If anything, I was a writer, and it was mainly policy writing, you know speech-writing. It was never journalism, per se. So it’s a pretty atypical path.

Do you find there to be any benefits or drawbacks to combining fields that are so different?

Well, you know, I think that if you’re truly interested in the field, there may be more in common than you think or than you realize. I mean, you get the sense that people have interests in wildly different things — like what is it about those things that tie them together in the person’s mind? And so for me, that’s where I focus a lot of my attention. I think medicine and journalism are actually very similar. We spend a lot of time educating patients as doctors, and I do a lot of the same thing as a medical reporter. It’s along the same spectrum of providing knowledge.

When you first began medical reporting, did you ever have trouble explaining that to friends or family — what exactly you were doing?

That’s a good question, I’m trying to think if I did. I don’t think that I ever really did. I think everyone always sort of saw me as — especially since I’d already worked at the White House — I think people already saw me as kind of unconventional just from pure clinical medicine. I think that people sort of saw this in some ways as an extension of what I’d already been doing.

I think for the most part, it sort of made sense to my close friends and family.

What ultimately led you to decide not to be surgeon general?

It was a tough decision. I think that ultimately it was timing more than anything else. I mean, I obviously had done public service before, when I worked at the White House. I did not think that to be in my early 40s no longer with the ability to practice surgery was something I wanted to be in. I like practicing surgery, and if I’m away from it for four years — especially eight years — you’re probably not going back to neurosurgery. That’s what I’d been told. And I didn’t think it was the right time for me to do that. And like I said, most of the other surgeon generals were much older — already retired. As an internist or infectious disease doctor, perhaps. I think as a neurosurgeon, it would be tough.

There are a lot of changes you see in broadcast today — a lot of the talk formats and a lot more opinion-based journalism. As someone who is in the media but not trained as a journalist, what do you think of such changes? Do they affect how you report?

I think the biggest thing I would say is you know, I touched on this in the speech, but I think the biggest problem for me with opinion-based journalism is not so much that you can’t have informed opinions out there. In fact, I think it’s probably less honest to simply assume that nobody has any opinions at all. I think what’s troubling is that there’s not always two viewpoints on them.

There are sometimes just right and wrong, and I think that if that’s the case, you’ve got to call it. You’ve got to, or it gets confusing to viewers, and it’s not helpful. It possibly can damage them if you misrepresent things as equal when one is just simply not correct.

What are your thoughts about what would make an effective health care system?

Well, you know, I talked about (it) in the speech. I think that ultimately there has to be two goals. One is that I think that you’ve got to make sure people actually have access to the health care that’s available to certain segments of the population, and I think that that’s improving. It’s not like countries that have government-run health care systems, but I think it will increase when we have it. But I think the larger issue — and the one that I think often gets missed in this — is that we’re not a very healthy country. We like to compare ourselves to places like France, but in France, they’re a lot healthier than we are. They’re healthier, they have more individual responsibility, and I think that simply insuring people for health care, while very important, can’t be the ultimate goal. I think what we want is a healthier America, one where we don’t have as much disease as we’ve been sort of dealing with in the past several decades.

I hear you used to sing in the glee club in college. Will we ever hear you sing on the air?

(Laughs) Probably not. College was a really long time ago. Some things you’re going to leave in the past.

What advice would you give to Brown students?

I sort of was saying this in response to one of the questions.

But I think, you know, obviously having a specific dream I think is really important, but I think you have to be comfortable with failure, as I said. Failure in the sense that you may not always get all the dreams that you want, but enjoy the process of dreaming and enjoy the process of going after those goals.

— Shefali Luthra

Campus News 5

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, April 28, 2011

Gov. Chafee ’75 comes to campus to support wrestling team

By Tony BAkshi Sports Editor

Gov. Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14 and other alums, as well as players and coaches of the four varsity teams that were suggested for elimination by the Athletics Review Committee, met with committee members yesterday to pitch their teams’ cases for survival.

Chafee, a former captain of the men’s wrestling team, spoke about the value of the sport to his collegiate experience, said Robert Hill ’88, a former wrestler and current co-president of Friends of Brown Wrestling.

“(Chafee) was there to be an advocate for Brown wrestling,” said Hudson Collins ’11.5, a student representative of the wrestling team present at the meeting. “He’s willing to take time out of his busy schedule to come speak not only about the importance of preserving the Brown wrestling program but also the other teams in general.”

The four teams that last week’s committee report recommended eliminating — men’s and women’s fencing, wrestling and women’s skiing — were each allocated an hour to meet with committee members.

Seven committee members were in

attendance, including committee chair Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning and senior adviser to the president, and Director of Athletics Michael Goldberger.

Representatives from each team came prepared with support documents and financial data intended to counter the explanations for the cuts outlined in the committee’s report.

“I think a lot of our points resonated with the members,” Collins said. He said the arguments brought before the committee were a result of “collaboration between current wrestlers, coaches and a very strong alumni base.”

Jarrett discusses gender, dispenses advice

By Nicole Boucher News Editor

Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to President Obama, discovered her passion for public service after moving from an elite Chicago law firm in the Sears Tower to a cubicle facing an alley in the mayor’s office, she told a nearly full Salomon 101 yesterday afternoon.

In her lecture, part of the Doherty-Granoff Forum on Women Leaders, Jarrett interspersed anecdotes of her personal journey from city politics to the White House with advice for finding success after college. She placed particular emphasis on how her gender influenced her life journey and laid out the obstacles women continue to face in the labor force.

“A lot has changed since I was in school,” Jarrett said. Women made up 25 percent of her University of Michigan law school class in 1981, compared to 50 percent in her daughter’s law school class last year. And the first legislation Obama signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, designed to help women facing wage discrimination take legal action.

But Jarrett, who chairs the White House Council on Women and Girls, said glaring gender disparities persist. A report conducted by the council last month documented the continued gaps between men and women in the labor force, particularly in the areas of science and technology. Women earn about 75 cents for every dollar a man earns in comparable occupations, she said.

Jarrett transitioned from policy talk to advice about life after college. “Since I’m old enough to be your parent, I get to tell you what I think,” she said.

She implored audience members to follow their passions, as she did by entering public service. “I was doing what everyone else in the world thought I should do,” she said of her job at the law firm. But she said she was “miserable” until a friend suggested she go into public service, telling her “you will feel like you are part of something much bigger than yourself.”

As deputy chief of staff for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, Jarrett hired Michelle Obama and began an advising relationship with the Obamas that continued on the campaign

trail and in the White House.

Students should also seek to escape their comfort zones and seize opportunities, Jarrett said. “Opportunity almost never knocks at the opportune moment.”

After her speech, Jarrett answered policy questions.

Jarrett acknowledged the problems faced by cities, which must balance budgets by cutting vital services.

Lack of coordination between agencies prevents the federal government from enacting policies to address urban decline, she said. “Cities are the economic engine of our country and need to be seen as places of opportunity, not just challenge.”

Jarrett ended with an anecdote encapsulating the substantive change that can come from public service.

The night before the health care reform bill passed, Obama held a large party for all staffers and advisers involved in its passage. As the crowd was leaving Obama’s event, Jarrett said she asked him how the jubilant night compared to election night, and he replied, “There’s no comparison. Election night simply created the possibility of change. Tonight, we’ve actually changed.”

Hill said current team members and alums — three of whom traveled from other states to attend yesterday’s meeting — have been “developing talking points and establishing and re-establishing our position” since the committee’s proposal was released last Thursday.

“We each spoke individually about wrestling and the Brown experience and our opinion that wrestling and the other sports are very important to Brown in terms of diversity and opportunity and academics,” Hill said.

Professor of Biology Ken Miller ’70 P’02 also attended the wrestling

meeting, and he spoke as an “advocate for student-athletes in general,” Collins said.

At the meeting on women’s skiing, representatives for the women’s varsity ski team and men’s club ski team — both of which are recommended to be cut — presented “facts (the committee members) previously didn’t know,” including details about the varsity team’s training and traveling schedules, said Krista Consiglio ’11, captain of the women’s ski team.

Though the report specifically noted concerns about the safety of continued on page 11

6 Campus News

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, April 28, 2011

With looming team cuts, UCS provides forum for student-athletes build and maintain a more competiMembers of the wrestling and recruits face hard decisions tive athletics program which would fencing teams said the Athletics

By Madeleine Wenstrup Sports Staff Writer

After making it to the Idaho state wrestling finals last spring, Ken Staub ’15 was recruited by schools across the country, including Brown. “When I went to the Brown campus, I got a feeling that this was the place for me,” Staub said. But with his decision already made and Brown’s wrestling team in danger of being cut, Brown may no longer be the ideal fit.

With the wrestling team, men’s and women’s fencing teams and women’s ski team in danger of being eliminated, Staub and 11 other recruits are now facing a decision they never thought they would have to make when schools were courting them just months ago — whether to go to a college that might not have their sport.

“They put their goals in line, everything set. Now, all of it is shattered — destroyed,” said fencing Head Coach Atilio Tass.

Most of the recruits found out about the potential cuts after the Athletics Review Committee released its recommendations last Thursday. Wrestling Head Coach Dave Amato called each of his seven recruits to break the news.

“I had to let the players and parents know,” he said. “They were devastated. I had moms crying, dads crying, people yelling.

It was a nightmare.”

Many of the athletes were early-decision applicants and applied to no other universities. For those who did apply elsewhere, they have until this Sunday to determine if they want to accept Brown’s offer. Some have already turned down athletics scholar-

ships, even full rides, to compete for the University next year.

The recommendations, if accepted by President Ruth Simmons, will be sent to the Corporation at its May meeting. In the meantime, the fates of the four teams and the 12 recruits hang in the balance.

“I am definitely considering Harvard and (Boston College) now,” said Nika Rosenthal ’15, a skiing recruit. “Skiing was a huge part of my decision to come to Brown.”

Skiing Head Coach Michael LeBlanc said some of his recruits may have fewer choices. “The options for a great school with a competitive program is limited,” he said.

“I really like Brown. I love the campus, the no requirements,” Rosenthal said. “I am still deciding if I like it enough without the skiing.”

Wrestling recruit Zack Tanenbaum ’15 — who applied early decision — is not sure if he has other options. “I’m really uncertain,” he said. “If they cut the program, I might go somewhere else.”

The Athletics Review Committee report said the University would help student-athletes interested in transferring if the cuts go through, but the implications are unclear for recruits.

Of the three coaches and four recruits interviewed, none knew whether recruits who had already committed would be able to shift schools at the last minute.

As their senior years of high school wind down, many recruits are scrambling. “What are they going to do?” Amato asked. “They feel like they have nowhere to go right now.”

By David Chung Senior Staff Writer

The Undergraduate Council of Students hosted administrators and student-athletes at its final general body meeting of the semester last night, providing a venue for them to exchange their ideas and concerns about the recommendations made last Thursday by the Athletics Review Committee to cut four varsity sports teams.

Representatives of the men’s wrestling and men’s and women’s fencing teams attended the meeting, where they listened to Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning and senior adviser to the president, as he reviewed the rationale for the suggested cuts. Spies said the University is seeking to

also allow student-athletes to pursue their academic goals more easily.

Spies told the council that an athletics program with 34 varsity teams would be more “sustainable” than the current program, which supports 37 varsity teams. But he said the committee did not use a “formula” to determine which teams to cut. Instead, he said the committee reviewed Brown’s athletics teams using a broad array of criteria including competitiveness, facilities and cost.

To those who oppose the committee’s recommendations because they believe the changes will not noticeably improve the athletics program, Spies said, “I don’t accept that as a valid argument.”

Review Committee’s deliberations and decisions lacked transparency.

Kathy Nguyen ’13, a member of the fencing team, questioned the “very large investment” the report said is required to sustain a competitive fencing program. She said the committee’s report lacked sufficient quantitative data.

Members of the wrestling team also expressed their disappointment over the recommendations, saying the cuts would decrease diversity on campus and limit the college experiences of student-athletes.

“They’re taking away our choice,” said Marcos Aranda ’13, a member of the men’s wrestling team.

“They’re taking away our opportunity.”

U.’s $609 million debt to increase continued from page 1 university-held loans in the 1970s to promote research expansion, Huidekoper said.

“The longer-term trend is that borrowing has increased, but most of the borrowing increased in the past 15 years,” said John Nelson, managing director for higher education and nonprofits at Moody’s Corporation.

The period from 1994 to 2008 was a “golden era” for higher education, he said. “Everything was moving in the same direction and people became very optimistic about the future.”

“Interest rates were very low, demand for higher ed was rising during that period and the stock market did very well,” he added.

Though universities borrowed heavily during this time-span, “if you just dial the clock back a decade or 15 years before that, they went through a long period of austerity,” he said. In the 1980s and early 1990s, universities tended to defer maintenance and capital projects. It was only in the mid-90s that “things turned around and the sector boomed.”

Since the financial crisis struck in 2008, universities have been cutting costs and borrowing less, Nelson

said. But their longer-term strategies still involve borrowing.

Though universities are looking “more business-like” in the way they manage funds, they do not usually aim to make a profit, he added. “The goal is to become more efficient so you can expand the university over time and either make your product better or enroll more students,” he said. “It comes off to some stakeholders that they’re being more corporate, but really what they’re doing is following tried and true steps to make themselves more efficient and market themselves better.”

But William Simmons, professor of anthropology, said he is not sure dependence on borrowed money is a positive change for universities.

He said this dependence is part of a broader trend toward “multiversities” — a phrase coined in the 1960s to describe a shift toward increased reliance on external funding and “larger and more complex” universities.

Universities are “becoming less and less insular and more outer directed,” he said. “In the long run, that is probably not a good thing.”

“Universities have always defined themselves as spaces that were protected from societal, religious and financial influences so what they did could be trusted,” he said. “That kind

of thing still exists, but it exists in competition with many other things in a political and economic sense.”

But Huidekoper said the approach Brown has taken with its finances doesn’t indicate a shift in priorities.

“I don’t think we’re corporatizing,” she said. “I think if we were borrowing to invest and make a profit, that would be a different story.”

The vast majority of universities have borrowed within their means, despite a handful of exceptions, Nelson said.

“From a long-term perspective, universities are not really overly leveraged,” he said. “As the debt is going up, the endowment is going up, the revenue is going up and the private donations are going up.”

Though Nelson said he sees universities borrowing less since 2008, Brown will likely continue to borrow money in the future to fund projects like residence hall renovations, due to its inability to fund such large projects through the normal operating budget, Huidekoper said.

“I think we will be borrowing more in the next five years,” she said.

“Currently short-term debt is very attractive because interest rates are low. Now is about as good a time as ever to borrow.”

City & State 7

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, April 28, 2011

In fiscal storm, University keep eyes on Jewelry District

By Claire Peracchio City & State Editor

The state’s political leaders call it a once-in-a-generation economic opportunity. Set to be completed at the end of 2012, the 10-year relocation of Route 195 has cleared 20 acres of prime real estate in Providence’s Fox Point and Jewelry District, some of which Brown is eyeing for further expansion.

The area, known as the Knowledge District, has been billed as a hub for research in medicine and the life sciences — an engine for growth in Rhode Island’s still-struggling economy.

But there is currently no process in place to sell the land, and recent discussions have stalled on the issue of taxation, particularly for tax-exempt nonprofits like Brown.

The prospect of subtracting land from the tax base of a city facing a two-year $122.6 million deficit by selling to a nonprofit has until now been a political non-starter.

The city’s fiscal woes complicate Brown’s expansion plans, said Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning and senior adviser to the president. “It means that what might seem like a really terrific idea, investment by a not-for-profit, all of a sudden seems a lot more scary for the city because they’d like to have some tax revenues from that,” he said.

Now, the General Assembly is

considering a bill that would finally establish a process for selling the land. For the city’s expansion-minded nonprofits, the stakes are high.

My way on the Iway

In February, Gov. Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14 traveled to the Houston Medical Center with a delegation including President Ruth Simmons and Spies. None of the nonprofits associated with the 1,000-acre medical center pay property taxes.

The key to cultivating a hub of medical research and development like Houston’s is collaboration, Chafee said at a hearing on the I-195 legislation.

But for Chafee, Providence Mayor Angel Taveras and state legislators, collaboration has not been entirely forthcoming. The question of creating a commission to oversee the disposal of the land has emerged as a sticking point between the governor and mayor. Chafee favors establishing a commission to streamline zoning, permitting and selling the land, which is currently owned by the state’s Department of Transportation.

Taveras opposes the commission and hired a private design firm in March to zone and plan the area.

The firm’s study —funded with federal dollars — will be complete in September. Taveras has publicly stated his support for the current bill.

The bill will most likely be re-

vised before passage, said Sen. Dominick Ruggerio, D-Providence.

Ruggerio, the legislation’s sponsor, is meeting with city stakeholders and estimates that legislation regulating the disposal of the land will not be passed until June at the earliest.

His bill sets out guidelines for selling or leasing the land and stipulates it should be disposed of in a way that benefits the public interest. But the bill’s most important language concerns taxation. If a nonprofit cannot come to an agreement with the city on a voluntary tax contribution, the Department of Transportation may require that it pay property taxes in full.

For Spies, this provision is simply not applicable. “I say, if the city doesn’t agree, then we’re not going” to buy the land, he said.

Triggering investment

While many are concerned Brown’s tax-exempt status means it will not have to pay taxes on I-195 land, the University currently pays the full value of property taxes on all but one of its Jewelry District buildings purchased in the past decade.

That one building, at 70 Ship St., was the first building the University purchased in the Jewelry District and is home to the Alpert Medical School’s Laboratories for Molecular Medicine.

Brown currently owns 11 buildings and leases two in the Jewelry District, all of which were purchased

from private sellers. The I-195 parcels it has expressed interest in are located to the north of its current holdings.

Brown is not the only nonprofit looking to purchase I-195 land.

Since 2008, Johnson and Wales University has expressed interest in land bordering its current holdings, which would be used for “immediate needs,” including academic buildings and student dormitories, said Lisa Pelosi, a spokesperson for Johnson and Wales.

The I-195 land is also a potential site of expansion for the state’s public universities and private hospitals, which, unlike the city’s private universities, make no payments to the city in lieu of taxes. The University of Rhode Island and Rhode Island College have proposed creating a combined nursing building on the I-195 land in the Jewelry District.

“The Brown Medical School on Richmond Street hopefully is going to be a trigger for additional investment in the health sciences in that area,” said Edward Quinlan, president of the Hospital Association of Rhode Island.

The state’s private universities have been more specific in expressing which parcels of the I-195 land they would like to purchase, and until there is a clear structure in place for selling the land, other institutions will be less precise, Quinlan added.

‘Economic powerhouses’

When Taveras addressed the Fox Point Neighborhood Association at its March board meeting, he told attendees that all options to reduce the city’s deficit were being considered — even further raising the city’s high property taxes.

Fox Point residents understand the role that Brown plays in the state’s economy, said John Rousseau, a member of the Fox Point Neighborhood Association. But they also want others to bear the burden of paying for Providence’s fiscal problems. “Otherwise, we’ll just continue to be the only people taxed in town,” he said.

But many witnesses at the April 14 hearing on Ruggerio’s I-195 legislation were less measured in their remarks about the University. Some asked what gives Brown the right to expand into the Jewelry District without paying taxes on valuable property. Homeowners are suffering under the burden of high property taxes — why can’t Brown pay more?

Colleges like Brown are now “economic powerhouses” with more to their mission than simply teaching students, said Mike Patch, president of the Providence Apartment Association, at the hearing.

While the leadership of the Jewelry District Association does not always agree with the city’s universities, the Jewelry District is ripe continued on page 8

8 City & State

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, April 28, 2011

U. continues tax contribution discussions Speaker shifts support from according to a November 2010 tributions of as much as 25 percent gay marriage to civil unions continued from page 7 Providence City Council Report. of what they would pay if they paid for new development, said Phoebe Blake, head of the planning and zoning committee of the association.

“Fifty percent of the land area here is surface parking lots,” she said. “We are looking forward to development.”

Brown is conscious of its public perception, but its actions are not dictated by it, Spies said. Unlike the city’s public school system, which the mayor has targeted for millions of dollars in cuts by firing teachers and closing schools, Taveras does not directly control private universities like Brown. This, Spies acknowledged, presents a challenge for the mayor.

While the University wants to assist the city, contributions should “be defined in terms of our mission, which is teaching and research,” Spies said. “It’s not to fund the city and everything that comes with it.”

Reaching an understanding

In 2003, Brown, the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence College and Johnson and Wales signed a memorandum of understanding with the city of Providence stipulating that the institutions would contribute nearly $50 million in voluntary contributions over 20 years. Tax-exempt nonprofits own 15 percent of the land in Providence,

In fiscal year 2009, Brown paid $3.34 million in property taxes and voluntary payments to the city. Since 2009, none of the University’s property has been taken off the tax rolls, a process that would require Brown to gradually draw down tax payments under the agreement. While discussion has taken place about establishing a different agreement for the I-195 land, no such agreement currently exists, Spies wrote in an email to The Herald.

Since the 2003 memorandum, made during the administration of former Mayor and current Rep. David Cicilline ’83, D-RI, Providence’s financial outlook has darkened. Cicilline’s successor, Taveras, has publicly stated his willingness to keep all options on the table to raise revenue — including taxing student dormitories, imposing a mandatory student residence fee and increasing the amount that the University pays in exchange for city services.

The Taveras administration has not approached the University about specific proposals, Spies said, but conversations about Brown’s contributions to Providence are ongoing.

Taveras is not the only New England mayor to consider further taxing nonprofits. In Boston, Mayor Thomas Menino has issued letters to the city’s nonprofits seeking con-

property taxes in full. Like Providence’s agreement, Boston nonprofits also make voluntary payments.

Similar payment programs for nonprofits also exist in Baltimore, Bristol, Detroit and Cambridge, Mass. Providence’s agreement with nonprofits generated $2.5 million in fiscal year 2010, roughly $2 million less than similar agreements garnered in Cambridge and New Haven in recent years, according to a 2010 report by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

But discussions about taxing the I-195 land are complicated by the fact that nonprofits are the only entities that have openly expressed interest in the land so far, according to Spies. There has not yet been a public bidding process on the land.

“There isn’t anybody lined up to pay taxes, so they’re not choosing between a tax-exempt investment and a taxable investment,” Spies said.

Brown’s expansion over the next decade is inevitable, Spies added, but whether that development occurs in the Jewelry District is not.

“If the Jewelry District is a place where everyone would like us to concentrate at least some of our growth, then that will happen,” he said. “If the decision is that isn’t a good place because there are better uses for it, then it will go someplace else.”

By MORGAN JOHNSON Staff Writer

Rhode Island Speaker of the House Gordon Fox, D-Providence, sent a letter to House representatives yesterday announcing his decision to support civil unions after what he deemed to be an unsuccessful attempt to pass gay marriage legislation.

Fox, who is gay, said his personal support for gay marriage rights has not changed. But he recommended halting progress on the current marriage equality bill and is instead sponsoring a civil union bill currently being drafted.

If passed, the bill will grant gay couples in civil unions the same rights currently offered to straight couples in Rhode Island.

Fox said he is pessimistic about the likelihood that the gay marriage bill — which is currently being debated in the House — could realistically pass the Senate, adding that he believes the civil union bill will ultimately lead to increased rights for gay and lesbian couples because it enjoys greater bipartisan support.

Gov. Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14 said in a statement that though he supports Fox’s opinion on the matter, he had been an advocate of the marriage equality bill and was

hoping for its enactment this year.

“My response is, I’m really disappointed, but I still plan to fight for equality under the law,” said Rep. Arthur Handy, D-Cranston, in an April 27 Providence Journal article. “I think it’s outrageous that we’d be talking about anything less than that for same-sex couples.”

Marriage Equality Rhode Island said in a statement Tuesday it does not support legalizing civil unions as an alternative for gay marriage. After Fox’s announcement, the group released another statement reinforcing their opposition to compromising their support of gay marriage for civil unions.

“It’s somewhat of a shock to us,” said Jessica Mitter ’13, a member of the Queer Political Action Committee. She said the organization did not expect the decision given Fox’s past commitment to the bill.

“I’m not sure the situation is as bad as he says it is,” she said of the gay marriage bill’s prospects of passage.

The committee set up a Facebook event encouraging students to call Fox and urge him to change his mind. She said that given Chafee’s support, the state should not pass up an opportunity to advance gay rights. “I feel like this is giving up,” she said.

City & State 9

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, April 28, 2011

Forum addresses school interventions Report blames Cicilline

’83 for R.I. deficit

By Rebecca ballhaus City & State Editor

When Shannon Hernandez’ husband began working in Massachusetts this year, she decided to stay in Providence with her daughter, who is currently enrolled in kindergarten at Mary E. Fogarty Elementary School in Lower South Providence.

But with the latest blow to the city’s public schools — this month the state department of education targeted five low-achieving schools, including Fogarty, for intervention — Hernandez is considering leaving the state to join her husband.

She was one of five Fogarty Elementary parents at a meeting held by the Providence Public School Department Tuesday night to solicit feedback on four possible transition models to turn the school around.

Four school department officials — one of whom translated the meeting into Spanish — attended.

In addition to the five parents, one teacher also attended. Once targeted, schools have to choose from four models — closure, restart, turnaround and transformation. Both the turnaround and transformation models require the schools to replace their principals, but turnaround also mandates that all teachers be fired and a maximum of 50 percent be hired back.

The forum was intended to both inform parents and allow them to offer their input on their model preference before Superintendent Tom Brady makes the official recommendation to the education department May 20, said Dorothy Smith, executive director of school transformations.

“It’s important to get all of those thoughts and get them to the superintendent,” Smith said. “I’m sure he’ll make a decision that … is best for the kids and will improve their outcomes.”

“It’s unacceptable that the schools are what they are,” she added. “I look at it as they’re not being forced to do something, they’re being offered assistance.”

The choice of schools was “statistically driven,” based on a formula that takes into consideration data like test performance, attendance rate and graduation rate from the past four years, said Elliot Krieger,

By CHip lebovitz Staff Writer

Rebecca Ballhaus / Herald

Five Providence schools have been selected for intervention this month.

spokesman for the state education department. “The idea is to completely reform education in these schools, so it’s a pretty dramatic effect that (the interventions are) going to have.”

For the first half hour of the meeting, Smith went over each model and its implications for the school.

Officials then opened the forum to discussion, asking the parents for their feedback on each model.

School closure was swiftly rejected as an option. “What about the community?” asked Rith Am, the father of a kindergartner at the school. “People have gone to school here for years.”

“We have nowhere else to send kids,” Smith told The Herald.

One mother noted the benefit of teacher evaluations mandated by the transformation model. “It gives the teachers time to improve if they’re lacking,” added the teacher attending the meeting, who did not announce her name. Under the transformation model, if after a year a teacher still does not meet prescribed standards, he or she would be dismissed.

Officials also emphasized the importance of choosing a sustainable model that does not depend too heavily on federal funds. “What’s going to happen in year four when federal money is gone?” Smith asked.

At the end of the meeting, each parent was given a blue sticker to place on a chart listing the four models. Am said he was somewhat torn between the turnaround model and the transformation model. “I hate to see people lose their jobs,” he said.

“But you might find somebody with more knowledge if you get rid of —

I’m sorry to say this — dead weight.”

But, he added, “I’m going to vote for transformation anyway to give them a chance to improve things.”

The interventions come on the heels of several tumultuous months in the school department. In February, Mayor Angel Taveras fired all 1,926 of the district’s teachers and recommended four schools for closure.

“All these processes need to go forward regardless,” said Christina O’Reilly, spokeswoman for the school department. “They just happened to coincide with each other.”

The superintendent announced this month that he will resign in July, after making his recommendation in May. “The structure of the district remains intact,” O’Reilly said. “The work will go forward regardless of what the leadership structure looks like.”

Brady has extensive knowledge of the school district after a threeyear term as superintendent, Smith said. “I’d hate to put that decision on someone walking through the door,” she said.

Hernandez lamented the meeting’s low attendance. “It’s just the community. I think a lot of parents look at school like it’s not a big deal,” she said. “This is what caused this — there’s no making sure your kid is up to standards.”

Hernandez said she agreed with the education department’s choice of schools. “They’re doing pretty bad with their scores,” she said. “They need to get kids involved in school. … This is how they end up on the street.”

JWU building gets green award

By Jordan hendricks Staff Writer

Johnson and Wales University’s new $42 million Cuisinart Center for Culinary Excellence was awarded LEED Gold certification by the U.S. Green Building Council this month.

The award is the second-highest environmental acknowledgment a building can receive.

The certification is based on a 100-point scale whose credits are “weighted to reflect their environmental impacts,” according to the council’s website. The scale, which also has 10 possible bonus points for innovation, measures sustainability, water efficiency, “energy and atmosphere,” resource use and en-

vironmental quality. To attain gold certification, a building must receive at least 60 points. Platinum, which requires 80 points, is the only higher certification.

Of Rhode Island’s eight goldcertified buildings, four — including Brown’s Rhode Island Hall — are located in Providence. No building in the state has received the platinum certification.

The Cuisinart Center is the first academic building JWU has “built from the ground up,” said Miriam Weinstein, manager of communications and media relations at the university. The building reflects JWU’s commitment to “green initiatives,” she said.

The university has also been

renovating other buildings to make them more environmentally friendly in past years.

“It’s a building everyone’s proud of,” she said, adding that it fosters “a sense of ownership and community participation.”

The building, located on JWU’s Harborside Campus, has four stories. It contains 30 teaching labs and classrooms, nine hot kitchens, as well as bake shops, pastry and chocolate labs, microbrewery labs and meat cutting and fabrication labs. The roof allows rainwater to be stored and reused for irrigation. Large windows allow light to stream into the building, creating an “energy booster for everybody,” Weinstein said.

A financial report released last week holds the administration of former Providence Mayor and current U.S. Rep. David Cicilline ’83, D-R.I., responsible for the city’s $110 million deficit for the next fiscal year.

The report — commissioned by the Providence City Council — presents the Cicilline administration as financially irresponsible.

“While factors and events beyond the city’s control contributed to Providence’s weakening financial condition, the prior administration did not recommend the difficult choices necessary avert a fiscal crisis,” the report reads.

It cites Cicilline’s unilateral withdrawal from the rainy day fund — an attempt to brighten the appearance of the city’s fiscal situation — as a significant factor leading to the expansionof the city’s budget deficit. The move has come under fire in the months prior to the report’s release. In his last two years in office, Cicilline reduced the value of the fund by $17.5 million.

The city’s charter does not permit withdrawal from the reserve fund without the city council’s approval.

The Cicilline administration had unreasonable expectations of financial success for certain initiatives and failed to provide “projections of year-end surpluses or deficits” to allow the council to be kept abreast of the city’s financial status, the report goes on to state.

The report also points to the national recession, housing market collapse and a 19 percent — or $49.6 million — reduction in state aid from 2008-11 as key factors in the increased deficit. These factors

had a definite impact but were not the main cause, said Gary Sasse, the city council’s fiscal adviser and co-author of the report. “Even with the loss of state aid, there is still underlying debt,” he said.

The report aimed to establish the causes of the deficit and make recommendations to balance the city’s budget, Sasse said. It suggests four potential remedies, including allowing the city council to be more “involved” in budgetary matters.

The authors briefed the office of Mayor Angel Taveras on their findings, but no concrete steps have yet been taken to employ the report’s suggestions in future fiscal policies, he said.

Councilman Miguel Luna sponsored a resolution last week asking the council to hire a lawyer to investigate the expenditures of the Cicilline administration.

Cicilline fired back against accusations of fiscal irresponsibility in a email to his supporters last week. The email refers to Sasse’s record as “chief architect of the state’s finances” under former Gov. Donald Carcieri ’65 and calls the cuts supported by the Carcieri administration “draconian.”

“Getting lectured on fiscal responsibility by the same individual who led the charge to drastically cut revenue sharing to cities, leaving a $50 million hole in the Providence budget, is like an arsonist blaming a homeowner for the fire he set,” he wrote in the email.

“The report speaks for itself,” Sasse said. In response to the content of Cicilline’s email, he said he did not wish to be diverted from the issue at stake. “The problems of the city are too important to get involved.”

10 City & State

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, April 28, 2011

Students, educators seek answers to R.I.’s ‘brain drain’

By Kat Thornton Senior Staff Writer

As with the classic question of the chicken or the egg, political leaders, students and educators are scratching their heads over which came first — brain drain or the lack of jobs in Rhode Island.

“Brain drain” refers to the migration of students who, after graduation, leave the state in search of jobs elsewhere. High unemployment is an issue nationally but is particularly acute in Rhode Island, where double-digit jobless rates have been the norm since 2009.

Experts say the state has consistently underfunded public education over the last 20 years, resulting in a population that is not skilled enough to meet the needs of businesses weighing a move to Rhode Island. The state’s tax structure and burdensome regulations also discourage business.

But there is potential for growth.

Rhode Island’s small size makes it a hospitable place for entrepreneurs, and organizations working to boost the state’s student retention rates deny the existence of a brain drain at all. Instead, they say, Rhode Island jobs are available if students take the time to look.

By the numbers

Eighty percent of Rhode Island students that attend private colleges and universities leave the state upon graduation, according to Dan Egan, president of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Rhode Island. Eight percent of students that choose to stay after attending a private institution are originally from out-of-state. These numbers came from a two-year survey conducted by Bridge, a program run by Egan’s organization that aims to connect institutions of higher education with state businesses.

One-third of all Rhode Island college students stay in the state after graduation. At the Community College of Rhode Island, nearly all graduates remain in the state, said Anne Marie Marge, a staff member at the college’s career center. The average age of the college’s graduates is 28.

Of the members of CCRI’s class of 2009 that sought employment after graduation, nearly 20 percent chose to leave the state. Almost all the college’s students are Rhode Island residents, Marge said.

Out of Brown’s class of 2010, 6 percent of graduates said they planned to stay in Providence after graduation, making it the third most popular choice, after New York and Boston. Andrew Simmons, director of the Career Development Center, added that many Brown students staying in Providence were employed by the University to conduct research.

Bad for business

Rhode Island’s relative underfunding of public education has resulted in a high proportion of unskilled workers, said Leonard Lardaro, professor of economics at the University of Rhode Island.

As a result, companies do not try to hire in Rhode Island, he said.

Rhode Island has the highest unemployment rate in New England and the fourth-highest in the country. Eleven percent of Rhode Islanders were unemployed in March 2011.

“About half of our current unemployed have a high school education or less,” Lardaro wrote in an email to The Herald, adding that employers are perennially frustrated because the state’s labor force lacks adequate skills to meet their employment needs. Young people up to age 24 have the most difficult time finding jobs due to increased job competi-

tion and the decreasing value of a bachelor’s degree.

The state has one of the lowest business ratings in the nation, Lardaro said. “When people think of a great place to do business, they never think of Rhode Island,” he said. Instead, businesses seeking highly skilled workers go to Massachusetts, he added.

According to national test standards, Rhode Island consistently scores below neighboring New England states. Rhode Island ranked 23rd, while four other New England states scored in the top five, according to a 2009 national standardized test measuring student performance in 4th grade reading,.

According to Anne Marie Marge at CCRI, “soft skills” like teamwork and communication are more important than technical skills in the job search process. “The state really needs to realize how important education is. Every job is going to need good communication skills,” she said.

Lardaro said another problem is the state tax structure. Rhode Island’s tax rates are high compared to other states, and numerous fees and regulations place an undue burden on businesses. Andy Posner MA’09, co-founder and director of The Capitol Good Fund, said Rhode Island levies a $500 charge — called the “franchise tax — on all businesses, regardless of whether or not the business reports income.

“Going back to the late 1980s, we went after just about any type of revenue from fees we could find,” Lardaro wrote in an email to The Herald.

Student choices

“From all the people I know who graduated last year, I can count the number who stayed in Rhode Island on one hand,” said David Coates, student senate president at the University of Rhode Island.

He said corporations are generally “extremely pleased” with the quality of URI graduates, but there are no places for these students to

find “quality” jobs in Rhode Island.

Many engineers are going abroad, and financiers find work in Connecticut, he said. Others go to Massachusetts for entry-level jobs. But the state’s scarcity of nurses means one growing job field in the state is nursing, he added.

Rhode Island has higher-level positions, but not many entry-level jobs, Egan said.

Max Abrahams ’11 said he “didn’t even bother” actively looking for work in Providence. “Foxborough, (Mass.), is the only place you can work — the only place with an industry or employment,” he said.

“Between a Google job search and Brown Career Services, there was nothing available,” he added.

But Kayla Ringelheim ’11 found a local job through her undergraduate extracurricular activities. Ringelheim said she will be working with Farm Fresh Rhode Island through a program funded by Americorps VISTA. “It was something I knew I wanted to do because I volunteered with Farm Fresh in my junior and senior years,” she said.

“Providence and Rhode Island have a lot to offer that a lot of students don’t get to see, because there is so much happening on campus,” she said. Ringelheim said staying on campus the summer of her sophomore year showed her there are job opportunities in the state.

But for individuals without a specific connection or interest, jobs in the private sector are a minority, she added.

Entry-level jobs are not abundant in Rhode Island, and the weight of student loans can push students to find higher-paying work out of the state.

Posner said he offered two of his student interns full-time jobs last year, but they turned them down for higher-paying Wall Street jobs.

Rep. Chris Blazejewski, D-Providence and East Providence, has introduced a bill called Opportunity RI that he hopes will confront the state’s brain drain problem. The bill

“seeks to halt the cycle of students leaving the state” by providing credits that both students and employers can claim for working or hiring in the state, Blazejewski said.

“I think the lack of job opportunities is really the core reason students leave,” he said. People go where the jobs are, but also where they can find high-paying jobs to pay back student debt, he added.

A silver lining

While big corporations may not look to Rhode Island to do business, small business owners say there is a growing niche for small businesses and entrepreneurs in the state.

Ninety percent of non-government Rhode Island employers have 20 or fewer employees on their payroll, Lardaro said.

Andy Cutler, founding partner of Cutler and Company, moved to Rhode Island from New York and started a communications design consulting firm that has worked with students to jumpstart initiatives like A Better World by Design, a design conference organized by Brown and Rhode Island School of Design students.

Cutler said Rhode Island is a “wonderful place” to be an entrepreneur. He said the small size of the state gives start-ups an unparalleled opportunity to gain recognition and influence in the community.

Cutler added that the start-up cost here is “tiny,” especially in comparison to New York or Boston. “Dollar by dollar, Providence blows away New York City,” he said.

Posner said he wanted to stay in Rhode Island after completing his masters at Brown because it is a small state where he can garner the attention of state political leaders in a shorter amount of time than would have been possible in a bigger city.

The brain drain is largely a perception problem, according to Egan.

“We don’t believe the brain drain exists,” Egan said. “We’re a brain gain state.”

Rhode Island Superior Court settles indoor human trafficking case

By Chip Lebovitz Staff Writer

The first case involving Rhode Island’s indoor human trafficking law was settled this month in Rhode Island Superior Court.

Magistrate Judge William McAtee gave defendants Andrew Fakhoury and Joseph Defeis the maximum sentence — 10 years jail time and 10 years of suspended probation. Until their arrest, the two ran a prostitution ring out of an apartment in North Providence.

“This case dispels the myth that human trafficking is limited to immigrants being brought to this country and sold into servitude,” said state Attorney General Peter Kilmartin in an April 13 press release. “Human trafficking strips victims of their freedom and dignity.”

Attorneys began investigating

the case when a worried mother informed the Yonkers, N.Y. Police Department that her daughter had suddenly moved to Rhode Island under suspicious circumstances.

The daughter had been invited by Fakhoury, a childhood friend, to join him in Rhode Island, the mother told the Providence Journal.

The Providence Police Department and the Yonkers Police Department were able to trace the woman via Internet ads that listed the address of the North Providence apartment.

When officers arranged a meeting with the woman, they were offered sexual acts for fees of $150 and $250, according to the Journal article.

“Prostitution isn’t just in the streets,” Sgt. Patrick McNulty told the Journal last week. “Human trafficking is a real thing in the U.S. It needs to be taken seriously.”

In 2009, state Senator Paul Jabour,

D-Providence, sponsored legislation in the Senate to close a loophole in the state’s prostitution law that allowed indoor prostitution, as ruled in 1998 by the state Supreme Court.

The legislation passed in 2010.

“Prostitution is normally considered outside solicitation,” Jabour said, but his 2009 legislation allowed “officers to go behind doors” based on suspicious behavior, including “lewd conduct.”

Technological advancements aided the migration of prostitution from the streets to indoor locations, Jabour added.

Rhode Island was the secondto-last state to outlaw prostitution.

The act is still legal in some areas of Nevada.

But Jabour said the current law is “sufficient” in providing police with the tools needed to prosecute indoor prostitution.

11

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, April 28, 2011

Drunk driving remains a stubborn problem in Rhode Island

By Morgan Johnson Staff Writer

Since February 2010, two highprofile campus accidents involving drunk driving have raised awareness of the issue at Brown. A hitand-run two weeks ago that injured two students came just over a year after the Feb. 12, 2010 death of Avi Schaefer ’13, who was struck by a car on Thayer Street. Though drunk driving incidents in Providence and Rhode Island have not increased significantly in the last few years, experts agree that the issue — both for pedestrians and drivers — is a serious problem in the state.

According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Rhode Island currently ranks as the fourth-mostdangerous state for drunk driving.

Drunk driving accidents have not increased in recent years, said Gabrielle Abbate, executive director of Rhode Island’s MADD chapter.

“It’s more like we’re stuck in neutral.”

Despite a decrease in total highway fatalities over the past few years, Rhode Island still reports a high number of fatalities related to alcohol impairment.

The official figures do not necessarily reflect the total number of incidents that occur, said Paul Porter, an emergency room doctor

at Rhode Island Hospital. Porter said his hospital receives about 300 patients injured in vehicle accidents involving alcohol each year, though the actual number of patients could be triple that amount. Lately, the hospital has seen an increase in the number of hit-and-run victims that it treats, he said.

But victims are not the only ones suffering on account of drunk driving.

State penalties for drunk driving are particularly onerous for the poor, 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. “My opinion is that we have penalties for the first-time drunk driver that are too harsh and particularly punitive to poor people,” he said.

Since Rhode Island does not give convicted first-time drunk drivers a provisional license to drive to and from work or school, low-income individuals arrested for drunk driving are at high risk of becoming unemployed, Horwitz said. “The irony is they are asked to pay a huge set of fines and grossly exaggerated insurance rates.”

Local media coverage has downplayed the severity of penalties for

Athletes defend teams against cuts continued from page 5 ski team members traveling to New Hampshire and western Massachusetts for practices and competitions, Consiglio said after doing the calculations, the team found it travels less than other varsity teams.

Consiglio said she came out of the meeting satisfied. “We thought it was a positive experience, and we think that we educated them about Brown skiing and how great of a group we are,” she said.

Caitlin Taylor ’13, a representative for the fencing squads, said her meeting also went well. “We outlined counter-arguments for everything they had in their review,” she said.

“We presented personal stories to make them realize that we’re real humans and provided them with a set of solutions.”

The proposed solution includes forming an endowment funded by alums and parents, which would “secure the future of Brown fencing for the next five years,” Taylor said.

“The parent who presented on behalf of the adults of our committee outlined a five-year financial plan and just explained in detail about what

our options are in terms of venue and coaching staff and how much it would cost,” Taylor said. “We’re able to raise the money in the time given.”

Taylor’s teammate Andrew Pintea ’12 said he and his teammates addressed the evaluative criteria — which include categories such as history, competitiveness, cost and gender equity — that the committee used in its decision-making process at the meeting.

But Pintea also expressed doubts about the effect the hour-long conversation will have on the ultimate decision. “I think the meeting went as well as it could have, but I know as much as I did before about how much (committee members) are going to take out of this,” he said.

Members of the athletics committee could not be reached for comment.

Taylor said she thought this meeting was only the start of conversations between administrators and the team members committed to saving their sport. “I definitely feel better having been able to speak to (committee members) on a very intimate level,” she said. “But the fight’s not over.”

Metcalf on schedule continued from page 3 at its May 2010 meeting, and work began in June.

Before the renovation, the building was partially vacant and occupied by the Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences. Spies

described the space as a “good fit” for the merged departments. “It’s good bones, and it’s going to be a great building.”

Check out www.blogdailyherald. com for photos from The Herald’s hard hat tour of the building.

drunk driving, Horwitz said. He pointed to a recent article on the front page of the Providence Journal contending that drunk drivers receive little more than “a slap on the wrist” for a first-time offense.

“If that’s the message the media is sending, it doesn’t matter what the laws are. If the belief on the street is that the consequences are inconsequential, you have no deterrence,” Horwitz said. He added that he submitted an op-ed to the Journal criticizing their portrayal of drunk driving penalties, but it was rejected.

Rhode Island media outlets have also been accused of sensationalizing drunk driving incidents.

Barrington gained a reputation as a trouble spot for adolescent alcohol abuse after seeing four fatalities between 2005 and 2007 involving intoxicated teenagers.

“I actually created a lot of the media publicity,” said Barrington Police Chief John LaCross. LaCross said he felt obligated to report possession of alcohol and marijuana in the car of one of the victims to raise awareness in the community about the dangers of substance abuse. Often law enforcement officers hide

the presence of drugs or alcohol in cases resulting in fatalities out of respect for the victims, he said.

“No one wants that publicity, but it was good because it made parents communicate with their kids,” LaCross said of the media attention following the accidents. In 2007, the year the most recent fatality occurred, 38 individuals were arrested for underage drinking. That number was seven in 2010.

LaCross said other towns in Rhode Island, such as Glocester, have experienced as many as four drunk driving related fatalities in one year. Barrington’s affluence could also have attracted media attention, he said, adding that Barrington has continued to receive attention for drunk driving even though the town has not had a fatality in four years.

Experts contend that drunk driving laws are flawed. Horwitz said blood alcohol content should be given more consideration. Under current law, a driver with a blood alcohol content of .08 who hits someone they likely would have hit sober would receive a harsher penalty than someone with a blood alcohol content of .25 who crashes

comics Cloud Buddies! | David Emanuel

Dr. Bear | Mat Becker

Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline

Gelotology | Guillaume Riesen

Herald Staff Two female students were hit by a drunk driver near the corner of Hope and Charlesfield the night of April 9.

a car without injuring anyone, he said.

Abbate disagrees. “An irresponsible action that hurts someone else should always be held to a higher standard,” she said. Changing attitudes towards drunk driving is key to confronting the problem, she added.

“There is no silver bullet to drunk driving, but we know what works,” Abbate said. “People have to admit there is a problem, take ownership and then support those measures. Drunk driving is everyone’s business.”

12 Sports Thursday

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, April 28, 2011

Okafor ’11 on way to pro soccer Bruno struggles in

Ivy championships

By Sam Wickham Sports Staff Writer

Soccer player Jon Okafor’s ’11 childhood dream became a reality when he was drafted 40th overall in the Major League Soccer SuperDraft

by Chivas USA Jan. 13.

“I’ve always played soccer, and it has definitely been my biggest passion,” Okafor said. “I can fully focus on playing now, and I’m pretty excited about that.”

He is the eighth Brown player to be picked since the draft’s inception in 2000.

In his four years of playing at Brown, Okafor has been an integral part of the midfield, netting a career 14 goals and providing 12 assists. His play guided Bruno to three NCAA Tournament appearances and helped the team reach the tournament’s Sweet 16 last season.

Okafor’s unassisted goal in the opening round against Boston College helped spark the Bears’ run deep into the tournament.

Despite being drafted by Chivas, Okafor is not guaranteed consistent playing time with the California club. Bothered by a recurring hamstring injury during the preseason, Okafor was told to return to Brown to finish his degree and rehabilitate.

He will get a second chance to play with the team this summer after graduation. Though the injury is a setback, Okafor said he remains hopeful that his connection with the club will prove beneficial.

“Basically, the way it works in the MLS is once someone gets drafted, the team that drafts you has your rights for the first year,” Okafor said.

By Sam Rubinroit Sports Staff Writer

Jonathan Bateman / Herald

Okafor’s ’11 14 goals for Brown helped him achieve his spot in the MLS draft.

“At this point, it is kind of complicated with roster spots, so I’m just training, and if they call me back up in the summer, I’ll go back out there and hopefully get a contract.”

Men’s soccer Head Coach Patrick Laughlin has high hopes for Okafor as his former player progresses to the next level. He said Okafor’s athleticism and feel for the game make him already equipped for the big leagues.

“Jon has shown a great deal of ability each year,” Laughlin said. “He possesses an extreme level of athleticism. And I think this year, he was able to bring it all together and really demonstrate on a consistent basis his talent and ability to beat defenders one-v-one , set up goals for others and score goals himself. He is just a really dangerous player.”

The Brown senior remains openminded about playing at the next level, whether it be at Chivas or elsewhere. If his trial with MLS does not work out, Okafor will look to join a United Soccer Leagues side or play in Europe. He said he appreciates the opportunity to finish his studies

at Brown, even if it means delaying his entrance onto the Chivas squad.

“I would definitely like to play in the MLS, but I wouldn’t say that MLS is my only goal at this point,” Okafor said. “I just want to be a professional player at any level, because I feel I can work my way up. But at the same time, I’m really happy that I’m able to be here and finish out my degree.”

While Okafor’s future in professional soccer might not yet be certain, Laughlin noted that certain habits can help players find success at the next level.

“The biggest thing for a player as he moves on in the pro ranks is that you have to make sure you’re physically and mentally prepared for the challenges and rigors that a physical environment has,” Laughlin said. “And enjoy it, because it doesn’t last forever.”

“I’m in it, and I’m going to go for it,” Okafor said. “And if it doesn’t work out, I’m not going to look back on it and regret going for it.”

The men’s and women’s golf teams concluded their seasons in New Jersey last weekend at their respective Ivy League Championships. The men finished seventh in a field of eight, and the women earned sixth in a seven-team field.

The men were led by captain Michael Amato ’11, who earned second team All-Ivy honors and finished seventh individually with a threeround score of 220 (74-78-76) in his last tournament for the Bears.

“He stepped up as I knew he would,” said men’s Head Coach Michael Hughes. “I’ve been with him all four years, and it was very emotional for me seeing him go.

It’s difficult to watch him move on, but he’s obviously off to bigger and better things.”

Behind Amato’s leadership, Bruno finished with a 54-hole score of 952 after rounds of 318-316-318.

The team ranked fifth after the first round and reached as high as third place before a disappointing final round. Yale clinched the team championship by 20 strokes with a score of 908. Despite coming in just one spot ahead of last place, the Bears were hardly discouraged with the finish.

“You obviously expect to do well and be in the top half of the field, but for a team that has gotten last the last three years, just to get out of the basement is a good thing,” said J.D. Ardell ’13. “You really have to take

baby steps. This shows everyone that we can play with any of these teams, and there’s a lot of optimism going into next year.”

The men’s squad features a young roster — Amato is the only senior departing after this season. In addition to Amato, the Bears sent two sophomores — Jack Mylott ’13 and Ardell — and two first-years — Peter Callas ’14 and Kyohei Itamura ’14 — to the Ivy Championship.

“We’re losing Mike, but you regroup and you rearm yourself,” Hughes said. “With the Ivy League tournament, it’s all about experience.

We have kids who have played in a couple of Ivy championships now, and it will be the same nucleus for two more years after this.”

Though he is on his way out, Amato said he is optimistic about the future of the team he will leave behind.

“Going forward, I think everyone knows what they need to work on,” he said. “We have two really good golfers coming in who can take my place, and hopefully next year, we’ll do a little bit better.”

While the men started their tournament strong and slowly fell behind, the women’s squad struggled from the outset. After 36 holes, the team ranked last in the field with a two-round score of 655 (331-324).

But on the final day, the Bears clawed back with rounds of 73 and 76 from juniors Carly Arison ’12 and Megan continued on page 13

Bears swept by Big Green, playoff hopes threatened

By Lewis Pollis Contributing Writer

The baseball team’s chances of making the Ivy League playoffs all but disappeared this weekend after being swept in a four-game series at Dartmouth Sunday and Monday.

The Bears (9-27, 6-10 Ivy) are now third place in the league’s Rolfe Division, four games behind Dartmouth (23-10, 10-6) and Yale (2216, 10-6), with just four conference games left in the season.

“They were clearly better than us,” said Head Coach Marek Drabinski. “We didn’t hit good enough overall. We had one very wellpitched game” Bruno fell behind early in game one of the series, as Dartmouth took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning off Brown starting pitcher Matthew Kimball ’11. Shortstop Graham Tyler ’12 hit a three-run home run to put the Bears on top 3-1 in the top of the fourth inning, but Kimball ran into trouble in the late innings. The Big Green rallied for six more runs in the fourth and fifth innings to beat Brown 7-3.

“It was probably the best stuff (Kimball has) had,” Drabinski said.

“He had five very good innings. …

It was really one bad inning.”

The Bears’ advantage after Tyler’s home run was the only time in the series that they had the lead.

Dartmouth struck early again in game two of the Sunday doubleheader, taking a 5-0 lead in the first inning and adding six more runs in the fourth, fifth and sixth. Third baseman Ryan Zrenda ’11 had an RBI single in the fourth inning, and first baseman Cody Slaughter ’13 hit a two-run home run in the ninth, but it was not enough, and the Bears fell 11-3.

“We never pitched,” Drabinski said.

Monday’s first game, the third of the series, was the closest of the weekend, as starting pitcher Heath Mayo ’13 found himself in a pitcher’s duel against Dartmouth starter Kyle Hendricks. Down to their last strike in the top of the seventh inning, the Bears scored on center fielder John Sheridan’s ’13 RBI single that tied the game 1-1. But the Big Green responded in the bottom of the inning — first baseman Jason Brooks doubled home the winning run to give Dartmouth the 2-1 victory.

Drabinski praised Mayo’s performance and cited the offense’s failure to take advantage of a bases-loaded, no-out situation in the first inning as the difference in the game. “We had opportunities,” he said. “You’ve got to score.”

The series finale was another blowout. The Big Green struck early yet again, taking a 7-0 lead in the

Jonathan Bateman / Herald

Matt Kimball ’11 pitched five strong innings against Dartmouth last weekend, striking out 10, but had a tough fifth, giving up five runs.

third inning. Sheridan and Tyler each knocked in a run in the fifth inning, and left fielder Jon Suzich ’12 drove in a run in the sixth before stealing two bases and scoring on a throwing error, but it was not enough to lift Bruno. Dartmouth won 11-4.

Bruno regained some momentum Tuesday against the University of Rhode Island, taking a 2-0 lead in the first inning on Zrenda’s two-run home run. URI took the lead later and was up 6-4 in the eighth inning, but the Bears rallied for three runs to earn a 7-6 victory.

After their unsuccessful weekend at Dartmouth, Drabinski said the team “showed a little grit and fight.”

“I liked the way the guys bounced back,” he said.

Yesterday, Brown fell to its eighth defeat in the last nine games, dropping a 5-4 decision at home to Bryant University.

The Bears next play a doubleheader at Yale Friday, followed by another two games at home against Yale the following day. In order for the Bears to make the playoffs, they must win all four games, and Harvard (9-32, 5-11) must sweep

Dartmouth. In that case, Brown would be in a three-way tie with Yale and Dartmouth for first place in the Rolfe Division.

“The odds are not in our favor,” Drabinski said, but that does not mean he is giving up on the weekend series. “I hope we can go out on a high note,” he said. “I’d like to get four solid starts … (to) give the seniors a winning note to go out on and play spoiler a little bit.”

The Bears have been plagued by inconsistent pitching all season, Drabinski said. Of the pitchers who were expected to be the team’s starters before the season, only Kimball is still in the rotation. “From weekend to weekend, we didn’t have a set rotation,” he said. “I can honestly say that’s a first for me.”

The Bears’ hitting has also been a consistent problem. “We didn’t hit the way that we did last year,” Drabinski said. So far, Bruno has hit for a team average of .261 with a .678 on-base-plus-slugging percentage in conference games, down from a .337 team average and .975 OPS last season.

“We put ourselves in this position,” he said. “Very rarely do you have guys all coming back and … most of them have underachieving years, and unfortunately that’s what we’ve had.”

“It’s been a huge disappointment,” Drabinski said.

13

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, April 28, 2011

PPD apprehends two mugging suspects continued from page 1 Charlesfield.

The victims described the male subject as white, around 5 feet 8 inches tall, of medium build with facial hair and wearing a white tank top. The female had dark hair and was wearing a dark sweatshirt, according to the police report.

At approximately 3:40 a.m., a vehicle and suspects of the same description approached two seniors, one male and one female, at the intersection of George and Brook streets. The male suspect asked for directions to Thayer Street before demanding money from the victims.

The victims threw their wallets, cell phones and keys on the ground. The suspect took the wallets and phones but left the keys. He returned to the vehicle and headed eastbound on George toward Hope, according to the police report.

A male senior was robbed in the same fashion at approximately 3:47 a.m. on the corner of Hope and Young Orchard streets. After asking for directions to Thayer, the male suspect reached into the victim’s front jacket pocket and took his wallet, according to the police report.

The subject drove away northbound on Hope.

Around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday, a female Providence resident was held at knife-point on downtown Weybosset Street near Peck Street.

A white male suspect and a female suspect with long curly hair took

her cell phone, jacket, ATM card and $15 before fleeing “down Peck” in a silver sedan, according to the police report.

At around 1:16 a.m. the same night, a female senior and male junior were walking on Brook near Waterman Street when a man exited a vehicle holding a knife with a fourinch blade and demanded money.

The male victim gave him approximately $35. The suspect searched the female victim’s jacket but did not take money from her. The vehicle continued north on Brook and then turned into Fones Alley. The victims stated there were three others in the vehicle, including a light-skinned Hispanic female in the passenger seat, according to the police report.

According to the report, while the victims of yesterday’s second robbery were providing statements to Providence police, a police patrol car stopped a silver vehicle with passengers matching the victims’ descriptions of the suspects at the intersection of Pine and Chestnut streets. Police escorted the victims of all three of yesterday’s robberies to the intersection, where they all identified Jayson Esposito of North Providence, 26, and Venessa Viveiros of Pawtucket, 23, as the pair who robbed them.

In an email sent yesterday around 12:30 p.m., the Department of Public Safety announced to the community that the two people responsible for all five crimes had been arrested earlier in the morning.

Despite tough season end, golfers remain optimistic continued from page 12 Tuohy ’12, respectively.

“We started out poorly, but I was proud of their finish on the last day,” said women’s Head Coach Danielle Griffiths. “Megan and Carly had good finishes. We had two scores in the 70s, but it seemed like at least somebody had a rough day everyday.”

Tuohy’s three-round score of 237 (77-84-76) made her the Bears’ top finisher and earned her 18th place individually. Arison improved each round, carding scores of 91, 76 and 73 for a total tournament score of 240.

In the past three years, Griffiths has improved her team’s finish in the Ivy Championship by one spot each year. In 2007-08, the team earned seventh place, in 2008-09, the team finished sixth, and last year, the team came in fifth place. But this year, the Bears faced a talented field.

“The top four teams in the Ivy League are top-100, so they’re tough to beat,” Griffiths said.

While the men’s squad is comprised of first-years and sophomores, the women’s roster features a more seasoned group. Bruno sent three juniors to the Ivy Championship alongside Susan Restrepo ’11 and Sarah Guarascio ’11, who each played their final tournament for

the Bears.

Despite the end-of-season results, both teams — with four juniors on the women’s squad and a young group of players on the men’s side — are excited for the future.

“There is a definite difference between the first time you play at Ivies and the second,” Ardell said.

“Last year, there were some definite nerves with me thinking, ‘Oh wow, this is the one tournament that really matters.’ This year, I knew I could compete with any of these kids, and I had beaten a lot of them before.

Having a young team that has experienced all of this before is only going to help us going forward.”

14 Editorial & Letter diamonds & coal

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, April 28, 2011

Editorial comic

b y a l e x y u ly

A diamond to the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. At this point, students are so tired of the debate over whether to end the ban on ROTC that they’ll allow it back on campus just so everyone will stop talking about it. Congratulations on successfully waging a war of attrition.

A diamond to the administrators at University Hall, who have established or are planning online professional master’s programs, an off-shore MBA program and increased corporate funding of research.

If we promise you more diamonds, will you promise to focus on teaching undergraduates again?

Cubic zirconia to Mayor Angel Taveras, who proposed closing four Providence elementary schools in response to the city’s budget crunch, and to the Athletics Review Committee, which proposed cutting four varsity teams in response to the athletics department’s budget crunch.

There’s a win-win solution here somewhere, and we’re pretty sure it involves wrestling and sword-fighting with schoolchildren.

Two diamonds to Alice: one for each of your diamond earrings. They sparkle almost as much as the newsroom after you’ve come through it.

A diamond to Officer Chuck, for keeping our bodies safe from hoodlums and our stomachs safe from hunger.

Coal to the muggers who began their robbery of three Herald editors early yesterday morning by asking for directions to the now-defunct Fish Company. Armed robbery is one thing, but abusing the memory of Fish Co. will not stand.

And a diamond to the Providence Police Department and Department of Public Safety officers who detained said muggers within 20 minutes. We bet you can catch the naked donut runners in 10.

121 words to big bird. That’s wassadeal.

And a final diamond to our readers. Without you, we’d just be ranting, self-righteous college students. OK, even with you, we’re ranting, self-righteous college students. But you give us an excuse.

See you in September.

quote of the day

“We’re a brain gain state.”

— Dan Egan, president of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Rhode Island See brain drain on page 10.

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letter to the editor Judicial system still unfair to women To the Editor: The story in yesterday’s Herald (“Emails underline rape procedures’ flaws,” April 27) suggests but does not spell out the issue which weighs heaviest with me. Women have always been at a disadvantage when threatened with coercion or worse in a sexual encounter with a man. The judicial system has improved but in my opinion is primarily a maledominated system and is biased against women. In the story, Azhar Majeed, associate director of legal and public advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, told The Herald universities can have a “tendency to tilt the playing field in favor of

the accusing student.” This is not a weakness in the system but is absolutely necessary to counteract the historical swagger some men adopt when they want to have sex with a woman who is either opposed or ambivalent. A man needs to beware that a woman will carry the full authority of the University with them if there is any dispute about a sexual encounter.

This should be spelled out in University guidebooks as a preventative check on the masculine impulses of some men who have not yet learned the meaning of empathy in sex. Then, perhaps, there would be a level playing field.

Tom Bale ’63

CorrectionS An article in yesterday’s Herald (“Demystifying UFB: Funding process draws mixed reviews,” April 27) incorrectly identified Health Leads as a Category S group. Health Leads is a Category II group. The article also stated that Health Leads receives funding from the Swearer Center for Public Service. The group only receives funding from the Swearer Center for its summer programs and not during the academic school year.

The Herald regrets the errors.

An article in yesterday’s Herald (“Faculty considers offering language certificates,” April 27) incorrectly quoted Kerry Smith, professor of history and chair of the East Asian studies department, as saying the proposed certificates would increase enrollment in language departments by 10 to 15 students. He said enrollments would increase by 10-15 percent. The Herald regrets the error.

Due to an editing error, an article in Monday’s Herald (“Taekwondo wins first national title,” April 26) incorrectly stated that the Brown Taekwondo team had an intensive week of training for nationals during spring break. The week of intensive training was during winter break. The Herald regrets the error.

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Opinions 15

The Brown Daily Herald Thursday, April 28, 2011

In God we hope, in reason we trust By hunter fast Opinions Editor Brown’s motto, “In Deo Speramus,” is a vestige of the time of the University’s founding, when our collected scientific knowledge often failed to protect us from nature’s vicissitudes, whether they came in the form of plagues, floods, earthquakes or whatever else. In that era, it made sense for us to have a motto that acknowledged our near-complete helplessness in the face of the forces of nature and that invoked the divine in the interest of our protection and advancement.

The era of modernity, however, calls not for a motto that announces our passivity before the various threats to our survival, but for one that extols our ability to seek truth through the systematic exercise of reason. In the past century, it has been science, not religion, that has prevented outbreaks of disease, created new agricultural methods to sustain growing populations and generally improved the human condition.

Indeed, to passively hope for divine salvation is to reject in the same moment one’s ability to rationally save oneself by forming solutions from observation. We could have hoped for God to eradicate smallpox, but with science we did it ourselves. We could have hoped for God to somehow make the land more fertile so as to avoid famine, but

we instead developed a chemical process — now known as the Haber process — to easily mass-produce nitrogen-based fertilizer .

These things were not done — at least not provably — by divine intervention.

These feats were accomplished by our ability to forge new understandings through reason, rather than accepting concepts from whatever ancient book one chooses to follow. Our motto should be one that celebrates our University’s fundamental quest for discovery and inquiry, not one that expresses our hope that everything will eventually pan out.

To illustrate the point, suppose you are writing a paper for SOC 1620: “Globalization and Social Conflict.” If you were to argue that global disparities in economic development patterns were caused by aliens in an invisible pink spaceship using mind control rays to subtly influence people’s economic decisions, you could never be proven wrong, but you probably would not receive as good a grade as you would have had you discussed the role of import-substitution policies.

This is because, in academic arguments, statements must be traced back to some

In placing our trust in reason, we are ultimately trusting ourselves — not outside forces — to improve our world.

Furthermore, our motto should be one that is consistent with the epistemic standards one would expect in academia. No one can say with certainty that God exists or not because the concept of God is inherently unfalsifiable. Reason, on the other hand, refers merely to our ability to draw conclusions about the world without the assistance of divine revelation.

empirical foundation, one that is demonstrably true. In academia, unlike in religion, it is insufficient to have an assertion that cannot be disproven. Indeed, the spirit of free inquiry fostered at Brown demands a falsifiable intellectual basis that can be usefully called into question, since rationality entails not only the formation of new theories, but also the refinement — along

with the occasional discrediting — of old ones.

We are reaching a point in our history as a species when our understanding of the world consists not of speculation but of testable theories that provide a reliable framework for the betterment of our condition. These scientific models come about not through hope but through our own perspiration and our willingness to think critically. In placing our trust in reason, we are ultimately trusting ourselves — not outside forces — to improve our world.

If you individually want to hope in God, no one has any right to stop you. But it is not the place of rigorous scholars to sit passively and wait for truth to fall out of the sky. Religion may be comforting in hard times, but reason alone can be relied upon to garner results for a better future. We can hope for solutions to the world’s problems, but a simple emotion alone will not give us the ability or the resolve to engineer them.

Modernity necessitates an active outlook that seeks to confront global crises and defeat them by use of our intellectual agency.

If we as a University wish to pay homage to ideals that have served us well, then our buildings and our seal should not be emblazoned with “In Deo Speramus,” but instead with “In Ratione Speramus” — In Reason We Trust.

Hunter Fast ‘12 will choose a path that’s clear — he will choose free will. Thanks for reading.

Pot is actually illegal

By Daniel Crowell Guest Columnist In a recent opinions column (“In the drug war, keep your eyes on the real killer,” April 22), Hunter Fast ’12 was incensed by the suggestion that Brown students should be mindful of their participation in the illegal drug market. According to Fast, we should be proud to exercise our right to smoke marijuana, even if doing so can contribute to gang warfare, as Sofia Ortiz-Hinojosa ’11 pointed out in her thoughtful column (“4/20 and the drug war,” April 18).

The blood is truly on the hands of prohibitionist governments, he says. But his position brings up a question that should be of great concern to all Brown students who care about political reform or believe in any sort of social contract — when can we justly break the law?

Though it may not be obvious on campus, recreational use of cannabis is distinctly illegal. In Rhode Island, possession of less than one kilogram of marijuana for non-medical purposes is punishable by a $200-$500 fine and up to one year in prison. Possession of more than one kilogram is a felony that results in markedly more severe punishments. In Rhode Island, about 1,000 people are arrested annually on marijuana charges, most of whom are not under the protection of an Ivy League university.

I will not challenge Fast on his assertion

that these are bad laws. But there is a difference between a law that is misguided and a law that is fundamentally unjust. Many of us who support the legalization of marijuana still believe the government ought to ban the sale of extremely hazardous substances, such as heroin, if it can do so effectively. If you stand with me in that camp, then you do not believe that the prohibition of a drug violates our rights to privacy and free enterprise. Cannabis laws are

collectively petition to change laws, but we do not simply disobey them. Otherwise, we behave like a driver who fails to acknowledge a stop sign because he has decided that its placement is inconvenient and unnecessary. Even if he is correct, by granting himself an exception, he disregards the fact that there are rules of the road. And if he escapes punishment, he betrays his neighbor who is caught and fined for the same infraction.

Pot smokers on campus are a far cry from noble crusaders.

based on inaccurate appraisals of the drug’s dangers and of the government’s ability to enforce this prohibition, but they do not infringe on any basic right.

In general, we are required to obey the law, even if we find its demands silly or disagreeable. This is because we recognize we ought to have a legal system by which we collectively decide which actions are permitted rather than leaving all choices to the individual. It is often the case that our neighbor deems a law disagreeable while we recognize it protects people. We expect him to follow it despite his disapproval.

Therefore each of us, being liable to misjudge, ought to obey the law faithfully. We

Of course, marijuana prohibition is more than inconvenient. It contributes to drug wars and unduly penalizes many people. But is it reasonable to suggest that smoking more pot rectifies this situation?

Certainly not. Indulging in illegal drugs enables black markets, which by nature are bad markets — unreliable, unaccountable and prone to any sort of abuse. In order to conscientiously consume pot, you need a really good reason.

Fast argues there is a good reason — current laws “infringe on fundamental rights to privacy, free enterprise and selfdetermination.” If he is right that the government violates our essential liberties by

attempting to quash drug markets, then an upstanding citizen ought to resist. Indeed, Fast is correct to encourage civil disobedience. Anyone whose spirit truly reviles a law ought to publicly declare it. Smoke proudly and face the criminal charges. After all, civil disobedience defeats injustice by demonstrating the wrong endured by honest citizens.

And that is precisely why pot smokers on campus are a far cry from noble crusaders. Fast may have “gratitude to live in a place where someone can commit an act of public civil disobedience … without facing legal repercussions,” but has it occurred him that breaking the law without risk of penalty is a ridiculously weak form of civil disobedience, if it can even be called that?

Is it at all concerning that this privileged type of “civil disobedience” is possible for Brown students but not for other residents of Providence, given the fact that Rhode Island still enforces marijuana prohibition? To suggest that we engage in any honest form of civil disobedience by smoking marijuana dishonors those who have made actual sacrifices to protect our liberties.

Sometimes, things are remarkably simple. Pot smokers at Brown enjoy getting high. At the very least, they should drop any pretensions of helping the world in the process.

Daniel Crowell ’13 has jaywalked in the past but reckons that he is a decentenough citizen. He can be reached at Daniel_Crowell@brown.edu.

Daily Herald Arts & Culture the Brown

Thursday, April 28, 2011

BTV competition showcases student talent

By Sophia seawell Staff Writer

James Franco and Aaron Sorkin may have been the notable speakers at last week’s Ivy Film Festival, but Brown Television is making strides to ensure that University students themselves take up the mantle of great filmmaking for the future. Last semester, BTV created a competition in response to a lack of opportunities for screenwriters to showcase their work, said Seicha Turnbull ’11, executive producer for the competition. The three winning scripts — “Appetite,” “The Undergraduate” and “Whole Grain” — were developed into short films that will screen at Avon Cinema this evening.

The screenplays were judged blindly, with only one person on the panel knowing who wrote each script. Criteria included characterization, dialogue, plot development and level of entertainment.

Only then could the work begin.

“Everything had to be written and reworked,” Turnbull said. “We workshopped all the scripts afterwards.

Turning (a screenplay) into a movie requires so much fiddling.”

“Appetite,” which runs roughly seven minutes long, was written by Nik Gonzales ’12 and directed by Sam Eilertsen ’12. The film begins with Danny, a college kid “moping around about the fact that he’s in love with this girl but hasn’t asked her out yet,” Eilertsen said. Because Danny’s roommate, Abe, is dating a girl out of his league, Danny decides to ask him for advice. The rest of the

movie focuses on Abe’s response, which reveals his creepy, stalker-like tendencies.

“It’s more like a sketch than a typical short film,” Eilertsen said. “The whole thing kind of builds up to a punch line.” Eilertsen compared the humor found in “Appetite” to South Park: “It will make people laugh and also kind of uncomfortable over the fact that they’re laughing.”

“The Undergraduate,” which runs approximately 11 minutes, is a drama that explores the relationship between student and professor. It was written and directed by Hannah Levy ’13 and Herald Design Editor Gili Kliger ’12. The two directed a similar production as a final project for MCM1700B: “Approaches to Narrative,” but it required “extensive rewrites” for the competition, she said.

“Living in college, our perception of adults is very warped — they’re either professors or people cleaning your bathroom, and there’s not a lot of in-between,” said Michael Stewart ’13, who plays a student named Jake in the film. “You kind of end up building up these professors and what they are. Once you start scratching the surface, you start realizing what is there is not always pretty.”

“Whole Grain,” written by Kathleen Braine ’11 and directed by Calvin Main ’12, is what Turnbull called “the big mama” — a 35-page script that turned into a 40-minute movie.

“A lot of graduating seniors worked on the project,” Main said.

“It kind of became the last hurrah project for them.”

“Whole Grain” deals with the

transition from high school to college, exploring “the pains and insecurities and ambiguities of high school and romantic relationships,” Main said. Because the movie is from the perspective of college students, “it’s from a viewpoint that’s both nostalgic and good riddance,” he added. “Directing this has taken all of us back to our high school days and how much we miss them and how we’re so glad they’re behind us.”

“It was pretty easy to flash back and pull from my high school experience,” said Emily Kassie ’14. Like her character Alexa, who is the only one of her friends to leave Ohio in the movie, Kassie left her peers in Canada to attend school in the Northeast.

Kassie said she encourages students to see “Whole Grain” not only because the story is “relatable,” but also because “it’s a pretty great experience to see how students can craft a film.”

Though “Whole Grain” was the largest production, “the amount of work that has gone into all these works is enormous,” Eilertsen said.

“We’ve had a lot of people pretty much devoting their entire spring semester to these projects,” Turnbull said. In fact, many involved in production did so as independent study projects, allowing them “to focus on it without feeling like they’re skiving off their work,” Turnbull said.

BTV is “hoping to make this an annual thing,” she added. “We’ll see how this goes.”

“This screening is a big step forward for BTV and film making at Brown,” Eilertsen said.

MainGreen.TV captures students on video

By Miriam furst Staff Writer

MainGreen.TV, a website that uses multiple forms of media to record events and profiles of students on campus, has garnered significant student attention since its April 13 launch.

“The heart of the website is student profiles,” said Alicia Maule ’11, founder and executive director of MainGreen.TV. Though the website also features a blog, “the richness of the site is that we profile students in two-to-three-minute beautiful videos and accompany them by interviews and photo shoots,” Maule said.

MainGreen.TV “humanizes students outside of academics,” she said.

“We feature artists, social innovators, activists and entrepreneurs.”

The website “enriches the culture of Brown” because it showcases students’ talents, said Jamila Woods ’11 — the website’s most recently profiled student. She said she likes that each profile comes with a video, biography, interview and photos.

“People on this campus are really well-spoken and passionate about what they do, so to get them in front of the camera to talk about it is easy,” said Gabe Gonzalez ’12, one of the website’s three videographers.

Though Maule brought this multimedia website to campus, the underlying idea behind it came from Benjamin Millstein, a junior at

Northwestern University. Millstein started Massive.TV at Northwestern in the fall of 2009 because “he wanted to get people who were in the arts together to not just find out who they are, but also to connect them,” Maule said. A year later, Millstein founded an affiliate called Kuumba.TV at Washington University in St. Louis.

“We want to create websites that are about digital storytelling,” Millstein said. After the idea succeeded at Washington University and Northwestern, Millstein told Maule to go ahead with MainGreen.TV, Maule said.

“Alicia has by far showed us that this can really work as a process and she by far was the most efficient at setting one of these up,” Millstein said. “It’s amazing that she set it up in two months.”

In December, Maule bought the domain for the website and has been working devotedly on the project this semester, she said. Through word of mouth, emails and the help of the Department of Modern Culture and Media, Maule established a network of people dedicated to working on MainGreen.TV. She noted that Mark Tribe, assistant professor of modern culture and media, has been especially supportive in creating MainGreen.TV because he has allowed videographers to use MCM cameras. Tribe said he has offered his assistance with the project because it is “a great idea

whose time has come,” he wrote in an email to The Herald.

“A flowering of interdisciplinary creativity is in full swing in the arts at Brown, and MainGreen.TV is providing a high-profile online showcase for it,” he added.

In addition to student profiles, the website’s blog also showcases students’ talents, accomplishments and activities. “The blog’s biggest asset is that we have really great access to multimedia,” said Khalila Douze ’13, the blog’s editor-in-chief. “We have great videographers and photographers so the content of our blog is very high quality.”

Douze said the blog centers its posts around events on campus. In addition, any student can submit a piece, including creative originals or opinion articles. “We just launched, so it’s still in the process of being established, but we definitely have something new up there every week,” she said.

Though Maule is graduating, she said she hopes and predicts the website will flourish. “I think everyone on the team is excited about it,” she said. “I want it to exist way beyond me.”

She also wants to spread the idea of digital storytelling using multimedia. “I need to move on from the micro of MainGreen.TV. Potentially, I’ll be working nationally on trying to get these up or bringing them to all the Ivy League schools,” she said.

News in brief

Roth ’77 to give 2011 Baccalaureate Kenneth Roth ’77 P’12, human rights advocate and executive director of Human Rights Watch, will give the 2011 Baccalaureate address Saturday, May 28 at the First Baptist Church, the University announced yesterday. Per Brown’s tradition, two seniors will speak at the Commencement ceremony May 29.

Brown will award 10 honorary doctorate degrees at this year’s 243rd Commencement.

Degree recipients will include three-time Olympic ice hockey medalist Katie King Crowley ’97, online media mogul Arianna Huffington, New York Times columnist and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Nicholas Kristof, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and National Medal of Science winner David Mumford, three-time Oscar-winning actor and director Jack Nicholson P’12.5, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Ida Nottage ’86, particle physicist Lisa Randall, commander of NASA’s 1971 Apollo 15 lunar mission David Scott and persecuted Chinese poet Zhenkai Zhao, according to the press release.

Roth, Kristof, Mumford, Nottage and Scott will give presentations and participate in discussions over the course of Commencement Weekend.

— Jake Comer

Stripped-down ‘Rent’ exposes play’s dark side By gillian michaelson Arts & Culture Staff Writer

If ever there were a version of “Rent” your grandmother could approve of, Musical Forum’s version starting tomorrow night would most definitely not be it. With sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, the Forum unleashes a monster of a production on the world.

Jonathan Larson’s classic musical follows the highs and lows of eight avant-garde friends living in New York’s Alphabet City during the height of the AIDS epidemic at the end of 1990s. It tells the story of romantic meet-cutes in abandoned lofts and friendships that can survive the threat of disease, eviction and poverty — as well as those that can’t. “Rent” shows suffering on the winter streets of New York City for what it was. “So many people were dying, and nobody was talking about it,” said Chantel Whittle ’12, director of the production. “Until finally, someone was willing to.”

Whittle’s interpretation looks at the musical through a very serious lens, taking a show that has been accused of being dated and reworking it for a new audience. The production removes the sentimentalities that colored previous versions — stripping down the musical to a bare-bones version that focuses on the relationships between the characters.

The production takes the darker facets of the show that have always been implicit and makes them explicit through blocking, dance, tone and design. The set, lights and costumes all communicated this message in a cohesive manner that brought the overall show and each member of the company together.

The roles of the two loft renters, Mark (Brian Cross ’12) and Roger (Ben Freeman ’13), and the erstwhile drug-addicted dancer Mimi (Nora Rothman ’13) are expertly executed, making up the serious core of the show. Cross manages to finesse Mark’s struggle with isolation into a believable journey towards connection, while Freeman’s

incredibly versatile vocal and acting range allows him to hit Roger’s every note. Rothman also achieves great success, but she seems to play the audience hot and cold. Her more serious second act leaves chills — especially her explicit depiction of Mimi’s drug use — but some of her other scenes never heated up past a sustained lukewarm.

The two other relationships driving the show are between Maureen (Alexis Aurigemma ’13) and Joanne (Madeleine Heil ’13) and Collins (Malcolm Shanks ’11.5) and Angel (Raques McGill ’13). These two relationships provide a solid balance between lighthearted humor and deathly seriousness that helps ground the show and bring relief from the conflict of the other characters. McGill, in particular, is a pleasure to watch on stage, where he bewitches the audience with his ability to move, act and sing with seeming effortlessness.

The ensemble also acts as a strong backbone, complementing the principles at every turn. No number is left undeveloped as their incredible vocal talents and deep investment in the show shine through their performances. The ensemble’s dancing also makes a significant impact — though it sometimes steals attention from the main action.

The members of the ensemble — and the company as a whole — make excellent use of the space provided, even venturing into the audience at times.

Overall, the depth of this production refuses to be stifled. Its strength and total investment has the power to bring tears and laughter, fear and love. Whittle’s interpretation makes unexpected connections between the cast and the audience and brings to life a musical often cited as a phenomenon. As ensemble member Annie Kocher ’14 says, “This production does Jonathan Larson justice.”

Intensity and humor converge in Musical Forum’s latest production.