Friday, March 15, 2013

Daily

THE BROWN

vol. cxlviii, no. 36

INSIDE

Page 2

Snap chat

Students meet each other via new website, Inperson

Smaller collaborative learning environments can be an option for overwhelmed students

Girl power ‘Sappington!’ features laughs and all-female cast Page 7

Team impact Student-athletes make a difference through service today

43 / 29

tomorrow

42 / 30

SCIENCE & RESEARCH STAFF WRITER AND SENIOR STAFF WRITER

When Liza Gibbs ’16 enrolled in CHEM 0330: “Equilibrium, Rate and Structure” last semester, she found herself victim to crippling test anxiety.

Gibbs, who enrolled in the class to fill a concentration requirement, quickly found herself lost. After the first exam, she was in danger of failing.

“I realized I had no idea what was going on,” she said. “My first and only (Chem) 33 midterm was a horrifying experience.”

In large lecture classes, particularly introductory courses in science, tech-

since 1891

FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Amidst test anxiety, some profs turn to alternatives

By ALEX CONSTANTINO AND SAM HEFT-LUTHY

Page 5

Herald

nology, engineering and math, professors often face a difficult conundrum: how to hold as many as 400 students accountable for the material. Many of these courses resort to giving a few high-stakes exams — for example, NEUR 0010: “The Brain: An Introduction to Neuroscience,” one of the largest classes at the University, bases its grades almost exclusively on exam performance.

This emphasis on testing often makes it difficult to keep up, many students said.

Peggy Chang ’91, director of the Curricular Resource Center, said testing is important because it holds students accountable for knowing a course’s material and being able to apply it independently.

“It’s a way to gauge how well a student understands the material and (can) think critically and analytically,” Chang said.

But with / / Testing page 2

A R I A G O I N ’ TO T H E O P E R A ?

EVAN THOMAS / HERALD

“Dido and Aeneas,” an hour-long English opera, will be performed by Brown Opera Productions this weekend in Alumnae Hall.

Festival celebrates creative voices from Arab world Lawsuit

Urgent Witness explores the role of Arabic poetry and art in social change in the Middle East

By ABIGAIL SAVITCH-LEW CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Lost in a storm, a young professor stumbles into a trap. Mr. Shawqi, a man who loves nothing more than winning a game, holds the professor prisoner and changes the rules of his games so his opponent can never win or escape. Mr. Shawqi insists he is not crazy — this is the way of the universe. “Look at the world: It is divided into masters and slaves,” he says.

ARTS & CULTURE

As the play continues, these cynical words appear to possess a dark truth.

The audience learns the professor played the role of master to his wife, just as Mr. Shawqi is now his master.

In this nightmarish world, the motif of domination continually reappears.

International Writers Project fellow Nihad Sirees said his play “House of Games,” performed in a staged reading as part of this week’s Urgent Witness festival, is a metaphor for political oppression in Syria. But when it was first published in Syria in 1997, Sirees said he claimed it was an indictment against western imperialism in order to prevent government censorship.

Erik Ehn, director of the International Writers Project, said the play is a perfect example of “oppositional art underneath a dictatorship.”

The Ur/ / Festival page 5

to seek details of alum death The investigation surrounding the death of Ryan Sims ‘11 on an NYC train track is ongoing

By ALISON SILVER FEATURES EDITOR

BRITTANY COMUNALE / HERALD

World-renowned Syrian poet Adonis captivated Arabic and non-Arabic speakers alike with his eloquent poetry readings.

Watson project analyzes monetary, human costs of war Researchers from economics, anthropology and health care contributed to the Cost of Wars project

By ANDREW JONES STAFF WRITER

A decade after the United States invaded Iraq, researchers estimate 190,000 lives will have been lost and the United States will spend $2.2 trillion by the war’s end, according to new research from the Watson Institute for International Studies. Though the United States officially finished pulling troops out of Iraq in 2011, insurgent forces remain in the country.

The findings were released March 13 through the Costs of War project in advance of the tenth anniversary of the invasion March 19, 2003.

The Costs of War project, which released its first findings in 2011, examines the national and international effects of the wars in Iraq, Afghani-

SCIENCE & RESEARCH

stan and Pakistan in terms of human, economic, social and political costs, according to its website.

The 190,000 figure comes from aggregating data from a variety of sources, including government, media and morgue reports, according to one of the papers published Thursday.

While the estimate refers to direct war casualties, the number of deaths is several times higher when accounting for indirect consequences, such as lack of drinking water, health care and adequate nutrition, according to the findings. Civilians represented about 134,000, or 70 percent, of the direct deaths, one study reported.

The economic losses the study reported include not only those incurred during the war but also the projected costs for years to come.

Health care for injured veterans of the Iraq War will cost the United States more than $500 billion through 2053,

the researchers estimated. Cumulative interest on borrowed Iraq War funds could cost the United States an additional $3.9 trillion through 2053, totaling nearly $6 trillion from the war’s beginning.

The study found that other lasting effects of the war include increased terrorism in postwar Iraq and the devastation of Iraq’s health care system, according to a University press release.

These results signify a shocking problem of a “society disintegrating through violence,” said Catherine Lutz, professor of anthropology and international studies and a co-director of the Costs of War project. “The most important story is the one that basically a whole lot of people died.

This is not a pretty picture.”

The findings’ origins can be traced to the beginning of the war, said Neta Crawford, a professor of political science at Boston University and the project’s other co-director.

“There was an inadequate dis-

cussion of the costs in lives and dollars,” Crawford said.“It’s a story of not thinking through the consequences of actions.”

Analyzing the costs of the conflict in terms of the war’s many dimensions presented a difficulty for the researchers, Crawford said.

“The challenge is to convey the complex consequences of war with the inadequate tool of numbers,” she said.

The research was conducted by 30 academics from a wide array of disciplines, including economics, health care and anthropology. This variety allowed the findings to be presented through multiple lenses that are often interconnected, Crawford said.

Though the report presents a stark picture of the effects of war, Crawford said society must learn from it.

“Every war begins with an overestimation of the utility of war and an underestimation of the costs,” Crawford said. “We should learn from this characteristic pattern of optimism.”

The parents of Ryan Sims ’11 have filed a lawsuit against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, seeking surveillance footage that could reveal further details about the 23 year old’s death last December, according to a March 14 article in the New York Daily News.

Sims’ parents hope to use the surveillance footage to learn more about the remains of their son’s body, which they think could have been run over or moved by track cleaners, according to the article. Sims’ parents submitted video footage and photographs to the MTA to aid the investigation of his movement through the stations leading up to his death.

The Daily News reported Dec. 11, 2012 that a body was found around 7:15 a.m. on the tracks under a tunnel between New York’s First Avenue and East 14th Street subway stations.

The body was later identified as Sims’.

Police suspected he was fatally struck by a Manhattan-bound L train, the Daily News reported.

The investigation remains open, and police said they do not yet have sufficient evidence to determine whether the cause of death was an accident, foul play or suicide, according to the March 14 article. The Daily News reported that court papers stated a medical examiner con/ / Lawsuit page 9

2 university news C ALENDAR TODAY

MARCH 14

9 P.M.

TOMORROW

MARCH 15

4 P.M. IMPROVi shO’s

SASA’s Basant Show

Salomon 101

Salomon 101

10 P.M.

8 P.M. Pride Prom

American Dance Minifest

Sayles Hall

Granoff Center

MENU SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEY-WOOLLEY

LUNCH Honey Mustard Chicken Sandwich, Cajun Baked Fish, Pasta with Eggplant, Onion Rings, Candy Bar

Chicken Fingers, Baked Beans, Hamburger, Veggie Patties, Hot Dog, Wax Beans, Mexican Rice, Brownies

DINNER Roasted Pork Loin, Baked Potato Bar, Stuffed Shells Florentine, Pasta with Pink Vodka Sauce, Bacon Rounds

Bourbon BBQ Chicken, Macaroni and Cheese, Yukon Potatoes, Vegetables Blend, Bananas Foster, Pound Cake

SUDOKU

CROSSWORD

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Website catalyzes friend finding Service brings students together for conversation outside typical social spheres

By JILLIAN LANNEY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Inperson, a recently launched student website, is giving new meaning to talking to strangers. The site, talktosomeonenew.com, facilitates conversations between students who may otherwise never meet, said Evan Schwartz ’13, its developer.

Using the site is fairly simple — interested students can specify a time during which they are available for a conversation and provide a brief physical description and an idea of what they might like to talk about.

If another student is available at the same time, both will receive emails about meeting up.

Schwartz said he thinks this kind of service is a way for students to expand their social interactions and have conversations in “very low pressure, low expectations” environments. He likened the interaction to “walking up to someone you don’t know in a cafe and just starting a conversation, but you know that the other person is at least in the mood to have a conversation.”

Inperson is currently in beta testing while Schwartz and collaborator Jonathan Schear ’15 are working on improving the system and adding new features.

The site’s design currently faces one central struggle — it requires high traffic to ensure that two students will be

/ / Testing page 1 so much on the line with testing assessments, some students said it is hard not to feel stressed.

The science of stress Though Student and Employee Accessibility Services does not provide accommodations for students who only exhibit test anxiety, Psychological Services provides support resources. Approximately 600 students had appointments with Psych Services for some kind of anxiety last year, Director of Pyschological Services Belinda Johnson wrote in an email to The Herald.

Aleta Johnson, a psychotherapist at Psychological Services who specializes in anxiety, said test anxiety is a “really common” and “normal” problem at the University, particularly among pre-medical students, medical

COURTESY OF TALKTOSOMEONENEW.COM

The website aims to institute a visual schedule and increase traffic to more easily match pairs of students who are free at similar times to meet. free simultaneously, Schwartz said. To remedy this, Schwartz and Schear plan on instituting a visual schedule where interested parties could see times when other students had already indicated availability.

Schwartz said he hopes to expand the project to potentially include students from the Rhode Island School of Design. He also said he would be interested in a deal with local businesses through which students meeting via Inperson at local cafes or restaurants could receive discounts.

The developers were recently contacted by a Northwestern University student who saw a link for Inperson on Facebook, and they are now working on expanding the project to the university.

Schwartz said he is still attempting to gauge interest in the project and has received a lot of positive feedback so far.

David Scofield ’13 said he had a positive experience using the website

— he said he had a great conversation and would like to try Inperson again.

He likes how the site “(plucks) people out of different spheres at Brown and (puts) them together,” giving users opportunities to meet people outside of their regular social circles, he said.

“I think what makes life great is all these serendipitous conversations, and a platform that facilitates this kind of interaction is really important in any society,” said Wayne Byun ’16, who attempted to sign up for a meeting on Inperson but was not matched with another student.

Matty Gallas ’16 said the openmindedness of the student body at Brown made it a good place for this kind of service.

Manuel Lopez ’16 said he thought using Inperson might be slightly awkward but could still be enjoyable.

“Whenever I meet someone new at Brown, I’m pleasantly surprised,” he said, “because there’s something cool to be discovered about them.”

students and graduate students, who all face high-pressure exams.

“Often, students who are experiencing test anxiety are not just thinking about the test but about what consequences failing the test would bring,” Aleta Johnson said. Besides helping students understand the origins of their test anxiety, she works with students to develop a “variety of different relaxation strategies,” such as breathing techniques and progressive muscle relaxation.

Aleta Johnson said her treatments are largely based on the underlying biology. “Although anxiety starts with a person’s thoughts about the exam, those thoughts do produce chemical reactions that then begin a whole cycle,” she said, citing the stress hormone cortisol and neurotransmitter GABA as key chemicals. Interrupting that cycle can be done with either thoughts or biological techniques like

calmer breathing, she said.

For managing test stress, she recommended that students eat and sleep well in addition to preparing early.

“The brain uses up a lot of calories,” she said. “You need a lot of good food to fuel that.”

www.browndailyherald.com 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. Shefali Luthra, President Samuel Plotner, Treasurer Lucy Feldman, Vice President Julia Kuwahara, Secretary The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement and once during Orientation by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Single copy free for each member of the community.

POSTMASTER please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906.

Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Subscription prices: $280 one year daily, $140 one semester daily.

Copyright 2013 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

EDITORIAL

(401) 351-3372 herald@browndailyherald.com

BUSINESS

(401) 351-3260 gm@browndailyherald.com

Teaching to the test?

Professors have different preferences for evaluation methods, even among similarly structured academic tracks, such as the three introductory computer science sequences, all of which satisfy the same requirement.

“I don’t like tests,” said Andy van Dam, professor of computer science and instructor for CSCI 0150: “Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming and Computer Science,” one of the department’s introductory courses. During his experience teaching introductory computer science courses over several decades, he found that students’ test grades did not correlate well with their performances on class projects, which he considers more valuable than “problem solving under a severe time constraint,” he said.

Van Dam, who grew up in the Netherlands, said high-pressure exams are the norm in Europe. He recalled one instance during an oral exam his senior year in which he remained silent for five minutes, unable to make any progress on the question. Students can “end up hating the subject” due to test pressure, he said.

Testing in the computer science world does not end at graduation, Van Dam said, pointing out that job interviews in / / Testing page 3

university news 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

U. may boost aid for employees’ children At open forum, students In a recent evaluation of discuss 250th anniversary

Just over 400 children of University employees currently receive benefits from the Tuition Aid Program, including 57 TAP recipients who attend Brown, said Harold Roth, professor of religious studies and member of the Faculty Executive Committee.

The program provides financial aid to University employees’ children who are enrolled in college, and the faculty recommended changing TAP from a fixed sum of $10,000 to a higher percentagebased system at the faculty’s February meeting.

The benefit currently covers 24 percent of Brown’s tuition — less than half the mean percentage of tuition covered at several of the University’s peer institutions, according to a report from the Joint Committee on Employee Benefits.

At its meeting, the faculty endorsed increasing the benefit to 36 percent of tuition and passed an amendment calling for the program to be increased to cover 50 percent of tuition over the next three years, The Herald previously reported.

The committee also recommended updating the benefit annually to adjust for tuition hikes, inflation and cases in which the University’s peer institutions substantially increase their own tuition benefit programs.

The University currently incurs a cost of $4,030,000 for the program. Increasing to 36 percent would cost roughly $2 million more, according to the report.

Eligible employees for TAP are professors with tenure or staff members who have been continuously employed by the University for at least four years. TAP funds can be applied to tuition at Brown or other institutions. In 2002, the benefit was set at a flat $10,000, which at the time

was 36 percent of tuition. But the benefit has remained fixed at $10,000 since then without accounting for inflation or the steady rise in tuition, according to the committee’s report.

The report highlighted the gap between the size of TAP and similar programs at 19 peer institutions. This disparity “has serious consequences for the recruitment and retention of faculty,” according to the report.

Roth said many employees with children have expressed concerns about going into debt to put their children through college. “We’ve had a number of people raise this with the Faculty Executive (Committee) in the past year,” he said, adding that most staff members and administrators are likely unaware of how small the University’s benefit is relative to its peers.

The first version of TAP, in 1979, gave employees the choice of either a tuition benefit to be used for their children at Brown and other universities or a contribution from the University to offset the cost of health insurance premiums.

Eligible employees could also opt for a combination of both at a reduced level.

The University ranked the lowest in tuition benefit offerings among the institutions evaluated in the report. Roth said Harvard and Dartmouth provide alternative perks, such as no-interest loans or higher overall salaries. The mean offering among the evaluated institutions is 63 percent of tuition costs for use at the home school or 37 percent of the home institution’s tuition at another school.

Every other institution assessed in the report offering a benefit does so based on percentages of tuition rather than on a fixed amount.

Karen Davis, vice president for human resources, said the benefit comes from the “same pot of money that the University uses to fund academic programs, faculty and staff salaries, facilities maintenance and so on,” and is therefore part of “a series of trade-offs” in budget decisions. The budget is set to allocate roughly $3.3 million to TAP in the up-

coming fiscal year, she said.

Davis said the decision to increase the program’s budget must be considered in the broader context of all the other expenses the University has and other programs it wants to expand or initiate. The Office of Human Resources is responsible for administering the benefit — taking part in discussions on the policy, explaining TAP on its website and determining applicants’ eligibility, Davis said.

James Tilton, director of financial aid, said the Office of Financial Aid records how much employees’ children receive for TAP in Banner after human resources determines their benefits. Students who receive TAP can still be eligible for needbased aid, he said. The benefit usually goes toward filling the summer savings expectation, the work requirement or any loan. The benefit is treated as any outside scholarship and does not affect the financial aid office’s consideration of the family’s total income.

“The same funds that would be used to increase the TAP benefit for faculty and staff are those that could otherwise be used in pursuit of other goals of the University, including financial aid,” Provost Mark Schlissel P’15 wrote in an email to The Herald. “The president is considering whether or not to expand this benefit in the context of all the other things we would like to do to enhance Brown.”

The report, which was endorsed unanimously by the faculty, would ultimately have to be approved by the provost and the president to take effect in the 2014-15 academic year at the earliest.

Schlissel wrote that he was “leery” of increasing funding to something that would only benefit staff members with children, questioning whether it would be advantageous to the University’s mission. Davis said offering competitive benefits is “key” to attracting and keeping quality faculty and staff members but added that there are many faculty members unaffected by TAP who would rather see the funds spent on other programs.

/ / Testing page 2

course.

software engineering typically involve oral questions on difficult technical concepts. He said he worries that such questions “discriminate” against applicants who do not perform well under time pressure.

But Chang said while the “learning by doing” model of some computer science courses works for many subjects, some disciplines like biology require testing to ensure students can build on baseline concepts.

“There’s a sort of foundational knowledge you need to have, about, say mitochondria and proteins,” Chang said. “You need to get it before you can get in a lab and do it.”

Other professors, even within the introductory computer science classes, said they find tests necessary. Associate Professor of Computer Science David Laidlaw, who teaches CSCI 0160: “Introduction to Algorithms and Data Structures,” the second semester of the CS 15-16 sequence, uses homework assignments and projects in addition to exams for evaluating students.

“We just do everything,” he said, adding that exams are useful for testing the mathematical concepts in the

Alternate approaches Some faculty members and administrators said they are increasingly exploring alternatives to the traditional lecture-exam model of teaching a large class.

Gibbs said her CHEM 0330 midterm score fell within the range that qualified her for CHEM 0330T. The program spaces the course material out over one year for students who are in danger of failing the class in its traditional form or who want a more in-depth understanding of the subject.

Gibbs said one major stress factor in the traditionally test-based lecture course was the pressure placed on each exam.

“If I get sick or something, that might impact my performance,” she said. “It’s stressful having so few tests and knowing that’s a huge part of my grade.”

But in CHEM 0330T, students can take exams on their own time, which Gibbs said helps eliminate some of the pressure.

“It feels less stressful because there’s more structure leading up to it,” she said, adding that CHEM 0330T relies on more frequent tests that each have less impact on students’ grades.

Kathy Takayama, director of the Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning said she will lead a pilot program in the ECON 1110: “Intermediate Microeconomics” program, which will implement many techniques of CHEM 0330T. Students will be working in small groups on collaborative assignments and intimate discussions, Chang said.

Takayama said her pilot program “might alleviate some of the pressures of test anxiety because it can encourage students to continually keep up with the course, review the material and avoid cramming for exams.”

Other courses have embraced the idea of allowing students flexibility in how they would like to be assessed.

In HIST 1850: “American Legal and Constitutional History,” students have the option to choose between writing an essay or taking a midterm exam. Isabel Pitaro ’16 said she likes the option because it allows students to play to their individual strengths.

But she said this should not be a universal model.

“Not every test should have that option, though,” Pitaro said. “I think that’s great, but (students) should have to at some point take a test and write a paper — they’re both really important skills for life.”

19 institutions, Brown ranked lowest for tuition assistance

By CLAIRE SCHLESSINGER STAFF WRITER

The conversation covered strategic planning and U. governance topics despite small turnout

By MAGGIE LIVINGSTONE SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Planning for the 250th anniversary of the University’s founding and efforts in student engagement were the main points of discussion at an open forum between students and Russell Carey ’91 MA’06, executive vice president for planning and policy and chair of the committee on reimagining the campus and community, held Thursday afternoon.

The event, planned by the Student Activities Committee and Academic and Administrative Affairs Committee, subdivisions of the Undergraduate Council of Students, was part of UCS week and was intended as a forum for “discussion about University governance and campus planning,” according to a campus-wide email sent by UCS president Anthony White ’13. The forum drew eight students.

Students and Carey gathered in a classroom in the List Art building and formed a circle with desks. Carey commenced the talk by outlining a brief history of past strategic planning committee efforts, namely the planning process under former president Ruth Simmons.

Carey underscored the differences between the current process and the one under Simmons, contrasting the “period of transitions in the president’s office” that preceded Simmons’ presidency with President Christina Paxson’s task of “building on these past 10 years.”

A central conversation thread at the talk was the potential of the 250th anni-

versary celebration, which will occur in 2014, to create opportunities for fundraising, alumni outreach and student engagement. Student groups can participate by planning events to honor the occasion, he said, adding that UCS should facilitate student involvement.

Another topic of conversation presented by students was the concern that the University is too focused on planning for the future and not enough on current issues facing students. Todd Harris ’14.5, a UCS member, said he takes issue with the state of student advising.

“There are so many things students have the opportunity to take advantage of and don’t know about them because they don’t know where to go,” Harris told The Herald after the event. He added that strengthening the first-year advising program would greatly improve this problem.

Carey said in the talk that his committee was not largely responsible for advising, but he encouraged UCS to present this issue to Katherine Bergeron, dean of the college and chair of the strategic planning committee on educational innovation.

Of the students who attended, seven were UCS members. The eighth was a member of the Brown Conversation.

Harris attributed the low turnout to the simultaneous occurrence of the first “Guns in America” lecture, part of a Janus Forum miniseries on gun violence.

But Harris said he was still happy with the discussion and felt all of his questions were answered.

“I think (Carey) did a great job of kind of laying out where Brown stands at the moment and where it’s headed,” said Alexander Kaplan ’14, UCS student activities chair, organizer of the talk and a former Herald staff writer.

Follow the Herald! twitter.com/the_herald

4 university news Wage changes unlikely to affect financial aid The proposed increase in minimum wage could encourage students to work more part-time jobs

By CHAD SIMON STAFF WRITER

President Obama’s proposal to increase the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 per hour is unlikely to affect either student employment in college or financial aid packages, Brown administrators and professors told The Herald.

“If federal minimum wage goes to $9, that would have no impact on Brown student employment,” said Kenneth Chay, professor of economics.

“There is little evidence of employment declining with modest increases in minimum wage,” Chay said.

Jim Tilton, director of financial aid at the Office of Student Employment, said such an increase in minimum wage would not affect students’ financial aid packages.

“Brown tends to have enough jobs every year to cover even those students that are interested in working who are

not on financial aid,” Tilton said.

At $8.70 per hour, the minimum wage paid to students is higher than that mandated by the state, said Tracy Frisone, senior assistant director of student employment. “The vast majority on campus are already making more than that,” she added.

Most students said they think an increase in minimum wage to $9 an hour will have a positive impact.

Sheryl Hado ’13, who works for Brown University Dining Services, said the minimum wage hike would help attract students to jobs. “A lot of times, there are open shifts available because students sometimes feel like the amount of time they contribute to these jobs doesn’t equate to the pay,” she said.

“If it’s raised to $9 an hour, more people might get part-time jobs,” said Carissa Wills-DeMello ’13. “A lot of people I know don’t get part time jobs because they don’t make a lot of money for they hours they work,” she said, adding that the minimum wage increase might encourage more students to work outside Brown.

“When I started working for BuDS,

starting pay was $8.25, and it took me six semesters to get up to $9.25,” Gerica Alvarado ’13 said. “More money is always good,” she added.

But some voiced concern about how the change would affect employment levels.

“If minimum wage was raised, I do feel like employment would go down,” said Caroline Guerreio ’13, though she added that, as a BuDS employee, “I can only be happy that the wage will increase.”

“In a completely free market economy, an increase in minimum wages results in low-wage workers losing jobs,” Chay said, but this is only true under free market assumptions.

“That’s not going to happen if the employer has some market power,” Chay said. “Because Brown has monopsony power over the wage” — meaning it is virtually the only “buyer” on the market for student labor — “I would be very surprised if Brown started laying off student workers due to an increase in minimum wage,” he said.

“Nobody (at Brown) is going to lose their jobs over this,” Chay said.

Got something to say?

Leave a comment online!

Visit www.browndailyherald.com to comment on any of our articles!

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Health for homeless addressed in teach-in A homeless advocacy student group and formerly homeless locals discussed mistreatment

By KIERA PELTZ CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Homeless individuals in Rhode Island who have used emergency medical services feel they were treated like “non-persons” by medical staff, according to a 2010 survey conducted by the Rhode Island Homeless Advocacy Project.

Members of student group Rhode Island Medical Advocacy Project, two members of the homeless community and Thomas O’Toole, the National Director of the Homeless Veteran Patient Aligned Care Team, gathered for “Teach-In: Intersections of Healthcare and Homelessness” to speak about the importance of improving conditions for the homeless in medical care settings Thursday. The group of around 20 assembled in Wilson Hall.

RIMAP, a six-person student group, is a part of Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere, a Swearer Center for Public Service organization.

Fifty-nine percent of homeless respondents to the RIMAP survey said they felt rushed through the treatment process while in emergency care, and 58 percent said they felt their treatment was guided not by their medical problems but instead by their homelessness, said Jacqueline Gallant ’15, a RIMAP coordinator, in the lecture.

Members of RIMAP believe health care is fundamental to ensuring the dignity of every person, Gallant said.

Health care must be equal and unprejudiced for all, she said.

“I think that a lot of people at Brown want to go around and change the world, and what they don’t realize is that severe social injustices occur right on and off the Hill, and homelessness is one of them,” Jana Foxe ’16, a member of RIMAP, told The Herald.

Mistreatment of the homeless in

medical settings, especially by EMTs, led to the creation of RIMAP, Gallant said in the lecture.

Barbara Kalil, the only non-student member of RIMAP, and guest Frank Nolan — both of whom were previously homeless — ­ spoke about witnessing this discrimination firsthand.

Nolan went to the hospital last year after hurting his knee, he said.

There were three homeless people in the waiting room before him, but the doctors took Nolan first.

“They’re homeless. We’ll get to them when we get to them,’ the nurse said after I asked why they were still in the waiting room,” Nolan said. This inequity did not sit well with him.

The discrimination Nolan witnessed is not a one-time occurrence, said Pearse Haley ’13, a former volunteer with the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless and a member of RIMAP. Most homeless individuals end up in the health care system because they have actual health problems, not because of drug-related problems, which people often assume, he said.

O’Toole works to create custom clinics for the homeless that integrate both medical and social services. These homeless-focused clinics have reduced the homeless’ use of emergency rooms by 72 percent and hospitalizations by 34 percent within the first six months, he said.

Kalil proposed another solution to decreasing homelessness. “I’ll tell you what the answer is: affordable housing. It is the key to it all,” Kalil said.

By educating students on the discrimination homeless people face in medical settings, RIMAP hopes that these students — some of whom will one day work in medicine — will help end mistreatment in the future, wrote RIMAP member Christina DiFabio ’14 in an email to The Herald.

RIMAP is working with the Rhode Island Department of Health to provide hospitals with sensitivity trainings for their staff members, which are similar to the teach-in, DiFabio wrote.

arts & culture 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

‘Sappington!’ features comedic plots, all-female cast Emily Garrison ’16 worked on the play for many years prior to its selection at the PW

By EMMAJEAN HOLLEY STAFF WRITER

It’s “A Clockwork Orange” with a comedic twist. It’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” with an electric chair.

“Sappington!” also called “The Lamentations and Tribulations of Butlerhood,” written and directed by Emily Garrison ’16, features a multitude of small plots that invariably spin into abnormal and absurd outcomes in its flashback-centered structure.

For its slot at the Production Workshop, “Sappington!” beat out works submitted by seniors, something Garrison said is an “extremely validating” culmination of her writing efforts.

“When I got to Brown, I started to lose confidence in my skills when I didn’t get into the first 10 shows I auditioned for,” she said, adding that she had experienced success in theater at her high school. “It was discouraging, but this is a really nice confirmation (for) me.”

The protagonist of Garrison’s play, Barnabus Sappington, a butler, seeks therapy for his unsettling dreams. Unfortunately for him, his psychologist is a quack who probes into Sappington’s

/ / Festival page 1 gent Witness festival aimed to explore complex themes, among them the role of art in creating social change in the Middle East, globalization and localization, the meaning of tyranny and the recognition of humanity in others. The events, which took place on Tuesday and Wednesday, featured Adonis, the world-renowned Syrian poet, Sirees and other creative thinkers from the Arabic world.

“I knew I wanted to push conversation about Syria deeper into the University because every day the situation just grows more florid,” said Ehn, who organized the event with Peter Gale Nelson and Lori Baker of IWP. The festival, co-sponsored by the Department of Literary Arts, Middle East Studies, Theater Arts and Performance Studies, the Watson Institute for International Studies and the Office for International Affairs, included a poetry reading and a panel discussion on translation. The Cogut Center for the Humanities organized a related panel on the role of hip-hop in the Arab Spring. “(When) we think about Middle Eastern politics … we think not usually of young people enough as agents of change,” said Tricia Rose, professor of Africana Studies and interim director of the Cogut Center. “We see them as sort of wanting peace, but not as agents of change, and so this gives us a way to do that — to at least start.”

The local and the global The Cogut Center event, “Poetic Forces: Creative Change in and Beyond the Arab Spring,” began with a screening of “Masrah Deeb,” a music video released during the first week of the Egyptian revolution. A screen in The Martinos Auditorium of the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for

past for his own amusement.

Garrison said she has worked on the play for many years. “It’s been in the works for quite a long time,” she said, tracing its origins back to a project she worked on in eighth grade, when her theater class made a show featuring a patient in therapy. “I had a lot of fun with that, and I guess it was a big influence on me,” she said.

The theme of a patient in therapy resurfaced when Garrison submitted a play to her high school’s one-act festival, she said.

The calling card of “Sappington!” is its collection of hilariously self-absorbed characters — from a sadistic eight-year-old who insists on being addressed as “high queen of despair, tragedy, torture and death” to an elderly Broadway actress still basking in the anachronistic glow of her 15 minutes of fame.

“Most of the characters just arose naturally from jokes that I wanted to put in the show,” Garrison said.

The first of Sappington’s abuses are suffered at the hands of a British family, the Hwatts. In recounting his experience to his therapist, Sappington’s pronunciation of the family’s name causes confusion reminiscent of the classic “Who’s on First?” sketch by William Abbott and Lou Costello.

“The Hwatts came about as a gimmick about people not being able to understand British accents,” Garrison

said. “I thought of the confusion when a name sounds like another word and just went on from there.”

The language-confusion theme occurs again in the final scene, when a well-intentioned flamenco dance lesson leads to a riotous misunderstanding.

Though the play features male and female characters, all of them are played by female actresses.

“I went to an all-girls school (before coming to Brown), and my theater director was a strong advocate for women’s theater,” she said, adding that the strength of her school’s theater department inspired her to pursue allfemale casting in her own works.

Garrison said she also hopes to make a statement about the underrepresentation of women in comedy.

“People seem to have the idea that women aren’t as funny as men, just by default, but that’s just not right,” she said. “One of my main goals is in this show is to have women make people laugh, to prove that women can be funny, too.”

The play’s production faced a minor setback when one of the actresses suffered a mild concussion and shock during a warm-up at Wednesday night’s dress rehearsal, but Garrison said the performance will run on schedule.

“Sappington!” will run tonight at 8 and Saturday at 2 p.m. in the PW Upspace.

the Creative Arts flashed with images of railway tracks, narrow alleyways and Cairo faces.

“I’m not a dictator/ Deeb’s a doctor / in the beat department,” rapped Deeb, who was a protester in the Egyptian Arab Spring.

Deeb and other panelists began by discussing a seeming paradox: While hip hop’s rise in Egypt demonstrates the globalization of African-American culture, Deeb’s rap lyrics are also “intensely local,” said Elias Muhanna, professor of Middle East studies.

Nancy Khalek, professor of religious studies, said in both the United States and the Middle East, hip hop artists use rap to talk about the struggle to rise from a “dire situation.” These artists imbue their form with culturally relevant elements, she added.

While discussing translation on the panel “Poetics Without Borders: Communicating Sensibility in Times of Change,” Sirees and Adonis also explored their relationship to the local and global.

Sirees said Arabic fiction is becoming increasingly localized, employing colloquial dialogue and giving voice to people of different backgrounds and class levels. The trend, he said, is creating new challenges for translators, who must attempt to capture the texture of locality and make it universally accessible.

Adonis, who is lauded for translating authors such as T.S. Eliot and Saint John-Perse into Arabic, began with a simple statement — “I’m not involved in translation,” he said in Arabic. Miled Faiza and Karen McNeil translated his words to English.

“Translation is the destruction of poetry. Every translator of poetry must be a traitor,” he said.

Adonis stressed that he is a poet and that translation is an art itself. The translator must create new meaning

in the context of his own language.

Translating poetry is still crucial for communication between groups of people, he added later.

“We have to take care of the translation in spite of the difficulties,” he said.

Beyond the translation Translation aside, watching Adonis read his poetry enthralled Arabic and non-Arabic speakers alike. Sophie Hawley-Weld ’14, who speaks no Arabic, said she was “totally engrossed in the way that he was saying it.”

Adonis, 83-years-old, is a man of small stature. While reading before an audience of about 80 in Macmillan Hall, the poet gripped his fists and extended his palms. His voice rose and fell. His lips pursed into frowns and widened into smiles. Several times, he closed his eyes and recited from memory.

He took turns reading with Cole Swensen, chair of the literary arts de-

EVAN THOMAS / HERALD

Garrison’s theater experience at her all-girls high school inspired her selection of an all-female cast to play both male and female characters. partment, who read selections from “Adonis: Selected Poems,” translated

by Khaled Mattawa: “Wings / but made of wax / and the falling rain is not rain / but ships that sail our weeping.”

Called the “greatest living poet of the Arab world” and “comparable to T.S. Eliot in the Anglophone world” by the Guardian, Adonis is credited for his role in the birth of modernist Arabic poetry. His poems explore a variety of subjects including erotic love, natural elements and the destruction rendered by war.

Adonis believes poetry that leaves space for reader interpretation and encourages creative methods of perception is necessary for the type of revolutionary change needed in Arabic culture, according to the introduction to Mattawa’s translation.

During a question-and-answer session following the reading, a student said Arab poets have served as an inspiration for political revolution but

have failed to be a source of continued support.

The remark echoed comments made by others outside the University, who have attacked Adonis for criticizing the Syrian opposition, the Guardian reported.

“We’ve gone immediately into politics,” Adonis said in Arabic. His words were translated by Robert Creswell, professor of comparative literature.

“You can’t ask for poets to play the role of rifles. Poets are one thing. Rifles are another,” he said. He emphasized that he too wanted change.

“I’m one of those who dreams that we will get out of this infernal machine,” he said, adding that by “infernal machine” he meant the Arab world’s long history of conflict and war.

He said he wanted a revolution that would not only overturn a political regime, but would also change society, creating freedom for women and space for other interpretations of Islam.

6 arts & culture

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Concert showcases electronic forms of musical expression Akiko Hatakeyama’s compositions convey past reflections and momentary inspirations of thought

By EUNICE KIM CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Over the last 10 years, the world has rapidly digitized, making the incorporation of multimedia natural everywhere — ­ from classrooms equipped with iPads to children playing tennis on Nintendo Wii. Akiko Hatakeyama, a Ph.D. in the Multimedia Electronics Music Experiments program who performed four pieces at a concert March 7, shows that this can be the case in music as well.

Hatakeyama held a concert, “BLIND: The world where I can’t be but you live in,” at the Grant Recital Hall March 7, where she performed four of her pieces, Kemuri, Aida, Michi ni Niji and Higure.

A native of Yokohama, Japan, she said she names her pieces after Japanese words and intentionally does not provide translations, “because the translations sometimes don’t carry

the whole meaning of the word,” she said. “I also don’t want my audience to have preconceptions before actually experiencing my work,” she added.

Though she aims to communicate her thoughts and get her ideas out when creating music, she said she is a minimalist when it comes to providing background information about her work. She said she focuses on what she is both “aware of ” and “subconsciously aware of,” rather than on conveying a specific message. While she often reflects on her childhood and family when working, she said even her own interpretations of her music change each time she listens to it.

“I feel happiest when someone tells me that my work has made him remember something from (his) past, and that has actually happened in last time’s concert,” Hatakeyama said. “After the concert, someone actually told me he almost cried.”

Hatakeyama said she is not in-

fluenced by the work of particular musicians or visual artists — “whenever I’m stuck, I like to read novels,” she said.

“My main inspiration in creating a piece comes from what I feel and want to express at the moment of composing,” she added.

Using electronic devices for recording and processing audio and images “allows (her) to freely explore with (her) expressive outcomes,” she said.

Jim Moses, technical director and lecturer of the University’s music department and MEME program said he considers Hatakeyama a “fabulous” and “terrific” artist. But Moses said it is the combination of her strong voice and her “technical competency” that sets her apart.

“She has a strong original voice and style and clear point of view, and strong sense of her own aesthetics,” Moses said. “You can tell that she has a lot to say about many things.”

“People have different interests and styles in various disciplines, and there

are a number of ways to combine the disciplines,” Hatakeyama said. “Some people are more interested in developing new technologies for making art, and others are interested in using the new technologies to express themselves.”

“The elements of newness and oldness can and often coexist in multimedia art,” she added.

Pointing to her own work, “Higure,” as an example of this integration of old and new, Hatakeyama said she uses a string of thread to control the lighting of the space and volume of the sound in the piece.

“There’s electronic music also, but the thread spread on the floor, the screen and the lighting are (the) visual aspect here,” said Hatakeyama, explaining the more old-fashioned aspect of her works.

Hatakeyama noted that space also matters — hearing music in a lounge or classroom is “different from hearing it in a concert hall.” The selection of the space in which the piece will be performed is part of the art work, “so

I actually calculate the factors that can affect the resonance of the piece,” she said.

For Hatakeyama, the MEME program was an obvious choice. She was “born into and grew up in the period of recording technology,” so merging improvisation, electronics and visual components with more traditional forms of written music came naturally, Hatakeyama said.

MEME “is one of the rare graduate programs that students can pursue in multidisciplinary studies in both creative practice and writing and research,” Hatakeyama said.

Degrees in Multimedia Electronic Music have become common at other universities, Moses said, but Hatakeyama noted “the support we receive in the program is incredible — “the knowledge and inspirations that we receive from the professors and fellow graduate students, and access to the facilities and equipment.”

“I cannot think of any other programs that I would choose over MEME at Brown,” she added.

At Janus panel, scholars debate solution to gun violence Panelists clashed over whether reducing the number of handguns is an effective way to lower crime rates

By MAXINE JOSELOW SENIOR STAFF WRITER

There is no simple solution to the problem of gun-related violence in the United States, three panelists said in “Guns in America: Reducing Crime,” the first in a three-part Janus Forum miniseries.

Though the panelists agreed on the absence of an easy solution, they clashed in their evaluations of gun control and other preventative measures.

“This was one of (the) more exciting events we’ve had in a while because it

UNIVERSITY NEWS

was one of the few events where you could very visibly see a clash,” said Raaj Parekh ’13, co-executive director of the Janus Forum.

The panel featured experts from several disciplines, including law professor at Roger Williams University Carl Bogus, psychiatry professor at the University of Louisville Steven Lippmann, and author of “More Guns, Less Crime” John Lott.

The event, which drew about 60 people to MacMillan 117, was cosponsored by the Office of the President and the Political Theory Project in response to the Sandy Hook shootings last December.

Bogus advocated handgun control as a means of curbing gun-related violence.

“As far as I know, reducing the number of handguns in circulation is the only form of gun control that works,” Bogus said.

Bogus said the Supreme Court’s landmark 2008 decision in District of Columbia vs. Heller — in which the court held the Second Amendment gives an individual the right to possess a firearm for legal purposes — poses a major obstacle to handgun control.

“The Supreme Court may have made any form of gun control that works unconstitutional,” he said.

Lott challenged Bogus’ support of handgun control, arguing that banning guns does not have a significant statistical effect on lowering crime. “(Bogus) says handgun control would be the most effective way to control gun crime,” Lott said. “But when you pass a ban, it’s the law-abiding good citizens who obey and the criminals who don’t.”

Lott cited the District of Columbia and Chicago as examples of cities that banned handguns until 2008 but did not experience significant reductions in crimes such as homicide.

Instead of handgun control, Lott identified law enforcement as “the single most important factor for preventing

violent crime.”

Lippmann added another dimension to the discussion by highlighting the frequent use of guns for suicide and domestic violence, not crime against other people. “The irony is … firearms are frequently obtained for family protection but are often used for suicide,” Lippmann said. “Americans, while seeking security, are shooting themselves and their families in their own homes.”

Lippmann upheld more jobs, education and “community policing” as means of eradicating gun-related violence.

President Christina Paxson, who emailed the community after Sandy Hook calling for a campus-wide dialogue about gun violence, said at the event that she appreciated the speakers’ use of panel data, given her own background in economics.

In a question and answer session following the panel, Ian Reardon ’16 asked Lott whether prevention of carrying concealed weapons would deter mass shooters.

Mass shooters’ primary goal is media attention, Lott said. Preventing people from carrying concealed weapons also hinders them from helping victims of shootings, he said, adding that if people

could respond to the shooter, they could minimize harm and therefore decrease the amount of coverage the media would devote to the event.

Sam Gilman ’15, steering committee director of the Janus Forum, said afterward that he appreciated the spirit of challenging ideas that pervaded the entire event. “It’s nice to bring clashing perspectives to campus,” he said, adding the contention meshed with the Janus Forum’s mission of “No idea goes unchallenged.”

“Guns are definitely a polarizing issue,” said Dana Schwartz ’15, a Janus fellow. “The speakers were contentious and argued with each other, and I think that makes for the most engaging events.”

“I love to have people disagree with me,” Lott told The Herald after the event.

“It makes things more interesting.”

While this first panel focused on crime, the next two panels on March 21 and April 4 will explore the roles of culture and mental health in the gun control debate.

“This one tackled crime really well and laid the groundwork for other issues,” Parekh said. “This was a really good launching point to further the conversation over the next few weeks.”

www.browndailyherald.com

sports friday 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

M. LACROSSE

Bruno rolls over Hartford, St. Joseph’s in non-conference matchups With eight goals in two games, Hurster ’14 contributed to the team’s solid start to the season

By DANTE O’CONNELL CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Sam Hurster ’14 led Brown with five goals against Hartford University and another three against St. Joseph’s University in consecutive non-conference victories last week.

“I’m not even sure (Hurster)’s playing his best lacrosse right now, and I’m sure he’d tell you the same thing,” said Head Coach Lars Tiffany ’90. “He’s a great goal scorer.”

The Bears (3-0, Ivy 0-0) annihilated Harftord 14-4, and vanquished St. Joseph’s 17-9 in two blowout victories.

Brown 14, Hartford 4 Hurster led Bruno with five goals, including three in a row over a span of five minutes in the fourth quarter to seal the deal for the Bears against Hartford (1-3).

Bruno jumped out to an early lead, matching Hartford’s total of four goals in the first six minutes. Hurster opened the scoring and was followed by tallies from Brendan Caputo ’16, Stephen Chmil ’14 and Nick Piroli ’15.

“I was really impressed with how our men had come out in the first quarter,” Tiffany said. “Our offense made them pay for overextending.

It was really a satisfying moment as

a coach, knowing that we’re ready to compete.”

Tate Kildonas scored the first of his two goals for the Hawks late in the first quarter, tightening the score to 4-1. Brown put up the next six goals, scored by Bailey Tills ’16, Alex Jones ’13, Tim Jacob ’15, Hurster and Henry Blynn ’16, who scored twice.

After two Hartford goals late in the third frame, Hurster began the fourth with a three-goal streak. Jacob added another goal with 4:17 left in the game.

George Sherman ’13 led Bruno with three assists, and goalie Jack Kelly ’16 stopped eight of 11 shots.

The Bears led Hartford in face-offs won 15-7, ground balls 37-24 and shots 37-32.

The win made up for a 20-6 Bruno loss to Hartford last year.

“There was no shortage of reason to get up for this game,” Tiffany said.

“We made a statement, scoring four goals in the first five minutes.”

Brown 17, St. Joseph’s 9 Hurster and Johnny DePeters ’13 each scored three goals Saturday to lead the Bears over St. Joseph’s (3-4) in another runaway victory.

“The offensive explosion was exciting to see,” Tiffany said. “We came out early and often. Our midfielders answered the bell and drilled their shots.”

Jacob got on the board first for Bruno, scoring the first of his two goals less than four minutes into the game. After the Hawks tied the game at one, the Bears scored the next five

EMILY GILBERT / HERALD

Sam Hurster ’14 helped Brown continue its undefeated start to the season. The team will travel to Harvard over spring break to try to avenge a loss in overtime from last year. goals, putting them up 6-1 at the end of the first quarter. Jones scored two, Jacob added another and Blynn and Sherman also got on the board during the 5-0 run.

In the second quarter, DePeters scored twice, supplementing goals from Hurster and Caputo to put the Bears up 10-5 at the half.

Bruno added three more goals in the third period — DePeters scored his third goal of the game, while Sherman and Hurster followed up with a goal apiece.

“Every day in practice, we see

(Hurster) start to become the goal scorer he was last year,” Tiffany said.

Brown scored four more goals in the fourth quarter, bolstered by goals from Piroli, Hurster and two from Nick St. Laurent ’15.

Sam Ford ’13 led the Bears with five ground balls — Bruno won the ground ball contest 32-19. They also converted all 14 of their clearing attempts and outshot the Hawks 46-30.

Blynn and Piroli led Brown with three assists each, and Kelly stopped nine shots.

Riding a three-game winning

streak, Bruno will try to avenge a 10-9 overtime loss to Harvard (2-2) last year. The Bears will face off against the Crimson at Stevenson Field 7 p.m.

Saturday.

“We prepare for each game the same, but this one’s personal,” Tiffany said. “We’re still feeling the pain from the loss in overtime. It’s going to be an opportunity to exact revenge for last year’s loss and to make a statement in the Ivy League.”

After Harvard, Bruno will embark on a three-game road trip over spring break.

Student-athletes impact local, global communities through volunteering Many Brown teams are paired with severely sick children through the Team Impact program

By NIKHIL PARASHER SPORTS STAFF WRITER

At the end of April, Caroline King ’13, a forward on the women’s basketball team, will travel to western Nepal to continue her work with Nyaya Health, an organization focused on providing medical care in the area. King is also the founder of Hoops for Hope, a program that has partnered with the Providence chapter of the MakeA-Wish Foundation to raise around $2,000 and is based partly on the men’s ice hockey program Goals for Good.

King has also volunteered at two local elementary schools, one of which is the Vartan Gregorian Elementary school at Fox Point.

King was honored for her efforts with a selection to the inaugural Allstate WBCA Good Works team last month, and is one of many studentathletes at Brown who regularly volunteer their time to various causes and programs.

“We’re representing more than just ourselves, and there’s a larger impact we can make outside of just one person,” King said.

The program at Fox Point elementary is the athletic department’s largest community service initiative, and the partnership has existed since 1991.

Each participating team works with its own class and, several times each month, visits the students.

Director of Athletics Jack Hayes said Fox Point has been “very happy” with the partnership, adding that he plans for the program to continue, as Brown students can “offer so much” to the community.

“We’re always going to want to try to assist the city of Providence and the state of Rhode Island and all the neighboring communities in any way that we can,” Hayes said.

Another program in which many squads participate is Team Impact, which pairs severely sick children with collegiate teams to raise their spirits.

Ryan Jacobson ’15, a forward on the men’s hockey team, worked with Team Impact alongside his teammates when they were paired with Ethan, an eight year old diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2011. Jacobson said the team enjoyed interacting with Ethan and participating in activities with him, such as having him come to home games.

“He’s like part of the team,” Jacobson said.

Jacobson added that he thought it was important Ethan had the opportunity to play hockey, which Jacobson said is “his favorite thing.”

“With a life-threatening disease, you don’t know if that opportunity will come around again,” Jacobson said.

Ethan’s doctor “called him a survivor” Thursday on his Facebook page, Prayers 4 Ethan.

In another pairing through Team Impact, Katie Jamieson ’13, a guard on the women’s ice hockey team, was in charge of organizing activities for Angelica, then a nine-year-old girl who was diagnosed with leukemia two years

EMILY GILBERT / HERALD

Head Coach Lars Tiffany ’90 first proposed the men’s lacrosse team’s 36-hour charity run circling the Main Green in 2006, which raised $18,000 to build a school in Sri Lanka and has become an annual tradition. ago. Jamieson and the team shared various moments with Angelica, like going out for ice cream and stepping out onto the ice. Jamieson has also done work for women who are victims of domestic violence with the Women’s Center of Rhode Island.

Jamieson said she thinks it is important for her to help build her community.

“I think we’ve all had really great opportunities handed to us,” Jamieson said. “And I think it’s important to give back.” Jamieson said she also plans to continue her community service after graduation. Jamieson, who is apply-

ing to complete a masters of public health at Brown, said if she is still in Providence next year, she will continue to work with Team Impact and see Angelica.

Lars Tiffany ’90, head coach of the men’s lacrosse team, is partly responsible for his team’s largest community service program. The squad was initially inspired in 2006 by the efforts of teammate Patrick Cook-Deegan ’08, who had raised $22,500 for Room to Read by biking 2,800 miles through southeast Asia, The Herald previously reported.

While debating the best means of

fundraising, Tiffany suggested a 36hour run. By the end of the run, the team had raised $18,000 to build a school in Sri Lanka. Since then, the lacrosse team has had an annual 36hour run to raise funds for a variety of causes, chosen by the members of the squad. This year, the team raised money for the Healing Arts program at the Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence.

“It was so well-received and we felt great to help others,” Tiffany said. “We run for 36 hours, but the organization never rests in their mission … so we don’t deserve too much credit.”

8 science & research

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Excavation results visualized in new lab Researchers find relapse Archaeology professor used interactive visuals to present research on medieval monks’ lives

By STEPHEN ARK CONTRIBUTING WRITER

After spending years excavating the ruins of Notre Dame d’Ourscamp, a medieval French monastery, Sheila Bonde, professor of archaelogy and history of art and architecture, displayed visuals depicting the daily lives of medieval monks in the new Patrick Ma Digital Scholarship Lab Thursday night.

Bonde’s lecture marked the beginning of the new center’s weekly series about education and technology.

Located on the first floor of the Rockefeller Library, the lab — which opened last fall — contains a large wall of touch-screen monitors and LED screens. According to the library’s website, the 12 panels form a 7 x 16 foot display that can show images and videos at a resolution of more than 24 megapixels.

In her talk, Bonde described her research on the monastery. She used the lab’s equipment to display online models. One animation showed the Ourscamp monks’ morning routine, in which red dots representing the monks moved from a bedroom to the chapel.

“In order to engage with the Middle Ages, we need to use data,” Bonde said. “Well, I have enormous data.”

After studying the monastery, Bonde constructed models of what the monastery likely looked like. “We’re using (geographic information systems) to make something visual which has only been described verbally,” Bonde said.

She used the new display to show high-definition visuals and text in different panels at the same time, while playing sound.

“If you want to view things at a high resolution for collaborative or comparative work, you need to see a lot of things simultaneously,” said Patrick Rashleigh, the lab’s data visualization coordinator.

The lab has touch-screen panels that can be connected with the large monitor so users can interact with both. Universtity Librarian Hariette Hemmasi said the library will also move other technologies to the lab, including a Microsoft Surface tablet.

Hemmasi said she hopes to make the lab a more popular campus resource. “We’re looking to communicate with faculty and students to see how to use this facility in specific ways,” she said.

“We want people to start using it, to start experimenting with it,” Rashleigh said. “It’s an open lab.”

Rashleigh was selected last fall to coordinate student and faculty use of the lab and to help with the upcoming student competition, Hackfest 2013.

The contest challenges students to make creative use of the new facility,

Rashleigh said.

In preparation for Hackfest, students are able to use the lab during the limited number of hours in which it is open to all students. The library will showcase student projects at a “Best of Hackfest 2013” event on Thursday, April 18, Rashleigh said.

In addition to hosting lectures and student research, the lab functions as a classroom, according to its website.

Two courses make use of the classroom regularly, Hemassi said. This semester, classes for AMST 2699: “Digital Storytelling” and ITAL 1400J: “The Many Faces of Casanova” are held there regularly.

Rashleigh said using the lab requires less technological knowledge than working with other digital visualization facilities on campus like the Center for Computation and Visualization’s CAVE, the 3-D environment in the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts. “Plugging in” at the Digital Scholarship Lab can be as easy as plugging in a monitor cord to a laptop, Rashleigh said.

He added this space stands out “when it becomes a collaborative space.”

“Seeing things as well as reading and hearing is a very important part of learning,” Hemmasi said. “We hope that students will really take advantage of the space.”

- Additional reporting by Steven Michael

may be preventable A study at Brown and Penn focused on the part of the brain reinforcing drug-craving behavior

By CHANELLE ADAMS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Stress-induced addiction relapse may be preventable by blocking receptors in the part of the brain responsible for sex, pleasure and motivation, according to a study by researchers at Brown and Penn. Their research was published in the journal Neuron last week.

Stress and addiction affect similar pathways in the brain, said senior author Julie Kauer, professor of molecular pharmacology, physiology and biotechnology. “The part (of the brain) that responds to stress also responds to addiction and drugs,” Kauer said.

Understanding the close relationship between stress and addiction could lead to new treatments and therapies for drug addiction, she added.

“The biggest clinical problem with addiction is relapse,” Kauer said, noting that stressful experiences heighten drug cravings.

The study focused on kappa opioid receptors in the ventral tegmentum area (VTA) — the part of the brain that reinforces drug-craving behavior.

Chemicals, called neurotransmitters, are released from the VTA to send signals to many other parts of the brain. Kauer and her team thought the release of one specific neurotransmitter, dynorphin, might be triggered by stress.

Dynorphin may lead to addiction relapse by attaching to kappa opioid receptors in the VTA, Kauer said.

The most common way to study drug addiction is to allow rats to selfadminister cocaine through a leverpressing mechanism that administers cocaine intravenously, said lead author Nicholas Graziane, a former postdoctoral researcher at Brown who is now a postdoc at the University of

Pittsburgh.

After the rats exhibit addictive behavior by pressing the lever at rapid rates, the cocaine is replaced with a saline solution to extinguish the addiction. Realizing that they are no longer receiving the drug, the rats stop pressing the lever. But exposing the rats to stress causes them to increase lever pressing and drug-seeking behavior, Graziane said.

The scientists improved upon this existing model by injecting the rats with a neurotransmitter called nor-BNI — which binds to the kappa opioid receptors — before subjecting them to a stress test, in which they were placed in cold water for five minutes. Then, when chemicals like dynorphin are released due to stress, they cannot attach to the opioid receptors.

The scientists were amazed at their results­­­— they found the rats much less likely to seek drugs if they had received nor-BNI before stress exposure, Kauer said.

“To almost completely block these animals from relapsing was a major breakthrough,” Graziane said.

“This is just another small piece of the puzzle,” said Abigail Polter, a postdoctoral researcher involved in the study. Future research could look for ways to further characterize the addiction signal pathway, she said. The prevention method would be more clinically viable if nor-BNI could act on stress after it occurred instead of preemptively, she added.

Kauer emphasized the importance of studying basic synaptic properties.

“We could never have come up with this drug target if we had not first worked it out in the basic lab,” she said.

It is unclear how well the study’s findings will translate to human subjects. Addiction processes have similar effects on humans and testing animals, but the brain works in mysterious ways, Graziane said. “We know that this system is in humans, and studies have shown people who have addictions often have changes in the kappa opioid system.”

Follow Science & Research! twitter.com/bdh_science

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

science & research 9

Prof highlights human Teach-in focuses on racial slavery professor of influence on environment Visiting Africana studies says Professor discusses ‘terraforming’ and human interactions with natural environment

By SOPHIE FLYNN STAFF WRITER

“We’re all post-nuclear creatures,” said Joseph Masco, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago, as he stood in front of a world map with flashing circles representing all the nuclear tests and explosions that occurred between 1945 and 1998.

He attributed this classification to the background radiation that humans have been exposed to ever since the first nuclear weapons test.

In his lecture, titled “Engineered Worlds: Terraforming and the Future of Science and Technology Studies,” Masco used examples of nuclear testing and global climate change to describe how humans have changed the earth and created ecological crises.

Masco began his talk by describing various definitions of the term “fallout,” from precipitation to the results of drone strikes and counterterrorism.

He highlighted that above all, fallout is a “form of history made visible by negative outcomes.”

The lecturer went on to speak about the “legacies of environmental toxins,” particularly those created by the nuclear age. He incorporated the world map video timeline, created by artist Isao Hashimoto, into his presentation.

Nuclear tests are not alone in changing the biosphere, Masco said.

The cumulative effects of industry in the 20th century have also contributed to rising sea levels, weather patterns and overall climate change, he said.

Masco compared current geoengineering plans intended to combat climate change by changing clouds’ composition or diffusing sunlight with space to the U.S. Project Plowshare of the 1960-70s, a program intended to use nuclear explosives for construction purposes. “These projects sound eerily familiar,” Masco said.

The nuclear age and the growth of industry were not the first times humans used geoengineering, Masco said. “We’ve been feverishly terraforming planet Earth now for generations,” he said. Masco gave examples of geoengineering that predate modern technology, from roads discovered that connect the southwestern U.S. to Mexico, to small canals people built along the Amazon river that eventually turned into significant tributaries. The difference between these and modern changes, he added, is the “cumulative scale and scope” of current geoengineering.

Though “nuclear war was perceived as brutal and short,” its effects have remained, he said. Similarly, “cli-

mate change, despite such imaginative industrial activity and scientific insight, was not planned,” Masco said.

These two major earth-changing processes make the present day “nothing less than the age of fallout,” he said.

Tying these topics to the future of science and technology studies, Masco said the implications of “ecologies everywhere … affected by humans” will have to be examined. “Global ecologies are now being constantly reengineered,” he said. Due to the current and future effects of past human actions on the earth, science and technology studies also works in “multiple temporalities,” he said.

Masco referenced several current projects he said represent the future of science and technology studies, including Tufts University professor Alex Blanchette’s work on how animals like pigs have a genetic makeup “tuned to human tastes” and Stanford University professor S. Lochlann Jain’s work on viewing cancer as a culture as well as a disease. He also referred to University of California at Berkeley geography professor Jake Kosek’s work on how honeybees are engineered by humans and are a “metaphor of social organization.” Masco said the academic area takes many disciplines into account, including anthropology, science studies and security studies.

But a central issue of these projects is recognizing the “coproduction of environment through interaction of the human and nonhuman.”

Masco’s lecture drew around 30 audience members, including Michael Bouchey, a graduate student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Bouchey said he was interested by Masco’s global approach to the issues he spoke about. “Usually you localize issues rather than globalize issues in STS,” he said. Bouchey also said he was hoping for “more of a connection to terraforming that wasn’t really there.”

“I think we all live in an age when we can see the connection between things that are frankly depressing,” said John F. Nickoll Professor of History Harold Cook, who was in attendance at the event. “One of the questions that is lurking in the background is the first world question,” he added.

People in the rest of the world are suffering the direct consequences of other humans’ actions, he said.

Jessica Hallock, a prospective student for Brown’s English Ph.D. program, said she thought the lecture brought up the question of the “ethics of visualization,” including how to make huge amounts of scientific data accessible to everyday people to motivate them to make changes in the world.

The lecture was the second in the spring lecture series “Beyond the Two Cultures: the Future in Science and Technology Studies” and was sponsored by the Starr Lectureship Fund.

mentality of slavery is ‘inherent in humanity’

By GABRIELLE DEE STAFF WRITER

“Why were people so mean to other people?” Corey D. B. Walker recalled his young daughter asking upon learning about the racial injustice of slavery.

In “Racial Slavery and Its Reverberations,” the second of four teach-ins that the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice has organized, a panel of three professors discussed the answer to Walker’s daughter’s question in much less simplistic terms. Walker, visiting professor of Africana studies, combined his expertise with that of with Evelyn HuDehart, professor of history, and Charles E. Cobb, Jr., visiting professor of Africana studies, for an audience of around 20 students and community members in MacMillan 117 Thursday evening.

Cobb kicked off the teach-in by describing the roots of slavery in America.

He cited Thomas Jefferson, who propagated the right to life, liberty and property, as the owner of more than 200 slaves, to emphasize the fundamental flaw in

UNIVERSITY NEWS

/ / Lawsuit page 1 cluded the cause of Sims’ death to be blunt-force trauma. The court papers stated Sims’ injuries suggested he had been hit by “one or more” trains, the Daily News reported. Sims’ last known location before his body’s discovery was the Eighth Avenue L station, where

the American Constitution’s pretense of equality. Slaveholders lived in fear of rebellion and that free blacks might seek revenge or gain political influence because of their growing numbers, Cobb said.

“The great irony was that the AfricanAmerican slaves took the ideals of the founding fathers seriously,” Cobb said.

Black people upheld those principles by rebelling against slavery, “saving the country from itself.”

Hu-Dehart expanded the discussion to slavery outside the United States, sharing her findings from her current research in Cuba.

In the 19th century, Cuba was highly dependent on slave labor to support its sugar plantations. When the British blockaded the slave trade to the Americas, Cuba — which primarily imported slaves instead of “breeding” them — faced a huge shortage of workers as the sugar industry was at its peak, Hu-Dehart said. The government therefore turned to transporting workers from southern China, despite the huge distance these workers had to travel, she said.

These workers, whom the Cuban government imported, were bound by eight-year labor contracts that delineated conditions such as pay and medical benefits, Hu-Dehart explained after passing out copies of the contracts in their Chinese and Spanish versions. Even if these

workers received similar treatment as the slaves on the Cuban plantations, the term “neo-slavery” seemed too simple to describe the Asian population’s position in Cuba, she said. The workers were, in a way, able to negotiate their own terms of work, even extending their contracts for chosen periods of time as short as three months, Hu-Dehart said.

“Was it simply an extension of slave labor?” Hu-Dehart asked. “Or can we see something that was a transition from slave to free labor?”

No matter how many theories and studies are conducted to understand slavery’s past, there is no way to intellectualize and thereby avoid the fundamental human iniquity that brought this institution about in the first place, Walker said in the final segment of the teach-in.

“Can there be any amount of study that would change the human heart,” which invented the practice of slavery in the first place? Walker asked.

When asked during a question-andanswer period about how to remove the mentality of slavery that is inherent in humanity, Walker said he did not have the answer, and that the mentality is a collective issue that will take generations to eradicate.

The study of race and ethnicity helps the present generation “tap into the past,” and gives a sense of how the issue has developed today, audience member Emily Farris GS told The Herald after the event.

he had last used his MetroCard around 7 p.m. Dec. 10, according to the March 14 article.

Sims’ mother, Melinda Sims, said in court papers filed in the Manhattan Supreme Court Wednesday that certain items on Sims’ person, including his iPhone, wallet, backpack and eyeglasses, have not been found, the

Daily News reported.

Sims was living in Great Neck, N.Y. at the time of his death, according to Tributes.com. A funeral service was held Dec. 17 at the Riverside-Nassau North Chapel in Great Neck, followed by a Committal Service at the New Montefiore Cemetery in Pinelawn, NY, according to an online obituary.

COMIC Join the Club | Simon Henriques

10 diamonds & coal DIAMONDS & COAL

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

EDITORIAL CARTOON b y a n g e l i a wa n g

Cubic zirconia to Chaplain of the University Reverend Janet Cooper Nelson, who said, “I mean think about it — when your family gives a gift in 1938, do you think it’s still going to be doing anything in 2013?” Don’t tell that to the anonymous donor who gave the University our favorite work of public art: the delightful Circle Dance on the Walk. May it last until 2113.

A diamond to the men’s hockey player who said about his goal, “It didn’t really go too hard, but it slipped in, so I’ll take it.” We doubt the goal was quite as satisfied.

Coal to the state representative who said, “You can’t just go buy a gun and throw it in your purse.” The whole reason for buying that patentleather clutch was to match a cute little pink Beretta.

A diamond to David Dadekian, an editor of the food blog Eat Drink R.I., who said, “There are a million pluses to home gardening.” There are, and they tend to become increasingly apparent around 4:20 p.m.

Cubic zirconia to University Librarian Harriette Hemmasi, who asked members of the Undergraduate Council of Students to think about how text messaging, Skype and Facebook can “be effectively used in teaching.”

Clearly she hasn’t been to any class held in Salomon 101 — otherwise, she would know Brown students are already pros at using social media in the classroom.

A diamond to the senior who said of an environmental protest in Massachusetts, “we had a funeral for our futures.” Our parents had one of those when we declared our concentrations in Medieval studies.

Cubic zurconia to Abigail Quandt, head of the department of Book and Paper Conservation at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, who said, “The main issue was how to work on something so tiny and thin without it just going crazy.” It’s not often that manuscript conservators and model management agencies face the same problem.

Cubic zurconia to Todd Winkler, professor of music, who said, “You cannot take an ensemble, put them in a room and tell them to just make music.” On the other hand, you can take English concentrators, put them in a room and tell them to deconstruct works of literature they haven’t read.

Coal to women’s basketball Head Coach Jean Burr, who said of the team’s final game of the season, “It seemed every time we got a rhythm someone got injured.” We don’t appreciate the reminder of how our first Spring Weekend concert went down.

Coal to Tara Nummedal, associate professor of history, who said, “It is a good feminist point for students to see me with my daughter.” And all those times our mom took us to the grocery store, we thought she just wanted company. Apparently she was really using us as a prop to make misogynists angsty.

A diamond to the women’s basketball player who said, “One of our big challenges next year will be to play at a high level for all 40 minutes.” We’ll take on the same goal when staying in with our significant others tonight.

t h e b row n da i ly h e r a l d Editors-in-Chief Lucy Feldman Shefali Luthra

Managing Editors Elizabeth Carr Jordan Hendricks

EDITORIAL Greg Jordan-Detamore Strategic Director Sections Hannah Abelow Arts & Culture Editor Maddie Berg Arts & Culture Editor Sona Mkrttchian City & State Editor Adam Toobin City & State Editor Elizabeth Koh Features Editor Alison Silver Features Editor Sahil Luthra Science & Research Editor Kate Nussenbaum Science & Research Editor James Blum Sports Editor Connor Grealy Sports Editor Mathias Heller University News Editor Alexandra Macfarlane University News Editor Eli Okun University News Editor Dan Jeon Editorial Page Editor Matt Brundage Opinions Editor Lucas Husted Opinions Editor Maggie Tennis Opinions Editor Multimedia Emily Gilbert Head Photo Editor Sam Kase Photo Editor Sydney Mondry Photo Editor Tom Sullivan Photo Editor Danny Garfield Video Editor Angelia Wang Illustrations Editor Production Copy Desk Chief Sara Palasits Design Editor Brisa Bodell Design Editor Einat Brenner Design Editor Kyle McNamara Assistant Design Editor Sandra Yan Web Producer Joseph Stein Assistant Web Producer Neal Poole

Senior Editors Aparna Bansal Alexa Pugh

BUSINESS General Managers Office Manager Julia Kuwahara Shawn Reilly Samuel Plotner Directors Sales Eliza Coogan Finance Luka Ursic Emily Chu Alumni Relations Business Strategy Angel Lee Justin Lee Business Development Managers Jacqueline Chang Regional Sales Leslie Chen Regional Sales Anisa Holmes Regional Sales Wenli Shao Regional Sales Carolyn Stichnoth Regional Sales Chae Suh Regional Sales William Barkeley Collections Nicole Shimer Collections Josh Ezickson Operations Alison Pruzan Alumni Engagement Melody Cao Human Resources Owen Millard Research & Development POST- MAGAZINE Editor-in-Chief Zoë Hoffman Editor-in-Chief Claire Luchette BLOG DAILY HERALD Meredith Bilski Editor-in-Chief William Janover Managing Editor Connor McGuigan Deputy Managing Editor Cara Newlon Deputy Managing Editor Georgia Tollin Deputy Managing Editor Jason Hu Creative Director

LE T TER TO THE EDITOR

Non-concentrators would use concert hall To the Editor: I am pleased the Committee on Reimagining the Brown Campus and Community may recommend the University build a large-scale concert venue. A true concert hall would not just benefit the Department of Music and its concentrators, as The Herald’s coverage implied. During my time at Brown, the majority of students participating in department-sponsored ensembles were non-concentrators.

The lack of a large-scale venue suitable for music performance does a disservice to the hardworking faculty and students that comprise the broad music community. When I played in the Brown Jazz Band, we were forced to choose between performing in Grant Recital Hall — sonically excellent, but small — or a larger venue with horrific acoustics, like Salomon Hall. The Jazz Band recently performed with Kurt Rosenwinkel, just one

in a long line of truly world-class jazz musicians to visit Brown.

It is embarrassing that we cannot provide such artists with a venue befitting of their talents and reputations.

The committee will consider multi-purpose usage options for such a space, as is reasonable. But can we imagine campus without facilities like Meehan Auditorium or Leeds Theatre?

How much multi-purpose use does the community get out of these and many other important buildings? There are certain facilities an institution of Brown’s stature must possess, so as to allow students of any academic or extracurricular persuasion to excel on campus. A concert hall is certainly one of these necessities.

Dan Davidson ’11.5 B.A. Music

CORREC TION An article in Thursday’s Herald (“Finances, need-blind admission dominate State of Brown,” March 14) incorrectly said President Christina Paxson deferred some questions to former Interim Senior Vice President for University Advancement Dick Spies. In fact, Paxson deferred some questions to Executive Vice President for Planning and Policy Russell Carey ’91 MA’06. The Herald regrets the error.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“More money is always good.”

— Gerica Alvarado ‘13 See wage on page 4. facebook.com/browndailyherald

@the_herald

browndailyherald.com

CORRECTIONS POLICY The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.

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

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR POLICY Send letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters for length and clarity and cannot assure the publication of any letter. Please limit letters to 250 words. Under special circumstances writers may request anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed.

ADVERTISING POLICY The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.

taking sides 11

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Are the humanities in danger?

YES

NO

frequently sees on Fox News, for example, fails to appreciate the hugely important task JARED MOFFAT this club of nerds has, which is to preserve, extend and create culture. Indeed our wisOpinions Columnist dom, our traditions and our spirituality are not commodities, which is precisely why these things must be proactively cultivated, In 2012, a mere 16 percent of Brown’s in- maintained and, yes, even subsidized. coming class reported it intended to conIt’s reasonable perhaps to squabble about centrate in the humanities, two percent less the specific budget for the music departthan the class of 2014 two years prior. The ment at this or that college, but to attack the same trend is clear in our recent national very existence of the humanities, as many history: Since the late 1960s, the proportion right-wing anti-intellectualists are doing, is of four-year college students focusing in the simply trolling. humanities has dropped more than 50 perThe humanities are in danger because cent. Today, only 8 percent of college stu- the values that underpin them are being atdents in the United tacked by the right States pursue a defor base political gree in the humanireasons. Just like the Just like the alleged ties. alleged “moocher “moocher class,” the Because of budclass,” the humaniget cuts, adminties are being dehumanities are being istrators in many monized as the state colleges are demonized as the cause, cause, rather than feeling pressured to a victim, of our nacut back on the hu- rather than a victim, of our tion’s economic manities. Research woes. nation’s economic woes. money for graduates Despite the fact is drying up, and in that employers con2010, University at Albany even went so far sistently say they seek the kind of critical as to eliminate its French, Italian, Russian, and creative thinking that a degree in phiclassics and theater programs altogether. losophy or English can provide — and not Many critics are cheering on the extinc- to mention that humanities students are tion of the humanities. They often say these some of the best performers in verbal and disciplines are really just pointless luxu- quantitative reasoning tests — many rightries that serve no economic purpose. Dur- wing pundits like to take cheap shots at the ing hard times, they argue, when budgets humanities for being “impractical.” This inare tight and we need young people to be strumental view of the world, in which valtrained for the best jobs, we can’t bother ue is a function of market price, threatens with things like medieval history or femi- the existence of the humanities and thus our nist literary theory. culture.

In a way, the critics have a point. Those who study the humanities do not generate much economic output or create new techJared Moffat ’13 would rather be a nologies, nor do they intend to. Scholars in starving philosopher than a wealthy the humanities are essentially a subsidized investment banker but hopes there is club of nerds. middle ground somewhere. Please send But the anti-humanities sentiment one job offers to jared_moffat@brown.edu

and studied in European monasteries by whose religious vows fundamentally CLAIRE those opposed the views expressed by those texts.

GIANOTTI But many say the modern university is changing the essence of the humanities, Opinions Columnist forcing the discipline to become more research-based in order to compete with its The system of higher education in this science-y counterparts. They claim the arts country is severely flawed. Exorbitant costs have lost their romance by focusing less on are prohibitive and require many students to ideas and abstract truths and more on facrely on outside funding such as scholarships tual accuracy. But that too is a misunderand financial aid. Such programs often con- standing of the value of the discipline. “The tribute to these high costs or are threatened humanities” itself is a changing species, and by government cuts like the recent seques- its approach is a reflection of the ethos of its ter. Universities take on eager and gifted present society. The permeation of the hugraduate students as cheap labor to feed the manities by the ambivalent ‘ologies’ — arhigher education monster, only to produce chaeology, anthropology, sociology, etc. — pale and hunchhas opened up whole backed Ph.D.s with new historical deAs long as there exist few job prospects. mographics unrepwriters, artists, poets, As a result, punresented by the literdits say the humani- musicians or actors among ary tradition. Scholties are threatened ars now have a newon both the supply the human race, there will found understandand demand side. ing of past civilizaexist entranced souls to tions and cultures Funding cuts will require some prothrough uncovering study them. grams to shrink and the experiences of others to be eliminated. Existing programs the likes of peasant farmers, women and will probably be accessible only for a large slaves. This new approach is a clear reflecsum. As long as costs stay high and lucrative tion of modern Western values of universaljobs scarce, many fear few will opt to study ism and human rights. the humanities even if they have the opporThe humanistic disciplines are not static. tunity to do so.

They are fundamentally fickle. A humanities The American university system is large- education is an escape from the present, but ly unsustainable, and it will have to change. it is also inseparable from it. The humaniBut this will not threaten the humanities, a ties teach us as much about societies and division that transcends the institutions that cultures far removed in time and space as it proliferate it. does about our own contemporary experiThe humanities have survived every dark ence. There will always be a place for the arts age, global recession, human conflict and as an organ of self-criticism and introspecenvironmental crisis. As long as there exist tion. writers, artists, poets, philosophers, musicians or actors among the human race, there will exist entranced souls to study them and Claire Gianotti ’13 is a classicist by training archive their work, and they will seek out the and a humanist at heart. She is also still institutions where they can do it. For these seeking employment: reasons, the pagan classics were preserved claire_gianotti@brown.edu

Gianotti’s Rebuttal

Moffat’s Rebuttal

My colleague is absolutely right when he defends the inherent value in a humanities education. He should trust in the infallibility of his argument.

The job market seems more promising for those with engineering and programming expertise than for those of us with communication, research and analytical strengths. But do not be dismayed or deceived: There is huge demand for such skill sets along with the bright and creative minds that come with them. Success is certainly not defined by entry-level salary.

The notion that a humanities education is a pointless luxury threatens the health of our society. The humanities are not pointless, wasteful or impractical. But they certainly are, and have always been, a luxury.

For most of human history, mere literacy, much less an education of arts and letters, was reserved for the elite.

Government-sponsored and -subsidized education is an invention of the 19th century and perhaps one of the most important milestones for human civilization. The question is, when money is tight, is a humanities education a commodity that govern-

ment should tax its citizens to provide?

Schools like SUNY-Albany have adamantly declared no.

The initiative to provide access to a humanities education to anyone and everyone who wants one is a noble effort and one well worth pursuing for the betterment of any society. It creates moral and visionary leaders and promotes communication, understanding and toleration.

But falling short of the goal of providing a universal humanities education does not mean the death of humanistic disciplines. Limited access to cultural and intellectual pursuits may signal the decline of our society itself.

But as long as we as a species continue to feel joy, to suffer, to accomplish and to fail, the humanities will exist somewhere. Neither the artist nor the philosopher will be suppressed.

For society to truly prosper, we should make the humanities public through libraries, museums and theaters and keep education available and affordable. But do it for our own sake, not for the sake of the discipline. There is no greater source of wealth than the human spirit.

I agree with most of the points Gianotti makes, but it seems we are talking past each other a bit. Essentially, my argument is that the humanities are in danger because the values and principles that underpin them are being eroded, and this should worry us. It is not so much that there is a risk of the humanities being permanently snuffed out of existence. It is more that the humanities are becoming increasingly irrelevant, inaccessible and devalued by our society. The result is cultural decadence, and that, I argue, is why we should be troubled by this disturbing trend of fewer humanities students and less funding for these departments.

The technological, scientific, organizational and productive achievements of humanity are certainly things we should be proud of, and my argument is in no way suggesting we should value the sciences less than we do. But we must not forget that it is also our capacity for culture that makes human beings so special. Creativity, self-expression and critical reflection are inherently worthwhile endeavors — that is, good for their own sake, not because they produce a profit.

What is so deeply troubling about the

anti-humanities tirades we are hearing from some members of the right is that they apparently see these things as frivolous and dispensable.

These pundits seem to think the values of wisdom, tradition and collective spirituality should be discarded in favor of another set of values: efficiency, wealth and power. I think there is enough room for both sets of values, and that is what the modern university embodies so well. But increasingly, we are being pressured to view the humanities as a disposable luxury, rather than an essential element of the great human project.

We almost never hear public leaders acknowledge the importance of the humanities. In all his major speeches over the past four or five years, President Obama has consistently praised the sciences and emphasized the need to invest more resources into math, science and vocational education. He argues that we must do so in order to stay “competitive” in the global economy. This kind of thinking is precisely what puts the humanities in danger. And all of us — scientists and humanists alike — should be concerned.

daily herald sports friday THE BROWN

FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

ATHLETE OF THE WEEK

Jake Goldberg ’14 propels Brown further in ECAC tournament

By MARIA ACABADO SPORTS STAFF WRITER

With the season on the line in the first round of the ECAC men’s ice hockey playoffs, forward Jake Goldberg ’14 hit the game winner against the Clarkson Golden Knights. The 4-3 victory sends the Bears to the ECAC quarterfinals against the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Engineers.

This marks the first time the Bears have advanced within the ECAC tournament since 2010. Having been bested by the Engineers the past two seasons, the Bears are now looking to reclaim their dominance in a best-of-three series. For his part in propelling the Bears to the next round, The Herald has selected Goldberg as Athlete of the Week.

The Herald: You hit the game winner last game. How does that feel? What was going on in your head when that happened?

Goldberg: It was an interesting game. I guess what turned out to be the game winner was the last goal to put us up by three, and that was a nice pass by (Jimmy) Siers (’13). It was a good situation — good circumstances.

To answer your question, I’m just really excited, and it hasn’t happened in a while. It’s a pretty surreal feeling.

Can you talk about the mindset you’re taking with you into Friday’s match?

I’d say we’re going to win. We have to come with that mindset. Last time we played them, we didn’t play well and they killed us, and I think we have the upper hand now because they’ve never seen our best game.

Do you have any pregame rituals?

Nothing too crazy, no. I take the game seriously, but some guys shower and tape their socks three times — I usually just play on my phone a little before games. I play Angry Birds or something.

When did you first start playing hockey?

When I was four and a half.

Did you know right away that was what you wanted to do?

My dad took me to a Flyers game.

I’d been to baseball games, football games, but hockey was the game I just couldn’t take my eyes off, my dad said. The next week he signed me up for hockey lessons.

What is it like balancing a varsity sport and your academics?

I think it’s not as hard as people assume, just because you have other guys on your team that can help you out. When I was a (first-year), my juniors and seniors gave me a lot of advice on how to take classes, how to manage your time.

What do you do with your free time when you’re not playing hockey?

We have an intramural softball team — my class on the hockey team — and we’re looking to win it this year. I take that pretty seriously.

What is your concentration and why?

Technically I’m trying to be economics, but I’m still signed up for (Business, Entrepreneurship and Organizations). I’m really interested in the econ(omics) side and all the

TOM SULLIVAN / HERALD

Jake Goldberg ’14 — who scored two goals, including the game winner, in Brown’s game two matchup against Clarkson University — has helped the men’s hockey team reach its furthest playoff push since 2010. statistics.

and had to go to state.

Do you have any hidden talents that most people would be surprised to know about?

Do you know the game 24? Nobody knows it. I went to the state championships for this card game. I won my district and placed in county

When you’re out, what is your go-to karaoke song?

Depends really what I’m feeling.

I’m a big fan of “Build Me Up, Buttercup” — who doesn’t love that? That’s probably my go-to.

Last question: You have one day.

If you could trade places with anyone in the world just for that day, who would it be and why?

I don’t know. I wouldn’t really trade with anybody right now. I like my life and can’t really think of anybody who has it better. I enjoy my time here.

Shaw ’13: Fear the bird, free agency musings TOM SHAW sports columnist

GAMES THIS WEEKEND FRIDAY

W. Lacrosse vs. Quinnipiac 4 p.m. @ Stevenson Field M. Ice Hockey vs. RPI 7 p.m. @ RPI SATURDAY

W. Water Polo vs.

Connecticut College 3:30 p.m. @ Hartwick College M. Ice Hockey vs. RPI 7 p.m. @ RPI M. Lacrosse vs. Harvard 7 p.m. @ Stevenson Field SUNDAY

M. Ice Hockey vs. RPI* 7 p.m. @ RPI *if necessary

Are you kidding me Wes Welker?! Okay, now that everyone’s gotten that out of their systems, it’s really not such a shocker. To any Patriots fans blaming Welker for leaving the Empire to join the Rebel cause in Denver, you’re an idiot. New England essentially gave Wes the big ol’ bird, and as much as it sucks to lose a folk-hero, you can never doubt what’s going on in Bill Belichick’s head. Tom Brady can’t be happy that his BFFL is going to be catching balls from a Manning, but Timmy’s not going to be turning into Vince Young anytime soon.

The fact of the matter is that Welker was already being phased out last season until injuries forced him back into the spotlight — remember how many “Edelman is starting over Welker!” stories there were in September?

Swiss Army knife incarnate Aaron Hernandez and new acquisition Danny “Welker-Lite” Amendola should fill the slot nicely even if Amendola’s injury woes resurface with the Patriots. With only a reported $10 million guaranteed, the team can easily trim

the fat. I’m becoming more concerned about the other side of the ball and how New England intends to revamp its weak secondary. Aqib Talib might walk, and while we were all grateful Alfonzo Dennard dropped to the seventh round after hitting a cop, now he has to face the legal consequences of, you know, hitting a cop. Many of the other bigger-name cornerbacks and safeties are being taken off the market, but it’s an important reminder that buying into brands has never been the Patriot way. That said, I’m still worried.

What’s way more fun for anyone outside Maryland (aside from not actually living through the inevitable decay of America’s inner-cities) is watching the rest of the NFL devour the reigning champion Baltimore Ravens like Prometheus chained to a rock. The Ravens are up against the cap and they can’t exactly force Ray “Stab-bot 5000” Lewis or Matt Birk to un-retire, so getting a sixth round pick for the rights to Anquan Boldin should be considered a win. With their war chest of eight draft picks as well as compensatory picks, they’ll probably find a gem or two in the draft, but let’s all be honest — they’re just as likely to find a bloody white suit. This team is going to crash and

burn, and we will all be smiling above the wreckage. Maybe Bill Murray will make a cameo appearance and throw to a triple-covered Torrey Smith and Omar “The Bird” Little for 40 snaps a game before moving to Indianapolis.

The flipside to the Raven’s offseason woes are the aggressive moves

by Miami and Kansas City. Both teams have been furiously plugging key holes in the past few days, with Miami bringing in Mike Wallace and Danell Ellerbe through free agency, and KC adding Alex Smith, Donnie Avery and Sean Smith to play with the recently extended Dwayne Bowe.

These are the kinds of moves that get battered fanbases excited as they give them a glimmer of hope — that next year is “the” year. But you just have to ask the 2011 Eagles (helmed at the time by new Kansas City Head Coach Andy Reid) or any seasoned Settler of Catan to learn that past performance is not indicative of future returns. The key pieces of Philadelphia’s big 2011 haul are all gone, so it will definitely be worth keeping an eye on how these players mesh with their new teams.

Not to be forgotten, Seattle deserves its own section. Cliff Avril is a huge steal and will make a dominant defense even more fearsome, but that’s not the signing that has

everyone’s attention. Russell “Napoleon Complex” Wilson now has one of the most dangerous receivers* to throw to next year in Percy Harvin (*when healthy). Seattle gave up a glut of draft picks to acquire him, an especially dangerous move with teams trying to maximize value within the cap but absolutely made the right decision. When a star goes on the market, you do whatever it takes to get him, especially if he’s only 24 and still entering his prime.

Harvin detractors will point to the fact that opposing defenses stacked eight in the box to compensate for Adrian Peterson in Minnesota, but Marshawn Lynch isn’t exactly a pushover either. Harvin’s versatility will further pressure defenses as he is capable of working inside, outside, in the backfield and on special teams.

Assuming no one is cut, this also creates space for Golden Tate and fellow ex-Viking Sidney Rice. Add Russell Wilson’s athleticism to the melting pot, and Pete Carroll can now afford to be very creative in the ways he plans to attack opposing defenses next year. Assembling all of this talent is going to be very risky and may turn out to be a poison pill for the future, but at least through 2014, we should all fear the Seahawks.