Thursday, April 24, 2014

THE

BROWN DAILY HERALD vol. cxlix, no. 57

since 1891

THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014

After plagiarism allegations, prof. was named dean Community Some tenured faculty members in English dept. remain troubled by U.’s handling of the matter

By MICHAEL DUBIN UNIVERSITY NEWS EDITOR

The University named Assistant Professor of English Vanessa Ryan an associate dean of the Graduate School in January despite evidence of alleged plagiarism in her published work, according to multiple sources and documents reviewed by The Herald.

A University inquiry committee tasked with looking into the matter determined that “Ryan had indeed plagiarized” but cleared Ryan of misconduct on the basis that the mistakes were unintentional, according to the committee’s November confidential final report, a copy of which The Herald has obtained.

Thirteen tenured members of the Department of English signed and sent a letter to President Christina Paxson, Provost Mark Schlissel P’15, Dean of the Faculty Kevin McLaughlin P’12 and Vice President for Research David Savitz detailing their dissatisfaction with how the University handled the plagiarism allegations and Ryan’s appointment as associate dean, said Professor of English William Keach, who was one of the thirteen.

The alleged plagiarism in Ryan’s first and only book, “Thinking without Thinking in the Victorian Novel,” published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in 2012, came to light in August during the initial phases of her tenure review, according to the inquiry committee’s report.

“Without doubt, this represents a serious breach of academic integrity

and academic honesty, values which lie at the heart of the academic enterprise at Brown University and any institution of higher learning,” the committee wrote in its findings.

Ryan declined multiple requests for an interview but sent The Herald a written statement.

“In August 2013, I learned that my book contains inadvertent errors of attribution, which resulted from mistakes I made in documenting my research as I worked on the project over many years,” Ryan wrote. “I take full responsibility for these mistakes.

I notified my publisher immediately, spoke with my chair of department and have been taking steps since then to rectify the situation. Among other things, I have reached out to the scholars whose words lack attribution to speak to them directly and apologize.”

Matthew McAdam, acquisitions editor for the JHU Press for classics, humanities and literary studies, confirmed in an email to The Herald that the book is now “out of print and unavailable for purchase” from the press. McAdam did not respond to subsequent emails seeking an explanation of that decision.

An external reviewer for Ryan’s tenure case received from an anonymous source a list of passages from her book with language nearly identical to that in other published works and relayed it to the University in August, Keach said.

That list, which came from someone who is “anonymous and apparently not a member of the Brown community,” included about 35 such instances, according to the report. The committee identified 27 instances.

Last week, The Herald obtained a list containing passages in Ryan’s book that used verbatim language at

length without quotation marks or appropriate citations next to matching passages from the original sources.

The Herald has independently verified 33 of these instances of alleged plagiarism in “Thinking without Thinking.”

Upon being notified of the allegations against her in August, Ryan searched through her past work and found additional unattributed material in her dissertation, according to the inquiry committee’s report. Ryan talked to Yale faculty members with whom she worked on her dissertation shortly after discovering those errors, Keach said.

Ryan has continued to oversee undergraduate research projects this academic year. She also remains an adviser on one senior honors thesis and a second reader for another.

Ryan voluntarily stepped away from the graduate dissertation committees on which she had been serving, though the University did not compel her to do so, said a tenured faculty member in the English department who asked to remain anonymous for fear of being fired or sued.

Ryan declined to comment when asked to confirm this.

In her new role as associate dean, Ryan works on improving graduate student teaching, The Herald reported in January.

Schlissel, McLaughlin and Savitz declined multiple requests for comment and interviews for this story.

Paxson and Philip Gould, professor of English and chair of the department, did not respond to such requests. Instead, Marisa Quinn, vice president for public affairs and University relations, sent The Herald a written statement on behalf of the administration.

“Ensuring academic integrity is central to fulfilling Brown’s mission of teaching, research and service at the

questions sexual assault policies

Petition urging revision of policies gathers almost 2,600 signatures ahead of BUCC meeting

By KATHERINE LAMB METRO EDITOR

COURTESY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

Vanessa Ryan

highest levels,” Quinn wrote. “Expectations of students, faculty and staff are emphasized in the Academic and Student Conduct Codes and in the Faculty Rules. The University takes seriously any allegation of research misconduct and has established confidential processes for assessing allegations of academic and research misconduct.”

The process of assessing the allegations of plagiarism played out over the course of several months.

In accordance with the faculty rules regarding allegations of misconduct, a three-person inquiry committee was assembled to examine the charges leveled against Ryan. The committee comprised Professor of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences Sheila Blumstein, Professor of History Harold Cook and Professor of Religious Studies Susan Harvey. Cook and Harvey declined to comment, and Blumstein could not be reached for comment by press time.

The committee’s final report, delivered to and approved by Savitz in » See RYAN, page 2

Grad students protest denial of sixth-year funding

By EMILY WOOLDRIDGE SENIOR STAFF WRITER

EMILY WOOLDRIDGE / HERALD

inside

A forum will likely be held Tuesday for grad students and deans to discuss a lack of sixth-year funding, President Christina Paxson told protesters.

About 80 graduate students picketed in front of President Christina Paxson’s house Wednesday evening to protest the denial of funding to some grad students seeking to complete a sixth year at the University.

Forty-one out of the 81 students who submitted Dissertation Completion Proposals for sixth-year funding were initially informed Friday by the Graduate School that they had been denied funding, said Sara Matthiesen GS, who participated in the protest.

The announcement left academic departments scrambling to allocate

News

funds to students whose applications had been rejected, Matthiesen added.

As of Wednesday, 69 students will receive sixth-year funding, according to an email sent to the Grad School community Wednesday by Peter Weber, dean of the Graduate School.

Over 100 students attended a meeting called by the Graduate Student Council Tuesday night to discuss students’ concerns about sixth-year funding and formulate a plan of action, Matthiesen said.

About halfway through the protest, Paxson emerged from her home to address the protesters. She said she plans to hold a forum, likely on Tuesday, for grad students and academic deans to discuss the dispute.

When John Mulligan GS asked Paxson if there will be a review of the Dissertation Completion Proposal process, she said this idea would be » See FUNDING, page 3

Commentary

Bologna ’14 and Block ’14 were selected as student Commencement speakers

Colleagues and musicians commemorate Teaching Associate Charles Sherba’s recent death

Dorris ’14: University sexual assault policy falls short in terms of victim protection

Centofanti ’15 and Resnick ’14: JSUB calls for Hillel to embrace diverse stances

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Transparency of funding process criticized by picketers gathered outside Paxson’s house

The day after Lena Sclove ’15.5 publicly revealed the details of her alleged rape and experiences with the University disciplinary hearing process, students circulated a petition Wednesday urging the University to revise its sexual assault policies with more stringent penalties for students found responsible for sexual misconduct.

The petition, which was initiated by Emma Hall ’16, was distributed on campus and online starting at 11 a.m., and five hours later, nearly 2,600 signatures had been collected, Hall said.

Hall presented the petition at Wednesday’s Brown University Community Council meeting, which aimed to highlight the University’s sexual misconduct policy as a “point of discussion,” according to a campus-wide email sent Tuesday by Margaret Klawunn, interim dean of the College and vice president for campus life and student services.

The petition asked that “Brown requires that anyone found responsible for sexual misconduct be suspended until the person they have assaulted graduates, or until two years have passed” ­— whichever is longer, according to the text of the petition.

“We’re not here waiting to hear words. We hear words everyday about how Brown cares and how Brown won’t tolerate sexual assault, but it clearly does tolerate sexual assault,” Hall said at the council meeting. “We are here for action, and we’re not going to step down until we see it.”

Tuesday evening after her press conference, Sclove created a public Facebook group entitled “Justice for Lena and Survivors Everywhere,” which has already accumulated more than 1,500 members.

Much of the planning for the petition, including activism at the University’s A Day on College Hill event and the council meeting, happened publicly online, said Daphne Xu ’14, one of the organizers in the Facebook group.

Sclove “told the group of students (at the press conference) that we could use her story for change,” Xu said. “There’s a lot of momentum, and we wanted to show the school how serious we are.”

Students debated on the Facebook group about how they wanted to present the issue to prospective students at ADOCH. They eventually decided to print paper versions of the petition to » See BUCC, page 6 t o d ay

tomorrow

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2 university news » RYAN, from page 1 November, stated that though Ryan’s book contains plagiarized material from other sources, the plagiarism in question “does not rise to the level of misconduct.”

“While, as a result of these mistakes, my book uses words from other scholars’ writings without attribution, the substance of the ideas in the book is my own,” Ryan wrote to The Herald.

Ryan also disputed whether her errors, which did not relate to the core of her thesis, constituted plagiarism. “To the extent that plagiarism involves an intentional passing off of someone else’s work or ideas as your own, that is not what happened here,” she wrote in a follow-up email.

The Modern Language Association, of which Ryan is a member, defines plagiarism in its style manual as “using another person’s ideas or expressions in your writing without acknowledging the source.”

The University’s Policy for Responding to Allegations of Research Misconduct defines misconduct as “fabrication, falsification, plagiarism or other practices that significantly deviate from those that are commonly accepted within the research community for proposing, conducting or reviewing research or in reporting research results.”

“It does not include honest error or honest differences in interpretations or judgment of data,” the rules continue.

The committee determined that Ryan’s “plagiarism arose from sloppy research methods” and considered it “unintentional, ‘honest error,’” according to the report.

The major flaw in Ryan’s research practices was not keeping track of citations diligently enough, specifically while working with scientific material “well outside (her) own purview of expertise as a scholar of literature,” the report found. Unattributed passages mostly describe background information and are not a part of “her own original thesis.”

“Professor Ryan is a rising star in the field, is highly regarded and is respected as a serious scholar, teacher and colleague,” the report also states.

“She has been an outstanding citizen not only within her department but more broadly in the Brown community.”

In the letter the 13 tenured English department faculty members sent to top administrators disapproving of their handling of the case, they

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014

Select instances of alleged plagiarism in Vanessa Ryan’s “Thinking without Thinking in the Victorian Novel” “THINKING WITHOUT THINKING IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL,” RYAN (2012) Pp. 16-17: Mental processes, like physiological actions, are modes of adaptation of the organism to its environment. In both cases, nature displays a “progressive evolution of the correspondence between organism and environment.”48 He traced this from the simplest organic responses to environmental stimuli to the highest thought processes.

48. Spencer, The Principles of Psychology, 620

ORIGINAL WORKS Greene (1959), p. 434: Mental processes, like physiological processes, are modes of adaptation of the organism to its environment and that in both cases nature displays a “progressive evolution of the correspondence between organism and environment.”…Spencer proceeded to trace the various gradations of these modes of awareness from the simplest organic responses to environmental stimuli to the highest thought processes….

P. 169: Psycho-physiological discourse crossed the Atlantic and was developed during the last two decades of the nineteenth century by some of the founding fathers of American psychology, notably William James, George Trumbull Ladd, and James Mark Baldwin2. British movement provided the point of departure and the conceptual framework for American contributions to psychology: the essential terms of American psychology were set by its British and not, as is often assumed, by its German predecessors.

Danziger (1982), p. 142: …psycho-physiological discourse crossed the Atlantic and was continued during the last two decades of the nineteenth-century by some of the founding fathers of American psychology, notably James, Ladd, and Baldwin. The essential terms of this American discussion were set by its British and not by its German predecessors.57 It was the British tradition of psycho-physiological thought, including some later developments not considered here, that provided the point of departure and the conceptual framework for the American contributions.

P. 26: British psycho-physiology provided an important point of departure and conceptual framework for American contributions to psychology.

57. The neglect of the British roots of late nineteenth-century American psychology by historians like Boring was first noted in Robert M. Young, “Scholarship and the History of the Behavioral Sciences,” History of Science 5(1966):1-51.

2. We might also include John Dewey (1859-1952), for whom Herbert Spencer was an important influence. For more on Spencer and Dewey, see Godfrey-Smith, Complexity and the Function of the Mind in Nature

P. 173: James was both impressed and dissatisfied with Carpenter’s arguments, eventually adopting and expanding Carpenter’s conception of “ideomotor action” as the basis for volition.

Woodward (1984), pp. 149-150: James was both impressed and dissatisfied with Carpenter’s defense of psychological causation … .James adopted Carpenter’s conception of ideo-motor action for the more automatic side of volitional activity, …

P. 95: In simpler animals … each segment had its own ganglion and was thus nominally independent, akin, as he suggests, to societies with a number of small and independent kingdoms.

Elwick (2003), p. 58: In segmented animals, each segment’s ganglion was nominally independent, showing parallels with societies with a number of small and independent kingdoms.

Sources

** Does not appear in Ryan’s bibliography

** Kurt Danziger (1982) “Mid-Nineteenth-Century British Psycho-Physiology: A Neglected Chapter in the History of Psychology.” In The Problematic Science: Psychology in Nineteenth-Century Thought, William R. Woodward and Mitchell G. Ash (ed.) New York, NY: Praeger, pp. 119-146.

James Elwick (2003) “Herbert Spencer and the Disunity of the Social Organism” History of Science, 41(1), pp. 35-72. ** John C. Greene (1959) “Biology and Social Theory in the Nineteenth Century: AugusteComte and Herbert Spencer,” in Critical Problems in the History of Science, Marshall Clagett (ed.) Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, pp. 419-446. ** Timothy D. Wilson (2002), Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ** William R. Woodward (1984), “William James’s Psychology of Will: Its Revolutionary Impact on American Psychology,” In Explorations in the History of Psychology in the United States, Josef Brožek (ed.) Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, pp. 148-ge195.

JILLIAN LANNEY /HERALD

criticized the inquiry committee’s interpretation of misconduct, Ryan’s involvement with graduate students as associate dean, and the University’s decision not to disclose the matter to other scholars, including those who reviewed Ryan’s published work, Keach said.

Keach declined to comment directly on anything contained in the inquiry committee’s report.

“Everyone I talked to in the English department understood that document to be saying that research misconduct included plagiarism, that plagiarism is a form of research misconduct,” Keach said. “Therefore any judgment that a faculty member’s work contained errors that were plagiarism but not research misconduct was a kind of category mistake. It was contrary to the logic of the University rules.”

Following the inquiry committee’s conclusion, Ryan and top administrators, including Schlissel and McLaughlin, engaged in negotiations resulting in Ryan’s December

withdrawal from the tenure track and January appointment as associate dean, Keach and the anonymous faculty member said.

Quinn confirmed that Ryan’s administrative post lasts 18 months.

Ryan’s contract as an assistant professor of English — a title she currently retains — also expires next June.

Keach said most members of the English department he spoke with did not express opposition to Ryan’s receiving a temporary administrative assignment to give her a chance to find her footing. “It seemed like, under the circumstances, a generous but appropriately generous move for the University to make,” he said.

But many department members are displeased that Ryan’s new position entails working with graduate students, Keach and the anonymous faculty member said.

Keach cited the possibility of graduate students asking Ryan for letters of recommendation or indicating on their resumes that they took part in a teaching program under her auspices

without knowing that outside scholars might be aware of her errors.

Faculty members also raised concerns about McLaughlin’s role in the process given his close ties to Ryan, Keach and the anonymous faculty member said.

McLaughlin chaired the search committee that hired Ryan and previously served as chair of the English department, placing him directly responsible for Ryan’s annual reviews and reappointment considerations, according to the report. McLaughlin is also a mentor to Ryan, having “known (her) since she was an undergraduate” at Harvard, where he was a lecturer, the report notes.

Though McLaughlin recused himself from the process of evaluating whether Ryan’s alleged plagiarism constituted misconduct, according to the report, he did participate in the subsequent negotiations with Ryan that culminated in her appointment as associate dean, Keach said.

The anonymous tenured member of the English department confirmed

McLaughlin’s involvement with the negotiations.

Faculty members were also upset that the administration did not make “an appropriate public statement” about the case, Keach said.

“The University has responsibilities to other people outside the University,” Keach said. “We particularly focused there on the importance we felt of informing the outside evaluators who evaluated Professor Ryan’s work for tenure.”

Elaine Freedgood, a professor of English at New York University who served as an external reviewer for Ryan’s tenure case, said she was eventually informed that Ryan withdrew from the tenure track but not that plagiarism was involved. “You just can’t keep this quiet,” she said.

The inquiry committee’s report states that Ryan “expects and hopes to participate in public conversations about what has happened, how it happened and how best to prevent such problems in the field,” but no such public conversations have taken place.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014

Duncan ’15 receives Truman Scholarship

Vision for education reform distinguished Duncan from 655 candidates nationwide

discussed.

Many grad students are concerned about the “opaqueness” of the Dissertation Completion Proposal process, said Dan Ruppel GS, who participated in the protest.

“We don’t know who is reading the applications,” Matthiesen said. “There is a lack of transparency.”

Protesters also expressed concern about how candidates for sixth-year funding are evaluated in comparison with their peers.

The time gap between the application deadline and notification date is problematic because it leaves students little time to secure other funding for work or research, according to

Commencement speeches will address identity at Brown, value of healthy controversy SENIOR STAFF WRITER

SENIOR STAFF WRITER

» FUNDING, from page 1

Student commencement speakers chosen

By BRITTANY NIEVES

By RILEY DAVIS

Out of 655 candidates, Hannah Duncan ’15 was selected last week as one of 59 nationwide undergraduate recipients of the Truman Scholarship.

Duncan, who is studying abroad at Oxford University for the entire academic year, is the first Brown student in three years to receive the scholarship since Susan Yue ’12 claimed the award in 2011.

The scholarship is dedicated to “supporting the potential of terrific young people from across the United States committed to public service,” according to its website. The award includes up to $30,000 in graduate study funding and the opportunity to participate in a leadership program in Liberty, Mo. Duncan’s commitments to both her classics concentration and national education reform set her apart from other Brown applicants, said Linda Dunleavy, associate dean of the College for fellowships.

“Hannah was an unusual candidate,” Dunleavy said, adding that Duncan’s pursuit of a liberal arts education and “her fierce commitment to making a real difference in education reform” distinguished her as a strong candidate.

Duncan said she was “totally shocked” when she found out she won the scholarship. “I thought someone had played a joke on me at first,” she said.

Duncan did not plan on applying for the scholarship at first, but after learning more about the program, she began to appreciate how it “creates a community of people who are really passionate about a variety of different things,” she said.

Each year, anywhere from 25 to 40 Brown students enter the University’s internal application process for the scholarship. In this stage of the

university news 3

COURTESY OF HANNAH DUNCAN

Hannah Duncan ’15 is Brown’s first Truman Scholar since 2011. process, candidates essentially complete an entire version of the Truman application, Dunleavy said. A board selects six to eight applicants out of the internal candidate pool for interviews and then narrows the group down to four students to nominate for the scholarship.

The Truman committee then selects some of the nominees to go through an additional round of essays and interviews, Dunleavy said.

“It’s brutal,” Duncan said of the application process, for which she had to fly to Arizona from England to complete the regional round of interviews.

She added that the University was cooperative in working with her while she was abroad. “Dean Dunleavy was very helpful in helping me go through drafts of my application,” she said.

One of the most important extracurricular activities at Brown that helped her application was Brown Refugee Youth Tutoring and Enrichment, Duncan said. She hopes to continue pursuing her interest in education reform at Stanford University’s Law and Education joint degree program, she added.

Duncan was also awarded a Royce Fellowship this year, which she will use to research the evolution of the Child Development Group of Mississippi, according to a Tuesday University press release. an interim statement distributed by the protesters.

Many students need more time to write a thesis, especially if their discipline requires fieldwork, academic travel and multiple language study, Mulligan said.

Students ended the protest with a chant of “hey hey, ho ho, the five-year box has got to go,” referring to the fact that the University only guarantees full funding for five years of graduate education.

Matthiesen invited students to gather after the meeting to organize follow-up actions.

“While this protest is focused on sixth-year funding, we will continue to protest for graduate students’ rights across the board,” Matthiesen said.

www.browndailyherald.com

After an almost semester-long selection process, Caroline Bologna ’14 and Josh Block ’14 have been chosen as the class of 2014’s student commencement speakers.

Nominated by their fellow seniors in January, Bologna and Block were informed of their selection Friday, following a final audition last Wednesday. Bologna and Block were selected out of about 100 nominees who submitted writing samples for consideration.

Bologna, a Brown tour guide and managing editor for post-Magazine, focused her speech on the themes of “finding identity at Brown, what Brown identity means over the four years, and how it evolves,” she said.

Her speech centers on the “idea of labels.” For inspiration, Bologna reflected on her first year and how both she and her peers have changed since then, she said.

Bologna gave the valedictory address at her high school graduation, an experience which has helped calm her nerves, she said.

“When I received the email saying I was nominated amongst hundreds of other students, I figured, ‘Why not?’” Bologna said. “I always say, if you don’t have a tangible excuse not to do something, you should probably do it.”

Block, tour program coordinator and a former captain of Brown’s mock trial team, attributed his decision to speak at commencement to his passion for public speaking and general love for Brown, he said. His speech emphasizes the “value of promoting a culture of healthy controversy” and advises his younger classmates on how to sustain this culture postgraduation.

“There’s a reason we’re both tour guides, and that’s because we both love meeting people, we love talking to people about what makes Brown unique,” Block said. “It’s an honor that the two of us were chosen. And we’re not speaking for the class. We’re speaking from our own experiences, and hopefully people take something away from that.”

SAM KASE / HERALD

Josh Block ’14 and Caroline Bologna ’14 were chosen out of about 100 nominees and went through a semester-long selection process.

The selection process began in January when seniors received an email explaining the nomination process, Bologna said. Each student could make two nominations, she said. Nominees who wanted to compete for the honor had to submit an outline of their potential speech, and after the approximately 100 writing samples were reviewed, several students were chosen to audition in front of a panel of deans, faculty members and fellow students.

As the selected speakers, Bologna and Block will be making small edits to their already completed six-minute speeches, Bologna said. Besenia Rodriguez, associate dean of the College for undergraduate research, Barbara Tannenbaum, senior lecturer in theater arts and performance studies, and other faculty members provided the two speakers with feedback, Bologna said.

“When I saw Tannenbaum there on the panel, I knew so many things I needed to do because I had been to a lecture she had given on public speaking,” Bologna said. “So I was immediately like, power stance, make eye contact with everyone. I think

that helped me as far as the audition process.”

“They were both incredibly receptive to feedback we provided throughout the process, and their final speeches demonstrate their ability to incorporate constructive criticism in ways that felt authentic,” Rodriguez wrote in an email to The Herald.

Both Block and Bologna “did an excellent job of crafting speeches that both reflected on their individual journeys and experiences through Brown, while also speaking to larger themes that the committee thought would resonate well with the graduating class and the rest of the audience,” she wrote.

As Commencement approaches, the big day has spurred mixed feelings about leaving Brown, Block said. “It’s the perfect way to finish our time at Brown, being able to give the speech surrounded by friends, family and so many people who’ve had such an impact on us,” he said.

“It’s incredibly sad because we’re clearly in love with Brown, we’re cheerleaders for Brown,” Bologna said. “It’s definitely bittersweet.”

4 university news

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014

Poll shows split opinion on U.’s population growth proposal

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Undergraduates are divided on President Christina Paxson’s proposal in her strategic plan to increase the total student and faculty population by approximately 1 percent each year over the next decade, according to a Herald poll conducted April 14 - 18.

Almost 34 percent of respondents approved of the proposal, with 7 percent strongly agreeing and 27 percent somewhat agreeing. Thirty-three percent of respondents disagreed, with 9 percent strongly disagreeing and 24 percent somewhat disagreeing.

“I’m not surprised that there is a divergence of opinion,” said Provost Mark Schlissel P’15. While some students do not pay enough attention to University initiatives to form opinions on them, Paxson’s proposal is “the kind of issue where there will be legitimate interest and disagreement among people who are paying attention,” he said.

Some students expressed concern that the increase in student population would change the campus atmosphere.

“I think part of the appeal of Brown is the university-college, and by increasing the population it would be more of a university or a large institution,” said Chanelle Adams ’15, a former Herald contributing writer, adding that she disapproved of the proposal.

With just over 6,000 undergraduates, the University offers a dynamic

Do you agree or disagree with President Christina Paxson’s proposal to increase the total student and faculty population by roughly 1 percent per year for the next decade?

ng ly

By KHIN SU STAFF WRITER

Student opinion on population increase

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Central concerns include dorm and eatery capacity, changes to Brown’s community atmosphere

AVERY CRITS-CHRISTOPH / HERALD

and exciting environment that does not overwhelm students, Schlissel said. “I think it’s in a sweet spot, and we certainly don’t want to give that up.”

The proposal is constrained to a time frame of 10 years partly to ensure that the campus and class atmospheres will be maintained, Schlissel said.

Other students said they are not worried about the potential growth in the student population and that an increase in the faculty population would be beneficial.

“It doesn’t seem like 1 percent would make a significant difference to student life,” said Rukmini Chatterjee

’14.

About 80 percent of those who strongly agreed with the proposed growth plans were non-humanities concentrators, according to the poll.

Similarly, 48 percent of those who strongly disagreed were humanities concentrators, while only 16 percent were physical science concentrators.

The divergence in opinion between humanities and non-humanities concentrators may be related to biology and computer science’s rise in popularity as the top two declaration choices among sophomores, said John Savage, professor of computer science.

Several undergrads and faculty

members told The Herald they supported an increase in the faculty population, because it would promote research and smaller class sizes.

An increase in faculty would cut down the number of large classes and provide undergrads with more opportunities to interact with their professors, said Maria Fletcher ’17.

Gerald Diebold, professor of chemistry, said an increase in faculty “wouldn’t hurt” the chemistry department and would be beneficial to faculty research and graduate students.

The proposal is driven by a number of factors, of which the most important is finances, Schlissel said.

On one hand, the University wants to raise revenue by moderately increasing the student body instead of raising tuition, Schlissel said. On the other hand, the University strives to maintain its intimate character driven by small class sizes, which means the number of faculty members needs to increase as well.

“The idea is to do this proportionately,” Schlissel said, adding that expanding class offerings and boosting faculty research are other factors driving the proposal.

Some students expressed concern about how the University would be able to physically accommodate a bigger population.

Fletcher said she worries about future accommodations given that some undergrads currently live in lounges and kitchens due to the lack of residential space. “How do you plan on increasing the population if you don’t even have enough room for them?”

“I have serious reservations about … the University’s capabilities to absorb the increase in student population,” Savage said..

“Dorm and eatery capacity is a concern,” Schlissel said. Since more upperclassmen request permission for off-campus housing than is allowed, granting more juniors permission to live off-campus could ameliorate the issue, he said.

The University has the responsibility to discuss a potential increase in off-campus housing permission with the Providence community because it has direct consequences for the surrounding area, Savage said.

Some students said they believe boosting the undergrad population could drive up Brown’s acceptance rate.

Gregory Cho ’17 said the proposal is appealing because it could help increase Brown’s accessibility for high school seniors.

“There is a strong argument to be made for increasing the number of students who can benefit from the opportunities at Brown,” Savage said.

Many students said they did not have strong opinions on the proposal, because they did not understand the motivation behind it. “I don’t really see a problem with it … but I would still want to know more,” said Uzoamaka Okoro ’16.

The proposal found more favorable reception among faculty members than undergrads, with 58 percent of faculty respondents indicating they supported the measure in a Herald faculty poll conducted April 14 - 18.

Approximately 19 percent expressed strong agreement, and roughly 39 percent expressed moderate agreement. Around 12 percent somewhat disagreed, and 5 percent strongly disagreed. About a quarter of faculty respondents indicated that they had no opinion.

UCS forms new committee focused on student group resolutions Plans also announced for U. to provide free undergraduate access to Rosetta Stone

By CAROLINE KELLY SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The Undergraduate Council of Students voted unanimously to establish a fifth subgroup called the Outreach and Advocacy Committee tasked with working on student group resolutions at its last general body meeting of the semester Wednesday night.

The committee was formed from a working group comprising UCS general body and executive board members and led by UCS Vice President Sam Gilman ’15.

Sazzy Gourley ’16, chair of the UCS Admissions and Student Services Committee and UCS vice presidentelect, will lead the committee next year. The committee will include at least one representative from each of the other four subgroups: the Academic and Administrative Affairs Committee, the Administrative and Student Services Committee, the Campus Life Committee and the Communications Committee.

Maahika Srinivasan ’15, chair of the UCS Academic and Administrative Affairs Committee and UCS president-elect, presented the resolution and addressed the need to “codify a lot of this fantastic momentum that we

had this year in being more engaged with student groups,” she said. “We came to the conclusion that we needed to make a working group a part of the UCS structure to make sure that we’re still engaged with the student body.”

Srinivasan said the group’s formation should not be perceived as a token display of community interaction. “The job of the entire UCS is to be engaged, and we can’t say that it is the job of one committee,” she said.

“This structure is making sure that every part of UCS is focusing on just that — engagement.”

At the meeting, Chief Intelligence Officer of Computing and Information Services Ravi Pendse also announced that all undergraduates, faculty members and staff members would receive free access to Rosetta Stone by the fall after the University reached an agreement with the language software company.

“All 31 languages that Rosetta Stone offers, all levels, are going to be available,” he said.

Pendse asked for a group of 10 to 15 UCS general body members to volunteer to test the program prior to its launch. He also described plans to procure Adobe Creative Suite for students sometime next year.

The Council also approved a resolution presented to UCS last week in support of Active Minds, a student group aiming to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health on campus.

KATHLEEN SAMUELSON / HERALD

Wednesday night’s general body meeting of the Undergraduate Council of Students marked the last time Todd Harris ’14.5, right, facilitated discussion as president.

The resolution calls for the Council to work with Active Minds to improve resources provided by Counseling and Psychological Services, which changed its name from Psychological Services last week, The Herald reported at the time.

The motion passed after the addition of a measure for an online record and student feedback system.

In his final President’s Report, UCS President Todd Harris ’14.5 said he felt “so impressed and so proud of the UCS we’ve all built this year.” He urged

the Council to continue the changes they began this year next semester.

“We need to expand UCS, we need to make it something that can effect a ton of change on campus,” he said.

“And we’ve gotten halfway there, but we need to keep going.”

university news 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014

ADOCH whets admitted students’ appetites for campus life New diversity perspectives committee welcomes most diverse group of admitted students yet

By CAMILLA BRANDFIELD-HARVEY SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The Admission Office welcomed 767 admitted applicants from as far away as Brazil to A Day on College Hill Tuesday, a two-night event to present prospective students with a comprehensive idea of Brown’s academic and student life.

This year’s schedule included more events than in previous years, featuring fairs and lectures during the day and student-run activities and socials late into the night.

ADOCH coordinators and volunteers separated prospective students from their parents as soon as possible in the hopes of giving them a greater chance to interact with admitted and current students, said Marie-Claire Partridge ’15, an ADOCH volunteer.

ADOCH’s talks and events helped admitted applicants gain exposure to campus and to solidify their decisions on where to matriculate this fall.

At the opening reception on Tuesday evening, Liam Dean-Johnson ’16, one of two ADOCH coordinators, told prospective students that “The tables have turned. You’re in charge now. No longer are you trying to woo us — we’re trying to woo you.”

After some students were greeted in song by the Brown Derbies at the train

station, Tuesday’s schedule included an official welcome by President Christina Paxson and Dean of Admission Jim Miller ’73, followed by a Brown Political Forum debate, a mixer with 10 a cappella groups, speed friending, capture the flag and other activities.

Wednesday’s full-day schedule included visits to classes in 30 academic departments, a concentration fair and three keynote lectures also open to parents.

The keynote lectures this year featured faculty members from the fields of biology, comparative literature and Egyptology. Laurel Bestock, assistant professor of archeology, Egyptology and ancient western Asian studies, lectured on how Egyptian pyramids shed light on the country’s ancient kings.

Richard Bungiro, lecturer in biology, molecular microbiology and immunology, spoke about the history and impact of vaccines, while Meera Viswanathan, associate professor of comparative literature, examined a famous poem in the context of its literary and cultural background.

Eight separate committees — welcome, academic and co-curricular, diversity perspectives, hosts and housing, late night, science, technology, engineering and mathematics, video and media and volunteers — created and coordinated events related to their specialties. Diversity perspectives, a new committee this year, focused on admitted students from diverse backgrounds, Dean-Johnson said.

Approximately 46 percent of the class of 2018 identify as students of color,

Teaching associate in music dies at age 62 R.I. Philharmonic, of which Sherba was concertmaster, will dedicate concert to him

By ALEXANDER BLUM SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Teaching Associate in Music Charles Sherba died Saturday morning, according to a statement on the Department of Music’s website written by Paul Phillips, director of orchestras and chamber music.

Sherba had battled cancer for two years.

Sherba, 62, began his time at Brown as a teaching associate in 1986 and served as concertmaster of the Rhode Island Philharmonic for 27 seasons. This lengthy career “had a large impact on the whole musical community of Providence,” Phillips told The Herald.

His wife, Consuelo Sherba, is also a

teaching associate in the music department, and together they founded the ensemble Aurea in 2004, according to the statement. “That was a totally original group — there’s nothing like it in the world,” Phillips said. “He was widely considered the best violinist in Rhode Island … and wide beyond.”

Sherba’s humble, gentle and caring nature reflected characteristics unique “for a violinist who played at the level that Chuck did,” he added.

Sherba was dedicated to the department’s beginner violinists, Phillips said.

“He rejoiced in their progress, which is really a remarkable characteristic for someone at his level.”

“It is so early that it’s really hard to say” how the department is going to move forward without Sherba, Phillips said, noting that his leadership of the search for a successor may be difficult » See SHERBA, page 6

marking the most diverse admitted applicant pool in University history, The Herald reported last month. As a result, several of ADOCH’s events were tailored to minority students, Dean-Johnson said.

“Never before have there been so many diversity or affinity groups involved,” Dean-Johnson said.

The Organization of Multiracial and Biracial Students, the Latin American Student Organization and Latino Student Initiative, Natives at Brown and the United League of Black Women all hosted separate mixers Wednesday night. Members of the African Students Association and the Women of Color Collective also held meet-and-greets.

“The ADOCH committee has always worked with minority recruitment interns hired by the Admission Office to work specifically on diversity issues,” Dean-Johnson said, adding that these interns were previously not an official part of ADOCH. Several prospective students said ADOCH succeeded in providing them with helpful information and in painting a good picture of campus.

“I’m pretty sure you guys don’t have ice cream every night,” said Anish Aitharaju, who hails from Sunnyvale, Calif., though he added that ADOCH allowed him to observe what Brown students “are really like and who your future classmates will be.”

For others, ADOCH confirmed their commitment to Brown.

“What I got here as a vibe of people is just fantastic,” said Matthew DiMarcantonio of Williamsburg, Va., who said

ARJUN NARAYEN / HERALD

Along with an ice cream social and a student activities fair, prospective students learned about Brown at Wednesday’s concentration fair. he is interested in engineering, entrepreneurship and computer science. “It kills the other schools I’m looking at. It has me dead-set on Brown.” He added that other institutions’ receptions featuring deans and presidents were less impressive than Tuesday’s opening reception at Brown.

“Now I’m leaning a lot more toward Brown,” said Natalie Ho of California, who plans on studying biology and came to ADOCH because she is deciding between two schools.

Though students who committed to Brown under the binding early decision

program were not invited to ADOCH, some tried to take part in the activities anyway, only to be turned away by ADOCH coordinators, Partridge said.

But those students will be welcomed in September, and ADOCH organizers expressed hope that many attendees of this week’s activities will join early decision students in committing to Brown.

“With a microscopic acceptance rate, Brown has decided that you are absolutely the best of the best and that this is the place where you belong,” Dean-Johnson said during his opening remarks. “All that’s left is for you to agree.”

6 university news

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014

» BUCC, from page 1

NE WS IN BRIEF

collect ADOCH participants’ signatures and to hold signs displaying phrases such as “I don’t want to graduate with a rapist” at prominent locations around campus for prospective students and their families to see.

“We in no way want to harm prefrosh or use prefrosh as collateral,” said Xu, who collected signatures from ADOCH participants in Faunce Arch. The activists engaged with prospective students on an issue about which they should know and in which many of them are interested, she said.

“The people who would want to go to this school care about this,” Hall said.

Jim Miller ’73, dean of admission, wrote a letter addressing the efforts that was distributed among ADOCH participants. “During your time on campus, you may hear from students on any range of issues, and particularly from students who are advocating for modifications to the University’s sexual assault policies and sanctioning standards,” he wrote. “Students are vital to policy deliberation and debate at Brown, and the University actively supports the free and open exchange of ideas, which sometimes takes the form of protest.”

The letter also incorporated a copy of the campus-wide email sent by Klawunn Tuesday, including the details of the council meeting.

At the council meeting in Brown/ RISD Hillel, President Christina Paxson addressed a crowded room of faculty members, administrators and students, many of whom held up signs about Lena’s story and University sexual assault policy.

Sexual misconduct “is something we all have been and will continue to be concerned with,” Paxson said.

“We cannot discuss individual cases, and we also can’t re-adjudicate cases that have come through the system. But we can focus on what we do to improve our policies and processes, and that’s why we want to hear from the community today,” Klawunn said.

In particular, the University will solicit community input on revisions to

Joslin Award winners named

ADAM TOOBIN / HERALD

President Christina Paxson proposed breaking the Code of Student Conduct review into separate pieces to “fast track” the sexual assault policy review process at a Brown University Community Council meeting Wednesday. the Code of Student Conduct, which are slated to be finalized in spring 2015, she added.

The University is obligated by its own policies to review the Code of Student Conduct every five years, Klawunn said.

The most recent review, which began in 2009 and was adopted in May 2011, involved “a lot of student input” and resulted in “some very substantive changes, particularly for sexual misconduct,” she said.

During that revision, the student conduct code was altered so as to outline two separate levels of offense for sexual misconduct: (3a) “sexual misconduct that involves non-consensual physical contact of a sexual nature” and (3b) “sexual misconduct that includes one or more of the following: penetration, violent physical force or injury.” The Student Conduct Board — a group of students, deans and faculty members charged with holding and reviewing University disciplinary hearings — was also formed, restructuring the hearings process.

The committee charged with reviewing and recommending changes to the

Code of Student Conduct “is going to reflect the different constituencies of the community” and will include faculty members, deans, administrators, undergraduates, graduate students, medical students and other advisers, said Yolanda Castillo-Appollonio, associate dean of student life.

This spring, the committee will form and hold initial meetings, Castillo-Appollonio said. It will finalize its recommendations to present to the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, in spring 2015, she said.

In particular, the committee will consider questions about negotiated agreements, sexual misconduct, investigations, hearings, sanctions, appeals processes and separation — especially whether the policy for cases of harassment or sexual misconduct should be excluded from general University policy on separation, which allows students who are suspended or expelled to remain on campus during an appeals process, Castillo-Appollonio said.

“This sounds terribly legalistic,” Paxson said. “It’s codes, it’s policies, and I think what that disguises is what we really aspire to be for this University,” she said. “We want a campus that feels safe for everybody, and that’s a shared value I think for everyone in this room.”

“We want a system that is sensitive and fair and just when these cases do arrive,” Paxson added.

Women Peer Counselor Alexandra Sepolen ’16 said she knows two first-year students were sexually assaulted this academic year, and “when they sought out resources on this campus, they were not believed.”

Sepolen added that the victims went to the Department of Public Safety, where officers allegedly told them “they were asking for it” because they were intoxicated at the time of their assaults.

“I don’t want students to be let down, because they do not deserve that,” she said.

Other students raised concerns about

the standards for expulsion of sexual assault perpetrators.

“Most students on this campus are not rapists,” said Maggie Jordan ’16. But by refusing to remove the small group of perpetrators from Brown, “we are continuing to put all people on this campus at risk.”

“Evidently strangling a student and raping her is not enough to get expelled,” said Chelsea Feuchs ’14, referring to Sclove’s remarks at her press conference.

“I’d like to know what conditions you have to meet.”

Justice Gaines ’16 criticized the restrictive appeals process, which must occur in a short time frame and requires new evidence or a procedural error in the hearings, he said.

“We should be thinking more about the victim and less about the perpetrator,” Gaines said. “Perpetrators should not be allowed back on campus before their victims graduate,” or better yet, should be expelled, Gaines said, adding that “Brown is not brave enough to go that far.”

Klawunn responded by suggesting that a standard sanction policy would be an important addition to University policy.

Paxson introduced the idea of breaking the review of the Code of Student Conduct into pieces in order to “fasttrack” the sexual assault policy review.

“I could see your faces when you saw the timeline that said we’ll come to decisions … a year from now,” Paxson said.

Klawunn and Executive Vice President for Planning and Policy Russell Carey said they thought reviewing the sexual misconduct policy and procedures before the rest of the Code of Student Conduct would be feasible.

Following the meeting, Noah Lupica ’16 said he thought the idea of fast-tracking the review of sexual assault policy ahead of the review of other parts of the Code of Student Conduct was important.

“How we hold (administrators) accountable I think is the question,” he said.

» SHERBA, from page 5

he shared throughout his life.”

The Rhode Island Philharmonic’s May 10 concert — the last of the season — will be dedicated to Sherba, the Providence Journal reported Monday.

“We will miss Chuck terribly. His great legacy to our orchestra and music school speaks volumes to the love of music he shared with all of us and is one that will be remembered and honored for years to come,” the Philharmonic wrote in a statement.

since he is on sabbatical. Phillips said he would speak with faculty members and “solicit their thoughts on how we should proceed.”

“All of us at Brown who had the good fortune to know Chuck will miss him terribly,” Phillips wrote in the statement, adding that the department will “explore ways to honor his tremendous musical legacy and the great love of music that

Winners of the 2014 Alfred H. Joslin Award were announced Wednesday. The award is given annually to 10 to 12 seniors to recognize their contributions to the quality of life of Brown through their leadership and involvement, according to the Office of Campus Life and Student Services’ website. The selection process evaluates nominees on the basis of character, involvement on and off campus and community impact, according to the OCL’s website.

“The selection committee is made up of 10 administrators, primarily from various Campus Life departments that work closely with students, in addition to a staff member from the Creative Arts Center and from the Swearer Center,” Ricky Gresh, director for campus life projects, wrote in an email to The Herald.

Nominations for the award, which were due earlier this month, can be made by any member of the Brown community.

This year the committee saw a 25 percent increase in the number of students nominated, most likely due to a new online nomination form, Gresh wrote. Winners represent many areas of campus life, including Class Board, Swearer Center programs and performance arts, Gresh wrote.

This year, the committee chose two students, Hanna McPhee ’14 and Michelle Site ’14, for a “team award” for their initiative called Brown Stream that connects science and art projects, he wrote.

The award is named after Alfred Joslin ’36, a judge and former member of the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body.

Recipients will be honored in a ceremony May 23.

This year’s recipients are: Amelia Friedman Saudi Garcia Rafael Jaeger Jesse McGelughlin Hanna McPhee Christine Moon Oyeleye Odewunmi Sarah Presant Andrew Silverman Michelle Site Kimberly Takahata Yen Tran — Tonya Riley, University News Editor

@the_herald

arts & culture 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014

‘Violet’ finds meaning in the skin-deep Musical follows disfigured girl on cross-country journey through the tumultuous ’60s

By EBEN BLAKE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

“Violet,” directed by Skylar Fox ’15 and running in the Production Workshop Downspace this Friday through Monday, deals with problems of appearance, and avoiding the cliche, it does not discredit the power of the superficial.

The musical follows the titular character’s quest to heal a disfiguring scar, moving on a Greyhound bus across an American landscape fraught with the tumult of the 1960s, including the civil rights movement, Vietnam and the era’s religious revival.

“Violet,” written by Brian Crawley, tackles artifice, disguise and identity, as well as the lingering effects of the past on the present.

The musical begins at the home of a young Violet, played by a sprightly, childlike and spirited Sarah Black ’16.

She plays in the garden as her father chops wood nearby. Quickly, this idyllic

REVIEW

scene turns tragic as the blade of his axe flies off and hits Violet, permanently damaging her face. Three years after her father’s death, Violet, now played by Ellen Zahniser ’14, leaves her home in North Carolina in search of a televangelist in Tulsa who has promised on his show to use of the power of God to cure anyone. Zahniser holds a fantastic presence on stage and uses her versatile voice to convey both Violet’s strength and wit as well her sensitivity.

As Violet embarks on her pilgrimage, she befriends two army soldiers, Flick and Monty — played by Stephen Beswick-Bozier ’17 and Jason Connor ’15, respectively — on their way to Fort Smith, an army base in Arkansas.

Their odyssey is interrupted by Violet’s memories and flashbacks of her father teaching her to live with her scar. The musical falls short in its attempt to draw a parallel between the society’s reactions to Violet’s disfiguration and the African-American Flick’s race during the civil rights movement. But the dynamic between Beswick-Bozier’s well-wrought, wisely restrained, contemplative role and Connor’s brilliant portrayal of the innocent and naive bravado of a man never marginalized by society helps make up for this failed and ill-thought-out attempt as a foil

for Violet.

Two directorial choices add to the strength of the performance. First, despite the elaborate period costumes, none of the actors wear shoes, offering a level of nakedness and vulnerability to the veneer of the characters. Second, a series of mirrors framing the back of the stage in the first act reflects both the actors and the audience, creating an environment of visual self-awareness for the audience.

The music itself — a mixture of gospel and blues-infused pop — reaches its height when the solitude of the characters breaks down and the ensemble joins together in rare moments of inclusion. “Surprised” and “Raise Me Up” are the clear highlights, though the other numbers remain similarly captivating.

At points, the broad sweep through the time period can come up short — as though race, war and religion are merely landmarks to be checked off and not worthy of greater exploration.

And Violet’s prayers for Ava Gardner’s cheekbones and Brigette Bardot’s lips can appear vain and superficial, especially compared to the violence that Flick faces. But for the most part, “Violet” is a worthy tale of attempted self-reinvention — a search for control over our lives and their surfaces.

Brown Students For A Two-State Solution WE, the undersigned campus leaders of Brown University, support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

We believe a Jewish and democratic Israel alongside an independent Palestinian State is the best way for both peoples to achieve sovereign identities, thriving stability, and a lasting peace. We care deeply about the ending of suffering on all sides of the conflict, the shared claims to the land, the necessity of negotiations, and making difficult compromises on the issues of Jerusalem, borders, refugees, and security. With current negotiations underway in the region, these ideas need our support now more than ever. We believe that efforts to promote the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions targeted at Israel) limit opportunities for engaging with these critical and often divisive issues through open conversation.

Moreover, we believe that these efforts detract from the peace process by ignoring the diversity of perspectives, thereby dismissing the complexities of the issues and casting the situation as merely a binary between right and wrong.

As Brown student leaders, we stand behind the two-state solution as the strongest prospect for independence and coexistence. We believe that the two-state solution is the best option for Israelis and Palestinians to live in mutual recognition, security, and peace.

Jennifer Sieber, 2014

Jenna Merrin, 2015

Alex Drechsler, 2015

Sydney Mondry, 2015

Shira Atkins, 2014

Daniel Pipkin, 2014

Josh Silver, 2016

Rebecca Carrol, 2015

Jason Ginsberg, 2016

Kristin Altreuter, 2014 Nathan Zack, 2015 Brandon Taub, 2015

Joshua Weiner, 2014 Jonathan Yakubov, 2017 Zach Fredman, 2017

Meredith Bilski, 2014

Hannah Benenson, 2015 Eli Sharf, 2016

Jenna Davis, 2016

Sam Rubinroit, 2014

Aaron Rosenthal, 2016 Stephanie Hennings, 2015

Sam Lee, 2015 William Janover, 2015 Danielle Waldman, 2014

Alex Kleiman, 2015

Zachary Ingber, 2015 Julian Jiggetts, 2016

Emma Schrager, 2016 Samuel Rubenstein, 2017

Sarah Abelman, 2015

Kate Storey-Fisher, 2016 Jacob Jaffe, 2017

Jason Nadboy, 2017

The views expressed in this statement reflect those of the individuals listed and not the organizations they represent.

Got something to say? Leave a comment online!

Visit www.browndailyherald.com to comment on opinion and editorial content.

8 arts & culture

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014

Creative class: thinking outside the finals box Some undergraduates find completing a final project more thought-provoking than writing a paper

By EMILY PASSARELLI STAFF WRITER LILIAN CRUZ / HERALD

Producers of PBS’ ArtRI show highlight public artwork. Thursday’s episode features artworks on Providence’s college campuses, including Brown.

TV show spotlights public artwork at Brown and RISD Previously featuring panel discussions, ArtRI series now focuses on oftenoverlooked public works

By SHAVON BELL CONTRIBUTING WRITER

ArtRI’s “In Plain Sight: Art in Unexpected Places” series will air a new episode Thursday on Rhode Island PBS highlighting public artworks on the campuses of Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design. Throughout the half-hour episode, Jo-Ann Conklin, director of the David Winton Bell Gallery, provides a tour through the grounds as she describes works by artists including Jenny Holzer, Diane Samuels, Sarah Oppenheimer and Henry Moore.

When ArtRI premiered in 2012, it primarily featured panel dicussions with artists. But two years later, the show’s creators decided to move ArtRI out of the gallery and into the community to feature public artworks in Rhode Island, said Richard Goulis, director of the series.

With the goal of “highlighting art that is equally accessible, but often overlooked,” they filmed Conklin’s tour through the early summer of 2013, said Victoria Veh, the show’s creative director.

Works featured on the program include Moore’s 1963 “Reclining Figure No. 2 - Bridge Prop” on the Main Green, Samuels’ 2006 “Lines of Sight” in Sidney Frank Hall for Life Sciences, Nina Katchadourian’s ’89 2010 “Advice from a Former Student” in the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center and Larry Kirkland’s 2011 “Intertwine” in the Medical Education Building.

The national and international significance of artists in the University and RISD collections are particularly impressive, Veh said. She cited the Moore work, which he kept as a prized possession in his backyard until arrangements were

made for its donation, she added.

Many of the artists in the collection are world-renowned, Goulis said. The University “has shown this commitment to having public art that is available to everybody, not just students.”

Though Brown features many public artworks on campus, Veh said many people unaffiliated with their local university community believe it is necessary to have official business on a college campus in order to visit its grounds. This belief has prevented some from seeing university art collections, he added.

Increased accessibility has been a principal motivation for the series. Joseph Chazan, executive producer and professor emeritus of medicine at Alpert Medical School, said he aims to “expose people in Rhode Island to some of the wonders that exist here.”

For Conklin, a member of the University’s Committee on Public Art, college campuses’ public art plays a role distinct from that of works in university galleries. Public artwork “should enliven the campus” and “be a moment of aesthetic enjoyment,” she said.

But viewing public art is also “an enriching process” for the mind, Goulis said.

Chazan said “it’s not either/or” between the arts and sciences. As a practicing physician and professor at the Med School, Chazen possesses a heavily scientific academic background. But for about 40 years, he has also been committed to the arts in Rhode Island because both fields share a “search for excellence” and value “being creative,” he said. The arts employ qualities that Chazan “tries to emulate in my own profession,” he said.

Upcoming works that will be featured on campus include a memorial by artist Martin Puryear acknowledging the University’s historical ties to the slave trade as well as a water table by Maya Lin, Conklin said.

The episode premieres at 8 p.m. tonight on Rhode Island PBS.

Final assignments for some classes, such as ancient battle reenactments and blogs, make Brown’s moniker of “unconventional Ivy” seem well-deserved.

Many undergraduates taking classes that rely on unusual end-of-term endeavors said they prefer completing final projects to taking tests or writing papers, as the experience allows them to explore their course material in a more meaningful way.

Diversifying thinking Ayano Kondo ’14 recently helped coordinate, choreograph and reenact the Battle of Kadesh with her classmates, an undertaking that accounted for 30 percent of her course grade in EGYT 1430: “History of Egypt I.” Reenacting the battle “made us learn more about the material because it made us be engaged,” she said. She and her classmates attempted to keep the event’s details accurate to the readings they discussed in class, including the number of participants on each side, the battle techniques employed and the armor and weapons used, she said.

Sophia Blistein ’16 said compiling her final project for AMST 1610A: “American Advertising: History and Consequences” in the fall was much more engaging and intellectually meaningful than writing the two required midterm papers.

“Doing a different kind of final — a project — was good to wrap up a different kind of material,” said Katherine Macpherson ’14, another student in the class.

In class, they studied various visual media, including news advertisements and video clips. For the project, they were asked to create a presentation describing the history of American advertising to an average museum audience, she said.

“Working on a project helped me to retain the information for longer,” Macpherson said, adding that thinking about how to explain complex issues to a young audience took a lot more effort than writing a paper.

“I am very used to writing papers,” she said. Creating a final project “pushed me out of my comfort zone, but I have no complaints,” she added.

The first-year seminar AMST 0150K:

COURTESY OF AYANO KONDO

The Battle of Kadesh came alive on the Quiet Green when EGYT 1430: “History of Egypt I” recreated scenes based on course material and research.

“Culture, Communities and Change” also involves a unique structure and final project. Dylan Cole-Kink ’17, one of seven students enrolled, said the first half of the class entailed learning about theories of social action. After becoming more comfortable with the framework, each member of the class worked with an actual organization. For a final grade, they must each write a biographical account of the organization they worked with throughout the semester as a section of a Wordpress blog describing the course.

Often, students who read theoretical texts can be skeptical that the ideas are actually implemented — the social action component of the seminar allowed him to see organizations and the ideas in action, Cole-Kink said.

While his class has less traditional academic work, Cole-Kink said, “I see a lot of the content in the class reflected in the fieldwork I do. The whole point of the class is that to understand, you have to be engaged.”

“Reading about ideas in the abstract would be kind of hypocritical,” he added.

Picking on papers?

Susan Smulyan, professor of American studies, said she used to assign takehome exams instead of final projects for AMST 1610A. She changed the final assignment to a project two years ago because the opportunity to collaborate with the Smithsonian Institution arose.

She said she focuses on finding assignments that incorporate less writing and more thinking.

“Students get bored of just writing for the professor,” she said, adding that she is always searching for ways to “make more interesting, fun and deep learning.”

Assistant Professor of Archaeology Laurel Bestock said she originally planned the reenactment of the Battle of Kadesh as an experiment for a component of the final grade for EGYT 1430.

She said she wondered if students would learn more about ancient Egyptian history and source analysis through a theatrical production.

“Sources aren’t always appropriate to what we want to know,” she said, adding that while reading a variety of sources can give the illusion of a full understanding of an event, some areas can remain obscure.

“The battle project helps students understand this because when you take the records we have and try to restage the battle, you realize how much is actually missing,” she said.

Wendy Ginsberg ’15 is one of ­six students who developed a Group Independent Study Project investigating Bruce Springsteen in 20th-century society.

The group initially planned to complete individual final papers, she said.

But she and her peers eventually decided a final multimedia-based project would better describe what they had learned from their discussions.

Because they chose to make a website,

“everyone is bringing something different to the project,” said Matthew Hart ’15, another student in the GISP. “A project like this one allows more creativity, and I like it because as a (computer science) major, it’s closer to my skill set.”

Akshaya Avril-Tucker ’15 helped develop a GISP examining different styles of ancient Indian dance. In the class, “we talk about dance, and then we do dance,” she said.

She added that she originally wanted to have only a final paper — she felt that in-depth research for the paper would promote greater understanding of ancient dance forms. “The more research we do to teach each other, the more we learn,” she said. “Then again, when more focused on discussion, you lose embodying what you’re trying to talk about.”

For their final grade, in addition to their final papers, Avril-Tucker and her classmates chose to also choreograph a dance incorporating the styles of the ancient forms they studied to “make the ancient dance language understandable to the modern audience,” she said. “We’re currently grappling with combining the ancient and the new in an aesthetic and topical way.”

Increasing impact In their recreation of the battle, Kondo and her classmates reached out for volunteers to participate in the battle itself and to help assemble props and costumes.

“They all really enjoyed the experience … and I’ve never had a class project where everyone was working on one thing. It was just so much fun,” Kondo said. “It was more rewarding than having to write another paper.”

Students in the Springsteen GISP also reached out to students not in their class to compile information for their website.

When completed, the site will feature their interviews with scholars knowledgeable about Springsteen, as well as data analysis from surveys distributed to his fan base. “I’m excited to see how the fans react” to the website, Ginsberg said.

Avril-Tucker said collaborating to create a final project has been a learning experience.

“It’s easy to feel disconnected from a class when you’re writing a final paper,” she said. Working with peers makes the entire experience of a final assignment more emotional and engaging because others are relying on you, she added.

“We’ve gained a huge amount by working together.”

Macpherson said putting together her final project was more applicable to life after college than writing a paper because it required students to convey information to wider audiences.

Smulyan said from an instructor’s perspective, it is important to teach how to write effectively, but not all classes on campus must have that goal.

“I like papers — they’ve had a good run,” she said. “But now I feel they are getting kind of static.”

metro 9

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014

R.I. agrees to reform policies for disabled Justice Dept. gives Ocean State 10 years to improve pay rates, mobility of training programs

By EMMA JERZYK SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Jocelyn Samuels, acting assistant attorney general, announced an agreement between the U.S. Department of Justice and Rhode Island April 8 calling for an end to the discriminatory pay practices associated with workforce training programs for the developmentally disabled.

The programs, called sheltered workshops, are targeted at individuals with developmental disabilities to train them for the workforce. But these programs have recently come under public scrutiny given their low pay rates and the limited options for labor mobility.

The workshops first emerged during the movement to close large institutions for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, wrote Craig Stenning, director of the Rhode Island Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals, in an email to The Herald.

“At the time, they were considered, by families, to be the attractive alternative. It was not until a few years ago that the Department of Justice began to consider day centers and sheltered workshops as ‘segregated settings’ under the interpretation of the ‘Olmstead decision’,” Stenning wrote.

The Olmstead decision was a 1999 Supreme Court case that held that unjustified special treatment of people with disabilities constituted segregation.

But section 14(c) of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act authorizes certified employers to pay those with developmental disabilities below the minimum wage. The DOJ launched an investigation into sheltered workshops over one year ago due to suspicions that a program in North Providence, “Training Thru Placement,” was abusing this law.

The investigation has since grown into a larger review of sheltered workshops in Rhode Island and across the country. The DOJ estimates that 450,000 people across the country are in sheltered workshops, the New York Times reported April 8.

Rhode Island is now engaged in a consent decree — a voluntary agreement between two parties in return for a withdrawal of a criminal charge or civil litigation — with the DOJ dictating that the state has 10 years to rectify its discriminatory system.

“Federal officials praised (Rhode Island) for recognizing and embracing the need for reform,” the Times reported.

Despite an over 40-year history, sheltered workshops are only now receiving signficant criticism, because policymakers have thus far been unable to find a more adequate solution, said Sarah Skeels, a teaching associate in public health who teaches a seminar on disability, PHP 1680I: “Pathology to Power: Disability, Health and Community.”

“A lot of people see the problem but don’t know what to do about it because it’s systemic,” she added.

The state will now have 10 years to help residents with developmental disabilities find jobs paying at least minimum wage, support nonwork activities like community centers, libraries and recreational and educational facilities, prepare high school students with developmental disabilities for jobs in the community through internships and mentoring programs and redirect the “significant” public funds that are used to support these sheltered workshops, according to a DOJ press release.

The consent decree comes after President Obama’s Executive Order raising the minimum wage to $10.10 for federally-contracted workers, including those with disabilities.

“We will be working with (the Rhode Island Department of Education) and (the Office of Rehabilitative Services) to fulfill the various sections of the Decree, and we will be utilizing the technical assistance of several national and local organizations,” Stenning wrote.

Celest Martin, associate professor at the University of Rhode Island and advocate for the developmentally disabled community, said she thinks this desegregation will have a big impact in Rhode Island. Those who have already left segregated workshops and joined the mainstream workforce “will be breaking some stereotypes about people with disabilities,” Martin said.

The “hardest obstacle,” is that the state will need to reanalyze “ways they can efficiently provide transportation for people with developmental disabilities to their places of work,” she said.

And while Martin said she thinks the DOJ’s goals could be achieved within the 10-year timeframe, Skeels was less optimistic given precedent.

Though it has been 14 years since the Americans with Disabilities Act passed, Providence remains a difficult city for individuals with disabilities to navigate despite the Title III provision outlining accessibility requirements for all public buildings, Skeels said.

Taveras’ agenda bolsters police authority Among 10 bills, one would permit police to seize weapons in abuse, mental harm cases

By ALON GALOR STAFF WRITER

Seeking to increase police authority to seize weapons, preclude prisoners serving life sentences from receiving public pensions, and bolster local ordinances through increased littering and zoning-related fines, Mayor Angel Taveras testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in support of the city’s annual legislative agenda April 15.

Taveras is a frontrunner in the race for Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s ’75 P’14 P’17 seat and will face General Treasurer Gina Raimondo, Clay Pell and contractor Todd Giroux in the Sept. 9 Democratic primary.

“It’s a sensible agenda because it doesn’t bring up any issues that would cost him votes in the primary and general election,” said Professor of Political Science Wendy Schiller.

“We have a new speaker, who (Taveras) doesn’t have a firm working relationship with, so he doesn’t know what will be passed,” Schiller said. As a result, Taveras has asked for smaller and “more practical” policy changes, she added.

One bill in the agenda authorizes police officers to seize weapons in instances of domestic abuse and mental instability, as well as without warrant from individuals whom officers determine pose a risk of serious harm to themselves or others, wrote Meghan McCabe, deputy press secretary for Taveras, in an email to The Herald.

“I don’t think that the mayor is proposing taking guns from people on the street. I think what they are saying is that if there is someone that is arrested or accused of domestic violence, then they can seize the property and keep it till that person has proven to be stable,” Schiller said.

“We are concerned about the constitutional issues that it would raise,” said Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island American Civil Liberties Union. “A lot of the terms used in the bill are extremely vague.

For example, it doesn’t define what constitutes a deadly weapon.”

The measure to prevent incarcerated individuals from receiving pensions

HERALD FILE PHOTO

Mayor Angel Taveras is currently a frontrunner in the race for Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s ’75 P’14 P’17 seat. is being put forth in response to public concerns over a former Providence police officer, Nicholas Gianquitti, who is serving life in prison and whose family continues to receive his $51,000 annual disability pension, the Providence Journal reported.

Taveras also put forth a related bill that grants the Superior Court

“It’s a sensible agenda because it doesn’t bring up any issues that would cost him votes in the primary and general election.”

Wendy Schiller

PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE the right to adjudicate proceedings related to local ordinances that revoke or reduce pensions for municipal employees convicted of crimes that constitute dishonorable service, McCabe wrote.

The littering measure would address waste disposal by industrial companies from neighboring cities and not small-scale garbage disposal, said Scott MacKay, an analyst for Rhode Island Public Radio.

The zoning ordinance was proposed in response to complaints about the noise levels of particular establishments, such as strip clubs or music venues, and would impose higher penalties on them for violating ordinances, Schiller said.

The 10 bills that comprise Taveras’ agenda also include legislation to restore tax exemptions to the independent senior living facility Laurelmead Cooperative, ­permit municipalities to either tax hospitals or enter into agreements with certain for-profit hospitals and maintain waivers for installing traffic violation monitoring devices in towns and cities, McCabe wrote.

Last summer, Laurelmead’s tax bill increased 85 percent when the city’s homestead exemption, a tax discount for homeowners, was removed as a way to streamline tax policy, the Providence Journal reported. The bill put forth by Taveras would restore the elderly complex’s tax exemption by “changing the formula for assessing owner-occupied units in cooperative housing corporations within the city of Providence, according to the legislative agenda,” McCabe wrote.

This bill will benefit the elderly population, which is likely to influence the vote in the Democratic primary in September, Schiller said.

“With the mayor running for governor, they decided not to do something controversial,” MacKay said.

10 metro

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014

M. LACROSSE

Bears take Ocean State Cup Playing against rival Bryant University, Molloy ’17 carries Bruno with season-high five goals

URI develops plan to arm campus police officers Last year’s gun scare at Chafee Center Building spurs final decision in long process

By ALEX WAINGER SENIOR STAFF WRITER

By ZACH FREDERICKS SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The men’s lacrosse team retained control of the Ocean State Cup by knocking off Bryant University 1311 in a Tuesday evening matchup on Stevenson Field.

Bruno (7-6, 1-4 Ivy) played a dominant first half of lacrosse but nearly allowed the Bulldogs (11-4, 4-1 NEC) to come back in the second despite a seven-goal halftime lead. The Bears ultimately held on to their advantage, earning them a victory over Bryant for the second year in a row.

Tim Jacob ’15 opened the scoring with a multi-step windup, which concluded with a long range bomb that found the back of the net. Bryant struck back minutes later amid midfield chaos. A scramble for the ball eventually left Shane Morrell wide open in front of goalie Will Round ’14.

Morrell fired a leaping shot into the top shelf to level the score.

The Bears’ usual keeper Jack Kelly ’16 watched the first 54 minutes from the sideline before subbing in for the final six minutes. Since Round will be graduating next month, the team wanted to give him another start as recognition of everything he has done for the team, said Head Coach Lars Tiffany ’90.

In Round’s sophomore season, “he started every game and was great for us,” Tiffany said. “He even made second team All-Ivy. Coming home from Cornell last weekend, we realized we only had two more games left and (Round) has been a really good goalie for us. He’s been solid, consistent in practice and he deserved another start.

He’s been a great teammate and a great representative of Brown lacrosse.”

Round did not disappoint in the first half of his first start this season, giving up just two goals and making five saves. For much of the half, Round was left with nothing to do, as Bruno’s offense was firing on all cylinders and held possession for minutes at a time.

After Morrell knotted the game at one, Matt Graham ’16.5 and Sam Hurster ’14 both tallied first-quarter goals to give Bruno a 3-1 lead.

In the second quarter, the Bears exploded for six goals, three of which came from the team’s dynamic attackman Dylan Molloy ’17. The first-year

KATIE LIEBOWITZ / HERALD

A dominant performance in the first half helped the men’s lacrosse team stave off a late rally from Bryant University in Tuesday’s game. finished the game with a season-high five goals and one assist. Molloy has been a centerpiece for Bruno’s offense since he arrived on campus, Tiffany said.

“Twenty-five goals and 10 assists are beyond what we assumed Molloy would do in his first year,” Tiffany said. “That said, he was a highlytouted recruit coming out of high school, but he’s done even more than we could have imagined. He sees the field incredibly well, everyone knows he loves contact and gets to the goal hard. Sometimes he draws two or even three defenders.”

The Bulldogs managed to post a single goal in the second quarter in what had devolved into a complete rout. The Bears went into the half leading 9-2 and cruising toward the Ocean State Cup championship.

But Bryant made some adjustments and came out fighting in the second half. After being outshot 15-9 in the first half, the Bulldogs popped off 25 shots in the second half, compared to 20 for the Bears. Bryant won the third quarter 5-2 to slice Bruno’s lead to four.

In the first seven minutes of the fourth quarter, the Bulldogs outscored Brown 3-1, pulling to within just two goals. But a clutch tally from Molloy — his fifth and final goal of the night — sealed the game for the Bears. Bryant scored one last goal to bring the score to 13-11 seconds before the final

whistle.

The difference in the two halves came down to the play of Bryant’s goalie Gunnar Waldt, Tiffany said.

“He stepped up in the second half,” Tiffany said. “We remained aggressive to the goal, we were taking good shots, but they just weren’t going in as frequently. The way they play, when he makes saves, it’s an instant fast break.

He’s great at throwing outlet passes to his midfielders who are streaking up the field.”

The key to Bruno’s success was Tommy Capone ’14. Bryant’s faceoff specialist Kevin Massa is the best in the nation at his job. He wins over 70 percent of his faceoffs , easily the highest percentage in the country. When Bruno faced the Bulldogs last year, Massa lost just three of 18 faceoffs. On Tuesday, Capone took 12 of 27 from Massa, an impressive margin against the nation’s top faceoff specialist.

“We’ve never had success against Massa,” Tiffany said. “Even though we won less than 50 percent, it felt like a win in the faceoff-X. Massa is dominant ... So for (Capone) to step up and, for the first three quarters, go toe to toe with Massa, it was incredible.”

The Bears play their final game of the season Saturday at home against Dartmouth (1-9, 0-5). Before the game, the team’s eight seniors will be honored for their hard work and dedication to the team.

The University of Rhode Island announced its intent to arm its campus police officers April 14 following a year of school-wide discussion.

According to a statement released

by URI President David Dooley, the URI Department of Public Safety is developing a plan to implement the arming process. This plan will include intensive training, background checks and a URI Police Policy and Procedure Oversight Committee. Additional details about the plan will be released to the URI community in May. “Our foremost priority is the safety and security of every member of our community,” Dooley wrote in his letter. “To ensure a timely and effective emergency response, University police officers must function as our first responders and therefore must be equipped to carry out this responsibility.”

Dooley’s final decision was in accordance with recommendations made by the State Police, the South Kingston Police and R.I. Attorney General Peter Kilmartin.

The year-long, campus-wide discussion preceding Dooley’s choice was sparked in part by an incident involving an alleged gunman in the Chafee Social Science Center building last April that multiple news outlets reported as a genuine threat. The urgency of the decision-making process may have escalated in the aftermath of the Chafee Center incident, but URI was considering the arming of its police well before the incident, said David Lavallee, assistant director of communications at URI. “A lot of the decision to arm police was made on the basis that the campus police were on the scene of this fake weapon instance in roughly two minutes, but they didn’t enter the building because they were unarmed,” said Dr. Paul Bueno de Mesquita, professor of psychology at URI, who said he supports university funding of non-violent training over arming officers. “The state police that were armed were there in about four-anda-half minutes.”

Rhode Island residents with

permits to carry concealed weapons may do so anywhere in the state as long as they are not intoxicated.

“Unfortunately, when you go and ban guns completely from areas, people with intentions to do bad things with guns will be less afraid to do those things,” said John Lott, president of Crime Prevention Research Center, who spoke at the Janus Forum’s “Guns in America” forum on campus last spring.

Students and faculty members at URI have expressed mixed feelings on the matter, with some arguing that unarmed officers help maintain a non-violent campus environment.

“It’s a false belief that a police officer can intervene in a mass shooting situation, take out the shooter and save lives,” Bueno de Mesquita said. “We should really be examining what the violent threats to our student safety are.”

The most frequent violent crimes on URI campuses have been sexual assaults, not shootings, Bueno de Mesquita said. “A police officer carrying a gun does not address this problem.”

While some students and faculty members oppose Dooley’s decision, several experts say it’s imperative.

“Since 1950, with two exceptions, all the multiple-victim public shootings in the United States have taken place where guns are banned,” Lott said.

“There’s never been an instance in these recent mass shootings where the police actually intervened with their weapons and saved lives,” Bueno de Mesquita said. “If you look at Newtown or (Virginia Tech), the police never came and shot the shooter and the shooter killed himself.”

The URI procedure follows the process of arming Brown police officers that began in 2003 and continued with an outline of the initiative in 2006. The University’s plan included extensive training and testing of officers, the development of new policies on the use of force and the creation of new structures for oversight and review, said Mark Porter, Brown’s chief of police and director of public safety.

“I am very pleased with the URI president’s decision to move forward with their plans to arm their campus police officers,” Porter said. “I think the URI administration did a good job with having an inclusive plan for involving their campus community to have a full understanding of the issues surrounding campus safety.”

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014

science & research 11

Initiative to emphasize more efficient medical care, nurse training Faculty members will collaborate with medical professionals to study models for post-acute care

By ANDREW JONES SENIOR STAFF WRITER

A new wide-scale research initiative announced last week will allow University faculty members and medical professionals to investigate quality and efficacy in long-term and post-acute medical care. In collaboration with the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living, the University is launching the Long Term Care Quality and Innovation Center to undertake this research.

The center’s studies will primarily focus on care provided by skilled nursing facilities.

The center will conduct largerscale studies focused on care programs that have proven effective in previous smaller studies, said Vincent Mor, professor of health services, policy and practice, who will head the center. These undertakings will be “very applied research,” Mor said, adding that the eventual goal is to put findings from these studies into realworld practice. Much of the research will be based on smaller studies, but new research will focus on targeting

larger groups of patients to determine how best to “reintroduce things that we know will work throughout the system,” he added.

An advisory panel comprising three representatives from the University and three from the AHCA will lead the new initiative, Mor said. The AHCA/NCAL has donated $1 million to kick-start the center, which will be located in the University’s Center for Gerontology and Healthcare Research, according to an AHCA press release.

There are currently 20 faculty members and their students involved in research at the Center for Gerontology and Healthcare Research, according to the press release.

Studies undertaken by the center’s members will focus on a “broad array of issues,” revolving around the quality and efficacy of the care patients receive in nursing homes, Mor said.

Many previous studies have done evidence-based investigation, but very few have taken their results to scale by implementing them in standards of practice, he said. The advisory panel intends to change this by undertaking research in multiple nursing homes and ultimately shaping the training of caregivers based on its findings, he added.

Terrie Fox Wetle, a member of the advisory panel and dean of the School of Public Health, said she calls this

type of study “translatable research,” adding that it is one of the novel facets of the center. Faculty and staff at the Center for Gerontology and Healthcare Research will strive to gain better understandings of organization and delivery of care in nursing homes and other people with chronic care, she added.

While a large portion of qualityfocused research on health care involves the study of the overarching quality of care and patient satisfaction, the center’s research will pinpoint specific measures of study to investigate these issues.

For example, one research project will explore methods of minimizing the use of antibiotics in nursing homes to thereby reduce antibiotic resistance in patients, Mor said.

The advisory panel hopes to explore ways to improve head nurses’ supervision and management of nursing homes, Mor said. In addition to practical medical care, much of nurses’ work in a nursing home involves managing employees and residents, though nurses generally receive little training for these roles, he added.

Funding for the center will come from both public and private sources, and the advisory panel hopes the center will be financially self-sustaining after a period of three to five years, according to the press release.

SAM KASE / HERALD

The Long Term Care Quality and Innovation Center, a major new research initiative, focuses on care provided by nurses.

Undergrads help high school students register to vote Student groups work in bipartisan effort to organize voter registration drives at local schools

By PIA CERES CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Rachel Black ’16 was teaching 10th grade students at Providence’s ECubed Academy about voter registration last October when one student, eyes wide with terror, asked, “If I fill out this form, will they force me to vote?”

Black, who is one of four chapter directors at Brown for Generation Citizen — a nonpartisan, nonprofit student group that teaches hands-on civic engagement skills in Providence classrooms — said the incident alerted her to high school students’ limited knowledge of democratic processes.

The experience spurred her to reach out to Rebecca Mears ’15, a member of the Brown Democrats and president of the College Democrats of Rhode Island.

Since March, Black and Mears have worked with other student groups, organizing a concerted effort to get Providence high school students ready for voting in the November elections.

In the spirit of bipartisanship,

METRO

volunteers from Generation Citizen, Common Sense Action, the Brown Democrats and the Brown Republicans are organizing voter registration drives from April 28 to May 2 at the Met Equality School, the Juanita Sanchez Educational Complex and E-Cubed Academy to demystify the voting process.

Many high school students underestimate how simple it is to register to vote, Mears said. In Rhode Island, voter pre-registration can start as early as the age of 16, at which time students can fill out a one-page registration form. From there, Brown volunteers drop off completed forms to the local Board of Canvassers, Mears said.

Voter identification, while required at the ballot box, is not necessary to register.

Youth voter turnout is among the lowest of any demographic in national elections, said Tim Schlenger ’16, president of the Brown chapter of Common Sense Action, a bipartisan grassroots organization focused on mobilizing youth toward political action. Student leaders said bringing personable, passionate advocates for voter registration means encouraging

and empowering youth voices in political dialogue.

Voting would bring high school students “a megaphone” to voice issues that are salient to young people, Schlenger said.

One important factor in encouraging high school students to vote is the “near-peer” relationship between high school students and college students, Black said. The small age difference between the two groups means high schoolers see college students as accessible, authentic role models.

Black said she hopes that by inspiring students to register to vote now, she can encourage them to think critically about politics until the November elections.

While voter registration drives have been held at the University in the past, the joint effort with Generation Citizen has opened a new avenue to engaging younger voters.

This collaboration marks the first time the Brown Democrats, Brown Republicans and CSA have all worked together with Generation Citizen to reach out to high school students, student leaders said.

Mears said the project has helped “break down the barriers” between groups allowing them to work together without being limited by their political affiliations.

“I think we both share a common passion for politics,” said Justin Braga ’16, president of the Brown Republicans and president of the College Republicans of Rhode Island. “Even though we may have different opinions on issues, I think that passion for public service is what unites us in the end.”

The voter registration drive is an experiment for Generation Citizen, Black said, adding that she hopes this effort signals a shift toward partnering

with other on-campus organizations for future endeavors.

Mears said she wants to prove that high school students can become excited about voting and would register if they had the means to do so. She said she looks forward to the moment when she can look across a crowd of informed, enthused high school students and say, “Oh, I’m sorry, could you wait two minutes? We don’t have enough pens — there are too many people signing up to vote.”

12 today

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014

menu SHARPE REFECTORY

n e i g h b o r ly p r e m i e r e VERNEY-WOOLLEY

LUNCH Hot Corned Beef on Rye Bread, Potatoes Italienne, Rosemary Portobello Sandwich, Magic Bars

Seafood Gumbo with Clam Juice, Stuffed Shells with Meatless Sauce, Zucchini and Onion Saute

DINNER Chicken Pesto Pasta, Slow Roast Pork Loin with Herbs, Pasta with Eggplant and Olives, Blueberry Peach Crumble

Grilled Cilantro Chicken, Vegan Red Beans Creole, African Honey Bread, Falafel Burger, Vegan Vegetable Soup

JOSIAH’S

THREE BURNERS

QUESADILLA OR GRILLED CHEESE

Crepes

Made-to-Order Quesadillas

BLUE ROOM

SOUPS

DINNER ENTREES

Corn Chowder, Hearty Country Vegetable, Turkey Chili

Tomato Chicken with Vegetables, Potatoes, Peas, Zucchini Masala

ASHLEY SO / HERALD

Students line up outside the Avon Cinema to watch Brown Motion Picture’s free advanced screening of “Neighbors.” Tickets for the event were sold out two days before the screening.

sudoku

comics Class Notes | Philip Trammel ’15

Bacterial Culture | Dana Schwartz ’15

crossword

The Unicomic | Eva Chen ’14 and Daniel Sack ’14

calendar TODAY

APRIL 24

2 P.M. GLOBAL ISSUES DIALOGUE: UKRAINE

A panel featuring Arnulf Becker, visiting lecturer in political science and international studies, and Ukrainian and Russian students will expand on the current situation in Crimea and other regions under conflict as part of this year’s second Global Issues Dialogue. Watson Institute, McKinney Conference Room 8 P.M. SARAH KAY AT BROWN

Acclaimed spoken word poet Sarah Kay ’10 will return to Brown for a performance, followed by a question-and-answer session with the audience and a book signing. Doors open at 7:30. Salomon 101

TOMORROW

APRIL 25

7:30 P.M. BROWN/RISD DRAG SHOW

The annual Brown/RISD Drag Show will feature drag king and queen performances and an open catwalk for audience members to flaunt their own drag. A five to 10 dollar donation is suggested, and proceeds go to Youth Pride Inc., which provides support for local LGBTQ communities. RISD Auditorium 8 P.M. WHAT’S ON TAP? PRESENTS: LOVE ON TAP

Campus tap dancing group What’s on Tap?’s annual show will feature Brown’sTones and Brown Salsa. Tickets are three dollars with a Brown ID, and five dollars for the general public. Salomon 101

today 13

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014

EDITORIAL

The minority STEM crisis Last semester, The Herald published a series called “Missing Scientists” exploring the minority students at Brown involved in what is colloquially known as STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Both at Brown and across the country, students who describe themselves as underrepresented minorities — American Indian, Alaskan native, black, Hispanic/Latino, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander — are much less likely to receive degrees in the sciences, specifically the hard sciences, than the general student population. Last spring, for instance, students who self-identified as one of the aforementioned categories constituted 13.5 percent of the graduating class, but received only 5.6 percent of physical science degrees and 9 percent of engineering degrees. From 2009-13, according to the Office of Institutional Research, 4 percent of URM students graduated with degrees in physical sciences, compared to 12 percent of students who identified as non-URM. It should be noted that non-STEM fields are, of course, worthy of study, and that students — both URM and non-URM — may legitimately decide that they prefer non-science coursework. In addition, graduation data is insufficient — any thorough analysis would consider attrition rates and how they vary within the University. The last study of Brown, noted in The Herald, was completed in 2007 and found a 64 percent overall STEM retention rate versus 56 percent for URM students — a differential that does not seem too stark until one notes that in physical sciences (chemistry and physics), the overall retention rate is 51 percent versus a staggering 31 percent for URM students. Without newer data, and without a serious commitment toward teasing out these issues, it is impossible to determine how many minority students are pushed out of the sciences, and what their reasons are for choosing other areas of study.

In one possible explanation of this trend, a poll conducted by The Herald last semester found that 45.3 and 61.2 percent of black and Hispanic students, respectively, did not feel prepared to concentrate in STEM fields, compared to only 30.2 percent of white students. However, student feelings may be exacerbated by a hostile classroom environment, a problem that is made particularly acute given the paucity of URM (particularly black) faculty members in STEM disciplines. These systemic issues may not be the University’s direct fault, but they certainly do not excuse the University from assisting students, particularly minority students, who feel insecure in the sciences.

There is more than enough evidence that minority STEM attrition is indicative of a systemic failure, but relatively few University resources have heretofore been devoted to mitigate it. If ever there were an issue that called out for a Universitywide task force, this is it. Already, we have promising programs that are seeking out at-risk students, such as the New Scientist Program and Catalyst, the preorientation program aimed for minority prospective STEM concentrators, but these initiatives must be promoted and supported. We need to understand not just how many URM students move away from STEM concentrations, but all of the contributing factors that cause this to be the case.

The Undergraduate Council of Students recently passed a resolution supporting the goals of Inertia, a student organization that aims to encourage students of color pursuing science, technology, engineering and mathematics, but Inertia cannot be expected to shoulder this burden alone. It is essential that we make greater strides to recruit and support minority STEM faculty members and graduate students. Finally, we must consider returning to an expanded summer program prior to matriculation, where minority students seeking to concentrate in STEM — along with, perhaps, students of lower socioeconomic status who often face their own issues as well as related struggles — could receive intensive support. Brown has an opportunity to be a nationwide leader on this issue, and we should not miss this glaring unfairness within our midst.

Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board: its editors, Matt Brundage ’15 and Rachel Occhiogrosso ’14, and its members, Hannah Loewentheil ’14 and Thomas Nath ’16. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.

K I M B E R LY S A LT Z

Q U O T E O F T H E D AY

“If you don’t have a tangible excuse not to do something, you should probably do it.”

— Caroline Bologna ’14

See speakers on page 3.

EDITORS’ NOTE The beginning of reading period tomorrow means that today is the last print issue of The Herald this semester. The news does not stop, though, just because finals are around the corner. Check browndailyherald.com for web updates the rest of the semester and this summer. We’ll resume printing in the fall. Thanks for reading.

Editors’ notes are written by the 124th editorial board: Eli Okun ’15, Adam Toobin ’15, Mathias Heller ’15, Sona Mkrttchian ’15, Maddie Berg ’15 and Kate Nussenbaum ’15.

CORRECTIONS An article in Wednesday’s Herald (“U. mishandled sexual assault case, victim says,” April 23) incorrectly stated that the alleged rape of Lena Sclove ’15.5 happened at a party last summer. In fact, it happened after the party. The article also misstated that Sclove immediately filed a report with the Providence Police Department. In fact, she did so months later. The article also referenced the incident in some instances as a rape, rather than an alleged rape. The Herald regrets the errors.

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14 commentary

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014

A perilous precedent

CARA DORRIS Guest Columnist The summer after her first semester as a transfer student, Lena Sclove ’15.5 was allegedly choked twice and raped by a fellow Brown student. Two weeks later, she reported the incident to the Office of Student Life. In October, he was found responsible for four separate offenses under the Brown University Code of Student Conduct — possession of illegal drugs, non-consensual sexual misconduct, physical harm to other students and sexual conduct including penetration. The university imposed a single sanction: suspension for one year.

While her alleged rapist took classes until Thanksgiving, Lena took a reduced course load so she had time to go to exhaustive meetings with administrators. Often encountering the alleged rapist between classes, she was forced to move into a one-bedroom apartment off campus.

Months later, the University received a letter from another woman who was allegedly assaulted by the same student.

“Brown University takes issues of sexual assault and sexual misconduct with the utmost seriousness,” wrote Marisa Quinn, vice president for public affairs and University relations, in an email to The Herald.

We are all asking the same question. How seriously does our university actually take sexual assault if next semester the student who allegedly assaulted two students will return to campus? In September 2014, Lena Sclove and her alleged rapist will both return to Providence. They will attend

Brown simultaneously for the next two years.

How could this have happened?

First of all, this is not an isolated incident. As evident by the 1996 Adam Lack case, Brown, like most universities, has a terrible history dealing with rape cases internally, a crime more violent and serious than most others. Like at most elite universities, few students are ever expelled.

During a press conference, Lena said, she was “encouraged that reporting to the University is much safer than going to the police and pursuing a criminal case,” The Herald reported.

But Brown made Lena feel everything but safe.

to file a criminal complaint,” Quinn wrote to The Herald. But Lena didn’t file a police report until months later, and at that point she realized she had suffered a cervical spine injury from being choked. She couldn’t walk for two months and was forced to take medical leave.

I wonder if the University actually encouraged the filing of a police report. I wonder why an alleged rapist was allowed to take classes until Thanksgiving, even though he was suspended. More than that, I seriously question if Brown cared at all about protecting Lena Sclove, or if it was more concerned with protecting its own public image.

This type of halfway justice — allowing an alleged rapist to attend Brown at the same time as a victim — shows that Brown does not take sexual assault or the protection of its students seriously.

Lena, who was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, saw her alleged rapist everywhere — in the dining hall, the library and the campus center. Allen Ward, senior associate dean for student life, imposed no separation or probationary period. When her alleged rapist finally left campus, she wasn’t notified until a week later.

“In cases where a crime may have been committed, the reporting student is counseled about criminal justice options and may be encouraged

Last January, President Obama announced the creation of the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault. According to a report by the White House Council on Women and Girls, an estimated one in five women are sexually assaulted in college.

Last semester, when Lena’s appeal of the sanction was denied, she received a letter from Margaret Klawunn, interim dean of the College and vice president for campus life and student servic-

es, claiming that the “precedent of similar cases needed consideration.” Sexual assault on college campuses is a widespread problem. If anything will ever change for young women in this country, Brown cannot use the precedent of past cases in its disciplinary process. Anyone found responsible for sexual assault should be expelled.

If this is not possible, if the University’s disciplinary process is ill-equipped to deal with sexual assault internally, then it should base its decisions off criminal court decisions, where the consequences for rape would be much more severe. After all, no one is asking Brown to assume legal liabilities, to give out prison sentences. That power under the law is not within Brown’s jurisdiction, nor should it be. However, determining who is allowed to be a Brown student is within Brown’s legal jurisdiction. And Lena’s alleged rapist will return to campus next year.

Meanwhile, Lena has nowhere else to go. She has already missed a semester of classes. This type of halfway justice — allowing an alleged rapist to attend Brown at the same time as a victim — shows that Brown does not take sexual assault or the protection of its students seriously.

On April 22, Lena Sclove returned to Brown to share her experiences as a college rape victim.

After she spoke to 50 students, she went to the library to go to the bathroom. However, because of the University’s medical leave policy, she couldn’t even swipe her ID card to go inside.

On Aug. 2, Lena Sclove was allegedly raped.

Now, nine months later, the process of victimization is not over. She is just as suspended as her assailant.

Cara Dorris ’15 can be reached at cara_dorris@brown.edu.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Confront rape with action, not empty words To the Editor: Interim Dean of the College and Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services Margaret Klawunn stated in her email Tuesday to the Brown community that “incidents of sexual assault do irreparable harm, and we must engage the entire community in reinforcing the fact that sexual assault is not tolerated at Brown.”

Yet in the Lena Sclove ’15.5 case, Brown’s rhetoric and its actions don’t match up. The University should not patronize us with meaningless PR about how bad rape is while passing the buck on its own complicity in sexual

violence and its failure to provide satisfactory punishments that both highlight the atrocity that occurred and — more importantly — help Lena in her recovery.

The fact is that Brown’s claim of not tolerating sexual assault is NOT a fact, and we have to address that; the community is ALREADY engaging by stating its displeasure with the disciplinary action taken. Brown is the one that is not holding up its end, something I strongly hope it will address via concrete policy change.

Yvonne Yu ’14.5

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Clarifying Brown Students for Israel’s role To the Editor: In the lively and often confusing campus discourse on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Brown Students for Israel feels that its values and identity have frequently been misrepresented, and it would like to take this opportunity to clarify its purpose on campus.

Brown Students for Israel is an educational organization that recognizes Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state alongside an independent Palestinian state established through direct negotiations. BSI’s aim is to educate its members and the Brown community about Israel and the Middle East through guest lectures, expert-moderated discussions and weekly meetings. BSI is not associated with any external organization — it is not guided by a political group on Capitol Hill, but rather focuses distinctly on College Hill. Events and meetings are open to all students on campus.

BSI tries to give voice to a variety of perspectives through its programming. The newly launched “Israel

Inbox” service allows members of the Brown community to sign up for regional news updates assembled from sources including Haaretz, the Jerusalem Post, Al Jazeera and the Times of Israel. BSI has made efforts to challenge our own understandings of various issues by hosting speakers including an environmental scientist, a historian, a congressman and a journalist, among others.

BSI is not an organization dedicated to promoting one narrative. It does not belong to students on the right or the left, nor to those who either unquestioningly support or attack every Israeli policy. Instead, BSI is a group maintained by pro-Israel and pro-two-state-solution students who are dedicated to learning about and promoting a balanced picture of Israel and the Middle East. In this way, Brown Students for Israel is not simply “for Israel.” It is for anyone who wants to support learning about Israel, discussing Israel, critiquing Israel and understanding Israel.

Brown Students for Israel

commentary 15

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014

J Street U: Pro-Israel, pro-Palestine, no ‘anti’ LIZ RESNICK AND SHELBY CENTOFANTI guest columnists

“Pro-Israel” does not mean “antiPalestine,” nor should “pro-Palestine” connote “anti-Israel.”

Brown/RISD Hillel hosted Sgt. Benjamin Anthony for an invite-only dinner and lecture April 2, sparking criticism of the event’s form and content. Anthony opposes a twostate solution, instead favoring Israeli annexation of the West Bank and Gaza. Such an action would not only flout international law, but would deprive Palestinians of the right to self-determination and threaten Israel’s ability to maintain its identity as a Jewish, democratic state.

In the midst of the controversy, it is far too easy to overlook the protests that came from within the Jewish community. Many students at the event asked tough questions, and other Jewish students chose to participate in the protest outside Hillel. The mainstream American Jewish community privileges Anthony’s right-wing voice, but we at J Street U Brown, along with many other Brown students, are actively combating this myopic and militaristic view of Israel and working to broaden the conversation. We are pro-Israel and pro-Palestine. We denounce the occupation and demand a self-determined Palestinian state alongside a Jewish and democratic Israel.

Anthony does not speak for us.

But neither does the inflamma-

tory rhetoric of the protest’s Facebook event description. The protest’s organizers wrote, “Let’s all come together to make sure the Israeli army knows that they are not welcome anywhere, not at Brown and not on Palestinian land!” Stifling every voice from this organization undercuts the protest’s exercise of free speech and creates a shallow dialogue on this complicated issue.

We have seen a similarly inflexible,

comfortable with his voice standing alone. When the ambassador canceled at the last minute to attend a meeting with the Arab League in Washington and we tried to reschedule the talk, we were no longer allowed to proceed with the event as previously planned. Hillel staff told us that without a traditional “proIsrael” speaker on stage, Ambassador Areikat would not be permitted to speak.

en Hillel’s expressed commitment to open conversation, we fully expect this program — and other progressive events — to not only be approved but also welcomed.

Our Hillel is relatively accepting compared to others across the country and includes JSUB under its ‘big tent.’ Hillel regularly hosts innovative and potentially controversial events on other issues, both Jewish and non-Jewish. As a Hillel member

Coming to terms with different perspectives does not threaten the veracity of our own beliefs, but rather paves the way for acceptance of the difficult compromises necessary for a resolution to the conflict. though more subtle, stance creep into our Hillel’s programming, despite its willingness to host challenging events in the past. Delegitimization of the Israel Defense Forces is just as counterproductive as delegitimization of the Palestinians.

JSUB is committed to engaging with speakers offering varying and challenging perspectives to foster open conversation and meaningful debates. To be sure, this includes voices from the right as well as the left.

Last fall, we arranged to bring Palestinian Liberation Organization Ambassador Maen Areikat to campus and faced significant opposition from the Hillel Board of Trustees.

After weeks of negotiations, Hillel allowed Ambassador Areikat to speak, but on the condition that he be balanced by a panel of five Brown students because the Board was un-

Ambassador Areikat is the highest-ranking Palestinian official in the United States. He meets regularly with senior U.S. and Israeli diplomats, as well as important Jewish community leaders. He supports the two-state solution, believes in direct negotiations and represents a government that has rejected violence.

Yet Hillel seems to believe that he is less deserving of a platform than Anthony and that his views require balance from five college students, whereas Anthony’s do not.

Anthony’s vision of one state predicated on the oppression of a rapidly growing Palestinian population does not uphold Hillel’s commitment to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. In response to Anthony’s visit, JSUB has reinitiated contact with Ambassador Areikat’s staff to invite him to speak at the beginning of the fall semester. Giv-

group, JSUB has experienced firsthand the support and thoughtfulness of this organization. It is particularly because of this demonstrated commitment to free speech that we intend to hold Hillel accountable to its principles. We encourage Hillel to adhere to its stated values and apply them evenly across the political spectrum of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In doing so, we move forward in J Street U’s national campaign to hold our political and communal leaders accountable to their values. As part of this campaign, seven JSUB leaders joined over 300 students from more than 60 college campuses at the J Street U Student Town Hall in Baltimore earlier this month. At this gathering, we engaged with politicians and activists including Ambassador Areikat, President of the Union for Reform Judaism Rabbi

Rick Jacobs, State Department representative Sarah Yerkes, renowned Israeli reporter for Haaretz and author of “My Promised Land” Ari Shavit and J Street PAC endorsee U.S. Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md. Each of these guests made concrete and public commitments to substantively address the difficult but necessary compromises for peace.

If Palestinian, Jewish and American leaders can all agree to work toward a two-state solution despite differences of opinion, it is time for students and Hillel to do the same.

The events on campus this month highlight a growing interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a desire to engage in dialogue and action toward a solution. We at JSUB call on Hillel to uphold its commitment to participating in an earnest Israel conversation on campus. We are fortunate that Hillel has consistently been welcoming to various affiliated student groups, and we hope to see this commitment translated into event organization that represents a broad spectrum of opinions. Coming to terms with different perspectives does not threaten the veracity of our own beliefs, but rather paves the way for acceptance of the difficult compromises necessary for a resolution to the conflict.

Shelby Centofanti ’15 and Liz Resnick ’14 are two writers for two peoples, grappling with the realities in Israel-Palestine.

They can be reached at shelby_centofanti@brown.edu and elizabeth_resnick@brown.edu.

The search for dream jobs DANIEL DELANEY opinions columnist

One of the biggest challenges college students face is reaching an understanding of what they want to do with the rest of their lives. It’s an impossible question to avoid, especially as students move quickly through their years at Brown. I personally have been struggling with this question as I approach my final year. Students here are often reminded that we can do whatever we want if we work hard enough and are passionate about that work.

But there’s something to be said for the currently precarious job market and student loans that many of us worry about. With those considerations in mind, “dream jobs” often don’t seem feasible. Some of us find ourselves wondering whether to choose a job that we will love or one that will make us enough money.

Of course, there isn’t a right or wrong answer to this question. Each person you ask will have a different opinion, and chances are that most people will be somewhere in the middle.

Regardless, both sides are important to consider. To me, it seems the best approach is to find a job that excites you, pays the rent and can provide a foundation for working toward your “dream job.” As three authors wrote in a 2012 joint Harvard Business Review blog post, “every small smart step you take should leave you

alive to take the next step.”

One of the biggest mistakes college seniors make is accepting the first job that gives them an offer, regardless of whether the job excites or interests them. I know this has been true for many of my classmates applying for internships this summer, and it makes perfect sense. If you turn down the offer having not heard from other companies, you run the risk of not being employed at all. There is something to be said, however, for looking past the immediate sala-

could help you carve the path you really desire.

At the beginning of this year, I was particularly interested in what my classmates did over the summer. I found out one of them had worked for NASA programming satellites. I remember saying, “Wow, that’s incredible, you must have loved it!” To my surprise, he shook his head. NASA was a great name and paid a lot of money, but the work was dull and there was little room for upward mobility. When offered a chance to return for the following summer,

The best approach to take is to find a job that excites you, pays the rent and can provide a foundation for working towards your dream job. ries and benefits and into the long-term goal of finding jobs that bring both pleasure and financial security. Many of these can also help you take the right next steps.

And let’s be real, how many jobs obtained by recent college graduates are “dream jobs”?

Even for students who graduate with jobs at Google or Apple, or in the World Health Organization or at Boston Consulting Group, first jobs are often entry-level ones that aren’t thrilling. If you’re going to be accepting an entrylevel position wherever you go, why not make sure it’s in a company or field you love? In that case, you at least have a foot in the door and can connect with professionals in the industry that

he declined.

This is a good example of how balance is key. NASA might be a great way to pay the bills, but if you’re dragging your feet out of bed every morning to go to a job that bores you, what are you gaining from the experience? The same is true in the reverse direction. Usually, being a freelance food blogger doesn’t pay the bills.

But if you love food and writing, working for a food magazine or on a culinary show might be a great substitute. Sure, you’re not the one tasting the food, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

All of this is predicated on the assumption that we all know what our “dream job” is going

to be. This is rarely true, but that’s where internships come into play. Particularly for firstyears and sophomores, taking advantage of internship opportunities early on can be a great way to get a glimpse at many different professions. Don’t be picky about your internships, either. You might find a new interest or a new way to engage in a field you’re already interested in. And if you just want to see what a job might be like without committing to a whole summer, consider job shadowing someone for a day. Brown has many resources that can help you test the waters in your search for a potential career interest. For example, try creating an account with BRUnet on the CareerLAB website. BRUnet can help you connect with thousands of alums in dozens of fields to get a better understanding of what their work is like.

The job market is a frightening place, particularly when the onslaught of real-world life comes crashing down on you — usually sometime in your junior or early senior year. But remember, it’s often a wise idea to be patient in your job search, rather than jumping on the first offer you get. It won’t be the last one, and you’ll be better off in the long term if you make a long-term decision.

Daniel Delaney ’15 still doesn’t know what he wants to do and is open for conversation. He can be reached at daniel_delaney@brown.edu.