Tuesday, October 14, 2014

THE

BROWN DAILY HERALD vol. cxlix, no. 87

since 1891

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2014

FOOTBALL

50 R O C K

Bears upend Holy Cross in double overtime Strachan ’15 scores thrice, Senne ’16 kicks 23-yard game-winner to lift Bruno to .500 record

By CALEB MILLER SPORTS EDITOR

ASHWINI NATARAJAN / HERALD

The Rockefeller Library’s newly renovated reading room, which opened Friday, features lounge chairs and glass-walled study spaces.

Though Brown Stadium was packed to the brim for the game against Harvard two weeks ago, fans were few and far between on a cold and rainy Saturday for the football team’s matchup with the College of the Holy Cross. But the Bears outlasted the Crusaders this weekend in their most exciting game of the season so far, a 27-24 double-overtime thriller.

The nail-biter was the latest in a series of perennial dogfights between the New England rivals: Six of their last seven meetings were decided by

one possession.

The victory also marked the 100th career win for Head Coach Phil Estes P’18.

Kicker Grant Senne ’16 put a bow on the wild game with a 23-yard, game-winning field goal in the second overtime.

Bruno (2-2, 0-1 Ivy) fell behind early and then surged to a lead, only to falter in the fourth quarter, letting Holy Cross (2-5, 0-2 Patriot) tie the game with two late scores. But after the foes traded touchdowns in the first overtime, the Bears’ defense forced Holy Cross to try a long field goal — which kicker Connor Fitzgerald hooked — and the offense set up Senne for the decisive chip-shot.

Only two Bears scored on the day: Senne, who hit two field goals and three extra points, and wide receiver

Brian Strachan ’15, who had a career day with all three Bruno touchdowns.

When all was said and done, the receiver-turned-tailback-turned-receiver hauled in a diving touchdown catch, a go-ahead touchdown catch and an overtime touchdown catch — as well as five other receptions and 98 yards receiving.

Quarterback and co-captain Marcus Fuller ’15 led the charge for Bruno.

A rocky start left him with just 44 yards on six completions at halftime, but he went 14-27 for 196 yards and two touchdowns after intermission. The senior performed better than his line indicates, given the first-half drops he endured from his receivers.

After sputtering through much of the first half on its way to a 7-0 halftime deficit, the Bruno offense came out of » See FOOTBALL, page 7

Airbnb makes presence felt on city rental scene Alternative Officials consider tax on short-term rentals, while residents enjoy supplementary income

By JOSEPH FRANKEL CONTRIBUTING WRITER

With increasing usage in Providence, the short-term rental website Airbnb has garnered support from some residents who praise the site for expanding housing and supplementary income opportunities. But the website’s rising popularity has also led local authorities to consider how to enforce local tax payments by Airbnb users.

METRO

Airbnb has facilitated peer-to-peer transactions for more than 430 rentals in the Providence area, allowing hosts to rent out spare bedrooms or entire apartments and taking a commission for performing the service, according to the company’s website.

Founded in 2008 by Rhode Island School of Design alums Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, Airbnb started as the pair’s attempt to leverage their empty living room into rent money for their San Francisco, California loft. Since then, the company has expanded to 34,000 cities in over 190 countries, according to the company’s website.

But the hospitality industry and some local lawmakers have called for Rhode Island to close the tax loophole that allows Airbnb’s users to pay lower

lodging taxes than visitors at traditional hotels. Under Rhode Island law, shortterm rental properties with two or fewer rooms are not subjected to the state lodging tax, a discrepancy that some say causes a loss of revenue for the state, given the rising usage of Airbnb.

A ‘rising tide’ for the city?

While rental services like Airbnb may take away business from “traditional lodging properties,” they may also bring in visitors who would otherwise not have access to the city, said Martha Sheridan, president and CEO of the Providence Warwick Convention and Visitors Bureau. Citing Providence’s ranking as America’s favorite city by Travel and Leisure magazine this month, as well as the city’s recently

rising hotel occupancy rates on weekend nights, Sheridan said she believes Airbnb allows the city to accommodate guests who otherwise might have nowhere to stay when hotels are filled.

“A rising tide floats all boats,” Sheridan said.

Even if they choose not to stay in traditional hotels, visitors who use Airbnb bring business to the city in other ways, Sheridan said. “They’re shopping in our retail outlets, they’re dining in our restaurants and they’re experiencing our community. At the end of the day, their impact is still very important to us.”

As Providence adapts to the growing short-term rental business, Rhode Island continues to debate whether to » See AIRBNB, page 2

‘Earliest America’ initiative rethinks history Student protest leads library to offer resources, symposia about new perspectives on history

By KERRI COLFER STAFF WRITER

Last fall, the words “the Third World will rise again” were scrawled in chalk on the side of the John Carter Brown Library.

The inscription, and the campus reaction it elicited, spurred the development of “The Earliest Americas: A New Initiative in Indigenous Studies at the John Carter Brown Library,” said Neil Safier, director of the John Carter Brown Library.

“It made me think that people believe that the JCB is a place that is » See INITIATIVE, page 2

DAVID BRAUN / HERALD

In a lecture kicking off the John Carter Brown Library’s “Earliest America” initiative, Yale historian Ned Blackhawk discusses the role of individual stories in shaping understandings of historical narratives.

Metro

Commentary

Rhode Island charter schools rank high on National Alliance for Public Charter Schools report

Vote on constitutional convention set for November ballot

Mills ’15: Brown needs to recruit military leaders in order to diversify its faculty

Willig ’16: Environmental protection and capitalism are not inherently at odds

PAGE 3

PAGE 4

PAGE 11

PAGE 11

weather

inside

ARTS & CULTURE

to Common App sees surge in use U. keeps Common App, but some peer institutions turn to UCA after last year’s technical glitches

By STEVEN MICHAEL SENIOR STAFF WRITER

As deadlines approach for many higher education institutions’ early admission programs, more elite universities have decided to allow applicants to use either the Common Application or an online alternative following widespread technical problems last year for the Common App. But the University has decided not to sign onto an alternative platform to the Common App for this admission cycle, said Dean of Admission Jim Miller ’73.

Last year, the Common App — used by over 800,000 applicants last admission cycle — faced a number of glitches amid the launch of its new website. These technical problems prompted numerous universities to delay deadlines for their early decision and early action programs.

While the University did not delay its early decision deadline past Nov. 1 last year, the Office of Admission gave extensions to students on an individual basis, The Herald reported at the time.

Several peer institutions have also joined a competing application » See COMMON APP, page 2

HIGHER ED

t o d ay

tomorrow

74 / 61

75 / 64

2 from page one » INITIATIVE, from page 1 repressing the Third World and upholding the First World at the expense of those who never had their histories properly told,” he said.

The goal of the newly minted initiative is to “offer the library as one of the resources and spaces where conversations can take place,” Safier said. “The library will be offering opportunities for students and scholars to come up with their own ideas for events, activities, lectures and symposia that will highlight materials we have at the library and talk about these issues in a broader way.”

» AIRBNB, from page 1 establish an occupancy tax on Airbnb users, an issue which has been a point of friction in larger cities where Airbnb has gained ground.

Rhode Island’s occupancy tax, which requires that any property renting out more than two rooms must collect a 7 percent sales tax and a 6 percent lodging tax, does not affect most Airbnb properties, whereas most hotels are forced to comply with the law.

“There might be something to be said for leveling the playing field, and modifying the statute, but that’s for lawmakers to take up” Sheridan said.

The state’s 13 percent occupancy tax is the third-highest in the country, according to a study by consulting firm HVS Global Hospital Services.

In 2012, Gov. Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14 P’17 drafted a proposal that would have extended the occupancy tax to all shortterm rentals, but the measure failed to pass the General Assembly.

Host perspectives When writer Jennifer Jane visited Providence before moving into the city in August, she rented Airbnb-affiliated spaces to gain multiple perspectives on the city. “Airbnb was very helpful in that regard, coming as a guest to get to know places,” she said, adding that staying with local residents helped her learn about Providence.

Weeks after moving to the city, Jane — who has also used Airbnb while travelling to London, Paris and Montreal — began using the website to rent out part of her home as a host.

“I always worked two jobs as a single mom, and having this income enables me to not have to work two jobs, which is great because I’m writing a book at night in addition to my paid job,” she said.

Richard Foley, who moved to

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2014

The initiative launched Monday with an inaugural lecture by Yale historian Ned Blackhawk entitled “The Rediscovery of America: American Indians and the Unmaking of U.S. History.”

Blackhawk’s lecture advocated a rethinking of history by “exposing limitations in existing narratives,” he said.

“We are now at a point in our nation’s history where we are really, for the first time, able to … rediscover America.”

“It is fitting that the inaugural lecture of the JCB’s Indigenous Studies Initiative occur on a day so fraught with contested historical meaning,” said Tyler Jackson Rogers ’12, a current PhD

student in American studies at Yale and one of the speakers at the lecture, in reference to the event coinciding with Columbus Day. Rogers also spoke about his personal experience at Brown as an indigenous student involved in the movement that formally ended the observance of Columbus Day at the University in April 2009.

“Faced with backlash from members of the campus and local communities, many of us involved in the campaign to end the celebration of Columbus Day at Brown were not satisfied with this ostensible victory,” he said. “Instead, we committed ourselves to ongoing

education programming throughout the following years, cultivating conversations about why the nonobservance of Columbus Day matters to indigenous people today.”

“Having a Native historian was a good way of kicking off this initiative,” said Elizabeth Hoover MA’03 PhD’10, assistant professor of American and ethnic studies, who spoke at the lecture.

“A lot of what Ned’s work tries to do is to say that history wasn’t just initiated

by Europeans and reacted to by indigenous people, but it’s being co-created

by European and indigenous people reacting, responding and adapting to each other,” she said.

As part of the initiative’s next step, the library will host a roundtable discussion called “Native Americana: A Roundtable on Indigenous History and Memory” Tuesday at 4 p.m. The event will feature scholars and indigenous activists, and is open to members of the community.

“The JCB focuses on the colonial period, but I think its lessons can be relevant for more modern history and the contemporary world,” Safier told The Herald. “I want Native students and Native scholars to feel that the JCB is a willing and understanding partner in their own scholarly work and, to the extent possible, in their activist work.”

Providence with his family last year, said the added income from finding short-term tenants via Airbnb was a strong incentive, especially given high taxes in the city. The Foley family chose to use Airbnb rather than renting to a long-term tenant to avoid the stress of a more complex agreement and to make use of the flexibility of choosing which rooms to rent out.

The website allows guests and hosts to browse each other’s personal profiles and to communicate via message before making any financial agreements, which was how Foley and his family found their first guest, he said.

“Our personalities matched,” Foley said, adding that his family still keeps in touch with its first guest.

While Foley said he has heard of hosts having bad experiences with guests, he said reviews of hosts and guests on the website create a sense of accountability for both parties. “Everybody has to be on their best behaviors.”

York Magazine reported.

Other cities have moved to require all lodging providers to collect an occupancy tax, Sheridan said. “There’s pretty much a tidal wave across the country.”

Airbnb has not made a tax agreement with Providence officials, she added.

But City Councilman Samuel Zurier said signed agreements between Airbnb and municipal governments“might provide a model for other cities like Providence.”

» COMMON APP, from page 1

Felton said several hundred Cornell applicants used the UCA last year, but more students may use the platform this year, adding that there was no difference from admission officers’ perspective between the two application systems.

“Last year, there were tremendous problems (with the Common App), and I think there needs to be a backup system,” said Steven Goodman, an admission strategist at the college consulting firm Top Colleges.

The UCA launched in 2007 by ApplicationsOnline LLC, a private company that had previously helped run the Common App’s website, said Joshua Reiter, the company’s president and founder.

But when the Common App decided not to renew its contract with ApplicationsOnline, the company opted to design a competing service for college applicants.

“I hope other people use us not because the alternative isn’t good but because of how good we are,” Reiter said.

The UCA has never experienced a website crash like the Common App did last year, Reiter said, adding that the platform also offers strong customer service.

Aba Blankson, director of communications for the Common App, acknowledged that the website experienced notable technical problems last year but added that the organization hired a consulting firm to fix these glitches.

The Common App also faces an antitrust lawsuit launched in May by CollegeNET, a company that provides technology services to universities, Inside Higher Ed reported at the time.

According to CollegeNET’s filing in the lawsuit, the Common App charges colleges that exclusively use its website $3.75 per application, but colleges that use an additional system, such as the UCA, are charged $4.75 per application. CollegeNET also alleges that the Common App has an agreement with member universities that these institutions will not charge a lower application fee in a separate system than the fee they post on the Common App’s website. CollegeNET charges that this alleged collusion and pricing model has caused the company to lose 229 customers, Inside Higher Ed reported.

Blankson said the Common App’s pricing model was changing but did not provide specifics on how the model would be revised. “What we heard back from our customers was that the structure wasn’t meeting their needs,” she said.

Miller said the pricing model for the Common App did not affect the University’s decision to refrain from joining the UCA.

National trends Airbnb has made agreements with local governments to directly collect and remit local taxes in Multnomah County, Oregon, and San Francisco, where it started collecting a 14 percent transient occupancy tax on short-term lodgers Oct. 1, according to the company’s website.

But the company has yet to establish such plans with other municipal governments across the country.

Housing concerns about Airbnb have often emerged in larger cities with more expensive rents and higher occupancy rates than in Providence, Sheridan said..

In recent years, tensions have arisen between Airbnb and the government of New York City, where price gouging by landlords using Airbnb to charge nightly rent reduces opportunities for permanent affordable housing, New

Moving forward “Just like what’s happening across the country, this community will eventually seek to level that playing field … and see that occupancy tax is collected on all properties” Sheridan said.

Research into how to move forward on the occupancy tax is ongoing, said Dale Venturini, CEO and president of the Rhode Island Hospitality Association, the major lobbying group for the state’s hotels.

“There is going to be a move to tax (Airbnb users), and I know that we’ve been having these discussions for these past couple of months,” Venturini said, adding that the issue is “at the top of the state agenda” as peer-to-peer rentals become a lasting fixture in the hospitality industry.

But tax “enforcement is a very cumbersome process,” Zurier said. “The state loses millions of dollars every year because the taxes on the books are unenforceable and uncollectable,” he said, citing difficulties in past attempts to make agreements with neighboring states on sales tax collections.

“I don’t have a problem with the concept (of Airbnb). It’s just that if other businesses providing the same service are, in fact, registered with the city, and regulated and paying taxes, then you would want there to be a level playing field,” Zurier added.

service called the Universal College Application. Cornell and Princeton joined the UCA last fall, and the University of Chicago, Rice University and Vanderbilt University all joined the UCA this year. Harvard has been a long-time member of the UCA. These universities continue to allow students to submit their applications via the Common App. Some admission experts said a higher number of universities have turned to the UCA in the past two admission cycles as a precaution against the technical glitches faced by the Common App’s website last year.

Shawn Felton, director of undergraduate admissions at Cornell University, said Cornell joined the UCA before the regular decision deadline last year because of the problems with the Common App website.

“The advantage of having a second application has been illuminated after last year,” Felton said. “The Universal College Application will stay in place for this reason. In life, we don’t put all of our eggs in one basket.”

Though the Common App and UCA have similar online formats, applicants can choose the topic on their long essay for the UCA but not on the Common App, said Bev Taylor, founder and president of the Ivy Coach, a New York-based college consulting firm. The Common App no longer lets applicants select their essay topic, she added.

“A lot of creativity was lost” when the Common App decided to eliminate the topic-of-choice on its application, Taylor said. The Common App also does not allow students to upload their essays, which means they cannot use special characters or visual illustrations in their essays.

But for now, the University has not joined the UCA. The Admission Office considered joining the UCA during the last admission cycle but decided to maintain a common “entry point” for all applicants with the Common App, Miller said.

“It seems as if the Common App has righted the ship,” Miller said, referring to the website’s technical problems.

It would be more complicated for the University to support two separate application systems online, he said, adding that the Common App does a good job providing access to a wide range of applicants.

Though the overall number of UCA member universities pales in comparison to the number of universities on the Common App, the UCA now boasts eight of the top 20 national universities in the U.S. News and World Report rankings as members.

metro 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2014

R.I. ranks 10th in national evaluation of charter schools Despite legislative obstacles, charter schools grow from one in 1997 to 23 for current school year

By MATTHEW JARRELL CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Rhode Island’s public charter school network received high marks in a report issued by the National Alliance for Charter Schools Sept. 29, placing 10th out of 25 qualifying states and the District of Columbia and eliciting praise from experts in the field.

Over 4 percent of the state’s 142,000 school-aged children attend charter schools, which are districtindependent, publicly funded institutions, according to the latest statistics from the Rhode Island League of Charter Schools.

The state’s charter schools are run by a board of directors that is given command of internal matters such as curriculum, hiring decisions and budgeting, according to the Rhode Island Department of Education. But charter schools must also follow all state and federal regulations applicable to public schools.

The Alliance’s report took a range of factors into account in grading each state’s system, including the percentage of public schools that are classified as charter schools, the share of students within charter schools who identify as socioeconomically disadvantaged and the number of new schools opened within the given state in the last five years. Based on these criteria, only 25 states and D.C. qualified for the ranking.

Parents’ continued interest has driven the growth of the state’s charter school network from one school in 1997 to 23 by the beginning of the 2014-15 school year, said Steve Nardelli, executive director of the Rhode Island League of Charter Schools. “Last year we had 900 openings across all of the schools and over 13,000 applications,” he said.

Nardelli added that charter schools are succeeding in their mission.

“Charters do exactly what their intent was, and that is to provide that quality public school choice option,” he said.

Rhode Island’s ranking placement was driven by its schools “beating the odds” in the face of some tough legislative obstacles, said Kenneth

2014 public charter school rankings by state The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools ranked state charter schools on quality and success. Of the 25 states and D.C. ranked, the top 10 are shown here with their scores out of 116.

1 - D.C.

104

2 - La.

85

3 - Mich.

84

4 - N.J.

76

5 - N.Y.

75

6 - Mass.

73

7 - Ind.

73

8 - Calif.

72

9 - Tenn.

71

10 - R.I.

70

0

20

40

60

80

Source: The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools

100

116 points

AVERY CRITS-CHRISTOPH / HERALD

Wong, professor of education, citing a parallel report issued by the Alliance that ranked states based on the friendliness of their law codes toward charter school expansion, in which Rhode Island placed 34th out of 43 states.

The existence of a cap on the number of charters permitted in the state and the single-authorizer system, in which only the state’s board of education can enable the construction of a charter school, contributed to the low “friendliness” ranking, Wong said.

Other states allow more than one authorizer, including state universities,

Wong said, citing Michigan as an example.

RIDE appears set to stay the course, with about 7 percent of state aid going toward charter programs, according to RIDE’s 2014 report on the state of Rhode Island’s charter schools.

The formula for expansion will remain the same as in the past, in line with the state’s interest in supporting the network, said Elliot Krieger, public information officer for RIDE. “The law states that charters are meant to be beacons of innovation. … They are not meant to replace traditional

public schools,” he said.

Krieger added that the charter cap was raised years ago, and there are currently no plans to raise it since the number of schools in the network falls below it. The charter school law passed in 1995 and, since 2010, allows for the state to have 35 charter schools, according to the Alliance’s website.

The single-authorizer system, Krieger said, also makes sense for Rhode Island. “We’re very comfortable with the council as the approval source, because their responsibility is for all education statewide,” he said.

Nardelli also said he supported the maintenance of the single-authorizer system, but stated that there would be a push to raise the cap. “We’re certainly going to be addressing that in the near future, because we feel that the demand (for additional charter schools) is there,” he said.

Rhode Island was one of two New England states to qualify for the Alliance’s ranking, along with sixth-placeranked Massachusetts. The District of Columbia, Louisiana and Michigan filled the ranking’s top three spots, while Utah, Oregon and Nevada rounded out the bottom of the list.

4 metro

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2014

Constitutional convention sparks debate about govt. reform Backers argue convention would empower voters, while critics claim special interests would dominate

By KATE TALERICO CONTRIBUTING WRITER

As the November election date draws closer, the debate has heated up over ballot Question 3, which asks voters whether the state should host a constitutional convention to amend the state’s constitution.

While supporters of the initiative argue the convention provides an opportunity to decrease government corruption, increase citizen involvement in politics and initiate new legislation the General Assembly might not otherwise take up, opponents are expressing concern over the potential influence of outside interest groups and the possibility that the convention could undo recent legislation.

The Rhode Island Constitution dictates that the question of hosting a constitutional convention must appear on the ballot every 10 years.

During the last convention, voters elected 100 delegates from the community in 1985 for a convention that convened a year later, costing Rhode Islanders $1,920,960, adjusted for inflation.

Article XIV, Section 2 of the Rhode Island Constitution states that another election must be held following a convention for voters to approve any amendments or revisions to the constitution.

In 1986, voters approved 8 of the 14 amendments placed on the ballot, including a rewrite of the present constitution.

Randall Rose, main organizer of Just Reform RI — a progressive group advocating for citizens’ rights during the constitutional convention — and a member of RenewRI, a coalition of pro-convention groups and people, said “the state legislature is working well for insiders, but not for the rest of us.”

“We want to reduce the power of the statehouse and give more power to the voters,” Rose said, adding that legislators might not enact laws that would undermine their own authority. “We need reform so that they are more accountable to voters.”

Steven Brown, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island and a member of the anti-convention political action committee Citizens for Responsible Government, said supporters of the convention have failed to provide sufficient evidence of the measure’s benefits.

“The constitutional convention was created to deal with government reform — that’s not what happened,”

Brown said. The General Assembly should be able to perform the same functions as the delegates, he added.

A constitutional convention, Brown said, “serves as a distraction from the hard work needed to get a good legislature. People think a convention is a quick fix. It won’t be.”

Brown pointed to examples of what he called “dangerous” actions taken by the 1986 constitutional convention — two anti-abortion amendments. A convention today would be the “perfect opportunity for outof-state interest groups to bring big money into Rhode Island,” he said.

“Every amendment has to be ratified by voters. It can’t go forward if it violates the standards of the U.S. Constitution,” said Tim Duffy, a member of RenewRI and executive director of the Rhode Island Association of School Committees. “If people are worried this will infringe upon marriage equality, the Supreme Court just shut that down.”

Even advocates for the convention have conceded that outside spending has an influential role in politics.

But Gary Sasse, founding director of the Hassenfeld Institute for Public Leadership at Bryant University and a member of RenewRI, said he thinks the convention “may give us the opportunity to challenge what big money is doing in government.”

“This is one of the few times people can get involved,” he added.

“It’s ironic how people running campaigns about how elections can be bought are the ones buying the election,” Rose said.

As of July 2014, Citizens for Responsible Government had raised $59,000, which it has used to campaign against the convention, according to public campaign finance records from the Rhode Island State Board of Elections.

Brown now estimates the total fundraised to be “around $60,000 to 70,000,” coming from a number of organizations, including Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, United Nurses and Allied Professionals and the United Food and Commercial Workers Defense Fund.

RenewRI received a $23,000 contribution from donor John Hazen White to pay for two billboards placed on Interstate 195 in favor of the ballot question, Rose wrote in an email to The Herald.

He added that Just Reform Rhode Island and RenewRI together have raised under $100,000 in the campaign for the convention, as compared to the just over $100,000 raised by groups opposed to the question. “If the issue was just about campaign funds, we would lose,” Rose said.

Citizens for Responsible Government has run one untelevised video ad on the Internet, which has been

ALEXIA DELHOUME / HERALD

Every 10 years, Rhode Island voters must decide whether to hold a constitutional convention. The last convention was approved in 1984 and held in 1986. The question appears again on next month’s ballot. accused of raising fears about big money, Brown said.

“Rhode Island’s constitution isn’t for sale,” said Jen Stevens of Rhode Island Pride, an organization that advocates for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in the state.

The organization has allied with anticonvention groups, Stevens said, to prevent outside money from influencing delegates to undercut recent legislative initiatives, such as same-sex marriage.

“Delegates are left unchecked with no obligation to represent voters, and that’s a dangerous situation, especially for minority groups,” she said.

Brown cited the appearance of Grover Norquist, president of antitax lobbying group Americans for Tax Reform, at a pro-convention luncheon last week as an example of the influence of outside interest groups.

Issues raised about how the 1986 convention was run have influenced the discussion of the potential convention. In an op-ed in the Providence Journal, Brown wrote that “the General Assembly kept a pledge that no current legislator would run as a delegate. Instead, seven former legislators won seats to the convention. At least four relatives of sitting legislators were also elected, including — no lie — the House speaker’s son and sister.”

Rose said the 1986 convention could have been organized better and suggested publicizing a list of delegate candidates without connections to the legislature.

Brown said in 1986 voters were aware that delegate candidates had

ties to politicians, but did not prevent their elections. “There’s no reason it’d be different this year.”

Sasse said he did not think it was a problem to have people connected to government working with private citizens during a convention.“There’s a difference between running for office and running for a delegate position at a constitutional convention. Insiders and outsiders should have the ability to run.”

He added that a convention “encourages citizen participation” because there is no pressure to run again. “There were over 560 people who ran in 1986, and most weren’t tied to legislature,” he said.

There has been a more vigorous debate about the convention this year than in the past, in part because of voters’ frustration with the Assembly, Brown said.

Sasse said the results of a poll conducted by RenewRI with the polling firm Fleming and Associates found that 82 percent of voters surveyed did not think their state government was effective.

“A lot of people understand that there’s a lot of power corruption,” Rose said. Convention supporters advocate for protections for people in government speaking out against corruption and utilize those people to help “clean up government,” he added.

Rose said he doesn’t think changing the values of politicians and the state is as easy as convention rejectors would like to think. “I know there’s money in politics, but if you want to change campaign finance reform, the

constitutional convention offers more idealistic people.”

“Most people are not aware of the question,” Brown said of the ballot question, which he said leads people initially to support the measure.

“Once the process is explained, they grasp just how much of a potential threat a constitutional convention is to civil rights.”

Education reform is an important issue that supporters of the convention believe would be easier to raise during the convention than in the legislature. The R.I. Association of School Committees advocates for changing Article XII of the state constitution, which does not guarantee students the right to an equal education, Duffy said.

One concern is that communities that do not generate enough revenue from property taxes cannot provide students in public schools with sufficient resources.

The Rhode Island Supreme Court held in the City of Pawtucket v. Sundlun that Article XII did not “guarantee an ‘equal, adequate and meaningful education’ … because at the time there was no requirement that public education be provided at all in the state,” Duffy said.

Previous efforts to pass education reform legislation through the General Assembly failed, Duffy said. “We can try to get it back on the ballot in 2016, but the only way to guarantee students those rights is through a constitutional convention,” said Duffy.

“We get one bite at the apple every 10 years.”

arts & culture 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2014

Students tweet their way to online accolades Parody Twitter accounts start as creative writing projects, gain thousands of followers

By ELENA WEISSMANN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

“Anyone who likes to write realizes there’s a plethora of terrible ideas that bounce around in your head. It’s my job to give those ideas a voice and a face to punch,” said Dana Schwartz ’15, the brains behind the parody Twitter account @GuyInYourMFA. Started in early September, the account represents a typical white male “literary novelist,” Schwartz said. @ GuyInYourMFA often quotes some of his “work,” describes an idea for an upcoming novel or remarks on one of his many struggles as a privileged white male.

“I relate to Holden Caulfield on a level you wouldn’t understand,” reads one tweet, which was favorited over 300 times.

“My tattoos are references to books you’ve never heard of,” reads another.

Schwartz, a Herald opinions columnist, now has over 12,000 followers and gains around 100 more every day. Her account has garnered the attention of several notable names, including New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean and “Matilda” actress Mara Wilson, as well as several literary agents.

Schwartz is not the only Brown student who has tasted Internet fame.

Clara Beyer ’14.5 started @FeministTaylorSwift in June 2013 and has since acquired more than 102,000 followers. Several other anonymous

Twitter accounts spoof elements of life at Brown, though to considerably smaller audiences.

Though concentrating in public policy, Schwartz takes literary arts writing workshops every year. Inspiration struck a few weeks into the semester, she said.

“It’s me getting my worst writer instincts out in the world. All the terrible ideas I have, I give them a graveyard,” she said. “I think people who take themselves too seriously and think everything out of their mouths is the most profound thing ever … need to be taken down a peg.”

“And at the same time, I recognize that I have that in myself.”

For Schwartz, a parody Twitter account serves as a fun way to procrastinate, she said. “I was bored and I needed constant stimulation. It was either a popular Twitter account or Tinder.”

Schwartz’s alternate persona receives a lot of attention from his Twitter followers. Some tell @GuyInYourMFA that they’re in love with him; others attempt to imitate the voice. But the attention will become “less cool” the minute she starts promoting herself or letting people know who she is, Schwartz said. @FeministTaylorSwift was born when Beyer, post- Magazine’s serif sheriff, tweeted the idea on her personal account and a friend, Kevin Carty ’15, a former Herald opinions columnist, encouraged her to pursue it.

Beyer takes Taylor Swift’s lyrics and adds a feminist spin — but not in an attempt to criticize her. “I use her lyrics to bring feminism to people,” she said.

“She wears short skirts/And tshirts/Depending on what/She feels like wearing/*shrug*” reads one tweet.

“It’s a love story/Baby just say yes/ because consent should always be freely and enthusiastically given,” reads another.

Beyer’s followers include stars like Hayley Williams, the lead singer of Paramore, and one of Swift’s close friends. @FeministTaylorSwift has opened many doors for Beyer. After attracting the attention of several literary agents, Beyer took a semester off last fall to write up a book proposal on feminism and work with an agent.

But she discontinued her work on the book once she returned to Brown.

“I put a lot of thought into the proposal, but it turned into something like a guide to feminism, … and I’m just not qualified to explain feminism to everybody,” Beyer said.

“I don’t have enough experience. I found myself contradicting my own beliefs at times.”

Though the book didn’t work out, she did get the opportunity to meet her muse.

Beyer met Swift over the summer after writing about the account in a contest submission. Beyer, along with the other winners, went to Swift’s apartment to hang out and eat pizza after attending one of her events.

“I told her, ‘I’m so glad you invited

me to this. It says that you guys don’t actually hate me,’” said Beyer. “But (Swift) thought my Twitter was really cool. She said, ‘If people hate me, they make it really obvious. So if there’s any ambiguity, I just assume it’s fine.’”

It’s not clear what poises a Twitter account to go viral. Beyer has created several parody Twitter accounts that have been dead ends. On one, @InstagramModel, she described “all the things that girls on Instagram do” — for example, “eating granola today,” or “casually sitting by a sunset,” Beyer said. But @InstagramModel never achieved the wild upward trajectory of @GuyInYourMFA. Carty, who is friends with both Schwartz and Beyer, said an account’s virality has something to do with gaining the attention of a major Twitter icon.

“I remember seeing (@FeministTaylorSwift) go from a couple hundred followers to a thousand,” Carty said. “But then Hugo Schwyzer — this guy who wrote for Jezebel and the Atlantic and who marketed himself as this hip male feminist — retweeted FemTaylorSwift, and that’s when it started going from 1,000 to 10,000 to 75,000 followers. And we saw this crazy rise.”

Carty said he’s interested in better understanding why certain content goes viral. “I think people are slowly figuring out how to do the medium of Twitter well, and short-form parody is what Twitter is really good at. Oneliners — that’s the type of comedy that works with Twitter,” he said.

“It’s definitely a little bit of an art, to try and make a point in such a

short period. But if you figure out how to do it right, it can be this amazingly powerful thing.”

But Carty said he doesn’t necessarily believe in “Twitter fame.”

“I don’t think there’s this attachment of fame and celebrity to Twitter,” he said. “Certain Twitters just get elevated to a more national platform.”

Other Brunonians have started similar anonymous Twitter accounts, though few have become as wellknown as @GuyInYourMFA or @ FeministTaylorSwift.

A mere 30 people follow @IsTheRattyGood, an account featuring tweets including “Eh,” “Not really” and “Yes; chicken fingers.” @BrownHipster, an anonymous student who often posts pictures of coffee and tweets about subjects like white oppression, also has yet to take off. “Shopping period perpetuates the capitalist norms in our society #capitalistprison,” reads one tweet.

“Just saw a gaggle of first-years doing a jumping photo in front of Van Wickle Gates #GagMe,” another reads.

Though some of these accounts never attract widespread attention, they still serve as anonymous platforms through which Brown students can voice their thoughts on a variety of topics.

Beyer said she would urge students to start their own parody Twitter accounts. “It’s like the best, smallest investment in the world. Start a bunch, because the barrier to entry is zero,” she said. “It probably won’t go anywhere but maybe it will, and who knows? It could be awesome.”

Maker Faire exhibitors show off local innovations

AS220, R.I. Convention Center host local designers, inventors and educators

By BAYLOR KNOBLOCH CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Colorful banners flapped in the rain Saturday morning, announcing the sixth annual Rhode Island Mini Maker Faire. The exhibition, attended by over 1,200 people, sprawled across four locations between the community arts center AS220 on Empire Street and the Rhode Island Convention Center on Adrian Hall Way. Maker Faires — exhibitions of local designers, inventors, engineers, artists, educators and entrepreneurs — have cropped up at various national locations since their inception in the Bay Area in 2006. They are sponsored by Maker Media, a platform of hands-on tech makers.

“Remember all the nerdy kids in high school that were either doing science fairs or really into crafts? Now imagine them 15 years later,” said Jeff Del Papa, founder of the New England Rubbish Destruction Society and one of the event’s exhibitors. “They’ve gotten out of school, they have money and space, but they haven’t stopped building.”

Maker Media publisher and Rhode Island resident Brian Jepson co-founded Revolution x Design with Kipp Bradford to bring the first Maker Faire to Providence in 2009. This is

the first year that the fair was organized in part by AS220, a community arts center located in downtown Providence.

A maker is “in a lot of ways someone who tries to take control of their life back from technology,” Jepson said. “They don’t want to be dominated by technology. They want to be in charge. So they make, they remake, they repurpose, they make things do something other than what they were originally intended to do.”

Almost 50 exhibitors presented Saturday, Jepson said. The participants responded to a public call for people who identify as makers.

“AS220 is unjuried and uncensored, so we honor that by accepting everyone that it’s practical to accept,” he said of the application process.

The makers set up their exhibits among two AS220-owned indoor venues and two outdoor areas.

Though the outdoor makers endured a steady drizzle throughout the first part of the day, Jepson said the weather did not dampen spirits.

Del Papa’s main exhibit was a piece he called “Decisions, Decisions,” a giant coin flipper commissioned for the National Geographic television series “Going Deep with David Rees.”

Kids lined up to pull a string that launched the steel catapult, throwing the manhole-sized quarter into the air.

Families flocked to the interactive aspects of the event, with hands-on activities including printmaking, origami, mini circuit soldering and Lego

car racing.

Gary Deslaurier, a RISD graduate who said his work in design, invention and education gave him a feeling of camaraderie with other makers, was accompanied by his three children.

Deslaurier said he was inspired to build his own pinball machine after seeing engineer Dave Gaskill’s station of customized and refurbished retro pinball machines.

The 95 Empire location hosted exhibits on the 3-D printing movement.

“Some of us are real believers in this,” said Matt Stultz, organizer of 3-D Printing Providence, a community for 3-D printing enthusiasts.

Stultz, who works as a software engineer, said he envisions a day when everyone will have a 3-D printer in their home.

“I tell people that the real reason that I’m interested in 3-D printing is I never want to do dishes again,” Stultz said. “I want to be able to print my dinner plate, eat my dinner and then toss it into a hopper that grinds it back up and removes any impurities.

Then the next time I need another widget, or I need a mug, I can print it.”

“These guys are the story,” Jepson said of 3D Printing Providence, adding that he currently owns five 3-D printers.

“I think that the whole idea of having access to desktop manufacturing is going to change everything,” said Wayne Losey, chief creative of Modio, an app that allows users to design their own toys that they can

TIMOTHY MUELLER-HARDER / HERALD

Brian Jepson and Kipp Bradford’s organization, Revolution x Design, brought the first Maker Faire to Providence in 2009. print using 3-D printers. Losey was at the Maker Faire with displays of toy pieces made with the Modio technology, as well as information on how to download the app. “We give kids the tools to create their own toys,” he said.

Representatives from Destination Imagination, Rhode Island Museum of Science and Art and First Lego League also advertised their programs through interactive displays.

“We thought this would be a great

place to come to connect with folks who are into creativity,” said Katie Jones, affiliate director for Rhode Island Destination Imagination.

For Jepson, the Maker Faire bears historical context, as well. “Rhode Island is where the American Industrial Revolution started,” he said. “It’s just a matter of bringing to the surface a modern representation and getting back to the state’s heritage as a maker state.”

6 arts & culture

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2014

TIMOTHY MUELLER-HARDER / HERALD

HONK! festivals involve bands with diverse social agendas and use music to get city residents on the street. The latest version of the local iteration of HONK! — PRONK!, or Providence HONK! — took place Monday around the city. Above, festival participants engage community members while performing on foot.

PRONK! Festival promotes social activism through music Marching bands from across the country parade Providence streets with elaborate costume and sound

By ELIZABETH CONWAY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

It was reminiscent of a calm before the storm. All sounds ceased, except a quiet buzz in the air as throngs of people chattered with tangible anticipation.

Suddenly, the sound of approaching drums distinguished itself, followed by a chorus of horns. The somber autumn weather was no match for the brewing music fever that accompanied the arrival of the seventh annual PRONK! street jazz festival Monday.

“A lot of people feel this is going to be the greatest day of the year,” said Avi David, bass drummer for Extraordinary Rendition Band and a member of the PRONK! organizing committee.

“A lot of people just live for PRONK!, and they love it.”

PRONK! — an outdoor music festival featuring bands from around the country — took the streets of Providence by storm from the afternoon into the evening. The festival included a wide array of brass-blasting marching bands, a drum circle and the traditional parade.

HONK!, the sister festival from which PRONK! descended, got its start a few years before in Somerville, Massachusetts. There, a brass band that engaged in an unlikely combination of anti-war protest and puppet theater came together in 2003 and began looking for ways to expand its influence in the surrounding community, according to the festival website. The band searched for other music groups with a similar philosophy of capitalizing on music’s potential to promote

social activism, which triggered a wave of responses from bands across the United States. This enthusiastic response spurred the launch of the first HONK! Festival in 2006. That year, 12 bands originating from cities as diverse as Vancouver and New York performed in a marriage of spontaneity, creativity and music.

The national resonance of HONK! was quickly apparent — the following year, New York hosted its first HONK! festival, and in 2008 Providence followed suit, creating PRONK!, or Providence Honk. There are now similar HONK! festivals in Austin and Seattle, with ongoing plans to create festivals in Brazil, according to the festival’s website. Local bands Extraordinary Rendition Band, What Cheer? Brigade and Kicking Brass have each performed at PRONK! since its inception.

Seven years later, the Providence festival has remained true to its roots.

“We try to represent a variety of marching bands. Some of them have a larger social mission than others, so (we’re) trying to get a good mix of bands from different places and different activist movements,” said Jenn Harris, a communications projects coordinator at Brown and a member of the PRONK! organizing committee.

Unlike many music festivals of its kind, PRONK! does not block off city streets, allow commercial vendors or sell promotional paraphernalia. Instead, the festival emphasizes “reclaiming public space,” Harris said.

Participating musicians carry their instruments and rely on natural

projection, rather than amplification, to fill the streets with sound.

The 2014 edition of PRONK! began at 2 p.m. with performances — including a drum circle — in India Point Park. Around 5 p.m., a variety of musicians lined up for the annual parade down Wickenden Street. An hour later, the bands diverged to perform at three different stages around the city — the concrete hurricane barrier under the I-195 overpass, the Hot Club and an amphitheater next door to the club.

The marching musicians enraptured a diverse crowd along the parade route. Clad in bright, richly colored garments, hula hoopers, ribbon dancers and papier-mache animals drew the attention of both young and old in the audience.

Children along the route wore costumes ranging from princess outfits to Spiderman suits. Residents watched eagerly from their house windows, and teenagers perched on fire escapes to get a better view.

The music presented a mix of electronic beats, elements of hard rock and the fundamental jazz that started it all.

Pounding out beats, the percussionists demanded attention. The drums pulsed in nearly every song, creating rhythms from traditional bass drums as well as makeshift drums composed of Home Depot paint buckets played by children.

“We are reinforcing ideals, using music and getting everyone out on the streets together — to communicate and push the boundaries of what people think about activism and being able to translate that into something meaningful for them,” Harris said.

PRONK! — like its sister festivals — is independently run by local

volunteers and draws thousands of spectators each year. The core organizing committee comprises 12 volunteers, including Harris, who is working with the committee for the second year. “I just happened upon PRONK!, and it just totally blew my mind,” she said. The committee functions democratically, without a designated leader.

Each band that performs at PRONK! attends at its own expense — while the committee must raise money to host the event, the bands are not compensated for performing, Harris said. The festival’s fundraising efforts, which included a Kickstarter campaign and several events throughout the fall, are directed toward feeding and housing band members.

“We are trying to build bridges and work with community organizations that are doing social action work, and helping to provide a platform for those organizations to use their voices,” Harris said.

“Our festival has a stronger activist undertone than others,” David said.

Harris said another factor that distinguishes PRONK! from its sister festivals is its greater focus on visual art even beyond the day of the festival.

Funding from the Rhode Island State Council for the Arts beginning last year has allowed PRONK! to assist artists who partner with local organizations like English for Action and the Providence Student Union.

The artists work symbiotically with the organizations, creating art to promote their message while the organizations give the artists a platform to showcase their craft. Citing this relationship, the coordinators emphasized the interplay between visual art and music in promoting social activism.

“It’s added this amazing visual element to the parade,” allowing bands to connect to local Providence organizations, Harris said of the funding. The modern face of the festival is in stark contrast to the festival’s early stages, which consisted of “all of these marching bands coming and bringing their own visual statements of what they’re doing,” Harris said.

PRONK! has also engaged with student communities at Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design.

The festival coordinators held a forum on music and activism at RISD last week, David said. The festival has also been the subject of a two-week unit on using arts for social activism in MUSC 0040: “World Music Cultures” at Brown. The unit concluded with this forum, which David also attended with students from Trinity Academy for the Performing Arts.

“It was an open discussion and an opportunity for everyone to meet and connect, share experiences and ask questions to better understand why we all do what we do, how we do it, what drives us,” David said of the forum, adding that he hopes PRONK! will continue to develop its education programming “so that the bands can have a deeper relationship with the city of Providence and more people in the city can benefit from working with them.”

“In the last couple of years it has really started to get legs and people are starting to understand,” Harris said. “I would really love to see PRONK! continue to provide a space where more of the communities of Providence can come together to celebrate our victories, to share in this communal experience of music-making.”

sports 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2014

Sports Roundup

BY CALEB MILLER, SPORTS EDITOR

Men’s soccer The men’s soccer team’s chances of an Ivy League title took a major hit Saturday at Princeton. The Bears (3-4-3, 1-1-0 Ivy) gave up two secondhalf goals to allow the prolific Tigers offense a comeback 2-1 win.

Princeton (5-3-2, 1-1-0) entered the game with one of the highest goals-per-game averages in the country at 2.11, but the Bears were riding a four-game shutout streak. Something had to give.

In many respects, goalkeeper Mitch Kupstas ’14.5 and Bruno’s back line performed admirably, allowing their Ivy foe to line up just two shots on goal in the contest. Unfortunately for Brown, both those shots found the back of the net.

In the 12th minute, Jack Gorab ’16 opened the afternoon’s scoring by threading a shot through the Princeton defense from the center of the box. Given the way Bruno’s defense has performed this month, the shot looked like it might be all the team would need.

But in the 69th minute, Tigers striker Cameron Porter did something nobody had done in 504 minutes of gameplay, dating back to Sept. 18: score on the Bears. Porter’s equalizer was followed just 15 minutes later

by Joe Saitta’s decisive goal for Princeton.

Ancient Eight champions rarely suffer two league losses, so stumbling at Princeton in just the second game of the Ivy schedule does not bode well for Bruno’s title hopes. But a strong run through the rest of the conference schedule could still put the Bears in the driver’s seat. They will attempt to start that run Saturday with Harvard after tuning up Tuesday with Boston College.

Women’s soccer Three Princeton goals in the first 20 minutes and a hat trick by Tigers sophomore Tyler Lussi contributed to the Ivy foe’s 5-0 blowout of the women’s soccer team Saturday. Bruno (5-5-3, 0-1-2 Ivy) traveled to New Jersey with ties in its first two conference bouts, but the Tigers’ highoctane offense ensured the Bears would not leave with their first Ivy win. The team bounced back somewhat with a 1-1 tie Monday against nonconference opponent Marist College.

Sophomore midfielder Haley Chow notched goals in the third and 16th minutes to build a 2-0 lead for Princeton (4-3-3, 2-0-1), and classmate Lussi took it from there — registering one first-half and two second-half goals to add to her team-leading nine goals.

The Princeton domination was comprehensive, including an 11-1 lead in first-half shots and 6-1 margin in shots on target for the game.

Fortunately for Bruno, the blowout is just its first conference loss, and the team has four Ivy contests down the stretch to turn its league standing around.

Captain Chloe Cross ’15 helped the squad put the Princeton game in the past with Monday’s contest against Marist (1-7-4, 0-2-3 Metro Atlantic). The senior booted a missile into the goal from 10 feet out in the 21st minute to give Bruno a 1-0 edge.

Despite firing off nearly twice as many shots and three times as many shots on goal as the Red Foxes, the Bears could not add to their lead and instead surrendered a late goal to Marist to tie the game. After two scoreless overtimes, the matchup ended in a 1-1 draw.

Bruno reenters Ivy play Saturday when Harvard comes to College Hill.

Men’s water polo After enduring its first conference loss of the season Saturday in an 11-9 blunder against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the men’s water polo team rebounded with two resounding wins — a 19-11 victory over No. 16 Harvard and a 14-1 dismantling of Connecticut College.

The Bears (13-4, 7-1 Ivy) entered the weekend ranked 13th in the country thanks to a seven-game winning streak, but the upset-minded Engineers (8-9, 2-3 NEWMAC) were seeking revenge for a Sept. 28 loss to Bruno. Neither side had gained any ground after three quarters, and the score was locked at 7-7. But a three-goal quarter from MIT — one of which came as part of a four-goal second half from junior Ory Tasman — was just enough to upend the Bears.

The Bears and the Crimson (13-5, 3-3) entered play just three spots apart in the national rankings, but the game showed a much greater disparity. Harvard hung around for the first half and went into halftime tied at six, but the Crimson were no match for Bruno’s offensive onslaught in the second half. Five third-quarter goals and a staggering eight four-quarter tallies lifted the Bears to a 13-3 second-half advantage.

Nick Deaver ’15 powered the Bruno offense with five goals against the Ivy rival.

Momentum from the strong second half carried into Brown’s Sunday matchup with Connecticut College (2-8, 0-2 NESCAC). The Camels could muster just a single goal, a third of the individual total amassed by leading scorer Warren Smith ’17. The throttling comes as the latest in a long line of blowouts for the Bears over Connecticut College, including three double-digit victories last season.

» FOOTBALL, from page 1 the locker room firing on all cylinders.

Five consecutive completions — including a 30-yard strike to Alex Jette ’17 — carried the Bears from their own 28-yard line to first-and-goal at the 10.

Knowing Bruno’s red zone offense has been weak this season, Estes reached into his bag of tricks to pick up the last 10 yards and tie the game 7-7.

Fuller handed the ball to Andrew Coke ’16, who pitched it to wide receiver Troy Doles ’16 on a reverse. Instead of running, Doles aired it out to the end zone, where a diving Strachan put a finishing flourish on the trick play.

Brown’s defense has excelled this year at tightening up when it counts, and the unit did just that in the third quarter, forcing the Crusaders into a quick three-and-out and getting the ball back to the surging offense.

Fuller orchestrated another rapid march to the end zone, leaning on his favorite target, Strachan. The duo connected three times on the drive, the third of which was a third-down strike for 12 yards and Strachan’s second touchdown of the game.

With a 14-7 lead, the Brown defense went back to work, halting the Crusader attack again and forcing a punt. Fuller hit Jette for two big gains, and Senne finished off the drive with a 40-yard field goal to make it 17-7. The kick marked a career-long for Senne and the first time Brown has scored on three straight drives this year.

But for all the momentum Bruno built in the third and early fourth quarter, the home team made some costly

errors down the stretch to allow Holy Cross to claw its way back.

Three-and-outs on each of their last three possessions meant the Bears drained very little time from the clock, and two fourth-quarter personal foul penalties — a clipping call that negated a Brown first down and a facemask that moved Holy Cross into the red zone — set up the Crusaders with short fields. They capitalized, scoring the game-tying touchdown with just a minute left in regulation.

Brown scored on the first play of overtime, using the tried-and-true strategy of Fuller throwing to Strachan. The quarterback perfectly timed a throw down the middle for Strachan, who spun away from his coverage just in time to haul in the touchdown. Holy Cross answered with a two-play drive and 21-yard touchdown catch by Kalif Raymond.

Neither side moved the ball with much success early in the game. The weather conditions were wet and sloppy at kickoff, hurting offensive production. A defensive contest would seem to bode well for a Bruno team that has struggled to put points on the board this season — averaging just 12.3 points per game entering Saturday.

In the first quarter, Bruno’s schemes seemed to work, but the team did not execute them sharply. Had it not been for four first-half drops by open receivers — two of which came on third down — Fuller would have completed his first eight passes and Brown might have found the end zone earlier in the game.

Fortunately for the Bears, their

struggling offense didn’t hurt them much, thanks to similar shortcomings by the Crusaders. While poor receiver play slowed Bruno, Holy Cross was done in early by an inept ground attack. Through their first 10 rush attempts, the Crusaders had just 14 rushing yards to their credit.

The Bruno front eight was their primary obstacle. Xavier Russo ’15 was missing his partner-in-crime Dan Giovacchini ’15 due to injury, but that did not keep him from registering five first-half and eight total tackles.

The defensive line proved difficult to penetrate once again, with Chad Berry ’16, Ludovic Richardson ’16 and Zach Sparber ’15 accounting for three tackles a piece before halftime.

But the Crusaders adapted to the Bears’ stingy run defense. After all but abandoning its ground game, Holy Cross marched the field for the first time late in the second quarter. The 14play, 78-yard drive comprised a heavy diet of screen passes and bubble routes.

With Bruno on Holy Cross’ heels, Crusader tailback Gabe Guild struck for a nine-yard touchdown run to score the lone points of the first half.

The Bears’ elation after Senne’s game-winner was clear: The kicker ran the distance of the field before doing his best World Cup impersonation, sliding on his stomach into the end zone while rest of the roster mobbed him.

The victory propels the Bears to .500 on the year and gives them a twogame winning streak as they head to Princeton next week to resume Ivy League play.

8 sports day FOOTBALL

Bears defeat Holy Cross in season’s best showing Despite petty penalties, Bruno maintains tough offense and defense in second-straight win

By ANDREW FLAX SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The football team crawled back to an even record Saturday, defeating the College of the Holy Cross 27-24 at home in double overtime. Kicker Grant Senne ’16 proved to be the hero, drilling a chip-shot 23-yard field goal to hand Bruno (2-2) the victory. But it was another strong all-around effort from an improving team. Here’s a breakdown of the Bears’ effort in week four:

ANALYSIS

What’s strong As always, the Bruno run defense was stifling. Four different Crusaders carried the ball five or more times, and none was able to average three yards per attempt. The achievement is all the more impressive given that Bruno was without star inside linebacker and captain Dan Giovacchini ’15, who missed the contest with a high ankle sprain.

Zach Gillen ’16 was a big reason for the Bears’ success. Gillen played sparingly in the season’s first three games, totaling just four tackles, but he busted out in a big way against Holy Cross. He broke up a pass and tallied 12 total tackles and eight solos.

Marcus Fuller ’15 had another career game. He doubled his season touchdown total with a pair of tosses and completed 20 of 37 passes for 240 yards. Perhaps most importantly, Fuller and the Bears as a team did not turn the ball over once, throwing no interceptions and never fumbling the ball despite cold and rain.

In lockstep with their quarterback, wide receivers Alex Jette ’17 and Brian Strachan ’15 continued their great performances. Jette, who last year became the first first-year in team history to earn first-team AllIvy honors, continued his breakout campaign with three catches for 53 yards. Strachan, nominally a running back entering the season, has played almost exclusively out wide since the season opener and had his best game of the year against the Crusaders. He caught eight balls for 98 yards and all three of Bruno’s touchdowns, including a spectacular reception from fellow receiver Troy Doles ’16 on a trick play.

The Bears also finally found some success pounding the rock, despite the absence of last week’s running weapon Seth Rosenbauer ’16 due to a head injury. Unlike the Crusaders, four Bears had two or more carries, and each broke the three yards per carry mark. Andrew Coke ’16 led the way, posting a season-high 89 yards on 18 carries, including a season-topping 31-yard gain.

What’s wrong The Bears hurt themselves badly with penalties. A whopping nine flags cost them 68 yards. Many of the penalties were small, easily fixable

transgressions that indicated a certain sloppiness: four false starts, an offsides and an illegal formation. But most backbreaking were two personal fouls on consecutive drives in the final five minutes of regulation.

The Bears had a 17-10 lead and the ball with 4:08 left on the clock, giving them a chance to ice the game with a few first downs. But after a firstdown completion on third down, a flag brought the play back and put Bruno in a third-and-long it could not convert, forcing a three-and-out.

On the ensuing Crusader drive, the Bears gave up a long completion and then were called for a facemask that gave Holy Cross the ball on the Brown 11-yard line, enabling the team to tie the game three plays later. The quarter was not quite as bad as Bruno’s fourth-quarter effort against Harvard, but it was a clear sign that the team is not yet at its best in crunch time.

Echoing their game against the University of Rhode Island, the Bears had trouble hanging on to Fuller’s passes in the rain. The conditions can be blamed, and they didn’t help the receiving corps, but the wideouts must soften up their hands if the offense is to reach its full potential.

It seems harsh to say the pass defense was a problem, but Holy Cross was able to move the ball much more effectively through the air than on the ground. Dynamic Crusaders quarterback Peter Pujals completed over twothirds of his passes, 30 of 44, for 252 yards. The Bruno secondary ceded yardage in chunks at times, allowing six completions of over 15 yards.

But it did force Pujals into throwing two interceptions, and the Crusaders only managed 5.7 yards per pass play, falling well short of Bruno’s 6.6-yard mark.

What’s new Gillen was the game’s most effective fresh face. His 12 tackles were the most any Bruno player has registered in a game this season. If Giovacchini misses another week with his sprained ankle, the team can rest easy knowing its front seven is in good hands. And even if the captain can return, Gillen has certainly shown enough to merit much more playing time.

The Bears played their best game of the season for the fourth straight week. Fuller has grown over the course of the season, improving markedly each week and leading the offense to top its own point totals each successive game. The Bears certainly have a ways to go, with penalties, drops and inconsistency still rearing their ugly heads at inopportune times, but their ability is evident.

The Bears will pick their Ivy League schedule back up Saturday on the road against Princeton with a two-game winning streak and the accompanying momentum behind them. The Tigers are considered by some to be the conference favorites this season, and playing them on the road may present an even tougher challenge than facing Harvard at home did. But if Bruno can continue to improve at its current pace, it should give Princeton all it can handle.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2014

W. FIELD HOCKEY

ORLANDO LUIS PARDO LAZO / HERALD

Brown field hockey player Clayton Christus ’15 fends for a ground ball in preparation to score a goal against Lehigh in Sunday’s suspenseful match, which ended in a 4-2 victory.

Bears seize momentum with two wins Brown beats Lehigh and Providence College, gets on track to post first winning record since 2006

By MATTHEW BROWNSWORD CONTRIBUTING WRITER

After a passive loss Wednesday to Quinnipiac (5-8), the field hockey team needed to bounce back in a big way this weekend against Lehigh University and — more importantly — against crosstown power Providence College (9-6).

And bounce back they did, defeating Lehigh 4-2 Sunday and PC 2-0 Monday.

Goals from Katherine Kallergis ’18 and Jaclyn Torres ’17 propelled Bruno (8-3, 1-2 Ivy) to a win over its neighbor. Shannon McSweeney ’15 was under siege the whole game — PC had 15 penalty corners to Brown’s two and outshot Brown 32-7 — but the senior managed to close the door on the potent Friars, finishing with an incredible 19 saves.

McSweeney “was rock solid against Providence,” said Head Coach Jill Reeve. “She is the commander in the backfield, and she deserved this shutout.”

Already the record holder for the most saves made in a single season for Brown field hockey, McSweeney is approaching a more significant milestone: the most career saves for a Brown goalie in field hockey.

“It’s sort of funny because it would be nice to pass that mark, but at the end of the day, the number of saves doesn’t mean much,” McSweeney said.

“I’m fortunate in that I’ve been able to

play for four years and that’s a huge piece of it.”

Kallergis opened the scoring with 50 seconds left in the first half, taking a pass from Meghan O’Donnell ’15 and squeaking it past the sliding Providence goalkeeper. It was Kallergis’s first career goal and the ninth assist from O’Donnell, who now ranks tied for ninth in the Ivy League in points.

“I was so excited to get my first goal, especially against such a good team” such as PC, Kallergis said. “It put us on the front foot and set the pace for the rest of the game.”

“Our forwards are dangerous,” Reeve said. “Their speed and unpredictability are difficult to manage. As the season has progressed, they are finding each other more and creating deadly combination plays.”

PC started the second half hot and carried that momentum for the majority of the period until Hannah Rogers ’16 settled an O’Donnell through ball and slid the ball to Torres, who put it into the back of the net.

With PC down two goals, it pressed higher and higher up the field, only to be stonewalled by a combination of Brown defenders, including Katarina Angus ’17, Clayton Christus ’15 and Anna Masini ’16.

“I owe everything about my performance today to the people back there with me, not only our defenders, but also our defensive corner unit and the mids who come back in defensive roles,” McSweeney said.

“They’re the people who pressure the other team and allow me to make saves. What today came down to was the defense getting enough pressure

on the ball to allow for a predictable shot, which makes my job easy.”

The game marked the first time since 2010 that the Bears have beaten PC, also marking the first time that any of the players on this year’s team had experienced a win against the Friars.

“I think the win over Providence was huge for so many reasons,” McSweeney said. “It wasn’t necessarily the result that was so significant for us, but the way that we played the game. We had a really outstanding team effort for 70 minutes that showed exactly what we are capable of accomplishing together.”

Against Lehigh (4-10), Brown relied on three unanswered goals from Emma Quigley ’18, Alexis Miller ’16 and Christus to overcome the Mountain Hawks.

After 16 minutes, Brown went down a goal, courtesy of a tip in from Lehigh forward Amanda Granger.

But the Bears battled back: Quigley latched onto a Kallergis shot to put home her first goal in a Brown uniform and tie the game at one apiece.

Lehigh was able to scare Bruno after Miller’s and Christus’ goals. Jackie Renda slotted home a penalty stroke to pull the Mountain Hawks to within one, but Rogers answered back with a goal to put the Bears two ahead and left no room for any upset dreams Lehigh might have had.

With six games to play, Bruno notched two wins this weekend that put the team in a good spot to achieve its first winning record since 2006.

But the road ahead will not be easy: Two of the Bears’ next three games are against Ivy League rivals Princeton (3-8, 2-1) and Cornell (8-3, 3-0).

today 9

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2014

menu

living the dream

SATELLITE DINING JOSIAH’S Hummus Plate BLUE ROOM South Indian Chicken Curry Soups: Organic Butternut Squash, Turkey Sausage and Kale, Three Bean Chili ANDREWS COMMONS Pastas: Meatball, Mac and Cheese

DINING HALLS SHARPE REFECTORY LUNCH

DINNER

Grilled Montreal Chicken, Cheese Ravioli Salad with Lemon, Baked Potato Bar LUNCH

Orange Crusted Turkey with Orange Sauce, Mediterranean Eggplant Saute

VERNEY-WOOLLEY

Buffalo Wings, Grilled Key West Chicken, Zucchini Parmesan Sandwich, Curly Fries

DINNER

Thai Basil Pork Stir Fry, Baked Chicken, Thai Basil Tempeh Stir Fry, Vegan Oven Roasted Tofu

sudoku

DAVID BRAUN / HERALD

Classified Visuals, an up-and-coming dance crew, performs live in Providence on Saturday. Fresh on the local dance scene, the crew emphasizes brotherhood, family and the shared pursuit of their dreams.

comic Cat Ears | Najateé McNeil ’17

crossword

calendar TODAY

TOMORROW

5:30 P.M. THE POLITICS OF KINSHIP IN THE BACCHAE

11 A.M. ‘A WIRELESS REVOLUTION’

Judith Butler, professor of comparative literature at the University of California at Berkeley, delivers the Roger B. Henkle Memorial Lecture on the Bacchae. Granoff Center, Martinos Auditorium

Joy Laskar, senior VP of the Quantum Electro Opto Systems communications division, discusses his research on technology that will meet low-power, low-energy demands of portable electronic devices. Barus and Holley 190

6 P.M. CALIFORNIANA: BLENDING ITALIAN AND

6 P.M. CINEBRASIL 2014

CALIFORNIAN CUISINE

Two Los Angeles chefs host a “Cooking Master Class” featuring a menu including burrata crostini and berry cobbler. International House, 8 Stimson Ave. 6:30 P.M. OUTSIDE HOMONORMATIVITY

As part of Coming Out Week, this panel explores the intersection of coming out and homonormativity. Salomon 003

The annual Brazilian Film Festival showcases films that span a variety of genres and investigate diverse themes, from disability to security in urban neighborhoods.

BERT, Carmichael Auditorium 7 P.M. PROVIDENCE MAYORAL CANDIDATES’ DEBATE

Mayoral candidates Jorge Elorza, Buddy Cianci and Daniel Harrop ’76 MD’79 debate issues in a forum moderated

by Ross Cheit, professor of public policy and political science. Salomon 101

10 commentary

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2014

EDITORIAL

Don’t be so quick to judge Obama As Obama administration officials turn over, those exiting have promptly published accounts of their time in Washington and reviews of the president’s leadership. With each Cabinet member who retires and writes a tell-all book about the administration, commentators move progressively closer to writing the final chapter of President Obama’s biography. They have widely ignored any praise and incessantly recited all criticisms.

This trend began with books by former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and last week, Leon Panetta, who served as Central Intelligence Agency director and secretary of defense, began a tour to promote his new book, “Worthy Fights.” Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan called the memoir “obnoxiously partisan.” CNN senior political analyst David Gergen said it was of “real value today” and required “guts.”

But even worse, many have already jumped to judge this presidency as though it were over.

New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, in praising former President Bill Clinton for his “unappeasable hunger,” compared the former president to Obama, who still has two years to write his legacy. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has already ranked the presidents of the last century, putting Obama third after Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson in a Rolling Stone cover story. Michael Moore said he will be remembered as the first black president and “that’s it.” And Aaron David Miller, distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, declared in the Washington Post that Obama will not earn “the stamp of presidential greatness.”

With just over two and a quarter years remaining, the world can still change.

Al-Qaeda bombed the USS Cole with only 14 weeks left in the Clinton administration. The Tet Offensive, which was in great part responsible for turning public support against the Vietnam War, began and ended in the last year of the Johnson administration. President George W. Bush wrestled with the Great Recession in his last four months in office and right up until Jan. 20. Not to mention John F. Kennedy, who held the Oval Office for under 150 weeks, or just 30 more than remain in this term. Obama may still achieve what Miller coined an “FDR/LBJ moment.”

Presidents are judged as much for their character as their accomplishments, and America’s image of Obama as a person and leader is all but cemented. But his actions cannot yet be evaluated, and doing so not only is meaningless but also undermines the potential for the next two years. First, it encourages the administration to search for more radical policies to save a legacy. Second, it feeds the fire of speculation and anticipation of upcoming elections and a sense that the country should be thinking about what to hope for in 2017 rather than 2015.

Even the most ambitious policymakers probably accept that it is unlikely Obama will have another chance at comprehensive domestic policy reform, particularly if the Republicans win control of the Senate in three weeks. Much of what remains — as is common in presidents’ second terms — will be foreign policy. In that sphere, there is no shortage of crises. Discussions of legacy and the 2016 election distract from the reality that this commander-in-chief is still responsible for the country’s safety.

Obama will not be in office for the bulk of the fighting ahead in Iraq, Syria and Ukraine. But what he achieves in the next two years could set our country’s course for decades. He does not have an obvious Fort Sumter, Pearl Harbor or 9/11, but this is undeniably a critical time for world order. One hundred twenty weeks as the most powerful figure in the world should not be taken lightly by the president, pundits or the American people.

Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board: Natasha Bluth ’15, Alexander Kaplan ’15, Katherine Pollock ’16 and James Rattner ’15. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.

A N G E L IA WA N G

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Attack on capitalism misses the mark To the Editor: I would like to thank David Katzevich ’16 for his enlightening opinions column, “Climate change: End capitalism or end the world” (Oct. 10). Unlike many young radical collectivists, Mr. Katzevich acknowledges that capitalism has improved the human condition by causing “rapid technological progress and an unprecedented jump in human life expectancy,” and been efficient in converting unused natural resources into materials for housing, food, fuel and the technological devices we all depend upon to live. Such honest admission is refreshing.

Sadly, and illogically, Mr. Katzevich contradicts himself and has issued a call to seize and destroy the very system of banking, trade and entrepreneurship from which he has benefited his entire life, demanding a “rationally governed society that produces for human needs rather than corporate greed.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ve heard this slogan before. Show me any society supposedly built on such a model, and I will

To the Editor: The Herald has written about the Brown Divest Coal Campaign being renamed Fossil Free Brown (“Divest Coal expands goals under new name,” Oct. 10), but why not look back at the idea of a resource-depletion tax applied to all fossil fuels, as proposed by David G. Wilson, now an emeritus professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of

An opinions column in Friday’s Herald (“Katzevich ’16: Climate change: End capitalism or end the world,” Oct. 10) incorrectly stated that over half of the world’s wildlife species have already perished. In fact, over half of the world’s wildlife populations have already perished. The column also misstated the relative size of the ongoing extinction: It is one of the greatest mass extinctions in world history, not the greatest. The Herald regrets the errors.

Sections

Visuals & Production

Business

Arts & Culture Editor EmmaJean Holley

Managing Editors Mathias Heller Sona Mkrttchian

Features Editors Phoebe Draper Sabrina Imbler

Design Editors Brisa Bodell Einat Brenner Mie Morikubo Assistant: Carlie Peters

General Managers Jennifer Aitken Nicole Shimer

Senior Editors Maddie Berg Katherine Cusumano Kate Nussenbaum

Metro Editors Mariya Bashkatova Kate Kiernan Molly Schulson

BLOG DAILY HERALD Editor-in-Chief Georgia Tollin Managing Editors Charlotte Bilski David Oyer POST- MAGAZINE Editor-in-Chief Adam Asher COMMENTARY Editorial Page Editors Alexander Kaplan James Rattner Opinions Editors Gabriella Corvese Robyn Sundlee Maggie Tennis

Sports Editors Caleb Miller Dante O’Connell University News Editors Kiki Barnes Michael Dubin Maxine Joselow Tonya Riley

Video Editor Henry Chaisson Graphics Editor Avery Crits-Christoph Web Producers Harsha Yeddanapudy Abdullah Yousufi Copy Desk Chief Claire Postman Assistant: Madeline DiGiovanni Illustrations Editor Angelia Wang

Technology? His plan included paying the income to everyone, equally — if people acted to minimize their own fossil fuel use, they would individually be rewarded, so there’s a direct and individual incentive. And it would be kept out of the hands of politicians, whose only role would be to set the rate at a national level.

Peter Richardson Professor of Engineering and Physiology

CORRECTIONS

Editor-in-Chief Eli Okun

Science & Research Editors Isobel Heck Sarah Perelman

Scott Lloyd Database Administrator, Facilities Management

Consider a resource-depletion tax

Editorial Leadership

Photo Editors Head: David Deckey Brittany Comunale Samuel Kase Sydney Mondry Arjun Narayen Tom Sullivan

show you human suffering on a massive scale. Mr. Katzevich’s hysterical call to “raise hell” against “the armed corporate state” may satisfy a savage disposition, but it is mere hooliganism and hardly an intelligent or rational action to make the world a better place.

In defense of capitalism, I recommend the writings of Ayn Rand (e.g., “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”) and Milton and Rose Friedman (“Free to Choose”) as the antidote to Mr. Katzevich’s descent into madness. What he does not understand is that the keys to wealth generation and human progress are the rights to keep what you earn and to trade freely. Any less is theft, violence and social collapse.

Or maybe this is what he really wants to accomplish.

Something to ponder as I drink my hot toddy in my fossil fuel-heated living room this winter.

Directors Sales: Winnie Shao Finance: Sarah Levine Finance: Sameer Sarkar Alumni Relations: Alison Pruzan Business Dev.: Melody Cao

facebook.com/browndailyherald

Location: 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. www.browndailyherald.com

@the_herald

Editorial contact: 401-351-3372 herald@browndailyherald.com

browndailyherald.com

Business contact: 401-351-3260 gm@browndailyherald.com

Office Manager Shawn Reilly

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

Sales Managers Regional: Edward Clifford Regional: Sarah Pariser Regional: Ananya Shukla Regional: Jessica Urrutia Student Group: Moniyka Sachar

Commentary: The editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial page board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reflect the opinions of their authors only.

Finance Managers Collections: Jacqueline Finkelsztein Collections: Joshua Tartell Operations: Jessica O’Dell Alumni Relations Manager Engagement: Sarah Park Business Dev. Manager Project Leader: Kaden Lee

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

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

The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement and once during Orientation by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Single copy free for each member of the community. Subscription prices: $280 one year daily, $140 one semester daily.

Copyright 2014 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Postmaster: Please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906.

commentary 11

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2014

Another breed of diversity WALKER MILLS opinions columnist

Last year, the Undergraduate Council of Students passed a resolution calling for an increase in the proportion of faculty of color at the University, particularly in the science, technology, engineering and math fields. There are many kinds of diversity, and I would never want to overshadow or disregard the importance of racial and ethnic diversity.

But I feel that there is another kind of diversity from which the faculty could benefit. The University could hire a high-ranking retired military officer as a lecturer. The relative lack of both student and faculty veterans on our campus is a glaring hole in the flag of diversity we try to fly so proudly.

Over the last several years, there has been a growing trend of higher education embracing the military, particularly at elite universities. A New York Times article on the subject quoted Peter Mansoor, a military historian at Ohio State University, who said, “In the wake of the Iraq and Afghan wars, academia realizes that warfare is not going to go away, and it’s better to understand than ignore it.” In a past column, I pointed out that Brown is now the only Ivy League school that doesn’t have an on-campus ROTC unit (“Who needs

whom,” March 10). Soon, we will be the only Ivy League school that can’t offer its students classes on leadership or military history taught by those who are the most qualified to teach those subjects — the generals and admirals who lead our nation’s finest. General Stanley McChrystal teaches at Yale, Admiral Mike Mullen teaches at Princeton and Admiral Eric Olson teaches at Columbia, while Harvard has repeatedly invited top-level military officials to

Locke, who expressed surprise that the University’s relationship with the Naval War College was not forged earlier. Brown and the Naval War College have existed in close proximity for 130 years.

And last week, Patriot Battalion, the Army ROTC unit based at Providence College, conducted exercises on Pembroke Field. It is an exciting step, but only a brief respite for Brown’s cadets that have to commute across town for every other training

ral William McRaven was named as the next chancellor of the University of Texas System. McRaven had previously been in charge of U.S. Special Operations Command. I’ve picked only a few of the best known examples to highlight a clear trend across top-notch U.S. universities — the hiring of command-level retired military personnel for both administrative and teaching positions.

Some might caution against hiring faculty without backgrounds

President Paxson has repeatedly called for Brown to be a leading university — why not recruit some of the nation’s most seasoned leaders to come here and teach?

give guest lectures on campus. Yale, Princeton, Columbia and Harvard were ranked as the top four history departments nationally by USA Today. Brown was ranked ninth.

We have made small steps, however. In June, President Christina Paxson signed an agreement with the Naval War College in Newport creating ties between the two institutions. I absolutely laud this initiative, but I would echo the sentiments of Director of the Watson Institute for International Studies Richard

event during the year.

Universities across the nation have also been embracing top soldiers and sailors in administrative positions. In 2013, Admiral James Stavridis was named Dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He had previously been the North Atlantic Treaty Orgaization’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. This past summer, after giving a widely publicized commencement address at the University of Texas at Austin, Admi-

in academia. But a quick look at the biographies of senior U.S. military officers yields a glut of doctoral and graduate degrees from elite universities. And the University has also hired faculty without academic backgrounds in the past. Professorat-Large Ricardos Lagos Escobar served as the president of Chile. Stephen Kinzer, while a journalist-inresidence and not a full-time professor, is teaching two popular classes this semester and spent most of his career at the New York Times.

The University has more to gain from this than many other universities because of the dearth of veterans on campus. In 2012, we had twelve.

Veterans add diversity of opinion to College Hill as well as a wealth of life experience that is dramatically different from those of the average student. But generals and admirals from command-level positions hired as faculty members would be invaluable to Brown in terms of enriching the academic and research climate and also for teaching undergraduates.

McChrystal’s seminar on leadership at Yale has 20 spots. Over 200 students applied in spring 2012.

Paxson has repeatedly called for Brown to be a leading university — why not recruit some of the nation’s most seasoned leaders to come here and teach? If the University wants to be serious about facilitating tough conversations and hiring the best faculty available while continuing to champion diversity, it needs to look no further than minds educated in Annapolis and at West Point and honed on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Walker Mills ’15 is planning on commissioning as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Marines Corps and would be happy to talk to you regarding this topic. He can be reached at walker_mills@brown.edu.

Heated rhetoric doesn’t stop climate change NED WILLIG guest columnist

Last week’s opinions column by David Katzevich ’16 (“Climate change: End capitalism or end the world,” Oct. 10) regarding the irreconcilable differences between capitalism and ending climate change deserves attention, as it places two incredibly broad topics against each other — and fails to understand the intricacies of both. Additionally, it fails to provide a substantive suggestion on how to go about producing any real change.

As someone with a lifelong passion for the environment and preserving the Earth, I believe our environmental problems are too severe for extremes to dominate the conversation and impede progress of any kind. Economic and natural systems are far from rival entities and can even benefit from each other.

First, it is important to note that climate change is an international problem and is not constrained by any economic worldview.

China is one of the largest emitters of pollution and greenhouse gases, and is not exactly a textbook capitalist society. To mitigate global warming, global society must make significant changes to move away from fossil fuel use and reduce pollution of all forms to reduce the impact on the environment.

This doesn’t require a political revolution. It requires a change in everyday habits. These types of changes come through concerted effort, thought and action. Many businesses are at fault, but it is entirely possible to demand

changes in harmful practices. Companies that pollute should be made to pay the true cost of their products — for example, the cost of mountain-top removal, acid-mine drainage, etc. — rather than push these costs onto citizens. If companies had to pay the real cost of their actions, sustainable alternatives might become a more realistic option. This is where the voice of the people is important in order to demand reform and legislation. The United

sustainable energy sources, more efficient production processes and great amounts of recycled material.

Another form of such eco-capitalism is environmental entrepreneurship, exemplified by the environmental credits market. When industries pollute and destroy wetlands in the United States, they are required to create or restore areas to offset their produced losses.

This is lucrative for companies that specialize

Economic and natural systems are far from rivaling entities and can even benefit from each other.

States has already been successful at reducing emissions from sulfur, chlorofluorocarbons, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane and other horrible pollutants, but regulation is still nowhere near what it needs to be to successfully protect the environment.

Capitalism is not inherently in opposition to environmental protection, and businesses that invest in the natural environment can earn fruitful returns. A whole sector of our economy has risen to meet the demands of a population that wants more ecologically conscious products produced using more sustainable practices. This economy is not just hybrid cars, farmers’ markets and fair-trade coffee, but also includes businesses that use

in environmental restoration. While not outright reducing the effects of climate change, the use of environmental credits does restore ecosystems, which provide space for threatened species. This is a step toward a more ecologically conscious world.

For future political, business and environmental leaders, recognizing that it is possible to protect our natural resources and achieve economic success is crucial to solving these global issues. Beyond simple supply and demand, there is a tremendous amount of work that adopts practices and frameworks to achieve environmental and economic success. These practices are known as ecosystembased management, which evaluates environ-

mental problems holistically by placing humans within the ecosystems and allows both human and environmental needs to be reconciled within a capitalist system.

There are significant problems that we are facing, and very smart people are working to solve them. To say climate change and capitalism cannot coexist ignores all the work that is being done to achieve progress on environmental issues globally. Of course everything would be easier if our world was slightly different, our economic system was more humane and our political system was not so heavily influenced by the fossil fuel and extraction industries. We have a long way to go before we reduce our environmental footprint, and whether we can get there is a whole different conversation. But we have to take any step we can. It doesn’t take revolutions, it takes small steps and conscious changes.

Transforming issues into a binary debate becomes an excuse to blame the other side and avoid actually having to create substantive ideas regarding how to solve these problems. The nuances and intricate interconnections of these issues require conscientious diligence to understand and to solve. This conversation demands educated viewpoints, not just rhetoric. Our future and current leaders must understand that today’s global issues cannot be painted with broad brushstrokes and recognize that it is possible both to protect our natural resources and achieve economic success.

Ned Willig ’16 can be reached at edwin_willig@brown.edu.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2014

THE

BROWN DAILY HERALD arts & culture Exhibition uses surrealism to convey themes of femininity, identity Artist Ellen Wetmore unveils exhibition, ‘Grotesques,’ at Sarah Doyle Women’s Center

By CLARISSA CLEMM CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Abject horror, dissociation and a general state of anxiety — these are some of the emotions elicited in “Grotesques,” an exhibition by Ellen Wetmore that opened in the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center Oct. 6 and will be on display until the end of October.

Wetmore, an artist and associate professor of art at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, seeks to communicate themes of femininity, family and identity through the “surreal image metaphors” in her work, she wrote in her exhibit statement.

“Grotesques” features highdefinition videos portraying “feminist entanglements of death and

regeneration,” Wetmore told The Herald. She said she chose to work in this medium because “people accept what happened in front of the camera as real,” adding that, “It’s fun to suggest some illusions, like a person who has walked out of the ocean dry or someone going out to lunch with their husband’s head.”

Wetmore described surrealism as an important aspect of her work.

“Surrealism means taking the dreams out of your head and out of your unreliable subconscious,” Wetmore said. She concerns herself with “how we take those images of ourselves and bring them to surface so other people can see it,” she added.

Feminist spaces such as the SDWC are a unique avenue for this connection because they offer a “place where women can be women and talk freely about things they might have to edit out in other circles,” she said. Her work centers around conversations of body image and distortion.

“What you see in your mind is very different from what everybody else sees,” Wetmore said. “Where we create ourselves as people, how we become a member of a certain ethnic group, all of that happens in your mind.”

As someone who has “ideas knocking around” in her head most of the time, Wetmore said she uses her art as a way to catalogue her thoughts and the environment she creates in her own life. Reflecting this tendency, “Grotesques” features images from her home life, including footage of her sons and husband.

Adele Ruppert ’16, SDWC gallery coordinator, said the intersection of personal and professional spheres struck her.

“It was interesting to see these autonomous people in her work and then realize during the installation that they’re her family,” she said, adding that it “brings up ideas about domesticity.”

RHEA STARK / HERALD

Artist Ellen Wetmore’s exhibit, “Grotesques,” will be on display at the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center through the end of October.

Wetmore said as an artist and mother she emphasizes the difficulty of reconciling feminism with motherhood and the sacrifices women make.

“If you’re going to allow (your children’s) egos to grow and to develop into their own egos, you have to repress your ego.”