Monday, November 24, 2014

THE

BROWN DAILY HERALD vol. cxlix, no. 116

since 1891

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2014

U. names first vice provost for the arts

Unsealed documents shed light on assault case Contradictory witness testimonies, differing accounts of victim’s route to Brown dorm emerge

COURTESY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY, ABI KULSHRESHTHA AND KATE NUSSENBAUM

David Adler ’14, Abi Kulshreshtha ’15 and Kate Nussenbaum ’15 were announced this weekend as Rhodes Scholarship recipients. All three displayed strong commitments to research and extracurricular involvement.

By EMMA JERZYK SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Documents unsealed by a R.I. Superior Court judge last week reveal new details about a case between a Providence College student and the two Brown undergraduates that she alleges sexually assaulted her last fall.

Judge Alice Gibney allowed the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office to release dozens of pages of police and court records Thursday after news organizations requested that they be unsealed.

Gibney denied the motion to keep sealed the court documents by John Grasso, a lawyer representing one of the Brown undergraduates.

The Providence Police launched a criminal investigation in the spring, and the Brown students — then first-years — were asked by the University to leave campus around finals time. But a grand jury decided in late August not to indict the two students.

One of the two Brown students, both of whom played for the football team, is no longer a student at Brown, while the other is still at Brown but no longer appears on the roster. A third student who was implicated in some documents but not investigated by the police also remains a student at Brown.

According to a Feb. 13 incident report that is among the newly released documents, the PC student told police that her body fell limp after one shot of vodka when she was out with her friends » See ASSAULT, page 2

Three from Brown win Rhodes Scholarships Scholarship tally marks second time since 1970 that Brown has boasted multiple winners

By KIKI BARNES AND MICHAEL DUBIN UNIVERSITY NEWS EDITORS

Two undergraduates and one recent alum were awarded the prestigious

Rhodes Scholarships Saturday, marking only the second year since 1970 that more than one Brown applicant was chosen and the second year ever with more than two.

David Adler ’14, Abi Kulshreshtha ’15 and Kate Nussenbaum ’15 are among this year’s 32 Rhodes Scholarship recipients who will begin their studies at the University of Oxford next fall.

“I think we had a really deep pool,” said Linda Dunleavy, associate dean of

the College for fellowships. “We had an extraordinary group of students who went forward.”

There were 12 finalists from Brown, representing 10 of the 16 districts in the United States recognized by the Rhodes Trust, Dunleavy said. “I think the strength of the pool overall this year was what made it possible for us to be successful in this way.”

The Rhodes Trust implemented a » See RHODES, page 3

Cogut Center Director Michael Steinberg will lead initiative to expand, internationalize the arts

By JOSEPH ZAPPA SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Michael Steinberg, director of the Cogut Center for the Humanities and professor of history, will become the University’s first vice provost for the arts starting Jan. 1, Provost Vicki Colvin announced in a community-wide email late Friday afternoon.

The mid-year appointment comes as the University launches efforts to expand the arts — efforts that will include pursuing several goals for the » See ARTS, page 4

Dean T. remembered for 40 years of commitment to Brown Students, colleagues reminisce about late Dean Marjorie Thompson’s vivacity at memorial service

By JOSEPH ZAPPA SENIOR STAFF WRITER

About 100 Brown community members gathered Friday to commemorate the life of Marjorie Thompson ’74 PhD’79 P’02 P’07 P’09 P’12 P’14 P’16, late associate dean of biological sciences, at a public memorial service in the First Unitarian Church of Providence.

The service drew a crowd of diverse age groups, a testament to the mark Thompson — who died Sept. 15 while on leave — left on the lives of both students and fellow faculty members during her

more than 40 years at Brown.

University Chaplain Janet Cooper Nelson commenced the ceremony, recalling the countless “number of times in the 25 years I’ve been at Brown that Marjorie’s name has come into my office as an invocation of all the things we do best at Brown.”

Speeches from Thompson’s colleagues, mentees and students echoed Nelson’s sentiments.

When Jack Elias, dean of medicine and biological sciences, told his colleagues at Yale Medical School that he was leaving for College Hill, Brown alums

then studying at Yale rushed to his office to ensure “that I understood the legend of Marjorie Thompson,” Elias recalled.

“I’ve never met — in my time at Penn, Yale or Brown — anybody with a more profound legacy than Marge Thompson.”

That legacy includes a deep influence on the Division of Biology and Medicine, which houses six of the University’s concentrations, including one of its largest.

“She guided, she shaped and she drove our biology department,” said Ken Miller ’70 P’02, professor of biology.

Miller added that Thompson’s influence on advising was particularly notable.

Her commitment to students was a resounding theme of the speakers’ anecdotes.

“No person on this campus touched as many students, shaped as many lives,” Miller said.

Jennifer Bauer ’06 recalled walking into Thompson’s office early in her undergraduate career to ask about a single course. She walked out “with a full academic map” for the remainder of her Brown experience, she said.

Thompson’s attentiveness to her students often manifested in the form of laser-quick email responses — a quality that a majority of the afternoon’s 11 speakers mentioned.

Hadley Witt ’14 said she once paused in the middle of writing an email to Thompson to talk to a friend. While » See THOMPSON, page 4

M. WATER POLO

Bears win first CWPA title since 1985, gain NCAA tournament bid 7-6 triumph over No. 8 Princeton hands Bruno conference title, shot at national championship

By CALEB MILLER SPORTS EDITOR

inside

University News

Sports

Tara Torabi ’15 becomes third Brown winner of Mitchell Scholarship

David Greer, former dean of medicine and 1985 Nobel Peace Prize winner, dies

With a win over Columbia, the football team finishes fifth in the Ivy League

Women’s basketball team misses a buzzer-beater to lose its game at UNH

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weather

DAVID DECKEY / HERALD

Henry Fox ’15 fires a shot. He scored three crucial goals against the Tigers, growing his team-leading goals total to 76 on the season. His contributions helped Bruno exact revenge on Princeton for an Ivy title game loss.

The men’s water polo team took the pool against a familiar foe at the Naval Academy Sunday, squaring off with Ivy League rival Princeton in the teams’ second meeting of the year. But when the final whistle blew with the scoreboard showing a 7-6 Bruno win, the Bears had achieved something far from ordinary. The squad conquered the No. 8 Tigers in the Collegiate Water

Polo Association Eastern Championship game for its first league title in 29 years and earned a birth in the NCAA national tournament.

No. 11 Bruno (27-6, 11-1 CWPA) moves on to face the best teams of the west coast as one of the top six squads in the NCAA tournament. Two wins, first in a play-in game and then in the NCAA semifinals, would earn Bruno a shot at the national title, where the Bears would be the first non-California team ever to compete in the championship match.

Princeton (23-4, 7-1) overcame an early deficit to tie the title match at five entering the fourth quarter. Henry Fox ’15, Bruno’s leading scorer and » See WATER POLO, page 7 t o d ay

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2 university news

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2014

Torabi ’15 wins one of 12 Mitchell Scholarships Neuroscience student interested in volunteering, education set to complete masters in Ireland

By MAXINE JOSELOW UNIVERSITY NEWS EDITOR

Tara Torabi ’15 was named one of 12 recipients nationwide of the George J. Mitchell Scholarship, a competitive fellowship that offers one year of graduate study in Ireland, this weekend.

Torabi, a neuroscience concentrator originally from Granville, Ohio, who now resides in Sedona, Arizona, said she plans on using the scholarship to complete a master’s degree at the National University of Ireland at Galway. Her yearlong course of study will focus on treatment and therapy for Alzheimer’s disease.

“I’m really surprised and really humbled that I got this scholarship,” Torabi said. “What appealed to me about the Mitchell, as opposed to other scholarships such as the Rhodes or the Marshall, is that their program promotes the idea of really studying the environment, people and culture” of Ireland, she added.

The Mitchell Scholarship is one of the most selective fellowships in the country, garnering around 300 applicants for 12 spots each year, according to its website. It was established in 2000 to honor former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, who played a leading role in the peace negotiations in Northern Ireland in the 1990s.

» ASSAULT, from page 1 at Louie’s Bar on the night of Nov. 21, 2013. She said she was carried into a taxi by a Brown student she was friends with and woke up with him in a Brown dorm room after having non-consensual sex, during which she said his friend and possibly another Brown undergraduate photographed them, according to the incident report and court documents. She was then forced to perform oral sex on another Brown undergraduate, she said.

In the incident report, the PC student said she later went to Lawrence General Hospital in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

The Providence Journal reported that she went to the hospital the following Saturday when she went home for Thanksgiving break and her mother noticed bruises on her knees.

After she got back to her dorm room, the PC student said she called a friend who attends Fairfield University, the Journal reported.

Among the unsealed documents are witness statements, including one by the Fairfield student, who explained that the PC student was “an emotional mess” in the aftermath of the alleged incident.

The documents also include statements from two people who arrived at the bar with the PC student but left separately. They both said she had one or two drinks before leaving for the bar.

Some discrepancies remain. The documents include statements from those who saw the PC student on her way back to her dorm, including someone who found her in East Andrews, looking “out of place and confused” and “wearing clothes that were not her own,” and then took her to a bus stop on Thayer Street. The Journal reported that this was a custodian. But NBC 10 reported that the PC student walked to Kennedy Plaza and took a bus from there.

Many witnesses said the plaintiff was

Two Brown undergrads have been named Mitchell Scholars in past years — one in 2002 and another in 2012, said Linda Dunleavy, associate dean of the College for fellowships. “It’s an encouraging sign to me that the Mitchell is starting to notice our students and take them very seriously,” she said.

Lucas Mason-Brown ’13, who used the scholarship to study mathematics at Trinity College Dublin, “reported having a fantastic time” meeting Irish government officials, Dunleavy added.

The application process began for Torabi in August, when she applied for University nomination for the scholarship. Five students applied for nomination this year by a committee comprising deans and faculty members from various offices and departments, Dunleavy said.

After earning a nomination from the University, Torabi submitted her application in October. She then traveled to Washington to complete a Skype interview with a 10-person scholarship committee and attend a reception with members of Congress and former Mitchell Scholars.

The scholarship committee selects 20 finalists for the 12 spots. Torabi received the phone call alerting her that she was a finalist while boarding the plane back to Providence from D.C. “I was completely surprised,” she recalled.

Her Alzheimer’s research in Ireland will build on her advocacy surrounding the disease as an undergrad. She currently serves as co-president of Brown Alzheimer’s Activists, a student group

wearing black shorts and a black t-shirt Nov. 22 on her way back to PC, according to the records. A black March Madness t-shirt and black basketball shorts were included as evidence in the February police filings.

But the records also include some witness statements contradicting the PC student’s narrative of the night. “At no point was anyone holding this girl up,” one witness statement says, according to NBC 10.

“At no point did anyone force her into the cab or … to go anywhere,” it reads.

“She was walking towards the Brown University dorm on her own.”

The Journal reported that two witness statements from friends of the Brown students also offered differing recollections of the night. One said he left Louie’s with the PC student around midnight and saw her walking on her own to the dorm after being “friendly” and talkative in the taxi.

Police filed an incident report on Feb. 13 — the same day the PC student filed for a temporary restraining order, which she requested because she said she feared retribution from friends of the Brown students who attended PC. The newly public documents don’t explain why police did not file a report when the PC student and her mother went to the Providence Police Department around Nov. 23, though she was referred to an advocate from Day One, an organization that provides services to victims of sexual assault and domestic violence, the Journal reported.

Records that were presented over the summer to the grand jury that declined to indict the two Brown undergraduates cannot be released to the public, said Amy Kempe, public information officer for the Attorney General’s office. As a result, the office withheld cellphone records of the two Brown students and an explicit naked photo of the PC student, the Journal reported.

that aims to raise awareness about the disease through fundraising and outreach at local nursing homes. She also works with patients suffering from Alzheimer’s as a volunteer for Home and Hospice Care of Rhode Island.

The community service component of the scholarship will build on her engagement with the greater Rhode Island community while at Brown.

Torabi is “very committed to the mission of the Mitchell Scholarship and its commitment to public service,” Dunleavy said. “She probably has one of the most active public service records of anyone we’ve seen. Her list of activities is pretty extraordinary.”

As a sophomore, Torabi founded Brown University Brain Bee, a program that teaches students at urban high schools in Rhode Island about the brain.

Last year, she helped underrepresented high school students in Rhode Island navigate the college application process as part of the AmeriCorps College Access Program.

This year, she and a friend cofounded BruNotes, a program that offers free music lessons to Rhode Island residents who cannot afford them. She also tutors adults with learning disabilities under Partnerships for Adult Learning.

“The aspect of community service is why I applied for the Mitchell specifically,” Torabi said, adding that she appreciates that the scholarship committee looks “for people who want to apply their intellectual interests in a way that benefits and serves others.”

COURTESY OF CAROL CLAYTON

Tara Torabi ’15 pursued the Mitchell over other scholarships due to its emphasis on studying Irish culture and its focus on community service.

Broken sprinkler floods Chapin Upper-floor residents temporarily evacuated following flooding and potential water damage

By CAROLINE KELLY SENIOR STAFF WRITER

A sprinkler head that was broken on the fourth floor of Chapin House Saturday night resulted in some flooding and subsequent water damage, said Richard Hilton, associate director of residential life. No students were injured, and Facilities Management, aided by a private contractor, is working on cleaning the building and student property as well as investigating the incident, he added.

The broken sprinkler head caused the fire alarms to go off, forcing students to evacuate the building. “When I arrived on scene, the building had already been evacuated and the students in the rooms that were affected had been placed outside the building, and we were working more so on getting settled for the night,” Hilton said.

Max Mulitz ’15, who lives on the fourth floor of Chapin, said he was in his dorm room when the fire alarm went off. When the alarm sounded, Mulitz “opened the door, and the water was just monsooning out of the sprinkler in the hallway. There was a little bit of panic … (and) there were about 10 people hanging out up there.”

After evacuating the building, residents were let in to get their necessary belongings before moving elsewhere.

“By then there were maybe two or three inches of water on my floor,” Mulitz said. “Water was going down from the fourth floor to the third floor

TIMOTHY MUELLER-HARDER / HERALD

A broken sprinkler on the fourth floor of Chapin House caused two to three inches of flooding and temporarily displaced 28 students. to the second floor, just coming down the stairs … and then later, through the floors.”

After Facilities Management assessed the water damage, 28 students were displaced for the night and received emails with instructions to either make arrangements elsewhere or contact the Office of Residential Life to find temporary housing, such as open rooms or unfilled doubles, Hilton said.

Efforts to clean the building are now underway, Hilton said. “Facilities is in there now doing a cleaning of the building, and we’re working with students to have items cleaned that need to be cleaned from the water,” he said. Facilities Management brought in a contracting service that arrived on the scene at 12:30 a.m. Saturday night to start cleaning, removing

water and setting up drying equipment, he added.

At press time, 17 of the students had been let back into their rooms, and the remaining 11 are scheduled to be back in their rooms by Wednesday, Hilton said. “That is the day we’re shooting for,” he added. “If it’s sooner, then we’ll reach out to those students.”

“Everything in my room is now in plastic bags … they were really good about that,” Mulitz said. “They seem to be moving pretty quickly as far as cleaning everything.”

Cleaning services are focusing on repairs, but administrators will soon assess any student property losses, Hilton said, adding that his office is reaching out Monday to the Office of Insurance and Purchasing Services to determine how to proceed with any potential reimbursements.

university news 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2014

New contemplative studies degree blurs science-humanities line Two concentration courses being taught this spring, first formal concentrators to graduate in 2016

that are under the surfaces of many fields in academia.”

To fulfill the concentration requirements, Noorani is currently taking classes in epistemology, data analysis and mental perception. “It’s interesting to see how these concepts all combine,” she said.

“The course offerings within the concentration end up working together in surprising ways.”

“There’s a logic for the course sequence that I think the (College Curriculum Council) saw, and we’re really starting to see that on the ground,” said Catherine Kerr, assistant professor of medicine and director of translational neuroscience in the Contemplative Studies Initiative.

Kerr teaches “The Cognitive Neuroscience of Meditation,” a course that counts toward the concentration. The class focuses heavily on neuroscience, though it also has a strong interdisciplinary component, she said.

“We conduct a pretty rigorous review of literature and discuss in a pretty critical way the quality of meditation studies,” Kerr said. “Media coverage often puts forward overly positive representations of studies about mindfulness and the brain. We see that as part of our

interdisciplinary mission: to teach students how to be critical of various forms of hype around contemplative studies.”

Students learn about contemplative practices not only through classroom lectures and discussions, but also through weekly meditations called MedLabs. In these labs, students spend 10 to 15 minutes practicing meditation, including walking meditation and “breath focus” meditation, Kerr said.

“We do the meditation and learn to use that form of mindful thinking in everyday life,” Langton said. “It’s probably one of the only degrees that can be considered a self-help program at the same time.”

Willoughby Britton, assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior, is teaching UNIV 0090: “Meditation and the Brain,” a course that runs during the summer. She also runs the Clinical and Affective Neuroscience lab, one of the labs within the field at Brown.

The lab “investigates the link between contemplative practices, brain function and affective disturbances,” according to its website. Noorani said she hopes to get involved in Britton’s lab over the summer.

Britton is currently working on the “K-23 study,” which looks at three

different types of meditation practice and compares their efficacies and neurological mechanisms. “We want to see how certain practices affect people with depression anxiety — which ones work and which ones don’t,” she said.

In addition to participating in contemplative studies research at Brown, students interested in the field also have the opportunity to attend the annual International Symposium on Contemplative Studies in Boston.

Of the 1,600 attendees at the 2014 conference, 36 were current or former Brown students or faculty members, Roth wrote. These students and faculty members gave a total of more than 20 public presentations, Roth wrote, adding that “no other institution of higher education in the country was better represented.”

“The conference brought together a lot of people who are connecting research in the realm of well-being, human flourishing, mindfulness and meditation,” said Alexx Temeña ’16, a doubleconcentrator in cognitive neuroscience and contemplative psychology. Since the contemplative studies concentration was not approved until last spring, Temeña chose instead to pursue her own independent concentration in contemplative

psychology.

“I love being in a field that’s so new and still growing,” she said. “It’s a community that is quite intimate but also ranging from so many disciplines, and from all over the world too.”

Temeña said she is interested in teaching others about mindfulness, which she sees as integral to good leadership. Each summer, she teaches a class titled “Leadership by Design” at an international boarding school in Japan. She said she aims to instruct her students how to be aware of and pay attention to their inner experiences.

Contemplative studies may become more involved with social activism through a potential partnership with the Swearer Center for Public Service and its Engaged Scholars Program, Roth wrote.

Summer internships will be available for students interested in contemplative studies and social activism at the Inward Bound Mindfulness Education — a nonprofit group based in Massachusetts — and the Prison Mindfulness Institute, Roth wrote. Details will be posted on the University’s contemplative studies website in the coming weeks, he added.

Despite its success, the new field at Brown faces some obstacles, Langton and Roth both said.

“The biggest challenge for contemplative studies may be making itself a serious contender to the hard sciences in general,” Langton said. “It has brain science at its core and it’s really rigorous, but there is some fluff in the neuroscience research,” he added, noting that some papers examined in contemplative studies courses manipulate data to get the desired results.

“Another challenge will be making contemplative studies a serious discipline rather than this kind of esoteric religious mumbo jumbo that people think it is,” he added.

Fundraising presents another challenge, Roth wrote.

“To this point, the University has given contemplative studies no direct financial support, nor have we been given approval to raise funds” by the University’s Division of Advancement, he wrote, adding that this lack of access to funding threatens the concentration’s ability to meet its “goals of training the next generation of contemplative scientists, humanists, artists and social activists.”

scholar studying housing in Mexico.

As a Rhodes scholar, Adler hopes to continue to tackle “the big issues of citizen welfare” as he pursues a master’s in comparative government.

While at Brown, served as managing editor of the College Hill Independent and as assistant director and head fellow of the Writing Fellows Program.

Adler also engaged in the community beyond College Hill by teaching weekly in a South Providence school.

He also helped coordinate the Sexual Health Education Program.

Kulshreshtha, from Grapevine, Texas, said he was in Houston, the site of his interview, when he was notified he had been selected. “I was very much shocked.

In that moment, I felt very lucky,” he said. “All the other candidates were highly, highly qualified.”

Kulshreshtha, who double-concentrates in physics and economics, said he appreciates the connections between the two disciplines. “Those are two fields that I see as … to a certain extent intertwined because they both study modeling certain processes.”

“Physics studies modeling the physical world, and economics studies modeling human behavior (and) the way we interact with scarce resources,” said Kulshreshtha, who will pursue a doctorate in theoretical physics at Oxford.

“The thing that excites me most is, as someone who studies science myself, I’ll get to interact with people on a regular basis who are studying a variety of other subjects,” he said.

“The most important thing for me is that I make sure to apply my background in science and policy to larger problems that we see in our nation here. So I’m hoping that interaction with Rhodes scholars and education at Oxford will help me fulfill those goals.”

Kulshreshtha has also served as a member of the Meiklejohn Leadership Committee and as president of Brown Model United Nations and this year’s secretary-general of Brown University Simulation of the United Nations. He said his involvement in these extracurricular activities has helped him build skills that will be useful to him in pursuing his goals.

Though the idea of not receiving any feedback on the essay made her feel anxious at first, Nussenbaum said she ultimately felt relieved. “Whatever I wrote, that was it, and I wouldn’t have any pressure to revise or anything else.”

Nussenbaum began applying to several fellowships over the summer.

After the University endorsed her and the other finalists for the Rhodes Scholarship in September, she focused on her application and preparing for interviews.

Brown gives the Rhodes applicants two mock interviews in preparation.

“I actually found the mock interviews scarier than the actual interviews,” Nussenbaum said.

During the interview process Saturday, the candidates from Nussenbaum’s district waited for six hours for the selectors to decide the winners, she said.

“I guess it was just really hard for them to decide.”

After her name was announced as one of the two scholars from her district, Nussenbaum said, “I just sat there in disbelief. It was hard to process.”

Nussenbaum’s decision to pursue a Master of Science by Research at Oxford in the Department of Experimental Psychology came after working at Brown’s Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory since her sophomore year.

Her research has focused on memory and how factors related to socioeconomic status influence brain and cognitive development, she added.

Nussenbaum said she enjoys her work at the lab “and the community and the ability to talk to different people about questions that I find inspiring,” she said, adding that Dima Amso, assistant professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences, was a wonderful influence on her interests in research.

“At Brown, I’ve done some work thinking about the intersection of developmental psychology and education policy,” Nussenbaum said. The United Kingdom in particular has a strong social welfare system, which she is excited to learn about in more depth, she added.

Nussenbaum, a Herald senior editor, was not involved in the writing or editing of this article.

By ELENA WEISSMANN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

“Contemplative studies satisfies an urge that everyone has — to investigate what it means to be experiencing, to be alive,” said Henry Langton ’16, one of the first Brown students who will officially concentrate in the new degree.

The College Curriculum Council approved the concentration in May, making it the University’s 79th field of study and the country’s first contemplative studies major. Before the concentration was approved, 16 seniors graduated with independent concentrations in the field — including three in 2012 and one in 2013, wrote Harold Roth, professor of religious studies and director of the Contemplative Studies Initiative, in an email to The Herald.

Three independent concentrators in the class of 2015 are set to graduate this year, and another three members of the class of 2016 are expected to graduate with degrees in the new formal concentration, Roth wrote.

The two contemplative studies courses being taught this spring have seen steady enrollment. Nineteen students are pre-registered for UNIV 0540: “Introduction to Contemplative Studies,” which is being offered this spring and summer, and 30 students have registered for UNIV 1000: “The Cognitive Neuroscience of Meditation.”

“We are quite pleased with the interest Brown students have shown in the new concentration,” Roth wrote.

Concentrators study the “underlying philosophy, psychology and phenomenology of contemplative experience across time, cultures and traditions,” according to the University’s contemplative studies website. The concentration offers two tracks: one in the sciences and one in the humanities.

“The field allows a blurring of the lines that are so rigid between science and the humanities,” said Misbah Noorani ’17, who intends to double-concentrate in history and contemplative studies. “We get to answer some of the big questions

» RHODES, from page 1 new rule for applicants this year: They could receive no outside help on their personal statements, Dunleavy said.

“They weren’t able to get any feedback.”

“What we did in terms of supporting students was we tried to focus on their overall candidacy,” she said. By giving applicants “complete responsibility” in their responses on this section, the new rule let students formulate answers “in a really genuine way,” she added.

Having graduated from Brown in May, Adler said applying for the Rhodes “was a very productive process because I don’t think I had yet the opportunity to process the experiences I had at Brown as an undergraduate.”

Adler, originally from Los Angeles, said his time as a development studies concentrator led him to discover “intellectual puzzles (that) compel me and excite me.”

He added that the process of figuring out various major issues in society has figured heavily in his postgraduate life, including his current work as a Fulbright

ALEXIA DELHOUME / HERALD

The formal concentration in contemplative studies was approved in May and will see its first four graduates in 2016. Sixteen students have already graduated with independent concentrations in the field.

4 university news

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2014

Former Dean of Medicine, Nobel Laureate David Greer dies Winner of 1985 Peace Prize founded PLME program, advocated humanitarian medicine

By ANDREW JONES SENIOR STAFF WRITER

David Greer, former dean of medicine at Alpert Medical School who cofounded an anti-nuclear organization that received the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize, died Nov. 18 at his home in Fall River, Massachusetts, at the age of 89.

Throughout his tenure as dean of medicine from 1981 to 1992, Greer introduced a number of educational innovations, said Vincent Mor, professor of health services, policy and practice at the Med School. Greer established the Department of Family Medicine, the Department of Community Health and the Center for Gerontology and Healthcare Research, in addition to developing the Program in Liberal Medical Education.

“He was a real humanist,” said Julianne Ip, associate dean of medicine for PLME. Medicine was not solely a

scientific pursuit for Greer, but also a holistic, humanitarian one, she said.

With five other physicians, Greer created the Nobel-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War — a coalition of doctors, medical students and others involved in health care who advocated a nuclear-free world.

Before Greer’s arrival at the University in 1981, the Med School largely focused on specialty medicine. Greer transformed it to be more oriented around primary care and evidencebased medicine, Ip said.

Greer’s tenacity and sense of innovation ultimately attracted Mor to work at Brown, Mor said. Greer took Mor under his wing, incorporating him into the various projects he was building at the time.

“He was sort of like my dad,” Mor said.

Greer pushed for the University to engage with the community in Rhode Island and its surrounding towns by helping to place medical students in state agencies for their residencies and maintaining his own medical practice in Fall River, Mor said. The University is “no longer the ivory tower. It’s

actually engaged,” he added.

Though he did not know Greer closely, Jack Elias, dean of medicine and biological sciences, said Greer will be remembered for his commitment to society. Greer was partially responsible for a project that built apartments near a Rhode Island clinic so that patients with disabilities could easily access medical care, he added.

Given his holistic approach to medicine, Greer believed practicing medicine required a broad-based education rather than one centered solely on biology courses, Ip said. He lengthened PLME so that the program would be eight rather than seven years to allow students to take more courses in ethics, political science, economics and other areas of study they would not typically explore, she added.

Outside of his professional work, Greer was an avid squash player, Mor said.

He was also a family man, known to be “joined at the hip” with his wife, Ip said, adding that the caring demeanor he exuded as a father and husband extended into his work life.

“He really loved his family, and we were part of his family,” she said.

» ARTS, from page 1 arts outlined in President Christina Paxson’s strategic plan, Colvin wrote.

As the next few years under the strategic plan unfold, Steinberg hopes to infuse the arts into each student’s course of study, regardless of that student’s particular focus, he said.

There are several ways to integrate the arts into other departments, Steinberg said. These include hiring academics who study the arts, such as a scholar who researches the cultural implications of music; hiring talented professional artists in temporary or permanent positions; and offering students the opportunity to work in the professional artistic world, he added.

Steinberg also intends to establish a “global observatory” program that would offer “undergrads, grad students and faculty a chance for serious exchange with scholars in Berlin.”

If a program with Berlin were successful, he said the University would look to expand similar opportunities for international collaboration to other cities in the hopes that students and faculty members could understand “the world from the perspective” of whatever city in which they study the arts.

Administrators first got the sense that an administrative position for the arts might be necessary when the

» THOMPSON, from page 1 she was explaining to that friend how quickly Thompson responded to every one of her emails, Witt received a message from Thompson.

Thompson had anticipated and responded to Witt’s question before Witt even presented it to her.

When Witt recounted the same anecdote to a professor, that professor said of Thompson: “She doesn’t sleep. She waits,” Witt recalled.

But away from the classroom and the office, Thompson was also a caring mother of seven children, speakers said.

“Someone I saw as a University superwoman was, before all else, a mom,” Bauer said.

COURTESY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

David Greer, a former dean of medicine at Alpert Medical School who founded an organization to fight for a nuclear-free world, died Nov. 18.

Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts was built, Colvin told The Herald. Making the most of Granoff ’s facilities and planning further construction of campus performance spaces necessitated an administrative position to oversee the advancement of arts programming and facility development, she added.

Brown required an administrator who could consider the big picture and act as “a conduit for all the faculty needs and desires and priorities and who also had a big enough understanding of performance space to work with an architect,” Colvin said.

The University initially considered hiring externally for the position, Colvin said, adding that peer institutions such as Columbia and the University of Chicago have looked outside university walls for a “professor of the practice” for jobs similar to the vice provost of the arts.

But faculty members expressed more enthusiasm about the idea of hiring someone who could be a faculty leader, so the University looked inward, Colvin said.

The fact that Steinberg’s term as director of the Cogut Center ends in June made this a good year for him to switch roles, she added.

A dramaturg and one of the world’s foremost historians of music, Steinberg brings a mix of professional

know-how and scholarly knowledge to the job, said Dean of the Faculty Kevin McLaughlin P’12.

Steinberg, who came to College Hill in 2005 as the Cogut Center’s first director, holds additional posts as professor of music and German studies.

In her email to the community, Colvin described Steinberg as “an experienced and exceptionally talented academic leader,” adding that he “has developed the (Cogut) Center as a vibrant hub for the humanities on campus and cultivated dynamic communities across disciplines.”

As vice provost for the arts, Steinberg will report to Colvin and take a seat in Paxson’s cabinet, she wrote.

The new administrative job will encompass the roles of director of the Granoff Center and chair of the Creative Arts Council, which is held

by Professor of Visual Art Richard Fishman, whose term comes to an end June 30, Colvin wrote.

Fishman’s “creativity, commitment and dedication … have helped position Brown so well for the future,” she added.

As Steinberg vacates his position as director of the Cogut Center, the University plans to name his successor in a few weeks, Colvin wrote, adding that Steinberg will retain that role until June 30.

Other speakers recalled Thompson welcoming them into her home and mentoring them long after they graduated from Brown as they pursued higher degrees elsewhere.

Speakers also noted Thompson’s talent as a performer who played the guitar and sang. One of Thompson’s former students played a song from her first album.

Thompson’s commitment to her students, children, career and musical pursuits exemplifies the idea that one does not need to choose between a successful career and a fulfilling personal life, multiple speakers said.

“She just kept saying yes to herself,” Elena Suglia ’15 said, adding that Thompson’s willingness to pursue her own varied goals taught her students to do the same.

The Division of Biology and Medicine intends to create an award in Thompson’s honor that will be given to “a graduating senior who has proven to be an outstanding student and student-educator in biology,” Elias and Associate Dean for Biology Edward Hawrot wrote in an email to the division. A definite monetary amount for the award has yet to be established, Elias told The Herald.

“The fact that this is happening, and it’s happening so quickly and with so many different facets of the Brown campus rallying, tells you about the influence that this woman has had on this university,” Elias said.

“It’s hard to fathom the degree of the loss that we had with her passing,” he added.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2014

science & research 5 Discussion explores ChineseLatin American relations Day-long event analyzes countries’ growing contributions to global climate change

By NATALIE FONDRIEST STAFF WRITER

LILY CRUZ / HERALD

A new study by University psychiatrists suggests that internally reflecting on the long-term effects of unhealthful eating can help people avoid giving in to cravings and hopefully reduce the incidence of obesity.

Thinking about cravings may combat obesity Considerations of longterm effects of unhealthful foods could lead to less over-eating, study finds

By ANICA GREEN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Thinking about the long-term health effects of eating unhealthful foods may be a useful way to combat cravings, according to a study led by Kathryn Demos, assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior. She presented her findings as part of Obesity Week 2014, which took place Nov. 2-7.

Obesity Week is an annual conference hosted in Boston by the Obesity Society and the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.

Demos’ research was one of only seven studies selected for presentation out of the nearly 1,100 at the conference. Her study represents “a novel approach” to obesity studies, said Tim Moran, a representative from Obesity Week and professor of motivated behaviors and psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University.

The study is indicative of a recent shift in the field toward examining neurological treatment rather than physical activity, which has been the norm, explained Katie Becofsky, a postdoctoral research fellow who was not involved in the study.

Demos and colleagues conducted

» POLL, from page 12 working on his honors thesis for his independent concentration in postcolonial studies.

Resources with information about how to pursue undergraduate research are “out there but not always easy to find,” Brown said. A student has to be willing to initiate a conversation with a professor, which may intimidate many students and prevent them from participating in research, she added.

Several students said they wished

the study with 25 participants, aged 28 to 55, all of whom fell into the range of overweight to obese when screened by body mass index. The participants completed a computer task to determine which foods were tempting to them. Next, the researchers taught the participants to use four different mindsets to confront cravings — called “NOW,” “LATER,” “DISTRACT” and “ALLOW”. With the first mindset, “NOW,” the participant focuses on the immediate gratification of eating the food, while with the “LATER” mindset, the participant ponders the long-term negative health consequences of eating the food. When using “DISTRACT,” the participants turn their attention to something other than the food, and with “ALLOW,” participants let themselves recognize their cravings exist but also remind themselves that they should not act upon their food urges.

The researchers showed participants images of the tempting food while scanning their brains by MRI. The scientists asked them to use the mindsets at random for about a minute and then rate their cravings on a four-point scale.

The idea for this study and some of the methodology are borrowed from research around smoking cessation, Demos said, though in previous smoking studies, only the mindsets NOW and LATER were used.

Researchers found that the

LATER mindset was most effective in lowering desire for the unhealthy foods. Brain scans showed important changes in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain associated with inhibitory control and self-regulation.

“It’s possible that using this mindset or thinking this way might be able to reduce cravings,” Demos said, adding that her work takes a step further than previous research has gone. There has been a lot of research about what happens when one looks at food, but this study shows what happens when a person looks at food and thinks about it. “The way you think about food can change the way your brain responds,” she added.

The implications of this study could be important for combating obesity as well as serious related illnesses like diabetes and heart disease.

“Considering the world we live in — bombarded with advertisements for unhealthy food — it’s very important to understand the basis of decision making,” Becofsky said.

Demos said she wants to do further research on how these methods could work to reduce cravings over an extended period, as scientists “don’t know how these strategies could affect cravings over a longer period of time.” She said she would also be interested in analyzing if different mindsets work better or worse for different individuals.

there were more advertisements for research projects available to them, rather than having to seek them out by themselves.

“I know it makes sense that if you want it you should seek it out, but I think that they could make it a little easier to find,” Blake said.

Getting to know professors more closely makes the process of finding research projects of interest easier, said Alex Sepolen ’16, who is working on a research project in the humanities.

It is typically more difficult for

humanities students than STEM students to find research, Sepolen said, adding that there are far fewer humanities research projects at any given time. But Sepolen added she has found it relatively easy to get involved in such opportunities.

The University is “doing everything we can” to increase the number of UTRAs awarded to students conducting research in the humanities, Adetunji said.

-Additional reporting by Riley Davis

“We really want to talk about two sides to this story,” said Guy Edwards, a research fellow at the University’s Institute for the Study of the Environment and Society and co-director of the Climate and Development Lab, Friday at an event entitled “ChineseLatin American Relations: Toward a More Sustainable Paradigm in a Warming World?” held in the Watson Institute for International Studies.

Though fewer than 20 students attended the discussion in person, the event was “mostly tailored towards (alums and scholars) listening online and following us on social media,” said Sophie Purdom ’16, a member of the lab who helped organize the event. The group in attendance shifted often throughout the event. The morning’s 90-minute panel presentations and 90-minute question-and-answer session were live-streamed on the CDL’s website.

Students from the CDL also posted live tweets from the event.

Keyboards clicked throughout the morning as students and panelists took extensive notes on the presentations.

Co-organized by the CDL and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the Watson Institute, the conference aimed to analyze the opportunities and constraints in Chinese-Latin American relations toward creating sustainability, according to a handout available for attendees. The exponential speed of growth over the last decade in trade and investment between China and Latin America has surprised many analysts, Edwards told The Herald.

He said the conference is particularly “timely” — China’s recent announcement of its goal to cap its emissions by 2030 marked a significant “change for the Chinese, who only a few years ago were not willing to take on any commitments whatsoever.” The international community aims to reach a global climate change agreement by 2015, Edwards added.

Edwards said he hopes small conferences like Friday’s help push for “broader agendas” in policymaking that include environmental concerns more than concerns for natural resource investment and commodities alone, adding that “both China and Latin America are very vulnerable.”

In January 2015, a forum held by the Latin American and Caribbean states will involve China for the first

time, Edwards said. The meeting will launch the 2015-19 China-Latin America Cooperation Plan, he added.

Panelist Lisa Viscidi, director of the Energy, Climate Change and Extractive Industries Program of the Inter-American Dialogue, provided context for Chinese-Latin American relations and sustainability by comparing energy use between regions.

While approximately two-thirds of emissions result from energy and one-third from land use in most countries under the “global norm,” Latin America’s emissions are “reversed,” Viscidi said, adding that the region’s energy is “extremely clean compared to the global norm” due to Latin America’s dependence on hydropower rather than coal.

Several speakers emphasized the damage of deforestation as part of land use in Latin America. Rebecca Ray, a research fellow at Boston University’s Global Economic Governance Initiative and an economics PhD candidate at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, zoomed in on this issue as she presented the preliminary results from her case study of eight Latin American countries.

“The most important source of deforestation in Latin America is not just the extraction projects, is not just the dam projects, but is the roads getting there, overwhelmingly,” she said. Roads, railroads and commercial waterways bring humans, ranches and small settlements, she said, adding that “this is especially true in countries like Ecuador … that border places that have a lot of civil unrest.” Displaced people settle the “brand new roads opened up into the jungle,” she added.

Ray’s discussion of the carbon intensity of trade between the two regions particularly interested Purdom, who said she hopes to write an op-ed based on some of the speakers’ research.

Kai Salem ’18 also said she especially enjoyed Ray’s presentation and how the event offered the opportunity to think outside “the U.S.-centric point of view.”

Panelist Sandra Lopez, who works at the Inter-American Development Bank, discussed low-carbon development strategies in Latin America, highlighting Mexico’s EcoCasa sustainable housing program. EcoCasa received United Nations recognition for its 27,000 efficient homes that reduce greenhouse gas emission by 20 percent “compared to conventional homes while improving quality of life (for) low income families,” Lopez said. She called the program “a good example of collaboration, of resource mobilization from different governments, development banks and multi-donor funds.”

6 sports

THE SPORTS BULLETIN MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2014

FOOTBALL

ARJUN NARAYEN / HERALD

The football team huddles on the sideline. The Bears’ victory over Columbia Saturday was a team effort, with Head Coach Phil Estes P’18 opting to play all of his seniors in their last game. These included from stars like Xavier Russo ’15, career backups like Nicholas Lawley ’15 and backups-turned-stars like Robert Grebenc ’15, who ran for 132 yards in the win.

Bears dominate Columbia to give seniors winning send-off Grebenc ’15 rushes for 132 yards in final game of season as seniors lead Bruno past winless Lions, 41-7

By ANDREW FLAX SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Every team wants to end its year on a high note. And on Saturday, the football team was pitch perfect.

The Bears (5-5, 3-4 Ivy) steamrolled Columbia (0-10, 0-7) by a 41-7 tally, sending the Lions to their 21st straight loss and stretching Bruno’s streak to seven consecutive seasons with a .500 record or better.

Bruno’s season was not the most successful, with momentary lapses coming up big in what were otherwise winnable games, but Head Coach Phil Estes P’18 said he very much enjoyed the ending.

“There were a couple of games you’d like to have back, maybe finish a little bit better, but to be able to go out there right from the start and take control of the football game, that’s a nice way to go out,” he said.

Linebacker Xavier Russo ’15 said the seniors were able to put their emotions aside for long enough to prepare for the game and get the victory.

“It’s kind of sad throughout the week of practice, but we also know that we’ve got to perform and that you don’t want to end the year with a loss,” he said.

Before the game, the Bears emphasized the importance of coming out with energy and grabbing an early lead. Their start could not have been better, as they scored touchdowns on each of their first three drives, two of which came on the ground from Seth Rosenbauer ’16. The Bears also forced Columbia into three-and-outs on each of its first three possessions.

After Bruno scored its third touchdown to go up 21-0, the squad was outgaining the Lions 192 to 2.

Even with a huge lead in hand, the

Bears never took their foot off the gas. Bruno tacked on another field goal before the Lions managed a first down. Columbia did eventually get its yardage total up, but Bruno still held a huge advantage — 304-92, plus a 24-0 lead — at halftime.

The second half was much the same. Marcus Fuller ’15 tossed a pair of touchdowns, and Grant Senne ’16 added his second field goal of the day to hand Bruno a cushy 41-point lead. Columbia ruined the shutout by finally finding the end zone with 65 seconds left to play, but the outcome of the game was never in doubt.

Fuller had one of his best games of the season in the finale, completing 18 of 30 passes — 60 percent — for 274 yards and two touchdowns. His leading receiver was running back Andrew Coke ’16, who caught only three balls, but took them for 86 total yards.

When the final whistle blew, Bruno had nearly doubled Columbia’s yardage total, holding a 483-254 edge.

The Bears had 27 first downs to the Lions’ 11, and punted just twice, while Columbia did so seven times.

But the biggest gap between the two teams came in the running game.

The Lions had 26 rushing yards, while Bruno had 209, led by Robert Grebenc ’15, who started the game on Senior Day. Grebenc had appeared in six games before Saturday’s, but never received more than four carries in an appearance. That changed drastically this weekend, as the senior carried the rock 26 times for 132 yards and a touchdown, more than doubling his career yardage total.

“To be able to get him out there and get him some carries and have him be so successful was great,” Estes said.

Grebenc was one of many seniors who starred in their final game in uniform. Starting wideouts Brian Strachan ’15, Reiley Higgins ’15 and Stian Romberg ’15 each had at least two catches, and tight end Alex Viox ’15

grabbed a fourth-quarter touchdown.

Bruno had a four-way tie for the team tackles lead at five, and it was an appropriate list: Russo, Chesley Brooks ’15, Jacob Supron ’15 and James Connelly ’15.

Estes expressed hope that all his seniors enjoyed their time with the program.

“I want them to say after four years that ‘this was the greatest experience in four years that I’ve ever had,’” he said. “That’s my goal, that at some point they’re going to say ‘this was a hell of an experience.’”

While the season was not the best by the standard Estes has set, as it breaks a streak of six consecutive winning seasons, it certainly had its moments. With lots of young players contributing this year, the future of the program looks bright.

“To know some of the guys that will be coming back, the kind of experience that they got this year, it’s going to be exciting to put a team together next year,” Estes said.

sports 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2014

M. BASKETBALL

Without Blackmon ’17, Bears can’t handle Sycamores Concussion sidelines starting point guard while Bruno drops tourney opener to Indiana State

By ALEX WAINGER SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The men’s basketball team opened the Las Vegas Invitational on the wrong foot, dropping a third straight game by double digits in a 78-66 loss to Indiana State.

Leland King ’17 continued his breakout sophomore campaign, posting a doubledouble on an efficient night from the floor, but his success was not enough to carry Bruno past the Sycamores.

The Bears (1-3) were without starting point guard Tavon Blackmon ’17 for the second game in a row. Blackmon suffered a concussion against Northwestern (40) and has not yet been cleared to play, said Head Coach Mike Martin ’04. Tyler Williams ’18 once again started at point guard for the injured Blackmon and held his ground, despite having to guard a talented Indiana State (2-1) backcourt.

The two teams traded body blows in the first 15 minutes, as neither side was able to pull away from the other. Bruno opened up a five-point lead — its largest of the night — with consecutive triples from J.R. Hobbie ’17 and King at the 10-minute mark.

Then, in the final five minutes of the first half, the Sycamores went on a 14-0 run, capped by an old fashioned three-point play by Devonte Brown. The

» WATER POLO, from page 1 tournament MVP, netted the final of his three goals in the game to give his team a brief lead. But the Tigers once again answered to knot the score.

With just over two minutes remaining, Will Klein ’16 used an assist from Matty Gallas ’16 to score and vault the Bears above for good.

“It has definitely been an absolute thrill,” Fox said. “With this being senior year and every game potentially being our last, it has been a thrill to go out there every game with such an amazing team.”

Head Coach Felix Mercado called a timeout with 2:44 remaining to draw up the go-ahead play, and 24 seconds later, Klein found the back of the net.

Klein — who entered the tournament averaging 1.3 goals per game and converting 64 percent of his shots — had only one goal on five attempts in the Bears first two games. But he turned his sluggish weekend around with the game-winning tally.

“Matty Gallas came down at wing, and he drew their defender expertly to him,” Klein said, describing the play.

“That really opened things up for me.

When I saw that crucial opportunity I knew I had to take advantage.”

History was against the Bears as they searched for their first title since 1985 against a Princeton team that had already beaten them once this year — a 9-7 decision in the Ivy championship game Oct. 19. But it was clear Bruno had put the defeat in the rearview mirror when it sprinted to a 4-1 lead early in the second quarter.

“We knew we would have to play lockdown defense against Princeton,” Fox said. “I thought we did that well.

We played 32 minutes of team-oriented, defensive water polo.”

junior guard combined with teammate Khristian Smith to score 44 of the team’s 78 points on the night.

“We just had small mental errors on transition defense, and they capitalized,” said co-captain Cedric Kuakumensah ’16.

King dropped in a layup as the halftime buzzer sounded, but the home team held an 11-point point lead at the midpoint of the contest.

Bruno opened the second half on a 13-4 run — during which all five starters plus Kyle Haber ’18 scored — that cut the lead to just two points. But throughout the half, Indiana State looked to Smith and Brown to quell the Bruno runs.

The two Sycamore guards shot a blistering 67 percent from the field and sank nine of their 13 free throws in the second half. In the final nine minutes of the game, Smith and Brown netted 25 of the team’s last 29 points, as Indiana State ran away with the game in the closing minutes.

Despite the disappointing start to the four-game tournament, there were a number of bright spots on Bruno’s score sheet. King matched his season-high 25 points on 10-of-20 shooting and added 12 rebounds to complete his first doubledouble of the season.

The Bears continued their dominance on the boards, winning the rebounding battle for the third time in four games.

King led the way on the defensive glass, while co-captain Rafael Maia ’15 snatched four offensive rebounds.

Three-point shooting has also been a strength for Bruno this season — the

Princeton shot itself in the foot with penalties in the first quarter, setting up Fox with two penalty shots that the senior captain converted. Fox’s goals were sandwiched between tallies from upperclassmen leaders Nick Deaver ’15 and Gallas. Bruno’s offense peppered the Princeton net all day, forcing Tiger goaltender Vojislav Mitrovic to make 15 saves while Bruno’s goalie Luke Weiser ’17 allowed fewer goals on just eight saves.

“Our whole team came out with so much energy and focus from the starting whistle,” Fox said. “We did a good job of leaving our hearts in the pool and playing for each other.”

But the Tigers scored four of the game’s next five goals to equalize the score before the end of the third. Drew Hoffenberg led the Tigers’ offense all year and scored within the streak to force Bruno’s late heroics.

Brown steamrolled George Washington University (13-15, 1-7) by a score of 22-11 and outlasted St. Francis (16-12, 10-2) by a score of 10-7 to earn a spot in Sunday’s title game. The weekend continues a strong streak of neutral-site wins for the Bears, who are 12-0 in such games this season and have lost only one game away from home in 2014.

Bruno will continue its incredible run with an NCAA tournament play-in game Saturday against the University of California at San Diego (15-9, 6-0 WWPA), who won the Western Water Polo Association Sunday with a 17-6 victory over Loyola Marymount (9-18, 3-3 WWPA).

“We’ve stressed playing as a team and keeping the solidarity throughout the season,” Klein said. “None of that will change. We’re going into California ecstatic to be where we are and looking to make the final four.”

team is converting over 36 percent of its attempts from beyond the arc, due largely to the sharpshooting Hobbie. The sophomore guard is shooting an otherworldly 57 percent from deep and has provided Bruno with consistent spacing and scoring off the bench.

Without Blackmon in the lineup, other players stepped up to fill his role as ball handler and distributer. Steven Spieth ’17, who has moved from small forward to shooting guard this season, dished out a career-high seven assists against the Sycamores. Spieth has been Bruno’s best passer in the season’s early contests, averaging a team-high 3.2 assists per game.

Williams has established himself as Blackmon’s clear backup and has been a stable stopgap in his first two collegiate starts. The guard has struggled to find his shot at times, but he has contributed a solid five points per game. Most importantly, Williams has limited his turnovers, something that the rest of his teammates have struggled to do thus far.

“Overall, our offense needs to continue to improve and get better,” Martin said. “We are turning it over more than we’d like and settling at times for contested shots. We have guys who can score the ball, but as a team, we need to execute much better at that end of the floor.”

After giving the ball away 23 times against Holy Cross (3-0), Bruno committed another 20 turnovers against Indiana State. While it seems logical to point to the first-years as the source of the giveaways, King, Kuakumensah and

KATIE LIEBOWITZ / HERALD

Rafael Maia ’15 brings the ball in. The co-captain had 10 points and six rebounds on 3-of-5 shooting, but Bruno could not overcome the Sycamores.

Spieth — all key returning starters for the Bears — were the three culprits against the Sycamores, accounting for 13 of the 20 turnovers.

Maia praised the first-years on the team, noting that they have all been prepared to play when called upon, regardless of the situation.

“Our freshmen are getting a lot of responsibility right from the start,” Maia said. “We all trust they can handle it.”

Martin’s entire roster will be put to the test Monday, when the Bears take on star guard Rayvonte Rice and the University of Illinois (3-0) in what may be Bruno’s most challenging matchup of the season.

8 sports

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2014

W. BASKETBALL

M. HOCKEY

KATIE LIEBOWITZ / HERALD DAVID DECKEY / HERALD

Ellise Sharpe ’16 handles the ball at midcourt. The junior scored eight points and had four steals off the bench, but could not lead Bruno to victory.

Massimo Lamacchia ’15 enters the offensive zone. After scoring six goals in 22 games last season, he has just one in seven games this year, and no points over his past four games, which Bruno has lost by a combined 20-5.

Northern trip ends Conference skid stretches to six in narrow defeat Three-point misses in final seconds doom Bruno to close loss, drop Bears’ record below .500

By GEORGE SANCHEZ SPORTS STAFF WRITER

The women’s basketball team fell just short, 60-57, in a nail-biter on the road Saturday against the University of New Hampshire Wildcats to record its second consecutive loss of the season.

With baskets from Natalie Ball ’16 and Sophie Bikofsky ’15, the Bears (1-2) came out strong with a 5-0 lead. But the Wildcats (3-0) countered quickly with a 9-0 run of their own. The first half featured low team field-goal percentages from both teams — the Bears shot 7-of32 from the field, a 21.9 percent rate, while the Wildcats shot 10-of-35, good for 28.6 percent. The game remained a tight race for the upper hand with the Wildcats taking a marginal lead, 26-23, into intermission.

“Normally, as a team we knock down more shots, and had we done that, the result may have been different. We know, as hard as we played, we can always play harder,” Bikofsky said. “You can always improve on your effort and intensity, and our goal is to do that in every game.”

The second half showcased another early run by Bruno as field goals from Rebecca Musgrove ’17 and Janie White ’18 brought the squad within two points of the Wildcats. For the rest of the half, each time the Bears drew close to the lead, New Hampshire would find a way to pull away. But with two minutes left, four consecutive points from Musgrove brought Bruno within two points of the lead again.

The ensuing Wildcat possession was prolonged by a pair of offensive rebounds. New Hampshire kept possession of the ball from 2:05 to 0:55 as a result of these rebounds, ultimately pressuring the Bears to foul. The Wildcats’ Elizabeth Belanger capitalized on one of two free throws, putting her team up 58-55. With 32 seconds left, Ellise Sharpe ’16 scored a layup to put the Bears within a point of the Wildcats at 58-57. The Bears then fouled yet again, but Belanger made both free throws this time around, placing the score at 60-57.

Coming out of the timeout, the Bears were looking to knot the score with a three-pointer. Jordin Alexander ’16 missed the shot, but White came down with the rebound. Bruno had a second shot at the equalizer, but Sharpe’s threepoint attempt was also unsuccessful.

“In those situations, we are trying to get the best shot we can and we trust our coaches and our teammates to give us the best chance to win,” Bikofsky said. “Of course we are very upset that we didn’t get that win, but I know we will bounce back on Tuesday.”

Saturday’s loss marks the Bears’ second consecutive defeat of the early season.

“I am very proud of the team for all of their fight and heart, particularly in the end of each game,” Bikofsky said.

“We need to work on bringing that same effort and intensity for the entire 40 minutes.”

Up next, the Bears return to College Hill to face the Bryant University Bulldogs at the Pizzitola Sports Center Tuesday at 7 p.m.

“We are really looking forward to having our first home game of the season on Tuesday and hope everyone will come out to support us,” Bikofsky said.

Despite valiant effort against No. 6 Colgate, Bears drop two more to stay winless in ECAC

By MATTHEW BROWNSWORD SPORTS STAFF WRITER

It was a tale of two very different games for the men’s hockey team against Colgate and Cornell this weekend, but the end of the story was the same as it has been all season — two games, zero conference wins.

Brown (1-6, 0-6 ECAC) lost to No. 6 Colgate 4-3 in an overtime heartbreaker Friday before falling to Cornell 4-0 Saturday. For a team averaging fewer than two goals per game, the Bears’ offensive firepower shown against the Raiders was a positive surprise while the scoreline against Cornell was more indicative of Bruno’s performances this season.

“I actually thought we played pretty good against Colgate,” said Head Coach Brendan Whittet ’94. “They’re a legit hockey team, and I thought we played fairly intelligently.”

Brown struck first with a goal by Matt Lorito ’15 — the second time all season and the first time in conference play the Bears have scored the first goal. Colgate (9-4-1, 3-2-1) evened the score after 13 minutes with a goal from forward Andrew Black and the Bears, went into the second period tied for the first time in conference play this season.

Joey De Concilys ’15 got his first goal of the season six minutes into the second period and Lorito got his second of the game and fourth of the season on a power play to double the lead. Naclerio’s assists were his first two points of the season — he led Brown in points last year — as Whittet’s decision to keep a line of

Nick Lappin ’16, Lorito and Mark Naclerio ’16 together was a good one, producing two goals. Lorito’s second goal was only Brown’s second power play goal on the season.

But the Raiders were not to be put away: Fifty seconds after Lorito’s goal, with the Bears back on the power play, Colgate’s most prolific forward, Kyle Baun, was able to get a shorthanded goal to reduce the Brown lead to one.

The shorthanded goal was the third of its kind given up by Brown this season, meaning that the Bears have given up more goals than they have scored on the power play by a margin of 3-2.

“We got hit with that shorthanded goal,” Whittet said. “We cannot give up those kind of goals and expect that good things are going to happen. It was a total shift in momentum for them.”

Seven minutes into the third period, Colgate turned that momentum into a power play goal courtesy of Joe Wilson that tied the game. From there, the game went into overtime before the Raiders prevailed with another Wilson goal.

“We had some inexplicable puck management,” Whittet said. “Then we lost a battle and gave up a breakaway goal. I take encouragement from the way that we played, but I know that we won’t take solace in playing a close game. We wanted the win.”

The Bears lost Dane Cooper ’18 to a concussion — the first-year later had to get 20 stitches in his mouth after the game — which hurt them against Cornell (3-4-1, 3-3-0). Cooper, who had started against Colgate, joined Ben Tegtmeyer ’18 on the sideline, so Whittet only dressed five defensemen and compensated by playing 13 forwards.

“It hurts because you are missing guys that have played a lot of minutes,”

Whittet said. “Cornell is a big, strong team, and I think we got overwhelmed by their size.”

Cornell got off the mark quickly, scoring 4:30 into the game thanks to a goal by Joel Lowry. The Big Red did not stop there, getting a power play goal courtesy of Dwyer Tschantz before Christian Hilbrich established a three-goal lead for Cornell.

Whittet pulled Tyler Steel ’17 for Tim Ernst ’17 for the second time this year after Cornell’s third goal, and this time, Ernst turned in the better performance. Steel had eight saves on 11 shots in 15 minutes while Ernst had 19 saves on 20 shots in 45.

Ernst’s lone hiccup was another power play goal for the Big Red, this time from Matt Buckles. It was the 10th power play goal allowed by Brown in seven games, especially frustrating for Whittet because the power play unit was one of the lone bright spots in Brown’s opening weekend but has been porous since.

“The penalty kill struggled again,” Whittet said. “We just have to go back to the drawing board in practice and go over what makes a successful penalty kill unit.”

As for the goaltender position, neither Steel nor Ernst has played particularly well this season — Ernst has a 3.78 goals against average in 95 minutes of ice time while Steel has a 4.23 GAA in 326 minutes.

“We’ll reevaluate the position during practice this week, like we do every week,” Whittet said. “I just want somebody to grab the position and not let it go, but no one has solidified that spot so far.”

Whoever is playing goalie will have another tough test Dec. 5 and Dec. 6, when Union (6-5-1, 1-4-1) and Rensselaer (5-7-1, 4-2-0) come to Providence as the Bears look to get their first conference points of the season.

today 9

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2014

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SATELLITE DINING JOSIAH’S Thanksgiving Dinner BLUE ROOM Naked Burritos Soups: Chicken Noodle, Spinach and Feta, Beef with Bean Chili ANDREWS COMMONS Pastas: Chicken, Feta and Sundried Tomato, Pesto and Sundried Tomato

DINING HALLS SHARPE REFECTORY LUNCH

DINNER

Gnocchi with Caber net Marinara, BBQ Chicken Patty Sandwich, Baked Acorn Squash

Tangy BBQ Pork Spare Ribs, Fresh Collard Greens, Roasted Red Beets with Rosemary

VERNEY-WOOLLEY LUNCH

DINNER

Chicken Fajitas, Vegan Black Bean Taco, Mexican Succotash, Italian Marinated Chicken

Italian Meatballs with Sauce, Italian Couscous, Italian Vegetable Saute, Rotini

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COURTESY OF BROWN IGEM

A team of students used genetically engineered, lightweight, durable biological materials in order to build an unmanned aerial vehicle for the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition. See story, page 12.

calendar TODAY 6 P.M. HOW TO SWINDLE A PHYSICIST

The Philosophy DUG will host a presentation about quantum betting and its relationship to rationality. No background in quantum mechanics or philosophy is required. Wilson 101 6 P.M. SPY MOVIE NIGHT: ‘THE LIVES OF OTHERS’

crossword

The International Relations DUG will offer a screening of the film “The Lives of Others,” followed by a discussion about modern espionage led by Timothy Edgar, visiting fellow for international studies. Watson Institute 112 6:30 P.M. RACIALIZED AND GENDERED DYNAMICS

TOMORROW 12 P.M. CENTER FOR GERONTOLOGY AND HEALTH CARE RESEARCH BROWN BAG

Amal Trivedi, associate professor of health services, policy and practice, will deliver a lecture about the Australian government’s initiative to reduce drug copayments among indigenous Australians. 121 South Main, Room 636 5 P.M. QUEER TOWN HALL

The Queer Alliance will host a panel presentation and discussion designed to address questions and concerns about the student group. Petteruti Lounge

IN STUDENT GROUPS

The second event in the Feminist Leadership Series, this discussion will focus on ways to improve relationships within student groups and reduce misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and racism. Sarah Doyle Women’s Center

7 P.M. POLISH FILM NIGHT

The Slavic Department will show the film “Little Moscow,” which tracks the lives of Soviet and Polish citizens during the Soviet regime in the Cold War. 8 Stimson Ave.

10 commentary

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2014

What we’re thankful for Blue State, Metro “Mini” Mart, Alice, “1989,” East Side falafel, BBC falafel burgers, Falafel the fish, warm and fuzzies, Wings Over Providence, La Creperie (x5), Chewy Chips Ahoy, capitalists and copy editors.

Fresca, late-night chats with Kim, software installation, Advil, twins, our web team, applying to “Survivor,” getting rejected from “Survivor,” “Gilmore Girls” and our new writers whom we forced to watch “Gilmore Girls.”

Horses, ponies, skunks, “The Chronicles of Narnia,” Charles Evan Hughes 1881, Angelia Wang ’16, former Deputy Managing Editor Emmy Liss ’11, Marisa Quinn, chaider, soy chai lattes, corduroy suits, cover letters, our parents and Maddie’s parents.

The 125th Editorial Board, oatmeal, pink lemonade vodka, Greg JordanDetamore ’14, GroupMe, Deak Nabers, the Tuesday night Dream Team, not returning kegs, feeling ill, feeling uncomfy and Dror Brenner.

CVS, never ever making last call at the Grad Center Bar, bathroom cry breaks at investment banks, Buck and Shawn.

New users, Mailchimp, Asana, Post-, Blog, the design Twitter, Mathias’ forthcoming new computer, non-smartphones, pizza boxes and strong evidence of parties, Diamonds and Coal (RIP), paying for Nice Slice and not paying for Nice Slice.

Jack Kerouac, late-August Skype marathons, Franzia, learning to shotgun, kickball catches, early reads, efficiency, militancy, cost-benefit analyses, windows that open, the new dumpsters and Sona’s car.

Kix, learning what Kix are, 195 Angell, senior staff writers, section editors, design, photo, graphics, the editorial page board, Michael Vorenberg, the 121st Editorial Board, the 122nd Editorial Board, the 123rd Editorial Board and former Senior Editor Dan Alexander’s ’12 eyelashes.

Herald Happy Hour, Stephen Foley, DPS, Brown University Shuttle, the alumni board, former Executive Editor Sudeep Reddy ’01, the new flag, the Today page, checks, Chex, Chex Mix, check-ins and paying taxes.

Ben and Jerry’s, the witching hour, early morning run-ins at Loui’s, the Soundboardt, granola bars, turkey jerky, style tips, personal style tips, French culture, the United Students Council, healthful snacks, icebreakers, props, ladies’ night and you, our readers.

A N G E L IA WA N G

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

“We did a good job of leaving our hearts in the pool and playing for each other.”

— Henry Fox ’15

See water polo on page 7.

The Herald’s 124th Editorial Board has a lot to be thankful for. Thanks for reading.

E D I T O R’ S N O T E The Herald will not be publishing a newspaper in print for the rest of the week. We’ll resume printing next Monday; until then, check online for any breaking news updates at browndailyherald.com. Happy Thanksgiving!

CORRECTIONS A Nov. 7 Herald article (“A neighborhood unmoored: Harboring Cape Verde in Providence”) incorrectly stated that Sylvia Ann Soares ’95 moved from New York to College Hill in 1981. In fact, she moved from Los Angeles to Mt. Hope. The article also incorrectly stated that Soares joined the Trinity Repertory Company in the 1990s. In fact, she was a founding member in the 1960s. The article also incorrectly stated that Soares’ mother moved to New Bedford in the early 1920s.

In fact, it was in her early 20s, in the late 1930s. An accompanying photo caption also mistakenly identified Soares’ stepgrandmother as her grandmother on a Cape Cod farm. The Herald regrets the errors.

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Science & Research Editors Isobel Heck Sarah Perelman Sports Editors Caleb Miller Dante O’Connell University News Editors Kiki Barnes Michael Dubin Maxine Joselow Tonya Riley

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2014

‘Transparent’: the best show not on television JAMES COHAN opinions columnist

“I thank you heavenly father for this food, this great day, these lovely people, in Jesus’s name we pray.”

“Oy gevalt.”

Let’s start here: “Transparent” is very funny. “Transparent” is a halfhour show about a Jewish family in Los Angeles, but to call it a sitcom would be a horrendous mischaracterization. There’s no pressure to deliver a punch line every couple of minutes. The issues being explored are weighty.

But humor is everywhere. It’s in the little things: the way siblings give each other a hard time, the way Jewish mothers push food on everyone.

It’s in the big things: the awkwardness of sex, the absurdity in the way we try to present ourselves.

At its most impactful, the humor pierces the subject matter’s heaviness and releases all the pent-up emotion built while watching these people’s lives unfold. The feeling of relief and happiness that arises when humor cracks the wall of tension and pain is more wonderful than the amusement at any bit in a sitcom. *** “I hope I’m not ruining the kids with all this crazy stuff.”

“Remember our crazy stuff?”

“Yeah. It’s all blended in with the

good stuff.”

“I’m glad you remembered the good stuff.”

Human beings are rare in television. Instead, there are characters.

Action figures played with by the invisible machine behind the show.

This is most obvious in a show like “Game Of Thrones,” where characters are pawns moved around in a larger effort to build a comprehensive world and a compelling story. But it’s also true of less plot-driven shows, like “Mad Men.” Don Draper is more of an idea, more of a philosophical statement, than he is a multidimensional human being who might exist somewhere in the world.

“Transparent” cares about human beings, not characters. And human beings are identities. Not two-bulletpoint summaries. Not a job and hobbies. Not the way they act at parties or with friends or with family. Just fluid, unidentifiable identities.

*** “They are so selfish. I don’t know how it is I raised three people who cannot see beyond themselves.”

Perhaps the most unique thing about “Transparent” is how uncomfortable it can be.

TV is comfortable. Even the socalled “Golden Age” shows — your “Breaking Bads” and your “Mad Mens” — take place in the television universe, with all the rules and safety that entails. Characters, and our relationships with them, have a predictability about them. We love them, or

are disgusted by them, or are in awe of them. Rarely do we question or change the way we feel about them.

Rarely do we see a new side to them, unless it is in the form of a plot twist.

Rarely do they shock us.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Part of the reason we watch TV is for comfort. It’s nice to be able to escape our responsibilities and get lost in the haze of Netflix. But “Transparent” operates differently.

“Transparent” is television only in name. It never aired on actual, physical televisions — instead it was released as one batch of streaming files on Amazon Prime. As a result it is not bound by any rules, other than to be a good show. That freedom to do anything is what makes it uncomfortable.

*** “Are you saying that you’re going to start dressing up like a lady all the time?”

“No, honey. All my life — my whole life I’ve been dressing up like a man. This is me.”

I’ve left talking about the show’s plot until now, because “Transparent” isn’t just about one person or one issue. It’s about people trying to figure out who they are and what that means and what the hell they’re doing.

It is notable, though, that the show is built around Maura Pfefferman, a transgender woman who finally comes out in her seventies. We watch as she begins her transition, seeing what comes with showing one’s true

self after being forced to lead a secret life for more than seven decades.

Not surprisingly, it’s a shock for everyone around her, especially her three adult children, Sarah, Josh and Ali. How do they react? What does it mean about their parent? What does it mean about them?

This isn’t a lecture on political correctness. The story is based on the show’s creator, Jill Soloway’s, own experience with her parent coming out as trans at age 75. You can feel the sincerity in the way Maura’s children react. There is not gushing acceptance capped by a loving hug. There isn’t harsh bigotry. Mostly there’s confusion, shock and even some giggling.

A story like this is unprecedented in television. Old people are rarely treated as anything more than onenote characters — wise or cranky or ridiculous. The existence of transgender people is ignored almost entirely.

“Transparent” dives headlong into areas of gender and sexuality that most programs are afraid of touching. It makes no bold statements and hides nothing. To do so would be to simplify something that isn’t simple.

Instead, it shows people being people, without a hint of judgment.

Jeffrey Tambor’s performance as Maura is perfect. So much is communicated with so little. The strained look on her face, too brief for anyone to notice, when someone says something stupid. The slight feminine gestures that, without drawing any attention to themselves, reveal what Maura’s had to cover up her entire

life. Without Tambor’s expert performance, the show simply wouldn’t work.

Maura’s children are no less fully realized. At first we see them as the rest of the world sees them. Sarah is the hurried but put-together married mother of two young children. Josh is the hip dude that works in the music industry and rocks button-downs with the top button buttoned. Ali is the somewhat drifty youngest child.

As time passes, we’re allowed closer and closer until we see them startlingly naked emotionally. All three struggle with relationships and sexuality. Sarah runs into, and eventually off with, an ex-girlfriend, but her husband is still present and important.

Josh navigates a slew of romantic relationships, his neediness hinting at an underlying problem. Ali struggles with not just her physique, but her femininity and the way she represents it to the world. And all three are, like most people, much more absorbed with their own issues than what those around them are dealing with.

The realism with which they’re presented is not cold. It is, like the rest of the show, compassionate, sad and kind of hilarious. “Transparent” is a groundbreaking show in a lot of ways. It’s also great.

James Cohan ’17 is thinking of rocking his button-downs with the top button buttoned. Let him know he can’t pull it off at james_cohan@brown.edu.

The NFL’s troubled roots WALKER MILLS opinions columnist

We’ve all seen the recent spate of NFL scandals: Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, Ray MacDonald and others. The National Football League is facing a behavior crisis large enough to merit an internal review and repeated apologies from the league commissioner, Roger Goodell. It’s clear that the NFL needs to do a better job of holding its players to a higher standard of conduct off the field, which should include a much harsher disciplinary stance on offenses like domestic abuse. But if I were only going to write about the NFL, I would be months late and rehashing old arguments. Even The Herald opinions section has given the issues coverage (“Unsportsmanlike conduct for Rice and the NFL,” Sept. 16).

The conversation needs to focus on players in college and earlier. In many cases, college football players are being protected, led astray and given license to misbehave by universities, local law enforcement and local communities. It’s a tough conversation to have because there is so much at stake, but the misconduct in the NFL is the product of a larger system.

Where is this happening? I can’t say everywhere, but there are some damning examples.

Florida State University is perhaps the most glaring example in the news right now. Last year, Jameis Winston, its star quarterback, was accused of rape. But the local prosecutor decided that he lacked sufficient evidence to charge Winston and criticized the police for their handling of the case.

A New York Times article later reported that the investigation into the accusation was egregiously mismanaged. The local police took 34 days to identify Winston as the suspect, despite his being perhaps the most well-known student on cam-

pus. In the words of the local prosecutor William Meggs, “How long does it take to identify a freshman football player — about 10, 15, 16 seconds?”

Police took an additional two weeks to contact him after identifying him as a suspect.

It was three weeks short of a year before the police made an attempt to contact a witness of the alleged rape for a statement. The Times also reported that, despite the FSU Athletic Department having knowledge of the investigation early on, Winston was allowed to play through the entire season and only asked to answer questions about the case after the final game of the season in Jan-

not charged. The second incident involved Karlos Williams, FSU’s top rusher, who, despite the pending police investigation, has received no punitive action from the athletics department. According to team officials, his status on the team is “under review,” but he has not missed any game time.

FSU is far from the only offender. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was recently investigated in a scandal in which athletes on many sports teams were taking classes that basically didn’t exist to keep themselves eligible to play. The University of Notre Dame was recently implicated in an academic cheating scan-

In many cases, college football players are being protected, led astray, and given license to misbehave by universities, local law enforcement and local communities. uary. This was the first story of several that have come out in the last year of the Tallahassee Police Department’s blatant favoritism of FSU players.

Earlier this month, another story broke about two FSU players who were involved in a car accident and immediately fled the scene on foot. After they were found and brought back to the scene of the accident nearly half an hour later, the driver, an FSU player, was only given minor traffic tickets: one for driving with a suspended license and the other for an improper left-hand turn. The initial report of a hit and run — a far more serious crime — was literally crossed out by local police after a 3:30 a.m. call to the FSU athletics department. Earlier this fall, two FSU players were accused of domestic abuse in separate incidents.

Soon after the first was accused, the police report was changed to “domestic disturbance” — a far lesser crime — and the player was ultimately

dal involving its football players. Even high school teams have issues. Two years ago in Steubenville, Ohio, high school football players were accused and eventually found guilty of raping a 16-yearold girl. During the investigation much of the local community supported the accused, including school and team officials — some of whom have now been charged with crimes for attempting to cover up the rape, and for obstruction of justice.

The list goes on.

The NCAA makes nearly $1 billion each year, and successful college football teams like FSU can bring in up to $10 million in business to the local community every home game. Suspensions and injunctions for misbehavior could strain this, especially if they result in the removal of players from games. The NCAA has a motive to make its players look good.

But the rest of the problem is a mixture of

pride, misguided loyalty and naivete. Everyone wants to cheer for their alma mater, but no one wants to root for a school whose star football player is accused of rape. Alums and fans alike don’t want to think that their star players are anything but innocent student-athletes working hard in the classroom and on the field. Big-name schools don’t want their names or reputations tarnished.

Athletes must deal with a high level of scrutiny and media attention. Look at the recent sexual assault accusations against Brown’s own football players — nearly every headline started with “Brown football players,” never just “students” or even “Brown students.” But as an athlete myself, I recognize that participation in collegiate athletics is a privilege, not a right, and we’re responsible for higher standards of conduct — in part because we are a public face of the university in a way that few students are.

It’s also important to recognize that football players are not the only athletes who have off-field issues. To imply that would let all other athletes off the hook. But it seems football teams are often the target of these types of accusations, while other sports make the news far less frequently.

It’s clear that giving NFL players license for raucous and illegal behavior off the field starts in college or before. By the time players reach the NFL, they have been getting away with crimes and misdemeanors large and small for years. Police and universities across the country need to do a better job of holding football players and all athletes accountable for their actions off the field. If universities let their athletes act above their rules and the law, how long will it be before athletes believe the rules no longer apply to them?

Walker Mills ’15 is a captain of the Brown men’s rowing team. He’d be happy to continue the conversation at walker_mills@brown.edu.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2014

THE

BROWN DAILY HERALD

science & research

Team of students designs biodegradable drone for competition Materials created in drone’s construction could have wide-ranging environmental uses

By DUNCAN GALLAGHER STAFF WRITER

In August, a Dutch tourist crashed an unmanned aerial vehicle — widely referred to as a drone — into an active hot spring in Yellowstone National Park. He was fined over $3,000 for operating a drone illegally in a U.S. national park, according to a September BBC News article.

Operating unmanned aerial vehicles has been prohibited in national parks since June, according to a National Park Service press release from that month. The press release cited three separate incidents in which drones interfered with wildlife, disrupted visitor experiences and crashed at Zion, Mount Rushmore and the Grand Canyon, respectively.

A team composed of students from Brown, Stanford University and Spelman College posited a potential solution to the issue when they entered the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, which took place from late October to early November. The team modeled, prototyped and grew a biologically based, fully biodegradable UAV. This sort of drone would enable exploration of ecologically sensitive areas without the threat of the drone crashing and polluting the area. The cheap and sustainable materials involved would also prevent scientists from losing a large amount of money if a drone were to crash and allow them to easily create a replacement.

This marks the fourth year Brown and Stanford have competed as a team in the iGEM Giant Jamboree. Each

year, the team has come up with a different project. Spelman students joined for the first time this year.

When determining a goal for the year, one of the team’s faculty advisers, Lynn Rothschild, an astrobiologist and synthetic biologist at NASA and adjunct professor of molecular biology, cell biology and biochemistry, identified creating a biological UAV as a significant goal for NASA, said Professor of Biology Gary Wessel, another of the team’s advisers.

While drone technology is appealing to the public, the sustainable materials they developed have much wider-reaching applications than just making a UAV, team members said.

The UAV served simply as a “proof of concept” that functional technology of this kind can be produced using biological methods, said Jovita Byemerwa ’16 and Jeannette Gonzales-Wright ’16 MD’20, who both worked on the biodegradability of cellulose acetate — the project’s primary building material.

In their work on the project, Byemerwa and Gonzales-Wright extracted two genes from a bacterium that uses cellulose acetate as its sole source of carbon. They transformed the genes into E. coli, expressing them in order to degrade cellulose acetate at an accelerated rate.

Accelerated degradation of cellulose acetate was only one of several feats of genetic engineering involved in the project. Some team members worked to isolate proteins used by wasps — which build their nests out of cellulose — to waterproof the material, Byemerwa said. Others explored possibilities for increasing the strength of the cellulose and incorporating cellular sensors, which could someday begin to replace digital instrumentation like cameras, Gonzales-Wright said. There is still a long way to go before something as intricate as a

COURTESY OF BROWN IGEM

A team of students from Brown, Stanford University and Spelman College developed a drone made of genetically engineered biological materials as part of the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition. camera could be replaced, she added.

In addition to the genetic engineering component of the project, members of the team examined the real-world applicability of the biologically derived materials they created, Byemerwa said. She and GonzalesWright specialize in the “human practices” aspect of the project, which considers applicability. The two expressed

excitement at the team’s work with a particular strain of bacterial cell that effectively prevents the transfer of genetically modified cells into the environment.

“The goal of building a biodegradable drone was for … scientific missions and also humanitarian missions,” Byemerwa said, but the applications of the work done by each subgroup

extend far beyond UAVs. GonzalesWright expressed enthusiasm about the idea of “replacing … sensing technologies with just cells” and biologically derived technologies slowly replacing synthetic ones.

While drones are exciting, she said, “what makes what we did over the summer awesome is the individual projects themselves.”

Student research participation divides along gender, athletic lines

Asian students, non-athletes more likely to conduct research, according to Herald poll results

By ANDREW JONES SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Around one-third of students have worked on research while at Brown, according to a Herald poll conducted Oct. 22-23.

But this percentage varies largely based on factors such as class year and concentration. While only about 15 percent of first-years and sophomores have participated in research, more than half of juniors and seniors have.

Students within the life sciences were the most likely to have conducted research, with just under half having worked on research projects. About one-third of students concentrating in social sciences and just under a third of physical sciences concentrators have conducted research. Humanities concentrators were the least likely to have conducted research, with about 30 percent reporting having done so.

Athletes were also less likely than non-athletes to have conducted research, with just under 20 percent of athletes having participated in research projects compared to about 35 percent of non-athletes. Athletes

were also found to be less likely to participate in research during the year than non-athletes.

The poll also indicates that more male students than female students have worked as paid research assistants. Of those students who have worked as paid employees doing research, 55.6 percent were males and 41.3 percent were female, though 54.1 percent of the population that took the poll were female.

International students were more likely than domestic students to have wanted to work on research but not done so. About 65 percent of international students said they have not conducted research but want to, compared to 53.2 percent of domestic students who responded in this way.

A balancing act Charlotte Walmsley ’16, a cross country runner and a research assistant in the Schloss Visual Perception Lab, said she was not surprised that athletes are less likely to pursue research during the year. Given athletes’ time constraints due to practices and games, very few find open time to

spend in a lab, though it is possible for them to do so if they are determined to make research a priority, she added.

“Everybody has five (free) hours a week. Even athletes,” Walmsley said.

But many athletes find juggling sports and research to be too hectic, said Emma Blake ’15, who played softball for two years. Blake left the softball team in order to focus more on research and school, she said.

“All of my friends from softball who do research are no longer playing softball,” Blake added.

The fact that athletes choose to spend their time differently than other students is in part a reflection of the advantages of a liberal education, said Bartosz Zerebecki ’15.

Each student who comes to Brown has different goals about what they want to get out of their education, and athletes just happen to want to focus on sports, he said.

Incoming first-year athletes may have the sense that few current athletes concentrate in the hard sciences and think they are not capable of concentrating in STEM fields, said Heather Sweeney ’16, a member of the track and field team.

But the results from the poll did not show any differences in

concentration patterns between athletes and non-athletes.

Athletes’ lower rate of participation undergraduate research is simply a result of busy schedules, not a sign of less intellectual ability, said Kelsey Brown ’18.

A ‘patriarchal hangover’ Of the population of students who have worked as paid employees doing research, about 56 percent were male, while only 46 percent of the population who took the poll were male.

Oludurotimi Adetunji, associate dean of the college and director of the Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award program, said he found the gender difference surprising because more females than males have been awarded UTRA funding for each of the past five years.

A “patriarchal hangover” may be partially to blame for men’s higher rate of paid research experience, Zerebecki said. Women have difficulties getting internships and jobs in STEM fields because it has traditionally been a male-dominated arena, he added.

Personality differences might also play a role in the differences in gender representation in undergraduate research, Blake said. Pursuing research

requires a student to be a “go-getter” by initiating a conversation with a professor, she said. STEM students tend to have a representation of being go-getters, and since fewer females concentrate in STEM fields, this could account for the disparity, Blake added.

But the Herald poll revealed males outnumbered females only in the physical sciences, with 45.3 percent of males listing a physical science as a concentration compared to 23.5 percent of females.

Around one quarter of females concentrate in life sciences, compared to 17.7 percent of males.

Reasons for research Several factors contribute to a student’s decision to work on research, Zerebecki said. Students’ cultural backgrounds may contribute to their being more or less likely to approach professors about conducting research, said Zerebecki, who is from Poland.

But he added that he has not noticed the disparity between international and domestic students in his own experience.

The main factor in finding a research opportunity is personal motivation, Zerebecki said. He is currently » See POLL, page 5