Wednesday, December 3, 2014

THE

BROWN DAILY HERALD vol. cxlix, no. 27

since 1891

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2014

Students partake in ‘Day of Silence’ In wake of Ferguson decision, students remain silent to mourn loss of black lives

HERALD FILE PHOTO

By MARIYA BASHKATOVA METRO EDITOR

A crowd of about 30 students gathered Tuesday night in front of the steps of Faunce House to conclude a day of silence in memory of victims of police brutality.

Many participants wore black clothing and a piece of tape over their mouths to symbolize their solidarity with individuals like Michael Brown and Tamir Rice killed by police in recent months.

The day was organized as a “point of reflection, a time to mourn and a time to think,” said Paapa Nyanin ’16, who coordinated the event with Andrew Gonzales ’15. It was an opportunity to show that “just like black lives matter, black voices are really important,” he said. The Facebook page for the event garnered responses from 200 people who indicated their participation.

Brown, an unarmed black 18-yearold, was killed by white police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri in August, igniting protests against alleged racist policing in Ferguson and » See SILENCE, page 4

HERALD FILE PHOTO

SHIRLEY LEUNG / HERALD

Students report experiences with racial discrimination in various settings across campus, from parties on Wriston Quadrangle to fundraising events at the football stadium. The Brown Center for Students of Color offers a space for some students to discuss and confront these realities.

Amidst campus dialogue, students confront racial perceptions Brown Center for Students of Color seen as supportive but insular space for conversations about race

By SOPHIE YAN AND GRACE YOON STAFF WRITERS

PERVASIVE PREJUDICE This series will explore racism at Brown. This story, the first of three, will look at the role racism plays in relationships among students.

“I feel like malicious racism is hard to find on campus, but there’s a large

range of what people would consider ‘racist,’” said David Chung ’16.

Amid heightened discourse over the past year on how race influences dialogue in and out of the classroom, some students have voiced concern about facing discrimination based on their race. This concern comes as surprising for many who see the University as a socially liberal institution.

“I don’t think people would say it to my face if they had any negative

perceptions about students of color,” said Adwa Habtu ’16. “Brown is so liberal — it’s not really acceptable.”

“My experience at Brown has (been) composed of a large elimination of racism,” said Allie, a junior whose name has been changed for confidentiality purposes. But some remarks and stereotypes that remain on campus can still be hurtful and degrading, she added.

Facing false assumptions Manuel Contreras ’16 said he recalls an experience at a football game

when he faced direct racial discrimination on campus while fundraising for the Brown-RISD Catholic Community.

“I was with another student and he was also Latino,” said Contreras, a member of The Herald’s editorial page board. “This guy came up to us and … assumed we were workers, because we were two Latino men.”

Students of color may experience preconceived assumptions about how their racial identities should shape their behaviors. » See RACISM, page 3

Researchers win grant to probe alcohol-related memories U. task force Prof. to track fruit flies’ to consider preference for alcohol at optional different time points after exposure January term Armed with a $300,000 grant for a three-year period of study, Karla Kaun, assistant professor of neuroscience, plans to examine how memory affects millions of fruit flies’ preference for alcohol after intoxication.

The grant, awarded by the Smith Family Awards Program for Excellence in Biomedical Research to early career researchers at institutions in Massachusetts as well as at Brown and Yale, will be used to examine the mechanisms in flies’ brains that allow them to forget the negative memories of alcohol, Kaun said.

The ultimate goal of the study is

SCIENCE & RESEARCH

HERALD FILE PHOTO

inside

Karla Kaun, assistant professor of neuroscience, has received a $300,000 grant to explore memory’s role in alcohol preference and cravings.

Commentary

Science & Research

Blake ’17: Writers, poets and artists should be considered in admission recruitment

Hillstead ’15: Pressure to pursue practical careers distracts students from their true passions

Prof. delineates nomadic history and culture during Tuesday lecture

New study explores both the need and efficacy of protective headgear in women’s lacrosse

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weather

By JASON NADBOY

SENIOR STAFF WRITER

to find new, more effective treatments for alcohol addiction, Kaun said. “If we could find a drug that results in the aversive memory (of alcohol) persisting, the aversive memory might overlap with the craving and the drug wouldn’t be craved as strongly,” she added.

To get the flies drunk, Kaun vaporizes large concentrations of alcohol, which the flies breathe in.

“When they breathe it in, they start to become disinhibited, so they bump into one another,” she said, adding that they become “a little bit more socially active and the males start to court other males as well as females.”

As time passes, the flies “pass out” and drop to the bottom of the vials, she added.

Fruit flies are very similar to humans in the way they act while intoxicated and the amount of the alcohol needed to get them drunk is proportionally similar to the amount needed to get humans drunk. » See ALCOHOL, page 4

Faculty also discuss upcoming free speech motion, Navy ROTC addition at meeting

By KIKI BARNES UNIVERSITY NEWS EDITOR

A task force will convene next semester to consider the implementation of a January academic term at the University, said Provost Vicki Colvin at a faculty meeting Tuesday.

Faculty members and administrators also discussed a new U.S. Navy ROTC partnership, a faculty motion on free speech and the merging of the Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions with the Watson Institute » See FACULTY, page 2 t o d ay

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2 university news » FACULTY, from page 1 for International Studies. Upcoming performing arts initiatives, the establishment of a new master’s program in Social Analysis and Research, the University’s faculty cohort tenure rates and the renaming of two institutes rounded out the meeting’s agenda.

The task force, chaired by Dean of the College Maud Mandel will consider the creation of a “J-term” academic session in response to a report made by a working group comprising 10 administrators, Colvin said. The group formed in April to begin discussions about the feasibility of a winter session.

The proposed J-term, which would be an optional program for students to take courses or pursue opportunities

outside the classroom, would run for five weeks, from the beginning of January to the beginning of February, pushing back the spring semester by approximately 10 days, Colvin said. With the addition of a J-term, the University’s academic calendar for January would coincide with that of the Rhode Island School of Design, which already has a J-term, making cross-registration easier between the two institutions.

The academic calendar has not been changed since 1984, when the current semester-based model was established, Colvin added. Prior to 1984, the holiday break divided the fall semester.

One issue with implementing a J-term is that it would push spring Commencement back to early June, Colvin said, adding that Commencement’s current

placement during Memorial Day weekend is important to families and alums.

University Registrar Robert Fitzgerald, a member of the working group, said the implementation of a J-term would not affect the current week-long spring break but would necessitate the elimination of February’s long weekend.

Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services Margaret Klawunn, also a member of the working group, raised the possibility that faculty members could use the J-term to finish teaching requirements and free up time during the regular semesters to focus on research. Graduate students could also take advantage of the J-term in this way, she added.

A J-term could “take the open curriculum into the 21st century,” Colvin told The Herald. She added that it is possible

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2014

for the University to make a profit from enrollment fees in such a term, which could help finance the budget for financial aid.

Financial aid was a large concern for some faculty members, including Sheila Blumstein, professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences.

The J-term would not be included as a part of regular tuition for students and would be run much like the summer term, Colvin said. Financial aid to participate in the J-term is an important issue for the task force to address next semester, she added.

James Morone, chair of the Faculty Executive Committee and a professor of public policy, political science and urban studies, discussed faculty feedback to a report that proposed bringing a Naval ROTC program to Brown through a partnership with the College of the Holy Cross. Of the 25 pieces of commentary from faculty members that the FEC received about the Naval ROTC proposal, only one was negative, Morone said.

Philip Rosen, professor of modern culture and media, voiced his opposition to an Naval ROTC program based on the documented discrimination against transgender people in the U.S. military.

“This seems to go against every antidiscrimination policy that we have on record,” Rosen said. “In the report, it is indicated that there will be some kind of discussion on campus” about this discrimination, he added, expressing dissatisfaction with the University’s outline for campus discussion of the issue.

Professor of Biology Ken Miller ’70 P’02 said that given the current Army ROTC partnership that Brown has at Providence College, the Naval ROTC proposal is not controversial.

But Rosen said the faculty should discuss ways in which to push the national conversation on transgender discrimination by the military, noting that transgender individuals are allowed to serve openly in the militaries of other countries like those of the United Kingdom.

Morone also informed meeting attendees about an upcoming motion on free speech that a group of faculty members wrote and presented to the Faculty Executive Committee. Ross Cheit, professor of political science and public policy, was one of 20 faculty members to contribute to the motion and one of four to present it to the FEC, Cheit told The Herald.

“We wanted the faculty to endorse a strong statement” of the body’s views on freedom of expression, Cheit said.

The motion evolved as a response to President Christina Paxson’s report last spring about the shutting down of former New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s lecture after public protests.

The motion will be sent to the faculty before Christmas, and an endorsement of the motion will be voted on at February’s faculty meeting, Morone added.

The faculty passed a motion unanimously approving the merging of the Taubman Center and the Watson Institute, which will result in the newly formed Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy under the umbrella of the renamed Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.

“Back in the 80s, when these centers were formed, people didn’t think” about the difficulties that having the two organizations on different ends of campus would cause, said Morone, who also serves as director of the Taubman Center.

Morone responded to several faculty members’ concerns about the current undergraduate and graduate programs in public policy, stating that neither will

change as a result of the merger.

The faculty passed another motion unanimously to change the name of the Institute for the Study of Environment and Society to the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society.

Dov Sax, deputy director of the institute, said the name change of the recently created center is solely in response to the similarity in pronunciation of the acronym ISES to that of the terrorist organization known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. “It’s just gotten to being a problem in talking to students and potential donors,” Sax said, adding that considering the fact that the institute is fairly new, the change to a less controversial name will not cause many logistical problems.

Meeting attendees also unanimously passed a motion to change the name of the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences to the Brown Institute for Translational Science.

Michelle Cyr, professor of medicine and associate dean for academic affairs proposed the name change along with Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences Jack Elias. The new name will “reflect the expanded scope of the center since its establishment in 2009,” Cyr said.

Colvin and new Vice Provost for the Arts Michael Steinberg also presented to faculty members about upcoming plans to expand the performing arts on campus.

Under Steinberg’s leadership and supervision, the University will better “meld the arts and the liberal arts” based on “astonishing interest” among the student body, Colvin said.

After consulting with multiple firms and organizations, the University has identified a need for a venue that has the capacity to house a full 100-piece orchestra, Colvin said.

The Brown campus has a “unique advantage” with a high number of arts buildings in close proximity to residential areas, Colvin said, citing the fact that Stanford University had to build a new arts building far off campus to meet student demand.

But a “conventional performance hall” suitable for a full-sized orchestra is “hard to fit on College Hill,” Colvin said. The University has recently acquired two potential locations: an area adjacent to Thayer Street by Alumnae Hall and several old buildings on Brook Street on the far side of Pembroke campus, but neither location is really suitable for a proper performance hall, she said.

Steinberg will lead planning initiatives regarding renovations and an infrastructure plan, as well as expansion of academic programs for the arts.

The goal is not to “add small units, but to provide something that would” make a tangible impact on the arts at Brown, Steinberg said.

Bringing in more visiting professors and seeking out part-time appointments for faculty members in the arts is an important initiative for the University to undertake, he said. He added that he plans to establish a regular faculty lunch seminar on arts at the University and will reshape and expand the scope of the Creative Arts Council.

Dean of the Faculty Kevin McLaughlin P’12 also presented to the faculty about the recent decline in the cohort tenure rate, the share of tenure-track junior faculty members hired in the same academic year who gain tenure eight years later. The Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, is interested in the cohort tenure statistics as a reflection of Brown’s performance in attracting new faculty members, McLaughlin said.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2014

» RACISM, from page 1

the two from each other.”

Srinivasan feels she often has to “A lot of it is about perception,” choose between her two identities as said Emma, a junior whose name has a woman of color and as an internabeen changed to maintain confidenti- tional student. ality. “Obviously when someone looks “I grew up in India … race wasn’t at you, they’re going to assume they a conversation that we had,” she said. know things about you.”

“The way that we have conversations Frances Aquino about race on this ’16 said she often campus really does finds herself in not resonate with “borderline parainternational stu“How much of noia,” constantly dents” who often my identity is grappling with the come from more question “Is this privileged socioecodelegitimizing person judging?” nomic backgrounds, my voice in that because of her racial do not discuss class conversation?” identity. and race growing up As navigate acaand subsequently demic and extramay be less engaged Maahika Srinivasan ‘15 curricular choices, in these conversasuch questions come tions on campus. to the forefront. “I Asian students would mention to people that I was may also sometimes feel left out of pre-med, and occasionally … people conversations about these topics. would ask me, ‘Oh, is it because your “The stereotypical Asian isn’t the one parents wanted you to?’” Allie said. to complain to everyone about how “Even though it was never explicitly difficult the world is,” Chung said, mentioned that they thought of that adding that Asian students may tend because of my Asian heritage, I always to remain silent and make up for any got the hunch.” race-related disadvantage by working Maahika Srinivasan ’15 said she even harder. often has to navigate conversations Kim said he knows many Asian dominated by white men in her role students who are uncomfortable as president of the Undergraduate about or unwilling to discuss racial Council of Students. “How much of issues and self-segregation. my identity is delegitimizing my voice Racism against Asians does exist in that conversation? That’s some- in American society, he said, noting thing I think about a lot,” she said. that Asians are still known widely “Do I need to position myself in a as the model minority. But this disway where I can make myself more crimination is “hidden” and many at articulate, because I have to make Brown do not take note of it. up for the fact that I am a woman of While Chung has discussed issues color in that setting?” of race with other students, he has Aquino said she worries that her not participated in protests because efforts to promote sex in a positive he does not view them as produclight as a peer educator for the Sex- tive, he added. “Asians don’t have it ual Health Awareness Group may as hard because we’re looked at as be overshadowed by preconceptions the model minority — sure, we can related to her racial identity. “I don’t be disadvantaged at times, but we’re know if it’s all in my mind or not, very privileged to be perceived this but when people make comments way,” he said. like, ‘Oh you’re “I’ve encountered in SHAG so you this notion, espemust know some cially among Asian things’ — it’s not “The breakdown students, that they like they menhave not personally of people here at tion my race at all experienced racism — but I connect Brown has taught significant enough those comments to believe that it still me that white to this insecurity exists and matters,” norms often mean Andrew said. But “not that I have about the stereotype of personally encounterrich norms.” being this exotic ing explicit interperAsian girl.” sonal racism is not a Manuel Contreras ’16 But Aquino strong enough justifiwas interested in cation to discredit or joining SHAG in devalue its existence part because she “wanted to defeat and pervasiveness,” he added. the other stereotype of Asians” of Many Asian students may have being quiet, conservative and demure. “lived decently comfortable lives, and “There are so many different facets they plan on working hard to make to my stereotype that I just feel like their future lives more decently comI don’t win,” she said. “Either way, fortable,” Kim said. “They don’t really people are going to categorize me want to rock the boat.” into a stereotype. … Whatever I do, it’s because of my race.”

Finding a ‘support system’ Similar life experience “probably Left out of the conversation? pushes students of color together,” The term “student of color” does Habtu said. Growing up in Texas, not refer to a monolithic entity — dif- she was often the “solitary person of ferent students of color come from color” in her predominantly white different socioeconomic backgrounds friend group. But at Brown, she has and experiences, Contreras said. forged friendships with several black Any conversation about race and Hispanic students. “must take class into account,” he Still, many students of color said, adding, “The breakdown of are perceived as exclusionary and people here at Brown has taught me self-segregating from the rest of the that white norms often mean rich Brown community, several sources norms. That’s not necessarily true … told The Herald. (but) it’s really hard for me to separate Kenneth Kim ’17, who is

university news 3 Korean-American, said he mostly spends time with other students of Korean descent because they share a cultural connection. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing,” he said. “College is an unfamiliar environment … you need something that’s anchoring you.”

“When looking for a support system, if you constantly need to explain why you’re feeling a certain way, that’s exhausting,” said Sabine Williams ’15.5. Students can feel a “certain empowerment in knowing that there is a community that totally understands what you’re going through,” she added.

But Andrew, a sophomore whose name has been changed to maintain confidentiality, said he is often hyperconscious of this perception of selfsegregation. “If I am with a group of friends and most or all are physically perceived to be Asian, I worry slightly about … being thought of as exclusionary and therefore excluded by others — namely, white people,” he said. But while “white people only hang out with other white people plenty of the time,” he said, they are not subject to similar accusations of self-segregation.

Habtu said just because certain people tend to gravitate to each other based on background and culture does not mean that they cannot break out of those social groups. “I don’t think that I’ve actively tried to seek out people of color — it just kind of happened,” she added.

‘Where are you from?’

At a fraternity party last year, a male student approached Aanchal Saraf ’16 and asked, “Where are you from?” Though she answered Texas, he pressed on, asking, “No, where are your parents from?”

When she told him his questions made her uncomfortable, he turned to her friend and said, “Indian women are the most beautiful women in the world.”

The male student spent the rest of the night shouting “Where is my Indian?” and searching for Saraf during the party. When she tried to go upstairs to her room where she lived as an independent in the frat, he tried to follow her. After that night, the male student — who also lived in the frat house as a brother — continued his attempts to pursue her.

But the other part of the night that particularly disconcerted Saraf and her friend was that “no one was saying or doing anything,” about the male student’s behavior, she said.

As an assignment for HIST 1311: “Land Use and Capitalism,” Saraf created an interactive map that delineates safe spaces for students of color based on anonymous testimonials submitted online. The map was published in Bluestockings Magazine Nov. 14.

“Almost everybody mentioned Wriston as an unsafe space. … A large part of that was because of the sexualization” that may occur near the fraternities there, she said.

But Saraf added, “Racism has to do with everything. I wouldn’t say that it’s particular to Greek life,” though party culture in general may lend itself to these types of unwelcome encounters.

Aquino witnessed a similar experience at another “white male-dominated” party that she and her friend attended one night. At the party, her friend, who is black, soon wanted to

leave because partygoers were grop- forum for students of color “to talk ing her without consent — something about things we’ve always noticed but Aquino didn’t experience that night. never had a chance to talk about in a “We are both women, we were concrete way.” both at the party, but I was comfortBut Emma, who also participated able and she wasn’t,” Aquino said, in TWTP, said she did not find the adding that it was program effecclear from that night tive. “I felt like that many students it wasn’t a great decide whether to program because “A lot of the topics it promotes selfinitiate physical contact “according to the we talk about make segregation,” she color of your skin.” us feel uncomfort- said.

Habtu also has felt Habtu said the unwanted attention able because they’re program marked from male students the realities in our “the first time I due to her race. “I was exposed to society.” know my freshman a lot of the conyear I would go out cepts” of race and Sabine Williams ‘15.5 and … hear from a identity, adding lot of different guys that she “wasn’t ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve really sure how I never been with a black girl before,’” myself could jump into (the discusshe said, adding that even some of sion) as someone who didn’t know her white male friends have voiced that much about it.” similar sentiments about other black After pre-orientation ends, stufemale students in her presence. dents of color can still take part in “It makes you feel like they don’t a host of activities sponsored by see you as a person,” she said. “Like the BCSC. But those interviewed you’re just kind of an object or check- expressed mixed opinions on how list.” effective these resources are at pro“Sometimes you wonder if a guy moting inclusitivity and awareness. is interested just because it’s you or “It feels like (the BCSC) is not as is it some fetish, or is it something he open to Asians as it is to other stuwants to try,” Emma said. dents of color,” Kim said. He added “Some guys would say, ‘I really that he felt that he could not parlike you, but I’m not attracted to this ticipate in many of its programs beethnicity or this race’ and I think at cause as an Asian he didn’t feel like our age that’s something hard to hear,” he would be considered a true student she added. of color.

Williams has found that the center Finding a center faciliates a strong community among “A lot of people aren’t used to hav- students of color. “It’s a place that ing their subtle or overt racism ques- fosters solidarity and empowerment tioned or checked by people,” Habtu for people of color on this campus, said. “When they come to a campus and also for people who identify as like Brown where they can’t just say allies,” she said. whatever they want and offend people “I find it funny how people are at will, they get really offended.” always criticizing the BCSC for being Some students seeking a safe exclusive and not inviting where there space to voice concerns about rac- are all sort of events put together and ism have found a home at the Brown always open,” Williams said.

Center for Students of Color, which “They’re not spaces where you’re recently changed its name from the supposed to feel comfortable,” she Third World Center. But others have added. “A lot of the topics we talk expressed concern that the center about make us feel uncomfortable may be too insular, and conversations because they’re the realities in our that occur there may not influence society, and we realize that people broader campus discourse. live it on an everyday basis … they Each year, the BCSC sponsors are uncomfortable for the people livthe Third World Transition Pro- ing them.” gram during pre-orientation as well Others have critiqued the center as Minority Peer Counselor work- for not involving the broader campus community in its events.

“I think we’re doing a really good job recently of having campus-wide “Either way, people events that are trying to engage stuare going to categodents — white students especially — but the right people are not showing rize me into a steup to those conversations,” Saraf said. reotype. Whatever “If you try to bring up the topic I do, it’s because of of racism, the reason that it makes people uncomfortable is because it’s my race.” working under the assumption that it isn’t really a problem here — it Frances Aquino ’16 becomes something that is quickly delegitimized,” he added.

Srinivasan said, “Sometimes the vocabulary that we use to talk about shops throughout the year to pro- these issues is very limited and kind mote education and understanding of isolationist,” noting that the ways of racial issues. in which racial issues are discussed TWTP was founded because can sometimes make them seem instudents of color in the 1960s and accessible.

1970s wanted institutional support Conversations about race and at a predominantly white university, identity need to occur in spaces where said Stanley Stewart ’16. as many students as possible can ac“TWTP gave me a really intimate cess them, she added. community,” said Contreras, who is now a TWTP coordinator, adding -Additional reporting by Emily that the program provided a great Wooldridge

4 university news » ALCOHOL, from page 1 “I think it’s a very good model to understand how alcohol affects the (human) brain,” she said.

While vaporizing the alcohol, Kaun also exposes the fruit flies to a specific odor, she said. Doing so creates an association between the smell of the odor and the experience of being intoxicated.

When the fruit flies are sober again, she “asks” them whether or not they enjoyed the experience of intoxication by dispensing the odor and observing whether the flies travel toward it or not.

“If you ask them just a short time after they just sobered up, they didn’t like the experience,” Kaun said. “But

if you ask them 24 hours later, they found the experience very rewarding.”

This “switch” occurs in humans as well, and is not limited to alcohol, as it also occurs with other commonly abused drugs like nicotine and methamphetamine.

Kaun said she and her research team think that a microcircuit, a small group of neurons, allows positive memories of being drunk to suppress any associated negative memories.

Because it is relatively easy to manipulate the genetics of fruit flies, the researchers will be able to turn certain neurons associated with memory on and off to examine their effects on the memories of being intoxicated.

“We’re focusing on a part of the (fruit fly) brain called the mushroom

body,” she said, noting that this area is similar to the human hippocampus — a brain area highly associated with memory.

The award is a “first big score” for Kaun as a junior faculty member, said Barry Connors, professor of neuroscience and chair of the department, adding that it signifies that her research program has great potential.

“Dr. Kaun is interested in the really knitty gritty biological aspects behind addiction,” Connors said, adding that her research findings “will certainly suggest and inspire research in humans.”

“If I can do anything to alleviate some of (the consequences of alcohol), I will consider myself very lucky,” Kaun said.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2014

» ADVISER, from page 8 “We want the person to have a strong background in the academy and background in advising as well, but I think a key part of the program this would be directed to is first-year and sophomore advising in the premed sections,” Mandel said, adding that first-year and sophomore students have different advising needs than juniors and seniors who are already entrenched in the medical school application process. “We want the first-year and sophomore students to feel like they have somebody who is dedicated to their needs.”

Since his arrival at Brown in 2010, Vassilev said he has worked to bolster “the programmatic aspect” of preprofessional advising, particularly for health careers advising. Group advising, workshops, seminars and information sessions function as a “quasi-curriculum,” he said.

Each year, the University offers 30 to 40 programs for pre-health students, 13 to 15 for pre-law students and around 12 for pre-business students, Vassilev said.

The second health careers adviser would “focus on enabling us to ensure that the program we put together continues to be a national leader in

» SILENCE, from page 1 nationwide. Last week, a Ferguson grand jury decided not to indict Wilson, inciting more protests and activism. Tamir Rice, a black 12-year-old holding a toy gun, was killed by a white police officer in Cleveland, Ohio last week.

Participating in the Day of Silence was a “very powerful” experience, said Jordan Ferguson ’17, president of the Black Student Union. Seeing other people take part in the day with tangible signs of solidarity was a reminder that there are many students on campus who “adhere to issues they care about,” he said. Faculty members and friends respected his decision to be silent and did not attempt to make him talk, he added.

The decision to organize the event grew from an email thread among black student group leaders that Ferguson started in an effort to mobilize activism against the decision not to indict Wilson, Gonzales said.

“I have been encouraged by large student turnout” during the previous days of protests, said Armani Madison ’16, president of Brown’s chapter of the NAACP, who also participated in the day of silence. Seeing people with tape over their mouths is “jarring” and a way to remember those “whose voices have

health careers advising,” Vassilev said.

An additional adviser would “help us navigate the resources we have,” said Tien Hua ’17, a pre-medical student. She noted that the number of pre-med students seeking guidance can make it difficult to schedule advising meetings.

“Caring about the students, about what we’re actually doing with our lives” is a key quality in a health careers adviser, said Tom Kishkovich ’15. Because health careers advisers are not “too involved with us day-today, as a professor might be,” it might be difficult for them to get to know their advisees, he added.

The term pre-health encompasses a range of healthcare professions — including students interested in attending dental or veterinary school — so it is important that the second adviser understands “the breadth of the healthcare professions,” Mandel said.

Brandon Dale ’17, a pre-med student, said he would appreciate having a health careers adviser who has had experience working in medicine. He added that an ideal adviser would be “willing to get to know people … (and) to share their previous experiences and encourage students in whatever their endeavors and interests.” been permanently silenced,” he said.

Students will have more opportunities for reflection, discussion and activism in the coming weeks, Ferguson said. It is important to show that action against racism and police brutality is “not another activist fad” but steps taken to combat a critical and pervasive issue, he said.

Brown’s Day of Silence accompanies other actions across the country, in Providence and on campus. About 200 community members lay down Monday on the sidewalk in front of Sayles Hall and held signs with the names, dates of death and ages of police brutality victims, as part of a die-in organized by black student groups in protest of the Ferguson grand jury’s decision not to indict Wilson.

A group of 200 demonstrators, including some Brown students, marched Monday to the State House to show solidarity with protestors in Ferguson and in Mexico, where over 43 students at a teacher’s college in southern Mexico were kidnapped in September, the Providence Journal reported. This followed a protest on Nov. 25, when 150 demonstrators blocked traffic on Route 95 in Providence as part of a protest against the Ferguson decision, the Journal also reported.

today 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2014

why not?

menu SATELLITE DINING JOSIAH’S Really, Really Early Breakfast BLUE ROOM Mediterranean Pockets Soups: Hearty Country Vegetable, Tomato Florentine, Baked Potato ANDREWS COMMONS Pizzas: Honey Boo Boo, Mushroom Madness, Thai BBQ Chicken

DINING HALLS SHARPE REFECTORY LUNCH

DINNER

Cajun Spiced Chicken Sandwich, French Taco Sandwich, Mashed Butternut Squash

Ginger Pasta Chicken, Orange Teriyaki Haddock, Roasted Brussel Sprouts

VERNEY-WOOLLEY LUNCH

DINNER

Roasted Corn Chowder with Bacon and Potato, Fresh Vegetable Melange

Grilled Chicken Cilantro, Butternut Squash and Leek Risotto

sudoku

ZEIN KHLEIF / HERALD

Gaelle Desbordes, an instructor at Harvard Medical School, delivers a lecture Tuesday night entitled “Compassion Meditation: Perspectives from Affective Science and Brain Imagining.”

comics Class Notes | Philip Trammell ’15

crossword

calendar TODAY

TOMORROW

7:30 P.M. GHANAIAN DRUMMING AND DANCING

6:30 P.M. HEALTHCARE IN AMERICA LECTURE:

CONCERT

MEDICAL MALPRACTICE

Admission is free to this concer, featuring guest dancer Kwabena Boaeteng. Various student ensembles will also perform. Grant Recital Hall

Allen Kachalia, associate chief quality officer for the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, delivers a lecture at the Alpert Medical School. 222 Richmond St, Room 170

7:30 P.M. AMERICA’S RESPONSE TO EBOLA ABROAD

8 P.M. BRYTE SCIENCE ENRICHMENT DAY

Participants will debate the United States’ public health, national security and humanitarian interests in the context of containing the spread of the Ebola virus worldwide.

Wilson 301

INFORMATION SESSION

Brown Refugee Youth Tutoring and Enrichment seeks volunteers interested in working on curriculum development for the group’s Science Enrichment Day for local children. Wilson 305

8 P.M. MOVIE SCREENING: NATIONAL TREASURE

The Haffenreffer Museum Student Group hosts a screening of the 2004 Nicolas Cage film “National Treasure.” Admission is free and popcorn and hot chocolate will be provided.

Manning Hall

8 P.M. UNHEARD SHOWCASE

The performance will feature 20 musicians and a variety of genres including beat boxers, classical guitarists, a cappella groups and other artists. Faunce Underground

6 commentary

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2014

EDITORIAL

The value in opening a winter session Through the long-standing arrangement between Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design, students have the opportunity to take courses at either of the Providence schools. This option opens RISD’s creative prowess to Brown and Brown’s range of departments to RISD. Unfortunately, the difficulty of figuring out a schedule across both programs may close some doors for interested students.

To begin, Brown and RISD do not follow the same academic calendar.

RISD’s spring semester tends to start and end two weeks after ours. As a result, Brown students living in dorms often face housing problems at the end of the semester. Within a given week, the schedules also face compatibility issues. RISD’s 5-hour-long studio classes are a logistical nightmare for a student with a mostly Brown schedule. Moreover, simply planning courses into a schedule is a challenge as the RISD course catalog provides detailed descriptions of listings and instructors, yet no days and times for the courses. Brown students have to email RISD’s registrar, professors or students to find out more.

Brown lecture courses can rather easily accommodate extra students and seminars — especially in Engineering, Visual Art and History of Art and Architecture — are relatively easy for RISD students to access.

But because classroom and studio space are so limited at RISD, highly specialized and capped courses are largely unavailable to Brown students.

There is one way around the scheduling, paperwork and logistics obstacles students face: winter session.

Winter session — a condensed semester — offers RISD students a respite from their typically arduous routines. The six-week-long program allows for a change of pace: Students enroll in one or two classes, some in the form of workshops or travel courses — all suited to the shorter timeframe. Winter session can also give Brown students the chance to hone their artistic skill set without the additional stress associated with the usual academic rigor of a Brown education. The additional free time encourages deeper creative expression and provides the opportunity for students to take up winter internships. As winter session courses count as a full spring semester course, students looking to take five classes can get one out of the way before the second week of February, making the rest of the semester more manageable.

Registration for winter session takes place in mid-November, and passes largely unknown on Brown’s campus. The suggested method of emailing or meeting with the RISD instructor is a tedious task to undertake among midterms and finals preparation, and with no guarantee of a slot, it can be difficult to find the motivation to make the effort. This situation is even more challenging for international students, who face the same problems but with greater financial repercussions given that they may need to book long flights during the peak holiday season.

We feel lucky to have these opportunities, but they are only valuable if students actually take advantage of them. Rather than blame one registrar or the other, we ask that there be greater transparency in the Brown-RISD cross-registration. Spring schedules may be difficult to synchronize, but the benefits of winter session could be more effectively harnessed by Brown students through more dialogue and coordination between the two schools and their student bodies.

Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board: its editors, Alexander Kaplan ’15 and James Rattner ’15, and its members, Natasha Bluth ’15, Manuel Contreras ’16, Baxter DiFabrizio ’15, Manuel Monti-Nussbaum ’15, Katherine Pollock ’16 and Himani Sood ’15. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.

A N G E L IA WA N G

CORRECTIONS A column in Tuesday’s Herald (“Papalia ’13: An open letter to President Paxson — young alums are angry,” Dec. 2) misstated Jessica Papalia’s email in the byline. It is jessica_papalia@alumni.brown.edu, not jessica_papalia@alums.brown. edu. The Herald regrets the error.

An article in Tuesday’s Herald (“Protest condemns police violence,” Dec. 2) misstated the name of an organization cited by Amy Espinal. It is Direct Action for Rights and Equality, not Drug Abuse Resistance Education. The Herald regrets the error.

An article in Monday’s Herald (“Alums’ startup lands $35 million investment,” Dec. 1) misstated Anthony Staehelin’s ’10 title. Staehelin is Teespring’s head of special operations, not head of operations. The Herald regrets the error.

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

“If I can do anything to alleviate some of (the consequences of alcohol), I will consider myself very lucky.

— Karla Kaun, assistant professor of neuroscience

See alcohol on page 1.

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commentary 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2014

Recruiting is not to blame SEAN BLAKE opinions columnist

Earlier this semester, The Herald conducted a poll of undergraduates to determine their views regarding athletes and athletics on campus.

The results were hardly a surprise.

Fifty-nine percent of the non-athlete portion of the student body expressed negative views regarding the reservation of admission slots for athletes, and 54 percent of the overall student body viewed the policy disapprovingly. And, rather unsurprisingly, that figure fell to less than 20 percent disapproval among varsity athletes on campus.

These figures do not constitute a revelation. They are merely the reflection of what has been a longheld, if unofficial, opinion on campus. These figures have solidified the already tangible sense of a divide between the vast majority of varsity athletes and the rest of campus. Athletes are seen as privileged, a designation that begins long before they set foot on campus as first-years and continues to dominate their years here following matriculation. Athletes, some claim, are the undeserving benefactors of a recruiting system that reserves admission slots on their behalf. And upon arriving on campus, athletes are granted unique access to academic assistance like tu-

toring. Athletes, in short, are granted unfair benefits.

I would like to suggest that this simply does not capture the entire picture.

The greatest perceived injustice seems to dwell in the very admission of these athletes. The perception is, in its simplest terms, that the University is sacrificing academic achievements in lieu of athletic ones.

And in a sense, the University is engaging in a trade off, but any difference in academic achievement is far

these attempts to diversify the student body will make a Brown degree less valuable. Beyond the increasingly irrelevant nature of these critiques, the assertion that diversification of a student body detracts from the value of the whole seems entirely counterintuitive to some core sense of the University’s beliefs. And we cannot disregard the seeming connection between the criticism of athletic recruiting and the denouncement of a more abstract belief in the power of open-mindedness, social

encourage additional gaming of the admission system and potentially reward students for stuffing and then over-stuffing their resumes with a host of mostly meaningless titles and activities.

Instead of leveling the playing field in that manner, I believe an expansion of recruiting itself offers a better solution to the problem. In essence, we should open up reserved slots to exceptionally talented individuals beyond the confines of the court or the playing field. A school’s

We should expand recruiting and reward the extraordinary athlete, artist and poet equally. less drastic than the “dumb jock” stereotype. In fact, during the final years of Ruth Simmons’ presidency, the University instituted new, more stringent academic achievement requirements for potential recruits. In that sense, arguments that athletes are not deserving of a place in the classroom alongside their peers are becoming less and less true.

However, there are subtler and more pernicious implications of animosity toward athletes. An indictment of recruiting grounded in a perceived lack of academic rigor holds, at its core, that admission of recruits inherently diminishes the value of Brown’s name. In short,

literacy and diversification that this University’s name often engenders.

Because with this as a jumping-off point, it is not too far a step to begin questioning the validity of other similarly minded attempts at diversification — admission slots for international students comes to mind.

Ultimately, there are two simple solutions to the question of recruitment. On the one hand, we could abolish recruiting altogether and relegate athletic achievement to a simple mention alongside other extracurricular activities in an application. However, I feel that this sort of change would fan the fires in the college admission industry. It would

capacity to offer a more holistic education would be benefited greatly if it were to try and promise places to especially talented thespians, musicians, artists, writers, etc. This change would incentivize a deeper and more honest investment in a given talent or activity by prospective students. This would, in part, cure some of the ailments of the current college admission system that have been so lambasted recently — former Yale English professor William Deresiewicz’s writings immediately spring to mind. And it would hopefully usher in a more nuanced sense of perspective on campus — one that works in concert with ef-

forts to expand socioeconomic and racial diversity to thus capture a more varied set of experiences in our student body.

The current college admission system is a decidedly imperfect one.

But I do not feel that athletic recruiting is the most egregious contributor to its flaws. Rather, I believe that an expanded system of recruiting would go a long way toward solving some of the issues inherent in our current admission process. It would encourage a more meaningful engagement with one’s passions and be a step away from the unfortunate obsession with quantity over quality that college applicants display with their extracurricular lists.

Contrary to the myth of wellroundedness, I believe that it serves both schools and students best to have a more eclectic mix of bodies gifted at a smaller subset of things.

We should expand recruiting and reward the extraordinary athlete, artist and poet equally. We should not shy away from rewarding talented individuals who have simultaneously demonstrated the necessary academic prowess to succeed in a given institution. We should not decry recruiting. We should applaud it.

Sean Blake ’17 likes knowing that there are incredibly talented people around him. He can be reached at sean_blake@brown.edu.

The dangers of a Brown education SAM HILLESTAD opinions columnist

As a Brown student, odds are you’re going to make a lot of money. You’re probably going to translate your Ivy League education into a lucrative and successful career. You’ll go into tech or consulting or finance, and you’ll make bank, partly because you’re good at what you do and partly because you have a fancy degree. You’ll settle down in a big house with a big family in upper-class suburbia. You’ll do all this because that’s what’s expected of you.

If you don’t, you’ll have wasted a golden opportunity handed to you on a silver platter. You’ll have squandered all your hard work and all your parents’ money for little more than a joy ride. As Brown students, there’s a pressure — which at times can be crushing — to use your degree for a practical end.

A Brown education carries the potential to make a huge amount of money, and that potential makes us feel like we have to take advantage of it. So we do, and slowly we forget about our true passions. We forget why we came to Brown in the first place.

That is the danger of a Brown education.

But the value comes when you realize you’re not committed to that life. Sure, part of the value is that you can make a lot of money if you want. But the real value is the intangibles.

A top-tier liberal education teaches you to think and learn on your own, and that’s a skill you can use for anything you want.

Admittedly, there are plenty of Brown students who genuinely enjoy pursuits that happen to net them a lot of money. There are also

a number of students who have to take highpaying jobs to pay off student loans or support their families. Their hands are forced, but the rest of us have a choice. For those of us who prefer music and art and philosophy and poetry, my message is this: Don’t listen to the people saying your life has to have a practical purpose. Go to graduate school and keep studying Russian literature or art history.

Keep playing in your band and live off what you can earn from small gigs at dingy bars.

Travel the world. Stay the course. Don’t let the pressure of using your degree for something practical push you onto the path society has

riculum is both a danger and an asset. Many Brown students, myself included, come here with very little idea what they want to pursue.

With no guidance from a concrete curriculum, maybe we take a couple computer science courses, we dabble in development studies, we take a biology lab between English and calculus, and even a history seminar here and there. And before we know it, it’s time to declare a concentration.

That’s where the pressure to do something practical comes back. Too often our lodestar is the concentration with the highest future salary — and if we happen to like the material

A Brown education carries a potential to make a huge amount of money, and that potential makes us feel like we have to take advantage of it. So we do, and slowly we forget about our true passions. We forget why we came to Brown in the first place. deemed most valuable.

The propensity to make money with a Brown degree — or any degree for that matter — is a double-edged sword. The same thing that makes it dangerous is also a boon. On the one hand, it could pressure you into a career you hate just for the sake of making money.

But on the other hand, those very same skills you could use in the pursuit of wealth can be used in the pursuit of happiness. And if that pursuit also happens to make you loads of cash, all the better.

Just as the Brown degree is a double-edged sword, the freedom offered by the open cur-

too, that’s just a bonus. This is the safe route.

As it turns out, the open curriculum doesn’t cultivate a culture of free and open intellectualism as was intended. The freedom is intense and frightening, so we fall back on what’s safe and expected. Too much academic freedom sets us on a predictable path.

But that freedom can also help us find and foster our academic passions. Somewhere in the course of our patchwork education, some of us get lucky and stumble across a calling.

Sometimes it happens too late. Sometimes it doesn’t happen at all. But when it does, it’s the Brown education at its finest. That journey

of academic self-discovery needs freedom.

Whether you thrive in that freedom or resort to a predetermined course is up to you.

As Robert Frost wrote, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

Though the poem is actually referencing an arbitrary dichotomy, as a Brown student, your road will soon diverge in a very real way.

Down one road lies the predictable path. That road that leads to a white-picket fence and a Mercedes-Benz. Odds are, you’re already traveling down that road. It’s safe and welltrodden. But more often than not, that road has a toll. You sacrifice happiness for wealth, all because you wouldn’t take a risk.

Down the other road is freedom — a chaotic and wild freedom. This road leads to liberation from societal pressures. To travel this road, you have to realize your education is not a means to a high-paying job. It’s an end in itself. Now, unburdened by the urge for wealth and status, you become free to pursue your passion.

But you’re also free to chase fleeting whims or passing fancies. Just like the dangerous freedom of a Brown education, the real world may not lead you to find some great purpose.

But you have to try. Otherwise you’ll fall prey to the perils of a Brown education while turning a blind eye to its true value.

So take the road less traveled. It will make all the difference.

Sam Hillestad ’15 is trying to take the road less traveled, but he keeps getting lost. Please send directions to samuel_hillestad@brown.edu.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2014

THE

BROWN DAILY HERALD Science & Research Roundup

BY ISOBEL HECK, SCIENCE & RESEARCH EDITOR

Study probes helmet efficacy Though the two sports go by the same name, men’s and women’s lacrosse differ significantly. In the former, both protective gear and injuries are common and in the latter, little protective gear is worn and though injuries are rarer, they still occur. This difference has recently sparked recent questioning of the dearth of headgear in women’s lacrosse.

In a recent paper, Joseph Crisco, professor of orthopaedic research, and his team presented the results of two experiments that analyze at the acceleration of women’s lacrosse stick hits and the efficacy of four helmet types in reducing the impact of hits, according to a University press release.

Crisco serves on the Sports Science and Safety Committee of U.S. Lacrosse.

In the first experiment, the researchers asked seven 12- to 14-year-old female lacrosse players to hit specific locations on dummy heads 36 times using lacrosse sticks with as much force as possible.

The hits “were basically aggressive street fights,” Crisco said in the release, adding that all of the lacrosse sticks used were broken.

In a follow-up experiment, the dummy heads wore headgear from four different sports — men’s lacrosse, rugby, mixed martial arts and women’s lacrosse. While the mixed martial arts and women’s lacrosse headgear both largely reduced the peak accelerations of the strikes, the men’s lacrosse headgear prevailed as the most effective. The rugby headgear did not protect the sides of the head at all, but was more effective than the mixed martial arts and women’s lacrosse headgear in protecting the top of the head, according to the release.

But even the most protective headgear may not be the solution to the rising number of concussions, Crisco said in the release. While helmets that reduce acceleration may help prevent skull fractures and brain injuries, it is unclear whether there is a correlation between acceleration of hits and likelihood of concussions, according to the release.

In fact, introducing helmets into women’s lacrosse could “actually make the game more aggressive,” Crisco added.

Elderly show different way of learning Though researchers have long thought that elderly people have trouble learning new information due to their brains’ lack of plasticity, a recent study conducted by University researchers challenges this idea.

In the study led by Takeo Watanabe, professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences, researchers found that older people have more difficulty learning new information for reasons related to attention, according to a University press release.

The researchers tested two groups of participants — one of 67- to 79-year-olds and the other of 19- to 30-year-olds. Over a nine-day period, the researchers trained the participants on a visual task in which participants had to identify and remember numerals displayed over moving dots.

The older of the two groups, on average, improved just as much as the group of younger participants, according to the release.

While younger subjects were able to filter out information about the movement of the background dots, the older subjects learned this information in addition to discriminating the numbers.

In a follow-up study, the researchers explored attentional differences between age groups. The researchers asked subjects to identify a stimulus that was surrounded by distracting objects, and found that older participants struggled significantly more than younger ones, according to the release.

The researchers also found a direct link between participants’ difficulty with the second task and the extent to which they learned irrelevant information in the first task, suggesting that older peoples’ impaired ability to filter out distracting information — rather than lesser brain plasticity — may hurt their learning of relevant information.

Broadening the STEM perspective A recent study led by a Brown researcher and published in the journal CBE-Life Sciences Education, incorporates the suggestions of 50 underrepresented minority students into eight ideas for improving their educational experiences.

The group of students, including some from Brown, shared their suggestions at a conference organized by the researchers earlier this year.

“We didn’t just sit down and design a survey and say, ‘This is a good question to ask’,” said lead-author of the study, Andrew Campbell, associate professor of medical science, in a University press release.

The students’ suggestions were consolidated into a list of eight ideas to improve educational practices, including, for example, a greater focus on social justice, reformulation of methods of evaluation that may be culturally biased and an increase in opportunities for graduate students to pursue multiple disciplines as their interests change.

The researchers plan to hold larger conferences in the future and broaden the age range of students involved, Campbell said in the release.

“You don’t need an entire class or an entire semester to inform students,” Campbell said in the release. “You can design things like modules where students can learn about various options.”

science & research

U. to add health career adviser New adviser will join Dean Vassilev in supporting 600 to 800 pre-health students

By MARINA RENTON SENIOR STAFF WRITER

A national search is underway for an additional health careers adviser, said Dean of the College Maud Mandel.

The University currently does not employ an adviser solely for students interested in health careers — George Vassilev, assistant dean of the College and director of pre-professional advising, serves both pre-health and pre-law students, though the bulk of his advising focuses on students considering careers in health care.

Adding an adviser will bolster support for pre-professional advising as well as make up for the departure of Andrew Simmons, former director of the Center for Careers and Life After Brown, Mandel said.

Prior to becoming director of CareerLAB, Simmons held the position of associate dean of the College for health and law careers. He withdrew from health careers advising last January and left the University at the end of the summer, Vassilev said, leaving Vassilev as the only pre-health adviser.

Brown provides pre-professional advising in three areas: pre-health, pre-law and pre-business. The fields “have very specified application processes that require a particular knowledge base for advising and guidance,” Mandel said.

At any given time, students and

UNIVERSITY NEWS

RYAN WALSH / HERALD

The University is conducting a search for an additional health careers adviser, who will likely focus on supporting first-years and sophomores. alums interested in health careers number between 600 and 800, both Mandel and Vassilev said.

Vassilev is heading the search committee, which has included students, faculty and administrators in the outreach process, and has been meeting throughout the semester, he said. “We want to … continue providing that outstanding guidance and support to our students and alumni” despite Simmons’ departure, Vassilev said.

Vassilev and Mandel said they are not sure when the search will

conclude, but Mandel said the committee is “nearing the end” of its process.

Pre-professional advising services are offered jointly by the dean of the College’s office and CareerLAB, in order to “integrate the academic advising with the career planning aspects of what we do,” Vassilev said. The second health careers adviser would likely be stationed in CareerLAB in order to “continue that integration … (and) enable us to enhance it further,” he added. » See ADVISER, page 4

Professor examines nomadic history Nicola DiCosmo questions existing theories and perceptions about nomadic lifestyle

By ANDREW JONES SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Throughout history, groups of nomads have not always been given the attention they deserve, said Nicola Di Cosmo, professor of East Asian Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, in a lecture he delivered Tuesday night in Smith-Buonanno 201. The event, which drew a sparse audience of about 10 people, focused on new scientific approaches to the history of nomads of the Eurasian Steppe, an ecoregion that extends across much of Eurasia.

Scholars have traditionally portrayed nomadic groups as peoples that do not have their own histories, Di Cosmo said.

While they are typically known to have ruthlessly terrorized, conquered and plundered surrounding civilizations, two central theories of nomadic progression have dominated previous literature, he added.

The “functionalist” view posits that Steppe nomads were always dependent on civilized peoples — particularly the

Chinese — for food and supplies. The “evolutionist” view contends that the nomadic peoples progressed socially and politically at the same rate as surrounding sedentary civilizations, Di Cosmo said, adding that he believes that neither of these views adequately captures the diversity and nuances of nomadic history.

“How to write the history of nomads has been a problem for a long time,” Di Cosmo said.

Striving to solve this problem, he compared the existing history of the Steppe nomads with knowledge from three fields of physical and life sciences: genetics, isotopic analysis and climate change.

Analysis of DNA obtained from the Steppe region can lend insight into the peoples’ migration patterns and successful conquests, Di Cosmo said.

For example, a recent paper showed that one in 200 people in the world are direct descendants of Genghis Khan, he added. But the geneticists who write these papers often draw misguided conclusions from the data, which is where historians can step in, he said.

Isotopic studies, or the analysis of the chemical makeup of objects from the Steppe nomads’ era and region, have produced surprising results about the peoples’ eating and

agricultural habits, Di Cosmo said.

Until the publication of a May 2013 paper in the Journal of Archaeological Science, it was widely believed that agriculture was not practiced in the Steppe region. But a close examination of the teeth of some of the Steppe nomads revealed that their diet consisted partly of millet and barley, he added.

Finally, trends in climate change have informed the study of nomadic societies, Di Cosmo said. As nomadic societies developed, a large climate shift toward wetter, warmer conditions may have caused a cultural and political “blooming” because of the possibility for increased agricultural yields, he added. A downside to the studies involving climate change is that they only offer correlational analyses and do not prove any causal relationship, he said.

Overall, the Steppe nomads were more sophisticated than they have previously been portrayed, Di Cosmo said. In some ways, they were more advanced than some sedentary cultures. For instance, the nomads regularly used trial-and-error logic to solve certain problems such as how to determine leadership succession, he added.

“These are problems that every civilization has to deal with, but they find new ways to deal with them.”