THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2012 daily THE BROWN since 1891 vol. cxxii, no.101 herald INSIDE Post- spinning wheels, records, and out of control ‘Elf’ in Nov. Buddy comes to Providence in “Elf the Musical” Page 4 Word of law Lecturer explores grammar of constitutional amendment Page 8 Post 50 / 34 TOMORROW 41 / 32 TODAY By TONYA RILEY SENIOR STAFF WRITER Despite having the highest tuition in Rhode Island, Brown had the lowest average debt of all reporting colleges in the state for class of 2011 graduates, ac- cording to the Project on Student Debt, a report published by the Institute for College Access and Success, a nonprofit. University graduates that year held an average of $20,455 of student debt, lower than the state average of $29,097 and also less than the national average debt of $26,600, according to the report. Rhode Island had the fourth highest average debt in the country across its 2011 college graduates. At Bryant University 2011 graduates had an average loan debt of $37,813, ranking them third highest among the reporting private colleges in Rhode Is- land. Average debt burden highest of Ivies, lowest in R.I. By MARK VALDEZ SENIOR STAFF WRITER If Hollywood were to produce a movie based on Brown’s physics department, Stanley Tucci would play manager of demonstrations Gerald Zani. Costume designers would gather a thin pair of round-wired frames, loose green pants, silver and blue Zig Tech athletic shoes and a gray T-shirt reading “I Heart PHZICS.” e finishing touch to the Zani ensemble would be a black cellphone belt clip. In 1993, Brown was searching for a physics demonstrator, someone who could conduct experiments in the classroom. At the time, Zani was working at a manufacturing factory in the greater Boston area, but he felt the company might be facing financial difficulties in the midst of a minor recession. Playing it safe, Zani applied for the available position and began his career as a demonstrator. Zani had some prior experience in physics, having taken undergraduate courses at the University of Massachu- setts at Boston, but he said his knowl- edge has progressively grown since he took the position. Zani takes the initiative to learn the physics behind the demonstrations, making sure he understands the concepts in order to communicate them efficiently. “I get the textbook for the course and go over the lessons and see how these concepts can be demonstrated,” he said. As the world of science is always changing, Zani said he is fortunate to be sent to various conferences around the country to see how other physics demonstrators are finding innovative ways to present concepts. At one of these conferences, Zani saw “a very special apparatus” that could show the wave-like and particle- like proper- Physics demonstrator thinks outside the PowerPoint By KATE NUSSENBAUM SENIOR STAFF WRITER Nearly 84 percent of students said they feel at least as happy as their peers on average, according to a poll conduct- ed by e Herald earlier this month. About half the students polled reported feeling equally as happy as their peers. More than 35 percent reported feeling happier, while only around 13 percent of students said they were less happy than their peers. “Everyone that I see seems pretty happy and has a positive outlook, but they might not think other people are as happy,” said Emily Wilkins ’14. Stu- dents may pick up on others’ stress, causing them to underestimate the happiness of their peers, she said. Nikolaos Melachrinos ’15 thought more students would have reported feeling less happy than their peers. It is difficult to know how most people, aside from your closest friends, spend their time, he said. So it is easy to think, “I have all this work to do and look at all these people having fun,” he said. “at’s awesome,” he said upon hearing the poll results. “We all have a lot of things to do, but at the end of the day we’re all having a great time.” Samantha Isman ’15 agreed that Brown’s atmosphere creates a culture of happiness. “We’re given so much freedom here that inevitably you end up doing what you love,” she said. e Herald poll results also show that happiness is not meaningfully cor- related with other variables like gender, hours of sleep or relationship status. Monica Palid ’16 said given the di- versity of experiences, this result was not very surprising. “Some people want to be in a relationship, some people don’t. Some people can’t function with- out 10 hours of sleep, some people are fine with six,” she said. Brown has garnered a reputation for being a happy campus. News- week’s the Daily Beast listed Brown as the school with the fourth-happiest students in their 2012 rankings. e University Students report faring well in pursuit of happiness 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 Brown University Yale University Dartmouth College University of Pennsylvannia Harvard University Princeton University Cornell University Average Debt of 2011 Ivy League Graduates Average Debt *Columbia University did not report the average debt of its 2011 graduates. $20,455 $9,254 $16,615 $17,891 $11,780 $5,330 $19,180 KYLE MCNAMARA / HERALD According to the Institute for College Access and Success’ latest report, Brown students graduate with the largest amount of loan debt compared to peers at the other Ivy League institutions. EMILY GILBERT / HERALD Gerald Zani, manager of demonstrations in the physics department, brings excitement and enthusiasm to classroom experiments. Storm blows in, power goes out By AMY RASMUSSEN CITY & STATE EDITOR Only a week after Hurricane Sandy cut a wide swath of destruction through the Northeast, the Nor’easter Athena blew into the Ocean State, bringing high winds and a shock of blustery snow. For some off-campus students, the storm also caused the season’s first power outages. Vivian Carlson ’14, a Benefit Street resident, said her power cut out at 5:30 p.m. “We called National Grid,” she said. “It’s a pretty bad storm.” Apartments on Williams and Hope streets also went dark shortly before 6 p.m. Ruth Shefner ’13 said most of her street appeared to be powerless for about an hour. But thanks to Sandy, most students had storm preparations under control. “We stocked up last week,” Shefner said. Approximately 200 Providence residences were affected as of 8:30 last night, with an expected restoration time of 11:30 p.m., according to the National Grid website. NEWS IN BRIEF On average, how happy do you think you are relative to your peers? Equally happy 46.1% Slightly happier 29.0% Much happier 8.6% Unsure 2.8% Much less happy 2.3% Slightly less happy 11.2% KYLE MCNAMARA / HERALD Many student poll respondents said they felt happier than their peers. CLPS Professor Joachim Krueger attributes this to “self-enhancement.” / / Happy page 4 / / Debt page 3 / / Zani page 5
Transcript
Thursday, November 8, 2012dailythe Brown
since 1891vol. cxxii, no.101herald
INsIde
Post-spinning wheels, records, and out of control
‘Elf ’ in Nov. Buddy comes to Providence in “Elf the Musical”
Page 4
Word of lawLecturer explores grammar of constitutional amendment
Page 8
Post
50 / 34
tomorrow
41 / 32
today
By TonyA RileySenior Staff Writer
Despite having the highest tuition in rhode Island, Brown had the lowest average debt of all reporting colleges in the state for class of 2011 graduates, ac-cording to the Project on Student Debt, a report published by the Institute for College Access and Success, a nonprofit.
University graduates that year held an average of $20,455 of student debt, lower than the state average of $29,097 and also less than the national average debt of $26,600, according to the report.
rhode Island had the fourth highest average debt in the country across its 2011 college graduates.
At Bryant University 2011 graduates had an average loan debt of $37,813, ranking them third highest among the reporting private colleges in rhode Is-land.
average debt burden highest of Ivies, lowest in r.I.
By MARk VAldezSenior Staff Writer
If hollywood were to produce a movie based on Brown’s physics department, Stanley tucci would play manager of demonstrations Gerald Zani. Costume designers would gather a thin pair of round-wired frames, loose green pants, silver and blue Zig tech athletic shoes and a gray t-shirt reading “I heart PhZICS.” The finishing touch to the Zani ensemble would be a black cellphone belt clip.
In 1993, Brown was searching for a physics demonstrator, someone who could conduct experiments in the classroom. At the time, Zani was working at a manufacturing factory in the greater Boston area, but he felt the company might be facing financial difficulties in the midst of a minor recession.
Playing it safe, Zani applied for the available position and began his
career as a demonstrator. Zani had some prior experience in
physics, having taken undergraduate courses at the University of Massachu-setts at Boston, but he said his knowl-edge has progressively grown since he took the position. Zani takes the initiative to learn the physics behind the demonstrations, making sure he understands the concepts in order to communicate them efficiently.
“I get the textbook for the course and go over the lessons and see how these concepts can be demonstrated,” he said.
As the world of science is always changing, Zani said he is fortunate to be sent to various conferences around the country to see how other physics demonstrators are finding innovative ways to present concepts.
At one of these conferences, Zani saw “a very special apparatus” that could show the wave-like and particle-like proper-
Physics demonstrator thinks outside the PowerPoint
By kATe nussenbAuMSenior Staff Writer
nearly 84 percent of students said they feel at least as happy as their peers on average, according to a poll conduct-ed by The herald earlier this month. About half the students polled reported feeling equally as happy as their peers. More than 35 percent reported feeling happier, while only around 13 percent of students said they were less happy than their peers.
“everyone that I see seems pretty happy and has a positive outlook, but they might not think other people are as happy,” said emily wilkins ’14. Stu-dents may pick up on others’ stress, causing them to underestimate the happiness of their peers, she said.
nikolaos Melachrinos ’15 thought more students would have reported feeling less happy than their peers. It is difficult to know how most people, aside from your closest friends, spend their time, he said. So it is easy to think, “I have all this work to do and look at
all these people having fun,” he said.“That’s awesome,” he said upon
hearing the poll results. “we all have a lot of things to do, but at the end of the day we’re all having a great time.”
Samantha Isman ’15 agreed that Brown’s atmosphere creates a culture of happiness. “we’re given so much freedom here that inevitably you end up doing what you love,” she said.
The herald poll results also show that happiness is not meaningfully cor-related with other variables like gender, hours of sleep or relationship status.
Monica Palid ’16 said given the di-versity of experiences, this result was not very surprising. “Some people want to be in a relationship, some people don’t. Some people can’t function with-out 10 hours of sleep, some people are fine with six,” she said.
Brown has garnered a reputation for being a happy campus. news-week’s the Daily Beast listed Brown as the school with the fourth-happiest students in their 2012 rankings. The Un i v e r s i t y
students report faring well in pursuit of happiness
0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000
Brown UniversityYale University
Dartmouth CollegeUniversity of Pennsylvannia
Harvard UniversityPrinceton University
Cornell University
Average Debt of 2011 Ivy League Graduates
Average Debt*Columbia University did not report the average debt of its 2011 graduates.
$20,455
$9,254
$16,615
$17,891
$11,780
$5,330
$19,180
Kyle McnaMara / Herald
According to the institute for College Access and success’ latest report, brown students graduate with the largest amount of loan debt compared to peers at the other ivy league institutions.
eMily GilBert / Herald
Gerald zani, manager of demonstrations in the physics department, brings excitement and enthusiasm to classroom experiments.
storm blows in, power goes out
By AMy RAsMussenCity & State editor
Only a week after Hurricane Sandy cut a wide swath of destruction through the northeast, the nor’easter athena blew into the Ocean State, bringing high winds and a shock of blustery snow.
For some off-campus students, the storm also caused the season’s first power outages.
Vivian carlson ’14, a Benefit Street resident, said her power cut out at 5:30 p.m. “We called national Grid,” she said. “it’s a pretty bad storm.”
apartments on Williams and Hope streets also went dark shortly before 6 p.m. ruth Shefner ’13 said most of her street appeared to be powerless for about an hour. But thanks to Sandy, most students had storm preparations under control.
“We stocked up last week,” Shefner said.
approximately 200 Providence residences were affected as of 8:30 last night, with an expected restoration time of 11:30 p.m., according to the national Grid website.
n e W S i n B r i e F
On average, how happy do you think you are relative to your peers?
Equally happy46.1%
Slightly happier29.0%
Much happier8.6%
Unsure2.8%
Much less happy2.3%
Slightly less happy11.2%
Kyle McnaMara / Herald
Many student poll respondents said they felt happier than their peers. ClPs Professor Joachim krueger attributes this to “self-enhancement.”
/ / Happy page 4
/ / debt page 3
/ / zani page 5
campus news2 the Brown DAIly herAlDthUrSDAy, noveMBer 8, 2012
ACROSS1 Act the
troubadour6 Gp. that includes
Venezuela10 Show disapproval14 Despicable
character15 __ stick16 Drive train
component17 Fly20 End of eternity?21 Script snippet22 Like some
The Brown Daily herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement and once during orientation by The Brown Daily herald, Inc. Single copy free for each member of the community. PoStMASter please send corrections to P.o. Box 2538, Providence, rI 02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, r.I. Subscription prices: $280 one year daily, $140 one semester daily. Copyright 2012 by The Brown Daily herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
Christmas is coming to Providence early this year. The national tour of “elf the Musical” began its one-week stint at the Providence Performing Arts Center Sunday.
“elf the Musical” is based on the 2003 hit comedy “elf,” starring will Ferrell, and closely follows the film’s tale of Bud-dy the elf. As a baby, Buddy crawls into Santa’s sack of toys and is subsequently raised by elves in the north Pole. Though he grows to the size of an adult man, Buddy continues to believe he is an elf. eventually, it becomes apparent to Buddy that he is human, and when Santa reveals that his true father is living in new york City, Buddy embarks upon an adventure to reconnect with him. Buddy arrives in the Big Apple right before Christmas —
still dressed and acting like an elf — and heartwarming hilarity ensues.
This is the plot of both the film and musical, and yet, a word of caution: If you are looking for will Ferrell’s “elf,” this play is not it. while the plot, char-acters, setting and even many of the jokes are the same, their delivery is not. Brandon vorrius ’14 said the musical, unlike the movie, takes on a childish tone. The extremely bright, colorful set pieces, dances and music, are strong on their own but do not fit with the more comedic aspects of the musical. The ac-tors embrace their storybook caricatures rather than more realistic characters, taking away from the comedic absurdity captured by the film.
The difference is best encapsulated by the musical’s lead, Matt Kopec. his ver-sion of Buddy, in sharp contrast to will Ferrell’s, is not six feet tall or even slightly
overweight, but rather a young skinny guy with a high voice. As vorrius com-mented, he “could have actually been an elf.” The overall effect is that the musical becomes less of a raucous comedy and more of a traditional Christmas tale.
when taken as a holiday story and not as a will Ferrell-style comedy, “elf the Musical” is highly entertaining. Some of the jokes from the film are still spot-on, even if their delivery is different. Certain scenes, such as Kopec’s attack on the fake Santa, are particularly funny onstage, and a few of the characters — Clyde voce as the Macy’s manager and Jen Bechter as Deb the secretary — are absolutely hilarious.
Most importantly, with holiday songs played alongside set pieces that are in-vocative of snowy and festive new york City, the musical will put its viewers in the holiday spirit.
‘elf ’ musical spreads Christmas cheer
By RACHel MARGolisContributing Writer
Americans talk a lot about First Amend-ment rights. But how much do we really stop to think about its punctuation and the specially chosen words that give it meaning? not enough, says Michael McConnell, director of the Constitutional law Center at Stanford law School and a senior fellow at the hoover Institution.
“It’s not long, but there’s an awful lot packed into this,” he said to a sizeable crowd, predominantly students, who braved the snowstorm to attend the annual Meiklejohn lecture wednesday night.
McConnell has argued 13 cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, the most recent being CompuCredit v. Greenwood in 2011. he has served as a circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the tenth Circuit, Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Department of Justice and law clerk to Justice william J. Brennan Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court. A leading authority on many aspects of constitu-tional history and law, he specializes in matters involving the First Amendment and was considered a potential U.S. Su-preme Court nominee under President George w. Bush.
The Meiklejohn lecture was created in honor of Alexander Meiklejohn, who graduated from Brown in 1893 and went on to become dean of the University and president of Amherst College. endowed by former renault executive louis Sch-weitzer, the lectureship has brought such distinguished speakers as former U.S. Attorney General Janet reno, civil rights attorney Floyd Abrams, then-president of the AClU nadine Strossen, Supreme
Court Justice Antonin Scalia and inves-tigative journalist and author Seymour hersh. Meiklejohn still “dominates the field” of constitutional law, McConnell said.
Throughout the lecture, McCon-nell used his PowerPoint — titled “The Architecture of the First Amendment: what can we learn from its grammar, words and historical context?” — to dis-play the amendments and other texts to which he referred, reformatting them and highlighting words and phrases as necessary.
he first examined the punctuation of the First Amendment.
The two clauses refer to the same word, religion, which McConnell be-lieves should make us “suspicious of the argument sometimes made that we ought to give the idea of religion a very broad construction for purposes of free exercise, including various secular forms of conscience, but give it a very narrow interpretation for interpretation of es-tablishment.”
“There’s only one word — it’s only repeated once,” McConnell added. “The idea that you give two different defini-tions is, I think, questionable.”
he then addressed the amendment’s subject: Congress. he noted that the oth-er branches of government are not men-tioned, raising the question of whether the executive or judicial branches or individual state governments could in-fringe upon our First Amendment rights. But the 14th Amendment’s guarantee to due process ensures this will not come to pass, he added.
The amendment’s verbs “clump the sentences in a different way from the semicolons,” he said. It can be divided
into three verbs: “respecting,” “prohibit-ing” and “abridging.”
The statement that Congress may not “abridge” freedom of speech implies that an understanding of this freedom already existed, McConnell said. The addition of “the” also suggests that “the freedom of speech” was a pre-existing concept. By contrast, the fact that Con-gress must not “prohibit” the free exer-cise of religion shows that no such right had already been established.
The choice of the verb “respecting” is also significant. while Congress may not establish religion, it also may not “dis-establish” it, allowing “roughly one half of the States” to practice “non-coercive or tolerant establishment.”
If freedom of religion is the newest right set forth in the First Amendment, free press is the second newest. Mc-Connell said freedom of the press was “vigorously believed in” after the lapse of the licensing Act in 1695, long before the founding.
Freedom to petition and assemble is the oldest of the First Amendment rights. to demonstrate this, McConnell displayed two sections of the english Bill of rights: The first allowed all subjects to petition and assemble, and the second protected members of Parliament from being punished for ideas that they put forward while deliberating in Parliament. he noted that while only Parliament had to be protected while creating laws, this power today is wielded by the American people, and the First Amendment is thus a combination of these two stipulations.
“what was a right of the Parliamen-tarians becomes the right of all Ameri-cans,” he said.
Grant Drzyzga ’14, who takes a constitutional law class that focuses on textual analysis, found the lecture “ex-tremely informative” and “insightful.”
“Breaking it down to the punctuation isn’t something we usually do,” he said, adding that this useful tool on the “utility belt” of constitutional law experts adds some “nice little nuance” to the study.
Anthony Calcagni ’13 said he “abso-lutely agreed” with many of McConnell’s points. while we talk about freedom of speech and the press, “we don’t really talk about how, grammatically, those came to be.”
Calcagni is currently enrolled in PolS 1120: “Campaigns and elections,” and attended the lecture with his class.
“we’re all really excited for the de-brief,” he said.
speaker studies amendment to the letter
campus news 3the Brown DAIly herAlDthUrSDAy, noveMBer 8, 2012
The average amount of debt at Bryant is generally “very stable and predictable,” said John Canning, director of financial aid at Bryant.
Private schools like Bryant attract a large percentage of students from the middle-income bracket, he said, which contributes to higher loan debt averages. Bryant also relies on tuition, rather than endowment funds, to fund operating costs, he said.
Bryant tries to prevent student debt loads from increasing by matching tu-ition hikes with increases in aid, Can-ning said.
Canning added that schools in high-er demand, such as Brown, attract more students that can pay tuition up front.
loan debt at Brown has been de-creasing since 2008, when the Univer-sity instituted a new financial aid policy, according to James tilton, director of financial aid. The policy eliminated loans from financial aid packages for students with an expected family contribution un-der $100,000 and capped loans for those with an eFC of $150,000 and below.
Brown is the only rhode Island col-lege on tICAS’ list that has met its finan-cial aid pledge to reduce or eliminate student loans in financial aid packages.
less than half of Brown students take out loans — a fact stemming from a combination of the University’s finan-cial aid program and the socioeconomic makeup of the student body, tilton said.
ivy lagger The University’s average debt burden
is the highest in the Ivy league. All other Ivies, except Columbia, which did not
report statistics, had an average graduat-ing debt load less than $20,000 for the class of 2011. Princeton has the lowest average loan debt at $5,330 per graduate, according to the report.
An institution’s ability to fund finan-cial aid correlates with students’ average loan debt, explaining why larger endow-ment schools with no-loan policies, like Princeton, have smaller average loan debt, tilton said.
yale continues to see its average loan debt decrease in the current economic climate, as students are “more loan-adverse” and fewer choose to take out loans to replace work-study, said Caesar Storlazzi, director of financial aid at yale.
Graduates of yale in 2011 had an average student loan debt of $9,254, the second lowest in the Ivy league.
yale’s financial aid policy, which does not include any loans in its financial aid packages regardless of family in-come level, is “absolutely a factor” in the school’s low loan debt rates, Stor-lazzi said.
Though about 30 percent of the graduating class had loan debt in 2011, Storlazzi said the percentage decreased to about 15 percent for the class of 2012.
he added that yale has continued to strengthen its financial aid policies for middle-class students despite the nega-tive effects the financial downturn had on its endowment, though the amount of money budgeted for financial aid that comes from the operating budget rather than from endowment returns has in-creased, he said.
data debtThough the report sheds light on
national student debt load trends, it is
affected by problems related to data col-lection and availability.
The report does not include loans incurred by parents, which comprise a substantial portion of educational debt, Canning said. he added that the statistics from institutions like Bryant are especially affected by this omission, because students at such schools de-pend on their parents to help fund their education.
The failure to address parent loans only provides prospective students with “half the picture,” said Charles Kelley P’13, executive director at the rhode Island Student loan Authority, a non-profit state organization.
Kelley also cited the lack of data on Stafford loan defaults after the first three years as a barrier to getting a compre-hensive look at student loan debt.
Part of the problem in reporting data is that colleges do not always have data on private loans, said Debbie Cochrane, research director at tICAS.
“Student loan debt can be one of the best investments a student can make,” she added. “But another important as-pect is whether the borrower can repay loans after graduation.”
The tICAS report also suffers from self-selection bias — because institutions have the option to submit data, colleges with high debt may opt to not respond in fear that publicizing their loan debt numbers would hurt their appeal to ap-plicants, Cochrane said.
“while it’s the best we’ve got, it’s cer-tainly flawed,” she added.
Citing inflation and annual tuition hikes of 2 to 5 percent, Canning said it is very difficult to look at the statistics from the class of 2011 and determine
what loan debt will look like in 2017, the expected graduation year of students applying to college this year.
The lowdown on loans“It’s critical for institutions to be up-
front about cost of attendance,” tilton said.
Deciding what constitutes an appro-priate amount of loan debt is a “tough decision,” he said, and the Financial Aid office works with families on strategies to minimize loan debt.
In tilton’s six years with the financial aid office, focus has shifted from just explaining the basics of financial aid to helping parents and students understand the available financing options, he said.
“we do a more thorough job,” tilton
said. “It’s not just, ‘here’s your grants, here’s your loans.’”
For students in rhode Island but not at Brown, the rhode Island Student loan Authority provides similar programs to help students prepare financially for college.
Unlike many federal programs, rIS-lA offers loan forgiveness programs that focus on the first two to four years after graduation, during which students are most vulnerable to loan defaults, said noel Simpson, deputy director and chief financial and compliance officer at rISlA. Programs sponsored by rISlA also include loan forgiveness for students who work as nurses in high-demand areas in rhode Island or start businesses in the state, he said.
/ / debt page 1
campus news4 the Brown DAIly herAlDthUrSDAy, noveMBer 8, 2012
also nabbed the number one spot on the Princeton review’s happiest Stu-dents list in 2009 and 2010, though it dropped to third in the 2011 rankings and to 14th this year.
But even if the overall level of stu-dent happiness is high compared to other colleges, the general atmosphere does not fully explain the poll result. respondents were asked to evaluate their happiness levels compared to their peers — if most students feel happy, then it is likely their peers feel happy as well. In such a circumstance, the average overall happiness level would be higher, but students would still recognize their relative position
in the distribution.Marina Do nas Cimento ’15 said
this pattern of results likely arises be-cause people do not accurately judge their peers.“when you say you’re hap-pier than someone else, part of what you’re implying is that you really don’t care how happy other people are. you just know you’re happy, and you’re fine with that idea.”
Do nas Cimento’s idea is probably correct, according to Joachim Krueger, professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences.
People tend to “self-enhance,” he said.
“This type of thing has been done many, many times,” Krueger said. The herald’s poll results align with past
studies in social psychology, he added. Krueger cited a study conducted
by the Swedish researcher ola Svenson in 1981. In the study, Svenson asked both American and Swedish drivers to rate their relative driving abilities. 80 percent of U.S. drivers and 70 percent of Swedish drivers reported that they were better-than-average drivers.
“The kicker is that they included people laid up in hospitals after acci-dents that they themselves had caused,” Krueger said. “They found ways to dis-count the accident.”
“The explanation is that people don’t really compare themselves with others,” he said. For example, when people rate how happy they are, they think about the range of emotions they
know, from despair to ecstasy. Most people tend to think that on average, their emotions fall above the midpoint of that scale, Krueger said. “And they don’t really have much of a clue about how other people feel,” he added.
Such a theory is supported by a study done by the researchers yechiel Klar and eilath Giladi in 1999. They asked people to rate their own and their peers’ happiness on a nine-point scale and then to compare their hap-piness levels to those of others. They found that peoples’ judgments of their absolute happiness were strongly cor-related with their judgments of their relative happiness. Judgments about peer happiness were almost completely ignored.
Some researchers believe that the self-enhancement bias has beneficial qualities. It can, for example, increase self-esteem. But it can also be harmful, by results in narcissism, for example, Krueger said.
The positive moods that self-en-hancement induces are beneficial to survival, according to a paper by ed-ward Diener, a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois who has written four books on happiness and subjective well-being.
“humans are built for mild happi-ness, unless things go wrong,” he wrote in an email to The herald. “So we are mostly positive about ourselves and our friends. … we may think the world is going to heck, but our lives are not.”
methodologyWritten questionnaires were admin-
istered to 959 undergraduates Oct. 17-18 in the lobby of J. Walter Wilson and the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center during the day and the Sciences Library at night. The poll has a 2.9 percent mar-gin of error with 95 percent confidence. The margin of error is 4.4 percent for the subset of males and 3.9 percent for females.
/ / Happy page 1
feature 5the Brown DAIly herAlDthUrSDAy, noveMBer 8, 2012
ties of light.“I looked through the catalogs,
and I realized the photon multiplier tool was very expensive,” he said. “So I called the companies and asked if they could make an academic donation, and I found one.”
he handled the machinery with care as he flicked on the television to begin a private demonstration about light. random flashes of light, remi-niscent of speeding spaceships in “Star wars,” dotted the television screen as a “very advanced screen” inside the machine “picks up very dim little packs of light energy called particles,” he narrated.
“Something magical will happen if you add up every one of these par-ticles,” Zani said.
As the particles of light energy began to accumulate on screen, he watched with admiration as a column-like pattern appeared on the screen, alternating between light and dark rods.
“Surprisingly, for some mysterious reason … light, which is a particle, has this weirdness to it that it behaves like a wave if you collect a lot of it,” he said.
riding the waves
on a Thursday afternoon, the stu-dents in PhyS 0270: “Introduction to Astronomy” shuffled in their seats, reviewing their graded exams.
Meanwhile, Zani was setting up the experiment that would be present-ed later in class. Zani’s office — which
is more like a lair — has entrances to both lecture halls, rooms 166 and 168 in Barus and holley, to facilitate easier access in and out during presenta-tions. equipped with a peephole, the doors allow Zani to see “the perfect time to come in and begin the dem-onstration,” he said.
he wheeled in six large grey cinder blocks and arranged them around three Bunsen burners. he then placed a 55-gallon empty black barrel that used to house ethyl alcohol in front of the students.
Zani was setting up the “55-gal-lon supernova” demonstration, which explains the properties of a supernova within the confines of the classroom.
“I think we need some plexiglass over here, too,” Zani said to a student assistant, concerned about the safety of the students, who were still com-paring exam answers while waiting for the lecture to start.
Zani bent down, used a flint to light the burners and began to pour water into the barrel. once class be-gan, Zani took a seat in the front row as the barrel began to steam like a tea-pot. The steady whistle of steam was drowned out by Associate Professor of Physics Ian Dell’Antonio beginning his lecture.
Dell’Antonio gave Zani a nod, in-dicating the start of the section that correlated with the experiment. Zani turned off the Bunsen burners and began to screw the two openings at the top of the barrel closed.
“The pressure of the water vapor is still inside, and this is the equivalent
of what a star does when it does nu-clear fusion,” Dell’Antonio explained.
“I think we’re ready,” Dell’Antonio told Zani, who promptly put on in-dustrial gloves and began packing dry ice on top of the barrel.
“It’s going to cool our star, so we stopped the nuclear fusion reactions,” the explanation continued, but was suddenly halted by a loud boom. Stu-dents let out gasps of surprise, as the barrel suddenly collapsed in on itself like a crushed water bottle.
“The star has to collapse. By cool-ing the gas, we caused all that water vapor to come out and left a vacuum inside. So the air pressure outside — which you don’t normally feel — is huge, and it contracts.”
As the lecture continued, Zani lift-ed the crumpled barrel and placed it on a rolling cart. The plexiglass came down, and Zani quietly receded into his office, taking all of the demonstra-tion materials with him.
Zani aims to present demonstra-tions in a creative way, bridging aca-demic fields.
“My goal is to try to impact stu-dents with experiences beyond the equations in the classroom,” he said. Inspired by a conference, he has also “learned about using the elements of theater-like music and drama” to show the “beauty of the phenomena.”
he seeks the help of one of his stu-dent assistants, Stephen Albright ’13, who studies both physics and music.
“I’ll tell Stephen, I want you to find a piece of music that goes perfectly with this particular demonstration,”
Zani said.like a conductor, Zani synced
Camille Saint-Saens’ “Danse Bac-chanle” with his demonstration on magnetism. Placing a light beneath a hollow copper tube, Zani asked the student audience to look through it, like a magician convincing the audi-ence “there are no tricks.”
Dropping a miniature hockey puck-shaped magnet into the tube, Zani made the magnet slowly float down the tube without touching the edges.
“I timed the music so that when you release the magnet, the music is playing,” Zani said. “you hear this beautiful music and then it stops, and you hear the clunk as the mag-net stops.”
Perfectly in sync, the magnet fell to the floor, providing the final beat to the musical score.
Part of the circuitover the course of his 19-year ca-
reer at Brown, Zani has made lasting impressions on students and faculty. Students always know who “Jerry” is and feel his work should not go unnoticed.
“he is definitely one of the most underappreciated people at Brown,” said Abishek Kulshreshtha ’15.
Sarah Schade ’15, who worked with Zani for nine weeks in the sum-mer, was immersed in Zani’s world
as she helped digitize his videos and create new demos for the upcoming semester.
“he will do anything to make sure that those demonstrations go well,” Schade said. “Also, he tries to teach. he would always ask me if I knew what the demos really meant and would go up to the chalkboard and go into very minute detail.”
on a hectic wednesday morning before a lecture, Savvas Koushiap-pas, assistant professor of physics, came into the office to pick up the demonstration about electron beams and magnetism for his class PhyS 0470: “electricity and Magnetism.” Zani had already prepared the table with the various pieces of equipment in advance, but Koushiappas realized he needed a larger piece for the class to be able to see.
“Jerry is the best and very impres-sive,” Koushiappas said as Zani set up the new electron beam demonstra-tion. “I’ll call him 10 minutes before class and say, ‘hey, Jerry. Do you have anything to demonstrate this con-cept?’ and he’ll get it.”
Zani said he feels fortunate to col-laborate with the physics professors and enjoys coming in to work each day to learn something new and share a bit of science with students.
“I have to be a salesman and en-courage professors to do risky things,” Zani said.
/ / zani page 1
editorial & letter6 the Brown DAIly herAlDthUrSDAy, noveMBer 8, 2012
C o r r e C t I o n S P o l I C yThe Brown Daily herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.
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e d i to r i a l C a r to o n b y a n g e l i a w a n g
“Humans are built for mild happiness, unless things
go wrong.”— ed diener, professor of psychology at the University of illinois
See happy on page 1.
e d i to r i a l
how many times have you heard students and professors alike complain about the “Brown bubble”? Brown is the most selective university in rhode Island, and this elite image is, somewhat deliberately, reinforced by its liter-ally elevated geographical location on top of College hill. Besides providing a brochure of Providence attractions to incoming freshmen, the University does not do much to encourage students to explore beyond campus boundaries.
on a weekly basis, the closest most students will get to going down the hill is for the two-for tuesdays deal at Geoff’s sandwich shop (or for a movie at Providence Place). what’s more is that the bubble is growing more widespread. As the University’s increasing presence on and around Thayer Street indicates, Brown’s further expansion will continue to widen the divide between students and Providence.
A couple weeks ago, The herald published an article detailing the University’s plans to buy the property on Thayer Street that is currently occupied by City Sports, a useful yet underperforming store (“U. plans to purchase Thayer St. property,” oct. 23). The lot, which is a couple blocks from the olney-Margolies Athletic Center, will be owned by the Brown subsidiary Fairview Inc. until the University decides to purchase and develop it for educational purposes.
The City Sports property is not, by any means, the first domino in the line; it is preceded by many other Fairview holdings, among them the strip mall that houses Bagel Gourmet and wings ’n Things near the southern end of campus. we suspect that this purchase is an indication of Brown’s gradual takeover of the businesses immediately surrounding its campus. Former president of the College hill neighborhood Association will touret even told The herald, “I can only assume that Brown is looking to control that block in the long term.” From Pembroke to Grad Center, College hill is becoming ever Browner.
According to the University’s website, “the various dining and shopping options on nearby Thayer Street give it the atmosphere of a classic college town.” But if the University keeps buying up lots, College hill will be a literal interpretation of the “college town” — a section of the city that is owned by the University itself. Combine this with the fact that the Gilbane Development Corporation will begin constructing student apartments on Thayer next year, and it is easy to see how the bubble could easily start to become impermeable (or at least, unwelcoming) for the non-Brown affiliated population in Providence.
to be fair, the University has been openly expanding its presence in Provi-dence for several years now. The move of the Alpert Medical School to the burgeoning Knowledge District and the many renovations that have been made since to the area demonstrate that the University is not focusing its efforts solely on expanding its College hill presence. But these particular efforts, while signifi-cant in that they have the potential to foster what city officials call a “knowledge economy” in Providence, will have little impact on breaking the bubble itself. The Med School is almost entirely separate from the undergraduate population, and thus does not draw members of College hill into downtown Providence.
we cannot yet predict what the effect will be on Brown students, but we are on the side of diversification. If the University begins to encompass most of College hill, we believe that students will not only be more confined to the bubble than ever before, but they will also begin to increasingly question whether they even need to escape it or not.
Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board: its editors, Dan Jeon and Annika Lichtenbaum, and its members, Georgia Angell, Sam Choi and Rachel Occhiogrosso. Send comments to [email protected].
An article in Monday’s herald (“Brazilians stay hostile to republican foreign policy,” nov. 5) incorrectly stated that President ronald reagan offered American assistance that led to Brazil’s 1964 coup. In fact, the president who provided assistance to the military uprising was lyndon Johnson. reagan, while linked to uprisings in other latin American nations in the 1980s, did not play a role in Brazil’s coup. The herald regrets the error.
Co r r e C t i o n
opinions 7the Brown DAIly herAlDthUrSDAy, noveMBer 8, 2012
In 2009, Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron presented a paper at the Universi-ty of warsaw titled “The Free elective Cur-riculum.” In this paper, she discussed Brown’s curriculum and the philosophies that guide the University’s academic vision. Bergeron noted that Brown’s philosophy “gives stu-dents freedom to choose, the freedom to fail and the responsibility to direct their own ed-ucation.” Indeed, Bergeron described Brown students as “architects” of their undergradu-ate courses of study. For this reason, we are largely on our own in determining the struc-ture of our time here.
yes, we have concentrations. Many mem-bers of the Brown community have debated whether the existence of concentrations is consistent with the main tenets of the new Curriculum. Perhaps not, but we need them regardless. The realities of life today necessi-tate that students display some sort of struc-tured academic training. So I will not dis-cuss the validity of the concentration system at Brown. Instead, I want to address an ar-gument raised about the validity of minors within the Brown curriculum. herald col-umnist Jaclyn Katz ’14 argued in favor of mi-nors (“why Brown should have minors,” oct. 2), and she deserves credit for challenging the status quo. After all, that’s what our curricu-lum is meant to encourage. Though many of
her points were reasonable, in the end, she didn’t convince me that minors would bring any real value to the Brown academic expe-rience.
Many colleges and universities include minors in their curricula to allow students to take classes in different academic areas. Many higher education programs make it difficult to explore courses outside of one’s major, but declaring a minor in another de-partment facilitates study in that area. obvi-ously, Brown’s new Curriculum was created and implemented with the goal of maximiz-
ing intellectual exploration and minimizing the pigeonholing of students by their prima-ry academic focus. This concept is personi-fied in the students we meet everyday: the vi-sual arts concentrator who is pre-med or the chemical engineer who enjoys immersing himself in russian literature. Clearly, the ab-sence of minors doesn’t stop those of us with varied interests.
Katz writes that minors would offer stu-dents the chance to develop yet another fo-cus and then receive recognition of it on their diplomas. But that’s exactly what double con-centrations are for. Katz’s response would be that double concentrations are a “burden” for students. I take issue with this idea. It seems
that a minor would allow a students to bulk up their resumes without expending the same amount of energy that a double con-centration would require. If a students wish to explore a second academic field in-depth, they should possess the motivation to do so without the promise of an extra line on a re-sume. And if students strongly desire that extra line, they should have to work for it by fulfilling the requirements of the entire con-centration.
If you are studying at Brown, you should not be looking for an easy way out of any-
thing. you got here — you know how to work. So do the work. Double concentrations exist to acknowledge the dedication and de-termination they demand. And furthermore, double concentrating doesn’t have to be a big deal, if you are truly interested in the concen-tration. Many departments have ten or fewer requirements. So if you do have the determi-nation to take on a second concentration, it won’t kill you to power through.
one noteworthy feature of Katz’s argu-ment is the phenomenon of foreign language students discontinuing their language study, seeing it as pointless for their concentration. It’s true that at schools offering minors, many students fulfill them in a foreign language. In
this case, foreign language certificates could be a worthwhile addition to our curriculum to encourage foreign language study, but this need not amount to a full-fledged minors system. It seems that the University’s discus-sion of these certificates, which would dis-tinguish students who achieve a certain level of language competency, has been tabled for the present. I agree that the issue of students abandoning foreign language study merits attention but I disagree that a minor system would solve this problem at Brown.
Katz lauds harvard’s system of “second-ary fields,” which allows students to design a course of study outside of their concentra-tions in order to “pursue another academic passion.” what Katz seems to ignore, is that you can do this whether there is an official system in place or not. At Brown, as an ar-chitect of your undergraduate education, you determine its direction. If an academic passion is truly a passion — and not just a platform for accruing credentials — then it shouldn’t matter if the greater world knows about it. And here’s another reason that con-centrations exist — to provide students with something to display to the world upon grad-uation. of course, there is also the argument that a Brown diploma itself is proof enough of a job well done.
remember Dean Bergeron’s speech. It is your responsibility to direct your education. you don’t need an arbitrary academic system in place to do so.
Maggie tennis ’14 is currently “powering through” concentration number two.
Why brown shouldn’t have minors
If you can, please take a moment from your espresso-fueled working binge to hear me out.
Caffeine is not an unfamiliar substance to college students. There are swanky cof-fee shops on every corner. Convenience store coolers are filled with energy drinks, all of which brag about their high caf-feine contents. And you’d be hard-pressed to enter a student’s room that does not have a coffee maker. rarely do we think twice about our reliance on caffeine, as it has become fuel to power us through our high-maintenance, work-intensive life-styles.
recently, our attention has been drawn to the notorious substance as five deaths have been associated with Monster en-ergy drinks, which boast of almost 300 milligrams of caffeine in a 24-ounce can. But that is just an estimate, as many en-ergy drinks are not required to list how much caffeine they contain under the nu-tritional information. The Food and Drug Administration is still investigating these deaths, and representatives from Monster deny any correlation between the drink and the deaths. Just like a cup of coffee, this should serve as a wake-up call about some habits we might not consider the ef-fects of.
let it be said that in no way am I against caffeine — I recently became a cup-a-day
coffee drinker — medium roast, skim milk and Splenda, please.
Consuming reasonable amounts of caf-feine is okay. A cup of coffee can give us a short burst of energy to get us through those morning classes. But as the amount of caffeine consumed increases, so does the severity of the effects. First comes jitteriness. Afterwards comes increased heart rate and irritability. These can esca-late to abdominal pain and tremors and, as potentially associated with Monster, heart attack and death. Plus, many peo-ple take medication or have underlying
health conditions that can be aggravated by caffeine.
obviously, your medium iced latte is not going to kill you. But five or six can cause problems. Downing cups of coffee and energy drinks is an easy solution to powering through a paper that’s due the next morning, but relying solely on caf-feine is detrimental to health. There are
plenty of other ways to remain energetic enough to be productive. Though many busy college students have trouble accept-ing it, sleep is very important to remain-ing healthy. So next time you are tempted to grab a couple of shots of espresso from Starbucks, may I suggest a power nap in-stead?
Caffeinated drinks are also associated with another aspect of college life: drink-ing. The red Bull and vodka has become a bartending staple, and other sweet en-ergy drinks can make booze much more palatable. But most notable of these
drinks is caffeinated malt beverage Four loko, which made headlines a few years ago after officials noted the high alcohol and caffeine content. This combination can produce a dangerous effect, as caf-feine can reduce feelings of drunkenness, potentially causing a person to drink more than they should. The University of rhode Island was one of the first schools
to outlaw the drink on campus, and many colleges and universities shortly fol-lowed in an attempt to prevent students from drinking the beverage. Since then, the caffeinated drink has been effectively banned in the United States and replaced with a caffeine-free version.
Is Prohibition-esque regulation the solution to our caffeine problem, be it in Monster or Four loko? I don’t think so. no laws, no matter how strict, will pre-vent absolutely everyone from consuming caffeine. Preventative measures can even make the banned drinks more attractive to rebellious youth. Besides, I believe it is up to the individual to choose what they put into their body. That said, what is most important is awareness of the ef-fects of what is being consumed. Though at times caffeine is an innocent chemical used for an afternoon perk, it can quick-ly transform into a dangerous substance that threatens one’s health.
At this point, it is unlikely that laws af-fecting drinks like Four loko will change. But those laws should not be a precedent for something such as the suggested ban-ning of Monster. The choices of a few do not reflect the whole, and many of us will and should continue to consume caffeine responsibly. As the consumer, we have the potential to make an informed choice — albeit a slightly caffeinated one.
you may now return to your large car-amel macchiato.
Gabriella corvese ’15 also enjoys a nice cup of earl Grey tea and can be reached
a cup of coffee can give us a short burst of energy to get us through those morning classes. But as the amount of caffeine consumed increases, so does the severity of the
effects.
if a student wishes to explore a second academic field in-depth, he or she should possess the motivation to do
so without the promise of an extra line on a resume.
MaGGie tenniSopinions Columnist
GaBriellacOrVerSe
opinions Columnist
daily heraldthe Brown
campus newsthUrSDAy, noveMBer 8, 2012
By loRen dowdContributing Writer
Professor of literary Arts Brian evenson has authored novels, short story collec-tions and even a few video game-based books, all falling within the genre of horror and science fiction. he recently published a novel entitled “Dead Space: Catalyst,” the second book he has written based on the third-person shooter Dead Space video game. The herald sat down with evenson to talk about his new book and his work as a writer and a professor.
The herald: I understand that your new book is a novel adaptation of a video game, dead space. how did you get the opportunity to do something like that?
evenson: It’s something that I’ve done actually before. The video game is Dead Space, and I did another Dead Space novel about a year and a half ago, and they liked that enough that they asked me to do another one. I did a halo novella as well for a collection of halo short stories.
And you know, one of the reasons I wanted to do it was the game: I’m a gamer. I enjoy it a lot. But in addition to that, one of the reasons I wanted to do it was because I think that (for) a lot of people who read those books, it may be the only novel they read in a year. And so I kind of felt like there is a kind of outreach thing where I want — if they’re only going to read one novel a year — I want it to be an interesting novel. So it’s a way of reaching readers who otherwise might not be exposed to certain things going on in fiction.
Could you tell us a little more about the book itself?
The one thing about working with a video game novel is that you are working in a world that someone else has created. And so the world (of Dead Space) is the world of the video game, in which the world has run through all its resources and, as a result, is doing space explora-tion as a way of getting more raw mate-rial to work with.
(Man) has begun to destroy planets as a way of gaining material, and so the sense is that man really hasn’t learned that much from mistakes of our past. It starts with that as an idea, and then what happens is that they come across this weird kind of civilization, this marker, that they don’t know what it is, and it ends up having this effect of starting the destruction of the human race.
So I have to work within the format of that. ... I decided to write a book, which is about two brothers, and the relationship of the two brothers as they are stumbling across things that may end up eventually destroying the universe.
how do you approach writing about a video game, and does that process differ from writing your other books?
I think that the first thing that you
have (when writing a video game novel) is a kind of idea that is given to you — in the sense that you have a world that is there. you know you can do certain things within that world. And both with the halo and Dead Space work that I did, what I found is that they’re really open to me doing kind of anything as long as it’s within the confines of the world itself. And so it is a little bit like working with a fixed poetic form in the sense that you have these constraints that you have to follow. But within those constraints you can do anything you want. ... There are certain things directing you from the beginning, then it kind of opens up in a different way.
whereas with my own fiction, I can go in any direction I want. I did have to get my ideas approved (for the video game novels). we ran through a bunch of things with the video game companies since video games are worth millions and millions of dollars in terms of the income they bring in. They’re very proprietary about them; they’re very concerned. They want the world, and they want any kind of product that’s associated with it to be something they really believe in and they support. we talked about different ideas and went back and forth. … I wrote an outline and moved forward from there. with my own work I rarely outline, but with this I have a pretty specific idea of where the story is going, and then I start actually writing.
For my own books, I think it varies from book to book, but it’s more organic in the sense that something like my nov-el, “The open Curtain,” took about six years to do, and I had ideas about where it might go. But those (ideas) changed as it developed and changed according to the demands of the piece. whereas something like (the video game novel) developed much more quickly, and a lot of the writing was done over the course of a couple of months. … My own work — I can kind of let it breathe. I can kind of enter into it in a different way and explore.
What has your journey of writing and publishing books been like?
It’s gone a lot of different directions. I’ve published at this point something like 12 books, I think. And a lot of them are kind of literary, and I’m kind of build-ing up a sense of a voice. And then a few of them have been in this other direction, this kind of exploratory direction. I’m the kind of person who really loves to try something new, and so when I get asked to do something that I haven’t done before it’s very hard for me to resist it.
In addition to the Dead Space stuff, I did an Aliens novel based on the “Aliens” movie that Dark horse Books published. And then I have (a book) coming out next year. I co-wrote a novel with rob Zombie, which is kind of based on one of his films that’s also coming out.
I see things going on in horror or in science fiction that I feel like are produc-tive and interesting … and then I try to think of ways in which I can inflect my literature with that. I try to find ways to write the work that I want to read.
how did you figure out that you wanted to become a writer?
I knew at a pretty young age that I wanted to be a writer. My mother had published a couple of science fiction sto-ries when I was a kid. And to give herself time to work on them she used to set all the kids up doing art or doing writing or
some other project. I was the oldest — I was probably 13 when that was happen-ing — and I just really took to writing, I really loved it. I didn’t know it would end up being my profession, but you know, I read a lot and wrote a lot and was really intrigued by it when I was growing up and was lucky enough to have enough success to be able to continue to do it and teach it.
how did you move from being a writer into being a professor as well?
I was actually doing a degree in 18th century literature and critical theory at the University of washington. I did a double PhD … and I always thought I would teach academic subjects. And then as I was working on my PhD, I had my first book of fiction accepted, a book of stories called “Altmann’s tongue.” And that kind of changed everything for me. That ended up moving everything in a new direction. So the first job I had I taught one or two creative writing courses, and then as time has gone on, it has become more and more central to what I do.
But I always thought I would teach, my father was a teacher — he was a phys-icist — and I think that I really liked that life. I think that there’s a lot to be said for (being a professor), it’s very rewarding to work with people on their writing. you can really, especially at the under-graduate level, see definitive progress with people … and it’s really rewarding and satisfying to see it.
you teach lITr 0210a: “Fiction II” and Graduate Fiction writing. What are some of your favorite parts about teaching and why?
I think that the biggest part about the teaching is the students. It’s great to have students, it’s great to put yourself in a position where you can help students be better writers in the way they want to be. I think that the best creative writ-ing teachers approach that with a lot of care. we’re trying to understand what the writer is trying to do and trying to help them do it better other than pushing them in directions they don’t want to go. So that, I think, is very satisfying to me.
I think there is something about the performative aspect of teaching that I like as well. It’s fun to be working with people on their fiction and being in a workshop where everyone has ideas and comments, and you’re trying to help the student kind of sort them out and push them in certain directions.
What would be your words of ad-vice to students who are concentrat-ing in literary arts and looking to get published themselves?
I think for those who are concentrat-ing, I think you should be very thought-ful and careful about the classes you take. you’re really shaping yourself as a writer. As you do that you’re shaping your in-fluences. … I think the most important thing for young writers is to read a lot and to read widely and to read in a way a writer does. And then you end up thinking very closely about what you’re reading and thinking about how it is achieving what it is achieving. … There’s no guarantee in terms of whether you’ll become a writer or not, but I think that you go into it in a serious way, and you have to be open to advice as well. But you also have to distinguish between advice that’s good and advice that’s not quite as good.
Faculty profile: Q&a with brian evenson
By Molly sCHulsonContributing Writer
The Supreme Court heard arguments for the case Kirtsaeng v. John wiley and Sons, which centers on the issue of whether international copyrighted works can be bought and sold in the United States without the owner’s con-sent, last Monday. Depending on the decision the court reaches, students may no longer be able to resell inter-national editions of their textbooks.
In 1997, Supap Kirtsaeng came to the United States from Thailand to study mathematics. In order to pay for his tuition, he sold textbooks, some of which were published by wiley, on eBay. Kirtsaeng had obtained the textbooks from Thailand, where his family had bought them and shipped them to the United States. Kirtsaeng collected between $900,000 and $1.2 million in revenue, according to court documents.
wiley sued Kirtsaeng in 2008 and won the copyright infringement law-suit. After Kirtsaeng’s appeal to the Second Circuit, the case landed in front of the Supreme Court.
Under the first sale doctrine, in-dividuals can sell copyrighted works “lawfully made under” U.S. copyright law without the copyright owner’s permission. But a separate provision prohibits copyrighted works from be-ing imported into the United States “without the authority of the owner of copyright.”
Justices in a similar case in 2010, Costco wholesale Corp. v. omega S.A., could not answer the question of whether copyright laws in the United States applied to items manufactured overseas after the vote was split 4-4.
International editions of textbooks are often cheaper than American edi-tions due to differences in the coun-tries’ economies.
“I sometimes get international ver-sions (of textbooks) because they’re
cheaper,” wrote nihaal Mehta ’14 in an email to The herald. Most of Mehta’s international purchases were for intro-ductory courses, such as CheM 0330: “equilibrium, rate and Structure” and eCon 0110: “Principles of economics.”
International editions often have the same material as American editions but differently numbered problems.
“I think the questions in the back of the chapters might have been different, so some students might have done the wrong homework a few times,” wrote rachel Friedberg, senior lecturer in the economics department, in an email to The herald. Friedberg said some of her students have purchased international textbooks in the past.
Alex Swanson ’16 saved about $150 buying an international textbook for chemistry, but she did not realize that the problem numbers would be different. “I think I’ll try to sell it to my friend, but probably not for profit since the question numbers aren’t even right,” she said.
online businesses such as eBay or Amazon often obtain products manu-factured outside of the United States and sell them for a lower price, and the Supreme Court’s decision may threaten their sales.
The Brown Bookstore is not allowed to buy international editions of text-books through its buyback program. “we do see a few international editions come through, but we’re not allowed, by law, to buy them back. I don’t of-fer any price,” said Mike McDade, the bookstore’s textbook department manager.
Steven Souza, director of the Brown Bookstore, said the Supreme Court’s decision will not affect the business. The number of students who buy in-ternational editions and also frequent the bookstore “is very limited,” he said.
The case could also affect the sale of foreign movies, books and music. The Supreme Court will make its final decision by June.
supreme Court may restrict access to cheaper textbooks
By MARk VAldezSenior Staff Writer
Members of the Undergraduate Council of Students spoke to repre-sentatives from the Student Athletic Advising Committee, ryan McDuff ’13 and lindsay nickel ’13, as well as Director of Athletics Jack hayes, at their weekly meeting. The guests presented an agenda to promote the greater integration of student-athletes into campus life.
“how do we get athletics more mainstreamed … how do we get stu-dent-athletes to be more involved in non--athletic events?” hayes asked. “we should make the assumption that the more events that student-athletes go to on campus that are not athletic-related, the better chance there will be that more students will want to go to games.”
McDuff brought up an initiative dubbed “Goldie event of the Month” that is being proposed by SAAC,
which will organize athlete attendance of on-campus events.
Following these speakers, Daniel Pipkin ’14 proposed two amendments to the Undergraduate Finance Board constitution. one amendment used the UCS constitution as an outline for removing inactive members. The other proposed the public release of funds allocated during spring budget-ing at the start of the next academic year to increase the transparency of UFB. Both amendments passed with-out objections from UCS.
The council then preceded to grant Category 1 authorization to new stu-dent groups, including the Intercol-legiate Finance Journal and Brown Pen Pals. The Food recovery network was granted Category S status. The Brown human rights report was re-categorized to Category 2 and may allocate its $200 of funds to website upkeep. Brown Students for Justice of Palestine was moved from Category 2 to Category 3 without objection.
