T HE B ROWN D AILY H ERALD T HURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2008 Volume CXLIII, No. 102 Since 1866, Daily Since 1891 www.browndailyherald.com 195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island News tips: [email protected]PROFESSOR VISITS JAIL Economics professor speaks to inmates at the Adult Correc- tional Institutions METRO 3 WOMEN’S SELF DEFENSE Lessons in Jiu-Jitsu, karate and kung fu as part of Crime Preven- tion Month CAMPUS NEWS 5 SAVING THE WORLD SERIES Ellis Rochelson ‘09 has a few suggestions to bring sports viewership up SPORTS 16 Loiterers concern ayer shops BY CHRIS DUFFY STAFF WRITER Providence Police and Thayer Street shopkeepers have teamed up to take on a crime that doesn’t even require perpetrators to move — loitering. Loitering is “a big attraction for kids,” said Noel Field of PPD, who patrols Thayer Street on a bike. “We’re trying to keep it so the street is there for people to use, but it’s not their private dwelling,” he said. Field helped the management of Store 24, a convenience store open for 19 hours a day, post an open letter to loiterers. “I have had my business af- fected in a negitive (sic) way by people loitering and hanging around in front of my store,” reads the letter, which is signed by Tina Sherman, the store manager. Sherman declined to comment for this article, but her letter states that customers told her they felt “afraid” to enter her store and that she’d be “willing to testify in court” against any loiterers. Baiku Acharya, a part-time clerk at Metro Mart, another Thayer Street convenience store, said Store 24 es- pecially had problems with loiterers because it was “central” and “more of a superstore.” He said Metro Mart did not have a problem with loiterers but that “sometimes lots of school- kids enter, and it gets hard to monitor Central Asia trekker: Major work starts locally BY RACHEL STARR CONTRIBUTING WRITER Rory Stewart has hit the big time. He is internationally renowned for his 6,000-mile walk across Central Asia, the best-selling book he wrote based on that journey and his work in development. But in a lecture to a large audience last night in Salomon 101, the current Harvard professor said that big change starts at a local level. “The secret is understanding the local — understanding the particular,” said Stewart, the chief executive of the Turquoise Mountain Founda- tion and author of “The Places in Between.” Stewart discussed the role of the inter- national community in Afghanistan’s development and the work his founda- tion has done in the old city of Kabul, Afghanistan, before taking questions from the audience. Many students in the auditorium were already familiar with the story of Stewart’s January 2002 trek across Afghanistan because his memoir was assigned to all incoming students over the summer. The award-winning book describes his journey day-by-day and highlights his interactions with the people of rural Afghanistan. Stewart briefly discussed his trek by showing a series of photographs as part of a Assault on worker stuns New Dorm BY JENNA STARK SENIOR STAFF WRITER Part-time grounds worker Bernard Ciotti was hard at work one recent morning, clearing the leaves off the paths of the Vartan Gregorian Quad- rangle. All of a sudden, an unidentified person pelted him with a carton of eggs and an apple. It is a felony to assault someone over the age of 60 in Rhode Island. Ciotti, who is older than 60, requested that his age be withheld for “personal reasons.” “I never expected something like this to happen,” Ciotti said of the pelt- ing, which happened last Tuesday. “It makes me feel not secure until they find out who the person was.” Ciotti, who has worked for the University for 13 years, was using a BY MELISSA SHUBE SENIOR STAFF WRITER Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Hucka- bee will speak tonight about his experience campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination this year as well as the upcoming election. The event will start at 8 p.m. in Salomon 101. Boosted by the support of evan- gelical Christians and Southern vot- ers, Huckabee won early contests in eight states before dropping out of the race in March when it be- came clear that Sen. John McCain had locked up enough delegates to clinch his party’s nomination. Huckabee’s lecture is sponsored by the Brown Lecture Board. An- drew Chapin ’10, president of the lecture board, says he hopes Brown students “will look past Huckabee’s political ideology and take away from his lecture insight on the American political process that only a few others can provide.” Kat Yang ’10, the group’s vice president of campus relations, said Huckabee will bring a new perspec- tive to campus. “I know that his political views are very different from the majority of Brown, but at the same time he’s a great speaker, and I think he’ll bring forth interest- ing ideas,” she said. Sean Quigley ’10, president of the College Republicans and a Herald opinions columnist, said Huckabee was an interesting candi- date because he did not fit into the “kind of Reagan coalition.” “He really harped on gay mar- riage, abortion, even talking about smoking bans which wouldn’t fly with the more limited-government aspects of the government,” Quig- ley said. “I look for ward to seeing if there will be an evolution question in the audience,” he added. Students seemed very enthu- siastic for the Republican’s visit. Tickets for the lecture, which were distributed for free with a Brown ID in Faunce House Monday and Tuesday, sold out within 45 minutes on each day, said Chapin. The ticket demand was compa- rable to when the Lecture Board brought former Providence mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci, Jr. and Spike Lee to speak last year, Chapin said. Doors will open at 7:15 p.m., and tickets will be accepted at the door until 7:45 p.m. Any remaining seats after that time will be open to the public. The lecture is also expected to be simulcast in Salomon 001. Huckabee to speak tonight on the political process Trader Joe’s comes to Warwick Law prevents sale of ‘ree Buck Chuck’ BY EMMA BERRY CONTRIBUTING WRITER When Emily Breslin ’10 went home to Acton, Mass., one week this fall, she returned with a lunch box full of frozen Vegetable Masala Burgers. The burgers are manufactured by the grocery chain Trader Joe’s, and Rhode Islanders who wanted them had to travel to Massachusetts to buy them — until now. The California-based grocer will open its first location in Rhode Island tomorrow. According to its Web site, the store sells “minimally processed” foods, including many vegetarian, ko- sher and organic products, mostly un- der its private label. The Rhode Island store, located at 1000 Bald Hill Road in Warwick near the Rhode Island Mall, will sponsor a grand opening celebra- Kim Perley / Herald Rory Stewart, who trekked across Central Asia in 2002, lectured stu- dents and community members last night on Afghanistan. EYE OF THE TIGER Min Wu / Herald Director of Public Safety Mark Porter watches as two students practice self-defense moves. Porter helped Department of Public Safety Deputy Chief Paul Shanley train students. Courtesy of Mike Huckabee Mike Huckabee will speak at 8 p.m. tonight in Salomon 101. continued on page 4 continued on page 6 continued on page 4 continued on page 7 POST- does Mischief Night right and discovers early-morning delights METRO SEE CAMPUS NEWS, PAGE 5
Transcript
The Brown Daily heralDThursday, OcTOber 30, 2008Volume CXLIII, No. 102 Since 1866, Daily Since 1891
PROFESSOR VISITS JAILEconomics professor speaks to inmates at the Adult Correc-tional Institutions METRO
3WOMEN’S SELF DEFENSELessons in Jiu-Jitsu, karate and kung fu as part of Crime Preven-tion MonthCAMPUS NEWS
5SAVING THE WORLD SERIESEllis Rochelson ‘09 has a few suggestions to bring sports viewership upSPORTS
16
Loiterers concern Thayer shopsBy CHRIS DUFFysTaff WriTer
Providence Police and Thayer Street shopkeepers have teamed up to take on a crime that doesn’t even require perpetrators to move — loitering.
Loitering is “a big attraction for kids,” said Noel Field of PPD, who patrols Thayer Street on a bike. “We’re trying to keep it so the street is there for people to use, but it’s not their private dwelling,” he said.
Field helped the management of Store 24, a convenience store open for 19 hours a day, post an open letter to loiterers. “I have had my business af-fected in a negitive (sic) way by people loitering and hanging around in front of my store,” reads the letter, which is signed by Tina Sherman, the store manager.
Sherman declined to comment for this article, but her letter states that customers told her they felt “afraid” to enter her store and that she’d be “willing to testify in court” against any loiterers.
Baiku Acharya, a part-time clerk at Metro Mart, another Thayer Street convenience store, said Store 24 es-pecially had problems with loiterers because it was “central” and “more of a superstore.” He said Metro Mart did not have a problem with loiterers but that “sometimes lots of school-kids enter, and it gets hard to monitor
Central Asia trekker: Major work starts locally By RACHEL STARRcOnTribuTing WriTer
Rory Stewart has hit the big time. He is internationally renowned for his 6,000-mile walk across Central Asia, the best-selling book he wrote based on that journey and his work in development. But in a lecture to a large audience last night in Salomon 101, the current Harvard professor said that big change starts at a local level.
“The secret is understanding the local — understanding the particular,” said Stewart, the chief executive of the Turquoise Mountain Founda-tion and author of “The Places in Between.”
Stewart discussed the role of the inter-national community in Afghanistan’s development and the work his founda-tion has done in the old city of Kabul, Afghanistan, before taking questions from the audience.
Many students in the auditorium were already familiar with the story of Stewart’s January 2002 trek across Afghanistan because his memoir was assigned to all incoming students over the summer. The award-winning book describes his journey day-by-day and highlights his interactions with the people of rural Afghanistan. Stewart briefly discussed his trek by showing a series of photographs as part of a
Assault on worker stuns New DormBy JENNA STARkseniOr sTaff WriTer
Part-time grounds worker Bernard Ciotti was hard at work one recent morning, clearing the leaves off the paths of the Vartan Gregorian Quad-rangle.
All of a sudden, an unidentified person pelted him with a carton of eggs and an apple.
It is a felony to assault someone over the age of 60 in Rhode Island. Ciotti, who is older than 60, requested that his age be withheld for “personal reasons.”
“I never expected something like this to happen,” Ciotti said of the pelt-ing, which happened last Tuesday. “It makes me feel not secure until they find out who the person was.”
Ciotti, who has worked for the University for 13 years, was using a
By MELISSA SHUBEseniOr sTaff WriTer
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Hucka-bee will speak tonight about his experience campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination this year as well as the upcoming election. The event will start at 8 p.m. in Salomon 101.
Boosted by the support of evan-gelical Christians and Southern vot-ers, Huckabee won early contests in eight states before dropping out of the race in March when it be-came clear that Sen. John McCain had locked up enough delegates to clinch his party’s nomination.
Huckabee’s lecture is sponsored by the Brown Lecture Board. An-drew Chapin ’10, president of the lecture board, says he hopes Brown students “will look past Huckabee’s
political ideology and take away from his lecture insight on the American political process that only a few others can provide.”
Kat Yang ’10, the group’s vice president of campus relations, said Huckabee will bring a new perspec-tive to campus. “I know that his political views are very different from the majority of Brown, but at the same time he’s a great speaker, and I think he’ll bring forth interest-ing ideas,” she said.
Sean Quigley ’10, president of the College Republicans and a Herald opinions columnist, said Huckabee was an interesting candi-date because he did not fit into the “kind of Reagan coalition.”
“He really harped on gay mar-riage, abortion, even talking about smoking bans which wouldn’t fly with the more limited-government
aspects of the government,” Quig-ley said. “I look forward to seeing if there will be an evolution question in the audience,” he added.
Students seemed very enthu-siastic for the Republican’s visit. Tickets for the lecture, which were distributed for free with a Brown ID in Faunce House Monday and Tuesday, sold out within 45 minutes on each day, said Chapin.
The ticket demand was compa-rable to when the Lecture Board brought former Providence mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci, Jr. and Spike Lee to speak last year, Chapin said.
Doors will open at 7:15 p.m., and tickets will be accepted at the door until 7:45 p.m. Any remaining seats after that time will be open to the public. The lecture is also expected to be simulcast in Salomon 001.
Huckabee to speak tonight on the political process
Trader Joe’s comes to WarwickLaw prevents sale of ‘Three Buck Chuck’By EMMA BERRycOnTribuTing WriTer
When Emily Breslin ’10 went home to Acton, Mass., one week this fall, she returned with a lunch box full of frozen Vegetable Masala Burgers. The burgers are manufactured by the grocery chain Trader Joe’s, and Rhode
Islanders who wanted them had to travel to Massachusetts to buy them — until now.
The California-based grocer will open its first location in Rhode Island tomorrow. According to its Web site, the store sells “minimally processed” foods, including many vegetarian, ko-sher and organic products, mostly un-der its private label. The Rhode Island store, located at 1000 Bald Hill Road in Warwick near the Rhode Island Mall, will sponsor a grand opening celebra-
Kim Perley / Herald
Rory Stewart, who trekked across Central Asia in 2002, lectured stu-dents and community members last night on Afghanistan.
E Y E O F T H E T I G E R
Min Wu / Herald
Director of Public Safety Mark Porter watches as two students practice self-defense moves. Porter helped Department of Public Safety Deputy Chief Paul Shanley train students.
Courtesy of Mike Huckabee
Mike Huckabee will speak at 8 p.m. tonight in Salomon 101.
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POST-does Mischief Night right and discovers early-morning delights
Alien Weather Forecast | Stephen Lichenstein and Adam Wagner
Classic Deo | Daniel Perez
Classic How To Get Down | Nate Saunders
MeTroTHuRSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2008 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 3
Perry P’91 basks in first uncontested raceBy BEN SCHRECkINGERcOnTribuTing WriTer
For the first time in 10 consecutive races, State Sen. Rhoda Perry P’91 of Rhode Island’s third district is running unopposed this November. While the absence of an opponent makes this campaign easier, Perry says she appreciates the value of competition.
“I do think that having a chal-lenger keeps the incumbent on their toes, keeps them informed on all the issues (and) acts as an incentive to move on issues that constituents are concerned about,” she said. An opponent “allows the incumbent to demonstrate his or her effectiveness or lack thereof,” she said.
Perry was first elected to Rhode Island’s senate in 1990. In her al-most two decades in the state sen-ate, Perry said she has worked on behalf of reproductive choice, marriage equality and the rights of convicts.
Last term, Perry sponsored a bill with Rep. David Segal, D-Dist. 2, that would overturn Rhode Island’s practice of putting parolees back in jail when they are charged with a crime, even if they are not con-victed. The bill passed both houses of the legislature this June but was vetoed by Gov. Donald Carcieri ’65. Perry said she hopes there will be enough votes to override the veto in the coming session.
With the help of Brown students from the activist group Democracy Matters, Perry said she has “been working on a bill that would take the money out of elections.” Perry sponsored the group’s Fair Elec-tions bill — which would provide campaigns with state money and limit private contributions — with Rep. Edith Ajello, D-Dist. 3. She said it would “bring a lot more inter-esting people into the legislature” and ensure that “lobbyists wouldn’t be as powerful.”
But given the state’s large and increasing budget deficit, “I just don’t think that a fair elections bill will be given priority,” Perry said.
Perry also introduced a bill that would grant full marriage rights to same-sex couples. She said the bill “did not move at all. It was heard,
but it did not move.”“We have essentially a conser-
vative legislature,” Perry said. But just as much of the country appears poised for a leftward shift in the coming elections, “I think the progressive community is going to pick up a few additional votes” in Rhode Island, Perry said.
“We get closer every year” to legalizing same-sex marriage, she added.
Perry said that she also hopes to see changes in the way the Rhode Island Public Transit Au-thority is funded, calling RIPTA’s current plans for service cutbacks dismaying.
“It’s a real shame that public transit in Rhode Island is in jeop-ardy,” said Perry, who added that she has advocated increased fund-ing for RIPTA in the past. Perry said she was troubled by the disso-nance of linking funding for public
transportation to a gas tax and said she would like RIPTA to receive alternate sources of funding.
Given the current economic woes of the state — which at the end of September had the nation’s highest rate of unemployment — Perry said that budget reductions will likely affect her agenda for the next term. As chair of the senate’s Health and Human Services Com-mittee, she said one of her most urgent priorities will be to “keep our health care system for low in-come children and families as intact as we possibly can.”
Perry also said that she would like to see the college-aged popu-lation participate more directly in electoral politics by running for office. She said she felt Rhode Island’s legislature would benefit from a fresh perspective.
“It’s good to have the vim and vigor of youth,” Perry said.
Voter registration surpasses 700,000By AMIT JAINcOnTribuTing WriTer
Over 700,000 Rhode Islanders, who make up 85 percent of the state’s adult population, are now registered to vote in next week’s election, according to the Secretary of State Ralph Mollis’ office. The unprecedented number includes 42,439 registrations in the past nine months.
The popularity of the candidates at the top of the ballots and an aggres-sive voter registration campaign led to the surge in new voters, said Chris Barnett, communications director for the secretary of state.
“The people are more excited about this year’s election than any in recent memory ... It has really caught people’s imaginations,” he said. “We’ve been to every college campus in Rhode Island. We’ve done voter registration drives in work-places ... We are doing everything we can to make it easy for people to register.”
Barnett said more than 296,000 voters are currently registered as
Democrats, with over 76,000 Repub-licans and more than 322,000 unaf-filiated registrations.
Board of Elections Executive Director Robert Kando said the in-crease was due to the closeness of the presidential race and to a new state policy allowing people to reg-ister to vote when they renew their driver’s licenses.
“All the information that you use for your license is common to your registration,” he said. “Every per-son that goes to the (Department of Motor Vehicles) ... has to answer the question, ‘Do you want to reg-ister?’”
Jennifer Lawless, assistant profes-sor of political science, said the new registrations were unlikely to have an impact on the presidential race.
“Rhode Island is the bluest of blue states,” she said. “There’s no question that Barack Obama will win Rhode Island’s four electoral votes.”
But Lawless said the growing voter pool affects local races and strengthens the democratic pro-cess.
“Local races could see more people,” she said. “Democrats tend to win for all levels of office, so I’m not sure that it will affect the out-come, but it certainly is good for democracy.”
Barnett said he was confident the new registrations and the excitement of the presidential race would lead to increased turnout.
“We think that 500,000 Rhode Is-landers will turn out,” he said. “That’s roughly 70 percent turnout. In abso-lute numbers, that’s a record.” The previous record was set in 1992 with 453,365 voters, according to a state-ment from the secretary of state’s office.
To handle the unprecedented volume of voters, the Board of Elec-tions has set up 542 polling places throughout the state — a three-fold increase from the presidential pri-mary in March, but a slight decrease from the 2004 presidential election.
But Kando said this decrease would not be an issue on election
Professors lecture at Adult Correctional InstitutionsBy ANDREW SIAcOnTribuTing WriTer
It’s not often that Professor of Econom-ics Glenn Loury has to navigate the exercise yard of a prison.
But he did last week when he vis-ited the Adult Correctional Institutions to deliver a lecture to a group of 20 inmates as part of the Brown Educa-tion Link Lecture Series, a program that began this month.
A collaboration between the Uni-versity and the Rhode Island Depart-ment of Corrections, the lecture series brings Brown professors to the ACI over the course of the semester to conduct lectures revolving around social issues that fall under the topic “Questions of Citizenship.”
The program, created by Jona-than Coleman ’08.5, a literary arts concentrator, currently has seven lectures scheduled for the semester. Each week, professors from various departments volunteer to deliver two-hour lectures and lead discussions at the ACI.
Coleman said he came up with the idea for the lecture series this sum-mer after working at the ACI for three years in the Space in Prison for the Arts and Creative Expression pro-
gram — a Swearer Center for Public Service initiative in which inmates participate in creative arts workshops. He collaborated with Ariel Werner ’09, a coordinator of the SPACE program, on the project to get the Swearer Cen-ter and the University involved at the prison.
Coleman said he accompanies the professors to each lecture as part of a deal with the ACI. Normally, vol-unteers have to undergo six hours of training, but because he is pres-ent, that training for the professors is waived, he said.
The program is modeled after a similar collaborative program involv-ing professors at Grinnell College in Iowa, Coleman said.
The 20 inmates were pre-screened for the program, based on interest and their institutional record, said Tracey Poole, chief of information and public relations for the Department of Cor-rections.
Most of the inmates have previ-ously participated in the SPACE pro-gram and demonstrated interest in their education, Poole said. They are required to complete assigned read-ings before each lecture, she added.
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PAGE 4 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THuRSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2008
them all.”Jagdish Sachdev, owner of the
Thayer boutique Spectrum India, said he sets loiterers on their way by himself. “If someone is in front of my store, I go out and ask them to leave,” he said. He said he saw no need to in-volve the police, although “sometimes people hang on my awning, which is very dangerous.”
Sachdev and Acharya both identi-fied high school students as the most likely loiterers, but said homeless men were also a problem.
“The kids can be intimidating to people,” said Field, the officer. “Some of them, I don’t know how else to de-scribe it — they’re characters. They have mohawks.” He said police officers have been taking names of loiterers. If they notice a pattern, police are pre-pared to make arrests, he said, though no one has been arrested yet.
Field said the posted letter and an increased police presence have im-proved the situation outside Store 24, but much of the loitering now takes place in front of Kabob and Curry, just up the street.
“It’s a problem all the time,” said Sanjiv Dhar, the restaurant’s owner. “Their behavior is not conducive to a family walking on the street. The language they use and the actions they perform are inappropriate.”
Dhar said police can help the problem but what’s really needed is community involvement. “The Thayer Street Business Association should take a role,” he said. “If I have to pay $50 to the cause of patrols, I’ll pay it gladly.” The loitering generally takes place only during the warmer months, he added.
“We used to perceive that this neighborhood is so safe,” Acharya said. “But sometimes you never know.”
leaf-blower to clear the path in front of the entrance to Josiah’s at 10 a.m. “I blew all the leaves into a pile, and they threw half a dozen eggs all over my legs, my pants and the leaf blower,” he said.
Another custodian found Ciotti and offered him a cloth to wipe off his hands and the leaf blower, Ciotti said, adding that he continued blowing leaves because he thought the eggs were thrown by mistake because they were still in the carton.
Ciotti was wrong, however. Next, he was hit in the left side of his head by an apple, though another one missed him. “(The perpetrators) threw two
huge apples truly very fast, like some-one was throwing a ball at 100 miles per hour,” he said.
“The apple was so hard. (My head) didn’t do damage to the apple. It didn’t split or nothing,” he added.
The Department of Public Safety and Emergency Medical Services im-mediately came to help Ciotti, he said, adding that he did not feel the need to go to the hospital after the incident.
Ciotti said the eggs and apples came from the second or third floor of Vartan Gregorian Quad A.
The University has been investigat-ing the assault and plans to follow up with a judiciary hearing if they can pin down anyone associated with the incident, said Margaret Klawunn, vice
president for campus life and student services.
However, the perpetrator has not been identified, she said, adding that “it’s not been as easy to confirm as it could have been.”
DPS did not return several re-quests for comment. In addition to the investigation, administrators are planning outreach programming at Vartan Gregorian Quad. “What we’ve done so far is send a communication to the students (about the incident),” Klawunn said, “but the kinds of things I’m thinking of are programs to review what are the expectations for students at Brown and the types of behavior we hope to see.”
The Community Assistants were
informed of the incident about an hour after it occurred via e-mail, said George Mesthos ’09, one of the CAs in Vartan Gregorian Quad B. Per the suggestion of one of the residents, the CAs have purchased an apology card to give to Ciotti with signatures from the residents.
“This is not the way workers at Brown ought to be treated,” Mesthos said, adding that he’s “glad to see that students are reacting to this as being unacceptable, even if it is an isolated incident.”
Kristina Kelleher ’09, another CA in Vartan Gregorian Quad, echoed Mest-hos’ feelings. “I’m utterly shocked that something like this would happen at Brown. I really didn’t want to believe
it when I found out.” Kelleher added that she thinks this
issue should be addressed beyond just Vartan Gregorian Quad. “Sometimes, people take advantage of how good (the facilities staff is) to us, so maybe more appreciation as a whole could be something that could come out of this,” she said.
Students were upset to hear about the assault.
“I was honest to God just appalled,” said Chantel Taylor ’10, a resident of Vartan Gregorian Quad B. “It just breaks my heart that people would disrespect the custodians who are just trying to do their job.
“Those aren’t the kind of people I want to live with,” she added.
Loiterers plague Thayer Street, shop owners say
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New Dorm CAs to plan programs in wake of assault incidentcontinued from page 1
CaMpus newsTHuRSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2008 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 5
Rising seniors will choose groups without knowing their individual numbers ahead of time in this year’s lottery, just like all other stu-dents. A Residential Council vote approved the measure last week, and the Office of Residential Life has agreed to the change, according to Richard Bova, senior associate dean of residential life.
In past years, lottery numbers for rising seniors were published before group applications were due. “Historically, this was done be-cause of off-campus permission, which was done at the same time,” said Ben Lowell ’10, chair of the ResCouncil lottery committee.
Students with poor numbers had the opportunity to seek per-mission and live off campus, or form groups and take their chances at lottery.
But with off-campus permission now granted in November, releas-ing senior numbers early is not relevant anymore, Lowell said. Instead, it has become “unnecessarily divisive and stress-inducing.”
Lowell said ResCouncil knows of housing groups whose members panicked upon seeing the list and eliminated a potential roommate because of a poor number. But the alarm is unnecessary — even the senior group with the worst number was able to select a Young Orchard apartment last year, Lowell said.
Thomas Forsberg, associate director of housing and residential life, said the altered policy would encourage students to live with people who they feel would be compatible roommates, regardless of what their numbers are.
He said he thought the new policy would have very little effect on the lottery overall. The new policy does not affect the assignment of lottery numbers: Seniors will still receive the best numbers.
ResCouncil attempted to make this switch last year, but discus-sions did not take place early enough in the year, Lowell said.
— Emmy Liss
No individual senior priority numbers this year
A Brown professor’s research equipment is on its way to the moon as part of India’s first-ever lunar mission. Carle Pieters, pro-fessor of geological sciences, is the principal investigator for one of 11 projects with an instrument on board a recently launched Indian rocket that will orbit and investigate the moon.
India’s mission, carried out by the Chandrayaan-1 rocket, was de-veloped with foreign support, including from the united States.
Pieters’ research team also includes former undergraduates, geological sciences doctoral student Peter Isaacson GS and James Head ‘69 and Jack Mustard ‘90, both professors of geological sci-ences.
The team started the process of constructing the instrument, known as a moon mineralogy mapper, after their proposal was selected for funding by NASA in February 2005.
The device is a spectrometer that detects 260 different colors, most of which are at longer wavelengths than the human eye can see.
The spectrometer captures an image of the moon’s surface, which the team will use to identify the mineral composition of the landscape based on the colors the device detects.
Most of the spectrometer’s construction took place at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, with the Brown team making sure it met reasonable scientific specifications.
The team will now wait to analyze the data the rocket will send back when it begins orbiting the moon on Nov. 8.
With Chandrayaan-1, India joins the growing ranks of coun-tries that have sent missions to the moon. Countries that have launched lunar investigations recently include the u.S. and China. “As a scientist, I’m looking forward, in the next 10 years, with great enthusiasm to the large feast of lots of different measurements (to come) from the moon,” Pieters said.
“Everything is digital now, and standards have developed to make it easy” to exchange scientific data, she added, making it easier to share knowledge about the composition, origin and revolution of the moon.
— Alicia Dang
Prof. to receive data from Indian rocket
n e W s i n b r i e fDPS top dogs teach students self defenseBy FREDERIqUE COUTURE-CARRIERcOnTribuTing WriTer
As part of Crime Prevention Month, Department of Public Safety Deputy Chief Paul Shanley led a self-defense workshop for women in the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center Dance Stu-dio last night. Over the course of the training, Shanley, who was assisted by Director of Public Safety and Chief of Police Mark Porter, taught six young women how to protect themselves and escape in case of an attack.
Shanley has been training in the art of Jiu-Jitsu, which encompasses a number of other martial arts such as karate and kung fu, for the past 18 years and is a third-degree black belt. He has been teaching self-defense for a number of years and said that he has always found these workshops to be effective because students learn practical techniques, have the opportunity to try them out and feel more confident about their ability to stand up for themselves. Porter helped Shanley demonstrate techniques by playing both attacker and victim.
Shanley first taught the women how to get to the ground safely after being pushed down by an attacker, stressing the fact that “nobody likes falling” but “with a little bit of practice it will come naturally.” The girls —
hesitant at first — were soon drop-ping fearlessly down on the mat, making sure to keep their heads up and arms in front of them.
Once on the floor, Shanley demon-strated two different techniques that can be used to take out an attacker. One method focused on blocking the “bad guy’s” knee, and the other featured an explosive kick to the at-tacker’s stomach. It is crucial to “put your body into everything you do,” he said.
The second technique aimed to immobilize an attacker from the front. This move draws on the attacker’s momentum to block the arm and kick the leg. Shanley said it can be used in a variety of situations, such as if the assailant is throwing a punch, attacking with a knife or choking the victim.
Next, Shanley demonstrated the rape technique, which can be used to escape from what he said was the “worst-case scenario.” In order to disable the aggressor straddling and strangling them, the young women were told to dig their fingers into the assailant’s throat, lift their legs and twist their bodies around. According to Shanley, when doing these moves, “You have to be vicious. You will not get a second chance.”
Shanley and Porter also demon-strated how to prevent an attacker
from kicking a victim in the stomach and how to flip an attacker coming from behind. As Shanley and Por-ter were teaching these techniques, Shanley made it clear that these were effective moves that could harm a person if done correctly.
Shanley and Porter ended the workshop by stressing the impor-tance of remaining aware at all times. “This is the most powerful muscle,” Shanley said as he pointed to his head. When walking around campus, Shanley advised students not to look like victims, to pay attention to their surroundings and to “keep an eye on each other.” Shanley and Porter also reminded students of the safety resources around campus, such as the blue light phones, safeRIDE and Safewalk.
The women attending declined to comment for this article.
Indian historian’s praise of Gandhi meets oppositionBy LAUREN FEDORcOnTribuTing WriTer
Indian historian and writer Ramachan-dra Guha praised Mohandas Gandhi to a packed Foxboro Auditorium in Kassar House last night. The talk, titled “Why Does Gandhi Still Mat-ter?” turned into a lively discourse when students challenged perspec-tives Guha presented.
Described by students as “ener-getic” and “animated,” Guha outlined the reasons in his hour-long talk why Gandhi — the famous Indian political and spiritual leader who died more than 60 years ago — remains relevant today. About 75 people attended the event.
Guha is a MacArthur Fellow and has recently been named one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the magazine “Foreign Policy.” He is also the author of a book about the history of India after Gandhi’s death and a columnist in major Indian newspapers.
Guha categorized Gandhi as a freedom fighter, social reformer, reli-gious pluralist and futurist. He likened Gandhi’s political efforts to those of Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam and Nelson Mandela in South Africa.
Praising him as an innovative activ-ist, Guha cited Gandhi’s “novel tech-niques,” like satyagraha, or nonviolent resistance as a method of peaceful civil disobedience. He also lauded Gandhi’s ecumenical outlook, saying, “The world needs Gandhi’s religious message more than ever.”
Gandhi’s legacy has universal appeal, Guha said — Gandhi is “not merely” an Indian figure. Guha cited Richard Attenborough’s Academy Award-winning movie “Gandhi” as evidence of this.
Guha also referred to Time maga-zine’s admiration for Gandhi as an example of his influence on society. In 1998, Time ranked Gandhi as the
second-greatest person of the 20th century, behind physicist Albert Ein-stein and tied with President Frank-lin Roosevelt. Guha said he would imagine Einstein to have been “deeply embarrassed” by Time’s decision, since Einstein greatly admired Gan-dhi — even calling him a “role model for the generations to come,” accord-ing to Guha.
Guha pointed out that Gandhi dealt with tough opposition throughout his life. Major critics Guha cited were secularists, Hindu and Muslim radi-cals, revolutionaries and Marxists.
After the lecture, 40 minutes were devoted to questions. Many students challenged Guha’s effusive praise of Gandhi, claiming that Guha, like many Westerners, had “romanticized” Gandhi’s life.
One student accused Guha of contributing to the “hegemony of Gandhi.”
Guha replied by saying that al-though Gandhi was “not always cor-rect,” he achieved “far more” than any of his contemporaries.
For example Gandhi amended the oppressive Indian caste system, Guha said. “No human has done more to delegitimize untouchability than Gandhi,” he said.
Though some students disagreed with Guha’s claims, those interviewed by The Herald complimented his quick wit, intelligence and interac-tion with the audience.
“I liked how he defended himself,” Chinmaya Kulkarni ’11 said. “It was a great debate.”
Thirii Myint ’11 said she was im-pressed by the “overall quality” of students’ questions and Guha’s re-sponses.
The talk was presented with sup-port from the South Asian Students Association, the Department of An-thropology, the Watson Institute for International Studies and Dean of the Faculty Rajiv Vohra P’07.
During its general body meeting last night, the undergraduate Coun-cil of Students passed a unanimous resolution to request an increase of $7 to the student activities fee for next year.
The resolution states that if the university Resources Committee funds this request the fee would rise to $171, which would result in a “total increase of approximately $40,740.”
“I feel very confident that it’s going to be something that will help uCS continue to meet the needs of the student body,” said Ben Farber ’12, one of the resolution’s co-sponsors.
The original resolution requested a $6 increase in the student activities fee to cover inflation only. But last Wednesday, Farber and others advo-cated for an increase in the amount in order to also cover student groups’ rising costs.
“I felt that it was important that uCS raise the fee to a number that would not exceed our costs but would meet all of our rising costs,” Farber said.
Farber added that uCS is not seek-ing to exceed its costs. “We don’t want to exceed our costs in asking for money from students and families because we want to remain sensitive to hardships that they may be going through,” Farber said.
Last year, uCS passed a resolu-tion asking for a $54 increase in the student activities fee but uRC only granted an increase of $18. Farber was confident that uRC would grant the new increase of $7 in full.
Student Activities Chair Ryan Les-ter ’11 was less sure because of the economic situation. “I have absolutely no idea whether the uRC will grant the entire request, but I would hope that they would strongly consider it given the evidence behind it,” he said.
— Mitra Anoushiravani
UCS votes to raise activities fee by $7
Hit the attacker in the knee.•Make an explosive kick to the •attacker’s stomach.Straddle and strangle the •assailant, twisting their body around with your legs.Be vicious. There’s no room •for second chances.
If attacked...
PAGE 6 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THuRSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2008
tion at 8 a.m., and open for business at 9 a.m. Trader Joe’s cultivates a tropical image. Employees are called “crew members.” The manager and assistant manager are called the “Captain” and
“First Mate,” respectively, and wear Hawaiian shirts. Instead of cutting a ribbon to ceremonially open the store, Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian will cut a bright red lei. Store Captain Paul Bourgeois and First Mate Blair Carroll said that they had seen significant com-
munity interest in the store’s opening. People “keep driving up, and they’re looking, driving and they stop, and we wave and we go out to talk to them and we’re like ‘No, no, it’s coming up,’ ” Bourgeois said. “It’s been, like, the past month and a half ... some of them don’t know us, they’re just curious. Some of them are like, ‘When are you going to open the door?’ ”
Though most Trader Joe’s stores carry largely the same items, the War-wick store cannot sell alcoholic bever-ages — including its famous “Three Buck Chuck” wine — as it does in other states, including in some stores in Massachusetts — because of Rhode Island law.
“We’ve been whining about it the whole time,” said Bourgeois, who transferred to the new store from the company’s Cambridge location.
Eliot Tang-Smith ’12 said he hadn’t heard about the store’s opening until a friend wrote about it on Facebook. Tang-Smith, who is from northern California, said that at home he has three or four Trader Joe’s nearby. He’s been frustrated by the lack of “options” he perceived in the Providence area, he said. He said he was excited to learn of the new store’s opening and hopes to go there on Friday, “at the very least to see how it is.”
“Everyone within our age range loves Trader Joe’s,” David Hansen ’10 said. However, he said he doesn’t buy into the hype. “It’s kind of over-blown.”
Carroll said he expects the store to appeal to the youth demographic, because of the free samples and the “really cool” atmosphere there.
However, said Bourgeois, the store is “not going out of our way to do anything special for any particular age group. We’re really just putting
ourselves out there for Trader Joe’s fans, and Trader Joe’s fans span ev-ery age group.” Breslin and her suit-emate Tess O’Brien ’10 both shop at the Trader Joe’s in their hometown of Acton. They said they loved Trader Joe’s but were unlikely to shop at the new store frequently. “It’s kind of far,” Breslin said.
“I think Trader Joe’s is best for their nonperishables anyway ... so you can just go and stock up,” O’Brien said. She said she would probably con-tinue to do most of her shopping at Eastside Market because it’s easier to get there.
Though Trader Joe’s is accessible by public transit — there is a bus stop across the street from it — the trip can
take more than 30 minutes each way, according to the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority Web site, including a walk to Kennedy Plaza and a bus transfer. Bourgeois said he did not know why the company chose to locate the store in Warwick.
Alison Mochizuki, Trader Joe’s director of national publicity, said that the company, which is privately held, does not disclose its business strategies or its reasons for choosing particular locations for expansion.
“We’re so excited to be here in Rhode Island and we can’t wait to see how excited Rhode Islanders are to come to us,” Bourgeois said. “We want the collision to happen so that we can have fun.”
Law forbids new Trader Joe’s from selling ‘Three Buck Chuck’
Emma Berry / Herald
Trader Joe’s will open its first store in Rhode Island today in Warwick.
continued from page 1
weeks after the World Series. Fans wake up in November to the MLB.com headline, or they hear it from a friend. It is a non-event. I bet a lot of Boston fans would watch Game 1 if they knew Daisuke Matsuzaka might win the Cy Young in between the fifth and sixth innings.
American Idol somehow attracts millions of viewers to special “Results Shows,” where literally nothing happens for an hour. It can be done — boring TV can be made exciting, and America will watch. And if it takes Ryan Seacrest interview-ing players in the dugout, so be it.
Ellis Rochelson ’09 just realized that Barry Bonds and Roger
Clemens didn’t play this year.
continued from page 7
Rochelson ’09: Steps for saving the Series
Public perception of inmates is that they’re illiterate, but some are “well-read, thoughtful, intelligent people,” Poole said.
Loury said the program was a “wonderful experience,” adding that he found the inmates to be “well in-formed and articulate,” and able to tackle theoretical questions.
His lecture was on inequality in
America, particularly the “inequality of status” — a subject Loury said made the inmates sit on the “edge of their chairs.” He said he encour-aged active participation and discus-sion to avoid simply lecturing the prisoners.
Currently, the program is sched-uled to run until Dec. 8, and Cole-man said he already has about 10 interested professors for the spring semester. There are no current plans
to expand the program, but Coleman said he hopes ultimately the Univer-sity will establish a credit-bearing degree program in the prison. Poole said she is unsure how long the pro-gram will continue, but like Cole-man, hopes to at least continue the program as it is in the future.
After Coleman graduates this December, the Swearer Center will hire another student to manage the lecture series, Poole said.
presentation.Stewart returned from Afghani-
stan only four days before speaking at Brown, and he drew the audi-ence’s attention to a large Starbucks cup on his podium, pointing out that he would need the caffeine to help him stay awake after his trip. In this case and in others, Stewart had the audience laughing at his quips, but the topic of his talk was much more serious.
According to Stewart, Afghani-stan produces 93 percent of the world’s heroin and still receives $4 billion in international aid. “The world needs Afghanistan more than Afghanistan needs the world,” he said.
He said the problem for the inter-national community is figuring out how to make Afghanistan into “the kind of country we want it to be.” He spoke of his personal experiences with rampant violence in Afghanistan — he was nearly shot on several oc-casions — and contrasted those ex-periences with the recommendations
of the international community, such as establishing rule of law and help-ing promote a police force. When it comes to details, though, Stewart said those ideas were “nonsense — mostly jargon.”
“(Their) definition of how to do it doesn’t tell us anything,” he said, adding that the prescriptions seemed more like a “recipe for how to build a garden shack” than a plan for how to develop a country. When asked by an audience member, he said West-ern countries need to find a balance between “what we can do” and “what the Afghans can do.”
In 2005, Stewart returned to the old city of Kabul and began his regeneration effort by clearing gar-bage from the streets. His foundation has now removed 15,000 truckloads of garbage from the ground and that alone has lowered the road level by seven feet, he said. In addition, the foundation has improved drain-age, repaired buildings and roads, supported women in the fields of woodworking and calligraphy and provided teachers for a new public school.
Stewart said he put himself in a dangerous position when he started the foundation because he is fre-quently on the brink of running out of funding. He described the anxiety as similar to trying to run a “cross between a pizza restaurant and a start-up Internet company.” Right now, he needs to raise $2 million in three weeks to avoid laying off 100 of his employees.
In response to a question about the potential wastefulness of aid work, Stewart said it “can be ex-tremely frustrating and depressing,” and many of his colleagues have be-come “cynical.”
He said he still finds an “enor-mous amount of joy and satisfaction in the work.” He said he does not feel guilty about the work he does in Af-ghanistan and that the opposition he encounters is strictly political. The gap between our values and those of the Afghans is “not as stark” as we might believe, he said.
“This is about action,” he said in conclusion. “This is about acting in the world. This is about how you get out and do things.”
day.“The raw number excluding city
halls is slightly lower, but not size-able,” he said. “It actually works out better because the smaller precincts are not all that efficient and it allows us to put more poll workers into busier precincts.”
Both Barnett and Kando said they have taken measures to prevent major problems on Nov. 4.
Kando said the board always takes precautions to prepare for more voters than expected.
“Every election day, there are some minor problems,” he said, but downplayed the possibility of major problems.
“We have taken great, great prep-arations to avoid that,” said Kando, adding that the board set up a mock election to check systems, reviewed all preparations and carefully trained poll workers. “We also have contingency plans should something go wrong.”
“We’re hoping for good weather,” he added.
Barnett said his office started a voter education campaign to “help vot-ers cope with the record turnout” and dispense “common sense advice.”
The secretary of state’s Web site has also been updated so visitors can locate polling places, view a sample ballot, and review their registration.
Voters “should be well prepared to have a flawless experience at the polls,” Barnett said, advising voters to “confirm your polling place, check your voter registration information and vote during off hours.”
THuRSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2008 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 7
Stewart helping to revitalize old Kabulcontinued from page 1
Program has profs. speaking in prisoncontinued from page 3
State readies for election
continued from page 3
The Herald: A home run for
your mind.
PAGE 8 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THuRSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2008
THuRSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2008 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 9
gets excited about the cafeteria.”According to Chris, Jenny is
known among her teammates for her love of dining hall food. “She loves eating Ratty food, like disgust-ing cheeseburgers and stuff, but she will never get big,” he says.
Now that they are both on cam-pus, the siblings say they hang out often. Jenny says Chris helped her adjust to college life and fulfilled his promise to take a course with her if Jenny decided to come to Brown. Both are currently taking COGS 0010: “Approaches to the Mind: Introduction to Cognitive Science” together.
And of course, both siblings are also enjoying their experiences with the tennis teams. “Some of my best friends are my teammates,” Chris says. “I’m going to be great friends with so many of them for many, many years to come.”
One of those friends is Garland, who met Chris at a tournament in New Hampshire when they were about 10 years old.
“We played singles against each other and then afterwards we played doubles together,” Garland says. “It was his first time playing doubles, so the joke going on in the team is that I taught Chris how to play doubles.”
Chris went on to find much suc-cess in doubles, including back-to-back semifinal showings at the ITA Regionals the past two years, achieving a ranking of No. 25 na-tionally with Dan Hanegby ’07 as a sophomore.
According to Harris, Chris makes “the perfect partner” in doubles because he is “easy to get along with, and everyone knows he is going to bust it every chance he gets — so there is a lot of trust from his partners that he is always giving his best effort.”
Chris says that, in addition to
the doubles lesson, watching Gar-land and captain Noah Gardner ’09 — who advanced to the Regional doubles final together this month — when he was younger helped drive him to learn to play better tennis. “They are part of the reason that I am the tennis player I am today,” he says.
While Chris’s fellow members of the class of 2009 inspired him to be a better tennis player, they also influenced him off the court.
“They really opened my eyes and introduced me to life,” Chris says.
“Their guidance really helped me develop into who I am today. I think the biggest way I have changed is that I value the people in my life so much now. There is really nothing more important in life than your friends and family.”
That family, of course, includes Jenny, who in turn has only praise for her brother’s personal qualities. “He’s really funny — he makes hi-larious comments all the time,” she says. “He’s nice and compassionate. He gets along with everyone.”
Chris’s teammates share Jenny’s admiration. “He’s a bubbly guy, and he loves to do everything,” Garland says. “He’s a great listener. I can have intelligent conversations with him and serious conversations. He’s a very versatile guy.”
According to Harris, Chris’s per-sonal qualities are what make him a good team captain. “Chris is just a great leader for so many reasons,” Harris says.
“He is one of the nicest and most honest people in the world — ev-eryone loves him. He is a brilliant student and a very gifted tennis player.”
Harris explains how much the team depends on Chris, parallel-ing Chris’s collegiate career to the team’s results over the years. “(Chris) was a key player in singles and doubles in our 2006 Ivy League Championship,” he says. “Then his
sophomore year his back broke, and so did our team in some ways. We went 1-6 in the league — we had only lost two Ivy matches in the previous five years. Last year he battled back from his back in-jury and had a great year, and the team also had a great year, finishing second in the league.”
Although Chris is currently re-covering from another injury, ac-cording to Garland he has “done really well to pick up the organiza-tion of the team when he’s injured.” Garland adds that Chris has “devot-ed himself completely to Brown ten-nis,” which is obvious from the pep talk e-mails he sends the team.
Chris’s dedication also extends off the tennis courts and into his aca-demic life. Last year, Chris earned Academic All-Ivy honors, and he said he plans on becoming a doctor in the future.
“I’m going to Mount Sinai School of Medicine either next year or the year after — I haven’t really decided yet,” he says.
“Since next year would be the last year I could ever really do any-thing I wanted, I may take a year off to maybe play some pro tourna-ments, travel, spend time with my mom’s side of the family in Taiwan. If I could, I would like to stay in col-lege tennis for a year, maybe as an assistant coach somewhere.”
Chris says the reason he is keep-ing so many options open is because “I don’t want to look back one day and say, ‘I wish I had done this when I was done with college.’ If I play on the tour for a bit and am not suc-cessful, at least I can say that I gave something I love doing a shot.”
For now, Chris is enjoying his senior year.
Although Chris says he enjoys hanging out with his sister on cam-pus, her presence “hasn’t changed anything, really.”
But Jenny corrects her brother: “It’s more fun now.”
continued from page 12
Lees, sibling tennis stars, share close ties and laughs and on and off the court
s T a f f e d i T O r i a l
F R A N N Y C H O I
Time to get going
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l e T T e r s
The Political Theory Project: thinking uncomfortable thoughtsTo the Editor:
The Herald recently criticized the Political Theory Project for accepting donations from a conservative group and a libertarian group. The editors proposed that the Project (and presumably the University as a whole) refuse any donations from groups with an “intel-lectual agenda,” since only by doing so can we remain intellectually pristine.
With respect to the Political Theory Project, the edi-tors’ criticism is puzzling on its face. The largest new donor to the Project this year is a self-described “com-mitted Democrat” (a full list of the Project’s donors is posted on our Web site, and has been for several years). On the editors’ theory, in which ideological direction is the Project in danger of truckling: conservative, liberal or libertarian? (These are three very different views, by the way). In any case, donors to the Project, no matter what their political orientation, have absolutely no role in the Project’s substantive decisions. The Project’s postdoctoral fellows are selected by Brown faculty; the topics and speakers at our Janus Lectures are chosen by the Project’s student group, the Janus Forum. The Project’s complete autonomy regarding all such choices is non-negotiable. (Indeed, two years ago the Project returned a check to a group that sought, howsoever gently, to recommend speakers.)
Of course, in one important sense the Project is not insulated from the evaluations of outsiders: Brown is a private university, so supporters can walk away if they don’t like the choices we make. Regrettably, this sometimes happens. Last year, a Florida alum was so unhappy that the Project’s student group included Am-bassador John Bolton in a Janus event about the United Nations that he decided not to contribute to the Project. Another alum, with a different temperament, expressed outrage that the Project brought the feminist Catharine MacKinnon to campus. But we refuse to be pressured
in any one ideological direction. To ideologues of all stripes, I suppose, the Political Theory Project is an equal opportunity disappointer.
More generally, I disagree with the editors’ proposal that the University refuse donations from people with a political agenda. Unless one invokes an exception-ally narrow view of the “political,” this would lead to lots of dilemmas (Should Brown accept money from Jane Fonda? How about the Ford Foundation? What about the donor who designates her gift to financial aid because she thinks education is a social justice issue?). A better approach is the one that I understand Brown actually to take: We accept designated contributions to University-identified priorities only on the condition that there be no strings attached.
I do not mean to underestimate the moral dilemmas of fundraising. Infamously, it’s not always easy to say what counts as a string (if a swimmy alum offers $10 million for a new pool but not for a new library, but the library is a higher priority than the pool, is that a string?). There is a deeper sense in which I agree with the spirit of the editors’ argument, if not the argument they actually penned. A campus group that works with explosive political topics, as the Political Theory Project does, has a special obligation a) to insulate its decisions from outsiders and b) to seek funding from as broad and diverse a group of donors as possible. With advice from Brown’s Development Office, and with guidance from administrators, faculty and students, the Project is working hard to meet these obligations. As the founding director of the Political Theory Project, I welcome your advice, suggestions and, yes, your donations too.
John TomasiAssociate Professor of Political Science
Director, Political Theory ProjectOct. 29
eDiTorial & leTTersPAGE 10 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THuRSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2008
When the going gets tough, the tough get going, right?Well, at Brown it’s not necessarily so. We’re facing economic dif-
ficulties along with everyone else. Donations may drop, and what’s more, pledged donations made already are coming in slower than the University had hoped. The state, known for having a slightly weaker economy than the rest of New England, is now suddenly leading the nation in unemployment, at 8.8 percent in September. We’re in a serious downturn, and it’s unclear — to everyone — when it’ll turn around.
Students and community members, fortunately, are attuned to how the University is being affected. At an open forum held by the Univer-sity Resources Committee on Monday, attendance was more than twice as high as it usually is, totaling at about 90. We’re thinking about our waning job prospects, yes, but we’re also concerned with how Brown might change.
Still, we have a vast amount of resources available in our endow-ment, and if administrators’ expectations that the market will “bounce back” are genuine — as Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 said at the URC forum — then perhaps we should be more willing to dip into that endowment. Recent years have led us to understand the endowment as something that grows endlessly, even while we take small spoonfuls out for yearly expenses. But this isn’t necessarily the way it has to be: An endowment of this size should allow us to continue more or less normal operations, in the short term and long term.
The temporary pool is a perfect case in point. While Kertzer said at the URC meeting that it was “working well as it is” and, along with the Nelson Fitness Center, could be pushed back in time. As an apt letter-writer pointed out this week, though, it’s not working well as is. The pool and the current recreational facilities at the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center — scattered around the edge of the track, not even in a separate rom — are an embarrassment to the school.
Maybe we’re just being selfish, but administrators need to remem-ber that when a project due to be completed in 2010 gets pushed back, say, two years, suddenly only one-fourth of the current students will benefit from it. The long-term well-being of the University does mat-ter to us, but how the school fares while we’re here is also of critical importance to us.
Of course, this frustration would prove completely misguided if the economy sustains its troubles beyond the next few quarters. But then, things would really get tough, and we suspect the University would be more willing to really get going — and dig into its endowment.
Senior Staff Writers Mitra Anoushiravani, Colin Chazen, Chaz Kelsh, Emmy Liss, Brian Mastroianni, George Miller, Melissa Shube, Anne Simons, Sara Sunshine, Gaurie Tilak, Caroline Sedano, Jenna Stark, Joanna Wohlmuth, Simon van Zuylen-WoodStaff Writers Zunaira Choudhary, Leslie Primack, Sydney Ember, Connie Zheng, Christian Martell, Alexandra ulmer, Lauren Pischel, Samuel Byker, Anne Deggelman, Nicole Dungca, Olivia Hoffman, Cameron Lee, Debbie Lehmann, Sophia Li, Hannah Moser, Seth Motel, Marielle Segarra, Kyla Wilkes, Juliana Friend, Sarah HuskSports Staff Writers Peter Cipparone, Nicole StockBusiness Staff Maximilian Barrows, Thanases Plestis, Agathe Roncey, Allen McGonagill, Ben Xiong, Bonnie Kim, Cathy Li, Christiana Stephenson, Corey Schwartz, Evan Sumortin, Galen Cho, Han Lee, Haydar Taygun, Jackie Goldman, Jilyn Chao, Kathy Bui, Kelly Wess, Kenneth So, Lee Chau, Lyndse Yess, Margaret Watson, Matthew Burrows, Maura Lynch, Misha Desai, Stassia Chyzhykova, Webber Xu, William SchweitzerDesign Staff Jessica Calihan, Amy Kendall, Joanna Lee, Rachel Isaacs, Angela Santin Ceballos, Marlee Bruning, Rachel Wexler, Maxwell Rosero, Katie Silverstein, Shara Azad, Jessica Kirschner, Jee Hyun Choi, Heeyoung Min, Andrea McWilliams,Photo Staff Alex DePaoli, Eunice Hong, Kim Perley, Quinn SavitCopy Editors Rafael Chaiken, Ellen Cushing, Younhun Kim, Frederic Lu, Lauren Fedor, Madeleine Rosenberg, Kelly Mallahan, Jennifer Kim, Tarah Knaresboro, Jordan Mainzer, Janine Lopez, Luis Solis, Ayelet Brinn, Rachel Starr, Riva Shah, Jason Yum, Simon Leibling, Rachel Isaacs
Jessica Calihan, Steve DeLucia, Julien Ouellet, Jessica kirschner, Designers
Ayelet Brinn, Frederic Lu, Rachel Starr, Jason yum, Copy Editors
Affirmative action in admissions is a noble yet highly flawed effort. I don’t deny that Brown should consider applicants’ relative disadvantages — otherwise it couldn’t rightly compare them — but I think the University regards racial disadvantage far too liberally, and in so doing admits some students that are less deserving than others. Stricter standards must be established.
Let me provide some background on just how much of a leg-up in admissions under-represented minorities receive. A well-known study by researchers at Princeton found that in admissions departments at several elite private universities, being black is worth an extra 230 points on the SAT and being Hispanic an extra 185 points. On the other hand, being Asian-American is worth negative 50 points. Credibility of the SAT aside, those statistics speak for themselves.
Moreover, a survey by the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education found that despite the overall 14.1 percent acceptance rate at Brown in 2006, 22.4 percent of black applicants were admitted, a difference of 58.9 percent from the overall acceptance rate.
Accordingly, black applicants were almost two-thirds more likely to get into Brown than the average applicant in 2006, and I imagine the numbers haven’t changed much since then. I was not able to find relevant data on other underrepresented minorities.
I would have no problem with these statis-tics if it were true that minorities were always at a disadvantage in admissions, but that is a critically incorrect generalization. I grant that race puts some applicants at a disadvantage. After all, we haven’t completely eliminated racism from society, and some students are bound to face adversity because of this.
But it would be unreasonable to claim that every single underrepresented minority is necessarily disadvantaged because of his or her race. In fact, in light of the progress that
has been made since the civil rights move-ment, I imagine that some underrepresented minorities are actually advantaged over whites and Asian-Americans.
For example, I presume that there have been minority applicants to Brown that come from high-income families; can we claim these students are truly disadvantaged? Of course not.
Wealthy black or Hispanic students are in the same league as wealthy white students — money is money, and I think it’s unarguable that having money is advantageous. It is ac-
cordingly absurd that admissions departments continue to assume that all underrepresented minority students are disadvantaged.
The usual justification for affirmative action is that it promotes diversity on campus and increases the number of successful minori-ties in the world. However, that stance pays short shrift to the integrity of a meritocratic admissions process.
Further, racial diversity doesn’t always translate into cultural diversity, and the lat-ter is what really contributes to meaningful diversity. Consider, for example, Hispanic students who identify with “white culture.” Would such students add anything more to campus diversity than a white student? They would certainly add intellectual diversity in the sense that they are individuals, with their own ideas to contribute, but we could say the
same about every applicant.While underrepresented minorities are
given unqualified preference in admissions, the disadvantages of whites and Asian-Americans are necessarily neglected. Can we really say that a high-income black student warrants admission over a more qualified, low-income white student from an underfunded public school?
I don’t think so, and yet the fact that a dis-proportionate amount of unconditional prefer-ence is given to black students would suggest otherwise. Isn’t unequal treatment on the basis
of race discrimination at its finest? Alleged advantage turns into disadvantage as students are hypocritically subjected to the same preju-dice that inspired affirmative action in the first place. Bottom line? It’s unjust to not consider disadvantages across the applicant pool.
Given that admissions departments lack a means to effectively assess disadvantage, they must turn to inference. For example, if an admissions officer sees that a black applicant hails from traditionally low-income area and attends an underfunded school, it’s reasonable to assume he or she is disadvantaged relative to a student from a wealthy area, attending a private school.
While inference can be an accurate gauge of disadvantage, it is a far cry from being stan-dardized. That in mind, I think that given a choice between an inferential policy and a
standardized policy, most applicants would prefer the latter.
So how do we account for disadvantages without resorting to inferences or general-izations? Economic background is a strong indication of relative disadvantage and advan-tage, and its inclusion in admissions would undoubtedly allow for the most effective form of standardization.
However, Brown’s need-blind policy pre-vents admissions officers from considering applicants’ financial information, so this reform would require the elimination of an integral part of Brown’s admissions process.
Of course, the need-blind policy was in-stituted for good reasons, as the potential for abuse under a need-aware policy was high. Accordingly, removing the need-blind policy could be less fair to applicants than its value in standardizing admissions — still, I can think of no other way to fairly standardize admis-sions.
And so, given that admissions are unjust as currently constituted, we must choose between adopting economic affirmative ac-tion and doing away with affirmative action completely. Given that the latter would make it impossible to account for any disadvantage outside of inference, I must advocate economic affirmative action.
But can we trust that the University will use financial information honorably and only in pursuit of standardization? No, we can’t. I therefore propose that we implement a system of checks-and-balances to ensure that there is no wrongdoing on behalf of the admissions committee.
Allowing student representatives to hold chairs during the admissions process would not only preempt any admissions miscon-duct, but give a more powerful voice to the students over the direction of the University. This proposal may not be the only solution, but we cannot ignore the fact that something needs to change.
Jared Lafer ’11 wants you to know that those SAT statistics were out of 1600.
BY MANuEL POSSOLOguesT cOluMnisT
Reforming affirmative action
Greed is Good
I do not claim that these are the best
of times, by any means, but I do think
that current college students have
significant reasons to be optimistic in
their economic outlook.
Given that admissions are unjust
as currently constituted, we must
choose between adopting economic
affirmative action and doing away with
affirmative action completely.
opinionsTHuRSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2008 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 11
BY JARED LAFEROpiniOns cOluMnisT
Recent turmoil on Wall Street has caused great anxiety among the public at large and among the student population right here at Brown. Aspiring investment bankers visibly bemoan the lack of on-campus recruiting, and just about everyone else cannot help but wonder whether there will be enough jobs out there in the coming year.
Certainly, the subprime mortgage crisis, followed by the failure of major banks and dramatic swings in the stock market, has left much room for worry. But despite all this, students should be optimistic in their eco-nomic outlook over the medium to long term. The current economic situation in fact offers unprecedented opportunities for those just about to enter the market.
First, most college graduates will earn more money in their first year out of college than they have over their entire life span, and there is no better time than now to invest in the stock market. Starting salaries may be lower this year than they would have been otherwise given the high level of economic uncertainty, and some students will have significant loans to pay off. But most will have some extra cash that they will need to spend, save or invest.
Given that stock values have dropped sig-nificantly in the past several weeks, and will most likely continue to drop or stay around such levels for a moderate amount of time, there is no better time to invest in stocks. This is because, while the stock market has
tumbled, it will certainly rebound over time. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett wrote re-cently that, “Equities will almost certainly outperform cash over the next decade, prob-ably by a substantial degree.”
Recent college grads will therefore begin to invest in the stock market at just the right time. Over five to 10 years, their investments should bring in sizable returns.
Second, companies looking to cut costs
will undoubtedly attempt to replace experi-enced, high-salaried employees with cheap yet qualified workers. Therefore, they will be looking precisely for young, highly educated individuals from universities like Brown. Re-cent college graduates clearly earn smaller salaries than most experienced workers, but often they are capable of carrying out many of the same tasks following a brief learning period. Certain industries already practice this strategy, such as in consulting, but it will
become all the more prevalent as companies focus more than ever on the need to cut costs and increase profits in the short run.
College students are cheap, they learn fast and they are still inexperienced enough to work for more hours than they should. For this reason, while the job market may tighten over the next few years, it should still stay promising for individuals fresh out of col-lege, especially those graduating from top-tier
universities. Third, the recent burst in the housing
bubble will mean that housing prices will most likely remain at reasonable when students now in college start to think about buying their first apartment or home in several years. Over the past couple decades, housing prices skyrocketed beyond the means of most young individuals to purchase decent living accom-modations. This resulted from an overesti-mated demand for real estate.
As has become apparent, many individuals over the past decade were lured by subprime mortgage lenders into purchasing homes be-yond their means. But the housing bubble has finally burst. It will result in some economic turmoil in the short term, but it is actually good news for current college students.
Five to 10 years out of college, many will start to think about making their first purchase of a home, and prices will almost certainly remain at a non-inflated level in the medium term. This means that students will be able to purchase real estate while prices are still low. Moreover, they will derive maximum benefit from the rise in prices which will accompany the resurgence of the economy over the next decade.
I do not claim that these are the best of times, by any means, but I do think that cur-rent college students have significant reasons to be optimistic in their economic outlook.
In fact, the economic situation looks prom-ising on several fronts. The stock market ea-gerly awaits new investors, employers need cheap yet qualified laborers and housing prices have fallen to a more reasonable level. So don’t get too worried, and certainly do not despair. Again, Buffett put it best: “A simple rule guides my buying: Be fearful when oth-ers are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.”
I would suggest taking Buffett’s advice. Don’t be afraid to be a little greedy, because now is the perfect time.
Manuel Possolo ‘09 is inexperienced enough to work for more hours than he should.
sporTs ThursDayPAGE 12 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THuRSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2008
Sibling duo show talent on and off courtChris Lee’ 09 and Jenny Lee ’12 share laughs, tennis prowess
By ERIN FRAUENHOFERspOrTs sTaff WriTer
Men’s tennis fans are familiar with the name Lee: Captain Chris Lee ’09 has been on the team since his freshman year. But when his sister Jenny ’12 arrived at Brown in September, the women’s ten-nis team got a Lee of its own, and the siblings, who already shared a close relationship, now have an even easier time supporting each other.
Chris first made a name for himself as a freshman, earning First Team All-Ivy honors in doubles. After suffering through a back injury his sophomore year, he was named Second Team All-Ivy last season in singles.
Head Coach Jay Harris says Chris “has been the backbone of our team since he got here,” and captain Sam Garland ’09 calls Chris “our top player this year.”
Meanwhile, Jenny shows similar promise. She’s currently recovering from a back injury, but “when she’s healthy,” Head Coach Paul Wardlaw says, “she’s definitely going to be one of our top players.” He says the Lees are “super athletic,” adding that Jenny “always gives one hundred percent.”
The siblings grew up in Sud-bury, Mass., where they were introduced to tennis at a young age.
“When I was three, I was watch-ing Wimbledon on TV, and I saw the award presentation part where the winner, Steffi Graf, held up the
plate,” Chris says. “I wanted one, but my mom gave me a plastic plate, so I got angry and threw it. That was the day I hit my first ten-nis ball with a baseball bat across the street.”
As Chris set out to learn the game and win real tournaments, Jenny soon became interested in tennis too. “I watched him play, so I had the advantage,” she says. “I knew what an approach shot and overhead were — way before I could hit them.”
Chris explains: “I had differ-ent coaches and went through the mistakes first. I was the guinea pig.”
But the siblings “never had a ri-valry,” aside from ping-pong, Chris says. They’ve always been sup-portive of each other, he says.
“Growing up together was a lot of fun. We have a good relation-ship,” he says, adding that both siblings also played the violin and piano.
Jenny agrees. “It was so much fun,” she says. “We did so many activities together. We once played a violin duet in a concert.” She also mentions family apple pick-ing, water gun fights and how Chris taught her to throw a foot-ball properly.
The Lees’ mutual respect for each other is apparent from the way they describe each other both on and off the court.
“Jenny tries to hit really hard when she is hitting with me,” Chris says. “I think it’s really cute because she’s such a small girl hitting as hard as I am.” He also calls his sister’s fist pumps cute, saying, “It’s supposed to be intimidating, but she just looks re-ally adorable on the court. I enjoy watching her play.”
“She’s very persistent. She’s
one of the few people who works harder than I do,” Chris says.
He says he and Jenny share the desire to work hard at everything they do.
Jenny echoes her brother’s words of admiration. “He’s very motivated,” she says. “He has a good attitude. He fights for every point. And he’s really smart on court — he plays tennis with his brain.”
The traits Jenny lists have cer-tainly proved to be true, making Chris a valuable asset to the men’s team. Chris is happy to represent Brown on the court. He decided to attend Brown after taking recruit-ing trips to many of the Ivy League schools, he says, and Brown stood out to him because of the team camaraderie.
“The guys on the team had so much fun at practice with each other and with the coaches,” he says. “I could tell that so many guys were best friends.”
Chris admits that he “had been selling (to Jenny) how awesome Brown was,” but he says that he tried to refrain from pushing her toward any particular school. “I wanted her to find the school that would make her happiest,” he says.
For Jenny, her brother’s pres-ence on campus was just one of the many things she liked about Brown. “I really like the campus, and everyone is so diverse,” she says. “I enjoy being on the team, and the team atmosphere is great.”
Wardlaw says Jenny’s enthu-siasm for Brown is apparent, ex-plaining, “She always has a smile on her face, and she seems to love everything she does. She even
How to save the World SeriesIn 2007, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays were the worst team in baseball. They won only 66 games. Their team ERA was 5.53, by far the worst in the majors. Just one season later, the newly christened Rays won 96 games and won a franchise-first AL pennant. This Cinderella story is the most endearing plot line in recent base-ball history.
Too bad no one saw it happen.The 2008 World Series between
the Rays and the Phillies has been the least-watched Series in tele-vised baseball history. There are a handful of viable excuses: that the election is stealing people’s attention, that Tampa Bay is a small market, and so on. But these ra-tionalizations ignore the elephant in the room — the World Series is boring. Except for the curse-breaking series of 2004, postseason baseball’s TV ratings have been on a slow decline with each coming October. And if a compelling story like that of the Rays won’t bring in more viewers, here’s a few tricks that will:
Don’t compete with Adult Swim
This point has been beaten to death, but it must be repeated ad nauseam until Bud Selig hears our collective scream: Let the games start earlier! Every game has gone past 11 p.m., with Game 3 ending at a ridiculous 1:47 a.m. When Carlos Ruiz dribbled the thrilling ground ball that ended Game 3, the small-est audience in World Series his-tory was watching.
Let stars from other teams into the booth
The biggest issue with the play-offs in general is that as teams are eliminated, so are viewers. Ma-jor League Baseball has tried to remedy this with an ad campaign focused on guilt: Dane Cook walks on-screen with a baseball cap, snickering: “Real fans watch the playoffs, even after their team los-es! There’s only one October!”
This doesn’t work, and Dane Cook isn’t funny. Fans will stay tuned in if they see glimmers of their own team still involved. If it were advertised that American hero Derek Jeter and Boston’s David Ortiz were doing play-by-play and color commentary for the World Series, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
As it stands, the playoffs are an entity that eats itself as it goes on. At the climax, we’re left not with a grandiose battle but a pathetic stump of competition. Keep the other teams involved, and the beast will not devour itself.
Award ceremonies during the games
Why not? In the current sys-tem, we learn about the Cy Young Award winners and MVPs a few
Bianca Aboubakare ’11 was the only Bear to qualify for the Na-tional Indoors by the end of the three-day ITA East Regionals. As the seventh seed in singles, Abouba-kare bypassed the first round with a bye before winning five straight matches to reach the finals.
Aboubakare faced two seeded opponents during the tournament. First was No. 10 seed Pamela Duran of Richmond, whom Aboubakare defeated 7-5, 6-4 in the round of 16. In the following quarterfinal match, she played No. 2 seed Kat Zoricic of William and Mary. Aboubakare lost the first set 3-6, but came back in the second game, 6-4, to extend the game into the third set, in which she narrowly edged out Zoricic, 7-5.
In the semifinal match, Abou-bakare faced the unseeded Lauren Cash of Boston College, who had pulled four upsets against seeded players of her own to reach that point. Aboubakare ended Cash’s winning streak, 6-2, 2-6, 6-4. Abou-bakare lost the final match 6-0, 6-2, placing second at the tournament, but by just reaching the finals, she was guaranteed a spot in the ITA National Indoors
Aboubakare also advanced deep in doubles with her younger sister Carissa Aboubakare ’12. The No. 5-ranked pair won three matches on Sunday to advance to the quar-terfinal round on Tuesday, where they lost to Denise Harijanto and Diana Popescu of Buffalo, 6-8.
Aboubakare will be the lone Bear representing Brown in the National Indoors Tournament in Charlot-tesville, Va., in two weeks.
— Amy Ehrhart
Aboubakare ’11 qualifies for national singles tournament
Thirteen goals and five assists from Grant LeBeau ’09 not only helped the men’s water polo team to two wins this weekend, but also earned him recognition as the Col-legiate Water Polo Association’s Northern Division Player of the Week. His four- and six-goal tallies in the team’s two wins — 13-8 over George Washington and 11-7 over No. 16 Navy, respectively — were game-highs. He also had three goals in the Bears’ loss to No. 19 Bucknell on Saturday.
LeBeau’s mark of 77 points from 46 goals and 31 assists leads the team this season, and his .648 shooting percentage ranks sec-ond. He has already tied his total assists from last season and is on pace to beat the 55 goals and 86 points he earned as well. LeBeau earned Second Team All-North honors last year along with two POTW awards. He is the fourth Bear to earn the honor this year.
Tonight, Bruno takes on Wheaton at 8 p.m. in their last “home” game of the season. This BrowNation-sponsored event will have a fan bus leaving the OMAC at 7 p.m. for fans wanting to see LeBeau and the rest of the No. 18 Bears (13-9, 7-0) in action one last time.
— Amy Ehrhart
LeBeau ’09 gets POTW honor
continued on page 7continued on page 9
Ashley Hess / Herald File Photo
Grant LeBeau ’09 had 13 goals and five assists during the water polo team’s two wins last weekend.
