The February 26, 2013 issue of the Brown Daily Herald
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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2013 since 1891 vol. cxlviii, no. 23 INSIDE Search for dean Committee continues to seek new head of medicine Questionable Visiting lecturer talks about finding god and happiness Page 4 Physical education Delaney ’15 says sports exercise athletes’ minds Page 7 Page 4 42 / 39 TOMORROW 43 / 35 TODAY D aily H erald THE BROWN By MOLLY SCHULSON SENIOR STAFF WRITER Being healthy isn’t about weight or eating a salad, University Nutritionist Annie Buffington said Monday night. Instead, students should listen to their bodies — and in listening, they can figure out what they need, rather than what society thinks they need. “It’s so sad that we live in a culture where restrained eating is normal eat- ing, and I just want to tell you it’s not. It’s not normal,” Buffington said. “You should not feel deprived when you’re not eating.” Buffington spoke to around 20 stu- dents on Monday night in Salomon 001 about honoring their bodies as part of Celebrate Every Body Week, sponsored by Brown Health Education. e week coincides with National Eat- ing Disorders Awareness Week and was created to “raise awareness about eating disorders and promote positive body image on campus,” according to the University’s Health Education website. According to the National Eating Disorder Association, 70 percent of women between the ages of 18 and 30 do not like their bodies. Eating disor- ders in males are a “silent epidemic,” according to the site, with 10 million men in the United States suffering from an eating disorder in their lifetimes. is is Buffington’s third year plan- ning the Celebrate Every Body Week. “My goal is just to make it bigger or better than the year before. It’s really great working with students and getting their organizations involved,” she said. Buffington’s presentation, “The Art Inside: Health at Every Size,” touched on disordered eating but fo- cused mostly on empowerment and self-acceptance. e belief of Health at Every Size is that “the best way to improve health is to honor” the body, according to the program’s website. People misinterpret the idea to mean all people are healthy no matter their size, Buffington said prior to the event. In actuality, the emphasis lies in taking the focus off of weight, she said. “People can be healthy at all sizes by focusing on other factors in their life and not just the number on a scale,” Buffington said. Tonight, the Student Volunteers for the Samaritans of Rhode Island will team up with Brown Health Ser- vices to facilitate a panel discussion on disordered eating. At Brown-RISD Hillel this week, the Brown Yoga and Mindfulness Club plans to hold Cele- brate-Every-Body-themed classes with a free class ursday and 305 Fitness of Providence will offer a free class Wednesday night. “is isn’t just about eating disor- ders. is is also for people who don’t suffer from them to take a step back and realize how incredible this body is and how much beauty every single person has,” said Shira Atkins ’14, a YAM coordinator. “What I want to do in my classes is to realize (the body) is amazing and have people just be in awe of it,” she said. Buffington contacted Atkins to help her reach people already inter- ested in well- Every Body Week promotes health, self-esteem Brown Health Education and student groups are teaming up for events that promote body awareness By RACHEL MARGOLIS SENIOR STAFF WRITER Following the release of their interim reports in January, President Christina Paxson’s six strategic planning commit- tees are gathering faculty input through a series of discussions and forums that will continue through the semester. e committees will use the feed- back as they finalize their reports in time for the Corporation meeting in May. In an email to e Herald, Mary Louise Gill, chair of the Faculty Ex- ecutive Committee and professor of philosophy and classics, wrote that a forum held Feb. 19 by the Committee on Faculty Recruitment, Career Devel- opment and Retention saw a “helpful discussion of the different needs of dif- ferent divisions and disciplines in the University.” Faculty members in the humani- ties expressed the need for “enhanced sabbaticals” to do research, Gill wrote, while faculty members from the sci- ences said they need lab technicians and support in applying for research funding. ough some strategic planning committees have not yet held similar forums, their leaders said they expect positive feedback from the faculty. “My sense is that faculty have re- sponded with great support for the financial aid committee’s strategic planning report, although we are all mindful of the serious challenges in- volved in funding such recommenda- tions,” wrote Susan Harvey, co-chair of the Committee on Financial Aid and professor of religious studies, in an email to e Herald. e Committee on Online Teach- ing and Learning has not yet solicited faculty feedback but will do so in the near future, said the committee chair, University Librarian Harriette Hem- masi. She said she does not anticipate a great deal of resistance to the proposed initiatives — which include increased support for online teaching — because faculty participation will be voluntary. “What the committee describes is experimental in nature,” she said. “So it’s encouraging faculty to consider making changes” but not mandating that they do so. Hemmasi said rather than pro- posing specific changes, many of the recommendations outline plans for moving forward with projects that are already being informally undertaken, such as experimentation with online course content. “Right now at Brown, if a faculty member wants to explore or experi- ment, there’s not really a set of guide- lines or even a structure to help that faculty member experiment unless they do it themselves,” she said. Neverthe- less, “there are many faculty who are already doing this themselves.” Senior Lecturer in English Eliza- beth Taylor, who will teach ENGL 0180: “Introduction to Creative Nonfiction” entirely online this summer, wrote in an email to e Herald that she supports the online initiatives, adding, “those of us creating online courses are being ap- propriately supported and reimbursed.” Taylor expressed approval of the Committee on Educational Innovation’s suggestion that the University create 250 online courses in honor of its ap- proaching 250th anniversary. “I’m sure it has been well-re- searched, and it will act as an excellent incentive,” she wrote. But Harold Roth, a member of the Faculty Executive Committee and professor of religious studies and East Asian studies, was more critical of the reports. “ere’s a lot of good stuff in all the reports,” he said, “but what we tend to look at is what’s not there.” He said while the Committee on Faculty Recruitment, Career Develop- ment and Retention included “a lot of good things” Planning committees seek faculty feedback Administrators will solicit input from faculty members about recommendations the six committees outlined By MARK VALDEZ SENIOR STAFF WRITER For the past two admission cycles, en- gineering has been the most popular intended concentration among the Uni- versity’s early decision applicants and has emerged as one of the top concentrations for regular decision applicants, a trend University officials have linked to the perceived employability of engineer- ing students. In the early admitted class of 2017, 9 percent of students specified engineer- ing as their intended concentration, e Herald previously reported. Engineering was also the second most popular in- tended concentration among this year’s regular decision applicants, e Herald reported in January. Dean of Admission Jim Miller ’73 attributed the growing interest in en- gineering to a more aggressive recruit- ment strategy coordinated by the Ad- mission Office. e University’s efforts correspond with the move to establish a separate School of Engineering, which was formally created July 2010. “We’ve spent a lot of time having on- campus engineering events and send- ing (word of these) events to physical scientists and engineers to recruit them,” Miller said. “We’ve been at this recruit- ing for six or seven years, but it takes a while to get some traction.” Miller said career opportunities could be part of the reason for the in- crease in engineering interest. “People perceive engineering as a discipline that will get them lots of op- portunities post-graduate, open lots of doors and lead in lots of different direc- tions,” Miller said. Mill- Engineering gains popularity among U. applicants Admissions officers and the engineering dean attributed the allure of engineering to perceived employability By MARIYA BASHKATOVA SENIOR STAFF WRITER Forget greasy chicken fingers and day- old pizza — public school lunches in Providence are now nationally recognized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for their healthier menu options. Sixteen Providence elementary schools were awarded bronze certifica- tions earlier this month in the USDA’s Healthier U.S. Schools Challenge. ese schools join 77 others in Rhode Island that have received awards — 76 bronze and one silver — from the USDA. Only 5 percent of U.S. schools had won similar awards as of Feb. 13, said Jane Francis, spokesperson for the North- east Region Food and Nutrition Services of the USDA. Within New England, 46 Massachusetts schools and 105 Con- necticut schools have also won awards. To receive certification, a school must demonstrate that it meets the criteria in each of the challenge’s “three pillars” — school meal nutrition, nutrition educa- tion and physical activity, Francis said. e competition awards four levels of certification — bronze, silver, gold and gold with distinction, with each incor- porating increasingly rigorous require- ments. For a school to receive a bronze award, its lunch program must include a different sort of fruit and vegetable each day of the week, with an emphasis on dark green and R.I. schools honored for healthy lunches The USDA recegonized local schools for their lunches and health programs / / Faculty page 5 ALEXANDRA URBAN / HERALD The efforts to create a School of Engineering have coincided with efforts by the Admission Office to recruit more engineering students. / / Engineering page 2 / / Lunch page 3 / / Body page 5 CITY & STATE
Transcript
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2013 since 1891vol. cxlviii, no. 23
INSIDE
Search for deanCommittee continues to seek new head of medicine
QuestionableVisiting lecturer talks about finding god and happiness
Being healthy isn’t about weight or eating a salad, University Nutritionist Annie Buffington said Monday night. Instead, students should listen to their bodies — and in listening, they can figure out what they need, rather than what society thinks they need.
“It’s so sad that we live in a culture where restrained eating is normal eat-ing, and I just want to tell you it’s not. It’s not normal,” Buffington said. “You should not feel deprived when you’re not eating.”
Buffington spoke to around 20 stu-dents on Monday night in Salomon 001 about honoring their bodies as
part of Celebrate Every Body Week, sponsored by Brown Health Education. The week coincides with National Eat-ing Disorders Awareness Week and was created to “raise awareness about eating disorders and promote positive body image on campus,” according to the University’s Health Education website.
According to the National Eating Disorder Association, 70 percent of women between the ages of 18 and 30 do not like their bodies. Eating disor-ders in males are a “silent epidemic,” according to the site, with 10 million men in the United States suffering from an eating disorder in their lifetimes.
This is Buffington’s third year plan-ning the Celebrate Every Body Week. “My goal is just to make it bigger or
better than the year before. It’s really great working with students and getting their organizations involved,” she said.
Buffington’s presentation, “The Art Inside: Health at Every Size,” touched on disordered eating but fo-cused mostly on empowerment and self-acceptance. The belief of Health at Every Size is that “the best way to improve health is to honor” the body, according to the program’s website.
People misinterpret the idea to mean all people are healthy no matter their size, Buffington said prior to the event. In actuality, the emphasis lies in taking the focus off of weight, she said.
“People can be healthy at all sizes by focusing on other factors in their life and not just the number on a scale,” Buffington said.
Tonight, the Student Volunteers for the Samaritans of Rhode Island
will team up with Brown Health Ser-vices to facilitate a panel discussion on disordered eating. At Brown-RISD Hillel this week, the Brown Yoga and Mindfulness Club plans to hold Cele-brate-Every-Body-themed classes with a free class Thursday and 305 Fitness of Providence will offer a free class Wednesday night.
“This isn’t just about eating disor-ders. This is also for people who don’t suffer from them to take a step back and realize how incredible this body is and how much beauty every single person has,” said Shira Atkins ’14, a YAM coordinator.
“What I want to do in my classes is to realize (the body) is amazing and have people just be in awe of it,” she said. Buffington contacted Atkins to help her reach people already inter-ested in well-
Every Body Week promotes health, self-esteemBrown Health Education and student groups are teaming up for events that promote body awareness
By RACHEL MARGOLISSENIOR STAFF WRITER
Following the release of their interim reports in January, President Christina Paxson’s six strategic planning commit-tees are gathering faculty input through a series of discussions and forums that will continue through the semester.
The committees will use the feed-back as they finalize their reports in time for the Corporation meeting in May.
In an email to The Herald, Mary Louise Gill, chair of the Faculty Ex-ecutive Committee and professor of philosophy and classics, wrote that a forum held Feb. 19 by the Committee on Faculty Recruitment, Career Devel-opment and Retention saw a “helpful discussion of the different needs of dif-ferent divisions and disciplines in the University.”
Faculty members in the humani-
ties expressed the need for “enhanced sabbaticals” to do research, Gill wrote, while faculty members from the sci-ences said they need lab technicians and support in applying for research funding.
Though some strategic planning committees have not yet held similar forums, their leaders said they expect positive feedback from the faculty.
“My sense is that faculty have re-sponded with great support for the financial aid committee’s strategic planning report, although we are all mindful of the serious challenges in-volved in funding such recommenda-tions,” wrote Susan Harvey, co-chair of the Committee on Financial Aid and professor of religious studies, in an email to The Herald.
The Committee on Online Teach-ing and Learning has not yet solicited faculty feedback but will do so in the near future, said the committee chair,
University Librarian Harriette Hem-masi. She said she does not anticipate a great deal of resistance to the proposed initiatives — which include increased support for online teaching — because faculty participation will be voluntary.
“What the committee describes is experimental in nature,” she said. “So it’s encouraging faculty to consider making changes” but not mandating that they do so.
Hemmasi said rather than pro-posing specific changes, many of the recommendations outline plans for moving forward with projects that are already being informally undertaken, such as experimentation with online course content.
“Right now at Brown, if a faculty member wants to explore or experi-ment, there’s not really a set of guide-lines or even a structure to help that faculty member experiment unless they do it themselves,” she said. Neverthe-less, “there are many faculty who are already doing this themselves.”
Senior Lecturer in English Eliza-
beth Taylor, who will teach ENGL 0180: “Introduction to Creative Nonfiction” entirely online this summer, wrote in an email to The Herald that she supports the online initiatives, adding, “those of us creating online courses are being ap-propriately supported and reimbursed.”
Taylor expressed approval of the Committee on Educational Innovation’s suggestion that the University create 250 online courses in honor of its ap-proaching 250th anniversary.
“I’m sure it has been well-re-searched, and it will act as an excellent incentive,” she wrote.
But Harold Roth, a member of the Faculty Executive Committee and professor of religious studies and East Asian studies, was more critical of the reports.
“There’s a lot of good stuff in all the reports,” he said, “but what we tend to look at is what’s not there.”
He said while the Committee on Faculty Recruitment, Career Develop-ment and Retention included “a lot of good things”
Planning committees seek faculty feedbackAdministrators will solicit input from faculty members about recommendations the six committees outlined
By MARK VALDEZSENIOR STAFF WRITER
For the past two admission cycles, en-gineering has been the most popular intended concentration among the Uni-versity’s early decision applicants and has emerged as one of the top concentrations for regular decision applicants, a trend University officials have linked to the perceived employability of engineer-ing students.
In the early admitted class of 2017, 9 percent of students specified engineer-ing as their intended concentration, The Herald previously reported. Engineering was also the second most popular in-tended concentration among this year’s regular decision applicants, The Herald
reported in January.Dean of Admission Jim Miller ’73
attributed the growing interest in en-gineering to a more aggressive recruit-ment strategy coordinated by the Ad-mission Office. The University’s efforts correspond with the move to establish a separate School of Engineering, which was formally created July 2010.
“We’ve spent a lot of time having on-campus engineering events and send-ing (word of these) events to physical scientists and engineers to recruit them,” Miller said. “We’ve been at this recruit-ing for six or seven years, but it takes a while to get some traction.”
Miller said career opportunities could be part of the reason for the in-crease in engineering interest.
“People perceive engineering as a discipline that will get them lots of op-portunities post-graduate, open lots of doors and lead in lots of different direc-tions,” Miller said.
Mill-
Engineering gains popularity among U. applicantsAdmissions officers and the engineering dean attributed the allure of engineering to perceived employability
By MARIYA BASHKATOVASENIOR STAFF WRITER
Forget greasy chicken fingers and day-old pizza — public school lunches in
Providence are now nationally recognized by the
U.S. Department of Agriculture for their healthier menu options.
Sixteen Providence elementary schools were awarded bronze certifica-tions earlier this month in the USDA’s Healthier U.S. Schools Challenge.
These schools join 77 others in Rhode Island that have received awards — 76 bronze and one silver — from the USDA.
Only 5 percent of U.S. schools had won similar awards as of Feb. 13, said Jane Francis, spokesperson for the North-east Region Food and Nutrition Services of the USDA. Within New England, 46 Massachusetts schools and 105 Con-necticut schools have also won awards. To receive certification, a school must demonstrate that it meets the criteria in each of the challenge’s “three pillars” — school meal nutrition, nutrition educa-tion and physical activity, Francis said.
The competition awards four levels of certification — bronze, silver, gold and gold with distinction, with each incor-porating increasingly rigorous require-ments. For a school to receive a bronze award, its lunch program must include a different sort of fruit and vegetable each day of the week, with an emphasis on dark green and
R.I. schools honored for healthy lunchesThe USDA recegonized local schools for their lunches and health programs
/ / Faculty page 5
ALEXANDRA URBAN / HERALD
The efforts to create a School of Engineering have coincided with efforts by the Admission Office to recruit more engineering students./ / Engineering page 2
/ / Lunch page 3/ / Body page 5
CITY & STATE
university news2 THE BROWN DAILY HERALDTUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2013
ACROSS1 Leftover bit6 Kitchen meas.
10 Highland tongue14 Thrill to pieces15 Commuter’s
Vegan Ratatouille, Garlic and Herb Chicken, Italian Beef Noodle Casserole, Washington Apple Cake
Pizza Rustica with Spinach, Rotisserie Style Chicken, Tortellini Italiano with Sausage, Washington Apple Cake
Tofu Parmesan, Garlic and Herb Chicken, Grilled Turkey Burger, Nacho Bar, Snickerdoodle Cookies
Buffalo Chicken Wings, Red Potato Frittata, Peanut Butter Sandwich Bar, Snickerdoodle Cookies
TODAY FEBRUARY 26 TOMORROW FEBRUARY 27
C R O S S W O R D
S U D O K U
M E N U
C A L E N D A R
Shefali Luthra, PresidentLucy Feldman, Vice President
Samuel Plotner, TreasurerJulia Kuwahara, Secretary
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 2013 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
er added that applicants could also be drawn to the concentration as an avenue for public service. “There are other people who see engineering as a first step to solving a lot of the world’s problems like alternative energy or en-vironmental issues.”
Miller said he believes the uptick in interest is part of a cycle that alternates between an emphasis in the humanities and sciences.
“My sense (when I graduated from Brown) was that Brown was heavily invested in the sciences,” Miller said, adding that the University “led the country” in applied mathematics and computer science in the 1970s. “Then the pendulum swung the other direc-tion, moving towards humanities and social sciences — both nationally and at Brown.”
Miller cited the computer science boom in the late 1990s as an example of how interest in concentrations moves with larger national trends. He noted that computer science was a popular program at the time but there was a loss of interest among college students after the tech bubble burst in the early 2000s.
“These things tend to be cyclical in the history of an institution,” Miller said. “There certainly is more interest in the sciences than there was a decade ago.”
Lawrence Larson, dean of the School of Engineering, said there is a link be-tween the rise in engineering interest among applicants and the prospect of better job opportunities.
“It is a national trend due to the na-tional job market,” Larson said. “The number of jobs available for graduates has grown considerably.”
He noted that the number of stu-dents tak-
/ / Engineering page 1
The following is an account of crime events that took place this weekend, reported to The Herald by Deputy Chief of Police for the Department of Public Safety Paul Shanley:
Friday afternoonA student reported that
his backpack, containing a laptop and other items, had been stolen from the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center around 3 p.m after he had left it unattended. A DPS officer responded to the call and drove the student to the Providence Place Mall to activate the laptop’s tracking device at the Apple store.
When the student entered the mall, he recognized his backpack on an individual he remembered seeing at the campus center. At the sight of the student, the suspect dropped the backpack and fled the mall. DPS officers were not able to apprehend the suspect, but all of the student’s belongings were recovered.
Saturday morningDPS received multiple
reports of breaking and entering in Sears House in the early hours of Saturday morning, allegedly perpetrated by a group of unidentified male suspects.
Two students reported that a member of the group entered their rooms and stole their laptops around 6 a.m. while they were asleep.
One of the students woke up as the intruder left his room and followed him into the hallway, where the rest of the group was waiting. The student made the suspect return his computer before the group left the building.
The other theft victim did not wake up, and his laptop was not recovered. One additional student reported seeing the group in the hall earlier in the morning.
DPS has a thorough description of a few of the suspects involved and the case remains under investigation.
— Caleb Miller
W E E K E N D C R I M E U P DAT E
found the open player. We moved the ball well,” Burr said. “There were great contributions from a number of play-ers.”
The team’s collaborative effort con-tinued in the second half. The Bears racked up a 21-point lead, thanks in part to two shots from beyond the arc by Bikofsky and a layup by Ball. Beutel anchored the Bears’ defense with 11 rebounds.
“Beutel sealed the deal with a defen-sive board, that put us in the position to take a lead,” Burr said. “That’s what you want to see from your inside game — a good solid readiness.”
In the game’s last minutes, Dixon scored Bruno’s final two layups, the first of which brought her the 1,000th point of her career. Dixon and Clarke led both teams in scoring, with 14 points each.
“I knew I was close” to achieving the milestone, Dixon said. “But I didn’t know I was this close. It feels great to have accomplished that, but knowing the type of team that I have — I’ve only been able to do it because of them and the program that we have.”
The last Brown women’s basketball players to achieve this feat were Col-leen Kelly ’06 and Sarah Hayes ’06, both in 2006. Kelly is currently an assistant coach for the Bears.
Dixon has plans to continue playing basketball after graduation. “I want to pursue playing professionally — I’ve heard from a number of people I have the potential to play,” Dixon said. “I would love to still play while I can.”
/ / Basketball page 8
trating, but it made me incredibly ea-ger for outdoor season,” Plant-Thomas said,“when I think we’ll be able to show a little more what our program is about.”
Co-captain Lacey Craker ’13, who placed third in the women’s weight throw with a distance of 18.13 meters, also has high expectations for outdoors.
“As a team, we need to take any disap-pointment from this HEPS and trans-pose it into something useful to make sure we’re as prepared as we can be for outdoor HEPS,” Craker said. “Outdoor season plays to both my personal event strengths and my teammates’ event strengths.”
The men’s and women’s teams are now preparing for the ECAC Champi-onships held in Boston, Massachusetts this weekend.
/ / Track page 8
ALEXANDRA URBAN / HERALD
Engineering, housed in Barus and Holley, has experienced new popularity as an intended concentration for University applicants.
/ / Engineering page 5
university news 3THE BROWN DAILY HERALDTUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2013
By MICHAEL DUBINCONTRIBUTING WRITER
In the first lecture hosted by the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, Marcus Rediker, a professor of Atlantic history at the University of Pittsburgh, emphasized the importance of a “his-tory from below” when looking at the Amistad Rebellion in particular and in the study of history as a discipline.
Rediker’s talk focused on the im-portant findings and methodological approaches of his book “The Amis-
tad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom.”
Addressing an audience of about 100 people, he said the project was spurred by a lack of scholarship from the African rebels’ perspective. The project’s guiding question, he said, was “How do we get at the African side of the story?”
The history of the Amistad Rebel-lion, both in historical investigations and in Steven Spielberg’s film “Amis-tad,” has been too focused on the legal battles that took place in the United
States and the speeches given by John Quincy Adams before the Supreme Court, Rediker said.
“The drama of what happened on the deck of the Amistad had really been pushed aside,” Rediker said. “I feel like it was, in fact, marginalized.”
Anthony Bogues, director of the center and professor of Africana stud-ies, told The Herald that Rediker’s talk was “the signature event” for the cen-ter this year.
Introducing the event, Bogues said Rediker possesses “the art of storytell-ing” and has a unique ability to “give voice and speech to the slaves.”
The key to understanding the Af-
rican origins of any part of American history is an engagement with West African cultures, Rediker said.
Rediker said he aimed to “discover whether there is a specifically West African or Sierra Leonean or, more specifically, Mendean cultural logic” to the Amistad Rebellion.
Rediker shared a few of what he called his most crucial findings, one of which was a proposed explanation for why this revolt succeeded when so many others aboard slave ships failed. Though there were at least 10 different ethnic groups aboard the ship, two-thirds of the Africans on the Amistad were Mende, the dominant economic
group in Sierra Leone, he said. Because their language was the
language of trade, people from other ethnic groups knew the Mende lan-guage, so they were all able to com-municate.
All Mende men had to be trained as warriors in Sierra Leone, so most of the men aboard the ship had fighting experience, Rediker said.
It was perhaps most important that all of the men had been initiated into the Poro Society back in Sierra Leone, Rediker said. A key function of the Poro Society was that it held responsibility for deliberating and declaring war
S&J lecture emphasizes African perspective in revoltThe U. of Pittsburgh professor underscored the Amistad Rebellion as crucial in understanding the history of slavery
orange vegetables, fresh fruit, beans and legumes. The schools must also serve at least one portion of whole grain food three days per week and exclusively 1 percent and fat free milk products, as well as institute calorie, sodium and fat limits in lunches set by the government.
In addition, schools must provide both structured and unstructured time for physical activity. This translates into a period for recess plus an average of 45 minutes per week of physical education for elementary school students, accord-ing to the USDA’s guidelines. The chal-lenge also mandates that students receive nutrition education in at least half of the school’s grade levels.
Nutritious school lunches and health education are important because schools are well-positioned to instill healthy habits in their young students, Francis said. Initiatives are more likely to make a difference, especially at the elementary school level, if they are “holistic” and incorporated into several aspects of the students’ days, she said.
“A lot of schools that are successful at this involve the students in the change,”
she said. Rhode Island schools have in-volved students in the redevelopment of their lunch programs by engaging them in trips to local farms, taste tests and demonstrations, she said, adding that some schools also have community gardens.
Sodexo, the food service provider for Providence Public Schools, owns 15 acres on Pezzo farm in Johnston, R.I., which grows and harvests produce exclusively for the company’s use, said Mark Jeffrey, district manager for Providence Public Schools at Sodexo. In the future, Sodexo will look to increase capacity at this farm and expand the program to include other farms, he added.
Since the initiative began, “we have really increased the students’ consump-tion of local fruits and vegetables dra-matically in the school district,” he said.
Jeffrey said “local purchasing for produce in (the) industry is within a 100-mile radius,” but Sodexo Rhode Island interprets that idea differently. The company defines local produce as that “grown and harvested in the state of Rhode Island only.” In addition to the health and convenience of purchas-ing and growing locally, the “local pur-
chasing” initiative is beneficial to Rhode Island because it stimulates the state’s economy, he added.
Pawtucket schools, which received bronze awards in 2010, locally source milk products and honey, Francis said. The schools held a demonstration where a local honey farmer brought a portable hive “so the kids could see the honey bees in action,” she said.
Schools in Jamestown have a signifi-cant focus on local foods because the area has a lot of farms, said Elliot Krieger, executive assistant for communications at the Rhode Island Department of Edu-cation. Each year, the schools have an event where an entire meal is made from locally produced food, he said. “It’s a little different in the Northeast than it might be in Florida or California where they have fresh, local produce year-round, but we do have an emphasis on” incorporat-ing local produce, he said.
Rhode Island’s state rules for healthy lunches are more stringent than federal regulations, which may explain why so many Rhode Island schools have applied for and received awards, Krieger said.
“We’re pretty proud of our statewide nutrition standards. They require schools
to serve healthy lunches — whole grains as much as possible, fruits and vegetables with every serving,” he said.
The state recently phased whole grain offerings into the lunch plan with the goal of incorporating “100 percent whole grain foods” into at least half of its grain servings by the 2013-14 school year, according to the state’s nutrition requirements. When the federal require-ments changed last year, the only sig-nificant adjustment the state’s schools were required to make was decreasing the portion size of some foods in order to comply with the new federal calorie limits, Krieger said.
The Providence schools that have been awarded certification all cook the meals in the same central kitchen, Jef-frey said.
In the future, the district hopes to submit applications for all of its schools, including those that conduct their food preparation independently, he said.
The USDA challenge is useful be-cause certified schools can become leaders and reach out to other schools about improving school nutrition and attempting the challenge, Francis said.
Francis said the application process
for the awards is usually initiated by the school’s food service director, but that the process involves a team of people from the school and community work-ing together.
“It’s not something that just happens in a vacuum … It really does take the commitment of the school, the school nurse, parents, wellness team (and) prin-cipal,” she added.
Award-winning schools receive a certificate signed by the Secretary of Agriculture, recognition on the USDA website, a banner to hang in the school and a small $500-$2,000 award directly deposited into the school’s nutrition budget, Francis said.
USDA’s challenge began in 2004 as a way to help combat obesity and gained momentum in 2010 when Michelle Obama incorporated it into her “Let’s Move” initiative, Francis said.
The challenge criteria were altered in July to exceed last year’s rise in federal nutrition standards.
But the Providence schools were certified under the old criteria, detailed above, she said. The main change schools face with the new criteria is the inclusion of school breakfast standards, she said.
/ / Lunch page 1
/ / Slavery page 4
www.browndailyherald.com
4
By KATHERINE LAMBSENIOR STAFF WRITER
The search process for a new dean of the Alpert Medical School is progress-ing as Edward Wing, dean of medicine and biological sciences, prepares to step down from the position June 30.
The dean’s job is “complicated and important,” said Provost Mark Schlis-sel P’15, as many responsibilities “fall into one position” due to the unusual amount of integration between the University and the Med School. The dean is responsible for heading the Division of Biology and Medicine, which encompasses the entire Med School as well as six undergraduate de-partments, comprising 19 total depart-ments, Schlissel said. The dean also coordinates more than 600 members of the clinical staff of the Med School across the various affiliated hospitals who employ them in order to ensure a consistent curriculum.
Schlissel, who will be chairing the search, selected the 14 other members of the search committee — includ-ing Honora Burnett MD’15, Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron and Timothy Babineau, president and CEO of Lifespan — and hired a search con-sultant to help generate a large pool of candidates. He said the 14 committee members “represent the breadth of the constituency of the position.”
In the past weeks, the commit-tee has focused on reaching out and generating a pool of interested candi-dates, Schlissel said. The committee published notices in the Journal of the American Medical Association, in
the Journal of Higher Education and through online venues, he said. The search committee also sent emails to all 3,000 alums of the Med School to spark interest in the position among alumni and their colleagues, Schlis-sel said.
The committee aims to confiden-tially interview about 12 of the can-didates — those who look best suited to the position on paper — in early March, Schlissel said. The list of can-didates will be narrowed to five or six after the interviews, and the commit-tee will decide in April on the final three candidates to submit to President Christina Paxson and the Corpora-tion, who will make the final decision. Schlissel said Wing’s successor will be ready before the start of the next academic year and will hopefully be named before he steps down June 30.
Schlissel said the committee is likely to have a range of 50 to 100 se-rious candidates. While not many of the candidates have personal connec-tions to Brown, they have “expressed a lot of respect for the University and the Medical School,” Schlissel said. Schlissel added that the identities of the candidates must be kept confi-dential because all those who would be considered for the position already have prominent jobs, and applying for this position and not being extended an offer may damage their standings.
While Wing offered his own ex-periences and suggestions for what qualities would be important for his successor at a meeting several weeks ago, he has no role in the search pro-cess, which is “pretty traditional,” Schlissel said.
“The formation of a faculty prac-tice plan at Lifespan” will be one of the most important tasks for a new dean, Wing said when he announced his plans to step down in November.
The complexity of partnering with Lifespan lies in working with and co-ordinating the efforts of multiple local hospitals that employ clinical mem-bers working with the Med School program, Schlissel said. The aim will be to continue to develop “good work-ing relationships with a set of shared goals,” he said.
The new School of Public Health will not alter the role of the incoming dean, Schlissel said, because “the fac-ulty in the public health department and the Medical school are natural collaborators with each other” and the creation of a new school will not change that relationship.
Upcoming tasks for Wing’s succes-sor will include finishing and launch-ing the Med School’s new Primary Care and Public Health curricular track, as well as continuing develop-ment of the Brown Institute for Brain Science, which will involve further col-laboration with other health facilities and hospitals.
Though the Rhode Island Depart-ment of Health has not been directly involved in the search, “(the depart-ment looks) forward to working with the new dean and (expects) to collabo-rate closely as (it continues) to advo-cate for more team-based primary care in Rhode Island,” wrote Dara Chad-wick, chief officer of health promotion for the state, in an email to The Herald.
Chadwick added that since Brown has the only medical school in Rhode Island, the Department of Health will hope to work with the administra-tion “to increase the number of Rhode Islanders who go to medical school here at home.”
The committee will be “patient and diligent” in finding an “outstanding” candidate for the position, Schlissel said, to “keep the Med School on this upward trajectory.”
With Wing to step down, search for new dean of medicine continuesThe committee will narrow the field of candidates to fill the role in the coming months
By YVETTE RODRIGUEZCONTRIBUTING WRITER
Offering insight on big questions sur-rounding God, Life and the Pursuit of Happiness, John Lennox, professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford, led an interactive discussion Friday with students, faculty mem-bers and community members. The event was hosted by the Veritas Forum and co-sponsored by the Office of the Chaplains and Religious Life.
The talk began with interactive engagement from the audience about the topics at hand — the moderators asked attendees questions regarding the purpose of life. Audience mem-bers then texted their answers to a provided number and the responses appeared on the screen, ranging from thoughtful to humorous.
Some responses included, “ To not do harm and maybe even some good” and “get money, get paid.”
Linford Fisher, assistant professor of history, began the discussion by asking Lennox why he discusses and debates about God, religion, life’s pur-pose and the meaning of happiness.
Lennox went on to explain that while his upbringing as an Irish Chris-tian contributed to his views, his cu-riosity and drive in finding truth were what instigated him to talk to leading atheists about what made them tick. Lennox said he wanted to expose his worldview to zealous questioning, as he believes that Christianity has been downgraded intellectually by the ra-tional view of naturalism.
Happiness was another big topic in the discussion. Questions ranged from “How much should we invest in our pursuit of happiness?” to “What is the ultimate happiness?” Lennox delved into this topic by establish-
ing that happiness is, by definition, subjective. He went on to explain that there are various levels of happiness when interests grow throughout the aging process.
“God gives us a magnificent uni-verse,” Lennox said. “He doesn’t trun-cate our joy when we are happy. He’s not a killjoy.”
He elaborated on happiness by claiming that while joy comes and goes, “God is not a theory, he is a person — we can have a relationship with him — that is the highest level of happiness,” he said. Lennox connected the satisfaction and joy with which one’s relationships with friends and family provide to one’s relationship with God. When questioned by mod-erators during the lecture, audience members rated family and friends as the greatest sources of happiness.
The discussion about happiness naturally transitioned into a dis-cussion about God, especially after Lennox defined ultimate happiness as contingent upon a belief in God. Moderators then asked audience members, “How do nonbelievers find happiness?” Lennox responded by explaining that all people, whether they believe or not, have the potential to find happiness.
The discussion about God pro-gressed to focus on the evidence of the existence of a god. Lennox began by asserting that different worldviews support the existence of a god and it is up to individuals themselves to decide.
“There is no default worldview. Each one of us has to decide which one to espouse,” he said, adding that people have their own reasons for be-lieving what they do. He also pointed out that “evidence is not proof ” — evidence only provides reasons.
Lennox stated that nature itself gives evidence of God. “Evidence for believing in God is that science can be done. If naturalism was true, it would in itself be undermining as men become more scientific because they expected more of nature.”
Visiting speaker connects belief in God with happiness
An Oxford professor gave a lecture Friday prompting discussion of life’s biggest questions
— a practice that helped organize the Africans on the ship when they had to decide whether to revolt, he said.
Rediker said an oral history he dis-covered contained a description of the debate that occurred in the hold of the Amistad. In describing the debate, the Africans said, “As soon as the debate was over, we had one word — and that word was war.”
“They were doing what the Poro Society always did — they declared war,” Rediker said.
While many scholars doubted Rediker’s ability to find sources dis-playing the Africans’ perspective, the oral history is just one example of the wealth of such sources he said he uncovered.
In offering the “history from below,” Rediker said he ultimately hopes to reshape and enhance soci-ety’s understanding of the “history from above.”
“The most encouraging thing about history from below: It can arise at any moment and have dramatic and powerful effects,” he said.
/ / Slavery page 3
@the_herald
university news THE BROWN DAILY HERALDTUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2013
university news 5THE BROWN DAILY HERALDTUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2013
Class Notes | Philip TrammelCO M I C
in its report, it “ignored completely the fact that Brown is at the very tail end of our peer institutions when it comes to tuition assistance for employees,” a benefit he said is “important for faculty retention.”
He added that the committee also failed to address “retirement health care and general retirement benefits,” which he described as another of the University’s weaknesses.
Roth said he was disappointed to find no mention of either a “center for emeritus faculty” or a “campus medita-tion space” in the report by the Com-mittee on Reimagining the Campus and Community, despite the fact that both were suggested at a forum the committee hosted in December.
Roth also expressed concern about the Committee on Reimagining the Campus and Community’s proposal to combine a number of humanities and social science departments into one building, saying such a measure would detract from the “uniqueness,” “independence” and “distinct identi-ties” these departments enjoy. He said some faculty members perceive it as “another step” the University has taken toward emphasizing science, technol-ogy, engineering and mathematics at the expense of other fields.
The University seems to be “margin-alizing the humanities and social sci-ences, decreasing their footprint in the University while expanding the STEM areas,” he said. “We’re concerned that the traditional areas that have been the heart of Brown’s liberal education are being de-emphasized.”
Roth said he was concerned the fac-ulty did not have enough of a voice in forming the strategic planning commit-tees. The FEC recommended 56 faculty members to serve on the committees, but Provost Mark Schlissel P’15 “only picked about a dozen,” Roth said. This number “does not instill great confi-
dence that our counsel is being taken seriously,” Roth wrote in a follow-up email to The Herald.
“In the 28 years I have taught here, I would say that every administration be-gins with the idea that they will take the faculty’s wishes seriously into account in all decisions relevant to the faculty,” he wrote. “And then that resolve gradu-ally slips away as time goes on. … It is the responsibility of the FEC to remind the administration of this resolve to regard the faculty as equal partners in the stewardship of our university rather than less ones.”
Gill wrote that she felt faculty voices are being heard.
“The provost and president are lis-tening to the faculty,” she wrote, “and the president has proposed a dinner with the FEC to follow up on ideas the FEC officers presented to her last week.”
Schlissel said while he “asked the FEC to make suggestions” while choos-ing committee members, he did “make clear to them … that they were sug-gestions.” The final decisions could not be based exclusively on the FEC’s recommendations, he said, because other factors, such as the diversity of the committees, had to be taken into account.
He said the suggestion to combine humanities and social science depart-ments into one building “came from the social scientists themselves” and was not intended to reduce the presence of these fields on campus. Few of the recommendations mention science, engineering and math at all, he said, let alone favor those areas.
“I’m confused and concerned that maybe I’m not communicating well enough with the campus,” he said. “If there’s a perception of a STEM bias, and it’s not the case, then I must not be communicating well.”
Schlissel said it is only natural for faculty members to be concerned about the impact of their input.
“I think the faculty in particular
is anxious because we’re heading into a new era,” he said. “We’re trying to define what comes next, and I think it’s not surprising that many people are concerned that their interests, and what they think is best, is taken well account of in whatever plan we come up with.”
He said this anxiety may even be beneficial, as it encourages participa-tion in the strategic planning process.
But participation is a “two-way street,” he said, and “people have to step up and be involved.” He added that while “many individuals are en-gaged,” often demonstrated through comments on the strategic planning website, outreach events are generally poorly attended. When the Commit-tee on Faculty Recruitment, Career Development and Retention held a forum earlier this month, “maybe 20 people showed up,” he said. “There was good discussion, but there was a limited number of people.”
He said he hopes faculty members who wish to contribute to the strategic planning process in the coming weeks find “the appropriate forum to do so,” and added that faculty members can and do write and approach him.
“We hope to get as much input as possible, he said, “but at the end of the day we have to pull together the com-munity’s best thoughts and ideas, and turn it into a road map for the years ahead.”
/ / Faculty page 1
ness, she added.Atkins is also participating in Op-
eration Beautiful, an ongoing event for the week that allows students to write anonymous notes with positive mes-sages — like “You’re amazing,” “True beauty is in the heart” and “You’re already perfect,” she said — and put them in public places for others to find.
Other ongoing events include the Great Jeans Giveaway, which allows students to donate gently used clothing to designated boxes in either J. Wal-ter Wilson or the Sharpe Refectory. The donations will be given to Rhode Island-based charities.
“I’m really interested in how people perceive their body image. My mom had body image problems when she was a young girl and … so I grew up with a negative perception of my own body,” said Lauren Galvan ’16. She at-tended Monday night’s event as part of her training to become a Sexual Health Awareness Group peer educator.
Workout towels with “Celebrate Your Body” on them were offered to guests, along with snacks. Buffington started off the presentation by dimming the lights and playing music before asking audience members how it made them feel. Throughout the one-hour talk, Buffington compared the body to a musical instrument. Similar to an in-strument, the body needs to be in-tune, have value, be in the best condition and have a purpose, she said.
Buffington emphasized listening to the body. “Your body is the best dieti-tian,” she said. Guests were presented with a hunger and fullness scale, which Buffington compared to a music scale. The scale ranged from “famished and feeling faint” to “uncomfortably full.”
“You eat food, but you don’t really think you have a relationship with it,” Galvan said.
Buffington listed dieting, restrained eating, food rules and counting calories as contributing factors that lead to guilt, shame and unhappiness.
“A lot of times people tend to over-correct. … If you just recognize your fullness at a place that’s comfortable, that’s a nice place to start,” she said.
Buffington displayed body outlines of different Olympic athletes, ranging from weightlifting champion Holley Mangold to gymnastics champion Gab-by Douglas. Their body mass indexes ranged from 51.7 to 18.2, respectively.
“They are using their instruments in phenomenal ways,” Buffington said. “BMI might not always describe an individual appropriately.”
Adele Ruppert ’16 said she was drawn to the event as a member of the equestrian team. “I always think it’s an interesting conflict between the two groups. … People who are trying to work out to be athletes or to be healthy. I always think that’s interesting.”
At the end of the presentation, Buffington passed out guitar picks with words such as “health,” “trust” and “freedom” to remind people what
to work on. “Find your groove. Find ways to
accept your body, appreciate your body and take care of the instrument you have,” she said.
Buffington tied what she called her passions for music and health together when she performed a song on her uke-lele to the tune of the song “Price Tag” about “making a change” and “loving one’s body.”
“It was a cool presentation. I think the idea of not putting labels on food, good or bad, was an awesome point,” Lauren Colwell ’15 said. “It’s okay to do it as long as you listen to your body and ask, ‘How do I feel after that?’”
Galvan also said she took away the importance of hearing what your body has to say.
“I realized it’s important to listen to your body because it does tell you a lot of things. Granted it doesn’t speak to you, but you can tell when your body is hungry or full. I think that’s one change that I’ll definitely start mak-ing,” she said.
Even if people disagree with what she says, Buffington said she believes she has done her job if the events of this week start up a conversation.
“Your body has value simply be-cause it houses you. I just want you to hear that,” Buffington said. “There will never be another you. You all have value … because you possess this beau-tiful instrument and it’s capable of pro-ducing incredibly music if you honor it,” Buffington said.
/ / Body page 1
ing introductory engineering courses has grown, with over 200 students enrolled in ENGN0030: “Introduction to Engineering” during the fall 2012 semester. Enrollment in the introduc-tory course rose from 108 in fall 2004 to 225 in fall 2011, according to reports from the Critical Review.
Larson said the School of Engineer-ing has worked to ease entry-level stu-dents into the concentration program.
“We want to offer a gentle introduc-tion to engineering,” Larson said, refer-ring to the introductory course. “It’s S/NC by definition, and it’s team-based and hands-on at all levels,” Larson said.
But though interest in engineering has increased at the University, the con-centration still faces a persistent gender gap. Larson said currently, one-third of the University’s engineering graduates are women, a percentage he said was “much better than the national average.” Nationally, 13.4 percent of engineering professionals are women, according to a 2011 report from the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering.
The School of Engineering coordi-nates a four-week summer engineering program for local high school girls that is targeted toward generating interest in engineering among females, according to the program’s website.
“Historically, girls have been under-represented in the engineering field,” he said, noting the way to increase the interest “is to excite girls with engineer-ing.”
Andrew Simmons, director of the Center for Careers and Life After Brown, linked greater perceived job opportuni-ties to the uptick in interest.
“Any time you’re looking at technol-ogy fields now, there are lots of opportu-nities,” he said. “We have an adviser in our office who is dedicated to the STEM fields in terms of outreach and working with the School of Engineering.”
Blake Reinson ’14 said he had planned to study engineering when he applied to Brown, identifying the neces-sity of engineers to society.
“There’s always going to be a need for engineering,” he said. “You have the chance to make happen whatever you want to do.”
/ / Engineering page 2
editorial & letter6 THE BROWN DAILY HERALDTUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2013
L E T T E R TO T H E E D I TO R
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.
C O M M E N TA R Y P O L I C YThe editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial page board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reflect the opinions of their authors only.
L E T T E R S T O T H E E D I T O R P O L I C YSend letters to [email protected]. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters for length and clarity and cannot assure the publication of any letter. Please limit letters to 250 words. Under special circumstances writers may request anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed.
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Dialogue should address U. response to rapeTo the Editor:
Cara Newlon ’14.5 is another brave voice speaking up about rape (“Newlon ’14.5: Don’t Rape,” Feb. 25). There have been a number of student columns written over the years about rape, but for me there is always a missing party to the discussion: the administration and its orientation of male students about sexual behavior toward women on campus. I wish Newlon would follow up her forceful comments with a discussion about what the administration teaches
male students about the consequences to men who rape on campus. If I knew as a male what punishment would await me if I crossed a line, would that deter sexual aggression on my part? If examples were used — without revealing names — of past disciplinary measures taken, would that make me think twice before risking my academic career? I hope you will keep the discussion going, Cara, for the many who may read your words but hesitate to speak up themselves.
Tom Bale ’63
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
“God gives us a magnificent universe. ... He is not a
killjoy.”— John Lennox, professor at Oxford
See GOD on page 4.
E D I TO R I A LThe Daily Princetonian published an op-ed Feb. 20 decrying the exis-
tence of several departments at Princeton — namely American studies, African American studies and Latino studies. Calling these culture-specific departments “unnecessary” and “superfluous,” the op-ed advocated dissolv-ing these departments and incorporating them into a broader American studies program. The column has evoked strong reactions from many members of the Brown community, especially those concentrating in Brown’s equivalents of those departments. American history is too broad and perspectives too varied. Culture-specific studies thus play an essential role in academia and should be supported and continued.
United States history cannot be captured by any one textbook or any single narrative, especially if events are portrayed in the context of a single racial group. Of course, this is understandable — a broad American history class is designed for exposure, not for depth. In their course of study, many Brunonians have achieved a broader and more complex understanding of American history, especially in the context of race. But the point is that while American history can be painted through one narrow lens, only a further exploration into the truly dynamic nature of the United States can expose the histories, rather than a singular history, of this country and its many constituent cultures.
This is why departments such as Africana studies and ethnic studies continue to exist at Brown. By existing separately from the American studies or history departments, they attest to the uniquely significant roles that different racial and cultural groups, immigrants or not, have played and continue to play in this beautiful, haphazard and constantly morphing project called America.
While the University’s American studies, “one of the oldest departments of American studies” in the country, certainly merits great recognition and tremendous respect, it remains as free-form and exploratory as the Africana studies or Latin American and Caribbean studies departments. With classes like AMST1612: “Cities of Sound: Place and History in American Pop Music” and AMST0191: “The Vietnam War and Visual Culture,” the American studies department aims to explore a broad range of influences, both human and non-human, that have shaped our current understanding of the United States. Grouping cultural studies programs under a uniform track would limit the depth of academic offerings allowed by multiple departments.
The author of the Princetonian’s op-ed called for a uniform depart-ment because specific cultures “(belong) within the context of American culture as a whole.” But this would prioritize generalized history lectures over a multi-departmental focus on experts of specific narratives. We lend our fullest support to the existence of these various ethnocentric depart-ments, but this is not to claim that history, especially American history, needs to be defined through the context of race. Rather, what departments like American studies do is to expose and challenge our conceptions of a place by positing multiple lenses, to be viewed individually or at the same time, that allow us to see the county’s development through unique focuses and perspectives.
Race remains salient in American society today, rendering depart-ments like Africana studies and ethnic studies crucial in academia. These departments, through their continuation, not only attest to the continual and vital importance of race in shaping American society but can also provide us with some of the pieces to construct the meaning of being and living in the United States.
Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board: its editor, Dan Jeon, and its members, Mintaka Angell, Samuel Choi, Nicholas Morley and Rachel Occhiogrosso. Send comments to [email protected].
opinions 7THE BROWN DAILY HERALDTUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2013
I don’t
There’s been a lot this year written about athletics at Brown — why they benefit or don’t benefit the University, what ath-letes represent, issues about laundry. Be-fore anyone gets upset, what I say applies not only to athletes here, but also to other community members who relish in de-manding athletic and physical activity. I write to suggest a different way of looking at athletics: what can be learned from an athletic or physical experience that can-not be learned in a classroom.
The first is an understanding of com-mitment. Those who have played a sport or participated in physically demand-ing activities know there are days they would rather not go out and train, row, run, climb, swim or play squash. But as an athlete, you learn to work through the tough days and commit to perform-ing well despite low motivation. It’s easy to be tired when you have schoolwork — it’s easy to take a nap, watch a movie and tell yourself you’ll get up early to train in-stead. But no athlete who was ever great took a nap and put off training until the next morning. In athletics, effort almost always trumps talent. The same cannot be said in school.
Understanding commitment leads me to my second point: dependence upon others. Aside from the rare exception of
the prodigy, an athlete is dependent upon his or her teammates and coaches for suc-cess. Athletes commit to showing up for practice not only for their own sakes, but because they understand others depend on them, and they depend on others. Athletics fosters an incredible exchange of trust given and trust received that can-not be found in the classroom.
On the field, in the boat and on the court, you depend upon others. You trust that your teammates will sacrifice them-selves for you and you for them — that when you go into battle, they will stand
and battle with you, as you will with them. Nobody asks you to do battle — to sacrifice yourself — in the classroom. The physical and mental obstacles that ath-letes overcome together foster a trust that cannot be found anywhere in academics.
Most important of all are those lessons that are built from overcoming obstacles, the lessons of mental toughness. Mental toughness in athletics is many things. It is the energy that pushes us to practice
when motivation is low. It is the strength to keep going in the face of incredible physical pain. It is the resolve to put your best foot forward every time you are on the line and gather yourself in the face of staggering defeat or failure. And it’s the understanding that limits we think exist are often simply the barriers that block us from reaching our true potentials.
The lessons of mental toughness ath-letes take away from their experiences push them to do amazing things — in training, in competition and in their daily lives. Mental toughness cannot be taught.
It must be learned through experience, pain and grit. The classroom can teach us failure, but it cannot teach us to achieve through failure. In the end, overachieving is nothing more than reaching one’s opti-mum potential.
Finally, athletics cannot be faked. It cannot be bought, screwed, manipulated or cheated. There are no shortcuts. Ath-letes are always under the gun, testing in training far more often than we do in
school. Time trials on the track, splits on the ergometer, inches of your vertical — these are not numbers you can guess at, make up or change on the stopwatch. Ath-letes are at the mercy of their training in ways that students in school are not. Both athletics and academics demand a code of honor, honesty and integrity. But we fero-ciously vilify athletes who cheat, because unfortunately, we hold honesty in athlet-ics to a much higher standard than we do honesty in academics. To those who have been honest throughout your academ-ic careers, I deeply commend you. But I think you would be hard-pressed to find someone who has not taken a shortcut at one point or another.
Athletics is a test of concentration, time commitment, patience and skill. It demands that we concentrate on honing our bodies, perfecting techniques and sacrificing enormous amounts of time in order to improve. Athletes are artists, if I may be so bold. And I think it would be worthwhile to consider offering cred-it for athletics classes here at Brown. The time and effort athletes spend training is at least equal to that which art majors and theater majors put into their work. It would promote physical activity and encourage people to get up, get out and train their bodies with the same respect that they train their minds. If VISA 0100: “Studio Foundation” is a class, why can’t PHYSED 0060 be a class as well?
Danny Delaney ’15 enjoys sweating on the erg machine as often as possible.
The lessons that can’t be learned in class
Overachieving is nothing more than reaching one’s optimum potential.
If the dream of liberation is a long, boring life in a double bed, reproducing — if only through adoption — the
very same structures that account for oppression, that seems more like a nightmare to me.
BY DANNY DELANEYopinions Columnist
MIKA ZACKSopinions Columnist
Here’s the thing: I don’t want to get mar-ried. I didn’t want to get married when I was straight, and the prospect of having to pay for two bridal dresses has done pre-cious little for my enthusiasm. Now that Rhode Island is inching toward “legalizing love,” and committed activists for whom I have genuine respect are campaigning for marriage equality, and Facebook posts sugest my sexual preferences will not hin-der me from consuming any of the buy-with-1-click heart-shaped falsehoods our culture produces, I feel like I need to say it again. I don’t want to marry. I don’t want recognition. I don’t want cake and I cer-tainly don’t want to buy “My Uncle’s Wed-ding” on Amazon gayshop.
Ever since I began to consider myself bisexual, I’ve been taught to regard the cause of marriage equality as somehow intimately mine. If straight people had the right to have their nominally mo-nogamous sleeping arrangements sanc-tioned by the state, so, I thought, did I. The fact that I was denied the innumer-able protections and benefits that mar-riage grants seemed to me a terrible af-front. So terrible that I never cringed at statements like “marriage equality is the defining civil rights issue of our time.”
While marriage remained an unat-tractive possibility to me personally, as it would for anyone who ever worked a wedding at a catering company, I believed in it as a cause, a stand in for everything I thought equality meant, from kissing in a bus stop to saying a final goodbye in a hospital bed. To marry, to be allowed into one of the most oppressive patriar-chal institutions known to mankind, was to have my humanity affirmed.
Yet humanity, as Walter Rodney put it, “is not a thing one proves.” To assert it is to dream of more than the right to be equally subjected to state scrutiny and white middle class heterosexual val-ues. I do not object to the legalization of same-sex marriage insofar as it serves as another tactic to improve the lives and conditions of queer folks. But I do object to marriage equality as the dream itself. If the dream of liberation is a long, bor-ing life in a double bed, reproducing — if only through adoption — the very same structures that account for so much op-
pression, that seems more like a night-mare to me.
Browsing through the website of Mar-riage Equality USA, one of America’s largest and most well-funded LGBT or-ganizations, I was amazed at the way in which the long-awaited promises of free-dom and equality were understood and envisioned. On the home page, a collage of hearts and rings and smiling couples previously read, “February is the month
of love — Freedom to Marry Day.” Now don’t get me wrong, I am not a cyn-ic. Pink is my favorite color. I like chil-dren immensely. I believe in higher ide-als like love and health care. But the idea that freedom means signing a binding legal contract and swearing allegiance to a violent tool of governmental con-trol is a terrifying one. While Marriage Equality USA, with its gift shop — “What Better Way to Live One’s Activism than to Shop!” — and its offers of corporate sponsorship is especially nauseating, it seems to me to reflect a general trend.
This trend is brilliantly captured in a term I recently encountered in the rad-ical bisexual activist Shiri Eisner’s writ-ings about the “GGGG movement.” For this group, white affluent gay men, lib-eration is fast approaching — in the form of gold shimmer, lace and bow wedding invitations. For the rest of us, gay and straight, the blessing of Goldman Sachs and Lockheed Martin will not free us from poverty, racism or sexism. A mar-riage certificate will not provide us with the real conditions of equality, free health care, education, food and shelter. More-over, if we buy into the idea that the right to marry is the ultimate expression of hu-man worth and legitimacy, if we make mainstreaming the end-goal and reality of our activism, we reject, overtly or co-vertly, those of us who are single, those who are polygamous, those who sleep around, those who seek to create new re-lationships and their ways of living and being in the world. In short, we expel from our midst anyone who doesn’t fit the mold of a wedding figurine.
I sincerely hope same-sex marriage is legalized in Rhode Island, and I respect and support the work of those who see it as a small step toward a different world, one in which we won’t need a piece of pa-per in order to acknowledge the full hu-manity of a person. But really, I may kiss the bride when she says so, that’s all.
The men and women of indoor track and field competed at the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships held at Har-vard this past weekend, with the men’s team finishing in fourth and the women’s finishing eighth.
“The atmosphere at HEPS is difficult to describe in words,” said co-captain Ol-ivia Mickle ’13. “Not only is this a cham-pionship meet — it’s a meet against the universities we have competed against for decades.”
The men’s team took home two first-place individual finishes throughout the weekend en route to a fourth place finish, with a score of 58 total points. Ned Willig ’16 captured the 1000-meter title with a time of 2:25.53, while teammates Evan Weinstock ’14 and Peter Rhodes ’15 took the top two places in the Heptathlon. Each victory earned Brown a maximum score of 10 points.
Co-captain Kenny Thompson ’13 earned the silver medal in the triple jump with a distance of 15.05 meters.
“Cornell and Princeton have depth that we don’t, so we’re not quite at a place where we can compete with them in team scores,” Thompson said. “But to finish in the top half of the league is a significant accomplishment, and I think we have a lot more points to come in outdoor.”
John Spooney ’13 took fourth place in the 400-meter dash with a time of 48.84 seconds.
“There is a lot of pride in being a track and field athlete in the Ivy League, and all of that pride is shown at HEPS,” Spooney said.
Henry Tufnell ’13 also took fourth place in the 800-meter dash with a time of 1:52:85.
“I was very pleased to be able to con-tribute to the team both in the open 800 and the 4 x 800-meter relay,” Tufnell said. “It was a great feeling to be able to repay Coach Springfield for all the hard work he has put in the coaching process. On a personal level, it was my first time to really make an impact at an event.”
The women’s team was missing sever-al top performers for HEPS and struggled more than the men’s team.
Mickle, who took sixth place in the 5000-meter run, used her experience at HEPS to learn and prepare for the outdoor season.
“I was disappointed in my perfor-mance this weekend,” Mickle said.
Although I gave it my best effort, I still learned a lot tactically from the competition.”
Tess Plant-Thomas ’13 noted this weekend was dificult for the women to stomach.
“I was fairly satisfied with my per-formance,” Plant-Thomas said. “But the women’s side in general has so much talent and potential that the weekend was definitely frustrating.”
Despite their struggles at HEPS, the women are continuing to look forward.
“It’s frus-
Individuals medal in Ivy Championship meetBruno is preparing for the ECAC Championships and transitioning to the outdoor season
By NIKHIL PARASHERSPORTS STAFF WRITER
The Brown men’s squash team compet-ed last weekend in the College Squash Association’s Team Championships at Yale. The squad (8-12, Ivy 1-6) lost each of its matches, 8-1 to No. 9 Dart-mouth, 7-2 to No. 12 Penn and 7-2 to No. 14 Navy. The previous weekend the women’s squad dropped all of its games in three losses to No. 1 Princeton, No. 5 Yale and No. 7 Stanford University in the CSA Team Championships.
The CSA Team Championships, collegiate squash’s national tourna-ment, features 40 to 50 teams, said Blake Reinson ’14, the top-ranked player on the men’s team. Each team is sorted into a tier of eight schools and only plays other teams within its tier.
The women’s team (12-9, 2-5) was the final team in the first tier thanks to its No. 8 national ranking. Sarah Crosky ’13, co-captain and the three-seed for the women’s team, said it was Brown’s first time in the first tier since at least 2007.
Though the women’s squad failed
to win a match last weekend, Crosky said the weekend was not all bad. “I take a lot of positives from it,” Crosky said.
But Crosky also said the team had hoped for a better outcome, particu-larly in its match against Stanford. “That’s just another thing to work on for next year,” Crosky said.
Reinson said the men’s team had a similar feeling, even though it also lost each of its matches.
“There was a lot of even competi-tion,” Reinson said, “so we were hop-ing to have the chance to take down some of the teams that were around our level.”
The men’s squad, with its No. 16 national ranking, was placed in the second tier, which was headed by Dartmouth. The men’s squad had won its previous match against Dartmouth Feb. 2 with a score of 6-3. But it won each of the six games by default be-cause Dartmouth benched several of its players for violations of team rules.
“It’s probably the strangest thing I’ve ever seen in college squash,” Re-inson said.
Reinson said he believes the team had the potential to defeat Penn, its Saturday matchup, but the team was not playing at its highest level.
“(Saturday) was not our best day,” Reinson said. “I think on our best day,
we could have taken (Penn).”Reinson was responsible for two
of Bruno’s five victories on the week-end, pulling out 3-2 wins against the top-ranked players from both Penn and Navy. Now he said he is looking forward to this weekend’s tournament, the CSA Individual Championships, which features the top 80 collegiate players.
Crosky said Brown typically sends two or three players each from the men’s and women’s squads to the in-dividual championship tournament. Though Brown’s participants have not been determined yet, Reinson will join at least one other men’s player in addition to several players from the women’s squad.
Though Crosky has participated in
the tournament in the past, she will sit out this year due to an injury that also plagued her during last weekend’s tournament play, a move she said she does not regret.
“I play better when I’m playing for a team, something larger than myself,” Crosky said. “I’m really happy having it end with Nationals, with my whole team.”
Teams round out postseason with consecutive lossesThe men’s and women’s teams faltered in the Team CSA championships
By MEG SULLIVANSPORTS STAFF WRITER
The women’s basketball team had a mixed weekend on the road playing Ivy League rivals Harvard and Dartmouth. Bruno (8-16, Ivy 2-8) dropped a 77-71 decision to the third-ranked Crimson (15-8, 6-3) Friday night. But the Bears ended their weekend on a high note with a 59-39 win over the Big Green
(6-17, 4-5) and co-captain Sheila Dixon ’13 reaching 1,000 career points during the course of Saturday night’s game.
Harvard 77, Brown 71Brown was aggressive out of the
gate, trading baskets with the Crim-son throughout the first half. Harvard went on an eight-point run giving the Crimson a 12-8 lead, but Bruno pushed back. Sophia Bikofsky ’15 sank three treys and co-captain Caroline King ’13 scored three jump shots.
Dixon tallied three assists and helped the Bears end the half tied 37-37.
“Dixon was able to able find King and (Natalie Ball ’16),” said Head Coach
Jean Burr. “We were scoring inside early, and it opened up the opportunity to get some long shots from Bikofsky and (Lauren Clarke ’14). (Dixon) was able to find the open players, which put us in a position to win.”
In the second half, Bruno faltered on defense, allowing the Crimson to build up an 11-point lead with 10 minutes left on the clock. Bruno attempted a come-back with strong shooting by Bikofsky and Sophie Beutel ’14. Dixon brought the Bears within two points of Harvard in the final 30 seconds of the match-up. But Harvard sealed the deal, making six free throws in the final seconds of the match.
“We gave up too many second-chance points,” Burr said. “The last couple games have been close, and in a close game they scored off of turnovers. I classify that as a buster.”
Brown 59, Dartmouth 39Fresh off their loss to Harvard, the
Bears found their stride Saturday night, shutting down the Big Green 59-39. The win snapped an eight-game los-ing streak.
“We finally got back into our rhythm, which we’d been missing for a couple games,” Dixon said. “With Dartmouth we finally found it, we kept it and we capitalized on it.”
The Bears went back and forth with the Big Green in the first minutes of the game. With five minutes left in the first half, the teams were tied at 14, but Bruno, led by Dixon with a trey and a layup, went on a 10-point run — open-ing an eight-point lead.
“ W e
Bruno falls to Crimson but triumphs over Big Green
Dixon scored her 1,000th career point in a victory over Dartmouth after the team fell to Harvard
SQUASH
TOM SULLIVAN / HERALD
Eamon O’Connor ‘13 and the rest of the men’s squash team concluded their season at the CSA Team Championships this past weekend.
W. BASKETBALL
DAVID DECKEY / HERALD
Co-captain Sheila Dixon ’13 reached a major milestone in the team’s win over Dartmouth.
