Volume CXLII, No. 6 Since 1866, Daily Since 1891 WEDNESDAY, J ANUARY 31, 2007 WEDNESDAY, J ANUARY 31, 2007 T HE B ROWN D AILY H ERALD With energy spending down, U. investigates alternative sources Thanks to efficiency programs and the relatively mild winter so far, the University’s spending on fuel is down this year — a sharp departure from last year’s skyrocketing ener- gy costs. Last year, a spike in energy prices caused the University to exceed its annual energy budget by $3 million. Over the past 10 years, the Universi- ty’s energy costs have increased by an average of 7 percent each year, and at that rate, the University’s en- ergy spending could exceed $50 mil- lion by 2020, according to a projec- tion by Facilities Management. “Our projections for this year are that we’ll be under budget,” said Christopher Powell, energy man- ager for Facilities Management. “We’re in very good shape.” The turnaround, Powell said, was accomplished by implementing “significant” energy efficiency pro- grams, such as improvements to the high temperature hot water distri- bution system and a project, led by Kurt Teichert, resources efficiency manager for Facilities Management, to make on-campus lighting more efficient. Those measures began to be implemented in 2006 and are about 75 percent complete, accord- ing to Powell. The weather has also lent a help- ing hand. “The good news from a utility costs standpoint is, up until a BY TARYN MARTINEZ STAFF WRITER Globetrotting efforts boost international applications Last year, the Office of Admission sent its recruiters to countries in Asia and Africa it had never be- fore visited, and the international recruiting push paid off — appli- cations from abroad jumped 15.1 percent this year over the num- ber received for the class of 2010. Total applications for the class of 2011 were up only 3.5 percent. Admission officers visited a number of new locations last year. In a lengthy trip to Africa, they toured Tanzania, Swaziland, South Africa, Kenya and Zimba- bwe. Officers traveled to new des- tinations in Asia and the Pacific, including Australia, New Zealand and Vietnam. And, for the first time in at least 17 years, the Of- fice of Admission sent recruiters to Malaysia, Israel, Syria and Jor- dan. Officers went to China for the first time in the spring of 2005, and last year they visited Tianjin, Beijing, Shanghai and several oth- er cities. They will travel to India for the first time this April, and though they did not visit Central or South America this past year, they plan to do so in the future. All these trips were in addition to the usual recruiting trips to Cana- da and Europe. “Travel does impact admis- sion. However it doesn’t always impact it in the year that you trav- el. Sometimes it impacts applica- tions two or three years down the line,” said Panetha Ott, director of international admission. She noted that students in all grades of high school, not just seniors, attend the information sessions held during the international re- cruiting trips. Apart from travel, Ott said sev- eral other factors contributed to the recent growth in internation- al applications. Brown’s empha- sis on internationalization and a waning perception of post-Sept. 11, 2001 American xenophobia made the University more attrac- tive to foreign applicants. Curren- cy exchange rates may also have played a role — the euro strength- ened relative to the dollar, effec- tively reducing the tuition for Eu- ropean applicants. BY JAMES SHAPIRO SENIOR STAFF WRITER Wireless expansion delayed Computing and Information Servic- es has halted the expansion of wire- less Internet access on campus due to budget overruns. CIS, along with the Undergraduate Council of Stu- dents and the Division of Campus Life and Student Services, will now assess the project to determine the best way to complete it. CIS originally earmarked half of its wireless Internet budget of $740,000 to adding hotspots in res- idence halls, but 60 percent of the total funds had been spent on the dorms by the time administrators halted the project last week — with several residence halls still lacking wireless access. “We’re not expecting to receive more funds,” said Alan Usas, as- sistant vice president for academic and network systems and services for CIS. “We’ve been meeting with various groups and people to en- sure that we utilize the current bud- get more efficiently. The key word is ‘prioritizing.’” Usas said the main focus of the project was to install wireless ser- vices in dorms, but administrators also wanted to improve the service in other areas on campus. “After the dorms, we’ll still have capacity for installing wireless in classrooms, lobbies, greens, conference rooms and more,” he said. “But our goal is to broaden coverage, not blanket the campus with it.” CIS had made its original bud- get estimates based on the area of the building and other factors, but administrators later realized that more factors needed to be taken into consideration. Certain build- ings, by virtue of construction or age, needed more than one access BY JOY CHUA CONTRIBUTING WRITER News tips: [email protected]195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island www.browndailyherald.com Nearly 20 percent of dorm rooms had violations of health and fire safety codes in the 2005-2006 ac- ademic year, including the pres- ence of toaster ovens and hang- ing canopies, according to Stu- dent Life officials. Fines collect- ed — all from violations of the prohibition on candles — totaled $1,800 in that period. The violations were discov- ered through routine room in- spections, said Richard Bova, se- nior associate dean for residential life. ResLife tries to inspect each dorm at least once per year, pref- erably once a semester, for viola- tions of health and fire codes. Inspectors are University em- ployees and may enter rooms to conduct plain-sight evaluations, but they are not allowed to open any drawers or go through con- cealed items. A checklist is used to ensure that standards are met. Students are notified of inspec- tions in advance and are remind- ed which items are not allowed in dorms. Still, over 750 viola- tions were found in the 2005-06 year. “The most important reason we inspect is for health and fire safety. We do not, under any cir- cumstances, want anyone injured or harmed because of someone’s carelessness,” Bova said. “There are a lot of people living in very close confines, and we will pre- vent (fires) at all cost.” “We don’t publish informa- tion to be punitive or to cramp anyone’s style. We publish infor- mation based on best practices, to make sure everyone is safe and so that everybody can enjoy the community,” Bova said. When a violation is found, in- spectors leave a copy of the viola- tion with the student and ask the student to make an immediate correction to the problem. For more serious problems, ResLife administrators may schedule an appointment to re-inspect the room at a later date, Bova said. Violations that generally re- quire re-inspection include hav- ing illegal cooking equipment, unsafe lighting or other prohib- ited electronics — any of which can cause smoke or fire. “People who cook in their rooms … can potentially cause a fire or burn what they are cook- ing, which trips off the entire building’s smoke alarm, caus- Dorm inspections found 750 violations last year BY SCOTT LOWENSTEIN SENIOR STAFF WRITER Tai Ho Shin / Herald Despite the threat of a $100 fine, some students keep candles in their dorm rooms. continued on page 4 continued on page 6 continued on page 8 continued on page 4 Carcieri ’65 promises education reform and economic growth in State of the State address Rhode Island will reform educa- tion, clean up the environment and invest in alternative energy plans, Gov. Donald Carcieri ’65 announced last night in his annu- al State of the State speech to the Rhode Island General Assembly. He also addressed the need to decrease taxes, reduce spending and accelerate economic growth. Carcieri, a Republican who was elected to a second term as governor last November, praised Rhode Island’s strengths, includ- ing its “first-rate transportation infrastructure,” “high-quality, af- fordable healthcare” and “hon- est, ethical, open government.” But, he said, “We have a lot more to do,” and proposed a range of initiatives and reforms for the coming year. His policy suggestions, which focused on education, energy, the environment and the econo- my, were to be followed today by the release of his budget for the 2008 fiscal year. Carcieri said he would propose $85 million in his budget for cleaning up Narragan- sett Bay, $70 million to improve state highways and $46 million to reform elementary and second- ary education. “We are finally beginning to close the education gap,” Carc- ieri said, commending the state- wide test results released yester- day, which showed improvement in Rhode Island students’ read- ing and math skills, especially in urban schools. Still, he said, “Rhode Island urban schools will be our biggest challenge.” He outlined elements of what he called “Rhode Island’s 21st- century education plan,” which included finding a “fair funding formula” to ensure equity be- tween education in urban and suburban communities. Carcieri emphasized that education could be improved by centralizing au- thority, and he suggested the BY SIMMI AUJLA AND SARA MOLINARO METRO EDITORS continued on page 7 International Applicants for the Class of 2011 Canada 11% Other 7% Australia & New Zealand 2% Middle East 4% Asia 44% China 169 Korea 141 Japan 26 Singapore 139 India 162 Other 287 Africa 4% UK 150 Bulgaria 66 Germany 48 France 31 Italy 19 Spain 10 Switzerland 37 Greece 33 Romania 38 Cyprus 2 Turkey 67 Other 97 METRO BUSH LIBRARY AT SMU? Faculty members at SMU are concerned about hosting President Bush’s proposed library and public policy in- stitute COMPUTERIZED MCATS The new comput w w erized ver- sion of the MCAT debuted this weekend and at least one Brown student encoun- tered a major glitch MILITARY STILL CRUCIAL Trevor Gleason ’07 argues that the United States must not be afraid to use military force in the future when necessary 3 CAMPUS NEWS 5 CAMPUS NEWS 11 OPINIONS INSIDE: SKIING STEPS UP IN N.H. After a rough start to the se r r a- son, the ski team leapt into fourth place in the standings thanks to a strong showing in N.H. this weekend 12 SPORTS
Transcript
Volume CXLII, No. 6 Since 1866, Daily Since 1891WEDNESDAY, JANUAR Y 31, 2007WEDNESDAY, JANUAR Y 31, 2007
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
With energy spending down, U. investigates alternative sources
Thanks to effi ciency programs and the relatively mild winter so far, the University’s spending on fuel is down this year — a sharp departure from last year’s skyrocketing ener-gy costs.
Last year, a spike in energy prices caused the University to exceed its annual energy budget by $3 million. Over the past 10 years, the Universi-ty’s energy costs have increased by an average of 7 percent each year, and at that rate, the University’s en-ergy spending could exceed $50 mil-lion by 2020, according to a projec-tion by Facilities Management.
“Our projections for this year are that we’ll be under budget,” said
Christopher Powell, energy man-ager for Facilities Management. “We’re in very good shape.”
The turnaround, Powell said, was accomplished by implementing “signifi cant” energy effi ciency pro-grams, such as improvements to the high temperature hot water distri-bution system and a project, led by Kurt Teichert, resources effi ciency manager for Facilities Management, to make on-campus lighting more effi cient. Those measures began to be implemented in 2006 and are about 75 percent complete, accord-ing to Powell.
The weather has also lent a help-ing hand. “The good news from a utility costs standpoint is, up until a
BY TARYN MARTINEZSTAFF WRITER
Globetrotting efforts boost international applications
Last year, the Offi ce of Admission sent its recruiters to countries in Asia and Africa it had never be-fore visited, and the international recruiting push paid off — appli-cations from abroad jumped 15.1 percent this year over the num-ber received for the class of 2010. Total applications for the class of 2011 were up only 3.5 percent.
Admission offi cers visited a number of new locations last year. In a lengthy trip to Africa, they toured Tanzania, Swaziland, South Africa, Kenya and Zimba-bwe. Offi cers traveled to new des-tinations in Asia and the Pacifi c, including Australia, New Zealand and Vietnam. And, for the fi rst time in at least 17 years, the Of-fi ce of Admission sent recruiters to Malaysia, Israel, Syria and Jor-dan.
Offi cers went to China for the fi rst time in the spring of 2005, and last year they visited Tianjin, Beijing, Shanghai and several oth-er cities. They will travel to India for the fi rst time this April, and though they did not visit Central
or South America this past year, they plan to do so in the future. All these trips were in addition to the usual recruiting trips to Cana-da and Europe.
“Travel does impact admis-sion. However it doesn’t always impact it in the year that you trav-el. Sometimes it impacts applica-tions two or three years down the line,” said Panetha Ott, director of international admission. She noted that students in all grades of high school, not just seniors, attend the information sessions held during the international re-cruiting trips.
Apart from travel, Ott said sev-eral other factors contributed to the recent growth in internation-al applications. Brown’s empha-sis on internationalization and a waning perception of post-Sept. 11, 2001 American xenophobia made the University more attrac-tive to foreign applicants. Curren-cy exchange rates may also have played a role — the euro strength-ened relative to the dollar, effec-tively reducing the tuition for Eu-ropean applicants.
BY JAMES SHAPIROSENIOR STAFF WRITER
Wireless expansion delayed
Computing and Information Servic-es has halted the expansion of wire-less Internet access on campus due to budget overruns. CIS, along with the Undergraduate Council of Stu-dents and the Division of Campus Life and Student Services, will now assess the project to determine the best way to complete it.
CIS originally earmarked half of its wireless Internet budget of $740,000 to adding hotspots in res-idence halls, but 60 percent of the total funds had been spent on the dorms by the time administrators halted the project last week — with several residence halls still lacking wireless access.
“We’re not expecting to receive more funds,” said Alan Usas, as-sistant vice president for academic and network systems and services for CIS. “We’ve been meeting with various groups and people to en-sure that we utilize the current bud-get more effi ciently. The key word is ‘prioritizing.’”
Usas said the main focus of the project was to install wireless ser-vices in dorms, but administrators also wanted to improve the service in other areas on campus. “After the dorms, we’ll still have capacity for installing wireless in classrooms, lobbies, greens, conference rooms and more,” he said. “But our goal is to broaden coverage, not blanket the campus with it.”
CIS had made its original bud-get estimates based on the area of the building and other factors, but administrators later realized that more factors needed to be taken into consideration. Certain build-ings, by virtue of construction or age, needed more than one access
Nearly 20 percent of dorm rooms had violations of health and fi re safety codes in the 2005-2006 ac-ademic year, including the pres-ence of toaster ovens and hang-ing canopies, according to Stu-dent Life offi cials. Fines collect-ed — all from violations of the prohibition on candles — totaled $1,800 in that period.
The violations were discov-ered through routine room in-spections, said Richard Bova, se-nior associate dean for residential life. ResLife tries to inspect each dorm at least once per year, pref-erably once a semester, for viola-tions of health and fi re codes.
Inspectors are University em-ployees and may enter rooms to conduct plain-sight evaluations, but they are not allowed to open any drawers or go through con-cealed items. A checklist is used to ensure that standards are met. Students are notifi ed of inspec-tions in advance and are remind-ed which items are not allowed in dorms. Still, over 750 viola-tions were found in the 2005-06 year.
“The most important reason we inspect is for health and fi re
safety. We do not, under any cir-cumstances, want anyone injured or harmed because of someone’s carelessness,” Bova said. “There are a lot of people living in very close confi nes, and we will pre-vent (fi res) at all cost.”
“We don’t publish informa-tion to be punitive or to cramp anyone’s style. We publish infor-mation based on best practices, to make sure everyone is safe and so that everybody can enjoy the community,” Bova said.
When a violation is found, in-spectors leave a copy of the viola-tion with the student and ask the student to make an immediate correction to the problem. For more serious problems, ResLife administrators may schedule an appointment to re-inspect the room at a later date, Bova said.
Violations that generally re-quire re-inspection include hav-ing illegal cooking equipment, unsafe lighting or other prohib-ited electronics — any of which can cause smoke or fi re.
“People who cook in their rooms … can potentially cause a fi re or burn what they are cook-ing, which trips off the entire building’s smoke alarm, caus-
Dorm inspections found 750 violations last yearBY SCOTT LOWENSTEINSENIOR STAFF WRITER
Tai Ho Shin / HeraldDespite the threat of a $100 fi ne, some students keep candles in their dorm rooms.
continued on page 4 continued on page 6
continued on page 8
continued on page 4
Carcieri ’65 promises education reform and economic growth in State of the State address
Rhode Island will reform educa-tion, clean up the environment and invest in alternative energy plans, Gov. Donald Carcieri ’65 announced last night in his annu-al State of the State speech to the Rhode Island General Assembly. He also addressed the need to decrease taxes, reduce spending and accelerate economic growth.
Carcieri, a Republican who was elected to a second term as governor last November, praised Rhode Island’s strengths, includ-ing its “fi rst-rate transportation infrastructure,” “high-quality, af-fordable healthcare” and “hon-
est, ethical, open government.” But, he said, “We have a lot more to do,” and proposed a range of initiatives and reforms for the coming year.
His policy suggestions, which focused on education, energy, the environment and the econo-my, were to be followed today by the release of his budget for the 2008 fi scal year. Carcieri said he would propose $85 million in his budget for cleaning up Narragan-sett Bay, $70 million to improve state highways and $46 million to reform elementary and second-ary education.
“We are fi nally beginning to
close the education gap,” Carc-ieri said, commending the state-wide test results released yester-day, which showed improvement in Rhode Island students’ read-ing and math skills, especially in urban schools. Still, he said, “Rhode Island urban schools will be our biggest challenge.”
He outlined elements of what he called “Rhode Island’s 21st-century education plan,” which included fi nding a “fair funding formula” to ensure equity be-tween education in urban and suburban communities. Carcieri emphasized that education could be improved by centralizing au-thority, and he suggested the
BY SIMMI AUJLA AND SARA MOLINAROMETRO EDITORS
continued on page 7
International Applicants for the Class of 2011
Canada11%
Other7%
Australia & New Zealand
2%Middle East
4%
Asia44%
China 169Korea 141Japan 26Singapore 139India 162Other 287
BUSH LIBRARY AT SMU?Faculty members at SMU are concerned about hosting President Bush’s proposed library and public policy in-stitute
COMPUTERIZED MCATS
The new computThe new computThe new erized ver-sion of the MCAT debuted this weekend and at least one Brown student encoun-tered a major glitch
MILITARY STILL CRUCIALTrevor Gleason ’07 argues that the United States must not be afraid to use military force in the future when necessary
3CAMPUS NEWS
5CAMPUS NEWS
11OPINIONS
INSIDE:
SKIING STEPS UP IN N.H.After a rough start to the seAfter a rough start to the seAfter a-son, the ski team leapt into fourth place in the standings thanks to a strong showing in N.H. this weekend
The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown
University community since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the aca-
demic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once during Orientation and
once in July by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. POSTMASTER please send corrections to POSTMASTER please send corrections to POSTMASTERP.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Offi ces are
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Homefries | Yifan Luo
WBF | Matt Vascellaro
ACROSS1 Key related to F-
sharp min.5 Gerald Ford’s
birthplace10 Nitpick14 Old World Style
sauce maker15 Narratives16 Difficult burden17 One more likely
to default19 Jittery20 Potato
dumplings21 Stash finder22 Unexpected win25 Dark times, to
poets27 Half a horn
sound28 X, to Xanthippe29 HRE part: Abbr.32 __ worse than
death34 Public utility, e.g.39 Plant bristles40 Easy to follow41 __ bit: slightly44 Modern writers’
aids47 Religious figure49 Help ticket
holders, slangily50 PX patrons51 Gut reaction?52 Stick with a little
cotton56 In concert58 Two-balled
weapon60 Like some
coffee63 Similar64 This puzzle’s
theme68 Hitchhiker’s
need69 China’s Zhou __70 Elegance71 Pro shop supply72 Make very
appealing to73 Utopia
DOWN1 Jump shot’s path2 Calendar pg.3 Mellow, perhaps4 One who’s often
trying5 Germany’s von
Bismarck6 Painter Chagall
7 Curly-haired“Dilbert”character
8 Politically correctpronoun
9 Invite for a spell10 “Fargo” director11 Jackie Gleason
catchphrase12 Nickelodeon toon
tot13 Analyst’s
concern18 Pentium
producer22 Carol Burnett’s
alma mater23 Brow-wiping
utterance24 What a “Star
Trek” tricordermight detect
26 __ Tomé30 CDXXX x V31 Opinion
collection33 Strong criticism35 Once-sacred
snakes36 Japanese
computer giant37 Where Pearl City
is38 Corp. honcho42 Leprechaun land
43 To be, toTiberius
45 Practice letters,perhaps?
46 1989 FrenchOpen winnerMichael
47 Element used inceramicspigments
48 Freshman player53 Lhasa’s land54 Words after two
or hole
55 “The Lord is myshepherd” beginsone
57 Old hat59 Red army
members?61 It may be sprung62 Shaft entrance65 Puddle gunk66 Computer
program filesuffix
67 Boxer, for one:Abbr.
By Barry C. Silk(c)2007 Tribune Media Services, Inc. 1/31/07
CAMPUS WATCHWATCHWTHE BROWN DAILY HERALDWEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2007 PAGE 3
The faculty at Southern Methodist University has been less than enthu-siastic about news that the school may host the George W. Bush Pres-idential Library and its accompany-ing museum and public policy in-stitute. At fi rst, some liberal faculty members at the Dallas school were opposed to SMU hosting any part of the proposed $200 million facility, but many of those have more recent-ly said they are concerned only with the institute.
Coverage of the faculty’s objec-tions originally centered on a Nov. 10 opinion published in the Daily Cam-pus, SMU’s student newspaper, in which two professors argued that the library would associate SMU with a president who unnecessarily took the country to war. The university will ultimately regret hosting a library commemorating a president whose policies are immoral and veiled in secrecy, argued William McElvaney, professor emeritus of teaching and worship, and Susanne Johnson, as-sociate professor of Christian educa-tion.
“Unless the Bush library philos-ophy is radically different from the already proven track record of inso-lation (sic), the library will be little more than a center for the preser-vation and protection of privileged presidential papers. What would that mean for academic integrity based on open inquiry?” McElvaney and Johnson wrote.
That opinion ignited much of the debate surrounding the location of the Bush library at SMU, but the cur-rent nature of professors’ objections is much more nuanced, said SMU Faculty Senate President Rhonda Blair, a professor of theater. “There are substantial concerns about the institutae and its relationship to the university, but different faculty have different concerns and different
ideas about what the appropriate so-lution is,” she told The Herald.
According to Blair, faculty mem-bers largely agree that the library would be a helpful resource for the university. “I think that the library will be a great benefi t and will be im-portant because of its being a reposi-tory for signifi cant historical records about a time in our history that’s been full of change,” she said.
Even McElvaney and Johnson have now said they support hosting the library at SMU, First Lady Laura Bush’s alma mater, but they still op-pose the public policy institute.
In a Jan. 24 closed-door facul-ty meeting, professors questioned whether the library’s institute might threaten SMU’s reputation, citing a lack of university oversight for the institute and the fact that its research agenda will be determined by Bush himself, professors who attended the meeting told the Associated Press.
Several professors, including Blair, have said the institute sounds like a think tank, and some have ex-pressed concern that the institute might give the impression that SMU is aligned with a particular political ideology.
“Some faculty say we need to have oversight so that we can have control — some faculty say we don’t want oversight so we don’t have to be asso-ciated with (the institute),” Blair told The Herald. “In terms of our politics and positions, we’re a very diverse faculty, which is one reason why the dialogue has been so rich.”
A group of 170 professors will submit a petition against the institute to the faculty senate next week, Blair said, though she couldn’t predict what, if any, action that body might take. In fact, there might be little pro-fessors can do to stop the institute from coming. The decision ultimately rests with the school’s administration and its president, R. Gerald Turner,
BY ROSS FRAZIERNEWS EDITOR
Proposed Bush library sparks heated debate at SMU
join the herald.
come to ourlast information session
wednesday, jan 31
7 p.m.
195 angell(between thayer and brook)
continued on page 4
The University of Michigan has decided to comply with a federal judge’s ruling earlier this month that it and two other public universities must imme-diately stop employing gender and racial preferences in ad-missions.
The ruling concerned en-forcement of Michigan’s Pro-posal 2, a referendum banning affi rmative action in state edu-cation and government, which was passed with 58 percent support in November. After the initiative passed, the University of Michigan and Wayne State and Michigan State universi-ties halted their admission al-together in order to ask the court for a six-month extension allowing them to consider race and gender, but the district court ordered them to comply with the ban immediately.
On Jan. 19, the U.S. Su-preme Court refused to hear an appeal, meaning the ruling is fi nal.
How the ruling will affect the admission cycle at the uni-versity remains unclear. Ad-mission offi cials declined to comment.
By Any Means Necessary, a group dedicated to affi rmative action and immigrant rights, is currently challenging Proposal 2 and has multiple cases fi led in federal court questioning its constitutionality.
“We believe our (case) will go to the Supreme Court,” said Donna Stern, the group’s na-tional coordinator.
The schools’ motion to wait six months before enacting Proposal 2 was originally con-tested by Eric Russell, a stu-dent applying to the University of Michigan’s law school. Rus-
sell had contacted the Center for Individual Rights, a spe-cial interest law fi rm that has dealt with cases on affi rmative action at the university in the past. The fi rm was eager to rep-resent Russell, who wanted his application to be reviewed with-out any racial preference.
“Eric Russell has a legal right to have his application judged in accordance with the Michigan Constitution, as it was amended by the voters this November, not according to a timetable university offi -cials happen to decide is con-venient,” said fi rm president Trevor Pell in a December re-lease.
The issue of affi rmative ac-tion at the university has been under debate since 1997, when two applicants, Jennifer Gratz and Barbara Grutter, fi led a lawsuit contending the univer-sity’s use of affi rmative action in its undergraduate and law school admissions, respective-ly, were unconstitutional.
In what are considered two landmark affi rmative action rulings, the Supreme Court held in June 2003 that both the university’s undergrad and law schools could use race as a factor in admissions only if it helped to promote diversity at the school. The undergrad-uate admissions system was deemed unconstitutional for its use of racial quotas.
Shortly after the ruling, Gratz invited Ward Connerly, the founder and chairman of the American Civil Rights In-stitute, an anti-affi rmative ac-tion group, to Michigan to help propose and campaign for Pro-posal 2.
Many proponents of affi r-mative action are worried that the ban will affect the diversity of the student body, pointing to
the decline in underrepresent-ed minority enrollment that has occurred at California public universities after a similar ref-erendum, Proposition 209, was passed in 1996. The University of Michigan is eager to avoid a similar decline, wrote Kelly Cunningham, a spokesperson for the university, in an e-mail to The Herald.
“Alumni, current students, faculty and community mem-bers will play an important role in encouraging minority students to apply to U-M, and to enroll here if admitted,” Cunningham said. “President (Mary Sue) Coleman estab-lished a university-wide task force to engage the U-M com-munity in developing fresh, in-novative approaches to sustain and enhance diversity.”
Meanwhile, the issue contin-ues to appear in court. Whereas the recently denied motion was designed to give the university more time to comply with Pro-posal 2, By Any Means Neces-sary’s current legal battle di-rectly challenges the law’s con-stitutionality. The cases could go to the Supreme Court this summer, Stern said.
According to Stern, the court’s refusal to hear the mo-tions was a way of strengthen-ing the group’s resolve to mini-mize the effects of Proposal 2.
“We weren’t disappointed, and we’re prepared to fi ght un-til the end — until the proposal gets overturned,” Stern said.
Pell said his group will con-tinue to work to keep affi rma-tive action out of Michigan. He said the Supreme Court’s re-fusal to hear the motion to de-lay the ban was the right one, and they will continue support-ing that view.
“We’re confi dent the (court) got it right,” Pell said.
BY NICOLE DUNGCASTAFF WRITER
Court tells U. of Michigan to end affi rmative action
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2007PAGE 4
couple of weeks ago, it was a mild fall and winter,” Teichert said.
Aden Van Noppen ’09, an orga-nizer for the emPOWER campaign, emPOWER campaign, emPOWERa student group seeking to reduce the University’s environmental foot-print, said there is “no question” about the need to reduce energy costs. Van Noppen serves on theEnergy and Environmental Advi-sory Committee as a representative for the Brown Environmental Action Network.
In addition to reducing costs, Van Noppen said the University must fo-cus on making its energy usage less harmful to the environment, and she said emPOWER is pushing the Uni-versity to consider “our social role” by committing to climate neutrality. Climate neutrality means that the University would purchase carbon offsets, which fi nance reforestation or renewable energy projects, to compensate for its energy usage.
Van Noppen also said the Univer-sity should invest in better insulation for its buildings, more effi cient tech-nology and contract with renewable energy companies, “which would
stabilize our energy costs because they provide us with one price, while other sources like oil fl uctuate.”
The University may undertake some of those measures in the near future. The EEAC, which comprises faculty, staff and students, is work-ing on a comprehensive long-term strategic energy plan that will be presented to University offi cials in April. Those recommendations will focus on “evaluating some sig-nifi cant improvements” that can be made to help control the energy budget and reduce the University’s impact on the environment, Powell said.
Powell declined to discuss what the committee’s recommendations might be. But he did mention that about 70 percent of Brown’s energy goes to heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems and noted, “We need to focus on those.”
Van Noppen said emPOWER members met with President Ruth Simmons on Jan. 25 and that “it was clear that things will shift a little this semester.” She said she is confi dent that “what the EEAC puts forward will be put in place.”
But Powell said he doesn’t want
to wait until April to get started.“We are going to start some of
the pre-processes, like (a) specifi c-building energy audit,” Powell said. “Before we can actually improve the effi ciency of a building, we have to go through that building and evalu-ate all of its systems.”
Teichert mentioned other op-tions for the University, such as con-tracting with companies that pro-duce power from renewable energy sources “in a way that will allow us to make longer-term contracts than what we can do with oil, in which three years is the long term. When you’re talking about renewable (en-ergy) contracts, 10 years is a short time frame.”
Renewable energy contracts are attractive because they provide sta-bility in moderating utility costs, he said. “If we had some sort of hedge contract like this in place, it wouldn’t have obviated that increase, but it would have helped (last year).”
Negotiations with a windpower company have been held for over two years, Teichert said, but dif-fi culties in placing the plant have kept the project from being imple-mented.
point, for example. “This required that we spend more,” Usas said.
“The good news is that usage of wireless in dorms has been very high, which is exactly what we ex-pected,” Usas said.
Russell Carey ’91 MA’06, interim vice president for campus life and student services, said he does not think temporarily halting the proj-ect is cause for concern. “I don’t think this is at all unusual for a proj-
ect of this size and complexity,” he said. “We’re all committed to the project and want to proceed in a re-sponsible way.”
Usas said he hopes the project will start up again by the end of February. “We’ll be working close-ly with users to understand their priorities so as to yield a favorable result for the campus community,” he said. “Hopefully the extra mon-ey we put into certain areas will pay back.”
The wireless project began in Spring 2003, when CIS installed 12
hotspots around campus. By Fall 2005, the number of hotspots had reached 60. That semester, CIS re-sponded to the popularity of wire-less Internet access by requesting funding from the University Re-sources Committee to broadly ex-pand wireless coverage.
“We wanted more overall us-age,” Usas said. “People are more likely to carry around their laptops if they know they can access the Internet.”
CIS worked throughout last summer to further expand wire-
less coverage on campus. By the end of last semester, areas with wireless access included most resi-dence halls, dining facilities, librar-ies, study lounges, many academic buildings and Faunce House.
Students have responded fa-vorably to the addition of wireless on campus. “I’m glad they are fi-nally installing wireless in all the dorms,” said Ysabel Gaspar ’07. “I’ve lived in dorms without wire-less for the past three years, and it would’ve been better if they all had wireless coverage.”
“It’s convenient to have wireless in the dorms,” said Liz Giliberti ’10.
“I didn’t buy an Ethernet wire for a while because of it,” said Karen Kovalevich ’10. “I kind of assumed there would be wireless on cam-pus,” she said. “It makes life easier because I can work on my bed with-out messing with the cables.”
Gaspar said she would like to see wireless access everywhere on cam-pus. “There is patchy connection on some parts of the campus and you can’t just sit down anywhere and start doing work,” she said.
has strongly supported bringing the Bush facilities to SMU.
“It’s all or nothing,” Turner told the AP, referring to some pro-fessors’ position that SMU should accept the library but not the in-stitute. “The question is, does the asset outweigh what you consider the liabilities? I think it does.”
Blair said she believes SMU’s president will take faculty con-cerns into account. “I know he’s put a great deal of thought into this. We’ve had a number of meet-ings listening to comments, re-sponding to questions,” Blair said. “It’s a process, and (Turner) is taking it all in.”
Among students, there is gen-erally support for both the library and public policy institute, said Evan Farrior, a sophomore. “I’d say most of the students are in fa-vor of the library just based on the number of Bush bumper stickers I see on cars around here,” Far-rior said. “If you support Bush, I can’t imagine you would be against having a Bush institute at your school.”
Farrior added that while most students are in favor of the library, “those who are opposed are vehe-mently opposed.”
For his part, Farrior hopes SMU’s administration and the White House agree to build only the library and not the think tank. “I don’t want SMU to become ‘the Bush School.’ The institute politi-cally links us much more to the current administration’s ideology than the library would,” he said.
If SMU decides not to spon-sor the Bush library, it wouldn’t be the fi rst time a university has refused to host a presidential li-brary because of the offi cial’s ac-tions while in offi ce. Duke Uni-versity refused to host a library for President Nixon, a Duke law school graduate, because of simi-lar concerns about associating an educational institution with a con-troversial presidency.
A fi nal decision on where the Bush library will be located is expected within the next several months. If SMU fails to agree on specifi cs with the president, the library will be located at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
April report to propose strategic energy plan SMU faculty protest Bush librarycontinued from page 1 continued from page 3
continued from page 1
CIS wireless expansion in dorms stymied amid budget CIS wireless expansion in dorms stymied amid budget CIS w concerns
CAMPUS NEWSTHE BROWN DAILY HERALDWEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2007 PAGE 5
Students looking to attend medi-cal school now face a shorter, more frequently administered and computerized Medical Col-lege Admission Test.
The new MCAT was admin-istered for the fi rst time at sites around the country Jan. 27 and 29, two of the 22 testing times scheduled for the year. Prior to the change, only two paper-based administrations offered annual-ly. The only site in Rhode Island where the test can be taken is the Thomson Prometric testing cen-
ter in Warwick, though in previ-ous years the test was adminis-tered on campus.
Test-takers are now greeted by a test that takes between fi ve and fi ve-and-a-half hours to complete, compared to the paper version’s eight- to ten-hour duration. The number of multiple-choice ques-tions for the physical sciences, verbal reasoning and biological sciences sections has been re-duced by one-third.
Switching from the all-paper format also saved a considerable time by eliminating the lengthy process of distributing and col-lecting test materials, said Jeff
Meanza, director of graduate pro-grams for the Princeton Review. It “should be a more positive ex-perience,” Meanza said, who de-scribed the old exam as “sort of unyielding.”
But not everything went smoothly at the exam adminis-tered on Saturday. Test-taking nightmares came true for Daniel Sonshine ’07 when, six minutes into reading a passage on robotic fi sh in the verbal reasoning part of the exam, he looked at the fi rst question, and realized it was ask-ing about songbirds.
Pre-meds now face computerized MCATBY KRISTINA KELLEHERSENIOR STAFF WRITER
Prof’s research sheds light on prion diseases
Tricia Serio, assistant professor of medical science, and her lab are re-searching proteins in an effort to un-derstand what causes specifi c types of genetic diseases, such as mad cow disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and kuru. Known as progressive neurodegenerative diseases, these genetic diseases are caused by pro-teins called prions and are currently untreatable.
Prion is short for “proteinaceous infectious particle,” a protein that acts an infectious agent. Prions af-fect the structure of neural tissue, impairing bodily functions and propagating by converting normal proteins.
Until recently, it was not clear how the prions were able to change the conformation of normal pro-teins. But Serio, Prasanna Satpute-Krishnan GS and Serio’s lab were able to prove a longstanding theory that prions immediately deform reg-
ular proteins when they come into contact with them. The team fi rst published their fi ndings in Nature magazine in 2005. Less than two years later, Serio and her team pub-lished new research that could lead to a cure for prion diseases.
In a Jan. 23 edition of the online open-access journal PLoS, short for Public Library of Science, Serio and her team revealed that they have identifi ed the protein that breaks down insoluble prion aggregates and allows them to spread and cause disease.
When these aggregates break down, many small “seeds” form, and around them, clumps of prions. The prions spread rapidly, so the pres-ence of only a few prions can still cause major health problems.
Serio and her team researched prion formation in yeast and identi-fi ed HSP104, a member of a large family of heat-shock proteins that are present in all cells, as the agent responsible for breaking down the aggregates. Because heat-shock pro-
teins are present in all living things, the lab’s research is relevant for hu-
BY JOSEPH AHNCONTRIBUTING WRITER
Tai Ho Shin / HeraldTricia Serio at work in her laboratory.
N E W S I N B R I E F
A man was removed from Starbucks on Thayer Street by Providence police last night after he approached two Brown fi rst-years and began shouting and cursing when asked to return to his seat by employees.
Customers described the man as a regular presence in the coffee shop. “He’s a homeless man who practically lives in this place,” said East Side resident Toni Bonadie, a personal trainer and Starbucks regular. Though she described the man as “mentally unstable” and sometimes “kind of feisty,” she and other customers said he usually kept to him-self.
Around 7 p.m. last night, however, he got up from his seat by the window and began swearing, then approached Mallory Neidich ’10, who was doing homework with Cecily Barber ’10 at the time.
When asked if the man had been bothering her, Neidich replied, “Not really, but it was a little odd.”
“He reeked of liquor, and he was slurring all his words,” Barber said.Neidich and Barber said an employee then approached the man
and requested that he return to his seat. The man then began cursing loudly, at one point saying, “I (expletive) own this place,” according to Neidich.
“They were being really patient with him,” Neidich said. “He was re-ally riled up.”
Two Providence Police cruisers arrived, and offi cers removed the man, though it was unclear who called the police. An offi cer on the scene declined to say who had called in the complaint, and Starbucks employees also declined to comment.
Bonadie said the man protested, “This is my home,” while the offi -cers “dragged him outside,” but he then left the scene willingly.
Bonadie grew tearful several times while describing the man’s re-moval. “Look at all this wealth around here,” she said. “He’s like a piece of furniture.”
— Michael Skocpol
Police remove man from Starbucks
www.browndailyherald.com
continued on page 6
continued on page 6
Some test-takers encounter glitch during Saturday’s exam
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2007PAGE 6
mans as well.In their research, Serio and her lab
used fl uorescent tagging to identify the role of HSP104 in prion disease. “We showed direct proof that HSP fragment-ed the aggregates,” Serio said.
The implications of Serio lab’s latest fi ndings are signifi cant beyond expand-ing knowledge about prions. Further research on the role of HSPs could re-sult in advances or even cures for prion-based progressive neurodegenerative diseases.
But Serio and her lab are not plan-ning to explore the practical applications of their research. Instead, they will focus on further understanding the nature and mechanisms of prion propagation.
“We want to understand it as a pro-cess, understand how it works,” Serio said.
Serio said she has been interested in prions for several years. “As an un-dergraduate at Lehigh, a post-doc told me about infectious protein. I thought he was joking at fi rst,” she said. “Ever since then I’ve been interested in it.”
After graduate work at Yale Univer-sity and post-doc research at the Uni-versity of Chicago, Serio said she is pleased to be doing research at Brown.
“Brown is a really great place to work,” she said. “The students in par-ticular are very intelligent and helpful.”
continued from page 5The questions were clear-
ly for a different passage. “I started to panic,” he said. The mistake threw off his concen-tration, he said. “I tried to fo-cus, but I couldn’t.”
No more than 800 of 2,500 test takers encountered the mistake Saturday, according to Robert Jones, a senior vice president at the Association of American Medical Colleg-es, as quoted in the New York Times.
Harry Samaroo ’07, who had previously taken the pa-per version of the MCAT, also took the new computer-ized exam Saturday, though he took the test in New York City and did not encounter any problems. “The computer-based exam felt much short-er,” he said. “People will prob-ably really like the computer-based exam. It’s much more of an independent testing ex-perience.”
But Samaroo said he still prefers the paper-based exam because he is accustomed to taking tests in that format.
“It was my fi rst comput-er-based testing experience. You feel like if you had more practice, you’d be better at it. You’ve been taking paper stan-
dardized exams your whole life,” he said. Samaroo added that students who are more comfortable with reading and typing quickly on a computer had an advantage over those who read and write more quickly on paper.
“I have mixed feelings about it being computerized,” said David Guttmann ’07, a pre-med student. He cited “a psychological element” in his hesitancy to embrace the re-vamped exam and said, “I’m accustomed to paper-and-pen-cil exams.” But he said he fa-vored shortening the test, which he took in August 2005.
“What’s unfortunate about the way the test was struc-tured earlier was it became a test of endurance,” Guttmann said. The new format is “more focused on what you know than how many questions you can answer, which will benefi t a lot of people,” he said.
“Whenever you change a test format, there are pros and cons,” said pre-med Daniel Morris ’07. “But in this case, there are a lot of benefi ts.” Morris, who took the paper-based exam in August 2005 in Sayles Hall, cited the more frequent administrations of the test as an important new convenience for test-takers,
though he was worried that off-campus testing could pose an inconvenience for students without a car.
The exam now consists of 52 physical sciences questions to be completed in 70 minutes, 40 verbal reasoning questions to be completed in 60 minutes and 52 biological sciences questions to be completed in 70 minutes.
Computerized MCAT test-takers must still complete two writing samples, which are typed into a basic word pro-cessor without spell check, in one hour. During the test, students may take up to three ten-minute breaks, according to the Web site for the AAMC.
The exam still costs test-takers $210 per administra-tion. Students may now take the exam up to three times a year. The waiting period for results, previously 60 days, has been cut to 30 days. The association has promised to cut the waiting time for results down to 14 days, according to its Web site.
The Thomson Prometric testing centers — the only lo-cations where the MCAT can now be administered — pro-vide noise reduction head-phones and storage lockers for test-takers.
continued from page 5
MCAT switches to computerized format
ing everyone to vacate, which is a major annoyance,” he said, adding that a student who is found to have triggered the smoke alarm is fi ned to cover the cost of the Providence Fire Department’s response, which can amount to $1,000.
Though most violations are dealt with by notification and pos-sibly re-inspection, some, includ-ing the presence of candles, are treated more seriously. If candles are found, the offending student re-ceives a $100 fine. The fine applies regardless of how many candles are found. In previous years, a $100 fine was assessed for each candle found by dorm inspectors.
“Most residence hall fi res are caused by heat sources … with open fl ames, like candles.” Bova said. The severity of the fi ne for candles is a direct result of that concern.
Despite the obvious incentive to remove or at least hide candles from plain sight, candles were found in 18 rooms in 2005-06.
Though few students are actual-ly fi ned for candle violations, many fear the potential sanctions. Stepha-nie Spielman ’10 received 45 candles in a Chanukah care package from her synagogue.
“I hid them for about a week … but just ended up throwing them out” to avoid the risk of a fi ne, she said.
750 dorm violations reported last year
continued from page 1
Lab makes headway Lab makes headway Ltoward cures for genetic diseases
www.browndailyherald.com
possibility of a state-wide teach-er contract, as well as merging school districts. “Thirty-six school districts in a state our size is just too many,” he said.
Carcieri also took this ap-proach to the unique problems of urban schools: Rhode Island — which has the seventh-highest percentage of students learning English as an additional language in the country — needs to “devise one curriculum and concentrate resources” for teaching students English, he said.
The governor mentioned a forthcoming partnership between the University of Rhode Island and the Central Falls school dis-trict. “Bringing the university’s prestige and resources to (Central Falls High School) will be a won-derful boost to teachers, students and administrators,” he said.
Carcieri said Rhode Island should meet 20 percent of its electricity needs with renewable sources — wind, water and solar power — by 2011. To meet the goal, the governor announced the creation of the Rhode Island Power Authority, which will man-age and sell the state’s renewable energy.
In addition to the $86 million allocated to clean up Narragan-sett Bay, Carcieri said Rhode Is-land would join nine other Mid-Atlantic and New England states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas
Initiative, a joint effort to reduce greenhouse gases. Rhode Island was one of the states that helped draft the initiative, but Carcieri de-cided against joining with the oth-er states last year. His announce-ment makes Rhode Island the last of the ten states to commit to the initiative.
“Economic development will be the relentless focus of my admin-istration,” Carcieri said, promising to reduce state spending in order to balance the budget. He said he will adopt an “aggressive strategy to create an innovation economy,” bringing more research and busi-ness to the Ocean State.
Carcieri’s 35-minute speech was interrupted 22 times by ap-plause from members of the Gen-eral Assembly and three times by laughter.
Immediately after Carcieri’s address, House Majority Leader Gordon Fox, D-Dist. 4, and Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Paiva-Weed, D-Dist. 13, gave the Dem-ocratic response. Fox and Paiva-Weed echoed the themes of the governor’s speech — energy, ed-ucation, the economy and the en-vironment — and also discussed health care.
Fox emphasized the need for Rhode Island to “invest in high-er education” and said he would not have risen to his position if not for his education at Rhode Island College. Fox also said the General Assembly is “working to eliminate property taxes” and will
make further reductions to inven-tory and capital gains taxes.
“Rhode Island leaders have an obligation to combat global warming,” Paiva-Weed said of the governor’s promise to join the greenhouse gas initiative. She also said the General Assembly will work to improve water qual-ity and increase public access to Narragansett Bay.
Paiva-Weed also expressed concern about the current state of health care in Rhode Island and said the number of unin-sured children in the state has increased by 200 percent over the past six years. She cited re-cently adopted healthcare poli-cies in Massachusetts, Maine and Vermont and suggested that Rhode Island should follow suit by adopting a “comprehensive” healthcare policy that includes insurance for children.
Providence resident Eva Sim-mons criticized Carcieri’s educa-tion policy record. “I don’t think he’s done the right thing in the past,” she said after the speech. “I think he spoke well this evening, but we’ll see if it’s carried out.”
Carcieri has tried to improve education but has been limited by fi nancial restraints in the past, Rhode Island District Court Mag-istrate Christine Jabour told The Herald. She expressed optimism for future efforts because “it seems like he’s gotten consensus … that will accomplish the goals he’s set.”
Carcieri ’65 promises reform in State of the Statecontinued from page 1
THE BROWN DAILY HERALDWEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2007 PAGE 7
Sectarian violence leaves more than 60 Iraqis dead
BAGHDAD, Iraq (Los Angeles Times)— Sectarian warfare direct-ed mostly at Shiite Muslim pilgrims and worshippers celebrating the climax of Ashura, an important religious holiday, left more than 60 Iraqis dead Tuesday, including eight bodies found dumped here in the capital.
Also Tuesday, details emerged about arrests in the wake of a bold Jan. 20 insurgent raid on a joint U.S.-Iraqi security compound in Karbala in which a U.S. soldier was killed and four other American soldiers were captured and shot to death miles away.
A police offi cial in Hillah said four Saudi Arabians staying in a Karbala hotel were arrested in connection with the attack. The offi -cial, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said U.S. and Iraqi offi cials had seized maps and other documents in the raid.
CINCINNATI (Los Angeles Times)— One of the Bush administra-tion’s most controversial initiatives in the war on terror is set for its fi rst hearing in a federal appeals court Wednesday, but if government lawyers have their way the case will be quickly dismissed.
Justice Department attorneys contend that the challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union to the government’s warrantless do-mestic surveillance program is moot since the program is being monitored by a special court. They are asking that the ruling that the program is unconstitutional be thrown out.
But ACLU lawyers maintain that the case is still viable and are call-ing on the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals to affi rm Judge Ella Diggs Taylor’s ruling in August that the Terrorist Surveillance Program vio-lated the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution and ran afoul of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Court to hear ACLU’s wiretapping challenge
W O R L D I N B R I E F
join the herald. tonight, 7 p.m.tonight, 7 p.m.195 angell st.
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2007PAGE 8
The admission offi ce’s ven-tures into new territories are slat-ed to continue in the future. “I expect that we will visit, if not all the same places next year, a lot of them,” Ott said. “It makes sense to travel to places two years in a row. Generally, we try to go to places twice.”
Roughly 44 percent of the in-ternational applicant pool came from Asia, where admission of-fi cers spent nearly a month this fall. China, India, Singapore and Korea each contributed over 100 applicants. Applications from Chi-na rose 69 percent over last year, and applications from Hong Kong, Malaysia and India all rose 43 per-cent or more.
A quarter of all international applications came from Europe, with the United Kingdom sending the most applicants — 150. Nine-ty-one applications came from Af-rica, 4.3 percent of the internation-al pool, while countries in the Mid-
dle East sent 74 applicants, or 3.5 percent. Applications from North and South American countries made up the remaining 18.1 per-cent of international applicants.
Ott said credit for the surge in international applications lies not just with Brown admission offi -cers. Local alumni often accompa-ny admission offi cers on their vis-its to schools, and sometimes give entire presentations on their own. “There’s an element of trust when you see someone who speaks your own language and grew up the same way you did,” Ott said. She added that parents appreci-ate being able to understand and communicate with these repre-sentatives.
But admission offi cers and al-ums often are less effective than one special group of recruiters — students already studying at Brown.
“Current students are the best ambassadors, and they often im-pact applications,” Ott said. “Very often I see applicants saying that
a graduate of their high school showed up and talked about Brown.”
Daniela Rodriguez DaSilva ’10, who attended secondary school in Venezuela followed by two years at the United World College in Wales, is one such student. “I have been in touch with at least two people who are applying to Brown from United World College,” Rodriguez DaSilva said. She learned about Brown from her friend, a current Brown student and United World College alum.
Ott anticipates increased re-cruiting efforts in Africa and the West Indies in the future, a rec-ommendation made by the Uni-versity Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice. “My guess is that’s going to happen for all sorts of reasons. It increases diversity on campus, and it helps Brown’s mission of promoting internation-al peace and understanding,” Ott said. “We’ve already increased the travel to Africa from zero to about three weeks, and we hope to continue that.”
Globetrotting admission offi ce boosts int’l applicationscontinued from page 1
THE BROWN DAILY HERALDWEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2007 PAGE 9
Waterville Valley, N. H., over winter break, Brown had to contend with other teams accomplish any training runs on the limited trails available.
Although the squad did what free skiing they could and complet-ed plyometric and aerobic drills, the benefi ts were not the same as actual-ly skiing. The team was only able to hit the slopes hard about one week before being thrown into its fi rst competition. However, recent cold-er conditions have allowed the team to train better. With this weekend’s success, Brown is now confi dently aiming for a spot at Nationals.
“We defi nitely should be in the top fi ve at Nationals, and I really think we can be in the top three at Nationals,” Bengtson said.
Competing at Nationals is not a given. Brown must climb the rank-ings during the regular season and fend off challenges from the Uni-versity of Massachusetts and Smith College, currently ranked fi fth and sixth in the division. Even with great training, one mishap can dash all hopes. “In skiing, all it takes is one of the skiers to fall, and the team misses qualifying,” Bengtson said.
The Bears will host the Brown Carnival at Wachusett Mountain in Massachusetts on Friday before traveling to Loon Mountain in New Hampshire for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Carnival on Saturday.
Skiing improves ranking after bumpy N.H. trip
continued from page 12
one else has been smoking and gives Barry Zito the biggest deal for a pitcher ever — $126 million! Really, Brian? Reaaalllly? Zito was second in the American League in walks between 2005-2006, his fastball has diminished from a low 90s heater to a low 80s junk ball and his 1.40 WHIP in ’06 was near-ly identical to Ted Lilly’s. I’m not sure people realize how bad this deal is because Zito is a big name, scores a lot of chicks, has a cool-looking curveball and will get to pitch in the friendly confi nes of AT&T Park, but they will soon.
Sidenote: There has to be some clever metaphor for the ever-changing name of the Giants’ sta-dium —“Pac-Bell,” “SBC” and now “AT&T” over the past three years — in the way the team is run. For now I’ll go with this:
Brian Sabean: “AT&T was pretty successful eight years ago? Let’s go ahead and name our park after them and then sign Rich Au-rilia, Dave Roberts and lock up Ray Durham for the same reason. Done and done.”
3. If you polled America about the Chicago Bears-New Orleans Saints playoff game, you would probably fi nd that Illinois and
Houston were the only places in the country rooting for the Bears. You might conclude that those oil-loving Texans have no heart, but you’d be wrong. It is the for-mer general manager of their be-loved Houston Texans, Charley Casserly, who has no heart. For on the eve of the 2006 NFL Draft, when practically half of Texas was willing to do anything to get the most exciting prospect in recent memory (Reggie Bush), Casserly made Mario Williams the number one overall pick instead, allow-ing Bush to fall to the Saints. By May, Casserly had resigned, and by the New Year, Bush was taunt-
ing Brian Urlacher on his way to an 80-yard touchdown reception in the NFC Championship game. If you don’t think that one is go-ing to sting for a while, you must be spending too much time with those hippie baseball GMs.
4. Tennis continued to exist as a sport. Apparently, somewhere in Martha’s Vineyard and South-ampton, someone still enjoyed it. He allegedly pops his collar, uses Grey Poupon instead of mustard and has never seen a Wal-Mart.
Tom Trudeau ’09 from 2006 wants to say hi to the future. Hi!
’10 and Hug won the fi nal event of the meet, recording a time of 1:25.19.
The Bears turned right around and faced Yale in the second meet of the weekend, on Saturday after-noon. Bruno sustained a 181-119 loss to the host Bulldogs. Though fi ve individuals and the 400-yard relay team won events for Brown, the team’s failure to capture any highly contested races factored in the loss.
“We did really well for the fi rst half of the meet,” said captain Pe-ter Volosin ’08. “But we lost a lot of close races in the end, and that made a huge difference.”
The Bears’ 200-yard relay team
of Hug, O’Mara, Ricketts and Kelly fi nished a close second in the fi rst event of the day, posting a time of 1:33.59. Volosin helped the team bounce back with a victory in the 1,000-yard freestyle, clocking in at 9:39.25. Hug then fi nished third in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 52.61. O’Mara also took a third-place fi nish, swimming the 100-yard breaststroke in 59.95. Al-exander pulled out a victory in the third event for Brown, clocking in at 1:52.64 in the 200-yard butterfl y. Kelly posted a fourth win for Bruno in the 50-yard free, earning a time of 21.38 seconds and Wetmore also placed in the event, taking third with a time of 21.87.
During the fi rst dive break of the day, Matthew Freitas ’07 earned third place in the 1-meter
dive with a score of 275.55. After Freitas’ performance, the Bears picked up where they left off.
Kelly swam the 100-yard free-style in 46.20 for second place, while Huxley fi nished third, re-cording a time of 47.39. Hug fol-lowed suit, placing third in the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 1:56.28. Volosin took second in the 500-yard free, clocking in at 4:44.39, while Ricketts placed third in the 100-yard butterfl y, swim-ming a time of 50.52.
Robinson placed fi rst in the meet’s second diving event, the 3-meter dive, earning a score of 317.47. To round out the swim-ming portion of the meet, O’Mara fi nished third in the 200 IM, post-ing a time of 1:56.93 in the fi nal in-dividual event of the meet. Hays,
Ricketts, Huxley, and Kelly won the fi nal event of the meet, record-ing a 3:07.43 time in the 400-yard free relay.
The losses did not distract the team from its focus on the upcom-ing Easterns tournament. If any-thing, they should serve as motiva-tion moving forward.
“We can’t get too caught up in the wins or losses,” Brown said, “We look at dual meets as stepping stones to our championship meets. We have to learn from them and grow from them.”
In its last home meet of the sea-son, the men’s swimming and div-ing team will celebrate Senior Day on Saturday at 4 p.m. against Co-lumbia at the Smith Swim Center.
“It will be a very special occa-sion for us,” Brown said.
M. swimming drops two on road to Ivy League’s best, Harvard and Yale
Revisiting the most egregious mistakes by sports execs in 2006continued from page 12
continued from page 12
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Senior Staff Writers Rachel Arndt, Michael Bechek, Oliver Bowers, Zachary Chapman, Chaz Firestone, Kristina Kelleher, Debbie Lehmann, Scott Lowenstein, James Shapiro, Michael SkocpolStaff Writers Susana Aho, Taylor Barnes, Evan Boggs, Alissa Cerny, Irene Chen, Stewart Dearing, Nicole Dungca, Hannah Furst, Sarah Geller, Thi Ho, Rebecca Jacobson, Tsvetina Kamenova, Hannah Levintova, Christian Martell, Taryn Martinez, Zachary McCune, Jennifer Park, Nathalie Pierrepont, James Shapiro, Kam Sripada, Robin Steele, Spencer Trice, Sara Walter, Allissa Wickham, Max WinogradSports Staff Writers Amy Ehrhart, Kaitlyn Laabs, Eliza Lane, Kathleen Loughlin, Megan McCahill, Marco Santini, Tom Trudeau, Steele WestAccount Administrators Emilie Aries, Alexander HughesDesign Staff Aurora Durfee, Christian MartellPhoto Staff Stuart Duncan-Smith, Austin Freeman, Tai Ho ShinCopy Editors Ayelet Brinn, Catherine Cullen, Erin Cummings, Karen Evans, Jacob Frank, Lauren Levitz, Elisabeth Zerofsky
L E T T E R S
A L E X A N D E R G A R D - M U R R A Y
S T A F F E D I T O R I A L
EDITORIAL & LETTERSTHE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2007PAGE 10
Freezing energy costs
Join The Herald.Come to our information session.
7 p.m. Wednesday, January 31.at our offi ce, 195 angell st. (between brook and thayer)
It’s unfortunate that the eerily warm winter weather keeping Al Gore awake at night is good news for the University. If Gore’s right, plenty of high winter temperatures and low heating bills lie in the years ahead, but betting on global warming isn’t a good energy plan.
After last year’s $3 million energy cost overrun, University offi cials must be relieved to expect to come in under budget this year. Administra-tors are undoubtedly hoping to avoid the $50 million in energy expendi-tures that Facilities Management estimates for 2020 if costs continue to rise at the annual average of 7 percent.
We urge members of the Energy and Environmental Advisory Com-mittee, which will propose a new energy plan in April, to take advantage of the popular desire for renewable energy policy that now stretches from Capitol Hill to Hollywood. If, as Aden Van Noppen ’09 suggests, President Ruth Simmons wisely supports a shift in energy planning, EEAC mem-bers have nothing to fear in proposing increased renewable energy use and even carbon neutrality. And they should not underestimate the latent potential for vocal student support on a politically trendy issue.
Climate neutrality, which would require the University to purchase carbon offsets that equal its own ecological footprint, is a noble goal for political and moral reasons. But climate neutrality simply assuages mor-al guilt and does nothing to cut costs or emissions. Beyond being eco-friendly, the University should seek cost-effective solutions that decrease oil consumption while keeping freezing students from having to sleep in layers.
As alums of both the University and the Medical School, we were very excited to hear about the recent infl ux of funding for the Medical School. We both feel that we received an excellent education at Brown, and we are happy that the legacy of world-class medical education will continue and improve and that future doctors will receive the wonderful training we did.
Not all of that training was strictly scientifi c and medical, as you can imagine. We learned how to deal with the patient as a whole, the cultural differences, the socio-economic issues and the medical system as a pos-sible antagonist to good health. We learned to see is-sues from all sides, we learned about public health and we learned how to be patient advocates.
Because of our broad education, we are uncomfort-able with one of the changes that has come with the funding: the renaming of the Medical School.
The effect of industry on medical education is in-escapable. As residents, we are besieged on all sides with expensive dinners, textbooks and even trips — not to mention innumerable pens and gadgets. As Brown Medical School alums, we still proudly eschew these “gifts” and pass these values on to our colleagues and students. We are concerned that renaming the Med School the Warren Alpert Medical School, while not quite the same as naming it “The Merck Medical School,” still upsets the delicate balance of academic in-
dependence that is so well fostered at Brown. We re-gret biting the hand that is so generous with us, but this new change reminds us of the old Rhode Island Civic Center, now the Dunkin Donuts Center, and the old Boston Garden, which was replaced by a building called the Shawmut Center, the Fleet Center and now the TD Banknorth Garden. We had always considered institutions like the Brown Medical School to be above such outright sponsorship.
We learned a lot at Brown — about medicine, public health, patient advocacy, medical ethics and a myriad of other issues. We have no doubt that the important val-ues we developed at Brown are still being fostered, de-spite the name change. We did feel, however, that this issue should be raised, as open and honest discussion is such a central part of Brown’s ideals. Although we are bringing up this issue, we’re very excited about the opportunities that Mr. Alpert’s funding provides, and we would like to express a heartfelt thank you to him for his generosity and vision; we are looking forward to hearing about future changes and improvements at the Brown Medical School.
Elizabeth Schoenfeld ‘01, MD ‘05Pranay Parikh ‘99, MD ‘03
Jan. 30
Med school alums support gift, skeptical of name changeTo the Editor:
Sending aid abroadWe’re pleased the University is sending admission offi cers to locales as far-fl ung as Tanzania and Zimbabwe, but it’s time for Brown to start send-ing better fi nancial aid packages too. Need-blind admission and a $100 million endowed scholarship program for the neediest students have gone a long way toward breaking down the fi nancial barriers for Ameri-can and Canadian students in a short period of time. But the lack of com-parable progress for international fi nancial aid is cause for concern.
Things are getting better. In October, the Corporation committed to boosting international fi nancial aid by $30 million. Though it will be years before that target is met, Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 told The Herald that the class of 2011 would show more socioeconomic diversity among international students. But commitments aren’t enough, and we hope the University makes this a top fundraising priority.
As University offi cials mull over the possibilities for internationaliz-ing Brown, broad expansion of international fi nancial aid is an obvious choice. Globalizing College Hill doesn’t simply mean generating better statistics about geographic scope. It also means creating a campus that in-cludes international students of all — not just privileged — backgrounds. Sending recruiters abroad won’t accomplish that, but extending need-blind admission and offering suffi cient aid to the neediest international students will. A Brown education shouldn’t be available only to those with cash or a U.S. passport in their pockets.
Due to an editing error, an article in Tuesday’s Herald (“Au Bon Pain reopens with new decor,” Jan. 30) incor-rectly identifi ed Charu Gupta ’07 as a male. Gupta is female.
C O R R E C T I O N
Textspeak is best defi ned as the use of varying abbreviations and the dropping of vowels aimed at increasing the speed with which an individual can type a message. As would befi t a lingual system where speed is of the utmost concern, the use of textspeak mutilates the English language faster than a North Dakotan stuffed into a wood chip-per. Previously relegated to the realm of 12-year-old girls gushing about Leonardo Di-Caprio and 35-year-old men playing World of Warcraft in their parents’ basements, this idiomatic menace has begun to worm its way into hard-working, God-fearing so-ciety.
The fi rst sign of the textspeak apoca-lypse reaches us in the form of “The Last Messages,” a novel written by Finnish au-thor Hannu Luntiala. The book centers around an executive who leaves his lush life in Helsinki to meander around Europe and India, keeping in touch with his family and friends only through the magical medium of text messages on his mobile phone.
This premise is rife with problems from the get-go. If the man is trotting across half the globe, how on Earth does he get reception anywhere? Moreover, if he has his phone with him the whole time, why the hell doesn’t he just call?
That, however, is beside the point. The thing about this would-be literary master-piece that really punches me in the gut is the fact that the novel is composed in its en-tirety of the text messages sent and received over the course of the main character’s trav-
els. There are around 1,000 of them alto-gether. That amounts to 300 pages of “u” in place of “you,” “r” in place of “are,” “2” in place of “too” or “to” - with no explana-tion which one he is referring, 2. Call me old-fashioned, but anytime I pick up a book that is likely to be chock-full of textspeak-isms, I can rest assured that Shakespeare this ain’t. lol.
The worst part of all is that the Finns are just eating it up. Text messages and the as-sociated bastardized grammar that comes with them have been wholly embraced by the Finnish population. The Associated Press reported that even Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen broke up with his girlfriend via text message.
Now I know what you’re thinking: you’re assuming that just because textspeak has crawled out of its dank, smelly hole and seen the light in Finland doesn’t mean it will do the same here in the good old U.S. of A. After all, the Finns are Europeans, and if other evils like socialism and euro-tech-no haven’t crossed the Atlantic (outside of Buxton house), there’s no reason main-stream use of textspeak should do so.
Unfortunately, this particular epidemic has already jumped to a more sensible land - one where English words aren’t banned by law from entering local languages and where boy bands aren’t enjoyed by post-pu-bescent demographics. Besides the unset-tling rumors about their unnatural fond-ness of sheep, the residents of this land are generally understood to be a wholly sensi-ble people. I’m referring, of course, to New Zealand.
One day early last November, the top story of New Zealand’s Dominion Post was more chilling than any story coming out of Iraq, Afghanistan or Darfur. The Post re-ported that the New Zealand Qualifi cations Authority had decided to give credit to ex-
ams that made use of textspeak in their an-swers as long as students “clearly show the required understanding.” Although the use of proper English was still encouraged, stu-dents who employed textspeak would not be marked down. Proponents of the mea-sure insisted it would help students better express themselves.
Pardon my French, but that’s retard-ed. One spelling-challenged son of a New Zealand journalist summed up the state of things nicely when he told his mother that now he doesn’t even have to try to spell words correctly, passing off mistakes as “textspeak.” If enough kids reach the same conclusion as this intrepid young lad, in a generation New Zealand will be fi lled to the brim with adults lacking a solid grasp on proper spelling and grammar. Suddenly, it’s not just the sheep in New Zealand who have reason to be nervous.
This whole textspeak issue scares the bejesus out of me. I’m still holding out for some sort of sensible return to people writ-ing in proper English, but it doesn’t look likely to happen. Textspeak is spreading. The publishers of “The Last Messages” are planning on translating the book into mul-tiple languages. A high school principal in New Zealand excitedly told a newspaper that textspeak represented “smart youth who are developing a language, and once they are adults [it] will be the norm.”
I feel like there’s nothing left for us pur-ists to do but adapt. I h8 to say it, but we bttr get used 2 this. The wrld is chnging, n we r set to get left bhnd. Neways, I hope this has left u with sumthng. I gtg cry in the corner.
Adam Cambier ‘09 has actually brought down windmills he has charged.
OPINIONSTHE BROWN DAILY HERALDWEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2007 PAGE 11
OMG WTF r u saying !!1!
ADAM CAMBIEROPINIONS COLUMNIST
Today I could probably count on my fi ngers the number of Brown students who stand behind the Bush Doc-trine. I can remember a time when there used to be a fairly sizable number - but since 2003, as that number has plummeted nationally, it has plummeted here at Brown as well (from tiny to miniscule). As a proud member of that ever-decreasing group, I can do my best to defend the president’s foreign policy to the rest of you tree-hug-gers.
As potentially diffi cult as a decision to invade or otherwise militarily intervene in the affairs of another country may be, at times such a course of action is really the only one that can be effective. Apart from the realization that my political ide-ology now probably qualifi es me for the endangered species list, I’ve also realized that support for any sort of military inter-vention on the part of the United States today is at an all-time low. For those who would like to believe that all confl icts can be solved solely through peaceful means, this is probably a godsend - I can imagine the parade being planned over at the Unit-ed Nations. However, for those few conser-vative idealists that remain, this abandon-ment of military force is one of the most troublesome consequences of the quag-mire in Iraq - especially at a time when the world is wracked by numerous other cri-ses, such as the genocide in Darfur.
Though few would go out of their way to defend the merits of Saddam Husse-in and his regime, the admittedly fl awed
plan for what to do after the invasion has undermined the benefi t of removing him. However, it is important to remember that there was never really any alternative pro-posal for a solution to Iraq’s problems. The continued sanctions regime that seems to have been so popular in much of the inter-national community is probably at least partially responsible for the grave situation that exists in Iraq today. A glance at how at-tempts at sanctions have failed miserably at keeping weapons out of the hands of Iran and North Korea further drives home the message that such a solution is woe-fully inadequate.
Libya seems to provide a much more optimistic counterexample. By providing economic benefi ts and political recogni-tion, the United States and its allies helped spur the Libyan regime from pursuing its nuclear ambitions - a result which clearly benefi ts the Middle Eastern and North Af-rican regions, if not the entire world. How-ever, such a solution requires the presence of a rational actor with whom to negotiate, some concrete source of authority that can actually uphold the other side of the bar-gain. Perhaps this could have been the so-lution in Iraq, and perhaps a variation of this may yet be the solution for Iran and North Korea. But we cannot always as-sume that diplomacy will work.
World War II provides one example of enemies (Nazi Germany and Imperial Ja-pan) who were unwilling to yield to terms that lay within any accepted boundaries of rationality and morality. The continued infl uence of terrorist groups throughout much of the world provides yet another, even more relevant example, where there may not even be a central actor with whom we can negotiate. In situations like this, where all the words and diplomatic candor in the world may fail us, we must be willing
to dare to go the extra step and back our words up with force.
Given that some of the world’s most troublesome regions are home to a variety of feuding factions, it has been suggested by many that any military action in these areas will result in the same kind of sec-tarian strife that has materialized in Iraq. However, while this certainly makes a mili-tary response diffi cult to manage success-fully, diplomatic solutions are plagued by the same problems. There is no easy way to broker peace between dozens of rival warlords. Our experiences in Bosnia have shown us that even in regions torn by a variety of ethnic divisions, well-executed military action can go a long way towards providing an eventual solution.
Darfur is a perfect example of a situa-tion where we, be it multilaterally or unilat-erally, should admit the necessity of inter-vention. When hundreds of thousands of lives hang in the balance, we cannot con-tinue to insist on searching for a diplomat-ic solution that is nowhere in sight. While any intervention is likely to be messy, and will almost certainly cost lives, how can we realistically choose anything else when the alternative is to allow atrocities to go unchecked?
While not every problem has a military solution, history has shown before - and will surely prove again - that force is the an-swer to some problems. Regardless of our individual opinions on the situation in Iraq, we cannot allow our misadventures there to cause us to abandon the use of force al-together. Military intervention may still be our only chance of achieving our aims out-side of Baghdad.
Trevor Gleason ‘07 invites you to explore the power of the dark side
In defense of military intervention
TREVOR GLEASON
OPINIONS COLUMNIST
In his recent column (“Before criticiz-ing European anti-Nazi laws, consider their context,” Jan. 29), Jacob Izenberg ‘08 de-fends “European anti-Nazi laws” restrict-ing free speech in response to an article by Sean Quigley ‘10 (“An Iron Curtain has descended across the Continent,” Jan. 24). While Quigley considers laws censoring hate speech or Holocaust denial an affront to “liberty, free-speech and the very founda-tions of democracy,” Izenberg argues that such a position “demonstrates a lack of per-spective and historical consideration ... con-sidering the context in which (such laws) developed.”
The enormity of the unspeakable acts that forced such restrictions in the after-math of World War II cannot be overstated, and our deepest sympathies go out to the millions upon millions of Jews and people of other nationalities whose lives were dam-aged or destroyed directly or indirectly by this dark chapter in human history. No greater tragedy could befall Europe than the rekindling of the abject hatred that was the fountainhead of the Holocaust. Izenberg is right in arguing that as Americans thou-sands of miles and several generations re-moved from this event, “we ... cannot truly understand the urgent need the citizens of a devastated Germany felt after World War II to never permit something like Nazi rule and the resulting war to happen,” especially since we are “citizens of a nation that has never been dominated by totalitarianism - and by fascism in particular.”
Though I agree with these observations, I believe they ultimately work against Izen-berg’s position. Many would contend that a critical reason our nation has evaded the yoke of totalitarianism is its enduring re-spect for an independent press and the free-dom of expression. Although even Presi-dent Abraham Lincoln, a most storied expo-nent of freedom, famously found it expedi-ent to limit the power of the press and even to suspend habeas corpus during the Civil War in order to preserve the union and thus curtail a national disaster, such limitations on personal freedom must be rethought in times of peace.
Izenberg claims that the lurking specter of anti-Semitic sentiment in Central Europe is reason enough to censor hate speech, even more than half a century after the Ho-locaust. Though his concern is legitimate, and motions to suppress expression intend-ing to cause political or economic harm to specifi c groups or persons should not be rejected out of hand, we ought to be care-ful when toying with the slippery slope of censorship.
If we can have our cake and eat it too - if we can avoid another Holocaust with-out resorting to censorship - it is incum-bent upon liberty-loving citizens of free na-tions to advocate such a solution. Instead of banning hate speech, Central European nations might try tightening anti-discrimi-nation laws and reinvigorating hate crime legislation while simultaneously loosening restrictions on free expression.
Our civil liberties serve as our greatest defense against the encroachment of tyran-ny and the grim possibility of totalitarian-ism. Though Izenberg’s intentions are laud-able, we ought to be exceedingly hesitant to deny free speech before pursuing less treacherous legal avenues.
Peter Catsimpiris ‘08 is the president of Students for Liberty at Brown.
Playing with fi re: anti-Nazi laws in a free society
BY PETER CATSIMPIRISGUEST COLUMNISTGUEST COLUMNISTGUEST
With back-to-back meets against Ivy League foes Harvard and Yale looming, the men’s swimming and diving team had known for a while that the last weekend in January would be their toughest of the sea-son. Battling fatigue, the stress of a new semester and the pressure of the upcoming Easterns meet, the Bears suffered two lopsided losses to Harvard and Yale this weekend.
“We just have to take our lumps and move on,” said Head Coach Pe-ter Brown. “This is always a tough weekend for us, but I felt they com-peted well in spite of the situation they were in.”
On Friday, the Bears fell to the Crimson 179-116. Brown fi n-ished third in the fi rst event of the day, when the 400-yard med-ley relay team of Daniel Ricketts ’09, Grant Garcia ’08, Zack Levko ’10 and Paris Hays ’10 swam a time of 1:52.42. Rob Glenn ’08 placed fourth in the fi rst individual event, fi nishing the 1,000-yard freestyle in 10:12.73. Richard Alexander ’09 then nabbed the Bears’ fi rst win of the day, swimming the 200-yard freestyle in 1:44.01.
In the next event, Levko earned
second place in the 100-yard back-stroke, recording a time of 54.30. Ray Grant ’10 followed with a time of 59.65 in the 100-yard breast-stroke for another second-place fi nish.
Ricketts took fi rst place in his second event of the meet, record-ing a 1:54.34 time in the 200-yard butterfl y, with Glenn fi nishing just behind him in 1:57.50. Kevin Hug ’08 then placed second in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 21.91 seconds and David Koweek ’09
fi nished after him with a time of 22.26.
In the diving portion of the meet, Kai Robinson ’09 placed sec-ond on the 1-meter board with a score of 305.77.
Coming off the dive break, Hays took second in the 100-yard freestyle, completing the event in 48.35 seconds. Mike O’Mara ’07 followed suit, earning another sec-ond-place fi nish for the Bears with a time of 1:58.70 in the 200-yard backstroke.
Robinson won the fi nal diving event of the meet, earning a score of 319.20 on the 3-meter dive. C.J. Kambe ’10, who qualifi ed for the NCAA Zones with his perfor-mance against the University of Pennsylvania two weeks ago, fi n-ished second in the event with a score of 310.50.
Brown’s 200-yard individual medley team of Tucker Wetmore ’10, Brian Kelly ’08, Trent Huxley
SPORTS WEDNESDAYTHE BROWN DAILY HERALDWEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2007 PAGE 12
M. swimming drops two to Harvard and YaleBY KAITLYN LAABSSPORTS STAFF WRITER
The ski team has struggled to fi nd its momentum this season, but the Bears might have turned a corner after this weekend’s performance in New Hampshire at the St. An-selm Invitational and the Colby Sawyer Carnival. Brown turned in a disappointing fourth-place fi nish in Saturday’s slalom event, but the Bears bounced back and fi nished third in the giant slalom on Sun-day. The Bears moved from sixth to fourth in the Eastern Collegiate Ski Conference MacConnell Divi-sion rankings.
This season, Brown has been struggling compared to the recent history of the Brown ski program. It was ranked sixth in the division after its fi rst four competitions of the season, just one spot outside of the coveted top fi ve. At the end of the season, the top fi ve teams in each division qualify for Regionals. From there, teams can then qualify for the national competition. The Bears fi nished fi fth in the nation last year, and they were not pleased with this season’s sixth place re-gional ranking heading into the weekend.
“Basically, we’ve been having problems with consistency this year,” said captain Kelly O’Hear ’07. “We have good individual performances … but we haven’t been coming together at the same time.”
Although the Bears did not perform as well as they wanted in the slalom at Pat’s Peak on Satur-day, they still managed a fourth-place fi nish. O’Hear led the team, coming in sixth out of 64 fi nish-ers. She completed her fi rst run in 59.67 seconds and followed that up with a run of 57.81, a total time of 1:57.48. Elisa Handbury ’10 and Sophie Elgort ’08 also put together solid runs, fi nishing 13th in 2:01.28
and 14th in 2:02.43, respectively. Handbury clocked in at 1:02.99 for her fi rst run and improved by more than four seconds in her second run, 58.29. Elgort also improved drastically in her second run. She completed her fi rst run in 1:02.61 and came back with 59.82. O’Hear said Elgort’s performance was par-ticularly impressive.
“Sophie Elgort has been ski-ing consistently the past few week-ends,” O’Hear said. “She’s been stepping it up this year. She’s al-ways been a consistent skier, but she’s fi gured out how to ski even faster this year.”
On Sunday, the team showed the form it displayed at the end of last season. On Mt. Sunapee, the Bears showed why they consider themselves a “GS team.” O’Hear tied for third overall in a fi eld of 70 in the GS with an overall time of 1:50.05. She completed her fi rst run in 55.92 and her second in 54.13. Anna Bengtson ’09 contin-ued her comeback from an injury-plagued career by fi nishing second in 10th overall, timing in at 56.51 and 55.45 for a total time of 1:51.96. Bengtson attributed her improve-ment this year to maintaining a con-sistent level of training for the fi rst time in years.
“I’ve been injured the last cou-ple of years, but I was able to use this entire preseason to condition,” Bengtson said. “I’ve been trying to step it up, and I’ve just been having a good time. I am just happy not be-ing on the sidelines watching ev-eryone else.”
Handbury rounded out the scor-ing for the Bears in the GS, check-ing in at 57.71 and 55.51 for a total time of 1:53.22, which was good for 15th overall. The Bears made the podium with their third-place fi n-ish in the event, trailing only win-ner Colby-Sawyer College by fi ve seconds and runner-up Boston Col-lege by two.
“We fi nally all put solid runs to-gether,” Bengtson said of Sunday’s team performance. “It was really great for our confi dence to put it together.”
O’Hear said Sunday’s perfor-mance is a step in the right direc-tion for the Bears.
“We want to be on the podium every weekend,” she said. “We want to try to improve our slalom, and we want to be at least top three
… we want to easily qualify for Re-gionals and show (everyone) who’s boss.”
The uncharacteristically slow start for the Bears this season can be attributed in part to the unsea-sonably warm temperatures. The lack of snow in January severely hampered the skiers’ ability to train adequately. During training camp in
Mmmm … 2007. We’re off to a great start. Boise State University State University Stupset Oklaho-ma University in the Fiesta Bowl, Tom Brady threw an inter-ception to ice a
second consecutive playoff exit and I’m pretty sure Terrell Owens and Curt Schilling haven’t said anything yet. I don’t want to jinx it by getting too excited, so instead of looking forward to 2007, let’s look back at some of the dumbest moves of ’06. These are the ones that don’t make sense BEFORE hindsight. They are the moves that don’t improve the present, make the future darker and draw us one step closer to hiring that guy who we’re pretty sure kills people for money.
1. The one and only … Isiah Thomas. “Zeke” gives false hope to thousands of aspiring general managers who know they could do a better job than he has. The fact is, and I’m not using hyperbo-le here, a team of monkeys could have done a better job with the Knicks than Thomas has since he took over in 2003. By not signing new players, not drafting anyone and not trading anyone, the mon-keys would have the Knicks in sal-ary-cap heaven in the most desir-able location for free agents in the world.
They would also have kept the team’s 2007 fi rst-round draft pick, be the front-runners in the Greg Oden/Kevin Durant (drools) sweepstakes and have saved the Knicks hundreds of millions of dollars.
I suppose this is sort of a life-time achievement award, but in 2006 alone Thomas foolishly trad-ed a talented, young, cheap asset in Trevor Ariza and expiring con-tracts for Steve Francis’ maximum contract, acquired Jalen Rose and his max deal before paying him to go away, spent $60 million on Jared Jeffries and drafted Mardy Collins and Renaldo Balkman (I’m con-vinced he had been watching the World Cup too much and thought he was drafting Ronaldinho) in the fi rst round. Go ahead, Zeke. Take a bow.
2. It is late December in what has already been a wild MLB off-season. Gil Meche convinced Roy-als’ GM Dayton Moore that he was worth $55 million. Juan Pierre and Gary Matthews have cashed in for a combined $110 million. Jeff Sup-pan and Jeff Weaver are weeks re-moved from signing deals that will pay them an average of more than $8.3 million per season. It is with-out a doubt either the most drug-induced off-season of my lifetime or … no, that’s the only possible explanation. Brian Sabean, the San Francisco Giants GM who kept his job despite trading the game’s best young pitcher (Fran-cisco Liriano) and the game’s best closer not named Rivera (Joe Na-than) for A.J. Pierzynski, decides he wants a hit of whatever every-
TOM TRUDEAUSPORTS STAFF WRITER
The most egregious mistakes by sports execs in 2006
Tru Story
Bill TalbotKelly O’Hear ’07 paced the ski team in both events this weekend. In Saturday’s slalom, she came in sixth, and in Sunday’s giant slalom, she tied for third.
Meg Boudreau / Herald File PhotoThe men’s swim team struggled to get out of the blocks in losses to Harvard and Yale over the weekend.
