THE BROWN DAILY HERALDVolume CXLI, No. 13 An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891 www.browndailyherald.com

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FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2006

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BY SIMMI AUJLASENIOR STAFF WRITER

The results of a Herald poll released Tues-day — which revealed that 70 percent of students disapprove of immediately ad-ding pluses and minuses to the University’s grading system — seem to corroborate what administrators and students involved in debates over the proposal already suspected.

Several members of the College Cur-riculum Council, including Dean of the College and CCC Chair Paul Armstrong, said they were not surprised by the high disapproval rating, which was the strongest expression of negative opinion on any question in the poll. The 63.6 percent of students who were against adding pluses and minuses for future classes reflected the second strongest reaction.

But student opposition to pluses and minuses is not shared by the faculty — a 2003 Sheridan Center poll showed that 80 percent of the faculty was in favor of plus/minus grading.

In December, the CCC postponed a

recommendation on making pluses and minuses part of the University’s grading system. At its meeting Jan. 31, the CCC called on the Faculty Executive Committee to approve a faculty forum regarding the proposal. In response to a suggestion from the FEC at Tuesday’s faculty meeting, the

CCC is now likely to hold a University-wide forum on the issue in late February or early March.

Tristan Freeman ’07, chair of the Academic and Administrative Affairs

Responses highlight student disapproval of plus/minus

BY REBECCA JACOBSONSENIOR STAFF WRITER

After three years of evaluation, Harvard University’s core curriculum could un-dergo major restructuring if a faculty vote occurs this spring. But as Harvard and other peer institutions examine the importance of general education requirements, Dean of the College Paul Armstrong says Brown is taking steps to strengthen arguments in favor of its open curriculum.

Key among these measures is a $100,000 grant the University received from the Teagle Foundation — a New York City-based organization that encourages “broad and intellectually stimulating curricula,” according to its online mission statement — to support a working group led by Brown and composed of eight schools with open curricula of various kinds. The working group has been meeting once a month since the beginning of the academic year to produce a “white paper” that articulates the values and goals of an open curriculum. Representatives from the schools, which include Wesleyan University and Amherst College, should have the “white paper” completed by June, Armstrong said.

Armstrong said the project will also develop assessment measures to evaluate the concrete effects of an open curriculum. These will primarily examine the experiences of Brown alums.

“Let’s look at what our graduates have actually learned,” he said. “Let’s look at the learning outcomes that are associated with the values that we have. We say lots of things about what a Brown

education does to prepare students for lives of usefulness and reputation. Let’s try to formalize that knowledge, assess it and see whether in fact the claims we make are true or not.”

Over the past 15 to 20 years, the University has encountered challenges from “conservative educational pundits” that argue “in favor of a core curriculum for reasons that are contrary to values that I hold as an educator and values that inform our curriculum at Brown,” Armstrong said.

In April 2004, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni issued letter grades to 50 universities and colleges, including all eight Ivy League and Seven Sisters colleges. ACTA, founded by Lynne Cheney, advocates a core curriculum — a series of general courses taken by all students — instead of distribution requirements or an open curriculum like Brown’s. In the 2004 report, ACTA identified seven subjects vital to a contemporary liberal arts education, such as literature, economics and mathematics, and surveyed schools to determine if broad courses in the seven fields were required or were merely offerings within a distribution. Brown received an F. No Ivy League school received higher than a C.

ACTA President Anne Neal com-mended Brown for openly advertising what it does and does not offer, unlike other institutions that claim to have a core curriculum but in reality only mandate distribution requirements. Still, Neal maintains that the University’s curriculum does students a disservice.

U. works to bolster its defense of open curriculum

see CORE, page 9

see POLLING, page 9

BY ASHLEY CHUNGCONTRIBUTING WRITER

Dufirstson Neree ’96 did not plan on a future in politics while he was at Brown. But today, he’s breaking new ground as the first Haitian immigrant ever to run for Congress.

In the 10 years since he graduated, Neree has started two non-profit organizations, founded a credit union that

serves his Haitian-American community in Miami and earned two graduate degrees

along the way. His commitment to solving economic inequality has often focused on Little Haiti, the Miami neighborhood in which he grew up. But after fostering economic equality through non-profits and work in the private sector, Neree now seeks to effect change in his

hometown from the floor of the House of Representatives.

His race against incumbent and member of the Congressional Black Caucus Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Fla., is turning heads, but Neree said support for his candidacy has been forthcoming from both Little Haiti’s citizens and his former Brown classmates.

While Brown may not have directly propelled him towards his congressional campaign, Neree credits his classmates and the “spirit” of Brown for inspiring him to pursue his dreams of changing the world for the better.

From Haiti to… Little HaitiNeree was born in Cap-Haitian, Haiti

and immigrated to Florida at age five. Though his memories of Haiti are scarce, he does recall peaceful images of a good life — sitting on his grandmother’s lap, walking along the beach and going to kindergarten wearing his bright yellow uniform shirt.

But in Miami, daily life was more complicated. In the 1980s, the diverse community of the city was extremely segregated among Haitians, African-Americans, Cuban-Americans and Cau-casians. Neree witnessed his first public riot as an elementary school student.

“It was an intense environment,” he said.

To earn money for his private high school tuition, Neree began working at Ben Photo Express 54, located in the center of Little Haiti, Miami’s Haitian

From Little Haiti to Brown and now — Congress? Dufirstson Neree ’96 could be the country’s first Haitian-American congressman

Bill Cooke / Miami Herald

Dufirstson Neree ‘96 is the first Haitian-American candidate for Congress. see NEREE, page 8

BY ERIC BECKNEWS EDITOR

Queer Alliance, Alpha Phi Alpha and the Brotherhood — student organizations whose parties last semester sparked a broad review of the University’s social events and alcohol policies — have been placed on probation following disciplinary hearings by the Office of Student Life.

QA, whose Sex Power God party resulted in over two dozen students re-quiring emergency medical attention for intoxication and landed the University in the national spotlight on Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor,” is on probation until December 2006, Margaret Klawunn, associate vice president for campus life and dean for student life, told The Herald.

Klawunn said QA leaders managing Sex Power God did not adhere to some elements of their event-management plan, such as the number, location and responsibilities of student event managers, though she stressed that the organization was not held responsible for issues beyond its control, such as the large number of students who arrived intoxicated to the alcohol-free event.

Before it can hold any social functions

Queer Alliance on probation amid SPG fallout

see QA, page 4

Jacob Melrose / Herald

Steam continued to emanate from two separate locations on the Main Green, trapping a single bike, flooded in lights and guarded by DPS officers throughout the night. The University started to restore heat and hot water to all buildings without such amenities for most of yesterday, according to an e-mail from Facili-ties Management to all on-campus residents. Heat to 47 buildings may once again be disrupted at 9 a.m. this morning. The unexpected leak in the high temperature water loop that sprung early yesterday has affected faculty and students across campus. To conserve heat, Facilities Management urged researchers to close fume hoods and students to lower storm windows.

A HOT AND STEAMY SITUATION THE HERALD POLL

FEATURE

WANDERING BARDSFour seniors, known as the Peripatetic Playwrights, have a new take on the old SciLi challenge

ARTS & CULTURE 3

‘ROID RANTHugh Murphy ’06 writes that Rafael Palmeiro could get away with hump-ing a badger in the Vatican

SPORTS 12

THE SIXTH WOMANAthlete of the Week Jaclyn Vocell ’06 shares the inspiration for her clutch performance on the w. hoops team

SPORTS 12

C R O S S W O R D

ACROSS1 Zwei cubed5 Appliance store

array, perhaps11 Gold units: Abbr.14 “Aeneid” city15 Oscar Wilde play16 It might be

tipped17 1944 58-Across

film, with “The”19 John Smith

preceder?20 Romulus, vis-à-

vis Rome21 Chesapeake

Bay nester23 Pianist Claudio25 Comment on a

library volume?:Var.

27 Popular chip28 Trips30 1988 NFL MVP32 Birthplace of 58-

Across35 Little stinger36 Cedar avoiders37 Part of a

portfolio40 1939 58-Across

film44 Loiters47 Niobe’s husband

Amphion, e.g.48 “__ business!”49 Lao-tzu’s “way”52 Is durable53 Loser’s

catchword55 Digs out the

coffee, maybe57 Piece58 Actor born

2/10/190662 Lateral opening63 Less challenging64 Fork site65 Canonized Mlle.66 Story connectors67 Arizona county

or its seat

DOWN1 Bread machine?2 French vineyard3 Self-government4 Middle ears5 Part of AARP:

Abbr.

6 1992bankruptcydeclarer

7 College fund-raising targets

8 Negative link9 Schoolyard

retort10 Thinks it

expedient11 58-Across role

in 17-Across12 Start enjoying13 Extend one’s

visit18 Kid22 Go straight to

the top?23 “It’s only __”24 Libertine26 “Psycho”

actress, 199829 Amiens is its

capital31 Agave fiber33 Humid34 Flight

coordinators:Abbr.

37 Long-distancerelationshipcomplaint

38 Inaction39 Myrmecologist’s

study40 Norwegian

saint41 They may be

grand42 Hose material43 Arrangement in

folds44 Whatsis45 Total

46 58-Across rolein 40-Across

50 Computeracronym

51 Rust relative54 Precisely56 Galley crew59 Code-breaking

org.60 Breakdown

consequence61 Nutrition no.

By Lila Cherry(c)2006 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

2/10/06

2/10/06

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Friday, February 10, 2006

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword PuzzleEdited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

xwordeditor@aol.com

Jero Matt Vascellaro

Chocolate Covered Cotton Mark Brinker

Deo Daniel Perez

Cappuccino Monday Christine Sunu

Goldfish Dreams Allison Moore

Homebodies Mirele Davis

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THIS MORNINGTHE BROWN DAILY HERALD · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2006 · PAGE 2

W E E K E N D E V E N T S

M E N U

SHARPE REFECTORY

LUNCH — Chicken Fingers with Dipping Sauces, Oven Browned Potatoes, String Beans La Belle, Cajun Potatoes, Kielbasa, Hard Boiled Eggs, Noodle Kugel, Butterscotch Layer Cake, Chocolate Chip Cookies

DINNER — London Broil, Garlic and Butter Infused Rice, Zucchini and Summer Squash, Lima Beans, Anadama Bread, Shoepeg Corn Casserole, Strawberry Jello, Cherry Pie

VERNEY-WOOLLEY DINING HALL

LUNCH — Vegetarian Caribbean Black Bean Soup, Manhattan Clam Chowder, Chicken Fingers, Sticky Rice, Vegan Vermicelli with Garlic Sauce, Sugar Snap Peas, Chocolate Chip Cookies

DINNER — Vegetarian Caribbean Black Bean Soup, Manhattan Clam Chowder, Italian Meatloaf, Grilled Chicken, Corn Souffle, Mushroom Risotto, Carrots VichyWhole Green Beans, Anadama Bread, Apple Pie

SCHOOL CHOICE, RACIAL SEGREGATION AND TEST-SCORE GAPSFriday, 12 p.m., (Barus Hall, Dewey Conference Room) — The Urban Education Policy Program sponsors a lecture by Helen Ladd, professor of public policy studies and economics at Duke University.

MUSIC, CULTURE, TECHNOLOGY LECTUREFriday, 4 p.m., (Orwig Music Bldg., Rm. 315) — “Cage’s Muzak Plus” featuring Hervé Vanel. Free and open to the public.

TSUNAMI NIGHT BAZAARSaturday, 6 p.m., (Sayles Hall) — A night bazaar to raise funds for tsunami victims in Aceh. Indonesian and other Asian foods, games, massages, raffle, auction, dances, gamelan orchestra and mask performance.

DARFUR TEACH-INSunday, 8 p.m., (Wilson Hall) — Come learn more about the current situation in Sudan and what you can do to help. Video clips, discussion and food.

ARTS & CULTURE THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2006 · PAGE 3

BY ALLISON EHRICH BERNSTEINSTAFF WRITER

As suggested by their alliterative title, the self-proclaimed Peripatetic Playwrights — Emily Drumsta ’06, Matthew Kelly ’06, Krista Knight ’06 and Jen Silverman ’06 — spent a frantic December wandering everywhere across campus from Johnny Rockets on Thayer Street to the Sciences Library elevator searching for inspiration to add to the “nomad play,” which is what they were calling it at the time. This weekend, the peripatetic play, now titled “Growing Born” finds a home at Production Workshop’s lower space in the hands of director Danielle Kourtesis ’07.

The driving force behind “Growing Born” was a spirit of collaboration. The four playwrights have studied together throughout their Brown careers, Kelly said. Though the quartet had extensive playwriting experience, none of them had ever worked as a team to produce a single script. Professor of Literary Arts Paula Vogel, whose class Drumsta, Kelly and Knight took and in which Silverman is currently enrolled, “talked a lot about collaborative theatre,” and the students decided to “see what it’d be like to create one joint script,” Kelly said. He added that for all the on-campus focus on new techniques in theater, very little collaborative theater like “Growing Born” appears at the University.

This past fall, Kelly and Knight began discussing the basic idea behind the nomad theater process they eventually created, and Drum-sta and Silverman soon joined in the plans. “As we talked about it, we started developing rules we were going to play by,” Silverman said.

In late November the play-wrights met with Kourtesis, whom Kelly had recruited to direct, to brainstorm further. “We decided we would (each) create a laundry list of 10 items that would be required to appear in the first draft of the script,” Kelly said. They created the lists while in transit during Thanksgiving break. Items ranged from an empty studio apartment to a bull in a subway. The latter element actually made it into final drafts, the playwrights said.

Drumsta volunteered to write the first 10 pages of the play while sitting in Johnny Rockets, guided only by her laundry list. She then sent Kelly

to the Bear’s Lair to write the next 10 pages. According to the group’s guidelines, Kelly’s pages could precede, follow or be interspersed among Drumsta’s, but he was forbidden from deleting anything already written.

“While we were writing, we didn’t talk about it (or) worry about who wrote what,” Silverman said. The process continued for two rotations and produced a rough draft, which evolved to a full draft on Dec. 16, Silverman said.

The writing locations influenced the script in a variety of ways, some more clearly than others. Silverman recalled her turn penning pages in the SciLi elevator: upon rereading, she noticed that the jerky motion of the elevator had influenced her script to feel “all very urgent.”

Midway through the writing process, Kelly and Knight proposed the developing play — at the time only 40 pages long — to PW for the first slot of the second semester. “In proposing for the PW board, most people submit scripts and proposals,” said Alex Rosenthal ’08, a PW board member and the production manager of “Growing Born.” “This is unique in that the PW board was given a description of the process — not knowing what would happen.”

“PW trusted us and took a tremendous leap of faith. … I’m just impressed they put faith in us,” Silverman said. Kourtesis held auditions just as reading period started, though the cast of eight actors had as little formal script to work with as the PW board had.

Before winter break, Silverman and Kelly went through the script to make necessary changes and spent their first week of winter break

exchanging phone calls, e-mails and instant messages. The show’s design team received the final script just after Christmas, but the show never quite settled into the typical production process.

“Just as the playwrights created an innovatively collaborative pro-cess, we’ve tried to make this as collaborative as possible,” Rosenthal said.

Everyone — the design crew, the actors and Elizabeth Broadwin ’07, the play’s stage manager and assistant director — helped to edit the script based on their own ideas and for reasons of practicality, Kourtesis said. A swimming pool, for instance, was cut.

“As far as I’m concerned, every-one’s directed the show to some extent. I really love experimenting (and) that definitely happened a lot in the rehearsal process — the actors contributed lots of ideas (and) I really like the way this process ended up,” Kourtesis added.

Overall, Kourtesis attributed the personality of the show to its unusual beginning. “Basically, that writing technique has influenced every aspect of the show. They started writing in all these places that didn’t have any explicit connection, but throughout this process, we’ve all come together.” That synthesis, she added, is reflected onstage.

“Every time I see it (in rehearsal), it just changes. It gets a little tighter, a little crazier. ... I trust what they’re doing — they make choices that surprise me and I enjoy those choices,” Silverman said. “This is the thing with the collaborative process — what we were trying to do and what I think we pulled off was to influence each other.”

Sprit of collaboration guides Peripatetic Playwrights

BY STEPHANIE BERNHARDSENIOR STAFF WRITER

If nothing else, the playwrights and production coordinator of the Brown/Trinity New Plays Festival, which is running through Feb. 12, promise that the festival will live up to its name.

The goal of the festival is to allow talented young playwrights, in this case one undergraduate and two graduate students in the Department of Literary Arts, to experiment with their work.

“This was a chance for playwrights to dig a little bit deeper into their own work,” said Becca Wolff, the production coordinator of the festival who works in the Department of Literary Arts.

According to Dan LeFranc, a first-year graduate student and writer of the play “Bruise Easy,” “These plays are really representative of where American theater will be headed.”

LeFranc, along with fellow playwrights Krista Knight ’06 and first-year graduate student Cory Hinkle, has spent the last several months translating his ideas from vision to script and from script to production.

The process began in a graduate seminar led by Erin Cressida Wilson, an English professor in the Literary Arts program. LeFranc said Wilson asked the students to make a list of their greatest fears as a class assignment. LeFranc wrote that his “worst fear was to lose a parent without knowing why.” Thus, the seed of “Bruise Easy” was planted.

In the play, directed by Makaela Pollock GS, two estranged siblings living in Orange County, Calif., realize one day that their mother has disappeared. The play follows the siblings’ increasingly desperate actions throughout the day as they try to make sense of what has happened to their mother.

Much of “Bruise Easy” is drawn from ancient Greek plays such as Sophocles’ “Electra.” LeFranc hopes, however, that viewers will see his play as an original in its own right.

“I wanted it to be its own thing,” he said.A key aspect of the play is its treatment of Orange

County and its flat culture. LeFranc, who grew up in South Orange County, wanted to express the “middle class ennui and malaise” he feels permeates the atmosphere.

“There is an absence of real culture there,” he said. “The culture is as artificial as the landscape, which is now mostly strip malls.”

Wolff, who has worked with all three playwrights throughout the many stages of production, agreed that the play was “very transposed into the modern setting and culture.”

“Dan worked with very universal themes about family and the types of dynamics that make people feel trapped,” Wolff said.

She also expressed satisfaction with the playwrights’ results, especially given the limited amount of time they were given to write and produce the plays. Once

New Plays Festival showcases ‘where American theater will be headed’

see NEW PLAYS, page 4

Sophie Barbasch / Herald

Growing Born, seen here in its final dress rehearsal, is playing in the down-stairs space of Production Workshop form Feb. 10th to the 13th.

Solution, tips and computer program at www.sudoku.com.

PAGE 4 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2006

Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9.

the plays were selected, the playwrights went straight to cast-ing in December. They chose actors from first-year graduate students at Brown and the Trinity Repertory Company, along with a few professional actors.

Next, the playwrights and their directors were given a month to work with designers on their sets, sound, costumes and other elements of the production. They did not begin rehearsals until the second half of January, so they had only three weeks to rehearse the plays.

However, because the plays were written in a workshop set-ting, forming a positive bond between writer, director and actor came easily, as all three had been following the play’s progress from its conception.

“We began to see the play in three dimensions very early on in the process,” LeFranc said. He said he was deeply appreciative of

the help from the students in his workshop.

“It’s our work, but it is so much about a collaborative process,” he said.

Knight’s play, called “Spoken Insects” and directed by Peter Sampieri, tells the story of a rising flood in Quincy, Illi. and the attempts of various characters, including a chicken, to quell the deluge. Wolff called the play “a pretty experimental piece” about “the problems and deficiencies of language.” Much of the play, which she defined as “comedic,” revolves around the characters’ inability to communicate effectively with each other.

“It is about what people say when they don’t know what they want to say to each other,” Wolff said. “Krista wants to express human frustration over communication.”

Hinkle’s play “Cipher,” directed by Donya Washington GS, is much more grounded in modern life and events. Wolff called it “the most current of the three,” as it follows a man named Clerk B,

whose job is to monitor suspected terrorists from an underground government office and prevent them from attacking America. The play is slightly fantastic; Clerk B cannot remember his own past, but he can read the minds of others.

“It has an element of dream-iness,” Wolff said. “It’s trying to communicate two worlds on stage.”

Like the other two plays, “Cipher” tries to do something that is different from anything an audience has ever seen before.

“This is about really skilled writers going in new directions,” Wolff said. “It is always surprising, very immediate. It was a chall-enge, but I think we’ve done a successful job.”

Performances are free. “Spoken Insects” will be performed to-night at 8 p.m. and tomorrow at 2 p.m. “Cipher” will be performed on Sunday at 2 p.m. and “Bruise Easy” will be performed tomorrow at 8 p.m. All performances will take place at the McCormack Family Theater.

New playscontinued from page 3

while on probation, QA must submit to administrators a de-tailed event-management plan, which will be vetted by OSL, the Department of Public Safety, Health Services, Health Education and Emergency Medical Services before receiving final approval from Klawunn.

Klawunn added that QA will have to “think carefully” about how its events uphold the organization’s purpose and how it advertises events to meet that purpose.

Additionally, all QA members and any party managers who served at Sex Power God must attend a social function manager and harm-reduction training program before being able to serve as social function managers,

Klawunn said.Josh Teitelbaum ’08, co-

president of QA, told The Herald that the organization has “had to re-think a lot of (its) events” in light of the disciplinary decision. Specifically, QA is moving events previously held at Brown off-campus to avoid having to receive University approval, he said.

QA is partnering with its sister organization at the Rhode Island School of Design, the RISD Sex Club, to host its annual drag show. “We’re not even looking at considering options on Brown’s campus” for that event, Teitelbaum said.

The future of Starf*ck, a large party akin to Sex Power God traditionally held by QA each spring, is not yet clear.

Klawunn said QA is “going to have to meet a very high stand-ard” to host a large party while on probation.

Teitelbaum said it is too early to comment on Starf*ck, though he suggested that the party could be held off-campus.

Despite efforts to move some of its events off campus and away from the oversight of University administrators, Teitel-baum stressed that QA and the Office of Student Life are working cooperatively.

“Last semester, in all the hysteria, there was less dialogue. Now we’re starting to have a better working relationship with the Office of Student Life. Dean Klawunn has reached out to us,” he said.

Klawunn told The Herald that moving QA events off campus “is not ideal and not where we want things to go,” conceding that the University doesn’t “have the same control … if they hold them off campus.”

Klawunn said she hopes

to engage QA leaders in a conversation to find a mutually advantageous solution that keeps QA events at Brown.

Two other student org-anizations, Alpha Phi Alpha and the Brotherhood, were also investigated by OSL and placed on probation until May 2006.

A melee the night before Sex Power God took place when about 400 people were gathered on the Main Green and in Sayles Hall, where a party co-sponsored by the two groups was coming to an end. After various verbal arguments, fistfights erupted and one individual fired several shots before running away.

The party was advertised on a non-University Web site and attracted non-Brown students, many of whom were in Providence that weekend for a national dance competition. The Web site of the dance competition called

the party in Sayles the year’s “mega pre-party” without the consent of Alpha Phi Alpha or the Brotherhood.

It is not clear who was res-ponsible for advertising the party to those outside of the Brown community. Klawunn said that the two organizations were placed on probation because they knew about the external advertising before the party but did not inform University officials.

Other than the length, the terms of probation for Alpha Phi Alpha and the Brotherhood are the same as those for QA — they must submit a more detailed event management plan vetted by a variety of campus agencies and approved by Klawunn, and event managers must be retrained.

Student leaders of Alpha Phi Alpha and the Brotherhood did not respond Thursday to e-mails seeking comment.

QAcontinued from page 1

CAMPUS NEWSTHE BROWN DAILY HERALD · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2006 · PAGE 5

BY NATHALIE PIERREPONTCONTRIBUTING WRITER

Though a Jan. 27 survey released by the Chronicle of Higher Education found that academic job prospects have improved for doctoral recipients in history nationwide, competition for the University’s doctoral recipients has remained fairly constant in the past 15 to 20 years, according to Professor of History Jim McClain, who chairs the department.

The “increase in job pros-pects has been less noticeable to us because we’ve been com-petitive all along,” McClain said. “If (doctoral recipients) want a job in academia, most of the time they have been able to find one.”

Recent graduates of the University’s doctoral program now work as professors at a wide range of schools, including Princeton University, the University of Chicago, Yale Uni-versity and several major state schools. However, McClain conceded that acquiring a job is easier in some historic fields than others, modern American history being the most

competitive.Doctoral recipients, dis-

sertation in hand, often com-pete with published candidates who already have teaching experience. When the University’s Department of History was looking for an assistant professor in 20th century history, there were 200 applicants, many of whom had three to four years of teaching experience and had already published books and articles.

The Chronicle cited several fac-tors contributing to the national increase in job opportunities for history graduate students, including more openings created by a spike in retirements among history professors.

At Brown, eight out of 27 history professors have retired in the past five years, McClain said, creating more openings for professorship and assistant professorship positions in the department. This trend has allowed the department to reassess its curriculum, he said.

Recent political events and global trends have led to an

BY ANNE WOOTTONMETRO EDITOR

Final candidates to replace An-dries van Dam, the University’s first-ever vice president for research and a professor of computer science, should be determined by the end of the month or early March. A search committee composed of representatives from various departments will present its recommendations to President Ruth Simmons and Provost Ro-bert Zimmer, according to Deputy Provost Vincent Tompkins, who staffed the committee.

Van Dam’s decision to step down from his position in June 2006 and return full-time to teaching and research in the Department of Computer Science was announced to the faculty in November.

Tompkins said that although

external applicants could be considered for the position, the search committee is first looking to fill the position from within the University. Faculty were encouraged to submit nominations of tenured professors they thought might like to be considered for the position, and those professors were then approached and asked to apply, Tompkins said.

“What the committee is fo-cused on is finding somebody who will have the qualities to build on the major changes and im-provements that have happened over the last years since (the Office of the Vice President for Research) was set up,” Tompkins said.

Leading a new postSince the creation of the vice

president for research position

BY JONATHAN HERMANSENIOR STAFF WRITER

Like many students looking to change their on-campus hous-ing assignments last semester, Elizabeth Stern ’08 opted to register with Disability Support Services, which provides special housing for students who need them, according to its Web site.

Stern, who declined to com-ment on why she registered with DSS, said she knew in September that she wanted to change her living situation and was put on the waitlist.

“(The Office of Residential Life) said it was very unlikely (for me to get a single), but I talked to them and began to register with Disability Support Services,” Stern said. “I really didn’t know what DSS was until I talked to a student working there. You’re in the dark unless you make a concerted effort.”

ResLife contacted Stern three days before she returned to campus this semester and told her that a single in New Pem-broke was available, she said.

Stern is one of roughly 500 students registered with DSS, according to Director Catherine Axe. 113 students were approved for accommodations through the program as of last week, Axe said.

“Anybody who has a condition

that can be affected by certain factors, we look at what can be done to rectify it,” Axe said. “It’s all done on a case-by-case basis. (A student’s housing assignment) depends on what is requested, what their (medical or other) documentation indicates and what is available in terms of housing.”

Axe continued: “(Students with) asthma and allergies ac-count for a good number (of those registered with DSS). Many of these students can self-accommodate.”

Axe said she understands the difficulty many students face when trying to change rooms. These frustrations are compounded by the fact that many students wishing for a new living situation request singles, which are often not available, according to Rosario Navarro, assistant director of housing.

Until next week, the Univer-sity will abstain from assigning 57 currently vacant on-campus housing spots to students who already have housing and are looking to change rooms. The University’s policy to wait allows for students who have taken leaves of absences, are facing academic discipline, have gone abroad or have been delayed from arriving on campus to finalize their status before their

beds are reassigned, according to Richard Bova, senior associate dean of residential life.

“Every single day we are getting changes (to who is returning),” Bova said. “It’s a very complicated and time-consuming process.”

Many available rooms were vacated by seniors who graduated in December, Bova said.

“In the fall we are always slightly short of housing, and in the spring we are often slightly under-booked,” Bova said.

Before assigning vacated rooms to students on the waitlist, ResLife usually contacts DSS, Axe said.

“ResLife tends to hold onto the rooms that fit the needs we often encounter — singles and rooms near bathrooms,” Axe said. “Especially if I hear about (a new need) before the semester begins, we can usually make these accommodations.”

“The frustrating part can be when a student has a need and the housing is not available,” Axe said. “For the most part, people (registered with DSS) are able to get into a suitable location.”

But not all students expressed satisfaction with the process.

Like Stearns, Katherine Goetz ’08 also opted to register with DSS. She applied for a new room

Professorships for history Ph.D.’s on the rise nationallyCompetition remains steady for Brown’s doctoral recipients

Committee looks internally to replace VP for researchvan Dam’s replacement to continue progress made at new position

Students looking for housing register with DSS

see HISTORY, page 6see DSS, page 7

see VAN DAM, page 7

Alanna Tisdale / Herald

Vice President for Research Andy van Dam will step down in June to return to full-time teaching and research for Brown’s computer science department.

PAGE 6 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2006

increase in specialization among historians, another factor lead-ing to a rise in job opportunities, according to the Chronicle.

Tom Devany GS, a first year Ph.D. candidate in medieval history, said the number of students focusing in international studies and global issues has “exploded in the past few years.”

The war in Iraq and the increased economic importance of China and India has attracted more students to Middle East and South Asian studies, McClain said. The movement of students beyond

more traditional fields such as modern American and modern European history has allowed history departments to expand their specialized offerings, thus creating new job opportunities.

The Chronicle suggests that another reason for the increase in available academic jobs might be decreased competition for such positions as history doctoral recipients increasingly look to other professions.

Devany said he has also witnessed this trend. Although most students working towards a Ph.D. expect to attain a professorship, many are also drawn towards public history positions or consulting jobs as alternatives, he said. There is a considerable number of jobs

within the public history field, including working in a museum, for a historical society, in history broadcasting or anything in-volving the marketing of his-tory for public consumption, he said.

Though history has traditionally been a popular concentration among under-graduates, many students do not necessarily intend to pursue graduate work in the field. Chris Bremner ’06, an aspiring actor and playwright and a modern European history concentrator, said he has benefited from the general knowledge and writing skills he has learned even though he may not use his history degree for life after college.

Historycontinued from page 5

promise for the baseball team. Now, outfielder Paul Christian ’06 has been named to the first team of Northeast Baseball Review’s Northeast Corridor Team.

Eleven players from the America East, Atlantic-10, Big East, Colonial Athletic Association, Ivy League, Metro Atlantic Athletic, Northeast and Patriot League Conferences were chosen for the first and second teams.

Christian, whose towering home runs have been known to terrorize neighbors living on Arlington Avenue across from Aldrich Dexter Field, ranked in the top six in the Ivy League with a .355 batting average, eight home runs, 38 RBIs and 43 runs scored last season. He will move from second base to the outfield this spring after undergoing Tommy John surgery in the offseason.

Hayes ’06, gymnasts this week’s award winners

Guard Sarah Hayes ’06 of the

women’s basketball team was named a second team District I Academic All-American by the College Sports Information Directors of America. Currently third in the Ivy League at 14.8 points and first with 2.9 steals per game, Hayes is double concen-trating in psychology and history with a 3.43 grade point average. No word on what her GPA would be with pluses and minuses.

Brittany Anderson ’09 won the ECAC’s Rookie of the Week for gymnastics for the second consecutive week, hitting career bests in every event and scoring a 38 in the all-around on Sunday against Cortland State University. Rachel Foodman ’09 also earned weekly honors, when she was named Specialist of the Week for getting the team’s top score in the floor exercise on Saturday in a loss to Cornell and getting the top mark in the vault on Sunday.

As the only Salem, N.H. resident on campus, Sports Editor Chris Hatfield ’06 always has some 6-0-3 love for Katie King for reppin’ his hometown and soon-to-be alma mater.

Hatfieldcontinued from page 12

into young Barry’s 250-pound alter ego, Barroids. The new and improved Barry was breaking home run records left and right, and at the age of 40 showed no signs of slowing down. Many people, including John McCain, suspected Barroids of drinking from the modern-day fountain of youth.

In front of McCain’s Senate Judiciary Committee, Bonds admitted to taking steroids but claimed he did so unknowingly. The supplement he allegedly thought was flaxseed oil was actually a combination of chemicals strong enough to turn Jekyll into Hyde. No me gusta, Barry. Miss Cleo puts on a better façade, for Christ’s sake. Barry, you should have known you were no match for Johndoids McCain.

Limited budgets and a lack of commitment from the big-money sports keep testing agencies a step behind the rogue chemists who develop steroids. Before 2003, Barroids could

have spent entire mornings wallowing in a kiddy pool filled with the Cream, the Clear, THG or any other number of designer steroids, then toweled off and passed a drug test in the afternoon. If there is no test for the drug you are taking, then it doesn’t matter how often you are tested or how stiff the penalties if you are caught.

We can’t blame Bonds for creating the drug epidemic; professional athletes have used drugs since the beginning of time. Babe Ruth played half his games completely cocked, Lawrence Taylor had a serious case of “white line fever” and Mike Tyson obviously sucked down copious amounts of helium. I’m also pretty sure Derek Jeter has been taking estrogen for years, but that kind of thing doesn’t make headlines. There simply aren’t any easy answers to this whole mess. No one short of Sexy Jesus can sort it all out.

Hugh Murphy ’06 will now be tested about seven or eight times for steroids before throwing the javelin at Heps.

Murphycontinued from page 12

starter’s minutes. Which role do you like more?

As a human being, I love the starting role, who doesn’t? But I look at coming off the bench differently than other people do. The way I see it, I have five minutes to check out who I

am going to be guarding, who is guarding me and how I can play against them. I love being a spark off the bench because I feel like it is something that every team needs. If the starters aren’t playing well, then I can come in and pick them up right away.

See more Athlete of the Week at http://www.browndailyherald.com

I can’t say that I set out to make intramurals one of the bigger parts of my life at Brown, but that is exactly what they have become. Until eighth grade, I was the typical hyperactive kid who played one sport each season. Then came high school, and that lifestyle went out the window as I pursued more time-consuming interests. Now that I’ve recaptured my pre-high school way of life, I don’t recall how I stayed sane without it. There’s no better feeling than getting ready to head to the OMAC to blow off steam from classes with a game of IM softball, basketball, water polo, tennis, volleyball or ice hockey. It’s the ultimate cure for those days when I wish all of academia would just leave me alone.

Best of all, intramurals have given me the opportunity to live the American dream of winning

an athletic championship. I am a very proud member of the Dienasty softball juggernaut that has won two straight low division championships, one last spring and one this past fall. Regardless of the championships I’ve won (as nice as they’ve been), I’ve loved living in the moment of these games, feeling like an actual athlete for the briefest of moments. The highest level of athletics I ever reached in high school was junior varsity volleyball, and it didn’t even compare to the highs and lows I’ve had with intramurals.

There is real drama, real

nerves and real competition. The thrill of victory and agony of defeat are just as real in intramural competition as they are at the next level of sports.

Most importantly, there is no doubt that the athletes couldn’t be happier to be there. If you don’t believe me, then I’ll leave you with this: in preparation for its move up to mid-intensity softball in the spring, Dienasty starts its spring training on Friday.

Chris Mahr ’07 hopes to sell his idea of Eau de Chlorine cologne to Calvin Klein for a hefty profit.

in November and said she was further down on the waitlist than Stern. Students who request room changes are prioritized by when they submit their request and then by their semester rank, Navarro said.

Goetz grew particularly wor-ried about her living situation because of her Crohn’s disease — a chronic inflammatory disease of the intestines — which is in

remission. “(My roommate) and I were on

totally different time schedules,” Goetz said. “(My worrying about housing) was getting to the point that over break I wasn’t sleeping and it began to worry me that my Crohn’s may come back. It was getting to the point that I felt that I didn’t want to return this semester,” she said.

Goetz said she found a room in a Grad Center suite through a “friend of a friend” last week, thereby circumventing the process of changing rooms through ResLife, she said.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2006 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 7

in 2002, van Dam —a faculty member at Brown since 1965 — has been responsible, to a large extent, for guiding the University through a new focus on research opportunities that has been emphasized recently by Simmons and other top administrators.

Until 2002, the responsibilities of the vice president for research were considered under the jurisdiction of the dean of the Graduate School. Today, the Office of the Vice President for Research is independent from the Grad School, though it works in conjunction with other offices on campus that were part of the “major changes and improve-ments” Tompkins mentioned, such as Brown Technology Partnerships and the Office of Sponsored Projects, which itself maintains a staff of over 30.

“(The decision to create the position of vice president for research) really was an indication that part of (Simmons’ and Zimmer’s) program was to beef up both the Graduate School and research — not competing with the undergraduate experience or at the cost of it, but building up the other two legs of what you might think of as a three-legged stool,” van Dam said. He noted that, contrary to popular conception among students and alums, steps taken to strengthen graduate programs and research at the University can only have “salutary effects” for undergraduates, including more courses, more space and more opportunities for research.

“We want to be a research university — we are a research university, and we want to become an even stronger research university — but always from Brown’s unique perspective, which is that it’s going to enhance all of the (University) community’s experiences,” van Dam said.

He added that increased communication with faculty has been one major improvement made since his office’s creation.

“We’re a service organization, and that’s a lot clearer to many faculty than it used to be,” van Dam said.

A new focus on research

In the three years since the position of vice president for research was created, the senior administration has set aside hundreds of thousands of dollars to stimulate research and serve as seed funding for faculty research that will ideally lead to larger federal grants.

Close to $300,000 is handed out to the chairs of humanities and social sciences departments each year. This money is intended to be distributed in $2,000 merit-based grants to about half of the faculty members in each one of these departments, particularly because these fields are generally ineligible for federal funding.

There is also a new $400,000 research fund, from which grants of between $70,000 and $100,000 are handed out each year strictly to finance multi-disciplinary team projects. The faculty involved with these projects, after a year of work with funding from the University, “coalesce around a strong research idea that can then be submitted as a proposal to a funding agency for block grant funding, in contrast to the normal mode of funding, which is for single principle investigators,” van Dam said.

For example, the National Science Foundation will typically give a grant to a single principle investigator — one professor — and one or two graduate students, van Dam said. But block grant funding “could fund half a dozen (professors), and often across institutions.”

Van Dam said about $30 million of funding has come to the University in the three years since the seed funding program started.

“We see a huge return on investment by what is a large, but still in the scheme of things relatively modest investment. This is some of the best money Brown can spend, because it comes back,” he said.

Gerald Diebold, a professor of chemistry, said that the new vice president for research must be dedicated to matching the funds for grants provided by other universities.

“We need bold steps to get our institution good talent in graduate programs,” Diebold said. “It’s one of the things that will propel us to be a recognized research institution,” he added, mentioning the need for a commitment to things like keeping graduate tuition cost low in order to attract students.

DSScontinued from page 5

van Damcontinued from page 5

Mahrcontinued from page 12

AOTWcontinued from page 12

PAGE 8 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2006

community. Young Neree would help Caribbean immigrants and farm-workers fill out paperwork, only to eventually realize that they could not even sign the application. Neree said he then realized why he, a 13-year-old boy, was filling out the forms for them.

Lessons and learningAn honors student and foot-

ball star at Curley Notre Dame High School in Little Haiti, Neree was recruited for Brown’s football team by Coach Bob Barton. As an economics concentrator at Brown, Neree said he thrived on the University’s spirit of independent learning and his classmates’ eagerness to effect change.

“Everyone wanted to do something for a better future, and there was the constant pull of positive energy,” Neree said.

Neree said Brown’s “spirit of changing the world” en-couraged his own dream to alleviate poverty in the world after graduating from Brown. The dream was feasible in his mind, Neree added, because he felt every Brown student shared that kind of vision or hope for the future. “It was truly empowering,” Neree said.

A bright ideaIn his senior year, Neree began

applying for service awards and fellowships that would allow him to work in public policy. In

January 1995, he spotted a flyer for the Woodrow Wilson Fellow-ship. Seven months later, Neree was awarded the fellowship, which would finance his future graduate study in public policy and international affairs.

Only a few months later, Neree spotted an article in Brown Alumni Magazine about Mark Winston Griffith, a Brown alum who had founded the Central Brooklyn Federal Credit Union. Neree thought to create a credit union back in Little Haiti, where limited banking and economic disenfranchisement were hurting the community. Neree arranged a meeting with Griffith, who advised Neree to begin the project right away.

Neree turned to his favorite instructor, professor emeritus of engineering Barrett Hazeltine, for advice. Together, the two worked to create a business plan for Neree’s credit union.

“(Neree) was a very quick-thinking and dedicated person,” Hazeltine said.

He added that his former student’s political ambitions are not surprising. “He always had a great sense of responsibility, and he was genuinely concerned about people.”

Before graduating, Neree received the Samuel Huntington Public Service Award and chose to defer his enrollment at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government to spend a year working in public policy.

After walking out of the Van Wickle Gates, Neree founded The Credit is Due Project, Inc., a non-profit organization that

actively supported increased financial services, small bus-inesses, youth leadership and home ownership in inner-city communities. Neree began gaining momentum behind his credit union idea.

Double degrees and public projects

With one non-profit under his belt, Neree began pursuing a Master’s in Public Policy at the Kennedy School. Five years later, Neree had earned not only an M.P.P. but also a Master’s in Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

During his first year at Harvard, Neree formed the Little Haiti Community Alliance — a coalition of various community-based organizations to encour-age conversation within the Little Haiti community and fight against economic discrimination by federally insured banks.

In his third year at Harvard, with the combined efforts of his two non-profits —The Credit is Due Project, Inc. and the Little Haiti Community Alliance — Neree finally fulfilled his dream, establishing the Little Haiti-Edison Federal Credit Union.

But he didn’t stop there. In 2001, Neree established Free-dom Trust Company, LLC, an investment firm that promotes diversity in telecommunications and seeks to increase minority control and ownership of radio stations in media markets.

After graduating from Harvard, Neree started work with the Inter-American De-velopment Bank, where he helped finance Latin American

infrastructure.

Time for a ChangeWith three Ivy League degrees

and the success of three non-profit organizations behind him, Neree said he could look back and see that he had certainly accomplished a lot. But while he knew that his efforts were helping his community, Neree said he still believed he could do more.

The 2004 bicentennial cele-bration of Haitian indepen-dence sparked Neree’s interest in Haiti. As Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigned after the February coup d’état, Neree understood how Americans might view Haiti simply as a third world country marked by suffering and insecurity. He said his first response was to question whether there was “anything that I could do.”

Neree said he believed serving in the U.S. government — specifically as the representative for his home district, which at 30 percent has the highest concentration of Haitian-Americans in the country — would be the most effective way to create change.

The district’s current rep-resentative, Kendrick Meek, is the son of Carrie Meek, the first black woman to represent Florida in Congress, who fought for refugee and minority rights in Miami. But Neree said his own research suggested that Little Haiti voters perceived Kendrick Meek as out-of-step with the community. Moreover, Neree said he disliked the fact that Meek was never really elected, but rather “inherited the posi-tion from his mother.” Meek had never been challenged, Neree said, and consequently never had to articulate his own platform or visions for change. Neree said he decided it was, in fact, time for a change in Little Haiti.

In May of 2005, Neree de-clared his candidacy to represent the 17th Congressional District in the House of Representatives.

In the raceNine months into the race,

Neree said he is beginning to feel the pressure of the campaign. As the first Haitian immigrant ever to run for Congress, Neree said he feels he has to run his campaign the “right way.”

“People are all watching closely because I’m the first of my kind trying to accomplish

this objective,” he said. “People all of a sudden associate me with being a champion for a group of people who haven’t yet necessarily accepted me as a leader.”

Neree also acknowledges, however, that the publicity he has garnered as the first Haitian congressional candidate is beneficial.

“I can stay focused because I can see that this isn’t just for myself,” Neree said. “If I succeed, I can help to elevate the status of a whole class of people.”

So far, Neree said his campaign is going well. He began campaigning early and efficiently and said he tried to illustrate differences between himself and Meek. Through radio interviews and interaction with the people of the community, Neree said he is building a stronger connection with his voter base.

“Volunteers are showing up now saying, ‘Hey, I heard you on the radio, and I was moved. I don’t have a lot of experience, but I want to help,’” Neree said of his growing campaign team, featured on his campaign Web site GoNeree.com.

Brown alums are also offering their support. Neree’s former classmate and close friend Tanya Jones ’96 read about Neree’s campaign in an article in the Miami Times.

“After reading the article, I was so proud of Dufirstson for his courage and his character … and his understanding that the country needs new leadership — young leadership,” Jones said.

She told other alums about Neree’s candidacy and even e-mailed Neree to offer her help. Jones is now Neree’s campaign chair. Other Brown alums are also helping with the campaign, and the local Brown club is arranging for Neree to speak at a meeting of Brown alums. Neree said he also hopes to hear from current students interested in joining his campaign team for the summer.

As election day, September 5, 2006, draws near, Neree said he is focused on his campaign.

“I want to make my mark on the district,” Neree said.

If he does not succeed in this year’s elections, Neree plans to continue his work with public service projects. But Neree did not dwell on the possibility of losing the race and said he is set on winning.

“First and foremost, I want to win for the people,” Neree said.

Nereecontinued from page 1

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2006 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 9

Committee of the Undergraduate Council of Students, said he expected the results.

“I think it shows the high level of involvement that Brown students have,” he said.

At Wednesday’s general body meeting, UCS passed a resolution requesting permission for one of its members to attend meetings of the CCC and the Graduate Council concerning the proposal.

Freya Zaheer ’06, a member of the CCC, also said the results confirm what she already sus-pected. “We’ve gotten the same feedback from e-mails and just talking to students,” she said.

Armstrong said though was initially surprised that 24.6 per-cent of students polled approved of the addition of pluses and minuses, “these numbers are actually consistent with the things I’ve heard from students I’ve talked to,” Armstrong said.

He expressed concern re-garding the marked difference between faculty and student opinions on the issue, and said the gap underscores the need for further communication between students and faculty on the issue.

“Over the years, faculty have been frustrated with the way in which this issue has been bottled up,” said Luther Spoehr, lecturer in education and vice chair of the CCC.

Spoehr pointed out that the poll was taken before widespread public discussion on the issue had occurred and suggested that

polling students again after more public discourse has taken place might show important changes in opinion.

“As you can see from another question in the poll, student opinion changed over time about arming the police,” he said.

“I’m not sure what the format would be for other dis-cussions, but they will take place,” Spoehr said. “There is every effort being made here to have this discussion conducted transparently.”

Michael Thompson ’07, chair of the UCS Communications Committee, thought the strong student reaction was appropriate. “It’s our transcript, it’s with us for the rest of our lives, so students should have the most input on this issue,” he said.

Amina Massey ’08 had a different take on the issue. “I think they should be more concerned about other issues like arming of cops,” she said.

The number of null responses increased slightly for the second plus/minus question, which asked what students thought of the proposed system if it went into effect only for the University’s future classes. The increase suggests that students have somewhat less strong opposition to the proposal if it would not apply to them.

“I’m not surprised those people voted against it because I think the grading system at-tracted people to Brown,” said Rohan Keshwara ’09. “Changing that would take away from the relaxed, nurturing environment that Brown offers.”

Pollingcontinued from page 1

“It’s important to structure a curriculum so that students have exposure to broad areas of knowledge,” she said. “When you have a core curriculum and some of the same books are being read by everyone, it gives a foundation for discussion that can be quite exciting.”

The report, titled “The Hollow Core: Failure of the General Education Curriculum,” didn’t even “make a ripple” at Brown, according to Luther Spoehr, lecturer in education and vice chair of the College Curriculum Council. Armstrong agreed, cal-ling the study “predictable.”

“This was just the latest, and in some ways not the most interesting, in a series of statements about the values of

a core curriculum as opposed to an open curriculum,” he said.

Armstrong said, however, that the report has a degree of importance because it reveals the myths and misconceptions about Brown’s curriculum, namely that it lacks rigor and educational values. He added that advocates of open curricula have done a poor job making their case in the debate about how a liberal arts education should be defined. That debate, he said, is currently impoverished, underscoring the need for Brown and other like-minded schools to bolster their defense of open curricula.

Both Spoehr and Armstrong see little reason to revamp Brown’s curriculum. Armstrong said the CCC regularly reviews the values of the curriculum and the way they are implemented, but he added that he does not

anticipate any major curricular reform in Brown’s future.

Armstrong said a funda-mental question in the core curriculum debate concerns the kind of society educators think students should be prepared to enter.

“The people who believe in a core curriculum worry that cultural differences within the United States are going to tear the country apart, so we need to have a common set of values and beliefs that are going to unite us,” he said. “That is too narrow and limiting a view of the world. An open curriculum gives students equipment for living in a world of difference. It imagines a different kind of community not based on everybody believing the same thing or being part of the same tradition, but a community where our differences can contribute to a more exciting world.”

Corecontinued from page 1

THE HERALD POLL: STUDENT OPINION ON THE IMMEDIATE ADOPTION OF PLUS/MINUS GRADING

S T A F F E D I T O R I A L

J A S O N L I

L E T T E R S

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Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

EDITORIAL/LETTERSTHE BROWN DAILY HERALD · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2006 · PAGE 10

We are writing on behalf of the Brown Muslim Students’ Association to voice our deep concerns regarding the controversial cartoon depicting the caricature of Prophet Muhammad that was published in The Herald Feb. 7. We do not know whether this offense was intentional, and we understand the potentially conciliatory message behind the cartoon. In fact, most of our members would even agree with what the cartoon is saying. However, the alarm in the MSA resulted from the actual depiction of the Prophet. The general Islamic view regarding pictorial representations of the Prophet is that they are sacrilegious.

In a world where hatred and intolerance plague our societies, Brown gives us a haven in which diversity is honored. One of the greatest examples of this is the way in which the queer community is respected and safe in a largely homophobic and prejudiced society. The actions of the The Herald in printing this cartoon have stripped us of this safety and have left many of us feeling betrayed. Like The

Herald, we too are strong advocates of free speech. However, we find it difficult to accept this privilege as a justification for unnecessary offense.

Not only does this offend Muslims here, but it will also have an influence on prospective students. Muslims are currently under-represented in this otherwise well-supported multicultural community. We feel that this disrespectful attitude allowed by the The Herald will only exacerbate this problem. Muslim parents and students alike will be less likely to consider a school where their religious beliefs are disrespected.

We write to the students of Brown for their support at a time like this. We hope that we can together work to uphold Brown’s longstanding commitment to an environment of mutual respect.

Lamia Khan ’08, PresidentYoussef Garcia-Bengochea ’08, Vice-President

Saad Yousuf ’08, Public Relations OfficialBrown Muslim Students’ Association

Feb. 9

Cartoon undermines culture of toleranceTo the Editor:

The letter published in Thursday’s edition of The Herald by Qadira Abdul-Ali ’06, Kira Jumet ’06 and Tereen Alireza ’06 reveals that the authors are overlooking a fundamental principle associated with Brown University and democratic society: free speech. While the Brown community can certainly respect the religious sensitivities of our Muslim community members, we are, nevertheless, part of a secular democratic society and therefore not, as a whole, limited to conduct our social discourse in the confines of Hadith or Muslim religious law. And though the Brown community should certainly respect the refusal of Muslim students to contrive any images of the Prophet, the Brown community cannot impose Muslim practice on the greater non-Muslim population.

As an observant Jew, I keep a semblance of Koshrut. In other words, I do not eat meat that is not

kosher. When I eat out at restaurants, I have to order vegetarian dishes, despite my overwhelming love of steak. Should I then criticize the Brown community’s lack of sensitivity for serving meat in the Blue Room? Should Jews who strictly observe the Sabbath ask that the rest of the Brown community stop advertising parties that take place on Friday nights?

Religious freedom is part of what makes this society what it is. However, religious freedom does not mean that everyone is compelled to accept the beliefs of his or her peers or practice tenets of his or her peers’ religions. Religious freedom means that we must be open to constructive criticism of one another’s beliefs, for without this intercultural dialogue is impossible.

Jeremy Bedine ’07Feb. 9

The Herald not obliged to follow IslamTo the Editor:

Diamonds and coal

Coal to the blatant disregard of activities fair etiquette. Between the blaring techno music and incessant kazoo playing, it’s a wonder we could hear the questions of eager first-years.

A cubic zirconium to sanctions brought against the Queer Alliance. Though we’re grateful to RISD for taking in our homeless sex parties, it’s going to be a long walk of shame up College Hill.

Coal to Lynne Cheney and the F given to Brown’s Core Curriculum. We’d be concerned, but we know it’s not showing up on our external transcript.

A sparkling clean diamond to Yale for finally providing soap in its residence halls. Those Yalies are certainly going to need it after getting down and dirty at Sex Week.

Speaking of university-sponsored sex, a diamond to Carnegie Mellon for its creative use of student activities funds. We just feel bad for the students that had to clean up afterwards — squashed Dippin’ Dots sure can get sticky.

A diamond to Susan Alcock and her goal of making the new Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World “as big an octopus” as she can. While admirable, we’re not exactly sure how a tentacled, ink-squirting marine mollusk will help students learn about the classical world.

A diamond to Eric Chaika, owner of the Red Carpet Smoke Shop, for proclaiming himself “the David to their Goliath.” Now there’s an angle big tobacco hasn’t tried.

Coal to Providence College for banning the school’s production of the Vagina Monologues. Catholic girls have vaginas, too!

Coal to pipe problems. Shaking sidewalks, billowing steam… this is Providence, not a sequel to “Volcano.”

Coal to the Super Bowl for being so dull that we’re actually excited for ice dancing at the Winter Olympics.

And lastly, a grateful diamond to Registrar Michael Pesta, our wonderful staff and all the accommodating students who helped make our poll successful.

OPINIONS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2006 · PAGE 11

BY LISHAN SOHGUEST COLUMNIST

These days, it is tough to sustain one’s interest in disaster. It is no one’s fault, and it is not as if deep down inside we do not feel terrible for those afflicted. First comes the shock, and then the unmitigated horror as more bad news pours in. Questions — be they to God, to governments or perpetrators — and anger swiftly follow. And because I truly believe in the intrinsic capacity for compassion in human beings, I say that our need to give and to help also quickly sets in.

But this sequence of emotions and reactions, while on the one hand a wonderful display of mankind’s magnanimity, is, on the other, predictable and, if I may venture to say, inadequate. This sequence of emotions is formulaic and has become expected in the immediate aftermath of disaster. In the year since the tsunami in southeast Asia, how many of us have kept up with the development of the reconstruction? Does anyone know what is going on in Pakistan post-earthquake?

I am not blaming anyone for his or her seeming inattention. The past year was marked by a succession of traumas, natural and otherise: the Asian tsunami, Hurri-cane Katrina, the Pakistan earthquake, the

London subway bombings and the Jordan hotel bombings. And while all that was happening, genocide in Darfur further unfolded. Almost every day the papers reported death and destruction. But, as Franklin Roosevelt, regarded by many as the master player of American psyche, once observed, “Individual psychology cannot, because of human weakness, be attuned for long periods of time to a constant repetition of the highest note in

the scale.”Roosevelt, bless his soul, was right. My

empathy completely exhausted, I did not bat an eye when Jordan was bombed in November. I had tuned out.

It is easier to deal with the what, where and when of each disaster instead of mulling over the why and the how. I am sure I am not alone in this. Facing cold hard facts is much more manageable than searching for answers. This is our survival mechanism — how else would we deal with such overwhelming

catastrophe?The news of the initial impact,

the number of lives lost and the first photographs of the devastation are inherently more interesting than stories of reconstruction. Fishing villages in Banda Aceh, the area worst hit by the tsunami, receive almost no government aid for rebuilding purposes. Despite the ineptitude of the Bush administration and FEMA in dealing with Hurricane

Katrina, the people affected, as well as citizens of this country, know that large amounts of resources are being channeled toward restoring the cities to the way they once were. This is not the case for Indonesia. More than a year on, 70,000 people are still homeless, and their fishing industry remains in shambles. How ironic it

is that we should be so captivated by death and yet so uncurious about the lives that continue to call out for help in death’s wake. As hard as it is to admit, there is something more fascinating about an image of a huge wave wiping out everything in its path than that of a calm sea lapping against a flattened and abandoned shoreline.

My purpose is not to undermine the generosity displayed shortly after disasters. I applaud the many organizations on campus that have been organizing benefits and constantly canvassing the

student body for our support towards their respective causes. Nor am I asking us all to take a semester off to help rebuild devastated economies. But how many of us have revisited the disasters in our minds, especially those far away from home, and how many of us have asked ourselves, “What else can I do?” All I am asking is that we do not forget.

Too often we are more than happy to give up the struggle against forgetting the sheer scale of death, destruction and unfairness in the world. This subconsciously leads to a lack of curiosity about the development (or the lack thereof) of afflicted nations, closing ourselves off from helping these people.

Compassion fatigue is natural and subliminal. But I am asking you to fight it and realize that just as you are on the verge of relegating images and figures of disaster to the distant past, the hardship for many of our fellow human beings, whether in the same country or in far-flung corners of the world, is just beginning. Most important of all, you still have the ability to help them. And I hope you hold that thought for as long as you can.

Lishan Soh ’06 wants you to be in for the long haul. She also invites you to a traditional Indonesian night bazaar tomorrow evening in aid of the tsunami-devastated fishing industry in Banda Aceh at Sayles Hall from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Please visit www.tsunamirelief-aceh.org for more information.

BY SCOTT WARRENGUEST COLUMNIST

On Thursday, January 26, at 12:30 p.m., about 30 Brown students decided to lie down near Faunce Arch. Confused students observed signs telling them that these fanatics represented the 400,000 dead in Darfur, a region in western Sudan. Other signs urged the United States to send a multinational force to Darfur to protect the civilians. To many, though, the people seemed to be crazed radicals expressing opinions over a matter that students at Brown cannot possibly change. As one student mindlessly remarked, “These people are blocking my way.”

The truth is that there were more than just 30 maniacs doing this. Thousands of college students did the same thing at more than 60 schools throughout the country. They all lay down at the same time and they all had signs making a statement about Darfur. They all were “blocking the way” of fellow students trying to get by. And for the next three months, these students are going to make it difficult for the government to “walk by” without paying more attention to the situation in Darfur.

Contrary to public belief, the three-year genocide is not stopping; it is getting worse. Hundreds of innocent civilians are dying by the day, prompting notables such as Senators Sam Brownback, Barack Obama and Joe Biden and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to call for more action. Yet, despite these pleas, Congress recently withdrew $50 million dollars

appropriated for the African Union force protecting the Darfurian civilians, despite the fact that the force will have no money left in its budget after April of this year. During President George W. Bush’s first year in the White House, he wrote in the margins of a report on the Rwandan genocide, “Not on my watch.”

He has failed to keep this promise.This is where college students can

come in. In an unprecedented movement, humanitarian, faith-based and other organizations are joining together to send one million postcards to the White House demanding a multinational force in Darfur, a force many experts feel is the only solution to ending the ongoing violence. Former Darfur movements have been isolated and ineffective, but with all activists fighting for a common goal, this one seems to have legs.

The campaign, though, is much more than just postcards. As students, we are doing our part through the Power to Protect Campaign. The campaign is organized by Students Taking Action Now: Darfur, national movement composed of

hundreds of schools fighting the geno-cide. A student-led executive committee has spent countless hours organizing and motivating STAND chapters to participate. For three months leading up to a large-scale April 30 protest in Washington, D.C., students will join together to prompt more action to stop

the genocide. The campaign features a media campaign beginning with the Jan. 26 Die-In designed to force the American people to recognize that the atrocities are still occurring. Additionally, a national week of action in April will feature camp-outs, fasts, and other events targeted at making the genocide an issue that Congress will be forced to grapple with. Each school will be lobbying its state representatives, urging them to appropriate more money to the multinational force while encouraging the president to pursue more action. This is grass-roots activism at its best.

In The Herald last semester, an op-ed battle began over the activism on campus. Some argued that Brown has become a liberal swamp: many

innovative ideas with little action to back them up. The genocide in Darfur, however, is a non-partisan issue uniting students throughout the country. Brown has a legitimate opportunity to reclaim its reputation as an “activist Mecca” by playing a large role in the Power to Protect Campaign.

Because of the scope and organization of the campaign, it has great potential to implicate change and help the people in Darfur. Many of my friends, while appreciating my efforts, have asked if I think my attempts to “save Darfur” have actually made a difference. The answer is no. My individual attempts to stop the genocide have probably done absolutely nothing. I alone cannot stop the genocide, nor can alone the Darfur Action Network at Brown. A movement with thousands of high school and college students, thousands of religious peoples and thousands of humanitarians, however, can help stop the genocide in Sudan. And this is what we now have.

I urge you to join a cause for a semester that has a current real-world implication. The time commitment is not large, but the reward is huge; you will be joining the first anti-genocide campaign in history. When 400,000 people have died, and hundreds of thousands more are on the cusp of the same fate, how can we not attempt to do all possible to stop the suffering?

Scott Warren ’09 invites you to come learn more about the current situation and how you can help at The Darfur Action Network teach-in, Sunday at 8 p.m. in Wilson 102.

Fighting compassion fatigue

In the year since the tsunami in

southeast Asia, how many of us

have kept up the development

of the reconstruction?

A few thousand maniacs

Outpourings of aid after disasters prove hard to sustain, but rebuilding takes time

A national movement to end the genocide in Darfur has begun taking action at Brown

In an unprecedented movement,

humanitarian, faith-based and other

organizations are joining together

to demand action in Darfur.

SPORTS WEEKENDTHE BROWN DAILY HERALD · FEBRUARY 10, 2006 · PAGE 12

Sitting in my team’s goal, I looked out onto a daunting, three-on-two break for the opposing team. It passed the yellow ball around with impressive pre-cision, and then one player fired on the goal. I dove in the general direction of the shot, hoping I could get one of my hands in front of it in

time to prevent a score. With great relief, I felt the thud of the ball on my forearms and I scrambled to corral the ball as I simultaneously gagged on a mouthful of chlorine.

This situation is the classic first person, in-game narrative that sports publications and sports networks frequently rely on to increase circulation and ratings, respectively. But this isn’t some attempt on my part to assume the role of either a big-time athlete or some “Being John Malkovich” with a sports twist. This is a description of my intramural inner tube water polo match three days ago.

If a Division-I athletic program is the prom queen of athletics on college

campuses, then the intramural program is her awkward first cousin who’s not quite as pretty.

Whatever you do, don’t let your preconceived ideas of intramural sports fool you. Intramurals are serious business. Sure, all of us who participate in IMs want to have fun, because otherwise none of us would do it. But at the same time, many of us are there to compete and win. Maybe it’s because Brown students love the thrill of victory. Maybe it’s because so many intramural athletes played in high school and are yearning for athletic days gone by. Most likely, we’re all fighting tooth and nail for those free champion t-shirts.

People who compete in intramurals are frighteningly passionate about their sports. And it’s usually not just one sport; it’s about a half dozen.

My introduction to the madness that is inner tube water polo — complete with scratch marks from the tube’s air pump and eau de chlorine that still hasn’t gone away — was the 10th intramural sport I have competed in since my freshman year. The scary thing is, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s someone out there who’s done more than me.

Last week, Sean Morey ’99 and Mark Whipple ’79 were the targets of the Brown national sports spotlight when the

Pittsburgh Steelers won Super Bowl XL. This weekend, the focus will shift to the University’s five alums — all women’s ice hockey players — competing in the Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy which kick off this weekend.

Goaltender Pam Dreyer ’03 (Eagle River, Alaska), forward Kim Insalaco ’03 (Rochester, N.Y.), forward Kathleen Kauth ’01 (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.) and forward Katie King ’97 (Salem, N.H.) will play for Team USA, while defenseman Becky Kellar ’97 will play for Team Canada.

King is the only one of these five with previous Olympic experience, having played for the United States in 1998 and 2002, tallying 15 points. She is one of the most decorated athletes to have played on College Hill, winning Ivy League Player of the Year twice in both hockey and softball. The other four all have international experience but will be making their Olympic debuts.

In case the Brown connection isn’t enough of a reason for you to watch, there’s also a budding rivalry between Team USA and Team Canada, who both played in the last two gold medal games at the Olympics and are the odds-on favorites to do so again. The Americans emerged victorious in Nagano in 1998 to win the sport’s first gold medal, but the Canadians got their revenge by winning in Salt Lake City in 2002. Team USA beat Canada in the 2005 World Championships, but our northern neighbors won six of the eight pre-Olympic warm-up games between the two teams.

Both teams begin their quest for gold tomorrow. Team USA squares off with Switzerland at noon, followed by Team

Canada’s game against Italy at 2:30.

Hartigan ’06 at homeLooks like someone finally found what

it took to keep Nick Hartigan ’06 out of the classroom: The much-lauded running back is spending the semester at home in Virginia preparing for the National Football League, having already earned enough credits to graduate in May.

Hartigan’s move is not unprecedent-ed. Chas Gessner ’03, the program’s last NFL prospect, took a similar route in his senior year. The All-American wide receiver did not play his senior season of lacrosse, instead spending the semester training with a strength specialist and taking independent study classes.

Risky business without RuscoeMen’s basketball tri-captain Luke

Ruscoe ’06 confirmed earlier this week that his injured ankle is broken and will need surgery. Ruscoe will attempt to rehab the ankle and return in a few weeks, but one wonders if he should even bother.

Without Ruscoe, Brown now lacks a player that has ever averaged double-digit scoring over an entire season. Damon Huffman ’08 and Sam Manhanga ’07 have both averaged 8.4 per game, the most among the remaining players, but Manhanga is also hurt and will probably miss this weekend’s games. Huffman currently leads the Bears with 10.2 points per game.

More importantly, the team lacks a senior. While the team’s chances at an Ivy League crown were already nil with a 2-4 record, this announcement more or less officially gave this season the dreaded “rebuilding” tag. Now Brown fans can only sit back and hop e for an upset of Penn or Princeton at home the last weekend of the season to make things interesting.

NBR digs the long ballAs hinted at above, this spring holds

BY JUSTIN GOLDMANASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

Jaclyn Vocell ’06 dropped out of the women’s basketball team’s starting lineup earlier this season after missing time with a thumb injury. But Vocell has thrived off the bench lately, giving the Bears an offensive spark and additional threat from behind the arc. Last weekend, Vocell scored 11 points against the University of Pennsylvania and 10 against Princeton, helping the Bears to two Ivy victories and sole possession of second place.

Herald: How do you get yourself ready for big Ivy games?

Vocell: I don’t so much focus on the fact that I have a big game, but I focus on the personnel that I will be working with. Before a game I pray and basically focus on God.

What do you do to pass the time on those long road trips?

It depends on how much homework I have. The seniors sit in the back of the bus and you can usually find us just hanging out, listening to our iPods, sleeping or watching movies. It is a pretty chill atmosphere.

Other than the Pizzitola Center, where do you like playing most in the league?

I like playing at Penn, because the Palestra has so much history. I also like playing at Yale, because they have a lot of student support at their games and they get on us, which really gets me going.

Where do you like playing least?Princeton. I don’t know what it is, but I

hate that gym. It reminds me of playing in the OMAC. Also, every year we have gone to Dartmouth we have not played as well as we are capable of playing. I don’t know if it is the gym or the intimidation factor, but it is definitely not one of my favorite places.

You had been starting this season until you injured your thumb. Now, you are coming off the bench but still playing

In 2004, Kevin Toth, a former world’s strongest man competitor and U.S. shot put champ, tested positive for a new

designer steroid called THG. Since that day, it’s been one big anabolic orgy, with athletes from almost every sport tapping in. Even Congress wanted a piece of the action.

My favorite development in the whole steroids

scandal involved baseball hero Rafael Palmeiro. The sporting world breathed a sigh of relief when the Orioles slugger pointed his finger at John McCain’s Senate Judiciary Committee and denied ever letting Jose Canseco or anyone else give him the juice. He then rushed out of the courtroom and tested positive for the steroid Stanozolol just as soon as he could. He received a slap on the wrist from Major League Baseball, but his reputation and chances of reaching the Hall of Fame were ruined.

Hall of Fame or no Hall of Fame, Palmeiro came out of this thing far better than his doping counterparts. The slugger’s notorious “broken bat” helped him land a highly sought-after

position as a spokesman for Viagra. You think a little public shaming can get to the Viagara spokesman? Please! That guy could get caught humping a badger in the Vatican and still walk away with his head held high.

So, what’s the big deal if a few athletes are on steroids? Let me tell you. The juice can produce many terrible and unwanted side effects. I’m not proud to admit that I know the horrors of steroids firsthand. It was late one night and I was leaving a party, completely messed up on ’roids and a few too many protein shakes. Like a fool, I decided to drive. Before I knew what had happened, I had crashed my car into the national headquarters of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, killing its president. In a fit of ’roid rage, I backed out of the building and tore down to the house of Family Circus comic creator Bil Keane. Come to think of it, maybe steroids aren’t so bad. That’s right Little Jeffy. But let’s not get off track.

The ringleader of this steroid circus was not Palmeiro, but home run king and long time jerk Barry Bonds. Bonds joined the league as a slim 175-pound base-stealer. After almost 20 years in the League, he has transformed

Athlete of the Week: Vocell ’06 gives w. hoops spark off the bench

Ashley Hess / Herald

Jaclyn Vocell ’06 is averaging 6.8 points per game for the Bears this year.

No joke: Brown intramurals provide serious competition

Raffy, Barry, steroids and meOne man’s tales of watching and experiencing the juice

Five former Bears will hit the ice at Torino Olympics

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10

M. BASKETBALL: vs. Cornell, 7 p.m., Pizzitola CenterW. BASKETBALL: at CornellM. HOCKEY: at UnionW. SWIMMING: at YaleM. & W. TRACK: St. Valentine’s Invitational (at Boston, Mass.)

SATURDAY , FEBRUARY 11

M. BASKETBALL: vs. Columbia, 7 p.m., Pizzitola CenterW. BASKETBALL: at ColumbiaGYMNASTICS: at CornellM. HOCKEY: at RPISKIING: Boston College Carnival (at Ascutney Mountain, Vt.)

W. SQUASH: Boston vs. Yale, 1 p.m., Pizzitola CenterM. SWIMMING: at Cornell W. TENNIS: vs. Sacramento State, 12 p.m., Varsity Tennis CourtsM. & W. TRACK: St. Valentines Invitational (at Boston, Mass.)WRESTLING: vs. Harvard, 10 a.m., Pizzitola Center

SUNDAY , FEBRUARY 12

FENCING: Ivy League 2 (at Columbia)GYMNASTICS: at Springfield StateSKIING: Boston College Carnival (at Ascutney Mountain, Vt.)M. TENNIS: vs. Stony Brook, 10 a.m.; vs. Rhode Island, 3 p.m., Varsity Tennis Courts

BROWN SPORTS SCHEDULE

CHRIS HATFIELDBROWN SUGAR

HUGH MURPHYBLACK ELK SPEAKS

CHRIS MAHRMAHRTIAN

ENCOUNTERS

see AOTW, page 7

see HATFIELD, page 6

see MURPHY, page 6

see MAHR, page 7