Tuesday, April 26, 2011Daily Heraldthe Brown

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city & state, 4

Higher taxesBill looks to repeal Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in R.i.

Dissent gets shut out of conversations

OpiniOns, 7 wea

therShunned

Vohra to step down as dean of faculty

By SHefali lutHraSenior Staff Writer

Dean of the Faculty Rajiv Vohra P’07 will step down from his position at the end of June, President Ruth Sim-mons and Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 wrote in an email to the faculty yesterday.

Vohra, who will resume his posi-tion as professor of economics, said he decided to step down because he has held the administrative post for seven years. Administrative posi-tions generally have a “fixed-time horizon,” he said. Vohra has worked at Brown since 1983 and served as dean of the faculty since 2004.

“It just seemed like the right time for me to go back to research and teaching,” Vohra said.

Vohra’s decision to step down was not influenced by Kertzer’s de-parture from the administration, also scheduled for June 30, he said.

Kertzer will head a search com-mittee for a new dean of the faculty. The committee, which will com-prise faculty members from various departments, plans to find Vohra’s successor within the University. Vohra said he does not know when a new dean will be selected, though administrators hope to have one in

Protestors rally against proposed cuts to teams

By SaraH formanStaff Writer

About 75 students gathered on the Main Green Monday afternoon to protest the Athletics Review Com-mittee’s recommendations to cut four varsity teams, and some protestors continued to express dismay over the proposal to President Ruth Sim-mons during her open hours later in the day.

Most of the protesters were mem-bers of the wrestling team, women’s ski team and men’s and women’s fencing teams, which could lose all support from the University if Sim-mons and the Corporation accept the committee’s suggestions for the 2011-12 academic year. Though it is a club program, the men’s ski team, which is also facing the possibility of being cut, was represented at the

rally as well.Over the course of the hour-

long protest, students and alums expressed general frustration with the committee’s report and tried to disprove what they saw as inconsis-tencies and misinformation.

“The fact of the matter is that the committee’s report was based on no facts,” said Krista Consiglio ’11, captain of the women’s ski team, to cheers from the ralliers. The report lists extensive travel as one explana-tion for dropping the ski team, but after calculating other teams’ travel, Consiglio and her teammates found they drove fewer miles than most other winter sports teams.

Wrestler Daniel Cataldi ’14 coun-tered the report’s description of the wrestling program as “one of our

School closure vote pushed to Thursday

By Kyle mcnamaraStaff Writer

The Providence School Board held a meeting last night to discuss Mayor Angel Taveras’ recommendation to close four of the city’s public schools and convert a middle school to an

elementary school. The board, which was originally scheduled to vote on the decision yesterday, decided to postpone the vote until Thursday due to lingering questions about the city’s financial capabilities.

Instead, the board reviewed the financial impact of the proposal and allowed community members to voice concerns.

A 30-minute rally attended by

about 50 protestors and organized by the Providence Parent Teacher Student Community Coalition took place outside the building before the meeting began. Anna Kuperman, a teacher at Classical High School and a member of the coalition, said the group has proposed a year-long review to avoid prematurely closing the schools. The coalition currently consists of approximately 60 parents and teachers.

Brown students also attended the rally. Students came to support and acknowledge the University’s obliga-tion to the Providence community, said Julian Park ’12, a Herald opin-ions columnist. Protesters moved inside the building as the meeting started, chanting slogans such as,

RISD abandons restructuring

Rhode Island School of Design Provost Jessie Shefrin has decided not to implement a divisional restructuring plan that triggered the faculty’s “no confidence” vote in President John Maeda and the provost last month, Shefrin wrote in an email to RISD faculty Friday.

The administration previously proposed to delay restructuring by a year, but Shefrin’s email is the first mention of abandoning the plan altogether.

“I made this decision after listening to and consulting with many faculty and the deans,” Shefrin wrote. “This is in recognition of the need to not only slow down the pace of change, but also to focus on the things that are the highest priorities.”

But the email’s tone frustrated several faculty members, who remain disaffected by the administration. “There’s a sense of futility about this whole enterprise,” said Mark Sherman, chair of the Faculty Steering Committee.

“The emphasis on her having made the decision is very interesting since we had to fight tooth and nail to get to that point,” Sherman said. “They’re really only doing what they should have been doing in the beginning.”

— rebecca Ballhaus

N e w S I N B R I e F Amid upheaval, Watson examines missionBy SHefali lutHra

Senior Staff Writer

The Watson Institute for Interna-tional Studies is reevaluating its mis-sion as it seeks to hire a new director, narrow its focus areas for research and clarify its role in undergraduate teaching.

This debate is not new — the Watson Institute has questioned its direction and purpose since the Cold War ended. But the March resignation of Michael Kennedy, the institute’s current director, the

February redesign of the interna-tional relations concentration and an external review last fall have re-invigorated the debate.

Discussions between the Univer-sity and the Watson Institute over the next two years will “redirect staffing and develop a clearer idea of specific goals,” President Ruth Simmons told the Undergraduate Council of Students earlier this month, according to UCS meeting minutes.

The institute is in “serious trou-ble,” said Abbott Gleason, professor

emeritus of history, who directed the Watson Institute between 1999 and 2000. Gleason worked at the Watson Institute’s predecessor, the Institute for International Studies, when it was originally established in 1986.

“It’s lost its way,” he said, add-ing that “neither the students nor the faculty know any longer what they want.”

unclear aimsThe University is legally bound

emily Gilbert / HeraldMembers of teams slated for cuts rallied yesterday afternoon on the Main Green.

Crystal Vance Guerra / HeraldProtestors fought public school closures at a school board meeting yesterday.

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city & state

Jewish holidays overlooked in U.’s schedule

OpiniOns, 7

Passed over

to align the Watson Institute’s goals with those expressed in an agree-ment with the Watson family, which dates back to when the institute was originally endowed with gifts from the Watsons and other donors, Sim-mons told UCS.

Lucinda Watson P’03, a mem-ber of the institute’s Board of Over-seers and daughter of its namesake, Thomas Watson Jr. ’37, does not have that founding agreement and does not know what it outlines, she said. Still, she believes Simmons is “dedicated” to restoring the Wat-son Institute’s original mission and “hanging on” to the document. The Herald was unable to access a copy of the document, which is not stored in the University archives.

The institute’s mission has “got-ten foggy” in the years since it was founded, Watson said. “Most of us who are involved with the institute would like to see the direction … clarified.”

People have discussed what the Watson Institute’s purpose should be “since the end of the Cold War,” Gleason said. One of Thomas Wat-son Jr.’s goals in founding the Wat-son Institute was preventing conflict between the United States and the former Soviet Union.

Specifically, the Watson Institute is examining its areas of focus for re-search — a discussion that came out of an external review last fall, said David McKinney P’80 P’82 P’89, chair of the Board of Overseers. Such reviews are normal for aca-demic institutes and departments, he said.

The review committee, which consisted of evaluators from Prince-ton, Boston University and the Mas-sachusetts Institute of Technology, was “complimentary” of the insti-tute, McKinney said. But the com-mittee also said the University could get more “leverage” by focusing on a few areas, McKinney said, rather than spreading itself over many and not making a “significant contribu-tion” to any.

The Watson Institute might have lost sight of its focus because of its academic nature, Watson said. “I think that what happens is if you are in academia and you are always wanting to examine every possible area of interest, often you lose the specific focus of what the institute started being about in the first place,” she said.

Newell Stultz, professor emeritus of political science who worked at the Watson Institute when it was founded, called this period of re-evaluation a “good moment” for the Watson Institute.

“A new vision will be laid down and will be considered as it hasn’t been in the past,” he said. “The fu-ture will owe much to what is about to occur or what is already occur-ring.”

Watson, a historyThe Watson Institute resulted

from a union between the Center for Foreign Policy Development and other existing centers for interna-tional studies, Stultz said.

Originally called the Institute for International Studies, it was re-named in the late 1980s for Thomas Watson Jr. upon then-President Howard Swearer’s request.

Though located on campus, the Center for Foreign Policy De-velopment was not “actually part of Brown,” Stultz said. It focused mostly on preventing nuclear war, while international studies at the University was a “modest” activity. The international relations concen-tration, for instance, had virtually “no budget at all,” he said.

Stultz said he was inspired by a visit to Yale’s international studies institute, which compiled its inter-national programs in one place. He brought the idea to Swearer, and the discussion bore the Council for International Studies in the late 1970s and the Watson Institute a decade later.

But Stultz said the institute’s mis-sion has changed over time.

“Frankly, when this thing began — what is it now, 25 years ago — the

principle was to put more resources in the pockets of units that were al-ready in existence,” he said. Over time, “ambitions developed to create in the institute its own independent research agenda.”

Gleason agreed that the Watson Institute has grown since its “intel-lectually carefree” days, when there was a small staff and “hostility to disciplinary barriers.”

“The institution has become less successful and driven with intellec-tual schisms and faculty infighting and lack of leadership,” he said. He attributed this change to the insti-tute’s natural maturation, but also to a “series of unsuccessful appoint-ments,” though he did not specify which appointments he considers unsuccessful.

recent upheavalMuch of the institute’s research

structure was “dismantled” under Kennedy’s predecessor, David Ken-nedy ’76, said Patrick Heller, profes-sor of sociology and international studies. David Kennedy served as the institute’s interim director be-tween 2008 and 2009.

When David Kennedy came in, Heller said, the institute had four research programs with a “long tradition,” a core faculty and an es-tablished faculty governance struc-ture and budget. But David Kennedy wanted the institute to grant tenure to professors — a motion blocked by University faculty — and to bring international legal scholars to the institute.

“David Kennedy came and had a very different vision of what this place was,” Heller said.

David Kennedy also attempted to implement a legal studies program at Watson, a move unpopular with faculty and administrators, The Her-ald reported in 2009. Faculty mem-bers critiqued David Kennedy for his desire to establish a law school at the institute, according to the article.

David Kennedy resigned in June 2009 and was succeeded by Michael Kennedy, no relation, who announced in March his intention to step down at the end of this aca-demic year.

“The Watson Institute has seen four directors step down over the course of six years. This suggests the importance of attending to some structural issues leading to so many changes,” Michael Kennedy wrote in an email to The Herald. “My resignation allows the University administration and Watson’s Board of Overseers to focus on those long-standing challenges.”

Lucinda Watson suggested Mi-chael Kennedy resigned to give the Watson Institute a fresh start. “I think he felt that the institute was at a crisis point, and the best thing might be to have a new slate,” she said.

But once the Watson Institute clarifies its mission, a new director may have less freedom to define the institute.

“If there’s a fresh start with a clear vision created and with everyone feeling a consensus, we’ll be able to go forward with a leader,” Watson said.

Ben Schreckinger, PresidentSydney Ember, Vice President

Matthew Burrows, TreasurerIsha Gulati, Secretary

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Campus news2 the Brown Daily heraldtuesday, April 26, 2011

5:30 P.m.

Panel Discussion: “what’s Next for

the economy?” MacMillan 117

6 P.m.

Reading of “The Birds” with

emiliano Buis, Petteruti Lounge

7 P.m.

Brown Lecture Board Presents

Sanjay Gupta, Salomon 101

7 P.m.

environmental Film Festival:

"Gasland" Screening, wilson 102

SHARPE REFECTORY VERNEY-WOOLLEY DINING HALL

LUNCH

DINNER

Vegan Chana Masala, Apricot Beef with Sesame Noodles, Curry

Chicken with Coconut

Rotisserie Style Chicken, Pizza Rustica, Tortellini Italiano with

Sausage, Raspberry Bars

Artichoke, Kalamata and Pepper Calzone, Italian Beef Noodle Casserole, Couscous Pearls

Beef Tacos, Vegan Burritos, Refried Beans, Corn and Sweet Pepper

Saute, Butterscotch Chip Cookies

TODAY APRIL 26 TOmORROW APRIL 27

C R o S S w o R D

S u D o K u

M e N u

C A L e N DA R Recent turmoil clouds Watson’s missioncontinued from page 1

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more expensive programs to sup-port.” Except for coaches’ salaries, the program receives all its funding from other sources, Cataldi said.

“It may be (an expensive sport), but the school doesn’t pay that,” he said.

Other students pointed out that the men’s fencing team placed 13th at the NCAA Fencing Championships. According to the report, the program is not yet at the “necessary level for a high-quality competitive experience” and could not reach that intensity

of competition without significant financial investment.

In addition to calling specific facts from the report into question, stu-dents said they feel disempowered by the committee’s recommendation.

“How would you feel if they took your family away from you?” asked Brady Caspar ’13, who said the men’s ski team is his primary community at Brown. Without their teams, many students will lose support systems and structures they need in college, he said.

David Gustovich ’95, a former wrestler, said cutting the programs

will deny future students the chance to receive high quality education — particularly since the teams attract students from diverse socioeconomic and geographic backgrounds who might not otherwise gain admission to the University.

“This is a symbolic thing,” said Sam Barney ’12, one of several non-athletes at the rally. She said the school would be reneging on its commitment to support students’ passions by cutting the teams. “This is our University turning its back on us,” she said.

Simmons and the Corporation

will decide in May whether to accept the committee’s recommendations. In the meantime, the athletes say they will continue to voice oppo-sition to the proposed measures, particularly during meetings with committee members this week.

Several students met with Sim-mons Monday afternoon after the protest to discuss their concerns, said wrestler Hudson Collins ’11.5.

Alums are also getting involved in the effort. Rob Davidson ’70, former captain of the wrestling team, said he is part of an active group of for-mer athletes fundraising to make the

wrestling team more self-sufficient and contacting committee and Cor-poration members to express disap-proval of the proposed cuts.

Although the majority of pro-testors at Monday’s rally stood to be affected personally by the cuts, a contingent of non-athletes and ath-letes on unaffected teams also joined the effort in solidarity.

“We’re going to talk to President Simmons, we’re going to talk to the people we know on the Corpora-tion, and we’re going to save Brown athletics,” said field hockey captain Tacy Zysk ’11.

Campus news 3the Brown Daily heraldtuesday, April 26, 2011

place by July 1.Mark Schlissel, who will replace

Kertzer as provost in July, said he was “surprised” by the announce-ment. Schlissel is not technically part of the search committee, since the search will start before his term begins. But he said he hopes to come to campus once Simmons and the committee have identified final can-didates.

“I would love to have the op-portunity to come meet with them before the final decision is made, but that decision really won’t be mine,” he said. As chief academic officer, the provost oversees the dean of the fac-

ulty, and the two work together on academic and faculty-related issues.

Schlissel added that, though it may be difficult for the University to identify a new dean while also dealing with a provost turnover, he respects Vohra’s decision to return to academia.

Vohra and Kertzer’s departures from the administration will not create a “huge gap in institutional memory,” Vohra said, but new ad-ministrators will need to brush up on current issues and debates.

“I’m not disappearing into the sunset,” he added. “I’m going to Robinson Hall. There will be a lot of people around who will know what the discussions have been.”

The University will try to work out a “transition” with the new dean, he said.

It will help that the new dean will probably come from within the faculty, since that person will bring continuity to ongoing issues such as the debate over proposed tenure changes, Schlissel said.

Vohra said he has been thinking about stepping down at least since the semester began. When he first assumed the position, he did not imagine he would serve longer than five years.

“It’s possible I could have contin-ued for another year or so,” he said. “But really, I was coming towards the end.”

U. to search internally for new deancontinued from page 1

Student-athletes, alums respond to potential athletic cutscontinued from page 1

Lingering questions postpone vote

“They say cutbacks, we say fight back!” Ralliers promised to return for the board’s vote Thursday evening.

Carleton Jones, chief operating officer of the Providence Public School District, presented the im-pact of the proposal to the board. He said students would be placed in higher performing schools and refer-enced the “walk optimization” plan, which would place students within 1.5 miles of their homes. He added that siblings — and most likely chil-dren living in the same apartment complexes — would be relocated to the same schools.

The proposal also offers students the option to transfer schools if they provide for their own transportation.

Jones said the proposal would save a net $7.7 to $10.4 million and would displace 1,943 students. Half of those savings would result from the firing of 44 to 70 teachers.

The proposal is a result of a re-ported 5,000 excess seats in Provi-dence public schools. By closing the four schools, the number of teachers would better correspond to the stu-dent population, according to the state’s standard student-to-teacher ratio of 26 to one.

Following Jones’ presentation, community members were each al-lotted three minutes to voice their opinions.

“Give us the opportunity to get it done, and I know we can,” said Steve Smith, president of the Providence Teachers Union, referencing the

coalition’s plan to institute a review process before closing the schools.

“Public schools are not corpora-tions, and our children are not com-modities,” said another community member.

The proposed closures send the message that the community’s chil-dren aren’t “worth it,” said Frank Almeida, equipment mechanic for the Department of Facilities Manage-ment at Brown.

Both his wife, April, and his daughter spoke after him. “Please do not close my school,” his daughter pleaded.

Several speakers called for the board to postpone voting a second time, insisting the Thursday deadline does not allow enough time to make the decision.

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Campus news4 the Brown Daily heraldtuesday, April 26, 2011

State rep. aims to roll back Bush tax cuts

By KatHerine longStaff Writer

Rep. Larry Valencia, D-Charles-town, plans to introduce a bill this week that would roll back Bush-era tax cuts for Rhode Island’s wealthy to rein in the state’s projected $331 million budget deficit. The bill, which is still being drafted, pro-poses increasing income tax rates for married couples earning over $250,000 and individuals earning over $200,000 by 4.1 percent — the same rate by which they were lowered when the cuts became law in 2003.

The bill is an alternative to the sales tax expansion proposed by Gov. Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14 in his budget for the next fiscal year. Chafee’s plan would raise $165 million by lowering the state sales tax to 6 percent, taxing some cur-rently exempt items and services at that rate and imposing a 1 percent sales tax on other exempt items.

“My bill shines a light on the fact that the poor are getting poorer while the rich are getting richer,” said Valencia, a member of the House Finance Commit-tee. “I think we should start do-ing something about it.” Chafee’s proposal to expand the sales tax would hit the state’s poor the hard-est, he said.

But Valencia is not optimistic about the bill’s chances for suc-cess. He said he sees the legisla-tion as a progressive option that could be incorporated in a more centrist bill. “I can’t see the Gen-eral Assembly approving (the bill) without also approving some sort

of sales tax reduction or other re-duction,” he said. “I hope that it will open discussion in an envi-ronment that’s generally conser-vative.”

That discussion has already started. House Speaker Gordon Fox, D-Providence, has solicited requests for alternatives to Chafee’s sales tax modifications, which he has called “unacceptable.”

“Rep. Valencia’s bill will defi-nitely be looked at as part of the budget process as a whole,” said Larry Berman, Fox’s director of communications. “We’re going to look at every way to find savings and go from there. … It’s a work in progress.”

Three weeks ago, Ocean State Action, a liberal Rhode Island lob-bying coalition, proposed imple-menting a 2 percent tax increase on incomes over $500,000. That proposal was taken up by Rep. Scott Guthrie, D-Coventry, and introduced as the “Patriot Tax.” The bill is currently under review by the House Finance Committee.

The “Patriot Tax” should be part of a comprehensive ap-proach to deficit reduction, said Kate Brock, executive director of Ocean State Action. “Other action would need to be taken in addition to this bill.”

Other alternatives to Chafee’s sales tax plan include a bill intro-duced by Minority Leader Robert Watson, R-Greenwich, which calls for further cuts to the Department of Health and the Department of Human Services.

Students are also entering the debate. Last week Aaron Regun-berg ’12 organized a canvassing campaign in Fox’s district in sup-port of Valencia’s bill. Fifteen students worked a phone bank, and four canvassed door-to-door, according to Regunberg. He esti-mated that their efforts reached at least 400 households.

“The responses we got from Fox’s constituents were over-whelmingly positive, and a bunch of them either called up the Speak-er’s office right in front of our vol-unteers or committed to doing so tomorrow,” he wrote in an email to The Herald. “I think we can build some real grassroots support for this bill, and translate it into real grassroots pressure on the House and Senate leadership.”

Regunberg said he supports Va-lencia’s bill over the Patriot Tax because it restores revenue lost to tax cuts rather than adding a new tax.

Chafee communications aide Samuel Lovett said Chafee disap-proves of the Bush tax cuts but declined to comment on whether the governor felt Valencia’s bill was a viable alternative to the proposed sales tax changes. As a U.S. sena-tor, Chafee voted against tax cuts signed into law by President Bush in 2001 and 2003.

Valencia plans to introduce the bill Wednesday, at which point it will be added to the Finance Com-mittee calendar. He said the bill will likely be heard in May.

new areas of focusThere is an “emerging consen-

sus” that the Watson Institute needs to maintain a sense of independence even while remaining “embedded” within the existing research initia-tives at the University, Heller said.

In particular, he said, it is “dif-ficult to conceive” of a Watson Institute that does not emphasize security as one of its major areas of strength in research. Security, one of the Watson Institute’s historical emphases, is mentioned in the insti-tute’s first-ever annual report, issued for the 1989-90 academic year.

Though McKinney said having three or four areas of focus for the institute “makes a lot of sense,” he cannot know what they should be until the Board of Overseers exam-ines the institute, talks to faculty and names a new interim director.

But Watson said the institute must define its vision before find-ing a new director.

The Watson Institute also has a strong program in researching inequality, McKinney said. Current issues could also be selected as areas of study, and McKinney added that a new director should be interested in focusing on India and China.

Heller said security and devel-opment are two areas of focus in which “everyone” thinks the insti-tute should continue to invest, but that other potential focuses — if the institute should even have more than two — are less clear.

the university’s roleThough the Watson Institute has

its own endowment, the University exercises ultimate oversight. The Board of Overseers makes recom-mendations about how the institute should be structured, but all final decisions lie with the administra-

tion and Corporation.“The institute is a part of the

University,” McKinney said. “They are the fiduciary, responsible (par-ty).”

Watson expressed a similar sen-timent, saying the institute is “rep-resentative of international relations at Brown.” She expressed confidence that the University would do a good job deciding the institute’s ultimate focus.

“I have faith in President Sim-mons’ ability to work things out,” she said.

Members of the Board of Over-seers will work with University ad-ministrators to outline potential reforms, Simmons told UCS.

But Gleason warned that the ad-ministration should be careful as it reexamines the institute.

“The administration has to find its way between leading too directly and leading not directly enough, and sometimes that’s a tightrope,” he said.

the undergraduate experienceThe institute is also examining

its role in undergraduate life.“The Watson isn’t really a de-

partment— it’s a research institute,” Heller said. “So there is a debate about the appropriate role for how Watson should be in supporting Brown’s teaching mission.”

The question of how active the institute should be in undergraduate life is a “very political” one, Watson said.

But the institute should “clearly” play a role in undergraduate aca-demics, McKinney said. The size of the international relations con-centration, he said, demonstrates a campus need for “something like the institute.” In 2010, 119 students graduated with concentrations in international relations.

The institute has drawn criticism

for not doing enough to reach out to undergraduates. Reva Dhingra ’14, who plans to concentrate in international relations, said though she is happy with her experience thus far, she has seen people drop the concentration because they were discouraged by introductory classes taught by graduate students.

“They should definitely talk to the freshmen way more,” she said.

The international relations con-centration has at least one adviser per track and one central adviser — Claudia Elliott MA’91 PhD’99, associate director of international relations. Dorothy Lutz ’13, who recently declared her concentra-tion in international relations, said that after hearing that the Watson Institute’s advising was poor, she was surprised to have a “pretty posi-tive experience” when declaring her concentration.

At the same time, though, Lutz said she does not believe the Watson Institute’s primary interest should be undergraduate education.

“Ultimately, the Watson Institute should be geared towards research — grad students and faculty — be-cause there’s some pretty awesome people who work there,” she said.

Stultz said any institute that wants to be a part of the University “has to relate” to undergraduate life.

“I’m not anxious to see Watson isolate itself at all from the under-graduate mission,” Stultz said, but “that doesn’t mean that’s all it has to do.”

Identifying what role Watson should play in undergraduate life is “tricky,” Heller said.

“Teaching takes away from re-search time,” he said. “With the proper design and the proper ar-rangements, it’s possible to make that a win-win proposition as well. But it’s challenging. There’s no doubt that it’s extremely challenging.”

Watson seeks to balance teaching and researchcontinued from page 2

city & state

Sports tuesday 5the Brown Daily heraldtuesday, April 26, 2011

Cloud Buddies! | David emanuel

Dot Comic | eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline

Gelotology| Guillaume Riesen

Co M I C S

“From the financial aspect, it affects the recruiting base,” Agel said. “You don’t want to waste your time recruiting with someone who is not going to be able to afford it. You have to find somebody who understands that the cost of the education up front is going to play itself out on the back end. You in-vest x amount now, you are going to have x times 10 coming out.”

Many athletes not only denied that the lack of scholarships was detrimental, but also said they were in fact glad for the restrictions.

“It’s a different outlook from your sport being a job versus being a voluntary activity,” said Allison Galer ’11, a former member of the women’s basketball team.

“If your scholarship funding is tied to being on a team, you feel more pressure to excel, even if you’re really unhappy,” said Casey Kelsey ’11, a member of the wom-en’s crew team. “Because Brown doesn’t have any scholarships, there’s no one here that doesn’t want to be working as hard as we do. It leads to a better atmosphere, because no one feels obligated to be rowing just because they have to retain their scholarship.”

The lack of scholarships also

attributes to the high number of athletes who decide to “retire,” or leave, their sports, said Howard Chudacoff, a history professor who teaches EDUC 0850: “History of Intercollegiate Athletics.”

“Basketball is a big part of my life, but I knew it wasn’t necessar-ily my future personally on the court,” said Galer, now president of the Brown Sports Business club. “I realized there were a lot of op-portunities I wanted to pursue off the basketball floor.”

“I just didn’t have the same pas-sion for it here,” said Dylan Daniels ’14, who is contemplating giving up athletics. “And when you’re doing something for a minimum 20 hours per week that you’re not enjoying, it takes a toll on you. Not having a scholarship makes it easier for me to walk away and do something that I want to be doing.”

But the lack of scholarships also leads to a stronger team bond and relationship among players.

“Everyone is so pumped to be doing what they’re doing, includ-ing in volleyball,” said Danielle Vaughan ’11, a member of the vol-leyball team. “I’ve been on teams where girls are dragging their feet coming to practice, and I really like the idea that if they’re on the volley-ball team, they still love the game.”

Academics, atmosphere key points for athletes

continued from page 8

editorial6 the Brown Daily heraldtuesday, April 26, 2011

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e D I To R I A L Co M I C b y a l e x y u ly

“The fact of the matter is that the committee’s report

was based on no facts.”— Krista Consiglio ’11,

See proteStorS on page 1.

e D I To R I A L

Last week, the Athletics Review Committee presented a set of pro-posals for review by President Ruth Simmons and the Corporation. Among its recommended policy changes, the committee suggested cutting four athletic teams — men’s wrestling, women’s skiing and men and women’s fencing — and increasing the overall athletics budget by 10 percent. The debate over these proposals has grown fierce and emotional.

This is an extremely difficult issue with severe personal costs. We empathize with current team members, coaches and recruits, all of whom might lose teams that largely define their lives at Brown. We hope students, faculty and alums will treat this debate with tact and respect for all involved.

The committee’s decision comes at a crossroads of sorts for Uni-versity athletics. Brown currently has the most athletic teams in the Ivy League, 37, yet simultaneously spends the least amount on ath-letes. Further, Brown teams generate the least revenue out of any Ivy institution. Ultimately, there are too few resources spread around too many teams. The Herald has documented the negative consequences — low coach salaries, limited funding for recruits who need financial aid and poor on-the-field performance. Given the tough economic times, the committee was tasked with a difficult decision.

Some might find focusing on revenue is the wrong way to frame the debate. A main purpose of athletics is to appeal to the diverse interests of students, generate school spirit and create competitive outlets for top athletes in a wide range of sports. Athletics is important as a major extracurricular arena.

Yet this is ultimately an issue of competitiveness — and thus rev-enue. The theory goes as follows: If the University both cuts teams and increases the athletics budget, more resources will be concentrated for fewer teams. Therefore, teams can hire better coaches, recruit more students who require financial aid and improve performance, which in turn will increase revenue, mostly through alumni donations. This is a risky and tenuous argument.

Calculating revenue streams for athletics is difficult. The University has not released statistics on athletics revenue, because it is very hard to ascertain how athletics are responsible for certain donations. It is unclear if increasing the athletics budget will result in added revenue. More importantly, though, raising the budget for athletics is a poor use of important University resources.

These are extremely difficult economic times — Brown is attempt-ing to jump-start its worthy Student Activities Endowment, students have seen yet another tuition hike, and a plurality of them think the University’s highest priority should be increasing financial aid, accord-ing to last month’s Herald poll. To increase the athletics budget by 10 percent — all the while delivering a huge blow to students, recruits, coaches and alums by eliminating four teams — is problematic, particularly given how unproven this revenue-generating logic is.

Even if it were certain that our athletic teams would become com-petitive with increased funding, there are better ways to allocate this money. We urge the Corporation to reconsider allocating funding to an athletics budget and instead address Brown’s most pressing needs.

editorials are written by The herald’s editorial page board. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.

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Priorities

An article in yesterday’s Herald (“In ‘Monologues,’ vaginas take center stage,” April 25) incorrectly stated that the Brown Monologues/Dialogues project was spearheaded by Raisa Aziz ’11.5. In fact, the project was spearheaded by Aida Manduley ’11. The Herald regrets the error.

Co R R e C T I o N S

An article in yesterday’s Herald (“A step up — bird bones give hints of dino strides,” April 25) stated, “the lab snips certain ligament or connective tissue, looking at ways the animals’ movement responds.” Such proce-dures are only performed on cadavers.

Two photographs in yesterday’s Herald (“Ivy film fest brings out Sorkin, Franco,” April 25) were incorrectly attributed. The photograph of Aaron Sorkin was taken by Hilary Rosenthal, and the photograph of James Franco was taken by Emily Gilbert. The article also identified Hannah Levy ’13 as the festival’s screenplay coordinator. In fact, Levy’s title is screenplay co-coordinator. The Herald regrets the errors.

C L A R I F I C AT I o N

opinions 7the Brown Daily heraldtuesday, April 26, 2011

My four years at Brown have been a wel-come experience of maturation, and like fine wine and deliciously stinky cheese, the school only improves with age. From the moment wide-eyed first-years walk up the impossibly steep College Street and through the gaping Van Wickle Gates, there is some-thing about the campus that changes their impressionable young minds. Mine was no different.

I went to a fairly liberal public school in the middle of backwater New Jersey. The Tea Party has a firm hold on the more ru-ral areas of my county, and the congress-man from my district makes U.S. Rep. Mi-chele Bachmann, R-Minn., look like Karl Marx. Yes, such a place actually exists, and in the sleepy county unknown to absolute-ly everyone besides some die-hard geolo-gists and snowboarding fans — Danny Kass was from there — we happily claim that we have more livestock than people. For in-stance, Walmart was a recent addition, to much ado. Yet at my high school, we read such scandalous books as “Catcher in the Rye” and learned about contraceptive use in health class.

When I came to Brown, I will admit my worldview was downright barbaric com-pared to that of the predominant commu-nity already on campus. I knew I did not approve of the past eight years of the Bush administration, and I worked on President

Obama’s campaign during the primary sea-son. But I will be honest and say I was not very accepting of gay marriage, nor was I even aware of the myriad issues Brown stu-dents tackle every day.

It is my belief that the university expe-rience generally liberalizes. There are nota-ble exceptions, of course, but those who at-tend such universities attend them for that particular reason — they are eddies in the stream of liberalizing education. If the gen-eral trend is to nudge eager young minds to

the left, the Brown experience is a gigan-tic shove off the side of the cliff of conser-vatism. And it is not a gentle feather’s ride down.

My world was shattered. I met my first homosexual classmate, and he was an all-right guy. I met more Jewish classmates than I ever had in high school, and met my first Muslim classmates. To my impressionable young mind, Brown was a place where all these people could get together, learn about the world and about one another and strive to come together to meet the challenges of an increasingly flat world.

By the time I signed on to write columns

for The Herald in my sophomore year, that idyllic picture of the Brown landscape was muddied so deeply that it became hard even to remember it existed. Supporting Israel is deemed apologist, supporting capitalism is greedy and unethical and having even re-motely positive feelings about the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps on campus is to align oneself with the brutal murdering ma-chines of the U.S. armed forces. Even be-ing religious has become demonized — the outspoken atheists among us ridicule those

who believe in a higher power.What I initially saw as a unifying atmo-

sphere has become a dictatorship of ideas. In an atmosphere where the dissenting viewpoint is allowed to flourish and even become prevalent, those in support of it have become zealots. While the opinions expressed on campus have a right to be heard and debated, the minority opinions have a right to be considered.

Recently, the Coalition Against Special Privileges for ROTC circulated a tableslip that declared “Brown Says No!” to ROTC on campus. I was confused because I was not aware that “Brown” as a whole had spo-

ken. In fact, I was just recently filling out the undergraduate survey on the topic. The coalition does not speak for me. Nor does any other student group on campus, for that matter. What I have learned at Brown is that I have a voice, as do we all, and here on Col-lege Hill, we have an opportunity that not everyone receives — we speak and expect to be heard and have our opinions considered.

No student group gets to decide what “Brown says” about anything, especially not in such a fledgling stage of an important de-bate. I recognize that I may be getting my dander up more readily because I happen to be on the other side of the question than the folks in the coalition, but it does not change the fact that to extinguish the opposition is despotic and immoral.

In my four short years on campus, the marketplace of ideas has unfortunately closed for business, and it is threatening to remove Brown as a place of enlightenment and free discourse and place it in the du-bious company of universities that do not tolerate dissenters. Brown is a wonderful place of vibrant diversity socially and eco-nomically, forging the perfect environment to create the leaders of tomorrow. Yet if we keep demonizing our ideological counter-parts and silencing those with whom we do not agree, tomorrow’s leaders will be just as ignorant as yesterday’s.

Mike Johnson ’11 will perform a double backward somersault through a hoop while whistling “The Star-

Spangled Banner” at graduation.

Thanks for all the fish

Swarms of prospective students descended on campus this past week. Walking between classes, I found myself doubling back to get around groups of 50 or more high school-ers, parents in tow, listening attentively to a hoarse Brown student yelling ineffectively at the top of his lungs.

Brown is a popular school — over 30,000 people apply — yet this week, the number of potential Brunonians on campus skyrocket-ed. What drove this sudden increase?

The simplest answer is that many high schools in the Northeast were on break this past week, precisely at the point when high school juniors begin to seriously consider where they are going to apply later this year. But why should so many more high schools have break now?

This week saw the celebration of both Easter and Passover. In the spirit of ac-commodating religious observances, it is common for high schools, especially in the Northeast, to time their spring breaks to co-incide with these two holidays. Both Pass-over and Easter are holidays that observ-ers spend with family, often traveling out of town. For observers of Passover, the restric-tions against eating leavened bread make eating at a school cafeteria all but impossi-ble. In the best interest of both students and teachers who would like to observe these holidays without worrying about homework or tests, giving time off for the week lead-ing up to Easter — usually coinciding with

Passover — is a way of accommodating the overwhelming number of religiously obser-vant Americans.

Yet this sort of pragmatic calendar plan-ning is all but lost on Brown. Despite its large Judeo-Christian population, Brown does very little to accommodate those who want to observe Passover or Easter. Easter is on a Sunday, so there is somewhat of an ex-cuse there, but this year’s first Passover seder was Monday.

For Jews, Passover is practically the equivalent of Thanksgiving or Christmas. It is a time when extended family and friends

come together to share in a meal intended to cherish freedom. Brown would never schedule classes on Thanksgiving or Christ-mas but does not hesitate to schedule classes on Passover, despite the fact that Jewish stu-dents make up over 20 percent of students and that Passover is one of the most widely observed Jewish customs, with 79 percent of American Jews attending a Passover seder.

Sure, most professors will accommodate students and excuse absences for religious observance, yet hundreds of Brown students clearly felt they could not leave as shown by the hundreds who attended the seders at

Hillel.Besides, it is not like Brown always sched-

ules classes on Passover. Last year, by coinci-dence, the Passover seders fell over spring break. Brown could adopt some pragmatic sensibility in scheduling the academic year with the flexibility to move spring break a week or two to align with Passover and Eas-ter.

Another sensible approach would be to move spring break earlier in March to more closely align with other universities — giv-ing Brown students the chance to see friends while home over break — while exchang-

ing the Presidents’ Day holiday in favor of two days off for Passover and Easter. Hav-ing a few days off for Passover and Easter will also make it easier for parents of both college- and high school-aged children to schedule family vacations and provide a way for Brown students to spend time with their high school-aged friends.

Fortunately, the University has shown a willingness to consider the religious obser-vances of students in the past. Rosh Hasha-nah, the Jewish new year, would have fall-en on the first two days of school last fall. Aware that shopping classes while trying to

attend High Holiday services would have been a huge conflict for the Jewish commu-nity, the school year was pushed to begin before Labor Day. There was still school on Rosh Hashanah, but luckily, not the crucial first two days.

This coming fall, there is an opportunity for Brown to exercise the same kind of prag-matic scheduling. Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, on which Jews are not permitted even to eat, falls on Fri-day, Oct. 7. Yet rather than give us that day off, which would be convenient for Brown’s Jewish community, the University is choos-ing to give us Oct. 10 — Columbus Day — instead.

But since the University renamed the weekend Fall Weekend, the nominal ties to Columbus Day have been severed. If the University really wanted to show the week-end is something other than Columbus Day by a different name, then it should give off the Friday of Yom Kippur, not the Monday of Columbus Day, thereby aiding a signifi-cant minority of the student body and dem-onstrating its support of Native American grievances.

Since both holidays fall on precisely the same weekend — and missing a day of class on a Monday or a Friday is essentially the same scheduling-wise, if not a little better for students who have Monday seminars — this would be a win-win for the school and a good first start toward a pragmatic, consid-erate approach to scheduling.

ethan Tobias ’12 really just wants some of that homemade matzo ball

soup. He can be reached at ethan_Tobias@brown.edu.

‘Next year at home’

Brown would never schedule classes on Thanksgiving or Christmas but does not hesitate to schedule classes

on Passover, despite the fact that Jewish students make up over 20 percent of students and that Passover is one

of the most widely observed Jewish customs.

In an atmosphere where the dissenting viewpoint is allowed to flourish and even become prevalent,

those in support of it have become zealots.

By eTHAN ToBIASopinions Columnist

By MIKe JoHNSoNopinions Columnist

Daily Heraldthe Brown

Sports tuesdaytuesday, April 26, 2011

Taekwondo wins first national titleBy amy cHen

Staff Writer

Twenty-five members of the Brown Taekwondo team brought home medals galore, trophies and, for the first time, the national title at the National Collegiate Taekwondo As-sociation Championships April 9-10.

The national tournament at the University of California at Davis hosted more than 300 competitors from 30 schools. The two-day event included competitions for the color belt division April 9 and black belt division April 10. Competitions were divided according to belt col-ors, weight and gender.

Twenty-one Bears won medals, and some took home more than one.

For the past several years, the club team has ranked among the top three nationally, which put pressure on the team to maintain its high level of performance, said Bhuvic Patel ’11, head instructor and coach.

Students who competed at the tournament participated in a week of intensive training over spring

break, focusing on forms and de-fense.

“It had been a long journey to get there,” said Karin Wefald ’13, who won first place in the featherweight division. “You had to mentally pre-pare yourself for the experience.”

“At nationals, I just thought back to how much I’ve trained,” said Lei Ma ’13, who placed second in the feather weight division. “No way I was going to mess it up. I was over-prepared. When we were there, we were ready.”

Brown Taekwondo is the biggest martial arts club on campus with over 120 members, most of whom did not start taekwondo until their first year at Brown.

Alums also attended the compe-tition to help out and drive students around the area. “Seeing alumni there, I saw how much of a group effort it was,” Wefald said.

While training for nationals, stu-dents traveled from campus to Mas-ter Sung Sun Park’s ’99 taekwondo center in Smithfield for additional practices.

“He’s our master, and he decides

our curriculum and our training,” Patel said. The national champion-ship is also a “title representative of his hard work,” he added. “Master Sung Park shows a sense of the club’s continuity.”

The many years of improvements and commitment in the club have contributed to this year’s win, Patel said. Though the taekwondo pro-gram started in the 1960s, the club did not really become active until the 1980s, he added. Since then, the club has increased its membership and become stronger each year.

“The club has been working to-wards this place for a long time,” Patel said.

“There was positive energy from the first fight,” he said, and the com-petitions following it continued to build energy.

Now that the team has won the championship, members hope the program will gain more exposure and widespread recognition, Patel said. He said he hopes whenever people speak of college and tae-kwondo, they will think of Brown and its role in the sport.

Squads hit the road, compete separately

By JameS BlumSportS Staff Writer

The men’s and women’s track and field squads split their forces this weekend as a majority of the mem-bers competed at Princeton’s Larry Ellis Memorial Invitational, and a small group of athletes traveled down to Louisiana State University for the Alumni Gold tournament. Both meets were not scored, but Brown kept its competitive spirit high.

At Princeton, Heidi Caldwell ’14 ran the 3000-meter in 9 minutes, 44.50 seconds for a second-place finish. In the 5000m, Ari Garber ’13 earned 11th place with a time of 16:48.72.

On the men’s side, Dan Lowry ’12 covered the 5000-meter in 14:16.27 to come in 18th.

John Spooney ’14 put together two strong performances, finishing second in the 200-meter dash and seventh in the 100-meter dash. His times were 21.41 seconds and 10.82, respectively.

The seven athletes who traveled down to Baton Rouge competed mostly in field events. The sole ex-ception was Samantha Adelberg ’11, who represented Bruno on the track, finishing eighth in the 800-meter with a time of 2:08.73.

Everyone was “right around” a personal record, said Michelle Eisen-reich, director of men’s and women’s track and field.

Rachel Biblo ’11 enjoyed a suc-cessful day as she triple jumped 40 feet, 11 inches to finish third. She also finished fourth in the long jump with a leap of 19-4 3/4.

“The performance of the day goes

to Rachel Biblo,” Eisenreich said. “She had about a foot (personal record) in the long jump and then what I think is her second-best triple jump ever.”

“I think I got some pretty solid jumps that were competitive in the Ivy League,” Biblo said. “I think I just need to be more fluid and have better acceleration.”

Victoria Buhr ’13 hurled the dis-cus 157-6 and claimed third place. Brynn Smith ’11 threw the hammer 197-6 for a second-place finish in the hammer throw and launched the shot 47-9 1/4 to finish fourth in the shot put.

Bruno was well represented in the javelin throw by Nicholas Keel-ing ’14 and Niina Al-Hassan ’14, who threw 215-8 and 142-10, re-spectively. Keeling finished second in the men’s competition, while Al-Hassan finished third among women.

The squads will send a small number of athletes to the Penn Re-lays this weekend, while the majority of the team will remain home to host the Brown Springtime Open.

Only two weeks remain until the Ivy League Heptagonal Track and Field Championships at Yale. Last year, the women’s team came in second overall, and the men’s team finished third. Eisenreich said this year the teams need to focus on re-fining technique, improving speed and resting.

“I think that the teams are really excited to try to improve on their performance at Heps from last year,” Eisenreich said. “We’re expecting an even larger contingent at regionals and hopefully nationals as well.”

Athletes join teams for love of the game, not moneyBy Sam ruBinroit

SportS Staff Writer

By accepting less than 9 percent of its nearly 31,000 applicants, Brown is able to pick and choose the best and brightest from across the nation and even around the globe. And yet when recruiting elite athletes, the University often finds itself at a disadvantage. As a member of the Ivy League, Brown is hindered by strict academic requirements and scholarship restrictions that severely limit its pool of potential athletes. So what makes an athlete come to Brown?

love at first sight

Athletes at Division I schools choose their colleges based on a variety of factors, such as a school’s winning tradition, the potential to win a national championship or the reputation of a coach. But athletes at Brown cited all these reasons as secondary to the quality of education and the atmosphere on campus.

“First and foremost, it is a great opportunity to get an Ivy League education,” said Katie Hyland ’11,

captain of the women’s field hockey team. “Secondly, the girls here on the team felt like my family from the moment I met them. And then the coaching staff. I knew I would be in good hands as a freshman and throughout my career with their guidance.”

Young players may also choose Brown over other athletic programs because they will be able to make an immediate impact rather than ride the bench for their first years.

“The big thing I looked at in my decision was being able to play as a freshman and being able to contribute early,” said Sean McG-onagill ’14. “I considered Brown strongly because they needed a point guard, and it was a good op-portunity where I could come in and contribute right away.”

For many, the ability to get an Ivy League education while playing the sport they love is a dream come true. But some athletes are not con-vinced until they are exposed to the campus for the first time.

“Initially, I was skeptical about the type of atmosphere at Brown — maybe it would be preppy, maybe a little snobby,” said Niina Al-Hassan

’14, who throws the javelin for the track and field team and hails from Pullman, Wash. “But when I came for my official visit, I just fell in love with it. I loved the campus. I loved the people. And the academics were important, but it wasn’t a competi-tive nature.”

“I’m from California, and I just love it here,” said Bailey Wendzel ’13 of the women’s volleyball team. “There’s a great balance between academics and athletics, but also the vibe is just more cohesive to who I am. There’s a feeling of be-longing here.”

a different breedAthletes at Brown are different

than those found at other institu-tions, according to many coaches. Most spoke of the “balance” that players maintain between being elite Division I athletes and dedi-cated scholars.

“When I’m recruiting athletes, they want the best of both worlds,” said Danielle Griffiths, head coach of women’s golf. “They are look-ing for that balance. They want the best education that they can have in combination with golf.”

The same aspects of the Univer-sity that appeal to a class valedic-torian or a top violinist also draw athletes. With its open curriculum, welcoming atmosphere and gener-ally relaxed state, Brown attracts a specific type of athlete.

“Brown not being the HYP — Harvard, Yale or Princeton — many times the kids are more down to earth,” said Diane Short, head coach of women’s volleyball.

Because of the University’s lim-ited athletic budget and position in the Ivy League, it becomes virtually impossible for coaches to appeal to five-star recruits.

“We need to find that rare kid who is a high-level basketball player who also wants a high-level educa-tion,” said men’s head basketball coach Jesse Agel. “If you want to be a professional basketball player, and you’re good enough to play at the top levels, that’s going to help you to prepare to play professionally. But if you want to be in business, when it is all said and done, you can’t find a better situation than coming to Brown.”

As such, it becomes the coaches’ job to pitch the school rather than

the athletic team. “We have to sell Brown,” said

John Murphy, head coach of the No. 6 women’s crew team. “If they choose to row in college, they are going to find that we have a good, strong program, but I think the main thing is they need to choose Brown over some other school out there. They really have to want to be a part of the school.”

money mattersIf athletes choose to matriculate

at Brown, they must either cover the costs themselves or rely on need-based financial aid. The Ivy League has an explicit ban on all athletic scholarships, dating back to the 1954 Ivy Group Agreement stating, “Athletes shall be admitted as students and awarded financial aid only on the basis of the same academic standards and economic need as are applied to all other stu-dents.”

The lack of money available to athletes affects the recruiting pro-cess for certain sports more than others.

Courtesy of Sung Sun ParkThe Brown Taekwondo team traveled to the university of California at Davis for the national competition, where they took home the top prize.

continued on page 5

TRACk AND FIELD