The Brown Daily heralDWednesday, november 7, 2007Volume CXLII, No. 105 Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

www.browndailyherald.com 195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

INSIDE:

CORNELL CASHCornell is investing $20 million to help develop public transit and afford-able housing in Ithaca.

CAMPUS NEWS

5OPINIONS

11THE UEL’S DISCONTENTSome students and profes-sors are organizing to save the Urban Environmental Lab.

SPORTS

12CAMBIER RESPONDSAdam Cambier ‘09 responds to critics of his recent op-ed on Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron.

M. WATER POLO FALLSMen’s water polo lost over the weekend to St. Francis College at the Northern Di-vision Championship.

CAMPUS WATCH

3

Faithlessness on the rise?By JOANNA SHARPLESSContributing Writer

Is God losing ground in the crusade for college students’ faith? More and more college-aged Americans are identifying themselves as atheist, agnostic or nonreligious, according to a re-cent survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. But this trend may not hold water at Brown.

Atheists on Brown’s campus have not noticeably increased over recent years, and the percentage of Brown students who actively identify as “atheist/agnostic” is actually smaller than the national numbers reported by Pew, accord-

ing to University Chaplain Janet Cooper Nelson.

The Pew survey, published in January, found that 20 percent of 18- to 25-year-olds identify as atheist, agnostic or nonreligious — twice the percentage found in the 1980’s.

Cooper Nelson said, since she came to Brown in 1990, about 5 percent of Brown students identify themselves each year as “athe-ist/agnostic” on surveys given to

Spring Weekend to move a week earlier to dodge PassoverBy MEHA VERgHESEstaff Writer

Brown’s Spring Weekend — the traditional four-day extravaganza of music, food and drink — will take place from April 10 to 13 this year, a week earlier than usual. This spring, the start of the Jewish holi-day Passover falls during the third weekend of April, which is when the University usually schedules Spring Weekend, said Ricky Gresh, director of student activities.

“We try to schedule (Spring Weekend) several years in advance,” Gresh said, but this year’s conflict was not discovered until the sum-mer. “We discovered that the calen-dar that was consulted a few years ago had an error in it,” he said.

Changing the dates was not dif-ficult, Gresh said. There were no conflicts, since the problem was dis-covered before the Scheduling Of-fice began booking the use of public spaces for the academic year.

Spring Weekend coincided with Passover in 2005 and with Eastern Orthodox Easter in 2006, and some

students had to choose between at-tending religious services or Spring Weekend events, said Megan Nes-bitt, assistant director of Hillel.

“Since then, the Office of Stu-dent Activities has been in touch with religious communities to find out the dates of Eastern Orthodox

Easter, Easter and Passover in an attempt to avoid overlapping Spring

Simmons to speak at UCSBy FRANkLIN kANINsenior staff Writer

Students who stop by Petteruti Lounge tonight to share their views on the student activities fee increase — which will be voted on tonight — at the general body meeting of the Undergraduate Council of Students will be disappointed. The meeting will take place in Leung Gallery to accommodate the crowd that the council hopes President Ruth Sim-mons will draw.

Tonight Simmons will discuss the Plan for Academic Enrichment and seek student feedback on her administration’s initiatives.

“(Simmons) is doing this review of the plan to present to the Cor-poration in February. This is sort of the prime time for student feed-back,” said UCS President Michael Glassman ’09. “What’s missing from the original plan that needs to be focused on? This is a great opportu-nity for us to say, ‘Housing has really

been neglected,’ for example.”Glassman said he hopes the dis-

cussion will serve as a chance for students to interact with Simmons about the plan, and not just listen to the president describe the plan. UCS members have already been given background information on the plan so they will be knowledgeable about the topics of the discussion.

“The intention is to avoid, ‘What’s the Plan for Academic Enrichment?’ We really want to spend time having people talk to her and giving her feedback,” Glassman said.

Simmons will be accompanied by other University administrators, including Executive Vice President for Planning and Senior Adviser to the President Richard Spies, As-sistant to the President Marisa Quinn, Interim Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services Russell Carey ’91 MA’06 and Associ-ate Vice President for Campus Life

Chuck Norris to roundhouse kick bookstores this monthBy NICk WERLEsenior staff Writer

Ian Spector ’09 is not a fan of Chuck Norris, the fetishized action star who has been the subject of thou-sands of jokes over the last few years.

“I haven’t to date seen any mov-ie with him except for Dodgeball,” Spector said. “But that doesn’t re-ally count.”

For most people, it might not be notable to have never seen an episode of “Walker, Texas Ranger,” but Spector is the creator of the famous Web site “Chuck Norris Random Fact Generator,” and is releasing a book, “The Truth About Chuck Norris: 400 Facts About the World’s Greatest Human,” Nov. 29 that includes the best “facts” from his database.

Though several imitations have sprung up on the Web, peddling jokes about Chuck Norris’ viril-

ity and fighting skills, Spector’s is widely acknowledged as the first. Indeed, he has been featured in numerous newspapers and on tele-

vision shows including “Nightline” and a VH1 special on Internet su-

Oona Curley / Herald

“Chuck Norris Fact Generator” creator Ian Spector ’09 is releasing a book of the “facts.”

File photo courtesy of Zachary Marcus

At last year’s Spring Weekend, students listened to the Flaming Lips amid blue balloons, distributed by the headliners.

Herald File Photo

President Ruth Simmons, pictured here at UCS last year, will attend Wednesday’s general body meeting.

New dorm back on the agenda

By MICHAEL BECHEk AND MICHAEL SkOCPOLsenior staff Writers

Members of the Corporation, Brown’s highest governing body, have insisted that improving and expanding student housing figure more prominently into the Uni-versity’s plans for the near future, President Ruth Simmons told the faculty Tuesday.

University officials had expected to abandon plans to construct a new residence hall in response to the unexpected cost of replacing the moribund Smith Swim Center, Sim-mons indicated, instead choosing to prioritize improvements in other areas.

At its monthly meeting Tuesday, the faculty also heard from Uni-versity Registrar Michael Pesta that Brown will publish a printed course announcement bulletin for the 2008-2009 academic year, after determining that its elimination this year had exacerbated students’ dif-ficulties with the transition to the new Banner online registration system.

“This will be known as the year without a course announcement,” Pesta told a faculty member who said he had heard “a lot of blowback from students” about its absence this year. The new bulletin will be available to students in April, in time for pre-registration for the Fall 2008 semester.

Reporting on the October meet-ing of the Corporation, Simmons

continued on page 4

continued on page 8

continued on page 6continued on page 6

continued on page 4

FAITH ON CAMPUSsecond in a series on

religious life at the University

Course Announcement Bulletin to return, the registrar tells the faculty

ToDay

The Brown Daily heralD

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ACROSS1 Violin heard in

“The Red Violin”6 She played Lois

in “Lois & Clark”10 Smear14 University of

Maine town15 Was affected by17 1952 Gene Kelly

musical19 Burden and then

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applications23 Austerity25 Medical suffix26 Vote against27 Environmentalist28 1987 Masters

champ Larry29 Sine __ non30 1960-61 chess

champ Mikhail32 “Concord

Sonata”composer

33 1981 RichardPryor film

36 Ancient portico38 Casper-to-Pierre

dir.39 Heat source40 Izod Center

hoopsters41 Door parts43 Herriman’s

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Abbr.47 Objet d’art48 Sported49 Question of

identity50 Hither’s partner51 Given to

wandering53 1986 Whoopi

Goldberg movie56 Like a family with

a nonworkingspouse

57 “HomeImprovement”star

58 Hospital count59 Word before cold

or wind60 Authority

DOWN1 “Already?”2 “Who Wants to

Be a Millionaire?”material

3 TV Tarzanportrayer

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rewards16 Commonly used

numerical base18 Participate in a

documentaryfilm, perhaps

24 Come close25 “__ you!”: absent

lover’s lament27 Astronaut

Grissom29 Suppress31 Daily record33 Reached a low

point34 “The Adventures

of Tom Sawyer”villain

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37 “Lad: A Dog”author

42 Like somebottled garlic

43 Hungariancomposer Zoltán__

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50 Yang’scounterpart

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54 TV’s Magnum etal.

55 Org. with amuch-quotedjournal

By Don and Barbara Gagliardo(c)2007 Tribune Media Services, Inc. 11/7/07

11/7/07

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, November 7, 2007

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

xwordeditor@aol.com

C r o s s W o r d

s u d o k u

W e a t h e r

m e n u

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

© Puzzles by Pappocom

sunny52 / 34

sunny46 / 30

SHARPE REFECTORy

LUNCH — Barley Pilaf, Falafel in Pita with Cucumber Dressing and Tahini, Barbecue Beef Ribs, Rice Krispie Cookies

DINNER — Sweet and Sour Vegetable Stir Fry, Chicken Cacciatore, Red Rice, Vegetarian Cream of Tomato Soup, French Apple Pie

VERNEy-WOOLLEy DININg HALL

LUNCH — Bruschetta Mozzarella, Beef and Broccoli Szechwan, Edamame Beans with Tri-Color Peppers, Frosted Cookie Squares

DINNER — Corn on the Cob, Brus-sels Sprouts with Horseradish, Hearth Bread, Barbecue Chicken, Hot Dogs in Beer, French Apple Pie

TODAy T O M O R R O W

PAGE 2 THE BROWN DAILy HERALD WEDNESDAy, NOVEMBER 7, 2007

But Seriously | Charlie Custer and Stephen Barlow

Classic Deep-Fried kittens | Cara FitzGibbon

Octopus on Hallucinogens | Toni Liu and Stephanie Le

Classic Deo | Daniel Perez

Aibohphobia | Roxanne Palmer

Classic How To get Down | Nate Saunders

Campus waTChWEDNESDAy, NOVEMBER 7, 2007 THE BROWN DAILy HERALD PAGE 3

Cornell to invest $20m for housing, transportationBy EMMy LISS Contributing Writer

Cornell University will invest $20 million over the next 10 years in the Ithaca, N.Y., community in order to create affordable housing and public transportation for faculty, staff and students, Cornell President David Skorton announced last month.

According to Stephen Golding, executive vice president for finance and administration at Cornell, Sko-rton asked his senior staff about a year ago to “step back and think about key strategic areas that the university should be partnering with the local community on, to en-sure over the next 20 to 25 years that the area remains economically strong and culturally and socially vibrant.”

Six key themes were identified as critical areas: healthcare, pre-kin-dergarten through 12th-grade edu-cation, the environment, housing, economic development and infra-structure. Several teams then looked at the various topics that comprise each of these “strategic areas” to determine “what the university can and should do,” he said.

The decision to focus on housing was made because of a recognized need for more affordable housing for faculty, staff and students, Gold-ing said, adding that any new plans will be developed “in concert with local community plans” in order to ensure “that we do this thoughtfully and carefully.”

Transportation is also a focus, as the university would like to reduce the volume of single-occupancy ve-hicles that travel through campus and Ithaca at large, a result of the long commutes of many in the area. Reducing the number of vehicles on the road and having a more viable public transit system would “alleviate pressure on the local community,” Golding said.

The specifics of how the $20 million will be applied to housing and transportation are not clear yet. “The final determination for what we do and how we do it and what the characteristics of the program are will be informed by conversations with local community leadership. We think we know what we need to provide, but we want to do it in a way that’s sensitive to our community,” Golding said.

Ithaca is currently in the midst of its own building plans, both in-dependent of and in concert with Cornell. There is “a lot of planning being fairly well coordinated (and) money behind our initiatives is a wel-come sign,” said John Gutenberger, director of community relations for Cornell.

Gutenberger said the $20 million investment is important for short-term planning, because “if we invest wisely and if we do our job and there are positive community results com-ing out of that ... it will bring more community dollars to the table.”

Cornell currently gives about $2 million a year to Ithaca, some of which is earmarked for the local fire department, which serves the university. A separate contribution is also made to the Ithaca school district each year.

Like any university and its sur-rounding community, Cornell and its neighbors have their tensions, but relations are generally positive and are improving, Golding said, “di-

rectly due to the fact that the presi-dent believes a strong relationship is absolutely critical to benefit the community and Cornell.”

In order to move forward with housing and transportation plan-ning in tandem with local commu-nities, Cornell has asked all of its neighbors — the Town of Ithaca, the City of Ithaca and various other towns, in total five different political constituencies — to bring forward any housing strategies or priorities. Housing will be a collaborative effort to “positively impact community-wide strategy,” Gutenberger said.

The university is looking at the possibility of constructing new housing, particularly in the form of townhouses or apartments in the downtown area, as well as building homes near campus or offering mortgage assistance on already existing structures.

“We don’t want people to have to drive 30 to 40 minutes to work, we don’t want cars driving through to exacerbate relations (because) of congestion and we have a need for a specific type of housing. This com-bination leads us to believe that over the next 10 years, by committing to these programs, we can improve life for faculty, staff and students,” Golding said.

According to Richard Spies, Brown’s executive vice president for planning and senior adviser to the president, such an investment by Brown in Providence is a pos-sibility. Though a large investment in infrastructure in the community is not in the University’s short-term plans, Spies said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if in 10 to 15 years the University were to “invest in some-thing to be built.”

But Spies stressed that Brown’s situation cannot be compared di-rectly to Cornell because they are in a “different situation than a more urban university.” Any future build-ing projects at Brown would more likely take place in “undeveloped or underdeveloped areas,” not in Brown’s immediate surroundings, given that “the residential neigh-borhood is well established,” Spies said.

Spies said there was no press-ing need to invest in housing near Brown. Unlike in Ithaca, there is a “fair amount” of reasonably priced housing located close to the Brown campus for students and faculty.

At Brown, approximately 55 per-cent of faculty and 35 percent of staff live in Providence, Spies said. At Cornell, a third of faculty and staff have a 25-to-30-minute commute, according to Golding.

Brown’s direct relationship with the city of Providence is “developing and evolving,” a necessary compo-nent for future growth, Spies said. President Ruth Simmons has noted this relationship as an important point to which the University needs to devote more focus and has asked Spies to “step up our involvement,” he added.

Like Cornell, Brown contributes annually to its larger community, giving about $1.5 million, which was “designed to allow the city to use it as they see best,” Spies said. The donation is meant to “recognize that we benefit from the city, and in our own way support it.” The payments are made in lieu of property taxes, from which universities are gener-ally exempt.

Alumni participation a fine balance for student groupsBy EVAN PELzContributing Writer

Student groups frequently go to great lengths to secure funding from alums, often creating or rely-ing on alumni associations for assis-tance with fundraising and advice on how to handle certain problems or obstacles. But occasionally, this practice can be taken too far by some overzealous alums.

Take, for example, an incident that befell the Yale Literary Maga-zine 30 years ago. Andrei Navrozov, a former editor of the magazine, attempted to continue oversee-ing the publication following his graduation, according to an Oct. 22 Yale Daily News article. Nav-rozov remained involved with the magazine for nearly a decade after graduating, current Yale Literary Magazine Co-Editor-in-Chief Jordan Jacks told The Herald. Jacks said Navrozov “took control of a loop-hole and severed all connections to the undergraduate community.” After a prolonged legal battle that ended in 1987, Yale succeeded in wresting control of the magazine from Navrozov, Jacks said.

The case of the Yale Literary Magazine is an extreme example of alums continuing their involvement with student groups they belonged to as undergraduates. On campuses across the country, many alums remain involved in student groups in some way or another. Alumni involvement in student organiza-tions is usually helpful, with the Yale Literary Magazine case serv-ing as the one major blot on the record of alumni contributions to student groups, Jacks said.

For the most part, there are only benefits to alumni involvement with student groups, the biggest being the financial contributions that are typically forthcoming from alums

of student groups. At Yale, the As-sociation of Yale Alumni does not directly support student groups, but support comes from a variety of other sources, Executive Direc-tor of the AYA Mark Dollhopf told The Herald.

The first place Yale student or-ganizations turn to obtain financial support is the dean of the college. But if that support does not suffice, student organizations can go to a variety of interest groups, including specific alumni groups or organiza-tions, Dollhopf said.

In cases where these alumni as-sociations do not already exist, the AYA steps in to help create them, Dollhopf said, naming the Yale De-bate Association as an example. The debate group didn’t have an alumni association to turn to for the funding of its 100th anniversary celebration. In that instance, the student group went to the AYA and Dollhopf worked with alums and the students in order to create an association, he said.

The AYA is “not a bank that dis-penses money, but supports the alumni associations to help the student organizations. The AYA is not in the business of fundraising,” Dollhopf said.

With so many student groups relying on alumni funding, the question becomes, “Who’s run-ning the show: alumni or students?” Dollhopf said. Though Dollhopf said he had not heard of the Yale Literary Magazine incident, he maintained that undergraduates should always have some control in alumni organizations.

At Brown, Director of Student Activities Ricky Gresh said when alumni are passionate about their former organizations, there can be a fine line between wanting to main-tain connections to the group and becoming too involved in the inner

workings of the organization. Gresh said that Brown alums

are mostly used “for advice and support to make sure the students are getting the most out of the orga-nizations that they can.” Normally, there isn’t a problem with alums trying to exert too much pressure on organizations, Gresh said, but “student organizations are for stu-dents, and we need to make sure the students set the direction for the future they want.”

A good example of a student group with appropriate alumni support is Brown Student Radio, Gresh said.

Jenny Weissbourd ’08, general manager of BSR, told The Herald that the structure of BSR doesn’t allow alumni control over the or-ganization. The executive board “is made up of students and has the power in the structure of the organization,” and there is an ad-visory board, which has alumni participation, Weissbourd said.

Since the advisory board doesn’t have direct power or control over the station’s activities, there is “no control over the organization ex-erted by alumni,” she said.

Weissbourd said the main ben-efit of alumni support is that “a lot of them have jobs related to radio and it’s useful to use their feedback in a professional capacity.”

Although BSR receives some financial support from alumni, she said that “it is not enough to shape any of our decision-making.” She said that the money they do receive from alums is for specific projects or improvement of the station.

Weissbourd said alums do not interfere in the central workings of BSR because “their experience was as students and they see it is imperative for current students to have no alumni influence in the decision-making.”

remember to register

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PAGE 4 THE BROWN DAILy HERALD WEDNESDAy, NOVEMBER 7, 2007

Weekend with any of those,” Nesbitt said. She said she provided the SAO with those dates.

The University and student groups “want to be really respect-ful” of all religious holidays, Nesbitt said.

Gresh said that, in past years, con-flicts were noticed only after many of the arrangements for events had been made, making a change in date impossible. In those circumstances, the Student Union — a collection of the major programming groups on campus such as the Special Events Committee, Brown Key Society, Brown Concert Agency and Greek Council — and the SAO worked with religious leaders to accommodate religious services and include some in the Spring Weekend schedule.

“The important thing is to maxi-mize the number of people who can participate,” Gresh said. “It’s really... about what kind of community do we want to be and what is Spring Weekend all about.”

The change in date is a logistical challenge for BCA, which organizes the two large concerts usually held on Thursday evening and Saturday afternoon during Spring Weekend.

“From our standpoint, the biggest challenge that we face for Spring Weekend is the unpredictability of the weather,” said David Horn ’08, booking chair for BCA. “April is already a volatile month, and the (earlier) we are into April, the more likely we are to have bad weather,” he said.

With this year’s earlier date, Horn

said, there is a higher chance of poor weather forcing Saturday’s concert indoors. As a result, BCA is making an effort to ensure that at least some events can be held outdoors. “I’d say being outdoors is really the essence of a Brown Spring Weekend,” Horn said.

The rain location for Saturday’s concert is Meehan Auditorium, the venue where the Thursday show is typically held. But because of com-plaints about the auditorium’s acous-tics and atmosphere, BCA is trying to find other options, Horn said.

One option is to hold an event out-side, rain or shine — “a Woodstock-style event,” Horn said, but there are potential issues with damage to the Main Green and whether students would be willing to attend a concert in the rain.

The other option, Horn said, is to schedule both concerts for outdoor venues. “The major thing that we’re trying to do is we’re trying to plan to have both concerts outside so in the case there is bad weather, there’s a higher probability that at least one of the concerts is held outside,” Horn said.

Horn said the availability of bands and higher booking fees in early April could also be obstacles. “In most cases, it’s less expensive to book a band if they’re already on tour and planning around your date,” he said, citing the Flaming Lips, who performed during last year’s Spring Weekend as part of their tour. “Most bands have a spring tour, but that starts in late April, not early April,” Horn said.

BCA will hold a MyCourses

survey next week to assess student opinion regarding Spring Weekend and gauge what students would like to see. “We’re primarily focused this year on how important the location and venue is, because that’s a fun-damental issue we’re dealing with,” Horn said.

Greek Council organizes the two other concerts during Spring Week-end — Rage on Wriston and Dave Binder’s Sunday concert. Rage on Wriston, a concert on the Friday of Spring Weekend featuring local and student bands, should be unaffected by the change of date, said Greek Council Chair Steven Beckoff ’08.

“It shouldn’t make a difference to the student concert, because students are always willing to per-form,” Beckoff said. But, he added, “It would affect Dave Binder if he is booked. Usually we have him for the weekend of the 20th.”

Beckoff said he plans to contact Binder soon to make sure he can perform on the new date, but Beckoff said he thinks the ability to include the entire student body in Spring Weekend festivities outweighs any possible inconvenience of the date shift. “My freshman year, Spring Weekend was during Passover, and (a lot of people on campus are) Jew-ish, so that’s a big deal. It’s nice that the administration is taking that into consideration,” he said.

Ultimately, Horn said, Spring Weekend will still be enjoyed by students, despite any potential dif-ficulties. “The bands we are going to bring are going to be so much fun that it won’t make a difference,” he said.

continued from page 1

Religious concerns shift Spring Weekend earlier

newly matriculated students. While more than 20 percent of students “don’t say anything about themselves religiously,” about 70 to 75 percent “offer some proper noun about what they are religiously or culturally,” she said. There have not been large de-mographic shifts in Brown’s religious populations in that time, Cooper Nel-son said.

Cooper Nelson doubts the accu-racy of the Pew survey’s findings, and said she thought the results might reflect a particular agenda to paint religion as losing importance in American life.

The recent, rapid spread of secu-lar student groups to many college campuses, however, seems to sug-gest that secularism is on the rise among college students. The Secular Student Alliance, which seeks to fa-cilitate the growth of student groups that “promote the ideals of scientific rationality, secularism, democracy and human based ethics,” accord-ing to its Web site, has grown dra-matically from 30 affiliated groups to 106 affiliated groups in the last seven years, according to Executive Direc-tor August Brunsman. The number of SSA-affiliated groups has doubled in the past year alone.

Greg Epstein, who serves as Har-vard University’s humanist chaplain, said he has noticed greater interest in humanism, which is closely related to atheism, on college campuses. Epstein defined humanism as “a progressive life stance that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment, aspiring to the greater good of humanity.”

While only four students were ac-tive in the Harvard Secular Society four years ago, several dozen students

are now involved in the group, and its events attract hundreds, Epstein said. He said he had seen student-run secularist or humanist groups spread to many college campuses, including Tufts and Brandeis universities and Bentley College.

“Clearly it’s growing. It’s growing at a rate that somebody like myself — I could clone myself six or seven times and still not be able to keep up with all the people who are inter-ested in what I’m doing on campus,” he said.

Cooper Nelson said she has never heard of an organized student athe-ist group on Brown’s campus, and the idea for a humanist chaplaincy has never come up. She said her of-fice would be supportive if students expressed an interest in organized atheism.

Harvard has had a humanist chaplaincy since the 1970s, a posi-tion that became a permanent and endowed chaplaincy in the 1990s, Epstein said.

Brunsman thought college stu-dents’ increased interest in atheism might be due in part to recent books like Richard Dawkins’ “The God De-lusion” and Sam Harris’ “The End of Faith,” which challenge principles of religious belief. “Those books are reducing the social cost of being an open atheist or agnostic or humanist, and it’s easier for people to come out as having those beliefs,” Brunsman said.

Epstein attributed the spread of atheism and humanism to scientific advances, increased campus diversity and current events. Greater religious pluralism on campuses is allowing students to be more comfortable ex-pressing conflicting beliefs, including atheist ideas, and dislike of religious fanaticism may drive others to athe-ism, he said.

College students are particu-larly likely to adopt atheist values, Brunsman said. “When people are students, especially college students, they’re at a place in their lives where they’re open to exploring new iden-tity and saying, ‘What do I want to believe?’ I think they’re especially re-ceptive and comfortable with coming out or deciding to be nonreligious,” he said.

Then why wouldn’t Brown — known for its strong, diverse inter-faith community and accepting stu-dent body — also have experienced a marked increase in atheism?

Cooper Nelson said Brown’s wel-coming religious community might instead eliminate pressure or desire to identify strongly as religious or athe-ist. “There many have been more op-portunities at Brown to gather around ideas of conviction without having to declare yourself,” she said.

Because Brown’s religious com-munities encourage dialogue, Cooper Nelson said, students might not have felt the need for a secular student organization. “Students seem to form communities around what they enjoy doing, and there’s something about the bits and pieces of growing athe-ism as if they are ‘against-ness’ orga-nizations,” she said. “Our formation of organizations at Brown has seemed to be more pro- than anti-.”

While Cooper Nelson does not see Brown students turning away from religion, she said she believes atheist viewpoints are already well represented on campus. Atheist pre-senters often speak at the Interfaith supper Cooper Nelson hosts in her home each Thursday.

“We’ve always had very strong-spoken, well-articulated positions of atheism at Brown by enormously moral people,” she said. “For us, the presence of an atheistic voice is a

constant.”Herald Opinions Columnist Zach-

ary Beauchamp ’10, an atheist who says he is “nominally Jewish” and doesn’t “ascribe to the theological aspects of the religion,” said he thought general apathy might explain students’ lack of interest in organized atheist groups.

“Brown students on the whole don’t get involved in organizations unless they really think there’s a reason they should,” he said. “They don’t care so much about religious beliefs.”

Both Epstein and Cooper Nelson said the absence of leaders willing to organize around atheism might also explain why secular student groups have not formed at Brown. People who reject religion often identify its organized nature as a threat, but such organization is vital to the process of creating an effective humanist com-munity, Epstein said.

“Disorganized religion doesn’t visit you in the hospital,” he said. “Disorganized humanism can’t be successful. ... We have to learn to have leaders and stand together.”

David Sheffield ’11 is trying to step into the void to lead a Brown secular community by starting a Brown Freethought group dedicated to promoting scientific inquiry, athe-ism and humanism, according to its Facebook page.

Sheffield is currently trying to organize the group’s first meeting and hopes to eventually get the group ap-proved by the Undergraduate Council of Students. Sheffield himself identi-fies as an atheist.

“I have not seen anything to con-vince me otherwise,” he said. “The same thing with Russell’s Teapot. If someone says there’s a teapot circling the sun, same as the Earth I guess, there’s no way I should believe it un-

less someone shows me a teapot.”Sheffield was surprised to discov-

er the lack of organized atheism at Brown, especially since he had heard of secular groups at Harvard, Yale, Cornell and Columbia universities.

Sheffield said he thinks an atheist group is needed to help stimulate campus discussion, because orga-nized religious communities at Brown hamper debate. “People don’t like having their beliefs called into ques-tion,” Sheffield said. In his vision, a Brown Freethought group would bring speakers to campus to encour-age discussion about atheism.

Sheffield agreed with Epstein that organization was essential to promote dialogue. “In order to get something done, you need to organize some-thing, or it isn’t that effective,” he said.

Rachel Kerber ’10, who is also an atheist, described religion as a “non-issue” at Brown. “Atheist people don’t feel a need to protect or defend their atheism,” Kerber said, adding that she does not see Brown as a religious campus.

Kerber said she senses a lack of organized discussion about atheism on campus and thought an active atheist group would be a good addi-tion to Brown. Nonetheless, Kerber felt that unofficial dialogue on campus is generally open and accepting.

“Having conversations with people who are religious, I’ve never felt at-tacked or felt a need to defend why I’m atheist,” she said.

Beauchamp said he sees no need for an organized atheist group and probably wouldn’t join one.

“I don’t think an atheist group would fulfill any need or function that I would need,” he said. “What are they going to do? Sit around and talk about how there is no God? That seems unnecessary.”

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Atheism at Brown: on the sidelines, or in the fray?

Campus newsWEDNESDAy, NOVEMBER 7, 2007 THE BROWN DAILy HERALD PAGE 5

Weinstein brothers’ twin careers follow FaulknerBy MARIELLE SEgARRAstaff Writer

There is a heavily disputed topic in Professor of Comparative Litera-ture Arnold Weinstein’s family. It’s not whether he or his twin brother Philip, a professor of English lit-erature at Swarthmore College, is the more impressive William Faulkner scholar, or what exactly smells like dirt in Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury.” The question is, are the twins — both of whom have undergraduate degrees from Princeton University and doctoral degrees from Harvard University — fraternal or identical?

The brothers, who grew up in Memphis, Tenn., in the 1940s and 1950s, admit they are similar in many ways. Growing up, they played on the basketball team and were involved in all the same activi-ties, Arnold said.

“We were pretty inseparable,” he said.

Arnold said their mother had no idea she was having twins until he popped out, 10 minutes after Philip was born. The Weinsteins were tiny as babies, weighing around four pounds each.

“We were lucky to make it,” Ar-nold said, adding that his mother said “she wept when she saw us ... we had fingers like matchsticks.”

Arnold said he thinks the twins are identical and that most people agree.

“Somehow I think we really cor-respond more to the same model. We have too many of the same quirks,” he said.

Philip, who teaches English at Swarthmore, said his mother always told the twins they were fraternal because there were two afterbirths.

“I think it’s strange, if we’re fra-ternal, that we’re so alike,” Philip said.

Whether identical or fraternal, the twins have always been able to complement each other without competition, Arnold said.

“My wife is convinced that it made both of us into good spouses,” Arnold said. “From in the womb, we were used to sharing space.”

Arnold said neither of the twins

was well-read growing up, and Faulkner didn’t show up on any of their high school reading lists. But when they enrolled at Princeton as undergraduates, where they were also roommates, each one devel-oped a love for the iconic Southern writer.

One professor in particular, Law-rence Holland, taught an English course that Arnold said got him “hooked” on Faulkner for life.

Philip’s appreciation for Faulkner took a while to develop: He said his high school attempts to read “Absalom, Absalom!”— one of Faulkner’s densest novels — were short-lived. But his tastes soon matured.

“We were hooked by the time we were 19,” Philip said.

Why did Faulkner, among the myriad authors they read, so en-thrall the brothers?

“He is the most tragic writer,” Arnold said. “He is able to write about human subjectivity and con-sciousness in a way that no other writer has ever done.”

Because “his books are easily regarded as impenetrable and un-readable, to read him is also a form of self-discovery. His work can be off-putting but also very reward-ing,” Arnold said.

“There’s an emotional intensity — he lets out all the stops,” Philip said. “Baroque and tormented,” he is “more experimental than any other 20th-century American novelist.”

The twins also connected with Faulkner’s view of race relations in the South. With the exception of their black housekeeper, the brothers, who grew up in the South during the years of segregation, never saw the large segment of the population that was black, accord-ing to Philip.

“Faulkner writes about race in a compelling way,” he said. “He brings it all back to life.”

“The race tragedy is one of the reasons neither Arnold or I could bear living in the South,” Philip added.

Though neither brother will

admit his place among the most highly regarded Faulkner scholars in the country, each twin had posi-tive things to say about the other’s career.

“I don’t think I’m in that listing at all,” Arnold said. “I think that my brother is part of a small group of top people — I think he’s the best, but I may have a bias.”

The brothers admitted they each approach Faulkner from dif-ferent angles.

“We’re oriented professionally a little differently,” Philip said. “My work is probably more respon-sive to other critical writings and Faulkner as a topic in interpreta-tion and critical theory. ... Arnold comes at him more from his own sensibility. Arnold is freer.”

Arnold, who has not written any books exclusively on Faulkner, called his brother “much more of a card-carrying Faulkner scholar,” though he said he still makes it his mission at Brown to make the au-thor accessible to his students.

Arnold was asked by television host Oprah Winfrey to give four lectures on Faulkner in 2005 for her online Summer Book Club. He and his brother also each teach a course on Marcel Proust, James Joyce and Faulkner. Arnold said they are the only two scholars to teach a course specifically on these three writers.

Philip, former head of the William Faulkner Society, has published two books focusing on Faulkner — “Faulkner’s Subject: A Cosmos No One Owns” and “What Else But Love? The Ordeal of Race in Faulkner and Morrison.” Philip currently lives on Martha’s Vine-yard, Mass., and is working on his third Faulkner book.

So does the brothers’ love of Faulkner seep into family dinner conversations?

Though Philip said the twins try to avoid boring the family with Faulkner discussions, Arnold ac-knowledged that the topic is some-what unavoidable.

“We’ve had (those discussions) all our lives, and we still do,” he said. “I think (Faulkner) is sort of the permanent furniture in our two brains. He’s lodged there.”

Students, faculty organizing to protect UELBy RACHEL ARNDTsenior staff Writer

Efforts to save the Urban Environ-mental Lab are gathering steam as concerned faculty members and stu-dents organize to save the structure. The Mind Brain Behavior building is slated to take the UEL’s place on Angell Street adjacent to the Walk, the planned greensward that will link Lincoln Field with the Pembroke campus.

The new building, which was approved by the Corporation last month, will force either a relocation or destruction of the UEL, which houses the Center for Environmental Studies.

The Mind Brain Behavior build-ing will house the Department of Psychology, the Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences and the Brain Science Program. The project will cost the University $69 million, said Associate Provost Pa-mela O’Neil. Construction is slated to begin in March 2009 and conclude by the fall of 2010, but plans are contingent on fundraising results, O’Neil said.

But there is a “growing group of students and alumni who are interested in doing something try-ing to protect the UEL,” said Laura Genello ’07, who was a concentrator in environmental studies and is head-ing up efforts to preserve the UEL. That group is trying to prevent the destruction of the building itself, and “at the very least get the Center for Environmental Studies a better site than Metcalf” Research Laboratory, she said.

The University has offered the center two possible new locations — the third floor of Metcalf and a space on Stimson Avenue. The Stimson location, near the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center, is relatively distant. “We don’t want to move it to some remote location that’s on the edge of campus,” O’Neil said.

Originally a carriage house, the UEL building was converted to house the center in 1981. Most of the construction was done by stu-dents, and in 1983, the department moved into what Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies Harold Ward called the most “energy ef-ficient building on campus.”

“The walls are better insulated than anything Brown has ever built before,” Ward said, and the build-ing is partially heated using convec-tion.

“I think the only option for the building is to move it, he said. “The building is worth saving.”

Patti Caton, administrative man-ager for the center, agreed. “The only way the building’s going to be saved is if it’s moved,” she said — though, she said, she doesn’t think a relocation is likely.

“It’s a very unique space on cam-pus,” Caton said. “Visitors are just totally amazed that there’s such a great place like that in the middle of campus.”

Student and alum efforts to save the building are still nascent. Genello sent an e-mail to all environmental studies concentrators Oct. 23 asking for their help to try to save the UEL. “In my mind,” she wrote, “destroying the UEL runs counter to all the quali-ties of the University that made my Brown experience worthwhile.”

After sending the initial e-mail, Genello and other students started a “letter-writing campaign to people at the University who are involved with the construction process,” she said, targeting officials such as O’Neil and Michael McCormick, assistant vice president for planning, design and construction.

“We’ve been trying to ... get other students involved,” Genello said. “It’s interesting because we just started getting around e-mails about this, and the students and alumni on the e-mail list who are not ES concentra-tors are equally concerned.”

“Right now it seems like efforts are ... growing and forming as we’re gathering people together,” Genello said. “It’s really in the stage of getting as many people involved as possible and getting the ball rolling.”

O’Neil said the University wants to listen to the concerns of the UEL’s defenders and maintain the unique identity granted to the center by the UEL.

“The UEL does give that pro-gram a sense of identity,” O’Neil said, and maintaining that identity “is the most important thing.”

A “green renovation” of Metcalf might “provide the kind of identity that they are looking for,” O’Neil said.

Though the UEL may eventually become too small for the center’s needs, Ward said he thinks it should nevertheless be preserved, a remark echoed by others.

“It just doesn’t make any sense to take the most energy efficient building and just demolish it,” Ca-ton said.

don’t forgetto register

FEATURE

PAGE 6 THE BROWN DAILy HERALD WEDNESDAy, NOVEMBER 7, 2007

and Dean for Student Life Margaret Klawunn.

At tonight’s meeting, UCS will also discuss the student activities fee increase resolution proposed by UCS Student Activities Chair Drew Madden ’10. The proposal says that UCS will ask the Univer-sity Resources Committee for a $54 increase to the student activities fee.

The proposed increase would raise the fee from $146 to $200 per year for each student. The resolu-tion also proposes considering us-ing some student activities funds to increase baseline funding for Cat-egory II groups and provide some funds to Category I groups.

UCS Treasurer Jose Vasconez ’10, who served on the student activities committee last year, said he is in favor of increasing the fee because it would benefit the whole campus. “If we raise the student

activities fee, I think it would be better for student groups, and there-fore the entire student population ... because the quality of events would rise,” he said.

Vasconez, who also sits on Un-dergraduate Finance Board, said he has witnessed how an increase could benefit student groups. “As a member of UFB, I noticed that a lot of the time student groups don’t receive as much funding as they would like and we can’t fund them to the level we would like,” he said.

Madden said he does not expect much contention over the activities fee proposal. “I would expect, from the general sense I’ve gotten from UCS, that it would pass,” he said. “I’ve seen concerns about individual clauses, but have not personally seen anything about the resolu-tion itself.”

Tonight the council will also elect a student to the board to fill the spot vacated by Alex Morse ’11.

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UCS to host Simmons, discuss fee increase

perstars.“I don’t want to be branded as an

Internet superstar, but I was number (29)out of 40,” he said. At the site’s peak, during the winter of 2005-2006, it was pulling in 18 million hits per month, he said.

Publishers first approached Spec-tor during the spring of 2006, when the site was very popular. Though he turned them down then, he was later persuaded to write a book of the site’s best “facts” when the Wil-liam Morris Agency approached him that summer. Eventually, he began working with Gotham Books, a divi-sion of the Penguin Group, and is no longer represented by the William Morris Agency.

Spector said he actually wrote the manuscript in one night. He started writing around 10 p.m. one Novem-ber night and finished at about 8 a.m. the next morning. Originally, he was told to pick 250 of the best facts from the Web site, but the project soon ballooned to include 400 of the site’s jokes.

“I knew I didn’t want to include too many vulgar things involving genitalia or infants,” Spector said. “Anything that is really vulgar or hard-core probably wasn’t approved by me. But if that’s what they think will sell, it’s fine by me.”

Though Spector does not have the same fascination with Norris that may be shared by many of his site’s visitors, he did get to meet the man himself in January 2006 at the invitation of the action star’s wife. Norris is not affiliated with the Web site or the book.

Because most of the book’s con-tent came directly from his Web site, Spector said he is unsure whether he should be considered a bona fide author. “People say now that I’m con-sidered an author because I wrote a 20-page intro that got cut down to

eight pages and copied and pasted a bunch of stuff off of my Web site,” he said. “That makes me an author? That’s not what I think of when I think of an author.”

In addition to the jokes, Spector’s book features illustrations by Angelo Vildasol, who had previously worked on a book by the Internet-humor fixture Maddox. Spector recounted how the elusive Vildasol, who lives in Colorado, would e-mail him with updates on the project at 6 a.m. some days. The two have never met in person.

The site relies on visitor-sub-mitted jokes to populate the “fact generator.” During its peak, Spec-tor said the site received thousands of submissions a day. Though he couldn’t say how many of the jokes he wrote himself, he stressed that he — along with a few friends who helped him run the site when it was at its greatest popularity — had to rewrite most of the submissions to make sure they were actually funny. This attention was likely responsible for the site’s popularity, he said.

“As it was progressing, there was a lot of quality control. Our ac-ceptance rate was about 5 percent,” he said.

J.P. Reader, a bookseller at the Brown Bookstore, also cited the sur-prisingly high quality of the humor as the reason for the site’s fame. “I was surprised because I don’t usually find pop culture references funny,” he said. “I haven’t looked at it in about four months but it was definitely a work-stopper. … There are some Chuck Norris things that were actually subtle even though they are absurd claims.”

So if none of the “facts” are actu-ally true, then why a “fact generator” about Chuck Norris?

“Weird obsession pretty much nails it,” Spector said. “There’s some-thing about the obscurity of him that people find funny.”

Chuck Norris counted to infinity, twice

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thanks for reading

Scout.com, Harvard University has five verbal commitments, with the earliest coming in August. The University of Pennsylvania has four, with one student committing in mid-July.

As far as sports recruiting goes, the Ivy League is at a disadvantage compared to other conferences be-cause it does not offer athletic schol-arships. The allure of a scholarship can entice a recruit to make a verbal commitment to a college often as early as the their junior year of high school, months before Ivy League schools mail their likely letters.

But Leffelman said scholarships may not be the most important in-centive for prospective Ivy League students.

“They can’t give a financial scholarship, but the scholarship is getting into a school like Brown,”

Leffelman said. “At first I was like, ‘This doesn’t seem right, since I worked hard my entire life to get a scholarship.’ But then I talked to so many (Ivy League alums), and I was overwhelmed how much of a scholarship it is to go to a school like this,” he said.

Financial aid and admission decisions continue to be decided independently for all students, ac-cording to University policy. The Ivy League Admission Statement dictates that schools can give fi-nancial aid based only on need, not athletic merit.

Critics complain that the recruit-ing system allows subpar students to get into highly selective schools through the back door. Director of Athletics Michael Goldberger con-firmed that recruited athletes tend to have less impressive academic credentials than non-athletes. But he said they still fall in the top 10

percent of high school students and are “remarkably talented.”

“There are certainly some re-cruited athletes whose GPAs are lower than those of other Brown freshmen, just as there are musi-cians, poets and student-govern-ment people whose averages are lower,” said Howard Chudacoff, a professor of American history and Brown’s NCAA faculty representa-tive. “It has been my experience over my several decades at Brown that every recruited athlete at Brown has qualified academically for admission.”

Critics also complain that the system emphasizes athletics over what the Ivy League is known for: academics.

“I believe likely letters are un-fortunate because they suggest that Brown and its Ivy League competi-tors are putting athletics first and academics second,” Chudacoff said. “We justify these letters by saying we must send them out to be competitive with schools that offer athletics scholarships and because other Ivy institutions send them. That is probably true, but still un-fortunate.”

Even without scholarships, many recruited athletes will continue to slide through the admission process stress-free while non-athletes sweat it out until April.

“Every school has a different pitch, whether it is location, aca-demics or immediate playing time,” Floyd said. “Brown sold me on the life after basketball. The opportu-nities that such a distinguished institution will (provide) give me a chance to succeed at whatever I do after I college.”

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Early-Early Decision for athletes

worlD & naTionWEDNESDAy, NOVEMBER 7, 2007 THE BROWN DAILy HERALD PAGE 7

AT&T may have helped NSA spiesBy ELLEN NAkASHIMAWashington Post

WASHINGTON — His first inkling that something was amiss came in summer 2002 when he opened the door to admit a visitor from the Na-tional Security Agency to an office of AT&T in San Francisco.

“What the heck is the NSA do-ing here?” Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician, said he asked himself.

A year or so later, he stumbled upon documents that, he said, nearly caused him to fall out of his chair. The documents, he said, show that the NSA gained access to massive amounts of e-mail, Web search and other Internet records of more than a dozen global and regional telecom providers. AT&T allowed the agency to hook into its network at a facility in San Francis-co and, according to Klein, many of the other telecom companies probably knew nothing about it.

Klein is in Washington this week to share his story in the hope that it will persuade lawmakers not to grant legal immunity to telecom-munications firms that helped the government in its anti-terrorism efforts.

The plain-spoken, bespectacled Klein, 62, said he may be the only person in the country in a position to discuss firsthand knowledge of an important aspect of the Bush administration’s domestic surveil-lance. He is retired, so he isn’t worried about losing his job. He carried no security clearance, and the documents in his possession were not classified, he said. He has no qualms about “turning in,”

as he put it, the company where he worked for 22 years, until he retired in 2004.

“If they’ve done something massively illegal and unconstitu-tional — well, they should suffer the consequences,” Klein said. “It’s not my place to feel bad for them. They made their bed. They have to lie in it. The ones who did (anything wrong), you can be sure, are high up in the company. Not the average Joes, who I enjoyed working with.”

In an interview Tuesday, he alleged that the NSA set up a sys-tem that vacuumed up Internet and phone-call data from ordinary Americans with the cooperation of AT&T. Contrary to the govern-ment’s depiction of its surveillance program as aimed at overseas ter-rorists, Klein said, much of the data sent through AT&T to the NSA was purely domestic. Klein said he believes that the NSA was analyzing the records for usage patterns as well as for content.

He said the NSA built a spe-cial room to receive data streamed through an AT&T Internet room containing “peering links,” or ma-jor connections to other telecom providers. The largest of the links delivered 2.5 gigabits of data — the equivalent of one-quarter of the Encyclopedia Britannica’s text — per second, said Klein, whose documents and eyewitness account form the basis of one of the first lawsuits filed against the telecom giants after the government’s war-rantless-surveillance program was reported in the New York Times in December 2005.

Claudia Jones, an AT&T spokes-

woman, said she had no comment on Klein’s allegations. “AT&T is fully committed to protecting our customers’ privacy. We do not comment on matters of national security,” she said.

The NSA and the White House declined comment on Klein’s al-legations.

Klein is urging Congress not to block Hepting v. AT&T, a class-action suit pending in federal court in San Francisco, as well as 37 other lawsuits charging carriers with illegally collaborating with the NSA program. He was accom-panied Tuesday by lawyers for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed Hepting v. AT&T in 2006. Together, they are urging key U.S. senators to oppose a pending White House-endorsed immunity provision that would ef-fectively wipe out the lawsuits. The Judiciary Committee is expected to take up the measure Thursday.

In summer 2002, Klein was working in an office responsible for Internet equipment when an NSA representative arrived to interview a management-level technician for a special job whose details were secret.

“That’s when my antennas start-ed to go up,” he said. He knew that the NSA was supposed to work on overseas signals intelligence.

The job entailed building a “secret room” in another AT&T office 10 blocks away, he said. By coincidence, in October 2003, Klein was transferred to that office and assigned to the Internet room. He asked a technician there about

House overrides Bush veto to keep water resources bill aliveBy JONATHAN WEISMANWashington Post

WASHINGTON — The House handed President Bush the first veto override of his presidency Tuesday, voting overwhelmingly to save a $23 billion water resources bill stuffed with pet projects sought by lawmak-ers from both political parties.

The Senate will likely follow suit as early as Wednesday, in what would be the biggest Republican defection of Bush’s term — even given the legislation’s obscurity.

Tuesday’s 361 to 54 override tally was 90 votes more than the two-thirds needed, and it included 223 Democrats and 138 Republicans. Just 54 Republicans stuck with Bush.

“Congress will reassert its poli-cy-making ability,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., vowed. “We are, in fact, the deciders on policy.”

The vote could put Republicans in an awkward position as Bush confronts Democrats in coming weeks over spending bills that the President says are too generous. It also could complicate the stalemate over bipartisan efforts to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Many of the same Republican lawmakers who voted Tuesday to save what Bush called a bloated water projects bill will have to make the case that other bills to fund health care, education, local law enforcement and other Demo-cratic domestic priorities really are too expensive.

GOP leaders from the House and Senate had warned Bush that his veto would be overridden. But Bush decided to take a stand.

“When I was asked whether or not he should consider vetoing it, I said, ‘Probably so,”’ said Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott, R-Miss. “When I was asked would it be sus-tained, I said, ‘Probably not.’ When I was asked how I would vote, I said I’d vote to override.”

The bill authorizes billions of dollars in coastal restoration, river navigation and dredging projects, levee construction and other Army Corps of Engineers public works efforts. Seven years in the making,

the bill took on particular political resonance in the aftermath of Hur-ricane Katrina, when Gulf state law-makers secured nearly $2 billion in restoration and levee construction projects for the Gulf coast. The bill also will continue projects such as Everglades restoration and upper Mississippi River dredging, while pushing new oversight of the Army Corps.

“This is far too important for this nation and my state of Florida,” said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., who led the Republican charge to override Bush’s veto.

“Let’s override the president. Let’s do something right for Amer-ica,” Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, exhorted.

But the bill merely authorizes such projects. Lawmakers back-ing the projects now must secure funding through the House and Senate appropriations committees, with no guarantees. Senate Minor-ity Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said some Republicans made the case that the GOP’s stand for fiscal rectitude should apply to such “au-thorization” bills, but others drew a distinction between measures such as the water bill and actual spending bills on which they have vowed to stand with the president.

“I can safely say there are dif-ferences of opinion among Repub-licans,” McConnell said.

Domestic spending for the fiscal year promises to be the larger drama over the next few weeks. Democrats had hoped to send Bush a $150.7 billion spending bill to fund health, education and labor programs, twinned with a $64.7 billion military construction and veterans affairs bill, daring the White House and Republicans to reject large increases in veterans health care spending. The military bill exceeds Bush’s budget request by $4 billion. The health and education bill is nearly $10 billion more than the president wanted.

That package was expected to pass overwhelmingly last night in the House, but Senate Republicans are likely to prevail this week in their efforts to split the two bills, allowing Bush to sign the military legislation and reject the domestic spending measure.

2007 deadliest year for troops since Iraq war’s startBy AMIT R. PALEyWashington Post

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The U.S. mili-tary announced Tuesday that five soldiers and a sailor had been killed a day earlier, making 2007 the dead-liest year for American troops since the start of the war in Iraq.

The record death toll of at least 852 U.S. military personnel killed this year underscores the high cost of the American troop increase, launched in February, which has begun to drive down the sectarian violence that once gripped much of the country.

“The strategy was to interject our soldiers between the Iraqi citi-zens and the terrorists, insurgents and militias,” Lt. Col. Douglas Ol-livant, chief of plans for American forces in Baghdad, said in an inter-view. “A regrettable consequence of that is your casualties go up.”

But the grim milestone belied a much more optimistic trend: Troop casualties have declined sharply since early summer. In October, the death toll for U.S. troops fell to 38, its lowest level since March 2006, according to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, a Web site that tracks military fatalities more rap-idly than the Pentagon makes its numbers public.

Lt. Col. Dale Kuehl, a battalion commander in western Baghdad, said fighting in the spring had helped secure local neighbor-hoods. He said there had not been a roadside bomb attack in his area of operations for three months and

no mortar or rocket attacks since July.

“In general, the area is quiet,” Kuehl wrote in an e-mail. “The past year has been an emotional roller coaster. I have had some of the worst days of my life ... but I also have felt a strong sense of ac-complishment.”

“I am confident that we have established a much more secure environment for the people we have been tasked to protect,” Kuehl added. “However, a part of me is afraid to believe what we have ac-complished, knowing what it has cost to get us to today.”

The deaths of the six troops Monday were a collective reminder of the dangers that the U.S. military still faces in Iraq.

In the northern province of Tamim, four soldiers were killed by an explosion near their vehicle while they conducted combat oper-ations, the military said. In nearby Salahuddin province, a sailor was killed by an explosion, it said. And in western Anbar province, once a stronghold of Sunni extremism but now relatively calm, the military said a soldier was killed while con-ducting combat operations.

The attacks brought the total death toll for American troops in Iraq this year to 852, higher than the 849killed in 2004, when most of the casualties came during large-scale conventional battles, according to Iraq Coalition Casu-alty Count.

Col J.B. Burton, commander of the Dagger Brigade Combat

Team, 1st Infantry Division, based in northwestern Baghdad, said pitched fighting in May and June was a necessary part of the U.S. counterinsurgency plan.

“We had to get off these bases and get into the neighborhoods where the enemy was,” he said. “We saw an increase in violence, but it enabled us talk to citizens and cause al-Qaida to lose control of their sanctuaries to the point where they’re ineffective.” The Sunni in-surgent group al-Qaida in Iraq has asserted responsibility for some of the worst violence in the country.

In June, Burton’s unit was see-ing up to 600 violent events a day and more than 50 U.S. soldiers killed or wounded every month. Now the numbers are dramatically lower.

“Our last combat-related death — knock on wood — was in Sep-tember,” Burton said.

Across Baghdad, the number of American troops killed has plum-meted from 58 in both May and June to 14 last month, according to Ollivant. “It looks like the begin-ning of a long-term trend to us, and we are, as we always say, cautiously optimistic,” he said.

“We suspected we were going to have to pay a price up front as the cost of implementing” the counter-insurgency strategy, Ollivant said. “That is regrettable, and we miss every one we lost. But from where we sit now, it looks like those sac-rifices have paid off.”

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PAGE 8 THE BROWN DAILy HERALD WEDNESDAy, NOVEMBER 7, 2007

teammates and a little bit of luck. “In the past I have had opportuni-ties and haven’t finished,” Davies said. This season, things are differ-ent. “I’m not creating the chances, but I’ve been fortunate to finish the plays,” he said.

Noonan said he and the rest of the coaching staff always thought Davies had a special ability to get open. “He is elusive. He turns up in good spaces,” Noonan said. “You never know which way he is going to go. There is no signature move that he always uses to get by de-fenders.”

This season, Davies has finally been able to put it all together, find-ing open space, controlling the ball and finishing in the back of the net. After getting hot early in the season with four goals in two games on Brown’s West Coast road trip in September, the goals have just kept

on coming.Though fortune may have played

some role in Davies’ increased suc-cess, he worked in the offseason on his stamina so he could stay on the field for longer and play on both sides of the pitch.

“The role I’m playing this year is different,” he said. “I’m relied on more. The team needs me to score.”

And score he has. Davies’ goals against Rutgers University and Yale last week earned him both Ivy League Player of the Week and Col-lege Soccer News National Team honors for the second time this season. But Davies is most happy with his improved play this season and Brown’s success.

“Coming into the season, I didn’t know what to expect. We lost seven or eight seniors from last year,” he said. “I wouldn’t have expected to be 13-1-1 (overall). Each win in-creases our confidence.”

Still, Davies knows there is long way to go. Though not very vocal, he is still a leader, as one of just four seniors on the Brown squad — which means helping to keep the team focused on its goals. “You have to put everything into perspective. We haven’t accomplished anything yet,” Davies said.

The Bears hope to reach their first goal Saturday, when they face Dartmouth at 4 p.m. at Stevenson Field. The Big Green trail Bruno by just a half-game in the Ivy League standings — Brown is 5-0 in the conference this season, the Big Green is 4-0-1.

With just two league matches to play, if Brown wins Saturday’s contest it will clinch the Ivy League Championship. Dartmouth’s de-fense has been stout all season, allowing just eight goals, but one challenge will be to contain Davies, something few squads have accom-plished so far.

Davies ’08 leads m. soccer by examplecontinued from page 12

said members of the Corporation’s budget and finance committee told her that improving the overall quality of Brown’s student housing needed to remain a top priority.

Because that committee has the final say in setting the University’s capital budget, Simmons said ad-ministrators will need to re-think their intention to put student hous-ing on the back burner. Any formal plans to improve or expand housing will not be approved until the Feb-ruary Corporation meeting, when Simmons will provide the governing body with a set of recommendations detailing how more initiatives to improve student living spaces at Brown could be accommodated in plans for the next few years.

“My sense is that this group is very serious about this, and they won’t let go of it,” Simmons said.

“I suspect we’re going to have to do something that is more ag-gressive than we intended, but I have no idea what that will be,” she said later.

Simmons said it remained un-clear how the University would ac-commodate an added emphasis on student housing in its plans. She added that she would “fight pretty hard to keep other items on the agenda.”

The Plan for Academic Enrich-ment — Simmons’ wide-ranging blueprint for raising Brown’s aca-demic profile, first approved in 2002 — has so far focused University resources on an aggressive expan-sion of the faculty, introduction of need-blind admission and a spate of new building projects on campus. With the announcement of an of-ficial internationalization effort in October 2006, University officials have signaled their intention to add to that list a focus on strengthening Brown’s global character.

Recently completed construc-tion projects have included the $95-million Sidney Frank Hall for Life Sciences and the 24-hour Fried-man Study Center in the Sciences Library. By 2010, the University also

expects to complete a range of other projects, among them a new cogni-tive and linguistic sciences building, a $55-million fitness center and a new Creative Arts Center.

A new residence hall has not been included among announced construction projects. But the University is currently planning to spend $23 million on renovations to existing student housing, Elizabeth Huidekoper, executive vice presi-dent for finance and administration, told the faculty yesterday.

Members of the Corporation’s budget and finance committee — among them parents of current students who have visited other institutions while navigating the admission process, Simmons not-ed — expressed concern that “the quality of space and diversity of space in the area of student life was much better at most of our peers,” Simmons said. Their message was clear, she added: “It would be a seri-ous mistake not to attend to that in the nearer term.”

Student leaders familiar with the University’s plans told The Herald last month that the administrators planned to slow or abandon student housing projects due to the need to generate funds for a new swim center. But University officials said no plans for how to accommodate a swim center in the budget had been finalized.

At the meeting, Simmons seemed to confirm that administra-tors had planned to set aside major housing improvements, at least for the next several years.

“If the Smith Swim Center had not failed, student housing would have been on the list,” she told the faculty.

Huidekoper said at the meet-ing that “we felt we had to back something off.”

Despite indicating her prefer-ence for prioritizing other projects, Simmons said student spaces at Brown were in many ways lacking, despite some recent efforts to im-prove them.

Brown’s efforts to keep pace with peer schools in student living

spaces has so far involved “digging ourselves out of a hole,” she told the faculty. “Getting to that next stage is hard.”

The planned renovation of Faunce House to convert it into the Stephen Robert Campus Cen-ter, which could be completed by the end of the 2008-2009 academic year, “will help a bit” in improving student space, Simmons said. But the University’s ultimate goal is to be able to house more than the cur-rent 80 percent of students who live on campus and improve the overall quality of housing at Brown.

Articulating some of the prob-lems with current student spaces on campus, Simmons cited the ongoing use of converted common spaces for housing.

“I heard recently that in Keeney, so many of the common spaces are being taken up for housing,” Sim-mons said. “The students are now being consigned to gathering in the hallways.”

“Some residences are just not in good shape,” she added.

With the debate over University priorities heating up, the faculty also heard from Associate Profes-sor of Psychology Ruth Colwill, the chair of the Faculty Executive Com-mittee, who said the FEC has begun to receive feedback from faculty as part of a reassessment of the Plan for Academic Enrichment that Sim-mons announced at the October faculty meeting.

Simmons has asked various Uni-versity constituencies, including faculty and alumni, to evaluate the plan and consider what adjustments could be made as the campaign moves forward.

Among the concerns faculty had expressed, Colwill said, is a desire for increased funding for under-graduate research and for science education. Some faculty expressed a wish to see progress in the plan-ning of a science resource center, she said.

The science resource center was the central recommendation of the Undergraduate Science Education Committee, whose report was fin-ished over the summer.

Many faculty had also mentioned a need for more graduate student fellowships to support the increas-ing size of the faculty, Colwill said. Some had also responded that it is too difficult to get funding for inter-disciplinary initiatives, she said.

She encouraged faculty to con-tinue to provide feedback, saying

that if they were unhappy with the current balance of the University’s priorities, “This is an opportuni-ty to at least make a suggestion about how that balance might be restored.”

Colwill also commended Sim-mons for her “courage” in soliciting faculty opinion at this point in the campaign and for promising not to “filter” any of the ideas before the faculty could discuss them. It would have been easy to “plow for-ward” without asking for feedback, Colwill said.

In addition to her comments about the Plan for Academic En-richment, Simmons told the faculty that in a private session with Corpo-ration members at its meeting last month, she had been asked about issues that have arisen elsewhere in higher education. Those included efforts by a group of conservative alums at Dartmouth College to in-fluence university policy and the controversy that arose around a speech given by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Colum-bia University earlier this fall.

Simmons described the Dart-mouth alums’ effort, which has included trying to gain seats on the University’s governing board, as “a very public and, I think, a very divisive campaign” that had negatively affected the campus and alumni giving.

On Ahmadinejad, she echoed remarks she made last month in an interview with The Herald, ex-plaining that she views her role as “less to join every debate than to assure that this kind of exchange can take place.” She said she is cau-tious about introducing speakers — as Columbia President Lee Bol-linger did Ahmadinejad — because her own actions are “inextricably entangled” with official University policy in some people’s minds.

The faculty also heard a report from Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 , in which he outlined a range of statistics relating to Brown’s academic standing, especially in comparison to peer schools. The slides he used were the same as those he used in his presentation to the Corporation’s Academic Affairs Committee in October, according to a label on the first slide.

65 percent of the 122 new faculty positions outlined in the Plan for Academic Enrichment have been filled to date, Kertzer said. As a result, though Brown’s position in the U.S. News and World Report

college rankings has been mostly stable, it has improved in the cat-egory of faculty resources, one of the factors used in computing the overall ranking. The University went from 27th nationally in 2000 to 18th in 2008.

However, while the faculty-to-student ratio has correspondingly decreased in recent years, Brown’s position has not improved relative to peer schools, Kertzer said, because other schools are also improving.

Additionally, Kertzer said, the University has improved to 24th in the category of average expenditure per student, another factor used in computing the overall ranking, from 31st in 2000.

Kertzer expressed some con-cern over statistics showing that total research grants awarded to the University were not increasing as much as officials had hoped, es-pecially with the recent completion of Frank Hall, a 170,000 square foot research facility.

“There’s some feeling in the Cor-poration that, ‘Well, we’ve provided all these research facilities, where are the results?’ “ Kertzer said. He cited stagnant or even decreasing federal funding nationally from the National Institutes of Health as a reason total grants were not rapidly increasing.

Kertzer also said the implemen-tation of a five-year guarantee of support for graduate students had positively affected both the num-bers of applicants to the Graduate School and Brown’s selectivity in choosing from among them.

The Grad School had an overall acceptance rate of 16 percent in 2007-2008, he said, down from 27 percent in 2001-2002. He also noted that the MCAT scores of Brown medical students were comparable to those of students at Yale Univer-sity and other peer institutions.

The meeting was not without its lighter moments. When asked a question by a faculty member at one point, Simmons seemed to pause, then shared an unrelated anecdote that she said had unexpectedly “popped into my head.”

Simmons said she had encoun-tered a Brown student while at the St. Louis airport earlier this year, and the student informed her that he had never heard her speak, much to Simmons’ surprise.

“How could that be?” Simmons said she asked the student.

His response: “Oh, I’m a com-puter science student.”

Faculty hears from the president on student housing, the provost on academic statscontinued from page 1

WEDNESDAy, NOVEMBER 7, 2007 THE BROWN DAILy HERALD PAGE 9

the secret room on the 6th floor, and the technician told him it was connected to the Internet room a floor above. The technician, who was about to retire, handed him some wiring diagrams.

“That was my ‘aha’ moment,” Klein said. “They’re sending the en-tire Internet to the secret room.”

The diagram showed splitters, glass prisms that split signals from each network into two identical cop-ies. One copy fed into the secret room. The other proceeded to its destination, he said.

“This splitter was sweeping up everything, vacuum-cleaner-style,” he said. “The NSA is getting every-thing. These are major pipes that carry not just AT&T’s customers but everybody’s.”

One of Klein’s documents listed links to 16 entities, including Global Crossing, a large provider of voice and data services in the United States and abroad; UUNet, a large Internet provider in Northern Vir-ginia now owned by Verizon; Level 3 Communications, which provides local, long-distance and data trans-mission in the United States and overseas; and as more familiar names such as Sprint and Qwest. It also included data exchanges MAE-West and PAIX, or Palo Alto Internet Exchange, facilities where telecom carriers hand off Internet traffic to each other.

“I flipped out,” he said. “They’re copying the whole Internet. There’s no selection going on here. Maybe they select out later, but at the point of handoff to the government, they get everything.”

Qwest has not been sued be-cause of media reports last year that said the company declined to participate in an NSA program to build a database of domestic phone-call records out of concern that it may have been illegal. What the documents show, Klein contends, is that the NSA apparently was col-lecting several carriers’ commu-nications, probably without their

consent.Another document showed that

the NSA installed in the room a Narus semantic traffic analyzer, which Klein said indicated that the NSA was doing content analysis.

Steve Bannerman, Narus’ mar-keting vice president, said in an interview that the NarusInsight sys-tem is “the world’s most powerful Internet traffic processing engine.” He said it is used to detect worms, as well as to capture information to help authorities stop criminal activity. He said it can track a com-munication’s origin and destination,

as well as its content. He declined to comment on AT&T’s use of the system.

Klein said he decided to go pub-lic after President Bush defended the NSA’s surveillance program as limited to collecting phone calls be-tween suspected terrorists overseas and people in the United States. Klein said the documents show that the scope was much broader.

Klein was last in Washington in 1969, to take part in an anti-war protest. Now, he said with a chuckle, he’s here in a gray suit as a lobbyist.

At a news conference in Bagh-dad’s fortified Green Zone, Rear Adm. Gregory Smith said the vio-lence would be far worse were it not for U.S. troops’ success in dis-covering stockpiles of weapons.

“Simply put, it’s the fuel that drives the insurgency that has led to the death and destruction witnessed here in Iraq for the past several years,” said Smith, a U.S. military spokesman. Because of the troop increase this year, the number of weapons caches discov-ered has more than doubled from 2,667 in all of 2006 to 5,364 so far this year, Smith said.

In other indicators of a decline in violence, Smith said mortar and rocket attacks have decreased from more than 1,000 a month in May and June to less than 400 in October.

And the number of roadside bombs across Iraq has tumbled from about 65 a day in the fall of 2006 to less than 30 a day now,

Smith said.Meanwhile, violence against

Iraqis continued across the coun-try.

A mass grave filled with 22 bod-ies in the Lake Thar Thar region of Anbar was discovered over the weekend by Iraqi soldiers, the military said.

Near Samarra, a suicide bomber driving a car filled with explosives blew up near a police commando checkpoint, killing five policemen and one civilian, police lieutenant Haidar Kadhim said. Twelve other people were wounded.

And in Mosul, a member of the governing council, Aref Youssif al-Shabki, was assassinated, an In-terior Ministry official said. Three of his bodyguards were also seri-ously wounded.

Staff writer Josh White and staff researcher Robert E. Thomason in Washington, correspondent Sudar-san Raghavan in Madrid, Spain, and other Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report.

continued from page 7

NSA surveillance program taps AT&T network

continued from page 7

U.S. deaths in Iraq increase in 2007Scientists find new solar systemBy MARC kAUFMANthe Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Astronomers have discovered a fifth planet or-biting a distant sun, marking the first time that another solar system with that many circling bodies has been found.

The central star, named 55 Can-cri, has smaller and larger planets circling on paths similar to those in our solar system. Astronomers said that while the planets are unlike those in our solar system in terms of their size and distance from the sun, the fact that they are all circling in stable orbits is highly significant.

“Now we know our sun and its family is not unusual,” said astrono-mer Geoff Marcy of the University of California at Berkeley. “Our Milky Way has 200 billion stars and billions of solar systems. We suspect that many harbor Earth-like planets.”

While scores of extrasolar plan-ets, or “exo-planets,” have been located so far, they said, millions remain to be found.

The fifth planet, which eluded detection for years because it was tucked in between two other orbit-ing planets that had been detected previously, appears to be a gas giant like Jupiter or Saturn and so is un-likely to sustain life. But it orbits in what is termed the “habitable zone”

of its solar system — a band around the star where the temperature would permit liquid water to pool on solid surfaces — meaning that a rocky moon orbiting the planet, if there is one, could theoretically support life.

“The gas-giant planets in our so-lar system all have large moons,” said Debra Fischer, an astronomer at San Francisco State University and lead author of a paper that will appear in the Astrophysical Jour-nal. “If there is a moon orbiting this new, massive planet, it might have pools of liquid water on a rocky surface.”

The star 55 Cancri resides in the constellation Cancer, nearly 41 light-years away. It has about the same mass as our sun and is easily visible with binoculars. The planets that orbit it, however, are far too small to be seen with the most powerful telescopes and were located and identified by measuring the “wobble” their gravity creates in the motion of their sun.

Using the wobble method, as well as looking for distant specks crossing the face of stars, astrono-mers have identified about 260 exo-planets since the first was dis-covered in the early 1990s. Most are single planets circling their sun, with a few cases of three and four in a solar system.

The planet closest to 55 Cancri is believed to be about the size of Neptune and circles the star in less than three days. The second planet is a little smaller than Jupiter and completes an orbit every 14.7 days. The third planet, similar in mass to Saturn, completes one orbit every 44 days, and the newly found fourth planet is about the size of Saturn and orbits in 260 days. The farthest-out planet is huge — four times the mass of Jupiter — and orbits every 14 years.

The researchers said there may well be other, smaller planets in the vast space between the fourth and fifth, but no telescopes are powerful enough to detect them or measure their effects on the star.

Finding the five planets circling 55 Cancri took 18 years of con-tinuous research using the Shane telescope at Lick Observatory in Northern California. While finding the fifth planet is an unprecedented achievement, astronomer Marcy said it marks a beginning rather than an end.

“Finding five extrasolar planets orbiting a star is only one small step,” he said. “Earth-like planets are the next destination.”

The research was funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation, which have both made finding exoplanets a high priority.

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A L E X A N D E R G A R D - M U R R A Y

Athletics and the Ivy LeagueIt’s no secret that college athletes across the country often receive benefits not offered to other students. Whether recruiting trips, specialized tutors or athlete-only housing, student-athletes at Division I schools are typi-cally given access to tremendous resources. With these perks becoming increasingly institutionalized at most major colleges, the Ivy League is a refreshing throwback to times when student-athletes were expected to be students first and athletes second, not the other way around.

The Ivy League does not offer athletic scholarships, and athletes usually compete on the weekend so as to avoid missing too much class time. The athletic department budgets of the eight Ivy schools would probably be hard-pressed to match what the Ohio State University athletic department spends in a month — the Wall Street Journal reported Ohio State’s athletic budget for this year is $110 million. The Ancient Eight may be among the few places in America where concert recitals are more likely to sell out than men’s basketball games.

To be sure, athletics are an important part of the college experience. Sports and competition teach values and lessons that students cannot receive in other settings. There is an obvious need for Division I athletics at Brown, and there always will be.

Still, it’s hard to argue in favor of athletes receiving “likely letters” from the Office of Admission in early October. If Brown mails 100 “likely letters” to students unaffiliated with an athletic team but who hail from various backgrounds with a wide array of interests and specialities, how fair is it that many of the football, basketball and soccer players and others will also receive that same type of letter because they excel at a sport? It would be more fair if only some of the top athletes received “likely letters,” just like the top tuba player might be worthy of a letter, as would the top actress and the top chemist. But for athletes to be singled out to receive a level of assurance and peace of mind about one of the most significant decisions an 18-year old must make is unfair to the other students who excel in activities that, apparently, are not valued as highly as sports.

That’s not to say that “likely letters” should be extended to all the best tuba players and linebackers out there. But even though the Ivy League is surely the ideal athletic conference for those student-athletes interested in serious studying as well as serious sports, the “likely letter” practice for athletes displays a glaring difference between how Brown treats student-athletes and the rest of us.

As Professor of History Howard Chudacoff noted, simply by sending these letters, Brown suggests that it values athletics over academics. In the current climate of college recruiting at the Division I level, the University has no choice but to send these letters. But we hope there will come a time when Brown doesn’t have to send high school athletes a preferential almost-assurance of admission just to convince them to come to College Hill.

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Loomis’ ’10 defense of hook-ups is flawedTo the Editor:

Although I did not read Renata Sago’s ’10 column (“A love to last past Saturday night,” Oct. 30), I’m inclined to agree with her based on the unimpressive counter-argument presented by Sam Loomis ’10 (“Random hookups: An apology,” Nov. 5).

First, I found it illogical for Loomis to call self-respect an “unrealistic moral expectation” after claiming his own level of self-respect is so transcendental that he can disregard it as he pleases. Aren’t higher levels of self-respect, like the one he establishes, even more morally unreasonable?

Also, Loomis uses an excerpt from Jean Jacques Rousseau’s “Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men” to justify random hook-ups, specifically citing a section regarding Rousseau’s perception of the state of nature. An inherent issue in state of nature theories is that their interpretations differ from philosopher to philosopher. Furthermore, they differ on the basis of what that philosopher wants to prove, namely that their personal values — which

they have included as existing in the state of nature — are natural. Additionally, the state of nature is just a theory, not a physical time in history or point of refer-ence. Loomis’s argument does not even acknowledge the apparent subjectivity or nonexistence of his “proof.” Loomis says his convenient use of a Rousseau passage “shows that random hookups are natural.” But, anyone with an appropriate state of nature theory could “show” just the opposite. Being that there is no state of nature or universally accepted state of nature theory, Loomis cannot seriously try to use any conception of such to make an indisputable moral claim.

Lastly, his excerpt comes from a segment of the theory where speech has not yet been established among persons. Since we do have and use speech at Brown, this particular state of nature argument becomes difficult to use unless Loomis would also like to argue that there should be no speech in society.

Ijeoma Njaka ‘09Nov. 5

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C o r r e C t i o n

An article in Tuesday’s Herald (“Students meet Clinton in East Greenwich fundraiser,” Nov. 6) incorrectly stated that Carly Rush ’08 had a role in organizing the Students for Hillary trip to an East Greenwich fundraiser. Rush did not organize the trip.

In our modern, perhaps even postmodern, world, the automobile has a seemingly ubiq-uitous presence. So much so that many may never even contemplate the fact that our world has been altered, negatively in my view, by the emergence of a car culture. This car culture, which may be conceptually distinguished from the idea of a car itself, is lamentable because of its cacophonous relationship with human nature.

Realizing that many may view my position as a neo-Luddite reaction to technology, I will explain both why I lament the car culture, and why it is in fact distinguishable from the physical object that we label the car.

With the advent of the car in the late 19th century and its engine powered by combus-tion, the age-old desire to have expeditious means of transportation was further sated. Barely anyone — including yours truly — can criticize the invention of a machine that allows for military personnel to reach a battle quicker, policemen to reach the scene of a crime quicker, medical technicians to reach an injured citizen quicker and the like.

However, the persistent alienation of hu-manity from both their fellow men and the natural world, as a direct result of the creation of a car culture whereby individuals thought-lessly exclude themselves from that which makes them human, should be excoriated.

In these times, it seems as though the car is the secular communion bread (and gasoline the secular communion wine?) that daily nour-ishes society’s artificial cravings and modern humanist outlook. Usually without the slight-est consideration of how much damage is

inflicted on the spirit of life when authentic human actions are incessantly auctioned off to machines, men and women drive to and park their cars at work, home, the homes of friends and our places of “play.”

There have been countless negative re-sults. First, there is the interstate system that has caused so many rifts in society over the past 50 years. In addition to being an aesthetic nightmare, it merits harsh criticism for its in-nate tendency to isolate individuals, separate kin and require massive intervention on the part of the state.

Who can honestly say that the average American driver usually travels in a carpool? Who has not experienced the pain of a sepa-rated family — nuclear or extended — with the efficiency of travel between the two parties’ locations cited as the reason and perhaps the solace? Who has not lost further respect for our government because of ridiculous (and ridiculously expensive) public works projects and arrogant policemen who regard ticketing motorists as a noble profession?

Secondly, the car in its present form iso-

lates the individual from those people who inhabit the same locale. The first cars, built in a way similar to the horse and carriage, afforded individuals the traditional opportu-nity to see and to be seen by fellow citizens while around the town and especially the town center. Moreover, they were not capable of im-mense speeds, such that they, unlike modern cars, did not create a culture in which our determination to live hectic lives resulted in the degradation of whatever remnants of a slow and contemplative life remained.

Needless to say, the car also has unaccept-

able ramifications for the environment and the natural world. How many idyllic and pastoral regions were destroyed when roads for cars were deemed necessary! How much pollution has been created in this world, particularly in major cities, because an attachment to machin-ery and the complicated life has trumped the virtues of self-reliance and simple living!

I never thought that I would laud the in-crease in the price of gasoline, but daily I find myself rejoicing in the fact that motorists are now forced to make tradeoffs concerning their

consumption. Perhaps they will now consume with a conscience? Perhaps the increased price will be a disincentive for the pursuit of satisfy-ing selfish and self-destructive vice?

Conservative philosopher and man of let-ters Russell Kirk, in an infamous condem-nation, once labeled cars as “mechanical Ja-cobins.” The chief reason, in my interpretation, was that, like the radical left-wing Jacobins of the French Revolution, the automobile has the inherent goal of redefining humanity and the cultural outlook that humans possess. Previous means of transportation may have required of us something foreign, but they did not fundamentally alter the natural state of affairs through which we experience others and the natural world.

The car is a great feat of human ingenu-ity, but it has been abused in such a way that humans indulge the selfish, power-seeking aspects of their nature. He who neglects his nature and his duties is destined to be ignorant of meaning, happiness and, most importantly, truth. Relying on a machine always to be one’s worker; supplanting human interaction with metallic seclusion — reinventing authenticity by putting state-created licenses and regula-tions in the place of experience with the natural and the rational — all are absurdities devoid of an understanding of who we are and what we ought to do.

Will we, as humans, have the courage to cast aside the inauthentic and clearly inessen-tial aspects of how we live? If we fail to do so, I dread what may result. The loss of worldly beauty and high culture — by virtue, almost paradoxically, of its being otherworldly — is quite possibly the price that we will pay. For me at least, that is unbearable.

Sean Quigley ’10 has been accused of being a reactionary.

It appears that I owe someone an explanation. In my column two weeks ago (“We’re not on College Hill anymore: Dean Bergeron and the New Curriculum,” Oct. 23) I criticized Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron’s administration of her office using the “Wizard of Oz” as an extended metaphor. The response I received was swift and brutal. The director of Brown’s writing program derided my use of the Wicked Witch of the West analogy as baseless and cheap libel (”Douglas Brown responds to Cambier’s ’09 take on Bergeron,” Oct. 25), and President Ruth Simmons called my tone “chilling” (”A conversation with the president,” Oct. 30).

These criticisms ultimately missed the point — rather than countering my argument, they attacked my rhetoric. My use of the “Wiz-ard of Oz” as a vehicle for my message was not an attempt to be uncivil but an effort to make the column fun to write and enjoyable to read. The use of humor (whether successful or not) to form the foundation of a larger message has been my modus operandi in writing for the opinions page for years. For instance, in the past I’ve advocated rewriting the Bible, plastering feminist slogans on the back of booty shorts and infecting unwitting celebri-ties with the avian flu. I certainly don’t expect busy people with more important things to do to be familiar with what I’ve written in the past, but the criticism leveled at me by the admin-istration demonstrated a misunderstanding of

what my column was really about.The only person to counter my actual ar-

gument was former Opinions Editor Patrick Harrison ’08, who wrote that my putting the New Curriculum atop an untouchable pedestal ignored the dynamic role students played in the creation of Brown’s current educational philosophy (“Ira Magaziner ’69 P’06 P’07 P’10 is not your daddy,” Oct. 31). Harrison’s argu-ments are all valid, and he raised one point in particular that I’d like to draw on: Though the New Curriculum itself should be open to change, the precedent that it set is that the

university should be by and for students.Thus, here’s the message of my previous

column, unclouded by obtuse analogies or ex-aggeration for humorous effect: Many people here at the University — both students and faculty — do not like the changes Bergeron has made since taking office last year and are worried about the future. I can’t claim to speak for everyone, but based on the over-whelmingly positive feedback I’ve received from students on what I wrote two weeks ago, I can say with some confidence that my opinion is typical.

Bergeron’s violation of the “by students, for students” precedent set by the New Cur-riculum that sparked this wave of controversy came with the restructuring of the hierarchy of the Office of the Dean of the College. When she fired experienced Executive Associate Dean of the College Perry Ashley and reas-signed his duties to two other deans, she acted against the interests of students. A pre-law acquaintance of mine recently complained that the new pre-law deans lacked the experience in the field of law school applications to offer her constructive advice and that their new duties

on top of their already significant workloads left them too busy even to glance over her admissions essays. Her complaints are not out of the ordinary — I know other students who have tried to meet with the deans in question and have had trouble fitting into their over-loaded schedules. I fully admit that Bergeron is well within her rights to restructure her office however she wishes, but the fact that she put many students at a disadvantage, not after consultation with people from within the University but on the advice of outsiders from Princeton and Stanford, demonstrates

a lack of commitment on her part to working with the student body when making such important decisions.

The controversy over the layoffs in the dean’s office indicates a deeper dissatisfaction swelling beneath the surface. After a Herald article detailed the firings of Ashley and oth-ers as a part of Bergeron’s office reshuffling, a student posted a thread on the Daily Jolt discussing the news. Instead of sticking just to the topic of the firings, the thread swelled to monstrous proportions as numerous stu-dents and even a faculty member expressed serious concerns about Bergeron’s intentions regarding Brown’s open curriculum.

Does anyone really think that Bergeron is a sinister villain out to destroy the New Cur-riculum and ruin our educations? Of course not. In the end, however, perceptions matter. As can be seen on the Daily Jolt and from the feedback that I personally have received, the general perception of the dean by the student body is clear — worries about her actions thus far as dean leave most people unsure about the future of the university. Given Brown’s rich and storied tradition of administrators listening closely to the concerns of under-graduates, Bergeron and others in the current administration ought to consult with a wide swath of students and hold open forums on the issues before taking such drastic actions that could prove to be so detrimental to the student body. This more open and more demo-cratic approach can only help both Bergeron and those of us who attend the University, and ultimately would serve to maintain what makes Brown so unique.

Adam Cambier ’09 is psyched about the return of “The Amazing Race.”

The abominable automobile

Cambier ’09 tries again, minus the metaphor

Does anyone really think that Bergeron

is a sinister villain out to destroy the New

Curriculum and ruin our educations?

SEAN QUIGLEyoPinions Columnist

opinionsWEDNESDAy, NOVEMBER 7, 2007 THE BROWN DAILy HERALD PAGE 11

ADAM CAMBIERoPinions Columnist

Like the radical left-wing Jacobins of

the French Revolution, the automobile

has the inherent goal of redefining

humanity and the cultural outlook

that humans possess.

By JASON HARRISassistant sPorts editor

The men’s soccer team’s seven straight wins have been the result of a team effort. The Bears have received contributions from fresh-men and seniors, forwards and defenders, starters and subs. But over the course of the No. 4 Bears’ most recent winning stretch, one player in particular has taken on a major role. With a goal in each of the last three games, and four out of the last five, forward Kevin Davies ’08 has kicked in his fair share for a team looking to win the Ivy League title and make a run deep into the postseason.

Davies’ soccer career began at age five on the youth fields of his hometown, Port Washington, N.Y,, where he played for the green team. Though he was skilled in many dif-ferent sports, soccer became his favorite.

“I didn’t have a soccer family, so I played all sports and was best at soccer,” he said. “I have now grown to love it.”

Davies currently leads the Bears with 10 goals and is second in points with 23, one behind fellow forward Dylan Sheehan ’09. The two have proven to be a tremendous combi-nation up front for the Bears.

“Dylan and I are two completely

different players,” Davies said. “He holds the ball and keeps possession. ... I run around off flick balls. We complement each other.”

Head Coach Mike Noonan said he has been impressed with the way the two forwards have gelled this season.

“(Davies and Sheehan) have a good partnership and relationship,” he said. “In the past it was more in-

dividualistic. Now they have a good understanding of where the other is. They also wear teams down by pressing on defense.”

Davies’ production on the score sheet is way up from last year, when he tallied just one goal and four as-sists. The turnaround this season has come from hard work, good

By ELISABETH AVALLONEContributing Writer

With an enrollment of 2,300, St. Francis College proudly calls itself the “Small College of Big Dreams.” Perhaps nothing at the New York City school embodies the motto better than its water polo team, the perennial powerhouse that consis-tently beats up bigger colleges.

Like Brown, for example.After a rocky start, the No. 19

men’s water polo team fell 14-10 to No. 11 St. Francis in the finals of the Northern Division Cham-pionships at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sunday. It was the Bears’ second loss to the Terriers, who also won a Septem-ber match 14-12.

St. Francis led the Bears 9-4 at halftime and 12-6 after three quar-ters. Though the Bears out-scored St. Francis 4-2 in the fourth quarter, the Terriers’ offensive prowess in the first half proved too strong to topple.

“I think our biggest problem was execution,” said Head Coach Felix Mercado. “We weren’t out-played — we just didn’t execute well. All of that is fixable with prac-tice. We are going to focus more on the tactical part of the game by walking through stuff so the team has more time to see what I expect from them.”

Mike Gartner ’09 led the Bears in scoring with four goals and also had four ejections. Hank Wein-traub’s ’09 single goal was coupled with six assists. Grant LeBeau ’09 with two goals, and Gerrit Adams ’08 and Corey Schwartz ’11, each with one goal rounded out the scor-ing for the Bears. Goalie Kent Hol-land ’10 had seven saves.

“Initially we came out slow,” Weintraub said. “We were a little bit intimidated, but we got over that in the second half and will be more competitive with them the

next time we play them.”Though the loss was disappoint-

ing, the only thing it affected was the Bears’ seeding at the Eastern Championships in two weeks. The Bears will now focus on that tour-nament, since a title there would earn Brown a trip to the NCAA tournament.

“We want to win (Eastern), but I’ll be satisfied if we play to our fullest capabilities,” Mercado said. “I want us to be in every game and if we lose, it’s because that other team was better than us — not be-

cause we didn’t play well. If we end up winning the whole thing it will be great, but I’ll be happy if at the end we can look in the mirror and say we played our best.”

Weintraub was a bit more spe-cific when asked about his goals for the Eastern Championships.

“Are you kidding? We want to win. We’re a dark horse. No one expects us to win, but we’re looking for an upset,” he said.

The Eastern Championships take place at Harvard from No-vember 16 to 18.

sporTs weDnesDayPAGE 12 THE BROWN DAILy HERALD WEDNESDAy, NOVEMBER 7, 2007

Early, Early Decision: Athletes commit to Brown as early as OctoberBy HARI TyAgIContributing Writer

For many Brown freshmen, April 2 was the day the suspense ended, when the University sent out accep-tance, rejection and wait-list letters to thousands of applicants. But for Jelani Floyd ’11, a recruited men’s basketball player, the wait ended months earlier.

“It takes off a lot of stress,” said Floyd, who verbally committed to Brown in February and received notification of his “likely” acceptance immediately afterward. “Since I knew I was going to get in, I would have been amazed if I wasn’t admitted in April. It’s very hard to get admit-ted into an Ivy League school, and a ‘likely letter’ just takes a lot of that anxiety off.”

The Admission Office said doz-ens of athletes verbally commit to Brown before many non-athletes even apply to the University.

“The verbal commitment is from the athlete’s point of view,” said Gar-rett Leffelman ’11, another recruited men’s basketball player. “It lets all other schools that are recruiting the athlete know, ‘No, stop recruiting me.’ ”

While most students receive their Brown admission notifications through early decision in mid-De-cember or regular decision in early April, the admission office reserves a spot for some recruited athletes as early as October.

In early October, two high-school seniors — Marques Coleman, of Glendale, Ariz., and Noel Holling-sworth, of Salt Lake City — ver-bally committed to play basketball at Brown, according to Scout.com. Floyd confirmed the information.

After an athlete verbally com-mits, the admission office sends the recruit a “likely letter.” The letter virtually guarantees that the athlete will be accepted at Brown — unless his or her grades drop severely, said Dean of Admission Jim Miller ’73. The notification cannot be given to recruits until they send in an official application, encouraging such stu-dents to apply as early as possible.

“We assess athletes and decide based on our experience and what the applicant pool will look like,” Miller said. “Nothing is official until there is an official admission offer early decision or regular decision.”

Miller said Brown also sends “likely letters” to about 100 non-athletes — “to top students” — each year during the regular decision process, just as other Ivy League schools do.

Admission for recruited athletes in the Ivy League is slightly differ-ent than in other NCAA Division I schools.

“At other universities, once a stu-dent commits to play a sport, they are automatically in,” Floyd said, “but here at Brown once you commit, you have one foot in the door, and all you have to do is be consistent (with grades), and both feet will be in the door come acceptance-letter time. You must get admitted like any other student, but you have a couple of edge points over regular students because you play a sport.”

All spor ts recruit athletes throughout the year. For example, all Ivy League institutions but Dart-mouth have had verbal commitments from at least one men’s basketball prospect this year. According to

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�� ����� � �� ������Ashley Hess / Herald File PhotoKevin Davies ’08 has scored in four of the past five games for the men’s soccer team.

M. water polo sets sights on Eastern title

dspics.comMike Gartner ’09 and the m. water polo team fell in the Northern Division finals.

M. soccer’s Davies ’08: once green, now Brown

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