Wednesday, April 27, 2011Daily Heraldthe Brown

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Campus news, 4

CertifiedFaculty considers language certificates

Have we traded learning for profit?

opinions, 11 wea

therSellout?

DPS arrest records go to FBI

By Jake ComerSenior Staff Writer

Under a federal program recently activated by the state attorney gen-eral, anyone arrested by the Depart-ment of Public Safety will have their fingerprints and identity submitted to the Federal Bureau of Investiga-tion to be run against federal law enforcement records.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Kilmartin recently activated Secure Communities, a federal pro-gram that sends arrest records to the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. The program applies to all municipal police forces in the state, including the Providence Police De-partment, and suspects arrested by DPS are booked by the PPD.

The majority of DPS activity does not rise to the level of making an ar-rest. But the department has arrested six people so far this year, according to Mark Porter, chief of police and director of public safety.

Secure Communities — created by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2007 — is an agree-ment between the FBI and the De-partment of Homeland Security to share identifying information on arrested individuals, including their fingerprints, said Amy Kempe, a

BUCC addresses ROTC, proposed team cutsBy margaret Yi

Staff Writer

As of Sunday, only 766 students had responded to a survey issued by the Undergraduate Council of Students last week to collect student opinion on the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, said Katherine Bergeron, dean of the College and chair of the Committee on ROTC, at yes-terday’s Brown Community Coun-cil meeting. The survey deadline — originally set for May 4 — will be extended in hopes that more students will offer their feedback. Surveys conducted by UCS usually average 1,500 respondents, said UCS President Diane Mokoro ’11.

About 50 community members gathered in the Kaspar Multipur-pose Room for the meeting to hear updates from the Committee on

ROTC and the Athletics Review Committee. Many in attendance expressed dissatisfaction with both committees, criticizing a perceived lack of transparency and the athlet-ics committee’s recommendations.

Bergeron began the meeting by summarizing the committee’s progress in reviewing the Univer-sity’s stance on ROTC. In the past two months, there have been over 15 meetings and a wide range of responses from members of the Brown and Providence communi-ties, she said.

She also spoke with an assistant secretary of the Navy, who is inter-ested in involving the University in a cross-institutional program, Bergeron added. This plan would allow Brown students to travel to

Campaign over, U. Hall seeks money elsewhere

By amY raSmuSSenSenior Staff Writer

Total gifts to the University have fallen since the seven-year $1.6 bil-lion Campaign for Academic Enrich-ment came to a close Dec. 31, said Steven King ’91, senior vice president for University advancement, and the University is looking for ways to increase revenue. The question for leaders now will be how to “sustain the support and, in ways, increase it,” said Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning and senior adviser to the president.

Though King acknowledged the “pullback” in gifts, he said his of-fice will continue to push for new approaches to fundraising outside the “artificial marketing construct of the campaign.”

“The plan continues — it doesn’t end here,” he said.

Achieving the initiatives set forth in the Plan for Academic Enrich-ment will take time, Spies said. “No one ever thought that a campaign over a five- or seven-year period was just going to get everything done.”

Prior to the campaign, the Uni-versity raised about $80 million per year. By 2011, that figure had more than doubled to $200 million. The advancement office will try to maintain the current level of gifts, said Beppie Huidekoper, executive

Emails underline rape procedures’ flaws

By niCole BouCherneWS editor

A rape case on a college campus is a unique phenomenon. It places university administrators in an unfamiliar position — that of at-tempting to determine whether

one student has committed a felony against another. A rape in-vestigation involves more complex evidence than a case of plagiarism or underage drinking — and the stakes are much higher.

If a campus rape investiga-tion wrongly exonerates a guilty student, the victim of a violent crime can be further scarred. If it wrongly finds a student respon-sible, an innocent person faces the

lifelong consequences of expul-sion. Unsurprisingly, the handling of rape investigations on college campuses has been the subject of much controversy, both nation-wide and at Brown.

Currently, William McCormick is suing the University and two alums — a woman who accused him of rape in 2006 and her fa-ther — claiming that he was falsely accused and that Brown failed to give him a fair hearing because

By DaviD ChungSenior Staff Writer

Besides rigorous academic curricula, extracurricular opportunities, long histories of distinguished alums and growing national and international reputations, the Harvard-Westlake School and Phillips Academy have something else in common.

Both institutions have sent more than 45 graduates each to Brown in the past five years, according to fig-ures released by the schools’ college counseling departments.

Top-tier private and magnet high schools boast high matriculation rates to the most prestigious colleges and universities. But these schools deny that the relationships between college counselors and college admis-sion offices help boost their students’ chances of getting in.

Harvard-Westlake, a college-pre-paratory day school in North Holly-

wood, Calif., and Phillips Academy, a Massachusetts boarding school usu-ally referred to as Andover, are two of a handful of high schools across the country that send more than one-fourth of their students to Ivy League or highly reputable institutions.

The all-male Collegiate School in New York City has sent 39.6 per-cent of its graduates in the past five years to universities falling under the “Ivy Plus” umbrella — the eight Ivy League universities, as well as Stanford University and the Mas-sachusetts Institute of Technology. Among the graduates, 14 have en-rolled at Brown.

Other New York private and boarding schools located throughout New England boast similar statistics.

Trinity School on the Upper West Side of Manhattan — named “America’s Best Prep School” by

Top high schools find admissions success

Hilary Rosenthal / HeraldThe Committee on ROTC (above) presented at yesterday’s BUCC meeting in the Kaspar Multipurpose Room as community members looked on.

P r o u d P r e s i d e n t

Stephanie London / HeraldPresident Ruth Simmons spoke yesterday in Salomon 001 as part of Pride Series 2011. continued on page 7

continued on page 2continued on page 8

continued on page 2

Accuser’s father offered to mentor witness in McCormick case

continued on page 9

News aNalysis

new meal plan caters to off-campus hunger

Campus news, 3

munchies

Ben Schreckinger, PresidentSydney Ember, Vice President

Matthew Burrows, TreasurerIsha Gulati, Secretary

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Campus news2 the Brown Daily heraldwednesday, April 27, 2011

7 P.m.

“Gasland” Screening,

Wilson 102

8 P.m.

Ghanaian Drumming and Dancing,

Grant Recital Hall

7:30 P.m.

“SAAM: Take Back the Night,”

Smith-Buonanno 106

8 P.m.

Visions Spring 2011 Release Party,

Salomon 001

SHARPE REFECTORY VERNEY-WOOLLEY DINING HALL

LUNCH

DINNER

Castle Hill Inn Pork Spare Ribs, Crispy Fried Tofu, Vegan Ratatouille,

Fudge Bars

Roast Beef au Jus, Vegan Vegetable Couscous, Garlic Mashed Potatoes,

Fudge Bars

Beef Tacos, Vegetarian Mori Soba Noodles, Vegetarian Tacos,

Chocolate Krinkle Cookies

Buffalo Chicken Wings, Red Potato Frittata, Vegan Brown Rice Pilaf,

Chocolate Krinkle Cookies

TODAY APRIL 27 TOmORROW APRIL 28

C R O S S W O R D

S U D O K U

M e N U

C A L e N DA R

vice president for finance and ad-ministration. But it is important to remember the economic circum-stances facing the University. “It’s a tough time,” she said.

Sponsored funding “is not look-ing too promising,” she said, adding that net tuition — tuition less finan-cial aid — “is nearly flat.”

“We certainly are going to be totally dependent on what the de-velopment office is going to do,” Huidekoper said. But she said the University will also be looking to other sources of revenue.

Professional master’s degree programs will be one of the most important funding sources going forward, she said. She also pointed to the Summer@Brown program for high school students, which she said brings both fiscal and academic resources to the University by pro-viding prospective students with an early “view of their future.”

There are “no current plans for a new campaign,” Huidekoper said, and it is unclear when the next cam-paign will begin.

The rhythm of campaign cycles varies from school to school, Spies said. Some schools pursue new cam-

paigns immediately, and others try to maintain a more regular schedule.

The University’s last cycle saw a seven-year gap — the Campaign for the Rising Generation finished in 1996 after raising $534 million.

The amount of time and effort that goes into a campaign is “very, very significant,” Spies said. Volun-teers and administrators need time to “catch their breath a little bit, even while continuing to do the type of fundraising we have to do every year.”

A gap between campaigns also offers “a chance for people to refill their pockets,” Huidekoper said.

Though it is important to cel-ebrate past accomplishments, it is in the nature of the University to constantly look to the future, Spies said. “If we just sit still,” he added em-phatically, “that’s a recipe for decline.”

The annual fund will now move forward without “the umbrella of the campaign,” Spies said.

From 2001 to 2011, the fund nearly tripled in size — from $12 million to $36 million. The goal for the fiscal year ending in June is $36.5 million.

Currently, King said the office is about 7 percent ahead of last year’s figures. Though the office is only

40.3 percent of the way to their goal, Spies said much of the pledge activity happens in May and June. The $24 million dollar increase since 2001 is “an incredible expression of sup-port,” he said, pointing to faculty and student initiatives it facilitated.

The annual fund is “one of the best in the country,” King said.

The advancement office will fo-cus on the annual fund rather than targeted pledges, such as endowing professorships, King said. He said he plans to increase its professional support to younger graduates — and even to undergraduates — to keep younger alums connected. Alums should “really love the place and want to make sure it continues to grow,” he said.

The end of campaigns often brings about some office restruc-turing, Huidekoper said. Leaders move on to other schools currently in the midst of their own campaigns, opening possibilities for new leader-ship and new direction.

Currently, the advancement of-fice is looking for people to fill three open positions — vice president for development, director of commu-nications and director of corporate and foundation relations, King said.

Kristin Davitt ’88, former vice president for development, is now assistant vice president for under-graduate programs at Penn — which is in the fourth year of its own cam-paign. Though Davitt left Brown due to an opportunity that she said had “nothing to do with the end of the campaign,” Huidekoper said it is perfectly normal for people to want to move on at the close of such ven-tures.

“There’s no intent to decrease support” to the office, she said.

While the post-campaign world is “a new reality that we’re all operat-ing in,” King said, he emphasized that his office would continue to focus on effective leadership and discussions regarding University initiatives.

U. aims to diversify funding sourcescontinued from page 1

spokeswoman for Kilmartin. Juris-dictions can opt to activate their par-ticipation in the program without pressure from the federal govern-ment, she said.

Once a jurisdiction activates the program, the police departments within that jurisdiction send the identification information, includ-ing fingerprints, of anyone they ar-rest to the FBI. The FBI runs this information through a database shared with the Department of Homeland Security. The program’s primary purpose is to identify, and often deport, illegal immigrants who have already been arrested within the United States.

“There isn’t a change in the sys-tem, in the way local police depart-ments act,” she said. Local police departments still do not have the authority to enforce immigration laws, she said.

Ian Eppler ’13, president of the Brown chapter of the American Civ-il Liberties Union, said the Secure Communities program hurts inter-action between immigrant families

and police. “I think it’s a bad thing for public safety, and it’s a bad thing in terms of what impact it will have on racial profiling,” he said.

But because the program applies to all arrests, Kempe said, “It does away with allegations of racial pro-filing.”

Eppler called the program “dis-concerting” and said it could hit home for part of the Brown com-munity. “There are a number of un-documented students here … and

I’m sure they’re a little bit more on edge as a result of this announce-ment,” he said.

“At this point in my life, I’m op-erating under the assumption that nothing I do is private,” said Michael Zamost ’14.

Nick Jacob ’14 said he found the program’s targeting of illegal im-migrants distasteful. But as far as privacy concerns go, he said, “What I have on the Internet is way worse than my fingerprints.”

Police dept sends fingerprints to FBIcontinued from page 1

Herald File PhotoSuspects arrested by DPS will have their fingerprints sent to the FBI.

Campus news 3the Brown Daily heraldwednesday, April 27, 2011

Online declaration elicits mixed reactions

By JaCkie ChoiContributing Writer

The new online system for con-centration declarations, instituted for the first time for sophomores and transfer students this spring, has received mixed reviews from students and faculty members.

Previously, students were re-quired to turn in essays and a series of forms signed by a concentration adviser in paper form to the Of-fice of the Registrar, a system that required three copies of each form. The new system uses Advising Side-kick, a web-based program run by the Office of the Dean of the Col-lege. In a Feb. 11 Herald article, Katherine Bergeron, dean of the College, praised the “green system” for eliminating the need to print physical forms.

Timothy Harris, professor of his-tory and a concentration adviser for the department, wrote in an email to The Herald that advisers would be less likely to read the es-says now that they are online. He is concerned the new system may compromise the faculty-student ad-vising system. “Students at Brown have access to extensive one-on-one advising from faculty, and I worry that the new system will undermine advising at Brown,” he wrote.

Gretchen Schultz, concentra-tion adviser in the French studies department, wrote there are some “kinks” in the new system that have caused some frustration among concentration advisers and stu-dents. “My preference would have been to maintain the paper declara-tion form, which allows students to work out the details of their concen-tration face-to-face with an adviser during office hours,” she wrote in an email to The Herald.

But Anna Aizer, associate profes-sor of economics and public policy, wrote in an email to The Herald the electronic declaration system was “fine on the whole.” She said the only issue was confusion on the part of students and faculty members who thought the online system re-placed a face-to-face meeting.

Nicola Ryan ’13 found the elec-tronic system to be “relatively ef-ficient,” saying he started his form the day before it was due and had his concentration — economics — approved in an hour.

“I didn’t have any problems,” Ryan said. “If anything, it was al-most too easy to declare a concen-tration.”

Caitlin Taylor ’13, who filed two concentrations, said it was annoying to have to wait for her first con-centration to be approved before being able to edit her second one. But on the whole, she found the online system preferable to having to write everything out.

“If people are complaining, they’re stupid,” she said.

“It takes a while to get used to

MunchCard to bring credits, points to Thayer

By Sahil luthraSenior Staff Writer

When they return in the fall, stu-dents will have the option of a new off-campus meal plan that will al-low them to use a credit-and-point system at Thayer Street venues as an alternative or addition to other meal plan options.

The MunchCard plan is the brainchild of four Brown students — Ben Vishny ’14, Tucker Adams ’11 and brothers Andrew Tran ’11 and Steven Tran ’13 — who have spent the past semester setting it up.

Local restaurants will accept MunchCards, which are wallet-sized and have a bite-shaped hole in the corner, and will often offer student discounts to cardholders. Though the MunchCard program will not run through the University, it will operate with meal credits and points similar to University meal plans.

A list of participating eateries is still being finalized, but the found-ers said it will be complete when registration opens May 20.

Kabob and Curry has already signed on, and close to 20 businesses — including Andreas Restaurant,

Baja’s, Better Burger Co., Froyo-world, Haruki Express, Juniper, Mama Kim’s Korean BBQ, Paragon and Subway — have expressed high levels of interest, Vishny said.

Students on the MunchCard plan will be able to choose how many meal credits and points they want for the semester during online registration, allowing them to use the plan either as an alternative or a supplement to a University meal plan. Students must sign up for a minimum of 30 meals per semester, though meal credits can roll over to the following semester.

Students and parents “want the security of having a meal plan, but they also want variety,” Vishny said.

The four founders also empha-sized the flexibility of the card. Stu-dents can add meals and points at any point during the semester. The first four weeks of the fall semester will be a trial period during which students can change or cancel their plans.

The idea for the project came out of ENGN 0900: “Managerial Decision Making,” a class three of the four founders are taking this semester. A major factor stopping

students from eating off-campus is the fact that they needed to use their meal plans, Andrew Tran said. “We looked at the market, and it looked ready for something like this,” he said.

Kabob and Curry chef and owner Sanjiv Dhar said the founders’ “spirit of entrepreneurship” piqued his in-terest in supporting the MunchCard program.

Though Dhar said MunchCard discounts at Kabob and Curry would be minimal, Vishny said the discounts could be about 20 percent for some eateries.

Rie Ohta ’13 said though her Uni-versity plan is “convenient,” she is “sick of meal plan.” She said she plans to look into the MunchCard option,

adding she “probably would spend less” because of the Blue Room’s high prices.

But MunchCard meal credits — like University meal credits — set a price range, which might make it just as easy to pay cash, said David Man-ning ’13, who lives in West House and eats most of his meals through the co-op. Manning added he would still look into the MunchCard.

Stephanie Lai ’12, who is off meal plan and eats on Thayer Street about once a day, said she would be in-terested in the MunchCard option. “When we don’t eat on Thayer, we make our own food because it’s cheaper,” she said. “But if Thayer’s cheaper, that’s probably more con-venient.”

Hilary Rosenthal / HeraldBaja’s, a Tex-Mex eatery on Thayer Street, may sign on to the MunchCard.

New thrift store offers exchange, upcycling

By Daniel Jeon Contributing Writer

Two undergraduates have teamed up to create Brown’s first student-run thrift store, providing an outlet for students to donate, exchange and buy used goods. The Vault, which opened two weeks ago, was started by Hannah Winkler ’13 and Tara Noble ’12.5 in the hopes of providing various environmentally friendly ways for the community to handle unwanted items.

Since its opening about two weeks ago, the Vault has had three days of sales — one in the Salo-mon Center lobby Monday from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., one on the Wriston Quadrangle April 15 and the open-ing sale in J. Walter Wilson April 8. About 50 students attended the second sale day on Wriston, which made substantial profits, Winkler and Noble said. “Considering we have no overhead, (the sales) are great,” Noble said.

Aniqa Anwar ’14, who visited the store on Wriston, said the Vault was “a great concept because it’s really difficult to get rid of clothes with such a busy schedule.” She said she traded in some of her own clothes for store credit and bought a T-shirt, but added the store should work on its selection because some items were “not fit for reuse.”

Winkler and Noble first began working on their business during the fall semester. Through part-nership with the Brown Student Agencies, the Vault was provided a temporary space and advertising funds. Noble said the process was lengthy and arduous.

There are three components to the Vault — a thrift store, an item exchange and a workshop. The thrift store currently sells clothes, jewelry, books and other acces-sories donated by students, and Winkler said she also hopes to offer housewares in the future. For the item exchange, Brown students can bring in their unwanted clothing or other items to receive store credit for other goods in the thrift store. “The Vault is very Brown … with student-to-student interaction,” Winkler said.

The Vault is also unique in that it offers various workshops that align with Winkler and Noble’s goal of upcycling, a process that converts old or useless materials into items that have more value and a positive environmental impact. The Vault offered a T-shirt workshop Mon-day in Salomon, where students could bring in used clothing and upcycle them into other items, such as bags or wristbands. Noble said other workshops are also planned for the future, on papermaking, repair-and-mending and seasonal workshops.

The Vault is “very environmen-tally motivated,” Noble said.

Winkler and Noble said the Vault is still getting off the ground. “This is our trial period. … Since it’s going to be an establishment, (growth) is going to take longer,” Winkler said. “The primary hurdle is getting a space,” Noble said. With a stable location, “we’d be so much more efficient and reach out to a lot more people,” Winkler added.

“It’s an organic evolution,” Noble said. continued on page 4

Students petition against Grad School funding policy

By Caitlin truJilloSenior Staff Writer

Graduate students petitioned Presi-dent Ruth Simmons and Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 last Thursday to reevaluate the new Graduate School funding policy. The policy, which was finalized March 9, requires graduate students in the hu-manities and social sciences to apply for additional funds after five years.

The new policy also sets up a committee of administrators to review these funding applications. Prior to the change, department heads and advisers negotiated funding levels for rising sixth-year graduate students, said Sean Dinces GS, a third-year graduate student in the Department of American Civilization.

But administrators making these funding decisions do not work di-rectly with graduate students and do not understand their needs, Dinces said.

The petition demands removal of the application process, a guarantee of sixth-year funding for graduate students in good standing and more funding opportunities beyond the sixth year.

A group of 30 to 40 graduate stu-dents presented the petition with over 230 signatures to the offices of the president and provost last Thursday. The students also pre-sented a similar petition from the undergraduate student body with 100 signatures, said Sara Matthiesen GS, a second-year graduate student in the American Civilization de-partment. Graduate students also handed out flyers during A Day on College Hill.

The petitioning students are not advocating for a return to the old system, which was informal but also inefficient, Dinces said. Instead, he said they are asking the University to be accountable for helping stu-dents to fund their research.

Even if they require more than five years to complete their research, graduate students in the life and physical sciences have access to a wider variety of outside funding and thus often need not apply for sixth-year funding, Dinces said. Graduate students in these sciences request research funding less frequently beyond the fifth year of study, Pe-ter Weber P’12, dean of the Grad School, told The Herald last month.

But the national average time to complete a PhD in the humanities is nearly 10 years, according to a 2008 study referenced in a press release from the petitioners. Mat-thiesen said the new policy is thus disadvantageous to researchers in the humanities and social sciences because it provides funding for only a portion of their time studying. “We feel it’s definitely an indication of what sort of knowledge the Univer-sity values,” she said.

Simmons and Kertzer have not responded to the petition, Matthie-sen said. But Kertzer told The Her-ald no other school in the country guarantees funding for sixth-year graduate students, and such a guar-antee “doesn’t strike (him) as very plausible.”

“It might be nice, but it’s not go-ing to happen,” he said.

The petitioning students will continue to “rally around” the stu-dents most immediately affected by the policy change, Matthiesen said.

Campus news4 the Brown Daily heraldwednesday, April 27, 2011

$5.5 million grant to help fund labs

The University’s Center of Biomedical excellence for Cancer Signaling Networks was recently awarded a Center of Biomedical Research excellence grant worth more than $5.5 million to be paid in annual $1.1 million increments for five years. The grant will be used to purchase and maintain new equipment for the Center for Genomics and Proteonomics. This marks the third time in 15 years that the center has received funds from this grant.

The center currently serves about 40 labs, conducting research in subjects including engineering, immunology, biology and molecular pharmacology, said Christoph Schorl, assistant professor of molecular biology, cell biology and biochemistry.

“We want to get as many people in as possible to make use of the infrastructure,” Schorl said, adding that the facility aims to be as inclusive and accommodating as possible. Schorl and others who work in the Protein Genomics labs do not have research projects themselves but assist others with their research, something Schorl called “mercenary science.” There are about 120 regular equipment users, ranging from undergraduates to post-doctoral candidates to professors, Schorl said.

The new equipment funded through the grant will impact a community broader than the University, helping to make the Jewelry District and Rhode Island a more competitive place for research, Schorl said. Small biotechnology companies and researchers from Rhode Island Hospital are currently welcome to use the facility for a relatively low user’s fee due in part to the support of this grant and grants previously received.

After this most recent grant, the Genomics Core Facility will be “weaned off” of funding from the National Center for Research Resources, which awards the research excellence grant a maximum of three times to the same institution, Schorl said. The facility will explore other options for self-sustainability, including increasing user fees and applying for smaller grants, Schorl said. It was an “amazing achievement” to receive the grant three times, he added.

— Kristina Klara

Faculty considers offering language certificatesBy aShleY aYDinSenior Staff Writer

Though discussions of a proposal to offer foreign language and cul-ture certificates for undergradu-ates will continue next semester, faculty have questioned the ra-tionale behind offering such pro-grams and the ability of language departments to accommodate the increased enrollment the certifi-cates could bring. The University does not offer minors, but the proposed certificates would es-sentially function as minors in a foreign language.

To receive certification, a stu-dent would be required to take six language and culture courses focusing on a specific language, work or study abroad in a country where the language is spoken and maintain an online portfolio of work, wrote Katherine Bergeron, dean of the College, in an email to The Herald.

Almost all students completing language concentrations combine them with second concentrations, according to Bergeron. The pro-posed certificates would require fewer courses than any concentra-tion program.

Many of Brown’s peer institu-tions offer certifications or minors in foreign languages. The Office of International Programs has en-couraged the University to offer certificates since 2007, accord-ing to the minutes of a March 8 faculty forum held to discuss the proposal.

Defining proficiencyMany faculty think language

certificates are a good idea, but it remains to be seen how the University “would go about do-ing this,” said Cynthia Garcia Coll, chair of the Faculty Execu-tive Committee and professor of

education. One consideration involves

how best to test students on their language proficiency. “We’re not going to just give a student a test and then give them a certificate,” she said. “They have to develop a portfolio.”

Departments and faculty have to ask themselves what they are “actually certifying,” said Kerry Smith, professor of history and chair of the East Asian studies de-partment. “After three years, are we saying that you’re proficient or fluent? What about someone taking third-year French who has already taken French in high school? I’m not sure how we go about comparing what we mean by proficiency.”

It is also unclear whether lan-guage departments can support the implementation of language and culture certifications.

“The language departments came out and said, ‘Wait a minute, we don’t have the infrastructure for this,’” Garcia Coll said.

Language departments are al-ready overwhelmed, Smith said. “There would be an additional 10 to 15 students to teach. Does it mean this will diminish the qual-ity of instruction?” he said. “If you look at the staffing numbers of our peer institutions, we don’t com-pare well. It’s a long struggle to try to correct that.”

The University’s lack of lan-guage certifications places it out of step with peer institutions, most of which offer minors or similar certifications.

“We are always comparing our-selves to other institutions,” Garcia Coll said. “I’m sure it is part of the motivation but not the only motivation.”

But the University does not base decisions on its peers, Smith said. “That’s not the way Brown

does things.”

‘Commodifying language’Faculty and department chairs

also questioned whether the pro-posed certificates would be used solely to help students make their transcripts look more appealing.

“There are questions such as, are we commodifying language acquisition? Is it just another thing that students can put on their re-sumes, or is it something that can bring students a real understand-ing?” Garcia Coll said. “We want them to be really interested.”

In the past, similar proposals have been turned down by faculty, Luiz Fernando Valente, associ-ate professor of Portuguese and Brazilian studies and chair of the department, wrote in an email to The Herald.

“Many of us believe that such certificates go against the basic principles of the Brown curricu-lum,” he wrote. “A Brown educa-tion should not be a process of accumulating credentials, but rather of developing an integrated program of study that makes sense for each individual student.”

Valente emphasized that a for-eign language certificate would be the equivalent of a minor in the foreign languages. And mi-nors were eliminated with the implementation of the New Cur-riculum.

“Why not offer a certificate in computer science for students who would like to do work in com-puter science beyond the basic level, but not enough to complete a concentration?” he wrote. “We shouldn’t attempt to reintroduce minors through the back door.”

an incentive to learnFor students, a certificate might

make learning languages more re-warding, said Kai Loh ’14, head of the Brown Language Society, a student group formed to serve as a Department Undergraduate Group for students learning lan-guages.

“If there were language cer-

tificates, people would want to go beyond certain levels,” he said. “People usually stop at the 400-level. I think the major gains come from taking classes in the upper levels.”

Loh said there are many gaps in terms of resources for language at Brown. “Compared to our peers, there’s a long way to go,” he said. “I know at Princeton, language classes are kept to a small size, about 12 students per class.”

Loh cited the open curriculum as a factor in the popularity of lan-guage classes at Brown. “Because of the open curriculum, some-times students have no incen-tive to study languages,” he said. “Having the certification would spark more interest in learning languages.”

moving forward A committee of language de-

partment chairs will work in the fall to address the concerns raised by the faculty, Bergeron wrote.

Faculty who favor the proposal are “excited about the possibility of encouraging more students to continue their language studies to an advanced level, and they like the interdisciplinary nature of the requirements,” Bergeron wrote. Faculty who oppose the certifi-cates “are concerned about a strain on departmental resources and the need for a broader discussion of language teaching at Brown.”

Valente said that at a meeting of foreign language department chairs with Bergeron last week, it was clear that most of the chairs prefer not to proceed with foreign language certificates at this time.

“We agreed, rather, that we need to create a task force to as-sess the current state and future aspirations of foreign language departments,” he wrote. “Brown is behind other universities in terms of support and facilities for for-eign languages, and focusing on a certificate would distract us from more important and pressing is-sues regarding foreign language study at Brown.”

N e W S I N B R I e F

things and the main change is in the delivery method, not the ma-terial,” said Bergeron. “The basic structure in declaring concentration is the same, but we still encourage many suggestions and feedbacks from both faculty and students, and we have recently made small adaptations in the online declara-tion system that pertain to some particular departments.” Bergeron said students should not be any less likely to seek out their advisers as

the online declaration cannot be done before a face-to-face advising session. “We have no intention of discouraging faculty-student advis-ing,” she said. “Once the semester is over, we plan to email each depart-ment and get their feedback on the new system as a whole.”

“The most important thing is to have the new program work for all students and faculty alike,” Bergeron said.

— Additional reporting by Shefali Luthra

Students, faculty evaluate online declaration process

continued from page 3

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Campus news 5the Brown Daily heraldwednesday, April 27, 2011

Facilities Management to undertake summer projects

By greg JorDan-DetamoreSenior Staff Writer

Come June, students may be on vacation, but the Department of Facilities Management will have no shortage of assignments. With the seniors’ departure after Com-mencement Weekend, Facilities Management will quickly get to work on a number of campus im-provements.

Staff will install more bicycle racks, improve the area adjacent to Caswell Hall, repair sidewalks and perform classroom and dormitory room renewal as well as energy conservation projects.

“We try to start as early as we can,” said Stephen Maiorisi, vice president for Facilities Manage-ment. There are only about 10 weeks to get much of the work done. The absence of much of the student body allows Facilities Management to complete projects without as much interference as there would be during the aca-demic year.

About $47 million will be spent over the summer, said Paul Dietel, director of project management. This expenditure is comparable to those of previous years, Maiorisi said.

Currently, bikes can be found locked to railings, trees and other objects across campus. But the in-stallation of about 80 to 100 new bike racks in around eight loca-tions will ease these parking woes. The rack locations have not yet been finalized, Dietel said.

New stairs to the sidewalk from the east side of Caswell Hall will allow a “safe egress path” for stu-dents exiting the dorm, Maiorisi said. Currently, students exit onto a patch of dirt and must then jump down several feet to reach the side-walk.

Sidewalks will be replaced in various locations around campus.

Pending city approval, the Uni-versity will also replace several of the artistically designed crosswalks on Thayer Street. The mosaic-style crosswalks would be replaced with traditional ladder designs, Dietel said.

The Main Green will see in-creased lighting as a result of com-munity feedback about current lighting levels, Maiorisi said.

MacMillan 117 and Salomon 001, as well as classrooms in Wil-son Hall and Barus and Holley, will be upgraded over the summer. Improvements may include fresh coats of paint, new carpeting and updated audio-visual equipment and will cost about $100,000, Di-etel said.

Along with classroom updates, about 600 rooms will be painted this summer, Maiorisi said.

Solar panels will be installed on the roof of the GeoChem building, which Dietel called “a really cool project.”

Work will continue on major capital projects, such as the Medi-cal Education Building — sched-uled to open for classes in August — the new fitness and aquatics center and the renovation of the Metcalf Chemistry and Research Laboratory.

Work will be completed on the $15.5 million Institute for Com-putational and Experimental Re-search in Mathematics — located at 121 South Main St. — with one floor done in June and the other in July.

In the Jewelry District, streetscape improvements as well as the creation of a new public plaza will occur over the summer. “Our goal is to get (the plaza) done by the end of the summer,” though construction work has not yet be-gun, Maiorisi said.

Facilities Management will also conduct regular repair and main-tenance, he said.

before political expediency,” and he believed the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was the right thing to do. “If I lost my congressional seat, so be it,” he said.

During a question-and-answer session after the lecture, Rapha-ela Lipinsky DeGette ’11 asked Murphy his opinion on bringing ROTC back to Brown. Murphy, who participated in ROTC him-self, said Brown should bring the program back.

Murphy said it was an honor to serve in Iraq, during which time he “became a witness to our foreign policy.”

“I came out of Iraq thinking it wasn’t the right thing to do,” said Murphy, who altered a bill within his first six weeks in Congress to set a time frame for withdrawing soldiers from the country.

After his talk, Murphy told The Herald he has always been com-mitted to fighting for justice — re-gardless of whether the crime is committed on the streets or in a corporate board room — and he is “excited to bring this vision to office.”

“He is the definition of inspir-ing,” said Katerina Wright ’11, pres-ident of the Brown Democrats. “It is so easy to lose faith in politics, but he makes you believe that there

are good people out there.”Jeremy Feigenbaum ’11, presi-

dent of the College Democrats of Rhode Island and a former Herald opinions columnist, said he was particularly impressed that Murphy was open about taking positions on Iraq and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” that were not mainstream positions in his district, but were still in the broader national interest.

Despite the warm spring day, approximately 50 students attended the lecture entitled “Ideals in the Age of Political Cynicism” in Salo-mon 001. Previous recipients of the John F. Kennedy Jr. award include Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga. and Bill Clinton.

Forum examines ethics of ROTCBy Caroline Flanagan

Staff Writer

Over 100 students, professors and community members crowded into MacMillan 117 last night for the Janus Forum Town Hall panel on the presence of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps at Brown.

Luther Spoehr, senior lecturer in education, spoke first, advocating for the return of ROTC to campus. Though ROTC instructors should not be given faculty status and students should not receive credit for military courses, ROTC could provide many benefits for Brown, particularly by improving its public image, he said.

“For the past 40 years, some colleges and universities, includ-ing Brown, have taken the attitude that they are too pure to be sullied by contact with the military. This attitude must change,” Spoehr said.

The presence of ROTC cadets on campus “will expand significantly the meaning of diversity” as well as allow students to abandon military stereotypes and move away from prejudice, he said. “It comes down to the University’s self-interest and self-respect. It’s hypocritical for the University to live off its privileged position in American society and not give back. ... Restoring ROTC now would be a useful and signifi-cant statement. We should make that statement and we should make it now,” Spoehr said.

The next speaker, Amit Jain ’12, said he could not support the program because of the military’s policy on those who identify as transgender. The military defines being transgender as a gender iden-tity disorder. People who express this identity — for example, by re-questing to wear the uniform of the opposite sex — are at risk of being dishonorably discharged, he said.

The military’s transgender policy goes against Brown’s discrimination policy, he said, which states that the University does not discriminate

based on gender identity or gender expression.

“Transgender Americans face discrimination across all walks of American society. ... The transgen-der community is marginalized, de-graded and denied at every turn,” Jain said. “As a student who believes in our country and believes in our military, but also believes in human rights and the rights of our peers, I believe we should depart from our peer institutions.”

Joy Joung ’11, who until recently was the only ROTC cadet on cam-pus, advocated for ROTC’s rein-statement. She began by addressing sexual assault in the military and said there is only a minor difference between the proportion of women who suffer sexual assault in the military — 33 percent — and the proportion who suffer sexual assault in college — 25 percent.

The military is a progressive in-stitution in some ways, she said. For decades it has paved the way for social change, she said, citing women’s rights, desegregation and the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

If the University does not allow ROTC back on campus, it would be hypocritical to continue its relation-ship with the Providence College ROTC program, she said.

The final speaker, Professor of English William Keach, applauded the military’s repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, but cautioned that it may not resolve issues of LGBTQ

discrimination. Attitudes within the military will be slow to change, he said.

The ideals of the University might not correspond with the ide-als of ROTC, Keach said.

He quoted President Ruth Sim-mons’ speech on the eve of the Iraq War. “Universities have a particu-larly important role to play in the advent of war. As in all times, uni-versities must today cling to their commitment to the dispassionate search for truth. ... As scholars, true to our task, we are morally obli-gated to continue and strengthen that examination, bringing to light questions and insights that could be useful to the nation in the un-winding of war and the restoration of peace and prosperity. The task of the scholar to probe deeply and the role of the university to foster edifying debate must be protected especially in times of war.”

ROTC may conflict with that inquiry, Keach said, adding it’s im-portant that a university stand back and observe the military.

“For me, it’s not a question of aloofness or purity, but a question of engagement,” he said. “There are a lot of ways in which the University can learn about and participate in the U.S. military and remain inde-pendent and retain its intellectual status.”

Audience members from diverse

JFK Jr. lecturer discusses DADT, ROTCcontinued from page 12

continued on page 9

By aparna BanSalSenior Staff Writer

The Undergraduate Finance Board distributed over $1.1 million raised through the Students Activities Fee to fund groups on campus this year, according to Chair Adam Kiki-Charles ’11. But the funding process remains largely unfamiliar to the general student body.

The board allocates funds to student groups according to a three-tiered category system. The roughly 270 Category II and 160 Category III student groups receive baseline funding of $200, though Category III groups may also submit budget proposals in the spring to receive additional funds. Category I and service groups receive no funding.

Funding decisions for Category III groups are made according to the nature of the group, the na-ture of its hosted events, previous funding levels and UFB’s budget, Kiki-Charles said. The board pri-oritizes funding activities that will “directly impact Brown students,” especially those offered free of charge, he added. But funding levels range widely given the di-verse needs of groups who qualify as Category III. And determining the right amount can prove tricky.

in the board room“We tend to look at the mis-

sion of the group,” said Ralanda Nelson ’12, Undergraduate Coun-cil of Students student activities chair and UCS president-elect. “Can they operate in the fullness of that mission with the amount of funding that we provide?”

A representative from each group meets with a UFB repre-sentative to discuss budget pro-posals. While funding is partly up to the board’s discretion, there are certain rules that UFB always fol-lows. Funds are usually provided for capital improvements, but UFB does not fund food, recruitment or fundraising efforts, events held during reading period or decora-tions.

“The hard and fast rules are there for a reason,” Nelson said. Though UFB created the Student Activities Endowment in 2009, the board has limited funding. Stephen Robert ’62 P’91 recently pledged $1 million to the fund, committing himself to leading fundraising initiatives.

The endowment’s expansion will provide UFB with “a lot of flexibility in the future,” Kiki-Charles said. UFB is also looking into the expansion of media ser-vices for all groups, Nelson said.

Due to high levels of required funding, the Brown Lecture Board, the Brown Concert Agency, the Special Events Committee and UCS — all Category III groups

— are given special consideration, Kiki-Charles said. “Their mission requires that we treat them differ-ently,” he said of the four groups. “They produce singular events that impact thousands of students.”

UFB funds food at SPEC events and the Brown Lecture Board and BCA receive large lump sums to host high profile speakers and per-formers on campus, he said. UFB is also working to provide UCS with discretionary funds to start new projects.

“I don’t think of it as a ‘us ver-sus them’ fight for funding,” said Liza Weisberg ’12, co-president of Brown Lecture Board. “We definitely trust that the UFB has the best interests of our student group in mind.” Though the Lec-ture Board’s budget will be smaller this year, she said the UFB was “always very helpful in collaborat-ing and cooperating.”

“My representative was very knowledgeable of things that went above and beyond just funding student groups,” said Fiona Con-don ’12, station manager of Brown Student Radio. She added the pro-cess was “easy and quick” when a piece of equipment broke and she had to make a supplemental fund-ing request. Though BSR rarely receives all the funds it requests, the group is always provided with an explanation of UFB’s decisions, she said.

a controversial processBut certain groups have had

more difficulty with UFB. Natalie Van Houten ’14, treasurer for Stu-dents for Sensible Drug Policy, ex-pressed frustration that her group only received $273. The group also did not receive funding to travel to a conference that club mem-bers traditionally attend. SSDP was asked to come back with an argument for why four students should be able to attend the con-ference, she said. UFB will nor-mally fund up to three students to go to conferences, according to its website.

“We feel like we really have been shafted,” Van Houten said, adding that five out of seven items for which she requested funding were rejected. “The budget that’s been written for next year is just ridiculous,” she said. The group was asked to return to UFB at a later date for supplemental fund-ing.

Charlie Wisoff ’11.5, former president of the Brown University Mediation Project, said his group did not receive the same funding level it had previously received be-cause UFB demanded more details about the requested funds. “I think (UFB) could probably be a little more democratic — (get) more of the student body involved in the process,” Wisoff said.

The Brown Band, another Cate-gory III group, also faced problems getting funding for off-campus events.

Dara Illowsky ’14, the band’s business manager, said UFB’s poli-cies were more stringent this year — she was asked to go through the appeals process and had to answer questions about specific items be-fore she could receive any funding. The board should be more trans-parent about budgeting, Illowsky said. They “should be very explicit about where funding is going and where it’s coming from,” she said.

But the board is more open than many groups give it credit for, Nelson said. Though UFB has closed deliberations, it posts its policies and minutes on its web-site, including information on why an objection was made.

Illowsky said she recognized the dilemma that UFB faces. “I know it’s frustrating for them, too — when they can’t give out money that they want to,” she said.

Funding philanthropyTwo years ago, UCS and the

Student Activities Office created a new category designated S for service groups. Groups that fell in this category were no longer

eligible for UFB funding. This semester, Health Leads

was changed from a Category II to a Category S group. Amy Traver ’12, co-campus coordinator of the group, said the loss of funds will mean the group can do less to pro-mote awareness on campus and will now focus solely on helping the Providence community.

“We are connected to a national organization, but we are still very much a Brown student group,” Traver said. “We should be able to access the things that Brown student groups have access to.” There needs to be “better com-munication” between UFB and service groups, she said. For now, the group continues to receive funding from the Swearer Center for Public Service and its national organization.

Seeking other sourcesIn addition to funds from UFB,

student groups can approach the SAO for funding. The Late Night Fund is available for any groups seeking to host non-alcoholic events on weekend nights, said Ka-tie Colleran, program associate for student activities and religious life. The fund supported over 40 events last year, including the Brown Folk Festival and a comedy night for Stand Up Comics, she said.

Funding also comes from high-er up. Dean of the College Kather-ine Bergeron said student groups unable to find funding through other mechanisms often apply for discretionary funds from her of-fice. But budget constraints left fewer discretionary funds available this year, she said. The office re-cently funded events such as Strait Talk, guest speakers, film screen-ings and a production of “Rent.”

“We don’t make people jump through too many hoops,” Bergeron said. Students apply-ing for funding had to include a faculty endorsement with their application.

Certain groups such as the Ivy Film Festival have also been “great about off-campus fund raising” and use corporate sponsors in ad-dition to UFB spending, Nelson said.

The board is actively engaged in dialogue with the SAO to dis-cuss how to better support student groups lacking funds, Kiki-Charles said. He said conversations need to continue, not only about how UFB can better support student groups, but also about how the University can better support UFB. “If we had infinite funding we could give (groups) a lot more support,” he said, “but the reality is we don’t.”

Campus news6 the Brown Daily heraldwednesday, April 27, 2011

Demystifying UFB: Funding process draws mixed reviews

www.browndailyherald.com

Forbes Magazine last year — sent 21 students to Brown and matricu-lated 37.3 percent of its students to “Ivy Plus” universities in the past five years.

Twenty-two graduates of Phillips Exeter Academy, a boarding school in Exeter, N.H., enrolled at Brown in the past three years, while 250 alums have entered other “Ivy Plus” institu-tions in that time. Milton Academy in Milton, Mass., sent 24 students from its past three graduating classes to Brown.

But according to Jim Miller ’73, dean of admission, personal relation-ships between prestigious institu-tions and secondary schools do not impact these numbers.

“We do not admit schools,” he wrote in an email to The Herald. “We admit students.”

attracting talentMiller credited these prep

schools’ ability to attract a diverse and talented group of students with their high college admission rates. The growing global reputations of institutions such as Andover, Ex-eter and Milton allow the schools to enroll exceptional students from all corners of the world, he wrote. And renowned day schools, such as Harvard-Westlake or public magnet Stuyvesant High School in New York, benefit from their footing in larger metropolitan areas.

Such preparatory schools pos-sess a high level of talent, and the greater number of applicants from the schools is “inevitable,” he wrote. Brown receives more than 75 appli-cations from many of these schools each year, he wrote, adding that “it makes sense” for schools with such a large number of applications to see a high number of acceptances.

“The successes of these schools in our admission process … is a function of the unique opportu-nities they have to find promising students across a broad geographical spectrum and educate them well,” Miller wrote. “We do not have any quotas, expectations or targets for any institution for any reason.”

But the top independent schools across the country expect they will maintain a “batting average” in uni-versity admissions, said Stephen Nelson, senior scholar at Brown’s

Leadership Alliance. College coun-seling is undergoing a process of “professionalization,” Nelson said, making it the college counselors’ jobs to get students into top universities.

Though he is unsure whether an “on-the-phone relationship” exists between universities and certain high schools, he said college ad-missions are affected by trends, and universities tend to invest their time in schools and regions from which students consistently enroll.

Nelson, an alumni representative of Gettysburg College, said there are schools from which Gettysburg seeks prospective students and other insti-tutions it avoids based on previous matriculation statistics.

examining the relationshipsMartha Lyman, associate head of

school and director of college advis-ing at Deerfield Academy, a board-ing high school in Massachusetts, denied the existence of any special relationship between Deerfield and universities. According to the acad-emy’s website, six members of the class of 2010 enrolled at Brown while 48 others matriculated at the remain-ing “Ivy Plus” institutions.

Tamar Adegbile, an upper school dean at Harvard-Westlake, said her school has developed a positive re-lationship with Brown, but students at Harvard-Westlake do not receive “preferential treatment” in the ad-mission process. Ed Hu ’87, Har-vard-Westlake’s chief advancement officer and former associate dean of admission at Brown, has often led Harvard-Westlake students on tours of the University, but Adegbile said Harvard-Westlake has not used the relationship to its advantage.

But she added that athletes, espe-cially water polo players or students with family connections to Brown, may have a greater chance of being admitted.

Max Lubin ’12, a graduate of Harvard-Westlake and a member of the men’s water polo team, said it has been “a long tradition” for the school’s water polo players to attend Brown. The coaches at Brown and Harvard-Westlake do not have an es-tablished relationship, but Harvard-Westlake is well-known for its water polo program, he said.

But Lubin said he believes special relationships have affected college admissions in the past. According

to Lubin, more than 25 students — what Lubin said was an “absurd” number — were admitted to Penn from Harvard-Westlake’s class of 2007 because of connections among school personnel, but when the ad-missions officials at Penn changed, the acceptance numbers noticeably decreased, Lubin said.

Stanley Bosworth, former head-master of Saint Ann’s School in New York, established connections with a number of universities through his ability to be “personable,” said Caleb Townsend ’11, a 2007 graduate of the school. Bosworth, who retired in 2004, developed relationships that were personal at first, rather than school-to-school, Townsend said. But as Bosworth consistently sent talented students to reputable univer-sities, Saint Ann’s became more ori-ented toward university preparation.

Bosworth’s influence became noticeable after his retirement, Townsend said, as the “gravity” of the relationships between Saint Ann’s and top universities has been “dwindling.”

According to matriculation statis-tics available on the school’s website, 50 students came to Brown and 152 enrolled at “Ivy Plus” universities in the six years prior to Bosworth’s retirement. In the six years after his departure, 26 Saint Ann’s graduates have enrolled at Brown, and a total of 118 have entered “Ivy Plus” in-stitutions.

Students at Saint Ann’s receive written reports from their instructors instead of grades. Universities are accustomed to the school’s grading system, wrote Elizabeth Hannan and Melissa Gibson, college counselors at Saint Ann’s, in an email to The Herald. They declined to comment on whether or not Saint Ann’s has special relationships with certain universities that can sway admis-sion numbers.

Brenda Tan ’14, who graduated from Trinity last year, said students at her school expected approximately 50 percent of the graduating class to be admitted to an Ivy or equally reputable institution. She said that, though many of the students who went to Ivy League schools from Trinity were legacy candidates, col-lege counselors who themselves attended the schools were able to establish connections and contact institutions on behalf of students

placed on waitlists.But Katrina Toal ’12, a graduate of

Hunter College High School, a public magnet school in New York, said her school’s counselors “don’t buddy it up with admissions staff to get students into schools.” She said she believes special relationships exist between Hunter and institutions across the country, but they are “based solely on the reputation of the quality of students at Hunter.” Hunter does not publish matriculation statistics.

Clogging the applicant poolBut some graduates of these

preparatory schools said attending competitive schools may have actu-ally hurt their chances of admittance to top institutions.

Chris Sulawko ’13, who attended Stuyvesant, said he was “frustrated” when applying to Ivy League univer-sities because of the stiff competi-tion he faced from his classmates. The school tends to create the “for-mulaic college applicant” derived from a “how-to book,” according to Evan Schwartz ’13, also a Stuvyesant graduate.

Due to the caliber of Stuyves-ant students, some might have had better luck in the college admission process had they attended another high school, said Gabe Paley ’12, a Stuyvesant alum. Paley said his father suggested he enroll at the Horace Mann School in New York, which was ranked second in the nation last year by Forbes, to better his college prospects. Horace Mann boasts a matriculation rate of 36 percent at “Ivy Plus” universities, according to Forbes. Like Hunter, Stuyvesant does not publish matriculation statistics.

Allen Kramer ’13, a member of Stuvyesant’s class of 2009, said the school sends around seven students each year to Brown, significantly fewer than it sends to Cornell and Harvard. But Miller wrote that over the past two years, Stuyvesant has

been the school with the highest number of applications to Brown.

Alice Hines ’11, an Exeter alum, said some students at Exeter be-lieved their chances of attending a top-ranked university were hurt by having attended the school. Above-average students who did not stand out among their classmates could get “screwed over” in the admission process, she recalled.

College counseling officials at An-dover, Exeter, Collegiate, St. Paul’s School and the Dalton School in New York declined requests for comment. St. Paul’s, a boarding school in Con-cord, N.H., sent 15 students to Brown in the past four years, while Dalton matriculated 25 graduates to Brown in the past five years.

Though many of the nation’s top secondary schools are heavily con-centrated in New York and New Eng-land — Forbes placed only two prep schools located outside the northeast in its top-20 rankings — Miller wrote in his email to The Herald that other schools with pools of gifted students find similar success in the college admission process. Among them, he mentioned the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Tech-nology in Alexandria, Va. and Li Po Chun United World College of Hong Kong. Around 120 alums of the 13 UWC campuses attend Brown, The Herald reported in February.

Campus news 7the Brown Daily heraldwednesday, April 27, 2011

2006-10 matriculation to Brown

Harvard-Westlake School: 47 studentsPhillips Academy: 46Dalton School: 25Milton Academy: 24 (2008-10)Saint Ann’s School: 22Phillips exeter Academy: 22 (2008-10)Trinity School: 21St. Paul’s School: 15 (2007-10)Collegiate School: 14

Elite college preparatory schools get more students incontinued from page 1

Campus news8 the Brown Daily heraldwednesday, April 27, 2011

his accuser’s father is a University donor and fundraiser.

Emails written in the days be-fore McCormick was accused of rape and removed from campus — recently made public during the course of the lawsuit — high-light obstacles to adjudicating rape cases through university tribunals.

hidden biasThe emails, sent between the

accuser’s father and her residential counselor, Shane Reil ’09, show that in the days leading up to the rape allegation, the alum’s father, a prominent financier, offered to discuss career prospects with Reil. A day after the email conversation ended, the female alum accused McCormick of rape. A week later, Reil authored a damning appraisal of McCormick in his witness state-ment for the University sexual misconduct hearing.

In the emails, written after the father hosted Reil and a friend of his daughter at the home of another financier in Providence, Reil wrote, “(Your daughter) also expressed to me that you would not mind helping me trying to straighten out a path for my fu-ture.” After discussing his career aspirations in the email, Reil add-ed, “Thank you again for dinner, and for making yourself available to me as a mentor. I cannot begin to express to you how grateful I am that I can speak to someone who wants to offer me advice, rather than ask me for it.”

In his response, the father wrote, “I am happy to offer my thoughts on career plans and things you might think about. … Let’s talk when I am at Brown this fall.”

The next day, Sept. 13, 2006, the female alum, who had previously taken out a harassment complaint against McCormick, accused him of raping her on the evening of Sept. 6.

A week later, Reil filed a wit-ness statement for the sexual misconduct hearing. Reil’s state-ment indicates that McCormick had asked an unnamed student to lie about his whereabouts on the evening in question. It also describes McCormick as “emo-tionally eccentric” and “a tense individual who is prone to anger.” Witness statements filed by other students state that McCormick punched a wall in anger after his accuser ditched him at the annual orientation dance. The statement concludes, “He does not seem to have any handle on his emotions.”

What the statement does not include is disclosure of the re-lationship between Reil and the accuser’s father, revealed in the emails. In the witness statement, Reil describes himself only as “a residential counselor in Keeney Quadrangle.”

But Reil’s nondisclosure of a potential source of bias does not violate any University rules gov-erning disciplinary procedures. “There are no specific rules regard-ing disclosing relationships,” wrote Jonah Allen Ward, senior associate

dean of student life, in an email to The Herald, though he added that witnesses are expected to be truthful in their accounts.

“If you lie during a conduct board hearing, that’s an of-fense against you,” said Marga-ret Klawunn, vice president for campus life and student services. According to the Code of Student Conduct, “Lying in the course of a student conduct hearing consti-tutes an offense that is immediately actionable.”

Much of Reil’s testimony con-sists of his opinion of McCormick’s personality and is not entirely composed of factual assertions. And in the absence of definitive hard evidence — the University did not allow a pair of boxer shorts allegedly worn by the accuser during the rape to be sent out for testing or admitted as evidence — such character appraisals neces-sarily take on more importance.

It is unclear what role, if any, Reil’s statements would have played at a hearing on the rape allegation — McCormick signed an agreement with his accuser to withdraw from Brown before the case could be heard. McCormick maintains he had reason to believe he had no chance of a fair hearing and that he signed the agreement only under duress. It has been revealed that his law firm at the time he withdrew, Adler Pollock & Sheehan, was representing the University in federal court at the same time — an apparent violation of the American Bar Association’s conflict of interest rules.

The University, McCormick’s accuser and her father deny wrongdoing.

Anna Cordasco, a spokeswom-an for the accuser and her father, declined to comment. In an email to The Herald, Reil also declined to comment. Though University administrators commented on disciplinary procedures in gen-eral, they declined to comment on McCormick’s case.

The problem of Reil’s witness statement is representative of the procedural shortcomings that have led many critics to argue that uni-versities should leave rape inves-tigations to police and the courts.

rape hearings on campusesBut the question of universities’

role in investigating rape allega-tions is a thorny one, and Title IX guidelines set forth by the Depart-ment of Education’s Office of Civil Rights mandate that universities have “grievance procedures” in place to address sexual misconduct allegations and to take “prompt and effective action calculated to end the harassment, prevent its recurrence and, as appropriate, remedy its effects.”

Despite the law’s mandate, uni-versities have been criticized both for failing to afford accused stu-dents due process and for failing to protect victims of sexual assault.

Robert Shibley, senior vice president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said he worries that universities may be intent on conducting hear-ings expeditiously without also en-

suring that appropriate procedures are in place to guarantee equitable outcomes.

“This case is an extreme exam-ple that is symptomatic of a larger pattern,” said Azhar Maheed, as-sociate director of legal and public advocacy for the foundation, of the McCormick case.

Majeed said universities lack the expertise to deal with the complexities involved in sexual misconduct cases, particularly in cases that hinge on “he-said, she-said” evidence. Due process rights may not be fully extended to the accused as they would in a court system, he said, adding that, in an effort to pursue a quick resolu-tion to the matter and protect the campus, universities can have a “tendency to tilt the playing field in favor of the accusing student.”

But universities face criticism on both fronts. The charge is fre-quently leveled that rape — a crime already underreported be-cause of the stigma attached to it — is swept under the rug by university administrators wary of their schools’ public images, leav-ing victims alienated and perpetra-tors unpunished.

Universities’ handling of sex-ual misconduct has risen to the forefront of national debate af-ter the Department of Education announced it was investigating a complaint that Yale permits a hostile sexual environment on its campus. Earlier this month, Vice President Joseph Biden and Sec-retary of Education Arne Duncan unveiled updated sexual assault guidelines for colleges, saying uni-versities are not doing an adequate job in addressing sexual assault on campus, particularly in meeting the needs of victims.

But not everyone agrees that campuses are an appropriate venue for addressing the most serious forms of sexual misconduct. Ad-ministrators should not address a criminal offense against a sexual abuse victim with the same kinds of disciplinary processes used to address an “overdue library book,” said Katherine Hull, vice presi-dent for communications for the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. “It is a crime that should be handled through law enforce-ment.”

Brown administrators, though, say the University is capable of successfully handling rape cas-es. Ted von Gerichten, associate counsel for the University, said he believes the University provides an adequate process that balances Title IX’s call for a quick and ef-fective response with due process rights for the accused.

The University has a “pretty ro-bust” policy in place to support due process and fair treatment of both the accused student and the one bringing a complaint, he said. “Embedded within our code are the concepts of trying to give individuals a fair hearing,” he said. “We have a lot of process in place for giving notice, giving people the opportunity to present wit-nesses (and) statements (and) have advisers.”

“A university has the adminis-

trative process that works for it. I’m not going to say it’s perfect. I don’t think any institution has perfect procedures,” von Gerich-ten said. “We have the resources available to get to the truth as best as we can.”

university v. judicial proceedingsUniversity procedures differ

from those of police and the courts in their length, thoroughness and standards of evidence. “We’re not a criminal process, and we say that from the get-go,” Klawunn said. At private universities, victims of sexual assault have the option of pursuing remedies through uni-versity procedures without pursu-ing criminal complaints.

In criminal courts, an offense must be proven beyond a reason-able doubt. In Brown disciplinary proceedings, verdicts are made based on “the preponderance of evidence” — a lower standard of-ten used in civil trials.

In addition, Title IX requires that universities’ responses to sexual misconduct be “prompt,” whereas criminal investigations and trials can take months — or longer if a conviction is appealed.

While Brown’s processes are swifter, the courts are often more thorough. And some kinds of pertinent information, like Reil’s relationship with the female alum’s father, would be far more likely to come to light during the course of a criminal investigation and prosecution.

Within the judicial system, par-ties have the opportunity to un-cover potential sources of witness bias during discovery, said Robert Friedman, professor of law at the University of Michigan. “It’s not just that the witness is sprung on (the defendant),” he said. During this period, both sides are permit-ted to ask questions of witnesses and compel the owners of relevant documents to turn them over.

In the federal court system, there are laws in place to force the prosecution to disclose evidence that may undermine a witness’s credibility, Friedman said. He said that Supreme Court’s rulings in Brady v. Maryland and Giglio v. U.S. stipulate that prosecutors must release to the defense any “exculpatory evidence” — that which may be helpful to the de-fendant.

the viability of the courtsThe argument that the evi-

dence in some rape cases is too complex to be handled internally is one the University has accepted in the past.

In 1996, the University Disci-plinary Council declined to hear a rape case after the accused stu-dent’s adviser argued the evidence was too complex and could only be properly handled by the courts. The University accepted the ar-gument and declined to hear the case. But the accused student was a relative of the Jordanian royal family and questions of diplomatic immunity arose after the decision was made. His father had donated money to Brown, and his adviser’s research in Jordan depended on

the royal family’s cooperation. The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights opened a Title IX investigation, which was later halted when the parties involved and the University reached a secret out-of-court agreement.

Despite the suspicions sur-rounding that University Disci-plinary Council’s decision, many with experience in college rape cases agree with the sentiment that courts handle the cases better than colleges. And representatives from both the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education told The Herald last year that universities do not pro-tect victims’ identities any better than police and the courts do.

But campus disciplinary pro-ceedings sometimes provide the only viable recourse for rape vic-tims, said a female student who brought a rape complaint this year through the University. The same factors that complicate the evi-dence in rape cases also make it more difficult to obtain a convic-tion in a court of law. “It’s a real legal conundrum,” said the female student, who spoke on the condi-tion of anonymity.

She said the judicial system is not set up to handle cases like hers — a rape allegation lacking physical evidence — but that “it’s the school’s job to protect its mem-bers” and provide “some type of justice.”

Due to revisions to the Univer-sity’s sexual misconduct policies in 2010, the female student’s case was automatically referred to a Student Conduct Board hearing — more formal than the admin-istrative hearing that McCormick was scheduled to face before he withdrew from Brown. During the hearing, she said she, the ac-cused student and witnesses faced extensive questioning from an administrator, a faculty member and a student on the board. In her case, the board found the accused student guilty of rape.

The female student said she be-lieves the University performed well under the circumstances.

not above reproachIn rape cases, universities find

themselves stuck balancing be-tween considerations of speed and exhaustiveness, between the rights of the accused and protection for victims and between the require-ments of the law and recognition of their own limitations.

With the stakes so high, and the evidence frequently difficult to interpret, these processes face a more intense level of scrutiny than other administrative actions do.

University sexual assault in-vestigations are held to a higher standard than other administra-tive actions. Like Caesar’s wife, they must be above suspicion to avoid criticisms of their integrity. But McCormick’s lawsuit raises suspicions about Brown’s policies that remain unallayed.

And, with Reil’s emails, critics of the University’s policies have hard evidence to point to in mak-ing their case.

Emails call into question U.’s ability to prosecute rapecontinued from page 1

Campus news 9the Brown Daily heraldwednesday, April 27, 2011

Cloud Buddies! | David emanuel

Dr. Bear | Mat Becker

Dot Comic | eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline

Gelotology | Guillaume Riesen

CO M I C S

RUE community and outside of it.Danford, recently a finalist in

the Mr. Brown pageant, said he tries to live with “one foot steeply in the RUE population and one foot danc-ing around at house parties.”

money mattersThough RUE students generally

express gratitude for the program, there is one factor many say they would change — its size.

The program’s small size has a lot to do with the increased costs of attending Brown, according to Maitrayee Bhattacharyya, associate dean for diversity programs and the designated advisor for RUE stu-dents. “Brown has a very strong commitment to meeting need,” and RUE is no exception, she said.

But unlike in the traditional admissions process, the program receives a set amount of money each year. The University rates RUE ap-plicants on a need-blind basis, then accepts as many top candidates as it can fund. Bhattacharyya noted that though many RUE applicants have already excelled in professional fields, they often stop working to

become full-time students. RUE students “don’t have par-

ents who are going to pay for us,” Keough said.

Accepted students said they find the aid they are provided with meets that need — with one excep-tion. The University expects RUE students to earn roughly twice as much as traditional students for their summer earnings contribu-tion, Keough said.

Salsone said the assumption is that their experience gives them a higher earnings potential. “It can be an assumption that’s not re-ally founded in anything,” he said, noting that he cannot return to the military for a summer job.

‘the silent program’Students in the program describe

themselves as “nontraditional.” “What does traditional mean, at

the end?” Ben Ayed asked. Though programs like RUE exist

at many universities they are often not very large or well publicized.

“The information is there, but you definitely have to be looking for it or have heard about it. It’s not hidden,” said Bhattacharyya.

Danford said the program’s size

— only four students were admit-ted in his year — can make him “question the legitimacy of (his) nontraditional path.”

Ayed said she originally applied to Brown as a transfer student with-out knowing about the program. Only after she had begun the ap-plication process did a University advisor tell her about RUE. At that point, Ayed said she was “told that obviously with my background — with my personal history — I wasn’t necessarily considered a traditional student.”

“I wish that we had a bigger presence, honestly,” Keough said, calling the RUE program “the silent program.”

For most RUE students, discov-ery of the program happens through word of mouth. Danford said a former coach was a RUE graduate and told him about the program. As president of the Resumed Un-dergraduate Student Association — a group that serves both RUE students and adult students return-ing after extended leaves of absence — Danford said his overall goal has been “to celebrate RUE.”

“If this program didn’t exist, I wouldn’t be at Brown,” he said.

the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-nology or College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts to participate in their naval ROTC programs be-cause no such programs are cur-rently offered in Rhode Island. ROTC’s current arrangement with Providence College would likely remain unchanged.

At this point, the committee is not recommending changes to the 1969 resolution, which recognized ROTC programs as extracurricular activities, thereby rendering ROTC courses ineligible for University credit.

In a question-and-answer ses-sion, audience members brought up the issue of transgender discrimi-nation and how it factors into the committee’s recommendations. Bergeron said the committee still needs time to “formulate an ap-propriate response.”

Another audience member questioned the academic implica-tions of allowing ROTC back on campus. President Ruth Simmons assured the audience that faculty members will have the opportunity to offer input on the committee’s recommendations.

Simmons said the committee’s report on ROTC will be made avail-able to the public, though she did not specify when. After she reviews the report, it will then be presented to the Corporation, though the University’s highest governing body has not indicated a desire to provide much input on the decision. She said she hopes the committee will offer its recommendations before summer break.

Athletics Review Committee Chair Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning and senior adviser to the president, led the discussion on the proposed cuts to four varsity teams.

Spies said the recommendations should be considered as a “whole package” that will strengthen ath-letics in the long run. In addition to cutting teams, the committee’s report also recommends increasing the athletics budget by 10 percent. But even with the budget increase, it will be challenging to support the

34 remaining teams, Spies added.Cory Abbe ’13, a member of the

women’s fencing team, asked about the criteria on which the review committee based its recommenda-tions to cut teams.

“In the end, it wasn’t a formula. It was a judgment of a combination of factors,” Spies replied.

A member of the audience also asked if it would be possible to postpone a decision on cutting the programs to allow the teams to figure out alternative plans.

Students expressed collective disappointment and frustration with the quality of the answers from review committee members, char-acterizing them as overly vague, and said the committee lacked transparency.

“We feel that the reports, which obviously took a lot of time and effort, may not have had as much data or rigorous analysis that we feel should have been included,” said Tanya Nguyen ’13, a member of the women’s fencing team.

The Organizational Review Committee first proposed cutting teams two years ago, Simmons told The Herald after the meeting. But the proposal to cut teams was struck down at that time. “The aim here was to bring it back and have a fuller discussion,” she added.

Teams were not given more time to respond to the recommenda-tions because the Corporation set guidelines for the review process that were not presented to the Athletics Review Committee un-til this February, Simmons said. Consequently, it was difficult for the committee to alert teams sooner because the committee could not formulate recommendations until recently, she added. “The timing is very unfortunate,” Simmons said.

Simmons said she believes that public discussions, such as those on ROTC and the review committee’s proposals, are valuable but do not always occur at peer institutions.

“What made our process differ-ent is we don’t make our decisions just like that. When we have people participate, we’re ahead,” she said. “It’s not just about a budget. It’s about what’s the best experience we can give our students.”

RUE explores the ‘nontraditional’continued from page 12

Final decision on ROTC remains uncertain

continued from page 1

perspectives took advantage of the question and answer session follow-ing the panel.

An audience member ques-tioned how Brown could make its voice heard about discrimination policies within the military.

The best way to change the mili-tary is from within, and Brown is marginalizing itself by rejecting ROTC, Spoehr maintained. Brown should not marginalize itself, Jain agreed. But it might be more pow-erful for Brown to respectfully dis-agree with its peers, he said.

At the end of the forum, mem-

bers of the Coalition Against Special Privileges for ROTC stood in the lobby asking audience members to sign a petition to keep ROTC off campus.

Julie Pittman ’12, a member of the coalition, said she was surprised the forum “ended up being a forum to talk about how we feel about the military rather than how we feel about ROTC.”

“I wish the debate could have centered around the idea of ROTC existing on campus as an extracur-ricular, and how even as an extra-curricular it’s problematic that we’re providing support for a discrimina-tory program,” she said.

Janus panelists debate military’s role on campus

continued from page 5

editorial & Letter10 the Brown Daily heraldwednesday, April 27, 2011

L e T T e R TO T H e e D I TO R

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UCS presidents oppose cutting teamsTo the Editor:

As proud alums and former student leaders, we were concerned to learn about the proposed cuts presented recently by the Athletics Review Committee that would eliminate the women’s skiing, wrestling and men’s and women’s fencing programs.

The competitive outcomes of these programs speak for themselves with, for example, the fencing team placing in the top 15 nationally in 2011, or the women’s ski team qualifying for 10 of the last 10 national championships. But these athletic teams equate to more than just wins and losses on the field of athletic competition. They help tell the history of our alma mater as much as any entity within the University community. As much as we remember enrolling in ENGN 0090: “Management of Industrial and Nonprofit Organizations” with (Professor Emeritus of Engineering) Barrett Hazeltine, gathering on the Main Green with our classmates and enjoying meals at the Sharpe Refectory, we also recall the exhilaration of a big win on the wrestling mat and on the slopes.

These athletic teams and the pride they have given us helped shape our Brown experience, and we would be disappointed if future generations of Brunonians could not experience these wonderful memories. Many of these student-athletes embody the best of Brown and have demonstrated past and current excellence in athletics, community involvement and academic experience.

We respectfully disagree with some of the findings of the Athletics Review Committee. For instance, the report

cites “a small number of fencing programs nationally,” but it does not take into account the six of our Ivy League counterparts that support women’s fencing programs and the five that support men’s programs. And while it’s a positive development that the Committee recommends increasing the athletic budget overall, we disagree that these funds be primarily directed toward higher coaching salaries. Why not also invest that increase in all 37 of our existing intercollegiate teams, including these endangered programs that have been recommended for elimination?

We know that compliance with Title IX federal guide-lines related to gender equity in athletics will influence this decision, and we staunchly support the objectives of Title IX. But we are also sensitive to the pain that these cuts would cause current students, prospective students, alums and coaches and their families.

As former student leaders, we know that these deci-sions are never easy. But we also know how important these programs are to Brunonians, and we hope that our sentiments are taken into consideration as President Ruth Simmons contemplates the future of the skiing, fencing and wrestling programs.

Rodrick Echols ’03, UCS President 2001-2002Allen Feliz ’04, UCS President 2002-03

Rahim Kurji ’05, UCS President 2003-04Joel Payne ’05, UCS President 2004-05

Brian Bidadi ’07, UCS President 2005Sarah Saxton-Frump ’07, UCS President 2006

John Gillis ’07, UCS President 2006-07

e D I TO R I A L CO M I C b y s a m r o s e n f e l d

“At this point in my life, I’m operating under the assumption that nothing I do is private.”

— Michael Zamost ’14See dpS on page 1.

e D I TO R I A L

As reading period approaches, we are all looking for ways to avoid studying for finals, and seniors especially may find the best tactic to be nostalgia. Reflecting over the last year, we have seen Brown evolve in many areas, and we are proud to see most of these changes have been for the better.

The physical face of campus has been updated, and we have cel-ebrated the completion of the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center in Faunce House and the opening of the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts. As Brown continues to expand — reno-vating the Metcalf Chemistry and Research Laboratory, moving the medical school to the Jewelry District, breaking ground for the new aquatics center and seeking to create more on-campus housing for undergraduates — we hope the University will solicit student input and plan wisely to construct high-quality and cost-effective facilities for the Brown community.

Student life is also on the verge of renovation. We are grateful to have witnessed the much-needed growth of the student activities endowment. Coupled with the agenda of the newly elected president of the Undergraduate Council of Students, we expect to see improve-ments in the way student groups operate and individuals participate in campus activities. Of course, there are some issues of student life yet to be resolved, such as deciding whether to bring the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps back to campus and looking for options to relieve the housing crunch. When the new provost Mark Schlissel P’15 takes of-fice, we hope he will give these issues serious consideration.

And just because most students are leaving Providence in a few weeks, that does not mean the current local and state issues will grind to a halt. The summer promises many new political developments worth following. Most importantly, the contentious budget process will move forward for the first time under Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s ’75 P’14 administration. How the budget gets hammered out will have significant real-life implications — a major component of the plan is a broadening of the state sales tax — and will also set the tone for at least the next few years of Chafee’s governorship. By the time we return in the fall, medicinal marijuana will be sold from state-regulated dis-pensaries, gay marriage might be a reality and a new streetcar system for Providence will be closer to fruition.

We have occasionally been critical in the past months. But looking at the bigger picture, we are very pleased to see how much progress Brown has made over the last year and look forward to more growth in the coming one. We wish the graduating seniors well in their future endeavors and all returning students a safe and enjoyable summer.

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

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All’s well that ends well

An article in Monday’s Herald (“Conflicting ROTC camps face off,” April 25) incorrectly attributed the words, “But since it’s trans students they’re discriminating against, people think it’s more okay. But I say — funk ROTC and support trans rights!” to Gabriel Schwartz ’13. In fact, the words were said by another student. The Herald regrets the error.

CO R R e C T I O N

opinions 11the Brown Daily heraldwednesday, April 27, 2011

Much like a cancer, the University’s growths, initiated in the name of profit and prestige, threaten its health.

Before, I’ve called this the logic driving the corporatization of our university, but today I’m going to call it the logic of the attack on liberal learning.

Changes Brown has recently undergone have physically harmed the lives of members of our community — cancerous, in some cas-es, to the point of the surgical removal that the University called organizational restruc-turing and everyone else called layoffs.

The layoffs of 2008-2010 occurred for one reason — because risky endowment in-vestments were made to compete with peer schools. The University was able to grow, and when risks came home to roost, cuts came at the expense of our staff’s livelihoods.

This cancer has overrun and corrupted our most fundamental principle: the liber-al learning that underlies our open curricu-lum. This principle would seem to espouse the equality and importance of diverse disci-plines operating in academic freedom.

Pure and simple, the search for profit and prestige has increasingly guided Brown’s de-cision-making since the Plan for Academic Enrichment. That plan and the campaign that funded it have operated along lines at direct odds with liberal learning.

In the life and physical sciences, as well as at Alpert Medical School, these plans meant growth. Faculty was one of the central areas of growth outlined by the PAE. Of all seg-

ments of the faculty, the life and medical sci-ences have grown the most since the spurts began, by 26.9 percent, with physical sciences second at 18.2 percent, followed by social sci-ences at a 15.8 percent and humanities at a paltry 8.1 percent. Nonetheless, the humani-ties still have the greatest number of profes-sors all told — 200 — while the physical sci-ences have but 12 fewer.

The humanities’ size can be understood by the fact that they incorporate the most departments, programs and centers by far, with 25. The humanities departments aver-age eight faculty each, while the social scienc-

es have slightly more than nine each, the life and medical sciences have more than 19 each and the physical sciences have more than 23. The largest areas of the University have con-tinued to get larger, and have disproportion-ately benefited from investments.

The areas of greatest growth generate the most revenue — those which, balance would tell us, shouldn’t need disproportionate sup-port. But expanded research in science, tech-nology, engineering and mathematics trans-lates to greater federal and corporate grants, and with those come profit margins with which increases in the number of tuition-paying undergraduates can’t compete.

Expanded research demands new and bigger facilities, and the single area of greatest

expansion — the life and medical sciences — proves it. Ninety-five-million dollars were in-vested into the Sidney Frank Hall for Life Sci-ences, and $45 million into the Medical Edu-cation Building in the Jewelry District.

This reorientation of the University’s pri-orities has become a threat to those who don’t directly aid in achieving efficient growth. The restructuring the University underwent in 2009-2010 can serve as a model to under-stand how the University interprets the effi-ciency it covets.

Despite the fact that the PAE’s second phase, which came in 2008, recommended

staff increases to accommodate faculty in-creases, more than 200 staff were lost last year alone, including 66 lost to layoffs. This could only be justified in terms of monetary effi-ciency, for while staff are necessary, they are not profitable and rarely prestigious.

In the case of Brown graduate students, whose numbers have grown by 14 percent since May 2008, the cancerous nature of this growth can be understood best in the new pilot project called “Dissertation Comple-tion Funding.” On paper, without context, these funds appear to be a boon — they cre-ate a standardized application process to ac-cess University funds for sixth year doctoral work, awarding money months earlier than in years past.

The pretty package disguises major con-cerns. To begin with, only graduate students in the humanities and social sciences apply. All graduate students in the profitable scienc-es receive their funding from external grants.

While money is now being centralized in the graduate school in the name of efficiency, these funds are now budgeted in advance of any calculation of need. In order to calculate merit, a new system has been established to rank graduate students against departmen-tal colleagues, and departments against other departments.

Creating a centralized internal ranking system does nothing but establish the sort of competition that is fundamentally inimi-cal to academic freedom. You’d think that the school that prides itself on the right of its un-dergraduates to take any course Satisfactory/No Credit would understand that.

Where the University doesn’t directly profit, it’s after prestige. The new policy re-stricts graduate student funding towards the recruitment of more competitive applicants. The Dean of the Graduate School, Peter We-ber, has confided to graduate students that there isn’t less money — more money had just been put towards graduate students’ first five years.

No graduate student would knowing-ly choose higher salaries and more summer funding over a guaranteed sixth year of fund-ing. But more money up front looks better, boosts the number of applicants and, conse-quentially, our graduate school rankings, our prestige and our profit.

Julian Park ’12 would rather see Brown drop in ranking than sacrifice its values.

Contact him at julianfrancispark@gmail.com.

Liberal learning is under attack

In her recent column, Sofia Ortiz-Hinojosa ’11 castigated Brown marijuana users, argu-ing that their consumption funds gang vio-lence in Mexico (“4/20 and the drug war,” April 18). Her column incited a strong back-lash from readers because no one wants to hear that the Brown community has a hand in gang violence. It is much easier to avoid self-examination and pin the blame for this violence on the U.S. government’s drug poli-cies, as a column and a letter did last week (“Letter: Pot on campus not from Mexico,” April 19, and “In the drug war, keep your eyes on the real killer,” April 22).

Contrary to what Ortiz-Hinojosa’s crit-ics argue, drug violence is not solely caused by bad policy. It is also caused by individ-ual consumers prioritizing their desire for substances over the safety of those who are impacted by the drug trade. Ortiz-Hinojosa acknowledged the multiple aspects of this problem, while her critics only focused on the policy aspect of drug-related violence.

This rush to clear the Brown community of any blame for drug violence is indicative of a larger trend on campus. We refuse to ac-knowledge personal responsibility for the effects of our actions. Instead of individual accountability, we attribute all injustice to larger social forces, most commonly to gov-ernment policies. According to this state of mind, social problems are never created by individuals who make immoral or irrespon-

sible choices. Instead, these problems stem solely from bad legislation.

While government policies certainly contribute to drug violence, it is irrespon-sible to deny the consequences of our indi-vidual choices. Regardless of the merits of legalization, we currently live in a society where individual drug use often funds vio-lent gangs. Admiral James Winnefeld, lead-er of the U.S. Northern Command, testified that American drug consumption provides Latin American cartels with $40 billion ev-ery year. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

also notes, “our insatiable demand for ille-gal drugs fuels the drug trade.” The existence of the alternative policy of legalization does not absolve individual drug users of partial responsibility for funding the drug trade and the related violence that ensues.

Brown’s moral blindness to the connec-tion between individual drug use and gang violence is a symptom of a belief in the be-nevolence and ability of government. This reliance on policy solutions is connected to our political liberalism. The vast majority of Brown students are social liberals, and lib-eralism is defined by its belief in the pow-er of government to address social prob-lems. When Brown students identify a so-cial problem, they immediately look to the government to fix it, a mindset that is com-

mon among liberals. We have a deeply held belief that a well-informed and rational gov-ernment can devise policies that will solve all of our problems. This positive vision of government makes us overlook the key role that individual choices play in creating so-cial problems.

Those who believe in the positive poten-tial of government and are fixated on policy solutions to social problems are less likely to take individual responsibility for address-ing these social problems. The differences in charitable giving between liberals and

conservatives illustrate this point. Liberals believe in active government policies to ad-dress injustice, yet they take less personal responsibility for fighting poverty. Arthur Brooks, a former professor at Syracuse Uni-versity, found that conservatives donate 30 percent more to charity than liberals, even though they earn 6 percent less. Philoso-phy on the proper role of government was the second most important factor in deter-mining an individual’s charitable contribu-tions. Those who disagreed with the state-ment “government has a responsibility to re-duce income inequality” donated four times as much to charity as those who agreed with the statement.

The more positively you view govern-ment, the less likely you are to take person-

al responsibility for addressing social prob-lems. Brooks wrote, “If support for a policy that does not exist … substitutes for private charity, the needy are left off worse than be-fore. It is one of the bitterest ironies of liberal politics that political opinions are apparent-ly taking the place of help for others.” This sentiment applies to both charity and drug violence. The politically liberal Brown com-munity believes the government alone is re-sponsible for ending drug violence. Unfor-tunately, this belief prevents us from taking individual steps that would end drug vio-lence. The most obvious such step is to stop consuming narcotics.

A belief in the positive potential of gov-ernment is not inherently flawed or objec-tively wrong. But it comes with the nega-tive consequence of diminishing our sense of personal responsibility for addressing so-cial problems. It is crucial that all of those who have a positive view of government ac-knowledge this negative consequence and fight it by examining how their own actions contribute to social problems.

As a college community, we do not have the opportunity to instantly change Ameri-can drug law. What we can do is limit our own consumption of the substances that fund violent crime. Such an action would require us to acknowledge our own moral responsibility, instead of looking to the ex-ternal source of government and deflecting blame from ourselves.

Oliver Rosenbloom ’13 is a history concentrator from Mill Valley, Calif.

He can be reached at oliver_rosenbloom@brown.edu.

Overlooking personal responsibility

We refuse to acknowledge personal responsibility for the effects of our actions. Instead of individual

accountability, we attribute all injustice to larger social forces, most commonly to government policies.

No graduate student would knowingly choose higher salaries and more summer funding over a guaranteed

sixth year of funding.

By OLIVeR ROSeNBLOOMopinions Columnist

By JULIAN PARKopinions Columnist

Daily Heraldthe Brown wednesday, April 27, 2011

City suggests revised teachers’ contractBy Claire SChleSSinger

Staff Writer

At a hearing last night, the City Council Education Subcommittee presented its recommendations for negotiating a new Providence teachers’ contract, the single big-gest expense in the city budget and the most costly teacher contract in the state. The current contract is set to expire in August.

The hearing was the last of four on the contract negotiations that started Feb. 17. Sam Zurier, sub-committee chair, city councilman and former Providence School Board member, presented two options for negotiating the new contract — both of which would cut costs for the district through measures including permitting more flexibility in school opening times, staggering bus schedules to increase efficiency, reforming the system of awarding bonuses for taking five or fewer sick days and changing the way the district pays its substitute teachers.

The first option would increase teacher salaries by 5 percent this year and 2 percent in subsequent years, while reducing the overall cost of the contract by 5 percent. The second option would hold salaries constant and save the city 10 percent on the contract.

The report also proposed in-creasing the school year by two days, lengthening the school day and mandating that parent-teacher conferences occur after school rather than during school hours.

The subcommittee laid out a “‘tool kit’ for the negotiating par-ties to consider that can support significant reforms and improve-ments while also yielding savings for the city,” according to the re-port.

Zurier said the purpose of the report was not to criticize teachers, but rather to hold them to higher standards. He said many teachers go above and beyond what is stipu-lated in their contracts because they care about their students. “Thank God a lot of our teachers don’t care what’s in the contract,” he said.

Nevertheless, “whatever is in that document is going to be very important,” he told The Herald.

Karina Wood, interim execu-tive director of People for a Better Providence, a non-profit that seeks to raise awareness about local is-sues, said the contract creates poli-cies that directly impact students’ education, parental interaction with teachers and the number of school days in the year.

As a Providence resident for 13 years and a parent of Providence public school children for six, Wood said this is the “first time that I’ve seen a discussion — a

public discussion — of ways that we can improve and reform educa-tion as a whole in Providence, like looking at the teachers’ contract.”

Wood called the recommenda-tions a “win-win-win” situation for taxpayers, teachers and students.

At yesterday’s hearing, Zurier summarized the subcommittee’s work so far. The subcommittee’s first hearing on the Providence teachers’ contracts was Feb. 17 — nearly a week before Providence Mayor Angel Taveras drew the ire of the union by firing all 1,926 of the city’s teachers. The hearing was billed as a first step in building a collaborative relationship between the Providence Teachers Union and city administrators.

The relationship between Provi-dence School Board President Kathleen Crain ’93, Superinten-dent Tom Brady and Providence Teachers Union President Steve Smith has deteriorated since then. “I don’t think I could make that same presentation today,” Zurier said.

The negotiating parties may not accept the ideas the subcommit-tee has proposed, but significant changes to the current contract are necessary, Zurier told The Her-ald. Even though past negotiations have yielded small changes, the severity of the city’s fiscal woes and looming changes for Providence schools could make this year dif-ferent, he said.

School’s in: Undergrads resume studyBy katrina phillipS

Staff Writer

What do a former American Bal-let Theater dancer, an ex-convict-turned-voting rights advocate and a former guitarist for the Mighty Mighty Bosstones have in common? They are all alums of the University’s Resumed Undergraduate Education program, and they all went through these experiences before enrolling in their first class here.

The small program offers adults who have been out of high school for six years or longer an alternative to the traditional application pro-cess. Rather than extracurriculars or SAT scores, RUE applicants are evaluated on their experiences after high school and can include people who had limited opportunities to attend college straight out of high school.

The program is highly competi-tive, with fewer than 10 applicants admitted each year. According to Nick Danford ’11, president of the Resumed Undergraduate Students Association and a former profes-sional ballet dancer, successful applicants to RUE have a unique experience and tell their story “in a compelling way.”

“It’s nice that in the (admissions) process, they look at everything you’ve done — all of you — rather than just what you look like on paper,” said Megan Keough ’14, a

former ballet dancer and freelance writer.

Having abandoned traditional schooling at the age of 12 to focus on her dancing, Keough never took the SATs or ACTs. The standard admissions process would not accu-rately portray her when she decided to return to school, she said. “My high school transcripts were like 11-years old. What does that say about me now?”

Board room to Blue roomWhile most students were busy

filling out applications with extra-curricular activities, students like Danford and Karima Ben Ayed ’12.5 were busy pursuing careers on the stage with the Nevada Bal-let Theater in Las Vegas and in a corporate office, respectively.

Ben Ayed was born in Tunisia and later lived in France and Ger-many before coming to the United States with her husband to study at a community college in Virginia. She worked in language instruc-tion, corporate training and account management before returning to school.

David Salsone ’12.5 also trav-elled before applying to Brown — through his time in the military. One of five former military mem-bers currently enrolled in the RUE program, Salsone said he lived in Bahrain for four years while serving with the Army.

“I could’ve stayed in telecom and taken the six-figure job that they of-fered,” he said. But, “I honestly just

had an academic curiosity.”This same curiosity has led doz-

ens of parents, ex-military service members and former dancers — groups that Danford said RUE “loves” — to apply to the program.

“RUE is not some kind of second chance program,” said Danford. “ These people have very valuable experiences. They contribute just as much to the classroom experi-ence as people who have taken the typical route.”

Nate Albert ’01, an RUE alum, was the guitarist for the ska band Mighty Mighty Bosstones before applying to Brown. Andres Idarraga ’08 is an ex-convict who advocated for giving Rhode Island ex-felons the right to vote, a goal he accom-plished during his time on campus. A state referendum approved giv-ing ex-felons the vote in 2006, and Idarraga was able to register to vote.

RUE students often return to their professional careers again after graduation. Rachel Moore ’92 was a ballet dancer before RUE — she is now the executive director of the American Ballet Theater.

Culture shockWith their less traditional back-

grounds, many RUE students also carry a fair amount of baggage that can make full-time study more complicated for them than it is for other students.

The University makes a few pol-icy exceptions for RUE students. In addition to not being required to live on-campus or purchase a meal

plan, RUE students have the option to study part time. These allowances can be crucial for married students like Keough, or those who continue their professional career while en-rolled and often need to commute.

But not everyone takes advan-tage of these exceptions. Salsone opted to live on-campus for his first semester, and Ben Ayed is currently on meal plan.

“It’s a nice way … for me to meet students from my classes, to meet students I met through other orga-nizations and sometimes to just sit at a table and chat with someone I don’t know,” Ben Ayed said.

For many RUE students, the greater challenge is adjusting to academic life. Keough said she had

difficulty connecting with younger undergraduates on a meaningful level, while Ben Ayed said, “In my case, I wish I would socialize more, to be frank.”

But these students ultimately seem to feel they connect with fellow students through common academic passions. “I’m a little dif-ferent, but not in any way that mat-ters,” Salsone said. He participated in Brown Outdoor Leadership Training and briefly played on the men’s crew team before National Collegiate Athletic Association reg-ulations regarding prior education forced him to quit. He said he has undergraduate friends both within

Courtesy of Nick DanfordNick Danford ’11 (above) danced in the Nevada Ballet Theater before coming to Brown.

city & state

feature

continued on page 9

Politician lauds repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’

By Shanoor SeervaiContributing Writer

As Former Congressman Patrick Murphy walked to the podium yes-terday afternoon for the Brown Democrats’ John F. Kennedy Jr. Lec-ture, he offered his hand to the stu-dents filling the hall. He sustained this gracious tone throughout the lecture, as he spoke about defend-ing the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the timely withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

The Brown Democrats pre-sented Murphy, the first Iraq War veteran to serve in Congress, with

the John F. Kennedy Jr. award for his advocacy in civil rights.

Despite opposition from his district, Murphy said he took the lead on the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” because the legislation violates the military’s goal to treat all people with respect regardless of color, sex, race, religion and sexual orientation.

“Kicking people out” of the military for reasons of sexual ori-entation is a waste of money, he said. He said he has always tried to “put what (he) thought was right

Stephanie London / HeraldFormer Congressman Patrick Murphy spoke yesterday in Salomon 001.

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