Thursday, March 22, 2012Daily Heraldthe Brown

Since 1891vol. cxxii, no. 40

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t o d aynews....................2-6CITY & sTaTe........7a&C...................8-9edITorIal............10opInIons.............11insi

de Editor’s NoteThe Herald will not be publishing Friday, March 23. Check browndailyherald.com for breaking news and look for the next issue on Monday, April 2.

knows secrets, shops drunk

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By SoNa mkrttchiaNSenior Staff Writer

A bill that could have forced the De-partment of Public Safety to release names and personal information of students involved in campus crimes was withdrawn this month. Just one week before it was set to appear be-fore the House Judiciary Committee, the bill’s sponsor, state Rep. John Carnevale, D-Providence, withdrew the legislation after having tried twice to pass it. Most recently, the bill was passed by the Rhode Island House of Representatives last summer but never made it to a vote in the state Senate.

The legislation targeted private police forces in the state — like the one the University employs — in an attempt to subject these forces to the existing law on “access to public records.” Public records, as defined by the bill, include many kinds of written and recorded evidence rel-evant to criminal activity. If bound to comply with the established law, DPS would have been required to release such information pertaining to individuals, including students, associated with reported crimes on campus.

DPS bill pulled prior to hearing

By ShEfali luthraneWS editor

President-elect Christina Paxson made her first visit to the Univer-sity this week since the announce-ment of her selection as the Uni-versity’s 19th president March 2. The visit, during which Paxson met with senior administrators and faculty members, marked her first step in learning more about the University, said Russell Carey ’91 MA’06, senior vice president for Corporation affairs and gov-ernance.

Paxson’s visit, which lasted from Saturday to Wednesday, consisted mostly of one-on-one meetings with senior staff, Carey said. Paxson also toured the John D. Rockefeller Library, the Sci-ences Library and the John Hay Library and visited the School of Engineering.

Paxson said she will likely visit one more time before Commence-ment, though the dates for a sub-sequent visit have not yet been finalized. On her next visit, she said, she hopes to meet more with student leaders on campus.

“It’s really part of an ongoing

Paxson meets with admins, faculty in first visit since selection

Courtesy of the Windish AgencyBCA announced its Spring Weekend lineup today with Sepalcure (above) setting up Childish Gambino (right) Friday and the Glitch Mob (below) to headline Saturday.

By adam tooBiNSenior Staff Writer

A rare sight befell students and tour groups wandering the Main Green just after noon Thursday — 70 stu-dents lying head-to-foot protest-ing the Brown Bookstore’s alleged ties to vendors that use sweatshop labor. The students, whose bodies formed a line that almost spanned the length of the Green, said they were lying down to stand up for the rights of workers.

Chanting, “What’s disgusting? Union busting. What’s outrageous? Unfair wages,” and holding signs exhorting the University to “honor your promise” and “take sweat-shops out of our bookstore,” the protest, affiliated with the Student Labor Alliance, drew the attention of students enjoying the day’s un-seasonably warm weather.

The protesters called on the University to join the Designated

Suppliers Program, which would require vendors that sell to Brown to ensure their factories allow workers to unionize, pay living wages and, for at least three years, commit to operating factories that fit the first two stipulations, ac-cording to a handout.

“We’re standing in solidarity with the workers who make cloth-ing for our bookstore here,” said Miriam Rollock ’15. “We benefit from their labor, and, if they’re being treated unfairly, we should do something about it.”

The University promised to adopt the Designated Suppliers Program as soon as it was certi-fied by the Department of Justice, Mariela Martinez ’14 said.

In December, the program passed the review, “so we wanted to remind the University of its prom-ise,” said Stephanie Medina ’14. The Herald reported in 2009 that

Students protest bookstore’s affiliations

Jenny Bloom / HeraldStudents protest sweatshop labor during a lie-in on the Main Green.

By kathEriNE loNgSenior Staff Writer

In response to student demand for up-tempo electronic artists, the Brown Concert Agency announced a Spring Weekend lineup heavy on dance music today. Providence brass band What Cheer? Brigade and understated electronic duo Se-palcure will join Childish Gambino at the Friday performance April 20, while new wave synth outfit Twin Shadow and hip-hop golden child Cam’ron will open for the Glitch Mob Saturday.

“I know we always say this, but this year more than ever we were just trying to make students happy,” said BCA Co-Chair Gillian Brassil ’12. “All the feedback we were hear-ing from students was, ‘We’re just down to dance.’’’

Childish Gambino was named one of seven acts students most wanted to see in a January poll conducted by BCA and the Un-dergraduate Council of Students. Because he is performing at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival the same weekend, many believed he would be unable to per-form at Spring Weekend. He is still scheduled to perform at Coachella Sunday.

Three of the acts in the lineup — Sepalcure, Twin Shadow and the Glitch Mob — perform electronic music, reflecting “tons of student

Gambino, the Glitch Mob to headline Spring Weekend

continued on page 3 continued on page 3

continued on page 4 continued on page 5

Arts & Culture

Claire Peracchio, PresidentRebecca Ballhaus, Vice President

Danielle Marshak, TreasurerSiena DeLisser, Secretary

The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement and once during Orientation by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Single copy free for each member of the community. POSTMASTER please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Subscription prices: $280 one year daily, $140 one semester daily. Copyright 2011 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Campus news2 the Brown Daily heraldthursday, March 22, 2012

5:30 P.m.

“The Mindful Carnivore” Reading

Brown Bookstore

7 P.m.

“No Woman No Cry” Film Screening

Wilson 101

6 P.m.

MCM Cinematheque Screenings

Modern Culture and Media 101

6:30 P.m.

Spanish Reading by Joserra Ortiz

John Hay Library

SHARPE REFECTORY VERNEY-WOOLLEY DINING HALL

LUNCH

DINNER

Cheese Tomato Strata, Oven Browned Potatoes, Beef Strips Shish

Kabob, Fried Tortillas, Broccoli

Bourbon BBQ Chicken Quarters, Saffron Rice Pilaf, Cheese Souffle,

Cajun Chicken Pasta

Zucchini and Parmesan Sandwich, Garlic and Butter Infused Rice,

Green Peas, Falafel in Pita Bread

Cavatini, Marinated Cucumbers, Vegan Italian White Beans, Cucumber Chickpea Salad

TODAY mARCH 22 TOmORROW mARCH 23

C R O S S W O R d

S u d O K u

M e N u

C A L e N d A RBy jamES williamS

Contributing Writer

The University has implemented several changes to its course evalu-ation system in the past few years, standardizing evaluation forms in 2006 and moving the system online in 2008. But students and profes-sors remain conflicted about the accuracy and the efficiency of the current system.

Under the online system, evalu-ations are released during the last two weeks of the semester and can be filled out until final grades are released. The College Curriculum Council saw an 89 percent return rate last fall for online evaluations, which students have to fill out be-fore they can see their final grades.

Compared to the old system — in which students filled out evalua-tion forms during their class periods — many students and professors see improvements in the new system.

Online evaluations are better in terms of efficiency and accuracy since the completion of the evalu-ation does not use class time, said Alon Galor ’15, adding that they give students more time and privacy to respond to each question.

But Jerome de Nijs ’15 said he preferred paper evaluations because they were distributed during class time, giving students incentive to fill them out because they did not

have to do it on their own time. He added that the online system might cause a decrease in accuracy, since students may rush through the form in an effort to get to their final grades. He pointed out that students can submit the evaluation form without filling it out and still see their grades.

While Mehrdad Kiani ’15 said most students are as honest as possible, he said he feels it can be difficult to objectively evaluate the performance of the professor without taking into account factors such as grades, difficulty of recent exams and general feelings about the course material. For example, if a student found a recent exam par-ticularly hard, that student might be more inclined to give the professor a harsher evaluation.

Professors generally approved of online evaluations, but some still hold some qualms about the efficacy and accuracy of responses.

Rachel Friedberg, senior lecturer in economics, said online evalua-tions are practical because there is no danger of losing them. But she voiced concerns that the evalua-tions’ length might encourage less thoughtful answers.

David Sobel, associate professor of cognitive, linguistic and psycho-logical sciences, said he likes the fact that the online evaluations do not take up class time, since that

time can instead be used for in-struction. But he added that filling out the evaluations during class time might make them more ac-curate, since it is easier for students to recall details about the class in the same setting. The best method may be to use the online system but have students do it at the end of class, he said.

Online evaluations save time in the office that was formerly spent calculating and tabulating results, said Roberto Serrano, professor of economics and chair of the de-partment. The online system has yielded comparable evaluations for professors as the former system did — professors who received high ratings previously are still receiv-ing high ratings, he said. Serrano added that students provide longer and more thoughtful comments on the online system.

With improved feedback from students, professors have more constructive criticism available to them and are better able to address repeated concerns, Serrano said. Improved responses are also impor-tant, as they present departments with a more comprehensive view of their professors. While having pro-fessors who are top researchers and leaders in their fields is important, Serrano said, so is having people who can competently explain things to students.

Online evaluations elicit mixed reactions

By margarEt NickENSSenior Staff Writer

Barbara Tannenbaum, senior lec-turer in theatre arts and perfor-mance studies, discussed effective communication skills with council members at Wednesday’s general body meeting of the Undergraduate Council of Students.

She emphasized the balance between understanding one’s goal and audience, learning “how to spe-cifically motivate (the audience), manipulate them, excite them.”

“Corporations pay me huge amounts of money to tell them this,” she said.

She also discussed each person’s “latitude of acceptance” and “lati-tude of rejection” using a rubber band analogy. This communication strategy involves determining how

far you can push or “stretch” your audience, she said. People are gen-erally less flexible when it comes to topics such as politics or religion, she added.

“What you need to do is move people gradually,” she said.

She also encouraged council members not to personalize op-position.

“People can disagree with our ideas,” she said. “It doesn’t mean they don’t like us.”

After her lecture, Michael Schneider ’13, chair of the campus life committee, announced a new project to improve heating in the Sciences Library.

“It’s been a constant problem the entire time I’ve been at Brown,” he said.

The council also submitted a statement to Provost Mark Schlissel

P’15 calling for increased student representation on the University Resources Committee, said Todd Harris ’14, chair of the academic and administrative affairs com-mittee.

Holly Hunt ’13, a member of the admissions and student services committee, announced upcom-ing changes to Morning Mail. The changes, which will be implemented over the summer, will include link-ing event titles to their descriptions as well as organizing events and announcements according to type.

President Ruth Simmons will be attending the April 11 council meeting. Katherine Bergeron, dean of the college, and Andrew Sim-mons, director of the CareerLAB, will be attending the April 25 meet-ing, said UCS President Ralanda Nelson ’12.

Lecturer teaches UCS how to communicate

Campus news 3the Brown Daily heraldthursday, March 22, 2012

But DPS already releases exten-sive information to both the Brown community and Providence about crimes that occur under its jurisdic-tion, said Mark Porter, chief of police and director of public safety.

Carnevale declined to comment on the bill and could not be reached for comment on why he chose to withdraw it.

The University opposed the bill each time it was introduced.

“We think current law and prac-tice are sufficient to ensure our goal of public safety, so we think this leg-islation is unwarranted,” said Albert Dahlberg, director of state and com-munity relations.

Porter said DPS functions in ac-cordance with the Clery Act, a federal law that requires colleges and univer-sities that receive or distribute federal financial aid to disclose information about crime on their campuses. Under the act, schools must release annual security reports, maintain crime logs, issue crime alerts and compile crime statistics. DPS ful-fills all these requirements, Porter said. The department maintains a system of alerts for when the cam-pus faces “continuous threats,” such as this semester’s wave of robberies, he said. DPS emails crime alerts to students and also posts them on the department website for the wider community to see, he said. He added that the website includes much of the information mandated by the Clery Act, including incidents up to a year old.

DPS works closely with the Prov-idence Police Department, Porter said. “Our command staff meets with their command staff on a weekly basis,” he said. “They could request information at any time.”

Currently, there is certain infor-mation DPS does not release to the public — most notably, the names and personal information of reported

criminals. There is no federal or state mandate in place requiring DPS to release such information, Porter said. Releasing police reports with such information in compliance with Carnevale’s legislation could have interfered with DPS’ investigative procedures, he said.

“I can’t think of any colleges that release names,” he added.

The department must consider the privacy issues that could arise if the policy were changed, he said.

State Rep. Raymond Hull, D-Providence, a co-sponsor of the bill, said he recognizes the University’s need to keep certain information private but advocated greater trans-parency.

The bill did not have the support of some local legislators, such as state Rep. Edith Ajello, D-Providence, who represents the district that in-cludes the University. Ajello said she thought the bill was unlikely to pass because Carnevale had previously

struggled to gain support for it on the Senate side.

State Sen. Rhoda Perry P’91, D-Providence, whom Carnevale ap-proached two years ago when he first introduced the bill, told The Herald last semester she did not see a reason for the bill. When Carnevale asked if she was interested in supporting it, “I told him absolutely no, until I talk to the Brown community,” said Perry, who represents Brown’s district on the Senate side. “He didn’t find anyone on this side,” she said.

Ajello pointed out that Carnevale does not represent constituents who would be directly affected by criminal activity at Brown.

“There could be a logic for me, as a representative for the district that includes Brown, to introduce this legislation,” Ajello said. “But none of my constituents have asked me to do so.”

— With additional reporting by Lucy Feldman

Herald file photoThe bill took aim at dPS’ right not to release the names of reported criminals.

DPS in compliance with federal standardscontinued from page 1

the University had taken steps toward adopting the program.

The University reportedly ex-pressed keen interest in joining the Designated Suppliers Program in a meeting between protest organizers and Executive Vice President for Finance and Admin-istration Beppie Huidekoper. Uni-versity officials have spoken with the Workers Rights Consortium and are working with vendors as well as the Designated Suppliers Program.

Medina said the University has often positioned itself as a leader among its peer institu-tions in prioritizing the rights of workers and should not stop now. “The protest wasn’t antagonistic towards Brown,” she said. “It was just another way to engage the community.”

Currently, the Brown Book-store employs the Fair Labor As-sociation to monitor the factories that produce the store’s wares. Protesters criticized the associa-tion, calling it complicit in per-mitting sweatshop labor. “Many of those who run the (association) also preside on the boards of the companies they claim to monitor,” the group’s handout read.

While Martinez was visiting factories in Honduras and El

Salvador, one of the workers she spoke to called the association “a mass facade,” she said.

The Fair Labor Association has not done enough to confront the Chinese electronics manufacturer FoxConn, which runs facilities where many Apple products are produced, for their failure to con-front “mass worker suicides,” Me-dina said. Calling the relationship between the University and the association “unsavory,” the group advocated disaffiliating with the association.

Director of the Brown Book-store Steven Souza defended the store’s affiliation with the Fair Labor Association in a letter to The Herald Monday. “The Brown Bookstore has received no com-plaints of unfair labor practices from the Fair Labor Association, Worker Rights Consortium or Li-censing Resource Group regard-ing any vendors who furnish Brown-licensed apparel,” Souza wrote.

Souza also wrote that the bookstore maintains strict regu-lations through its Vendor Code of Conduct, with which all of the store’s vendors must comply. “The Brown Bookstore has refused to carry merchandise from suppliers who insist on exemptions from provisions of the University’s Ven-dor Code of Conduct,” he wrote.

Bookstore-FLA ties prompt student lie-in

continued from page 1

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Campus news4 the Brown Daily heraldthursday, March 22, 2012

By kriS kElkarContributing Writer

The Department of Public Safety recently renamed Rave Guardian, a mobile phone security appli-cation, to Brown Guardian. The change, which did not include any updates or new features, was intended to “personalize the ser-vice” for users within the Brown community, said Mark Porter, chief of police and director of public safety.

The renaming “really was just a simple cosmetic change,” said Michelle Nuey, the community relations and outreach manager of public safety.

The application currently has more than 1,000 registered users, Nuey said, adding that the appli-cation can be useful for both its users and DPS officers. If users walk home alone at night, they just need to pull out their phones, plug in the start and end points of the journey and allot a reason-able amount of time to reach their destinations, she said. Upon arriv-ing, users can turn off the alarm before the time runs out. If the user arrives safely, DPS will not know the application was used.

If the timer runs out, an alert is sent to DPS, along with a profile filled out by the user including information volunteered such as a picture, an address and medi-cal information that DPS officers should be aware of in the case of an emergency. Nuey said users need not worry DPS can always access this information.

“Alarms are rare and most of-ten come in due to users simply forgetting to deactivate,” Nuey said. Sarah Hosokawa ’15 is a registered user of the applica-tion who stopped using it after her first trial. “I was glad I did it, but it felt really inconvenient, especially turning it off once I got back,” she said. Hosokawa said she would prefer to simply make sure she does not walk alone.

While Jared Burgess ’14, who

works the closing shift at the Gate and crosses campus after 2 a.m., said he would not use the applica-tion himself, he speculated that for students who would be com-forted by the application, other safety services like Safewalk and SafeRide are more effective.

Unlike other safety services on campus, Brown Guardian “doesn’t have the added benefit of deter-rence,” Jerrica Rodrgiuez ’13 said.

Nuey said the app’s service ex-tends to areas outside of campus to the greater Providence area. Su-zan Scavone ’12 said she thought the app would be useful to those who live far off campus. But though she lives in off-campus

housing, she has not ever consid-ered using the application.

Providence College does not provide its students with such an application.

Many students said they be-lieved that while they would not take the time to use the applica-tion, it would be useful in a life-or-death situation.

The software is also used at American University, Penn and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, among others.

To register for Brown Guard-ian, students can go to the DPS website, where they can click a link to register and fill out a profile.

Security app undergoes ‘cosmetic change’

Rachel A. Kaplan / HeralddPS’ smartphone security application changed its name to Brown Guardian.

By aliSoN SilvErSenior Staff Writer

The University recently revised its policy for faculty reporting research funding in conjunction with an updated National Insti-tutes of Health conflict of inter-est regulations. The NIH rule revisions are in response to past problems involving researchers using federal funds for work that impacted companies they were personally involved in, said Pro-vost Mark Schlissel P’15.

The NIH now requires re-searchers to report all significant financial interests relating to their institutional responsibilities, ac-cording to the NIH website. The revised rules now define signifi-cant financial interest as $5,000, down from $10,000.

“People do have conflicts of interest, and it’s not the end of the world,” said Janet Blume, associ-ate dean of the faculty. All Brown professors are required to file a conflict of interest form with the University every year, now list-ing potential conflicts of interest amounting to $5,000 or more.

“The University is obligated to look at these potential conflicts and work with the faculty to fig-ure out if they’re real conflicts,” Schlissel said. The main effect of the change is the new rules now place the burden on the University to ask faculty whether a conflict of interest may exist, whereas under the old NIH rules, reporting po-tential conflicts was the faculty’s obligation, he said.

The University’s new rules were explained at the last meeting of the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, in Febru-ary, though Brown’s current con-flict of interest policy will remain in effect until Aug. 24.

“The faculty realize that it’s very important that we maintain trustworthiness in the eyes of the public,” Schlissel said.

The changed rules should not affect research at Brown, wrote Clyde Briant, vice president for re-search, in an email to The Herald.

Professor of Economics Ross Levine offered an example of the complexities of conflict of inter-est in research funding. Levine received a $30,000 grant from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation for research he is conducting on changes in com-petitive banking policies in 2009. The Koch brothers, founders of a group of charities that have given hundreds of millions of dollars to conservative organizations and causes, contacted Levine around 2006 after visiting campus, Levine said. They expressed interest in his research, which seeks to under-stand implications of increased competition among banks in the 1970s and 80s in terms of eco-

nomic growth, distribution of in-come and racial discrimination, he said.

Levine said he was not familiar with the Koch brothers or their foundation when he accepted the grant money. He said he only learned about their political af-filiations after reading an article in the New Yorker about them that caused him concern. “To me, the most important thing about research is that I just answer a question to the best of my abili-ties,” he said. “I’m very wary of accepting money that might put into question that objectivity.”

The grant was offered under terms that stated there would be no “quid pro quo” expected from Levine, he said.

None of the money from the Koch brothers is personally benefiting Levine, he said. The money has been allocated to hir-ing research assistants through an account Brown set up for Levine’s research. Levine has also used funding from several other sources to hire graduate and un-dergraduate students to assist on the same research, he said.

The Koch brothers have invited Levine to give presentations for their foundation. But “I would never accept to go talk to them or accept an honorarium if I thought it was going to question the ob-jectivity of my research,” he said.

Levine said he is “uncomfort-able” with the fact he did not know about the Koch brothers’ politics before accepting their grant. “I wish this wasn’t the case,” he said. He said he acknowledges the Koch brothers as a funding source on all papers related to the research, because “it’s the reality.”

At the same time, he said he recognizes the complexity of ques-tions surrounding the ethics of accepting funds from outside sources. “I can’t be responsible for screening all of the money that comes to Brown that somehow affects my research, because it comes from such a huge number of sources,” he said.

Levine added that the Ameri-can Economic Association also recently adopted new guidelines about disclosing funding sources that pose a potential conflict of interest, which he finds to be helpful.

Professor of Cognitive, Lin-guistic and Psychological Sciences Steven Sloman, who received a couple hundred thousand dollars from a consumer goods company for his causal reasoning research, said he supports the University’s new conflict of interest guidelines. “My sense is that the most im-portant thing to the University is that we’re very public and open about where our funding comes from and also about what research we’re doing.”

Conflict of interest policy shifts responsibility to U.

www.browndailyherald.com

demand for a big, well-known DJ,” Brassil said.

But such DJs “can pull hundreds of thousands of dollars perform-ing at clubs in Europe,” Brassil said. BCA’s budget was slashed by 17 percent this year from $180,000 to $150,000.

Brassil said the budget cut had unintended positive consequences. “There’s a whole range of artists we couldn’t even look at, who, if we’d had $20,000 to $30,000 more, would have been real possibilities,” she said. “But this forced us to look for really solid main acts, rather than go after potentially alienating big names.”

As always, timing posed prob-lems for the concert agency, which is forced to hold Spring Weekend on the same weekend as Coachella due to the proximity of spring break, final exams and Passover.

“(Coachella’s) lineup is always

amazing, but it almost became fun-ny how many times we were talking to an artist and they were like, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m going to be at Coachella,’” Brassil said. They were able to book Childish Gambino to play Friday night only because he is scheduled to perform at Coachella Sunday.

The concert agency is also tak-ing extra precautions this year to ensure that the shows are held out-doors on the Green if at all possible. Concerns about lightning prevent them from erecting large tents, but agency members have found other solutions to the problem of inclem-ent weather.

“We’re literally ordering 6,000 plastic ponchos,” Brassil said.

One major difference between this year and last year’s lineups is the absence of a student band. Since the agency now organizes Speakeasy Sessions — small concerts featuring student bands — it did not feel the need to feature a student group at Spring Weekend this year, said BCA

Co-Chair Sandy Ryza ’12.The agency is also experiment-

ing with making its decision process more transparent to students who have had “no institutionalized way to respond to the lineup” in the past, Ryza said. From 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. today, members of BCA will man a table on the Green to respond to student comments about the lineup and other questions about Spring Weekend.

“We’re trying to be more human … more transparent, more acces-sible,” said Public Relations Chair Emma Ramadan ’13. “The goal is to have people understand what’s behind the lineup.”

BCA will release 1,500 tickets for each concert on April 4 and 5 on the Brown Student Agencies website. Weather permitting, both concerts will be held on the Green, and BCA will sell 2,500 more tickets either when the first batch sells out or on April 10, whichever comes first.

BCA lineup focuses on dance musiccontinued from page 1

Campus news 5the Brown Daily heraldthursday, March 22, 2012

By roBErt wEBBErContributing Writer

The union of library workers may file a grievance against the University, citing its failure to ne-gotiate upcoming payroll changes, said Karen McAninch ’74, busi-ness agent for the United Service and Allied Workers union, which represents custodial and library employees of the University.

The University will change the way it pays 700 of its employees in mid-July, converting its semi-monthly pay schedule into a bi-weekly pay schedule. Instead of re-ceiving their checks on the 15th and the last working day of each month, workers will receive pay every other Friday. This biweekly system means that workers are not guaranteed to be paid by the last day of the month, when rent and utilities are typically due, McAninch said.

For example, when the changes go into effect in July, employees will receive one check instead of two, due to the lag created by the change.

“I already (have) a dangerously low balance,” said Marie Malchodi, a library technical assistant. “I’m married to a musician with two children.”

McAninch and other representa-tives of the library workers’ union met with the administration Tues-

day to protest the payroll changes. They requested two weeks extra pay to ease workers through the payroll transition. This would add up to $1 million in University costs, McAninch said.

The administration has offered one week’s advance to help staff with the payroll transition.

The new biweekly system “pro-vides the University with an op-portunity to improve our payroll practices,” wrote Karen Davis, vice president for human resources, in an email to The Herald. “Our cur-rent practice of paying these em-ployees for time ‘projected’ to be worked through the end of a pay period may not provide an accurate reflection of total hours worked, including overtime hours, that the University may owe to an employee, or time not worked, which can then result in an overpayment.”

The University is changing its payroll schedule because the old schedule cannot be supported by Payroll, the new administrative software, according to the Uni-versity’s workday project website. The software will provide several benefits — workers will be able to view their financial information electronically, and administrators can electronically log the number of hours individuals work, eliminat-ing the need for paper timesheets,

according to the website.“They don’t even have the desire

to negotiate,” said Patricia Dumin, senior library specialist for digital technologies, who attended the meeting Tuesday. Currently, the union is deciding whether to file a grievance or an unfair labor practice against the University, legal actions that could force the administration to come to the bargaining table.

The change to biweekly pay will affect library workers, secretaries, graduate students and other gen-eral staff.

While the union has protested the upcoming payroll changes, non-union workers have remained silent. “I don’t think the other non-unionized staff who are going to be affected by this are necessarily aware,” Malchodi said.

The library workers’ union has a history of conflicts with the Uni-versity. Employees went two years without a contract in 2002, and students marched in support of library workers when the Univer-sity proposed a hike in health care premiums in 2010.

Union membership has de-clined 30 percent in recent years, McAninch said. The University has been hiring non-union staff, who receive their checks on a monthly basis and do not receive overtime pay, she added.

Library workers unhappy with payroll shift

process,” said Marisa Quinn, vice president for public affairs and University relations.

Meeting with senior adminis-trative staff and academic adminis-trators was “a very important part of the visit,” Paxson said, adding that she was not able to do so fully when she was named.

“These are people whom I’m going to be working with on a day-to-day basis,” she said.

During her visit, Paxson also had dinner with the Faculty Execu-tive Committee, the steering com-mittee for faculty issues, which she called “a really important group.”

“Brown is a campus where the faculty are quite engaged, and they have a large role in governance, so it’s important for me to learn about that and understand and appreciate it,” she said.

Paxson said she also had a chance to discuss general academic priorities with the administrative staff, though “nothing concrete” was established.

“These are the very first conver-sations you have with people that are going to continue and deepen over a period of time,” she said.

The conversations involved the ongoing initiative to establish a school of public health, Paxson said. Though she said the Corpo-ration has not made a decision on the impending proposal, the discussion was a “good chance” to catch up on ongoing discussions.

Paxson also expressed interest in engineering, noting that “it’s clear they’ve had a lot of growth, but they’re very tight on space.”

While visiting, Paxson spoke with Steven King ’91, senior vice president for University advance-ment, about potential fundraising campaigns in the context of the

University’s upcoming 250th an-niversary.

“These were very general first conversations,” Paxson said. “When I start in July, it will really be time to start in earnest to see what are the main priorities for the coming year.”

Loan-free aid — an area Paxson has previously discussed — was not a specific topic, but Paxson said that “doesn’t mean it wasn’t really important.”

After meeting with senior ad-ministrators, Paxson said it is “too early to tell” whether she will bring in new staff or in any way revise the administrative structure. But she said she was impressed by the quality of the administrators she met.

“I’m not prepared to make large or swift changes until I really see a need to do that,” she said.

The visit was also a chance for Paxson and her 14-year-old son to become better acquainted with the University, she said. Paxson’s son came with her for the first two days of the trip so he could learn about Brown as a campus and a community.

“We walked all over campus, and he really liked it,” she said.

Carey said Paxson and Presi-dent Ruth Simmons are “spending a lot of time together,” which he said is important in facilitating a smooth transition. During Pax-son’s visit, the University briefed Paxson on ongoing projects at Brown, and Simmons hosted a reception for Paxson with mem-bers of the University senior staff.

Carey’s office is coordinating the logistics of the presidential transition, which Quinn said helps the University “provide an initial perspective” while other admin-istrators look to Paxson’s longer-term plans.

continued from page 1

Paxson’s visit marks start of ‘ongoing process’

Frank Mullin / Brown university Christina Paxson’s campus visit included a stop at the School of engineering.

By SiNclair targEtContributing Writer

Socialism and capitalism — the two major economic systems pit-ted against each other during the Cold War — returned to center stage in a Janus Forum debate last night. An audience of about 80 people gathered to listen as Ray-mond Lotta, political economist and writer for the journal, Revolu-tion, the self-described voice of the U.S. communist party, advocated socialism, while Glenn Loury, pro-fessor of economics, made the case for capitalism.

Speaking first, Lotta character-ized “our current capitalist world” as one of unjust wars, imperial conflicts, discrimination and en-vironmental degradation. He said capitalism has three rules — com-modify everything, expand or die and achieve global dominance. “It’s an anarchic system that lunges us into crisis,” he said.

“We need a revolution to break the stranglehold,” Lotta said. “Nev-er before has the potential existed for change as much as now.”

Lotta had with him a draft constitution for a “New Social-ist Republic in North America,” put forward by the Revolution-ary Communist Party. He said the revolution should be based on the “new synthesis of communism” advocated by RCP Chairman Bob Avakian, adding he wanted the audience to see past their precon-ceptions.

“Okay, I said it, the word ‘com-munism,’” Lotta said. “Many of you are thinking, ‘robotification and tyranny,’ but people think that because they’ve been lied to.” He

said a new socialist state would be better able to overcome divisions of class and ethnicity and protect the planet’s ecosystems.

“The kind of society I’m talking about is not a utopia,” Lotta said, concluding his argument.

Loury criticized Lotta’s argu-ment for its numerous “non se-quiturs.” He argued that though Lotta identified several flaws with capitalism, socialism is not neces-sarily the solution. “He has a prob-lem, and that problem is history,” Loury said.

“You have to think about the eradication of poverty, the massive expansion in standards of living, which billions of people on this planet have been able to enjoy,” Loury said. People who have left socialist countries for capitalist countries have “voted with their feet,” he said. “Let’s just say the socialist societies never had an il-legal immigration problem.”

Loury also argued that central planning on a large scale is not

practical. “Coordinating the ac-tions of hundreds of millions of individuals, each with their own agendas and idiosyncratic infor-mation, is a massive coordination problem,” he said. “It is solved by markets, private property and self-interest. All (Lotta) has to offer us is a dream.”

The debate was followed by a question and answer session that lasted over an hour. Members of the audience asked Lotta and Loury about prison overcrowding, criminal trials, human psychology and communist history.

When asked about the financial crisis of 2008, Loury called it a “very bad show all around.” The fi-nance sector should not have been able to extort money from the rest of the country, he said. Lotta said the housing market typified capi-talist irrationalism, arguing that basic human needs such as houses should not be commodified and “made the object of investment and speculation.”

Lotta, Loury debate economic systems

Rachel A. Kaplan / Herald economist Raymond Lotta advocated socialist revolution at last night’s debate.

Campus news6 the Brown Daily heraldthursday, March 22, 2012

By katE NuSSENBaumSenior Staff Writer

Around 15 supporters and one lone dissenter provided testimony on two bills regarding the legality of marijuana possession at a House Committee on Judiciary hearing last night. The first bill, introduced by Rep. John Edwards, D-Tiverton and Portsmouth, would decriminal-ize the possession of small amounts of cannabis. The second bill, in-troduced by Rep. Edith Ajello, D-Providence, would make marijuana a legal drug that could be “taxed and regulated.” This is the third year in a row the decriminaliza-tion bill has been brought before the committee.

Edwards said decriminalizing marijuana would save the state be-tween $4 million and $11 million, remove the social stigma of being arrested for what many consider a minor offense and provide regional consistency across New England. Marijuana is currently decriminal-ized in every New England state except Rhode Island, New Hamp-shire and Vermont, which also have decriminalization bills pending.

If the decriminalization legisla-tion passes, adults found with one ounce or less of the drug would incur a $150 fine but would no lon-ger face jail time. Fourteen states have passed similar legislation, and “none have imploded,” Edwards said.

Casey O’Dea ’14 and Jared Mof-fat ’13, members of Students for a Sensible Drug Policy, attended the hearing to testify in favor of the bill. Moffat is a Herald opinions editor. Current laws regarding marijuana are ineffective, O’Dea told The Herald. There is no evidence that suggests decriminalization leads

to higher use rates, and half the revenue generated from the new fines would help fund programs to educate minors about drug use, he said.

Kathleen Sullivan, director of the BAY Team, Barrington’s drug prevention coalition, was the sole opponent of the proposed legisla-tion to testify at the hearing. She said she was concerned about the drug’s short- and long-term risks, especially for young people. De-criminalizing marijuana may alter how young people perceive it, she said. “When their perception of harm goes down, over time, use rates go up,” she said.

Not enough time has passed to accurately measure the effects of the drug’s decriminalization in oth-er states, Sullivan said. Marijuana may “diminish” students’ academic potential, she added. “What is our workforce going to look like in the future?”

Both Sullivan and Rep. Doreen Costa, D-Exeter and North Kings-town, said they were concerned that decriminalization could lead to increased cases of driving under the influence.

Many Rhode Island residents — including students, parents and law enforcement workers — testified in favor of the bill. The current law is “perceived as a tremendous waste of time and resources,” said Bev Commery, who has been a patrol officer in Providence since 1976.

The time police spent enforcing marijuana prohibition in 2007 was equivalent to nearly 1,000 eight-hour shifts, said Jack Cole, a retired Rhode Island police lieutenant.

More than 40 percent of the court’s time is spent dealing with marijuana charges, despite the fact that “most people incarcerated for

marijuana are generally not associ-ated with violent crime,” said Becky Marin, a representative from Open-Doors, a Rhode Island organization that offers support to those who have been incarcerated.

Proponents of the bill also as-serted that the current law is dis-criminatory. College students and people who live in affluent com-munities are never targeted, Com-mery said.

Minority communities are currently “hit the hardest” by the state’s marijuana policy, said Rob-ert Capecchi, a legislative analyst for the Marijuana Policy Project, an advocacy group for marijuana policy reform. Blacks and Hispan-ics are 1.6 times more likely to face arrest and 8 times more likely to be sent to jail for the same act as their white counterparts. Those with criminal records cannot receive financial aid and student loans, live in public housing or hold public-sector jobs, he said.

Steven Brown, executive direc-tor of the Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, told The Herald that pub-lic officials, including President Obama, have admitted to smok-ing marijuana and violating this law. “Its time has come,” he said.

Many of the same supporters testified in favor of Ajello’s legal-ization bill, though they were less hopeful that it would pass this year.

Capecchi said regulating and taxing the sale of marijuana could be an “incredible financial boon” for the state.

Peter Hammond, a Rhode Is-land resident, said, “If you ask the people in Woonsocket right now if they want to raise taxes or sell a little marijuana, what would they want to do?”

Legislation would decriminalize marijuana in R.I.

By alExaNdra macfarlaNESenior Staff Writer

Faculty members are either unde-cided or in support of a proposal to implement an executive master’s program in public health by fall 2012, according to multiple faculty members. They will vote on the proposal at the April 3 faculty meeting, said Peter Shank, chair of the Faculty Executive Committee and professor of medical science.

The program up for vote looks to teach mid-career professionals about the changing United States health care system, uniting both current faculty members and pro-fessionals from the health care field.

Faculty members have voiced no strong objections to the pro-gram, though the potential for debate at the meeting is difficult to forecast, Shank said.

Despite the lack of strong chal-lenges to the program, it has been

discussed vigorously among fac-ulty members, said Provost Mark Schlissel P’15. In the year since the program was first proposed, the administration has listened to fac-ulty debate the issue in a number of different venues, he said, add-ing that most faculty members are concerned the program may pres-ent distractions from the regular responsibilities of teaching.

“It is important that the qual-ity of the program be up to the standards of Brown,” Schlissel said. “The quality and caliber of students must be just as high.”

Joan Richards, professor of his-tory, who served on the graduate council that discussed the pro-gram, called it “a leap into the dark for Brown.” She added that the experimental nature of the program will decide the future of this and other possible master’s programs.

Because the program is an experiment, the University will

establish a group to review the program after three years, Rich-ards said, adding that even if the program is approved by faculty it is not a “done deal.”

Richards described the pro-gram as an effort to reach a group of professionals out there who may be searching for this kind of program.

The proposed executive mas-ter’s program is “a great way to complement what’s already go-ing on at Brown,” said Thomas Doeppner, associate professor of computer science who served on the committee that first investi-gated the master’s programs.

Despite this, Doeppner said the program will only work if it is a first-rate program. “We don’t want to tarnish the Brown name,” he said.

As a leader in his department, Doeppner said he has not heard any strong objections to the pro-posed program from computer

science faculty members. Based on the consensus following previ-ous faculty forums on the issue, Doeppner said he does not think the vote on the program in April “will be that hotly contested.”

“Change is always hard,” said Barrett Hazeltine, professor emer-itus of engineering. This program will not take away from the cur-rent undergraduate education, but will “open new directions and ar-eas,” he said.

The university-college model — a cornerstone of the Univer-sity’s mission statement — is supposed to include professors who teach both undergraduate and graduate students, Hazeltine said. “I think it’s a good idea,” he said of the program. “This is an area of intellectual work that is interesting and attractive to many students.”

Other institutions such as Har-vard have top-notch programs similar to the proposed execu-

tive master’s program, said Harold Roth, professor of religious stud-ies. “I think it has the potential to bring new revenue streams into Brown,” he said. It is important to diversify revenue sources from time to time, but new revenue streams must be complemented by high academic standards, he added. The program “looks prom-ising,” Roth said, though he is sus-pending full judgment until he hears all the facts in the faculty meeting in April.

“My view is, ‘Let’s try it,’” wrote James Baird, professor emeritus of chemistry, in an email to The Her-ald. The program would help re-cruit graduate students “in a bet-ter way and be aimed at a different cohort” than existing programs target, he wrote. Students in Ph.D. programs are paid to participate in their programs, while master’s students pay the University and benefit from academic services, he wrote.

Proposed executive master’s program would diversify revenue streams

Herald file photoAt a hearing last night, a bill to decriminalize marijuana was introduced.

Follow The Herald on Twittertwitter.com/the_herald

City & State 7the Brown Daily heraldthursday, March 22, 2012

By adam tooBiNSenior Staff Writer

One committed Rhode Islander has been working for the past two years to help small businesses combat difficult economic times. The Rhode Island Small Business Recovery Program, an organiza-tion founded in 2011 to provide mentorship and advice to small businesses rebounding from the recent recession, is continuing its support this month by offering such businesses 15 free educational seminars in Warwick. As a Rhode Island native, founder David Nash said he wants to help the state by ensuring entrepreneurs have the tools they need to keep up in a competitive market.

Funded by a few private sector companies, the program reached 2,400 budding entrepreneurs last year by organizing seminars held by local business owners. This month’s seminars have attracted a total of 347 attendees.

The seminars include “Pric-ing for Profits,” a class designed to teach entrepreneurs how to maximize profits by determining the most appropriate prices for their services. The program will also host an event entitled “Speed Mentoring,” where eight partici-pants have a chance to spend eight minutes with eight business consultants.

Stephanie Osborn, a founder of Tech Smart Friend, a company that advises clients on how to use social media, has been a consul-tant in previous speed mentoring events. Her expertise gives the participants an opportunity to ask about uses of social media, as well as general advice on starting a small business, she said.

Osborn attended the free semi-nars before she became a teacher, and she attended a seminar that Nash led before he began the re-covery program, she said. Her re-lationship with Nash and the free seminars have influenced her to

help out now, she added. Nash retired from the Central

Rhode Island Chamber of Com-merce in 2001 and said he uses the connections and expertise he developed during his tenure there to build effective seminars. This month’s seminars are being held in conjunction with the Warwick Chamber of Commerce. Nash has worked with the Washington County Chamber of Commerce as well as the East Greenwich Chamber of Commerce to orga-nize seminars.

Now that the program has been around for a few years, cities and towns throughout Rhode Island have started to request seminars in their towns, Nash said. The recov-ery program usually meets all the requests they receive, he said. Nash said he usually requires a town’s chamber of commerce to mail information about the seminars to every local commercial entity.

Nash said seminar leaders vol-unteering their time to his orga-

nization show their commitment to furthering entrepreneurship in the state. “We all have a role, and we’re playing our role in helping new and existing entrepreneurs grow and thrive,” he said.

Bob Salvas, who runs a small business that advises companies on how to spend their advertising dollars wisely, has run two semi-nars over the past two years for the program. “Rhode Island has had a reputation of being a tough place to do business — whether from its tax structure or all the regulations,” Salvas said. “We want Rhode Islanders to stay in the state. We want to help them be more successful.”

“I volunteer because I want to see small businesses succeed. It’s a tough economy here in Rhode Island. It’s very difficult for small businesses to thrive,” Osborn said.

Nash said he is confident the seminars are having a positive ef-fect on the Rhode Island economy. “Rhode Island created 6,000 new

businesses last year, according to the secretary of state. We contrib-uted to that,” he added.

The program also sponsors a Mastermind group — a collection of individuals working on startups who gather every month to ask for help and give each other advice. The program attracts those who are “just starting out or had been in business but hadn’t gotten off the ground,” said Osborn, who also facilitates the project. Though the group has only met once, Osborn said she was excited to see a di-verse range of age and experience in the people attending the session.

Dwight McDonald, a former small business owner, said he hopes to use the advice of people in the group to jump-start his second shot at entrepreneurship. “There is such diversity of people, we can’t help but learn from each other,” he said. “I want them to tell me what I can do better, tell me if I’m on track or tell me if my idea won’t work.”

Recovery program seeks to revamp local businesses

Army SROTC returns to HarvardHarvard will financially support student participation in the army Senior Reserve Officer Training

Corps program, the university announced yesterday, according to the Harvard Crimson. Harvard allowed the Naval ROTC back on its campus six months ago.The repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy catalyzed the decision, the Crimson reported. Harvard has not allowed SROTC to have a “formal presence on campus” since the Vietnam War, according to Boston.com.“This is a welcome step in the long and distinguished history of military service by members of the Harvard community,” Harvard President drew Faust said in a statement.Harvard students will still participate in the program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but Harvard will give them access to classrooms and fields on their campus, Boston.com reported.“The Army welcomes the opportunity to expand its presence on the Harvard campus,” Major General Mark Mcdonald, commander of the uS Army Cadet Command, said in a statement.

Number of LSAT-takers dropsThe number of LSAT exams taken dropped over 16 percent this year, according to the Law School

Admission Council. The decrease is the largest in over 10 years.The number of tests administered reflects a 24 percent drop since its peak in popularity in the 2009-10 school year, according to the Council.The drop in exam-takers reflects a general loss of interest in law school, according to the Atlantic. Last year’s incoming law school class was the smallest since 2002, the Atlantic reported.The smaller number of students interested in law school is due to the grim prospects for young lawyers entering the work force, according to an article published in the New York Times. Graduating law school is no longer a guarantee of financial security, and many students are realizing the high cost of law school tuition may not be worth it, the Times reported.“The idea that law school is an easy ticket to financial security is finally breaking down,” Kyle Mcentee of Law School Transparency, a legal education policy organization, told the New York Times.

Christian student groups fail to win appealA Christian fraternity and sorority at San diego State university lost their Supreme Court appeal for

official recognition by the university, according to the Chronicle of Higher education.The student groups would only accept members with Christian beliefs, violating the school’s policy against such membership restrictions, the Chronicle reported.The fraternity and sorority are not eligible for university funding and cannot use the school name or mascot to advertise their groups, according to the Washington Post.The groups believed their first amendment rights were being violated, but the Supreme Court refused to change the decision it made in 2010 that stated schools could refuse to recognize organizations that were exclusive on religious grounds.“The university did not tell the democratic club it must be led by a Republican, or the vegetarian club it must be led by a meat-eater, but it did tell Christian groups that they must allow themselves to be led by atheists,” david Cortman, a lawyer for the religious groups, said Monday, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.“They’re perfectly free to express their views and associate” with each other in campus buildings, said david Blair-Loy, an attorney who supported the university in the lower courts, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “They just don’t have the right to get government money to do it.”

BY K AT e N u S S e N B Au M S e N I O R S TA F F W R I T e R

H I G H e R e d N e W S R O u N d u P

Lawmakers review X-rated FilmsIn 1973, Providence was criticized as “the only city in the

state actively censoring films independently” after legislators proposed a $40 fee for each day an X-rated film was shown at a theater. The fee was suggested to fund “the expense of viewing films and deciding whether they should be shown.” Critics — like John Berberian, manager of the Columbus Theater and Studio Cinema — suggested that the proposed legislation was in violation of the 1965 Supreme Court decision prohibiting film censorship.

Wriston basements closed offIn 1991, following Wriston dorm inspections by the

Providence Fire Marshal, “basement social areas in fraternities, sororities and social dorms” were determined to be unsafe for parties. The Fire Marshal said the basements did not comply with fire safety codes and recommended that student organizations use them as storage space instead. Many of the fraternities had bars in their basement spaces and were caught off guard by the decision, as it came immediately after students had returned from spring break. The Office of Residential Life locked the areas off to prevent students from accessing the areas unlawfully.

Banner introducedIn 2006, The university prepared the student body for the

implementation of a new online registration service, which reportedly cost more than $20 million to develop. At the time, Brown was the only Ivy League institution that was not offering a “form of online registration.” With the transition to Banner, Brown followed in the footsteps of its peers, Yale and dartmouth. Banner replaced a system that was 20 years old at the time and consolidated many other university services along with registration.

BY S O N A M K R T TC H I A NS e N I O R S TA F F W R I T e R

TO dAY I N u N I V e R S I T Y H I S TO R Y: M A R C H 22

Arts & Culture8 the Brown Daily heraldthursday, March 22, 2012

By kathEriNE loNgSenior Staff Writer

The Techno-Mythologies Project — two plays written and directed by Ioana Jucan ’11 GS and Robert Snyderman GS — is overwhelmingly dense with meaning. To break through the plays’ idiosyncrasies and begin to comprehend what Jucan and Snyderman are trying to evoke, you might want to do a little pre-play research.

Despite, or perhaps because of this complexity, both pieces possess remarkable staying power. They stick in the mind, recalling themselves in the days and hours after a showing.

“I’m still trying to grasp what-ever I can,” said Alexandra Pa-poutsaki GS in the shell-shocked silence as audience members emptied from Tuesday’s show-ing of Jucan’s “The Deaths of Pan.” “What I really liked was that two people were the same person at the same time … or were they?”

“We’re trying to understand,” interrupted Paul Berg, laughing.

“The play evoked this ephem-eral feeling, like you can never be sure if what you’re feeling is what you’re supposed to be feeling or if it’s just going to be snatched away,” Yuri Malitsky GS added. “Scenes were inconclusive. … It was about trying to connect with the individual while not being able to. … It was a whirlwind.”

A whirlwind — or maybe a panic, a word whose namesake is Pan, the satyr god of the wil-derness, shepherds and hunt-ing in Greek mythology. In one myth, after the nymph Echo re-fused Pan’s advances, he created a panic among the world’s shep-herds. They tore Echo into pieces, leaving only her voice intact. That myth forms the crux of the play, which follows various aspects of Pan and Echo across a disjointed tumult of times and places.

“The Pan and Echo myth is an amazing metaphor for network society,” Jucan said. “Echo’s body is torn into pieces and all over

the place, and all that remains is her voice. This is similar in many ways to how I perceive the impact of network technology, which lets these people from all corners of the earth speak together, to let their voices be heard.”

Jucan’s work in the Depart-ment of Theatre Arts and Per-formance Studies focuses on the intersection between nature and technology. She said she compre-hends nature not as something unspoiled to be preserved, but as an active force that shapes the lives of humans whether they are aware of it or not. Technology, she said, is a way for people to feel as though they are able to control that ultimately overwhelming force.

“How do we represent nature?” Jucan said. “That’s how I got to myth. I use myth, which was ini-tially concerned with creation, with the creation of the world, as a kind of link between technol-ogy and nature.” Integral to “The Deaths of Pan,” the final show of which is 8 p.m. tonight in the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for Creative Arts, are soundscapes and projected images. Jucan, who is a graduate of the modern cul-ture and media department and incorporates multimedia elements into her plays, embraces both the positive and negative aspects of technology.

“For me, technology both re-duces distance and creates dis-tance,” she said. “For example, I’m able to speak to my family in Romania over Skype, a seven-hour time difference … but the fact that I know my world is so accessible makes me invest less in my relationships.”

Snyderman could not be more different. He tries to use only absolutely necessary technol-ogy, limiting his cell phone and email use to essential communi-cation with students, family and his girlfriend. His play, “Voice Graffiti,” is an effort to capture the psyche of the living city. He said he perceives the city as a living organism plagued by abandoned

buildings, parking lots and board-ed-up houses, but he considers his theater a possible cure.

“I’ve been talking about graf-fiti in the class that I’m teaching. Whether (the graffiti) is a tag or a sentence, the sentence is going to be itself, and it’s going to be in-fluenced by where it is, and where it is is going to be influenced by the sentence,” he said in an inter-view on the Techno-Mythologies website. He said he tries to bring that same spatial tension to “Voice Graffiti,” a rhythmic, frustratingly languid piece incorporating the work of close to 20 Providence residents and Brown students.

Snyderman said in the inter-view he was influenced by Provi-dence’s urban farmers, who “use what they have even though the elements and the red tape, just the city itself as an organism, is sort of against what they’re doing.” He also cited the chants of Mexican healer Maria Sabina and the expe-riences of America’s homeless as starting points for the play.

“The Deaths of Pan” and “Voice Graffiti” feed off each other’s ideas and energy much in the same way their writers have fed off each other’s ideas and energy since they met last semester in a playwriting class. In conversations posted on the project’s website, Jucan and Sny-derman spur each other on, probe levels of complexity and cata-lyze ideas. These conversations are intimate and in many cases amazingly insightful. But that is perhaps one reason the plays are relatively inaccessible to a first-time audience — they are built on months of shared experiences and discussion, the inner workings of theatrical theory as expounded by two theater junkies.

The good thing is that Jucan and Snyderman have documented their creative process. The keys to their plays are there if you look for them. The difficult thing is that, for those who take Snyderman’s advice and “come to it as a wil-derness,” the works are rendered overcast, if not opaque.

Mythic plays leave audiences spellbound

The following summary includes a selection of major incidents reported to the department of public safety between Feb. 28 and March 15. It does not include general service and alarm calls. The providence police department also responds to incidents occurring off campus. dps does not divulge information on cases that are currently under investigation by the department, ppd or the office of student life. dps maintains a daily log of all shift activity and general service calls, which can be viewed during business hours at its headquarters at 75 Charlesfield st.

march 412:36 a.m. Brown police officers were dispatched to meet

with Providence police in response to a complaint of a large, loud house party at 97 Benevolent Street. The party was broken up, and everyone was dispersed. A Brown student was issued a citation for violating the city noise ordinance.

march 67:09 p.m. A student reported his bike stolen from the

basement bike room in Perkins Hall. He locked it to the rack March 1 and noticed it missing March 5.

march 78:42 p.m. Complainant stated her iPhone was stolen. She had

it with her at a table at the Gate and then realized it was gone a short time later.

march 84:13 p.m. A student reported she had given her cell phone

to her boyfriend while he worked his shift at the Gate March 2. He reported that he began his shift at 10 p.m. and placed the phone on a shelf in the kitchen designated for the staff ’s personal belongings. He stated that when he went to retrieve the phone at 2 a.m. March 3, at the end of his shift, the phone was missing.

march 95:10 p.m. A student stated that at 2 a.m., she observed her

bike locked to the rack outside Grad Center Tower A. When she returned at 2 p.m., the bike was missing. It had been secured with a cable lock. She pointed out debris that consisted of plastic portions of the lock.

march 157:37 p.m. A student stated that she entered the Sciences

Library at 2:20 p.m. She left without her laptop computer and returned at 7 p.m. to locate it. She asked at the front desk if the computer had been turned in and found that it had not been.

C R I M e LO G

Arts & Culture 9the Brown Daily heraldthursday, March 22, 2012

Dreadful Cosmology | dario Mitchell

Fraternity of Evil | eshan Mitra, Brendan Hainline and Hector Ramirez

CO M I C S

By Sam wickhamSportS Staff Writer

Though Brown alums enter many diverse fields after graduation, professional hockey may not be the first to come to mind. But for Ryan Garbutt ’09, the dream of playing in the NHL has become a reality after a few years in the making.

Garbutt started down the road to the NHL on the 2009-10 ros-ter of the Corpus Christi Icerays in the Central Hockey League, where he racked up 22 goals and 28 assists in 64 games. From there, he spent most of the 2010-2011 season playing for the Chicago Wolves in the AHL but also played for the Gwinnett Gladiators in the East Coast Hockey League for 10 games, where he tallied 17 points.

Before the 2011-2012 season, Garbutt signed a two-way con-tract with the Dallas Stars and played 50 games with the fran-chise’s AHL affiliate, the Texas Stars. After three seasons making his way through the minors, the former Bear got called up to the

Dallas Stars last month.Garbutt joins Aaron Volpatti

’10 of the Vancouver Canucks, Harry Zolnierczyk ’11 of the Phil-adelphia Flyers and Jack Maclel-lan ’12 of the Nashville Predators as the fourth Brown player in four years to make it to the league.

“Sometimes you get the chance to look around and just enjoy the fact that you’re playing in the NHL,” Garbutt said. “You don’t want to leave once you’re there. Once you get a taste of it, you want to make sure you stay up there.”

Garbutt’s debut for the Stars came Feb. 18 against the Phoenix Coyotes, and he scored his first career goal just three days later, netting the game-winner against the Montreal Canadiens.

“(The NHL) is quite a bit dif-ferent from college,” Garbutt said. “Everyone is better skaters, better goalies, better with the puck. Ev-erything moves faster. And you’re not just playing two games on the weekends, but every second day at some points, so you have to be able to manage the grind.”

But the former Bears forward and All-Ivy honoree credits the Brown hockey program for his success at the next level.

“I had really great teammates — not just in my 2009 class, but everyone I played with at Brown,” Garbutt said. “It was just a step up from where I was coming from. Every time you move up a level, you have to adapt to the players around you, and Brown allowed me to do that.”

Having already played 13 games for the Stars, Garbutt is well on his way to establishing an NHL career. But as he looks to make an impact in stadiums around the country, some of his best hockey memories will remain in the confines of Meehan Audi-torium.

“For myself, my first collegiate goal was a big highlight,” Garbutt said. “But as a team, it was our playoff victory against Harvard. We had a big goal from Harry Zol-nierczyk, and Michael Clemente (’12) stood on his head. We upset Harvard, and it was pretty excit-ing for everyone.”

Garbutt ’09 becomes a StarBy alExaNdra macfarlaNE

Senior Staff Writer

With poise, articulation and dra-matic passion, Madeline Miller ’00 MA ’01 read from her breakout novel, “The Song of Achilles,” Mon-day night at an event presented by the Brown Bookstore. Miller read two passages to a small but engaged audience, answered sev-eral questions and then stayed to sign copies of her book and speak to students, faculty and staff on a more intimate level.

Miller’s book tells the story of Patroclus, a young exiled prince who eventually builds a strong connection to Achilles, the famed Greek hero of the Trojan War. Pa-troclus is a small part of the classic story of “The Iliad” and a friend to Achilles. His death drives the fear-less fighter into a passionate rage on the battlefield of Troy.

In the short excerpts Miller shared with the audience, Miller read about the early life of Patro-clus, her novel building the young man’s story into the epic myth as a foil to Achilles. Miller told the audience that her goal was to “(sew) him into the Achilles legend,” add-ing that from the time she realized she wanted to write about “The Iliad,” the narrator she imagined was always Patroclus.

“Who could be ashamed to lose to such beauty?” Patroclus narrates. Miller read some of the moments when the young prince develops his deep love for Achilles. As the young boys play, Patroclus is filled with feelings that he cannot understand. It is young love at its finest.

“My tongue ran away from me,” Miller read. In the excerpt, Patroclus feels completely devoid of worry when with Achilles.

Miller’s sense of voice for the relatively unknown classic charac-ter is clear and flowing, showing a keen sense for the full story of her narrator. Miller was a classics con-centrator during her time at Brown and also earned a master’s degree in

classics from the University. As an academic in classics,

Miller said she was always drawn to Patroclus’ death in “The Iliad” and wondered why Achilles was so passionately devastated at the loss of a little-known character. Achil-les reacted to the death “at a whole other level,” she said.

Though her background in clas-sics certainly influenced the discov-ery of her topic, what she has done is all original, said Joseph Pucci, associate professor of classics, who was Miller’s mentor during her time at Brown. The voice and imagina-tion of the life of Patroclus “is really all her,” he said.

Pucci said that if students want to write like Miller, they should just write every day in order to be true to their topic and to discover their passion.

Miller’s own process writing the book was “very messy” and took 10 years, she said. After five years of writing, she threw away a complete draft and started from scratch, she said. Miller said at first she felt she could not find Patroclus’ voice. It was epic poetry, but not with the lyricism that she wanted.

Despite the length of Miller’s process, the author still feels drawn to the myths. People keep returning to these stories because “they really speak to the human experience,” she said. They capture the “love, pain, loss, ambition and joy. … All the world is in Homer.”

Miller’s time at Brown was an “expansive experience” that gave her the confidence to try Patroclus’ story, she said. While at Brown, Miller directed the Shakespeare play “Troilus and Cressida,” which centers on Homer’s myths. Though she had never directed a play be-fore, Miller said she always wanted “to participate in these legends in a more active way.”

Even after 10 years with clas-sic stories, Miller is still interested in other characters, and she said she would “love to stay in Homer’s world for another book.”

Alum’s novel revives Homer’s Patroclus

HOCkEY

By caroliNE SaiNEContributing Writer

Reading from her new book “BREATHTAKEN,” Carolyn Wright, professor of literary arts, invoked the violence of post-Katrina New Orleans when she recited, “Can you pass a day without rancor / can you pick yourself up again?”

“BREATHTAKEN” is a collabo-ration between Wright and Walter Feldman, professor emeritus of art, who contributed visual etchings to the text.

The reading and question-and-answer session were held for a crowd of about 30 in the John Hay Library Wednesday and was spon-sored by Brown/Ziggurat Press, a company founded by Feldman.

Wright, a former state poet of Rhode Island, is the author of more than a dozen books including “One With Others,” “40 Watts” and “Ris-ing, Falling, Hovering” — for which she was awarded the International Griffin Poetry Prize in 2009. She is the recipient of several other awards including a National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, and she was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2004.

Wright said she was thankful to work on this project at Brown with Feldman. “The resources here are

tremendous,” she said. The poem addresses the corrup-

tion, lawlessness and unchecked violence of the post-Katrina New Orleans. The city, Wright said, is a “parade every day, party all night, but everybody’s armed.”

When asked why she chose to write about New Orleans, Wright discussed her personal connection to photographer Deborah Luster. Wright collaborated with Luster, who lost her mother as a result of the violence, on the poem “One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana.”

Wright also noted the vibrancy and magnetism of what she de-scribed as a once “breathtaking” and now “breathtaken” city. The allure of New Orleans pulls people to continue to return after having lost everything, she said.

“No one can go to that city with-out being affected by it,” Wright said.

“BREATHTAKEN,” which Wright acknowledged as a dark poem, reflects both the violence and the majesty of New Orleans. She described the work as a “reductive look” into the violence of the city.

The richness and affecting con-notations of the imagery juxtapose with what Wright describes as “aus-tere” diction, demonstrated in lines such as “lying in the street / fac-

ing a deflated basketball / under a parked car.”

The book, priced at $150, is rect-angular and composed of heavy, inter-folding paper. Lines of po-etry are written in gray, and red text used sporadically for numerals and for the beginning of the title, “BREATH,” on the first page.

Feldman said his first interac-tion with the work was physically looking at the poem. “I heard a so-prano on one side and a tenor on the other,” he said, describing the difference in formatting between sides of the page.

Interspersed throughout the book are etchings that depict, among other things, scenes of the violence in the poem. Feldman described his physical accompa-niments as providing “a feeling, a taste of what she was talking about.”

Prof’s book depicts changed New Orleans

editorial & Letter10 the Brown Daily heraldthursday, March 22, 2012

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e d I TO R I A L C A R TO O N b y j u s t i n a l e e a n d c h r i s t i n a m e ta x ae d I TO R I A L

On March 5, an 81-year-old Newport woman embraced her son and daughter-in-law in sheer, uncontrollable delight. In her frail but resolute hand, she grasped the winning ticket for the Powerball jackpot, valued at $336.4 million. Louise White, now a millionaire, is in the midst of reformulating her plans for the future, much to the chagrin of the Rhode Island Lottery. It is heartwarming stories like these that preclude many from seeing the less publicized, damaging consequences of the state’s obsession with gambling. A recent analysis by the Tax Foundation shows that Rhode Island boasts the highest per-capita lottery spending in the country by far. This figure is ex-tremely troubling, and Rhode Island needs to reassess how gambling is hurting working-class citizens.

The Tax Foundation asserts that the lottery, especially in Rhode Island, acts as a form of regressive tax — the poorer citizens of Rhode Island spend, in real terms, considerably more on the lottery than the middle-class and upper-class players. In a previous editorial, we mentioned that Rhode Island consistently ranks in the top 10 for its proportional homeless population, exacerbating the woes of being a low-income Rhode Islander.

The lottery is, quite simply, an attractive sell — invest a dollar or two and win a fortune. The investment, in the minds of many, is a no-brainer. It is unsurprising that so many lower-income Rhode Islanders place a tangible proportion of their income into the lottery. With the unfavorable conditions that they may already face, including finding affordable housing and employment, lower-income Rhode Islanders view the lottery as an embodiment of a real yet ultimately unsustainable hope.

We cannot simply do away with the lottery — it serves as a huge component of Rhode Island’s entertainment sector, which we can-not ignore. In addition, buying a lottery ticket is a daily, necessary routine for some, similar to smoking a cigarette. We wonder what the consequences would be if the state implemented higher casino buy-ins, or a hefty excise tax on the purchase of lottery tickets, just like it does with cigarettes. Though it may be unfair to compare the two goods, both do represent the epitomes of addictive behavior. While we are not fully convinced that the pros of an excise tax would, in a holistic sense, outweigh its cons, we urge the government to take a second look at the lottery. The state needs to find a way to make the lottery a less widespread source of revenue, and educate citizens more on the problems of gambling and addiction, especially in context with the struggles of low-income Providence residents. A state that fosters such pervasive gambling hurts its citizens and probably does itself a long-term economic disservice by furthering addiction and this kind of regressive tax.

The lottery and gambling will always exist as long as people are willing to engage in them. Rhode Island, no thanks to Louise White, will continue to thrive from the service. However, we advise Rhode Island to reiterate its ethical values and take its own big risk by pro-moting a conscious awareness of the lottery’s positives and negatives, instead of highlighting it as the false savior to do all and end all.

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

Q u OT e O F T H e d AY

Don’t bet on it, Rhode Island

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Sam knowles editor-in-Chief

An article in Wednesday’s Herald (“Facilities, students reflect on second-warmest winter,” March 21) incor-rectly attributed a series of quotes on the Department of Facilities Management’s snow removal budget to Carlos Fernandez, assistant vice president of facilities, operations and engineering. In fact, those quotes should have been attributed to Stephen Maiorisi, vice president of Facilities. The article also quoted Fernandez as saying that Facilities saved $20,000 on heating this winter. In fact, Facilities saved $200,000 on heating. The article also stated that in 2010, Facilities spent $289,000 on snow removal. In fact, it spent $189,000 in that year. The Herald regrets the errors.

CO R R e C T I O N

“If you ask the people in Woonsocket right now if they want to raise

taxes or sell a little marijuana, what would they want to do?”— Peter Hammond, Rhode Island resident

See Marijuana on page 6.

L e T T e R TO T H e e d I TO RChasing mugger was ‘foolhardy’To the Editor:

After reading an article in Monday’s Herald (“After Brook St. attack, senior chases down, catches mugger,” March 19), I couldn’t shake the feeling that Aristides Nakos, the senior featured in the piece, took a grave, unnecessary risk.

After graduating from Brown, I spent a year as a fellow investigator for the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, where I learned how relatively minor crime can quickly become a violent felony because things don’t go according to plan. One case I investigated could have been just another minor property theft, but it escalated to gunshots after the thief was pursued.

Any act of theft or robbery is a volatile situation, with high stakes for everyone involved, including the perpetra-tors. The student who was robbed told The Herald, “the

suspects were just as nervous as I was ... and trying to get out of there as quickly as possible.” Small wonder — the Rhode Island criminal code calls for imprisonment of 10 years or more for “robbery where a victim is injured.”

The Herald identified the man Nakos chased down as Carlos Falcon, age 20, who was later found to have a knife, according to Nakos. Put yourself in Falcon’s shoes. Fearing you might spend the next decade behind bars, what might you do in the heat of that moment to get away?

I admire Nakos’ selflessness, but his actions were foolhardy, needlessly prolonging a dangerous situation. I hope anyone who read his story will think twice before emulating them.

michael Skocpol ’10Former Herald deputy Managing editor

taking Sides 11the Brown Daily heraldthursday, March 22, 2012

Brown’s New Curriculum — poorly named since it is nearly half a century old — is a point of pride for many Brunonians, and rightfully so: It’s a manifesto for creativi-ty, self-definition and personal motivation. These are certainly noble values we should embrace. But a large portion of people at Brown tend to define the New Curriculum by a single feature — no required classes. While this is a crucial element of the origi-nal vision, it would be foolish to dogmati-cally insist that we should never consider amending Brown’s educational structure. That would be antithetical to the liberal arts philosophy.

In fact, I believe the values that original-ly motivated the New Curriculum would be bolstered if we did have a few — two to three — required courses. I have two class-es in mind that I will mention, but these are merely suggestions, and I invite others to further develop what courses and content might be required.

The motivation for my classes stems from a worry similar to the one expressed in Lucas Husted’s column (“Individualism at Brown,” March 7). Like Husted, I too am concerned that Brown’s emphasis on indi-vidualism can alienate students from one another. Brown is committed to becoming a global university, and I’m concerned that individualism does not adequately meet the needs of an increasingly connected world. I

am, to an extent, in favor of the individual-ism espoused by the New Curriculum, but I believe that some communal ground that required courses provide is beneficial if we are to become global citizens.

The first required course I suggest would be an interdisciplinary survey course that examines history, historical construction and sociology with an aim to create appre-ciation for both qualitative and quantitative inquiry. This course would be designed to give students some perspective on current

and historical events, as well as situate the United States in a larg-er context. If Brown strives to be a global university, every recip-ient of a Brown degree should be required to critically think about what it means to be a

global citizen in today’s complex and inter-connected world.

My second required class would be a crash course on Brown itself. The objective of this course would be to familiarize stu-dents with the history, philosophy and re-sources of the University. It would also aim to foster more inter-student awareness and connection via conversations about gender, drug use, community life and so on.

Together, these courses would help ori-ent students within their macro- and micro-environments, better preparing them to be global citizens. While I do think it is impor-tant to retain a high level of freedom, we should ensure that no student fails to recog-nize that all individual decisions and actions take place within and have effects on a larger community.

Rebecca McGoldrick ’12 can be reached at rebecca_mcgoldrick@brown.edu.

Yes

It would be foolish to dogmatically insist that

we should never consider amending Brown’s

educational structure...

BY ReBeCCA MCGOLdRICKopinions columnist

“The various courses should be so ar-ranged that, in so far as it is practicable, every student might study what he chose, all that he chose, and nothing but what he chose.” These words, stated in 1850 by Francis Wayland, Brown’s fourth pres-ident, have been the foundation for aca-demics at Brown for more than 150 years, and they are at the heart of the Univer-sity’s core mission. Brown’s curricu-lum, which allows students to take whatever courses they choose without any required courses, is one of the main assets of the University that sets it apart from its peer institutions.

If the University began requiring stu-dents to take certain courses, it would tear at the fabric of the University’s iden-tity. Part of the beauty of Brown is that the students are free to explore their interests without the burden of requirements. Re-quirements eat into a student’s schedule and black out spaces that could have been allotted for topics more aligned with their academic interests.

Furthermore, requirements might be wasted on many students, forced to sit through a class on a topic that they either have no interest in or are already highly familiar with. Say that Brown decided a class on English literature were impor-tant enough to be required. For many students who had a strong penchant for

reading on their own or took Advanced Placement classes in high school, the class would be redundant. We only get to take four or five courses a semester, and wast-ing one on a topic that you already know seems like a colossal misuse of time, if not tuition.

One of the great things about having no required courses is that many students ultimately end up taking what would re-ally count as distribution requirements

at another school, but they do so freely. Choice is a very pow-erful psychological weapon. Tell a child to clean his room, and he will probably refuse or do so grudgingly, but let him decide what to do about the mess, and he might devise

his own path. Yes, there is the possibili-ty that he still might not clean it, just as there are undoubtedly many Brunonians who have graduated without ever study-ing literature. However, if he does ulti-mately clean his room, it will be on his terms and with much greater enthusiasm.

At the end of the day, Brown’s decision not to have requirements is vindicated by the professional and academic success of many of its graduates. If nothing else, Brown alums have learned what truly in-terests them, and that may be the most important lesson of all.

ethan Tobias ’12 doesn’t believe in re-quired courses, but if there were re-quirements, he would recommend

BIOL0200.What could be more global than the “Foundations of Living Sys-

tems?” He can reached at ethan_tobias@brown.edu

No

If the university began requiring students to take certain courses, it would tear at the fabric of the

university’s identity.

BY eTHAN TOBIASopinions columnist

Should Brown have required classes?

Tobias’ rebuttal McGoldrick’s rebuttalI can sympathize with Rebecca McGold-rick for thinking that two or three required courses might enhance a Brown education. Certainly, her example courses would be very valuable for some first-years. Howev-er, the question at stake is whether Brown should award degrees to students who have not completed certain required course-work. The courses McGoldrick recom-mends — as noble as their intentions are — are not so invaluable that any student who failed to take them would not deserve to graduate from Brown. Let’s consider each one individually.

McGoldrick describes her proposed interdisciplinary survey course as intro-ducing students to a wide range of fields including history and sociology as well as an appreciation for qualitative and quan-titative methods. First of all, this course is unfeasible, as the thought of condensing all of world history alone down to a semester with any kind of depth is mind-boggling. Combining such a course with introduc-tions to a wide range of other fields will in-evitably mean that this course will either oversimplify important concepts or skip them altogether. And, as I warned in my opening, such a course is not necessary for many students, especially those with very strong backgrounds in some of these fields, who will be left feeling bored and unchal-

lenged by coursework they mostly com-pleted in high school.

A crash course on Brown is certainly much more workable, but has deficits of its own. Just living, learning and getting in-volved at Brown can teach one much more about the school than a textbook. And, no one but a student who has no prior experi-ence with the University would ever con-sider taking it.

But there is a logistical reason why these requirements are troubling. If they are not first-year only, then the thought of upper-classmen taking them after having spent time living at Brown and taking advanced classes is laughable. If they are only for first-years, then it would severely cut into the available course slots that some first-years have — most notably engineers, who often have six required courses freshman year, meaning that adding two more will leave them with zero electives to explore topics that actually interest them.

There is no conceivable course that will benefit everyone without exception, and mandating that students take certain courses would destroy the academic free-dom and creativity that are essential parts of the New Curriculum. Instituting re-quired courses threatens to undermine the University’s values and should be avoided at all costs.

First, I concede Ethan Tobias’ point that free choice can be a powerful psycho-logical tool for creating positive moti-vation and a sense of ownership over one’s education. Brown should be ap-plauded for treating its students as ma-ture adults. That was a significant factor in my decision to enroll here.

However, it is a mistake to dogmati-cally pledge allegiance to the 150-year-old ideas of Brown’s fourth president. I admit that the lack of required classes is a distinguishing feature of Brown’s open curriculum and that there are valid rea-sons to think this is a successful educa-tional model. But Brown is an evolving institution, and we should not lock our-selves into rigid systems just for tradi-tion’s sake. We should reflect upon and critically assess whether the current curriculum is the best it could be.

We also live in an evolving world. We should be open to amendments and periodically evaluate whether our insti-tution is producing students equipped with the resources to make a positive contribution to society. If Brown is to be a “global university,” then we must be global citizens.

Tobias is correct to point out that re-quiring students to take a course might reduce their interest in the subject. But

there might be classes that Brown stu-dents need to take whether they want to or not — I think my suggested class-es, or something like them, fit that bill. Math students may not enjoy taking ev-ery required course to fulfill their con-centration, but it’s still necessary that they take them. I am making a similar suggestion. In order to successfully nav-igate Brown and the world beyond, we need to make sure that each student is challenged in certain ways.

The courses I propose are not de-signed to limit students’ freedom. The first course, involving the study of re-cent history and global society, would be designed to expand students’ hori-zons and open their minds to the infi-nite number of ways their academic ca-reer can make a difference in the world. The second course, a crash course on the University, would help students see their possible trajectories at Brown, which will better prepare them to uti-lize the resources available.

The ability to forge our own aca-demic path is a valuable opportunity we have as Brown students. But we need a starting point from which to depart. Be-fore we go our separate ways, let’s make sure everyone is prepared for the jour-ney.

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