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

News......1–4Sports........5 Editorial.......6Opinion........7Today...........8

News, 3

‘Real’ ratings

insi

deDaily Heraldthe Brown

vol. cxlv, no. 87 | Friday, October 8, 2010 | Serving the community daily since 1891

sPORTs, 5 OPiNiONs, 7

Moss to Minn. Web worries‘Real Foods’ at Ratty, V-Dub really popular, says survey

Sam Sheehan ’12 in shock over Randy Moss trade

Sissi Sun ’12 browses Brown.edu, questions redesign

Number of A’s awarded grows for another yearPhysical sciences are exception to the trend

By BeN KuTNeR

Contributing Writer

Grades at Brown have never been higher. For the 2009-10 school year, 54.4 percent of grades were A’s, 21.9 percent B’s, 4.1 percent C’s and 16.5 percent were S’s, according to statistics published by the Office of Institutional Research. Only 2.5 percent of grades were recorded as no credit.

Since the 2008-09 school year,

the percentage of A’s has risen by 1 point. The number of A’s has seen a general increase over the past 10 years.

Professor Emeritus of Engi-neering Barrett Hazeltine said this trend may be driven by “more small classes and more independent stud-ies. Students can work more at their own pace.”

Grading policies at Brown have also changed since Hazeltine joined the faculty in 1959. He said that when he first arrived, the depart-ment chairs would examine the grades given by each professor.

“If you had more than a third A’s, you had to explain why,” he said.

wPCs plan wednesday programsBy elizaBeTh CaRR

Contributing Writer

This Wednesday, the Women Peer Counselors held the fourth annual Strong Sexy Words, a semi-open mic and the kick-off event to the semester-long “W Wednesday” program.

Strong Sexy Words featured spo-ken word performances, as well as dance acts, addressing the themes the WPC program extols, such as strong body image and female em-powerment. The W Wednesday program aims to continue explor-ing these themes throughout the semester.

W Wednesdays are what WPC Representative Reed McNab ’12 described as the “activism compo-nent” of the WPC program. Each event in the series of programs, which will run through October and November, will be planned by a different group of WPCs.

Two of the Strong Sexy Words organizers, Katie Grayson ’13 and Leigh Carroll ’12, a Herald contrib-uting writer, shared the consensus that they felt “really good” about how the night went. Grayson added that she “felt so inspired by every-one,” especially after seeing a fresh-man from her Perkins Hall unit, Cia Mathew ’14, perform.

The event also featured a bake sale to raise money for the Women’s Center of Rhode Island, a nonprof-

Rubber duckies: they’re not just for bath time anymoreBy alexys esPaRza

Contributing Writer

“Not All Rubber Ducks Look Alike,” an exhibit of artist Lucy Sander Sceery’s work currently on display at the Sarah Doyle Center Gallery, explores the vast and varied world of rubber ducks through a display of both two- and three-dimensional visual art.

The exhibit features vibrant photographs of rubber ducks as well as an eclectic collection of the ducks themselves. “Sitting Ducks,” one piece in the series, features rubber ducks dressed as vampires, police officers, Elvis

and cowboys. Sceery’s exhibit made its way

to the Brown campus through a selective process, said Jo-Ann Conklin, director of the Bell Gal-lery and member of the selection committee. “We do a call for pro-posals advertised through Art New England. The student orga-nizer for the gallery posts these all together and then a committee of people look at these and select exhibitions,” she said.

Sceery said that showing her work on campus had special per-sonal significance for her. “I’m thrilled my work is on display at Brown, especially because my father graduated from Brown,”

In talk, rose dissects a ‘new racism’By DaviD ChuNg

Contributing Writer

Professor and Chair of Afri-cana Studies Tricia Rose MA’87 PhD’93 urged students and col-leagues to question the idea of a colorblind society in a lecture Thursday night. Speaking to a full Pembroke Hall 305, she said there is a need to recognize black culture as legitimate.

In her talk, titled “Black Culture Matters: Black Cul-tural Debates in a Color Blind Nation,” Rose argued that the ideology of color blindness has resulted in a “new racism” that suppresses the study and re-search of race-specific topics.

Though many believe that discrimination is no longer a major issue in society and think of racism as “the all-out type” of prejudice seen in the past, Rose said, statistics she cited — on issues such as social services, life expectancy and housing — revealed the persistence of ra-cial disparity in today’s society.

Cultural racism — which Rose defined as the idea that “blacks have a distinct and dysfunctional culture” — is another issue that has become widespread, she said. People use cultural explanations to “ra-tionalize inequality,” she said.

“Keeping track of that pro-cess” — how aesthetic, cultural practices have become exam-

Glenn Lutzky / HeraldBy placing ducks in unexpected situations in “Not All Rubber Ducks Look Alike,” Lucy Sander Sceery invites viewers to examine their prejudices.

continued on page 2

continued on page 2

Football looks to rebound at holy CrossBy ChaN hee Chu

Staff Writer

Coming off a tough overtime loss at the University of Rhode Island last weekend, the football team will seek to rebound on the road against Holy Cross. While the Crusaders lost Dominic Randolph, the 2009 Patriot League Offensive Player of the Year, to graduation, they still boast an offense capable of scoring in bunches. Employing a spread offense featuring a zone-read option, the Crusaders will rely heavily on quarterback Blake Wayne to provide yards through both the air and the ground.

Holy Cross will also have ex-tra motivation coming into this

weekend, as the team seeks to avenge last year’s loss to the Bears — a thrilling 34-31 upset win for Brown over the then-No. 19 Crusaders. In addition to a new quarterback, the Bears are expecting new wrinkles from the Holy Cross squad.

“In the past, we have had very high-scoring games,” said Head Coach Phil Estes. “I expect them to change up coverages from pre-vious years.”

The Bears will also look to mix up their defensive schemes from past seasons by employing differ-ent looks in their secondary. Es-

tes said these tweaks on defense from both teams are likely to lead to a lower scoring game.

Having suf fered their first loss, the Bears also hope to come out against Holy Cross with more intensity than they showed against URI.

“We came out flat,” said start-ing quarterback Kyle Newhall-Caballero ’11. “It was very disap-pointing to lose a game that we felt we should have won.”

The Bears will also seek to im-prove their special teams. After allowing a kickoff return for a touchdown against Harvard and a punt return for a touchdown

sPORTs

Julien Ouellet / Herald

grades over the last decade

aRTs & CulTuRe

continued on page 4 continued on page 3

continued on page 2

Sceery said.Sceery said she chose to use a

combination of photographs and physical ducks because “some concepts just work better as a 2-D piece and others as 3-D. It has to make sense to me.”

A number of her two-dimension-al pieces begin as digital photo-graphs, Sceery said. She then ed-its them using Photoshop, adding her unique point of view to each

picture. The photos depict rubber ducks in a myriad of ways, some-times in subdued shades of gray, sometimes in a vibrantly colorful fashion.

Sceer y’s two-dimensional pieces also include hand-colored Polaroid transfers and photo mon-tages that depict rubber ducks in unexpected scenarios, encourag-ing the reader to rethink their former conceptions of the classic bath-time toy. “I’ve always loved photo montage, cutting things out

and having to put them together somehow,” she said.

Sceery said her interest in rub-ber ducks began about a decade ago. “I collected a few rubber ducks for my grandson to play with in the bathtub and was surprised at the different kinds of ducks avail-able,” Sceery said. “I just thought a rubber duck was a rubber duck, and it amazed me.”

Some pieces in “Not All Rub-ber Ducks Look Alike” present the rubber ducks in a humorous context: “A Bunch of Quacks” and “Duck Bills,” featuring photos of ducks dressed as doctors and ducks as the faces on dollar bills and both translating word play to a visual gag. “Humor draws the viewer in and then they get a chance to think about the deeper issues,” Sceery said.

In her artist statement, Sceery asks the question she explores through the pieces in her exhibit: “Aren’t the subjects, rubber ducks looking and acting dif ferently, a metaphor for mankind?”

“People who are prejudiced and think all people of one eth-nicity look alike can see here that not even rubber ducks look alike,” Sceery said. “I want them to think of the fact that people do have prejudices, and sometimes it’s a really silly thing.”

sudoku

George Miller, PresidentClaire Kiely, Vice President

Katie Koh, TreasurerChaz Kelsh, Secretary

The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serv-ing the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once during Orientation and once in July 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. Offices are located at 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. E-mail herald@browndailyherald.com. World Wide Web: http://www.browndailyherald.com. Subscription prices: $319 one year daily, $139 one semester daily. Copyright 2010 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

editorial Phone: 401.351.3372 | Business Phone: 401.351.3260Daily Heraldthe Brown

FRIDAy, OcTOBER 8, 2010THE BROWN DAILy HERALDPAGE 2

CamPuS newS “I just thought a rubber duck was a rubber duck.”— Lucy Sander Sceery, creator of“Not All Rubber Ducks Look Alike” exhibit

Sceery attacks prejudice with duckscontinued from page 1

it organization that helps female and children victims of domestic abuse, according to WPC Sheryl-vi Rico ’13, who planned the event with Grayson, Carroll and Sotonye Bobojama ’12.

By the end of the night, Rico estimated that sales of the baked goods and donations had raised about $70 for the charity.

The 90 or so audience members also seemed to enjoy the event.

Steph Yin ’12 said events like Strong Sexy Words “reminded you of how talented and graceful your fellow classmates are.”

Grace Dunham ’14 said she was happy that the issues “seemed im-portant to everyone” at the event. But, she said, “I think they could do more to make men feel welcome.”

While the WPCs advocate fe-male empowerment, Carroll said events like Wednesday’s are “open to anyone and everyone.” McNab agreed, explaining that WPCs try to plan events that will interest a lot of people.

WPC Representative Natalie Serrino ’12 said the counselors are resources for a wide variety of issues — gender, sexism, sexuality, safer sex, body image, LBGTQ and

assertiveness — but there has been confusion in the past about the roles of the WPCs. Serrino and McNab see W Wednesdays as an opportu-nity to raise awareness for the WPC program and the issues it covers.

The W Wednesday program is a variation on the traditional fall pro-gram, W Week. “W Week is good because everyone gets revved up for one week,” but spreading the events across the semester will al-low for continued awareness, Ser-rino said. Spacing out the events will hopefully increase attendance, and will allow the WPCs to support each other at the events, she said.

Future events include Body Talk, a body image workshop Oct. 13; Bold, Colorful Women of Brown, an Oct. 20 dinner with fac-ulty women of color geared toward first-year students; a Religion and Sexuality workshop Oct. 27 and a self-defense workshop with Depart-ment of Public Safety Manager of Special Services Michelle Nuey on Nov. 11.

A Nov. 3 Sex Power God panel featuring a health education rep-resentative, the Sex Power God planner and two students who have attended — one who enjoyed the experience and one who did not — will explore the curiosity associated

with the controversial event and help students decide if attending is the right decision for them.

The last event, Going Home Again, is scheduled for Nov. 17. McNab explained, “A lot of people have found that they come out at Brown” and with the Thanksgiving holiday impending, need to figure out how to come out to their family.

In addition to revamping their fall program, Serrino said that WPCs came a day early to Residen-tial Peer Leader training in August. As a result, this year’s WPCs “seem really in sync in terms of their view of the community and the role of a WPC,” she said.

This year, the WPCs are grouped together by region, and each group of three or four counselors has a WPC Friend — similar to the Minority Peer Counselor Friend program — which helps to build community support. By combin-ing into larger groups, the WPCs can tackle bigger issues and create more innovative programs.

Having participated in the pro-gram last year as WPCs, the two representatives “wanted to make sure that it continued to stand for something ,” McNab said. “I loved then, and I love now, being a WPC and what it stands for.”

wPCs bring a semester of programs

The other BDhblogdailyherald.com

Grading “used to be more formal. There was a very clear formula.”

Hazeltine also said that stu-dents’ work ethic has definitely improved since he began teaching at Brown. “We are seeing a student body now that are more interested in the courses on their own. They want to learn the material,” he said.

Fewer classes are being taken satisfactory/no credit now than in the past, Hazeltine said.

Grades have been increasing in every discipline except for the physical sciences, where they have been relatively stagnant in recent years, according to Office of Insti-tutional Research data.

“I had a class last semester: 50 A’s, 50 B’s and 1 C. That was unusually low,” said Professor of Education Cynthia Garcia Coll, who chairs the Faculty Executive Committee. “I expected a lot of A’s.”

“I hate when (students) only work for the grade,” she said. “I

don’t like regurgitation, so that’s not the kind of papers or exams I give.”

Brown regulates grades far less than some other institutions, such as Princeton, where a more rigid grading framework is in place.

According to Princeton’s “Grading at Princeton” booklet, Princeton has “a common grad-ing standard for every academic department and program, under which A’s shall account for less than 35 percent of the grades given in undergraduate courses and less than 55 percent of the grades given in junior and senior independent work.”

But the booklet notes that “it is important to underscore that these are expectations, not hard-and-fast rules, not a grading quota, not a cap, not a curve.”

Garcia Coll questioned wheth-er Brown’s increasing trend is a problem.

“I have no idea,” she said. “I think we would need to think about what do we want grades to mean.”

higher grades last year for students

continued from page 1

continued from page 1

CamPuS newSFRIDAy, OcTOBER 8, 2010 THE BROWN DAILy HERALD PAGE 3

“I can’t operate two different operations with the staff we have.”— Fred yattaw, Manager of University Mail Services, on delivery pickup

uPS pickup returns to J. walter wilsonBy shefali luThRa

Contributing Writer

UPS package pickup of ficially opened Monday in the post office in J. Walter Wilson. Since the start of the school year, UPS pickup had been at Graduate Center on Power Street.

The switch is based on an ar-rangement that dates back to 2001, when the University began handling student UPS deliveries, said Man-ager of University Mail Services Fred Yattaw.

“We don’t have enough space in here to accept the kinds of volumes of packages that we get in Septem-ber, when students move back to campus,” Yattaw said.

For about the first month of the school year, the University keeps UPS pickup at a location separate from other mail. UPS pickup has been located at Grad Center for the last five or six years, with previ-ous locations on Thayer and Olive streets, Yattaw said.

UPS pickup returns to J. Walter Wilson when delivery volume de-creases, usually after students finish sending in “personal belongings and all the textbooks,” Yattaw said.

Mail Services handled about 30,000 total packages from Aug. 20 to Oct. 1, with about 9,000 from UPS.

Yattaw said moving back to J. Walter Wilson would ultimately be more efficient.

“I can’t operate two different op-erations with the staff that we have,” he said.

Yattaw also said that J. Walter Wilson is more of a central location, making it a more suitable pickup station than Grad Center.

Adela Wu ’13, who lives in New Pembroke Hall, said she thought J. Walter Wilson was a better location for package pickup.

Last year, when Wu received packages at Grad Center, she re-membered having to ask for direc-tions, as the location was “hard to find” and “kind of sketchy.”

Mail Services started delivering UPS packages to J. Walter Wilson on Sept. 29 — half a week before the Grad Center location closed down.

Packages from Grad Center that had not been picked up were sent to J. Walter Wilson.

Yattaw said packages normally get returned to sender after about a month, when students have received at least two e-mails and a mailbox notice. Perishable items may be sent back earlier.

To maintain both mail stations, Yattaw sent part of the Mail Ser-vices staff to Grad Center and hired a few “miscellaneous people” for the month, he said. Mail Services also rented a van for the month to deliver packages to dorms if they were “re-ally large or heavy,” or if a student received multiple packages.

This year, Mail Services hired four extra employees: one to work at the Grad Center UPS pickup, and the other three at J. Walter Wilson.

Though UPS delivery picks up in February, a spike Yattaw attributed to students returning from winter break, combined with Valentine’s Day, Mail Services will not return to the Grad Center for the rest of

the school year.“The spike period isn’t as long,

and it doesn’t involve the same high volumes as it does in September,” Yattaw said. “We work as usual — January and February we do get a little busier — but we don’t do anything special except we have to work a little harder. I do bring on a couple of extra people just to get us through that spike, but it’s for a shorter period of time.”

Yattaw said Grad Center is proba-bly the best place for the UPS pickup at the beginning of the year.

“We want street level access to unload the UPS trucks and whatever, and also for students to take pack-ages out,” Yattaw said. “We also loan out hand trucks to students who want to use those to bring packages back to their dorm, so street level is very important. … It looks like Power Street is going to be the place, as far as I can tell.”

The space at Grad Center will now be used by Facilities Manage-ment for storage.

Pembroke Center appoints Kay warren as its new directorBy JeffRey haNDleR

Contributing Writer

Kay Warren, professor of interna-tional studies and anthropology, has been appointed the new direc-tor of the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women.

“I’m delighted,” Warren said. “I like the idea of people from different disciplines focusing on common issues, but from dif fer-ent perspectives, and starting to exchange ideas.”

Warren, who came to Brown from Harvard in 2003, is on leave this year working on a book about human trafficking. She will begin acting as director on July 1.

While Warren is on leave,

Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg, as-sociate professor of comparative literature and Italian studies and director of gender and sexuality studies, is the acting director of the center. Stewart-Steinberg said of Warren, “She’s a wonderful col-laborator and extremely capable of bringing people from all kinds of dif ferent disciplines together for dialogue.”

The Pembroke Center, founded in 1981 by Joan Wallach Scott as a research center on gender, sup-ports interdisciplinary research and teaching in the humanities and social studies, according to the center’s website. Despite the name of the center, it does not limit itself exclusively to the study of

women or gender, but rather to many broader issues around dif-ference in historical, political and social terms, Stewart-Steinberg said.

The center has faculty “with a lot of interests, so the issue is how you focus your interest in those fields on the benefits and risks of change,” Warren said. “That has a gender dimension but it also has lots of other social dimensions.”

Fundamental to the center, Stewar t-Steinberg said, is the yearlong Pembroke seminar — typically composed of three faculty members and three post-doctoral fellows from outside Brown, as well as graduate students and un-dergraduates selected through an

application process.Warren became involved with

the center when she led last year’s seminar, which focused on two themes: international circulation of health technology and interna-tional circulation of labor.

“I learned an incredible amount about dif ferent fields,” Warren said. “This was a dynamic seminar. There were debates. There were disagreements. There were mo-ments of insight where everyone went ‘oh my gosh, look at that!’ We kept learning. It never stopped.”

The center has many projects going on right now, including a collaboration with Nanjing Uni-versity in China on gender stud-ies, Stewart-Steinberg said. The

schools are currently exchanging faculty and will later trade students as well, she said.

Another key project is an effort to collect papers of all the great feminist theorists. “This promis-es to be a really exciting project. Some of the top feminist theorists in this country and Canada have promised their papers already,” Stewart-Steinberg said.

Warren said she is also thrilled about this archival project, adding that she dreams of being able to invite historians to do research in these archives.

“I think the range of what peo-ple can do at the Pembroke Center is only limited by people’s imagina-tions,” Warren said.

news in brief

Mouth-watering smells filled the Sharpe Refectory as diners lined up Sept. 22 to get a taste of the food that 71 percent called “the best meal at the Ratty.”

The local food night at both the Ratty and the Verney-Woolley Dining Hall was a hit, according to a survey conducted by the Real Food Initiative, a group advocating for more sustainable food on campus. Students almost unanimously praised the local food, and 17 percent responded to the survey saying it was the “best meal ever.”

The meal was also a hit for the Real Food Initiative. Jonathan Leibovic ’12, one of four sustainability interns for the Initiative, said that this local food night, or “Real Meal,” was one of a handful of events planned by the Brown Dining Services Sustainability Program in which dining halls work together with local farmers and businesses.

This Real Food Initiative at Brown is part of a larger “Real Food challenge” in which 341 institutions across the country find food “which truly nourishes producers, consumers, communities and the earth” and is local, fair, ecological and humane. Leibovic said that on a regular day, about 15 percent of the food in dining halls fulfills one of these requirements. He said he hopes that by 2014, that number will rise to 40 percent.

The Initiative has been sponsoring an event like this about every semester for the past two years. Surveys have been given out at each event, and results have always been similarly positive, Leibovic said.

324 students responded to the Sept. 22 survey, which was handed out at the doors of the Ratty. Ninety percent said that they would like to see similar events in the future. Leibovic said the planning and resources required for the event limit them to one per semester, but he is hopeful that in the next few years more events and sustainable food will come to the dining halls.

— Matthew Leonard

Evan Thomas / HeraldUPS package pickup moved to J. Walter Wilson from the Grad center Monday, indicating the end of the back-to-school delivery rush

‘Real food’ popular, according to group’s surveys

against URI, the coaching staff has stressed the need for better coverage on returns.

Two players with noteworthy injuries heading into Saturday’s game are Robert Gillett ’11 and

Newhall-Caballero. Gillett, a starting outside linebacker, suf-fered a season-ending injur y against URI. Newhall-Caballero suffered an injury late in regula-tion in the same game. His status for Saturday’s game was not de-termined as of Thursday.

Bears hoping for win against holy Cross

continued from page 1

ples of what many today perceive as “pathological” behavior — is important, Rose said.

As an example, Rose discussed the “cool pose,” which she said was developed by African Ameri-cans as an artistic style of dis-engagement and as a “shield of protection” against oppression. She critiqued pundits and schol-ars who blame the “cool pose” as the “key origin of the black male achievement gap.”

Rose went on to talk about the idea of “keeping it real,” which is often associated with an imagined “black ghetto set of behavior.” Yet the phrase was developed, she argued, to retain black authentic-ity and to articulate truth in the face of power.

Anthropologists and sociolo-gists have tried to identify and define black culture for a long

time, Rose said, especially follow-ing abolition and the Civil Rights Movement. They debated the top-ic of assimilation, bringing into questions the value and existence of African American culture. Over the years, the debate has contin-ued, Rose said. The discussion has shifted from one pitting the importance of cultural heritage against assimilation to one dealing with ideas of color blindness and racial identification.

Color blindness is “worse than the ‘You got no culture’ option,” Rose said.

People of Latino, Caribbean and African descent in particular have been “folded into a narra-tive,” she said. She expressed her hope that people will approach the issue of stereotypes by first un-derstanding the manner in which they developed.

The Invitational Lecture in the Humanities is an annual event

sponsored by the Cogut Center for the Humanities that aims to give the Brown community a chance to listen to distinguished faculty members — who are usu-ally busy with teaching, adminis-trative work or off-campus events — address a critical issue in the humanities related to their work.

Rose was chosen for her knowledge in Africana studies and her ability to relate the humanities to other disciplines and issues of our time, said Michael Steinberg, director of the Cogut Center.

“She is a wonderful scholar,” Steinberg said. “She works on topics that are very important.”

Steinberg said he hopes Rose will set an example for the cam-pus by creating bridges between the humanities and other areas of study such as public policy and the sciences. Rose’s work “touch-es all those nerves,” he added.

“She engages everyone. She explains to you what she wants you to know,” Maura Lynch ’11 said after Thursday’s lecture.

“I think she was extremely charismatic and extremely per-suasive. I wish there was more time,” said David Hollingshead GS. “It lived up to expectations.”

rose: colorblindness is new racismcontinued from page 1

FRIDAy, OcTOBER 8, 2010THE BROWN DAILy HERALDPAGE 4

CamPuS newS “This is all about field work.” — Patrick Heller, Professor of

Sociology, on Graduate Development Fellowships

By JeffRey haNDleR

Contributing Writer

The Graduate Program in Develop-ment, based at the Watson Institute for International Studies, was re-cently awarded a $3.1 million grant from the National Science Founda-tion. Over the next five years, this grant will fund graduate students in the social sciences for two-year periods with fellowships for inter-disciplinary training.

NSF awards about 20 such grants each year, which fund five-year programs designed to pro-mote cutting-edge interdisciplinary training and research, said Patrick Heller, professor of sociology, who started the Graduate Program in Development six years ago with colleagues. Last year, the program was one of two social science pro-grams to get a graduate education grant from the NSF — these grants are most frequently awarded to programs in the physical and life sciences.

Heller now co-directs the program — which is open to all graduate students in anthropology, economics, political science and sociology — with Barbara Stall-ings, professor of international studies. “We’re thrilled,” he said, adding that Brown has never won this type of grant in the social sci-ences.

“What we’re trying to do is give graduate students access to the type of training they wouldn’t nor-mally have access to if they’re just taking courses within their own discipline,” Heller said. “Within the

traditional discipline-based Ph.D. programs, the incentives are all structured to take courses only within your discipline, to work only with faculty within your discipline, to only ask questions within your discipline, to only use methodolo-gies within your discipline.”

The program in development used to include three fellowships funded by the Watson Institute and the Graduate School, Heller said. This grant is now replacing that funding, creating five fellowships this year and 12 next year.

Doctoral programs generally last five or six years, and students receiving the fellowship awarded by NSF are funded for two years, Heller said.

Fellowship students are re-quired to spend at least two sum-mers in the field. Heller said he thinks that this is the most impor-tant part of the program. “This is all about doing field work. Getting out there, getting your feet wet, doing original data collection.”

The research core of the pro-gram involves recognizing the per-vasive problem of inequality in the developing world and realizing that researchers know very little about this problem, Heller said. The lack of understanding is due in part to a lack of good data, as well as a lack of understanding of the specific nature of inequality in dif ferent countries in the global south.

Heller said he hopes that this grant will strengthen the program. “We’re hoping that the program will survive beyond this initial five year period,” he said.

$3 million grant funds development program

Thanks for

reading!

SportsweekendFRIDAy, OcTOBER 8, 2010 | PAGE 5

The Brown Daily Herald

Strong goalkeeping leads Bears to weekend sweepBy gaRReT JOhNsON

Contributing Writer

The hours spent on the road were well worth it for the men’s water polo team.

The No. 19 Bears (13-4) went un-defeated last weekend, winning 5-4 at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-nology (5-5), 11-6 at Iona College (3-9) and 16-8 at Fordham University (9-9).

These wins were critical, accord-ing to Head Coach Felix Mercado, because they all came against league opponents. In particular, he noted the determination of his team in holding on to a narrow win over MIT.

“Against MIT, we were in control of the game, but that is too good of a team to let hang around,” Mercado said. “Fortunately, we were able to get some key defensive stops.”

Max Lubin ’12 led Brown’s de-fense in net against MIT. Mercado praised Lubin’s work, saying the ju-nior goalkeeper “did a fabulous job.”

Lubin pointed out that “there were goals that I definitely could have blocked,” but said that overall he was “satisfied” with his performance.

In the games against Iona and Fordham, Mercado gave the net to Walker Shockley ’14. The freshman goalie broke his personal record with 17 saves against Iona and added 11 stops versus Fordham.

“Walker was absolutely amazing in those two games,” Mercado said.

Lubin also gave his freshman counterpart rave reviews, saying that Shockley “did absolutely phe-nomenally.”

“He has great fundamentals and strength,” Lubin said. “He’s doing

really well.”The Bears’ next test is at Harvard

(4-8) on Thursday, Oct. 14. Though Harvard has lost two out of its last three games, the team isn’t taking anything for granted, said Mercado and Lubin.

“Harvard is Brown’s rival, so we know that they are going to come out and put up a tough fight,” Lubin said. The junior also noted Harvard’s new head coach, Ted Minnis, “has taken steps towards improving that program,” he said.

Mercado said he hopes that his team will not overlook the Crimson, but says that Bruno “should be well prepared for that game.”

It may be difficult not to look past the Harvard game, since Brown’s big-gest test of the season starts just eight days later. On Friday, Oct. 22, the Bears will head across the country for a set of five tough games against West Coast teams in Santa Clara, Calif.

“We are playing five nationally ranked opponents,” Mercado said, though future opponent Air Force has dropped out of the rankings in the latest poll.

The Bears will face No. 15 Califor-nia Baptist University (13-3), No. 11 University of California at Davis (11-4), Air Force (3-8), No. 14 Santa Clara University (9-8) and No. 7 University of the Pacific (8-4).

“There’s really no pressure on us because we are supposed to lose those games,” Mercado said. “But our expectation is to win them all.”

Lubin admitted that the West Coast trip will be difficult, but said, “We know we can compete with those guys.”

Bruno opens Ivy schedule vs. YaleBy sam RuBiNROiT

Contributing Writer

The volleyball team opened league play with a home-and-home series against Yale last weekend — after a tough loss to the Bulldogs at the Pizzitola, Bruno traveled to New Haven, where they delivered a val-iant performance but ultimately fell.

Yale (8-5) visited Providence for the first game of the series on Friday night, but despite the im-pressive crowd, Bruno (6-8) lost 3-0 (25-20, 26-24, 25-18). The first two sets were highly contested, and the hometown fans let their presence be known. In the first set, the score was tied at 16 before Yale pulled ahead. In the second frame, the Bears battled back from an early deficit to tie it at 24 before coming up short.

“Really, the first two games could have gone either way,” said Head Coach Diane Short. “If we had won those first two games, it would have been a whole different match. Because those two games were so close, the fan support was almost like having another player on the court.”

A pregame injury weighed heavily on the team’s mind, as Carly Cotton ’13 suffered a con-cussion before the game. Cotton will be out for a couple of weeks, Short said.

“Sometimes, psychologically, just having a change like that or being worried about a teammate can make you lose a little energy, so because of that I think we came out a little bit flat,” Short said.

In the second game of the

weekend, Bruno traveled to New Haven where they took Yale to a fifth set in a 3-2 loss (25-19, 20-25, 25-19, 25-27, 15-8). One major dif-ference between the two games was Bruno’s level of defense on Saturday. The players succeeded in making digs that they missed on Friday and put together a better team performance.

“Defensively, we just played a lot better and we were tracking the ball,” Short said. “We were kind of sitting back on Friday night.”

Bruno also learned from its loss

the night before and made adapta-tions that allowed the team to be more successful.

“Yale has a lot of tendencies with where they hit on the court, what their blockers do and where their setters are going to set,” said Jessica Gandy ’12. On Friday, “we just kind of went out there and played, but on Saturday, we paid more attention to detail.”

After coming off a tough loss, the team felt the need to prove it-self on the court.

“On Saturday, we had that fire, sort of like redemption,” said Bai-ley Wendzel ’13. “We had that hunger and fire, so I think that really helped us close out a lot of games that we couldn’t close out on Friday.”

The team also had a more per-sonal motivation during Saturday’s match.

“We just hate Yale, so we wanted to beat them in their own gym because their fans are pretty rowdy,” Gandy said.

Despite the losses, Short said she believes the team learned a valuable lesson last weekend that the players will take with them as they travel to Princeton on Friday and Penn on Saturday.

“It was a heartbreaking loss, but we also got confidence out of it because we could see how we could play,” she said.

Gandy said she has little doubt about how the team will perform in its upcoming matches.

“Total domination,” she said. “We’re going to Princeton and Penn, and we’re not coming back with anything less than two W’s.”

The loss of moss: Patriots trade wide receiver to VikingsWednesday morning, after my eyes fluttered open, I immediately knew that something was wrong. A

sense of dread had wrapped itself around me and was trying to force itself down my throat. I kicked my blankets off and did a quick lap around the house. The cof-fee pot hadn’t combusted in

the night. I ran back upstairs to make sure that an airplane engine hadn’t crashed through my room a la “Don-nie Darko.” That wasn’t it, either.

Hmmm, what was this feeling? I shrugged it off, booted up my com-puter and opened Firefox. When my ESPNBoston.com homepage loaded itself into view, my coffee cup slipped out of my hand and fell to the ground with a crash. There it was — the headline lit up the shady green background of the website as though it had been dunked in kero-sene and set ablaze.

“Out Route: Patriots agree to trade Randy Moss to Vikings for

3rd round draft pick.” No. No. NO! This had to be a joke.

I knew there were rumors circulating about a possible trade to the Vikings, but I thought that the deal was for Sidney Rice or Toby Gerhart. You know, something that at least made a little bit of sense. This couldn’t be happening. One of my friends, a fel-low fan, texted me, “I feel like I just got dumped. I just wanna lie in bed all day and eat Ben & Jerry’s.”

This may seem like a total overre-action to most. Sure, it’s a bad trade, but the guy was probably unhappy and they just kept it under wraps. Now he’s out and the team can re-focus, right?

Here is where I give you a glimpse of the festering underbelly of the Patriots that has been under-mining and ruining them for the past half-decade.

It begins (and ends) with Head Coach Bill Belichick and owner Bob Kraft.

After the Patriots established themselves as a dynasty in the early 2000s, anyone in New England would have followed Belichick into the heart of Mordor. The Patriots were the Fellowship of the (Super Bowl) Rings and a return to Mount Doom

seemed to be in our future. What no one realized was that Belichick had succumbed to the power of the ring.

He decided to see just how far he could push his luck and began to get rid of important pieces of the Patriots fellowship. The miserly Bob Kraft was delighted with this, only too happy to phase out talented but expensive players with the cover of “We still have Belichick” to keep fans loyal while pushing costs down. For five years, the Patriots Fellowship of the Ring has marched across Middle-earth. We lose valuable members every time we undertake this jour-ney, and each time we get there, it turns out Belichick left the ring in his trunk back in Hobbiton.

Randy’s value to the Patriots is not only in his abilities to go deep and make plays, but also in the way he makes opposing defenses account for him. When Moss receives double coverage, he frees up a man some-where, giving Tom Brady an open receiver. He makes the offense bet-ter just by being on the field. I don’t blame Randy Moss one bit for want-ing a little respect or credit for his importance to the team.

But Bob Kraft is such a cheap, awful owner that he actually tried to

get in a contract standoff with Tom Brady, the heart and soul of the Pa-triots. There was no way he was go-ing to pay Moss the money that he deserved, especially with Belichick whispering in his ear that the Patri-ots can win with anyone. Now, with Kraft and Belichick splitting general manager duties, the unhappy Randy was labeled as a greedy locker room distraction and was suddenly dealt to the Vikings.

The trade talks must have been the quickest ever.

Belichick: We need to get rid of Randy Moss. He wants money we are too cheap to provide. He really wants out.

Vikings GM Rick Spielman: Ummm, you don’t even want to pre-tend that this is for a different reason and try to get Toby Gerhart for him?

Belichick: No, we’ll take a fifth-round pick for him. That or one of Adrian Peterson’s used athletic cups.

Spielman: You must be joking.Belichick: I don’t joke. I only

laugh when I’m devouring souls.Spielman: How about I give you a

third-round pick so I don’t feel guilty about how badly I ripped you off?

Belichick: Fine. But we also want Peterson’s cup.

Unless Moss was running a hu-man trafficking operation out of the locker room, whatever “distractions” he was causing weren’t big enough to merit this. More likely, Belichick was looking for whatever reason he could to ship him, whether it was using Wes Welker’s hand sanitizer without asking, towel-whipping a na-ked Vince Wilfork or telling Brady to get a haircut. Whatever it was, Randy Moss is gone, along with my sunshiny feelings on how this team is run, and I want to cry for where my franchise is heading.

In a lot of ways, Randy Moss was like Gandalf. He guided us in our time of need. He was with us through great tragedy. He was a rock for us when no one else was capable of it. Now, it’s like he has slain the Balrog for us, but we tell him to go back to Rivendell because we think we can handle Saruman and Sauron’s army all by ourselves. I have bad news for this fellowship, though. The Ringwraiths are coming. And we just banished our wizard to Minnesota.

Sam Sheehan ’12 really thinks Tom Brady needs a haircut. Talk sports with him by e-mailing sam_sheehan@brown.edu.

Jesse Morgan / HeraldAlexandra Rieckhoff ’14 goes for a set. Volleyball suffered two losses to yale over the weekend.

m. waTeR POlO vOlleyBall

sam sheehanBadly dressed Irish sports fan

editorial & LettersPAGE 6 | FRIDAy, OcTOBER 8, 2010

The Brown Daily Herald

E R I K S T A Y T O N A N D E VA N D O N A H U E

C O R R E C T I O N S P O L I C YThe Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Correc-tions may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.

C O M M E N T A R Y P O L I C YThe editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial page board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reflect the opinions of their authors only.

L E T T E R S T O T H E E D I T O R P O L I C YSend letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters for length and clarity and cannot assure the publication of any letter. Please limit letters to 250 words. Under special circumstances writers may request anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed.

A D V E R T I S I N G P O L I C YThe Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.

diamonds and coal

A very Brown diamond to “Leaves of Grass” producer, writer and director Tim Blake Nelson ’86 — 25 years out and he’s still fixated on the grass.

Coal to the large glass structure on the Main Green this week. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw parties.

Coal to the kids found sleeping in the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center. You know that bed bugs follow you, even if you sleep on the floor, right?

A diamond to the Corporation members for their overdue revelation that Grad Center could use “more natural light.” Forty years of cinderblock not doing it for you anymore?

Coal to Brown-Secure and those at the help desk who ask us to determine if other people in the area were able to connect. No, nobody has been able to connect in years. It is so dire that we cannot even send this coal by e-mail.

Diamond to Danah Boyd ’00 for recognizing that there is an “entire server dedicated to the Bieber problem.” Is that where Brown-Secure’s resources have been diverted?

Coal to the deadlocked faculty, and to the withdrawal of the tenure motion, which President Ruth Simmons found “most unexpected.” According to the meeting notes, that is indeed what she said.

Coal to Rhode Island Hall for only going after the silver. With that attitude, we’re never going to rise in the U.S. News rankings.

Diamond to the flu vaccine — usually we have to do our shots before we get to Jo’s. But the real question is, does this protect us from all that we might pick up at Fish Co.?

Diamond to Brown for hiring Wyclef Jean as a visit-ing fellow. We can’t quite discern what that means, so we may as well applaud you now for the sneaky, early nabbing of a headline Spring Weekend act. Coal to the Rhode Island Republicans, who “can’t hit a six-run home run,” according to former Red Sox player Mike Stenhouse. We’re not a sports expert like you, but last we checked … nobody can.

“Diamonds and Coal” is written by Herald staff. Submit your own at diamondsandcoal.com.

senior staff writers Ana Alvarez, Ashley Aydin, Rebecca Ballhaus, Alexander Bell, Nicole Boucher, Fei cai, Kristina Fazzalaro, Sarah Mancone, claire Peracchio, Lindor Qunaj, Mark Raymond, Luisa Robledo, caitlin Trujillo, Alexandra Ulmerstaff writers Anna Andreeva, Anne Artley, Anita Badejo, casey Bleho, Amy chen, Alicia Dang, Sarah Forman, Miriam Furst, Max Godnick, Thomas Jarus, Julia Kim, Kristina Klara, Leonardo Moauro, Emily Rosen, Bradley Silverman, Anne Simons, Qian yinsenior sales executives Katie Galvin, Liana Nisimova, Isha Gulati, Samantha Wongsales associates Roshni Assomull, Brady caspar, Anna cook, Siena deLisser, Begum Ersan, Tommy Fink, Ryan Fleming, Evan Gill, Debbie Lai, Jason Lee, Katie Lynch, Sean Maroongroge, Zahra Merchant, Edjola Ruci, Webber Xusenior finance associates Jason Beckman, Lauren Bosso, Mae cadao, Margot Grinberg, Adam Fernfinance associates Lisa Berlin, Mahima chawla, Mark Hu, Jason Lee, Nicholas Robbins, Daniel Slutsky, Emily ZhengDesign staff Rebecca Ballhaus, caleigh Forbesweb staff Warren Jin, claire Kwong, Adam ZethraeusPhoto staff Qidong chen, Janine cheng, Alex DePaoli, Frederic Lu, Quinn SavitCopy editors Nicole Boucher, Zoe chaves, Greg conyers, claire Gianotti, Aida Haile-Mariam, Victoria Hartman, Tiffany Hsu, christine Joyce, Mrinal Kapoor, Abby Kerson, Juhee Kwon, Matthew Lim, Alexandra McFarlane, Joe Milner, Rajan Mittal, Lindor Qunaj, Kate-Lyn Scott, carmen Shulman, Rebecca Specking, Dan Towne, carolina Veltrieditorial Page Board members Anita Mathews, Tyler Rosenbaum, Melissa Shube, Gaurie Tilak

the brown daily herald

anne speyersuzannah weisssara luxenbergBrian mastroianniBrigitta greeneBen schreckingersydney emberzack BahrTony Bakshiashley mcDonnell

stephen lichensteinalex yulystephanie londonmax monn hilary RosenthalJonathan BatemanJesse morgan

Graphics EditorGraphics Editor

Photo EditorPhoto EditorPhoto Editor

Sports Photo EditorAsst. Sports Photo Editor

Graphics & photos

BUSINESS

Kelly mallahanJoe milnerDan TowneJulien Ouelletgili Kligerleor shtull-leberKatie wilsonNeal Poole

production

copy Desk chiefAsst. copy Desk chiefAsst. copy Desk chief

Design EditorAsst. Design EditorAsst. Design EditorAsst. Design Editor

Web Editor

EDITORIAL

Arts & culture EditorArts & culture Editor

Features EditorFeatures Editor

Metro EditorMetro EditorNews Editor

Sports EditorSports Editor

Asst. Sports Editor

editor-in-chief

george miller

senior editors

Ben hymanseth motel

deputy manaGinG editors

emmy lissJoanna wohlmuth

manaGinG editor

Chaz Kelsh

OPINIONS michael fitzpatrickalyssa Ratledgematt aks

Opinions EditorOpinions Editor

Editorial Page Editor

BLOG DAILy HERALDmatt Klimermananne simonsDavid winer

Managing EditorManaging EditorManaging Editor

General manaGers

Claire KielyKatie Koh

office manaGer

shawn Reilly

directors

Kelly wessmatthew Burrowsmargaret watsonChristiana stephenson

manaGers

isha gulatiarjun vaidyaRajiv iyengaraditi BhatiaJared DavisTrenten Nelson-Riversmaximilian BarrowsJilyn ChaoDanielle marshakalexander CarrereKathy Bui

SalesFinance

client RelationsAlumni Relations

Local SalesLocal Sales

National SalesUniversity SalesUniversity SalesRecruiter Sales

Business OperationsBusiness Analytics

credit and collectionsSpecial Projects

Staff

POST- MAGAZINEsam CarterKate Doylemarshall Katheder

Editor-in-chiefEditor-in-chiefEditor-in-chief

gili Kliger, Julia shube, Designers

mrinal Kapoor, winnie wang, Olivia Conetta, alexandra Nuttbrown, max ernst, amy Rasmussen, copy Editors

ashley aydin, Nicole Boucher, Claire Peracchio, anne speyer, Night Editor

letters, please!letters@browndailyherald.com

The new Brown.edu home page, up for just a few weeks, greets us with a new layout and features. While it is hard for anyone to miss the huge video frame on the new page, it is now nearly impossible for a new user to lo-cate any popular resources right away.

Since the launch of the new Web portal, new users might find, after a few minutes of fumbling, that it now requires more clicks to get to where they are going. Compared to earlier, when students could jump from the home page to Brown’s Gmail account sign-in, now they must locate a nearly-unnotice-able “Current Students” tab at the very top of the page, click into it and eventually arrive at the link.

If you wonder why the former one-click convenience disappeared altogether, just look at the new layout. The new page has a multimedia theme frame that occupies most of the window. The rest of the page was given to “best-selling content” like athletics, news and events, plus hot, must-have links like YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Flickr. At the same time, “Providence, RI 02912” is the only indication of where on earth the Univer-sity is located. The page is all about image.

For a better example of this “Sell, sell, sell” layout, go to Harvard.edu and see if you find their layout familiar. On Harvard’s website, even something equivalent to “Cur-

rent Students” has disappeared. Besides the huge media image and sections like “Har-vard and the World,” what remains is a link to give money, a link to Harvard’s trademark notice, a link to report copyright infringe-ments and how to “Find Harvard on Face-book, Twitter, YouTube and iTunes.”

I was impressed at the versatility of Har-vard’s layout. It seems to work not only like a national university’s home page, but also like a billboard in a shopping mall parking lot.

So is there no merit behind Brown’s new Web design that gets into students’ way and

looks like a TV commercial? One concept might be that the school wants to put on only those contents that are “fetch.” Since there is limited browser space, instead of stuffing it with a little bit of everything, why not just give whatever space to those that are the catchiest?

But what is catchy? A recent Brown.edu theme video featured an introduction on aus-terity by Mark Blyth, a professor of political science. Geoffrey Kirkman ’91, deputy direc-tor of Watson Institute of International Stud-ies, said this video, as part of a media series,

would disseminate the findings of the insti-tute’s faculty in ways that “can be well under-stood by people outside academic life.”

From his words, we assume that the vid-eo must be quite a draw for those outside the Brown community and academia in general. But because of that draw, those common links for Brown students were packed up all together into one tiny tab.

I’ll always remember the moment when I first clicked on Brown’s home page — the old version. My eyes widened at the elegant layout that assembled most of the useful re-

sources and none of the “Hey babe, my name is Brown University and this is how cool I am” advertisement. The sections, such as “Administration,” “Admission,” “Campus Life,” etc., collapsed into a brown-colored column. When clicked upon, each section would expand with images and introduction, like a library book being extracted from the shelf. The window was used to its maxi-mum capacity, assembling most of the popu-lar links and tools including Gmail, Search Brown and People Directory.

But I imagine that if I now had to relive

my application process, a quick first glance at our new page might have given me a dif-ferent impression. If Brown would devote even its home page to marketing itself as flashy, I might have doubted if the school was as student-centered as it was known for.

It is true that with the new version, stu-dents can still find most of the useful re-sources once they click into the tab: Gmail, academic resources, computing, course se-lection, dining, student organizations and events, etc. But first-time users might find it difficult to navigate to what they are look-ing for if they can’t find that tab quickly and easily.  

Maybe the Web designers can find a bet-ter example to justify what they did to our home page. Look at Apple.com! Besides the small tabs, there is just one big image of the new iPod Touch with its cool new fea-tures. After all, Apple invented this hot item and this is all that matters. Now that they all know how awesome Apple is, customers will just fall into buying the MacBook, the iPhone and everything else.

But Brown is not Apple.com. Our page ends with .edu, and as an educational institu-tion, we should aim at making the site more user-friendly for the people in our commu-nity. Fortunately, we are not as much of a billboard as Harvard, but we can hope that its future functionality will be geared more toward students’ needs.

Sissi Sun ’12 is a theater and mathemati-cal economics concentrator from Chi-cago. She can be reached at siqi_sun@

brown.edu.

FRIDAy, OcTOBER 8, 2010 | PAGE 7

opinionsThe Brown Daily Herald

If I was president…

Brown University’s recent appointment of recording artist and activist Wyclef Jean to a visiting fellowship in the Department of Afri-cana Studies was severely ill-guided. It rep-resents an aspect of this University’s char-acter that I ardently believe we should push against: the tendency to be a stature escala-tor for political and cultural figures.

While I will not address these other in-stances in this column, allow me to make my case for why Wyclef Jean should have never been appointed to this position and why he should be ousted now.

My first concern is the strain his fellow-ship creates. The brunt of this financial com-mitment is resting on the shoulders of the Department of Africana Studies, an already under-funded branch of this school, which has defied expectations in recent years and gained a position of prominence in the world of elite academia. Could not the Uni-versity forgo this spectacle of celebrity and instead offer more research funding to Afri-cana professors? I know that the Alumni of Color Initiative would benefit seriously from increased support.

Keep in mind as well that Jean will not be lecturing or instructing solely (if at all). He is here to observe, to learn and to reflect. In his own words, his year at Brown will be “a gift to prepare for leadership more thoroughly.” Does this not ring of euphemism for profes-sional advancement? Is Brown really just a political stepping-stone? Is that the shallow

role this University would like to serve? There is a distinction to make here. This

institution provides space and funding to certain political heads in which the ultimate goal may be just reputation enhancement, but the key difference in the case of visiting political fellows, such as those housed at the Watson Institute for International Studies, is that they have already been in positions of political prominence. They are the former heads of state, chairs of international law-making bodies, formulators of international economic order. In other words, they have

actual knowledge and experience to share with undergraduates and faculty. Academics can teach the theoretical underpinnings for world issues; former political leaders provide vivid insights into policy-making and diplo-macy.

Jean failed in his bid for leadership. Why is it Brown’s responsibility to revamp his hu-manitarian image? Why give him a political leapfrog to the Haitian presidency?

Keep in mind also the fact the Jean’s past financial dealings have been of a very dubi-ous nature. Wyclef’s foundation was able to raise over one million dollars for Haiti relief. Indeed, that is laudable and admirable. But this foundation, as the investigative web-

site the Smoking Gun revealed, contributed “$410,000 for rent, production services, and Jean’s appearance at a benefit concert,” and only after repeated failures to file tax returns on time.

It was also uncovered that the foundation paid $31,200 to Jean’s Manhattan recording studio in 2007. Just a year before, the group had given nearly $100,000 to the same stu-dio for the “musical performance services of Wyclef Jean at a benefit concert,” not to mention the $300,000 shelled out to consult-ing companies between 2005-2007. Explana-

tion for these various expenses has not been spelled out clearly, though Jean has tried weakly and vaguely to respond to these alle-gations several times.

If another Brown fellow, say Romano Prodi, had engaged in such shady financial dealings, I would be equally incredulous and critical. It is my deep belief that those in dis-tinguished positions at this University should be held to the same standards morally and academically. Unfortunately, Jean seems to have some questionable moral conduct in the past, and his academic credentials are nil.

Perhaps the question boils down to this: What is the proper role of the University? I would think the answer is rather obvious —

to enhance the academic environment for its students, faculty and fellows. What contribu-tion does Jean’s appointment make? It seems to me that it is strictly a public relations one.

If fame is the only prerequisite for receiv-ing a visiting fellowship at Brown, then why not recruit names like Bono or Angelina Jo-lie? They too have zero academic credentials but a record of humanitarian publicity. It is demoralizing to think that the Department of Africana Studies went from a successful re-cruitment of Chinua Achebe, author of the most widely read novel in modern African literature, to the selection of such a vacuous and uninspiring persona.

This is not, of course, to disparage him as a musician. Nor is this a rebuke of the cultur-al and political messages his music has trans-mitted. Rather, it is a fervent plea to the ad-ministration to avoid hypocrisy and embrace fairness. Hold everyone to the same stan-dard. Is that really so radical a notion?

To gain some perspective on this issue, I approached some faculty in the Depart-ment of Africana Studies. They, I thought, will show me what I had been missing. As it turned out, no one was willing to speak on the subject. I hope the reader understands like I do what such passivity indicates.

I do not desire for the administration of this school to be passive on this issue any longer. Fine, perhaps we are stuck with Jean for now. But, I implore you, eschew such emptiness in the future. The long-term repu-tation of this University, and its attending stu-dents, depends on it.

Anthony Badami ’11 is a political theory concentrator from Kansas City, Mo. He can be reached at anthony_badami@

brown.edu.

Brown.com?

Brown is not Apple.com. Our page ends with .edu, and as an educational institution, we should aim at making the site more user-friendly for the

people in our community.

Jean seems to have some questionable moral conduct in the past, and his academic credentials

are nil.

ANTHONy BADAMIopinions columnist

SISSI SUNopinions columnist

fRiDay, OCTOBeR 8, 2010 PAGE 8

Today 35

UPS deliveries leave Grad center

Bulldogs best Bears in volleyball opener

The Brown Daily Herald

70 / 50

Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra & Brendan Hainline

fruitopia| Andy Kim

The adventures of Team vag |Wendy Kwartin

5 31calendar

menu

crossword

the news in imaGes

comics

65 / 42

today tomorrow

11 a.m.

“Be Safe Brown!” campus Safety

Resource Fair, Wriston Quad

6 P.m

“Sci-Fi from R.I.” Reading, Brown

Bookstore

9 a.m.

Women in Business: Wall Street

Training II, Macmillan 115

all Day

“Not All Rubber Ducks Look Alike,”

Sarah Doyle Gallery

shaRPe RefeCTORy veRNey-wOOlley DiNiNg hall

luNCh

DiNNeR

Manicotti Piedmontese, Sustainable

Salmon Provencale, Pound cake

with Strawberries

Seafood Jambalaya, Grilled chicken,

Spinach Pie casserole, Pound cake

with Strawberries

Zucchini Frittata, Hot Pastrami

Sandwich, curried Tofu and coconut

Ginger Rice

chicken Fingers with Dipping

Sauces, Baked Vegan Nuggets,

Raspberry Swirl cookies

TODay sePTemBeR 21 TOmORROw sePTemBeR 22Bat & gaz | Sofia Ortiz

Cabernet voltaire| Abe Pressman