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deDaily Heraldthe Brown

vol. cxliv, no. 50 | Monday, April 13, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891

The new Curriculum: ready for new times?BY GeorGe MILLer

Metro editor

It’s not so new anymore.By the time the New Curriculum

turns 40 later this spring, it will have gone through several revisions. But challenges presented by the chang-ing and growing University still need to be addressed.

It began in 1966 with a group of students unhappy with traditional methods of education. The New Cur-riculum overtook Brown’s campus at the end of the decade, eventually reshaping much of the University’s existing structure. Distribution requirements, grades, boundaries between disciplines and the role of students in education all under-went fundamental change — or were scrapped entirely.

Decades after it was adopted, the New Curriculum remains the organizing philosophy of the Brown education. Its longevity and popular-ity serve as a testament to its time-lessness. But how it will evolve in the future depends on a rapidly chang-ing world and educational climate.

Since 1969, the New Curriculum has been reviewed and re-reviewed, both as a whole — most recently by the Task Force for Undergraduate Education — and in pieces. Those reviews have repeatedly affirmed the goals and principles of the New Curriculum but have sought to but-

Brown-rISD dual degree accepts just 3.5 percentBY BrIan MastroIannI

Senior Staff Writer

Brown may have set a record for admissions stinginess this year — just 10.8 percent of undergraduate applicants got in — but a spot in the College was not College Hill’s most difficult ticket to punch.

That distinction goes to the fledgling Brown-RISD Dual-Degree program, which invited just 19 of 550 applicants to join its second class ever — a miniscule 3.5 per-cent acceptance rate — according to Panetha Ott, Brown’s admissions

liaison to the program.“It’s tougher than anything else,”

she said. “It’s an extremely competi-tive program.”

Dual-Degree students spend five years studying at both Brown and RISD, ultimately graduating with a degree from both schools. Students in the program live their first year at RISD and their second year at Brown, then have the option of liv-ing at either school or off-campus. The 13 members of the program’s first class arrived on College Hill in September.

This year’s goal is to have 13 or

14 students matriculate into the pro-gram, Ott said, and over the coming years officials hope that number will ultimately rise to their goal of 20, but no further.

“Right now, we want the first few classes to be slightly smaller, but eventually the program will grow,” she added. “It’s still in its early stages.”

Despite the difficulty of gaining acceptance to the program, rejection can come with a consolation prize — students are considered for ad-mission to both Brown and RISD in-dependently, meaning Dual-Degree

rejectees may still gain admission to either school, or even both.

To be admitted to the program, students apply separately to each institution and complete an extra application essay explaining how the program will fit in with their future goals. Students who are accepted to both schools are evaluated by an advisory committee consisting of two faculty members from each school, Ott and RISD Director of Admissions Edward Newhall.

“Primarily Brown looks at aca-

BY sYdneY eMBer

Senior Staff Writer

Looking to grab a share of the federal economic stimulus bill, Brown has submitted funding requests totaling $215 million to the state’s Office of Economic Recovery and Reinvest-ment for five proposed construction projects.

The proposals, which according to Brown would create a total of 460 jobs, include a number of plans on the University’s wish list. Among the proposed projects are the construc-tion of a new medical education build-ing, replacement of research facilities and conservation projects that would reduce the University’s carbon emis-sions and energy consumption.

Upgrades to Information Technol-ogy infrastructure and a new data center were also proposed as possible uses for the incoming federal dollars, according to a listing on the Rhode Island office’s Web site. The site lists all proposed projects under review for public evaluation.

But Clyde Briant, the University’s vice president for research, said the funds Brown thought might be made available for those specific projects have been allocated elsewhere.

“We don’t expect to receive any-thing,” he said.

The state has solicited proposals from cities, public housing projects, state agencies and public and private universities in anticipation of available federal funding. But the types of proj-ects that will be supported through the federal stimulus package are still uncertain.

“We were asked by the state to submit something, and we did,” Briant said. “The specific projects might look like they were applicable to Brown, but they are also important for the community.”

Brown submitted the preliminary requests for projects that the Uni-versity wanted to see move forward, Briant said, but added that it was his understanding that the funds were probably no longer available.

Much of the uncertainty sur-rounding the allocation of funding stems from the ambiguity of the federal bill, said Amy Kempe, press secretary for Governor Donald Car-cieri ’65. “We know that there is a recovery stimulus bill coming,” she said. “We have no idea what it’s going to look like.”

So far, the state has received over

Students compose GISP for a second session of songwritingBY LuIsa roBLedo

Staf f Writer

As Ethan Reed ’12 recorded the final words of his song, “Some-where A Light Went Out For Somebody,” he looked up and saw Associate Professor of Mu-sic Butch Rovan fidget-ing with the buttons of the mixing console, he recalled.

“I’d never had an experience like that,” Reed said. “I felt like a professional, recording in Hol-lywood, making millions of dol-lars.”

Along with 24 other students, Reed took the newly developed course MUSC 0450: “On Songs and Songwriting,” which Rovan and his wife, Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron, co-taught last semester. The course was

such a hit that its students collab-orated with Rovan and Bergeron to develop a Group Independent Study Project, “Advanced Song-writing,” for next fall.

For their final project in last semester’s course, the class recorded a two-disc set, “Song

Sessions Vol. 1,”now on sale at Blue State Coffee.

Ida Specker ’09, another stu-dent who took the course, called the CD set “a documented piece of artwork” that she can share with her friends and family. She can even use it to promote herself as an artist, she said.

“It’s rare to end a class with such a tangible product,” Specker said.

The class “weaved together Eunice Hong / Herald

An album produced by students in a music GISP (above) is on sale at Blue State Coffee on Thayer Street.

Herald File PhotoIra Magaziner ’69 P’06 P’07 P10 (pictured) and Eliot Maxwell ’68introduced the New Curriculum to the community in 1969.

The New Curriculum at Forty:Part one of four in a series

continued on page 4

continued on page 2continued on page 2

U. projects not likelyto get r.I. stimulus cash

continued on page 6

Feature

sudoku

Stephen DeLucia, PresidentMichael Bechek, Vice President

Jonathan Spector, TreasurerAlexander Hughes, 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 members 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 2009 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

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

MONDAy, APRIl 13, 2009THE BROWN DAIly HERAlDPAGE 2

CamPUS newS “We formed a kind of family.”— Associate Professor of Music Butch Rovan, on a GISP he taught

relay for Life raises $59k for cancerBY cHeLsea xu

Contributing Writer

Under the shadow of a towering stage set up in the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center, a crowd of students gathered on the gym floor, setting up tents and chatting over food and drink.

Nearly 500 participants gathered last Friday night for the annual Re-lay for Life, an event that raises awareness of cancer and money for the American Cancer Society.

The event raised $59,284, accord-ing to Margaret Watson ’11, one of the Relay’s three chief organizers and a Herald senior business associ-ate. The total is a slight drop from last year’s results, which Watson said may have been because the event coincided with Easter and Passover.

The event began on 6 p.m. Fri-day night and ended Saturday morn-ing, 12 hours later. This was the first time Relay for Life was held inside the OMAC instead of on the Main Green.

Watson said the move was an attempt to increase the number of people who remained at the event for its entirety. In the past, quiet hours prohibited playing music past 2 a.m. on the Main Green. But since this year’s event was held in the OMAC, students could play music all night.

About 55 people stayed until the

event’s 6 a.m. conclusion, as op-posed to the 30 people who stayed last year, Watson said. The dry and well-lit OMAC protected partici-pants from the foul weather outside. Students set up blankets and tents and brought snacks and beverages for the long night. “We even had a dance party at 2:30 a.m.,” Watson added, to keep walkers spirited.

The relay began with an open-ing ceremony, in which the Brown marching band led a procession that included cancer survivors and Relay for Life committee members.

Before the event, participants formed teams, and at least one mem-ber from each team was required to remain walking for the entirety. A relay committee member, Emily Lau ’09, said that the continuous walking manifests the oath, “We won’t stop fighting until we find a cure.”

Many teams began fundrais-ing months before the relay. Jason Wade ’11, a member of Team MP3, said that each team member had a listing for donations on the Relay for Life Web site. Wade said a Face-book application also helped draw donations by directing students and family members to the Relay for Life Web site.

Teams also held on-site fund-raisers, selling backed goods and bracelets to participants.

The top individual fundraiser, Elizabeth Rothman ’11, raised $4,830, according to Relay for Life’s

Web site. Rothman could not be reached for comment. Her team, the ADOCH committee, was the top team fundraiser of the night, raising a total of $7,445. The funds raised will go toward cancer research, pa-tient services and cancer education, according to the Web site.

During the event, student dance and a cappella groups performed, including the Brown Belly Dance team and the Divine Rhythm step team.

A poignant part of the event was the luminaria ceremony. Paper lu-minarias — bags illuminated by colored glow sticks — were sold during the event and were deco-rated and dedicated to those who have fought cancer. In previous years, students placed lit candles into the luminarias and arranged them on the Main Green, but the potential fire hazard of lit flames indoors necessitated the switch to glow sticks. During the luminaria ceremony, the names of those hon-ored were read aloud.

Watson said the event was “very close to my heart” because her grandparent died of cancer during her senior year of high school. Kelly Winter ’12, captain of Team Citrus, said that the event also held special meaning because a friend’s parent had died from cancer.

“Cancer is something that we can work together to beat,” Winter said.

1,500 project proposals, Kempe said, adding that the $215 million requested for Brown construction projects adds up to one fifth of the total funds the state is expecting to receive from the stimulus bill.

The state solicited project re-quests without placing restrictions on the types of proposals while the state continued to wait for decisions from the federal government, Kem-pe said.

Rhode Island is already receiv-ing money from existing funding streams, she added, including in-creased food stamp benefits and transportation subsidies. But she said the federal government is just starting to release information about the types of projects it will fund through state agencies.

“A lot of this information is still forthcoming,” Kempe said. “The state needs to receive rules and regulations from the federal gov-ernment” before they can make their own decisions about allocating funds for these projects.

As decisions become available, Kempe said, the state will post infor-mation on recovery Web sites, add-

ing that the uncertainty resulting from the recent passage of the bill makes it imperative for universities to continually check the status of grant availability.

“Universities must be diligent in monitoring recovery Web sites,” she said.

Because funding availability is unclear, Kempe said, Brown may need to re-apply for certain grants due to the requirements of the stim-ulus bill, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The stimulus package will designate grants to state agencies to distribute at their own discretion.

“It’s not as simple as just sub-mitting an application,” she said. “It’s up to private universities to determine which grant application they may be eligible for.”

The state’s economic recovery office is currently putting together teams that will be able to evaluate the submitted requests once the state receives federal guidance, Kempe said. But she said there has been “zero evaluation” so far.

“There’s a very limited number of grants that will be available,” Kempe said. “It’s a matter of pa-tience and diligence.”

continued from page 1

U.’s $215 million wish-list not likely to be funded

two approaches,” Rovan said. Bergeron led the portion of the class that took a critical approach to analyzing music, while her hus-band, who has composed music for over 10 years, led the songwriting component.

“We had two different points of views merging in the same subject matter,” Rovan said, adding that working as a team made the class even more fun to teach.

“The chemistry between them was perfect,” Reed said.

Both Rovan and Bergeron com-mented on the collaborative dy-namic between the students and the professors.

“We formed a kind of family,” Rovan said. “The class bonded, and we just had this brilliant collective energy.”

After the course’s conclusion, a GISP seemed like “the continu-ation of the collaborative experi-ence of the class,” Bergeron said. She and Rovan wanted their next course to allow students to drive the class — and to be driven by it.

“It’s neat to feel that the ex-perience of teaching is shared,” she said. “We have spent the past month or so developing the syl-labus together.”

The GISP is composed of Bergeron, Rovan and about 10 of

their former students. Its coursework includes a de-

tailed analysis of a song that stu-dents will later use as a model to write their own piece. The group submitted their application to a subcommittee of the College Cur-riculum Council to be reviewed last Friday.

One goal of the GISP is for each student to write 10 songs over the course of the semester, Rovan wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. The students will also hold two concerts open to the public, he wrote.

Rosalind Schonwald ’12, a Her-ald Arts and Culture staff writer who spearheaded the process of developing the GISP proposal, said she thinks a GISP will provide a more ef fective structure for the class.

It is simpler to organize, and it can be smaller, Schonwald said. “If it’s smaller, then we can spend more time in each person’s mu-sic.”

The GISP will meet twice a week to discuss readings and workshop each other’s songs, Bergeron said. Students will also use a blog to comment on each other’s songs and to write about the process of songwriting.

“People just want to write songs that can change you,” Bergeron said. “We want to connect to that tradition of songwriting.”

GISP makes stars out of Bergeron’s music students

Higher scores for accepted students

news in brief

The pool of admitted ap-plicants for the class of 2013 boasts higher grade point av-erages and SAT scores than previous classes, accord-ing to Dean of Admissions James Miller ’73.

Of the 2,708 admitted students, 96 percent gradu-ated in the top tenth of their high school class, Miller wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. Only 93 percent of the students entering in fall 2008 were in the top tenth of their class, and 92 per-cent were for the class enter-ing in 2007.

Median SAT scores also rose this year. The 25-75 percentile range for those admitted into the class of 2013 was 670-770 for the critical reading section, 680-780 for math and 680-770 for writing, according to Mill-er. For the students matricu-lating last fall, these figures were 650-760, 670-780 and 660-770, respectively.

Similar figures for the other members of the Ivy league were unavailable, though the University of Cal-ifornia, Berkeley and the Uni-versity of Virginia reported a slight increases in their aver-age SAT scores this year.

— Ellen Cushing

continued from page 1

CamPUS newSMONDAy, APRIl 13, 2009 THE BROWN DAIly HERAlD PAGE 3

Simultaneous Passover and easter causes for celebrationBY anne sIMons

Senior Staff Writer

As Passover and Easter coincided this weekend, Brown students found many ways to celebrate around campus, including Seders hosted by Hillel and church services at Manning Chapel.

Hillel hosted Seder dinners Wednesday and Thursday night. Nine different Seders — dinners to commemorate the Passover holiday — were hosted at Hillel on Wednesday night, the first night of Passover.

One was led by Rabbi Morde-chai Rackover, the University’s associate Jewish Chaplain, and the others were led by students, Executive Director of Hillel Megan Nesbitt said.

A total of 381 people attended Wednesday’s various Seders, she said. Hillel also supplied twenty “Seder kits” to students who wished to host their own Seders, she added.

Ali Wolfson ’12, who attended the traditional Seder led by Rabbi Rackover, said the night was “very fun.” She also went to Hillel’s

Thursday Seder, which she called “cozy.” While she was “really sad” she could not celebrate the holiday at home, she said the Hillel Seders were a good substitute.

Miriam Klein ’09, who is from Providence, spent Wednesday’s Seder with her family.

Klein said she has always been home for at least one of the two Seders, but for Thursday night, she helped organize an open Seder with a grant from Hillel. While she en-joys spending one night with her family, she said she also wanted to have one with the people she is closest to now — her “surrogate family.”

The first nights of Passover came in the middle of the Chris-tian Holy Week, which started on Palm Sunday and ended yesterday, a week later, on Easter Sunday.

University chaplains conducted Catholic and Ecumenical services at Manning Chapel during Holy Week, spanning from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, Chaplain Janet Cooper Nelson said.

Many “people we don’t see other times,” who do not attend church regularly, come to Easter services,

Cooper Nelson said. People from the community also attend the ser-vices, she said.

Like Klein, some students went home to celebrate the holidays.

Elizabeth Schaja ’11 returned home to Long Island for a Passover Seder. Though Passover is not one of the Jewish High Holy Days, it is “one of the big custom holidays,” she said. It is a “nice family time,” she said, adding that she enjoyed partaking in her family’s traditions for the holiday.

Molly Bledsoe ’12, from Bar-rington, R.I., decided to stay on campus, and sang in the choir at the nearby St. Stephens Episcopal Church during the Holy Week, she said. She was able to sing in the services without missing much class, she said.

Even for nonreligious students, the holidays presented an oppor-tunity to experience different re-ligious traditions, Cooper Nelson said.

Some students, for example, ob-served Lent as a personal — not religious — challenge.

Holly Lauridsen ’11 and Diane Mokoro ’11 challenged each other

to abstain from bread and cereal, foods they both eat often. Though Mokoro grew up Catholic, she said she sees Lent as “another way to start over,” comparing it to New Year’s resolutions.

“I just like seeing if I can not do something,” Lauridsen said.

Except for the week of spring break, they both succeeded in avoiding temptation, they said. But, after Mokoro ate matzo this week, Lauridsen declared victory after searching the Internet to find that matzo is a form of bread.

Hillel is continuing to provide meals for students observing Pass-over through the end of the holiday. Some students choose to eat their meals at Hillel rather than the din-ing halls because the food has been prepared according to Passover’s stricter dietary restrictions. Wolfson and Klein said they appreciated the convenience of eating at Hillel.

The holiday season isn’t over yet though, Cooper Nelson said. While Western Christianity celebrated Eas-ter this weekend, Orthodox Christi-anity operates by a different calendar and will be observing Easter this coming weekend, she said.

Battle of bands awards one last slot for Spring weekendBY JereMY JacoB

Contributing Writer

Doss the Artist and PGA Tour was named the winning act in Saturday night’s battle of the bands, the Brown Concert Agency’s annual student band competition. As the winner of the concert, the band will open for Of Montreal’s Spring Weekend show.

The competition, which took place at the Underground Bar in Faunce House, lasted from 8:30 p.m. to around 12:30 a.m.

Each of the eight bands played for about 15 minutes and performed three to four songs, only one of which was allowed to be a cover of an already-existing song.

The eight bands represented a broad range of musical genres in-cluding ska, acid jazz, funk, metal and alternative rock.

After each band had played for its allotted time, the three judges — Dean of the College and Professor of Music Katherine Bergeron, Mike Delehanty, a booking agent for BCA and Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel, and Scott Poulson-Bryant ’08, an Africana Studies professor and co-founder of Vibe magazine — chose the three best bands to perform an encore performance, said Matt Weisberg ’12, an organizer for the event.

The top three bands — Platy-pus, Doss the Artist and PGA Tour and Spank City — preformed one

or two original songs each before the judges made their final decision on which band would open for the Spring Weekend show.

The winner of the battle, the hip-hop band Doss the Artist and PGA Tour, is a group of eight musi-cians — rapper Gabriel Doss ’10, drummer Harry Lisabeth ’10, bassist Jon Mitchell ’09, tenor saxophon-ist Pete Drinian ’11, guitarist Caleb Townsend ’11, trumpeter Ross Stack-house ’10, trombonist Erik Duhaime ’10 and alto saxophonist Jay Gravel ’11.

There was clear support from the

audience during each band’s perfor-mance, but Doss the Artist and PGA Tour elicited more fervent support and enthusiasm than the others.

During the group’s encore per-formance, nearly everyone in the bar was either dancing or listening intently. Chants of “PGA” began af-ter both their first performance and their encore performance.

Weisberg said the bands audi-tioned in front of him and Dan Wie-ner ’11, another organizer of the event, in order to get into the bat-tle. The judges based their choices “on musicianship, how tightly they

played together, their originality and the reaction of the crowd,” Weisberg said.

As the winner of the battle, Doss the Artist and PGA Tour will open for the second of the two Spring Weekend concerts on Saturday, April 18th at 1:30 p.m. The concert, headlined by Of Montreal, will also include performances by Santigold and Toubab Krewe.

The battle was free to attend, but space was limited in the Under-ground — during the performances there was typically a crowd of 15 to 20 people waiting to enter the bar.

Justin Coleman / HeraldEight student bands competed Saturday night for the right to open for Of Montreal at Spring Weekend.

study abroaddeadlines extended

The Office of Interna-tional Programs has ex-tended the deadline to apply for selected study-abroad programs for the fall semester. The new deadline is April 17, ex-tended from March 2.

Applications for Brown programs in Barbados, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the United Kingdom will be accepted until the new deadline.

“This is a standard pro-cedure for lots of study abroad offices,” said Ken-dall Brostuen, associate dean of the College and director of the Office of International Programs. Deadlines were extended for only the programs that can handle more students and can work around the later deadline.

He added that deadlines can be more flexible for fall study abroad programs be-cause there is more time to prepare students for departure than there is for spring programs. “Sum-mer gives us more time to work with students to get them ready to go (in the fall),” Brostuen said.

According to Brostuen, the extended deadlines give students more time to decide if they want to study abroad and to fin-ish applications, especially since students are busy around this time of year.

“I wish I had known about the later deadline before I applied, because I had to rush to get my ap-plication in,” said Maria Gordon ’11, who will be studying in Bologna, Italy next fall.

“I definitely think ex-tending the deadlines helps people especially since people have been trying to figure out their concentra-tions,” said Jenny Desrosi-er ’11, who is studying in Rome in the Fall.

The Herald recently re-ported that the number of applications for fall study abroad programs remained steady this year, and Brostuen confirmed that the deadline extension had nothing to do with a lack of interest or too few applications.

— Emily Rosen

news in brief

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tress it, especially to improve its advising and update it for the 21st century.

“Fundamentally, there was a structural change that took place in the relation of the students to the University,” said Ira Magaziner ’69 P’06 P’07 P’10, who, along with Elliot Maxwell ’68, led a Group Indepen-dent Study Project — the first of its kind — that developed the backbone of the New Curriculum.

The existing model was “fun-damentally flawed” and was not serving the needs of students, said Magaziner, who was president of the Cammarian Club, a predecessor of today’s Undergraduate Council of Students.

The ability to take any course Satisfactory/No Credit and the elim-ination of D’s, F’s and pluses and mi-nuses were meant to de-emphasize “arbitrary letters and gradations,” Magaziner said.

An “explosion of knowledge” in the late 60s, too, meant that the ap-proach to learning was as important as the facts of the day, Magaziner said, since those facts would quickly become outdated.

Eighty students and 15 profes-sors signed up for Magaziner’s and Maxwell’s project in the spring of 1968. They continued their work over that summer, eventually issuing a 418-page “Draft of a Working Paper for Education at Brown University,” with 20 authors listed.

President Ray Heffner responded by creating a committee of faculty and students to make recommenda-tions on changes to the curriculum. The committee submitted those rec-ommendations in April 1969, after which it was up to the faculty to de-cide what, if anything, to change.

The faculty meetings climaxed

on May 7. Classes were cancelled. The Herald reported at the time that, after a seven-hour discussion, the faculty voted to accept most of the committee’s recommendations.

But the faculty did not accept all of them. The New Curriculum was not adopted as it was initially pro-posed, and what the faculty approved that day was “already a filtered vi-sion,” said Fiona Heckscher ’09, a member of the Task Force on Un-dergraduate Eduction, which issued its final report in September.

But since the adoption of the New Curriculum, a number of structural changes have made their way into Brown academic life, even if none of them have radically altered it.

Courses introduced to show stu-dents the methodology of different fields — called Modes of Thought courses — were never required be-cause of a lack of resources. The number of such courses available and the students enrolled in them dwindled rapidly after the first years of the New Curriculum.

Other measures have been added to the curriculum. In 1988, the fac-ulty upped the number of courses required to graduate from 28 to 30 after finding that students often fin-ished with the bare minimum, rather than using the cushion to explore challenging classes.

Am increasing number of inde-pendent concentrations have be-come regular offerings, reducing the number of students who choose to craft their own major. First-Year Seminars were introduced to in-crease the number of small classes for freshmen. A writing requirement was added in the 80s.

Subsequent reviews of the New Curriculum have offered improve-ments and modifications, Magaziner said, but have maintained its spirit.

President Ruth Simmons agreed.

“Every stage of planning at Brown is returning to the source, in a way,” she said.

Administrators continue to ask, Simmons added, “Have we lived up to the promise? And if not, what can we add?”

‘an achilles’ heel’From the beginning, Maxwell

said, advising was seen as a weak-ness of the New Curriculum. With-out requirements, he said, students need plenty of help in an “unguided jungle of offerings.”

Numerous reviews of the Uni-versity’s advising program have agreed, including two reports which reviewed the curriculum as a whole. A 1990 report authored by Sheila Blumstein, then dean of the College, identified a need for better sophomore advising and a way to incentivize advising by the faculty. Likewise, the final report of the Task Force last year named advising “the most critical dimension of the undergraduate experience,” recommending in particular that improvements be made to advising for sophomore, transfer and inter-national students.

“There was anxiety about it from the outset,” said Professor of Com-parative Literature Edward Ahearn, who has taught at Brown since 1963. Professors’ divergent responsibili-ties in publishing, teaching and ad-vising exacerbate the problem, he said. The Task Force agreed that advising failures could be the result of an increased obligation to teach-ing and research.

Blumstein, a professor of cogni-tive and linguistic sciences, called advising “an Achilles’ heel” of the New Curriculum. She said that, due to recent expansion of the faculty, it is hard for both new and old pro-fessors to keep track of everything they need to know to advise. The Task Force, of which Blumstein was a member, recommended in last year’s report that more informa-tion on course offerings and Brown’s educational philosophy be available for advisers.

Simmons said failures in advising are among her biggest concerns.

“As a president and professor, I worry about students who fall through the cracks,” she said. “How-ever much we love our approach, it’s

not for everybody.”Simmons said she hears from

such students that they need more direction. But she added that the point of the New Curriculum was to create options, not to dictate a course for students.

Still, Simmons said, “We ought not to put them on the trash heap and say, ‘Too bad.’”

“Because we provide this free-dom,” Blumstein said, “there are students who choose not to study broadly,” though she added that this concern doesn’t warrant add-ing restrictions to the curriculum. Concentrators in the humanities, especially, tend to take few science courses, according to statistics. Blumstein’s 1990 report suggested encouraging students to take more science courses.

A student-oriented system de-mands good advising, Magaziner said.

“The decisions are ultimately theirs, but they can be informed decisions,” he said.

new goals, changing goalsAdvising is the greatest concern

for administrators, faculty and stu-dents, but it is not the only one.

Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron, who chaired the Task Force, said she was concerned about whether students take advantage of the full range of opportunities at Brown, though she said records show that students tend to broadly distribute their coursework even without requirements.

According to Magaziner, one of the priorities of the original GISP was to rid the University of a per-ceived focus on pre-professionalism. Simmons echoed this, saying that such an emphasis is especially strong among first-generation col-lege students and intensifies dur-ing harsh economic climates — like today’s.

But in these times, she said, the kind of study championed by the New Curriculum is exactly what is needed.

Other external factors could both add to and detract from the strength of the New Curriculum. Increased pressure on faculty to bring in re-search money must not distract from teaching, Blumstein said.

“That would kill Brown,” she

said. “Right now we have our own niche, and it’s a good one.”

Maxwell said research and teach-ing, in the right circumstances, are “mutually reinforcing.” Research ad-dresses the creation of knowledge, he said, while teaching disseminates that knowledge.

Similarly, Blumstein said, the growth of the faculty “affords lots more opportunities” for both under-graduate and graduate students. At the same time, she said, too much growth could undermine the sense of community.

The Plan for Academic Enrich-ment, Simmons’ wide-ranging blueprint to improve Brown’s aca-demics, called for 100 new faculty positions.

Another of the Plan’s goals, to increase Brown’s profile on the in-ternational stage, “fits ideally” with the New Curriculum, Simmons said. Internationalization could be to the curriculum today what the spirit of the 60s was to its original formula-tion, she said.

If Brown did not look abroad, she added, the curriculum would become outdated. “It can only make it richer, better, more relevant,” Sim-mons said.

The Task Force also suggested promoting informal interactions be-tween students and professors. In-creased student-faculty collaboration on research could also solve some advising problems, Heckscher said.

Both students and faculty need to take extra steps to ensure that a collaborative culture doesn’t “peter out,” Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 said.

But even with many small chang-es, the core of the New Curriculum has remained intact for 40 years.

“The principles, I think, still hold,” Magaziner said. “The idea of taking responsibility for your own education. … The idea of choosing to concentrate in a certain area as well as having the flexibility to dis-cover across a number of areas. The basic idea of a liberal arts education as a good preparation for life.”

The test for changes to the curriculum, Maxwell said, should be whether the change is right or wrong, not whether it fits into the New Curriculum.

“It shouldn’t be enshrined,” he said. “It’s supposed to be alive.”

MONDAy, APRIl 13, 2009THE BROWN DAIly HERAlDPAGE 4

CamPUS newS “Right now we have our own niche, and it’s a good one.”— Professor Sheila Blumstein, former dean of the College

Herald File PhotoThe New Curriculum was born of a 418-page report from Brown’s first-ever student GISP.

continued from page 1

In 40 years, new Curriculum has evolved to fit changing tastes

arts & CultureThe Brown Daily Herald

MONDAy, APRIl 13, 2009 | PAGE 5

Festival draws all kinds of folk to SaylesBY caroLIne sedano

Senior Staff Writer

In spite of the cold and the rain, the first Brown University Folk Festival brought an eclectic mix of musicians, Brown students and Providence locals to Sayles Hall on Saturday. The all-day music festival was organized by a group of folk fans in collaboration with the 2012 Class Board, the Cre-ative Arts Council and the Brown Department of Music.

After shaking out their umbrel-las, visitors to the festival bought samosas and baked goods from local food vendors — regulars at the Wriston Farmers’ Market — and sat in on or joined a jam ses-sion with local musicians. Others took part in the live music contra dance in the main hall or ventured over to Wilson Hall to hear a se-ries of local singer-songwriters and bands.

After attending a Connecticut folk festival organized by a friend, Providence resident Jonathan Cannon ’08, who put together Saturday’s program, realized he could create a similar event at Brown to share his love of folk music.

“I got hooked on contra danc-ing, like, four months ago, and it’s tremendous amounts of fun,” Cannon said. “It’s music that’s incredibly varied, participatory, and (it) builds community better than a lot of music.”

Building a community around folk music was an important part of the day for Cannon and many of the other artists, organizers and attendees.

“Brown students are mostly unaware of the what kind of folk music is around us in Providence, or Rhode Island or even in New England. It’s really great that we’ve made this vibrant culture of music more accessible to Brown’s campus,” said Gail Rosen ’09, a member of the group behind the festival.

Even though there is a thriv-ing and diverse music scene in the area, many of the attendees were thrilled to be a part of the community the festival created on Saturday.

“Providence has a lot of good music, but you really have to look for it,” said Daisy Frabell ’11, who attends contra dances at Brown but has been looking for a way to get more involved in the folk scene. “So I think it’s good to bring them all together in a venue like this so that you can hear things and find things you might not otherwise.”

Cannon is currently taking a year off to teach music at the Wheeler School before enter-ing a Ph.D. program at Boston University because, he said, he wanted “to commit some time to music” before starting graduate school.

After working with friends

still at Brown, Cannon created a group and the Student Activi-ties Office connected him with the 2012 Class Board, which was looking to collaborate on an event that would bring the Brown and Providence communities to-gether, said Imani Tisdale ’12, the board president.

As the day went on, the num-ber of Brown students increased, but the main audience throughout the event seemed to be mostly lo-cal musicians and local families.

Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies and Anthropology Marcy Brink-Danan came with her two young children.

“We all like music, dancing and moving, and this was a per-fect place to come as a family to do that,” she said.

With his banjo on his back, lifetime Little Compton resident Ralph Bodington said he heard of the festival “though the grape-vine” and came hoping to play some old-time American music.

“The folk scene in Rhode Is-land is a little insular,” he said. “I think an event like this will be really great in expanding and di-versifying the entire music scene in Rhode Island.”

This influx of enthusiasts from the community was one of the exciting aspects of the day for some Brown students.

“I like dancing, but there’s only so much frat-party dancing you can do,” said Rosen, who also attends Brown contra dances. She said she hopes events organized by the folk festival group will improve connections with the greater Providence community.

“I like that, even though it brings in members from the Rhode Island and Providence community, you can still go by yourself or with friends and join right in with a kind of dancing that’s non-sexualized and very welcoming,” she said.

Frabell thought the Folk Fes-tival was “a great counter to the upcoming Spring Weekend stuff. (It) helps students remember you are part of a world outside of Brown.”

On Saturday, this outside world was represented by 13 bands, with local singer-songwrit-ers sharing space with successful bands from Vermont, Maine and New York.

Hannah Devine, the 2008 winner of the “Rhode Island Idol” competition, was invited to perform after meeting Can-non through a mutual musician friend. She played a series of indie folk songs accompanied by local musician Alan Bradbury. After traveling around Ireland last year, Devine is back in Rhode Island playing a monthly cabaret show at AS220 and hoping to put a band together.

“This venue is great because a lot of people I wouldn’t normally perform for are here,” she said.

‘Inappropriate’ re-envisions appropriationBY anIta MatHeWs

artS & Culture Staff Writer

The title of the David Winton Bell Gallery’s current exhibit, “Inappro-priate Covers,” contains many shades of meaning.

Braxton Soderman GS and Justin Katko GS, who curated the exhibit, assembled an array of works that seeks to reach past the tactics of aesthetic appropriation prevalent in the art world. According to the curators’ statement, “an act of inap-propriation is a giving back, a return, a release of aesthetically and politi-cally reconfigured significance,” in contrast to the appropriation of ma-terials in artworks labeled new and original simply because of ownership conventions.

Many of the works in the ex-hibit achieve this goal while also embodying the other, more com-mon connotation of “inappropriate.” Kelly Heaton’s “The Surrogate” is a cloak composed of 64 used ‘Tickle Me Elmo’ toys stitched together as a “substitute lover,” blurring the line between child’s play and adult desire.

L. Amelia Raley’s “I never should have done those things,” a series of handkerchiefs embroidered with disturbing lines from a daytime TV psychiatry show, renders the hor-rors of violence and verbal abuse in delicate lettering. The shock value of Raley’s piece causes the viewer to question the widespread acceptance of unscripted emotional dysfunction as casual entertainment.

The other aspect of the exhibit is the idea of a “cover,” both as con-cealment and, in the music industry sense, as re-interpretation. Ted Rie-derer’s “The Resurrectionists” is a particularly compelling piece with three components: a slow-motion video in which a white-attired band destroys its instruments, a display of those same instruments repaired to a fully functional state and an audio recording of a composition played on the reconstructed instruments.

“Body Double (Platoon/Apoca-lypse Now/Hamburger Hill)” by Stephanie Syjuco also plays with the idea of “covering.” In her multi-channel video piece, she selectively blacked out everything except the

natural scenery of three American movies about the Vietnam War which were shot in the Philippines, Syjuco’s birthplace. Syjuco reconnects with her heritage while drawing attention to Hollywood’s deceptive presenta-tion of the gritty reality of war.

Other noteworthy works are pieces by Brian Dettmer and Jim Campbell. Dettmer’s carved-up ency-clopedias are visually appealing, the vintage images and typeface popping out of each sculpture as a reminder of the vast geographic and historical distances that can be crossed in a single volume.

Campbell’s three pieces rely on electronics and the blend of art and the physical senses. For “I Have Nev-er Read the Bible,” Campbell, who is an accomplished engineer, recorded himself whispering each letter of the alphabet with Mozart’s “Requiem” playing in the background. He then electronically cut and rearranged the letters to spell out every word in the King James Bible.

His “Portrait of My Father” and “Portrait of My Mother” are photos of Campbell’s parents behind glass panels. The glass becomes foggy and obscures the photo in sync with a recording of his heartbeat (“Fa-ther”) and his breath (“Mother”), taken while he slept. The effect is somewhat haunting, as if a phantom — specifically, the phantom of the artist — is standing in the gallery alongside the viewer, controlling the visibility of the portraits with his most fundamental bodily rhythms.

Soderman and Katko define an inappropriate cover as a work that innovatively challenges traditional materials without resorting to tired appropriation techniques. The pieces in the exhibit approach this concept from many different directions and make striking statements about so-ciety.

“Inappropriate Covers” will be on display at the Bell Gallery in List Art Center until May 29.

Courtesy of the artist and Hosfelt Gallery Jim Campbell’s “Portrait of My Mother” is a photograph behind a glass panel that fogs up, displayed with a recording of the artist’s breath.

Dual degree program still selective in its second year

demics and RISD will look at the art, but both will overlap,” Ott said. “It’s a wonderful process because you end up learning a lot about art and artistic talent by listening to one another and coming to a consensus to figure out who is the best.”

Though only in its second year, the program’s reputation has elic-ited a “relatively large” response from high school students both in the U.S. and internationally, Ott said. Six of the 19 admitted stu-dents were from countries abroad, she said.

Newhall said that for students ap-plying to the dual-degree program, it is important to succeed both aca-demically and artistically.

The program may admit “stu-dents whose experience in the vi-sual realm is not as well-developed as others,” Newhall said, as long as “we can believe in their direction and interest — we can see their potential.”

But, he said, “We don’t take too many people where there is a ques-tion of academic performance. We can’t admit someone who is a fabu-lous artist, but who can’t handle the academics.”

continued from page 1

The First Puppy’s journey to the white house BY ManueL roIG-FranzIa

WaShington PoSt

WASHINGTON — Let’s follow the trail.

The Obama puppy trail.Why? Because it is our duty.It starts at a doggie love shack

on the bank of a creek in far west-ern Pennsylvania and ends at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Along the way, the world’s suddenly most fa-mous puppy has had ups and downs. He has known rejection and the joy of newfound affection.

The White House tried hard, oh so hard, to keep 6-month-old Bo a secret. But the Obama girls’ new pet, that cuter-than-cute Portuguese water dog with the lei around his neck, is a celeb now. And this is his story.

One day last August, a pretty Portie named Penny was led into the boudoir — also known as the grooming room — at Julie Parker’s kennel in Millcreek Township, out-side Erie, Pa.

Watson, a studly Portie with a history of siring champion dogs, took to her immediately.

“There was a little kissy kissy, huggy huggy, licking of the ears,” Parker recalled in an interview Sunday.

While Parker sipped a Budweiser and held Penny’s leash, Watson did what stud dogs do. Was it love? Ap-parently not.

“I don’t think Watson cares,” said Parker, who hadn’t heard that her dog sired the First Puppy until we called her Sunday.

After her one-night stand, Penny went home to Texas, where she lives with Art and Martha Stern on a 10-acre ranchette in the town of Boyd, outside Dallas. The Sterns are big dogs in the Portie world because they are the breeders of the previ-ously most famous Porties in the universe, Sen. Ted Kennedy’s.

Until a few years ago, the Sterns lived in Fairfax County, Va., and Martha worked in facilities man-agement at the Justice Department in Washington. But puppy love sent them, in retirement, to more wide-open spaces.

Penny’s blessed event took place at the Stern place Oct. 9: Ten — count ‘em, 10! — puppies in one litter. The Sterns, whose operation is called Amigo Portuguese Water Dogs, give theme names to each of their litters, and being fans of then-candidate Barack Obama, they dubbed this one the Hope and Change Litter.

Soon, Martha Stern says, Ken-nedy was sniffing around for an-other pup. He had his eye on a curly-haired one named Amigo’s New Hope, she said. But she talked him out of it because she thought a “less pushy” wavy-haired dog would be a better fit for the Kennedy family because they already had two older Porties.

They didn’t know it at the time, but Amigo’s New Hope — which al-most became a Kennedy dog — was on its way the White House, but not without some twists and turns.

So, another puppy from the litter — eventually named Cappy — went

to the Kennedys, said Martha Stern, who was particularly empathetic to Kennedy’s battle with brain cancer because she is in chemotherapy for lung cancer. Porties typically sell for as much as $2,000 apiece, and the others went fast: one to Alexandria, Va., one to Dallas, several to Austin and several more to Houston.

Like all the Sterns’s pups, Ami-go’s New Hope underwent a “tem-perament test,” Art Stern said. They tested whether he would freak out when an umbrella was opened in front of him or when there was a loud noise. Amigo’s New Hope did well, Art Stern said — not too shy, not too aggressive.

Eventually he was placed with a woman in Washington, Stern said. She renamed him Charlie. Alas, it wasn’t to be a happy home.

The woman — who has not been identified — has an older Portie, Martha Stern said, and that play-ful little scamp Charlie was getting on the other dog’s nerves. Charlie thought the older dog might be his mommy, and even attempted to nurse, Stern said. Finally, early in March, the woman decided enough was enough.

Charlie needed to find a new home.

Portie breeders tend to be a care-ful lot, and they insist on finding new homes for unwanted pups to assure they don’t end up in shelters. Rejected by his first family, Charlie was about to set on a journey that took him to The First Family.

Kennedy’s wife, Victoria, sug-gested he would be perfect for the Obama girls, the Sterns said. Ar-rangements were made for Charlie to be tutored in good manners by Dawn Sylvia of Merit Puppy Train-ing, in Hume, Va.

This began the Super Secret phase of Charlie’s life, which includ-ed a clandestine White House visit in which he won over the Obama girls and their parents. Then Easter week-end came, and his days of anonymity ended. The celebrity Web site TMZ.com, and The Washington Post pub-

lished online pieces identifying the new White House puppy as a Portie. The Post disclosed that Sasha and Malia had renamed him Bo.

A mysterious Web site also ap-peared, called firstdogcharlie.com and featuring a photograph that it claimed was of the new puppy but that the White House said was bo-gus. Comparing the Web site photo with the official White House photo was all the rage over the weekend.

Martha Stern, too, compared the photos at the request of The Post. She immediately called out to her husband.

“It’s the same dog!” she said. “He’s got a little paw and a big paw. Same lei. White on the chin.”

The mystery of the Web site’s provenance has displaced the quest for the identity of the First Puppy as a Washington obsession. Late Sun-day, the site’s operator responded to an email from The Washington Post.

“Who am I?” the email reads. “I am simply a friend of Charlie’s. I think we all kind of are.”

The Web site operator said he still has “more work to do here be-fore I drop the curtain. This isn’t about fame, fortune or notoriety (maybe just a little notoriety.)”

While the world waits for the Web site guy to reveal himself, Washing-ton is waiting for the first official, live-action glimpse of the Obama’s new puppy. The black-and-white cutie who began life as Amigo’s New Hope, then became Charlie, then became Bo is slated to make his White House debut tomorrow, though some still are speculating he might show up today at the Easter Egg Roll.

When he gets there, Martha Stern has a warning for first lady Michelle Obama, who just broke ground on a new White House vege-table garden. Porties — who woulda thunk it? — love tomatoes.

Bo should be watched when ap-proaching the tomato plants at his new home, Stern said, or he’ll “steal ‘em right off the vine.”

Pete Souza / White House photo The First Family’s puppy, Bo, moved into the White House this weekend.

world & nationThe Brown Daily Herald

MONDAy, APRIl 13, 2009 | PAGE 6

SportsmondayMONDAy, APRIl 13, 2009 | Page 7

The Brown Daily Herald

w. lax falls to no. 20 Cornell squad in IthacaBY dan aLexander

SPortS Staff Writer

Tied 6-6 with No. 20 Cornell 3:36 into the second half on Saturday,

the women’s lacrosse team gave up four unanswered

goals in 12 minutes, putting the game out of the Bears’ reach.

Brown (6-5, 2-2 Ivy League) brought the score back to 11-9 with 7:23 remaining, but couldn’t close the gap as Cornell (7-4, 2-3) held on for a 12-9 victory on its home turf.

Captain Lauren Vitkus ’09 led the Bears, scoring a third of the team’s goals. Alexa Caldwell ’11 and Kelly Robinson ’09 gave their captain support by netting two goals each.

The Big Red attack was led by sophomore Libby Johnson and freshman Jessi Steinberg, who both scored hat tricks. Johnson’s three-goal performance paled in comparison to her five-goal, three-assist game in the teams’ last meet-ing on April 11, 2008.

“She’s a really big, tall, strong girl,” Caldwell said of Johnson. “Our average height on the team is about 5-5, so with a tall girl like that, there isn’t a lot we could do.”

Cornell hadn’t faced Brown since its 17-9 victory over the Bears last year.

“We obviously wanted revenge from last year,” Caldwell said.

The Big Red came into this sea-son’s contest off of a 5-3 win over No. 18 New Hampshire five days before, but the Bears also came into the game on a hot streak, hav-ing beaten Columbia and Bryant last week.

Brown opened up the scoring when Caldwell scored her 10th of the season 3:47 after the open-ing draw.

The Bears held onto the lead until Katie Kirk scored her first of two on the afternoon for Cor-nell 7:07 into the game, starting a three-goal run over the next 5:30 for the Big Red.

The teams alternated goals for the remainder of the half with Brown getting the last one, mak-ing the score 6-5 Cornell at break. Vitkus scored all of her hat trick during that time and Callie Law-rence ’09 added another for the Bears.

Goalie Gianna Spinelli ’12 got the first start of her career and saved five of the 11 shots on goal she faced in the first half. But Head Coach Keely McDonald ’00 replaced her at halftime with Mad-die Wasser ’10, who had only one save on seven chances.

Kelly Robinson ’09 scored the equalizer for the Bears just 23 seconds into the second half. But

w. crew wins seven of eight races in ohio competitionBY andreW Braca

SPortS editor

The No. 8 women’s crew won seven of eight races against tough competition at Griggs Reservoir in Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday.

The Bears came out strong in their first official action in two weeks. Brown was scheduled to race Radcliffe — the name of the Harvard women’s crew team — on April 4, but high winds forced the relocation of the competition and the cancellation of official re-sults.

In a double duals format that featured full slates of races in both the morning and the afternoon, Bruno faced No. 12 Ohio State in the morning, No. 18 Minnesota in the afternoon and Notre Dame in both sessions.

Brown’s second varsity eight, varsity four and second varsity four each won twice, while the varsity eight fell only to Ohio State.

The Bears began the morning with a dominant showing, cruising to wins in both fours races. The second varsity four led off with a victory in a time of 7:40.90, followed by Ohio State at 7:45.49 and Notre Dame at 7:59.19.

The varsity four laid down a scorching time of 7:11.50 to trounce the Buckeyes and the Fighting Irish, who each lagged more than 10 seconds behind. Ohio

State crossed the line at 7:21.94 and Notre Dame followed at 7:24.10.

The second varsity eight held off a strong Buckeye rally to cross the line at 6:25.80, just 1.46 seconds ahead of Ohio State in the tightest finish of the day and 13.34 seconds ahead of Notre Dame.

But the Buckeyes had the Bears’ number in the varsity eight, surging to a season-best time of 6:22.60 to finish 6.07 seconds ahead of Brown. Notre Dame followed at 6:31.54.

The afternoon began the same way the morning did for Bruno,

with two strong wins in the fours. The second varsity four improved by 20 seconds on the first race to finish with a time of 7:20.6. Minne-sota followed at 7:28.22 and Notre Dame trailed at 7:41.21.

The varsity four cruised home with a time of 7:12.40, 7.42 seconds better than the Golden Gophers and 12.67 seconds better than the Irish.

The second varsity eight se-cured Brown’s third straight victo-ry, finishing with a time of 6:32.20. Notre Dame followed at 6:36.78 and

Minnesota brought up the rear at 6:50.73.

The varsity eight turned it up a notch in the final race of the day, posting the best overall time of the day to hold off a tough Gophers challenge. Brown finished with a time of 6:22.00, followed by Min-nesota at 6:25.91 and Notre Dame at 6:27.33.

The Bears will host their first race of the year this Saturday on the Seekonk River against Boston University before the men’s crew takes on Northeastern.

Hoodwinked by Howard, count on Cust Imagine you had to choose one hit-ter over the course of the season: Philidelphia’s Ryan Howard, San Diego’s Adrian Gonzalez or Oak-land’s Jack Cust. Who would con-tribute the most offensively? We’re not factoring de-fense or Subway sandwiches into our decision. Which hitter do you pick?

Let’s just go to 2008 statistics:Hitter A: 103 runs (R), 119 runs

batted in (RBI), 36 home runs (HR), .296 batting average (BA), .871 On-Base Plus Slugging (OPS), .368 weighted on-base average (wOBA).

Hitter B: 105 R, 146 RBI, 48 HR, .251 BA, .881 OPS, .366 wOBA.

Hitter C: 77 R, 77 RBI, 33 HR, .231, .851 OPS, .371 wOBA.

While all three hitters’ OPS and wOBA look to be around the same range, it looks Hitter B absolutely destroyed the other two hitters, beat-ing them in runs, RBI’s, and HR’s. Pick him, right? Not so fast — brace yourselves Phanatics. Hitter B is obviously Howard, while Hitter A is Gonzalez, and Hitter C is Cust. Turns out, Cust is the better offen-sive player than either Howard or Gonzalez.

I know what you’re thinking. Who in the world is Jack Cust and how is he better than my boy How-ard? Cust beat Howard and Gonzalez in one key sabermetric statistic (no, not strikeouts): Cust had a higher wOBA. In essence, wOBA assigns run values to a player’s different batting outcomes and incorporates the run production ability into an easy-to-use stat. A single is worth a certain number of runs, while walks, and other extra base hits would be worth different run values. So while the difference isn’t incredibly large, according to wOBA, Cust is the bet-ter offensive player.

But what does wOBA number mean? You can think of wOBA as basically on-base percentage, where .340 is around league average, any-thing north of .370 is good, .400 and above is awesome, and anything .300 and below is terrible. For compari-son’s sake, Albert Pujols led the ma-jors with a .458 wOBA (silly junior college hitters) while Michael Bourn led the bottom with a .276 wOBA (but he’s got speed!). Basically, Howard and Gonzalez are worth less offensively than Cust.

Okay fine, but Howard has the ability to change the game in a flash. He’s had monster hits that have helped improve his team’s chances of winning. Let’s look at another statistic: Win Probability Added (WPA). WPA looks at a plate appearance and captures how much the outcome helped or hurt a team’s odds of winning. The theory behind this statistic is that hits (like a home run) or outs are worth more in dif-ferent situations, like the 9th inning of tie game versus the 3rd inning

Justin Coleman / Herald File PhotoThe women’s lacrosse team lost its 6-6 tie at the half in the game against Cornell on Saturday, losing 12-9.

continued on page 8

continued on page 8

Jonathan HahnSports Columnist

Browncornell

912

MONDAy, APRIl 13, 2009THE BROWN DAIly HERAlDPAGE 8

SPortSmonDay “We definitely played very, very well against a top-20 team.”— Alexa Caldwell ’11

of a blowout. Hit a home run in a tie game and your WPA increases drastically if you’re a hitter (or falls if you’re a pitcher since you blew it). Ground into a double play and the odds of your team winning, and the thus the players’ WPA, falls (or increases for a pitcher).

Howard had a 2.39 WPA last year. Pretty good! A zero WPA is average, which means the hitter neither hurt nor helped his team’s chances of winning. However, when compared to Cust (2.55 WPA) and Gonzalez (3.97 WPA), Howard had a lower impact on changing the odds of his team winning. Basically, all his HR’s and RBI’s didn’t really affect the out-come of a game — instead, they just

padded his stats, and his arbitration award. Statistically, a team of Custs or Gonzalezes would outperform a team of Howards.

And finally, beyond the different statistics, beyond the fancy catches, majestic hits, the adoring fans or the boxscore numbers, we sometimes get lost in baseball. There are some events that make the game seem so far away and the tragic death of Los Angeles rookie pitcher Nick Ad-enhart reminds us that baseball’s just a game, brings us closer to the important things in life and teaches us to cherish each day.

Jonathan Hahn ’10 is can we fast forward to September already?

hahn’s golden fantasy tipscontinued from page 7

Steinberg rattled off back-to-back goals within 1:30, extending Cor-nell’s lead to 8-6.

Steinberg’s teammates contin-ued the attack, scoring two more consecutive goals by 15:22, putting Cornell ahead by four goals.

A few close shots would have stopped the run, but Caldwell said the ball just wasn’t bouncing Bru-no’s way.

“We hit the post four times in the second half,” Caldwell said. That would have “won the game for us because we executed everything. We just got unlucky on a couple of plays.”

Caldwell cut into the lead with a goal at 16:33, but Johnson answered with her third of the afternoon just over four minutes later.

Two straight Brown goals

brought the Bears to 11-9 with 7:30 remaining, but they wouldn’t get any closer than that.

Cornell scored the game’s last goal with just over six minutes left, making the final score 12-9 Cor-nell.

The Bears will take the field next when they face the Quinnipiac Bobcats (9-2) in Hamden, Conn. on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m.

The Bobcats are full of firepower, as they have averaged 18.2 goals per game in their last five outings. They extended their win streak to five games by escaping a 12-11 thriller in double overtime against Robert Morris on Saturday.

“It was unfortunate that we didn’t beat Cornell,” Caldwell said. “But we definitely played very, very well against a top-20 team, and I think that we’re going to come out very strong at Quinnipiac.”

w. lax loses to Cornellcontinued from page 7

Justin Coleman / Herald File PhotoAfter losing a first-half lead, the women’s lacrosse team fell to No. 20 Cornell on Saturday.

Be the first to know the news.browndailyherald.com

BY stepHanIe MccruMMen and

ann scott tYson

WaShington PoSt

MOMBASA, Kenya — An American captain held hostage for five days by Somali pirates in a lifeboat adrift in the Indian Ocean was rescued unharmed Sunday in a surprise U.S. military operation in which snipers killed three pirates with the captain tied up just feet away, American military officials said. A fourth pirate was in U.S. custody.

The snipers, positioned near the fantail of the destroyer USS Bain-bridge less than 30 yards from the lifeboat, fired within seconds after a commander determined that Capt. Richard Phillips, 53, was in “imminent danger” as one of the pirates aimed an AK-47 at his back, military officials said. President Obama had issued a standing order that the military was to act if the captain’s life was in imme-diate jeopardy, said Navy Vice Adm. William Gortney, commander of the Fifth Fleet.

After bobbing since Wednesday in the stifling lifeboat cabin, where tem-peratures topped 100 degrees, Phillips was whisked to the Bainbridge. He then showered and changed into a clean set of clothes, said Gortney, adding that the captain is “in good health.”

Phillips spoke to his wife in Ver-mont, and soon the news was being announced over intercoms inside his ship, the Maersk Alabama, which docked here Saturday night with its American crew, minus their cap-tain. Sailors came out on deck and whooped for joy, waving a U.S. flag, sounding the ship’s horn three times and firing two flares across the starry night sky.

“He’s one of the bravest men I ever met,” one of the crew members said of Phillips, who boarded the lifeboat with the pirates to get them to leave after the crew had regained control of the ship. “He’s a national hero.”

The U.S. military operation ended a tense, five-day standoff in which four pirates armed with pistols and AK-47s ultimately faced off with a small Amer-ican armada in the Indian Ocean off Somalia’s coast. Somali pirates who had pulled off the first seizure of an American crewman in recent memory were soon staring at the hulls of the USS Halyburton, a guided-missile frigate equipped with helicopters, and the USS Boxer, an amphibious assault ship with missile launchers, attack planes and a crew of 1,000, which had joined the Bainbridge.

U.S. military officials acknowl-edged Sunday that the killing of the three pirates could worsen the problem, an outcome that shipping companies have sought to avoid.

“This could escalate violence in this part of the world, no question about it,” Gortney said.

Piracy off Somalia’s anarchic coast is hardly a new problem, but it has been escalating for years. Fishermen complaining of widespread illegal fish-ing in their waters began by seizing trawlers as an act of defiance but soon found they had stumbled onto a lu-crative business. Armed with Global Positioning Satellite devices, satellite phones and rocket-propelled grenade

launchers, the pirates have earned millions in ransom for vessels such as the Sirius Star, a Saudi oil tanker that is the largest ship seized in history.

Somalia’s fragile transitional gov-ernment, struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency with ties to al-Qaeda, can barely control any part of the capital, Mogadishu, much less a piracy epidemic rooted along its shores, where the multimillion-dollar business has turned sleepy fishing villages into mini-boomtowns.

Foreign governments have sent a flotilla of naval ships to the busy Gulf of Aden, but pirates have simply moved their operations south and fur-ther out to sea, often using captured fishing vessels called mother ships to launch attacks.

The closest naval ship was 300 nautical miles away when the Maersk Alabama was attacked Wednesday.

“We simply do not have enough resources to cover all of those areas,” Gortney said.

Pirates are holding more than a dozen ships and more than 200 hostages.

Obama said in a statement Sunday that the United States is resolved to halt the rise of piracy in the region.

“To achieve that goal, we must continue to work with our partners to prevent future attacks, be prepared to interdict acts of piracy and ensure that those who commit acts of pi-racy are held accountable for their crimes,” Obama said.

The pirates had apparently been tracking the Maersk Alabama for days and boarded it Wednesday, tossing ropes with grappling hooks over the side. The details of what happened next remain sketchy, but after a five-hour ordeal in which some crew members forced one of the pirates into the engine room and tied him up, the crew persuaded the pirates to leave the ship using

its lifeboat.On Sunday night, one of the crew

members said Phillips had gone with the pirates as a good-faith gesture. But the pirates did not follow through on their promise to let him go, and his ordeal began.

On Saturday afternoon, two U.S. helicopters buzzed over the pirate stronghold of Harardhere on the So-mali coast, residents said. One heli-copter landed for about 10 minutes, bewildering locals and scattering herds of goats and cows.

“I have no idea what is happen-ing,” said Laila Arale, a local farmer who sent her sons to sleep elsewhere Sunday night, fearing that the United States might attack Somalia from the air. “I’m scared.”

The Bainbridge had offered to tow the lifeboat to calmer waters as the seas grew rougher, and the pi-rates, seeming worn down, agreed, said military officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. One pi-rate with a hand injury effectively gave himself up.

Phillips was by then tied up, hav-ing been bound and occasionally beaten by pirates after he tried to escape by jumping off the boat.

The rescue occurred at 7:19 p.m. local time Sunday, the Navy said, and involved dozens of SEALs. With one of the pirates pointing an AK-47 straight at Phillips’s back, an on-scene commander gave the SEAL snipers authority to fire.

John Reinhart, president and chief executive of Maersk Line Ltd., the ship’s owner, spoke with Phillips by phone. Reinhart quoted Phillips as saying that “the real heroes are the Navy, the SEALs, those who have brought me home.”

“It’s a great day for all of us,” Re-inhart said at a news conference in Norfolk, Va. “It is truly, truly a won-derful moment.”

MONDAy, APRIl 13, 2009 THE BROWN DAIly HERAlD PAGE 9

worLD & natIonCaptain’s rescue ends watery standoffPossible step toward

setting biological clockBY roB steIn

WaShington PoSt

WASHINGTON — Scientists have produced strong new evidence challenging one of the most fun-damental assumptions in biology: that female mammals, including women, are born with all the eggs they will ever have.

In a provocative set of experi-ments involving mice, Chinese researchers have shown for the first time that an adult mammal can harbor primitive cells in her ova-ries that can become new eggs and produce healthy offspring, they reported Sunday.

While much more research is needed to confirm and explore the findings, the work raises the tantalizing possibility that it could someday lead to new ways to fight a woman’s biological clock, perhaps by stockpiling her egg-producing cells or by stimulating them to make eggs again.

The findings could also help speed stem cell research by provid-ing scientists with a new source of eggs, which are crucial for producing embryonic stem cell lines tailored to individual patients and diseases but are difficult to obtain.

“This is a very big deal,” said Roger Gosden, director of repro-ductive medicine at Cornell Weill Medical Center in New York, who was not involved in the research, published online by the journal Nature Cell Biology.

Some species remain fertile through their lives, and men pro-duce sperm daily. But for at least a half century the dominant scientific tenet has been that women and all other female mammals are born with all the eggs they will ever have, and that stock is slowly de-pleted with age. For women, the be-lief has been that most of their eggs are gone by the time they reach middle age, prompting menopause and leaving them infertile.

Although several studies in re-cent years have raised questions about that belief, those claims re-mained highly controversial. The new research marks the first time scientists have obtained cells from an adult mammal that appear ca-pable of producing new eggs and healthy offspring.

“If you are looking to disprove that females cannot make new eggs, this paper proves it. It’s a really significant paper,” said Jona-than Tilly, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive bi-ology at Harvard Medical School who published some of the most controversial research suggesting that women remain capable of pro-ducing new eggs.

Other researchers, however, remained cautious, saying the Chi-nese work needs to be repeated more carefully in mice and other species to validate the findings. Even then, it would remain far from clear whether there are any practi-cal implications for women, some experts said.

“The aging process of the hu-man egg differs fundamentally from that of the mouse egg,” said David Keefe, a professor of obstet-rics and gynecology at the Univer-sity of South Florida. “Except at Disney World, humans are not large mice.”

For the study, Ji Wu of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China and colleagues removed ovaries from mice and sifted through millions of cells to identify a small number that appeared to have characteristics of female “germline” stem cells, which theoretically would be able to become eggs.

After identifying those cells, the researchers reported, they coaxed them to multiply in the laboratory. Those obtained from newborn mouse ovaries continued to mul-tiply for more than 15 months and those from adult ovaries for more than six months. A series of tests appeared to confirm that they were indeed precursor cells for eggs, the researchers reported.

They then tagged the cells with a jellyfish protein that would make them glow fluorescent green so they could be traced, and injected them into the ovaries of other mice that had been rendered mostly in-fertile with chemotherapy drugs.

Some of the mice were then killed so their ovaries could be examined, which revealed that at least some of the fluorescent green cells had indeed matured into eggs. Other mice that got the cells were allowed to breed naturally and produced offspring. Tests showed that many of the off-spring also contained the green tag, which the researchers said demonstrated they were conceived from the transplanted egg cells. Tests found no evidence that the offspring, or the next generation, were abnormal in any way, the re-searchers reported.

Other researchers have claimed to have identified such cells in hu-man ovaries. If that could be con-firmed, and if they behave similarly to the mouse cells, they could offer a host of new options for infertile women.

“You could gain control over how fast the clock will tick,” Tilly said.

Women who need to delay child-bearing might be able to bank their egg stem cells for use later in life, for example. The work also would be especially helpful to women who are facing sterilization as a result of cancer treatment.

If women who are infertile be-cause of their age still harbor such cells, scientists may be able to find a way to activate them to produce new eggs, several experts said.

“We have lot of patients who cannot get pregnant because they have run out of eggs or their eggs are of poor quality because of their age,” Cornell’s Gosden said. “The research means egg donation from a fertile woman might not be neces-sary because she could have her own genetic child engineered from her stem cells.”

editorial & LettersPage 10 | MONDAy, APRIl 13, 2009

The Brown Daily Herald

C H R I S J E S U L E E

UFB leadership endorsements

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senior staff Writers Mitra Anoushiravani, Ellen Cushing, Sydney Ember, lauren Fedor, Nicole Friedman, Britta Greene, Sarah Husk, Brian Mastroianni, Hannah Moser, Ben Schreckinger, Caroline Sedano, Melissa Shube, Anne Simons, Sara Sunshine staff Writers Zunaira Choudhary, Chris Duffy, Nicole Dungca, Juliana Friend, Cameron lee, Kelly Mallahan, Christian Martell, Heeyoung Min, Seth Motel, Jyotsna Mullur, lauren Pischel, leslie Primack, Anne Speyer, Alexandra Ulmer, Kyla Wilkessports staff Writers Nicole Stocksenior Business associates Max Barrows, Jackie Goldman, Margaret Watson, Ben XiongBusiness associates Diahndra Burman, Stassia Chyzhykova, Caroline Dean, Marco deleon, Katherine Galvin, Bonnie Kim, Maura lynch, Cathy li, Allen McGonagill, liana Nisimova, Thanases Plestis, Agathe Roncey, Corey Schwartz, William Schweitzer, Kenneth So, Evan Sumortin, Haydar Taygun, Anshu Vaish, Webber Xu, lyndse yessdesign staff Katerina Dalavurak, Gili Kliger, Jessica Kirschner, Joanna lee, Maxwell Rosero, John Walsh, Kate Wilson, Qian yinphoto staff Qidong Chen, Janine Cheng, Alex DePaoli, Frederic lu, Katherine Regalado, Quinn Savit, Min Wucopy editors Sara Chimene-Weiss, Sydney Ember, lauren Fedor, Miranda Forman, Casey Gaham, Anna Jouravleva, Geoffrey Kyi, Frederic lu, Jordan Mainzer, Kelly Mallahan, Madeleine Rosenberg Web developers Jihan Chao

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Tomorrow, Brown students will choose the new leadership of the Under-graduate Finance Board, the body that allocates funding for officially recognized student groups. We strongly urge you to vote for Salsabil Ahmed ’11 for UFB chair and Neil Parikh ’11 for vice chair. Of the candidates running for these positions, they are the best prepared to counter the board’s weaknesses and capitalize on its strengths.

Ahmed recognizes that many UFB representatives are unwilling to learn the details of the student organizations they are responsible for, and thus unprepared to evaluate funding requests. During her time as a UFB representative, Ahmed has overseen the budgets of more student groups than any other member of the board, and she has advocated diligently for them. She represents the behavioral shift that UFB must undergo, and she is committed to actively ensuring that each representative meets regularly and repeatedly with the groups in his or her purview.

The other candidate for UFB Chair, Jose Vasconez ’10, is also an accomplished current UFB representative with a record of familiarizing himself with his groups. But his stated priorities are unlikely to foster the flexibility and cooperativeness needed to make the board more responsive to legitimate student requests. While Vasconez proposes to train representatives in general budget-evaluation techniques, they would be better served by firm requirements to understand their groups individually and in depth.

As UFB vice chair, newcomer Parikh would bring a valuable outsider perspec-tive to the board, countering the unresponsiveness that too often characterizes representatives’ interactions with the groups they should be fighting for. A distinguished veteran of student finance, Parikh secured thousands of dollars in event funding for the 2011 Class Board last year as treasurer; he now serves as the organization’s president. He is also secretary of the Brown Activities Council and treasurer of the PLME Senate, among other extracurricular posi-tion that demonstrate an impressive commitment to Brown student activities. He has given nearly two dozen presentations before UFB, and he knows that the board needs to publish more data on its allocation process and work more closely with the students who rely upon it.

Parikh’s competitor, Juan Vasconez ’10, is a competent UFB representative who is admirably willing to admit his own mistakes and those of the board as a whole. But he can’t rival Parikh’s wealth of ideas and comprehensive grasp of the board’s shortcomings and potential.

Too often, UFB seems like a distant, arbitrary bank for Brown’s student groups. Salsabil Ahmed and Neil Parikh are well-prepared to guide it towards greater responsiveness and transparency.

Our UCS endorsements will appear in tomorrow’s issue.Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.

to the editor:

Anthony Staehelin ‘10 (“A rare experience… that more people should have,” April 10, 2009) misses the point. As senior IR concentrators, we are puzzled by Staehelin’s focus on the presumed lack of student in-terest in international conferences and summits. While Staehelin is right to lament low student participation, he is wrong to assume a dearth of student interest. What he fails to mention is the lack of University resources supporting students’ pursuits of such opportunities, which often entail significant costs.

The Model G8 Youth Summit referenced in his op-ed,

for example, required a 450 Euro registration fee (about $600), round-trip airfare to Milan, and incidental ex-penses. While we commend the International Relations Program’s regular announcement of these opportunities, such expenses remain out of reach or untenable for most students. Without calling for University support in the form of grants, scholarships, or even loans, Staehelin’s piece merely preaches to the choir — highlighting the abundance of exciting opportunities that interested students simply cannot afford.

nick Greenfield ’09ruben Izmailyan ’09

We hope you got that free first-class upgrade.

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OR e-mail 42 cents to letters@browndailyherald.com

MONDAy, APRIl 13, 2009 | PAGE 11

opinionsThe Brown Daily Herald

My last column (“Picnics or John Edwards?”, March 16) stressed the need for greater em-phasis on teaching abilities in decisions about faculty hiring and promotions. But since fac-ulty turnover can proceed even more slowly than a UCS meeting, here are two proposals that could improve undergraduate academ-ics at Brown in the meantime.

Brown, like all colleges, likes to cite num-bers on average class size. For example, 70.1 percent of undergraduate courses at Brown are smaller than 20 students, while only 4.1 percent are bigger than 100. But this is mis-leading — looking at undergraduate enroll-ments by class size tells a statistical story more consistent with experience. It turns out only 31.5 percent of the courses the aver-age Brown undergraduate takes have fewer than 20 students, and 27.4 percent of them have over 100.

(The Web site of the Office of Institution-al Research has lots of other fun facts. Did you know that the median salary of full pro-fessors in the social sciences in 2008-09 was $138,000?)

Students sometimes complain about small classes — you actually have to be pre-pared lest the professor call on you! — but deep down, we know these are the settings in which we learn the most. Small classes al-low for discussion of the material and reduce the temptation for the professor to spend 80 minutes summarizing the reading assign-ment you were supposed to do last night. Even in more objective subjects like math or biology, small classes allow professors to

give individual feedback and make sure stu-dents are understanding rather than regur-gitating.

Perhaps more importantly, small class-es better engage students. The 25 percent of otherwise well-meaning students on Fa-cebook at any given time in large lectures wouldn’t dare stare at their laptops the entire way through a seminar. It is much easier to develop personal relationships with profes-sors when they no longer seem intimidating

and actually recognize your face. But when it comes to small classes, some

departments are more equal than others. In big departments (e.g., biology, economics, political science), it is difficult to either find or get into any courses with enrollments un-der 20 or 30. Others (religious studies, cog-nitive science) offer an abundance of small courses.

I asked Andrew Foster, professor of eco-nomics and community health and chair of the economics department, about this dis-crepancy. Many factors besides teaching and course enrollments figure into Univer-sity decisions regarding allocation of fac-ulty funding, he said, particularly research interests and funding potential. At the same time, enrollment in economics courses has increased 40 percent over the past seven years. More telling, he said, is that enroll-

ment is 25 percent higher than the last cycli-cal peak in 1998.

The University should seek to reduce the imbalance in class sizes among depart-ments. It is unfair to economics concentra-tors when upper level courses, which would have 15-20 students in other departments, instead usually have around 50. In anoth-er illustrative example, the economics and physics departments have about the same number of regular faculty (34 and 27), but

last year there were almost ten times more economics concentrators than physics con-centrators (196 and 21).

Funding for faculty hires should be based more on course enrollment, and it should more quickly respond to changes in enroll-ment. In a pinch, there is little wrong with the temporary hiring of adjunct professors or lecturers or even graduate students, as long as they have exceptional records in teaching undergraduates.

Another perpetual problem in those de-partments with large enrollments, as well as in those without their own graduate programs, is a shortage of teaching assis-tants. Graduate TAs, including Herald Opin-ions Columnist Mary Bates GS (“Have you hugged your TA today?” March 31), often bemoan the heavy teaching load on some graduate students that can impede progress

on thesis research.Why not encourage professors to hold

their own conference sections? Some pro-fessors, such as those teaching introductory physics courses, regularly do. Others act as though the option never occurred to them, instead choosing to cap a popular class.

The format of a large lecture by a well-known professor with discussion sections led by TAs causes at best discontinuity, and at worst the sense of a distant and deified professor. Courses are not always matched well with the expertise of individual TAs, weakening analytical rigor of sections when the TA is only two steps ahead of the stu-dents.

Of course, it would not be feasible for pro-fessors to lead all sections in the largest lec-ture courses. Graduate students also need to gain their own teaching experience. But surely we could improve the undergradu-ate experience, lighten the load on grad stu-dents and alleviate the TA shortage by ask-ing some professors to teach their own con-ference sections.

Brown, as a university-college, can suc-cessfully compete against research univer-sities as well as liberal arts colleges. After all, around this time three years ago I was agonizing over the choice between Brown, Pomona and Swarthmore, and it is evident who won. But as the administration push-es more in the direction of world-class re-search, the University will become lopsided unless there is a deliberate, corresponding push to maintain and improve the quality of undergraduate courses.

Nick Hagerty ’10, a physics and eco-nomics concentrator, thinks maybe be-ing a professor would be more lucrative

than he thought.

academic Inequality

In a few weeks, about a quarter of our popula-tion will process out of the Van Wickle Gates and into the real world. But once they’re in the real world, where exactly will they go? If I had to hazard a guess, I’d put together a list that goes something like: New York, Bos-ton, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, and…that seems to be about it. It seems like ev-ery time we think about where we plan to be after graduation, that inevitable big-city list makes its way into our minds.

What happens if a Brown graduate doesn’t make the pilgrimage to the “great-est” of the Great Beyond? Perhaps he or she journeys abroad, piquing the interest of friends and family. But what happens to those who go back to their homes — not the big cities, but smaller, less glitzy towns that perhaps we were told we should be glad to “escape”? For those who come from small-er towns, is Brown a gateway to the Great Beyond, or is it the way we get the tools we need to go home and make a difference? Be-yond this, why is it that those who go back to those smaller towns, or stay in Providence, are the subject of quiet judgment?

Perhaps it is a completely rational phe-nomenon. We spend around fifty thousand dollars per year grooming ourselves to get whatever it is we want: a graduate degree, a job in consulting, a public service position

… the list goes on. Chances are that many of us formulated these desires before applying to Brown, knowing that a degree with a well-recognized name would be an asset in com-petitive post-graduation endeavors. To those students, education is the investment neces-sary (though perhaps not sufficient) to reap a kind of return that is not available “back home.”

Looking at the Brown graduate’s decision from this vantage point, our reliance on the big-city list makes sense. We invest in our-

selves to gain a certain return: high salaries, lofty recognition or both. If those things are more abundant in the high rises of Manhat-tan, a recent college graduate would be fool-ish not to go to that land of plenty. But what if we look at it from another perspective?

Our towns, counties and states were also investors in what we can call our personal human capital funds. At least some combina-tion of public education, infrastructure, social welfare benefits and public goods benefited each student at this institution, whether they

originate from the United States or abroad. By educating us, keeping us safe or healthy and generally making our lives easier, our home towns (and Providence, RI, for that matter) facilitated investment in our human capital funds as well. Even if one does not believe that government makes a significant contribution to the welfare of its citizens, it is hard to argue that one’s friends, neighbors and overall community did not either. Even if we eliminate the role of government in hu-man capital investment, we can still believe

that “it takes a village to raise a child.”So what does it mean when a plurality of

Brown students head for the big city instead of back home? Instead of seeing newly mint-ed, bright and shiny college graduates bring the benefits of their knowledge back to the communities that raised them, less alluring locales are watching their investments in hu-man capital take the first flight to New York City without a look back.

This is not to allege that Brown students should boomerang back to their home towns

motivated by some dream-crushing civic duty. There are more compelling reasons to settle outside the big city: lower costs, high-er quality of life and less competition in the job market are among the most persuasive. These reasons can complement the repre-sentative Brown student’s aspirations quite nicely. If he or she seeks a life of comfort, lower prices in smaller cities create an in-come effect. If recognition is his or her goal, less competition in smaller cities can give a Brown graduate an opportunity to distin-guish him or herself. For similar reasons, Brown students seeking to “make a differ-ence” may have greater influence in small-er communities. None of these reasons call specifically for a return to a student’s home town, but they offer compelling justification for setting our sights on a more unique post-graduate destination than the inevitable list of elite coastal cities.

Particularly here, we are products not only of our surroundings, but of our own am-bition. Brown gives us the tools we need to explore our interests in our own way, hope-fully training us in how to best fashion our own futures. But would it come at too high of a cost to add a fill-in-the blank destination to our big city list, and insert the name of a less glamorous locale there?

Andrea Matthews ’11 hopes her $50,000 investment actually yields a return.

Brown’s brain drain

Instead of seeing college graduates bring the benefits of their knowledge back to the communities that raised them, less alluring

locales are watching their investments in human capital take the first flight to New york City

without a look back.

It is unfair to economics concentrators when upper level courses, which would have 15-20

students in other departments, instead usually have around 50.

NICK HAGERTyopinions coluMnist

By ANDREA MATTHEWSGuest coluMnist

MondaY, aprIL 13, 2009 paGe 12

Today 57

‘Inappropriate covers’ debuts in list

W. crew takes home seven wins

The Brown Daily Herald

57 / 31

todaY, aprIL 13

4:oo p.M. — “limbo: Blue Collar

Roots, White Collar Dreams,” lecture

by Alfred lubrano, Salomon 001

7:30 p.M.— Screening of Zapatista,

Foxboro Auditorium, Kassar House

toMorroW, aprIL 14

4:00 p.M — ““Global Health and Hu-

man Rights: A Time for Change,” Jim

yong Kim ’81, Andrews Hall

7:00 p.M. — Brown Sports and Media

Symposium, with Bill Russell, Chris

Berman ‘77, Ross Greenburg ‘77 and

Bill Reynolds’68, Salomon

ACROSS1 Put below, as

cargo5 Potentially painful

precipitation9 Treasure map

measures14 Toledo’s lake15 __ Domini16 Smells17 Like NBA centers18 Composer

Stravinsky19 Parisian river20 Conceited23 Brit. record label24 Former Egypt-

Syria alliance:Abbr.

25 Beers and ales28 Enjoy something

immensely, with“up”

30 French love33 Last: Abbr.34 Bawl36 Miss. neighbor37 Scott who sued

for his freedom38 Plan not

completelythought out

42 Suffix with hardor soft

43 Seashell seller, ina tongue twister

44 Retirement org.45 “Slippery” tree46 Archaeological

fragment48 Like some poetry52 Prefix with sphere54 Memorable

period56 “Foucault’s

Pendulum”author Umberto

57 Much campaignrhetoric

61 Count with akeyboard

63 Warts and all64 Med. school

class65 Group of eight66 Stroll in the

shallows67 Head over heels

in love68 Out of fashion

69 Canonized Mlles.70 Phone button

abbr.

DOWN1 Fixed charge2 Psychological

injury3 Like many old-

fashioned lamps4 Wishing place5 Israeli port city6 Mohair-bearing

goat7 Aware of8 Passed-down

tales9 Charlatan

10 Journalist __Rogers St. Johns

11 Hairdo12 Coastal bird13 180 degrees from

NNW21 Words before

sight and mind22 Cheerleading

groups26 Dog collar target27 Benchmark: Abbr.29 Dot on an ocean

map31 Manufacturer

32 Bullfight shout35 Air rifle ammo37 June 6, 194438 “Stop right there!”39 Sofa sides40 “I’ve got it now!”41 Faith of more

than one billion42 Craven of horror46 Tampa neighbor,

briefly47 Pooh-pooh

49 Shoot again50 Frigid epoch51 Marquee name,

often53 Gallic girlfriends55 Thorny flowers58 Swerves at sea59 Juniors’ H.S.

exam60 “Othello” fellow61 ’40s jazz62 Here, in Spain

By Fred Jackson III(c)2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc. 04/13/09

04/13/09

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Monday, April 13, 2009

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

xwordeditor@aol.com

Vagina dentata | Soojean Kim

alien Weather Forecast | Stephen lichenstein and Adam Wagner

cabernet Voltaire | Abe Pressman

sHarpe reFectorY

LuncH — Chicken Fingers with Dip-

ping Sauce, Broccoli Noodle Polonaise,

Asian Vegetable Blend

dInner — Chopped Sirloin with Mush-

room Sauce, Italian Couscous, Vegan

Roasted Vegetable Stew

VerneY-WooLLeY dInInG HaLL

LuncH — Chicken Cutlet Sandwich,

Macaroni and Cheese, Asparagus,

Nacho Bar

dInner — Roast Pork Calypso, Vegan

Curried Vegetables, Coconut Ginger

Rice, Moo Shu Chicken and Tofu

5 73calendar

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coMics

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today toMorrow

enigma twist | Dustin Foley

the one about zombies | Kevin Grubb