by GeorGe Miller

Metro editor

Under the shadow of the Craw-ford Street Bridge in downtown Providence, just feet from where a friend died earlier this month, a few homeless people are living in a camp of three or four tents to raise awareness of their plight.

And because there is safety

in numbers.Though several organizations

operate shelters in the city — a few within walking distance of the tents — many of the roughly 15 people here prefer to sleep outside.

“Down here, I know the com-munity. I know the people,” said Ernest Alther, a Vietnam veteran living here since Sunday, a day

after the camp was set up.The “tent city” is a project of

the Homeless Peoples’ Action Committee, a group of homeless and formerly homeless people, and receives support from the Brown student group, Housing Opportunities for People Every-where, or “HOPE.” The camp,

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

News.....1-4Metro....5-6Sports...7-8 Editorial..10Opinion...11Today........12

CHeCKiNG oUTFunding issues have set up a battle for the city’s public library system

Metro, 5liberal sCieNCesNick Hagerty ’10 thinks the humanities are more PC than science courses

Opinions, 11

insi

deDaily Heraldthe Brown

vol. cxliv, no. 7 | Thursday, January 29, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891

Most admits choose Brown, numbers showby MiTra aNoUsHiravaNi

Senior Staff Writer

Brown ranks 12th on a new college-ranking list published by U.S. News and World Report, beating out two fellow Ivies.

This single-variable list, released online on Monday, uses yield — the percentage of students accepted that enrolls at a college — to determine the most popular colleges, according to Robert Morse, the director of data research at the magazine.

Brown stands higher on U.S. News’ new “Most Popular Colleges” list than on its more established list of the “Best Colleges,” on which it places 16th, behind all of its Ivy League coun-terparts.

In U.S. News’ popularity ranking, Brown’s 56 percent yield placed it ahead of both Dartmouth and Cornell. Harvard — which saw 79 percent of the students it admitted matriculate — topped the list. It also topped U.S. News’ more prominent list in 2008.

“This list shows how prized some of these acceptances are,” Morse said, adding that the yield is a statis-tic based mainly on student choice and is therefore “not a very strong academic factor.”

Dean of Admissions James Mill-er ’73 said he did not give too much weight to the list, characterizing it as a “silly survey” that was “not representa-tive of much of anything.”

But, he added, “Any survey where we’re among the best colleges in the country — I’m delighted to be there.”

U.S. News stopped using yield as one of the factors in its widely looked-to “Best Colleges” list because it is not a reliable statistic, Morse said.

Miller agreed yield was unreliable. “I’m not saying anyone manipulated it, but it can be easily manipulated,” he said.

Morse also mentioned other prob-lems with using yield to rank schools. Religious schools such as Brigham Young University and Yeshiva Univer-sity ranked in the top ten on the “Most Popular Colleges” list mainly because “they have a unique relationship with their applicants,” he said.

Yield for some schools, he said, “is impacted by early decision. It is artificially boosting the yield.”

Military academies also have very high yields because of their lengthy application processes and free tuition. State and public schools rank high because they are cheaper and closer to home for most students, Morse said. In the current economic climate, more public schools will make the list simply because students cannot afford out-of-state or private colleges, he added.

Magazine features student tripsby CHrisTiaN MarTell

Staff Writer

Sarah Kay ’10 considers herself an adventurous traveler, but even she couldn’t have imag-ined the experiences she would have in Prague, which included getting to know lo-cal artists and meeting a man who made wooden marionettes.

And now Kay will have the chance to share the stories she picked up while studying abroad

last fall, thanks to National Geo-graphic’s Glimpse Magazine.

Started by Nick Fitzhugh ’02 in 2000, the print and online magazine offers firsthand accounts of young

people living abroad. In the spring of 2007,

Glimpse moved from its original Pawtucket office to its cur-rent Washington, D.C. location in National Geographic’s headquar-ters, said Glimpse Editor-in-Chief

Courtesy of Sarah KayA giant pillow fight broke out in Old Town Square in Prague.

new coach? no problemby eTieNNe Ma

Staff Writer

The sideline is nothing new to Coach Jesse Agel.

With 20 years of experience coaching Division I men’s bas-ketball — two years under his belt as an assistant at Brown and 17 years at the University of Ver-mont — and multiple NCAA tournament ap-pearances to show for it, Agel has much to draw from in his first year as head coach.

Having worked with his play-ers for two years under the pre-vious head coach (and now first brother-in-law) Craig Robinson, Agel was ready to hit the court running in his new role.

“The transition has been very smooth,” he said, adding that his players “have done a great job.”

“They have a tremendous will-ingness to learn and a great desire to be successful,” Agel said. “So that has enabled everything to work very smoothly for us.”

The respect was mutual, as each of the team’s captains praised their new coach.

“He’s done a phenomenal job so far,” said tri-captain Chris Skrelja ’09. “It’s always tough to transition into a new system — new plays, new assistant coaches — but he’s been doing a great job.”

“I’m just upset that it’s my last year here, and that I won’t have more years to succeed in

his system,” Skrelja added.

Coming into the season, Agel had a number of goals for the team as well as changes he wanted to effect.

One goal was to win the Ivy League championship, regard-less of what the Bears’ chances looked like at the beginning of the season.

“You have to shoot for the top,” he said. “That certainly is our goal, and will be our goal ev-ery year.”

The Bears have a 6-10 record overall, including an 0-2 mark in the Ivy League after back-to-back losses to Yale.

But his foremost concern is to

continued on page 3continued on page 7

George Miller / HeraldNearly 15 homeless locals have set up a “tent city” under the Crawford Street Bridge downtown.

After death, homeless stick together

continued on page 6

sPorTs

by MiTra aNoUsHiravaNi

Senior Staff Writer

President Barack Obama announced more than a dozen key appointees Wednesday to a top executive branch office — among them three Brown alumni.

Norman Eisen ’85, Karen Dunn ’97 and Katherine Shaw ’01 were named to the Office of the White House Counsel, which is respon-sible for providing legal advice to the President.

Eisen, a classmate of Obama’s at Harvard Law School, was appointed Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform, a position from which he will help advance the President’s agenda to change Washington politics. A philosophy concentrator at Brown, Eisen was a partner at Zuckerman Spaeder LLP, a D.C. law firm, and most recently held the position of Deputy General Counsel to the Tran-sition, where he served as lead eth-ics advisor. Eisen is also a co-founder of the good-government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Dunn, a political science con-

obama taps 3 alums for legal counsel

continued on page 3

FeaTUre

post- is a naughty girl with a bad habit, and baby we’ve got a brand new bag

Inside

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. POSTMASTER please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Provi-dence, 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.

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Daily Heraldthe Brown

THE BROWN DAILY HERALDPAGE 2 THuRSDAY, JANuARY 29, 2009

CAMpuS newS “We don’t want to seem like a bunch of kids coming off the hill and being charitable.” — Raisa Aziz ’11

First dual degree class working hard at rISDby briaN MasTroiaNNi

Senior Staf f Writer

Before winter break, Caitrin Wat-son ’13 had a 13-hour cram session with her friends for an introductory art history course. But Watson was not taking the same popular art class taught here, and her friends were students at the Rhode Island School of Design — not Brown.

Watson is one of the 13 students currently enrolled in the pilot Brown-RISD dual degree program. Now in her second semester at RISD, Watson plans to combine her love of art and academics in the five-year program that will al-low her to graduate with degrees from both schools.

“Art is my passion, but I have also always done well in academ-

ics,” Watson said. “This is the per-fect program for me.”

As the dual degree program between Brown and RISD enters its second semester, students said it has been both successful and challenging.

Through the dual degree pro-gram, students live at RISD during their first year of college, and at Brown in their second year. After their first two years, students can live at either school, and have the option of living off campus in their last two years.

Currently, all of the dual degree students live in the same residence hall at RISD, helping them bond, said Beth Soucy ’13, another stu-dent in the program.

“We have all become really close this year,” Soucy said.

But she admitted she didn’t feel as connected to the college she will live at next year. “I wish we had more interaction with the students on Brown’s campus,” she said.

For this first class of dual de-gree students, the transition to RISD’s rigorous course load has been intimidating. Students often spend entire days working in the first-year studio foundation class-es, working on their own projects while observing others’ work and taking few breaks, Soucy said.

But they had been warned. At the RISD orientation last fall the students had been told that they could expect to get little sleep in their first year, Soucy said.

At Brown, the students will

Students start olneyville microfinance bankby alexaNdra UlMer

Staff Writer

Four Brown students are launching Providence’s first microfinance bank in Olneyville next month to give loans to poor entrepreneurs and to immigrants looking to become permanent residents and citizens.

Mollie West ’09, Andy Posner GS, Raisa Aziz ’11 and Nabeel Gillani ’12 started the Capital Good Fund proj-ect last month in the predominantly low-income, Hispanic community of Olneyville. The neighborhood, one of the city’s oldest, is located near Federal Hill.

In the absence of a microfinance bank in the area, “many entrepre-neurs were turning towards loan sharks who weren’t really focused on advancing social good,” Gillani said.

The project “assumes that people have the skills they need to get out of poverty but need the capital,” Posner added.

Stressing the need to respect existing community networks, the students held discussion sessions in Spanish for Olneyville residents and worked with local organizations to learn about the families’ needs.

Participants in the groups voiced entrepreneurial ideas such as creat-ing day-care centers, selling books in Spanish and starting a print de-sign company.

“We found that there was a huge demand for banking services for the working poor,” West said.

To finance the idea, the students wrote grant appeals and contacted similar banks at Harvard, Yale and Rutgers University. The project received $5,000 from the Swearer

Center’s Social Innovation Initia-tive, $2,000 from the Clinton Global Initiative and $3,000 from private contributions.

The students’ goal is to make the project self-sufficient and com-pletely integrated into the Olneyville community, Aziz said.

“We don’t want to seem like a bunch of kids coming off the hill and being charitable,” she said.

Initially, the pilot project, which will run from February to October, plans to offer two or three $2,000 loans for small businesses and five $900 loans to cover application fees for permanent residency and citizen-ship. Many factors will be examined before the loans are given out, such as likelihood of achieving citizenship or character recommendations.

Quinn Savit / HeraldFour students (left to right), Raisa Aziz ’11, Mollie West ’09, Andy Posner GS and Nabeel Gillani ’12 plan to start a microfinance bank in Olneyville.

continued on page 3

continued on page 3

CAMpuS newSTHuRSDAY, JANuARY 29, 2009 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 3

Kerala Taylor ’02. Though Taylor and Fitzhugh first presented their idea to National Geographic in 2002, it took almost five years to make the original magazine and Web site part of National Geograph-ic, Taylor said.

“The first four years were spent bartending,” she added, and try-ing to further establish the maga-zine.

In the fall of 2008, Fitzhugh and Taylor launched the National Geo-graphic Correspondents Program, Taylor said. Kay was one of eight correspondents chosen to partici-pate in the pilot program.

In order to receive the $600 stipend and the chance to be pub-lished in the print magazine, cor-respondents must complete two stories in video, photo or written form, as well as a written feature on a resident of the region and 20 tips for future travelers to the area, Taylor said.

“The purpose behind the pro-gram was so that Glimpse would have an elite group of writers that would produce high-quality con-tent for the print magazine,” Taylor said.

Though the program may have given Glimpse ready-to-publish writers, Professor Emeritus of En-gineering Barrett Hazeltine said the magazine was professional from its start as an independent study project he oversaw in 2000.

“Glimpse started off with high-class content provided by students not just from Brown, but from other nearby colleges,” Hazeltine said. “I’m proud Nick was able to merge Glimpse with National Geographic

as early as he did.”That National Geographic seal

of approval was key to Kay’s insider look into a foreign land.

“Being a National Geographic correspondent was like having an all-access pass (to the Czech Re-public),” Kay said.

While in Prague, Kay realized how nice and helpful Czech people could be. That is, after “they de-cided they liked and could trust you,” she said.

“The best thing about the pro-gram was that the National Geo-graphic name gave you legitimacy, but by not being a big-time journal-ist, people didn’t freak out around me,” Kay said. “I probably just seemed like a naive and impres-sionable American girl to them.”

This accessibility to people abroad is what she liked best about the program and what led her to her wildest adventure — the pur-

suit of a rock that some claim is Superman’s Kryptonite.

“My mom is kind of a rock en-thusiast and told me about a certain rock that can only be found in the Czech Republic,” Kay said.

Bits of a meteorite that hit Ger-many years ago merged with the Earth to form the green-colored rock, moldavite, Kay said. It eventu-ally traveled by river to the Czech Republic, now the only place it can be found.

When Kay set out to look for the rock, which some believe holds metaphysical powers, she met an entire village and found herself ask-ing its inhabitants whether people made the connection between mal-dovite and Superman.

“ ‘No, that’s a made-up story,’” was the only reply she received, but that made-up story will reach a world of readers through Glimpse’s pages.

Courtesy of Sarah KaySarah Kay ’10 studied abroad in the Czech Republic and will write about her experiences for National Geographic’s “Glimpse” magazine.

continued from page 1

encounter less rigid degree re-quirements. “We only have to take roughly 16 classes at Brown for our degree, which is definitely not as stringent as our requirements at RISD,” said Alison Rutsch ’13.

Though it may be difficult to balance the different course loads at their two colleges, the dual de-gree students are capable of ris-ing to the challenge, said Joanne Stryker, dean of foundation studies at RISD.

“These students are real pio-

neers,” she said. “As a group, they are great — they certainly have their act together.”

Stryker, a member of the Brown-RISD Dual Degree Oversight Com-mittee, comprised of both adminis-trators from both schools, said the committee is keeping a close eye on things. “We are always tweaking things,” she said. “We’re always looking for aspects of the program to improve and review.”

Stryker said she thinks the greatest challenge facing the stu-dents is to be able to feel a part of both schools, as opposed to just

one or the other.For Rutsch, part of the chal-

lenge is getting used to the dif-ferent environments on each cam-pus and the contrast between the teaching styles of Brown and RISD professors, she said.

“At RISD, everything is much more interactive, in studio classes you are moving around the room and looking at the work produced in other classes,” she said. “At the Brown freshman seminar that I took, the classroom environment was more reserved — it was a com-pletely different atmosphere.”

Though some of the dual de-gree students have already en-rolled in classes at Brown, they will begin the majority of their studies here next year when they live at Brown.

As for the dual-degree class of 2014, selections will begin shortly, Dean of Admissions James Miller ’73 wrote in an e-mail to The Her-ald. The committee waits to see which candidates were admitted to both schools independently, then makes its selections from that group, Miller wrote.

For Miller, the continued

growth of the program is indica-tive of Brown’s need to evolve con-stantly. “This program is clearly on the continuum of academic in-novation that has characterized Brown throughout its history,” he wrote.

Though she often has to sacri-fice sleep and her social life to keep up with her work, Watson’s faith in the program remains unshaken, she said.

“I will walk away with a degree from two great universities — I don’t want anything other than that,” she said.

Brave class of artistic ‘pioneers’ working hard on dual Brown, rISD degreescontinued from page 2

Magazine shares Glimpse of adventures

centrator in her undergraduate years, will serve as an Associate Counsel to the President. She pre-viously worked on the Obama for America campaign as the deputy to Chief Strategist David Axelrod and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. She graduated from Yale Law School.

Shaw will also serve as an As-sociate Counsel to the President.

She also worked on Obama’s tran-sition team and was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. After earning her Brown degree in gender studies and re-ligious studies, Shaw went on to Northwestern University School of Law, where she was editor-in-chief of the Northwestern Law Review.

None of the appointees were successfully reached for com-ment.

Alums head to white housecontinued from page 1

Clients who have been selected for the pilot project will obtain their loans in mid-March. They will attend bi-weekly meetings and receive training in business skills.

“You’re basically hand-held throughout the project,” Aziz said.

The second type of loan per-mits clients to apply for a change in their legal status, helping in-crease their sense of belonging, access to jobs and eligibility for welfare.

“It’s a very different, innova-tive use of microfinance,” Aziz added.

If the plan is successful, the bank will be self-sufficient and oriented toward environmental sustainability in five years, said Posner, who is writing his thesis on green microfinance.

The students said they became interested in the subject after read-ing Nobel Prize winner Muham-mad Yunus’ books and studying

and working for microfinance banks abroad.

Gillani said the models they studied helped the group decide to focus on individual loans rather than the group lending model.

Alan Harlam, the director of social entrepreneurship at the Swearer Center, who has advised the group since the beginning, praised the students for their extensive research on microfi-nance.

“The (Capital Good Fund)team has created their model to lever-age the relationships and cred-ibility of their community part-ners,” he wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

The group said it will file for nonprofit status in March and hopes to receive it in October, before giving out a new batch of loans in November.

Aziz said she was excited for the launch of the bank.

“The four of us are pretty much giving our lives to it,” she said. “It consumes us.”

Microfinancing olneyvillecontinued from page 2

“I probably just seemed like a naive and impressionable American girl to them.” — Sarah Kay ’10.

THuRSDAY, JANuARY 29, 2009THE BROWN DAILY HERALDPAGE 4

CAMpuS newSBike-sharing program gears up for springby sHaNNoN o’brieN

Contributing Writer

Students dreaming of riding a bike around campus need wait no longer, thanks to a new bike-sharing service slated to begin soon.

The Brown Outing Club plans to launch Bikes@Brown, a bike shar-ing service with seven bicycles, in early March.

The service, funded using left-over money from the club’s budget from last semester, will be based in the old Undergraduate Finance Board room in lower Faunce House, said Carly Sieff ’09, who is in charge of the program along with Michael Teshima ’11.

Brown students will be able to borrow a bike, along with a lock and key, for up to two days after provid-ing a $20 deposit and their student ID number. When they return the bike, they’ll get the deposit back. Students must pay a $5 fee, which will be used for bike maintenance, to participate in the program.

The office in lower Faunce will be open for one hour each day, Monday through Friday.

“Freshman year, I was sort of shocked that it wasn’t here, because I feel like it really complements everything Brown is about,” Sieff

said.

The outing club tried to create a bike-sharing program last year, but it failed because the club wasn’t as committed to the idea as it is now, Sieff said, adding that it couldn’t find a space for the bikes.

The club made proposals to both the Student Activities Office and the Undergraduate Finance Board last year, but neither was approved, The Herald reported in October.

Sieff said she has received a lot of positive reaction about the program from students and faculty alike.

With seven bicycles, the program will “start out small,” but Teshima hopes it “will grow and we can ex-pand (its) hours and accessibility.” The organization plans to eventually have bikes available at the Sciences and Rockefeller libraries so students can check one out with a librarian at any hour of the day.

“If they’re flamboyant, like, sick bikes, people will notice them and be like, ‘Hey, I want one too,’” said Ariel Shecter ’10, a member of the Out-ing Club. The bikes will be teal and pink, following the custom of most bike-sharing programs, which use signature colors both to publicize their programs and prevent theft, according to club members.

Bikes@Brown will try to become independent of the outing club

sometime next year, Teshima said,

adding that the club also plans to petition UFB for additional funding for Bikes@Brown next week.

In March or April, Bikes@Brown plans to launch a student-run main-tenance shop where anyone with a Brown ID can get a bike fixed. Also in the works are training sessions on bike maintenance that would be open to both potential maintenance shop volunteers and students who just want to know how to fix their bikes.

Some students said they were excited about the program.

“That’s a service I would defi-nitely use, and more so because it’s organized by Brown students,” said Ian Gray ’12.

Others, like Frankie Nuzzo ’09, thought the program would be suc-cessful even though he wouldn’t take advantage of it.

“I’m not really a bike rider,” he said. “But if I was a freshman or a sophomore, I might have used it.”

Frederic Lu / HeraldMemebers of the Brown Outing Club Bike Co-op (L to R): Bao Nguyen ’12, Roukintou Aboubacar ’09, Michael Teshima ’11 and Carly Sieff ’09.

Faculty rebuffs UCs on pre-reqs

news in brief

Members of the un-dergraduate Council of Students’ executive board met with the Faculty Execu-tive Committee Tuesday to present a proposal for halt-ing Banner’s enforcement of prerequisites. But at Wednesday night’s meeting the general body learned of the FEC’s rejection of the request.

In a letter to Academic and Administrative Affairs Chair Tyler Rosenbaum ’11 and President Brian Becker ’09, FEC Chair and Chair of the Faculty James Dreier wrote “the FEC does not support removing Banner’s enforcement of prerequi-sites … We think instructors should be able to have en-forced prerequisites if they want to.”

After the meeting Rosen-baum told The Herald “It was disappointing to me — not entirely unexpected.”

“I kind of wished I could have known how much sup-port there was” among the faculty, he added, noting that he did not know if the FEC rejected the uCS re-quest overwhelmingly or if a significant minority sup-ported it. “We’re not just going to back down because we’ve experienced adver-sity,” he said.

The next committee meeting of the Academic and Administrative Affairs Committee will be open to the public and will concern response to the FEC deci-sion.

uCS also filled an at-large vacancy on the undergradu-ate Finance Board as well as electing a uCS-uFB liaison Wednesday night.

Benjamin Schrank ’11 was elected from among ten candidates as an at-large member of the board. Schrank told the council that he considered uFB “the lifeblood of student activities here at brown.” Council members pointed to Schrank’s experience as financial signatory for the mock trial team and the Brown Contemporary dur-ing deliberation.

Rosenbaum, a Herald opinions columnist, beat out fellow uCS members Brady Wyrtzen ’11 and Lucy Wang ’12 to be elected uCS-uFB liason. He told the coun-cil that he believes there have been past instances in which uCS did receive as much funding as it should, and that on uFB he would vote for uCS interests.

“I do my own taxes,” he added.

— Ben Schreckinger

“It really complements everything Brown is about.”— Carly Sieff ’09, on a bike-sharing program.

MetroThe Brown Daily Herald

THuRSDAY, JANuARY 29, 2009 | PAGE 5

“The city called for this.”— Tonia Mason, spokeswoman for the Providence Public Library.

Five library branches face closureby laUreN Fedor

Senior Staff Writer

The Providence Public Library sys-tem, a private, nonprofit organiza-tion which serves nearly 75,000 reg-istered borrowers, may be forced to alter its operating strategies for the coming year.

With an estimated budget deficit of $1.4 million, the library’s staff and board of trustees have pre-sented a proposal to the city that would close five of the library’s nine neighborhood branches. But the proposal faces resistance from the Providence Community Library, a recently formed nonprofit seeking to take over all the neighborhood locations.

The library’s board approved the proposal on Dec. 18, according to the PPL Web site.

The public library’s proposal also calls for scaling back fund-ing for the Central Library — the large, downtown branch on Empire Street — and converting the five closed branches to city- or commu-nity-owned “neighborhood learn-ing centers.” Such centers would maintain community activities, such as after-school programs, and the system would be willing to donate the buildings, content and support services, said Tonia Mason, direc-tor of marketing and communica-tion for the PPL.

But “these buildings would not operate as library buildings,” Ma-son said, “because we would not be able to staff them.” At least 80 percent of operating costs go to staffing, she added.

The system’s Olneyville, Wan-skuck, Fox Point, Washington Park and Smith Hill branches are facing

closings.Mason said the library’s propos-

al attempts to create a “sustainable” or “affordable” system.

“There have been continuing, growing gaps in the amount of fund-ing we receive versus what we actu-ally need to run the system,” she said, adding that the library’s board had agreed to fund this year’s bud-get gap while the library continues its planning process with the city.

“This is an ongoing process from the library’s perspective,” Mason said. “The city called for this.”

The library anticipates local gov-ernment leaders to reach decisions about the library as soon as March, she added.

Possible choices for the city, Ma-son said, include postponing the deadline for taking action, decid-ing to fund the library’s anticipated budget gap for next year or accept-ing the board’s sustainable system proposal. She said the city could opt to incorporate the library system into a city department or even fund a third party to run the system.

The Providence Community Library, meanwhile, seeks to gain control of the library system’s nine local branches, while allowing the PPL to maintain ownership of the Central Library.

In an opinion column in the Providence Journal this month, PCL President Marcus Mitchell criticized the library’s sustainabil-ity plan. The plan to close the five neighborhood branches, he wrote, was “neither necessary nor accept-able.”

Mitchell presented PCL’s plans for budget adjustments — includ-ing hiring fewer administrators and engaging in more “robust” fundrais-

ing — and urged the city to “end its relationship” with the PPL.

City Council President Peter Mancini said council members plan to meet with Mayor David Cicilline ’83 and other city officials to exam-ine the proposals of both the PPL and the PCL. He said the meeting will likely be held next month.

The PCL’s proposal to take over the nine neighborhood branches “sounds really good,” Mancini said, but there are details of the plan — especially fundraising strategies — that must be examined before a decision is made. “We need to get together and see if we can make this work,” he said.

It is “extremely important” to many of the city council members to ensure that the local branches stay open, Mancini said. Moreover, it is “not likely” that the city will take over the library branches, he added.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the PCL’s online petition asking the city to transfer funds from the PPL to the PCL had more than 300 signa-tures. The PCL held a public forum Wednesday night at Knight Memo-rial Library on Elmwood Avenue.

The organization’s next com-munity meeting will be held at the South Providence Library on Feb. 3.

Janine Cheng / HeraldThe Providence Public Library’s budget deficit may mean the closing of five of its nine neighborhood branches.

consisting of a few tents, a couple of lanterns and boxes of supplies, is sandwiched between two roads. A well-worn track of packed-down snow leads down to the camp from the street, trodden down by well-wishers and members of the me-dia.

Roland Colpitts, a middle-aged man wearing two coats and a white, knitted cap, said the camp should be “a last alternative” after the shelters. But for those who don’t stay in the shelters, it’s best to stick together.

“We wanted to get together so another one of us doesn’t have to die alone,” Colpitts said.

Earlier this month, Paul Langlois died under this very bridge. His bedroll still lies here, undisturbed, steps away from the tents. A ser-vice held Wednesday morning at Beneficent Church on Weybosset Street honored him and 30 other homeless people who died over the last year.

To avoid another death, Colpitts said, he and others have been mak-ing rounds to places where other homeless people sleep — places he says the police don’t know to check. They’ve had some luck getting some

to go to shelters, and those who won’t go to shelters sometimes come join them in the tents.

Colpitts said residents of the tent city take shifts keeping watch over one another.

“Your backpack is your life,” he said. “You don’t want to wake up and find it’s not there.”

Many tent city dwellers say they are fed up with shelter services — some for personal reasons, such as dislike of crowds, others because they have been barred from shel-ters before.

Barbara Ferrara, who has been staying at the tent city since Satur-day, said she can’t stand the fights and drugs she ran into at shelters. She said she was banned from shel-ters after she left to rent an apart-ment with roommates — only to be back out on the streets after her roommates were evicted.

Anne Nolan, president of Cross-roads Rhode Island, an organization that runs emergency shelters, said that though “occasionally, people are barred for behavioral infrac-tions or safety violations,” nobody is excluded during bad weather.

“We will not leave somebody out in the cold in the winter,” she said.

Meghna Philip ’11, a member of HOPE, does outreach for the tent city, bringing food and publicity. She said the group wants to see funding restored to programs such as the Neighborhood Opportunities Program, which provided funds for construction and rent subsidies. That program, and others, were re-cently cut as Rhode Island struggles to balance its budget.

HOPE plans to lobby the state for a change to the “program assuranc-es,” agreements between the state and shelters run by Crossroads and

the Urban League of Rhode Island, Philip says. The assurances, which determine how shelters are run and allow for complaints, are vague and not enforced, she said.

Megan Smith ’10, another mem-ber of HOPE who volunteers at the tent city, said she wants to see the local government take more ac-tion.

“The city and the state have ab-dicated their responsibility,” she said, adding that the city of Warwick has adopted a 10-year-plan to end homelessness. “We’d like Provi-

dence to have the same foresight,” she said.

Meanwhile, the tent city has received plenty of attention from newspapers, radio and television. People have brought food, blankets, brand-new backpacks and tents. The police have also been cooperative.

And Colpitts said he is not wor-ried about ice and snow. He plans to stay under the bridge for as long as he needs to, “until we can get something done.”

“I’ve woken up under a foot of snow before,” he said.

THuRSDAY, JANuARY 29, 2009THE BROWN DAILY HERALDPAGE 6

Metro “We wanted to get together so another one of us doesn’t have to die alone.”— Roland Colpitts, a homeless resident of the “tent city” under a bridge

under a bridge, homelesslocals build ‘tent city,’ and stick together for safety

continued from page 1

George Miller / HeraldMany “tent city” dwellers say they would rather sleep outside than in the shelters.

SportsthursdayTHuRSDAY, JANuARY 29, 2009 | Page 7

The Brown Daily Herald

Sports weekend wrap-upby KaTie Wood

aSSiStant Spor tS editor

The Bears were well represented on the road last weekend, tak-ing on teams from all over New England.W. tennis

The women’s tennis team pulled out a tight 4-3 win over Boston University on Sunday af-ternoon. The match came down to the winner of the doubles point as each team split its singles match-es, 3-3. At number one doubles, Bianca Aboubakare ’11 and Sara Mansur ’09 put together an 8-6 win. At number three, Kathrin Sorokko ’10 and Emily Ellis ’10 fell 6-8 shortly after the conclu-sion of the number one game.

Cassandra Herzberg ’12 and Marisa Schonfeld ’11 won a close 9-8 (4) decision to claim the deci-sive doubles point for the team. Aboubakare and Herzberg pro-vided two key wins for the Bears in singles at number one and two. The Bears will look to continue their success in the new year with two home matches against Army on Sat. at 11 a.m. and Buffalo on Sun. at 10 a.m.

M. swimming and divingHarvard remained undefeated

on the year as the men’s swim-ming and diving team dropped a 169-119 decision to Brown on Sat-urday. Daniel Ricketts ’09 swam to three victories on the day for the Bears in the 50 free (21.10 seconds), the 100 free (46.37), and the 100 fly (50.30). Conor Carlucci ’11 followed Ricketts for second (51.99) in the 100 fly, com-bining for a solid one-two punch in the event. Carlucci also notched a second-place finish for the Bears in the 100 back (54.99). J.D. Pinto ’10 led the way for Brown in the 200 back (1:53.81), recording one of five first place finishes in the meet. The Bears closed out the meet strong, winning two of the final events. Ryan Kikuchi ’11 won the 400 IM (4:04.62) and the 200 free relay team of David Koweek ’09, James Hunter ’12, Richard Alexander ’09 and Car-lucci finished off the meet also with a win (1:27.44).W. swimming and diving

The Crimson also prevailed over the women’s swimming and diving team as the Bears fell

M. track and fieldMatt Jasmin ’09 continued to excel in the 55-meter hur-dles for the men’s track and field team at the Boston university Terrier Invitational, a meet which also saw several strong performances in the field for Brown.

Top PerformersJasmin: 55-meter hurdles, 7.70 s, 3rd place•Bryan Powlen ’09: Shot Put, 15.82m, 5th•Andrew Chapin ’10: Triple Jump, 14.15m, 6th•Jordan Maddocks ’11: High Jump, 1.89m, 6th •

Women’s track and fieldBrynn Smith ’11 and Nicole Burns ’09 led a solid effort for Brown at the Terrier Invitational, with Smith post-ing a second-place finish in the shot put, while Burns turned in an impressive race in the 500-meter run.

Top PerformersSmith: Shot Put, 14.71m, 2nd•Burns: 500m, 1:13.92, 3rd •Danielle Grunloh ’10: Shot Put, 14.03m, 4th•Thelma Breezeatl ’10: 55m, 7.19, 5th•Rachel Biblo ’11: Triple Jump, 11.40m, 7th •

Men’s fencingBrown went 5-1 as a team at the Northeastern Fenc-ing Conference in the OMAC on Saturday, led by solid performances from the foil and saber squads. The team defeated Tufts, Vassar, Dartmouth, Boston College, and MIT, while losing to Brandeis.

Top PerformersAdam Pantel ’10: 16-1 in foil•Jonathan Yu ’11: 15-3 in foil•Peter Tyson ’12: 12-6 in saber •

Women’s fencingThe women’s foil squad went 5-2 at the NFC, also due to strong performances in foil and saber.

Top PerformersLinda Zhang ’10: 7-1 in foil•Francesca Bartholomew ’11: 12-3 in foil•Christina Salvatore ’09: 14-7 in epee•Randy Alevi ’10: 12-2 in saber•

— Compiled by Benjy Asher, Sports Editor

recap by the numbers

continued on page 8

make the men’s basketball program consistently strong, rather than reli-ant upon incoming and outgoing play-ers. He plans to develop players who do not have sufficient experience or exposure and put them in a position to succeed.

Still, Agel said there is work to be done.

“We’re a work in progress,” he said. “We don’t have all the pieces we need to play the style that I foresee us playing in the future.”

Tri-captain Scott Friske ’09 echoed Agel on player development. “Our team’s not very deep,” he said.

“We have four guys in the top 10 in the league in most minutes played,” Friske said, referring to the team’s lack of support from the bench.

The loss of All-Ivy players Damon Huffman ’08 and Mark McAndrew ’08, two of the top scorers in Brown history, last year hasn’t make the transition to a new coach any easier, Friske said.

Another change has been the complete re-vamping of the assistant staff, with new assistant coaches La-mar Barrett, T.J. Sorrentine and Kyle Cieaplicki. Sorrentine and Cieaplicki are former players of Agel’s from Vermont and have experience in the NCAA tournament.

Having the younger coaches “re-ally benefits us, because they can relate to us,” tri-captain Peter Sul-livan ’11 said.

“Because they’ve been in the NCAA tournament, you respect what

they say that much more,” Skrelja added.

Under Agel, the team has switched from Robinson’s Princeton offense — which involved back-door cuts and more perimeter play — to a high-low offense, where the players’ first look is inside at the post before the ball returns to the perimeter. With more freedom in the offense, players have room to be creative and use their talents to be successful.

The new offense suits the team much better, Sullivan said.

On the defensive end, the Bears now use a man-to-man defense that “makes opponents uncomfortable,” instead of the zone defense that they had used under Robinson, Skrelja said.

Because the team’s style has changed so much, so too have the practices.

One of the most welcome chang-es has been the rescheduling of 5:30 a.m. practices to the afternoon.

“Those were rough,” Skrelja con-fessed with a laugh.

“My philosophy about practice is you want to keep it fresh,” Agel said. “You want to be in a positive work environment, (where) people tend to do their best.”

But while the same freedom afforded to them in games is also allowed in practice, the afternoon ses-sions have still “been really intense, really stressing a lot of defense,” Skrelja said.

Even so, Sullivan said, “You enjoy playing basketball, rather than prac-tice being a chore” and “you wake up

excited to practice.”Agel wants the Bears to be known

as the “team in the Ivy League that works the hardest,” Sullivan said.

“He wants us to be a real physi-cal team — he always wants us to play hard,” Sullivan said. “He always stresses playing harder than our op-ponents — always be the first guy on the ground for the loose ball.”

Last season, which saw the Bears finish second in the Ivy League, set the bar high for this year’s team. But the sub-.500 record, the cap-tains agree, is not reflective of the progress the team has made. In non-conference play, Brown faced up with teams like Virginia, North-western, George Mason, Holy Cross and Providence — “tough teams that are expected to beat us,” Sullivan said.

“Our record may not show the strides that we’re making this year just because we’re playing some tough teams,” he said.

From Agel’s perspective, the six wins are significant — the fourth-highest non-conference win total in the history of the program. Things don’t get easier immediately as the Bears ready themselves for nearly a month without a home game, but Agel thinks the hostile road environ-ments will benefit the team in the long term.

“It’s a good place to go to grow up,” Agel said. “We play in front of the (opposing) team’s fans.”

“If you want to be champions, you have to be able to win both home and away,” he said.

Agel, m. hoops make a smooth transitioncontinued from page 1

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SportSweekenD

199.5-99.5. Allyson Schumacher ’12 tallied the Bears’ first vic-tory on the day in the 200 free (1:52.09). Candice Sisouvanvi-eng-Kim ’11 swam a 24.21 in the 50 free to notch the second win for the team. The free proved to be a strong event for Brown, as Kristen Caldarella ’12 claimed the 100 free title (53.36). Kelley Wisinger ’11 notched the final victory in the pool for the Bears, as she led her team to a one-two sweep in the 200 back (2:07.44) as Sage Erskine ’11 followed closely behind in second (2:09.76). Sisou-vanvieng-Kim, Caldarella, Susan-nah Ford ’10 and Schumacher led the way for Brown in the relays as the team combined for a second-place finish in the 200 free relay (1:39.02).

M. squashThe no. 14 men’s squash team

came away with their third con-secutive victory as they handed Bowdoin an 8-1 defeat. Adrian Leanza ’11 began the day for the Bears with a solid 3-0 win at num-ber one, helping the team gain the momentum it carried into the remainder of the match. Adam

Greenberg ’10 at number three, Brad Thompson ’12 at number four, Patrick Davis ’10 at number five, Tucker Bryan ’12 at num-ber seven and Brett Camarda ’09 at number nine followed up Leanza’s performance with five 3-0 decisions of their own. The Bears will look to continue their success on into their Ivy League match-up with Dartmouth on Saturday.

W. squashThe no. 10 women’s squash

team equaled the men in their performance, defeating Bowdoin 8-1 for their third straight victory. Charlotte Steel ’09 catapulted the Bears to a strong showing on the day with a 3-0 win at number one. Breck Haynes ’09 lost a hard-fought five-game match, falling 3-2. After the close loss, Brown did not turn back and won the next seven matches. Kali Schel-lenberg ’10 at number five, Nikoo Fadaifard ’12 at number six, Caro-lyn Tilney ’11 at number seven, Sarah Roberts ’10 at number eight and Charlotte MacMillan ’09 at number nine each notched 3-0 victories for the Bears. The team will face Dartmouth and Stanford on Saturday.

M. squash cruises to third straight victory

continued from page 7

Star Bears bring home Ivy, eCAC awardsby beNJy asHer

SportS editor

Jarred Smith ’12 had a breakout per-formance for the men’s hockey team this weekend that earned him the ECAC Hockey Rookie of the Week Award. In Friday night’s 4-1 win at Colgate, Smith notched the first goal of his collegiate career to break a 1-1 tie late in the second period.

Though Brown struggled on Sat-

urday night at Cornell, Smith came through for the Bears again, tallying the only goal of the night for the team in a 5-1 loss.

In a narrow 57-55 loss to Yale, Matt Mullery ’10, who was named to the Ivy League honor roll for the week, shone for the men’s basket-ball team. Mullery scored 22 points, grabbed nine rebounds and regis-tered six blocked shots. Mullery has established himself as one of the top

post men in the league this season, with averages of 16.3 points, 5.6 re-bounds and 1.9 blocks per game, all of which rank in the top 10 in the league.

The women’s basketball team struggled in its 71-37 loss to Yale, but Sadiea Williams ’11 was in top form. Williams was named to the Ivy League honor roll, after leading the team with 12 points, five rebounds and four steals.

editorial & LettersPage 10 | THuRSDAY, JANuARY 29, 2009

The Brown Daily Herald

A L E x Y U L Y

State of the university

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It almost seems that the recent spate of harsh weather in Providence was intended as a metaphor for the University’s dire financial state. President Ruth Simmons’ recent e-mail to the Brown community regard-ing the University’s budget painted a bleak picture of our present fiscal situation and outlined some drastic measures in response.

The figures listed in Simmons’ e-mail are alarming: The Corporation estimates that Brown’s endowment will be worth $2 billion at the end of June, down $800 million from last year. Simmons noted that fundraising for the next two years could drop by as much as 10 percent. In the face of these revenue shortfalls, Brown will have to slash spending by $60 million for the upcoming budget and postpone major initiatives that were part of the Plan for Academic Enrichment, including increases in graduate school enrollment and the size of the faculty.

Faced with an almost 30 percent loss in the endowment, the Univer-sity will have to make painful adjustments. Simmons’ e-mail presents a pragmatic approach that we can grudgingly appreciate while wistfully dreaming of the performing arts center and permanent swimming pool that we thought would materialize during our time on campus.

Brown’s commitment to meeting students’ full demonstrated financial need displays a laudable concern for many families’ recent financial difficulties. Brown also deserves praise for its decision to cut jobs and other budget items in areas which will have a minimal impact on teach-ing faculty and academic departments.

We should bear in mind that Brown is not suffering alone. The Univer-sity luckily escaped the fallout from Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, the collapse of which has taken a toll on many other universities. Brandeis, for example, has been forced to close its Rose Art Museum and sell 6,000 artworks in an attempt to recover, and may have to cut 10 percent of its faculty. Yale, Harvard and Princeton all expect their endowments to fall by 25 to 30 percent by the summer. These schools, with larger endowments than ours, have proposed cost-cutting measures similar to what President Simmons outlined in her e-mail.

As stakeholders in the University and its future, we understand Brown’s conservative outlook. The recession demands sacrifices, and the Univer-sity has chosen to lower spending prudently. Once the economy starts to turn around, we trust that Brown will bounce back bolder than ever.

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

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Two views on liberals and partisanship

letters to the editors

To the editor:

Within the first two paragraphs of Jonathan Topaz’s ‘12 column (“The dirty ‘c’ word,” Jan. 27), I read this curi-ous phrase: “... (Matt Taibbi) makes his points without excessive ire and without raising his voice, pointing out idiocy and hypocrisy with restraint and tact.”

I then wondered if Topaz had ever actually read an article by Taibbi. Taibbi’s articles are so laden with insults and profanity (routinely referring to Republicans

as “c*cksuckers” and the candidates for the 2008 Repub-lican ticket “a collection of second-rate buffoons”; fairly tame remarks for Taibbi) that his anger towards and loathing of the GOP practically explodes off the page. Even liberal Rolling Stone readers write frequently to the magazine to condemn his language and writing style. It’s almost a joke to see “tact” and “Taibbi” in the same sentence.

aaron Zick ‘11Jan. 28

Room for conservative views in discourseTo the editor:

Positive letters to the editors are rare in most pub-lications, but I’d like to applaud Jonathan Topaz’s ‘12 column (“The dirty ‘c’ word,” Jan. 27). I self-identify as left-of-center politically, but on many issues I hold views that are much more conservative than what you’d expect to find at a “liberal university” like Brown.

I have nothing but respect for the openness this school fosters when it comes to issues of gender, race and identity. But when it comes to politics, there’s the ever-present fear of creating a chilling effect. What if you say something that doesn’t fit the mold? There’s an incentive, in other words, to keep non-liberal opinions to yourself.

The class Mr. Topaz mentions, which “felt at times

more like an Obama rally than nuanced discussion,” strikes a chord with me because I think I was in it. Intolerance for other ways of thinking is not a conserva-tive value, nor is it a liberal value. But it always finds its voice when we put our brains on autopilot and let partisanship take over the conversation.

I sincerely hope President Obama, his staff and, most importantly, his supporters can find a way to put aside the hateful nonconstructive partisanship of the past decade. To borrow a phrase from one such partisan organization, it’s time to “move on.”

eric Johnson ‘11Jan. 27

THuRSDAY, JANuARY 29, 2009 | PAGE 11

opinionsThe Brown Daily Herald

What are liberal arts? Besides paintings by gay-married terrorists who happen to like arugula or unsubstantiated claims of self-in-duced abortions by Yale art students.

Many Brown students might respond: lit-erature, languages, history, philosophy, polit-ical science and anthropology. (Economics is typically disqualified because it is thought to guarantee its concentrators future housing conditions better than those of a refrigerator carton.) Math and science are of course in an entirely separate category.

This would be quite a shock to students of the first Western universities, those in Eu-rope during the Middle Ages. Their “artes liberales” consisted of the trivium — gram-mar, rhetoric and logic — and the quadriv-ium — geometry, arithmetic, music and as-tronomy. Yes, fully half of the original liberal arts were what is now known as math and science.

Curricula have evolved, entire social sci-ence disciplines have sprung up, and arith-metic is now taught to elementary school children. But even in our time, the liberal arts are commonly considered the oppo-site of pre-professional education. A liberal arts education involves studying a range of fields not for their immediate relevance to job placement, but for the intrinsic appeal of learning and the development of general in-tellectual capabilities.

After all, most people work in jobs unrelat-ed to their undergraduate major. In the long term, the abilities to think critically, analyze,

communicate, adapt and learn independently are more conducive to career success than the memorization of a narrow body of knowl-edge that will be obsolete in 10 or 20 years.

These attributes are easily recognizable in disciplines like English, art history and sociology. Excellent manifestos espousing the value of humanities and the study of the seemingly useless have appeared on this page. It is indeed frustrating when science and engineering concentrators at Brown look down upon, or refuse to take courses in, the supposedly too-soft fields that comprise

the humanities and social sciences.But more widespread than chemistry con-

centrators who never dabble in the humani-ties (over four years, a difficult feat!), are in-ternational relations or literary arts concen-trators who declare math and science irrele-vant to their academic lives, vowing that high school was the last time they would ever take a math or science course. Somehow it is more politically correct at Brown to ignore the sciences altogether than to permanently stay cooped up in Barus and Holley and the CIT.

This attitude is disappointing and mis-guided. The natural sciences and mathemat-ics are not only absolutely relevant to a liber-al arts education but equally valuable as sub-

jects more concerned with human creations.For one thing, the natural sciences at an

undergraduate level are almost as impracti-cal professionally as humanities and social sciences. Sixteen courses hardly make an ex-pert, so there are few jobs in which science concentrators are qualified to directly apply their particular discipline without extensive graduate work.

Just as medical schools do not require a biology concentration, not all biology con-centrators plan to become doctors. Interest in, for example, the coevolution of Mesozoic

reptiles and ferns is as immediately useless as the works of Cervantes or Foucault, and potentially as rewarding.

More important than the particular sub-ject under study — much of which students will forget within a few years — are the quan-titative reasoning, logical analysis, abstract thinking and problem-solving skills learned through math and other sciences. It’s no co-incidence that Wall Street was the largest em-ployer of theoretical physicists in the 1990s.

But the knowledge and intuition gained in science courses is immensely useful in ev-eryday life. The more science you know, the more often you can answer yourself when you think, “I wonder why….” You can more easily understand medical treatments and

new technologies.A basic grasp of science is also crucial for

effective participation in democracy. A sur-prising number of political issues, from stem cells to climate change, require extensive sci-entific knowledge for a truly informed vote. The halls of Congress overflow with lawyers, but we sorely need leaders and policymakers with scientific sensibilities.

More romantically, the natural sciences are the purest expression of intellectual cu-riosity. Since antiquity they have aspired to explain our surrounding universe, from the wondrously intricate workings of our own bodies to the origins and motion of celestial bodies millions of light-years away. The hu-manities may ponder the human condition, but only the natural sciences can place it in a meaningful context.

So if you are a humanities or social sci-ence concentrator who hasn’t taken a course in science or math since high school, try one! If you don’t remember much biology, take BIOL0200: “The Foundations of Living Systems.” If you have some calculus back-ground, look into PHYS0160: “Introduction to Relativity and Quantum Physics.” For something new, try GEOL0010: “Face of the Earth.” Even psychology or cognitive sci-ence courses can work if you want. If you are worried about the difficulty, that’s precisely what S/NC is for.

And no, ENGN0090 doesn’t count.

Nick Hagerty ’10 is a biological physics and economics major from

Portland, Oregon. He can be reached at nicholas_hagerty@brown.edu.

The liberal sciences

Two words: Rod Blagojevich. For those of you who were abroad this past winter or simply refuse to watch the news, Blagojevich is the still-governor of Illinois who allegedly tried to trade Barack Obama’s former senate seat for campaign donations and lucrative private-sector jobs.

Blagojevich promised not to appoint anyone to the seat after the public learned of his misdoings, but wound up sending former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris to Washington anyway. This gave Senate Democrats days of heartburn. They promised not to seat Burris but capitulated shortly thereafter.

While selling a Senate seat is probably the worst scandal involving a gubernatorial appointment in recent years, it is not the only one. After Frank Murkowski appointed his daughter to the Senate seat he vacated when he became governor of Alaska, voters punished him in the subsequent election by voting for a little-known mayor named Sarah Palin in the Republican primary. The back-lash from a nepotistic appointment helped Palin rise to power.

So how does this affect the Ocean State? If one of the Rhode Island’s senators vacates his seat, the governor appoints someone

to take his place. So what can the voters do? They must wait until the next round of federal elections to pick their senator. For up to two years, an appointed senator can vote however he pleases and author whatever legislation he chooses, ostensibly representing the Rhode Island citizens who had no choice but to accept the governor’s decision.

Before 1913, U.S. senators were selected by state legislators — apparently, voters

were incapable of picking their own rep-resentatives. The 17th Amendment went a long way toward expanding democracy by allowing voters to pick their senators in general elections, but made no such provi-sion for filling senate vacancies. As a result, governors have the power to fill vacancies in many states.

Rhode Island governors have recently made use of this undemocratic power. In No-vember of 1999, Governor Lincoln Almond appointed the mayor of Warwick, Lincoln Chafee ’75, to fill the seat of his late father,

John Chafee. Lincoln Chafee was arguably the best choice. He was mayor of Rhode Island’s second largest city and was already an announced candidate for the upcoming election. But his appointment raises ques-tions about the legitimacy of the process.

Is it fair that, as a U.S. senator, Lincoln Chafee had the ability to raise more money and attract additional media attention? In the next election, newly minted incumbent-Chafee had substantial electoral advantages

over his Democratic opponent because the governor decided that he should.

Thankfully, Chafee’s appointment may be the last of its kind. One organization, FairVote Rhode Island, is working to institute special elections. When I spoke with Matt Sledge ’08, the group’s executive director, he said he felt optimistic about the likeli-hood that a bill mandating special elections would pass.

When David Segal, D-Dist. 2 introduced this legislation one year ago, voters and reporters paid little attention. The House

Judiciary Committee simply recommended that the measure be held for further study. I hope that Illinois provided all the additional information that they needed.

Perhaps some good can come from Blagojevich’s corruption. “People have fi-nally decided to take a look at this issue,” Sledge said. “Letting a governor make an appointment to a federal elected office is a problem. And it is a flaw that is very easily corrected.”

All it takes is one bill, and Chris Fierro, D-Dist. 51 has already introduced legislation in the State House similar to Segal’s mea-sure. “A U.S. Senate seat is too important to be appointed by any one person, be they Democrat or Republican,” Fierro told me in an interview. Time and time again, senators shape national policy by placing holds on legislation, even relatively uncontroversial bills involving land protection. That is far too much power for any unelected man or woman to hold.

Fierro also said that the image of Rhode Island as corrupt has kept some businesses away from the state. By reforming the ap-pointment process, Rhode Island can clean up its image and attract new jobs in the aftermath of the Blagojevich scandal.

Jeremy Feigenbaum ’11 is a political science concentrator from Teaneck, New Jersey. He can be reached at jeremy_feigenbaum@brown.edu.

Illinois’ lesson for rhode Island

An appointed senator can vote however she pleases and author whatever legislation she chooses, ostensibly representing the Rhode

Island citizens who had no choice but to accept the governor’s decision.

Somehow it is more politically correct at Brown to ignore the sciences altogether than to

permanently stay cooped up in Barus and Holley and the CIT.

BY NICK HAGERTYopinions coluMnist

BY JEREMY FEIGENBAuMopinions coluMnist

THUrsday, JaNUary 29, 2009 PaGe 12

Today 57

Teaser text about section of the day

Teaser text about sports of the day

The Brown Daily Herald

38 / 19

JaNUary 29, 2008

7 P.M. — “Common Ground: Justice

and Equality in Palestine/Israel,”

MacMllan 117.

4 P.M. — “Institutional Transformation

and Women in the Sciences,” Smith

Buonanno 106.

JaNUary 30, 2008

7 P.M. — W. basketball v. Cornell,

Pizzitola Center.

7 P.M. — M. ice hockey v.

Quinnipiac, Meehan Auditorium.

ACROSS1 Unit of

capacitance6 Three-time NFL

MVP11 Noel contraction14 Agave fiber15 Hamburger

helper?16 Harry Potter’s pal

Weasley17 Landmark

birthday, informally19 Notable flag-

raising site, briefly20 Street “where the

air is sweet”21 Finished22 Nibble

persistently23 Retreat25 Garlicky sauce27 Gives strict orders32 “Can’t Help

Lovin’ __ Man”33 Go astray34 State bordering

Arizona35 Some investment

accts.37 On the double39 Full of life40 Live-in employee43 Chickadee’s

cousin45 Canon camera46 Bird who loved

Horton inBroadway’s“Seussical”

50 “... could __ lean”51 Trading post item52 Butler’s last word54 Not to56 Part of a biblical

miracle60 Actor Wallach61 Hot-weather rash63 HVAC abbr.64 Handle65 Saint-Saëns’ “__

Macabre”66 Jerry’s adversary67 Fabulous fellow?68 Foul moods

DOWN1 Is just right2 Tennis star who

won each grandslam tournamentexcept theFrench Open

3 Hwys.4 Capital near

Troy5 Martian moon6 Stentorian, in

music notation7 Like areas with

arroyos8 Costar with

Lucille9 Prepares a third

draft of10 That, in Toledo11 “Lemon Tree”

singer, 196512 Davenport site13 Reception

problem18 Crystalline stone22 Quiet valleys24 Metal band with

the 1999 tripleplatinum album“Issues”

26 Discoverer’s cry27 “Law of the Lash”

star, 194728 In short supply29 Penned30 __ con pollo31 Behavior32 How TV screens

are measured:Abbr.

36 Beelzebub38 Unlikely hero41 NYC subway42 Enjoy the wild, as

animals44 Immune system

lymphocyte47 Fishing boats48 Pink and golfer

Raymond?49 Dweller in the

Uintas52 Net worth factor

53 Violist’s clef55 Quadri-

doubled57 Start of an

ancient boast58 Bridge position59 Fr. holy women61 “Do you know

where yourchildren are?” isone: Abbr.

62 Keystonebumbler

By Gareth Bain(c)2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc. 01/29/09

01/29/09

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Thursday, January 29, 2009

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

xwordeditor@aol.com

enigma Twist | Dustin Foley

alien Weather Forecast | Stephen Lichenstein and Adam Wagner

Cabernet voltaire | Abe Pressman

sHarPe reFeCTory

lUNCH — Vegan Tofu Raviolis with

Sauce, Savory Spinach, Vegan Tofu

Pups, Grilled Ham and Swiss Sand-

wich

diNNer — Vegetarian Gnocchi Ala

Sorrentina, Mashed White Potatoes

verNey-Woolley diNiNG Hall

lUNCH — Hot Roast Beef on French

Bread, Vegan Tofu Raviolis with Sauce,

Nacho Bar, Cream Cheese Brownies

diNNer — Lemon Broiled Chicken,

Pasta Spinach Casserole, Black &

White Pudding Cake

4 51calendar

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