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News.....1-4
Metro.......5-6
Sports...7-9Editorial..10Opinion...11
Today........12
Athlete of the Week
Garrett Leffelman ’11 onpolitics, Evan Turner and
basketball
Sports, 7
school’s out
Gov. Carcieri’s ’65 bdget
proposal slashes education
fnding
Metro, 5
Weeding it out
Michael Fitzpatrick ’12asks smokers to open a
window
Opinions, 11
i n s i d e
D
aily
H
erald
the Brown
vol. cxlv, no. 17 |
Thursday, February 18, 2010
| Serving the community daily since 1891
UTRAwill notinc
By thomAs JArus
C
ontributing
W
riter
The University does not intend to ex-
pand opportunities or Undergraduate
Teaching and Research Awards this
year, said Besenia Rodriguez, associatedean o the College or undergraduate
research. Though last year’s Task Force on
Undergraduate Education recommend-
ed increasing the number o UTRAs,
the economy prevented the University rom executing the recommendation. This year, the recession has prevented
the expansion o the UTRA programagain, Rodriguez said.
“Because o the economic climate,
that’s still not really a possibility,” shesaid. While the University cannot undadditional UTRAs, she said it is com-mitted to insuring that the number o awards does not decrease. About 200
awards were available last summer,
The Herald reported last February. Though the task orce pushed or
more research awards, the size o the
applicant pool has not grown signi-
cantly since last year, Rodriguez said.
More students attended inormationsessions about the UTRA program
this year than last year, but the num-ber o applicants was about the same,she said.
But the UTRA program has
changed in other ways. In 2008, the
creation o semester UTRAs allowed
undergraduates to participate in re-
search during the school year, Rodri-
guez said. Students who received theseawards worked on projects that could
BM ,
By kAte monks
S
enior
S
taff
W
riter
The Division o Biology and Medi-
cine’s annual report shows signs
o growth during the 2008-09 aca-demic year despite the economicrecession, including an increased
class size or the Alpert MedicalSchool and millions o dollars in
grants.
As o Dec. 1, the division had
received more than $11 million in
National Institute o Health grantsunded by the American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act, according tothe report. Renovations on an exist-
ing building in the Jewelry District will be completed in 2011 to create
the Med School’s new home.
But BioMed has not been com-
pletely immune rom the recession,
said Dean o Medicine and Biologi-
cal Sciences Edward Wing.
“The division is aected like the
rest o the University,” said Wing.
“We have, in some cases, had to
think about cutting sta.” He also
said that some sta members have
participated in early retirement.
He said that BioMed, though
relying on the endowment, is alsoable to receive a large amount o
revenue rom grants, easing the
inancial pressure the division
aces.One o the biggest projects or
BioMed over the next two years is
creating a new home or the MedSchool. Located at Richmond and
Ship streets, the new Medical
Education Building will be able
to serve more students and al-
low the University to increase theMed School class size, according
to the report. This should allow
the school to expand its class size
rom 96 medical students to 120,
Wing said.
“We’re doing that in part be-
cause there’s a need or physicians
By godA thAngAdA
S
enior
S
taff
W
riter
A trial scheduled or Feb. 17 regard-
ing Providence mayoral candidate
Chris Young’s arrest at a Univer-sity event has been postponed toMarch 10.
Young was charged with disor-
derly conduct ollowing a Novem-ber orum on health care reorm.
Stephen Ryan, city solicitor, said
he had requested that the trial
be postponed because he had a
scheduling confict. Young and
his lawyers, Thomas Brejcha and
Keven McKenna, appeared in court
as scheduled, though the trial was
not held.
Brejcha few to Providence rom
Chicago or the trial. He works
or the Thomas More Society, a
nonprot public interest law rm
specializing in incidents related to
pro-lie activism. A spokesperson
or the society, Stephanie Lewis,said Brejcha had gone to Provi-dence hoping the case would be
dismissed as requested in a court ling.Ryan said the deendants werenotied about a week in advance,
but the Web site or the ThomasMore Society posted a notice on
Feb. 16 that the trial would occur
D
F b P k
By BrigittA greene
M
etro
e
ditor
A tower o miniature cupcakes,lutes o sparkling apple cider,
a visit rom the mayor and — o
course — bags upon bags o resh,
buttery popcorn. Ater almost a
year o planning and with hun-
dreds o kids squirming in their
seats, the irst annual ProvidenceChildren’s Film Festival oicially
kicked o Friday night at Provi-dence’s Cable Car Cinema.
The estival, which wrapped
up on Monday, eatured screen-
ings o children’s ilms, anima-
tions and documentaries at boththe Cable Car and Rhode Island
School o Design’s Metcal Audi-torium. Over 1,800 people attend-
ed the estival’s screenings and
workshops, according to Brenda
Shannon, vice president o the
estival’s Board o Directors.
“It’s just another example o the importance o arts and cul-
ture to the city,” Mayor David
Cicilline ’83 told The Herald. He
presented the Festival Board with
a proclamation rom the city on
Friday evening, calling up all the
children rom the audience or
the subsequent photo op.
Smiling among the peace signs
and bunny ears, Cicilline pushed
the smallest kids to the ront o
the crowd. Though he has no
children himsel, he said he has
the “23,000 in the Providence
school system” to keep him on
his game.
“It’s a great idea to teach chil-
Herald file photo
The Division of Biolog and Medicine has contined to grow despite the recession.
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C b ,
By kristinA fAzzAlAro
S
taff
W
riter
The Undergraduate Council o Students handles student gov-
ernment. The Undergraduate
Finance Board takes care o thenances. And a third group o or-ganizations — the Class Boards
— ocuses primarily on the so-cial aspect o Brown students’
daily lives, according to Salsabil
Ahmed ’11, a member o the 2011
Class Board.
The boards’ mission is three-
old, Director o Student Activi-
ties Phil O’Hara ’55 said. They
work on community building
among the classes, strive to pro-
mote student-alumni relations
and oster relationships between
the upper and lower classes, hesaid.
According to O’Hara, Class
Boards is a relatively new insti-
tution. “They have a very chal-
lenging job because beore 2004,
there was no organization like
this on campus.”Prior to the ormation o the
boards, there was no unding
or Senior Week and the group
responsible or organizing the
week’s events was under Alumni
Relations, O’Hara said.
But in 2004, the administra-
tion moved to create the Senior
Class Board, in order to unitethe senior class beore leavingand to plan their Senior Week
and post-graduation events, such
as reunions, wrote Junior Class
President Neil Parikh ’11 in an
e-mail to the Herald.“The goal was to create a Se-
nior Week or everyone,” O’Hara said. “They’ve done a terric job
and it gets better every year.” The Senior Class Board was
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2
metro
Cortes of Aver Hoser
The Cable Car Cinema hosted movies at a disconted rate as part of theProvidence Children’s Film Festival over the weekend.
sudoku
George Miller, President Claire Kiely, Vice President Katie Koh, Treasurer Chaz Kelsh, Secretary The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serv-ing the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once duringCommencement, once during Orientation and once in July by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Single copy ree or each members o the community.
POSTMASTER
please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Oces are located at 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. E-mail herald@browndailyherald.com. World Wide Web: http://www.browndailyherald.com.Subscription prices: $319 one year daily, $139 one semester daily.Copyright 2010 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
e
a P: 401.351.3372 | B P: 401.351.3260
D
aily
H
erald
the Brown
THuRSDAy, FEBRuARy 18, 2010THE BROWN DAILy HERALDPAGE 2
C
MPS
wS
“Since 2004, no class has left withot a nice little kitt.”
— Phil O’Hara, Director of Stdent Activities, on almni fnds
in the nation, but also we’re oneo the best medical schools,” said
Wing. “We’re in the top quarter o medical schools.”
The renovation o the building is
expected to cost about $45 million
and should be completed by August
2011, according to the report.
At that time, the Med School willalso begin dividing all students into
“academies” where they will be a
part o a group o 40 students that
will stay together throughout their
our years in medical school, ac-
cording to the report. The academy
system “provides the ideal setting
or small group learning and creates
a sense o community.” The new building will also contain state-o-the-art acilities or the students,including a clinical skills training
suite “designed to stimulate real-liedoctor-patient interaction,” accord-
ing to the report.
Wing also mentioned the divi-sion’s desire to have a “close re-
lationship” with local hospitals,
including the possibility o a joint
cancer center sometime in the next
ve years.
Marjorie Thompson ’74 PhD’79
P’02 P’07 P’09, associate dean o biological sciences, attributes thecontinued growth o the division
at the undergraduate level in part
to the strength o its educational
resources. She credited her depart-
ment’s “teaching, course variety,aculty accessibility, research op-
portunities or undergraduates” and
ocus on individuals to the depart-ment’s success, she wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.
Thompson shared Wing’s en-
thusiasm or the uture o the divi-
sion, specically speaking about the
undergraduate program.
About 15 to 20 percent o stu-dents concentrate in a biological
science “and many more take our
courses or the interest, courses
which are not only geared or non-
science concentrators, but are
welcoming and ascinating or all,” wrote Thompson.
As or the uture o BioMed,
“we are absolutely going to grow,” Wing said.as scheduled. Young said he hoped the case
would be dismissed, but that he was considering taking civil ac-
tion against the University ater the
trial. He is banned rom enteringUniversity buildings, a act that is
inhibiting his political campaign,
he said.
Young was arrested at the Nov.30 orum ater he voiced his viewson abortion to guest speaker Rep.
Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I. In reus-ing to yield the foor during the
question and answer period, Young
inringed on the “rights o othersto participate in this public, openorum,” Vice President or Public
Aairs and University Relations
Marisa Quinn told The Herald in
January. Young says that his be-
havior was civil.
Young has voiced his concerns
about the University publicly on
several occasions. In speeches,
he has called or an investigation
into President Ruth Simmons’ ten-
ure on the board o the Councilon Foreign Relations, as well as
Goldman Sachs, a position whichshe recently ceded. He also advo-cates or a tax on the University’s
property, though he said he stands
against the tax on out-o-state stu-
dents who attend school in Rhode
Island.a great success among students
and administrators, Parikh wrote,
and so through a joint venturebetween the Student Activities
Oce and the Alumni RelationsOce, the class boards were ex-panded, Parikh wrote.
The boards were constituted
as a Category 3 group by the UCS
in April 2004, said O’Hara. They are aliated both with the SAO
and Alumni Relations, working with advisors O’Hara and Julie
Schmidt, associate director o uni- versity and alumni outreach, rom
each organization, he added.
“I meet with them once a weekand they set the agenda,” O’Hara
said. “I try not to look over their shoulders.”
“We really try to work with theadministration,” Ahmed said. “Wehave to make sure everyone’s on
the same page.”
Since their inception, the
boards have been very success-ul in their attempts to organize
events such as last Spring Week-end’s Foam Party and a concert
eaturing European pop group
Gunther and the Sunshine Girlsin 2008, said Parikh.
“All o our ideas come rom
students,” he said. “They wanted
to bring Gunther to Brown and we ound a way to do it. We’repushing the boundaries o what
you can do at Brown.”“We try to go all out,” Ahmed
said. “Sometimes other student
groups can’t get past barriers. We
can because we have the back-
ing o Phil, the SAO and AlumniRelations.”
The boards have also improved
saety concerns voiced by the
SAO, according to O’Hara. TheSAO made several suggestions
concerning the overcrowding at
o-campus events and the propen-sity o Brown students let behind
at these gatherings, he said.
In response to these concerns,the boards have worked to let stu-dents know the size o an event’s
venue in advance and also to be-
gin using shuttles to transport
Brown students saely back andorth rom events, said O’Hara.
Events sponsored by the classboards are planned both or their individual classes and or the stu-dent body at large, Parikh wrote.Because o UFB unding policies,
their events must be open to all
Brown students so they generally
advertise events to all classes,
though each board targets their own year, he added.Parikh said the boards would
be working on planning more
events or their individual class-
es or oering them incentives,
such as paying hal-price admis-sion ees.
The class boards are also
struggling to brand their individu-al classes, Parikh said. Their mis-sion “sometimes goes against the
independent culture o Brown,”
Parikh said. “We have to nd theuniying thread that brings themtogether.” With only six years o experi-
ence, however, the class boards
are still getting their ooting.“We’re not going to succeed
at everything we do,” Parikh said.
“But i we do everything 75 per-
cent very well, I think we’re doing
a good job.”
“This is a laboratory here,”
O’Hara said. “It’s about progress,
not perection.” The class boards’ biggest ob-stacle is unding, Parikh said.
UFB doesn’t und the classboards in any signicant way,O’Hara said. “When the classboards started, they had no
money.”
Although undraising has
sometimes made it dicult or
event planning, one o the great-
est accomplishments o the ClassBoards has been to generate rev-
enue or Alumni Relations, said
O’Hara.
“When you come back or your
ve-year reunion, they already
have a treasury started,” O’Hara
said. “Since 2004, no class has let without a nice little kitty. It’s there
personally or them.” These unds come both rom
ees seniors pay at the beginning
o the year or their Senior Week
activities and rom seed money President Ruth Simmons gives
the class boards each year to
plan these activities, according
to O’Hara.
“The integrity o this school
is the undergraduates,” he said.
“And Class Boards is a jewel o
an organization working to keepit that way.”
K ‘’ S
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On the blog toda:WTF is happening on the Main Green?Talk of the BrownWhat to do tonight
Bdaha.
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THuRSDAy, FEBRuARy 18, 2010THE BROWN DAILy HERALDPAGE 3
“We are entering a ver good transition phase right now.”
— Department of Edcation Chair Kenneth Wong
.
By emily rosen
S
taff
W
riter
Holly Harriel, Brown’s new director
o education outreach and a ormer
Rhode Island Department o Educationemployee, ocially began her job Feb.
8, replacing Tehani Collazo who let
last July. She will coordinate outreach
programs between Brown and local
schools.
Elizabeth Richards, a recent gradu-ate o the Urban Education Policy Pro-
gram, served as a replacement in theinterim.Harriel was selected rom a pool o
50 to 60 applicants by a committee com-posed o aculty and sta rom Brown’s
Department o Education. The Oce
o the President, the Oce o Public Aairs and University Relations and
the Swearer Center or Public Service
also oered input to the committee,according to Education Department Chair Kenneth Wong, who was also
chair o the selection committee. Although Wong said that the appli-cant pool was very strong, he said he
elt Harriel had “a really interesting mix
o attributes.” Wong also mentioned
that he thought it was important to take
the time to select the best person or the job with the “right mix o experi-
ence.”
According to a news release rom
the Department o Education, Harriel, who has a master’s degree in city plan-ning rom the Massachusetts Institute
o Technology, was initially an urban
planner in the Boston area. She later
came to Providence and worked as a
geographic inormation system analyst
or Providence Plan, applying her in-
ormation technology skills to various
local nonprot organizations. For the
past our years, Harriel has been work-
ing as an analyst or the Rhode IslandDepartment o Education.
“She stands out,” Wong said, adding
that Harriel’s previous governmental
work, her knowledge and appreciationo data systems and her experience with
nonprot organizations all show that
she brings a “broad, multidisciplinary perspective.”
One o Harriel’s primary duties isto coordinate partnerships between
Brown and local public schools. Har-
riel said it is important to document outreach eorts and to “capitalize on
social networking” in order to incorpo-rate as much o the Brown community
as possible in education outreach.“I’m here to make sure that we arehighlighting all o the good impact weare making,” Harriel said, adding that
she would also like to expand education
outreach eorts at Brown.
Wong noted that Brown’s numerouseducation outreach projects with Provi-
dence public schools involve a wide variety o departments at the Univer-
sity. He and Harriel both emphasized
that the director o education outreachshould encourage collaboration across
departments and disciplines on theseprojects.
“This is a very important position
because it (provides) a critical linkbetween the larger community and
Brown,” Wong said.
Another aspect o Harriel’s job con-
sists o working closely with gradu-ate students in the Urban Education
Policy Program. As part o this master’s
degree program, students participatein nine-month-long education-related
internships, which Harriel is in charge
o managing.
“This is a relationship-building time,”
Harriel said. During her rst week on
the job, Harriel has been “meeting withstudents in the Urban Education Policy
Program and getting up to speed withtheir internship placement.”
Harriel said she wants to make sure
not only that students are oered the
best internship opportunities possible,
but also that students’ work is benet-
ting the institutions where they are
placed.In addition, Wong said that Harriel
will be involved in the Urban Education
Fellows Program, through which stu-
dents commit to three years o servicein Providence in return or tuition ben-ets. Wong said that these ellows takeon a variety o jobs, both on the teachingside and on the policy side o education
in low-income communities.
“She will support the work o the Ur-ban Education Fellows and make sure
they are placed in high-needs areas,” Wong said. He expects the programto grow over the next ew years, he
said.
“We are entering a very good transi-
tion phase right now,” Wong said. Hesaid he expects that within about two
weeks Harriel will be acclimated to the job as she continues to meet people and
gets to know the community.Harriel said she is excited to begin
this job because it combines everythingshe enjoys doing, adding, “I would con-
sider this my dream job.”
b-b k
By lindor QunAJ
C
ontributing
W
riter
Twenty years ago, restoring a
paraplegic’s limb unction would
have been an idea that existed only
in the realm o science ction. But
today, thanks to the BrainGate
project — involving a team o re-
searchers that includes severalBrown proessors — the idea is
close to becoming a reality. The primary goal o the proj-
ect, which has garnered incredible
media attention in recent years, is“to develop neurotechnology” that
“will help people with paralysis,
limb loss and neurological dis-
eases and injuries to restore loss
o communication, mobility and
independence,” said Associate
Proessor o Engineering Leigh
Hochberg ’90.
The rst incarnation o theBrainGate system, which rst
underwent clinical trials in 2004,
required a chip to be implantedinto the patient’s brain and then
connected to computers by a se-
ries o wires. Although the deviceeectively converted the patient’s
brain signals into movement and
allowed them to click on icons and
perorm a variety o unctions on
the computers, the technology
was rather bulky, said John Dono-ghue PhD’79 P’09 P’12, proessor
o neuroscience and co-ounder o the company that created the
BrainGate project.Donoghue explained that the
next stage o the research ocusedon developing a much smaller de- vice. This chip would be implantedinto the head, where it could wire-
lessly transmit brain signals toa wide range o devices. “We’re
interested in developing the best possible control signal,” he said.
“One o the challenges with
the systems as they exist now
is that they require a switch tooperate,” added Hochberg, oneo the principal investigators on
the BrainGate research team.
He said that current studies onunctional electrical stimulation
systems would be very helpul to
the project. Some o this research
is being conducted at Case West-
ern University, another BrainGate
collaborator.
While laboratory research may
at times seem distinct rom the
advances in technology to outsid-
ers, Donoghue, who is also thedirector o the Brown Instituteor Brain Science, said they are
incredibly connected.
“One piece that people don’t
ully understand is how basic labresearch can lead to great break-
throughs (because) sometimes it’s
hard to see where basic science
research will lead to,” he said. “Asa consequence o the neurophysi-
ological research that was done, we got to a point where we couldtranslate this research into a de-
vice that would allow paralyzed
people to interact with the worldand move again,” he said.
Another area the project is
looking into is the possibility o hooking the brain up directly to
muscles. In this scenario, the
brain would transmit a signal to
a stimulator, which would connect
to a muscle and cause it to move
according to the brain’s message,
Donoghue said.Donoghue, who spent the be-ginning o February in Australia
giving various lectures and partici-pating in a conerence held by the
Australian Neuroscience Society
and Australian Physiological So-ciety, said “the ultimate goal” isto get the technology to a point where “you wouldn’t notice the
dierence between a person who
never had an injury and a person
who had an injury but then had
the implant.”BrainGate is now entering its
second stage o clinical trials at the
Massachusetts General Hospital
in Boston. Exactly how it develops
is yet to be seen, but team mem-bers are optimistic.
“We have made nice advances
in the research, and I’m pleased
with the progress we’re making,”
said Hochberg.
not be completed over the summer,
she said.
Rodriguez said her oice is
also trying to attract a wider vari-ety o students to the program. Inthe past, UTRAs mainly appealed
to science concentrators, she said.
This year, Rodriguez said she hasbeen encouraging students rom
other disciplines to apply.She said she hopes to “increase
the visibility o UTRAs among hu-
manities and social sciences students
so they’re able to see the relevanceo a research project.”
Anne Fuller ’11, a psychology
concentrator, participated in re-
search or the Department o Edu-cation last summer.
She compared European-Ameri-can and Chinese-American children
between the ages o our and six,examining “how they’re socializedand how they develop belies and
attitudes about learning,” she said.
Though Fuller studies a socialscience, she said her experience with undergraduate research was
“really good.”“You’re doing all dierent stepso research,” she added.
Rodriguez said she has also worked to increase the involve-
ment o students participating in the
program. Last summer, Research Thursdays were created in an e-ort to unite the students engaged
in undergraduate research. At these
events, participants listened to ac-
ulty lectures and could discuss their
work with each other, she said.
These events have been well-
received ever since they started,
Rodriguez said. “We had really
strong attendance.”
Instead o having undergraduates
isolate themselves as they work on
separate projects, she said she hopesthat Research Thursdays will oster
a greater sense o community.But Fuller said she participated
in the program or the research
opportunity, not the collaboration.
“I you weren’t interested in the re-search that was going on, it wasn’t
really an interesting experience,”
she said.
Though economic conditions
have prevented the expansion o
the UTRA program or the moment,
the University remains committed
to undergraduate research, Rodri-
guez said.
“We’re hoping to introduce
enthusiastic and intellectually cu-rious students into the process o a long-term research project andcourse development so that they
get to see insight into the workingso academia.”
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