Daily
the Brown
vol. cxlvi, no. 11
Boathouse
destroyed in
blizzard blaze
By Kimberly Clifton
Contributing Writer
A fire destroyed the Edgewood Yacht
Clubhouse — home to the Univer-
sity’s nationally ranked co-ed sailing
team — but members of the team
say they do not expect the fire to
adversely affect their season.
While the team lost approxi-
mately $60,000 in equipment in
the Jan. 12 fire, none of the boats
were damaged, said Head Coach
John Mollicone. Members of the
team lost personal racing equip-
ment, new lockers, uniforms, boat
supplies and coaching equipment,
along with the numerous trophies
and All-American plaques it had
collected over decades. Losing the
trophies “is pretty heart breaking.
We’ll never be able to duplicate
them,” Mollicone said. “Luckily,
we didn’t lose anything we need to
sail our boats.”
The clubhouse, built over the
Providence River in Cranston, had
weathered the elements since 1908
before bursting into flames during
a snowstorm. Lightning may have
struck the building, Kevin Morris,
Cranston’s acting fire marshal told
the Providence Journal Jan. 14. Fire-
fighters succeeded in limiting the
blaze to the clubhouse, sparing the
surrounding docks and all but 10
feet of the catwalk leading out to
the water, according to a statement
continued on page 2
Alums run student
trips to North Korea
By sofia castello
Staff Writer
Few Westerners have visited North
Korea in recent memory. Yet for
the past two years, the Pyongyang
Project has brought groups to the
region both despite and because of
its political significance.
FEATURE
The project, founded by Mat-
thew Reichel ’09 and Nick Young
’09 in 2009, gives participants an
in-depth tour of the heavily guarded
communist nation in an attempt to
promote cultural understanding.
Though the program is entering its
third year, watching Reichel greet
friends on Thayer Street — “Brown”
emblazoned on his cap — is a re-
news...................2-4
inside
LETTERS..................5
editorial...............6
Opinions...............7
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Dr. Ronald Ferguson spoke about civil rights and racial achievement gaps for the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Lecture.
MLK lecture tackles achievement gap
By Shanoor Seervai
Contributing Writer
Ronald Ferguson, a scholar of the
racial achievement gap in educa-
tion, argued for a social movement
to ensure educational equality yes-
terday. He delivered his remarks
in Sayles Hall for the 14th annual
Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture.
In her introduction to the lec-
ture, Valerie Wilson, associate pro-
vost and director of institutional
diversity, said that Ferguson’s work
demonstrates how the challenge
of advancing civil rights remains
relevant today.
Ferguson discussed the contin-
ued importance of equality in edu-
cation after the civil rights move-
minder of just how recently the
project’s co-founder was a student
himself.
Reichel’s senior project for East
Asian studies sparked the idea. The
North Korea program is only one
section of the East West Coalition,
a larger non-profit organization
founded by Reichel and Young.
“But North Korea is much more
blatantly interesting,” Reichel said.
“We get a lot of eyebrows.”
“It was an idea we were throwing
around,” Reichel said. “Could we
bring students to North Korea?”
But orchestrating the project was
not without its challenges. Young
and Reichel submitted a proposal
to the North Korean government
in December 2008 and it was ap-
continued on page 4 Nick Young ‘09 and Matthew Reichel ‘09 bring students to Pyongyang.
Ice, Ice, Maybe
Despite heavy snow,
facilities sticks to budget.
News, 8
Herald
ment. He advocated for considering
the legal changes the civil rights
movement brought while closely
examining how those changes
manifest in educational institu-
tions and affect the development
of children.
After the lecture, President Ruth
Simmons told The Herald she felt
Ferguson provided critical insights
into a very important topic. She
said she agrees with his message
that passion for change in educa-
tion must be transformed into a
widespread movement. “You need
a massive number of people to en-
gage and push for reform in order
to have the national effect we would
like to see,” she said.
Ferguson is the founder of the
Hilary Rosenthal / Herald
Tripod Project for School Improve-
ment, and has developed surveys
that use student perception to mea-
sure the effectiveness of teaching
for a Bill and Melinda Gates Foun-
dation project. His Tripod surveys
identify the “Seven C’s” of teaching
he considers central to a student’s
classroom experience: care, control,
challenge, clarify, captivate, confer
and consolidate.
Ferguson said he uses this data
to identify schools with the highest
learning gains and determine how
they achieve them. He said he has
identified teacher quality as one
of the most important factors in
the struggle to close the achieve-
continued on page 3
Courtesy of Matthew Reichel
weather
World Class
Brown’s UWC alums
reminisce
NEWS, 8
Since 1891
Study: Elite
firms target
‘elite’ Ivys
By Aparna Bansal
Senior Staff Writer
What does a Brown degree mean in
the job market today? According to
Lauren Rivera, not much.
When competing for high-end
positions at law firms, consulting
firms and investment banks, Brown
graduates fall behind students at the
top-four “super-elite” universities,
according to Rivera’s recent study
in the journal “Research in Social
Stratification and Mobility.”
Rivera, assistant professor of
management and organizations at
Northwestern University, examined
how firms use education to recruit
and evaluate job seekers.
In her study, Rivera said she
conducted 120 interviews at top-
tier firms and acted as a participant
observer at the recruitment depart-
ment of one firm for a year. She asked
employers about the recruitment
process, what they look for in ap-
plicants and what kind of candidates
they had recently interviewed, she
said. She also asked them to evaluate
resumes of fictional applicants.
Graduates from Harvard, Yale,
Princeton, Stanford and the Wharton
School of the University of Pennsyl-
vania have the highest hiring rate,
according to the study. Rivera said
this was not necessarily due to the
schools’ relative prestige, but could
be due to factors such as the alumni
base in the firm.
Employees wanted
Andrew Simmons, director of
the Career Development Center,
said students are still successful at
finding employment at these top-tier
firms. “I’ve certainly seen that a lot of
employers from banking, business,
technology, consulting and non-
profits recruit through our center,”
Simmons said.
“My sense is that Brown gets a
little bit less attention than some of
the other schools from other firms
— but they get a lot of attention
from us,” said Chris Bierly, head of
North America associate consult-
ing recruiting at Bain and Company,
which recruits from 40 colleges and
universities in North America. “We
think of Brown as a core school —
one of the three or four best sources
of talent in the Ivy League.”
Barclays, Bank of America and
Merill Lynch have stepped up their
recruiting efforts at Brown, while
Goldman Sachs is a “regular partici-
pant,” Simmons said. “From what I
hear, they like Brown students and
continued on page 3
t o d ay tomorrow
28 / 14 26 / 12
2 Campus News The Brown Daily Herald
Wednesday, February 9, 2011

c alendar
Today february 9 ToMORROW february 10

7 P.m. 6:30 p.m.

Wendy Schiller on Partisanship and
Congress, Barus and Holley 168
9:30 p.m.
CIT Movie Night: Patrick Swayze’s
Road House, CIT 477
TED Talk: Partnering with the Poor,
Barus and Holley 168
8 p.m.
East Campus Speed Dating,
Barbour Hall

menu
SHARPE REFECTORY
LUNCH
Polynesian Chicken Wings, Vegan
Stir-Fry Veggies with Tofu, Grilled
Key West Chicken, Lemon Cookies
DINNER
Sustainable Baked and Breaded
Pollock, Dal Cali with Yogurt,
Cheese Quesadillas, Macaroon Bars
Sudoku
Cr ossword
VERNEy-WOOLLEY DINING HALL
Italian Sausage and Pepper
Sandwich, Vegetable Strudel,
Lemon Cookies
Spicy Herb Baked Chicken, Vegan
Veggie and Bean Stew, Roasted Red
Potatoes, Macaroon Bars
The Edgewood Yacht Club, home to Brown’s sailing team, was destroyed by a fire in January. No boats were lost.
Fire destroys trophies, equipment
continued from page 1
released by Jeff Lamphear, Edge-
wood’s commodore.
The loss of the building came as
a shock to members of the Edge-
wood Yacht Club and the Brown
Sailing Team, Mollicone said. The
team rented two locker rooms and a
classroom at Edgewood. Everything
stored and displayed there was de-
stroyed in the fire, he said.
Half of the team’s boats were
stored in the parking lot 200 feet
away from the clubhouse, and the
rest were flipped over on the docks,
said Fred Strammer ’11, a former
captain of the team. After the fire,
team members helped Mollicone
shovel snow off the docks and take
the powerboats for maintenance.
Team member Colin Smith ’13
said it was “pretty sad” to see the
clubhouse burned down, but added,
“(The fire) shouldn’t affect us at all,
really. All of our boats, our most
important assets, are fine.”
Mollicone said he is working
with the Edgewood Yacht Club and
the Athletics Department at Brown
to find a temporary shelter for the
sailing team so that it can continue
to sail out of Edgewood’s docks.
“Our immediate concern is to get
Courtesy of John Mollicone
Brown sailing back on the water,”
said Sue Toland, vice-commodore
of Edgewood.
The sailing team will move into
a 24-by-36 foot heated trailer on
Edgewood’s property and use it as a
temporary classroom and changing
area. “It’s our base for now,” Mol-
licone said. “It will be a minor in-
convenience not having the setup we
had, but we’ll get through it.” He said
that the team wants to stay at Edge-
wood and support the yacht club.
Mollicone said he expects the
team to be able to practice at Edge-
wood before their first race Feb. 26
and 27. He said the “overwhelm-
ing” support of parents and alumni
helped ease the transition. “The

Daily Herald
the Brown
school has been really great helping
us get back on our feet,” Mollicone
www.browndailyherald.com added. “I don’t think we’re going to
195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. miss a beat.”
Ben Schreckinger, President Matthew Burrows, Treasurer Plans to host the Women’s Brad
Sydney Ember, Vice President Isha Gulati, Secretary Dellenbaugh Trophy in April re-
The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the
main unaffected even though the
Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday through Fri- physical trophy melted in the fire.
day during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once “We will make accommodations as
during Orientation and once in July by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Single copy free best as we can,” Toland said. “We
for each member of the community.
POSTMASTER please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906.
really like having Brown (at Edge-
Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. wood). They are real good, good
Subscription prices: $280 one year daily, $140 one semester daily. kids.”
Copyright 2011 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved. The team has sailed out of Edge-
editorial Business wood since 1974. “It was basically
(401) 351-3372 (401) 351-3360 our home,” Smith said. The club-
herald@browndailyherald.com gm@browndailyherald.com
house was added to the National
Historic Register in 1989 and was
the oldest yacht clubhouse in Rhode
Island.
“It was an icon for Brown sailing
for a very long time,” Strammer said.
“It is devastating to see it go.”
Edgewood Yacht Club will work
with the city of Cranston and the
Coastal Resources Management
Council to rebuild the boathouse.
Toland said the first step will be to
clear the site and reconnect the cat-
walk to the docks. “The pilings are
there, we just need to make good use
of them,” she said. Their offices will
relocate to a cottage the club owns
on the same property.
“The building is gone, but the
club is still here,” said Toland. “It’s
the right group of people to steer
that thing and get it done. It will
take a lot of money and effort, but it
will be totally worth it. We’re highly
optimistic.”
The Brown Daily Herald
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Speaker addresses civil
Q&A with Ronald Ferguson
rights and ‘glass ceiling’
continued from page 1
ment gap.
During a question and answer
session after the lecture, Ferguson
addressed the issue of education
perpetuating social hierarchy.
“People who already have privi-
lege tend to award it,” he said, and
the students whose parents are not
as well-off most need to be advo-
cated for.
Paul Tran ’14 asked Ferguson
about the “glass ceilings” that stu-
dents of color and first-genera-
tion college attendees must break
through to succeed in college.
Ferguson, himself the son of a bus
driver and stay-at-home mother
from Cleveland, Ohio, encouraged
Tran to “just keep pushing” and ad-
vocate for himself at Brown. Tran,
who was raised by his mother, a
Vietnamese refugee who came to
the U.S. in 1989, told The Herald
he is interested in the forces that
prevent students of color and first-
Employers favor top-
four schools, study says
continued from page 1
their entrepreneurial spirit, ability to
work independently and think criti-
cally, their analytical skills and high
level communication skills.”
There is no national survey com-
paring job prospects after graduation
across top-tier schools, he added,
“But in terms of employment, I think
our school does very well because of
the attributes that (Brown graduates)
bring to the table.”
“Whether that has to do with
the Brown degree or the attributes
of Brown students — I don’t know,”
he said.
Student successes
Carolyn Siegel ’11, who has re-
ceived a job offer from an elite fi-
nancial firm upon graduation, said
she has found that a Brown degree
does hold value. Siegel asked that The
Herald not print the name of the firm
because of a confidentiality clause in
her contract.
“At some of my job interviews I
apologized for my lack of financial
training and they all said … that
they were more interested in get-
ting smart, motivated people,” she
said. “That is what is recognized in
a Brown degree — there is a reason
that it’s so prestigious.”
She said she does not know
whether it would have been harder
or easier had she been applying from
another Ivy League school.
“Coming from Brown positions
you well in the job market and the
world,” she said. “It signals you went
to an Ivy League and have a certain
level of open mindedness, creativity
and overall intelligence that can’t be
undervalued just because you might
not have picked up practical skills
in classes. With a liberal education,
it won’t be long before you’re up to
speed with everyone else.”
generation students from even ap-
plying to college in the first place.
Ferguson also spoke about cre-
ating opportunities for students
who do not pursue college edu-
cation and instead study in voca-
tional programs. Jonathon Acosta
’11 asked how schools could ensure
that Latino and black students are
not disproportionately encouraged
to pursue vocational programs in-
stead of attending college. “That’s
the million dollar question,” Fer-
guson responded.
Ferguson advocated a social
movement that creates a new
national identity in the arena of
education, which would entail a
different lifestyle and renewed
commitment to helping students
realize their full potential.
One of the goals of this lecture
was to initiate a dialogue in the
Brown community on issues of race
in education, Maria Pacheco, direc-
tor of equity and diversity projects,
told The Herald.
“Brown teaches you a lot of skills
that a lot of schools don’t necessarily
teach,” said Whitney Sparks ’11, a
commerce, organizations and entre-
preneurship concentrator. “Having
a Brown degree makes you really
unique, but some people don’t give
Brown as much credit as other uni-
versities.” She also said that she found
the Brown network “very positive
and helpful.”
Roshni Assomull ’10.5, who will
start working at Citibank in London
this year, said studying in the U.S.
after having lived in the U.K. was an
advantage because Citibank looks
to “hire a diverse range of people.”
“People abroad look at Brown fa-
vorably. They know it’s an Ivy League
university,” she said. Assomull added
she felt the Brown degree helped her
get an internship with Citibank last
summer, which then helped her se-
cure a job with the bank this year.
Sparks did note that during her
internship with Goldman Sachs,
there were fewer students from
Brown than from universities such
as Harvard, Penn and Duke.
This may be due in part to receiv-
ing fewer applications. Bierly said
Bain typically receives 300 applica-
tions from Brown compared to about
600 applications from Harvard.
Although Bain receives fewer
applicants from Brown than from
schools like Harvard, Penn and
Stanford, Bierly said the quality of
students who are interested is very
high and the number of offers given
to Brown students each year is “right
up there with the top three schools
in the Ivy League.”
“Brown is a really incredible place.
You learn to think in a certain way
— approach things in more of an
entrepreneurial, ambitious manner,”
Sparks said. “I think anyone with a
Brown degree has to take advantage
of it.”
Campus News 3
Renowned scholar Ronald Fer-
guson gave the 14th Martin Lu-
ther King Jr. Lecture Tuesday
afternoon. Before the lecture, he
sat down with The Herald to talk
about a social movement for equity
in education.
The Herald: How did you get
interested in studying issues of
racial inequality?
Ferguson: I have been interested
in helping the folks in my neigh-
borhood in Cleveland, Ohio,
since I was eight years old. I asked
people, “What can I do to make
things better?” The response
was city planning, so I went into
Cornell as an undergraduate,
planning to study engineering.
I ended up studying economics,
and later got my PhD in econom-
ics at (the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology). I then started
teaching at the Kennedy School,
working on the issue of inner-
city economic development. In
the late ’80s, I worked on how
differences in test scores predict
differences in earnings, and the
basic finding was that reading
and writing skills are fundamen-
tal for employment. I then wrote
two chapters for a book on the
black-white achievement gap, and
since the ’90s, I have been work-
ing with public schools on the
issue of educational equity and
the test-score gap. I am also the
director of the Achievement Gap
Initiative at Harvard University
and the founder of the Tripod
Project for School Development.
How do you think test scores
reflect the achievement gap?
The economy has changed and
increased the value of basic skills
in the workplace. International
trade makes U.S. workers com-
pete with workers around the
world, and people have realized
that they can’t achieve a mid-
dle-class lifestyle without basic
reading and writing skills. Even
though these gaps remain large,
they aren’t set in stone — when I
was in college, people attributed
educational differences to biol-
ogy. Now, people acknowledge
that the evidence for biological
difference is so varied that one
must proceed under the assump-
tion that there is no biological
difference.
How do you think it would
be possible to achieve greater
equality in education?
We need to affect the lived experi-
ences of children.
I have a four-box model for
this. The first is schools, in which
teacher participation is critical.
The second is peer dynamics and
how children interact. The third is
parenting and their home life. The
fourth is the leadership that holds
these together, aligns resources
and determines what children
achieve in these settings. What
do students need to experience
in order to be good learners? We
need to work on adult learning.
The teacher needs to be educat-
ed on the level of instructional
leadership. The mechanisms
needed to reach parents must be
respectful of their world vision.
We must reach parents through
every institution on the topic
of effective parenting, from the
workplace, to places of recreation,
to beauty salons and shops. We
must saturate communities with
images of effective parenting so
that it becomes the norm. We
need to organize things to engage
parents. Lots of people are now
working on this issue — many
organizations are conveying this
message. For example, people are
now talking about the nature of
the “bedtime conversation.” Par-
ents should no longer just read
to their three-year-old — they
should talk about what they are
reading and ask questions about
the book. How much freedom a
two-year-old has to crawl around
the house alters his visual and
learning skills. With older chil-
dren, studies have shown the
importance of warmth and re-
sponsiveness on one hand, and
structure and demandingness
on the other. Not letting a kid
talk back to you can be a prob-
lem — this prepares them to be
subservient, while the opposite
teaches kids to be entitled.
Each person must be situ-
ated in a specific position in the
system. The role of the teacher
is to be aware that kids come in
from different backgrounds. The
teacher can’t fix the parents but
can do a lot for the students.
How effective do you think pro-
grams such as Teach for Ameri-
ca are in addressing the issue of
equality in education?
Teach for America has attracted
an army of people to care about
public schools. They may or may
not be more effective than other
teachers, but the program is tak-
ing people out of elite universities
and making them aware of the
sense of injustice in our educa-
tion system. They do not accept
the conditions of public, inner-
city education anymore. When
I read admissions essays for the
Graduate School of Education
at Harvard, the stories that TFA
graduates tell are very emotional.
They describe the sense of injus-
tice they felt. I understand the
criticism of the program, that it
takes a longer time for people to
learn how to be teachers, but the
schools they are going to need
help. And TFA is certainly not
doing any harm.
Can you talk about the thesis
of your book, “Toward Excel-
lence with Equity: An emerging
vision for closing the achieve-
ment gap”?
The thesis of my book is that we
need a 21st Century movement
built around helping students
from all different backgrounds to
realize their full potential. Com-
munities that in the past were
discriminated against because of
white supremacy now have new
opportunities. The legal changes
that the civil rights movement
brought are not enough. People
resist the word “culture,” but a
change in lifestyle is necessary.
We need to rethink what it means
to be one of the most preeminent
nations in the field of education
and the role of the arts in our edu-
cation today. The employment
rate for young people between the
ages of 18 to 25 is dismally low.
What are young people supposed
to do when there isn’t much de-
mand for their services? There
is a need for community-level
opportunities to provide service
and give meaning to their lives
outside the workplace. I don’t
know exactly how to make that
happen, but it is time for a wide-
spread social movement. Every
day, I get two to three calls from
people trying to organize around
the issue of equality in education.
There is a sense that the current
configuration is not just.
We need to find a way to mo-
bilize high school students and
encourage them to participate.
Students from low-income La-
tino families tend to accept their
position in the social order and
don’t push back. They need to
feel a sense of entitlement to up-
ward mobility. The term I use is
“the conspiracy to succeed.” We
need to mobilize students to un-
dermine issues of their own peer
culture, like the pressure not to
succeed.
4 Campus News
United World College
students bring diversity
continued from page 8
need-based financial aid for UWC
students who qualify.
The University then awards ad-
ditional aid to Davis scholars in
need, Ott said. Applications from
the UWC have increased in the
years since the Davis program be-
gan, she said. In 2008, Brown won
the Davis Cup, which is awarded
to the American university with
the highest number of UWC al-
ums matriculating that year. Thir-
ty-six UWC alums matriculated,
according to Ott.
Ott said she believes the UWC
schools and Brown share a similar
educational philosophy.
“They have been taught to
think globally, and they repre-
sent several different nationali-
ties, some we don’t always see,” she
said. “Particularly after President
Simmons’ mission to diversify the
school, we have looked at globaliz-
ing our student body. The UWC is
not the only way, but it is one way.”
While a UWC education of-
fers students an enriched educa-
tion, it can also just be a normal
high school experience. “You go
expecting it to be life-changing ev-
ery day,” Dette said. “Some days I
wanted to live more, but you have
to do your homework sometimes.”
The Brown Daily Herald
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Courtesy of Anna Litman
The Pyongyang Project, founded by two alums, has led groups of students through North Korea the past two summers.
N. Korean program enters third year
continued from page 1 into North Korea was the “biggest said, describing how heavily the
hurdle,” Reichel said. Previously, country depends on an image
proved by April. The first trip took Americans could only enter the “spoon-fed and dictated by the
place that August. country during major festivals, and government.”
“It’s always difficult negotiating even then only as tourists, Reichel “You go there and surrender all
with North Korea,” Reichel said. wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. electronics — no cell phones, no
“The systems are completely dif- “I didn’t think I could go to laptops — and they take away books
ferent.” North Korea. The opportunity or magazines that have anything to
“In the beginning it was easy, opened up, so I took it,” said Anna do with politics,” McFadden said.
because what we were doing was Litman, a sophomore at Yale “Just the act of going cuts you off
very watered-down. (The North University who traveled with the from the real world in every single
Korean government) knew these Pyongyang Project in August 2010. way. It’s a little unnerving.”
kinds of trips, there was a precedent “I was in Asia at the time and it “Even in Pyongyang, the capital
and they knew how to handle it,” sounded cool.” city, there are no cars on the road,”
Reichel said. “What we’re doing As Litman grappled for the McFadden said, adding that the few
now is surpassing that.” words to describe her subsequent cars he saw appeared to be from
Jim McClain, professor of his- experience, one came up frequently the 1960s.
tory and East Asian studies, helped — “incredible.” Luckily, McFadden discovered
Reichel with his senior project “The program gave us insight other things were not quite so for-
and also traveled with the group into a country so fundamentally dif- eign.
in 2010. ferent from anywhere in the world “Meeting people was not as
The North Korean government and gave students a chance to see surprising as I thought it would
has given Pyongyang Project groups North Korea for themselves,” Lit- be,” he said. “Hearing about their
more freedom each year, McClain man said. dating life, what they do for fun,
wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. In “We don’t push an agenda,” was pretty similar to what I do, and
one city, program participants were Reichel said. “Students can make other people my age.”
give open access to a public beach, up their own minds.” There are different options for
McClain wrote. “In essence, (we) Max McFadden ’11, who trav- students wishing to travel with the
were told to go and talk to whom- eled with the Pyongyang Project project. One is a cultural and aca-
ever we wanted to.  It is almost un- in August 2010 after reading about demic exchange, including discus-
heard of for Western visitors to be it in Brown Morning Mail, did just sions and site visits to companies,
granted such an open opportunity that. factories, farms and the beach. An-
to speak with ordinary people.” “The cult of personality of Kim other focuses on conflict resolution.
Getting American students Il Sung permeates everything,” he Participants spend a week each in
North and South Korea and put
together a “consensus document”
Janus Fellows Conversation at the end of the program, accord-
ing to Reichel. A third option will
with Professor Wendy Schiller: include an intensive two-month
Korean language program, con-
Partisanship and Congress ducted completely in Pyongyang
with weekend opportunities to visit
other places in North Korea.
Wednesday, February 9th at 7:00 PM - This year, Reichel and Young
are starting a new tuition scheme,
8:00 PM in Barus and Holley 168 called Scholarship for Scholarship,
that would use part of participants’
Come join the Janus Fellows for a conversation with tuition to create a scholarship fund
for North Koreans studying abroad,
Professor Wendy Schiller on partisanship in light
Reichel said.
of the new Congress. Should President Obama and
“I came away from the experi-
the Congressional Republicans use partisanship as ence with renewed hope for the
a strategy? What can history tell us about the next future. It is difficult to imagine a
two years of divided government? Is partisanship peaceful world without there be-
a healthy part of our system or should we work to ing a stable, peaceful East Asia,”
avoid it? McClain wrote. “Right now, there
is an awful lot of misunderstand-
Professor Schiller will answer these questions and ing — on all sides.”
more in a short lecture follow by a Q & A. “When people think of North
Korea, they have images of mis-
siles and tanks and things like that,”
The conversation will be on Wednesday, February 9th
Litman said. “Before the program,
at 7:00 PM in Barus and Holley 168 and as always, it was the same for me too. Now I
Nice Slice will be provided! think of real people, with real faces
and names.”
The Brown Daily Herald
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Alum questions ROTC’s
academic fitness
To the Editor:
I have been closely reading
about the Reserved Officers’
Training Corps possible return
to Brown’s campus over the last
couple of weeks in The Herald.
As a former member of the Col-
lege Curriculum Council and Task
Force on Undergraduate Educa-
tion, I have seen little attention
devoted to a major concern I have
about ROTC — allowing an out-
side entity with little oversight
by the college to offer courses for
credit toward Brown graduation.
On the CCC, we worked to
maintain the integrity of the
Individuals’ health
should concern society
To the Editor:
In his opinion article (“Just say
‘no’ (to the nanny state),” Feb. 4),
Hunter Fast ’12 states that the jus-
tification for sin taxes rests “on the
erroneous belief that one person’s
health is the concern of the whole
of society.” This is wildly absurd.
One need only imagine a similar
statement concerning the Ameri-
can judicial system, that it rests
“on the erroneous beliefs that one
person’s injustice is the concern of
the whole society,” to see the vast
faults in such logic.
See INFO SESSIONS, page 6!
Letters 5
comics
Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline
Brown curriculum examining its
quality by course, concentration
and graduation requirements. As
the newly formed committee re-
examines Brown’s policy toward
ROTC, I hope they will decide that
Brown will continue to monitor all
credit-bearing courses through the
same rigorous process the CCC
uses. It is in our best interests
to ensure that the ROTC policy
which requires their courses bear BB & Z | Cole Pruitt, Andrew Seiden, Valerie Hsiung and Dan Ricker
credit does not cause an erosion of
the quality of education at Brown
and the meaning of a Brown de-
gree.
Jason Becker ’09 MA’10
Cabernet Voltaire | Abe Pressman
Indeed, the very opposite of
what Fast writes is true. There is
no more basic argument for the
existence of the state than that it
advances the welfare of its constit-
uents — and what is welfare but
health? Whether or not sin taxes
are useful in this regard is a debate
unto itself that I do not have space
to address here. However, as any-
one familiar with the basic rules of
logic knows, an argument based
on a flawed premise can only be
flawed itself.
Kerem Trolander ’14
6 Editorial & Letter The Brown Daily Herald
Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Editorial Editorial comic by sam rosenfeld

Step up for equality

Since its founding nearly 250 years ago, Brown has had a close
relationship with Rhode Island, a unique affinity that transcends the
happenstance of geography. Together, the University and the state have
led the fight together for principles of universal rights and justice, often
long before others caught on.
For example, Rhode Island was the first state founded on the then-
revolutionary idea of universal freedom of religion. It was one of the first
to declare independence from Great Britain, one of the first to abolish
slavery and one of only two states to reject Prohibition. In a similar
vein, Brown was the first university in America to admit students of
any religion and has led in many other areas.
Over the last several years, a new front has opened in the peren-
nial battle to perfect our union. More and more people have come
to recognize that discrimination against gays and lesbians — long
accepted as a given — is unfair. Once again, Rhode Island was in the
vanguard on this issue, as it was in the first wave of states to prohibit
such discrimination. When Rep. David Cicilline ’83, D-R.I., was elected
mayor of Providence in 2002, he was the first openly gay mayor of an
American capital city.
But like many states, Rhode Island has been slow to follow through on
this principle and continues to deny gays and lesbians the fundamental
right to marry. Stymied for years by former governor Donald Carcieri
’65, who vehemently opposed same-sex marriage, our state has fallen
far behind its New England neighbors — all of which except Maine
allow the practice — despite polls indicating that Rhode Islanders are
more supportive of equality than any voters outside Massachusetts.
Luckily, this year appears ripe for a breakthrough. The biggest
obstacle to equalizing marriage laws in Rhode Island disappeared
when Governor Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14, who called on the legislature
to enact a same-sex marriage bill in his inaugural address, replaced
Carcieri. It also helps that openly gay Speaker Gordon Fox now leads
the state House of Representatives.
Nevertheless, despite the unprecedented public, legislative and
gubernatorial support for marriage equality, it will not be a slam dunk.
quote of the day
Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed opposes same-sex marriage, as
does Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin, who has been vocally fighting
to prevent its enactment.
“It was like a commune.”
Other opponents, who likely suspect that they lack the votes to
stop gay marriage in the General Assembly, have begun to coalesce
around the unprecedented idea of putting the issue on next year’s — Sarah Yu ’11, on United World College
ballot, despite the fact that Rhode Island does not hold referenda on
laws like California does. Not only is this a waste of time — a recent
poll showed Rhode Islanders favoring marriage equality by a margin
of 60-31 percent — but it would create the bad precedent of putting
rights to a vote.
This is where Brown comes in. We are all residents of this state. We
Correction
An article in Monday’s Herald (“U. Set to pull free Adobe programs offerings for students,” Feb. 4) incor-
should ensure that our voices and those of our likeminded neighbors
rectly stated that starting April 30, students will no longer have the ability to download Abobe programs onto
are heard throughout the legislative process. That process begins this
personal computers. In fact, on that date the University’s contract with Adobe will expire. Beginning Feb.
evening, when the House Judiciary Committee considers the marriage
25, Computing and Information Services will stop providing downloads of Adobe programs onto personal
bill and the referendum bill. The hearing will begin shortly after the
computers. The Herald regrets the error.
House, which convenes at 4 p.m., finishes its business for the day. Brown
students have a long history of involvement in their community. We
hope that commitment continues with this important issue.

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The Brown Daily Herald
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Walk a mile in my waterproof boots
BY MIKE JOHNSON
Opinions Columnist
It starts with a sinking feeling in your chest
that moves all the way up to your throat.
You’re not sure whether to cry out in de-
spair or to stoically weather the embarrass-
ment. After a few seconds, a chilling throb
of pain seizes your foot, making it seem
to weigh six tons. What is drowned be-
neath the inevitable string of unspeakable
words that flow from your pursed lips and
clenched teeth is the stunning reality that
you have just stepped in the deepest side-
walk puddle imaginable.
It’s winter in Providence, which brings
with it the entire gamut of precipitation
from snow to pouring rain. The tempera-
ture hovers just over freezing, ensuring a
mysterious wintry mix blankets our fair
city in inches of sloppy goo. And despite
the weather patterns being fairly fixed since
the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago,
Brown and the City of Providence seem
powerless to prevent pedestrian puddle
production.
Granted, Brown hasn’t been around
since the last ice age. The University only
has had about 240 years of evidence that
proximity to the ocean leads to as much
sleet or rain as it does snow. It is under-
standable, then, that the sidewalks around
campus are continually covered in slush
that at night re-freezes into that slippery
No discipline of the body: OMAC schedule fails recreational users
BY CELSO VILLEGAS
Guest Columnist
I would like to express my displeasure to-
wards how the Olney-Margolies Athletic
Center’s schedule is relayed to recreation-
al users. The OMAC administration must
make a publicly accessible and regularly
updated schedule for the Brown commu-
nity at large.
Last week, I read over the only docu-
ment listing the reserved times for the
month of February at the OMAC front
desk. This document is not posted in pub-
lic view and is marked “Do Not Remove.”
With spring sports starting up, it is no sur-
prise that the document shows the athlet-
ic center to be very busy. But reservations
are listed in the schedule in a exceedingly
confusing manner. For example, there are
different entries for “Varsity Track” and
“Track practice,” which one might assume
are the same thing. There is an ambiguous
listing for “IM/Rec.” These and other in-
consistencies make other reservation list-
ings untrustworthy. For example, teams
like softball and baseball reserve all four
courts and the track on most days, then are
not listed as reserving all facilities on oth-
ers. Compare, for instance, baseball’s Feb.
16 and 21 reservations. These may be idio-
syncrasies, but for a recreational user plan-
ning their visits ahead of time, reading the
document is an exercise in interpreting the
OMAC’s unique form of bureaucratic lan-
substance we call ice. Perhaps it is not until
a hapless student slips on the ice and breaks
an arm or leg that an adequate snow-re-
moval policy will be enacted.
Still worse, students attempting to avoid
the inconvenience of soggy shoes and fro-
zen metatarsals take to walking directly
down the street, because that is where one
can actually see the asphalt rather than the
translucent culprit of the concrete. Driv-
ers that are already upset by the snow-
narrowed streets must now slalom their
way around bustling students, all the while
watching for black ice.
Perhaps it is not until a hapless student slips on the ice
and breaks an arm or leg that adequate snow removal
policy can be enacted.
At the risk of sounding patronizing, the
solution to all these winter woes is simple.
The storm drains are clogged with snow.
Rather than funnel the snowmelt and rain-
water down the gutters of the streets to the
bay to our south, they are rendered power-
less by hastily plowed snow. The prowling
backhoe that I have seen around campus
would perform marvelously in this task,
lifting snow off the storm drain and piling it
onto the snow bank. If we do not own that
guage.
I spent nearly an hour writing down un-
reserved times, which I assume to be times
when recreational users can use the track
or the basketball courts. While some gener-
al patterns emerge — for example, the track
and basketball courts are mostly free from
8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Monday through
Thursday — it is clear that this schedule,
the only “detailed” schedule available, is an
internal document for OMAC staff to keep
The OMAC administration is doing a disservice to the
community at large by not producing a comprehensible,
publicly available and readily accessible schedule.
track of team reservations, and probably
only so that the teams themselves do not
impinge on each other’s practice time. It
makes me wonder if this is how the OMAC
staff sees its job more generally.
This document fails as a recreation-
al schedule because it only lists reserved
times; it does not explicitly state when ath-
letic center facilities are available for open
use. An internal document like the one at
the front desk may make sense to OMAC
staff, but a casual gym-goer has to do some
mental gymnastics if he or she wants to
know when the track or courts are avail-
able. Compounded by the fact that the
OMAC’s weekly web schedules have not
Opinions 7
wandering piece of equipment, we should
buy one. Should storm drains be cleared
and sidewalks plowed of any residual slush,
the sidewalks would be dry, safe and filled
with happy pedestrians. Traffic would flow
smoothly, unburdened by the stressful and
hazardous crossings near the J. Walter Wil-
son and Barus and Holley buildings.
As I prepared for the storm that crushed
the Midwest Feb. 1 and made its way to-
ward Providence, I noticed that the tem-
peratures would be above freezing. As such,
I unpacked my umbrella and prepared for
the coming rain. But it seems that such log-
ic was lost on the University, as the side-
walks remained slushy as Tuesday turned
into Wednesday. The lower layers froze, the
upper layers melted, and as the rain con-
tinued to pour down on our hapless heads,
students skidded and sloshed their way to
class, lucky to have all their bones in proper
order.
It is true that the rain portion of the
storm did not receive as much air time in
the press as the blizzard conditions that
been updated for at least two years, I feel
the OMAC administration is doing a dis-
service to the community at large by not
producing a comprehensible, publicly
available and readily accessible schedule. It
would be a great boon to the recreational
community if the OMAC administration
developed a schedule with recreational us-
ers in mind.
Such a schedule would have at least two
characteristics. First, it would be updated
weekly and available on the web. The only
available web schedule outlines reserved
times, but in broad strokes. Three or four
years ago, specific reservation schedules
for the upcoming week were available in
a downloadable format. There is enough
variation in the month of February alone to
warrant a different weekly schedule being
posted online. While calling the front desk
each time we wish to use the facilities is an
option — albeit a procrustean option — it
makes far more sense for recreational users
who wish to plan their exercise schedules
in advance to have a document readily ac-
cessible for this purpose.
Second, a recreational schedule would
marched from Kansas to Michigan and
up into northern New England. It makes
sense: “Big Rainstorm Hits Providence —
Again” is not as flashy as “Blizzard Strikes
Snow-Weary Northeast.” But this is no ex-
cuse for ignoring the thermodynamics of
water and the physics of spatial relation. In-
stead, the University cursorily plowed and
dumped piles of sand everywhere. If there
is anything worse than slush, it is mud.
Frigid water is just as good as snow at
causing frostbite. Steps can become slick
inside of buildings as well as outside when
students must wade through two inches of
standing water to cross the street. While I
count the University fortunate that a leaky
roof in the Ratty was the only indication
of an ice storm that knocked out power
to thousands, the University should count
itself fortunate that no one was seriously
hurt.
Every student pays exorbitant tuition to
come to this school. We do so in the under-
standing that we will be protected while in
attendance. The shoddy display of road and
sidewalk clearance Feb. 1 and 2 makes me
wonder where the money is going at a col-
lege in a historically snowy environment.
The weather is nothing new, and sadly, the
University’s inability to cope with it is just
as old. I just hope that it does not take a
lawsuit or potentially grievous injury in or-
der to see tangible change.
Mike Johnson ’11 is sick of stepping
in cold puddles.
explicitly state when facilities are “open.”
Only listing when the courts and track are
reserved is not helpful. And it is irrelevant
to a recreational user if lacrosse or softball
has Court 2 reserved from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. I
personally do not care if baseball or basket-
weaving is using the courts from 10 p.m.
to 11:59 p.m. — I only want to know when
I can use them. A good model is the Uni-
versity of Rhode Island’s weekly open rec-
reation schedule. It clearly states when cer-
tain facilities are “open” and when they are
“closed.” A similar schedule for the OMAC
would be ideal.
This is not the first time students have
called for athletic center schedule reforms.
Roughly one year ago, a friend of mine
contacted Matthew Tsimikas, assistant
athletic director of physical education, in-
tramurals and club sports, with a similar
complaint. Within a week, Tsimikas wrote
back stating he agreed with my friend’s
complaints about the OMAC schedule and
would bring them up at the next staff meet-
ing. Needless to say, no new schedule was
developed.
In short, I ask the OMAC administra-
tion to develop a schedule oriented towards
recreational users. And I ask all you other
recreational users to inspect the front desk
document for yourselves, ask for your own
copy and continue to petition for a real
schedule.
Celso Villegas is a graduate student in
sociology. Please don’t ask him about his
dissertation.
Daily Herald Campus News
the Brown
From across the globe,
120 UWC alums unite
By Anne artley
Staff Writer
Working on an emergency lifeboat
crew is not a typical high school
extracurricular activity. But Henry
Peck ’11 did not attend a typical
high school.
Peck is one of about 120 alums
of the United World College who
currently attend Brown. UWC is a
group of 13 schools located on five
continents. Most UWC schools
FEATURE
offer two-year programs for high
school juniors and seniors that
offer the International Baccalau-
reate, a two-year pre-university
diploma. Three of the schools
also accept students at a younger
age. High school sophomores are
placed in one of three requested
locations including New Mexico
and Costa Rica.
Applicants are not required
to speak English fluently even
though 11 of the 13 schools use
English as the language of in-
struction, according to the UWC
website.
Non-native English speakers
quickly improved their fluency
just from spending time with oth-
er students, said Peck, who is from
England and attended UWC At-
lantic College in Wales. “In three
months, they were as loud as the
rest of us,” he said.
For Mike Ewart ’11, UWC of
the Adriatic in Italy presented an
opportunity to experience life
outside the small Canadian town
where he grew up. Students did
not have a curfew and did some of
their own cooking, he said, com-
paring it to university life.
Peck said the school gave him
“a tremendous amount of respon-
sibility.”
Students live on campus and
are paired with students not from
Med school, URI to offer five-year medical physics degree
By Max Ernst
Contributing Writer
Alpert Medical School professors
working at Rhode Island Hospital
will play a major role in the de-
velopment of a new University
of Rhode Island five-year degree
program combining a bachelor’s
in physics with a master’s in medi-
cal physics, the first of its kind in
New England. The instructors will
be teaching six courses for URI
graduate students at the hospi-
tal when the program begins in
September.
“We enjoy creating educational
opportunities for students,” said
Edward Sternick, professor and
vice chair of radiation oncology
at the Med School and Rhode Is-
land Hospital. “The physics de-
partment (at URI) is outstanding
in their foresightedness and this
program will be excellent for the
medical school and the hospital.”
their home country, said Rahel
Dette ’13, who also attended the
UWC Atlantic College. Commu-
nity service and extracurricular
activities are valued highly at the
UWC schools, Dette said. Stu-
dents are required to either de-
velop a community service project
in lieu of spring break or partake
in a weekly service activity, she
added.
The schools also emphasize a
close-knit environment among
their students. “It was like a com-
mune,” said Sarah Yu ’11, who
studied in Hong Kong. “We ad-
dressed our teachers by their first
names. We were seen on an equal
level as the faculty.”
The schools were founded dur-
ing the Cold War to bring students
together from across the globe,
Peck said.
Peck trained for the Royal Na-
tional Lifeboat Institution as his
service commitment. He learned
chart reading and navigation, and
built training boats by hand. “You
have to become incredibly close to
the rest of the crew to communi-
cate in that high-stress situation,”
he said.
Peck and Ewart agreed that it
was an easy transition from the
UWC to Brown but noted that
there is no campus group exclu-
sively for UWC alums.
Such a group would be “against
the UWC mission in a sense be-
cause it’s almost exclusive,” said
Dette. “The point isn’t to re-create
the UWC experience.”
All UWC schools are part of
the Davis United World College
Scholars Program, a scholarship
foundation meant to help bring
international students to Ameri-
can universities, said Panetha
Ott, director of international
relations. The program, founded
in 2000, grants up to $20,000 in
continued on page 4
The integrated degree program
will begin with undergraduate
physics courses taught at URI,
while the more specialized cours-
es for students in their fourth and
fifth years of study will be taught
by Brown professors at Rhode
Island Hospital, said Yana Reshet-
nyak, associate professor of phys-
ics at URI.
Because the number of cancer
patients requiring radiation treat-
ment each year is increasing, the
demand for expertise in medical
physics will multiply in coming
years, making the degree program
an essential educational asset.
Sternick said this opportunity will
create excellent job prospects for
graduates of the medical physics
degree program.
“This is a fresh and new direc-
tion for our department,” Reshet-
nyak said. “There is a deficit of
people with master’s degrees in
medical physics, so this program
The costs of snow cleanup have not exceeded Facilities Management’s budget despite high snowfall this winter.
Snow removal costs within budget
By inni youh
Contributing Writer
Since the start of the academic
year, the Department of Facilities
Management has spent $167,000
on snow removal. The department
typically allocates $160,000 to
$200,000 for snow cleanup within
its $53 million annual budget that
it receives to operate and maintain
the entire campus.
Facilities Management spent
$202,000 during the previous
academic year, when 51 inches of
snow fell in Providence. Stephen
Maiorisi, vice president for Facili-
ties Management, said he expects
costs to fall in the same range this
year, though 46 inches of snow
have already fallen in Providence.
If more snow falls, the de-
partment will have less money
to spend on spring maintenance
costs. But snow removal costs are
only a small percentage of the bud-
could attract new students to our
school.”
The idea for the medical phys-
ics program began nearly two
years ago as the result of dis-
cussions between URI physics
professors and Alpert Medical
School professors about the fu-
ture need for interdisciplinary
graduate programs, according to
Reshetnyak.
“When people from the hospi-
tal introduced medical physics to
us, everyone in our department
got very excited,” she said.
The medical physics program
is just starting to advertise for its
first class of students. Although
the URI Department of Physics
had expected to get approval from
the Rhode Island Board of Gov-
ernors for Higher Education in
September or October, the medi-
cal physics program was only ap-
proved in December, according
to Reshetnyak.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
get. “If we were to go over by a few
thousand dollars or even as much
as $10,000 or $20,000, we would be
able to absorb that in our overall
budget of $53 million,” Maiorisi
wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.
Facilities Management accom-
plishes snow removal through a
collaborative effort between cus-
todians and staff workers. When
snow falls during regular oper-
ating hours, 139 custodians are
charged with removing the snow
from the stairs in front of build-
ings, Maiorisi said, adding that
members of the grounds depart-
ment clean the sidewalks and the
parking lot. In the case of heavy
snowfall over night, staff members
are called in the early morning to
clean up snow before classes start
and are paid overtime.
Part of the snow removal ser-
vices are also contracted out to
private companies outside of the
University, Maiorisi said. Once
“We are a little behind sched-
ule, but we expect to have a fall
class in 2011. To have five or six
students would be very good,
but maybe we’ll start with three
to five,” Reshetnyak said. “A few
of our physics students may also
switch to medical physics.”
This specialty program will
be training students “to be good
clinical physicists,” according to
Sternick. Coursework will pro-
vide instruction in the planning
and delivery of radiation to can-
cer patients, utilizing comput-
er-based technology. Medical
physics students will learn how
to electronically program the
precise treatment ordered by a
doctor while avoiding harm to
surrounding healthy tissue, he
said.
“Medical physicists are re-
sponsible for the quality aspects
of the delivery of radiation,” he
added.
Freddy Lu / Herald
a contract is set for a period of
time, outside vendors come in ev-
ery snowfall to clean up contracted
areas regardless of the number of
snowfalls, he added. “They are do-
ing a lot more removal than they
would normally do for the same
cost,” he said.
Snow removal is difficult in ar-
eas that are not part of University
property, Maiorisi said. Although
Providence law requires owners to
clean up sidewalks in front of their
buildings, some sidewalks often
frequented by students are not
cleared promptly. Last weekend,
as snow turned into ice, Maiorisi
said Facilities Management began
to clean the sidewalks in front of
private properties near the Univer-
sity. Some other private or publicly
owned areas are left untouched
because the city has contracts
with private companies, and the
University is not allowed to take
on city work.
Although URI has decided
to only offer a master’s degree
in medical physics at this time,
the long-term goal is to expand
the program, Sternick said. Once
interest in the specialty physics
program is gauged, the possibility
of offering doctoral studies may
be explored.
“Right now, the reason we are
not offering doctoral studies is
related to the size of our depart-
ment,” said Reshetnyak. “In order
to teach that program, we would
need to have more faculty and
specialized courses.”
According to Sternick, the
evolving degree program will
be an integral part of the larger
statewide effort to build the bio-
medical sector of the economy.
“By building up medical train-
ing, it will create job opportuni-
ties for residents and bring new
money into the state to help the
economy,” Sternick said.