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schoolers with the speeches that he gave with the call to service, LaHood said. I want you to know Im a Republican I think thats been announced but that call to service was not from a Democratic president. It was from a young, energetic public servant who gave his all, gave his life for his country, and I cant overstate the power of that call. It was a summons that sparked something in everyone I knew, both Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, much like the call that president Obama used on election day. He said his relationship with Obama when both men were members of Congress was an impetus for his decision to join the Obamas cabinet. The president has given me the opportunity and the privilege of overseeing the best transportation continued on page 5
Tom Sullivan / Herald Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood discussed his time in Obamas cabinet in a lecture Wednesday afternoon.
Life in public service may not always be a path to prestige, but that should not deter Brown students from pursuing it, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood told a full Salomon 101 Wednesday afternoon. As a moderate Republican serving in the Obama administration, LaHood has worked to reach across the aisle to forge compromise, said Marion Orr, professor of public policy and political science, in his introduction. Discussing his decision to work in Obamas cabinet, LaHood compared the presidents election to that of former President John F. Kennedy. In 1963, when I graduated from high school, President Kennedy inspired everyone that was collegeage and perhaps even some high
In election Smithsonian spotlights AmCiv projects year, poll reflects attitudes of RI voters
By ShEza atIq Contributing Writer By adam tOOBIn Senior Staff Writer
U.S. Rep. David Cicilline 83, DR.I., received a 14.8 percent job approval rating in a recent University poll, reflecting an almost 10 percent decline since December, when 24.3 percent of voters supported his work. The poll, which surveyed 514 Rhode Island registered voters, was conducted Feb. 16 to 18 by the Universitys Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions and the John Hazen White Public Opinion Laboratory. The poll has a roughly 4.3 percent margin of error. Cicilline faces increased pressure from potential election chal-
Nine undergraduates who took AMCV 1610A: American Advertising: History and Consequences last fall were selected to co-curate a portion of the upcoming American Enterprise exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. The exhibits website currently features a mini-exhibit of projects the students produced during the course exploring trends
in the history of advertising. I think we should work with Brown undergraduates all the time, said Kathleen Franz MA91 PhD99, curator and senior fellow of the American Enterprise team, who helped facilitate the collaboration with the students. The theme of the course and the close relationship between Franz and Susan Smulyan, professor of American Civilization and the course instructor, led to the arrangement, Franz said. Franz is
Smulyans former student, and the two co-edited a book together. As part of their final exam, students in Smulyans class assembled a mini-exhibit consisting of eight to 10 images of advertisements they felt best represented the history of American advertising, Smulyan said. Images were drawn from the Smithsonian archival collection that had been uploaded on the museums continued on page 4
As the University prepares to enter a new phase with the impending retirements of President Ruth Simmons and Director of Athletics Michael Goldberger, the athletics department, though a top priority, remains in flux with major changes planned or already underway. Those changes include cutting roughly 20 admission slots for recruited athletes, pumping $1.1 million into salary raises for coaches, designating about $52 million for facilities renovations and a significant enlargement of the athletics endowment, opening the new athletics facility in April and potentially ramping up a pilot program designed to encourage academic diversity among athletes. And just a year after four varsity teams faced potential elimination, all of the Universitys 37 varsity teams are secure for the foreseeable future. The administration is looking to increase funding significantly for a continued on page 2
Fundraising
William Brucker 04 spent the last few years perfecting a technique that relies on stories and analogies to teach young adults science. Brucker, whose speech shows the clear influence of the technique he developed, drew comparisons to an eggplant, a ship and a French film to explain his teaching philosophy. In July 2011, Brucker, now an MD/PhD student, took this philosophy one step further and founded the Providence Alliance of Clinical Educators with a small team of writers, artists and marketers. PACE is a nonprofit that writes and distributes short vignettes to help high school students learn concepts that can be difficult to teach, like cellular respiration. The groups initial goal was to produce a complete set of science vignettes in a few weeks, just in time for the school year to start,
Brucker said. PACE emailed 21 vignettes complete with illustrations to several interested high schools in late September. Kapil Mishra 12 and Carolina Veltri 13 worked on marketing and expansion for PACE since its founding. The biggest struggle initially was outreach and marketing and how to actually get this product out there, Mishra said. Since then, PACE has expanded both by word-of-mouth and promotional pitches emailed directly to high school teachers across the country. Currently, PACE has distributed its products to schools in all 50 states and in Haiti. Brucker pointed to the difficulty of teaching cellular respiration as one reason for the nonprofits rapid growth. Students hate (cellular respiration), and so if we make it about murder, death and chaos, then continued on page 5
Artist Chris Boakye created this illustration to go along with vignettes about science sent to high schools by PACE..
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room and give teams more space in currently crowded locker rooms, Goldberger said. The timetable for these renovations will depend on how quickly sufficient funds can be raised, he added. Finally, $1.5 million will allow athletics to move the womens softball team to a permanent, year-round field in the northeast corner of the Aldrich-Dexter Field. Administrators also plan to take the area currently used by womens soccer and lacrosse and create a practice grass field for mens and womens soccer and softball, a process Goldberger said he expects will happen in summer 2013. Bridget McNamara 12, a tricaptain of the field hockey team this fall, said the current field is in disrepair and that a new field will help the team attract fans and recruits. She added that other teams have been unwilling to play on the field. It definitely affects a team mentality psychologically when youre told that your team or your field is further down on the list, she said. Current plans call for the number of recruited athletes to fall from 225 to 205 over three years, beginning with the class of 2017, though both numbers are general benchmarks and not specific quotas, Schlissel said. Schlissel framed the move as an unfortunate but necessary change, given the shifting dynamics of the application process and the Universitys commitment to academic prowess. As the quality and breadth of the applicant pool for Brown keeps growing and getting more competitive, President Simmons felt that this number represented too large a fraction of admitted students, he said, but the intent was not to adversely affect the competitiveness of our teams and not to penalize very successful teams. The administrations goal is to maintain the current standard of recruiting 80 percent of the team for as many sports as possible, Schlissel said, and to keep each team within one of the average number of recruited athletes across the Ivy League. Most affected teams are likely to lose just one slot. Goldberger said the impact of the cuts will be dulled by spreading them across teams, and some of the best-performing teams including womens crew, football and mens soccer will likely see no reductions. The teams that have been strong for us we dont want to weaken them, he said, while sports that have often relied on walk-ons, like the equestrian team, will continue to do so. In her October recommendations, Simmons proposed to couple the cuts with an increase in financial aid. The current financial aid budget is more than $90 million, but the University hopes to enhance its ability to match offers from other Ivy League schools for desired athletes, Schlissel said. An Ivy League rule that prohibits differential financial treatment of athletes means this commitment to match financial aid offers will apply to a top athlete just as it will to an academic superstar. continued on page 5
admissions and financial aid
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The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement and once during Orientation by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Single copy free for each member of the community. POSTMASTER please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Subscription prices: $280 one year daily, $140 one semester daily. Copyright 2011 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
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women working for religiously affiliated organizations. According to the poll, more than 56 percent of voters approve of the policy, which requires health insurance companies to provide access to contraceptive services when a womans employer opposes these services. The Catholic Church, which has long been an influential presence in Rhode Island, condemns contraceptive use. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence did not respond to The Heralds requests for comment. Under the original policy outlined in Obamas 2010 health care bill, hospitals, charities and universities with religious affiliations would have been required to provide coverage for contraception services themselves, though churches would still have been exempt. Rhode Island voters felt much less favorably about the original policy than they did about its revision with 47.5 percent in favor and 47 percent against, according to the poll. After pressure from Catholic groups, the Obama administration amended the policy. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops remains opposed to the new policy. In a testimony before Congress on its behalf, Reverend William Lori called the final policy an act of conscripting unwilling religious people and groups in its effort to increase the usage of contraception nationwide. The Taubman Center tally of Rhode Island voters provides similar results to a New York Times/ CBS News poll, which found that 59 percent of respondents nationwide favor the new policy, while 57 percent of Catholic voters support it. The Taubman Center poll also showed serious doubts about the leadership of Gov. Lincoln Chafee 75 P14.
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The governors approval rating has fallen from 27.4 percent in December to 22.1 percent. The decline comes on the heels of a number of proposed tax increases by Chafee intended to raise revenue for the cash-strapped state. The initiatives have not been wellreceived, according to the poll Chafees proposal to raise taxes on restaurant meals and beverages by 3 percent has the support of only 18.1 percent of voters. Another of Chafees proposals to increase the registration and renewal fees for drivers licenses by $30 is opposed by 67.5 percent of voters. But the governors proposed 4 cent per pack tax hike on cigarettes has the support of 71 percent of voters. Chafee wrote in a statement
that he sees the low approval numbers as only temporary. We are beginning to see some improvements in both the national and regional economies. We are confident that Rhode Island is on its way back. Im hopeful that the May revenue numbers allow us to minimize the need for dramatic core cuts to services and minimize the need to enhance revenues, he wrote. Though the governors approval rating has fallen, the poll showed an increase in approval for Providence Mayor Angel Taveras. Since declaring the citys precarious economic situation in February, the mayors approval rating has risen by approximately 8 percent, falling just short of 60 percent popularity, according to the latest poll.
4 Campus news
continued from page 8 continued from page 1 to work. Passing a transportation bill would put thousands of people to work in America. Thats why the president pushed it in his state of the union, thats why the president pushed it in the American Jobs Act, thats why the president has pushed it in his budget, because it will put Americans to work. As a Republican working in the cabinet of a democrat, what has been both your greatest frustration and your greatest satisfaction from a personal standpoint? I think its always frustrating trying to get big things done. We do a lot of big things at DOT, and it has nothing to do with politics or Republican or Democrat. It has more to do with trying to move government and move people in a direction to really get things done. Weve had a lot of success with the presidents vision for high-speed rail. Weve invested more than $10 billion. Weve had a lot of success with the economic stimulus program where we had $48 billion and created 65,000 jobs with 15,000 projects. We did it in two years without any earmarks or any controversy, so weve had some success with the programs that Congress has given us.
- Hannah abelow
Campus news 5
PACE explains science through short stories
continued from page 1 well have a chance of breaking into that market, Brucker said. If we have one great story thats irresistible, then its going to be used by every classroom. One of the more popular vignettes is called Drunkorexia, Brucker said. In the story, a young woman dies after starving herself for four days before drinking heavily in order to avoid gaining weight from high-calorie alcoholic drinks, causing her to experience alcoholinduced hyperglycemia. The story gives new meaning to abstract scientific concepts, Brucker said. Diana Siliezar-Shields, science department chair at Barrington High School in Barrington, R.I., said her students like to create skits based on the readings. Drunkorexia was her favorite vignette, she added. The story deals with topics that they deal with and they think about in one way or another, Siliezar-Shields said, so it generated some really good discussion from a biological perspective. Shauna Evans, a biology teacher at Moore High School in Moore, Okla., said her students appreciate the format and content of the stories. You can teach them what the cell parts are, and you can teach them what the processes are, but to actually see them in the context of a real life situation it gives meaning to what youre talking about, Evans said. It kind of gave me a break from just trying to lecture to 14-year-olds, who dont necessarily want to hear it. PACE recently began advertising to Brown students as it looks for help to sustain its rapid growth. Brucker said he hopes PACE will soon expand into the fields of chemistry and physics and bring the vignettes to many more schools across the country and around the world. If (Brown students) gave us a just little help, theres nothing to stop us from reaching every school in the English-speaking world, Brucker said, emphasizing the potential (PACEs work) represents for change. Sera Kim 15 recently joined PACE to help bridge the gap between scientists and the public. She plans to write a vignette about chemical equilibria by explaining how tooth decay happens in people with bulimia. I definitely dont want it to be a compromise of the concepts for it to be fun, Kim said, adding that she wants her story to include accurate, real, good, legit science. Brucker said he hopes that PACE could pave the way to guerilla curriculum reform to help science better engage students. Instead of saying that the education needs to be torn down and revamped and changed radically, we sort of take the side of the teachers, Brucker said. Theyre on the front lines, and theyre really good. So lets use some of the specialized knowledge we have and try to support their curriculum in tough to interest places. continued from page 2 We havent set aside a specific number of dollars, Schlissel said. What weve done is weve enunciated a principle. Though the financial aid push is not limited to athletics, Goldberger said the impact for teams would be noteworthy, especially for recruits whose family incomes are between $100,000 and $175,000, the range in which financial aid differentials between the University and other Ivy League schools can stretch to $30,000 a year. It will give us the opportunity to go after a lot of people that were really not competitive for right now, he said. Schlissel also looked into the Academic Index of the Universitys recruits last semester and over winter break. An Ivy League rule stipulates that the AI a metric based on SAT score and GPA of a universitys recruited athletes must be on average no less than one standard deviation below that of the schools student body. Browns current average AI is 217 on a scale of 240, Schlissel said, with a floor of 203.7 for recruits and when he looked at the most recent classs data, he found that athletes had an average of 207. As long as we continue exceeding the league standard, then Ill be satisfied, he said. The University has also examined athletes academic tracks once they reach Brown. One for Me, a pilot program currently in its second year, is designed to encourage varsity athletes to vary their course loads, since
academic tracks
athletes often cluster in courses with their teammates, said Stephen Lassonde, deputy dean of the College. The initiative has recruited seniors on four teams to write letters to incoming recruits that tout the benefits of academic diversity and urge them to take at least one class without teammates. The project has seen a 97 percent success rate among the recruits, Lassonde said. The program was designed to address issues of academic diversity with which all universities struggle, Lassonde said, and it relied especially on the First-Year Seminar program. Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services Margaret Klawunn said the reasons athletes often take classes with teammates are understandable and not always negative, including strong cohesion within teams and the campus culture of relying on other students recommendations. That may be fine, but does that mean that youre also not hearing as much about other courses? she said. Thats a strength of team culture, but we wanted to make sure that it was operating in the best possible way. Through the program, administrators have sought to ensure that many course options are available to athletes by making sure enough first-year seminars are offered in the mornings, which conflict less with practice schedules, Klawunn said. She added that the administration hopes to expand the program to other teams next year. Currently, it is operating for womens soccer, mens lacrosse and both swimming and diving teams, said Sarah Fraser, assistant athletic director for compliance.
COMiCS
Dreadful Cosmology | Oirad Macmit
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CORREC TiON
A photo in Tuesdays Herald of Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning and senior advisor to the president, was incorrectly credited as courtesy of Marisa Quinn, vice president for public affairs and University relations. In fact, the photo should have been credited to Frank Mullin, photographer for Brown Alumni Magazine. The Herald regrets the error.
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Mhm, Whatcha Say?
eronormative and the pretentious interpretations our classmates use to impress their professors and peers. Unfortunately, when our school joined the ranks of other Sh*t People Say videos, I was a bit disappointed. Well ya know, cause like hes writing this thing, but at the same time hes like writing about his experience writing this thing, one student terribly articulates as the video mocks the Brunonian tendency to play the meta-philosopher in the classroom. Many of us have sat in a class with that type of indiceiving an education at a private high school, and such jests are reminders of those socioeconomic divisions. Furthermore, a lot of the students who have received private school educations, myself included, are not very preoccupied with who went to what secondary school anyway, unless one of our classmates is wearing a sweatshirt labeled with the name of a school we recognize. I could not tell you which classmates attended which high schools, nor would I really care to. One of the more troubling components of really does not make the effort to include different racial experiences. The biggest disappointment of the Sh*t Brown Students Say is that the video is not conscious that it focuses on certain privileges and highlights racial, economic and probably many other social divisions within the Brown community. It really leads viewers to ask: Who really says these things? Without a doubt, the video could not possibly appeal to everyone who considers themselves part of the community at the University, but it should not be alienating either. One of the most controversial Sh*t People Say videos, Sh*t White Girls Say to Black Girls, received a lot of attention because it not only pointed out the distinctions between two different groups of women, but also because it provided a platform for these groups to converse. White women and black women were given a chance to discuss who says what kinds of things and the consequences of that language. In that vein, perhaps a video representative of Brown should have sent the message that we all come from different backgrounds, and sometimes we need to laugh at the way we talk or neglect to talk to each other. I thank the original creators behind the Sh*t Brown Students Say video for the initial laughs, but I also challenge the creative minds at the University to make a clip truly representative of our community before we really get tired of these videos! Helen McDonald 14 is concentrating in youTube studies and can be reached at Helen_McDonald@brown.edu.
By HELEN MCDONALD
opinions Columnist
We just take so much for granted, a female student admonishes in the recent viral video, Sh*t Brown Students Say. The three-minute YouTube clip attempts to poke fun at Brunonians for the ridiculous, Brown-specific idioms we use from day to day. From mailroom struggles and SafeRide hunting to the perpetually inclement weather and the party scene, the video celebrates the social and cultural aspects that make the University the quirky place it is. But the students warning that we take so much for granted may be an accurate way to describe the perspective presented in Sh*t Brown Students Say. The video though a light-hearted stab at the Brown community fails to recognize that not everyone can say all of the statements within the piece and may point out more differences within the community than collective traits. The Internet phenomenon began in December with the Sh*t Girls Say videos, and an influx of Sh*t [insert category of people] Say videos soon followed. I anticipated that a video would inevitably be made to describe students at the University. Our creative body of students would need to take advantage of the craze, especially to lift spirits in the dead of winter. I speculated with other students about the details the makers of a Sh*t Brown Students Say video would include, like het-
The biggest disappointment of Sh*t Brown Students Say is that the video is not conscious that it focuses on certain privileges and highlights racial, economic and probably many other social divisions within the Brown community. it really leads viewers to ask: Who really says these things?
vidual or may be that individual, and we can chuckle at the joke. On the contrary, there are quips to which quite a few students do not and cannot relate. My girlfriend went to Horace Mann, a male student tells a buddy in the first moments of the video. A mash-up of scenes follows where the characters talk about the private high schools their friends attended, such as the aforementioned Horace Mann, Fieldston and Dalton. Whats with [the] Horace Mann/Fieldston/Dalton obsession, Brown? one YouTube user commented, and I had to ask myself the same. Many Brown students were not financially capable of rethe Sh*t Brown Students Say video is the racial implication. The highest rated comment to the video comes from an alum who apparently graduated in 2002. The YouTube user, SinatraNight, implied the video should be called Sh*t White Brown Students Say, and since the video entered the online world, I have heard many students currently at Brown make similar comments in response. If this was really anything Brown thered be more racial representation, YouTube user againstthebrilliance also responded. I could not agree more. One of the students in the video asks, Is this racist? While the video in itself does not discriminate on the basis of race, it
Affirmative action is back in the news. The United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that challenges the constitutionality of racial consideration in admissions at public universities. Because many private institutions accept government funds, any ruling that ends racial considerations in public admissions will probably also affect private colleges. The result could be a complete reshaping of admissions policies throughout higher education, including at Brown. Affirmative action is a challenging topic because it often brings up very strong feelings related to race, racial inequality and the concept of discrimination and its counterpart, reverse discrimination. Lets first take a step back and consider the difficulty of making admissions decisions. What should universities consider when deciding which students to admit? Grades seem like an easy first choice, but they come tinged with complicating circumstances. Is an A at one school the same as an A at another? Is even one teacher at one school like another at that same school? The fact remains that context clearly matters when it comes to factoring grades into admissions decisions. Intuitively it makes sense that an A in an
Lets first take a step back and consider the difficulty of making admissions decisions. What should universities consider when deciding which students to admit?
noon certainly has an unfair advantage over the student who is also getting an A while playing varsity sports all afternoon. But what if the varsity athlete is getting an A-? Would she be getting an A if it were not for the sports? Playing sports may be optional, but for teenagers from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds, working a part-time job after school may not be. For these students, who often have fewer resources, that A- might be worth a lot more than the A is worth for the wealthy student
considered for a job or entry to a selective university. The history of racial discrimination in this country is sadly a long one. But the Supreme Court should not mandate which contextual factors universities should be allowed to consider when it comes to making admissions decisions. Saying that race is off-limits will lead to a slippery slope that allows the court to strike down policies that take into account any context. If race is offlimits, where do you draw the line, if in theory any factors could be tossed out?
The Undergraduate Council of Students selected Nick Tsapakos 13 and Holly Hunt 13 to serve on a recently announced committee that will address issues raised by the proposed UCS constitutional amendment in its general body meeting Wednesday night. Two members of the Undergraduate Finance Board and an unspecified number of community members will also serve on the committee, said David Rattner 13, vice president of UCS. The committee will explore funding concerns and the relationship between the council and the Undergraduate Finance Board. The executive board chose Hunt prior to the general body meeting to serve as the councils senior member on the committee. The general body then elected Tsapakos to serve as the councils junior member of the committee over Giuliano Marostica 15, Alex Kaplan 14, Alex Sherry 15 and Charlene Flores 15. During community time, Matt Breuer 14 and Jenny Li 14 asked the council to consider endorsing a sustainability plan that would quantify the Universitys environmental goals. Breuer said they are also speaking with administrators and student groups such as emPower and the
Brown Outing Club. They hope to present a report to the Brown University Community Council March 20 proposing the creation of a committee to look into defining specific goals and increasing communication between environmentally-minded groups and activists on campus, Breuer said. The council is looking for a location on Pembroke campus where the University could install a printer that would be available to all students at all times, said Michael Lin 14, chair of the academic and administrative affairs committee. He also discussed phasing out the laundry stripe on student IDs,w since students will be able to use Bear Bucks to do laundry beginning next semester. UCS is also looking to expand free media services to non-Category III groups, said Daniel Pipkin 14, the UCS-UFB liaison. Currently, Category III student groups do not have to pay for the use of media equipment, and the council hopes to extend this service to other UCSrecognized groups, he said. Rattner said the council is working with the Registrars Office to make waiting lists and official transcripts available online. He also said UCS week will be pushed back a week due to a request from the Office of the President and will now begin March 12.
Legislation that would allow undocumented students to pay instate tuition rates was introduced last month in the Rhode Island General Assembly. The Tuition Equity Bill, sponsored by state Rep. Grace Diaz, D-Providence, and state Sen. Juan Pichardo, DProvidence, would uphold a decision made last fall by the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education to legalize the change. If passed, Rhode Island residents who have attended a public high school in the state for at least three years could pay in-state tuition rates, regardless of their citizenship status. Such candidates would be required to apply for citizenship as soon as possible. Education is a human right, Diaz said of her reason for sponsoring the bill. It is important to institute legislation that upholds the precedent set by the board, said Marta Martinez, co-founder of the Coalition of Advocates for Students, a group that supports the bill. The legislation would give undocumented students legal support in confronting discrimination.
But the board decision has met opposition. Undocumented students shouldnt even be here in the first place, said Terry Gorman, executive director of Rhode Islanders for Immigration Law Enforcement, who called the boards decision illegal. He said his group has contacted the Rhode Island Attorney General regarding the legitimacy of the boards decision. The subsidies are pointless because once they graduate, undocumented residents wouldnt be able to even get a job at Dunkin Donuts or Burger King with that college education, Gorman said. State Sen. Nicholas Kettle, RCoventry, Foster and Scituate, said the boards decision represents a breach of the balance of powers in the state. It is not fair and equitable to the citizens of the state and country, Kettle said. Measures expanding in-state tuition to undocumented students would condone the presence of undocumented families in Rhode Island, he added. State Rep. Daniel Reilly, RMiddletown, Newport and Portsmouth, proposed a bill to repeal the boards decision in January. The bill is currently awaiting consideration by the House Finance
Committee. A poll commissioned by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a nonprofit that works to achieve immigration reform, revealed another roadblock to passage of the Tuition Equity Bill. Ira Melhman, national media director and spokesperson for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said the organization has opposed granting in-state rates to undocumented students because its not fair to middle-class citizens who do not qualify for financial aid as tuition rates escalate. Seventy-four percent of 500 Rhode Islanders polled reported that illegal immigration has a detrimental effect on the state, and 71 percent responded that the state should not provide subsidies to undocumented college students. But Martinez said the organization is known to be an antiimmigrant group and added that she does not consider the poll legitimate. Still, she said she is worried by the survey because the organization has significant influence. Her own organizations campaign focuses on providing correct information about the effects of immigration in Rhode Island.
Actor James Woods spoke in favor of a proposed bill that would allow doctors to apologize to their patients without legal repercussions at a House Committee on Judiciary hearing last night. The benevolent gestures bill was introduced by Rep. Joseph McNamara, D-Warwick and Cranston. Similar legislation has been proposed seven times without passing. Woods a Warwick native who voiced the character Hades in the Disney film Hercules lost his brother due to a malpractice incident at Kent Hospital in Warwick in 2006. He said the subsequent apology he received from Sandra Coletta, who is now the hospitals president, made him recognize the power of a sincere apology. He had been prepared to wage thermonuclear war against the hospital, Woods said, but once he heard how genuinely sorry Coletta was on behalf of the hospital, they were able to move forward and collaboratively reach a settlement. But by apologizing, Coletta put herself in a vulnerable position. Currently, when doctors express sympathy for a procedure gone awry or a corrective course of action, their words are admissible in court as evidence against them if a patient were to sue for malpractice. The benevolent gestures bill would change that, McNamara said. Thirty-six other states have al-
ready enacted some version of Im sorry legislation, and the numbers of medical malpractice suits in those states have decreased, Woods said. Hearing a genuine apology from a medical worker after an unexpected and undesired outcome adds therapeutic closure, Woods said. It also allows patients and doctors to work together and achieve the best possible medical outcomes. After McNamara, Woods and Coletta introduced the bill, many medical workers testified in favor of it. Michael Migliori 79 MD82 P11 P12 P14, chief of ophthalmology and reconstructive surgery at Rhode Island Hospital, clarified that the bill does not protect doctors from bad behavior. The drop in malpractice suits many states saw after enacting similar legislation was because patients felt like they no longer needed to sue, not because they felt like they no longer could, he said. Faith Birnbaum 10 MD15 attended the hearing to support her classmate, Peter Kaminski MD15, who also provided testimony in favor of the bill. It makes the whole idea of health care so much harder if you cant admit your mistakes, she told The Herald. But others said the bill would give doctors unfair protection at the expense of patient rights. Under current licensing regulations, hospitals and doctors are already required to inform patients of unexpected outcomes. They could likewise express
sympathy, said Miriam Weizenbaum, a Providence lawyer. If the House were to pass this legislation, evidence would be excluded that belongs in a civil lawsuit, only to the detriment of patients. Donald Migliori 88, also spoke against the bill, countering his brother Michaels position. Im sorry is important, compassion is important, he said. Compassion is not what this bill addresses it goes far beyond that. If implemented, the bill would strip the judiciary of its ability to decide what evidence belongs in the courtroom and, in doing so, provide doctors with unfair legal protection, Migliori said. If a carpenter built a house using the wrong type of nails, and the house fell down and crushed its inhabitants, the carpenters apology would be considered admissible evidence, he said. The bill says for only doctors, Im sorry, I dont know what I was thinking should be protected as if the relationship between a doctor and a patient is somehow different from any other type of relationship. The 36 other states with Im sorry legislation enacted very different bills that do not penalize patients, Migliori told The Herald. Not one state has this bill, he said. If the bill passes the House Committee on Judiciary and the Senate Committee on Judiciary, it will move to the General Assembly for a floor vote. Migliori said the process will likely take months.