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Thursday, April 5, 2012Daily Heraldthe Brown
Since 1891vol. cxxii, no. 44
57 / 35
t o m o r r o w
57 / 34
t o d aynews....................2-7editorial............10opinions.............11city & state.........12insi
de
OpiniOns, 9
Plus oneLebovitz ’14 calls for expanded news options
takes bus, gets shamrock drunk
pOst-, insiDe wea
therPost-
Courtesy of HBO and Brown UniversityLena Dunham and Laura Linney ’86 will speak at next week’s Ivy Film Festival.
By max ernstStaff Writer
The Graduate School has chosen nine students to participate in the debut of its Open Graduate Programs, an interdisciplinary option that combines doctoral studies in a primary field with master’s-level studies in an ad-ditional field. The initiative will expand the University’s under-graduate open curriculum into its graduate studies.
The purpose of the new gradu-ate education program is to help students achieve in-depth knowl-edge in a second field, open new career options and give graduates an advantage in the job market, said Peter Weber, dean of the Graduate School.
“This is a great initiative that makes Brown stand out from
its peer institutions,” said Mat-teo Riondato GS, president of the Graduate Student Council. “Hopefully, Brown can take the lead in expanding graduate educa-tion to make it more modern and suitable to the needs of students.”
Earlier this year, a committee of University faculty members re-viewed letters of recommendation and essays from 20 graduate stu-dent applicants. Though the ini-tial plan was to select 13 students for the first year, the committee ultimately only recommended nine students, Riondato said.
“The selection committee felt those candidates presented the best applications and were the ones worth funding,” he said.
The group of graduate students participating in the program will
Open grad program allows students to pursue two fields
By alexa PughStaff Writer
The board of directors of the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority ap-proved plans for a $126.7 million
Providence streetcar system, with preliminary plans for a two-and-a-half mile route that would connect Rhode Island Hospital, downtown Providence and College Hill.
The idea was originally proposed by the Transit 2020 Action Group in 2006 as part of a greater initiative to invest in the growth and improve-ment of Providence transit over the long term.
The approved plans are based on findings from the Providence Core Connector Study, which considered multiple options for routes and tech-nology, including enhanced buses as an alternative to the streetcar.
Ultimately, the study concluded that a streetcar would be the better
option, citing its potential to spur economic development, its commu-nity impact and its better passenger experience.
“Streetcars will help concentrate and accelerate economic develop-ment,” said Amy Pettine, RIPTA’s special project manager. A streetcar line would increase nearby property values, as well as encourage patron-age at businesses on the route, she said.
Funds put plan for streetcar line in motion
By Kate nussenBaumSenior Staff Writer
This year’s Ivy Film Festival will bring actress Laura Linney ’86, producer and director Barry Levin-son and writer, director and ac-tress Lena Dunham to campus next week to hold question and answer sessions for students in-terested in film, the organization announced Wednesday night. In addition to the sessions with in-dustry professionals, the festival features screenings of more than 20 films from students around the world. The films are all finalists in the organization’s international film competition and were chosen from a pool of more than 300 film and screenplay entries.
Travis Bogosian ’13, who di-rects the festival along with Ca-leigh Forbes ’13, said they tried to bring a mix of producers, directors and actors to campus so that all at-
tendees can learn about an aspect of filmmaking. He said they plan the festival around the featured speakers. Given the busy sched-ules of most film professionals, finding people to bring to campus can be difficult, he said. But when the speakers are available, they express a “huge degree of enthu-siasm,” he said.
Linney, famous for her roles in movies like“Kinsey” and “The Savages” and her portrayal of Abi-gail Adams in the HBO miniseries “John Adams,” is “always excited to come back to Brown,” Bogosian said.
Diahndra Burman ’12 said one of her family friends was a profes-sor at Brown who taught Linney and “shared very fond memories of when she was here.” He knew even then that she would be a star, she said. Burma said she is excited
Ivy Film Festival announces lineup, speakers
By Caroline saineContributing Writer
The University signed a memo-randum of understanding to form a partnership with the Insituto Nacional de Matemática, a preemi-nent mathematics research insti-tute in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil March 26. The collaboration, funded by a donation from a Brown parent, will promote research collabora-tions, conferences and exchanges between Brown and IMPA over the next three years.
This partnership is the “first official collaboration” for the Uni-versity with mathematics in Brazil, said Bjorn Sandstede, professor of applied mathematics, and it is Brown’s second formal collabora-tion in mathematics overseas. In 2007, Brown established an aca-demic affiliation with the Univer-sité Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris.
The collaboration between Brown and IMPA is broader be-cause it will involve postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and faculty exchanges, Sandstede said.
The partnership does not in-volve undergraduate students at this stage, though Sandstede said he is hopeful that the program will expand as Brown and IMPA
U. forges research partnership in Brazil
continued on page 5
continued on page 2
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By Katherine longSenior Staff Writer
For the third year in a row, mali-cious outside activity may have caused the massive failure of the Brown Marketplace as students at-tempted to purchase Spring Week-end tickets yesterday, said Mike Caron ’12, director of the Brown Student Agencies management team. The Brown Concert Agency made tickets available at 8 a.m., but only around 40 students success-fully completed their purchases before the agency decided to end sales at 8:45 a.m., said BCA Co-Chair Sandy Ryza ’12. Students will still be able to purchase tickets today and tomorrow.
Malicious software was the probable cause of the extreme loading lag between screens that many ticket buyers noticed yester-day morning, Caron said.
“I feel like they let us through to another screen every 10 minutes or so just to keep hope up the slight-est bit. It’s like why they let there be a victor in the Hunger Games,” one student’s Facebook status read.
That lag prompted BCA to
True to tradition, BSA site crashes
continued on page 6
S h i p S t r e e t S q u a r e
Sam Kase / HeraldThe University’s public plaza in the Jewelry District, across the street from Alpert Medical School, is now home to a farmers market. See page 4.
continued on page 5
city & state
Claire Peracchio, PresidentRebecca Ballhaus, Vice President
Danielle Marshak, TreasurerSiena DeLisser, Secretary
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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Campus news2 the Brown Daily heraldthursday, April 5, 2012
12 P.M.
Forum on Tea Party Movement
Petteruti Lounge
4 P.M.
Rhodes & Marshall Info Session
Petteruti Lounge
12 P.M.
Black Lavender Cafe
Churchill House
9:30 P.M.
Asian Arts Festival
List Art 120
SHARPE REFECTORY VERNEY-WOOLLEY DINING HALL
LUNCH
DINNER
Cheese and Corn Strata, Roast Turkey with Gravy, Vegan Feijoada
Black Beans, Carrots Vichy
Roast Turkey, Mashed Potatoes, Bread Stuffing, Peas Francaise,
Vegan Roasted Veggie Stew
Vegan Tofu Raviolis, Spinach with Toasted Sesame Seeds, Vegan Tofu
Pups, Pork Teriyaki
Vegan Mexican Bean Soup, Chicken Rice Soup, Asian Sesame Chicken
Salad, Crispy Thai Tofu
TODAY APRIL 5 TOMORROW APRIL 6
C R O S S w O R D
S U D O K U
M e n U
C A L e n DA R
continue their dialogue.Exchanges will begin this year
between the two institutions. Ap-proximately 20 faculty members and students from Brown will travel to IMPA for a period of one to three weeks, while 12 to 15 fac-ulty members and students from IMPA will visit Brown for one week to four months. These ini-tial exchanges will help members of each institution get to know each other and gauge potential for expansion of the program, Sandstede said.
The collaboration will be funded on a donation of roughly $200,000 each year for three years, to be split equally between Brown and IMPA. The donor, a Brown parent, is from Brazil and “thinks very highly” of IMPA, Sandstede said.
In the past few years, the Uni-versity has increased efforts to recruit international students, encourage study abroad for under-graduates and forge partnerships with research institutions overseas
as it moves towards internation-alization.
Brown has been a global uni-versity for a long time, wrote Mat-thew Gutmann P’14, vice presi-dent for international affairs, in an email to The Herald. The Uni-versity is continuing to deepen and expand its network of global collaborations “because the best scientists, scholars and students are found in all parts of the world,” Gutmann wrote.
Gutmann was appointed vice president for international affairs in 2009, succeeding the inaugural vice president, David Kennedy ’76, who took the position in 2008. The position was created as part of a series of initiatives to boost the University’s international pro-file, endorsed by the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body.
Among other measures, the Corporation authorized an in-crease in financial aid resources for international students as part of an October 2006 discussion about the University’s role in in-ternational higher education.
Since then, Brown has main-tained its commitment to global understanding and international advancement. The “Year of ” series, beginning for 2007-08 with the Year of Latin America and fol-lowed by the Year of Africa, Year of India and Year of China, is one example of the University’s sus-tained efforts to make connections across the world. Brown will con-tinue “deepening and expanding its collaborations and exchanges with top institutions worldwide,” Gutmann wrote.
Sandstede noted that increas-ing internationalization gives more freedom to students pursu-ing research opportunities abroad. He said in addition to providing a richer academic base for study-ing mathematics, the partnership between IMPA and Brown will foster “a great environment for getting to know different cultures.”
Brown has signed agreements with more than 100 universities, institutions and research centers across the world. “The more of these links we have, the better,” Sandstede said.
U. seeks to expand international presencecontinued from page 1
have an educational experience distinct from what traditional graduate programs offer, said Susan Herringer GS. Herringer is enrolled in the program and will now pursue an M.A. in ar-cheology with her Ph.D. in en-gineering.
“I will be taking a lot more classes and doing more interdis-ciplinary work,” Herringer said.
To complete the program, students will need to fulfill the requirements for both courses of study. No more than two classes can be used to satisfy the require-ments of both degrees, and theses are required in both subjects, ac-cording to the program applica-tion.
Herringer hopes to design her master’s thesis in conjunc-
tion with her doctoral thesis by integrating it as a chapter of her doctoral dissertation, she said.
“The reason I came to Brown was to do engineering and arche-ology,” she said. “I applied to the program so Brown would recog-nize this collaboration between the two departments.”
The Grad School has made funding available to assist the students in the completion of pro-gram requirements. In addition to providing financial support for summer studies, the Grad School will offer an additional sixth year of funding for Ph.D. students en-rolled in the program in some cases, Herringer said. The An-drew W. Mellon Foundation will also provide support for gradu-ate students pursuing humanities disciplines.
Reactions to the program
within the University commu-nity have been overwhelmingly positive, Weber said. Some have voiced concerns that the program distracts from primary doctoral studies, but most agree there is value in the pilot project, he said.
The “open curriculum has always been the hallmark of the undergraduate program … it only makes sense (the University) of-fers a special option to graduate students with promising cross-disciplinary research programs,” Neal Fox GS wrote in an email to The Herald.
“It’s safe to say this program is a wonderful example of students and faculty agreeing it is an im-portant thing to try,” Weber said. “My hope is that we can expand this program in the future and that it becomes a part of Univer-sity culture.”
Grad students embrace open degree optioncontinued from page 1
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Campus news 3the Brown Daily heraldthursday, April 5, 2012
By Cara lemireContributing Writer
Ellen Smith would be dead in her home state of New Jersey, she said. Speaking during “Rhode Island and the State of Medical Marijua-na,” a panel sponsored by Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Smith told an audience of roughly 30 people that the unavailability of medical marijuana in New Jer-sey means she could not access the drug that could alleviate her painful disorder.
Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14, pressured by the Obama administration, halted the opening of medical marijuana dis-pensaries last September after the state’s federal prosecutor warned that the dispensaries could face legal challenges. He finalized an agreement with state legislators in March that would permit dis-pensaries to operate under restric-tions on how much marijuana they could sell, though he told the Associated Press Tuesday that the compromise could still draw federal prosecution. The General Assembly approved medical mari-juana dispensaries in 2009.
The lack of dispensaries leaves Rhode Island with a unique care-giver-based medical marijuana system. The system relies main-ly on independent “caregivers,” people who grow the plants and supply them to patients in need.
Smith decided to become a caregiver after benefitting from the medical marijuana program. She has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a rare condition marked by frail collagen. The disorder can affect the skin, joints, tissues and or-gans.
Prior to receiving her medi-cal marijuana license, Smith had been unable to sleep, further ex-acerbating her illness. Marijuana was Smith’s last and only option after having reactions to other drugs. After trying medical mari-juana for the first time, she said, “I expected this horrible reaction. Next thing I know, I woke up. I actually slept for the entire night. It was the most beautiful experi-ence I’ve ever had.” The audience erupted in applause in response.
“People need to know that we are real people,” she added. “I have the right to get pain relief, too.”
Seth Bock, founder and chief executive officer of the Greenleaf Compassionate Care Center, said he feels marijuana is just one of “a whole body of herbs that have vast untapped potential.” The most difficult thing about Rhode Is-land’s medical marijuana system is that “it’s shrouded in a cloud of criminality” because marijuana is illegal under federal law, he said.
Both Bock and Smith said they viewed the caregiver pro-gram as helpful and agreed that medical marijuana dispensaries would take a lot of pressure off caregivers. Marijuana growing is a difficult process that requires physical energy and extensive knowledge of how to grow the plants and select strains needed by patients. Because the dispensaries
have been blocked, it is up to the caregivers to produce as much marijuana as they can, within the legal limit, for the many patients they service.
The caregiver program “isn’t satisfying the needs of all of the patients,” Bock said.
Bock and Smith said they did not want the caregiver program to become obsolete once the com-passion centers open, but rather for it to be another option for patients.
Michael Fine, director of the Rhode Island Health Department, said he did not have an opinion on whether caregivers and com-passion centers should cooper-ate to provide patients marijuana. Fine maintained a neutral stance throughout the panel, often refus-ing to give his opinion. “At this point in my life, my personal be-liefs have to take a back seat to my public responsibilities,” Fine said.
Bock said the push to legalize and legitimize medical marijuana is also a “symbolic movement” representing a much larger issue. People for “so many decades have been excluded from the practice of health care administration,” he said. “A hundred years ago, people could grow the herbs they wanted to grow in their backyard medicinally.”
Bock added that he views the challenges to medical marijuana dispensaries as relating to “two sections of federal laws that are causing opposing views” and said that this discrepancy may have to be resolved in court.
The federal government has interfered with state-regulated medical marijuana programs be-fore. Police Monday raided Oak-sterdam University, a university in Oakland, California that teaches students how to grow medical
marijuana. Oaksterdam also edu-cates its students on all aspects of marijuana usage, including mari-juana legislation.
Bock said it is difficult to compare the medical marijuana policies in California and Rhode Island. “The state of Rhode Is-land chose to create a model that is highly regulated, that would lessen the negative impact seen in California and elsewhere,” he said.
Toward the end of the panel, Dr. Fine raised a potential con-cern with the medical marijuana
program, pointing out that doc-tors who authorize use of the drug do not necessarily need to follow up with patients the way others do, since they do not need to write a refill. The physicians, who oc-cupy a “gray area,” are solely in charge of initial authorization — after that, they do not have any control over marijuana usage because they do not have knowl-edge about strains of marijuana, Fine said, which puts them in “an interesting ethical bind.”
Bock pointed out what he
called the “catch-22” of the medi-cal marijuana system. Since mari-juana is classified as a Schedule I drug, it is difficult for scientists to research the effects of medi-cal marijuana because the fed-eral government will not fund research on drugs under this categorization. Chafee and Wash-ington Gov. Christine Gregoire have backed a petition that asks for marijuana to be reclassified as a Schedule II drug, a classification that would recognize marijuana’s medicinal effects.
Panelists debate state of medical marijuana in RI
Campus news4 the Brown Daily heraldthursday, April 5, 2012
By morgan JohnsonSenior Staff Writer
The Brown-commissioned Ship Street Square — a public plaza en-visioned as a social hub for Provi-dence’s Jewelry District — hosted Tuesday the first of five farmers markets to be held this spring.
The plaza and outdoor event space — which began construction in September and opened in Janu-ary — is the most recent component of the Alpert Medical School’s $2 million streetscape improvement efforts that have also included wid-ened sidewalks and new trees. The University has also made safety ad-ditions to the area, including a new police substation, blue light phones and security cameras.
“Brown really cares about be-ing a good neighbor,” said Jennifer Braga, government relations and community affairs liaison. The Uni-versity commissioned the square to provide a “welcoming and vibrant outside space” for the entire com-munity.
“It’s an urban space,” said Mi-chael McCormick, assistant vice president for planning, design and construction. To make the square stand out from other parks and
green spaces in the area, Jerry Van Eyck, architect of the Melk land-scape design firm, used sustainably harvested South American hard-wood to serve as the surface of the space.
“It’s a really interesting design,” McCormick said. “It was a lot of fun to work with him.”
Around the time of the plaza’s opening in January, Brown Dining Services began collaborating with Farm Fresh Rhode Island to develop plans for the farmers market.
“We are pleased with the result and the variety of wonderful local offerings,” wrote Peter Rossi, associ-ate director of Dining Services, in an email to The Herald.
The market was so well-attended on its first day that some vendors ran out of merchandise before its 2 p.m. closing, Braga said.
The Ship Street Square market is the second location operated by Farm Fresh Rhode Island on Brown’s campus, the first location being on Wriston Quadrangle. It features baked goods from nearby cafe Olga’s Cup and Saucer, as well as items from Mama Kim’s Korean BBQ and Mijos Tacos.
Members of the Brown commu-nity and local organizations can also
reserve the space for private events.It can be used at no cost, as long
as organizations leave it clean and undamaged. For an additional fee, the University can provide custodial and event staff.
“It’s available for a wide variety of events,” Braga said, adding that the space will ideally serve for any-
thing from yoga and tai chi classes to performances and street art. “It’s sort of a blank canvas.”
The spot has already been re-served to host the Jewelry District Association’s annual post-neighbor-hood-cleanup celebration and may hold additional farmers markets depending on the success of those
currently scheduled.McCormick hopes the square —
much like the Walk running from Lincoln Field to Pembroke campus — will provide a centered, open space for future development. “This is just one piece of what we’re hop-ing is a much larger improvement in the Jewelry District.”
New Jewelry District plaza holds first farmers market
Frank Mullin / Brown UniversityThe farmers market at Ship Street Square is organized through a partnership with Farm Fresh Rhode Island.
Campus news 5the Brown Daily heraldthursday, April 5, 2012
The line could create 6,000 jobs over the next 20 years as well as stim-ulate up to $1.1 billion in investment, according to the Providence Core Connector Study.
The project will also seek to take advantage of the roughly 100 acres of vacant or underused land made available by the recent Interstate 195 relocation, Pettine said.
Compared to standard diesel-fu-eled buses, “a rail is a cleaner, greener technology,” Pettine said. The type of streetcar selected for the project would most likely rely on overhead electric lines, though emerging hy-brid technologies that would allow for wireless operation are also being considered. Streetcars also provide a more pleasant passenger experi-ence and have a higher passenger capacity than enhanced buses, the study reported.
A streetcar would reduce car traffic downtown for people mak-ing short commutes during the day and is intended to be part of “multi modal” system in conjunction with walking and bikes, Pettine said.
The streetcar would also help to integrate Brown’s main campus with that of the Alpert Medical School, said Dick Spies, executive vice presi-dent for planning and senior advisor to the president.
Construction is slated to begin as early as 2015 and finish by 2017, but this is the “most aggressive timeline,” Pettine said.
Now that the board has approved plans, RIPTA will need to look out-side of the organization in order to build support and find funding, said Steve Durkee, secretary for the RIPTA board of directors. With the organization facing a $8 million to $10 million deficit going into the next fiscal year, finding funding for the project could be challenging, he said.
RIPTA is already struggling to pay the operating costs of the bus system, which relies on money from the state gas tax. Operating costs for the street-
car system would be comparable to those of the buses — approximately $3.6 million annually — but funding issues related to the current bus sys-tem will have to be addressed before moving forward, Pettine said.
RIPTA will not sacrifice bus ser-vice for new streetcar service, Durkee said.
RIPTA will also need to raise $126.7 million in capital to fund the project, though it could be con-structed in stages in order to split up the cost, Pettine said.
Pettine said she expects federal funds to comprise more than half of the capital for the project, though RIPTA will not apply until it has a better understanding of options for local financing to fund the remain-ing costs.
Previous plans had proposed landowners within a certain dis-tance of the track pay a percentage of their land’s value to finance the line, but RIPTA voted not to pursue this strategy. Instead, much of the local financing for the project will come from bonds — as taxes increase as a result of the line’s success, the additional revenue will go toward paying off the bonds, Durkee said.
As a direct beneficiary of the proj-ect, the University should have some role in funding the project, though it will not be able to address RIPTA’s larger funding issues, Spies said. The streetcar would be preferable to the current BrownMed/Downcity Ex-press shuttle, Spies said.
Other possible sources of revenue include parking meter fees and the Economic Development Corpora-tion, Pettine said, but funding will most likely come from a large variety of sources.
“It’s going to have to be cobbled together,” Durkee said.
Certain funding options must be approved by the city council or state legislature before construction can begin. RIPTA is pausing to evaluate the project’s next steps but will hold public forums in the future to inform local stakeholders, Pettine said.
Proposed streetcar project would require $126 million
continued from page 1
h e av y p e t t i n g
Dan Fethke / HeraldStudents enjoyed petting faculty members’ dogs on the Main Green wednesday.
to see Linney speak because she loved her performance in “The Squid and the Whale.”
Levinson was also enthusi-astic about returning to Brown, Bogosian said. He directed the films “Good Morning Vietnam” and “Rain Man,” and directed, produced and wrote the screen-play for the legal drama “Sleep-ers.” The festival will screen an advanced showing of his science fiction thriller, “The Bay,” set to be released in September. In the film, the town of Chesapeake Bay is subjected to the terror of a mu-tant parasite that takes over the bodies and minds of its residents.
Bogosian said he is particu-larly excited to bring Dunham to Brown to discuss the new HBO series “Girls,” of which she is the creator, producer and star. “Our first thought when we’re putting this together, is, ‘What is the fresh-est, most exciting thing we can bring?’” Bogosian said. Dunham, who graduated from Oberlin in 2008, will be able to impart her ex-perience as a young up-and-comer in the industry to attendees who wish to follow in her footsteps, he said.
Joanna Poceta ’12.5 said she was excited to hear Dunham would be coming because she loved her movie “Tiny Furni-ture” and has been reading about
“Girls.”Some students were less en-
thused. “I don’t know any of them,” Tanner Larson ’15 said, though he added that he trusts the people in charge and is “sure they’re great choices.”
The question-and-answer ses-sions provide an opportunity for students to receive “almost a mas-ter course in filmmaking,” Bogo-sian said.
Bogosian said he is also excited about the student-made films fea-tured in this year’s lineup. “The student screenings are actually going to be amazing this year,”
Bogosian said. Each film will each be screened once on Tues-day, Wednesday or Thursday, and again on Saturday or Sunday to allow people to see many of them.
The week will culminate with a lunch with Colin Stanfield and Bill Curran, who will discuss what they do behind the scenes as executive director and operations manager of the Nantucket Film Festival.
In the past, the Ivy Film Fes-tival, the largest student-run film festival in the world, has brought film professionals including Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese and Adrien Brody to campus.
Film festival to bring celebs to campuscontinued from page 1
Director Barry Levinson will show his new film “The Bay” during the festival.
Campus news6 the Brown Daily heraldthursday, April 5, 2012
stop sales early out of concerns that students who had morning classes would not be able to pur-chase tickets.
“We didn’t want anyone to have an unfair advantage in buy-ing Spring Weekend tickets,” Ryza said.
Caron said representatives of the TouchNet server that handles ticket sales were “working on the problem all day long to try to fig-ure out what happened.”
Based on a similarity between this year’s crash and crashes in pre-vious years, he said it seemed likely malicious software had caused the malfunction, but that that suspi-cion has not been confirmed.
As to what the source of the software might have been, “I couldn’t even speculate. I don’t have a clue,” Caron said. “No one does. It’s obviously someone local, or someone with a knowledge of what goes on here at Brown, but other than that ...”
Student reaction to the site crash ranged from mild anger to joking acceptance.
“I just thought the situation was kind of hilarious,” said Sri-hari Sritharan ’12. “The last two or three years I’ve gone to Spring
Weekend I’ve woken up at 10 a.m. to buy my tickets and never had a problem. This year, I was especially excited about Childish Gambino so I woke up early, was about to buy my tickets ... and then sud-denly my (online shopping) cart didn’t exist.”
“It was like, I made it to a cer-tain point, and then the site just decided, ‘Nope. You don’t pass here. You’re done,’” he added, laughing.
Dave Caianiello ’14 said he had Marketplace open on both his phone and his laptop. He es-timated he refreshed his browser more than 150 times to try to buy tickets.
“I had an 8:30 class, and every-one brought their computer,” he said. “You could just see them on Marketplace hitting ‘refresh’ over and over.”
Christy Chao ’14 was one of the roughly 40 students who was able to purchase their tickets this morning. She seemed unfazed by her accomplishment.
“No one else was able to buy tickets?” she asked. “Weird. I don’t think I did anything special. ... I guess I just got really lucky.”
Students who vented their frus-tration with BSA on Facebook had their posts grouped under the label
Birmingham Small Arms Compa-ny — a defunct major motorcycle, firearm and machine production conglomerate in the United King-dom — thanks to the social net-working site’s function aggregating posts by topic.
Caron said TouchNet employ-ees will work to try to prevent a similar problem during ticket sales today, but he emphasized that the cyclical relationship between hack-ers and software security providers makes it difficult to stop malicious attacks from happening.
“It’s a back-and-forth. As soon as we figure out how to make the security system better, they find a way to break through, and then we stall them again,” he said.
The University has a contract with TouchNet, and Caron said discussing whether the Univer-sity would maintain that contract would be “pure speculation” on his part.
But he added that when the University looks to renew its con-tract with TouchNet, the annual ticket glitch “would be a point that comes up” in discussions.
“But BSA, BCA, Financial Ser-vices ... everyone within Brown is doing everything they can to stop this,” he said. “This problem does not stem from a lack of effort.”
BCA ticket fiasco angers, amusescontinued from page 1
blogdailyherald.com
S C i - L i S u n g a Z i n g
emily Gilbert / HeraldStudents took advantage of an outdoor telescope to participate in “solar observing” on the Sciences Library patio.
U. faculty raises course minimum to 30 In 1988, faculty voted to raise the number of undergraduate courses
needed for graduation from 28 to 30. This was the biggest curricular change since the introduction of the new Curriculum in 1969.
Though the initial proposal called for 32 courses, Dean of the College Sheila Blumstein said she felt “terrific” after hearing the results. Faculty members also approved an increase of minimum transfer courses from 14 to 15.
But Blumstein’s two other proposed changes — a senior project requirement and a “concentration self-evaluation” — were rejected by faculty vote. James Patterson, professor of history, said he voted against the motion because projects would create an unnecessary burden on individual departments.
Due to Residential Life error, lottery numbers reassigned
In 1995, the Office of Residential Life discovered a technical mistake in their housing lottery number assignments that required them to randomly assign the second batch of numbers again. ResLife found that 20 housing groups were given the wrong numbers, causing mass confusion among students and ResLife administrators.
Director of Residential Life Arthur Gallagher said they usually ran a secondary program in order to discover any potential errors, but none were found, allowing the false numbers to be distributed. All rooms assigned during Segment II were reassigned and allow to be rechosen in an early morning lottery.
University implements online ticket system for lectures
In 2006, the Office of Public Affairs and University Relations decided to implement an online ticketing system in order to avoid long waits in line to purchase tickets for prominent speakers on campus such as Bill Clinton in 2005. working with Computing and Information Services, the public affairs office sought different ways to make ticket distribution more efficient, eventually settling on a reservation system online.
Administrators said they had not heard any negative feedback or opposition. But some students were disappointed with the change in protocol. Ray Serrano ’07 said he felt he was being deprived of a “great bonding experience.”
Former Sen. Rick Santorum speaks at U. on traditional values
In 2007, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum spoke to a packed Salomon 101 about the dangers “Islamic fascism” posed to America and its ideals. In his lecture, titled “The Dawn of an American Renaissance,” he argued that the U.S. conflicts in the Middle east represented the next era of tension between the Judeo-Christian west — ideals that Santorum said are “superior to all other cultures” — and the Islamic east.
“I do not believe that all cultures need to be or should be respected equally,” Santorum said. During the question-and-answer portion, he received many challenges from the student audience. Several audience members questioned his idea that conflict between the west and the Muslim world is necessary.
“By our mere existence, we offend them,” he responded.
— Joseph rosales
TO DAy I n U n I V e R S I T y H I S TO R y
Campus news 7the Brown Daily heraldthursday, April 5, 2012
By lee BernsteinContributing Writer
As part of a large-scale effort to become more environmentally friendly, the University recently concluded Brown Unplugged: Do It in the Dark, its second annual dorm energy competition. Among 14 competing dorms, Littlefield Hall skyrocketed to the top with a 26.6 percent reduction of more than 1,500 kilowatt-hours in en-ergy consumption.
The competition, sponsored by EcoReps, took place from March 2-22. Barbour Hall came in sec-ond with an 8.5 percent reduction, while Pembroke Quad took third place with a 6 percent reduction. The campus reduced its energy consumption by more than 25,000 kilowatt-hours, saving more than $3,000 and preventing 11 metric tons of carbon from entering the atmosphere. But the initiative’s “primary goal is outreach,” said Matt Breuer ’14, an intern for the Department of Facilities Manage-ment and a Brown Unplugged or-ganizer. “The actual numbers are not as important for us.”
EcoReps saw higher participa-tion rates this year than it did last year. “We had a goal to involve 1,000 participants and almost hit it,” Breuer said. Last year, about half as many students partici-pated.
Littlefield “really went way be-yond where we normally would have expected a dorm to be able to do,” breaking several records, said Chris Powell, director of sustain-able energy and environmental initiatives. Littlefield, a first-year dorm, had a participation rate of 85 percent, four times greater than that of any other dorm.
“We had a really great re-sponse from freshmen this year, so I think it shows that it helps to target freshman and sophomores and people who are still living on campus,” said Gretchen Gerlach ’14, an EcoReps coordinator.
“As far as the secret goes, it was really just about the dorm being cohesive and a good community. Everyone really was dedicated. I sent out a couple emails and ev-eryone really jumped on it,” said Jonathan Schear ’15, Littlefield dorm captain. During the com-petition, Schear shut off hallway and bathroom lights in the dorm when they were not being used and personally attached all of his electronics to one power strip so he could easily monitor his own energy consumption with the flick of a switch. Other Littlefield stu-dents used desk lamps instead of overhead lights, and some even showered in the dark.
Because of this effort, Little-field students celebrated their success at the Winner’s Dinner
with President Ruth Simmons. At the dinner, Schear won the award for highest percent participation, while the Keeney Quadrangle dorm captains, Anna Poon ’15 and Jeff Baum ’15, won the award for highest number of participants.
Two weeks before the competi-tion’s start, EcoReps checked the energy consumption numbers for each dorm so they would accurately reflect consumption relative to the current students living there, Breuer said. Energy consumption data during the competition was inputted auto-matically to an online dashboard where it was further calculated and displayed, said Kai Morrell ’11, energy and environmental sustainability coordinator of fa-cilities management.
This year’s competition also successfully solved last year’s “hiccups,” Breuer said. Last year’s competition dealt with the dif-ficult process of manually input-ting data, he said. An increase in the number of EcoReps involved also helped the competition go more smoothly. With the help of dorm captains and area interns, the EcoReps formed a “much better communication plan and campaign,” Powell said.
Both the University and EcoReps are looking to expand the competition in upcoming years and continue to reduce the
University’s carbon footprint. Organizers are considering in-corporating a thermal metering component, which would measure heat energy. “Students’ carbon footprint is really (more) tied to
the heating of the dorms than to electricity use,” Powell said.
“I think this was a really great year and sends us off in a good direction for next year,” Morrell said.
Conservation contest reduces U.’s energy consumption
Lydia yamaguchi / HeraldPresident Simmons congratulates Jeff Baum ’15, a dorm captain recognized at the Do It in the Dark winner’s Dinner.
Crime Log8 the Brown Daily heraldthursday, April 5, 2012
the following summary includes a selection of major incidents reported to the department of public safety between March 16 and March 29. it does not include general service and alarm calls. the providence police department also responds to incidents occurring off campus. dps does not divulge information on cases that are currently under investigation by the department, ppd or the office of student life. dps maintains a daily log of all shift activity and general service calls, which can be viewed during business hours at its headquarters at 75 charlesfield st.
March 164:29 p.m. A student reported her bike was stolen sometime
between March 15 at 9 a.m. and March 16 at 2:35 p.m.
March 175:47 p.m. A student stated she was sitting on a bench when she
observed an unknown subject fall. As she turned in the direction of the unknown subject, another unknown person came up behind her and took her iPod Touch. Both subjects ran. The PPD and DPS were unable to locate the suspects. The Providence police took a report.
March 224:37 p.m. A student was walking on Brook Street when he
observed a male on a bike near Marston Hall. As he approached the GeoChem Building, he felt someone riding behind him on his right. He was text messaging on his phone when the bicyclist pulled up alongside of him and took his phone. The victim gave chase but was unable to catch up. He then went into the PPD substation to report it. The Providence police and DPS did not locate the suspect. The Providence police took a report.
March 297:58 p.m. Two students left for vacation March 23 at 5 p.m. and
returned March 29 at 5 p.m. They entered their room, which was left unsecured, and their laptops were missing. The laptops were not registered with DPS and did not have tracking software.
C R I M e LO G
Campus news 9the Brown Daily heraldthursday, April 5, 2012
Fraternity of Evil | eshan mitra, Brendan hainline and hector ramirez
CO M I C
By margaret niCKensSenior Staff Writer
The Undergraduate Council of Students appointed eight mem-bers to its Elections Board at its general body meeting Wednesday. Students running for next year’s council leadership positions will officially declare their candidacy next Monday, according to the UCS website. The council also appointed students to University committees including the College Curriculum Council, the University Resources Committee and the Energy and En-vironmental Advisory Committee.
Two members of the Residen-tial Council, Kaylyn Shibata ’14 and Andrew Chang ’13, attended the meeting and asked the coun-cil to reconsider extending the deadline for current Residential Council members to reapply to their positions. ResCouncil mem-bers must reapply in the spring to maintain their current positions, but many members of the current ResCouncil did not reapply to meet the deadline, said UCS President Ralanda Nelson ’12.
“If you appoint a majority of members that aren’t experienced, it would be a downfall to Res-Council,” Chang said. While he took responsibility for missing the deadline, he added that “the dead-line wasn’t as firmly articulated” as in previous years.
Prior to the meeting, the coun-cil’s executive board chose not to extend the deadline as it would not be fair to those that had sub-mitted their applications on time, Nelson said. As a result, those cur-rent members who failed to reap-ply on time were not eligible to be appointed. The council appointed applicants that had already applied by the deadline. Eight members were appointed to ResCouncil, including three returning or for-mer members of ResCouncil who had submitted their applications on time.
Sam Gilman ’15, chair of the UCS communications committee,
said he conducted a Fireside Chat with President Ruth Simmons yes-terday, which will be available for viewing in a few weeks. The council is also working on a Whiteboard Project to present to President-elect Christina Paxson that will feature students’ favorite aspects of the University along with aspects of the University they think should be changed, he said.
David Rattner ’13, vice presi-dent of the council, discussed his work with Richard Bova, senior associate dean of Residential Life and Dining Services, to implement LaundryView at Brown. Laun-dryView is a system employed at Tufts University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other schools that allows users to see what laundry machines are avail-able and how much time is left on machines that are in use, Rattner said. Nelson said the University’s work to consolidate the number of strips on student IDs is the first step in this process.
“We’re optimistic it will be done soon,” Rattner said.
The council submitted a state-ment to Margaret Klawunn, vice president for campus life and stu-dent services, and Steven King ’91, senior vice president for University advancement, which outlines the importance of increasing the size of the Student Activities Endowment, Rattner said. He said he hopes the Corporation will approve the state-ment as one of the University’s top academic priorities.
Mae Cadao ’13, chair of the UCS student activities committee, presented five student groups that had either been tabled during the student activities approval process or had since appealed their cat-egorization. The council approved categorizing or re-categorizing four of the groups, but decided to table re-categorizing Body and Soul, a dance group seeking Category III status. Nelson said the group’s mission statement needed to be polished before the council would decide on its categorization.
UCS appoints members to election board
Corrine Szczesny / Heraldeight more UCS members were chosen to serve on the election Board.
Harvard will not reinvest with HEIHarvard announced Sunday that it would not reinvest in HeI Hotels and Resorts in light of ongoing
criticism of the company’s reportedly unfair labor practices, according to the Chronicle of Higher education.
The Crimson reported that student groups and movements at Harvard — such as the Student Labor Action Movement and Occupy Harvard — were extremely vocal in their opposition to the relationship following Princeton’s decision in February to split with the company.
Brown announced its decision not to reinvest in HeI February 2011, becoming the first college to stop investing. yale, Penn, Cornell, Vanderbilt and Swarthmore have also decided over the last year not to reinvest.
Harvard’s decision came after months of deliberation on the issue, the Crimson reported.
Catholic college rescinds Kennedy’s invitationAnna Maria College, a Roman Catholic College in Massachusetts, recently revoked its invitation to
Vicky Kennedy, wife of the late Senator edward Kennedy, to speak at its commencement ceremony. The college had also intended to award Kennedy with an honorary degree.
USA Today reported the decision was made after Bishop Robert McManus suggested Kennedy was an inappropriate choice for the Catholic college because of her vocal support of gay rights, abortion and health care insurance coverage of contraception, which stand in opposition to the Church’s positions.
In a press release, the college said that “as a small, Catholic college,” its decision was impacted highly by the Bishop’s comments but also said it sent an apology to Kennedy.
Kennedy responded by pointing out that she identifies with the Catholic faith despite the bishop’s “judgment” of her positions, the Huffington Post reported.
Vindication for Virginia Tech A judge for the U.S. Department of education overturned a previous decision that declared Virginia
Tech University in violation of federal law due to its failure to launch an appropriate response to the April 2007 campus shootings that took the lives of 33 students.
In a previous decision, the judge ruled that the university acted negligently because it failed to deliver warning of the shooting early on and did not abide by its own emergency policy, according to the Chronicle of Higher education.
H I G H e R e D n e w S R O U n D U P
By S O n A M K R T TC H I A nS e n I O R S TA F F w R I T e R
editorial10 the Brown Daily heraldthursday, April 5, 2012
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e D I TO R I A L C A R TO O n b y s a m r o s e n f e l d
“I don’t think I did anything special. ... I guess I just
got really lucky.”—Christy Chao ‘14, on getting Spring weekend tickets
see ticket on page 6.
e D I TO R I A L
As Congress considers whether or not to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, one proposed addition to the law would require colleges to collect and report data on the incidence of “domestic violence, dating violence and stalking” on their campuses. It would also increase requirements placed on universities regarding education about and coordination around issues of sexual violence on campuses. Though on the whole this is undoubtedly a valuable piece of legislation that would do more good than harm, we caution against excessive optimism as to its likely effects. Reporting is not enough, because a major problem in addressing this issue is that many cases of sexual assault are not reported by the victims themselves. As such, much depends on how aggressively colleges work to prevent sexual violence.
Brown, like all universities, is already required to gather statistics on sexual assault. There were nine reported instances of forcible sexual assault on Brown’s campus in 2010. A 2000 study by the National Institute of Justice and the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that each year, approximately one in 36 undergraduate women are victims of rape or attempted rape.
If those numbers don’t seem to match up to you, you’re right. At most universities, and in society at large, sexual assault is woefully underreported. Some studies suggest that up to 90 percent of sexual assaults on college campuses go completely under the radar. Thus, while the additional reporting requirements around sexual violence is commendable, it is questionable how much meaningful informa-tion these numbers would provide.
That said, data collection should further incentivize the University to ensure that students have safe spaces to report assault when it oc-curs. There are any number of resources that victims of sexual assault can seek out — Women Peer Counselors and other peer mentors, Psychological Services, the Department of Public Safety and the Co-ordinator of Sexual Assault Prevention and Advocacy. What victims do ought to be up to them, and confidentiality must be respected at all costs, but it may be worth considering to what degree these various bodies can do a better job sharing data and broader trends.
We support the proposed measure, but we more so support ag-gressive University efforts to ensure that resources for survivors of sexual assault and violence are widely known and easily accessible. We also encourage further efforts to open a dialogue between students about boundaries, consent and communication that may help reduce instances of sexual assault.
Too often, in the aftermath of sexual assault or violence, victims feel confused and alone and worry about the stigma of being labeled a “sexual assault survivor.” And University attempts to follow up on these matters have often failed to appropriately respect all involved — the prolonged lawsuit regarding the University’s handling of a 2006 rape allegation being only the most recent public instance of this.
If Congress renews its commitment to ending sexual violence on college campuses, we hope it spurs a renewed effort by the University to proactively attempt to create a safer space and make appropriate resources available for those many cases that go unreported.
editorials are written by The herald’s editorial page board. Send comments to [email protected].
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An article in Wednesday’s paper (“New research database to aid collaboration,” April 4) stated that leaders of VIVO are aware of 20 to 30 implementations around the world. In fact, VIVO is aware of more than 50 implementations in the U.S. and at least 25 implementations and related projects internationally. The Herald regrets the error.
CO R R e C T I O n
The easy half of the battle against sexual violence
opinions 11the Brown Daily heraldthursday, April 5, 2012
At the Sharpe Refectory and Verney-Woolley Dining Hall, Brown students are privy to a wide assortment of means to get their news. They can pick up a copy of the New York Times, the Providence Journal and the finest publication of them all, The Herald. For those more visually inclined, “Good Morning America” or CNN’s cor-nucopia of morning programs are con-stantly blaring from Ratty televisions. Yet, for all the news students have access to, Brown has surprisingly large holes in its offerings.
The University seems to plan its daily publication strategy around checking off three simple spheres. These include col-lege news, including daily, weekly and monthly publications like the Brown Noser; local interest news, filled by de-fault by the Providence Journal; and na-tional news, covered by the New York Times. The limited number of publica-tions for local news makes sense. After all, the Journal is the only major paper in town, and Rhode Island is by far the na-tion’s smallest state and therefore would theoretically have the smallest amount of news. On the other hand, national news is obviously more varied and complicat-ed — yet we have only one paper to cover
this vast space. While the Grey Lady is a fantastic paper and does a good job cov-ering everything a Brown student needs to know, it is not perfect. Its business cov-erage is weak compared to other papers, and it only provides one perspective on world news that is too extensive for one paper to do it justice. It would therefore make sense for the University to provide its students with more than one national paper.
One might think the University would provide the Wall Street Journal, the na-tion’s most-read paper, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Further-more, it is the country’s pre-eminent source of business news and would per-fectly cover one of the Times’ biggest weaknesses. Why we don’t have the Wall Street Journal is a bit flabbergasting and extremely surprising at a school where the number of economics concentrators has doubled in the last decade. It would make sense for the University to provide
a paper that appeals to one of its biggest academic constituencies.
Any reason for not having the Jour-nal lacks logical support. Purchasing the Journal might be expensive, and given the current economic climate, the University should absolutely be focused on bolster-ing our facilities and getting us even more bands for Spring Weekend over trivial complaints. Arguing against the Journal due to prohibitive cost, though, is vastly
overestimating the price of 100 subscrip-tions to the paper. The University could spread the cost to student tuitions and out of faculty salaries for cents per per-son, and its tangible results would dull the sting of a more expensive Brown. Another possibility for why the University might not carry the Journal is that Brown might be playing to the University’s inherent lib-eral bias. But if Brown was really that fo-cused on playing the student body’s bias, then why does the Internet Protocol TV offer only CNN and Fox News and not
MSNBC, which would, according to the initial argument, be the most popular channel?
I’m sure that I could find a live stream of MSNBC through some dubious online means and could probably browbeat a friend to loan me his copy of the Journal, but the point remains. Brown has gaping holes in the content it provides its stu-dents. Equally troubling, the lack of the Wall Street Journal and of MSNBC speaks to the larger problem of a University me-dia bias that seems predicated on no par-ticular policy. What else explains the ran-dom holes?
The University could resolve this news deficiency easily. Investing in a large number of subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal is a good first step. Second, Brown might consider purchasing a mass subscription to an international paper, perhaps the U.K.’s the Guardian. Brown models itself as an international univer-sity where various cultures mix together to gain new perspectives, so why not have a paper that can help facilitate those view-points?
If expanding the University’s library is too bold a first step, the University could even just expand its magazine collection in the Rockefeller Library. The fact re-mains that the University is a place for education, and it is failing its students in providing them with current affairs.
Chip Lebovitz ’14 just wants to read more. He can be reached at
Diversify my options
Literary criticism — by which I mean the discipline practiced by the compara-tive literature, modern culture and me-dia and other related departments — has its fingers in a lot of pies. Race and gen-der/sexuality studies are rife with critical thought. It seems that each of the humani-ties has picked up something from it, with the possible exception of classics and ana-lytic philosophy.
Walking around campus, one has to try not to hear discussions about Derrida or see an “I heart Adorno” bag. Not ev-eryone at Brown is so enamored. Science, technology, engineering and mathematics students sneer at literary theory and those who apply it. This attitude leads to charges that STEM students are too wrapped up in their own worldview or something else to the effect of, “You don’t get it.”
From what I’ve seen, literary theory makes proclamations that are either ob-viously true or absurdly false. As Searle and Foucault described it, the style is ter-rorist obscurantism. Everything is so ob-scure and slippery that you can’t grab onto a single claim. When you do have some-thing firmly in hand and criticize it, the response is “You misunderstand, you id-iot.”
Literary theory encourages a relativis-tic or constructivist view of things: Sci-
ence is deeply embedded in our history, culture and language, so any conclusion found by science can only be said to hold for people from a specific group. It is all too easy to parody the claims of liter-ary theorists: “Objectivity doesn’t exist,” “There is no Truth” or “A pernicious phal-logocentrism is the cornerstone of West-ern thought.”
Small wonder that STEM students are so hostile! The sciences get at important facets of the world. They offer us explan-atory and predictive power that is too good to write off as a coincidence or sim-
ply a product of our culture. Cell phones and laptops work regardless of where you come from or what you believe. And we know this is because there are electrons and protons and all kinds of –ons doing their funky thing on the subatomic scale.
It was with this mindset that I fell into a state of puzzlement. How could such a large portion of our classmates and facul-ty be suckered in by something so clearly ridiculous? How could a discipline sus-tain itself when students and professors so openly deride it? In order to straighten myself out, I took some classes.
I stick by what I said about literary the-ory. But when we take a certain view of the discipline, we can see that it does not deserve the bum rep it gets. Literary the-ory is essentially an art — our first clue should have been “literary.” It offers us in-teresting, but not accurate, ways to see the world around us.
On the one hand, this means we shouldn’t take the claims of literary the-ory quite so seriously. When we come across a claim from literary theory that seems to conflict with science or common sense, we should realize that this conflict
is only apparent. Instead, we recognize that it would be interesting if, say, logic were hopelessly hegemonic and better off abandoned.
On the other hand, literary theory is not a proper object of ridicule. Our friends who study literary theory are de-veloping complicated “What if?” scenar-ios. This practice is no sillier than litera-ture, film or any other art.
I suspect that some students of literary theory will not appreciate my character-ization of the field as an art. If you’ve taken theory to heart, you have every reason to
think that scientific statements have just as much claim to the Truth or objectivity as literary theory. It would be reasonable to go so far as to say that science and com-mon sense have been fatally undermined, and literary theory should supplant them.
If this line of thought is attractive to you, then your work is not done. If literary theory is not an art, if it is making claims about the world that can be accurate or in-accurate, then you ought to be sure that your theories are accurate.
Why does science do such a good job of describing the world? Can we accept the pluralistic methods of literary theo-ry? In short, you have to engage in some actual justifying and argumentation. As a consequence, the terrorist obscurantism is better done away with.
Contrarily, if you do see literary the-ory as an art, then you should be more forthcoming about its status as such. In this case, obscurantism is appropriate and may even be beneficial. However, you do a discredit to a perfectly respectable field by presenting it as something that it isn’t.
Disciplines like race and gender stud-ies that rely on elements of literary theory should set to work separating insight from artistry.
Perhaps I am being uncharitable, and my understanding of literary theory is ter-ribly misguided or otherwise incorrect. If so, please clear the air for the rest of us.
David Hefer ’12 is a philosophy and math concentrator who doesn’t feel
comfortable speaking for entire fields, appearances to the contrary.
How I learned to stop worrying and love lit crit
Literary theory does not deserve the bum rep it gets.
why we don’t have the wall Street Journal is a bit flabbergasting and extremely surprising at a school where the number of economics concentrators has
doubled in the last decade. It would make sense for the University to provide a paper that appeals to one of its
biggest academic constituencies.
By DAVID HeFeRopinions Columnist
By CHIP LeBOVITzopinions editor
Daily Heraldthe Brown
City & Statethursday, April 5, 2012
By aDam tooBinSenior Staff Writer
The Martin Luther King Unity Day Coalition rallied on the steps of Providence City Hall yesterday to commemorate the 44th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The speakers and organizers connected the death of the famous civil rights leader to the recent killing of Trayvon Martin, a black 17-year-old, by a neighborhood watch coordinator, citing his death as an example of continued racial strife in America. The approximately 50 protesters also voiced support for initiatives that the coalition said hon-ored the civil rights leader’s legacy.
Speakers addressed economic in-equality, immigration reform and health care reform, and the group coalesced around the issue of Mar-tin’s killing as an example of King’s “unfulfilled legacy.”
“We’re here to commemorate the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King as well as another unjust killing — the murder of Trayvon Martin,” Roger Harris, a co-chair of the event, said to open the rally.
“In this country, when a black man is killed, nothing happens. When it’s black on black, nothing happens. When it’s white on black, absolutely nothing happens,” said Joseph Buchanan, a member of Black America’s Political Action Commit-tee. “Dr. King would roll over in his grave knowing that 44 years later a white person can walk away free from a police station after murdering a black person,” he said.
The Rhode Island People’s As-sembly and the Unemployment Council organized the protest. “We want people, especially right now, to remember what MLK stands for,” Kathi Riley. Jones, an organizer from the People’s Assembly, told The Her-ald. “United, nobody can stop us.
We might not have five-figure jobs … but united, we have the numbers to make change,” she added.
Providence residents and orga-nization members comprised the majority of the crowd attending the protest. One volunteer handing out pamphlets was an 11-year-old girl who has lived in Providence her whole life. “When I get older, I want to be to get a job and have a good future,” she said, describing why she took part in the protest.
The meeting was interrupted sev-eral times by drivers shouting and honking in support of the protest.
The protest was affiliated with the Occupy Providence movement but also featured a number of orga-nizations and speakers from various causes. Ray Watson, a representative of the Native American community, told the crowd the time has come for minority communities to stand up for their rights. The black com-
munity has forgotten King’s call to action and has become passive and complacent, he said. Watson then performed a hymn about the Chero-kee Trail of Tears with several local Native American chiefs.
Cino Eang and Nara Alvarado, two students at Hope High School, spoke in support of Providence Youth Student Movement, a group committed to ending racial profil-ing. Eang said he became involved in the movement after the police confronted and searched him even though he was doing nothing wrong, presumably due to his race, he said.
The protest’s organizers applied King’s social justice message to is-sues beyond race, positing him as an advocate for the poor and dis-enfranchised.
Speakers also expressed support for an economic bill of rights. The bill of rights, a list of economic initia-tives put forward by the People’s As-
sembly, declared support for a higher minimum wage, universal health care, better and cheaper public education from preschool through college, and improved public trans-portation.
Nancy St. Germain, co-chair of the Rhode Island chapter of the Progressive Democrats of Ameri-ca, confronted what she called the “Republican war on women” in her address to the crowd. St. Germain criticized the Republican Party for risking the health of women by ad-vocating policies that restrict access to birth control and abortions. She also recounted her experience los-ing her job and consequently her health care coverage after surgery for a brain tumor “the size of a ten-nis ball” left her incapacitated for a month. She advocated a nationwide single-payer system as the only solu-tion for the country’s broken health care system.
Anniversary of MLK’s death prompts rally, reflectionAfter threatening police, senator leaves committees
Sen. Frank Ciccone, D-Providence and north Providence, stepped down as chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Oversight and from the Senate Finance Committee yesterday afternoon. His resignation followed a confrontation with Barrington police last week when Senate Majority Leader Dominick Ruggerio, D-Providence and north Providence, was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. At the time of the arrest, Ciccone — who had been driving in a separate vehicle — approached police officers while they were testing Ruggerio for sobriety at a traffic stop and threatened the officers.
“you think you got pension problems now, wait ’til this (expletive) is all done,” Ciccone said, according to a police report. Ciccone was referring to the ongoing pension problems in the state, which has left many police officers working in municipalities with dangerously underfunded pension systems.
Ciccone said earlier this week in a press release that he does not “agree with the accuracy of some of the details in the police report.” He chose to step down from his positions after meeting with Senate President Teresa Paiva weed, D-Jamestown and newport, following the incident.
“After a brief discussion we agreed that the institution of the Senate is larger than any one individual,” Paiva weed said in a statement.
The drunk driving charge against Ruggerio was dropped yesterday after he admitted to the court that he refused a chemical test to determine his blood alcohol level at the time of the arrest. Instead, Ruggerio’s license was suspended for six months.
“I accept full responsibility for my actions last week,” Ruggerio said in a statement released today.
Paiva weed said in a press release immediately following the incident that she was “confident” this situation would not “distract him from his duties and that he will continue to be an effective leader in the state Senate.”
“It is my desire to put these events behind us and focus on the work that needs to be done to move Rhode Island forward,” she added.
Ruggerio is up for re-election in november.
— sona Mkrttchian
n e w S I n B R I e F
Adam Toobin / HeraldProtestors rallied in front of City Hall in support of Trayvon Martin on the anniversary of MLK’s assassination.
By Dana reilly Contributing Writer
Sparkle, Unique Gifts and More was mobbed by about 40 people last night as part of a series of spending sprees across the state. These “cash mobs” are the product of online activists who have been harnessing social media to get consumers to support local businesses. This was the third event hosted by Let’s Buy Local, an alliance of independently owned businesses in Rhode Island.
During a cash mob, participants flood a predetermined store at the same time. The mob is encouraged to spend at least $20, instantly injecting capital into the business.
Co-founder Timothy Hudyncia, one of many local organizers, said cash mobbing fits well with the busi-ness alliance’s initiative to support the local economy.
Hudyncia is just one of several lo-cal cash mob organizers in the state. The first event in Rhode Island was organized by Wakefield’s Waves of Creation owner, Laura Winward, who first read about them in an ar-
ticle in the Wall Street Journal.“I thought, this is brilliant,” Win-
ward said. “Why isn’t this happen-ing everywhere — it’s so simple!” When she heard of the cash mob trend, Winward said she knew she had to act to get the ball rolling. Small business owners can’t rely on national brand recognition, like the larger “big-box” stores, and must promote themselves on smaller budgets to survive, she said.
Winward set up a Facebook page and a Twitter account for Rhode Is-land Cash Mobs, still the sole means of advertising for the events besides word of mouth. The first mob at-tracted 50 people who invaded Jen-nifer’s Chocolates Jan. 30. Jen Dowell, owner of Jennifer’s Chocolates, in turn hosted Wakefield’s second cash mob.
Beyond the sales boost, cash mobs act like e-commerce sites such as Groupon or Living Social by at-tracting first-time customers. The recipients of a cash mob also benefit from free publicity.
“It also creates a sense of com-munity. People get really jazzed up
about it,” Winward said. “There’s a little competition going on between the South County group and the Warwick group, you know, who can get more people to come,” she chuckled.
Business owners as well as cus-tomers, Facebook friends, members of chambers of commerce and people from out of town show up at the mob events.
Anyone can post an event to the Rhode Island Cash Mob Facebook page, administered by Winward, but the mob recipient is not revealed un-til the night of the event. “The secret destination is half the fun,” Winward said.
Alexandra Miller, owner of Johnny’s Barkin’ Bakery in South Kingston, attended the first cash mob and is organizing her own event this week. Each organizer has unique criteria for selecting a cash mob recipient. “I was looking for something where just about anyone can find something to buy,” Miller said. She thinks Winward did the same thing with the first cash mob at Jennifer’s Chocolates. “Anybody can
use chocolate,” Miller said.The Rhode Island Cash Mobs are
creating a supportive network for the community while spreading the mes-sage to buy local. “These aren’t big anonymous corporations. These are your next-door neighbors trying to pay their mortgage,” Winward said. In the case of Winward’s business, she said, “it’s 50 Rhode Island families that are affected by your decision to buy here or not buy here.”
Winward said she has seen several local companies go out of business. “It all comes down to how many peo-ple are walking through the door. I struggle with that every day. I think every small business owner does.”
But Miller said she does not ex-pect to change everyone’s shopping habits entirely. “When you’re out and about, think about the small busi-nesses in your community. You just don’t realize how many businesses are out there until you start looking.”
One obstacle facing Rhode Is-land cash mobs is maintaining the momentum. Miller said she thinks branching out to different areas will keep the events “fresh and fun.”
‘Cash mobs’ seek to boost local businesses
