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Wednesday, February 22, 2012 D aily Herald THE BROWN Since 1891 vol. cxxii, no. 19 56 / 41 TOMORROW 55 / 39 TODAY NEWS....................2-5 EDITORIAL............6 OPINIONS.............7 INSIDE NEWS, 3 Brown brains Fundraising will expand Brain Science Institute Husted ’13 disputes BCA’s choice of bands OPINIONS, 7 WEATHER Go Dogg By ELI OKUN SENIOR STAFF WRITER A small group of Ivy League stu- dents convened this weekend at the Hope Club for an intimate conference that brought together people of all perspectives to en- gage in a meaningful dialogue about the Israeli-Palestinian con- flict. The Student Leadership Col- loquium, which included three or four students from each Ivy League school, was organized and funded by the Avi Schaefer Fund. Following Avi Schaefer’s ’13 death in February 2010, his family created the fund to promote the ideals Schaefer worked toward during his life, particularly the goal of starting dialogue about the conflict and striving for its peaceful resolution. The idea for the colloquium originated from conversations Schaefer’s family and friends had about how best to continue his efforts. At the colloquium this week- end, those initial planners joined forces with students, whose views were challenged through a series of workshops, lectures, organized discussions and spontaneous con- versations — all within “a real atmosphere of respect, tolerance and understanding,” said Talia Xefos ’15, one of the Brown stu- dent participants. Xefos, who is half-Saudi and said she “grew up hearing most- ly the Palestinian narrative of things,” learned about the collo- quium through JUDS 0650: “His- tory of Zionism and the Birth of the State of Israel,” a class she took last semester. Encouraged by the welcoming atmosphere the Schae- fer family brought to the collo- quium, she said she opened up Schaefer ’13 conference offers perspective on Middle East Courtesy of the Avi Schaefer Fund Students gathered at an event this weekend hosted by the Avi Schaefer Fund. By KATHERINE LONG SENIOR STAFF WRITER “Turn off all your cell phones, or we’ll rescind your admission,” an- nounced Admission Officer Matt Price to the roughly 250 represen- tatives of the class of 2016 who assembled Monday for the Early Decision Admitted Students Day. Despite the chuckles, nearly every student in Sayles Hall reached for his or her pocket. “Better safe than sorry,” said Ben Silverman ’16 a little sheep- ishly. Almost twice as many students attended this year’s event for early decision applicants as last year’s inaugural event. Representatives from the Office of Admission and the Bruin Club said the increase was due to better planning and more foresight. “Last year, it was kind of thrown together at the last minute,” said Rebekah Stein, a Bruin Club exec- utive board member. Invitations to last year’s mid-March event were sent a few weeks before the event took place. “is year, we sent out invita- tions in (accepted students’) ad- missions packets,” Price said. “We also used Facebook to publicize By NATALIE VILLACORTA SENIOR EDITOR University faculty and students trav- eled to Vancouver, British Columbia last weekend for the American As- sociation for the Advancement of Science’s Annual Meeting. Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies and Biology Heather Leslie partici- pated in a symposium on marine conservation and management and Professor of Biology Ken Miller ’70 spoke about the intersection of reli- gion and science education. Emily Hartman ’12 presented her research on pollen grain germination at the student poster session Saturday. “It’s a really fun and interdisci- plinary meeting and great for stu- dents to attend,” Leslie said, adding that next year the meeting will be in Boston. Leslie spoke about drawing on different “knowledge bases” — from anthropology to economics to geog- raphy — to better understand how humans are connected to marine systems. e focus of the symposium was “recognizing that people are part of ocean systems,” Leslie said, drawing on examples from Narragansett Bay. “(is) is quite a big shiſt in terms of the science and also in terms of how we use the science to inform policy and management.” In his talk, Miller suggested strategies for teaching students who have reservations regarding the in- tersection of faith and science. is is an important topic, since about 75 percent of college students say they believe in God, he said. Every year, he has a couple of students ask him if they have to believe in U. scientists present at nat’l conference By APARAAJIT SRIRAM SENIOR STAFF WRITER Pre-med students enrolled in the University’s Program in Liberal Medical Education are not afraid of obligations. ey have committed to a profession at the fresh-faced age of 18 or 19 years old, something most students are unwilling to do. ey have committed to a place — a school and a city — where they will study for eight sometimes grueling years. And they have committed to a high level of stress, the neurological and physiological effects of which they will experience firsthand, on top of reading about them in textbooks. “What sets PLME students apart is their commitment to a field so early on,” said Philip Gruppuso, associate dean for medical education. When their undergraduate class- mates leave campus aſter convoca- tion, PLME students who continue on to the Warren Alpert Medical School make the half-mile trek down College Hill to the newly transformed Med School building in the Jewelry District. For them, aſter-college life was never shrouded in ambiguity. Convocation is their commence- ment. New and greater demands e workload medical students take on is without parallel in the un- dergraduate years, and this disparity is especially clear during the first year, Gruppuso said. From day one, the difficulty of the subjects and the pace of testing is striking. “Med school is organized differ- ently from undergrad, with a final (exam) every three to four weeks instead of at the end of a semester ... It’s more of a marathon than a sprint. From PLME to Med School: Moving off the Hill Stephanie Vasquez / Herald PLMEs commit to Brown for eight years before they even arrive as first years. By ADAM TOOBIN SENIOR STAFF WRITER Oren Lyons, faithkeeper of the On- ondaga Turtle Clan and an inductee to the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame, addressed a crowded Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts Friday and detailed the history and culture of guh jee gawah hai — known colloquially as lacrosse. e renowned Native American leader spoke prior to Saturday’s lacrosse game between the men’s varsity lacrosse team and the U19 Iroquois National Team, which the Bears won 11-7 at Meister- Kavan Field. e Iroquois Nation- als represents the six nations of the Iroquois League and are the only remaining Native American sporting team sanctioned to play in official international competition. Lyons discussed a wide range of topics, including the history of la- crosse and global warming. Perhaps a testament to the physical prowess of lacrosse players, Lyons — now in his 80s — did not slow down for a moment of his two-hour lecture. ough the lecture sometimes became somber — usually over reflections on the historic trials of Native Americans — Lyons kept Iroquois laxers face Bruno in exhibition continued on page 4 continued on page 5 continued on page 3 continued on page 2 continued on page 2 Early decision admits flock to campus FEATURE

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

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Page 1: Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Wednesday, February 22, 2012Daily Heraldthe Brown

Since 1891vol. cxxii, no. 19

56 / 41

t o m o r r o w

55 / 39

t o d ay

news....................2-5editorial............6opinions.............7insi

de

news, 3

Brown brainsFundraising will expand Brain science Institute

Husted ’13 disputes BCA’s choice of bands

opInIons, 7 wea

therGo Dogg

By eli okunSenior Staff Writer

A small group of Ivy League stu-dents convened this weekend at the Hope Club for an intimate conference that brought together people of all perspectives to en-gage in a meaningful dialogue about the Israeli-Palestinian con-flict.

The Student Leadership Col-loquium, which included three or four students from each Ivy League school, was organized and funded by the Avi Schaefer Fund. Following Avi Schaefer’s ’13 death in February 2010, his family created the fund to promote the ideals Schaefer worked toward during his life, particularly the goal of starting dialogue about the conflict and striving for its peaceful resolution. The idea for the colloquium originated from conversations Schaefer’s family

and friends had about how best to continue his efforts.

At the colloquium this week-end, those initial planners joined forces with students, whose views were challenged through a series of workshops, lectures, organized discussions and spontaneous con-versations — all within “a real atmosphere of respect, tolerance and understanding,” said Talia Xefos ’15, one of the Brown stu-dent participants.

Xefos, who is half-Saudi and said she “grew up hearing most-ly the Palestinian narrative of things,” learned about the collo-quium through JUDS 0650: “His-tory of Zionism and the Birth of the State of Israel,” a class she took last semester. Encouraged by the welcoming atmosphere the Schae-fer family brought to the collo-quium, she said she opened up

Schaefer ’13 conference offers perspective on Middle East

Courtesy of the Avi Schaefer FundStudents gathered at an event this weekend hosted by the Avi Schaefer Fund.

By katherine lonGSenior Staff Writer

“Turn off all your cell phones, or we’ll rescind your admission,” an-nounced Admission Officer Matt Price to the roughly 250 represen-tatives of the class of 2016 who assembled Monday for the Early Decision Admitted Students Day. Despite the chuckles, nearly every student in Sayles Hall reached for his or her pocket.

“Better safe than sorry,” said Ben Silverman ’16 a little sheep-ishly.

Almost twice as many students attended this year’s event for early decision applicants as last year’s inaugural event. Representatives from the Office of Admission and the Bruin Club said the increase was due to better planning and more foresight.

“Last year, it was kind of thrown together at the last minute,” said Rebekah Stein, a Bruin Club exec-utive board member. Invitations to last year’s mid-March event were sent a few weeks before the event took place.

“This year, we sent out invita-tions in (accepted students’) ad-missions packets,” Price said. “We also used Facebook to publicize

By natalie VillacortaSenior editor

University faculty and students trav-eled to Vancouver, British Columbia last weekend for the American As-sociation for the Advancement of Science’s Annual Meeting. Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies and Biology Heather Leslie partici-pated in a symposium on marine conservation and management and Professor of Biology Ken Miller ’70 spoke about the intersection of reli-gion and science education. Emily Hartman ’12 presented her research

on pollen grain germination at the student poster session Saturday.

“It’s a really fun and interdisci-plinary meeting and great for stu-dents to attend,” Leslie said, adding that next year the meeting will be in Boston.

Leslie spoke about drawing on different “knowledge bases” — from anthropology to economics to geog-raphy — to better understand how humans are connected to marine systems.

The focus of the symposium was “recognizing that people are part of ocean systems,” Leslie said, drawing

on examples from Narragansett Bay. “(This) is quite a big shift in terms of the science and also in terms of how we use the science to inform policy and management.”

In his talk, Miller suggested strategies for teaching students who have reservations regarding the in-tersection of faith and science. This is an important topic, since about 75 percent of college students say they believe in God, he said. Every year, he has a couple of students ask him if they have to believe in

U. scientists present at nat’l conference

By aParaajit SriramSenior Staff Writer

Pre-med students enrolled in the University’s Program in Liberal Medical Education are not afraid of obligations. They have committed to a profession at the fresh-faced age of 18 or 19 years old, something most students are unwilling to do. They have committed to a place — a school

and a city — where they will study for eight sometimes grueling years. And they have committed to a high level of stress, the neurological and physiological effects of which they will experience firsthand, on top of reading about them in textbooks.

“What sets PLME students apart is their commitment to a field so early on,” said Philip Gruppuso, associate dean for medical education.

When their undergraduate class-

mates leave campus after convoca-tion, PLME students who continue on to the Warren Alpert Medical School make the half-mile trek down College Hill to the newly transformed Med School building in the Jewelry District. For them, after-college life was never shrouded in ambiguity. Convocation is their commence-ment.

new and greater demandsThe workload medical students

take on is without parallel in the un-dergraduate years, and this disparity is especially clear during the first year, Gruppuso said. From day one, the difficulty of the subjects and the pace of testing is striking.

“Med school is organized differ-ently from undergrad, with a final (exam) every three to four weeks instead of at the end of a semester ... It’s more of a marathon than a sprint.

From PLME to Med School: Moving off the Hill

Stephanie Vasquez / HeraldPLMEs commit to Brown for eight years before they even arrive as first years.

By aDam tooBinSenior Staff Writer

Oren Lyons, faithkeeper of the On-ondaga Turtle Clan and an inductee to the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame, addressed a crowded Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts Friday and detailed the history and culture of guh jee gawah hai — known colloquially as lacrosse. The renowned Native American leader spoke prior to Saturday’s lacrosse game between the men’s varsity lacrosse team and the U19 Iroquois National Team, which the Bears won 11-7 at Meister-Kavan Field. The Iroquois Nation-als represents the six nations of the Iroquois League and are the only remaining Native American sporting team sanctioned to play in official international competition.

Lyons discussed a wide range of topics, including the history of la-crosse and global warming. Perhaps a testament to the physical prowess of lacrosse players, Lyons — now in his 80s — did not slow down for a moment of his two-hour lecture.

Though the lecture sometimes became somber — usually over reflections on the historic trials of Native Americans — Lyons kept

Iroquois laxers face Bruno in exhibition

continued on page 4

continued on page 5

continued on page 3

continued on page 2 continued on page 2

Early decision admits flock to campus

feature

Page 2: Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Claire Peracchio, PresidentRebecca Ballhaus, Vice President

Danielle Marshak, TreasurerSiena DeLisser, Secretary

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Campus news2 the Brown Daily heraldwednesday, February 22, 2012

5 P.m.

Ash Wednesday Service

Manning Chapel

7 P.m.

French Film Festival: Opening Film

Granoff Center

3 P.m.

Remembering and Rethinking 9/11

John Nicholas Brown Center

4 P.m.

“The Language of Hip Hop” Lecture

Salomon Center, Room 101

SHARPE REFECTORY VERNEY-WOOLLEY DINING HALL

LUNCH

DINNER

Shaved Steak with Mushrooms and Onions, Pasta with Eggplant and

Olives, Vegetarian Spinach Strudel

Roast Turkey, Shells with Broccoli, Stir Fry - Pork or Tofu Lo Mein,

Glazed Carrots

Buffalo Chicken Wings, Vegan Nuggets with Dipping Sauce,

Parsley Potatoes, M and M Cookies

Saturday Night Jambalaya, Mediterranean Eggplant Saute,

Vegetarian Spinach Strudel

TODAY FEbRUARY 22 TOmORROW FEbRUARY 23

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

the audience engrossed with stories from his childhood and his lacrosse career. In one anecdote, he told of his experience playing goalie against a man whose shot was so hard it had killed two previous goalies — a problem unique to an era when players took the field without hel-mets. Luckily, Lyons said when the shot came his way, it only broke two of his ribs.

Lyons spoke about how lacrosse games in his community transcend the physical, becoming more than just a sport. The games are tradition-ally played for someone or some-thing in particular — to honor or help them, he said.

“We can play it for the nation, or we can play it for the world. We can play it for the buffalos, or we can play for the birds,” Lyons said.

The speech focused on lacrosse and the Iroquois Nationals but also touched on a number of social is-

sues. Lyons highlighted a traditional winter Iroquois game called Snow Snake to make a point about the changing climate. This winter is the first in his memory where it has not snowed enough to allow for a game of Snow Snake, he said.

Environmental issues seemed to be at the core of Lyons’ politi-cal consciousness. In addition to the warnings about climate change, he criticized the historical attacks on the native flora and fauna of North America by European set-tlers. When settlers struck out West, there were “over 70 million buffalos,” Lyons said. But that number fell to as low as 36 at one point, he added.

Despite the occasional reality check, Lyons’ endless collection of anecdotes about lacrosse and the Iroquois Nationals kept the mood light and the crowd laughing. He said he was upset he had forgotten to bring his wooden stick, which would have been a better demon-stration of what real lacrosse is like

than the “tupperware” today’s play-ers use.

Lyons also talked about Native American contributions to Ameri-can history. He mentioned that Native Americans fought on both sides of the Revolutionary War and displayed a flag originally commis-sioned by George Washington that the Iroquois Nationals took as its official flag when it first entered international competition.

The game between Brown and the Iroquois Nationals the follow-ing afternoon was a competitive battle. Though Brown controlled the majority of the game, the Iroquois came out of the gate strong, jump-ing out to a 2-0 lead early. Brown Head Coach Lars Tiffany ’90 said the Iroquois team deserves a lot of credit for how it played. In addition to not being able to practice as often as the Brown team can, most of the Iroquois players are two to three years younger than their opponents on Brown’s team, Tiffany said.

Only players 19 years old and younger can play on the U19 Iro-quois national team. The official Iro-quois National team has successfully competed on the international level since 1987 — the team currently holds the fourth position in inter-national lacrosse rankings, behind only Canada, the U.S. and Australia.

But as a team that does not have the full rights of a sovereign nation behind them, the Iroquois Nation-als faces distinct disadvantages that other teams do not. After the 9/11 attacks, officials at the European Union decided to stop recognizing Iroquois passports, and the team was unable to attend the 2010 World Lacrosse Championship in England.

Lacrosse legend discusses sport’s history

You have to have endurance,” said Grace Chow ’11, a PLME student now in her first year of medical school.

Niguiar Ahmedli ’11, another PLME student in her first year, has found the transition demanding but not impossible.

“In undergrad, I didn’t study ev-eryday. A few days before an exam was plenty of time to prepare, except for maybe biochemistry,” she said. In medical school, “the quantity of material is so great that it will be overwhelming if postponed to the last minute.”

a fresh crop of talentThis year, first-year students did

better than most previous first-year classes, according to a performance analysis of the fall semester.

“Every first-year student made it to the second semester. Exam scores averaged in the high 80s. A passing grade in medical school is 70, and these exams have something like 125 questions on them,” Gruppuso said. “They are more mentally prepared and less taken aback by the magni-tude of the workload.”

PLME and standard med school admits alike are coming better armed to tackle tough challenges. This may be because more of them are studying subjects like biology or biochemistry as undergraduates, Gruppuso said.

But according to Chow, a human biology concentrator who “took mostly bio classes” as an undergrad, medicine-related material studied at the undergraduate level can only go so far in easing the transition.

“I don’t think I could have pre-pared more for medical school with-out being in medical school,” Chow said. “I wish I took more non-bio classes and really took advantage of the ‘liberal’ aspect of PLME.”

Students also now have access to the new Med School, which is “very open and light-filled and provides a calming atmosphere,” Ahmedli said.

The Med School — which re-located last fall from the BioMed Center, Smith-Buonnano Hall and a piecemeal fabric of other build-ings and classrooms to a transformed jewelry factory — was designed with students in mind.

“I think it is facilitating better interactions between students,” said Isha Parulkar, a first-year medical student who received her undergrad-uate degree from Columbia. “Every-body’s there all the time. People kind of just end up staying there rather than dispersing.”

Ahmedli said she knew what she signed up for prior to matriculating to the Med School. “My older PLME friends prepared me for what was to come,” Ahmedli said.

Forming relationships with older med students is one of the benefits PLME provides, and this idea of

mentorship continues through stu-dent academies at the Med School. Academies are self-contained units in which students from all four years come together, along with advisers and a director, so that they can have a more personal community within the Med School.

“Students talking to one another is probably the most important support system. … Just talking to each other about how to study is so important,” said Gruppuso.

Four plus fourPLME students at the Med School

stay in Providence for eight years until they graduate with medical de-grees. For some students, that seems like an intolerably long time in one place, and some PLME students take a period of time off between under-graduate and medical school.

“Eight years is a long time, but going into PLME, you know this,” Ahmeldi said. “I think the two four-year time periods are so different that it doesn’t feel like a continuous eight years.”

And for some, more time in Prov-idence means more time to engage with the city. With the Med School located down the hill, the program may help facilitate this engagement.

“In undergrad, you’re really in a bubble on College Hill,” Chow said. “Since the Med School is in a different location, I don’t even feel like I go to the same school.”

PLMEs adapt to life in the Jewelry Districtcontinued from page 1

continued from page 1

Page 3: Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Campus news 3the Brown Daily heraldwednesday, February 22, 2012

By Sarah manconeartS & Culture editor

The University will fundraise $50 million over the next five years as part of a new initiative to ex-pand the Brown Institute for Brain Science. A large portion of these funds will be used to pay for seven new positions in the institute, said John Donoghue PhD ’79 P’09 P’12, director of the institute and professor of neuroscience.

Originally started as a pro-gram in brain sciences 12 years ago, the initiative became a full-fledged institute three years ago, Donoghue said. The collaboration unites faculty and undergraduates from 10 different departments at the University, including neu-roscience, biology, computer science, physics and cognitive, linguistic and psychological sci-ences. The institute provides Undergraduate Teaching and Research Awards, supports gradu-ate students, funds faculty pilot projects and sponsors talks and seminars all within the realm of brain science.

“Brown has a very large and very distinguished faculty study-ing the brain,” Donoghue said.

Donoghue recently brought forward a plan to expand the in-stitute by hiring faculty in spe-cialized areas, said Provost Mark Schlissel P’15.

The University then brought in outside reviewers with knowledge of neuroscience to advise Schlissel and President Ruth Simmons on the decision to further invest in the institute, which Schlissel said went “spectacularly.” The review-ers told him and Simmons that “Brown is as good as anybody in brain science,” Schlissel said, and that it is an important area of research in which the University should invest.

This investment will mainly fund the creation of seven new tenure-track positions in the institute, Donoghue said. The institute is already in the pro-cess of searching for a molecular neuroscientist and a computa-tional neuroscientist to add to the faculty, said Barry Connors, professor of neuroscience.

Hiring a new faculty member is extremely expensive, Connors said, adding that it requires ne-gotiating laboratory space, re-sources, equipment, technicians, graduate students and often post-doctoral students.

“Where people used to get $100,000, now they get $1 mil-lion,” Donoghue said of funding startups for faculty-run labora-tories.

All 10 departments involved in the institute will meet as a group to discuss how these positions are going to be filled, Donoghue said.

The increase in faculty will benefit the institute as well as the Department of Neuroscience by “adding substantially to the diversity and quality of neurosci-ence on campus,” Connors said. There will be more professors to teach interesting undergraduate courses, as well as more opportu-nities for undergraduate research in brain science, Schlissel added.

To find qualified candidates, the institute has advertised in professional journals, Schlissel said. Members of the Brown com-munity can also apply if they are not already faculty members since faculty already have the ability to work with the institute, he said. .

With a constrained budget and a commitment to not diverting funds from other University proj-ects, the institute’s expansion is largely being funded by individual donors who support brain science initiatives, Schlissel said.

A modest amount of money has been raised already, he said. The Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, formally accepted $3 million donated to fund a computational neurosci-ence professorship at its Febru-ary meeting, as well as another $1 million to support research in neuroscience, according to a Feb. 11 University press release.

In addition, a gift of $1.5 mil-lion was recently given to fund work on neurodegenerative dis-eases, which will eventually lead to the establishment of a center for synaptic and neurodegenera-tive diseases, Donoghue said

Other sources of funding in-clude external federal grants and corporation and foundation part-nerships, Donoghue said.

This initiative provides a step forward in the institute’s expan-sion. Members of the institute are beginning to think about the creation of a new building, which will be highly interdisci-plinary and “represent the flavor of Brown,” Donoghue said.

As it expands, the institute will continue its approach of fo-cusing research on fundamental understanding of brain function, maintenance of brain health and development of neurotechnology.

“There are important levels of scientific understanding we would like to achieve,” Schlissel said.

Donoghue added that he wants to incorporate into the institute research on “smart technology” — the elements of human thought that are currently outside the abil-ities of computers such as making generalizations and connections in real life situations.

“There is something we can do that computers can’t,” Donoghue said. “The future will be very ex-citing.”

Fundraising to expand brain science faculty

evolution in order to get an A in his class, he told a group of alums Saturday night at a Brown Club of Vancouver event.

Miller himself is Catholic and explained how he has reconciled his religious beliefs with the concept of evolution. “If properly presented, science need not be compromised or soft-pedaled to accommodate religious concerns,” he wrote in the description of his AAAS lecture.

Hartman presented her research on pollen grain germination and

the resulting elongation of pollen tubes after pollen lands on a flower. The research has potential applica-tions for biofuels, she said.

The student poster session “was a really great way to talk about my research and get used to speaking about it with people who aren’t nec-essarily from a plant biology back-ground,” Hartman added. More than 150 students participated in the session, a majority of whom were from the University of British Columbia or schools on the West Coast. Hartman was able to attend through a research fellowship from

the American Chemical Society, the academic portion of which she spent attending the AAAS meeting because she wanted to learn more about how to communicate science, she said.

Barry Connors, professor and chair of the Department of Neu-roscience, Diane Lipscombe, pro-fessor of neuroscience and David Rand, professor of biology, were named AAAS fellows this past No-vember for their contributions to science but were unable to attend the awards ceremony Saturday due to prior commitments.

Science conference draws students, facultycontinued from page 1

www.browndailyherald.com

Page 4: Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Campus news4 the Brown Daily heraldwednesday, February 22, 2012

37 juniors elected to Phi beta Kappathirty-seven juniors were elected to the rhode island alpha of phi

Beta Kappa Feb. 8. the honor society, founded in williamsburg, Va., in 1776, is the oldest and most prestigious academic honor organization in the nation. of the more than 3,500 institutions of higher learning in the United states, only 270 have been authorized to house chapters of phi Beta Kappa. the Brown chapter, the rhode island alpha, was founded in 1830. it is the seventh oldest chapter in the country.

N E W S i N B R i E F

kevin CastoJunhuo ChenAnne CushingPrashanthi DivakarDylan FriedYawei GeBerit GoetzMichelle HanThomas Jarus Jr., former Herald staff writerAndrew kimHannah koenigTravis LloydJulia LongoriaFiona McBrideColin MacGregorDanielle Marshak, Herald general managerJames MayoLily MeyerClaire Peracchio, Herald editor-in-chief Daniel Prinz

Carolyn RantiHannah Riskin-JonesRahil RojianiJohn RosenbergRiyad SeervaiSanchita SingalDaniel Slutsky, Herald analytics managerYanqiang TanNawal Traish, Herald copy editorEdward TremelArjun Vaidya, former Herald business stafferManu VenkatThompson WarrenDavid Winer, Herald social media and mar- keting managerkarolina WoronieckaAdela WuAnnie Wu

the event and scheduled it on a holiday, so most of the students have the day off from school.”

The University admitted 556 early decision applicants to the class of 2016, meaning that nearly half of the admitted early appli-cants attended Monday’s event. Those present were overwhelm-ingly from New England and the mid-Atlantic region, though close to a dozen hailed from the West Coast or Midwest. Roughly five

students traveled from foreign countries, according to event or-ganizers.

The best part of the day — which included a tour of the cam-pus, lunch in the Sharpe Refectory and a discussion with a panel of current University students — was hearing from a faculty advising panel, said Peter Enriquez ’16 of Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

Calling Professor of Geologi-cal Sciences Jan Tullis “really in-spirational,” he added, “It’s a little cliched, but she ended her speech

saying, ‘Be bold.’ I thought that was the best advice of the day. Op-portunities aren’t going to make themselves. You have to be bold, and seek them out.”

While at Brown, Enriquez hopes to expand on a nonprofit he began while in high school called Young Musicians Healing Haiti, which raises money in support of a music school in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.

While members of the Bruin Club and Admission Office called the event “A Lunch on College

Hill,” or ALOCH, among them-selves, they have no plans to turn the Early Decision Admitted Stu-dents Day into an A Day On Col-lege Hill-type event, Stein said.

“It’s going to continue to be a lunch, at least for a while,” she said.

Early decision students from previous years have voiced their disappointment that they were not invited to ADOCH, The Herald reported last March.

But Obi Onwuamaegbu ’15, who attended last year’s early de-cision admitted students day, said

the event “answered my questions and answered them honestly.”

“I was pretty skeptical, because I’d never been to campus before being accepted ED,” he said. Go-ing to the admitted students day “was a huge relief. The event told me about a lot of things that I was looking forward to doing and reas-sured me that I’d made the right choice.”

Still, he said, once he came to school and heard about ADOCH, “I was pretty bummed that I wasn’t invited.”

Nearly half of early decision admits visit campuscontinued from page 1

Page 5: Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Campus news 5the Brown Daily heraldwednesday, February 22, 2012

Fraternity of Evil | Eshan Mitra, Brendan Hailine and Hector Ramirez

CO M i C S

to other participants and found unexpected common ground, connecting in particular with a Middle Eastern Jewish male stu-dent from Cornell.

“One of the most profound things for me was I made friends, to be honest with you,” Xefos said. “And that is just not something I would have ever imagined hap-pening.”

Schaefer, who served in the Israeli army for three years before starting at Brown in 2009, had a significant impact on campus discussions of the Israeli-Pales-tinian conflict during his time at the University, sparking friend-ships and dialogue with Jonah Fisher ’12, Rahel Dette ’13 and Sami Jarbawi ’12, his Arabic teaching assistant, among oth-ers, Fisher said. Two years later, those three friends served as prin-cipal organizers and facilitators of the colloquium that Schaefer and Dette had first dreamed of, Fisher added.

“I was in somewhat of a state of shock for a lot of the weekend … to see that coming to fruition,” Fisher said. “It’s hard to know how to memorialize a friend or a fam-ily member. … This colloquium feels like it was a part or an exten-sion of the conversations I had with Avi.”

When the idea for the collo-quium first arose, all the plan-ners had to guide them was their imagination. They were inspired by the example the Schaefer fam-ily put forth of moving forward from their grief productively.

“At the services for Avi, this phrase, ‘Seek peace and pursue it,’ kept being spoken,” said Uni-versity Chaplain Janet Cooper Nelson.

After Schaefer’s death, his fam-ily met with President Ruth Sim-mons, who then spread the idea of the colloquium to other Ivy League presidents, Fisher said. Cooper Nelson also communi-cated with her chaplain peers at universities last year to encourage the idea.

Led by Schaefer’s brother Yoav, a team of 15 planned extensively for the weekend over the past year and a half, and Cooper Nelson helped search for a location. The Hope Club was eventually chosen for its mixture of comfort, prac-ticality and formality.

The application process for Brown students looking to join the colloquium included an essay and an interview, though each university’s process differed. Coo-per Nelson said in future years she hopes to tweak the process in some small ways.

“One thing that we would do differently was we didn’t create a waiting list,” she said, which be-came a problem when a student delegate from Yale dropped out at the last minute.

The students who came were mostly Muslim and Jewish with varied backgrounds, and their interactions were pivotal to the colloquium’s success, Fisher said.

“The real work of the weekend,

in my opinion, was the encounter of the students,” he said, espe-cially given that many students lead groups with opposing mis-sions on their campuses. Though much of the weekend was intense and emotional, the students also made time for fun, Fisher said, making use of a game room and having an ice cream party.

That atmosphere was en-hanced by the familial nature of the conference, with Schae-fer’s parents intimately involved throughout the weekend, Cooper Nelson said. She cited in particu-lar “the specificity of their care” in choosing ice cream sundae top-pings and turning down some beds themselves.

“The energy of this family, in their sorrow, to work on this proj-ect, I think, left all of us breath-less,” Nelson said.

As the students maneuvered through packed schedules, the concept of narrative — in under-standing others and expressing themselves — was a recurrent theme. Adam Waters ’15, anoth-er Brown representative, said he learned, “rather than continue to escalate the conversation, to step in and to try to show the person that you understand what they’re saying.”

“It seems pretty intuitive and kind of obvious, but I think it’s something that doesn’t really hap-pen a lot” in the Israeli-Palestin-ian discourse, Waters added.

Nizar Farsakh, a leadership consultant and former teaching fellow at the Kennedy School of Government, led a session for the students on re-framing and re-understanding narratives that Fisher called one of the weekend’s “most powerful” moments. “We oftentimes resort to speaking in platitudes,” Fisher said. He said he learned in the session when it is more important to ask, “Who are you, what have your experi-ences been and how have they been?”

Xefos said participants called it “the interrogation session,” because Farsakh asked students probing questions to force them to re-evaluate the way they com-municate. Xefos added that the techniques and skills she learned will be useful in how she ap-proaches not just the Israeli-Pal-estinian conflict but any argu-ment she encounters.

Farsakh said these ideas have powerful applications in the real world.

“It’s basically about the art of inspiring action, so how do you get people to do an activity — and that’s different from convincing people that something is impor-tant,” he said. “It’s basically that you need to tell a narrative and not just give a strategy or just un-fold a platform.”

After absorbing so many ideas and stories, the individual uni-versity delegations convened on Saturday night to discuss ways to bring what they had learned back to campus. Waters said the colloquium gave him renewed momentum to approach the issue.

“I had already kind of become

a little disillusioned in terms of what could be done (at Brown),” he said. “It was really nice and inspiring and refreshing to see … they were still willing to work with each other and they were still willing to talk to each other, and not a single person raised their voice the entire weekend.”

Xefos said the group hopes to meet with Simmons to discuss fu-ture action on campus, and some of their ideas include “creating a neutral space not affiliated with anything, where people can come together to openly discuss and try to understand one another,” like that at the Hope Club.

Waters said such changes were imperative for the campus com-munity, where he said the conver-sation has become so polarized that many students choose not to get involved if they have moder-ate views.

“I think that would do a tre-mendous amount for inspiring people to become re-interested in this issue,” he said.

Rabbi Melissa Weintraub, a facilitator, trainer and consul-tant in conflict resolution who led a session at the colloquium, said she emphasized the need to move past polarization by teach-ing students specific communica-tion skills. “For many of them, that really struck home when they got into the heated conversations and realized that they were hav-ing them in a new way, and as a result they were listening to each other and actually understanding each other,” she said.

Plans are already in the works to make the colloquium an an-nual event. Cooper Nelson said she envisions generations of par-ticipants forming communities on each campus over the years. “While it’s not firm, we are al-ready picturing next year’s proj-ect,” she said, especially because it has the backing of many top administration officials.

Xefos said she walked away from the conference with a new perspective. “I’ve been too judg-mental,” she said. “Yes, they may fall on the opposite end of the political spectrum, (but) on sort of a human level, it’s really nice to be able to connect with people.”

Fisher said he was happy the colloquium materialized and actually achieved its goals. “The energy was palpable, and people really said enormous things,” he said. “All of us involved in the planning were just hoping that it didn’t flop … and it was actually a phenomenal success.”

Supreme Court considers affirmative action case

The united States Supreme Court agreed to review the legality of the affirmative action policy at the university of Texas at Austin yesterday. in 2003, the court affirmed the right of colleges to consider race and ethnicity in admissions decisions in a case involving the university of Michigan.

The state of Texas currently operates under a “10 percent” policy that automatically admits the students in the top 10 percent of their high school classes to their first-choice public college in the state. The plaintiffs claim that this plan eliminates the need to consider race in achieving a diverse student population. Affirmative action supporters argue that the university should be allowed to look at applicants’ race and ethnicity to further enhance its degree of diversity, even if it can achieve some level of diversity without considering those factors. “i hope the court will decide that all future uT applicants will be allowed to compete for admission without their race or ethnicity being a factor,” said Abigail Fisher, for whom the Supreme Court lawsuit was filed, according to an inside Higher Ed article.

Bill Powers, the president of the university of Texas at Austin, issued a statement defending the importance of having the flexibility to consider students’ many unique backgrounds and experiences when admitting new classes. Civil rights leader Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr. expressed in a statement that as long as there are disparities among races, race should continue to be a factor considered in the admissions process, along with gender, class and “ability to think and pay tuition,” according to the inside Higher Ed article.

The federal district court and the u.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected the university’s case before the Supreme Court agreed to consider Texas’ system for review.

Harvard students stage library sit-inin protest against a university announcement about staff

reductions through its Voluntary Early Retirement incentive Program, Harvard students refused to leave the library’s Lamont Cafe despite multiple warnings from police officers.

“Losing library privileges is tantamount to expulsion,” said Andrew Pope, a doctoral student, according to a Harvard Crimson article. Nonetheless, students responded to the “coercive” and “ineffective” policy by sleeping in the library overnight to broadcast their objections. Students hung signs and a banner that read “No Layoffs” and “No Cuts,” which Harvard administrators removed the next morning.

undergraduates and graduate students defended their protest as a permissible form of free speech, ignoring warnings from security officers that revocation of library privileges, disciplinary action and legal prosecution were possible consequences.

BY A L i S O N S i LV E R S E N i O R S TA F F W R i T E R

H i G H E R E D N E W S R O u N D u P

Schaefer’s ’13 legacy inspires conferencecontinued from page 1

Page 6: Wednesday, February 22, 2012

editorial6 the Brown Daily heraldwednesday, February 22, 2012

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E D i TO R i A L

Last Thursday, Gov. Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14 stood with the leadership of the Rhode Island Senate and House of Representatives to introduce the Transparency in Political Spending Act. In a post-Citizens United world of potentially limitless, unregulated and undisclosed donations to so-called SuperPACs, the bill would make Rhode Island a leader in the fight for fairer and more transparent elections. Specifically, it would require outside groups campaigning on behalf of referenda to disclose the individual donors supporting them.

While introducing the bill, Chafee argued that it would “(make) those individuals and organizations trying to influence the outcome of an election accountable to the people of Rhode Island.” While we applaud Chafee’s strong stance against undisclosed independent expenditures — and welcome the way in which this bill will bring much-needed transparency to the state’s political landscape — we are troubled by the bill’s limited scope, applying beefed-up disclosure regulations only to groups advocating for ballot measures. We urge the governor to extend disclosure requirements to all independent expenditures, including those on behalf of individual candidates.

Although much of the concern about Super PACs has been focused on the national presidential race, the forces of big money are blowing at Rhode Island’s door as well. This past winter, while the legislature debated how to reform state employees’ pensions, a group called Engage Rhode Island spent $617,000 promoting the bill.

If EngageRI started electioneering — as it has publicly acknowledged it plans to do — its major donors may remain unknown until after Election Day. In this past election cycle, over $1.9 million was spent by outside groups trying to influence state elections in Rhode Island. Under the Transparency in Political Spending Act, Rhode Islanders would be able to access electioneering groups’ financial reports in a timely fashion, and groups would have to publicly state their largest donors in every print, television, radio or internet advertisement.

Financial disclosure is not a perfect solution — outside groups can still saturate the airwaves with election advertising. But even while enshrining the right to this unlimited spending in Citizens United, the Supreme Court reiterated the importance of financial disclosure, noting that “prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations … account-able for their positions and supporters.”

Armed with knowledge about what interests are behind groups with pleasant-sounding names — like “And For the Sake of the Kids,” a group in West Virginia whose major donors were coal company executives — citizens will be empowered to make a more informed decision on Election Day.

We commend Chafee for taking a public stand against the invidious influence of outside spending in state referenda and supporting legislation that would make Rhode Island a national leader in campaign disclosure. In the words of Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed, “Campaign finance disclosure is absolutely vital to the health of our representative democracy. This is no less true in the case of individual races than in that of ballot measures. We hope that this act is only the first step towards a campaign finance system that would apply to all groups, no matter what candidates or causes they support.

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opinions 7the Brown Daily heraldwednesday, February 22, 2012

I love capitalism and believe in the prof-it motive inherent in it. I also love soci-etal progress and believe in the selflessness existing outside of the profit motive that makes that progress sustainable and kind.

In a column last week (“Every entre-preneur is a social entrepreneur,” Feb. 14), Daniel Prada ’12 describes the “social en-trepreneur” as one “who utilizes the men-tality of the entrepreneur to focus on ex-plicitly social, charitable ends, unlike other methods of entrepreneurship.” In his piece, he defends “the pursuit of profit” and pos-its its benefits, as he details various entre-preneurs who, following their own self-in-terest, have improved society by satisfying consumers’ subjective wants. In his final sentence, he encourages aspiring social en-trepreneurs to “really help the world” by following their own incentives for profit and becoming “actual entrepreneur(s).”

His point is a valid one. I agree that, among progressives, capitalism is often re-buked more than it is respected, despite its awesome creative potential. However, his point is also simple. It ignores the flaws and nuances of the lauded profit motive, while devaluing the charitable social en-trepreneurship that could address these same issues.

For example, rational economics, based

on the assumption that human beings make shrewd, reasonable choices follow-ing their own interests, form the basis of Prada’s argument. For the most part, this theory of rational choice holds. It guides good business decisions. But I believe, as do many behavioral economists, that this human rationality is not absolute. We, as imperfect humans, end up making mis-takes. Richard Fuld Jr., the Lehman Broth-ers CEO who believed to the bitter end that his bank was sound, ended up losing

— and this is a conservative estimate — around $2.8 billion when he sat atop the largest bankruptcy in American history. Joe Cassano, the chief financial officer of American International Group’s Financial Products Division, was fired after he over-saw the lending out of $80 billion in insur-ance on subprime mortgage bonds, $80 billion that AIG couldn’t pay back when the time came. And Stan O’Neal, Merrill Lynch’s CEO until 2007, dutifully watched as his company accumulated $41 billion worth of crappy mortgage bonds and de-rivatives, actions that led to his eventual firing.

Each one of these people, and count-less others involved in the 2008 financial crisis, were, in essence, entrepreneurs. Fol-lowing the profit motive, they creatively used unprecedented extensions of credit to engineer unprecedented amounts of mon-ey. And following the profit motive, they messed up, hurting themselves and other people. But I don’t mean these mistakes to be the focus of my column. Social entre-preneurs, following their own beliefs in so-cial justice, are imperfect, too. In attempt-

ing to solve the most difficult of issues, they may make overly complex plans and issue burdensome regulations. They may miss their goal entirely. Or they may wors-en the situation while trying to address it.

Frankly, all of these mistakes, whether they are driven by profit or charity, mat-ter a great deal. We can’t ignore, forget or wish them away. However, to applaud the profit motive alone, as Prada seems to do, misses the point. Profits can drive bad de-cisions that may hurt people or leave mil-lions without a home or a job through no fault of their own. On the other hand, to relentlessly condemn the free-market in-

centives that have created our modern economy, as Prada contends many pro-gressives do, is overly simplistic. Capital-ism has built the prosperity that allows us to pursue the work of social entrepreneur-ship in the first place. Its excess wealth fills the coffers of our nonprofits.

So what should we conclude? Amer-ica and her people, throughout history, have constantly been waging this debate. Whether it is Franklin Delano Roosevelt vs. Herbert Hoover or Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney, it is the same debate. On one pole stands our collective belief in the indi-vidual and the great, constructive power of his own self-interest. On the other stands our care for the larger community and our desire to maintain a certain amount of eq-uity and kindness. As I see it, America’s ultimate purpose throughout history is to reconcile these two lines of thought, to re-alize one without dismissing the other.

As such, when conservatives like Pra-da endorse the virtues of the profit motive while disparaging the value of social en-trepreneurship, or when progressives like myself recount the values of social charity while denigrating capitalistic individual-ism, they are doing more than establishing a shallow argument. In fact, they are de-nying a full half of America’s very essence.

kevin Carty ’15 is a political science concentrator from Washington D.C. He would love to hear any responses and

can be reached at [email protected].

The essence of America

Spring Weekend is the largest and most widely attended event occurring on cam-pus before Commencement week. Stu-dents eagerly anticipate the bands, ago-nize over getting tickets and even schedule their work or study abroad plans around the event. Spring Weekend is a time when people gather in large numbers, share new experiences, try new things — wink, wink — and enjoy some of the nicer things col-lege affords us. The concerts are what fa-cilitate all of this. While it is still possible to have fun on Spring Weekend whether you like the music or not, one thing is quite clear: The bands should not suck.

What do I mean by suck? Obviously, everyone has different tastes in music, so it is not possible to please all. Regardless, something about last year did not cut it. Not to beat an old horse to death, but I want to explore some of the ways last year’s concerts were lacking in order to shed light on what should be done for the coming weekend.

While I have not done a scientific sur-vey of the student body, most people you talk to will gladly say that Snoop Dogg and MGMT in 2010 were amazing. They will also tell you that Diddy and TV on the Radio in 2011 did not compare. In fact I would go one step further and say that last year the concerts were about as fun as having your toenail hair removed by

Rosie O’Donnell — the pleasant surprise of getting to see an insignificant celebri-ty up close is overshadowed by the sheer pain of having your hair pulled out. So what happened?

One major reason last year was so lack-luster was that the Brown Concert Agen-cy tried to do the same thing as 2010 and failed miserably. They were successful two years ago by having one “old-school rap-per,” a couple of “hipster bands” and a few other decently big name openers, includ-ing Wale and Major Lazer. The problem with trying to copy this lineup is that it

is not indicative of a successful formula. The 2010 concerts worked because Snoop Dogg and MGMT are excellent perform-ers, not because one appeals to pop music fans and the other to hipsters. This faulty logic brought the same types of groups to Spring Weekend last year — Diddy for Snoop and TV on the Radio for MGMT. The lineups have shocking similarities. The BCA should be wary of allowing this to repeat itself yet again, lest we wind up

with Flavor Flav and Kings of Leon.Another reason last year was less suc-

cessful is that it unfortunately had to be indoors. This was out of the BCA’s control. It cannot control the weather. However, whoever did the sound check for Mee-han Auditorium should have his hearing checked. Das Racist sounded like some-one yelling over a garbage disposal. There must be a way for that space to sound re-motely like a concert hall. Furthermore, the concert was poorly set up for peo-ple who had to stand in the bleachers. They paid the same price as those on the

ground but got much less value. The BCA should have spent an extra effort making the indoor concert worth the money paid to see it.

But acoustics aside, here are my sug-gestions for this year. First, the BCA shouldn’t try to please absolutely every-one. There is no need to get a TV on the Radio for every Diddy. The groups should be knowable, but not necessarily well known. Diddy came late, played a short

set and used his celebrity as an excuse for not performing to the best of his ability. We should seek bands that are on the rise and have something to prove.

Second, it is unfortunate that Coach-ella happens to be the same weekend. This is no excuse for not being able to put to-gether a decent lineup. A quick glance through the bands scheduled to play at that festival will prove that the list is not exhaustive by any means.

Third, the BCA may want to actual-ly read the results of the polls in which students voted on their preferences for Spring Weekend. I would wager a good deal of money — Romney-style — in say-ing that few to none put Diddy as their choice for a performer. The BCA is lucky — it will sell out the concerts with prac-tically any performances, because people love Spring Weekend. It should not abuse this privilege.

Though I’m being critical of the BCA, we should keep in mind that the concerts are not the only way to enjoy yourself over the weekend. The artists are bought with a limited budget, after all. However, this is no excuse for the BCA to be un-original in selecting bands. Since we will likely all die in the coming apocalypse, we should strive to make 2012’s Spring Week-end the best ever. Maybe the BCA should get first access to funds, then the rest of the student groups, then the Undergradu-ate Council of Students. That seems fair to me — let’s vote on it.

Lucas Husted ’13 can’t wait to get an angry email from the BCA.

Lessons for Spring Weekend

One major reason that last year was so lackluster was that the BCA tried to do the same thing as 2010 and

failed miserably.

i believe, as do many behavioral economists, that this human rationality is not absolute. We, as imperfect

humans, end up making mistakes.

BY LuCAS HuSTEDopinions Columnist

BY kEViN CARTYopinions Columnist

Page 8: Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Daily Heraldthe Brown

Campus newswednesday, February 22, 2012

By auStin coleStaff Writer

The Women’s Leadership Coun-cil — which seeks to promote phi-lanthropy and volunteerism and offer mentoring to the University’s female students and alums — has been planning a conference to cel-ebrate 120 years of women’s history at Brown. But after President Ruth Simmons — who created the coun-cil in 2004 — announced her res-ignation, the council has decided to shift the focus of the conference, slated to take place May 3-5, to incorporate bidding farewell to the University’s president of 11 years.

“At the heart of this is an effort

to really celebrate a remarkably long history of women at Brown,” said Nancy Neff ’76 P’06 P’14, council co-chair. “People tend to forget that Brown had women stu-dents long before other universi-ties did.”

Though celebrating women’s history at Brown is an important aspect of the conference, Neff said the activities and discussions will be geared more toward celebrating the current role of women in the University community. The council is excited about the prospect of bringing in a “wide range of wom-en in various careers and various locations” to showcase what the “fabulous alumnae of Brown do,”

Neff said. Though many of the plans for

the conference have yet to be final-ized, Neff said it will include panels of women discussing topics related to women’s lives, health, finance and more. Also included in the program will be “fun, social pieces” that allow current students and alums to connect with one another, Neff said.

Mary Vascellaro ’74 P’07 said she also hopes the conference will exhibit the council’s increasingly influential role at Brown, which has evolved over the past several years.

Though this fall will mark the council’s first semester without Simmons, the council hopes to

continue to expand, Vascellaro said. It has continued to build on its mentoring and philanthropic programs, including a program called Women’s Launch Pad that matches council mentors with women in the senior class, offering guidance to graduating seniors as they transition to life after college.

The council also helps to foster philanthropy in the Brown com-munity. This year, the council led the Graduates of the Last Decade challenge and raised $1 million for a matching fund that will con-tribute to the Annual Fund. The matching fund will help display the council’s “philanthropic clout” on campus, Vascellaro said.

Conference to celebrate history of women on campus

By aliSon SilVerSenior Staff Writer

The Swearer Center for Public Service van carrying over 20 pounds of food donations does not encoun-ter much traffic on its midnight trips down the hill to Kennedy Plaza. While most occupants of the homeless shelter at the Mathewson Street United Methodist Church are sleeping, students from Brown’s Food Recovery Network unload the boxes of leftover muffins, bagels, pastries and packaged produce col-lected from campus eateries every evening. The operation hardly takes any time at all, but each nightly in-stallment of food donations makes a difference for the local Providence community.

The network, a new student group affiliated with Rhode Is-land’s non-profit corporation We Share Hope, aims to reduce waste and increase food donation to local homeless people by collecting and transporting leftovers from Brown’s eateries and cafe carts. The goal is figuring out how to “make more food reach people and not the trash can,” said Shelby Wilson ’15, one of the group’s leaders.

The network was first established by students at the University of Maryland and now has participat-ing chapters at Pomona College, University of California at Berkeley and Brown. During his gap year before starting college, Ben Chesler ’15 was working at Search for Com-mon Ground in Washington when he and several University of Mary-land students came up with the idea for the group. After returning from South Africa, where Chesler do-nated food first-hand, he decided he wanted to bring the program to Brown. Last semester, the national network, which includes all the par-ticipating colleges, donated 15,000 meals, according to the network’s website So far this spring, the net-work has recovered 2,000 meals.

Food delivery dynamos Brown’s chapter performed its

first food recovery and delivery Nov. 11 and has been growing ever since. In addition to weekly contributions of up to 200 pounds of food from Brown Dining Services, students perform a nightly pickup of leftover

baked goods and packaged produce from the Blue Room, the Sciences Library, the Rockefeller Library and Barus and Holley. With the use of a Swearer Center van, the group de-livers each night’s donations directly to the Mathewson Street church.

When Chesler pitched the idea of the club to Dining Services, “there was very little hesitation.” The group has regular meetings with Associate Director of Dining Services Peter Rossi to work out logistics and add new dining loca-tions. Almost all of the operations take place after midnight, once the food has been compiled at each of the pickup locations. Despite the late hours, the trip is quick and easy, usually taking less than half an hour to complete.

To increase efficiency, Chesler said that the group is implementing a clipboard system to keep track of the number of items collected from each campus eatery. They will also record and report the weight of the daily donations. Any students

who have taken a driving course with a Brown insurance agent are authorized to drive the Swearer Center van used to transport food donations.

“We’ve been having student clubs take charge,” Wilson said. The Brown Democrats, St. Antho-ny Hall, Brown/RISD Hillel, em-POWER, Athletes in Action and the Delta Tau fraternity are among the groups that have volunteered to deliver food.

The Brown Democrats have been involved with deliveries for the past two weeks. After hearing about the Food Recovery Network from Chesler, one of the board members of the Brown Democrats decided to get the group involved.

“We have decided to help out with Tuesday nights,” said Emily Regier ’14, the group’s civic involve-ment chair. The group was already looking for various volunteer op-portunities, Regier said, and as they have meetings on Tuesday nights anyway, they decided to make it their night for food collection and transport as well.

Wilson said reaching out to fra-ternities and other student groups

is helpful as they often have their own cars.

“We’re still looking for more in-volvement all the time,” she added.

Chesler said the group’s greatest challenge is that the closing times of the various cafe carts and eateries differ. “We’re really willing to take any food, no matter how small the quantity, but we can’t be running around from 7 to midnight every night” collecting food, he said.

midnight meals for the homelessThe connection to the Mathew-

son Street church is in part due to Chesler’s previous work with Hous-ing Opportunities for People Every-where, a student organization based at the Swearer Center.

“I just knew that (the church) was a place that was open to this idea,” he said. The Mathewson Street church operates one of the emer-gency winter shelters in downtown Providence and stays open from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Because it is over-night, the church does not provide a structured meal to people who use the shelter. The donations from Brown are distributed to the shelter occupants before they leave in the morning.

The network not only seeks to help the homeless, but also to raise awareness about the benefits of food donation in general.

“Legally speaking, it’s a lot easier to donate food than people think,” Wilson said. In fact, the Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act of 1996, named after former U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson, provides that people who donate surplus food are not liable unless they show “gross negligence.” Food donated to an approved agency is eligible for a tax reduction of one half the food’s appreciated value, according to the Food Donation Connection’s website.

Saving food is environmen-tally advantageous. The network is “green and socially responsible,” Wilson said. In the future, mem-bers hope to incorporate reusable bags and containers for shepherding food to the shelter.

Blue State Coffee has also agreed to donate food to the chapter and the group hopes to collect from more businesses on Thayer Street in the coming months, Chesler said.

Campus leftovers feed R.I. homeless

By jenniFer kaPlanContributing Writer

Associate Professor of Evolution-ary Biology Sohini Ramachandran received the Alfred P. Sloan Foun-dation Fellowship for her research in computational and evolution-ary molecular biology, according to the foundation’s Feb. 15 press release. The award is granted to young scientists who are “rising stars, the next generation of sci-entific leaders,” according to the release.

The fellowship includes a grant of $50,000 to advance Ramachan-dran’s research, which pertains specifically to evolutionary his-tory based on variations in the human genome over time.

“I’m really interested in his-torical relationships between hu-man populations and the signa-tures they leave on our genome,” Ramachandran said. Specifically, she studies topics like the mating interaction between Europeans and Latin Americans during early colonization and the modern rel-evance of the genetic signatures of humans in Africa from 100,000 years ago. Her research is com-putational and statistical, using data gathered across the globe to mathematically map out aspects of the human genome.

“I feel really honored,” Ram-achandran said. “The Sloan Fel-lowship has this really exciting history of making contributions to young faculty.”

The foundation gives grants in eight scientific areas but only began giving grants in computa-tional and evolutionary molecular biology in 2002, when Ramach-andran began graduate school.

Each of the 126 recipients of the 2012 fellowship was nomi-nated by a colleague and then picked by an independent panel of scholars. Ramachandran was nominated by Mark Bertness, chair of the department of ecol-ogy and evolutionary biology.

“She’s a spectacular young fac-ulty member working on really interesting problems,” Bertness said. He added that as a promising

female scientist, Ramachandran is a role model for young women in scientific fields.

Ramachandran arrived at the University in summer 2010 af-ter receiving her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stan-ford University and completing a post-graduate year at Harvard. At Brown, she said she has been influenced by the supportive and collaborative environment in her department and the opportunity to teach undergraduate students beginning this year.

The grant money she will re-ceive will enable students doing research with her to pursue proj-ects that were previously impos-sible due to lack of funding, she said.

“I’ve been wanting to generate some data in collaboration with people in Newport to collect ge-netic data from different breeds of cattle and sheep that humans have domesticated,” Ramachan-dran said. She plans to use this data to study how variation has changed in domesticated breeds and what traits humans have se-lected.

“It’s just a nice, prestigious recognition that one of our new junior faculty members has this level of recognition this early in her career,” Bertness said.

Brown usually has one or two winners a year, Ramachandran said. Last year, two faculty mem-bers received this fellowship — David Badre, assistant professor in the department of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sci-ences, and Anastasia Volovich, associate professor of physics.

“It enabled me to continue research,” Volovich said, who studies wave amplitudes related to the theory of motives in algebraic geometry. The funds from the fel-lowship enabled the physics de-partment to bring distinguished visitors, she added, and will allow her to travel to some conferences. Volovich emphasized the unre-strictive nature of the Sloan Foun-dation grant compared to other grants. “You can use it however you want,” she said.

Prof honored as ‘rising star’ in evolutionary bio

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