FRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2013 since 1891vol. cxlviii, no. 46

INSIDE

Spicy withThe sandwich with a kick touts an intricate backstory

Money majorsRise in concentrators strains economics department

Page 9

Brush it offLecture highlights liberating nature of calligraphy

Page 11

Page 3

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tomorrow

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today

Daily HeraldTHE BROWN

By HANNAH LOWENTHEILSENIOR STAFF WRITER

The Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Policies endorsed University divestment from the nation’s 15 largest coal companies yesterday afternoon, Brown Divest Coal and ACCRIP members confirmed.

“We are still finalizing the text to send to (President Christina Paxson), which contains our reasons for recom-mendation and proposed guidelines for screening companies we invest in,” said Ian Trupin ’13.5, a student member of ACCRIP and former Herald opinions

columnist.Paxson will receive the committee’s

recommendation in the next few days, Trupin said, at which point the docu-ment will be posted on ACCRIP’s website for public access.

Marisa Quinn, vice president for public affairs and University relations, said Paxson’s office “(looks) forward to ACCRIP’s recommendation on the mat-ter of divestment” but said she would not comment further until the recom-mendation is made public.

Paxson indicated that the Corpora-tion will discuss coal divestment when it meets in May, according to a statement from Brown Divest Coal. Paxson will present ACCRIP’s recommendation to the Corporation, Trupin said.

The Corporation has previously vot-ed to divest from HEI Hotels, tobacco companies and

Advisory committee votes to recommend coal divestmentPaxson will present the divest recommendation at the Corporation’s meeting in May

By MOLLY SCHULSONSENIOR STAFF WRITER

The University offers 79 concentrations, but 54 percent of concentrations com-pleted in 2012 represented the 10 most popular concentrations that year, ac-cording to data obtained by The Herald from the Office of Institutional Research.

Economics has been the most popu-lar concentration since 2009, followed by biological sciences and international relations, according to the data, which spans from 1984 to 2012. Nine of the top 10 concentrations in 2012 were in life sciences, social sciences or physical

sciences, with English the lone humani-ties representative.

Social sciences concentrations con-stituted 39.8 percent of those completed in 2012, life sciences represented 21.5 percent, humanities were 20.8 percent, physical sciences covered 17.6 percent and independent concentrations made up the remaining 0.3 percent.

Growth in the marketThe most popular concentration in

2012 was economics, with 220 degrees — not including joint concentrations the Department of Economics offers with other departments — being completed, wrote Louis Putterman, director of un-dergraduate studies in the economics department, in an email to The Herald.

“The growth after 2008 or 2009 has been particularly substantial,” he wrote.

S t u d e n t

Top 10 concentrations claim over half of studentsEconomics, biological sciences and international relations lead most popular fields

By MICHAEL DUBINSTAFF WRITER

Successful foreign policy must tran-scend threat response and capitalize on cooperative opportunities, said As-sistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson ’82 in a lecture at the Watson Institute for International Affairs Thursday.

Jacobson, whom Vice President for International Affairs Matthew Gutmann introduced as “the highest U.S. diplomat responsible for Latin America,” spoke about the State De-partment’s work in Latin America and the Caribbean and its direction under new Secretary of State John Kerry to an audience of around 40 people.

Jacobson’s appointment as assistant secretary in 2012 marked both the first time a woman has held the position and the first time a civil service employee has filled the post instead of a foreign service officer, she said, adding that she has served overseas twice.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton often expressed that foreign policy “is all about threats,” Jacobson said, but “if foreign policy is only about threats and not about opportunities, we have missed a whole section of what foreign policy should be.”

“In my view, our foreign policy in the Western hemisphere right now is a lot more about opportunities than it is about threats,” Jacobson said.

President

Assistant Secretary of State talks policyJacobson ’82 discussed her work in Latin America and the direction of the U.S. under John Kerry

By SAHIL LUTHRASCIENCE & RESEARCH EDITOR

Several strategic planning committees were created last fall to shape the long-

term goals for President Chris-tina Paxson’s ten-ure. The forma-tion of one such committee — the Committee on Educational In-

novation — underscored the Univer-sity’s goal to lead in higher education in developing education techniques and philosophies, particularly in science, technology, engineering and math.

The University’s emphasis on im-proving science education builds on efforts undertaken in recent years and could reshape how introductory sci-ence is taught at Brown.

Experiments in educationLast summer’s version of CHEM

0350: “Organic Chemistry” bore little resemblance to the structure of the course during the school year. Rather than going to lectures, students at-tended problem-based workshops in the Science Center, tackling topics like tautomerization in small groups under supervision of teaching assistants.

The change developed after profes-sors noticed that students enrolled in summer CHEM 0350 passed the second course on the subject, CHEM 0360: “Organic Chemistry,” at a lower rate than did those who took CHEM 0350 in the spring, said Andrew Sil-verman ’14, who has been an organic chemistry TA both during the summer and during the school year. Though lectures could conceivably work in the school year, they were less effec-tive in the

U. examines hands-on methods of teaching intro STEMAs innovation in science pedagogy becomes a national priority, the University continues to explore new approaches to STEM education

By MATHIAS HELLER AND ALEXANDRA MACFARLANE

UNIVERSITY NEWS EDITORS

Over 90 percent of students support the legalization of same-sex marriage in Rhode Island, according to a Herald poll conducted March 13-14. More than 60 percent of students support the recent creation of a School of Pub-lic Health, approved by the Corpora-tion in February. Student approval for President Christina Paxson has also in-creased since last semester, with nearly half of students stating approval for her handling of the presidency, an increase

from 28 percent of students in the fall.Over 20 percent of students re-

ported attending a varsity sports game once in a typical semester. Almost 85 percent of students said they consumed alcohol in the past year, and over 25 percent reported using marijuana in the same period.

The marriage plotA decisive majority of students

expressed support for expanding the definition of marriage in Rhode Island to include same-sex couples. Among those surveyed, 82 percent strongly agreed with legalizing same-sex mar-riage in the state, while fewer than 9 percent somewhat agreed with doing so.

Five percent of students have no opinion on the proposed legalization of same-sex

Poll results shed light on U. affairs and student lifeUndergrads responded to questions about Paxson, alcohol, same-sex marriage and religion

MIKE COHEA / BROWN UNIVERSITY

New biology courses, such as BIOL 0190R: “Phage Hunters,” which was introduced in 2011, have emphasized lab work and tactile learning./ / Innovation page 4

/ / Degrees page 8

STEM 0010

An examination of introductory science

courses at Brown

Part 4 of 4

GREG JORDAN-DETAMORE / HERALD

Social sciences have been the most popular division since at least 1984, with life sciences and physical sciences increasing in recent years.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%Social Sciences

Physical Sciences

Life Sciences

Humanities

201020052000199519901985

Perc

ent o

f con

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ratio

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eted

Concentrations by academic division, 1984-2012

/ / Coal page 2 / / Poll page 6

/ / State page 12See pages 8 -9 for spotlights on concentration trends

university news2 THE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2013

7 P.M.

Attitude Spring Show

Alumnae Hall

11 P.M.

Funk Night

The Underground

8 P.M.

Fermata Concert

The Underground

8:30 P.M.

High n’Stoned Concert

MacMillan 117

SHARPE REFECTORY VERNEY-WOOLLEY

LUNCH

DINNER

Gnocchi, Pork and Potato Rosti, Mashed Potatoes, Vegetable Popover, Chocolate Marshmallow Roll

Braised Rainbow Swiss Chard, Veggie and Beef Stirfry, Roasted Baby Carrots, Gnocchi, Sausage Chowder

Chicken Broccoli Alfredo Pasta, Vegan Quinoa Stuffed Portabella, Green Beans, Onion Rings, Caesar Chicken

Chicken Fingers, Vegan Nuggets, Baked Potatoes, Baked Beans, Nacho Bar, Green Beans, Rice Krispie Treats

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 D A R

Shefali Luthra, PresidentLucy Feldman, Vice President

Samuel Plotner, TreasurerJulia Kuwahara, 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 2013 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

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companies profiting from Darfur after receiving recommendations from AC-CRIP to divest.

ACCRIP might advise divestment if it is likely to change the company for the better or if a company’s activity is deemed so harmful that profiting from its business contradicts the University’s ethical principles, Trupin said. He added that the latter justification — coal’s ef-fects on global warming — prompted the committee’s recommendation to divest.

“Brown Divest Coal has impacted

our decision a lot,” Trupin said. “They were very helpful in providing informa-tion for our consideration.”

Last semester, Brown Divest Coal sent ACCRIP “a letter expressing our ethical imperative and reasoning for divestment,” said member Rachel Bish-op ’13. ACCRIP then used the group’s research in conjunction with its own findings.

“ACCRIP made their decision be-cause they recognized that coal is a very nasty industry and the University shouldn’t be profiting from it,” said Emily Kirkland ’13, another member of Brown

Divest Coal. According to a press release from

Brown Divest Coal, the University’s in-vestments in these 15 coal companies total less than $2 million. Quinn previ-ously told The Herald the University’s holdings in the companies make up less than 0.1 percent of its total investments.

Brown Divest Coal has been actively campaigning for the University to divest from fossil fuels.

“We’ve generated a huge amount of student, faculty and alumni support to convey the message that (divestment) is important,” Kirkland said.

/ / Coal page 1

LYDIA YAMAGUCHI / HERALD

The student group Brown Divest Coal played a significant role in prompting the investment advisory committee to vote to recommend coal divestment, according to a student member on ACCRIP. Herald file photo.

Legislating

SAME-SEX MARRIAGEAll eyes on Rhode Island

APRIL 23 / 4:00 PM MacMillan Hall, Starr Auditorium 167 Thayer Street Free and open to the publicwww.brown.edu/taubman-center

arts & culture 3THE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2013

By SOPHIE YANSTAFF WRITER

Crispy on the outside, tender and juicy on the inside, a fried chicken patty is smothered in melted cheese and drizzled in a special spicy sauce. All garnished with lettuce and tomato and served on a chewy hamburger bun.

The spicy with, as it is affection-ately called, is served at Josiah’s Cafe and known as a widely loved late-night treat for many carnivorous Brown students.

Only open from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. and primarily considered a late-night eatery, Jo’s features various items including sandwiches, quesadil-las, chopped salads and mozzarella sticks on its menu. But even with the plethora of options available, the spicy with remains one of the most iconic selections.

“We believe it debuted as a special around 1997,” wrote Sean DeBobes, assistant manager of retail operations at Jo’s, in an email to The Herald. “It was an instant hit and soon made its way onto the permanent menu.”

There is a correlation between drinking alcohol and late night con-sumption of foods high in fat — such as spicies with — according to a study by Elizabeth Lloyd-Richardson, as-sistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the Alpert Medi-cal School.

“Eating patterns for a significant number of college students are altered before, during and following drinking episodes,” the study read. A signifi-cant number of Lloyd-Richardson’s subjects, all college students, reported overeating and making unhealthy

dietary choices after consumption of alcohol, according to the study.

“On typical drunk nights (Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays) the grill station is definitely more popular than the salad station,” wrote Mike Bohl ’11, unit manager for the Brown University Dining Services at Jo’s, in an email to The Herald. “Whether people are buying spicies or just load-ing up on mozzarella sticks though, I can’t say.”

But the spicy with, despite com-mon conceptions, is not the most popular item at Jo’s, wrote Aaron Fitzhenry, culinary manager for re-tail operations, in an email to The Herald. “They consistently represent around 30 percent of all items sold at the grill …(but) salads outsell them every day of the week.”

Still, the sandwich has a strong following. Broghan Zwack ’16, a self-described Jo’s frequenter, said she “lives for spicy withs.”

“There was this time I got a spicy with five nights in a row,” she added. “It’s delicious.”

Bryant Estrada ’13 also said he enjoys spicies with, adding that he decided to give them up for Lent but recently started eating them again and appreciates them more than ever. “I usually eat about two a week,” he said.

“It’s a classic,” said Yao Liu ’15, who said he savors his sandwich with the bourbon and spicy sauces.

But Elizabeth Goodspeed ’16, a dual-degree student in her second year, disagreed. Describing the sand-wich as too spicy and “kind of dry,” Goodspeed said she is disappointed that the other hot food stations at Jo’s close after 11 p.m. or midnight.

“If the only thing they’re offering from (midnight) to 2 (a.m.) is moz-zarella sticks and French fries, I think it’s setting a bad example,” Goodspeed said, noting the health ramifications of such fried foods.

While many students said they don’t know the specific nutrition in-formation, the spicy with weighs in at 560 calories and contains 40 percent of a person’s daily saturated fat and 67 percent of daily sodium, Ann Hoff-man, director of administration of Brown Dining Services, wrote in an email to The Herald.

Zwack said she is aware of the health risks of the sandwich and de-

scribes herself as relatively health-conscious, but she said she finds it difficult to resist the sandwich’s allure.

“My problem is that when I’m go-ing to the salad bar, I always walk past the grill,” she said. “Seeing the spicy with … as you’re going to the salad bar (is) so depressing.”

Liu also acknowledged the spicy with is not a healthy option. “I don’t

know the nutrition facts, but I’d rath-er not,” he said, describing the sand-wich as a personal “guilty pleasure.”

Lorin Smith ’15 also chooses spi-cies with despite the potential health consequences.

“I’m definitely going to die young because of these,” she said. “It’s like a patty full of hormones, sodium, breading … (who knows) what else is in there.”

‘Spicy with’ boasts long and storied history as Josiah’s stapleThe chicken sandwich contains 40 percent of the daily recommended saturated fat

TOM SULLIVAN / HERALD

The iconic spicy with sandwich, which headlines a menu of late-night fried food options, remains widely popular despite health concerns.

stem 00104 THE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2013

condensed summer schedule.“The summer actually forced self-

ownership,” Silverman said. “Students would sit at tables and literally have to work on a problem by talking about it dynamically. They weren’t passively engaged with the material like they would be in lecture. That’s something that’s just super important.”

Other courses in the near future will test non-traditional structures. This fall, the Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning will pilot a discussion-based version of ECON 1110: “Intermediate Microeconom-ics,” The Herald reported last month.

Integrative classes specifically for students in the Program in Lib-eral Medical Education — which will launch fall 2014 — could help the Uni-versity become a leader in pre-medical education reform, Associate Dean of Medical Education Philip Gruppuso told The Herald last month.

In 2009, the Association of Ameri-can Medical Colleges and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute published a report emphasizing the need for inte-grative, interdisciplinary courses for pre-med students.

New approaches to teaching in-troductory science classes could help lower attrition rates in STEM fields, according to a 2011 report by the As-sociation of American Universities.

For many institutions, “the focus of keeping students interested in science is a low priority,” said Mitchell Chang, a professor at the University of Cali-fornia, Los Angeles who studies trends in higher education. “So you have to raise that priority, and once you do, you start to shape your curriculum differently.”

While few institutions have re-structured science curricula in this way so far, results look promising, Chang

said, citing examples from the Mas-sachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology.

“These classes are smaller and taught in a way with application to real-life issues,” he said. “But (students) are learning the fundamental knowl-edge in ways that the instructors inten-tionally apply to real-world problems.”

Curricular changes at Brown have been born of circumstance-specific factors — a compressed time frame in the case of summer CHEM 0350 — as well as ideological factors. Last fall, the School of Engineering broke ENGN 0030: “Introduction to Engi-neering” into smaller problem-based sections, significantly reducing the amount of time spent in a large lecture, The Herald reported at the time. The

change was motivated by an increase in enrollment and student feedback.

New biology courses have empha-sized lab work and hands-on learning. In 2011, the University introduced the year-long course BIOL 0190R: “Phage Hunters,” in which first-year students isolated viruses and analyzed their DNA, participating in active re-search while learning introductory lab techniques, The Herald reported last year. Though the class was designed and funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Associate Dean of the College for Science and Director of the Science Center David Targan told The Herald at the time it could potentially be retained at Brown in the long term.

“Having that much more visceral experience using all the senses — it’s impossible not to be engaged in it, whereas it’s easy to zone out in a lecture,” Targan told The Herald last year. “There’s just a lot of evidence to show that that’s the best way people learn and the best way to keep people interested.”

Multiple pathwaysIn its interim report published Jan-

uary, the Committee on Educational Innovation outlined several propos-als for developing science pedagogy, advocating new introductory courses, interdisciplinary initiatives and inte-grative pre-med courses like the one being piloted this fall.

“We have to continue to develop new ways to reach all of our students,” said Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron, who is chairing the commit-tee. “We need a variety of pathways.”

One way the committee envisions this is through an array of “Gateways to Science” courses in each discipline, which would introduce students to STEM disciplines through hands-on classes focused on real-world problem

solving, according to the interim re-port. Other introductory classes that emphasize data analysis, computer programming and scientific literacy could offer additional entry points into the sciences.

By pairing courses that deal with similar topics in different ways, the committee hopes to get students “re-ally thinking about knowledge and thinking about the ways in which dif-ferent disciplines are tackling the same questions,” said committee member Peter Johnson ’13. Under this system, students might enroll in two courses — an archaeology course in the fall and a materials science course in the spring, for instance — that facilitate discussion of issues relevant to both fields.

“Obviously that would take some

faculty resources,” Johnson said. “It’s not like co-teaching, but it would take collaboration outside of the depart-ment.”

Though not explicitly addressed in the committee’s report, innovation will be tied to the question of online education. The University will pilot online courses this summer, and a separate strategic planning commit-tee convened last semester to examine how online education might influence Brown’s future.

Limited resourcesBut committee discussions of the

University’s future were not influenced by questions of its resources, Johnson said. Evaluating feasibility remains a task for Paxson, Provost Mark Schlis-sel P’15 and the Corporation over the next several months.

But given the resources currently available — manpower and space being chief concerns — dramatic curricular reform is not possible, said Robert Pelcovits, professor of physics.

Though it would be “ideal” to inte-grate more problem-solving elements into classes, “it’s just not feasible,” said Sarah Taylor, instructional coordinator and science learning specialist at the Science Center, who co-taught organic chemistry last summer.

Adopting the summer format of or-ganic chemistry for the academic year would require a substantial number of TAs, Silverman said, adding that the number of TAs recently dropped from 14 to 6 due to funding constraints.

Large-scale changes can be costly in terms of space. When MIT launched a technology-assisted effort to make introductory physics more discussion-based, renovating two classrooms to make them conducive to discussion cost $3 million, according to the proj-ect’s website.

If it ain’t broke...Concerns with introductory sci-

ence courses can largely be addressed with small-scale changes, many in-structors said.

Though smaller classes are often seen as better, there are “enough ex-ceptions to that rule,” Targan said. Students who work to establish rela-tionships with professors can benefit greatly even in a lecture class, Targan said, though it is the student’s respon-sibility to forge that relationship.

Jan Tullis, professor of geological sciences who co-teaches GEOL 0220: “Physical Processes in Geology,” said drop-in hours are important for suc-cess in her class. Rather than simply answering questions, Tullis said she aims to “coach and guide” her students.

As a coordinator for group tutor-ing and other resources in the Science Center, Taylor said she has found many students do not seek the assistance they need.

“They’re used to being successful academically because that’s why they’re here,” Taylor said. “A lot of them are reluctant to look for help. They think they’re self-sufficient or that they should be self-sufficient. So they are reluctant, embarrassed, ashamed — I’m not quite sure what it is.”

Targan cited iClickers — remotes students use to answer multiple choice questions with the results immediately tabulated on the instructor’s computer — as effective teaching tools in large introductory lectures.

iClickers provide “more opportuni-ties for the instructor to understand much earlier in the class period what people understand,” Targan said. “It used to be that you could actually go for weeks and then have your first test … and realize that people were lost.”

But iClickers may not be enough to

make a class feel more intimate, said Victoria Ferreira ’14, a pre-med stu-dent. “I don’t think using an iClicker was that helpful at all. It just made me pay attention for the first 20 minutes until (professors) asked the clicker question.” Ferreira added that it can be “super intimidating” to ask a question in a class with hundreds of students.

Varying the types of assess-ments can also solve many concerns, Bergeron said, citing research-based writing assignments as alternatives to exams.

‘Too big to ignore’Identifying alternative forms of

pedagogy in introductory STEM class-es is critical for the nation’s growth, according to the 2011 AAU report, which states that scientific literacy is vital for both science and humanities students.

“A lot of places are going to be experimenting,” Johnson said. “And there’s a lot of federal funding out there for people who can ‘solve’ these issues in higher education today. And it’s kind of too big to ignore them.”

Given its desire to be at the fore-front of educational innovation, the University must move carefully, John-son said.

There is “an understanding that if we move too fastidiously into one area without really seeing — without really testing and seeing its effects — then that’s a bad thing,” he said.

Johnson said he does not think the University will heavily favor one model of education over another and will instead opt for a variety of approaches.

Bergeron said she envisions the curriculum being adapted gradually, as pilot initiatives are scaled up.

“It’s quite possible that looking down the road 10 years … there could be other modalities that help to trans-form the idea of the large lecture so that students could be working in more lab-like settings, discussion-based lab-like settings,” Bergeron said. “Maybe the idea of the entry-level science course could actually reverse itself, so that the lecture became less of the focus and the lab became more. But that would mean reorganizing the way we currently do things.”

-Additional reporting by Jessica Brodsky, Phoebe Draper and Kate Nussenbaum

/ / Innovation page 1

This series will investigate introductory science courses at Brown, examining what draws students to a field, why they lose interest and how classes at Brown might change as the nation experiments with different styles of teaching science, technology, engineer-ing and math (STEM). You can read the entire series online at thebdh.org/stem.

Tuesday: The University has identified the quality of STEM courses as a priority in recent years. Class sizes can pose peda-gogical challenges, and departments use many strategies to maximize the impact of introductory lectures.

Wednesday: While many students are drawn to the life sciences, few take electives in the physical sciences. This story ex-plores what draws a student to an introductory STEM class.

Yesterday: Not everyone who takes introductory courses continues to take STEM classes. This article examines the reasons students change their minds and claims of “weeding” in pre-medical and engineering courses.

Today: The final story in the series examines pedagogical experiments undertaken at Brown and recommendations for future changes made by the Committee on Educational Innovation.

STEM 0010

An examination of introductory science

courses at Brown

Next year’s science first-year seminarsFall 2013:

▶ BIOL 0190E: “Botanical Roots of Modern Medicine” ▶ BIOL 0190F: “Darwinian Medicine” ▶ BIOL 0190P: “Development of Scientific Theories: Context and the Individual” ▶ BIOL 0190Q: “Climate Change and Species Extinction” ▶ BIOL 0190R: “Phage Hunters, Part I” ▶ BIOL 0190U: “Plant Development, Structure and Function” ▶ CHEM 0080B: “Molecular Structures in Chemistry and Biology” ▶ CLPS 0050A: “Computing as Done in Brains and Computers” ▶ CLPS 0050B: “The Two Visual Systems: Visual Perception and Control of Action” ▶ GEOL 0160C: “Global Environmental Change” ▶ GEOL 0160N: “Monsters of the Abyss: Oceanography and Sea Tales” ▶ PHP 0040: “Addiction: The Causes, Cures and Consequences of Substance Abuse in Modern Society”

Spring 2014: ▶ BIOL 0150A: “Techniques and Analyses using DNA-Based Biotechnology” ▶ BIOL 0150C: “Methods for Extraction and Analyzing Secondary Metabolites of Medicinal Plants” ▶ BIOL 0150D: “Techniques in Regenerative Medicine: Cells, Scaffolds and Staining” ▶ BIOL 0190S: “Phage Hunters, Part II” ▶ BIOL 0190U: “Plant Development, Structure and Function” ▶ CLPS 0050I: “Art and Science of Learning” ▶ PHP 0030: “Health of Hispaniola” ▶ PHYS 0100: “Flat Earth to Quantum Uncertainty: On the Nature and Meaning of Scientific Explanation”

“The focus of keeping students interested in sci-ence is a low priority.”

Mitchell ChangUCLA professor and higher education expert

arts & culture 5THE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2013

By RILEY DAVIS STAFF WRITER

Attitude Dance Company’s ninth an-nual spring show premieres tonight with a colorful and successful display that highlights both the diverse talent of the dancers and student-choreogra-phers and advanced multimedia work.

The show features several different styles of dance including jazz, hip-hop, contemporary and performances with cultural influences. This variety comprises constantly shifting music, costumes and lighting, all of which help keep the audience engaged and entertained.

The dance company, founded in 2004, is one of the younger troupes on Brown’s campus, but that has not stopped its members from trying new performance elements and pushing limits with challenging choreography.

In the show, the company inno-vates through collaborations, props and music, all of which add to the performance.

“We’re doing a lot of collaborations this year,” Attitude co-director Hyun-woo Choo ’13 said. “This year is our second (collaboration) with imPulse Dance Company, there’s going to be an orchestra and a vocalist, and we’re using a lot more props.”

The addition of imPulse dancers to one of the pieces enhances the num-ber’s storyline and helps transition to the second half of the show.

The live music adds another di-mension to the pieces.

“I think people will be very sur-prised by the instruments right in front of them,” said co-director Susan Trinh ’13. “When we’re creating the order of the show, we think about the audience and what they’re feel-

ing and want to provide them with an experience that they might not see every day.”

Attitude also integrates a series of creative props into the show. A tradi-tional Chinese cultural work choreo-graphed by co-director Rosemary Le ’13 incorporates sparkling fans, while a contemporary piece centers around a swath of gauze, which the dancers move in and out of. The props ensnare the audience’s attention from the first beats of the pieces and provide a sense of continuity during the numbers.

Lady Gaga — whose “Americano” is featured in a work with vibrant fla-menco skirts — is only one of the variety of artists featured in Attitude’s show.

“Since we keep it open for our dancers to choose whatever they want to dance (to), the music ranges along with it,” Trinh said. While the well-known tracks establish a tone from the beginning of the piece, lesser-known tracks add elements of surprise to the dances.

The 22-person dance company stuck to the theme of innovation this year by admitting its first two male dancers in recent years. Despite the founder of Attitude being male, the group has remained all female for the last several years.

“We have never been intentionally exclusively female. This is the first year that it happened that boys joined the group,” Choo said.

“When we were first talking about letting (male dancers) in, there was a lot of discussion about how that would change the dynamic of the group,” Trinh added. “But they fit right in.”

The two male dancers add another layer of depth to many of the pieces by bringing variation and a certain strength. Along with the male ele-ment, creative lighting and captivating choreography make the full company pieces — in which all of the company members are on stage — some of the

most entertaining in the show.The lengths of performances vary,

which means the audience must watch carefully to catch the intricate details

in the shorter pieces. But the variation in length keeps the two-hour show from seeming overly long.

The shows will take place tonight

and tomorrow at 7 p.m. in Alumnae Hall. Tickets are on sale for $5 in J. Walter Wilson until 2 p.m. today and will be available at the door for $7.

Attitude’s high-energy show integrates varied dance styles The spring show aims to engage audience members with props and live instruments

EVAN THOMAS / HERALD

Attitude collaborated with imPulse Dance Company, an orchestra and a vocalist to put on this semester’s show. The 22-member dance company includes male dancers for the first time in recent years.

university news6 THE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2013

marriage in Rhode Island, 1 percent somewhat disagree and less than 3 per-cent strongly disagree. Under 4 percent of students reported being opposed to legalizing same-sex marriage in the state.

The Rhode Island House of Repre-sentatives approved legislation in Janu-ary legalizing same-sex marriage, but the Rhode Island Senate must also pass the bill before it can be signed into law by Gov. Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14.

Though a recent poll from the Taub-man Center for Public Policy showed approximately 60 percent of Rhode Is-landers favor legalizing same-sex mar-riage, the bill has remained dormant in the Senate Judiciary Committee, where it must be approved before proceeding to a full Senate vote, The Herald pre-viously reported. Chafee has publicly indicated he intends to sign the bill if it is passed by both houses of the General Assembly.

University HallThe Corporation voted in February

to create a School of Public Health after a unanimous faculty vote in approval of the motion in November, The Her-ald previously reported. Poll results show almost 36 percent of students strongly approve of the creation of the new school, and nearly 30 percent somewhat approve. Close to a quarter of students had no opinion on this is-sue, and 7 percent said they were not familiar enough to answer. Four per-cent of students somewhat disapproved of the Corporation’s decision and just under 1 percent strongly disapproved. The school is currently seeking accredi-tation through national channels, The Herald reported in October.

Approval of Paxson has grown since last semester — nearly 45 percent of students stated approval of Paxson, up from 28 percent last semester, accord-ing to poll results. Paxson convened six committees to direct the course of strategic planning for her tenure, and the groups released preliminary results in January. Despite the increased level of approval, almost half of students reported no opinion on the way Paxson is handling her job as president.

Though the University does not offer the option for students to pur-sue minors, more than 66 percent of students reported thinking the option should exist. Of that group, 60 percent would pursue a minor and just under 6 percent would not. Almost 16 per-cent of polled students said they do not think the University should offer the option, though they would pursue the option if it were available, and 7 percent answered negatively to both questions. Ten percent of students expressed no opinion.

Females supported the existence and pursuit of minors at a higher rate, with more than 67 percent answering that they would both pursue a minor and think the option should be avail-able.

Student lifeTwo-thirds of students attend a

varsity sports game at the University no more than once per semester, with 31 percent saying they never attend varsity sports games. Fourteen percent of students attend a varsity sports game less than once per semester, 22 percent of students attend a varsity sports game approximately once per semester and 14 percent said they attend a varsity sports game once per month.

Fewer than one in five students at-tend a varsity sports game at Brown more than once per month, with 8 percent attending a game once every two weeks, 6 percent attending once per week and 4 percent attending a game more than once per week.

Students’ attendance at varsity sports games varies significantly be-tween those who are varsity athletes and those who are not. Over 63 per-cent of students who said they are on a varsity sports team reported attending a game at least once every two weeks, while fewer than 10 percent of non-varsity athletes do so.

More than two-thirds of students attend an on-campus extracurricular event in the performing or visual arts at least once per month. Thirty-five per-cent of students indicated they attend one of these art-themed events once per month, 21 percent attend once every two weeks, 12 percent attend once per week and 7 percent attend more than once per week.

Sixteen percent of students attend an on-campus extracurricular event in the arts once per semester, while 5 percent said they attend one of these events less than once per semester and 5 percent indicating they never attend.

Over a third of students have mem-bers of their first-year housing unit in their current housing group. Thirty-five percent of students said they met most of the people they currently live with or are planning on living with next year through their first-year units, while 22 percent said they met most people in their housing groups through a student group or sports team.

Nineteen percent of students said they met most of their housing group members through classes or shared academic settings, 36 percent met them through other friends, and 10 percent said they are in a fraternity, sorority or program house. Nine per-cent of students said they went into the housing lottery alone or studied abroad, 3 percent said they were in random assignment for housing and 8 percent said the housing question was not applicable.

Over 70 percent of students said their religious preferences have not changed since coming to Brown. A plurality of students — 42 percent — said they do not currently practice a religion and did not do so before com-ing to the University. Twenty-nine per-cent of students said they practice the same religion with the same level of commitment as they did before enter-ing Brown, while under 10 percent of students said they practice the same religion with more commitment, and 12 percent practice the same religion with less commitment.

One percent of students practice a different religion since entering the University, while another 1 percent of students said they now practice a reli-gion but did not do so before coming to the University. Five percent indicated they practiced a religion before enroll-ing but do not do so now.

Sex and drugsAlmost 85 percent of students drank

alcohol in the past year, according to poll results. Not all students report-ed alcohol consumption at the same rate — 79 percent of first-years and 90 percent of seniors have consumed alcohol this year. Fewer concentrators in the physical sciences — 79 percent — consumed alcohol than did students in other areas of study. Most students who have had

/ / Poll page 1

Full poll results1. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Christina Paxson is handling her job as president of the University?11.9% Strongly approve32.7% Somewhat approve48.9% No opinion5.3% Somewhat disapprove1.3% Strongly disapprove

2. If you are a sophomore, junior or senior, where did you meet most of the people you currently live with? If you are a first-year, where did you meet most of the people you plan to live with next year? (Circle all that apply)35.2% First-year unit with me21.7% Team/student group with me19.2% Shared classes and academic settings35.5% Through other friends10.2% Fraternity/sorority/program house3.1% Random assignment 8.8% Other (live alone, went abroad, etc.)7.9% Not applicable

3. Last month the Corporation voted to create a School of Public Health. Do you ap-prove of this decision?35.9% Strongly approve29.4% Somewhat approve22.9% No opinion3.6% Somewhat disapprove0.9% Strongly disapprove7.2% Not familiar enough to answer

4. In the past year, which of the following substances have you used recreationally? (Circle all that apply)84.7% Alcohol48.7% Marijuana25.6% Tobacco5.7% Prescription painkillers5.3% Amphetamines (including prescription

stimulants)6.3% Cocaine9.2% Ecstasy (MDMA)6.5% Psychedelic mushrooms4.5% LSD1.3% Other (including opiates, heroin, PCP,

etc.)0.5% Don’t know13.1% None of the above

5. Rhode Island should legalize same-sex marriage.82.3% Strongly agree8.8% Somewhat agree5.0% No opinion1.4% Somewhat disagree2.5% Strongly disagree

6. If the University offered minors, would you pursue one?60.6% Yes, and I think the University should

offer minors

15.9% Yes, but I do not think the University should offer minors

10.0% No opinion6.2% No, but I think the University should

offer minors7.3% No, and I do not think the University

should offer minors

7. In a typical semester, how often do you attend a varsity sports game?4.0% More than once per week6.4% Once per week7.8% Once every two weeks13.8% Once per month22.4% Once per semester14.4% Less than once per semester31.2% Never

8. In a typical semester, how often do you attend on-campus extracurricular events in the performing or visual arts, such as plays, a cappella concerts or dance performances?6.5% More than once per week12.2% Once per week20.8% Once every two weeks34.6% Once per month15.9% Once per semester5.1% Less than once per semester4.9% Never

9. How have your religious views shifted since you came to Brown?42.2% They haven’t — I did not practice a

religion before and I do not now 28.7% They haven’t — I have practiced the

same religion with the same commit-ment

9.5% I now practice the same religion with more commitment

11.9% I now practice the same religion with less commitment

1.4% I now practice a different religion than I did before coming to Brown

1.1% I now practice a religion but I did not before coming to Brown

5.2% I now do not practice a religion but I did before coming to Brown

10. Have you ever had sex (genital touch-ing, oral, anal, vaginal) under these condi-tions? (Circle all that apply)53.1% I was intoxicated7.6% I wanted to say no but didn’t object13.8% I did not explicitly say yes or no8.9% I felt obligated to do the same with my

partner as before41.4% My partner was intoxicated2.6% I hoped my partner wouldn’t say any-

thing2.0% My partner gave mixed signals about

consent10.9% I assumed we would do the same as we

did before41.2% I have not been in any of these situations

MethodologyWritten questionnaires were administered to 1,202 undergraduates March 13-14 in the lobby of J. Walter

Wilson and the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center during the day and the Sciences Library at night. The poll has a 2.55 percent margin of error with 95 percent confidence. The margin of error is 3.9 percent for the subset of males, 3.4 percent for females, 5.1 percent for first-years, 4.7 percent for sophomores, 5.4 percent for juniors, 5.2 percent for seniors, 3.8 percent for students receiving financial aid, 3.4 percent for students not receiving financial aid, 6.46 percent for varsity athletes and 2.8 percent for non-athletes.

The sample polled was demographically similar to the Brown undergraduate population as a whole. The sample was 43 percent male and 56 percent female. First-years made up 25 percent of the sample, 28 percent were sophomores, 22 percent were juniors and 24 percent were seniors. Varsity athletes made up 15 percent of the sample. Of those polled, 44 percent currently receive financial aid from Brown. Students reported all races with which they identify, with 62 percent saying white, 22 percent Asian, 11 percent Hispanic, 10 percent black, 0.8 percent American Indian or Alaska Native, 0.8 percent Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and 3 percent other.

Statistical significance was established at the 0.05 level. All reported cross-tabulations are statistically signifi-cant.

University News Editors Alexandra Macfarlane ’13 and Mathias Heller ’15, Strategic Director Greg Jordan-Deta-more ’14, Data Science Editor Andersen Chen ’14, Arts & Culture Editor Maddie Berg ’15, City & State Editor Adam Toobin ’15 and Senior Staff Writers Kiki Barnes ’16, Katie Cusumano ’15, Sabrina Imbler ’16, Hannah Loewentheil ’14 and Mark Valdez ’15 coordinated the poll. Herald section editors, senior staff writers and other staff members conducted the poll.

Over the next several weeks, The Herald will publish a series of articles about individual poll questions. Find results of previous polls at thebdh.org/poll.

R E S U LT S A N D M E T H O D O LO G Y

/ / Poll page 7

university news 7THE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2013

By SARAH PERELMANSENIOR STAFF WRITER

More than two-thirds of undergradu-ates support the creation of the School of Public Health — approved by the Corporation in February — accord-ing to the Herald poll conducted last month.

Over 4 percent of students did not support the school’s creation, with 3 percent somewhat disapproving and less than 1 percent strongly disapprov-ing.

Around 23 percent of students had no opinion, according to the poll, and over 7 percent responded that they did not know enough to answer the question. Class year, religion, sexual orientation and gender did not appear to influence student responses.

“I approve 100 percent,” said Sasha Land ’15, a community health con-centrator. She said she hopes the new school will generate more research op-portunities and funding for undergrad-uates, adding that additional resources

could encourage more undergraduates to consider concentrating in the field.

Public health is becoming a popular major throughout the country because it “sits at the interface of the biological sciences and the social sciences,” said Provost Mark Schlissel P’15. “Under-graduates love it.”

Currently, more than 80 students concentrate in community health, and the number has increased each year for the past several years, said Terrie Wetle, associate dean of medicine for public health and public policy, who will become dean of the new school.

Students not concentrating in pub-lic health have come to her to express support for the school as well, Wetle said. Other students, including engi-neering students and those in the Pro-gram for Liberal Medical Education, have expressed the desire to learn about the research opportunities available through the new school, she said.

“I’m very excited about it because I want to concentrate in public health,” said Tammy Jiang ’16. The “focus on prevention and wellness” attracts her to the field because “people can learn about how to prevent diseases before the onset,” she said.

Though most community health concentrators know about the new

school, the general student body does not seem to, Jiang said.

Jonny Abrams ’15, a classics concen-trator, said he heard about the school’s formation from a friend who is a pub-lic health master’s student. He said he supports having the school for the op-portunities and additional funding it will give to concentrators and graduate students in public health.

The new school can bolster the Uni-versity’s reputation in public health, Wetle said, adding that the “applicant pool for graduate students will grow in size and quality.” Researchers will also be eligible for additional sources of funding that it cannot currently obtain as a department, she said.

Many students who had not previ-ously heard about the school expressed support for the creation when inter-viewed by the Herald.

“I’m totally accepting of it,” said BEO concentrator Emily Waitt ’15, add-ing that she had not heard about the school until the interview but thought it sounded like a good idea.

Many students said they did not feel the creation of the school goes against the University’s philosophy of liberal learning, though some said they saw this as a potential concern.

“On paper (the school) sounds great, but then there’s also the issue of it taking away from our undergraduate education,” said Tom March ’14, an economics concentrator. He said he was concerned that the school could funnel resources into one specific area too much and would need more infor-mation before he could answer whether or not he supported the school’s for-mation.

“It’s a nice step forward to some sort of pre-professionalism,” said Grant Drzyzga ’15, an international relations concentrator. Since the School of Public Health, just like the School of Engineer-ing, is not completely separate from the college, it can help students on a path towards health careers without taking away from “Brown’s charm” as a liberal

arts school, he said. “I have faith in the people who are

in control of these things,” said Michael Zamost ’14, a religious studies and eco-nomics concentrator, when asked if he was concerned about the effect on the Brown’s liberal education.

MethodologyWritten questionnaires were ad-

ministered to 1,202 undergraduates March 13-14 in the lobby of J. Walter Wilson and the Stephen Robert ’62

Campus Center during the day and the Sciences Library at night. The poll has a 2.55 percent margin of error with 95 percent confidence. The margin of error is 3.9 percent for the subset of males, 3.4 percent for females, 5.1 percent for first-years, 4.7 percent for sophomores, 5.4 percent for juniors, 5.2 percent for seniors, 3.8 percent for students re-ceiving financial aid, 3.4 percent for students not receiving financial aid, 6.5 percent for varsity athletes and 2.8 percent for non-athletes.

Poll: Majority of undergrads support School of Public HealthSome students view the school’s formation as a step toward pre-professionalism

JILLIAN LANNEY / HERALD

Last month the Corporation voted to create a School of Public Health. Do you approve of this decision?

Strongly approve

Somewhat approve

No opinion

Somewhat disapprove

Strongly disapprove

36%

29%

4%

23%

1% 7%

Not familiar enough to answer

SAM KASE / HERALD

Public health has become an increasingly popular field at the intersection of the biological and social sciences, said Provost Mark Schlissel P’15.

0

10

20

30

40

50

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Christina Paxson is handling her job as president of the University?

Perc

enta

ge o

f stu

dent

s

Strongly approve

Somewhat approve

No opinion

Somewhat disapprove

Strongly disapprove

12%

33%

49%

5%

1%

a drink in the past year reported also having sex while intoxicated, at a rate of 62 percent.

Nearly half of students have used marijuana in the past year, though athletes reported less marijuana use than did their peers at only 40 percent, compared to nearly 49 percent in the general population. Like alcohol, more seniors have used marijuana in the past year than first-years — 55 percent compared to 43 percent, respectively. Males and humanities concentrators used marijuana most frequently, with both percentages at more than half.

A quarter of students reported us-ing tobacco this year, though male stu-dents smoked more than females, at 30 percent compared to 20 percent among female peers. Athletes and first-years have smoked less than other students this year, at under 20 percent for both groups.

Just over 5 percent of students re-ported using prescription painkillers and amphetamines recreationally this year, though 8 percent of seniors said they used amphetamines in that time. Fewer athletes used ecstasy than their peers, at 5 percent versus 9 percent of students who are not varsity ath-letes. Just over 6 percent of students used psychedelic mushrooms, and 4.5

percent reported LSD use this year. Other substances, including opiates, heroin and PCP were used by 1 per-cent of students. Under 14 percent of students reported they had used none of the above substances, and less than 1 percent did not know which they had consumed.

A majority of students have had sex while intoxicated, and 41 percent of students said they have had sex with an intoxicated partner. More athletes and seniors have had sex while intoxi-cated at 63 percent and 65 percent, respectively. Less than 10 percent of students said they wanted to say no but didn’t object in a sexual encounter, and 13 percent reported that they did not tell their partner yes or no explicitly. Only 2 percent of students have had sex when a partner had given mixed signals about consent, and almost 9 percent of students said they had sex when they felt obligated to do the same with their partner as they had in previ-ous situations.

More than 10 percent of students reported they had sex after assuming they would do the same thing with their partner as before, and 2 percent reported they had sex and hoped their partner wouldn’t say anything. Over 40 percent of students said they had not had sex under any of the above conditions. JILLIAN LANNEY / HERALD

/ / Poll page 6

concentrations8 THE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2013

interest stems from “stories of large fortunes being made on Wall Street” or “genuine intellectual interest” about the economy’s inner workings, Putter-man wrote.

The recent recession has affected both the job market and concentration trends, said Thomas Doeppner, associate professor and vice chair of the Depart-ment of Computer Science, which had 54 completed concentrations in 2012.

“The number of concentrators trailed economic events in recent years,” Doeppner said. “As the economy gets better, we get better.”

The number of completed concentra-tions in computer science has seen two high points of more than 70 concentra-tors since 1984: in 1987 at 71, and again in the early 2000s, peaking in 2003 at 76, according to the data. Doeppner attributed the latter high point to the dot-com boom.

Completed concentrations dropped to 27 in 2007, a dip that held through the recession with 28 degrees being earned in 2009, which Doeppner said reflected an incorrect belief that there were few job opportunities in computer science at that time.

He added that the department ex-pects 68 students to complete “pure” computer science degrees this year, which would be the highest number in a decade.

Another growing concentration is Business, Entrepreneurship and Organi-zations, formerly known as Commerce, Organizations and Entrepreneurship.

“We started with a handful of con-centrators in the beginning, around

2005, and now we have 70 to 85 stu-dents the last few years,” said Brendan McNally, associate director of BEO. Concentrators end up doing a variety of things, including creating startups, he said.

“Creating a company and having a lot of flexibility to do what you want is becoming more popular, and that’s true

among Brown students as well,” he said. Students may lean toward business

or economics over humanities because the companies that make themselves vis-ible through on-campus recruiting tend to represent those fields, McNally said.

“I think students feel pressure to go for brand-name companies because they don’t realize there are other companies out there,” he said.

Different disciplinesThe value of humanities degrees

compared to sciences degrees has recent-ly become a topic of national debate. Un-dergraduates in Florida may soon have to pay more in tuition to study some fields in the humanities than to study engineering or life sciences if Governor Rick Scott’s suggestions are taken up, the New York Times reported. Scott wants students to obtain more “job-friendly” degrees, according to the article.

“I think it’s terribly misguided,” said Mark Cladis, chair of the Department of Religious Studies. “Some public officials

are making fun of humanities, and I think that is very shortsighted,” he said.

Forcing students to pay extra for a humanities degree “sends a terrible signal” to students and makes them feel penalized, he said.

Placing a higher price tag on study-ing humanities shows a lack of under-standing of how many employers are

interested in liberal arts majors, said Andrew Simmons, director of the Center for Careers and Life After Brown.

“I hope they do a little more research on what a college education has to of-fer and get out of this box that only the STEM fields are the ones that matter,” he said.

In a speech to the National Humani-ties Alliance in Washington last month, President Christina Paxson declared that academics need to do a better job of defending the value of the humanities.

“Support for the humanities is more than worth it,” she said in the speech. “It is essential.”

Twenty years after the number of concentrations completed in religious studies peaked at 34 in 1991, the number dropped to 8 in 2011, according to the OIR data. Since then, it has risen again to 18 students in the class of 2012.

One recent downward trend in the humanities has been the number of con-centrators in comparative literature. In 1990, comparative literature peaked at

57 concentrations completed, according to the data. There were only 27 in 2012, but that number is expected to rise again to 40 for the class of 2013, department faculty members said.

“I find that ... among my friends who are science concentrators, there’s a stig-ma against humanities concentrations, that they’re a joke,” said Allison Schaaff ’14, who is a pre-medical student con-centrating in comparative literature. She added that she thinks people feel pres-sure not to concentrate in humanities because they believe such degrees may not lead to employment after college.

“I didn’t feel completely free to con-centrate in comparative literature until I decided I was also going to be a pre-med. I think my experience speaks to that pressure,” she said.

Students are concerned about find-ing a job right after graduation, Cladis said. “They want to find a pretty direct route to that, so they’re tempted by con-centrations that seem to provide that,” he said.

Though social sciences are the largest discipline at Brown, another concentra-tion that has seen a decline in the past few years is sociology, which fell from 44 concentrators in the class of 2007 to 14 concentrators each in the classes of 2010 and 2011.

From 2011 to 2012, the number of completed life sciences and physical sci-ences concentrations increased by 76 and 62, respectively, according to the OIR data. The rising popularity of the neuroscience concentration contrib-uted to the life sciences growth — 22 more students completed a neurosci-ence degree in 2012 than did in 2011. Since 1984, the number of completed

neuroscience degrees has more than doubled, from 33 in 1984 to 85 in 2012.

Many paths to successGeorgetown University researchers

released a report in 2011 that placed an economic value on different ma-jors. Their analysis showed that while petroleum engineering majors made an average of $120,000 a year over the course of their careers, counsel-ing psychology majors earned around $29,000 a year.

But there is no way to tell if a con-centration will lead to a high-paying career, Simmons said.

“Students have a perception that cer-tain concentrations are going to look better than others,” he said. “The reality is that employers are more interested in the variety of skills and experience you bring to the table.”

Future career or financial concerns should not affect students’ “passions or choices,” Schaaff said. “When you go to Brown, what your major is doesn’t really matter in the long run. There are all kinds of ways to get your foot in the door.”

No one can predict which courses of study will lead students to earn the highest salaries, Simmons said. “Most students at Brown that I’ve met are not talking about lucrative careers. They’re talking about meaningful careers.”

/ / Degrees page 1

By APARAAJIT SRIRAMSTAFF WRITER

Over roughly the past 20 years, neu-roscience has steadily strengthened its presence at Brown, boasting con-sistently growing numbers of under-graduate concentrators and center-ing around the Brown Institute for Brain Sciences, a premier research framework.

President Obama unveiled a plan this week to commit at least $100 mil-lion to the brain sciences by 2014. “The most powerful computer in the world isn’t nearly as intuitive as the one we’re born with,” he said.

Brown students interests seem to align with the president’s focus on un-derstanding the brain — there were a record 85 neuroscience degrees earned in the class of 2012, the seventh time since 2000 that there were at least 60 concentrators in a graduating class, ac-cording to data obtained by The Herald from the Office of Institutional Re-search. In the class of 1994, there were only 21 neuroscience concentrators.

“People are inherently fascinated with the brain,” said Professor of Neu-roscience Barry Connors, chair of the department. “It’s not clear to me why anyone would study something other than the brain.”

“It’s just really interesting how some random cells control our physi-cal and emotional states,” said Carolina Santiago ’16, who said she will likely concentrate in neuroscience. “We kind of know how a lot of things work in

other sciences, but we don’t know as much about the brain, which makes it exciting.”

Adam Loewentheil ’16, who is con-sidering concentrating in neurosci-ence, wrote in an email to The Herald, “I’m considering neuro out of pure interest for the subject ... especially how emotions, drives and changes can be explained by what goes on on the microscopic level in our brains.”

The department has also developed and sustained a reputation for high-quality teaching, students said.

Some students said they were es-pecially drawn to the concentration for its faculty and staff. NEUR 0010: “The Brain: An Introduction to Neu-roscience” has an almost 30-year-long history at Brown, and about 48 percent of Critical Review survey respondents in the class said they were not taking it to fulfill a requirement in fall 2011, the most recent semester for which the course’s data is available.

But not all students were enthu-siastic about their experiences in the department. NEUR 0010 is the only neuroscience class Cale Bonderman ’15 has taken, and he gave the course a mixed review. “The lectures were engaging and informational, but ... the amount of content and the arbi-trary little stuff they tested for was completely ridiculous,” he said. “It’s an intro class, but they expect you to know every last detail.”

Many neuroscience concentrators are also pre-medical students. Many of the requirements for the neuroscience

Sc.B. map neatly onto the prerequisites students need to fulfill to apply to med school, including background courses in physics, biology and organic chem-istry. “The requirements for neuro and the requirements for pre-med are ba-sically the same,” Santiago said. “And that way I can take more classes out-side of my concentration while getting a science degree.”

The concentration also offers a degree of flexibility, allowing for four electives related to neuroscience and encouraging “independent study and honors research projects,” according to the department’s website.

Neuroscience is a relatively young field and “was barely on the radar when I was an undergraduate,” Connors said.

But newness seems to have given rise to the impression among students and academics, both in and out of Brown, of opportunity and growth.

The University has invested in brain sciences research as one of its major initiatives over the past several years.

The Sidney E. Frank Hall for Life Sciences, which cost $95 million, was constructed in 2006 to house the neu-roscience department and the Depart-ment of Molecular Biology, Cell Biol-ogy and Biochemistry. The building that houses the Department of Cog-nitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences — Metcalf Chemistry and Research Laboratory — underwent a $42 million renovation completed in

2012, The Herald previously reported.Beyond Brown, membership of the

American Society of Neuroscience has increased to 42,000 this year, according to the society’s website, and reflects “the same growth trend” seen among Brown students, Connors said.

Hand in hand with this phenome-non, the University is priming its brain sciences research program to stay at the forefront of the field in coming years. The Brown Institute for Brain Sciences, the multidisciplinary con-sortium of departments and faculty members conducting brain research at Brown, will raise $50 million for expansion and new investments in the next five years, The Herald previously reported.

Neuroscience grows as U. emphasizes brain science researchAs a relatively new field, neuroscience has attracted interest both nationally and on campus

GREG JORDAN DETAMORE / HERALD

The number of neuroscience concentrators has risen steadily in the last 20 years, reflecting the University‘s growing focus on brain sciences research.

0

20

40

60

80

100

201020052000199519901985

Neuroscience concentrations completed, 1984-2012

33

85

“Students have a perception that certain concen-trations are going to look better than others.”

Andrew SimmonsDirector of the Center for Careers and Life After Brown

Explore the full set of concentrations data from 1984 to 2012 in an interactive graphic at thebdh.org/concentrations.

concentrations 9THE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2013

By SARAH SACHSCONTRIBUTING WRITER

The numbers of economics and applied mathematics-economics concentrators have risen rapidly in the past few years, with many students motivated by a desire for post-collegiate job security and a growing interest in qualitative analysis.

The number of economics concen-trators rose from 158 in 2008 to 220 in 2012, according to data obtained by The Herald from the Office of In-stitutional Research. The number of applied math-economics concentra-tors also jumped, from 22 in 2008 to 48 in 2012. Though numbers for the class of 2013 are not final, economics currently stands unchanged at 220 concentrators in the senior class, with applied math-economics set to rise slightly to 52, University Registrar Robert Fitzgerald wrote in an email to The Herald.

Having so many undergraduate concentrators “puts a lot of strain on our resources,” said Roberto Serrano, chair of the Department of Economics. “I don’t want to win this distinction.”

The applied math department has

not faced difficulty with increased en-rollments. The department has had to make minor adjustments but is not facing a lack of resources, said Govind Menon, associate professor and direc-tor of applied math undergraduate studies. “We’re just proud,” he said of the spike in concentrators. “Our goal is to sustain this.”

‘Hard to get attention’The growing number of economics

concentrators has made it difficult for students to access professors easily, said concentrator Alyssa Garrett ’15. “The classes are large, and it’s hard to get attention,” she said.

The economics department expects that recently increased requirements will decrease the number of economics concentrators, said Louis Putterman, professor of economics and director of undergraduate economics studies. Starting with the class of 2016, con-centrators must take a second semester of calculus and an additional class in econometrics.

Serrano said he hopes the new re-quirements will also prevent “tourist” concentrators who add economics as a second concentration late in their junior and senior years.

“I think professors are more fo-cused with academia than teaching,” said Jessica Xu ’15, the leader of the economics Departmental Under-graduate Group. “I don’t think my ad-

viser really knows about me,” she added.

Xu is trying to start a mentorship program for concentrators to help un-derclassmen navigate the department.

“We try to attract faculty who are recognized for (scholarship),” Putter-man said. “That could potentially be at odds with undergraduate teaching.” But Putterman said the department tries to “instill a culture” in its fac-ulty that teaching is important, even though research is the “first priority” when it comes to hiring and tenure.

Serrano acknowledged that many students desire more interaction with their professors. “We do our best,” he said, citing an average student-teacher ratio of over 80-to-1 in economics courses. “I want everyone to appreciate the difficulties,” he said.

About 2,500 students enroll in eco-nomics classes each semester, Serrano said. With only around 30 professors, Serrano said the department faces a uniquely challenging situation.

Many first-years find the introduc-tory classes challenging in such large

settings, said Tomas Navia ’16, who said he is considering changing his intended concentration from econom-ics to political science. “The economics department needs to make an effort to make it seem like they care about students,” Navia said.

Transforming perspectivesThomas Fink ’13, an econom-

ics concentrator, said students are generally satisfied with the skills the concentration teaches them. Many students find

Economics sees growing pains as students look for ‘marketable skills’Students perceive econ and applied math-economics as degrees with job security

By ALEXANDER BLUMSTAFF WRITER

The Department of Sociology has seen a decline in concentrators from 44 in the class of 2007 to 17 in the class of 2012, according to data obtained by The Herald from the Office of Institutional Research, but sociology faculty members and stu-dents indicated topics in sociology are being explored through different con-centration programs.

Though there has been a 61 percent drop in sociology concentrations com-pleted in the past five years, the C.V. Starr Program in Business, Entrepreneurship and Organizations has attracted more students who may have previously been drawn to concentrating in sociology, said Michael Kennedy, professor of sociology and international studies.

“We’re moving back up,” Kennedy said, noting that the class of 2012 had three more sociology concentrators com-pleting degrees than the classes of 2011 and 2010, each of which had 14. Those years accounted for the lowest number of sociology degrees earned in recent history and represented a large drop from the mid-2000s.

Twenty sociology concentrators plan to graduate this spring, and there are currently 30 juniors concentrating in the department, Kennedy wrote in an email to The Herald.

The BEO program is sponsored by the departments of sociology and econom-ics and the School of Engineering. BEO seeks to teach students “the methodologi-cal approaches of economics, sociology, engineering and entrepreneurship,” ac-

cording to the program’s website.From 2007-2008, the number of so-

ciology degree recipients declined from 44 to 21, the single largest drop in the department’s concentrators since at least 1985, according to the data, which spans from 1984 to 2012. But this sharp de-cline was accompanied by large growth in BEO’s precursor, the former Commerce, Organizations and Entrepreneurship concentration, which saw a jump from ten concentrations completed in the class of 2007 to 50 in the class of 2008. These changes accounted for a net increase of 17 students who earned degrees in soci-ology-related disciplines, Kennedy said.

“We shouldn’t only be thinking about sociology,” Kennedy said, linking the rise in BEO concentrators to an increase in overall interest in sociology.

But some students said they were more drawn to BEO because of the con-centration’s broader coverage of fields that extend beyond sociology.

“BEO offers a little more of an eco-nomics background,” said Matt Garofalo ’15, a BEO concentrator, calling the pro-gram more well-rounded than sociology. Though Garofalo said he still takes so-ciology courses as part of his concentra-tion, he added that BEO appeals to many students because it “covers a much wider field” than sociology.

Wendy Rogers ’14, a sociology con-centrator involved with the sociology De-partmental Undergraduate Group, said there is sometimes a perception that a sociology degree is “not very marketable” and dismissed as “softer” than a degree in BEO. But she disputed the accuracy of this view. “It’s never going to hurt to get a better understanding of how the world works,” she said.

Doubts about sociology’s market-ability persist among students. “I think BEO strikes people as more practical than sociology,” wrote Steven Adler ’15, an

economics concentrator, in an email to The Herald. Adler wrote he believed students who initially explore economics and statistics courses are often drawn to BEO because the program does not have many additional requirements outside these departments. Students assume that compared to a sociology concentration, a degree in BEO “will be taken more seri-ously,” Adler wrote.

Rogers said the sociology DUG is working to recruit more concentrators, noting that there is “lots of overlap” of material and interest with other depart-ments and disciplines. She added that it makes sense that rising interest in BEO has corresponded with a drop in soci-ology concentrators, given the similar appeal of the subjects.

Students pursuing the sociology con-centration indicated the department’s strengths come from its personalized focus on concentrators.

Sociology faculty members are inter-

ested in engaging students and provid-ing “individualized” advising, said Eva Lindpaintner ’13, a double concentra-tor in sociology and education who is also a member of the sociology DUG. Lindpaintner said she believes double concentrators in sociology and another discipline are becoming more common because of the interdisciplinary nature of material taught in sociology courses.

“Our breadth is part of our appeal, but it’s also part of our challenge in making our presence known,” Kennedy said, add-ing that the number of students double concentrating in sociology and another field has risen in recent years to about half of current concentrators. Economics and disciplines in the health sciences are the most common for double concentra-tions with sociology, Kennedy wrote in an email to The Herald.

The inclusion of a sociology section on the new Medical College Admission Test has also spurred newfound interest

in sociology from students considering medical school, Kennedy wrote. The new MCAT will take effect in 2015, The Her-ald previously reported.

Brendan McNally, associate director of the BEO program, highlighted the strong curricular connections between BEO and sociology. “If you’re interested in businesses or organizations, under-standing theory, what motivates people, what is leadership — that is gold when you come out into the business world,” McNally said, adding that BEO courses often have sociology concepts “embed-ded” within them.

“More numbers (of concentrators) are definitely welcome,” Rogers said, cit-ing the department’s relaxed academic and advising environment as valuable attributes that can “make students feel like they have a special place.”

-With additional reporting by Molly Schulson

Number of sociology concentrators on the rise after precipitous dropHalf of current concentrators double concentrate in sociology and another field

GREG JORDAN-DETAMORE / HERALD

The growth of students concentrating in economics has put a strain on department resources, said Department Chair Roberto Serrano.

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The concentration in sociology has lost concentrators to the program in business, entrepreneurship and organizations, multiple faculty members in the department said.

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/ / Econ page 10

university news10 THE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2013

that economics teaches a different way of looking at the world, he said.

“You try and play out decisions from a very rational perspective,” said applied math-economics concentrator Christopher Williams ’13. “You learn to think about opportunity costs and decisions.”

Connor Sakwa ’15 is concentrating

in economics but said he isn’t sure what he wants to do after graduation.

“Economics is a major you can re-ally do anything with,” he said. “It’s a major that allows you to take business-oriented classes and combine that with whatever else you want.”

Many students choose to concen-trate in economics because it provides analytical skills without being a hard science, Fink said. “Economics is a

really good tool for thinking about different things in the world,” he said, citing statistics and analytic abilities as particularly useful skills. But he added, “A lot of people are economics concentrators and don’t do that much work and get a degree that looks good after they graduate.”

William Gregory ’16 said he is excited to concentrate in applied math-economics and learn about the

world’s political economy. He said un-derstanding economics makes policies and human decisions clearer.

An eye toward the job marketGarrett said it is difficult for stu-

dents in the economics department to get a practical education in business. “It’s reflective of the fact that Brown is not as career-oriented as our peer institutions,” she said, adding that she would like to see more business-focused classes and advising in the concentration.

While teachers may provide cours-es that teach relevant skills and offer individual advice, Putterman said the department is not dedicated to prepar-ing students for business. Students make a choice to come to a liberal arts college, he said.

“We as a department are not in the business of career counseling,” he said, adding that advisers are nevertheless committed to helping students think about careers in the field.

In her State of Brown address last month, President Christina Paxson said she thinks too many students have joined the economics concentration in recent years because they wanted job security, instead of having a genuine interest in the field. In response to student questions petitioning for more career-oriented elements in the con-centration, Paxson — an economist herself — said a “pre-professional program is not very Brown-like.”

In general, many students said they are concentrating in economics or applied math-economics because the degree and course of study will provide them with job security after graduation.

“This concentration does prepare students with very marketable skills,” said Associate Professor of Economics and Urban Studies Nathaniel Baum-Snow.

“Coming to college and shelling out a quarter of a million dollars, you want to make sure you can get a job,” Garrett said.

After the financial crash, many stu-dents realized they had to take tougher course loads to stay competitive in a poor job market, Baum-Snow said.

“Students got more serious about job security after 2008,” he said.

Senior Lecturer in Economics Rachel Friedberg said she has no-ticed more “anxiety” recently among students who are concerned about finding a job after college. “I think compared to 10 years ago — in the late ’90s, early 2000s — when things were much better in the economy, students were more relaxed,” she said.

Over the past decade, firms have started to hire fewer people, Baum-Snow said. As a result, he said, “the labor market is rewarding technical training more than it was 10 years ago.”

Improving technical skillsMany students hope that a degree

in applied math-economics will dis-tinguish them from other economics concentrators, said Katherine Sudol ’16.

“I just don’t want to graduate with a really common degree like economics,” she said. “Applied math-economics makes me stand out. I am coming from a liberal arts school with a quantitative background.”

Concentrating in economics with-out applied math involves significantly less math training, Fink said. “As an economics concentrator, you learn (statistical programming) and statis-tical analysis, but realistically a lot of concentrators have no idea,” he said.

An applied math-economics de-gree allows employers to know that students have good technical skills and abilities, Williams said.

Many students are able to pass through large economics classes with-out ever grasping the skills that are taught, Fink added. While these class-es do have some dedicated students, “it’s way easier to get away with less work than in other majors,” he said.

Serrano said the economics depart-ment is trying to increase the level of technical skills it requires from its con-centrators through new requirements.

“Someone with a concentration in economics should have analytical ability to tackle problems and analyze data,” he said.

Menon said finance is not the only industry that requires skills in data analysis. “We live in a data-drenched society,” he said. “If you understand how to track it and use it in a effective way, it’s a great thing to do.”

By CORINNE SEJOURNESTAFF WRITER

University professors have the opportu-nity to “study abroad” with the Brown Global Forums, a program in which faculty members “exchange” with fac-ulty members from international peer institutions for a week.

Started two years ago, the program is an initiative of the Office of Interna-tional Affairs which has coordinated with numerous universities around the world and is looking to continue expanding its connections, according to the OIA website.

Matthew Gutmann, vice president for international affairs, said the program focuses on faculty members, as they are best able to create long-lasting and close ties with partner institutions. They are the “first step,” he said, in making connec-tions that will benefit both the University and its students through classes, research

opportunities and potential undergradu-ate and graduate exchanges. Gutmann said though Brown’s international teach-ing ties are not a new concept, the Global Forums are both new and unique. They function in a “very targeted fashion,” fa-cilitating connections with “top schools in key regions of the world,” he said.

The exchange requires “buy-in” from both sides, Gutmann said, add-ing that without the mutual interest of both departments the exchange will not take place. He said a significant financial commitment is required from participat-ing departments, which host the peer institution’s faculty member for a week that includes lectures, classroom visits, meetings, meals and housing.

Involvement and interest in the pro-gram have grown since 2011, Gutmann said, adding that he originally sought out faculty members to participate and now finds faculty members seeking involve-ment on their own.

“Many departments have participat-ed,” with multiple participants from the engineering, sociology and applied math departments, wrote Diana Perdomo, in-ternational visit liaison, in an email to The Herald.

Participating faculty members, both from the University and from peer insti-tutions abroad, have praised the program.

“I haven’t heard anything negative,” Gutmann said.

Jessaca Leinaweaver, assistant profes-sor of anthropology, exchanged with Pro-fessor Ceres Victora at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Leinaweaver, who works in Latin America but neither speaks Portuguese nor focuses on Brazil in her research, said the trip offered a “great op-portunity to make global connectionss” and adds to the University’s international visibility. She said it was “eye-opening” to talk to and listen to graduate students talk about their diverse, interesting and high-quality research. Leinaweaver high-lighted the important opportunity for physical contact and communication

that the Global Forums enable and said she will be part of another exchange in South Africa this summer.

Kenneth Wong, professor of educa-tion, exchanged with Professor Hongqin Zhao of Zhejiang University in Hang-zhou, China. He said the exchange provided him with the opportunity to understand how another university func-tions, the roles of professors, the types and relevance of research and how to best communicate his own department’s work. Wong said he believes the program will have “pretty wide-ranging implica-tions in terms of the Brown impact and contribution in other countries around the world.”

David Badre, assistant professor of cognitive, linguistic and pscychological sciences, traveled to two different schools in Turkey, exchanging with professor Fuat Balci of Koc University and Aysecan Boduroglu of Bogazici University.

He said the forums were a “great experience” and offered the opportu-nity to interact with high-caliber science programs, facilitating feedback and col-

laboration. Badre said the program is a great way to improve the University’s visibility, adding there were more gradu-ate students applying from Turkey to the University program this year.

Two Bogazici professors — Amitav Sanyal and Atilla Yilmaz, professors of chemistry and mathematics, respectively — also described positive experiences with the Global Forums in emails to The Herald.

Yilmaz wrote that one of the high-lights of his trip was the discussions about math he had with his hosts — Kavita Ra-manan and Paul Dupuis, both professors of applied mathematics — adding that “it was nice to find connections between our interests.” He wrote that the “experience overall was very pleasant.”

Sanyal wrote that time spent with the chemistry department discussing science and challenges faced by chemistry programs made “the week fly by,” adding that he felt students, professors and uni-versities would all benefit in the long run. “These kinds of programs certainly help to build and strengthen relationships.”

Faculty exchange program fosters cross-cultural tiesThe program allows faculty members to exchange positions with international professors for a week

/ / Econ page 9

arts & culture 11THE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2013

By ANDREW SMYTHSENIOR STAFF WRITER

If you are at all familiar with the work of Young Jean Lee, “the most adventurous playwright of her generation,” accord-ing to the New York Times, you might be surprised that her latest project is set in a tidy, middle-class living room occupied by four straight, white men.

But Sock and Buskin’s latest offer-ing, “Straight White Men,” a play in progress written and directed by Lee, subverts audience expectations, chal-lenging viewers to engage with their prejudices about drama, race relations and gender politics.

The play is in the early stages of an ongoing development process — Lee has spent the last six weeks in residency writing in dialogue with members of the cast and production.

“Most of the script was developed out of improv and discussions with my cast, crew, dramaturg, associate director, assistant directors and drama-turgical board,” Lee wrote in an email to The Herald. “I directed the process and put the script together, but it was intensely collaborative.”

Lee is no stranger to uncomfort-able conversations and taboo material. “When starting a play, I ask myself, ‘What’s the last show in the world I would ever want to make?’” she wrote. “Then I force myself to make it.”

Previously, she and her eponymous OBIE Award-winning theater com-pany examined black identity politics in “The Shipment,” feminism and body image in “The Untitled Feminist Show” and Asian-American identity in “Song of the Dragons Flying to Heaven,” ac-cording to her website.

“Straight White Men” is her latest effort, and Brown was a place to ex-periment with and develop her script, Lee wrote.

“It will have a bunch more work-shops. Then it’ll premiere at the Wexner Center in Ohio, tour inter-nationally, premiere in New York in fall 2014 and then tour internationally some more,” she added.

“I’m so impressed by the students at Brown,” Lee wrote. “They’re so perfec-tionistic yet have a uniquely pleasant vibe and don’t seem as depressingly neurotic as students on other cam-puses.”

The play as it stands now centers on three adult brothers — Matt, Jake and Drew, played by William Peterson ’14, Gerrit Thurston ’13 and Michael Chiboucas ’13.5 respectively — spend-ing Christmas with their father, Ed, played by Zachary Segel ’13. Lee used the “well-made play,” a 19th-century dramatic genre, as a starting point for examining the straight, white, male identity, she wrote.

Lee has worked on plays with nontraditional formats, Segel said. “But she chose to explore the topic of privilege and straight white maleness with naturalism and realism, because that’s kind of the straight white male of theater genres.”

“I ended up sort of half-obeying the conventions in a way that doesn’t really work yet,” Lee said.

This production is set in a living room adorned with upper-middle-class kitsch. There’s a table with ex-pensive liquors, a fireplace hung with equidistant stockings and a rocking chair in the corner bearing the Har-vard insignia. At one point, audience members hear the Yale Whiffenpoofs, an a cappella group, singing Christmas carols.

The current iteration of the plot centers on Matt, the 44-year-old brother who has moved back in with his widowed father after finding him-self unable to finish either Harvard Law School or a Ph.D. program in Russian Literature. Jake suggests the explanation for his failures lies in his experiences at his liberal arts college, where he was “brainwashed” by “ethnic studies classes.”

“How does privilege work? What happens when one rejects his privilege and what does that look like?” asked Jarrett Key ’13, assistant director. “That became the basic frame for Matt.”

The central puzzle Lee has set for herself seems to be why we should be interested in watching straight, white men talk about these issues at all. “The most challenging part was trying to make anyone care about my subject matter,” Lee said. “I still haven’t quite figured out how to pull that off.”

“As soon as we start talking about politics, you can feel the audience cross their legs and say, ‘Well here we are, this is the patriarchy talking to me,’” Thurston said. “Which is amazing, because it’s not. It’s Young Jean Lee talking to you.”

“Straight White Men” runs April 4-7, 10-12 and 14 in Leeds theater at 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and 2 p.m Sundays.

It’s raining (straight, white) men in LeedsSock and Buskin presents a play in progress by experimental playwright Young Jean Lee

By KIERA PELTZCONTRIBUTING WRITER

“A great person makes a great cal-ligrapher,” said Kazuaki Tanahashi, a world-renowned painter and cal-ligrapher, in his lecture “The Zen Poet Ryokan” Wednesday in List 120.

Sitting on a stool in front of about 60 attendees, Tanahashi gave off an air of tranquility as he spoke quietly about Ryokan’s life as a gifted callig-rapher and poet. Listening intently, audience members took notes and laughed at his anecdotes emphasizing Ryokan’s carefree spirit.

“In China, if your poem didn’t rhyme, they didn’t consider it a seri-ous poem, but Ryokan didn’t care. He was free. He didn’t care if it wasn’t considered a poem,” Tanahashi said.

Ryokan would often practice his calligraphy in the air because he couldn’t afford the necessary mate-rials to write on paper. Because he was so poor, he felt free to live his life however he wished, Tanahashi explained.

Ryokan taught Tanahashi to open

himself up to his own emotions, Ta-nahashi said. “Ryokan was so honest about his own emotions about be-ing lonely, being loving and being sensitive to the changes of nature,” Tanahashi told The Herald.

Tanahashi employed humorous anecdotes to further highlight Ryo-kan’s tendency to go beyond the norm. In one such tale, a wealthy man in-vited Ryokan into his home and forced him to do calligraphy. In an act of defiance, Ryokan did as the wealthy man asked but wrote the words, “I don’t want to. I don’t want to. I don’t want to” as his poem, Tanahashi said.

“(Tanahashi) was a great story-teller and painted a great picture for us of who this poet was,” said Michaela Lewis ’13 who attended the lecture.

Tanahashi is “someone who has a deep understanding of art and who also has a deep understanding of Bud-dhism,” said Larson Di Fiori GS. “The poet who he is lecturing on has a deep understanding of Buddhism and is also a very profound poet, so I think it’s very useful to hear from someone who has a very similar perspective talking about that.”

Tanahashi began studying cal-ligraphy after his poor handwriting required him to start practicing with a master, he told The Herald, adding that he later began doing oil paintings

and decided to combine the two.Tanahashi also led a calligraphy

workshop Tuesday night at which he urged the students to embrace quali-ties in line with how Ryokan lived his life.

At the calligraphy workshop, 55 Brown and RISD students, as well as community members, sat in a circle and worked on writing out characters of heaven and earth. Though Tana-hashi said he believes technique mat-ters, he insisted a person’s character has the greatest effect on a person’s calligraphy and urged the participants to avoid trying to achieve perfection. Instead, he encouraged them to let go and allow their minds and bodies to work together to create characters, said Wayne Assing, RISD’s director of Student Development and Counseling and an organizer of the event.

Tanahashi provided a “humanis-tic and artistic linkage” that fits the mission of the contemplative stud-ies department, which was founded in 2006, said Harold Roth, director of contemplative studies and profes-sor of religious and East Asian stud-ies. Both events were sponsored by Brown’s contemplative studies depart-ment, the Rhode Island School of De-sign painting department and RISD student development, according to Brown’s contemplative studies website.

Lecture, workshop explore calligraphyOver 50 Brown and RISD students attended Kazuaki Tanahashi’s calligraphy workshop

Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/the_herald

Herald: How do you think your Brown education prepared you for your work at the State Department?

Jacobson: It was quite useful. ... I did political science, but I also designed — because at the time it didn’t exist — a Latin American stud-ies major, drawing from language and political science and anthropology and sociology and things like that. And that desire to focus on the (West-ern) hemisphere and the ability to experiment at Brown — I just can’t overestimate that. ... I hate to sound probably like everyone else who talks about Brown, but the reason you can do that experimentation is the New Curriculum. ... It’s not like I was do-ing something incredibly radical, but still, there was encouragement for that kind of experimentation intel-lectually and academically that was thrilling to me.

Did you know when you came to Brown that you had a specific inter-est in Latin America or in working in government, or is that something that developed over the course of your time on campus?

No, it definitely developed while I was here. I came from parents who believed strongly in public service, so going into government always seemed like an option, but what I would do wasn’t clear. The focus on Latin America was almost accidental. I was working on political science. I knew I wanted international affairs, and I thought it would be good if I specialized in one part of the world, and I originally thought I wanted Asia. But I spoke a little Spanish al-ready ... and so that combined, as

I said, with the fact that politically what was happening in Latin America almost seemed like, you know, a poli sci lab for creations of democracy and democratic transitions.

Your focus has been Latin America and Western hemisphere affairs. Recently, Hugo Chavez died. How do you think that his death has affected or will affect the re-gion — Venezuela, South America, the United States’ relationship with the region?

It’s still early days and hard to tell, because especially in this electoral climate in Venezuela, there is quite honestly still a hagiography and a nostalgia for Chavez that is almost all-consuming. ... It will be interest-ing to see who replaces Chavez at the head of that sort of populist, leftist wing of countries, and I don’t know that anyone can. ... He had the abil-ity to convince people of a national and regional project that I’m not sure any other leader has, especially with Fidel Castro essentially gone from the scene for the last few years. I don’t know how the relationship will change bilaterally. Obviously a lot depends on how the elections go in 10 days. ... I reached out to Vice President Nicolas Maduro to see if we couldn’t restart a productive dia-logue on some issues where I think we have some mutual desire to advance: counternarcotics, counterterrorism efforts, maybe areas like commercial relationships. And there was a real desire from the Venezuelan govern-ment to do that, but then Chavez took a turn for the worse. ... So nothing’s going to happen until after these elec-tions, and then obviously depending on who wins, we will see whether we can begin to have that better re-lationship. ...

The Obama administration has made clear from the beginning, whether it’s Bolivia or Ecuador or Venezuela, we would like to have a positive relationship. And to varying degrees, each of those countries has said, “No, thank you. We don’t think that’s useful to us right now.” I think that’s too bad. ... We’re not going to force ourselves on anybody. There are lots of countries in the hemisphere who want to continue to engage with us on a lot of different things, and we will hope for the day when we can improve the relationship with Venezuela.

You used to work specifically on Mexican affairs. Immigration re-form has been a major topic of dis-cussion in the U.S. recently. How do you think the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico will develop in terms of both immigration and the illicit drug trade?

I’ve worked on Mexico extensively now for 10 years or so. ... The relation-ship is incredibly deep now, and the cooperation is becoming automatic ... cooperation on everything from environment to security. But there are two domestic issues, which, if moved, will make a huge difference in our foreign policy. ... One, obviously, is comprehen- / / Q&A page 13

university news12 THE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2013

Obama entered office with a desire to build “constructive, balanced partner-ships,” she said.

Jacobson said the United States un-deniably benefits from increased eco-nomic prosperity and political stability in the Western hemisphere. More than 40 percent of United States exports go to countries in the region, and this trade supports 4 million United States jobs, she said.

The Western hemisphere affects United States national security and foreign policy to a greater degree than China or Russia ever will, Jacobson said, but she added that she recognizes hers is “an unpopular opinion.”

“The hemisphere makes a striking range of contributions on the global stage,” Jacobson said. Canada provides leadership in NATO and played a par-ticularly important role in Libya, and Uruguay contributes the most money per capita to United Nations peace-keeping operations of any country in the world, she said.

Jacobson said Costa Rica initiated the landmark arms trade treaty passed at the United Nations General Assem-bly Tuesday, adding that Mexico’s lead-ership in the last three months helped to “get it across the finish line.”

Jacobson said Kerry will steer the State Department to focus on energy — an issue in which Latin America, a major oil exporter, is poised to play a major role — and education, which she said “underpins everything else we’re trying to do.”

Government initiatives already aim to address these issues in Latin America, like the State Department’s Connecting the Americas 2022 initia-tive, which has committed to providing affordable electricity to all citizens in the Americas within the next decade, Jacobson said. Obama organized the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas in 2009, she said, and his 100,000 Strong in the Americas program aims to promote educational exchanges between the United States and Latin America and the Caribbean through sending 100,000 students each year from the U.S. to Latin America and the Caribbean and vice versa.

The final pillar of the State De-partment’s agenda under Kerry will be advancing democracy in the region, Jacobson said.

“It’s my responsibility to speak out clearly and without hesitation when fundamental democratic principles are threatened,” she said. “We cannot be the lone voice of dissent when democ-racy is threatened in the hemisphere.”

At the special General Assembly of the Organization of American States last month, the Inter-American Com-mission on Human Rights came un-der fire from a “determined but small group of governments” that attempted to undermine its legitimacy, Jacobson said. The State Department decided the comission needed reform but “remains an enormous force for good in the hemisphere, deserves defending and should continue to be strengthened and fully funded,” she said.

The special OAS General Assembly resolved to maintain the commission’s funding in full and to preserve its in-dependence, she added.

Jacobson praised the University for creating the Watson Institute, which did not exist when she was an under-graduate. She said that when she was at Brown, the political events in Latin America made it a compelling time for a political science student to study the region. As an undergraduate, Jacob-son double concentrated in political science and Latin American Studies — an independent concentration she designed.

Jacobson encouraged students to consider careers in the federal govern-ment, especially the State Department and United States Agency for Interna-tional Development.

/ / State page 1

Q&A with Roberta Jacobson ’82

www.browndailyherald.com

sive immigration reform. If that gets passed, which I’m very optimistic about and I know the president is for this year, that’s going to be enor-mous, very positive. But the second is if we can do anything on gun control, which we have not been able to do or even really debate in years. And Mexico, like Central America and the Caribbean, has been very criti-cal of the flow of illicit guns to their countries. ...

Both (immigration reform and gun control) help us deal with the security problem of transnational criminal organizations. And I tend to call them that rather than just drug cartels ... because ... where they’ve been under heavy threat or they haven’t been able to traffic in certain areas of Mexico, they don’t just go away. They get into other criminal activities: extortion, kidnapping for ransom, trafficking in persons. So we shouldn’t kid ourselves that if we solve the narcotics issues, all these guys will become Boy Scouts. ... If you’ve got a border that is not being crossed by thousands of people coming here for economic reasons, you can concen-trate on the people who are moving contraband of any sort. And you can partner with Mexico on that, because the really heavy, emotional issue of illegal migration is removed ... You’ve got a guest workers program, and you’ve got a legalization of the folks

who are in the United States. What do you think is the most

pressing issue in the Western hemi-sphere right now and what might it be five years from now?

In terms of the most pressing issue now, it’s kind of two-fold. ... One is in-credibly strong growth in the Western hemisphere, especially South Amer-ica, over the last 10 years ... Fifty-six million people moved into the middle class over the last 15 years. How do you expand that to millions of people who still live in poverty? ... How do you expand that and sustain it?

And there I think the key is edu-cation, where education is not keep-ing pace with the global economy. ... That’s one of the huge challenges that we have now and will still have in five years ... to get more young people educated, capable of really compet-ing in today’s economy. And that, I think, has an impact on the second huge challenge, which is the issue of citizen security, which many people in the hemisphere put at the top of the things they are most worried about, even before the economy. ... We talk about youth at risk. They’re at risk because they don’t see an alternative. They’re not educated to participate in the legal workforce ... I don’t see that as going away.

-Michael Dubin

See browndailyherald.com for the extended Q&A.

sports friday 13THE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2013

Join the Club | Simon Henriques

CO M I C

all of New York’s defense last year as his teammates did their best impres-sions of tackle dummies on that end of the floor. On offense, he sets hard screens and rolls to the rim with simi-lar zest. Chandler is also fine being surrounded by ball-dominant players like Rondo, James and Durant. His 67.9 field goal percentage last year was the third best of all time, mean-ing that he will only take smart shots that he can reliably finish and pass the ball back out when he can’t.

A Tribe Called BenchGuard: Tony Parker. A year ago,

Chris Paul would hold this spot, but the Frenchman has put together such a strong body of work this year that he too vaults ahead of Paul. As the coordinator of the bench, Parker can flat-out score as his points-per-game has improved to 20.9 while Paul’s actually declined three points. There’s also the issue of durability. Paul cur-rently has no cartilage in his knees while Parker only occasionally gets in fights with Drake and Chris Brown. To seal the deal, Parker is actually okay with coming off the bench, while Paul is too American to do the same.

Guard: Kobe Bean Bryant. Killer instinct. As long as he keeps getting mystery German supertreatments, Kobe’s going to play like he’s 10 years

younger. More importantly, Kobe’s locker room presence and Jordan-like addiction to competition should elevate everyone else’s play. He will knock you out and curb stomp you when you’re down. Mamba.

Forward: Serge Ibaka. You want more interior defense? Have some more interior defense. Finger wag included.

Forward: Dirk Nowitzki. Pick-and-roll. Pick-and-pop. The patent-ed Nowitzki drop-back-ballerina-foot-in-the-air jumper. Just imagine closing a game with Parker, Kobe, Durant, LeBron and Nowitzki. Who does a defense try to lock down? “I’m a cop, you idiot.”

Deep bench: Brian Scalabrine. This isn’t technically part of the rota-tion, but if this super team ends up blowing out the aliens, you’ll want a garbage-time guy to soak up the minutes and who does that better than Scal. From the signature step-back pony jumper to the awkward two-hand lay-in, Scal’s got the whole bag of tricks. I want him. You want him. The crowd wants him. Mamba.

Deeper bench: Bill Murray. If you have to ask, you wouldn’t understand.

Manager: That chicken dance kid from Florida Gulf Coast. Who doesn’t love a Cinderella story?

Starting five: Rondo-Durant-James-Love-Chandler.

Bench mob: Parker-Kobe-Ibaka-Nowitzki-Scal-Murray.

over 100 years ago, is like taking a pile of change and just counting the number of coins rather than separating the nickels from the dimes. It should be blatantly obvious that a home run is worth more than a single, but batting average makes no such distinction.

Over the last several decades, many statisticians have built more nuanced substitutes for batting average that dis-tinguish between outcomes beyond the oversimplified binary of hits and outs. The best-known metric today is weighted on-base average, which puts singles, doubles, triples, home runs, walks and even hit-by-pitches on the same scale to estimate how many runs a hitter produces.

Unfortunately there are no non-proprietary examples of these statistics available for college baseball, but there are two better alternatives to batting average that are at our disposal: on-base percentage, the proportion of a batter’s plate appearances in which he reaches

base safely — basically batting average that includes walks — and slugging per-centage, the measure of a hitter’s total bases per at-bat (a single is one base, a double is two bases, etc.). The two are often combined to make on-base plus slugging percentage, a crude but pretty good measure of a player’s overall hit-ting ability.

As an example of how these statistics tell a different story than batting aver-age, let’s turn to the final stat sheets for the 2012 Brown Bears. Of the 10 hitters who got at least 75 plate appearances last year, third baseman Nick Fornaca ’15 led the way with a .328 batting average. But, despite hitting just .318, first baseman Cody Slaughter ’13 was the team’s best hitter because he led the Bears in both on-base percentage with a .403 and slug-ging percentage with a .496. In a similar vein, designated hitter Mike DiBiase ’12 ranked dead-last among Brown regu-lars with a .256 batting average, but his power helped him to a .419 slugging percentage, higher than the team average of .394, and his team-leading 26 walks

boosted his on-base percentage to .401, the second highest on the roster.

Though it is too early for the sample sizes to be significant, we can also ap-ply this thinking to the Bears’ current season. Using statistics current as of Wednesday, outfielder and designated hitter Daniel Massey ’14 currently leads the team with a .367 batting average, but Slaughter with a .387 and right fielder Will Marcal ’15 with a .371 have gotten on base at a higher rate than Massey with a .365. In fact, due to a peculiarity in how batting average is calculated — sacrifice hits are not counted as at-bats in the denominator so as to encourage batters to put the team interest ahead of individual success — Massey’s OBP is actually lower than his batting average.

There’s still a month left of Brown baseball and nearly a full MLB season yet to be played. I hope this will give you some better perspective on how good the players are the next time you’re at the ballpark. Next week, we’ll take a look at pitching statistics and why they may be even worse.

/ / Shaw page 16 / / Stats page 16

/ / Q&A page 12

diamonds & coal14 THE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2013

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“Seeing the spicy with ... as you’re going to the salad

bar (is) so depressing.”— Broghan Zwack ‘16

See spicy on page 3.

D I A M O N D S & CO A LCubic zirconia to the student who said, “I’m a bit of a neophyte

when it comes to web visibility, but I’m learning.” Step one: Clear your browsing history often.

Coal to Professor of Neuroscience Barry Connors, chair of the depart-ment, who said, “It’s not clear to me why anyone would study something other than the brain.” You would think studying the brain might help you figure that out.

A diamond to the student who said, “I had a coffee milk pop, and it made my day.” If that’s the case, we bet Red Bull ice cream will make your week.

Coal to the supporters of housing assistance legislation who dressed as Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion for a rally at the State House. There has to be a better way to jumpstart their acting careers.

A diamond to Rep. Edith Ajello, D-Providence, who said, “If voters arrived on time and are faced with a line, if they’re willing to stand in to do their civic duty, they shouldn’t be turned away.” If only someone would tell the DMV.

Cubic zirconia to Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron, who said the University needs to pursue “a variety of pathways” in innovating sci-ence education. May we suggest starting with the Krebs Cycle?

A diamond to David Sherry, chief information security officer, who said “it is inherent in the Internet that email is unsafe.” That’s why we always make sure we’re wearing our full-body armor before logging into our Gmail accounts.

A diamond to the actor in “Straight White Men” who said, “As soon as we start talking about politics, you can feel the audience cross their legs and say, ‘Well here we are, this is the patriarchy talking to me.’” Either that, or they just really needed to use the restroom before intermission.

Cubic zirconia to Rep. John Edwards, D-Tiverton and Portsmouth, who said marijuana decriminalization will “prevent a youthful indiscre-tion from ruining a person’s life.” Edwards will now seek to shut down all Tinder accounts.

Coal to the professor who asked, “How many times have you stopped to look at something and thought about its chemicals?” Every time we sample the Sharpe Refectory’s vegan nuggets.

Q U OT E O F T H E D AY

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taking sides 15THE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2013

Should Brown have a business degree?

Brown is not the Wharton School of Busi-ness, nor does the administration want Brown to emulate Wharton — but our col-lege should rethink this decision. Having transferred from Wharton, I know what makes an undergraduate business program, the advantages of this experience and the drawbacks borne by a more tailored edu-cation. In its quest to maintain the integri-ty of Brown’s liberal arts ethos, the Uni-versity has shunned pre-professionalism and patent attempts to move toward such an approach.

But Brown is also distinguished by its progressive attitude and willingness to accept change in the face of increasing workplace complexi-ties, evolving scholastic needs and malleable student preferences. A business degree is not solely practical for aspiring investment bankers and corporate raiders. Given the ro-bust interest in entrepreneurship at Brown, the utility of understanding corporations that surround us and the growing competi-tion in the labor market, Brown should fur-nish its offerings with a business degree.

Among the arguments against under-graduate business education — and pre-professionalism in general — is the conten-tion that students should spend their college careers becoming well-rounded scholars. Stalwart defenders of strict liberal arts cur-ricula believe these four years should give us a broad understanding of many disciplines while allowing us to cultivate specialized knowledge through one or two majors. In their support of this philosophy and a rejec-tion of more career-driven paths, they feel that a solid grasp of several subject areas is

compromised by committing to a pre-pro-fessional track. This is not true — many un-dergraduate business programs require stu-dents to enroll in classes unrelated to their majors. At Penn, for example, Whartonites must also take a healthy dose of School of Arts and Sciences courses. Furthermore, business education is fundamental to being a well-educated individual. We should know how the organizations around us function, whether they be hospitals, non-profits, cor-porate conglomerates, retail franchises or even universities such as Brown itself.

Accessing actual business professors and classes through which students can learn more about investment choices, capital bud-geting and management decisions does not

attenuate one’s un-derstanding of the world. On the con-trary, these oppor-tunities and outlets would enhance our wisdom and abilities to digest and analyze current affairs. Even humanities concen-trators should un-derstand the me-chanics of quantita-tive easing and in-

cipient implications for future interest rates. For the sake of personal edification, Brown students would be well-served to familiarize themselves with accounting, financial mar-kets, corporate law and firm behavior. These skill sets should be tested in contexts more structured and practical than economic the-ory classes. Whether we proceed to finance, law, medicine, engineering, charity or the arts, supporting business education with a business degree would reinforce Brown’s reputation for embracing students’ needs and producing adaptable, well-rounded al-ums.

Elizabeth Fuerbacher ’14 enjoys Brown but will always defend the Wharton ste-reotype of hyper-ambitious undergrads hoping to be the next Carl Icahn or Don-

ald Trump. She can be reached at elizabeth_fuerbacher@Brown.edu.

YES

We should know how the organizations around us function, whether they

be hospitals, nonprofits, corporate conglomerates,

retail franchises or even universities such as Brown

itself.

ELIZABETH FUERBACHER

opinions Columnist

In this time of heightened anxiety arising from a precarious job market, many push for undergraduate institutions to offer de-grees that will better prepare them for a seemingly unforgiving real world. But an undergraduate business degree not only runs antithetical to a liberal arts educa-tion but also does not adequately impart the necessary critical thinking skills and open-mindedness to prepare Brown stu-dents for life beyond College Hill.

The University has established its goals for a Brown education in what it calls “Liberal Learn-ing at Brown.” This criterion was estab-lished for students to realize that studying any academic dis-cipline can convey invaluable skills best understood only in the undergraduate college environment. From neuroscience to comparative literature, every concen-tration at Brown allows students to gain knowledge unattainable at times other than during undergraduate studies.

These goals simply cannot be achieved with an undergraduate business de-gree. The ability to comprehend different worldviews, embrace diversity and engage with what the University deems “symbolic languages” are essential experiences that a business degree cannot offer.

My opponent and others argue that regardless of any administration-deter-mined academic goals, a business degree better prepares you for the workforce. This is fundamentally wrong. A business concentration’s narrow scope precludes students from learning the breadth of communication, analytics and other skills

truly necessary for life in favor of teaching them subjects that are often best learned on the job. A 2009 study by the Nation-al Association of Colleges and Employers revealed that the skills workplaces value most are best obtained through a liberal arts education. Moreover, it is not the re-sponsibility of an undergraduate institu-tion to train students for specific jobs — that would be vocational training.

Brown has the responsibility to en-courage students to study disciplines that will cause us to think in ways applicable to any career area — this is evidenced by, for example, the success of physics con-centrators on Wall Street. A liberal arts institution, through its academic concen-

trations, teaches students general yet essential skills that can be used in any job, graduate school or career. That is the defini-tion of preparing students for life af-ter college.

A concentra-tion in business is a pre-profes-sional degree that

puts blinders on one’s undergraduate ex-perience. It only provides skills that are narrow in scope and inapplicable to the plethora of career paths Brown graduates pursue. A business concentration encour-ages students to make huge life decisions before graduating college while mistaken-ly absolving them from fulfilling the goals for a liberal education that teach com-munication, cultural sensitivity and intel-lectual curiosity. If one cannot balance a checkbook without a business degree, that is another issue.

Zach Ingber ’15 is a history concentra-tor who thinks he would be well suited to work for a start-up, though potential employers might have to deal with an

occasional rant about the Soviet Union. He can be reached at

zachary_ingber@brown.edu.

NO

A liberal arts institution, through its academic

concentrations, teaches students general yet

essential skills that can be used in any job, graduate

school or career.

ZACH INGBERopinions Columnist

Ingber’s RebuttalFuerbacher ’14 offers several benefits of an undergraduate business degree, such as financial literacy and investment knowledge. But she fails to explain why business should be a concentration. All of the aforementioned expertise can be gained by reading the Wall Street Jour-nal or conversing with educated profes-sors. Fuerbacher has not met her bur-den of proving what unique skills a busi-ness degree offers that cannot be gained through a liberal arts education. Com-prehension of markets can be strength-ened by POLS 1415: “Classics of the Po-litical Economy” or ECON 1720: “Cor-porate Finance.” Fuerbacher does not de-scribe any unique features of a business degree that justify introducing a narrow, pre-professional degree.

My peer’s argument actually reinforc-es my assertion that a business degree and Brown’s philosophy cannot coexist. Her comparison to the Wharton School explains that Wharton requires students to take classes in disciplines outside of business. Brown prides itself on the Open Curriculum, and any concentra-

tion that would require classes outside the discipline to counterbalance its limit-ed scope runs counter to what the Brown education stands for. A business major would be akin to someone concentrat-ing in “pre-med” or “pre-law,” pre-pro-fessional constructs that should not con-stitute an academic degree.

Learning why the Federal Reserve purchases treasuries is important but does not justify a business concentration. I ask Fuerbacher: What skills can a busi-ness degree impart that are generally ap-plicable to myriad fields? Learning how to invest money is certainly an important skill, but so is balancing a checkbook. A Brown education does more than teach competence at various tasks.

Fuerbacher is correct about one thing: Brown has no desire to become Wharton. A business degree has no place at Brown. It is incompatible with Brown’s academic philosophy and educational goals. I don’t feel that I need a business degree to become the next Carl Icahn. Apparently, neither did he. Icahn gradu-ated with a degree in philosophy.

Fuerbacher’s RebuttalTo clarify sweeping assumptions about business education, Brown would not become a haven for strictly focused students were our university to offer a bachelor’s degree in business. We would merely furnish students with another set of core classes and engaging electives. Ingber ’15 writes that a business degree “provides skills that are narrow in scope and not applicable to the plethora of ca-reer paths Brown graduates pursue.” This incorrectly implies a restricted applica-bility of such coursework and conveys a misunderstanding of what undergradu-ate business education can provide.

As my opponent noted, Brown al-ums pursue many different professional paths. In this startup-obsessed era, en-trepreneurship attracts student interest. Whether socially driven or technology-focused, a desire to establish one’s own business or initiative is a prevailing sen-timent on campus. Sound management principles, knowledge of capital budget-ing and business strategy are important concepts for our students to grasp at the start of their journeys. One might argue

our economics concentration or entre-preneurship courses satisfy this need, but hiring business education faculty members would corroborate prepara-tion available to students.

It would be complacent to suggest we neither need nor desire pre-professional coursework because we succeed in in-ternship and career quests. Our robust creativity and deep intellectual capaci-ties should be cultivated through more technical training. It is a shame when employers at banking or consulting in-formation sessions caution, “We don’t expect Brown students to know much about stocks,” or “People from Wharton and Stern know much more than you, so study up before interviewing.” Why not shatter these expectations by having classes that communicate this informa-tion? To conclude that pre-professional education and the ability to digest many facets of the world are mutually exclusive is misguided. A business degree would enhance students’ knowledge and allow us to use practical classes to achieve our post-graduation goals.

A few weeks ago, I delivered an in-depth analysis of the timeless classic, “Space Jam.” The modern epic in which Michael Jordan and the Looney Tune bunch take on the bad guys in some classic five-on-five action made me wonder: Who in today’s NBA would represent us in a doomsday/basketball scenario? Seeing as I’m completely unqualified to write about baseball, let’s roll with it.

The framework for this team will be nine players — a solid playoff rota-tion — who can actually play together. Unlike an All-Star team, these won’t be five ball-dominant, no-defense chuck-ers. And just like in the ’92 Olympics, Isaiah Thomas will have nothing to do with this team.

The StartersThe obvious starting point is LeBron

James. He’s the best basketball player on the planet right now and arguably the best athlete. Assuming the aliens take on mammoth proportions, this team is playing big, making James a lock as the starting small forward. He’s versatile enough to play in the post or on the perimeter, can guard every position and can provide instant production anywhere with the exception of Cleve-land. For those who didn’t watch the Bulls-Heat game that ended Miami’s 27-game winning streak, James actu-ally let Kirk Hinrich drive by, so James would be in better position to block the layup. Let me say that again. James is so good that he actually encourages shot attempts so he can make plays!

Forget Der Struwwelpeter — German children hide under their sheets in fear that James will emerge from the closet to swat their shots. The only knock on James is that he will probably take his talents to the alien team if they have a better chance at a championship.

Spreading the floor for James’ post attack is Kevin Love, who, when healthy, is the league’s most ferocious rebounder and a dead-eye shooting big man. Love can crash the boards on both ends, earning crucial second-chance opportunities — unlike in “Space Jam” where every shot magically goes in. More importantly, his shooting prow-ess will force opposing bigs to move out of the paint, opening up space for James to bang down low and guards to penetrate and dish. Love doesn’t need to have the ball to be effective and would happily take a smaller role to play on a good team. Every locker room needs a great beard, and Love will be happy just to be in the building.

While this choice may be unortho-dox, I’m starting Kevin Durant at the two-guard. At 6 feet 9 inches, he’d stand a head taller than most NBA shoot-ing guards, but he’s too talented not to start, he plays like a wing, he’s got enough length and control to not be a complete defensive liability against blow-bys from smaller players (which is further negated by our rim protec-tor, whom I’m about to get to), and we’re playing against aliens, so who cares? There’s a reason Durant has led the league in scoring for the past three years — he can put the ball in the hole from anywhere on the court and does so efficiently. Like the ’09 Orlando Magic team that surrounded Dwight Howard with pure shooters, a team of Durant sharing the court with four plus-de-fenders would probably be A-okay.

Who to select as point guard actu-ally turned out to be the toughest deci-sion, but I’m going with Rajon Rondo. There’s no doubt that Chris Paul is the best point in the NBA right now (Tony Parker is maniacally shaking his head), but Rondo is the best fit for this particu-lar team. Rondo is also prideful enough that he’d rather watch the world burn than come off the bench. Rondo quietly found a consistent jump shot before his season-ending ACL injury, and the reality is that on a team with so many pure scorers, a pure point with solid distribution skills is far more valuable — Steve Nash would own this spot, but there’s no time travelling in this scenario. Sorry, Canada. Celtics fans will note, though, that Rondo can be incredibly frustrating to watch. He is a Mozart-level genius in finding passing lanes and incredibly effective in the pick-and-roll game — sometimes. As Bill Simmons of Grantland perfectly describes it, there’s “Local Cable Rondo” and “National TV Rondo” — two iden-tities as distinct and opposite as Jekyll and Hyde. If people aren’t watching, we’ll have the basketball equivalent of a pouty teenage girl bringing the ball down the court. Luckily, with the free-dom of the world at stake, it’s safe to say we’re getting the version that records triple-doubles at a freakish rate before silently staring down the media as he sulks in the locker room.

Anchoring the starting five is Tyson Chandler. The man is a paint-clogging defensive juggernaut and would be a great pick-and-roll partner for Rondo. The same can describe Howard, except Tyson actually cares about, you know, winning basketball games. (Chandler also does not carry Stephen A. Smith in a baby Bjorn. Fact.) Chandler basically accounted for

TOM SHAWsports Columnist

daily heraldTHE BROWN

sports fridayFRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2013

By LLOYD SYSPORTS STAFF WRITER

Ned Willig ’16 may be a newcomer to the men’s track and field team, but he is already making his presence known both on the squad and in the Ivy League. At the Stanford Invitational last week-end, Willig ran the 800-meter run in 1 minute, 50.20 seconds, tying Gbolahan Fatuga ’96 for the third-fastest time in school history. Willig’s time was also the second-fastest time recorded in the Ivy League this season. He continued to impress at Stanford by crossing the finish line of the 1500-meter run in 3:45.53, the best performance among all Ivy League runners this year and the eighth best in Brown’s history. For his impressive runs, Willig has been named The Herald’s Athlete of the Week.

Herald: How does it feel to start off the season so successfully?

Willig: As the first event of the spring track season, I’m very happy with how I started. It’s a good place moving forward. Starting on a good note is always helpful, especially in gaining some confidence. The mental aspect of track is a really big part.

You mentioned the mental aspect. What do you think about while you’re running?

Really, it’s more not thinking for me.

After so much training, you get into the habit of just running without thinking and just staying relaxed.

What do you hope to achieve this season?

I’d like to qualify for nationals. To do that, I have to place at the regional meet in the top 10 or something.

What’s the best part about being on the track team?

Really, it’s just being in a group of people. The team is my closest group of friends.

So track and field is as much a team sport as any other sport?

Definitely. Everyone’s working to score points for the team. One of my favorite meets of the entire season is the Heptagonal Championships — which is basically the Ivy League Championships — and it’s fun because everyone is really focused on working together to get a good team score.

You’re also on the cross country team. How is training different for the two seasons?

Cross country is obviously more distance-oriented, so we take longer runs. Scientifically, we do a lot more aerobic exercises in cross country, while track involves some of those anaerobic exercises.

Why did you pick Brown?The academic freedom really ap-

pealed to me, but also, when I visited the track team, I really liked the teammates. Running was going to be a big factor for my college choice, and Brown had a good team atmosphere. Coach (Tim) Springfield, too, seemed elite above (other collegiate coaches).

What are your favorite things to do here?

I guess whatever a college kid likes to do. I like hanging out with friends.

And also learning — I study geology. I really enjoy learning about the natural processes of the earth and how all of them are interconnected, although I’m not sure yet what I want to do with it.

You live in Perkins. Do you gain an advantage by having to walk back and forth?

It can definitely be tough at 7 o’clock in the morning when you have to go and run. I do like living here, as it’s a close community where you can come back at night and just talk to super friendly people.

Willig ’16 burns up the track at Stanford

Space Jam 2013: NBA to the rescue

HOME GAMES THIS WEEKEND

FRIDAY

W. Water Polo vs. Marist4 p.m. @ Aquatic Center

W. Water Polo vs. Hartwick8:30 p.m. @ Aquatic Center

SATURDAY

W. Lacrosse vs. Harvard12 p.m. @ Stevenson Field

Baseball vs. Penn12 p.m. @ Murray Stadium

M. Lacrosse vs. Penn3 p.m. @ Stevenson Field

SUNDAY

W. Lacrosse vs. Bryant2 p.m. @ Stevenson Field (Ocean State Cup)

Baseball vs. Columbia12 p.m. @ Murray Stadium

Baseball vs. Columbia3 p.m. @ Murray Stadium

COURTESY OF NED WILLIG

Willig leads the 1000-meter run at the indoor Heptagonal Championships, ultimately winning the race with a time of 2 minutes, 25 seconds.

By LEWIS POLLISSPORTS COLUMNIST

The theatrical release of “Moneyball” in 2011 marked the first time many baseball fans — as well as non-sports enthusiasts — were ever exposed to the next genera-tion of baseball statistics, affectionately known as sabermetrics. With the college baseball season well underway and Major League Baseball just getting started, now is the perfect time to explain some of these new ways of thinking about the game, starting today with hitting.

Conventional hitting numbers may be the easiest family of baseball statistics to understand, but that doesn’t mean the stats you’ll find on a baseball card are worth much. Luckily, sabermetrics has been able to quantify batting bet-ter than any other major aspect of the game, though these advances have yet to be publicly applied at the college level.

Arguably the most meaningless popular statistic is runs batted in (RBI), the number of baserunners that come across home plate to score as the result of a hitter’s batted balls. As a matter of storytelling, it makes sense to take note of who knocks in whom within a game. But this is less effective as a measure of skill over the course of a season.

The obvious problem that even high-profile baseball analysts overlook is that not all hitters have the same opportuni-ties to drive batters in. This situation is similar to that of “clutch” hitters. While some argue that certain clutch hitters possess the preternatural ability to come up with big hits in important situations, it is generally accepted among the saber-metric community that clutchness is far

less a factor in those situations than over-all skill and random chance — if it exists at all. Those hitters with especially good clutch statistics are usually creations of small sample sizes.

Looking at runs scored as a measure of a player’s skill is a similar conflation of individual performance and circum-stances beyond the batter’s control. Reaching base and getting in position to score is something for which a hitter could justly be credited, but obviously he has nothing to do with the subsequent batters’ abilities to drive him in.

Perhaps the most misunderstood sta-tistic in baseball is batting average, if only because of its pervasiveness. A player who hits .300 is universally understood to be a very good hitter. It takes a true legend to hit .400 and someone batting under .200 — the so-called Mendoza Line — will probably be benched in short order. A closer look at the iconic statistic reveals some major problems rendering it ill-suited for judging a player.

Aside from the luck of how batted balls bounce affecting batting average and leading to averages taking a long time to stabilize, the most obvious prob-lem with batting average is that it does not include walks. As those who saw — or better yet, read — “Moneyball” know, the specific ability to get hits is not as important as the more generic ability to get on base. A batter who goes 30-for-100 with no walks is not as valuable as a hitter who goes 20-for-80 with 20 free passes.

Maybe more importantly, batting average treats all hits — singles, doubles, triples and home runs — as equal. This, as baseball writer F.C. Lane famously a n a l o g i z e d

All you know about baseball statistics is wrong: Hitting

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