M O N D A Y MARCH 17, 2003
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Volume CXXXVIII, No. 37
An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891
www.browndailyherald.com
Long-empty Hill House put to use BY JOANNE PARK
The Bears played in the first-ever NCAA Tournament in 1939, losing to Villanova, and also advanced to the tourney in 1986, when the team won its lone Ivy League title, before falling to Syracuse. Considering the team’s slow start, the postseason bid is even more remarkable. Picked at the beginning of the season to finish fourth in the league, Bruno opened the year with a 1-7 record. From there, the team rebounded under the senior leadership of Earl Hunt ’03 and
Thayer Street’s long-vacant Hill House storefront is being converted into a film and video production space for the Department of Modern Culture and Media, keeping in pace with the University’s recent trend of renovating existing buildings to compensate for an on-campus space crunch. Once one of New England’s finest suit shops, the former store became home to Brown Student Agencies, and later, a UPS depot. Established in 1946 at the corner of Thayer and Benevolent streets, Hill House catered mainly to Brown undergraduates, with a varied selection of fine men’s clothing. Brown purchased Hill House in 1987, according to Associate Vice President for Facilities Management John Noonan. The store continued to operate out of the building for about 10 years, Noonan said. The decision to convert Hill House to an MCM building was reached last year, when the MCM department lobbied for a space. The renovations are in keeping with President Ruth Simmons’ Initiatives for Academic Enrichment, Noonan said. “Renovations are a good idea — it’s just a matter of readjusting the space that you’ve got to accommodate more people,” said Associate Provost Nancy Dunbar, who works with the Provost’s Space Committee for unused buildings. Dunbar said the MCM department’s expansion, including its recent addition of a graduate program, were factors in assigning it a new space. “Their popularity with students and graduates prompted us to consider a new location,” she said. New faculty appointments and a need for production space were also factors, she said. Work on the layout of the building is being planned out closely in coordination with Facilities Management and the MCM department. Dunbar said the MCM
see NIT, page 6
see HILL HOUSE, page 4
Cassie Ramirez / Herald
SPRING AT LAST? Sunday’s unexpectedly warm weather lured students to the Main Green in droves.
Lee urges crowd Men’s hoops heads to first NIT to speak out against racism BY JOSHUA TROY
JEFFREY AUSTIN
Alberta Lee urged an audience Sunday night to speak out against racial injustice and to demand employers and organizations promote diversity. Lee is the daughter of Wen Ho Lee, the Los Alamos nuclear scientist falsely accused in 1999 of espionage and violating the Atomic Energy Act. Her lecture for about 30 students in MacMillan 117 marked the close of Brown’s first-ever Taiwanese Culture Week Lee said conversations about race are often suppressed in the United States and college campuses are particularly important places to encourage this dialogue. She added she felt encouraged by the progressive climate she noticed during her stay at Brown. Lee said her father, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Taiwan, was singled out as an ethnic Chinese and unfairly blamed for leaking information to China. She drew a link between her father’s experience and the political climate in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001. “I was pretty much an oblivious model minority kid,” Lee said, “and then my dad’s case happened.” A first-year law student at the University of California at Davis School of Law, she said her decision to study law was based on her father’s experience. “I used to really want to believe in
For the Brown men’s basketball team (17-11), winning 14 of its final 16 games and setting a new school record with a 12-2, second-place finish in the Ivy League paid off unprecedented dividends. The team will be making its firstever National Invitational Tournament appearance, facing the University of Virginia on Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. in Charlottesville. The postseason appearance is only the third in school history, with the prior two being NCAA Tournament berths.
Second annual Spring Thaw Powwow welcomes the season BY MOMOKO HIROSE
Jumping from one foot to the other, Native American men danced across the floor with long fringes swirling out from their arms. The men’s grass dance is one of the oldest surviving tribal dances and one of many showcased at the second annual Spring Thaw Powwow in the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center this weekend. With a large dance arena in the middle and drummers performing up front, vendors set up arts and craft stands around the track. Over 20 stands were present, with smells of venison, curtains of dream catchers and racks of turquoise jewelry. Ceremonies began with the Grand Entry, a formal introduction for the dancers accented by a drumbeat echoed by bells and beads. Performers, dressed in
a wide range of costumes, varied in age and ethnicity, with three-year-old children dancing alongside middle-aged men. After an invocation and honorary ceremony for veterans, dance contests began. The “Tiny Tots” category had children ages five and younger hop, skip and jump around the arena, wearing feather bustles, fringed shawls and brightly colored garments. Bill Crouse, the program emcee from the Seneca tribe, emphasized the importance of including children in the event. “This is the way we pass on our tradition,” Crouse said. “It’s a hands-on experience.” Almost all of the dances involved moving in a circle, with all the dancers following their own steps.
Francis Huntington, arena director and from the Oneida/Mohican tribe said the circle is a sacred symbol, reflected everywhere in nature from the sun to the moon. “A circle never ends. There is no beginning; there is no end,” Huntington said. Though gatherings and ceremonies akin to the powwow have taken place for centuries, some of its dances were only developed in the last century, according to the event’s program. Examples include the women’s fancy shawl dance, in which women skip in intricate foot patterns while twirling brightly colored shawls. This dance is believed to originate from a story of a female butterfly mourning her mate’s loss, according to the event’s program. see POWWOW, page 4
see LEE, page 4
I N S I D E M O N D AY, M A RC H 1 7 , 2 0 0 3 Sarah Doyle eclectic exhibit “Intersections” by female artists lacks cohesive theme arts and culture,page 3
Swearer Center’s SPACE program exhibit features art by incarcerated women campus news,page 5
Brian Rainey ’04 says European leaders are right in listening to their people opinions, page 11
TO D AY ’ S F O R E C A S T Laura Schonmuller ’05 says she does not need to apologize for the whiteness of her skin opinions, page 11
Women’s hockey loses 10-3 to the Crimson on Saturday in ECAC semifinals sports, page 12
mostly cloudy high 57 low 40