T U E S D A Y SEPTMEBER 2, 2003
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Volume CXXXVIII, No. 62
An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891
www.browndailyherald.com
Dean of the Faculty will step down at year’s end BY PHILISSA CRAMER
Dean of the Faculty Mary Fennell — responsible for many of the University’s key decisions regarding faculty hiring, recruitment, development, promotion and tenure — will step down at the end of the 2003-04 academic year after a fouryear term that began in June 2000. Due to a high potential for burnout, the length of Fennell’s term as dean of the faculty is standard for the position, she said. “I’ve definitely felt the intensity,” Fennell said. As the dean of the faculty, Fennell has managed the instructional budget and encouraged and helped departments to make excellent recruitment decisions, said Dean of the College Paul Armstrong. “The strength of the curriculum depends on the strength of the faculty,” he said, making Fennell’s position vital to the academic life of the University. Having served under the administrations of both Interim President Sheila Blumstein and President Ruth Simmons, Fennell said the demands placed on her have varied from year to year. “It’s been a different job almost every year,” Fennell said. Fennell said she decided to announce her plans to step down as the dean of the faculty a year in advance to give the University time to both find a replacement and wrap up some ongoing projects. “I wanted to proactively decide to plan a transition year,” she said. The dean of the faculty reports directly to the provost, who along with Simmons will convene a search committee to identify Fennell’s replacement, she said. During the transition year, Fennell said she plans to continue working on a new set of faculty hires, retooling a new benefits package for faculty and supporting the creation of Brown’s new mulsee FENNELL, page 16
Zach Frechette / Herald
Dean of the Faculty Mary Fennell will step down at the end of the academic year.
Sara Perkins / Herald
Rain is predicted for the opening week of classes — including during Tuesday’s planned convocation exercises.
Network problems leave students with no access to e-mail, Internet and chat BY JONATHAN ELLIS
Many students who returned to dorms eager to check e-mail, research classes or chat with friends found themselves out of luck over the last week. As of Monday night, some users of Brown’s residential network were unable to access the Internet for extended periods of time, according to reports received by The Herald. While some students were blocked from the Internet completely, their roommates’ connections were working perfectly. In other cases, connection speeds varied or specific Internet-reliant applications failed. The problems are attributable to a glitch in the University’s firewall, Richard Boes, director of network technology, said Monday. A firewall monitors incoming and outgoing traffic on a computer network to prevent unauthorized access to the system. All traffic is split into small, manageable pieces of data called packets. The firewall analyzes the packets and blocks those it deems potentially harmful. Some dorms employ a firewall called NetScreen, Boes said. Over the weekend, NetScreen began unnecessarily blocking outgoing packets of information, he said. Working with NetScreen Technologies, the University’s Computing and Information Services rebooted the firewall system, Boes said. That seemed to solve the problem, he said. Boes said the CIS Help Desk told him
around midday Monday the outages had ceased. But many students said the problems continued late into Monday. Andrew Pfeffer ’05, who moved into Minden Hall a week ago, said his entire floor was without Internet access as of Monday night, though other parts of Minden are online. “We had access sporadically for (the first) two days,” he said. “Ever since then, no dice.” CIS told him the problem would be
Some transfer students express discontent at cramped living quarters page 5
Ilana Friedman ’04 makes a video to promote gardening in Providence schools page 5
see CIS, page 16
Brown facilities and library workers form new independent unions BY JULIETTE WALLACK
After years of belonging to an international union, 330 Brown facilities and library workers are taking matters into their own hands by forming a new independent union. In an election last week, the workers voted to withdraw from Service Employees International Union and form the United Service and Allied Union. A similar motion for 120 dining services workers to join the new union failed, so they will remain with SEIU, said Karen McAninch, former business agent of SEIU Local 134. The formation of USAU, the new union, means the University will now have to work with two different bar-
I N S I D E T U E S D AY, S E P T E M B E R 2 , 2 0 0 3 Roadwork on I-95 and I-195 leaves returning Brown students and faculty in a jam page 3
resolved Tuesday at the earliest, he said. With the data CIS collected during the outages, Boes said NetScreen hopes to create a patch for the firewall so the problem cannot happen again. NetScreen officials were unavailable for comment Monday. Boes said there was only a “slight chance” the problem was related to the recent outbreak of viruses and worms on the campus network. Last Tuesday, the
gaining units when dining services workers’ and facilities workers’ contract expires at the end of October, according to Walter Hunter, vice president for administration. “We will still wind up having negotiations with the lawful representative (from each union),” Hunter said. In the past, food services and facilities workers negotiated one contract with separate sections for each workforce, Hunter said. Bargaining with representatives from two different unions means each union will have a separate contract at the end, he said. While University representatives prepare for the end of the facilities and see UNIONS, page 6
TO D AY ’ S F O R E C A S T The craziness of the California recall is cause for celebration, says Toumanoff ’06 column, page 19
Barry Bonds manages to be baseball’s most hated and most respected player sports, page 20
rain high 67 low 57