T U E S D A Y SEPTEMBER 30, 2003
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Volume CXXXVIII, No. 82
An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891
www.browndailyherald.com
Students feel unsafe despite stepped up DPS efforts BY DANIELLE CERNY
ing of the concept of democracy and said it can ultimately lead to U.S. domination and can ultimately contradict the true function of democracy — to create a global civil society. “We are in a crisis because preventive diplomacy is being replaced by preventive wars against perceived threats,” he said. Gorbachev addressed the war in Iraq more directly in a press conference at Maddock Alumni Center before the lecture. “This war should not have been started,”
Despite several new initiatives by the Department of Public Safety to protect the campus, including more officer patrols and an expanded shuttle service, nearly half of students polled by The Herald last week said they feel somewhat safe or less on campus. Given these changes, DPS Sgt. Stephen St. Jean said he was surprised by the poll results. “We are trying as hard as we can to make students feel as safe as possible,” St. Jean said. Stephanie Chu ’06, who told The Herald Monday she “somewhat agreed” that she felt safe on campus, said she agreed with St. Jean. Brown has the necessary security in place, Chu said. The problem is that not enough students are using it. The emphasis should be placed on raising awareness about the safety precautions already available and making sure students know the appropriate numbers to call, she said. “Students should be more aware that they’re living in a city,” Chu told The Herald, “and take more precautions themselves, such as walking in groups.” Recent changes with DPS include increasing the authorized force to 23 campus police officers — a 43 percent increase over previous years, Vice President for Administration Walter Hunter told The Herald in an e-mail. By reducing routine patrols of the interior of residence halls, DPS increased police visibility on campus grounds. Dorm rounds are now only for fire, health and safety inspections. DPS also instituted new swing shifts to increase the number of on-duty officers at critical parts of the evening. DPS is also holding bi-weekly meetings with the Providence Police Department and RISD
see GORBACHEV, page 4
see POLL, page 4
Judy He / Herald
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev received an honorary doctor of laws degree from the University.
Gorbachev tells Brown crowd world is losing sight of ideal global democracy BY MONIQUE MENESES
Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union, told an audience of more than 1,500 people Monday afternoon that the world is losing sight of the ideal democratic, global society. Gorbachev was on campus Monday to receive an honorary doctor of laws degree from the University, handed to him by President Ruth Simmons. Gorbachev delivered his speech, titled “Democracy’s Impact on Globalization” on Lincoln field. It was translated from Russian. Politics and politicians alone won’t solve the world’s problems, Gorbachev said. He emphasized the importance of having a global civil society where all nations and people are involved in political processes at national and international levels. “There is a problem with political and social relationships in the global society, and the future of a democratic world order hinges on this problem,” he said. This is not the first time Gorbachev has seen room for improvement in the international community. He is recognized for his role as a visionary leader and as the force behind reforms in the Soviet Union from 1985 through 1991. Through policies such as perestroika and glasnost, which focused on governmental restructuring, Gorbachev helped to loosen the Communist Party’s grip on his country during the Cold War era, leading to the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and the beginning of a democratic Russia. But Gorbachev said hopes generated by the new Russian democracy and the end of the Cold War were eventually replaced by disillusionment.
“Many people are losing faith in attaining change through democratic means,” he said. Democracy’s impact on globalization is clear to Gorbachev — the world is far from his ideal of a democratic world order. Instead, he said, world politics are going through a period of “crisis.” He used the United States’ role in the war in Iraq as an example of this “crisis” and suggested the misuse of democracy can be detrimental to the “new world order,” which emphasizes community over the individual. Gorbachev cautioned against the twist-
Architect Eisenman discusses Berlin Holocaust memorial BY CARLA BLUMENKRANZ
What most Germans wanted from the Holocaust memorial now taking shape in Berlin was “a Rodin with seven weeping Jews under a tree,” said its architect, Peter Eisenman. “Everyone would have been happy and everyone would have gone home.” But this is precisely what Eisenman, self-proclaimed enemy of the “Holocaust industry” and self-described reluctant Jew, refused to give them, as he told a full house in Salomon 101 Monday night. Instead he said he developed, initially in collaboration with sculptor Richard Serra, a memorial that “makes you feel awful about being lost in time and space.” Plans for the memorial call for 2,700 unmarked concrete slabs, some as tall as 15 feet, uniformly concentrated across a four-acre site in the center of Berlin. When construction ends next summer, Eisenman estimated, his decontextualized memorial will stand as an alternative to the information-based, explanatory model of the Holocaust Museum in see EISENMAN, page 5
Judy He / Herald
In his Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, Architect Peter Eisenman said that he wanted to create something that “makes you feel awful about being in space and time.”
I N S I D E M O N D AY, S E P T E M B E R 2 9 , 2 0 0 3 Former inmate discusses his years on death row and the legal system page 3
The second Patriot Act is even worse than the first, says columnist Sarah Greene ’04. column,page 11
Andrew K. Stein ’06 writes a eulogy for student shuttle and escort service column, page 11
TO D AY ’ S F O R E C A S T W. soccer co-captain tears ACL and team loses to Big Green in season’s first Ivy game sports, page 12
Football falls to Harvard after winning game against Albany last week sports, page 12
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