T U E S D A Y NOVEMBER 4, 2003
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Volume CXXXVIII, No. 106
An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891
www.browndailyherald.com
Facilities union agrees to contract
Work begun on multimillion dollar research facilities
BY LISA MANDLE BY SAMUEL CULVER
Brown is spending more than $134 million on two state-of-the-art biomedical buildings after more than 12 years of forgoing construction on research facilities. By September 2004, a newly purchased space in the downtown Jewelry District will be renovated. The 105,000 square feet of space will house labs, offices, support facilities and conference spaces, and $10 million in sponsored research is expected to occur annually. Brown purchased the 80-year-old building in May 2003 for $143 million. The purchase price included a parking lot with room for 140 cars. The renovations are still in the demolition phase, according to John Noonan, associate vice president of Facilities Management. When the building is complete, 150 researchers will work there. Twenty-five of those researchers will be faculty members, and the other 125 workers will be students and independent researchers. “This building will create a center for genetics, genomics and proteomics and related sciences, where we can connect clinically relevant research to hospitalbased research,” said Richard Besdine, interim dean of bio-med medical affairs. Researchers will move into the jewelry district space in August, after the $39 million renovation is complete, Besdine said. The last time the building was renovated was in 1965. “We are very excited about this; it is an opportunity that didn’t exist a few years ago. The Division of Biology and Medicine had stopped recruiting new faculty because we didn’t have enough space to accommodate them,” Besdine said. The Ship Street project will be completed two years before the long-delayed $95 million Life Sciences building, which
Stefania Frangista / Herald
"Elmo," the American elm outside the Watson Institute, is set for removal this month after being infected with Dutch elm disease.
“Elmo” dead at 100; one of the last of its kind BY KIRA LESLEY
The Brown campus will lose a landmark this month when “Elmo,” the American elm that shades the entrance to the Watson Institute is cut down. The tree, which has outlived the other elms of its generation on the Brown campus, contracted Dutch elm disease last spring. Other elms planted around the same time as Elmo succumbed to Dutch elm years ago, but Elmo remained healthy, said Patrick Vetere, grounds superintendent for Facilities Management. He called Elmo’s perseverance “quite an accomplishment.” American elms are highly susceptible
see SHIP ST., page 5
to Dutch elm disease, Vetere said. In the past, American elms were the most popular street tree in America because they tolerate pollution well and are ideal for shade, he said. Some Midwestern cities such as Minneapolis and Chicago have seen their elm population ravaged by Dutch elm disease. In these cities, elms were planted close together in rows, creating a “cathedral” of foliage over the street, according to Mark Nickel, director of the Brown News Service. When one tree contracts Dutch elm, see ELM, page 4
Jeffrey Masson looks for truth in Freud BY GABRIELLA DOOB
In 1975, Freudian psychoanalysts estimated that only one in 1,000,000 people had experienced childhood sexual abuse. Now, psychologists estimate that figure is closer to one in five. Jeffrey Masson’s work has contributed to this shift. But the sexual abuse expert said during a lecture Monday in Wilson that many people are still unwilling to grasp the extent of abuse in modern society. In his lecture, “Child Sexual Abuse, Recovered Memory and Freud’s Seduction Theory,” Masson described his struggle to convince a reluctant community of psychologists and psychiatrists that childhood memories of sexual abuse are frequently repressed and later recovered by victims.
With the reissue of Masson’s 20-yearold book “The Assault on Truth: Freud’s Suppression of the Seduction Theory,” comes a revival of the debate that once cost Masson his license to practice psychoanalysis as well as his rights as director of the archives of Freud letters. Masson described the confusion he felt when, during his training to become a Freudian psychoanalyst, he was warned that women would come to his office falsely claiming to have been sexually abused as children. It was thought that through these claims women were voicing their sexual fantasies rather than actual experiences, he said. Only a complete reading of Freud’s letters to his best friend, Wilhelm Fliess, gave see ABUSE, page 5
Stefania Frangista / Herald
Writer Jeffrey Masson spoke to a full crowd in Wilson 101 about issues of child sexual abuse and recovered memory.
I N S I D E T U E S D AY, N O V E M B E R 4 , 2 0 0 3 Max’s the site of Providence Police underage drinking sting operation metro, page 3
It's time to take religion to the streets, says Matthew Hamilton '05 column, page 7
Columnists debate Red Sox coach Grady Little’s post-World Series firing sports, page 8
Facilities workers at Brown under a new, independent union negotiated another three-year contract with the University last month. Library and food services workers remain without contracts. The University’s contract with facilities workers expired Oct. 12, said Karen McAninch, provisional business agent for United Service and Allied Workers of Rhode Island, the union representing Brown’s facilities and library workers. The library workers have been without a contract for over a year. Facilities and library workers were previously represented by Service Employees International Union Local 134 along with food services workers. In late August, the facilities and library workers voted to leave SEIU and form an independent union, USAW-RI, The Herald reported. The split was prompted by SEIU’s plan to incorporate the Providence local under a Boston chapter. Negotiating as a new union was “a little bit of an experiment,” but “it did not negatively impact facilities’ ability to get a good contract,” McAninch said. Negotiations were straightforward, she said. The University and the union were able to reach a contract that was “acceptable to both sides,” said Director of the Brown News Service Mark Nickel. The union hoped to receive improved pensions and wages and keep benefits intact in the new contract, McAninch said. The accepted contract includes the exact pension improvement that USAW-RI proposed, McAninch said. Wages were not increased as much as the union asked, she said. They asked for increased wages of 3.25 percent for the next two years and 3 percent for the third year, she said. The final wage increases provide a 3 percent increase for the first year and 2.25 percent increase for the subsequent two years, she said. However, workers with 20 years of service, which is a substantial number of people, will get an additional 1 percent increase in the final two years, she said. The union was not as happy with changes in benefits, though the changes are not as bad as they look, McAninch said. Copayment for prescription drugs went from three dollars to a three-tier system ranging from $5 to $30 depending on the medication, she said. However, the new system covers drugs not included in the old benefits, she said. Co-payment for other services was raised from 5 percent to 6 percent, McAninch said. Changes to the definition of sick time and excessive use of sick time benefited the University in some respects and workers in other ways, McAninch said. The starting rate for custodians was also raised to $11.58 under the new contract, McAninch said. Overall, the new contract is “pretty bare bones,” McAninch said. Dan Paiva, a mechanic with Facilities see UNION, page 5
TO D AY ’ S F O R E C A S T Brown women’s Field hockey team misses out on title, but wins three sports, page 8
Women’s soccer drops last home game of season to UPenn in a 2-1 loss sports, page 8
cloudy high 53 low 44