THE BROWN DAILY HERALD M ONDAY,
Volume CXLII, No. 37
Tamer Starf*ck yields little trouble
RCH
1 9, 2007 19, 20 07
Banner course catalogs to become available today
SNOWY SPRING
BY CHAZ FIRESTONE SENIOR STAFF WRITER
BY SCOTT LOWENSTEIN SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Queer Alliance’s Starf*ck dance Saturday experienced fewer problems than in previous years, with better event management and only one student requiring medical attention. “We were very pleased with the success of the event, the hard work of student planners and the solid coordination between students” and University officials, wrote Margaret Klawunn, associate vice president for campus life and dean of student life, in an e-mail to The Herald. “The careful planning to structure the event paid off.” The one student needing medical attention for alcohol consumption represented a decrease from past years. In 2005, eight students at Starf*ck required medical attention, as did 14 at last semester’s Sex Power God, the QA dance traditionally held in the fall, said Amanda Lehtinen ’08.5, who helped organize the event. The QA was placed on probation after 24 students required medical attention at Sex Power God in November 2005. The event attracted national attention after it was featured on Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor,” and Starf*ck was not held the following semester. In preparation for this year’s event, the University hired a second ambulance for the night and posted emergency medical technicians at the event. An EMT was also stationed at Health Services for the night. The event’s exact attendance has not yet been determined, but “Alumnae Hall was pretty much filled up,” said co-organizer Katie Lamb ’10. “It was certainly fewer people than were at SPG, but there were still a lot of people there.” The event administration also “ran really smoothly,” Lehtinen said. Student party managers checked identification, roamed the party and manned the bathrooms “to make sure that people were safe,” she said. Department of Public Safety officers and private security employees hired for the event dealt with only one major incident involving two students attempting to break into the party through a window near Alumnae Hall, Lehtinen said. “The event was very successful,” said QA President Mike DeLucia ’07. “We had extremely cooperative partygoers. People really got into the theme … and were having a great time on the dance floor.” The dance serves two purposes for the QA. It is one of the alliance’s main fundraising efforts that allow the group to sponsor events during the year, including “queer programming and events promoting understanding of gender and sexuality,” DeLucia said. The party also serves as a “liberated space for people … who are sometimes on the margins or are not mainstream,” DeLucia said, adding that in this respect, the party was very successful.
INSIDE:
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Chris Bennett / Herald Students packed the statue on Wriston Quadrangle with snow Friday.
The Brown Online Course Announcement will become obsolete today when its replacements under the new Banner system — called “Banner Catalog” and “Class Schedule” — go live. The two systems serve distinct but related roles — Catalog will index generic course information such as course name, number and description, while Schedule will provide semester-specific information such as instructor, meeting time and course restrictions. Course information typically becomes available after spring break, but now the information will be available nearly two weeks earlier. “There is a lot of curiosity surrounding Banner,” said Associate Provost Nancy Dunbar, who leads the Banner project. “So I was anxious to get this out early.”
Schedule, which Dunbar said will be students’ primary source for information as pre-registration draws nearer, will feature new search options unavailable in BOCA, including the ability to make multiple selections within each field, such as calling up courses from multiple departments in one search. These features will make Schedule similar to Mocha, the student-run alternative to BOCA, but will not include Mocha’s shopping cart or visual schedule features. In addition, Schedule may not look as polished as Mocha. One complaint about the new course indexing systems is that information is split between two databases — students who decide a course description sounds interesting will have to switch databases to determine whether it accommodates their schedule. continued on page 6
Protestors rally downtown against Iraq war
Students leave Welcome Arnold, but occupation continues
BY SARA MOLINARO METRO EDITOR
About 70 people — including students, community activists and Providence residents — rallied Sunday afternoon at the Beneficent Congregrational Church downtown on Weybosset Street to mark the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq. “Change is long past due,” said the Rev. Jon Almond of the
BY JESSICA ROTONDI STAFF WRITER
The occupation of the Welcome Arnold shelter by Brown students, homeless and their advocates — protesting the facility’s planned closure by the state — officially ended Friday morning, but the building continues to be occupied by several homeless and their advocates.
Mathewson Street United Methodist Church, a message echoed by other speakers at the anti-war rally, organized by Rhode Island Community Coalition for Peace.
METRO The Raging Grannies — a group for “people of a certain age with a progressive political outlook,” according to member Nondas Voll — opened the rally by
singing anti-war songs to familiar tunes. One song, to the tune of “Frere Jacques,” began with the lyrics “Habeas Corpus, Habeas Corpus / Now you’re gone, now you’re gone.” Another, to the tune of “The Farmer in the Dell,” began with “Resist that dreadful urge, resist that dreadful urge / Hi Ho King Georgie-O / Resist the urge to surge!” continued on page 4
MARCH MEANS ART
METRO “We felt we made our statement to the government,” said Geoff Gusoff ’07.5, one of the first students to occupy the shelter in Cranston and among the last to leave on Friday. Gusoff, a member of Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere, said students had two objectives when occupying the shelter — to let state officials know “that either the shelter needs to remain open or you need to provide alternate housing, and to monitor the situKam Sripada / Herald The 27th annual student art show in List 120 will run through April 1.
continued on page 6
SEE REVIEW, PAGE 3
Pulp fiction festival weekend blows away attendees BY ROBIN STEELE STAFF WRITER
Pulp Uncovered — a multi-part event that included a film festival, an exhibition and several speakers — was held last Thursday through Sunday. The event kicked off Thursday evening with a keynote address from Pulp author and historian Will Murray on the evolution of
EXTRA PULP Pulp Uncovered was held over the weekend featuring a film festival, an exhibition and multiple speakers on Pulp fiction
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Pulp fiction and its contributions to popular culture. Murray credited Pulp fiction with “the solidification of the genres that we now enjoy in
ARTS & CULTURE books, TV and films,” including the science fiction, detective, superhero, horror and Western genres. The address was followed by the opening of the Pulp Uncovered
DESIGNER SIGNS ON The University has hired Robert A.M. Stern Architects to design the Jonathan Nelson Fitness Center, slated to open in 2010
11 OPINIONS
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
exhibit at the John Nicolas Brown Center for the Study of American Civilization, which included displays of Pulp magazine covers. The film festival also ran through the weekend, featuring such noir classics as “The Big Heat” and “The Maltese Falcon,” as well as an international selection of films that were influenced by the Pulps. Films were shown at the Cable Car Cinema and the Rhode IsDEBTOR NATIONS Natalie Smolenski ’07 urges Western Civilization to forgive the debts of developing nations for the good of those nations and the West
land School of Design Auditorium. The festival was founded by members of the John Nicolas Brown Center’s master’s degree program in public humanities, currently in its second academic year, said Scott Tiffany GS, director of Pulp Uncovered. Tiffany, a documentary filmmaker with a longstanding interest
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continued on page 4 M. LAX QUELLS MINUTEMEN The men’s lacrosse team stretched its winning streak to four games with a 7-4 victory at UMass on Saturday
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