The Brown Daily Herald M onday, M arch 31, 2008
Volume CXLIII, No. 41
Since 1866, Daily Since 1891
Wing to replace Adashi as new BioMed dean U. finishes search in two months By George Miller Senior Staff Writer
Herald File Photo
Tour groups told that the Rockefeller Foundation insisted students stop calling the library “the John” may be getting a tall tale.
Tours serve up fact with a side of fiction By Catherine Cullen Contributing Writer
Lise Rahdert ’10 stood comfortably on the steps of Manning Hall in front of a large group of prospective freshmen and their parents, ready to give them their introduction to the University. She is as well-informed as any of her fellow tour guides, having memorized the popular histories retold in the information packets provided by the Bruin Club, and she has added her own personal touch and distinction to share with
her attentive group. But though she follows the proscribed stories faithfully, Rahdert may unwittingly mislead her tour groups. Many Brunonian legends have evolved over the years into overembellished tall tales, to the point
FEATURE where taking a campus tour is like hearing the tail end of a game of telephone. You get the message, but the details are a bit off. Rahdert began her tour by walking through the quiet green
Tonight at 5 p.m., angsty applicants log on — and on By Sophia Li Senior Staf f Writer
When asked on Sunday night how she felt about receiving her admissions decision from Brown, Cassie Taylor, a senior at Brighton High School in Rochester, N.Y., laughed and said, “It’s what, 22 hours to go?” But at 5 p.m. this evening, when Brown and the rest of the Ivy League releases decisions online, Taylor will be at crew practice. Unlike Taylor, Nathaniel Marshall, a senior at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School in Chicago, plans to be at his computer at 5 p.m. to find out if he’s been accepted to Brown. “I’ll probably just get home from school early, set my alarm clock for 5 p.m., and just take a nap until then,” Marshall said. Marshall, who also applied to the University of Wisconsin, Morehouse College, and Har vard, Yale, Vanderbilt and New York universities, is one of about 20,000 students waiting to hear from Brown. Marshall said he was anxious to know whether or not he had been accepted. The length of the college application process contributed to
3
ARTS & CULTURE
his anxiety, he said. “It’s been forever since I did the applications and even longer since I began the process,” said Marshall, who said he star ted thinking about college applications after his freshman year and began visiting schools the summer after his sophomore year. “Tomorrow, I’m getting the last round of all my decisions,” said Marshall, who has been rejected from NYU and accepted to Vanderbilt, Morehouse and Wisconsin so far. “For me, it’s the end of something and the beginning of something as well,” he said. Catherine Cheng, a senior at Cheshire High School in Cheshire, Conn., agreed that receiving the decisions marks a “milestone” in her life. Cheng said she was anxious but excited. “Close to the actual time, I’m not going to be able to relax or sleep or anything,” she said. Cheng, who applied early to Yale and was deferred, said Brown remained one of her top five choices. “I think it was definitely the quirkiest place when I went to
industry to art Artists tap the creative potential of Styrofoam in a new exhibition
www.browndailyherald.com
continued on page 6
5
CAMPUS NEWS
and stopping in front of the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library. She quickly launched into a story most Brunonians have heard before. The library was built in the 1960s, said Rahdert, but shortly after its dedication students rechristened the new building. “Brown students like to shorten the names of things, so they started calling it the Rock,” she said. “When the Rockefeller Foundation found out about this, they sent an official letter to the University prohibiting calling it the Rock. Well, continued on page 4
Professor of Medical Science and chairman of the Department of Medicine Edward Wing has been selected as the next dean of medicine and biological sciences after an abbreviated and somewhat controversial selection process. Eli Adashi, the current dean, confirmed Sunday that Wing will be his replacement. Adashi said he knows Wing very well and that he’s an “excellent choice.” Administrators are planning to hold a press conference about the appointment today. Wing and a University spokesman declined to comment for this article. In marked contrast to the threeyear process that ended with Adashi’s selection in 2004, the search committee finished its work one month ago after two months of narrowing down the candidate list, Professor of Medical Science and committee member Barry Connors said last week. The committee forwarded an unranked final list of five names to President Ruth Simmons at the end of its work, with Simmons and Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 making the final decision, Connors said. Connors said the committee, although held to a “lean and mean”
Courtesy of Brown.edu
Professor of Medical Science Edward Wing schedule, invited everybody with an opinion to make suggestions. Although the committee was limited to candidates within the Division of Biology and Medicine, Connors said the committee chose candidates with “serious” administrative experience. Professor of Biology Susan Gerbi said on March 22 that the caliber of internal candidates was at least as good as during the previous search, which was not limited to candidates at Brown. Gerbi was involved in the selection process for Adashi as well as the current one. “There’s a lot of talent here in Providence,” she said. “Although I was dubious at first” about whether there would be a sufficient pool, “I was heartened to see the quality of the candidates that emerged.” Some within the biomed division questioned the nature of the search, criticizing it as too short or too excontinued on page 6
Task force: U. can better address sexual assault Klawunn: all requests ‘being worked on’ By Marisa Calleja S taf f Writer
As she brought her sexual assault case to a University nonacademic disciplinar y hearing, Kezia Spence ’08 said she realized the process to hold the accused responsible would be more difficult than she originally thought. “I knew I would have to fight against the Brown system to have my stor y heard, which is
not what I expected” Spence said in “Hush,” a documentar y made by Kristin Jordan ’09 and Marta daSilva ’09. The film uses inter views with three students who were victims of sexual assault to highlight their difficulty navigating Brown’s policies after their assaults. As members of the student group Sexual Assault Task Force, Jordan and daSilva now use the documentar y to support the task force’s recommendations, which include hiring a full-time resource staffer to more adequately handle sexual assault cases and maintaining
more accurate statistics concerning occurrences of the crime. The task force has made some progress on their recommendations. Task force members were told in a March meeting with Director of Health Education Frances Mantak that the University has decided to hire a full-time resource staffer for issues of sexual misconduct, Jordan said. Dean for Student Life and Associate Vice President of Campus Life Margaret Klawunn said the policies currently in place are continued on page 6
J-term for credit heading toward approval By Chaz Kelsh Senior Staf f Writer
As the proposal to of fer some January@Brown courses for credit works its way toward official approval, the College Curriculum Council is currently working on a “formal proposal” to the faculty, which still must give its go-ahead to the idea, Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. Once the CCC’s proposal receives “faculty endorsement,”
arms control Kimberley Misher ‘07 will work as a Carnegie Fellow on nonproliferation issues
11
OPINIONS
instructors will submit course proposals to the Office of Summer and Continuing Studies, which will then submit them to the CCC for approval on an individual basis, she wrote. “The idea would be to offer the courses on a credit-optional basis; and to assign no more than a half credit for each course,” Bergeron wrote. It will be unclear whether courses would be offered for a grade or on a satisfactor y/no credit basis until the proposal is
a fresh look Matt Aks ‘11 calls for a second, more nuanced glance at counterterrorist strategies
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
“vetted” by the CCC, she wrote. It is “way too soon” to say what the criteria are for a credit-bearing course, Dean of Summer and Continuing Studies Karen Sibley said. Courses must have a certain number of hours and a certain quality standard to receive credit, she added. Bergeron and Sibley both said students have over whelmingly requested a credit option for January@Brown. Bergeron wrote that many students who participated continued on page 4 tomorrow’s weather It’s going to be sunny and warm — we heard that on a tour
wind, 62 / 39 News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com