Daily Herald the Brown
vol. cxliv, no. 37 | tuesday, March 17, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891
Local businesses suffer in economy By Lauren Fedor Senior Staff Writer
It’s been a long, hard winter for local businesses. As the economy continues to unravel, shop owners on the East Side have been forced to dramatically alter their business strategies to stay
By Sophia Li Features Editor
METRO afloat. With sales significantly down from this time last year and limited cash available for advertising, longtime vendors on College Hill have marked down merchandise, cut back on hours and introduced creative promotional schemes. It’s no secret that consumer spending is down — the Pew Research Center reported in February that a vast majority of Americans have recently made changes in their shopping habits. Many local store owners say their single greatest sales challenge is just getting passers-by to enter their stores. Jagdish Sachdev, owner of Spectrum India at 252 Thayer St., said that despite a lack of customers lately, his store offers “some of the best prices and deals” anywhere. So, continued on page 6
Jesse Morgan / Herald
Jagdish Sachdev has come up with a promotional scheme based on the days of the week to draw customers into Spectrum India.
Cutting back on haircuts man,” Matos said, she has noticed an increase in the amount of female customers in the past few In these hard times, many people months. Matos thinks the shift is are trimming costs wherever they driven in large part by the worscan. But does cutting back mean ening state of the economy. cutting hair? Customers are requesting Economists and businessmen shorter haircuts because they have tied fashion styles to eco- will last longer, Matos added. nomic trends for decades. EconoThe recession has helped mist George Taylor dreamed up Supercuts’ overall business, she the “hemline index” in the 1920s, said, because “people don’t want suggesting that hemlines mirror to pay 70 bucks for a haircut.” the economic climate With a basic cut — falling during recesFEATURE starting at $15.95, Susions and rising during percuts offers its serboom times. vices at a lower price than most of Since the recent decline of the other salons on Thayer. the global economy, The Nikkei, Hector Ramirez ’12, who reJapan’s leading business news- cently got his hair cut at Superpaper, has proposed a corollar y cuts, agreed that Supercuts is an to Taylor’s theor y. The paper, attractive option because of its which looked at over 20 years of low price. data from Japan’s largest manuBut, Ramirez added, “In genfacturer of consumer products, eral, $40 for a haircut is pricey suggested that Japanese women for whatever situation you are get shorter haircuts during finan- in. The recession didn’t really cial crises. impact my decision.” Holly Matos, a hairstylist at While other hairstylists on the Thayer Street Supercuts, said College Hill have obser ved that the economic recession has con- more women are getting shorter tributed to changes in the hair haircuts, many disagreed that the salon’s customers. recession is the explanation. Though Supercuts has tracontinued on page 2 ditionally catered to the “urban
inside
By Alicia Chen Contributing Writer
News.....1-4 Metro.......5-7 Spor ts...8-9 Editorial..10 Opinion...11 Today........12
www.browndailyherald.com
E-mail slip divulges financial aid roster The Office of Financial Aid sent out four e-mails Monday that inadvertently released the names and e-mail addresses of nearly 1,800 students who had initiated an application for financial assistance from the University. Three of the messages showed the Brown e-mail addresses — including first and last names — of approximately 500 first-years, sophomores and juniors who have submitted financial aid documentation, and the fourth contained nearly 300. In all, The Herald counted 1,773 names mistakenly divulged Monday. The messages, which were sent around 2:40 p.m. Monday from Financial_Aid@brown.edu, reminded students which documents they need to submit and of the application’s deadline. They did not state that the messages’ recipients were students who had begun the process of applying for financial aid, but Director of Financial Aid James Tilton confirmed that fact
Monday night. Normally, students are sent information by blind carbon copy, or “BCC,” which does not reveal an e-mail’s other recipients, Tilton said. “We made a mistake, and we clearly need to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he said. The Of fice of Financial Aid tracks the names of students who send in any documentation through Banner, according to Tilton. The office then sends those students reminders about the process of applying for financial aid. While the e-mail includes a disclaimer that the information it contains “is confidential and/or legally privileged,” Tilton said he does not consider Monday’s mistake a violation of the confidentiality agreement. “We didn’t include any personal information” about individual students, Tilton said. Because the email does not contain any other identifying information, Tilton said he did not consider the mescontinued on page 4
Dean jabs at Bush, GOP to large MacMillan crowd By Lauren Fedor Senior Staf f Writer
Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean spoke to a packed MacMillan 117 last night about his 2004 presidential campaign, his four years as chairman of the Democratic National Committee and the 2008 presidential election. Students seemed to enjoy Dean’s characteristically direct — and often blunt — rhetoric, and responded with a standing ovation
at the end of the lecture. Speaking and answering questions for just over an hour, Dean’s addressed a wide variety of topics and criticized, at times pointedly, the Bush administration, the Republican Party and conser vative pundits Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. The Bush presidency was “not normal,” he said. “The president and vice president did not respect the Constitution.” continued on page 2
Sushant Wagley / Herald
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.
BuDS revokes warnings to student workers By Matthew Klebanoff Staf f Writer
BuDS managers have revoked the formal warnings issued to workers last month for failing to sign a new contract, which introduced a no-homework-on-the-job policy for Blue Room cashiers and non-cashier employees across campus. BuDS supervisor Yanely Espinal ’11 said she thinks the repeal of the formal warnings came as a result of the petition she e-mailed to the management last week. Though
the petition called to revoke the nohomework rule altogether, Espinal said it primarily took issue with the formal warnings, which workers received for failing to sign and hand in the new contracts on time. Normally, two formal warnings are grounds for termination and can affect the size of bonuses, Espinal said, so workers take them seriously. “A bunch of supervisors, mainly at the Gate, were really disenchanted with the entire policy, and we wanted to tr y to get it revised,”
Espinal said. “We thought that might be a little far-fetched, so we just decided to do a petition against the way the policy was implemented.” According to Espinal, workers received revised contracts in their mailboxes last month, which they were meant to sign and return to BuDS by a set deadline. But many workers were not aware of the form’s purpose or the consequences for not handing it in on continued on page 4
Metro, 5
Sports, 8
Opinions, 11
Buried in snow Fox Point residents fight back over snow clean-up ordinance
The puck stops here Two losses to Yale this weekend ended the men’s hockey season
March madness Marcus Gar tner ’12 narrows the odds on basketball bracketology
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