WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2013 since 1891vol. cxlviii, no. 53

INSIDE

Learning curveDelaney ’15 argues learning styles should be unique.

Drug policy SSDP argues the current U. drug culture needs revision

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The ‘Black Patti’Community will honor the 19th-century performer

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tomorrow

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today

Daily HeraldTHE BROWN

By JENNIFER KAPLANSENIOR STAFF WRITER

Ron Paul skirted around potentially controversial issues and was met with respectful enthusiasm at a lecture Tuesday night in Salomon 101. Shar-ing his views on a plethora of political issues, Paul punctuated his lecture by voicing his distrust of politicians and government, at one point saying he wanted to “neuter” lobbyists.

“The bigger the government, the bigger the lies, the less liberty we have,” the former congressman told a packed house.

Paul highlighted what he described as the plights of big government in policy areas ranging from the econ-omy to international relations, calling big government the root of the nation’s

problems.Once the only OB/GYN in his

town, Paul said he was not interested in becoming a politician until then-President Nixon “ominously” took the United States off of the “pseudo-Bretton Woods gold standard” in 1971.

Since then, the government has continued to grow, the economy has become overregulated and the United States has ceased to produce tangible goods, Paul added.

Paul cited the end of the gold stan-dard and the increasing power of Fed-eral Reserve monetary policy as the causes of the recent economic crisis.

“In the ’50s and the ’60s when we were graduating from college and medical school, there was never a question about jobs,” Paul said, but now even graduates with advanced degrees face serious challenges find-ing work.

Paul condemned the Fed’s response to the recent recession as an example of what he called the corruption of big government.

Ron Paul espouses wary view of big governmentThe former congressman said his first priorities are ending war and reducing U.S. presence abroad

By MAGGIE LIVINGSTONESENIOR STAFF WRITER

A Day on College Hill had record-high attendance among students admitted through the regular decision process, with 823 of 2,649 students accepted to the class of 2017 flocking to campus from Sunday to Tuesday. This year also marked the first time the Third World Welcome was incorporated into the ADOCH program.

In previous years, TWW was held as an overnight event that invited ad-mitted students of color to come to Brown one day before ADOCH began. All the events that used to be held dur-ing TWW were held during ADOCH and open to all students, said ADOCH co-coordinator Jamie Marsicano ’15.

The Admission Office also extended ADOCH to three days and two nights this year to give prospective students more time to experience campus life, student organizers said.

“This year there was so much more time for the students to see everything,” said ADOCH co-coordinator Kate Brennan ’14. “A lot of them said they appreciated being able to go to two nights of different activities.”

The events that used be part of TWW, which are now incorporated into ADOCH, featured more discus-sion and Minority Peer Counselor workshops this year, said Shane Lloyd, assistant di-

Admitted students descend on College HillADOCH was extended to three days and two nights for regular decision admits

By HANNAH LOEWENTHEILSENIOR STAFF WRITER

College social life is often perceived to be characterized by rampant drug and alcohol use, a stereotype reinforced by movies, television, books and popular culture.

It may come as little surprise, then, that just shy of 85 percent of Brown students reported they have consumed alcohol and 49 percent have smoked marijuana within the past year, ac-cording to results of a Herald poll con-ducted in March. One in four students

reported tobacco use.The level of alcohol consumption at

Brown ranks as average among other Ivy Leagues but higher than the na-tional norm, said Margaret Klawunn, vice president for campus life and stu-dent services.

“The level of drinking at Brown is not completely out of line with other campuses, but enough that we are con-cerned,” she said.

But the prevalence of drug use ex-cluding alcohol may be less common than perceived — less than 10 percent of students reported having used each of several drugs other than marijuana. The most frequently consumed drug after marijuana was ecstasy, which just over 9 percent of students polled have used in the past year. Around 4 to 6 percent of students reported having

used other drugs, including cocaine, hallucinogenic mushrooms, LSD and amphetamines that include study drugs like Adderall in the past year.

Trends

White respondents reported drink-ing more alcohol and using more drugs than did non-white students, with 90 percent of white respondents reporting alcohol consumption in the past year, compared to 77 percent of non-white respondents. White students also re-ported smoking more marijuana than non-white students — 55 percent com-pared to 38 percent of non-white stu-dents. White students reported cocaine use at almost four times the rate of their non-white peers: 8.4 percent compared to 2.7 percent.

Black students also reported signifi-

cantly less alcohol use than non-black students, at 74 percent. On average, black students reported using fewer drugs than non-black students.

The poll results also showed a low correlation between Asian respon-dents and drug use. Just over a third of Asian students reported marijuana use this year. No significant correla-tion emerged between other races and substance use, suggesting the related statistics are similar to the average.

Similar percentages of males and females reported having consumed alcohol at least once in the past year, but all other substance use exhibited differences by gender. More than half of male students said they smoked marijuana, compared to 44 percent of females.

Males may

White, older students more likely to use substancesAccording to a poll by The Herald, 85 percent of students have consumed alcohol in the past year

By MAX SCHINDLERCONTRIBUTING WRITER

Doctors prescribe high-risk medi-cations to over one-fifth of elderly

patients in the United States, with higher pre-scription rates found in the

Southeast, according to a new study by University researchers.

The paper was published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine earlier this month.

To conduct the study, co-authors Amal Trivedi, assistant professor of community health, and Danya Qato GS, a doctoral candidate in community health, combed through the demo-graphic data of 6.2 million patients

enrolled in Medicare Advantage health plans in 2009.

More than 1.3 million seniors — 21.5 percent of patients — were prescribed one high-risk medication, with 5 percent receiving two or more prescriptions, Qato said.

High-risk medications should be avoided, Trivedi said, because “it’s likely that the harm outweighs the benefits.” Safer alternatives are usu-ally available, he added.

Around 100 medications are classi-fied as high-risk for seniors, according to the National Committee for Quality Assurance. Most of these commonly prescribed drugs carry few side effects in younger patients, Qato said.

The drugs include anti-anxiety and antihistamine medications such as Equanil and Benadryl as well as oral estrogens.

Americans living in the Southeast are 10 to 12 percent more likely to be prescribed high-risk medications than patients in the Northeast, the study found. Similarly, the 20 worst-

performing hospital referral regions are located in the Southeast.

“I was struck by the scope of geo-graphic variation,” Trivedi said. “That’s important from a policy perspective. It suggests that we should focus on areas of the country where rates are much higher.”

A number of interconnected factors may explain the geographic differences, including different prescibing cultures, a higher prevalence of chronic condi-tions in the area and “a lower quality of care in the South in general,” Qato said.

Women, lower-income individu-als and whites were also more likely to receive high-risk medication, the paper stated.

Women are prescribed high-risk medication at greater rates because some of the classified medications, such as oral estrogens, are prescribed only to women, the authors wrote in the study. But even after controlling for gender-related variables, “women were still at higher risk,” Qato said.

Despite the findings, doctors con-

tinue to prescribe high-risk medica-tions, and patients are unaware of the risks, Trivedi said.

Doctors often prescribe the medi-cations without being fully aware of the dangerous side effects, he added. “Changing provider behavior is a dif-ficult proposition. The necessary first step is to provide information and lay out the scope of the problem,” he said.

There also remains “the need to further emphasize medication manage-ment of geriatric patients in clinical training,” the authors wrote.

As a pharmacist, Qato emphasized the study’s importance in empowering patients by giving them knowledge about their medication therapies. But doctors and legislators need to take the next step, she said. “It’s a call to action for clinicians and policy makers to take this variation seriously,” Qato said.

“It’s about the patient acknowl-edging that they’re participants in an imperfect health care system. They can be active participants in shaping their health care.”

High-risk meds prescribed mainly to elderly, study findsWomen and low-income individuals are also more likely to be prescribed high-risk medications

EMILY GILBERT /HERALD

At the end of the talk, students asked former Congressman Ron Paul, who spoke Tuesday night, about comments he allegedly made regarding race.

/ / ADOCH page 2

/ / Poll page 4

SCIENCE & RESEARCH

// Paul page 3

university news2 THE BROWN DAILY HERALDWEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2013

5 P.M.

Global Health Lecture Series

Biomed Center Room 291

5:30 P.M.

Obama’s “War on Terror”

The Underground

5 P.M.

SPEC Carnival

Main Green

7 P.M.

“The Myth of Progress”

Granoff Center

SHARPE REFECTORY VERNEY-WOOLLEY

LUNCH

DINNER

Tomato Pasta Bake, Beef Pot Pie, Baked Sweet Potatoes, Gnocchi with Gorgonzola Mushroom Sauce

Cheese Ravioli with Pink Vodka Sauce, Vegetarian Corn Chowder, Chopped Sirloin with Onion Sauce

BBQ Chicken Sandwich, BBQ Navy Beans, BBQ Pork Chops, Vegan Malibu Burgers

Vegetarian Corn Chowder, Chicken Fajitas, Vegan Three Bean Casserole, Steak Fries

TODAY APRIL 17 TOMORROW APRIL 18

C R O S S W O R D

S U D O K U

M E N U

C A L E N D A R

Shefali Luthra, PresidentLucy Feldman, Vice President

Samuel Plotner, TreasurerJulia Kuwahara, Secretary

The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement and once during Orientation by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Single copy free for each member of the community. POSTMASTER please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Subscription prices: $280 one year daily, $140 one semester daily. Copyright 2013 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

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rector for first- and second-year pro-grams at the Third World Center.

Attendees checked in Sunday after-noon and were registered by student volunteers and Admission Office em-ployees. President Christina Paxson and Dean of Admission James Miller ’73 welcomed the accepted students with speeches on the Main Green Sun-day night.

Haley Schwartz, an accepted stu-dent from Novato, Calif., said she ap-preciated Paxson’s speech. “She talked about what your heart is telling you in terms of making college decisions,” Schwartz said. “That was more heartfelt and genuine than some of the speeches at the other colleges’ accepted students days that I’ve been to.”

Preparations for ADOCH began last fall, and 33 students were on the planning committee, Marsicano said. An integral part of the planning process this year was the inclusion of student “unit reps,” non-committee members who helped recruit hosts for ADOCH attendees in their dorms, Marsicano said. These representatives helped streamline host recruitment and orga-nized icebreakers for admitted students

staying in their dorms, Brennan added.Brennan said accepted students

benefited from the extra day by being able to sit in on more classes. Depart-ments organized lectures specifically for ADOCH visitors, including ses-sions held by the chemistry, history and neuroscience departments. Ad-mitted students received a handout listing other regularly scheduled classes they could visit.

Christopher Balthazard, an admit-ted student from Needham, Mass., said he attended a computer science class and was impressed by the “caliber of the material.” Balthazard initially ap-plied after attending a computer sci-ence day for prospective students in the fall.

Some attendees highlighted ADOCH’s numerous artistic and cul-tural events as a highlight of their few days on campus. Talent shows were held Monday night in Salomon Center and Sayles Hall, featuring performanc-es from student dance troupes, spoken word artists and comedy groups. Over 10 a cappella groups held late-night arch sings Sunday, and each group serenaded prospective students with about three tunes.

“The Jabberwocks were awesome,”

said Dan Wang, an admitted student from Newton, Mass. “They did a Kanye mash-up and got the crowd pumped.”

Organizers also held an activities fair Monday in Meehan Auditorium, where student group representatives answered prospective students’ ques-tions and were on the lookout for new members.

“I’ve been at ADOCH for an hour and a half and have already signed up for like 40 clubs,” said Luke Camry, a student from New York City who said he has already committed to attending Brown.

Though students accepted early decision were previously allowed to attend ADOCH, the admission office decided five years ago to limit atten-dance to students admitted through the regular decision process, Miller said.

“Our facilities were overwhelmed, and it was a simple matter of us not having enough resources to accommo-date the number of accepted students,” Miller said, adding that he does not foresee the admission office allow-ing early decision students to attend ADOCH again in the near future.

The date of this year’s ADOCH overlapped with Yale’s admitted stu-dents event, but Miller said scheduling conflicts with other schools are not uncommon. It is difficult to decide on a weekend in April for ADOCH that falls before the May 1 commitment deadline and does not coincide with Spring Weekend or religious holidays, Miller said. The admission office rarely considers peer institutions’ own re-cruitment events for admitted students days when scheduling ADOCH, Miller added.

Many attendees said ADOCH helped inform their college choice and made them more likely to walk through the Van Wickle Gates this fall.

ADOCH “made me realize that I really want to be here,” said Kelly Luc, an accepted student from Rosemead, Calif. “It does feel perfect.”

/ / ADOCH page 1

BRITTANY COMUNALE / HERALD

Despite an overlap with Yale’s admitted students event, over 800 students visited College Hill Sunday through Tuesday. Student volunteers offered advice and shared their experiences with prospective students.

university news 3THE BROWN DAILY HERALDWEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2013

UCLA to go smoke-free next weekThe University of California at Los Angeles’ ban on all smoking

and tobacco products on campus will take effect Tuesday, according to various news reports published last October, when the move was first announced.

The ban precedes a University of California system-wide smoking ban that will begin in 2014. The UCLA decision came from Chancellor Gene Block after UC President Mark Yudof requested the change.

UC officials said the ban is intended to reduce exposure to secondhand smoke for nonsmokers and discourage younger students from experimenting with tobacco products, the San Francisco Chronicle reported in January 2012. The ban includes all outdoor and indoor areas and does not create any smoking-designated spaces.

UCLA’s health sciences campus and hospitals instituted a similar ban in November 2011, according to UCLA Today, a university publication.

UC officials told the Chronicle they expect that new programs to help people quit smoking will accompany or precede the ban.

According to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation, there are already more than 1,100 campuses nationwide that have banned smoking completely. No Ivy League institutions have established campus-wide bans, though some graduate schools at Harvard and Cornell have done so, according to the list on the ANR website. Iowa has banned smoking at all colleges and universities in the state, and Arkansas and Oklahoma have done the same for their public institutions of higher education.

Baruch College cheating incident leads to firing

A Baruch College professor was fired for how he handled an incident of possible student cheating on an exam, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported Tuesday.

Brian Moore, an adjunct instructor of marketing and international business, told the New York Post in his account of the event that a student asked him for a hint on an exam question three weeks ago. Moore said after they finished speaking and he left, he saw the student going to a proctor to ask a question. He subsequently tore up her exam and publicly told her she would receive a zero on the test, the Chronicle reported.

Moore was fired for “inappropriate and unprofessional behavior,” college administrators wrote in a message to the Baruch community. According to the college’s account of the story, Moore declined to answer the student’s question when she asked for a clarification. Interim Provost John Brenkman told the Chronicle there was no indication of cheating.

Brenkman said Moore was fired for the public accusation and decision to handle the discipline immediately rather than referring the case to the dean of students, as is standard practice. He also criticized Moore for allegedly leaking the student’s name to news outlets.

But in his interview with the Post, Moore said Baruch had failed to follow through on its purported mission to prevent and punish cheating. “They say they’re committed to stopping cheating, but they don’t really mean it,” he told the Post.

Cornell shows hesitance on coal divestment

Cornell President David Skorton has put the brakes on the growing coal divestment movement at the university, saying at a Student Assembly meeting April 4 that Cornell has no plans to divest in the “immediate foreseeable future,” the Cornell Daily Sun reported earlier this month.

Skorton promised to engage in a “long-term conversation” about the issue as well as a “very serious effort” to invest in sustainable energy sources, and he highlighted Cornell’s general emphasis on sustainability. But he declared that the data left him unconvinced divesting from coal would not harm the university’s endowment. He suggested Cornell should proceed with caution but left the door open to a partial divestment sometime in the future.

Cornell’s coal divestment movement emerged alongside Brown’s this year.

Student divestment leaders had pressed for the university to divest from top coal companies by 2020, and many expressed disappointment to the Sun after the announcement.

“I understand that (Skorton) feels obligated to act in the best interests of the students by maintaining a healthy endowment to ensure financial aid, but he should feel equally obligated to take every action in his power to maintain our planet,” said Cornell senior Kelsey Erickson.

BY E L I O K U N U N I V E R S I T Y N E W S

E D I TO R

T H I S W E E K I N H I G H E R E D “The Fed came in — in secret — to

the tune of trillions and trillions of dollars to bail out all the banks and all the major corporations,” he said. “What happened to the people who were supposed to be helped?”

Large banks and corporations also profit from government welfare pro-grams, Paul said, arguing that the pro-grams do not actually benefit the poor.

But Paul said he would not im-mediately recommend cutting welfare.

“My suggestion wouldn’t be to cut food stamps for the poor or medical stamps for the children,” Paul said. The government should “stop all the wars and bring the troops home … before we do anything else.”

“I think he will eventually advo-cate for cutting welfare,” Galen Hunt ’14 said.

Paul’s statement showed how he “took into account” what the audience wanted to hear, Hunt added.

Paul continued criticizing big gov-ernment and its manifestation through the military-industrial complex.

“The Koreans are coming, the Koreans are coming, so we have to have more weapons!” Paul said, mock-ing big government’s abundant fear-mongering.

Paul advocated removing U.S. military forces from bases across the globe.

“Intimidation doesn’t work, and we’ve been doing it for a long time, and so there’s a lot of resentment building up,” he said. Criticizing drone war, Paul said there are “50 innocent civilians killed for every terrorist.”

Paul spent the majority of his lec-ture discussing economic policy and international relations, but he took time to plug social issues close to the hearts of Brown’s liberal-leaning stu-dent body.

“He treated it much less like a lecture and much more like a trump speech,” said Stephen McShane ’16.

“There should be no question with a state saying you’re allowed to use marijuana,” Paul said in response to a student’s request that he elaborate on his position on the war on drugs. “The less drug laws any place along the line the better,” he added.

Paul also briefly mentioned his belief that the definition of marriage should not be the federal government’s concern. Another congressman once stated, “the people are too stupid — we have to take care of them,” Paul said. “I don’t believe that.”

When pushed by a student ques-tion to reconcile his views of individ-

ual freedoms with his pro-life views, Paul said he has “trouble defending everybody’s minutiae of what every-one wants.”

He referenced his former career as an OB/GYN and professional obliga-tion to protect the rights of the fetus in the eighth and ninth months of pregnancy.

But Paul did not address abortions performed earlier in pregnancy, Mc-Shane noted, saying, “He is funda-mentally a politician.”

The lecture ended on a controver-sial note when a student asked about racially charged statements written under Paul’s name for which Paul has previously refused to accept responsi-bility. Paul used this final opportunity to reemphasize his distrust of politi-cians and the government

“(The statements prove) that man is imperfect,” he responded. “That’s why you should never trust govern-ment.”

/ / Paul page 1

university news4 THE BROWN DAILY HERALDWEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2013

In the past year, which of the following substances have you used recreationally? (Circle all that apply)

Psychedelic mushrooms: 7%

Ecstasy (MDMA): 9%

Cocaine: 6%

Amphetamines (incl. prescription stimulants): 5%

Prescription painkillers: 6%

Tobacco: 26%

Marijuana: 49%

Alcohol: 85%

None of the above: 13%

Don’t know: 1%

Other (incl. opiates, heroin, PCP, etc.): 1%

LSD: 5%

be more likely to take risks than fe-males, said Frances Mantak, director of health education. The statistic could also reflect male socialization patterns where men “use substances to deal with depression, anxiety and trauma.” White males are also the most likely demo-graphic to join fraternities, which could be a risk factor, she added.

Students concentrating in the hu-manities indicated they do more drugs than concentrators in other areas, while students concentrating in the physical sciences indicated using substantially fewer substances. Students concentrat-ing in life sciences and social sciences reported average substance use. A majority of humanities concentrators smoked marijuana compared to a mi-nority of physical sciences concentra-tors, and physical sciences concentra-tors reported less drug use than the average in every category.

Results show that with each year, drug and alcohol use increases gradu-ally — 79 percent of first-year students reported consuming alcohol compared to 90 percent of seniors.

“It seems to be that more freshmen and sophomores get in trouble in terms of alcohol overdoses,” said Paul Shan-ley, Department of Public Safety chief deputy. As students get older, they ma-ture and move away from drinking at a high level of intoxication, he added.

Forty-two percent of first-years re-ported having used marijuana com-pared to 55 percent of seniors. Less than 3 percent of first-years reported having tried cocaine, but that statistic quadrupled to 11 percent for seniors. Ecstasy, psychedelic mushrooms and LSD use also increased significantly based on class year.

Athletes indicated that they drank slightly more alcohol than non-athletes but smoked less marijuana. Athletes and non-athletes reported almost equivalent drug use.

Combating drinking and drug

use“The behavior of moderate drinkers

and non-drinkers is not amplified as much as that of big drinkers,” Mantak said. According to a survey collected last year by Brown University Health Education, 77 percent of Brown stu-dents consume zero to four drinks when they go out, which is below the binge drinking level.

Aleyna Mason ’15 and Messhia Young ’15 live on the substance-free floor of Littlefield Hall. Neither stu-dent said she consumes alcohol, but both said they were motivated to live in substance-free housing for other reasons.

Mason abstains from underage drinking based on her personal val-ues, she said. “I have a big thing with

it being illegal and misused. In this environment especially, I think there is pressure to drink and release your inhibitions,” she said. Substance-free housing offers a “greater sense of com-munity,” she said, adding that she ap-preciates living in a quiet, clean space separate from areas other students use to party.

Young said her Christian faith, including her family and community values, has influenced her decision not to drink alcohol. “My parents do not smoke or drink because they don’t want things to distract them from living their lives,” she said.

“I am not a party person,” Young said, “but there are things on campus for every type of person.”

Yoon Jeong Chong ’14 said she drinks alcohol on a weekly basis “in order to achieve an alternate state of mind or relieve stress.” Drinking makes her have more fun at night, she said, though “it definitely impacts my schoolwork because I am less produc-tive the next day.”

“People think many more people are using drugs than they actually are,” said Natalie Van Houten ’14, a member of Students for Sensible Drug Policy. These distorted perceptions make stu-dents feel as if they must change their habits to keep up with others. The main goal of SSDP is to promote responsible habits, Van Houten said. Before Spring Weekend, the group will hold work-shops and interactive stations as “a fun way to get people to think about their alcohol intake and make sure they are being safe and responsible when they’re drinking,” she added.

Some students who said they use drugs or consume alcohol underage spoke on the condition of anonymity because such behaviors are illegal.

A male first-year respondent re-ported that he drinks alcohol about three times per week and smokes marijuana regularly. “My perception of drug use has changed since high school mostly because (drugs) are easier to find and accessible,” he said. Within the past year, he has tried LSD, cocaine, MDMA and Adderall.

“I don’t use drugs to impress people. I have only personal motives, like to understand myself and have a good time at night,” he said.

Another first-year female student said she drinks every time she goes out, approximately three times per week. She also smokes marijuana and has used unprescribed Adderall as a party drug.

“The level of drinking at Brown is exactly what I thought it would be. But people smoke weed less than I imag-ined,” she said, adding that she would consider trying ecstasy and possibly hallucinogenic mushrooms over Spring Weekend.

“I feel like there are no consequenc-

es, especially for Spring Weekend,” she said. “It’s an ‘everyone is doing (it)’ type of thing, but I don’t feel peer pressured.”

A junior female said sometimes she drinks casually while other times she drinks with the goal of getting drunk. She also reported she smokes mari-juana more often than she drinks and that marijuana is a way to relax with friends.

“When I drink, it is to relax and have a good time and to get rid of social awkwardness, if there is any,” she said.

She has become more open to try-ing new substances since coming to Brown. “Every year I feel like I want to try something different,” she said.

She said she thinks she uses fewer substances than the majority of the Brown student body. While she has not tried any other substances this year, she said she would consider doing harder drugs, such as ecstasy or cocaine, for Spring Weekend.

A sophomore male student said he frequently uses Adderall both before studying and partying. “Study drugs are so commonly used by students that I usually forget it’s even illegal,” he said.

It is a common trend among college campuses for students to use Adderall and other prescription amphetamines both to study and party, Mantak said. Students use study drugs “under the false belief it will give you an edge,

when in reality a good night’s sleep will,” she said.

Risks and consequencesThe University’s policy on al-

cohol and drug use complies with both Rhode Island and national law. “We want to improve consistent en-forcement throughout the campus,” Klawunn said, adding that the Emer-gency Medical Services system is one of the most effective policies. “Students know that if they call to get help for someone it will not result in discipline,” she added.

An average of five students have EMS called for them on a given week-end, though time of year affects this statistic, Shanley said, adding that there are fewer calls on nights with “bad or cold weather.”

“Students are used to intense striv-ing and self-criticism to get (admit-ted to Brown), and that causes a lot of harm. Substance abuse is one of the ways that will manifest,” Mantak said.

Mantak said she worries about the small but high-risk groups of heavy users and users of multiple drugs.

“There is far more than the stereo-type,” Mantak said.

Alcohol and substance abuse may affect students with varying degrees of severity, Klawunn said. The negative consequences associated with alco-

hol most commonly reported include “saying something they regret, black-ing out, regretted sexual activity and hangover or lack of productivity the next day,” Mantak said.

The University subcommittee on alcohol and other drugs is aware that the use of alcohol and marijuana are the most prevalent on campus, Klawunn said. But drinking alcohol poses more frequent problems such as “fights, van-dalism and sexual assault that tend to be connected to alcohol,” she added.

Unfortunately, students do not of-ten reach out for help, Mantak said. “I am much more likely to see someone in a required appointment after a student has been EMSed,” she said.

MethodologyWritten questionnaires were ad-

ministered to 1,202 undergraduates March 13-14 in the lobby of J. Walter Wilson and the Stephen Robert ‘62 Campus Center during the day and the Sciences Library at night. The poll has a 2.55 percent margin of error with 95 percent confidence. The margin of error is 3.9 percent for the subset of males, 3.4 percent for females, 5.1 percent for first-years, 5.2 percent for seniors, 6.5 percent for varsity athletes and 2.8 percent for non-athletes.

Find results of previous polls at the-bdh.org/poll.

JILLIAN LANNEY / HERALD

Alcohol Marijuana Tobacco

Male 84% 55% 30%

Female 85% 43% 22%

White 89% 55% 29%

Asian 79% 36% 18%

Hispanic 82% 45% 27%

Black 74% 41% 16%

Humanities/Arts 88% 54% 30%

Social Science 87% 51% 28%

Life Science 82% 46% 21%

Physical Science 79% 41% 18%

Drug usage among subgroups

/ / Poll page 1

feature 5THE BROWN DAILY HERALDWEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2013

Ling-A-Ling | Ling Zhou

CO M I CMeeting and Congdon streets. Rick-man said he worked with the city to place the plaque at an angle so people walking on Benefit Street would no-tice it.

It’s a “perfect placement,” he said, adding that he sees tourists looking at it and saying, “‘Wow, wow, she’s important.’”

Sissieretta and BrownDimmick said Jones’ story has a

strong connection to Brown. Dur-ing Jones’ career, black female stu-dents were not allowed to live on the Pembroke campus, so they lived with residents on the same street as

Jones, Rickman said. “She would have known all of them,” he said.

Rickman said he hopes current Brown students will learn about the presence Jones once had and that stu-dents will attend more community events in general.

He has been disappointed by the low number of students who attend local events, such as those organized through the Black Heritage Society, he said.

Rickman said he hopes above all that the event will raise awareness about Jones’ achievements.

“It is almost disgraceful to take this long to get her a grave marker,” he said. “The acclaimed need to be acclaimed and remembered.”

/ / Jones page 8

editorial & letter6 THE BROWN DAILY HERALDWEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2013

L E T T E R TO T H E E D I TO R

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UFB-RISD meeting meant to foster tiesTo the Editor:

Yesterday, an opinions piece printed in The Herald called into question my past year of service on the Undergraduate Finance Board (“Brooks ’13, Au ’14, Ramadan ’13, Holguin ’13, Ooi ’14 and Seyler ’15: Facing the UFB’s dysfunction,” April 16). I want to take this opportunity to respond to that article and convey my gratitude for allowing me to serve as your UFB Vice Chair. The article mistakenly recounts a meeting I had with a Rhode Island School of Design administrator as an occasion “to select a set of Category III student groups that publish material from both colleges.” This is untrue. The goal of the meeting was to establish a relationship with the RISD source of student group funding and garner an understanding of how their system works. Additionally, only at the end of our meeting did we discuss

the possibility of RISD providing support to joint groups, so that UFB would have funds to provide the services cur-rently present at RISD to Brown students, such as funding food and service groups. I was happy with the meeting; a good relationship was made that day. Over the year, UFB has worked hard to ensure that student activities at Brown are great. We created a $300,000 supplemental budget so that no request has to go unfunded next year for reason of budget constrictions. It has been my honor serving as UFB Vice Chair this year, working with student groups, seeing them do awesome things on and off campus, and if given the chance, I will work hard so that, together, we can better Brown.

Daniel Pipkin ’14UFB Vice Chair

E D I TO R I A L C A R TO O N b y a n g e l i a w a n g

“I feel like there are no consequences, especially for

Spring Weekend.”— An anonymous female first-year student

See poll on page 1.

E D I TO R I A L

On Monday, it happened again. Most of us students are members of the 9/11 generation, and after two bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon, we were immediately taken back to the attacks that happened during our formative years. Though, thankfully, the casualty count appears to be much lower than that fateful day, Monday was marked with the same uncertainty and fear.

Once again, we were sick to our stomachs as we learned about another senseless loss of life. Information, not all accurate, spread through social media sites, as those of us safe in Providence got a glimpse of the fear felt by friends, alums and family members who were near the marathon.

When these events happen, we realize how quickly an event of celebra-tion and community can turn to one of terror and tragedy. We do not yet know the full scope of the injuries and lives lost, nor do we know who was responsible. All we know is what we saw: the gruesome images, the pleas for help and the threat of more events that could wreak havoc upon a city.

So far, two children have been lost. This has certainly been a year marked with tragic incidents, a year in which we questioned the funda-mentals of our society. Coming on the heels of December’s school shooting in Newtown, this event is even more heartbreaking. If we cannot be safe at a marathon, an event both steeped in history and representative of the modern vibrant city of Boston, where can we be protected?

As we mourn those lost, heal those injured and help the city of Boston recover, we can take comfort in the spirit of humanity that shone through Facebook, Twitter and other sources. There were declarations of love and thanks as we reconnected with long-lost friends who shared their experi-ences. People opened up their homes to strangers off the street. We saw the resources of the Internet used to locate missing runners and comfort frantic families. Responders ran into the carnage to help the injured.

The marathons began in ancient Greece, the cradle of Western civi-lization, and have long celebrated human physical achievement. NBC News reported that some runners who completed the marathon ran straight to Massachusetts General Hospital, where they gave blood to help the wounded.

On Monday, we saw the marathon transformed from an emblem of human physical perfection to one of humanity itself. We have every confidence that Boston will return stronger than before, and we will do everything in our power to help our neighbors in the north. Until then, we offer comfort to those grieving, hope for speedy recovery for those injured and send our thoughts and prayers to everyone affected.

Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board: its editor, Dan Jeon, and its members, Mintaka Angell, Samuel Choi, Nicholas Morley and Rachel Occhiogrosso. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.

Q U OT E O F T H E D AY

Sending thoughts and prayers for Boston

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CO R R E C T I O N

Brown is the most rigorous, socially pro-gressive university in the United States.

Some form of the notion presumably at-tracted a sizeable portion of the Brown stu-dent body and for good reason: Curiosity and tolerance are solid values upon which to build a school.

But is it true? Maybe we are better off asking: Is Brown the most rigorous, socially progressive university that Brown can be? A thoughtful editorial on Brown’s drug culture (“Dealing with drug culture,” Jan. 24) sug-gests the answer is no.

The editorial raises pertinent questions regarding drug use, abuse and student unity, particularly as Spring Weekend approach-es. For freshmen, Spring Weekend remains the stuff of legends. For some upperclass-men, it is a delightful blur and for others, Spring Weekend means vomit in the sink, hot-boxed hallways and alienation. Alien-ation and Brown don’t mix. Now is the time to engage in a candid discussion about how a student body can remain both diverse and unified with regards to drug use.

Brown students enjoy the blessings of a multicultural community. As an institution built on curiosity and tolerance, we regard cultures as equal, arguably so long as a cul-ture isn’t directly injurious. We don’t try to convert people into thinking that, for exam-ple, keeping kosher is ridiculous, that con-

tact sports are stupid or that drugs have ben-efits. At the very least we abide by the max-im: “To each his own,” though Brown stu-dents are known for a willingness to expand their horizons.

Many Brown students have raised heart-felt complaints regarding the drug culture at Brown. The author of the editorial felt that Brown’s progressive drug policies worked but that drug use falling through those cracks negatively affects our student com-munity. All of us have probably experienced some level of distaste for excessive drinking,

obnoxious noise, stupid degrees of highness and senseless sex, even if we ourselves have once participated. We all recognize there is a time and place for everything. We must re-spect that some students feel that way most of the time about certain activities, and we must respect that in the name of tolerance.

If you are reading this and saying to your-self something along the lines of, “Get used to it — people drink and go to Jo’s, so don’t get upset because you don’t do what the rest of us do,” I urge you to keep in mind that one, Josiah’s isn’t for the drunk, but rather

for everyone and two, judge not, or you’ll be judged in the same way. How would you feel if someone thought you were “another stu-pid drunk,” or “another stoner throwing his brains away”? Neither reaction reflects the tolerance or curiosity that we as Brown stu-dents have committed to one another by be-ing here. Nor does either reaction fairly por-tray the reality of those who decide to use drugs and those who don’t.

Students for Sensible Drug Policy be-lieves progressive school policy yields the safest and least destructive drug culture pos-

sible. Progressive drug policy, once consid-ered political suicide, now defines a new po-litical consensus. The center of the debate no longer revolves around the sentencing dis-parities between crack cocaine and powder cocaine, but between decriminalization and legalization. No longer will you hear major politicians using the same “tough on crime” bit you would have in the 1990s. New Jer-sey Gov. Chris Christie, former Rep. Patrick Kennedy and former President Bill Clin-ton — who expanded the death penalty to drug lords — have all publicly stated that the

current prohibition-style drug war doesn’t work. Five years ago, only radicals might have said that, and now sensible drug re-form is a bipartisan issue.

SSDP has always pushed for common-sense solutions, but there are more questions to answer: Why do students smoke marijua-na inside? If the University said certain out-door areas qualified as safe-zones for mari-juana smokers, would students be less likely to smoke inside? Would fewer fire alarms go off at 2 a.m.? Not many students smoke ciga-rettes inside, even when it’s cold out. And if the school funded water and snacks for sub-stance-heavy campus events, would we see as many sick students returning to dorms?

SSDP members may hold different views on the aforementioned questions but stand for two basic propositions: Users and abus-ers of drugs aren’t criminals, and mental health care should be widely available for those in need. SSDP will fight to reallocate 100 percent of War on Drugs funding to-wards treatment and education.

There is no ending the negative exter-nalities of drug use, but constantly remind-ing students that calling emergency medi-cal services will not result in any disciplin-ary action will surely benefit all of us. SSDP has fought for these practical and progres-sive measures, and the Brown administra-tion has been highly receptive, but there is clearly more work and listening to do. We can only move forward together.

Students for Sensible Drug Policy meets Thursdays at 8 p.m.

in J. Walter Wilson 501.

In an age where we find ourselves pressed for time and constantly aim to do a multi-tude of tasks, we are constantly looking for ways to become more efficient. Our scram-ble can lead us in many directions.

For example, an article written last Feb-ruary by Matt Brundage ’15 (“Stop watch-ing so many TED Talks,” Feb. 26) criticized our generation for failing to be intellectu-ally demanding and for being satisfied with little more than the brief snippets of infor-mation we gather from quick news and in-formation outlets. I think this is clearly a response to the up-and-go lifestyles that we all live. It’s hard for many of us to find time to do much of anything anymore and we resort to quick information and social media because they are brief tasks we can complete and fit in between papers and job interviews.

It is important to recognize, as Brund-age points out, that learning take times and often repetition. Yet Brundage argues that our search for quick information is a bad thing. I disagree with this simplistic notion.

I would argue our quest for efficiency can be a good thing because it forces us to learn about our individual learning styles. Contrary to what Brundage suggests, may-be you are more likely to learn more if it’s through receiving quick bits of information

here and there, if that’s what keeps you in-terested and engaged. Regardless, from my experiences and from what I have observed around me, the best way to keep up is to understand, as individuals, how best we learn.

Research has showm us there are many different forms of learning. Some people learn best through visual means: graphs, slides, pictures — images they can latch on to and associate with the information. Other people learn best orally: absorbing

information from spoken lectures or from audio books. The important thing is to un-derstand what works best for you.

This is something that is particularly ap-plicable to Brown students who face heavy workloads, fast-paced curricula and con-stant testing. By understanding how we learn best and catering our studying to our learning methods we are more likely to re-member the information we learn and can eliminate time we otherwise waste trying to learn and relearn information using meth-ods that don’t actually work for us.

How do we do this? Through the good

old means of trial and error. Start by asking yourself a few basic ques-

tions. When do I learn best? Is it in the evening, the morning or right after class? What helps me remember things the fast-est? Do I learn better when I use note cards or make outlines or draw visual represen-tations? What is something I haven’t tried that I think might help me?

For example, I once met someone in the library who spent the entire three hours looking at his phone. I thought, “Why

would you come to the library and not do anything?” When I left, I asked him. And he smiled and said, “I do all of my online and (Online Course Reserves Access) read-ing on my phone. It helps me concentrate better because I can focus on one line at a time. If I read one big PDF file on my com-puter I get distracted by the rest of the page and start thinking about how much read-ing I have left. I focus better and remember things better if I read on my phone.”

And I’m sure that you’ve tried things that you might not have realized you were trying. Maybe you brought your notebook

to class and left your computer at home be-cause you knew you wouldn’t be distract-ed if you didn’t have Reddit or BuzzFeed to troll. Maybe you decided to sit in the front row of class, no notebook, no com-puter, just listening to the teacher because you find that if you try and take notes you get too wrapped up in writing down ev-erything that is said. Instead, you’d rather be engaged and thinking critically in the lecture. People learn in all sorts of strange ways and there are endless creative ways to help us learn more efficiently and effective-ly.

Understanding our individual learning styles can not only help us become more ef-ficient students, but it can also help reduce our stress levels and free up time to spend with friends, read for pleasure or make music. We’ve all had those days where we found ourselves reading a paragraph on a page a dozen times over before we finally understood what was being said. It’s frus-trating, not to mention emotionally and physically draining.

So the next time you find yourself stuck on a problem set, or with a passage from a book or getting anything out of classes, try something different. Who cares if it doesn’t work? Sure beats reading that paragraph half a dozen times.

Danny Delaney ’15 frequently rides the

struggle bus when it comes to balancing his life. He’d gladly accept assistance and

can be reached at daniel_delaney@brown.edu.

opinions 7THE BROWN DAILY HERALDWEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2013

Learning to learn

On drug culture

We all sacrifice some of our own cultural insulation and comfort to participate in the practices of others.

From my experiences and from what I have observed around me, the best way to keep up is to understand, as

individuals, how best we learn.

BY DANNY DELANEYopinions Columnist

BY STUDENTS FOR ASENSIBLE DRUG POLICY

Guest Columnist

daily heraldTHE BROWN

featureWEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2013

Prof awarded funding for obesity research

Akilah Dulin Keitah, assistant professor of behavioral and social sciences, received two years’ worth of funding to study childhood obesity in Southeast Asians earlier this month, according to a University press release.

Keitah currently researches health disparities at the Brown Institute for Community Health Promotion, according to an article on News Medical Net. The institute’s work focuses on topics including dietary habits, weight maintenance and “using culturally sensitive materials to promote better health,” according to its website.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation awarded Keitah the grant through its New Connections program, the press release reported.

New Connections grants aim to “increase the exposure of RWJF to researchers and experts that represent historically underrepresented research communities,” according to the program’s website.

“This award will connect me to a network of established experts in research and evaluation related to health and health care, while providing me with an opportunity to evaluate a program that has far-reaching implications for childhood obesity,” Keitah said in the press release.

Respiratory co-infections do not change hospital outcomes, study finds

A recent study led by researchers at Rhode Island Hospital and the Alpert Medical School found that hospitalized patients who were infected with both H1N1 and another respiratory virus did not fare any worse than those who were infected with a single respiratory virus. The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE earlier this month.

“There is scant data in the literature regarding the incidence and impact of simultaneous infection by two respiratory viruses, particularly in adults,” said Leonard Mermel, professor of medicine and senior author of the study, in a Lifespan press release.

The researchers examined data from people who were hospitalized between October 2009 and December 2009. They identified 617 patients with a single respiratory virus and 49 patients who were co-infected with two different viruses.

Although patients with multiple infections were more likely to have complications including bacterial pneumonia, they were no more likely to be admitted to the Intensive Care Unit.

“While hospitalized patients with respiratory virus co-infection did not experience poorer outcomes, our findings do not address whether co-infection is a risk factor for hospitalization itself,” said Ignacio Echenique, lead author of the study and a former researcher at Rhode Island Hospital, in the press release.

Study sheds light on succulent evolution

Plants that grow in arid climates, like succulents, store water in “fat” leaves. Evolving such storage mechanisms required leaf veins to grow in three dimensions, according to new research led by Erika Edwards, assistant professor of biology, and Matt Ogburn PhD’12.

Their study was published in the journal Current Biology earlier this month, according to a University press release.

Leaves contain cells in which photosynthesis — the process through which plants convert light energy, carbon dioxide and water into sugar — takes place. Plants must have an infrastructure through which to then transport water from their roots to their leaves and nutrients produced in the leaves to the rest of the plant.

Fat leaves present an additional transportation challenge — even though they store a large amount of water, plump leaves require the veins transporting water and other nutrients to reach farther, reducing their efficiency.

“There must be some kind of a trade-off in a fat leaf that’s really different from most flat leaves,” Ogburn said in the press release. “There’s a benefit to that in storing water in the leaf, but it’s going to have a cost to it in terms of the other things the leaf has to do.”

To determine how the vein structure of fat leaves evolved, Edwards and Ogburn examined the water storage of more than 80 dry-climate plant species and the vein structure of over 40.

The researchers found that once plant leaves reached a certain thickness, their vein structure switched from two dimensions to a three-dimensional ring-shaped structure, the press release reported.

“If you had just a 2-D-veined pile of species and a 3-D-veined pile of species, and you didn’t know how they were related to each other, you might say, maybe 3-D venation just evolved once a long time ago and had absolutely nothing to do with succulence,” Edwards said in the release. “But when you can lay them out on a phylogeny and reconstruct how many times this transition happened — the more times you see this repeated correlation between these two traits, the more power you have to say that this is actually adaptive.”

BY KATE NUSSENBAUM, SCIENCE & RESEARCH EDITORSCIENCE & RESEARCH ROUNDUP

By ISOBEL HECKSTAFF WRITER

In late 19th- and early 20th-century Providence, the highest honor was to be invited to tea at singer Sissieretta Jones’ house on College Hill, said former state Rep. Ray Rickman.

Along with public scholar Robb Dimmick, Rickman is co-directing an event later the month that will honor the life and career of this once-famous singer. The event, which in-cludes a talk about Jones April 26 and a concert featuring her music April 27, is organized by the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society and sponsored by the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities.

The ‘Black Patti’As the title of her recent biography

reflects, Jones is often remembered as “the greatest singer of her race.” The opera singer, who lived from 1868 to 1933 and was referred to by her stage name, the “Black Patti,” after famous opera singer Adelina Patti, was the Aretha Franklin of her day, Rickman said. When she was home from tour-ing, she was the most famous member of the Providence community, he said, adding that people always walked by her house slowly in the hopes of seeing her.

During her career, Jones sang for former Presidents Benjamin Har-rison, Grover Cleveland, William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, as well as for European royalty. Rick-man said that because Jones was black in a time of legalized racial segrega-tion, her appearance for such promi-nent audiences was “not small stuff.” What was remarkable was “not that the Kaiser of Germany was going to her concert. It’s Sissieretta going to the Kaiser’s palace,” he said.

But Jones’ performances sparked controversy. “This (was) the Jim Crow era,” Rickman said, but “her talent (was) so extraordinary, they had to make exceptions.”

For three of her four presidential performances, Jones had to enter the White House through the back door. For her Roosevelt performance, she was allowed to come in through the main door.

“I can’t quite emphasize how big this is,” Rickman said about Jones singing at the White House.

She was “someone who stepped out of lines prescribed for women of color, people of color,” said Aiyah Josiah-Faeduwor ’13, who works as a junior consultant for the Rickman Group, a Providence consulting firm of which Rickman is president. Jo-siah-Faeduwor began working with Rickman earlier this semester after hearing about the position at a meet-ing for the Brotherhood, a black male student group. He helps plan projects for the Rickman Group and is in-volved with the event honoring Jones.

Josiah-Faeduwor said when Rick-man first mentioned Jones to him, he had never heard of the singer.

“I went and searched her and I didn’t understand how I didn’t know,”

he said.

Celebrating a starDespite her success at the time,

Jones died in poverty without even the money to pay for a gravestone, Rickman said. “Fame is fleeting,” he said. “You have to be Lincoln to be known for the ages.” He said the best way to avoid forgetting someone is repetition of his or her memory, which is what Rickman hopes to ac-complish with the upcoming event.

Rickman and Dimmick said the impetus for the event was a biography written by Rhode Island native Mau-reen Lee. Before the 2012 publication of her book — “Sissieretta Jones: ‘The Greatest Singer of Her Race,’ 1868-1933” — only one other book about Jones had been published, and it was not as comprehensive, Rickman said. Lee’s new biography provided the in-spiration to hold the Black Heritage Society’s upcoming event and to “do it in a very public way,” Dimmick added.

The first part of the event will take place at the Old Brick School House on Meeting Street, where Lee will discuss Jones’ life and career. The next day, vocalist Cheryl Albright will sing from Jones’ repertoire in the Congdon Street Baptist Church to accompaniment by pianist Rod Luther. Dimmick said Albright will dress in Edwardian-style clothing, as the concert’s goal is to “create a moment in time and space where one could believe it is Sissieretta Jones come back to life.”

The event’s locations are mean-ingful, Rickman and Dimmick said. The Old Brick School House was Jones’ childhood school, and Jones regularly attended and performed at the Congdon Street Baptist Church. The church also provided refuge for Brown students in 1968 following their protest against the University’s insufficient efforts to recruit more minority students, according to the

church’s website.Because she was an active member

at both of the event’s locations, it’s “just perfect,” Rickman said.

Rickman said he thinks the com-munity needs more heroes like Jones, who made an impact on her commu-nity amid racial tensions. “You need to know from where you came so you can better navigate where you’re go-ing,” Rickman said.

In times of change, Josiah-Faedu-wor said, it is crucial to preserve the city’s past by remembering people like Jones. “It’s an opportunity to save what’s important,” he said.

A mark of remembranceThe event took months of plan-

ning. Dimmick said they needed to find a woman to represent Jones, ap-propriate venues for the event and public support. Rickman added that they conducted thorough research throughout the planning process, crediting Lee as the project’s main scholar.

His goals for the event include educating more people about figures like Jones and honoring what Jones did for Rhode Island and the world, he said.

Rickman aims to raise $2,500 at the two-part event and plans to write to singers like Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross, who he said are “standing on (Jones’) shoulders,” to ask them to match the amount of money raised. Franklin and Ross “know what it was like in a segregated society,” Rick-man said.

One way to honor Jones is to purchase a tombstone for her burial location at Grace Church Cemetery in Providence, Dimmick said. Right now, “it is essentially an unmarked grave,” Dimmick said.

In June 2012, the Rhode Island Historical Society inserted a com-memorative plaque for Jones at the c o r n e r o f

Local event honors the ‘Black Patti’During her career, singer Sissieretta Jones performed for four American presidents

COURTESY OF BLACK HERITAGE SOCIETY

A biography written by Providence native Maureen Lee was an impetus for the commemoration event celebrating the life of Sissieretta Jones.

/ / Jones page 5