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Stick it to ’emUndefeated men’s soccer dominates the competition over the weekend.

Sports, 5eureka!Neuroscience professor Gilad Barnea hauls in a $1.3 million NIH grant

News, 4lion’S roarSusannah Kroeber ’11 remembers the late Sen. Ted Kennedy

Opinions, 11

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deDaily Heraldthe Brown

vol. cxliv, no. 65 | Wednesday, September 16, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891

Violations found in LiSci labsBy Sydney emBer

Senior Staff Writer

Hazardous waste management inspections conducted in Sidney Frank Hall this summer uncovered violations in 10 biology and neuro-science laboratories, according to an Office of Environmental Health and Safety report, a copy of which was obtained by The Herald.

The labs were found to be in breach of container-management issues including improperly label-ing waste depositories, displaying open hazardous waste containers, using inappropriate storage ves-sels, blocking laboratory egress and storing incompatible materials together.

The Office of Environmental Health and Safety conducts twice-yearly inspections of all research facilities, allowing labs to correct violations within a one-week time frame. But Henry Huppert, the University’s environmental com-

‘Fearless’ Zuckerman still in minds of PoliSci colleaguesBy dan alexander

Senior Staff Writer

No one in the Department of Political Science knows what a year at Brown is like without Alan Zuckerman.

“Anybody who is here — he had a hand in hiring,” said James Morone, professor of political science and department chair. “When we had a faculty meeting about who we were going to hire, he would be the loud-est voice in it. ... So we’re all, in some sense, his legacy.”

Zuckerman, who specialized in comparative politics, died Aug. 20 after being diagnosed with pancre-atic cancer in March, about a month after his 64th birthday. He leaves behind his wife Roberta, three chil-dren and a department he was part of since 1970 and chaired from 2002 to 2005.

According to Morone, he hard-ly missed a day in his 39 years at Brown.

“He was fearless. If he thought you were doing something that he disagreed with, in your classes, in your writing, in your teaching — anywhere, he would come up to you and say, ‘You know, I don’t agree with you,’” Morone said. “He lives on — not just as a memory, but in

what we do.”Zuckerman began his studies fo-

cusing on Italy and Israel and later researched the influence of culture — people’s professions, family and community — on political prefer-ences, according to Wendy Schil-ler, associate professor of political science.

“He thought a good researcher made a really good teacher,” Schil-ler said. “He was demanding and challenging.”

He authored or co-authored seven books. His latest, “Partisan Families: The Social Logic of Bounded Parti-sanship in Germany and Britain,” was awarded best book published in 2007 by the International Society for Political Psychology.

“It wasn’t work for him. It was a passion,” said the late professor’s son, Gregory. “He was a guy who would have kept writing and re-searching until they took his comput-er away.” Jackie Codair ’11, a student in one of Zuckerman’s classes last spring, said Zuckerman expected a lot of his students.

Codair said Zuckerman stopped her one day after class last spring and tapped her on the shoulder.

Cover up with alums’ quirky book jacketsBy talia kagan

Contributing Writer

Don’t judge a book by its cover — and don’t judge a Brown grad by his day job.

Last summer, corporate lawyer Jeremy Schwartz ’02 co-founded Book City Jackets, for him an un-expected foray into the world of

literature and the arts. The com-pany’s book jackets, designed by co-founder Emma Gaines-Ross ’04, save readers from embarrass-ment by cloaking their favorite guilty pleasures in brown paper adorned by little more than simple designs.

While Schwartz handles the nuts and bolts of running the small business, Gaines-Ross is the cre-ative partner who helps translate Schwartz’s artistic vision into tan-gible paper covers, relying on her experience in graphic design to function as Book City Jackets’ “art department,” Schwartz said.

The most common reaction Schwartz hears is relief: “Oh, thank God. I’m so embarrassed when I read ‘Twilight’ on the subway.”

Indeed, it was commuting that gave Schwartz his inspira-

tion, which came almost two years ago. During his daily rides on New York City’s subways, Schwartz always noticed the books people were reading, which led him to think about the public nature of reading.

“Part of being on the subway in New York is being with other people,” Schwartz said, and that includes “seeing the books they’re reading.”

Gaines-Ross agreed that people often make assumptions about others based on the books they’re

reading. Not so with a book jacket

“divorcing the surface from the content of the book,” said Gaines-Ross, who concentrated in art-semiotics at Brown.

“Book covers were a good idea in junior high school and they’re a good idea now,” advertises the Brooklyn-based company’s Web site.

The covers are made with “re-cycled kraft paper,” according to

Famed Nigerian writer joins facultyBy nicole Friedman

Senior Staff Writer

Internationally renowned Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe has joined the University faculty as the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and a professor of Afri-cana Studies.

Though his appointment is al-ready effective, he will take over his full responsibilities in the spring semester, said Professor of Africana Studies Tricia Rose PhD’93, who chairs the department.

Achebe, who joins Brown after 19 years on the Bard College fac-ulty, “won’t be offering indepen-dent new courses of his own,” Rose said.

The main “vehicle by which he’ll be making an intellectual contribu-tion” will be through the Chinua Achebe Colloquium on Africa, a new initiative focused on Achebe’s “intellectual, pedagogical and ar-tistic works,” Rose said. Achebe may also teach or co-teach courses already offered by the Africana de-partment and give presentations in

Africana classes, she said.Achebe is the fourth “distin-

guished writer of world signifi-cance” to join the Africana Studies faculty and the only one of the four from Africa, Rose said. Because the department’s work is a “wonderful combination of thought and prac-tice,” Achebe’s appointment will be a “profound consolidation of exist-ing strengths,” she added.

Feature

continued on page 3 continued on page 3

Justin Ide / Harvard News OfficeNigerian writer Chinua Achebe.

Frederic Lu / HeraldDesigner book covers — the brainchild of two Brown grads — on sale in the Brown Bookstore promise to conceal readers’ reading choices.

H O N K F O R H E A LT H

Kim Perley / HeraldProtestors drummed up support for health care reform Tuesday.continued on page 2 continued on page 2

CamPuS newS

pliance officer, said some labs do not immediately resolve violations despite repeated citations.

“Sometimes, it doesn’t get com-municated down to the lab staff,” Huppert said. “Some people are right on it, and some people de-lay.”

The June report — a joint effort led by Huppert and Director of En-vironmental Health and Safety Ste-phen Morin — was released less than a year after similar inspections at the University of California, Los Angeles failed to prevent a lab ac-cident that resulted in the death of a research assistant. The lab where the accident occurred did not undertake the recommended corrective actions.

Despite examining reports from the UCLA accident — which occurred after similar inspections — Morin said his office has not changed its inspection process. “We’re still looking at that report,” he said. “We convinced ourselves that we’re okay with that, but it really comes down to practicing safe science.”

The most frequent violations are “common things,” such as mis-labeling or failing to label waste containers, Huppert said. But

he said he frequently sees “the same patterns” in individual labs, especially when there are new people — signifying a careless-ness he said his office is working to combat.

Huppert said he and another inspector in the office conduct all the hazardous waste inspections unannounced, a practice he said he hopes will prepare labs if the Environmental Protection Agency decides to conduct its own inves-tigations at Brown.

“It’s ongoing work,” he said. “It’s a partnership with good re-searchers.”

“I think we just addressed all the issues,” said Professor of Biol-ogy Robert Reenan, who leads a lab that was found to have unla-beled hazardous waste containers, incompatible chemicals stored to-gether and a blockage preventing safe egress from the lab.

Ultimately, he said he left the responsibility for fixing the viola-tions to his lab manager. “I don’t know the specifics,” he said.

“We are required to remedy the violation and send a report,” said Professor of Medical Science Arthur Landy, whose lab had unla-beled hazardous waste containers. But he said he did not know the “exact time frame” that labs are

given to correct the violation.The recent budget crunch has

also generated questions about the future of the program’s man-agement, Morin said, which could further affect the hazardous waste standard.

“It’s one of the things you wor-ry about with the budget,” he said. “We try to balance lots of things, and cost is one of them.”

Though he said his office would never jeopardize waste manage-ment, Huppert would consider eliminating outsourcing — his of fice began delegating waste pickup to outside contractors after he came to Brown in 2000 — and transitioning to an on-call pickup system instead of a weekly schedule.

Despite the office’s constant efforts, Morin said accidents still occur.

“There are small spills — in-cidental spills,” he said. As an example, he said a mercury ther-mometer — which his office is trying to remove through a re-placement program — broke in a lab on Monday. But he said this type of accident was “not as bad as it used to be.”

“I’m proud of where we are to-day,” Morin said, but “there are still more things we want to do.”

“Some people are right on it, and some people delay.”— Henry Huppert, environmental compliance officer, on labs fixing violations

sudoku

Stephen DeLucia, PresidentMichael Bechek, Vice President

Jonathan Spector, TreasurerAlexander Hughes, Secretary

The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serv-ing the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once during Orientation and once in July by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Single copy free for members of the community. POSTMASTER please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Offices are located at 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. E-mail herald@browndailyherald.com. World Wide Web: http://www.browndailyherald.com. Subscription prices: $319 one year daily, $139 one semester daily. Copyright 2009 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

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WEDNESDAy, SEPTEmBER 16, 2009THE BROWN DAILy HERALDPAGE 2

continued from page 1

waste hazards found in 10 LiSci labs

“Things Fall Apart,” Achebe’s 1958 novel, is the most widely-read work of African fiction, according to a University press release. Since Af-ricana studies is a relatively young department, adding such an impor-tant figure “covers — in one stroke — a lot of ground,” said Dean of the Faculty Rajiv Vohra P’07.

The colloquium will host one major event each spring and several smaller events each year, Rose said. This spring, the colloquium is set to host a series of events based around dramatic readings of Achebe’s ma-jor works. The following spring, the plan is to host a “seminar slash con-ference on governance in Africa,” Rose said.

Since Achebe is already a cen-tral figure in Africana studies, the colloquium will bring scholars to Brown “who work on a wide array of issues — not only in literature, but also politics in contemporary Africa,” Vohra said.

Achebe is also interested in be-ginning a project to translate classic texts in European literature into Igbo, Achebe’s native language, Rose said.

Though Achebe will not teach full-time, the Africana department is “very interested in making sure that people will have regular ac-cess to him,” Rose said. She sug-

gested the possibility of regular office hours for students who have expressed knowledge of or interest in Achebe’s fields of study.

Achebe’s appointment, which “happened very quickly,” is an ex-ample of what the University’s Tar-get of Opportunity hiring program was intended for, Vohra said. “The program was meant to do precisely this kind of thing — that is, allow us to make quick decisions when an opportunity arose of this kind,” Vohra said.

Discussions about hiring Achebe began in June, and the decision was finalized last week, Rose said.

It has not been discussed wheth-er Achebe’s wife, Christie Achebe — a visiting professor at Bard — will also be hired at Brown, Rose said. “We are more than happy to discuss that with her,” she added.

The University will hold a wel-coming event for Achebe on Nov. 10, Rose said, which will feature his newest book, “The Education of a British-Protected Child: Essays.”

Achebe, who is paralyzed from the waist down, has not finalized arrangements for where he will live during his time at Brown, Rose said. “My expectation is that he’ll be around in some regularized way by the end of this semester, but surely by the beginning of next semester,” Rose said. “He’s dying to be physi-cally located here.”

continued from page 1

‘Things Fall apart’ author achebe joins faculty

blogdaily

CamPuS newSWEDNESDAy, SEPTEmBER 16, 2009 THE BROWN DAILy HERALD PAGE 3

“He’s a guy who squeezed everything out of his 64 years.”— Gregory Zuckerman, son of deceased Prof. Alan Zuckerman

“He was like, ‘Jackie, you talked a lot in class today and that was really great,’” Codair recalled. “It just made my day.”

He was “just such a nice guy,” she added.

Zuckerman was active outside Brown, too.

“He was a guy with tremendous passions,” Gregory Zuckerman said. “They ranged from Brown to the New York Yankees to the Rhode Island Jewish community.”

His daughter, Shara Shetrit, said, “I guess I didn’t really have a sense of how important his work and his career was to him. He was really involved a lot with the family.”

He came home for dinner at 6 p.m. every night to be with his children and Roberta, who was his high-school sweetheart.

“He never missed a chance to tell us he loved us,” Shetrit said. “He was the best dad in the world.”

For his 64th birthday in Febru-ary, Shetrit sent him a card about a month late. He happened to re-ceived it the day he was diagnosed with cancer.

Later he told her how happy and moved he was to get the card that day.

Even after the diagnosis, Zuck-erman continued to focus on the positives in his life — despite re-ceiving the most aggressive cancer treatment available, according to his son Ezra.

“It was great for us also,” Ezra Zuckerman said, “because if you have someone like that who is dying and is in a positive state of mind, you can’t help but be posi-tive, too.”

Zuckerman died with his family around him at the Home and Hos-pice Care of Rhode Island.

“He’s a guy who squeezed ev-erything out of his 64 years,” Greg-ory Zuckerman. “I’m comforted by that.”

Family remembers late PoliSci prof

Courtesy of Brown.eduProfessor of Political Science Alan Zuckerman died last month.

continued from page 1

the site, recalling the brown paper bags used to adorn middle-school textbooks. Gaines-Ross designed the original set, whose covers feature the words “fiction,” “non-fiction” and “favorite” in simple typefaces.

The jackets are sold in sets of three. “I thought that people like sets,” Schwartz said. “There’s something about a set that makes something more special than a piece of paper by itself.”

Though the small start-up sells its products through its Web site, the jackets are also sold at stores across the U.S.

And its product line is diversify-ing. Last month, Book City Jackets launched “artist editions” featuring printed drawings from young art-ists, including RISD grad Morgan Blair.

Its also reaching a new — and familiar — market. Though some Brown students may not feel the need to cover up their love for teen vampire novels, Book City Jackets’ products have arrived on College Hill. The first shipment hit the Brown Bookstore two weeks ago.

Mania Dardeen, an assistant buyer for the bookstore who de-cided to order Book City Jackets’ covers, said supporting alumni products is important. “They’re our biggest customers,” she said.

But so far sales of the jackets have been dragging, according to Dardeen, perhaps because of stu-dents like Mark Morales ’10. “I’m impressed by how they look,” said Morales, “but I haven’t had to cover a book since eighth grade.”

Creating a market for the book covers has been difficult, Schwartz acknowledged. The duo expected to cater to book lovers, Gaines-Ross said, but the covers have made the biggest waves among artists and designers.

By his own admission, founding the company has been a learning experience for Schwartz, who said launching a start-up has informed his work as a lawyer and helped him understand small business’ struggles, especially in the current economic climate.

Despite its challenges, the company is gearing up to increase production, put out more artist editions and partner with writers or literary magazines. There is even a holiday set planned, which Schwartz promises will be a “cool — not trite — take on the winter season.”

Not that Schwartz is quitting his day job yet. “Currently, I love being a lawyer,” said Schwartz.

“The dream scenario is that one day I’ll have to make a decision,” he said. “Do you want to be a book-cover baron or a corporate lawyer? I see both of those as viable, plau-sible outcomes.”

alums team up to help you dress up your latest book

continued from page 1

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WEDNESDAy, SEPTEmBER 16, 2009THE BROWN DAILy HERALDPAGE 4

CamPuS newS “Our hearts go out to Annie Le’s family, fiance, and friends.”— yale President Richard Levin, after a med student was found murdered

missing yale student’s body found and identified in lab building

higher ed in brief

A week-long search for a missing yale student ended in shock and tragedy monday after the body identified as that of Annie Le was found in the wall of a campus science building.

Le, a medical student at the university, had been planning to get married on Sunday, the day the body was found. She had been missing for five days.

Since the body was discovered, developments have come quickly in the case. Late Tuesday night, New Haven Police announced that warrants were issued to search the home of Raymond Clark III, who worked in the same laboratory as Le, according to the Hartford Courant.

No charges have been files against Clark, but he has been identified as a “person of interest,” and at press time, was in custody, according to the Courant.

“Our hearts go out to Annie Le’s family, fiance and friends, who must suffer the additional ordeal of waiting for the body to be identified,” Richard Levin, the school’s president, wrote in an e-mail to the yale community Sunday night after the body was found and presumed to be Le’s.

On monday, New Haven police identified the body as Le’s, and the Connecticut chief medical examiner’s office ruled the death a homicide. Access to the building in which Le’s body was found has been restricted, and a New Haven Police Department spokesman told the yale Daily News that the police were “not looking at (the homicide) as if it is a random act.”

Le was studying pharmacology and received her undergraduate degree from the University of Rochester.

— Ellen Cushing

neuro prof. lands large nIh grantBy Sarah huSk

Senior Staff Writer

Assistant Professor of Neuroscience Gilad Barnea was recently awarded a EUREKA grant — $1.3 million in funding for scientific research over four years — by the National Institutes of Health.

The NIH awards the EUREKA grant to scientists pursuing “high-risk, high-reward” research. In addition to being a relatively new grant — it debuted in 2007 — the EUREKA grant is distinct from more conservative scientific funding in that it primarily seeks to fund research that may not achieve its intended aims, but has the potential for major impact, Barnea said.

Barnea’s research will attempt to establish a way to monitor the acti-vation of chemical receptors in the brain, with an eye toward improving treatments for neurological disorders. In particular, he will look at neuro-

chemicals that have multiple recep-tors, he said.

One such chemical is dopamine — the primary focus of Barnea’s re-search — a neurotransmitter with five receptors that regulates a host of biological processes, including cognition, emotion, motivation and locomotion. Dopamine deficiencies, which express themselves in a va-riety of disorders — schizophrenia, attention deficit disorder, Parkinson’s disease and addiction, among others — can be difficult to treat, Barnea said. Pharmacological treatments are often imperfect because they can af-fect extraneous receptors, he said.

If Barnea’s research is successful, there could be broad implications for the treatment of neurological disor-ders. Having a more definitive un-derstanding of how specific chemical receptors become activated, Barnea said, will “hopefully lead to more spe-cific drugs” — drugs that are more

effective with fewer side effects.Barnea hopes success with dop-

amine research will lead to expanded research on “other members of the G-protein coupled receptor family,” a group of receptors for a variety of hormones and neurochemicals with multiple receptors, such as se-rotonin, melatonin, histamine and adrenaline.

From there, Barnea said, the impli-cations are vast. Such research could begin to provide more exact and ef-fective treatment options for a range of disorders including hypertension, asthma, allergies, ulcers and cancer.

Before he received the grant, Barnea’s research sought a method to label neural circuits to “understand the logic used by the brain to process olfactory information,” he said. This initial research led to the idea for the method he is trying to develop with the grant to study the dopamine receptors.

By katie Wood

aSSiStant SportS editor

The men’s soccer team (3-0-1) cap-tured the outright Adidas-Brown Classic title after two wins against Southern Methodist University (2-2-0) and Adelphi University (1-1-2) this past weekend. Austin Mandel ’12 led the way on offense, scoring two goals, and Sean Rosa ’12 received the tournament’s Offensive MVP award with a goal and an assist.

The Bears waited patiently Fri-day night before their opening-round match in the Classic against SMU. And their composure paid off as they came out mentally prepared to take on one of the consistently top-ranked pro-grams in the country. SMU opened up its season with a narrow 1-0 loss to the then-No.3, now No. 1-ranked Univer-sity of Akron, so the Bears knew they would have to battle for all 90 minutes of play against the Mustangs.

After an hour-and-a-half rain delay, both teams finally approached the swampy field, ready to play the highly anticipated early-season match-up.

“There was some talk of canceling the game,” said Evan Coleman ’12, the tournament’s Defensive MVP. “We wanted to play because we knew we could play our best and beat them.”

The Bears put together their best overall performance this season, ac-cording to Coleman.

They had several excellent op-portunities to score thanks to Nick Elenz-Martin ’10 and Rosa in the open-ing 30 minutes of play. And just three minutes later, Mandel was fouled hard inside the box and awarded a penalty kick, which he converted to put the team up, 1-0.

“In the beginning, we struggled,” Coleman said. “We had to set our own pace of the game since they were so efficient on offense.”

The Bears went into the half with that slim margin, and Head Coach Mike Noonan gave his team a “severe, yet encouraging” halftime speech that motivated players to come out and reach their potential in the second half.

“Coach told us it was going to be a battle to the end,” Coleman said. “We have some go-getters on the team, and the rest of us fed off of them and we all played better. We brought it to SMU in the second half.”

The Bears came out firing on all cylinders for a well-rounded effort from both the defense and the offense. The offense produced nine shots to SMU’s four in the second half.

The defensive intensity continued to soar as Coleman, Ryan McDuff ’13, Dylan Remick ’13 and co-captain David Walls ’11 kept the ball out of the net in order to preserve the one-goal lead off Mandel’s penalty kick. Paul Grandstrand ’11 also picked up three saves to help the defensive backs.

“They weren’t ready for the sec-ond half,” Coleman said. “It was a big turning point in the game as we kept on the pressure for all 90 minutes, re-vealing a dedicated, strong team that we knew we could be all along.”

The Bears then took on Adelphi, who tied Yale on Friday, 1-1. Though the Atlantic Soccer Conference’s Pan-thers have not been in the national

spotlight for the last few decades as a top program, they stuck with the Bears for the first 30 minutes of play.

The Bears were tired after a hard fight and tough win against SMU in a game that ended at 11 p.m. Friday night. But by Sunday they were reju-venated, and many Bears saw play-ing time to keep up the energy from Friday night’s win.

“It’s been a tough situation with the team playing so many games in a row, three games in five days,” Coleman said. “The guys who don’t play as much went out there for some quality minutes and represented the team well.”

Mandel had a great look on goal at 36:51 as his shot went high. He bounced right back and trickled a goal at 39:58 into the net past the out-stretched arms of Adelphi goalie Kyle Blackmer. Mike Manella ’12 picked up the first point of his college career on the assist, and Mandel tallied his team-leading second goal of the season.

The Brown team had the game under control as it outshot the Pan-thers 8-2 in the second frame, and the defense continued to keep the ball on the opposite side of the field. Adelphi players kept the pressure on as they fouled the Bears 13 times in the second half for a total of 18 in the game.

Two minutes into the second half, Remick lined up for a corner kick that deflected off an Adelphi defender and popped right to Rosa, who finished it with his first goal of the season, an effort that helped him earn the Offensive MVP. Remick recorded his first collegiate point on the as-sist as the Bears went on to defeat Adelphi, 2-0.

Several Bears earned spots on the all-tournament team, including MVPs Coleman and Rosa, Elenz-Martin,

Grandstrand, Mandel and Walls.“We struggled to keep it together

in the last half of the Adelphi game,” Coleman said. “We won a very good tournament outright, and not many teams have been able to do that. We’re undefeated through the first three games, so we’re definitely headed in the right direction.”

The Bears traveled to nearby Bryant University (2-4-0) last night, beginning a four-game road trip and extending their winning streak to three in a row with a 1-0 victory over the Bulldogs. Thomas McNamara ’13 recorded the first goal of his collegiate career with less than two minutes to play in the first half. Grandstrand and the defense kept Bryant out of their territory, allowing only one shot on goal compared to Brown’s six.

The Bears take on another intra-state rival in the University of Rhode Island (2-2-0) Saturday at 7 p.m.

“One of the stresses of this season is to put forth a full team effort,” Cole-man said. “The team is committed to both sides of the ball, and we are com-municating well and backing one an-other up — translating into key wins at the beginning of the season.”

WEDNESDAy, SEPTEmBER 16, 2009 | Page 5

The Brown Daily HeraldSportswednesdaym. soccer scores big weekend on rain-soaked field

Jesse morgan / HeraldJon Okafor ‘11 (17) competes for the ball against Adelphi in Sunday’s home game. The Bears blanked the Panthers 2-0.

editorial & LettersPage 6 | WEDNESDAy, SEPTEmBER 16, 2009

The Brown Daily Herald

A L E x Y U L Y

Seniority and its discontents

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editorial

Last Friday, the East Providence School Com-mittee declared that it would seek to replace its district’s existing seniority-based salaries with a system that financially rewards high job perfor-mance; the details would be determined through negotiations between parents, teachers, administra-tors, union officials and outside education experts. The teachers’ union is balking at the potential disruption of the seniority system that rigidly guar-antees predictable compensation for its members. But that predictability is already at risk.

East Providence teachers have been working without a contract since October of last year and have had to take a five-percent pay cut and even heavier reductions in benefits as the district strug-gles to make ends meet during the state’s budget crisis. Unless the union opens up to compromise, the burden of these cuts will fall hardest on dedi-cated young teachers and the students who depend upon their instruction.

Pay scales and hiring priorities based first and foremost on seniority are a product of dark days for the teaching profession. In the middle of the last century, teachers across the United States suffered miserable pay and unjustified termination based on the whims and interests of administra-tors. Strikes and tough negotiations led by the American Federation of Teachers and its local affiliates eventually established seniority as the overriding pay and employment criterion across much of the country.

But this rubric has pitfalls of its own. Teach-ers’ talents are as varied as the needs of their students, and a system that compensates instruc-tors as if they were assembly-line workers does a disservice to the entire community. Simply put, students suffer when their teachers treat their

job as a clock-punching routine. Most teachers don’t, out of dedication to their profession, but seniority-first systems protect those who do and discourage the majority from doing their best in the classroom.

We strongly encourage the teachers of East Providence and their union representatives to cooperate in the negotiations over a new salary system. They can help guarantee that administra-tors’ teacher assessments are balanced by using peer evaluations. And they can ensure that senior-ity, instead of being scrapped entirely, assumes its rightful role as one criterion among many. That way, teachers won’t have to come to school knowing the official measure of their worth is the number of years they’ve spent in front of the blackboard, but they will know that those years of service won’t be forgotten.

However the struggle over seniority across the Seekonk turns out, Brunonians should not turn a blind eye to the educational tribulations sur-rounding College Hill. This university connects us to countless programs that raise the quality of education in the greater Providence area and around the country. You can help young Rhodies to think critically and speak cogently in the Rhode Island Urban Debate League, or join the many Brown graduates who have spent two years teach-ing public school through Teach for America. Best of all, you can pursue a career in early public education. It sure isn’t glamorous, but when it’s done right it’s some of the noblest work any of us can hope to do.

Edi tor ia l s are wri t t en by The Her -ald’s editorial page board. Send com-ments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.

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URL citations not the solutionto the editor:

Regarding Tuesday’s op-ed (“Re-thinking citations,” Sept. 15): Dan Davidson’s ’11 point about hyper-linked citations is a good one but in a sense moot, since most citation style sheets I’m familiar with would require you to use a URL for any on-line source you cite anyway. I would take issue with the notion that a URL all by itself is sufficient for a citation (although I’m not entirely sure that’s what he’s suggesting). As a reader of scholarly literature, I often glance at a citation’s author and maybe its source (i.e. a refereed journal title or perhaps who published the book) to get a quick fix on its authority. I suspect most faculty members do the same. So not having that data present would force me to leave

reading the article and chase down the URL (which may or may not still exist). The real problem is that a printed-out paper doesn’t have the ability to make the “live link.” I agree that this ability to link directly to your source is quite a major leap forward in scholarly method.

The good news is, citation man-agement is now fairly easy. The Brown libraries have made a You-Tube video describing the value of citation managers. The library website also has a page dedicated to these tools. Classes in all three of the managers we use at Brown (EndNote, RefWorks and Zotero) are available online.

ned Quistmusic Librarian

Sept. 15

letter to the editors

blogdailyherald.com

All the Internet you need.

WEDNESDAy, SEPTEmBER 16, 2009 | PAGE 7

opinionsThe Brown Daily Herald

If you have driven through Massachusetts on In-terstate 95 recently, the new highway billboards that mark out the miles cannot have escaped your notice. The recurring mantra, “Thanks, Ted,” is but one of a small set of commemora-tions of a man important beyond his role as senior senator of Massachusetts.

The world for a graduating college student is potentially a little scarier in an era post-Ted Ken-nedy. Over the past year, as the United States began — after decades of denial — to address the issues of health care, universal coverage and insurance, there have only been a handful of national figures who have publicly supported a radical overhaul in the direction of giving every American affordable health care.

The initial group has dwindled over the months, and with it any hope of the kind of health-care reform liberals have been angling for. This original list included then-Senator Hillary Clinton and New Mexico Gov. Bill Rich-ardson, who were among the more serious proponents of a universal health insurance system.

While Secretary of State Clinton may have more television time on some issues, the cause she championed in the 1990s as First Lady has taken a back seat. Since Gov. Richardson withdrew from the presidential race and sub-sequently from consideration as Secretary of

Commerce, his national profile on this and other issues has been drastically diminished.

Some of the other outspoken proponents of universal health care during the 2008 campaign, such as former Senator Mike Gravel, D.-Alaska, have not succeeded in championing this issue, finding fame mostly as national laughingstocks. The last true liberal crusader for health-care reform, and fittingly one of the first to decide that discussing this issue was not tantamount to political suicide, was Ted Kennedy.

Despite the associations of the term “mav-

erick” with Republicans in the current political climate, Ted Kennedy was, in recent years, the epitome of the liberal maverick. Even as his health failed over the last two years, he was one of the only senators unafraid of the insur-ance industry’s money and lobbying power. Kennedy was ready for the fight against what he rightfully saw as the insurance industry’s commercial scheme to maximize profits at the expense of lives.

Ted Kennedy had the name and the oppor-tunity to bring significant change to the way we treat patients in this country, regardless of their

ability to pay. He was the lone senator who felt that the insurance companies’ desires to turn a profit at the expense of individuals’ health was immoral. He knew that the appropriate course of action was to turn health care into an industry not run by private, unregulated corporate interests.

Take a look at President Obama’s new allies for health care reform. While Sen. Olympia Snowe, R.-Maine, and Sen. Susan Collins R.-Maine, are crucial to moving legislation at this point, the end product is not the original pro-

posal the President touted in his initial weeks in office. There is little doubt that if Ted Kennedy were still here, his presence would have been enough to push forward the most essential aspects to the initial proposal: mandatory insur-ance coverage and an affordable public option to compete with private insurance.

For those of you beginning your job search, even for those of you who are fairly confident in finding a job upon graduation, remember what the current system will cost you.

The national average for employment-based health insurance includes the employee pay-

ing 30 percent of the policy’s cost. In under a decade, these costs have more than doubled.

An average family of four not covered by an employer pays over $13,000 per year, and these families risk their insurance companies drop-ping their policies at times when they have the greatest need and medical costs. Some estimate that, by 2018, employment-based family plans will cost closer to $25,000 per year per family.

Every year, 1.5 million people foreclose on their homes due in part to medical bills. In 2007, 62 percent of bankruptcies were linked to medical expenses. Of these, almost 80 percent had health insurance.

There’s no doubt that if Ted Kennedy were still serving as a senator, the prospects for families facing health problems 10 years from now would not be so dire. While we study at Brown, an institution that requires students to have medical insurance, it becomes easy to forget that health care in the real world is not guaranteed.

It is important not to be blindsided by the realities new college graduates — and others — face on this front. We must consider how to mend the system in an era without the strong leadership of politicians who understand the importance of universal health care.

Susannah Kroeber ’11 is a Slavic Studies concentrator from Beijing, China.

She can be reached at susannah_kroeber@brown.edu.

Thanks, ted

This past Monday, Jonathan Topaz ’12 wrote a column (“SDS’ golden opportunity,” Sept. 14) urging Students for a Democratic Society to organize against the U.S.’s occupation of Afghanistan. As a member of that organization, I too have a “quick piece of advice to the new Class of 2013”: Be wary of uninformed colum-nists for The Herald.

I’d like to use this space to debunk some of the misconceptions in that column. First, SDS has never labeled the Brown Corporation, the final decision-making power here at Brown, either “evil” or “arch-conservative.” The descrip-tors that SDS uses are “undemocratic,” “inac-cessible” and “nontransparent.” Still, “liberal” hardly seems to describe two of the Corpora-tions highest profile members — Louisiana Republican Governor Bobby Jindal ’91.5 is a pro-lifer who supports intelligent design in public schools, and Brown’s Chancellor Thomas Tisch is a board member of a conservative think-tank called the Manhattan Institute.

Nevertheless, the fact that Brown’s Cor-poration is inaccessible, undemocratic and nontransparent isn’t the point. The problem with these things is the practical implications that they have for the everyday lives of Brown community members, potential community members and the world at large.

Topaz points out that international student aid has been increased by 25 percent source, yet doesn’t mention that admissions for those students are still not need-blind. While it is com-mendable that the Corporation elected the first African-American President of an Ivy, this masks

the fact that only seven percent source of stu-dents at Brown share Ruth Simmons’ race (6.4 percent lower than US demographics, and 7.54 percent lower than Providence source). Even in the year following the onset of the biggest recession since the Great Depression, tuition for Brown was still hiked three percent. I don’t know about you, but I have friends that weren’t able to come back this year after the hike.

Those students still attending may be curi-ous about where their tuition dollars are going. As a matter of standard practice, Brown keeps investments a secret. We don’t know whether

we are benefiting from the growing coffers of war-profiteering arms manufactures, the continued occupation of Palestine, Iraq and, yes, Afghanistan, or union-busting, employee-abusing hotel chains like HEI (which Brown’s own Student Labor Alliance has ascertained we are invested in).

“Think global, act local” seems to ring par-ticularly true here — one of the best ways that Brown students can use the privilege they do have to combat international problems is by pressuring the school to divest from unwor-thy causes. Of course, this sort of pressure is impossible to apply as long as knowledge of

investments remains controlled.Let me back up to Topaz’s recommenda-

tion that SDS “broaden their horizons.” As I understand it, the argument is that since Brown is already a progressive and privileged place, why focus on making it better, when there is the U.S.’s occupation of Afghanistan to be stopped?

This argument makes no sense; these two goals are hardly mutually exclusive. Wasn’t it in the middle of the Vietnam War when our beloved Open Curriculum was adopted after student agitation? What if students of the day

had listened to advice like Topaz’s? True, Brown is a privileged community, and kudos to Topaz’s acknowledgement of this, but the reality is that not everyone at Brown is equally privileged, nor do all potential students have the same access to this privilege. Students are the ones being affected by admissions, tuition and financial aid policies — it is our tuition dollars that are invested — so we should be the ones with the power to make decisions on these issues.

Topaz is under the impression that Universi-ty Democratization was the only campaign SDS worked on last year. It wasn’t. We organized a coalition of student groups to greet the Corpora-

tion when they arrived to meet in February— a demonstration designed to deliver the demands of each group directly to the decision-makers, whether they wanted to hear or not.

This coalition, calling itself Open the Books!, delivered a letter to the Brown University Com-munity Council, with Chancellor Tisch in at-tendance. It expressed our desire to meet with the Corporation Committee on Investment, a request they refused. We also began working with the Career Development Center towards creating a code of ethics guiding which organiza-tions would be allowed to recruit on campus.

There is good reason Brown SDS hasn’t devoted itself to anti-war efforts (although maybe you’ve heard of Funk the War — there have been five): there is already an on-campus anti-war group. It’s called Operation Iraqi Free-dom.

Maybe you think that with the escalation of US presence in Afghanistan, OIF is not as relevant as it once was. Well, you’re in luck — there is a new anti-war group in the mak-ing, whose direction is yet set. If this fits your interest (and I’m talking to you, Topaz), then their first meeting is today

Otherwise, if you care about “petty internal problems” like whom Brown is invested in, whom we let recruit students on campus, how much you pay to go here and whether we will make our admissions policies more accessible, come to the SDS meeting tonight. Me? I plan on going to both.

Julian Park ’12 can be e-mailed for information on anti-war and SDS meetings. He can be reached at julianfrancispark@gmail.com

Calling out the misinformed: a call to action

“Think global, act local” seems to ring particularly true here — one of the best ways that Brown students can use the privilege they do have to combat international problems is by pressuring the school to divest from unworthy

causes.

The last true crusader for liberal health care reform was Ted Kennedy.

JULIAN PARKguest coluMnist

SUSANNAH KROEBERopinions coluMnist

WedneSday, SePtemBer 16, 2009 Page 8

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