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Daily
By hAnnAh ABEloW Senior Staff Writer
the Brown
Herald
Since 1891
Statistics show students are increasingly using the libraries online resources.
Despite the 50 percent increase in applications to Brown over the past five years, the Brown Alumni Schools Committee has still been able to arrange interviews for most first-year applicants, said Todd Andrews 83, vice president for alumni relations. The continued success has been due in part to an increase in the number of alumni volunteers and the number of applicants they each interview. If the applicant pool continues to grow, the process will likely include more interviews not conducted in person, Andrew said. I think in the future youll see more phone interviews, more Skype interviews, but for now the alumni are answering the call. Both phone and Skype have been used in the past, especially when contacting an increasing international pool, he said. BASC recruitment efforts have increased the participation of younger alums, Andrews wrote in an email to The Herald. The number of interviewers has roughly doubled since Andrews began working at the University six years ago. Other potential means for dealing with the rise in applications continued on page 3
Despite increases in faculty salaries across the University in recent years, there is still a salary gap between faculty in divisions such as humanities and those in other disciplines like engineering and economics, according to data from the Dean of the Faculty website. A full professor in a humanities discipline was paid more than $30,000 less than a faculty member in the computer science, economics and
engineering departments, according to data on the median salaries for the 2010-11 year published on the Dean of the Faculty website. It has always been the case that not all faculty members make the same salaries, said Provost Mark Schlissel P15, adding that the distinction is based on economic forces such as the academic market in which the University competes. Some faculty members such as those who work in higher-paid disciplines can also find work in the private sector, meaning that the University must make
competitive offers to recruit them to Brown, he said. The University exists in a national market, both academically and privately, said Dean of the Faculty Kevin McLaughlin P12. When academics develop skills that are transferable and applicable to a higher-paying market, they receive a salary that is competitive with those markets, he said, adding that he suspect(s) its always been the case. Competitors for these scholars could include techcontinued on page 4
The Brown University Community Council discussed the Universitys commitment to environmentally sustainable development and the accessibility of financial aid at its monthly meeting Tuesday afternoon. In response to a presentation from five members of the student environmental advocacy group emPOWER, BUCC unanimously endorsed the creation of a committee to draft a sustainability strategy for the University. If approved, the committee would develop plans to promote Browns continued commitment to sustainability under the Office of the Provost, said Matt Breuer 14. The meeting also addressed expanding the Universitys financial aid offerings. Brown for Financial Aid, a new student group, presented a proposal to extend the Universitys need-blind admissions policy to international, transfer and Resumed Undergraduate Education students. Further reductions in direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions, as well as in student and food waste, are examples of initiatives the comcontinued on page 2
Seven stories above his small storefront on Union Street, Rick Roden makes soap.
Feature
Roden is the owner of Zop, a handmade soap store just off Westminster Street a 10-minute walk from campus that also sells shampoos, lotions and fragrances. Zop offers the usual aromatic varieties, like lavender, jasmine and sandalwood, as well as more unusual soaps like bergamot, vetiver and seaside a particularly exfoliating variety because it includes sand from a Newport beach. Most unusual, perhaps, is the carbon soap, a jet-black bar that produces black suds. Customers rave about the soap, which uses carbon sourced from Malaysia, Roden said. It works, he added, noting that it even cured his
son of acne. Roden uses his favorite scent, fern, for the carbon soap, which is hard to identify out of context. Roden once made a blue, lettuce-scented soap and named it Conspiracy Soap as a joke because it seemed exotic to customers who couldnt identify the lettuce scent. The name Zop came from a friends daughter, who was always reprimanded by her mother when she mispronounced the word soap. Roden named his business Zop so the mother would no longer correct her. Today, Roden is showing me how to make a lily of the valley bar soap. Our lab, Rodens high-ceilinged apartment, is strewn with boxes hes moving out soon as well as books, records, shelves of bottles and drying racks of soap. His kitchen is divided in half, a cooking side and a soapmaking side. In Rodens most basic explanation, continued on page 2
Roden weighs a soaps potential hardness and conditioning before making it.
weather
inside
Warm winter
Facilities and students discuss the short winter
News, 5
Stealing
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2 Campus news
C AlENDAR
TODAY 4 P.m. Peter Balsam, Columbia University Metcalf 101, Friedman Auditorium 8 P.m. Concert of Brazilian Jazz Grant Recital Hall 7 P.m. No Woman, No Cry Screening Wilson Hall, Room 101 mARCH 21 TOmORROW 5:30 P.m. Sophocles Choral Experiments Salomon 001 mARCH 22
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SHARPE REFECTORY Buffalo Wings, Carrots and Celery with Blue Cheese Dressing, Vegan Nuggets VERNEY-WOOLLEY DINING HALL LUNCH Shaved Steak Sandwich, Vegan Stuffed Red Pepper, Enchilada Bar, Chocolate Chip Cookies
DINNER Pasta with Eggplant and Olives, Shaved Steak with Mushrooms and Onions, Vegetarian Strudel Turkey Pot Pie, Stir Fried Tofu, Ziti, Baked Potatoes, Greek Salad Bar, Magic Bars
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principles that are necessary for establishing a democratic system. The first is self-autonomy, which he said is beginning to take hold in China as the central government interferes less frequently in the affairs of its provinces. Xu illustrated the second principle, ownership of private property, with an example. In China, officials can simply tell propertyowners, Get out of your home were building a highway over your house, he said, while an American homeowner in a similar situation could sue for compensation. But Xu added that property rights are becoming increasingly respected in China. Xu stressed that the political system of any country is related to the economy, citing modernization as an underlying cause of Chinas 1911 revolution. He commented on the current inequalities in trade between China and the U.S., lamenting that many highquality products made in China are sold only in the U.S. The leaders of the country should make sure the highest quality products stay within their country, he said, adding, I believe every person deserves the same amount of respect and human rights, and therefore we shouldnt be treated any differently in China. The main obstacle to democratic progress, he said, is the need to change what Chinese people believe and value. He listed cases of fake eggs and tainted milk powder as examples of a weak respect for the rule of law, in contrast to the U.S., where the president can be impeached for lying. He emphasized that he was not criticizing students from China rather, he said the responsibility for this problem lies with the older generation. But he said great change is coming to China that will have a profoundly beneficial impact. Social media is one contributor to these trends that will one day bring about democracy. When that day comes, he said he will go back to China, no matter how old he is. Its a beautiful country, he said. Au, the translator, added that when Xu returns to China, he hopes he can continue to be of service to his country. Though he will be 70 years old next year, Xu still feels young interacting with Brown students is what makes him feel younger, Au said. Michelle Kwok 15, a student in Xus seminar, INTL 1800D: Survey of Chinese Democracy and Chinese Contemporary History, attended the event and described Xu as a really interesting and approachable professor. Dylan Wu 13 also attended the lecture and said he appreciated hearing Xus insight. Its rare to have an occasion to hear from someone who has personally experienced Communist rule and has been oppressed by the government, Wu said.
Xu Wenli, senior fellow in international studies, said the changing economic and political atmosphere in China will gradually lead to a more democratic culture in a lecture called China: Great Changes Ahead Tuesday evening. The lecture, hosted by the Asian American Students Association, was part of the Universitys Year of China initiative. Foundations for political change in China are being laid every day, he said. Xus own life is a testament to this statement he has been arrested twice, and he spent a total of 16 years in prison for his involvement in pro-democracy opposition movements in China. On Christmas Eve in 2003, he was exiled to the United States and became a fellow at the Watson Institute of International Studies. He is currently chairman of the China Democracy
Party, the formation of which led to his second arrest in 1998. He is also chairman of the Caring for China Center, which raises awareness of humanitarian issues, said Larry Au 14, Xus secretary, who translated Xus lecture for the audience members who did not understand Mandarin. Au, a BlogDailyHerald contributor, is also historian of the Asian American Students Association. The event gathered about 40 audience members in Wilson. Xu was an expressive and dynamic speaker, often evoking laughter from the audience. He used metaphors via his translator to describe Chinas economic and political climate. Prior to reform in 1978, Xu compared Chinas economy to a race where everyone had to walk the same pace. He added, When we started allowing people to become richer, people started moving at different paces. Xu discussed two fundamental
4 Campus news
By KRiSTinA KlARA Staff Writer
Campus news 5
our cost of cooling went up by 10 percent, Fernandez said. Any money saved is redirected toward energy conservation projects, which include the construction of solar cells on the new fitness center pool and the installation of energy efficient lighting on every building on campus. Students are certainly not complaining about the warm winter. They have been spilling out onto the Main Green, soaking in the sunlight in shorts, slippers and aviators. Im a big fan of this warm winter, said Tellef Lundevall 13. I was here over winter and it made it easier to go outside. Ive been taking advantage of it by hanging outside with my friends a lot. It hasnt been as miserable walking to class. Ive noticed a lot more smiling and a lot of different people interacting on the green, said Ross Walthall 13. Ive been talking to people I never really talked to and playing soccer, which I never really played before. But the unusually high temperatures have disconcerted the more environmentally-conscious students. Its so nice, but it makes me worried about climate change, said Anna Poon 15. It makes me think the world is going to end soon because Providence is supposed to be cold. Alyssa Browning 15, who hails from Pawtucket, called this winter a drastic contrast compared to last years, when her hometowns schools saw roofs collapse under the weight of the snow. She added, While Im enjoying the early spring, I still miss the snow.
Winter gave Providence a warm welcome this year, with an average winter temperature in the high 40s and only 17.8 inches of snow, according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. Due to the lack of snowfall, the Department of Facilities Management only spent $112,000 of its allotted snow removal budget of $196,000, according to Carlos Fernandez, assistant vice president of facilities, operations and engineering. This winter was the secondwarmest in Providence since record-keeping began over 100 years ago, according to NOAA. This stands in stark contrast to last years mid-30s average winter temperature and approximately 46 inches of snowfall. It was also the fourth-warmest meteorological winter on record for the United States, according to NOAA. The cause of this abnormally warm winter was the jet stream, which is the boundary that separates colder Canadian air from milder air, said Charles Tolley, a meteorologist for NOAA. This stopped the outbreak of cold Canadian air from entering southern New England and has resulted in above-average temperatures for the last 10 months. Tolley called this unusual but not unique, adding that we have had mild, fairly snow-free winters in the past. Fernandez said the savings will not have that much of an impact. Snow removal is only 0.3 percent of our overall budget, which is an extremely small part, he said.
Fernandez added that Facilities already spent a significant amount of resources in the fall on Hurricane Irene, which had not been accounted for in the budget. A total of $90,000 was spent on the trimming of trees, cleaning of drains and post-hurricane cleanup activities. Despite minimal snowfall, Providence still experienced freezing temperatures this winter, and Facilities had to allocate resources for de-icing and salting pavements. But a snow-less winter has its advantages. With more time available, Facilities is able to reallocate resources to other projects that are normally overlooked, Fernandez said. The landscaping crew has the opportunity to care for trees that it did not have time for in the past, and several areas of campus are undergoing maintenance. Work on spring maintenance has also begun to get a jump-start on preparations for Commencement by planting new flowers and moving leaves, Fernandez said. In past years, Facilities has spent significantly more on snow removal. It spent $246,000 in 2011, $289,000 in 2010 and $203,000 in 2009 due to greater amounts of snow. Its not so much about how many inches of snow as it is about how many snowfalls there are, Fernandez said. Because a greater number of snowfalls means more time and money, one cant correlate inches to costs. A bigger issue that Facilities faces is utility costs. This winter, we used 10 percent less energy on heating and saved about $20,000 but because of a warmer summer,
Snow was a rare sight and did not remain on the ground for long this winter.
COMiCS
Fraternity of Evil | Eshan Mitra, Brendan Hainline and Hector Ramirez
We offer a banquet. With the Google t h e b r ow n da i ly h e r a l d box all you get is dessert.
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CORREC TiON
An article in Tuesdays Herald (Proposed R.I. bill intended to combat racial profiling, March 20) incorrectly attributed a series of quotes about racial profiling to Major Charles Swenson, deputy chief of police for the East Providence Police Department. In fact, those quotes should have been attributed to Chief of Police for the East Providence Police Department Joseph Tavares. The Herald regrets the error.
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opinions 7
to food: Buying organic and local, or going vegetarian. So why is it that when it comes to stealing from Dining Services, morality doesnt apply? During the 1960s, psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg followed a group of boys in suburban Chicago from elementary school through college and tracked their moral development. Kohlberg proposed that individuals develop their capacity for moral reasoning by learning to de-center their worldview to take into account the perspectives of others. abiding mentality to truly autonomous morality, individuals must enter a sort of moral limbo. Conventional rules are rejected, but those genuine moral principles dont kick in right away. In Kohlbergs study, some of the most morally developed boys achieved high stages of moral reasoning only to regress in the early years of college to ego-centric and hedonistic relativism. While they were entirely aware that people in general value rules and reciprocity, they opted not to apply those moral cause in the words of one anonymous senior they just dont give a f**k. Luckily, for the boys in Kohlbergs study, moral regression was like a teenager trying out the punk look: In the end, it was just a phase. By age 25, their post-conventional morality was revived on stronger, more principled ground and, as Rosen says, they began doing the right thing for the right reason. We are insulated from the real world here on College Hill. As an auxiliary department of the University, Dining Services runs on a break-even budget. Their mission is to provide students with good food in an environment that fosters intellectual and personal growth. Much like the way Department of Public Safety officers will not arrest students for underage drinking in the dorms, Dining Services is not out to get you for stealing a little food. But the temporary liberation from letter-of-the-law enforcement has put us into a moral limbo. Without conventional guidance to define right from wrong, many students fall back on the hedonistic, ego-centric tendency to prioritize their own interests and disregard the rest. It seems like everyone has accepted stealing food as a fact of college life. Maybe it is. But as members of the Brown community we still have a responsibility to respect each other and the University. Your actions may go unpunished, but that doesnt mean your decisions dont count. lauren Schleimer 12 has cashiered all over campus, and she wants you to know that you are not as subtle as you think you are.
After doing the right thing for years, only to realize that stealing wont get you punished, many students are rebelling against conventional morality. They steal because in the words of one anonymous senior they just dont give a f**k.
When confronted by a moral conflict between obeying the rules and serving human welfare, more developed individuals consider the interests of everyone involved and apply the Golden Rule: Treat others how you would want to be treated. When this consideration is extended to the good of society as a whole, there comes a sense of obligation to obey the law to maintain the moral order. According to Kohlberg, the majority of adults stop here at the letter of the law. The minority and Brown students in general constitute a minority move beyond the conventions of society to develop independent moral principles to distinguish right from wrong. But to transition from a lawconstraints to their own decision-making. Whether our sense of guilt came from parents or teachers, most of us followed the rules in high school to make it to the Ivy League. For many, college life is a rude awakening that doing the right thing is not always rewarded. People lie, cheat, steal and in general do not get punished for bad behavior. Like the boys in Kohlbergs study, many students are reacting against the sense of guilt instilled by a lifetime of good parenting and beginning to test out their capacity to be guilt-free. After doing the right thing for years, only to realize that stealing food will not get you punished, they are rebelling against conventional morality. They steal be-
Now when someone wants directions, they dont pull out a map. They go to the Google to tell them which way to go. Thanks for making humanity stupid, Al Gore.
post office as well as require you to spend all day at the typewriter making hundreds of copies of your message. The Internet allows people to instantly connect all across the world like never before but at what cost? What about the millions of hours people waste watching videos of David after the dentist and looking at pictures of cats? Now when someone wants directions, they dont pull out a map. They go to Google, which tells them which way to go. Thanks for making humanity stupid, Al Gore. I should point out that I personally think that maps make people stupid as well. They are a poor substitute for judging directions using growth opment of the plow ended well before it started telling us what restaurant to eat at. If only more things could be like the plow knowing when to stop before going too far. I wish Charmander never evolved into Charmeleon. Im still upset about the mass firing of scribes after the invention of the printing press. What was so wrong with the Ford Model T that now everyone is whizzing around in vans and sedans? Recently, Internet communication aided civil uprisings all across the Arab world. Protesters gained international support as videos of government oppression were uploaded to YouTube and shared with everyone on the Internet bandwagon. Many
Ben Stephenson 13 can be reached at ben_stephenson@brown.edu. if you email him, his phone will probably buzz in his pocket, and hell read it really fast.
Marble stones in the Friedman Study Center courtyards are designed to catch sunlight, marking the onset of spring.
Charles Cobb Jr., visiting professor of Africana studies, teaches the civil rights movement of the 1960s from an informed perspective he was there. As field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Cobb participated in the movement first-hand. History courses tend to portray the civil rights movement of the 1960s as a set of disjointed events led by a few iconic figures, Cobb said. He seeks to dispel this misconception of the movement in his spring seminar AFRI 1260: The Organizing Tradition of the Southern Civil Rights Movement. The real way to understand the southern movement is as a movement of grassroots community organizing in the rural black belt which is quiet, almost invisible work, Cobb said. Thats where all the forces that led to substantial changes really took root. Cobbs perspective is shaped by his experience as field secretary for SNCC from 1962-67. The committee focused its attention on mobilizing communities to demand change, he said. Treading through the cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta region, Cobb said he spent his time as field secretary talking to people, day after day after day. Working in plantation country, Cobb encouraged residents to register to vote at county courthouses. His first assignment was in Sunflower County, Miss., where only 100 of 20,000 blacks of voting age were registered to vote. Cobbs work was especially difficult because of the poverty in the region, where residents had an average income of $3 per day. Violence and economic reprisal kept blacks from voting in a society dominated by a feudal sharecropping system, Cobb said. As an organizer, part of it was
field work
breaking through the mental habits of oppression, Cobb said, and part of it was convincing people to try to register to vote despite the potential backlash they might face. Cobb and other SNCC organizers encouraged people to make demands for the kind of society they wanted. We werent in the business of telling people what to do, Cobb said. We were in the business of trying to end this paralysis that we found in these communities where nobody felt completely comfortable in making a demand on a larger scale. Cobb uses his field experience as a starting point to explore the grassroots efforts in the civil rights movement. Three points will frame his class discussion, Cobb said. First, Cobb urges his students to recognize that southern black populations began to speak for themselves. Sharecroppers, day workers, maids, cooks all began to gain a voice in the South in the 1960s, he said. Second, Cobb highlights the internal challenges within the Southern black community. Although its true that the movement challenged racial segregation and white supremacy, perhaps even more important were the challenges black people made to one another within the black community, Cobb said. As an example, he cited Martin Luther King Jr., who emerged as a leader in response to a challenge from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People leader Edgar Nixon. Nixon accused ministers at a meeting in Kings church of being cowards, Cobb said. Third, Cobb explores the convergence of activists of all ages during the movement. As a 19-year-old working for SNCC, Cobb found himself coordinating with much older activists many of whom were local NAACP leaders who
civil rights course
shared their experiences and gave him access to valuable networks of grassroots mobilization. Lesser known-figures who never made it into the historical canon are brought to the forefront in Cobbs course. They need to be brought forward, and I can do that, because I was there, he said. Cobb also makes distinctions within the movement, exploring organization in different states and contrasting urban and rural movements. Thats a lot to try to do in Browns 13-week semester, he said, smiling. When you learn about the civil rights movement in high school, you learn the big men approach, said Bradley Silverman 13, an opinions writer for The Herald, who took Cobbs course in spring 2011. But you dont learn much about the ordinary people who were involved in it how they sacrificed and why it worked. Many students come into Cobbs course with specific interest but limited knowledge, Cobb said. Michael Stewart 13 enrolled in the course last year after a friend told him Cobb had the best stories ever. It was fairly amazing to be in a class with a professor who was so involved with what he was talking about, Stewart said. Silverman also noted that Cobbs personal experiences added to his teaching in the classroom. He didnt speak to us as an academic, Silverman said. He spoke to us as a man with really fascinating experiences, sharing his perspective on a very unique period in American history, for which he not only had a front row seat, but was a very active participant. Cobb emphasizes the intricate planning behind every action in the movement, he said. There was a constant exchange of ideas and thought, he
Exploring the tradition
said. People whether they had a sixth grade education or a masters degree were thinking. This intellectual activity is left out of the scholarship, and events are portrayed as if they happened spontaneously, Cobb added. Cobb urges students to explore the thought process behind voter registration, sit-ins and desegregation. He said he wants them to literally think about the thinking. Stewart said the class definitely changed his views about the movement. He enjoyed learning about the character flaws of the prominent figures and said he gained an understanding of the tension between the younger and older generations of activists. The class really made me think about (the movement) in a more complex way, a more nuanced way, said Jesse McGleughlin 14. I gained an understanding of the power of coalition building, the power of grassroots organizing. The class reading list consists of books of ideas, Cobb said. The list includes On the Road to Freedom written by Cobb himself. This book is one installment in Cobbs lifelong career of reporting and writing. He has worked as a foreign affairs reporter with National Public Radio, as a staff writer at National Geographic for 12 years and as a writer and reporter on multiple films with Public Broadcasting Services Frontline. I went everywhere from Utah to the eastern frontier of Russia, Cobb said with a laugh. Cobb also helped found allafrica. com, which has become the largest online news provider of information about African affairs. His career has shifted from daily reporting to feature reporting and book writing. While his former focus was foreign correspondence, the bulk of his current work revolves around the Southern civil rights movement.
from journalist to professor
Most of the year, Cobb spends his time writing in Jacksonville, Fla., but he makes an annual trip to Providence to teach his course as a visiting professor. For Cobb, teaching the course complements his writing. Teaching is helping me find a language that effectively tells this story, he said. The organizing tradition of the Southern civil rights movement holds many lessons for modern activist movements, Cobb said. Though racism and discrimination are not the forefront of todays major social movements, the lessons of the black struggle, of what ordinary people can do to effect social change, are applicable, he said. The Occupy Wall Street movement raises important issues about wealth disparities in America, Cobb said. So far, the movement has consisted largely of downtown encampments without becoming a community-wide effort, he added. Its one thing for a group to talk among its members, Cobb said. Its another thing when you have to figure out how to take your political ideas into a community, a community that may be hostile or afraid of those ideas. Silverman expressed the need for social movements to engage in meticulous organizing activities such as mass letter writing initiatives, door-to-door campaigns and fielding candidates in primary elections. Its not just about sloganeering and holding rallies and getting attention, he said. Cobb said grassroots organizing efforts are the crucial component in creating lasting social transformation, though protesting may still play an important role. If you look at the organizing tradition you see what ordinary people can do, Cobb said. You dont have to be Martin Luther King (Jr.) to be an important factor for change.
modern applications