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vol. cxxii, no.101
Thursday, November 8, 2012
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nearly 84 percent of students said they feel at least as happy as their peers on average, according to a poll conducted by The herald earlier this month. About half the students polled reported feeling equally as happy as their peers. More than 35 percent reported feeling happier, while only around 13 percent of students said they were less happy than their peers. everyone that I see seems pretty happy and has a positive outlook, but they might not think other people are as happy, said emily wilkins 14. Students may pick up on others stress, causing them to underestimate the happiness of their peers, she said. nikolaos Melachrinos 15 thought more students would have reported feeling less happy than their peers. It is difficult to know how most people, aside from your closest friends, spend their time, he said. So it is easy to think, I have all this work to do and look at
all these people having fun, he said. Thats awesome, he said upon hearing the poll results. we all have a lot of things to do, but at the end of the day were all having a great time. Samantha Isman 15 agreed that Browns atmosphere creates a culture of happiness. were given so much freedom here that inevitably you end up doing what you love, she said. The herald poll results also show that happiness is not meaningfully correlated with other variables like gender, hours of sleep or relationship status. Monica Palid 16 said given the diversity of experiences, this result was not very surprising. Some people want to be in a relationship, some people dont. Some people cant function without 10 hours of sleep, some people are fine with six, she said. Brown has garnered a reputation for being a happy campus. newsweeks the Daily Beast listed Brown as the school with the fourth-happiest students in their 2012 rankings. The Un i v e r s i t y / / Happy page 4
On average, how happy do you think you are relative to your peers?
Much less happy Unsure 2.3% 2.8% Much happier 8.6%
Many student poll respondents said they felt happier than their peers. ClPs Professor Joachim krueger attributes this to self-enhancement.
ne WS in BrieF
Despite having the highest tuition in rhode Island, Brown had the lowest average debt of all reporting colleges in the state for class of 2011 graduates, according to the Project on Student Debt, a report published by the Institute for College Access and Success, a nonprofit. University graduates that year held an average of $20,455 of student debt, lower than the state average of $29,097 and also less than the national average debt of $26,600, according to the report. rhode Island had the fourth highest average debt in the country across its 2011 college graduates. At Bryant University 2011 graduates had an average loan debt of $37,813, ranking them third highest among the reporting private colleges in rhode Island. / / debt page 3
Average Debt *Columbia University did not report the average debt of its 2011 graduates.
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According to the institute for College Access and success latest report, brown students graduate with the largest amount of loan debt compared to peers at the other ivy league institutions.
Gerald zani, manager of demonstrations in the physics department, brings excitement and enthusiasm to classroom experiments.
If hollywood were to produce a movie based on Browns physics department, Stanley tucci would play manager of demonstrations Gerald Zani. Costume designers would gather a thin pair of round-wired frames, loose green pants, silver and blue Zig tech athletic shoes and a gray t-shirt reading I heart PhZICS. The finishing touch to the Zani ensemble would be a black cellphone belt clip. In 1993, Brown was searching for a physics demonstrator, someone who could conduct experiments in the classroom. At the time, Zani was working at a manufacturing factory in the greater Boston area, but he felt the company might be facing financial difficulties in the midst of a minor recession. Playing it safe, Zani applied for the available position and began his
career as a demonstrator. Zani had some prior experience in physics, having taken undergraduate courses at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, but he said his knowledge has progressively grown since he took the position. Zani takes the initiative to learn the physics behind the demonstrations, making sure he understands the concepts in order to communicate them efficiently. I get the textbook for the course and go over the lessons and see how these concepts can be demonstrated, he said. As the world of science is always changing, Zani said he is fortunate to be sent to various conferences around the country to see how other physics demonstrators are finding innovative ways to present concepts. At one of these conferences, Zani saw a very special apparatus that could show the wave-like and particle/ / zani page 5 like proper-
Only a week after Hurricane Sandy cut a wide swath of destruction through the northeast, the noreaster athena blew into the Ocean State, bringing high winds and a shock of blustery snow. For some off-campus students, the storm also caused the seasons first power outages. Vivian carlson 14, a Benefit Street resident, said her power cut out at 5:30 p.m. We called national Grid, she said. its a pretty bad storm. apartments on Williams and Hope streets also went dark shortly before 6 p.m. ruth Shefner 13 said most of her street appeared to be powerless for about an hour. But thanks to Sandy, most students had storm preparations under control. We stocked up last week, Shefner said. approximately 200 Providence residences were affected as of 8:30 last night, with an expected restoration time of 11:30 p.m., according to the national Grid website.
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11/08/12
Americans talk a lot about First Amendment rights. But how much do we really stop to think about its punctuation and the specially chosen words that give it meaning? not enough, says Michael McConnell, director of the Constitutional law Center at Stanford law School and a senior fellow at the hoover Institution. Its not long, but theres an awful lot packed into this, he said to a sizeable crowd, predominantly students, who braved the snowstorm to attend the annual Meiklejohn lecture wednesday night. McConnell has argued 13 cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, the most recent being CompuCredit v. Greenwood in 2011. he has served as a circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the tenth Circuit, Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Department of Justice and law clerk to Justice william J. Brennan Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court. A leading authority on many aspects of constitutional history and law, he specializes in matters involving the First Amendment and was considered a potential U.S. Supreme Court nominee under President George w. Bush. The Meiklejohn lecture was created in honor of Alexander Meiklejohn, who graduated from Brown in 1893 and went on to become dean of the University and president of Amherst College. endowed by former renault executive louis Schweitzer, the lectureship has brought such distinguished speakers as former U.S. Attorney General Janet reno, civil rights attorney Floyd Abrams, then-president of the AClU nadine Strossen, Supreme
Court Justice Antonin Scalia and investigative journalist and author Seymour hersh. Meiklejohn still dominates the field of constitutional law, McConnell said. Throughout the lecture, McConnell used his PowerPoint titled The Architecture of the First Amendment: what can we learn from its grammar, words and historical context? to display the amendments and other texts to which he referred, reformatting them and highlighting words and phrases as necessary. he first examined the punctuation of the First Amendment. The two clauses refer to the same word, religion, which McConnell believes should make us suspicious of the argument sometimes made that we ought to give the idea of religion a very broad construction for purposes of free exercise, including various secular forms of conscience, but give it a very narrow interpretation for interpretation of establishment. Theres only one word its only repeated once, McConnell added. The idea that you give two different definitions is, I think, questionable. he then addressed the amendments subject: Congress. he noted that the other branches of government are not mentioned, raising the question of whether the executive or judicial branches or individual state governments could infringe upon our First Amendment rights. But the 14th Amendments guarantee to due process ensures this will not come to pass, he added. The amendments verbs clump the sentences in a different way from the semicolons, he said. It can be divided
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Claire Peracchio, President rebecca Ballhaus, vice President Danielle Marshak, treasurer Siena Delisser, 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 2012 by The Brown Daily herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
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into three verbs: respecting, prohibiting and abridging. The statement that Congress may not abridge freedom of speech implies that an understanding of this freedom already existed, McConnell said. The addition of the also suggests that the freedom of speech was a pre-existing concept. By contrast, the fact that Congress must not prohibit the free exercise of religion shows that no such right had already been established. The choice of the verb respecting is also significant. while Congress may not establish religion, it also may not disestablish it, allowing roughly one half of the States to practice non-coercive or tolerant establishment. If freedom of religion is the newest right set forth in the First Amendment, free press is the second newest. McConnell said freedom of the press was vigorously believed in after the lapse of the licensing Act in 1695, long before the founding. Freedom to petition and assemble is the oldest of the First Amendment rights. to demonstrate this, McConnell displayed two sections of the english Bill of rights: The first allowed all subjects to petition and assemble, and the second protected members of Parliament from being punished for ideas that they put forward while deliberating in Parliament. he noted that while only Parliament had to be protected while creating laws, this power today is wielded by the American people, and the First Amendment is thus a combination of these two stipulations. what was a right of the Parliamentarians becomes the right of all Americans, he said. Grant Drzyzga 14, who takes a constitutional law class that focuses on textual analysis, found the lecture extremely informative and insightful. Breaking it down to the punctuation isnt something we usually do, he said, adding that this useful tool on the utility belt of constitutional law experts adds some nice little nuance to the study. Anthony Calcagni 13 said he absolutely agreed with many of McConnells points. while we talk about freedom of speech and the press, we dont really talk about how, grammatically, those came to be. Calcagni is currently enrolled in PolS 1120: Campaigns and elections, and attended the lecture with his class. were all really excited for the debrief, he said.
campus news 3
affected by problems related to data collection and availability. The report does not include loans incurred by parents, which comprise a substantial portion of educational debt, Canning said. he added that the statistics from institutions like Bryant are especially affected by this omission, because students at such schools depend on their parents to help fund their education. The failure to address parent loans only provides prospective students with half the picture, said Charles Kelley P13, executive director at the rhode Island Student loan Authority, a nonprofit state organization. Kelley also cited the lack of data on Stafford loan defaults after the first three years as a barrier to getting a comprehensive look at student loan debt. Part of the problem in reporting data is that colleges do not always have data on private loans, said Debbie Cochrane, research director at tICAS. Student loan debt can be one of the best investments a student can make, she added. But another important aspect is whether the borrower can repay loans after graduation. The tICAS report also suffers from self-selection bias because institutions have the option to submit data, colleges with high debt may opt to not respond in fear that publicizing their loan debt numbers would hurt their appeal to applicants, Cochrane said. while its the best weve got, its certainly flawed, she added. Citing inflation and annual tuition hikes of 2 to 5 percent, Canning said it is very difficult to look at the statistics from the class of 2011 and determine what loan debt will look like in 2017, the expected graduation year of students applying to college this year. The lowdown on loans Its critical for institutions to be upfront about cost of attendance, tilton said. Deciding what constitutes an appropriate amount of loan debt is a tough decision, he said, and the Financial Aid office works with families on strategies to minimize loan debt. In tiltons six years with the financial aid office, focus has shifted from just explaining the basics of financial aid to helping parents and students understand the available financing options, he said. we do a more thorough job, tilton said. Its not just, heres your grants, heres your loans. For students in rhode Island but not at Brown, the rhode Island Student loan Authority provides similar programs to help students prepare financially for college. Unlike many federal programs, rISlA offers loan forgiveness programs that focus on the first two to four years after graduation, during which students are most vulnerable to loan defaults, said noel Simpson, deputy director and chief financial and compliance officer at rISlA. Programs sponsored by rISlA also include loan forgiveness for students who work as nurses in high-demand areas in rhode Island or start businesses in the state, he said.
/ / debt page 1
The average amount of debt at Bryant is generally very stable and predictable, said John Canning, director of financial aid at Bryant. Private schools like Bryant attract a large percentage of students from the middle-income bracket, he said, which contributes to higher loan debt averages. Bryant also relies on tuition, rather than endowment funds, to fund operating costs, he said. Bryant tries to prevent student debt loads from increasing by matching tuition hikes with increases in aid, Canning said. Canning added that schools in higher demand, such as Brown, attract more students that can pay tuition up front. loan debt at Brown has been decreasing since 2008, when the University instituted a new financial aid policy, according to James tilton, director of financial aid. The policy eliminated loans from financial aid packages for students with an expected family contribution under $100,000 and capped loans for those with an eFC of $150,000 and below. Brown is the only rhode Island college on tICAS list that has met its financial aid pledge to reduce or eliminate student loans in financial aid packages. less than half of Brown students take out loans a fact stemming from a combination of the Universitys financial aid program and the socioeconomic makeup of the student body, tilton said. ivy lagger The Universitys average debt burden is the highest in the Ivy league. All other Ivies, except Columbia, which did not
report statistics, had an average graduating debt load less than $20,000 for the class of 2011. Princeton has the lowest average loan debt at $5,330 per graduate, according to the report. An institutions ability to fund financial aid correlates with students average loan debt, explaining why larger endowment schools with no-loan policies, like Princeton, have smaller average loan debt, tilton said. yale continues to see its average loan debt decrease in the current economic climate, as students are more loanadverse and fewer choose to take out loans to replace work-study, said Caesar Storlazzi, director of financial aid at yale. Graduates of yale in 2011 had an average student loan debt of $9,254, the second lowest in the Ivy league. yales financial aid policy, which does not include any loans in its financial aid packages regardless of family income level, is absolutely a factor in the schools low loan debt rates, Storlazzi said. Though about 30 percent of the graduating class had loan debt in 2011, Storlazzi said the percentage decreased to about 15 percent for the class of 2012. he added that yale has continued to strengthen its financial aid policies for middle-class students despite the negative effects the financial downturn had on its endowment, though the amount of money budgeted for financial aid that comes from the operating budget rather than from endowment returns has increased, he said. data debt Though the report sheds light on national student debt load trends, it is
4 campus news
/ / Happy page 1
also nabbed the number one spot on the Princeton reviews happiest Students list in 2009 and 2010, though it dropped to third in the 2011 rankings and to 14th this year. But even if the overall level of student happiness is high compared to other colleges, the general atmosphere does not fully explain the poll result. respondents were asked to evaluate their happiness levels compared to their peers if most students feel happy, then it is likely their peers feel happy as well. In such a circumstance, the average overall happiness level would be higher, but students would still recognize their relative position in the distribution. Marina Do nas Cimento 15 said this pattern of results likely arises because people do not accurately judge their peers.when you say youre happier than someone else, part of what youre implying is that you really dont care how happy other people are. you just know youre happy, and youre fine with that idea. Do nas Cimentos idea is probably correct, according to Joachim Krueger, professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences. People tend to self-enhance, he said. This type of thing has been done many, many times, Krueger said. The heralds poll results align with past studies in social psychology, he added. Krueger cited a study conducted by the Swedish researcher ola Svenson in 1981. In the study, Svenson asked both American and Swedish drivers to rate their relative driving abilities. 80 percent of U.S. drivers and 70 percent of Swedish drivers reported that they were better-than-average drivers. The kicker is that they included people laid up in hospitals after accidents that they themselves had caused, Krueger said. They found ways to discount the accident. The explanation is that people dont really compare themselves with others, he said. For example, when people rate how happy they are, they think about the range of emotions they
know, from despair to ecstasy. Most people tend to think that on average, their emotions fall above the midpoint of that scale, Krueger said. And they dont really have much of a clue about how other people feel, he added. Such a theory is supported by a study done by the researchers yechiel Klar and eilath Giladi in 1999. They asked people to rate their own and their peers happiness on a nine-point scale and then to compare their happiness levels to those of others. They found that peoples judgments of their absolute happiness were strongly correlated with their judgments of their relative happiness. Judgments about peer happiness were almost completely ignored. Some researchers believe that the self-enhancement bias has beneficial qualities. It can, for example, increase self-esteem. But it can also be harmful, by results in narcissism, for example, Krueger said.
The positive moods that self-enhancement induces are beneficial to survival, according to a paper by edward Diener, a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois who has written four books on happiness and subjective well-being. humans are built for mild happiness, unless things go wrong, he wrote in an email to The herald. So we are mostly positive about ourselves and our friends. we may think the world is going to heck, but our lives are not. methodology Written questionnaires were administered to 959 undergraduates Oct. 1718 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 2.9 percent margin of error with 95 percent confidence. The margin of error is 4.4 percent for the subset of males and 3.9 percent for females.
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of what a star does when it does nuclear fusion, DellAntonio explained. I think were ready, DellAntonio told Zani, who promptly put on industrial gloves and began packing dry ice on top of the barrel. Its going to cool our star, so we stopped the nuclear fusion reactions, the explanation continued, but was suddenly halted by a loud boom. Students let out gasps of surprise, as the barrel suddenly collapsed in on itself like a crushed water bottle. The star has to collapse. By cooling the gas, we caused all that water vapor to come out and left a vacuum inside. So the air pressure outside which you dont normally feel is huge, and it contracts. As the lecture continued, Zani lifted the crumpled barrel and placed it on a rolling cart. The plexiglass came down, and Zani quietly receded into his office, taking all of the demonstration materials with him. Zani aims to present demonstrations in a creative way, bridging academic fields. My goal is to try to impact students with experiences beyond the equations in the classroom, he said. Inspired by a conference, he has also learned about using the elements of theater-like music and drama to show the beauty of the phenomena. he seeks the help of one of his student assistants, Stephen Albright 13, who studies both physics and music. Ill tell Stephen, I want you to find a piece of music that goes perfectly with this particular demonstration, Zani said. like a conductor, Zani synced Camille Saint-Saens Danse Bacchanle with his demonstration on magnetism. Placing a light beneath a hollow copper tube, Zani asked the student audience to look through it, like a magician convincing the audience there are no tricks. Dropping a miniature hockey puck-shaped magnet into the tube, Zani made the magnet slowly float down the tube without touching the edges. I timed the music so that when you release the magnet, the music is playing, Zani said. you hear this beautiful music and then it stops, and you hear the clunk as the magnet stops. Perfectly in sync, the magnet fell to the floor, providing the final beat to the musical score. Part of the circuit over the course of his 19-year career at Brown, Zani has made lasting impressions on students and faculty. Students always know who Jerry is and feel his work should not go unnoticed. he is definitely one of the most underappreciated people at Brown, said Abishek Kulshreshtha 15. Sarah Schade 15, who worked with Zani for nine weeks in the summer, was immersed in Zanis world as she helped digitize his videos and create new demos for the upcoming semester. he will do anything to make sure that those demonstrations go well, Schade said. Also, he tries to teach. he would always ask me if I knew what the demos really meant and would go up to the chalkboard and go into very minute detail. on a hectic wednesday morning before a lecture, Savvas Koushiappas, assistant professor of physics, came into the office to pick up the demonstration about electron beams and magnetism for his class PhyS 0470: electricity and Magnetism. Zani had already prepared the table with the various pieces of equipment in advance, but Koushiappas realized he needed a larger piece for the class to be able to see. Jerry is the best and very impressive, Koushiappas said as Zani set up the new electron beam demonstration. Ill call him 10 minutes before class and say, hey, Jerry. Do you have anything to demonstrate this concept? and hell get it. Zani said he feels fortunate to collaborate with the physics professors and enjoys coming in to work each day to learn something new and share a bit of science with students. I have to be a salesman and encourage professors to do risky things, Zani said.
/ / zani page 1
ties of light. I looked through the catalogs, and I realized the photon multiplier tool was very expensive, he said. So I called the companies and asked if they could make an academic donation, and I found one. he handled the machinery with care as he flicked on the television to begin a private demonstration about light. random flashes of light, reminiscent of speeding spaceships in Star wars, dotted the television screen as a very advanced screen inside the machine picks up very dim little packs of light energy called particles, he narrated. Something magical will happen if you add up every one of these particles, Zani said. As the particles of light energy began to accumulate on screen, he watched with admiration as a columnlike pattern appeared on the screen, alternating between light and dark rods. Surprisingly, for some mysterious reason light, which is a particle, has this weirdness to it that it behaves like a wave if you collect a lot of it, he said. riding the waves on a Thursday afternoon, the students in PhyS 0270: Introduction to Astronomy shuffled in their seats, reviewing their graded exams. Meanwhile, Zani was setting up the experiment that would be presented later in class. Zanis office which
is more like a lair has entrances to both lecture halls, rooms 166 and 168 in Barus and holley, to facilitate easier access in and out during presentations. equipped with a peephole, the doors allow Zani to see the perfect time to come in and begin the demonstration, he said. he wheeled in six large grey cinder blocks and arranged them around three Bunsen burners. he then placed a 55-gallon empty black barrel that used to house ethyl alcohol in front of the students. Zani was setting up the 55-gallon supernova demonstration, which explains the properties of a supernova within the confines of the classroom. I think we need some plexiglass over here, too, Zani said to a student assistant, concerned about the safety of the students, who were still comparing exam answers while waiting for the lecture to start. Zani bent down, used a flint to light the burners and began to pour water into the barrel. once class began, Zani took a seat in the front row as the barrel began to steam like a teapot. The steady whistle of steam was drowned out by Associate Professor of Physics Ian DellAntonio beginning his lecture. DellAntonio gave Zani a nod, indicating the start of the section that correlated with the experiment. Zani turned off the Bunsen burners and began to screw the two openings at the top of the barrel closed. The pressure of the water vapor is still inside, and this is the equivalent
editorial Cartoon b y a n g e l i a wa n g
Editorials are written by The Heralds editorial page board: its editors, Dan Jeon and Annika Lichtenbaum, and its members, Georgia Angell, Sam Choi and Rachel Occhiogrosso. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.
CorreC tion
An article in Mondays herald (Brazilians stay hostile to republican foreign policy, nov. 5) incorrectly stated that President ronald reagan offered American assistance that led to Brazils 1964 coup. In fact, the president who provided assistance to the military uprising was lyndon Johnson. reagan, while linked to uprisings in other latin American nations in the 1980s, did not play a role in Brazils coup. The herald regrets the error.
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opinions 7
her points were reasonable, in the end, she didnt convince me that minors would bring any real value to the Brown academic experience. Many colleges and universities include minors in their curricula to allow students to take classes in different academic areas. Many higher education programs make it difficult to explore courses outside of ones major, but declaring a minor in another department facilitates study in that area. obviously, Browns new Curriculum was created and implemented with the goal of maximizthat a minor would allow a students to bulk up their resumes without expending the same amount of energy that a double concentration would require. If a students wish to explore a second academic field in-depth, they should possess the motivation to do so without the promise of an extra line on a resume. And if students strongly desire that extra line, they should have to work for it by fulfilling the requirements of the entire concentration. If you are studying at Brown, you should not be looking for an easy way out of anythis case, foreign language certificates could be a worthwhile addition to our curriculum to encourage foreign language study, but this need not amount to a full-fledged minors system. It seems that the Universitys discussion of these certificates, which would distinguish students who achieve a certain level of language competency, has been tabled for the present. I agree that the issue of students abandoning foreign language study merits attention but I disagree that a minor system would solve this problem at Brown. Katz lauds harvards system of secondary fields, which allows students to design a course of study outside of their concentrations in order to pursue another academic passion. what Katz seems to ignore, is that you can do this whether there is an official system in place or not. At Brown, as an architect of your undergraduate education, you determine its direction. If an academic passion is truly a passion and not just a platform for accruing credentials then it shouldnt matter if the greater world knows about it. And heres another reason that concentrations exist to provide students with something to display to the world upon graduation. of course, there is also the argument that a Brown diploma itself is proof enough of a job well done. remember Dean Bergerons speech. It is your responsibility to direct your education. you dont need an arbitrary academic system in place to do so. Maggie tennis 14 is currently powering through concentration number two.
if a student wishes to explore a second academic field in-depth, he or she should possess the motivation to do so without the promise of an extra line on a resume.
ing intellectual exploration and minimizing the pigeonholing of students by their primary academic focus. This concept is personified in the students we meet everyday: the visual arts concentrator who is pre-med or the chemical engineer who enjoys immersing himself in russian literature. Clearly, the absence of minors doesnt stop those of us with varied interests. Katz writes that minors would offer students the chance to develop yet another focus and then receive recognition of it on their diplomas. But thats exactly what double concentrations are for. Katzs response would be that double concentrations are a burden for students. I take issue with this idea. It seems thing. you got here you know how to work. So do the work. Double concentrations exist to acknowledge the dedication and determination they demand. And furthermore, double concentrating doesnt have to be a big deal, if you are truly interested in the concentration. Many departments have ten or fewer requirements. So if you do have the determination to take on a second concentration, it wont kill you to power through. one noteworthy feature of Katzs argument is the phenomenon of foreign language students discontinuing their language study, seeing it as pointless for their concentration. Its true that at schools offering minors, many students fulfill them in a foreign language. In
a cup of coffee can give us a short burst of energy to get us through those morning classes. But as the amount of caffeine consumed increases, so does the severity of the effects.
health conditions that can be aggravated by caffeine. obviously, your medium iced latte is not going to kill you. But five or six can cause problems. Downing cups of coffee and energy drinks is an easy solution to powering through a paper thats due the next morning, but relying solely on caffeine is detrimental to health. There are
drinks is caffeinated malt beverage Four loko, which made headlines a few years ago after officials noted the high alcohol and caffeine content. This combination can produce a dangerous effect, as caffeine can reduce feelings of drunkenness, potentially causing a person to drink more than they should. The University of rhode Island was one of the first schools
Faculty profile: Q&a with brian evenson supreme Court may restrict access to cheaper textbooks
have (when writing a video game novel) is a kind of idea that is given to you in the sense that you have a world that is there. you know you can do certain things within that world. And both with the halo and Dead Space work that I did, what I found is that theyre really open to me doing kind of anything as long as its within the confines of the world itself. And so it is a little bit like working with a fixed poetic form in the sense that you have these constraints that you have to follow. But within those constraints you can do anything you want. ... There are certain things directing you from the beginning, then it kind of opens up in a different way. whereas with my own fiction, I can go in any direction I want. I did have to get my ideas approved (for the video game novels). we ran through a bunch of things with the video game companies since video games are worth millions and millions of dollars in terms of the income they bring in. Theyre very proprietary about them; theyre very concerned. They want the world, and they want any kind of product thats associated with it to be something they really believe in and they support. we talked about different ideas and went back and forth. I wrote an outline and moved forward from there. with my own work I rarely outline, but with this I have a pretty specific idea of where the story is going, and then I start actually writing. For my own books, I think it varies from book to book, but its more organic in the sense that something like my novel, The open Curtain, took about six years to do, and I had ideas about where it might go. But those (ideas) changed as it developed and changed according to the demands of the piece. whereas something like (the video game novel) developed much more quickly, and a lot of the writing was done over the course of a couple of months. My own work I can kind of let it breathe. I can kind of enter into it in a different way and explore. some other project. I was the oldest I was probably 13 when that was happening and I just really took to writing, I really loved it. I didnt know it would end up being my profession, but you know, I read a lot and wrote a lot and was really intrigued by it when I was growing up and was lucky enough to have enough success to be able to continue to do it and teach it.
By Molly sCHulson
Contributing Writer
Professor of literary Arts Brian evenson has authored novels, short story collections and even a few video game-based books, all falling within the genre of horror and science fiction. he recently published a novel entitled Dead Space: Catalyst, the second book he has written based on the third-person shooter Dead Space video game. The herald sat down with evenson to talk about his new book and his work as a writer and a professor. The herald: I understand that your new book is a novel adaptation of a video game, dead space. how did you get the opportunity to do something like that? evenson: Its something that Ive done actually before. The video game is Dead Space, and I did another Dead Space novel about a year and a half ago, and they liked that enough that they asked me to do another one. I did a halo novella as well for a collection of halo short stories. And you know, one of the reasons I wanted to do it was the game: Im a gamer. I enjoy it a lot. But in addition to that, one of the reasons I wanted to do it was because I think that (for) a lot of people who read those books, it may be the only novel they read in a year. And so I kind of felt like there is a kind of outreach thing where I want if theyre only going to read one novel a year I want it to be an interesting novel. So its a way of reaching readers who otherwise might not be exposed to certain things going on in fiction. Could you tell us a little more about the book itself? The one thing about working with a video game novel is that you are working in a world that someone else has created. And so the world (of Dead Space) is the world of the video game, in which the world has run through all its resources and, as a result, is doing space exploration as a way of getting more raw material to work with. (Man) has begun to destroy planets as a way of gaining material, and so the sense is that man really hasnt learned that much from mistakes of our past. It starts with that as an idea, and then what happens is that they come across this weird kind of civilization, this marker, that they dont know what it is, and it ends up having this effect of starting the destruction of the human race. So I have to work within the format of that. ... I decided to write a book, which is about two brothers, and the relationship of the two brothers as they are stumbling across things that may end up eventually destroying the universe. how do you approach writing about a video game, and does that process differ from writing your other books? I think that the first thing that you
how did you move from being a writer into being a professor as well? I was actually doing a degree in 18th century literature and critical theory at the University of washington. I did a double PhD and I always thought I would teach academic subjects. And then as I was working on my PhD, I had my first book of fiction accepted, a book of stories called Altmanns tongue. And that kind of changed everything for me. That ended up moving everything in a new direction. So the first job I had I taught one or two creative writing courses, and then as time has gone on, it has become more and more central to what I do. But I always thought I would teach, my father was a teacher he was a physicist and I think that I really liked that life. I think that theres a lot to be said for (being a professor), its very rewarding to work with people on their writing. you can really, especially at the undergraduate level, see definitive progress with people and its really rewarding and satisfying to see it. you teach lITr 0210a: Fiction II and Graduate Fiction writing. What are some of your favorite parts about teaching and why? I think that the biggest part about the teaching is the students. Its great to have students, its great to put yourself in a position where you can help students be better writers in the way they want to be. I think that the best creative writing teachers approach that with a lot of care. were trying to understand what the writer is trying to do and trying to help them do it better other than pushing them in directions they dont want to go. So that, I think, is very satisfying to me. I think there is something about the performative aspect of teaching that I like as well. Its fun to be working with people on their fiction and being in a workshop where everyone has ideas and comments, and youre trying to help the student kind of sort them out and push them in certain directions. What would be your words of advice to students who are concentrating in literary arts and looking to get published themselves? I think for those who are concentrating, I think you should be very thoughtful and careful about the classes you take. youre really shaping yourself as a writer. As you do that youre shaping your influences. I think the most important thing for young writers is to read a lot and to read widely and to read in a way a writer does. And then you end up thinking very closely about what youre reading and thinking about how it is achieving what it is achieving. Theres no guarantee in terms of whether youll become a writer or not, but I think that you go into it in a serious way, and you have to be open to advice as well. But you also have to distinguish between advice thats good and advice thats not quite as good.
What has your journey of writing and publishing books been like? Its gone a lot of different directions. Ive published at this point something like 12 books, I think. And a lot of them are kind of literary, and Im kind of building up a sense of a voice. And then a few of them have been in this other direction, this kind of exploratory direction. Im the kind of person who really loves to try something new, and so when I get asked to do something that I havent done before its very hard for me to resist it. In addition to the Dead Space stuff, I did an Aliens novel based on the Aliens movie that Dark horse Books published. And then I have (a book) coming out next year. I co-wrote a novel with rob Zombie, which is kind of based on one of his films thats also coming out. I see things going on in horror or in science fiction that I feel like are productive and interesting and then I try to think of ways in which I can inflect my literature with that. I try to find ways to write the work that I want to read. how did you figure out that you wanted to become a writer? I knew at a pretty young age that I wanted to be a writer. My mother had published a couple of science fiction stories when I was a kid. And to give herself time to work on them she used to set all the kids up doing art or doing writing or
The Supreme Court heard arguments for the case Kirtsaeng v. John wiley and Sons, which centers on the issue of whether international copyrighted works can be bought and sold in the United States without the owners consent, last Monday. Depending on the decision the court reaches, students may no longer be able to resell international editions of their textbooks. In 1997, Supap Kirtsaeng came to the United States from Thailand to study mathematics. In order to pay for his tuition, he sold textbooks, some of which were published by wiley, on eBay. Kirtsaeng had obtained the textbooks from Thailand, where his family had bought them and shipped them to the United States. Kirtsaeng collected between $900,000 and $1.2 million in revenue, according to court documents. wiley sued Kirtsaeng in 2008 and won the copyright infringement lawsuit. After Kirtsaengs appeal to the Second Circuit, the case landed in front of the Supreme Court. Under the first sale doctrine, individuals can sell copyrighted works lawfully made under U.S. copyright law without the copyright owners permission. But a separate provision prohibits copyrighted works from being imported into the United States without the authority of the owner of copyright. Justices in a similar case in 2010, Costco wholesale Corp. v. omega S.A., could not answer the question of whether copyright laws in the United States applied to items manufactured overseas after the vote was split 4-4. International editions of textbooks are often cheaper than American editions due to differences in the countries economies. I sometimes get international versions (of textbooks) because theyre
cheaper, wrote nihaal Mehta 14 in an email to The herald. Most of Mehtas international purchases were for introductory courses, such as CheM 0330: equilibrium, rate and Structure and eCon 0110: Principles of economics. International editions often have the same material as American editions but differently numbered problems. I think the questions in the back of the chapters might have been different, so some students might have done the wrong homework a few times, wrote rachel Friedberg, senior lecturer in the economics department, in an email to The herald. Friedberg said some of her students have purchased international textbooks in the past. Alex Swanson 16 saved about $150 buying an international textbook for chemistry, but she did not realize that the problem numbers would be different. I think Ill try to sell it to my friend, but probably not for profit since the question numbers arent even right, she said. online businesses such as eBay or Amazon often obtain products manufactured outside of the United States and sell them for a lower price, and the Supreme Courts decision may threaten their sales. The Brown Bookstore is not allowed to buy international editions of textbooks through its buyback program. we do see a few international editions come through, but were not allowed, by law, to buy them back. I dont offer any price, said Mike McDade, the bookstores textbook department manager. Steven Souza, director of the Brown Bookstore, said the Supreme Courts decision will not affect the business. The number of students who buy international editions and also frequent the bookstore is very limited, he said. The case could also affect the sale of foreign movies, books and music. The Supreme Court will make its final decision by June.
Members of the Undergraduate Council of Students spoke to representatives from the Student Athletic Advising Committee, ryan McDuff 13 and lindsay nickel 13, as well as Director of Athletics Jack hayes, at their weekly meeting. The guests presented an agenda to promote the greater integration of student-athletes into campus life. how do we get athletics more mainstreamed how do we get student-athletes to be more involved in non--athletic events? hayes asked. we should make the assumption that the more events that student-athletes go to on campus that are not athleticrelated, the better chance there will be that more students will want to go to games. McDuff brought up an initiative dubbed Goldie event of the Month that is being proposed by SAAC,
which will organize athlete attendance of on-campus events. Following these speakers, Daniel Pipkin 14 proposed two amendments to the Undergraduate Finance Board constitution. one amendment used the UCS constitution as an outline for removing inactive members. The other proposed the public release of funds allocated during spring budgeting at the start of the next academic year to increase the transparency of UFB. Both amendments passed without objections from UCS. The council then preceded to grant Category 1 authorization to new student groups, including the Intercollegiate Finance Journal and Brown Pen Pals. The Food recovery network was granted Category S status. The Brown human rights report was recategorized to Category 2 and may allocate its $200 of funds to website upkeep. Brown Students for Justice of Palestine was moved from Category 2 to Category 3 without objection.