FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2013 since 1891vol. cxlviii, no. 78Daily HeraldTHE BROWN

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ARTS & CULTURE, 3

In focusPhotographer Stephen Shore captures his audience with a talk on his career highlightsin

side

SCIENCE & RESEARCH, 4 SPORTS, 5

Making a splashWater Polo team wins two of its three weekend games, looks forward to Harvard

Lead onUniversity researchers dig deeper to correct methods of measuring lead in soil

By KATE KIERNANSENIOR STAFF WRITER

The University reported its highest fundraising results in five years, rais-ing just over $195.4 million as of June 30, according to a press release from the Alumni Association.

The money will be distributed across the University’s key fundrais-ing priorities, as well as initiatives for the Brown Annual Fund, the Brown Sports Foundation and the Division of Biology and Medicine.

Key fundraising priorities include

athletics, the Brown Institute for Brain Science, environmental sci-ences, financial aid, the School of En-gineering, the humanities, the School of Public Health and residential life.

Out of the total $195.4 million, the Annual Fund raised $36.7 million to be spent by the end of the fiscal year, said Senior Vice President for Univer-sity Advancement Patricia Watson. The endowment, which supports ar-eas such as scholarships and financial aid, will receive $57.9 million of the total funds, Watson said.

Despite the economic downturn, the University has been bringing in more funds every year since 2008 and is “on track with where we wanted to be,” Watson said.

The University is in “a period of transition” with a new president and

several new administrators, Watson said, adding that this year’s increase in donations demonstrates support for President Christina Paxson during her first year.

The University identified its key fundraising priorities in early 2011 at the conclusion of the former presi-dent Ruth Simmons’ Campaign for Academic Enrichment, Watson said, adding that it has seen positive results in each of the eight areas.

The School of Engineering was selected to be a key funding prior-ity under Simmons in 2010 as part of the University’s efforts to bolster the sciences, said Dean of the School of Engineering Larry Larson. This commitment to engineering has con-tinued under Paxson and will be “a great long-term investment” for the

University, he said.The school has raised about one-

third of its $160 million goal since the start of its fundraising campaign in 2010, Larson said, adding that the school is comfortable with the prog-ress of its campaign. Donations this year came from “a burst of excitement among alums” after more details were laid out about plans for the school’s development, he said.

Plans for the school are “a work in progress,” Larson said. Currently, the school is raising money to renovate buildings, bring in more faculty and continue enhancing both graduate and undergraduate programs.

The school also intends to use funds to launch the Center for Entre-preneurial Innovation, which would

U. raised $195.4 million in last fiscal year The donations, the largest amount raised in five years, will fund a variety of key University priorities

By MAGGIE LIVINGSTONESENIOR STAFF WRITER

Applicants to the class of 2018 will complete a significantly revised Brown supplement to the Common Applica-tion during the 2013-2014 admission cycle, submitting two fewer short answer responses and one fewer essay question.

One previous question giving appli-cants the option of writing one of three essays will be replaced with a new “Why Brown?” essay prompt. Also eliminated

were a 25-word fill-in-the-blank ques-tion and a short response prompt.

The changes to Brown’s supplement come on the heels of a recent restruc-turing of the Common Application, which saw the removal of the “topic of your choice” essay option, The Herald previously reported. The Common Ap-plication also eliminated the short essay question about applicants’ activities.

A balanced supplementThis year’s changes to Brown’s sup-

plement were made because last year’s “had grown a bit too long,” said Dean of Admission Jim Miller ’73.

“We wanted to make sure we were asking all the questions we wanted to

Class of 2018 to apply with shorter supplementOne essay and two shorter response questions were removed from the 2013-2014 supplement

By ELI OKUNUNIVERSITY NEWS EDITOR

Early in Quiara Alegria Hudes’ MFA’04 provocative play “Water by the Spoon-

ful,” Yazmin Ortiz — an un-derpaid adjunct professor trying

to infuse her Swarthmore College class-room with free jazz and “muzak” — instructs her students to go home and remember the first time they noticed musical dissonance. The idea is to ap-preciate the beauty of unlikely pairings. “This is your creation myth,” she tells them.

It’s difficult not to sense the start of a new world in Sock and Buskin’s staging of “Water,” a work brimming with so many ideas about 21st-century lives that it’s hard to know where to look. In the production, directed by Associate Professor of Theater Arts and Performance Studies Patricia Ybarra, characters address one another from literally all corners of Leeds Theater, present in their individual worlds as they simultaneously attempt to com-municate with each other.

The play is largely concerned with these moments of contact and the ways people struggle to find family and friends in an interconnected but isolating modern age.

For most of its first half, “Water” comprises two separate narratives. In Philadelphia, Elliot Ortiz, played by Zach Rufa ’14, dreams of Hollywood

‘Water’ explores ‘interconnected but isolating modern age’Quiara Hudes’ play won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and examines 21st century themes

By ANDREW SMYTHSENIOR STAFF WRITER

Algerian-born French intellectual Helene Cixous sat down last night

and shouted. “First one

cries,” she declared to

a crowded Friedman Auditorium. “Then one writes.” So began an eve-ning of poetic meditation, literary discourse and personal introspection

with one of world literature’s most original and insistent voices.

Cixous lends her extraordinary mind to three events this week as part of “All That Rises,” a performance series featuring art for social change presented by the Department of The-ater Arts and Performance Studies. The centerpiece of her visit is “The Shout of Literature,” a lecture on writing and mortality that engaged interlocutors as various and far-reaching as Sophocles and Derrida, Shakespeare and Joyce, Faulkner and Kafka.

Cixous’ contributions to the series also included a screening of a filmed version of her play “The

Cixous explores the metaphysicalAlgerian-born writer argues writing is a way to confront the inevitability of death

By ALEX CONSTANTINOSTAFF WRITER

A study led by University researchers has pinpointed a mechanism behind some

forms of autism, a finding that could guide the development of

drugs targeting its underlying cause, said Eric Morrow, assistant professor of biology and psychiatry and human behavior and senior author on the paper. The research, which was motivated by past human studies and conducted on mice, was published earlier this month in the journal Neuron.

The study was a four-year effort in-spired by previous research to identify genes involved in autism and related developmental disorders, Morrow said.

Defects in the gene that produces the protein NHE6 were previously known to cause a rare, autism-like disorder called Christianson syndrome. Morrow and collaborators found similar genetic ab-normalities in some patients with autism. In January, his team published a paper showing that NHE6 levels are lower in the brains of autistic patients, while levels of a protein related to NHE6 are elevated.

“That shows that this genetic path-way is very important” because it is a

Study advances autism researchResearchers discovered more acidic endosomes disrupt neuronal branching

» See FISCAL, page 2

» See AUTISM, page 5

» See WATER, page 4

» See APPLICATION, page 2

COURTESY OF MARK TUREK

Zach Rufa ’14, Ivy Alphose-Leja ’14 and Shadura Lee ’16 are featured in “Water by the Spoonful,” an ensemble piece directed by Patricia Ybarra, associate professor of theater arts and performance studies.

» See CIXOUS, page 4

SCIENCE & RESEARCH

ARTS & CULTURE

ARTS & CULTURE

university news2 THE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2013

12 P.M.

Town Hall Meeting on MOOCs

Sheridan Center

9 P.M.

The IMPROVidence Long Show

Salomon 001

1 P.M.

Downtown Tour of Providence

Faunce Arch

8 P.M.

“Water by the Spoonful”

Leeds Theater

SHARPE REFECTORY VERNEY-WOOLLEY

LUNCH

DINNER

Italian Chicken Parmesan, Stir-Fried Carrots With Fresh Herbs, Vegetable Strudel, Macaroni and Cheese

Kareem’s Catfish, Cole Slaw, Whole Wheat Pene, Alfredo Sauce, Curried Chickpeas, Feta and Tomato Quiche

Apricot Beef With Sesame Noodles, Sunny Sprouts, Cajun Potatoes, Chicken and Broccoli Salad

Lobster Bisque, Breaded Chicken Fingers, Vegan Nuggets, Fresh Vegetable Melange

TODAY SEPTEMBER 27 TOMORROW SEPTEMBER 28

c r o s s w o r d

s u d o k u

m e n u

c a l e n d a r

support students from “entrance to graduation” who are interested in de-veloping their own technologies and companies, he said.

The School of Public Health, which opened July 1, “attracted a good deal of positive attention” that will help fulfill its $50 million fundraising goal, wrote Dean of the School of Public Health Terrie Fox Wetle in an email to The Herald. The school will continue the process of becoming an accredited school over the next two years, she wrote.

The school’s fundraising results were reported as part of the Division for Biology and Medicine this year, but will be issued in a separate report next year, Wetle wrote.

The Division of Biology and Medi-cine had its strongest fundraising re-sults in six years, bringing in $17.9 million, according to the Alumni As-sociation press release.

The school’s fundraising priorities include scholarships for undergraduate and graduate students, endowments for faculty members and support for public health research centers and academic departments.

The school is also open to find-ing a donor after which to name the school, Wetle wrote. Such a donation would have to be at least $50 million, according to the school’s giving page.

The Department of Athletics raised $14 million in gifts and pledges, in-cluding $3.5 million to be spent in the current fiscal year, said Davies Bisset ’85, executive director of the Brown Sports Foundation. The athlet-ics department’s success this year can be attributed to “a perfect storm” of factors, he said — Paxson expressed her commitment to athletics from the start of her tenure, the University de-cided to make athletics a top funding priority last year and there has been

re-energized donor support since the unveiling of the Nelson Fitness Center and the Katherine Moran Coleman Aquatics Center in May 2012, he said.

The athletics department has raised $22 million of its $50 million fundrais-ing goal and anticipates being able to raise the remaining money within the next two years, Bisset said. In light of having surpassed its $10 million goal for this past year, the department hopes to raise $14 million in the com-ing year, he said.

The “tangible improvements” to athletics encourages donors because they see the benefits of their contribu-tions, said Director of Athletics Jack Hayes.

Despite historical financial difficul-ties and budget cuts to resources and teams following the release of Athletics Review Committee report in 2011, the University has been “embracing the philosophy” of athletics as an im-portant component of an Ivy League institution, Bisset said, adding that there has been a “really positive feeling now about athletics.”

Money for athletics comes from donors, endowments for the varsity teams, the University budget for ath-letics and revenues from ticket sales for sports such as basketball and soc-cer, Bisset said. This year, club sports and 27 of the varsity teams met their team fundraising goals, which cover the costs of operation. The $14 mil-lion collected for athletics this year includes a $2 million gift for crew to be paid over the next four years, Bis-set said.

Other funds will be channeled toward updating facilities, a “never-ending,” project Hayes said. The up-coming projects are the conversion of the old strength and conditioning room in the Pizzitola Sports Center into a locker room for the men and women’s lacrosse teams and the con-struction of a new sailing center at the

Edgewood Yacht Club on University-owned property. Athletics has raised $1.5 million of the $2 million needed for the latter project, Bisset said.

The Sports Foundation hopes to address other facility enhancements, including replacing the dock at the boathouse, new fields for field hockey and baseball, a new outdoor track, a new ice compressor in the Meehan Auditorium and new indoor courts for squash and tennis, Bisset said. Athletics will continue to look for opportunities to endow coaches and support from “alums passionate about a particular sport,” Hayes said.

When asked whether they had any objections to the way the University distributed its funds, some students seemed to have more questions than concerns.

Katie Johnson ’16 said she did not feel particularly aware of fundraising and that the University should “open up the discussion more to students,” though she added that she did not think enough money went to sup-port the arts.

Though she said she mostly sup-ported the University’s allocation of resources, Rachel Leikin ’16 said there is some “uneven distribution between academic departments.” As an ethnic studies concentrator, she said she felt her department did not get as much support as bigger departments such as engineering or computer science, even though she said she did not view that as “necessarily bad.”

The University has set an “aggres-sive goal” of $225 million, for the 2014 fiscal year, with $37 million of it for the Annual Fund, Watson said. The strategic plan and the upcoming 250th anniversary will provide an op-portunity to involve new or currently disengaged donors. The University wants to share its plans with people who might be unfamiliar with new developments, Watson said.

» FISCAL, from page 1

and could eliminate some of the stuff that exists,” Miller said. “We didn’t want verbiage for the sake of verbiage.”

The Office of Admission creates a committee at the end of every cycle to evaluate Brown’s application materials, Miller said. He added that the commit-tee examined the relevance and content of the questions from the last applica-tion cycle and was able to condense the supplement.

The length of a college’s supplement is determined by a number of factors, said Steven Goodman, an educational consultant and admission strategist at Top Colleges Advising. Schools often seek to strike a “balance” between en-couraging serious applicants and ensur-ing a large number of students apply.

“If you wanted a lot more applicants, then you would have the simplest ap-plication possible or not have a sup-plement,” Goodman said. “From my perspective, what (shortening Brown’s supplement) means is they’re looking for more applicants.”

The number of applications to the University hit a record high in 2011, when 30,946 students applied to be members of the class of 2015, The Her-ald reported at the time. The two admis-sion cycles from the classes of 2016 and 2017 fell short of that mark, with 28,743 and 28,919 applicants, respectively.

But Miller said he does not think shortening the supplement will have any effect on the volume of applicants,

adding that it is not uncommon for uni-versities to change their supplements year to year.

“It takes a while to apply to college,” Miller said. “We want to make sure we’re asking people to use their time wisely.”

A common problemThough the admission office decided

to decrease the length of its application supplement this year, many schools will likely increase theirs in future years, said Michele Hernandez, a college consul-tant and former assistant director of admissions at Dartmouth. Because of changes to the Common Application — namely a more rigid online format and the removal of the shorter essay question — students cannot “customize” their applications, she said.

“Now the Common App is just one essay, so I think colleges have to put supplements,” she said. “Or else kids will just be tossing their hats in the ring.”

Hernandez said many colleges will have “frustrating years” because of this change. “It’s ironic with the Common App because the point of it was you don’t need supplements,” Hernandez said. “But now we need more because the Common App is super limited.”

Miller said Brown’s supplement will be evaluated at the end of the current admission cycle for clarity and effec-tiveness and could be changed then, if needed.

Applicant reactionsThough Brown’s supplement is

significantly shorter than it was in years past, many prospective students said they do not think the length is limiting.

Rosalynn Lozado, an early decision applicant to the class of 2018 from Men-dota, Calif., said she feels that though there are fewer questions, their word lengths allow her to fully express herself. She also noted that the shorter supple-ment allows her more time to complete applications to other schools.

Nadya Kim ’17 said she would have appreciated a shorter supplement when she applied to the University, adding that Brown’s supplement is “notorious for being lengthy.”

But Marco Luy ’17 said he is disap-pointed by the cuts to the supplement, as he saw Brown’s as “the most fun” of any of the college applications he filled out. He added that his favorite question was the short response that asked applicants to elaborate on something they created and were especially proud of — a ques-tion removed this year.

“I wrote about how I was this skinny kid and then I got buff my junior year of high school,” Luy said. “My body was what I created.”

Brianna Ward, a regular decision applicant to the class of 2018 from New Tampa, Fla., said Brown’s supplement is “compared to other schools, middle-of-the-road in terms of how much they’re asking.” Though she said she thought more questions might have given her more chances to share who she is, she said she still thought she “could get across” what she needed to.

» APPLICATION, from page 1

arts & culture 3THE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2013

By EMMAJEAN HOLLEYSENIOR STAFF WRITER

Telephone wires, loosely threaded through the streetlights studding a Jer-sey highway, crosshatch into the distance across a marbled grey sky. A TV dinner tray, its meat and vegetable portions neatly compartmentalized, sits crooked on a stovetop in a messy kitchen. At first glance, the photographs of Stephen Shore are not necessarily the most striking.

Look again.In a lecture Shore — a renowned

American photographer — gave Wednesday at the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, the artist said his photography is “a means of showing and communicating what the world looks like when seen in a state of heightened awareness.”

The event was part of the Student Creative Arts Council Lecture Series, a program which brings magnates from various creative and artistic fields — in-cluding photography, sculpting, archi-tecture and art history — to speak to the community, event organizer Clara Zevi ’15 said.

Douglas Nickel, Andrea V. Rosenthal Professor of Modern Art, introduced the lecture with a brief synopsis of Shore’s ca-reer, which he said was “long and studded with impressive milestones.” Such mile-stones included selling three photographs to the Museum of Modern Art at the age of 14, becoming the second man in history to earn a one-man photography exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and serving as the director of the photography program at Bard College since 1982.

But perhaps Shore’s most significant contribution to the art world traces back to the 1970s, when the self-taught pho-tographer pioneered the emergence of

color photography as a “medium of personal expression,” Nickel told The Herald. Prior to this, color photography was considered “vulgar” and mostly as-sociated with “commercial photography or family snapshots, but not people seri-ous about making art with a camera,” he added.

At the lecture, Shore outlined sev-eral “formative moments” in his career, beginning with his uncle building him a dark room in New York City at age six. The next moment occurred at age 10, when he received a copy of Walker Evans’ book “American Photographs.”

“(Evans) had an understanding of the cultural meaning of the photograph, and he was self-aware in adopting a visual style that enacted this vernacular tradi-tion,” Shore said, adding that he feels a “spiritual kinship” with Evans.

In another formative moment, Shore said he worked for and developed close ties with Andy Warhol, the iconic pop artist known for immortalizing the Campbell soup can in the modern art world.

Shore said he spent considerable time absorbing Warhol’s “aesthetic decision-making process” at “the Factory,” War-hol’s studio, adding that he felt a “compat-ibility” with Warhol as an artist because they both took a “distanced delight in our culture.”

But Nickel told The Herald a key distinction between the two artists is that while Warhol presents an “ironic” critique of consumerism, Shore sees the world with fresher eyes.

“He sees these parts of everyday life, the things you encounter in motels and small towns and street corners, with a sense of wonder and possibility — not the way Warhol would,” Nickel said, add-ing that “what amounts to a technical issue of using color ends up showing us the potential of paying attention to the ordinary.”

Shore’s next formative moment oc-curred at a dinner party with Ansel Ad-ams — a well-known photographer who had been drinking heavily throughout

the night — finishing at least six tumblers of vodka, Shore said.

“I remember he said with such clearness and matter-of-factness in his voice and lack of affect in how he was speaking: ‘I had a creative hot-streak in the forties and since then I’ve been pot-boiling,’ meaning churning out work for money,” Shore said, adding that this inci-dent prompted him to decide he would seek out some new means of challenging himself whenever he noticed repetition in his work.

Over time, Shore gravitated toward postcards because “they presented a view of very average American culture, but without artistic pretension” and snap-shots for their “immediacy” and “vital-ity,” he said.

To explore these forms, Shore trav-elled the country, compiling a “visual diary,” which included most meals, people, beds, bathrooms and buildings he encountered.

“It’s almost as if he explores the coun-try as if he’d never seen it before, as if he’s somebody who was born blind and was suddenly given sight,” Nickel told The Herald. “He’s delighted at everything he sees and notices things that everyone else overlooks through force of habit.”

Zevi echoed this sentiment.“(Shore’s photographs) may look very

empty, but they’re actually quite full,” she

said. “You look once, and it looks totally regular. But if you look again, you see colors and arrangements that you don’t immediately take into account.”

True to his self-prescription, Shore continually sought new challenges by experimenting with structure, organiza-tion, perspective and especially how to “transform a three-dimensional world flowing in time into a flat, static, bound photograph,” he said.

He also said whenever he noticed repetition in his work, he would chal-lenge himself by taking on unfamiliar projects — such as natural landscape, black and white and street photography.

“I know there are certain visual ap-proaches in the way I see and things that’s what I’m bringing to (the photograph), but if I only do that I’m not doing jus-tice to the place and I’m not growing as artist,” Shore said. “I want to be open to changing in response to what I’m en-countering and to constantly push in new directions.”

Audience members gave consistently positive appraisals of his lecture.

“It was first time I had heard an artist speak about their work and not have it feel contrived, to have it be explained in a way that I was able to relate to and could see happening,” said Sofia Castello y Tickel ’12.5, currently a research as-sistant at Brown.

Jayna Arnovitch RISD ’10 also said she appreciated the accessibility of Shore’s lecture.

“What struck me the most was that a lot of what he said was really simply put but really poignant and spot-on,” she said, adding that the result of this was “easy to understand but, at same time, awe-inspiring.”

Ethan Ebinger ’16, who said he was required to attend the lecture for his vi-sual arts class, echoed this sentiment.

“As someone who occasionally has trouble understanding and finding meaning in art, it was really insightful to hear the artist’s perceptions of his work,” he said, adding that he was particularly inspired and impressed by Shore’s “work ethic” of continually seeking new chal-lenges and avenues of exploration.

This cycle of self-imposed obstacle and mastery in Shore’s career is, the artist said, the reason behind his many changes in content and style, including his move towards natural landscapes, a decade of only black and white photography and a series of short, themed photobooks created using a digital camera.

“For me, art is about solving prob-lems and facing challenges, about explor-ing the world through the medium of photography,” Shore said. “It’s not about making beautiful pictures. Pictures are the byproduct of the activity.”

Legendary photographer Shore zooms in on BrownShore strives to portray ‘the potential of paying attention to the ordinary’ in his photography

science & research4 THE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2013

By JASON NADBOYCONTRIBUTING WRITER

More soil lead contamination exists in Rhode Island than previously recorded by state lead examiners, according to a recent study by University researchers.

The study examined the lead-testing methods of the Rhode Island Depart-ment of Health and found previous methods literally did not dig deep enough — only examining surface soil samples when lead may be found deeper in the soil.

One source of lead contamination is paint coating water towers painted decades ago. The paint chips off, falls to the soil and is blown around by the wind.

When one such tower was replaced in 2003, contractors inspecting the site found areas surrounding the tower had soil containing lead by Rhode Island De-partment of Environmental Manage-ment standards, according to the study. Residents nearby were disgusted by the discovery of lead and hired their own contractors to determine just how much of the nearby soil was hazardous, using

Rhode Island Department of Health standards instead.

Spurred to action, the state health de-partment requested the Brown University Superfund Research Program look into the department’s standards for examin-ing soil for lead. The researches found because the department only looked at surface soil samples, they missed the presence of lead lurking beneath the top layer and underestimated the level of contamination.

Soil samples from 31 properties were analyzed for lead concentrations. Four locations — comprising 13 percent of properties examined — were labeled “soil lead hazard,” according to the study.

The researchers took samples from the surface of the soil along with samples from both six inches and 12 inches below the surface, said Marcella Thompson, postdoctoral research associate in pa-thology and laboratory medicine, and the lead author of the study.

The researchers found certain proper-ties to be misclassified in terms of their lead hazard. These locations were falsely classified because only the surface of these properties had been examined for lead, Thompson said.

Lead contained in deeper levels of soil can still serve as a source of exposure for humans. “If you’re thinking about planting a garden, lead can be taken by

the plants,” said Kim Boekelheide, pro-fessor of medical science, pathology and laboratory medicine and an author of the study. Children also risk exposure when they play in contaminated dirt, he added.

According to Rhode Island Depart-ment of Health standards, lead -free soil refers to soil with less than 150 milli-grams of lead per kilogram of soil, as noted in the study. This can be confusing, especially to residents with no scientific background, Thompson said.

“The use of the terminology ‘lead -free’ was not really lead free,” Thompson added.

After the study highlighted faults in the state health department’s lead testing techniques, the department has commit-ted to tweaking standards, Thompson said.

“I’m very pleased to think that the Rhode Island Department of Health cared enough about the quality of their work that they have that philosophy of continuous improvement,” Thompson said.

But there is still work to do in ex-amining lead contamination. “The next steps are up to (the state departments of health and environmental management) in terms of how they want to monitor further potential exposures” and pinpoint other locations where the lead may have been distributed, Boekelheide said.

Study finds fault with lead-testing techniqueBy examining deeper soil, researchers found past methods for measuring lead to be inaccurate

stardom but must rely on a job at Sub-way to supplement the occasional ap-pearance in a Colgate toothpaste ad, all as he struggles with the ghosts of his time as a Marine in Iraq. When family matriarch Mami Ginny dies, Elliot and his cousin Yazmin, played by Ivy Alphonse-Leja ’14, are forced to take charge of funeral arrangements as they contemplate the potential dis-integration of their sprawling Puerto Rican family.

Elliot and Yazmin’s drama is in-terspersed with scenes that take place online — specifically, in a Narcotics Anonymous chat room. Hudes imagi-natively renders the characters’ virtual comments as spoken dialogue, with characters saying aloud “L-O-L” and the moderator offering a tired “cen-sored” whenever someone curses. On-stage, the conceit feels less gimmicky than it sounds: Typing in from around the globe, four crackheads share their stories of recovery and relapse, creat-ing their own community with humor, haikus and tough love.

But do words on a screen consti-tute genuine connection? Hudes of-fers no easy answer. “Orangutan,” a 31-year-old American living in Japan, played by Natalie Cutler ’16, relays that her parents didn’t understand her ad-diction until they read her chat room posts — the Internet forges under-standing where real life fails. Yet the people in the chat room never share their real names, hiding behind pseud-onyms or initials to construct personas straddling a liminal space of identity.

In “Water’s” first scene, Elliot asks a professor to translate a line of Arabic that has haunted him since his honor-able discharge six years ago. The man is reluctant at first, but he obliges: “Can I please have my passport back?” The phrase recurs throughout the show, a reminder of Elliot’s guilt and night-mares.

But if passports signal the ability to cross from one world into another, the play’s characters often have trouble distinguishing the borders between various spheres. Reality bleeds into the chat room’s anonymity, the two storylines intertwine, and everyone’s past — no matter how they try to run from it — threatens to steal into the present.

As the characters’ tangled web of relationships slowly reveals itself, another blurred dichotomy emerges — that of “families of choice versus families of blood,” as Ybarra put it, and the sacrifices that each type of relationship demands.

The play’s commentary on online forms of communication is “very pertinent in today’s world,” Cutler said. “You realize how much easier certain things are to say from behind a screen.”

Beneath all the personal stories, Hudes has a keen sense of her play’s various political subtexts. Addic-tion — and its racial and class-based facets — and the Iraq War cast two

very different shadows over the ac-tion, while the chat room is fodder for subtle commentary about government and censorship. In the tradition of great art, “Water” portrays individual lives that both stand on their own and illuminate something deeper about society’s foibles and structures.

The show is a generous ensemble piece, and the acting is uniformly strong. Rufa’s bark is gruff, but his flickering eyes convey buried turmoil, and Alphonse-Leja performs a prag-matic, wistful role with equal skill. The chat room members make every emotion palpable, even as they stay mostly within their separate voms: Cutler, inflecting sarcasm with sorrow; Justin Harris ’15, a weary middle-aged Internal Revenue Service employee frightened of engaging offline; and Andrew Ganem ’16, alternately smarmy and smarting as an ex-CEO trying to conceal his addiction from his family.

As the online forum’s modera-tor, “Haiku Mom,” Shadura Lee ’16 emerges as the unexpected emotional lynchpin for both subplots in a nu-anced portrayal of calm and fury.

In this dialogue-heavy play, Ybarra maintains the action at a rapid clip. The set design and costumes are ap-propriately simple so as not to divert attention from the ideas and actors swirling around the theater. Of par-ticular note is the work by Lighting Designer Catherine Teitz ’14, espe-cially in a climactic late scene that is pivotal for Elliot.

Harris noted the way staging mir-rors the play’s thematic concerns, say-ing that the actors’ physical placement allows characters “to be present but be distant at the same time.”

Ybarra said she was attracted to the way Hudes plays with form in the script. “She has an incredibly musical structure to her play,” Ybarra said.

“Water” arrives at Brown with an impressive pedigree, having won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2012. Thursday’s opening-night perfor-mance marked the play’s Rhode Island premiere, and Hudes was on hand for a talk-back with the audience after the show.

In this affecting assortment of bruised American lives, nobody es-capes unscathed — including audi-ence members, who are bound to have some of the eeriest moments imprinted on their minds long after the lights go up. But there is, by the end, a sense of forward momentum.

In its cadences and concerns, “Water by the Spoonful” is every bit a play for and of the times, where vulnerability is a computer password and the traditional family unit is an anachronism. But its spirit is univer-sal, as characters seek relationships or experiences to break from the past and start something new. Not bad for a creation myth.

“Water by the Spoonful” will run Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. from Sept. 26 to Oct. 6 at Leeds Theater.

» WATER, from page 1

Castaways of the Fol Espoir” performed by Theatre du Soleil and a discussion of the work with Eric Prenowitz from the University of Leeds. Her stay is jointly sponsored by the International Writers Project, TAPS, the Department of Liter-ary Arts and the Creative Arts Council.

Cixous, whose prolific creative out-put exceeds upward of 50 books of fic-tion, poetry, plays and literary theory, transcends genre and language. “Helene Cixous is a writer, a playwright, a critic, a theorist, a professor, a public intel-lectual, a political thinker and activist,” Prenowitz said at the lecture.

“She is so diverse yet remains an integrated personality,” said Erik Ehn, professor of theater arts and perfor-mance studies and head of playwriting. “She represents a kind of Brown liberal arts ideal. She’s here to be with us and to model for us a life in variety.”

Born in 1937 to a Jewish family in French Algeria, her work often engages with colonial violence, otherness and dispossession. She has explored political emancipation and human rights in a long partnership with Ariane Mnouch-kine and the experimental Theatre du Soleil. “Castaways of the Fol Espoir,” which she wrote for the company, chronicles the making of a silent film

about various migrants aboard an ill-fated ocean liner.

Cixous first achieved recognition in the United States with translations of her feminist literary theory and, par-ticularly, her championing of “ecriture feminine,” feminine writing, in essays like “The Laugh of the Medusa.” But as her lecture last night demonstrated, her career has a cosmic scope, concerned with the deepest, most urgent questions of human experience.

“From Sophocles to Shakespeare, from Ulysses to Macbeth to Dmitri Karamov, from Rousseau to Ingeborg Bachmann, the lady literature archives our suicides and our grievances, grants asylum to our obscure forces from the violence that cannot be avowed, except to her,” she said.

She returned repeatedly to the work of French philosopher and father of the deconstruction movement Jacques Der-rida, with whom Cixous shared a long philosophic and poetic collaboration before his death in 2004. Her work shares Derrida’s fascination with the metaphysical uncertainty of intellectual discourse.

“When she places her hand upon my shoulder, I know that literature has begun,” she said last night. “Indeed, I already don’t know who is writing. Who writes while trembling? Who writes in

the face of whom? Who in me writes to whom? It? You?”

Having written her dissertation on the work of James Joyce, Cixous’ work also has a playful quality of modern-ist experimentation, dancing elegantly between French, English and German.

“The problem (of translation) is particular in her case given the extent to which her writing plays on language and therefore becomes untranslatable,” said Professor of French Studies David Wills. “That’s the type of investment in writing at the level of language, at the level of the signifier that she is totally committed to. The whole creative pro-cess is carried along by the language.”

Positioning Sophocles’s “Ajax,” in conversation with an endless chorus of poets and philosophers, Cixous put forth a compelling argument for writing as a means of affirming our existence, of entering in dialogue with voices of the past to confront the inevitability of death.

“She talks about the act of writing as a way of knowing,” said Ehn. “It’s not just a craft that results in an output, but it’s a way of knowing yourself and plumbing the depths of the soul.”

Cixous will discuss “The Castaways of the Fol Espoir” with Eric Prenowitz today at 2p.m. in the Salomon Center for Teaching.

» CIXOUS, from page 1

sports friday 5THE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2013

By GEORGE SANCHEZSPORTS STAFF WRITER

The No. 17 men’s water polo team fin-ished their weekend travel campaign with a 2-1 record, losing their first match against No. 14 St. Francis Col-lege Terriers 16-15 but winning the final two games.

Bruno’s first match Saturday came up against the Terriers (8-4), the de-fending Collegiate Water Polo Asso-ciation champions, in a repeat of the Bruno Fall Invitational two weekends ago when the Bears (8-5) fell 11-9. With minutes remaining in the match, Henry Fox ’15 scored a goal that pushed the squad to just one point behind the Terriers. St. Francis responded and expanded their lead back up to two, 16-14. With 1 minute, 16 seconds left in the game, Nick Deaver ’15 scored yet another goal for Bruno, but it was not enough to overcome St. Francis — the match finished with a 16-15 victory for the Terriers.

“We were out of our element — it was a very different environment than we’re used to,” Deaver said. “It was a complete physical battle.”

During the final match Saturday the squad’s first years delivered a notewor-thy performance, guiding Bruno to a decisive 17-5 victory over the Fordham University Rams (7-5). Jake Wyatt ’17 tallied three goals for the Bears, while

Luke Irwin ’17 and Warren Smith ’17 tacked on two goals each. Walker Shockley ’14 was between the bars for the first half of the game and went on to make a total of six saves in the half.

In the final match of the road trip, the Bears faced off against the Iona Col-lege Gaels (2-10) in a close game that finished with a 15-13 Bruno victory. At the beginning of the third quarter, the Gaels and the Bears were tied at eight. But the Bears tallied five goals in the third quarter, while Shockley held the Gaels to three goals in the third quarter. This defensive surge in the third quarter ultimately made the difference, and the squad pulled away with a 15-13 victory.

“We stuck to our fundamentals — we overpowered them using our strengths and skill set,” Deaver said. “We were able to come in strong in the second half, and shut them down with textbook defense.”

Bruno’s efforts continue this week-end as the team travels to Cambridge for rematches against the Harvard Crimson (4-8) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Engineers (3-7). In their first meeting of the season, the Bears defeated the Crimson in a late-game thriller at the Bruno Fall Classic, 9-8. The following weekend the Bears beat the Engineers in the Bruno Fall Invitational, 14-10. The squad hopes to build on these previous successes, and come back to campus with two more victories for the season.

“We are excited to play Harvard — we have a full lineup,” Deaver said. “(Harvard) beat St. Francis this past weekend, so we’re going to be contend-ing for a better bracket position.”

Bears finish 2-1 in first travel gameThe team looks forward to a rematch against the Harvard Crimson in Boston this Saturday

“common pathway” between Christian-son syndrome and autism, Morrow said.

Having identified NHE6 as involved in some forms of autism, Morrow’s team sought to investigate its role in brain development by using mice with non-functional copies of the gene for NHE6. They found brain cells in the mice were unable to form neural branches properly, which is neurologically problematic be-cause branching allows the brain to form circuits, Morrow said.

NHE6 belongs to the family of genes regulating the acidity of endosomes, which are shuttles capable of either re-cycling or destroying proteins inside cells, Morrow said. The team found that mice without NHE6 had unusu-ally acidic endosomes that disrupted the balance between recycling and destruc-tion, he added.

The authors attempted to restore the

balance between the two pathways us-ing a regulatory molecule called BDNF. The treated neurons “grow branches, and they look almost like the wild type,” Morrow said, a striking improvement over the stunted, untreated neurons.

The team’s work represents an ad-vance in our understanding of how genetic defects can contribute to neu-rological disorders, wrote Sven van Ijzendoorn, associate professor of cell biology at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, in an email to The Herald. “The function of NHE6 as an endosomal pH regulator was known, but not the physiological relevance,” he wrote. “This paper now shows how NHE6-regulated endosome pH governs neuronal” branching and “how loss of this function gives rise to a human brain disorder,” he added.

Morrow cautioned that while the findings suggest a potential drug mecha-nism against autism, much work remains

even in the ideal case.This “was a study in a dish,” he said,

adding that mouse brains could have “conceivable differences” from humans in ways relevant to the mechanism. It is also challenging to design drugs that can be delivered “in the right place at the right time” and act specifically enough not to cause side effects, he said.

The “good news is we have the tools for these experiments,” he said, such as live mice and ways of growing human brain cells in a dish. He also said com-pounds similar to BDNF have already been tested in humans and found to be safe.

For Morrow, the immediate goal is not to cure autism. The BDNF molecule might only fix some of the problems caused by the NHE6 defect, he said. But in severe cases where patients are unable to speak or have frequent seizures, even incremental improvements could make a major difference.

» AUTISM, from page 1

By ANDREW FLAXCONTRIBUTING WRITER

In its second tournament of the year, the men’s golf team finished 10th in the 17-team Hartford Hawk Invitational. The low finish was due in large part to a poor second round, despite strong showings in the other two.

Rutgers University won the tourna-ment with a cumulative team score of 868, just four strokes over par for the three rounds. The Scarlet Knights edged out Hartford University, the tournament host, by only seven strokes. Brown fin-ished with a total score of 921 — 53 strokes back of the winners — but just 13 strokes behind the sixth place finisher, the University of Rhode Island.

Bruno shot a respectable 304 in the first round, making for an average score of four strokes above par on the par-72 course. While the Bears stayed just off the pace of the leaders, they fell much further behind after the second round.

The team score dropped to 317 the next time through the course — an av-erage of 3.25 more strokes per scoring golfer. Only the four lowest scores of the five golfers counted towards the team score, but the entire team suffered in the second round. The Bears bounced back for the third round, shooting 300

and vaulting over three teams on the final day of competition in moving from 13th to 10th.

Despite a frustrating middle round, Head Coach Michael Hughes said he was encouraged by what he saw from the team this weekend.

“I was pleased with the whole event,” Hughes said, but added that he was not entirely satisfied. Hughes said the team suffered from “a little inconsistency,” noting that the second round “derailed us” and that the team needed to “string together three rounds,” to place high.

If the team had shot a 302 in the sec-ond round, which was the average of its other two scores, the 15-shot boost would have landed it in sixth place.

The final result left something to be desired, but Hughes had plenty of reasons to be happy with his team. The Bears’ day-three rebound “shows what we’re capable of … moving up three teams in 18 holes,” he said, which “is pretty impressive.”

Moving on from the team perfor-mance, Hughes also heaped praise on his players individually. He singled out Justin Miller ’15, saying he was “our best player,” and said both Nelson Hargrove ’13.5 and Jack Wilson ’16 were “consis-tent.” Hughes commended Hargrove for his steady play last season and Wilson for his performance at the tournament.

Miller and Wilson were the low shooters for Bruno, both completing the three rounds in 226 strokes, 10 over par for the tournament. Their performances were good for 21st among all individual

competitors. Hargrove finished seven behind Miller and Wilson at 233 strokes, putting him in 45th among all golfers.

It was “nice to bounce back” after a “tough go … in the second round,” Miller said. One of many players whose scores jumped during the second round, he shot 76-79-71, making a nice return to form on the final day.

Regarding specific aspects of his game, Miller said he was proud of his work on the greens, saying, “I putted really well,” but he was not as happy with himself off the tee. “If I hit a few more fairways, it’ll probably take a little stress off my short game,” he said.

Despite team struggles, Wilson per-formed well in round two. He shot 77-73-76, making the second round his best. Having bucked the trend that sank his teammates, he said he was “pretty happy” with himself but still was far from per-fect. “I think I gave a lot of shots away,” he said.

Like Miller, Wilson improved his putting, saying his “short game got a lot better” since the team’s season-opening competition in the Navy Fall Invitational in Annapolis, Md. Wilson aims to con-tinue improving his score as the season goes on. “It’s easy to go out and treat prac-tice as a time to relax,” said Wilson, who hopes to be more focused and wants to spend more time on “deliberate practice.”

“We’re getting closer to the level we all know we can play at,” Wilson said.

The team has next week off before heading to Yale and playing in the Mac-donald Cup Oct. 5 and 6.

Bruno suffers rough second roundMiller ’15 and Wilson ’16 each completed three rounds in 226 strokes, 10 over par for the tourney

the outcome of the game is determined and the numbers are meaningless. This player may have had a strong fantasy day, appeasing the many fans who started him in their 10-man league, but hardly noticed or cared that his team got wal-loped due in part to his poor play when it mattered. In this way, fantasy football can easily distort a game for those who selectively choose what they want to pay attention to.

Fantasy football can have a detrimen-tal effect on watching live games, as well. I have on many occasions tuned into a game only to find myself distracted by the stat ticker at the foot of the screen. When a team with a player of mine has the ball, I’m not concerned with analyz-ing how plays unfold or what the coach-ing strategy might be — I’m watching

to see where my flex-play wide receiver has lined up and if the quarterback is looking in his direction. When the ball changes possession, and my players go to the bench, I return to the ticker.

But worst of all, fantasy football can compromise a fan’s allegiance (something I am proud to say I have yet to succomb to). 49ers fans who draft Marshawn Lynch or Patriots fans who draft new Bronco Wes Welker are making the best decisions for their fantasy teams but have to quietly root for their starting players, even if they are on a hated rival. After all, dollars are on the line, and dollars always win out. Additionally, there is the classic conundrum of what to do if one of your fantasy players is facing off against your team. Do you bench him so you can root unabated for your side? Do you hope he has a huge game but little influences the outcome? Do you celebrate

his touchdown that bumped your team out of first place but got you into the fantasy playoffs? These are existential questions that true fan allegiance should never even entertain, but are the debates of the fantasy footballer every Sunday — whether he or she like it or not.

Matthew Berry, also known as the Talented Mr. Roto, is the preeminent fantasy guru who posts a weekly “Love/Hate” column on ESPN explaining who he likes and dislikes as fantasy plays that game week. For me, this love/hate rela-tionship in fantasy football applies in more ways than one. I suppose, though, my internal struggle is for naught. De-spite its problematic externalities, fantasy football has cast a spell over myself and the entire NFL fan base, from coworkers to frat brothers to book groups. I may one day try to escape, but fantasy is here to stay.

teams in the league. If we don’t, we know that we’ve got a little bit more preparing to do.”

Yules relishes the opportunity to play a formidable opponent early in the season.

“It’s cool,” Yules said. “You start the season off with a bang against a great opponent, someone who’s perennially on the top. To have such a big challenge provides the opportunity to come to-gether as a team early on.”

The Bears will try to sustain mo-mentum from last week’s 45-7 victory over Georgetown University. In his first game since 2011, John Spooney ’14 led Bruno with 102 rushing yards and three touchdowns. Alex Jette ’17 contributed another breakout perfor-mance with 82 yards returning, and was named Ivy League Rookie of the Week Monday. Estes said he plans to give Jette a greater offensive role as the season progresses.

Defense played perhaps the largest role in the victory by holding the Hoyas scoreless for 58 minutes.

“This week will be a much different game against a much different oppo-nent,” Yules said. “We’re probably go-ing to give up points this week. It’s not as much about a shutout — it’s more about being physical, tough and perfect mentally.”

Harvard’s offensive attack will provide an ample challenge for Yules’ defense. The Crimson defeated San Diego State 42-20 last Saturday, paced by quarterback Conner Hempel’s 345

passing yards and three touchdown passes in his first career start.

“They just reload,” Estes said of Harvard’s offense. “They put another quarterback in there, and he’s just as good as the guy last year. They may have lost people, but they haven’t lost much talent.”

Harvard has capitalized on home-field advantage in the past. The Crim-son have won each of their past 12 home openers, 13 consecutive home games and all seven night games played at Harvard Stadium. It has also come out on top in 11 of its last 13 games against the Bears, including last year’s 45-31 victory in Providence on home-coming weekend.

“I don’t see (home field advantage) playing a role as long as we stay fo-cused,” Spooney said. “We have a lot of discipline on the team, so I don’t see it being a factor.”

“Last year’s game is in the past,” Yules said. “It’s a new year, a new team, a new goal. It’s the 2013 championship we’re chasing, not the 2012 one.”

The captain also pointed to this week’s significance for seniors on the team.

“For seniors, every game is a little bit different,” Yules said. “You realize every game is the last against that oppo-nent. Every game seems bigger because you want to go out on top. This is what you’ll remember about your career.”

Saturday’s game will be the first of Bruno’s three night games this season. It will host Rhode Island College next Saturday and Princeton October 19, both at 6:00 p.m.

WATER POLO GOLF

» FANTASY, from page 8

» FOOTBALL, from page 8

commentary6 THE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2013

A diamond to the team of University researchers who titled their article, “Speed dating, rejection, and finding the perfect mate: advice from flowering plants.” Normally we prefer to take romantic advice from people, but desper-ate times call for desperate measures.

Coal to President Christina Paxson for not using the term “university-college” in her strategic plan because “most people off campus have no clue what that term means.” That didn’t stop Gretchen Wieners from trying to make fetch happen.

A diamond to Dean of Admission Jim Miller ’73, who said of the downsized application supplement, “We didn’t want verbiage for the sake of verbiage.” Will someone please share this wisdom with that obnoxious kid in the back of our Shakespeare class?

Cubic zirconia to David Banush, associate University librarian for ac-cess services and collection management, for saying, “We find that things available electronically are more likely to be used.” Yeah, we haven’t used our rune tablets in weeks.

Cubic zirconia to the graduate student who said playing club soccer means “I get to make more friends. I get to make more Facebook friends.” Good luck getting poked.

A diamond to Provost Mark Schlissel P’15 for saying of President Obama’s proposed college ranking system that “the devil’s in the details.” That’s why we never look too closely at the things floating in our soup at the Sharpe Refectory.

Coal to the senior in Brown Standup Comics who said, “A lot of what we do every day is weird, but we don’t think about them usually.” Nonsense. We’re constantly strategizing the next excavation of our navels.

A diamond to the member of Critical Review who said, “We really screwed up. It was definitely our fault, and we won’t do it again.” This sounds like the makings of an emotionally mature version of a certain Shaggy song.

A diamond to the sophomore on the men’s golf team who said, “I think I gave a lot of shots away.” As long as you also provided salt and limes.

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D I A M O N D S & C O A L

Q U O T E O F T H E D A Y

“My body was what I created.” — Marco Luy ’17

See application, page 1.

SMART is a management litera-ture acronym for effective stra-tegic planning. It deems a stra-tegic plan as good if it sets goals that are “specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.” Brown’s strategic plan, “Building on Distinction” fails each of these standards. It isn’t specific. There isn’t anything to be measured. There is no time bound on any of the proposals. At best, there might be an argu-ment that it is achievable and relevant.

The biggest flaw with the plan is the lack of specifics. The 11-page document is chock full of educational buzzwords com-monly heard at the Brown Fac-ulty Club but foreign to many readers. Phrases such as “in-formed civil discourse,” “inte-grative scholarship,” “global citi-zenry” and “creative expression” all make an appearance. But very little of the report states concrete goals the University wants to achieve. The most spe-cific items I could identify were more of a hodgepodge: plans to invest in biomedical science, ex-pand graduate programs, create more generous compensation packages for faculty and prepare for a series of renovations and construction projects.

Some may say the lack of specificity is appropriate, since a strategic document is not the place for tactics. This can be true. But it is also true that too broad of a mission is unhelp-ful. For instance, if a general de-

clared his strategy was to win the battle, he would have no strategy.

Several points in the report should concern undergraduates. First, the phrase “university-col-lege,” synonymous with Brown’s commitment to teaching and re-search, does not appear in the plan. Moreover, the plan’s goals for undergraduate programs are modest compared to its plans to expand graduate offerings. The plan therefore suggests that

Brown is continuing to morph into a research university at the expense of its undergraduate ed-ucation.

The plan anticipates this crit-icism. According to the plan, “education and research rein-force one another.” But the real-ity is the vast majority of under-graduate education is not affect-ed by research. Undergraduate Teaching and Research Awards, student research and research that affects undergraduate course material is a very small portion of the sum total of un-dergraduate education. For the most part, investment in grad-uate programs comes at the ex-pense of improving undergradu-ate programs.

Graduate programs may pro-

vide the University with more revenue and prestige, but it isn’t clear that undergraduate education warrants less atten-tion. In this time of rapidly ris-ing tuition and a weak job mar-ket, prospective undergraduates will pay greater attention to the quality of undergraduate educa-tion when selecting schools. It’s unlikely that Brown’s reputation for strong undergraduate educa-tion will last without continued investment.

The plan also disturbingly combines race and educational decisions. The document calls for “developing diversity” in fac-ulty. The plan states that “a di-verse faculty is an essential com-ponent of scholarly excellence.” Personally, I care that my profes-sors are excellent teachers, what-ever race they may be. Most oth-er Brown students think so, too. A Herald poll in December 2012 found that a majority of students support race-blind faculty hir-ing. I think the administration should take a cue from student views: Most 20-somethings on College Hill don’t think it is ap-propriate to hire on the basis of race. Why not start off the next 10 years with a commitment to character, not color?

Despite the flaws in the stra-tegic plan, Brown has the poten-tial to be an excellent college 10 years from now. I hope that stu-dents and faculty members take the opportunity to provide feed-back. That way, perhaps the plan can become a mission worth striving for.

Oliver Hudson ’14 can be reached at

oliver_hudson@brown.edu

What the strategic plan is missingOLIVER

HUDSONopinions columnist

“If a general declared his

strategy was to win the battle, he would

have no strategy.”

commentary 7THE BROWN DAILY HERALDFRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2013

This topic is predisposed to generating un-productive debate without extremely careful consideration. Much as they do in politics, people will end up talking past each other and arguing about particulars when the dis-agreements lie at a more fundamental level.

First, we must consider what “missing” means. The term necessarily implies a specific goal. If no goal ex-ists, arbitrary or otherwise, then the idea of “missing” is meaningless. Let me provide an example.

Imagine you’re a painter. You’ve nearly completed your commissioned work, but something seems incomplete. You wonder, “What’s missing?” Perhaps the painting’s commissioner said he wanted more of the color blue, or perhaps he wanted you to in-clude some symbol that has special meaning to him. In either case, it becomes clear what is missing and what should be added.

What if there were no goal? Without a goal, all outcomes are definitionally identical since there is no scale with which to differen-tiate them. To say A is “better” than B neces-sitates reference to a quantity with respect to which such is the case. “Missing” implicitly alludes to such a quantity or goal. So maybe a more apt question to contemplate would be “What is the goal for which we’re aiming?”

The most obvious answer is the least sat-isfying. We can regard the goal as President Christina Paxson’s artificial construction and analyze if it has been successfully effectuated. To this end, nothing is “missing” from the plan due to its inherently vague scope.

Specifically, Paxson told The Herald, “this

is a strategic plan, not a tactical plan.” It is not a stated goal of the strategic plan to have concrete solutions, so much as it is to state the general direction in which the Universi-ty wishes to move. The goal here is actually quite small, and it would be hard to argue it was not accomplished. That is not to say that it has no significance, as it is a necessary first step toward defining — and ideally realizing — more specific “tactics” that can directly benefit the University.

A more intriguing way to interpret the question — and the way I think most people will interpret it — is to pick a more interesting goal. But we should be cautious here,

as this step can degenerate into individuals talking past one another. Far too often, peo-ple will dispute specific costs and benefits without having agreed upon a single goal. What costs do we wish to minimize? What benefits do we wish to maximize? It’s not sur-prising to note disagreements in policy when there are underlying disagreements on what that policy should be in the first place.

I have no desire to embrace a single “ulti-mate” goal for Brown, as I think such a goal could not have objective significance. This difficulty lies at the heart of the debate at hand. Unfortunately, I don’t really think an easy answer exists.

But perhaps it might not matter. If people could agree on some important goals of the University, then we could start talking about how to implement strategies to that effect. But agreement is a rare thing — especially at Brown — and I’m grateful we don’t live in such a boring world.

Andrew Powers ’15 can be reached at andrew_powers@brown.edu

The greatest omission of the strate-gic plan is the lack of any commit-ment to increasing financial aid. Any plan that does not place finan-cial aid as a top priority of the Uni-versity is in error on several critical levels.

First, increasing financial aid is central to improving education at Brown. Education is collaborative. Rejecting students on the basis of insufficient affluence is not only a tragedy for the student who never comes to Brown but also for the rest of us — each of us misses out on the perspective and insight that student could have brought to cam-pus. Progress in every department accelerates with greater diversity of thought and more minds of the highest caliber. By increasing finan-cial aid, we enable the Office of Ad-

mission to accept the best possible class of students — more socioeco-nomically diverse and better quali-fied. As a result, all students receive a better education.

Second, increasing financial aid is the best way for Brown to ensure its competitiveness in the long run. Brown cannot continue offering financial aid packages among the worst in the Ivy League and suffer no ill consequences. Given our cur-rent financial aid awards, we cannot attract the best students to apply to Brown, we will not have the stu-dents we admit choose Brown over our peer institutions, and we leave students’ educations constrained by heavy debt burdens and insuffi-cient resources. A university that is less selective than its peers, that has a lower yield rate than its peers, and that has poorer alum achievement than its peers is not likely to be one that increases in prestige and out-performs rivals. This lowers the val-ue of a Brown degree. Increasing fi-nancial aid is a necessary condition

of strengthening Brown’s competi-tiveness with peer institutions.

Third, to not make increasing fi-nancial aid a top priority is to ignore the legitimate structures by which members of the Brown community should be able to affect their univer-

sity. Over a quarter of the student body signed a petition supporting Brown for Financial Aid’s call for increased financial aid. The Un-dergraduate Council of Students’ campus-wide poll last year found that over 90 percent of the student body supports increases to financial

aid. Every elected member of stu-dent government has signed on to Brown for Financial Aid’s platform. The strategic planning Commit-tee on Financial Aid — composed of faculty members, administrators and undergraduates — agreed to three large increases to financial aid. Not one of the three is in the stra-tegic plan. The administration must respect the will of those who com-pose the University and prioritize financial aid appropriately.

Finally, going need blind and reducing the financial burden on students with a greater need is a moral imperative. Discrimination because of insufficient affluence is abhorrent. It was the Steering Com-mittee on Slavery and Justice back in 2006 that called for need-blind admission — just one of many moral voices whose cries have fall-en on deaf ears. For as long as the University prioritizes other spend-ing priorities over financial aid, it will continue strengthening socio-economic barriers rather than dis-

solving them. We should not toler-ate a Brown that worsens inequality and injustice.

President Christina Paxson and other administrators may well be-lieve making commitments has no benefit, that they can trust them-selves to expand financial aid as quickly as is prudent. But there will always be reasons to delay, to shy away from taking a bold stand. If commitments to expand financial aid are made, our network of alum donors will ensure those commit-ments are achieved, secure in the knowledge that their donations will make a better version of Brown available to the next generation. Without substantial commitments to increasing financial aid, the Cor-poration ought to reject this strate-gic plan as imprudent, unwise and immoral.

Alex Mechanick ’15 is the president of Brown for Financial

Aid

Brown administrators are really, really ea-ger to talk about the strategic plan. There are multiple forums and a website where one can talk and talk and talk about the strategic plan. It’s a shame that it’s basical-ly impossible to talk about the strategic plan because there is essentially nothing in the strategic plan.

The plan is 11 solid pages of generalities. We will “enhance science ed-ucation for all students.” “Virtual communication tools will be developed to further connect the Brown campus with the Brown community around the world.” Enhance how? What tools? What are the implications of any of this? I couldn’t tell you, and neither could the plan. It talks about “focused investments” without saying what they are. It refers to online education as a potentially trans-formative force without delving into the potentially very concerning specifics. The Undergraduate Council of Students and The Herald have insisted this is a plan worthy of discussion, which seems odd, given that there’s nothing much to dis-cuss.

To be sure, the few things that are in the plan are incredibly problematic. The section on financial aid mentions nothing about controlling tuition or significantly increasing financial aid packages and in-dicates that we will continue to reject in-ternational and Resumed Undergraduate

Education students for the crime of not being rich enough. The section on build-ing commits to a bundle of projects rang-ing from the unnecessary to the bizarre. The section on staff contains absolutely nothing but abstractions, which maybe reflects the total exclusion of non-mana-gerial staff from the process.

But the overall takeaway is this: The administration claimed when this whole

process started that it would be a chance for the community to give meaningful input. While the process was serious-ly flawed, at least there was actual student and faculty involvement, re-sulting in a series of in-terim reports that con-tained things actually worth talking about. The administration then took

these reports and compressed them into a bland list of the obvious. It’s hard not to conclude that they cared far more about creating the appearance of listening than about actually listening.

It’s business as usual for the adminis-trators. They’ll make the actual decisions when no one is paying attention, count-ing on an unorganized student body to look the other way as this place becomes more glitzy and more expensive. They shouldn’t pretend they’ve given anyone the opportunity to meaningfully partici-pate in university governance, and nei-ther should we. Maybe we should even organize to stop them.

Daniel Moraff ’14 can be reached at daniel.moraff@gmail.com

What, if anything, is missing from the strategic plan?

R O U N D T A B L E

Commitment to financial aid

A goalANDREWPOWERS

opinions columnist

DANIEL MORAFF

opinions columnist

ALEXMECHANICK

guest columnist

Substance

“What is the goal for which we’re

aiming?”

“They’ll make the actual decisions when no one is

paying attention, counting on an

unorganized student body to

look the other way.”

“Brown cannot continue to offer

financial aid packages among

the worst in the Ivy League

and suffer no ill consequences.”

daily heraldTHE BROWN

sports fridayFRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2013

By CALEB MILLERSENIOR STAFF WRITER

At the end of last season, the football team faced the challenge of replacing their top three running backs, all of whom graduated. But two quarters into the 2013 season opener, the solution struck like a lighting bolt. John Spooney ’14 established himself as one the Bear’s biggest assets Saturday in the team’s 45-7 thumping of Georgetown University. The speedster ran for 102 yards, scored two touchdowns and caught a touchdown — all in the first half. Spooney was off the gridiron last season to focus on his track career, where he is a three-time Ivy League 100-meter dash champion and holds the all-time school records for the 100 and 200 meter dashes. After finishing with football, Spooney will begin his final campaign on the track.

For his explosive performance against the Hoyas, The Herald has named Spoon-ey Athlete of the Week.

Herald: A two-sport, Division I athlete is super rare. What is it like balancing it all?

Spooney: At times it’s pretty tough balancing the two sports and also having academics. It takes a lot of time manage-ment and a lot of discipline to not engage in other activities that takes away from academics because athletics are already taking up so much time.

How did you choose Brown?I was choosing between Brown and

Columbia, and Brown was the school that allowed me to do both track and football.

What made you come back to foot-ball this year after taking last season off?

I missed it. I missed the guys, I missed football itself. It is fun, and while running track is fun, it sometimes gets a little redundant.

Which is harder: winning the 100-meter dash or running for 100 yards in a game?

Those both are pretty tough. I would say football is a little more mentally tax-ing. … It’s tougher because so many

things have to come together for a 100-yard game. It’s not just me. It’s the line-men blocking, the receivers blocking and me running well. It all has to come together.

Do you get more nervous before a track meet or before a football game?

I get more nervous before a football game. I don’t know why that is. Even though track is just you, so it would make sense to get more nervous for that, but football just gets me really nervous.

How do you celebrate a win?I don’t know. Just run around and

yell, I guess.

Do you have any pregame rituals or superstitions?

Not typically. I just listen to music.

What kind of music?Rap music, mostly.

Do you know what you want to do next year?

I want to go to medical school at some point. I’m going to try to go to a post-baccalaureate program and then apply to medical school from there.

Spooney ’14 gives new meaning to ‘track and field’ athleteThe running back scored 18 of Bruno’s 45 points against Georgetown this past weekend

EMILY GILBERT / HERALDAfter sitting out the 2012 season to focus on track, John Spooney ’14 burst back onto the scene against Georgetown with over 100 yards rushing.

By DANTE O’CONNELLSENIOR STAFF WRITER

On Saturday evening, the football team will play on one of the biggest stages the Ivy League affords: a nation-ally televised game, under the lights against a conference rival at historic Harvard Stadium in Boston.

But to Head Coach Phil Estes and his team, this week’s matchup against the Crimson is just another game. “It has nothing to do with the rivalry,” Estes said. “It has everything to do with the fact that this is the game we have to play this week.”

“I don’t think any of it has played

into the preparation,” said Defensive Captain Michael Yules ’14. “We all know that it’s on national television. What’s really important is that it’s the first Ivy League game. We need to win every single one to be a champion.”

Bruno (1-0, Ivy 0-0) will open its conference schedule against Harvard (1-0, 0-0) for the second year in a row on NBC Sports Network at 7:30 p.m.

Much more than a season opener, the contest pits two of the top teams in the Ancient Eight against each oth-er. The Ivy League Preseason Media poll ranked Harvard number two and Brown number three, with both teams receiving first-place votes.

“We’ll find out what kind of a football team we are this week,” Estes said. “We’re playing against the best, so if we can match up with them, we know that we’re one of the better

Bruno prepares for marquee matchupThe primetime contest at Harvard will indicate the balance of power in the Ivy League

EMILY GILBERT / HERALD

The football team looks to follow up on its strong performance against Georgetown as it takes on Harvard in open conference play. Herald file photo

HOME GAMES THIS WEEKEND

FRIDAY

M. Soccer vs. Marist7 p.m. @ Stevenson Field

SATURDAY

Field Hockey vs. Dartmouth12 p.m. @ Goldberger Field

SUNDAY

W. Soccer vs. Dartmouth1 p.m. @ Stevenson Field

FOOTBALL

ATHLETE OF THE WEEK

There are websites devoted to it, books written about it, ironic T-shirts depict-ing it and even a mainstream sitcom centered around it. Individuals young and old all over the country place bets on it, lose productivity over it and cry about it. Fantasy football has a stranglehold on football culture in America and has grown into a monstrous beast both engrossing and lucrative. But is it good for football and those who love it?

I’ve been a fantasy football die-hard for eight years running now. I started off out of boredom, in public leagues

on ESPN.com before I coaxed enough of my friends the following autumn to form a league that survives to this day. In high school, fantasy football took up way more of my time than it should have. I spent more time making cheat sheets for drafts than I did on any essay, woke up at 10 every Sunday morning to watch two hours of “Fantasy Football Today” before setting my lineups and sacrificed one of my Little League trophies to shod-dily make a Frankenstein championship trophy for my league (which still resides in my bedroom).

I’ve accumulated leagues over the years from various social circles and can never say no when asked to renew every year. So I am now a member of five dif-ferent leagues: some with good friends, some with mostly strangers, some with

childhood friends’ moms. (I only wish I were kidding.) None of them have money on the line — only pride and bragging rights. You may find five leagues exces-sive, perhaps impressive or most likely pathetic.

But I’m not alone. There are millions out there like me — many of whom ren-der me a novice by juxtaposition — who spend every Sunday with ESPN Game-casts open on six tabs, hate running backs by committee and complain about the owner who forgets he has a team by Week Four. Fantasy football allows the arm-chair GM’s of the universe to assert their agency and gain control over something involving the sport they love. It has all the drama that real life sports have — underdogs, heroes, frustration and joy. In short, it’s everything you could ask for in

a hobby. It really is no great surprise that over 35 million Americans, or 11 percent of the population, are playing in 2013.

I love fantasy football, and I find it only slightly depressing to say my au-tumn would be less enjoyable without it (and this is coming from a person who loves foliage more than you love your own mother). But I’m not sure fantasy football is an all around good thing for the football fan.

Fantasy football skews the fan’s view of the game. Though the NFL loves how lucrative the business is — an estimated $1 billion industry — it leads to a fan base, myself included, that at times will follow the league in all the wrong ways.

As proven in books like Moneyball and Soccernomics, statistics in sports are invaluable. Stats are, of course, at the

heart of fantasy football — yards gained, touchdowns scored, turnovers lost, etc. all determine the scores and winners. But while stats offer analytical insight into the game, in fantasy football they are used simply as metrics that fail to tell the story of a particular player, game or season. Fantasy owners are drawn into prioritizing the numbers, paying more attention to box scores than to how games unfold. In a game in which they have no dogs in the fight, the fantasy-playing lay-man takes an interest only in his players on the stat sheet.

And stats can be misleading. A quarterback may play a mediocre first half in which his team falls far behind, only to rack up yards and a few touch-down throws in garbage time — when

McCoy ’14: My Beautiful Dark Twisted FantasyETHAN

MCCOYsports columnist

» See FANTASY, page 5

» See FOOTBALL, page 5