The Undergraduate Council of Students passed a resolution condemning the USA Patriot Act and its infringement of the rights of students at its general body meeting Wednesday.
Several hundred students showed their support throughout the week by adding their signatures to the resolution, which "affirms (UCS's) strong support for fundamental constitutional rights and its opposition to federal measures that infringe on civil liberties, including the PATRIOT ACT of 2001," as stated in the text of the resolution.
UCS President Joel Payne '05 said the resolution was created entirely by the Brown chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union without UCS influence, and said "specific suggestions for the University" contained in the resolution gained it support from the council.
"We realized that a lot of things applied to students on an everyday basis," Payne said.
The council also passed a statement of support for a local foods initiative that seeks to bring more local foods to campus dining services and encourage awareness and education about the local foods available.
UCS members Kate Brandt '07 and Brian Bidadi '06, who are involved with the Sustainable Food Initiative (SUFI), have been working with what they call a "coalition of environmentally conscious students" on this project.
SUFI hopes to organize the seasonal supply of peaches, tomatoes, potatoes, beans and squash from farmers within a 200-mile radius of Brown.
According to the initiative, 5 to 7 percent of the food in the Sharpe Refectory is grown locally. Most of this food can be found in the roots and shoots line, and every Thursday morning, breakfast at the Ratty is entirely locally grown.
Members of a new student group called Town Hall also came to seek categorization as an official group. Though they were denied at last week's meeting, they were approved unanimously after representatives explained their goals and structure.
The group says it will create a Web site that will streamline campus information and discussion in order to "be the link enabling the many (currently disjointed) agents of change at Brown to work more effectively and harmoniously with one another."
According to Alex Richardson '07, one of the presenters for the group, the site will be made up of a home page and a forum, an activist network and a page called "Reference Room."
The group will have the ability to "control the content of the Web site" through a "series of guidelines to maintain integrity," Richardson said. Official campus groups will submit and verify information on the site. There will be no anonymous posts.
"I think that the value comes in our attempt to streamline the entire process" of getting information about campus groups, said C.J. Hunt '07, another presenter. He said he hopes "the connections made here will lead to physical connections" which could include project collaboration.
CHANNEL POLL RESULTS
In February, a WebCT poll asked : "If it would be possible to replace/add another cable channel to Brown's cable system, what channel(s) would you like to add?" The most-requested channels were:
HBO*Cartoon NetworkHistory ChannelDiscovery ChannelTBSNESNBravoUSAFood NetworkTLCFox NewsThe WBFXSciFi
*HBO would be prohibitively expensive, a UCS representative said.
