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Editorials

Opinions

Editorial: Double-time

Last week The Herald reported on a Princeton freshman who filed suit against the university in an attempt to receive extended time on her exams. We believe Princeton and other schools deserve a tremendous amount of deference in choosing their own testing procedures. The alternative, having judges lift ...


Opinions

Editorial: Return of the soldier

Last Friday, The Herald published a poll showing a strong plurality of Brown students in support of the return of the Reserve Officer Training Corps, which prepares college students to serve in the United States military. With 33.8 percent of respondents uncertain, 41.3 percent said they would approve ...


Opinions

Editorial: PLME bait and switch

Have you ever had something promised to you and then taken away? Of course you have. For some, it was probably something pretty important, like, say, your ability to make free choices about your career. At this point, if you're a student enrolled in the Program in Liberal Medical Education, we're no ...


Opinions

Editorial: The Opened Curriculum

Count us among the staunchest supporters of Brown's Open Curriculum. We love that we can register for whatever we want, while our friends at other universities get stuck in required writing classes. We love that we don't have to worry about fulfilling complicated graduation requirements. We love the ...


Opinions

Grad students and the Corporation

Last week the New England Association of Schools and Colleges released a detailed report on the University as part of Brown's decennial re-accreditation process. We passed. But for Brown, the review's main purpose was to solicit feedback from leaders at peer schools on how the University might make ...


Opinions

Editorial: Groupthink

As the Herald reported Friday, student involvement in Group Independent Study Projects (GISPs) is well past its heyday. GISPs were most popular in the earliest years after they first became an option in 1969 as part of the New Curriculum. The 1974-75 school year saw 50 GISPs, but more recently, the ...


Opinions

Editorial: Farmer Brown

On Tuesday, bioethicist Peter Singer delivered a talk on the ethics of human-animal relations. He contended that humanity has unjustly ignored the interests of animals for the sake of producing meat, and indicted in particular the modern practice of factory farming, which crowds huge numbers of animals ...


Opinions

Editorial: Free to be queer

This year has been tough for queer Americans. In the past two election cycles, campaigns for marriage equality in California and Maine, two of the country's most progressive states, have been defeated at the ballot box. President Obama, who many in the gay community had hoped would effect an about-face ...


Opinions

Providence Plantations

Lawmakers in the Rhode Island House of Representatives voted last Wednesday to hold a statewide referendum on the state's official name. The Ocean State is technically called the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. In November 2010, residents will vote on whether to remove the controversial ...


Opinions

Editorial: No vacancy

The Rhode Island General Assembly has sent Governor Donald Carcieri '65 a bill that would require that U.S. Senate vacancies be filled by special election rather than gubernatorial appointment. We believe Carcieri should sign the bill, though it could be improved.  


Opinions

Editorial: We're all right, Dave

David Dooley, the new president of the University of Rhode Island, has grand plans for increasing collaboration with Brown. He'd like the two universities to share research sites and equipment, work together on projects and grant proposals and allow students to cross-register for classes. We're all ...


Opinions

Editorial: The Green Light

On Oct. 19, the Justice Department circulated a memorandum to federal prosecutors in Rhode Island and the other 13 medical marijuana states instructing them not to prosecute individuals using medical marijuana or those involved in dispensary operations that are "in clear and unambiguous compliance" ...


Opinions

Editorial: Feeling taxed

Over the past two years, Rhode Island has given $87 million in tax breaks to businesses, with the goal of creating jobs and encouraging business expansion. So have these tax breaks actually had their intended effect? Sadly, nobody really knows for sure.  


Opinions

Editorial: Next year in Providence

There will be no quick and easy resolution of the struggle between municipal officials, University administrators and state legislators over proposed development in the Jewelry District of downtown Providence. Along with Johnson and Wales University, Brown is considering whether to acquire properties ...


Opinions

Editorial: Dropped call

Professors in the physics and engineering departments must have been surprised when they arrived at their building last spring and found the parking lot closed to accommodate a crane. They must have been even more surprised to find out that the crane was there to install a T-Mobile cell phone tower ...


Opinions

Editorial: The sauce

Brown's athletics department recently partnered with an outside company, Nelligan Sports Marketing, to increase advertising sales and sponsorships. The company has done well for us so far, bringing in corporate sponsorships from Dunkin' Donuts, AT&T, Domino's Pizza and Taco Bell. Sponsorship funding ...


Opinions

Editorial: Food for thought

Last week's contract negotiations between the University and Brown Dining Services workers made for a surprisingly tense drama. BDS workers threatened to strike on Parents' Weekend, and the two sides came to an agreement at 2 a.m. the night before the strike would have begun. Students held multiple ...


Opinions

Editorial: Top 50

The U.S. News and World Report college rankings are a subject of scorn for most Brown students. Unable to believe that we're the "worst" Ivy (yes, Cornell was a spot above us this year), we fulminate about how the rankings overweigh endowment size and ignore Brown's unique academic philosophy. So we ...


Opinions

Editorial: Going green

According to the College Sustainability Report Card released earlier this month, Brown is about as eco-friendly as universities get. Consider some of the initiatives that contributed to our A-minus grade this year. We've committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 42 percent below 2007 levels ...


Opinions

Editorial: Transparency and the endowment

Brown made the grade for the second consecutive year, scoring an A-minus on the College Sustainability Report, an assessment of environmental practices at hundreds of colleges. Brown's grade was set back slightly by the B's it received in two categories: Administration and Endowment Transparency. Regarding ...


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