The Week in Brief

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Prison pulchritude

Du Loren, a Brazilian lingerie company has found cheap and reliable labor at a nearby prison, where it has been hiring models for a new line of underwear.

Model potentials also abound in a notorious slum, according to Roni Argalji, the company's president. "We are going to show an inmate who is trying to rehabilitate herself in April and a single mother in the slum for the Mother's Day campaign in May," he stated.

After the largest prison revolt ever in Brazil last month—one involving a staggering 29,000 inmates—the population is eager to see what these inmates have to show for themselves. "Du Loren has always believed in portraying our day-to-day reality," Argalji said.

In keeping with this philosophy, one of the company's recent ad campaigns featured a woman being raped; this photograph was released for the campaign while Congress debated a ban on abortion.

Old man wants children

Cloning may be a new replacement for the ancient dream of immortality. Frank Hansford-Miller of Australia, who is a widower but not a father, has decided at the age of 84 that he wants to sow his seed, literally. "What I'm looking forward to is not just having a son, but also grandchildren," he said.

He was rendered infertile four years ago by prostate cancer and claimed his right to benefit from today's advanced technology. And with his plan to live for at least another 36 years, he has plenty of time to start a family.

A copy of himself should prove to be another young-at-heart octogenarian: "My genes are pretty good," he said.

A close shave

A coffin-maker almost sawed off his own wood the other day when his trousers got caught in the circular saw he was using. Luckily he was near a hospital in Moscow established in 1999 that treats only injuries to the male genitals.

The near-delirious man was rushed to emergency care at the hospital with his mangled penis in six slices.

—Compiled by Lise Clavel from Yahoo! News

MIT upgrades financial aid package

MIT announced on Fri., Mar. 2 that it would revamp its financial aid packages for undergraduates. Along with cutting the amount of money that students must provide through jobs or loans by $2,000, MIT will increase the size of its annual grants by $3,100.

MIT's announcement comes on the heels of similar changes at Princeton and Harvard. In January, Princeton abolished all student loans and replaced them with grants. According to Princeton's policy, students will be able to graduate without incurring any debts. Two weeks later, Harvard announced a revision in its financial aid policy. Similar to the amendment made at MIT, Harvard reduced the work-study requirement by $2,000. Despite the apparent quick succession of new policies, Betsy Hicks, the director of MIT's office of student financial services, stated that the changes had been under consideration since last summer.

MIT administrators reduced the work-study requirement with the goal of giving students on financial aid the same opportunity to participate in activities outside the classroom as students who do not receive aid. And in the wake of these changes, Yale may be pressured to amend its own financial aid policy in order to compete. Earlier this year, Yale announced that it would admit international students on a need-blind basis, but whether further revisions will be made to the University's policy is unclear at this point. —Benita Singh

NYU sets precedent with union decision

On Thurs., Mar. 1, New York University (NYU) became the first private institution to formally recognize a teaching assistant (TA) union.

Much of the debate preceding this decision hinged on the question of whether TAs are primarily students or employees. In November, the National Labor Relations Board ruled in favor of the latter assessment, acknowledging the right of TAs from private institutions to unionize. Graduate students have exercised their rights to bargain collectively in public universities for over 30 years.

The court decision resulted in an agreement by the NYU administration to recognize the Graduate Students Organizing Committee (GSOC). The recognition also coincided with GSOC's decision to withdraw two unfair labor practice suits and an agreement, in accordance with the university's wishes, that academic matters not directly related to TA concerns be excluded from discussion.

John Beckman, a spokesperson for NYU, noted, "[GSOC] recognized that a whole range of academic issues should be removed from discussion, and this enabled us to move forward." The university maintains that it was never anti-union. According to Beckman, negotiations between NYU and its graduate students will begin next month.

Yale Graduate Employees and Students Organization (GESO) Chair J.T. Way, GRD '05, said in response to the developments at NYU, "The reaction here at Yale has been electrifying." Despite Yale's persistent opposition to graduate student collective bargaining, events at NYU have encouraged GESO. Way said, "There's no reason in the world why the Yale Administration and GESO could not sit down together and come to an agreement right away, just like what happened at NYU."

—Ellen Thompson

New Harvard president former Treasury Head

The search is officially over. Lawrence H. Summers was named the new president of Harvard on Fri., Mar. 9. Summers, former secretary of the U.S. Treasury, will return to Harvard in July when current president Neil Rudenstine steps down.

A number of candidates were considered during the extensive search process. Two of the other leading candidates were University of Michigan President Lee Bollinger and Harvard Provost Harvey Fineberg. Some people close to Summers worried that his political activity would overshadow his academic achievements. Many of those close to Summers wrote letters to the search committee telling not only of his past academic successes, but also of his abilities in other areas.

At 28, Summers was the youngest tenured professor in Harvard's history, and in 1993, he received the John Bates Clark medal, an award given to an outstanding American economist under the age of 40. Summers was well respected by both students and faculty, first as an assistant professor at MIT and later during his time at Harvard.

As his colleagues point out, although Summers spent eight years as part of former President Bill Clinton's, LAW '73, administration, his roots are in higher education. During his acceptance speech to the press, Summers stated that he is chiefly concerned with strengthening Harvard's undergraduate education and sciences. —Katie Aldrich

2001 Intel Champ researched at Yale lab

Using simple wires and a stereo speaker, local high school senior Mariangela Lisanti studied electron transport through nanoscale contacts and earned first place in the Intel Science Talent Search and a $100,000 scholarship.

While working in electrical engineering Professor Mark Reed's microelectronics lab, Lisanti, a student at Staples High School in Westport, Conn., experimented with "large quantization integer values never observed before," Reed said. Intel officials say Lisanti discovered a new measurement apparatus that permits data acquisition at an astonishing 86 million points per 24 hours.

Lisanti was recommended to Reed by family friend Richard Gardella. "Mariangela convinced me that she had the exceptionally high motivation needed to succeed in my lab, and together we chose a research topic of conductance quantization," Reed said.

Reed said Lisanti designed the project by herself, and he advised her as if she were a graduate or postdoctoral student in his lab. "Within a few weeks, she created an initial apparatus for this new technique," Reed said. "She subsequently modified it, found problems in the original design and improved upon it, interfaced it, and has obtained fascinating novel and publishable results." He added, "She scooped some of the world's best." —Amsalu Dabela

Heard

 "Just because you ate onions and garlic for dinner does not mean you will dream about your father chasing you through an airport with a whip."
—Pericles Lewis, Introduction to Literary Theory

"Pedagogus ergo sodomiticus: teacher, therefore sodomite."
—Lee Patterson, The Canterbury Tales

Yale Index

1. Number of people in the room: 5
2. Number of 40 oz. currently open in the room: 5
3. Number of wrinkles on Shane Battier's head: 5
4. Number of points Duke currently has: 18
5. Number of points Duke has now: 21
6. Number of Boozers in the game: 1
7. Number of boozers in the room: 5
8. Number. of people who want to watch Nick at Nite on channel 42: 3
9. Number of stars on Three's Company: 3
10. Number between four and two: 3
11. Number of doors on the new Saturn coupe: 3
12. Number of people who want to continue writing this Index: 0

—Compiled by Zamost, Hinkes, Vaughn, Calloway, and Simonson

1,2,7,8) informal poll; 2) necessity; 3,9,10,11) counting; 5) division; 4,5) filler; 6) funny last name; 12) obvious

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