The mind confronts
infinite variation
GO TO p. 5
10 April 2000
The Graduate
VOICE
GRADUATE STUDENT SENATE
“Cuts? What budget cuts?”
The Graduate Voice
See no evil, hear no evil
Comfortable surroundings can drive you blind. President Bulger now earns $252,000,
and is scheduled for a $33,000 raise in July.
Corporate shenanigans in Connecticut
A man, some land, a plan:
enter Adriaen’s Landing!
Do you think that corporate welfare in Connecticut ended when the Patriots
pulled out of Hartford? Think again. A fable with no morals.
by Keith Hedlund
HARTFORD—A private developer wants to
build a hotel, retail, and entertainment com-
plex in downtown Hartford on land that his
company partially owns at the intersection of
Interstates 91 and 84. Private idea, private
profits, public money: last June the Connecti-
cut State Legislature agreed to grant $300
million for the Adriaen’s Landing project—
as it is known—and was asked to fully release
this money last March. The legislature gave
its go-ahead. The total cost of the project will
be $771 million, of which $455 million will
be coughed up by taxpayers.
Adriaen’s Landing was born out of politics
and special consideration from the beginning.
Robert Fiondella, chairman of the Phoenix
Mutual Life Insurance Company, had been
looking to develop his land for some time.
Back in 1998 things were tough in Hartford:
the city’s per capita property value had de-
creased 15% over the previous ten years.
Hartford’s commercial real estate market was
in trouble: the vacancy rate in Hartford for
office space was at 20%, while Boston’s was
Graduate students
of the world, unite!
GO TO p. 2
T H E G R A D U A T E
U NIVE R SIT Y OF MA SSA C H USE T T S,
of only 2.5%. Something needed to be done
in Hartford: enter Adriaen’s Landing.
Mr. Fiondella’s plans for the project were al-
ready established by December, 1997, when
Connecticut’s Governor, John G. Rowland,
named him to the Advisory Group on Hart-
ford Development Projects (AGHDP). This
organization was empowered by the Gover-
nor to make suggestions for the direction of
Hartford’s redevelopment. A pending devel-
opment proposal in the city didn’t stop
Governor Rowland from naming
Mr. Fiondella to the AGHDP. Several months
later, the AGHDP recommended to the Gov-
ernor that a project just like Adriaen’s Landing
should be built in Hartford.
In May 1998 Connecticut legislators ap-
proved spending $155 million to build a
convention center in downtown Hartford.
Less than a week later Mr. Fiondella unveiled
his plans for Adriaen’s Landing at city hall,
Go to Hedlund on p. 3
Extreme global warming
will drown UMass
GO TO p. 4
V O I C E
“…last June controversy erupted at the University of Florida following the
disclosure that Charles Thomas, a criminologist at the school who advised
the state on prison policy, had pocketed $3 million in consulting fees from
the private-prison industry, in which he also owned stock. (Thomas's views
on private prisons are quoted frequently in The Wall Street Journal and
The New York Times, and he has trumpeted the virtues of "full-scale
privatization" in testimony before Congress.)”
A M H ERS T
A trip up the yellow brick road illuminates
the ominous reality behind the upcoming budget cuts.
by Chris Vials, GEO
AMHERST and BOSTON—When UMass
President William Bulger was asked about the
proposed slashing of the budget at UMass
Amherst, he responded: “Cuts? What budget
cuts?” Was this response genuine, reflecting a
complete lack of communication between
Chancellor Scott and his superiors? Given that
the legislature increased our budget by 4.2%
this fiscal year, and that the state has a $700-
million budget surplus, his response could also
be seen as a genuine reaction to the absurdity
of the situation. Or was his remark a rhetori-
cal ploy to shift blame, to save face, or merely
to diffuse a tense situation? Whatever the case,
Bulger’s “Cuts? What cuts?” is representative
of the tricky, secretive, and complicated power
dynamics that underlies the recent budget
cuts.
Who is calling the shots here? Why was
the budget actually cut? What will this mean
for us? We will try to shed some light on all
this by following the trail of accountability
for the recent crisis, a trail that leads all the
way to the Governor himself.
The cuts and their effects
Last December, Chancellor Scott proposed a
2% cut to UMass’s overall base budget. This
cut is scheduled to go into effect next fall. The
base budget is the part of the budget devoted
to financing already established elements of
campus—salaries for existing employees,
maintenance of existing structures, and the
like. Not included in the base budget are new
projects and “major initiatives” originating
from the office of the President, the Board of
Trustees, or the Chancellor. As basic needs of
the campus get their budgets slashed, new,
fancy projects are to go ahead at full speed.
Predictably, many people have not been
amused by this. Protests, angry calls to legis-
lators, and countless letters of complaint have
forced the Chancellor to back off a bit. His
new proposal is to maintain the overall 2% re-
duction, but to limit cuts to academic areas
to only 1%. In other words, academic depart-
ments, faculty, and teaching staff will be cut
less than originally proposed, while other gen-
erally less noticeable things like maintenance
and scholarships will suffer even more.
Why is this apparently measly 1% cut still
offensive? Because it represents an enormous
loss of teachers. Between 200 and 400 TAs
will be lost. UMass has about 1400 TAs right
now, so we are facing at least a 20% loss.
Funds to hire new faculty will be frozen even
more; retiring faculty will rarely be replaced.
Needless to say, there are no plans to reduce
the size of the incoming undergraduate class.
The lack of funds for infrastructure and
maintenance is equally disturbing. The Uni-
versity has a $400-million maintenance
backlog at the moment as a result of chronic
underfunding. Cracks in the sidewalks, dirt
Love, death,
and barbarity
GO TO p. 6
1
—Eyal Press and Jennifer Washburn
FIND OUT ABOUT IT: GO TO p. 3
VOLUME 13 No. 3, 10 April 2000
parking lots, and crumbling buildings are a
political issue that demands attention.
Why the cuts?
According to the Chancellor himself, he ini-
tially proposed the 2% overall cut because
State allocations were much smaller than he
expected. Anticipating a budget increase of
almost 10% from the State legislature, the
UMass administration went ahead and spent
based on that figure. The actual increase fi-
nally—and belatedly—approved by the
legislature was smaller by $10 million. The
Chancellor had over-committed himself by
almost $5 million, and proposed the cuts as a
way of solving this temporary cash-flow prob-
lem.
What makes this incredible is that the
money to pay for the shortfall is there. Ac-
cording to Presidential Office
Document T99-050, the University holds an
emergency reserve fund worth 11.9% of its
operating budget of about $285 million—
some 40 million dollars. This “financial
cushion” is there to help the University make
it through financial slumps exactly like the
one it is now facing. Faculty and students are
asking why the Chancellor is not using these
funds to take care of the overspending prob-
lem.
The Chancellor has voiced a second ratio-
nale for the cuts: the University cannot depend
upon increased state allocations in the future,
and must trim down in preparation for lean
times ahead. The fear is driven largely by
Governor Cellucciís tax-cut proposals, which
will be decided in a referendum next Novem-
ber.
The new priorities
The particular areas that Scott is choosing to
slash reveal questionable priorities to many
in the university community. The Chancel-
lor is cutting professors, departments, and TAs
(i.e., academics) much more than some rather
expensive and controversial technology ini-
tiatives.
Perhaps the most controversial initiative
has been a computer system called
“PeopleSoft.” Intended to streamline its ad-
ministration, PeopleSoft has instead cost the
University $28 million—and that is only the
start. People Soft has had a terrible track record
at other universities. Currently its sharehold-
ers have filed six class action suits against the
company for fraud. The students at Cleve-
Go to Vials on p. 2
WE NEED YOU
GO TO P. 5

2 T H E
A two-part story with a happy ending
I the university is run. “Essentially [the union]
Grad Students Battle NYU
Over Right to Organize a Union
NEW YORK (by Lenora Todaro of The Vil-
lage Voice)—Any day now, the National Labor
Relations Board (NLRB) is expected to de-
cide whether some 1400 graduate students
who prepare and teach classes, grade papers,
and provide general assistance—everything
from tracking down rare books and making
slides to watering plants and ordering food
for office shindigs—at New York University
are workers.
For four years, graduate assistants (GAs)
have been talking about unionizing. The uni-
versity, on the other hand, has fought them
every step of the way, arguing that the stu-
dents are apprentices, not workers, and that
the establishment of their proposed union
would introduce a foreign element into an
admirably flexible self-regulating body. The
stakes are high. A graduate student union at
NYU—which would be the first at a private
university in the nation—would spell major
changes in American higher education: the
introduction of collective bargaining, the pen-
etration of the labor movement into the
professional classes, and the opening of a de-
bate about the very nature of a university in
an economy dominated by the corporate im-
pulse to shrink a full-time labor force with
benefits in favor of cheap part-time labor with
none.
NYU’s Graduate Student Organizing
Committee (GSOC) is aligned with the
United Auto Workers (UAW, which also rep-
resents workers at UMass). The students are
asking for better wages, paid health care, and
housing subsidies. There are unions at other
public universities such as the Universities of
California and Michigan, which are governed
by state rather than federal law. In a well-pub-
licized case, Yale University’s GAs went on
strike in 1995 with similar demands and were
defeated, but their case was recently reopened.
Robin D.G. Kelley, professor of history and
African studies, believes that the union would
challenge “the myth that the university doesn’t
mirror corporate structure, that graduate stu-
dents don’t work, that faculty aren’t employees.
NYU has a chance to break out and define
what the 21st-century university could be,”
says Kelley, “but without a vision you cannot
create a new model.”
The university has hired Proskauer, Rose
(the law firm that Yale used in defeating its
grad students’ attempt to unionize) to block
the GAs’ efforts and sent the faculty a letter
(as Yale did) coaching them about how to dis-
cuss the union with students. Why is the NYU
administration bent on resisting a graduate
student union? Because not only are the costs
of paying GAs better wages and offering health
and housing benefits at issue—but also how
P O L I T I C S
G R A D U A T E
NYUnion
is introducing another organization to deal
with key academic issues,” says Robert Berne,
vice president for academic development.
“Who’s going to be teaching in the classrooms,
what the requirements of a graduate degree
will be—I think we can address those issues
ourselves.” NYU perceives the union as an
interloper and worries that uniform hiring
standards will be imposed on departments
whose needs differ widely. Likewise, it fears
that the mentor relationship between faculty
and students will be compromised.
Jason Patch, a third-year Ph.D. student in
sociology, argues that the union is “not some-
body else, it’s us.” He entered union
discussions two years ago after having had
“many opportunities to deal with the
administration’s clublike bureaucracy” and
after health problems left him in a “grim” situ-
ation. Patch claims that each attempt to
discuss the GAs’ situation with administra-
tors veered into conversations about the
philosophy of education and how to grade pa-
pers well, rather than how to pay for rent,
transportation, and health care. These prob-
lems are acute for many foreign students who
attend NYU and are legally forbidden to work
outside the university. “UC Berkeley and
Wisconsin are unionized, and we’ve seen no
detrimental effects,” Patch says. “NYU is
making a killing and they can’t provide us with
subsidized housing?”
NYU’s introductory packet for incoming
graduate students tells them that they need
$18,000 minimum annually to live in New
York City. GA compensation varies widely,
from $6000 (School of Education) to $18,000
(Leonard N. Stern School of Business). They
must pay their own health insurance ($1000
for a single student, $5000 for a family) and
if they don’t share university housing with
another student (hard for those who have a
spouse) they are on their own. Without a trust
fund or additional fellowships, their jobs at
the university are necessary for survival. Their
work, in turn, keeps the university thriving.
“NYU is on the line for all private universi-
ties,” says Kitty Krupat, a Ph.D. student in
American studies, “to maintain this fantasy
that graduate students are living in some rar-
efied world that doesn’t correspond to the
world of work.”
The discussion of GAs unionizing goes to
the heart of what a university is. Is it prepar-
ing students to be workers in the world both
within the ivory tower and without? Is it a
place where issues of social justice are applied
to a multitude of situations? To be a competi-
tor in the academic marketplace for students,
faculty, grants, and prestige, NYU keeps la-
bor costs down by employing part-time
workers, adjunct professors, and GAs. By cut-
ting costs the university can arguably pay more
for celebrity faculty and thus attract students
with higher SATs. Competitive pressure is not
V O I C E
unique to NYU, and many students and fac-
ulty welcome the university’s rise in stature
from a commuter college to a national research
institution. While faculty may think this is
good, they also sense their own waning influ-
ence upon university policy, with the union
issue the most recent evidence.
More than 125 faculty members signed a
letter complaining that they had not been
consulted when NYU announced its resolu-
tion to oppose the union. “From year to year,”
the letter reads, “we lose more and more of
our capacity to shape institutional policy and
exercise academic freedoms.” Andrew Ross,
director of American studies, says, “Our
speech was compromised in a way that could
have adversely affected faculty-student rela-
tions.”
While the administration insists that the
union question is still open, students in the
history and sociology departments, in particu-
lar, have complained that in meetings with
Catharine Stimpson, dean of the Graduate
School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), their
questions have been ignored or answered eva-
sively.
“These are big questions,” Dean Stimpson
replies. “What does it mean to be listened to?
Is it entering into a conversation of mutuality
or getting what you want?” Stimpson, a dis-
tinguished feminist scholar, believes that the
GAs’ life will improve with a new funding
policy the university has unveiled. Beginning
next fall, doctoral students in good standing
will receive a minimum of $13,000 as a sti-
pend, along with tuition remission and a
subsidy toward NYU health insurance.
Stimpson promises to “advocate” for afford-
able housing—“Financial aid is something I
believe in deeply”—and says this plan has been
discussed for a decade.
No graduate students will refuse the extra
money, of course, but there are some who
believe the administration implemented the
plan abruptly to block the union (as Yale did).
Faculty and students in the history depart-
ment will issue a press release this week in
response to the proposed changes. Their main
contention is that as a result of the new policy,
which implies that new students must be fully
funded, the number of students they can ac-
cept will decrease significantly. They foresee
this altering the diversity of the
departmentswith part-time and partially
funded students being discouraged. The hard-
est hit are likely to be smaller departments:
Latin American, Asian, and African diaspora
studies.
Dean Stimpson says that the connection
between the new funding policy and union-
izing is “nonsense,” as is the idea that GSAS
is streamlining its student body. “We are not
setting a cap on the number of fully funded
students who can enroll; we are setting a
floor,” and it will be up to the departments to
nominate students for other aid, such as the
10 April 2000
12 “opportunity fellowships” for minorities.
NYU’s union problems, however, extend
beyond the students’ issues. For some weeks,
the administration has faced protests from
local construction unions who want NYU to
persuade developer Alex Forkosh, who is
building an NYU dorm, to use union work-
ers. Meanwhile, Local 3882, the union that
represents NYU’s 1600 clerical and technical
workers, is preparing for contract negotiations.
And earlier this month, under pressure from
NYU No Sweat, part of a national student
movement that raises awareness about sweat-
shops, NYU “conditionally” agreed to join the
Workers Rights Consortium, allowing observ-
ers to monitor working conditions in facilities
where university apparel and licensed prod-
ucts are manufactured. These groups are now
calling on NYU to initiate a fair and just la-
bor policy on campus as well.
II
NLRB: Students Can Vote on Union
NEW YORK (AP)—New York University
graduate teaching assistants have the right to
organize a union, a federal labor official ruled
in the first such decision involving a private
college.
Daniel Silverman, retional director of the
National Labor Relations Board, wrote on
3 April that he could find no reason to deny
collective bargaining rights to the TAs “merely
because they are employed by an educational
institution while enrolled as a student.”
The decision covers 1,700 of 17,000
graduate students.
“We grade papers, teach courses, and reci-
tations, hold office hours, conduct research
and perform administrative tasks,” NYU
graduate assistant Laura Tanenbaum said. “We
are workers and we deserve the right to vote
for a union and it’s disappointing that NYU
resisted that idea at all.”
Across the country, graduate student work-
ers at public universities are fighting for—and
sometimes winning—collective bargaining
rights. As of December, 27 campuses had rec-
ognized graduate student unions.
NYU Vice President Robert Berne said
graduate assistants are workers, but their “pri-
mary” status is as students.
“Silverman’s decision gives little recogni-
tion to the realities of modern graduate
education, erroneously deciding a fundamen-
tal issue that is a crucial matter of public policy
for private universities throughout the coun-
try,” Berne said in a statement.
NYU said it will decide within the next
10 days whether to appeal to the full labor
board in Washington, D.C.
More than 20 graduate employee unions
exist at public universities around the nation,
according to the United Auto Workers, which
represented the TAs.
 P O L I T I C S
10 April 2000 T H E G R A D U A T E V O I C E 3

Vials continued from p. 1
land State University are contemplating a class
action suit after the software product lost
many financial-aid records. Ohio State Uni-
versity called in state auditors after PeopleSoft
ran up over $30 million in cost overruns.
Adding insult to injury for many is the
other major initiative: the new “distance learn-
ing” program, which, as the Board of Trustees
explicitly emphasizes, is intended as a source
of revenue rather than as a pedagogical boon.
A direct descendant of the old “correspon-
dence course,” distance learning is a form of
instruction in which the traditional classroom
setting is replaced by videotaped lectures,
videoconferencing technology, and interactive
Internet connections.
Although it can be used responsibly to fa-
cilitate the access of commuters and older
students to education, distance learning can
also be used to downsize the teaching force
and increase class sizes, thus hindering the
access of students to faculty and class discus-
sion in the interest of cost efficiency. Almost
every major study of the pedagogical benefits
of distance learning has shown that it yields
significantly lower test scores and completion
rates than the traditional classroom.
The Chancellor plans to cut back on “ma-
jor initiatives” by $647,000. However, it is
by no means clear if PeopleSoft or distance
learning are among these.
Who’s the boss?
The anger of faculty and students is working
its way up the ladder towards UMass System
President William Bulger, the Board of Trust-
ees, and even the Governor himself.
Chancellor Scott has been absorbing most of
the blows until now—but many here are re-
alizing that his cuts are only a manifestation
of larger, system-wide irrationalities.
Chancellor Scott a rather small fish in the
State’s chain of command for higher educa-
tion. He has some room to maneuver in
interpreting and implementing policy, but
much of the policy itself is determined at a
level above him. But one thing is clear: even
this room to maneuver has been narrowed in
the past few years. Decision-making author-
ity has increasingly shifted away from the
campus level and into the office of the Presi-
dent, following a general trend of
centralization initiated by the Cellucci admin-
istration.
President Bulger’s most recent centraliza-
tion agenda—developed in a closed
meeting—requires all Vice Chancellors for
Administration and Finance to report directly
to the President’s Office. Moreover, many of
the Chancellor’s “major initiatives” are actu-
ally pre-ordained by the President: distance
learning, for example, was originated by
Bulger.
Bulger’s questionable commitment to fac-
ulty and teaching has attracted the attention
of the media. According to The Boston Globe,
since Bulger came into office the number of
full-time professors at UMass Amherst has
dropped 5%, from 545 to 519, while the
number of part-time lecturers has jumped
by 59%. The average pay for a full professor
is now $76,792. Lecturers, on the other hand,
make $27,349 for the same period. Accord-
ing to UMass Management Professor Jane
Giacobbe-Miller, “you can’t expect part-tim-
ers to have the same degree of commitment
to the students and to the institution.”
At the same time, Bulger has added 20
high-paid administrators to his own staff, an
increase of 12%. According to the Globe,
“overall payroll in Bulger’s office has
jumped 36% since he assumed the presidency
in January 1996—from $7.3 million to
$9.9 million.” Six-figure salaries are the norm
among his staff, with Bulger himself now earn-
ing $252,000. Incidentally, he’s scheduled for tions, are increasingly devoted to high-tech
a $33,000 raise in July. or medical research; as administrators race to
appease corporate donors, the basic academic
The man behind the machine? mission—students, teachers, and books—gets
When one looks further up the yellow brick forgotten or neglected. As our own governor
road, one finds that the President’s initiatives puts it, “University policies, administrative
have uncanny resemblances to the policies of procedures, hiring and promotion practices
the Governor. Cellucci is Bulger’s boss, after will all be reëxamined in light of their sup-
all. The trend toward centralization is char- port of the university’s mission to develop a
acteristic of the Cellucci administration. Take new spirit of economic entrepreneurship at
a look at the following, drawn from Cellucci’s all its campuses.” And he goes on to add, quite
development plan: “The system should be ominously: “Where unreasonable and imprac-
administered locally, but guided centrally. A tical barriers exist, appropriate legal and
strong state-level policy coordinating body is legislative remedies should be pursued expe-
necessary to establish a single, consistent set ditiously.”
of objectives to guide the system. Central Additionally, and despite the fact that Mas-
guidance is particularly important in setting sachusetts is 48th out of the 50 States in per
overall goals.” capita funding for public higher education,
But centralization is not the only statewide Governor Cellucci is proposing only a
trend. The general prioritizing of technology 0.2% increase to the University budget in
and high-tech research over teaching comes 2001, an amount which would simply not
from the educational policy of the governor allow the university to stay competitive with
himself. All resources, including State alloca- other top-tier public schools.
Scenes from the corporate takeover of academia
The March 200 issue of The Atlantic Monthly features “The Kept University” by Eyal Press
and Jennifer Washburn of The Open Society Institute. If you liked the horror story featured in
our front page, you might enjoy this one even more.
“Petr Taborsky, a student at the University of South Florida, wound up on the chain
gang of a maximum-security state prison after colliding with his university over the rights
to a discovery he made as an undergraduate. Taborsky had been working as a research
assistant on a project sponsored by the Florida Progress Corporation, a local holding com-
pany. At the end of the sponsored research period, Taborsky claims, he received permission
from Robert Carnahan, a dean in the College of Engineering, to begin work on his own
experiments, following a different approach, which he hoped to use as the basis for a
master's thesis. But as soon as Taborsky made his research breakthrough, which had obvi-
ous commercial utility as a way to remove ammonia from wastewater, Florida Progress and
USF both laid claim to his discovery. The university filed criminal charges against Taborsky
and spent more than ten times the amount of the original research grant on outside legal
counsel alone. In 1990 a jury found Taborsky guilty of stealing university property, and
the State of Florida required him to begin serving his sentence on a chain gang in 1996.
But the case became an embarrassing media spectacle, and Governor Lawton Chiles soon
intervened to offer Taborsky clemency, which Taborsky, on principle, refused.”

Hartford’s $771-million lottery ticket
An artist’s rendering of Adriaen’s Landing. According to Governor Rowland, “We are investing
millions of dollars in economic development projects that give our cities new hope, because we have
ended the practice of corporate welfare.” The question arises: who’s “we”?
Hedlund continued from p. 1
plans that happened to include a convention
center.
Fast-forward a year to May, 1999. Fresh
from the embarrassment of the Patriots pull-
out, Governor Rowland moved to prop up
Adriaen’s Landing, which had been stalled for
a year: no ground had been broken and envi-
ronmental tests on the contaminated soil
hadn’t been completed. Also, no private in-
vestors could be found to commit their own
money to the project. That didn’t stop Gov-
ernor Rowland. In May, 1999, Mr. Rowland
met with the Wolman brothers of the
Waterford Group—the developers of the
Mohegan Sun casino—and told the press that
private investors had been found for the site,
which would include a Marriott hotel. It was
later revealed by The Hartford Courant that
the brothers were not firmly committed to the
project, did not have a deal with Marriott,
and were not working through the investment
bank that they had previously identified. The
Wolman brothers did, however, contribute
$4,250 to Gov. Rowland’s 1998 reëlection
campaign. To this day the Wolmans haven’t
mentioned a single private investor in
Adriaen’s Landing.
In June Governor Rowland worked to ram
a new spending bill for Adriaen’s Landing
through the General Assembly—without leg-
islators’ input, just as had happened with the
Patriots. Rowland didn’t put the bill through
the normal committee process: it was written
by his office and rushed to a vote with very
little debate and no public input. Legislators
did not even see the actual bill until several
hours before the 3:58 A.M. vote. State legisla-
tors then approved another $300 million for
the project. The money was appropriated on
the condition that $210 million in private
financing be found and that a more detailed
plan about the project be delivered to the leg-
islature. In March this plan was unveiled to
legislators, who in the end approved it.
Throughout this whole process almost no
one was asking the most basic, yet important
question: does Hartford even need Adriaen’s
Landing? As columnist Laurence Cohen of
the Courant pointed out after the June vote,
Hartford already had 2.3 million square feet
of shopping space within 15 miles of down-
town. No one even knows if the project will
lead to Hartford’s revitalization. In the nearly
two years since Adriaen’s Landing was unveiled
there has been little interest in it from private
investors. Unlike the debate surrounding the
New England Patriots no economic projec-
tion reports have been made public about
what impact Adriaen’s Landing will have on
the city.
The value of the state’s investment is also
questionable. Mr. Fiondella has given several
different figures for how many permanent jobs
the project will create; the most recent figure
he gave was 700. With state investment now
at $455 million, that is a subsidy of $650,000
per job. And these are jobs at the low end of
the employment scale: retail, hotel and res-
taurant work, that could pay $20,000 or less
per year.
The general public is skeptical about the
project as well. Polls carried out by the Cou-
rant in 1998 and 1999 showed a minority of
the public supported Adriaen’s Landing: 38%
in 1998, 41% in 1999. The latest poll showed
that 48% of Connecticut’s residents were op-
posed to Adriaen’s Landing.
What is really going on here? According
to sociologists John Logan and Harvey
Molotch, urban-development schemes like
Adriaen’s Landing are typically used to maxi-
mize the value of the property held by
downtown owners. They say the goal of these
developers is to get the highest amount of rent
out of their land as possible. In Mr. Fiondella’s
case, the land he partially owns is already valu-
able real estate. It is located in the downtown
area, with easy access to the two interstate
highways that 24 million people a year use to
drive through Hartford. Fiondella’s problem
is that the land is under-utilized. There is a
steam plant, corporate headquarters, and a
parking lot there now. It generates a lot of
money, to be sure, but for businessmen like
Mr. Fiondella a lot isn’t necessarily good
enough. They need to maximize their invest-
ment, to make that parcel the most valuable
in the city, pulling in the highest rents in
Hartford. A project like Adriaen’s Landing
offers an opportunity to do just that. Admit-
tedly, a scheme like Adriaen’s Landing is a risky
venture, despite the high potential rewards to
the landowners. The key for Mr. Fiondella,
and for others of his ilk, is to gamble with
OPM—other people’s money. For revitaliz-
ing Hartford, Adriaen’s Landing makes little
sense. For maximizing the value of commer-
cial real estate in a depressed market, it makes
perfect sense.
So how do you revitalize Hartford if not
through Adriaen’s Landing? When President
Clinton visited Hartford last November, a
great deal of attention was deservedly given
to the vibrancy of El Mercado and the Park
Street neighborhood. This was a neighbor-
hood that had revitalized itself, built up by
the largely Latino population. Shop owners
did not receive $455 million in state money
for the project. The point is that people who
live there, the folks who have a stake in the
community in which they actually reside, cre-
ated their own revitalization. We should be
just as willing to dedicate State-development
dollars to these individual entrepreneurs who
have shown that they are willing to invest in
their own neighborhoods. They can create
jobs, they can make neighborhoods where
people want to live, and they can bring ex-
citement to the city; tourists will then want
to visit and spend money. We should invest
our money there, instead of in a taxpayer-
financed, multi-million dollar lottery ticket
for the downtown crowd.
 The Graduate THE WORLD

VOICE
4 T H E G R A D U A TT HE E V G
O RI CA ED U A T E V O I C E 10 April 2000

Snapshot: After the flood

Volume 13 No. 3, 10 April 2000

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The maps below, developed by Frank Reed of Clockwork Software, show how the coastlines of the
United States and Europe would be affected if the Earth’s polar ice caps were to melt as a result of
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In the extreme and improbable case of total meltdown, ocean levels would rise by about 150 meters,
inundating many of the world’s largest cities, several European countries, and a significant fraction of
the continental United States. UMass, which stands today at less than 100 meters above sea level,
would drown.
Needless to say, realistic levels of global warming will not change sea levels by anywhere near the
amounts shown here.
We thank Clockwork Software of Chicago for kindly granting us permission to reproduce these
maps. If you want to know how California would fare, or if you wish to see full-color versions of the
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The Northeastern U.S.: New En-

gland is now an island separated from
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Jersey, and all of Delaware are under
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“The book I’m reading” by Christopher Knittle (2000) ================================================

G
The ancient Oriental board game of Go is
slowly but steadily gaining popularity in the
Western Hemisphere. The word “Go” is a
shortened version of the Japanese word for
the game, Igo, which according to a Japanese
dictionary means after this, or hereafter. The
game has been played for nearly three millenia
in the Far East, and some people believe it to
be the oldest board game in the world. Ac-
cording to Chinese mythology, the first
emperor of China invented it in order to im-
prove the mind of his slow-witted son. Today,
one need only ask one of the estimated ten
million Japanese who play it to get a feeling
for just how popular, appealing, and deeply
challenging this game is.
The game of Go is played by two oppo-
nents on a grid of 19 by 19 lines. Each player
is armed with a set of stones—one player plays
white, the other black. The players take turns
placing their stones one at a time at the points
on the board where the lines intersect. A
player’s stones are declared captured, or killed,
if they are completely surrounded by those of
the opponent. At the end of the game, the
outcome is determined by which player has
Rumor has it that the future of Tibet was
once decided on one such board: its Buddhist
ruler refused to battle against the attacking
party and proposed to settle the conflict with
a game of Go. In today’s games there is less at
stake, but every year a prestigious match is
held between the top Japanese and Chinese
players, an event followed by millions of in-
terested spectators. In Japan, some
500 professional Go players manage to make
a living—a handsome one, in many cases—
out of the game. Aside from China and Japan,
the game is also popular in Korea, where it is
called Baduk; Korean players are known for
their quick style of play.
The growing popularity of the game cul-
minated in the early 17th century, when the
Japanese government recognized its value: the
top Go playing families were endowed with
grants and started Go universities. Over the
next 250 years, the intense rivalry among these
Go schools brought about a great improve-
ment in the standards of play. A ranking
system was set up, classifying professional
players into nine grades or dans, of which the
highest was Meijin, meaning “expert.” This
positions before they can discover patterns and
develop predictive power. Furthermore, it
seems that the discovery of patterns, the very
tool that enables computer code to beat hu-
mans at chess, is only an obstacle when it
comes to Go. Human players are known to
have learned and exploited the predictable
style of play practiced by their silicon-brained
opponents.
In 1997, the American Association for Ar-
tificial Intelligence organized an event which
included a Go exhibition game. The world’s
best computer Go program at the time,
Handtalk, was given a 25 stone handicap—a
very significant advantage—in a game against
a human professional player, Janice Kim. In
spite of her disadvantageous initial position,
Kim managed to win. Immediately after-
wards, the organizers hurriedly quit the
program and erased everything that had hap-
pened. We will never get to know the details
of the match, and will never know whether
this loss was an example of human imperfec-
tion, or a display of all-too-human shame or
sympathy. Reports of the event, however, say
that the match was one of high quality.

O
surrounded the largest sector of the board with
his or her stones. The objective of Go is clearly
reflected in its Chinese name, Wei Ch’i, which
simply means “surrounding game”.
The above, plus a handful of additional
rules is all you need to know to play Go.
Simple as it may seem, Go has been described
as “being like four chess games going on to-
gether on the same board.” There is almost
infinite room for variation, which means that
intuition and experimentation are an essen-
tial part of the game. There is no offensive
strategy that always lead to a win. The per-
sonalities of the two opponents emerge very
clearly on the Go board during a match. There
is an additional element that adds finesse to
Go: two players of differing strength can play
an even game thanks to a handicap system
wherein one player starts the game with a
number of stones already on the board.
title could be held by only one person at a
time, and was awarded only if one player ab-
solutely out-classed every rival. These rankings
and titles are still being used among today’s
players.
In our age of computer technology, com-
puter programs have proved to be very
good—in some cases unbeatable—at games
of skill such as chess, backgammon, and
Othello. Several traditional board games have
been completely solved by brute-force search
methods or by the skillful application of arti-
ficial-intelligence techniques. That is not,
however, the case with Go. Until very recently,
computer Go programs could still be trounced
by a relative beginner. The large number of
available variations is one reason why stan-
dard search algorithms do not work well for
Go, since computers need to play thousands
of example matches and consider millions of
The author of Lessons in the Fundamentals
of Go, Toshiro Kageyama, claims in his book
that “no doubt the first requirement to be-
come strong at Go is to like it, like it more
than food or drink.” About the shape of the
stones he says: “If you do not feel the same
tightening in your chest as when you close
your eyes and picture the face of a lover, you
do not love good shape enough.” One would
think that a computer can hardly express such
passions; if Kageyama is right, computers will
have to adopt a concept of liking and emo-
tion in order to develop the necessary strength
to beat human champions. Maybe there is
hope for mankind after all.
If you want to learn more about this fasci-
nating pastme, you might want to visit
www.britgo.demon.co.uk, the British Go
Association homepage, or www.usgo.org,
its American counterpart.

a game of personality by anders jonsson


6 T H E
THE LADY,
In the very olden time there lived a semi-bar-
baric king, whose ideas, though somewhat
polished and sharpened by the progressive-
ness of distant Latin neighbors, were still large,
florid, and untrammeled, as became the half
of him which was barbaric. He was a man of
exuberant fancy, and, withal, of an authority
so irresistible that, at his will, he turned his
varied fancies into facts. He was greatly given
to self-communing, and, when he and him-
self agreed upon anything, the thing was done.
When every member of his domestic and po-
litical systems moved smoothly in its
appointed course, his nature was bland and
genial; but, whenever there was a little hitch,
and some of his orbs got out of their orbits,
he was blander and more genial still, for noth-
ing pleased him so much as to make the
crooked straight and crush down uneven
places.
Among the borrowed notions by which his
barbarism had become semified was that of
the public arena, in which, by exhibitions of
manly and beastly valor, the minds of his sub-
jects were refined and cultured.
But even here the exuberant and barbaric
fancy asserted itself. The arena of the king was
built, not to give the people an opportunity
of hearing the rhapsodies of dying gladiators,
nor to enable them to view the inevitable con-
clusion of a conflict between religious
opinions and hungry jaws, but for purposes
far better adapted to widen and develop the
mental energies of the people. This vast am-
phitheater, with its encircling galleries, its
mysterious vaults, and its unseen passages, was
an agent of poetic justice, in which crime was
punished, or virtue rewarded, by the decrees
of an impartial and incorruptible chance.
When a subject was accused of a crime of
sufficient importance to interest the king,
public notice was given that on an appointed
day the fate of the accused person would be
decided in the king’s arena, a structure which
well deserved its name, for, although its form
and plan were borrowed from afar, its pur-
pose emanated solely from the brain of this
man, who, every barleycorn a king, knew no
tradition to which he owed more allegiance
than pleased his fancy, and who ingrafted on
every adopted form of human thought and
action the rich growth of his barbaric ideal-
ism.
When all the people had assembled in the
galleries, and the king, surrounded by his
court, sat high up on his throne of royal state
on one side of the arena, he gave a signal, a
door beneath him opened, and the accused
subject stepped out into the amphitheater.
Directly opposite him, on the other side of
the inclosed space, were two doors, exactly
alike and side by side. It was the duty and the
privilege of the person on trial to walk directly
to these doors and open one of them. He
could open either door he pleased; he was sub-
ject to no guidance or influence but that of
by Frank R. Stockton (1834–1902)
Illustrated by Andrew Boal
C L A S S I C
G R A D U A T E V O I C E 10 April 2000
the aforementioned impartial and incorrupt- golden horns and treading an epithalamic blooming as his most florid fancies, and with
ible chance. If he opened the one, there came measure, advanced to where the pair stood, a soul as fervent and imperious as his own. As
out of it a hungry tiger, the fiercest and most side by side, and the wedding was promptly is usual in such cases, she was the apple of his
cruel that could be procured, which immedi- and cheerily solemnized. Then the gay brass eye, and was loved by him above all human-
ately sprang upon him and tore him to pieces bells rang forth their merry peals, the people ity. Among his courtiers was a young man of
as a punishment for his guilt. The moment shouted glad hurrahs, and the innocent man, that fineness of blood and lowness of station
that the case of the criminal was preceded by children strewing common to the conventional heroes of ro-
thus decided, doleful iron bells flowers on his path, led his bride to mance who love royal maidens. This royal
were clanged, great wails went his home. maiden was well satisfied with her lover, for
up from the hired mourners This was the king’s semi-barbaric he was handsome and brave to a degree un-
posted on the outer rim of the method of administering justice. Its surpassed in all this kingdom, and she loved
arena, and the vast audience, perfect fairness is obvious. The crimi- him with an ardor that had enough of bar-
barism in it to make it exceedingly warm and
strong. This love affair moved on happily for
many months, until one day the king hap-
pened to discover its existence. He did not
hesitate nor waver in regard to his duty in the
premises. The youth was immediately cast into
prison, and a day was appointed for his trial
in the king’s arena. This, of course, was an
especially important occasion, and his maj-
esty, as well as all the people, was greatly
interested in the workings and development
of this trial. Never before had such a case oc-
curred; never before had a subject dared to
love the daughter of the king. In after years
such things became commonplace enough,
with bowed heads and nal could not know out of but then they were in no slight degree novel
downcast hearts, which door would come the and startling.
wended slowly their lady; he opened either he The tiger-cages of the kingdom were
homeward way, pleased, without having the searched for the most savage and relentless
mourning greatly that slightest idea whether, in the beasts, from which the fiercest monster might
one so young and fair, next instant, he was to be de- be selected for the arena; and the ranks of
or so old and re- voured or married. On some maiden youth and beauty throughout the land
spected, should have occasions the tiger came out were carefully surveyed by competent judges
merited so dire a fate. of one door, and on some out in order that the young man might have a
But, if the accused of the other. The decisions of fitting bride in case fate did not determine
person opened the this tribunal were not only for him a different destiny. Of course, every-
other door, there came fair, they were positively de- body knew that the deed with which the
forth from it a lady, terminate: the accused accused was charged had been done. He had
the most suitable to person was instantly pun- loved the princess, and neither he, she, nor
his years and station ished if he found himself any one else, thought of denying the fact; but
that his majesty could guilty, and, if innocent, he the king would not think of allowing any fact
select among his fair was rewarded on the spot, of this kind to interfere with the workings of
subjects, and to this whether he liked it or not. the tribunal, in which he took such great de-
lady he was immedi- There was no escape from light and satisfaction. No matter how the affair
ately married, as a the judgments of the king’s turned out, the youth would be disposed of,
reward of his inno- arena. and the king would take an aesthetic pleasure
cence. It mattered not The institution was a very in watching the course of events, which would
that he might already popular one. When the determine whether or not the young man had
possess a wife and people gathered together on done wrong in allowing himself to love the
family, or that his af- one of the great trial days, princess.
fections might be they never knew whether The appointed day arrived. From far and
engaged upon an ob- they were to witness a bloody near the people gathered, and thronged the
ject of his own slaughter or a hilarious wed- great galleries of the arena, and crowds, un-
selection; the king al- ding. This element of able to gain admittance, massed themselves
lowed no such uncertainty lent an interest against its outside walls. The king and his
subordinate arrange- to the occasion which it court were in their places, opposite the twin
ments to interfere could not otherwise have at- doors, those fateful portals, so terrible in their
with his great scheme tained. Thus, the masses similarity.
of retribution and re- were entertained and All was ready. The signal was given. A door
ward. The exercises, as in the other instance, pleased, and the thinking part of the com- beneath the royal party opened, and the lover
took place immediately, and in the arena. An- munity could bring no charge of unfairness of the princess walked into the arena. Tall,
other door opened beneath the king, and a against this plan, for did not the accused per- beautiful, fair, his appearance was greeted with
priest, followed by a band of choristers, and son have the whole matter in his own hands? a low hum of admiration and anxiety. Half
dancing maidens blowing joyous airs on This semi-barbaric king had a daughter as the audience had not known so grand a youth
 F I C T I O N
10 April 2000 T H E G R A D U A T E V O I C E 7

This vast amphitheater was an agent of poetic justice,

in which crime was punished, or virtue rewarded,
by the decrees of an impartial and incorruptible chance…

had lived among them. No wonder the prin-
cess loved him! What a terrible thing for him
to be there!
As the youth advanced into the arena he
turned, as the custom was, to bow to the king,
but he did not think at all of that royal per-
sonage. His eyes were fixed upon the princess,
who sat to the right of her father. Had it not
been for the moiety of barbarism in her na-
ture it is probable that the lady would not
have been there, but her intense and fervid
soul would not allow her to be absent on an
occasion in which she was so terribly inter-
ested. From the moment that the decree had
gone forth that her lover should decide his
fate in the king’s arena, she had thought of
nothing, night or day, but this great event and
the various subjects connected with it. Pos-
sessed of more power, influence, and force of
character than any one who had ever before
been interested in such a case, she had done
what no other person had done—she had
possessed herself of the secret of the doors.
She knew in which of the two rooms, that lay
behind those doors, stood the cage of the ti-
ger, with its open front, and in which waited
the lady. Through these thick doors, heavily
curtained with skins on the inside, it was im-
possible that any noise or suggestion should
come from within to the person who should
approach to raise the latch of one of them.
But gold, and the power of a woman’s will,
had brought the secret to the princess. And
not only did she know in which room stood
the lady ready to emerge, all blushing and ra-
diant, should her door be opened, but she
knew who the lady was. It was one of the fair-
est and loveliest of the damsels of the court
who had been selected as the reward of the
accused youth, should he be proved innocent
of the crime of aspiring to one so far above
him; and the princess hated her. Often had
she seen, or imagined that she had seen, this
fair creature throwing glances of admiration
upon the person of her lover, and sometimes
she thought these glances were perceived, and
even returned. Now and then she had seen
them talking together; it was but for a mo-
ment or two, but much can be said in a brief
space; it may have been on most unimpor-
tant topics, but how could she know that? The
girl was lovely, but she had dared to raise her
eyes to the loved one of the princess; and, with
all the intensity of the savage blood transmit-
ted to her through long lines of wholly
barbaric ancestors, she hated the woman who
blushed and trembled behind that silent door.
When her lover turned and looked at her, and
his eye met hers as she sat there, paler and
whiter than any one in the vast ocean of anx-
ious faces about her, he saw, by that power of
quick perception which is given to those
whose souls are one, that she knew behind
which door crouched the tiger, and behind
which stood the lady. He had expected her to
know it. He understood her nature, and his
soul was assured that she would never rest until
she had made plain to herself this thing, hid-
den to all other lookers-on, even to the king.
The only hope for the youth in which there
was any element of certainty was based upon
the success of the princess in discovering this
mystery; and the moment he looked upon her,
he saw she had succeeded, as in his soul he
knew she would succeed.
Then it was that his quick and anxious
glance asked the question: “Which?” It was
as plain to her as if he shouted it from where
he stood. There was not an instant to be lost.
The question was asked in a flash; it must be
answered in another.
Her right arm lay on the cushioned para-
pet before her. She raised her hand, and made
a slight, quick movement toward the right.
No one but her lover saw her. Every eye but
his was fixed on the man in the arena.
He turned, and with a firm and rapid step
he walked across the empty space. Every heart
stopped beating, every breath was held, every
eye was fixed immovably upon that man.
Without the slightest hesitation, he went to
the door on the right, and opened it.
Now, the point of the story is this: Did
the tiger come out of that door, or did the
lady?
The more we reflect upon this question,
the harder it is to answer. It involves a study
of the human heart which leads us through
devious mazes of passion, out of which it is
difficult to find our way. Think of it, fair
reader, not as if the decision of the question
depended upon yourself, but upon that hot-
blooded, semi-barbaric princess, her soul at a
white heat beneath the combined fires of de-
spair and jealousy. She had lost him, but who
should have him?
How often, in her waking hours and in
her dreams, had she started in wild horror,
and covered her face with her hands as she
thought of her lover opening the door on the
other side of which waited the cruel fangs of
the tiger!
But how much oftener had she seen him
at the other door! How in her grievous rever-
ies had she gnashed her teeth, and torn her
hair, when she saw his start of rapturous de-
light as he opened the door of the lady! How
her soul had burned in agony when she had
seen him rush to meet that woman, with her
flushing cheek and sparkling eye of triumph;
when she had seen him lead her forth, his
whole frame kindled with the joy of recov-
ered life; when she had heard the glad shouts
from the multitude, and the wild ringing of
the happy bells; when she had seen the priest,
with his joyous followers, advance to the
couple, and make them man and wife before
her very eyes; and when she had seen them
walk away together upon their path of flow-
ers, followed by the tremendous shouts of the
hilarious multitude, in which her one despair-
ing shriek was lost and drowned!
Would it not be better for him to die at
once, and go to wait for her in the blessed
regions of semi-barbaric futurity?
And yet, that awful tiger, those shrieks, that
blood!
Her decision had been indicated in an in-
stant, but it had been made after days and
nights of anguished deliberation. She had
known she would be asked, she had decided
what she would answer, and, without the
slightest hesitation, she had moved her hand
to the right.
The question of her decision is one not to
be lightly considered, and it is not for me to
presume to set myself up as the one person
able to answer it. And so I leave it with all of
you: Which came out of the opened door—
the lady, or the tiger?

OR THE TIGER?
8 T H E G R A D U A T E V O I C E 10 April 2000

Dance According to a Buddhist legend, Green Tara, the goddess of com-

passion, arose from the tears of Buddha Avalokitesavara to help him re-
lieve suffering for all humanity. Tibetan lamas from the Drepung Loseling
Monastery will join Amherst’s Nataraj company to dance In Praise of Tara
at Springfield’s High School of Commerce on Saturday, 29 April. The show
starts at 8:00 P.M. Call 5-1980 for more info.

The Graduate Student Senate

will hold its next two meetings
between 5:00 and 7:00 P.M. on
Wednesday, 12 April, 903 Campus Center
Wednesday, 3 May, 904 Campus Center

Come, hear, and be heard