Tuesday, February 16, 2016

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2016

VOLUME CLI, ISSUE 15

WWW.BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM

U. to clarify policy on emotional support pets Students with registered disabilities can request permission for support animals in dorms COURTESY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

Students experimented with the New York Times’ new virtual reality application. The media company sent subscribers their own Google Cardboard in the mail. The viewing apparatus, which combines two images into one panoramic image, can be created with a single piece of cardboard.

New York Times showcases virtual reality technology Virtual reality, used to craft more immersive storytelling, risks providing less narrative context

By HARRY AUGUST STAFF WRITER

Representatives from the New York Times Virtual Reality Team showcased their new immersive video technology at the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts Monday, presenting how the publication uses the media to both market products and serve as an educational tool.

Students in HIST0150D: “Refugees: A Twentieth Century History” had the opportunity to work with this technology Feb. 8 when the University provided each student with the Google Cardboard viewing apparatus, a simple smartphone

holder that merges two images into a panorama. The class used the apparatus to watch “The Displaced,” a virtual reality video illustrating the struggles of three refugee children. The 11-minute video represents the first virtual reality film produced by the Times.

Vazira Zamindar, associate professor of history and co-director of South Asian studies, planned the exercise for the course with the hope it would provoke students to think critically about the refugee crisis and how the news media portray displaced people.

Zamindar said she expected her students to come to a variety of conclusions,

but was “surprised by how consistent the responses were,” adding that the video is “manipulative” in how it guides viewers through the narrative.

Students, on the other hand, found the effect of the film more emotional than analytical — the most frequent word used to describe the experience in the post-class survey was “sad.”

“It was different than the emotional reaction from a film. You felt in the middle of it as opposed to being a spectator,” said John Irving ’16, a student in the class.

But the drawback of this emotional approach to storytelling is that background information may not be provided, as the focus is on the experience. “‘The Displaced’ doesn’t tell the

backstory, doesn’t tell you why they are in that situation,” said Sydney Levin, executive producer of the T Brand Studio, the native advertising department of the New York Times. Instead, “it is an experience, and we hope that experience becomes a memory,” she said.

Levin also sees virtual reality films as an opportunity to tell unbiased stories.

Since the 360-degree camera cannot zoom in, and the panoramic footage can’t be significantly edited, “you can’t trick your viewers on what the story is,” she said.

Zamindar has a much more skeptical approach to this form of media. “The power of manipulation is enormous.

There is a fine line between storytelling » See VIRTUAL, page 2

Students to Lecture details chocolate’s bittersweet history Guatemalan roots, launch new From chocolate went on to associated with buy-and-sell become money, wealth, power platform

By JACLYN TORRES

Website to connect students selling used products, such as furniture, clothing

By JULIANNE CENTER SENIOR STAFF WRITER

After months of planning and testing, students are launching Souk, a new campus website that aims to connect students buying and selling used products.

Last year, the start-up won Spark, a venture competition hosted by Brown Student Agencies that encourages students to identify a problem they see in the Brown community and create a project to solve it.

The website — accessible to all students with a Brown email address — aims to efficiently link sellers of used goods to » See SOUK, page 2

INSIDE

ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR

“It’s here at Brown where my ideas radically changed, and I found chocolate,” said Kathryn Sampeck — professor at Illinois State University and a long-term fellow of the John Carter Brown Library — Monday night in her lecture “How Chocolate Came to Be.” Sampeck traced chocolate back to its historical origins in sixteenth-century Mesoamerica through an archaeological lens.

Chocolate is a Guatemalan word that has never been translated, she said. It was in Guatemala that the familiar form of chocolate was founded. The chocolate seen in stores is the end product — a combination of cacao, achiote and sugar for sweetness. But when chocolate’s ingredients are broken down and traced to their historical roots, their origins are bittersweet. » See CHOCOLATE, page 3

JOSH STERN / HERALD

A Taza Chocolate employee offers various types of chocolate samples to audience members after speaking about chocolate’s complicated narrative.

By MELISSA CRUZ SENIOR STAFF WRITER

While the Office of Residential Life has allowed students with registered disabilities to keep emotional support animals in residence halls for several years, Student and Employee Accessibility Services will publish a clear policy on the matter to its website later in the semester, wrote Catherine Axe, assistant dean for student life and director of SEAS, in an email to The Herald.

SEAS currently has fewer than five students on campus with emotional support pets. To qualify for an emotional support animal, students must file a request with SEAS. Possible related issues such as roommate assignments, animal size and breed are addressed on a case-by-case basis, said Richard Bova, dean of residential life.

Universities have been reluctant to allow emotional support pets in dormitories in recent years. The University of Nebraska and Kent State University faced lawsuits in 2011 and 2014, respectively, after denying student requests for emotional support animals.

These lawsuits solidified the argument that emotional support animals are an accommodation that must be provided under the Fair Housing Act. The Fair Housing Act states that “It is illegal for anyone to advertise or make any statement that indicates a limitation or preference based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status or handicap,” according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s website.

ResLife made the decision to allow support animals on campus as the legal and cultural understandings of the subject were developing across the country, Axe said.

“I really think that decision and our first request to have animals on campus coincided. It made sense and raised awareness,” Axe said.

Emotional support animals are not considered pets; they are accommodations for students who need them, Axe added. Students with emotional support animals must agree to a policy that dictates certain rules and » See ANIMALS, page 3

WEATHER

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2016

ARTS & CULTURE Maggie Smith’s performance as ‘vagabond nobility’ carries ‘The Lady in the Van’

NEWS Online initiatives show measured progress, University backing, faculty interest

COMMENTARY Krishnamurthy ’19: Valentine’s Day brings Americans together despite political differences

COMMENTARY Esemplare ’19: Implement MOOCs as credit alternatives to solve college tuition crisis

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» SOUK, from page 1

who are selling what they no longer want,” she said.

Because starting a project on her own “seemed a bit daunting,” Oberai sent out a mass email to students concentrating in Computer Science asking if anyone was interested in helping her develop the website for the Brown community, she said.

Shortly

BSA is “in charge of ensuring that there’s a way for (Souk) to integrate into prospective buyers by offering filtering, the Brown community and also a way to condition rating and location features market it and make people aware that it in a safe and secure manner, said Amia exists,” Eyales said.

Oberai ’16, founder and co-designer of The startup’s greatest challenge is Souk. To upload an item for sale, students getting an independent project off the will simply post pictures of the item, rate ground during the “ebb and flow of the the condition of the item and offer a brief semester,” Eyales said. The venture redescription. Potential buyers can then quires discipline to stay on strict schedule filter all available items based on catand complete programming, design and egories and locations on College Hill. coding for the website “on top of classClicking on an email icon begins a es,” Oberai said. But BSA has helped direct correspondence and transthem to “stay on track when feeling action between the interested overwhelmed,” Oberai added. buyer and the seller, she said.

There have been attempts to “There is a very big need for start this idea before. Last semesa system like this, and I do think ter, Sarah Lettes ’19 created a Facethat Souk can really address it,” book group called “The Swap,” in said Bianca Eyales ’17, director an attempt to facilitate sales while of business development for BSA. promoting environmental sustainabilOberai was inspired to create ity on campus. Lettes tried to emulate a Souk, named after the Arabic word for buy-and-sell Facebook group that was “marketplace,” by the need on campus popular in her community in Atlanta, COURTESY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY to buy and sell furniture. DurGA, but “it didn’t really catch on Souk will act as a campus-wide marketplace, ing Summer at Brown after her here,” she said. allowing students to buy and sell their used goods. sophomore year, Oberai was livWhile Lettes thinks Facebook ing in temporary housing and wanted after, she assembled a student group that is easier in a lot of ways due to its accesto purchase a cheap desk. She found it entered — and ultimately won — the sibility, near-universal use and notifidifficult to navigate the “low functional- BSA Innovation Spark Competition. cations, Souk is “addressing the same ity” of Facebook outlets to find what she The prize granted the team funding, needs” evident on College Hill, and she wanted, she said. guidance and marketing efforts from hopes the new website will reach the After seeing a couch abandoned on BSA, Oberai said. widespread use of other sites such as the roadside by a college student, Oberai “They developed a product, and our Brown Book Exchange, she said. thought that “there must be an easier, job is to help introduce it to the Brown But the students working on Souk better way to get furniture from people community,” Eyales said. believe the website’s features, particularly the search bar and security, distinguish it from groups on Facebook by creating a safer, Brown-specific version of Craigslist. “It has the potential to really change how this kind of exchange on campus occurs,” Eyales said.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

» VIRTUAL, from page 1 and selling,” she told The Herald, referring to the section of Levin’s talk regarding the use of virtual reality in advertising at the Times.

Other virtual reality films produced by the Times include sponsored content from Mini Cooper and General Electric.

Michael Villaseñor, creative director of innovation and marketing for the Times, addressed this gray area during the event.

He said that those working on virtual reality films often ask themselves, “How do you craft something that is as much an editorial piece and not just an empathy machine?”

The Times premiered its virtual reality app this November, so this technology is still in its infancy, Villaseñor said. “This is brand new territory we are venturing on.”

Beyond the actual media content, the act of viewing the videos in virtual reality can also be emotional.

The app encourages its users to wear headphones and view the video through Google Cardboard. This experience forces the viewer “to be completely focused on the subject,” Levin said.

The user is “alone with the content,” allowing them to “stop and feel something,” Levin said.

The physical experience, which requires viewers to hold Google Cardboard to their eyes for the duration of the film, becomes a limiting factor in the potential of virtual reality. Fatigue is a significant barrier to the development of longer, more in-depth virtual reality films, Villaseñor said.

Irving described the virtual experience as “not completely immersive,” but he said it does present a new perspective on storytelling.

“It makes you stand up, it makes you want to walk around — people were responding to it,” said Zamindar, who observed the experiment from the front of the auditorium.

The experience was “successful in the unstated goal to make students emotionally invested in learning about the issue,” Zamindar said. “But that wasn’t the goal going into it.”

That type of emotional response is something normal videos no longer produce in viewers, said Theodore Bogosian, visiting assistant professor in the practice of humanities and professor of HMAN 1971S: “Introduction to iPhone/ iPad Moviemaking Using 3-D and 4K Comparisons,” who also moderated the event.

“There’s so much media in the world that people are becoming desensitized to motion pictures in a way that they never were before,” he said. Virtual reality, on the other hand, “increases empathy by lowering some of the barriers between you and the material.”

In regard to the potential of virtual reality in the classroom, Bogosian described Brown as an excellent environment for the technology. Brown professors are creative enough to present material in innovative ways. “It’s a matter of matching up a generation that’s adept at mobile device movie-making with the generation that has the intellectual experience,” he said. “Students have a lot to teach faculty about the ways smartphones can be used.”

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

» ANIMALS, from page 1 regulations. For example, owners may not take their animals inside other students’ residence halls or rooms, inside classrooms or in dorm lounges.

The animal is only allowed inside the owner’s room and in outdoor public spaces, she said.

This differs from the rules for service animals, which are allowed to accompany their owners in all areas of campus. Service animals usually act as an accommodation for students with vision or hearing disabilities.

“I think the (animal’s) presence is how they’re providing the support,” Axe said.

Research shows that animals help people connect with others and cope with feelings of loneliness, said Linda Welsh, a psychotherapist at Counseling and Psychological Services. There are other health benefits, too, such as

lowered blood pressure, she added.

As a dog-lover herself, Welsh thinks that support animals help “people structure themselves” by maintaining them and walking them on a regular basis. They are something else to care for and add meaning to their lives, she said.

“A lot of times our stress is about being too caught up in our own thinking, and sometimes I think an animal can help us get outside of that,” Welsh said. “There’s a lot of unconditional positive regard that we get from an animal.”

Students with emotional support animals must be approved to have their animals on campus. The lengths of time for which students choose to keep them on campus vary. Some students keep animals for a couple months, while others live with an animal through multiple academic years.

JULIANNA LEE MARINO / HERALD

Student and Employee Accessibility Services will clarify a policy allowing students to keep live-in emotional support animals in their dorm rooms.

» CHOCOLATE, from page 1 “Chocolate is this interesting bundle of contradictions,” Sampeck said. “It does not have a sweet history, but rather a less than savory kind of past.”

Sampeck explained the narrative believed by many that chocolate was a product of colonialism in which Europeans capitalized on the potential that indigenous peoples didn’t realize. Yet, its definition and production in Europe and in Mesoamerica is much different.

“People of different cultures created cacao identities,” Sampeck said, “chocolate is just one of many cacao productions.”

Cacao is not always solid. It is often found as a liquid extracted from a nut on the cacao tree to make a frothy beverage. Sometimes served hot, sometimes served cold, it is also frequently mixed with a variety of spices and flavors. In Mesoamerica, spicy, smoky and sweet cacao beverages are popular. Corn and floral umami mixes are also added to cacao for a richer, thicker texture.

Europeans have their own unique blend of cacao. The continent overall prefers a more pungent, earthy taste with musk, she said. One particular type of cacao mixture includes sweet floral notes with orange blossom and ginger. Yet within the continent, the cacao preferences are split up regionally.

“Each country has a specific taste and a different profile,” Sampeck said, “but the English are the tastemakers.”

The taste of the cacao itself is much more ambiguous than expected. There is no single type of cacao: sweet cacao, honey cacao, cherry cacao, gruel-ish cacao and cold maize cacao. Gruel-ish cacao is “cacao mixed with corn gruel and is of a thick consistency,” whereas cold maize cacao is “served cold with cooked corn kernels and was important at social and religious ceremonies” in ancient Mesoamerica, Sampeck said.

Once Mesoamerica and Europe discovered the riches of cacao, the nut was quickly abused. Sampeck explained that by the mid-sixteenth century, cacao built the foundations of a social and political economy. “Cacao became a medium of exchange. People had the potential to accumulate money, and a hierarchy quickly emerged that created the privileged and the nouveaux riches.”

Cacao did more than facilitate the economy. It also contributed to the concept of investment and production in the labor market. “Cacao is a calculated decision. It is an investment of skills, knowledge and dedication, as it takes seven to eight years to reap the benefits,” Sampeck said.

The peak of the production of chocolate in Mesoamerica was between 1562 and 1615 in Izalco, a municipality in the western part of El Salvador. At this time, “chocolate was synonymous with money, wealth and power,” Sampeck said. With cacao running the economy, production took its toll on the native

people. “There was an average of a 40 percent drop-off in the population,” Sampeck said.

Sampeck added that people all around the world were becoming chocoholics. “People say we are what we eat, but I think we eat what we are.”

Sampeck’s lecture “was an interesting look at the beginning of chocolate,” said Samantha Mayfield ’18. “And also there’s free chocolate samples.”

A chocolate tasting immediately followed the event. Taza Chocolate, a company based out of Somerville, Mass., laid out bowls full of the diverse types of chocolate that Sampeck explained in her lecture. One type of chocolate contained 87 percent cacao, creating a rich, bitter and dark taste. Another contained fruity cacao that left a sweeter aftertaste.

One chocolate combined Haitian and Brazilian cacao.

“All of the Taza Chocolate is organic, stone-ground chocolate,” said an employee of Taza. She explained the different methods of refining the chocolate into its particular texture. “For a smoother texture, we further refine the chocolate and grind it down using huge stones. We use smaller stones to create a thicker texture.” She added that all Taza Chocolate is unique in that all of its products are soy-free and vegan.

“Chocolate is this superfood that crosses a lot of culinary boundaries,” Sampeck said, “and no matter where you go, there is always chocolate.”

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Festival brings traditional, contemporary Chinese acts to College Hill Lunar New Year celebration features diverse performances from Providence-, Boston-based schools

By OLIVIA KATCHER STAFF WRITER

The Chinese Students and Scholars Association’s sold-out Spring Festival Gala started at 7:30 p.m. Sunday night, but the Salomon Hall lobby was packed by 6:45 p.m. Students, faculty members, alums and family members from the Providence and Boston areas waited in line, eager to enter the auditorium and take their seats.

“This is madness, but it’s good madness,” said Coleen Chan, vice president of Rhode Island School of Design’s Chinese Students Association.

Right on schedule, the lights dimmed, and the celebration commenced.

The festival celebrated the Lunar New Year with traditional and contemporary performances. For the first time, local schools participated — including RISD and Johnson and Wales University — in addition to the Massachusetts of Institute of Technology and Boston University, as well as Providence community groups.

This year’s festival, the organization’s largest annual event, was dedicated to the Year of the Monkey.

The night began with a performance by the Rhode Island Kung Fu Club as two lions, each with a pair of performers inside, danced to the beat of traditional Chinese drums playing in the background. The crowed clapped and cheered with excitement, and in the blink of an

eye, the performance was over.

Four festival hosts dressed in Chinese attire then took the stage. Three of the four hosts were native Chinese speakers.

The hosts welcomed the crowd in Chinese, an introduction comically interrupted by RISD student Dennis Crawec’s mention of his “selfie stick,” which he used to take a photo of the hosts and the audience.

Qu Guangzhou, a counselor at the New York Chinese Embassy, stepped on stage to wish attendees a “happy, healthy, productive and prosperous new Year of the Monkey.”

Though the introduction was delivered almost entirely in Chinese, the event’s organizers hoped the night would appeal to non-Chinese speakers.

“We want to have diversity in the festival while also having some cultural Chinese elements,” said Yimou Li ’17, president of CSSA. Li hoped people unfamiliar with Chinese culture would come to the event “because that’s one purpose of the festival, to have everyone get together and celebrate the Lunar New Year,” he said.

“Our goal is for everyone to feel that they can find some sense of family at Brown,” he said.

“We want to avoid too much exclusiveness, just in case audience members don’t understand Chinese, so there are a lot of performances that don’t include talking, which everyone can enjoy,” Li said. He added that language is not a

big problem because “even if you don’t speak Chinese, there are songs, dances and Kung Fu you can watch as well as enjoying the celebratory atmosphere.”

In addition to Lunar New Year, the gala was also meant to celebrate Valentine’s Day, said Yun Gao GS, vice president of CSSA. Some of the performances, including a love song duet, were dedicated to Valentine’s Day, Li said, adding that “everyone in attendance gets a red rose.”

“We have prizes to attract more attendance,” Gao said, adding that donors supplied funds for prizes. In addition, various departments and campus offices sponsored the event.

“Without the support of Brown’s departments as well as the University’s Student Activities Office, the event wouldn’t be possible,” Li said.

Crystal Liu, GS, said she was excited for the lottery, but was most looking forward to meeting more Chinese people.

“Usually, I only talk to the people I am in class with, and I never have the chance to meet people with the same heritage as mine. So the festival is a great opportunity to meet new people,” Liu said, adding that last year’s festival was great but that she could not wait to see the new performances from other schools.

The addition of performing groups from other institutions made the event more diverse and more exciting, Gao said.

Brown’s Lion Dance group, the only lion dance group in Rhode Island, performed a traditional dance routine. “It’s

Maggie Smith captivates as ‘Lady in the Van’ Based on real-life story, film chronicles writer’s most enduring, reluctant friendship

By JENNIFER SHOOK SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Maggie Smith has built her career playing characters with a defining air of dignity and nobility. From Harry Potter’s Minerva McGonagall to Violet Crawley in “Downton Abbey,” Smith crafts characterizations that are preeminent at their very core.

In “The Lady in the Van,” Smith once again employs this emanating kind of nobility in her portrayal of Mary Shepherd, this time with a twist of irony — despite Shepherd’s brand of ennobled entitlement, she is homeless. Her character lives out of a decaying van permanently parked in an otherwise idyllically middle-class

Camden neighborhood, and Smith perfectly portrays the curmudgeonly neighborhood menace. She yells at any “neighbors” who dare play music loudly enough to disturb her in her van.

This performance marks the third time Smith has portrayed Shepherd.

She previously acted in the same role in a theatrical production in 1999 as well as in a BBC Radio 4 performance in 2009. Her experience in the role is evident — it is hard to imagine anyone else who could portray Shepherd’s particular kind of “vagabond nobility.”

Written by Alan Bennett, “The Lady in the Van” is based off Bennett’s relationship with the real-life Shepherd, who — like her counterpart in the movie — ended up living in a van parked in Bennett’s driveway for over 15 years.

In the film, Bennett is portrayed

by Alex Jennings. Jennings’ character is split into two personalities that act

SAM BERUBE / HERALD

Alex Jennings as the neurotic Alan Bennett and Maggie Smith as the brash Mary Shepherd make for fun viewing in “The Lady in the Van.”

against each other in the same scenes.

The introverted “writer-Bennett,” who offers a meta-commentary of the film’s events as a discontented observer, appears solely as he is writing at his typewriter. His other character, the “livingBennett,” appears in the entirety of the film but doesn’t actually live a full life, as the writer-Bennett tells the audience.

In the film, Bennett’s relationship with Shepherd starts with the first of many impositions when she convinces him to roll her defective van into the Camden neighborhood where Bennett eventually purchases a home. The combination of parking restrictions and Bennett’s fascination for and disdain of Shepherd compels him to consent to park the van in his driveway — a temporary arrangement that develops into a permanent one.

Despite Bennett’s disdain, he slowly develops a respect and understanding for Sheperd as she unfolds her past.

Bennett eventually starts comparing Sheperd to his mother. The two characters enhance each other — Bennett’s mother provides stability at his home in northern England, whereas Sheperd brings a peculiar maternal presence at his new residence in London.

The interplay between neurotic Bennett and unpredictably erratic Shepherd creates much of the film’s humor. Jennings’ discomfort and Smith’s unapologetic brashness are endlessly entertaining. While “The Lady in the Van” might not make you laugh out loud, it’s the kind of film that will put a smile on your face no matter what mood you watch it in — it serves as a fitting and loving tribute to its real-life inspiration.

cool to expose people to the dancing and the cultural heritage,” Steven Brownstone ’16 said.

Because of the wide variety of performances, Li said CSSA was expecting a diverse audience.

“We are reaching out to a broader Chinese community,” Li said. In previous years, the audience has mostly consisted of Brown students, but this year, the CSSA’s outreach council has gone to Chinese communities in Providence and

invited them to the event, she added.

Li hopes to continue collaborating with RISD, JWU and other local schools and groups. “The process with JWU and RISD has been smooth, and we have established a lot of friendships,” he said.

“Everyone is happy collaborating with each other,” Gao said. Both Gao and Li hope the University of Rhode Island will participate next year and intend to invite Brown’s a cappella groups to the ceremony.

Inside Higher Ed

BY SANDRA LIFSHITS, NEWS EDITOR

Video released of Princeton professor’s arrest

The Princeton, NJ Police Department released a video Feb. 11 showing the arrest of a black Princeton professor, Imani Perry, for speeding and having several unpaid parking tickets on her record, according to the New York Times.

Perry described her arrest on social media, saying she was humiliated and the encounter is representative of how police officers treat black Americans. “The fact of my blackness is not incidental to this matter,” she wrote on her Facebook page.

Her post sparked a social media discussion in which some online users argued that she deserved the arrest while others offered words of encouragement.

Responses to the redesigned SAT

The new format of the SAT, to be implemented next month, has many worried it will disadvantage students who speak English as a second language or are inexperienced with longer readings, according to the Times.

The main changes to the SAT include eliminating the guessing penalty, combining the reading and writing sections and making the essay optional.

This marks the College Board’s most extensive redesign of the test in over 10 years. In the coming months, many students will choose between taking the unchanged ACT and the unfamiliar SAT.

University of California at Berkeley deficit

After a long-running disagreement in California over the funding of public universities, Nicholas Dirks, chancellor of UC Berkeley, announced last week that the university’s deficit could create long-term instability and threaten the university’s reputation as a prestigious public institution, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The political dispute centers on the appropriate in-state tuition and ensuring out-of-state and international enrollment do not negatively affect California residents.

In the meantime, the university is planning to address the $150 million deficit with a committee that will look into decreasing the size of the staff — specifically the administration — and creating more online courses, Dirks also announced.

Washington and Lee University Mock Convention

The Washington and Lee University Mock Convention, an event hosted during each presidential election cycle, predicted Donald Trump would win the Republican nomination. In the mock primary process, Trump received 1,320 delegates, Ted Cruz secured 652 and Marco Rubio came in third at 399, USA Today reported.

This conclusion stemmed from two years of research by 150 students who consulted journalists, academics and party officials, the New York Times reported.

The university’s mock convention has accurately predicted 19 of 25 chosen nominees in one party or the other since 1908.

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menu

g at e way t o wa r m e r w e at h e r

SATELLITE DINING ANDREWS COMMONS

Pizza: Bacon Chicken Ranch, Spinach and Feta, Pepperoni and Meatball Chipotle BBQ Taco JOSIAH’S

BLUE ROOM

Quesadillas

3 Bean Chili, Butternut Squash Soup, Vegetable Tikka Masala

DINING HALLS SHARPE REFECTORY LUNCH

DINNER

Chicken Cutlet Parmesan Sandwich, Roasted Cauliflower with Red Onion, M&M Cookie

Cajun Fettucini, Mixed Vegetable Creole, Green Chili Chicken Enchilada, Chocolate Cupcake

VERNEY-WOOLLEY LUNCH

DINNER

Shaved Steak Sandwich, Vegetable Strudel, Oreo Chocolate Chip Fudge Bar

Baked Chicken, Red Flannel Hash, Summer Squash, Apple Oatmeal Crisp

sudoku

SAM BERUBE / HERALD

Frigid temperatures have overwhelmed campus this past week, often reaching the single digits or below. With the long weekend approaching, it appears as though the campus might be set to warm up.

RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle c r o s s w o r d Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis ACROSS 1 Mud wrap venue 4 Bridge, to Botticelli 9 On a cruise 14 Knock gently 15 Unalaska inhabitant 16 With 27-Down, striped holiday treat 17 Tycoon Onassis 18 Add to the language 20 North Atlantic hazard 22 Perching on 23 Unusually high temperatures, often 26 Letters used in old dates 29 Beirut’s country: Abbr.

30 __-Cat: winter vehicle 31 Skin-and-bones sort 33 Fish and chips option 36 Wonton, e.g.

38 Law enforcement slogan 41 Felix Unger et al.

42 “Atlas Shrugged” author Rand 43 Many opera villains 44 Grassland 46 Uncertainties 49 Braying beast 50 Dessert with swirls 54 Canyon feedback 57 Ice-T or Jay Z 58 What the starts of 18-, 23-, 38- and 50-Across can be part of 62 “Who am __ judge?”

63 German river, to Germans 64 Adult insect 65 Not quite lge.

66 Chore list entries 67 Web surfing tool 68 Beverage suffix DOWN 1 Step between landings

2 Part of UPS 3 Unit-pricing word 4 Hoosier hoopster 5 Grace opening 6 Sounds from a stable 7 Vineyard vat 8 Approximate touchdown hr.

9 Vier und vier 10 Hawaiian root 11 Feature of most fedoras 12 Newspaper hires, briefly 13 Vote for 19 __ on the back 21 Spotted members of the lynx family 24 Laptop buyer, for one 25 Month after juillet 27 See 16-Across 28 Urge (on) 31 Energetic 32 Outpatient treatment sites 34 Upscale hotel chain 35 Printer resolution spec.

37 __ Nashville: country label

38 Bering and North 39 Like graduation caps 40 St. with a panhandle 41 Steph Curry’s org.

45 In Europe, say 47 Daughter of Muhammad 48 Enjoyed the ice 50 Comfy slip-on 51 “Tootsie” actress Jessica

52 Word with Downs or salts 53 Slowly eat into 55 Ad writer’s award 56 Feathered brooders 58 Dated PC hookup 59 “So that’s it!”

60 Bob Cratchit’s boy 61 I believe, in texts

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

xwordeditor@aol.com

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Darien Lamen: The Future of the Future 12:00 P.M. Watson Institute

Is Theology a Science?

5:00 P.M. Salomon Center, Room 001

A Reading by Novelist Shelley Jackson 2:30 P.M. McCormack Family Theater

Telescope Observing Night 7:00 P.M. Ladd Observatory

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Wellness in a Cup: The Art of Tea Blending 12:00 PM Stephen Robert ’62 Center

Argentine Tango Classes 5:00 P.M. Graduate Center

Novelist Paul LaFarge to Read 4:30 P.M. McCormack Family Theater

The Beautifully, Mathematically Ordered Colors of Birds 6:30 P.M. 121 South Main St.

COMMENTARY PAGE 6 • TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2016

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

EDITORIAL

Online learning makes Brown accessible to all Brown’s decision this year to open up eight for-credit, online summer courses comes as general interest in online education — including the Massive Open Online Courses that Brown had previously heralded as the future of education — has begun to wane. While the public discourse surrounding Coursera and edX — sites that allow anyone to watch lectures, participate in chat room sections and access course readings — has given way to broader discussions of tuition, affordability and debt, the expansion of Brown’s online summer courses offers a new entry point to examine the technological developments taking place in higher education.

We commend Brown’s commitment to expanding higher education opportunities, particularly in the liberal arts. As tuition and fees at the University rise another 4.1 percent next year, many critics will push even more fervently for pre-professional programs in order to prepare students to earn their way out of debt. Meanwhile, the University is also devoting more attention to the highly lucrative science, technology, engineering and mathematics concentrations. These factors make preserving the accessibility of the humanities in higher education crucial.

Similarly, Brown students’ ability to receive credit for online courses will help students continue to participate in academic life over the summer without rendering them ineligible for internships. Also, considering that many students returning from leave must take summer courses in order to maintain good academic standing, the greater location flexibility should make meeting this goal easier.

Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board: its editors, Emma Axelrod ’18 and Emma Jerzyk ’17, and its members, Eben Blake ’17 and Leeron Lempel ’19. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.

I S A B E L A N D R EWS

CORRECTION An article in Friday’s Herald (“Grapengeter-Rudnick ’17 takes helm of Brown sailing,” Feb. 12) stated that Head Coach John Mollicone is Class of 1998. In fact, he did not go to Brown. The Herald regrets the error.

Q U O T E O F T H E D AY

“People say we are what we eat, but I think we eat what we are.”

— Kathryn Sampeck, long-term fellow of the John Carter Brown Library

See CHOCOLATE on page 1.

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COMMENTARY TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2016 • PAGE 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Valentine’s Day reinvigorates American romanticism ANUJ

KRISHNAMURTHY staff columnist

There is perhaps no other holiday that sharply elevates the collective saltiness of society as much as Valentine’s Day. Indeed, hating on Valentine’s Day might be the only course of action that every romantically unattached American, irrespective of class or complexion, can actually agree on. The resentment is understandable: If you’re riding solo, by deliberate design or not, February 14 is the absolute worst.

For one, Valentine’s Day, like every other celebration on the American calendar, is irredeemably corporatized. The profiteering sadists at Big Flower and Big Chocolate cleverly enshrine the products they sell­ — ornate bouquets, sugary chocolates, fancy restaurant reservations — as essential to romantic happiness. And, if the tortured shrieks of your wallet weren’t enough, Valentine’s Day is an assault on principle: The guy we’re meant to celebrate, Saint Valentine, is a relatively marginal, if not completely useless, fig-

ure in Catholic history. Most pernicious, though, is the alienation propagated by the holiday’s plutocratic enforcers. The message is simple: Only couples who subscribe to a highly specific romantic recipe can achieve real joy; if you’re trapped in the labyrinth of perpetual singlehood, you’re doing something wrong.

These lines of criticism are, if hyperbolic and borderline Marxist,

so, I can’t help but derive actual meaning, real value, from February 14; in a time of colossal change and historic challenges, Valentine’s Day is a lighthearted reminder that we all hold some things sacred.

It doesn’t take long to see, firsthand, how badly society needs this semblance of togetherness. American life has experienced a remarkable descent from the prosperity and stability we’re promised in our

means simply to hate other Americans. Sadly, it seems there is nothing common about our values, nothing united about our beliefs, any longer.

In the midst of this swirling confusion — a world of cold indifference and a populace mired in hopeless differences — we, as Americans, at least have Valentine’s Day. Sure, it’s been subverted by the pecuniary forces of American capitalism, but, in spite of all the dollar signs

Miraculously, our culture, divided and dichotomized, can still agree that romance is an important component of our humanity.

the foremost battle cries of the anti-Valentine counterrevolution. But, no matter how nauseating the pink balloons and fluffy teddy bears become, Valentine’s Day isn’t all bad.

Now, don’t get me wrong: As a bespectacled brown dude of unimposing height, I am as single as they get. (So single, in fact, that I might just have to resort to the whole arranged-marriage process down the line. Thank god I’m Indian.) Even

media and history books. Constant economic insecurity, irreconcilable ideological entrenchment and political dysfunction seem to have become permanent elements of the American condition. As a society deeply unsure of itself, we have come to identify so closely with our political parties and special interest groups that our nation’s sociocultural fabric has been radically redefined — to be American, today,

and bottom lines, February 14 still means something — especially for the single folk. (I, for example, spent Valentine’s Day wondering how I, at once, don’t have a girlfriend and belong to the culture that produced the Kama Sutra.) It’s deeply reassuring that Valentine’s Day even exists: Miraculously, our culture, divided and dichotomized, can still agree that romance is an important component of our humanity.

In this way, I think, Valentine’s Day, somewhat counterintuitively, is not meant for couples; at its core, it isn’t a celebration of relationships already forged and love already established. Instead, Valentine’s Day is really for us, the proud knights of the order of single-dom. It’s a day dedicated to the notion that true love is an ideal worth aspiring to, even if you’re bae-less now; that unrealized love, however dissatisfying, is a worthwhile sign of emotional vibrancy that you’re human and still care; and that sustained love, like any living thing, needs the regular gesture, simple or elaborate, to keep it aflame. Indeed, by glamorizing the universal longing for love, Valentine’s Day does what human societies everywhere desperately need it to do: It effectively immortalizes hope — the hope of finding a better half, of discovering a purpose greater than oneself — as central to the pursuit of living a meaningful life, one that, hopefully, we all get to share with someone special (even if our moms have to find them for us.)

Anuj Krishnamurthy ’19 can be reached at anuj_krishnamurthy@brown.edu.

Embrace the MOOC NICHOLAS ESEMPLARE staff columnist Last week, Bernie Sanders, D-VT, won the New Hampshire Democratic primary, in no small part due to his attractiveness to young voters. According to CNN exit polls, Sanders received a staggering 83 percent of votes from those between the ages of 18 and 29.

This sort of dominance cannot be traced back to a single issue, but there is one item on Sanders’ agenda that almost certainly appeals to this demographic: college tuition. Sanders’ plan to eliminate undergraduate tuition at public universities is certainly not without opposition. But the appeal of his plan is not its practicality, but that it offers a solution, if an extreme one.

If nothing else, the appeal of this plan to young voters reveals the increasingly urgent need to resolve the higher education crisis in our country. But the United States is unlikely to adopt Sanders’ plan, and so the question remains: What can be done to make higher education more affordable?

Enter MOOCs. Short for Massive Open Online Courses, MOOCs became available at the start of the present decade and have grown exponentially since. These courses are open to the public and are often free or relatively low-cost, with enrollments sometimes reaching into the hundreds of thousands. These courses cover a variety of topics.

From the outset, MOOCs were mostly free but have moved increasingly to a course fee model in recent years. Despite this, MOOCs are substantially cheaper than tuition payments at the schools that offer them; a recent article determined that a standard-price MOOC at Duke University was still roughly 99 percent cheaper than the tuition cost for the same number of credit hours.

I’m not suggesting colleges abandon their

current education model and simply accept all online courses for credit. But in a world where Sanders campaigns for free higher education, MOOCs offer a (comparatively) less radical solution.

Of course, such a shift would meet heavy opposition. Signs of resistance have already appeared, primarily from the ranks of university faculty. Professors, especially from middle and low-tier universities, are likely to push

back hard against a measure that might jeopardize their livelihoods. Indeed, if MOOCs were adopted on a large scale, some professors might find themselves expendable, or at least in lower demand. This is an unfortunate reality, but higher education is full of them; ultimately, decisions about education in this country have much larger implications. Exorbitant (and rising) tuition costs demand a solution sooner rather than later, and it is clear that some extreme action must be taken.

What if MOOCs became an alternative credit option at Brown that could be used for, say, no more than 25 percent of graduation requirements and no concentration requirements? In such a setting, MOOCs could take the place of a year of college tuition and some other fees at a fraction of the cost without jeopardizing the quality of a student’s education.

Many MOOCs are not presently designed

attending the physical Brown University, one need not look far to see examples of productive virtual learning. Many lecture classes at Brown do not strictly require attendance (often offering PowerPoint slides posted on Canvas), and an increasing number provide the option of watching lectures online. In such classes, it would not be unusual for a student to see the classroom only once or twice a semester to take tests. While daily interactions with classmates and professors do add important value to a college education, such interactions — frankly — do not occur in every class a student takes­­. In this light, allowing students to take a quarter of their classes online would not be detrimental to their educations.

To many, the main problem with MOOCs as credit substitutes is that they don’t sound ideal. They might not be explicitly detrimental, but many people at elite universities buy into the idea that a college education is so much more than lectures and tests. I am among them. But the difficulty of decisions should not prevent their being made. MOOCs, while an extreme solution, could solve a massive problem in American higher education.

Physical universities and the “college experience,” as we understand it, are here to stay. So, too, is the all too human resistance to change exhibited by American professors and universities. This inaction leads to a stagnancy that posits, consciously or not, that universities cannot or should not LILLY NGUYEN / HERALD change to meet the needs of their current to be taken as credit alternatives, but such a and future students. It is unfortunately true change would not present too many challenges. that in human societies, paradigms often fall MOOCs are already beginning to step up their too slowly. Soon it will be necessary to realize testing integrity standards. Brown could either that the present system of higher education is provide its students with a selection of MOOCs more broken than we want to admit and that taught by Brown professors or simply select MOOCs are a more sensible solution than we MOOCs from across the country that meet its can ignore. academic standards. The transition of MOOCs from channels for casual learning to alternatives for course credit is absolutely feasible.

Nicholas Esemplare ’18 can be reached While there is an unquestionable value in at nicholas_esemplare@brown.edu.

NEWS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2016

University’s online education progress slow but steady Full-credit online courses to be offered in fall 2016, winter session 2017 as online learning advances

By SUVY QIN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

While online education initiatives have recently generated less talk than other University plans, progress on the issue is inching forward. Perhaps most notably, the University is offering faculty members course relief should they design online courses, and a number of online, fullcredit courses will be taught during the 2016-2017 academic year, said Elizabeth Taylor, professor of English.

Taylor is currently taking time off from teaching to design her first onlineonly iteration of a writing workshop to be taught during the academic year.

In addition, the Committee on Digital Teaching and Learning, formed by former Provost Vicki Colvin, is preparing to take on new faculty members, said Karen Sibley MAT’81 P’07 P’12 P’17, dean of the School of Professional Studies.

The committee will also hold a series of lectures on the subject starting Feb. 24, said University Librarian Harriette Hemmasi.

Path to digital When Colvin created it, the Committee on Digital Teaching and Learning was charged with continuing the “lively conversation about online learning,” said Dean of the College Maud Mandel.

The fact that the University is adding new members to the committee

demonstrates that University leadership is aware of the “transition in higher education” towards digital spaces, Sibley said.

The committee will inform leadership to “take appropriate action to move Brown forward,” she added.

In the past, Colvin and former Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron spearheaded efforts to adopt these digital initiatives. But their departures have not affected the University’s ability to move forward on digital plans, Sibley said.

The University has taken an “appropriately cautious” approach to online teaching and learning to ensure that efforts align with student and faculty interests, Hemmasi said.

Summarizing the goals behind this approach, Sibley said, “The University’s responsibility is to maintain an appropriate level of currency with digital learning and teaching technologies in order to deliver a top-quality level of education now and in the future.”

Currently, there are no active MOOCs — massive, open, online courses

“

— offered by the University on Coursera, Mandel said, adding that faculty members could resurrect past courses if they chose to do so.

Sibley attributes this “pause” to the University’s shifting its focus away from the “big outreach efforts” that MOOCs entail, aiming instead to better serve current students.

The debut of MOOCs a few years ago was equivalent to “a jump in the pool,” Hemmasi said.

Compared to peer institutions’ digital

much but also enable faculty and students to experiment,” Hemmasi said. “There needs to be this proving ground” that an online initiative does work.

The University is “actively supporting faculty” exploring online initiatives, but “we’re not necessarily pushing it,” Mandel said.

Sibley noted that one of the barriers to online education at the University is “mystery,” because faculty members “don’t have experience and don’t know what it means to create and teach online

We were half in cyberspace, half in class. I felt as if we were half-baked.

”

— Elizabeth Taylor, Professor of English efforts, the University’s are similar, but Brown has “a little less happening than others” on the digital front, Sibley said.

“Unlike some schools, our focus is not on increasing revenue but on our own students and what fits with this cultural environment,” Hemmasi said. “If there is revenue, it’s a by-product,” she added.

Working with faculty The University aims to “not push too

started embracing.

Instead of MOOCs, a blended model of learning, which combines online and in-class instruction, has been implemented in certain programs, such as the executive master’s programs offered by the School of Professional Studies, Sibley said. The executive master’s programs enable mid-career professionals access to Brown’s scholarship, blending on-campus experiences with time online, Sibley added.

Another digitally enhanced model is the flipped classroom. In a flipped classroom, students watch video lectures at home, using class time to work collaboratively and discuss assignments with both their peers and a professor.

Dal Bo has used this model in a section of ECON1110: “Intermediate Microeconomics” for the past few years.

“Face-to-face time among students is essential, so using technology to free time to have meaningful discussions is beautiful,” Dal Bo said.

Taylor said the University has provided her with incentives to develop online courses. With a grant this spring, she is excused from teaching to develop a fall course that will be offered online.

She is currently reshaping a writing workshop, ENGL1030: “The Thoughtful Generalist,” such that it can be taught entirely online for full credit in fall 2016.

Taylor has experience working with digital learning. She made her ENGL0930: “Introduction to Creative Nonfiction” course a hybrid class, in which half of the class was online and the other half was in person, during spring 2014. But she wasn’t content with the outcome: “We were half in cyberspace, half in class. I felt as if we were halfbaked,” Taylor said. “Either we were all or nothing.”

But Taylor thinks “The Thoughtful Generalist” — which usually draws many pre-medical and computer science students who want to do a writing workshop — will turn out better as an online-only class.

“I hope it’s going to target students who don’t mind not being in classrooms and prefer computers,” she said.

There will be several other online courses taught during the 2016-2017 academic year, all of which will be for full credit, Taylor wrote in an email to the Herald.

The University will also offer a small number of winter term courses next year, some of which will be either fully online or hybrid, Mandel said.

courses.” Configuring a digital course can be time-consuming, which also prevents faculty members from taking on the challenge, Sibley added.

The committee is putting together a new website on which faculty members will be able to find tools and information about online education, Mandel said.

The committee has overseen the creation of a three-part spring lecture series, entitled Teaching and Learning in the Digital Environment, aimed at bringing more visibility to online initiatives, Hemmasi said. Scheduled for Feb. 24, the first event is a faculty panel comprised of Taylor, Gita Pensa, a clinical assistant professor at the Warren Alpert School of Medicine, Andy van Dam, professor of computer science, and Pedro Dal Bo, associate professor of economics. The panel will be moderated by Mandel, Hemmasi wrote in a follow-up email. The other two speakers are Sanjay Sarma from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Candace Thille from Stanford University, Hemmasi wrote.

Dal Bo pointed to costs as a deterrent to digital innovation. “Lowering the cost of using the technology would increase the amount of faculty using it,” he said.

Creating classes Online learning presents professors with a host of pedagogical options, some of which faculty members have already