SINCE 1891
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, APRIL 19, 2016
VOLUME CLI, ISSUE 51
WWW.BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM
Cause of fire at 185 Angell electrical Fire at off-campus house results in trips to hospital for men’s hockey player, two city firefighters By LAUREN ARATANI NEWS EDITOR
SAM BERUBE / HERALD
U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz discussed the current political climate regarding the Iran Nuclear Deal in Monday’s Stephen Ogden Jr. ’60 Memorial Lecture on International Affairs. He emphasized the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action’s role in promoting nonproliferation.
Secretary of Energy touts Iran nuclear deal Ernest Moniz discusses Paris Climate Conference, nonproliferation, science’s role in diplomacy By ELI BINDER STAFF WRITER
U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz delivered the 92nd Stephen Ogden Jr. ’60 Memorial Lecture on International Affairs Monday. He discussed diplomacy, the Iran Deal, nonproliferation and climate change before a packed DeCiccio Family Auditorium, which
seats around 600 people. Moniz emphasized the role that scientists played in the diplomacy that led to the Iran Deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. “Diplomacy is not only done by diplomats,” he said. “All disciplines take part.” Collaboration between American and Iranian scientists was essential to negotiating the JCPOA, Moniz said, adding that the talks were bolstered by the leadership of scientists with “scientists’ worldviews.” In an interview, Moniz described the JCPOA as “the strongest
nonproliferation agreement, I think, that has ever been negotiated.” Among other important limitations to its nuclear program, Iran has “committed to something that exists nowhere else: a fixed time limit for access.” Many in the nonproliferation community believe that parts of the JCPOA should be integrated into the “standard nonproliferation package” for agreements with other countries, Moniz added. Moniz said that much of the criticism of the JCPOA focuses on the plan’s failure to address non-nuclear issues like Iran’s missile testing or
support of terrorism. But he urged audience members to imagine what Iran’s nuclear program might look like without the deal. “There’s no reason to think that (without the JCPOA) 15 years from now (Iran) wouldn’t have 100,000 centrifuges and an Arak reactor producing a lot of plutonium per year,” he said in the interview. Moniz mentioned a letter sent by 29 top U.S. scientists, including Nobel Laureate and Professor of Science Leon Cooper, to President Barack Obama. The letter applauded the » See MONIZ, page 2
The fire at an off-campus house at 185 Angell Street Thursday morning was caused by the electrical system, wrote Lindsay Lague, public information officer for the Providence Department of Safety. The house is home to a number of players on the men’s hockey team, including Andrew Doane ’17, who received medical treatment Thursday for smoke inhalation. Two firefighters also suffered from minor injuries and were sent to the hospital, the Providence Journal reported. The fire started at around 7 a.m. Thursday morning on the unoccupied first floor of the house and later spread to the adjacent house at 183 Angell Street, the Journal reported. Firefighters were still putting out the flames around 7:30 a.m. In the aftermath of the fire, the University offered the house’s residents personal and academic support, wrote » See FIRE, page 2
Anne Bergeron appointed BDS emphasizes sustainability for Earth Day Blue Room, director of Arts Initiative Andrews, Ratty to provide seasonal, In year-long appointment, Bergeron develops plan for new programs, fundraising, collaboration By ROLAND HIGH STAFF WRITER
The gears of the University’s strategic plan, Building on Distinction, are whirring everywhere, and no more so than in the arts departments. Tucked inside the metallic folds of the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts is the office of Anne Bergeron, who began her appointment as managing director of the Arts Initiative Feb. 29. Bergeron said that “the overarching goal is to make Brown the school of choice” for anyone who is “really interested in exploring the arts and
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wants both a liberal arts education and an in-depth exploration of particular art forms.” In her role as managing director — a year-long appointment — she hopes to establish “all of the systems and processes that are going to undergird the success of the initiative,” she said. Bergeron has 25 years of experience in nonprofit cultural institutions and held senior posts at the Missouri Arts Council, the Solomon Guggenheim Museum and the Rhode Island School of Design. “This is what makes my heart sing,” Bergeron said. “This is taking the best of what Brown has to offer and really developing it to the next level, and that’s an exciting process.” Provost Richard Locke P’17 said the University needed “someone who » See BERGERON, page 3
local meals in celebration of national holiday By REBECCA ELLIS SENIOR STAFF WRITER
For one night this week, students can get all-local food for the price of a meal swipe. The Sharpe Refectory will act as the centerpiece of Brown Dining Services’ week-long celebration of Earth Day Tuesday. In addition to redecorating the Ratty, Dining Services is revising its menu to offer the finest and freshest in the Ocean State, all in the name of Earth. Isabelle Aubrun ’16, sustainability intern for dining services, described Tuesday’s dinner as an “interactive eating laboratory.” The menu, designed » See BDS, page 3
SAM BERUBE / HERALD
Eateries across campus will serve locally sourced meals throughout the week in an effort by BDS to highlight sustainable eating practices.
WEATHER
TUESDAY, APRIL 19, 2016
NEWS Jennifer Klein ’87, discusses relationship between gender equality, national securtiy
NEWS Undergrad team tops international math contest with water scarcity model
COMMENTARY O’Shea ’19: DeMarco’s Spring Weekend performance harkens back to different era of live music
COMMENTARY Mitra ’18: U. internship search resources not sufficiently adapted to internationals’ needs
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NEWS
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Harvard professor shares findings on racial disparities in police uses of force Roland Fryer’s data reflect racial disparity in nonlethal uses of force, not in lethal uses of force By JULIANNE CENTER SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Roland Fryer, professor of economics at Harvard, gave a lecture entitled “Understanding Racial Differences in Police Use of Force” in the Starr Auditorium in MacMillan Hall Monday. The talk, part of the “Economics in the Real World Symposium,” argued that though there are substantial racial disparities for non-lethal use of police force, those disparities do not exist for lethal use of force. “Today I wanted to talk about something you’ve never heard about: racial disparities in police force,” began Fryer with his tongue in cheek. Despite the severity of the topic, he kept the tone of the room light throughout the majority of the lecture, which was attended by about 60 undergraduate students, graduate students and faculty members. He noted that while the “unlovely history” between African-Americans and the police has been in the forefront of American debate since the shootings of unarmed blacks such as Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray and Walter Scott, there is actually very little data on police use of force. Fryer discussed his own research, which evaluated racial differences in non-lethal uses of force from five million cases of New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk data, non-lethal uses of force reported in public contact surveys and lethal uses of force in police altercations. Fryer wanted his analysis to include “not just which shooting happened in which place” but also contextual controls, such as suspect and officer demographics, the time of day, whether the suspect had a weapon and the officer duty status. His data found different
» MONIZ, from page 1 JCPOA, which it described as stringent and taking unprecedented steps in certain respects. The purpose of the JCPOA “is not to prevent a civilian nuclear program,” Moniz said in the interview. “After 15 years, Iran will have all its prerogatives to develop a peaceful (nuclear) program, but again, we have a strong verification provision that will continue beyond that,” he said. Sam Ainsworth ’16, who attended the lecture, said, “I went in support of the Iran Deal and came out thinking: ‘Wow, that definitely worked out well for the U.S. and our national security interests.’” Moniz also said in the interview that the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference yielded “a remarkable outcome.” The agreement was “a very large first step — but I do emphasize, first step. So there are going to have to be large steps, many of them, after this first one, because the climate challenge, heading towards very deep decarbonization, is one that is going to be with us for this century.” He said that the Paris Agreement, by itself, will not stop global temperatures from rising 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius, a level that many scientists
SAM BERUBE / HERALD
Roland Fryer, professor of economics at Harvard, reported his findings that while there are significant racial discrepancies in non-lethal uses of force by police officers, he found no racial bias in officers’ use of lethal force. results for non-lethal and lethal use of force. In instances of non-lethal uses of force that include the use of hands, pushes to the wall or ground, weapon drawing, handcuffs, pepper spray and batons, “Any way you cut the data, there are racial differences that controls cannot account for,” Fryer said. Though in general blacks are 53 percent more likely to experience nonlethal force during a stop-and-frisk encounter than whites, even with control variables and fixed effects they are still 17 percent more likely to experience police force. Additionally, Hispanics are 58 percent more likely to experience non-lethal force than whites, and 12 percent more likely when controls are accounted for. For lethal use of force in police
interactions, Fryer’s data told a different story. He found that there is no racial bias in the use of lethal force during lethal interactions involving an officer. In fact, his numbers showed that blacks and Hispanics are marginally less likely to have lethal force used against them in police altercations. “This is the most surprising result I have found in my entire career,” Fryer said, adding, “I had never been so sure of a result before I went into this than I have in my entire life.” In response to the data, Fryer asked, “How can this possibly be true given the events of Ferguson?” But he speculated that the general assumption that blacks are more likely to experience lethal use of force by police officers arises due to the evident racial disparities in cases of non-lethal force. If
agree could lead to catastrophic climate change. Limiting this rise is “going to rest upon more ambitious steps, which I believe will be enabled by innovation that continues dramatic cost reductions of clean energy,” Moniz added. He emphasized that the Paris Agreement calls for reviews of its commitments every five years, “with the idea that one will be more ambitious in these subsequent steps.” Legislative action concerning climate change needs to increase at a national level, Moniz said. “I certainly believe that to get beyond this 2025, 2030 horizon, we will need Congress to work together with a future administration” to achieve a plausible legislative solution. In the interview, Moniz also discussed the U.S. nuclear modernization program, which some have suggested is leading to a new global arms race. “The issue of modernizing our production complex is not about new weapons, new kinds of weapons or more weapons — quite the contrary,” he said. “It’s that we have literally an infrastructure from the 1960s, which — if you sit in my chair — has plainand-simple safety implications for our workers.”
He added that Obama is continuing to call for reducing the size of the U.S. nuclear stockpile. But “at some point, that becomes not only a bilateral, but a multilateral, conversation,” Moniz said. He noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not interested in engaging the United States in discussions about shrinking nuclear stockpiles. Some audience members said that though they enjoyed the talk, they had hoped to hear about sensitive geopolitical issues that were not discussed. John Poor, a Providence community member, said that he would have liked to hear Moniz discuss India and Pakistan, especially in relation to Iran. India and Pakistan both possess nuclear weapons, and their relationship has been hostile at times. Michael Shear ’16 had hoped to hear Moniz’s thoughts on North Korea’s nuclear program. Moniz concluded his lecture with his thoughts on diplomacy. It “is generally thought of as the negotiation of agreements between states,” and that is incredibly important, he said. “But, again, I want to reemphasize (that) the other definition of diplomacy is the promotion of good relationships, which is often the precondition when getting the first thing done.”
a community’s interactions with police are negative in one category, then they will assume that the interactions will intuitively follow with more serious instances of violence, such as shootings, even if data do not show this pattern, Fryer said. “I grew up not liking the police very much,” Fryer said, “It wasn’t anything personal. They were chasing me, and I was running away,” he said with his tongue in cheek. He also noted that his grandmother’s childhood stories of police violence in his neighborhood and his own experiences with police altercations led him to expect findings that would show higher rates of lethal force for blacks than for whites. Audience members asked numerous questions about correlations between police force and sexual orientation,
religion, location and other situational details unaccounted for by the controls of the experiment. In response to these questions, Fryer replied that this was the only data available for analysis. Fryer’s research assistant, Tanaya Devi, said that the audience’s questions constitute a fraction of the questions Fryer asks himself everyday. Fryer “lives his research,” spending all his waking hours on it and rarely sleeping, she said. Working with him has been an “awesome experience,” she said, adding of her job, “You get to see a genius work.” “This is just the start of what I hope is a fruitful and instructive set of papers on police use of force,” Fryer said. He added, “It may not be good economics, but at least it’s economics in the real world.”
SAM BERUBE / HERALD
The house at 185 Angell is home to several members of the men’s hockey team. An electrical fire started at the house Thursday morning at 7 a.m.
» FIRE, from page 1 Mary Grace Almandrez and MaryLou McMillan, interim assistant vice presidents for campus life and student services, in an email to undergraduate students. The support includes housing
and meals for the rest of the spring semester as well as clothing, technology and textbooks that may have been lost in the fire. Residents of the house have declined to comment on the fire on the advice of legal counsel.
NEWS
TUESDAY, APRIL 19, 2016 • PAGE 3
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
» BERGERON, from page 1
COURTESY OF ANNE BERGERON
Anne Bergeron has been appointed managing director of the Arts Initiative. She has proposed new fundraising efforts to support faculty growth.
» BDS, from page 1 by Executive Chef John O’Shea and his culinary team, is tailored to the theme of sustainability. Each appetizer, entree and dessert is cooked with locally sourced, seasonal ingredients, meaning garlic, potatoes, onions and seafood will all be given plenty of air time in the kitchen. Aubrun describes the menu as “a snapshot in time” of Rhode Island’s late-April food scene. Though BDS regularly relies on local farms and factories, Aubrun says the produce is rarely served in the same meal. But, this Tuesday, it’s all local all the way, as Quahog Chowder from Ocean State Seafood will be served with pork chops from Rhode Island’s Niman Ranch and topped off with
cheese from Providence’s Narragansett Creamery. It’s not just the buffet section that’s getting an upgrade. The Ratty’s tables will be covered with burlap coffee sacks and adorned with flowers housed in mason jars. “It’s just a spring-barnwedding feel basically,” Aubrun said. Dining Services will use Tuesday’s dinner to spotlight the student groups working around the clock to keep Brown green. One of these groups is the Food Recovery Network, which regularly delivers leftover food to those in need. Students from the group will set up shop in the Ratty Tuesday to educate students on the 30-60 pounds of leftovers the FRN collects each day, from locations such as Blue State and the Blue Room.
can make sure things are implemented.” “Doing something in the arts is the number one thing that students check off ” for co-curricular interests, Locke said. “We want to make sure we have the strongest possible programs for the students we are already attracting.” The Arts Initiative is an essential part of promoting “integrative scholarship,” one of the four central commitments of Building on Distinction. Locke called this interdisciplinary focus “quintessentially Brown.” As it stands now, Bergeron said the Arts Initative Planning Committee is working on a plan that she hopes
will be approved by the end of this fiscal year. The plan will propose a fundraising framework for the initiative and make it clear to “both the internal and external community” what opportunities will be available, she said. The academic details of the plan are not finalized, but they will have a broad and significant impact on students in any of the arts departments, she said. For example, Bergeron said funding is already in place for a new initiative that will bring professors of the practice to the University, enabling prominent artists to build committed relationships with Brown. Thalia Field, chair of the Planning Committee and a professor of
literary arts, said the plan will include an “interdepartmental, collaborative new set of programs and resources.” For example, the plan will support winter sessions and more collaboration with RISD. “There will be new areas of growth and coordination in both artistic and scholarly events,” such as festivals and symposiums, as well as new opportunities for courses, she said. “The plan calls for more production spaces for students from across the campus,” Field said, as well as “enhanced student and faculty access, especially for interdisciplinary students or non-concentrators.” “I’ve been here 20 years, and this is the most exciting time that’s come around.”
To attract diners to its stand, Megan Kelly ’17, a member of FRN, said her group will set up a “blender-bike,” which Ratty-goers can ride to power their own drinks. As students cycle, the bike will blend fruits, milk and yogurt into a self-powered smoothie. Depending on pedaling ability, bikers should have a smoothie in two to three minutes. Aubrun expects the bike to act as the crowning piece of the event. “It’s kind of the sustainability version of the photo booth,” she said. Those not interested in exercising for their meal can seek their gastronomical entertainment elsewhere. Throughout the night, a real-time account of how much discarded dinner is generated will be recorded on a white board by students from Brown
Green Events, an initiative that helps make campus events as sustainable as possible. While they count, the members of the Green Events team will make use of their position by the waste station to teach students the dos and don’ts of composting Ratty food. Beginning this July, Brown will begin enforcing composting at all dining locations. Carlie Peters ’16, a Green Event Certification Intern and former Herald design editor, said students aren’t always clear on what goes where, which means Brown’s compost can end up contaminated. Because there’s no “clean product,” much of it is shipped to a pig farm, and the rest ends up dumped in the trash. Peters said Green Events will be on deck Tuesday night to
tell students they’ll “be able to compost everything (they)’re eating tonight, except for the staple in the tea bag.” This, she said, will have to be taken out by hand. The Ratty’s not the only dining place getting a makeover this Earth Day. The Blue Room will set aside its traditional Wednesday evening naked burrito to make room for the grain bowl, embellished with quinoa, kale, pomegranate and sunflower seeds. Andrews will also do its part to honor local foods with cheese samples from Narragansett Creamery and grinders with Daniele Charcuterie’s meats. Even the ice cream sandwiches will feature coffee syrup from Dave’s Coffee on South Main Street. Rarely does a meal credit stretch so far.
NEWS
PAGE 4 • TUESDAY, APRIL 19, 2016
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Hillary Clinton advisor connects women’s rights, foreign policy Jennifer Klein ’87 discusses intersection of women’s rights with economics, national security By ELENA RENKEN SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Jennifer Klein ’87, senior advisor to Hillary Clinton and adjunct professor of law at Georgetown Law Center, spoke at the School of Public Health Thursday, delivering a lecture titled “Women’s Health and Rights: A Matter of National Security?” The women’s rights movement remains in the national dialogue even as people assume that gender balances no longer persist in the modern era, Klein said. Even in the last 20 years since the landmark 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women, women’s rights advocates have made a great deal of progress. Over those 20 years, change has not
always been easy, Klein said. Describing her experience working on Capitol Hill, Klein remarked on how difficult it can be to gain acceptance of women’s issues in some political circles. “It wasn’t so much resistance — they just hadn’t thought about women as important,” she told The Herald. “For some, it was quite a revelation.” But more and more people, both on Capitol Hill and beyond, are beginning to realize that advancing women’s rights is both just and practical, Klein said. “A growing body of evidence demonstrates why promoting gender equality is related to stability, progress, development and peace.” Klein’s lecture concentrated on the connection between women’s health
and foreign policy and highlighted the role of women’s health in conflict. She pointed out how rape is used as a strategic tool in warfare and how the health of women suffers in times of conflict. “One thing that stuck out to me was how easy it is to destabilize a community by raping its women,” said Denise Marte MD’19, who attended Klein’s talk. “It’s something that I knew happened, but I didn’t think about the implications that much.” Bianca Jambhekar GS, a master’s student at the School of Public Health, was surprised by the talk’s emphasis on foreign policy. “My expectation was that we were going to cover more U.S. issues,” she said. In her role as advisor to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Klein allocates most of her time to domestic issues, which voters value
more highly, she told The Herald. She focuses on causes such as equal pay, paid leave, child care and minimum wage. While many refer to these as “women’s economic issues,” she refers to them only as “economic issues.” Klein also devotes much of her time to women’s health, particularly reproductive health. “People are convinced by evidence,” Klein told The Herald, citing a McKinsey and Company study suggesting that achievable increased economic participation by women could result in a 1 percent annual increase in gross domestic product. Organizations like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are now working on issues of gender, she added. “People can see it’s an investment that actually works.” But there is still much to be done, Klein said. The United States is one
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of seven member states in the United Nations that has not ratified the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which is often described as an international bill of rights for women. More research is also needed in the areas of women’s rights and health — there isn’t enough information about women’s unpaid work or the births, deaths and marriages of women in many locations around the globe, Klein said. Still, women’s issues have come into the spotlight during this election season, concerning Hillary Clinton’s campaign in particular, Klein said. “If you care about reproductive rights and health, it’s entirely clear that all of the Republicans remaining in the field are really downright harmful,” Klein told The Herald. “There’s a huge amount at stake for women.”
TODAY
TUESDAY, APRIL 19, 2016 • PAGE 5
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
the post-spring weekend green
menu SATELLITE DINING ANDREWS COMMONS
Pizza: Bacon Chicken Ranch, Spinach & Feta, Pepperoni & Meatball Pasta: Meatball, Mac and Cheese JOSIAH’S
BLUE ROOM
Quesadillas
Three Bean Chili, Butternut Squash Soup, Chicken Kadhai
DINING HALLS SHARPE REFECTORY LUNCH
DINNER
Vegan Tempeh with Linguini, Beef Burritos, Grilled Turkey Burgers, Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Special Earth Day Dinner! RI Quahog Chowder, Braised Chicken & Pesto, Bruschetta Bar
VERNEY-WOOLLEY LUNCH
DINNER
Beef Noodle Soup, Shaved Steak Sandwich, Vegan Tofu Veggie Ravioli, Mashed Potato Bar
Vegan Minestrone Soup, Tuscan Pork Roast, Pastito, Elbow Macaroni, Sponge Cake Jelly Roll
sudoku
SAM BERUBE / HERALD
Students soak up the sun on the Main Green following an action-packed Spring Weekend. Brown is preparing for Tuesday’s start of A Day on College Hill, which will bring over 850 prospective students to campus.
Q U O T E O F T H E D AY
“It’s kind of the sustainability version of the photo booth.” — Isabelle Auburn ’16
RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Los Angeles Times Puzzle c r o sDaily s w oCrossword rd
See BDS on PAGE 1.
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
ACROSS 1 “Yeah, like that’s gonna happen” 5 “That’s clear now” 9 Honored with a big bash 14 New Jersey or California city 15 French champagne maker founded in Germany 16 Bakery lure 17 Maximum impact 19 Olympic racer since 2008 20 Staggering dizzily 21 Get dizzy 23 “__ out!” 25 Suffix with switch 26 DJ’s stack 27 Accessory for note-taking 31 __ Wiedersehen 33 Lang. of Florence 34 Close pal 40 Slush __ 41 JFK overseer 42 Food Network’s “Beat Bobby __” 43 Healthy, with “in” 47 IRS agent 48 Ukr. neighbor 49 Softball of a question 51 Little newt 54 Pokes fun at 57 Baseball : ump :: football : __ 58 Beach footwear 61 British elevators 65 What the suffix “phile” means 66 Achilles’ heel 68 Stood 69 Italian automaker since 1899 70 Melt fish 71 Tentative bite 72 Airing, as a sitcom 73 Safecracker DOWN 1 __ Romeo: sports car 2 Like lemons 3 Doing nothing
4 Office cabinet document holder 5 Texter’s “If you ask me” 6 Browse websites 7 Oscars host, e.g. 8 Mideast VIP 9 British Invasion nickname 10 Humorist Bombeck 11 Poisonous 12 Correct, as text 13 Game that drives home a point? 18 Envelope part 22 Pumpernickel buy 24 U.K. fliers 27 Annoy 28 Storage case for tiny scissors 29 “Death in Venice” author Thomas 30 Senseless 32 Six for you, six for me, e.g. 35 Posed 36 Bit of folklore 37 Giggly Muppet 38 Tandoori bread 39 Physics unit
44 On the house 45 Disney’s “__ and the Detectives” 46 Place for a hoop 50 Get bought up quickly 51 Key above D 52 Fauna’s partner 53 Records for later, in a way 55 Super, at the box office
56 Where rain falls mainly on the plain 59 Bothersome insect 60 Doc’s “Now!” 62 Santa’s access 63 Zesty flavor 64 Loot 67 Off-road transport, briefly
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Project 2019 Ice Cream Party 4:00 P.M. CareerLAB
Earth Week Sustainability Fair 4:30 P.M. Wriston Quad
Conversations with a Brazilian Drug Dealer 5:00 P.M. Watson Institute
Fashion@Brown Industry Panel 6:00 P.M. Granoff Center, Studio One
TOMORROW Islam 101 2:00 P.M. Champlain Hall Basement, Muslim Student Center
‘The Archive of Gestures’ 5:00 P.M. Granoff Center
Banished — Film Screening 5:30 P.M. J. Walter Wilson, Room 302
Breaking the Silence: An Interactive Exhibit 6:00 P.M. Campus Center, Lower Blue Room
COMMENTARY PAGE 6 • TUESDAY, APRIL 19, 2016
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COMMENTARY TUESDAY, APRIL 19, 2016 • PAGE 7
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
DeMarco reminds us what it means to rock RONAN O’SHEA staff columnist In the drunken debauchery that pervaded College Hill on Spring Weekend, as many students staggered down Thayer and waded through the broken glass and discarded Natural Light cans on Angell, it was easy to miss the supreme musical talent that graced the Main Green on Saturday night. There, Mac DeMarco and his band of merry misfits took the stage and delivered a rock ‘n’ roll show of rare quality. And what a rare phrase to hear in 2016: “rock ‘n’ roll.” As college students in this age, we are bombarded by the music of the day, which has all but abandoned the rocking tendencies of our forefathers. Live music is dominated by D.J.s behind their MacBook Pros and rappers acting more as hype men than actual performers as their tracks play behind them. And while I’ve had many massive nights at shows like these, I find myself yearning for the spontaneity, imperfection and nervous energy that only a live band with loud drums and cranked amps can provide. From the start of Saturday’s show, it was clear that DeMarco’s jams would bring precisely this aesthetic to my tired eyes and nauseous ears.
In a style reminiscent of decades of Grateful Dead shows, the band waded into the show gently. Woozy guitars backed DeMarco’s smooth baritone as the sun set behind University Hall. Keyboardist Hippie John lazed in the background, sometimes contributing to the music, other times puffing cigarettes and staring at the crowd behind dark sunglasses. And just like at any Dead concert, a thick haze of weed smoke began to fill the orange sky.
Videos of band members dancing with an animated dinosaur in front of the V-Dub, chilling on the Meeting Street benches and sitting on couches in Faunce played repeatedly on the LED screen at the back of the stage. This endearing move was furthered by the constant interaction between the band and the crowd, with DeMarco bowing to our demand to hear the mysterious Hippie John speak and noting the addresses of places to hang
The shift in mood that overtook the band as the night went on is what elevated this show from a pleasant evening outing to the majestic display of rock bombast it became. The slacker tunes that fill DeMarco’s albums gave way to overdriven jams and drawn out interludes. A crowd that had swayed gently now moved violently, filled with the same power that drove the music. The band further increased the energy by taking
Just as the surfer searches for the perfect wave or the vintner for the perfect grape, these moments of joy, of the collective euphoria of a crowd moving to the soundtrack of crashing drums and wailing guitars, are what I seek most from live music. The illicit stench was a welcome alternative to the stink of spilt beer that permeated many spots on campus by Saturday afternoon. In the same way, DeMarco offered a respite from the clutter all around, cutting through the noise with clean guitar solos. The band brought a local feel unusual for an act that’s played everywhere from Brooklyn to Auckland. An early shoutout to the East Side Mini Mart was followed by psychedelic projections from a familiar setting.
after the show. At one point, bassist Pierce McGarry grew exasperated with the chit chat, saying there were two ways the show could go: “We can talk, or we can rock.” What followed was a suitable balance of the two. I appreciated DeMarco’s acknowledgment that this music stuff need not be so serious, that there is always room for pauses, interruptions and shenanigans outside a dining hall or a quick smoke between tunes.
turns surfing the crowd, bumming cigs and at least one birthday hat in the process. This crescendoed in a brief instrumental cover of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” which turned the mass of usually tame Ivy Leaguers into a pack of crazed lunatics. Just as the surfer searches for the perfect wave or the vintner for the perfect grape, these moments of joy, of the collective euphoria of a crowd moving to the soundtrack of crashing drums and wailing guitars, are what
I seek most from live music. And for the first time since I arrived in Providence, DeMarco delivered the goods. In a move of suave maturity, the frontman calmed the proceedings for the final song, a ballad of love sung with his girlfriend on stage. Before leaving, he reassured all with a manner smoother than a Bing Crosby croon that, “The night is still young.” He left us with the hope that the good times needn’t end here, that as spring arrives and the trees blossom, our spirits can lift and our battered souls can be made whole. And how apt a reminder it is in an environment where complacency can so easily taint our appreciation for the beauty of our situation. As if to hammer this message home, the band returned to the stage for a triumphant cover of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” The crowd was first filled with the spastic energy from earlier and next with awe as the song was lost in drone and feedback while DeMarco ripped the strings from his guitar like a Canadian Jimi Hendrix. After witnessing this quintessentially rock ‘n’ roll display, we returned to the April night filled with his passion and a transformed perspective of what live music can be in 2016.
Ronan O’Shea ’19 can be reached at ronan_oshea@brown.edu.
What about international internships? MILI MITRA staff columnist When I started scrolling through BrownConnect and other online portals for summer internships in the United States, the first thing I looked for wasn’t the pay or hours per week. I was just on the hunt for a single phrase: “International applicants are welcome to apply.” The line came up quite often, but for all the internships I desperately wanted? You guessed it — I wasn’t eligible. This story is an increasingly common one for international students. As The Herald recently reported, the internship search is especially precarious for students from outside the United States. Many positions, particularly ones in the humanities and social sciences, are designated for American students. And even if companies are technically open to hiring foreigners, they tend to prefer U.S. citizens to avoid visa complications and related hassles. The result: Approximately 10 percent of our student body faces an almost Sisyphean task of finding a fulfilling summer internship every year. Of course, many of these barriers are institutional and unavoidable. One of the most frustrating is the unfathomable concept of Curricular Practical Training. Essentially, the only way international students are able to legally accept paid internships in the United States during their undergraduate years is to use the CPT, a temporary visa authorization. To be eligible for CPT, students have to find internships that are
“integral to your major” and “part of your program of study.” This seems straightforward on paper, but in reality the standard is painfully tedious. For an internship to be truly deemed “integral,” international students at Brown have to create independent studies based on their internships and under their declared concentrations for the fall semester. It is no surprise that this is generally thought to be more trouble than a regular internship is worth. But aside from the institutional immigration obstacles facing international students,
The most obvious solution would be to increase the quantity and diversity of international internship opportunities offered to students on BrownConnect or other platforms. As anyone who has used BrownConnect can attest to, the resource is great for finding internships in New York City, Washington D.C. and the Bay Area. But for most other locations, it can be little more than a smoke screen. Likewise, its international opportunities are generally limited and linked to only a few areas of study. While there are numerous development and finance
A lot more can be done to make the international internship hunt less of an Everest and more of a Kilimanjaro.
there are other difficulties closer to campus. Brown’s CareerLAB and Office of International Student and Scholar Services both do a great job of reaching out to international students and alerting them of special considerations. I, for one, would have completely forgotten about CPT restrictions (and tax forms!) if not for a timely email from the Office of International Student and Scholar Services last month. That being said, a lot more can be done to make the international internship hunt less of an Everest and more of a Kilimanjaro.
positions listed, there are very few for students interested in fields like journalism and the arts. Though international companies might be less aware of university-specific resources like BrownConnect, there is another massive untapped network available: international alumni associations. Many local alumni networks find internships for students they know, but these opportunities should be brought onto mainstream platforms so that they are available to all. Brown should also expand its international
summer programs to create global opportunities similar to iProv and Careers in the Common Good in New York City. Programs like these have been successfully implemented for business, entrepreneurship and organization concentrators, creating specialized international internships with partner organizations in Hong Kong, India and Madrid. Though it might not be practical to see this conducted on a university-wide scale, other departments should consider following its lead and providing international exposure to concentrators. Finally, Brown can undertake a range of minor changes to increase support for international students during the frenzied internship search. I would love to see more focused information and preparation sessions for international applications and interviews, since the majority of career events are understandably tailored to the American process. It is also incomprehensible that the LINK Award due dates for international internships are in midMarch, when many international opportunities are finalized much closer to the summer. Pushing the deadline back by even a couple of weeks could make a world of difference. Whether we like it or not, summer internships have become as important as grades and coursework in securing future careers. It is time for all qualified students — including international ones — to have access to the full suite of options because, quite frankly, the quest for an internship is enough of a nightmare as it is.
Mili Mitra ’18 can be reached at mili_mitra@brown.edu.
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NEWS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
TUESDAY, APRIL 19, 2016
Composting to be implemented campus-wide by fall 2016 After pilot in Andrews in spring 2015 yields contamination, BDS to introduce new system By NICHOLAS WEY STAFF WRITER
As of the fall 2016 semester, the University will have implemented composting programs across all dining halls, a development that follows a pilot program launched in spring 2015 in Andrews Dining Commons. The revitalized composting program will be introduced in the Sharpe Refectory, the Blue Room and the Verney-Woolley Dining Hall July 1, and other dining halls will follow suit later in the summer. The Office of Energy and Environment and Brown Dining Services led the initial composting program. The pilot program arrived on the heels of a report issued by the Brown Student Compost Initiative, SCRAP, which called for campus-wide composting. The program garnered success early on in its pilot semester, but issues arose after student volunteers monitoring the filtering of waste left the program. Without volunteers to aid students, the contamination rate of non-compostable items rose from between 5 and 10 percent to between 20 and 25 percent. Earth Care Farms, the compostprocessing facility for the University, would not accept the compost due to the labor costs of sorting contaminants. This problem halted the project, inhibiting its return this fall. The University ran a pilot program to prevent any issues that would arise
with the introduction of composting, said Christopher Powell, assistant vice president of Sustainable Energy and Environmental Initiatives, who has helped to lead Brown’s composting initiative. “We gathered a lot of good data, and we had an incredible amount of volunteers and paid interns managing that process.” The new program will aim to address the major issue of cross-contamination. Staff members at the dining halls will tackle issues of “front-house” infrastructure by changing composting bins from open-topped to hooded in an attempt to make students think more about how they are disposing of waste. The University will also try to minimize non-compostable products in the dining halls and standardize the assortment of different dinnerware distributed by campus eateries. New color coding, logos and lettering will make sorting easier by differentiating trash, recycling and compost bins. Finally, the University may implement an “opt-in” layout, separating the composting area from the other waste receptacles. But as Powell remarks, “Students are the key to this.” In the coming months, and especially at the start of the fall semester, the sustainability program will make more concerted efforts to reach out and form a new “composting culture” within the student body. “When we went in to the University to fund the composting program, we also requested funds to bolster the communication and awareness in order to, pardon the pun, provide a sustainable way to continue the program,” Powell said. “Back of the house, we can work with our dining staff and even eliminate contamination to a point, but the real
issue is getting the students’ attention on how to do it properly.” The majority of composting waste comes from the kitchens and food preparation areas. Many schools across the country only compost waste from these areas, Powell added. But Jessica Berry, the University’s sustainability program manager, said that a composting program that involves student participation is vital to the culture of Brown, which prides itself on sustainability and innovative ideas. “There will be a huge student component,” Berry said, adding that students will be involved in “everything from having initial volunteers at the facilities when they open to having fun events to teach students, staff and faculty why composting is important to Brown, Providence and Rhode Island as a whole.” Currently, 12 student interns in the sustainability management office are dedicated to rolling out the composting program. A large force of student volunteers will help get the effort off the ground this fall. The return of this initiative falls in accordance with the recently passed Rhode Island Refuse Disposal Law, which took effect Jan. 1. The law stipulates that institutions must compost if they generate more than two tons of organic waste per week and are within a 15-mile radius of a composting facility. But according to Powell, the main reason the composting initiative will start July 1 is that the date marks the start of Brown’s fiscal year. The University has budgeted $100,000 to fund the new initiative — an expense that comes primarily from the costs of transporting
CONTAMINATION INCREASED
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AFTER VOLUNTEERS STOPPED MONITORING COMPOSTING BINS AT ANDREWS IN SPRING 2016 KATE TALERICO / HERALD
and processing the compost. As Princeton adopted composting in its campus dining halls this past fall, Brown will soon become the final Ivy League institution to implement a viable food waste composting system — which will be a permanent adjustment,
Powell said. “It’s a culture change,” Powell said. “Culture change doesn’t happen overnight; it takes years. We need to make sure that students leaving the University have these skills that they take with them into the real world.”
Undergraduates win top honor at international math contest Team’s winning model would improve access to water, predicting how policy changes will affect water scarcity By KATE TALERICO NEWS EDITOR
Julia Gross ’18, Clayton Sanford ’18 and Geoffrey Kocks ’18 notched top performances in the Interdisciplinary Contest for Modeling, a mathematical competition that involved over 5,000 teams from across the world and took place earlier this semester. Results were announced April 11. The team received an outstanding winner designation, the highest in the
contest, for its work on improving access to clean water worldwide, said Veronica Ciocanel GS, who helped to advise several teams of undergraduates who participated in the competition. “We didn’t expect to do well,” Sanford said. Rather, he and his teammates had hoped to spend a weekend researching a topic that interested them and gain new skills in writing and researching a report under time constraints. While Sanford said that the model
his team used to predict water scarcity was relatively simple, the underlying research that supported the model was more difficult to gather. “You could probably present this math to a middle school classroom, if they know algebra,” Gross said of the project. A biology concentrator, she valued her team’s use of clean formulas to construct the model. The team not only focused on math, but also researched how certain policy changes would affect water scarcity. “Agriculture had one of the biggest effects,” Sanford added. Three other teams of
undergraduates gained honorable mentions in a similar mathematics contest, the Mathematical Contest for Modeling, which is held alongside the ICM and follows the same rules. While the ICM poses interdisciplinary questions to contestants, the MCM poses more strictly mathematical questions. Martin Carlsen ’16, Julia Romanski ’16 and Sorin Vatasoiu ’17 modeled how a philanthropic foundation interested in improving undergraduate education could distribute funds. They used real, large datasets from educational institutions. Their team ranked in the top 45 percent of scorers. Samuel Angelo Crisanto ’16, Ekaterina Kryuchkova ’17 and Zachary Loery ’17 also secured an honorable mention for their work on a strategy to maintain the temperature in a hot bathtub that would optimize the overall use of water. Yimou Li ’17, Zitao Quan ’17 and Zheng Shi ’18, who worked on the same prompt, received an honorable mention as well. The competitions took place over the course of four days. During that time, students downloaded the prompts online, strategized how they would solve the problem and then worked to implement their solution. “It’s really hard to plan out what to do over four days,” said Marshall Jiang GS, who also helped to advise
the undergraduates in preparation for the competition. To help the contestants become more effective in allocating their time during the actual competition, Ciocanel and Jiang created their own local competition in November, a smallerscale version of the international competition that took place over two days, rather than four. “It was a little easier for people to commit to a local competition that they could do over a weekend,” Ciocanel said. After engaging in the shorter competition, the students were less reluctant to commit to the lengthier contest, which took place in February. “There were teams that went to the ICM in the past, but it was not in an organized manner,” Ciocanel said. This year, with the help of the local contest, the teams performed better than they had in previous years. The team that earned an outstanding winner designation will publish the results of its project in an undergraduate publication compiled by the ICM, Sanford said. Gross encouraged even those with little math experience to gain hands-on experience in the field. “The way math forces us to make quantitative sense of the world is a useful tool for anyone regardless of their formal background in math,” she said.
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