SINCE 1891
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016
VOLUME CLI, ISSUE 54
WWW.BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM
Students protest alum’s performance Grossman ’00 performs Hindu chants, responds to questions about cultural appropriation By SHAWN YOUNG STAFF WRITER
MARIANNA MCMURDOCK / HERALD
Joe Lonsdale speaks to students at an event sponsored by the Brown Entrepreneurship Program. During his talk, Lonsdale discussed milestones in his career, ranging from interning at PayPal to founding his own company.
Brown EP hosts tech exec Joe Lonsdale Given Lonsdale’s past relationship with student mentee, WiCS holds alternative event By ELENA RENKEN SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Joe Lonsdale, founder of Palantir Technologies, Addepar and 8VC, spoke about his business experience and professional philosophy in a talk hosted by the Brown University Entrepreneurship Program Thursday afternoon in MacMillan Hall. An event titled “Healthy Relationships in Your Workplace” was hosted
by Women in Computer Science, a student organization, at the same time as Lonsdale’s talk. Brown EP previously told a student that the event would be canceled after she expressed concerns over charges of sexual harassment and assault that a Stanford alum — who had been in an allegedly abusive relationship with Lonsdale while she was an undergraduate — filed against him last year. The charges were dropped in November, and Stanford lifted a ban that prohibited Lonsdale from campus grounds. Still, because Lonsdale was found to have violated the university’s code of conduct with regard to disclosing consensual
mentor-student relationships, Stanford did not lift the temporary teaching and mentoring suspension it had imposed on him. After consulting with administrators and other campus groups, Brown EP decided to go forward with the event, The Herald previously reported. “A few misguided activists may have had some issue, but we didn’t see them and would have been happy to educate them if we had,” wrote Anthony Ghosn, Lonsdale’s chief of staff, in an email to The Herald. Ghosn also told The Herald that the University’s Title IX Office and the » See LONSDALE, page 2
A group of about 15 students protested a performance entitled “An Evening of Devotional Music” by Carrie Grossman ’00 Thursday night. The performance was held in Smith-Buonanno Hall and was advertised as an “intimate evening of inquiry, music and meditation,” according to the description of the event on Facebook. Before Grossman began, student leaders of the Contemplative Studies Departmental Undergraduate Group issued an opening statement regarding the protesters: “We see ourselves, as well as anyone that engages in the fruits and perils of globalization that are running their course, as responsible for a constant and critical examination of our behaviors, beliefs and attitudes.” The DUG had previously found out about the planned protest of the event and added a question-and-answer session to the end of the performance. But the DUG leaders also said that while
they planned the event with good intentions, they “humbly acknowledge that those intentions do not preclude harm and hurt that we may have inflicted.” As Grossman began describing her experience with Hindu chanting, the students began to ask her questions on appropriation of Hindu culture. “How does your whiteness impact how you engage with these cultures?” one student asked. Another student said that Grossman’s website used “disturbing and appropriative language” because it says that she “enjoys … pretending to be a Vedic priestess.” Grossman addressed these questions by describing how she discovered chanting on a visit to India, saying that she “found (chanting) very powerful and very healing.” She then reiterated that there would be a discussion after her performance and began chanting. The student protestors continued to ask questions, but members of the audience, comprised of students, staff members and faculty members, turned around and asked them to be quiet. In addition, some of the audience members stood up and moved to where the protesters were sitting to ask them to leave. » See PROTEST, page 4
White House predicts Senior honored for local service, athletics ’16 honored soaring Providence deficit Rolandelli with Sarah Devens Award Deficit projected to jump 1,100 percent over 10 years due to long history of reckless spending By NICHOLAS WEY STAFF WRITER
The National Research Network, a component of the White House’s Strong Cities, Strong Communities Initiative, released a draft report Monday regarding the state of the financial deficit in Providence. The report found that the city will face a $176 million budget deficit in 10 years — a 1,100 percent increase from the fiscal gap today — if nothing is done to slow debt accumulation. According to Mayor Jorge Elorza, who announced the findings through a news release the same day, this issue primarily stems from four factors: largely unfunded pension and healthcare systems, a loss of state aid, the high carrying costs of the public workforce and the mismanagement of
INSIDE
infrastructure. The deficit is structural, which means a one-time source of revenue cannot fix the problem. But what does $176 million really mean? The NRN report estimates the baseline deficit for the 2019 fiscal year as $10 million. In purely monetary terms, $10 million is equivalent to the salaries of 105 police officers or a 4 percent commercial and residential tax increase across Providence. Still, these numbers all correlate to a budget shortage that is 17 times smaller than the projected 2026 deficit. As Elorza stated in an April 11 press release, Providence has become deeply entrenched in a cycle that “rewards short-term thinking and forces us to scramble for one-time fixes instead of focusing on the investments we need to succeed.” This statement applies most plainly to the city’s infrastructure. According to the report, the deferred maintenance to the city’s roads, bridges and schools acts as both a cause and a long-term effect of the city’s hasty fiscal choices. » See DEFICIT, page 3
for community service work, on-ice leadership By BEN SHUMATE SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Women’s hockey captain Alli Rolandelli ’16 was named the winner of the 2016 Sarah Devens Award last week, an annual award recognizing leadership and commitment both on and off the ice. The award, named after Dartmouth’s Sarah Devens, who died in 1995 during her senior year, is given to one women’s hockey player in either the ECAC or Hockey East conferences. Rolandelli is the second Brown athlete to receive the award, following in the footsteps of 2001 winner Christina Sorbara ’01. Rolandelli first began work in the Providence community her freshman year, volunteering in a first-grade classroom at Fox Point Elementary School. A project she has stuck with all four years at Brown, she calls the Thursday meetings with the
COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS
Alli Rolandelli ’16 was recognized for her work with Love Your Melon, a company aiming to provide hats to children battling cancer. first-graders her “favorite part of the from Brown in 2014, Rolandelli reweek.” turned to school with an even greater Rolandelli’s passion for helping drive to give back to Providence. “I children was inspired by her late felt like I needed to do more,” she said. mother, who dedicated her work to “I wanted to tie in my mom’s passion children as a day-care provider before and my passion for helping kids also her passing in 2014. “Kids are really with helping those who have cancer.” important to our future,” she said. “If She became familiar with a prowe can help them learn, enjoy them- gram founded in her native state of selves or be some sort of a role model, Minnesota called Love Your Melon, that’s something that I find really fun.” started in 2012 by two college students After taking a leave of absence » See ROLANDELLI, page 4
WEATHER
FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016
NEWS Over 900 admitted students flock to campus for A Day on College Hill, get taste of college scene
SPORTS Athlete of the Week: Will Gural ’16 finds success in face-off X to lead high-powered offense
COMMENTARY Friedman ’19: Mental health should be seen as communitywide issue on college campuses
COMMENTARY Steinman ’19: Students should be required to take one DPLL course before graduating
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