Thursday, September 22, 2016

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

VOLUME CLI, ISSUE 70

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Recent alum wins primary for Mass state legislature Goldstein-Rose ’16 heads into uncontested general election, emphasizes education, environment

By KATHERINE LUO STAFF WRITER

NAOMY PEDROZA / HERALD

UCS voted to hold an executive session, closing the near entirety of the meeting to the public Wendesday. The meeting was closed to create a safe space for council members to discuss mental health and sexual assault.

UCS closes meeting to public to create safe space Closed meeting marks major departure for body, which discussed sexual assault, mental health

By ROSE SHEEHAN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The Undergraduate Council of Students closed its general body meeting “to the public and the press” Wednesday night, said UCS President Viet Nguyen ’17.

“We wanted to provide a safe space for students to engage in difficult conversations without the media’s pressure there,” he added.

The meeting, which included a visit from Eric Estes, vice president for campus life and student services, Mary Grace Almandrez, assistant vice president and dean of students, and Marylou McMillan, assistant vice president for campus life, was focused on discussing issues — such as mental health and sexual assault — that the council hopes to address this

year, Nguyen said.

“We didn’t want students to feel like what they would say or the questions that they would ask would be plastered on the newspaper,” Nguyen said. “We wanted to create sort of a safe space where students could learn without the public looking in because we want students to engage with these really hard conversations in a private setting.”

Estes described the meeting as “a casual meet and greet with most of » See UCS, page 3

Solomon Goldstein-Rose ’16 won the Democratic state primary for the Third Hampshire District seat in Massachusetts Sept. 8. As he is running unopposed in the general election, Goldstein-Rose has effectively won the seat for Massachusetts State Legislature.

The district is known for its young population, placing Goldstein-Rose in a unique position to represent the young voices of his generation. As a state representative, Goldstein-Rose will serve as one of 200 state legislators to make laws, set budgets and advocate positions in his platform. In particular, he is dedicated to environmentalism and education reform.

“I’ve been an environmental activist my whole life,” Goldstein-Rose said. “My parents have always been involved with politics, and they talked about politics at home.” While he entered the University intending to study chemical engineering, Goldstein-Rose shifted his

focus over the course of his education.

“Instead of inventing something amazing, I decided to work on the policies that would govern those inventions,” Goldstein-Rose said.

He calls education reform his longterm project. Timelines for some of his plans extend “for decades to come” while others can be implemented within months. Among reforms of interest, he listed better funding for public schools, changes in testing and updated teacher evaluation practices. Goldstein-Rose will also look to reform education culture by introducing diversity and inclusion workshops and training, he added.

In terms of environmentalism, Goldstein-Rose said long-term thinking is the wrong framework in which to consider the issue, which he calls “urgent.”

He cited carbon pollution as a leading problem that could be rectified with carbon pricing, which charges carbon emissions to both discourage its use and return revenue to residents in the form of a dividend. Having spearheaded the push for a carbon pricing bill that was passed in Rhode Island, he is now looking to get the same bill passed in Massachusetts.

The issues Goldstein-Rose aims to tackle are daunting, and he recognizes » See PRIMARY, page 2

Watson reports put price ‘Antisocial’ delves into Romanian student life TAPS screens play tag on post-9/11 wars criticizing rigid school Institute researchers estimate that past, present, future costs of conflict total $4.8 trillion

By RACHEL GOLD SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The money flows out — from public and private coffers to military contractors, overseas partners and veteran hospitals. Territory is gained and lost, flags raised and lowered and bodies buried.

The transactions — financial, physical and human — add up.

The total cost, determined by the Costs of War Project at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, paints the picture of an indefinite war predicated on appropriations without a delineated budget or defined costs. By bringing together an international cohort of scholars, human rights practitioners, lawyers and other experts, the Costs of War Project hopes to transform this approach to military campaigns.

Over the past two months, the project put out two reports defining certain costs

INSIDE

from the past 15 years of post-9/11 conflict: a $4.8 trillion budgetary price tag, which includes past, present and future obligations as well as the 173,000 lives lost in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The reports are for “anybody who is interested,” said Neta Crawford, professor of political science at Boston University and one of three directors of the project.

“I am interested in policy makers; I am interested in the average person. I try to write clearly … so that anybody from high school student to policy maker can have insights.”

Another audience targeted by the report is journalists, said Stephanie Savell GS, a doctoral candidate in anthropology and another of the project’s directors.

“This astronomical figure is never calculated all in one place by anyone so the idea is that if we can get this information out to journalists, they can get it out to the public.”

The project’s reports are especially important in the context of the 2016 election, Crawford said. “Perhaps part of the impetus is the American public might want to think about” the policy » See COST OF WAR, page 3

culture, isolating nature of social media platforms

By ETHEL RENIA STAFF WRITER

“Antisocial,” a production by Romania’s Radu Stanca National Theatre and written and directed by Bogdan Georgescu, was screened by the Theatre Arts and Performance Studies department with subtitles in the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts Tuesday and Wednesday.

The play is a meticulous study of how a scandal involving a prestigious high school in a Romanian town affected the community’s students, parents and teachers.

The piece is based on a real scandal that rocked a provincial town in Romania in 2015 after a group of seven teenagers took the age-old practice of bad-mouthing their teachers to a new and evidently more dangerous platform: social media. They created a secret group on Facebook where 800 members

ARTS & CULTURE

NAOMI PEDROZA / HERALD

‘Antisocial,’ screened in the Granoff Tuesday and Wednesday, explores the influence of free speech and social media on Romanian student life. participated in ridiculing their teachers.

But the posts were soon leaked to the local press, leading to a national scandal.

The scandal started a debate about “freedom of expression, privacy on social media and the rights of students,” according to the flier distributed at the screening. But the school eventually dropped the charges against the students, as it was primarily interested in preserving its prestige.

Georgescu criticizes what he views

as an overly rigid educational system and the widespread use of social media that seems to isolate more than it brings together.

The play is split into five scenes ­— the opening and closing scenes feature the students, the second and fourth show the teachers’ perspective on the issue and the third records the parents’ reactions when faced with the scandal.

All three groups seem to be very » See ANTISOCIAL, page 4

WEATHER

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

ARTS & CULTURE Pokémon Go offers mental, physical health benefits, brings U. community together

ARTS & CULTURE List Art Center to host third consecutive Brazilian film festival, help close cultural divide

COMMENTARY Friedman ’19: Housing lottery flawed, U. should offer residential system alternatives

COMMENTARY Steinman ’19: College rankings distract from value of undergraduate teaching

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Warburg unpacks American solar energy potential Author breaks down five largest opportunities for solar energy in United States in lecture, book

By ISABEL GENSLER SENIOR STAFF WRITER

“Solar is a technology that most of us have very close proximity to in our daily lives, and, in that respect, it is

very different from the traditional power technologies that we are accustomed to,” said author Philip Warburg in his lecture “From the Sidelines to Center-Stage: Opportunities and Challenges Facing Solar Power in

LILY NGUYEN / HERALD

Philip Warburg spoke at length Wednesday on the potential for the expansion of solar power across the United States of America.

» PRIMARY, from page 1 he will not resolve them by himself.

Taking advantage of the time he would have spent on further campaigning for the general election, Goldstein-Rose is already meeting with other legislators to gauge who has similar visions and whom

he can look to for wisdom and advice.

For fellow Brown students interested in politics or legislation, Goldstein-Rose has simple advice: Just do it. “Brown students have a unique opportunity — Rhode Island is so small,” he said. “If you want to get involved, Brown is a 15-minute walk from the State House.

America” Wednesday evening.

Warburg, author of “Harness the Sun: America’s Quest for a Solar Powered Future,” addressed the five main sectors in which solar energy is expanding: residential, commercial and industrial, utility-scale solar, brownfields and floating solar.

Nearly 40 percent of total nationwide power needs could be supplied from rooftop solar alone, according to a study conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in January, Warburg said. A new program developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology called “Mapdwell” uses laser-based light detection to create “a very precise picture of what the solar power potential would be of literally every rooftop in the cities that it has surveyed,” Warburg said. The program also allows for individuals interested in installing solar panels to get price and payback estimates for their homes, calculating in a 10-year loan at a 5 percent interest rate.

“Putting solar panels on my roof is something I’ve considered, but because of the price, I have not decided yet,” said Manuel Jourtain,

a member of the Providence community. Warburg’s talk encouraged Jourtain to read more about the topic in the future.

“Between 60 and 65 percent of our commercial and industrial building stock is suitable” for solar panels, in comparison to 22 to 27 percent of housing because of shading and orientation problems, Warburg said.

Walmart is one enterprise that has taken advantage of solar energy. The company now has solar panels on 330 of its distribution centers and retail complexes. Kohl’s and IKEA are following suit, as well as other “lesser-known solar pioneers.”

Utility-scale solar has the potential to supply the nation’s power needs in just 35 percent of the 88 million acres devoted to corn and ethanol production, Warburg said. In San Luis Obispo, CA, an over 1,400acre solar plant provides energy for 100,000 California households. But the building of these plants poses threats to local wildlife. According to Warburg, land conservationists encourage keeping solar within “our built environment.” To address this

concern, the California plant set aside 12,000 acres under conservation easement in order to protect wildlife and built temporary dens for the foxes and kangaroo rats that would be affected by construction.

Brownfields — abondoned industrial properties — pose another option for solar plants. If every brownfield in the country were converted into a solar plant, three times the nation’s energy needs would be produced, Warburg said. These brownfield-turned-solar plants have popped up in the south side of Chicago and east of Sacramento, CA. One more promising solar industry is what Warburg called “floatovoltaics,” or floating solar. Solar panels are built to float on bodies of water, whose cooling effect actually makes solar energy capture up to 50 percent more efficiently, Warburg said. These solar rafts also provide the potential to help prevent evaporation. Warburg pointed out that this could be useful at Lake Mead, a 250-square-mile man-made lake that loses 6 percent of its volume every year due to evaporation.

Just walk over.” While he acknowledges the benefits of on-campus activism, he also encourages passionate students to expand their spheres of influence. “If you get a bill passed for Rhode Island, you affect at least a million and a half people, and you become a role model for other states,” he added.

COURTESY OF SOLOMON GOLDSTEIN-ROSE

Solomon Goldstein-Rose ’16 won a Democratic primary for the Massachusetts state legislature.

NEWS

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 • PAGE 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

» COST OF WAR, from page 1 proposals offered by this year’s candidates, she added.

The group’s efforts are also rendered important by the potential for a protracted fight against ISIS, said Catherine Lutz, professor of international studies and the third director of the project. “One of the dilemmas is following the violence — following the wars as they change and cross boundaries,” she said. “ISIS is in part a result of the war in Iraq. A very large part of its genesis comes out of the chaos that emerged when the U.S. invaded, so there’s going to be challenges like that.”

The first paper from the project, released in August, delineates some of the human costs of the war, updating a report on the same subject published in May 2015.

» UCS, from page 1 the time taken up by intros and then a couple of questions,” in an email to The Herald.

Discussion of “the structure of the administration, the structure of UCS” and “the history of activism” was also on the agenda, Nguyen said.

“It’s not uncommon for bylaws of governing bodies to allow for executive sessions for matters considered sensitive or confidential,” wrote Brian Clark, director of news and editorial

“Figures from the first six months of 2016 suggest that the trend in increased death and injury continues in Afghanistan, and that after a lull in 2015, Pakistan has become increasingly violent in the first half of 2016,” Crawford wrote in the paper. The number of Afghan deaths has started to increase even more than in previous years because the burden of fighting in the country is shifting to Afghan forces.

A sense of human cost in Pakistan is harder to put into figures because of targeted killings of journalists and the confidentiality of U.S. drone strike data.

Using sources, including reports put out by the U.S. Director of National Intelligence and the Pakistan Body Count, Crawford estimates there were 62,000 deaths in Pakistan from 2011 to 2015.

That figure is only expected to increase.

The consistently high rates of violence are the result of an assumption on both sides that force is the best means of success, according to Crawford. “The United States has a long history … of assuming that if somebody is not doing what you’d like them to do, and if they pose an actual threat, what you ought to do is threaten to use force. Now when we look at the other side, insurgents also assume that force works. We’re locked in a dynamic where both sides assume that force works, and we have to get out of that in order to stop killing each other.”

According to Crawford’s second paper, the U.S. system of funding the wars is also entrenched. The institutionalized costs of the wars consist of “increased weapons procurement, health care and active duty pay. There is little willingness in Congress to cut military spending,

even on very expensive items that the Pentagon has said it does not want or need.”

Beyond the growth in annual Pentagon appropriations and the mushrooming of Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs expenses is the astronomical costs of interest on U.S. debt. “Interest costs for overseas contingency operations spending alone are projected to add more than $1 trillion … to the national debt by 2023.

By 2053, interest costs will be at least $7.9 trillion unless the U.S. changes the way it pays for the wars,” according to the report.

As of now, the wars have been almost entirely financed by loans, as tax increases or other regularized income sources have not accompanied increases in expenditures. Not since the Revolutionary War has an American war been financed so

significantly by borrowing — and after that war, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton insisted the nation quickly repay the loans.

No such financial diuretic is in store this time, according to Savell. The cultural climate around military spending leads to a lack of critical questioning.

“Fear is part of the political dynamics of the post-9/11 wars,” she said. This has “led to widespread Congressional support, not just for war funding, but also for broader Department of Defense and massive Homeland Security spending.”

“We have to think about the economic stability of perpetual war,” Crawford said. “I’m just trying to help people understand what’s going on. I really am a person committed to democracy, and democracy requires truth and information and a willingness to look at evidence.”

development, in an email to The Herald.

“UCS has a set of bylaws to govern its operations, and its members directly manage meetings and other activities,” he added.

Under the council’s by-laws and code of operations, a two-thirds vote is required to close a meeting.

All returning members were allowed to vote, Nguyen said. About 30 members voted yea to close the meeting, with one nay and one abstaining.

Students are required to obtain 100 student signatures to join the council as

a general body member, according to the UCS website. Regardless of whether they had received the 100 student signatures necessary to become a voting member, all students intending to join UCS were allowed to remain at the meeting following the vote to close the session.

Whether future meetings will be closed to the public and the press is “unclear,” Nguyen said, adding that a calendar outlining closed and open meetings will be released soon.

The move to close nearly an entire meeting — and the possibility

that multiple meetings may be closed this semester — marks a clear shift in UCS’s approach to governance. A search through Herald archives and conversations with several regular attendees of UCS meetings over the last four years indicate that closed-session meetings have been conducted very sparingly since at least fall 2012.

Transparency is a “huge priority” for UCS, Nguyen said. The council has been pursuing this goal through “community building and building relationships directly with students and student

groups,” he added.

Nguyen has also made himself available to students over email and in person, he said.

“We wanted to sort of go directly to students,” Nguyen said. He added that he believes making closed meetings an option will increase student involvement in UCS decision-making.

“I think it encourages people to be more engaged knowing that there is a space where they can ask questions,” Nguyen said, adding, “Anyone can become a UCS member.”

www.browndailyherald.com

ARTS & CULTURE PAGE 4 • THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Pikachu, Charizard make virtual journey to Brown Augmented reality gaming app brings social, physical, mental health benefits to students

By MADISON RIVLIN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

This summer, gaming whizzes and augmented reality fanatics flooded parks, museums, monument malls and seemingly random corners of intersections in search of mythical beings like Lapras and Snorlax. The mobile and fictional creature-capture gaming worlds were taken by storm when software development company Niantic, Inc. released the newest addition to the ever-growing Pokémon franchise: Pokémon Go. As a free mobile app, Pokémon Go became extraordinarily popular immediately following its release, breaking the record for number of downloads within the week following its original release, according to Apple.

“I started playing it because it was a big hype, but then I got into it and got

» ANTISOCIAL, from page 1 preoccupied with the notion of prestige.

The teenage friend group is initially torn apart when faced with expulsion from their elite high school. Some of the students insist that they cannot afford to be kicked out of school. They eventually rally to stand up against the institution before eventually backing down in the face of the pressure their school and parents exert on them.

Meanwhile, the teachers, while offended by the posts leaked from the Facebook group, are at odds as to how to handle this situation. Some motion

addicted,” said Jack Nee ’17.

“It’s somewhat addictive,” said physical sciences librarian John Kromer.

“You’re always trying to get the next Pokémon because you gotta catch them all!”

The game’s interface itself has greatly contributed to its popularity, Kromer said. “I’m pretty much playing all the time now. It’s in the gameplay — you never know when a Pokémon is going to show up near you, and having the application open gets you experience.

It’s designed to be constantly played.”

Besides the setup of Pokémon Go itself, the augmented reality game’s widespread appeal partially stems from its nostalgic essence. Reminiscent of the program that dominated Gameboy and DS screens in the past two decades, Pokémon Go has captured the hearts of college students for its sentimental value.

“There’s a weird contrast between wanting to relive childhood excitement and becoming an adult in college completing more serious responsibilities,” said Alex Volpicello ’18. “Pokémon

Go helps you relive all of the nostalgia, excitement and feels and gives you a glimpse of how it used to be while you are assuming a more independent role in college.”

As an augmented realtiy game, players must move around to encounter, capture and battle creatures that exist in the virtual reality; thus, Pokémon Go has certain physical health benefits.

“When it first came out, I would go outside just to play (Pokémon Go),” Volpicello said. “It’s a really good way to relive childhood excitement while getting some exercise.”

“Though it’s not the reason why I play, I’m positive that I am walking a lot more, and I’m certainly enjoying it,” Kromer said.

Yet another draw is how the game lends itself to social interaction. “As (a residential peer leader), I use videogames to bring people together — it’s a great way to get to know people on campus,” Volpicello said.

“Sometimes I’m walking and I’ll meet someone new,” Nee added. “I’ve only had positive encounters with other

Pokémon Go players.”

Besides such obvious benefits with respect to physical health, some use Pokémon Go as a mental escape from the pressures and stresses of college life.

“It’s a great was to de-stress and separate yourself from all of the other things going on in your life. There’s

definitely certain stigmas surrounding gaming as an unhealthy, antisocial or nerdy activity when in actuality it can be just the opposite. Pokémon Go is a social instrument that can help regulate mental and physical health. I know lots of dude bro athletes that play Pokémon!” Volpicello said.

to expel the students and others want to lower the students’ “behavioral grades,” according to each student’s participation in the Facebook group. Finally, the last teacher, named Mr. Bondane, does not think the students should be punished at all. He believes that the teachers should help the students organize a humor magazine to allow them to exert their freedom of expression in a controlled environment. “You design their freedom … they feel free” and these situations don’t arise, Mr. Bondane says. But his proposal is rejected by the other teachers who believe that allowing the students to poke fun at them

publicly would discredit the reputation of the school.

The concept of prestige is also very important to the parents who don’t want their children to go to “industrial schools” with “the dredges of society … all the thieves and gypsies.” Some of the parents claim that they don’t want their children to have to pay for the “incompetence” of the teachers who don’t seem capable of inspiring respect. In order to protect their children’s positions in the ranks of the elite, they are willing to sue the school, or even bribe the teachers.

Social media plays a very important role in the production. Some students

and parents argue that the Facebook group should not be treated any differently from a group of students cursing out their teachers over beers. But social media gathered not a handful of friends but hundreds of people into shaming and diminishing the teachers — by posting in their secret Facebook group, the students left permanent marks when insulting their teachers, the play asserts.

Their method of expressing themselves proved to be far more powerful than they realized. “Everyone believes in this freedom of expression thing, for a second. ‘Till they get scared,” a student named Paul says.

Another way social media plays a big role in this story relates to the title of the play itself. In the final scene, the actors speak one by one as they divulge their character’s most personal thoughts, their faces lit up only by the brightness of their cell phone screens as they each take the microphone. But their moment of honesty takes place in complete darkness, so that none of the characters can see each other when they are at their most vulnerable.

Social media brought these students together and gave them the tools to express themselves but it made them more antisocial than ever.

ROLAND HIGH / HERALD

Visiting production critiques capitalism “Resistance (Happening)” showcases characters’ opposition to corporate greed, exploitation

By AILEEN SEO STAFF WRITER

Written and directed by Ioana B. Jucan ’11 MA’13 MA’15 PhD’17, “Resistance (Happening)” tells the story of three women — Anka, Roza and Clara — as they seek a way to resist corporate exploitation and greed. Performances were held on Sept. 20 and 21 at Studio 1 in the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts.

Anka is portrayed by Denisa Lupu, Roza by Fabiola Petri and Clara by Alexandra Serban. The performance was co-produced by the Radu Stanca National Theatre and Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu in Romania.

The performance began as soon as audience members filed onto the set. The stage sat centered around two panels, each inscribed with political statements criticizing economic and environmental exploitation. Intricate displays hung from the ceiling on either side of the stage, and two women stood engaged in a conversation regarding education and its influence in shaping thought.

Central to the performance is the search for an effective means of resistance to capitalism and a broader political system dominated by human greed

and ignorance. The three characters consider different options of resistance ranging from a general world strike against global exploitation to the formation of a human chain across the globe to stand against capitalism. Throughout this journey, the three women encounter setbacks stemming from their sense of hopelessness and exasperation with the lack of progress and available solutions.

The production also elicits laughs with mocking discussion of genetically modified foods. The characters engage in a conversation regarding the “hybrid tomato,” which mega-corporations

developed by injecting tomatoes with growth regulators to make the vegetable grow faster and last longer. These conversations are held amid episodes of dancing and singing.

According to the program, the performance does not intend to offer answers or solutions to this cycle of exploitation or greed, but rather pose that solidarity among people may be indispensable to confronting these issues. In fact, in the final moments of the show, the performers ask all audience members to stand from their seats to chant, in unison, “We are the resistance.”

ELI WHITE / HERALD

“Resistance (Happening),” co-produced by Radu Stanca National Theatre and Lucian Blaga University, explores the negative consequences of greed.

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Pizza: Na’cho Pizza, Spicy Five Cheese and Garlic, BBQ Bam Bam Make Your Own Pasta Station JOSIAH’S

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sudoku

SARA RUNKEL / HERALD

RELEASE DATE– Thursday, September 22, 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 It’s often a stretch 5 Grim, as a landscape 10 Debit card choice 14 Superstar 15 Command 16 Troublesome tykes 17 Bad-blood situation 18 One out for blood 20 Some browns 21 Number in an outline, perhaps 22 Put in stitches 23 Variety show array 26 Disdainful look 27 Holes in sneakers 29 Cruising 31 Slenderstemmed palm 32 Where to see a wake 33 Botch 37 Lease alternative 38 Babies, or what some babies wear 41 Historic beginning?

42 Kentucky Fried side 44 Brewery fixture 45 In-groups 47 Irish New Age singer 49 Runs aground 50 Striped quartz 53 Pork-filled pastry, e.g.

55 Ruined in the kitchen 57 Brooke Baldwin’s network 58 Auto parts giant 61 Pearl Harbor battleship 63 Third-generation Genesis name 64 Remote button with a square 65 Capital on the Willamette 66 Pedometer measure 67 Many millennia 68 Sky scraper?

69 Stage layouts

DOWN 1 Garage contraption 2 What a light bulb may mean 3 Europe’s highest active volcano 4 Veteran seafarer 5 Cold War Baltic patrollers 6 Coaches 7 Acknowledge 8 Account exec 9 Angel who replaced Jill, in ’70s TV 10 “The Deer Hunter” setting 11 Saturate (with) 12 Let off the hook 13 Late bloomer?

19 Bit of subterfuge 24 Entrechat, e.g.

25 Call at home 27 Lover of Psyche 28 Ketch kin 30 Green sign information, traditionally 32 Suitable 34 Raise stakes in a game ... and a hint to a hidden feature of five Down puzzle answers

35 Like many apps 36 Cop to the crime, with “up” 39 Address with an apostrophe 40 Smack 43 Wings eaters’ needs 46 Aloof demeanor 48 “In thy dreams!”

49 Hung sign

50 Treat badly 51 Zest 52 Illegal firing 54 USDA inspector’s concern 56 Ph.D. hurdle 59 Well-versed artist?

60 Deadly slitherers 62 Fast-forward through

With the end of shopping period and Ratty sickness setting in, students seek refuge in the local producers and farmers selling their wares outside MacMillan Hall.

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

“I know lots of dude bro athletes that play Pokémon!”

— Alex Volpicello ’18

See Pokémon Go on page 4.

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Follow Sports! twitter.com/bdh_sports

xwordeditor@aol.com

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Flu Vaccination Clinic 10:00 A.M. Stephen A. Robert ’62 Kasper Multipurpose Room

Election 2016: Impact at Home and Abroad 12:00 P.M. Watson Institute

Harvard Law Info Session 12:00 P.M. Wilson 102

Poet Gozo Yoshimasu to Read 5:30 P.M. McCormack Family Theater

TOMORROW Challah Sale 12:00 P.M. Lower Blue Room

Pizza-Papo 1:30 P.M. Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies

Election 2016: Behind the Scenes 3:30 P.M. Watson Institute

Postdoctoberfest 5:00 P.M. The Underground

COMMENTARY PAGE 6 • THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

EDITORIAL

Toward a productive political culture The political engagement of Brown’s students is a cornerstone and a privilege of the education here. As tour guides will trumpet, Brown is not a campus where learning is constrained to the classroom. For many students, the most memorable lessons of their undergraduate experiences will come not from a professor nor a scholarly text but from their peers who, passionate in their desire to see a more equitable world, push them to take note of injustices, challenge inequities and take part in a more tolerant way of treating each other.

But Brown’s political culture also leaves some students scratching their heads and others shaking them. Those students who feel left out of the crowd are not just conservatives: Republicans, as fall 2015 Herald poll data indicate, likely account for fewer than one of 10 students here. Yet nearly one in four spring 2015 Herald poll respondents said they felt either somewhat or very uncomfortable expressing their political views on campus. It would be concerning already if every centrist or right-of-center thinker on campus feared voicing their beliefs; the fact that liberals, who largely agree with the predominating political sentiments on campus, likewise find political discourse foreboding demands attention.

Reluctance to talk politics on campus has two roots in Brown’s distinctively progressive culture. The first is ideological absolutism or purity politics, an unproductive code of action holding that those who share the vast majority of your values but differ from you on one or two points are your enemies or, worse, propagators of hate. The second, building on the first, is a quickness to denounce peers who disagree with us. Addressing what we find offensive can be fruitful; in fact, students’ willingness to engage each other on the issues is exactly what makes schooling here special.

But engaging someone should rarely mean immediate condemnation, as condemnation, rather than helping the person in question understand why he has offended, is more likely to foreclose the possibility of engagement and even to engender resentment.

To be clear: There are some beliefs we should be glad to see diminished — racism, sexism, homophobia and the like have no place on campus.

The fact that Brown’s political culture is a progressive one favoring public displays of tolerance and deterring those of hate is part of the privilege of being here. But in working with the University to shape a more diverse and inclusive Brown, it is incumbent upon students to treat each other with understanding. We must remember that not everyone comes to Brown with the same understanding of the issues that we may hold dear.

Students with fewer pre-college educational resources in particular may not have had the same opportunities to grapple with the complexities of structural inequities as their more privileged peers — at least not in the academic, discursive way we have the privilege to do here at Brown. So, when talking politics with peers, be passionate, be willing to engage with those who disagree with you and be generous.

K I M B E R LY S A LT Z

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COMMENTARY THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 • PAGE 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Housing lottery harms ‘dorm-estic’ living ANDREW FRIEDMAN staff columnist Returning home for the summer after spending a year at Brown was difficult.

Despite the inconveniences of living in a dorm, I realized this summer that, in some ways, I preferred it. Life in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas where all of my friends are at least a 15-minute drive away, is vastly different from life in North Wayland, where the effort required to visit a friend comprised a 2-second walk across the hall.

Whereas it took a week’s worth of organizing efforts via iMessage to gather a group of friends for dinner in Texas, at Brown it only took one GroupMe message to organize a Unit 14 outing.

Living in Wayland facilitated friendships that might not have materialized otherwise, as living in close quarters made getting people together exponentially easier.

Sadly, I entered the housing lottery separate from my unit last spring and received an assignment in Perkins Hall this year, which, needless to say, was not among my first-choice preferences. Most of my North Wayland friends are scattered across campus. In order to visit any of them now, I have to trek across campus and wait for friends to let me in. Now I only see my roommate from last year if we both happen to be playing Pokémon Go

at the same time on Wriston Quad.

Though these distances are minuscule compared to those I had to travel in Dallas, they take the same amount of time to traverse without a car.

As it stands, the friendships I enjoyed and spent nine months cultivating last year are in jeopardy of becoming acquaintanceships, in large part because of Brown’s flawed housing system. Housing after freshman year is determined by one’s place in a random housing lottery, which requires

as soon as they receive university permission to live off-campus. This loss of geographic proximity means a loss in the frequency of serendipitous conversation.

It seems that Brown, and more specifically the Office of Residential Life, unwittingly diminishes the social lives of its students by utilizing a lottery system that undervalues the power of geography to make or break relationships. The fact that ResLife maintains this system despite the ob-

their “dorm-estic” social lives without the anxiety of a future reshuffling of their housing. My friends at Yale and WashU are posting Facebook photos with the same friends as last year, whereas my friends at most other colleges and I have found new friends or have explored other social living situations like fraternities or sororities.

Despite the obvious benefits of residential colleges, Brown would be hard-pressed to mimic the model exactly, as finding or agglomerat-

It seems that Brown, and more specifically ResLife, unwittingly diminishes the social lives of its students by utilizing a lottery system that undervalues the power of geography to make or break relationships.

that housing groups larger than 10 partition themselves. This stipulation, combined with the possibility that an existing housing group could be split up because of shortages in a particular location, frequently separates and scatters friend groups across campus.

This creates geographic obstacles that ultimately weaken valuable relationships. No wonder the members of many sports teams, clubs and organizations opt out of the housing lottery

vious advantages of introducing alternative systems demonstrates a level of complacency that is difficult to accept. Many universities, including Harvard, Yale, Washington University in St. Louis and Rice University, organize student housing using residential colleges. This system generally places students into what is functionally an apartment complex where they live for most or all of their college years, enabling students to invest time into

ing the required amount of contiguous land on the East Side of Providence (given the nature of local real estate) and financing the project (given our relatively small endowment) would be difficult. Instead, I suggest that ResLife grant students the right of first refusal with regard to housing; this essentially amounts to offering returning students the right to choose whether to live in their firstyear dorm before incoming first-years

are offered a choice. Were this policy implemented, I predict the quality of first-year housing would, on average, decline initially, but overall student satisfaction would rise because of a higher rate of proximity to friends.

Though the ROFR policy implies the end of a long-standing, if unofficial, practice of giving first-years Brown’s best housing to increase the first-year retention rate, the proposed policy change would encourage the University to retain first-years by improving other aspects of student life.

Though ResLife has not implemented a housing system that transcends the unpredictability of annual lottery cycles, members of many organizations on campus have made a conscious decision to live together for more than a year. Fraternities and sororities continue to maintain houses on campus, and many sports teams collectively lease houses off-campus.

Private development firms like Gilbane, Inc. have even capitalized on ResLife’s shortcomings with developments like 257 Thayer, which amounted to buying six to eight houses off Thayer Street and building apartments not subject to the housing lottery. The tremendous amount of demonstrated interest in more permanent housing systems makes ResLife’s inaction that much more disappointing.

Andrew Friedman ’19 can be reached at andrew_friedman@brown.edu.

The vicious cycle of college rankings CLARE STEINMAN staff columnist The U.S. News and World Report College Rankings were released earlier this week, and with them came the associated stress and uproar. Rankings like these, put out annually not only by U.S. News but also by Forbes, Niche and other publications, tackle an impossible task: to rank a set of institutions that differ wildly in terms of quantitative measures like selectivity, price, size and endowment but also qualitatively in terms of geography, culture, social life, extracurricular activities and most of what we would define as crucial to the college experience. If these rankings existed in a vacuum, they would be at worst misguided and misleading. But the competition that universities and high school seniors alike face means that the very act of ranking colleges changes the nature of the college application and acceptance process and even has the potential to shift a university’s focus away from what matters most.

U.S News uses a complicated metric that incorporates graduation and retention rates, faculty resources, selectivity, financial resources (i.e. amount spent per student), graduate school acceptances and, most confusing of all, “undergraduate academic reputation.”

This final metric, which accounts for the plurality, at 22.5 percent, of U.S. News’s rankings, allows academics and administrators at other schools to rank, on a scale of one to five, their perception of a school’s reputation. As I dug deeper into it, this method of ranking schools

became more and more confusing. After all, the U.S. News rankings are no Buzzfeed listicle. What began as a minor piece published by a weekly magazine reached over 10 million viewers in 2011 and has indeed outlasted the now-defunct print magazine. The rankings are no longer the end product of an institution’s quest for self-improvement, but rather the catalyst for that quest.

itself, of course, little more than a perception of a school’s reputation and prestige. A vicious cycle is thus created. College rankings have created a closed loop, which rewards schools who play the game while undervaluing many, many others.

I write this not without bias, of course.

Brown took the 14th spot in this year’s rankings overall and the fourth spot for under-

College rankings have created a closed loop, which rewards schools who play the game while undervaluing many, many others.

Colleges depend on their reputation and the prestige of their name to garner applications from students worldwide. Where does reputation and prestige stem from? Lots of places, but the ranking put out by U.S. News is one of the most accessible and well-known.

And how, to refresh our memories, does U.S. News determine its ranking? In large part by undergraduate academic reputation, which is

graduate teaching. There is more to look for in a school than undergraduate teaching, from cost to infrastructure to the intangibles that make a school right for one person and not for another. But within the limited metric of U.S. News, which can’t account for these intangibles anyway, I couldn’t help but be (selfishly) surprised at the 10-point disparity between the teaching and overall rankings. After all, if

we aren’t looking for the school that offers the best teaching, what are we looking for?

As it happens, the methodology for the undergraduate teaching ranking came from a survey of top academics around the nation who were asked to pick the schools that offered “faculty with an unusually strong commitment to undergraduate teaching.” These are, according to the website, the same academics who are asked to pick the schools with the so-called best reputation. In other words, the same people are weighing in on two completely different values: one relevant to the education students receive and one that only perpetuates the rat race that keeps the U.S. News rankings kicking. It’s the latter value that generates web traffic and anxiety in everyone from college presidents to 17-yearolds fumbling through the Common App. At a school like Brown, this is merely unfortunate. At a school like Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, which places 79th in Best Colleges and second in undergraduate teaching, between Princeton and Yale, this is an outrage.

I don’t know enough about Miami University to quantify what makes it 79th overall, but if they do offer the second best undergraduate teaching in the nation, it’s hard to argue that they’re getting the credit they deserve for it.

By keeping the focus on vaguely defined and self-perpetuating measures like “prestige,” U.S. News and similar publications create a culture that blinds administrations, students and applicants alike to what really matters most in a college education.

Clare Steinman ’19 can be reached at clare_steinman@brown.edu.

ARTS & CULTURE THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

CineBrasil to bring five Brazilian motion pictures to campus Third consecutive film festival showcases complicated, enriching Brazilian films

By JENNIFER SHOOK SENIOR STAFF WRITER

List Art Center will play host to the movie festival CineBrasil Thursday through Saturday. Throughout the three-day event, five films spanning eclectic genres will play for the festival-goers.

The event is co-sponsored by the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies and the Brazil Initiative, a Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs program that brings together faculty members, graduate students and researchers with the “mission to make Brown the best place to study Brazil outside of Brazil,” said Flora Thomson-DeVeaux GS, who studies in the department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies and is a curator of the festival.

She added that when studying Brazil from Providence, there is often a disconnect pertaining to current events. “A part of that (mission) is to not let ourselves get caught up by structural delay that is involved when you’re studying a country from thousands of miles away,” ThomsonDeVeaux said.

The Brazil Initiative’s work on CineBrasil represents one effort to

remedy this disconnect. The event, held sporadically in the past but now in its third consecutive year, shows films produced in Brazil within the past two years. This time frame allows the films to get off the festival circuit and pass, through word of mouth or other recommendations, into the awareness of CineBrasil’s curators, Thomson-DeVeaux said.

As the films are not often played in American cinemas, the festival offers attendees a rare viewing opportunity. “They’re not necessarily films that are going to be Oscarnominated, and therefore, people don’t really have easy access to them,” said Director of the Brazil Initiative James Green.

The five films were selected by the festival’s two main curators, Thomson-DeVeaux and Pedro Almeida GS. While the majority of the five films are in Portuguese, Brazil’s official language, and subtitled in English, two of the films break from this pattern. This choice was made to help festival attendees understand that not all Brazilian films are meant to edify viewers on the country’s culture. “(CineBrasil) is really trying to move away from the idea that Brazilian cinema has any obligation to teach you about Brazil or to show you the way Brazil is,” Thomson-DeVeaux said. “There are wonderful Brazilian films made about all the countries of the world and all the topics you could imagine.”

The documentary “Taego Ãwa,” to be screened Friday, is spoken in the indigenous language Avá-Canoeira.

The film focuses on the Avá-Canoeiro group, an indigenous people in Brazil that has faced hardships and seen a steady decline in population, Thomson-DeVeaux said. “Olmo e a Gaivota” (Olmo and the Seagull), to be screened on Saturday, is a Brazilian and French co-production set in Paris and spoken almost entirely in French.

The remaining films include “O futebol” (On Football) Saturday; “A paixão de JL” (JL’s Passion) Friday and “Boi Neon” (Neon Bull) Thursday.

“A paixão de JL” depicts the life of José Leonilson, a prolific artist whose daily artworks tell the story of his life alongside cassette tapes that the artist recorded in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The film is a documentary in that the artist is reproducing an account of his life through the cassettes, but it is also fictional through the “fracturing distorted mirror” of the art form.

After watching each film, festival-goers will have the opportunity to discuss the work with professors and graduate students, ThomsonDeVeaux said.

CineBrasil is only one of the Brazil Initiative’s many programs and events that aim to bring the culture of Brazil to Brown. In the spring, the Initiative hosts a film series that features a variety of films — both recent and retrospective, Green said.

COURTESY OF CINEBRASIL

List Art Center will feature Brazilian films in several languages delving into culture in Brazil and elsewhere this Thursday through Saturday.