SINCE 1891
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2016
VOLUME CLI, ISSUE 100
WWW.BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM
HOPE canvasses for affordable housing bond Third-party
support jumps this election cycle
Student group aims to educate voters on homelessness, housing resources in Rhode Island By HANA PARK STAFF WRITER
Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere — a student group housed in the Swearer Center for Public Service that strives to advocate on behalf of the Rhode Island homeless population — is currently canvassing for the $50 million Housing Opportunity Bond initiative. The initiative would lead to the creation of an estimated 800 affordable homes and apartments across the state. Students in HOPE are using three Saturdays and Election Day to garner support for the bond and convince people of its importance. The HOB initiative passed the Rhode Island General Assembly and was signed by Gov. Gina Raimondo June 24. The bond initiative will be on the ballot Nov. 8. Rhode Island lacks funding for affordable housing compared to its New England neighbors, said Will Farrell, campaign manager for the Yes On 7
Gary Johnson, Jill Stein receive over 4 percent of student vote, according to 2016 Herald fall poll By NICHOLAS WEY SENIOR STAFF WRITER
COURTESY OF BRANDON DALE
Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere is trying to garner support for the Housing Opportunity Bond ballot initiative, estimated to create 1,900 jobs building affordable homes and apartments in Rhode Island. campaign, which advocates for the HOB. The bond aims to fix this issue by creating homes that are “affordable (and) sustainable, while also generating about 1,900 jobs,” said Brandon
Dale ’17, HOPE community fellow. “It’s all about increasing the access people have to high-quality housing, because high-quality housing basically gives (people) the opportunity
to have a sustainable life and better living conditions.” The bond “is incredibly important because this bill sets (a) precedent for » See HOUSING, page 2
According to The Herald’s 2016 fall undergraduate poll, nearly 5 percent of respondents indicated that they will be voting for third-party candidates come Election Day. About 58 percent of these students indicated that they would vote for Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party, while 42 percent indicated they would vote for Jill Stein of the Green Party. The new data represent a notable 43 percent increase in student support for third-party candidates compared to » See THIRD-PARTY, page 3
Data Science Grad student’s exhibit honors New Mexico landmark allows visitors Initiative to Exhibit to engage with art, encouraging them to leave offer oneobjects of personal import year master’s By ROLAND HIGH
New program to bolster interdisciplinary collaboration among APMA, math, CS By ISABEL GENSLER SENIOR STAFF WRITER
The Data Science Initiative, a new interdisciplinary program, will offer a one-year master’s degree, hire 10 new faculty members and expand the number of undergraduate classes offered in data science. The program will bring together the departments of mathematics, applied math, biostatistics and computer science. The Data Science Initiative was started as a way to address “a surge of interest and demand for data science, both in the workplace … and in science at Brown,” said Jeffrey Brock, director of the Data Science Initiative and chair of the mathematics department. The idea behind the » See DATA, page 2
INSIDE
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
An interactive exhibit called “Santuario” opened Wednesday in the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, accompanying a graduate anthology conference where the creator, Rica Maestas GS, presented her work alongside that of other artists, performers and poets. The exhibit’s namesake, El Santuario de Chimayo, is a small, adobe church that has sat in the desert of New Mexico for exactly 200 years. Every year, thousands of pilgrims walk over 25 miles from nearby Sante Fe to the church, which is said to rest on soil with sacred, curative powers. Maestas described it as an “oasis.” As the decades have passed, memorabilia attesting to the experiences of pilgrims — from discarded crutches to more ambiguous, personal objects — have accumulated around the site’s shrines. “There’s this incredible accumulation of stuff, of all of these items
ARTS & CULTURE
MARIANNA MCMURDOCK / HERALD
Rica Maestas GS designed an exhibit that encourages visitors to add items that represent their “emotional baggage.” The display also includes a container of sand that mimics holy dirt around El Santuario de Chimayo. that … mean something very special to the person who contributed them,” Maestas said. “It’s a really moving experience to be there, an experience all about feeling.” But recently the Santuario has been designated a historic landmark, which has restricted the experience of pilgrims and made their visits to the
landmark less intimate, Maestas said. Maestas’ piece is a collection of warmly lit tables and shelves that are slowly being filled with objects given by viewers. It is intended to be an opportunity for people to rid themselves of items that represent “emotional baggage” from their pasts, she explained. There is also a delicate, glass container
of sand to mimic the holy dirt around the New Mexican church and paper for writing thoughts that cannot be expressed with an object. “The whole process of taking the sand is celebrating change and moving forward,” Maestas said, adding that she decided to make the process » See SANTUARIO, page 2
WEATHER
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2016
SPORTS Athlete of the Week: Worthy ’17 leads women’s cross country to fourth place at Ivy championship
SPORTS Blasberg ’18: Names of baseball teams reflect historical political, social climates of United States
COMMENTARY Krishnamurthy ’19: Students should be included in decisions made about public art on campus
COMMENTARY Kumar ’17: Devoting resources to graduate programs helps boost University’s reputation
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NEWS
PAGE 2 • FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2016
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
» HOUSING, from page 1
COURTESY OF NICK DENTAMARO
Jeffrey Brock is the director of the Data Science Initiative and chair of the mathematics department. The new master’s in data science launches in fall 2017 and will consist of courses in mathematics, applied mathematics, biostatistics and computer science.
» DATA, from page 1 program was to create a hub to bring together researchers, students and post-doctorates to answer three core questions: What are the methods that data science is using? How do we interrogate those methods? How do we develop new methods? Data science studies how to combine “various streams of data informing you about the same people,” said Constantine Gastonia, chair of the biostatistics department. There are two broad categories of data sets: The first is data sets that are collected for a particular purpose, such as a medical charts or health insurance claims, while the second, called found data, is
composed of information culled from sources such as Google, Gastonia said. “Big data drives research in nearly every field,” wrote Provost Richard Locke P’17 in an email to The Herald. “As an institution committed to advancing knowledge, it is essential that we have the capacity — the tools and the fluency — to understand and work with big data to answer the questions that drive our teaching and research.” The new master’s program will help integrate the four disciplines “in a way that it wasn’t done before,” Gastonia said. The University “will be stronger in terms of its ability to teach students quantitative thinking,” he added. There are two distinct advantages
NEW COURSE! SPRING 2017 SLAV: 1800: Visual and Historical Imagination of Andrzej Wajda Michal Oklot TTH 2:30-3:50 PM Screening every Monday at 8 PM The course explores the cinema of one of the world’s greatest directors Andrzej Wajda (1926-2016). From his first film, “A Generation” (1955), to his last one, “Afterimage”(2016), Wajda unceasingly shaped visual and historical imagination of Polish post-war generations. His art—which has grown out of the trauma of WWII, and the experience of the social and political changes in twentieth-century Poland and Eastern Europe—shows the work of collective memory of transformations, while at the same time portraying individual lives enmeshed in history. His films— always in dialogue with other forms of visual arts and literature—are also commentaries on the role of art and the artist in contemporary society.
NEW COURSE Spring 2017
to the University’s master’s program compared to those of other institutions, Brock said. The program offers a mathematical core, as well as “more opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration” due to the University’s smaller scale. For Gastonia, the program’s identifying characteristic is its emphasis on methods. “The nature of the Data Science Initiative at Brown is to focus on methods; that is why the core departments are departments of methods,” he said. The program’s curriculum will be composed of two double-credit courses to be taken in the first semester — one in probability statistics and the other in algorithms and machine learning — that will continue into the second semester as one credit each. Students will then have the ability to select an elective in a data-related field such as neuroscience, economics or cryptography, Brock said. The final course will use case studies to examine the implications of big data
analysis. The one-year master’s will be followed by a capstone project during the summer so that master’s students can “work with a real data set,” Brock said. The initiative is currently in the process of talking to local companies and on-campus laboratories to organize these projects. Students looking for jobs within certain industries need a “bigger perspective on the social implications of technology and computing power,” Brock said. These social implications refer to questions such as: Is our privacy being abused through data mining? What policies should be in place to regulate the use of data science? Students who receive their master’s degree at the Data Science Initiative will leave with “a whole set of tools to go get a job as a data scientist,” Gastonia said. This set of tools will include the basics of computing, working with large and complex data sets and ability to “manage, organize, merge and compare data sets.”’
» SANTUARIO, from page 1
it was a really moving site for me,” she said. “I’m like a compulsive hoarder in certain circumstances. … I’ve realized that this hoarding is just a manifestation of me trying to hold on to things and hold on to those experiences,” she added. The aim of the installation is to
more universal by excluding the religious iconography that is scattered throughout El Santuario de Chimayo. Maestas’ attachment to the space is a deeply personal one. It “helped me through months of depression, and
RUSS 1895: Bakhtin, Formalism, and Soviet Avant-Garde Aesthetics Michal Oklot TTH 9:00 AM – 10:20 AM This course examines the two approaches to literature, which in many respects changed the course of humanistic scholarship: Russian Formalism (1920s) focused on literary “devices” and “structures,” and credited by many for
inventing “literary theory” as an autonomous scholarly discipline, and the theories developed by Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975) and his circle of
philosophers, poets, and literary critics, for whom the most important task of literary discourse was to create multiple, living personalities. The course
discusses these theories in the context of Soviet and European modernist art and aesthetics of the 1920 and 30s. In English. !
Help Wanted- Office/Clerical PT Clerical Person Monday through Friday $600.00 weekly Computer skills, Customer Service skills Some cash & items handling skills Apply Email: a7dford@gmail.com
the Rhode Island legislature about why it’s important to have a set of steady (sources)of income for affordable housing,” Dale said. Increasing affordable housing allows people to have the opportunity to increase their “selfvalue and ability to care for themselves, which will always pour back into the community,” he added. LeeAnn Byrne, policy director for the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless, echoed this perspective on the importance of the bill. “A lot of folks recognize in their own lives the issue of housing being affordable,” she said. “Part of the American dream is to have a safe place to live, and I think that’s a message that’s resonating well” with voters. The relationship between the University, a wealthy institution, and Providence, a city with a high poverty rate, points to why students should take action in supporting the HOB, said Gabe Zimmerman ’17.5, HOPE advocacy chair. “We can’t just … talk the talk on social justice without going to the community and acting on the words we say.” Supporting the housing bond is about more than doing the community a service and being good people. It is “paying reparations” for Brown’s presence in Providence, said Chiara Arellano ’20, HOPE Bonner Fellow. This support is especially necessary because the University has “displaced so many populations in Providence,” such as the Cape Verdean community in the Fox Point area, Zimmerman said. Zimmerman praised the work of HOPE members who are dedicating three Saturdays and Election Day to garner support for the bond. “A lot of people take shots at Brown for being the college on the top of the hill and not engaging enough with the city of Providence, but (HOPE) is doing great work. And any college student that’s willing to give a Saturday morning to help out with a cause like this deserves a lot of credit.” HOPE follows the Housing First model, which “provides members of the homeless community with affordable housing up front,” said Lawrence Wang, HOPE advocacy chair. This is especially important as it helps homeless individuals bypass entry standards that have barred “people who have drug issues, alcohol problems or who have families,” he added. foster a “process of coming together with other people and making a concerted effort to move forward without the stuff that’s holding you back.” Maestas plans to hold a forum to discuss what should be done with the contributions, scheduled for Nov. 17th in the Granoff Convivium. “It’s really important to involve other people and share things,” she said, adding that the collaboration created an “implicit support network.” “I did less-public art for a long time, and no matter how much content I put into it, it didn’t seem to resonate as much when the audience is looking at it passively or consuming it rather than participating in it,” Maestas said. “The bent of this project is to be a social practice art installation. … Santuario is a space, an occasion for you to visit. And (it is) for you to make the art.” A communal takedown for “Santuario” will be held on Nov. 22.
NEWS
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2016 • PAGE 3
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
MATT BROWNSWORD / HERALD
SINING DAPHNE ZHAO / HERALD
» THIRD-PARTY, from page 1 The Herald’s 2012 fall undergraduate poll, which found that just 3.5 percent of students planned to support third-party candidates in the 2012 presidential race. Support for third-party candidates could be more substantial given the nature of the current election, said Professor of Political Science Richard Arenberg. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump “are more unpopular than any presidential candidate we have ever seen,” Arenberg said. “If there was ever an election ripe for third-party success, this might be it.” Voters who were unhappy with the outcomes of the Democratic and Republican primaries might see third-party candidates as “an alternative place for them to land,” he added. For others, voting for third-party candidates boils down to identifying with a candidate’s platform. Sheila Moran ’19 is voting for Johnson because “he best represents (her) political views,” she said. Glenn Yu ’20, a former Herald opinions columnist who has taken the semester off to help campaign for Jeffrey Johnson of the Green Party, plans to vote for Stein because “she represents (his) ideals the best,” he said. Yu said he is “open to voting for candidates who will make the world a better, more just place, regardless of whether they affiliate with any party.” Yet this election cycle has been particularly “disappointing” for true supporters of the Libertarian or Green Party candidates, Arenberg said. As Election Day creeps forward, “people come home to the two-party system.” Though people may want to vote for third-party candidates that align with their ideals, often times voters default to either the Democratic or Republican nominee, Arenberg said. This trend is reflected in The Herald’s 2015 fall poll — taken before the Democratic primary — in which only 22.7 percent of student respondents indicated
that they would vote for Clinton if the election were held that day. But — after Clinton won the Democratic nomination — her support has risen to 85 percent among respondents. In comparison, 1.3 percent of students in the 2015 poll indicated they would vote for Trump if the election were held that day, compared to 1.8 percent of students in the 2016 poll who indicated they would vote for Trump. The large increase in voters for Clinton can be attributed to unity among Democrats on campus, said Nick Pennington ’18, political director of the Brown Democrats. “During the primary, there were Brown students for Hillary and Brown Students for Bernie, but by and large those two groups have come together” to support Clinton, Pennington said, adding that third-party candidate support is nearly nonexistent in the group.
The unity of the Brown Democrats lies in stark contrast with the disunity of the Brown Republicans, which has not explicitly endorsed any candidate for the current election. Around a third of Brown Republican members who are not voting for Trump are planning to vote for a third-party candidate, The Herald previously reported. “We definitely have a sizable number of people who support Gary Johnson rather strongly,” said Kelly Conway ’18, president of the Brown Republicans. The strength of the two majority parties often makes people feel as if they are wasting their vote even if they share views with third-party candidates, according to Moran. Many of Moran’s peers feel that she is “throwing away” her vote by voting for Johnson, she said. Regardless, Moran feels confident she is voting for someone she “actually would want to see in office.”
Austin Rose ’19, treasurer of the Brown Republicans, rejected the notion that voting for a third-party candidate would be a wasted vote. Voters can ease their consciences by voting for a third-party candidate whom they truly support, Rose wrote in an email to The Herald. Even though voting for a third party may not affect the direct outcome of the election, it is a clear sign of discontent with the two major parties that will be noted in the future, he wrote. Voting for third-party candidates makes election “analysts seek to understand and capture your vote in future elections because they have proof that previous techniques drove you away,” Rose wrote. Yu refers to this idea of throwing votes away by voting for third-party candidates as the “lesser evilism” paradigm. “Today, we are told not to vote for third parties and independents because
of the threat of Trump. Six months ago, we were told not to support (U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT,) because Clinton was supposedly the only candidate that would be able to stand against Trump,” Yu said. “Four years from now … we will again be told we have to vote against evil so that lesser evil will prevail. This cannot continue.” Arenberg noted that the opportunity to participate in the election of the first female president may also draw voters away from third-party candidates. The Herald’s 2016 fall poll found that roughly 75 percent of the students voting for third-party candidates are male, which is “somewhat surprising that it’s so large,” though not unprecedented, he said. The “historic moment of the election of the first woman president … begins to capture the imagination of people who earlier on did not necessarily think it was as big of a deal.”
Since you can’t take classes at Hogwarts, here’s the next best thing: EGYT1420 “Ancient Egyptian Religion and Magic” Explore ancient ideas about the nature of the universe and how it came about (aka “Sex and Creation”), white and black magic, death and the afterlife, temple ceremonies, animal-headed gods, and much more. Learn how to “think like an Egyptian.” Students rate this course “amazing,” “fascinatingly unique,” “fun,” and “the only class I could stay awake in without coffee.” TTh 8:30–9:50, location TBA.
EGYPTOLOGY AND ASSYRIOLOGY
SPORTS
PAGE 4 • FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2016
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
ATHLETE OF THE WEEK
Worthy ’17 earns All-Ivy distinction at Ivy Championships it feel to place as the highest finisher for Brown? As a captain this year, I set a lot of goals with my co-captain about the team that we wanted to be, on race day especially. One of the things that we talked about was being the toughest team out there. It’s a lot more than just saying you’re tough, but really embodying that on race day when it matters. So I think that this past weekend, the 12 women that we had out there on the course really proved that they were tough. What’s your pre-race routine? We always warm up together as a team. I always get myself psyched and do drills. I’m pretty particular about what I’ll eat on race day, but other than that it’s just getting pumped and ready to go on the line.
COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS
Taylor Worthy ’17 finished the six-kilometer course at Princeton’s West Windsor Fields last weekend in 20:37.8, a personal record. The senior had finished in eighth place at the Battle of the Beantown earlier in the season and will now compete in New York at the NCAA Northeast Regional.
Senior’s personal-best, top-five individual finish leads Bears to fourth place at league’s title meet By BEN SHUMATE SENIOR STAFF WRITER
The men’s and women’s cross country teams competed against Ancient Eight foes at the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships last weekend at Princeton’s West Windsor Fields. Taylor Worthy ’17 turned in a standout performance, finishing the six-kilometer course in fourth place out of 93 competitors with a personal-best time of 20:37.8. Worthy was the highest finisher for Bruno, and the effort earned her first-team All-Ivy distinction. In ad-
dition, Worthy helped the Bears to a fourth-place finish as a team and the fifth spot in the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association’s Northeast Region Rankings. Worthy has been one of the top runners for Brown this fall, registering an eighth-place finish at the Battle in Beantown and placing in the top 100 of 285 runners at the Pre-National Invitational. She will compete Nov. 11 at the NCAA Northeast Regional in Van Cortland, N.Y. For her All-Ivy finish, which helped the Bears earn regional distinction,
Sports Roundup BY MATT BROWNSWORD, NEWS EDITOR
Women and Men’s Golf The men’s golf team finished its fall 2016 season with a 14th place finish at the Homewood Hilton Airport Invitational. Kevin Li ’18 led the way as the Bears had their worst showing at a tournament this season after cracking the top 12 in each of their first two invitationals this year. On the women’s side, Christine Kim ’17 paced the Bears with a three-under par 69 at the Landfall Tradition for Bruno’s last event, in which it finished 18th. Kim has already been selected as an all-Ivy player twice in her career and looks to be on pace to collect her third award as the season rounds up.
Women’s Rugby The women’s rugby team closed out a tough season with a loss to Dartmouth in the Ivy League semifinals — Bruno’s fourth loss in its five-game season. The Big Green raced to a 30-point lead before Brown finally got on the board in the beginning of the second. But Dartmouth’s attack converted two more tries before the Bears had a chance to get back in the game. This was Bruno’s second loss to the Big Green this season. It will take on Princeton next week before preparing for the Varsity Championships.
Men’s and Women’s Cross Country The women’s cross country team finished fourth this weekend, as Taylor Worthy ’17 ran to her own fourth-place finish to lead Bruno at the Ivy Championships last weekend. The Bears finished behind Harvard, Yale and Penn but had two runners — Worthy and Natalie Schudrowitz ’17 — crack the top 10 out of 93 runners. The men’s team fared worse in its Ivy Championships, finishing seventh. Cameron Daly ’20 led the team, finishing 22nd, with two other Bears rounding out the top 30.
Worthy is The Herald’s Athlete of the Week. Herald: What were your individual expectations going into Heps? Worthy: Last year, I was two spots away from making second-team All-Ivy, which is top 14. I knew going into last weekend that it was something I was striving to do. I saw the opportunity to make first team, the top seven. So seeing that as something that was in reach was really cool. Being second team was my goal, and I just exceeded that. After you finished the race, did you know that you had beaten your personal record?
I knew that it was a better time than when I had previously raced the course my freshman year. I had an idea of what my place was because I saw pretty clearly the three girls ahead of me. What does the All-Ivy distinction mean to you, especially coming in your senior season? It kind of validates all the work that I’ve put in throughout my four years on the team. It shows that if you really work for something, and it’s something that you want, really cool things can happen, and it will pay off. With the team finishing fourth and being recognized regionally, how does
Cross country, indoor track or outdoor track, and why? I’ve always considered myself more of a track runner. I do primarily middistance, the 800 and 1500 are my main events. So I’ve kind of developed into a more competitive cross country racer. It’s like a whole different mindset, honestly, so it’s hard to compare the two. I get a lot of satisfaction from track because it’s a lot more tangible. Cross country has a lot more variability. The courses are all different, so you can’t really compare your times. What are your goals for the upcoming Northeast Regional meet? Last year we were third in the region, which was a really great performance for us. The top two teams automatically qualify for the NCAA Nationals, so being in contention for that would be something really great for our team.
TODAY
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2016 • PAGE 5
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
menu
beer me
SATELLITE DINING ANDREWS COMMONS
Pizza: Bacon and Feta, Harvest, Buffalo Chicken Cajun Chicken Pasta, Grinder Sandwiches JOSIAH’S
BLUE ROOM
Philly Cheese Steak Quesadillas
Soup: Minestrone, Chicken Tortilla, Clam Chowder
DINING HALLS SHARPE REFECTORY LUNCH
DINNER
Hot Roast Beef Sandwich, Chicken Tikka Masala, Spicy Dahl, Ranger Joe Cookies
Chicken Parmesan, Southwest Turkey Chili, Macaroni and Cheese, Cream Cheese Brownies
VERNEY-WOOLLEY LUNCH
DINNER
Breaded Chicken Fingers, Soy Chik’n Nuggets, Baked Beans, Frosted Chocolate Eclair
Sweet and Sour Shrimp Sauce, Stir Fried Tofu, Ravioli with Pink Vodka Sauce, Banana Cream Pie
sudoku
crossword GUS REED / HERALD
The Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropolgy’s “Brewed for Thought” exhibit explores the different roles beer has played in social gatherings across various cultures.
Q U O T E O F T H E D AY
“Four years from now, … we will again be told we have to vote against evil so that lesser evil will prevail. This cannot continue.
”
— Glenn Yu ’20
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Bake Sale for Brown Gives Campaign 8 A.M. 121 South Main Street
Challah Sale 12 P.M. Stephen Roberts ’62 Campus Center
SATURDAY Engineering Internship and Career Fair 12 P.M. Stephen Roberts ’62 Campus Center
Animation Show of Shows 7 P.M. RISD Auditorium
SUNDAY Music Tech & Entrepreneurship: A Creative Workshop 12:45 P.M. Granoff Center
Pre-Health Survival Kit: Tips from a Brown Med Student 7 P.M. J. Walter Wilson, Room 203
COMMENTARY PAGE 6 • FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2016
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Brown Bites DPS: racial and ethnic diversity The Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan released last year calls upon the Department of Public Safety to improve the diversity and training of its officers. In response, DPS provided new and additional trainings to its officers over the summer in the area of “diversity training, fair and impartial policing and de-escalation and verbal communications skills,” said Chief of Police Mark Porter. Yet DPS still lags behind the student body in racial and ethnic diversity. White officers and black officers account for 80 percent and 17 percent of all DPS staff, respectively, while Hispanics account for less than one percent. In contrast, the student body is roughly 43 percent white, 7 percent black and 11 percent Hispanic. Cocoa (flavanols) = better health Researchers at Brown have found that certain components in cocoa may actually benefit your health. Led by Xiaochen Lin GS, the study used a meta-analysis of 19 randomized studies to assess the health benefits of cocoa consumption. The study found that consuming cocoa flavanols — nutrients found naturally in the cocoa bean — led to statistically significant improvements in cardiovascular health. The study prompted a slew of headlines claiming that chocolate is healthy. “Rejoice! Chocolate is good for your heart, scientists declare in ‘clearest evidence to date,’” read one Daily Mail headline. But Howard Sesso, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School who collaborated on the analysis, warned not to conflate cocoa flavanols with chocolate. “Chocolate has calories — sugar and fat calories,” Sesso said, while flavanols do not. Fire on Waterman A fire broke out at an off-campus home on Waterman Street at 11 p.m. Tuesday, according to ABC News. Three of the eight occupants of the house are Brown students, though no one was harmed in the blaze. It is believed that the cause of the fire was cigarette related, as “officers found a makeshift ashtray, and one student said he was smoking before taking a shower,” ABC News reported. The first floor reportedly suffered smoke and fire damage. Syrian scholars at Brown Two Syrian scholars began graduate programs at Brown this fall: Diana Kasem GS and Khaled Amilaji GS. Kasem is pursuing a master’s in modern culture and media, while Amilaji aims to obtain a master’s in public health. Kasem specializes in film and theater: She directed an experimental film called “Normal … Yesterday” and founded an arts and culture website called 7Gates in Latakia, Syria. Meanwhile, Amilaji has worked in secret makeshift hospitals in homes and basements, organized a polio vaccination campaign for millions of Syrians and collected data on disease and medical needs from researchers in the area. Here at Brown, Kasem will continue to work on her website with the help of other artists, while Amilaji aims to improve his ability to analyze data.
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COMMENTARY FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2016 • PAGE 7
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Brown’s undemocratic approach to public art ANUJ KRISHNAMURTHY staff columnist On a recent weekday morning, I was walking on the Main Green when my eyes chanced upon a sight more frightful than anything Halloweekend could offer — not a ghoul or murderous clown, but a strikingly disorienting piece of public art. I do not wish to disturb the bliss of those unaware of this recent development, but I am obligated to report the facts: On the Main Green, there now stands a tree, discernibly artificial, with a gray boulder placed in between its bare branches. It wasn’t there before. And I am upset. Well, let me take a step back: I have no problem with the aesthetics of “Untitled (Lamp/Bear)” or “Tree/Rock” — the name I’ve given to Brown’s newest arboreal addition. There’s something about “Tree/Rock,” in fact, that’s reassuringly verisimilar. At one point or another, I’m sure we’ve all felt like climbing to the top of a tree, transforming into a lifeless artifact of geology and remaining there for all of eternity. But for all its relatability, “Tree/Rock” represents a disheartening policy of Brown’s public
art selection — one that simultaneously shapes Brown’s public spaces with little incorporation of the public will and that exhibits a capricious disregard for the sanctity of art and public space. In a community like Brown that prides itself on traditions of inclusion and deliberation, the aesthetic of public spaces is not merely an ornamental consideration. Art, after all, is an instrument of democracy
Brown University faculty, the Corporation and the Providence community,” with students only eligible to play an advisory role — determines the pieces of art that are displayed on campus. Importantly, this committee does not include students, who are critical stakeholders in and the main consumers of Brown’s public spaces. Such a set-up is hopelessly undemocratic, for students are the ones who have to walk
communication and meditation, as I’m sure the committee believes, is it fair to subject students to an aesthetic experience to which they did not agree? I don’t think so. Brown, like all institutions of higher learning, functions as a training ground for democracy — a culture of unfettered empowerment and openness. Thus, the practice of democracy is not merely ideological; it is also performative and re-
The effects of art and democracy are neutered, if not completely undone, when decisions pertaining to the construction of our shared spaces are not made democratically.
— the highest form of human selfexpression, reflection and engagement with the surrounding world. The effects of art and democracy are neutered, if not completely undone, when decisions pertaining to the construction of our shared spaces are not made democratically. Consider the fact that, as of now, a Committee on Public Art — whose membership “is drawn from
past and observe the committee’s artistic playthings on a daily basis. Indeed, when one bureaucratic organization convened in some corner office makes the decision to place a piece of art somewhere, it exercises a significant power: to shape the visual, and thus the visceral, experience of Brown’s public spaces. Questions of consent naturally follow: If art truly is a powerful medium of
liant on a clear stage. Public spaces serve as this stage. They are a forum for protest and discourse, for serendipitous encounters between diverse people, for the utterance of new voices and new perspectives. In this way, public spaces are sacred. They should be organized for the benefit of their primary dependents, not in the interest of avant-garde experimenters with a lesser stake in
our community than students. Of course, public artwork is also an important means by which Brown’s administrators raise funds and maintain healthy relations with donors, as Daniel Meyer ’17 recently opined on (“Meyer ’17: Lamp/Bear sucks,” Sept. 16). For example, Steve Cohen P’16, a hedge fund manager, has donated significant sums of money to bolster Brown’s financial aid program, so housing a piece of his art collection doesn’t feel unreasonable. But Cohen’s art collection is extraordinarily extensive; he is perfectly capable of offering multiple options to the community — or none at all. And just as importantly the University is perfectly capable of letting students have some input in the public art selection process. As a sophomore who’s got plenty of time left on campus, I really do want the Committee of Public Art to actually achieve its mission of “enriching (Brown’s) cultural, intellectual and scholarly life.” But that can’t meaningfully happen when the process of selecting the public art is undemocratic and insulated from the will of the student body.
Anuj Krishnamurthy ’19 can be reached perched on top of “Tree/Rock” at anuj_krishnamurthy@brown. edu.
Reviewing Brown’s changing goals NIKHIL KUMAR staff columnist
How should Brown evolve? This question — easy to pose, maddening to answer — sits at the center of the financial plan for the University as detailed by Provost Richard Locke P’17 Oct. 4. The plan calls for limiting the undergraduate population to 1,650 admitted students per year and correspondingly expanding graduate programs, cutting costs and altering the financial aid model to better accommodate middle-class students and withdrawing a smaller fraction of the endowment as it grows via the BrownTogether capital campaign. The changes will cause the University deficit to rise temporarily to $32 million before falling, ultimately, to as low as $1 million. To account for this spike in the deficit, the University may raise tuition and fees by 5 percent, higher than the typical 4 percent annual hike. Duncan Weinstein ’17 criticized Locke’s plan in an op-ed (“Weinstein ’17: Brown decides to chase its ‘peers,’” Oct. 12) — which Locke responded to in a letter to The Herald (“Letter: Brown still committed to undergrad experience,” Oct. 19) the following week — arguing that it is unwise for Brown to imitate its more graduate-focused, richly endowed “peer institutions,” namely Dartmouth, Yale and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Though the numbers don’t lie, Weinstein’s statement that “in purely monetary terms, we are as much a peer of these institutions as David was a peer of Goliath” fails to consider the nuances of “peer.” Brown may not be a peer of these universities in terms of endowment or emphasis on grad school, but it is in caliber. The University’s ambition to grow its graduate programs and thus ‘keep up with the Joneses’ is admirable and necessary to safeguard the high-
quality education and prestigious reputation that most Brown undergraduates cherish, whether they admit it or not. Indeed, prestige is a consideration that should not be underestimated. More than three-quarters of respondents to The Herald’s fall undergraduate poll cited college rankings as a factor in their decision to attend Brown, and nearly a third said that rankings were a strong factor. Brown’s weakness in relation to its peers in many college rankings — including U.S. News and World Report, Academic Rankings of World Universities and QS World University Rankings — derives from
cus to graduate programs need not represent a threat to undergraduate education. Rather, such a change has the potential to strengthen the University’s scholarly ecosystem, creating a more stimulating research environment from which undergraduates, too, can benefit. At the same time, undergraduates can only gain from this new model if the university-college framework is adhered to — as I discussed in my previous column about the new graduate student reading room in the Rockefeller Library (“Kumar ’17: The restricted section of the Rock,” Oct. 21). An expansion of graduate programs should not mean that the
An expansion of graduate programs should not mean that the College and the Graduate School develop as two separate entities. It is important to continue to foster interaction and collaboration between undergraduates and graduate students even as the composition of the student body shifts.
its relative dearth of graduate programs. Because these rankings depend heavily on university research output, addressing Brown’s shortcomings in graduate programs will allow a more accurate position in the rankings system — one that reflects the true rigor and value of a Brown education. Yet it would be superficial to identify reputation for its own sake as the primary motivation for altering the University’s structure. The worldrenowned undergraduate experience that Brown offers, lauded by Weinstein, must be treasured and preserved. But a shift in administrative fo-
College and the Graduate School develop as two separate entities. It is important to continue to foster interaction and collaboration between undergraduates and graduate students even as the composition of the student body shifts. Though the direction proposed by Locke is, in my view, promising, the possibility of a 5 percent annual increase in tuition and fees for undergraduates is concerning. Already, the habitual 4 percent annual rise is well above inflation, and there seems to be no maximum to the cost of Brown in the future. While the value of a Brown education ultimately still exceeds its enormous cost,
it is necessary to consider the extent to which its ballooning price tag does or will discourage brilliant students from applying or matriculating to Brown, even in spite of the University’s generous financial aid policy. As the total annual cost approaches $70,000 and then $80,000 and beyond, the University must reckon with the manner in which it perpetuates inequality even as it serves as a critical channel for upward mobility. In addition, I question the plan’s intention to limit faculty growth in the short run. Since faculty play an important role in attracting graduate students, it seems counterproductive for the University to slow the growth of one while accelerating the growth of the other. I understand that high-quality faculty members don’t come for cheap and thus represent a significant part of the budget — the deficit of which the financial plan targets. But there is still room for improvement among Brown’s world-class faculty. Just this year, the Department of French Studies lost one of its longest-serving, chaired professors to Yale (one of Brown’s peers!). In order for the French department and others to continue to recruit graduate students of the highest caliber, the University ought to prioritize faculty growth as well. As a mere undergraduate, I know relatively little about how the University functions as a business and how administrators make the billiondollar budget work. I trust that we are in competent hands and appreciate Locke’s commitment to transparency and community engagement. It’s for that reason that I urge my fellow students to consider the new financial plan and its ramifications for the continuing evolution of Brown. Each of us has a stake in the University’s future and can lend our voice to the ongoing dialogue on where our collective priorities should lie.
Nikhil Kumar ’17 can be reached at nikhil_kumar@brown.edu.
SPORTS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2016
Goodbye to all that JAMES SCHAPIRO sports columnist Aroldis Chapman stood on the mound with a 6-4 lead. He pitched to Rajai Davis. A few seconds later, the game was tied. After that game, how can you not love baseball? Two teams entered the night with a combined 176 years without a championship. Nine innings would decide who would celebrate and who would go home emptyhanded — or so we thought. That just goes to show you how little we know, even when we think we know everything. Or as Yogi Berra once said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Looking back on the game, it seemed inevitable: Nine wouldn’t be enough. It’s 2016, the year of the unexpected. After the eighth inning, pretty much no one though that the game would ever end without extras, nor
the forces that control the universe. Because 68 or 108 years of history don’t go down easy. It was raining. It had already been raining, but now, it seemed, it was really raining. In the ninth, Terry Francona came out to challenge a slide. After review, the slide was legal. And, the commentators noted, it had started to rain even harder. The Cubs went out in the ninth, and we were headed to extras. A gift from the Baseball Gods. Well, a reluctant gift, apparently. Viewers came back from the commercial break for the top of the 10th and were treated to the sight of the grounds crew pulling the tarp out over the infield. History would be made, but it would have to wait a little longer. Twitter reacted characteristically. “We’ve learned curses control the weather,” one tweeter wrote. “Well, at least baseball season will extend a day longer than we all anticipated it would go,” wrote another. Indeed it did: The baseball season extended one additional day, or, to be precise, 47 minutes. In the top of the 10th, Kyle Schwarber led
off for the Cubs. Before the World Series, Schwarber hadn’t played a game since April 7. He had returned improbably, with only grudging approval from his doctor. And just a week after returning from a sixmonth absence, Schwarber singled to lead off the top of the 10th and put the go-ahead run on base for his team. In an ordinary game, this would have been the story of the night. It hardly bears mentioning, but this was no ordinary game. With two men on and one out, it was Ben Zobrist. Zobrist had just won the 2015 World Series with the Royals, and he was going for his second in two years. He lined a shot down the left field line, and the Cubs took the lead. A close friend of mine follows sports only for their narratives. “I’m rooting for the Indians,” he told me after Davis’ game-tying home run in the eighth. “Nothing better than a walk-off win in game seven.” I disagreed. “Better narrative: Cubs going for their first World Series win in 108 years; someone besides Aroldis Chapman comes in for
the save,” I said. He may have agreed. He wasn’t sure. After the Cubs brought home another run, making their lead just that much safer, the Indians came up with three outs to work with, three outs to save their season, three outs against Carl Edwards Jr., not the Cubs’ closer of choice, but a formidable opponent nonetheless. If he got the outs, I told my friend, he would never pay for a meal in Chicago again. And before my friend could say “we’re literally watching the Cubs win the World Series,” Edwards had gotten two of them. But I sensed some trouble, as did all of the baseball world, when he fell behind 3-0 on Brandon Guyer. Why was I just slightly unnerved? I didn’t know at first. Then I noticed the man in the on-deck circle. Davis, hero of the eighth inning, shining star of clutch moments, hitter of improbable two-run homers. As far as narrative goes, it doesn’t get any better than that. But sports don’t always go according to narrative. Sometimes partially, but rarely perfectly. And this proved the case, as Davis singled into cen-
ter, doing his part but still not quite enough. Guyer came home. Davis turned first and held on. One run game, tying run on base. Joe Maddon coming out to the mound to make a pitching change, Mike Montgomery coming in. Michael Martinez, the .197 hitter who had been double-switched into the game what seemed like days earlier, stood at the plate. He saw two pitches. The first was a strike. On the second, he swung. Kris Bryant fielded the slow grounder. He threw across the diamond to Anthony Rizzo. And with that, 108 years of torture and pain no longer mattered. And that’s how baseball season ended. Now, for the first time since April 3, there’s no baseball in the immediate future. And to be sure, that’s nothing to celebrate. But it was a hell of a way to go out.
James Schapiro ’19 is counting down the (150) days until the Mets play again. He can be reached at james_schapiro@brown.edu.
How baseball teams get their names CHARLIE BLASBERG sports columnist The Cubs’ historic World Series victory over the Indians is still fresh in everyone’s minds, especially after the roller coaster seventh game. During the marathon final act of what had been a thrilling World Series, I had time to think during a 17-minute rain delay, but not about the game. I thought about why the Indians are called the Indians. The inherent political incorrectness struck me first, but after, I noticed that the repeated phonetic sounds in Cleveland and Indians give the name a ring (but doesn’t absolve them of the insensitive mascot). The origin of Cleveland’s team’s name — and that of other teams in Major League Baseball — opens an interesting can of worms. Many of the teams’ names reflect the city’s culture and trends, factors pulling at the team and the tenor of the United States at the time the team was christened. MLB is a league that is inextricably linked to the history of America and its cities, and team names reflect that. While a lot of the youngsters out there may not agree, I think baseball history is riveting. But Charlie, isn’t there a World Series to recap? Didn’t the National Hockey League and National Baskeball Association seasons just start? Aren’t there more pressing sports issues that must be addressed this week? The answer
is yes, but I’m in the mood for some fun this week. While its name has been the subject of recent debate, Cleveland’s baseball team has not always had this name. Around the turn of the century, the team was called the Bluebirds, which was soon shortened to the Blues. Napoleon Lajoie emerged as the Cleveland star in the early 20th century, winning the American League Batting Championship in 1901, 1903 and 1904. The Blues were renamed the Naps after Lajoie from 1903 until his severing of ties with the team in 1915. The Indians, to some degree, owe their name to Louis Sockalexis, a Penebscot Native American from Maine. After finishing his standout career at Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., Sockalexis played 14 impressive seasons with the Cleveland Naps before retiring in 1915. When deciding what to rename the club, the owners took into account Sockalexis’ impact on the team as well as the support from an energetic fanbase and success the Boston Braves were experiencing after winning the 1915 World Series. The team landed on Indians for their post-1915 name, and that name has come under more and more fire over time. Like the Indians, the Atlanta Braves’ name is rooted in Native American culture. The team originated in Boston, and the name it landed on is an allusion to corrupt politician James Gaffney, who was the president of the team in 1911. Gaffney was a member of Tammany Hall, the political machine that controlled New York City in the early 1900s. Tammany Hall owes
its name to a Delaware Valley Native American cheif, Tammamend, and as a result, used a headdress as its emblem. Tammany Hall’s politicians, including the infamous Gaffney, became known as Braves, and the team referenced its owner’s corruption by naming itself the Braves — and, let’s face it, is an improvement from its former name, the Doves. The Doves are about as good a mascot as the Blue Jays or Orioles. The Braves played in Boston until 1953, after which they moved to Milwaukee, and then to Atlanta in 1966, retaining the Braves name through each move. The Dodgers franchise started in Brooklyn, and only moved to Los Angeles before the 1958 season. What is a dodger? What are they trying to dodge? The Brooklyn team’s name was originally the Grays, but the Trolley Dodgers became the team’s colloquial moniker at the turn of the century. At that point, the Trolley Dodgers’ Eastern Park neighbored a number of trolley stations, and the New York trolleys were particularly precarious because they had just switched from horse-power to electrical power, often running fast and out of control. Thus, dodging the city’s trolleys became a pastime for Brooklyn in the early 20th century until the transit system eventually improved. Though the team was known as the Dodgers by fans, its official name did not change until 1933, when the team’s uniforms printed Dodgers across the chest. Though the name was of local significance, when the team moved to Los Angeles in 1958, the Dodgers stuck.
The Cincinnati Reds also have an interesting story of how they landed on their current name. The Cincinnati Red Stockings were founded in 1869, but operations were soon shut down because National League President William Hulbert sold beer during games and operated the stadium on Sundays (God forbid either of those things happened today). Former Red Stockings players went to Boston and are the origin of both the Boston Red Sox’s name and that of the Boston Braves. The team rejoined the National League in 1890, and its name soon evolved to the Cincinnati Redlegs, which was soon officially shortened to Reds. But in the heat of Cold War from 1956 to 1960, the Reds organization feared that its name would be associated with communism, so the name was changed back to the Redlegs. The team struck the word Reds from their hats, and just put a C for Cinncinati. The team was renamed the Reds in 1961, but it took until 1967 for the original uniforms to be restored. A common man’s game, baseball is America in microcosm. From the graft of the Gilded Age to more recent pushes for sensitivity, trends in baseball reflect larger events and currents in America, and team names have their own place in this rich history.
Charlie Blasberg ’18 is looking forward to discussing these more pressing sports issues. He can be reached at charles_blasberg@brown.edu.
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