SINCE 1891
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD VOLUME CLV, ISSUE 21
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2020
UNIVERSITY NEWS
UNIVERSITY NEWS
Facilities replaces hot water tanks, to install bottle fillers
Cameras installed in Hegeman Hall
Facilities Management project follows UCS efforts to improve water quality, accessibility BY NITYA THAKKAR STAFF WRITER Since last spring, the Department of Facilities Management has replaced all of the hot water tanks on Wriston Quadrangle and in Graduate Center, wrote University Spokesperson Brian Clark in an email to The Herald. Facilities Management, in collaboration with the Undergraduate Council of Students, the Division of Campus Life and Student Services and the Office of Sustainability, will also launch a pilot program this spring to install water bottle fillers in Keeney Quadrangle, Grad Center, Vartan Gregorian Quadrangle and Emery and Woolley halls, Clark wrote. Discolored tap water resulted from “hot water tanks that were faulty and caused premature rusting in some residence hall buildings,” he wrote. “This
BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM
Community members consider privacy, safety following bias incidents
was only a problem with hot water, which is not typically used for drinking, and the discoloration did not result in unsafe water quality.” The project to replace hot water tanks followed student advocacy efforts led by UCS President William Zhou ’20, UCS Vice President Jason Carroll ’21 and UCS Chief of Staff Melissa Lee ’20 to improve water accessibility and quality on campus. In the UCS 2019 Fall Poll, 59.1 percent of student respondents said that they were “somewhat” or “very uncomfortable” drinking the tap water in their dorm, so UCS “felt really passionate about addressing this issue,” Zhou said. Facilities completed the first phase of the project over winter break and plans to work with the Office of Residential Life to replace rusted hot water tanks in Emery, Woolley, Morriss and Champlin halls and the Verney-Woolley Dining Hall this academic year, said Director of Design and Construction Anthony Casello. Replacing hot water tanks in occupied buildings, such as the Verney-Woolley complex, poses a
BY ROSE HOUGLET SENIOR STAFF WRITER Following more than 15 instances of homophobic and anti-Semitic graffiti in Hegeman Hall since November 2019, the University has installed security cameras in common areas of the residence hall, said Koren Bakkegard, associate vice president for campus life and dean of students. Contractors and Department of Public Safety officers began installing cameras on Feb. 17 and 18, according to an email to Hegeman residents from Bakkegard and Eric Estes, vice president for campus life. These common areas include stairwells, lounges and laundry rooms. Bakkegard and Estes noted that the University still hopes to maintain student privacy by ensuring that no cameras can capture student rooms, suites, bathrooms or adjacent areas. As part of DPS’s ongoing hate
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SPENCER SCHULTZ / HERALD
Contractors and Department of Public Safety officers began installing security cameras earlier this week. crime investigation into these incidents, DPS detectives have interviewed a number of individuals and student residents, said Chief of Police Mark Porter. Detectives are also examining evidence related to the incidents, Porter added. To Porter’s knowledge, the installation of cameras in Hegeman marks the first time the University has used security cameras inside a dormitory. Though there have been cases of hateful graffiti in the past, Porter said
those instances were not as “pervasive or ongoing” as the current pattern of graffiti in Hegeman. Bakkegard said that the use of cameras in a residence hall is not the University’s “normal” or “typical” practice. The University uses approximately 800 cameras on and off campus, a large majority of which are located in “high traffic areas” such as public streets and walkways or in areas with high
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UNIVERSITY NEWS
SPORTS
Students share experiences with financial aid appeals
Uche ’21 breaks U. long jump record
When financial circumstances change, students navigate a web of forms and meetings BY WILL KUBZANSKY SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Process to Appeal Financial Aid Packages at Brown
student recieves new aid package
student reaches out to financial aid office and meets with counselor
student gathers relevant forms and fills out appeals form
When students receive their financial aid awards, the packages reflect a web of forms and information: the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, College Scholarship Service profiles and other interactions with the Office of Financial Aid. But sometimes, financial circumstances change — an unexpected medical cost or a parent’s recent unemployment might make an award insufficient for a family’s need. The primary safety net for students unable to meet expected tuition contributions is the appeals process: a mechanism within the Office of Financial Aid that allows students to present new information that may justify an increased award. Three students who went through the appeals process told The Herald that, once they were informed about
the proper procedure, a combination of meetings, storytelling and a tall stack of documents led to meaningful change in their aid packages. The majority of financial aid appeals come from accepted first-year students deciding if they can afford
News
News
Commentary
Policy Lab lecture features U. Arizona professor discussing health insurance. Page 2
Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense talks diplomacy at “America in Distress.” Page 9
Douglas ’20: U. should increase fully-online classes offerings for students Page 11
student recieves notification of updated aid package
(if prospective student) appeals form goes to committee, which makes decision as “quickly as possible”
(if currently enrolled) appeals form goes to committee, which makes decision within 2-3 weeks
BY RYAN HANDEL SPORTS EDITOR
“Often there’s not enough space for (first-year students) to tell us everything,” Tilton said. “When we send out the first award, I almost expect them to come back and say, ‘Did you
Ijeoma Uche ’21 broke the University long jump record Saturday with a jump of 20 feet, 6.5 inches at the Yale Giegengack Indoor Invitational. She shattered her own previous University record of 20 feet, 3 inches that she set last season. Uche, who focuses solely on the long jump event, became the 15th-ranked long jumper in the country with Saturday’s performance and recorded the fourth best jump in Ivy League history. Uche is coming off a First Team AllIvy selection last indoor track and field
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SEE AOTW PAGE 9
USHA BHALLA / HERALD
to attend the University, according to Dean of Financial Aid James Tilton. In their appeals, they supplement the information they may have already given the University on a CSS Profile or Free Application for Federal Student Aid.
Ijeoma Uche ascends to No. 15 ranking in country with 20 foot, 6.5 inch jump
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2020
UNIVERSITY NEWS
Law professor challenges health insurance cost sharing Policy Lab event highlights how cost sharing influences patient decision-making BY COREY GELB-BICKNELL SENIOR STAFF WRITER Yesterday, Brown students and professors gathered to hear Christopher Robertson, a law professor at the University of Arizona, argue against the use of cost sharing in health insurance, which includes copays, coinsurance and deductibles. The talk was part of the Brown Policy Lab’s year-long event series, according to Director David Yokum. In accordance with The Policy Lab’s mission to “apply research to help improve life” in the Rhode Island, Yokum said that the Lab chooses speakers who “imbue some of the best and latest thinking on what empirical sciences have to say” about various policy issues. Robertson, the author of “Exposed: Why Our Health Insurance Is Incomplete and What Can Be Done about It,” discussed the idea of “moral hazard” in health insurance at the event. “Normally, in a free market, we expect people to weigh the costs and benefits of the things that they purchase,” he said. “But the problem is that under health insurance, the pa-
tient is supposedly deciding whether to consume care, whereas the insurer is paying for it.” When consumers pay for insurance, and not for the care itself, they are more likely to seek care and over-utilize resources. He said that the American health care system solves this issue by creating deductibles, copays and coinsurance. These expenses are examples of “cost sharing” since payment is divided between patients and insurers. The problem, Robertson argued, is that patients do not know which services to pursue in a cost-sharing system. Often, they cut off health services “indiscriminately,” such as halting the use of important medications or antibiotics. This is because patients do not have the knowledge to accurately compare products, so their decisions are driven by doctors’ recommendations. Robertson said that if health care systems continue to use the cost-sharing method, they should “start thinking about it as a nudge, where we target health care that we think has low value,” rather than utilizing this strategy on all services. This practice could push patients to choose their care more efficiently. With current cost-sharing methods, doctors also need to consider the cost to patients when recommending which services to use, Robertson added. “Providers need to start thinking
COREY GELB-BICKNELL / HERALD
Brown Policy Lab’s year-long event series hosted Christopher Robertson, a law professor at the University of Arizona. Robertson discussed the idea of ‘moral hazard’ in health insurance at the event. about (price) as a risk factor,” he said. “If they are choosing between your patented chemotherapy drug and your unpatented one, and one is likely to push (the patient) into bankruptcy, the health care provider, the oncologist, needs to think about that.” Additionally, Robertson said that cost sharing should be scaled depending on ability to pay. “There’s no reason that someone who earns ten times what another person earns should have the same cost exposure,” he said.
Langa Bakhuluma-Ncube, a firstyear MPH student at the University from Zimbabwe, said she came to the event because “the U.S. health care system is something I’ve never really learned about, and coming from a place that has universal health care, it would be interesting to finally understand it.” Sandra Ferretti, a senior advisor at the School of Professional Studies, said that her background on Rhode Island’s health care exchange program
sparked her interest in this event. Ferretti hoped to learn more about “the structure of health insurance and why we should be concerned about the prejudices we’ve built into our insurance system,” she said. Yokum said that Brown Policy Lab’s talks aim to strike a balance between an overview of the issue and the data behind it. “If you’re not a health policy expert, you shouldn’t feel discouraged from coming to these (events),” Yokum said.
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MUKUL KHANNA/ HERALD
In the Undergraduate Council of Students 2019 Fall Poll, 59.1 percent of respondents said they were “somewhat” or “very uncomfortable” drinking tap water in their dorms.
WATER FROM PAGE 1 challenge because of its effect on the availability of hot water, he added. “We are trying to do it without impacting students.” Funding to replace the hot water tanks came from the Facilities Renewal Fund, according to Casello. In addition, to increase accessibility to filtered water, the spring pilot program will bring “point-of-use gooseneck bottle fillers (to) existing sinks” on campus, Clark wrote. Based on the UCS 2019 Fall Poll, “the kitchens in Keeney, Grad Center, (Vartan-Gregorian Quandrangle) and Emery Woolley have been identified as the best candidates to install point-of-use gooseneck bottle fillers at existing sinks,” he added. If the pilot is “deemed successful, more
residence halls may receive hydration stations in the future.” Casello said that Facilities Management estimates that “all those filters will be installed in the next month or two, but we need to finalize our schedule and also figure out when we can get access to all those kitchen areas.” He added that Facilities Management is “still figuring out where we will get the funding for it from, but I think it is going to come out of our same Facilities Renewal Fund.” Lee said that UCS plans to advocate for filtered water stations to be included in all future buildings the University constructs or renovates. In addition to improving water accessibility and quality, UCS also hopes to help make the community feel more comfortable drinking the tap water on
campus by publishing the results of lead tests Facilities has conducted over the past decade, Zhou said. “Some of UCS’s long term goals are to increase transparency around testing and lead levels and to have the data easily accessible.” “Brown has done extensive proactive water sampling to determine lead levels,” Clark wrote. “During all testing within the last decade-plus, all Brown residence halls have been within the (Environmental Protection Agency’s) standards for all buildings.” “While we have not faced water quality issues with the potential to affect health of the Brown community,” he added, “we continue to take steps to alleviate concerns about water discoloration and access to hydration stations.”
In This Issue
Rekindled
NAOMI KIM 6
What's the Buzz?
CHARLIE STEWART 5
Tell Me How You Really Feel
ANNA HARVEY 4 KIA CATING 7
Not Gonna Be Pretty ROB ERT CAPRON 8
Portrait of a Senior on Fire
postCover by Katie Fliegel
FEB 21
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VOL 25 —
ISSUE 16
FEATURE
Tell Me How You Really Feel in praise of earnestness in an age of irony BY ANNA HARVEY ILLUSTRATED BY MADDY CHERR
M
erriam-Webster’s English Dictionary defines “earnest” as “characterized by or proceeding from an intense and serious state of mind.” The Cambridge English Dictionary definition is similar: To be “earnest” is to be “sincere and serious.” To be earnest is to believe in what you say, and to say it. To be earnest is to be the exact opposite of what this world—a world in which truth itself is up for debate—wants you to be. To be earnest is to not worry about starting sentences with the same phrase three times in a row because you want to get your point across. I want to get my point across. In contrast to earnestness, irony is generally defined as the use of words to convey a message that contradicts their literal meaning. Irony is at play, for example, when we joke about the thrilling weekend of essay writing we have in store. But there is another definition especially present in contemporary culture, both artistic and lived. This definition involves the deliberate construction of an attitude—written, performed, what have you—in order to signal your detachment from the subject or emotion at play. This “I watch The Bachelor, but only as a commentary on the vapidity of the American cultural imagination” type of irony is often used, consciously or
otherwise, to signal superiority. You, a Brown student, don’t watch reality television because you like it; you’ve read too much critical theory to simply like things. I don’t mean to attack any of my fellow students. I mean for us all to reflect on the tastes we’ve adopted during our time in college, to reconsider the way we treat each other, and to start moving beyond our brains and into our hearts. I am writing this essay because I am trying to figure out how I want to live, and I don’t think living ironically is it. In a 2012 op-ed for The New York Times, professor Christy Wampole argued that irony “is the most self-defensive mode, as it allows a person to dodge responsibility for his or her choices, aesthetic and otherwise. To live ironically is to hide in public.” To live guided by irony is to believe that directness is antithetical to true meaning—that saying, simply and honestly, what I feel will open me up to criticism that I'm not sure I can take. There is a gray area, of course. Some of us may start to like something ironically before realizing we actually just...like it. We may legitimately think irony is the highest form of humor and embrace it as a cornerstone of our attitudes in a completely forthright way. But I think most of us, consciously or not, adopt a kind of ironic posturing
that allows us to shield ourselves from judgment. Wampole argues that if irony is “a function of fear and pre-emptive shame,” then “ironic living bespeaks cultural numbness, resignation, and defeat.” This fear of showing the world who you really are is a real and valid concern to have. Still, it is one I am trying to overcome. I am trying to overcome this anxiety because I do not want to live as if my life is already over. I do not want to construct my life around the pursuit of "cool." I want to be fine with the way I am. I want others to be able to see that. It is easier for me to write this down than it is for me to say it out loud. It is easier to hide behind a computer screen than it is to look you in the eye and tell you I am baring something of my soul to you. Easier, and still hard. In 1993, David Foster Wallace wrote an essay about television and the American public. It was also an essay challenging irony. “The reason why our pervasive cultural irony is at once so powerful and so unsatisfying,” he writes, “is that an ironist is impossible to pin down.” Irony, Wallace claims, is predicated on the assumption that we don’t really mean what we are saying, which then makes it difficult to figure out exactly who we are. “Most likely,” Wallace writes, “today’s irony ends up saying:
Letter from the Editor Dear Readers, Rabbits poop. A lot. I’ve recently had the pleasure of becoming a pet owner, and with this comes the great responsibility of scooping out piles and piles of fibrous pellet crap. On the bright side, ever since my housemates and I got Theodore, we’ve amassed immense social capital, which, for me—someone who gets a small high every single time I am stopped on the street for small talk—makes everything so much sweeter. (I’m kidding; I love Theodore for who he is, not what he brings me.) For those of you who are interested in impulsively getting a pet during your time at Brown, I have a few tips. For one thing, be prepared to set a regimented feeding schedule that works with your class schedule. That is, if you have an 8:30 class and your prospective puppy expects to be promptly fed at 9:00 a.m., drop that class because you have bigger priorities now. And if you know yourself to be a procrastinator, well, all I can say is brace yourself for some more late nights because when it comes down to your problem set and cuddling up with your adorable new tortoise, you’ll inevitably choose the latter.
4!POST–
Whatever you decide to do, I hope that you approach any of your future pets, pets of family, friends, or strangers, with open hearts. Our animal friends brighten our lives, especially around campus, and they deserve the utmost appreciation. This week, our writers also delve into an appreciation of sorts for the world around them. Our Feature explores the importance of appreciating sincerity in a time when irony has become a go-to response to the problems surrounding us. In Narrative, one writer begrudgingly comes to respect wasps, and another writer learns, through burnout, how to be kinder to herself. And in Arts & Culture, we have a piece appreciating unconventional forms of beauty through our music and another appreciating the value of small moments. And here’s to all our readers—from the whole post- team, we appreciate you.
Self-Care Habits for Midterm Season 1. Meditating 2. Eating fruit (if you want) 3. Eating cookies (if you want) 4. Going to sleep before midnight 5. Taking ECON0100 S/NC 6. Escaping to New York 7. Practicing kindness 8. Scheduling downtime in your GCal 9. Therapy dogs 10. Pretending like you don’t have anything to do…
Amanda Ngo Editor-in-Chief
‘How very banal to ask what I mean.’ Anyone with the heretical gall to ask an ironist what he actually stands for ends up looking like a hysteric or a prig.” I am asking you to tell me what you really mean. I am asking you to lean into banality because, sometimes, to risk sounding boring is the bravest thing of all. I watched the Taylor Swift documentary Miss Americana on Netflix last week. I was a huge Swiftie growing up; I have listened obsessively to each of her albums and started wearing red lipstick—now a staple of my makeup routine—in large part because of her. But, for the sake of honesty, I have interpreted every new release of Swift’s through a carefully hung veil of irony. I still like her, I will hastily admit! And yet I’m uncomfortable leaving it at that. I feel like I need to levy some sort of critique. She has to be a problematic fave. This critical eye proves—to others, but really to myself—that I have grown up and can view Swift affectionately as a relic of my middle and high school years, that I listen for nostalgia and nothing more. This critical eye also obscures how deep some of her songs still cut, and how much I still want them to. “We’re happy, free, confused, and lonely in the best way,” Swift croons on “22.” I am about to turn 22, and can think of no better sentiment to blast from my laptop speakers at midnight. I started watching the documentary in a voyeuristic way, ready to shore up my belief that I no longer need a pop star to articulate my feelings. For instance, I know now, having read it, that Romeo and Juliet is not the pinnacle of romance as Swift croons in “Love Story,” but a tale in which teenage hormones run amok and everyone dies. But, at the end of the documentary, Swift says something that made me change my mind about her. “I just want to have a sharp pen, a thin skin, and an open heart,” she says in the final scene as the camera jump-cuts between triumphant shots of her on the tours of the past decade. While watching the documentary, I started to recognize the hoops Swift has had to jump through in order to speak her mind as the adult she has become, and to appreciate the very real emotional truths that, however mediated by the celebrity machine, she still manages to sneak into her songs. That last line hit home because, sincerely, it’s what I want, too. I am not trying to assert my authenticity by positioning my fandom as a quirk, a chink in the armor of detachment, a way to prove that I don’t care about being cool because I can embrace something uncool. I like Taylor Swift, always have, even when I was trying my best to only like her ironically. If not the exact turning point, Miss Americana solidified my conviction that I, too, am built with a thin skin and an open heart, and that I care— so, so deeply—about keeping it that way. I have started telling my friends that I love them. I dance awkwardly in front of them, tell them about my dreams, and make stew for my whole apartment. I am corny as hell, and this is something I don’t care about changing—it makes what I say feel more true. I am saying thank you every day, scribbling a sentence of gratitude in my planner next to the date. I am opening my heart up and praying that it does not hurt as much as I fear it will. I am reminding myself that, even if it does, it will be worth it. It is worth it not to hedge my bets or dance around my meaning because, when I’m 80, it won’t matter whether or not that kid in my poetry seminar thought I was smart. What will matter is that I spoke up for what I believed, at the risk of looking stupid, and said it anyway. As I write this essay, I am listening to a live concert
by my favorite musical artist, Julien Baker. Toward the end, she pauses to thank the audience. One of her favorite things about performing, she says, is the “inevitability of mistakes.” She says she has been fortunate in her life to make mistakes while performing “and daily be reminded how important it is to practice mercy with yourself, and use your mistakes as opportunities for growth, and opportunities to display graciousness.” Such vulnerability is an integral component of earnestness. Baker does not brush off her mistakes or shroud them in calculated humor; she owns them and, in so doing, facilitates a uniquely intimate connection with her audience that would not be the same otherwise. As she strums the intro of her next song, cheers erupt from the crowd before the whole theater submits to rapturous silence, secure in the understanding that Baker’s earnestness has brought them all closer together. Earnestness means approaching our lives with the fullness of our bodies. Earnestness means not thinking that using the heart to represent emotion is a cliche, because I really do feel my emotions in my chest. Leslie Jamison, in the last essay of her collection The Empathy Exams, writes, “I think the charges of cliché and performance offer our closed hearts too many alibis, and I want our hearts to be open. I just wrote that. I want our hearts to be open.” “Maybe it’s all gonna turn out all right. Oh, I know that it’s not, but I have to believe that it is,” Baker sings in her song "Appointments." I know that, objectively, bad things will happen—that is a part of being alive. Writing in Jezebel earlier this year, Megan Reynolds discusses her own initial hesitancy toward earnestness. “In my mind,” Reynolds says, earnestness "is a relentless positivity, a near-delusional Pollyanna who really, really believes that everything will come out in the wash when all signs indicate that it will not.” But regardless of how terrible things may get, I also know that I cannot live my life trying to detach myself from sincerity. I know that climate change will drastically alter the landscape I’ve grown up in; I know that I cannot trust the political process to accurately represent my vote, not when elections can be hacked. But I also know that it will do me no good—it will make me feel more hopeless—if I shroud myself in irony. Irony, to me, represents a way to pretend that I don’t care about much of anything at all, to live defensively and cynically even as I pretend to be living humorously. I think irony has a place in art, but I don’t think I can live my life like I’m the protagonist of a novel. Life is far messier than that. Reynolds revises her definition in this light, writing that “earnestness is about the conviction and not the message.” I can be earnest without abandoning the knowledge that not everything is sunshine and roses all the time. Maybe earnestness is about faith: believing that it is worth it to be sincere and fail rather than relentlessly dodging hurt through ironic living. I have to believe in things. I want to believe in them. That is my point.
What's The Buzz? reflections on nature's worst bastard BY CHARLIE STEWART ILLUSTRATED BY RUIHONG JIANG
I was at my now ex-girlfriend’s cousin’s wedding in upstate New York, looking at a wasp.
The wasp, dehydrated, was dragging itself across the tarmac toward the guard rail overlooking a small waterfall by the venue. Every time it tried to take off, its wings would sputter to life for a moment until, like a car engine failing to start, it dropped the half-inch back to the ground. I’ve never been good at killing insects. Each time I kill one, a pang of guilt hangs over me for three or four seconds too long to ignore. The exception to this rule has always been wasps, because they’re bastards. You already know this. The house I grew up in would get wasp nests in the attic, which was where my dad kept his old work computer. It was the only place 10-year-old me could play online video games and continue my early education in Russian insults, delivered to my ears in bit-crunched screams through a knotted pair of headphones. Every time a wasp got into the room, you'd better believe I bug-sprayed that yellowjacket motherfucker until it froze over, caked in white insecticide like a tiny Han Solo frozen in carbonite. In this version of the series, instead of being rescued by his heroic comrades in the next movie, each little smuggler had his petrified corpse flicked under the radiator by a squeamish Jabba the Hutt—out of sight, out of mind. Back in New York, the wasp was making slow progress towards the guard rail overlooking the water. Looking out over the barrier at the running river below were two men in gym clothes who must have been staying at the hotel. I didn’t know their names, but they looked like a Gary and a Paul. While I’m naming people, I’m also going to call the wasp Randall—which, as Recess and Monsters, Inc. have taught me, is the name of bastards. Paul was wearing neon blue sneakers. I watched Randall waddle under Gary’s right heel as he stood on his toes to get a better look at the wedding party. I was sure that any second he would lean back, putting the heat-stroked insect out of its misery. Instead, as his foot descended, Randall found a burst of fight-or-flight energy and managed to lift off just long enough to avoid becoming a grisly paste across the pavement. Exhausted, Randall dropped down on top of Paul’s shoe, and, perhaps looking for shelter from the sun or any passing colossi, began ascending toward the sneaker’s open top. People love bees. I think, had this wasp been a bee, I probably would have made some effort to nurse it back to health. I would have at least used a leaf to prod it in the direction of some shade. Alright, in reality I would have looked at it and felt mild pity before banishing the thought from my mind, along with any disturbing associations the death of one bee might summon in me: climate change, crop failure, man-made mass extinction, Jerry Seinfeld. But Randall the wasp wasn’t a bee. Randall the wasp was a wasp—king bastard of the insect world, a class of Animalia so rife with bastards that standing head and shoulders above the rest is sort of like being awarded the medal for least agreeable member of the entire Sith Order. I think it was because of my initial detachment from Randall—the sense that, of all creatures, this
“I just finished reading all of Dear Blueno…I guess it's time to work.” “How do you make a chicken-banana smoothie?” FEBRUARY 21 , 2020!5
NARRATIVE wasp was certainly not my problem—that I found myself watching in silence as the last segment of his twitching abdomen clumsily shimmied into Paul’s shoe. It was not long after I chose not to help the wasp that I found myself abandoning my allegiance to the animal kingdom’s co-bastard-in-chief: mankind. It was pure luck that, as I looked on, Randall crawled his way out the back of Paul’s shoe, unharmed, and began his waddling journey through his pint-sized desert anew. Paul did not seem to notice. One week later, I was on my way to work when I felt a stabbing pain. Initially, I thought I’d stepped on glass, but, lifting my shoe, I saw a wasp curled up between the two leftmost toes on my right foot. Without thinking, I grabbed him and threw him into the street. I took a step off the sidewalk to look down at my attacker, still curled up and wriggling in the road. This got me thinking two things: 1) Was this wasp stinging me today some sort of karma? If it was, was it karma for not helping the other wasp, or for not helping the man he could have stung? Is there any difference if helping others is the imperative? Or was God just punishing me for wearing sandals in September? 2) Ouch, fuck, my foot. Either way, I let him be. I think I have a newfound respect for The Wasp. It might not have the fuzzy exterior of a bee, or the good press, or the sense that if it did sting you, it was only out of noble, suicidal necessity. What the wasp does have is something more powerful: the ability to remind you to be slightly less of a bastard when possible through, if nothing else, its own bad example.
Rekindled
confessions of a recovering workaholic BY NAOMI KIM ILLUSTRATED BY ANNA SEMIZHONOVA
My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends— It gives a lovely light! - Edna St. Vincent Millay, “First Fig” Dublin, December: overcast skies, deadlines looming ahead. They told me studying abroad would change me. They told me it would be exciting and rejuvenating.
6!POST–
Instead, I am trudging down the street more slowly than I have ever moved in my life because just being alive feels so exhausting. I am sitting in the library for hours without speaking to a single person. I am staring at my laptop without the energy to proofread my draft. I am crying silently for no reason in the dark of my room. I am crying silently in a cathedral I’ve wandered into. I am Googling things like “sad and tired for no reason” and getting results about depression. Then, finally, I am home! Quickly, I realize I should be figuring out my summer plans like everyone else and reading all the books I’ve wanted to and writing now that I finally have time to and getting my sleep schedule back on track for the spring semester, and how has it already been two weeks since I got home and I haven’t done anything? But then— Then, we are eating dinner one night. My brother is talking about a trend in South Korea that emphasizes identifying moments of “small but certain happiness.” I realize that the things that used to make me happy just don’t anymore—that I have turned everything into work, and I am so, so tired of work. Then I am wondering if it is always going to be like this, all the rest of my life. Suddenly, I am crying.
*** I didn’t know what being burned out meant until then. Sure, I knew what being tired or unmotivated or stressed felt like. But this—this was something else. Studying abroad itself is not what burned me out. It was spending five semesters, both at Brown and abroad, with a self-berating mindset of I should be working and I should be more productive and I should be doing more. I held myself to a strict sleep schedule, which involved getting up early to get things done, and I held myself to it even during breaks so I wouldn’t get out of the habit. I jam-packed my to-do lists. There was no reason to stop working if it meant being on top of my readings—they were endless, so I figured I might as well get ahead if I miraculously had the chance. When I wasn’t working, I was restless because surely there was something I was supposed to be doing. I made lists of things I needed to do during breaks—pieces to write, books to read. I was determined not to waste time, and as time went on, the category of things that counted as “wasting time” expanded. I didn’t just burn my candle at both ends. I set each side on fire with a flame torch, attached dynamite, and wondered, “But is this really enough?” In an Opinions column for the Brown Daily Herald last October, Anna Kramer ’20 wrote that Brown has embraced and endorsed the unhealthy mentality of “do it all — and more.” Overcommitted overachievers, we are burning our candles at both ends. Maybe the short-lived light that results is somewhat lovely—Brown was, after all, ranked as one of the happiest colleges in America—but we too often end up the way candles do: burned out. Maybe this is why Brown is also often ranked as one of the most stressed universities in America. Here—and everywhere, really—work is not only a socially acceptable addiction, but also one that is encouraged and admired. We dedicate ourselves to work, classes, and extracurricular activities—all of it. We admire the people who work a lot. We’re proud of being busy. It feels like busy people are the ones who are somehow doing it all, the ones who are going to go the farthest, the ones taking the most advantage of being at a place like Brown. And if I’m not busy, then surely I’m not doing enough. And I never quite felt like I was doing enough—which is perhaps part of why, even as I grasped that I was burned out, I found it so difficult to
ARTS & CULTURE accept. I didn’t have enough reason to be burned out, did I? I felt almost embarrassed: What would people think if I, an English concentrator, was burned out? How could I be burned out if I wasn’t pre-med or CS or engineering or anything that people typically consider difficult? I didn’t have hours of lab to cram into my schedule or the MCAT to prepare for or a consulting firm I was competing to get into. But I knew, as I sat there crying at the dinner table, that I was undoubtedly burned out. That I couldn’t keep going on like this in the same way. *** Providence, February: sunny days and gray ones, mid-semester quickly approaching. They told me studying abroad would change me, and they were right. I still have to-do lists. I still have club meetings and work shifts and classes. I still feel, sometimes, the urge to be working and the worry that perhaps I’m not doing enough. But I also remember my parents watching me cry and telling me the things they quit in college when they were tired. I remember the exhaustion, the weariness, the terrifying feeling that I might just get stuck in this deadness if I didn’t change something. This semester, I allowed myself to drop an activity I think I should be doing. I am trying to stop saying should all the time. I stay up at Jo’s on a Friday night and say crazy, sleep-deprived things. I decide spending meaningful time with people is going to be the most important thing to me in the long run. I wake up late one Saturday just in time for brunch with friends. I try to be kinder to myself about not accomplishing this or that, about when I get up and go to sleep. I let myself stop working sometimes and sit in the bean bag in our suite just to talk. I watch a movie with a friend in the middle of the week. I “waste time” by making art on my own. And I think maybe this is a lovelier light than the short-lived midnight blaze—this softer, quieter, steadier glow.
Not Gonna Be Pretty
questioning conventions of beauty through music BY KIA CATING ILLUSTRATED BY YUAN PU
“Emmylou”—First Aid Kit I was 14 when I first heard First Aid Kit—two Swedish sisters who initially found fame via a Fleet Foxes cover on YouTube. Gotta love the internet. Soon they started writing their own country/folk ballads, and I was transfixed. They were the indie alternative to Taylor Swift that my aspirationally “edgy” (but actually incredibly sappy) teenage self needed. Sure, they were singing sentimental love songs inspired by Johnny Cash, but there were still enough people who hadn’t “discovered” them yet for me to maintain my imagined “not-like-other-girls” status (cue eye roll). *** “Hem of Her Dress”—First Aid Kit Cut to six years later, and I am at their concert in Boston. I am also not the pretentious hipster goddess I’d hoped to become when I was 15. I’ve stopped listening to them as much, having traded in crooning Swedish women for the likes of Vulfpeck and Beach Fossils (okay, still pretentious). I accepted an invite to the concert in hopes of reconnecting with an old friend. But sitting there in our 30-dollar third row seats, I realize why I’d fallen in love with them so many years ago. It was the imperfection of it all, the rawness
of Klara’s voice (at one point she nearly screams into the microphone), her lyrics pulling us into a painful breakup before the horns take over in “Hem of Her Dress.” Despite the harmonies and technical prowess, there was a realness—even an ugliness, at times—in their voices. The low register they sang in—lower than that of any female pop star I’d heard on the radio—paired with just-barely-reached high notes, challenged all I’d learned in my high school choir. It challenged what I thought women should sound like, what was “marketable.” I found in their music a synthesis of intimacy and assertiveness, the likes of which I’d rarely heard before. First Aid Kit was my introduction into the world of artfully strained vocal chords, crying into microphones, and making music that defies what is considered “pretty.” *** “Don’t Wanna Fight”—Alabama Shakes This, of course, had been done before. Dive into any classic blues or soul album and you’ll find powerful and raw voices of women going back half a century, telling their own stories of pain and heartache—think Nina Simone. Long after I was swept off my feet by First Aid Kit, I experienced the visceral ache in the voice of Brittany Howard, guitarist and lead vocalist of Alabama Shakes. I was angry about a lot of things around the time I first listened to them. Most of the personal frustrations boiled down to my gender and what it meant within the context of family, my friends, my romantic interests, and my efforts to socialize on a Friday night. For so much of my life, I had wanted to be thought of as “pretty,” and not simply in the physical sense of the word. No, “pretty” is a mode of being. It is being ever-kind and courteous, intelligent enough to be interesting but charming enough that the intelligence isn’t a turnoff; it’s not scowling when random men smile at you in public, and it’s being effortlessly joyful in the pursuit of pleasing those around you. My first year of college was the first time I realized how much of my “personality” was actually devoted to trying to embody this perfection. This is decidedly not what Brittany Howard brings to the table. Listen to “Hold On” or, better yet, “Don’t Wanna Fight,” and you won’t be met with a smile. That’s not to say that she isn’t kind, or joyful, or fucking awesome in almost every way (which she probably is). But it is to say that her voice is not accommodating. It dominates. And it is brimming with sadness, and frustration, and anguish, to the point where she shrieks the song into being. It is powerful, and certainly not pretty. *** “715 - CRΣΣKS” — Bon Iver But what about the dudes, you ask? Of course, male artists have their own norms of sound, their own set of expectations imposed on them of what makes “good” music. There’s less of a preoccupation with them sounding and being “pretty,” but there are other limitations on which emotions should be expressed sonically (and how) in order to produce a commercial hit. Hip-hop has been largely responsible for bringing transgressions against these platitudes to the mainstream. Kanye, Cudi, Kendrick, Childish— all bring a wide array of vocal maneuvers and musical styles to their work. They give us panting, yelling, and eerie falsettos—all attempts to communicate something that can only be felt. They don’t simply express emotions; they also elicit them, and the music becomes a collective experience. I felt this recently, sitting in my room, smoking a joint, and listening to Bon Iver (otherwise known as Justin Vernon). Remember him? Indie darling famed for “Skinny Love” turned experimental collorator? Definitely not hip-hop, though he and Kanye did collab on “Lost in the World” way back in 2010. Anyway, while
I was sitting on the floor, his song “715 - CRΣΣKS” came on. Like many of the songs on 22, A Million, this one sounds…weird. Definitely not pretty. The album is chock-full of dissonant chords, unexpected brass instruments, and cryptic song titles. But “715 CRΣΣKS” is unique in its lack of noise. It’s nothing but Justin Vernon’s voice. The voice—and I can’t even really call it his voice because it’s been distorted and amplified to the point of unrecognition—is desperate, pained, imploring, and completely unencumbered by any external melody or beat. It’s just him, and I get goosebumps every single time I hear it. *** Nothing about this is new, though. So what’s so special about the handful of indie artists whose music lacks the polish and production of a Billboard Top 100 bop? It’s not that the music is better; who am I to judge “good” art from “bad”? It’s just that I happen to like what I like. But there is something important about artists who expand the range of acceptable sounds, acceptable registers, and acceptable emoting. Note: emoting. Not emotion. All music deals with emotion, the good, the bad, the ugly. But not all music portrays such feelings in ways that are familiar, intimate, and perhaps even a little bit too close for comfort. Not all music invites its listener to scream, howl, and rage along to the melody. Not all music allows for people to just be really fucking weird, and messy, and imperfect. So why care? Because we’re at Brown University. And though it may be the “chillest” among all its fancy Ivy League brethren, the fact remains: The drive and desire for perfection is everywhere. It's what got many of us here. So, when walking across our picturesque campus, seeing other Type A’s speed walking to their next networking events (which will inevitably lead to lucrative consulting careers), it can sometimes feel like all we are capable of doing is smiling, raising our hands in class in hopes we’ll say something groundbreaking, and being fun and open— but not too open—when letting people know just how fucked up we sometimes feel. And god, so much apologizing. Listening to artists who don’t apologize, who don’t posture, who don’t fit a particular mold, who allow themselves to not sound “pretty,” can help us work on the exact same things: learning when not to smile, when not to show off, and when not to act the way others want us to act. FEBRUARY 21 , 2020!7
ARTS&CULTURE
Portrait of a Senior on Fire on friendship, love, and dwindling time BY ROBERT CAPRON ILLUSTRATED BY ASHLEY CHUNG
Valentine’s Day has passed and the end is nigh. I don’t speak of heartbreak, let alone any impending apocalypse: I refer to the t-minus-three months until the Class of 2020 passes through the Van Wickle gates for the second and final time. A certain poignancy, a melancholic sense of the inevitable, has cast a cloud over my beloved campus. Each drunken dash to Jo’s, each harrowing warning of “Caution: Bus is Turning” is but a last-minute addition to what will soon be the archives of our college lives. Naught to do but accept my fate and enjoy the last glimmers of half-fledged adulthood as best as I see fit. As I...see fit. Huh. What do I want to do with my remaining days? I’ve already made a Brown Bucket list; it’s admittedly a paltry one. The single, measly activity I can think of is getting shitfaced in our local Shake Shack (yes, they sell wine, and yes, you too can do this). But what next? Spend as much time with friends as possible? Finally find a way inside Blueno’s hollow interior? Focus on classes? Truthfully, I’ve always been a nostalgic person. I’m prone to passionate rants about childhood shows and the genius of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy. Half the songs I listen to come from iconic scenes in movies; I boot up Spotify not to uncover new singles but to find comfort in familiar hits, to reminisce about the moments that left me with my jaw on the floor. I cannot help but want to memorialize my time at Brown, to condense the myriad feelings and experiences this place has given me into a single set of objects, a select series of photos, carefully curated three-to-four minute blasts into the eardrums. And now I find myself longing to uncover as many of these mementos as possible, even in the midst of the very moments I strive to preserve. Of course, such strategies do little but offer flickers of what was first felt. For all our technological innovation, for all our methods and means of memorialization, we cannot replicate the past, relive the moments, reexperience the magic. So what can you do but thrive in the moments you have? Exist fully in the present? Live as if you “know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them” (thanks, Andy Bernard)? And then, when you do leave those good old days—leave them in the past, and take what is possible into the present? For they never quite die. We cannot let them. Two weeks ago, I saw a film that changed me forever. IFF’s advance screenings have always been exciting for me; my little film snob brain loves the idea of seeing a movie earlier than most other people. In
any event, I walked into Granoff on a last-minute whim fully prepared to watch yet another beautifully shot but emotionally distant period piece. I walked out utterly spellbound, convinced I had just seen what was nothing less than a meditation on the meaning of why we make art and the connection fostered between its subject and its creator. To avoid spoilers (I would never, ever spoil this for someone else), the narrative follows an aristocratic woman named Héloïse who refuses to pose for a portrait; its impending delivery to her Milanese suitor is but the first step toward a forced marriage and the complete loss of what little autonomy she has on a small island off the coast of Brittany. When a painter named Marianne arrives on the island and begins to work on a portrait in secret, she and Héloïse quickly find themselves embroiled in a passionate—and utterly forbidden—affair. If you’re sensing shades of Call Me by Your Name, you’re absolutely right; the two films are very much two sides of the same coin. But Portrait takes a divergent approach to its central romance through a melancholic examination of its inevitable dissolution. From its opening frames— in which an apprentice of the now-older Marianne questions the history behind a spellbinding painting of a woman staring out into the night—the audience is immediately positioned to experience what follows as imbued with a sense of tragedy. The film’s world will not allow its audience the luxury of hope any more than it will its characters. Yet this could not matter less. To spoil this film is not to provide a Wikipedia-style summation of its story. No, what matters here are the particulars. The little details, the blink-and-you-miss-its, the moments where the connection between two souls on this giant rock hurtling through space defies all laws of science, society, class, and world order. It is a film where a smile cannot help but make you smile. Where a glance conveys sentiments incapable of being expressed through words. Where each successive draft of a painting, each slight variation in position and portrayal, shows further progression toward total understanding of the person before you. EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Amanda Ngo
“Now if you’ll excuse me, a video titled ‘not a musical about a founding father Act 1’ is calling me.” -Danielle Emerson, “bootleg access” 2.22.19
“Nigella Lawson is arguably the paragon of home cooking, especially in an era when all Food Network seems to show are high-octane competitions involving wicker baskets filled with rooster feet and ostrich eggs and far too much puree.” -Anna Harvey, “bring on the butter” 2.23.18
FEATURE Managing Editor Liza Edwards-Levin Section Editors Alice Bai Erin Walden Staff Writers Gaya Gupta Anna Harvey NARRATIVE Managing Editor Nicole Fegan Section Editors Michelle Liu Minako Ogita
In short, what makes this film sing is its journey, not its destination. I, a 21-year-old child in man’s clothing, would never dare attempt to define art in broad strokes. But I believe this film truly succeeds in capturing the flickers of passion that drive both the subject and artist of its titular portrait, such that when we finally see the finished product—its function in the “outside world” little more than a commodity to “advance” Heloise’s station in life— we have been granted access to the beauty that fostered its development, even as the purpose behind its creation proves to be little more than transactional. The Milanese suitor will see only the end product. We, the audience, have been given the true gift. Perhaps the “best” art is that which transgresses this boundary, that which allows for subjectivity and personal history to intermix with the initial intentions behind its creation. I think of my own writing, my desperate attempts to capture the seismic shifts in worldview I have experienced over the past four years. The need to convey my newfound understanding of the world. Hell, in this very article, the pressure to capture what it is about Brown that causes me to hold it so dear. And at the end of the day, despite all my abstract and sprawling monologues about the cosmos, I find that what I really wish to tell you about are the flickers of life I have seen in others. The look of gratitude at the end of a long day of shooting film. The shared sense of exhaustion over coffees at Blue State. Giggles and goofy smiles in response to the amazing punching power of a mantis shrimp (look it up, it is insane). These moments are not planned. Not orchestrated. They are spontaneous, unexpected, and utterly profound, like the helpless smile of a woman who cannot help but love another—even as their paths forward demand otherwise, they have shared an experience. They have lived. I will live. I will love. I will find a way into Blueno’s hollow interior. And most of all, I will know that I am doing my best in each and every one of those stupid, infuriating, beautiful little moments that make up a day on College Hill. For we cannot relive them.
Staff Writers Kaitlan Bui Siena Capone Danielle Emerson Jordan Hartzell Naomi Kim Anneliese Mair Kahini Mehta ARTS & CULTURE Managing Editor Griffin Plaag Section Editors Olivia Howe Maddy McGrath Staff Writers Robert Capron David Kleinman Julian Towers
LIFESTYLE Managing Editor Caitlin McCartney
SOCIAL MEDIA Head Editor Paola Solano
Section Editor Christina Vasquez
Editors Cecilia Barron Tessa Devoe
Staff Writers Eashan Das Lauren Toneatto COPY Copy Chief Moe Sattar Copy Editors Kyoko Leaman Aditi Marshan Emma Schneider
Want to be involved? Email: amanda_ngo@brown.edu!
8!POST–
HEAD ILLUSTRATOR Gaby Treviño LAYOUT Co-Chiefs Amy Choi Nina Yuchi Designers Joanne Han Steve Ju Iris Xie WEB MASTER Jeff Demanche
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2020
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS
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UNIVERSITY NEWS
Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense talks American diplomacy Chas W. Freeman, Jr. spoke on America’s international failures, domestic setbacks BY KARLOS BAUTISTA SENIOR STAFF WRITER Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr., Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs senior fellow, compared the current political and economic state of Washington, D.C. to that of St. Petersburg (then called Petrograd) during the last days of the Russian tsar at a lecture entitled “America in Distress” at the Joukowsky Forum. “America (is) losing its aura of imperial purpose and invincibility,” Freeman said to a packed audience Thursday night. A career diplomat, Freeman specialized in Chinese affairs, acting as the principal American interpreter for President Richard Nixon during his 1972 visit to Beijing. Freeman has also acted as the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense, Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. Freeman was also Chargé d’Affaires in Bangkok and Beijing.
CAMERAS FROM PAGE 1 crime activity, Porter said. He stressed that DPS does not monitor University security cameras “around the clock,” including those in Hegeman. Rather, DPS uses them “as an investigative tool,” Porter said. The decision to implement cameras was made collectively and primarily by the Office of Campus Life, the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity and DPS, Bakkegard and Estes wrote in an email to the Herald. The LGBTQ Center and the Department of Facilities Management also joined conversations with those offices starting in early December to address the situation, they said. Porter said that DPS felt it was necessary “to utilize (cameras) to assist in solving this type of crime” and emphasized the importance of preserving student privacy. “Our goal is to deter and solve this crime. Our goal is not to place cameras outside of student rooms and in other private space, but rather to put them in specific common hallways or entrances where most of these incidents have occurred,” Porter added. The University will later determine whether more cameras are necessary or whether the cameras can be deactivated or removed after the completion of the investigation, Bakkegard said. Before deciding to implement cameras, Bakkegard and Estes had hoped that students would come forward with information to DPS following email communications with Hegeman residents on Jan. 17 and Feb. 5. “There hasn’t been any additional information
Director of the Watson Institute Edward Steinfeld introduced Freeman, calling him a “jaw-dropping” intellect and “illuminating” presence at the Watson. Freeman “has provided us a series of perspectives … on the shifting geopolitical situation globally, and, fortunately or unfortunately for us, that situation keeps shifting so much that we keep needing (Freeman) to come back and give us new perspective,” Steinfeld said to audience members. Freeman outlined his views on the current state of American diplomacy and hegemony, criticizing actions taken by the federal government since the Cold War, and explaining the implications and ramifications of U.S. involvement and influence in foreign and domestic affairs. “The norms of long-moderated and international and domestic behavior have been largely erased” in recent history, Freeman said. “Incivility is now ubiquitous. Political systems everywhere have been overtaken by socioeconomic and technological change, and there is no sign that (the systems) are catching up.” Responding to how analysts have attributed the current “global and American despondency” to President Trump, Freeman said “the trends that underline the shocks we’re experiencing
shared with DPS since those communications, and since the behavior hasn’t stopped, that was why we reached this point,” Bakkegard said. Current Hegeman residents acknowledged the tension between student safety and privacy and questioned the University’s usage of cameras in the residence hall. “How do you investigate something like this where it takes (perpetrators) five seconds to commit a hate crime?” said Jack Waters ’21, one of the Hegeman resident who found the most recent swastika graffiti. “Something so extreme is also so brief, and I don’t know what else (the University) could do other than condemn it” and continue to investigate, he added. Michael LeClerc ’20.5, another Hegeman resident who discovered the anti-Semitic graffiti, said that he would prefer a community-based response over cameras. Though the University originally guided students to resources like Counseling and Psychological Services and the LGBTQ Center and recently held a community gathering, LeClerc noted that the University has not yet organized a Hegeman-wide meeting addressing the incidences. LeClerc expressed concern about “sacrificing (residents’) ability to not feel watched” in the name of safety rather than relying on community accountability. “I think the community can and should be trusted to police itself now that it knows what to be looking for,” he said. In the week prior to the installation, staff members of various University offices held drop-in hours in an empty suite of Hegeman B in an attempt to be
began long before” Trump’s emergence. “Washington’s given up on diplomacy,” he said, and instead has turned to “taunts, threats, unilateral sanctions, ultimatums, cyber warfare, drone and missile attacks, assassinations, proxy warfare and military invasions and pacification campaigns” to exercise its influence abroad. Freeman mentioned the recent American intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, the nuclear agreement with Iran and the Trans-Pacific Partnership as examples of the United States’ “capricious abrogation of treaties, … wanton sabotage of multilateral compacts and money-grubbing hedging of security commitments.” In addition to talk of foreign policy, Freeman also spent time discussing the American dollar’s role in the global economy. “An erosion of economic primacy could have profound effects on American hegemony,” he said, adding that “U.S. ability to print money and exchange it for foreign goods and services would be reduced, if not ended.” “Little green portraits of dead presidents would be regarded as works of arts rather than things of value,” he said. America’s shortcomings abroad and at home are “examples of American self-sabotage, not predatory foreign
present for the Hegeman community, Bakkegard said. These offices included the LGBTQ Center, the Office of Title IX and Gender Equity, the Office of the Chaplains and Religious Life, Brown/ RISD Hillel, CAPS, ResLife, the Office of Campus Life, Student Support Services and the OIED. “I haven’t asked all of the staff who were present how many students came to see them (but) staff that I happened to see reported that no students came to see them,” said Bakkegard. “I’m not sure if it just turned out not to be a good time for students to come to see us or if that wasn’t the format that was useful for them.” Both LeClerc and Waters voiced concerns about the tension between granting more attention to perpetrators and educating the community to be attentive to these sorts of incidents. Additionally, they expressed doubt about how effective cameras will ultimately be in finding perpetrators or addressing the issue. “By putting surveillance cameras up, it’s not necessarily ending the problem. It’s just preventing (perpetrators) from continuing to do this one expression of the problem,” Waters said. Mollie Redman ’21, a Hegeman resident, was contacted by a DPS detective in early January while she was on campus for her Wintersession course. During winter break, the University discovered several additional instances of homophobic graffiti, The Herald previuously reported. Redman shared similar concerns that cameras will give up student privacy, but may not necessarily help investigators find the perpetrators.
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COURTESY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY
Chas Freeman Jr., a Watson Institute senior fellow, outlined his views on the current state of American diplomacy at a lecture Thursday. behavior,” Freeman explained. “Curing these deviations from past practice and their pernicious consequences requires introspection and reform in Washington, more than anywhere else.” Freeman commended the Watson Institute for its Costs of War Project, saying the institute has taken up an issue Congress should be dealing with. “There is a role for our great universities in stimulating the debate about the state of the nation and its future,” he said. Freeman ended his lecture by posing a question to the audience: “Is it too much to hope that American civil society will intervene where our in-
creasingly ineffectual government has failed to?” Of the students that attended the lecture, Kevin Kang ’23 said the lecture made him reconsider U.S. foreign policy. “I think a lot of Brown students are very invested in the American political system,” Kang said. “I think, in regards to foreign affairs and domestic affairs, he has some very acute observations that I think I haven’t even considered, especially when you’re talking about how the (US dollar) is the biggest pillar that supports the underlying American hegemony around the world.”
AOTW FROM PAGE 1 season after winning the long jump at the Ivy League Championship. She also placed fourth and second at the last two Ivy League Outdoor Track and Field Championships. For her stellar long jump this weekend, she has been named The Herald’s Athlete of the Week. Herald: After setting the University long jump record last year, you broke your own record again this past weekend. What inspires you to continue to push yourself? Uche: My goals. I have a great coach (Ken Hunt), and he’s a great person to be there consistently motivating me and not allowing me to lose sight of my dreams. You are now ranked 15th in the nation in long jump and fourth in Ivy history. Where do you see yourself by the end of the season? Hopefully (those rankings) can improve. I don’t want to set anything in stone, but I’m definitely reaching for it, and my goals are up there. With a great mindset and proper training … I can achieve those goals and knock some people out. Do you do anything special in your training to get ready for meets? With training, every day is important — we have speed day, we have tech day, we have speed endurance … I just lock into practice trusting my coach, trusting that whatever he has for me will better me as a jumper. There’s not one thing that I do that really helps me get to that one jump — it’s kind of a rocky road. The trust that I have in my workout plan is really what matters. How do you prepare yourself for a jump on meet day? I actually don’t get nervous until I step into the building. Before that I’m not thinking about it much. Once I step in the building, my whole focus is picking up, and I’m holding on to the cues that I’m used to and trusting my body that it knows what to do. Then
COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS
On Saturday, Ijeoma Uche broke Brown’s long jump record.
all I need to do is go out and compete and everything else will come together. In an individual sport like track and field, where everyone is training for a different event, how do you work with your teammates to accomplish your goals? My teammates are awesome. I train with the jumpers, which include high jumpers, pole vaulters, long jumpers and triple jumpers. We benefit from each other because we pick up on the little cues that we don’t personally notice. Having another set of eyes that can help you become a better athlete is really helpful, especially from people that come from another event that have to use their (bodies) in different ways. They help you figure out how to implement that skill in your own event. As the indoor season comes to a close, what do you hope to accomplish in the outdoor season? It’s crazy that indoor season is almost over. Outdoor season is just another time to maintain my momentum with my jumps, keep jumping better and better and achieve more goals that I have for myself. Again, I don’t like to set concrete goals because things change day to day. Keeping the same momentum, attitude and heart for my sport will take me a long way. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS
APPEALS FROM PAGE 1 get everything?’” The appeals, Tilton added, come from a common piece of advice: the idea that students should “never take the first offer.” Tilton estimated that 45 percent of accepted first-years receiving financial aid ask for a “second look.” Oscar Barbaza ’23 fell into Tilton’s estimated 45 percent: he filed an appeal almost immediately after the University admitted him. Without an increase in aid, Barbaza said he likely would have attended the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in his hometown. Students also often leverage financial aid packages from other institutions. In response, the University will examine whether they differ significantly from Brown’s offer or include merit-based aid, Tilton said. “We look at (appeals) individually” in order to determine if the office might have missed a significant detail in a student’s financial application, Tilton said, mentioning a case where a student forgot to disclose that they had a sibling paying for college at an Ivy League school. When students who have already enrolled appeal their financial aid, Tilton said, it usually has to do with a major financial shift in their life. “For an appeal, something drastic has happened. There’s going to be a difficult time meeting the expected contribution,” he said. Other discussions about minor aid changes can happen without the appeals process.
Emily Redolfi Tezzat ’21 has appealed her financial aid twice since enrolling at the University: once at the end of her freshman year when her mother changed jobs and again before studying abroad her junior year. Before her first appeal, when Redolfi Tezzat realized that her aid package would not be sufficient given her mother’s recent change in employment, stress immediately set in. She thought through a number of options, including seeking help from extended family, applying for scholarships or taking on an additional on-campus job. Ultimately, she decided to appeal her package. No matter if they’re an admitted student or already enrolled, Tilton said, students should reach out to the Office of Financial Aid before filing an appeal. “Let us know that something’s come up,” Tilton said. Students are assigned a financial aid counselor who walks them through whether or not they should appeal and offers them relevant information once they decide to start the process. “We’d be able to say, ‘This is what we’d expect would be helpful,’” he said. “It’s helpful for you and your family to think about what you say to us when you’re appealing your situation.” Barbaza said that making his circumstances clear and having his family’s financial information prepared — tax returns, other financial statements and predicted family income — were pivotal factors when he spoke with an aid counselor. After a counselor meeting, students fill out an appeal form to request a “re-
view of (their) financial aid award.” Listing a number of potential reasons for an appeal, including a “significant loss of income” due to a change in employment, a death in the family and high medical, educational or familial expenses, the form says the University won’t consider an appeal on the basis of personal expenses or high consumer debt, expenses that have yet to occur or siblings in graduate school. The form also requires a detailed explanation and documentation of new costs. In some situations, appeals also require parents’ tax returns and a W-2 form. For Micah Bruning ’22, the appeals process began when his mother told him about a costly surgery she would need to treat cancer. The process became stressful when Bruning explained to his parents the myriad of forms and documents needed for a successful appeal. “It’s difficult to try and explain what you need,” Bruning said. “They don’t always understand how the University’s bureaucratic process works (or) why the University needs certain stuff.” Once filed, appeals go to a committee for review, Tilton said. The speed of the process varies based on the time of year. It might take 48 hours to a week mid-year, but it could take far longer in the summer, after financial aid awards are released in June. Given that students may see aid as a deciding factor in choosing between schools, the office tries to process the appeals of incoming first-years as “quickly as possible,” Tilton said. Barbaza said he received a new
package with considerable time to spare. “That was the difference between me staying in my hometown and me going here,” he said. The difference in packages, he said, was notable but not major: the first offer relied on his submitted FAFSA and CSS profile, and the second offer more closely reflected additional documents and explanations. In Redolfi Tezzat’s case, making a compelling case to an aid counselor before submitting an appeal was the most pivotal part of the process. “You have to prepare to be politely aggressive,” she said. “Being able to argue for the fact that you genuinely do not have that money and point to specific parts of your tax returns or changes in your income — they can’t really argue against facts.” Students don’t appeal for a specific amount of money, Tilton said, but he emphasized that most commonly, an appeal leads to some change in an aid package, large or small. Bruning, Redolfi Tezzat and Barbaza all received increases in aid from the appeals process, but the transparency and accessibility of the process could still be improved, they said. When Bruning’s appeal went through, he received an additional $3,500, but his mother’s surgery cost roughly $5,000 after insurance. “They gave me a reduction in my total costs, but they didn’t really justify why,” he said, unsure if the gap between the additional aid and the cost of his mom’s surgery had to do with changes to his family’s income the year he appealed.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2020
And while the appeals process made a difference for Redolfi Tezzat — within three weeks of submitting her appeal for her sophomore year, the aid office updated her award — she said the process remains largely inaccessible. “I have helped so many people in my class, some of my upperclassmen friends, sophomores with the appeals process,” she said. “A lot of people don’t know you can appeal in the first place.” An additional challenge posed is the unexpected nature and timing of changes in circumstances, which are frequently out of students’ control, Redolfi Tezzat said. “These things happen when students are in the middle of midterms. We have our personal lives with our clubs and our family drama,” Redolfi Tezzat said. “It can be very nerve-wracking, asking for money — it takes a lot of swallowing your pride, to do what is institutionalized begging.” She added that she “showed up at (the Financial Aid Office), and as we were talking, the stress collapsed in on me. I started crying.” Redolfi Tezzat said she found it helpful to work through her case with a friend, a CAPS counselor and a dean before bringing it to the Office of Financial Aid. Barbaza, though, said that in the end, he thinks the Office of Financial Aid is “doing what they should be doing.” “They were very helpful,” he said. “A couple of my friends appealed and got a portion of what they asked for. They’re giving everybody a fair shot at it.”
C O R R E CT I O N A previous version of the Feb. 20 article “Paxson and Locke reflect on ‘Building on Distinction’” described President Paxson as saying it would be difficult to predict when the University could implement a fully need-blind admission process for international, transfer, undocumented and DACA students. In fact, President Paxson’s statement only referred to international students; undocumented and DACA students have been admitted on a need-blind basis since the class which entered in fall 2017. The Herald regrets the error.
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FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2020
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY
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Put the Classroom Online JONATHAN DOUGLAS ’20 STAFF COLUMNIST In 2013, President Christina Paxson P’19 unveiled her 10-year strategic plan, “Building on Distinction .” The plan called upon the Brown community to “enhance our capacity in the creative use of online technologies” through “aggressive experimentation in new modes of education.” Just a year earlier, the University had introduced its first Massive Open Online Course on Coursera, and a majority of students supported the move. Yet three years later, progress had slowed — credit-bearing online courses had not been introduced for undergraduates, despite years of planning and initial student enthusiasm. This academic year, Brown has offered a few online courses, but the program remains limited to only seven concentrations out of more than 80. The vast majority of online courses are scheduled outside of the typical academic year, and few professors have agreed to teach fully online — many classes are repeats from the same faculty members. The University must further expand its effort to bring courses fully online. Students have an unmet educational need, and online courses will provide them with greater flexibility while maintaining academic rigor. The University’s wide array of dedicated resources to digital learning are well positioned to bring courses out of the classroom and onto the internet; initial experiments in online classes have proved successful. It is thus imperative that more faculty members take a leap of faith and move their content fully online, overcoming their institutional inertia toward online learning. The number of students that support online course offerings has likely only grown since the Fall 2012 poll and the beginning of the online course offering process. In the last eight years, online learning has become increasingly commonplace, both inside and outside the classroom. Professors have integrated online discussion posts, video content and lecture materials onto Canvas pages and course websites, and students have become increasingly reliant on YouTube videos, sophisticated software and online practice problems that enhance learning. Furthermore, students today naturally understand how to navigate online resources, whereas eight years ago students were a part of the transition from the physical to the digital. The barriers to education that students face have not changed either. Online learning’s flexible timing makes it an attractive alternative for several categories of students. Athletes with dif-
ficult travel schedules, STEM students with long lab blocks and art students with lengthy studios all benefit from the ability to attend class and complete assignments outside of the typical class schedule. Low-income students benefit as well from the flexibility, which gives them the ability to work shifts required to support themselves throughout school. Moreover, certain students may benefit from the inherent nature of an online platform. Students who speak English as a second language or
also partners with edX — and is obligated to produce 12 courses by May 2020 — thus far only five courses have been offered, and the last course ended in Fall 2018. As part of its effort to implement online materials and fully-online courses into the University’s curriculum, Brown has built up a sizable team solely dedicated to developing online course content. Within the Computing and Information Services department, Brown has an entire team under Catherine Zabriskie, senior academic tech-
Enrollment in Online Courses Per Semester 200
150
100
50
0
F
W
S
2017
S
F
W
S
2018
S
F
W
S
2019
S
F
W
S
2020
*Totals were calculated by adding the number of students enrolled in each class. Students may have been enrolled in more than one class at a time.
Source: Courses@Brown USHA BHALLA / HERALD
are introverted benefit from the mask of online pseudo-anonymity. Many students are more comfortable participating in class and interacting with their classmates online, according to Elizabeth Taylor MA’84 PhD’89, distinguished senior lecturer in English, who has taught several online courses at the University. Additionally, students who find themselves away from campus for extended periods of time benefit from the ability to complete coursework anywhere. All together, these different groups account for well more than a majority of undergraduates. And while some may argue that there are some innate disadvantages to online education, for some types of students, it is clear that online platforms are advantageous. Brown’s peer schools have recognized the widespread student need and have taken action. The University of Pennsylvania now offers a full undergraduate degree online, while Harvard and MIT have pushed free, universal access to online courses through their platform edX. These examples are only two among hundreds of others from top schools across the country. Although Brown
nology officer, that works with professors to bring more content online and enhance the learning experience of students. The team of over 30 staff members under Zabriskie integrates media, Canvas functionality and other features into classes and helps professors fully understand the range of options available to them. The group was originally only responsible for integrating online course content into existing courses. But in summer 2019, the team within the School of Professional Studies that helped bring courses fully online for Brown’s programs within that school was moved under CIS, further enhancing the department’s capabilities. In addition to CIS, the Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning offers similar help to faculty members, though it does not exclusively focus on online resources. Despite both student need and this strong institutional backing, Brown has yet to make a significant foray into online courses for undergraduates. This disparity may be explained by faculty reluctance to shift from in-person to online learning. The hesitance towards online learning is understandable. Professors are required to completely
shift their lecture material online, a time-intensive and often difficult process with no universally-accepted methods of doing so. Faculty members are forced to shift their schedules to accommodate the lack of rigid structure associated with the course and the scheduling needs of the students taking it, Taylor said. Furthermore, professors are comfortable teaching using methods that they have implemented for decades, which have been successful for generations of students including themselves, and they are thus reluctant to change. With each of these fundamental barriers blocking online course implementation, it’s surprising that any professors at Brown are willing to teach online. If anything, there is a strong disincentive to try teaching new online courses, especially for faculty members seeking tenure that are evaluated on their teaching. Brown must therefore lower these barriers and provide incentives to professors to teach online. Adventurous faculty members should be rewarded with reduced teaching loads. Online professor availability should be limited to certain hours, giving faculty members the ability to manage their time more effectively. While some professors do this naturally, a university-mandated offline period would lessen the hesitance from faculty members. Tenure-track professors should be rewarded for experimenting with online teaching, easing the fear of failure at a critical juncture in their careers. The University should also hire faculty members who wish to teach online, rather than attempting to persuade current members to change their teaching style. Together, these changes will help Brown experiment with online methods of learning more efficiently and effectively. When choosing courses to bring online, the University would be smart to increase its focus on courses with large enrollments but limited teaching capacity, as well as those with material that does not change from year to year, ensuring that online content is reusable. Furthermore, experimenting across departments rather than a select few will expose the greatest possible number of students to fully-online methods. Brown can strengthen its mission to provide the highest quality education through innovative and creative means online. Moreover, taking these efforts one step further and providing material to the broader world will ensure that Brown has a lasting impact on the global learning community. Jonathan Douglas ’20 can be reached at jonathan_douglas@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
Opinions pieces published in The Herald — which include columns, op-eds , letters to the editor and editorials — are written independently of news coverage.
Let Medicare negotiate with Big Pharma to drive down pharmaceutical prices ARJUN SHANMUGAM ’23 STAFF COLUMNIST By the time Alec Raeshawn Smith’s family had made it over to his apartment in June of 2017, it was too late. He was already dead. Smith was a Type 1 diabetic, who made the fatal decision to ration his insulin once he realized that he would be unable to afford its $1,300 monthly price tag. His death is just one of many examples of the destructive impact of rising drug prices in America. Indeed, the sheer cost of drugs in the United States sheds light on what has become a case study in market failure. Research can attest to the exorbitant price tags of prescription medication, which are nearly four times higher, on average, than in other developed nations. And the problem is getting worse. Between 2008 and 2016 alone, the price of the most popular brand-name drugs in this country more than tripled. These costs weigh on the public in two main ways: First, they squeeze the budgets of millions of Americans who rely on prescription drugs; second, they leave taxpayers to foot the bill for ballooning
expenditures for Medicare, Medicaid and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The solution — which is, unsurprisingly, hamstrung in Congress — is clear. Medicare needs to leverage the billions in revenue it provides for pharmaceutical companies in order to negotiate lower drug prices. Doing so would mean enormous savings for consumers and the government alike. But consider first that Medicare wasn’t involved at all in the prescription drug industry until 2003. That was when the Medicare Modernization Act established what we know as Medicare Part D. Under this program, Medicare established contracts with hundreds of insurance providers, who offer insurance plans — bankrolled by the government — that cover prescription drug costs for millions of senior citizens. But there’s a catch. Pharmaceutical companies knew that this program would turn the government into their largest customer overnight; this would put these industry giants at the mercy of Medicare when it came time to set prices. Big Pharma’s industry lobbyists thus worked hard to slip the “noninterference” clause into the MMA, banning Medicare from being involved with price negotiations, from determining the coverage status of medications and from instituting reimbursements.
Instead, these abilities fell to the myriad of insurance providers that offer Medicare Part D plans. It was genius, albeit insidious: The enormous influence held by the pharmaceutical industry’s largest buyer was divided among hundreds of players, all competing with one another and unlikely to hold manufacturers accountable for price hikes and other monopolistic behaviors. If a given Part D provider threatened, say, to stop covering a drug because of its sky-high price, its manufacturer would have hundreds of other providers to choose from. Big Pharma successfully turned the system into a seller’s market. Allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices would concentrate leverage in a single entity, paving the way for real concessions from large firms. Medicare accounts for about one third of their revenue; pharmaceutical companies would have no choice but to negotiate directly with Medicare to earn spots on a national formulary — the list of drugs covered by Medicare plans. Indeed, according to estimates by the Congressional Budget Office, H.R. 3, the most recent congressional proposal to cede control of drug price negotiations to Medicare, would save over $350 billion by 2029. Those who worry that lower drug prices would reduce the incentive for innovation
in pharmaceutical research should recognize that even a fraction of the money saved exceeds the research and development spending of every major pharmaceutical company combined. The government could put some of those billions toward research grants in both the private and public sectors to ensure that new medications continue to come to market, while still having funds left over to put toward solving a plethora of other social issues. The lower costs of prescription medication would spill over into non-Medicare insurance markets as well, as H.R. 3 demands that renegotiated prices are offered to private sector buyers. This means lower costs for everyone — a welcome change in a country where the aggregate cost of health care is projected to hit $6 trillion by 2027. No American should die because they cannot afford life-saving medication. Existing health care law puts Big Pharma’s profits over the lives of people like Alec Raeshawn Smith. It is time for that to change. Arjun Shanmugam ’23 can be reached at arjun_shanmugam@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2020
ATTEND THE OPEN FORUM: BROWN’S DRAFT
SUSTAINABILITY PLAN WE NEED YOUR INPUT! HELP MAKE BROWN MORE SUSTAINABLE! Wednesday, February 26, 2020 Noon to 1 pm
IBES, 85 Waterman Street, Rm 130
For more information on the Draft Plan visit: http://brown.edu/go/draft-sustainability