Friday, September 17th, 2021

SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2021

VOLUME CLVI, ISSUE XV

SPORTS

Ernst ’89 to plead guilty in admissions scandal

BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM

SPORTS

Sophomore athletes take field for first time Athletes express excitement, nervousness before first games of fall

BY WILL KUBZANSKY SENIOR STAFF WRITER

COURTESY OF ASSOCIATED PRESS

Gordon Ernst ’89 played for the tennis and hockey team during his time as an undergraduate. He was later offered a position of head coach for the men’s tennis team, but passed on the offer.

Gordon Ernst ’89 offered head coaching position for tennis team in 2016

BY LOKI OLIN SENIOR STAFF WRITER Gordon Ernst ’89, a former Division I tennis coach at Georgetown University,

will admit to profiting over $3 million through his involvement in the Varsity Blues college admissions scandal. Ernst, one of nearly four dozen defendants to plead guilty in the case, will accept a list of charges that includes conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery, three counts of federal programs bribery and filing false tax returns.

Between 2007 and 2018, Ernst allegedly designated at least twelve students as athletic recruits in exchange

UNIVERSITY NEWS

Engineering students weigh interests, class requirements Students describe concentration as restrictive but rewarding

BY KAITLYN TORRES SENIOR STAFF WRITER The open curriculum has been a tool for students to look beyond their concentrations and explore other departments the University has to offer since its creation just over 50 years ago. But, to properly navigate the open curriculum, students within engineering concentrations must find ways to balance requirements with their non-engineering academic interests.

Adam Ritz ’24, who is interested in concentrating in mechanical engineering, said that while he has been able to take some non-engineering

classes, his desired concentration’s prerequisites posed an obstacle. He said he can only take “all of the ... most interesting classes ... after doing a large number of prerequisites.”

For the non-engineering classes he was able to take, Ritz said that he was unable to spend as much time as he liked on them due to the “time dependency” of engineering courses.

Jude Adelman ’23 said that he likes how his non-engineering classes differ from his usual workload. “With my gender classes, I’m reading about theory, or I’m reading some other article which is sort of like a break ... from all the problem sets and all the math,” he explained.

On the other hand, Lukas Scheidl ’23 likes the structure of the engineering concentration because he would feel “overwhelmed” if he had fewer prerequisites. Scheidl added

SEE ENGINEERING PAGE 7

for bribes from college admissions consultant Rick Singer. Ernst, who left Georgetown in 2018 when an internal investigation revealed that he had violated the school’s admissions rules, was arrested in 2019 alongside a slew of coaches, athletic directors and parents.

Ernst, who played for the tennis and hockey team as a student at Brown, was offered the head coaching position for

SEE ERNST PAGE 2

The first games of the fall athletics season, which took place earlier this month for most teams, underscored a return to normalcy for the University’s athletics department.

But for sophomore student-athletes, who spent their first year at the University on the sidelines — and on Zoom — the return to competition means something more: a belated true beginning to their collegiate athletic careers.

The difference between this year and last is predictably stark, according to three fall athletes in the class of 2024. Everything has changed from their first year on campus: practices, uniforms, locker rooms, team dinners, team chemistry and full stands of spectators watching games.

Cian Carlson ’24, a defender on the men’s soccer team, said the first game of the season against the University of Hartford led to a sense of excitement and nervousness across the team. It marked the first inter-

collegiate competition for 17 players on the roster, he said.

“When you put on that jersey and you’ve got the B on your chest — it’s one of those things I had never experienced,” Carlson said. “It means a little more.”

Olivia Alperin ’24, a hooker and flanker for women’s rugby, shared Carlson’s sentiment. She felt jittery before the team’s opener against Army West Point — a school, she added, that is “very good at combat sports.” But the nerves quickly faded, she said, as the team took the field for the first time in nearly two years in front of a large crowd. Bruno lost in overtime in what Alperin described as the hardest game she had ever played in, but she said the passion and energy of the game rejuvenated her.

“During COVID, it was really hard to find purpose in what I was doing,” Alperin said. “When you’re doing everything full go, it’s incredible.”

Isa Stronski ’24, a member of the women’s cross country and track and field teams, said she felt overpowered by the joy of the fall’s first cross country meet.

“It was just so fun,” she said. “It had been so long since I had felt anything remotely close to that.”

But the road to this point was not

SEE SOPHOMORES PAGE 3

METRO

Climate orgs. mobilize labor for greener R.I. Two Rhode Island environmental groups look to reduce emission, create job opportunities

BY MIKE KUHARSKI CONTRIBUTING WRITER As various forces in Rhode Island work toward a more sustainable future, two environmental organizations in the Ocean State have focused on making labor a key player in the transition.

The organizations, Renew Rhode Island Coalition and Climate Jobs Rhode Island, both aim to guide state legislators toward fostering an economy that offers more green jobs.

Baylor Fox-Kemper, professor of earth, environmental and planetary sciences, explained that both Renew R.I. and Climate Jobs R.I. share goals of “transitioning away from fossil fuels towards carbon-neutral sources like solar,” as well as reducing carbon emissions from transportation, heating

and food production. He also noted that both groups look to reduce emissions to net zero by 2050, and that both value justice and the creation of job opportunities during the transition to renewables.

Monica Huertas, co-chair of Renew R.I., said that one of their main goals is to stop the “whack-a-mole” politics approach to climate solutions. Formed in the early months of 2020, the group focuses on unifying climate change,

ASHLEY CHOI/ HERALD

Arts & Culture

News

Commentary

Commentary

Teresita Fernández presents how her landscape art explores “the sense of place” Page 2

Many sophomores are starting their first year on campus after remote study Page 3

Shanmugam ’23: Parental decisions impede education for children world Page 5

Gumus GS: Academic institutions must prioritize mentorship and learning for PhD STEM students Page 5

environmental justice and labor justice in a combined approach, Huertas said. In terms of incorporating labor into the climate action movement , she said “one can’t really work without the other,” emphasizing the importance of cooperation between climate and labor activists. The coalition also strives to give underrepresented groups, especially “Black and brown peoples,” a voice

SEE CLIMATE PAGE 4

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2021

ARTS & CULTURE

Artist Teresita Fernández talks public art, unconventional landscapes Fernandez’s intricate art pieces are influenced by culture, history, perspective

BY REBECCA CARCIERI SENIOR STAFF WRITER Visual artist Teresita Fernández visited campus virtually Wednesday evening as part of the Virtual Artist Talk Series organized by theDepartment of Visual Arts. Fernández is known for her work reimaging the idea of landscapes, a theme that often holds deep historical and cultural references.

The talk began with an introduction

by Heather Bhandari ’97, adjunct lecturer in the Department of Visual Arts and program director of the Art World Conference. Bhandari noted Fernández’s achievements as a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. Fernández was also appointed by President Obama to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, making her the first Latina to serve in that role, and her artwork has been exhibited nationally and internationally.

The artist started off by explaining her focus on the concept of landscapes. She uses the idea of “landscape” to have multifaceted conversations about places where an individual is “located spiritually, racially, socially, historically, psychologically, legally and environmentally” in relation to their surroundings, she said.

ERNST FROM PAGE 1 Brown’s men’s tennis team in 2016, The Herald previously reported.

Two years after news of the scandal broke, the first trial has begun in Boston’s federal court. Before he decided to plead guilty, Ernst was set to stand trial in November.

As part of his guilty plea, Ernst has agreed to ask for no less than one year in prison, and the prosecution has agreed to recommend a sentence no longer than four years. Ernst must also forfeit assets totaling over $3.4 million, which authorities claim is equal to the amount he gained from his illegal activities.

Ernst’s lawyer, Tracy Miner, told The Herald that no comment could be made during case proceedings.

Ernst was considered for the head coaching position once in 2014 before former Athletic Director Jack Hayes offered Ernst the position in 2016, The Herald previously reported. Hayes’ offer to Ernst was met with concern and opposition from team members and individuals with ties to the team, according to former co-captains Lucas Da Silveira ’17 and Gregory Garcia ’17, The Herald previously reported.

“Gordon Ernst interviewed for the Head Men’s Tennis Coach position at Brown several years ago but was not hired,” wrote Vice President for Athletics and Recreation M. Grace Calhoun ’92 in an email to The Herald.

Hayes did not respond to The Herald’s request for comment on this article.

In 2016, Da Silveira and Garcia were involved in the hiring process for the head coaching position and expressed their disapproval of Ernst as a candidate.

In a 2016 email to Hayes that was obtained by The Herald in 2019, Da Silveira

Fernández explores “how the sense of place is very often informed by history, (extensive) research and by drawing connections between all of the things that I am learning about,” she said.

She described some of her own works and how she integrates landscapes into them, such as her forty-foot long installation “Blind Blue Landscape” situated on a curved wall in Naoshima, Japan. The artwork is composed of tens of thousands of differently sized glass cubes on a wall which emulate a large mirror reflecting the landscape in front of it.

“It’s essentially bringing the landscape indoors but also distorting it and breaking it off and ... reflecting your own image superimposed onto the landscape so that each tiny cube becomes almost like a miniature landscape painting of the view behind you,” she said.

“Fata Morgana,” a piece temporarily located in Madison Square Park in New York City, consisted of 500 feet of golden, polished discs that created a canopy over the park’s Oval Lawn.

She explained that this piece, the title of which is the Italian phrase for a mirage, worked as an optical illusion. The metal, a reference to mining, formed intricate patterns, similar to foliage, as it filtered sunlight at different hours throughout the day. Diverging from the traditional norms of a public art installation, Fernández aimed to create an immersive experience for pedestrians in the park.

She described how she pushed the bounds of artistic integration between and Garcia wrote that “members on our team have explicitly mentioned they would quit the team if (Ernst) was hired because they do not believe in how he runs his program.”

In the email to Hayes, the captains identified Ernst’s poor coaching record at Georgetown, conversations with players who had been coached by Ernst and Ernst’s apparent prioritization of his own financial gains over the success of his players as sources of concern for team members. Ernst never assumed the role of head coach for the tennis team and remained at Georgetown until 2018.

While Da Silveira and Garcia advocated against Ernst’s hire, Ernst himself was in the midst of his tenure at Georgetown – a 11-year span in which he received $2.7 million in the form of payments from Singer, according to court documents filed during his 2019 indictment.

Between bribes from Singer disguised as consulting fees and payments made directly by parents, Ernst amassed about $3 million in addition to his normal salary during his time as a coach. In 2014, Ernst allegedly received $200,000 in exchange for recruiting an applicant who otherwise would not have been considered by the Georgetown athletic program.

In 2018, Georgetown launched an investigation into Ernst’s recruiting practices and found that he had violated the University’s rules, leading to his departure. Ernst was then hired by the University of Rhode Island, where he worked until his arrest in 2019.

Out of 57 people indicted in the “Operation Varsity Blues” scandal, Ernst is one of nearly four dozen defendants to plead guilty. A plea hearing has yet to be scheduled, according to federal prosecutors.

COURTESY OF THE VISUAL ARTS DEPARTMENT

Teresita Fernández seeks to explore how spaces are influenced by history. Her artwork pushes the boundaries between visual art and performative art through portraying landscape. the public, performers and sculptures.

Fernández partnered with choreographer Stephen Petronio to create a performance incorporating dancers, music and passers-by to highlight themes of erasure and visibility. Titled “Luminous Mischief,” the performance enhanced the structural features of “Fata Morgana.”

Fernández’s other works include “Fire (United States of the Americas)” where she depicts the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii and the U.S. territories through the use of charcoal

and hand-drawn shadows. “It is a reference to slash-and-burn techniques (that Indigenous people used) to shape and cultivate the land for thousands of years,” Fernández said. She noted that this piece relates to ideas of nations, territories and borders while exploring the destructive history of the United States. The plural “Americas” in the titles is meant to serve as a keen reminder that the United States is only one part of the larger American continents.

At the end of the talk, Fernández answered questions and mentioned one

of her current projects: an online interactive exhibit she produced around the start of the pandemic entitled “Maelstrom: A Visual Essay.”

“It’s a visual essay of my research and my work woven together and was an important outlet for me to contextualize some of my writing and some of my research,” she said. The exhibit “gives a good sense of the holistic aspect of my practice.”

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2021

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

SOPHOMORES FROM PAGE 1

UNIVERSITY NEWS

Sophomores reflect on in-person semester

COURTESY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

Members of the class of 2024 who weren’t on campus for the spring semester joined incoming freshmen in walking through the Van Wickle Gates, marking the start of their first in-person school year.

Some sophomores arrive on campus for the first time, others feel unprepared

BY JASPER YEH SENIOR STAFF WRITER As the class of 2025 lined up for the annual Van Wickle Gates Walkthrough at Opening Convocation this year, they were, for the first time, joined by a group of sophomores. Some members of the class of 2024 experienced an unconventional first year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and many students did not have the opportunity in their first year to participate in this age-old tradition that signifies their entry into Brown.

Despite being “returning students,” many sophomores are arriving on College Hill for the first time. 170 students who enrolled in the class of 2024 studied entirely remotely last year, according to Assistant Dean of the College for the First-Year and Sophomore Experience Anja Lee. For Catherine Niu ’24, who did her freshman year remotely from Ottawa, Canada, moving into Caswell Hall this semester was a challenge.

Because she never studied in person at Brown, she needed to pick up her ID from the Brown Card Office.

But arriving on the first day of the long weekend meant that the office would not be open until Tuesday. Not knowing that she could get a temporary card to use over the weekend, Niu had to resort to waiting for a passerby to swipe her in.

Students agreed that arriving on campus as a sophomore after having had an unconventional first year presented challenges beyond just simple logistics.

One of the biggest concerns held

by Zachary Boston ’24 is finding friend groups to join this semester. It is difficult “to come in as somebody that’s new and trying to find a friend group where some people may not still be trying to find a friend,” Boston said.

“Everybody here is very welcoming … it’s just harder when you know you’re going into your sophomore year, but you feel like a first year.”

Since Niu wasn’t able to have in-person orientation, “trying to figure out resources and finding support” is a primary concern for her.

Simone Klein ’24.5 echoed Niu’s sentiment about trying to find on-campus resources. Fall 2021 will not be her first time on campus, but because she took leave during the summer semester, she still worries about accessibility of resources given that she is not a “new” freshman.

“I don’t know what to say when people ask me what year I am,” Klein said. “Am I allowed to have a first-year advisor? Can I register for first-year seminars? All of that was just not communicated to me.”

Klein added that she “felt pretty alone in not knowing what to do.”

Unlike upperclassmen who take gap semesters, Klein explained that she did not have enough time to navigate campus and fully establish herself as a student before she took leave since she had only experienced one semester under COVID-19 restrictions.

“To any sophomore students who may be struggling with this transition, please know that we are here and available to support you. Just reach out wherever you are comfortable doing so,” Lee wrote in an email to The Herald. She added that the Division of Campus Life has “organized a robust set of programming to build community among the class of 2024 and to help orient them to the Brown community.” Sophomore programming listed on the Division of Campus Life’s web page includes events held by the Brown RISD Hillel, LGBTQ Center and the Global Brown Center, along with numerous “SophomOrientation” events being hosted by the Class Coordinating Board of 2024.

Even for those who lived on campus for the past year, the fall semester will be their first semester with significantly loosened COVID-19 restrictions, offering an entirely different experience than previous semesters.

Boston arrived on campus in January of this year, but he went back home one and a half months into the spring semester and did not return for the summer semester.

“Just like many other people, I had all my classes online … though I was in a suite, I felt so isolated in that room and constrained,” Boston said. “I really am a people person, so it’s really hard for me to get through without being able to interact with people.” He ultimately decided to go home because he determined that his college experience would be the same given the remote format, and he would at least be able

to spend time with his family.

Like Boston, Niu is also looking forward to a very different college experience this fall. She decided to study remotely because the spring semester was the height of COVID-19 cases in the United States. “It was just not really worth it for me to cross the border at that time,” Niu said.

Filbert Aung ’24 also decided to study remotely during both the spring and summer semesters. Aung explained that because he lives with two elderly grandparents, he did not want to risk bringing the virus back from campus when he returned to his home in California during the break.

Despite vaccine availability in April, Aung still chose to study remotely for the summer because of the reduced living costs as well as the prospect of being able to see his friends in California.

Even though they had concerns about coming to campus because they lacked on-campus experience, many students expressed that studying remotely was the right choice.

Aung said that, as a remote student, his schedule was more relaxed, allowing him to take five classes both semesters of freshman year. He is glad that he was able to get many of his prerequisites out of the way and focus on the smaller classes now that he is on campus.

“I stick by my decision of what I did,” Boston said. “I just think it was best in terms of mental health for me.”

Boston added that the difficult decisions he made during COVID-19 have given him the opportunity to grow in maturity. “Just because of the decisions I’ve had to make, weighing options and also putting safety over fun … I’ve been able to make what I think of as respectable decisions, I stand by those, and being able to stick by your decisions feels nice.”

Due to the isolation she experienced, Klein also mentioned that she did not feel “fully present” during the spring semester. But this fall feels different.

“I’m treating this fall as another try of the first semester,” she said. “Part of me is like ‘yes it’s gonna be difficult’… so I’m just sitting in that discomfort for a while, believing that it will be better because I want to be here.”

simple. This year’s sophomores were high school seniors in March 2020, watching the hope for a fall season slowly slip away as the pandemic progressed. All three athletes remained connected with their teams virtually through the summer of 2020, training in accordance with their coaches’ demands, but at different points, all realized that a fall season wouldn’t be feasible.

Carlson said he held out hope until the Ivy League announced in early July 2020 that the fall season was cancelled.

Then, the University added another complicating factor: First-years would not even be invited to campus in the fall, and would instead be starting their academic careers in spring 2021. Carlson, from Madison, Wisconsin, watched his friends from high school move into the University of Wisconsin while he waited for his own college experience to start — a “weird thing to swallow,” he admitted.

Coaches “worked really hard to keep us in the loop,” Stronski said, “which is a challenge when you’re not there.”

Despite efforts by teams to include first-years, Alperin and Carlson admitted that they felt something of a disconnect from their teams in the fall. Alperin, who spent the semester as a ranch hand on a farm in northern California and then as a dog-musher in Alaska, logged on to team Zoom calls at 4 a.m. Alaska time.

When the 2021 spring semester came, Carlson recalled upperclassmen extending invitations to pick up food from the dining halls and being shown campus, while Alperin heard from multiple older players on the team checking in on her when she moved in.

But the semester didn’t match the full athletic experience that older players on the teams knew and remembered.

Stronski said that while track and field found a semblance of normalcy in socially distant practices, the conditions of such practices drained intensity from soccer and rugby.

“I didn’t feel like I had a connection to the sport in the same way… when we started practicing,” Alperin said.

“The silver lining was not knowing exactly what I was missing,” Carlson added.

Stronski was one of the select University athletes who got the chance to

3 compete this spring: a singular track meet, the day before she left College Hill for the end of the semester.

The summer, the athletes agreed, brought a sense of normalcy and added socialization that had been missing from their first semester. Come preseason in late summer 2021, the University promised the return of the full athletic experience. The classes of 2024 and 2025 had never experienced a season of competition, much less a full semester of in-person college classes.

“The freshmen and the sophomores have all the same questions,” Carlson said. “The non-soccer questions — where the dining halls are, the libraries, where’s Barus and Holley, it’s like, ‘I have no clue, dude, I took all my classes from my dorm last semester.’”

“For one of my classes, I had to ask the freshmen how to get to the building,” Stronski admitted. The shared sense of confusion, Carlson said, has promoted team bonding. Juniors and seniors feel a shared responsibility to help, while first-years and sophomores learn the ropes together and experience the quirks of an in-person season, like wearing suits to the Ratty before the first game of the year.

And the home games have special meaning, Carlson noted, now being able to look into the stands and see the familiar faces of professors, other athletes, friends and family.

“When you’re able to go on the field and stand in uniform with your teammates looking at the crowd ... that was so great,” Alperin added.

But even in the full return to play, the pandemic has impacted athletics.

Alperin said that women’s rugby — and a number of other teams — have seen COVID-19 cases in recent weeks. Even if the cases are as mild as possible, she said, they knock players out of competition for nearly three weeks: 10 days of isolation and a seven-day “returnto-play” period.

“It’s really hard,” she said. “It makes you wonder when we’ll actually be able to go full-throttle.”

“I’m hoping that we’re still going forwards, not backwards,” Stronski added. “I think as a team, (we) and our coaches have been really careful ... I’m trying to stay optimistic that we’re still headed in the right direction.”

AREEZ KHAN / HERALD

Athletes are excited to compete after a year without competition. For most of the class of 2024, this is their first D1 competition.

4

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

CLIMATE FROM PAGE 1 at the policy-making table in the transition to a green economy, she added.

Patrick Crowley, secretary-treasurer for the R.I. American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, speaking on behalf of Climate Jobs Rhode Island, said his group was founded more recently in early 2021.

Climate Jobs, he said, represents an effort to “encourage collaboration between the labor movement and the environmental movement” in pursuing policies that will reduce emissions.

Crowley noted that Climate Jobs wants to ensure a “just transition toward a more sustainable economy.” According to Climate Jobs RI, a “Just Transition” entails “a legislative mandate requiring the inclusion of the voices of stake-

holders in the labor movement, the environmental movement (and) the racial justice movement, along with voices of private industry.”

Both Huertas and Crowley noted that the recent hurricanes Ida and Henri only further emphasize the importance of their respective organizations’ work.

While each group may share some similarities in missions, the strategies they have adopted differentiate them.

The focus of Climate Jobs right now is working with the Climate Jobs National Resource Center and Cornell University to “finalize a report” that they believe will be “a road map for attaining the goals of the Act on Climate,” Crowley said. He cited two recent accomplishments as the hiring of both a lead organizer and a policy researcher to “help grow the organization.”

Fox-Kemper said he “agrees with” Climate Jobs’ “principles that relate to a measurable, scientific approach to reaching net zero emissions by 2050.”

He noted that Climate Jobs’ desire to see measurable progress by 2030 was “commendable” as “pre-2030 cuts are just as important as cuts closer to 2050.”

The primary work of Renew RI currently includes focusing on city-designated Green Justice Zones in the Port of Providence, Washington Park and other locations; working to create affordable and sustainable housing available to locals and continuing to grow its “coalition of grassroots organizations,” Huertas said. When speaking on the recent accomplishments of the group, Huertas noted that Renew RI helped to bring “over 600 testifiers” to the state house in the last legislative session to

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2021

speak on climate-related legislation.

Renew RI is “betting on the Green New Deal” by focusing on jobs, housing and incorporating partners to realize those goals, Fox-Kemper said, which “would drive RI toward a cleaner future.”

When asked about Renew RI, Crowley stated he had insufficient knowledge about the group to comment. Huertas, when asked about Climate Jobs, said they tend to “put band-aids on issues that are quickly wearing off” and characterized Climate Jobs members as “moderates” as she emphasized the need for “radical changes.” Huertas noted that “a sprinkling of justice is not real justice ... and we want justice in its truest form.” She also stated that more moderate reform has made it more challenging to pass the type of legisla-

CA L E N DA R

tion Renew RI would like to see.

J. Timmons Roberts, professor of environment and society and sociology, noted that Climate Jobs is “taking a more insider strategy” while Renew RI is more of an “outsider” in terms of their work and lobbying. He concluded that “it’s most effective to have both” since “reforms only happen when there’s a ‘radical flank’” but that “someone needs to propose reforms that can fly.”

Regardless of which group affiliation or lobbying approach Rhode Islanders prefer, Fox-Kemper said that “what we cannot afford to do is nothing, because climate change will collect on that loan from future generations.”

COVID -19 AT BROWN LAST 7 DAYS*

SEPTEMBER S

5

M

6

Tu

7

Completed Tests

People Tested

W

Th

F

S

12,919

10,989

1

2

3

4

Confirmed Positives

Positivity Rates

82

0.6 %

8

9

10

11 SINCE AUGUST 24, 2020*

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

Completed Tests

People Tested

488,736

17,520

Total Cases

Prevalence

747

4.3 %

*AS OF SEP. 16

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2021

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY

5

Shanmugam ’23: The costs of disparities in parental investment ARJUN SHANMUGAM STAFF COLUMNIST

Organizations such as the World Bank, United States Agency for International Development or UNICEF rightfully focus on inequalities at the country, province and village levels in their quest to improve lives. But inequality also stems from an even smaller economic agent: the household. For children not lucky enough to be the focus of their families’ meager resources, the challenge isn’t broadening access to schools — it is overcoming the perceptions of their parents that deem them worthy or unworthy of an education. An incorrect assumption that returns on early education are not large enough to compensate for the cost of school attendance drives families to concentrate their spending on one child, ensuring that they finish high school.

Parents are not acting on favoritism. They are simply trying to give their families a better future by ensuring that at least one of their children receives the returns promised by secondary education. While governments and nonprofits have made enormous strides in giving children across the low-income world access to schools, their next obstacle is making sure parents are giving their kids the opportunity to attend. When these parents pick winners, millions of children are left behind.

The financial constraints that families face across the world, and especially in developing countries, force families to make hard choices about which children they will send to school.

In their book, “Poor Economics,” economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo explore this phenomenon. They recall a strange conversation with a mother of seven in the agricultural village of Naganadgi, India. She explained that six of her children had quit school by the second grade. Her youngest, however, was a seventh-grader at an expensive private boarding school. What surprised Banerjee and Duflo most was the mother’s candor about her children’s

abilities. The youngest child, she said, was the only “intelligent” one — the others were “stupid.” Read from the United States, where education is free and compulsory, her words are jarring. But they are also consistent with a worldview that is common in poor countries that encourages families to concentrate limited resources on a single child with a high perceived

parents’ perceptions of their offspring’s future prospects using a survey. Strikingly, a child was less likely to be enrolled if they had siblings perceived to have a higher chance of future success. Having at least one such sibling decreased a child’s likelihood of enrollment by seven percent. Parents seem to base their evaluations at least in part on their observations of cognitive

authors assumed, had received more resources.

In virtually all areas, boys were more likely to survive than girls. The authors reasoned that this was a result of parents’ higher perceptions of boys’ earning potentials. To test this hypothesis, Rosenzweig and Schultz next examined areas where women had relatively better earning potential and more economic opportunities. In

“For children not lucky enough to be the focus of their families’ meager resources, the challenge isn’t broadening access to schools — it is overcoming the perceptions of their parents.”

chance of success. Because of misguided perceptions questioning the future payoff of education, parents across the low-income world invest in their offspring according to each child’s relative potential — robbing children perceived as unintelligent of social mobility before they even leave grade school.

Education is a disproportionate burden on family budgets in poor countries, of which secondary education can amount to more than a quarter, compared to no more than 5% in most high-income countries, according to the World Bank. With this cost in mind, it’s no surprise that the family dynamics Banerjee and Duflo encountered are far from unique to Naganadgi.

Using data from Burkina Faso, economists Richard Akresh, Emilie Bagby, Damien de Walque and Harounan Kazianga noticed significant variation in enrollment within families — in 54% of households, some children had attended school while some had not. The authors studied

aptitude. They found that a child with cognitive ability measured at one standard deviation higher than the average of their siblings was 30% more likely to be enrolled in school. Parents really were, as Banerjee and Duflo argued, putting “all their educational eggs’’ in one basket. And given that families in many poor countries face similar financial constraints on getting their children educated, it is likely that this approach — parental investment in children according to their relative potentials — is common across the world, and therefore ought to be in the forefront of efforts to build educational capacity in poor countries.

Having to single out one child to bear their hopes for financial success has implications even beyond family spending on education; the forces that drive families to choose which children go to school also play a role in determining which resources children have access to.

Because it is difficult to observe the allocation

these areas, the gap in survival rates was smaller, proving that parents really were allocating resources which would support academic performance according to perceived likelihood of success.

Humanitarian intervention at its best takes into account the worldview and values of those it’s trying to help. If the goal is to increase the educational opportunities of these countries, aid organizations like UNICEF need to understand not just the regional manifestations of problems but the domestic ones as well. This includes understanding the decision making processes that put some kids in school and keep others at home — only then can they deliver truly holistic educational aid.

this intrafamily variation to better understand the factors that influence parents’ decisions to educate their children. First, they evaluated children’s cognitive skills, then they examined

of resources like food and medicine within families, researchers Mark Rosenzweig and T. Paul Schultz instead measured childrens’ survival rates in rural India; those who survived, the

dailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@ browndailyherald.com.

Arjun Shanmugam ’23 can be reached at arjun_shanmugam@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@brown-

Gumus GS: When PhD dreams turn into nightmares SELAHADDIN GUMUS STAFF COLUMNIST

Nightmares surrounding STEM PhDs are plentiful — classic examples are the student who spends 14 hours a day in the lab, the coworker who sabotages others’ experiments and the newly graduated student who stares down the barrel of two consecutive postdoctoral positions because they are unprepared for the job market. Each of these scenarios can be traced back to one well-defined yet unsolved problem: bad mentoring. PhD students are voicing concerns about their supervisors, and it is time that academic institutions listen to their students and compel faculty to become better mentors. The data is clear: Students who are supervised effectively are more likely to publish papers, graduate and pursue a satisfying career. On the other hand, students who are poorly mentored underperform and more often develop moderate to severe anxiety and/or depression.

Most STEM PhD students rely on one faculty mentor — known as a principal investigator — throughout their graduate program. As such, it is important that this mentor be adequately trained in management, leadership and communication skills. But too many professors in STEM are hired almost solely on the basis of their ability to bring in money for the university by obtaining grants for their research. Even though graduate students are advised for several years by these professors, universities often do not require formal training to educate professors on the best practices of managing and mentoring students. The lack of human relations and people management skills lead to particularly dark consequences; more than 10% of

respondents to Nature’s 2019 PhD student survey experiencing aggressive or overly critical behavior or other forms of bullying from their supervisors.

Twenty-one percent also reported experiencing discrimination or harassment. Despite these staggering results, over half of those who reported bullying felt unable to speak out against it. Such a rate of unreported incidents can likely be attributed to fears of repercussion and a lack of trust that the institution will take appropriate action against the

restart their program, and 23% of respondents said that the impact of a poor relationship with their supervisor was their primary PhD concern. The data is clear, and academic institutions — including Brown — must address these alarming statistics to improve graduate student wellbeing, performance and satisfaction.

According to Stanford University sociologist Morris Zelditch, effective graduate student mentors are multifaceted tutors and support systems.

“PhD students are voicing concerns about their supervisors, and it is time that academic institutions listen to their students and compel faculty to become better mentors.”

supervisor.

This bullying happens right here at Brown. I have personally heard of supervisors manipulating students into working long hours and pitting students against each other to drive competition and increase performance. I have also witnessed supervisors making fun of multilingual students for word choice or pronunciation in front of others.

These actions go unreported and unpunished due to the armor of tenure that shields professors. It is thus unsurprising that almost one in four respondents would change their supervisor if they could

They should readily provide moral encouragement, career guidance and constructive feedback and serve as role models for their students. As Nature’s survey indicates, PhD mentorship tends to fail on most of these fronts — and the anecdotes from Brown graduate student shows that our University is no exception. By holding graduate student mentors to Zelditch’s standards, universities including Brown could not only improve the PhD experience, but also better equip them for their future career path.

To solve the PhD mentoring crisis and achieve

Zelditch’s criteria, academic institutions should approach this problem from two perspectives: one that demands faculty meet the expectations of effective graduate student mentors as outlined above and one that encourages graduate students to build a network of mentors at the start of their PhD to fill in gaps when a supervisor falls short. To establish good mentoring practices, institutions should require faculty to attend regular, formal training in human relations, people management and leadership development. Institutions should also regularly solicit graduate students’ feedback on their mentors and take appropriate action against faculty failing to meet expectations. These evaluations would give an anonymous platform for students to rate their supervisors across the six parameters defined above as well as report incidences of bullying, bias or harassment.

Universities must also make it easier for students to form a network of mentors from the outset of their PhD program, rather than expecting that students rely on one supervisor for all of their advising needs. To find this team of mentors, students should be encouraged to seek out and participate in programs, events and courses that are not in their specific field of study to aid in personal, professional and career development throughout their education. Students who cast a wide net in their search for mentors will open more doors for themselves than those who rely on just one.

Selahaddin Gumus GS can be reached at selahaddin_gumus@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@ browndailyherald.com.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

6

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2021

EDITORIAL

On loss and tradition Vartan Gregorian Quad has been called “New Dorm” by Brown students since the days when it was actually new. But over the past year, as an incoming class of students entered onto a mostly empty campus, a new name for the residence hall emerged: “Greg.”

This change, while amusing, was also alarming. For the upperclassmen among us, it felt as if we had failed to pass on some basic knowledge.

And the fact that “New Dorm” was no longer “new” only emphasized our old age.

The Brown experience is defined by more than our slang. But we also recognize that each and every one of our traditions distinctly shapes what it means to be a Brunonian. In pandemic times, so much of our shared cultural heritage has faded — even Blueno has left us. As we move into this new year, we urge the campus community to simply reflect: What have we lost? What can we — and should we — preserve moving forward?

Today, all four classes are together on campus. But College Hill does not feel complete.

Only one class of students has ever been on campus for a full year (or experienced a live Spring Weekend concert). And two graduating classes — who have each made indelible marks on our campus — have left without the goodbyes they deserve.

It’s hard to know what it means to be a Brown student when we haven’t had the chance to exist as a cohesive community for so long. Over the past year and a half, we’ve lost so many opportunities to learn from each other, especially from those classes that came before us. We’ve lost the moments of contact (Ratty meals, club meetings and study sessions) where we could revel in the Brown experience together.

And not only have we lost experiences, we’ve also lost our sense of direction. We are doing things for the first time again. We’re relearning how to interact with real people and failing to

recognize familiar faces through masks. Not to mention, we are still living through an ongoing pandemic. Campus continues to suffer from the uncertainty of the Delta variant and all the unpredictable policies that go along with it. We are not back to normal.

It is in spite of all this that we remain hopeful about our community’s ability to persevere and preserve our institutional memory. Already, we see many traditions and experiences quickly reviving with the start of the semester. Clubs that died down during the pandemic are starting up again. The Main Green is bustling. And finally, we can learn from professors in an actual lecture hall. Some traditions may need to adapt, but we are optimstic that they, too, will survive in some form. Perhaps this year we can have a notso-naked donut run instead — not-so-naked due to our new masking policy.

The pandemic is also a chance to define new traditions and experiences. “New Dorm” may evolve into “Greg,” and maybe the change will feel okay. And the empty patch of grass where Blueno used to be might house new art in the future or serve, at the very least, as an excellent spot for a picnic.

What we are craving is not necessarily continuity. We don’t need our traditions to stay the same, nor have they stayed the same over time.

What we crave, truly, is a sense of community, cliché as this may seem. In an age of grim, pandemic pragmatism, there is a necessary place for hope and idealism. And our hope is that we will figure out how to lean on each other this year, even at a distance or with masks on. Only then can we begin to remember what it means to be a Brown student.

Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board. This editorial was written by its editor Johnny Ren ’23, and members Clara Gutman Argemí ’22, Catherine Healy ’22, Olivia Burdette ’22, Devan Paul ’24 and Kate Waisel ’24.

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FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2021

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

7

UNIVERSITY NEWS

Peter Hollman’76 MD’79 elected President of American Geriatrics Society Dr. Peter Hollmann plans to continue past initiatives, improve payment policies

BY CASEY CHAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER Peter Hollmann ’76 MD ’79, chief medical officer for Brown Medicine and clinical assistant professor of family medicine, was recently elected president of the American Geriatrics Society.

The American Geriatrics Society is a “nationwide, not-for-profit society of geriatrics healthcare professionals dedicated to improving the health, independence and quality of life of older people,” according to their website.

As president, Hollmann will serve on committees and work on special projects. He will preside at all society meetings and will help the AGS to carry out its aims of providing high-quality, person-centered care.

AGS presidents are elected from the AGS Board of Directors by members of the organization. They serve a one-year term, followed by another year as chairperson of the Board of Directors, according to Lauren Kopchik, senior membership communication coordinator at the AGS. His term as AGS president will last until May 2022.

As president, Hollmann will work on long-term goals such as advancing the science of geriatric care and helping to support all healthcare workers.

In the short term, he is working with AGS members to improve the Medicare payment system.

ENGINEERING FROM PAGE 1 that he likes only having to choose a few electives each semester. Despite his engineering workload, Scheidl said he has still gotten to explore academically through his limited elective courses, taking classes in the psychology, economics and computer science departments.

Adelman expressed similar sentiments. While Adelman acknowledges that he usually has to take three engineering courses a semester, he is still able to take one class outside of the engineering department. “Engineering is restrictive in that ... it takes up a really big part of my course selection, but it’s not enough that I can’t take what I want to,” he said.

Jennifer Casasanto, associate dean for programs and planning, said that the engineering department supports students navigating the open curriculum through Meiklejohn and concentration advisers. She also added that students in engineering are involved in the teaching process and are “always bringing suggestions to (the department) about what (they) could do differently.”

One of these student suggestions, she said, was assigning Meiklejohns within the engineering department to first-year students interested in concentrating in the field. “There’s a real value to talking with a peer and having them say ‘you know, I was going to take this, but I decided to do something different and here was my experience,’” she added.

Larry Larson, dean of engineering, views the open curriculum as a tool that students can use “to be the architects of their own education.” He added that while there is a certain “body of knowl-

“We are working to make sure that the Medicare payment system really recognizes and properly pays for geriatric care, and provides good access.”

Hollmann said.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also prompted new initiatives by the AGS. “When the pandemic hit, everyone had to convert to telemedicine, and weren’t sure how to get paid for it,” Hollmann said. In response, Hollman and one of his colleagues developed a “cheat sheet” for health care workers to implement telemedicine to prevent confusion about payments. The AGS also advocated for audio-only telehealth appointments — primarily used by geriatrics patients — to be covered by Medicare.

Despite his success in the field, Hollmann did not originally plan to become a leader in geriatrics. After finishing a residency in internal medicine at Brown’s medical program, he was asked to join the first geriatrics fellowship at the University. He started working with the American Medical Association on coding and billing processes, an area of expertise that he would later translate to the AGS. Hollmann began his time at the AGS as a representative to a panel that crafted terminology for medical procedures.

He then helped the AGS with coding and payment policy and founded the AGS Practice Management Advisory Group.

Coding, which led him to AGS, “was a quirky thing, and was not what I planned to do,” he said. “It just happened. And it worked out great.”

Dr. Richard Besdine, director of the Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine and professor of medicine, health services policy and practice, has

edge” needed to become an engineer, the department tries to find a balance between the core of knowledge and the freedom of the open curriculum.

All three students agreed that the engineering concentrations were rigorous and when compared to the concentrations of friends, Ritz stated that engineering was “noticeably more work.”

Yet, Adelman said that engineering was “fulfilling” regardless of its rigor.

Scheidl said that the program was “as rigorous as you want to make it.”

“If you do things that you find interesting, they become less work and more fun,” he explained.

Scheidl also believes that the rigor is an “opportunity for growth” that allows students to find their strengths and weaknesses while also setting boundaries on what is important.

Casasanto said that the engineering department partakes in exhaustive external reviews every five years and accreditation reviews every six years.

These panels, she said, contain experts from around the country ­— and sometimes the world — and have complimented the University’s engineering department for its rigor and its pedagogy. “We’re getting very strong, positive feedback in those areas,” she said.

Larson agreed and stated that he believes “all Brown concentrations are rigorous in their own domains.” He went on to say that the University “really (wants its) students to become experts in their field when they graduate” and that engineering is no exception.

Casasanto attributed the rigor of the degree program to the range of topics engineering students are exposed to during their time at the University.

“We’ve built into the program ...

COURTESY OF THE AMERICAN GERIATRIC SOCIETY

As president of AGS, Dr. Peter Hollman hopes to advance the science of geriatric care, encourage interest and help support healthcare workers. worked with Hollmann for more than 30 years in the University’s Department of Medicine.

“He was invaluable to the American Geriatrics Society as being the one member who knew something about funding of healthcare, and had expertise in the Medicare program.” Besdine said.

For Hollmann, the nomination was an honor since the AGS, in his mind, embodies collaboration and empathy.

“In geriatrics, we are extreme believers in teams. We know that we can’t function in caring for older people with multiple issues unless we have a team of people,” he said. “And that’s how we function as an organization too.”

“Hollmann has been a treasured resource for geriatricians nationwide,” Besdine said. “And is a tireless advocate for improved quality of care for all people.”

JACK WALKER / HERALD

Engineering students, like other undergraduates, have access to Meiklejohn peer and concentration advisors. Though the concentration is rigorous, students still find it rewarding. principles of all the other engineering concentrations that we offer,” she said, adding that employers value this breadth of learning within the field, since many people in the industry work on teams with those from other disciplines. Larson added that this was a “unique strength” at the University.

Yet, even with the rigor of the concentration, each of the students expressed positive attitudes toward it.

Both Scheidl and Adelman stated that the professors within the department were great, with Scheidl adding that the professors have “always been very approachable and helpful.”

In order to navigate the curriculum, Casasanto encouraged students to look ahead at what courses are being offered and to speak with advisers on which

courses to take. She also added that students should be creative in choosing the order they take courses in.

However, Casasanto acknowledged that the field of engineering is taught in a structured way throughout most of the world due to its status as a pre-professional program, like pre-medical programs. “There’s real serious ethical and professional expectations that are not applied to other concentrations at Brown,” she added, which is why there are many required courses.

Larson acknowledged the “incredible feast of amazing courses (and) amazing professors” outside of the engineering department which students are encouraged to take advantage of.

On what they would like to change about the engineering concentrations,

both Ritz and Scheidl mentioned changes to course requirements which they felt were restrictive. Scheidl said that while he had placed out of a required math class, he was not able to substitute that class for another outside of math.

To him, this “felt a little restrictive.”

Ritz proposed the idea of combining six upper-level engineering courses into fewer so that, while he would “still have the knowledge of all those subjects,” he would have to go less in-depth on each.

Adelman expressed excitement about getting to take two upper-level biomedical engineering courses.

“I don’t know anything else I’d change,” he said. “I’m just excited.”

8

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2021

UNIVERSITY NEWS

Graduate students return to in-person programming for fall semester

NAT HARDY / HERALD

The All-Student Orientation saw grad students recieve offers of University merchandise and invitations to play games, speed network and enjoy a social on the Ruth J. Simmons Quad.

After last year’s virtual orientation, Graduate School begins offering in-person events

BY CALEB LAZAR SENIOR STAFF WRITER Graduate Orientation returned with in-person events running from Aug. 31 to Sept.1 after a fully virtual orientation last year. This year’s programming was open to first-year and second-year students to accommodate second-year students who had missed out on in-person orientation last year.

On top of the All-Student Orientation programming, serving all first-year and second-year graduate students, the Graduate School also offered International Orientation, held primarily virtually from Aug. 25 to Aug. 27, and Student of Color Orientation, held in person on Aug. 30.

The return to in-person programming gave new graduate students a better chance to acclimate themselves to Brown’s community, said Maija

Hallsmith, Graduate School program assistant for diversity initiatives, who helped plan and run Student of Color Orientation. In addition to social events, the Student of Color Orientation included a welcome dinner and keynote speaker on the evening of Aug. 29.

“One of the biggest pros about orientation in general, and obviously also about Student of Color Orientation, is that it’s an opportunity not only to learn about the university that you’re going to, but also to meet people,” Hallsmith said.

At All-Student Orientation, grad students were offered Brown merchandise and were invited to social events including a game night, speed networking and a back-to-school social on Ruth J. Simmons Quadrangle, according to Mac Carley GS, Graduate Student Council vice president of advocacy.

Beyond social events, orientation programming included campus tours, sessions on diversity and inclusion and student and faculty panels.

Within the Student of Color Orientation, Hallsmith said that the in-person format allowed for more events than last year.

“Last year we had a much shorter schedule and fewer options, which wasn’t great, but was just more realistic for trying to engage people over Zoom,” she said.

Carley said that besides some COVID-19 restrictions, this year’s programming reflected a return to normalcy, mirroring orientation prior to the pandemic.

“We would usually do the back-toschool social at a bar, but this year we decided to do it under a tent in one of the quads so it would be safer,” he said.

“Otherwise, as far as activities, it all looks the same.”

Student of Color Orientation, according to Hallsmith, is meant to help students find their footing in both their academic and social lives, with events ranging from panels on how to keep track of academic milestones to sessions about social spots in Providence.

Hallsmith added that Student of Color Orientation began as a student-initiated event and is now an annual tradition.

“It actually was the brainchild of graduate students who had been at Brown for a few years and realized that

there was a gap in terms of preparing students for coming to Brown and really feeling like they’re welcomed here and have a community,” she said.

Hallsmith said that Student of Color Orientation, like its predecessors, utilized student voices, with graduate students serving as the driving force in organizing events.

“Students were the ones who were planning the sessions, picking out the keynote speakers, helping us organize the schedule, packing folders, all of that kind of stuff, and it stayed that way,” she said.

“They are really the ones who dictate what is covered,” she added. “It’s nice in that way because I feel like it is pretty reflective of what students feel they need and what will best prepare them for coming into graduate school.”

One of those students is second-year PhD student Kimberly Meza GS, who applied to be a Student of Color Orientation assistant in part because last year’s virtual orientation made her realize how important the event is.

“With the original format, you can meet new students that you started school with,” Meza said. “That just

wasn’t as present for us virtually.”

Meza said that Student of Color Orientation helps graduate students adjust to an unfamiliar academic setting. For example, Meza hosted a faculty panel on how to navigate the “ivory tower” — or a space of particular privilege — as a graduate student.

“We had faculty that identify as people of color come out with their experiences and what it looks like to be in a space like Brown, which is sometimes a bit of a culture shock for some of us,” she said. “They gave very candid advice on how to navigate that.”

Following orientation, Carley said that GSC hopes to continue to hold community-building events for graduate students, including another social toward the end of the semester, a distinguished speaker series and trivia nights.

“We’re just trying to put everything back as much as possible, especially on the social side, because that’s really been the missing piece during the pandemic,” he said. “As much as the virtual socials last year were nice, I know that people feel much better and more impacted by the in-person stuff.”

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