Friday, March 2, 2018

SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 2018

VOLUME CLIII, ISSUE 26

WWW.BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM

Queer, trans artists discuss undocumented experiences U. to provide scholarships covering MFA tuition

Panel allowed students to hear how art serves as way to cope, engage in activism

Full tuition waivers to be offered to Brown/Trinity Rep master’s students in acting, directing

By PRIYANKA PODUGU UNIVERSITY NEWS EDITOR

“For me, (art) was a way to quiet the demons inside, whether it was rage or anger or feeling lost,” said Rommy Torrico, an undocumented, queer and trans visual artist, during an event hosted by the First-Generation College and Low-Income Student Center and the LGBTQ Center Thursday. “Eventually, creating ended up turning into a way to fight back.” The program, titled “Undoc-QT ARTivism: Creating Beyond Borders,” allowed students to hear a panel of artists who identify as queer or trans describe their experiences of being undocumented in the United States. The event — which was moderated by Alan Pelaez Lopez, an Afro-indigenous poet — was part of the FLi Center’s Undocumented Student Initiative and the LGBTQ Center’s Queer Legacy Series. It was important to have a conversation about “the intersection of queer and trans identity, because that’s not a narrative that we hear a lot (about),” said Je-Shawna Wholley, assistant director of the LGBTQ Center.

By TRISHA THACKER STAFF WRITER

MARIANNA MCMURDOCK / HERALD

Alan Pelaez Lopez, Rommy Torrico, Soultree and Felipe Baeza spoke about art’s role in immigration activism and the intersection of queerness and immigration status. During the event, artists discussed a wide variety of topics, from the interplay between their gender identities and immigration statuses to the erasure of certain experiences in the media-constructed narrative of immigration issues. “As an Asian person, I felt erasure in the larger immigration narrative. I was born in the Philippines but raised in the Marshall Islands,” said Soultree,

a Filipinx singer, rapper and poet. “There’s very few islander or islander nations that are acknowledged within the larger conversation.” “I really want to ask the space to think about, ‘What do we see in the media? Which cultures and ethnicities are represented? Whose deportations are being seen as more important?’” they added. “It’s been challenging, and it feels overwhelming to see the amazing

support that’s happened because of the targeting of specific communities,” they said, adding “but we have to be critical about who doesn’t have that support.” The panelists also spoke about how their identities as queer or trans, coupled with their interest in art, influenced their immigration activism. Ola Osaze, a trans Nigerian writer and immigrant, said he was “particularly » See PANEL, page 3

The University will provide scholarships to cover full tuition for all future and returning students in the Brown/ Trinity Rep Master of Fine Arts programs in Acting and Directing beginning in the 2018-19 academic year. The scholarships aim to minimize student debt, said Patricia Ybarra, chair of the theatre arts and performance studies department. By decreasing debt, artistic practice can become more diverse and inclusive and will lead to a larger pool of applicants, she added. “It will diversify the class ethnically, racially and in terms of socioeconomic status,” Ybarra said. The Brown/Trinity Rep MFA programs — a partnership established in 2002 between the University and » See MFA, page 2

Bears beat Cornell, fall to Columbia Universities review

active shooter plans

Mehta, Gaziano post back-to-back games scoring over 20 for women’s basketball team

“Run, Hide, Fight” method employed at Brown, Johnson and Wales University

By RILEY PESTORIUS SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The women’s basketball team held their final home stand of the season this weekend. The Bears (15-10, 3-9 Ivy) fell to Columbia Saturday but notched a big win over Cornell the following day. In the first matchup, the Lions (819, 2-10) jumped out to an early lead and held onto it throughout the game, outscoring Bruno in every quarter to earn a final score of 90-74. The Bears shot well, tallying 27 makes on 64 attempts, but it was not strong enough to overcome Columbia’s 35 for 70 shooting performance. Consistent scorers Shayna Mehta ’19 and Justine Gaziano ’20 were the only players for Brown to score in double digits, posting 22 and 20 points apiece. The Lions were aggressive in the paint, and it helped translate to a win. In addition to posting 36 points

INSIDE

By COLLEEN CRONIN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

ELI WHITE / HERALD

Justine Gaziano ’20 shot well in the Saturday match against Columbia despite the loss. Ever resilient, the team triumphed over Cornell Sunday. down low to Brown’s 28, Columbia out-rebounded Bruno 43 to 32. Even the Bears’ best rebounders were stifled — no player collected more than five boards.

On Sunday, friends and family filled the Pizzitola Sports Center to celebrate the careers and witness the final home game of Bruno seniors Megan Reilly » See BASKETBALL, page 3

In light of the school shooting in Florida earlier this month, colleges and universities in Rhode Island have discussed preparation and prevention tactics in case of a similar emergency. In the event of an active shooter situation, both Brown and Johnson and Wales University employ the “Run, Hide, Fight” method — developed by the city of Houston with Homeland Security funding in 2012, according to Christopher Harwood, JWU director of emergency management and former biosafety officer at Brown. Houston’s short training video — which entails running from the scene if possible, hiding silently and taking action to disrupt the shooter as a last resort — is featured on the JWU website.

Harwood said he likes the method because it is easy to remember. Unlike other shooter response programs such as ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) and CRASE (Civilian Response to Active Shooter Events), “Run, Hide, Fight” is made up of “three monosyllabic words that you learn at five years old,” Harwood added. Both JWU and Brown have alarm and notifications systems that alert community members in the case of an active shooter situation. JWU uses Blackboard Connect software to send out texts, tweets and voicemails to students, faculty and staff. Brown utilizes the Guardian app, which gives community updates and acts as a “virtual panic button,” allowing users to contact the Department of Public Safety if they are unable to make a phone call, said Deputy Chief of University Police Paul Shanley. Additionally, Brown tests its alert system — which reaches 16,000 community members — every semester. » See SAFETY, page 2

WEATHER

FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 2018

NEWS Lifespan enters talks with Care New England, Partners HealthCare about merger

SPORTS Long jump legend Katz ’19 flies to second best mark in U. history at Heptagonal Championships

COMMENTARY Brownsword ’18: On, off court, NCAA plagued by scandals, mediocre performances

COMMENTARY Shemano ’19: Political Theory Project fosters diverse scholarship, not propaganda

PAGE 2

BACK

PAGE 5

PAGE 5

TODAY

TOMORROW

46 / 36

44 / 35

NEWS

PAGE 2 • FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 2018

» SAFETY, from page 1 Schools must identify best practices for each individual location, be it urban or suburban, Harwood said. JWU Harborside campus in Providence is gated off and has a “closed campus feel,” while the school’s Downcity campus, like Brown, has buildings mixed in with local residences and businesses, he added. A more suburban setting allows for an alarm system to reach the majority of campus, but an urban campus is harder to inform during an emergency. Brown employs three alarms to cover campus while JWU uses one, Harwood said. “Brown also has city streets running through parts of its campus, which presents a unique challenge,” Shanley said. Both schools have public safety headquarters located near Providence Police district substations, so the police force is involved in improving safety on both campuses, Shanley and Harwood said. DPS officers participate in active

shooter trainings every year, Shanley said. Less frequently, DPS conducts in-depth trainings that act out active shooter situations and include city and state police. The last time JWU had a full, simulated active shooter drill was May 2014, which took place in the school’s gym and mimicked a shooter situation occuring during a sports game, Harwood said. These large scale drills are often difficult to coordinate between state police, city police and the volume of universities in the area, he added. Besides trainings and drills, the threat of active shooting has created new law enforcement tactics. As opposed to waiting for a full SWAT team to arrive on site, the first officers present are supposed to enter the building to “neutralize” an active shooter threat, Harwood said. Most active shooter situations last seven to 10 minutes, he added. Providence Police does not discuss active shooter procedures, wrote Providence Police Public Information Officer Lindsay Lague in an email to

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD The Herald. Roger Williams Department of Public Safety told The Herald they could not speak on their active shooter procedures without special permission. Both Shanley and Harwood said the best thing for students to do in case of an active shooter is to be aware. “There’s so many variables,” Harwood said. “I can’t tell you what (to) do, but if you have options, run, hide, fight.” While campuses and police address worst-case scenarios, state lawmakers hope to prevent active shooter situations from happening in the first place. Brown Progressive Action Committee is working with Rhode Island Coalition Against Gun Violence to pass assault rifle bans in Rhode Island. According to the Providence Journal, an assault weapons ban has not been proposed since 2015. BPAC hopes to mobilize students for the March 14 rally at the State House, wrote Virginia Schilder ’20, a chair for BPAC, in an email to The Herald.

COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

In the event of an active shooter situation like the one that took place in Parkland, Florida, Brown and Johnson and Wales University would use the “Run, Hide, Fight” method to make their campuses safer.

COURTESY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

The University hopes that offering new MFA scholarships for acting and directing will diversify the incoming class and minimize student debt.

» MFA, from page 1 Rhode Island’s Trinity Repertory Company — immerse students in three years of artistic study. The programs combine classroom learning with practical theater experience through internships, according to the programs’ website. The University currently offers partial scholarships to several students in the program, but the additional support will cost $1 million each year, Provost Richard Locke P’18 wrote in an email to The Herald. The University already provides scholarships covering tuition for all other MFA programs, Locke added. John Barrack MFA’18 said he believes the initiative will have an “immense impact” on MFA students and the programs’ reputation as it could lead to a higher caliber of students and higher regard for graduates. “The change means a lot for the careers of the students in the program,” he added. Curt Columbus, Trinity Rep’s artistic director, who advocated for this change for 12 years, called the scholarship provision “a significant game changer.” He believes the scholarships “will have an undeniable impact as

a recruitment tool” because it will allow the University to send “artists out into the world with as little debt as possible.” The decision to provide scholarships for MFA students stemmed from student advocacy and an “incredibly responsive administration,” Columbus said. This development aligns with the goals of the Brown Arts Initiative, which aims to integrate, improve and promote arts education across the University. “Brown Arts Initiative supports experimental and engaged work,” Ybarra said. “The MFA students having less debt allows them to do community-engaged work that they may not be able to do if they face the social and commercial pressures to repay debt.” “An arts degree is more of a creative investment than a financial one,” said Haley Schwartz ’17 MFA’20. Art plays a large role in community work through its “ability to control cultural norms and messages and drive ideological change,” she added. Schwartz also said the scholarships will help bridge the gap between the University and Trinity Rep. “It feels good to be recognized in a large way by the University,” Schwartz added.

Lifespan eyes Care New England, Partners HealthCare deal Local health care group’s entry heralded as positive development, alternative to Brown-Prospect deal By DYLAN MAJSIAK AND ALLIE REED SENIOR STAFF WRITERS

Lifespan will begin formal talks with Care New England and Partners HealthCare about working together to improve health care in Rhode Island, according to a joint statement released by the three parties Tuesday. “By combining the talent, experience and resources of our like-minded, provider-based organizations, we envision creating a national model that fully leverages the integration and coordination of care,” the statement read. Lifespan — Rhode Island’s first health care system — currently operates more than 15 medical facilities within the state. Lifespan also has a history of working with the University, facilitating trainings at Alpert Medical School. On Jan. 25, Boston-based Partners HealthCare and local health care group CNE formally agreed to merge,

as The Herald previously reported. President Christina Paxson P’19 initially expressed her concern with Partners HealthCare’s acquisition of CNE in a community-wide email Jan. 11, as The Herald previously reported. In particular, Paxson was concerned about specialty care moving out of state to Massachusetts and health care costs in Rhode Island increasing as a result of the CNE-Partners deal. In her email, Paxson proposed an alternative deal for the University to work with California-based for-profit organization Prospect Medical Holdings, Inc. to merge with CNE. “Brown announced its hope that, with Prospect Medical, the University would have the opportunity to present a proposal for a local acquisition of Care New England. Brown is committed to investing in Rhode Island health care,” Paxson wrote in an op-ed published by the Providence Journal Jan. 20. But Brown’s proposal has not been without criticism. A representative of CNE did not react favorably to the Brown-Prospect proposal, describing it as an attempt to “acquire and split up the Care New England Health System — a process undertaken of their own independent action and

COURTESY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

Representatives of Care New England and the United Nurses and Allied Professionals union have criticized the University’s merger proposal. interests,” as The Herald previously reported. Representatives of United Nurses and Allied Professionals also criticized the University for partnering with Prospect. Linda McDonald, president of Rhode Island United Nurses

and Allied Professionals, referenced Prospect’s record of providing poor quality services and using contaminated and broken materials that led to “high patient injury and infection rates” in a Herald op-ed. UNAP Director Jack Callaci also noted that

Prospect is “not the hometown solution” because it is owned by the venture capital firm Leonard Green and Partners and has allocated $600 million to its stockholders. In contrast, UNAP supports Lifespan’s entry into negotiations between CNE and Prospect, Callaci said. Gov. Gina Raimondo also regarded Lifespan’s negotiations as a positive development. “It’s great to see another local, homegrown Rhode Island institution joining the collaboration. Whatever the proposal, I am focused on making sure costs to Rhode Islanders don’t increase and that medical care, research and teaching all stay in-state,” Raimondo said in a statement, acording to Rhode Island Public Radio. If Lifespan, CNE and Partners were to merge, the majority of Rhode Island’s medical facilities would be managed by the partnership. “We have advocated for this kind of within-state dialogue for years,” Paxson wrote in a statement on Tuesday. Nevertheless, “a business relationship between Partners and Lifespan that further consolidates market power could have additional adverse effects on Rhode Islanders,” Paxson wrote.

Issue

In This "We're Like Everybody Else" anna harvey 3

Faces, Places, Cable Car Spaces

liza edwards-levin 2 JOSH WARTEL & JAMES FEINBERG 4

The Shape of Hollywood

postCover by Miranda Villanueva

MAR 02

VOL 21 —

ISSUE 5

written By Liza Edwards-levin – illustration by Nayeon michelle woo

Bringing French film to Providence

Faces, Places, Cable Car Spaces

FEATURE

I

walked down College Hill to Cable Car Cinema on a rainy Sunday. That afternoon, I planned to see the Academy Award-nominated film Faces Places (Visages, villages), screened as part of the Providence French Film Festival. I predicted the scene I would be met with: a quiet, cozy space soundtracked by the hum of a coffee machine and the comings and goings of occasional customers. I thought I might even get some work done before the movie started. Instead, I found Cable Car full, in every sense of the word. College students made up just a fraction of the afternoon rush. Alongside them crowded the middle-aged and elderly, couples, families with young kids. The festival was organized in collaboration with Brown’s French department, but the day’s attendance was by no means limited to campus dwellers. Cable Car’s eclectic decor and merchandise echoed the lively, varied crowd. On the brick wall behind the counter, beers, juices, copper tea containers, and decaf espresso beans sat alongside T-shirts and tote bags, arranged like 3D wallpaper. Cable Car’s snack selection, simultaneously old-fashioned and hip, featured individually-wrapped brownies and peppermint patties alongside whole food protein bars. Popcorn toppings included Old Bay seasoning, curry powder, and nutritional yeast, labeled with colorful markers in home kitchen-style shakers. Every couple of seconds, cafe employees slid fresh orders across the counter. With every announcement, another item from Cable Car’s extensive menu came to life. One tomato basil panini with a soup of the day! Toasted sesame bagel! Red eye, London fog! With all of Cable Car’s six round tables occupied, I noticed many orders were eaten standing up. Behind a roomful of conversations, the espresso machine whirred and the ceiling fan buzzed. I overheard customers ordering tickets days in advance. A bell rang after each transaction. “Sold out,” the cashier told me. “I recommend buying in advance.” I bought a ticket for Tuesday’s showing of 12 Days (12 Jours). By 1:30 p.m. a line extended out the front door and into the rainy drizzle. *** Cable Car may be known for its intimate, idiosyncratic space, but since its founding 40 years ago, the cinema has also served as a community hub. Its showcases of recent independent and art films, roster of guest speakers, and abundance of panels draw an audience from across the city of Providence. According to Richard Blakely, French film festival director and research associate in French studies at Brown, the festival represents this same collective, communal effort, both past and present. Beginning in October, an informal committee headed by Blakely worked to brainstorm and assemble the 2018 film

Letter from the Editor

Cable Car may be known for its intimate, idiosyncratic space, but since its founding 40 years ago, the cinema has also acted as a community hub.

selection. The group included Cable Car owner Daniel Kamil, professors, graduate and undergraduate students: in Blakely’s words, “whoever’s interested, really.” As the festival drew closer, a range of Brown administrators helped design the festival’s web presence and promotional materials. Kamil reached out to film distributors, gradually narrowing down a preliminary list of about 150 films to just 15. Blakely feels especially excited about this year’s film festival lineup and high audience turnout. Besides a retrospective showing of The Crime of Monsieur Lange (Le crime de monsieur Lange), Blakely said all films shown were made within the past year and a half. For instance, the festival makes Cable Car one of the first theaters in the United States to screen Raoul Peck’s The Young Karl Marx. In many ways, the festival has remained consistent over its 21 years of existence. For instance, it has always taken place at Cable Car during the final week of February—“a nice time to signal the beginning of springtime,” as Blakely put it. The festival began when a group of interested Brown students and faculty began working together to seek out films and funding; today, Blakely still views active student involvement as a hallmark of the festival’s success. For example, I ran into Angie Kang at the festival, a sophomore Brown-RISD dual degree student studying comparative literature and illustration. On Sunday, she saw two movies in a row: The Big Bad Fox (Le grand méchant renard et autres contes) followed by Faces Places (Visages, villages). Angie was required to attend the screenings for her French course, but she is a long-time French film enthusiast. Since last summer, Angie has spent a portion of her free time

Dear Readers,

Movies that Should Have Gotten an Oscar

A year ago, I was on the unpopular side of the

This issue explores the different roles movies

La La Land vs. Moonlight debate. When the

play in all of our lives: Anna Harvey describes

topic arose again a week ago, I was surprised

her relationship to her mother through the

by my visceral reaction, which had been

lens of Lady Bird, Liza Edwards-Levin takes

undiluted by the passage of time. I realized

us to the state of cinema today in Providence,

I wasn’t defending the movie on solely

while our very own Arts & Culture staff

3. The Bee Movie

“objective” grounds—I was also defending

examines this year’s curious Best Picture

its place in my life. Inextricable from its

race. We hope it gets you thinking about the

4.

inherent magic is the memory of watching

special place of movies in our lives, no matter

it after having been reunited with my family

what your opinions about any specific one

after two years of moving across continents

may be.

every six months. This year’s movies are no different: getting thoroughly drenched in the rain to see Dunkirk, watching Lady Bird side-by-side with my mother, sneaking into a sold-out theatre for Black Panther"—"these will all be moments I will remember for a long time.

2!post–

Happy Oscars watching!

Saanya - EDITOR IN CHIEF

1. Justin Bieber: Never Say Never 2. Suicide Squad (oh wait) Fifty Shades of Gray

5. Pikachu's Vacation 6. The Power Rangers Movie (the new one with Bryan Cranston) 7. The Princess Bride 8. Parent Trap 9. High School Musical 10. The Shawshank Redemption (this is not a joke, this movie was robbed)

NARRATIVE

"We're Like Everybody Else" Seeing ourselves in Lady Bird By anna harvey

For about a week and a half in mid-December, the Avon Cinema became my second home. While I love the Avon, it wasn’t the retro decor, or the campy pre-show commercials, or the people-watching (a funny mix of elderly couples and college students shirking their responsibilities) that drew me in. It was Sacramento, circa 2002-2003, and faded red hair dye, and communion wafers (not consecrated!), and Dave Matthews Band. Lady Bird kept me coming back to the Avon, again and again. Greta Gerwig’s directorial debut stars Saoirse Ronan as opinionated Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson and Laurie Metcalf as Marion, her exasperated, strong-willed mother. The movie explores the contours of their relationship over the course of Lady Bird’s senior year. Each viewing was slightly different (slightly better), but without fail, I would watch the credits roll with tears running down my face, fishing out my phone to text my mom. I hounded her until she saw Lady Bird herself, and though we talked about it a little right after, I wanted to discuss it in more detail with her. Like both protagonists in the film, my mom and I grew up in the same town (Evanston, Illinois), attended the same high school, and, and this is where it goes even deeper...grew up in the same house. We took over the family home after my grandparents moved to a condo a few minutes away, so I spent my adolescence sleeping in my mother’s teenage bedroom. I have always wondered how strongly my teenage years paralleled hers, especially because in the hubris of youth, I spent so long thinking we were fundamentally different

people, when really, like Lady Bird and her mom, we might have been operating on two sides of a very similar coin. What follows is a conversation we had in February, while she was driving home from work. I started by asking her what her experience of seeing the movie was like. “It was on my radar,” she answered, “but the fact that you demonstrated [interest] and went out of your way to say, ‘This is amazing,’ made me that much more interested in going and seeing it too. Then while watching it, I have to admit that there was, for me, this parallel processing. As I’m taking it in and being Mom, being Linda, and experiencing it from my own point of view, it was also ‘I wonder how Anna liked that. Oh I could see totally why Anna liked this scene. Oh I totally see how this resonated with her. Huh? Is that really what she thinks of me? Is that what she might say about me?’” I laughed. If she was thinking of the part when Lady Bird’s first boyfriend, Danny, describes her mom as “scary and warm,” I probably would say something like that. Also, pretty whip-smart; she dropped the phrase “meta-processing” into the next bit of conversation, describing her relationship with her own mother. “There were aspects of some of the scenes that reminded me of me in both roles, Lady Bird and her mom. And I went to the place of, ‘Was I that way with Sophie (my grandmother, who passed away when I was eight)? I bet I probably was.’ And so, that also has it take on an additional meaning because Grandma’s not here.” Obviously, I’m not a mom yet, so my viewing of the movie was a bit more one-sided. But what struck me most about it was that it felt like, watching Lady Bird and Marion, I was watching my mom and me. I had never seen anything capture our relationship so well, fiction or nonfiction. I tried to articulate this to her.

Illustrated by Claribel Wu

watching French TV shows to practice listening comprehension outside of class (without “slaving over a textbook”): Her favorites include Call My Agent! (Dix pour cent), about the lives of film agents, and Miraculous, an animated children’s show. Angie described the vibe of Faces Places as playful but also meditative, even existential. In the film, Angès Varda and street artist J.R.—also the film’s writers and directors—travel around France to take pictures of strangers and paste the photographs in public spaces. While Angie admitted some of her French classmates considered the assignment a burden during midterm season, she said the films prompted her to notice nuances in French humor and colloquial speech. Angie also paid attention to the festival’s attendees: While she heard “a lot of squeals and little kid laughter” in the earlier screening of The Big Bad Fox, a middle-aged and older crowd arrived for Faces Places. “Two distinct generations,” Angie called it— although, she noted, one guy slept through both. Over the years, Blakely has noticed a group of faithful attendees take shape in the audience, a group he describes as “people retired and involved in the community but not necessarily affiliated with Brown.” Blakely said he thinks more community members anticipate the festival each year, looking forward to a quality selection. The French Film Festival recently gained funding support from the city of Providence, a nod to the festival’s growing local identity. “The [festival’s] aims have always been to provide a link between the community and France,” Blakely said. In the future, Blakely said he hopes the festival will just “keep doing what it’s doing.” *** When I arrived at Tuesday’s 5 p.m. showing of 12 Days (12 Jours), Cable Car was nowhere near as crowded as it had been on Sunday afternoon. Half of the cafe’s tables were unoccupied; the loudest noise came from the popcorn machine. But even on a weeknight, the auditorium was about three-quarters full—about half the audience members appeared college-aged. Two student volunteers checked my ticket as I entered. 12 Days, a documentary directed by Raymond Depardon, addresses the French law that requires people checked into a psychiatric hospital against their will to be assessed by a judge after 12 days. The film showed a series of these assessments punctuated by long, lingering shots of hospitals, inside and outside. Uninterrupted by narration, statistics, or interviews, this was unlike any documentary I’d ever seen. There I was, seated in a soft leather couch, watching a movie alongside mostly strangers. Some attendees, I assume, showed up for French language and culture; others, an assignment; others yet, out of habit or invitation. For a little while though, the festival brought us all a little closer to something far from home.

"My stomach is the most enduring part of my body." "My favorite thing to microwave is absurdism." "Jo's is such a cheap date." march 03, 2018&3

NARRATIVE “I was thinking about it from your perspective, Mom, because I would see Lady Bird do something and be like, ‘Oh shit, I’ve done that.’ And in the context of a movie, [I] can be like, ‘Well, that was not a nice thing to do,’ but in the context of my own life, I know that I’ve definitely snapped at you when we were trying to...buy a prom dress or whatever, you know, as many times as it happens in the movie. And seeing how that was reflected for Laurie Metcalf’s character, I was like, ‘Oh wow.’ But then also, [I] felt like it was so, just us, and it was so genuine.” My mom immediately retorted: “But the other piece on it, and what I think makes it such a remarkable movie, is that so many mothers and daughters see themselves in Lady Bird and her mom.” And she’s right. We’re not the only pair of women who have tried to buy a prom dress in a thrift shop, arguing over the whole ordeal (“Are you tired? I’m not tired! Well, it looks like you were dragging your feet!”) until one of us finds the PERFECT dress and everything is okay again. We’re not unique. We’re just like everybody else.

ARTS&CULTURE I wouldn’t say that I was necessarily desperately homesick, but what I found myself doing, and what you clearly are not doing, is that I would invite people to come back to Evanston with me from Grinnell. Granted, I wasn’t going to Grinnell because it was more sophisticated and more cultured than Evanston/Chicago. It was a completely different place. So it’s almost like, in reverse. I wanted to show the people that I met at school how awesome home/ Evanston/Chicago was and [what it] meant to me.” I was also curious about why she moved back to Evanston and decided to raise her family there. I remember lots of conversations I’ve had with friends from high school, who even now, at age 19 or 20, will passionately declare that they want to do the same. Spend a few years in a college town somewhere, then move to a big city for another little while, but ultimately settle down at home. That’s the kind of place Evanston is—it draws people back. I wanted to know if my mom was like my friends. Despite loving my hometown, I’ve never felt that strong “pull” toward it. There’s a sense of rootlessness to me that I can never shake. “I don’t think I ever thought hard about it, long and hard about it, to be perfectly honest.” I felt a little better then. She talked about the discussions she and my dad had when they decided to move back to the suburbs, about how she had to trust the process and hope that he’d realize that of all the communities on the North Shore of Chicago, Evanston is “so much better.” She continued: “It wasn’t like in my young adulthood I ever thought, ‘Oh yes, of course I’m going to come back and bring my family here.’ Maybe because the family never left and 2149— our address, and what everyone in the family calls the family home—was always there, I always knew that there would be aspects of home that my family would have, that my kids would have. Now we’ve taken it to the nth degree, getting 2149 and really being true boomerangs.” I asked her about that, about raising us in the house she was raised in. Was it creepy or cool? It’s good, she said, for the most part. She likes that I sleep in her old bedroom (“100%”), that she knows where the “skeletons are buried.” But she also knows we wouldn’t be in this situation if my grandma were still alive, if she hadn’t gotten sick and had to downsize at exactly the time her daughter’s family was looking to upgrade. It’s bittersweet. I gave us both a few seconds to breathe after that. Then I switched gears. I had one more question (and the one that, without spoiling too much, is why Lady Bird is, to me, the perfect film about growing up and leaving home). “Did you get emotional the first time you drove in Evanston?” I asked. “First time coming back from school or as a parent?” “No, I was thinking the first time after getting your license—like the first time you drove alone.” “Oh absolutely, without a doubt. Without a doubt.”

While I love the Avon, it wasn't the retro décor, or the campy pre-show commercials, or the people-watching (a funny mix of elderly couples and college students shirking their responsibilities) that drew me in. But maybe in some ways our story is unique. In terms of geography, we had the same exact surroundings from ages 0 to 18, those years that every developmental psychologist hammers home as integral for personal development. Lots of our milestone experiences were the same, or if not the same, about as similar as they could be with a 30-year time gap. Yet there’s a part of me that has always felt like my hometown is not my mother’s. Was her Evanston fundamentally different from the one I knew? I asked her about it: “Obviously Sacramento is not Evanston, but I feel like this kind of applies in our situation. Because the movie feels like a love letter to Sacramento even though Lady Bird kind of hates it and talks about how much she hates it, you realize at the end of the movie that she actually has this really deep affection for it. And I found that that was something that really resonated with me, because I know in high school I could really hate Evanston a lot. And I really did, like want to ‘go to the East Coast, where culture is’ and thought there was nothing [in Evanston] for me. And now I find, here I am, on the East Coast, where the culture is, I guess, at Brown specifically, and I find that I miss home a lot and find aspects of Evanston that I think are really, really great. So I’m wondering, did you have a similar experience when you went to college, of finding out that the place you wanted to leave so badly actually wasn’t that bad?” Her answer came quickly: “I’m not so sure that I actually wanted to leave Evanston as desperately—as passionately—as you felt you did. I think I had a different experience of my hometown than I think you did coming through. And I think it also speaks to our temperaments. I don’t know, but I think you’re more like Lady Bird in that you play in the poles, like on the ‘I love it/I hate it.’ Not that I’m easygoing, but I don’t think I’ve ever had those full-on, strong opinions about home, about place, about our hometown in the same way. Except to say that, and here’s what’s funny, 4!post–

The Shape of Hollywood

A post- conversation on the Oscars By Josh wartel & James feinberg Josh wartel: We're here to talk about the Oscars ahead of it happening on Sunday. James, I guess, starting off, do you have an Academy Awards category that’s particularly important for you? James Feinberg: Well, I’ll tell you, what I’m going to end up being disappointed by is the Best Actor category because the way that the guilds have ended up—the Actors’ Guild and all the various awards leading up to the Oscars—Gary Oldman’s won them all for Darkest Hour. He’s the overwhelming favorite; and he’s winning basically because he has good makeup in the movie. And meanwhile, Daniel Day-Lewis in Phantom Thread, who gave what I thought was one of the greatest performances of the year, has won practically nothing at all leading up to the Oscars. So, that’s a category I already know is going to frustrate me; I’ve resigned myself to it. JW: I think we’ll get more to Phantom Thread a little bit later because I really liked Phantom Thread. It’s interesting just looking at the list of the nine films for Best Picture—yes, you have Darkest Hour, which is this kind of dinosaur historical film, but it was only six or seven years ago that a film like The King’s Speech won Best Picture—but this year, Darkest Hour’s almost an afterthought, and it’s alongside another film that’s set in almost the exact same period—Dunkirk. So how do you compare Darkest Hour to Dunkirk? JF: The core of Darkest Hour is incredibly hard to find. It’s not personal because you don’t see much of Churchill’s personal life, but it’s not historical either because the evacuation from Dunkirk and Churchill’s elevation to prime minister happens in a second in Darkest Hour, whereas Dunkirk is an incredibly deep dive into one event, and it’s almost like an anti-event film because you barely know any characters’ names. You’re engulfed in the action; you’re experiencing it as someone on the beach would have experienced it, which is the uniqueness of the film. People have often said it’s like a featurelength beach scene from Saving Private Ryan, which is reductive, but it’s true in the sense that it’s powerful from start to finish. It’s definitely an apt comparison. JW: I again go back to Dunkirk just for the brilliant Tom Hardy scenes and mesmerizing flight. Nolan, we almost take him for granted because he’s done it all, with Interstellar, with Memento, The Dark Knight, which some people still believe is the best superhero film. But I think what he did as a director in Dunkirk is unmatched by what the other nominees did and unmatched by what he’s done in his own career. JF: Compared to The Shape of Water, the way that Dunkirk treats water is so unique—water is almost another character in that movie—the underwater scenes were so engulfing in a way that the scenes in The Shape of Water weren’t. JW: Yeah, and I think one difference between The Shape of Water and Dunkirk is that all this history, this film history which we know Del Toro just loves, comes forward as a sort of just pastiche. Like, why is that film set in the ’60s in Baltimore? While something like Dunkirk really doesn’t give

LIFESTYLE much big ‘H’ history but is very viscerally about this historical moment and event. JF: The Shape of Water has so many things that it forgets to utilize. That’s my feeling about the movie. It forgets to utilize the fact that the main character lives above a movie theater. You never see her watching a movie in the movie theater, there’s no connection to the movies, and yet that’s hyped up as being an important plot point. It forgets to use the fact that the character is mute as something that would other her in her community. On politics and what role the Oscars might have in the “Age of Trump” JF: I think there’s a bit of pop psychology that has factored into the Oscars discussion this year because of who the president is. Inevitably, every movie is trying to frame itself as being the ultimate response and rebuke to President Trump, which is obviously ridiculous—there is no movie this year that can really be said to have been made as a response to President Trump mostly because most of them were written before he came to power... And in a way it’s sort of like preaching to the choir because most of the people who are watching the Oscars are not going to be particularly swayed from their political viewpoint.

would deserve that award. It definitely deserved a nomination for Best Screenplay, in my view. There are about a thousand things that it should have been nominated for that it wasn’t nominated for. And the reason is exactly what you’re talking about. Every time Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis make a movie, they usually deserve to win Oscars for it, and people have taken that so much for granted. JW: Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri has probably gotten the most backlash of any of the nominees. What did you think of the film? JF: It was my favorite film last year. I thought its script was incredibly tart and tight, and Frances McDormand’s performance was probably the second greatest of her career after Fargo, and she'll likely win the Oscar, too, which she would absolutely deserve. The important thing about discussing Three Billboards, I feel, is to recognize that not every movie necessarily has to be a morality play, that not every character who does bad things is going to be punished by fate. It’s a movie about people who do bad things and are forced into bad situations, and I thought it was interesting that it didn't try to excuse them for that. JW: I was of two minds with Three Billboards. I think Sam Rockwell, who’s going to win Best Supporting Actor, beautifully played this figure of hurt white masculinity that had a lot of

There is no movie this year that can really be said to have been made as a response to President Trump mostly because most of them were written before he came to power. JW: For me, Lady Bird, which some people were talking about in the context of the #MeToo Movement and feminism, is just kind of about middle-class liberalism in a way that isn’t fundamentally different from what Diary of a Teenage Girl or 20th Century Women have done in the past few years. I think in some cases you get films like Lady Bird that are good films but are somehow put in this category of award-worthy for really no reason. JF: I agree absolutely. The thing that I feel about Lady Bird is that Greta Gerwig absolutely deserves to be nominated for Best Director—the things that she did with light and texture in that movie were very impressive, and I greatly admire the way that she worked with actors. But all of the great moments in that film, I feel, were in the trailer, and I don’t think it should be nominated for Best Picture. JW: The intention to talk about films as being politically relevant I think only brought into sharp relief how happy people were to see Phantom Thread be a sort of unexpected Best Picture nominee because you always get a sense that P.T. Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis are kind of just working in their own little world. JF: I’m thrilled that Phantom Thread was nominated for Best Picture. It’s not going to win Best Picture. Still, it was snubbed for Best Production Design; that scene where Woodcock follows Alma to the New Year’s Party alone

resonance, and without him I don’t think the film would have worked in any sense. On the other hand, I find the critiques of it extremely strong. Even starting from the murder of the daughter, the events of the film are just very contrived, and there is not quite a point in which the film seems to either operate fully on a sort of allegorical level or a moment where it actually feels realistic again. How it portrays race relations and its minority characters are not lived-in. You either have to move in the symbolic direction fully, in which case you still have to be held accountable for your ideas, or you need to be much more realistic and naturalistic. I don’t think Three Billboards ever really quite pulls off that balance. JF: The town felt lived-in to me, but it’s all a question of perspective. Ebbing, of course, doesn’t really exist, and it’s a movie produced by the British, written and directed by an Irishman [Martin McDonagh], about an imaginary version of America...I think it just opens up a lot of avenues for discussion, a lot more, I feel, than any other movie except Get Out...It was one of the only films I walked out of last year when I felt as if I had seen something that occupied a lot of space. JW: I guess the big distinction I draw is that, for instance, Get Out really takes its setting very seriously, and even though it imagines the setting, it imagines place in a way that is very allegorical for black pain and trauma. The issue that I have with Three Billboards is it feels extremely closed off from the rest of the world in the sense that it's not like people are spending lots of time online. It's not like people are engaged with culture or outside politics, even though it shouldn't be that far from somewhere like Ferguson. Ebbing is still a place where local TV is the dominant controlling form of media, and that feels so unrealistic. JW (continued): It’s interesting to move from Three Billboards and the sort of imaginary setting to another film that has an imaginary, except much more romantic, setting, and that’s Call Me by Your Name...I think that’s another example where the performances were praised above everything else. Did you feel moved by the central relationship in that movie? JF: I felt exactly the opposite. I thought the first half of that movie was extraordinarily comfortable, Illustrated by Phoebe Ayres rich, beautiful, lived-in, as march 03, 2018&5

ARTS&CULTURE

If there was any power in Call Me By Your Name for me, it wasn’t necessarily the relationship but just the duration—the sense that, as the season passes, the romance could never reach a sort of climax, because it’s destined to almost immediately fade away into fall. we’ve been talking about. I felt as if I was seeing something completely real...Then I felt as soon as Armie Hammer’s character got together with Timothee Chalamet’s character, the movie fell apart, in my view. I felt that, like Luca Guadagnino’s last film A Bigger Splash, the movie could not handle its central transition. JW: What I took away from Call Me By Your Name is, number one, the heat and the warmth of the Italian countryside there. And it’s a shame that this film has to be released in November or December, when to me the enduring strength of the film was from Timothee Chalamet, in the sense that summer romance is really a category of experience and of living, and if there was any power in the film for me, it wasn’t necessarily the relationship but just the duration—the sense that, as the season passes, the romance could never reach a sort of climax, because it’s destined to almost immediately fade away into fall. And I thought that was the beauty and relevance of the film, which made it feel to me more relevant as a teenage film than Lady Bird.

On the last Best Picture nominee, The Post, Steven Spielberg's latest historical drama JF: I thought it was entirely enjoyable except for the very end, when it did something completely ridiculous. I wish the film had ended about a minute and a half earlier. My feeling about it is that it is a worthy inclusion in 21stcentury Spielberg. Because 21st-century Spielberg is a category that includes films like Munich, The Terminal—films that some people like that I don’t tend to like. It’s not like Spielberg used to be. He doesn’t care about big thrills. He doesn’t care about, necessarily, intricacy of story. He cares about conveying history and its significance from his own viewpoint. JW: My critique is, again, entirely based on how the film takes this as a very important historical moment. The release of these papers, going to the Supreme Court, The Washington Post being this bulwark of liberalism. But if it’s supposed to be a contemporary story that’s newly relevant in the age of Trump, it can never quite deal with this dissonance that, if this was such an important battle and we still ended up here with the press decaying, with Trump once again attacking liberalism, perhaps this event in history didn’t mean anything. JF: What the film does suggest is that history, that progress, is not a straight line, that things go back and forth, that the progress

made by The Washington Post in the ’70s does not necessarily directly translate to the power of the newspaper now. A few final thoughts on who will—and who should—win on Sunday night JF: Well, it’s a difficult question to answer, of course, because there wasn’t anything that totally knocked me out. In my view, it would be a threeway battle between Three Billboards, Dunkirk, and Get Out—possibly also Phantom Thread. Since my instinct is that Three Billboards probably is going to win, I’m gonna go with Three Billboards. JW: I’d really like to see Phantom Thread just

pick up something. It’s such a collective effort in all the categories, in how P.T. Anderson directs and Daniel Day-Lewis, Vicky Krieps and Lesley Manville act. For that film to get just one win would boost it a lot, and it would get people to continue giving P.T. Anderson and these sort of directors money to do their idiosyncratic projects. JF: The interesting thing this year is not what we have but what we don’t have. There’s no battle of the titans as with last year between Moonlight and La La Land. The race is wide-open, and that’s partially because, apart from a few isolated examples, it just wasn’t a terrific year for movies. Get Out is instantly iconic, but because it isn’t going to win, my perspective is the winner will be uncontentious and in fifteen years we’ll all have forgotten who it was.

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6!post–

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» BASKETBALL, from page 1 ’18 and Janie White ’18. Team manager Oliver Fox ’18 was also honored. “Playing for this program for the past four years has been an absolute honor. I’ve grown so much as a person and leader, and I’m extremely grateful for my Brown basketball family,” Reilly said. The Bears cruised to a comfortable victory, defeating the Big Red (6-19, 2-10) 85-59. Once again, Gaziano and Mehta led scoring, putting up 30 and 28,

» PANEL, from page 1

RELEASE DATE– Friday, March 2, 2012

Los Angeles Times Puzzle C R O SDaily S W OCrossword RD Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Stands 7 Load in a basket 11 Label 14 Busts 15 Potent introduction? 16 Nabokov novel 17 Source of mints, at times 19 With “on” and 59-Across, a hint to the theme hidden in three places in this puzzle 20 7-Across destination, eventually 2 1HZ <RUN &LW\ҋV __ River 22 Chowderhead 23 They often accompany stretches 25 “I Loves You, Porgy” and others 26 House on TV, e.g. 30 Poker star Hansen 31 River from the Cantabrian Mountains 32 Invasion leaders RI WKH ҋ V 39 It prohibits illegal search and seizure 41 The recent past 42 Huit + trois 43 __-Aztecan languages 44 Buyer, in legal usage 46 Love 49 Roundup need 52 Zoom 53 Sub 54 Once and again 59 See 19-Across 60 Subject of a 1922 archaeological discovery 62 Santa __ winds 63 One who often GRHVQҋW SLFN XS" 64 Some chickens 65 Craving 66 Show closers, perhaps 67 Balmoral attraction

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37 Auto designer Ferrari 38 Prank ending 40 Head of Québec 45 Lepidopterous opponent of Godzilla 46 Orderly grouping 47 “Tell It to My Heart” singer Taylor 48 Expanse with crests 49 Reveal

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moved by the ways in which … queer and trans folks back home are criminalized.” “Many folks are internalizing this narrative of queer and trans Africans being abominations, being un-African,” he said. “This gender binary bullshit … is not our history as black or brown people. … I’m writing for our people to remember that.” Felipe Baeza, a visual artist, said he often questioned where his art fit into his activism. Art encouraged him to imagine and create worlds that his body would want to exist within, he added. Working with media such as collaging and incorporating physical techniques like “sanding, tearing and pulling apart” allowed Baeza to realize this goal. Soultree said they use rap to comfort other members in the undocumented community. “I started using rap and singing as a way to travel people out of

respectively. Combined, the two converted on eight of nine three-point attempts. The Bears dominated in all aspects of the game, finishing at the basket easily and shutting down the Big Red’s scoring opportunities with lockdown defense. Cornell often passed the ball around the court looking for an open shot before the dwindling shot clock forced a player to take a heavily contested attempt. The Big Red was limited to making just 17 of 65 field goal attempts. The big win gave the Bears’ seniors a memorable note for their last game

at home. “I have so many incredible memories on this court, so when I look back on my senior night, I’m happy that I’ll remember such a great win. My teammates did an amazing job making the day feel so special and memorable,” Reilly said. “I can’t believe how fast my four years went, so my biggest piece of advice would be to enjoy every minute of it,” Reilly added. The Bears will close out their season with visits to Princeton March 2 and Penn March 3.

the conditions we were experiencing,” they said. “Even if I cannot leave the country, my music can,” they added. The panelists also spoke about the value of retreating in order to engage in effective self-care despite a troubling political climate in the United States. “I need to be well in order for my community to be well,” Osaze said. “Sometimes, you have to retreat to fight another day.” Despite the challenges presented to undocumented individuals who identify as trans or queer, the artists stressed the beautiful aspects of their identities. “The crux of all these intersections is that you get to meet people with such rich stories,” Torrico said. “I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me, and I also don’t want to perpetuate this narrative that we’re oppressed and we’re always crying,” Baeza said. “We’re very much happy and laughing. … We’re trying to live.” “But I also don’t want to glamorize that being undocumented is great,” he

added. Jonathan Cortez GS said that a “confluence of all different really important issues going on right now” like “immigration, queerness, notions of anti-blackness and anti-indigeneity” brought them to the event. They added that the event taught them to “be in community with people” and to “look toward the people supporting you for strength, for love and to constantly be questioning our normalized notions” of family, gender, sexuality and documentation. The event attempted to give students a space to escape the draining nature of American politics, said Julio Reyes ’12, director of the FLi Center. “The current political climate is really terrible, and there’s a lot of violence toward specific communities, … (but) regardless of those moments, there are still spaces for members of those communities to experience joy and what it means to really thrive.”

COMMENTARY PAGE 4 • FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 2018

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Suspension of elementary MAT track was uninformed

New performing arts center has a chance to be distinct

To the editor: A recent letter to the editor by Provost Richard Locke P’18 inadvertently sheds light on the problem with the decision to suspend the elementary Masters of Arts in Teaching track: The people who made this decision were not adequately informed. Locke wrote: “Ultimately, we want to ensure that we are preparing teachers with the knowledge and skills to understand social contexts and how they impact students, meet the needs of diverse learners and promote greater equity in our schools.” Locke’s statement suggests that the program is not already doing this. This could not be further from the truth.

If anyone who oversaw this decision had done their research, they would have seen that the elementary track is a model of what Locke claims it is lacking. This can be seen in any elementary course or in any of the classrooms where degree candidates student teach. Did anyone involved in the decision actually attend an elementary track course? The elementary program teaches “responsive classroom,” a pedagogical approach that connects social-emotional learning to the academic curriculum. It uses Rethinking Schools, which looks at issues facing schools through the lens of equality for all. Differentiated instruction is a hallmark

of our work, allowing us to reach the wide-ranging arc of learners in our care. We do not believe in the deficit perspective. Instead, we believe in the “not yet” principle of the growth mindset approach. We recognize students as whole people and celebrate what each child contributes to our classroom communities. Effective educators are already in too-short supply. The elementary track produces them. So with this great need, why is Brown suspending the elementary MAT track? Brown needs to invest in our country’s future. It’s worth it.

Margot Miller MAT ’11

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The University’s latest proposal for the location of a performing arts center includes a welcome clarification of what the center is and what it is not. It’s not a competitor to the Providence Performing Arts Center. It is a teaching and learning facility designed primarily for Brown students. It offers a practice and performance venue sized for student performers and audiences far superior to what is currently available at Sayles Hall and Alumnae Hall. That should help allay neighborhood fears of traffic and parking issues. The new site has an advantage beyond those already described in

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the Feb. 20 Herald article, “University changes site for performing arts center.” Had it been located between Angell and Waterman streets, the PAC would have been pretty much a standalone structure, relating to nothing around it. With Granoff Center for the Creative Arts directly across The Walk, the firm designing the performing arts center, REX Architecture, has been given an opportunity to engage in a conversation with its bold neighbor. How REX engages Granoff opens up the possibility of an outcome that enhances both.

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

COMMENTARY FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 2018 • PAGE 5

Even on the court, the NCAA struggles MATT BROWNSWORD SPORTS COLUMNIST The 2017-18 college basketball season has been really, really bad. It started with the dismissal of longtime Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino after a scandal that involved the basketball program overseeing meetings between prospective players and prostitutes. Then Michigan State’s Tom Izzo was wrapped up in the cover-up of sexual assault by players in the men’s basketball program. The latest bombshell — incomplete results of an FBI investigation into corruption in the NCAA — was that over 20 programs are accused of paying over five figures to prospects. The accusations are directed at top programs like Duke, North Carolina and Michigan State — and Arizona’s head coach Sean Miller is accused of discussing a $100,000 payment to projected NBA superstar DeAndre Ayton. Louisville’s punishment for the Pitino scandal resulted in four years of vacated wins, including the 2013 NCAA championship. Throwing aside the legitimate arguments for paying collegiate athletes, the incoming sanctions make one wonder how much of the recent college basketball past will be erased. But the 2017-18 season hasn’t just been bad because of the myriad off-

court issues: On the court, this year has been an aberration of mediocre play across the board. Projections of the NCAA tournament have proven fruitless because every team — no matter how good it appears — is losing to inferior competition. Last year’s runner-up, Villanova, got off to an incredible start to the year — as always — but has recently stumbled with three losses to un-

and the NCAA tournament left in the season, UNC has the same amount of losses as it did all of last year. Both Carolina teams suffered defeats to unranked ACC opponents midweek before facing off against each other this weekend. And it’s not just the top teams that are performing below par: The Power 5 conference programs competing for a spot in the NCAA tournament are

season losses as last year’s worst qualifying team. Baylor beat Oklahoma earlier this week to further advance its tournament resume. The Sooners are their own special case: Another projected top NBA draft pick, Trae Young, led the Sooners to an exceptional start with wins over No. 6 Texas Tech and No. 13 Wichita State. But after a fourgame losing streak, a top 10 team ear-

Whether it’s a statement about the spread-out quality of the players and teams or a regression to the mean for everybody, this season of college basketball has been hard to watch for a fan of any team.

ranked Big East opposition. Kansas and Gonzaga, two top 10 teams this year and last, both have more losses already this season than in 2016-17. Duke — with two NBA-bound big men — has lost three games to unranked teams that are currently slated to miss the NCAA tournament altogether. The defending champion and my beloved North Carolina Tar Heels lost to mid-major Wofford at home as a double-digit favorite. With two games, conference tournaments

well below previous years’ standards. For example, ESPN currently projects Baylor, which is currently 18-12, to be an 11-seed. Last year’s 11-seeds — which are typically the last atlarge bids to be awarded — were 24-9 Rhode Island, 20-13 Kansas State, 1913 Wake Forest, 21-13 Xavier, 24-9 USC and 20-12 Providence. Unless the Bears defeat tournament-bound (as of right now, who knows what could change next?) Kansas State, they will have at least as many regular

lier in the season has slipped to the edge of tournament relevancy — projected as a 10-seed right now. Oklahoma had spent multiple weeks this season as a top 10 team and are now in danger of missing the NCAA tournament altogether. Arizona State and West Virginia join the list of former top 10 teams that are now outside the top 20 looking in. These stories are not exceptions: Parity is the name of the game this year. No. 3 Michigan State was down

30 to unranked Northwestern before coming back to win two weekends ago. St. John’s hadn’t won a conference game all season before beating No. 3 Villanova and No. 5 Duke in back-to-back games. Even mid-major powers like Gonzaga, Wichita State and Saint Mary’s are finding it hard to run their conferences like expected. More secondary and tertiary mid-majors are joining the top tiers of this year’s rankings, as traditional powers across the board are losing week in and week out. Whether it’s a statement about the spread-out quality of the players and teams or a regression to the mean for everybody, this season of college basketball has been hard to watch for a fan of any team. No game can be taken for granted, and even the top programs can lose to the weakest of opposition. With the conference tournaments upcoming, who knows where the dust will settle when the brackets are being decided. It should make for an interesting 2018 NCAA tournament: Hopefully, 10 years from now, awfter the scandal dust settles, we’ll find out who won.

Matt Brownsword ’18 can be reached at matthew_brownsword@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

In defense of the Political Theory Project DANIEL SHEMANO OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Over the past few months, we have seen the narrative that Brown’s PTP is a corrupted right-wing think tank at the mercy of the Koch brothers gain acceptance on campus. This narrative alleges that the “Koch-backed” Political Theory Project has an agenda to manipulate helpless Brown students into supporting free market economics. As a Brown student who has engaged in PTP programming, I find these allegations to be not only erroneous, but also insulting. The PTP serves a valuable role in cultivating a forum for vibrant and rigorous intellectual discourse on our campus. The argument underlying this narrative is that the PTP is a pawn of a Koch brothers-funded scheme to “convert” Brown students into rightwing ideologues. The accusations are made on the assumption that Koch brother donations carry with them a certain contingency — that the PTP engage in the espousal of a “rightwing agenda.” These accusations are demonstrably false. As Professor Tomasi explained in his recent op-ed, “The PTP publicly states the principles of philanthropic partnership on which we are willing to accept financial support. … The PTP allows donors no input regarding any of our activities. … If any donor wishes to support the PTP, they must do so entirely on our

terms.” The narrative also implies that the scholarship output of the PTP is decidedly one-sided and biased, intended to further the Koch-backed rightwing agenda. In his October column, Herald opinions editor Anuj Krishnamurthy focuses on two papers from 2010 and 2011 and argues that they, in their advocacy of deregulation,

is diverse and nuanced, focusing on a range of topics and disciplines. For example, Associate Director Daniel D’Amico focuses his research on the comparative analysis of criminal justice systems across societies to study the structural economic and political incentives that determine the extent to which nations jail. Indeed, one could survey the PTP’s current collection of

to question Koch’s perspective on climate change and policy. Koch made himself entirely open to constructive criticisms and questions. In giving us this opportunity for open debate, both the director and associate director for the PTP made clear their commitment to allow room for pushback. This contradicts the theory that the PTP’s sole reason for existing is right-wing in-

The Political Theory Project is undeniably a foundational treasure of our campus and ought to be celebrated for its commitment to academic rigor and freethinking, rather than falsely framed as a manipulative pawn of dark outside forces.

are indicative of a conflict of interest. Krishnamurthy points to these papers as clear evidence that the scholarly output of the PTP is driven by Koch brother interests. In my view, this argument is false and incomplete — two finance-focused papers from seven years ago hardly constitute compelling evidence of deep-rooted Koch brother influence. In reality, the aggregate scholarly output of the PTP

professors and post-doctoral research associates and find that its scholarship is largely independent of any Kochinspired agenda. Ironically, in Professor Tomasi and Professor D’Amico’s class, POLS 1150: “Prosperity: The Ethics and Economics of Wealth Creation,” my classmates and I were able to participate in a direct conversation with Charles Koch during which I had the opportunity

doctrination. As a student, I have thoroughly enjoyed the thoughtful courses taught by the PTP’s professors, as well as its Janus Forum lectures. Not only are these events intellectually stimulating, but they are predicated on a commitment to exposing students to a diversity of perspectives and helping them form their own opinions. I have greatly appreciated how committed the PTP is

to presenting multiple rigorously informed perspectives on a range of issues. The fundamental purpose of the Janus Forum lectures is to give opposing voices time to make their case and debate one another. The mission and practice of the PTP is not only admirable but also vital to facilitating thriving intellectual discourse. It is of the utmost importance that students are able to expose themselves to diverse academic scholarship so that they can come to their own well-informed conclusions. Through its funding of freethinking student publications like the Brown Journal of Philosophy, Politics and Economics and the Brown Political Review, as well as its sponsorship of campus lectures and programs, the PTP is undeniably a foundational treasure of our campus. The PTP ought to be celebrated for its commitment to academic rigor and free thinking, rather than falsely framed as a manipulative pawn of dark outside forces.

Daniel Shemano ’19 can be reached at daniel_shemano@ brown.edu. Shemano is the founder and the managing editor of the Brown Journal of Philosophy, Politics and Economics, which is funded by the Political Theory Project. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

SPORTS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Katz ’19 wins long jump at Ivy League Heptagonal Champs Junior’s performances in long jump, triple jump power men’s track and field team to third place By TESS DEMEYER SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Jason Katz ’19 only needed one attempt to win the long jump at the Ivy League Heptagonal Indoor Track and Field Championships. Going into the event, Katz was the top seed, and on his first effort, he set the mark that his competitors would chase for the rest of the competition. But he wasn’t satisfied with merely besting the rest of the league with one leap. On his final long jump attempt, Katz said he “popped off about four or five inches farther” than his first jump, he said, securing a personal record of 24-08.50 and solidifying a spot in program history as the second best mark at Brown. Katz wrapped up his performance at the championships with a run for the triple jump title, facing off against an athlete from Dartmouth after the event came down to a tiebreaker. Katz notched a 15.57 jump on his final attempt to match the first-place mark but fell short of overtaking his competitor when the two jumped once more to decide the winner. Still, his 51-01.00 was a career-long for the indoor triple jump and the third best all-time at Brown. For his achievements at the Ivy League Indoor Track and Field Championships, Katz was recognized as Field Performer of the Meet, received Brown University Athletics Student-Athlete of the Week honors and has been selected as The Herald’s Athlete of the Week. Herald: Congratulations on an amazing performance at Ivies! How

did your teammates and coaches react to the win and the tiebreaker? Katz: I think most of my teammates thought I had won with that jump because (the Dartmouth athlete) was the first jumper in preliminaries, and after he jumped (15.57) on his first jump, I don’t think they put that up on the board. So none of the people knew that he had jumped that exact same number. They thought I had won; although I kind of knew. … They were really happy. They would have been really happy either way though. They were screaming and everything in the crowd. Coach (Ken Hunt) was pretty happy.

my music, 100 percent in the zone. Everyone knows that you can’t even get a word with me when I’m in the zone. Especially how I always make very serious, interesting faces when I’m kinda doing that. I’d say my favorite pump-up song is “The Pretender” by the Foo Fighters.

How did Heps affect the team’s mentality going into the remainder of the season? It’s definitely a confidence boost for a lot of the men, seeing what we can do and what more there is to gain. Especially for the freshmen who have never competed — definitely some experience that they’ll be able to draw on for competing at the next Heps afterwards. How did you first get into track and field? I started freshman year of high school. I had always been that fast kid. I played all the sports as a kid — soccer, basketball, baseball. So I was always fast. In the springtime, since soccer is a fall sport and basketball is a winter sport, I needed something to do. I actually didn’t want to do track, but my parents convinced me to. I just fell in love with it at the beginning of freshman year. Between the triple jump and long jump, which event is your favorite? Triple jump is definitely my

COURTESY OF JASON KATZ

Jason Katz ’19 earned the second best mark in Brown history for long jump with a personal record of 24-08.50 at the Heptagonal Championships. favorite. It’s the one I’m better at. Actually, I only really started doing the long jump at the end of last year. In high school, I was okay at long jump (but) nothing special. Freshman year, although I just wanted to do triple jump, Coach made me do long jump. … I didn’t long jump again until the end of sophomore year at the end of outdoor season when I jumped a twofoot PR. … Pretty recently, I’ve started to enjoy long jump a little more not

only because I’m excelling in it, but because it is kind of fun when you actually figure out how to jump. But triple jump is still a lot closer to my heart. What is your pre-meet routine? I don’t do anything crazy superstitious or whatnot. I always do the same specific stuff for the warm-up. I guess what most people would say I am known for is how I compete. I’m always the one with my hood up, listening to

What’s been the highlight of your athletic career at Brown? If I had to go with a specific moment, it was last year (when) we went down to Rider (University) for a meet outdoors. At the time, there was me and another triple jumper, … Taylor Alarcon, … and throughout the whole year we had been competing, going back and forth. Freshman year I was never able to catch him. Then last year, he got injured in one of our first meets, and I was building up while he was injured. At that meet, we had both been jumping pretty well. We were going back and forth. … He finally hit (50 feet) for the first time at that meet, and then I had some good jumps. … We kind of chirped back and forth at each other like “What are you going to do next?” On my last jump, I popped off a two-foot PR, and I just really hit it solid. … All the crowd was into it. All the jumpers were into it. That was probably my favorite moment. What are your goals for the rest of the season? The team’s goals? I never want to put a number on things, but I’d say stay healthy, stay competitive. Do what I need to do and jump farther. Win the meets I need to win and make it far into the season in terms of NCAAs. Team goals are definitely to improve. … We left some points out there, but I think overall we did pretty well at indoors. We have to repeat and try to improve outdoors.

Bears capture three individual titles at Ivy Indoor Track Champs Paul ’19 wins pentathlon, Emrich ’18 tops 500-meter run, Katz ’19 long jumps to victory By CORMAC CUMMISKEY STAFF WRITER

Last weekend, the men’s and women’s track and field teams traveled north to Dartmouth to participate in the Ivy League Indoor Heptagonal Championships. Hanover was kind to the Bears, as Bruno captured two individual titles on the men’s side and one on the women’s. The men’s final team total of 85 points ranked them third behind Princeton and Penn, while the women scored 47 points to finish seventh overall. Co-captain Tosin Oyewole ’18 was particularly pleased with the performance of the men’s team, which finished in last place at the meet in 2017. “We’re definitely on the come-up,” he said. Jason Katz ’19 was a major contributor to Brown’s success at the meet. The junior sprung into action on the first day of competition, soaring to a 24-feet, 8.5-inch victory in the long jump, before finishing in second place in the triple jump Sunday. The eight Ivy League head coaches unanimously elected Katz the Male Outstanding Field Athlete of

the Meet in acknowledgment of his dominance in the horizontal jumps. The 500-meter run was another point of strength for Bruno. Co-captain Zack Emrich ’18 nabbed a third consecutive win in the race with a time of 1:02.85 while Max Haensel ’18 followed hot on his heels in second place. Of his three Ivy 500-meter titles, Emrich said that this crown meant the most to him because he was able to share it with his friend and training partner Haensel. At last year’s meet, Haensel sustained a freak injury that robbed the two of a satisfying finish. “Going into the final last year, Max and I just looked at each other on the warm-up and I was like, ‘Let’s get it. You’re gonna go one and I’m gonna go two,’” Emrich said. “Unfortunately, he ended up breaking his leg in the race and had to take some time off.” This year, however, was different. “It was a magical moment when we both crossed the line. We turned around and hugged each other. It’s what I’ve been waiting for for four years — a really incredible experience,” Emrich said. Emrich’s fellow team captains also shone brightly. Oyewole rebounded from a lower back injury to snag second in the 400-meter, and Owen Russell ’19 heaved his way to a runner-up finish in the weight throw. Russell’s performance was especially notable as his mark of

70-feet, 2.25-inches smashed Timothy Bruno’s ’80 indoor school record by more than four feet. Middle-distance man Zac Lanigan ’20 earned two more second-place finishes in the team effort. The sophomore started by earning runner-up honors in the 1,000 meters, then joined forces with Oyewole, Emrich and Martin Martinez ’18 on Brown’s distance medley relay squad, which crossed the line trailing only Princeton. On the women’s side, Carly Paul ’19 worked overtime to rack up 17 points for the Bears — roughly 40 percent of her team’s total score. Between the five events that comprise the pentathlon and her two additional open events, Paul competed for the Bears on seven separate occasions over the course of the weekend. Paul’s stamina paid dividends: She won the pentathlon with a personal best of 4,013 points (the second-best score in Brown history), tied for third in the open high jump and took fifth in the open long jump. Harvard’s Zoe Hughes — the reigning Ivy League pentathlon and heptathlon champion — forced Paul to sweat her way to victory in the multi competition. Though Paul established a sizable lead over her rival during the first two events of the pentathlon, Hughes’ strong showing in the shot put reduced the difference to a thin margin

of just 21 points. “That’s pretty down to the wire,” Paul said. “I knew that (Hughes) would close the gap a little, but she definitely closed the gap more than I expected.” Paul proved stronger in the long jump, beating Hughes by four inches and increasing her lead to 51 points. “That was huge,” Paul said, “because if she had stayed within 20 (points), she would have had to beat me by two seconds in the (800 meters), which is actually feasible.” Ultimately, Paul finished far enough ahead of Hughes in the 800 meters to secure gold. “I knew I just had to stay on her heels and basically not let her get away from me,” Paul said. Other top performers for the Brown women included Zion Lewis ’20 and Megan Ratcliffe ’18. Lewis acquitted herself well both on the track and in the field, claiming second place in the triple jump and third in the 60-meter dash. On the other end of the distance spectrum, Ratcliffe clocked a personal best of 16:27.39 to finish second in the 5,000 meters. Sunday evening brought more good news for Bruno, as the men’s DMR team learned that they had qualified for the NCAA Indoor National Championships. Entering the weekend, Brown’s DMR team of Lanigan, Oyewole,

Emrich and Martinez was ranked twelfth nationally, teetering on the edge of qualification for the championships. The quartet waited anxiously to see if any team would displace them from the pool of 12 national invitees before the qualifying window closed Feb. 25. Princeton’s DMR made a bid to bump the Bears out of the top 12 at the Ivy League Championships but fell short of the requisite time by about 10 seconds. The Tigers’ anchor, Billy Paulson ’18, slammed his baton on the ground in disgust after their attempt fizzled. “All the Princeton guys were coming up to us afterwards and congratulating us on going to nationals,” Emrich said. Once the results of the Southeastern Conference Championships — the last meet of the weekend — appeared online at 9 p.m., Bruno’s fate became official. No team in the country had beaten Brown’s DMR time before the end of the qualifying period; as a result, the Bears could punch their tickets to Texas. “We’re flying out to Texas on Thursday (March 8),” Emrich said. “It’s crazy. What a way to cap off our senior years.” The Bears’ DMR will return to the track March 9 at the NCAA Indoor National Championships hosted by Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.