Friday, November 16, 2018

SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2018

VOLUME CLII, ISSUE 103

WWW.BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM

Graduate students consider potential unionization As election continues, students express mixed attitudes toward SUGSE, collective bargaining By ERIC CHOI SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Polling stations for the graduate student unionization election opened Wednesday, giving eligible students the chance to decide after years of conversation whether or not to unionize. Stand Up for Graduate Student Employees has played a key role in these conversations over the past two years, pushing to unionize Brown graduate students since spring 2016, said Hilary Rasch GS, a member of SUGSE. If graduate students vote to unionize, SUGSE will be “the sole collective bargaining agent for graduatestudent workers at Brown,” according to SUGSE’s website. The election for graduate student unionization was set for Nov. 14 to Nov. 19, Provost Richard Locke P’18

MARLIS FLINN / HERALD

wrote in an email to the Brown community Nov. 8. “After negotiations on a range of matters, I signed on behalf of the

University a Memorandum of Understanding with Stand Up for Graduate Student Employees/the American Federation of Teachers on the dates,

locations and procedures for an election,” Provost Richard Locke P’18 wrote. Though SUGSE advocates for a

graduate student union, some graduate students voiced reservations. The Herald took a look at SUGSE’s role » See UNION, page 3

Hope Point Tower moves Wrestling duo earns titles at Bearcat Open ’19 wins closer to zoning approval LaFragola 184-pound weight If approved, Hope Point Tower would be on track to be tallest residential tower in New England By COLLEEN CRONIN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The Providence City Council voted to approve a change in city height ordinances for the Hope Point Tower Project Thursday night. The Council will need to vote one more time on the issue before it goes to Mayor Jorge Elorza’s desk for final approval. Even with initial height approval, the I-195 Redevelopment District Commission will retain influence over the design process, according to Peter McNally, the Commission’s executive director. The proposed Hope Point Tower is a 600-foot-tall luxury apartment complex slated to be built on former I-195 land in downtown Providence. If the tower receives the necessary zoning approval from City Council, it will be the tallest building in Providence and the tallest residential tower in New England. The project has already received approval from the Commission, which owns the land on which the tower would be built. If Elorza, who has yet to come out with an official stance on the project, rejects the ordinance change, the Council

INSIDE

has the power to overrule his decision. The Mayor “is waiting on full council passage and hopefully a refined design before making a final decision,” spokesperson Emily Crowell told WPRI. The issues have divided the city. Before the vote, the Providence Preservation Society submitted a petition with 1,809 signatures to the mayor and City Council, opposing the proposed development. PPS also took out a fullpage ad in Thursday’s edition of the Providence Journal, urging city residents to contact their council members and advocate against the building. The Providence Journal published an editorial Wednesday endorsing the building, writing, “We hope and trust the City Council will do the right thing, putting the people’s interests ahead of the loud naysayers and special interests.” At the meeting, Providence resident Valentina Adamore told The Herald that she opposes the tower. With the Superman skyscraper standing empty, the “reduce, reuse, recycle” method would work much better than building a new project, Adamore said. Although some residents have been skeptical of the project’s benefits, labor unions have supported the initiative because of the commitment of the developer, the Fane Organization to use » See HOPE POINT, page 2

class, Viruet ’19 wins 165-pound weight class By ALEX SMOLAR SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The wrestling team put on an impressive performance at the Jonathan Kaloust Bearcat Open Sunday. The Bears had seven wrestlers competing in the quarterfinals and four in the semifinals, earning 29 wins in total. CJ LaFragola ’19 and Jon Viruet ’19 led the way for Brown, and took home titles in the 184-pound weight class and the 165-pound weight class, respectively. LaFragola, a senior from Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey, qualified for the NCAA Championships and earned Second Team All-Ivy Honors in the past two seasons. Viruet, a senior from Springfield, Massachusetts, also qualified for the NCAA Championships last season and served as a co-captain of the team alongside LaFragola. For their excellence in the season opener at the Bearcat Open, LaFragola and Viruet have been named The Herald’s Athletes of the Week.

ATHLETES OF THE WEEK

Herald: Congratulations on the great season-opening victories! How does it feel to perform so well at the start

COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS

CJ LaFragola ’19 (left) and Jon Viruet ’19 (right) were among the seven wrestlers who competed in the quarterfinals of the Bearcat Open. of the season? to and see the best coaches that we can. LaFragola: Every time at the start of the We’ve done a great job of bringing in season, you always get the first-match jit- coaches ourselves, putting that practice ters. But it’s fun to get out there. Building to work and being able to see how our up to this, we always talk about compet- improvements have been gained. So it ing against ourselves, and we finally got was a fun performance, but there are to compete against new faces and try out a lot of things to work on. all of the skills that we’ve been working on since last year. So it was really nice When did you first start wrestling? to get out there, mix it up a little bit with LaFragola: I started in fourth gradedifferent people — (it) felt good to get ish, and I’ve been doing it ever since. I some wins under the belt right away. started after my brother started up, and Viruet: It felt great to put our practice it kind of got me into it, so I’ve been to work, everything that we’ve been doing it for a while. working for since the end of last season. Viruet: My brother is one grade above Some of us have been around (on cam- me, and we started it in our seventh and pus) or traveling the country, going to eighth grade years. We basically started the best clinics that we could possibly go » See AOTW, page 3

WEATHER

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2018

NEWS All University employees made eligible for paid sick and safe leave under updated U. policy

COMMENTARY Klein ’22: Harper, Machado, Kimbrel amongst biggest names in MLB free agent market

COMMENTARY Rehmet ’20, Flynn ’20: Proposed changes to Watson concentrations undermine public policy

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TOMORROW

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PAGE 2 • FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2018

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

U. changes policy to expand paid sick, safe leave to all U. employees Workers can take time off to recover from illness, care for family, handle safety concerns By DYLAN MAJSIAK SENIOR STAFF WRITER

All University employees became eligible to take paid sick and safe leave after the University adjusted its policy to comply with the Rhode Island Sick and Safe Leave Act this month. The updated policy extends the amount of paid leave available to part-time and student employees and broadens the circumstances qualifying for leave-taking, said Jeffrey Jakulevicius, the University’s benefit compliance analyst. The law allows employees to receive paid leave to care for any member of their household or to handle safety issues such as stalking or domestic violence, in addition to coping with

» HOPE POINT, from page 1 100 percent union labor. “The city can certainly use the tax money it will generate,” said President of the Providence Central Federated Council Paul MacDonald, pointing out the project’s $300 million price tag. Though he said that the residents opposing the project are good people, “most of those people are not worried about the price of a gallon of gasoline,” MacDonald added. At the meeting, Ward 10 Councilman Luis Aponte also expressed enthusiasm for the project’s potential to

personal health issues, said Nora Crowley, the chief public affairs officer at the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training. Over the past few months, Jakulevicius said he worked with the Director of Benefits Drew Murphy to adapt the University’s paid leave policies to the legislation. Now, undergraduate and graduate student workers can take off up to six hours through Dec. 31 and break up this amount into 15 minute increments. Under the new policy, employees can leave work to address safety issues or take care of personal health problems, and students can potentially provide care for their roommate under an expanded definition of caregiver, Murphy said. When taking time off, University employees are expected to follow normal call-in procedures.“We would like to make sure that if somebody is actually sick, … they don’t have to make the decision between

not being paid and having to come into work,” Jakulevicius said, adding that the new act also works to promote productivity in the work place. While the act allows employers to ask workers for documentation after missing consecutive days of work, the University’s policy does not mandate employees to present evidence explaining their absence. “We felt that the cost-benefit wasn’t there (and) that we should just allow employees to request the time as needed without forcing them to provide documentation because just the conversation alone that surrounds the documentation could be problematic,” Jakulevicius said. Previously the University’s sick leave policy only applied to employees working “50 percent time or more,” Murphy said. Since this policy complied with the Sick and Safe Leave Act, these employees were not given additional sick days beyond the 12 they currently receive

each year, he added. But these workers can now designate up to three of these days in 2018 for caregiving or safety concerns. The RI Sick and Safe Leave Act, which went into effect in midsummer after Gov. Gina Raimondo signed it in September 2017, applies to state employers — like the University — with 18 or more employees, Crowley said. With the act’s implementation, employees are guaranteed to receive 24 hours of sick and safe leave in 2018, 32 hours in 2019 and up to 40 hours by 2020. The Department for Labor and Training is currently treating the Sick and Safe Leave Act’s first six months as a “grace period” for employers to make the necessary changes to their leave-taking policies, Crowley said. If an employer denies an employee benefits provided under the Sick and Safe Leave Act, the department will work to ensure the worker’s compensation. But the

bring in sizable amounts of tax revenue. Explaining that much of Providence’s properties are non-taxable, he urged the Council to approve the project with consideration of its taxability. Every time “Brown wants a nicer facility for its professors and students,” the city has to consider where they are going to collect revenues, Aponte said. On the other hand, Ward 2 Councilman Samuel Zurier focused on the “more than $81 million” in tax incentives to be granted to the Fane Organization if the tower is approved. “This is classic trickle down economics,” he said, adding that the

income generated by the tower after its construction will pale in comparison to the tax cuts. Ward 5 Councilwoman Jo-Ann Ryan spoke in favor of the tower. “I agree we have an affordable housing crisis,” Ryan said, but it “should not be placed on the back of the developer” and instead should be the city’s responsibility. Yesterday’s meeting featured a proposed amendment to the ordinance change in addition to several impassioned speeches from council members. Ward 3 City Councilwoman Nirva LaFortune introduced an amendment

requiring that 15 percent of any residential project built on the lot must qualify as “low-and-moderate income housing.” If the developer decides to exclude the affordable units, the amendment mandated that they would have to pay a fee. LaFortune’s proposal also required the City Plan Commission to review and approve the project’s design and layout to make sure a proposed park nearby would not be negatively impacted. After some discussion, the amendment was dismissed as irrelevant to the zoning ordinance at hand. Ward 13 Councilman Bryan Principe, who strongly disagrees with the

ISABEL INADOMI / HERALD

department will wait until Jan. 1 to penalize employers for noncompliance, she added. “It’s a great bill,” said Aaron Ziemer ’19, a member of the Brown Student Labor Alliance. “It’s fundamentally important that everyone has the ability to take off work no matter how much money they have.”

zoning change, motioned to introduce an amendment to throw out all the city’s zoning ordinances, but then promptly retracted it. Despite arguments against the zoning change, Fane spokesperson Dante Bellini said he is “gratified” that the Council passed the first vote and is looking forward to the next one. “We’re hoping history repeats itself,” he added. PPS Executive Director Brent Runyon has not lost hope yet in preventing the zoning change. “Anything’s possible in politics,” he said.

A Restless Melancholy Celebrating Forrest Gander The Art of Publishing Contemporary Poetry Declan Spring Senior Editor, New Directions Publishing Friday, 16 Nov. 2018 at 11 am McCormack Family Theater, 70 Brown St.

Readings by Laura Mullen & Raúl Zurita (with translator Anna Deeny Morales) Friday, 16 Nov.2018 at 1:30 pm Martinos Auditorium, Granoff Center, 154 Angell St.

Readings by Bei Dao and Jorie Graham Friday, 16 Nov. 2018 at 4 pm Martinos Auditorium, Granoff Center, 154 Angell St.

A Restless Melancholy marks the recent retirement of Forrest Gander, Adele Kellenberg Seaver Professor Emeritus. It is sponsored by Brown University’s departments of Literary Arts and Comparative Literature and has been made possible by generous support from the Office of President Christina Paxson, the Brown Arts Initiative and the CV Starr Foundation Lectureship Fund.

Issue

andrew liu 2

Up to the In This Warming Apocalypse

Nicole fegan 4

Slice of Heaven Post- Turkeys 4

Giving Thanks Robert Capron 5

Too Old for Horsin' Around Griffin Plaag 5

That Is All

That Is All,

postCover by Lauren Marin

NOV 16

VOL 23 —

ISSUE 10

FEATURE

Warming Up to the Apocalypse Gratitude in the Face of Climate Change By Andrew Liu

W

Illustrated by Molly Young

hen I was 12, I loved conspiracy theories. Often, I would scour YouTube for mysterious videos that claimed to uncover a spectacular truth hidden from the public. Whether it was the banks, the Illuminati, or even corrupt lizard humanoids that ran the world, I would become a staunch believer. One theory that I was particularly obsessed with was the doomsday prophecy, which predicted the end of the world on December 21, 2012. The date was the last day that the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar included, a calendar that had no cycles. I would preach to my family about Mayan scriptures, ancient prophecies, and solar alignments that told us to prepare for the end. I’m not sure if I subconsciously knew we would all be fine, but I had a lot of fun entertaining the thought. When the day finally came, and the world passed all 24 hours unscathed, I was oddly disappointed, as if I’d been denied some cheap thrill that came with the end of the world. Now 20 years old, I’ve learned to go about my days

with a healthier load of skepticism than when I was a kid. For the first time in years, however, I believed a headline instantly. This time, I could appreciate what the end of the world actually meant. Several weeks ago, a news notification appeared on my phone with the headline, “We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN.” I remember just feeling a cold, cutting chill slice through me as I read the article, as if some truth I had entertained in my head was finally said. For a few years I had heard about how our climate was starting to approach a critical juncture and about how, from that point on, natural disasters would escalate out of control. I had heard about how the Paris climate accord’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5ºC to 2.0ºC was impossible to achieve, but I chose instead to focus on the celebrations of such a monumental agreement. However, internalizing the headline in front of me, there was no choice but to acknowledge that there was a real doomsday scenario approaching us. The report, created by the Intergovernmental

Letter from the Editor Here at post-, we’re completely sick of Thanksgiving. By now, everyone knows what’s going to happen: footballs will get kicked, racist histories will go unaddressed, and those stupid beltbuckle hats will continue to be a fashion disaster. We think the holiday has grown sterile, trenched and predictable in its repetitive ways. What you call respect for tradition, we’d call a serious crisis—our nation’s great spiritual imprisonment. So before we crash your party, replace your turkey with chicken, your cranberry sauce with ranch dressing, and your stuffing with a copy of Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, we’re gonna

2!post–

shake things up at homebase. Though you may count it among your blessings to read our magazine each week, we’ve combed this issue for five things that’ll make you feel unthankful for post-. Though such great writing made our task difficult, we’re confident you’ll put down this newspaper cursing your rotten luck. At top, Andrew Liu’s plea not to despair in the face of climate change will give you one less reason to be sad all the time. Dang! Now your sinuses will dry up. And after reading Nicole Fegan’s touching memoir of friendship and pancakes at College Hill’s La Creperie, you’ll be so starved for companionship

Panel on Climate Change, included 91 authors from 40 countries and over 6,000 references to scientific studies and journals. Its main emphasis was on limiting global warming to 1.5ºC above preindustrial levels in the 19th century. If we allowed the Earth to warm by the 2ºC allowed by the Paris accord, we would lose all coral reefs, potentially all ice in the Arctic Ocean, and up to three million tons of marine wildlife. On top of that, rising ocean levels would displace hundreds of millions of human lives, leading to inevitable war over resource shortages and mass migration as well as trillions of dollars lost in the global economy. If we limit the warming to 1.5ºC, we simply lessen the effects of these catastrophic outcomes. The report called for an unprecedented acceleration and remodeling of our world in terms of energy, transportation, business, land, and industry, with the target set at net zero carbon emissions by 2050. It states that “the next years are probably the most important in our history.” The report also includes hundreds of pages

that you might just eat your friends. Rats! Cannibalism gets life imprisonment in Rhode Island. Turning to the arts section as you await trial, you’ll be compelled by Griffin Plaag’s glowing recommendation of Aviary, the new Julia Holter album. Sit down to listen and plot twist—it’s 90 minutes long. You were gonna use that time to finish your essay! Too late now! Expelled from Brown, you flip, despondent, to Robert Capron’s stunning tale of a redemption found in Bojack Horseman. "This could be my salvation," you’ll think. But wait, oh no—you sold your Netflix subscription to pay for lunch! Returning at night to your pitiful shelter, you pull our issue over you as a

makeshift blanket. As it drapes your eyes, you notice a piece you haven’t read yet: a modest collection of the people, places, and little pleasures our staff is grateful for. A snag catches in your throat; you too had things to be thankful for, once. As you start to cry uncontrollably, the wet newspaper disintegrates in your arms. post- has stolen everything from you, and now it is gone. Happy Thanksgiving. So turn the page, if you dare. Best case-scenario: you’ll read too fast and get a paper cut. Happy Thanksgiving,

Julian

managing editor of arts & culture

detailing necessary protocols for policymakers to pursue. It remains doubtful what actions will be taken. Despite one of the greatest pleas for action in scientific history, those in charge seem to have greater priorities, at least in the United States. The coal and fossil fuel industry still has several years of lucrative profits ahead, and policymakers (often funded by these massive corporations) intend to milk every drop for their re-elections and local economies. We live in a system almost entirely based on these short-term gains. Manufacturing and industry, America's greatest strengths since World War II, largely dictate the lobbying and influence of our politicians, who lose elections the moment they bring up carbon taxes or decreases in coal use. I appreciate America’s values of ambition and progress, but not when it entails blackening skies and rigs drilled deep into the earth. There is a difference between progress and transgression. We have always suspected that taking megatons of carbon that have been stored deep underground for millions of years and then pumping them into the sky was perhaps not the best option for the environment, but such logic has so far been pointless when there are greenbacks to be earned. Indeed, President Trump has withdrawn from the Paris agreement in favor of the coal and fossil fuel industry, and the United States is not alone in prioritizing the economy over the environment. Jair Bolsonaro, the recent President-elect of Brazil, claimed during his campaign that he would ramp up agribusiness in the Amazon rainforest if elected, leading not only to the demise of massive portions of the forest but also the potential genocide of its indigenous peoples. The government of Saudi Arabia has proposed no plan to steer the country away from exploiting its rich oil reserves, and it remains to be seen if they will stay true to their commitment to the Paris agreement. Under their current carbon emissions growth rate, the country’s greenhouse gas emissions are projected to double by 2030. For me, the scariest aspect of the Paris report is how it destroys normalcy in my life. All the excitement in the future pursuits of my education, career, and passions is now completely put out of frame; my worries about deadlines, assignments, and exams now feel meaningless when our planet’s delicate ecosystem is on the brink of collapse. All the dystopian and apocalyptic prophecies that I used to be fascinated with may now very well become reality, and suddenly they no longer seem so fun to entertain. A few days ago, I discovered a source of hope. My favorite view on campus is the path between MacMillan and Marston Hall that heads toward Soldier’s Arch. A few days ago, with colorful leaves floating in the breeze and strewn all over the ground, the scene looked absolutely stunning. I’d been thinking about the report for a long time, but in that moment, I realized that the picturesque scene before me was more vivid than usual: The air felt clearer, and the sun was just the right complement of warmth to the cool breeze. After seeing the report, I realized that everyday scenes like this have become

extraordinary for me. Now, I find myself carrying a large store of gratitude for the perfectly normal days we have left. Moving forward, I hope to go outside more. I have always been a bit of a homebody, but I have also assumed the days of traveling or even taking a walk outside would always be there for me in the future. I’ve recently noticed how amazing it is that we have heat and electricity in the midst of increasingly violent rainstorms and windy days, but I also imagine how much energy I must be sapping every second for that comfort. I’ve become more aware of times when I have consumed more resources than needed, of times when I needlessly enlarged my own carbon footprint. I am now aware of so many luxuries I took for granted when I was a kid and am extremely grateful to have had a childhood where I could speculate about armageddon, knowing it was just speculation.

It is far too easy to shout at the world and expect things to change, and it is far too easy to be angry and turn a blind eye to all the good in the world. Instead, perhaps the true message of the climate change report is not one of panic or resignation, but of encouragement to find an unprecedented unity with each other. In a strange way, the climate change report allows us to see the small miracles in the world around us more clearly. Whether it is the cool mornings, the tiny robins hopping outside my dorm, or the squirrels that never seem to be afraid of me, I realize how lucky we are to be able to take such things for granted. At the same time, I realize how heart-wrenching it would be if they began to fade away, replaced by unpredictable storms, collapsed ecosystems, and silent forests and oceans. It is an amazing thing that we often only see how beautiful and valuable things are when we also realize that they are temporary. Today, circumstances are far more grim, and it falls on each of us to take responsibility. We must be grateful rather than despairing for what we have today, for only then can we have the hope and inspiration to improve. For my part, I will try to use less electricity, eat less meat, and affect policy in any way I can. These are meager contributions to a problem dozens of orders of magnitude larger than I am, but collectively, if each one of us takes this responsibility, I believe we can make a sizable difference.

I have always been someone who tries to find happiness in the worst of any situation and make any positive outcome seem like a luxury. I think it is one of the reasons why I could stomach so many conspiracy and armageddon theories as a kid. Recently, whether out of maturity or confusion, I’ve found myself becoming more cynical, having less hope, and feeling especially annoyed by the people in tinfoil hats. I realize now that there is no progress or hope in that approach. It is far too easy to shout at the world and expect things to change, and it is far too easy to be angry and turn a blind eye to all the good in the world. Instead, perhaps the true message of the climate change report is not one of panic or resignation, but of encouragement to find an unprecedented unity with each other. We must feel gratitude and compassion for all life with whom we share this planet. Perhaps then we can lead our lives with responsibility not only for ourselves but also for everyone else. This Thanksgiving, I hope we can all find a larger source of gratitude than ever before. I encourage each of us to be more aware of the beautiful fall leaves, the brisk air, and each one of our family members, no matter how they might ruin the conversation at the dinner table. Because everything, including the very ground we stand on and the sun that shines every morning, is far more fragile than we once thought, and we can take none of it for granted. This Thanksgiving, I hope we can turn that into a blessing in disguise with a deeper and more poignant sense of gratitude for our food, family, and friends. Here at Brown, we are part of the generation that will be the most equipped to positively impact our climate within the next decade. When I go through each day on campus, I have no doubt that we will. I see the most supportive groups of students helping each other through tough times, keeping their spirits full of hope despite this overwhelming time of year when everything happens at once. When we graduate, we should not forget to keep our hearts open and extend our gratitude for each other to the communities and ecosystems that we will impact. The world just might depend on it.

Slice of Heaven Crepes and Friends

By Nicole fegan Illustrated by katya labowe-stoll

A “

re you kidding me? It’s like a pocket full of goodness.” We are bent over four Nutella crepes, tucked inside the best hidden place in all of Providence: La Creperie on Fones Alley. Over the past few weeks, we have made our way through all of the Brown University staples, including Baja’s, Bagel Gourmet, and even Jo’s. Tonight, it is my turn to choose the spot; I could think of nothing more joyful than a crepe dinner and dessert in this perfect little nook I discovered over a year ago.

“Cruciferous vegetables smell exactly how they sound.” " Are we saying that vegans are humans?” “It’s like the NJ speed limit—no one can get a bad November 16, 2018'3

NARRATIVE

Giving Thanks (And Serving Tea)

By post- turkeys Illustrated by Rémy Poisson

Exhausted one evening after hours of setbuilding for a PW show, I had sauntered down Thayer Street in search of some semblance of solace. In a cramped, lively eatery and a chicken and mushroom crepe, I found it. Since then, La Creperie has become my biweekly treat, an indulgence for when academia bogs me down, and this night is no different. It is a classic October evening with friends, filled with food, general tomfoolery, a Red Sox game, and friendly yet not-so-subtle digs at my inexplicable quirks. As I cut a corner slice from my Nutella-strawberry crepe and pick it up with my hands, I am greeted with a cacophony of wonder and disgust. “Nicole, what are you doing?” “Hey, I just like to pick it up sometimes. It’s easier to eat this way!” Griffin gives me a look of loving confusion. Henry laughs at Griffin’s mockery of me. Matt, who often shares my oddities, nods his head in approval. We are two months into my junior year and finally, it feels like perhaps I have found my niche —my boyfriend Griffin, his two friends from high school, Henry and Matt, and Matt's girlfriend Kelsey, a wonderful former-Chicagoan who now works in Providence (and is as invaluable as the rest despite not having experienced the crepes). Brown University has given me people I will hopefully be friends with forever, but there is something special about off-campus friends. With them, it feels like the entire Northeast is ours to explore. On the weekends, we slip away to places I lay no claim over—a tradition that I have merely latched onto. Apple cider donuts on a faraway farm, Newbury Comics trips that last too long and result in unnecessary purchases, Friendsgiving bowling expeditions and movie viewings. If the objective of our time on this planet is to consume as much life as possible, then I am constantly succeeding with them, even if it just means playing Rummy and listening to Miles Davis with the lights dimmed in a stuffy Grad Center dorm room. In the quiet moments when my mind betrays me, I waste energy thinking about how these traditions existed before me and may exist after me. Sitting down to write this piece, I began with an anecdote taking place in La Creperie as opposed to one from Geoff’s Superlative Sandwiches. That’s another Providence staple we often frequent, but Geoff’s is not mine to write about. Sophomore year, Griffin and Matt spent their Fridays attempting to try all of the dozens of options Geoff’s has to offer. Maybe I am only incidental, and who am I to wax poetic about a friendship that does not require 4!post–

me? Despite the impulse to frame myself as an observer, writing a love letter to people who are not my own, my fear over being unneeded quells once I remember how we all became friends. It is absurd to me that I ever experienced Brown University without Griffin. A whole semester passed before we clumsily stumbled into a friendship thanks to a Jacques Khalip lecture. The first time I met Matt, I had tried to jump on a wall and sit on top of it, but I missed and instead gave myself bruises and scratches on my elbow (of which I can still see the scars)—not quite a picture-perfect beginning. Henry, for a long time was “the quiet friend, ” but now I realize he probably understands all the secrets of the universe. And I didn’t even meet Kelsey until a few months ago, but already, when I see flowers blooming despite the autumn coldness, I think of her. This friendship was haphazard until one day it wasn’t, and I’m lucky to be a part of that.

If the objective of our time on this planet is to consume as much life as possible, then I am constantly succeeding with them, even if it just means playing Rummy and listening to Miles Davis with the lights dimmed in a stuffy Grad Center dorm room. We leave La Creperie and walk across campus back to our dorm to watch the Red Sox win yet another game (thanks in large part to Henry’s lucky hat, which has not failed us this postseason); there is wackiness and lightness galore. Matt refuses to stop quoting lines about the Sopranos character “Uncle Pussy,” a joke that understandably confuses to every passerby on the sidewalk. I trail behind a few steps, lost in the nighttime clouds with Big Star’s song “September Gurls” stuck in my head. I hear the line, “December boys got it bad” over and over, and in it, I instead see myself—a girl born in December falling in love with the music of our collective footsteps crunching the autumn leaves. I am consumed with the notion that perhaps beauty is not abounding but localized—all centered in this one mundane moment that feels like everything all at once as we walk southwards, together.

Thank you to my phone alarm—without you, I quite literally would not be here. Thank you to the SciLi; at first you were intimidating, then dreary, then stressful, but slowly and surely, you’ve become home. Thank you, Hillel—you ease my mother’s heart when I lie and tell her I go to you. Thank you, Blueno’s lamp, for being a dependable, albeit slightly unsettling source of light on cold, dark winter nights. You light up my world like nobody else. Thank you to all the BUDS workers serving dinner for students staying on campus during the holidays. Thank you to the Jo’s workers who always give me extra fries, as long as I ask. Thank you to the young man standing beside the Sharpe Refectory pickle jar last Tuesday; you saw I wanted a pickle, and you reached in and handed me one. Thank you, Ratty plantains, for being the underrated star of all dining hall options. Thank you, Walt Whitman, the greatest ‘Murican poet! Thank you, Twenty One Pilots, for creating quality existential music for my life. Thank you to every friend who has stayed with me this long and every friend that has left, too. Thank you to my roommate for shushing yourself when you close the door too loudly after stumbling home drunk at 2 a.m. Thank you, Kathy. You know what you did. Thank you to my toaster oven for being the only piece of kitchen equipment I need. Thank you, Thanksgiving, for giving me time to study my French. Bone apple teeth! Thanks, Providence rainstorms, for consistently destroying every umbrella on campus. Thank you to the Great British Bake Off for helping me procrastinate and dream of dampfnudels. Thank you, November, for making it (finally!) socially acceptable to play non-stop holiday music— because this is exactly what I plan to do. Thank you to my shower flip-flops for protecting me from other people’s hair and other rank substances. Thank you to the construction on Thayer for giving me even less of a reason to look both ways before crossing the street. ~“Shout out to my ex, you're really quite the man. You made my heart break and that made me who I am.”~ Thank you, Ex, for setting the bar so damn low. Thank you, FedEx, for being more reliable than my ex. Thank you to the person who wrote me a BBA and never followed up on it. Thank you to all the cute boys who have swiped right and stroked my ego. Thank you, social awkwardness, for ruining every encounter I’ve ever had with a cute boy.

ARTS&CULTURE Thank you, God, for making me a cute boy though I don’t understand why people keep running away from me???? Thank you, cute boys, for being aesthetically pleasing, even if none of you know how to flirt. Thank you to the boy sitting in the window of Shiru. It was a Wednesday afternoon when I first saw you. You were wearing a red cap and the steam from your hot chocolate fogged up your black-rimmed glasses. I tripped on the uneven sidewalk outside, and you looked up at me with bright, coffee-colored eyes. You mouthed something, but I could not tell what you said. Did you say, “I love you”? I wanted to tell you I loved you. I wasn’t sure why. I saw you again a few days later. You were still wearing a red cap. “Thank u, next.”

Too Old for Horsin’ Around:

A Former Child Star’s Odd Kinship with An Alcoholic Horse By Robert Capron Illustrated by monika hedman

H

ave you ever looked in the mirror and seen a drunken middle-aged horse staring back at you? As a relatively recent fan of the Netflix Original Series BoJack Horseman—which just released its fifth season—I find its wide appeal equal parts fascinating and chilling. The chronically depressed, selfdestructive BoJack (brilliantly voiced by Will Arnett) is a problematic yet empathetic protagonist, one whose obnoxious attitude, debilitating drug problem and moral failings are counterbalanced by his desire to be better. The glimpses of BoJack’s past that are provided often offer context (though not justification) for his behaviors–a necessary element, as on the surface level he appears very privileged. You see, back in the 90’s, he was in a very famous TV show: a cheesy family sitcom called Horsin’ Around. Now the show is a dated relic, his career is in the toilet, and he’s paralyzed by self-doubt and fears of irrelevancy and inadequacy—fears I faced myself when walking through the Van Wickle gates two years ago. For I too have a history with acting, and while BoJack would likely take offense if you didn’t know his name, I’d be surprised if you recognized me at first glance. Though my claim to fame, the Diary of a Wimpy Kid films, proved enormously successful amongst preteen crowds (and has maintained some relevance through nostalgia as its audience has aged), the characters easily eclipse their actors in name recognition. I’m not Robert Capron, famous Hollywood personality or award-winning actor. Instead, I am Rowley: the innocent, fat best friend of the titular Wimpy Kid, a role complete with a silly catchphrase to garner the affections of children everywhere: “ZOO WEE MAMA!” To say this casting changed my life would be a gross understatement. For all intents and purposes, this role is my life—a feeling that has grown more twisted with age. That I now feel such a strong connection with a fictional middle-aged horse suffering from depression is a testament to that. And why shouldn’t I? It’s one thing to be a “child star,” regarded with awe and wonder by your friends, the world at your feet before you even knew what that means. It’s another to be a twenty-something who feels most confident around people half his age and whose star-power burns off the dwindling embers from a decade-old role. With every passing day, I feel my personal connection to these films become more tenuous, their right to dominate my life passing with

time. A compulsive need to demonstrate my abilities and prove to those around me that I was more than Rowley took hold even before I had even left middle school. Resting on laurels won at the age of thirteen didn’t appeal to me. My time at Brown would be more than Rowley—it would be me. Except it wasn’t. Parties and coffee dates would turn into amateur interviews, new environments where I’d get the same-old questions and give the same-old bullshit answers to hide my festering anxieties. Allow me to present a little sampler: Q: “Why aren’t you fat anymore?” A: (Eating disorders, but I don’t know you, so...) “Exercise!” Q: “Do you keep in touch with the rest of the cast?” A: (They’ve all either totally eclipsed me or been sorely let down by my lack of communication, which has mostly been my own fault, because I’m often too busy with things I perceive to be more important but in actuality aren’t, so…) “We talk once in a while!”

With every poor decision BoJack made came an understanding that, unless I properly addressed these issues, my own fate would be quite similar Q: “Why don’t you act anymore?” A: (Well, I haven’t booked a new project in quite some time, but to concede that would be to admit my crippling insecurities regarding my acting ability, so…) “I’m focusing on my education!” Q: Are you depressed? A: Is it that obvious? Of course, I’m aware these complaints come off as privileged. Who am I to find issues in a life so wondrous, so full of opportunity? The places I’ve been, the people I’ve met—I wouldn’t, couldn’t change a thing. Still, it’s painful to think that I no longer occupy the platform I once did–and that when I had it, I never recognized what it meant. I fear that this role will define me forever—the former fat kid, the has-been, a gimmick who’s already had his fifteen seconds. You probably understand now that BoJack Horseman was an out-of-body experience for me. BoJack drowning out the noise at a bar, a random woman in the back whispering about him being “the horse from Horsin’ Around,” laughing about how fat he looks; me, sprawled out in a half-drunken stupor, nodding along as I’m introduced as the “fat kid from the movie” and questioned as to why I quit acting. I saw a

kindred spirit in this sad humanoid horse. For the first time, I began to see the issues I had been dealing with as actual issues, not just symptoms of ingratitude. My refusal to acknowledge the effect of my career on my mental health was now being contested before my eyes. And with every poor decision BoJack made came an understanding that, unless I properly addressed these issues, our fates could be quite similar. More anxieties began to arise: was this a sort of prophecy for my own path? Was I condemned to feel this way forever? If BoJack couldn’t escape his past, could I? Only now, after many frank discussions with friends, family and professionals, can I see the dangers of such close identification. This show, more than anything I’ve seen recently, has the potential to dramatically affect how people like me see themselves. But there remains, I think, a point where viewers must separate from the show and interrogate how its message can best be interpreted in relation to his or her own lives. We tell stories not to define who we are, but to inform who we are, and shape ourselves accordingly. I can still keep Bojack Horseman around, but not too close. I’ll let it remind me that I still desperately wish to remain in filmmaking, and of the the steps I must now take to stand on my own. In the most recent season’s stand-out episode, “Free Churro,” BoJack concludes that the truth about life is that “you never get a happy ending because there’s always more show.” Perhaps. But you also don’t have a group of writers dictating where that show goes from here. You’re the writer all on your own, not a passive character. In the end, it’s just you and the person you want to be. And I know, thanks to the wonderful community I have assembled here, that that person is not named Rowley or BoJack. He’s named Robert.

Thanksgiving Traditions

1.Fighting over politics 2.Awkward hugs with grandparents 3.Trying to remember who that is in front of the 4.pumpkin pie 5.Cranberry sauce! 6.Saying how thankful we are for non-material things, like family, love, and joy, and then immediately barreling to Walmart for Black Friday deals 7.Prepping your Christmas playlist 8.Missing the Ratty, for some reason 9.Dumping that boy from high school 10. Ignoring the long history of genocide of Indigenous Peoples

November 16, 2018'5

ARTS&CULTURE

That Is All, That Is All

A review of Julia Holter's new album Aviary By Griffin Plaag illustrated by lauren marin

I

, like many other musically minded people with an at least moderate inclination toward aesthetic observation, have a thing for the city at night. Did that sound pretentious? That's good; it was meant to. Understanding the appeal of art-pop musician Julia Holter's meandering and frustratingly abstract discography requires one to put on the cap of the aesthete; her music, which shrinks the gap between the profoundly minimalist and the lushly orchestral, was designed for neon-lit voyeurism. To the nighttime people-watchers of the world, Holter offers a distinct brand of aural salvation. Therefore, the October release of her album Aviary was exciting for me. I’d heard two other Holter albums—2013’s Loud City Song and 2015’s Have You in My Wilderness—and found that both captured feelings of deep loneliness and sorrowful disaffection with rare concision. The former, Holter's loose adaptation of the novella/musical Gigi, saw her juxtapose the odd, claustrophobic horror of the cityscape with lilting sax lines a la Steely Dan's "Deacon Blues," The Blue Nile's "The Downtown Lights," or pretty much any grandiose paean to late-night languor and purplelit lounge brocade you can summon to mind. Hazy, bleary, seen and not seen, lonely and surrounded, the entire listening experience is disheartening, cold, and disturbingly empty for all its orchestration. It's sort of like living in a particularly cynical Lite-Brite creation. Have You in My Wilderness, meanwhile, takes a completely different approach, masquerading as what exclaim! Critic Cam Lindsay calls "warm, breezy pop music" despite concealing deep longing. It's more immediate to me than its predecessor, as Holter eschews Loud City Song’s atmospheric, ambientleaning sensibility for songs that are catchier and even

(gasp) pop-oriented. But there's just as much poignant, bird's-eye-view storytelling happening here, even if it’s conveyed more through precise lyricism than elaborate soundscapes. Part of what fascinates about Aviary is that it flies in the face of what Holter's pop songs had accomplished and instead doubles down on her exploration of the vast and intangible. If, as Pitchfork's Winston CookWilson writes, Have You in My Wilderness "embraces the specific, rather than the eternal," Aviary appears fixed on doing exactly the opposite. This isn't to say, of course, that Holter hasn't been expertly vague before; there's really no answering why a sentiment like "he lights his cigarette with nothing" is so emotionally impactful (though it definitely is). But Aviary, which is twice as long as its two predecessors s, has no interest in grounding its sprawling aspirations; instead, it seeks to immerse, to inundate, to elevate. Though a return to Holter's rain-slicked sidewalk variety of roomy ambient, I think to read Aviary as retreading the form and style of Loud City Song would be a mistake. First of all, there's something mobilizing and frenetic underneath the late night soupiness this time; where Loud City Song's opener, "World," created its scattered effect through an absence of accoutrements, Aviary's "Turn the Light On” immediately plunges the listener into a miasma of sounds before segueing into the more restrained “Whether,” which, like many of Aviary’s tracks, comes across delicate and sparse. Though the midnight malaise Holter's introduced us to in the past is being revisited here, there's clearly something more at play—a certain finesse, a certain clear-headedness, a distinctive and incisive creative voice that has been given room to breathe. Her vocal performance is more central, more confident. Her melodic decisions feel studied and exact. She isn't just making you feel like you've wandered into the aftermidnight lounge atmosphere of a Roxy Music album cover; she's deconstructing the very notion of why her music makes you feel that way, employing every conceivable technical flourish to create her desired effect. The heady, cerebral philosophical explorations of Have You in My Wilderness and the nocturnal disaffection of Loud City Song have been synthesized into a work of such breadth as to make those excellent albums look banal. Let me elaborate; it isn't just that Aviary is an hour and a half long, or subjects you to long segments of eldritch, chanted-not-sung vocalization, or features, among other instruments, many startling, loudlymixed bagpipes. It's that it does all of those things while at the same time exploring the empty beauty of artificial-lights on a river and the harrowing, abyssal labyrinth of human emotions undergirding the reasons for that beauty. It takes the aesthetic and turns it into an exploration of psychic discomfort, questioning the notion that a kaleidoscopic reflection of a city grid could be beautiful for its own sake and instead forcing us to ask why. Why do buildings full of people make us so

“Maybe in fifty years, our daughters won’t pine after the smelly cretins in their middle school Spanish classes because they’ll know better.” Annabelle Woodward, Redneck Heartbreak 11.16.17

“The time has come to let go of social media as the girl you love to hate and instead usher it in as an (albeit slightly too clingy) best friend.” Rebecca Ellis 11.19.09

6!post–

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Jennifer Osborne a FEATURE Managing Editor Anita Sheih Section Editors Kathy Luo Sydney Lo ARTS & CULTURE Managing Editor Julian Towers Section Editors Josh Wartel Liza Edwards-Levin

profoundly sad when we meander by them, observing in white light each separate exhibition? Why does The Blue Nile's famous invocation of "empty streets, empty nights, the downtown lights," pair so well with their imploring question: "How do I know you feel it? How do I know it's true?" And most importantly: why are we so obsessively interested in this brand of lonely sadness at all, to the point that we seek it for a kind of perverse pleasure? The point of Aviary, if I might make a sweeping statement about a sweeping album, is to construct something so austere in its artistic perfection as to be able to turn around on itself and subvert its own aesthetic function midway through. Only an artist as technically proficient as Julia Holter could make the moves she does without it seeming a miscalculation; in other words, Holter could recreate the atmosphere of Steely Dan's Aja, or The Blue Nile's Hats, and it would sound just as coldly beautiful as any of those three manage to—but she doesn't. Instead, she loads her album with those aforementioned bagpipe drones and hypnagogic vocal overlays and a hell of a lot of other weird stuff. She's not just recreating the city-at-night effect that aesthetes have been eating up for years; she's demonstrating her capability of creating such a project and then subverting those tropes with uncanny, jarring sounds to evoke a unique trapped-under-glass brand of horror.

With every poor decision BoJack made came an understanding that, unless I properly addressed these issues, my own fate would be quite similar

Perhaps the best way to cap this recursive adulation of Aviary's product is to let it speak for itself. That's not to say "stop reading, go listen to it" (although you really should do that, if you get a chance), but rather to say that Holter's simple lyrics make a similar claim. Don’t take my word for it; take the words of “I Shall Love 2,” which most concisely communicate the uselessness of language to capture the lonely feeling that Aviary wishes to underscore: That is all, that is all There is nothing else I am in love What can I do? Oh, I am in love What can I do? That is all, that is all There is nothing else. What more can Aviary, or anyone else, convey about the human condition than that?

NARRATIVE Managing Editor Celina Sun Section Editors Divya Santhanam Jasmine Ngai COPY CHIEF Amanda Ngo Assistant Copy Editors Mohima Sattar Sonya Bui HEAD OF MEDIA Samantha Haigood

Want to be involved? Email: post@browndailyherald.com!

HEAD ILLUSTRATOR Remy Poisson BUSINESS LIAISON Saanya Jain CO-LAYOUT CHIEFS Jacob Lee Nina Yuchi Layout Designers Amy Choi Utkan Dora Öncül Jiyeon Park Steve Ju WEB MASTER Jeff Demanche

NEWS

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2018 • PAGE 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

» AOTW, from page 1 competing with the traveling team, and got our bus work pretty much everywhere we went until we started grinding, becoming tougher and figuring out the sport ourselves. We were three-sport athletes, and eventually, we figured out what was going to be the best for us and our bodies to get to the next level — and that was wrestling. So we ended up committing to it in high school. What has been your favorite memory of being on the wrestling team in your time at Brown? LaFragola: For us last year, (Viruet and I) both got to nationals. I went there my sophomore year, but I didn’t have teammates with me, so (last year) it was me, (Viruet) and (Justin Staudenmayer ’18), and it was just a really great experience … to have your teammates

» UNION, from page 1 leading up to the election and at some of the conversations surrounding the question of unionization. SUGSE’s path to an election SUGSE began its unionization efforts two years ago, originally under the name SUGS — Stand Up for Graduate Students. SUGS advocated for many of the same issues that SUGSE campaigns for today, such as funding and benefits. SUGS was founded in spring 2014 by a group of graduate students in the American Studies and History departments in response to “cuts to sixth- and seventh-year funding,” Rasch said. Some 80 graduate students ended up protesting the denial of sixth-year funding in April 2014, The Herald previously reported. But “SUGS wanted to expand its identity to cover issues beyond just funding,” Rasch said. This led to a “quality of life campaign” that included rallies and protests focused specifically on dental insurance, she added. The Graduate Student Council also played a role in securing dental insurance, Rasch said. SUGS viewed itself as an activist group, a sentiment that carried over into SUGSE, Rasch said. Alastair Tulloch GS, president of the GSC, agreed with Rasch’s characterization of SUGS. “As activists … you protest and you, in a sense, agitate to make your opinion or your point of view known,” Tulloch said. “That’s the essence of grassroots movements, but you also need to complement that with sitting down at the table and doing the negotiating,” he added. In Tulloch’s view, the task of negotiating is the GSC’s responsibility. In the summer of 2015, SUGS became SUGSE to recognize graduate students as employees and “defined itself … as an anti-racist, feminist, labor organization that advocates for graduate workers’ rights and protection,” Rasch said. Later, in spring 2016, SUGSE started what it has called “organizing conversations,” she added. These conversations are “one-on-one or one-on-two conversations” with graduate students to learn more about their “working conditions,” Rasch explained. Organizing conversations are meant to be casual conversations,

out there. It just made the experience so much better to feed off each other. (Viruet) got a great win against a highranked, returning All-American and just set the tone for the three of us to go out there and follow him. It helped me as a wrestler, and it was just really fun to be out there with the best guys and get to show your stuff. Viruet: I would say Nationals as well. Going out there being prepared as well as we were, getting an unprecedented win against a top-tier opponent was something we expected, but nobody else expected it of us. To gain the support that we did afterwards was phenomenal. To follow up with expectations for … this year, to be that much greater and to have our teammates and our coaches and all of the supporters of the program believing that we could excel to the next level — setting that benchmark and moving forward past that would be the best time I’ve had at

Brown thus far.

Rasch said. “I talk to people … and I’ll go to each one and knock on their office (door) or I’ll set up a coffee date.” “We care about those kinds of lunchbox issues like stipends and health care and child care,” Rasch said. She also emphasized SUGSE’s social justice focus, describing how women in STEM and black students are not represented enough in graduate programs. Other SUGSE members also wish to address these working conditions. Julie Skarha GS, a master’s student at the School of Public Health, hopes a union would provide equal benefits to doctoral and master’s students. Suzy Kim GS, a doctoral student, described her status as an international student as “precarious,” citing worries about higher taxes and the political climate. In the event of unionization, SUGSE plans to create a “governing structure and bodies” to handle bargaining and negotiations, according to SUGSE’s website.

supportive of this union, some skeptical, but the behavior of SUGSE has solidified our opinions against it,” the group of graduate students wrote. Rasch said she’s never pressured students to sign any cards. “I’ve personally held a lot of organizing conversations with grads. I’ve never (been) anywhere (where) I would have wanted a grad student to sign something if they didn’t want to,” Rasch said. “The organizers have practices that aim to be very respectful of grad students’ time and … if anyone asks us to leave or said that they didn’t want us there we certainly would (leave).” “SUGSE has been quite strategic to ensure that the way that they are going around and talking about unionization doesn’t spur an anti-union movement,” Tulloch said. An AFT representative was removed from campus in response to reports of violations of the preelection agreement, Locke wrote in his Nov. 8 email. SUGSE and AFT agreed “to remove from campus AFT representative Leah Fishbein through the duration of the election process — a step that the University called for given numerous reports that she had violated the conduct standards outlined in the Pre-Election Agreement,” Locke wrote in the email. Locke declined to comment on the number of these reports, but described “a series of complaints” from the online reporting form the University created.

Reservations about SUGSE’s strategy SUGSE has received criticism from some graduate students for its campaign strategies. “While I am not anti-union, I am 100 percent antiSUGSE,” said JJ Lomax GS. While Lomax is a member of the Samuel M. Nabrit Black Graduate Student Association, his views are his own and do not represent those of the group. “SUGSE is very much about, from my perception, villainizing the admin and trying to make it seem that this very nice set-up we have here at Brown is very fragile and fleeting,” Lomax said. He also described SUGSE’s strategy as “soft intimidation,” adding, “more often than not, people are like ‘well if you don’t sign up with SUGSE, you are screwing over your fellow grad students.’” Lomax also recounted his own experience with SUGSE and its union affiliate AFT. “Their method of approaching people in lab spaces is something I’ve never been fond of. There’s this kind of bullying when they say, ‘Oh, do you have a second to talk?’ and next thing you know you’re sitting down for an hour and they’re pressuring you to sign this membership card.” Lomax was one of 14 graduate students who signed a Nov. 7 Herald op-ed titled “What we stand to lose from SUGSE’s union.” “Some of us were initially

Do you have any pre-match rituals? LaFragola: I’m a big music guy. I like to mix it up. I used to play really hard stuff, and now I’ve been trying to tone it back a little. We learned from this sports psychologist that you’re not supposed to be cranked up all the time, so I’ve been trying to play calmer music in between. Then, 15 minutes before the match, I start building it up. It’s like a roller coaster with wrestling. At a tournament, you’ll have four or five matches in a day, so you can’t be all the way up top all of the time. Viruet: About three matches before I’ll be up (to compete) at a tournament or dual meet, I like to get my heart rate up and do a few sprints. Outside of that, I listen to pretty typical music: hip-hop, R&B and reggaeton, anything native to my culture. I listen to that prior to my warm-ups, and then five minutes

Conversations on unionization Beyond any conflicting views of SUGSE, graduate students have also discussed how unionizing would affect their lives as students. On its website, SUGSE lists changes that can take place under a union, including improvements to teaching assistant compensation, graduate student funding, grievance procedures, and the diversity of the graduate student body. Some students hope a union would address how the University responds to rising living costs. “When the rent rises in Providence, then (the University) should proportionally raise the stipend, which doesn’t happen,” Kim said. “Let me tell you, rent has risen so much—so much—in the past two and a half years,” she added.

out I’ll start changing to a lot calmer music. Specifically, I have one album that I listen to that is a Christian hiphop album. I do that, and with about two minutes before my match every time, I’ll get a quick stretch in, say a little prayer and get ready to go. What are your goals for your final season with the team? LaFragola: Everyone’s goal is to get on the podium, and that’s it. It’s podiumor-bust, and we’ve got one more shot. We just have to leave it all on the mat, and whatever happens, happens. If both of us wrestle our best match, everyone’s in trouble. When we wrestle at 100 percent, I don’t care if (any opponent is) the national champion. If we bring our “A” game, we could compete with anybody in the nation — just wrestle our hardest and get on the stand. Viruet: At this level, the only difference that separates the phenomenal

“Since stipends are part of the University’s financial support package, it is unclear whether they would be subject to bargaining,” according to the University’s “Be Informed” website. The Graduate School “considers market forces that include general needs for cost of living adjustments and the need to remain competitive with” peer institutions for stipend increases, wrote Dean of the Graduate School Andrew Campbell in an email to The Herald. “The Brown graduate student stipend is very competitive when compared to our peers,” Campbell wrote. “When adjusted for cost of living, the 12-month stipend ranks third among peers in the humanities and fourth among peers in STEM fields.” While “doctoral students receive health- and dental-insurance subsidies” according to the Graduate School website, these same benefits do not extend to master’s students at the University, Skarha said. At the University of Massachusetts Amherst, which has a graduate student union, “if you work as an RA or TA, regardless of whether you’re a PhD student or a master’s, you get the same benefits,” Skarha said. “In my program, that’s not true.” Currently, “graduate students are represented by the Graduate Student Council and are engaged in decisionmaking through a system of shared governance … that has led to continuous improvements to stipends, benefits and to overall community enhancements,” according to the University’s “Be Informed” website. In a Nov. 11 Herald op-ed, President Christina Paxson P’ 19 wrote that “in three of the past five years, the (University Resources Committee) unanimously recommended percent increases in graduate student stipends that exceeded increases in the salary pools for faculty and staff.” “Brown is not yet able to determine the effect of possible union representation on current student benefits,” according to the University’s “Be Informed” website. While a union could help bargain for increased stipends and more benefits, some graduate students are concerned about how a union would affect diversity and inclusion. D’Ondre Swails GS is worried that black graduate students might lose the right to “advocate for oneself,”

wrestlers from the mediocre ones is intensity and mental toughness. Everyone trains the same way and has the same physical capabilities, outside of a few outliers that might have freak strength. So when we step up toe-to-toe against the best in the country, as long as we are prepared and stay healthy, we feel like we can compete with the best. That was proven last year and has been proven time and time again. We’ve beaten returning All-Americans and national qualifiers and can compete with the best. So the end goal of the season is to get on the podium or possibly at the top of the podium. I personally don’t think anyone is that much better than us in the country, so it comes down to being healthy and prepared for the match. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

he said. “The ability to go and have certain things discussed and changed in a relatively short period of time changes” under a union because graduate students would not be able to discuss labor issues directly with the University, Swails said. Direct conversations with administrators have been productive in the past, Swails added, citing the new transitional stipend to help students offset moving costs as an example of an issue that was directly addressed by the University. Concerns about covering transition costs were brought through GSC meetings, Associate Dean of Diversity Initiatives at the Graduate School Marlina Duncan’s student advisory board and other student groups, The Herald previously reported. “We’ve always had to fight for ourselves anyway, so whether black students have a union or don’t have a union — that doesn’t seem to impact black students’ ability to advocate for themselves,” Swails said. The GSC would not be able to advocate for benefits among other labor issues under a union, Tulloch said. Instead, it would advocate for academic issues such as advising. Skarha said forming a union would not prevent other groups from advocating for their needs. “We’re all grad students. We all have a say,” Skarha said. “There’s not two groups of grad students and one is going to be heard and one’s not.” Rasch made the case that a union would better sustain student activism. “It takes a lot of work and energy to organize over issues. …When a particular issue, say dental, gets resolved, then that energy fizzles out and it has to be rebuilt the next time there’s an issue that needs to be addressed,” Rasch said. “That is not the case if there’s a union. Then, there’s an institutional structure in place for dealing with issues.” In a Nov. 5 Herald op-ed, Katherine Preston GS and Siraj Sindhu GS explained that a union could provide “a seat at the table with decision makers … (and) a means of galvanizing hundreds of graduate students” in order to address student concerns. All eligible graduate students — doctoral or master’s students who are or were TAs, RAs or proctors in fall 2018, spring 2018 and fall 2017 — have until Monday 6 p.m. to cast their vote for or against unionization.

COMMENTARY PAGE 4 • FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2018

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Hot stove predictions GEORGE KLEIN SPORTS COLUMNIST Sports fans have been looking forward to this MLB offseason for a long time. With a variety of superstars and major contributors available on the free-agent market, the next few months could dictate which future powerhouses emerge as contenders in the 2020s. A lot is at stake, and rumors continue to circulate about possible landing places for the biggest names. The following are my predictions for where the most important free agents will wind up playing next year. Bryce Harper The outfielder went through some struggles last season. He had trouble dealing with aggressive shifting that made him adjust his approach at the plate. Harper finished with a .249 batting average, 34 home runs, 100 runs batted in and an .889 on-base plus slugging percentage. Those numbers fall far short of those from his magical 2015 MVP campaign. On the positive side, however, he proved that he can play a full season of games and rallied in the second-half of the season with a .300 BA and .972 OPS. Harper is still only 26 years old, and though these hitting issues slightly dulled the enthusiasm surrounding his free agency, the outfielder is in position to receive the largest MLB contract ever. It’s hard to match Harper’s potential for greatness, and the team that signs him will get to enjoy his prime seasons. The usual suspects have already been named as possible bidders — the Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees and Chicago Cubs. But I look at the Philadelphia Phillies as the ideal spot for Harper: an up-and-coming team that just needs one last impact bat in the lineup to contend. Harper can be the face of the franchise, stay in the familiar National League East and play in the postseason for several years. Prediction: Phillies, 13 years, $350 million Manny Machado Another 26-year-old, Machado enjoyed the

finest hitting year of his career in 2018 with a .297 BA, 37 HR, 107 RBI and .905 OPS. But a lot of that good feeling was marred by some perplexing actions in the postseason. He stepped on the ankles of first basemen, didn’t hustle in the World Series and often came up short in clutch situations. Machado became baseball’s

The next few months could dictate which future powerhouses emerge as contenders in the 2020s.

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villain, and some analysts speculated that teams might be less willing to offer him great sums of cash after what occurred in October. Not likely. Machado is just entering his prime, can play shortstop and third base (though he’s much better at the latter) and has proven himself as

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challenged Miguel Andújar to a more suitable corner outfield or first base spot. And let’s face it, Machado is the perfect unpopular addition for the Evil Empire. Prediction: Yankees, 13 years, $325 million

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Craig Kimbrel The closer is lucky to have escaped the 2018 postseason. Kimbrel flirted with danger every time he was on the mound, making Boston Red Sox fans as nervous as possible on the way to a World Series championship. Sometimes Kimbrel had no idea where the ball was going once it left his hand, throwing all over the place and walking batter after batter. On other occasions, he was simply hit hard by the opposition. It took sparkling defensive plays by Red Sox outfielders throughout the postseason to keep the damage to a minimum. If a couple of pitches had been hit slightly harder, Kimbrel could very well be considered a playoff goat. Postseason aside, Kimbrel has been a dominant reliever for a long time and will command a sizable contract as a result. The 30-year-old has a career 1.91 earned run average, 0.92 walks plus hits per inning pitched and a 14.7 strikeouts per nine innings ratio. Nevertheless, there were signs of slippage all last season — not only during the playoffs. Kimbrel’s 13.9 K/9 mark was his worst since 2015, and his 4.5 walks per nine innings were the second-worst for a full season in his career. I would not chase after Kimbrel aggressively. A team will be paying for the early thirties of a guy who wasn’t at his best all last year and at his lowest when it mattered most. But franchises will go after the All-Star closer of a championship team regardless. I think the Red Sox will re-sign him in the end. Manager Alex Cora showed great faith in the closer, keeping him on the mound in pressure moments. Boston trusts Kimbrel more than any other team does and wants to keep their winning group together. Prediction: Red Sox, five years, $80 million And here’s where I see other free agents playing: Patrick Corbin: Yankees, five years, $120 million Dallas Keuchel: Braves, four years, $75 million Nathan Eovaldi: Angels, three years, $50 million Josh Donaldson: Angels, one year, $15 million

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a consistent power bat. Many of the teams in contention for Harper will try their luck with Machado too. I see him ending up with the New York Yankees. Shortstop Didi Gregorius will be out with Tommy John surgery, so Machado can fill that hole. Once Gregorius returns, Machado can take over on third base, moving defensively-

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George Klein ’20 can be reached at george_klein@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@ browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

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COMMENTARY FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2018 • PAGE 5

Save the interdisciplinary appeal of public policy EMILY REHMET AND JAMES FLYNN OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR AND STAFF COLUMNIST A week ago, Edward Steinfeld, director of the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, emailed development studies, international relations and public policy concentrators with an update on the proposed restructuring of Watson’s concentrations. For those who have not kept up with the drama, the Dean of the College assembled a committee in April to re-evaluate the Watson’s undergraduate programs, as The Herald previously reported. In its report, the committee made the awful recommendation of combining elements from the three disparate concentrations into a single concentration called “global studies.” Fortunately, Friday’s update reassured us that this recommendation was “in no way the final plan,” though Watson is still “determined to address” the same issues that inspired the original plan and will draft a proposal for the direction of its concentrations by December. We therefore want to offer advice for future changes — primarily to save the public policy concentration from losing some of its interdisciplinary appeal to double concentrators. Public policy, as it currently

stands, is especially attractive to double concentrators since it has only 11 requirements. According to the report, half of all public policy students double concentrate, whereas only approximately 20 percent of Brown students do so. Public policy also allows for its concentrators to engage in other interdisciplinary pursuits, including the engaged scholars program — which adds four requirements — and

self well to interdisciplinarily-minded students. We are worried that the potential changes to Watson will sacrifice the virtues of public policy to the vices of a conglomerate of different disciplines. The recommendation in April proposed 20 or 21 requirements, with study abroad also “strongly recommended.” Some of those requirements include language require-

would be practically impossible with the proposed changes to the Watson curriculum: Students would have to take almost every class during their four years for either of the two concentrations. That would probably deter most of them. One of Watson’s goals for the proposed changes is to “ensure that offerings are meeting the urgency of our current global moment.” But this

We therefore want to offer advice for future changes — primarily to save the public policy concentration from losing some of its interdisciplinary appeal to double concentrators.

the semester-long Brown in Washington program. In a 2015 review of the concentration, Watson opted to keep the small number of requirements, possibly in order to satisfy the interests of double concentrators. And public policy’s popularity is on the rise: Watson expects the number of concentrators to grow by 20 percent within the next year, according to the report. Clearly, public policy lends it-

ments, which could be especially disastrous to public policy concentrators because learning a language is guaranteed to take up at least six semesters. Though last Friday’s update said that the language requirement is not confirmed and merely in discussion, it is clear that increasing the number of requirements for public policy concentrators is at the least being considered. Double concentrating

rhetoric is inconsistent with the substance of the changes. The increasing complexity of the world clearly requires interdisciplinary modes of thinking. One subset of students that stands to lose from a change to public policy are STEM students: According to department data, STEM students are double concentrating in public policy in increasingly large numbers. For instance, it is not uncommon to

pair a public policy concentration with cognitive neuroscience, computer science or the pre-med track. These STEM students can use the public policy degree to apply their hardhearted disciplines to a social context. Brown, moreover, prides itself on the freedom to design individualized and specific courses of study. The public policy concentration, as it currently stands, facilitates such freedom well. An amalgam of disparate fields and an addition of concentration requirements would stifle such freedom. In an ideal world, the public policy concentration would stay as is. But if it has to change, then we implore Watson to add no extraneous requirements — and especially no language requirement — in order to preserve the great opportunity of interdisciplinary study.

Emily Rehmet ’20, a public policy and cognitive neuroscience double concentrator, and James Flynn ’20, a classics and cognitive neuroscience double concentrator, can be reached at emily_rehmet@brown.edu and james_flynn1@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and other op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald. com.

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