Friday, November 18th, 2022

U. releases FY22 financial report

FY22 financial report shows $49.5 million surplus in operating revenue

BY MIZUKI KAI SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The University released its financial report for fiscal year 2022 in a Thursday Today@Brown announcement from President Christina Paxson P’19. The annual report, which includes the Uni versity’s financial statements as well as reports on research, fundraising and the endowment, showed that Brown posted a $49.5 million surplus in net operating activities despite negative returns on its endowment.

“Despite a challenging national economic landscape, the University closed FY22 in a strong financial posi tion,” Paxson wrote in the announce ment, citing “thoughtful investment, vigilant financial planning, a series of strategic interventions and the truly inspiring generosity of the Brown com munity” as reasons for success.

According to the report, many Uni versity operations returned to their

pre-pandemic state in 2022. But uncer tainty around federal reimbursements and costs associated with surges in COVID-19 cases meant that the pan demic still affected budgeting for the year, Chief Financial Officer Michael White wrote in the report.

While the University concluded FY22 with a surplus, the “endowment and other managed assets generated a return of -4.6%, with the total market value dropping to $6.5 billion from an all-time high of $6.9 billion in FY21,” Paxson wrote in the report. “Significant market volatility, primarily due to in

SCIENCE & RESEARCH

flation” contributed to the decrease.

The University aims to have endow ment growth keep up with inflation and the endowment’s annual contribution to the operating budget, which averages about 5%, according to the report. Over the last 20 years, inflation has averaged around 3% in Commonfound’s Higher Education Price Index, which is de signed to track the main cost drivers in higher education.

To keep pace with these expens es, FY22 would have required an 8%

SEE REPORT PAGE 6

METRO

Blue State on Thayer serves final customers, closes doors

Employees,

BY RHEA RASQUINHA SENIOR STAFF WRITER

On Monday, staff and customers learned that Blue State Coffee on Thayer Street would permanently close later in the week. Three days later, on Nov. 17, the shop served its final cup of coffee.

Alongside its Providence outpost, the cafe’s two other remaining loca tions in New Haven and Hartford also closed Thursday, marking a perma nent end for the chain. Last month, three of Blue State’s New Haven lo cations closed, the Yale Daily News reported.

Blue State’s company website did not display any active locations as of Thursday evening.

“Our cafe at 300 Thayer St. was the first one we opened, and we have ap

U. community discusses November heat, climate change

Students, experts reflect on recent high temperatures, broader climate trends

BY HALEY SANDLOW SENIOR STAFF WRITER

With seven days of temperatures over 70 degrees Fahrenheit in Providence so far, this November has broken multiple high-temperature records, making it the warmest in Providence since the start of continuous weather data col lection in 1904. According to experts, these unusually high temperatures are

METRO

connected to climate change.

“We’re seeing extremely warm tem peratures for this time of year,” said Jason Doris, a meteorologist at NBC 10 WJAR. “Maybe this happens every so often, maybe it's a fluke thing. But this is the third time within the last 10 years that we’ve had this warm of a November.”

“Warm weather in fall doesn’t feel like a tropical cyclone or something that seems like the end of the world is coming,” said Baylor Fox-Kemper, professor of earth, environmental and planetary sciences. “But both can be related to climate change.”

While weather — day-to-day tem peratures and precipitation — does not

itself amount to climate change, climate change impacts trends for weather sta tistics, making certain patterns in a region more or less likely. According to

PPSD teacher shortage continues to strain local schools

Teachers

tions, including packed classrooms, be ing forced to cover other classes during prep periods and diminished student motivation.

BY EMMA MADGIC SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Teachers in the Providence Public School District report continued prob lems related to vacant teacher posi

94% of all classrooms are currently staffed with a full-time teacher, leaving approximately 110 classrooms without one, PPSD Chief Communications Offi cer Nicholas Domings wrote in an email to The Herald.

The district held a career fair earlier this fall, at which 77 new teachers were hired. But most of those new hires are

substitute teachers, teaching assistants and clerks, not full-time, permanent teachers, Domings wrote.

The Herald spoke to two PPSD teachers, one at an elementary school and one at a high school, to discuss the ramifications of the teacher shortage.

Elementary school

Lindsay Paiva teaches English as a second language to third graders at Webster Avenue Elementary School. Paiva said that there has been signif

icant staff turnover at Webster, espe cially following the state takeover that occurred three years ago.

Paiva said that there is a shortage not only of full-time teachers but also of substitute teachers. As a result, when teachers at Webster are absent, their students are split up into groups and sent to five or six different classrooms.

“It creates a huge stress on teach ers,” Paiva said of the practice. “Even if

PPSD PAGE 2

preciated the terrific support from the community right from the start,” CEO Carolyn Greenspan wrote in an email to The Herald. “Blue State Coffee grew to have nine cafes in three states over the last 18 years. We have loved being a part of our communities, and we will miss serving our customers.”

The chain previously had a lo cation in the University bookstore, which closed following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, Wayback Machine archives show.

The closures “mark the end of an era for us,” Greenspan wrote. “Since our founding in 2004, we have been able to donate over $1,000,000 to local nonprofits, fulfilling a primary goal of our mission.”

“On a personal level, my best memories are from the early years, working with my son Drew Ruben as we built the business,” Greenspan wrote. “I have been incredibly fortu nate to work with talented and caring people at all levels of the company.”

The end of Blue State — both the company and its Thayer Street loca

In this week’s episode of The Bruno Brief, the team explores the history and development of queerness on campus.

We speak with Liliana Greyf, a staff writer, about her reporting and hear from queer alumni and students.

Subscribe to the podcast on Spo tify or Apple Podcasts or listen via the RSS feed. Hear the full report on this week’s Bruno Brief.

Kitchen Sink brings "Metamorphoses" to campus

Scientists invent tech for wireless prosthetic muscle tracking

Kim Cobb, director of the Institute Brown for Environment and Society and

patrons surprised by cafe's short notice prior to closure

report concerns with stress levels, student experiences

NAT HARDY / HERALD

The BrownTogether campaign raised a record high $476.1 million in new gifts and pledges, reaching a total of $3.47 billion.

International humanities students face difficulties with job hunt

BY KATHY WANG SENIOR STAFF WRITER

After receiving an internship offer, the work process for international students studying the humanities has only just begun. To get approved for Curricular Practical Training — work authorization for internationals on an F-1 student visa — Brown students have to plan an independent study and obtain approval from a faculty sponsor, concentration advisor and a Dean of the College, ac cording to the Office of International Student and Scholar Services’ website.

F-1 student visa holders have to obtain Curricular Practical Training authorization prior to working an off-campus internship or other em ployment during their time of study, according to the OISSS website.

After completing two full semesters at the University, students can begin the process of obtaining Optional Practical Training authorization. OPT can take place during or after graduation and is limited to a total of 12 months, accord ing to the OISSS website. After com pleting a “program of study” or OPT, international students are eligible to seek an H-1B visa that allows them to work beyond the time designated by OPT, according to the Department of Homeland Security website.

Currently, the yearly cap for H-1B visas is 65,000, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website. But H-1B visas for “faculty po sitions, high-level administrators (and) researchers” are not subject to this cap, said Kelsey Dennis, assistant director of International Student Services.

While the official time for OPT is limited to 12 months, students in STEM fields — as designated by the U.S. De partment of Homeland Security, which includes degrees in fields such as eco nomics and psychology —- can apply for a two-year extension of OPT, according to the OISSS website. Students in the humanities, however, have just one year of OPT, limiting their opportunities to get an H1-B visa.

According to Dennis, OPT differs from CPT in that it is a “more broad work authorization.”

OPT “can be done before graduation … but it can also be used after gradu ation, whereas CPT cannot,” she said.

She added that for OPT, “you have to apply to the federal government. It’s an EAD card application, or Employment Authorization Document … the school has to recommend them and say, ‘yes, this student is in good standing and is eligible.’”

Apart from the difficulties of navi gating work authorization, some inter national humanities concentrators also face challenges studying reading- and writing-intensive subjects in a second language. The Herald talked to inter national students and University ad ministrators about their experiences choosing courses, applying for work visas and preparing for their futures.

What goes behind a job offer: CPT, OPT, H-1B

The process behind obtaining work visas for international students can be lengthy.

Yohan Mutta ’23, an international and public affairs concentrator from Kenya, started seeking approval for CPT as soon as he received his summer in ternship offer in February. He didn’t finish the process until late April.

“There's a lot of layers of bureau cracy, a lot of signatures and approvals that I had to get,” he said. “A lot of the processes are outside my control."

While students in the Departments of Applied Mathematics, Computer Sci ence, Economics and Engineering qual ify for the professional track — where they only need to obtain approval for the internship to count toward track requirement — non-professional track students like Mutta need to take an independent study course in the field of their internship and concentration, according to the OISSS website.

Because the two-year extension of OPT only applies to students in STEM fields as designated by DHS, humanities students like Mutta only receive one year of OPT.

For Indira Abzalova ’25, an interna tional and public affairs concentrator from Russia, the one-year OPT limit contributes to feelings of insecurity about her future.

“Especially now (that) I don't know if and when I will be able to (go) back to my country, I would feel much more secure about my future if I knew that I (had) three years” of OPT, she said.

According to Dennis, OPT is helpful because graduates can work on it while filing for an H-1B visa and continue to work when the H-1B visa starts. If someone doesn’t receive the visa when their OPT ends, they have to seek alter natives, such as securing other types of work authorization, transferring abroad until they receive the visa or leaving work for graduate school, she said.

Dennis added that, to apply for an H-1B visa, one needs an employer who’s willing to sponsor them. The employer “may need to pay for an immigration attorney’s help if they are not familiar with the process …. (and) the filing fees, in particular, have to be paid by the employer,” she said.

In December 2021, fees increased for H-1B petitioners — who now need to

pay a $4,000 additional fee if they meet certain criterias, like having 50 or more employees in the U.S. or filing with a postmark date of Dec 18th, 2015 or later, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website.

Further issues for humanities students may result from the nature of the H-1B visa, according to Dennis. “H-1B is also a specialty occupation visa,” she said. “Entry level positions or non-specialist positions may not qualify for H-1B sponsorship.”

According to Dennis, if a job posting says anyone with one of multiple degrees can apply, it can be difficult to argue that it is a specialist position — an issue that is more common in humanities fields, where various subjects share sets of skills.

“Whereas, if … it's a software en gineer position, you need to have a computer science (degree),” she said.

But for students in STEM fields, three years of OPT still do not guar antee anything.

Johnson Zhou ’23 has his first draw for the H1-B — for his post-graduation job — in April, and he is preparing his documents right now, he said in an in terview with The Herald conducted in Mandarin and translated to English.

“Having three years of OPT and securing a real job in the U.S. are two totally different things — even with those three years it’s still really difficult to receive (the) H1-B — (and) at the end of the day, you’ll need a sponsor” for an H1-B visa, he added.

Passion or reality: double-concen trate or not?

For some students, double-concen trating offers an opportunity to max imize work opportunities while still being able to explore academic interests in the humanities.

According to Dennis, double-concen trating broadens work opportunities for students on F-1 visas since they can only take off-campus employment offers that relate directly to their concentration.

Zhou double-concentrated in ap plied mathematics and history, “but of course there are some practical factors in the decision, as an international stu dent,” he said.

Zhou, who plans to work in eco

nomic consulting, finds himself having to “read many documents and make arguments with them, while using statistical analysis” skills acquired in applied mathematics, he said.

“It’s similar to history in terms of its qualitative aspects,” Zhou said.

On the other hand, Mutta had limited interest in STEM concentrations and chose not to double-concentrate in economics — which qualifies for three years of OPT.

“I'm here for four years, (I want) to enjoy it,” he said. “And I also know there are a lot of other people who … have one year of OPT, and they're fine,” he added.

Though she considered concentrat ing in STEM to receive extra years of OPT, Abzalova said her lack of interest in STEM fields superseded her desire to increase her odds of securing an H1-B visa to stay in the U.S.

“I understand that that might not be the situation for everyone,” she added. “For some people, the pressure (to stay in the US) might be more.”

Reading and writing across languages

Though she is concentrating in IAPA, Abzalova often shops English classes — yet she never ends up taking them, she said.

“Sometimes I feel like my vocabu lary (and) ability to express what I think are strained,” Abzalova said. “I feel like I could explain it much better, much more concisely and more persuasively if I was writing in my first language.”

According to Anne Kerkian, senior associate director for Writing and En glish Language Support, reading and writing across languages can often be difficult for multilingual students.

“It’s not doing translation work — it's really sort of thinking and composing and having that voice in one language” and applying it to another, she said.

Zhou said that in his opinion, a pa per’s arguments, structure and logic matter above all else.

“Having to write … in a second lan guage doesn’t necessarily result in a disadvantage … what matters (is how) … well you present your arguments in clear phrasing and logic,” he said.

Kerkian said that the way students think of and use English helps with identity building.

“What makes communicating so interesting and exciting is we all have different ways of doing (it) … (that's where) grammar and voice and identity can be really complimentary,” rather than being “oppositional,” she said.

Finding a self in the US: balancing worldviews

For Mutta, being an international student means having a different worl dview than domestic students, he said.

Yet, being international has also helped Mutta better understand how his own upbringing compares to the U.S. worldview, he said.

“I've assumed that everyone is taught (what I know), but in truth, there are aspects about my upbringing that are different … (There) has definitely been a process of understanding my upbringing with greater clarity, (and) also coming to understand the U.S. worldview,” he said.

Meanwhile, international students are often more aware of a “U.S.-cen trism” that is embedded in classes, dis cussions and day-to-day life, Mutta said.

“Whenever I talk to Americans, I would feel — just a little bit — that they involuntarily feel a sense of dom inance,” Zhou said.

According to Abzalova, sometimes an “aspect of U.S. policy” that she knows nothing about “is referred to as something that everyone knows” in a class setting.

“It feels like the base standard of knowledge is the knowledge of domestic students,” she added.

She added that she tries to avoid classes that are “very U.S.-centric” since “sometimes it feels like I'm discussing something that is only true for this place,” Abzalova said.

“It is important to legitimize the diverse knowledge and experiences in ternational students navigate through their unique academic and professional development,” wrote International Stu dent Program Manager Kelsey Trimm in an email to The Herald.

“Various resources on campus … can help to empower students to explore pathways and identify self-learning op portunities inside and outside of the classroom,” she added.

Students struggle with variety of factors when choosing concentration, applying for jobs

ELYSEE BARAKETT / HERALD

tion — came as a surprise to employ ees, according to one employee who asked to remain anonymous due to concerns about compensation and repercussions in future positions. The news was shared over email three days prior to closing day, they added. A similar situation played out in New Haven last month, as employ ees learned about the closures over email the same week that the three locations closed their doors, the Yale Daily News reported.

“There weren’t any measures tak en within the Providence location that indicated cutbacks” prior to Nov. 14, the employee wrote in a message to The Herald. “We had just hired new staff two weeks prior.”

Learning about the New Haven

closures “was a little worrying, but it certainly didn’t seem like our loca tion was going to close so suddenly afterward,” they wrote. “There was no indication from our manager and no communication from upper man agement about closure.”

The employee explained that the short notice prior to closing has left them scrambling to find work.

“I’m not going to say Blue State was perfect, but I was very comfort able with my coworkers and our many regulars,” they wrote. “It’s certainly frustrating to have to start over again at a different place.”

“Upper management’s absolute mishandling of the situation makes this transition that much more dif ficult,” they added. “Giving your em ployees four days’ notice to find a new job is pretty” immoral.

The employee added that the shop “suffered from negligence on upper management’s end,” pointing to equipment that was in a “constant state of disrepair” and a space that was “always falling apart.”

While the employee wrote that the Thayer Street location received replacement coffee urns and espres so machines from company head quarters, they also noted exposed electrical equipment under a sink, broken cabinets and shelves and a dishwasher and other facilities in need of repair.

“When (Greenspan) sent that email on Monday, it became obvious that those issues never got addressed because upper management knew it wasn’t going to matter,” they wrote.

Asked by The Herald for a response to the employee’s claims, Greenspan

wrote, “We are so proud of this com pany, and as a family-owned business, we feel it is the right time to make this change. We informed our employees as soon as the decision was finalized.”

The response did not address claims about the shop’s equipment or up keep.

Blue State was “a fun place to study” but also relatively more af fordable and “usually less crowded” than other cafes, said Arushi Parekh ’24. “It’s sad to lose an easy place to work.”

“It was weird that it’s such short notice,” Nathaniel Scott ’24 said. He added that he was concerned for Blue State’s employees, given the limited time between the announcement and the closure. “I think (the company) should be giving them pay,” Scott said.

Parekh also expressed worry for the cafe’s employees. “The workers were always really fun and played good music” in the space, she said.

Greenspan did not respond to multiple requests for comment on whether employees would be granted temporary unemployment benefits or pay from Blue State. Most Rhode Is land workers on a payroll are covered by state unemployment insurance, according to the Rhode Island Depart ment of Labor and Training.

“Our customers are sad to see us go and our dedicated regulars have rewards cards with points and mon ey that will lose all value,” wrote the employee. “We’ve been very vocal about our closure to our customers and, honestly, these last couple days have been the busiest Blue State has been in a while.”

those kids are perfect angels, you have a lot of extra kids in your room all day. And they don’t know the procedures of the classroom.”

Domings wrote that “the district is … committed to supporting current teachers and creating a culture where they feel valued and respected.” He wrote that this “includes new ways to provide feedback to district lead ership and career opportunities such as significant discounts in obtaining a master’s (degree) or doctorate at local universities.”

Domings did not respond to a request for comment on the class room-splitting policy specifically.

Paiva estimates she has children from other classes in her classroom “almost every day — at least two or three times per week.”

The shortage has also increased teachers’ workloads in other ways, she added. When specialists such as art or music teachers are out, other teachers often give up their 30 minute break to supervise the absent teacher’s students. These 30 minutes are often teachers’ only break during the day, according

to Paiva. “I think general exhaustion is there because we’re just constantly losing our breaks or covering.”

Splitting kids into different class rooms may be detrimental to stu dents as well as teachers, Paiva said, noting that students in higher grade levels are sometimes put into her third-grade classroom. “If there were a (substitute teacher), at least they would be getting some instruction,” she added.

Aside from missed instruction, reg ularly spending time in different loca tions may disrupt students’ routines, Paiva said. “They don’t know how to ask how to go to the bathroom (or) where the pencils are. This is the stuff that matters at the elementary level — all these micro-interruptions.”

Domings wrote that the district hopes to “reduce the impact of the na tional educator shortage on students and provide as much consistency as possible in the classroom” via the re cent career fair and future hiring efforts.

The district recognizes the impor tance of solving the shortage and the impact it has on students, according to Domings, but he noted the adminis trative difficulties in solving this issue

mid-year. “It is very difficult to hire full-time, permanent teachers during the school year,” he wrote. “However, long-term substitutes are critical in establishing consistency for students, as they remain with one classroom for the majority of the year whenever possible.”

“It is also the District’s goal to grow these long-term substitutes into fulltime teachers whenever possible,” he added. “Other roles such as clerks and teacher assistants are vital in helping schools function efficiently, even if they do not count towards the ‘classroom vacancy’ number.”

High school

Dale Fraza, who teaches history at 360 High School, said the school has been particularly affected by the teacher shortage this year. The most glaring examples, Fraza said, are math and foreign languages classes.

Fraza said that this year, 360 does not have a geometry teacher. “Tenthgrade students who should be taking ge ometry have not had a teacher all year except for long-term subs and coverage that’s provided by regular teachers that are in the building already.”

Additionally, the school was sup posed to hire a new Italian teacher, Fraza said. When it had not found one a month into the school year, students enrolled in Italian were transitioned to Spanish. “That was great until our Spanish teacher decided to resign about a week and a half ago,” Fraza said.

Domings did not comment on spe cific manifestations of the shortage, including the particular issues that Fraza cited at 360.

Now, according to Fraza, Spanish is covered part-time by a long-term sub; when the sub isn’t there, teachers with a free period teach in their place. Because history teachers have breaks when Spanish classes are scheduled, “the history department has basically been rotating through covering Span ish,” Fraza said.

For Spanish and other classes miss ing a long-term substitute, “there’s not much continuity because each teach er is doing their own thing,” said Rich Norris, 360’s assistant principal. But Norris said it is crucial that teachers cover classes when substitutes are not available. Norris and Principal Kerry Tuttlebee have covered classes this

year, Norris said.

Teachers’ free blocks are “designed for teachers to do everything that they should be doing outside of school, such as grading, planning assignments (and) making phone calls home,” Fraza said. “Now, instead of that period being used for those administrative activities, in stead you’re using it to fill time in the classroom.”

Fraza emphasized the impact of the shortage on students’ ability to learn. “Students who are in those classes don’t have much high-quality instruction. They don’t have much continuity in curriculum,” Fraza said.

“Even when you have a teacher in the building covering those class es, it’s still a loss in the sense that they’re not the content experts,” Norris said.

Domings wrote that the district will continue to push efforts to hire new teachers. “The district is committed to hiring qualified educators to increase that number (of fully-staffed class rooms) as much as possible during a national educator shortage, and has several new incentives to do so, includ ing signing bonuses of up to $10,000,” he wrote.

Slusarewicz '23: Pigeons don’t deserve their bad reputation

I’ve felt a strong connection to birds since I was a kid. My parents have always kept bird feed ers outside their windows and, as a child with ample free time, I would stare at the feeders for hours, imagining what the birds were thinking. Growing up in large cities, I developed a partic ular fondness for pigeons. But as I grew older, I realized that not everyone shares my affinity for the feral pigeon. Often referred to as rats with wings, pigeons have garnered a reputa tion as disease-spreaders and general nuisances for city-dwellers. However, these perceptions are not only inaccurate, they overshadow the qualities that make pigeons so special. Pigeons are highly intelligent animals that contribute to urban ecosystems and connect urbanites to nature.

The modern feral pigeons that populate most American cities were transported to the U.S. by colonists in the 1600s, and are descen dants of domesticated pigeons, which have long been used for their meat and navigational abilities. But they are not protected under the United States Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, a major bird protection law. Though some cit ies and states have passed laws providing some protection for pigeons from unjust killings, they are not obligated to do so by federal law. In con trast, in the United Kingdom feral pigeons are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981. If other countries can treat their pigeons humanely, the unprotected status of pigeons in the United States should not be the norm.

The belief that pigeons pose a particularly high health risk is both relatively unfounded and extremely insidious. Pigeons are not any more dangerous than other wild birds — diseas es that are commonly associated with pigeons such as Histoplasmosis and Cryptococcus both arise from rare fungi that grow in droppings from birds of all kinds. Psittacosis, which pres

vermin whose population should be culled underplays their role in urban ecosystems. Though there isn't much research into the impact of non-native birds in ecosystems, based on what we know, feral pigeons may be crucial to seed dispersal and connecting ur ban islands. They are also prey for birds such as the peregrine falcon and may fill the eco

word is novel to them, undermining the an thropocentric idea that only humans possess the neural capacity for reading. In fact, research suggests pigeons share many cognitive behav iors with humans.

This isn’t to say that pigeon populations shouldn’t be controlled at all — I’ll be the first to admit that pigeon feces can be appalling. However, culling pigeon populations is both inhumane and ineffective. Pigeon birth control may offer a much more effective solution by re ducing the likelihood that pigeon eggs will suc cessfully hatch.

ents as a form of pneumonia in humans, is also often attributed to pigeons. However, while psittacosis can be found in pigeons, it is partic ularly common in domesticated birds, and pet bird owners are at the greatest risk of contract ing it. Pigeons provide a convenient scapegoat for the spread of diseases that they are not en tirely responsible for.

The widespread perception of pigeons as

logical niche left behind by the now-extinct passenger pigeon of North America. Beyond that, feral pigeons can be helpful indicators of air quality.

The ethical implications of eliminating ur ban pigeon populations are especially unset tling due to their high level of intelligence. Pi geons are capable of distinguishing words from random jumbles of numbers, even when the

Humans are responsible for pigeons’ do mestication and presence in cities, so we should strive to take care of them instead of exterminating them. We should appreci ate the benefits they can offer; pigeons of fer urbanites needed exposure to the natural world, helping foster passion for the conser vation of nature broadly. Pigeons are living beings that deserve to live dignified lives. We shouldn’t want to live in a world where we prioritize our own biases and convenience over the well-being of animals living peace fully alongside us.

Megan Slusarewicz ’23 can be reached at megan_slusarewicz@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and other op-eds to opinions@browndaily herald.com.

“We shouldn’t want to live in a world where we prioritize our own biases and convenience over the wellbeing of animals living peacefully alongside us.”

Kitchen Sink Theater Company brings energy to campus theater scene

BY MAISIE NEWBURY SENIOR STAFF WRITER

On Wednesday evening, students crowded into rows of folding chairs at the edge of Winnick Chapel in Brown RISD Hillel around a simple set. Its centerpiece was a reflective pedestal that would serve as a pond, a bed, an ocean, a therapist’s couch and so much more over the course of the coming 65 minutes.

Nov. 16 marked the opening night of Kitchen Sink Theater Company’s inaugural production of “Metamor phoses” by Mary Zimmerman, a re telling of Ovid’s classic poem of the same name. The modernized reinter pretation touches on themes of love, wealth, greed, power, religion and how people change under the influence of these forces. The production was unique not only for the story it told but also for the group which brought it to life.

Kitchen Sink Theater is a student group that strives “to offer an alter native theater model, one in which members act, direct, produce and design together,” according to the programs distributed at the perfor mance.

The 12 company members all took on multiple acting and technical roles throughout the performance — sitting with the audience, playing instru ments, running sound production, operating lights and even acting as supporting set pieces.

“It feels exciting because everyone feels equally invested in the success of the show,” said Kaitlin Goldin ’23, a member of the company. “We’re all doing the dirty work of putting up posters, organizing to get funding. All that stuff (that) normally would have fallen on one person is now di vided up.”

Goldin believes that this commu nal approach allows Kitchen Sink to stand out from the already vibrant theater scene at the University, as

members are able to learn skills they might not have had the opportunity to cultivate in other theater groups.

“Everyone is doing something they’ve never done,” she added. “We’re teach ing each other and learning togeth er.”

For Antara Chowdhary ’25, ex ploring the directorial process has been “especially rewarding.” Having tried directing before, Chowdhary ex plained that it previously always felt like guesswork. “I didn’t really know what I was doing,” she said.

But with Kitchen Sink, Chowdhary had the opportunity to watch and learn about directing from her peers.

“People have exposed me to different ways of thinking,” she said, “and their different styles and all the different elements of directing.”

Many of Kitchen Sink’s members said they were particularly proud of the visual presentation of “Metamor phoses.”

“I really enjoy the set we’ve creat ed,” said Yingshen Zhang ’26, another company member. “Everything from

the set pieces, the sounds, the effects of the lighting we’ve come up with is a really conscious and specific choice we’re making.”

“We’ve also done something with light and set that I never would have thought of,” Chowdhary said, refer encing the different forms of light ing the company used throughout the performance — including portable, colored stage lights, paper lanterns, string lights and several scenes lit entirely by flashlights.

Many of these unique production decisions resulted from the produc tion’s limited budget. “I’m realizing just how much you can do with limited resources when you think creatively and work collaboratively,” Chowdhary said.

Zhang added that the simplici ty of the production forced her and fellow company members to think carefully about their characters and actions. “There isn’t much in the way of production elements to support” the performance, she explained. “It’s mostly just us out there.”

To optimize the learning expe rience provided by the company, members let go of the “expected professionalism” which is prevalent in theater groups on campus, Goldin explained.

“My first year at Brown, I found it really difficult to join the theater com munity,” Chowdhary said, referencing the challenging audition process for many of the large productions on cam pus that only take a few actors per semester. “I did a few small, low-com mitment theater productions, but the theater community was really lacking for me,” she said.

Through Kitchen Sink, Chowdhary feels as though she has gotten “to know these really talented people and work with them on something” they all take pride in.

For Zhang, Kitchen Sink’s non-hi erarchical community has been particularly welcome. The audition process is “just meeting with this group of people (and) collaborating with other people who are also audi tioning and exploring unfamiliarity,”

she said.

“In a way, it feels kind of like we’re going back to being little kids — just putting up some chairs and a sheet and putting on a play in our living room,” Goldin added. “It's a really scary thing to do at a place like Brown, but I think (Kitchen Sink) has a lot of potential.”

“Relearning simplicity is really powerful,” Zhang added. “It’s a really fun thing to bring to the stage.”

Goldin hopes audience members that come to watch “Metamorphoses” are inspired by the “scrappy” product that Kitchen Sink put together and can admire that the company is trying to do something different within the University’s theater scene.

“Metamorphoses” is set to run through the end of the weekend.

“I hope people come with an open mind and I hope they enjoy it,” Chow dhary said. “I hope that this idea and adventure inspires people to create similar organizations or just try things out, learn new things and not be afraid of falling over.”

TODAY’S EVENTS

Heeshick Yang: U.S.-Republic of Korea Future 12 to 1 p.m. Watson Institute

Enhancing Cybersecurity in Zero-Trust Environments 1 p.m. ERC

TOMORROW’S EVENTS

Stonewall Bingo 1 - 2:30 p.m. LGBTQ Center, 22 Benevolent St.

First-Year Food Fest 7 p.m.

Kasper Multipurpose Room, Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center

Pizza e Papo 1:30 - 3:30 p.m. 159 George St.

World Trivia Night w/ Dean Zia (CLS and GBC) 5 p.m. Petteruti Lounge

Brown University Orchestra Concert 8 p.m. Sayles Hall

Kitchen Sink Theater Company Presents “Metamorphoses” 8 p.m. Winnick Chapel, Hillel

'Metamorphoses' performance allows members to explore all facets of theater

COURTESY OF LIANA HAIGIS

Company members not only acted in multiple roles, but also participated in lighting, sound and set design. “In a way, it feels kind of like we’re going back to being little kids — just putting up some chairs and a sheet and putting on a play in our living room,” Kaitlin Goldin '23 explained.

return, according to the report. While the endowment growth failed to meet this goal for FY22, average investment results have surpassed this hurdle over three-, five-, 10- and 20-year periods.

HEPI increased to 5.2% in FY22, which may raise the benchmark in vestment result goals in future years.

Despite negative returns, the Uni versity’s endowment surpassed all mar ket-based benchmarks for FY22 and three-, five-, 10- and 20-year periods, but performed worse than the Aggre gate Benchmark, which is internally determined to define potential endow ment returns based on the endowment’s assets and market indexes that mirror those assets.

While the endowment grew by 51.5% in fiscal year 2021, the Univer sity finished FY21 with a $93.4 million deficit in operating revenue, The Her ald previously reported. FY22 marked growth from FY21 in both operating revenue — from over $965 million to over $1.2 billion — and expenses — from over $1 billion to over $1.1 billion. This shifted the University from negative to positive net operating activities.

The University also decreased its

total debt by $179.9 million to $1.27 billion, with the decline driven by a $162.4 million paydown of maturing and callable debt, as well as the annual debt service payments. The University did not take on any new debt during FY22.

“These financial statements demon strate that the responsibility to steward this exceptional institution is not one that is taken lightly, and reflects an enduring commitment to preserve the financial health of this great institution for generations to come,” the report reads.

The report also included a section outlining research expenditures, which was not included in the past three fi nancial reports. This section highlights 20 of the 64 grants of $1 million or more awarded to Brown’s researchers in FY22.

According to the report, the Brown Together fundraising campaign col lected a record high of $476.1 million in new gifts and pledges, marking a $45.6 million increase in donations from FY21. The BrownTogether cam paign exceeded its original $3 billion goal in September 2021 and set a new $4 billion target for 2024, The Herald previously reported. The campaign had raised $3.47 billion at press time.

The University raised $86.9 million

in fundraising for undergraduate finan cial aid, according to the report. This includes $61.8 million toward interna tional undergraduate financial aid, with a gift of $25 million marking the largest individual donation to international financial aid in University history. In line with its goal to become fully needblind for international applicants by the class of 2029, the University has set a target of raising $120 million for

international undergraduate financial aid, according to the report.

The Brown Annual Fund, a pool of immediate-use funds, also raised a re cord total at $50.1 million, according to the report.

Additionally, the total of endowed professors reached 119 by the end of FY22. Since then, the University has raised funds for four additional en dowed positions, meeting the Brown

Together campaign goal of raising funds to establish a total of 123 endowed pro fessorships, according to the report.

“Looking ahead, I am inspired by the opportunities and the trajectory we have mapped for fiscal year 2023,” Paxson wrote. “Through targeted in vestments in the people, programs and physical spaces that support our mis sion, we continue to build on Brown’s distinction.”

The Bruno Brief: The history and development of queerness at Brown

BY THE BRUNO BRIEF TEAM

The Bruno Brief takes a look at the his tory of queerness on campus.

Martha Gardner

The standard formula in the past was to hand out pens and two pieces of paper to each person. And on the first piece of paper they had to write down a negative image they had had or they heard of a lesbian or a gay man — it could be a stereotype.

Richard Heck

It's not so much that there really aren't that many more queer people. It's just that people are more — either they're doing less of this repressing than they used to.

Elysee Barakett

This week, we continue on with our discussion of sexual politics by taking a look at the history and de velopment of queerness at Brown. We’ll start in 1919, when queerness was criminalized in Rhode Island, and work towards the present. Currently, over 35% of students at Brown don’t identify as straight. How did we get here? I’m Elysee Barakett, and this is the Bruno Brief.

A quick content warning for our lis teners: We will be discussing instances of homophobia in this episode.

Today I’ll be speaking with Lili ana Greyf, a staff writer and Bruno Brief producer. So, Liliana, tell me a bit about your reporting. Where did you start?

Liliana Greyf

Honestly, it was hard to know where to begin. Before the 1970s, there are less than 10 uses of the word “homo sexual” in The Brown Daily Herald’s archives, and all of them are in movie reviews or recaps of academic lectures. I’m sure queerness existed at Brown before the gay liberation movement, but that history is hard to uncover. So I started just off campus, in Newport. In 1919, at the Navy base, there was a scandal and subsequent investigation that resulted in the arrests of 17 sail ors for having sex with other men. As Sarah Yahm, a Brown alum, put it in her 2017 paper “Out of the Closet and Into the Quad: The Origins of Brown Gay Liberation,” “this was the moment when homosexuality stopped being an act and became a type of person.”

Elysee Barakett

And what came next?

Liliana Greyf

Just a year later, Harvard expelled several gay students after conducting an investigation by a secret tribunal to uncover their identities. When one student tried to transfer to Brown, they blocked his application, and former admissions officer Otis E. Randall sent a letter of thanks. He wrote, “You have given me just the information which we needed, and it goes without say ing that we shall inform Mr. Lumbard that we do not care to consider his application for admission to Brown … How frequently we uncover in the undergraduate life messes of this sort, and how disagreeable it is to deal with such matters!”

Elysee Barakett

Wow. So even if queerness wasn’t acknowledged by Brown’s adminis

tration, it was surely not welcomed.

Liliana Greyf

Definitely. After this scandal, in 1920, there’s a big gap in the archives about queerness — which mostly means that wherever queerness was, it was hiding from documentation. That’s the effect institutional and systemic silencing tends to have. It stayed that way up until the 1960s, when Kate Bornstein, now a celebrated queer theorist, was an undergraduate student. I talked to her about her time on campus.

Kate Bornstein

There wasn't any open expression of homosexual love at all. Lesbian — none at all. I got to campus in 1965, and I graduated in 1969. The most we did queer-wise — some of us would go down to New York and got up in drag and posed models for Cosmopolitan and other magazines. We did modeling work. And a couple of us would go out at night and just hitchhike and get picked up, that was pretty much my experience of queer life.

Elysee Barakett

That was Kate Bornstein, an author, playwright, actor and gender theorist. Her book “Gender Outlaw,” published in 1995, was hugely impactful to queer scholarship. While on campus, they were closeted, like most of the queer population at Brown, but they often snuck into the prop closet of the the ater to try on ballgowns when no one was looking.

Liliana Greyf

It was just after Bornstein gradu ated that Gay Liberation around the nation — and at Brown — began. Brown University Gay Liberation got an offi cial approval from the student activity group in 1970. The club was run by Tom Littler and his boyfriend James Moser, who both graduated in 1972, and their friends Jack Marcus and George Hey mont. Their presence on campus was revolutionary — Littler and Moser held hands and didn’t hide their queerness — but relatively unnoticed.

Elysee Barakett

Why do you think Gay Liberation at Brown had a hard time taking off?

Liliana Greyf

It’s difficult to say for sure, but local queer historian Kate Monteiro thinks that queer liberation happened more slowly in Providence than more urbanized areas, like New York or San Francisco. Queer people from Rhode Island must have flocked to those ar eas. As Heymont put it, “it’s hard to organize when you have to take your mother grocery shopping right after the gay alliance meeting.” But they kept at it — and by the end of the de cade, under a second generation of leadership, BUGL was hosting a queer dance for over 1,000 students.

Elysee Barakett

That’s a huge change for one decade.

Liliana Greyf

Yeah — it was a revolutionary time. But that’s not to say that it was ex clusively easy or suddenly safe to be queer. Well into the ’80s and ’90s, queer students were harrassed and abused on Brown’s campus.

I had a “closets are for clothes” sign on my dorm room door, I was living in West Quad, I was a woman peer coun selor, and someone had written on it, “Rot in hell, you d*ke, and I’m going come back and rape you because I know you need to be satisfied, you smegma queen.” That’s the wording. I’ve said it enough times to remember it.

Elysee Barakett

That’s Martha Gardener, an openly queer student who graduated in 1988, in an interview she recorded for the Pembroke Center Oral History ar chives.

Martha Gardner

I know in the past a friend of mine ran for UCS, and she ran on a openly gay ticket, and she ended up having to unplug her phone because she’d get so many harassing phone calls at night.

Elysee Barakett

What’s remarkable about Gardner and the queer students that she knew was that they continued to organize against homophobia even when they were being targeted. In the interview, Gardner talked about lesbian and gay dorm outreach, a form of campus activ ism that targeted harmful homophobic stereotypes. A few queer people would go to freshmen dorms or fraternities to talk about ideologies surrounding queerness.

Martha Gardner

The standard formula in the past was to hand out pens and two pieces of paper to each person. And on the first piece of paper they had to write down a negative image they had or they heard of a lesbian or a gay man — it could be a stereotype … So a negative image and also a positive image. That was the set. So they wrote them both down, we mixed them up, handed them back out, and people would say them and we’d talk about them … Actually the purpose of that is often like the nega tive image comes up, usually someone in the group besides the facilitators would defend lesbian and gay stuff. They’d say, “Well that’s silly, you know,

if promiscuous gay men, well some times straight people are promiscuous too.” It’s important that we aren’t the people that say it, but that their peers are who say it.

Liliana Greyf

So queer students on campus were definitely taking initiative to ensure that the old ways of thinking were be ing addressed and replaced. It paved the way for the acceptance we see on campus today.

Richard Heck

It's not so much that there really aren't that many more queer people. It's just that people are more — either they're doing less of this repressing than they used to, and they're more willing to identify publicly.

Elysee Barakett

That’s Professor Richard Kimberly Heck, who teaches philosophy courses about sex and pornography. They have been teaching at Brown for 18 years.

Liliana Greyf

They told me that in that time, par ticularly in the last five or so years, they have begun to see a new level of queer visibility on campus. And their own public identity has changed since they began to teach.

Richard Heck

I've always had this sort of sense that I kind of didn't fit in with the guys as it were in some way and, but also it wasn't like I felt like I fit in with girls either. I sort of didn't know what to do with that. So I kind of, basically what I did was just repress it. And then some, you know, somehow I sort of stumbled across the idea of being nonbinary. I suspect that there are a lot of people who were like me, who come in, didn't really have certain sorts of these expe riences of not fitting in or something, but didn't know what to know how to what to do with it. Not that it's easy or anything, but I think people grow up nowadays in an environment where you don't have to wonder, or at least are these role models out there to

identify with.

Liliana Greyf

When Professor Heck came out in 2018, they were the first nonbinary faculty member at Brown.

Richard Heck

So I came to the last day of class and I handed out all the student eval uations, they were on paper back then. And so I handed them out to the class, and I went to leave the room so that they could fill it out and everyone kind of clapped. On my way out, I realized I want to go back, and I said something. I went back and I said, “Oh, by the way, remember my pronouns are they/them and if you should refer to me on the forms, these are my pronouns.” And they all clapped. Clearly what they responded to was like, they were just happy to have a clear … and it was really quite moving.

Liliana Greyf

Just in the last decade, Brown’s queer community has blossomed. Heteronormative culture and societal oppression definitely still exist — but queer studies are taught in several departments, the LGBTQ Center has moved into a larger space and students flock to gay clubs. When Kate Born stein came to give a talk on campus a few years ago, she was shocked by the amount of queer students she saw milling about campus.

Kate Bornstein

You could see out gay men, you could see d*kes. It was like, wow! Holy, wow!

Elysee Barakett

Thanks for listening. Tune in next week to hear about hookup culture at Brown.

This episode was produced by Caitlyn Carpenter, Liliana Greyf, Finn Kirkpat rick, Katy Pickens, Samantha Renzulli, Jacob Smollen and me, Elysee Barakett. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to The Bruno Brief wherever you get your podcasts and leave a review.

Martha Gardner

run for the roses a story of beauty and betrayal

by olivia cohen

cw: abuse and neglect

When I close my eyes and picture my grandmother, she's in her silk bathrobe, propped up in bed. There's a recording of a church service playing on the TV. My mom is sitting next to her, and they're talking about something in a way that feels conspiratorial, confidential; I'm straining to hear every word. Gran seems to have just realized I'm there, and she turns to me. "Be a dear, Olivia," she says to me, "and get me a Perrier from downstairs." There's already a little green bottle perched on her bedside table, seal unbroken, but I get up anyway— wishing I were old enough to contribute to their conversation, but somewhat relieved for an excuse to venture out of her hydrangea-blue, upholstered, stifling room.

king of fruit

tropical musings on smelly fruit and old men

by Audrey Wijono

illustrated by Audrey wijono

[ 01: king ]

My grandfather was a stubby little Thai man. Quiet but bold, he wore his surname, Sirithorn, with pride. And as mom would remind us, you don’t see many Thai names quite so short. It was supposedly a pseudo-royal name, gifted to an ancestor by a princess after they saved her life.

A load of bullshit, likely.

But growing up, I loved it. I liked the belief and the fantasy it conjured up: my all-too-feeble, diabetesprone family, dressed in royal garb and fraternizing with the upper classes. Our faces full and cheeks pink, we’d lounge around in linen and silk and fan ourselves with local palms, pockets bulging with riches.

In every one of these fantasies, my grandfather, in all his five-foot-something glory, was the king. Fair, happy, and strong. And his worn-down, termiteridden home, tucked away by the old Jakarta river: this little place was his palace. ***

Green thumbs are not green but a dark, sunkissed shade of brown, speckled lovingly with sunspots and creased deeply and irreversibly with age.

An avid gardener, the backyard was his royal grounds; a labor of unabashed love fueled by the

murky, unsuspecting waters of Jakarta’s sewers. Basil, mint, orchids, monk fruit, jackfruit, bananas—he knew each plant intimately. He reigned over cuttings and saplings and breathed life into the soil where little else grew. When the neighbors inevitably snagged a fruit or two, he would let them, knowing that it all would grow back in time.

Even still, my grandfather was rarely home. He spent most of his waking hours working at a plantation, tucked away on a little Indonesian island up north. I thought of him as the man of the house and the king of the jungle, all at once.

What he did up there, I was never told, but the few texts he sent told me all I needed to know.

[ 12/26/18, 2:00 P.M : My durian. 3.85 kg. ]

[ 12/30/18, 9:17 A.M : Fourth durian. ]

[ 01/01/19, 7:59 A.M : Another durian today. ]

[ 02: princess ]

Children play favorites as much as their grandparents do.

Traditionally, Sirithorn women are loud, insistent folk. Assertive to the point of near-arrogance, my mother and grandmother were excellent debaters, but truly terrible sources of comfort. Their . . .

—Adi Thatai, “Birdkeeper” 11.13.2020

—Kaitlan Bui, “I Am (Not) A Fake” 11.8.2019

As it turns out, my mom remembers Gran in the same way I do. When I ask for her happiest memory of her mother, she recalls being six or seven years old, living with her mother and siblings in a big house on Cooke Street. She would return home from school in the afternoon to find her mom reclined on the sofa, still in her robe, cigarette in hand, talking to her father on the phone. My mom remembers . . .

the ghosts i call darling

or what it means to haunt

by mack ford

I go down to the small cemetery by the edge of the river. Everything shines—there is no darkness here. The headstones persist in spite of what they know. They keep themselves up, pushing against that knowing which pulls them down, down. One stone is laid with a coquettish flower-crown, the next with a few pebbles. The poor person who sleeps beneath each stone doesn’t have much say in the matter. Perhaps the girl beneath the flower-crown thought daisies were for little girls with schoolgirl crushes—she would flush red with embarrassed rage to see a pile of their limp white heads draped over her final resting place. I can’t help but shake my head at this phantasm of my own making. Poor dear, to be decorated even in death with a flower she despised.

Ghosts are the best fuel for my daydreams. The specters wander in and out of my half-memory as I weave threads of fiction and real life together, until I can imagine a whole person who might have lived just so.

Daydreams are but very small hauntings, after all.

The verb “to haunt” is derived from Old French’s “hantise,” which translates to “obsession,” or “obsessive fear.” That is, unless it comes from the French “hanter”—to “visit regularly” or “become familiar with.” Or perhaps it comes from the . . .

“You watched as the hummingbirds floated up to the feeder, shy at first, sticking their long beaks into the plastic flowers to drink the sugar water.”

“There are still so many questions and so few answers, but the permutations of my identity don’t nullify my right to define it.”

lydia tár isn't real and why do we care

by lily seltz

We were “duped”—it was “trickery”—we had fallen right into “a trap.” Who, you might ask, was the agent of this malevolent manipulation? A dating app catfisher? The con artist at the top of a pyramid scheme? No. According to a number of critics (and audience members who took to Twitter) the trickster, here, was the writer-director, Todd Field, and marketing team of the 2022 feature film Tár

Tár centers around Lydia (Cate Blanchett), the eponymous contemporary classical music superstar and conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, in the days leading up to her live recording of Mahler’s fifth symphony. Lydia is a white lesbian woman in early middle age, married to the concertmisstress Sharon (Nina Hoss). She is a staunch skeptic of what she might call—for lack of a better term—“woke culture.” In one early scene, she argues that Bach’s misogyny and racism have no bearing on the value of his music, and disparages the Black conducting student who suggests otherwise. She also has a predilection

for pursuing and (maybe) sleeping with younger members of her orchestra—the film is intentionally vague about the real extent of her wrongdoings. Tár tells the story of Lydia’s professional and psychological decline as her actions and their muddled consequences push their way into private and then public view.

This movie, like many—if not most—other movies shown in theaters these days, is fiction. Anyone who has seen Tár can attest to the thoroughness and deftness of the movie’s hyperrealism, but realism is not the same as reality—a distinction that audiences, in almost all cases, are willing to accept. What made audiences react so differently to Tár?

I came into Tár aware of the movie’s genre (drama, not biopic) and so was not in a position to feel “duped” as others had, but I wanted to figure out where this sense of betrayal and frustration might have come from.

I watched Tár at 7:30 on a Saturday evening, in the Coolidge Corner Theater in Boston. Like Providence’s own Avon Cinema, stepping into Coolidge Corner is like traveling back in time, to a pre-AMC era where movie theaters played double features and had elaborate painted woodwork on their ceilings. It’s an apt setting for the kind of . . .

“I’m not diagnosing you with anything… but in her case? I’m a mental health professional.”

“Excited to enter my mid-twenties yeehaw era in a few years.”

becoming other

by aalia jagwani illustrated by connie liu

Coming into college, I expected my education to be intellectually demanding, but I was not prepared for it to be, to an equal extent, emotionally stimulating. In my first semester, I took a comparative literature class with Professor Arnold Weinstein. Learning about Freudian complexes and literary traditions, my intellectual boundaries were pushed, but my emotional boundaries were tested just as much. After a lecture on Waiting for Godot, I was moved to despair; after reading Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself, an old favorite, I was filled with an almost irrational hope. Most of all, though, I remember being completely overwhelmed and in awe of the depths I was about to spend the next four years diving into.

At the beginning of this year, Professor Weinstein of the Comparative Literature department published a book called “The Lives of Literature.” In a blog column for the Princeton University Press,

he explained that his book attempts to answer the questions of why we study literature and where its value lies in today’s information-driven world.

These questions did not readily yield answers. “The elemental questions are the hardest ones to answer,” he wrote in the column.

This should not have been surprising to me, but it was. Having taken Weinstein’s class in my very first semester of college, I developed a confidence in the value of studying literature after only just starting to do so. It felt like I had already received an answer to his questions, albeit not explicitly.

Or perhaps this is a misrepresentation—an unnamed, ambiguous sense of importance seemed to shelter me from the anxiety of having to answer these questions decisively, inspired by Weinstein’s faith in the works he taught. Had I actually been asked for an answer, I would have been wholly incapable . . .

a doggy gift guide

by andy luo

The holiday season approaches! And with it, (at least for me) comes the stress of gift giving. Giving gifts to humans is hard, so why not put it off by thinking about what to gift your dog? Don’t have a dog? No worries! Feel free to use these gift ideas for a little brother or a friend with a sense of humor.

*Note: no links for products have been provided— I’m not doing all of the work for you.

1. Bed

Specifically, yours. The bed should be a height suitable for your dog to clamber onto. If it isn’t, you should look into building a little ramp. See, dogs don’t like dog beds. Dogs like human beds because dogs like their humans and want to be where their humans are. If the human leaves the human bed and lies down on the dog bed, then the dog will like the dog bed.

2. Food

Yours, as well. Not dog food, and nothing too salty, too sweet, or containing chocolate. The sentiment is the same as above; dogs want whatever you’re eating. So maybe if you start eating dog food, your dog will do the same. If you’re not willing to go that far, share a bit of your food. As mentioned earlier, the table scraps you offer to your dog shouldn’t contain excess salt, excess sugar, or chocolate. Also, no grapes. . .

happy holidays to you and your dog

and letting go of ourselves when reading literature

“I forgot my towel so now I’m just Wet Beast Wednesday.”

professor of earth, environmental and planetary sciences, the window for typi cal winter temperatures is “shortening” as warmer temperatures creep into the “shoulder seasons” of spring and fall.

Those 70-degree days from Nov. 2 to 12 were likely due to meandering westeast wind patterns, the frequency of which has likely increased on account of the 1.2 degrees Celsius warming since the pre-industrial period, Fox-Kemper said.

“It always stresses me out,” said Caroline Sassan ’24.“I feel like there's just this weird, underlying climate anxi ety that really, I kind of always have. But it's especially bad when … the weather is like that.”

Sassan noted that although the warm weather makes her and others uneasy, she is aware of more pressing, destructive impacts of climate change, such as extreme weather and natural disasters. It's a “weird tension to hold,” she said.

What does climate change mean for the East Coast?

While warm weather in November might be pleasant, it is not the only impact of climate change seen by the East Coast in recent years. Beginning in late August, Providence experi enced an intense drought, immedi ately followed by one of the wettest beginnings to autumn on record with “well above average” rainfall, accord ing to Doris.

These seemingly opposite weather extremes can be “confusing,” but make physical sense, according to Fox-Kem per. “Warm air can hold more moisture. So if it's warm and dry, it can drive a bigger drought,” he explained. “If it's warm and wet, it has more water in it to rain out. So the extremes in precip itation on both sides can tend to get accelerated by climate change.”

The warmer-than-usual weather and more frequent extreme weather events are expected to continue into the winter, Doris added. Providence residents can expect warmer-than-av erage temperatures for the winter but also an “above average snowfall” due to

bigger, more powerful storms that cli mate change has made more frequent.

“It gets kind of tricky when you’re communicating about climate change … because people think, ‘Oh, a warm winter, no snow.’ Well, that’s not nec essarily the case,” he said.

“We get these humongous snow storms now, here in southern New En gland,” he continued. “We very rarely get the small, one- to two-inch snow storms that we used to get maybe 20, 30, 40 years ago.”

Warmer winters and more intense summertime temperatures have stark implications for agricultural regions in terms of growing seasons, productivity and yields, according to Cobb. She also pointed to sea level rise as a particularly potent impact of climate change, due to low-lying coastal plains that make the East Coast “exceptionally vulnerable.” Sea levels are expected to rise about three feet — and as much as 10 feet — by the year 2100.

“When we talk about climate change impacts, that is certainly cli mate change impact number one for the Ocean State,” Cobb said.

What climate initiatives are hap pening at Brown?

Fox-Kemper pointed to the Uni versity’s investment in solar power, specific companies and sustainability on campus as examples of Brown’s cli mate-related action. That investment power is important to the “moral narra tive of what a university does,” he said.

The University’s funding and invest ments have a “historical legacy” related to fossil fuel emissions, Fox-Kemper said. “Even if you might be spending (money) on something that's positive and looking towards a brighter future, if it also came along with massive emis sions that are dirty … it's maybe not as clean of a story as you'd like it to be.”

Sassan said she thinks it is import ant for students to “keep their finger to the pulse” when it comes to the admin istration’s environmental initiatives.

“We get to have these awesome pro fessors … (in) IBES and all these really cool resources, but we have to ask where that funding is coming from,” she said.

The administration "has control over a lot of money,” she added. “Where that's placed … that matters. That's not neutral.”

Sassan, an environmental studies concentrator, said she sometimes finds herself asking if it might take years to be able to accomplish something “meaningful” with the content she’s learning in classes. She pointed to student initiatives on campus — the relaunched Sunrise chapter at Brown, anti-Koch initiatives and research op portunities — as ways to “be a part of something now.”

Beyond student activism, faculty members are taking active roles in the global conversation and research sur rounding climate change. Fox-Kemper and Cobb were both authors on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report, a UN report providing “regular assessments of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks and options for adaptation and mitigation,” accord ing to the IPCC website.

Fox-Kemper pointed to climate models to better understand and prepare for future impacts of climate change. He is currently involved in a project modeling sea ice in the Arctic. In the early 20th century, a series of nautical missions to reach the North Pole failed because they were crushed or blocked by sea ice, he added.

Now, “it’d be easy to sail there,” Fox-Kemper said. “Even within our lifetimes, there might be no sea ice in the Arctic or not significant amounts in summertime. And that's a massive change.”

According to Cobb, IBES is currently developing an initiative called Equi table Climate Futures, which aims to connect more than 30 faculty members from across campus in order to devel op and execute “the most ambitious kinds of research” in a “climate solution space,” she said. In particular, the ini tiative will emphasize justice-forward, equitable solutions to minimize risks for marginalized communities that often bear the brunt of the impacts of climate change.

The initiative hopes to contribute

to cross-disciplinary research around climate change and “cross boundar ies” between academia and the private sector, policy and community organi zations, she said.

If successfully funded, the proposed signature initiative would receive about $250,000 a year for three years and would “hopefully” attract external funding in the meantime, Cobb said.

Local and global initiatives

Meteorologists, especially on TV, struggle to communicate the impacts of climate change. “You don’t want to be doom and gloom about it,” Doris said. To touch on the impacts of cli mate change, Channel 10 frequently compares current weather reports to historic patterns. The station is also working on implementing a weekly, five-minute segment breaking down current events in regard to climate, he added.

On a global scale, Brown students have attended programming and initia tives at the 27th Conference of the Par ties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change hosted in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt this year.

At COP27, “countries come together to take action to (achieve) the world’s collective climate goals as agreed under the Paris Agreement and the Conven tion,” according to its website.

The conferences are attended by government officials, negotiators and civil society representatives, including non-governmental organizations, busi nesses, think tanks and philanthropic organizations, said Vice President of Global Intelligence at ClimateWorks Foundation Surabi Menon, who attend ed COP27 as a representative of the non-profit organization.

At the conference, countries an nounce certain initiatives or packag es, which are then discussed at length among participants. Key issues this year include providing funding for loss and damage, limiting global warming to a 1.5 degrees Celsius increase and pre venting deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.

The conference also includes a multitude of other presentations, said

Madeline Canfield ’24, who attended the conference last week with Jewish Youth Climate Movement. But COP27 looked different than what Canfield had expected from watching it in past years, especially at the height of the youth climate movement. For one, there were few protests, in part due to constraints on free speech and assembly in Egypt..

"For some people, I think more of it's more cynical and practical, saying maybe it was a reflection of the desire to both sideline some of these more youth-focused or civilian programs (and) to diminish the quality of con tent that could be shared,” Canfield said.

“This global conference, COP, does happen and should happen,” she said. “But largely, it isn’t so effective. People go as civilians, representatives of NGOs, sometimes companies (and) grassroots organizers to make connections, to am plify conversations. Then conversations are getting less amplified than maybe a couple of years ago.”

Much of the programming Canfield and her organization expected to attend had been “removed from public access,” she said, and the group encountered multiple challenges attending confer ences or events.

Certain dynamics of the conference can be “frustrating” — delegates can discuss the language of agreements for days — but Menon emphasized the importance of global agreement and accountability.

“We're creating this body of (indi viduals in) civil society, data science … (and) advocacy to look at where we are in achieving our temperature goals … and how to translate those gaps into action through the political process,” Menon said.

Climate change “is touching the lives of more and more people,” Cobb said. “More and more people are con cerned about how they're going to stay safe, stay employed (and) thrive in a warming climate future. And they're not willing to sit back and watch nothing happen or very little happen.”

People are “demanding more, and rightfully so,” Cobb said. “We don’t have time to waste.”

Brown, MIT researchers invent new tech for wireless muscle tracking

searchers found that the magnetic beads, which are coated in gold and parylene, could be implanted in humans without causing irritation, inflamma tion or other health problems, Roberts wrote.

BY JAKOBI HASKELL STAFF WRITER

Two research papers published by Brown and MIT researchers last month focus on the possibility of employing improved muscle tracking technology to advance prosthetics.

Magnetomicrometry, the tech nique explored in the papers, involves inserting miniature magnetic beads directly into muscle tissue and using external magnetic sensors attached to the outside of the limb to trian gulate the location of the beads in space, Thomas Roberts, a co-author of the papers and vice chair of the department of ecology and evolution ary biology, wrote in an email to The Herald. The sensor information picked up from the beads is sent wirelessly to a nearby recording device, which uses the location of the beads to measure changes in muscle length in real time, Roberts added.

One of the research papers analyzed the accuracy of magnetic tracking by implanting beads into turkeys and re cording their movements as they ran on a treadmill at various speeds, according to Roberts.

Results from this paper showed that tracking was accurate to measurements smaller than a millimeter, outperform ing existing techniques, according to Ellen Clarrissimeaux, a research sup port associate at MIT and co-author of the paper.

“Magnetic tracking was so accu rate that we can now use it as our ground truth in other experiments,” Clarrissimeaux wrote in an email to The Herald.

The other paper investigated the clinical viability of the implants. Re

While different methodologies for tracking muscle movement have been used in past studies, none of them sup port wireless tracking or can be done outside a lab, according to Mary Kate O’Donnell, a former postdoctoral re searcher in Roberts’s lab and a co-au thor of the second paper.

One such existing methodology to measure muscle length contractions involves inserting sonomicrometry crystals into limb muscle tissue through sound signals. But to achieve high accu racy, the crystals must either have wires attached to them or be near perfectly aligned — a difficult task when working with free-roaming animals, according to O’Donnell.

While the bead tracking has only been implemented in animals so far, a primary goal is to use it for prosthetic limb control for humans with amputa tions, according to Cameron Roy Taylor, project lead of the magnetomicrometry project at MIT and first author of both papers.

“When someone receives an up per-extremity amputation, the surgeon preserves many of the muscles they previously used to move their fingers,” in movements such as drumming their fingers on a table, Taylor wrote in an email to The Herald.

“If we have a way to track the move ments of these residual-limb muscles in real time,” he added, “we can use these muscle motions … to control a robotic hand.”

Moving forward, the researchers plan to seek Food and Drug Admin istration approval for implanting the beads in humans, according to Taylor.

Alok Prakash, a researcher at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Re search-National Physical Laboratory in India, was not involved in the studies

but published a similar paper in Sep tember investigating “Hall myography,” a new magnet-based muscle tracking technique.

Prakash wrote in a message to The Herald that, unlike the research in the Brown-MIT papers, the Hall myography technique is non-invasive. He added that his research specifically targets upper-limb prosthesis and has been trialed on upper-limb amputee subjects successfully.

According to Prakash’s paper, most prosthetic limbs are controlled

with electromyography, also known as EMG, a way of recording electri cal activity from muscles. Although EMG procedures provide informa tion about what the brain is telling the muscle to do, they give no in formation about the muscle’s speed or length, according to previous re search by the MIT group.

Clarrissimeaux said that she sees the ideal prosthetics tracking tech nology as one that combines EMG with magnetomicrometry. If realized, it would allow for “a full picture of

the intended force, length and speed of a muscle … (and) would provide a more complete representation of hu man intent for controlling a prosthetic device.”

Advancement in prosthetics is im portant because it enables people to feel physically and mentally empowered in their body, Clarrissimeaux added. “Prostheses are life-changing devices,” she said, “and the more advanced pros thetic technology becomes, the more independent the user of the device is allowed to be.”

Magnetomicrometry technology could advance prosthetic limb control

COURTESY OF THOMAS ROBERTS While past studies have used different methodologies for tracking muscle movement, none of them support wireless tracking or can be done outside a lab, said Mary Kate O’Donnell, a co-author of one of the papers.

UFB discusses potential ‘fee-free campus’ at open meeting

New campus model

eliminate cost of attendance for student group events

BY SWARAJ AGARWAL SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The Undergraduate Finance Board dis cussed the possibility of implementing a fee-free model for student group events at an open forum Thursday.

On a fee-free campus, undergradu ate students would not have to pay to attend on-campus student group events, according to an email sent by UCS this week to the undergraduate community.

In order to fund a fee-free campus model, UFB plans to approach Univer sity administrators about increasing the semesterly student activities fee, which would raise enough money to cover admission to all on-campus student events for undergraduate students, said UFB Chair Amienne Spencer-Blume ’23.

“UFB is committed to funding on-campus student group events” to help remove a financial barrier to access for students, Spencer-Blume added.

UFB Vice Chair Arjun Krishna Chopra ’25 said that he believes stu dents should not have to pay money to attend on-campus events when they already pay $286 yearly for the student activities fee.

The fee-free campus model would not be implemented immediately, Spencer-Blume said. First, UFB wants student group leaders who support the model to sign a petition in favor of fee-free events. UFB will then ap

proach University administrators about increasing the student activities fee.

Chopra added that Brown’s peer institutions, including Swarthmore College, currently have similar cam pus models. “There are no ‘additional fees’ at Swarthmore,” according to the Swarthmore’s website. Movie nights, laundry and printing services, athletic events and nearly all other activities are included in Swarthmore’s yearly activities fee.

UFB has started reaching out to

student groups about the potential change, Spencer-Blume said. UFB has also already funded over 200 events in its efforts to decrease student costs.

Last spring, UFB funded Spring Weekend attendance for students; the concert previously required attend ees to pay for tickets, Spencer-Blume and Chopra explained. The board also eliminated student attendance costs for all spring Class Coordinating Board events, including Senior Week, which had previously cost students approx

imately $250 in total and made the week financially inaccessible for some students on campus, Spencer-Blume said. UFB has also fully funded all club sports this semester, The Herald pre viously reported.

The meeting then opened up to discussion among community mem bers in attendance, who raised possi ble concerns about the fee-free model. One student speaker said that selling tickets in public campus spaces serves as advertising for the events and that

WINTER WHIMSIES

students are more compelled to attend events when they pay for tickets. Other speakers contested the latter argument, noting that students would attend events regardless of payment.

Aside from discussing the fee-free model, one student at the meeting advocated for free printing services and more printers around campus in general. Spencer-Blume said that UFB plans to discuss the idea of more print ers with University administrators in the future.

would

SWARAJ AGARWAL / HERALD

Undergraduate Finance Board funded Spring Weekend attendance for all students for the first time this spring. Attendees were previously required to pay for tickets. UFB also funded Senior Week, among other activities.

After weeks of warm weather, winter has finally descended on the Northeast. The other night, as we Heralders basked in the heat of 88 Benevolent — the warmth from being packed like sardines — the first signs of the cold season emerged. Globs of snow descended from the sky faster than my spirits when the Taylor Swift Era tour’s presale tickets sold out. Snow then turned to rain, reminding us all of how fleeting life’s moments can be.

JED FOX / HERALD