SINCE 1891
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2021
VOLUME CLVI, ISSUE XXVI
UNIVERSITY NEWS
UNIVERSITY NEWS
The Legend of Professor Josiah Carberry Legacy of enigmatic professor persists on College Hill, lives in lore, archives BY CAELYN PENDER UNIVERSITY NEWS EDITOR On an otherwise average day in 1929, an unusual note appeared on a bulletin board in University Hall. “On Thursday evening at 8:15 in Sayles Hall J. S. Carberry will give a lecture on Archaic Greek Architectural Revetments in Connection with Ionian Philology,” the note read. “For tickets and further information apply to Prof. John Spaeth.” Posted on the board by Spaeth, a professor of classics, the strange notice caught the attention of Brown’s undergraduates and professors. It was soon modified by another professor who inserted the word “not” between “will” and “give” for what he suspected was a hoax. But upon being challenged, Spaeth gave a biography of Josiah Stinkney Carberry, a professor of psychoceramics, or the study of cracked pots — introducing a fictional character that would become an enduring face of campus lore for generations of future Brown students. Spaeth explained that Carberry
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had his “ungrammatical wife Laura, his poetical daughter Patricia, his puffin-hunting daughter Lois and his accident-prone assistant Truman Grayson, who was always being bitten by things that begin with A,” according to the Brown Library. The elusive professor of psychoceramics caught the popular attention of campus. He sent so many “telegrams, letters and postcards” to local publications that he was banned by the Providence Journal. His editorials and ads became commonplace in campus newspapers. Over 250 years, students have passed down a trove of stories, legends and rules from one generation of Brunonians to the next. Professors and administrators have helped to keep these traditions alive, naming buildings after the fictional professor and writing editorials in his name. Many of these legends have a lasting influence on campus today.
$194 million allocated to University’s Fiscal Year 2021 operations budget BY PETER SWOPE SENIOR STAFF WRITER
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across generations of alumni.” Students are introduced to these legends upon arriving on campus. For instance, “The Brown Book,” which is given to first-years during orientation, warns students about the “Holy Trinity of Libraries” and the Pembroke Seal.
SEE JOSIAH PAGE 9 Shared mythology “Urban legends are a way for students to express apprehension about being away from home but (they) also (serve) as a way to connect with other students over this shared Brown mythology,” University Archivist Jennifer Betts wrote in an email to The Herald. “It becomes an important part of the academic tradition, shared
After 51.5% returns, U. endowment at $6.9 billion
Brown’s endowment grew to $6.9 billion for Fiscal Year 2021, the University announced in a press release Thursday. The endowment generated returns of 51.5%, accounting for $2.4 billion in investment gains with an additional $120 million from donations. The University cited strong global market performance for the endowment’s success. Both the total endowment and the returns greatly exceed those of Fiscal Year 2020 when the University saw an endowment of $4.7 billion after 12.1% returns, The Herald previously reported . The gains came over the course of FY21, which began July 1, 2020 and concluded June 30, 2021. The 40.8% growth of the S&P 500 Index, which tracks the market performance of 500 large companies, during FY21 indicates the strong performances of industries across the board. Such a market-wide perfor-
mance is unlikely repeat itself, according to Managing Director of the Investment Office Joshua Kennedy ’97. “This was an extraordinary year in financial markets. Most of the price declines that accompanied the onset of the pandemic actually took place in the prior fiscal year,” he said. “The response to the crisis by governments around the world came in the form of both monetary and fiscal stimulus, which helped push prices higher.” Other universities also saw large growth in FY21. Harvard saw 33.6% returns , Yale saw 40.2% and Penn saw a 41.1% increase. The endowment contributed $194 million to the University’s operating budget for FY21, representing approximately 15% of the total operating budget — an average of roughly $19,000 per student. The exact percentage of the endowment that goes into the University’s operating budget represents between 4.5% and 5.5% of the overall endowment, Kennedy explained in an email to The Herald. The payout is determined by the Corporation — the University’s highest governing body. “The Corporation considers a balance between current needs and
SEE ENDOWMENT PAGE 9
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Is it Greg or New Dorm?
Exploring the Hay’s Special Collections
Students say pandemic disrupted campus culture, traditions, lingo
Curators aim to increase relevance of collections, address problematic past
BY KATY PICKENS SENIOR STAFF WRITER Asking students on campus what nickname they prefer for the building on Vartan Gregorian Quadrangle will yield two answers. Some — the youngsters — call it “Greg.” Their older counterparts, on the other hand, say “New Dorm.” And there’s no love lost between these two camps. “It’s Greg. I don’t know why people are saying New Dorm, it makes me so mad,” said Ruhma Khawaja ’24. But for Hiro Cho ’23, calling the quad “Greg” is an “abomination.” Virtual learning during the pandemic prevented the Class of 2024 from discovering that Vartan Gregorian Quad has long been known as “New Dorm.” In the spring of 2020, the then first-years — insulated from the rest of the Brown community — created
new slang to refer to the dormitory. Now, to several students, the New Dorm-Greg divide is emblematic of a cultural dissonance between students who began attending Brown before the pandemic began and during it. As students adjust to life on campus after over a year online, several class years have yet to experience some of the quintessential Brown traditions, such as Spring Weekend and the Naked Doughnut Run. And many upperclassmen are returning to a campus culture they say feels slightly different from what they remember. Selena Sheth ’24 said that she felt the sophomore class still hasn’t bridged the divide with other years. “I feel connected to Brown’s culture, but then there’s also a disconnect between us and the other class years,” she said. Sheth feels that the Class of 2024 was slightly more insulated compared to other class years, demonstrated by their use of the nickname “Greg” to describe Vartan Gregorian Quad. Firstyears “kind of got their own experi-
BY JASPER YEH SENIOR STAFF WRITER The John Hay Library, a looming marble building that sits across from the Van Wickle Gates, evokes a sense of mystery and distance. Apart from the occasional study session in the Willis Reading Room, many students have not visited the stacks and exhibitions that contain the library’s extensive collections. While the Hay stacks contain volumes that seem obscure, esoteric or even mystifying, recent curation efforts aim to create a set of collections more relevant to today’s University community. Built in 1910, the Hay is the second oldest library at the University and was the main campus library until the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library opened across the street in 1964. Upon the request of Andrew Carnegie, who contributed half
of the $300,000 used to construct the building, the library was named after John Hay 1858, former U.S. Secretary of State. Today, the Hay houses the University’s special collections and is closed-stack, meaning that items are non-circulating and can only be viewed on site. According to the website of the Brown University Library, the Hay contains 1.5 million archival files and records, one million manuscripts, half a million pieces of sheet music, 400,000 monographs and more. One well-known component of the special collections is a set of four anthropodermic books bound in human skin. One of these books, “On the Fabric of the Human Body” by Belgian surgeon Andreas Versalius is an anatomy text, like many other anthropodermic books. Laura Hartman, rare-book cataloger at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland, hypothesized in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that physicians often bound their book in human skin to honor these individuals who contributed to the medical field. Two others are copies of The Dance of
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The John Hay Library will modernize its offerings catalog. Death, originally published in 1538. While items like these draw attention from the student population, librarians say that other lesser-known collections are equally unique and valuable. The Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection is a large collection of paintings, books, photos, sheet music and miniature soldiers that was donated to the Hay in 1982 by Anne Seddon Kinsolving Brown. According to Peter Harrington, curator of the military collection, Brown developed an interest in military uniforms
SEE TRADITIONS PAGE 8
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Metro
Sports
Commentary
Lotus Pepper food truck brings authentic Vietnamese cuisine to College Hill. Page 3
Dean Jha and Moderna CEO discuss their journies and innovation. Page 3
Editorial Page Board: U. must address Brown Dining issues, commit to change. Page 5
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