Friday, September 30, 2022

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

UNIVERSITY NEWS

UCS members express concern with changes

6 of 200 students placed in gender-inclusive housing

BY KATHY WANG SENIOR STAFF WRITER

After the initial results of last year’s spring elections were repealed and a run-off election was held, the Universi ty’s Undergraduate Council of Students continues to face challenges with inter nal changes and debates.

Executive board members have voiced concerns about the council’s internal management, including the elimination of the general body and the implementation of town halls, the failure to establish a Student Govern ment Ethics and Accountability Board and a possible violation of the UCS Constitution.

Removal of general body

Christopher Vanderpool ’24, a mem ber of the UCS Equity and Inclusion Committee and a member of the UCS general body for the past two years, received his first UCS communication

METRO

Mayor-elect on student zoning

Brett Smiley answers questions, discusses zoning regulations at Ward 1 meeting

BY KATY PICKENS METRO EDITOR

Brett Smiley, the next mayor of Prov idence, spoke with about 60 residents of Ward 1 in a community Zoom call Wednesday evening.

He answered questions ranging from flooding infrastructure in Providence to rent control. Smiley also said he was looking forward to working with his for mer opponents Nirva LaFortune MA’19, Ward 3 Providence city councilwoman, and Gonzalo Cuervo, former deputy sec retary of state and former chief of staff to R.I. Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea.

Since there are no Republican or In dependent candidates running for may or, Smiley has already won the race and won’t be on the ballot come election day.

Smiley — a resident of Ward 1 him self — discussed his support of a zoning provision which would restrict the num

of the academic year Sept. 6, along with the entire student body. In this email, UCS announced that the council would be hosting town hall meetings on Wednesdays — which was when the general body meetings were held last semester.

This transition from general body meetings to town halls — which essen

UNIVERSITY NEWS

tially removes general body members from UCS — was first proposed by UCS President Ricky Zhong ’23 and Vice President Mina Sarmas ’24 during an executive board gathering shortly after last spring’s election results settled, said Daniel Newgarden ’25, UCS Chair

U. switched rooms upon request for students with incorrect placements

BY NEIL MEHTA SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Only six out of approximately 200 stu dents who indicated their preference for gender inclusive housing were initially assigned to it, according to several firstyear students who requested gender in clusive housing for the 2022-2023 year.

Students who were placed in incor rect housing assignments were emailed by the Office of Residential Life Aug. 18.

The email, written by Brenda Ice, senior associate dean and senior director of residential life and sent to The Herald by Kate Porter, associate director of communications and outreach, asked students who wished to be assigned different housing to fill out a room change form or set up a meeting with staff from ResLife.

into gender-inclusive housing were not matched accordingly,” Ice wrote in the email.

The Office of Residential Life “strive(s) to prioritize your wellbeing, including gender identity and inclusivi ty,” Ice continued. “I apologize that this caused concern.”

The new room change form had a deadline of Aug. 25, according to the email.

In an email to The Herald, Ice wrote that “we are happy to share that by the end of the placement process, all students who requested support were given it” with regard to gender inclusive housing.

“We are continually working to im prove our processes, in partnership with the LGBTQ Center staff, to provide the best experience for all students,” she continued.

First-year housing assignments are made based on the results of the New Student Housing Questionnaire. The form, completed by all incoming un dergraduates living on campus, gathers information about living habits and

2

“A number of students who opted

Zachariah Bolster GS remembered as adventurous, kind

ular meeting place for discussing code, and it stuck with me.”

BY MAISIE NEWBURY SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Zachariah “Zach” Bolster Sc.M’23, a graduate student in cybersecurity, died in an accident on Aug. 27. A native of Cedar City, Utah, Zach is remembered fondly by his family and friends for his love of adventure and excitement for life.

“Our amazing son enjoyed the out doors and extreme sports including sky diving, speed wing flying, scuba diving, dirt bikes, backcountry snowboarding and triathlons,” Zach’s mother, Sha ron Bolster, wrote in an email to The Herald.

Zach stood out as a curious, out going student with a deep apprecia tion for nature, said Bernardo Palazzi, director of graduate studies for the Master of Science in Cybersecurity program.

“Zach was always coming to class from some remote areas in the open air with trees,” Palazzi recalled, standing out from the indoor Zoom backgrounds of other students. “It was a very partic

“The cybersecurity program was fortunate to have Zach as a student,” said Ernesto Zaldivar, director of the Master of Science in Cybersecurity program. “He was so energetic and kind. Our community will miss him greatly.”

The Master of Science in Cyberse curity Program is a fully online degree program, so many of Zach’s professors and peers never met him in person, said Timothy Edgar, the program’s ac ademic director for law and policy. Still, Zach’s loss has been felt throughout the program.

“I didn’t have the opportunity to meet Zach in person, but I still felt like I got to know him,” Edgar said. “He was an outstanding individual with a very bright future.”

“We are extremely grateful for the outpouring of love from the Brown faculty and staff,” Sharon Bolster wrote.

At the time of his death, Zach had been certified in information systems security and was employed as the divi sion manager for information systems and cybersecurity operations for the city of Lakewood, Colorado, Sharon Bolster wrote.

Prior to this, Zach served in the Navy for eight years, completing four regular deployments and four deploy ments by the Executive Orders for Naval Special Warfare Development Group, she added.

Zach was an IT1 specialist for Seal Team Six and a decorated combat war veteran. He received an Achievement Medal and Joint Service Commenda tion Medals for combat, Sharon Bolster noted.

Zach “found joy” through his Navy service, meeting his girlfriend of two years during his tenure.

At the University, Zach began on the computer science track of his master program but switched to the policy track after developing a strong interest in the

policy implications of code, Palazzi said.

Both Edgar and Palazzi described Zach as positive and supportive in class. “For him, it wasn’t about show ing how smart (he was) but helping (everyone) learn,” Edgar said. “That’s something I always look for in stu dents.”

Zach’s life was an impactful one, Edgar said. He made a big difference through his military service, his inter actions with fellow students and the ideas he presented to professors.

“Whether our lives are long or short, the important thing is that we have a positive impact,” he added. “Zach contributed, in the time he was with us, to his classmates, the class itself and to me.”

“Zach was very creative,” Palazzi said, adding that Zach was always able to offer a unique, original point of view on the topics they discussed in class. “Maybe it was because he was used to discussing in all that clean air.”

Brown Athletics launches ‘Hype Squad’ to promote home games

E-board members skeptical of possible constitution violations, removal of general body

ASHLEY CHOI / HERALD

Family, friends reflect on Zach’s military service in Navy, academic creativity at Brown

“Zach was always coming to class from some remote areas in the open air with trees. It was a very particular meeting place for discussing code, and it stuck with me.”

of Academic Affairs.

Zhong said that the removal of the general body is also “a concerted ef fort (to) align ourselves and be more cooperative with the other branches of (the Student Government Association).”

In order to be involved in the Under graduate Finance Board and the Class Coordinating Board, a student also has to be an elected member, he said.

“We discussed it amongst the chairs first (at) an informal level,” Zhong said. “Then, at the start of the fall … once we had all the appointed members as well, (we had) a formal vote to … get rid of the (general body) terminology.”

But some e-board members said that they were informed of this change after the decision was made.

“It kind of happened with no dis cussion,” Newgarden said.

Newgarden added that e-board mem bers met Sept. 4 to discuss the revised UCS Code of Operations — which they didn’t collectively review until then — and it passed in a unanimous vote.

“Everyone was just making small changes for their office,” he said. “I don’t think a lot of people read it very closely, myself included.”

Newgarden said that many e-board members were not aware at the time of the Code of Operations vote that its passage would result in removing the general body. He said he feels that the transition from general body meetings to town halls was “never formally ap proved” by the e-board because they were not explicitly told what they were voting on.

Newgarden feels like Zhong and Sarmas gave him and other e-board members the impression that removing the general body was a settled matter and “established by an implicit assump tion,” he said. Zhong and Sarmas, he continued, did not communicate the specifics of its removal to the rest of the e-board.

“There was a discussion within (the executive board) about the elimina tion of (general body) meetings, both during the spring and during the end of summer,” Zhong wrote in an email to The Herald. He added that the e-board was informed about the elimination of general body meetings, and that “the general body exists and is essentially just the (e-board) – the language is interchangeable there.”

Zhong said that, in their decision, he and Sarmas referred to the previ ous version of the Code of Operations, “which essentially gives (them) power to get rid of (the general body)” with an e-board vote.

Ana Boyd ’24, UCS chair of equity and inclusion, pointed out that the new Code of Operations fails to reflect the council’s removal of the general body. There is no explicit statement establish ing town halls, and as of Sept. 29, the

term “general body” is still mentioned 14 times in the document, she said.

“On one hand, (Zhong) was basically operating and saying that because we’ve changed the Code of Operations, there is no general body,” Boyd said. “But the Code of Operations that we voted on doesn’t reflect that.”

Zhong wrote that the constitution does not need language explicitly re moving a body. “General body just refers to the (e-board) members now,” he add ed. “We no longer stipulate how people become general body members or even what exactly a general body member is.”

He added that they would “be happy to make further clarifying changes to the Code of Operations if that’s the issue.”

With the removal of the general body, Vanderpool has found it difficult to position himself within UCS, he said.

“I don’t want to say I’m a former general body member when I’m still trying to stay involved in UCS,” he add ed. “But it doesn’t really make a lot of sense if I say I’m a member of the UCS Equity and Inclusion Committee, because then folks are like, ‘well, what does that mean?’”

History of general body, coming of a “new” UCS

In previous years, general body members would participate in gener al body meeting discussions, propose pieces of legislation, ask questions to e-board members and guest speakers, provide feedback and vote on legisla tion and internal elections, Vanderpool explained.

Rights like “voting, having a voice, being able to talk about (legislation) — those really aren’t options for us anymore,” Vanderpool said.

He added that since UCS serves as a bridge between students and University administration, the general body helps provide “suggestions for the conversa tions that occur between elected stu dent leaders and administrative leaders of the University.” Vanderpool also said that the general body serves as a check on the e-board.

Towards the end of last year, Zhong noticed that there were barely any general body members attending the Wednesday meetings, noting that it spoke to the “barrier to entry and par ticipation within UCS.”

Zhong said that student feedback showed that general body meetings were too focused on “resolution and bureaucracy” and attendees felt they “weren’t directly involved in a conver sation” with the council.

“UCS should not be an institution that is drowning in its own bureaucra cy,” Zhong said. “The purest form of representation of the student body is through the spring elections.”

The council’s voting member logs, which were reviewed by The Herald, show that UCS had 41 general body

members last year and 27 the year be fore. Vanderpool said that in 2020, the Wednesday general body meetings had a “very consistent group of about 40 people” and last year’s “came to about 15 to 20 people.”

“It seems like the appetite to come to a Wednesday meeting has really died,” said Joon Nam ’23, UCS elections co-director who has served on UCS for the past three years.

Nam added that in 2019, one of UCS’s “biggest concerns” was increasing the number of general body members and generating interest in UCS among the student body. “When everything became remote (in 2020), I think inter est even within (the) e-board died a lot just because of … the difficulties (of) having to have virtual rules.”

The result was a “pretty new group of UCS” members, Nam said.

He pointed out that UCS has gone through many internal structural changes in the past few years and that COVID-19 marked a shift in which old members became less involved, which resulted in a loss of institutional knowledge.

“We have a situation where there’s a lot of internal inefficiencies going on because everyone’s new to their posi tion in UCS,” Nam said.

Over the past few years, the coun cil has moved away from submitting legislation and having students voting on referendums toward turning to the University administration for assistance when student issues arise, Boyd said. Such a shift “inhibits the ability of the general body to function in the way that it did once before.”

“We’ve built a stronger relation ship with admin, but it’s hurting our relationship with students,” she said. “We’re not directly responding to stu dent concerns; (instead, we are) turn ing to admin to offer solutions, which oftentimes are not in line with what students might want.”

Boyd added that in the past few weeks, she has received “general con cerns about the direction that UCS is going in” from fellow students.

New town hall format

Zhong explained that the idea of a town hall is “that it’s open to the com munity, and anybody can come in (and) voice their opinions.”

He added that even though general body meetings were open to the public, a divide existed between students who were general body members and those who were not. The new format, Zhong said, “makes things more comfortable.”

He pointed out that the council’s first town hall had “significantly higher attendance” than most of their general body meetings last year.

The second town hall, which was focused on academic affairs, had a smaller turnout. “The sentiment was that a town hall would somehow be more accessible to people, but the only

people at (the second meeting) were just UCS people,” Newgarden said.

Newgarden added that the town halls establish a “barrier” that diminish es the importance of the participants. In town halls, attendees see themselves as outsiders, whereas for general body members, “when you’re there, you’re part of UCS,” he said.

Boyd said that the town halls are “ineffective in responding to student concerns,” as the meeting agendas are controlled by UCS as opposed to the former process during general body meetings where students were able to sign up to present to the council.

Zhong said he believes that the town hall format is a way for UCS to gather student feedback. “The chan nels through which we solicit feedback (are) our electoral process (and) our town halls.”

Ethics and Accountability Board

The Student Government Ethics and Accountability Board was proposed in winter 2021 and passed as a referendum with 90.18% of the vote in the spring 2021 elections, The Herald previously reported.

The board “is rooted in transforma tive justice, and (is) a way of mediating conflict inside student government or ganizations, between student govern ment organizations and others,” said Vanderpool, who helped compose the board’s official document in 2021.

But it was not implemented last year, Boyd said. She added that students on her committee have been told by Zhong that it is not a top priority this year.

“I mentioned it would likely not be a top priority in the immediate context of what SGA was already working on, which included elections, establishing some kind of document for SGA and trying to bridge the gap between the different branches and administration,” Zhong wrote.

He said that the implementation of the board will be led by Vanderpool this year, even though he does not have an official position on the UCS e-board, and that “the goal is to make a lot of progress by spring semester.”

According to Vanderpool, for the runoff elections that occured last spring, “where there was a lot of am biguity between what rules apply to the election,” the board would have been in charge of reviewing and ensuring that the elections were in line with the constitution.

Structural changes and the consti tution

A referendum that called to add a transparency amendment to the UCS constitution passed with 97.3% of the vote in the spring 2021 elections, The Herald previously reported.

This amendment is currently in the UCS constitution and requires the council to “publicize all appropriate meetings (including) times, locations,

agendas, votes, notes, recordings and minutes, except when explicitly barred by organizational bylaws or closed ses sion,” according to its text.

Zhong said that the e-board “agreed very early on that all (e-board meetings) would be closed sessions this year.” Boyd said that, to her knowledge, there has not been a vote by the e-board to declare their meetings closed sessions.

Publicizing executive board meet ings “is something we simply haven’t done … for three to four years (as far as I am aware), … so we’ll either try to get rid of this old language (in the constitu tion) as soon as possible or — depending on what (the executive board) thinks — maybe just vote once for the entire year,” Zhong wrote.

According to Boyd, UCS has also gotten rid of the cabinet — positions appointed by the president and vice president — and made every cabinet member an officer of the e-board.

“The problem (with) the cabinet sys tem was that it was just horrible labor management … in the sense that (the cabinet members) would feel exploited,” Zhong said.

Boyd pointed out that the UCS constitution states under Article XII that “all undergraduates have the right to vote in all elections for the coun cil,” meaning that cabinet positions should be elected by the student body, not appointed. As such, she continued, the newly elected chair of campus life should not have been elected internally.

“This is just another instance in which we need the Student Govern ment Ethics and Accountability Board to facilitate … now that (we) would have to create reversal legislation to reverse things that were unanimously voted on,” she said.

“Filling a vacancy does not have to be done through an election; neither does an appointment,” Zhong wrote. “If the constitution said all undergrad uates have the right to vote upon every position within the executive board, then that would be an issue, but this language only stipulates that gener al elections, when we do host them, are open to the entire undergraduate population.”

Zhong added that the internal elec tion for the chair of campus life does not violate the constitution because it is not an election for the council.

Zhong said students would be over whelmed by candidates to vote on if all UCS positions were elected in schoolwide elections.

“No one ever brought these up ear lier as issues they wanted to address and I’m disappointed they weren’t dis cussed internally first,” Zhong wrote. “We’re also very much looking forward to working with the commenters … to figure out a collaborative, communica tive framework that makes them com fortable bringing things up in person in the future.”

ber of students that could live together in a single-family home to three.

Several residents of Arnold Street were on the call to voice their concerns about increasing numbers of students moving on to their block, with one resi dent explaining how “single-family hous es (are) being bought by developers and then stuffed with up to eight students.”

On Saturday, Sept. 24, there were several large, loud parties on the street, residents said, prompting some to ask if there was any zoning regulation that could prevent a large number of stu dents from living together.

“Just like students in Brown residence

halls, students who receive permission to live off-campus are required to abide by Brown’s Code of Student Conduct,” wrote University Spokesperson Brian Clark in an email to The Herald.

“I live on Hope Street, and the ex pansion of students into single-family homes is seriously degrading the quality of life in our neighborhoods,” Smiley said.

Smiley added that he supports address ing this issue through zoning, which would prevent more than three unrelated people from living in one single-family home.

“I do support the expansion of the policies for unrelated parties,” Smiley said. “I look forward to working with the council on that as a preventative measure” around off-campus student behavior.

One attendee wrote in the Zoom chat that “banning unrelated people from liv ing together is deeply concerning to me. The only way I’ve been able to a fford liv ing in Providence has been by living with others, under one roof, in community.”

“If students acting up is a concern, please address that directly. Banning any unrelated people who want to live together from doing so impacts basic freedom and will exacerbate the hous ing crisis,” the attendee continued.

In June, Helen Anthony, Ward 2 Providence city councilwoman, intro duced a zoning amendment that would specifically place the regulation on col lege students — rather than any unre lated people living together — in more

residential zones throughout the city.

At present, the Providence Zoning Ordinance states that a household, or those who are eligible to live in a sin gle-family home, can be either a family or “a person or group of not more than three unrelated persons living together.”

In 2021, the Rhode Island Supreme Court affirmed that regulation specifical ly targeted towards students was legal.

“Currently, no more than three col lege students are permitted to occupy a single-family house in the … single-fam ily zones,” according to the proposal.

“The amendment would expand this restriction” to areas zoned as two-family, three-family and multi-family zones.”

“As these institutions continue to

grow, they need to house people, and I know this is impacting our neigh borhood,” Smiley said. “I would much rather see them on campus with campus supervision than continuing to spill into homes and, in some cases, degrading the quality of historic homes in historic neighborhoods.”

“We have no objection to enforce ment of a city ordinance that’s already law,” Clark wrote.

“We’re doing the due diligence on this particular ordinance and thinking about what zones it’s going to extend to,” said John Goncalves ’13 MA’15, Ward 1 city councilman. He added that the Provi dence City Council would address the amendment in the coming months.

Mezcla offers space for Latinx students, other students of color

Dance group celebrates identity, shares culture with University community

BY ANIYAH NELSON SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Valerie Villegas ’25 didn’t dance before she came to Brown. With the exception of informal dances with her family as a child, it was never something that she did consistently — until she arrived on campus and participated in the Third World Transition Program, Brown’s pre-orientation program geared toward students of color.

During the TWTP dance social events, “I really put myself out there and danced for fun,” Villegas said. “One of the company directors for Mezcla was involved in TWTP, and she stopped me and (said), ‘You need to audition.’”

Although she did not have any for mal dance training, Villegas decided to give it a try. Looking back now, she’s glad she did.

“My biggest Latinx community on campus is from Mezcla, and it’s fun ny because we are not a strictly Lat inx-identifying group,” Villegas said. “We are a mix of a bunch of cultures and backgrounds, but our main goal is to celebrate and make our culture more accessible to other people … I feel extremely supported,” she added.

Mezcla, a Spanish term which translates to “mix” in English, current ly serves as Brown and Rhode Island School of Design’s only Latin-fusion dance troupe. The club’s origins date back to the 1990s, when it was founded by Elizabeth Garcia ’94.

Garcia, who is currently an ethnic studies professor at the University of Colorado Denver, recalled feeling iso

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other preferences to inform roommate pairings and includes an option for in terest in gender inclusive housing.

“By default, Brown places most first-year students into rooms with a roommate or roommates of the same legal sex,” according to the Office of Residential Life website. Gender inclu sive housing “is intended primarily for students whose gender identity and/or legal sex do not allow them to be com fortable with a traditional roommate assignment (including but not limited to students who identify as transgender, genderqueer, etc.).”

Upon receiving their assignments Aug. 11, several students who elected to participate in gender inclusive housing realized that many of them were not given housing that met this preference.

The Herald spoke to five students who requested gender inclusive hous ing about their experiences navigating their assignments and meetings with University resources.

Pei-Jun Huang ’26, one of six stu dents who was originally assigned gender inclusive housing, first learned about the situation of their peers in a group chat for transgender, gender queer and other non-cisgender firstyear students at Brown.

Multiple group chat members who opted into gender inclusive housing shared that their roommates did not opt in, Huang said.

“People started texting (each other),

lated as a Latinx student during her time at Brown.

“30 years ago, Brown was a very different place than it is now. There weren’t a lot of students of color, (spe cifically) Latinx students,” she said.

“Dancing was my way of relieving stress, of being able to deal with the everyday (life) of being a (student) of color at Brown.”

Given the University’s lack of a cul tural performance organization at the time, Garcia made the decision to create Mezcla, a small dance group that began with just her and her friends.

“I felt like we needed a place where we could very loudly say and express that we were proud of who we were and our culture, and I think that’s what Mezcla was able to do,” Garcia said. “I think that’s why it has survived for so many years.”

For Shantal Hernandez ’23, one of Mezcla’s co-directors, Mezcla helped her embrace a culture that she previ ously tried to hide.

“I moved to the U.S. from Mex ico, and (lived) in a predominantly white city in the middle of Iowa. I stood out a lot,” she explained. “I tried to get rid of my background and assimilate as much as possible, and I became really ashamed of my culture … because it wasn’t something that was welcomed or something that I ever saw.”

During her first year at Brown, Hernandez described experiencing an epiphany, realizing that her cul ture was not only beautiful, but also something that she should share with the world.

“The pride shown toward the Latinx community made me want to embrace my culture, my heritage and my histo ry,” she said. “Mezcla was an incredible space to develop my own identity … it made a huge difference to have that

saying, ‘Hey, did anyone else not get put into gender inclusive housing?” said Talia Yett ’26, another member of the group chat who opted for gender inclusive housing in the original form. Yett was not placed in their preferred housing.

“People were saying, ‘I’m in a room with two cis females and I’m trans masc,’ or things like that,” Yett added. “That’s when it came to light for most of us that only a couple of people ac tually got put into gender inclusive housing.”

Huang had already reached out to the LGBTQ Center to discuss their con cerns about how the University assigns housing for transgender students, he said. They later contacted the center with about ten other first-years seeking to talk through their experiences with the gender inclusive housing assign ment process.

Three attendees of the Aug. 22 meeting — Huang, Cassius Hall ’26 and Malcolm Certain ’26 — said to The Herald that in the meeting, they were told that six students were placed into gender inclusive housing, while approximately 200 students who requested gender inclusive housing were not placed in it and had been sent a form to request a roommate switch.

Multiple administrators from ResLife and the LGBTQ Center did not respond to requests to confirm the number of students initially placed in gender inclusive housing.

group of people there because I feel like today, I have a much better sense of who I am.”

For Nia Callender ’23, Mezcla’s other co-director, that feeling of pride in the dance group was evident as soon as she walked in to audition.

“It was kind of surreal,” she said. “The minute I stepped into the room, it was so positive. You could just tell there was so much love and so much passion for dancing.”

In addition to helping members explore their sense of self, Callender added that Mezcla also provides an op portunity for the broader community to engage with a culture they may not otherwise be familiar with.

“We have the privilege (of) sharing (our work) with the Brown community and hosting public workshops. We’re forcing, in the best way possible, Latinx culture (throughout) Brown,” Callender said. “Nobody can ignore us (or) deny that we’re here, we’re dancing, we’re celebrating, and we’re having an amaz ing time doing it.”

“I think that (performances) make Brown a better place for all cultural groups who perform,” she added.

While the group was created for Lat inx students, Hernandez described the current diversity of the group as “beau tiful,” citing the inclusion of individu als from Latin American countries, the Latinx diaspora and those that are not Latinx but love the Latinx community.

Callender and Hernandez added that this diversity is not only evident within the group, but among their audiences as well.

“There are two beautiful things that happen at the same time. You have people in our audience who are finally seeing something on campus that they haven’t been able to see before: their culture represented,” Callender said. “We (also) have people who (say) ‘I’ve

never seen that before. You should be performing everywhere.’ Both of those pieces of feedback are great to receive.”

“Our first year, after the show, I had people that were Latinx come up to me and say that so many Latinx students cried during the show because they felt so emotionally connected and uplifted by it,” Hernandez said. “Then, a white friend of mine, who has no connection to the Latinx community, said that it was the ‘purest form of art’ that he’d ever seen.”

“To recognize these non-Western styles of dance as art is really import ant,” Hernandez added.

For Garcia, the attention that Mez cla receives continues to surprise her. In Mezcla’s initial years, the attention that the group got was substantially different.

“We didn’t get any attention at all … the students of color were in visible to the mainstream campus … we existed separately,” Garcia said.

“It still blows my mind when every few years, I get contacted by someone from Mezcla … I never set out to cre ate an organization that was (going to) outlast me.”

When describing the group’s grow

ing popularity and influence, Callender looked toward the influential figures of the past.

“We’re now in a position where we are being recognized as a very power ful dance group on campus,” Callender said. “Our show gets sold out … because so many people want to come … that is (reflective) of all of the (generations) before us who have put in so much work to put the name out there.”

As far as the future of Mezcla goes, Hernandez and Callender are both con fident that the group will continue to thrive after they are gone.

“I see a lot of hope,” Callender be gan. “We have a group of really enthu siastic, very passionate people, and I have no doubt in my mind that we’re going to keep growing.”

While Garcia expressed her belief that there will always be people who don’t want to see students of color thrive, she also had hope for the future of the group.

“The climate and the community at Brown has changed since I was there,” she said. “As long as students are will ing to participate and uphold spaces like Mezcla, then there is reason to be hopeful.”

“The LGBTQ Center was very help ful and very receptive,” Certain said. “They gave us all of the most current information on what ResLife was doing directly.”

Following the meeting, attendees relayed information to other affected students, they said.

“We were all just freaking out be cause obviously it’s a privacy issue (and) it’s a safety issue,” Owen Blair ’26 said.

Yett’s housing assignment result ed in living complications even after their arrival on campus. Yett said they weren’t assigned gender inclusive housing but did not request a room

change because they were placed in a single room. A few days after arriving at Brown, Yett learned that they were placed on a single-sex floor.

“As someone who is genderqueer, who chose gender inclusive housing, I’m now instead on a floor housing only women,” Yett continued. “It’s some thing that I’m very uncomfortable with. It’s something that I should not have to deal with.”

As of Sept. 29, Yett has not applied for a room change. “I considered chang ing but am already overwhelmed being a first-year,” Yett wrote in an email to The Herald.

Certain said that because housing assignments are based on legal sex by default, non-cisgender students have to opt into housing that is comfortable for them instead of being able to access it by default. “A lot of trans and non-bi nary students have to get into gender inclusive housing, … or they’re going to get accomodations that will end up being pretty unsafe or uncomfortable for them,” Certain added.

Caitlin O’Neill, senior assistant di rector of the LGBTQ Center, directed requests for comment to Porter. Kelly Garrett, director of the LGBTQ center, could not be reached for comment.

DANA RICHIE / HERALD

Gender inclusive housing “is intended primarily for students whose gender identity and/or legal sex do not allow them to be comfortable with a traditional roommate assignment,” according to the ResLife website.

COURTESY OF NIA CALLENDER

“It was kind of surreal,” Nia Callender ’23 said. “The minute I stepped into the room, it was so positive.”

Peng

I am giving you $70.

Psychic numbing

I am also presenting you with a charity re quest letter from Save the Children. You now have an opportunity to donate any of your justearned $70 to Rokia, a starving seven-year-old girl. Your donation will go towards providing Rokia with food, education and basic medical care.

How much of the $70, if any, would you choose to donate? How much of a difference do you think your donation could make to Rokia’s life?

Note that answer in your head.

Let’s say instead of presenting you with Rokia’s situation, I told you about one million children suffering from a country-wide famine. Your donation will go towards funding a food bank for those one million children.

Would your donation amount change based on this alternate scenario? Most likely, it would, and this is due to a human condition called psy chic numbing. Psychic numbing is the detach ment and emotional shut-off we feel in the face of mass tragedies. After overexposure to trau matic events, our brains use psychic numbing as a coping mechanism to trick ourselves into accepting these events as normal. This is why when journalists frame global issues around a growing number of deaths, they drive people closer toward apathy, not action. In order to en gage with issues that deal with such a massive scale, we need to, paradoxically, focus on the miniscule.

Dr. Paul Slovic has studied the intersections of emotion and decision-making for decades. In one of his studies, Slovic’s team presented 107 Swedish undergraduate students with Rokia’s situation. Each student was given kr70 — kr, or krona, is the Swedish currency — and shown eight separate images of one, two or eight chil dren. They were then asked how much money they would be willing to donate, as well as how much impact they felt their donation would make.

A logical conclusion to Slovic’s study would

be for donations to increase as victim numbers grow. After all, there are more starving children on the line. However, Slovic found the opposite to be true: Students donated less when they were presented with eight victims compared to one. In addition, as the number of victims increased, researchers recorded a significant decrease of activity in the zygomaticus major

it is impossible for the human mind to quan tify so many people. Often, we are unable to grasp the full magnitude of how many lives are at stake.

Even if we do manage to overcome this numbness, the magnitude of the tragedy and its victims can cause us to experience a false sense of inefficacy, the feeling that what

to empathize

bers with more and more digits comes natural ly to me. The higher that number is, surely the more people will care. However, while search ing for a source that captures the enormous death toll of COVID-19, I ended up distract ing myself from the actual tragedy at hand. Reading article titles that stressed one million COVID-19 deaths in 2022 and 14.9 million ex cess deaths, I felt … nothing. I didn’t feel sad, upset or mad; I felt an empty, paralyzing indif ference.

muscle, a facial muscle associated with feel ings of empathy and compassion. As the vic tim count went up, the participants began to lose empathy for each additional victim. “There is no constant value for a human life,” Slovic said in a Vox interview. “The value of a single life diminishes against the backdrop of a larger tragedy.”

Lost among provocative headlines that seem to vie for the highest death count, we stopped caring about issues that impact human lives. Our apathy towards large numbers of people dying is the essence of psychic numbing. The first time a tragic event occurs, we are natural ly concerned. The more it happens, however, the more detached we become. This numbing response leads to a loss of sensitivity when it comes to larger and larger victim counts. Num bers such as tens of thousands, millions and even billions become merely abstract statistics;

ever we do to help would not make a differ ence. Think back to Rokia’s plea for help. It was much easier to feel like you can improve Rokia’s living conditions when she was pre sented as just one person. Depending on where she lives in the world, your $70 has the po tential to feed her for months and pay for her schooling. On the other hand, when it came to helping a million children, your $70 donation felt like slapping a Band-Aid on a bullet wound — too futile to stop the bleed. This feeling is heightened by the fact that your money can only address a very small portion of the prob lem. Hearing that “one million children” are at stake emphasizes your powerlessness to end world hunger. You may think, “So what if I do nate the $70? Nothing will change.”

Psychic numbing is an issue close to my heart. Whenever I write papers to demonstrate the gravity of a subject, cherry-picking num

I try to fight my apathy by learning to rec ognize this feeling — or the lack thereof — and guarding against this false sense of inefficacy. Slovic said in his interview, “Even partial solu tions save whole lives.” It is important to re member that, whatever little I can contribute in comparison to the grand scheme of things, it helps. By focusing on personal stories from one identifiable victim over abstract descriptions of the scale of abuses — putting stories over statistics — I find it much easier to empathize. However, when personalizing crises, we must also be careful not to exploit the victims whose stories are used. Ensuring people’s experiences are shared consensually, learning from resourc es created by marginalized groups and fighting stereotypes are all ways to engage audiences while practicing ethical storytelling.

Humans need stories to connect with each other on a personal level; only when we under stand the pain and misery of others do we take action. Otherwise, their suffering is too distant, too out of reach to comprehend. By prioritizing personal stories over illustrating scale through impersonal statistics, we can prevent the numb ing cycle from continuing in news agencies, charities and academia.

Christina Peng ’26 can be reached at christi na_peng@brown.edu. Please send respons es to this opinion to letters@browndaily herald.com and other op-eds to opinions@ browndailyherald.com.

CALENDAR

TODAY’S EVENTS

Struggling for Reproductive Rights 12:00 p.m. Zoom

The Convergence of Rock Climb ing and Physics 5:00 p.m. Salomon Center

TOMORROW’S EVENTS

Women’s Rugby vs. Mount St. Mary’s 11:00 a.m. Marvel Field

Women’s Soccer vs. Columbia 3:00 p.m. Stevenson-Pincince Field

Writing the Anthropocene from the Indian Himalaya 2:00 p.m. Watson Institute Affairs

Holly Shaffer Book Launch 5:30 p.m. McKinney Conference Room 353

2022 Brown Undergraduate MathFest 11:30 a.m. Kassar House

Cabo Verdean American Medical Society Annual Conference 8:00 a.m. 222 Richmond St.

I-195 commission developments continue after 11 years

comment about timeline and construc tion updates at this time.

Urbanica, the developer of a sep arate project in Parcel 2, “continues to work on their due diligence” in Fox Point, Skuncik said. The development team will be on site over the next few weeks for technical testing, she added.

BY RHEA RASQUINHA SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Eleven years after its formation, the I-195 Redevelopment District Com mission continues to develop several parcels of land previously occupied by Interstate 195 across Fox Point and the Jewelry District. Several projects have since been completed, whereas others — such as the Trader Joe’s on South Main St. and the pavilion for Innovation District Park downtown — are in the works.

While community members and business owners feel some excitement about the projects, they also expressed concerns about the eventual economic and neighborhood impacts of the new developments.

I-195 district commission updates

In the Providence Innovation and Design District’s Sept. 21 commission, Executive Director Caroline Skuncik gave a report on activities in the district.

Trader Joe’s will open this fall in Parcel 6, Skuncik said. Developers and the commission “anticipate the grocery store will open while the rest of the project (in Parcel 6) continues to be under construction,” she added.

Nakia Rohde, public relations man ager at Trader Joe’s, said she could not

The day after the commission’s Au gust meeting, the commission hosted an information session in the park for interested operators of the Innovation District Park Pavilion.

The commission is working closely with the Pennrose team — the devel oper for Parcel 9, which is also just off South Main Street — on various legal dynamics and other considerations to close on the property by the end of the year, Skuncik said. Parcel 9 will include a childcare facility, according to Ward 1 Councilman John Goncalves ’13 MA’15.

Planning and design for phase two of Parcel 9 has also begun, and both the design and content plans are in the works to be reviewed later this fall.

The pavilion is “a proposed ap proximately 4,000 square foot ameni ty featuring year-round dining, public bathrooms and a small support space for park operations,” according to the Providence Innovation & Design Dis trict website. The project will also in clude infrastructure updates, including a Wi-Fi service and electrical updates in the park.

There was “a lot of great interest in operating the facility,” Skuncik said.

The commission is planning to hold another information session for ven dors, along with an additional commu nity event about design for the pavilion.

“That will be an opportunity for the public to engage directly with Utile and with ARO,” the architect for the project, Skuncik said. The date of the communi ty event is still being finalized and will be sent out via the district’s newsletter distribution.

There was also a presentation by D+P Real Estate and Truth Box Inc. regarding updates to proposed devel opment for Parcels 8 and 8A, along with an urban design summary by Utile, after some residents had concerns with the project’s design and scale. D+P Real Estate and Truth Box Inc. are also de veloping a “mixed-use, mixed-income development” in Parcel 6 next to Trader Joe’s.

Downtown, mixed-use building Emblem 125 “received their temporary certificate of occupancy” at the end of the week of Sept. 12, Skuncik said. The project, which is on Parcel 28, includes 248 rental units and ground-floor retail space. According to Skuncik, the de velopers shared strong public interest in leasing, with some tenants already having moved into the building after

the TCO was received.

Reactions in the community

The 195 Commission meets “mixed reviews depending on who you ask,” said Goncalves. Some people think the project is falling short of expectations, while others are excited about the new housing developments, grocery store and childcare facility, he explained.

“There have been some develop ments that have been more challenging for the greater community and im mediate others in the neighborhood,” Goncalves said. Because of the massive scale of the project in Parcel 2, there were community concerns that the development might be too tall and block views.

In addition, “there is some concern among folks that things have changed to be more residential,” meaning fewer jobs will be created with the develop ments, Goncalves said. Some of the actual land sales have fallen short of projection, but with many acres still up for grabs, there is hope that devel opment there will increase economic

vibrancy, he added.

In Parcels 8/8A and 9, there are few to no immediate residential abutters, so the developments did not meet much opposition. The forthcoming childcare component in Parcel 9 is also “some thing that the community was excited about,” Goncalves said.

People are looking forward to the upcoming Trader Joe’s in Parcel 6 and “having another organic (food) option in the neighborhood,” Goncalves said. The store plans to open in late October, as the team is still getting the store ready and hiring staff, he added.

With Parcel 2, there were more seats at the table for community members to participate in the design review process, Goncalves said. We are “moving in a better direction,” he added, encouraging a continued effort to ensure that “the interests and needs of the community are being valued and listened to,” especially for forthcoming developments.

The Pavilion faced outcry from lo cal restaurant owners who were con cerned that their businesses would be undercut. According to Goncalves, the commission plans to have additional input sessions with local restaurants and the local community.

“One of the things that we’re con stantly thinking about is making sure that whatever’s being proposed as an amenity is mindful of not disrupting what’s already positively happening” in terms of businesses operating in the area, Goncalves said. The goal is to avoid “a scenario where there’s undue competition that may hurt some of the existing businesses.”

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Residents, business owners share mixed feelings about developments

MATHIEU GRECO / HERALD

“There is some concern among folks that things have changed to be more residential,” said Ward 1 Councilman John Goncalves ’13 MA’15.

Writers who teach: literary arts faculty share their experiences

poem, “What I Knew,” published in 2019. Her own research as an artist has influenced what she teaches, she said.

approach for her own writing. The time constraints pose an additional chal lenge, she added.

BY AALIA JAGWANI ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR

The growing popularity of the creative writing degree over the last 50 years has come with a growing critique of the institutionalization of writing. This discourse has often circled back to the same question: Can writing be taught?

Although there never has been and likely never will be a conclusive answer to this question, the practice of teaching writing has continued despite the debate. But, very often, it is those who write that teach. The Department in Literary Arts at Brown has had a faculty of nationally and internationally renowned authors since its establishment in the 1960s by poet, translator, critic and Professor Emeritus of English and comparative literature Edwin Honig.

You can teach writing, said Associ ate Professor of Literary Arts Karan Ma hajan, even if you can’t make someone talented who isn’t talented.

Author of “Family Planning” and “The Association of Small Bombs,” a finalist for the 2016 National Book Awards, Mahajan tries to locate the strengths of the writer and encourage them in that direction. “I think you can teach students to access the most interesting parts of themselves and to show them that they carry within them the germs of interesting stories,” he said.

Professor of Literary Arts Thalia Field ’88 MFA’95 feels “very strongly that creative writing can be taught” but disagrees pedagogically with the stan dard “workshop model,” she said. Field

SPORTS

is the author of several innovative and experimental books, the most recent of which is “Personhood,” published in 2021.

The workshop format “conflates teaching with editing,” she said, “and it ignores (the) creative process, which to me is at the heart of learning how to be a sustainably productive and healthy artist in the world.”

“I see a lot of paralysis and a lot of young artists getting stuck in their practice, because creative process is not at the heart of the pedagogy in most creative writing workshops,” Field said. She believes that most peo ple need coaching and support until they begin to learn their own creative process.

Field also teaches very interdiscipli narily so writers in her classes can en gage with multiple forms. Her teaching

ASHLEY CHOI / HERALD

style mirrors her writing practice and her experimental work, she explained.

“I’ve always worked at the intersec tion of creative nonfiction and more imaginative writing,” she said. “I find a very important place where the two can create opportunities to think through questions that are difficult to do in any other way.”

The experimental nature of her work was one of the many reasons Field de cided to teach in addition to writing. “I didn’t want to put the pressure on my books to have to make money in that way,” she said. But she has also always been interested in “the dynamics of pedagogy” and began teaching in dif ferent forms soon after college.

Professor of Literary Arts Eleni Sikelianos is the author of two hybrid memoirs and several poems, collections and chapbooks, including a book-length

“Poetry for me in particular is an impulse toward freedom, and that can be freedom from syntax, freedom from the ways that we expect language to make meaning — it can mean all kinds of freedom,” Sikelianos added. “That’s something that I always want to think about when I’m teaching: How can I help my students feel liberated in var ious ways, and how can we have adven tures together?”

Mahajan also likes talking to stu dents about what it’s “actually like to be a writer,” he said, which involves look ing at the lives of writers and consid ering not only how they came into the profession but also how they sustain it.

For many literary arts professors, the practice of teaching impacts the art of writing just as writing influences teaching.

Teaching has made Mahajan a better writer by virtue of making him a better reader and thinker, he said. As a profes sor, he has to carefully reread books he has read before, which helps him extract new value from them.

“And your students show you new ways of looking at these texts,” he added.

Since writing is a solitary practice, he likes the balance of having time to himself and meeting with students. “I’m always energized when I come out of one of my classes,” he added.

“I’m learning from my students all the time, as well as the texts we’re reading together,” Sikelianos added. Her past students have also frequently become collaborators after she taught them.

But she also acknowledged that teaching can inhibit her writing in some ways. “You’re trying to put frames on ways of thinking to be able to hand it over to others,” Sikelianos said. These frameworks may not be the most fruitful

Field is currently on leave to focus on her own work. “It requires having time when I am not teaching in order to really do the deeper, more dreamlike, more research-based aspects of the process,” Field said. “There are parts of my creative process that are easier to do while I’m teaching and parts that are really impossible.”

Still, Field finds teaching to be very inspiring. “I love working with students and young artists, and so it doesn’t harm me in any way,” she said.

The professors also had words of advice for aspiring writers and students of literary arts.

“I think the people who become writers are people who keep doing it, who are willing to take risks with their writing, who are willing to tell the truth about things that are difficult to talk about otherwise,” Mahajan said.

But he stressed that writing is not for everyone — it is a difficult and lonely profession which might make some people unhappy in the long run. “I think there’s a kind of romance as sociated with writing that I think it’s our duty as professors to dispel and to expose students to the difficulties that you experience in a career as a writer,” he said.

Field emphasized the importance of deepening the relationship a writer has with their own work so it remains “gen uine, authentic, radical and unique.” “The relationship with your work is a primary, evolving, dynamic relation ship, and it’s not always easy and it’s not always linear,” she said.

Sikelianos, on the other hand, spoke of the importance of finding a commu nity of other writers. “That doesn’t have to be a living community,” she said. “It can be a community of poets and writers who died centuries ago. But it’s finding those things that inspire you.”

Brown Athletics introduces ‘Brown Hype Squad’ to promote home games

Student-athlete-led fan group aims to promote greater home-game attendance

BY GABRIELLA SARTORI SENIOR STAFF WRITER

If you have been to a recent Brown home game and noticed people with red wigs, megaphones and colorful costumes, you’ve met the Brown Hype Squad. The new Excellence in Brown Athlet ics Initiative has aimed at improving numerous facets of Brown University Athletics, both on and off the field. In an effort to increase fan attendance and participation at home games, a group of student athletes decided to found the “Brown Hype Squad.”

Kelvin Queliz, associate director of athletics, strategic communications and content creation, helped facilitate the creation of the Brown Hype Squad and is excited about its early impact. “The Hype Squad promoting home events and being represented has provided a first-class ‘street team’ of sorts that has grown organically,” Queliz said. “Fans and the community have loved the red wigs, beads, mega phones, etc … it really

rivals a student section that you see at Power Five games.”

The Hype Squad is a student orga nization that markets sporting events in order to promote fan support and attendance. Fans have had ample op portunity to engage in creative cheers while being led by the two Hype Squad founders, women’s lacrosse player Margaret Woodberry ’24.5 and wom en’s hockey player Meadow Carman ’24.5.

Woodberry and Carman pitched the idea at the September Student-Athlete Advisory Committee meeting. The idea was centered around increasing school spirit surrounding athletic teams by growing the number of fans filling the stands. In doing so, Woodberry and Car man hoped the Hype Squad could help unify the school community.

“We all know what it’s like to per form in front of a crowd versus (in) an empty stadium,” Carman said. “Our goal is to entertain and build anticipation and buzz around all of our Brown Ath letics events. We want our athletes and our students to get the best possible experience out of Brown and we believe we can contribute to that with the Hype Squad.”

In addition to bridging the gap be tween students and student athletes,

the Hype Squad has worked to build a Brown Athletics fan base throughout the Providence area. They have created activities that engage fans, such as a “punt, pass (and) kick” contest and a “dizzy bat” race during breaks in games. What has been the most well received, according to Woodberry, has been the comedic and loud entertainment the group brings — something that she emphasized is just about being them selves. “It isn’t really set in stone yet, but I feel like right now Meadow and I are kind of spearheading the group,”

Woodberry said. “Overall we are just being ourselves, which (means being) absolutely crazy at any sports games we can make it to and making utter fools of ourselves in the stands.”

The Hype Squad has been making an effort to recruit new members and implement a form of inclusivity that allows for any and all students to join in on the fun and cheer on Brown’s sports teams. Woodberry added that anyone who is passionate about expressing their school spirit is highly encouraged to join the group and can keep up to

date with all things athletics thanks to their social media presence. A position on Hype Squad is paid, and the group has around 20 members. “Anyone who is interested in joining the Hype Squad should do it; you don’t have to be an athlete,” she said.

The group is excited to continue to work to implement a new tradition to Brown Athletics. As games continue, according to Woodberry and Carman, the Hype Squad will continue to make their presence felt through their promo tions, halftime activities and red wigs.

Three writers from literary arts department discuss being writers, professors

COURTESY OF MEADOW CARMAN

The Hype Squad is searching for new members who are passionate about expressing school spirit — regardless of whether they are a student-athlete or not.