Friday, October 11, 2019

SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2019

VOLUME CLIV, ISSUE 28

BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM

METRO

$20 million grant awarded to R.I. Department of Education

Grant aims to improve children’s literacy rates, target early stages of learning

Soccer teams earn academic awards

Men’s, women’s teams awarded United Soccer Coaches Team Academic Award for GPAs

BY LIVIA GIMENES CONTRIBUTING WRITER The Rhode Island Department of Education has received a $20 million federal grant to improve children’s literacy rates.

The grant, awarded by the U.S. Department of Education earlier this month, will target readers from birth to grade 12 by focusing on improving curriculum quality.

Any traditional school district or charter school in the state is eligible to receive funds from the grant, and some pre-kindergarten private childcare centers may also be eligible. The state will prioritize the 11 school districts they deem most in need of funding, according to Meg Geoghegan, RIDE director of communications.

One of the grant’s main focuses is to target early stages of learning. RIDE aims to have 75 percent of R.I. third graders reading on grade level by 2025, according to Geoghegan.

The effort to increase literacy would start at the district level to make sure each one develops a high-quality cur-

SPORTS

BY THOMAS PATTI CONTRIBUTING WRITER The men’s and women’s soccer teams earned the United Soccer Coaches 2018-19 Team Academic Award, given to college teams with a composite grade point average of 3.0 or higher.

Brown was one of 259 schools to receive the award for both its men’s and women’s teams. With a 3.44 GPA, the men’s team received the award for the 13th consecutive year. The women’s team, with a 3.58 GPA, received

hire new teachers and to provide current teachers with better professional training.

RIDE began applying for the grant

“I’m really proud of our team,” said Sydney Cummings ’21, the women’s captain. “I see what my teammates go through every day, whether it’s being in class with them or seeing them

SEE EDUCATION PAGE 9

SEE SOCCER BACK

SARAH MARTINEZ / HERALD

riculum tailored to its needs. Once they determine what material to include in their curriculums, the districts can then “establish a local literacy plan that is based on their data, and kind of know where they are going in the next few

years,” Geoghegan said.

RIDE also intends to channel funds from the grant toward the development of teachers, parents and communities as educational resources, Geoghegan said. The grant will make it possible to

METRO

SPORTS

Kennedy Plaza transit plan elicits mixed criticism, support

Van Rootselaar ’22 leads field hockey to victory

RIDOT plan includes tunnel under Kennedy Plaza, multi-hub bus system

BY MAIA ROSENFELD SENIOR STAFF WRITER A new plan that proposes a complete transformation of the Kennedy Plaza transit hub has sparked controversy among Providence community members.

The plan, released by the Rhode Island Department of Transportation Sept. 5, includes building a bus tunnel underneath Washington Street, which runs between Kennedy Plaza and Burnside Park, as well as a pedestrian overpass that connects the two areas. The proposal also includes a multi-hub bus system that would replace the current model, which is centralized in Kennedy Plaza. The four proposed bus hubs would be located at Providence Station, West Passage, Garrahy Courthouse and

Victory Plating.

RIDOT plans to fund the project with portions of a $35 million infrastructure bond and $25 million dedicated to renovating the Providence train station, according to the Associated Press.

The plan aims to enhance access and connectivity by transitioning the bus system out of Kennedy Plaza to outlying hubs and support economic development, according to RIDOT spokesman Charles St. Martin.

The proposed tunnel and pedestrian overpass in Kennedy Plaza “allows for the free and safe movement of all people through the plaza, an area that will continue to see almost a thousand bus trips per day,” St. Martin wrote in an email to The Herald. The tunnel and that lead to bus fatalities, he added.

Supporters of the proposed redesign of Kennedy Plaza and the transit system say it will help passengers safely move between the newly created bus hubs

SEE RIDOT PAGE 2

provides two assists,

BY AMELIA SPALTER STAFF WRITER Field hockey midfielder Danielle van Rootselaar ’22 played a role in all three goals in the Bears’ win against Dartmouth over the weekend, assisting in the first two tallies and scoring the final goal herself. Before coming to the University, van Rootselaar made it to the national championships of her native Netherlands in 2013 and 2017. She has played in every field hockey game since her first contest as a first-year and tied for ninth most assists in the Ivy League last season. For her contributions to her team and success against the Big Green, van Rootselaar has been named The Herald’s Athlete of the Week.

SEE AOTW PAGE 9

News

Commentary

Commentary

Providence Design Catalyst program relaunches, will fund local design businesses Page 2

Editorial: CS dpt. should create ethical standards for corporate partnerships Page 10

Reed ’21: Boycotting Amazon for ICE ties could set dangerous precedent Page 11

COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS

Van Rootselaar ’22 guided Brown to a 3-1 victory over Dartmouth Saturday. The sophomore midfielder has scored 15 points this year.

TODAY

TOMORROW

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59/48

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2019

METRO

Design Catalyst grant program relaunches

SARAH WOO / HERALD

Program to give $185,000 to local design businesses, professional development

BY SOPHIA SAKER CONTRIBUTING WRITER In an effort to spur creativity within the local economy, Providence has re-launched the Providence Design Catalyst program to provide grant funding to small, design-oriented businesses.

Design Catalyst has $185,000 in capital to distribute for the coming year in individual grants ranging from $10,000 to $20,000 to design businesses founded in Providence. In addition to funding, the program also provides business mentorship and professional development programs.

The grant program is run by tion that aims to grow Rhode Island’s design business community and pro-

vide opportunities for local design professionals.

“We want to push for investment in small Providence businesses,” said Catherine Chung, program and events manager of DESIGNxRI. Since Design Catalyst’s initial launch in 2015, the grant program has provided mentorship for 39 small local businesses and invested $846,000 in these start-ups. The program is funded by the city of Providence, the Cambridge Innovation Center and Real Jobs Rhode Island, a branch of the state’s Department of Labor and Training.

This year, the Real Jobs program will contribute up to about $50,000 to Design Catalyst, said Alyssa Alvarado, program director of Real Jobs RI, in an event for DESIGNxRI. Although most of Design Catalyst’s funding comes from the city of Providence, Real Jobs Alvarado said.

Applications for a Design Catalyst grant will be open until Nov. 4

RIDOT FROM PAGE 1 and key business districts in downtown Providence.

But transit advocates like the Rhode Island Transit Riders say the plan will actually make using public transportaJohn Flaherty, deputy director of GrowSmart Rhode Island and a member of Rhode Island Transit Riders, said that these new routes would stop at only one of the four hubs, requiring passengers who need to transfer routes to walk between hubs in order to make their connections — a situation he described as “really problematic.”

Flaherty also criticized the plan for not being integrated with the Transit Master Plan, a joint effort by RIDOT, RIPTA and the Division of Statewide Planning to revamp the state’s transit system, which was initiated last year.

The proposed plan also does not incorporate community feedback like the master plan does, he added.

“Kennedy Plaza is such an important part of the transit system that the plan for it should be within the broader context of the transit vision and Master Plan,” Flaherty said.

According to retired member of the RIPTA Board of Directors Barry Schiller, the centralization of Kennedy Plaza is important to the transit system. RIPTA had worked to centralize the hub because of its popular location, and be-

and then reviewed by a committee of Design Catalyst members led by DESIGNxRI, she added. To qualify for the grant, the applicant must be people or less, and those people must qualify as “low-income,” which the percent area median income, according to DESIGNxRI’s website.

“We look for what positive economic contribution they can make to the city, but we also ask them about what aspect of mentorship they need,” Chung said when describing the application review process.

Under Mayor Jorge O. Elorza’s tenure, the city’s government has emphasized Providence’s creative potential and its room for growth.

This program aims to foster businesses that can capitalize on that potential and support the city’s development.

“Mayor Elorza wants the Providence Design Catalyst program to support Providence’s world-class design talent,” as well as “cultivate and develop their business skills for long-

cause it provides access to both connections and an indoor waiting room with restrooms, tickets, bus information and security, he said.

“It’s very hard to get people who don’t use (public transit) to even give it a try,” Schiller said, “and if they just have scattered bus hubs then it’s going to be more confusing. It will be harder to explain what to do to people who don’t know it, and it’s hard enough as it is.”

Schiller added that RIPTA ridership has already dropped from approximately 21 million annual riders to about 16 million over the past decade.

Instead of the proposed plan, Schiller would like to see collaboration between transit riders, the parks conservancy, environmentalists and the business community to come up with a way to improve Kennedy Plaza.

But The Providence Foundation, a the interests of downtown business owners, property owners, residents and website, has come out in support of the proposed plan. Joe Paolino, a member of the foundation’s board of directors, former mayor of Providence and managing partner for Paolino Properties, supports the plan as it stands.

He noted that the four proposed hubs would be located near many places of employment and government buildings, and the hub at the train station would “create a true intermodal area,

term success,” wrote Victor Morente, Elorza’s press secretary, in an email to The Herald. “Amazing artists are the reason why Providence is known far and wide as the Creative Capital and the program helps participants showcase their talents and connects them with successful business mentors, support and resources,” Morente wrote.

Cambridge Innovation Center General Manager Rebecca Webber also hopes these businesses will stay in Providence as they grow. “We don’t want designers and great thinkers to feel they have to hike up the 95 to Boston or head down to New York to grow a business. They can and should build their business here,” she said.

Chung is excited to see what the 2019-2020 cohort will bring. Whethgraphic designers,” she hopes they learn from each other as much as they will from their mentors or instructors.

“There is a hotbed of design activity here,” Chung said. “It’s not called the ‘Creative Capital’ for nothing.”

COURTESY OF JEF NICKERSON

The Rhode Island Department of Transportation’s proposal involves decentralizing Kennedy Plaza and creating four transit hubs. The proposal also involves building a tunnel underneath Washington Street. where buses and trains are working together.”

Paolino added that removing the bus stops from Kennedy Plaza would improve safety and could help transform the space into a “celebratory area” that could serve the Providence community.

His vision for Kennedy Plaza includes benches, bike racks, fountains and activities for families, workers and visitors to downtown Providence. “It’s going to be good for the community, and that’s what we would like to see. It’s tough to do that with all the diesel smoke and starting up from the buses,” he said.

This vision appears to align with RIDOT’s plan for the pedestrian overpass, which St. Martin wrote would “unite the park and plaza into one cohesive civic space.”

But building a tunnel and overpass in Kennedy Plaza might not occur if it is not feasible under budget and time constraints, he added, noting that RIDOT is “still in the concept design phase and public outreach process” of the plan. In terms of next steps, RIDOT will “formally request developers to submit proposals on the redesign this fall,” according to the Associated Press, and

“the decision is ultimately going to be made by the governor about what plan emerges,” Flaherty said. .

Although Paolino likes the idea of an overpass, this project is not critical to his support of the overall plan. “If there’s a large segment of the community that says we’d rather not see that, that’s not a deal breaker,” he said.

But even without the proposed tunnel, Flaherty would still oppose this plan. “That’s a step in the right direction,” he said, “but the RIDOT proposal still has a lot of concerns for those of us that are transit advocates.”

In This Issue

JASMINE NGAI 2

Tunes and Trailblazers

GAYA GUPTA 4

ROTD?

ANNELIESE MAIR 4

Tenses of the Sky

AMANDA NGO 5

Finding Asian America DAVID KLEINMAN 6

Adventure of a Lifetime

postCover by Anna Semizhonova

OCT 11

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VOL 24 —

ISSUE 5

FEATURE

Tunes and Trailblazers A Brief History of Women in Jazz

BY JASMINE NGAI ILLUSTRATED BY AYA ALGHANMEH

W

ho first comes to mind when you think of jazz?

Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane? Likely.

Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday?

Perhaps.

The International Sweethearts of Rhythm, Melba Liston, Maria Schneider, Ingrid Jensen? Unlikely.

This trend of thought is rooted in a misogynistic past. The world of jazz has historically been maledominated, and the contributions of male musicians have generally garnered more public recognition for shaping the genre than those of their female counterparts. Although many of these women’s tales remain untold, there exist countless accounts of talented female musicians facing discrimination, barriers, and prejudice while trying to enter (and perhaps even alter) this musical boys’ club.

But these stories don’t have to stay untold. *** The onset of World War II provided American women with new opportunities in the workforce. As the men went off to war, women took over jobs in many traditionally male-dominated industries, including jazz performance. This paved the way for the formation of all-female jazz bands. One band in particular was instrumental in carving out a space for women instrumentalists during this era. Its name was the International Sweethearts of Rhythm.

In addition to being an all-female band, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm was notable for its racial diversity. The ensemble, established in 1937 as a savvy school principal’s fundraising effort, originally consisted of low-income high school students from Mississippi’s Piney Woods School, many of whom had never even touched an instrument before. By 1941, the

band had begun performing professionally throughout the United States. But its multiracial makeup presented a problem in the South during the era of Jim Crow, forcing the girls to take refuge in their tour bus whenever they weren’t performing in order to avoid run-ins with the law.

Soon afterwards, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm rose in popularity and even headlined venues such as New York’s Apollo Theatre. The band performed for throngs of dedicated fans, their name in bold letters on lighted marquees. Their fan base grew exponentially after they toured internationally to perform for soldiers on army bases during World War II, an experience that brought the girls as far as France and Germany.

Not much remains of the International Sweethearts of Rhythm’s legacy in the public eye now, aside from a few surviving recordings. They disbanded in 1949 with many members leaving to lead different

Letter from the Editor Dear Readers, After a deceptively long summer, we have finally entered the unique Providence vortex. The one made of wind and rain and broken umbrellas and short-lived bursts of sunlight. Schoolwork has also formed a vortex of its own—papers upon midterms upon problem sets pile up so that the only practical way to avoid completing your assigned tasks is to binge-watch the terrible new Netflix series The I-Land, which is sort of like if Lost were written by a predictive text generator and were acted by A.I.’s who had never observed human behavior (not that I speak from experience).

And though Providence has settled into its classic gray hues and my socks feel permanently wet from the puddles in which they’ve been submerged, as I approach the halfway point of my last fall semester at Brown, I’m trying to bask in the mundane moments that will soon seem special. Moments like that brief silence before chaotic chords ensue in a music rehearsal, the barista at Blue State asking me if

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I have an h at the end of my name (I don’t), or coming home to my housemates and just sitting around, sipping tea as our rain-soaked clothes dry around us.

This issue of post- explores moments such as these, big and small: the Feature asks us to remember the women in jazz who wielded their voices in resistance against dominant power structures that dictate who can create music; the Arts & Culture section ruminates on The Farewell and hyphenated identities as well as on podcasting Dungeons & Dragons; and the Narrative section eloquently reflects on two friendships: a long-distance one that has survived into college and another formed by ResLife that has thrived through senior year.

As you flip through this issue, I hope that you, too, can reflect on those moments of light that peek through the whirlwind of the semester.

Happy reading!

Sara

Feature Editor

Things to Do in Providence This Long Weekend 1.

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The Providence HONK! Festival! Go check it out on Monday.

RISD Craft Fair 2019, this Saturday!

Nothing. Truly, nothing. Like a good, exhausted college student should.

Snuggle up with a copy of post- ;) Go for a Haunted Boat Tour on Monday— but try to make it back in one piece.

Sleep in. You deserve it. JK. Study for orgo.

Scroll through Dear Blueno. Log out of FaceBook. Log back in. Repeat.

Go see ABCD, a musical at PW! Cry over your unfinished papers in the SciLi. Get out of Providence.

lives—starting families, finishing school, pursuing other careers.

Ultimately, this period of newfound opportunity for women in jazz was brief. After the end of the war, many female jazz instrumentalists found themselves out of work, abruptly replaced by men returning from war, often without even a day’s notice. *** During the final years of the 1940s, the legendary Dizzy Gillespie shocked his big band by announcing that he was bringing a female composer from the West Coast all the way to New York to arrange music for the band.

He faced backlash from his dismayed male musicians, but when they heard her arrangements, even they had to acknowledge that she had created something beautiful, something powerful, something special.

Her name was Melba Liston.

Though she was a masterful arranger of music, Liston was first and foremost an instrumentalist, differentiating her from how we usually think of women in jazz. But Liston wasn’t a vocalist, and she didn’t play the piano. In fact, she played what some may consider a stereotypically masculine instrument: the trombone.

Watching Melba Liston play the trombone, even by way of a grainy, black-and-white video recording, is a near-ethereal experience. Despite the immense amount of air it takes to play the trombone and the physical limitations of the instrument itself, Liston plays effortlessly, somehow smiling into the mouthpiece of her horn as she hits each note accurately and easily.

The trombone slide simply becomes an extension of her arm.

Although Liston’s extraordinary talent gained her recognition in jazz’s inner circles, even (begrudgingly) from her male peers, she was dissatisfied and disheartened by the confines of her career and the lifestyle of an American female jazz musician. In the 1970s, Liston left the scene of professional jazz performance to teach music in Jamaica instead. *** In 1978, the Kansas City Women’s Jazz Festival was established. This event was the brainchild of Carol Comer and Diane Gregg, two prominent women in the Kansas City jazz circuit. They set out to assemble the first festival completely centered on women in jazz, intending to provide budding female jazz instrumentalists with inspiration and a strong support system. The weekend-long event centered on concerts and workshops, bringing together some of the most notable female names in jazz in Kansas City, a place known for its immense influence on the genre.

Coincidentally, the Second Annual Kansas City Women’s Jazz Festival in 1979 served as the setting for Melba Liston’s triumphant return to jazz after her stint in Jamaica. It was at this event that her newly-formed, all-female ensemble, Melba Liston and Company, made its debut. After this, Liston continued to immerse herself in jazz, playing and arranging until she was physically unable to.

The Third Annual Kansas City Women’s Jazz Festival in 1980 bore witness to the reunion of the International Sweethearts of Rhythm 31 years after the ensemble’s separation.

The final Kansas City Women’s Jazz Festival took place in 1985, but its legacy persists through similar

festivals throughout the country today, which aim to replicate the musically empowered community it created. *** In 1980, an energetic, young college student was studying music theory and composition at the University of Minnesota. Her first exposure to modern jazz came during her college years when her classmate loaned her Coltrane, Hancock, and Tyner albums.

Her name is Maria Schneider.

Schneider did not attend the 1979 or 1980 Women’s Jazz Festival, but 17 years later, she would lead her own jazz orchestra at a similar event—the Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival, held at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. Maria Schneider is not known for being an instrumentalist although she has classically trained in piano since the age of five. Instead, she is known for her gorgeous, sweeping jazz compositions and for being the conductor of the critically acclaimed Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra.

There’s a video recording of the orchestra performing Schneider’s piece “Hang Gliding” at the 2008 Vienne Jazz Festival. It is awe-inspiring to see Schneider standing in front of her jazz orchestra— conducting the almost entirely male ensemble (save Ingrid Jensen, the lone female trumpetist) with an infectious smile and a spirit that can only be described as carefree composure. Her commanding, controlled arm movements and her alternating crouching and straightening posture, paralleling the rise and fall of the music, cause her to resemble a bird ready to take flight. Halfway through the piece, Jensen calmly steps to center stage, seamlessly transitioning into her fourminute-long solo. Her eyes remain closed throughout much of the performance; she skillfully manipulates the trumpet as if it were a keyboard, rapidly producing an incredible range of pitches from merely three valves.

Throughout the solo, Schneider smiles at Jensen, her entire body swaying to the rising, swelling trumpet runs. She allows herself to be immersed in the music without ever losing focus; it’s clear she knows how to extract the sounds she wants from her musicians in order to convey her composition just as she envisions.

This moment reflects the camaraderie shared between these two extraordinary female musicians.

It’s an intimate moment incongruous with the public setting of a jazz festival, made all the more meaningful when you realize they are being watched by the rest of the all-male orchestra. It’s a quiet triumph, and it’s unforgettable. *** My high school jazz band consisted of 13 girls united by a passion for music and an eagerness to learn, incentive enough to wake up for 7 a.m. rehearsals before school. Each day, bold melodies and boisterous laughter cut through the early morning silence.

Entering my first year at an all-girls high school, I was ready to abandon the trombone forever after deciding years earlier to take it up in middle school band class simply because no one else was willing to play it.

I never considered joining the jazz band in high school; it didn’t have a good reputation in terms of talent, and it didn’t garner much attention from the music department, where choir was the ensemble everyone

“I want someone to cheat on me. I feel like that would be good for me, emotionally.”

“I would go to Brown if it weren’t for the school colors.” – Visiting Harvard Athlete

else gravitated toward. I still don’t know what exactly motivated me to join during my sophomore year, but in this band, I found the community I had so desperately needed.

We weren’t the best at sight-reading music. We weren’t the most skilled musicians, to say the very least. In fact, after listening to the recording of our performance of Vince Guaraldi’s “Skating” for our music department’s annual holiday CD, there were audible groans and visible shudders throughout the band; the melodies and harmonies frequently clashed, creating a cacophony of brassy screeches, and at any given moment each instrumentalist seemed to be reading a different section of the music. Later, we collectively laughed it off as a learning experience and put it on the CD anyway.

Yet even while joking about our own inexperience and shortcomings, we learned to appreciate the expertise of the musicians whose pieces we tried to reinterpret by listening to their original recordings together in hushed, reverent silence. We couldn’t emulate it, but we could appreciate it.

In our band, theory and technique were secondary; instead, the focus was on understanding the power of collaboration and confidence, from arranging daring set lists—including everything from jazz standards to funky renditions of David Bowie tunes—to cheering each other on while attempting to improvise on a blues scale, making soloing far less intimidating. Perhaps this is why I associate jazz with camaraderie, with community, with empowerment. *** In the 2018-2019 school year, the Brown University Jazz Band had a single female instrumentalist in their 18-member band. Alexandra Ertman graduated from Brown last year, and as a baritone saxophonist, she sat at the far edge of the band, out of the glaring center spotlight—yet her mere presence spoke volumes.

Alexandra is familiar with the importance of having role models in jazz, and she has plenty; her entire extended family is made up of musicians, and she grew up listening to jazz records in her household.

When I asked her for music suggestions, she eagerly recalled a name she didn’t think I would have heard of.

It was Maria Schneider, whom she first met as a budding middle-school-aged instrumentalist, having taken up the baritone saxophone just a year or two prior.

And she was right—I hadn’t heard of her.

As for the Brown Jazz Band, their musical arrangements mandate restrictions on the makeup of the band, meaning that although musicians reaudition for their spots each year, a position in the band is generally unavailable until the preceding musician graduates. While this allows for fewer dramatic changes in the band’s composition, Alexandra recognized that this could prevent interested female musicians from joining.

And when she gushed over the talents of a female underclassman awaiting her chance to be in the band, I realized that this is exactly what I’d been pursuing in writing this piece: simple instances of women supporting other women in jazz, reminiscent of the support system built into the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, the Kansas City Women’s Jazz Festival’s celebration of women in jazz, and Maria Schneider’s quiet but public admiration for Ingrid Jensen’s performance of her own piece. *** As the hidden history of women in jazz is gradually unraveled, female musicians of years past and present are finally gaining the recognition they deserve, even if much of this acclaim is arriving decades too late. These musicians are just a small sampling of artists who prove that women aren’t discordant with jazz—and there are so many more stories to tell.

OCTOBER 11, 2019!3

NARRATIVE

ROTD?

Communicating (in) LongDistance Friendships

BY GAYA GUPTA ILLUSTRATED BY IRIS XIE

I’ve been in a long-distance friendship for a year now. Sure, such a feat doesn’t elicit as much sympathy or awe as maintaining a long distance relationship; I’m sure you or someone you know is friends with someone separated by coasts or continents, seas or time zones. But still, I find it impressive.

We’ve done this before. Anita left for college in Los Angeles last year while I trudged through my final year of high school up in the Bay Area. As I agonized over college apps, she dealt with meal plans and midterms, new friends, partying, and hookups.

How strange that a year ago she was in exactly my place now, and how odd that she still knew someone stuck on the other side.

But this is the first time we are an entire 3,000 miles apart, the distance between Providence and Los Angeles separating us. The three hours between us feels like it stretches out my day and accelerates hers; when I call during dinner, Anita reminds me that she still has class, whereas later in the night, I sometimes fall asleep before she gets the chance to text about her day.

The chaos of my first semester has intensified our disconnect. Two busy college schedules are hard to coordinate, whereas last year, I was very willing (you could even say grateful) to procrastinate on schoolwork to talk to her. Now, I tell her I need 10 more minutes until I’m able to call, but then I have to get to class or pick up something or run all the way to Pembroke campus because I’m late to orchestra, and I end up forgetting. And when I text Anita something that reminds me of her it can take days for her to respond. It’s frustrating. It’s especially frustrating when we do call, and I’m reminded of how comfortable I feel with her—more so than with anyone else I’ve met here.

You know what they say: It takes time. It takes time to get to know people—to really, really get to know people, and it takes time to adjust, to get settled. But I feel settled, I am adjusted. When I talk about going home at night, I mean my room in Keeney. I no longer turn my key the wrong way to unlock the door, and I’ve mastered the most efficient routes to class without Google Maps. I found my friend group on my second night at Brown during some fair on Simmons Quad. Introduced to them

4!POST–

by one of the many fleeting friends I made during orientation, I clicked with my now tight-knit circle immediately. It was easy, finding all these new parts of my life. Harder, though, to figure out how the old parts fit in.

Anita and I have a system; we call it ROTD, or rating of the day. No matter how busy we get, we try (really, really try) to remember to send each other just one number, a one-to-ten scoring of our day.

No explanation needed. Just a simple integer to somehow capture the vast minutiae of our everyday.

Our actual ratings have ranged from 2 to 10 (the latter happening only once or twice). If you plotted on a graph all of our numbers since we started this system, you might be able to guess what happened when: when I fell in love, when she came out to her parents, when I had my heart utterly broken, when she fell in love, too. You could tell by June’s high average I was having the best moments of my life in Europe while touring with my youth orchestra.

You could infer when Anita’s three summer jobs were completely zapping her energy—but also when meeting her girlfriend started to turn things around.

Though our system sometimes falters, recently we’ve been calling each other more than ever before—in no small part because the walk from Andrews back to my dorm in Keeney is so far that I might as well make use of it. Every time I call her is an opportunity to let my guard down. I can be annoyed and frustrated about the stupid stuff without padding it with politeness. She’s amused at my casual misfortunes and knows when I’m taking on too much and cautions me against it. When I call later and admit that she was, in fact, correct, she’s not afraid to say ‘I told you so’ before helping me figure things out, as she always does. Maybe that’s what differentiates a best friend from a good one: unflinching honesty when you’re being dumb, but also the proclivity to remind you of how much you’re loved when you can’t see it yourself.

When Anita and her long-distance girlfriend broke up a few days ago, it was my turn to be there for her. They had been dating over the summer and were happy together, but with the start of school, things started to get complicated. The distance was too difficult, Anita argued, the future too far away.

Four years to wait for what, exactly? Eventually getting married or breaking up? I understood her pain all too well, familiar with the seemingly neverending frustration and uncertainty that comes with a long-distance relationship myself.

Secretly, however, I was relieved to be reminded that our own long-distance relationship wouldn’t face the same demise. With friendships, there are

fewer expectations for commitment, and with great friendships, there is no end—at least, not one you have to wonder about like in romantic relationships.

Perhaps it’s naive and idealistic, like many longdistance relationships may seem from the outside, but I don’t see Anita and I breaking up anytime soon. We are so far from what was familiar—from all the times in high school when we sped down the road in my car to make it back from lunch on time, or cried from laughing too hard in her driveway—but she’s always going to be one of those friends who’ll laugh at my dumb jokes, no matter how old we are.

Even at our most distant, we’ll exchange updates on our lives and how we feel, even if they are conveyed in just two numbers.

Tenses of the Sky A Friendship Becoming

BY ANNELIESE MAIR ILLUSTRATED BY ASHLEY HERNANDEZ

We sit at the knuckle of Lake Tahoe’s big toe: The shore, covered in pines, bends around the lake’s edge.

The land thins into a small peninsula, peaking at the California-Nevada border. Far out on the lake, a boat races through the water, visible only by the faint white trail left in its wake. On the opposite shore, the mountains stand in ragged rows, each a hue of blue lighter than the one before; a light dusting of snow rests atop the farthest ones, barely visible.

The air is sharp, dry, and heavy with pine, stretching the skin on my face. Aside from the echoed roar of tires on the highway below and the punctuated chirping of birds, all is quiet. The silence floods the thin air, seeping through the pines, resting alongside sun rays that spread through the needles.

It happens in increments so small that they become sudden: As the sun begins to set, it throws its light over our side of the hill, leaving the mountains to rest in shadow. The backsides of the trees before me become haloed silhouettes. Similar to a song, building and returning in repetition, the sun drops through its arc, inching along the circumference of the sky.

My friend and I, randomly assigned as roommates in our freshman year—now co-signers on an apartment lease as seniors—sit still and silent as the pines. We sit in a world that is moving so rapidly, watching a star so deceptively still. I squint into the sky and try to watch the indigo hues darken; the gradient, rising and condensing into a deep shade in the atmosphere, shifts all at once, leaving me unable to discern the flux. After what feels like hours have gone by, I nod to myself and quietly decide that something has Changed: It has been changing all along, but only now am I able to perceive it. The darkness accumulates in steps so minuscule that the change ceases to become a verb—at least in the present tense.

Without speaking, we watch each other, just as we have for the past three years. Just as we had done in those wordless moments when we felt the weeks dragging, the months slipping, the time accumulating in circles below our underslept eyes. We were firstyears with shitty habits: We stayed up regularly until four a.m., spent too many hours in the Ratty, and showed up late to unit meetings bearing dripping slices of Antonio’s pizza. Amidst the moving pieces and demands of our lives, and despite gradually working through (a few of ) those freshman habits, we often continue to find ourselves tired. But in the convening energetic moments, when either or both passion and anxiety throw us forward, we set aside our never-ending checklists and revel in love, dancing, learning; we’ll disregard structured time entirely in the process of understanding each other.

ARTS & CULTURE The bottom edge of the sun falls below the mountain, casting a golden outline over the peaks.

The orange is reflected in a warm glow over her face, lighting a shine in her eyes. They are open wide, both wondrous and expressionless, glassy as calm water, still as everything else which appears not to move.

Her expression isn’t sullen, but it isn’t clear either. I observe her relationship with the world as she gently takes it in; I’ve watched her push forward in pursuit of environmental justice, education, friendship.

And she’s seen me, in parallel, nudging myself into vulnerable territories, trying to understand healing, learning to ask for help. Over the peaks, a deeper blue settles in, its contrast highlighting the backlit glow.

The sun budges downward and disappears behind the rising pines, and everything before us fades swiftly into navy. The trees become shadows of themselves.

We have spent these years becoming together, but only over a subtle series of shifts, in abrupt moments of recognition, has she become herself to me.

The night sky sinks in, deepening the orange ribbon on the horizon, darkening the mountains, draining all the color from down below. She turns toward me, her eyelids blinking heavily as she draws her mouth into a soft smile. I exhale, noticing only now that I’d been holding my breath. Together we’d been moving so sporadically, so steadily, yet waiting for the world to freeze with us.

There are stars sprinkled about the sky, now dimmed to black. Just before all light dips out of the day, it weaves a faint trace over the mountain tops, a jagged line almost lost in the dark.

Finding Asian America

Seeing Ourselves in The Farewell

BY AMANDA NGO ILLUSTRATED BY GABY TREVIÑO

“Another Asian movie, ha? What the other one we watched? Crazy Asian, hm?”

My mom rarely goes into Boston for pleasure, and even then, it’s only when my sister and I drag her out. Usually, we take her to see the annual movie that scripts at least one Asian actor with more than two lines. This summer, it was The Farewell.

Shortly after we pulled out of our driveway, we cruised down streets lined with small, mixeduse properties donning bilingual signs and ads. We passed by paint-peeled barber shops and Chinese apothecaries with flyers plastered all over their windows and doors, then newer businesses like hotpot and sweet soup eateries whose neon signs and lush indoor plants promise A/C and sweet Insta-worthy photo ops.

My family lives in the heart of North Quincy, a neighborhood reductively dubbed by outsiders “Boston’s new Chinatown.” According to the 2010 census, 40.9 percent of the city’s population was Asian.

Growing up here, I had the opposite of an identity crisis; I was irrevocably, undeniably, and comfortably Asian American. It was a label that held no confusion, just fact.

I grew up in a trilingual household, spent weekends in a nearby Vietnamese school, attended annual lunar moon festivals at my high school, joined Boston’s only all-Asian poetry slam team, and went to a barber who paid a worrisome amount of attention to his Chinese television drama while cutting my hair. It’s not to say that these experiences made me an Asian American, but it was because of my predominantly Asian community that I was able to center these experiences in my life and confidently claim a hyphenated identity for myself without fear of looking like an outsider.

On our way into Boston, we sped alongside what seemed to be a completely empty highway leading out of the city. As we drove closer, we saw cones and police cars blocking the entire lane. “It must be someone from federal. Maybe the president is here,” my father guessed.

It was definitely not the president. But for a VIP and their motorcade, it’s not all that remarkable to say that the world just stops. A whole city’s worth of gas-guzzlers, droning GPS assistants, and people with intentions put on pause.

When I started at Brown, the person I was at home went on a hiatus. My cultural identity, while still something I spoke about, no longer grounded me. I could no longer casually slip into Vietnamese with my friends here—even with the ones who were fluent— because we felt too out of place. With my family and our traditions out of reach, my own gaps in knowledge revealed themselves: In a hypothetical world where I knew how to cook, I couldn’t even fathom making my own ph in the dorm kitchens, as I wasn’t able to name the first ingredient. And on some hazy nights, when friends shared family histories over wine and greasy takeout, I rushed through mental catalogues handed down to me, desperate to find a tale I hadn’t told before. Despite my endless storytelling, I had very little to say about who my family was and how they got to where they were.

When we got to the theater, it was nearly packed.

My family and I had to squeeze through rows of knees

previously resisted. While Billi does take a drastic turn in her actions, this is not a movie about the triumph of Eastern values. Billi did not so much concede to her family as she did choose them, elevating her conflict beyond questions of what is right. There is a solemnity as the family walks in lockstep, a reminder that there is no correct course to take, no moral squabble to judge, but rather a woman at the heart of it all, needing her children and grandchildren, united and by her side.

In the dark, drafty theater, while my mother and sister sat silently appreciating the film, I kept rubbing my palm against my eyes and breathing through my mouth (and not my snot-filled nose) to avoid giving away how much I was crying. At one point, my mother looked over and reached for my hand.

“T i nghi p,” she whispered. Poor thing.

What had beat me to an emotional pulp was that Billi was never a “half-person” at any moment during the movie. It was her Asian American-ness that resisted keeping the secret, and it was her Asian American-ness that finally chose to collectively bear the weight of the secret with the rest of the family.

Her role never prioritized one side of the hyphen.

Watching Billi, I realized that the struggle with my identity hadn’t come from my efforts to preserve the customs of one culture. Instead, it was from believing that there was only one correct way of living out two different cultures if I wanted to be fully Asian American.

On our way out, my mom wanted to stop by the Chinatown gates to pick up some bao from her favorite bakery. My sister and I stood at the back door of the

Sometimes we forget that our hyphenated identities have been questioned and experienced by so many who have lived a life here before us. and overpriced movie food. My mother insisted on sitting in the middle. “So jiejie can explain to me what’s going on,” she justified to my disgruntled sister who would have rather sat next to me.

The Farewell follows Billi, a struggling New York creative who goes to China, gathering alongside her family to join her cancer-stricken nai nai, or grandmother. When she arrives, she grapples with the Chinese cultural practice that allows families to withhold terminal cancer diagnoses from loved ones.

I was taken aback by how this storyline ran parallel to my experiences. While our circumstances and cultural confrontations were vastly different, the task of learning to balance ourselves and our values on the hyphen enjoining our Asian and American identities was something Billi and I shared.

After many scenes of an exasperated Billi trying to convince her family members that withholding the diagnosis is wrong, she comes to a decisive moment: The background blurs behind her as she races down the road to a hospital. When she arrives, panting for breath, she discreetly ensures that the medical files her grandmother requested are doctored to report benign findings as her family wishes. The film then cuts to a shot of Billi marching towards the camera. No longer solitary, she is now leading the loved ones she had

theater confronting the sprawling streets, disoriented from the outside light. To our surprise, Mom pointed us in the right direction.

“You don’t know? I used to work here. That used to be McDonald’s,” she said, gesturing at an Unos.

I joked to my sister that this was “Mom’s turf,” but I really had no idea she used to come by this area every day. I asked her more about her first years in America, before me or my sister were in the picture.

“If I stay in Vietnam, I want to be a chemist. But here, my boss at McDonald’s keep saying he give me a raise, but he does not. Because I always mess up in English. But I had another job. So I left. And my English is okay now.”

Sometimes we forget that our hyphenated identities have been questioned and experienced by so many who have lived a life here before us. And just as they have moved forward in their lives, picking up what they can, holding on to what they know, and trusting themselves enough to be whole, I’m learning to do the same. I can’t always find myself at home in North Quincy surrounded by its cultural familiarity, but by listening to those around me, indulging in stories told by these powerful voices, and writing down my own life, I’m starting to uncover that there is no one correct way to be Asian in America.

OCTOBER 11, 2019!5

ARTS&CULTURE

Adventure of a Lifetime Dungeons & Dragons & Podcasts & Lost Youth

BY DAVID KLEINMAN ILLUSTRATED BY JOANNE HAN

“It’s not all abraca-fuck-you and what have you. I have a beating heart! I’m multidimensional! I’m a fullyrealized creation! FUCK!" My friends and I first played Dungeons & Dragons right after high school graduation. For those of you who haven’t seen Stranger Things, and even some of you who have, allow me to explain the premise: The essential action of D&D lies in creating characters with various strengths and weaknesses and assigning those strengths and weaknesses to dice rolls, determining whether the character succeeds or fails at the task they’re attempting. These tasks are part of a greater narrative created by the Dungeon Master, the one in charge of all non-player characters and settings. My best friend Becca dredged up her dad’s old rulebooks and begged me and a couple other friends to try out the classic roleplaying game. We were hooked right away. It didn’t even matter that the gang never got beyond three sessions in a given adventure: We were a bunch of theater kids hanging out during the summer when we couldn’t get roles. It was a joy just to act and to still have an excuse to get together after high school. Even during freshman year, at every chance, we’d get whoever we could on Skype and roll some dice together. It became our main method of staying in contact.

“Magnus rushes in.”

There’s a podcast called The Adventure Zone. Jonah, another of my high school friends, had been raving about it the whole summer between our freshman and sophomore years. According to Jonah, the podcast basically involves three idiot brothers and their idiot father playing D&D together, with one of them playing a wizard named Taako whose goal in life is to invent the taco. Soon enough, I was lying on my bed in Caswell Hall,

sobbing as Magnus (the fighter physically incapable of thinking ahead), Merle (the cleric with a Kenny Chesney ass tattoo), and, of course, Taako faced off against a threat to reality itself. Once again, I was hooked.

“Merle follows.”

In episode eight, the three players, known as the “Tres Horny Boys,” must participate in a complex trial to prove their worth to join a shadowy organization. Taako is fighting three ogres, Merle is sending him potions via cannon, and Magnus is stopping an army of robots from pressing a button that’ll kill everyone. Magnus can see that he’s outnumbered. Rather than put his full strength into fighting each robot, he decides to neutralize them as quickly as he can by pulling off their arms. Though the group laughs at his grotesque plan of action, the Dungeon Master agrees with Magnus that it’s the best course of action; he has him roll a die to determine his success in mutilating this poor android. He has to roll higher than six to do it, and he rolls a seven. To capture this hair’s breadth success, the DM announces: “You very, very slowly tear his arms off.” It’s as hilarious as it is agonizing to the robot. Twenty-nine episodes later, the THB face off against three deadly robot enemies. Magnus grins. He goes for the arms. The Adventure Zone excels in the art of the comedic callback. I don’t want to spoil any more, though, because these payoffs are what make the story so beautiful. It’s one big joke, and you’re in on it. But the

“Is it over, sirs? Did we win?”

When The Adventure Zone ended, the creators were faced with a choice. Sequel rot was a threat, but they had a good thing going and didn’t want to cut it short. So they compromised: the story was over, but the first season would no longer comprise the whole of The Adventure Zone. They rebranded it The Adventure Zone: Balance, and the title of The Adventure Zone became a catchall for multiple seasons of different role-playing games with all-new narratives. The second season, The Adventure Zone: Amnesty, had its finale on September 23, 2019.

I didn’t listen.

“But that is the limit of my knowledge. You’re all caught up now. Whatever happens next, well… we’ll just have to find out together.”

I have a few complaints about Amnesty. For one, the characters were never really fleshed out, which I chalk up to a system much more open to character death than D&D ever was; it wasn’t built into the rules that we’d get attached to them. Moreover, in Balance, there was a set number of magical items to be collected, a set final boss to be fought, a set intention for just about every action. The arcs of Amnesty usually hinged around the central conceit of “stop the monster and save everyone”; a worthy conceit, but after a few monster hunts, you wonder where it’s all going.

The little things the players do to amuse themselves are never dismissed or forgotten; the things that make them happy make them who they are. fun of The Adventure Zone isn’t just in the comedy; the action and the drama are equally important. In fact, this balance holds the entire show together. A joke is never at the expense of the story—it only enriches it. Even when the adventurers decide that they want to assign a silly trait to a non-player character, it’s often given a deeply moving backstory later. The little things the players do to amuse themselves are never dismissed or forgotten; the things that make them happy make them who they are.

“Taako’s good out here.”

Like all things, good or otherwise, The Adventure Zone ends. The finale had actually come out right when I started working my way through the archive. I called Jonah, and we sobbed for a little bit. I called Becca and told her to start listening. I called Becca and Jonah at the same time and demanded we play D&D again soon.

I called someone I knew who was into the show, and we talked about it for so long that we ended up dating. I was sad to lose the stream of new adventures, but the note they ended on was so perfect I wouldn’t dare ask for more. I was, above all else, happy.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Anita Sheih FEATURE Managing Editor Sydney Lo

“I am confronted by my illiteracy.”

Section Editors Sara Shapiro Erin Walden

– Rebecca Buxbaum, “shiru” 10.11.18

Staff Writer Anna Harvey

“This guy can have fun anywhere."

– James Feinberg, “don’t call it a comeback” 10.12.17

NARRATIVE Managing Editor Celina Sun Section Editors Liza Edwards-Levin Michelle Liu Jasmine Ngai

But when I step back, I have to ask myself, was it really Amnesty’s fault I wasn’t interested?

“Sometimes there aren't good decisions. Sometimes there's just decisions.”

Since Balance ended in 2017, my D&D group of high school friends has stopped talking. Jonah’s always busy, and Becca spends most of her time with her girlfriend. I’m no longer in a relationship with the person I met through the show. What do I have to show for the intervening years besides a couple of other podcasts I’ve come to enjoy?

Maybe I need to listen to Balance again and recapture the magic. Maybe I need to try listening to Amnesty and accept the future. Maybe I need to write to make sense of my feelings. Maybe I need to leave podcasts behind entirely. Maybe I need to let go of the past. I think the DM put it best when he said: “When someone leaves your life, those exits are not made equal. Some are beautiful and poetic and satisfying. Others are abrupt and unfair. But most are just unremarkable, unintentional, and clumsy.”

Staff Writers Kaitlan Bui Siena Capone Danielle Emerson Naomi Kim Anneliese Mair Grace Park ARTS & CULTURE Managing Editor Julian Towers Section Editors Nicole Fegan Griffin Plaag Staff Writer Rob Capron

LIFESTYLE Managing Editor Kahini Mehta

SOCIAL MEDIA Head Editor Camila Pavon

Section Editor Caitlin McCartney

Editor Paola Solano

Staff Writers Eashan Das Lauren Toneatto

HEAD ILLUSTRATOR Rémy Poisson

COPY Copy Chief Amanda Ngo

LAYOUT Co-Chiefs Amy Choi Nina Yuchi

Copy Editors Maddy McGrath Jennifer Osborne Mohima Sattar

Designers Joanne Han Steve Ju Iris Xie WEB MASTER Jeff Demanche

Want to be involved?

Email: anita_sheih@brown.edu!

6!POST–

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2019

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

9

SCIENCE AND RESEARCH

$6.3 million DARPA grant boosts spinal repair research Grant funds U. collab with Intel, R.I. Hospital, Micro Leads Medical to create spinal tech

BY KATHLEEN MEININGER CONTRIBUTING WRITER A $6.3 million research grant from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will allow University researchers to develop an implantable spinal device to help repair neural connections in the spine.

The grant will fund a University collaboration with the Rhode Island Hospital, Intel Corporation and Micro Leads Medical.

This new project falls at the intersection of neuroscience, computer science, engineering and clinical research. Researchers have created an implantable device that can record and stimulate areas both above and below a spinal injury in patients with spinal cord damage. Once the device records a signal traveling down the spinal cord from the brain, the signal is sent to a computer interface to be decoded by neural network algorithms, which are computer systems designed to recognize and transmit neural patterns.

Then, the signal is used to stimulate the area of the spinal cord below the injury.

“The basic concept is to create an electrical bridge across the site of injury,” said Jared Fridley, the lead neuroscientist on this project and a neurosurgeon at Rhode Island Hospital. “If you can record from above the site of injury, record from below the site of injury and stimulate based on the interpretation of the information, then you can essentially bypass the site of injury.”

What makes this project distinctively innovative is the bi-directional nature of the device. Not only can the

AOTW FROM PAGE 1

SUMMER ZHANG / HERALD

device stimulate the spinal cord below the site of injury, but it can also stimulate the spinal cord above the site of injury. This allows the brain to receive sensory information from arms, legs and other extremities and adjust its own signals accordingly, which would

the nature of the injury and healing process. “The feedback loop is very important,” said David Borton, a researcher at the Carney Institute for Brain Science and an assistant professor at the School of Engineering, who is the principal investigator for this project. “We put an electrode ray

searchers hope to gain insight into the signaling process of the spinal cord and develop algorithms to mimic these signals in patients with spinal cord injuries. This study is purely exploratory, meaning that the researchers do not currently plan to use the device in a true clinical setting. But they hope to

“We are hoping that eventually we can come up with a device that will be commercially available,” said Ziya Gokaslan, chief of neurosurgery at Rhode Island Hospital. Ideally, this device would not only help with movement after injury but also voluntary control of the bowel and bladder, he

above and below an injury. This technology can also be used to study the feedback loop between the brain and body, which helps regulate both motor control and control of voluntary bodily functions.

By recording above and below the spinal lesion, researchers can also study

above the injury … and evaluate: what can we learn about the lesion itself? Are all lesions the same? When someone is clinically diagnosed with a complete spinal cord injury, is that in fact a complete injury, meaning there’s no passing of signal across that lesion?”

Over the next two years, the re-

one day use the data to develop therapeutic devices to help patients with spinal cord injuries, many of whom are veterans. The researchers are optimistic that the interdisciplinary nature of the project will allow them to gain fresh insight into the relatively unex-

said. This will greatly improve patient quality of life.

“There’s not clinical treatment for spinal cord injury right now at all. So if it worked, it’d be amazing. It’d be one of the few tools we could provide to people,” Fridley said.

is my biggest passion. I really like school. I’m very competitive on the

Herald: What is the biggest differ-

in the Netherlands?

Van Rootselaar: There’s a lot of focus on conditioning and strength (at Brown). It’s way more professional here because it’s combined with the University. (In the Netherlands), you play club, (so) the teams and the universities are not linked. Here, it is easier to balance practices and classes because the coaches and the professors communicate. When we have an away game, our professors understand. At home, you either play perfect combination here. There’s also a difference mentality-wise. Everyone in the United States is super positive, which is awesome. That’s been the biggest mental change.

this season?

We have a lot of talent and individual skills on our team. The entire team puts everything on the table in every game and at every practice.

Everyone is going at 100 percent.

What are your favorite things to

So, I really try to get the best grades I can. I have no clue what I want to do in the future, so I just try to go with the Open Curriculum, because I can go anywhere, (and) in any direction I want to pursue.

zone?

I’m taking French right now, which I could have never otherwise done.

Back home, you pick one major (and don’t want to major in French, but it’s so fun to be able to learn another language and compare it to Dutch and English.

Field hockey is the biggest sport in the Netherlands, so my four siblings

What’s the best part of being a

The game moves super fast. I feel like not everyone knows a lot about they should know it is a cool game to

watch. There is a lot of tension. There aren’t a lot goals, so when a goal is scored there is a lot of enthusiasm.

There are so many opportunities for We have about 25 games this season.

Yes, and it’s awesome for team bonding. You get to know your teammates so much better when you’re with them 24 hours straight for a couple of days. … It’s so fun to travel on a plane with the team, (since) I had never done that before. … The longer the trips are, the closer you get to each other.

What’s one thing you want every-

the Netherlands, I grew up with it. I started when I was four — everyone does. That’s why it’s such a big part of my life. Also, my family, friends and everyone I know plays. When I’m and go play, because it’s the most fun thing to do for me. I look forward to practice every single day. Game days are the high of the week.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

EDUCATION FROM PAGE 1 before a searing Johns Hopkins report on the state of the Providence Public School District caused the state to initiate a takeover of the district. from the grant, but the grant application was submitted before the state takeover process began,” Geoghegan said. She also stressed that while the takeover only pertains to Providence public schools, this grant will apply to the entire state.

Kenneth Wong, professor of education policy, international and public affairs and political science, applauded the grant for focusing on early age literacy opportunities. Wong said that until third grade, students “learn to read — and from third grade and on, they read to learn. Once they develop reading skills, they will be able to learn in a tremendous way.”

Wong also said an emphasis on parent inclusion is essential to successful literacy development efforts. “Families have to be a partner in learning literacy, because learning does not end in a classroom. Students have to bring home some of the books to read. The district would have to engage the parents to set aside some time” to work at reading at home, Wong said.

Elizabeth Burke Bryant, executive emphasized the scale of the grant and its potential to help meet literacy goals, especially for students who face greater challenges, like English language learners and children from less privileged backgrounds.

“There are very wide and unacceptable gaps by race, ethnicity and income level that really need to be closed. So this grant is a really important set of resources to target literacy from that whole spectrum,” Bryant said.

10

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2019

U. classes in the creative arts should not be mandatory S/NC

BY ALISA CAIRA ’22 STAFF COLUMNIST

The purpose of Brown’s Open Curriculum is to let students choose how to design their education. As a part of this curriculum, students can choose to take courses Satisfactory or No Credit if they want to explore a course out of their comfort zone. Yet, there is one important area in which Brown fails to live up to its ideal of prioritizing student choice. Many of the “creative” courses, particularly in the visual and literary arts, have mandatory S/NC grading. This problem is most egregious in the Visual Art Department, which, as a rule, makes the grading system for all of its courses mandatory S/NC. The University’s policy not to allow students to take creative courses for a grade is problematic for three reasons: it is based on the condescending assumption that art cannot have any standards or rigor; it devalues the hard work that artists do in those classes and potentially creates a negative classroom environment; and it places students at a disadvantage when pursuing their post-graduate plans.

Creative courses at Brown likely include a mandatory S/NC grading model out of the University’s desire to foster creativity, under the assumption that art cannot be critically evaluated. The intention to allow art students room for exploration and creativity without fear of a grade is of course understandable. Unlike many disciplines, art is subjective, and in an ultimate sense, there are no correct answers in art.

But subjectivity does not mean that art must lack standards. To assert that art has no measures to assess quality is to dismiss all the knowledge and expertise of professors in the creative arts. These professors have broad

knowledge of many artistic styles as well as specialized knowledge of particular artistic critique students’ work. Even when a student deviates from conventional styles or from the preferred style of the professor, the professor is still in the position to evaluate the student’s technique and effort in a rigorous manner.

Many kinds of academic work, such as essays, lend themselves to a degree of subjectivity.

Just as a history professor still grades an essay despite its subjectivity, art professors should be able to evaluate students’ work rigorously while still leaving room for creativity. As a

Many students in art courses have seemingly internalized the University’s message that art cannot be rigorous by often cutting class, not completing assignments and being inattentive during class. It is deeply unfair for students who put care and effort into their work to be graded on the same binary scale as those who don’t take the course seriously. In theory, professors could ‘NC’ these students, but in practice they are unlikely to take such a drastic measure, especially in the more subjective disciplines. So students putting genuine thought and time into projects can receive the same grade as students who take advantage of

While the University may claim to support the arts, it is actually making its arts students less competitive after graduation. Art students who need grades on their transcripts feel obligated to prioritize their non-artistic disciplines. This problem is exasperated by the fact that other art programs do grade student work.

Rhode Island School of Design, the country’s premier art school, has a rigorous system of grading for their students’ work. In not giving the option of letter grades, the University ignores the full potential of its art students and fails to provide everything they require from their education to be ready for the world after

Instead of forcing its grading model upon students, the University should stand by the foundational mission of the Open Curriculum by giving students the opportunity to choose.

frustrated VISA concentrator Sylvia Atwood puts it, “The argument that art cannot be meathe fact that art requires as much hard work and critical thinking as any other discipline.”

Of course, weighing the quality of a painting is still a more subjective process than grading the argument in a history essay. It is therefore understandable that some students should not want their art to be graded. But even if the University removed the S/NC requirement for creative courses, these students still have the option to take the course S/NC. If the University really wants to emphasize the subjectivity of art, it could publicize recommendations that students take art courses S/NC. But it should not force them to do so.

art’s subjectivity by putting little effort into their work. The purpose of allowing grades would not be to punish the less-engaged students, but only to acknowledge the efforts of the more-engaged students and to encourage an environment in which students are more likely to take art seriously.

In an ideal world, education would not have to be constrained by grading. But like it of success, and therefore many students do too. Artistic disciplines should not be singled out as the one area where these metrics are irrelevant. It is not fair to students who value these metrics of success to be told that their art courses are the “easy” course because they are ungraded.

graduation.

If Brown University wants to better support its student artists, it should listen to their qualms regarding mandatory S/NC grading.

Instead of forcing its grading model upon students, the University should stand by the foundational mission of the Open Curriculum by giving students the opportunity to choose. If you believe the University should consider removing the S/NC requirement, sign onto this petition made by Atwood.

Alisa Caira ’22 can be reached at alisa_caira@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald. com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

EDITORIAL

CS Department needs ethical guidelines for industry partnerships the Brown Immigrant Rights Coalition protested four companies — Amazon, Microsoft, Palantir and Ernst & Young — that hold contractual agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. These companies participate in Brown’s “Industry Partners Program,” a Department of Computer Science program, which asks tech corporations to pay anywhere from $5,000 to upwards of $15,000 to secure a place at Brown’s career fairs and gain special access to students, faculty and recruiting resources.

The Career Fair protest took place amid a larger, growing national conversation around how universities should confront the United States’ increasingly punitive immigration policies, which ICE upholds. Amazon, Microsoft, Palantir and EY have received criticism for providing tools and software to ICE, and students at over 25 universities throughout the nation have joined the #NoTechForIce campaign to petition their schools to cut ties with these businesses. Students have also signed pledges not to work for companies that have ties with ICE. At the moment, Brown’s department of computer science has paused on-campus events with Palantir and removed Palantir’s In light of recent events, and as the CS department reviews its industry partnerships, we call on the department to publicly clarify its policies and create a standard to assess corporate partnerships against departmental values of ethics and social good.

The CS department has recently taken steps to promote a more ethical computer science community and grams such as the “Responsible Computer Science” initia-

tive and the introduction of Ethics TAs this semester, the CS department has placed new emphasis on the idea that ethical impact should be integral to its computer science Chair Ugur Cetintemel highlighted the importance of encouraging concentrators to “think critically about the usage and possible misuse of the solutions they build.” cision to partner with companies like Palantir, Amazon, Microsoft and EY. While these corporations have created many benign technologies that have played important roles in advancing society’s progress, we cannot overlook how their contracts with ICE legitimize and empower the agency to take egregious actions. We have seen how ICE instills fear in local communities, separates children from their families and detains individuals for extended periods in inhumane conditions. By accepting money from these companies and giving them preferential access to students, the University normalizes the presence of these corporations, which serves as a form of indirect support.

We recognize that not every student has the privilege of choosing where they work, nor does every employee withor end contracts with agencies such as ICE. To that end, our call to action is directed toward the executives of these The department should not be facilitating student create products that are irreconcilable with the University’s values, especially when legitimate alternatives must exist.

While the department rightly removed Palantir from

with the company, it should also reevaluate its partnerships with Amazon, Microsoft and EY, companies whose actions might not align with the values set forth by the department. Ultimately, the department owes it to the students, who are rightfully concerned about the implications of partnering with these companies, to establish a more transparent method of choosing which companies should or should not be partnered with Brown CS. Going forward, in any standard it constructs to assess future corporate partnerships, the CS department should incorporate ethical concerns and social impact into its criterion. Then, even if the department ultimately chooses to continue its relationships with such businesses, it will be able to justify those choices to students against its own standards.

To construct such a standard and facilitate discourse on departmental values, the department should consider creating an ethics board that includes a mix of undergraduate and graduate student representation. By consulting with and listening to students, we hope that the department can open avenues to bring a more diverse array of companies and organizations to campus. Overall, while Brown’s computer science department has made significant progress in building a class of computer science concentrators who are conscientious of the social impact of their work, it should extend this value beyond its classrooms to hold the industry at large more accountable to the ethical implications of the technology it creates.

— Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board: its editors, Grace Layer ’20 and Krista Stapleford ’21, and its members, Dylan Tian ’21 and Riley Pestorius ’21. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2019

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY

11

Amazon and ICE, an exercise in guilt by association

BY ANDREW REED ’21 STAFF COLUMNIST Late last month during a job fair organized by the University’s CareerLAB, students representing the Brown Immigrant Rights Coalition staged a protest of four companies, including Amazon, for contracting with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. As part of their demonstration, four students stood in front of Amazon’s recruitment table bearing signs that read, in part, “#NoTech4ICE” and “IBM Sold Tech to Nazis.” Brown Department of Public Safety responded to the scene, but after speaka resolution. In effect, the protesters disrupted the ability of Brown students to speak with Amazon recruiters.

To be certain, the protesters have, and should have, the right to protest Amazon or any other company for any reason or no reason at all. But the question is not “should they have the right to protest,?” but rather “should they protest?” I’m by no means suggesting a universal standard regarding what should and should not merit public scorn. But if we examine the Amazon protest and apply the protesters’ logic more broadly, what follows is a highly undesirable standard. If Amazon is to be protested and boycotted for doing business with ICE, this sets a dangerously low bar for being “canceled,” maligned or otherwise cast out as morally ill-suited for inclusion in civil society.

BY NATALIE LERNER ’18.5, KRISTINE MAR ’18, EVAN LEHMANN ’19 AND SOPHIE KUPETZ ’19.5 OP-ED CONTRIBUTORS

New York City Council Member Stephen Levin ’03 has publicly supported an estimated $9-11 billion plan to build brand new jail infrastructure in New York City. The City Council will vote on this plan next week. If the plan passes, New York City will build four new massive skyscraper jails, as well as 1-2 nursery jails for mothers and their babies, and 3-6 jails inside of city hospitals. While the New York City Council and Mayor Bill de Blasio claim that this increase in the number of city jails is part of the process of closing New York’s Rikers Island jail complex, when the city council votes, there will be nothing binding the city council to close Rikers more, this jail proliferation plan is not necessary in order to secure Rikers’ closure.

Stephen Levin’s vote is what he will be remembered for — in New York City and at the University. If Levin moves forward with voting for this plan, he will be personally responsible for making possible the incarceration of black and brown New Yorkers for decades to come.

As the councilperson representing District 33, Levin oversees the district in which the Brooklyn-based skyscraper jail is slated to be built. Because of member deference, a convention by which city councilors generally follow the lead of the council member whose district will be impacted on land use issues, Levin is one of four city council members with the most power to stop the city from building these 8 to 12 new jails. The community boards of all four boroughs that are affected by jail construction have voted “No” on the plan, which has been rushed through with a distinct lack of transparency and community accountability. Levin’s indicated support for the jail construction plan

When the bar is: “If you do business with someone with whom we disagree, then you’re tests and attempts to shame employees — any potential for dialogue is drowned in a sea of ad hominems. In such a society, all nuance is removed from the equation: You’re either with

whose products serve a critical role in the mission of ICE. If Ford manufactures their squad cars, if Cintas provides their uniforms or if Staples supsimilarly shunned? Should organizations — like Brown — who do business with those compa-

If Amazon is to be protested and boycotted for doing business with ICE, this sets a dangerously low bar for being “cancelled,” maligned or otherwise cast out as morally ill-suited for inclusion in civil society.

us, or you’re with them. And under this standard, being with them is not just a matter of disagreement — it’s indicative of a moral failure.

Some have argued that protesting Amazon is tantamount to protesting ICE, because Amazon provides tools which are directly relat-

nies be protested as well? Should companies who do business with those organizations be lumped in, too?

I am not saying that you should not boycott Amazon just because you cannot boycott all of the companies with critical ties to ICE. But I don’t see a meaningful difference between Am-

Amazon Web Services provides cloud computing software that hosts the data ICE uses to track undocumented immigrants. But there are hundreds or perhaps thousands of companies

should not be subject to boycott for providing ICE with a product that is no less essential to their function.

But even if you think that every business

uents — echoed by people across the US, from students, politicians, activists and scholars — to close Rikers, build no new jails and use the multibillion dollar budget to invest in community needs instead.

Opened in 1932 to “solve” prison-overcrowding in Manhattan, Rikers was originally billed as a “model penitentiary,” sure to become “the most perfect prison in the world.” More than 80 years later, the notoriously deadly and brutal jail is known for its injustice, abuse and corruption. In 2015, 22-year-old Kaleif Browder died after experiencing intense trauma during his three-year imprisonment while he was imprisoned for three years pretrial, unable to make bail at Rikers — two of those years in sol-

to move forward a provision with a hard deadline to close Rikers by 2026. It is worth noting that this provision was introduced nearly two years after Mayor de Blasio proposed the construction of new jails and that the provision to close Rikers was announced mere weeks before the vote on new jail construction. If the jail construction plan passes next week, there will still be no guarantee that Rikers will close. Next week’s vote does one thing: commit the city to building more jails. .

Rikers itself is a jail, not a prison, meaning that it does not incarcerate people who are serving long-term sentences. Out of the near-

Polanco, a trans Afro-Latina New Yorker, died in fect” by any means.

Politicians like Stephen Levin contend that building new, “humane” jails is a necessary step toward decarceration. But there is no such thing as a humane jail. Carceral systems are sites of surveillance, secrecy and fundamental inequity.

Cages with gardens and glass windows are still cages.

What New York City’s jail construction plan does guarantee is the continuation of an inherently violent structure that institutionally targets primarily black and brown people, especially those who are queer and trans, young, disabled, undocumented and/or poor and working class. Building new jails will never lead to decarceration, let alone abolition. We have seen this trap before. In California, Folsom State Prison was built to replace San Quentin due to overcrowding and harsh conditions. More than a century later, both prisons still exist. If the Through the proposed plan, New York City has co-opted the work of activists who have worked for years to close Rikers. Only after widespread criticism did the City Council begin

“Cages with gardens and glass windows are still cages.”

ly 8,000 people incarcerated daily in New York City jails, the majority — more than 75 percent — are detained pretrial. Most are detained because they cannot afford to pay bail for pretrial release, or are not even given the option to pay bail, even though in most cases the court legally could grant bail. This year, the state of New York passed bail reform legislation that is set to go into effect in January 2020. Under this legislation, nearly half of the people detained pretrial today would have been released. This would immediately drop the number of people Mayor de Blasio has stated is required to close the complex, well ahead of the 2026 date that frastructure is not an essential step in the process of closing Rikers.

has the responsibility to refuse to sell to ICE, consider that the standard set by protesters not only holds companies complicit in the actions of ICE, but their employees as well. Ask yourself, does a Brown student really deserve to be shamed for trying to speak to an Amazon recruiter? And if that student dares to accept a position at Amazon, do they now bear some measure of moral responsibility for the maltreatment of immigrants in ICE facilities? What if I dare keep my Prime membership after learning that Amazon does business with ICE, have I too earned the designation, “ICE-Collaborator?”

My answer to those questions is no.

The point is, if you don’t like ICE, protest them. But to extend that grievance to Amazon and anyone tangentially related to ICE is self-defeating. Setting such an impossibly high standard lessens the protesters’ credibility and gives ammunition to the people who are predisposed to dismiss their cause with a roll of Protesting those who directly execute policies with which you disagree is not just acceptable, it’s how progress is made in civil society. But the notion that anyone with the temerity to sell to ICE ought to be shamed, boycotted, or otherwise “cancelled” is textbook guilt by association.

Andrew Reed ’21 can be reached at andrew_ reed@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald. com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

Changes to bail are only one pathway for decarceration. Community members — in particular people impacted by incarceration, including educators, legal professionals, health workers, social workers and urban planners — have althat will lower the number of people in jails and prisons, build healthier communities and ensure safety for all. These actions do not include building new jails. Instead, Levin and his fellow City Council members must commit the $9-11 billion toward the resources — including housing, education, mental health resources and harm reduction programs.

Stephen Levin’s position of power as a New York City Council Member is owed in part to his Brown University resume. As community memand legacy, we have a responsibility to hold him accountable. The era of jail-building is over.

Levin’s choice will cement him in history, either as someone who wielded his power to personally enable the continued incarceration of thousands of Black and Brown New Yorkers, or, as someone who changed his mind and called on his fellow City Council members to do so as well.

Members of the Brown community: Please sign the petition to urge Stephen Levin ’03 to vote no on the jail construction plan. Call, email and engage with Levin on social media and make him account for the massive harm he may cause. Demand that Stephen Levin vote no next Thursday, October 17, before it’s too late.

Natalie Lerner ’18.5, Kristine Mar ’18, Evan Lehmann ’19 and Sophie Kupetz ’19.5, believe prison abolition is the only way. Natalie Lerner ’18.5 can be reached at natalie_lerner@alumni.brown.edu, Kristine Mar ’18 can be reached at kristine_mar@alumni.brown. edu, Evan Lehmann ’19 can be reached at evan_lehmann@alumni.brown.edu and Sophie Kupetz ’19.5 can be reached at sophie_ kupetz@brown.edu.

12

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2019

COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS

The men’s and women’s soccer teams garnered average GPAs of 3.44 and 3.58 in the 2018-2019 academic year, respectively.

SOCCER FROM PAGE 1 studying late in one of the libraries, so I think it’s really nice to be rewarded for hard work.”

Men’s Head Coach Patrick Laughlin attributed this long-term academic success to the team’s culture of accountability and dedication. “It’s part of who we are as a program, and it’s part of what we expect and what they expect of each other,” he said. “It’s part of the team environment and culture to expect that type of drive Managing the balance between Division I athletics and Ivy League academics requires hard work, time management skills and sacrifice, part of being an athlete, especially at such a prestigious institution,” she said. “You have to know when to give up your social life, for example, in order to perform in the classroom Women’s Head Coach Kia McNeill said that before an away game against Columbia last weekend, many of her players could be found in their rooms, studying and taking notes.

After the game, a 2-0 victory, some players spent the late bus ride back to Brown completing schoolwork, Cummings added. The women’s soccer team currently stands at 8-1-1 and is The men’s team has an overall record of 1-6-1.

Men’s captain Daniel Schiller ’20 said that balancing practice with work and sleep can be challenging. “It’s

where you can do the work and do it successfully,” he said.

According to McNeill, building a team with strong academics begins with recruiting. “When your academics are going well, soccer goes letes who are dedicated and passionate about the academic side of things, so that hopefully that will trickle through on the soccer side as well.”

Both the men’s and women’s teams said they have a community in place to ensure that players receive the academic help they need.

Cummings said that members of the women’s team often tutor fellow teammates in classes or subjects that they know well. Both Cummings and Schiller said that players will study together if they are in the same or similar classes.

In addition, coaches on the women’s side have an open door policy for players seeking academic advice or resources, Cummings said. Schiller added that the men’s program matches players with coaches to encourage issues as well.

“Brown is a school that really prides itself on resources,” McNeill said. “It’s my job to make sure that my student athletes know what’s out there for them that they can utilize.”

The award is “a testament to (the) Brown student experience,” Schiller said. “We are motivated to achieve in all aspects of life, not just in life as athletes but also in life as students and life as human beings.”

Please join us on

Tuesday, October 15th at 4pm for the

Bernard I. Fain Lecture

Dream Hoarders: Inequality, Class and Higher Education

by Richard Reeves, a writer , scholar and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution The event will be held at Watson Institute in Joukowsky Forum and is co-sponsored by the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Wealth and Inequality Project and the Department of Economics.

The Fain Lecture honors the memory of Bernard I. Fain, a member of the Brown University class of 1952.

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