SINCE 1891
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2022
VOLUME CLVII, ISSUE 20
UNIVERSITY NEWS
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UNIVERSITY NEWS
Remembering U.’s first female full prof Slavic Studies grads talk Russia-Ukraine war Elizabeth Hortense Students say they feel responsibility to encourage discussion about conflict
forced to return to the United States despite initially being told she would be able to remain in Russia. For graduate students in the Slavic Studies department like Wheelwright, the Russia-Ukraine war is a threat to their ability to complete their dissertations and find future employment, according to Professor of Slavic Studies Masako Fidler. “If one needs to do fieldwork, archival work or to obtain even secondary literature that is available only in Russia, it has become impossible for them to do (so),” Fidler wrote in an email to The Herald. “Their dissertation research has been already impacted by COVID to begin with.” Alexander Dumanis GS, who studies the shifting family structures in pre-revolutionary Russian literature, has been facing similar issues to Wheelwright. Dumanis was supposed to travel to Russia in 2020, but his plans were similarly interrupted by the pandemic. “I’ve been meaning to go to Russia
BY ALEX NADIRASHVILI UNIVERSITY NEWS EDITOR In April 2020, Tara Wheelwright GS received a Fulbright Dissertation Fellowship. Wheelwright, who is working toward her PhD in Slavic Studies, planned on traveling to Russia in the same year to complete archival research, but she was unable to do so because of the COVID-19 pandemic. More than a year later in October 2021, Wheelwright arrived in Russia with the intention of completing her research and staying in the country for two years. Wheelwright’s in-country work began with a Fulbright orientation day Feb. 23, the day before Russian forces launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine. Within days, Wheelwright was
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Leduc pioneered field of cell biology, became full professor in 1964 BY STELLA CHEN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Elizabeth Hortense Leduc, affectionately nicknamed “Dukie” by colleagues and students alike, was the first woman full professor in a teaching position at Brown University. Beginning as a professor in 1964 after working at Brown for several years, Leduc helped shape the University for its women students — from inspiring future academics as the first woman chair of a department to helping oversee the merger between Brown and Pembroke College in the 70s, Leduc left a tangible legacy on Brown. Leduc is fondly remembered by colleagues and students who came to know her warm personality and admire her brilliant contributions to the field of biology. Life and career: Pioneering biology
COURTESY OF KENNETH MILLER
Professor Elizabeth Hotense Leduc referred to herself as “one of the founding mothers” of the American Society for Cell Biology. Born in Rockland, Maine and raised in Vermont, Leduc graduated from the University of Vermont with a bachelors in biology in 1943, according to the Pembroke Center Oral History Project. She obtained a masters at Wellesley College and a Ph.D from Brown in 1948, both in biology. After a four-year stint teaching anatomy at Harvard, Leduc returned to Brown in 1953, where she remained for the rest of her career. In 1964, Leduc was made a full professor — seven years before the University be-
gan admitting female students in 1971. Three years later, she briefly served as chair of the Biology Department, and from 1973 until 1977, Leduc served as the dean of biological sciences. Leduc led an illustrious career as a researcher and professor. Her research “focused on the structure, function and pathology of the liver,” according to a Brown Alumni Magazine profile. She assisted in the development of cytochemistry, which allows scientists to identify
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SPORTS
UNIVERSITY NEWS
No. 16 men’s lacrosse grinds out rainy victory against Stony Brook
SHAG kicks off inperson Sex Week
18 saves from Connor Theriault ’24 help Bears overcome offensive struggles
Staff advisor, student coordinators reflect on importance of annual event
BY NICHOLAS MILLER SENIOR STAFF WRITER
BY ALEX NADIRASHVILI UNIVERSITY NEWS EDITOR
The No. 16 men’s lacrosse team (5-1) defeated the Stony Brook University Seawolves (4-2) 10-7 Saturday at Stevenson-Pincince Field. Playing through a heavy downpour for much of the game, the teams’ normally explosive offenses — Brown is ranked 11th in the country in goals per game and Stony Brook is 14th — fell far short of their track records, with each team registering over 20 turnovers. “On both teams, it was pretty sloppy,” said Head Coach Mike Daly. The Bears’ offense scored a combined four goals in the first, second and fourth quarters, but a six-goal flurry in the third — which included four from attacker Devon McLane ’23 — gave Brown all they needed for a victory. On the defensive side, goalie Connor Theriault ’24 made a career-high 18
COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS
Within the first minute of the game, attacker Darian Cook ’22 opened the scoring with an acrobatic finish. saves, including several tremendous stops in the fourth quarter to frustrate the Seawolves’ hopes for a comeback. “He’s been unbelievable all season,” McLane said of Theriault. “It’s huge having him in net for our defense.” Brown opened the scoring just 39 seconds into the game when attacker Darian Cook ’22 cut from behind the net and wrapped his shot around his defender for an acrobatic finish. Following Cook’s goal, Brown turned the ball over three times in a minute
and a half, and Stony Brook midfielder Mike McMahon soon equalized with a shot in the top corner. With six minutes played, Cook replicated his successful opening effort, again starting from behind the cage before dodging to the front and finding the back of the net. Cook, who finished the game with a hat trick in addition to a pair of assists, entered the game 19th in the country in points per game with an average of 4.6.
On Sunday night, The Underground’s floor and tables were littered with free condoms, chocolates and various other pastries. Students gathered in the cafe in the basement of the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center to partake in the Sexual Health Awareness Group’s “Sex and Chocolate in the Dark” event, a discussion-based gathering meant to facilitate conversations about sexual experiences and health. “Sex and Chocolate in the Dark” is part of an annual week-long event called Sex Week, which is hosted by SHAG, a peer education program that operates under BWell Health Promotion. The week is meant to provide opportunities for students to engage with sexual health through a wide
range of workshops geared toward different audiences, said Monique Jonath ’24, a Sex Week student coordinator. “It’s just really meant to remind everyone that sex is a part of life, whether you’re choosing to have it or not and (no matter) how you decide to navigate your own sexuality,” Jonath said. “We say that Brown is committed to making that an option for everyone and there are a lot of different ways of being” and engaging. The week’s events include a variety of discussion-based workshops, including “The First Time: Discussing Virginity,” “Sense and Sensuality,” “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World of Talking about Intimate Pleasure” and “Euphoria! Exploring Sex Toys and Personal Pleasure.” SHAG will also hold a Sexual Health Open House on March 15 and host Jayda Shuavarnnasri, a sexual health expert who will speak on sexual shame, March 16. The week will culminate in “Fifty First Dates,” a SHAG mixer, on March 17. Priya Mosher ’23, another SHAG student coordinator, expressed excitement about the “Sense and Sensu-
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University News S & R
Arts & Culture
Commentary
University addresses shift to optional masking, testing Page 2
“KIMI” on HBO Max tells survival story during COVID-19 lockdown Page 5
Editorial: Campus leaders should incorporate student input on masks. Page 6
Matthew Johnson presents research on psychedelics as addiction treatment Page 3
SEE SHAG PAGE 7
TODAY TOMORROW
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS
MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2022
UNIVERSITY NEWS
U. believes optional masking, testing is ‘best for Brown’ University considers guidance from “campus expertise,” peer institutions, CDC BY GABRIELLA VULAKH SCIENCE & RESEARCH EDITOR The University shifted today to optional masking for fully-vaccinated community members in most locations on campus and optional testing for fully-vaccinated undergraduate students, The Herald previously reported. Guidance on COVID-19 precautions from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were among the “most important” factors the University considered before making the change, said Executive Vice President for Planning and Policy Russell Carey ’91 MA’06. The University also relied “heavily on campus expertise,” including from Executive Director of Health and Wellness Vanessa Britto MSc’96 and other faculty in the medical school, Carey told The Herald. “Our health services leadership felt really comfortable going to both optional testing for undergraduates and mask optional with the exceptions that we provided,” Carey said. The change, which Carey said was “best for Brown,” followed a review of COVID-19 case numbers on campus, in Providence and in the greater Rhode Island community, according to Carey. While students are still required to wear masks if asked by professors or presenters, “most faculty and students would agree that the classroom experience is better without a mask,” Carey said. “The ability to see each other more directly and particularly in a classroom setting is really important, so we wanted to get to that point as quickly as we felt it was safe to do so,” he added.
LEDUC FROM PAGE 1 the location of molecules within cells. Leduc was an early pioneer in electron microscopy, a method that obtains high-resolution images of biological and non-biological specimens, according to Susan Gerbi, a professor of biochemistry. The Leduc Bioimaging Facility, located at Sidney Frank Hall, provides equipment and training dedicated to high-resolution imaging in the life sciences and is named for Leduc. Leduc published groundbreaking research and was highly regarded both nationally and internationally for her work. She was one of the founding members of the American Society for Cell Biology, according to Kenneth Miller ’70, a professor of biology who studied under Leduc. Today the society has over 7,500 members worldwide. Miller recalled that she “always referred to herself as one of the founding mothers of the Society of Cell Biology.” While Leduc served as an administrator at the University, she was appointed by former President Gerald Ford to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, according to BAM. Leduc was the only woman on the committee, which was
LEON JIANG / HERALD
Despite masking becoming optional, Executive Vice President for Planning and Policy Russell Carey ’91 MA’06 still urges community members to continue to “always carry a mask.” Brown shuttles will continue to require masking, in accordance with federal regulations that still mandate masking on public transportation including buses, trains and airplanes, according to Carey. Healthcare facilities such as the Alpert Medical School and testing centers on campus will also still require masking. “People may be going to get a test when they feel symptomatic,” which is why masking is required at the testing site, Carey said. The decision to switch to optional masking in most locations on campus was also made while “paying very close attention (to) what I would describe as Ivies plus — all of our Ivy peer institutions, (the) Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, (the) University of Chicago — (which) are places that have a lot of similarities to us even if they’re in different regions of the country,” Carey said. The University was also aware of the policies of other institutions in Rhode Island, Carey said, including Providence
College, which went mask optional a month ago. “Institutions, including Brown, have to make decisions that are best for their institution and particularly based on what they’re seeing on their campuses,” Carey said. “We certainly do pay attention to what other (institutions) are doing, (but) we’re not driven by it or bound by it.” “It is informative and we learn a lot from our peer experiences,” he added. “The experience of other institutions can be really informative, but it’s another piece of information, not a determinant.” Despite masks becoming optional in most locations on campus, all community members must continue to “always carry a mask,” Carey said. “There will be settings that are unpredictable and where wearing a mask is absolutely either appropriate or required, so just being in the habit of carrying a mask … at all times is really important.” People should also continue to pay attention to symptoms and stay home,
test and seek medical advice if they feel symptomatic, according to Carey. While he said that there is always a possibility that the University would reinstate the mask mandate, given “everything we’re seeing and hearing and being told, it seems less likely, but we won’t rule anything out,” Carey said. “I would emphasize that we’ll take the steps that are necessary to keep the campus healthy and safe,” he added. During the week of March 3 to 9, 38 students reported positive COVID-19 test results and approximately 31 students were in designated on-campus or off-campus isolation housing, according to a March 11 Today@Brown announcement. Five employees reported positive COVID-19 results in the same time frame. As of March 9, the University has distributed 39,599 test kits in total, according to the announcement. Rapid antigen tests will continue to be available through the end of March and community members will
now be able to pick up four tests at a time rather than two, according to Carey. Testing site staffing will remain the same through the end of March, he said. After the end of spring break in early April, all students will be required to test on day one and day three after returning to campus, according to Carey. Community members should also wear a mask while traveling by train or airplane, pay attention to symptoms, “bring some tests with (them) and just generally be cautious, particularly because other parts of the country and other parts of the world are not all the same” in terms of COVID-19 cases, he added. “We’re balancing people’s comfort and confidence levels,” Carey said. This is a “transition and adjustment for everyone … and we know that there’s anxiety associated with making these changes and we want to be respectful of that.”
“charged with making science, technology and innovation policy recommendations to the President and the White House.” Miller recalled Leduc as “a prodigious presence.” She wasn’t simply a token woman within the biology department, he said. She was extremely competent and accomplished, and “everyone respected her.”
textbooks, according to Miller. She used original research material, including papers that were just published and images from her own work in electron microscopy. Miller took Leduc’s course in cell biology during his sophomore year and said that her course was “a very realistic exposure to how science is actually done.” “I just thought that it was cool that she trusted her students enough to basically say, … ‘You don’t need a textbook, where everything has been packaged for you. You can look at the real way that scientists communicate,’” Miller added. “She treated us all as though we were apprentice scientists, that we were all scientists in trade.” Two awards at the University have been named in honor of Leduc: the Elizabeth Leduc Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Life Sciences and the Elizabeth Leduc Prize in Cell Biology. “If I am proud of any award I’ve been given during my time at Brown, it’s the fact that the very first year the (Elizabeth Leduc Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Life Sciences) was offered, I was the recipient,” Miller said. Benjamin Styler ’21 received the Elizabeth Leduc Prize in Cell Biology in 2021. The award is given to a senior
biology student in recognition for a “remarkable record and research achievements in Cell Biology,” according to the Biology Undergraduate Education website. “Getting that award … really inspired me to keep moving forward in biology,” Styler said. “Having that support from people who knew (Leduc) and were … partially mentored by her … means a lot.”
men and women alike, expressed their desire for change. “I came away from it with the feeling that the students, the women, were telling me, ‘We are different. We have been set apart by Brown’ ... Everything must be the same. That’s what they wanted,” Leduc said. “I think it’s been better since (Pembroke and Brown merged). It really has.” Still, even with the merging of Pembroke and Brown in 1971, there were very few female members on the faculty. Gerbi, who Leduc helped recruit to teach at the University in 1972, said “it was a welcome change to come and visit Brown and find that (Leduc) was not only at Brown, but already was a full professor and had an important administrative role.” “I didn’t feel like I was going to have to be the first to break ground,” Gerbi added. “She had already gone ahead and done that.” “It’s important to remember her as a pioneer. She’s not someone who would ever have said that she faced enormous discrimination or prejudice and so forth,” Miller said. “She probably did, but she was just the sort of person who felt, and for good reason, that she could overcome any of that with a smile and hard work. And by God, that’s exactly what she did.”
An unconventional and inspiring professor In addition to her contributions to science, Leduc is remembered by many for her happy personality and warm heart. Gerbi, who worked with Leduc, said that Leduc “was like a mother hen taking care of all the faculty, men and women alike,” “She never seemed negative,” Gerbi added. “She was always such a happy person.” Miller remembers Leduc as an optimist who he never saw not smiling. “This was somebody who was just so happy to be at work advising students, teaching students or working in a laboratory,” Miller said. “She really thought that she had the best of all worlds. … She was the kind of optimist who always thought she could make the best of any situation.” As a professor, Leduc rarely used
Integrating women at Brown Leduc taught at the University during a time when Pembroke College was still a separate entity from Brown and the ratio of male students to female students between both institutions was two to one, according to an interview with Leduc conducted under the Pembroke Center Oral History Project. Leduc was invited to chair the committee that oversaw the merger between Pembroke and Brown. She was initially wary of the two colleges merging. “I was sort of defending Pembroke,” Leduc said in the interview. “I had this wonderful image of Pembroke … (The female students) did get specialized advising. It was well known that it was the best.” Leduc was convinced that merging the two was the right thing to do when some of her colleagues and students,
Additional reporting by Haley Sandlow.
MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2022
LACROSSE FROM PAGE 1 Stony Brook evened the score again before the end of the quarter, while Brown went scoreless for the final eight minutes. Brown’s offense continued to struggle during the second quarter as the rain picked up its intensity. Both teams struggled with the conditions, exchanging frequent turnovers, but while the Seawolves were able to find some space in the attacking zone, the Bears’ offense was repeatedly frustrated in its efforts to get past the Stony Brook defense. After the Seawolves scored two more to make it a 4-2 game, Brown gained a two-man advantage for 30 seconds following a Stony Brook double penalty. Even then, Brown struggled to find the net, with Stony Brook goalie Anthony Palma making a save on an open shot from midfielder Ryan Aughavin GS. But later in the quarter, with the shot clock ticking down, Aughavin picked up possession near the restraining line and made several spin moves to
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS try to create a small window. He finally found one and unleashed a howler that ripped past Palma to end the Bears’ 19-minute-long scoring drought. Stony Brook added a fifth goal later in the quarter to finish the half with a 5-3 advantage. Notably absent from the Bears’ firsthalf scoring sheet was McLane, who entered the game eighth in the NCAA with an average of six points per game and just joined Aughavin on the official watch list for the Tewaaraton Award, given to the best player in college lacrosse. McLane had two turnovers and two shots in the first half. For the first five minutes of the second half, the Brown offense continued to struggle as McLane committed another turnover. With a little more than 10 minutes left in the third quarter, another Brown possession stretched on as the shot clock neared zero. But with six seconds left to shoot, Cook made a precise pass from behind the net to attacker Brian Antonelli ’22, who caught the ball and shot in one motion to draw Brown
within one. The goal seemed to light a spark under the Brown team. A minute later, Cook completed his hat trick to even the score. The Bears were not helped by their performance at the face-off X. Stony Brook face-off man Renz Conlon won 16 of the game’s 21 face-offs. Conlon ranks 7th in the NCAA with a .646 faceoff winning percentage. But the swarming Brown defense made up for the team’s draw deficiencies. With the energy on the Brown bench growing, a huge hit from midfielder Kevin Sweeney ’24.5 brought a Stony Brook player to the turf, causing a turnover. “I thought the players came out and were more physical and made the plays they needed to get us out on the run,” Daly said. “That defensive performance really spearheaded the offense and kept us on a roll.” Following the Stony Brook turnover, McLane, still without a goal, took over. Halfway through the quarter, he caught the ball facing away from the
goal, turned in a flash and fired a ripping shot into the net to return the lead to the Bears. Three minutes later, McLane doubled the margin on a wide-open shot coming from a cross-net pass from Cook. “We were getting the same looks as the first half but … I was just able to finish a couple of those,” McLane said. McLane scored two more goals in the next two minutes to total four straight goals and give Brown a 9-5 lead. Stony Brook pulled one back before the end of the quarter, but in the fourth, McLane would pick up where he left off, cutting from behind the net to score his fifth of the game. “Our offense just kept moving the ball and getting guys open and I just happened to be on the back side of some of those,” McLane said. After that brief scoring outburst, Brown again struggled to create chances for the rest of the game and committed seven turnovers in the fourth quarter. But Theriault and the Brown defense picked up the slack. After conceding
3 halfway through the quarter, Theriault denied the rest of the Seawolves’ shots and, in the final two minutes, made a trio of incredible saves on hard-bouncing shots. “It was my defense … I (have to) thank them for doing everything they can to give me the best (possible) chance to block the shot,” Theriault said of his 18-save performance. Daly agreed, saying, “Those saves are team stats because if we do a good job and keep them to shots where he can handle them, that’s when we have success.” Theriault said he was happy with the team’s performance, despite the offensive inconsistency. “I think we played really well,” he said. “Obviously, lacrosse is a game of runs. We took a few hits and gave a few more back.” “We’re looking for that consistency still,” Daly said. “We’ve had some flashes of great play and now we need to put as many of those minutes consecutively together” as possible. Brown will open up Ivy League play at Harvard next Saturday.
SCIENCE & RESEARCH
Psychedelics expert Matthew Johnson speaks about addiction treatment Presentation showed research examining psychedelics in treating substance use disorders BY JARED ZHANG SENIOR STAFF WRITER Matthew Johnson, professor of psychedelics and consciousness at Johns Hopkins University, visited campus last Friday to present his talk “Classic Psychedelics in Addiction Treatment” as part of the University’s Distinguished Visiting Scholar Series. The event was hosted by the Center for Addiction and Disease Risk Exacerbation, which is a part of the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at the School of Public Health.
CADRE is focused on understanding mechanisms underlying “the association between substance use and chronic disease,” Jennifer Tidey, director of the Clinical Laboratory Core of CADRE and professor of behavioral and social sciences, told The Herald. Tidey said she hoped inviting an “internationally-renowned” scholar in the field of addiction research would inspire and inform researchers at Brown. The visiting scholar series “provides a forum in which experts can share their latest and greatest work to not only inspire people in the CADRE, but also to bring others up to speed” on topics surrounding substance use and chronic disease, said Peter Monti, director of CADRE and director of the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies. “Johnson is a behavioral pharmacologist who is one of the world’s most
published scientists on the effects of psychedelic drugs on human behavior,” Tidey said. The event began with Johnson giving an overview of the biological mechanisms behind psychedelics. Psilocybin — the psychedelic compound produced by the fungi commonly referred to as magic mushrooms — belongs to the group of “classic psychedelics,” which also includes LSD, mescaline and DMT, Johnson said at the event. The classic psychedelics are grouped this way because they all bind to a neural receptor called 5-HT2A, which is involved in hallucinogenic activity in the brain, he added. “The history and prehistory of (psychedelics) is absolutely fascinating,” Johnson said. Archeological evidence suggests there was ceremonial usage
of psychedelic mushrooms from a few hundred to several thousand years ago, according to Johnson. The “first hayday of psychedelic research” spanned from the 1940s to the 1970s, Johnson said in the talk. Researchers from this era found promising data on the ability of psychedelics to treat cancer-related distress and alcoholism, he added. After this followed “the dark ages” — a period of psychedelic research dormancy and controversy that lasted until the early 2000s, according to Johnson. One of Johnson’s pilot studies from 2014 focused on the feasibility and safety of using psilocybin to aid in smoking cessation. While the data was preliminary and “should be taken with a huge grain of salt,” the pilot study presented “encouraging” results showing that over 50% of participants had not used a sin-
gle cigarette for 12 months after their target quit date, Johnson said. The “big question in the field” is what the mechanisms behind psychedelics treating addiction are, Johnson said. Addiction is “associated with a narrow behavioral and mental repertoire” and “loosely speaking, it seems like psychedelics can blast people out of” their addiction, he added. Looking to the future, Johnson described several upcoming studies examining the role of psychedelics in treating opioid addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic pain. Jasjit Ahluwalia, deputy director of the CADRE Administrative Core, wrote in an email to The Herald that he hopes audience members left the presentation with “an open mind to ideas that are not traditional” and remembering that science should inform policy.
JARED ZHANG / HERALD
Psilocybin is a psychedelic compound produced by the fungi commonly referred to as magic mushrooms, and it belongs to the group of “classic psychedelics,” which also include LSD, mescaline and DMT, Johnson said.
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS
GRAD FROM PAGE 1 for the past three years to do research,” Dumanis said. It seemed as if he was in the clear to travel to Russia this year but, “alas, war,” Dumanis said. “The entire country is cut off, … and it seems to be a pretty precarious situation there for foreign nationals … It does not seem realistic in the near future to be able to” travel to Russia. Dumanis was able to postpone his fellowship year, which is typically the fifth year of a graduate student’s studies, when the COVID-19 pandemic first hit. When Dumanis tried to postpone his research again in light of Russia’s invasion, he found that “bureaucratically, it’s not possible.” Samuel Driver GS is also pursuing a PhD in Slavic Studies and received a Fulbright Dissertation Fellowship in fall 2021. Driver has faced similar issues attempting to travel abroad. “Fieldwork is just non-existent unless you can find an archive in a different country that is not Ukraine, Belarus or Russia … For me, there are zero chances,” Driver said. “The possibility of any non-Russian — or even a Russian — accessing state archives in Russia … that just won’t happen.” In the early days of the conflict, Driver had hoped that things “would have cooled down enough” by August, maybe December. He no longer thinks this is possible, “even if the war ended today and everyone suddenly became more friendly with each other.”. Driver still plans to complete his dissertation by December 2023, “for better or for worse,” but he worries about the repercussions this conflict will have on funding allocated for Slavic Studies. “There’s not enough funding as it is for people within the Slavic fields … The possibility of losing (fellowships) is pretty dire,” Driver said. “It’s a pretty incredible amount of stress … It’s completely unknown on my end what’s going to happen” with Fulbright. Wheelwright expressed a similar sense of uncertainty. “With the pandemic, there was an issue where people got sent home and their (fellowships) were just terminated,” Wheelwright said. “We’re really trying to work with the federal funding agency and trying to determine what the other options are” for these students, said Thomas Lewis, associate dean of academic affairs and co-deputy dean in the Graduate School.
“A number of students who are at the research phase of their dissertations are eligible for the COVID appointment extensions that provide them some additional time.” Whether these students are able to conduct research at other sites depends on whether they are able to adjust their specific dissertation projects to fit the resources of another country, Lewis added. While the humanities “have always faced funding problems,” Dumanis, who has family in Ukraine, worries more about the rise of “Russophobic backlash” in the West as a result of this conflict. “You would think that in times of greater tension with Russia, there would be more interest. But I’m worried that this conflict will turn people off from all the incredible things that Russian culture has produced,” Duamnis said. “It’s the risk of this cultural myopia.” “I have a feeling that we’ll have to be defending our degrees to a certain extent,” Dumanis added. Driver has similar feelings about the current state of academia. “Since 2014, programs have just declined. It’s the state of most of academia right now where there’s no jobs. There’s no tenure track jobs,” Driver said. “Academic routes are very difficult as it is, and it’s just unknown whether that’s going to be harder or not.” Driver emphasized the need to continue having open dialogues both inside and outside the University, especially as “being able to express what you want to express has become more and more difficult” in Russia. “One of the things that the war reminds us of is the ongoing importance of deep knowledge about other parts of the world,” Lewis said. “It seems to highlight the importance of the work that’s being done in departments like Slavic Studies.” Joe Colleyshaw GS, who is conducting research on post-Soviet collective and cultural memory in Russia, agrees with this sentiment. “The question comes down to, how can we sit there and be a part of a global community?” Colleyshaw said. “How can we sit there and be the top of our fields if we are not talking and not in dialogue with certain swathes of the world’s population?” Natalia Vygovskaia GS, who is also pursuing a PhD in Slavic Studies, is focused on considering “what we scholars can do, how we can help.” Vygovskaia, in collaboration with other members of the Slavic Studies
MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2022
VICTORIA YIN / HERALD
Graduate students expressed concern about the impact the Russia-Ukraine conflict could have on future research opportunities and general interest in Slavic Studies. department, recently released a statement condemning the “unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing violence against the Ukrainian people.” Through the Rockefeller Library, Vygovskaia has also begun working with the Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online project, which identifies and archives “at-risk sites, digital content and data in Ukrainian cultural heritage institutions while the country is under attack.” “There is this idea of responsibility for finding the right balance and finding the right language to talk about this,” Vygovskaia said. “I constantly feel like I’m between these two streams … Ukrainian culture, Ukrainian topics needs to be treated more delicately, … (but also) the mission to preserve Russian culture that is being eliminated by censorship.” Vygovskaia hopes to make more projects and discussions on the topic visible through her connections. “I try to spread the news,” Vygovskaia said. “Hopefully, I will be able to help.” Colleyshaw believes the department’s importance is more evident now than ever before, but for a small language department with “low attention rates and low retention rates,” he has found the responsibility to continue educating the community difficult. “It’s like a ‘you can’t whip the horse without then giving them food’ sort of thing,” Colleyshaw said. “We’re a faculty member down, we don’t have as many grad students as other departments … It’s mentally taxing.” When asked what the University
is doing to support the department’s graduate students during this time, Driver emphasized that “there’s not really anything that can be done.” “We are talking about trying to have a meeting to discuss … what it’s going to mean to no longer, most likely, be able to do in-country fieldwork,” Driver said. “The difficulty is that there’s really not anything to figure out … Anything bad that could have happened has happened.” For Vygovskaia, who has family and friends in both Russia and Ukraine, both the Slavic Studies department and the University have been “so helpful and incredibly supportive.” The University wrote to Vygovskaia personally to check in on her and let her know the resources available to her. “I believe our entire department has been supportive of our PhD students … Our program is small, so we see our students in Marston Hall and it is easy to do check-ins with them … I believe no one is off the radar,” Fidler wrote. “I understand the stress they have been under … and I admire their resilience.” “Deans and other staff at Brown, particularly in the Graduate School, have worked directly with a number of students to offer support, review the impact on research plans and consider options for revising those plans,” University Spokesperson Brian Clark wrote in an email to The Herald. Wheelwright filled out her dissertation completion plan several weeks ago but no longer knows how she’s going to proceed with her research. “How can I teach Russian literature and Russian language without having this long ex-
CA L E N DA R
perience of actually living in Russia?” she said. “I do feel a bit deprived of that, and I worry that it’ll affect me professionally.” Wheelwright described her situation right now as being stuck “in limbo.” “It’s really difficult, just the waiting game (and) being in transition constantly,” Wheelwright added. “I think I’ll survive in terms of finishing my dissertation … but if I really wanted to do original research, which is obviously very important, I need to get” to Russia. Dumanis noted that the past three years have “been a lesson in adaptability,” and his problems “are nothing in comparison to what the millions of people in Ukraine cities are going through right now.” It’s a “first world problem, because (of) the realities of what’s happening in Russia and the realities on the ground in Ukraine,” Colleyshaw said. “We’ve all got friends, family, acquaintances in Russia and Ukraine … Seeing the suffering that’s happening is heart-wrenching.” “I think it’s important to realize that everyday people are really the people being hurt by” the conflict, Driver added. “Really the only thing that any of us are thinking about is wishing we can help.” Colleyshaw added that the “huge” and “devastating” impact of the war is “only just starting.” “Nothing is even remotely comparable to what the people in Ukraine are going through,” Colleyshaw said. “This is everyone’s worst nightmare. Everyone should be concerned about this.”
COVID -19 AT BROWN MAR. 3 TO 9
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80 Students in On-Campus, Designated Off-Campus Quarantine Housing
51* *APPROXIMATE
MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2022
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS
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ARTS & CULTURE
Steven Soderbergh’s ‘KIMI’ revamps, digitizes thriller genre Film gives new spin on old thriller tropes, examines role of tech surveillance BY IRENE CHOU ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR Released on HBO Max, Steven Soderbergh’s “KIMI” shows the auteur’s unfailing mastery. Despite its small screen release, “KIMI” tells a pulse-pounding tale of survival in a kinetic era in which fears of tech surveillance, privacy invasion and artificial intelligence inventions outwitting their creators increasingly prevails. The setting is cleverly contemporaneous. The film is set in Seattle during the COVID-19 lockdown. People who must leave their apartments are masked, and everyone loiters by windows, as they spend most of their time indoors. Despite the manifold inconveniences of a lockdown setting, the protagonist Angela Childs (Zoë Kravitz) remains largely unaffected — she certainly doesn’t need to leave her expansive loft. Her job as a tech worker involves streamlining the services of a virtual assistant — the eponymous “KIMI”. From its shape to lighting up on voice command, the device is eerily similar to Amazon’s Alexa. All Angela needs is a desktop computer and she can do her job all day, lis-
COURTESY OF BUSINESS WIRE
“KIMI,” set in Seattle during the COVID-19 lockdown, examines surveillance and reliance on modern technology while following agoraphobic protagonist Angela Childs (Zoë Kravitz). tening to recordings of communication mishaps in order to resolve glitches in KIMI’s software. Perhaps more idiosyncratic is Angela’s reluctance to leave her apartment anyway. Early on, we see Angela hesitate by the entrance to her loft while attempting to leave for a spontaneous rendezvous with a food truck across the street — only to suffer a panic attack. The film reveals how Angela likely suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. Sheets, blankets and pillowcases are methodically removed and washed after sex, and her hands are constantly covered in Purell. There is an insistence on staying clean, staying in control and staying away from too many people at once. At the film’s halfway point, things
start to go awry. After hearing something terribly wrong with KIMI in an audio recording, Angela decides to leave her apartment to begin a futile investigation into what actually happened. The camera swoops and slants, revealing to viewers Angela’s agoraphobic fears, warping reality through odd-angled shots, tilting one way or another, never quite aligning with the ground. In short, Angela’s psyche is illuminated through the film’s perspective, and the audience can only squirm in discomfort anticipating what’s to come. The product tagline of KIMI — “Your life, simplified” — haunts the film’s entire runtime, from street signs and billboards to the ever-present, seemingly omniscient device that sits
inconspicuously in the corner of one’s office, living room or office desk. The viewer is confronted with the question: at what cost? Yes, you now can turn on and off your apartment lights, set an alarm and play Billie Eilish’s newest track using a mere command beginning with “KIMI.” But your data as a consumer of the product — the routine of your daily life, your search history, everything — is within the grasp of onlookers, stalkers and anyone who is curious enough to dig into dangerously accessible data records. The film doesn’t take a prosaic turn towards AI domination, but it does reveal a nuanced take on how technology has crept into every aspect of our lives. One scene shows a tracker effortlessly downloading everything about Angela’s identity from the web
— it takes mere seconds. Reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic “Rear Window” and David Fincher’s exhilarating “Panic Room,” Soderbergh brings to the table an original spin on the thriller subgenre of the house-bound heroine, caught all too alone as terror unfolds. This time, technology is brought to the forefront. Soderbergh snidely juxtaposes the professionalism projected on peoples’ cameras — a framed facade on a laptop screen — with the world beyond. The camera often slyly pans away from the figure sitting before a camera to illuminate his or her honest surroundings. For the suited corporate fellow, it’s the unclad legs sticking out without suit pants. For the seasoned hacker charging intimidatingly high fees for tracking down and eliminating targets who know too much about illicit affairs, it’s the homely living room and aged mother knitting on a worn couch. “KIMI” isn’t anything brand new by any means. It follows a well-trodden path of generic heroines entangled in a treacherous web of violence and illicit matters. Still, there are suspenseful moments. Particularly for a female viewer, the wariness of being stalked and followed digitally, physically and mentally is discomforting and visceral. It’s a film that doesn’t quite fall into hackneyed territory, but is sleekly executed, movingly acted and willing to challenge the thriller genre with a 2022 take that exposes, all too familiarly, our generation’s reliance on technology.
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY
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MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2022
EDITORIAL
To mask or not to mask? Ask students. The campus mask mandate is ending today. Save for a few settings, including classrooms where instructors decide otherwise, vaccinated individuals no longer have to wear masks in public spaces. For some, this is a cause for celebration. At long last, we are moving forward in this pandemic, finally mask-free. But for others, the new policy is a cause for concern. Fears about the effects of COVID-19 still linger alongside the all-too-familiar question: Are we moving towards normalcy too fast? Polling both nationwide and on our own campus suggests that people are divided about what restrictions should be loosened. When the community’s stance is unclear — and removing mask requirements could lead to more risk — classes and clubs should survey students how they feel about masks and consider mandating them in certain cases. How do students feel about wearing masks in large, cramped lecture halls? What about small discussion sections? Are student organizations ready for the change? Whether through an online form, email feedback or an in-class survey, there are many ways in which instructors and student leaders can proactively gauge how students feel about masking policies. We can only learn students’ comfort levels if we ask them. Perhaps students’ enthusiasm to go mask-free is weaker than administrators assumed. And perhaps there are perspectives we have overlooked. The pandemic has already deprived immunocompromised people of so many experiences — the new policy could shatter one of their last bastions of safety. If going mask-free is unpopular or exclusionary in a given setting, instructors and student group leaders have compelling reasons to continue requiring masks.
Of course, masking policies will not go on forever, but for the time being, they may still make sense in certain contexts. While the pandemic’s trajectory has been improving on College Hill, the administration’s questionable decision to end asymptomatic testing requirements for undergraduates at the same time as its mask mandate hinders the University’s ability to recalibrate its response if cases rise unnoticed. This may add to students’ anxieties over the policy change. Masks have become a flashpoint in the culture wars, but they don’t need to be on College Hill. Wearing a KN95 may be uncomfortable for some, but this could be a price worth paying if it makes others feel safer or more comfortable. Students already go mask-free in many places: the gym, dorm parties and dining halls, to name a few. But in classrooms, for example, students sit together, often in close proximity, for extended periods of time. Not to mention, the COVID-cautious can’t avoid the classroom in the same way they can avoid a party, and there aren’t grab-and-go boxes for knowledge. In settings like these, it is best to gauge student opinion and comfort levels before deciding to make masking optional. We, too, miss the days when we could decipher someone’s expression in class using more than just the slant of their eyebrows. We are excited about what the end of masking could bring, but only if students are ready. And we can only find out if we ask. —Editorials are written by The Herald’s Editorial Page Board. This editorial was written by its editor Johnny Ren ’23 and members Catherine Healy ’22, Caroline Nash ’22.5, Augustus Bayard ’24, Devan Paul ’24 and Kate Waisel ’24.
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MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2022
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS
SCIENCE & RESEARCH
SHAG FROM PAGE 1
U. profs awarded NSF grant to investigate COVID-19’s impact on first-gen students Study uses data from, follows progress of Pandemic Journaling Project BY ANNA KIM SENIOR STAFF WRITER Katherine Mason, assistant professor of anthropology, Andrea Flores, assistant professor of education and Sarah Willen, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Connecticut, recently received a National Science Foundation grant to investigate the effects of the pandemic on first-generation college students and their parents. The $355,000 in funding will start in July 2022 and will continue for 36 months. Flores, Mason and Willen will use the NSF grant to investigate “how first-generation families are managing the pandemic and their commitment to each other and to the work of producing a college graduate,” Flores said. The study follows Mason and Willen’s Pandemic Journaling Project, which launched in May 2020 and has been collecting journal entries from ordinary people to document unique experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic, The Herald previously reported. The project is “open to absolutely anyone worldwide who is able to read English or Spanish … and they can contribute in any language they want,” Mason said. Almost 2,000 people from 50 different countries have participated in the Pandemic Journaling Project so far, according to Mason. The mission of the Pandemic Journaling Project is to “encourage average people to make records of this time as it’s going on, to act as witnesses and recognize the value of their perspective,” said Sofia Boracci ’22, a research assistant on the Core Team of the PJP. According to Boracci, the researchers send surveys and get responses from participants on a weekly basis, which they will use to “create an archive of these voices in real time so that there are records of the pandemic and all of its associated factors and experiences.” Through their work with the Pandemic Journaling Project, the researchers have found that “one of the groups that’s been affected with particular
SIMONE STRAUS / HERALD
force are our students who are coming to college as the first in their families and also that the impact of the pandemic is on families as a whole,” Willen said. The researchers are particularly interested in the “relationship between first-generation college students and their parents,” Mason said, because of “early evidence that the closures of campuses and especially things that happened early in the pandemic … (were) particularly affecting this group of students more than others.” The research funded by the grant will explore how the pandemic changed family priorities by creating “financial pressures, social pressures (and) health pressures,” she added. “We’re going to be recruiting student-parent dyads to participate throughout the two years of this study together,” because “previous research has shown that parents are particularly instrumental in shaping the trajectory of first-generation college students, even more so than continuing-generation college students or other types of families,” Mason said. From the Pandemic Journaling Project, “we have collected journals from about 400 college-aged students … (and) we’re going to send an invitation to all the students who have participated for the last two years in the project to take an eligibility screen to see if they’re
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eligible for this next phase of the study,” Mason said. Afterwards, researchers will analyze the past journals of students who are eligible and invite them and their parents to participate, she added. The next phase will use a similar method of journaling to that of the Pandemic Journaling Project, but instead of creating journal entries every week, participants will send in submissions every month for another two years. Additionally, the researchers will “help set up a conversation in which the parent and the student will talk to each other without our presence,” Willen said. These interviews will be used in addition to traditional interviews in which the students and parents are separately asked questions by an interviewer, according to Mason. Most of the participants in the Pandemic Journaling Project “have participated because they enjoy it, they find it meaningful or they find it useful,” Willen said. “We hope that for people who participate … they might find it to be a meaningful way to step back and reflect.” The researchers will take what they learn from this study and “share it in ways that will allow institutions on college campuses to recognize and anticipate and respond in meaningful and supportive ways to the needs of first-generation college students and their families,” Willen said.
ality” workshop in particular. “I think that this workshop is definitely going to cover what it looks like to engage with pleasure outside of just having sex,” Mosher said. “I think that will be really cool and expand people’s definition of what pleasure and what enjoying pleasure looks like.” “I’m excited to give people an opportunity to unpack what (virginity) means and to look at it from a queer perspective,” Jonath said, referring to “The First Time” workshop she will be leading today. “I think that’s a great place to start challenging various sexual scripts.” The theme of this year’s Sex Week is coming of age, which Jonath thought of in response to the experiences that students missed out on as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I feel like we got cut off right when we were starting to … have first experiences of all sorts and then we were thrown into this crazy isolation,” Jonath said. “I felt like the idea of a robbed coming of age was very, very prevalent.” By centering Sex Week around coming of age, SHAG is attempting to express that “we can still come of age … Sexuality is a long, ever-changing process,” Jonath said. “No matter where you are, when you are, what stage of your life you’re in,” they said, “you can still be learning new things and changing and discovering all about your ages.” Mosher said she thinks the theme can allow community members to put the concept of relearning into practice. Last year’s Sex Week was held entirely online and Sex Week 2020 was cut short by the start of the pandemic. Naomi Ninneman, SHAG staff advisor, commended the group for staying active throughout the pandemic. “We kept our community going,”
she said. Coming back to in-person programming has been more difficult in terms of event planning, but Mosher is excited to experience a “full in-person Sex Week.” Even though “we were able to hold some pretty fun virtual workshops … I think a lot of intimacy and bonding and openness of having people in person (in) an enclosed, smaller, cozier space was definitely lost virtually,” Mosher said. “There’s something about the energy of a room that just doesn’t carry over into Zoom,” Jonath said. “I think there’s also a lot of excitement about the confidentiality of it. I’m not being recorded, I’m not being watched, the doors are closed.” Reflecting on what she hopes students will take away from Sex Week, Ninneman expressed that the event is meant to be a both fun and educational series. “We raise awareness,” Ninneman added. “We help people learn about resources and just kind of connect them to a more complete understanding that’s going to help them make decisions that are in keeping with their values and desires.” Ninneman believes Sex Weeks fits into BWell’s programming through its focus on empowerment and growth. “For a lot of people, it’s their first time being able to talk about sex openly, especially in … a school environment,” Mosher said. “One of my favorite parts of working in SHAG is just watching people open up through these workshops and be able to talk about things that they might not have been able to talk about before or learn something about themselves.” “I hope that people feel empowered to engage with sexual health however they choose and know that SHAG is a resource that they can come to,” Jonath added. “I hope people learn more about themselves.”
ALEX NADIRASHVILI / HERALD
This year’s Sex Week theme is coming of age in response to missed experiences during the pandemic.
MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2022
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
101st
FEATURING
Gina M. Raimondo U.S. Secretary of Commerce
Growth, Innovation and Equity: Ensuring American Global Competitiveness in the 21st Century
Tuesday, March 15, 2022 | 5 p.m. Tickets Required For more information, please visit brown.edu/ogden This event is free and open to the public. Exact location provided with registration. Brown or government-issued ID required. Backpacks, large bags and laptops are not allowed.
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