Monday, March 21st, 2022

SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2022

VOLUME CLVII, ISSUE 23

SCIENCE & RESEARCH

Documentary highlights Black maternity “Black Motherhood Through the Lens” sheds light on Black maternal health

SPORTS

Club squash teams find success despite demotion Mixed doubles team wins national championship to conclude season

BY KATHLEEN MEININGER SCIENCE & RESEARCH EDITOR In the documentary “Black Motherhood Through the Lens,” Ade Osinubi ’18 MD’22 follows four Black women as they navigate the maternal health care system while dealing with issues of maternal mortality, infertility and postpartum mood disorders.

Over the course of three years, Osinubi wrote, directed and produced the film while being a full-time medical student. “Black Motherhood Through the Lens” has already been accepted at seven film festivals and received recognition in Forbes magazine. Although it is not yet available for public viewing, the trailer is on the documentary’s website.

Osinubi drew inspiration from her longstanding interest in women’s health and her personal experience as a Black woman. She is part of Warren Alpert’s Physician as Communicator

BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM

BY LINUS LAWRENCE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

COURTESY OF ADE OSINUBI

Osinubi decided to turn her camera to Black mothers to elevate their voices and draw attention to the maternal health issues they face.

Scholarly Concentration Program, which emphasizes the importance of effective communication, both among health care professionals and between members of the medical field and the general public. Already an accomplished photographer, Osinubi decided to turn her camera to Black mothers to elevate their voices and draw attention to the maternal health issues they face.

“It’s such an important mission, exposing the horrific rates of maternal mortality and morbidity (in Black wom-

en),” said Clinical Associate Professor of Family Medicine Teresa Schraeder, who, as the director of the Physician as Communicator scholarly concentration program, acted as a mentor to Osinubi through the filmmaking process. “The rates of maternal mortality in the Black community are three times what they are in the white community, and they actually increased during COVID,” Schraeder added.

SEE DOCUMENTARY PAGE 5

In May 2020, members of the men’s and women’s squash teams joined a Zoom call hosted by the Athletics Department. During the meeting, they were informed that their sport had been demoted from varsity to club status, meaning they would no longer have access to the resources and recruiting mechanisms they once did.

The teams were demoted as part of the Excellence in Brown Athletics Initiative, The Herald previously reported.

The transition left the future of Brown squash in a state of uncertainty, according to women’s squash captain Sara Syed ’22.

“I was instantly thinking, ‘What are we gonna do?’ ” recalled Syed. “‘How do we get (varsity status) back?

What is this going to look like for us?’”

Almost two years later, a group of dedicated players led by a new head coach completed one of its most memorable seasons in recent years. The women’s and men’s teams finished ranked 11th and 21st in the country by the College Squash Association, respectively, while Brown received the most Scholar-Athlete Awards in squash of any college in the nation and took home its first-ever Intercollegiate Championship in mixed doubles.

It “would have been very easy to come back and just say, ‘Okay, we can’t do that, so therefore we won’t.

That’s it,’ ” said Head Coach Arthur Gaskin of the team facing obstacles this season. “But (the athletes) found a solution. We as a group found a solution.”

“The thing that’s impressed me the most is just the dedication of all the members of the team now that we’re not varsity anymore,” Syed said. “It was really just self-moti-

SEE SQUASH PAGE 3

ARTS & CULTURE

SPORTS

SOTG reinterprets ‘Julius Caesar’ in modern context

Women’s gymnastics finishes second at conference championship

Shakespeare on the Green sets classic play on women’s college campus

BY AALIA JAGWANI SENIOR STAFF WRITER Shakespeare on the Green’s production of “Julius Caesar” ran March 17 to 20 at the Solomon Center. Directed

by Emily Mayo ’24, the show revived Shakespeare’s timeless play in the unique setting of a women’s college.

Mayo had the vision for this production since she played the role of Mark Antony in ninth grade production of “Julius Caesar.” “I had a lot of trouble connecting to the characters because, to me, they felt like these ancient people from the past who didn’t experience life the way we do,” she said.

Mayo started writing a series of short stories to explore and connect to her character better. “And the easiest context for a 14-year-old girl was a girls’ school,” Mayo said.

Mayo also saw the opportunity to present the complexity of female friendships. “I wanted to show the

positive side of friendship and how female friends aren’t just weird, catty, superficial. … You can create these incredibly strong bonds, whether platonic or romantic,” she said.

To Mayo, the original play is primarily about relationships. “It’s about emotional reactions to insane circumstances and it’s about how people interact with each other and how relationships can go wrong,” she said, “but also how you can find these really intense bonds with people.”

Shakespeare’s language translated deftly to modern contexts, said Sita Pawar ’25, who played Cassius in the play.

“It feels very relevant to how I would talk normally,” she added. “The language is different, but the emotions and the content feel really applicable to this teenage girl setting.”

Sierra Riley ’25, who played Brutus, also noted that the potential for reinterpretation is what makes Shakespeare’s works timeless. “This is kind of an ambitious project, so it’s been really cool to see how well it was thought out to begin with, but also how (Mayo) has formed it over time,” they said.

Pawar initially had hesitations

Bears set three program records on way to securing second-place finish behind Penn

BY NICHOLAS MILLER SENIOR STAFF WRITER The women’s gymnastics team finished second of eight teams in the inaugural Gymnastics East Conference Championship held at the Pizzitola Sports Center on Saturday.

The team set program records in the parallel uneven bars (49.225), the floor exercise (49.2) and the all-around (195.975), but fell just short of Penn, who posted an all-around score of

named to the all-conference first team.

Co-captain Mei Li Costa ’22, tied-fifth

equipment and you were like, ‘That’s a hit routine.’ ”

196.95.

“They came in here on a mission,” Head Coach Sara Carver-Milne said.

“They left it all out on the floor and I couldn’t be prouder of them.”

Angela Xing ’24 and Julia Bedell ’25, both of whom were tied for second in vault, and Abby Contello ’23 and Taylor Schulze ’25, who were tied-second in uneven parallel bars and balance beam, respectively, were

in vault, Ella Poley ’23.5, tied-fourth in bars, Maya Davis ’25, tied-fourth in floor exercise, and Bedell, tied-fourth in floor exercise, earned second-team honors.

“We had high expectations for today,” Costa said, adding that the Bears “absolutely obliterated them.”

“It was one of those meets where you knew that nobody was going to fall,” she added. “They got up on the

In the post-meet awards ceremony, Costa was also awarded the GEC’s performance of the year award for her Ivy League-record 9.975 score on bars in a March 6 meet against the University of Bridgeport.

The Bears began the championship meet with a near-flawless performance on bars, with Sophia Petrillo ’22, Paige Richter ’24, Shulze, Contello, Poley

COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS

The Bears will find out this week which gymnasts have qualified for NCAA Regionals and USA Gymnastics Collegiate Nationals.

SEE CAESAR PAGE 2

SEE GYMNASTICS PAGE 8

Arts & Culture

Metro

Commentary

U. News

John Mulaney discusses fatherhood, rehab in new stand-up set Page 2

Local preschools reflect on challenges, changes brought by pandemic Page 4

Khan ’24: U. must adopt accurate land acknowledgment Page 6

Testing kit, mask pick up to continue through end of semester Page 7

TODAY TOMORROW

DESIGNED BY MADDY CHERR '23 DESIGNER

57 / 41

53 / 34

LENA HE '24 DESIGN EDITOR

2

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2022

ARTS & CULTURE

John Mulaney’s ‘From Scratch’ tackles heavy issues with grace Mulaney’s return to stand-up includes jokes about rehab experience, newborn son

BY REBECCA CARCIERI AND CLIVE JOHNSTON ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTING WRITER Long lines of millennials wrapped around the casino floor at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut to see comedian John Mulaney’s “From Scratch” tour Saturday night. The comedian’s difficult and highly-publicized past 18 months were the subject of many of his jokes during his phenomenal new set.

Fans of the comedian are familiar with Mulaney’s past issues with drugs and alcohol. In 2014, Mulaney revealed he had been sober since September 2005. Many of his past comedy specials have centered around the contradiction between Mulaney’s clean-cut professional appearance and his turbulent relationship with narcotics.

In 2020, Mulaney relapsed, developing an unhealthy relationship with substances including xanax, percocet, klonopin and cocaine, among other drugs, he said during the show. As a result of his addiction, his friends staged an intervention with him in December of 2020.

Mulaney was two hours late to the intervention, which he was told would be dinner at a friend’s house, because he had stopped at his drug dealer’s apartment after getting a haircut at Saturday Night Live. In a hilarious retelling of the story, Mulaney recounted how he walked into the “Emmy-Award winning” hair department high on cocaine, demanding a haircut despite not being the host of the show for the week.

The intervention, which was attended by 12 of Mulaney’s comedian friends, was a star-studded affair, including the

CAESAR FROM PAGE 1 about modern adaptations which can sometimes feel “pointless,” she said.

“But in this, the setting is really bringing something new to the story and it’s really changing the dynamics of the characters,” she said.

It was also “really fun” translating original references to a modern context, Pawar said. For example, translating Shakespeare’s characterization of Antony as a “reveler” to “party girl” or “jock” in Mayo’s version felt like a “seamless transition,” she added.

Adapting and trimming the length of the play took Mayo two months.

She said she wanted to make sure that everything included in her version was relevant and necessary for a modern audience while also taking care to maintain Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter.

In her creative process, Mayo also stressed character development. “I do something called character therapy, where I get people and sit down and we’ll work through individual monologues and texts,” she said. Mayo and the cast also had broader discussions about backstories and relationships between characters.

The exercise is about “using the text as a guide, but also understanding that we aren’t limited to the text — that if you limit yourself to exactly what’s

COURTESY OF NETFLIX MEDIA

Mulaney’s stand-up set included jokes about the comedian’s experience facing an intervention from his friends, visiting rehab and parenting his newborn son. Despite the heavy topics discussed, Mulaney brought levity to the show. likes of Seth Meyers, Bill Hader, Natasha Lyonne, Fred Armisen and Nick Kroll.

One stand-out moment was when Mulaney shared that his friends decided to have a “supportive” intervention rather than a critical one. All of his friends communicated this ahead of time, but no one cc’d Kroll on the email, Mulaney joked. Mulaney recounted Kroll going first of the 12 friends and immediately berating Mulaney about how he has been a “bad friend,” prompting raucous laughter from the audience.

Once Mulaney finally decided to go to rehab, he was concerned that he would be recognized as a celebrity, he said. But he soon realized that not a single person knew who he was. “Ask your teenage daughter or your son, if he’s not good at sports, who I am,” Mulaney retorted, gleefully leaning into his own self-importance.

Mulaney has the ability to effort-

lessly take serious subjects like addiction and tell stories on those topics in a light-hearted and relatable way. This extended into interactions with audience members: At one point, Mulaney asked audience members if they had ever been in rehab and which drugs they had been addicted to. These types of questions generally elicited a large response, which gave the show a more intimate feeling.

Acknowledging the adult material included in his set, Mulaney addressed the teenagers in the audience, instructing them not to follow his example. One younger audience member responded to a question from Mulaney asking if their opinion of him changed after the news of his drug use broke. They said it was expected because of his time as a writer for SNL, leading Mulaney to burst out laughing.

Rhode Island was mentioned in the show, with Mulaney detailing his love

for the state and its crazy billboard signs.

One billboard sign, according to Mulaney, offered to help drivers pay off their DUI fines with workers’ compensation. Regionally-tailored jokes like these will likely help distinguish each of Mulaney’s performances as he continues the “From Scratch” tour until September 2022.

In another notable bit, Mulaney talked about being a child who was jealous of all the attention and sympathy his classmates would get when their grandparents died.

This led him to fleetingly wish one of his grandparents would as well, he joked, adding that he would be happy as long as it was not one of the “important ones.”

Mulaney also talked about his son, noting how proud he was when the newborn simply hid his face when a bright light shined in his eye at the hospital instead of crying. Mulaney took this as a sign that his baby would be a “gentleman”

in frustrating situations, opting to sulk silently rather than openly whine — an approach Mulaney said he takes as well.

In another memorable moment, Mulaney joked about the ridiculousness of having to “cheer for science” during Donald Trump’s presidency. Mulaney doesn’t care about science, he joked, but had felt pressure to vocalize support for it and express interest when it was being challenged, referencing Trump-era climate denial and policies toward COVID-19. Now that Joe Biden is president, Mulaney said he can return to his antipathy toward the subject.

To conclude the show, Mulaney read aloud parts of an interview he had given with GQ magazine while he was high on cocaine. The interview was humorous and, at times, somewhat nonsensical.

Nonetheless, it was a fitting way to end a very enjoyable show.

on the page, you’re going to have flat, one-dimensional characters,” she said.

Both Riley and Pawar appreciated Mayo’s willingness to have open discussions about the characters, as well as the cast’s general collaborative spirit.

“This is one of the best theater environments I’ve been in,” Riley said. “Even though it’s such a ‘Mean Girls’-vibe story, everyone (in the cast) is so supportive of each other and really gives each other the space to explore and the encouragement to try new things with characters.”

They added that the cast’s ability to keep the atmosphere light and humorous offstage also helped them retain their energy, especially because “Julius Caesar” can be a very emotionally intense play.

The cast was comprised entirely of non-male-identifying students, which was a requirement for auditionees, and primarily underclassmen, but there were no other specific criteria in the casting process. “I didn’t want to go in with any specific appearances or mannerisms in mind for any character,” Mayo said.

Mayo said she firmly believes that anyone can do Shakespeare, as long as they have a basic understanding of the material they audition with. As opposed to musicals and other plays with specific limitations such as vocal range, Shakespeare offers actors and directors lots

The cast was comprised entirely of non-male-identifying students, which was a requirement for auditionees, and was primarily underclassmen, but there were no other specific criteria in the casting process.

AALIA JAGWANI / HERALD

of freedom, she said. “Anyone can see themselves in positions of power and in positions of love,” she said.

That freedom, among other things, is why Mayo believes it is important to continue performing Shakespeare even today, despite the challenges of ensuring that the emotions and relationships translate to a modern audience effectively, she said.

Mayo also noted that even with the more antiquated language, Shakespeare is more accessible than other plays, since it is free from the restrictive copyright laws restricting use of other works.

“In Shakespeare, none of those issues

exist, so anyone can do it whenever, wherever. And I think that is really cool that you could get 10 people together and put on a Shakespeare play on a patch of grass,” she said.

Mayo said she hopes that audience members left the play feeling connected to the characters and their relationships. She wants people to have “felt something for these people after the play, these people who are otherwise relegated to statues and busts.”

Pawar also hopes that the audience left the show sympathizing with her character. “I may not win, I may do bad

things, but I kind of want you to be rooting for me,” she said.

On first reading the play, Pawar thought Cassius was “the bad guy.”

But having rehearsed then performed the character multiple times, Pawar realized that “Cassius is very justified in a lot of things.”

“I am really impressed with the way it’s come together,” Mayo said.

The coolest part about the production, she added, was “walking in her vision” and collaborating with the rest of the production team to turn the play into a collective reimagination shared by the entire cast and crew.

MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2022

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

3

COURTESY OF ARTHUR GASKIN

The Intercollegiate Championship win in mixed doubles capped off a season already filled with memorable moments, including two particularly emotional matches against Tufts University for both the men’s and women’s teams. The team also received the most Scholar-Athlete Awards of any college in the nation, according to the College Squash Association.

SQUASH FROM PAGE 1 vated. And I think that was really inspiring and great to see that everyone was playing their hardest and training their hardest just because they truly wanted to be there.”

This self-motivation was key to the team’s success in a season where they couldn’t train the way they did as a varsity team, given their limited access to facilities, according to Gaskin and multiple athletes.

“In years previous, they would have had consistent access a couple of times a week to Zucconi (Strength and Conditioning Center) rooms to do extra strength training and fitness work, and this year, we didn’t have that,” Gaskin said. This season, the team has compensated with training programs at the Nelson Fitness Center, with athletes managing their own schedules, according to Gaskin.

“They were all super committed (and) they all really wanted to do the extra work so that they could compete.

I think that was pretty awesome and a testament to them,” Gaskin added.

According to multiple players on the women’s team, a month before the end of the season, they were able to begin using the varsity weight room again at a given weekly time. The team also was no longer provided a trainer, which meant players had to be more proactive in preventing possible injuries. The team eventually paid out of their club budget for a trainer to come weekly, Syed said.

“Squash is a really physically demanding sport, and so we had to battle through injuries — going to the Nelson ourselves, being really self-motivated and practicing self-care,” said men’s captain Grant Sterman ’22.

Longtime head coach Stuart leGassick’s contract was terminated in September, according to multiple current squash players. As a result, the team practiced without the help of a coach for part of the fall. “While we are unable to comment on personnel matters, we remain grateful for Coach

LeGassick’s 31 years of dedication to Brown and the squash programs,” Jake Silverman, deputy director of athletics for administration, said in a statement provided to The Herald. “At the same time, we are thrilled with the direction of the programs under Coach Gaskin’s leadership.”

During this period, the team captains assumed responsibility for organizing practices and coordinating matches with other schools.

“That was a really stressful time,” Sterman recalled. “But any amount of sacrifice that (captain) Declan (McCarthy ’22) and I had to make would have been worth it for what we get out of playing on the team every year. We just sat down and worked together to organize everybody and use our experience of over 10 years of playing squash to come up with practices, get everyone in line and set up meetings.”

“Setting up good, intense, competitive matches for us to play was a big challenge,” Syed said. “Then organizing the buses and the travel and hotels for us to stay at was a huge logistical” undertaking. According to Syed, some schools which the team was supposed to play didn’t “necessarily want to play a club team.”

Gaskin assumed the role of head coach in November. Players applauded Gaskin’s leadership and credited him with playing a major role in their improvement and eventual success.

“That he stood up out of the goodness of his heart to come help us and coach us just means the world to everyone on the team,” Sterman said. “I just feel like we couldn’t have accomplished nearly half of what we have this season without him.”

“What made Coach Gaskin such a great coach was that even though he really pushed us, he still allowed the players and the captains to have a level of freedom,” Syed said. “I think that makes everything feel more worthwhile and (makes us) more excited to come to practice.”

Other players also appreciated Gaskin’s coaching style. “He is most

definitely the best squash coach that I have ever met and probably one of the best ones out there,” said Rachel Mashek ’24, emphasizing that Gaskin quickly fixed longtime struggles in her game.

“I think we all got so much better (technically) and improved our fitness dramatically,” Syed added. Our success “is because of him.”

Gaskin, meanwhile, directed praise towards the teams’ captains, whom he called “legends.” “How they rally the troops, how they rally each other, how they inspire the rest of the team to work hard — not just leading by example verbally but in how they act,” he said. “It’s quite inspirational to see and it definitely rubs off (on) the rest of the team.”

Gaskin also highlighted the importance of the captains while the teams had no coach.

Mashek similarly praised the captains for their efforts. “They were literally doing the job of a coach and more, because they were also doing administrative stuff,” she said. “I can definitely say I would not have shown up for practice every day if not for them.”

Some athletes were even more driven to succeed after the squash teams were demoted to club status, according to Mashek and Sterman.

“We wanted to show Brown and show the squash world that we’re still a really strong competitive team,” Mashek said. “We can still be really competitive and (be) even more competitive than (in) past seasons.”

“When we were cut, we were told that we weren’t a competitive team,” Sterman said, referencing the administrators’ consideration of competitiveness when selecting teams to demote.

“So we did feel like we had something to prove, perhaps a chip on our shoulder, both in regards to Brown and also how other teams were looking at us.

So we wanted to make sure that, varsity or club, we were at the top of our game and ready to prove ourselves to the world.”

One major impact of the demotion

is that Brown will no longer be able to formally recruit athletes like Sterman to play for the team. While it will no longer have dedicated spots in admissions reserved for squash players, the squash program can participate in informal recruitment, which involves a “relationship” with the Office of Admission, The Herald previously reported.

This season also marked the final year Brown squash will be eligible to play in varsity-level national championships.

Though it may be their last time competing at that level, the team went out with a flourish: Mashek won the Intercollegiate Championship in mixed doubles with Blake Roshkoff ’24 and made the finals in the women’s doubles with Danielle Benstock ’23. Mashek and Roshkoff beat another Brown duo composed of Sterman and women’s squash team captain Isabella Kearns ’22.

Syed praised her teammates for their display of teamwork. “A big thing in doubles is how well you can communicate and work with your partner,” she said. “I feel like the fact that it was a ‘Brown finals’ just shows how well we know each other (and) know how to communicate.”

The championship capped off a season filled with memorable moments, including particularly emotional matches against Tufts University for both the men’s and women’s teams.

“Tufts was definitely a match that we really wanted to win and we targeted that match earlier in the season as one of our few opportunities against a team ranked higher than us,” Gaskin said. The men’s team had nine “great performances” and five wins in the Jan. 22 match, according to Gaskin.

“Even players that didn’t win still came through and performed excellently,” Gaskin said. “It was awesome.”

It was Sterman who came through with the contest on the line, winning his match with the teams tied at 4-4. It was “very emotional and it was just a huge victory for the whole team to know that we pulled out such a tight match at home in front of a good crowd,” Ster-

man said.

A standout moment for the women’s team came against Tufts in their final match of the team championships at the end of the season, when they rallied from a 4-0 deficit to win 5-4. Mashek, who lost her match, recalled the feeling of watching her teammates rally to pick her up and seal the win: “I just felt the moment when the tide started turning and everyone started to win their matches,” she said. “Everyone who went on after knew that they had to win their match, because if they lost their match (the team) would have lost.”

“Even though I personally had lost, I just had complete faith in my team, and I knew that everyone would pull their weight and make up for my loss,” she added.

The College Squash Association recently announced that Brown received the most Scholar-Athlete Awards of any college in the nation, which Syed considers an important achievement.

“It has been a difficult couple of years and it has felt a little bit like we’re not being seen (even though) we’re putting in so much time and effort,” she said.

“And so it is really nice to end up getting this recognition.”

Going forward, maintaining a sense of “family,” Mashek said, is something that the team hopes will remain central.

“I got back at 10 p.m. from (nationals in) Philadelphia, and then right away I went to a team event and just hung out with the whole team,” she said. “I had an exhausting weekend emotionally and physically, but all I wanted to do was go and hang out with my teammates.

It’s not just about playing squash with them — I’ll be hanging out with them during the week, on weekends (and) doing work with them.”

“All four years of Brown, the moments where we were just studying in the (Sciences Library) or having fun on the bus on the road to a match — those are the things that I’m gonna really take with me,” Sterman said. “I hope (they) carry on (as) lifelong friendships, and I hope that they continue to grow after I graduate.”

4

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2022

METRO

‘Slow and steady, safe and cautious’: Preschools during COVID-19 Local preschools reflect on challenges, changes brought by COVID-19 pandemic

BY ASHLEY GUO SENIOR STAFF WRITER Even while Rhode Island lifts mask mandates and boasts the highest percentage of vaccinated residents in the country, one key population is still waiting to be vaccinated: children under five years old, who still lack an FDA approved COVID-19 vaccine. In light of this, preschools have practiced vigilance and weathered obstacles throughout the pandemic in order to continue educating the next generation.

At Brown/Fox Point Early Childhood Education Center, it is still common to see children running around in the playground with masks. Since most of their students are younger than five and therefore not vaccinated, careful planning and prioritization of health and hygiene have been key, according to Executive Director Joe Pinsonneault.

“We started this journey back in March 2020 when we were mandated to close on March 12,” Pinsonneault said. The next couple of months before reopening in June were spent developing a comprehensive COVID-19 Child Care Plan that needed to be approved by the state, which included stringent strategies for sanitation and hygiene, as well as decreases in enrollment, he added.

The pandemic also affected staffing patterns as classroom sizes decreased to ensure social distancing. While Brown/ Fox Point was able to bring back all of its staff, the pandemic greatly changed the involvement of families in the program, Pinsonneault said. Parents were only allowed to enter the building starting last week.

Mask mandates for students at Brown/Fox Point have also changed recently, with children allowed to remove masks outside, during rest times and during meals while staff members still remain masked.

“We were one of the first programs in Rhode Island to actually include a mask mandate for children, so our chil-

dren are still required to wear masks inside,” Pinsonneault said.

Initially, when preschool programs did not mask, the spike of cases around Thanksgiving 2020 prompted them to have a conversation with families about masking, Pinsonneault said.

“I believe 89% of our families asked for their kids to wear masks inside, so it made it really easy,” he explained.

“We created a book called ‘Mask Wearing at Brown/Fox Point,’” Pinsonneault added. “We read it at school, and then we had practice days where you could just wear your mask as much as you could.”

After arriving back from Thanksgiving break in 2020, the mask mandate went into effect.

“The kids did beautifully,” Pinsonneault said. “Kids are really resilient relating to the pandemic.”

At Child’s Play, a parent-teacher cooperative preschool in the East Side, Education Coordinator Sarah Vecoli noted a similar resilience in children during the pandemic.

“In a lot of ways, children are really adaptable,” Vecoli said. “We had a lot of fear as educators starting in the pandemic (about) how things would look, what it would mean for them or how it would change their experience, but children are resilient and they adapted really well.”

Vecoli noticed that the greater societal focus on health affected children’s attitudes in the classroom. “In the beginning of the school year, we typically ask the children what the rules for the classroom should be, and typically we hear things like, ‘keep your hands to your own body’ and ‘be kind to people,’” Vecoli said. In recent years, these rules became much more health focused, including phrases like, ‘wash your hands’ and ‘keep your mask on’ being emphasized, Vecoli said. “It was representative of all the input they were getting from their lives.”

At Child’s Play, the decision to wear a mask was up to families, as each had individual concerns about health, safety and childhood development. “We had decided to really just make it a family choice because we have children that have developmental delays, speech delays (or) autism,” Vecoli said.

“Because early childhood is really the first time you start to observe that,

YUQING MAO / HERALD

as educators, there were some concerns about what that would mean for children.”

As a parent-teacher co-op, parents were heavily involved in the discussions and planning behind dealing with the pandemic. “We felt a very heavy responsibility of keeping people safe in a time that was so unknown, and for educators, especially of young children, that is our number one goal,” Vecoli said. “The fact that parents were willing to help with so much of running the school really took off some of the stress of the staff.”

In terms of childhood development, Vecoli is not yet sure of the pandemic’s impact but believes that Child’s Play will need to make efforts to attend to the different ways students have been affected by the pandemic.

“I don’t think we will truly know the impact (of the pandemic) for a while,” Vecoli said. “Most children were just coming to school and just going home, so they weren’t going to playgrounds or doing playdates. We’ve noticed (socially and) emotionally that children are now just needing maybe an extra year in the classroom, but we don’t see that as a bad thing … we see that as recognizing

CA L E N DA R

that there was some impact and meeting that need.”

“For many, (childcare has) been challenging … I think that the impacts of COVID have really brought to light the struggles of that area in our society,” Vecoli said. “As a co-op, it has been specifically challenging because so much of the pandemic is personal about comfort levels for families and what makes them feel like their children are safe.”

Jessica Medeiros, a co-president at Child’s Play, has a four-year-old son at the school and a six-year-old in kindergarten. She said that it has been challenging to keep her family safe from COVID-19.

“We have been pretty conservative.

We have not eaten in a restaurant indoors in two years, we haven’t flown anywhere. It’s pretty isolating,” Medeiros said. “Even after I was vaccinated, I still felt like I needed to be careful for my kids.”

Additionally, Medeiros shared that online school was not effective for her older son in kindergarten. “He was okay for maybe a week, and then at one point I noticed he was super apathetic and not wanting to answer questions,” Medeiros said. “At that point, I had him leave the

meeting that day because he was just not acting like himself.”

Although staff are still wearing masks at Child’s Play, Medeiros is looking forward to the classroom opening up more. “We’re starting to have parents come into the classroom again, so I think that there’s a move in that direction as far as the school goes, and I’m really excited about it,” Medeiros said.

Despite the challenges created by the pandemic, COVID-19 highlighted the importance of childcare services and preschools.

“It changed how we view ourselves as a school. It changed us to more emergency childcare and a much stronger focus on health, hygiene and sanitation,” Pinsonneault said. “Families needed to get back to work, so in the beginning of this journey, we were required to take children that have state subsidies (and) children (whose parents were) frontline workers (or) health care workers.”

“As we have been moving, our mantra has been ‘slow and steady, safe and cautious,’” Pinsonneault said. “It’s impacted a lot, but what it has not impacted is how joyous the kids are to come to school.”

COVID -19 AT BROWN MARCH 10 TO 16

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43 Students in on-campus, designated off-campus isolation housing:

31*

MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2022

DOCUMENTARY FROM PAGE 1 “(Previous documentaries) about infertility really focused on white women’s experiences — which (are) important, of course — but the narratives of Black women or other women of color were left out, especially those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds,” Osinubi added.

“I thought that the film would be a great medium to raise awareness about the issue of maternal mortality (and) also to talk about other disparities that affect Black women when it comes to reproductive health” that were garnering less media attention, Osinubi said, naming “infertility, as well as postpartum mood and anxiety disorders” as examples.

Osinubi followed her first source, Shannon Benjamin, from her second trimester of pregnancy to a few weeks after she gave birth.

“Her focus with me was largely on my experience as a Black woman navigating the health system as it related to my maternal health,” Benjamin said.

“I had a lot of anxiety as it related to my concerns being addressed and my voice being heard” after hearing “horror stories” about how other Black women’s concerns were not listened to during delivery.

“I was just so afraid something like that would happen to me,” Benjamin said.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

The film also seeks to destigmatize topics Osinubi feels are “taboo” in the Black community, such as infertility and mental health.

“Historically, there’s this idea that Black women are hyper-fertile (and) they get very pregnant very easily.

However, statistics show that Black women may be two times more likely to experience infertility, and they’re less likely to access fertility care such as IVF,” Osinubi said. “Dispelling that myth can really help people who are going through infertility and are like, ‘Oh, what’s wrong with me? I’m supposed to be able to get pregnant because I’m Black.’ And that’s not true.”

Shaylene Costa, another documentary source, spoke about her difficulties receiving care as a “Black infertility mom” in the documentary. “It took me about eight years to find a provider that would help me become pregnant as a young, uninsured Black couple,” she said. The couple’s difficulty was exacerbated by the cost of uninsured doctor’s visits, as well as her then-fiancé’s health conditions, which put them on a deadline to conceive.

Costa’s experience with infertility, and, later, childbirth, led her to become a doula, a role through which she educates and provides medical care for pregnant women during childbirth and the postpartum period. Through this work, she helps other Black women through the childbearing process that

she herself was “not prepared for.” She hopes her contribution to the documentary will also inspire future Black mothers. “I want people to walk away from the documentary validated,” she said. “I really want it to reach the other Black women that have my same story.

(So) they know that if I made it, they can make it too.”

Jai-Me Potter-Rutledge, who was also featured in the documentary, spoke about suffering from postpartum depression following the birth of her firstborn child, and about how her family’s stigma surrounding mental health made it difficult for her to garner support.

“I didn’t necessarily want to talk about it with my husband or people that were close to me because I felt like there is a stigma that’s associated with having a sort of mental health crisis, especially during a time that’s supposed to be happy,” she said.

She kept her treatment — both her medication and therapy program — from her family. But, the help she was able to receive from the program was limited because her mental health care providers “didn’t have a lens to understand, or maybe just weren’t empathetic, to the fact that when I left (the clinic) it was a totally different level of transparency … with family members.”

“I felt like I couldn’t really get the same amount of growth out of the program (as other women) because I was holding on to secrets,” she added.

5

Throughout the documentary, Potter-Rutledge describes other methods she used to support herself through the difficult process. And although she has since recovered from her postpartum depression, she continues to face unique challenges as a Black parent.

“Black motherhood, to me, means loving without boundaries, and preparing your children for a world that isn’t necessarily ready to accept them authentically but remaining committed to preparing them anyway,” Potter-Rutledge said.

Sometimes this means having difficult conversations with her children.

“Sometimes I don’t have the privilege of shielding my children from the racism that they’re going to face in the world, and sometimes it feels like it takes a little bit of their innocence away,” Potter-Rutledge said.

Although Potter-Rutledge was initially hesitant to share her story, she ultimately decided that “this is my calling.”

“I felt like it was part of my healing, part of my duty, to share my story, because I could potentially help someone else. And that really allowed me to be okay with knowing that this could be viewed by hundreds of thousands of people,” Potter-Rutledge said.

The film “is a testament” to the interviewees, Osinubi said, who had the “courage and bravery” to share such personal stories with the world. She said

that she was as transparent as possible with her sources and included them in the editing process “because at the end of the day, ‘Black Motherhood Through the Lens’ wouldn’t exist without them.”

Osinubi “made me really comfortable sharing my thoughts and my feelings and my story,” Benjamin said. “I wanted to help her with her documentary. And, if possible, I wanted to help other women that may be going through or having similar feelings that I had.”

To raise further awareness of Black maternal issues, Osinubi has written op-eds for Glamour and The Washington Post and has done an interview for ABC News Affiliate WCRB Boston Channel 5 “City Line” that aired March 13.

“I really hope that health care providers change their approach, because I’ve actually experienced … health care providers that just make assumptions about you as a patient,” Benjamin said.

“There’s this idea that a Black woman is just innately strong and has a higher threshold for things. And that’s not true.”

In the future, Osinubi plans to continue to use film to raise awareness about issues in health care. “I really like what film can do to connect people to issues that might not necessarily affect them. … I do want to continue doing this work as a physician.”

ARTS & CULTURE

‘Fresh’ wows with absurdist violence, poignant themes New Hulu original film bends genre conventions, makes for entertaining watch

BY FINN KIRKPATRICK SENIOR STAFF WRITER “Fresh” opens as any typical romantic comedy does: A single, 20-something woman is on a date with a self-righteous, casually sexist man and she just wants to leave. When Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) recaps her date from the night before, her confidence-supplying best friend Mollie (Jonica Gibbs) talks Noa through her concerns. That night, Noa swipes through her dating apps only to run into more men who remind her of that terrible previous date. Just as Noa decides that true love is just not for her, she meets a man named Steve (Sebastian Stan) at the grocery store. His quirky remarks about grapes make her think that maybe he is worth a shot, and so their romance begins.

We’ve all seen this movie, right?

Presumably at some point the man is going to say something stupid, causing the woman to break away from him in some sort of tear-induced monologue.

And she’s going to go home and still miss him while he prepares ways to win her back. But in the end, all problems will be resolved, and they will embrace in a park in the pouring rain before they go on to live happily ever after. But that isn’t this movie. “Fresh” takes every convention in this formula and distorts it further and further as the narrative progresses. To be very clear, “Fresh” is not a rom-com, even if it really wants you to think so for the first 30 minutes. If the essence of “Fresh” could be quickly summarized, it would be something along the lines

COURTESY OF SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES

Though “Fresh,” directed by Mimi Cave and starring Sebastian Stan and Daisy Edgar-Jones, starts off seeming like a stereotypical romantic comedy, the film takes a dark turn, incorporating horror and dark comedy elements in a unique and twisting story. of a high-concept combination of “Get Out” and “Silence of the Lambs” hidden under a thinly-veiled guise of a meetcute-induced romance.

After that veil is lifted and the movie commences its dark and disturbing plot, “Fresh” begins to find its form. While it is difficult to fully explain the nature of the film without giving away all its moments of excitement, there is a shift in Steve’s character that occurs at the expense of Noa. Admittedly, this is a predictable shift to a far less likable character, but that proves to be less of an issue for this story. Because while it’s pretty obvious that Steve has, to put it lightly, a dark side, the nature of that dark side is not obvious at all. The discovery of the depth of Steve’s derangement is what hooks the viewer. In many instances in the film, just when everything seems like it’s going to be a little too cliche and overly predictable,

the movie knows exactly what to show you to buy it some extra time.

The way the film manages its tone is an absolute spectacle, switching between truly intense and disturbing scenes to lighthearted absurdism at the snap of a finger, with the audience never losing interest in the process. A fun and whimsical dance montage is immediately followed by Cronenbergian body horror. This transition is disturbing, shocking and brilliant. On top of that, the camerawork significantly adds to this atmosphere, crafting a balance of off-kilter angles and close-ups to build the unsettling air that looms over the entire film.

The two lead performances by Edgar-Jones and Stan are wonderful, perfectly bringing to life the unique and clever screenplay by Lauryn Kahn and stylish directing by Mimi Cave.

Stan plays a character that is charming, but also a terrifying sociopath, and

he plays it well. From scene to scene, his demeanor can fluidly change from an eccentric, carefree individual to someone you hate with a passion. Edgar-Jones plays a character who faces just about the worst nightmare a person could imagine, and her performance flourishes when the film fixates on the nature of this nightmare. Her subtle emotional shifts boost the rest of the film by adding a humanistic element to its far-fetched concept.

While tears stream down her face as she realizes the situation she finds herself in, the camera closes in on her expression — very much anchoring the film in reality. While the film certainly has its fun with its occasional zaniness and gore, at its core, this is a movie about a man who does everything in his power to manipulate and control women. The movie, in all of its spectacles, never loses sight of this fact and, more importantly, never

trivializes it.

“Fresh” maybe shouldn’t be a movie taken completely seriously. It’s a straight-to-Hulu, slightly camp, horror dark comedy. But it’s so well made and its vision is so clearly executed, one has no other choice but to respect it.

Yes, it would be ideal if everyone could go and see this on the big screen, not distracted by any outside occurrences, purely absorbing the craft of the film as it was intended to be consumed. But to be completely honest, you could just as easily get an enjoyable, albeit completely different, viewing experience watching the film on a laptop in the comfort of your own home. This is not a movie for everyone, and its gory and unsettling but slightly comedic tone is anything but crowd pleasing.

But for anyone who is interested after hearing that description, watching “Fresh” in all of its unique glory is a sight to behold.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY

6

MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2022

Khan ’24: This is Narragansett Land This is Narragansett land. This is Narragansett land. This is Narragansett land.

I could say this phrase 1,000 times, and it still wouldn’t change the centuries of oppression the Narragansett tribe has faced in the Providence area. But saying it still matters — in order to start crucial conversations about Indigenous rights, our University must acknowledge that it indeed occupies Narragansett land.

President Christina Paxson P’19’s recent announcement of the Land Acknowledgement Working Group’s recommendations was a welcome, albeit late, development. After centuries of occupying Indigenous land, the University’s administration finally seems to be moving in the right direction — toward recognizing the Narragansett Nation’s sovereignty over Brown’s campus through an accurate and thoughtful land acknowledgment. Land acknowledgments are not merely symbolic or historical; rather, they are living statements that recognize the ongoing harms colonialist systems cause Indigenous peoples.

These statements can also provide opportunities for folks to recognize Indigenous contributions in whatever work they’re doing. For example, if a science department at Brown was delivering a presentation, giving a land acknowledgement highlighting Narragansett innovations in the sciences would emphasize the ongoing pertinence of Narragansett contributions to the University’s intellectual community. In this sense, land acknowledgments are not just about physical space, but all the ways Indigenous thought continues to permeate the intellectual spaces on campus.

Of course, effective land acknowledgments at Brown must be accurate. Erroneous land ac-

knowledgements may incorrectly recognize the Pokanoket and the Wampanoag, for example, as Indigenous tribes that also lay claim to the land our University occupies. Such statements are simply ahistorical: The Pokanoket tribe is “not recognized by the other federally recognized Wampanoag communities,” as the Steering Committee of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative noted. And despite assertions from land acknowledgements, the Wampanoag do not hold claim to College Hill.

good, right? But this assumption erases the fact that Indigenous people exist in intricate tapestries of different nations, tribes and sovereign bodies. To suggest that a group who holds no claim to an area is one of its stakeholders not only does a disservice to accurate historical representation, but it actively harms the actual inhabitants of the land. Incorrect statements can divert resources and attention away from the target community, which can be especially harmful when it needs those assets the most.

“In order to start crucial conversations about Indigenous rights, our University must acknowledge that it indeed occupies Narragansett land.”

Suggesting otherwise would be doing a disservice to the true and present inhabitants of this land: the Narragansett Nation.

Although the intentions are often noble, erroneous land acknowledgements can actually do more harm than good. I’ll be transparent — when I first heard about this issue, I wondered why raising awareness of other tribes alongside the Narragansett was a bad thing. Any statement that acknowledges land as Indigenous is

After the Narragansett have endured so much as a sovereign, giving them a proper and factually sound acknowledgment should be the bare minimum.

Let’s be clear: The University’s recent statements will not reverse the oppression of the Narragansett people, which continues to this day, and the University’s inaction continues to fail the Narragansett people. Still, Paxson’s announcement is an important first step that

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opens the conversation on land acknowledgments and Indigenous rights to the entire Brown community. And these recommendations have actually been reviewed by the Narragansett tribe.

But these recommendations will remain performative until the University converts them into action: giving more opportunities to Narragansett students to study at Brown, promoting partnerships between the University and the Tribe that are not extractionary but beneficial and giving the Narragansett people a voice in Rhode Island, a state that has severely neglected them. These are just a few steps that the University could take to rectify the many, many harms it has inflicted on the Narragansett people.

The Brown community must take these proposals seriously. With the situation in Ukraine getting more dire, it is important to defend the sovereignties of nations that have been subjugated by tyrannical aggressors. But sometimes those aggressors aren’t nations halfway across the globe, but those within our very home. The Narragansett Nation has been denied the rightful acknowledgement of its sovereignty for far too long. Let us join together to uplift the actual inhabitants of this land because this is Narragansett land. This is Narragansett land. This is Narragansett land.

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

7

ARTS & CULTURE

‘Drawing Closer’ exhibition opens at RISD Museum 67 drawings reflect European art history from 15th to 19th centuries

BY RYAN SMITH STAFF WRITER After several pandemic-related delays, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art unveiled “Drawing Closer” to the public. The show opened March 13 and will remain on view until Sept. 4.

“Drawing Closer” pays “special attention to the materials” and their relationship with traditional “purposes of drawing, including observation, invention, preparation and amusement,” according to the RISD Museum press release.

When asked about assembling the exhibit, curator Jamie Gabbarelli provided a glimpse into the laborious process, which took two years to complete.

Gabbarelli described going “through every box of (European) drawings before 1900,” while exploring the archive.

“I wanted to give a sense of the range of aesthetic and technical possibilities that each medium afforded the artists,” he said.

The exhibit was meant to highlight “the breadth, depth and variety of a living collection,” including works made with pen, chalk, ink wash and watercolor, according to the press release. This variety of media is especially important, Gabbarelli said, because many collections “can seem quite static.”

Gabbarelli said historical art collections often have “biases against certain

artists or periods” and that he is interested in “filling historical gaps.”

He chronicled the growing “availability of paper in Europe” while developing the collection. As paper became widely available, drawing became “an intellectual activity” practiced by European artists and thinkers alike, he added.

In a statement on the RISD Museum website, Senior Program Officer at the Getty Foundation Heather MacDonald emphasized the show’s “curatorial experimentation.” MacDonald also oversees grantmaking for Paper Project, the initiative that made the exhibition possible.

Lindsey French, a visitor at the exhibit, said the show encouraged her to “look really closely,” which she said was something she doesn’t normally do.

Funding from the Getty Foundation allowed the RISD Museum to reframe the drawings on simple, neutral art mats. “It was a very deliberate choice to allow people to encounter (the works) in the most neutral way possible,” approaching them “not as fetishized objects from the past, surrounded in elaborate frames that signify some sort of extra importance,” Gabbarelli said.

Objects should “be interesting in their own right,” Gabbarelli said. The show’s non-chronological arrangement intends to prompt “comparisons that would not necessarily be made in a traditional context,” he added.

“I like all the drawings from extremely technical to extremely loose studies,” LeeAnn Herreid, a visitor at the exhibit, said, “and how (the exhibit) approaches a definition of drawing

by questioning what defines a work on paper.”

“There’s no fixed narrative — that’s why it’s both fun and essential that we are doing this because there is potential for reinterpretation,” Gabbarelli said.

By not telling viewers how to look at the drawings, Gabbarelli said the show seeks to provide viewers with “tools to start looking at drawings in an independent way.” The exhibit also provides magnifying glasses throughout the gallery, allowing viewers to immerse themselves in the drawings’ intricate details.

“I would like this to be sort of like an introduction, not to a history or to a narrative, but an introduction to looking,” Gabbarelli said.

Referencing the museum’s connection with RISD faculty, staff and students, Gabbarelli said that the selected drawings reflect elements “formed for an art school” because they document the ways artists thought about the material while “figuring out ways to make something.”

Gabbarelli referenced Carle van Loo’s “Male Nude Looking Upwards” as an observational drawing made with the purpose of “teaching art.” Gabbarelli said that the red chalk study, meant to train French artists in the 18th century, makes the museum “not an archive,” but rather a collection that comes to life in the context of teaching.

Reflecting on what he hopes viewers take away from the exhibit, Gabbarelli concluded that he wanted to bring everything “back to the basics” to present drawings as an “amazing reflection of human creativity.”

ANTON LØVENBERG, “STUDY OF A SCULPTURAL MALE TORSO,” CA. 1840– 1850. GIFT OF FREDERICK LOVENBERG.

UNIVERSITY NEWS

Testing kit, mask pick up to continue through end of semester Masking, contact tracing eliminated for participants in research studies on campus

BY GABRIELLA VULAKH SCIENCE & RESEARCH EDITOR Twenty-two students reported positive COVID-19 test results and approximately 24 students were in designated on-campus or off-campus isolation housing during the week of March 10 to 16, according to a March 18 Today@ Brown announcement. Six employees reported positive COVID-19 results in the same time frame.

Testing for COVID-19 became optional for fully-vaccinated undergraduate students starting March 14, while testing for fully-vaccinated faculty, staff and graduate students has been optional since the beginning of the semester, The Herald previously reported. The University is not tracking the number of students or employees who choose to continue testing, according to Executive Vice President for Planning and Policy Russell Carey ’91 MA’06.

“We do keep a very close eye on how many tests get distributed … but in terms of (whether) people are taking tests … we don’t know unless they report a positive test result,” Carey said.

After April 1, the University will close the One Davol Square testing center and consolidate distribution of

TRACY PAN / HERALD

The University also updated its guidance on COVID-19 and human subjects research to eliminate contact tracing and masking requirements for fully-vaccinated participants in research studies on campus. rapid antigen testing kits and KN95 masks at Alumnae Hall, according to the announcement.

Tests and masks will continue to be made available to the community through the end of the semester, according to the announcement. The University wants “to give people some assurance and a little bit of peace of mind that we’re not taking (them) away,” Carey said.

The University also updated its guidance on COVID-19 and human subjects research to eliminate contact tracing and masking requirements for fully-vaccinated participants in research studies on campus, according to a separate March 18 Today@Brown announcement. Principal investigators can still mandate masking for participants and researchers if necessary for specific studies.

The Institutional Review Board — a research ethics board that reviews study procedures — is also no longer required to issue exceptions for procedures that involve entering research participants’ homes, according to the announcement.

“Research is one of the first things we resumed (and) some research never stopped during the pandemic,” Carey said. But “there is a range of different things that happen in re-

search, (and) a variety of activities that involve interpersonal contact and people needing to do things with or without masks.”

Carey added that the University “adjusted and developed policies and processes specific to research to both allow research to continue and allow it to continue safely.”

Reporting by Haley Sandlow.

MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2022

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

8

SCIENCE & RESEARCH

Brown Research Club hosts ‘Underrepresented in STEM’ Speakers discuss undergraduate research equity, obstacles minorities face

BY ANNA KIM SENIOR STAFF WRITER The Brown Research Club hosted an event called “Underrepresented in STEM” on Sunday, which featured speakers Oludurotimi Adetunji, the associate dean of the college for undergraduate research and inclusive science, and Cel Welch GS, a PhD candidate doing research in biomedical engineering and founder and CEO of a nonprofit called Queer Engineer International.

The Brown Research Club, founded in 2018, aims to “support students in finding opportunities for research,” said Rahma Ibrahim ’22, former Herald science and research editor and co-president of BRC. The organization held this event to provide a “space where people could come together and talk about their experiences as being underrepresented in STEM … and connect people to other opportunities they don’t know about,” Ibrahim said.

This event was in collaboration with Queer People and Allies for the Advancement of Medicine, Out in STEM, the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science, the Society of Women Engineers, the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers. Following talks by Welch and Adetunji, representatives from each organization shared information about their individual clubs for people interested in getting involved.

The event coordinators hoped that audience members would take away that “there is a support network available for underrepresented populations in STEM and opportunities that (underrepresented students) could reach out to,” said Alyssa Steinbaum ’23, a member of the BRC Events Committee involved in planning the event.

Changes in College-Funded Opportunities Adetunji, who was the first speaker of the event, gave his talk on efforts to ensure equity and access in undergraduate research.

“As an immigrant and an African American physicist, I know firsthand the challenges that minoritized students face in navigating this type of research enterprise,” Adetunji said.

“These challenges include limited so-

COURTESY OF ALYSSA STEINBAUM

“Underrepresented in STEM,” an event hosted by the Brown Research Club, highlighted inclusive research practices and barriers faced by scientists with underrepresented identities. cial capital and financial support for research, finding a research mentor and access to research opportunities, among others.”

He went on to explain that many of these challenges are “embedded in the structures and policies that are placed in organizations, such as higher education institutions,” noting the importance of these institutions to “conduct equity audits and address equity gaps with data driven decisions.”

“There is no such thing as race-neutral policies. There are policies that promote racist outcomes and policies that promote anti-racist outcomes,” Adetunji said, quoting the author, professor and anti-racist activist Ibram X. Kendi.

To address inequality issues in programs and staffing, Adetunji had previously conducted intersectionality analyses of programs and staffing and noticed that “programs that did not factor in student cost had deep inequalities,” he said. In the spring of 2020, he began to collaborate with colleagues who oversee summer funding opportunities to address these issues.

He set out to address student-voiced concerns about the difficulty of navigating summer programs, “each with their own deadlines, funding amounts and application process,” as well as the lack of clarity behind the process of many research opportunities, Adetunji said.

“SPRINTs now serve as the umbrella application for college-fund-

ed opportunities, including BrownConnects, LINKs, UTRAs and other awards,” Adetunji said. This allows “us to create and make visible opportunities for Brown students, which focus on high and highest financial need, historically underrepresented groups and international students, to (allow them to) engage in high in-person opportunities and to address equity gaps in our programs,” he said.

Incorporating the UTRA application into the SPRINT process has simplified the process for both students and faculties, making it easier for students to find opportunities and faculty to post positions, Adetunji added.

“The UTRA program now prioritizes funding for students demonstrating financial need,” Adetunji said. “This is a major shift in our process. We have also enacted a holistic review process that takes into account faculty feedback and equity-minded factors in our decision making.”

In the past, there was a “single funding amount for all students regardless of demonstrated financial need,” Adetunji said. In the new progressive funding structure, “we have institutionalized automatic GAP awards for students who demonstrate financial need.”

“As a result of these changes, our applicant pool for faculty collaboration of UTRAs was the most diverse in the program’s history,” he said. “We continue to increase access for stu-

dents to engage in research, thereby ensuring equity, inclusion and access in undergraduate research at Brown.”

Why We Need Diversity in STEM Welch began the second talk of the event by introducing the concept of the “leaky pipeline,” a phenomenon in which representation of historically underrepresented groups decreases at every level of academia.

Welch proposed that this is not a result of individual decisions to leave the field, but rather the result of various factors like discrimination, marginalization, lack of role models, lack of resources and others’ biases forcing people out.

This is a systemic problem in STEM where people are “exposed to lots of different things … that would make them want to not be in this field: … things like racism, things like sexism, things like homophobia and transphobia,” Welch said.

Underrepresented minorities face heavy discrimination in certain STEM fields, Welch said, citing statistics from Pride in STEM that show that “less than 60% of LGBT people are out in STEM.” Queer Engineer International is a nonprofit organization Welch founded to create “more resources for LGBTQ+ engineers” so that “all of us have a way of actually meeting each other and kind of forming a network,” Welch said.

One of the projects Queer Engineering International has done is a visibility campaign in partnership

with 500 Queer Scientists to show a “diverse array of LGBTQIA+ engineers … from various different backgrounds, different countries, working in different areas to make sure that people felt represented,” Welch said.

The visibility campaign was designed to “tap into our international and diverse audience of different engineering professionals” so that anyone who is “wondering if they can actually be an engineer, while LGBTQ or whatever else, can see these profiles” and find and connect with somebody who looks like them, Welch said.

In the last part of their talk, Welch gave advice on how to succeed as a minority, marginalized or disadvantaged student. “First, it can be really helpful for your career to actually visualize and plan it out … whether you want to be a medical doctor or a research scientist, work for the government, whatever it is that you want to do,” Welch said.

“It’s also very helpful to find a network of people who can relate to and support you,” Welch said. They also noted the importance of seeking out role models and mentors at every career stage.

Welch also emphasized the importance of taking time for oneself.

“You’re not a machine that’s created to do STEM, so it’s important to set aside some time to not only discuss what you’re going through if you’re going through a tough time … but also practice self care and prioritiz(e) health as well,” Welch added.

the beam later in the meet.

The Bears continued to excel in the floor exercise with Davis and Bedell both posting career-best 9.9 scores to help the team reach a 49.2, which is a program record in the event.

Finally, on the vault, Brown posted a 48.975, which led all teams. None of the six Bruno vaulters finished with a score below a 9.675.

To add to its superiority on the beam, Penn was able to narrowly best Brown’s record-breaking performance on the bars and the floor

exercise to finish with a 0.975 lead over the Bears.

“I think it’s always a little bit disappointing,” Costa said of coming up just short of the team win.

“But I think we surpassed our own expectations of how we were (going to) do and Penn had an absolutely incredible day.”

Brown’s results have seen a steady increase since the beginning of the season, when the Bears scored 188.7 in a meet at Yale. In three of the last four meets, Brown has set a new season high.

Carver-Milne said that progression was by design.

“Coming back from COVID, we had some people on our team that hadn’t trained for 18 months. Gymnastics is a very risky sport. … We had to be really careful” in the beginning, she said. “That was our plan the whole time: We’re going to go at it slowly, and then we’ll add difficulty as the season goes along and we get back to our competition shape.”

After their historic performance on Saturday, the Bears will find out this week which gymnasts have qual-

ified for NCAA Regionals and USA Gymnastics Collegiate Nationals.

According to Carver-Milne, Brown has secured the fifth seed in the team event at USAG Nationals. The event, to be hosted by Cornell April 8 to 10, will feature eight teams competing in two semifinals, with the top two from each session advancing to the final.

“That’s pretty huge,” Carver-Milne said of qualifying. “We haven’t been to nationals as a team (since 2018). We’ve got a good shot at getting into team finals and potentially winning it all.”

GYMNASTICS FROM PAGE 1 and Costa combining for an impressive 49.225, the highest total score in any event in program history. Contello, Poley and Richter set career-highs, with Contello earning a near-perfect 9.925.

“My warm-up wasn’t great, but I knew that if I (could) just do what I do in the gym then the outcome would be great,” Contello said.

The Bears next moved to the balance beam, where Schulze’s 9.875 score led Brown to a 48.575 total. But the performance could not match up to Penn’s staggering 49.225 score on