Thursday, December 6, 2018

SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2018

VOLUME CLII, ISSUE 113

WWW.BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM

1968 walkout participants, black alums recall University’s isolating climate COURTESY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

The 1968 black student walkout occurred in the midst of a period of national racial unrest that resulted in protests at colleges across the country, such as Howard University and Columbia.

University inaction, feelings of ostracization, national racial unrest fuel black students to walk out

By KATHERINE BENNETT SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The women of Pembroke College who staged one of the largest student walk-

outs in University history in December 1968 chose to protest publicly only after exhausting all other options, said Ido Jamar ’69, a Pembroke graduate who helped organize the walkout 50 years ago.

“It wasn’t as though one day we woke up and said the University has to (follow our demands). We’d been working with the University to try to increase admission, but it had been

piecemeal,” she said.

The women had been meeting and negotiating with University administrators since the previous spring to improve the admission and retention of black students. During their conversations, black students from Brown and Pembroke presented administrators with a list of demands that included measures such as hiring a black admissions officer, increasing

the enrollment of black students to a minimum of 11 percent, waiving the application fee for black applicants and allocating more funding for scholarships.

But the University was reluctant to implement these changes, said Kenneth McDaniel ’69. “It got to the point where they weren’t moving; we’ve done this, we’ve proven this and they seem to be continuing to find

excuses or reasons why they can’t do the next step,” he said. “We overcome that hurdle, then another hurdle gets thrown up.” The University cited a lack of qualified candidates, a low number of applicants and a limited amount of financial aid as barriers to increasing black student enrollment, he added.

“It was basic representation in the society. … We grew up in black » See WALKOUT, page 6

Computer science department plans expansion Panel examines intersection Largest hiring of new of data science, neuroscience faculty in department’s history will address ballooning enrollment

Professors highlight ongoing research in brain science that embodies interdisciplinary approach

By JANGO MCCORMICK STAFF WRITER

At a time when cybersecurity, machine learning and artificial intelligence deeply influence the economy and public debate, more students are flocking to the University’s Department of Computer Science. After half a decade of steady increases in enrollment, the department is taking new steps to respond to student interest. The CS department will hire 15 new faculty members in the next five years, a 50 percent expansion that constitutes the largest single wave of faculty hiring in its 40-year history, said Ugur Cetintemel, professor of computer science and chair of the department. In hopes of increasing the diversity and scope of research and teaching in the department, 10 of the new hires will be tenure-track professors, and the other five will be lecturers, he added. » See CS, page 4

INSIDE

By CHRIS SCHUTTE SENIOR STAFF WRITER

RÉMY POISSON

On Wednesday evening, three University researchers gathered in the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society to discuss their ongoing multidisciplinary research on “Decoding the Human Brain with Data.” As the next installment of the “Building on Distinction” lecture series, the conversation focused primarily on the intersection of neuroscience and data science. The panel featured Matthew Harrison, associate professor of applied mathematics; Stephanie Jones, associate professor of neuroscience; and Dima Amso, associate professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences.

Harrison began the event by introducing BrainGate, a joint research

program between Brown, Stanford and Case Western University that aims to help those with motor control issues and paralysis. BrainGate places a sensor on patients’ brains to track and record signals while patients attempt to complete tasks such as clicking. As patients perform these actions, their intended movements are paired with the resulting brain signals to create a database of pairs, Harrison said. As the database grows, BrainGate is able to develop a more complete understanding of brain signals and movement.

Delving into a more data-oriented research program, Jones spoke on her work with Human Neocortical Neurosolver, a software that aids clinicians and researchers in testing hypotheses by simulating large-scale neuronal responses. By using data collected from EEG experiments, researchers can compare simulated neural signals to uncover the cellular origins of their data, Jones said. The software can be used to study healthy brain signals and non-invasive » See PANEL, page 4

WEATHER

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2018

NEWS GSC discusses new U. bias reporting system, unionization timeline, union membership, fees

NEWS UCS amends Campus of Consent Bill, prepares for Title IX town hall on sexual misconduct policy

COMMENTARY Bosis ’19: U.S. presidential power has grown too much, costs of president’s office outweigh benefits

COMMENTARY Editorial: Computer science expansion is welcome change, will improve students’ experiences

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TODAY

TOMORROW

41 / 29

37 / 18

NEWS

PAGE 2 • THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2018

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

GSC receives update on new bias reporting system Council also answers questions on unionization timeline, membership, scope of bargaining unit

By ERIC CHOI SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The Graduate Student Council heard updates on a bias incident reporting system and clarified the timeline for unionization at its last general body meeting of the fall semester.

Shay Collins, director of institutional equity and community engagement, briefed graduate students on the new online reporting form for the Brown community that will be released January 2019. The form will be an opportunity for “anyone affiliated with Brown” to “report evidence of bias” such as discrimination or harassment, they added.

Reports can be made anonymously, and Collins encouraged reporting any incidents of bias. “All data is good data,” they said.

After a report is filed, a team consisting of faculty, staff, undergraduates, graduate students and medical students will examine the complaint, Collins said. Though the team will make recommendations to the University on how to follow up on reports, it cannot enforce sanctions, they added. In most cases, adjudication would have to go through University Human Resources, Collins said.

In response to a question from a graduate student present, Collins said that they “haven’t had communications about” compensation for graduate and medical students on the review team. The number of hours students will dedicate to reviewing reports would also need to be considered in this decision, they added.

During the meeting, the GSC Executive Board also spoke to a potential timeline for unionization, though it is unclear how long it will take until a contract is finalized with the University, said Alastair Tulloch GS, president of the GSC. Brandeis University took 10 months to negotiate a contract and New York University needed 18 months, Tulloch added.

Tulloch estimated that it takes 14 to 18 months on average to reach a contract between universities and graduate student unions.

“It really depends on how long it takes (Stand Up For Graduate Student Employees) and (the American Federation of Teachers) to organize” and set up governing bodies, Tulloch added.

Tulloch also clarified that the bargaining unit comprises graduate students who have current appointments as either teaching assistants or research assistants. Currently, about 900 such graduate students qualify.

Tulloch also answered questions about how students could join the union. To do so, graduate students would need to sign a membership

JASMINE RUIZ / HERALD

A bias report submitted through the new system will be reviewed by faculty, staff, undergraduates, graduate students and medical students. It is unclear whether graduate or medical students will be paid for this work. card, Tulloch said. Regardless of Tulloch cited conflicting information working group funding and event whether members of the bargaining and deferred to SUGSE for answers. funding for graduate student groups. unit join the union, they might still Toward the end of the meeting, Following recent proposed changes need to pay union dues, though this Kaitlin Wilcoxen GS, chair of com- to Title IX by the U.S. Department is dependent on the terms of the con- munications for the GSC, introduced of Education, members of the GSC tract, Tulloch added. In response to a revisions to the GSC’s bylaws. These will attend a town hall today at 6 p.m. question on whether students could revisions included representation for in Friedman Hall to explain policy “unsign” their membership cards, international graduate student groups, changes, Tulloch said.

Issue

In This

post- reminiscers

Sarah Lettes

2

Fall Favorites

Raise a Glass to Susan Yund 3

Rachel Landau 4

From Nevsky to New Dorm Griffin Plaag 5

Fantastic Films and Where to Find Them Quinn Matos 6

Are Garbage

Why All Lists

postCover by Lauren Marin

DEC 6

VOL 23 —

ISSUE 12

FEATURE

Raise a Glass to Susan Yund An Ode to the GCB

By Sarah Lettes Illustrated by Connor Gewirtz

I

magine trying to describe the White House without mentioning the president. Or giving a tour of the Sistine Chapel without talking about Michelangelo. Not only would you miss the big picture, but the underlying details also wouldn’t make sense. Without a president, the Oval Office would just be a small room in a big house. The Sistine Chapel would still be stunning, but the experience would be diminished without knowing about the formative hands and mind behind the stories painted across the ceiling.

Similarly, you can’t fully understand Brown University’s Graduate Center Bar, known affectionately as the GCB, without knowing about Susan Yund. Susan came to the GCB in 1991 as a bartender, became the manager three years later, and has been running the show ever since.

The GCB is a small bar tucked away in the underbelly of the Grad Center dorms. Entering the GCB feels like approaching a secret hideout.

It’s hidden in plain sight, beneath the large, slightly ugly, but easy-to-miss concrete block that sits several yards away from the Bear’s Lair.

The entrance itself, a glass door with the GCB’s hours listed in small font on it, is so nondescript that it’s hard to believe you’re entering a bar. But once you push open the door and make your way down the steps, the smells of beer and popcorn and the sounds of music and conversation flood your senses, welcoming you into this underground world.

Despite how often I’ve opened the GCB’s glass door and stepped into the cloud of beer fumes, I had never heard Susan’s name before last week.

I had spent a chunk of one Monday evening attempting to do homework in the GCB with a couple of friends. With my laptop screen growing dark every time I got lost in conversation, and my hands resting on the keyboard like I was getting a manicure, I wasn’t fooling anyone. I shut my laptop and biked home, wondering as I pedaled through the still night about the origins of such a unique spot—the only place I knew where you could, in a single moment, see people playing board games, ordering shots, chatting with professors, and meeting up for dates. Curious about the inner workings of this wondrous campus bar, I emailed

the GCB and set up a meeting with Susan.

Susan carved out a chunk of time for me between a day of working in the GCB and watching the Red Sox take on the Astros that evening. I walked to the GCB tentatively, unaccustomed to visiting the bar when the sun was still shining, bouncing off of Brown’s buildings as it made its way

to the bottom of the horizon. But once I stepped inside, any concept of time and season vanished.

The GCB was the same as always, but everything had a slightly calmer feeling, as if someone had turned down the volume. The steady murmur of voices and clinking of glasses filled the room, which had a few more open tables and a slightly

Letter from the Editor The time has come for my last note as editor-in-chief! Get ready for some sappy expressions of gratitude: To my managing eds, Anita, Celina, and Julian: Thank you for your relentlessness in sourcing content, tenacity in hunting down every stray comma at final reads, and enthusiastic support of all my crazy ideas for post- outreach and community building.

Above all, thank you for making prod night one of my most treasured times of the week—the late-night talks and chilly walks home down Thayer Street in the dark and snow really made the experience special. I have complete faith that I am delivering post- into capable hands.

To my section eds, Divya, Jasmine, Josh, Kathy, Liza, and Sydney: Thank you for all the behind-the-scenes editing and lively conversation during prod night. Special shout-out to Sydney for taking on management of the Feature section next semester, and to Josh for getting A&C up and running at the start of the semester.

To our layout team, Jacob, Nina, Amy, and Steve: You are the real unsung heros.

Thank you for bearing with editorial delays and positioning pull quotes late into the night.

2!post–

To our copy editors, Amanda, Mo, and Sonya: Thank you for your attention to detail and help in settling midnight grammar debates.

To Remy: Thank you for ensuring every post- piece comes with a lovely illustration, even if it means drawing four of them yourself.

To Elena, Kasturi, and Alex: Thank you for all the support you’ve lent postduring various mishaps and prod-night crises.

To all our writers and illustrators: We have loved reading and looking at your work and appreciate that without you, there would be no magazine.

To you, our readers: Thank you for being here! We hope you enjoy this final issue, where we have compiled our thoughts on the albums, movies, and memories from this year and reflect on the community connections we have formed here on campus.

Farewell, and happy holidays! post- will be here to greet you in the new year.

Yours,

Jennifer

editor in chief of post-

older crowd than usual. A group of graduate students huddled around a table in the center of the main room, heads bobbing in conversation and laughter, and hands occasionally reaching for the pitcher in the middle. Other smaller groups sat scattered throughout the room. Two bartenders leaned against one end of the bar, chatting with each other and the regulars. When I stepped up to the bar and asked about Susan, one of the bartenders motioned towards the darts room, pointing to a door I had never noticed.

Susan stepped out of what she called “a storage room with a desk,” but could be more accurately described as the office of a beer lover’s dreams.

The small, brightly lit room was bursting with every beer-related item imaginable, from stacks of stainless steel kegs by the door to colorful beer tap handles on the walls.

Susan greeted me, and we made our way to the barstools. She grabbed a glass of water and sat down. Over the next half hour, as the glass of water slowly grew empty, Susan shared the layers of history that rest beneath the surface of this bar so many students have come to love.

A group of graduate students and faculty members opened the GCB in 1969 with a charter to “facilitate intercourse.” Besides its property lease from Brown and its charter’s expressed goal of serving the Brown community, the GCB has no formal ties to the University.

Perhaps the most surprising part of the GCB’s operations is its commitment to giving. The GCB is a nonprofit private club. No one in the GCB makes money off of commissions; after employees are paid, some profits are channeled into maintenance and emergency funds, and the rest goes to charity.

Susan explained that one of her favorite parts of the job is sitting down and writing out checks to organizations like the Rhode Island Community Food Bank and the Nature Conservancy. The GCB has also sponsored the local Little League for almost two decades, and Susan and other bartenders have even coached teams in the past.

Susan chooses organizations that everyone can get behind and that she sees making an impact in the Providence community.

As we talked, it became clear that Susan has shaped not only the way the GCB operates but also the physical space itself.

The GCB was initially located below the Bear’s Lair. This large space housed six pool tables and a video game area. In 1986, the University asked the GCB to move, and it relocated to a smaller space nearby in the depths of Grad Center, which it has occupied ever since.

Lovers of the GCB went through painstaking measures to save one of the bar’s most iconic pieces of art during the move. In 1978, artist The Mad Peck (Brown Class of 1967) and writer Les Daniels created a poster called “Providence.” The poster includes a series of cartoons that describe Providence as a city “where it rains two days out of three except during the rainy season, when it

snows like a bitch.” The Mad Peck had projected these iconic images onto the wall of the GCB, and another artist painted it in. When it was time for the GCB to change locations, no one was ready to leave behind this artwork—so chainsaws were used to remove this section of the wall and move it to the new bar location. Susan noted that alumni often ask to buy the piece, but thankfully for us, she rejects all of their offers.

The other art in the GCB comes from a variety of sources, most of it curated and hung by Susan herself. The current collection features abstract art, a depiction of the back entrance of the GCB that bartender Bill France painted, and other pieces Susan and other employees have tacked up throughout the years. The cartoon theme extends to the bathrooms, the walls of which are covered in carefully curated comic strips. With subjects ranging from feminism to thesis advising, these comic strips have entertained scores of customers desperately waiting for their turn in the singlestall bathrooms. Susan selected and pasted each of these strips onto the walls and continues to update them when students take it upon themselves to peel strips off of the white tiles.

join the “quizmaster extraordinaire” and his wife, Stephanie, who obtained a PhD in English at Brown, and try their hand at the questions this power couple crafts.

The GCB also brings Brown’s undergraduate community together. For upperclassmen, the GCB serves as an important gathering place, a watering hole where you go to feel like a whole person, not just a student, even just for a little bit. For those living off-campus and off meal plan, the GCB fulfills the function of the Ratty or a dorm common room; it’s the spot where you run into friends you haven’t seen in a while. First-year students can catch up with each other at the V-Dub’s omelette station; seniors can bump into each other at the GCB’s pool tables. The GCB provides a spot away from the hubbub of campus life, a hideaway where the only challenge is choosing the right IPA. As Susan spoke, the motions of the bar seemed to rotate in smooth ellipses around her.

Bartenders floated through the rooms, collecting empty glasses and prepping the TVs for the Sox game. Customers approached the bar for a drink every now and then, nodding in greeting to Susan or the bartenders before sliding back into their

I shut my laptop and biked home, wondering as I pedaled through the still night about the origins of such a unique spot— the only place I knew where you could, in a single moment, see people playing board games, ordering shots, chatting with professors, and meeting up for dates.

Other items evoke specific moments from history. A fake lizard poses in a fish tank next to the front entrance. A cigarette protrudes from the lizard’s mouth, and a sign in the tank reads “only this lizard may smoke.” Susan informed me that, in 2005, someone gave the lizard this cigarette on the night that smoking was prohibited in Providence bars, and it has remained there ever since. Susan added that before this policy existed, cigarette smoke used to fill the GCB, to the extent that one of her friends used to bring a garbage bag into which he could stuff his jacket while he sat at the bar to keep it smelling fresh.

Beyond the endless operational and interior decorating contributions Susan has made, she has also built a community in this basement bar. The bartenders are a tight-knit crew; in fact, Susan’s son and one of his childhood friends work there. A community tends to form among the grad students who frequent the bar for years. Susan explained that one of the hardest parts of the job is when the grad-student regulars leave Providence after completing their degrees. However, sometimes a few stick around. Luckily, Jim, who started GCB trivia nights a few years ago, got a position as a professor at Providence College after finishing a PhD in Economics at Brown. Students can still

booths. Even while Susan spoke to me, it seemed as if she were silently directing the seamless flow of the bar. Susan was like a coach of a pro-soccer team, sitting calmly in the middle of the field as her players ran drills, passing and running in graceful, never-ending circuits around her.

I returned to the GCB later that week with my roommates. The paintings hung on the walls like they always had, and the countertops reflected the glow of the lights in the same way as before. But this time, I knew who had tacked up each piece of art, who had sat in the back writing out checks to charity, and who has dedicated so much of her life to creating this center of community. I understood why I had so instantly fallen under the GCB’s spell; as I looked around the room, I could see the level of effort and care that went into creating this bar. I could see it in the decked-out map room, in the cabinet stuffed with board games, and in the walls lined with paintings. And I could see it in the impassioned pool game in the next room, the hands digging into a fresh bowl of popcorn, and the comfortable conversations of close friends. It all flowed naturally, but Susan and the bartenders had worked to put all of the pieces into place. So next time you go to the GCB, raise a glass to Susan.

Or, better yet, say hello.

“I’m a fake sushi girl."

“Reading is like exercise: If you do it too much, you die.”

December 6, 2018&3

NARRATIVE

Fall Favorites

A Semester's Worth of Moments

A

By post- reminiscers Illustrated by Halle Krieger

sunny Sunday—a morning in India Point Park, an afternoon kicking around a soccer ball, and an evening full of music and conversation.

A late-night-turned-early-morning conversation more fun than the party we went to earlier that evening.

Bingeing all of The Good Place Season 1 in a single day with my roommate while we downed hot chocolate and pumpkin bars. Watching her reaction to the finale was the cherry on top.

Delicious lunch dates downtown: Sweet potato tea lattes and pumpkin ravioli can change your life.

Tea time in my best friend’s bed.

Friday afternoon Tealuxe sessions—drink tea while spilling tea.

First 1:00 a.m. Jo’s run after three years of being at Brown. Hung around a table of friends and ate mozzarella sticks and onion rings. First spicy with too!

Running around Machado in flip-flops to catch the Uber Eats driver because my drunk friends couldn’t set the pick-up location properly—the lengths we go to for our inebriated buddies.

Skipping section to get ice cream and walk around with a friend on the Last Warm Day of the Semester (there’s been about seven; my prediction is wrong every time).

Lurking around the Gano Street Dunkin’ Donuts at midnight in hopes of finding the mythical trash donuts. Getting chased away from the dumpster of said Dunkin’ Donuts and taking a picture with friends inside a bulldozer attachment instead.

Going to New York with some friends just to be tourists in a Russian neighborhood. Buying a book of Soviet product posters and eating walnut cookies and mystery candies on the train home.

Early morning breakfasts with my roommate (2-for-$3 muffin special at Louie’s or Shiru Cafe right as it opens).

Finally feeling comfortable skipping parties just to watch TV with my roommates on a Friday night.

Making pancakes and bacon for some friends on Sunday morning and catching up.

Sitting in the Brown Daily Herald office 4!post–

during prod night, munching on addictive CVS cheddar popcorn and birthday cake Oreos, editing wonderful pieces of writing.

Skipping down Thayer in onesies while belting out Shakira, purposefully ignoring the strange looks exchanged by passerbys.

It doesn’t matter how old we get, how much we hurt, how hard life can seem in the present— the first snow of the year turns everyone back to children again.

Missing the entire first snow of the year due to prod night. Worth it, since I got to walk home in the snow at 3 a.m. before there were any footsteps.

Two-hour Ratty dinners.

Returning to CVS after leaving my debit card in the self-pay machine for over four hours. It was still there!

Granola bowls every weekend.

Doing it for the debrief!

Cozy weekend nights with friends huddled around a laptop, screaming at rom-com characters to make better decisions in their lives.

Midnight music in many forms.

Long, meandering walks through Providence to admire the autumn leaves.

Stealing hundreds of tiny Lactaid milks from the Ratty freezer. I think I’m the reason they stopped putting them out?

Hearing my esteemed and brilliant professor mispronounce Thoreau as “Thorough.”

Hotpot with my cousin, who’d flown in to tour a nearby university, at Yan’s. We talked about what it meant to be Hmong-American and what we hoped to get out of university, he an incoming freshman and I a junior. We burned our mouths on half-cooked rice noodles and fried tofu.

From Nevsky to New Dorm Making Memories

By Rachel Landau Illustrated by Rémy Poisson

M

ore than two months after I left Saint Petersburg, I received a Facebook message from Dean, a former Brown University student with whom I had explored Russian art exhibitions and gallery openings. “Hey Rachel, will be in Prov in mid-September,” he’d written. I couldn’t believe my good fortune. After all, he wasn’t just a mentor—he was a friend, and he and his wife had welcomed me into their network of creatives from Russia.

On a Saturday in late September, I met him on the corner of Thayer and George Street, only a few steps from the Ratty. As we drove down Brook Street, he told me about illegally having a car as a freshman and parking it outside his dorm, how silly it was to do those things back then. I didn’t recognize the name he used for Keeney—West Quad, apparently. It seems

that Brown has always been changing the names of its spaces. But even as the vernacular changes, the places remain the same. When Dean parked outside of Louie’s, he motioned at the restaurant and said that he hoped I knew it. “How could I not?” I replied, thinking of memorable post-exam lunches shared among friends.

We walked over to New Dorm and took the stairs to my common room, which had hosted a small gathering the night before. There were still crushed cans and empty bags of chips scattered around the room. Snacking on a bagel, I asked Dean how the rest of the summer had been in Saint Petersburg—I had left the country months before he did. He mentioned a trip to Moscow, endless work on a myriad of projects, a private tour of the Museum of Cosmonautics. Soon enough, we began talking about the stakes of creating art in Russia versus in the United States, what creativity means, and how artists put themselves at risk through the act of creation.

I like to think of myself as an heir to the history of this university, just as all students are.

Central to his analysis was the recent history of Providence. Dean traced the different areas of Rhode Island art history: Providence can rightfully claim the pre-formation of the Talking Heads, while nearby Cumberland was once home to the Farrelly brothers, the filmmakers behind Dumb and Dumber.

I was especially intrigued by Dean’s story of Joe’s and Joe’s Upstairs. Citing the restaurant organization methods of Dewey Dufresne as a seminal element of Rhode Island culinary history, he sang the praises of chowders and pounds of bluefish flown in from Cape Cod. He called the interior of Joe’s Upstairs “Edward Hopper-like,” and I had no trouble picturing exactly what he meant.

Talking to Dean in my New Dorm common room made the strange temporality of Brown all the more concrete. CareerLAB always stresses how useful it is to “network” with alumni, but one can have many meaningful conversations without any intention of getting an internship. I like to think of myself as an heir to the history of this university, just as all students are. I couldn’t help but recall when, while lounging around in Em-Wool freshman year, a few juniors knocked on my door, asked if they could come in, and told stories of what they had experienced in that very same room. On the one hand, it is unsettling to consider how many strangers over the course of history have eaten sandwiches on Faunce’s steps or done laundry in New Pembroke— but it is also quite possibly the most interesting thing about Brown: to be surrounded by so much memory.

We also talked about the future. Having just come from Moscow and preparing to return for a performance art piece, Dean offered a lot of advice on things to see and people to meet during my upcoming semester abroad. Dean had left Providence behind many years ago, and listening to his stories of all the places one could go beyond these familiar streets was a comforting reminder to cherish these days but not grow too attached to them. The memories (and apparently the brunch places) will still be here.

After Dean left New Dorm, he went to rehearse for a memorial concert to take place the next day at Nick-A-Nee’s. He and a few members of his old band,

ARTS&CULTURE The Mundanes, would go on to perform in honor of their friend Charles Reckard, a Brown alum and four-time New England Emmy award winner for excellence in broadcasting. And after Dean left New Dorm, I went back to my homework, caught up on it—nothing spectacular. I picked up the crushed cans and the empty bags of chips and went up and down the stairs to the basement trash room a few times. Later, I took a walk to East Side Market, went to a birthday party, and stayed up with my friends for most of the night talking about our favorite books.

Now, in the gray state of mid-December, I think it was actually exceptional to take part in something so mundane, so material, to sit around reading on a Saturday afternoon back when the whole semester was ahead of me. There was so much time to figure out what would become my memories of this fall.

I think I made good choices, and I can’t wait to tell these stories someday in the doorway of an EmWool room, on the couch of a New Dorm suite, or at a gallery show in Saint Petersburg.

Fantastic Films and Where to Find Them Not Necessarily in 2018

By Robert Capron Illustrated by Lucien Poisson

W

hat’s your favorite movie? No, I get it, too broad. How about favorite movie this year? It’s a question I love asking, yet find impossible to answer.

Others do too, at least in my experience. There’s the obligatory seven seconds of staring into space, the unlucky interviewee presumably racking their brains for any noteworthy piece of entertainment they’ve seen in the past few months that wasn’t an episode of The Office. And, of course, the universal response: “That’s too tough. There are just… so many to choose from.”

And there are! Films span genres, platforms, lengths. That’s not even including the most crucial variable in this equation: you. Everyone responds to films differently; that’s what makes movies so special.

Viewers can undergo the same carefully curated barrages of sound and image, and all emerge with wildly different responses. No wonder we want to know what others like—what does it say about them?

About me?

The truth is, picking a favorite movie each year is often an egregious task. Awards season pundits attempt to make the process easier: They narrow down an entire year’s worth of content to a few mustsees, while we take their word for it and proceed accordingly. But the problem persists nevertheless.

How can viewers boil down everything they love about film to one perfect, self-contained experience on a yearly basis? Simple. They can’t.

So why bother asking?

Allow me to answer with my personal response to two films. One, a hypothetical contender for this awards season due to its timely release; the other, a nearly decades-old piece of animation. Both claim to be “fantastic.” Both have affected me greatly.

The first you can likely guess from the headline.

I was surprised by my degree of hatred for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. Like most people my age, Harry Potter was a huge part of my childhood.

Its coming-of-age narrative proved immensely relatable (despite my being a Muggle), so a spin-off movie franchise seemed trustworthy. Yet, while the first Fantastic Beasts was amiable enough, this sequel

reeked of creative and financial desperation. To be fair, I audibly squealed when I saw the baby Nifflers (I’m not heartless). But baby Nifflers aren’t enough to carry a film. I was left cold in the theater—the magic of the wizarding world was gone. Yet the film remains tucked away in the corner of my mind—made “noteworthy” by its November release date. Its special effects will likely garner a nomination down the line, and the film will still be included in numerous “yearend” lists. Put simply, we film fans rely too much on the calendar.

And yet, I remain more deeply drawn to an older “fantastic” film—one concerning a crafty denizen of a local forest whose wild instincts get the better of him.

I first saw Fantastic Mr. Fox when I was 12 years old; then, I understood it only sporadically. But there was this imperceptible sense of knowing—as if the film had been made to appeal to a part of myself that I wasn’t quite aware existed yet.

Yes, Fantastic Mr. Fox wasn’t released in 2018.

It was only due to the whims of a friend that I even rewatched it this year. But as the novelty of my reunion with this childhood relic began to wane, an appreciation for its technical expertise, autumnal color palette, and sheer essence began to take hold. I felt as if I had been hugged by an old friend. It spoke to me—informed me—in ways entirely different from anything else I’ve viewed this year. The enthralled confusion of my childhood was replaced by a sort of understanding— not only of the film’s artistic intentions, but of my own. And that, I believe, matters more than a release date.

That makes a 2009 release my film of 2018.

What’s your pick?

Why All Lists Are Garbage Featuring Our Editor's Picks for Album of the Year

By Julian Towers

I

illustrated by Molly Young

don’t watch TV or go on Tumblr, so excuse me if this is mansplaining. But I’ve noticed that it has become common for people who love show “X” or enjoy band “Y” to excitedly describe themselves as “X obsessives” or “Y nerds.” I find this bewildering.

To me, “nerd” has always had a very sexless, very unsavory meaning. I’m not sure why anyone would want to claim it, and besides I find it applicable to very few people. A nerd is someone who engages with an element of culture so analytically, so far past the point of its original design, that it doesn’t seem like he or she actually enjoys it. A nerd is someone who could turn watching Cake Boss into joyless, dedicated labor.

I know not everyone will share this definition.

If anything, I’m fairly certain it originated within the Freudian snares and vapors of my own weirdass childhood. Specifically, around the age of 7, when I went to a Cubs game with my father and some of his work friends. Tagging along, not actually invited, was another co-worker—a short, sad-eyed man who presumptuously introduced himself as the group’s “real” baseball fan. But while everyone else drank beer, cracked jokes, and thrilled to the game, this man did not speak. He had brought two large binders with

Things To Do Before Winter Break 1. Seek out caretakers for contraband pets 2. End your non-relationship with that Tinder person you matched with earlier this semester 3. Fill out the winter break checkout slip and tape it to your door 4. Savor your last free beverage of the year from Shiru 5. Make a last ditch effort to save that GPA 6. Wish Blueno a happy new year 7. aggressively ignoring in hopes that the other will take initiative 8.

vative family members

9. Trash your least favorite class on the Critical Review forms 10. Pat yourself on the back for surviving yet another semester December 6, 2018&5

him, and though they looked exactly the same, he would alternate between them to scrawl numbers.

This was so repulsive I could barely focus. Baseball was simple, beautiful, populist—yet this man refused to enjoy it on its intended level. Instead, he had to assert his own advanced understanding, inventing some mathematical language only he understood. It seemed cosmically appropriate that he had no friends, and I resolved to never be a nerd.

If I’m a tragic character, it’s because I f*cked up and totally became a nerd. Growing up, I organized my own (fragile, confused) sense of self around an obsession with pop music—one that, today, feels so innate I can forget it’s basically a coping mechanism.

Never a particularly verbal, outgoing, or pleasant child, I’d come straight home from school, strap bulky, space-age headphones on my ears, and find my solace in my parent’s stereo system. Pop radio and classic albums took the place of conversations I wasn’t having with normal, school-aged children. This was in many ways my social education. It’s legitimately distressing how much precocious sexual understanding I can trace to Madonna’s Immaculate Collection. I was really weird!

But like in a terrible Tim Burton movie, aggressively anti-social behavior turned out to be a hidden pathway to making friends. Awkward bus rides became iPod sharing sessions, and I could always rely on my ace Fergie impression whenever circumstance trapped me with a girl. But this presented a new problem: everyone liked music. How could I be different? I had to be different. Tim Burton movies taught me different people were the most beautiful.

I decided it wasn’t enough to be knowledgeable about my music. I had to know the most about music culture—to have unique opinions about every artist that was popular or renowned. You could understand

other people in this way. Determined to expand my knowledge, I stopped listening to the songs I loved and began a quest to alphabetically conquer every CD in the house. In perhaps my most devastating and heedless error, I went on the internet. It was here that I first encountered lists. I’d spend hours just staring at them.

Lists made me a nerd. They’re the low-intellect center of music fandom, obstructing more natural forms of engagement. What the list is or who’s making it doesn’t matter—all are equally useless for two reasons.

1. Duh. It’s impossible to condense opinion into an empirical framework, and the attempt will always demean the natural plurality of art. Jim and Judy value seperate things, yet both use the same listform as though there were some joining standard.

Individually, a list might possess some scant meaning— perhaps the same way you learn a bit about people from their grocery shopping. But brought together, all straining for objectivity, list culture is indecipherable nonsense. A scatter bomb of groundless data.

2. Lists grant incredible authority despite requiring none at all. List-makers come down from the mountain promulgating that they’ve “processed all of the art, here is the answer.” But when someone lists their five best albums of the year, are those the only albums they listened to? Were all the albums listened to with the same care? Does this person even like music or are they working out of some bizarre, list-making sweatshop? Disclosing such information is not a factor or standard for listmaking, thus all lists are untrustworthy, and all lists are garbage.

This is not to suggest there is zero value to lists; lowered from their absurd position as fact, they can be a helpful gateway to new art, as they were for me.

But over time, I found that I lost my sense of music taste as something individual—a private, irrational connection between a listener and a musician. When you slap a number on a piece of art, it’s a kind of limit.

You claim to understand everything the work can do for you and others.

We are currently in the heat of 2018 Album of the Year discussion. Big publications are starting to release their lists, and music nerds have begun their annual tradition: complaining about how awful they are. This is always amusing/depressing because nerds are the least self-aware people on earth. Include too many consensus picks and your list is safe, creatively bankrupt, and boring. Feature too many left field selections and your list is contrarian, unreliable, and useless. This is deeply narcissistic behavior; naturally, there’s only one path to satisfaction.

So over the last few weeks, my daily routine was hijacked by final progress on my own list for this magazine. I maintained a fifteen spot ranking of my favorites as the year progressed, so this last stretch

“When I started working as a barista during high school, the arrival of jugs of thick pumpkin pumpkin syrup signified an overly saccharine beginning to the busiest time of the year—a beginning that can only be described as 'basic.'”

Sydney Lo, "Pumpkin Spice & Other Existential Autumnal Comforts" 12.06.17

“This is a show that celebrates weirdos, great and terrible jokes, and cheeseburgers: all things I hold close to my heart.”

Gabrielle Hick, "My Heart Pooped My Pants" 12.03.15

6!post–

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Jennifer Osborne a FEATURE Managing Editor Anita Sheih Section Editors Kathy Luo Sydney Lo ARTS & CULTURE Managing Editor Julian Towers Section Editors Josh Wartel Liza Edwards-Levin

was largely due diligence—a nerd’s joyless catch-up.

This work was centralized around two documents on my Notes app, respectively labeled “albums to return to” and “albums missed.” For whatever reason, the records in the former pile weren’t impressive enough to enter regular rotation. Those landing in the second either didn’t interest me or passed me by when they were released. I’d listen to a few of these a day, usually during normal commute around campus, but also at the gym, before bed, and, if the music withstood multitasking (usually ambient/electronic/gutturaldeath-metal), while studying. If my seven-year-old self could see me, he might cry.

The final task is always to balance the music’s personal appeal against what appear to be objective qualities. You don’t want to be a fascist robot, but I think it’s important to be evenhanded. So: Do I hold Juice WRLD accountable for his sexism even if I catch myself singing “ALL GIRLS ARE THE SAMEE” twice a day? Is my disappointment that Travis Scott and Anderson.Paak’s newest albums didn’t match their best obscuring their quality? Does it matter that George Clanton’s Slide is the same dreamy/hazy song repeated over and over when it’s the song I’ve always heard when I make-out? I’m strong enough at this that I’ve come to view myself above questions like “favorite genre?” or “don’t you hate country music?”

Because of lists, I listen to everything, although I’m not sure I understand other people any better.

This year, the album that gave me the most trouble was Swimming, the final release from late rapper Mac Miller. Understandably, it’s an album that’s impossible to view detached from context. The same feelings of depression and heartbreak that gave birth to Swimming probably killed Miller, and that makes for harrowing listening. At the same time, Miller speaks with real acuity about the paralyzed anti-ambition that grounds so much human angst and waste. As the memoir of my life could reasonably be titled “Human Angst and Waste,” I relate to this in ways that preclude objectivity. But the album kept gnawing at me, and by the time I was doing my joyless round-up, I was slipping in tracks to keep myself sane. Other lists have largely forgotten it, but whatever—I feel the sounds in my bones. That’s the level most people connect to music on. Swimming is my album of the year, and that feels healthy. I can’t promise I’ll be similarly subjective in 2019, but alas, such are nerds.

Anyway, f*ck lists.

1. Mac Miller Swimming 2. Low Double Negative 3. JPEGMAFIA Veteran 4. The Voidz Virtue 5. Tierra Whack Whack World 6. George Clanton Slide 7. Denzel Curry TA3OO

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NEWS

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2018 • PAGE 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

UCS amends Campus of Consent Bill

JASMINE RUIZ / HERALD

The Undergraduate Council of Students approved amendments to the Campus of Consent Bill and made preparations for the Title IX town hall tonight in its final general body meeting of the semester.

In final meeting of semester, Council also prepares for Title IX town hall tonight

By MELANIE PINCUS SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The Undergraduate Council of Students held its final general body meeting of the semester Wednesday evening, in which it unanimously amended the Campus of Consent Bill and brainstormed questions for tonight’s Title IX Town Hall.

The Council voted to allow all Category III student groups — which receive a minimum of $200 from the Undergraduate Finance Board — to send one representative to trainings organized by UCS and student groups such as the Sexual Assault Peer Education program.

Each student trained can only represent a single group, said UCS Treasurer Austin Lessin ’19, who read the amendment aloud ahead of the vote. Category III groups that do not comply with the bill risk losing their categorization and their funding.

The bill has undergone several

revisions since the Council first passed it in January 2017 with the endorsement of 100 student groups.

Previously, the bill required all Category III student groups to send two representatives to these trainings. Representatives were permitted to attend trainings on behalf of up to three clubs, The Herald previously reported. The latest version of the bill changes these requirements.

The amendments approved by the general body last night made official certain requirements that were outlined in a version of the bill sent to the student body by UCS President Shanzé Tahir ’19 and Vice President Camila Pelsinger ’20 in a Nov. 6 email.

The Council made these amendments based on the recommendations of SAPE, the Masculinity 101 Peer Educators and the Peer Mental Health Advocates, which have partnered with UCS on the bill’s implementation, Lessin said.

UCS hosted pilot trainings for the bill this semester with those three groups, and “at least two more sets of trainings” will be held next semester, according to the text of the bill sent to the student body.

Next, the Council discussed the

town hall it is co-hosting tonight with the Title IX Office and Brown’s chapter of NARAL Pro-Choice America to discuss the changes to sexual misconduct regulations under Title IX proposed by the Department of Education in late November. These guidelines allow universities to choose between two different standards of evidence; they also intend to define sexual harassment clearly and narrow the scope of the Title IX investigations of sexual misconduct, The Herald previously reported.

“A lot of people are rightfully concerned about what this means for current and future survivors,” said Chair of Student Wellness Shivani Nishar ’20.

The town hall “will be primarily a space for (Title IX Program Officer Rene Davis) to kind of break down the legislation and what it actually means,” Nishar added.

Members of the general body reviewed a Huffington Post story concerning the proposed Title IX guidelines and then brainstormed questions for the town hall.

Tahir thanked those in attendance for their work with UCS this semester at the meeting’s close.

NEWS

PAGE 4 • THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2018

» PANEL, from page 1 brain stimulation, among other applications, she said.

The final presentation of the evening focused on the use of artificial intelligence to better quantify and understand human development. “I study the most rapidly changing machine in the universe, which is the human infantto-childhood transition,” Amso said.

Development during the first three years of life “is incredibly elegant, and it’s very systematic,” she added.

As part of her research, Amso created The Smart Playroom, a space fitted with a number of motion-tracking cameras and filled with toys and objects typically found in a child’s playroom.

The researchers track how children interact with objects in the room, paying special attention to how the children move their eyes. This technology allows for a comprehensive analysis of

» CS, from page 1 The number of CS concentrators has more than tripled in the last six years, and while faculty hiring has been continuous, it has not kept up with growth in the number of interested students.

When Cetintemel began working at the University in 2001, “a class size of 30 to 40 would be considered pretty decent.” Now, classes with 200 students are not unusual, with some reaching 300 or more in enrollment. Some of these courses are introductory level lectures, where high enrollment is typical, but Cetintemel said that this trend appears across all course levels.

“There’s a lot of catch-up work to be done,” he said. “One in six students at Brown is concentrating in computer science at this point.”

Kathi Fisler, a professor in the department, elaborated on some of the challenges posed by larger classes. For one, it can be harder to get students to come in and ask for help, she said.

“They assume you don’t have the time

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

early childhood development to study memory, perception and motor skills at a young age, she said. By studying and analyzing the data encoded from this Smart Playroom, researchers can discover patterns of normal or abnormal development, she said.

In response to an audience member’s question, Amso explained that her work is driven by both discovery and hypotheses. The discovery approach requires researchers to record comprehensive data throughout development, whereas the hypothesis approach focuses on specific age groups and answers specific questions.

Audience members were also curious about how researchers used machine learning in their work. In Harrison’s work with BrainGate, he specified that data collection is supervised by researchers directly. But as computers calibrate the data, the programs and equations create better predictions that grow the

for them,” even when this isn’t the case.

Class size can also impose a communication burden. “Where you notice it is in the volume of email you have to handle,” she said.

The expansion is also meant to make advising responsibilities more manageable for faculty. Cetintemel noted that the average faculty member in the department is responsible for about 30 advisees.

The department’s growth responds to the increasingly multidisciplinary nature of computer science as well as the rise of newly emerging research fields. Tom Doeppner, a professor and vice chair who has been in the department since its inception, said there are not only “larger courses than we used to have, there’s more things we’d like to teach.”

Cetintemel cited cybersecurity, robotics and human-computer interaction as areas which have transformed from niche fields to mainstream domains of the discipline in recent years. “One goal for this growth is to

DANIELLE EMERSON / HERALD

Dima Amso, associate professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences, discussed studying early childhood learning at Wednesday’s talk, “Decoding the Human Brain with Data.” aforementioned database. Amso explained that the researchers identify and encode the specific behaviors so they can create novel data sets and track data.

Cornelia Dean, moderator of the discussion and visiting professor of the practice of science, technology and society, said each project combined

disciplines to yield great results. “These projects embody the potentially enormous advantages we can derive from true interdisciplinary research,” she said.

strengthen ourselves in such areas,” he said.

Michael Littman, a professor and associate department chair of computer science, wrote in an email to The Herald that he has worked to accommodate great student interest in his research area, machine learning. However, he noted that “doing so has absorbed all my available time for research and keeping up with the rapidly evolving literature.” He added that the new hires should help keep the department “fresh and nimble in terms of staying on top of the latest work and its implications.”

The multidisciplinary potential of the department received special attention in the planning for the expansion.

Other departments within the University often look to computer science for crossover and collaborative projects, Cetintemel said. As it currently stands, “We can accommodate only a fraction of those (requests),” he added. In hopes of encouraging more interdisciplinary research and teaching, three of the tenure-track faculty members will

have considerable crossover with other departments.

The expansion will also allow the department to put more emphasis on custom courses for non-concentrators.

Fisler described plans for a three-course track for students who are interested in computer science but not necessarily planning to concentrate in it, adding that many students are interested in “small doses” of CS education relevant to their own discipline. “I would like us … to be a department where people can see the breadth of intellectual activities that touch on computing reflected in the department,” she said.

But hiring new professors is unlikely to be the only change coming to the department, Cetintemel said. “If you have 50 percent new faculty, you need more space and more staff to support these faculty members,” he said.

If the department continues to expand, the oft-renovated Center for Information Technology will not be able to serve its needs for much longer, Doeppner pointed out. “We are

running out of space,” he said, adding that units like computational biology are moving out, which can be detrimental to interdisciplinary work. “It’s always been really important to us to have everybody close to one another.”

The CS department is ready to accept a larger place in the future of the University. “We are trying to align ourselves so that we are building research programs that can … make a positive social impact,” Cetintemel said.

Fisler said that although CS has seen previous surges in enrollment that have then declined, this recent growth is different and merits the investment in new faculty. She described predictions made in the early 2000s, when some saw that computing was becoming “intellectual infrastructure” for other disciplines.

While this wasn’t true during those years, “Now it’s getting there,” she said.

“What the demand for research and education in computing looks like may shift,” she said, “but the volume will probably be there for a long time to come.”

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COMMENTARY THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2018 • PAGE 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Abolish the presidency BENJAMIN BOSIS STAFF COLUMNIST My favorite quote about American elections is from political scientist Alexis De Tocqueville, who in 1835 described our process of electing a president as “a time of national crisis. As the election draws near, intrigues intensify and agitation increases and spreads. The citizens divide into several camps, each behind its candidate. A fever grips the entire nation.” In today’s era, we often wonder how our government has become so bitterly polarized. But we forget that elections throughout our history have proven that our system lends itself perfectly to producing bitter divisions that only catastrophes have the power to bridge.

In fact, crisis response is in large part what makes the presidency such an attractive institution for so many Americans. We value our presidents most when they perform their most obvious role, which is — you guessed it — the crisis manager. Whether it was the American Civil War, the Great Depression or 9/11, presidents are always most popular when they fight for us in times of need or rally the country against a common threat. This narrative of bravely fighting back against the difficulties facing us all is an incredibly comforting one; but the degree of executive autonomy necessary to enable this ability can introduce unnecessary risk into the governing process, and it doesn’t have to be that way.

Despite the seemingly critical role it plays in American government, the presidency was by no means designed by the founders of our nation to be as central or as powerful as it became. There exists today a certain mythology around the presidency that has only developed as executive power has increased over time; in fact, the specifics of the structure of the executive branch were deferred until very late in the constitutional convention because the position of the executive was conceived by most as one voted on by Congress, and without the powers

SUMMER ZHANG

to declare war, make treaties or appoint judges.

In the end, many of the final powers were approved because of the confidence that, as wielded by George Washington, they would pose no threat to the union.

But as both the powers and responsibilities of the U.S. president have increased dramatically over time, the ripples of any given president’s reactions have morphed into global waves. The level of influence the president wields was by no means foreseen by the American public. The position that we would recognize today is not only an exaggerated form of the constitutional mandate, but one whose few enumerated powers were likely passed because the majority of the signers were too tired after months of debate to resist. Many would argue that the value

of the presidency today lies in its ability to effect change directly and focus national political will, but while it is comforting and marginally more efficient to have a “captain of the ship” responsible for making tough decisions, the indispensability of the president becomes less obvious when you dig a little deeper. It certainly does not justify the risks posed by a rogue president ever gaining office.

President Trump has proven a lot of things about America: a lot of things we’d rather not admit are true, like the ease with which legislative progress can be completely reversed. Perhaps more importantly, however, he has proven that the instability presented by a bad president is far greater than the potential benefit of a good one. As a proximate representative of the

American people, the president’s mere words can at best maintain the dignity of the office, but at worst can damage the international enforceability of human rights norms, embolden strongmen in their power grabs and political assassinations and isolate the American economy in an increasingly interconnected world. The complexity of the modern United States and the now-global effects of the slightest decisions make the risk of unintended consequences far greater than the potential benefit of a quick reaction.

Regardless, maybe it’s time we realize the office of the president puts too much at stake for the slim benefits it offers in return. Whatever comfort is provided to voters by having a champion in a time of need is not hard to outweigh; as it stands, the options are a potentially more swift response to crises and threats on the one hand, but the loss of international credibility and severe damage to valuable institutions on the other. The viability (not to mention desirability) of a weaker executive institution is apparent: Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and George Mason, for example, supported an executive council instead of a single president. Such a body, much like the modern cabinet — or those of countries like Switzerland, which is governed by a council of ministers — would consist of experts in their departments who would have independence to create policy in their areas of knowledge but would also provide a check on each others’ capacity to make unfounded political claims, spend taxpayer dollars on personal benefits or blatantly obstruct federal investigations. It is clearer than ever that we cannot reasonably expect, like the founders did, that our office of the president as we know it will put the needs of the nation before personal or partisan gain when we need it to.

Benjamin Bosis ’19 can be reached at benjamin_bosis@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

EDITORIAL

CS department’s expansion is welcome news In late November, the Department of Computer Science announced that it would be embarking on the largest expansion in its four-decade history.

As part of the endeavor, called “CS with Impact,” the department will hire 10 tenure-track faculty and five lecturers. The department also aims to elevate its interdisciplinary competencies, supporting new scholars with research interests in both computer science and other disciplines and enhancing collaborative computational research across departments. We applaud the department’s effort to bolster the size of its faculty and more intensely cultivate its research capabilities. In aggregate, the department’s expansion will benefit the entire student body: It will leave concentrators better prepared for positions in industry and academia, afford more opportunities for nonconcentrators to gain exposure to computing and make the University a more attractive destination for faculty and prospective students.

In 2013, the Editorial Page Board recommended that “Brown students

— regardless of goals, concentration or background in computers — should properly consider exploring the computer science department.”

We are glad to see that student interest in the computer science department’s offerings has grown since then. The past decade has seen computer science explode in popularity among the University’s undergraduates. Between 2010 and 2018, the number of undergraduate concentrators in computer science ballooned from 48 to 248. (Computer science overtook economics as the most popular concentration in 2017.) This academic year, 588 students — one in six undergraduates — have declared concentrations in computer science. The meteoric proliferation of undergraduate interest in the discipline is a true testament to the intellectual value, interdisciplinary utility and wide-ranging applicability of a Brown education in computer science.

The Department of Computer Science has taken significant steps to broaden its appeal, accessibility

and interdisciplinary reach in the past two years. In the fall of 2016, the Data Science Initiative — which includes the departments of computer science, mathematics, applied math and biostatistics — began offering a one-year master’s degree in data science. The Initiative also committed to hiring 10 new faculty members and expanding undergraduate course offerings in data science. A year later, the Department of Computer Science made adjustments to its concentration requirements, compelling concentrators to specialize in specific sub-disciplines — like artificial intelligence, data, security and computer architecture — as part of their computer science degree.

And this spring, the department unveiled a new introductory track in computer science, offering three courses over three semesters as a less intensive alternative to the existing one- or two-course tracks.

The department’s expansion will build on this progress nicely: A greater number of instructors will keep class sizes small, increase the

scope and range of course offerings and give students the chance to work closely with faculty on research. Taken together, these recent changes will likely enable more students, concentrators and non-concentrators alike, to pursue computer science and tailor their experience to their particular needs and interests.

Across the country, universities have started to revamp their offerings in computer science. The University of California at Berkeley announced the establishment of a new Division of Data Science and Information in early November. Two months ago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology made public plans to invest $1 billion in the creation of a new college of artificial intelligence, which will house 50 faculty members and award numerous fellowships to graduate students.

In August, Penn began offering its Master of Computer and Information Technology — a graduate program for students without previous programming experience — entirely online.

Given these emerging trends in higher education — and the swelling premium that researchers, administrators and students are placing on computing — the Department of Computer Science’s expansion will put Brown on a sustainable, competitive footing regarding its computer science offerings. We hope that this endeavor will allow both current students and future classes of Brunonians to forge strong relationships with new department faculty and exploit every opportunity to explore computer science and its myriad applications, from introductory coursework to high-level research.

Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board: Anuj Krishnamurthy ’19, Rhaime Kim ’20, Grace Layer ’20, Mark Liang ’19 and Krista Stapleford ’21. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald. com and op-eds to opinions@ browndailyherald.com.

NEWS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2018

Granoff Center hosts first U.S. screening of Bergman documentary “Bergman — A Year in a Life,” directed by U. alum, examines Swedish director’s cryptic life

By ANNABELLE WOODWARD SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Students gathered in the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts’ Martinos Auditorium Tuesday for the first U.S. showing of “Bergman — A Year in a Life.”

Directed by Jane Magnusson ’92, this documentary focuses on world-famous Swedish film and theater director Ingmar Bergman in 1957, the year he rose to international stardom.

According to Marc Redfield, professor of comparative literature and chair of the department, the event was held to showcase a “remarkable film” created by Brown alums while also paying homage to Professor of Comparative Literature Arnold Weinstein, who has been teaching at the University since 1968. The film was directed by Magnusson, with the help of Henrik von Sydow ’82 — both of whom were

students of Weinstein as undergraduates. Magnusson hails from Sweden, but it wasn’t until taking Weinstein’s “Nordic Legacy” class on Scandinavian literature that she learned about Bergman’s influence. According to Redfield, Weinstein was present at the documentary’s premiere in Stockholm, along with the Prime Minister of Sweden and other Swedish dignitaries. When Weinstein asked Magnusson and von Sydow to come to Brown for a screening, they “knew they couldn’t miss it,” Magnusson said.

This year marks the centennial of Bergman’s birth in 1918, so cinemas around the world have stayed busy screening retrospectives and reflecting on his equally cryptic life and work.

In 1957 alone, Bergman released the films “The Seventh Seal” and “Wild Strawberries,” as well as directing a made-for-TV movie and several plays.

Rumors of Bergman’s neurotic, dictatorial directing style contributed to his cult of personality. Many of his films are assumed to be autobiographical, but “A Year in a Life” features a never-before-seen interview with his

brother Dag Bergman suggesting the way Bergman’s films depicted their shared childhood often strayed from the truth.

Magnusson’s documentary uses footage from Bergman’s films, as well as interviews from a number of Bergman scholars and his colleagues, to paint a nuanced, empathetic portrait of the director that Variety film critic Owen Gleiberman called “one of the most honest and overflowing portraits of a film artist that I can remember seeing.”

Among the many interviewed were American singer, actress and filmmaker Barbra Streisand, 1960s talk-show host Dick Cavett and Weinstein himself.

Weinstein said when introducing the film that Magnusson’s choice to focus on 1957 was “brilliant.” He added, “unlike the kind of Scandinavian gloom that most of you probably anticipate if you’ve seen Bergman, you will laugh at many moments in this film. That is much due to the wit of Magnusson.”

Asked why she took on the project, Magnusson said, “When I graduated in 1992 and went back to Sweden,

COURTESY OF JOOST EVERS

The documentary on renowned Swedish director Ingmar Bergman (pictured above) was directed by Jane Magnusson ’92.

Bergman was just this really grumpy old man who could make anything he wanted with Sweden’s cultural funding.

I wanted to figure out who this grumpy old man once was in order to get at the root of the power he had in Sweden.”

Magnusson is also the visionary behind films like “Cupcake” and “Christina Lindberg: The Original Eyepatch Wearing Butt Kicking Movie Babe.” She

» WALKOUT, from page 1 communities, we (knew) that there were other students who (could) do the work and (could) do well here,” said Bernicestine McLeod Bailey ’68, a trustee emerita of the University.

“However, no one (had) reached out to them, no one seemed to know about them.”

By spring 1968, students at Brown had been organizing recruitment efforts to increase black student admission, McDaniel said. “We’re all going out and recruiting, a number of us are writing letters, we’re having these African American weekends where potential candidates are coming up and rooming with folks,” he added.

When it became clear that the conversations would not result in policy changes in the near future, student activists considered actions they could take to force change. As students across the country organized marches and occupied buildings to protest institutionalized racism four years after the adoption of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the students at Brown and Pembroke determined that a walkout would best serve their goals, Jamar said.

“We chose to separate and disassociate ourselves from the campus until our concerns were addressed.

That does not mean that our protest was any the less intense or effective from our point of view,” said Glenn Dixon ’70. “We wanted to choose the appropriate form of protest for the Brown campus and community that (could) involve the highest number of … students who had similar kinds of concerns.”

While the walkout was the result of a breakdown in negotiations between students and administrators, it also highlighted the alienation many alums interviewed by The Herald felt at Brown at the time.

Overcoming exclusion and isolation At the time of the walkout, a total of 87 black students attended Brown and Pembroke. These students faced

is currently working on a new documentary about Madeline Stuart, “the only professional model with Down Syndrome,” Magnusson said.

Magnusson’s success is a testament to how “a Brown education can change your life in wonderful ways,” Redfield said. “Learning about literature or film can have unanticipated, wonderful consequences later in life.”

could all come together and meet, ” he added.

SUMMER ZHANG

institutional and personal challenges that their white counterparts did not.

For instance, some black students were dissuaded from pursuing their academic interests when they arrived on campus. “Many of us were counseled out of the majors that we initially came in for. In retrospect, I think it was because they thought we couldn’t handle it,” Jamar said.

“I came in as a pure math major — I had won competitions in mathematics, I had almost a perfect score on the SAT in math, but I was counseled out of being a pure math major,” she added. “That was your first meeting at Brown; it was someone trying to say, ‘I don’t think you can handle pure math.’ … There’s nothing on paper that should have said that … and I really think I would have enjoyed pure math better than applied math.”

Along with confronting institutionalized racism, some black students faced ostracism and condescension from their white peers, Jamar said. “It was the assumption … that we were admitted with lesser qualifications.

We constantly had to justify that we had a right to be here intellectually,” she said. “A lot of us were given roommates who were clearly uncomfortable having a black roommate. … Having to (be) close (to) … people who were uncomfortable with you was new to a lot of us.”

“There was no faculty of color, no administrators of color, it was a totally white environment,” McLeod Bailey said. “The only black women that we saw were the maids … that would clean our rooms.”

Living on College Hill was an isolating and foreign experience in itself.

“The food has none of the taste that you’re familiar with. There’s none of the music that you would typically hear,” McDaniel said.

“There was a fair amount of talk among black students about where in the world you could go to get a haircut that looks like a haircut,” he added.

“If you wanted to find anything that reminded you of yourself or where you were from, you’d have to find something out in the city.”

As black students struggled to feel accepted on a predominantly white campus, they also faced challenges in building a community of their own. Given the limited number of black students at the University, it was difficult “to establish some sense of community (with) shared values and upbringing and (a) shared cultural experience. There was a certain amount of alienation, being such a small portion of such a large community,” Dixon said. “We (wanted) to work toward finding cultural areas of mutual background and experience. … When we arrived at Brown, those opportunities were minimal, if in existence at all.”

This struggle to create a more robust sense of community “was in part what precipitated the walkout itself,” Dixon said. During discussions with the administration before the walkout, the students requested “an increase in African American students. …

We sought similar goals for employment at the University at all levels. We also sought to have a space where we

National racial unrest Around the time that students planned the walkout, the United States was embroiled in racial unrest that manifested on college campuses, at athletic events and in political gatherings.

At Columbia, students protested the University’s ties to weapons research by taking over several buildings on campus and briefly holding a dean hostage by using furniture to prevent him from leaving his office.

The students of Columbia’s AfroAmerican Society also occupied an administrative building for a week to oppose a planned gymnasium in Harlem’s Morningside Park. They saw the proposed building as a racist and segregated structure that encroached on the space of Harlem residents, according to the New York Times. Eventually, the protest was broken up by 1,000 police officers, leading to over 700 arrests of student protesters and over 100 injuries, according to the television network History.

In March 1968, over 2,000 students at Howard University occupied an administration building for three days to demand more influence in student discipline and curriculum.

In some cases, student protests ended in violence. At South Carolina State University, police injured 28 students and killed three others who were protesting a segregated bowling alley in Orangeburg, South Carolina in 1968.

Alongside widespread college campus protests, the 1960s saw the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the height of the Vietnam War, the Chicago Police riot at the Democratic National Convention and the national anthem protest at the Mexico City Olympics.

With heightened racial tensions across the country serving as the backdrop, Brown and Pembroke students staged their walkout, cementing their place in the story of student activism against racial inequality in 1968.