Thursday, December 5, 2019

SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2019

VOLUME CLIV, ISSUE 60

UNIVERSITY NEWS

Frustration mounts with SEAS director hiring process After 10 months, position remains vacant, U. overhauls search process

As the search for a new Director of the Student and Employee Accessibility Services office enters its tenth month, the University has overhauled its search process with plans to convene a new search committee and relaunch recruiting in the spring semester.

While the director position remains vacant, the University recently hired an associate director, whom administrators have yet to publicly name.

The slow pace and lack of transparency during the hiring process provoked frustration among members of the University’s community of people with disabilities who spoke with The Herald. Sumera Subzwari ’21, a mem-

UCS expresses support for ACCRIP reps

Council reviews initiatives, votes in confidence of president, vice president

BY KAYLA GUO SENIOR STAFF WRITER The Undergraduate Council of Students voted to affirm “the autonomy and privacy of University representatives” in response to a third-party organization’s “attempt to intimidate” members of the Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Policies, according to a statement read at its general body meeting Wednesday.

The third-party organization sent 16 “unsolicited” messages over the course of 48 hours to the personal emails of committee representatives, said Co-Appointments Chair Sam Caplan ’22, reading from the statement.

The Council declined to publicly name the organization during the meet-

SEE UCS PAGE 2

REBECCA HO / HERALD

The University has been searching for a new director of the Student and Employee Accessibility Services office for the past 10 months.

U. reviewing 2018 recommendation to increase program funding

Despite a 2018 working group recommendation to increase funds for the University’s Off-Campus Federal Work-Study program, funding for OCFWS remains unchanged and is still unable to support all students who want to participate.

OCFWS allows students with federal work-study funding in their financial aid package to get paid for volunteering off-campus with community partner organizations. This semester, the Swearer Center for Public Service had the funds to support just 110 of the 148 qualified students who applied for the OCFWS program, said Betsy Shimberg, assistant dean of the college and director of student development at the Swearer Center.

Due to this restricted funding, some

students who have worked through OCFWS in the past were waitlisted this semester.

In 2018, the program faced this same problem, The Herald previously reported. The University allocates seven percent of federal work-study funding to OCFWS, which is the federally-required minimum level of funding for the program. This percentage allocation is the lowest in the Ivy League, according to a resolution written by the Student Advisory Committee in the Swearer Center for Public Service in 2018.

To address the funding shortfall, the SAC in the Swearer Center proposed increasing funding for OCFWS to 14 percent in 2018. A Student Employment Working Group chaired by Dean of Financial Aid Jim Tilton then formally recommended that the University increase its OCFWS allocation to 10 percent.

This proposed funding increase, along with other findings and suggestions in the report, were reviewed

SEE WORK-STUDY PAGE 8

Grad school relaxes leave-taking policies Graduate Student Leaves of Absence by Academic Year Since 2016, the number of graduate students taking leaves of absence has risen, with the proportion of leave-taking for employment purposes growing the most.

80 70 60 50

Personal

40

Medical

30

Employment

20

Family

10 0

2016-2017

2017-2018

2018-2019 Source: Vanessa Ryan and Maria Suarez

Administration eliminates readmission fee, allows continued resource access

BY KAMRAN KING SENIOR STAFF WRITER The Graduate School approved several changes to its leave-taking policies earlier this fall, which will eliminate

Science & Research Arts & Culture University researchers discover new state of matter that exhibits metallic behavior Page 2

Off-campus work-study remains underfunded

UNIVERSITY NEWS

Number of Students

UNIVERSITY NEWS

UNIVERSITY NEWS

BY SARAH WANG SENIOR STAFF WRITER

BY SOPHIE BUTCHER STAFF WRITER

SEE SEAS PAGE 8

BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM

Martin Scorsese makes Netflix debut with historic crime drama “The Irishman” Page 4

SARAH MARTINEZ/ HERALD

the readmission fee for grad students returning from leave, allow students on leave continued access to libraries and email accounts and permit leave-takers to defer funding from the University, among other alterations.

The changes aim to improve “understanding and awareness” and help “students in unique and complicated situations navigate and address their situations,” said Associate Dean of Student Development Vanessa Ryan,

who served on a working group of faculty members and graduate students focused on leave-taking.

Ryan said that students on leave should still be able to access their emails because “they are still degree-seeking students,” and may be making up incomplete coursework or giving talks.

“It seems right that they still have an active Brown email account,” she added.

A fourth change will formally es-

Commentary

Commentary

Lehrer-Small ’20: University should encourage student food cooporatives Page 7

Morel PhD’14: Local community should play a greater role in school systems Page 7

tablish that grad students on leave are not expected to make further progress toward their degrees. “When a student steps away from their studies, it is really important that the timeline” of academic progress halts, Ryan said, so “they get that time away and start at the same place they left off.”

Changes still under review by the Grad School include creating a onetime emergency medical leave grant and establishing a process for shortterm medical accommodations as an alternative to leave-taking.

As these two proposals will likely require additional funding, “they will need to be reviewed through the University’s budgeting process” and other offices on campus, Ryan wrote in a follow-up email to The Herald. “We would hope to put forward concrete proposals that can be reviewed in this year’s budgeting process for potential implementation in the next fiscal year,” which begins July 1.

Short-term medical accommodations could be especially helpful for international students, who can lose their visas if they go on leave and are no longer full-time students.

“Changes to federal law would be very helpful, but there are still ways

SEE LEAVE PAGE 2

TODAY

TOMORROW

42 / 25

37 / 21

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

SCIENCE AND RESEARCH

University researchers discover new state of matter

COURTESY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

In a new study, University researchers worked with a team in China to discover that Cooper pairs can conduct electricity at a constant rate.

Cooper pair electrons have similar conductive behavior as metal, study finds

BY KATHLEEN MEININGER STAFF WRITER University researchers recently discovered a new state of matter in which pairs of electrons called Cooper pairs conduct electricity as metals.

The new finding is built on a theory established by Thomas J. Watson, Sr. Professor of Science and Director of Brain and Neural Systems Leon Cooper in 1972, which describes how pairs of electrons can conduct electricity with zero resistance. His theory was so influential that Cooper and his colleagues won the Nobel Prize that year, and the pairs of electrons soon became known as “Cooper pairs.” But, in 2007, University researchers found that Cooper pairs could also act as insulators, meaning they do not conduct electricity at all. The recent study, conducted at the University by a team of researchers working with academics in China, shows that Cooper pairs can also conduct electricity at a constant rate like metals.

“There’s this very basic question: what is allowing this to be a metal?” said Professor of Physics Jim Valles, who co-authored the paper. “And if you can figure that out, then you begin to understand how you can manipulate it.”

The researchers ran an electric cur-

LEAVE FROM PAGE 1 to make a difference at the university level,” said Sophie Brunau-Zaragoza GS, the Graduate Student Council’s chair of international advocacy. “We’ve built our careers and our lives here. Some of us have children and spouses that we have to take care of.”

Ryan also noted the barriers international students face if they lose their visas as a result of going on leave, such as having to fly home or pay extra fees for breaking a lease. “A student can know that the best option for their health would be to take a medical leave but are concerned about the financial impact,” Ryan said. “We want to help alleviate that, though we know it’s in a modest way.”

The working group that shaped the recommended changes operated under the GSC’s shared governance model, which promotes grad student participation in University decision-making, said GSC President Alastair Tulloch GS. The model “is incredibly successful

rent through a superconductor called yttrium barium copper oxide that had small holes in it. They then measured the frequency with which electrons circled these holes, and found that the electrons in this metallic state were moving in pairs. This state of matter, now known as Cooper pair metal, had yet to be discovered.

“It has the characteristics of metal, yet instead of individual electron movement in the metal, we now have pairs of electrons,” said co-author and Charles C. Tillinghast, Jr. University Professor of Engineering and Professor of Physics Jimmy Xu. “How it is different, we don’t know yet. It has metallic behaviors, but may also have something new and different yet to be discovered.”

Valles added that “getting Cooper pairs that will give you a resistance that is a constant value at low temperatures … is still mysterious. That’s that new state of matter.”

This discovery has opened doors to new avenues of exploration on Cooper pair activity. Researchers plan on studying this phenomenon further and using it to gain a greater understanding of what it means to be a metal. The hope among academics is that it could lead to new ways of understanding and manipulating electricity.

“It started as a curiosity driven question that grew into a large effort,” Xu said. “We have plenty of ideas on what to do next - interrogating this state, trying to make something useful, trying to manipulate it, trying to prove some more hypotheses and answer some more curiosity-driven questions.”

when it’s used correctly, and this is a perfect example of that.”

Student perspectives on “what they see as the challenges and where they think the pressure points are” were essential to evaluating leave-taking policies, Ryan said. “This was an instance where the student experience was absolutely essential to getting these policies right.”

Kaitlin Wilcoxen GS, GSC chair of communications and a member of the working group, said that having graduate students in the room “to say ‘these are the lived experiences’” was a necessary part of the process when it came to evaluating leave-taking policies.

Anastasia Tyslina GS, another member of the working group, said she “felt very free and open talking about even very sensitive issues,” and that her “opinion was equally valued and important.”

“This is an ongoing process,” Ryan said. “In a few years we will definitely have to return and assess the impact of our changes.”

UCS FROM PAGE 1 ing, with UCS Vice President Jason Carroll ’21 expressing concern that it would bring the group more attention.

The Herald previously reported that the Brown chapter of a group known as Alums for Campus Fairness sent a student member of ACCRIP nearly 20 identical emails over several days, calling on ACCRIP to “support the Jewish community at Brown and vote against the action to divest from companies allegedly contributing to human rights abuses in Palestine.”

ACF-Brown could not be reached for comment by press time.

ACCRIP voted Monday afternoon to recommend that the University divest from “companies identified as facilitating human rights abuses in Palestine,” The Herald previously reported.

The Council wrote in their meeting agenda that ACCRIP student representatives told them that a statement from UCS “reaffirming our school’s democratic values would help them feel supported in their roles” and solidify “the importance of student voice in university governance.” A student representative on ACCRIP did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

The Council’s statement will be published on their website, Carroll said.

Also at the meeting, Chair of Student Activities and Elections Board

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2019 Co-Chair Alex Song ’20 presented on 37 new student groups the Student Activities Committee and the Student Activities Office have approved for the spring. The Student Activities Committee and SAO also reviewed applications for recategorization and reactivation.

Groups approved include Students for Trump at Brown, Bruno for Pete Buttigieg and Students for Warren, according to Song.

The general body also voted in confidence of both Carroll and UCS President William Zhou ’20. Prior to the votes, Zhou and Carroll discussed their responsibilities and highlighted their internal and external initiatives this semester, such as a leadership training for student government, the reduced minimum deposit requirement for GET and the first-year representatives position implemented this fall.

“Everything we do we really do in collaboration” with other UCS members and committees, Carroll said.

First-Year Representative Zane Ruzicka ’23 asked about updates to the Council’s initiatives to improve access to filtered water on campus.

Carroll said the University agreed to carry out around $60,000 in repairs to improve water quality on Wriston Quadrangle. The University did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

Zhou added that members of the Council met with representatives

from the Office of Campus Life to discuss the feasibility of adding water fountains to buildings throughout campus.

UCS Historian Samra Beyene ’22 asked about plans to address the Nov. 1 Herald Editorial that called for the Council to “do more to turn student feedback into tangible changes.”

Zhou said in response that analysis of the UCS Fall Poll results will be released early in the spring, and the Council is creating a “State of UCS” report to summarize ongoing and completed UCS initiatives and projects.

At the start of the meeting, Chair of Academic Affairs Livingstone Harriott ’20 gave updates on his committee’s projects.

One project will gather feedback and personal testimonials from the undergraduate student body on their “experiences with academic life at Brown,” Harriott said.

UCS will also partner with CareerLAB to connect Category III student groups with CareerLAB workshops, and the committee will create a spring semester e-handbook over winter break.

At the end of the meeting, Chair of Student Wellness Shivani Nishar ’20 presented on the Leavetaking Peer Program, a Wellness Committee initiative to send notes and care packages to students on leave. Nishar asked each general body member to write a letter to be sent to a student on leave.

REBECCA HO / HERALD

At UCS’s general body meeting on Wednesday, the Council voted to affirm “the autonomy and privacy of University representatives.”

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2019

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

3

UNIVERSITY NEWS

GSC changes bylaws, elects new chair at final meeting of year Executive board members to receive pay, funding made available to grad student groups

BY KAMRAN KING SENIOR STAFF WRITER Sitting in the newly renovated Graduate Student Lounge, the Graduate Student Council elected a new chair of nominations, approved two revisions to its bylaws and shared updates on Executive Board initiatives in its final meeting of the semester.

Meaghan Carley GS ran unopposed for chair of nominations, the GSC position responsible for placing graduate students on University committees, among other tasks. The position had not been filled during the general executive board elections last month due to a lack of interest in the job. New leadership will take charge of GSC in 2020.

The GSC has historically struggled to excite general body members to run for executive board positions, said GSC President Alastair Tulloch GS. The first proposed change to the GSC’s bylaws would address this issue by paying each executive board member $250 a semester. Some peer universities, such as Harvard and Columbia, already compensate the members of their graduate student governance executive boards, Tulloch noted. As Tulloch did not run for reelection at the GSC’s last meeting after two years as president, he will not benefit from the change.

Several students expressed verbal

TIFFANY DING / HERALD

Wednesday’s meeting took place in the newly renovated Graduate Student Lounge, located underneath Grad Center. The lounge has been outfitted with new flooring, cabinets, countertops and appliances. support for compensating executive board members for their labor before the general body voted in favor of the revision.

The second alteration, introduced by GSC Treasurer and President-Elect Kathryn Thompson GS, would allow graduate student groups recognized by GSC to request up to $500 in baseline discretionary funding. Before this change, there had been no baseline funding allotted for graduate student groups. “Some students groups really have to fight for their funds,” Thompson said. “So GSC really wanted to create a stable source

of funding for graduate student groups.”

The department representatives in attendance voted in favor of this revision.

During the meeting, the executive board members also discussed takeaways from this fall’s Ivy+ Summit, a meeting of graduate student governance officials from the Ivy League schools, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago.

Tulloch said that the University leads all other schools in terms of the efficacy of its graduate student governance, but he stressed that it is now the

only institution at the summit without a center dedicated to graduate students.

Such a space would be “so beneficial to community building, to event planning, to everything,” he said, adding that it is a top priority for the GSC. The outgoing Chair of Nominations Rebecca Thorsness GS also discussed other schools’ use of departmental representatives for campus support services, such as Title IX liaisons for departments in the Graduate School.

Since support services tend to lack graduate student representation, Thorsness said, they can be well-managed but still

not “know the types of Title IX concerns that happen in labs versus in humanities departments versus in classrooms.”

The types of issues graduate students face are different from those of undergraduates, Thorsness said: “We don’t need frat party bystander intervention training, we need workplace harassment bystander intervention training.”

This year’s Ivy+ Summit is not the first to have shaped the direction of GSC. On Wednesday, the executive board said they plan to have a draft of a document that will outline the GSC’s long-term goals, to be known as the Graduate Student Strategic Initiative, ready for review at the GSC’s next meeting in February. The GSSI is based on a program used by Cornell’s graduate student governance that the GSC’s leadership learned about at 2017’s Ivy+ Summit.

Thompson, in her announcement, explained the recent renovations to the Graduate Student Lounge, a meeting space for the GSC located underneath Graduate Center. The lounge, one of the few graduate student spaces on campus, has been outfitted with new flooring, cabinets, countertops and appliances.

The GSC is planning on purchasing doormats, a kickstand for the door and a grill after their last one disappeared, Thompson said.

The meeting closed with a raucous round of applause for the six executive board members who have stepped down from their positions: Tulloch, Thorsness, Social Chair J.J. Lomax GS, Chair of Student Life Shekinah Fashaw GS, Chair of Communications Kaitlin Wilcoxen GS and Chair of International Advocacy Sophie Brunau-Zaragoza GS.

4

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2019

FILM REVIEW

‘The Irishman’ chronicles mafia history, lacks modern depth Martin Scorsese’s newest film debuts on Netflix, fails to captivate audience

BY KAITI YOO SENIOR STAFF WRITER On Nov. 27, renowned Italian-American filmmaker Martin Scorsese — known for films including “Goodfellas,” “Taxi Driver,” “The Departed” and “The Wolf of Wall Street”— made his Netflix debut with his newest film “The Irishman.”

With an arduous runtime of three hours and 30 minutes, it is his longest film to date, as well as his most expensive.

While the film has received high praise in the press, this success is not warranted.

“The Irishman” is based on the biography “I Heard You Paint Houses” about Frank Sheeran, played by Robert De Niro, a mob hitman for the Italian mafia in 1950s Philadelphia. Sitting in a wheelchair in a nursing home, Sheeran retells the bloodiest and goriest of his mafia glory days from a flashback perspective, finally relinquishing the truths he has kept under wraps for so many years.

Sheeran’s mafia career was sparked when he, as a humble truck driver, began to covertly sell his employer’s shipments to a local member of the Italian crime family. Sheeran quickly scales the ranks to become a top hitman and a trusted mafia name. Eventually, mafia leader Russell Bufalino, played by Joe Pesci, connects him with Al Pacino’s Jimmy Hoffa, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Sheeran becomes a bodyguard of Hoffa and trustee of the union, which had deep financial ties to the mafia. During Sheeran’s service, Hoffa vanishes.

Up until this point, the plot is grounded in fact. Where it diverges from official records is Hoffa’s disappearance, which historically occurred on July 30, 1975. To this day, American authorities

still have not definitively determined what happened — leaving a vacuum for countless conspiracy theories to arise.

“The Irishman,” following “I Heard You Paint Houses,” paints Sheeran as Hoffa’s killer.

While boasting a riveting historic tale on paper, “The Irishman” stumbles in bringing these cunning betrayals, deep interpersonal connections and petty politics to life. Even after an ample 209 minutes, affinities and alliances somehow remain shallow. With the majority of the film comprised of huddled, male-to-male conversations at dark tables over glasses of whiskey, there is not much emotion nor interesting action that communicates the mafia’s complex and extreme interconnectedness.

Additionally, while the line “Based on a True Story” usually amplifies viewers’ interest and impressions of films, this film squanders that benefit. It overwhelms the audience with the random names and appearances of countless mafia members, all of whom die off. The film goes out of its way to portray the breadth of the mafia’s ties by writing out each character’s death date and how they were murdered next to their face, before proceeding to never bring up that same character again. While this intricate detailing does serve to contextualize the story against the backdrop of the greater mafia conglomerate, it simultaneously hinders and distracts the audience’s ability to keep track of the truly important characters.

Numerous faces and minuscule occurrences dilute the plotline, diverting the audience’s focus away from the film’s intentions. In such ways, according to a review from CheatSheet, “The Irishman” misses its mark as a crime epic and settles closer to “a history lesson.”

Additionally, “The Irishman” continues Scorcese’s track record of keeping male protagonists front and center.

Throughout the film, Sheeran’s, Bufalino’s and Hoffa’s wives and daughters are painted as one-dimensional perso-

nas who are constantly present but never vocal. Bufalino’s wife Carrie, played

by Kathrine Narducci, is portrayed as a posh and passive cigarette-addicted companion — nothing more, nothing less. Sheeran’s daughter, Peggy, played

by Anna Paquin, resents Sheeran for joining the mafia and cuts ties with him forever once she reaches adulthood. But most of her dialogue consists

of one-liners, like “thank you.” There is ultimately little exploration of the rifts that the weight of being in the mafia causes between men and their families. Such an allusion would have been refreshing and might have added a different dimension to the already all-too-familiar Hollywood trope of a mafia-centric plot.

While the film has earned high ac-

claim from critics with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 96 percent, the general public consensus is not as clear. Some viewers on Twitter have labeled it as “overrated,” “boring,” and “like a 3 1/2hr long speech,” while others praise it as one of the best films of the year. Ultimately, “The Irishman” is a story that evokes a strong reaction from all who make it to the end.

COURTESY OF NETFLIX

With a three hour and 30 minute run time, “The Irishman” is both the longest and most expensive film created by Martin Scorcese.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2019

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | TODAY

5

SNOW STO R M ST R I K ES

LEON JIANG / HERALD

Snow blankets Wriston Quad after a heavy storm covered the Northeast overnight. For a few hours, students found themselves putting down their books and pulling on their snowboots to enjoy the picturesque campus.

S U D O KU

Q U OT E OF T H E DAY

“You can’t say ‘there’s opportunities for students to weigh in,’ if you tell no one about it.”

— Silver Mckie ’22, DJAB member SEE SEAS PAGE 1

C O RRECT I ON CR O S SWO R D

A previous version of the Dec. 4 article “Chemical research made cleaner, more sustainable in University lab” named a public affairs specialist for the ARO who said that “twenty-four previously funded researchers have become Nobel laureates.” The specialist requested anonymity for fear of professional repercussions. The article has been updated to reflect that change. The Herald regrets the error.

6

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2019

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Another look at ACCRIP

Preventing ExxonMobil recruitment misguided

To the Editor: I was a participant in the Dec. 2 meeting of the Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Practices. I do not believe that those, such as myself, who spoke against the motion as it was then constituted were disrespected. I felt we were treated courteously. Being given only 15 minutes to state our case and then not being offered the opportunity to respond to criticisms, however, seemed unfortunate for deciding such an important issue for our campus. I did not attend to represent a Zionist position. Much of the rising anti-Semitism in the world is occurring because of the

connection made between Judaism and Zionism. I know of students who are marginalized here and on other campuses just because they are Jewish. I attended in hopes that ACCRIP would include an acknowledgement of the significant human rights violations of other countries. Otherwise, the motion is an asymmetrical act which could inadvertently cause harm to members of the Brown community. And by its exclusive focus, it could also inadvertently create a dampening effect on campus conversation of human rights violations committed throughout the world.

Kenneth Sacks Professor of History and Classics

To the Editor:

Democrat and Republican, are voting on additional funds for educa-

I’m writing in response to a recent Herald column that called for the end of ExxonMobil’s recruitment at Brown. I live in New Mexico, the second-poorest state in the United States (ahead of Mississippi). In the past three years, we have grown from the sixth largest oil producer in the country to the third largest. Our Big Three oil producers are ExxonMobil (through XTO Energy), Chevron and Oxy/Anadarko. These large producers have brought in more environmentally conscious drilling and production, with a focus on reducing methane emissions.

This year, oil and gas account for $3.9 billion of our $7 billion budget. As a result, our oil and gas revenues have led to record increases in the state budget. We’ve chosen to focus our new investments in education, medical treatment and legal reform.

Oil and gas will contribute to a $1.3 billion surplus for the $7.8 billion in revenue that New Mexico has generated. Our politicians,

tion.

So your efforts to prevent ExxonMobil and others from recruiting at Brown directly hurt our state’s efforts to improve education, medical care and legal reform. In addition, abundant natural gas is replacing coal as the largest source of electricity in the United States.

Among the 36 members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United States has reduced the most CO2 emissions in the past 10 years.

You may not be aware of who we are or why we regard these revenues as important.

You may not even care that we exist.

That’s okay. We’re used to it.

East Coast intellectuals have always discounted our existence.

But we are here. And we are using the additional funds generated to bring our people out of poverty.

So be careful what you wish for.

John Lonergan ’72

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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2019

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY

7

A different path for the Providence schools

BY DOMINGO MOREL PHD’14 OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR In early November, the state of Rhode Island took control of the Providence Public School District. The takeover came after the release of the “Johns Hopkins Report,” which detailed the district’s academic challenges as well as the bureaucratic problems that have hindered the management of the district.

As a graduate of Central High School in Providence and a member of the Johns Hopkins review team, I can attest to the district’s current and enduring challenges. Yet, as the state, city and school district prepare to enter a new phase in the effort to improve the Providence schools, the state must avoid following the path of previous state takeovers of local school districts.

The first state takeover of a local school district occurred in 1989 when New Jersey took over the Jersey City schools. Since then, there have been over 100 state takeovers of school districts across the country. In every case, state authorities express the need for improvement and promise to deliver a better system of education. However, we have 30 years of evidence to show that states often fail to produce the type of improvement that they promise and communities expect.

My research shows that takeovers often lead to the political disempowerment of communities by separating the schools from the communities they serve. Schools are the foundation of a community. For communities of color, the struggle to the right to an education has always involved a collective, community effort. Communities of color fought collectively for access to education, adequate funding for

low-resourced schools, Black and Latinx teachers and administrators and curricula that reflect the presence and contributions of marginalized people.

However, communities of color — the communities most likely to experience a state take-

school improvement, they have a substantial record of disenfranchising communities, particularly communities of color.

Although the state of Rhode Island has taken over the Providence schools, it does not have to follow the path of previous state interven-

“Yet, as the state, city and school district prepare to enter a new phase in the effort to improve the Providence schools, the state must avoid following the path of previous state takeovers of local school districts.” over of their local schools — often lose their ability to collectively influence schooling decisions. In most cases, the local school board is abolished and the authority of deciding who leads the school district, who teaches its children and what the curriculum should look like shifts to state officials who make decisions without the consent of the community. Thus, while state takeovers have a weak record on

SUMMER ZHANG / HERALD

tions. Rather than further alienating the community from its schools, as state takeovers are prone to do, the state can help the community build stronger ties to its schools. In fact, there are several indicators that this intervention may be different. Unlike other cities, the Providence mayor, city council and school board did not object to the takeover. From public accounts, Mayor Jorge Elorza has been working collaboratively with Governor Gina Raimondo and State Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green on a plan to improve the schools.

The school board has not been abolished and the school board president has been supportive of the takeover. The City Council President, Sabina Matos, and the majority of the city council have also supported the takeover. While student and community groups opposed the process of the takeover, which in their view did not include an adequate role for student and community groups in the process, they were not opposed to the actual takeover. Indeed, when the

turnover plan was released to the public, the student and community groups expressed satisfaction with the Commissioner’s plan.

The absence of objection from the local elected officials, parents, students and community groups suggests that there is a collaborative element here that is not associated with other takeovers. However, the early signs of collaboration between stakeholders should not be viewed or interpreted as an abdication of the community’s role in improving the Providence schools. The path to improving the Providence schools must be paved by a vigorous public, fully engaged in its schools, not by a single commissioner or superintendent.

Building mechanisms where the public is involved in the decision-making over its own schools is the only way to build a robust system of public education that serves all Providence students. In that endeavor, we have a collective responsibility. For us at Brown University, that means that we adequately support the schools, share our research and work closely with the community with the foundational principle that the children, parents and community groups in Providence are the strength of the schools, not a liability.

Domingo Morel PhD’14 is a Visiting Scholar at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University and an assistant professor of political science at Rutgers University, Newark. He is the author of “Takeover: Race, Education, and American Democracy.” Domingo Morel can be reached at domingo.morel@rutgers.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

A collective alternative to the sophomore meal plan requirement

BY ASHER LEHRER-SMALL ’20 STAFF COLUMNIST The University’s new policy requiring sophomores to enroll in a meal plan has taken a lot of heat — and rightly so. After a long process of evaluating food security at Brown, the University ultimately reduced food options rather than deciding to help students make healthy choices. There are a number of alternatives to a sophomore meal plan requirement that Brown may pursue, but an investment supporting student food cooperatives represents an especially promising option, as it would promote community-building for students in addition to improving food security.

A food cooperative is a group that collectively purchases food and distributes that food to its members. These cooperatives can be as large or as small as desired. If you and your suitemates all chip in to buy a big bag of rice and then share that bag, that is an example of cooperative food sharing on a small scale. You may already have heard of food co-ops that function as member-driven alternatives to grocery stores, and these are certainly a type of food cooperative. But the gentrifying boutique stores that sell overpriced organic food are not the type of food cooperative I’m talking about here. I’m suggesting that Brown should support its students in creating small to mid-size cooperatives that promote food security for students off meal plan.

Successful food cooperatives already exist on campus, providing students with both a community and reliable access to quality food at an extremely affordable price. I know because I have benefited from one such co-op. As a sophomore, I opted to go off meal plan. To feed myself, I joined the food co-op at the Environmental Program House, which is just one of the multiple food co-ops at Brown. As one of 24 members, I cooked or cleaned an average of once per week, and had unlimited access to as

much food as I could eat. Over the course of the semester, I made new friends over meals and acquired cooking skills. I learned to look forward to nights when our most skilled chefs were cooking. Sometimes I would arrive for dinner and find delicious curry dishes with rice or huge pastas, salads and freshly baked dessert. I always left full, both in body and soul.

“Instead of forcing sophomores onto meal plan, the University should support them in making their own choices by helping students form groups to collectively purchase the food that sustain them.”

And I was saving money. Because we bought in bulk and shared the costs, I paid only $550 per semester — far below the cost of meal plan.

And because all members shared the labor, my time commitment was only an hour or two per week.

Since becoming a student who lives and eats off-campus, I have only become more convinced of the effectiveness of food cooperatives.

Living in my own apartment, I want to be able to cook in my own kitchen, and I don’t want to pay an arm and a leg. Instead of continuing as a member of the Environmental Program House food co-op, I share groceries with my house-

mates and cook on my own. Some students take this method to the next level by teaming up to order food through Farm Fresh Rhode Island.

Farm Fresh delivers in Rhode Island for all orders over $100, so students in a team of ten can order online and receive a week’s worth of produce and local goods like cheese and eggs for only $10 per week. Where such models are already in place, it’s easy to coordinate shared meals and hangouts in addition to weekly grocery pick-ups.

Savvy students have figured this out. They take advantage of options like Farm Fresh RI. But Brown can do more to make collective food purchasing accessible to all students by creating a platform where interested students can find the necessary information and form their own groups. For many students, there are two barriers: first, knowledge of food purchasing options and second, finding the right group of people with which to collectively purchase food. The University has already taken a few commendable steps to expand food purchasing options for students. It expanded its OnCall shuttle service to East Side Marketplace, Stop & Shop and Walmart, and it promoted student discounts on the grocery delivery service Peapod. In addition, the Brown Market Shares program — though not always the cheapest option — offers weekly produce, bread, dairy and eggs to students who invest in a share. But these services would make a greater impact when combined with collective purchasing options.

The new Peapod service, for example, requires students to spend a minimum of $60 on their groceries to qualify for delivery, which makes the option inaccessible to many. If, in addition, Brown were to provide a platform through which a few students could join forces to put in an order together, that $60 mark would become much less of a barrier.

Brown should explain all the food purchasing options available to students on one centralized platform. On that platform, students should be able to indicate their interest in teaming up with others to collectively order

food. Students would be able to connect and decide whether collective purchasing makes sense based on where they live, what they like to eat and other related factors. When students find the right group, they would be able set up a recurring order to provide them with reliable weekly food. They can decide on a group cooking schedule, if desired. Though this may sound complex, it really just requires finding a group and setting up a recurring order online.

If Brown supports its students in this process, fewer students would struggle with food insecurity. As an added benefit, students would have expanded opportunities to build community. If the University is to address food insecurity at Brown, helping students form food co-ops will serve the Brown community better than a blanket sophomore meal plan requirement.

Students are dissatisfied with the changes that the University made to its meal plan requirements. As an open letter in protest of the changes stated shortly after the University announced the new requirement, “Many rising sophomores, who have been expecting the option to leave the university meal plan, have been completely blindsided… and are scrambling to change personal plans… or gather funds to cover this unexpected expense.” That letter is signed by over 700 students.

I know that for me, the moments of deepest connection with my peers have come when sharing meals that we prepared together. It is a shame that the University took that option away from a full quarter of Brown’s undergraduate population. Instead of forcing sophomores onto meal plan, the University should support them in making their own choices by helping students form groups to collectively purchase the food that sustains them.

Asher Lehrer-Small ’20 can be reached at asher_lehrer-small@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

8

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2019

WORK-STUDY FROM PAGE 1 by the Brown University Community Council and a number of other offices such as the Office of Financial Aid, the Office of Dean of the College and University Human Resources, according to Provost Richard Locke P’18.

“The suggestion to move to 10 percent was not rejected,” Locke wrote in an email to The Herald. “It remains under consideration and is something that requires additional data, including an assessment of overall demand, which is underway.”

Ethan Morelion ’20, former chair of the SAC in the Swearer Center who helped write the OCFWS resolution in 2018, said he thought the University would implement the proposed 10 percent OCFWS allocation that same year.

But despite support from the Office of Financial Aid and the Swearer Center, the recommendation was put on hold for further consideration by the University.

Locke explained that “in some cases, it’s possible that action on some recommendations may be implemented in the shorter term, while others require additional review.”

Later this month, Dean of the College Rashid Zia ’01 will meet with representatives from the Office of Financial Aid and the Swearer Center to discuss potential pathways and funding sources to expand the OCFWS program.

“Although there are no guarantees, I am hopeful that one of these plans will allow us to both expand the program and improve student support, while also gathering information and feedback to drive further improvements,” Zia wrote in an email to The Herald.

Increasing the OCFWS allocation would require the Office of Financial Aid to reduce funds for the on-campus federal work-study allocation and other financial aid priorities, Shimberg said.

But she still hopes to see the University increase OCFWS funding. “It’s really hard when we’re not able to fund a student for their work off-campus, and it’s something that the student really wants to do. … Then they have to take a job

SEAS FROM PAGE 1 ber of the executive board of Disability Justice at Brown, said the process “has gone on for way too long.” DJAB leads advocacy efforts on campus to change school policies and tackle issues

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The Swearer Center for Public Service could not accommodate all qualified students who applied to the Off-Campus Federal Work-Study program this semester. In 2018, a working group recommended an increase in OCFWS funding, but no changes have been made. (on-campus) that they’re less excited about. That doesn’t feel good at all from where I sit.”

Morelion said that the lack of progress on OCFWS funding since 2018 has been “disheartening” for him. As a Bonner Community Fellow, working in the Providence community “has been one of the most defining things” of his time at the University. “I’m so grateful to have had this opportunity, but I know that other students of similar economic backgrounds will not be able to enjoy it solely because of this funding issue, not because they’re unqualified and

not because there’s not a need in the community,” Morelion said.

While Shimberg is still searching for a way to increase funding for the OCFWS program, she has worked to maximize the existing funds so that more students can participate. For example, by limiting the number of OCFWS placements offered over the summer, the program was able to accept 25 more students this semester.

Though the proposal to increase OCFWS funding to 10 percent remains under consideration, another funding recommendation from 2018 was passed

to help more community organizations participate in the OCFWS program. Previously, community partners employing OCFWS students were required to reimburse the University for 25 percent of each student’s earnings, said Tracy Frisone, senior assistant director of financial aid. The University waived this 25 percent reimbursement requirement for community partners, Tilton said.

“By the University covering that 25 percent share, they’ve been able to increase the number and diversity of different types of opportunities for students and take the burden off the

(community) agency,” Frisone said.

Morelion said the University should give greater consideration to student needs, adding that OCFWS is aligned with the University’s values of “ethical engagement with the community” and its goals of “experiential learning and preprofessional work.”

“When we prevent students because of their economic background from being able to do community engagement, … we’re denying an entire group of people from being able to be the next leaders of community engagement work,” Morelion said.

affecting students with physical and neurological disabilities.

“It started back in spring of the last school year and they are still looking,” she said. “I am feeling frustrated, and a lot of other students in DJAB also feel pretty frustrated about this.”

Catherine Axe ’87, former associate dean and director of SEAS, left the University in March, The Herald previously reported.

But DJAB members said they did not know about opportunities to participate in candidate interviews until they met with Britto in September to see how they could be more involved.

At that point, the search process had been going on for about eight months.

“You can’t say ‘there’s opportunities for students to weigh in,’ if you tell no one about it,” wrote Silver Mckie ’22, another member of DJAB’s executive board, in an email to The Herald. “And even if they did, the most prominent disability activists on campus didn’t hear about it — the ones who care the most and search this stuff out! — so it wasn’t enough.”

After they met with Britto, DJAB members were given the opportunity to interview one candidate and provide feedback for the search process. But Mckie said they felt unsure of how their feedback would influence the process overall.

“We don’t know if our feedback will hold any weight,” Mckie said. “The SEAS director directly serves the disabled student body population. … We want a voice in … hiring a new director who will work directly with us and work to support us.”

In addition to wanting more opportunities to be involved, DJAB members said they also lacked sufficient information and status updates on the hiring process as well. Ultimately, Subzwari and Mckie said that they, and rest of DJAB, want more information on committee members as well as an expla-

nation for the hiring process’s length.

Britto wrote that “search processes are highly variable and unpredictable.

It is important to have the selection process result in the right person being hired. In addition to requiring thoughtfulness, that can require patience.”

their closeted opinion, we need vocal disabled voices that bring their lived experience to the table,” Mckie wrote.

DJAB members and Riker told The Herald that they feel particularly passionate about being involved in the hiring process because they want a SEAS director who is part of the community of people with disabilities. Riker said the ideal SEAS director would not only be someone skilled in the administrative aspect of the role, but would also be someone who appreciates the unique challenges that college students with disabilities face.

Mckie wrote that having an able-bodied individual running the SEAS office is “comparable to having a (cisgender-heterosexual) director of the LGBTQ Center, or a white person in charge of the Brown Center for Students of Color.”

Thus far, Riker has had the opportunity to meet with one candidate who has a disability and “had multiple intersectional identities on top of being deaf.” But, despite Riker’s support, he said that the candidate did not assume the directorship.

SEAS’s Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan expresses a commitment to increasing the number of hired individuals with disabilities. “The disability services field is not particularly diverse and can even lack people with disabilities,” it reads. “We are focusing on diversifying staffing whenever we hire, prioritizing that (objective) over specific, disability-services experience when we can.”

Lack of student participation For the past eight months, a seven-person selection committee convened by the University and led by Vanessa Britto GS ’96, vice president for campus life and executive director of health and wellness, has conducted the search process. Britto wrote in an email to The Herald that the search thus far has been accessible to anyone who wanted to be involved. Britto declined to provide The Herald with names of committee members, but she wrote that “representation included a student, CAPS, Student Support Services, the College, Graduate School and a member of the faculty.”

Before each candidate visit, Britto wrote that the committee invited community members to meet the applicants. Interviews with prospective candidates were held with students within and outside the community of people with disabilities, Britto added.

Another interview with each candidate was open to the University community.

Representation within SEAS search committee, leadership Professor of American Sign Language Timothy Riker said he also feels concerned about the lack of disability representation in the search committee.

Riker, who is Deaf, said that to his knowledge, there is no one from the disability community on the selection committee.

To him, this “feels like a double standard when it would not be acceptable for other marginalized groups.”

Britto wrote that the perception of the committee lacking disability representation “may be an assumption,” adding that “disabilities can be visible and/or invisible.”

“Disclosure of a disability was not a requirement for participation on the selection committees, or in any of the groups who met with candidates, nor should it be,” she wrote.

Mckie wrote they felt concerned by Britto’s unwillingness to share whether or not members on the selection committee had a disability.

“Even if someone on the committee had an invisible disability and chose not to disclose it, … there’s still a problem with this, because even though we value