Thursday, January 23, 2020

SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2020

VOLUME CLV, ISSUE 2

UNIVERSITY NEWS

Applications drop 5 percent for class of 2024 Applicant pool still second-largest in University history despite drop

Change in Number of Applicants Per Class Year 38,647

36,592

BY WILL KUBZANSKY SENIOR STAFF WRITER The University’s total applicant pool for the class of 2024 dropped five percent from the class of 2023, marking the first drop in applicants since the class of 2016, said Dean of Admissions Logan Powell.

A total of 36,592 students applied this year, Powell said, as opposed to the 38,674 that applied the previous year — making it the second-largest applicant pool in University history despite the drop in applicants. Powell believes the smaller applicant pool will not present a barrier to constructing “the class that will best represent Brown and the values we stand for,” he said. “We can do that with 37,000 applications. No one has ever said to me, ‘There’s a particular applicant volume that we need to hit.’”

Powell said that Brown is likely not the only highly selective school seeing a decrease in applications. Other peer

35,437

In December, Ryan Saadeh ’20 won a 2020 Marshall Scholarship, a prestigious fellowship that covers the costs of one to three years of post-graduate study in the United Kingdom.

Saadeh was one of 46 other American students who received the award, according to a University press release.

He will pursue a Master of Science degree in Violence, Conflict and Development at the School of Oriental and African Studies University of London, followed by a Master of Arts degree in Conflict Resolution in Divided Societies at King’s College London. Saadeh said that London will provide him with diverse perspectives and networks to further his studies.

Saadeh is concentrating in Middle East Studies and Political Science at the University, with a focus on Leba-

Kate Felder named U. staff Rising Star DPS data specialist innovates crime tracking and prevention methods

32,714 32,390

2020

2021

2022

2023

2024

Source: Dean of Admission Logan Powell

USHA BHALLA / HERALD

institutions, he said, may also be seeing the same shifts in application volume due to national trends such as fewer students applying from those states that account for the greatest percentage of applicants to the University.

Application volumes don’t increase by default, Powell said, comparing shifts over time to fluctuations in the stock market — there are “peaks and dips,” but there is an upward trend in the long term.

The overall acceptance rate for the class of 2024 won’t necessarily increase as a function of the smaller applicant

Ryan Saadeh ’20 wins Marshall Scholarship

BY AUBREY LI SENIOR STAFF WRITER

UNIVERSITY NEWS

BY BEN BALINT-KURTI SENIOR STAFF WRITER

UNIVERSITY NEWS

Middle East Studies, Political Science concentrator to study in London after college

BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM

nese-Syrian interwar security studies.

When he received the phone call from the Selection Committees chairman Nov. 9, letting him know that he won the scholarship, Saadeh was with his family. “It was really wonderful (that) I happen to pick up the call while my dad was calling my family back in Lebanon. … Everyone kind of found out together. It was really special,” he said.

Saadeh has a family history related to Lebanon, which he visited multiple times throughout his childhood. “My own heritage and Lebanon’s history of coming out of a civil war … really (make) me feel the responsibility,” he said.

In the summer of 2016, Saadeh was in Lebanon when the war between Israel and Hezbollah broke out, and his family fled north through Syria, he wrote in an email to The Herald. He carries these early childhood images and memories through his studies.

Saadeh had stopped visiting Lebanon in 2010 when it became too risky to travel back.

He did not return to Lebanon until

SEE SAADEH PAGE 3

pool, Powell said. He anticipates the admission rate will be consistent with previous years, especially due to the increased number of students admitted early decision. “It’s still going to be very hard to get into Brown this year,” he said.

Powell also emphasized that demographic trends within the applicant pool have largely remained consistent: Though the total number of applicants has decreased, the drops were proportional across the pool and did not come

SEE 2024 BACK

Kate Felder, data specialist and assistant to the executive director at Brown University Department of Public Safety, was awarded the 2019 Rising Star Excellence Award for University staff Dec. 19.

The Excellence Awards are given annually in seven categories — Citizenship and Environmental Stewardship, Diversity and Inclusion, Efficiency, Innovation, Leadership, Rising Star and Service — and are intended to highlight exceptional employees across all of Brown’s departments.

A team of University staff members both within and outside of human resources come together to select the winners, said Darlene Williamson, talent development program manager for the Department of Human Re-

sources. The awards aim to highlight “exceptional work, over and above the work that folks do on a day-to-day basis,” Williamson said.

Felder’s projects include creating an interactive map that catalogs and details reported crimes for civilian use. Felder first became interested in the structure of patrol routes while working for Johns Hopkins University’s Department of Public Safety, where she taught herself how to use software that would allow her to map out criminal activity on campus. “People could have these maps and it would make a lot more sense than just having a report about where crimes were happening,” Felder said.

So, when Felder joined DPS at Brown and asked to make a crime map for the University, DPS was “totally on board,” she added.

Felder also partnered with the student group Bikes at Brown to create a bike theft prevention program that numbered bike racks to determine which areas of campus were being targeted the most by thieves. Felder’s

SEE DPS PAGE 2

METRO

PPSD staff work to improve school culture Students, school staff reflect on learning experiences in PPSD classrooms

BY CLARA GUTMAN ARGEMÍ SENIOR STAFF WRITER This article is part of the series “A look inside a Providence Public School” In the wake of a state takeover of the Providence Public School District, Gilbert Stuart Middle School teachers and administrators are implementing new strategies aimed at meeting every child’s needs.

Within Gilbert Stuart, teacher Elisabeth Snead uses classroom methods popular among her students and inspired by values that were instilled through her own Providence Public School education. Miss Snead, who teaches her sixth grade history class how to write five-paragraph essays, is working in an economically disadvantaged school, one of 11 Providence schools identified for Comprehensive Support and Improvement under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act for the 2019-20 academic year.

Despite performing poorly in a now highly publicized report from Johns Hopkins University, Providence Public Schools have at least one thing right: great teachers working to build a strong school culture. Miss Snead is one of these teachers.

Students on Miss Snead: “We’re learning but we’re actually having fun at the same time” This is the first time that sixth grader Rachael Rodriguez is taking a history class. It is also her first year at Gilbert Stuart. For Rachael and classmate Cataline Robledo, starting middle school meant stepping into a large, new building and a new social environment, as well as taking new classes.

Amid a year of big changes, both girls said that Snead’s class makes them feel calm and engaged with the material they’re studying.

Whenever she considers it necessary, such as when a conflict arises, Snead establishes a “circle time” — a moment during which students pass around a stick or a ball, taking turns reflecting on the good things that are happening in the classroom and the things they want to change.

During class, if students need it, they can step aside and sit at a little

Arts & Culture

Science & Research Commentary

Commentary

Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” explores the emotional consequences of divorce Page 2

Access to claims database to allow researchers to dig in to RI healthcare system Page 3

Douglas ’20: University’s WRIT requirement is not rigorous enough Page 7

Shanmugam ’23: Current low interest rates could cause problem in recession Page 6

desk where “we can just draw, and let our negative energy go away,” said Rachael.

It’s a classroom where students say they want to be. Earlier this year, when teaching pre-historic civilizations, Snead asked her students to build a shelter out of toothpicks, tape, glue and popsicle sticks, imitating pre-historical structures that would allow people to survive the outdoors. When Snead uses these interactive methods, “we’re learning but we’re actually having fun at the same time,” said Cataline, who goes

by Cat. According to Rhode Island Department of Education, the PPSD had a 75 percent high school graduation rate in 2017. Just under half (49 percent) of those who graduated from PPSD high schools that year enrolled in twoyear or four-year colleges within six months of graduation, according to the 2019 Rhode Island Kids Count Factbook.

One Friday, Snead talked about the kinds of jobs students could get with a university degree in history.

Snead told her students that a history degree from college opened the doors to a wide variety of “different

SEE PPSD PAGE 4

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2020

FILM REVIEW

‘Marriage Story’ examines the judicial arbitration of love

COURTESY OF KATE FELDER

Kate Felder was given a Rising Star Excellence Award. The Excellance Awards highlight exceptional University employees annually.

DPS FROM PAGE 1 data were then used to assign more officers to areas with higher crime rates, said Executive Director and Chief of Police of DPS Mark Porter.

Additionally, Felder revived the DPS newsletter in 2017, which informs the community of DPS news, events and safety tips. The newsletter now has over 3200 readers, and the DPS Facebook page has risen from 400 users to over 2300 since 2018, Felder said.

Felder is currently working with the Providence Police Department to share crime-tracking technology and compare crime data from the University campus to those of the surrounding area. Felder also attends weekly PPD meetings, during which DPS may assist with police reports on crimes that occurred near the campus.

Felder is also taking classes at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell on digital imaging through the Brown

Employee Education Program, which funds staff employee education for job-related courses.

Felder is “a great employee, (and) a tremendous asset since we’ve hired her,” Porter said. “She has been unbelievable in taking on new projects … and instrumental (in) assisting me with improving our communication process throughout Providence.”

Felder has only worked for DPS for three years, but she is committed to the College Hill community in the long term.

“I plan on being a lifer at Brown,” she said. “I totally love working at Brown and, so, I’m planning on retiring here.” When Felder learned that she had won the Rising Star award, she felt validated. “I love to work hard … but it’s really nice to have other people notice my work as well,” she said. “It’s nice that people are actually looking at those maps and reading those newsletters,” she added.

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COURTESY OF NETFLIX

Portraying main characters Nicole and Charlie, Scarlett Johannson and Adam Driver communicate the painful process of divorce in Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story,” released on Netflix last December.

Noah Baumbach takes on matrimony’s bitter epilogue in newest domestic drama

BY NICK MICHAEL SENIOR STAFF WRITER In his characteristic imitation of the mumblecore aesthetic, director Noah Baumbach tackles the transformation of love in his most recent project, “Marriage Story,” released on Netflix in December.

The project is reflective and semi-autobiographical for Baumbach, recalling similar domestic meditations in his earlier films “The Squid and the Whale” and “The Meyerowitz Stories.”

The director returns to this subject in “Marriage Story,” exploring the personal matters that become judicially exposed through the process of divorce — familiar territory for Baumbach, considering his 2013 separation from actress Jennifer Jason Leigh.

How can a divorce rooted in the slow waning of love — rather than a fracturing betrayal — be arbitrated legally?

“Marriage Story” explores this question. In an interview with Esquire, Baumbach echoed the forced hostility he found inherent to divorce: “When you’re in (a divorce), it absolutely takes over your life,” he said. “When it’s over, you don’t want to hear from it. … The system is designed, in a way, to pit you against each other.” It is through this lived experience that Baumbach is able to construct a narrative of candor, brutality and care in “Marriage Story.”

The film opens with indie New York theater director Charlie (Adam Driver) introducing his actress-turned-wife Nicole (Scarlett Johannson) through a nearly-saccharine profession of love:

“She always says when she doesn’t know something or hasn’t read a book or seen a film or a play, whereas I fake it, or say something like, ‘I haven’t seen it in a while.’” He flatters her with a simultaneous nuance and affectedness; Nicole mirrors Charlie’s observations with her equally mawkish compliments in a sultry yet maternal voice.

This gooey image of marriage is soon shattered: The viewer is made aware that these declarations of love are an exercise completed in couples therapy in an attempt to mediate a divorce. Charlie and Nicole seek an amicable separation out of love for their child, Henry (Azhy Robertson), but also due to the length of their marriage.

But their cordial approach is put under duress as legal processes take over and courtroom arguments centering upon their designation as a Los Angeles or New York family intensify.

Charlie accredits Nicole’s successes to his directorship, and she accredits his success to her theatrical contributions to his shows.

Driver and Johannson offer understated, emotionally resonant performances, oscillating between inflamed moments of resentment and blips of lingering care. The subtlety of their acting persists throughout the film — it is the plainness of Baumbach’s project that defines its essence. We feel for these people who still feel for one another, even as their original love is forced through the judiciary meat grinder.

The brutality of the divorce process is communicated through a tactful performance from Laura Dern, who plays Nora, Nicole’s powerful Los Angeles lawyer. Dern’s character introduces an interesting dynamic within Baumbach’s film, one in which gender performativity permeates the framework of both public and domestic spheres.

In a meeting with Nicole, Nora

paces around her tastefully decorated office in a colorful blazer and red heels.

She exudes confidence, but she’s never grandiose. “We can accept an imperfect dad. Let’s face it, the idea of a good father was only invented like thirty years ago,” Nora explains to Nicole.

As she speaks, Nora removes her blazer — shedding her professional facade to make herself accessible.

“We love them for their fallibilities, but people absolutely don’t accept those same failings in mothers. We don’t accept it structurally, and we don’t accept it spiritually,” she continues, convincing Nicole to open up to her. While coaching Nicole in the ways in which the court will vilify her non-motherly traits, Nora employs her femininity in dress. She understands how her physical gender expressiveness communicates and even dictates her professional success. As a savvy female divorce lawyer, Dern’s Nora has become masterful in her navigation of domestic and professional spheres.

Thus, Baumbach navigates the conversations between domestic and professional, personal and judicial, through the lens of not only the divorcing couple but also the lawyers who help to facilitate that separation process. Baumbach subtly braids these exposés to coax the audience to unconsciously reflect on the nature of governmentally officiated declarations of love and non-love.

Despite, or perhaps because of its understated style, “Marriage Story” was nominated for six Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Score, and Best Original Screenplay. High expectations follow after its success at the Golden Globes earlier this month, particularly after Dern’s performance secured the award for Best Supporting Actress in Any Motion Picture.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2020

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

MARSHALL FROM PAGE 1

SCIENCE AND RESEARCH

Claims database enhances health care research Rhode Island researchers utilize AllPayer Claims Database, provide training

BY ZACHARY LEVIN STAFF WRITER After securing access to Rhode Island’s All-Payer Claims Database through a partnership between Brown-based Advance Clinical and Translational Research and the Rhode Island Department of Health, five researchers now have the resources to ask questions about the state’s health care utilization in a more comprehensive way.

The researchers are affiliated with the University of Rhode Island, Lifespan and Brown. They study health care costs and Rhode Island’s insured population’s health care utilization, according to Ira Wilson, co-leader of the partnership and professor and chair of Health Services, Policy and Practice at the School of Public Health and professor of Medicine at the Alpert Medical School. The All-Payer Claims Database is unique because it contains claims data from commercial insurers, Medicare and Medicaid, he added.

“A claims data set is a very valuable resource for any clinical researcher because it tells you what happened and how much it cost,” said Neil Sarkar, co-leader of the partnership, director of the Brown Center for Biomedical Informatics, associate professor of medical science and associate professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice.

“That gives the researcher the opportunity to … build a research hypothesis around that particular problem.”

An important benefit of having access to APCD data, as opposed to claims data from one insurance provider, is that patients may change their insurance provider each year or lose employer-sponsored insurance, making it challenging to track one person’s health care usage over long periods of time, Sarkar said.

The Advance-CTR initiative works to create opportunities and infrastructure for translational research, Wilson said. This kind of research involves turning basic science research into programs and policies that improve the health of Rhode Islanders, he added.

In addition to working as co-leaders of the partnership, Wilson and Sarkar each lead teams that use the APCD data for other projects. Wilson investigates trends in the cost of health care to keep track of its growth and help prevent excessive increases.

Sarkar and his team look at what conditions can be effectively modeled by claims data like the APCD. Claims data only reflects billed interactions, which health care providers send to insurance providers for payment, Sarkar said. This type of data can sometimes be sufficient to build clinical models but can also lack detail, such as the reason why a health service was administered, he added. One of the goals of his project is to develop clinical decision support tools that use these models to help clinicians provide better care, he said.

Along with Wilson and Sarkar, three other researchers have received access to and are using the data set through Advance-CTR. Orestis Panagiotou, assistant professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice, leads a project comparing “the use of low-value services between Medicaid and commercial insurance in the state,” he said. Low-value services are ones that clinicians have agreed do not benefit patients, he added.

Brett Owens, chief of sports medicine at Miriam Hospital and professor of orthopedic surgery, uses APCD data to study shoulder instability. The data shows injuries, treatment trends and reinjury rates, Owens wrote in an email to The Herald. “We’re looking to see how socioeconomic status and insurance status affect the management and reoccurrence of shoulder instability injuries,” he wrote. One benefit to having access to APCD data is the ability to “see the long-term outcomes for orthopedic injuries … and better understand the state of care in RI,” he wrote.

Steven Cohen, an assistant professor at the University of Rhode Island, leads another team that is funded by Advance-CTR and uses the APCD data to ask questions about health care in the state, according to the University press release.

Along with the Center for Biomedical Informatics and Brown Computing and Information Services, Advance-CTR provides secure access to de-identified data, Wilson said. The

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COURTESY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

Ira Wilson (top) and Neil Sarkar (bottom) co-lead a partnership to delve into the state’s healthcare system by accessing claims data. data is maintained in a digital environment where users with special certifications have strict limitations on how they can view and use the data, Sarkar explained. For example, users can analyze the data but cannot export it without permission or access the internet at the same time, he said.

Although in theory the data set contains no way to link people to their health information, “re-identifiability can be a concern, and we need to make sure we put every possible safeguard in place to prevent this risk,” Sarkar said.

In some instances, researchers may be required to pass their protocols by an Institutional Review Board and agree not to make any attempt to use the data to identify individuals, he added.

Another central focus of the partnership is training new scientists and students of all levels in using the data, Wilson said.

An exciting aspect of the partner-

ship is that by learning how to use APCD data and leveraging this opportunity, students can develop and provide documentation for how to use APCD data sets.

This partnership between Advance-CTR and the Rhode Island Department of Health is just one example of how the state is trying to be innovative with health care, Wilson said. He added that it’s a remarkable way of leveraging federal money at the state level through a partnership between a public university and a private university.

“We’re so fortunate at Brown to be able to be in an environment where you’re not only doing really interesting science … but we’re impacting the community,” Sarkar said. “We’re not just a University up on a hill, we’re a University that also wants to make a direct impact on the community in which we reside.”

January 2019 through a study abroad program at the American University of Beirut and an internship at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs. During his time there, his research focused on returned refugee settlement in Syria and Lebanon. He was specifically interested in whether the return process for refugees was safe or voluntary. In addition, Saadeh worked on issues related to statelessness and housing policy among not only refugees, but also Lebanese individuals without nationality due to bureaucratic processes.

He previously interned at the Middle East Institute, a think tank based in D.C. where he focused on women’s achievement in the Arab world. Saadeh also helped refugees navigate the American job market as an Economic Empowerment intern at the International Rescue Committee.

In terms of future work, the unpredictable nature of international politics makes it difficult to come up with concrete career plans, but “the ultimate goal is to prevent violence,” Saadeh said.

At Brown, Saadeh is the founder and executive editor of the Brown Undergraduate Journal of Middle East Studies. BUJMES features work covering disciplines from arts and literature to politics and culture and aims to “expand understanding of the Middle East and raise awareness of contemporary topics,” according to the Brown Digital Repository. “In the new edition, … we are taking submissions from around the world, which is really exciting,” Saadeh added.

Sophie Zacharakis ’19.5, the former BUJMES managing editor said that Saadeh “worked really hard on creating a supportive and collaborative community for the (whole) team, not just for the e-board.”

Saadeh is also the co-president of the Arab Society at Brown and Rhode Island School of Design, in which he facilitates community-building events.

“In many ways, (Saadeh was) the ideal candidate for the Marshall (Scholarship) because he has been working at (a) very high level,” said Linda Dunleavy, associate dean of the College for fellowships. “His area was very clearly focused, and he has identified programs that were (a) natural outgrowth of the work he had been doing. … He was able to project himself and his genuineness, commitment and intelligence in this area very well,” she explained.

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PPSD FROM PAGE 1 choices,” said Cat. For example, “you could be a history professor in university or college,” said Rachael — who was wearing a t-shirt that read “Girls Can Do Anything.”

What Snead learned as a student in PPSD: “You have to be able to write an essay” When teaching students how to write a five-paragraph essay according to the RACE strategy (Restate the question, Answer the question, Cite text evidence, Explain what it means), Snead often encounters students who will do the “R,” but forget the “C” or the “E.” They don’t understand why she’s asking them to do more, Snead said.

Students will ask, “‘Why do we have to talk like this? I don’t have to talk to my friends like that.’ And then I try to tell them, this is how professionals write,” she explained. “This is how you’re gonna have to write in college, or if you’re going to be successful. You have to be able to write an essay.”

Snead, a PPSD alum, holds that the best teacher she had growing up was the one who taught her to write essays.

It was 1997, and she was a seventh grader at Nathanael Greene Middle School, two and a half miles away from Gilbert Stuart.

Snead gives her students some of the same advice she received from her old teacher: when wrapping up with the conclusion“make sure you accomplish everything that you said you were gonna do, cause you’re not a liar.”

Going out of their way: Gilbert Stuart’s staff on creating a strong school

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS culture This year has not only brought big changes for Cat and Rachael — it has also been a year of big changes for Gilbert Stuart’s staff. As the district was taken over by the state, Gilbert Stuart was also assigned a new principal, Nkolika Onye.

In 2011, Onye was appointed as the principal of Mount Pleasant High School after it was identified as one of Rhode Island’s lowest achieving schools. She was tasked with spearheading the plan to turn Mount Pleasant into a “world-class institution,” according to The Boston Globe.

One of the aspects Onye identifies as central to student achievement is a welcoming school culture where students feel important. “My philosophy is culture is everything,” she said.

District-wide, the Johns Hopkins report identified the school culture, one in which students are bullied and feel unsafe in classrooms, as one of the most important district issues, alongside poor academic performance.

Before the start of this school year, Gilbert Stuart’s teachers were offered training in creating restorative circles in their classroom. Restorative circles — like Snead’s activity — allow students to express how they’re feeling, with the goal of creating a welcoming classroom environment.

The training took a full day, and it was unpaid. According to Onye, some 55 out of the 75 teachers who work at the school showed up.

For Onye, this was a positive omen, because teachers’ widespread commitment to all students is integral to creating a strong school culture. “The belief in all kids is what is going to continue to turn this school around,” Onye said.

“And the faculty that’s really trying to fly together. … You can’t do any of this culture change without a strong staff that gets it.”

To apply these new approaches, teachers decided to step outside the classroom. Last year, multiple teachers were struggling with a particularly hyperactive group of boys who all played on the neighborhood football team, the West Elmwood Intruders. One Sunday, some teachers showed up unannounced to the boys’ game.

“We ended up staying all day,” explained Jaycee Maldonado, saying that they met the students’ families at the game. The next day, in class, there was a “shift.” The football players sat down without arguing. “They were just so proud that I took two seconds of my life to show up outside of school,” Maldonado said.

Making students feel at home in the classroom is important, because for some students, school is all they have. One teacher mentioned that when students got a day off last year, one of his pupils wasn’t excited about it. When he asked the student why, she replied: “I don’t have nothing to do at home.”

Creating school culture in the West End But making sure that students show up to class remains an ongoing challenge. According to RIDE, 33.1 percent of Gilbert Stuart’s students are chronically absent, meaning they missed at least ten percent of the 180 school days in a year.

In order to get students to go to school and stay in school, they have to want to be there, said Snead, “and part of that is making them happier ev-

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2020

CLARA GUTMAN ARGEMÍ / HERALD

ery day.” An ideal school culture looks like “what it does on Nickelodeon or Disney Channel,” she added. Gilbert Stuart’s students “grow up in a neighborhood where they watch shootings, and they watch cars getting stolen, and they have parents that leave them by themselves, and people laugh when we say we want this to look like High School Musical,” she said. “It’s funny, but it’s not.” Other teachers echoed this thought. “Just because we teach in a low-income area doesn’t mean that our expectations for our kids are lower,” one teacher said.

According to RIDE, 92 percent of Gilbert Stuart’s students are economically disadvantaged. That’s higher than the district average of 87 percent.

Some of the issues that concern Gilbert Stuart’s student body are reflected in the content of the school newspaper, the Gilbert Stuart Times. Established in 2018, the paper publishes student writing. The publication has detailed news

including an article about a teenager who was shot outside his Providence high school, a report on “weirdly” warm autumn weather and a feature about video game nights. The newspaper also publishes students’ personal stories in the shape of memoirs and narrative features.

A piece written by Kimberly B., a seventh grader, tells the story of her grandmother’s death; it is written partially in English and partially in Spanish. A memoir by eighth grader Jennifer G.P. narrates the story of a family’s migration to the United States in the first person.

At the end of the day, most students want to feel connected to their school, “because this place is their home for three years,” said Snead. Striving to create a school culture that makes them feel welcome “gets exhausting, but we have the time. We can make it for them, because it’s worth it in the end.”

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2020

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | TODAY

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CA L E NDA R TODAY Improving Listening Skills 9:00 A.M. South Street Landing

How to Make the Most of Shopping Period 12:00 P.M. Salomon Center for Teaching

NSGP Seminar Speaker Nathan Smith, PhD 4:00 P.M. Sidney E. Frank Hall, Room 220

Brown RISD Dual Degree Exhibition: Many Years Later...

6:30 P.M. Granoff Center

TOMORROW

S U D O KU

CCV Office Hours 10:00 A.M. 180 George Street, Room 102B

Anthropology Colloquium - Dr. Grazia Ting Deng 12:00 P.M. Giddings House, Room 212

Graduate Students: Career Fair 3:00 P.M. CareerLAB

Brown Men’s Basketball vs Yale 7:00 P.M. Pizzitola Sports Center

Q U OTE OF T H E DAY

“It’s still going to be very hard to get into Brown this year.”

—Logan Powell, Dean of Admission SEE 2024 PAGE 1

C R O S SWO R D

LITERARY ARTS COURSES, SPRING 2020 For First Year Seminars: LITR 0100 workshops (Introduction to Fiction, Introduction to Poetry) and LITR 0710 seminars: spaces were filled by the Dean of the Collegeʼs office. Attend the first class to see if space has become available; the instructor will also create a wait list at the first session (not before). These courses are open to First Year undergraduate students only.

For LITR 0110 workshops (Fiction I, Poetry I. Digital Language Arts I & Screenwriting I): spaces were filled during the registration period. No wait lists are created before the first class meeting; attend the first class to see if space has become available.

For LITR 0210 (Fiction II, Poetry II), LITR 1010 (Advanced Fiction, Advanced Poetry) & LITR 0310 (Special Topics) workshops: writing samples are due in the front hallway of the Literary Arts Building, 68.5 Brown Street, between 10 am and 4 pm on Wednesday, 22 January. Most sections will accept samples through early afternoon, Friday, 24 January.

For LITR 1150/1/2 workshop/seminars: attend the first class session; bring a literary writing sample with you.

For LITR 0999, LITR 1200 & LITR 1230/1 literature course: register through Banner during the registration period; and/or attend the first class.

LITR 0310N – Machine Learning and Language Arts ~ LITR 0999 – Graphic Novels and Comic Masterworks ~ LITR 1152C – Writers-in-the-Community Training ~ LITR 1152G – Rebuilding the Book ~ LITR 1152I – Poetʼs Tour of the Essay ~ LITR 1152J – Hybrid Writing Workshop: The Long Engagement ~ LITR 1200 – Writers on Writing ~ LITR 1230V – Why Donʼt We Fall in Love? ~ LITR 1230Y – Structuring (and De-Structuring) Novels ~ LITR 1231J – Histories

For details, see https://www.brown.edu/cw or visit “courses at brown”

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2020

The Federal Reserve is powerless to stop the next recession But what if interest rates can’t go any low-

ARJUN SHANMUGAM ’23 STAFF COLUMNIST January 2008. Markets were in free fall as confidence in long-trusted yet misunderstood financial instruments had eroded. American communities entered a taxing saga defined by unemployment, chaos and class conflict. The Federal Reserve’s framework for crisis response would be subjected to the toughest test it had faced since the Great Depression.

Twelve years on, with the worst of the disaster over, that framework seems to have beaten back the downturn using what is arguably the most important tool that the Fed possesses: monetary policy, or the ability to directly control the quantity of money distributed and indirectly control interest rates by influencing supply and demand. When the supply of money increases, it becomes less scarce — so interest rates (the “price” that we pay to borrow money) go down. A decrease in the money supply, on the other hand, has the opposite effect of driving up interest rates.

For the Federal Reserve, a quasi-governmental organization dedicated to protecting economic stability, power over interest rates means the power to combat recessions. At the end of 2008, the federal funds rate was just above 0 percent compared to its pre-crisis level of 5 percent. The lower interest rate made it easier for consumers to buy new homes, gave businesses opportunities for expansion, drove spending in an economy that desperately needed it and ballooned the money supply by about $4 trillion to make that all possible. Interest rates are clearly an effective way to fight contractions. When the next recession hits — and it could be sooner rather than later — the Federal Reserve will look to lower interest rates to combat it.

er?

Going forward, that is precisely the challenge that policymakers will have to reckon with; rates are so low that monetary policy has become ineffective in steering the economy. Interest rates in America remain low — they vary between 1.5 percent and 1.75 percent. Even if the Federal Reserve were to follow Japan’s lead and allow rates to dip slightly below 0 percent,

But the Federal Reserve isn’t the only actor keeping interest rates low — the average American also plays a role. Consumers are saving more and more of their incomes — 17 percent more in 2018 alone — which drives down interest rates even further on both the supply side and the demand side. On the supply side, more money saved means more money lying dormant in bank accounts. With more cash to loan out, banks drive up the supply of loanable

“If policymakers attacked the problem with a sharpened sword in 2008, they are today left with little more than a dull pocketknife.”

there is, mathematically, a limit to how low rates can go in the event of a recession. If policymakers attacked the problem with a sharpened sword in 2008, they are today left with little more than a dull pocketknife — an instrument that cannot hope to cut interest rates to the degree that former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke argues would be necessary for monetary policy to be effective in the event of a crisis.

That leaves the United States highly vulnerable to recession in the near future, especially considering that the Federal Reserve has been reluctant to raise rates. Just last month, the organization’s leadership, hesitant to rock the economic boat, promised not to increase rates during 2020.

funds and put downward pressure on interest rates. From the other end, because Americans are saving more, they’re necessarily buying less. This means that there is less demand for loans to purchase credit-dependent goods such as cars and homes, which further lowers interest rates.

The trend of decreasing interest rates is amplified by demographic changes that are becoming harder and harder to ignore. Older people tend to save more, intensifying the market forces that are already pulling interest rates downward. And the median age in America has increased by about 10 years since 1960; while America is greying, it is saving more and spending less.

This “liquidity trap” ­— a situation defined by

low interest rates and stubborn saving habits — could be addressed with policy novelties. Helicopter money, for instance, is a proposed monetary policy arguing that government can encourage people to spend more by literally gifting newly created money to citizens. In other words, the Fed would distribute cash universally, as if dropping it from a helicopter — allowing it to move throughout the economy.

Nonetheless, a lack of easy solutions means that, ultimately, investors and consumers alike should not count on a smooth resolution to a hypothetical recession. In 2008, struggling consumers could count cheap credit among their relatively few blessings. The ability to purchase a variety of goods for cheap helped both to get them back on their feet and to give stagnant businesses the revenue they needed to start expanding again. Spooked investors gradually regained their footing post-2008 and share prices rose as part of one of the longest bull markets in American history. This was made possible largely by steep rate cuts and the Federal Reserve’s practice of “forward guidance” — regular communications about the future of monetary policy to allow investors to plan financially.

When macroeconomic fundamentals next begin to wobble, middle-class Americans and Wall Streeters alike ought to be prepared for a recession that will likely prove tough to resolve.

Forecasting economic downturn is an imperfect science. A better bet is to be prepared to weather a prolonged storm at any time, lest policymakers find their bag of tricks inadequate in the face of crisis.

Arjun Shanmugam ’23 can be reached at arjun_shanmugam@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

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THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2020

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY

7

Dear Bruno, how do I write good?

JONATHAN DOUGLAS ‘20 STAFF COLUMNIST Many undergraduates believe that they are strong writers; they got into Brown based partially upon their ability to write better than over 90 percent of other applicants, confirming their writing prowess and signaling that their craft need not be improved much further.

In reality, that is often far from the truth.

Student writing is frequently riddled with basic grammatical errors, confusing organization and shaky logic. I’ve seen this while reading dozens of my own pieces and hundreds from my peers while editing for this newspaper and serving as a teaching assistant. I am not claiming to be a better writer than my peers. In fact, some readers will likely even believe that these same flaws apply to this article! While some undergraduates come into Brown as very strong writers, many enter the University without the necessary skills or tools to improve them. Disturbingly, many do not even improve their writing during their time here. From first-years to seniors, students are often weak writers because they aren’t taught well. When they are taught to write, they are frequently given little or no feedback. Instead of the current weak WRIT requirements, Brown should create three requirements: a basic required writing course for firstyears, a senior thesis and instructor feedback for all written assignments.

The University believes that the two required WRIT courses — which are offered in nearly every discipline and are the only restrictions on the oh-so-holy Open Curriculum — force students to improve their writing while maintaining maximal student freedom. However, that freedom undermines the purpose of the requirement in the first place. Though the Brown Curriculum notes that a WRIT-designated course must “provide students with substantive feedback on each writing assignment,” often this does not occur in practice. The WRIT requirement has become so broad that some of the classes that meet the mark reduce the standard to a joke. It’s a stretch to see how classes such as CHEM 1450: “Advanced Organic Chemistry,” NEUR 1600: “Experimental Neurobiology” or PHYS 1600: “Computational Physics” teach students to master the skills necessary to

write well. Such classes require so much dedication to the specific subject material that it can be difficult to also focus on improving writing. They require relatively few written assignments, and feedback comes from professors who often have more experience focusing on their own field than on the craft of writing itself.

After taking these upper-level classes, students are often left with deep subject expertise but no improved writing ability. While domain-specific writing such as lab reports may teach students how to structure writing relevant to a specific field, it neglects a more basic skill that is applicable across every domain: how to form an argument and provide evidence in its favor. Even if the course is ideally structured and enables students to write at an expert level in their own domain, they can easily leave these classes without the ability to transfer that skill to other types of writing — something they will almost certainly have to do throughout their lives. For example, a dedicated academic computer scientist who takes a CS WRIT class will be dramatically unprepared to write grant proposals, research summaries, cover letters and dozens of other forms of argumentative writing.

Furthermore, many WRIT-designated classes are massive, which makes it nearly impossible for professors to provide high-quality feedback on each assignment. In Fall 2019, more than a dozen WRIT classes had more than 50 students enrolled, and seven had more than 100 students. In these large classes, professors often turn to teaching assistants to grade assignments. While TAs can provide substantive comments on papers, they simply do not have the breadth of knowledge or broad perspective that a professor does. Relying on teaching assistants to grade writing assignments does not provide the quality of writing feedback a WRIT course should entail.

Instead of the current WRIT requirements, the University should require students to take an introductory writing course at some point during their first two semesters. The course wouldn’t teach the difference between “which” and “that,” nor would it limit its domain to the five-paragraph essay. The class would focus on crafting an organized, unique argument in different genres, from short stories to lengthier academic pieces. It would require students to

edit their peers’ work and read examples of exceptional writing in multiple formats, from brilliantly worded newspaper articles to succinctly organized academic proposals. It would emphasize the importance of varied sentence structure and grammar. Each class would be capped at 20, giving professors the time to grade each assignment without the help of a teaching assistant and allowing them to form personal re-

“Writing quality has often been sacrificed in our experiment of near-complete academic freedom.”

lationships with their students.

The early requirement would allow students to strengthen their writing from the start of their University experience, which would enhance their academic experiences later on. As science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler said, “You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it.”

The current requirement does not give students this essential early exposure, given the limited feedback students often receive in WRIT courses and the relative flexibility students have in fitting these courses into their four years at Brown.

While a writing mechanics course would promote a significantly higher quality of writing for all undergraduates, the requirement would contradict the freedom of the Open Curriculum and therefore undermine one of the University’s hallmark attractions. Nonetheless, Brown should be willing to consider revising this element of the Open Curriculum. Writing quality has often been sacrificed in our experiment of near-complete academic freedom.

The University should still stress writing after students fulfill the initial requirement.

Brown should require all students to complete a

thesis in their final academic year, modeled off of Princeton’s thesis requirement. While doing so would have numerous benefits, the most important is the exceptional quality of writing required to put together such a substantial project. Writing a thesis allows students to write about a novel concept in the context of work that has preceded them. It gives students the opportunity to work on a lengthy piece, a form of writing that enables seniors to think across a discipline broadly while mastering its basic tenets. Furthermore, it forces students to engage with advanced literature in the field, facilitating their exposure to top-notch academic writing.

Finally, Brown must ensure that students are getting feedback on the written work that they submit for all classes. During finals last semester, I wrote 55 pages and initially received feedback on none of the 17,461 words I wrote for three different classes. After emailing the professors asking for comments, only two of the three responded. I have experienced this issue many times before— more than a handful of my previous classes have also left my final assignments either without comment or with merely a grade attached. Final papers are often the lengthiest, most heavily weighted and most time-consuming assignments of the semester.

Professors should, at a minimum, provide students with comments on their most important work. Offering feedback is one of the most fundamental aspects of teaching a course, and professors should not be able to get away with merely providing a final grade. Students have a right to receive feedback on all of their work.

Good writing can inspire, entertain, persuade and motivate its readers. Many students write brilliant pieces in publications like the Brown Political Review and The Round. Hundreds of Brown’s alumni have mastered the written word, including science fiction writer Ted Chiang ’89 and novelist Lois Lowry ’58 (who did not graduate from Brown). Yet not enough undergraduates can write at this level. Requiring a writing mechanics class, senior thesis and consistent feedback on written work would be great steps in the right direction.

Jonathan Douglas ’20 can be reached at jonathan_douglas@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@ browndailyherald.com.

8

2024 FROM PAGE 1 from one demographic group in particular. “This is going to be a class equal to any we’ve ever admitted to Brown, with an amazingly diverse set of backgrounds and perspectives,” Powell said.

Forty-seven percent of applicants for the class of 2024 self-identified as students of color, a two percent increase from 45 percent of applicants to the class of 2023.

Similarly, geographic diversity in the applicant pool was largely consistent with previous years. While the percent of applicants from New York increased from 10 to 11 percent, and the percent of applicants from California dipped from 16 to 15 percent, no other regions saw any change from the year before.

Applicants from the South made up more of the pool than any other region at 17 percent.

The University also increased its outreach to veterans and rural students this year, Powell said. In 2019, the University completed the first year of a two-year pilot program, hosting 20 prospective students from rural communities for an admissions workshop on campus last summer. But Powell noted he did not see a major increase in rural student representation in the applicant pool. “It’s only year one, it’s only 20 students. But I think the word is starting to spread that this is a population of students about whom we care deeply and hope to attract more of in the future,” he said.

International applications increased to 18 percent of the applicant pool for the class of 2024, from 17 percent last year. Applications from first-generation students went down from the class of 2023 to the class of 2024, from 19 percent to 18 percent. Powell added that despite this drop, the University increased outreach this year to community-based organizations such as

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2020

Breakdown of Class of 2024 Applicants by Demographic Backgrounds and Academic Interests North NE - 1% Central - 1% Mountain - 3% Pacific - 3%

Physical Sciences - 29%

Midwest - 8%

Undecided - 5% South NE - 11%

Humanities - 12% New York - 11%

Mid-Atlantic - 11%

Life and Medical Sciences - 26%

California - 15%

Social Sciences - 28% South - 17%

International - 18%

Source: Dean of Admission Logan Powell USHA BHALLA / HERALD

Prep for Prep and the Teak Fellowship in an effort to attract more first-gen and low-income applicants.

Interest in the Brown/RISD Dual Degree Program and the Program in Liberal Medical Education stayed stagnant, with both programs making up two percent and seven percent, respectively, of the last two applicant classes.

The distribution of academic inter-

ests also remained steady. Thirty-two percent of applicants for both the classes of 2023 and 2024 indicated interest in concentrating in the physical sciences, while 27 percent of applicants indicated interest in the social sciences, as opposed to 29 percent last year.

Regular decision results for the class of 2024 will be released Thursday, March 26.

RELS 0095A CRN 24978 Islam from the Ground UP

Prof. Nancy Khalek

MWF 10 – 10:50 am

Friedman Hall 003

Everything you wanted to know about Islam but were too afraid to ask.

Really, It’s impossible to ignore the relevance of Islam to today’s political and cultural landscape, but it can be difficult to talk about. In “Islam from the Ground UP” we explore the basics, and then build up from that groundwork to develop a complex understanding of Islam and its relationship to politics, government, culture, geopolitical conflict, contemporary events, and historical change.

RELS 0086 Religion and Movement Politics

Prof. Inouye

Thursdays 4 – 6:30 pm

Smith-Buonanno G01

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT SPRING PRIZES 2020 Betsy Amanda Lehman ’77 Memorial Award for Excellence in Journalism 1st prize $1000 2nd prize $500

Casey Shearer Memorial Award for Excellence in Creative Nonfiction 1st prize $1000 2nd prize $500

(Hard news pieces and entries over 3000 words will not be considered.)

PRESTON GURNEY PRIZES Literary Criticism Cultural Criticism Literary Criticism of Fiction of Poetry st st st 1 prize $1000 1 prize $1000 1 prize $1000 nd nd 2 prize $500 2 prize $500 2nd prize $500

What's the difference between a social movement and a religion?

It's hard to ignore the presence of uprisings and mass organizations in contemporary politics. Can religion be a useful category for understanding these collectives and their relationship to democracy? In Religion and Movement Politics, we explore several foundational theories of religion and social movements. We then turn to the black freedom struggle and several other historical cases to see what strategies, practices, experiences, motivations, and forms of authority these theories illuminate and obscure.

Entries must be submitted online at: www.brown.edu/go/spring-english-prizes

by 3:00 pm on Thursday, February 13, 2020. *ONE ENTRY PER COMPETITION.* *NO HARD COPIES OR LATE SUBMISSIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED.* *ESSAYS THAT HAVE PREVIOUSLY RECEIVED AN ENGLISH DEPARTMENT AWARD ARE NOT ELIGIBLE.*

For submission details, please visit www.brown.edu/go/spring-english-prizes