Tuesday, September 24, 2019

SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

VOLUME CLIV, ISSUE 15

METRO

Lime Scooters peel out of Providence Company leaves city after receiving insufficient scooter permits

BY ISABEL INADOMI SENIOR STAFF WRITER Lime Scooters pulled out of Providence Friday, marking the third loss in electric ride-sharing transportation options in the city after both Bird scooters and JUMP bikes were removed earlier this summer.

“Lime was offered 250 permits” for scooters in the city and opted not to accept them, wrote Emily Crowell, spokesperson for Mayor Jorge Elorza’s office, in an email to The Herald.

The company launched in Providence last November with 150 scooters in a pilot program and was hoping to expand to 400 this year, according to a Lime spokesperson. Only having permission for 250 scooters did not make it feasible to maintain a presence in Providence, he added.

Unlike Bird, which applied to renew permits but was rejected, Lime left the city voluntarily.

Providence is in communication with two other companies, VeoRide and Spin, to provide electric scooters to Providence, Crowell added.

Providence allotted a total of 600 scooter permits for the city, according to VeoRide spokesperson Andrew Miles. VeoRide and Spin were originally intending to split the remaining 350 permits but, in light of Lime’s exit, VeoRide was asked by city management to provide 300 scooters, he said.

Although there is no official launch date yet, Miles anticipates VeoRide scooters will be available in Providence “sometime around the middle of October.”

A Lime spokesperson added that Lime offered to continue to keep their scooters in Providence during this transitional period, but the city refused.

Providence has had difficulty re-

SEE LIME PAGE 4

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UNIVERSITY NEWS

Times publisher Sulzberger ’03 returns to U. A.G. Sulzberger discusses his roots at Brown, journalistic priorities

BY ELISE RYAN ARTS AND CULTURE EDITOR A.G. Sulzberger ’03, publisher of the New York Times, returned to the University Monday evening to share his belief in the steadfast power of journalism in a world where reporters face unprecedented risk and newspapers face failing business models.

Sulzberger, who was promoted to Times publisher on Jan. 1, 2018, spoke to a packed Solomon Auditorium for the 99th Stephen A. Ogden Jr. ’60 Memorial Lecture on International Affairs.

Sulzberger at Brown Sulzberger took his place at the Times after years of work in journalism for the Providence Journal, the Oregonian and the Times Metro Desk. Sulzberger succeeded his father, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., as publisher, becoming the sixth member of his family to preside over the New York Times. In 1886,

TIFFANY DING / HERALD

A.G. Sulzberger ’03 became publisher of the Times on Jan. 1, 2018.

He is the sixth person in his family to hold the position.

Sulzberger’s great-great-grandfather, Adolph Ochs, purchased a “small, fading newspaper in New York” and set it on its way to become the Times of today — with its over 4,000 employees and 4.7 million subscribers.

When Sulzberger first walked on to Brown’s campus, he was not set on pursuing a career in journalism — despite his strong familial ties to the field. “It wasn’t always a sure bet that A.G. would end up in the newspaper business,” said President Christina

Paxson P’19 in her introduction.

At the University, Sulzberger not only met his wife and fostered a lasting love for East Side Pockets; he also found his way back toward his family’s business. Enrolled in ENGL 1160A S01: “Advanced Feature Writing” with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and Visiting Professor of English Tracy Breton at the recommendation of a friend, Sulzberger “immediately ap-

SEE SULZBERGER PAGE 7

SCIENCE AND RESEARCH

METRO

CDC, FDA investigate outbreak in vaperelated lung injuries, deaths

Hill, Providence chapters

U. Health Services advises against e-cig use Sunrise splits College Divide comes after dialogue on group’s makeup, inclusion, representation

BY EMILIJA SAGAITYTE SENIOR STAFF WRITER Following six deaths and more than 450 cases of lung illness among people who had habitually used e-cigarettes across the country, the University’s Health Services advised community members to avoid e-cigarettes and report any adverse effects.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration are among local and national organizations investigating the outbreak of lung injury.

While this lung damage may be linked to the flavorful smoke permeating school campuses, the “investigation is ongoing and has not identified a cause,” Health Services officials wrote in the Sept. 16 notice.

“We are all extremely concerned because the problem has arisen relatively abruptly, the cases seem to be clustered in time and in a relatively young, otherwise healthy population

BY WILL KUBZANSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

SUMMER ZHANG / HERALD

and we don’t know exactly why,” Executive Director of Health and Wellness Vanessa Britto wrote in an email to The Herald.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced a plan to order the FDA to ban the sale of flavored e-cigarettes following the reports of lung illnesses, according to the New York Times.

Modified vape contents may cause a type of pneumonia induced by fat build-up in the lungs, wrote Rachel Cassidy, assistant professor of behavioral and social sciences, in an email to The Herald.

“Don’t vape from a cartridge that someone refilled themselves or that

looks sketchy in any way, especially if it’s THC or CBD oil,” Cassidy wrote.

“If you do vape ... monitor yourself for any new symptoms like coughing, shortness of breath or unusual stomach symptoms,” she added.

Since e-cigarettes were first released for public sale, vapes have evolved; nicotine levels in Juuls have gone up, and vapes with CBD and THC often do not list exact ingredients, Cassidy wrote.

Researchers and public health officials know that traditional cigarette smoke takes close to half a million adult lives in the U.S. each year, but

SEE VAPE PAGE 4

Science & Research News

Commentary

Climate change threatens species of island trees, University research finds Page 2

Secondo ’16 GS: Didion assessment of polarization remains true today Page 6

U. Breakthrough-Lab supports student entrepreneurial projects Back page

The Sunrise Movement’s Providence hub will split into a city chapter and a Brown-Rhode Island School of Design chapter over the coming weeks in an attempt to address long-standing concerns about the role of University activists in the Providence area, according to multiple organizers from the Providence chapter.

A youth-led political group, Sunrise Providence exerts pressure on local politicians to take action on climate change. The group is one hub in the national Sunrise Movement, which has over 300 local chapters and advocates for passing a Green New Deal. In addition to tackling racial and economic inequality, the Green New Deal bill attempts to make the United States carbon neutral.

Unlike other city-wide Sunrise hubs, many of which formed separately from college campuses, the Providence chapter of Sunrise centered around the University’s campus from the beginning. But the recent decision to split the Providence chapter stems from internal concerns over a variety of issues such as the overrepresentation of University students and the barriers that organizing on College Hill presents to participants not affiliated with the University.

Last spring, an estimated 75 percent of the Sunrise Providence group was from Brown, said Emma Bouton ’20, a co-manager of Sunrise’s summer fellowship and an organizer with Sunrise Providence. The chapter’s demographics did not necessarily represent the Providence area, said Matthew Mellea ’21.5, a grassroots fundraiser for Sunrise nationally and a former co-manager of Sunrise’s Rhode Island fellowship.

Brown students “tend to be wealthier, whiter than Providence and all of Rhode Island,” he said.

SEE SUNRISE PAGE 3

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

SCIENCE AND

Some island conifers may face extinction by 2070 University study finds up to 25 percent of island-native conifers may become extinct

BY ZACHARY LEVIN STAFF WRITER Some trees like the Norfolk pine and other island-native conifers may become extinct by 2070 due to the effects of climate change, according to University research published this summer.

Up to 25 percent of all conifers — a group of trees that includes firs, redwoods and pines — could become extinct on some specific islands.

The paper, published in Nature Climate Change, combined climate data from the conifers’ native islands with data from other places where the conifers were known to survive to estimate the broader range of climatic conditions the species can handle, said Kyle Rosenblad ’10, lead author of the study.

“We wanted to know two things,” said Donny Perret GS, a graduate student studying ecology and evolutionary biology and another of the paper’s authors. “One, how big is the ‘climatic buffer,’ or, rather, how many different sets of conditions can (these trees) cope with?” The study showed that, although conifers may naturally inhabit a very narrow climate, they are actually able to survive or sustain populations in much broader climatic ranges, he added.

The study found a relationship between the size of a species’ fundamental

SUMMER ZHANG / HERALD

niche — the conditions under which a species may be able to survive — and the size of a species’ realized niche — the conditions that the species actually experiences currently — said Dov Sax, deputy director of IBES and professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.

“We showed that there does appear to be a really strong positive correlation between the two … and there is much more work to be done on the idea,” Rosenblad explained.

“The next question that follows is, will that help them in future climates?”

With these goals in mind, the study examined conifers native to specific small islands, as they are well-studied, of particular conservation interest

and are commonly planted in diverse climates, Sax said. “We built models of what conditions these species … demonstrated an ability to tolerate, and (we) compared that against what conditions they are expected to experience in the future under a few different climate change scenarios,” Rosenblad said. “By and large, almost every single one of our study species was surviving and maintaining populations or at least just surviving, if not reproducing, in a much, much broader range of climate conditions than just what is found on the native island.”

Even though trees can survive under varying conditions, they will likely not be able to sustain the climate predic-

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tions for the year 2070, Rosenblad said.

The study also concluded that species native to smaller islands are at greater risk of extinction, Sax said.

“The smaller the island, the worse the outlook for these species,” Perret said.

Although the conifers have previously survived natural climate fluctuations, “the changes that we are expecting in the next 100 years or so will have consequences far more severe than they have been in past climatic shifts” with regard to the small-island species in the study, Perret said. “It drives home the point that this is unprecedented in the evolutionary lifespan of these species.”

“That’s the bad news,” Sax said.

“The good news is that not all species are doomed. A lot of them are not and, among the ones in trouble, they vary.

There are a range of approaches we can take. It’s not the end of the world for island conifers.”

While many of the species examined in the study may one day become extinct, there are certain actions that could preserve some of the at-risk species, Sax said.

“There’s this window for potential conservation management, where if a species is surviving okay, but the climate is making it too hard to reproduce and recruit new generations, there could be a role for some really targeted management interventions to help grow seedlings, make sure they reach maturity and plant them,” Rosenblad said. Nurturing seedlings could be one way to help conifer species reproduce in conditions where they otherwise may be unable. “It would be a different way of looking at what constitutes a ‘natural forest,’ but it is better than the alternative, which is losing the forest,” he said.

Moving forward, this study allows researchers and environmental scientists to better understand the risks facing these conifers and engineer targeted strategies to protect them and other island-native species, Rosenblad said.

“There is this sense that a species evolved in a place and it has a sort of increased value in that place,” Sax said.

“We are tweaking the world in some profound ways. It would be nice to be able to preserve species within their native distribution whenever possible.”

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

3

SPENCER SCHULTZ / HERALD

The national Sunrise Movement group organizes young people across the country to act against climate change and encourage politicians to pass a Green New Deal.

SUNRISE FROM PAGE 1 Projected data from the 2018 U.S. Census reported that 42 percent of Providence residents are Hispanic or Latino and 15.6 percent are Black or African American, but, as of fall 2018, only 11.2 percent of the University’s undergraduate students identify as Hispanic or Latino and 6.3 percent identify as black, according to the ­­ Office of Institutional Research “There’s a tension between ‘I want to help the community,’ but ‘you’re not a part of that community,’” said Providence Hub coordinator Joselin Morente. Morente expressed hope that splitting the chapter could make the Providence hub more accessible to non-white activists and organizers.

“If we’re talking about these frontline communities and these marginalized communities that are going to be affected by the climate crisis first, we need to center those voices without tokenizing them,” she said.

“Having a hub that’s made up more of POC people allows you to feel more

comfortable, because you don’t always have to explain yourself,” or the ways in which “being brown or black really does have an impact on your life.”

But splitting Providence off from the University presents another risk, as a representative view of Brown University may lead to a more homogeneous hub, Melea said. “We want to be striving for a little bit better than what is representative of Brown,” he said. “We want to be supporting Brown students who are low income, who are people of color in our organizing.”

“We want to be striving for a little bit better than what is representative of Brown,” he said. “We want to be supporting Brown students who are low income, who are people of color in our organizing.”

Ultimately, for Morente, the Sunrise split is the “best way to be actively anti-racist.”

Organizing on College Hill also created barriers for individuals unaffiliated with the University. Stepping onto an Ivy League campus can be intimidating for some group members,

Morente said.

Getting up College Hill for non-students is equally tough, Bouton said, citing the lack of parking, long uphill walk and poor public transportation.

To address these concerns, the hub moved a number of its meetings over the summer off-campus to the South Side Community Center and South Side Library. When the split becomes official, Sunrise plans for the Brown hub to resume meeting on campus, while members of the Providence community will continue meeting off campus.

Moving forward, the University hub will focus on building College Hill campaigns and educating students about both the environmental movement and “white supremacy culture,” said Nina Wolff Landau ’20, a Sunrise Providence organizer who will oversee the Brown chapter this fall.

Meanwhile, the Providence hub will likely focus on developing partnerships with local activist groups and influencing local politics. Multiple or-

ganizers, including Alex Kithes M’15, a Woonsocket city councilor, said the split could give Sunrise more political leverage by containing more Rhode Island constituents.

“An elected official who doesn’t already understand the ramifications of not addressing the climate crisis, they’ll use any excuse possible,” Kithes said. “That’s one convenient excuse: they’re going to pay attention to their constituents or people who live in Rhode Island permanently versus college students.”

Brown students will still be allowed to attend Providence meetings and events, Morente said, especially those who plan on staying in Providence.

“We’re trying to work counter from all of the ways Brown is isolated from Providence,” Bouton said. “If we want numbers, Sunrise Brown can absolutely show up to the things Sunrise Providence has organized.”

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4

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

VAPE FROM PAGE 1 when it comes to vaping, “nobody really knows what’s going on,” said Professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Psychiatry and Human Behavior Jennifer Tidey. While nicotine adversely affects the brain in developing adolescents, other long-term consequences of vaping remain unknown.

Among adolescents, vaping frequency escalated from just over 10 percent of high school students to just over 20 percent between 2017 and 2018, according to an FDA survey.

Fruity flavors, inconspicuous appearance and trendiness on social media may all contribute to their rising popularity among young adults, Cassidy wrote.

University researchers are beginning a study to examine the impact of lowering nicotine levels in actual cigarettes among adolescents ages 15 to 19 who smoke regularly, Tidey added. The team will then build on that study to also investigate e-cigarettes.

The FDA has discussed a rule change to require lower nicotine levels in regular cigarettes, Cassidy wrote. But the question remains: will this movement snuff out the flame sparking the problem?

Even though vaping has risks, e-cigarettes also have possible benefits, Tidey said. Although e-cigarettes can negatively affect young people, they have also helped adult smokers transition to e-cigarettes as a less-harmful alternative. “While I think it’s totally appropriate to make sure that youth don’t have access to e-cigarettes, I’m

LIME FROM PAGE 1 taining not just scooter companies but bike-sharing programs as well.

JUMP bikes, in a joint decision between the city and parent company Uber, was the first of the three alternative transport companies to leave Providence. The company exited the city in August after vandalism and misuse, The Herald previously

concerned that older adult smokers ... might also not have access,” Tidey said.

“While we hope that this (news about lung illnesses) leads to more caution about using vapes, the public health community is worried that this current coverage may scare people who have quit smoking using vapes and cause them to go back to smoking; and that would be very bad for public health in the long run,” Cassidy added.

Additional questions remain about the long lasting effect that vaping could have on e-cigarette users. “There are so many more critical questions than there are answers and in the meantime people are at very high risk for the development of a potentially life threatening illness,” Britto wrote.

reported.

“Vandalism happens nationwide in micromobility,” Miles said. He added that VeoRide will “work with the city” in the weeks post-launch to determine how “to mitigate any vandalism that might happen or does happen.”

C H O N G W O O K L E E A N D VA R TA N G R E G O R I A N D I S T I N G U I S H E D L E C T U R E S E R I E S

Ambassador Sung Y. Kim U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE PHILIPPINES FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE REPUBLIC OF KOREA FORMER SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR NORTH KOREA POLICY

Old Friends, New Frontiers US POLICY AND INTERESTS IN ASIA

Tuesday, September 24, 2019 4:30 – 6 p.m.

Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute True North Classroom, Stephen Robert ’62 Hall 2 8 0 B R O O K ST R E E T 111 Thayer Street

TIFFANY DING / HERALD

Lime Scooters left Providence this past Friday after launching in November of 2018.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | TODAY

CA L E N DA R

5

FLOW ER P OW ER

TODAY Starting a Thesis 12:00 P.M. Page-Robinson Hall

IPP: Agile Data and Decision Science @ Citizens 12:00 P.M. 164 Angell Stret

Dean in the Commons 5:00 P.M. Engineering Research Center

Tea Time with Association for Women in Mathematics 5:00 P.M. 170 Hope Street

TOMORROW Assertive Speaking 9:00 A.M. South Street Landing

Worksheets Basics 10:00 A.M. Watson Center for Information Technolgy

Brown’s BIG Fall Career Fair 11:00 A.M. 235 Hope Street

Brown Veterans Network Lunch 12:00 P.M. Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs

S U D O KU

REBECCA HO / HERALD

Students are enjoying the last weeks of greenery and warm weather before cooler temperatures settle in.

Many flock to the Main Green for studying, frisbee, puppies and more.

C L A RI F I CAT I ON

CR O S SWO R D

A previous version of the September 23 article titled “University students host national Jewish conference” quoted Hal Triedman ‘20.5 as “lead coordinator” for the JOOOT Conference. In fact, he was one organizer, and Elisheva Goldberg ’22 was the lead coordinator. The Herald regrets the error.

C O RRECTI ON A previous version of the September 23 article titled “University students host national Jewish conference” incorrectly named the Boston-based Jewish community group oriented toward social justice as “Moishe Kavod House.” In fact, the group is known as “Kavod House.” The Herald regrets the error.

Q U OTE OF TH E DAY

“A democracy can’t function without a free and reliable flow of information, so I think we as a society need to grapple with how we are going to ensure that.”

-- A.G. Sulzberger ’03 SEE SULZBERGER PAGE 1

6

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

Toward a more personal disunion

BY REID SECONDO STAFF COLUMNIST 1960’s essayist Joan Didion had it right: the center is not holding. It is a country of bankrupt farms and presidential Twitter tirades and commonplace mass shootings. It is a country where families are broken by opioid abuse and today’s children may never learn the social norms that have held society together without the use of a screen. Some people are left behind from the economic and social progress of the past decade; others are frustrated with the lack of economic and social progress of the past decade.

People are weary of institutionalized privilege and power; others fear a changing demographic landscape. Read the Huffington Post and it is a country under enemy siege from within its communities. Follow Fox News and it is a country under enemy siege from foreign aliens.

This is the United States of America in the early fall of 2019 — the market is steady, the GDP is high and it could be a time of brave hope and national promise — but it is not, and everyone from MAGA Moms to Bernie Bros knows that.

Plagiarizing and modifying Didion’s introduction to her famed collection of essays “Slouching Toward Bethlehem” demonstrates that no matter time nor place, domestic dysfunction is an enduring aspect of the modern American experience. Discussing the root causes of such disunity and its propagation since

the 1960s is more deserving of an erudite political science treatise than a meager opinions column. However, what is most troubling of this cultural norm in its current state is the expanse of the political chasm and how the divide infests all aspects of society.

Americans today feel more divided than at any point in our country’s recent history. We stand on natural fault lines of race, religion,

cy-based division and traditional points of difference are becoming increasingly secondary to psychological partisanship. It’s not just about taxes anymore, its personal.

Political affiliation is now firmly rooted in social identity and interpersonal behavior. Ingroup favoritism and out-group animosity are now commonly practiced, thanks to decades of conditioning from the forces that guide pub-

“When we ascribe morality and values to an individual based on their political affiliation, tolerance and connectivity suffer.”

socioeconomic class and geography that have seismically grown in severity; party apparatus, political elites and media have reinforced and capitalized on this drift. As tracked by Pew Research, not only has the gap in ideological stances between the Democrats and Republicans grown over the decades, but adherence to the relative extremes within the two-party system has strengthened. These trends are not new, but how the extremism extends beyond ideology is the more recent phenomenon. Poli-

lic opinion. True believers rooted in each party’s center of gravity view not only the opposing collective camp as an existential threat to the nation, but also to any individual person.

Dislike for a person because of their political persuasion has blossomed as Americans build ideological echo chambers with an increasingly restrictive criterion.

Fear of the other is hardly a novel feature of American society. Five decades ago, Didion decried the false fears of war hawks and cul-

ture warriors of the 1960s: “It was not a country in open revolution. It was not a country under enemy siege.” Filtering out the ideas and people that challenge us furthers isolation and reinforces extremism. Personal dislike has resulted in moral polarization, where behavioral hostility is based on moral differences over what is right and what is wrong, precluding the possibility of civil debate. When we ascribe morality and values to an individual based on their political affiliation, tolerance and connectivity suffer. Hate crimes and politically-motivated violence are on the rise in America; one only has to look back to the Aug. 3 El Paso terrorist shooting driven by Hispanophobia and flamed by the President’s spoken venom.

The devolution into tribalism and genuflection to identity dogma will continue to erode society, community and civic virtue. A reversion to the mean is needed to rebalance and rebuild our social fabric and governing institutions. But there is solace to be found in Didion’s elegy of American virtue. “All that seemed clear,” she writes, “was that at some point we had aborted ourselves and butchered the job.” The unrest of the 1960s gave way to social progress, a reminder that periods of change do not come without conflict.

Reid Secondo ’16 GS can be reached at reid_secondo@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com

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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

SULZBERGER FROM PAGE 1 preciated how grounded (journalistic writing) was.”

“So much of academic writing is about making ideas more complicated and finding bigger words to describe things, and journalistic writing is the exact opposite,” Sulzberger said in an interview with The Herald. Where academic essays require large, multisyllabic words, journalism encourages concise, clear writing — something which made sense to Sulzberger. Quickly, he became enamored with journalism as a “profession that exists in the context of the world as it is, and seeks to interrogate that.”

Six months after Sulzberger graduated from the University with a degree in political science, Breton encouraged Sulzberger to apply for an internship at the Providence Journal, where he went on to cover the town of Narragansett until 2006. “My job was to chronicle every part of life there,” Sulzberger said. In order to thoroughly cover the town, Sulzberger attended city council meetings, covered incoming and outgoing businesses and called the police each morning to find out if anything had happened overnight — thoroughly embedding himself in the fabric of the community.

A new journalistic climate 13 years later, the Providence

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS Journal has witnessed tremendous, shrinking change. All eleven of its local bureaus — including Sulzberger’s Narragansett office — have closed, and the paper’s staff size has been significantly reduced. Across the nation, jobs like Sulzberger’s first Narragansett post “have largely disappeared, and are leaving really profound vacuums of information and accountability.”

“A democracy can’t function without a free and reliable flow of information, so I think we as a society need to grapple with how we are going to ensure that,” Sulzberger said. The Times has worked to make notes on its strategy accessible to leaders of other media outlets, he said in his lecture. But it remains unclear if smaller venues can survive using the same model, one largely based on subscriptions.

Beyond the challenges facing journalism as an industry are international and domestic risks that threaten the very integrity of the free press.

Since the 2016 election, President Donald Trump has included the phrase “fake news” in 600 tweets, Sulzberger said. Beyond its significant impact on voters — who find themselves confined to “filter bubbles,” Sulzberger said — Trump’s rhetoric has influenced international leaders.

Sulzberger said that he and a colleague researched the spread of the phrase “fake news” and found that in the past few years, more than 50 world

leaders — from U.S. rivals and allies — have declared information “fake news.”

This characterization of the media, Sulzberger warned, has had detrimental effects on the safety of journalists around the world.

“I am going to tell you a story that I have not before shared publicly,” Sulzberger said, describing a call the Times received two years ago from a U.S. government official, warning that New York Times journalist Declan Walsh was in danger of being arrested in Egypt. While Sulzberger said the call itself was not unusual — tips of that kind are relatively common — “this particular call took a surprising and distressing turn.”

The official made it clear that they were reaching out without the permission of the Trump administration, and that the Trump administration might allow the arrest to occur without notifying the Times. Walsh’s native country, Ireland, was able to send diplomats to escort him to safety.

While journalists have always faced inherent risks — entering war zones, reporting on the corruption of powerful leaders, often running toward conflict instead of away from it — Sulzberger emphasized that “last year was the most dangerous year on record to be a journalist, with dozens killed, hundreds imprisoned and untold thousands harassed and threatened.”

Journalists face more dangers than ever before in part due to the current

political hostility toward their work, he said during the lecture. “Media isn’t perfect. We make mistakes, we have blind spots, we sometimes drive people crazy.” Still, “the free press is foundational to a healthy democracy — and arguably the most important tool we have as citizens.”

Journalism in the digital age Despite the threats facing journalists, publications like the Times persist and continue to innovate.

In 2014, Sulzberger authored the New York Times Innovation Report, an internal memo discussing the digital and multi-media future of the New York Times. The 96-page report, which was subsequently leaked and posted on Buzzfeed News, detailed the ways in which the Times was failing to adapt to the new digital-media landscape — and needed to change quickly. “It basically said, we’ve been holding not just the future at arm’s length, but the present at arm’s length,” Sulzberger said during the lecture.

Since the report was released five years ago, Sulzberger has continued to ask himself about the future of the changing Times. “If our mission is enduring — seek the truth and help people understand the world — what are the different ways in which we must act to best serve that mission?”

One such innovation is the Times’ “The Daily,” one of the most listened

7 to podcasts in the U.S., according to Podtrac. “The Daily is totally consistent with the best standards of New York Times journalism; it’s smart, it’s original, it’s deeply reported. … It’s personal, it’s almost intimate, you are hearing from reporters in a much more unfiltered, unguarded way,” Sulzberger told The Herald.

The 1619 project, which dove deep into the 400th anniversary of American slavery through words, photo essays and interactive media, further exemplified the Times’ push for new and important storytelling. This philosophy even extends to how the Times staffs its urgent and relevant desks. For example, Sulzberger explained that the Times’ climate desk is capable of “doing the most creative, ambitious, important work on climate change” because it is led by Hannah Fairfield, a journalist with a background in multimedia storytelling.

Sulzberger believes that none of the work in his newsroom truly holds value unless news consumers like Brown students place value on original, independent journalism. “None of these efforts will make a difference unless all of you raise your voice. Care about where your news comes from, and how it is made,” he said near the conclusion of his lecture.

8

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

UNIVERSITY NEWS

University’s Breakthrough-Lab supports student ventures Summer program provides funding, workspace, mentorship to student entrepreneurs

BY ROSE HOUGLET CONTRIBUTING WRITER For eight weeks over the summer, student entrepreneurs gathered in the workspaces and lecture halls of the new Jonathan M. Nelson Center For Entrepreneurship to work on venture projects through the Breakthrough-Lab program.

B-Lab — a summer program that supports students’ entrepreneurial projects — will close out its fifth annual cycle with a student showcase event Wednesday.

“The intention (of B-Lab is) to provide an opportunity for students to chase a venture of their own creation in a full-time capacity,” said Jason Harry, director of B-Lab. As part of the venture-support branch of the Nelson Center, the program also connects students to sector-specific mentors and provides a $4,000 stipend to cover living costs for the summer in Providence.

This year, the program supported 14 ventures, staying in line with previous participation rates of 12 to 16 projects, Harry said.

B-Lab participants included undergraduate students, graduate students and students from the Rhode Island School of Design. A selection committee comprised of entrepreneurs and alums chose student ventures in the winter, narrowing down applicants from more than 30 ventures to the final cohort, Harry said.

Projects ranged from medicine and education to food and sustainability.

This diversity reflects the Nelson Center’s broader definition of entrepreneurship as “a structured process for problem-solving,” said Danny Warshay ’87 P’20 P’23, executive director of the Nelson Center. “All of (the 14 pitches) are focused on solving important problems. They’re using the entrepreneurial process” to identify unmet needs, build small-scale solutions and eventually

COURTESY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

The University’s Breakthrough-Lab moved into the new Jonathan M. Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship this summer. The B-Lab program provided a stipend, workspace and mentorship for 14 student ventures this summer. “develop a higher-impact solution at scale.”

B-Lab focuses on both professional and personal development with the primary goal of educating students rather than just providing funding, Harry said.

“This is the wonderful thing about an accelerator operating within a University with students,” he added. “We get to count success if students’ lives are changed, and we get to count success if a venture actually matures to the point where it can actually continue on to the real world.”

This summer marked B-Lab’s first time in the new Nelson Center building.

“Being in the (Nelson) Center gave us the opportunity to provide the ventures dedicated space that was really built for

that purpose,” Harry said.

Participants emphasized both the collaborative and independent aspects of the space. “Words cannot describe how much I like it,” said Amy Wang ’19 GS, a masters student in political science and founder of the tutoring venture SelectEd. “You have access to support almost every weekday. Also, you have a community of student entrepreneurs.”

Karina Bao ’22, the founder of a superfood venture called Lila, said that B-Lab helped her understand her venture’s customers. “Over the summer, we were able to meet local Providence retailers to get to know them a little better and how they decide what new products to bring,” she said.

Other B-Lab participants noted the value of working with sector-specific mentors, many of whom continue working with students after the program ends.

Students also said they experienced growth in a wide range of personal skills, particularly communication and confidence.

“I knew that going into this was going to stretch me in terms of personal but also professional development,” said Francesca Raoelison ’20, a RUE student and founder of OMENA, a nonprofit that teaches students social and emotional learning.

“I think I became a much better communicator,” Bao added. “Our team doubled from two to four, and I thought

a lot about leadership. I thought a lot about what it means to lead by example, to give sacrifices to create a more balanced lifestyle, and to build better habits.”

Participants expressed excitement about the opportunities that may arise after this year’s program. The founders of the medical venture Resuscitech­— Abigail Kohler ’20 and Greg Fine ’20 — hope to work on their venture full-time after graduation. Kohler, a biomedical engineering concentrator, and Fine, an electrical engineering concentrator, designed a “real-time CPR feedback device” that helps rescuers know how much force they should be administering during chest compressions, Fine said.