Wednesday, October 25, 2017

SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2017

VOLUME CLII, ISSUE 93

WWW.BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM

BUCC members discuss staff concerns Greg Asbed ’85 named

MacArthur Fellow

Asbed’s ’85 work with farmers rights earns him $625,000 grant to go toward his organization

By DYLAN CLARK CONTRIBUTING WRITER

JASMINE RUIZ / HERALD

Disconnect between faculty and staff has created frustration among University employees. Only 52 percent of staff respondents to a 2016 University staff climate survey felt they were treated with respect by faculty.

Paxson led discussion on campus culture, work environment for U. staff during council meeting

By ANNA KRAMER SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Resistance to change, lack of respect and few opportunities for job advancement characterize the work environment for University staff, said several members of the Brown University Community Council and

Staff Advisory Council during Tuesday’s BUCC meeting.

Led by President Christina Paxson P’19, the discussion on campus culture centered primarily around what most attendees expressed to be an inhibitive, “exhausting” and “inequitable” environment for staff members. Since a spring 2016 staff climate survey that “indicated only 52 percent of respondents felt they were treated with respect by faculty,” the University has moved to qualitatively study staff climate and further address the issues highlighted in the

survey data, The Herald previously reported.

Respect may mean different things to different people, said one staff member. The names of all staff members have been kept anonymous as a condition of reporting on the meeting.

“Some people might see respect as, … ‘You respect my authority,’ whereas other people see respect as ‘you respect me as a person,’” added another discussion participant.

Because faculty and staff get busy » See BUCC, page 3

Greg Asbed ’85 was recently named one of this year’s 24 MacArthur Fellows. The achievement, often referred to as the “genius grant,” comes with an award of $625,000 spread over five years. The money is awarded based on three main criteria: “exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishments (and) potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work,” according to the MacArthur Foundation website.

The MacArthur Fellows Program has been active since 1981. Approximately 1,000 people have been recognized as MacArthur Fellows, 19 of whom have been affiliated with the University. Each fellow is nominated by individuals selected by the foundation. Approximately 2,000 nominees are further reviewed by a selection board before the final few are chosen and notified of their award.

Asbed received the call notifying

him of the award the day before Hurricane Irma hit Florida, and he “was busy screwing plywood over our windows when it came in, which made it all the more surreal,” Asbed wrote in an email to The Herald.

Though the money was granted directly to Asbed, he plans on funneling all of the funds into the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the organization he founded over two decades ago.

The CIW is a “farmworker-based human rights organization” that, through advocacy, corporate campaigns, antislavery investigations and community organizing, addresses the human rights crises in the agricultural industry, Asbed wrote. His wife, Laura Germino ’84, directs the organization’s anti-slavery program.

In 2011, the CIW — located in Immokalee, Florida — developed a corporate responsibility campaign called the Fair Food Program. The FFP has partnered with 14 multi-billion dollar companies — including McDonald’s, Walmart and Whole Foods, among others — that require their produce suppliers to implement a human-rights-based code of conduct. In addition, these companies agree to pay an extra penny per pound of produce purchased from suppliers, which » See MACARTHUR, page 2

Today@Brown replaces Club teaches self-defense, acrobatics, dance Capoeira Club holds three Morning Mail training sessions per week, New email digest introduces prioritization, interactive features, analytic capabilities

By ANNA KRAMER SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Today@Brown, the University’s new daily digest, arrived in the email inboxes of all community members this morning, ending the nearly 14-year era of its predecessor — Brown Morning Mail.

The new email communication includes interactive features, analytics to track usage and performance and a hierarchy of prioritized emails, among other changes, said Vice President for Communications Cass Cliatt. All of these features were absent from Morning Mail, which partially drove the impetus to create a replacement.

The email and website are “now better suited for a phone,” as events are listed in chronological order and important events and announcements are prioritized at the beginning of the digest, said Joel Pattison, director of web and digital

INSIDE

communications strategy.

The new analytics will allow the Today@Brown team to measure how often recipients open the email, the popularity of various events and announcements and even “what has traction in terms of the way people write headlines,” Cliatt said.

The digest is a “pilot program” that will quickly evolve with community feedback, she added. Through a process called “agile development,” the team will incorporate community responses into immediate system updates, as well as discuss and identify more long-term changes. A submission form soliciting responses to Today@Brown will be available in the footer of the digest’s website, Cliatt and Pattison said.

“I see the entire Brown community as part of our team. There will be several thousand students and others helping us to make it better,” said Ravi Pendse P’17, vice president for computing and information services and chief information officer. “What you see three or four months from now will be a much more enhanced version of what you will see » See TODAY@BROWN, page 2

teaching Afro-Brazilian style of self-defense

By ANNABELLE WOODWARD CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Thursday night, in Studio 2 of the Nelson Fitness Center, the Brown Capoeira Club held an open practice in hopes of attracting new members and showcasing their craft to the Brown community.

Fusing combat, acrobatics and dance into a dynamic, culturally reverent artform that is practiced all over the world, capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian form of self-defense that sets elaborate fighting maneuvers to music, noted club instructor Donnie Senna, who is known to his students as “Tatu.” Still in conversation with its roots as a form of “martial arts that was disguised as a dance by slaves” in 16th-century Brazil, capoeira at Brown exists as more than an art form, but rather as a powerful means of cultural expression, Senna said.

ARTS & CULTURE

MARIANNA MCMURDOCK / HERALD

Donnie Senna, the Capoeira Club’s instructor, splits his time working with a professional group in Warwick and the University’s club.

An expert practitioner of his craft, Tatu splits time between training with Grupo Ondas, a professional capoeira group in Warwick, and overseeing the club at Brown. With eight active members, the Brown Capoeira Club holds training sessions three times a week and welcomes novice walk-ins — no

dance or combat experience is necessary to participate in practices. Tatu prides himself on fostering a tight-knit community where capoeira enthusiasts feel comfortable leaving their worries outside of the studio, he said. “It’s pretty fun,” Tatu added. “The kids have a good » See CAPOEIRA, page 3

WEATHER

WEDNESDAY, OC TOBER 25, 2017

ARTS & CULTURE Podcasters discuss creating original programming, personal nature of audio medium

ARTS & CULTURE ‘3C2C’ program displays studentproduced plays featuring diverse range of themes

COMMENTARY Okin ’19: Writing for the public sphere helps present student perspective, self-discovery

COMMENTARY Oke ’20: Social media can dilute the objectives of movements like the #MeToo campaign

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NEWS

PAGE 2 • WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2017

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

» TODAY@BROWN, from page 1 Wednesday.”

A survey will be launched in November to encourage further feedback, Pattison said.

Data from more than a year of research indicated several problems with Morning Mail and internal communications more generally, Cliatt said. University communications were fragmented, and as a result, students were often overwhelmed by the quantity and delivery of information. Many students also felt “FOMO, or fear of missing out,” on events and important information, she said.

And the most common complaint?

“Too much email,” she said.

To address this concern, the new priority announcements section of the digest “gets rid of haphazard, one-off emails,” such as letters from the Dean of the College, concentration deadline reminders and other similar communications. “We think at least 700 emails will now be deferred to Today@Brown,” Cliatt said.

“Prioritization” will allow community members to receive all of their important information in one place, ensuring they do not miss critical communications, Pendse said.

The prioritization will be customizable in subsequent iterations of the Today@Brown design, though certain items are permanent, he added.

The first phase includes a continuation of Morning Mail’s “segmentation,” said Brian Clark, director of news and editorial development. “Segmentation” means that 18 different versions of Today@Brown will be sent to different

subsets of the community. For example, the email for first-years could include different items than the email for medical students, and the priority items differ across subsets.

Conversations about improving internal campus communications began about two and a half years ago, coinciding with the time Cliatt arrived at the University. The University partnered with Huge Inc. — a digital design and strategy firm — to assess its “digital ecosystem” in spring 2016, and the communications office assisted in collecting data from focus groups and performing qualitative surveys, she said.

Because University communications oversees Morning Mail, Cliatt’s office worked in partnership with Computing and Information Services to develop solutions and create an interface that could replace Morning Mail, she said.

The project team included the Office of University Communications, CIS, Chief Digital Advisor Ciaran Bossom and the Huge Inc. design team. The “bulk of the project was done in partnership” between Cliatt and Pendse’s offices, Cliatt said.

“Morning Mail is the thing that people love to hate,” Cliatt said. “We also hear from alumni … that the day that they are no longer part of the Brown community, they (know it) because they wake up and check their email, and there is no longer Morning Mail.”

While Today@Brown will be a different experience from Morning Mail, the “daily digest … is very much part of our culture” and will remain so, she said.

COURTESY OF THE MACARTHUR FOUNDATION

Greg Asbed ’85 plans to channel the funds from the grant into the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworkerbased human rights organization located in Immokalee, Florida, that he founded.

» MACARTHUR, from page 1 go directly into the farmers’ paychecks, according to the CIW’s website.

The FFP has “put a stop to longstanding abuses like violence against women, wage theft and even forced labor in the Florida tomato industry,” Asbed wrote.

The program has been adopted by other groups along the U.S. east coast and is “expanding into strawberries and other crops, covering 35,000 (people) with its groundbreaking protections,” he added.

“Brown graduates make transformative contributions that build understanding, influence policy and advance important movements that are shaping the world,” wrote Brian Clark, University spokesperson, in an email to The Herald. “The work by … Greg Asbed and Laura Germino … is among the most extraordinary examples of this — the MacArthur Fellowship is testament to

the tremendous impact they have had advocating for the rights to fair working conditions for farm laborers.”

Asbed’s work has been influenced in “a very round-about way” by his time at Brown, he wrote.

Graduating with a degree in Neuroscience, Asbed planned on joining the field after college. His education instilled in him the “willingness to throw a beloved theory, or ideology or methodology away and to focus only on what actually works, (which) is a hallmark of the hard sciences, but not so much of the field of social change,” Asbed said.

His plans changed after he spent three years in Haiti working for the Papaye Peasant Movement, a grass-roots organization that aims to support workers and reduce their dependency on outside aid.

Asbed cited the story of his grandmother, who survived the Armenian Genocide, as another reason for his

passion toward human rights.

“Through her struggle to survive that nightmare, she managed not only to pass her DNA down to me but also a deep and abiding appreciation for the importance of universal human rights,” he wrote.

Asbed was nominated as a MacArthur Fellow by Kerry Kennedy ’81 P’17 P’20, president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights — an organization that provides assistance to other human rights groups around the world. They worked together after the CIW won the RFK Human Rights Award in 2003.

“We were so deeply impressed by the transformational work that … they were doing to empower farmworkers,” Kennedy said.

RFK Human Rights went on to help the CIW secure partnerships for the FFP. “I’ve marched with them all over the country,” Kennedy added.

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2017 • PAGE 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

TIFFANY DING / HERALD

Hosts of podcasts like “This American Life,” which reaches an audience of over 2 million people, discussed various best practices in podcasting, including being able to cater to public and private listeners at the same time.

Panelists discuss working with sound Podcast hosts, sound artists talk intersection of entrepreneurship, art in podcasting

By LYDIA DEFUSTO CONTRIBUTING WRITER

“I had a bad experience (that is) haunting me,” said Torey Malatia in his opening remarks Monday, Oct. 23 at the “Sound Ideas: Close Listening, Podcasting, and The New Radio” event, which was co-sponsored by the Brown Arts Initiative and Jonathan M. Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship. Malatia is the current Rhode Island Public Radio general manager, president and chief executive office and co-founder of “This American Life,” a weekly podcast with about 2.2 million listeners, according to its website.

“I discovered that there is one thing that the Internet cannot do,” he continued. The internet, according to Malatia, was unable to teach him how to tie the exceptionally long tie that he was wearing.

“What I have just demonstrated is one way to open a podcast … (by) making the audience wonder, ‘What is happening?’” Malatia said, amid widespread chuckles.

In addition to Malatia, panelists included Morra Aarons-Mele ’98, founder of Women Online and creator of podcast “Hiding in the Bathroom”; Alan Nakagawa, an interdisciplinary

» BUCC, from page 1 at different times of the year, misunderstandings of availability and stress level can “make people feel disrespected,” said one participant.

For example, faculty often see the end of the semester as downtime, while facility staff and event planners are often most overworked during that time, he added.

Faculty are never evaluated on how they manage staff, one BUCC member noted.

Support and consideration of outside lives, including commuting, the need for flexibility and professional development, could all add to a more inclusive environment, multiple discussion participants said.

sound artist who works as the artistin-residence at the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, and Sam Harnett and Chris Hoff, founders and hosts of the podcast “The World According to Sound.”

Despite their differing backgrounds, all of the panelists are leaders in thought “who use sound as their artistic and entrepreneurial platform,” said Butch Rovan, director of the Brown Arts Initiative.

The panelists were each given time to introduce themselves and present their experiences and works. Then all five participated in a panel moderated

by Malatia.

Aarons-Mele, who is soon launching a podcast about sexism and patriarchal social structures, insisted that it is crucial to have “a relationship with a listener.” She further explained that she feels like she knows some of her own listeners. “Podcasting is so intimate,” she added.

Harnett and Hoff ’s podcast is “an evocative, unusual sound rendered in intense aural detail,” according to a Jan. 4, 2017 article published by the Washington Post that was cited in the program of the event. During their presentation, they played an excerpt from their first episode, which featured a recording of mud pots. Harnett said that he and Hoff want their show to be a place where people can hear sounds and formulate their own reactions and ideas.

On starting a podcast, Aarons-Mele

said “you have to do it because you are driven to speak your truth.” Harnett advised against making “a knockoff of existing podcasts … you have to be thinking outside of the box,” he added.

During the question-and-answer portion of the event, an audience member asked for the panelists’ takes on the “earbud revolution,” noting that many students use these listening devices. To this, Malatia touched upon a podcaser’s delicate task of “balancing out the desire for some sort of shared social experience … and the power of a private experience.”

After the presentations and panel, Danny Warshay ’87, executive director of the Nelson Center for Entreprenuership took the stage to present about entrepreneurship.

“Our panelists saw a need for something and developed a small solution,” Warshay said, interweaving his expertise with that of the panelists. He then shared some of his experiences and provided tips for aspiring entrepreneurs, highlighting the importance of practicing bottom-up research and finding an unmet need.

Audience member Olivia Katcher ’18, a Herald staff writer, said that both portions of the event emphasized the need to cater to a specific market. An English and history of art and architecture double concentrator who has recently discovered her “entrepreneurial spirit,” Katcher was excited that “both of my passions, entrepreneurship and art … are … colliding.”

“I want Brown to be a place where … everybody wakes up and says, ‘Brown is the place I want to work,’ … and I don’t think we’re quite there,” Paxson said. “We can’t achieve … academic excellence … unless we have an equally excellent organizational structure,” she added. The University often focuses on mentorship for students, but there is little emphasis on mentorship for staff, one staff member said. “If what’s good for staff is good for everyone, mentorship is something that should be available to everybody,” the staff member said.

The need for better manager training was also a recurring theme in the discussion. Several staff members said supervisors can be disrespectful and fail to provide opportunities

for advancement. Staff should “know that their managers are being held accountable for how they manage,” said one staff member.

Professional development also varies across staff departments, another discussion participant said.

Many attendees expressed their discontent with opportunities for advancement and development. “People aren’t being challenged. … (They are) kind of stuck without a lot of growth.

There could be more of a career ladder,” said one staff member.

Some attendees expressed an interest in “permeability,” which would allow staff members to partner with different departments and utilize skills or talents that are otherwise ignored. A strict job hierarchy has

MARIANNA MCMURDOCK / HERALD

Students learned the art of the cartwheel, sparring and shadowboxing in display of martial arts that serves as form of cultural expression.

» CAPOEIRA, from page 1 time.”

But the “good time” descriptor may be an understatement. As old school hip-hop blasted through the studio, setting the tempo for the fast-paced fighting sequences that were about to take place, giddy participants expressed their excitement both vocally and through dynamic movement. When asked about his experience so far, Vanya Cohen GS said, “I didn’t expect to be this sweaty.”

After a round of stretching exercises, the practice split into two groups.

Tatu took Cohen aside and attempted to teach him the art of the cartwheel — a constitutional arrow in every aspiring capoeirista’s acrobatic quiver, Tatu noted. Meanwhile, Tatu’s more experiencedstudents chatted while “sparring” — a form of shadowboxing of sorts in which capoeiristas enact made staff members feel that “access is often not equitable,” said one staff member. When staff lower in the hierarchy have ideas for change, those ideas “seem to get squashed” as they move up the ladder, he added.

“We feel like there are different internal cultures” and staff have widely varying experiences, said a staff member, adding that different experiences create inequity. For example, one manager may give paid vacation for a certain religious holiday, while another may not, she said.

The discussion often touched upon what many see as complex and inefficient bureaucracy. “It’s hard to make change here,” said one discussion participant. “At the same time, there’s a lot of interest in making

the motions of combat without actually making contact with one another. Such intricate maneuvers undoubtedly require a penchant for rhythm, precision and peripheral awareness in the face of Tatu’s technical critique, which often reiterated the importance of fluidity and exactitude. If the capoeiristas weren’t delivering corkscrew-like kicks to the air beside each other’s knees, they were effortlessly vaulting into cartwheels to escape their opponents’ reach. “Stop watching his feet,” he commented in reference to a participant’s sparring method. “You want to keep surprise on your side!”

Club president Lucas Kang ’18 had no dance experience before joining the group, but once he got involved, he was hooked. “It was really interesting because there was more than martial arts involved,” he said. “There was history and culture and I got to know a lot of people.” change.”

While staff members often experience a “complicated and bureaucratic environment,” they also feel highly “creative,” said one staff member, adding that “perhaps one breeds the other.”

At the end of the meeting, Paxson also touched upon this morning’s launch of a new daily digest — called Today@Brown — and the recent arrival of students and scholars from the University of Puerto Rico. Russell Carey ’91 MA’06, executive vice president for planning and policy, noted that staff will move in the first of three waves to new South Street Landing offices in the Jewelry District this weekend.

NEWS

PAGE 4 • WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2017

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

FCC approves WBRU FM signal sale to Christian nonprofit Paxson in communication with station to ask them to consider selling signal to RIPR instead

By KYLE BOROWSKI SENIOR REPORTER

The Federal Communications Commission announced its approval of the transfer of WBRU’s license Tuesday, an unexpected twist that will likely complicate any lingering efforts to avert the sale.

The announcement comes only a day after President Christina Paxson P’19 emailed WBRU staff and board members Monday urging them to consider an alternate plan that would see the station’s signal sold to Rhode Island Public Radio, according to Paxons’ email, obtained

by The Herald.

The FCC-approved sale, a $5.63 million deal that will see the station’s FM signal transferred to the California-based Christian contemporary nonprofit Educational Media Foundation, has proven controversial amongst not only station staff and members of the board, but also

station alums and members of the University administration.

Paxson has been in communication with station members throughout internal debate about the sale, according to various emails between WBRU staff members obtained by The Herald. Before the station voted to continue with the sale, Paxson offered the station a $600,000 direct line of credit from the University and assistance with fundraising, according to internal documents. Monday’s email caps off a months-long effort

by Paxson to prevent the sale of the station. But Brian Clark, director of news and editorial development, wrote in an email to The Herald that Paxson maintains the student leaders’ autonomy and right to selfdetermination.

“RIPR management believes that … (with the public radio’s support), WBRU would be able to benefit from the continued utilization of its spot on the broadcast spectrum in a

sustainable manner,” Paxson wrote in the email to station members. “This is a proposal worthy of your consideration.”

The alternate proposal has been floated as a possibility for some years, said Bill Lichtenstein ’78, a station alum advocating for this proposal. Lichtenstein has been involved in recent efforts to save the station, launching the website SAVEWBRU and discussing the station’s options with representatives from both WBRU and the University.

“The idea was that RIPR could operate the station as a commercial student workshop, and the students could have use of the station to broadcast,” Lichtenstein said, adding that he discussed the issue with Torey Malatia, president, chief executive office and general manager of RIPR, and obtained his support for this possiblity.

Malatia said he initially expressed concern about the financial burden of purchasing the signal but said that the offer of financial aid from the University made the plan feasible. “We don’t need to make money,” Malatia

said. “We just want to help.”

Student station members authorized the sale of the FM signal in April after two rounds of contentious voting, seemingly ending a prolonged debate over the station’s future. Members of the board along with WBRU General Manager Kishanee Haththotuwegama ’19 have been advocating for a sale, and the only alternative considered would have pushed WBRU as a commercial radio station. Lichtenstein’s plan, on the other hand, focuses on WBRU’s nonprofit status, he said.

In a press release announcing the approval, Haththotuwegama praised the approval, calling it a “critical and near-final step in the transfer of the license.”

Though approval makes the sale more likely, it is not yet set in stone.

The Educational Media Foundation has been leasing WBRU’s signal while it awaits approval for a transfer. Even with approval, a transfer cannot be completed until the deal’s closing, said Art Norwalk, a WBRU spokesperson. He added that he did not know when funds from the deal

would be made available for station use.

Lichtenstein has not been deterred by the announcement of the FCC’s approval.

“My understanding is that it is not a done deal until the deal is actually closed, and the station has been saying that could be as late as December,” Lichtenstein wrote in an email to The Herald. “Until that happens, I don’t think it changes anything. It doesn’t change Brown’s or RIPR’s interest in discussing the alternative to selling the station with the board or, more importantly, with the students.”

Paol Keineg A bilingual reading Wednesday, 25 October at 7 pm McCormack Family Theater 70 Brown Street [enter on Fones Alley] sponsored by Literary Arts and French Studies at Brown

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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2017 • PAGE 5

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A post of a gate on Waterman Street near Hope College provides a sturdy contrast to the airy leaves in the background that continue to fall to the grass of the Main Green as autumn is in full swing.

Q U O T E O F T H E D AY

“FOMO, or fear of missing out.”

— Vice President of Communications Cass Cliatt on the effects of Morning Mail

See

today@brown on page 1.

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calendar TODAY OCTOBER MARCH

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Flu Clinics for Students 9:00 A.M. The Underground

Quaker Meeting for Worship 12:00 P.M. J. Walter Wilson, 409

Copyright in the Academy 4:00 P.M. Rockefeller Library, 160

Concentration Fair 7:00 P.M. Sayles Hall Auditorium

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Halloween Blood Drive 11:00 A.M. Nelson Fitness Center, Lobby

Perception & Action Seminar Series 12:00 P.M. Metcalf Research Building, 305

Free Speech on Campus: violence or defence?

12:00 P.M. Salomon, 202

Finding an Internship for First Year Students 5:30 P.M. Barus and Holley, 168

COMMENTARY PAGE 6 • WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2017

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COMMENTARY WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2017 • PAGE 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Write before you like REBECCA OKIN staff columnist

Apparently, many of us college students are graduating with a degree, but without a basic competency: the ability to write. According to the Washington Post, fewer and fewer college students are learning the skills needed to write a strong paper. Social media is partially to blame: With the opportunities to like, follow and retweet, the ability to string sentences together seems useless in expressing our opinions in the 21st-century. However, writing for the public sphere — whether it’s a personal essay or an op-ed — is as important as ever. Developing our personal voices through writing is not only a critical means of self-discovery, but also an exercise in expressing our individuality and generating the narratives that can impact others. The value of cultivating our voices cannot be underestimated. Whether we decide to keep them private or share them with our Facebook friends, the stories we write are crucial to understanding ourselves.

As young students in college, we should treasure the unique perspectives and feelings we’ve got in this moment in our lives. We will never again be 19, wholeheartedly consumed with our calculus homework; we will never again be 20, inspired and confused

and probably revealing too many private emotions in opinions columns.

The voice we develop — how we express ourselves in our speech and in our writing — is sculpted by lives no one else has lived and reflect the totality of our experiences. We ought to pay attention to our voice, so we can use it to make sense of our surroundings. But to cultivate such a voice, we need practice.

The easy “reaction” functions on social media have surely allowed users to feel instant and tangible sup-

us after graduation. If we allow ourselves to consider a “like” or “share” button the end-all of our opinions, we dismiss critical analysis for the laziness of groupthink and fake news.

We forget to interrogate why we believe what we believe and lose interest in discussing complicated issues with others in a respectful, civil way. Perhaps our current climate of political hyperpolarization is propelled in part by the blind agreement encouraged by social media. Without the serious self-reflection enabled by writing, we

around us and understand our own stance on an issue. And if we choose to, we can share our perspectives with the world and impact large numbers of people. To understand how our identities are best revealed in our writing, we can look to a writer not taught in the classic Brown curriculum — specifically, to the words of Marina Keegan. To know Keegan’s story is to know incredible tragedy: Days after graduating from Yale, with a coveted New Yorker position and Brooklyn apartment in front of her,

Writing for the public sphere — whether it’s a personal essay or an oped — is as important as ever. Developing our personal voices through writing is not only a critical means of self-discovery, but it is also an exercise in expressing our individuality and generating the narratives that can impact others. port. However, trouble arises when we “reacters” find ourselves thinking an “angry” emoji can supplant our own, uniquely-expressed response to an issue. This is not to say people should feel required to share their narratives with others, but there is value in fully articulating your thoughts, even if it’s just in a journal. Relying on buttons to express our explicit feelings can lead to blind partisanship, irresponsible citizenship and a lack of preparation for the world that confronts

lose the opportunity to check how we really think about an issue. In short, we lose touch with how feel about the world around us — and hurt our ability to make a difference — when we don’t write.

Instead, we need to consciously develop our voices to combat the convenient appeal of the “agree” or “disagree” binary. When we train ourselves to value writing as an active medium, we become better equipped to positively influence the people

she was killed in a car accident. A prolific writer, Keegan is accordingly memorialized through a selection of her essays and stories, compiled by her family, friends and teachers.

In the introduction to this collection, her professor Anne Fadiman observes Keegan’s writing style: “Marina was 21 and sounded 21 … a (student) who understood that there were few better subjects than being young and uncertain and starry-eyed and frustrated and hopeful.” This comment

encapsulates what I also found so inspiring about Keegan’s words and the philosophy I want to suggest in this column. Our writing represents who we are, and when we don’t care enough to cultivate our voices, we lose critical artifacts of our identities. But when we do take the time to express ourselves, we become better at conveying elements of our identities in social media posts, essays and speeches. And consequently, others will be able to understand us better.

Keegan may not have been writing to change the world, but her thoughtful and authentic voice in her viral essay “The Opposite of Loneliness” — which appeared in Yale’s commencement magazine five days before her death — reached over 1.4 million people.

Before I came to Brown, Keegan didn’t intrigue me because of her “magna cum laude” status or the fact she was studying English, the subject I was also already captivated by. She impacted me because she demonstrated how powerful and important one’s voice is. She taught me the invaluable nature of one’s perspective and the importance of letting it ooze onto the page. Next time you’re trying to confront a difficult issue, refrain from simply clicking “like.” Instead, spend the time to aptly express yourself. You’ll find that it’s worth it.

Rebecca Okin ’19 can be reached at rebecca_okin@brown.edu.

Tired of hashtag activism? #MeToo BAMI OKE staff columnist Things I use Twitter for: political rants, news updates, funny videos, wholesome memes.

Things I do not use Twitter for: combatting sexual assault.

In recent years, social media has become a haven for introverts, celebrities and internet trolls to voice their thoughts in the hope that at least one of their followers will care about what they have to say. Twitter’s far-reaching, public nature has made it one of the main platforms for self-expression and raising awareness of issues, the most recent being the #MeToo campaign against sexual assault. While it has its benefits, social media should not be the primary platform for the #MeToo campaign as activist movements based online can often become trivialized, diverting from their original goals.

Last Sunday, Oct. 15, in the midst of the Harvey Weinstein scandals, actress Alyssa Milano took to Twitter and proposed that victims of sexual assault use the hashtag #MeToo to showcase the appalling magnitude of sexual assault. What ensued was a surge of posts from celebrities, politicians and ordinary people (of all genders) detailing their experiences of abuse on various social media outlets. By the following Tuesday, #MeToo was tweeted over 825,000 times, and posted over 12 million times on Facebook. The company estimated that 45 percent of its users in the United States were friends with someone who had posted a status with the words “me too.”

My initial response when I saw the hashtagged tweets was, “Okay, what now?” I had just skimmed through heartbreaking stories of sexual assault and abuse, and the first thing I wanted to do was think about something else. So I did. Literally with the flick of my thumb, I was reading a completely unrelated tweet about Joe Jonas’ recent engagement to Sophie Turner. I didn’t even think about the campaign again, until I saw an article explaining a “me too” movement had actually been started more than 10 years ago by activist Tarana Burke.

Somalia? With so much exposure to people’s pain, it’s almost natural to become desensitized to human suffering on the internet. When a movement pops up between a surprise picture of puppies and an incoherent tweet from @realDonaldTrump, it’s hard to spread long-term awareness in a way that makes people see sexual assault for the affliction that it really is. Though #MeToo will generate conversation, as any viral hashtag does, reducing the prevalence of rape culture in our society will take more than a trending topic.

While it has its benefits, social media should not be the primary platform for the #MeToo campaign as activist movements based online can often become trivialized, diverting from their original goals.

A black woman’s decade-old movement to support sexually abused women of color had been rebranded and popularized by a famous white woman in less than 24 hours. Shocker.

As an avid Twitter user, I have seen so many serious and important problems shoot to the top of the “trending topics” page, only to be forgotten about a week later. Remember Kenneka Jenkins?

Or the atrocities being committed by al-Shabab in

One may refute this argument by noting the success of campaigns like the #BlackLivesMatter movement, which started on Twitter and Tumblr. The main difference here is that #BlackLivesMatter founders Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi never intended their campaign to be just about social media presence. There was no rallying cry for all black people to publicize their trauma — the first #BlackLivesMatter tweets were

in response to Trayvon Martin’s untimely death. If every black person in America had simply decided to tweet “me too,” the #BlackLivesMatter movement would not have nearly the impact that it did.

Before, during and after the campaign, BLM activists have worked tirelessly offline to address the same issues of racism, mass incarceration and police brutality that they posted about on social media. #BlackLivesMatter has since evolved into an international activist organization with multiple local chapters and educational programming.

Social media was also effectively used by demonstrators during the Arab Spring. In 2011, Facebook was so instrumental in the protests against former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak that one man even named his daughter after the platform. Similarly to the #BlackLivesMatter movement, online communities affected by the Arab Spring helped spread the word about the liberation efforts happening offline. Instead of solely focusing on the internet, these campaigns were used to facilitate hands-on activism, which is more likely to lead to long-term change.

Outlets like Twitter and Facebook can work well because of their ability to amplify voices — anyone, almost anywhere, can get their message across through social media. But the brevity of internet trends makes it almost impossible for us to foster permanent change. As nice as it would be, we can’t expect to eliminate rape culture from our society in 140 characters or less.

Bami Oke ’20 can be found tweeting about her spectacular life at @bamioke_ and can be reached by email (in the form of memes only) at bamidele_oke@brown.edu.

ARTS & CULTURE THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2017

Production of ‘Waiting for Godot’ impresses with humor, soliloquy Counter-Production Theatre Company showcased intimacy in space, conversation

By CONNOR SULLIVAN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” stands as one of the dramatic world’s most complex works, widely recognized since its 1959 publication for its minimalist plot and thematic absurdities. The now-canonical avantgarde play primarily takes the form of conversations between Estragon and Vladimir, as the duo futilely bide their time for the eponymous Godot to arrive. Comically non-linear and dripping with dark humor, these interactions’ deliberately confusing nature preclude any real plot progression and defy any concise summary.

Rather, they work as hilariously bleak canvases from which viewers might project their own interpretations, be they metaphysical renderings of Godot as an unreliable God or Freudian studies of the self. Though Godot fails to arrive by the play’s conclusion, audiences are left with decidedly more profound gratification when they exit, forced to grapple with the existential themes Beckett poses.

Well-acted and wildly funny, AS220’s Counter-Production Theatre Company’s version of “Waiting for Godot” manages to do the Irish playwright some justice. The production, directed by Valerie Remillard, hits all of Beckett’s comic elements to a tee — a draw that may be in no small part attributed to leads Geoff Leatham and Dan Fischer. Playing Estragon and Vladimir respectively, the pair complement each other well, readily exchanging high degrees of wit and slapstick violence. Fischer and

COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

AS220’s Counter Production Theatre Company’s “Waiting for Gadot,” was a rendition of Samiel Beckett’s original work that emulated his comedic elements thanks to the performances of the Company’s two leads.

Leatham’s dramatic dexterity more than compensate for the existential languor of the play, especially for the less philosophically-inclined members of the audience. Leatham, capable of animatedly moving from the crestfallen to the ecstatic, demonstrates a range of expression and delivery particularly deserving of commendation.

The two actors are intermittently joined by an opposing pair comprising

Steven Zailskas and Stevie Smith, who play Pozzo and his mute minion Lucky.

Functioning as more active foils to the passive couple of Estragon and Vladimir who resign themselves to waiting for Godot by a tree stump, Pozzo and Lucky are domineering and relentlessly comic forces. As Pozzo, Zailskas brashly delivers his lines and interrogates Estragon and Vladimir like some cartoonish and

flamboyant supervillain. All the while, he oscillates between eating chicken and whipping Lucky. Even as Pozzo ostensibly turns blind in act two, Zailskas never loses sight of the character’s excitable and restless demeanor.

But the honor of the production’s most impressive performance goes to Smith. Otherwise tongue-tied for the duration of the play, Smith as Lucky

launches into a soliloquy at the end of Act One, which surely knocked out a couple audience members at Saturday’s showing. Lucky’s sole lines as they appear in this soliloquy are often cited as one of the play’s apical moments, starting out as some philosophical rumination before blurring into inscrutable absurdity in a prime instance of the play’s frustratingly fascinating ambiguity. Smith conveys the soliloquy with real technical complexity, spitting out rapid-fire prosody without even a moment’s breath like a French absurdist seized by the Golden Age of hip-hop.

Connor Remillard Myette executes another standout performance as a comparatively minor character, delivering the news of Godot’s continual delays with a grave tone.

The simple and bare-bones set design, comprising only a starkly towering tree and a stump, accentuates the minimalist merits of Godot and plays to AS220’s tiny Black Box theater’s strengths. Audiences members’ seats circumscribe the stage on three sides, emulating what it must feel like to observe Pamplona’s running-of-thebulls as unrestrained chaos unfolds within a pinky’s reach of the crowd. A few times throughout the show, Pozzo even grazed against some crowd members’ feet, to the terror of some unsuspecting children in attendance. Such intimacy would be difficult to replicate at venues larger than the Black Box Theatre and underscores the contained and claustrophobic craziness of the five-character slow-burn that is “Waiting for Godot.”

Indeed, Counter-Production’s iteration of Beckett’s work permits audiences to enjoyably suspend their rational faculties for the play’s nearly three-hour running time. Off the walls with deft performances by the whole cast, “Waiting for Godot” should be on anyone’s list of stellar home-grown Providence theater.

‘3C2C’ show features student-directed plays Six plays invited newcomers to present stories of superheroes, post-apocalyptic settings

By JACOB ALABAB-MOSER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Lights come on to spotlight a masked individual, clad in all black, who repeatedly kicks a large box in the center of the stage for seemingly a whole minute. How is an audience supposed to react to such a spectacle? Some audience members laughed nervously at the initial absurdity before the rest of the cast declared themselves as the “Triumphant Threesome,” a group of unintimidating amateur superheroes ready to stop the menacing villain already on stage.

The audience’s response of disorientation and delightful surprise was the cornerstone of Production Workshop’s “3C2C,” which included six short plays written and directed by students, staged Friday through Monday in the Downspace.

As implied by the production’s title “3C2C,” playwrights and directors were challenged to incorporate three chairs and two cubes into their

sets. Though this served as a defining commonality between works, it’s hard to draw comparisons between the plays. The productions spanned across genres, from comedy to drama, and presented different, often absurd scenarios. This constant shift in material kept the audience amused, even during segments that fell short of their desired effect. The breadth of progressive topics, ranging from the difficulties of queer love to the complexities of grief, reflected the diverse themes created by the student playwrights.

Passion was successfully displayed on stage with many emotionally charged performances, such as Christien Hernandez ’21 portrayal of Jake, a young man who becomes angry and fearful upon discovering he could have contracted HIV, in “House of Virgina.”

Generally, the most successful and moving plays demonstrated elements of drama and comedy that worked in tandem. The last in the program, “Crystal & Applesauce,” written by Samantha Crausman ’19 and directed

by Beth Pollard ’21, featured three teenage girls trying to make light of their three-year entrapment in a bunker they entered in preparation for

the 2012 apocalypse. It was difficult not to laugh as the most enthusiastic of the three, Hannah, played by Juliet Norvig ’18, persistently recreated different holidays in their sparse setting using their few belongings, particularly applesauce, to combat the group’s fatigue. Norvig and her co-stars impressively conveyed a self-awareness of the futility of their efforts, as they knew that their food supply would soon run out. Nonetheless, the performance ended on a hopeful note when the audience heard the bunker door creak open, and the girls looked up, hoping to finally have been found.

Many of the playwrights, directors, actors and stage crew had little to no experience working in the theater at Brown prior to “3C2C.” The participants ranged from first-years to seniors who wanted a chance to get involved at PW before they graduate, said Raphaela Posner ’18, who directed “Lauren, the Last Dinosaur, a Friendly Dilophosaurus.”

“It’s empowering to see the commitment people bring,” said Gavin Petty ’21, director of “A Dead Dog.” “Everyone tries so much harder because they want to be there.”

One of the most influential economists of our time addresses climate change, unemployment, financial regulation, the moral limits of markets, digitization, and why most people don't like economics A conversation with Glenn Loury, Merton P. Stoltz Professor of Economics

Friday, October 27th 5:00-6:30pm Salomon, Room 001 79 Waterman St.