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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2022
VOLUME CLVII, ISSUE 12
METRO
BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM
UNIVERSITY NEWS
Nonprofit complaint targets city lead pipes
The Underground changes supplier, prices
EPA will determine whether program discriminates against low-income residents
Student-run coffee shop reopens, looks to break even in spring semester
BY CHARLIE CLYNES SENIOR STAFF WRITER
BY EMILY FAULHABER SENIOR STAFF WRITER
The Environmental Protection Agency is set to rule on a first-of-its-kind complaint filed last month, which alleges that a Providence lead pipe replacement program violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Written and submitted by a coalition of nonprofits led by the Childhood Lead Action Project and assisted by the Environmental Defense Fund, the complaint could set a precedent for similar actions in cities across the country, according to advocates in the coalition. The program in question provides free replacement of lead pipes extending up to a home’s property line while requiring homeowners to cover the cost of replacing pipes that lie on the property itself. According to Providence Water, the average replacement cost has been $3,800, though costs vary significantly depending on each house’s circumstanc-
CYNTHIA ZHANG / HERALD
es. The coalition of nonprofits argues that the costs of replacement, which a CLAP analysis found to be up to $4,500, may be difficult for people in low-income communities — which are often also communities of color — to afford. The coalition also includes the South Providence Neighborhood Association, Direct Action for Rights and Equality and the National Center for Healthy Housing. There are “approximately 26,600 pri-
vate side lead services” in Providence Water’s distribution, Greg Giasson, deputy general manager at Providence Water, previously told The Herald. The city created the partial replacement program to address this need, and homeowners can also opt into a 10-year loan to alleviate the financial burden of fully replacing their lead service lines, said Devra Levy
SEE PIPES PAGE 4
The Underground reopened Feb. 7 to welcome students back for the spring 2022 semester while introducing some new changes. Located in the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center, the student-operated coffee shop aims to offer cheaper coffee and tea alternatives to other storefronts on College Hill. While the Underground was closed throughout 2020 and much of 2021, it reopened in the middle of the fall semester. Still, it has taken some time for the cafe to “get back on its feet,” manager Chloe Khosrowshahi ’22.5 said. While the cafe spent more money than it brought in last semester, managers are “optimistic” that it will return to pre-pandemic revenue lev-
els this semester. “We have a lot of (cash) reserves, so thankfully we have had that as kind of a safety net,” Khosrowshahi said. To increase revenue for this semester, the Underground has introduced new initiatives and made changes to their food service operations, manager Janey Litvin ’22 and Khosrowshahi said. The most significant change is a switch in the coffee itself: After supplying from George Howell Coffee in Newton, Mass. since its opening, the Underground now gets its beans from Bolt Coffee, a local establishment with shops both on College Hill and in Downtown Providence. “They (have) really high quality, locally roasted beans, and we’re trying to support other small businesses through sourcing our products through them,” Khosrowshahi said. The Underground and Bolt had a previously established relationship: In the past, an employee from Bolt
SEE UNDERGROUND PAGE 4
SCIENCE & RESEARCH
ARTS & CULTURE
Love Data Week focuses on data misinformation
‘Belfast’ stuns with sharp cinematography
U. celebration of international event highlights data, research on campus BY ANNA KIM SENIOR STAFF WRITER Brown’s 2022 Love Data Week took place last week from Feb. 14 to 18. Sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Research and the University Library, the event, which is part of an annual “international celebration of data,” aims to “raise awareness and build a community to engage on topics related to research data management, sharing, preservation, reuse and library-based research data services,” according to the University’s Love Data Week page. Love Data Week is a time to “highlight faculty and student research related to data that they want to share with the community” and all of the University’s data services, said Andrew Creamer, scientific data management specialist at the University. This year, the theme of International Love Data Week was “data is for
everyone.” Brown was one of a handful of schools that chose their own theme — the University’s was “Demystifying Data: Separating Fact from Fiction.” This theme is a “bit of a continuation from last year on making sure that people understand that not all data is good data, and how to distinguish what is real data from good sources versus not,” said Arielle Nitenson, assistant director of research integrity. The Love Data Week 2022 Planning Committee chose the theme by brainstorming topics that would be “relevant for what we want our community to know about and what is going on in the world,” Nittenson said. “We also want to find something that is broad enough that we can really have a wide range of speakers that will cater to everyone’s interests.” “We’re trying to connect what we’re doing locally to the broader issues facing society around misinformation,” Creamer added, citing the School of Public Health’s work to reduce pandemic misinformation. This year, Love Data Week took place with a hybrid format to include the social, team-building and collab-
SEE DATA PAGE 2
Film documenting conflict in N. Ireland nominated for six Academy Awards RYAN SMITH CONTRIBUTING WRITER It’s surprising to witness director Kenneth Branagh — famous for films like “Hamlet” (1996) and “Henry V” (1989) — create a deeply personal film full of intimate childhood memories. At its core, “Belfast” beats with a slow-thumping pathos that could fill any room with “aws.” The film is compelling without being pedantic, and its synthesis of supple narrative with sharp black-andwhite cinematography saturates it with insight, situating “Belfast” among the year’s best films. A violent conflict between the Catholic and Protestant sects of Northern Ireland — a low level, ethnonationalist war from 1968 to 1998 — serves as the backdrop to the film. Through overheard whispers and peering eyes, the viewer experiences it all from the perspective of nine-year-old Buddy (Jude Hill). Throughout the film, each detail and performance beautifully adds to Branagh’s wistful letter on Belfast to
CYNTHIA ZHANG / HERALD
those who shaped his character. The film’s cast brings breakout stars and Hollywood legends together: Its actors include Judi Dench, Ciarán Hinds, Jamie Dornan, Caitriona Balfe, Jude Hill, Lara McDonnell and Colin Morgan. As the camera climbs into the first scene, color shots of present-day Bel-
S&R
S&R
U. News
Commentary
Researchers use cellular model to study connective tissues Page 3
Discovery in “strange metals” has potential for electronics Page 3
Event discusses private finance’s influence over universities Page 5
Editorial: Wellness Dorm should be treated as a regular dorm Page 7
fast switch to August 1969 in black-andwhite. We’re introduced to Buddy’s world, finding him playing in the streets of an almost satirically close-knit community. Then, something shifts. As an angry mob descends on Buddy’s street, the
SEE BELFAST PAGE 2
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BELFAST FROM PAGE 1 viewer feels helpless, and the cheerful beginning dissolves into chaos. Branagh’s technique conveys Buddy’s experience through frenetic shots and warped audio. Nonetheless, the film never forgets laughter, drinking or the always amusing Irish banter — it addresses the tension between retaining normalcy
their roles with both maturity and experience, making a grandparent’s passing advice all the more convincing and rooting the film in Branagh’s own memories. Propelled by honest performances, the cuts Branagh makes between games of table soccer and the occasional afternoon Molotov cocktail create an undeniably authentic portrait of the time. As unrest builds across Belfast, the community constructs a barricade to
fragile balance between the experiences of a child and the harsher realities that consume Ma and Pa with worry. In another display of Branagh’s filmmaking, an aggressively zoomed shot films a Protestant pastor advising against Catholic ideology. The closeness of the camera brings each word directly to the viewer, connecting them to Buddy’s struggle to recall the pastor’s advice. The pastor’s words are striking
ending of total moral resolution because, in reality, polarizing times are maddeningly ambiguous. Sudden violence reinforces the liminal frontier of Buddy’s world, spanning his street, school and occasionally the nearby candy shop. Still, the possibility of violence does not prevent Buddy from stealing one of the shop’s Turkish delights. Even Buddy’s crush on a girl at
Had the film prioritized the violence sweeping Belfast in place of Buddy’s day-to-day life, any brochure promoting a new life in Australia, Vancouver or other commonwealth nations would feel rational — instead, they feel world crushing. Toward the end, Buddy asks Pa whether or not he has a future with his crush, to which he responds, “that girl could be a vegetarian antichrist …
amid the tumult of the time. Some of the character’s family moments include watching movies at home or in the theater — “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” and “One Million Years B.C.” play in vibrant technicolor. Arguably, Granny (Judi Dench) and Pop (Ciarán Hinds) offer the wisest reflections on familial bonds; when asked about Dench and Hinds, Branagh suggests the two have the “touch of a poet,” where nothing is “flimflam,” according to an ABC News article. The actors flesh out
deter violent aggressors, and Buddy’s parents — known as Ma (Caitriona Balfe) and Pa (Jamie Dornan) — desperately try to hide any suggestion of danger broadcasted on the television or radio from their son. Interestingly, Branagh tightly controls how the audience sees, substituting fear with a childlike sense of discovery from Buddy’s perspective. While one might think such a winsome character might threaten to weaken the film’s complexity, Branagh strikes a
and follow Buddy later in the film as his childlike wonder is shaken with the adult stressor of uncertainty amid decision making. As we progress through the film, ambiguity collapses into chaos. Buddy witnesses a fight without the context of why the men are at odds, and the viewer experiences Buddy’s surprise first-hand — exaggerated by Branagh’s slow-motion knockout editing. Snippets of violence function as parts of the whole: “Belfast” rejects the easy
school (Olive Tennant) feels more important than the ensuing conflict — pointing to the ways we find meaning in turmoil. And, without caring about her religion — Catholicism — the film critiques petty, sectarian conflicts. “Belfast” wastes nothing, and nothing feels overkill. Citing “glossed-over” or “rose-tinted” recollections as a weakness is beside the point. As these scenes show the viewer Belfast’s importance to Buddy, viewers come to see why the thought of leaving is devastating.
but if she’s kind, and she’s fair … she and people are welcome in our house any day of the week.” In true “Belfast” fashion, Buddy shatters expectations by asking, “Does this mean we have to start going to confession?” Moments like this put “Belfast” on the list for six Academy Awards. “Belfast” is a standout film because the range of emotional experiences creates openness and warmth — at first, we simply see Buddy, but in the end, we feel alongside him.
DATA FROM PAGE 1
ering and Analyzing Twitter Data for Research.” This event was part of an original set of workshops Champagne developed after noticing that though many “students and faculty wanted to work with Twitter data,” they “didn’t have any experience.” During the workshop, Champagne taught participants how to use the Twitter API and other resources such as Twint, a Python library, and a Twitter Archiving Google Sheet to gather and analyze Twitter data in real time. Attendees also received a Google Colab notebook, which “offers sample code to gather an initial dataset, so that they can practically try gathering a dataset
themselves and working through these questions as part of the process,” Champagne wrote in an email to The Herald. “Love Data Week provides a unique opportunity to learn about how researchers and project teams across disciplines are working with data. I try to get involved every year,” Champagne wrote. Another pair of events addressed recent federal data-sharing regulations, a new aspect of Love Data Week, Nitenson said. The earlier event, titled “Preparing for the NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy,” was hosted by Taunton Paine and Cindy Danielson from the National Institutes of Health, and the follow-up event, “Putting Policy into Practice,” was co-sponsored by the CO-
orative aspects of being in-person, while also offering a remote option, Nitenson said. The speakers for the events and workshops are chosen by a mix of the Planning Committee “reaching out to speakers” and people asking the committee to help advertise a data-related event, Nitenson said. “It’s a win-win — they get additional advertisements and then we get additional people coming to our website to see our other events,” she said. One such event was a Feb. 14 remote workshop led by Ashley Champagne, head of the Library’s Center for Digital Scholarship, called “Gath-
COURTESY OF ARIELLE NITENSON
The week-long event, recognized around the world, is celebrated at Brown to highlight data and faculty and student research. BRE Center for Neuromodulation and the Data and Research Methods Core. Nitenson emphasized the importance of balancing Love Data Week to
include events focused on the sciences, humanities and other fields. “Data is for everyone and it cuts across all disciplines,” Nitenson said.
February 23 – March 25, 2022
UNIVERSITY NEWS
Public Humanities Lab at the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage, where Public Humanities graduate students and alumni curate exhibitions and public programs that probe questions about art, memory, heritage, culture and sensation.
Student COVID-19 cases drop by one-third to 229
Making a Village February 23 - March 9
Erotic Vision: Poetics of Body and Image February 23 - March 9
sonic-scapes
Despite decline, University will continue masking restrictions, testing
March 1, 8, 15, 22 BY HALEY SANDLOW SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Coffee: A Journey through the Senses March 10 -18
Memoria: Care Work and Memory in the Free Burial Ground March 11 - 18
Oral History Crash Course March 15
All events take place at the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage 357 Benefit Street Providence, Rhode Island Building entrance at 50 Williams Street Gallery Hours Monday-Friday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Please visit the Public Humanities Center website for more information: brown.edu/academics/public-humanities/events
@publichumans
From Feb. 10 through Feb. 16, 229 students reported positive COVID-19 test results, a decline of about onethird from the previous week, according to a Feb. 18 Today@Brown announcement. Seven employees reported positive test results and 189 students were in isolation at the time of the announcement. In the previous week, from Feb. 3 to 9, 361 students reported positive test results, The Herald previously reported. In general, the decrease in cases is “encouraging,” but not enough to lead the University to make changes to masking restrictions or testing, said Executive Vice President for Planning and Policy Russell Carey ’91 MA’06. Carey emphasized that individuals should continue to practice “good public health habits,” including hand-washing, mask wearing and self-isolating when experiencing symptoms. He added that these precautions are especially important in the context of the long weekend, during which many students may have traveled . “It does create a dynamic where
people who’ve been with largely one friend network for about a month now may change that pattern over the next several days,” Carey said. “People should be cautious about doing that.” As of Feb. 19, new cases in Rhode Island have declined for the sixth consecutive week, according to COVID-19 response data from the Rhode Island Department of Health. New hospital admissions in the state have declined for five straight weeks. For students who test positive, Carey referred to available University resources for those who may be unable to complete work because of illness. As midterms approach for many courses, students with health-related or personal circumstances that hinder their ability to complete academic work may speak to deans in either the College or Student Support Services to receive a dean’s note, according to a Jan. 14 email sent to the Brown community. Students must speak with their instructors about individual circumstances, and then schedule a meeting with a dean or attend the College’s academic advising hours. Support for students with medical-related concerns, including those with COVID-19, may contact Health Services during its regular hours. There is also a nursing line available 24 hours a day, and students can contact EMS for emergency situations.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2022
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS
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SCIENCE & RESEARCH
U. researchers study connective tissue mechanics using new model Cell model shows how fibrotic, antifibrotic agents affect connective tissue BY KATHLEEN MEININGER SCIENCE & RESEARCH SECTION EDITOR University researchers have developed a new connective tissue model to study disorders like fibrosis, a type of scarring that occurs when damage to the body causes normal tissue to be replaced by hard, fibrous connective tissue. In a paper recently published in the journal Advanced Science, the researchers demonstrate how this model can be used to better understand connective tissue mechanics and test potential therapies for connective tissue disorders. “It’s a new tool in the toolbox to understand fibrosis and to test potential drugs that could treat fibrosis, (which is) an unmet medical need,” said Jeffrey Morgan, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and engineering. Morgan is the director of the University’s Center for Alternatives to Animals in Testing, an organization dedicated to developing replacements for animal models in research, according to the center’s website. His lab previously invented a method of cell culture in which cells grow in agarose gel molds rather than on polymer or protein scaffolds. Because of the properties of the gel mold, the cells don’t
adhere to it and instead self-assemble into three-dimensional microtissues in various shapes, like rings or spheres, Morgan said. “This 3D tissue engineering technology can be applied toward a bunch of different models,” said Ben Wilks, first author of the paper and a former PhD student in Morgan’s Lab. “But this was the first time anyone in the lab had moved it toward fibrotic diseases.” Fibrosis can occur in almost any organ in the body, including the skin, liver, lungs and heart, Wilks said. During fibrosis, fibroblasts — connective tissue cells that synthesize the extracellular matrix — “become somehow dysregulated, either by injury or by mutation,” he added. “These fibroblast cells start to synthesize extracellular matrices out of control, and that … slowly prevents that organ from being able to function.” “The extracellular matrix, or ECM, is the totality of proteins outside the cells … in large part responsible for the mechanics of a tissue” like its stiffness or strength, Morgan said. Although cellular models to study fibrosis exist, they generally involve fibroblasts grown in two dimensions on a plastic scaffold or mixed in animal collagen gel, Morgan said. In these models, the ECM secreted by the fibroblasts cannot organize and communicate with cells as it naturally would. Additionally, signaling between the ECM and fibroblasts could be affected by signals from
outside sources — either the scaffold or the animal collagen, he said. Because ECM dysregulation is at the heart of fibrosis, the researchers wanted to use their 3D tissue engineering technology to create a new model where human fibroblasts could self-assemble and form their own 3D ECM “from scratch,” Morgan said. But at first, “when we tried using fibroblasts … the tissues would break within a few days,” Wilks said. “I had to do a lot of optimization to be able to create these stable tissue constructs before we could characterize them or run other experiments.” By manipulating the environment the fibroblasts were in, researchers eventually discovered the conditions needed to grow healthy, ring-shaped fibroblast tissues in agarose gel molds. They published these conditions in a study. This 3D model allows researchers to study the effects of potential drugs to treat fibrosis more accurately than ever before, Morgan said. In 2D models, new drugs to treat fibrosis are evaluated based on their effect on collagen production instead of their direct mechanical effects on the cells. “Collagen is one of the main proteins for building the extracellular matrix, but there are other proteins that regulate it,” Morgan said. He said that using ECM protein levels to judge the efficacy of a drug is like judging the strength of a house solely on the amount of materials you have
COURTESY OF JEFFREY MORGAN
The new model uses 3D tissue engineering technology, allowing researchers to study the effects of potential drugs to treat fibrosis. to build it. With this new 3D model, “what we’re able to do, once that structure is made, (is) measure its mechanics, which is the sum of all those parts brought together and built,” Morgan said. In their most recent publication, the researchers demonstrated how the mechanical attributes of these tissues, such as tensile strength, can be quantified. They used a device called an Instron to stretch the fibroblast rings exposed to pro-fibrotic or anti-fibrotic drugs, which induce and fight off fibrosis, respectively, and measure changes in tissue strain. This data “is fascinating because we showed that a growth factor like (transforming growth factor) beta decreases the stiffness and tensile strength of (fibroblast rings), and a drug that’s anti TGF-beta does the opposite. This shows that we can correlate drug action and growth factor action to tissue mechanics,” Morgan said.
Eric Darling, an associate professor of medical science, engineering and orthopedics who was not involved in the study, wrote that this paper “describes the development of a powerful new approach for evaluating connective tissues in a highly controlled, reproducible way… for their structural, mechanical and biochemical properties,” in an email to the Herald. Morgan’s lab is continuing to use this model to test the effects of different growth factors and potential fibrosis drugs on connective tissue. He hopes that this model will also be useful for studying genetic connective tissue disorders like Marfan syndrome and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. In addition, it can be used as a basic science tool to better understand cellular and molecular biology of fibrosis, he said. “The versatility of the platform is its real strength,” Darling wrote. “The directions that can be explored are nearly endless.”
SCIENCE & RESEARCH
Researchers find ‘strange metal’ properties in new electrical system New observation not fully explained by theory, has implications on electronics BY JARED ZHANG SENIOR STAFF WRITER By studying the properties of superconductors — materials that can carry electricity without heating up — scientists can gain a novel understanding of basic physical laws. These new insights offer potential applications in developing new ways to transport electricity and producing new kinds of electronic devices. Last month, Brown professor of physics James Valles and a group of collaborators from various Chinese research institutions published a study looking at a class of materials that do not follow traditional electrical rules. Valles noted that their findings may provide new understandings of superconductivity. These materials — cuprates — can exhibit a “temperature dependence of
resistivity that is linear,” Chao Yang, first author on the study and researcher at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, wrote in an email to The Herald. Resistivity refers to the extent to which a material resists an electric current. A system where the resistivity of a material changes in a linear relationship with a change in temperature exists in what is called a “strange metal” phase, he explained. Usually, electricity is carried by electrons, which belong to a class of subatomic particles known as fermions, Valles said. Unlike in superconductors, electrons in standard conductors “get pushed by a battery and bang into a metal’s vibrating ions, moving around and getting hot,” he added. The electrons’ collisions with the metal’s ions is what causes resistance. The understanding of electrical charge being carried by electrons is well researched, Yang wrote. But the mechanisms of bosons, a class of subatomic particles which carry the charge in superconductors, remain less explored. Bosons behave differently than fermions, Valles said. In systems that are very close to superconductors, one type
of boson known as Cooper pairs exists. Cooper pairs of electrons move differently than single electrons because they tend to be bound together and can occupy the same quantum state, he added. For the first time, researchers in this study found properties of strange metallicity in a bosonic system, Yang wrote. Previously, the properties were only observed in fermionic systems. To explore the strange metals, the researchers used a nanopatterning process to create the cuprates — thin films of yttrium barium copper oxide. The “YBCO thin films, which are 12 nanometers thick, host a dense hexagonal array of pores,” Yang wrote. After cooling the material down to extremely cold temperatures, subjecting it to a very strong magnetic field and measuring its conductance, the researchers showed that the strange metal phase of linear “temperature-resistance behavior can occur in a bosonic host,” Yang wrote. Before this study, the linear temperature-resistance behavior of strange metal states were only shown to exist in systems of fermions, he added. The nanopatterned YBCO films
COURTESY OF JIM VALLES
The group’s findings may provide researchers a novel understanding of superconductivity. “have quite a bit of resistance and are not superconductors. But neither are they good metals. It’s something in between … with some characteristics of a metal and also some characteristics of a superconductor,” said Subir Sachdev, professor of physics at Harvard. At times, experimental physics gets ahead of theoretical physics. This study is one theorists are currently unable
to explain, said Sachdev, who was not involved in the study. Strange metals are still very mysterious, but this experiment is very “interesting and has some very beautiful data,” he added. “There’s a lot of observations that we theorists have not been able to explain,” Sachdev said. “(This study) has certainly given us a lot of food for thought.”
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UNDERGROUND FROM PAGE 1 would help with repairs on the Underground’s machines, which are showing “signs of wear” after being purchased in 2015. Bolt suggested The Underground begin using their beans in exchange for free repairs and other service work. “It’s a mutually beneficial partnership,” Khosrowshahi said. The Underground employees recently took a trip to Bolt Coffee for supplemental training to learn techniques such as milk frothing. The Underground has also introduced chai concentrate this semester to use in making chai lattes, which Litvin expects will be “super popular.” Besides new beans and drinks, the shop also hired two new baristas at the end of the fall 2021 semester who really “embody what the Underground is all about,” Khosrowshahi said. The hiring process was “insanely competitive,” with 90 applicants for just two spots, Litvin said. “It was a lot to sort through so many wonderful, qualified applicants,” she
PIPES FROM PAGE 1 ’19, community organizer at CLAP. The complaint alleges that requiring homeowners to pay the remaining cost of a full replacement directly contributes to racial and class inequality, since wealthier, majority-white neighborhoods are more able to afford full replacements, while poorer communities may continue to face lead contamination. While the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank has provided Providence Water with $3 million for 10-year 0% interest loans to help homeowners pay for their pipe replacements, Levy said that many low-income residents are unable to take out or pay back loans. “We show in the complaint that, in the Providence Water service area, low-income folks and renters are more likely to be people of color,” Levy added. “This isn’t only class discrimination; it’s also race discrimination.” “Providence Water takes the issue of lead at our customers’ taps extremely seriously,” Christopher Hunter, a spokesperson for Advocacy Solutions LLC, a consulting firm which represents Providence Water, wrote in an email to The Herald. “That is why for the past 10 years we have been working closely with the Environmental Protection Agency
added. Hiring takes place every semester, and the amount of spots that open depends on the number of staff members who graduate each year. Positions are posted on Workday, and students can then apply through the platform. “It was a super smooth hiring process,” Khosrowshahi said. Training for baristas consists of coming in for a few hours on a weekend to get familiar with the space, they added. The new baristas are also taught how to pull an espresso shot and make other drinks. “Most of the training really occurs on the job. A lot of stuff is picked up when you’re working with your co-barista,” Litvin said, explaining that a pair of baristas are behind the counter every shift. In response to rising inflation rates across the country — and in an attempt to break even this semester — the Underground also raised its prices for the first time this semester, all by less than a dollar. Still, Litvin said that the shop remains cheaper than its competition. The relationship between the Un-
derground and the University has been “wonderful” under the guidance of Marissa Fortney, assistant director of the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center and Student Activities Office, Litvin added. “She’s been very respectful of the way we operate, but also is super willing to help us with some new initiatives that we’re hoping to implement this semester,” Litvin said. One of these new initiatives is opening the shop on Saturdays. Khosrowshahi also said that the shop hopes to begin showcasing local Providence food vendors during these weekend hours and incorporating board games into the space. Student art may also be displayed on the walls of the Underground in the near future. “We’ve had so many people express a desire for (student art), so we’re just trying to figure out the parameters (for that),” Khosrowshahi said. Additionally, Khosrowshahi has been working with the organization End Overdose, which provides narcan and fentanyl testing strips that the Underground now offers for free at its counter — a “pilot program right now,” Khosrowshahi said.
and a panel of nationally recognized drinking water experts to develop and implement strategies to reduce lead in drinking water.” Hunter wrote that Providence Water has implemented a “five-pronged strategy” to address lead contamination in the water system, which includes the loan program, “aggressive water main rehabilitation within our distribution system” and “an extensive public education and outreach program.” Hunter also noted that as of December, Providence Water was in compliance with the EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule, which requires water systems to have less than 15 parts per billion of lead in at least 90% of customer taps sampled. “We understand and appreciate community advocacy regarding this public health issue,” Hunter wrote. “Providence Water will continue to follow the recommendations of the EPA and our expert panel regarding lead service line replacements.” The complaint cites a study led by Karen Baehler, professor of public administration and policy at American University, which examined a similar lead service line replacement program in Washington, D.C. After analyzing the effects of neighborhood income
disparity on the likelihood of getting a full or partial pipe replacement, the study found that “household income is a major predictor of full replacement prevalence, with race also showing significance in some analyses.” The study found that partial replacements — in which some of the lead pipes servicing a property are not replaced — present problems of their own. The disruption caused by partial replacements can heighten lead levels for up to six months after the replacement, and there is evidence to suggest that they do not lead to significant long-term reductions in lead levels, according to the study. “This is dangerous … because it still leaves half of a lead pipe in the ground,” Levy said. “It’s not actually fully removing the source of potential lead contamination.” CLAP filed the complaint through a provision in the Civil Rights Act which prohibits the use of federal funds in discriminatory programs. “Providence Water gets a lot of money from the EPA through grants,” Levy said. “The EPA is funding discriminatory practices — and that’s illegal under the Civil Rights Act.” If the EPA rules in favor of the nonprofit coalition, the complaint could
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In addition to switching its coffee supplier, the Underground is adding new drinks to its menu and has hired two new baristas. Students said they utilize the space to study and socialize with friends. Jackie Benjes ’24, who visited the Underground for the first time on her tour of Brown in high school, said the Underground has “very good vibes” and “it’s really fun to see students working together.” But Benjes “mostly goes there to chat” and not to work, since it “gets pretty loud.” Evie Calhoon ’24, who also first
saw the Underground before coming to Brown, said she goes to the Underground for its tea. “One of my teammates told me about the chamomile and it’s the best,” she said. Both managers added that they are “excited” about moving forward this semester and improving what Calhoon described as the “cool vibe” that the Underground aims to provide the student body.
have implications for replacement programs across the country, according to Levy. “Both partial replacements and cost-sharing are very, very widespread,” Baehler told The Herald. Of the approximately 11,000 water systems that still rely on lead pipes, about 90% of them offer one or both of these options to homeowners, Baehler said. “It’s going to take a long, long time for all of those systems to adopt what really is considered to be best practice now — a ban on partial replacements and a move away from the cost-sharing approach.” Lead poisoning can cause problems that range from fatigue and trouble concentrating to insomnia, developmental delays and death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is especially harmful to children, though lead is unsafe at any age. “Even at low levels, especially when consistent over time, lead poisoning can cause long term and permanent brain damage,” Levy said. “Once someone has been exposed to lead, the damage has been done.” Issues with lead contamination in municipal water supplies came to light with the Flint water crisis, which made international headlines. The state of
Michigan banned partial replacement programs in the wake of the crisis in Flint, Baehler said. She hopes that other states and cities will follow suit. “What we’re hoping for and expecting is that the EPA will do some investigation of their own and maybe hold some meetings, moderated by the EPA, between Providence Water and the folks who submitted the complaint — including us and the other organizations — to talk about a way forward,” Levy said. “We were really clear in the complaint that what we wanted was not just for the replacements to stop, but for Providence Water to do full replacements instead of partial replacements,” she added. The recent Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will provide Rhode Island an influx of money for lead pipe replacement. Levy said she hopes additional infrastructure funding will allow the state to cover the cost of full replacements. “Providence Water is working closely with the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank to maximize federal infrastructure bill funding to remove lead service lines,” Hunter wrote. “This program will be designed to prioritize lead service line replacements in disadvantaged areas throughout our service area.”
COVID -19 AT BROWN FEB. 10 TO FEB. 16
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19
Confirmed Positives
371
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Students in On-Campus, Designated Off-Campus Quarantine Housing
196* *APPROXIMATE
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2022
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS
5
UNIVERSITY NEWS
Watson event discusses private finance, rising student debt Virtual talk focuses on Charlie Eaton’s new book, “Bankers in the Ivory Tower” BY BRENDAN GARDNER METRO EDITOR The Watson Institute hosted a virtual talk Tuesday evening discussing the expanding impact of finance on American universities. The event focused on a new book entitled “Bankers in the Ivory Tower: The Troubling Rise of Financiers in US Higher Education” by Charlie Eaton, assistant professor of sociology at University of California, Merced. The talk also featured Josh Pacewicz, associate professor of sociology at Brown, as a speaker and Margaret Weir, professor of international and public affairs and political science at the Watson Institute, as moderator. It was sponsored by the Stone Inequality Initiative at the Watson Institute, which works to understand “how great wealth distorts (and) perhaps even threatens … the republic,” according to the Initiative’s website. In his talk, Eaton explained how large financial institutions have come to play an increasingly important role in higher education, from skyrocketing student debt to growing financial control over university governance. These developments, Eaton said, have exacerbated pre-existing inequalities in race and class by diminishing educational outcomes at lower-tier schools and saddling students with thousands of dollars in student debt.
“Just one in eight undergraduates in the US had any student debt in the 1970s,” he said. “Today, a majority of college students leave school with the financial burden of an educational debt … There are large class and racial disparities in who borrows and who can afford to repay their debts.” This growing trend of influence, also called financialization, Eaton argues, can be best understood by examining its impact on three tiers of schools: elite private universities, such as Brown, public universities and for-profit universities, many of which serve student bodies that are “overwhelmingly working class and disproportionately Black.” In Eaton’s model, elite universities with large endowments benefit from deregulation and tax cuts, allowing a small number of often already privileged students to reap the benefits of financialization. On the other end, private financial institutions often take over for-profit universities to take advantage of public subsidies and students’ tuition, which often leads to university governance that prioritizes profit to the detriment of educational quality. Mid-tier public universities are then “squeezed” by pressure from both ends, Eaton explained. One of the most important drivers of this financialization, Eaton said, was the passage of the 1992 Higher Education Act Amendments. These amendments eliminated the means test for federal student loans, doubled the undergraduate loan cap, eliminated the cap on parent loans and guaranteed a partial repayment of student loans by the federal government in the event of default. These provisions, Eaton said, cre-
ated the perfect environment for the proliferation of student loans. “Was this policy shift really what led to the explosion of student debt?” he said. “In a word, yes.” Much of the content of the legislation, he said, was submitted in congressional hearings by finance giants including Citi, Bank of America, Sallie
firm founded by Glenn Creamer ’84, Paul Salem ’85 and Jonathan Nelson ’77 P’07 P’09, for whom the Nelson Fitness Center and Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship are named. In 2006, in cooperation with Goldman Sachs, Leeds Equity and KKR private equity firms, PEP bought out the Education Management Corporation,
education. After union-busting contributed to a decline in well-paying jobs that did not require a degree, she said, lower-income students were forced to experience price hikes, predatory lending and “useless degrees” from for-profit colleges that “focused all their resources on recruiting rather than education.”
BRENDAN GARDNER / HERALD
In the talk, Charlie Eaton discussed how large financial institutions have played a major role in higher education, exacerbating existing inequalities in race and class. Mae, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase. In addition to the precipitous rise of student loan debt, Eaton said, private finance also impacts university governance. In no type of institution is this clearer, he continued, than the private for-profit university. “Private equity managers acquired 994 for-profit colleges between 1988 and 2015,” he said. “They did so to capture tuition revenue from expanded loan programs. It’s hard to overstate how important this private equity invasion was in the explosion of enrollment at predatory for-profit colleges in the U.S.” Eaton said that one example of this process is visible in the case of Providence Equity Partners, a private equity
which ran a number of for-profit colleges in the “largest-ever acquisition of a for-profit college chain.” Shortly after the acquisition, Eaton said, the chief financial officer of EDMC was forced out for refusing to prioritize economic growth over educational quality. “Ultimately,” he said, “EDMC collapsed in bankruptcy because lawsuits and new consumer protection regulations thwarted its strategy” to divert large amounts of money to recruitment in an attempt to maximize profit. Weir, the moderator of the event, said that she believes the book emphasized the “triple or quadruple bind that lower-income people face” in higher
Eaton said that despite their increasing financialization, American universities also contain within themselves the seeds of change. The engagement of many university communities with the Occupy Wall Street movement, he said, fueled pushes to make public universities more affordable in California. An effort by Columbia and NYU students in this same period even led to the Department of Education canceling student debts for “over 100,000 for-profit college students.” “A better future is possible,” Eaton said, “if we mobilize a diverse and inclusive university to reimagine higher education finance.”
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS
6
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2022
SPORTS
Men’s basketball loses both holiday weekend contests Following two losses, Bears officially out of Ivy League postseason contention BY GABBY SARTORI SENIOR STAFF WRITER The men’s basketball team (12-15, 4-8 Ivy League) went 0-2 in their homestand over President’s Day weekend, falling to Princeton (19-5, 9-2 Ivy) Feb. 18 and Penn (12-13, 9-3 Ivy) Feb. 19. With losses in both games, the Bears were eliminated from contention for the Ivy League postseason. Brown 50, Princeton 69 On Feb. 18, the Bears fell to Princeton 69-50. Captain Tamenang Choh GS led the team with 18 points, and secured his fifth double-double of the season with 10 rebounds. Forward Jaylan Gainey ’22 grabbed 10 boards, guard Paxson Wojcik ’23 had seven points and Kino Lilly Jr. ’25 and Dan Friday ’24 had six points each. While the Bears put together stretches that showed glimmers of hope, they couldn’t handle the Tigers, especially from behind the three point line. Princeton converted on 11 three-pointers, hitting five in the first half and using six second-half threes to put the game out of reach. “It was a tough night for our team and I think Princeton deserves a lot of credit,” said Head Coach Mike Martin ’04. “That was far from what we can do when we are at our best. We just had too many possessions where we struggled and didn’t execute well enough. We’ve got to be more efficient.” Princeton began to pull away early in the first half, going on a 17-4 run in the last six minutes of the period to put the Bears on their heels. They took a 16-point lead with four minutes left in the first half. Brown gained momentum in the final three minutes of the half, outscoring the Tigers 10-4 to cut the deficit to
34-24 going into halftime. But despite their efforts to come back, the Bears remained behind the Tigers for the rest of the game. Princeton opened the second half scoring 18 points to Brown’s eight, building a 20-point lead at the 14-minute mark. The Bears eventually fell 69-50. Brown 88, Penn 89 The Bears returned to the court Saturday as they hosted Penn at home. Brown ultimately lost in a heartbreaker at the buzzer, falling to the Quakers 89-88. Lilly Jr. hit a three with five seconds remaining to give the Bears a one point lead, but Penn converted on a game-winning floater four seconds later to take the win. Lilly, whose 20 points set the pace for Brown, was aided by a strong performance by Friday, who contributed 19 points and six rebounds. Choh added 15 points, nine rebounds and nine assists, while Kimo Ferrari ’24 tied his career-high of 12 points — at one point, Ferrari was shooting 4-for-4 from behind the three-point line. The game was a physical contest — Wojcik exited early in the second half after a tough fall, Choh suffered a finger injury heading into the final six minutes of the game and Ferrari briefly went down halfway through the second half due to an ankle injury. Ferrari, who has proven his value on defense during his first season with the Bears, had matched up against every opponent’s top player going into the game against Penn. Saturday was no different, as Ferrari took on Penn guard and Ivy League Player of the Year candidate Jordan Dingle. “We have so many great players this year, so it’s definitely made the adjustment to the college level a lot easier,” Ferrari said. “I’ve never played with such talented players as Choh, Gainey, Wojcik and Lilly, so being on the court with them is a lot of fun and
COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS
During Friday’s match against Princeton, the Tigers pulled away from the Bears, culminating in a 16-point lead with four minutes left in the first half. it makes my job a lot easier. I’ve really embraced my role of being a defensive stopper and providing energy whenever I’m on the court. I love my role on the team and I’m grateful for the opportunity to play and compete with all of my guys.” The two teams went back and forth, exchanging the lead 13 times. The Bears led by as many as 13 in the first period, but Penn ended the half with six straight points to cut the halftime deficit to seven at 46-39. Brown went back up by ten to open the second after co-captain David Mitchell ’22 made it 55-45 at the 15:37 mark. Penn cut the deficit over the next four minutes and went on a 20-3 run to retake the lead, leading 65-58 with 11:52 to play. Down nine with 4:42 to go, Brown outscored Penn 13-6 to
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“Going forward we just have to move on. We still have two great opportunities left on the schedule that we need to capitalize on,” Wojcik added. “Looking back on the year I’m proud of how far we’ve come as a team. Personally, I have definitely grown as a player and a person in my first year here at Brown.” Brown will play its final home game of the season Feb. 26 at 6 p.m. against Columbia, which will be the team’s “senior day.” “Looking ahead to senior day, it is all about reflecting on the last four years,” Mitchell said. “They have gone by extremely quickly, and even with missing a season, I would not trade the experience (for anything). I am simply looking forward to playing one final game in the Pizz(itola) and enjoying the moment with my teammates and family.”
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cut the Quaker lead to 87-85 with 32 seconds to play. After the Bears forced Penn into a turnover, Lilly hit a three to take the lead, followed by Penn’s bucket for the win. Despite the tough weekend, the Bears are motivated heading into the final two games of the season and are proud of the efforts they displayed this year, Ferrari said. “It was definitely a tough weekend, but the team is ready to get back after it this week,” Ferrari said. “We’re ready to get in the gym together and start game planning for Columbia. At the end of the day, we’re a very close team and there is no place we would rather be than in the Pizzitola (Sports Center) practicing and getting ready to compete with each other. We’re looking forward to having a strong finish to the season.”
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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2022
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY
7
EDITORIAL
Students treat Wellness like a regular dorm; Brown should too The deadline for the Wellness Residential Experience at Sternlicht Commons — or what most students simply call Wellness — recently passed. The dorm is in high demand among students, owing to its spacious suites and brand-new furnishings. The goal of the dorm is lofty: to create a community where learning and promoting wellness practices are front and center. But in practice, Wellness is just another dorm (albeit one with nicer amenities). The University should treat it as such. The dorm’s website states that the “Health and Wellness departments and residence hall will serve as an innovative site for peer education, community building, collaboration and outreach in ways that benefit the entire campus.” These are ambitious ideals, and we appreciate the University’s willingness to experiment with new ideas for residential life.
benefit from the resources and support Wellness offers? Whatever criteria the Office of Residential Life uses is opaque and almost certainly nonsensical. Perhaps a community centered around wellness advocacy would work better in a space where the programming, and not the amenities, would be the main draw. After all, as the Wellness website’s FAQ page notes, “well-being can be achieved without having to live within the building.” Extricating wellness programming from Wellness housing would attract those who are genuinely interested in wellness advocacy, since their housing would be a secondary consideration. So what should Brown do? The simple solution is to drop the charade. We suspect only a fraction of the applications Wellness received this year was motivated by enthusiasm for wellness, rather than enthusiasm for the building itself. Our last editorial on Wellness was about how stark the difference was between the building and other dorms; clearly, the intense demand comes from its relative luxury.
The reality, however, is different. Wellness programming can feel inaccessible to those who do not already live in the dorm, whether due to limited availability or poor advertising, so it can hardly be said to “benefit the entire campus.” For non-residents, the dorm can tend to inspire jealousy rather than well-being. The application process for Wellness is another issue. The form, bizarrely, asks students to numerically evaluate their capacity for wellness. It also includes two short answer questions that — given the reward of luxurious amenities — incentivize applicants to stretch the truth about how they integrate wellness into their lifestyles, making it hard to distinguish those with a true passion for wellness from those with a passion for suites with floor-to-ceiling windows. Most students, we imagine, are concerned about wellness. So who is worthy of living in the Wellness community? Is it those who already practice mindfulness meditation and yoga? Or is it those who would like to practice wellness and would
Wellness is, functionally, just another dorm where Brown undergraduates live — admittedly one that they want to live in badly enough to write a few puffed-up essays for. Treat it as any other dorm, and place it in the housing lottery. Surely this is a more egalitarian way of assigning rooms than through what is now, effectively, a posturing contest. Again, the intentions behind Wellness are laudable. Implementation, though, has led to ridiculous competition among students for limited slots. The University should acknowledge reality and make the dorm’s de facto status — a regular residence hall — official. And, most crucially, it should find ways to fulfill its mission of supporting wellness beyond the Wellness dorm. —Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board. This editorial was written by its editor Johnny Ren ’23, and members Catherine Healy ’22, Caroline Nash ’22.5, Augustus Bayard ’24, Devan Paul ’24 and Kate Waisel ’24.
Simon ’25: The overlooked importance of climate adaptation Earlier this month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a report detailing accelerated rates of sea level rise and coastal flooding due to climate change. According to the report, the United States is expected to experience nearly a foot of sea level rise by 2050 — the same increase as over the entire last century. The NOAA report is yet another addition to the mammoth amount of scientific research that has detailed the reality we face: Extreme global warming is happening. It’s human-made and hurtling towards us with devastating consequences for both natural ecosystems and human societies. Public policy discussions around climate change often focus on macro fixes, such as national emissions targets. However, an emphasis on far-reaching, long-term solutions can overshadow the need for immediate, localized responses to the inescapable effects of global warming. It’s time for increased focus on a response to climate change that rarely receives its public due: climate adaptation. As climate models and reports continue to give us a clearer picture of the past and present of global warming, I’ve found that thinking about the future feels a lot like holding my breath. When looking at graphs of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the melting rate of Arctic ice or annual average global temperatures, I’ve become accustomed to curves that shoot up, and up, and up. These trends have been evident for decades. The buildup of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has us on a path toward roughly 3 degrees Celsius of warming by 2100 and disastrous consequences for the planet if countries stick to their current policies. When it comes to global warming, there’s a sense that we’re waiting for the punch to land, for the other shoe to drop, for something horrific that we know is coming — even if exactly what, how bad and
when remains uncertain. In the meantime, members of the United Nations have made various pledges as part of the Paris Agreement to try to limit the global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius, though many nations are already not on track to reach their stated goals for 2030 and beyond. Many of these efforts to reduce emissions and the discourse surrounding them are framed around
the only way governments can reckon with a changing climate. The focus on these initiatives should not detract from equally important adaptation policies, which seek to reduce human vulnerability to the effects of climate change and adjust preexisting structures to better tolerate extreme weather and heat. Localized efforts to address global warming through adapting urban infrastructure often receive
“An adaptive mindset doesn’t imply a lack of conviction, but rather a capacity for optimism and resilience.”
mitigation, slowing or preventing a catastrophic level of warming. But what happens when we’re already too late to avoid consequences from warming? After all, we’re already experiencing a string of record-breaking temperatures, unprecedented droughts and unusually powerful storms. And as NOAA administrator Rick Spinrad explained, “current and future emissions matter” for scenarios later this century, but projected sea level rise by 2050 will happen “no matter what we do about emissions.” No matter how much we reduce our carbon dioxide output, the surging waters will arrive on our doorstep. Transitioning to green energy and investing in carbon sequestration technology isn’t
less attention than national pledges to mitigate emissions, such as President Joe Biden’s call to achieve 100% clean electricity by 2035. But these localized efforts are just as central to effective and sustainable climate policy. We have to prepare for the changes that are certain to come in addition to the ones we’re already experiencing. Adaptation can occur at the national level, but the most impactful policies are often local. For coastal cities like Providence that are especially vulnerable to storm surges and flooding, adaptation is crucial. Local initiatives such as the Providence Resilience Partnership, of which Brown is a founding member, look to improve the strength of flood barriers and expand preex-
isting green spaces in the city to better absorb hotter temperatures and prepare for potential flooding from climate change. Adaptive projects are also important for developing an equitable climate response through task forces focused on racial and environmental justice and engagement with local communities and businesses. The rhetoric many lawmakers and activists use to talk about climate change is one of prevention — of avoiding the worst possible scenarios rather than accepting the harm that has already been done. And I’ll admit that there’s something that feels hard to swallow about the premise of adaptation policy. Maybe that’s because it seems a bit defeatist, like sheltering from the problem rather than fighting it. But adaptation is not a replacement for continued mitigation efforts. Rather, it’s the responsibility of our leaders and local communities to plan for the future and fight for a greener economy while concurrently building systems that are more capable of supporting us through the inevitable changes to come. An adaptive mindset doesn’t imply a lack of conviction, but rather a capacity for optimism and resilience. COVID-19 has at least shown us that we can coexist with disaster simply because we have no other option. While the long-term future of climate change and its impacts on natural and human-made systems will continue to depend on the mitigation goals and actions taken by governments across the globe, we must also gather the strength to meet the present moment, to look a rising sea in the eye and find ways to live alongside it.
Alissa Simon ’25 can be reached at alissa_ simon@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald. com and other op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2022
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Causality in Data Science F E AT U R I N G
The Lemley Family Leadership lecture series
2021 Nobel Prize in Economics Winner Guido Imbens ’91 Ph.D. The Applied Econometrics Professor and Professor of Economics, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University
Econometrics focuses on drawing credible causal inferences through observational studies. Learn about the history of these methods and hear recent examples, with a particular focus on the “credibility revolution” in economics. Wednesday, March 2, 2022 | 5 p.m. A conversation moderated by Provost Richard M. Locke, Schreiber Family Professor of Political Science and International and Public Affairs, will follow the talk.
Registration required Reception to follow. For more information, please visit lemley-lecture.brown.edu. Closed captioning will be provided. To request additional accommodations or assistance for this event, please contact Event Strategy and Management at universityevents@brown.edu. Attendees must comply with all University COVID-19 policies and protocols in place at the time of the event.
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