Wednesday, November 10th, 2021 - The Brown Daily Herald

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2021

VOLUME CLVI, ISSUE XXXVII

SCIENCE & RESEARCH

SPORTS

U. launches new Open Recovery Group Drop-in group focuses on skills, harm reduction with behavioral approach

BY HALEY SANDLOW CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Donovan Advisory Board, to establish the group this semester.

Unlike other recovery and substance initiatives that are abstinence-based, such as Donovan’s Early Recovery Group, ORB’s approach involves teaching students concrete skills to help them make healthy decisions in their substance use and in their daily lives.

ORB held its first meeting Oct. 5.

Students are invited to engage in practices to moderate and shift their personal substance use on campus in a new program called Open Recovery Group at Brown. The group, which meets weekly, is part of the University’s Bruce Donovan Program for Recovery and Substance-Free Initiatives, and seeks to equip participants with the tools to make informed decisions about healthy substance use.

“The mission of ORB is really to create sort of a middle ground for students who want to address their substance use but may not be ready for abstinence-based recovery,” said Lindsay Garcia, assistant dean of the college for junior/senior studies and recovery/substance-free student initiatives. Garcia worked with stakeholders, including the

METRO

Stages of Freedom offers programs for Black youth Organization empowers Black youth, offers swim lessons, museum visits

BY RHEA RASQUINHA CONTRIBUTING WRITER Stages of Freedom, located at 10 Westminster St., is a heritage museum filled with collections of donated books, historical artwork and other artifacts that are a part of the organization’s mission to promote African American history and empower youth of color. One primary program, Swim Empowerment, a swimming education program, is funded in part by the sale of items from the

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that effort,” said Mildred Nichols, a long-time participant in the organization’s events. Rickman and Dimmick are “adamant about making sure that Black history is properly recognized,” she said, recalling one of Rickman’s triumphs in having a street named for Christiana Bannister, a Black and Indigenous abolitionist and entrepreneur in Rhode Island, and her husband Edward Bannister. Nichols has supported Stages of Freedom since it’s creation, and her husband, the late Charles Nichols, was the head of Brown’s Afro-American Studies Program.

“I don’t even recall how I found out about (Stages of Freedom),” said Elisete Pina, whose child is a regular program participant. “I know that I’ve just been spreading the word … it’s like a hidden gem.”

The group teaches harm reduction practices, which aim to minimize the dangers and increase the safety of using substances, according to Taryn Wyron, research therapist at the Center for Health Promotion and Health Equityand co-facilitator of ORB. “It’s about giving people the men-

Men’s basketball dominates Salve Regina Bears (1-0) win 89-59 in first game since March 2020 with 16 different scorers

SEE RECOVERY PAGE 2

BY GABRIELLA SARTORI SENIOR STAFF WRITER

CYNTHIA ZHANG / HERALD

The men’s basketball team (1-0) defeated Salve Regina University (0-2) 89-59 in the Pizzitola Sports Center to start the 2021-22 season. The Bears’ win was the first time the team took the court since March 7, 2020.

The Bears had 16 different scorers in the game, showcasing the depth and range that the young team has, said Head Coach Mike Martin ’04. “We have experience and a huge spark of energy with our (first-years) coming off the bench,” he said. “We have options, and it’s gonna be interesting trying to find the right combinations throughout the year. We can use this (game) to experiment early and find the right group for us to get this going.”

The first half started off slow for both teams and the Seahawks managed to take a narrow 10-9 lead five minutes into the half. This was the only time in the game the Bears were playing from behind. Brown outscored Salve Regina 22-5 over the next 12 minutes to take a 31-15 lead with 7:29 remaining in the half.

The Bears ended the first half leading the Seahawks 48-26 with Mitchell scoring the last six points of the period. Brown’s offense stayed hot, going 8-18 from behind the arc. Guard Paxson Wojcik ’23.5 was responsible for half of those three-pointers, shooting 4-7 from distance. The Loyola Univer-

SEE BASKETBALL PAGE 3

ARTS & CULTURE

‘The French Dispatch’ hits PVD theaters Wes Anderson’s newest film offers romantic, fictionalized version of The New Yorker

BY CECILIA BARRON STAFF WRITER Wes Anderson has found the infallible cinematic form in the The New Yorker magazine. His newest film, “The French Dispatch,” released Oct. 22, is based on The New Yorker and the tenure of Harold Ross, who led the magazine from 1925 until his death in 1951. The film is bookended by the death of Arthur Horwitzer Jr., a fictionalized version of Ross played by Bill Murray. Early on, Horwitzer stipulates that the magazine will close with his death, and that it does. But for the final issue of The French Dispatch — the film’s version of The New Yorker — in accordance with Horwitzer’s will, the best published stories are reprinted.

“The French Dispatch” is really a triptych of impossible journalistic prowess. It focuses on three stories — partly inspired by real-life New Yorker pieces — that Horwitzer edited for The French Dispatch. “The Concrete Masterpiece” is a story about an im-

prisoned artistic madman (Benicio Del

Jeffrey Wright plays Roebuck Wright,

Toro) and a slimy art dealer (Adrien Brody), based on “The Days of Duveen” about the conman art dealer Lord Duveen. Tilda Swinton plays the writer, J.K.L. Berensen, a former art collector who experienced the concrete masterpiece herself. “Revisions to a Manifesto” is based on stories stemming from the French student revolutions in May of 1968. Lucinda Krementz (Frances McDormand) becomes romantically entangled with her subject, the student revolutionary Zeferrelli (Timothée Chalamet). Lastly,

a pseudo-James Baldwin (Baldwin wrote under The New Yorker’s Ross) in “The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner.” Wright, a food reporter, is sent to interview the chef Nescaffier for a feature, but he is then caught up in a high profile kidnapping and car chase. Each of the film’s stories starts as one thing and becomes another: something Horwitzer, who comically chastises the extraneous word counts of his prolific writers,

museum.

Ray Rickman and Robb Dimmick founded Stages of Freedom six years ago, building on their then-one-yearold Swim Empowerment program.

According to Rickman, Black children are around five times more likely to drown than other children, a figure he is working to change.

“Stages of Freedom is a good example of giving back to the community and trying to enlist others to help in

Zoom manager and video editor Darius Henderson Jr. said working with the organization helped him gain connections and new knowledge. “(There are) a lot of really good people to talk to, and I learned a lot of history that I probably would not have known prior,” Henderson said. His involvement with the organization began in middle school when he participated in historical re-

U. News

U. News

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Commentary

Native American language courses engage students with culture, disappering dialects Page 2

Brown is the first Ivy League school to make COVID testing optional Page 3

LGBTQ Center and OMAS cohost discussion on repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” Page 5

Gao ’24: CAPS should be more proactive with student mental health, outreach Page 6

SEE STAGES PAGE 3

Captain and guard David Mitchell ’22 led the team with 13 points, going 4-6 from the field. Forward Jaylan Gainey ’22 had a team-high seven rebounds and guard Kino Lilly Jr. ’25 led the team in assists with six to kick off his collegiate career. Guard Dan Friday ’24 was key for the Bears’ defensive end, leading the team with three steals.

SEE ANDERSON PAGE 8

COURTESY OF SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES

With a star-studded cast, the film explores three different vignettes inspired in part by actual New Yorker pieces.

TODAY

TOMORROW

63 / 39

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2021

UNIVERSITY NEWS

Brown becomes first Ivy League school with optional COVID testing

NAT HARDY / HERALD

Harvard tests students for COVID-19 three times a week, while Penn tests students twice a month and students at Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale and Cornell get tested once weekly.

University has rolled back restrictions in line with loosened CDC guidelines, low positivity rate

BY MAISIE NEWBURY SENIOR STAFF WRITER After making testing optional for fully vaccinated students Oct. 25, Brown became the first Ivy League institution to not require regular COVID-19 testing for its undergraduate student body. As the University and its peer institutions modify COVID-19 restrictions and scale back testing operations, students and administrators at Brown have expressed hope for an eventual return to normalcy.

The uptick in cases campus saw in early September prompted further restrictions on student activity and the re-introduction of mandatory semiweekly asymptomatic testing for vaccinated students. According to the Dartmouth, the University’s peer institutions implemented similar policies around the same time period: Vaccinated undergraduates were required to get tested twice a week at Harvard, twice a month at Penn and once weekly at Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale and Cornell.

Some University precautions mirrored those of peer institutions that began their 2021-22

RECOVERY FROM PAGE 1 tal health and emotional well-being tools to explore and address their substance use” in personal ways, Wyron said. Harm reduction also makes use of “clinical resources like therapy or substance use treatment, rather than from a punitive approach.”

Wyron, who is also a licensed social worker, shares skills based in cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy with ORB participants. CBT and DBT are “evidence-based therapies that really focus on behaviors or actions that people can take,” Wyron said. “So they’re often quite accessible and empowering for folks because they’re things you know you can apply immediately in your life outside of the group.”

academic calender sooner than Brown. The mandatory twice-a-week testing requirements, as well as restrictions on indoor dining and social gatherings, were partly modeled on similar policies at Cornell and Duke University — both of which tightened restrictions after spikes in on-campus positivity rates, The Herald previously reported.

“We pay a lot of attention to what’s happening on other campuses,” said Russell Carey ’91 MA ’06, executive vice president for planning and policy. “Being informed by their experiences was helpful in terms of providing information and context, though it has never been the driving factor in (policy) decisions.”

The University has rolled back restrictions, reopening indoor dining Sept. 22 following a “significant decline in both the absolute number and the rate of positive asymptomatic COVID-19 cases on campus compared to the first few weeks of the semester,” Carey previously wrote in an email to The Herald.

The University also reduced testing requirements for vaccinated undergraduates, first decreasing the frequency of mandatory asymptomatic testing to once weekly Oct. 6.

This was followed by the complete removal of asymptomatic testing requirements for vaccinated undergraduates Oct. 25 and the scaling down of testing site operating hours Nov. 8.

Both vaccinated and unvaccinated undergraduates at all seven other Ivy League in-

stitutions are still required to participate in some sort of mandatory asymptomatic testing regimen, according to the schools’ respective COVID-19 dashboards.

The University’s decisions to roll back testing rates and reopen indoor dining were informed by sustained low positivity rates of “a tenth of a percent or below … really since mid-September,” Carey said. Also, given that the vast majority of undergraduates are vaccinated, the University has “no concerns about severe illness or hospitalizations,” he added.

The University takes guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and tries to take extra precautions as well, Carey noted. With the start of the semester, he said, “given the nature of our community and the desire to ease back into fully in-person,” the University wanted to take its time in rolling back restrictions to align with the looser CDC guidelines.

“I was very surprised when I found out about optional testing,” said Abigail Carbajal ’23.

Carbajal has been on campus since August 2020, with a brief recess in summer 2021. “It feels so weird not having to be tested for the first time in over a year,” she said.

Carbajal intends to continue to get tested for the time being “just to make sure I am keeping myself and others safe,” but said that she feels safe on campus as long as her peers “continue to be cautious.”

Tori Borlase, president of the undergraduate assembly at Penn, is still required to get tested twice monthly, along with the rest of her peers.

This requirement has been in place since the beginning of the semester but has decreased since last semester, when “all students were required to get tested twice a week,” she wrote in an email to The Herald.

Like Brown, Penn maintains a masking requirement in all campus buildings and has reopened indoor dining, returned dorms to full capacity and resumed most in-person operations, Borlase wrote.

Brown has also made efforts to accommodate remote students with classes that are recorded, taught online or otherwise accessible. But Borlase has not observed this effort at Penn, and noted that some clubs are still meeting on Zoom given that “many buildings are not allowing student groups to book rooms due to COVID.” “It will be interesting to see if positivity rates remain low after Thanksgiving break, and if they’ll reopen any of the testing sites they just closed,” Carbajal said, referencing the policy that all students must receive two tests upon their return to campus. “I don’t really keep track of COVID at other schools.

I’m definitely surprised to hear that we’re the only Ivy not requiring testing,” she added.

“Obviously, I’m hoping for the best. I’d say I’m cautiously optimistic.”

ORB meets once a week, on Tuesdays at 7 p.m. in Sayles Hall room 306. There are no requirements to join the group, and all undergraduate, graduate and medical school students are welcome. Students may come as many or as few times as they choose, with anything they share during the meeting remaining confidential.

Each week, after students introduce themselves, Wyron leads the group in a mindful breathing exercise. Participants then share their goals, intentions and how they have used previous weeks’ skills outside the meeting. Much of the meeting time is then spent exploring a new skill and thinking about how participants can apply it to their lives.

ORB is not a “sharing-focused group as much as it is a skills group,” Wyron added.

Through teaching ANTH 1300: “Anthropol-

ogy of Addictions and Recovery” on a regular basis, Adjunct Lecturer in Anthropology Irene Glasser has learned that many students “don’t really drink with their families or they’ve not been acclimated to know how to drink in moderation, in a safe kind of way,” she said.

“A student can get into trouble pretty quickly (with) alcohol because they have not had experience to know how to moderate their drinking,” Glasser said.

According to Garcia, “Nationally, college culture is often thought of as being very substance-centric, and there’s so many people who just don’t want to involve substances in their life for whatever reason, so that can often seem like something that’s isolating.”

In addition to learning skills to moderate substance use, connection and solidarity are

some of the “most powerful benefits” that can come from a group like ORB, Wyron said, adding that the pandemic has exacerbated social isolation and stress in the student population.

“My hope is that the folks who come get to learn from and be inspired by one another in addition to the skills that we’re talking about … (and) that it actually becomes a supportive community space over time,” Wyron said.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2021

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

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STAGES FROM PAGE 1 enactments.

“It’s so easy to ignore or overlook, inadvertently or deliberately, history that is not the history of the dominant group in the state,” Nichols said.

Programs Stages of Freedom offers swimming, cultural education and empowerment and civil rights programs in addition to a new tree-planting initiative.

Pina’s son has participated in the Swim Empowerment program twice and in the Bow Ties for Boys event for several years. Through Bow Ties for Boys, he was paired with a mentor who taught him how to tie a bow tie and held several conversations with him in the process. Pina shared that her son is autistic and struggles in “high contact conversations with others, especially adults.” When one of the mentors noticed that he seemed more reserved, he “actually got down on my son’s level, on his knees” to have a conversation, Pina said. “It was inviting for him … we knew that he had a connection with someone.”

Pina values the swimming program because of the skills it provides her son and the bonds he gets to form with other children going through the same experience. It is especially important for “inner-city kids that will probably never get a chance to not only go to a beach or pool but to learn (how to swim),” she said.

Pina also noted the importance of having her son meet mentors who work in a variety of fields. “He can see other people that look like him that have great careers,” she said. “He’s not limited.”

Beyond the pool, Stages of Freedom offers programming related to exhibits and museums. Rose Weaver, an actress and vocalist, recalled participating in an exhibit on the history of Black artists in Rhode Island where she presented her history as an artist, focusing on her time

COURTESY OF RAY RICKMAN

The organization also brings students to spaces that they may not otherwise visit, such as the RISD Museum and the Lippitt House Museum, in addition to offering swimming and other cultural education programs. with the Trinity Repertory Company.

“They do education through the arts, and I’m a big one for that,” she said. “Wherever I’ve been, they’ve been a part of what I do and what I promote.”

Rickman and Dimmick have also worked to bring youth into museums and other spaces they may not know exist or think they are not allowed to enter, such as the Lippitt House Museum and RISD Museum. “We hope that spaces throw their doors open wider,” Dimmick said.

According to Dimmick, some children visiting these spaces have expressed feeling incredibly uncomfortable — as if always watched by museum guards — and therefore miss out on the history displayed in these spaces.

Before the pandemic, Stages of Freedom organized about 10 events per year, including a Maya Angelou poetry reading, the Bowties for Boys program and a Girls Tea Party at the Lippitt House

Mansion, according to Rickman.

When COVID-19 came, Stages of Freedom held Zoom events and meetings, which Henderson said helped expand their outreach beyond Providence, even reaching communities in New Hampshire and Detroit where Dimmick and Rickman are from, respectively.

Dimmick said that it was “exciting that we could still exist and be viable virtually,” with one particularly memorable event being a three day conference on Frederick Douglass and his presence in Rhode Island. This virtual event featured a keynote address by David W. Blight, author of “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom,” with over 1,000 attendees. The film adaptation of the book is set to be released next year.

Additionally, Stages of Freedom is growing its tree-planting initiative aimed at adding greenery to neighborhoods with lower-income communities of color in southwest Providence in

hopes of improving the environment.

The program is coordinated by Alexander Gim-Fain, who started working with Rickman during his campaign for State Senate and now helps with research and selling rare books, among other tasks in the organization. According to Rickman, the area in which the group hopes to work has only 12% tree coverage, compared to 65% in other parts of the city.

As for why the organization is undertaking this project, “racism is involved in almost every aspect of life,” Rickman said. “One side of town has trees and one doesn’t.”

Connections to Brown Rickman also touched on the socioeconomic divides in the city, saying, “Providence is two cities. It might be three.”

A major challenge Rickman has faced is finding pool space for Swim Empowerment events, and he found it

COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS

The Bears will face the University of North Caroline this Friday in their second game of the season, followed by a home game against CCSU.

BASKETBALL FROM PAGE 1 sity Chicago transfer made his presence known in his debut for the Bears as the go-to shooter that ignited the offense.

“At first we were getting great looks but they weren’t falling,” Wojcik said.

“Those are shots that Coach (Martin)

likes us taking and once you keep taking those good ones, they’ll keep falling.”

Salve Regina remained competitive in the second half as both teams traded buckets for the remainder of the contest, but it wasn’t enough to tighten the score. The Seahawks got the Bears’ lead back down to 30, but did not draw any

disappointing that despite asking the University four times to use the campus pool facility for one day of the year, he said, the opportunity was never granted.

In response, University Spokesperson Brian Clark wrote in an email to The Herald, “Brown’s decisions on requests by external organizations to use space on campus are guided by the factors outlined in our comprehensive ‘Use of Campus Space by External Third Parties’ policy.

“In the case of this specific request, staff from the Office of Government and Community Relations corresponded extensively with Mr. Rickman about the possibility of using Brown facilities.

Ultimately, the request for space appropriate for a community-based learn-toswim program did not align with the space in our Aquatics Center — a pool that is 7 to 13 feet deep and designed and used for competitive swimming and diving.”

Clark also wrote that “Brown has worked to support Stages of Freedom on other initiatives at multiple points over the years.”

After the renaming of Magee Street to Bannister Street in honor of Edward Mitchell Bannister and Christiana Carteaux Bannister, “Brown assisted in closing down the street for an event celebrating the renaming and providing catering for the event and its guests at no charge,” Clark wrote.

Rickman and Dimmick called for increased support from both the administration and students. “What we would like is if a couple hundred Brown students trooped down here once a month, and those without resources spent $2 and those with resources spent a little more,” Rickman said.

“There are so many benefits for anyone who comes through these doors, especially for Brown students,” Dimmick said. “It connects you with the community you’re living in but haven’t really experienced.”

closer. The Seahawks could not hold off the Bears as they put the game out of reach, pushing the lead to 37 at the 6:17 mark after a layup from Mitchell.

Mitchell displayed his excitement for the new season and his confidence in the team to make an impact on the Ivy League. “It’s huge to come out here for the first time and know that the game means something,” he said. “We got those nerves out of the way and were excited to be in front of a real crowd in full uniform. This was a great step forward and I’m really excited about this group and where we can go from here.”

Looking ahead, the Bears will face a stern test in the second game of their season as they travel to Chapel Hill to take on No. 19 University of North Carolina this Friday at 9 p.m. Two days later, Brown will return home for a matchup with local rival Central Connecticut State University at 4 p.m. Sunday.

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2021

UNIVERSITY NEWS

Elizabeth Pfeiffer discusses HIV stigma in Western Kenya

On Tuesday afternoon, public health, anthropology, population studies and African studies scholars joined a presentation at the Watson Institute held

by Elizabeth Pfeiffer, medical anthropologist and assistant professor of anthropology at Rhode Island College.

The event included an overview of the prevalence of HIV stigma in Kenya and was primarily focused on discussing

join the African Initiative and talk about her forthcoming book,” said Daniel Jordan Smith, professor of international studies and director of the African Initiative, a program created by the Watson Institute to draw more attention to and build a scholarly community around Africana Studies at Brown.

To Smith, the most interesting aspect of the presentation was “the nexus between a health problem like HIV/AIDS and the way in which it’s tied to and connected to so many other aspects of culture and society,” he said. “To understand AIDS and stigma in Kenya, you have to widen your lens and think about society, culture, economy and politics.”

“We’re very eager to have students and campus community members

Pfeiffer’s to-be-published book, “Viral Frictions: Global Health and the Persistence of HIV Stigma in Kenya.”

For a decade, Pfeiffer conducted an ethnographic study in a suburban highway community in Western Kenya. The study explores how the stigma surrounding HIV persists even when effective treatments for HIV and AIDS already exist and are widely available.

“Over the last decade, we have created amazing scientific technologies, and we have the capability … to treat ourselves out of the AIDS epidemic,” said Pfeiffer in her presentation, adding that stigma and discrimination still present barriers to ending the epidemic. “My provocative question that underpins my book is what would it really take to get to zero discimination of people who have HIV.” “We were particularly happy for this event to invite a colleague from Rhode Island College and have her

know that we’re here and that we’re organizing and doing African programming, hoping that more students and community members will participate,” Smith said.

Pfeiffer’s research is concerned with how HIV medication factors into the stigma surrounding the virus. She added that “one of the reasons that HIV stigma persists in Kenya is because of complex processes of globalization.”

Her book starts with an overview of the history of HIV in Kenya. The first HIV diagnosis occurred in the early 1980s, but it was not until 1999 that the government declared it as a national disaster. But due to few initiatives in Kenya’s healthcare sector, the virus “spiralled out of control.”

Pfeiffer’s methodology consisted of participant observations, a variety of interviews, conversations and collected media stories. She conducted

Brown’s Africa Initiative organizes talk at Watson Institute led

by R.I. College professor

BY CANQI LI STAFF WRITER

CANQI LI / HERALD

Medical anthropologist and Assistant Professor of Anthropology Elizabeth Pfeiffer spoke about her research HIV stigma in Africa at the Watson Institute Tuesday afternoon. her observations in a suburban area in Western Kenya. The location’s exact name is kept confidential, which she explained was possible due to location not being a significant influencing factor for prevalence and outcomes of HIV stigmatization.

According to Pfeiffer, researchers are still grappling with whether HIV-related stigma and discrimination can be completely eliminated.

“It was a very good talk on a very important topic,” Omar Galarraga, associate professor of health services policy and practice at the School of Public Health, told The Herald. “The issue of stigma in HIV is very much prevalent at many levels,” including when receiving HIV tests, positive

results and treatment.

Galarraga said that attempts to hide HIV medications from others, including close family members, still frequently occur due to this stigma.

“Many people would throw away the bottle, put the pills in a plastic bag and say ‘I’m taking this for (my) headache,’” he said.

Galarraga has studied HIV issues for decades. “We still have about 38 million people who have HIV (worldwide),” he said, adding that hundreds of thousands of people die annually of AIDS-related illnesses “because they don’t have access to treatment.”

“Most of the transmissions are still sexual transmissions through sexual contact,” he said. “In many

sub-Saharan countries, including Kenya, you also have prenatal transmissions — from mother to child during labor and delivery and also through breastfeeding.”

Galarraga also emphasized the large amount of misinformation related to HIV transmission. “A lot of people think that it can be passed through casual touching, sharing utensils and cups and kissing — these are not true,” he said.

An important factor, Galarraga said, is safe sex practices, including the use of condoms. “As a society, we need to be more open and make sure that there is comprehensive sexuality education and that there are tools for protection,” Galarraga said.

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CA L E N DA R

COVID -19 AT BROWN LAST 7 DAYS*

NOVEMBER S

7

Completed Tests

People Tested

M

Tu

W

Th

F

S

2,329

2,140

1

2

3

4

5

6

Confirmed Positives

Positivity Rates

3

0.1 %

8

9

10

11

12

13 SINCE AUGUST 24, 2020*

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

Completed Tests

People Tested

570,886

18,049

Total Cases

Prevalence

821

4.5 %

*AS OF NOV 9.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2021

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY

5

EDITORIAL

First-year advising falls short Academic advising comes in many forms at Brown — from the Meiklejohn peer advising program to professors’ office hours. But all students’ initial exposure to advising is the same. First-year advisors — the professors, deans and aca-

In any case, the current approach is in need of repair.

Brown boasts small advisory groups for first-years, but this is pointless if advisors cannot adequately support students with informed advice. Why not have fewer advisors

We imagine a world where advising resources are more comprehensive, cohesive and accessible, and we imagine a first-year advising program that better connects first-years to those resources. Rather than bouncing between disparate

demic administrators who offer advice to students as they navigate their first months in college — are students’ first guides through a daunting Open Curriculum. These advisors have the potential to positively shape a student’s college experience, but the program as it stands falls short.

While many students come to Brown with some idea of what they want to pursue, many are not assigned an advisor whose background is aligned with their interests. Some are even assigned administrators who have no connection with any academic department at all. The fortunate might receive useful supplementary advice from their Meiklejohn, but the rest are left to fend for themselves.

Students should have better access to specific curricular advice related to potential fields of study through their first-year advisors. Certain concentrations like chemistry and computer science often entail complex introductory sequences, and knowing their nuances early on could fundamentally alter a student’s trajectory. The Brown cliché of taking a diverse array of classes is useful advice, but cannot replace substantive information about specific curricular programs. First-year advisors are well-positioned to provide this information as students’ default academic resource, but often fail to do so because they lack relevant expertise.

We acknowledge that interest-aligned advising might not make sense across the board. Many students come in undecided about their course plan, and even those with a plan in mind could benefit from an advisor who exposes them to new academic fields. And in the advising system’s current setup, there are most likely not enough advisors to match each student to one who works in their field of interest.

and larger advisory groups, if we ensure that every advisor can provide effective guidance for their advisees’ academic goals? Why not hire and train more employees who specialize in advising?

Underlying this all, the University should find ways to ensure and improve the quality of its existing advisors. Currently, there is wide variation among first-year advisors.

Some are enthusiastic and engaged with all facets of undergraduate success, while others limit their involvement to a short email with an advising pin once a semester. Some are seasoned professors well-informed about undergraduate studies, while others are administrators who know little about the academic experience at Brown.

A lack of accountability for subpar advising perpetuates these issues. When first-year advising relationships are unsuccessful, there is no clear system for giving feedback on an advisor or how to improve the program more broadly. Without any feedback mechanism, many advisors who put minimum-at-best effort into supporting their advisees skate by without the University’s knowledge. It is telling that, in 2013, this Board wrote an editorial advocating for a better first-year advising experience, yet eight years down the line, little has changed.

Another part of the problem is the University’s failure to publicize, update and organize its advising resources.

Brown’s advising web page lists programs such as the “Faculty Advising Fellows” and the “Randall Sophomore Advisors,” which many students have never even heard of. Other resources, such as Departmental Undergraduate Groups and department-specific advisors, are often useful, but are scattered and challenging for first-years to access.

advising resources, students would have a unified support network — with intentional pairings between first-years and their advisors, who can in turn connect their advisees to resources relevant to their interests and that might compensate for advisors’ shortcomings. Presently, the first-year advising experience feels inadequate and isolated from other resources. Confronted with the complexities of the Open Curriculum, many students are provided with little more than an advising pin and vague advice to “explore.”

Students should also feel empowered — with the encouragement of the University — to look outside traditional advising relationships and advocate for themselves, both during their first year and beyond. As is noted on Brown’s advising website, “students will also build advising relationships with course instructors, with peers and with various administrators and special faculty advisors on campus.”

First-years, don’t be afraid to go to a professor’s office hours or email an upperclassman from one of your classes to ask for their advice — they’ll probably be delighted to help.

Some of these less formal advising and guiding relationships could be the most meaningful in your time at Brown.

Still, a better formal first-year advising experience is crucial in easing students into Brown’s many academic pathways. Brown should find ways to support its first-years with well-communicated and robust access to knowledgeable advisors, making sure every student gets off on the right foot.

The South Water Street bike lane is ill-advised To the Editor: When I was an undergraduate, my local transportation was a bicycle. In my freshman year, I lived in King House (located at the corner of Brown and Barnes, just south of Hope High School), a freshman dorm that was deaccessioned shortly thereafter. My academic program required six 8 a.m. classes in Whitehall (also no longer in existence, in this instance, demolished). Making that trip in a reasonable time was greatly aided by the mechanical advantage afforded by a bicycle.

Expeditions farther afield were also made more convenient with bike transportation, even though there were very few (read: almost no) bicycle racks at the destinations. Usually, a simple throughwheel lock sufficed, and my first bike wasn’t stolen until several years after I graduated. But the Brown and Pembroke campuses are at the top of a rather challenging hill. The only way I ever managed to ride all the way up College Hill was to go up North Main Street, taking advantage of the gentler slope from the Episcopal Cathedral to the top, turn right on Olney Street, and then right again on Brown Street. The alternative was cheating — to walk with my bike into the Providence County Courthouse through the front entrance on South Main, get on the elevator (operated by a human), get off at the fifth floor and walk out the back door onto Benefit Street. From there, I would walk the rest of the

way up College Street, get back on the bike and ride back to the Pembroke campus.

I am happy that bicycles are more popular now, and am generally in favor of measures to improve bike accessibility. However, the new bike path on South Water Street is an exception.

Forget that traffic will probably be slower and likely congested at evening rush hour. Forget that the path will impede access to the businesses that have their main or service entrances on that thoroughfare. But be terrified at the possibility of an emergency in one of those buildings, some of which are tall enough that a ladder truck might be needed. With only one traffic lane available, and no real escape route for vehicles suddenly being followed by flashing lights and a siren, this is a disaster waiting to happen. The lack of an alternate access route for emergency vehicles was thus a major oversight of the South Water Street bike lane project.

The river is a really attractive location for a bike path. But I do wish that the city could have imlemented the project more thoughtfully, even at the cost of paving over some of the grassy strip separating South Water Street from the (immovable) river. That way, we could both maintain two lanes and install a much-desired bike path.

Barbara Beeton ’61 MA’72

— 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, Olivia Burdette ’22, Devan Paul ’24 and Kate Waisel ’24.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

6

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2021

UNIVERSITY NEWS

Indigenous language courses educate students on culture, dialects Faculty bring Native history to campus, expose students to culture, language

BY EMMA MADGIC CONTRIBUTING WRITER Native American language and culture classes have not always been offered at Brown. But, through the recent work of community members, students have been given the opportunity to engage with Native culture and history in the classroom, bringing perspectives to the University that have long been excluded.

Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies Iris Montero developed HISP 1331E: “Visions and Voices of Indigenous Mexico” in fall 2019. The course included one hour of weekly Nahuatl instruction. Nahuatl is an indigenous language spoken by 1.7 million native speakers living primarily in Mexico and Central America.

Because the course was so successful, Montero applied for funding to bring Eduardo de la Cruz Cruz, director of Instituto de Docencia e Investigación Etnológica de Zacatecas, to Brown to teach Nahuatl. Montero had taken an intensive two-week Nahuatl language course with de la Cruz Cruz in January, and valued his experience in language instruction.

In her own family, Montero experienced Nahuatl language loss — her paternal grandmother spoke Nahuatl, which she only discovered recently through reconnecting with a cousin.

“It just made me very aware of how easy it is to lose a language, and how hard you have to fight to keep incentives for keeping a language alive,” she said.

According to the United Nations, “linguistic diversity is being threatened around the world, and this threat is acutely felt by indigenous peoples.”

The boarding school system for Native American children, first intro-

duced in 1860 by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, also contributed to the loss of Indigenous language, as students were forced to speak and learn in English, according to the American Indian Relief Council.

Montero’s application for funding was accepted and Cruz began teaching LANG 0100: “Beginning Nahuatl” at Brown in the fall 2020. Because he is not located in Providence, the twice weekly classes have always been virtual.

Alexa de la Fuente ’23, who is currently enrolled in the course, said her grandmother convinced her to enroll.

Her grandmother grew up in San Luis Potosi, and although her family is not Indigenous, she was exposed to the Nahuatl language from an early age.

“When I tell her of the certain words I am (learning in class),” de la Fuente said, her grandmother says many were “integrated” into day-to-day “language back when she lived in San Luis.”

Visiting Assistant Professor of American Studies Nitana Hicks Greendeer ’03 teaches a course on Indigenous linguistic culture and history, ETHN 1750X: “Native American Language Loss, Revitalization, and Resiliency.”

Each week, students explore a different language revitalization initiative, often with guest speakers who are personally involved in the efforts.

While the class offers learning opportunities for Indigenous students, its content is also important for people who do not identify as Indigenous to learn about, Hicks Greendeer said.

“For the other students who are not part of (an Indigenous) language speaking community … or who have not watched their tribes struggle to have federal recognition … it’s important to have some idea of what is going on in tribal communities,” Hicks Greendeer said. “Even though we are very small in number in this country, percentage wise, we’re here.”

Hicks Greendeer is also involved with the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project, where she is the school

DANIELLE EMERSON / HERALD

Nitana Hicks Greendeer, who was raised in a tribal community in Mashpee, is also involved in the Wopanaak Language Reclamation Project, which aims to teach Wopanaak language and culture from an early age. language development director. She helped to create the Weetumuw School, an immersion school in Mashpee, Mass. dedicated to teaching students Wôpanâak language and culture from an early age.

Although Hicks Greendeer was raised in a tribal community in Mashpee, she did not start learning Wôpanâak until after college. She added that her work is influenced by a desire to help community members have a more natural experience learning Wôpanâak.

There are fewer than a dozen native Wôpanâak speakers remaining in the United States, Hicks Greendeer added, making it all the more important to revitalize the language’s presence within her community.

Scott AnderBois, associate professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences, teaches CLPS 1390: “Linguistic Field Methods” each spring.

Because COVID-19 restrictions would have made it difficult to conduct the class effectively, AnderBois designed a new class, CLPS 1392: “Modern Mayan Languages,” offered for the first time this past spring. Students in the course delved into the linguistic structures of the nearly 30 Mayan languages and analyzed how differing linguistic and grammatical properties shape the per-

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spectives of speakers.

This year, AnderBois is doing field work in Ecuador as part of the A’ingae Language Documentation Project, which he leads. He facilitates workshops in several communities in northeast Ecuador, where A’ingae is spoken, working with community members to create raw materials for local teachers’ lesson plans. The project is also developing a database of videos and interviews with native speakers to allow for further research, and is collaborating with local native speakers to make a new A’ingae dictionary, as the most recent one was published in the 1980s.

Since AnderBois is not a native speaker of any Native language, his work is informed by conversations with native speakers.

For these language revitalization efforts to be effective, “language community members themselves need to be the ones who want the language to be preserved and maintained and used in different contexts,” AnderBois said.

“Linguists from the outside have a role to play in helping provide resources and training and knowledge.”

According to Hicks Greendeer, Brown in particular has a role to play in the preservation of Native language and culture.

“Coming to a place like Brown, there’s a lot of history there, at Brown specifically, because of slavery, because of what happened to Indigenous communities, so that Brown could exist,” Hicks Greendeer said. “And that’s the responsibility, I think, of the University: to make space for Indigenous storytelling, specifically southern New England Indigenous storytelling.”

Ben Salinas GS, who is currently enrolled in NAHU 0300: “Intermediate Nahuatl,” agreed that Brown has an obligation to increase Indigenous language course offerings.

“Why can I learn every language in Europe but not languages from Indigenous peoples in the Americas?

What makes those less worthy of being taught in academic settings?” Salinas said. “Even just the fact that there is a Nahuatl class here is dismantling that hierarchy of what is deemed a sophisticated, important language to study.”

“Language is history, language is culture. It’s difficult to get outside language when talking about people’s identities, who they are, where they come from, their histories,” he added.

“You can learn all about Indigenous peoples’ history, but if you learn the languages as well, that is just a whole other dimension.”

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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2021

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY

7

Gao ’24: CAPS must be more proactive serving students

BY JOYCE GAO STAFF COLUMNIST

After two semesters of slogging through online courses, students are finally returning to in-person University operations. But the mental strain from the pandemic continues to weigh us down. Since last spring, students have been expressing their exhaustion from condensed semesters and challenges posed by the pandemic. As a member of the class of 2024, I share the pervasive feelings of burnout with my peers as we trudge through three consecutive terms.

While the University has put Counseling and Psychological Services forth as an available resource for students, frustrations about CAPS still abound.

Since 2017, CAPS has been trying to reach more students since it adopted a new model of care, establishing various workshops and training programs that are open to the entire Brown community. Under this new model, CAPS also shortened the wait time for a first appointment from more than two weeks to one day — which is significantly shorter than the national average of six business days, according to an annual survey from the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors.

But despite this response rate, CAPS, like most mental health services across the country, largely operates passively in response to student mental health crises rather than actively mitigating the buildup to a crisis. CAPS only becomes active after a student has been struggling with mental health issues long enough to realize they need help and work up the courage to

reach out. Instead, CAPS should try to meet students earlier by hosting wellness days and making its website more friendly to those who have little experience with mental health services.

Wellness days are a few scheduled days per semester when all members of a university take a break from their obligations to concentrate on their mental health. During the pandemic,

mitigates complete burnout. Through wellness days, the University can encourage students to be more intentional with their days off. By including them as official breaks in the calendar, the University can demonstrate its support of long-term well-being over immediate productivity, opening the door to more discussions about mental health and student well-being.

“CAPS should work with the University to provide wellness days, beyond the pandemic, that can benefit all students while also promoting itself as an accessible resource on campus.”

many universities added wellness days to their academic calendars with the goal of alleviating student stress. These schools include, but are not limited to, Boston University, Duke University, Pennsylvania State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. CAPS should work with the University to provide wellness days, beyond the pandemic, that can benefit all students while also promoting itself as an accessible resource on campus.

Of course, a few single-day breaks cannot fundamentally reduce the numerous stressors that students face, but it can be a safety net that

Besides providing mental health days, CAPS can also welcome more students to reach out by providing more detailed information on the website. Currently, the website has vague and scattered information about its services in FAQ format, and it can feel like CAPS operates on the assumption that students come in with an understanding of or prior experience with mental health support. The website provides little information on when a student should reach out for help, what they should expect at a counseling session or what a call to CAPS after hours or in an emergency would lead them to. While

providing detailed information for individual counseling sessions may be challenging, more relevant information can be extremely reassuring for students who may be feeling anxious about seeing a mental health professional, perhaps for the first time.

For example, the GYN visits page by BWell at Brown, also in FAQ format, acknowledges the possible feelings of stigma and anxiety surrounding their services by providing understanding, informative answers. The page thoroughly walks the reader through common questions like “What can I expect at a GYN visit?”

“How long does it take?” and — perhaps most importantly for nervous patients — “What if I am still afraid to have the visit?” In responding to these concerns, the BWell website uses empathetic language like “If, after reading this page, you still have concerns about the GYN visit and are nervous or unsure, that’s OK … your provider can work with you to tailor the exam to help you feel as comfortable as possible.” Adjustments like these, although seemingly minor, can be crucial in a student’s decision to reach out to CAPS. As the CAPS website reads, its mission is to “assist students with completion of their academic program, engagement in their social and extracurricular activities and development of optimal well-being.” CAPS is a service for all students. In order to fulfill its mission, it must more proactively reach out to all those it’s meant to serve.

Joyce Gao ’24 can be reached at xing_gao@ brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald. com.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2021

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

8

UNIVERSITY NEWS

LGBTQ Center, OMAS reflects on decade since ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ repeal Conversation features Jennifer Dane, discusses implications of “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy

BY JACK WALKER UNIVERSITY NEWS EDITOR In a Tuesday evening conversation hosted by the LGBTQ Center and the Office of Military-Affiliated Students, community members reflected on the 10-year anniversary of the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” a U.S. military policy which banned openly gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals from military service but also prohibited harassment of or discrimination against closeted service members.

The conversation was held as part of OMAS’s Salute to Service Week and featured Jennifer Dane, former intelligence analyst for the U.S. Air Force and executive director of the Modern Military Association of America, “a nonprofit organization working to advance fairness and equality for the LGBTQ military and veteran community,” according to the event description.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” was implemented by President Bill Clinton’s administration Feb. 28, 1994. The policy was part of an effort from Clinton’s to follow up on campaign promises to expand gay rights but was limited to supporting closeted individuals as the administration faced political opposition from gay rights opponents.

In her tenure with the U.S. military, Dane experienced “don’t ask, don’t tell” and felt its ramifications firsthand as an LGBTQ individual.

While serving in the Air Force, Dane was sexually assaulted and went through the process of reporting and investigating the assault with the military. However, her sexuality came up as a topic of discussion, and she was forced to navigate homophobic discrimination within the investigation process that scrutinized her identity instead of focusing on the actions of the man who assaulted her. While the investigation ended when the policy

ANDERSON FROM PAGE 1 encourages.

All of Anderson’s many quirks, aestheticisms and faults fit into “The French Dispatch” perfectly. It becomes hard to imagine the movie made in any other way, with any less cutesiness or any less production. The star-studded cast — Owen Wilson, Anjelica Huston, Tilda Swinton, Timothée Chalamet, Saoirse Ronan, Frances McDormand, Benicio Del Toro, Bill Murray and Elisabeth Moss, to name a few — is reminiscent of the movie’s subject. The masthead of The New Yorker often feels like a rolodex of the who’s who in literary journalism. The perfectly crafted, color-coordinated sets recall the infamous New Yorker illustration style. Even the disjointed switches from black and white to color, or from film to animation, echo the shock of reading about a horrific murder in the magazine’s pages and then, in the next paragraph, encountering a comic about a giraffe in a doctor’s office.

But Anderson’s greatest accomplishment feels like a cheat. Because he picked the ephemeral, interdisciplinary cultural publication of The New Yorker

ELISE RYAN / HERALD

President Barack Obama formally repealed the Clinton-era “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, though transgender individuals continued to face discrimination while serving in the U.S. military. was eventually repealed, Dane said its legacy still shaped her experience within the military.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” was a “policy intended for good,” but due to oversights in how it would affect LGBTQ individuals, it ultimately was “more harmful for (me) in the long run,” she said at the event.

After Clinton was elected, many members of the LGBTQ community “felt hope, and it all kind of backfired in our faces,” said Kelly Garrett, director of the LGBTQ Center, at the beginning of the event. For Garrett, “don’t ask, don’t tell” was a “terrible compromise that hurt a lot of people.”

In 2011, President Barack Obama formally repealed the policy, although transgender individuals continued to face discrimination while serving in the U.S. military — transgender people were banned from serving under Trump-era policies, which were revoked by President Biden.

Dane noted that the repeal of the Clinton-era policy made it easier for individuals in same-sex relationships who experienced domestic or intimate partner violence to report their experi-

ences without fear of being scrutinized for their sexuality.

The repeal of the policy sparked new conversations at Brown, too, amid discussions surrounding the presence of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps on campus, a program that was discontinued on College Hill in 1969. When the University created a committee to analyze the potential reinstatement of the program in 2011, critics of ROTC expressed concern about the failure of the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” to support transgender individuals in the U.S. military and wanted to limit the presence of military-affiliated programming like ROTC on campus, former University President Ruth Simmons explained in an Oct. 19, 2011 letter to the Brown community.

Following her service in the military, Dane became involved in advocacy for LGBTQ veterans and active-duty service members. Today, the Modern Military Association of America works to support the LGBTQ military-affiliated community, making sure the military is “as inclusive as possible,” she said.

Her organization’s initiatives include increasing advocacy for transgender

individuals in the military, who still face extreme discrimination and barriers to entry in their service. “‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ was only effective for people who identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual,” Dane said. “It was never intended to protect transgender individuals.”

Because of this, Dane emphasized the importance of codifying protections for transgender service members into law to minimize further discrimination.

“There’s a lot of trans folk who do serve, who should be capable of serving with honor and dignity,” she added. Dane’s organization also works to advocate for intersex and HIV-positive individuals, who remain banned from military service.

While she said the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” was a step in the right direction, Dane noted that discrimination against LGBTQ individuals in the military persists, and argued that the government has not sufficiently supported LGBTQ veterans who were discharged under the policy.

According to Dane, during the years of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” 114,000 individuals were dishonorably discharged

from the military for “homosexual conduct.” After the policy’s repeal, their status of being dishonorably discharged was not overturned. Dishonorable discharges from the military do not receive access to medical care, financial support and other benefits the U.S. government has in place for veterans.

Dane works with veterans discharged under “don’t ask, don’t tell” to help them “upgrade” their discharges to access veterans’ benefits. But she still urges legislators to codify laws that will do this automatically without requiring veterans to appeal their discharges.

Despite steps in the right direction, Dane and Garrett agreed there is room to better support LGBTQ veterans, especially in the wake of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

“There’s a really long history of service members who have served our country and are LGBTQ,” Garrett added.

Dane maintains hope that one day the experience of LGBTQ veterans will be better, with more support in place for them. “It just takes time,” she said.

as a subject, he could do whatever he wanted, just like the magazine and its writers. Though it is a story about journalism, it is more a sampling of various mediums: an exposition of the literary world’s trappings.

Like The New Yorker, every story seems to somehow displace itself into another one. “The Concrete Masterpiece” is told through Berensen in a lecture hall. “Revisions to a Manifesto” drops the audience into Krementz’s reportage as she colludes with her supposedly journalistic subjects. “The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner” is told through Wright in an interview (with Liev Schrieber, of course) using a blend of filmic, narrated and animated flashbacks.

Usually, The New Yorker’s reporting is a window into the author’s life, in some way or another. At least, that is the side of the magazine that Anderson depicts, and it is surely the publication’s most parodic characteristic. In two of the three stories, the reporter writes about sleeping with the subject. Wright ends his piece with his own monologue about fitting in. Between the lines, Krementz often laments about her own loneliness, especially as a female writer.

Because the stories are being told through the reporter, and because these reporters are eccentric Anderson creations, the stories are subsumed by the individual. This is not a flaw — those who read and love The New Yorker (Anderson, unsurprisingly, considers himself a big fan) do not complain when the writer pauses to talk about their own feelings. At least, those who do complain do not subscribe. The magazine is, notably, not The New York Times.

It has no duty to tell everything in any logical order. It really has no duty to tell you anything important at all. Anderson exploits the creative liberties of New Yorker journalism to our benefit, and surely to his.

Horwitzer’s motto, oft-repeated throughout the film as he edits his unruly writers’ work, is “just make it sound like you wrote it that way on purpose.” Anderson, in all of his films and most certainly in “The French Dispatch,” already adheres to this mantra.

If his eclectic cinematic style had to be confined to one word, “purposeful” would do. The publication is located in the fictional Ennui-sur-Blase, or Boredom upon Apathy, a fitting title for the writers who are all, to extreme

degrees, aloof geniuses who enter violent conflicts with frowns and yawns.

The score, released prior to the film’s opening in cinemas, is plentiful in irreverent compositions that fit into this fictional world. Even Chalamet, a current teenage heartthrob, is cast as a political teenage heartthrob in the film. There will be no eye twitching here, no realistic sigh or unplanned hair tuck. Every movement serves to create Anderson’s world, every action constructs the ground upon which the actor stands. Without purpose, “The French Dispatch” would fall apart. So, too, would The New Yorker.

After the last story, “The Private Dining Room,” is recounted, Horwitzer reads over the final write-up in his office. He’s disappointed to hear that the original interview subject, Chef Nescaffier, is only quoted once. Wright responds with an anecdote. The genius chef, who almost fatally poisons himself, had never tasted, in all his years, anything like poison. In the hospital bed, he murmurs to Wright: “Thinking something is missing. Missing what’s left behind.” Horwitzer tells Wright to include the quote.

Anderson’s greatest feat is replicat-

ing this impression; the audience also is left feeling as if there is something missing in “The French Dispatch.” It is probably the fact that The New Yorker, and any other publication like it, is not the creative boxing ring the film portrays it as. Covered in ads, resistant to change, obsessed with its own image and helplessly whimsical, modern literary publications don’t often feel as real, as necessary, as the fictional French Dispatch. But still, we find ourselves missing exactly what we chastise. I need to read about TikTok’s obsession with Americancore aesthetic as much as I need to hear about Herbsaint Sazerac’s (Owen Wilson) foray through a French town. But I want to read both!

Anderson’s romantic vision of journalism feels a bit too generalizing: there is an important distinction between Berensen’s drunken lecture and wartime reporters. But this type of journalism — The New Yorker, creative nonfiction, literary essayage that has become especially popular in the years since Anderson began his film career — deserves a little aesthetically-pleasing pat on the back. Like the film, that twee type of writing is lovely. Just lovely.