Wednesday, November 2nd, 2022

Antisemitic note found in Hillel lobby

Providence police conducting further investigation; Hillel calls for community support

BY SAM LEVINE SENIOR STAFF WRITER

An antisemitic note was discovered in the reception area of the Weiner Center at Brown RISD Hillel Sunday evening, Executive Director and Rabbi Josh Bolton wrote in an email to the Hillel community Monday.

Hillel staff immediately alerted the Department of Public Safety, Bolton added, and the Providence Police De partment has launched an investigation into the matter.

“It’s not an easy moment for Jewish students” on campus, Bolton told The Herald. “It’s scary to have this type of rhetoric show up in your home.”

The note, which included several expletives and violent threats against Jewish people, was written on a dona tion card and found on the front desk, according to GoLocalProv. It was first

discovered by a security officer on duty at Hillel and is now in the custody of PPD.

The antisemitic note follows two other incidents of antisemitic graffiti over the summer, both of which in volved swastikas carved into surfaces, The Herald previously reported.

DPS received a call from Hillel re garding the incident at 5:41 p.m. Sun day, Rodney Chatman, chief of DPS and vice president of campus safety, wrote

in an email to The Herald. Although the incident falls under PPD’s jurisdiction, DPS responded to the call in order to “assess how we could provide in-themoment support for affected students and staff,” he added.

DPS called Providence Police at 6:33 p.m. Sunday and has since turned over security camera footage, swipe access history and other relevant information

Incarcerated people face aftermath of hunger strike

BY ELYSEE BARAKETT SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Leonard Jefferson was incarcerated in Rhode Island Maximum Security Prison for nearly two decades. From 1973 to 1985 and from 2014 to 2019, he experienced the state’s prison system from the inside, directly encountering problems ranging from staff miscon duct to facility issues that put his health at risk.

The mold within the prison was so severe it gave Jefferson asthma and other respiratory difficulties — to the point where “just breathing the air” inside of maximum security was “torture,” he recalled in an interview with The Herald.

While J.R. Ventura, Rhode Island Department of Corrections chief of

information and public relations of ficer, maintains that the operations and facilities of maximum security are safe and secure, many of the indi viduals living inside the prison tell a different story. On Aug. 22, individu als incarcerated in maximum security organized a hunger strike to protest their living conditions. Joseph Shep ard, who took part in the strike, told The Herald that he estimated that over half of the maximum security population participated.

But RIDOC officials dispute that a strike occurred. “There have been no actions to indicate a hunger strike inside our facility, and no reports of inmates declaring to be on one,” Ven tura wrote in an email to The Herald.

“Everyone here has either come out to eat or (has) chosen to stay in their rooms and eat the commissary food they have purchased to keep in their cells,” he added.

Activists and people incarcer ated in maximum security told The

NEWS November faculty meeting also included updates on endowment, research

METRO

Faculty consider changes to sabbatical policy

Faculty would also be allowed to delay that sabbatical and work 12 semesters in residence in order to receive a full year of sabbatical.

Providence Place begins to bounce back

BY SOFIA BARNETT SENIOR STAFF WRITER

University faculty convened Nov. 1 for the second faculty meeting of the academic year to discuss possible re visions to the faculty sabbatical policy, changes in the endowment and campus infrastructure updates.

Sabbatical changes

President Christina Paxson P’19 said that the University’s Committee on Faculty Equity and Diversity has been working with Provost Richard Locke P’18 and a number of members of the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, to revise the sabbatical policy.

A change to the University’s pol icy proposed at the meeting would provide 100% salary support for a semester-long sabbatical after six semesters in residence, Locke said.

Currently, the University’s sabbat ical policy for tenured faculty makes faculty members eligible for sabbatical leave with three-quarters of their sal ary for one semester after completing six semesters of teaching, according to Locke. If a member of tenured faculty does not take leave until 12 semesters of teaching, they can either have one semester off while receiving a full se mester’s salary or take the academic year at 75% salary, he added.

“In my conversation with the (Fac ulty Executive Committee) leadership, (increased compensation) seemed to be a very important factor in return for that enhanced financial support during sabbatical,” Locke said.

Locke anticipates that with the changes, more faculty will be en couraged to take sabbatical leave. As a result, the University will “be less flexible on when people can take sab batical” to ensure adequate curricular support.

BY LILIANA GREYF CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Escalators and the fully-carpeted floors at the Providence Place mall are once again bustling with lines of shoppers. But visitors’ experiences have changed drastically since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, as have the stores they shop at, mall employees and shoppers told The Herald.

These shifts have prompted the de velopment of a forthcoming strategy by the mall to increase business. Last month, the Providence City Council received a proposal for a new tax agree ment between the mall and the city, which would allow Providence Place to serve as a space for more than just retail. The mall’s previous arrangement with the city limited its primary use to retail sales.

“The continued growth of e-com merce has required mall owners to reinvent the shopping center experi ence, and redevelop the environment to become a modern public gathering

place that combines retail with of fice/workplace, dining, entertainment, health and wellness facilities, arts, ed ucation, residential, medical, commu nity fulfillment services and ... other commercial uses in one location,” the proposal read.

The proposal includes a 20-year tax treaty that begins in July 2028, under which Providence Place would not owe taxes but would make annual payments of $4.5 million to the city.

Mall management did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Herald.

Providence Place, like many phys ical retail businesses, temporarily closed its doors and faced financial troubles during the pandemic. The

mall shut down from March to June 2020 and fell behind on its mortgage payments, the Providence Journal reported.

But easing pandemic restrictions have led to more customers, said Bri anna Frank, a host and server assistant at the mall’s P.F. Chang’s.

Heather Healey, a resident of East Providence who was getting an early start to Christmas shopping at retailer Aerie with her daughter, said she felt that her experience at the mall is remi niscent of pre-pandemic times. “In the midst of COVID, we had to wait outside in lines to keep the numbers low, but there’s nothing different since it died

BY ASHLEY

METRO Participants seek improved facilities, reform in prison staff conduct

Mall adopts new strategy to compete with online shopping, post-COVID effects

STELLA OLKEN-HUNT / HERALD

Hillel staff immediately alerted the Department of Public Safety, and the Providence Police Department has launched an investigation.

Paxson makes surprise appearance at Halloween organ concert

BY MAGDALENA DEL VALLE SENIOR STAFF WRITER

A line of students that stretched across the Main Green filed into Sayles Hall on Halloween night, buzzing with ex citement as they took in the decorative cobwebs adorning the building’s balco ny. The decorations come every year to Sayles, a key part of University Organist Mark Steinbach’s annual Midnight Hal loween Organ Recital.

But this year’s performance, which included Frédéric Chopin’s “Marche Funèbre, Op. 35, No. 2” and a haunt ing Halloween classic, “Toccata con Fuga in D minor, BWV 565” by Johann Sebastian Bach, was different from previous years. Halfway through his performance Steinbach answered a sol emn knock on the Sayles Hall balcony door. To the astonishment of the nearly 500 students in attendance, President Christina Paxson P’19 emerged in a witch costume, marking her first time joining Steinbach for the event, ac cording to Steinbach.

Paxson wore a pointy witch hat and veil that nearly obscured her face,

though her spectacles still remained visible. She arrived in a less spectac ular fashion than Steinbach, who was carried into Sayles in a coffin and res urrected like a zombie by the attendees before beginning his performance. He emerged with a face full of white makeup with red, spidery veins drawn onto his hands.

“Darkness falls across the Green, the midnight hour will soon be seen,” Paxson said at 12:24 a.m., commenc ing her reading of a Halloween poem. “Creatures crawl in search of blood, to terrorize Brown’s neighborhood.”

To the background tune of Stein bach’s organ, Paxson concluded her speech, took a bow and left the stage as smoothly as she arrived, receiving widespread applause and cheers from the audience.

“I was delighted to invite President Paxson to be my special surprise guest and collaborate with her this year,” Steinbach said in an interview with The Herald.

Student attendees were surprised at Paxson’s appearance at the event, noting that they had not expected her as the event’s guest appearance as they filed out of Sayles at 1 a.m.

“I thought she did a great job,” said Jake Kelly ’26 after the concert. “It was a joy.”

Melvin He ’25 echoed Kelly’s feel ings and admitted his surprise at the

“spooky” presidential midnight spot ting.

“It was really a fascinating experi ence,” He said. “I did not expect CPax to come out. It was also a little bit spooky, and it was great to see the president.”

Francesca Mustain ’23 said that even though this was her first midnight or gan concert, she “kind of expected” the president’s appearance because Steinbach had advertised a special guest at this year’s recital. “I thought

it was going to be either CPax or Dean (Rashid) Zia,” she added.

“I love performing the Halloween Midnight Recital,” Steinbach said, “in no small part because of the students’ great enthusiasm.”

President reads poem at annual midnight performance in Sayles Hall, dons witch hat

AVANEE DALMIA / HERALD

U. faculty members discuss venue preferences for future meetings

promised people at home,” he said. “A meeting where we have 150-plus of us crammed into Salomon 001 does not feel like an accessible space for some one who is immunocompromised.”

BY SOFIA BARNETT SENIOR STAFF WRITER

At the Nov. 1 faculty meeting, University faculty members expressed support by an informal show-of-hands vote for a plan under which the first and last faculty meetings of the semester would be held in person, indicating the potential end of years of the group formally meeting exclusively on Zoom.

According to Kenneth Wong, pro fessor of education policy and chair of the Faculty Executive Committee, the FEC will finalize a revised plan for future faculty meeting venues during its Nov. 15 meeting.

The last faculty meeting that was held in person was on March 4, 2020 — before COVID-19 forced University community members off campus.

Wong said that the FEC was dedi cated to ensuring that faculty members feel comfortable with future meeting formats, as COVID-19 remains a con cern for many community members.

“The risks associated with COVID are still very much alive,” he said. “We received some feedback in terms of those kinds of concerns.”

Faculty members were able to sub mit anonymous comments to the FEC before Tuesday’s meeting regarding their thoughts on convening in per son. The Committee received a total of 59 comments, with several faculty members expressing concern about maintaining a sense of community among the faculty while also keep ing equity, accessibility and safety in mind in light of persistent COVID-19 concerns.

Zoom faculty meetings provide equitable access for faculty mem bers with childcare responsibilities, family considerations and commit ments that bring them away from Providence, Wong said, citing the submitted comments. Some faculty members also expressed that they attended more meetings over Zoom than they had over their total time at the University.

“But then there are other faculty members who (expressed) that in-per son meetings are very important be cause they create a sense of commu nity,” Wong added. Some faculty are also “concerned about the fact that people might be on Zoom (without) actually paying attention” to meeting proceedings.

After sharing these comments,

Wong presented five different options for how future meetings would be held, including: holding all meetings in person going forward; holding all future meetings remotely other than the May 26 commencement meet ing; alternating between online and in-person meetings; hosting meetings in-person with a livestream component for non-participating faculty; and a hybrid option with available Zoom and in-person participation.

Wong expressed hesitation regard ing the fifth option, calling it a logistical “challenge.”

“It’s complicated,” he said. Presi dent Christina Paxson P’19 “would have to manage multiple streams and paths in terms of voting and speaking with in-person and remote (attendees) at the same time.”

Kristina Mendicino, chair of Ger man studies, said she was concerned about limiting the voting and discus sion capabilities of faculty partici pants who can only attend meetings through a livestream for various “trav el, illness or compromised immunity” reasons.

“For the sake of equity and broad participation in this period of facul ty governance, I would remain very much in favor of Zoom meetings,” she said.

Carlos Aizenman, professor of neu roscience and brain science, also voiced his support for Zoom options, saying that he would be “a lot more enthusias tic about in-person meetings if (faculty members) could wear masks.”

“Many of us are immunocompro mised or take care of immunocom

J. Timmons Roberts, professor of en vironmental studies and environment and society and sociology, asked Paxson about how she would manage the lo gistics of facilitating discussions during hybrid meetings that allow in-person and online faculty members to par ticipate.

Paxson responded that she was less concerned about facilitating discussions and more worried about maintaining a secure voting process across different platforms, though she noted that “it could be managed, in theory.”

Andrew Foster, professor of eco nomics, said that he doesn’t foresee voting being an issue in hybrid meet ings, as the economics department frequently uses online polls. Foster suggested making polls phone-acces sible and incorporating individualized faculty IDs, which would ensure security despite requiring a more complicated set-up.

Elias Muhanna, associate professor of comparative literature and histo ry, proposed another option where the first and last faculty meetings of the semester would be held in per son and all others over Zoom. This “gives people a chance to chat after the meeting and reconnect with each other,” he said.

Paxson and Wong concluded the discussion by asking faculty members to raise their hands in order to gauge favorability for Muhanna’s suggested option of meeting in person for only the first and last meetings. Eightysix out of the 154 faculty members participating in the informal showof-hands vote approved the adjusted meeting plan.

Majority show support for hybrid plan through informal show-of-hands vote

DANA RICHIE / HERALD

Kenneth Wong, chair of the Faculty Executive Committee, initially presented faculty members with five possible meeting scenarios, including all in-person meetings, all remote meetings and options in between.

down,” Healey said.

Safety restrictions particularly impacted business for stores like Sephora, where testing products is an essential part of the shopping ex perience, said Rachel Benedides, an operations lead at the makeup and skincare chain’s location in the mall.

But now that almost all precautions have been lifted — only sample prod ucts which can’t be sanitized, such as skincare products in jars, are prohib ited — customers have been returning to the store.

“Now it’s getting back to normal,”

Benedides said. “Not quite there, but you can feel the energy is getting bet ter.”

Though business is improving, the mall’s operations are not entirely the same as before the pandemic, according to Nashley Marte, a sales associate at clothing store LOFT. “It varies — some days are really, really slow, and other days there’s more traffic,” she said. Even on busier days, stores tend to close ear lier than they did before the pandemic began due to a lack of shoppers, Marte said.

Providence Place’s overall loss of shoppers throughout the pandem ic mirrors a larger trend of declining

malls around the country. The pandem ic placed greater pressure on smaller shopping malls struggling with chang ing consumer habits, The New York Times reported last year.

The closure of department stores, which are crucial for malls, during the pandemic — resulting also from shrinking middle class incomes and online competitors such as Amazon — has severely impacted the success of shopping malls, Vox reported.

The increase in online shopping during the pandemic has changed consumer behavior in Providence Place, Marte said. “A lot of the time, for the people that do come in, it’s

honestly just because they need to try on something they saw online or to return something they bought online,” she added.

Many customers at Sephora also come in after shopping online. “They’ll come in and be like ‘I chose the wrong shade,’” Benedides said.

But some patrons value the expe rience of in-person shopping, which has allowed for a more recent uptick in business, Benedides said.

“I think there’s something special about one-on-one interactions, doing color matches, getting recommenda tions from a real life person,” she said. “And then they can see right away what

they like.”

Healey often shops at the mall with her daughter, who prefers being in the store to shopping online, she said. “It’s easier especially for the kids to come and try things on,” she said.

Ashlian Lebron, a customer at De signer Shoe Warehouse, came into the mall in October for the first time in months because it was her birthday and she was looking for a fun activity.

“I come here very rarely, just to take a look and see if they have any heels I might like, but I usually just shop on line,” Lebron explained. “It’s nice to come in, it’s fun, but I used to do it more often.”

to the department, which will continue further investigations into the inci dent, Chatman wrote.

“We stand at the ready to assist Providence (Police) in their investiga tion in any way we can help,” Chatman wrote. “We certainly want to position ourselves to support our community members affected by this disturbing act.”

PPD did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

Following the incident, Hillel’s greatest priority remains the safety of its community, Bolton said in an inter view with The Herald. Hillel strives to balance “our values of being a welcom ing, open, accessible, low-threshold place with the reality that we also want to protect students, staff, community

members (and) faculty who are here in the building,” he added.

According to Bolton, Hillel is taking “additional steps to ensure the safety and security of (its) community,” in cluding increasing security around the building, verifying their swipe access system and continuing to enforce a visitor sign-in policy.

Bolton emphasized that the Hillel community will recover from the in cident. “My sense is that students feel inspired to respond to this moment with an expression of strength,” he said, “with an expression of Jewish cultural and communal vitality.”

“We will not allow an incident like this to divert our focus from our core mission of building a flourishing Jewish community and supporting the growth of Jewish students on College Hill,” Bolton wrote in his email to the Hillel

community.

Noah Rosenfeld ’24, chair of stu dent trustees at Hillel, first heard about the incident Monday afternoon, a few hours before Bolton alerted the broad er Hillel community. For Rosenfeld, this incident is “just another acknowl edgement that antisemitism is real” and exists in all spaces, he said.

But, similar to Bolton, Rosenfeld identified a prevailing feeling among his peers that “we’re not going to al low this hatred to stop our commu nity” at Brown. Hillel will continue its programming and serve as a space for Jewish people to “express them selves” and their Judaism on campus, he added.

For students who wish to talk through their thoughts on Sunday’s in cident, Hillel staff is available to listen and chat with students about anything

“they might be feeling,” Rosenfeld said.

Bolton emphasized that allyship from the University’s non-Jewish com munity is pivotal right now. “Non-Jew ish partners (need) to stand up and say, ‘anti-Jewish hatred has no place here. Antisemitic rhetoric has no place in this University,’ ” he said.

Sylvia Carey Butler, vice president for institutional equity and diversity, and Eric Estes, vice president for cam pus life and student services, noted in a Tuesday email to the community that the incident at Hillel follows other “in cidents of bias (on College Hill) against underrepresented communities and communities of color” in recent weeks.

This includes offensive graffiti, slurs yelled at community members from passing cars and other intimidating messages left in public places.

In the statement, Butler and Carey

condemned these incidents and called on the University community to “work together to continue … being a cam pus that values the experiences and perspectives of people of all races, re ligions, genders, sexual orientations, abilities and other identities.”

Instances of antisemitism on col lege campuses rose by 21% in 2021, according to an analysis by the An ti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights organization.

Students with information about the Hillel incident should contact DPS or share information anonymously through the Silent Witness Form, ac cording to the email. Students who experience or witness a bias incident should contact DPS and can notify the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity through the bias incident reporting process.

TODAY’S EVENTS

Compiler engineering and why it matters 9:30 a.m. Watson CIT

Sextarianism: Sovereignty, Secu larism and the State in Lebanon 12 p.m. Watson Institute

Tito P. Achong, Race and Anticolonialism in Wartime Trinidad 12 p.m. Watson Institute

The Power of Public Speaking 4:30 p.m. 85 Waterman Street

TOMORROW’S EVENTS

Biomedical Engineering Seminar: Milana Vasudev 11 a.m. Barus and Holley Room 190

Life on the Hyphen 12 p.m. Rochambeau House, Music Room

Condensed Matter Seminar: Julia Mundy, Harvard University 4 p.m. Barus and Holley Room 190

2022 Clapp Lecture with Christopher Cummins 4 p.m. Macmillan Hall Room

Brown Design Workshop holds Halloween costume open hours

so I come (to the BDW) for all of my projects,” they said. “I have all of my certifications.”

BY NEIL MEHTA SENIOR STAFF WRITER

At the Brown Design Workshop’s an nual costume open hours Thursday evening, workshop monitors joined undergraduates in assembling cos tumes for a weekend of Halloween festivities on campus.

The Herald spoke to three stu dents attending the event, all of whom rushed to complete their costumes the evening before they were due.

Jules Silva ’26 stitched a striped crop top for their Freddy Krueger-in spired Halloween look at the front of the workshop.

“I’m making a costume for Hal loweekend last minute,” Silva said. “It’s something a bit more informal … I just want to be a bit more scrappy.”

Though they are a first-year, Silva is already a workshop veteran.

“I’m an engineering student here,

Zoe Le ’25 worked alongside Silva to create her rendition of Suki from the “Fast & Furious” franchise and was joined by friends to create the “intricate” cutouts needed in the cos tume. Instead of buying a costume, Le thrifted a pair of Zumba pants as her starting material.

Further back in the workshop, Laurel Meshnick ’23 created a striped blue-and-black dress inspired by the 2015 viral online debate.

“I’m doing this very rushed,” Meshnick said. “I just got this dress from Savers. I always had a plan for (the costume), but I’m a procrasti nator.”

This weekend marked Meshnick’s last Halloween celebration as an un dergraduate, though they said the event “is not something I’m going to miss from college.” Between the extensive preparation for the cele bration and the high expectations for costumes, “Halloweekend is stressful,” Meshnick said.

This year’s BDW event was orga nized in part by Lucid Clairvoyant ’23,

a monitor at the workshop and illus trator for The Herald.

Most monitors were not able to prepare their costumes in advance be cause of upcoming exams. As a result, the Halloween event was “put together at the last minute,” Clairvoyant said. Still, they volunteered to organize the workshop because of their excitement for the holiday. “I’m a die-hard Hal loween fan,” they said.

According to Clairvoyant, part

of the event’s importance is its role in advertising the availability of the workshop to students. Both Le and Silva praised the BDW for the resources it provides to st udents.

Le, who previously attended the BDW as a student in ENGN 0030: “In troduction to Engineering,” said she hopes to continue engaging with the workshop following the Halloween event. “I want to get my sewing certi fication and come here more,” Le said.

Silva first attended the BDW as part of ENGN 0032: “Introduction to Engi neering: Design.” They appreciate the “creative environment” of the space, adding that they “love being hands-on and constructing something.”

Silva noted the importance of the monitors in creating a positive environment at the workshop. “The monitors are really nice,” Silva said, adding that they are “amazing artists and engineers.”

Faculty members who receive out side grants or fellowships will also have the option to combine their one semester of fully paid sabbatical with an unpaid leave, Locke added. “We will continue to support our faculty who win outside prestigious fellowships that need top-offs,” he said. “The kinds of incentives that are already in place would continue to be held.”

Because the proposed changes af fect faculty compensation, Locke said that the Corporation will be responsible for voting on the revisions rather than faculty members.

While revisions to the policy are an ticipated to be implemented during the 2023-24 academic year, Locke assured faculty members that the University will respect any plans they have al ready made.

Locke thanked CFED for their part nership in developing these revisions, emphasizing the additional opportu nities that will be available to faculty as a result.

This change “allows people to actu ally have the time and financial support they need to do the scholarly work that they want to do and that we want them to do as part of our research growth plan,” he said.

Explaining the endowment

Paxson continued the meeting by opening up discussion surrounding the University’s anticipated annual finan cial report set to be released at the end of the year.

“I think what we’re entering into is kind of an interesting time because there’s good news,” she said. “Then there’s not-so-good news and a lot of uncertainty.”

The University’s endowment shrank by 4.6% in fiscal year 2022, The Herald previously reported. The University’s endowment contributes over $200 mil lion annually to the operating budget and is a major source of scholarships and faculty support, according to Pax son.

“It was a really tough year in the markets and it’s continuing to be tough

this year,” she added, “so we’re having to keep an eye on that really carefully.”

Paxson noted that the University’s divestment from fossil fuels, which be gan in 2020, contributed to the endow ment’s negative return for the past year.

The University does not “invest in fossil fuels,” she said. “That was actu ally good for us financially for a period of time when oil was not doing well, but last year oil was doing well and we didn’t capture any of that gain.”

Despite the negative endowment return, Paxson shared that the number of endowed chairs increased to 123, meeting the University’s goal. Adding professorships — a specific kind of chair that supports the faculty member’s sala ry — has indicated that the endowment is growing in a healthy manner, she added.

“Let’s say a donor establishes an endowed chair for $4 million. … Over time, when the endowment does well, that grows, and so, given enough years,

that may be worth $8 million, $10 mil lion, $12 million,” she said. “What we can do is split those chairs and create new chairs to support new faculty as a result of that growth.”

Expanding University’s research focus

Locke also touched on the sugges tions the University received from the Brown community regarding its revised research plan. According to Locke, community members advocated for proportionate recognition of research from faculty across all fields of study, particularly to highlight study in the humanities.

“We got some really good sug gestions on how we should reframe some of the work (by) … making sure that we’re paying attention to more individual-based scholarship instead of team-based science and research,” Locke said. “We want to make sure that

we’re highlighting the important work taking place across the University, and not especially in the STEM fields.”

To strengthen support across all disciplines, Locke said the University will focus less on metrics like research expenditures, since they tend to favor some disciplines over others.

The University will be looking “at a whole set of metrics of success — pub lications, exhibitions, as well as grant dollars — and just really make sure that we’re paying attention to giving faculty what they really need,” he said, “which is time and resources to do their im portant work.”

Corporation meeting updates

The University’s affirmative action plan for all employees, faculty and staff was thoroughly reviewed during the Corporation meeting, in line with the upcoming release of results from the Task Force on the Status of Women

Faculty, Paxson said. The task force is charged with examining the faculty’s gender diversity and hiring practices.

“We look at gender, race (and) eth nicity of our whole and all of our employ ees, faculty and staff,” she said. “Then, we talk about our strategy for building really strong pools so that we can move the needle and some of the areas where we’re not where we want to be.”

Paxson briefly touched on updates on University infrastructure discussed during the Corporation meeting. This includes the renovation of the John Car ter Brown Library to add a wheelchair ramp for accessibility purposes and the construction of a new integrated life science building in the Jewelry District.

The meeting also included moments of silence for the passing of Arlene Cole, assistant professor of the practice of music, as well as R. Ross Holloway, professor emeritus of Central Medi terranean archaeology.

Attendees use workshop resources, collaborate with peers, workshop monitors

ELYSEE BARAKETT / HERALD

ELYSE RYAN / HERALD

In addition to possible revisions to the sabbatical policy, faculty discussed changes in the endowment and updates from the Corporation meeting, which included discussions of the University’s affirmative action plan for employees, at the second faculty meeting of the academic year.

Herald that the RIDOC’s failure to acknowledge the strike has made it harder to prompt change. As a result, the same adverse conditions within maximum security remain, making a future strike inevitable, according to Shepard.

‘The closest thing to hell on earth’: Life inside maximum security, de mands for change

Strike participants demanded sev eral changes to the conditions and operations of maximum security, ac cording to Anush Alles, staff organizer at Direct Action for Rights and Equality, a Providence organization dedicated to organizing low-income families for social, economic and political justice. The incarcerated individuals who orga nized the strike reached out to DARE for external support, she added.

These demands included distribut ing fans to all incarcerated individuals in the prison, increasing recreational time to 8.5 hours per day, increasing wages for those who are incarcerat ed, expanding access to the facili ty’s educational building, creating a disciplinary process for incarcerated individuals in which they can present evidence and call witnesses when ac cused of misbehavior by officers, ex panding vocational training programs and firing Captain Walter Duffy, who several inmates accused of hostility and misconduct, DARE told The Prov idence Journal.

Alles told The Herald that the strike was spurred by people in maximum security suffering due to a mid-August heatwave, which was exacerbated by inadequate access to air condition ing and ventilation issues within the prison.

Shepard participated at the start of the strike but was transferred to the John J. Moran Medium Security Facility eight days after it began, he told The Herald during a phone call interview from the medium security facility.

“The circumstances of (maximum security) are completely depressing,”

he said. “You feel hopeless. You feel caved in. You feel like you’re already dead.”

Jefferson alleged that mold in his cell has led to ongoing respiratory health concerns throughout his time in maximum security. “My throat felt like it was filled with glue,” he said.

When inside maximum security, “you ask yourself if you have died al ready and (if) this is hell because this is the closest thing to hell on earth,” Shepard said.

Shepard also noted that low wag es for work within maximum security exacerbate the effects of facility issues on incarcerated individuals who can not afford the cost of living associat ed with accessing hygiene products, medication and outside visits to health facilities.

Ventura disputed criticisms of max imum security’s physical living condi tions. Maximum security “is clean, safe and secure for everyone who is housed there as well as those who work inside,” he wrote. “The facility is exceptionally well run.”

But “the building is 144 years old. … It is not a very efficient building to run, and it is costing us more money

in the long run than building a new, modern facility,” he added. “We abso lutely need a new maximum-security facility in Rhode Island.”

While Johnson explained that he was not incarcerated in maximum security during the heatwave and hunger strike, he and Alles wrote an Aug. 30 op-ed for the Providence Journal which called for the institu tion’s closure, spurred by the harm the heatwave inflicted upon incarcerated individuals.

Problems with prison personnel

Beyond facility concerns, activists who spoke with The Herald voiced con cerns about the treatment of individu als incarcerated in maximum security by the prison’s staff. Shepard alleged that Duffy — a correctional officer cap tain at maximum security whose firing was demanded during the strike — at times took away individuals’ food and used degrading language toward them, referring to them as “rats.”

In response to allegations of mis treatment and the use of degrading language within maximum security, Ventura wrote that Max is “a safe, se cure and constitutional agency.”

“While we are (a) prison and there are little luxuries here,” he added, “people housed inside our facilities are safe (and) treated humanely and in accordance with state and federal guidelines, as well as in full compliance with the Constitution of the United States.”

“Captain Duffy is a professional cor rectional officer with a great record of accomplishments and a distinguished career in public service,” he continued.

According to Shepard, “absolutely nothing” came from the strike except for increased hostility toward incarcer ated individuals from those in power at maximum security. Combined with their living conditions, this can “make people who are trying to change their souls” feel “hopeless,” he said.

Shepard felt that correctional of ficers and public officials “don’t want people to be rehabilitated or have an opportunity to never come back to prison,” because they profit off of the institution of mass incarceration.

In response to criticism surround ing the officers’ treatment of incarcer ated individuals in maximum security, Ventura wrote that “correctional offi cers are authority figures and many people who have issues with authority, not surprisingly, end up in prison and say things that are not true.”

“As a matter of policy, any and all allegations against RIDOC employees are taken seriously and thoroughly investigated,” he added. “We hold our selves to a higher standard and we have no tolerance for those who violate our Code of Professional Conduct or bring discredit to our profession.”

The future of maximum security prison in RI Hunger strikes are sometimes re ferred to as “weapons of the weak,” according to David Skarbek, associate professor of political science. Because “incarcerated people have very few resources” and lack economic and political support, they often turn to alternative methods of protest, he said.

Skarbek described strikes that were similar to that at maximum security

that occurred at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison in 2011 and 2013. While the strike in 2011 was ultimately unsuccessful, it led to another protest only two years later that effectively prompted change.

The success of the later protest lies with the number of participants and their solidarity, Skarbeck said. There were “too many people for too long that it couldn’t be ignored,” he said, adding that support from “legitimate and influential supporters,” such as Amnesty International, a global human rights organization, also helped bring attention to the issue.

Shepard said that he feels frustrat ed by maximum security officials’ deni al of the hunger strike. Being in prison, “I’m already looked at as someone who is not credible,” he explained.

Alles suggested that one reason the strike was unsuccessful was the lack of media attention it received while it was happening. The prison’s physical walls prevent people from seeing the true conditions on the inside, she added, and officials’ denial is another “wall of silence around what’s happening inside the prison.”

Officers in maximum security censor mail and block certain phone numbers, she added, further separating people inside the prison from the out side world. Ventura did not comment on these specific claims.

Shepard said that he wants some one to take accountability for the conditions at maximum security and acknowledge that the prison is primar ily a business rather than a rehabilita tion center. He also emphasized that the prison system disproportionately affects people of color, whereas correc tional officers tend to be white.

For Shepard, there is a distinct “generational incarceration” present in the U.S. that speaks to a greater need to change the rehabilitation system on a national scale.

“I was in jail with my father. Peo ple are in here with their fathers and grandfathers and brothers and cousins — constantly, and for generations,” he said. “When? When is that over?”

COURTESY OF SELENE MEANS

Activists also voiced concerns about the treatment of individuals incarcerated in maximum security prison by staff.

Brandt ’24: U.’s culture of civic engagement must change

Brown students pride themselves on being po litically minded. As a school, we’ve had a long history of protest over the decades, continu ing to the present day. However, those feelings don’t necessarily translate into voter turnout. In 2018, a measly 45.1% of eligible Brown stu dents voted in the midterm elections. The next round of midterms is Tuesday, just around the corner — where will Brown student turnout stand then? How about in 2024? And how do we increase that number?

There are many important forms of civic engagement beyond voting, of course: Protests are fantastic for raising awareness of issues and pressuring powerful actors, and advocacy ef forts can help develop grassroots support for policies and initiatives. Engagement also means understanding the electoral process, keeping abreast of the issues important to you and stay ing involved in your community. This is an in clusive vision of civic engagement; those who may not be able to cast a vote can still engage with government through other means.

However, at the end of the day, whoever is elected will have the greatest influence over what happens in the halls of power. Voting for these elected officials is one of the most ef fective ways to have a say in government. This is especially true at the local and state levels, where a sizable chunk of public policy is codi fied and the electorate is much smaller. These civic practices, particularly voting, should be cemented as a core value for Brown students, especially since young people stand to be af fected for years to come by current legislation.

Admittedly, there are significant barriers to college students’ ability to vote. Suppressive legislation can make registering and casting an absentee ballot harder. Out-of-state students in some places must change their mailing address

es to their college mailboxes. Moreover, difficul ty finding resources on who and what is on the ballot could discourage voters. The resulting nationwide pattern of relatively low youth turn out continues this year: Early data indicates a tiny 4% of early votes cast in reporting states have been from those aged 18 to 25. While we don’t yet know how many Brown students will

tiative in the same year. Brown Votes’s partner ships with the Athletics Department, the Office of Residential Life, the Watson Institute for In ternational and Public Affairs and other sectors of campus have raised awareness of the impor tance of civic engagement and helped to dis seminate useful resources. It’s clear that voting is becoming an institutional priority, and we’re

tion or help you decide which candidate best matches your views should be as readily avail able as library books. Learning these aspects of civic engagement should be required as part of a holistic education. Brown graduates should feel completely prepared for a life of civic in volvement and community engagement.

vote in this election, middling turnout in the past points to a more structural problem at our university: Civic engagement, particularly vot ing, is not fully institutionalized as a core com ponent of a Brown education.

A culture of civic engagement at Brown re quires commitment from all community mem bers, and promising steps are being made in the right direction. The University has shown a fantastic willingness to engage with this goal in recent years. In 2020, faculty voted to make federal Election Days University holidays. By allowing students, faculty and staff alike to vote and work the polls unencumbered, the Univer sity emphasizes that it takes voting seriously.

The Swearer Center for Public Engagement took on supporting the student-led Brown Votes ini

glad to see the University make headway — the next step is inculcating all of campus with the same resolution.

The keys to achieving high voter turnout and a civically engaged campus do not lie in endless reminders to register. Until students and other community members understand the importance of voting and the power of their de cisions at the ballot box, the University commu nity as a whole will never hold a commitment to civic engagement. We can achieve this vision by shifting campus culture inside and outside the classroom. Understanding how to request, fill in and send off an absentee ballot, for instance, should be as central to a Brown education as learning to code Java or speaking French. Re sources to find sample ballots for your jurisdic

This is quite a lofty goal, but there are con crete steps that we can take to get there. We need University leaders to be bold in directing their departments to prioritize civic engage ment. We need professors to consistently pub licize voting resources and talk about how civic engagement relates to course material. We need students to understand the weight their voic es can carry in government and act according ly. Brown community members should engage with local community advocates on policy is sues when relevant. We must work civic engage ment into first-year and pre-orientation pro gramming and train Community Coordinators, Area Coordinators and other leaders under the Division of Campus Life to be resources for the students they support. Additionally, it’s time to integrate TurboVote, a voter assistance plat form Brown partners with, into digital Univer sity systems such as Courses@Brown and Can vas. Civic engagement should be at the heart of our time on College Hill. We only get there if we all buy in.

Adam Brandt ’24 is a civic engagement fel low with the Brown Votes initiative and the Swearer Center for Public Service. He can be reached at adam_brandt@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to let ters@browndailyherald.com and other opeds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

“Civic engagement should be at the heart of our time on College Hill. We only get there if we all buy in.”

METRO

Early voting rates drop sharply from 2020 in Rhode Island, beyond

science and director of the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy, noted that so far, Republicans seem to be carving into Democrats’ mail-in and early voting advantage from 2020.

BY YAEL SARIG SENIOR STAFF WRITER

In only the second national election cycle in which Rhode Island has allowed early voting, early turnout has sharply decreased in comparison to the 2020 elections, according to data from Sec retary of State Nellie Gorbea.

In 36 states more than a week before Election Day, early voting in the 2022 midterms had already outpaced early voting in the 2018 midterms — when turnout is traditionally lower than in presidential election cycles.

This year, the Ocean State’s early voting opened Oct. 19: In the first five days, 13,882 people voted in person, and the Rhode Island Board of Elec tions marked 6,799 mail-in ballots as received, Gorbea said in an interview with The Herald.

At the same point in 2020, 40,511 in-person votes had been cast and 45,506 mail-in ballots had been re ceived, Gorbea said. With a week to go before the election, total turnout in Rhode Island stands at 6.9%, accord ing to the Rhode Island Voter Turnout Tracker.

Gorbea cited the different public health environment and political cli mate surrounding a non-presidential election as key contributors to the no table decrease.

Rhode Island voters were “looking for alternative means (to in-person vot ing) during the pandemic,” Gorbea said.

Trends favor Republicans

Wendy Schiller, professor of political

“What we’re seeing this year is that the request rate for mail-in ballots is higher among Democrats, but the return rate is higher among Republicans,” she said. “Republicans seem to be voting early at … slightly higher numbers than in 2020 and 2018.”

Despite lower overall early turnout rates as compared to 2020, the uptick in Republican voters casting their ballots early likely means that Republicans will achieve their expected strong per formance this year, Schiller said. She added that Democrats cannot bank on the assumption of an advantage in early voting — even if that assumption has held true in prior years.

“Democrats rely on a broader, more varied socioeconomic, racial, ethnic and gender-identifying coalition,” Schil ler said. Compared to Republicans, that coalition does not turn out at the same rate on Election Day, she noted. “If those people are not voting early, … the Democrats are facing some signifi cant hurdles.”

When Republicans are “keeping pace with the Democrats” in early voting and a majority “of people who vote on Election Day are Republican, Republicans are going to win every time,” Schiller said.

Schiller also noted that in Rhode Island, early turnout is particularly low considering the comparatively high proportion of Rhode Island residents over the age of 65, a demographic that disproportionately votes early.

She added that North and South Kingstown have a greater early turn out than Providence’s turnout — which reveals that Providence has a “really low turnout given it’s the capital city and

(has) really a high population.”

Higher turnout in North and South Kingstown likely stems from the “hot Congressional seat race” between Dem ocrat Seth Magaziner and Republican Allan Fung for the state’s 2nd Con gressional District, Schiller said. That disparity underscores what Schiller said is a “devastating” problem for Rhode Island Democrats: an uncontested may oral race in Providence, which will make turning out voters harder.

A lack of a competitive mayoral race is “not only just not a lot of people vot ing — that’s momentum, that’s energy (and) that’s engagement,” she said. “I happen to live in a district where there is literally no challenger for my state (representative), no challenger for my state senator, no challenger for my town councilperson, a nominal challenge for my congressperson and no challenge for my mayor.”

“You’re relying on civic duty for people to vote,” she added. “It’s a very hard sell.”

Early voting gets extended look

Early voting is in its infancy in the Ocean State: First embraced as a nec essary measure to ensure voting could continue during the pandemic, expand ed early access has stuck around past the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rhode Islanders can now vote in-person as early as 20 days prior to the election, a change that traces back to the Let Rhode Island Vote Act, which expanded early voting, allowed online mail-in ballot applications, ensured that every community has access to a dropbox and created a multilingual voter information hotline, The Herald previously reported. The act came on the heels of the work of activists, such as those leading the Let Rhode Island Vote campaign, and state officials such as Gorbea.

The act ensures “that the term ‘early voting’ is clear in the law,” Gorbea said. Prior to its passage, the law referred to early ballots as “emergency mail bal lots,” implying that voters needed to be in a state of crisis to use them.

“There’s no emergency,” she added. Maybe “they just can’t go that day. That should be enough.”

The act also eliminated the require ment for witnesses or notary signatures on mail ballots, a potential hurdle for voters, Gorbea said.

Gorbea said she has prioritized ex panding voting rights access as secre tary of state: Over nearly eight years in the position, it has been her “joy to be able to undo many of the barriers that came with voting by mail or vot ing early.”

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Elections Performance Index, which ranks each state by its “election administration policy and performance,” ranked Rhode Island eighth in the nation for best election performance in the 2020 election. In comparison, Rhode Island was ranked 29th in the 2016 election.

Room for improvement

Steve Pokorny, former civic engage ment leader at Brown’s Swearer Center for Public Service, said he believes the pandemic raised awareness about the need for greater voter accessibility but emphasized that work remains.

“The reality is absentee voting is a little more complicated because there’s multiple steps: You have to be regis tered (and) you have to request your ballot early,” he said. “Early in-person voting is a little bit simpler … I know they reduced some barriers. I’d love to see it even simpler, like (adding) online absentee ballot registration.”

To Gorbea, making early voting ac cessible is a particularly important way

to address inequities in the process.

“These very strict voting timelines have the effect of basically keeping working people out of being able to vote,” she said. “At one point, when universal suffrage was not the law of the land, you could have just this one day that white men of means would be able to exercise the right to vote.”

“Once you open access to the bal lot box by making greater numbers of people eligible to vote, you then need to change the (mechanics of voting) to make sure that those people actu ally can exercise the right to vote,” she added.

Despite the state’s efforts to expand accessibility, this cycle’s decrease in early voter engagement has raised con cerns for Gorbea.

“People still are not aware of all of the ways in which they can vote,” she said. They also do not know that early voting has extended past the pandem ic — leading her to prioritize raising awareness of early voting this election cycle.

Still, Gorbea said she views the current utilization of early voting as “encouraging” despite the low numbers.

Schiller added that the “rosier pic ture” of early voting for Democrats is that “there’s no COVID fear and people like the act of voting in person.”

Gorbea noted that while this year’s election may seem inconse quential compared to a presidential election, “this is a really important election.”

“There’s a lot of money on the table from federal funding coming through, and who’s in the governor’s office has a big impact on people’s lives,” Gorbea said. “I know that it might seem incon sequential, like, ‘It’s only me, it’s only one vote.’ But it is the collective sum of all of those ballots, of all those votes, that changes history.”

Secretary of State Gorbea aims to promote early voting in postpandemic landscape

JULIA GROSSMAN / HERALD

Turnout from the first five days of early voting this year fell short of turnout from the first five early voting days of 2020. R.I. Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea cited the vastly different public health environment and political climate surrounding a non-presidential election as factors in the decrease.