Wednesday, November 3rd, 2021 - The Brown Daily Herald

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2021

VOLUME CLVI, ISSUE XXXIV

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METRO

UNIVERSITY NEWS

A year of Biden: University political community reacts

Sam Zurier wins District 3 State Senate election Platform includes improving public education, environmental justice

BY VICTORIA YIN METRO EDITOR

CYNTHIA ZHANG / HERALD

Brown Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, YSDA give thoughts on Biden

BY ASHLEY GUO SENIOR STAFF WRITER One year ago today, President Joe Biden was voted into office, ousting incumbent President Donald Trump.

UNIVERSITY NEWS

BY ALEX NADIRASHVILI SENIOR STAFF WRITER Members of Brown’s administration and faculty discussed the University’s financial position, the plan to host Afghan students who were granted asylum and COVID-19 updates at Tuesday’s faculty meeting.

Paxson’s report: endowment, financial aid, deficit President Christina Paxson P’19 opened her report with updates on

SEE BIDEN PAGE 3

METRO

University finances, fin. aid discussed at faculty meeting Meeting also addressed University’s work with Afghan asylee students and COVID-19 updates

Biden inherited a country faced with a deadly pandemic and fractured by political divisions, alongside Vice President Kamala Harris. In the past 12

Democrat Sam Zurier captured 90.08% of total unofficial votes to defeat Republican Alex Cannon in the State Senate District 3 special general election Tuesday, according to the Rhode Island Board of Elections.

An attorney and former City Council member, Zurier won by an overwhelming majority. He received 2,560 votes compared to Cannon’s 263, which made up 9.25% of the total votes. In total, 2,843 votes were cast during the election.

“I’m grateful to the voters in District 3 for entrusting me with this responsibility,” Zurier told The Herald. “Once the results are certified I look forward to working in the RI Senate.”

While Zurier was concerned about voters not knowing “where to go or when to vote” because it was a special election, he is grateful that “enough voters did learn about the process and did participate.”

The election results will be certified over the coming days, followed by the swearing in of Zurier.

“Once I’m sworn in, I’m going to be meeting with other senators and trying to learn as much as I can about the culture of the Senate,” Zurier said.

Zurier previously told The Herald that as state senator, he hopes to increase funding and accountability for the public school system and promote environmental justice. During a virtual forum, Zurier described himself as a “pragmatic progressive” who supports market-based climate solutions, improving schools and investing federal funding from emergency COVID-19 relief back into the city.

“Public education is one of the central parts of my own values and (of) American values,” Zurier previously told The Herald. “In the ideal public school, we give every child the chance to realize they’re a version of the American dream.”

Cannon, a senior robotics process automation engineer at Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, ran unopposed as the Republican candidate, The Herald previously reported. His platform centered on improving education and infrastructure, and also mentioned his opposition to defunding the police and his support of a small government. Cannon could not be reached for comment by press time.

Zurier won the Democratic primary election last month on Oct. 5, edging past Geena Pham, a public school teacher, progressive candidate and member of the RI Political Cooperative, by 300 votes . The other four candidates included Bret Jacob, a former staffer of Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza, Hilary Levey Friedman, a visiting assistant professor of education at the University, and Ray Rickman, a civil rights veteran and former state representative.

Brown’s financial standing. Paxson focused on the strength of last year’s endowment returns, which left the endowment at close to $7 billion — nearly double its size from 2012. She specifically emphasized that endowment returns contribute to scholarships, fellowships and prizes, and has driven the University’s recent expansion of undergraduate financial aid by roughly $25 million.

Paxson also spoke of the success of the University’s recent fundraising effort, the BrownTogether Campaign.

Launched in 2015, the campaign has reached its target of raising $3 billion, a year earlier than planned. While Paxson explained that it will take time for

SEE FACULTY PAGE 6

R.I. reaches 90% partial vaccination rate COVID-19 partial vaccination rate reaches target set in May by Gov. Dan McKee

BY SAMEER SINHA SENIOR STAFF WRITER Over 90% of adult Rhode Islanders have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to an Oct. 25 announcement from Gov. Dan McKee and the Rhode Island Department of Health, making Rhode Island the second state in the country to reach this milestone.

As of Tuesday, 91.3% of the state’s adult population — those 18 years of age and older — is at least partially vaccinated, and 83% of adults are fully vaccinated. Overall, 78.4% of the

TALIA MERMIN / HERALD

state’s residents are fully vaccinated, as children ages 12 through 17 were granted eligibility for vaccination later than adults. The approval process for children under 12 is still underway, but

University

Metro

University

Commentary

Faculty react to Biden administration one year after 2020 election Page 2

Rhode Islanders weigh in on Biden’s presidency one year after election Page 3

Title IX policies have evolved under Biden administration’s Dept. of Education Page 5

Barnett: Ariticial intelligence’s negative impact on the arts Page 6

vaccine rollout in this age group could begin soon following an emergency use authorization from the Food and

SEE VACCINES PAGE 3

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2021

UNIVERSITY NEWS

Amherst College ends consideration of legacy status in admissions Students react to end of legacy in admissions at other higher ed institution

BY LAURA DAVID SENIOR STAFF WRITER On the morning of Oct. 20, Zoë Fuad ’23.5 woke up to a text reading: “Holy sh*t, it can be done.” Attached was a link to an announcement from Amherst College that the institution would officially end legacy preference in its admissions process. Amherst also vowed to expand its financial aid commitment to $71 million per year.

“Paired with a new, expanded financial aid program focused on improving financial and programmatic support for both lower- and middle-income families, Amherst is sending a clear signal to prospective students that its education is within reach for all,” read Amherst’s press release.

Fuad leads Students for Educational Equity, a group which has previously organized virtual events and has called upon Brown to end legacy admissions. They also joined EdMobilizer’s #LeaveYourLegacy campaign in early October. For their group as well as many others around campus, the Amherst decision represented a milestone in their quest to see the University stop legacy admissions.

Student activism aimed at ending legacy admissions has a long history on College Hill, with critics of the policy noting it has a particularly adverse impact on low-income and students of color.

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Amherst College announced the end of legacy status considerations in the admissions decision-making process Oct. 20. For advocates at the University, the decision indicated that similar efforts were finding success elsewhere.

Doing away with legacy admissions “would be a way of leveling the playing field and making Brown as diverse as it’s meant to be,” said Carlos Tejada ’22, co-president of the Afro-Latinx Alliance.

But Dean of Admissions Logan Powell has pushed back against the idea that legacy admissions discriminates against marginalized groups of students, The Herald previously reported.

“This is not zero-sum,” he previously told The Herald. “Any policy that Brown University has regarding legacy

applicants has nothing to do with our policies regarding the admission and recruitment of first-gen and low-income students.” Powell declined to comment on Amherst’s decision specifically.

“I feel like now there’s no excuse” for Brown to continue considering legacy in admissions, Tejada said. “I think seeing that now Amherst did it, we have an example.”

“It’s really exciting,” Fuad said. “Amherst is showing that it’s completely doable and realistic for a top-tier ‘elite’ college to get this done while still maintaining and increasing financial aid for

students who need it.”

“One of the largest defenses of legacy admissions is that legacy leads to increased fundraising and financial aid,” Fuad said. “Multiple studies have proven that false, and Amherst really seems to be making a statement and agreeing with what that research shows.”

Powell has cited the benefits of legacy admissions for the University’s fundraising efforts. “One of the several clear and direct benefits of this loyalty is the robust fundraising for financial aid that unquestionably benefits lowand moderate-income students,” he

previously told The Herald.

Fuad noted that both SEE and UCS have had “really productive and collaborative” conversations with Powell, and she expects the relationship between the Admissions office and student advocates to continue to improve.

“Brown really advocates fairness and equality,” Luis Gomez ’24, another member of SEE, said. “It values a lot of things that legacy admissions goes against, so we think that Brown should definitely be the first Ivy League school to drop (its) legacy admissions policy.”

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2021

BIDEN FROM PAGE 1 months, the president’s actions have sparked conversation and controversy around the U.S. and within the Brown political community. The Herald spoke with student representatives from political organizations on campus about their thoughts on Biden’s first year in the Oval Office.

Ellis Clark ’23 and Edan Larkin ’23, president and vice president, respectively, of the Brown College Democrats, both emphasized the importance of holding Biden accountable to his promises after their efforts to support his campaign. “I don’t think many people necessarily supported Biden because Biden was their ideal candidate, so we understand that we need to keep holding him accountable,” Larkin said. “That was something we were well aware of when we were fighting so hard to have him elected.”

Clark and Larkin expressed disappointment in what they viewed as the Biden administration’s failure to protect voting rights, cancel student loan debt and improve safety and acceptance for migrants. Biden has recently faced backlash for what many left-leaning Americans consider a continuation of Trump’s immigration policies . Despite their frustration with the Biden administration, Clark and Larkin believe that Biden has made significant progress specifically in the nation’s COVID-19 response.

“Seventy-five percent of America is vaccinated, and we’re not even

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

getting tested anymore at Brown …

You can look at your day-to-day life from a year ago to today, and in the COVID-respect, I do think that is much better,” Clark said. “But it’s nowhere near where we wanted to be in terms of not having to mask up.”

Clark and Larkin acknowledge that the club’s views may not represent Democrats across the country, as many club members tend to push for more progressive policies. “In many ways, (Biden has) delivered to an extent on the things that he promised,” Larkin said. “The bigger issue is, things that he promised aren’t exactly what young members of the Democratic Party want to see, particularly in Brown Dems. We have more of a progressive outlook and more of a progressive membership.”

Larkin voiced concerns that Biden’s presidency is widening the divide within the Democratic Party between moderates and progressives, skewing the general public’s perception of the Democratic Party to the political left.

“I personally would pin Biden as dead center,” Larkin said. “With rhetoric like Trump spewing ‘Socialist Joe’ and things like that, I’ve seen this increasing feeling of associating Joe Biden with socialism or with leftism, and I do sometimes worry about the conservative push that will respond to that.”

While the College Democrats expressed their disappointment in Biden’s unfulfilled promises, David Sacks ’22, president of the Brown Col-

lege Republicans, shared that members of his club disagree with many of Biden’s actions. His personal impression of Biden’s first year is “not great, not terrible.”

While the Brown Republicans have mixed feelings over Trump’s immigration policies, they support stricter immigration protocols overall, with Sacks voicing concern over immigration at some borders where COVID-19 screening may not thorough enough.

In particular, members of the club are disappointed with the halt in construction of the Keystone Pipeline, according to Sacks. “​​We liked the energy independence it is starting to give us now,” Sacks said. “Without its construction, people are out of work, which is not a great thing to do during a recovery from a pandemic.”

Criminal justice reform is another issue that Sacks and members of the College Republicans are concerned about. “Biden should be encouraging more bipartisanship in that regard, as opposed to holding out for more extreme options,” Sacks said. “We want more accountability for the police, and I think that with more extreme positions on both sides … we’re not getting there, but step-by-step is better than nothing.”

The College Republicans also hope to see Biden legalize marijuana and address drug problems by increasing awareness and focusing on mental health, according to Sacks.

Sacks also shared the club’s gen-

eral disappointment in Biden’s pandemic recovery efforts. “Biden’s doing his best, but we don’t agree with the approaches he’s taking,” Sacks said.

“We’re not thrilled about the fact that small businesses are suffering and corporations are doing well.”

Sacks added that for him, Biden’s leadership has proven the strength of some Trump-era policies. “Biden’s presidency is highlighting the fact that some of Trump’s economic stuff worked — lowering corporate taxes, lowering income taxes ,” Sacks said.

Currently, Sacks believes the Republican Party has the opportunity to figure out its goals and purposes. “The Republican Party is facing a bit of an identity crisis right now,” Sacks said.

“We need to decide who we’re about, and I think we actually have a historic occasion to become about working people and people who need help.”

Adam Shepardson ’22, president of the Brown University Libertarians, shared a similar frustration with Biden’s inaction in decriminalizing drugs, but said he is especially dissatisfied with the lack of criminal justice reform and improvement in immigration policy under the Biden administration.

“The one silver lining I thought might possibly come from the Democrat administration has gone out the window and we’re going to have a repeat of Trump’s immigration policies,” Shepardson said. “I’m not a huge fan of that.”

But Shepardson explained that his

VACCINES FROM PAGE 1

Level: 1

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Complete the grid so each row, column and 3-by-3 box (in bold borders) contains every digit, 1 to 9. For strategies on how to solve Sudoku, visit www.sudoku.org.uk SOLUTION TO THURSDAY’S PUZZLE

2/5/16

© 2016 The Mepham Group. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency. All rights reserved.

Drug Administration Oct. 29 and a formal endorsement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children ages 5 through 12 Tuesday.

McKee set the goal of vaccinating 90% of the state in May. As of Tuesday, Rhode Island has the second-highest rate of vaccination in the country, following Vermont.

“This is great news,” said Philip Chan, medical director of RIDOH and associate professor of medicine and behavioral and social sciences at the University. “Rhode Island has been a leader when it comes to vaccinations for COVID. This is a big step,” he said, adding that continuing to vaccinate the public is the key to ending the pandemic.

Chan commended public health leaders across New England and pointed to them as reasons the region has such a high vaccination rate. As of Tuesday, the five states with the highest vaccination rates are all in New England, which is not a coincidence, Chan said. He also said “the people in (Rhode Island) have been receptive” to the vaccine.

Chan added that the state’s vaccine mandate for healthcare workers and other vaccine requirements have played a role, pointing to vaccine education efforts from RIDOH and the University.

Despite the milestone, Chan noted, “some caution is still due.” Although “vaccines are incredibly effective,” and

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expectations for Biden were not very high in the first place. “In general, I do not have particularly fond opinions of Biden as things currently stand,” Shepardson said. “That may improve if he does cash in on his campaign promises about immigration at some point, but that’s obviously not happening now.”

Tony Unger ’22.5, chair of the Brown/RISD Young Democratic Socialists of America, said he has remained dissatisied with the Biden administration, primarily in areas like the infrastructure investment plan and COVID-19 vaccine distribution.

“I was optimistic, probably unjustifiably so, by the infrastructure bill,” Unger said. “A lot of the climate provisions I thought would have been a step in the right direction … but we’ve seen in recent weeks that it’s been whittled down to sorts of spending that I think are actually quite bad.”

Yet Unger believes that Biden’s first year is not entirely without success, citing the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.“Unequivocally, every member of the YDSA would agree that it is pretty impressive that he got us out of Afghanistan,” Unger said.

“That’s a major step forward. It made a lot of people angry, but it was the right move.”

Unlike others, Unger expressed that Biden had met his expectations, though those expectations were low to begin with. “We had very few expectations for Biden,” Unger said, “and in most regards he’s lived up to what we expected him to do.”

college students are at a very low risk of developing severe complications or symptoms from COVID-19, he added that there is some waning immunity with vaccines. Rhode Island is “still in the ‘high’ transmission category for the CDC,” with over 100 cases per 100,000 people in the last seven days.

Skylar Iosepovici ’22.5 said even though she felt “pretty comfortable” before the milestone was reached, she feels much more comfortable knowing that vulnerable populations such as the elderly are now in a “much safer” position with so much of the community vaccinated.

Ty Scott ’22 said that upon seeing the 90% partial vaccination rate, he was “very excited.”

“I am still wearing masks, still washing hands before I eat and still carrying hand sanitizer around,” he said about his level of caution. “I feel slightly more safe to maybe eat dinner with friends who I haven’t seen in a while.”

“When you can do things outside, you should,” Chan added. “If you do not have to attend a larger gathering, you probably shouldn’t. If you are indoors, in a more crowded space, consider wearing a mask.”

Chan added that RIDOH will still continue to encourage vaccination.

Despite the high vaccination rate, he said, there are still racial and socioeconomic disparities in which populations are vaccinated. RIDOH will continue to run testing sites and vaccination sites while emphasizing the importance of receiving the vaccine, he said.

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2021

METRO

Rhode Islanders assess Biden administration a year after Election Day President draws critiques about lack of domestic results, Afghanistan WILL KUBZANSKY AND BEN GLICKMAN SENIOR STAFF WRITER AND METRO EDITOR A year ago today, Rhode Island was called for President Joe Biden right as polls closed, before virtually any votes had been tabulated. According to official results, Biden garnered 59.4% of the vote statewide and 80.4% in Providence.

Rhode Islanders chose Biden en masse. Now, nearly one year later, some residents have their share of concerns.

A significant portion of the over 150 residents interviewed for this story said that they had not kept close tabs on the Biden administration in the news. Still, many expressed a wide array of grievances with Biden’s presidency, ranging from his failure to pass the Build Back Better plan to his handling of the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and vaccine mandates. But many residents said they approved of the Biden presidency considering the political climate he inherited.

As Biden approaches the one-year mark, his approval rating continues to decline. According to polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight, the president’s approval rating has sunk from roughly 53% at the beginning of his presidency to 43% over the past several days .

“He’s doing as best as he can with this (political) climate,” said Onna Moniz-John, a 73-year-old East Providence resident.

For a number of Rhode Islanders who were interviewed, Biden’s handling of macroeconomic conditions — and the progress his administration has made on domestic economic policy — are of interest. Eleven residents interviewed noted their disapproval of Biden’s approach to handling inflation, specifically referencing recent high gas prices.

In October, gas prices hit seven-year highs in Rhode Island, with an average cost per gallon of $3.26 across the state, according to AAA Northeast.

Lyndsay Drew, a 50-year-old e-commerce manager from Warwick, said she

was “thrilled” about the expanded child tax credit, one of Biden’s signature policies implemented in March’s stimulus package. Under the expansion, parents receive up to $300 per month per child.

“As a mother, I only wish that it had started sooner,” she said. “Trying to figure out work and raising a family in this country is insane, if not borderline impossible.”

Still, Biden’s other two signature policies have stalled in Congress. A “hard infrastructure” plan, passed with bipartisan support in the Senate, has yet to pass the House. And a still-gestational investment in climate change and the social safety net, projected to cost roughly $1.75 trillion, faces staunch opposition from Republicans and has been slowed by concerns raised by moderate Democratic Senators Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-A.Z.).

Jack Cicilline, an 83-year-old criminal defense lawyer and the father of Congressman David Cicilline (D-RI01), said he was disappointed that the bills have yet to come to fruition.

“Everyone wants the infrastructure bill,” he said. “It puts people to work, stimulates the economy, and now he can’t get it passed.”

Lilnil Novus, a 55-year-old from Providence, also said infrastructure was one of his top priorities. “As a truck driver, I want (Biden) to work on fixing bridges in Rhode Island,” he said.

Biden also made education a key part of his platform — including the cancellation of $10,000 in student loan debt per person. But again facing Congressional opposition, Biden has only canceled debt for narrow groups, such as victims of for-profit college fraud.

“There’s been no movement,” said Bradley Difoggio, a 34-year-old small-business owner in Providence who graduated from Lesley University in Massachusetts 12 years ago and still owes roughly $64,000 in loans. “I’ve done the best that I can. But it’s at the point where I still owe just as much principal as I did eight years ago.”

Other declared priority areas during Biden’s campaign — namely, tackling the pandemic and climate change — drew mixed reviews.

“He promised a lot of switches over to renewable energy and he hasn’t made that a priority as much as he said he

COURTESY OF JOE BIDEN

According to FiveThirtyEight, Biden’s approval rating has dropped to 43% over the past few months. would,” said Olivia Hodge, a 20-year-old Providence resident. “I feel like there’s a lot of greenwashing, where it seems like they are doing a lot of work on the forefront but they are not doing a lot of work where it matters.”

“We live in Rhode Island,” said Sophie Wang GS, a 24-year-old student in the Master in Medical Sciences program in Providence. “We’ll be one of the first places in the U.S. to notice ” climate change.

Much of the Biden administration’s plan on climate has been tied up with domestic policy packages and have since been stalled by opposition from Republicans and conservative Democrats.

Controlling the pandemic has also proved challenging. While the summer’s wave of cases fueled by the Delta variant has started to subside, it remains to be seen if another wave will follow this winter. And vaccinations have plateaued, with only 58% of the country fully vaccinated — though Rhode Island is one of the most vaccinated states in the country, with 78.3% of all residents with at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the R.I. Department of Health.

In September, Biden announced new regulations mandating that private businesses with more than 100 workers require vaccinations or weekly testing.

Justin Ragosta, a 20-year-old from Cranston who plans to go into health care, said that he agreed with the decision and hoped Biden would “stay consistent.”

Rhode Islanders broadly support vaccine mandates. According to a survey from the COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding the Public’s Policy Preferences Across States conducted in September, 64.6% of Rhode Islanders “approve” or “strongly approve” of COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

But for a minority of Rhode Islanders, the vaccine mandates represent an infringement on personal liberties.

“They want everybody to get immunizations, which is good. But I don’t believe in forcing them,” said Ruth Hills, an 81-year-old Rhode Islander.

Biden’s handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan also drew criticism from a number of residents.

“There are who-knows-how-many U.S. citizens and Afghan citizens with green cards still stranded there,” said 72-year-old Cranston resident Kevin Gible, who described Biden’s first year as a “​​trainwreck.”

Others, such as Ragosta, said that Biden did the best he could have given the circumstances. “Regardless of how we left Afghanistan, it was not going to be a clean exit, and I believe that what he did, he did it the right way,” Ragosta said.

A vocal handful of Rhode Islanders interviewed said that they missed former President Trump. Of that group, almost all said they identified as Republicans.

But a significantly larger group noted that for all of Biden’s shortcomings, and all of the problems he has yet to fix, they were still relieved about one

CA L E N DA R

thing: that Trump no longer occupies the Oval Office.

“The best thing is (that) he’s not Trump,” said M. Charles Bakst ’66, a retired Providence Journal political columnist. “Whatever shortcomings or disappointments there are, I thank God that Trump is not in the White House.”

Nakina Barron, 43, said she thought Biden would likely need all four years to “clean a huge mess up.”

“After the last administration, I just didn’t expect Joe Biden to come in and fix everything,” she added.

“I no longer feel… existential dread whenever I hear about the president,” added Robert Sucsy, a 26-year-old who lives in Providence.

“He hasn’t made me feel like he hates me,” said Cynthia Matthews, 23, a frontline worker who is Black. “Trump did.”

With reporting from Ben Ackerman, Akshay Amesur, Spencer Barnett, Anthony Bishop Gylys, Casey Chan, Marina Du, Magdalena Del Valle, Zachary Federman, Livia Gimenes, Faith Griffiths, Grace Holleb, Maya Laur, Izzy Lazenby, Cecilia Martin Garcia, Michelle Liu, Margherita Micaletti-Hinojal, Amiri Nash, Zara Norman, Caroline Parente, Ingrid Ren, Jordan Roller, Janek Schaller, Saloone Singh, Jacob Smollen, Andrew Sojka, Will Steinfeld, Madeleine Tremblay, Joseph Vandermillen and Anik Willig as part of Professor of the Practice of English Tracy Breton’s ENGL 1050: “Journalistic Writing” course.

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

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UNIVERSITY NEWS

Faculty reflect on Biden one year later

COURTESY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

After four years of the Trump administration, faculty members who spoke to The Herald about Biden’s administration highlighted the differences between the two presidents, both in demeanor and policy.

Faculty discuss administration, expectations, policy, reform

BY GRACE HOLLEB STAFF WRITER Nearly a year ago, when the 2020 presidential election was called for Joe Biden, The Herald reported that community members expressed cautious optimism about the change in office, looking forward to the promises Biden had made on the campaign trail regarding key issues including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and foreign policy.

The Herald asked four faculty members about their thoughts on the current state of the nation one year into the Biden administration. They praised some of Biden’s policy efforts but called for more dramatic action in certain areas.

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Domestic policy On the domestic front, Director of the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy and Professor of Political Science Wendy Schiller characterized the Biden administration as “ambitious” in its efforts to uphold the core Democratic Party principle of bolstering the social safety net for working families.

Professor of Political Science Richard Arenberg also emphasized that the administration has prioritized infrastructure and social relief domestically, pointing to a bipartisan infrastructure bill and social spending bill, which he said were “very likely” to pass, as “underestimated accomplishments.”

Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs and Education Jonathan Collins said he hopes the administration follows through on many of the promises Biden made on the campaign trail. With the passing of the infrastructure bill in the House of Representatives, Collins commended the administration’s willingness to tackle multiple forms of policy through legislation.

The infrastructure bill would be the most significant package since Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs of the 1960s, Arenberg and Collins noted.

The most telling divergence between the previous Trump presidency and the Biden presidency has been the choice for Secretary of Education, Collins argued. “The move from Secretary (Betsy) DeVos to Secretary (Miguel) Cardona has been night and day,” he said.

Cardona, secretary of education under the Biden administration, is committed to high standards for student education, and there’s more commitment to understanding the unique challenges that confront students who areEnglish language learners and are from low income households, Collins said.

Although he commended the administration for pausing payment on federal student loans, Collins said that more ambitious student loan debt reform is warranted, and that the administration should expand its policy efforts.

“The thing that we hope to see from the administration is this continued major investment on key issues like education,” Collins said.

Arenberg noted that the bipartisan infrastructure bill would also confront climate change issues, though its policies could be bolder.

The course of the remainder of Biden’s presidency depends on the congressional elections next year, he said. If Democrats retain both the House and the Senate, Arenberg said he expects that Biden will pursue aspects of his agenda like prescription drug pricing reform and paid family leave, he said.

“If the Democrats lose control (of) either the House or Congress, in these days of hyper-partisan polarization that we have been experiencing, it’ll be very difficult to keep up,” Arenberg said.

Foreign policy Arenberg noted that an area of difficulty for the Biden administration in foreign policy was the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. He argued that Biden deserves credit for making the decision to stick by the agreement that Trump made to withdraw the troops.

“It was somewhat of an intelligence failure not to recognize the speed with which the Taliban would take over once American troops started to withdraw,” Arenberg said.

The withdrawal of troops was

well-intentioned but poorly implemented, said Professor of International Relations Rose McDermott.

Some nations, such as France and the United Kingdom, “felt like they weren’t properly notified (about the withdrawal),” McDermott said. “The policy was correct and the implementation was botched.”

Still, McDermott noted that other aspects of the Biden administration’s operations hold the potential to bolster the American relationship with the international community — one eroded by the previous administration. “I do think that Biden, ratcheting down the tone, not being on Twitter 15 times a day with antagonistic and hostile and angry communication, starts to make things easier” with European allies, McDermott said. “That matters, and it matters in ways that are hard to measure, but it has an impact on the overall tenor of international relations.”

The next three years Given the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Schiller noted that the Biden administration worked hard to improve a public health situation it inherited in a particularly tumultous time.

“He’s done extremely well and (has been) standing firm on (public health concerns caused by the pandemic) by making vaccines widely available,” Schiller said. The administration’s firm stance was strengthened by its usage of “federal powers of mandates to make sure to send the signal that this is a public health emergency.”

Overall, Biden sees his personal mission as restoring stability and predictability to the office, Schiller said.

The president can’t accomplish everything on his own because Congress controls lawmaking, McDermott said.

By working to restore collaboration, she believes the Biden administration will bring about more positive change.

A distinguishing characteristic of Biden is that he has suffered through multiple tragedies in his life and it impacts the way he leads, Schiller said. “He seems to me to have a moral fortitude where he is really certain that what he’s trying to do is the right thing to do for as many people as possible,” she said.

“That’s something we haven’t seen in a long time,” Schiller said, “that kind of moral strength.”

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2021 the Brown community.”

Locke concluded his report by referencing the 2018-19 Staff Climate Survey, which found that 8% of Brown’s staff either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement that they were respected by the University faculty. The Office of the Provost will be working to address this issue, Locke said.

“We shouldn’t have that in our community,” Locke said. “Everyone should feel truly respected here. I think there’s a lot of work that we can do.”

NAT HARDY / HERALD

Members of the administration discussed topics at Thursday’s faculty meeting such as endowment growth and hosting Afghani student refugees.

FACULTY FROM PAGE 1 the University to feel the full effects of the campaign, it has already conducted numerous capital projects using the fundraising, including building the Engineering Research Center and Performing Arts Center.

The University plans to extend the campaign, though Paxson stated that “concrete plans” about “the timing, the amount and the priorities” of such an extension have not yet been decided.

The University expects to make an announcement early next year.

Regarding the deficits of Fiscal Years 2020 and 2021, along with concerns about possible future market corrections, Paxson emphasized that the University has a plan in place to eliminate a long-standing structural deficit.

“I feel really good about where the University is and where we’ll be going over the next three to five years,” Paxson said.

The University has also been approved for funding from FEMA to help

cover testing costs and decrease the deficit, The Herald previously reported.

Also at the faculty meeting, Paxson reviewed the October Corporation meeting where three major initiatives were approved. These include eliminating the consideration of home equity in financial aid and a reduction of summer earning expectations for students with no parent contribution, beginning an initiative toward need-blind admissions for international undergraduate students and developing a college access program for local public schools.

“The single biggest factor in shaping a diverse student body in all dimensions is the generosity of financial aid,” Paxson said. “Frankly, when you compare Brown to some of our peers, we’re still not doing as well” in regards to financial aid.

The University hopes that eliminating home equity considerations in financial aid and reducing summer earning expectations will help foster , more applications from and admissions of middle-income students.

Paxson cited need-blind admissions for international undergraduate students as one of her initial presidential priorities. She hopes the initiative will help diversify the international student community at Brown.

The University will grow the budget for international student financial aid in 2022-23 and hopes to be fully needblind by 2026-27.

Paxson also spoke on the newly-announced college access program for local public high school students, which was initially recommended by the Task Force on Anti-Black Racism.

The program is currently in its planning stages and will be developed in close conjunction with the Swearer Center, Summer@Brown, other University centers and external stakeholders. It will focus on providing tutoring, mentoring and other programming to local public school students.

Paxson did not immediately know exactly how much the program will cost, but expressed the University’s commitment to public K-12 education in

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Providence. “I think most people in this community would like us to do more, and we’d like to do more,” Paxson said.

Locke’s report: Afghan students, 2018-19 Staff Climate Survey Provost Richard Locke P’18 began his report with an update on the Afghan students seeking asylum who are enrolled in the University in collaboration with the University in Exile Consortium.

The Herald previously reported that the University was planning to host 16 students, but that number dropped to 12 after some of the accepted students chose to find work instead. The students are currently located in Fort McCoy, Wisconsin and are awaiting further processing by the state department.

Locke emphasized that the University’s top concern is the “health and wellness” of these students.

Locke applauded the more than 120 faculty members who offered their courses for auditing along with mentoring services for the Afghan students, citing it as a “wonderful testament to

COVID-19, faculty elections Vice President for Planning and Policy Russell Carey ’91 MA ’06 gave the meeting’s COVID-19 update. Carey explained that as undergraduate testing decreases due to optional testing, the University expects and is prepared for a slight uptick in positive cases.

Carey also expressed that the University is “going to continue to monitor mask-wearing” indoors in response to faculty concerns.

Shriram Krishnamurthi, professor of computer science, spoke on behalf of the Technology for Education Committee, which is running a study that will look at building new educational tools and models in education, research and infrastructure technology.

The Committee on Nominations revealed the Special Fall 2021 Election results from October. John Bodel, professor of classics and history, was elected to a one-and-a-half-year interim appointment on the Academic Priorities Committee, beginning next spring and running through the 202223 academic year.

Diane Silva Pimentel, senior lecturer in education, was elected by a 93% majority to an interim appointment on the Standing Committee on the Academic Code for the 2021-22 academic year.

The faculty meeting also included moments of silence for the late Edgar L. Marston Professor of Psychology Russel Church, the late Professor Emeritus of Psychology Julius Kling and Professor Emeritus of Psychology Lewis Lipsitt.

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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2021

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY

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Barnett ’24: Our shallow obsession with using AI to judge art

BY SPENCER BARNETT STAFF COLUMNIST In March of last year, several obliviously normal weeks before the COVID-19 lockdown, I walked into what would be my last in-person record label meeting. Instead of receiving notes on my work from a familiar group of legal pad-doodling millennials, I was met by Sony’s new AI analysis tool ­— which analyzes songs and determines which are most likely to be hits. HitWizard, as the engine is called, scans the waveforms of a song, using metrics like the tempo and the number of times a chorus is repeated to determine its commercial viability. It predicts hits with an accuracy of 66%. “It’s still in beta, but it’s the future.

All the major labels are using it,” said Lucy, the chief doodler.

I was taken aback. How are a few lines of code expected to capture the intricacies of the artistic process?

My issue with Lucy’s decision to use HitWizard does not lie in her desire to release a hit song — at the end of the day, she was simply doing her job. My hesitancy is that the use of objective metrics in song selection implies that a successful record must follow a predetermined template, a template which the algorithm defines solely by comparing inputted music against previously successful songs.

The best works, however, transcend AI’s narrow constraints as they are incompatible with the fluidity of art. Machine learning is incapable of capturing the value of future artistic innovation as it strictly relies on what already exists.

Broadly speaking, art is not commercially successful when it checks off a list of empirical traits, but rather when those traits mix together, like a great recipe, sparking an emotional response in the consumer. Those songs are that 34% that slip past the HitWizard. And they are the most advanced form of art.

AI’s reach into the arts mirrors a simi-

all 10,000 pieces were largely indistinguishable combinations of primary-colored dots.

Despite their similarity, prices for the works vary. In the same day, one painting from the collection sold for $32,000, while another closed for a record high of $43,000. Why were these nearly identical works selling for a 35% price difference?

Artificial intelligence is not instinctively human. It cannot quantify the emotional response that great art provokes.

lar societal trend of digitizing our previously analog tasks. This application, however, is no longer confined to predicting next month’s TikTok hit. AI has recently been adopted by the tech-crazed sphere of non-fungible tokens, where algorithms are used to commodify works, further distancing art from its most human aspects.

In July of this year, contemporary artist Damien Hirst released his first NFT collection, consisting of 10,000 unique dot paintings. Although no two works were identical,

Heni, where the works are traded, used machine learning software to price Hirst’s work. The software scans paintings for features like paint drip, dot overlap, and density, ranking each painting in the series based on these features. Consequently, works with the most extreme rankings fetch the highest prices. For example, a painting which ranks fifth out of 10,000 in “drip” is valued higher than one which falls somewhere in the middle of the pack.

This application of AI reduces artworks to

collectibles. Rather than someone paying top dollar for a piece based on emotional connection, they pay for its rarity. It would be difficult to contradict the notion that both fine art and NFTs have some inherent collectible appeal. However, in most cases this collectability is paired with artistic impact in creating a work that exceeds a valuation solely based on that rarity. Hirst’s model of AI evaluation, while visionary in its own right, makes collecting art no different than collecting rare coins. It removes the magic of great art — the intangible combination of elements that moves us uniquely as humans.

Recent AI efforts like these play into society’s seemingly insatiable crusade to digitize our most humanistic roles, taking algorithmic lens to those art forms that require a human touch. The push can result in societal benefit — automating high risk factory jobs, making roads safer with self-driving cars, even processes we take for granted like e-mail. However, artificial intelligence is not instinctively human. It cannot quantify the emotional response in people that great art provokes.

And it has no place in claiming accuracy in its judgment of art.

AI and art are like oil and water — they were never meant to mix.

Spencer Barnett ’24 can be reached at spencer_barnett@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and other op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

Wednesday, September 8, 2021

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The fourth C.D. Wright Lecture a presentation by

Stephanie Burt Wednesday, 3 November 2021 at 6 pm McCormack Family Theater, 70 Brown Street, Providence [face masks & vaccinated please] Sponsored by Literary Arts at Brown; made possible by gifts in honor of the life & art of C.D. Wright

C.D. Wright received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry in March 2011 for One With Others: [a little book of her days], which was also a finalist for the National Book Award and recipient of the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets. Born and raised in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, she published over a dozen books, includng Rising, Falling, Hovering; Like Something Flying Backwards: New and Selected Poems. With photographer Deborah Luster, Wright won the Dorothea Lange–Paul Taylor Prize for One Big Self from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.

Stephanie Burt is the author of three poetry collections, Belmont, Parallel Play, and Popular Music, and several collections of critical works. Her essay collection Close Calls with Nonsense was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her other works include Don’t Read Poetry; Advice from the Lights; The Poem is You: 60 Contemporary American Poems and How to Read Them; The Art of the Sonnet; Something Understood: Essays and Poetry for Helen Vendler; The Forms of Youth: Adolescence and 20th Century Poetry; Parallel Play: Poems; Randall Jarrell on W. H. Auden; and Randall Jarrell and His Age. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, The Believer, and the Boston Review.

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