Wednesday, October 13th, 2021

SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2021

VOLUME CLVI, ISSUE XXV

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SPORTS

PODCASTS

Football secures first win of season over Colgate Brown forces two fumbles, passes for 351 yards in commanding victory

The Bruno Brief

Should Brown end legacy admissions?

BY THE BRUNO BRIEF

BY LOKI OLIN SENIOR STAFF WRITER The football team (1-3) snapped its losing skid and secured its first win of the season Saturday with a resounding 31-10 victory over Colgate University (2-4) at Brown Stadium. Bruno’s offense and defense fired on all cylinders as the Bears set season-bests in passing yards, fumbles forced and yards allowed.

Head Coach James Perry ’00 credited senior leadership for helping to raise the team’s energy level going into the game. “Last week, I was scratching my head thinking about what we could do differently to tap into some of that leadership,” he said. “It’s really all (the veteran players) — they took ownership of that locker room, took ownership of the way that we practiced, and that’s why the sideline looked that way.”

On the first drive of the game, Christopher Maron ’25 drilled a 24-yard field goal to open the scoring. The strong start carried over onto defense, where

COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS

Brown’s win over Colgate was a satisfying blowout after a close but disappointing loss to Bryant University last week. The win was Bruno’s first ever on the Richard Gouse Field since its renovation earlier this year.

Colgate’s first possession resulted in points for Brown. During a third-down play, Camden Gagnon ’22 chased down scrambling quarterback Harry Kirk and forced the ball out of Kirk’s hands.

Safety Shane Prevot ’24 snatched the football off the ground and sprinted 75 yards alongside a cheering Bears

SCIENCE & RESEARCH

School of Engineering re-accredited by ABET Environmental engineering program accredited for the first time since founding

BY CASEY CHAN STAFF WRITER The School of Engineering was re-accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology at the end of September, validating and enabling the continual growth of the engineering program at Brown. Engineering schools are accredited every six years, and this most recent re-accreditation approval comes at the end of a two-year-long review and visit process by ABET, the accreditation organization for North America and Europe.

The external advisory committee from ABET is composed of professors and engineering professionals.

While ABET itself places an emphasis on technical and scientific skills, it also focuses on teamwork

and personal skills.

“It’s important for Brown because it’s a stamp of quality for our program,” said Lawrence Larson, the dean of the School of Engineering.

“It’s a stamp that we are updating the program in an appropriate way based on new developments in science and technology.” He adds that it is also a signal to potential employers that Brown’s School of Engineering students have had the most up-to-date and rigorous engineering education.

Nearly every engineering program in the world is accredited with an engineering-specific accreditation, said Jennifer Casasanto, associate dean for programs and planning.

“I think that the idea of accreditation, similar to the way that medical schools are accredited, helps us to agree on the standards of what it takes to be a professional engineer,” Casasanto said. Some criteria for accreditation are ethics, safety and impact on society.

At Brown, there are seven

sideline for the touchdown.

“I honestly didn’t even know I forced the fumble,” Gagnon said of the play. “I saw the quarterback running, so I came in and swiped at it. Once I turned around, I saw Shane running down the field. It really couldn’t have been any better.”

“We always practice those plays on every ball that’s on the ground,” Prevot said. “I just saw it, ran and saw nothing but green grass. The only thing that was going through my head was don’t get hawked down — just score.”

We took a long look at the campaign to end legacy admissions at Brown.

The movement, led by the group Students for Educational Equity, is meant to increase enrollment of students from marginalized communities by ending consideration of legacy status in admissions. We heard from Kate Dario ’22.5, who reported this story in last week’s Herald, and Zoë Fuad ’23.5, co-president of SEE.

SEE FOOTBALL PAGE 6

SEE BRIEF PAGE 5

UNIVERSITY NEWS

Prof. Julio Ortega reflects on tenure at U. Ortega has written fifteen books, is reference for scholars in Latin American studies

BY KAITLYN TORRES SENIOR STAFF WRITER Professor of Hispanic Studies Julio Ortega has been teaching at the University since 1989. He began the the Transatlantic Project, which, according to the project’s website, is “dedicated to research,

teaching and colloquia on the cultural and intellectual history of exchange, dialogue and debates between Spain and the Americas.” He was named one of the 50 most influential Spanish-American intellectuals in 2015, and he has been awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle in 2011 by the Mexican government, the highest honor granted to foreign citizens. His office at Rochambeau House is filled with books on Latin American literature, including works of his own.

And according to his Vivo researcher profile, Ortega is an “accomplished scholar, poet, playwright, and novelist” who also

began. As the end of National Hispanic Heritage Month approaches, The Herald spoke to Ortega about his work in shaping the University’s Department of Hispanic Studies. Yet, rather than speaking on his accomplishments, he reflected on his experience working with former University presidents and famous writers he had met throughout his career.

Ortega found himself at the University after teaching a seminar at Harvard in which some of his students were from Brown. Ortega said that he was surprised by the Brown students’ maturity and how they wanted the “class to be a dialogue.”

When a teaching position opened at the University, those same students presented his name for consideration.

“I was (chosen) to come to Brown by the students,” Ortega said.

Originally from Peru, Ortega received his undergraduate education at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú in 1963 and his Ph.D from Universidad Catolica in 1974. Ortega taught at Yale and the University of Texas at Austin before coming to the University. He was also the director of Latin American Studies at Brandeis University, where he invited novelists Carlos Fuentes and

COURTESY OF JULIO ORTEGA

SEE ENGINEERING PAGE 2

Prof. Julio Ortega started the Transatlantic Project to research and analyze Latin American representations of culture, especially literature.

Metro

Science & Research

Commentary

Robberies increase on College Hill amidst a rise in crime in Providence Page 2

U. researchers join national quest to uncover and study oldest ice in Antarctica Page 3

Barnett ’24: NFTs are a way to democratize fine art and open it to the masses Page 6

SEE ORTEGA PAGE 4

TODAY

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75 / 54

77 / 59

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ENGINEERING FROM PAGE 1 different engineering concentrations, Casasanto said, six of which were previously ABET accredited. This year, the environmental engineering program joined the list, accrediting all seven concentrations.

“This was about the best outcome possible,” said Professor of Engineering Rod Beresford.

The environmental engineering program at Brown was accredited for the first time despite being at Brown since the 2013-14 academic year. A program requires four or more years of graduates — whom ABET interviews after they leave the program — in order for the school to apply for accreditation. Not only did the environmental engineering program gain accreditation, but ABET also gave Brown retroactive accreditation. This ensures that the program is recorded as having been accredited since 2018.

Kurt Pennell, professor of engineering, teaches and conducts research in the environmental engineering program, and has worked with this program through the accreditation process.

“The accreditation process allows you to become a professional engineer,” Pennell said, by granting professional licenses to students in an accredited program upon graduation.

A professional license is especially important for environmental engineers, he said, since they take on many responsibilities and require authority to handle paperwork.

“In environmental (engineering), a

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

lot of times you are working with another company or you are working with a public entity, like (the Environmental Protection Agency) or Department of Environmental Management, and they want someone who is (licensed) by a professional organization,” Pennell said.

Rachelle Shao ’22, who concentrates in environmental engineering, said that for concentrators, the impacts of accreditation are tangible. Even though environmental engineering is a relatively new concentration at Brown, she said, accreditation provides an assurance of future job security for individuals in the concentration.

She also believes that the accreditation process helps programs critically reflect on their curricula and tailor classes in the concentration to the requirements of the workforce.

For example, in the environmental engineering program, ENGN 0510: “Electricity and Magnetism” was made optional while computer science classes were included as core classes. Shao says that these changes to the program can help better prepare environmental engineering students for their specific professional field.

Alex Zaslavsky, professor of engineering and physics, was the lead faculty member for this accreditation review. The University’s accreditation is particularly impressive and unusual because, despite the School of Engineering’s small faculty size, it has seven accredited programs, he said. There are currently 56 full-time and tenure-track faculty members in the school.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2021

JACK WALKER / HERALD

The environmental engineering program was accredited for the first time this year since its establishment during the 2013-14 academic year, allowing graduates to obtain professional licenses.

“By having the engineering core (requirements), where many students take courses in varied disciplines, we are able to maintain the necessary breadth and depth of the program, even though the number of faculty is small,” Zaslavsky said.

Zaslavsky and Larson also said that some employers look favorably on accreditation because students from accredited programs can become licensed engineers in a short period of time.

“When you get a degree in engineering, you want to have assurance that when you leave this university, that you can go to any company and to

be able to hit the ground running and be a high-level scientific and technical contributor,” Larson said.

As part of the accreditation process, Brown’s School of Engineering shared its course bulletins and past student work with ABET. Before ABET examiners visited Brown, faculty wrote self studies describing each of the degree programs, and examiners sent back questions. Faculty then students shared students’ reports and projects with ABET, with their permission. Students from every engineering concentration also met with ABET directly to discuss their experiences at Brown.

The criteria for accreditation focuses on rigor of coursework, faculty involvement, student learning and the quality of facilities, among other aspects of the engineering education. The ABET criteria, while comprehensive, does change over time based on feedback from schools. Casasanto mentions that Brown students have communicated with ABET in the past to make ethics more prominent in ABET criteria.

“Engineering ... is a very dynamic field,” Casasanto said. “Because engineering is not static, accreditation has to also engage with all these engineering programs to continually improve.”

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2021

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

3

METRO

Students detail off-campus break-ins Since the year began, reports of break-ins have been circulating throughout campus

BY SAMEER SINHA AND JACK BORRIS SENIOR STAFF WRITER AND NEWS EDITOR College Hill saw nine larcenies and one burglary this September, according to DPS data.

In September 2020, there were four larcenies and two burglaries; in 2019, there were three burglaries and 20 larcenies, while in 2018 there was one burglary and six larcenies.

“There’s always crime in Providence,” DPS Sergeant David Allsworth told The Herald. Allsworth encouraged students to follow “basic safety” precautions, such as locking doors and windows.

Students whose off-campus residences were broken into reported having belongings stolen, such as technology and money.

Stina Trollbäck ’22 recalled coming home after a night out Sept. 24 to discover her bedside table’s lamp knocked over.

She then noticed an open desk drawer and recalled that one of her friends was robbed. Upon checking her backpack, she noticed that her laptop was missing.

Trollbäck’s roommate, Ari Brown ’22, told The Herald that the thief took three laptops, a large speaker, AirPods and “around $200 in cash from various wallets.” One of Brown’s friends had had her laptop stolen in a similar incident the prior weekend, and her rental laptop was also taken from their residence.

Trollbäck said that she then discovered scuff marks on the back door, which was left unlocked after the thief left.

Brown said she and her roommates called both the Providence Police and DPS, but she questioned whether they could recover the lost items. “We don’t think there’s much they can do at this point,” she said, but that the investigation into the incident remains ongoing.

Providence Police and DPS took note of what was stolen, and told them that they “probably (wouldn’t) find anything.”

Brown added that she and her roommates had heard anecdotally about an increase in robberies in the neighborhood.

Spencer Schultz ’22, a former Herald section editor, reported having his laptop and a pair of Beats headphones stolen on the night of Saturday, Oct. 9.

“My guess is that (the thief) scaled up the front porch to the second floor balcony and entered through the door

which I guess had been unlocked,” he said, noting that it was unlikely that the thieves entered through the front or back doors of his apartment, which are always locked.

Schultz’s downstairs neighbors had been the victims of a break-in over the summer, making him more cautious of similar incidents among students living off-campus. But, unlike his neighbors, four of his roommates were home at the time of the break-in.

“It was really crazy to me that these people broke into a house that was literally occupied,” Schultz said. He added that the thief entered the occupied

house, in our space. They really went through all of my drawers in order to find the stuff.” Brown said that she has since hidden valuables after her friend was robbed. “They really had to dig through our stuff, and that was upsetting.”

“We thought that our house was safe, and now we don’t feel as safe,” Trollbäck said. She and her roommates have installed an alarm system, but she has still felt uneasy since her bed is near a window. Trollbäck still reiterated that she felt fortunate that she had the means to buy a new computer.

“We made a very conscious effort

VICTORIA YIN / HERALD

In September 2020, there were four larcenies and two burglaries; in 2019, there were three burglaries and 20 larcenies. bedroom of one of his roommates before retreating.

“The physical loss of belongings is one thing, but I really felt like my space was violated and that was one of the most hurtful parts of it,” Schultz said.

After filing a report with DPS, Schultz said that he received an email from the department and a call from a University administrator offering support, describing the University’s response as “really accomodating.”

Despite the support offered, Schultz emphasized that the University ultimately puts the burden of tracking down stolen items onto students, as DPS advised him to search online marketplaces such as Craigslist for his stolen laptop.

“In an ideal world, DPS would take some more proactive steps to help students go after their belongings,” he said.

Allsworth said that DPS frequently reaches out to students and “provides them with an assessment on the safety of their property to help protect them,” along with recommending renter’s insurance.

“We were upset to have lost the stuff,” Brown said. While she said she felt “lucky” that she and her friends were able to replace the stolen items, she said she felt her private space had been violated, as “people were in our

to tell everybody we know that lives in a first floor apartment to make sure everything is locked and to hide their computers,” she said.

“When we’re on campus, there’s a sense of insulation from the greater Providence community,” Schultz added.

When he lived in an on-campus residence hall, he “felt completely comfortable leaving my dorm room unlocked with my laptop on my desk,” as opposed to the caution he now exercises living off-campus.

Allsworth said that if students feel unsafe in their residence, even if they live off-campus, “they can always contact” DPS. “We will go talk to them and give them a security assessment on their residency.”

“All they have to do is reach out to us. If anybody on campus feels unsafe, they should talk to us. We are a service that is available to them that is underutilized.” Allsworth added: “We can’t talk to every student that enters the University. We try to see if we can do a quick presentation, but that only goes so far. If a student reaches out to us, we will protect them in any way we can.”

If a student discovers their residence has been broken into, Allsworth urged them to first “call 911, then their second call should be to Brown police.”

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

ORTEGA FROM PAGE 1 Toni Morrison to speak. Ortega has received a Guggenhein Fellowship, in addition to the National Endowment of the Humanities fellowship, not once, but three times.

At Brown, where he also served as chair of the department of Hispanic Studies, Ortega began the Transatlantic Project. Ortega said that the project would become the “major model of reading Latin American literature” in a global context.

“One of my main concerns was that (the study of) Latin American literature … was considered like an archipelago,” in that it was separated by country, he said. Instead, Ortega wanted to conceptualize an encompassing view of Latin American literature.

In order to further bring together ideas and research in the field, Ortega hosted a series of international conferences in Spain, Mexico and Peru. Now, the project has spread

further in Latin America and to countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom.

Ortega saw Brown as an ideal place to start this project due to the support of former University Presidents Vartan Gregorian and Ruth Simmons. He said that both presidents saw international collaboration “as the very nature of modern knowledge” and understood its importance for students. Gregorian visited a conference in Cambridge organized by Ortega; Simmons visited another in Barcelona.

During Ortega’s tenure, the University’s Hispanic Studies department ranked number one, a success that Ortega credited at least in part to Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes’ time as a professor-at-large at the University. He said that Fuentes attracted students from different places which created a “utopian United Nations of culture in Providence.”

The Transatlantic Project at the University grew, attracting scholars and

students from different universities to Brown’s conferences. That growth got to the point where Ortega said the program eventually became too large for the University to physically accommodate. Over the past several years, he said, his role has been to visit other universities to help them with their own conferences.

“Transatlantic is in too many spaces now,” he said.

His current research focuses on the foundations of the family in Latin America in the context of matriarchal myths in Mexico and Peru.

Josė Antonio Mazzotti, a professor at Tufts University and a founding member of the Transatlantic Project, said that he couldn’t think of many other professors who “have that energy to create networks and publish” as much as Ortega has.

“He has been the engine of the department in many ways,” Mazzotti said.

“He has really put the Brown Hispanic Studies department on the map of Latin

CA L E N DA R

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2021

American studies in the United States.”

Robert Combs ’22 had always been interested in Spanish language and literature, and was attracted to Brown because of “names such as Julio Ortega,” he said. According to both Combs and Mazzotti, Ortega is an important reference for scholars within the field of Latin American literature.

Combs also noted that Ortega is unique because he is both an accomplished scholar and a novelist, something that Combs said Ortega is humble about. “If you look at his list of accomplishments … it does not seem to fit the man, as he is so humble, and (it is) certainly not something that he would publicize in class,” Combs said.

Ortega is currently teaching HISP 1331K: “Borges y la Literatura Fantástica,” a class on Argentinian writer Jorge Borges whom Ortega met while teaching at UT Austin. Combs said that part of the reason why he finds Ortega’s classes enriching is because of his anecdotes about fa-

mous Latin American writers, many of whom he knew personally. Some names which Ortega remembered meeting included Borges, Fuentes and Gabriel García Márquez.

“Knowing that Professor Ortega had known García Márquez himself was … enormous to me,” Combs said.

The class on Borges is Combs’s third class with Ortega. While Ortega is a lecturer, Combs said, he is interested in hearing students’ opinions on class readings. Ortega said that his favorite part about teaching is the students, whom he calls the “most important (people) at any university.”

Ortega finds that teaching at an American university like Brown is unique in how its students engage with international literature and the emphasis it places on international dialogue and discussion.

“The American university is an open space,” Ortega said, “creating scenery of new ideas, new trends — free of the heavy duty of the traditional.”

COVID -19 AT BROWN LAST 7 DAYS*

OCTOBER Completed Tests

People Tested

S

M

Tu

W

Th

F

S

10,613

9,557

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Confirmed Positives

Positivity Rates

12

0.1 %

10

11

12

13

14

15

16 SINCE AUGUST 24, 2020*

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

Completed Tests

People Tested

548,399

17,996

Total Cases

Prevalence

801

4.5 %

*AS OF OCT 12.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2021

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

5

BRIEF FROM PAGE 1 Ben Glickman Welcome back to The Bruno Brief, a podcast from The Brown Daily Herald and WBRU. I’m Ben Glickman.

This week, we delve into the campaign to end legacy admissions at Brown, led by the group Students for Educational Equity.

SEE leaders say that legacy admissions unfairly benefit students who are more likely to be white, affluent and well-resourced.

We spoke with Senior Staff Writer Kate Dario, and SEE Co-President Zoë Fuad, about the movement.

Here’s Kate Dario. Can you introduce yourself to the listeners?

Kate Dario Hi, my name is Kate. I’m the class of 2022.5. I’m a senior staff writer for The Herald.

Ben Glickman So let’s get into legacy admissions at Brown. Do you know what percentage of Brown’s student body is legacy?

Kate Dario Yeah, so according to University Spokesperson Brian Clark, 10% of the Class of 2025 is a child of Brown alumni. And that was really exciting to learn because they simply don’t disclose that information, usually.

Ben Glickman How transparent has Brown been in comparison to other elite universities about its legacy admissions policies?

Kate Dario Brown has been less transparent than most other elite universities. Specifically, there’s been legal battles involving Harvard in particular, which has kind of been in, like, the national zeitgeist. So Harvard has been much more forthcoming about this data. Other elite universities are more transparent about what percentage of students in each class are legacy, or which percentage of legacies get in, but the way that legacy is used in the Brown admissions process is pretty opaque.

Ben Glickman Do we know anything about the role that fundraising and relationships between the University and alumni plays into legacy admissions?

Kate Dario You’ll hear things that sound conflicting, kind of from both sides. If you were to talk to people in SEE — if you’re talking to people who are against legacy admission — they will show you studies that show that legacy admission policies that favor legacy status do not increase alumni giving. But if you talk to the University, they will tell you that maintaining legacy admissions is crucial to maintaining alumni relationships. And they’ll say that it does change fundraising, and also that that helps students who aren’t legacies and come from less privileged backgrounds attend the University.

Ben Glickman So tell our listeners a little bit more about the organization, Students for Educational Equity. What are they calling for, and how did this campaign get started?

Kate Dario Yeah, so Students for Educational Equity is a group on campus that does interesting work, kind of (at), I would say, the intersection of how the University can promote educational equity, and then what that looks like, you know, in the broader Providence community.

Ben Glickman So can you explain a little bit more about SEE’s position on legacy admissions?

Kate Dario What SEE is doing right now is, like, an email template. Basically, you can go on EdMobilizer’s website and type in your school and your name and then immediately you’re granted an email that is sent to the Corporation members and other, like, University leaders like Christina Paxson, Dean Zia, etc. The email says that, as a student and/or alumni of Brown University, that you will be withholding your donations until legacy is no longer a factor in the admissions process.

Ben Glickman What would it look like for Brown to actually make this policy change and end consideration of legacy in admissions?

Kate Dario Brown would not be at the vanguard of this. This has been done by other comparable universities: Johns Hopkins, MIT and CalTech all do not factor legacy into admission, and there’s been no decrease or change in alumni donation or alumni engagement. So it wouldn’t be like Brown would be doing something revolutionary and different. I think that what was interesting during the pandemic, and sort of situating this moment in, like, the broader story of making the Brown admissions process more accessible, is Brown, like a lot of other schools, was test optional.

And no one was like, oh, the Class of 2025 is the least competitive or like the least talented or accomplished class.

The president of SEE was sort of saying that that was a way to show that these changes are not going to change what Brown is for the worse, they’re not going to diminish anything. They’re only going to open up and make Brown a more — you know, I think I’ve said accessible a lot — but I think that’s really what this is about, which is access.

Ben Glickman Kate Dario, thanks so much for being on the podcast.

Kate Dario Thank you.

Ben Glickman We sat down with Zoë Fuad, co-president of Students for Educational Equity, to talk about the group’s campaign.

Zoë Fuad, welcome to the podcast.

Zoë Fuad Hi, thank you for having me.

Ben Glickman So first off, could you just kind of introduce yourself to the listeners, tell them what you do?

Zoë Fuad Sure, I’m Zoë (she/hers). I’m the co-president of Students for Educational Equity, as well as the chair of Academic Affairs on (the Undergraduate Council of Students).

Within Students for Educational Equity, we have launched a campaign as part of EdMobilizer’s national campaign to end legacy admissions at Brown. The campaign launched a couple weeks ago.

Ben Glickman So you mentioned that the campaign to and legacy admissions at Brown is kind of targeting first-generation admissions and increasing that at Brown. Tell me a little bit more about what you guys are looking for from the University.

Zoë Fuad So I would say it’s not just first-generation and low-income students. Legacy admissions also hugely disadvantages those from the middle-income bracket. Professor (John) Friedman, the head of our Economics department, actually published an article a couple years back about the effect that legacy admissions has on creating the “missing middle.” But

another study debunked this as untrue: It showed that 75% of Caucasian athletes and legacy students would not have gotten in had it not been for those systemic privileges.

legacy admissions, essentially, by privileging the descendants of Brown alums gives another advantage to those who are already advantaged by the systems of inequity that Brown was founded upon.

And by that same token, it’s one of the most explicit and direct ways (that) disadvantages students who are historically underrepresented within the University.

What is exciting, though, is that the Corporation of Brown is having their biannual meeting here on campus in about three weeks. And I’m really hoping that they’re going to seriously review not just the question of legacy admissions this time, but really reviewing the entire system that decides policies around Brown admissions and reviews the current mechanics or lack of mechanics for improving that system.

of this data. As of now you guys don’t have access to that.

Ben Glickman So right now, your campaign is kind of focused on reaching out to a number of stakeholders within Brown, the “constituencies,” like you were saying. Do you think that this kind of campaign that you guys are spearheading — is that going to be enough to push for change within the corporation or among other stakeholders?

Zoë Fuad So as we know, this is not the first time a campaign like this has happened. But what I’m really betting on is that the Corporation members do have a vested interest in creating a more equitable and accessible Brown, and really creating a Brown that lives up to its name of being this, like, leader in quality and access and progress. My assumption is that a lot of them are just not really tuned in to what the latest research shows about policies like legacy admissions like required SATs and ACTs, because a lot of new research is coming out that shows that this doesn’t help the student body.

This in fact, like, hurts who gets in, and also affects the rigor of the University, which I think is something that the Corporation really talks a lot about. So I’m hoping by reaching out directly to them and really making this a subject of discussion that we have the potential for change. I don’t think it’s so much a whole group of unwilling constituencies or constituencies that don’t care about equity and access. I think it’s just a group that has so far been uninformed because they don’t have the time to really look into these things.

There are a lot of myths surrounding legacy admissions that have led to it being maintained for such a long time. I think the most pressing of those myths is that legacy admissions leads to increased financial aid and that it helps with fundraising from alumni. Multiple studies have actually shown that this is false. Another myth is that legacy students don’t get in at higher rates, we know that this is also completely untrue. Ten percent of Brown students are legacy students. Now, we don’t know how this translates directly to admission rates, but we know that at Harvard, 14% of students are legacy and that meant a 34% admission rate, which is kind of insane. So out of the number of legacy students applying, a lot of them are getting in. There’s also another myth that legacy preferences does not provide a huge advantage to those students. Again,

Ben Glickman So to this point, I know you mentioned that there was a movement a couple years ago to kind of have Brown disclose more

Zoë Fuad We do not.

Ben Glickman I think something you said before is really interesting, which is that this campaign is kind of about bringing the most upto-date research to the people who can kind of make the changes. I wonder what you think about the idea that there are these alums for Brown who have a vested interest in keeping legacy admissions up and running at Brown? How do you think that your movement can kind of address those people?

Zoë Fuad Yeah, I think that’s a hard question, because I don’t think there is a way to sort of absolve that concern. I think part of this is dismantling so many systems of existing privilege. And that means really asking people to give up that privilege, which I think is something we talk about a lot at Brown. And this is one of those tests of that.

Ben Glickman You mentioned earlier that a policy like removing legacy admissions kind of dovetails with policies that Brown’s already implemented, like during the pandemic, test-optional.

Zoë Fuad Right.

Ben Glickman Tell me a little bit more about what a change in legacy policy would look like.

Zoë Fuad Yeah, so we know that when Johns Hopkins ended legacy admissions, I think in 2020, it led to a huge increase in low-income and first-generation students. So we’re already seeing that result here. Now, in terms of how legacy policy is actually enacted, again, there’s no proof to show how it does it for sure. But within the last week, we’ve heard two pretty different narratives from the administration.

When we emailed to argue our case for ending legacy admissions, Christina Paxson responded with a lot of things. One of the things she said is that legacy admissions does not cut out low-income or middle-income students, because legacy admissions is only used in, and I quote, “a trade-off between students of similar class and status,” often who come from the same high school. And that legacy status is used to simply tilt toward one or the other. That whole narrative of how legacy admissions work was kind of contradicted

by Dean Logan Powell in the BDH’s latest article about the missing middle, in which he says explicitly that no two students are ever compared on the same table at the same time, it’s never one applicant versus another, that each is looked at on an individual basis and the factors are weighed in without looking at their peers.

And by that logic, legacy preferences does have to, in the end, cut out students from middle-income and low-income brackets, because there’s a limited number of spots at Brown, right? If we’re saying that these kids are already getting in now, because

they have that additional factor of legacy admissions, that takes a spot away from another student who doesn’t Ben Glickman I know that a lot of the University comment about this has sort of struck this tone of, ‘It’s not a zero-sum game’ in admissions. Does that justification ring true to you?

Zoë Fuad No. That was a really interesting thing to read, because I think Provost Locke said that accepting more middle-income students does not mean accepting less students from any other income bracket.

And then he offers no explanation for how that makes sense. There is quite literally a limited number of spots at this university, and it’s a real question of resources. You know, we know that our dining services are understaffed; (Counseling and Psychological Services) doesn’t have the capacity to offer sessions of more than 30 minutes. When I tried to make an appointment last week, there was a week and a half waiting time. Our RPLs are understaffed: Jameson-Mead — the entire dormitory — still doesn’t have a Woman Peer Counselor. So the idea of expanding the student population as a solution doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense right now. Really, it’s just a question of who gets a spot at the table, and with every legacy preference, there’s another non-legacy student, most of whom come from underrepresented populations, that don’t get in.

Ben Glickman You said before that this is about kind of putting the right information in front of the right people. Is it frustrating to hear some of these contradictions that maybe suggest that it might not be as straightforward as just giving people the right information?

Zoë Fuad I don’t know if this is a challenge related to convincing people. We have, from within UCS, organized an open Town Hall set for November 10, where Dean Logan Powell has very generously agreed to come and answer some questions. But the fact that there is no singular narrative coming from the University does make it hard to, I think, work from a collaborative stance. That being said, I don’t think the challenge then is convincing people that our narrative is correct, because I think the fact that the University keeps flip-flopping shows a sort of like, insecurity, and their own ethical stance here. I think the University knows that this is wrong, and they keep trying different arguments to work around this issue — arguments which often contradict, and honestly even on their own, none of them really work.

Ben Glickman Zoë, thanks so much for coming on the podcast.

Zoë Fuad Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Ben Glickman This has been The Bruno Brief. Our show is produced by Livi Burdette, Corey Gelb-Bicknell, Max Karpowich, Katy Pickens and me, Ben Glickman. If you like what you hear, subscribe to The Bruno Brief wherever you get your podcasts and leave a review. Thanks for listening.

We’ll see you next week.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

6

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

FOOTBALL FROM PAGE 1 Gagnon’s tackle and Prevot’s return gave Bruno a 10-0 lead. According to quarterback EJ Perry ’22, the play made it easy for the Bears to maintain the energy level they wanted to establish against Colgate.

“It got everyone fired up,” EJ Perry said. “Our big emphasis was to be fired up regardless of those (big plays) happening — we definitely had much better energy today and it showed on the field.”

After a series of scoreless drives from both Colgate and Brown, EJ Perry completed passes to five different Brown receivers en route to the red zone. On third down at the one-yard line, EJ Perry took the snap in shotgun and darted through a scrum to score Brown’s second touchdown of the game, giving Bruno a 17-0 lead it would take into halftime.

Bruno opened up the third quarter with a tackle from quarterback Jake Willcox ’24 to shut down Colgate’s kickoff return. “We talk about being a

multi-quarterback,” James Perry said.

“You got to be a multifaceted guy. It’s so fun to see them do that. Jake made a terrific play — that play Jake made on (the) kickoff was awesome.”

After a Colgate field goal made the score 17-3, Brown’s offense threatened again. At the two-yard line, Bruno’s players crowded the right side, appearing to initiate a strong-side run or screen pass. Instead, EJ Perry faked a handoff and twisted to the left, lofting a pass to 6’2”, 290-lb defensive tackle Brooks Jones ’23. Jones acted as a blocker before slipping away toward the end zone, where he caught the ball and tumbled to the ground to secure his first catch and touchdown of the season.

During the week leading up to the Colgate matchup, Jones joined the Brown offense to practice the trick play and was ready to put it into action. “I heard the play called and we practiced it a couple times this week so I just did what I was told and came down with it,” Jones said. “It was pretty special.

Not a lot of linemen get an opportunity

to catch a ball like that. It was a great ball by EJ and thankfully I came down with it.”

“That was not an easy play,” EJ Perry said. “He went up and he caught it. I high-pointed the ball and it was something for a big D-lineman. Afterward, I was making a joke — I said, ‘They got a wide receiver playing D-line. What’s going on?’”

Between Jones catching passes, Willcox making tackles and EJ Perry leaping up to knock away an onside kick late in the game, several Brown players made contributions beyond the typical confines of their positions. “You can put faith in the players because they’re a hardworking bunch,” James Perry said.

“They’re a trustworthy bunch.”

Brown’s defense opened the fourth quarter with vigor, forcing another fumble on a crucial fourth down to stymie a threatening drive from Colgate. On offense, a series of short gains and a diving catch by Wes Rockett ’23 led Brown to the opposing 30-yard line.

Three plays later, recent Ivy League rookie of the week Graham Walker ’24

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2021 caught a short pass over the middle from EJ Perry and flew past Colgate’s defenders for the touchdown.

Colgate scored a touchdown on the next drive to make the score 31-10 before Brown regained possession and ran down the clock, securing its first ever win on the Richard Gouse Field at Brown Stadium since its renovation earlier this year. EJ Perry passed for a season-high 351 yards in the win, with Hayes Sutton ’23, Walker and Rockett all finishing with over 70 receiving yards.

Sutton, who had 71 receiving yards Saturday, said that the versatility of Brown’s receivers made the Bruno offense difficult to stop. “Wes, Graham, Zach Targoff (’23), Allan Houston (III ’23), they all do great jobs on the outside. I know I can trust that wherever the ball goes, we’re gonna get a first down,” Sutton said. “And whenever they play man coverage, we know we’re gonna win.”

Brown’s first win came after a disappointing loss against Bryant University last week in which Bruno

scored 29 unanswered points in the fourth quarter and fell just short of a comeback. According to EJ Perry, the loss helped prepare Brown for its game Saturday. “The entire first half (against Bryant), we had a great teaching tape to learn from and say, ‘This is not what we’re going to be,’ and then an entire fourth quarter of ‘This is what we’re going to be,’” EJ Perry said. “Our defense in the fourth quarter (against Bryant) let up zero points as well, and we definitely showed today that we can do that for four quarters.”

As Brown gears up for its game against Princeton next Saturday, James Perry said the team is looking to build off the win against Colgate.

“The fun thing is that we still made a ton of mistakes that we can correct,” James Perry said. “When you get into Ivy League play, every week you’re going to be challenged … and you’ve got to improve. Last year, I thought we were a better team at the end of the season. We gotta do the same thing this year.”

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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2021

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY

7

Barnett ’24: How NFTs are democratizing the art world

BY SPENCER BARNETT OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

Last week, my uncle sat me down at his relic of a dining table, beaming with excitement. He pulled out a phone to clumsily swipe through several pages of apps before landing on MetaMask, his “wallet,” as he called it. I waited in confusion as I stared at his leather cardholder perched next to him at the table, probably more worn than the surface itself. MetaMask wasn’t designed to carry a Visa or a Pinkberry loyalty card; it was my uncle’s NFT wallet.

Non-fungible tokens, or “NFTs,” are unique images or gifs stored on a digital ledger called a blockchain.

To put it more simply, they are files combined with proof of ownership — a digital deed of sorts — and they are the hottest new thing to hit the art world.

I leaned in curiously, as Uncle Adam rarely gets worked up over digital things. In fact, he was always somewhat of a traditionalist in that regard — choosing paperback over Kindle, vinyl over Spotify. He even drives a stick shift. So, when my uncle enthusiastically scrolled down to reveal a collection of three highly pixelated cartoon characters, I found myself scratching my head.

“These are my CryptoPunks!”

“Crypto-what’s?” I replied. This was all very foreign to me.

“CryptoPunks! There are only 10,000 in existence, and each is unique. They’re NFTs.” Uncle Adam’s CryptoPunks are part of a collection of non-fungible tokens created by Larva Labs, a software development firm-turned-NFT art collective. CryptoPunks aren’t painted or drawn, but instead generated by a computer algorithm. Larva Labs inputted a series of features, like a beanie or a moustache, and hit “enter.” This automatically spawned

10,000 unique characters, which are valued by the rarity of their features.

However, CryptoPunks, like all NFTs, cannot be bought and sold using U.S. dollars. They can only be traded with Ethereum, one of the most widely circulated cryptocurrencies. Because of this, the price of a “Punk” is as volatile as the currency itself. In the last year, Ethereum has risen in value

could afford one with their Ethereum.”

The so-called “crypto-rich” come from all walks of life — a schoolteacher who invested $1,000 in Bitcoin five years ago, a young hacker who has been mining cryptocurrencies for several years, a Wall Street bigshot who invested in the right coin at the right time. All these people have one

“An NFT is not a piece of art itself, but rather a new medium for artists to creatively interpret, one that has the potential to radically redefine the process of art creation entirely.”

from $353 to $3,317 per coin, a near 1,000% increase, and with it so has the price of the Punks.

I couldn’t wrap my head around this overwhelming buzz. Paintings and photographs made sense to me — they’re tangible, something you can hang on a wall, see, touch and experience. But why would someone, even a seasoned art collector with the means to do so, part with thousands, or in some cases millions, of dollars for a digital work? It seems that traditional art collectors are not the largest customer base for NFTs, and they may never be. Instead, the NFT market has become a parallel art world, allowing a new age of enthusiasts to collect with no prior experience in velvet ropes and vodka martinis — democratizing a once-exclusive and elitist industry.

I very calmly voiced my confusion to my uncle: “No offense, but who the f*ck buys these things?”

“Lots of people are getting crypto-rich,” Adam replied with a chuckle, seemingly taking no offense to my snarky remark. “They may not live in a mansion now, but they sure as hell

thing in common: They were early adopters. But, has that ship sailed for NFTs? Crypto believers seem to think not. They are diversifying their overnight fortunes by investing in NFTs, purely in hopes that digital art will outperform their coins. Although the long-term financial upside is yet to be determined, the creative potential is near limitless.

It seems that NFTs occupy the intersection of fine art and cryptocurrency. These two worlds are similar in many ways — both are highly speculative, spark mass controversy and are widely known to have cultlike followings. The main difference between the two, however, is their barrier to entry. Fine art ownership has notoriously been reserved for the ultra-rich, those willing to spend millions to hang museum-grade pieces above their Upper East Side mantles.

Cryptocurrency, on the other hand, is now accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. Exchange platforms like Coinbase allow users to invest as little as two dollars in their coin of choice, meaning that any of the five billion people in the world who own a smartphone can begin

Level: 1

2

3

4

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 SATURDAY’S PUZZLE

9/19/16

their journey with crypto, and now, with NFTs. For struggling artists, this is great news. Just as cryptocurrency has begun to democratize banking, NFTs provide a platform for all artists to monetize their work, regardless of their financial means. The music industry was similarly transformed through the emergence of stream-

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

ing services like Napster and Spotify, which opened the doors of opportunity to independent artists. Instead of having to partner with a record label to pre-manufacture 10,000 CDs, musicians could digitally distribute their work to millions with the click of a button. In the same vein, visual artists can now create NFTs with virtually zero overhead using websites like Mintable and OpenSea. These sites act as marketplaces, allowing creators to upload and sell their work on the blockchain from the comfort of their homes. Being represented by a highly acclaimed gallery is no longer the only path to commercial success as an emerging artist.

However, the blockchain is not solely reserved for the unknown.

Some of today’s most prolific artists are releasing digital collections of their own on it. Damien Hirst, a British contemporary artist whose physical works have fetched over $10,000,000 at auction, recently released his NFT collection “The Currency,” which offered 10,000 unique works priced at $2,000 each. If you wanted to own a Hirst NFT today, however, the cheapest one available

would set you back $28,000. Similarly, contemporary artist Urs Fischer released his first NFT earlier this year which sold for $98,000, nearly 100 times its estimated value. Soaring prices have dumbfounded art insiders and newcomers alike. Critics largely argue that NFTs detract from the essence and core principles of visual art, though this argument seems to miss the point: an NFT is not a piece of art itself, but rather a new medium for artists to creatively interpret, one that has the potential to radically redefine the process of art creation entirely. Some creators have used the platform purely for the purpose of converting physical works into tradeable tokens. This approach, while profitable, is unsustainable and fails to capitalize on the unique opportunity presented by NFTs to reconceptualize art’s visual medium.

Only when artists begin to push the bounds of this new digital format will the creative potential for the new medium truly be unlocked.

Maybe I was wrong about Uncle Adam all along. It seems that he isn’t simply the vinyl-spinning, stick shift-driving junkie of the past I had made him out to be, but instead, somewhat of a closeted futurist. Companies like Larva Labs and OpenSea are taking the ironclad conventions of the art world and flipping them upside down. NFTs are bigger than little pixelated cartoons on your screen or the gif that you proudly show off to your friends over a beer. They have forced a reckoning in a world where radical change was long overdue, symbolizing a shift in art culture toward a more inclusive future.

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, OCTOBER 13, 2021

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

8

SCIENCE AND RESEARCH

U. researchers study greenhouse gases in ice as part of national effort Composition of air bubbles can help scientists date Antarctica’s ice caps

BY KATHLEEN MEININGER SENIOR STAFF WRITER In an effort to better understand Earth’s climate history, University researchers have joined a nationwide collaborative effort to discover Antarctica’s oldest ice.

On Sept. 9, the National Science Foundation announced their approval of a five-year, $25 million grant for the launch of the Center for Oldest Ice Exploration. The center, referred to as COLDEX, is one of six new centers the NSF created last month. COLDEX will develop new technologies to probe for ice cores and fund researchers to explore Antarctica.

“We want to understand the natural modes and variability of (Earth’s) climate system and how those are related to future changes,” said Ed Brook, professor of paleoclimatology at Oregon State University and the principal investigator for COLDEX. The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest and oldest ice mass on Earth, dating back more than 30 million years. As

ASHLEY CHOI / HERALD

new layers of Antarctic snow bury older layers, the buried snow is compacted into ice, trapping small air bubbles in the process, Brook said. These bubbles — frozen in time — tell researchers the composition of atmospheric carbon and other greenhouse gases throughout Earth’s history, he added.

“We have lots of indirect data that go back much further (than data from

the bubbles) … they’re just not as precise,” Brook said. The bubbles, which Brook called “real samples of ancient air,” are “the only direct measure of the composition of the atmosphere” scientists have from before the 1960s — when scientists started directly measuring atmospheric concentrations by instrumentation, he said.

As an ocean and climate modeler,

University Professor of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences Baylor Fox-Kemper works to make indirect models more accurate in predicting future climate changes. Bubbles formed in ice “are special among the different paleoclimate records we have because they’re relatively easy to date,” he said.

The oldest Antarctic ice sheet samples obtained date back 800,000 years ago to the start of the glacial periods, when the average Earth’s temperature was about eight degrees Celsius colder than it is today. The COLDEX researchers hope to find ice cores from when the average temperature of the Earth was warmer, before the first glacial period. Their goal is to find a continuous ice sample going back 1.5 million years to allow them to trace the changes in atmosphere throughout the time period, Brook said.

“There’s a hunt to find old ice, because unfortunately ice flows out from the center of ice sheets and eventually melts at the edges, or falls into the ocean and melts,” wrote University Professor of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences Timothy Herbert in an email to The Herald. Herbert, whose lab uses deep sea sediments to study climate evolution over the past several million years, highlighted the difficulty of finding Antarctic ice dating back more than one million years.

It would require “a lot of exploration and some luck,” he said.

The “COLDEX mission will help us continue to test and improve (previous) models based on evidence from the earth’s past,” wrote Herbert, who is not affiliated with COLDEX. “What we’d like to do is provide more data to help us understand what climates are like when you have higher average carbon dioxide levels,” Brook said. While climate change is driven by changes in the Earth’s orbit, the carbon cycle and chemistry of the ocean also play a significant role, Brook added. Studying atmospheric carbon dioxide levels in warmer climates might clue scientists in on what influence greenhouse gas levels will have in the future, he added.

“The key point from my perspective is that these kinds of records give us a sense of how unprecedented modern (climate) change is,” Fox-Kemper said. Citing the most recent assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which he was a coordinating lead author for, Fox-Kemper said that the IPCC ice sheet data went back 800,000 years.

If COLDEX finds ice sheet data dating back further, this would provide “even stronger evidence that what we’re seeing now is unprecedented.”

Another part of COLDEX’s mission will be to increase diversity and inclusion in science by recruiting students and early-career scientists from underrepresented groups in STEM. COLDEX will also host professional development programs for its scientists and faculty.

University Professor of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences Meredith Hastings will lead COLDEX’s professional development programs to help train up-and-coming COLDEX researchers in leadership and networking skills. Hastings co-founded the Earth Sciences Women’s Network in graduate school, and has since grown the organization from a handful of female scientists to a collaborative of thousands of women worldwide. She was asked to lead the COLDEX professional development workshops because of her experience with ESWN. “I think it’s a really cool opportunity — no pun intended” to increase the accessibility of climate science research, Hastings said. “There is an interest and a need to make sure that the community (COLDEX) builds as part of this big scientific effort is one that is diverse, equitable and encourages the next generation of researchers to do polar research.”

“It takes a lot of effort and funding to get to the polar regions to drill ice cores, and you have to be in the right research groups and have the right access and the right funding.

Not everybody has that access,” Hastings said.

“I’m excited to be able to offer something that will hopefully make everyone on the team more successful because I think if the early-career researchers, graduate students, postdocs and early-career faculty are successful in their professions, then the science will get better and better,” Hastings said. She added that as a climate scientist who has sampled ice cores to study the changes in the nitrogen cycle over time, she is “very excited” to be involved in COLDEX’s scientific efforts.

“This kind of broad, collaborative effort is a really important aspect of climate science,” Fox-Kemper said.

“It’s great that some of the scientists at Brown are involved.”