Brown Sunrise chapter sees new dawn
Local hub of environmental justice group relaunches after two-year hiatus
BY SAM LEVINE SENIOR STAFF WRITERAfter its dissolution in fall 2020, the Brown chapter of Sunrise Movement, a climate advocacy group, relaunched on campus last week.
The chapter has already been ac tive: Sunrise members have promoted a petition asking candidates to replace Provost Richard Locke P’18 to com mit to the University’s environmental pledges and disrupted an ExxonMo bil recruitment event held on campus last Tuesday, The Herald previously reported.
The Sunrise Movement is a youthled organization founded in 2017 that advocates for environmental justice and the passage of the Green New Deal — a proposed restructuring of the American economy to favor clean energy and reduce economic and racial inequality — according to their website.
The organization has more than 400 “hubs” across the country, according to the website.
The newly-relaunched University chapter consists of four task forces: environmental justice and Providence, operations, actions and University, said Lauren Griffiths ’24, co-lead of the op erations group. The task forces are all
RI House candidates clash in contentious debate
ocratic norms and abortion rights. Fung, echoing national Republican strategy in recent weeks, highlighted persistent economic problems, including stub bornly high inflation rates, as a case for GOP governance.
overseen by the nine students who make up the chapter’s unstructured executive board.
Rise of the new chapter
The history of Sunrise’s College Hill chapter dates back to 2019, when the
ARTS & CULTURE
The Sundials: Origins of ANOCH’s headliners
mance on campus following its debut at Gigs on the Green in the spring, according to founding member Kieran Pandey ’24.
BY ISHITAA GUPTA SENIOR STAFF WRITERA unique blend of drums, keys, gui tar, trumpet, bass and cello echoed throughout the hallways of T.F. Green Hall Friday night. Within one of the hall’s practice rooms, energy soared high as The Sundials rehearsed their set — they practiced certain verses over and over again, making sure to hit every beat just right while taking the time to laugh with one another. After all, The Sundials had a big per formance coming up — headlining A Night on College Hill.
The Sundials, now recognized as the band that kept attendees on their feet and dancing during ANOCH, are one of the more recent additions to the University’s music scene. ANOCH was the student band’s second perfor
The Sundials first came together last semester when Pandey and Lucas Washburn ’24 decided they wanted to put together a performance for Gigs on the Green. At the time, Pandey, Washburn and their former band Falling Walrus had signed a contract with Small Victories Entertainment that prevented them from performing anywhere else in Providence in April, including at Gigs on the Green.
“So we thought, let’s just start an other band,” said Pandey, The Sun dials’ current drummer. Washburn — who is now taking a hiatus from The Sundials — then rounded up the band’s additional members, and a new band was born.
Ava Schully ’23, the band’s cellist, remembers a two hour brainstorming session among its initial members that led to the band’s name. “Kieran came up with ‘The Dials’ based on
BY EMMA GARDNER METRO EDITORWith just three weeks to go until the midterm elections, Democrat Seth Mag aziner ’06 and Republican Allan Fung — candidates for Rhode Island’s 2nd Congressional District — clashed in a televised debate Tuesday evening. The debate marked one of the last high-pro file opportunities for the candidates to speak directly to Rhode Islanders before voters head to the polls on Nov. 8.
Magaziner currently serves as trea surer for the State of Rhode Island, while Fung served as mayor of Cranston from 2009 to 2021.
In the debate, hosted by WPRI-12 at the Providence Performing Arts Cen ter, Magaziner repeatedly linked Fung to far-right Republicans in Congress, saying that his opponent represented both a direct and indirect threat to dem
In the past several weeks, the race has received national attention as one of a handful of now-competitive House seats once thought to be safely blue. Although Democrats won the last CD2 matchup — which took place in 2020 between Democratic incumbent Jim Langevin and Republican Robert Lancia — by a margin of nearly 17 points, polls now show signs of trouble for Demo crats. An Oct. 4 Suffolk University/Bos ton Globe poll has Fung up eight points, and an Oct. 6 WPRI/Roger Williams University poll shows the Republican with a six-point lead.
The debate’s atmosphere was con tentious, with insults thrown on both sides reflecting the competitive nature of the CD2 race and the 2022 midterms in general. Both candidates repeatedly accused the other of spreading lies and misinformation, each attempting to
METRO
Local florists consider new competition
“Halloween Ends” fails to deliver satisfying end to franchise
Jonathan Lemire discusses new book on Trump, “The Big Lie”
BY RHEA RASQUINHA SENIOR STAFF WRITERTrader Joe’s is set to open later this month in Fox Point, offering East Side residents another option for groceries, along with flowers, plants and season al bouquets for bargain prices. The long-awaited grocery store will share a neighborhood with a number of momand-pop florists on Wickenden Street.
While the local shop owners told The Herald that there is no beating Trader Joe’s prices, they strive to offer high-end floral arrangements to a different clientele. They said they are not too concerned about the grocery chain’s opening affecting business, as local florists operate in different realms of the flower market.
“I don’t expect a grocery store to impact me much at all other than ‘smash-and-grab’ people that just want to show up (and) make it part of their grocery shopping,” said Gary D’Amario,
owner and “everything person” of City Gardens Flower Shop. “I do specialized work. … I’m not a bargain basement, I don’t compete, I don’t have sales … and I try to buy the highest quality flowers I can find.”
After over 42 years in the flower business, D’Amario said he has built a loyal clientele that depends on him for a variety of occasions. “I have enough people that keep me in busi ness whereas if I chose, I wouldn’t even have to open the door to walk-ins,” he said. “I could operate very well just with my own customer base.”
“I don’t do cookie-cutter business. Everything is made to the order, in
dividually,” D’Amario said. “People get things very inexpensively from Trader Joe’s, and that’s great. But it’s not something that I feel is going to impact me negatively.”
Trader Joe’s uses low prices “to attract customers to the store and then makes profit on other items they sell,” wrote Matthew Bellotti, owner of Studio 539 Flowers, in an email to The Herald. “We cannot compete with these prices since they are often below what our wholesaler buys them for.”
“For people that shop only for price, this is good, but if you require
Siddiqui ’24: Social media detox allowed for more meaningful connections
DESIGNED BY: NEIL MEHTA ’25 DESIGN EDITORBand members discuss group’s founding, dynamics, hopes for future
METRO Fung, Magaziner offer competing visions on economy, foreign policy, national leadership
Owners highlight unique services as flower seller Trader Joe’s prepares to openRHEA RASQUINHA / HERALD SOFIA BARNETT / HERALD The Sunrise Movement is a youth-led organization that has more than 400 “hubs” across the country, according to the group’s website.
ARTS & CULTURE
‘Halloween Ends’ denies 44-year-long franchise satisfying ending
at the surface of how Corey and Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), the central protagonist of the “Halloween” series, serve as character foils to one another, both as victims of their disapproving small town. However, it fails to deliver on the necessary elements of a good horror movie.
BY ALEX NADIRASHVILI UNIVERSITY NEWS EDITOR
“It’s Halloween. We’re going to have fun tonight.”
Corey Cunningham (Rohan Camp bell), a high-achieving high school senior, says these lines in the open ing scenes of David Gordon Green’s third contribution to the cult-classic “Halloween” series, “Halloween Ends,” promising a fresh and entertaining movie that should solidly wrap up the franchise’s 44 year-long run. But, as is common with reboots, “Halloween Ends” fails to provide a captivating case for its existence. Its plot centers on a cast of uncompelling characters and relies on gruesome bloodshed for the story, leading the audience to wonder what happened to the original plot of the franchise.
“Halloween Ends” opens in the luxurious home of Mr. and Mrs. Allen (Jack William Marshall and Candice Rose, respectively) in Haddonfield, Il linois on Halloween 2019. In the first few scenes, Corey babysits the Allens’ son, Jeremy (Jaxon Goldenberg). After Jeremy orchestrates a series of pranks that leave Corey trapped in the house’s attic, Mr. and Mrs. Allen finally return home — just in time to witness Corey accidentally knock Jeremy over a stair case railing to his death. The movie is bold for opening with the graph ic — albeit incidental — murder of a child and does a clever reversal of the kid-kills-babysitter ploy that began the original 1978 “Halloween” movie. Unfortunately, the suggestion that a similarly intriguing narrative will follow remains just that — a suggestion.
The movie proceeds to follow Corey as he is outcast and violently berated by the Haddonfield townsfolk for killing Jeremy, leading him to devolve into a serial killer under the guidance of Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney). The movie explores the clichéd theme of questioning humanity’s potential for evil, but it is unable to reach a satisfy ing conclusion. The movie scratches
“Halloween Ends” depends on blood and violence more than it does on psy chological thrills and true shock factors. It jumps from one gory scene to another and relies on attention-grabbing shots rather than a compelling narrative that the audience would actively want to keep watching. At the same time, the film intersplices its horror elements with a romantic storyline between Co rey and Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson Nelson (Andi Matichak), an underde veloped addition to the plot that takes the focus of the film away from its true star: Jamie Lee Curtis.
Despite the major role Curtis has played in the franchise and her perma nently established status as one of Hol lywood’s greatest scream queens, “Hal loween Ends” does its best to sideline Curtis throughout the film. For longtime audiences that watch the movie to witness a holistic conclusion to the nearly half-century battle between Lau rie and Myers, this film will most likely feel like a disappointment. It takes far too long to establish the characters of Corey and Allyson and suggests a sort of passing-of-the-mantle on behalf of Strode and Myers. As a result, the movie feels like a contingency plan for poten tial future installments in the series rather than a conclusion. Curtis has her time to shine in the movie’s third act, delivering closing scenes that are intense, hilariously absurd and undeni ably entertaining, but this only leaves the audience wishing she had played a bigger role from the start of the film.
In the same way that Laurie says “grief, blame and paranoia” hang over the town of Haddonfield, 44 years of expectations weigh too heavily on “Halloween Ends.” As the thirteenth installment in the series, the movie not only fails to produce a satisfying con clusion but is also unable to stand as an independent entity. Ultimately, though entertaining at times, “Halloween Ends” feels like an unnecessary close to an even more unnecessarily long chapter in horror movie history.
Film relies too heavily on gore, uninteresting characters, leaves audience wanting moreCOURTESY OF UNIVERSAL PICTURES “Halloween Ends” does not live up to 44 years worth of expectations, relying too heavily on gory violence rather than creating a compelling narrative or utilizing psychological thrills.
crocodiles,” Schully said. “We didn’t think people would get (that), and we wanted something a little more fun too.”
Though the band tries to maintain that easygoing dynamic, Schully said that things are also getting serious for The Sundials. Headlining ANOCH was a huge step up from performing at Gigs on the Green, as the band went from “having four songs pre pared to learning an hour-long set,” she added.
During their show Saturday night, the band performed covers of a num ber of hit songs, including “Empire State of Mind” by Alicia Keys and “Feeling Good” by Michael Bublé.
With ANOCH’s crowd being the band’s largest audience to date, members of The Sundials had been focusing a majority of their efforts on mak ing sure that performance went well, Pandey said.
“After this, we’ll take a deep breath, have a conversation … and figure out some fun stuff to do next,” Schully said, referencing the potential for the band to pursue original music in the future.
“We’re really early in our career as a band, so we’ve been building chemistry and our ability to learn songs so far,” Pandey said. “Writing songs could be the next step.”
For members of the band hoping to
pursue a career in music, being “able to play with others, pick up songs quickly and understand group dynamics and maintain camaraderie … can (also) be valuable skills to have,” he added.
Pandey also explained that The Sundials’ future performances will
include songs that are hopefully more similar to the band’s true style. “This was a dance gig, so we really had to cater to our audience,” he said. “In the future, we’d like to incorpo rate some of the songs we (played at ANOCH) … with others that are
more relaxed.”
For now, the band is focusing on en joying themselves while playing music and creating a strong bond.
Connor Purcell ’24, who plays the guitar for The Sundials, said the band offers him “a couple of hours of (the)
week to forget about everything else, … hang out with cool people and play music.”
“I’m definitely really comfortable with these guys,” said vocalist Te niayo-Ola Macaulay ’25. “It’s just a safe space now.”
design, interesting containers or just advice, we can beat a Trader Joe’s every time,” Bellotti added.
“Our prices result from our dil igent efforts to deliver the best val ue to our customers,” wrote Nakia Rohde, Trader Joe’s public relations manager, in an email to The Herald.
“We have more than 500 stores across
the country, which allows us to buy in very large quantities, directly from growers around the world, resulting in top-quality plants and flowers at ex cellent everyday prices at every Trader Joe’s store.”
But locals on Wickenden said they take a different approach to floristry.
“Studio 539 Flower is unique due to its craftsmanship. A good floral designer takes years to develop their
skills,” wrote Bellotti, who opened his shop 19 years ago. “We can offer design services that a supermarket can’t” by hand picking flowers dai ly and placing special emphasis on quality.
“Supermarkets have decimated the mom-and-pop flower shops, so in order to survive we have had to offer something other than just an inexpensive product,” Bellotti wrote.
“We offer what a corporation cannot: expertise, design skill and custom er relationships that have spanned years.”
D’Amario said sometimes peo ple don’t understand the difference between the services his business offers and what you can get at a big ger store.
“Younger people like students have no concept of what a true flo
rist actually is,” he said. “They seem to think that a florist is the same as a grocery store. It’s opposite ends of the spectrum.”
“I hope the activity that Trader Joe’s brings to the area exposes peo ple to what they have been missing,” Bellotti wrote. “Old school customer service and a quality product for cel ebrations of those special occasions of life.”
EVENTS
Development, Institutions, and Political Economy Seminar 12 p.m. Robinson Hall
Pattern Theory Seminar Presents Ritambhara Singh 12 p.m. 182 George Street
TOMORROW’S EVENTS
Biomedical Engineering Seminar with Jeffrey Morgan 11 a.m. Barus and Holley
Theoretical Physics Seminar with Richard Nally 12 p.m. Barus Building
High Energy Theory Seminar with Harvard’s Eduardo Casali 1 p.m. Barus and Holley
Macroeconomics Seminar with Francois Gourio 4 p.m. Robinson Hall
DEEPS Colloquium with Charles Mandeville 12 p.m. MacMillan Hall, 115
“What is Research?” Workshop 4 p.m. List Art Building, 120
POLITICO White House bureau chief traces ‘big lie’ at book event
MSNBC host discusses Trump’s misinformation campaign at Watson
BY WILL KUBZANSKY UNIVERSITY NEWS EDITORThe road to Jan. 6, 2021 began at an August 2016 rally in Columbus, Ohio for former President Donald Trump, according to Jonathan Lemire, POLIT ICO’s White House bureau chief and the host of “Way Too Early” on MSNBC.
When Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election, it marked the “violent culmination” of a well documented lie, Lemire wrote in his book “The Big Lie,” published this past July. Despite the fact that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election by over 7 million votes and 74 electoral votes, Trump falsely stated that he was the rightful winner — a claim that he still maintains.
But the creation of an environment ready to spread that lie and activate an insurrection stemmed from the 2016 rally in Dayton, when Trump told a crowd that he was “afraid the election is going to be rigged,” Lemire’s book explained. From there, Trump “laid the foundation with a variety of lies big and small to hijack the Republican party and the conservative media to have them prepared to go along with his biggest lie,” he added in an interview with The Herald.
That lie has not run its course yet, Lemire said in a Tuesday afternoon book event at the Watson Institute, flanked by Marc Dunkelman, a fellow in Inter national and Public Affairs, and Wendy Schiller, professor of political science and director of the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy. Roughly 30 people attended the event.
“It’s very much a present-day book,” he said to The Herald. “It shows how
we’re going to be living with the legacy of his lie.”
As a reporter, Lemire began to focus on Trump while reporting on politics for the Associated Press in New York. When Trump announced his presidential run at Trump Tower in 2015, Lemire was sent to cover the event with the ex pectation of writing around 300 words.
“Needless to say, it required more than 300 words,” Lemire said to The Herald.
The next five years created an un precedented test for the media as Lemire covered the Trump campaign and then the Trump White House for the AP. News about Trump that would have “ended Mitt Romney’s career” broke at “break neck speed,” he said at the event.
The sheer volume of Trump’s lies required a change in the way media contextualized articles, push alerts and social media posts, Lemire explained. For his entire term, Trump continued lying and shattering norms, according to Lemire.
At a press conference in Helsinki, Finland, Lemire asked Trump if he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin or his own intelligence agencies about Russian interference in the 2016 election. After two years of speculation and discourse about the legitimacy of the 2016 election, “there was nothing else to ask,” Lemire explained.
Trump’s answer, which sided with Putin, dismayed intelligence authorities in the U.S. and briefly turned reliable Trump allies against him, Lemire wrote in his book.
After Jan. 6, Trump’s lie about 2020 remains relevant, he added. Republi cans lost their window to push Trump out of the party when House Minori ty Leader Kevin McCarthy traveled to Florida weeks later. There, McCarthy apologized to Trump, legitimizing the former president as the party’s leader, Lemire said.
Since then, election denialism has become a “litmus test” for Republicans, he added. Trump, who at one point of
fered an interview for “The Big Lie” in exchange for a feature on the cover, ultimately decided not to talk to Lemire as the idea gained traction throughout 2021, Lemire said.
“We have big lie candidates, election deniers in Arizona and Pennsylvania among them,” he added during the event, referring to Arizona Senate and gubernatorial candidates Blake Masters and Kari Lake, as well as Pennsylvania governor candidate Doug Mastriano.
In the meantime, Trump’s false claims have also sparked a new wave of voting restrictions in Republican-con trolled states, Lemire said.
At the event, attendees — almost none of whom were students — prod ded Lemire on potential downfalls for Trump, such as budding lawsuits and investigations. But Lemire responded
that if Trump seeks the Republican nomination, he will likely win it. While reporters learned lessons on covering Trump between 2016 and 2020, Lemire said that another Trump campaign will create an even more challenging envi ronment for media coverage.
To ensure proper coverage, “does every story about Trump have to be about how he didn’t accept the results of the election?” Lemire asked. “The answer is probably yes.”
Trump’s long-running campaign of falsehoods has also been amplified by online echo chambers that create con flicting facts rooted in partisan politics, Lemire said.
In an audience question, McConnell Bristol ’26 asked Lemire about fixing the lack of a “shared truth” — a prob lem Lemire said he did not know how
to solve.
“When Trump exits the stage, what happens then?” he said. “Do some of these things fade? … We’re in a new place and we don’t have an answer.”
Schiller offered up one idea that she gives to her introductory political science students — checking in with family members about the source of their news and engaging with politics at the local level.
Despite the lack of clarity on find ing a shared truth, Bristol said he still enjoyed the event, which underscored the longevity of Trump’s disinformation campaign.
“Most people imagine that it started in 2020 and don’t know how it starts in 2016,” Bristol said. Lemire “had a really valuable insight into that. It’s important for more people to hear about this.”
associate the other with political forces they say are harming Rhode Islanders.
Fung repeatedly accused Magazin er of supporting the “failed policies” of President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Ca lif., which he said are “costing us at the gas pumps (and) at the grocery stores.” He blamed such inflation on the Biden administration’s stimulus packages in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The current national lead ership, he said, is “throwing dollars out into the economy,” exacerbating ongoing inflation.
Magaziner’s debate strategy also revolved around tying his opponent to national leadership. He highlight ed that a Fung victory would raise the
likelihood of Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., the current House Minority Leader, becoming Speaker of the House. He suggested this could lead to Social Security and Medicare cuts, nation al restrictions on abortion, decreased aid to Ukraine and a further erosion of American democracy. Fung wants to put “extremists … in charge of Congress,” Magaziner said.
Each candidate tried to paint their counterpart as out of touch with vot ers, connected more closely to wealthy Americans than the working class. Fung argued that the Magaziner family is wealthy and influential in Ocean State politics, while Magaziner accused his opponent of being in the pocket of the pharmaceutical, insurance and fossil fuel industries.
The issue of abortion rights after the
fall of Roe v. Wade featured prominent ly in the debate. Magaziner said that Fung’s election would facilitate a na tional abortion ban. Magaziner argued that Fung “thinks that (the decision) should be up to politicians and judges, whether it’s at the federal level or the state level,” Magaziner said. “It should be up to women.”
Fung, who has said that he supports “states’ rights” on the issue of abortion, repudiated Magaziner’s claims. “I need to … clarify my position on abortion because of the outright lies from these ads that my opponent has been put ting out against me. I do not and never said, nor will I ever support, a national abortion ban.”
The debate also included a rapid-fire section where candidates were asked to briefly commit to opposing or sup
porting federal legislation on issues that could come to a vote in the next two years. Both Fung and Magaziner said they would support marijuana le galization, codification of the right to same-sex marriage and term limits in Congress.
Magaziner said he would support an assault weapons ban. “I don’t think that weapons of war belong in our streets (or) in our schools,” he said. Fung re fused to commit to a position on an assault weapons ban but said that he wants to ensure that “criminals and those with serious mental health issues don’t get access to firearms” without taking away “the rights of law-abiding citizens who are responsible firearm owners.”
The candidates’ closing statements reflected the contentious tone of the
debate. “I have (the) courage … to take on the big special interests,” Magaziner said. “Allan Fung has shown that he doesn’t … because they’re funding his campaign.”
“I will fight against the extrem ists that are trying to overturn our democracy and cut Social Security and Medicare,” Magaziner continued. “He wants to put them in charge of Congress.”
“Magaziner has doubled down on the policies that are driving this cost of living crisis for all Rhode Island ers by supporting President Biden and Speaker Pelosi, (who) have left spending out of control,” Fung said. “Right now, what our country needs is strong leadership … to right this economic ship and to keep our neigh bors safe.”
Please
Siddiqui ’24: Here’s what I learned from quitting social media
Social media, without a doubt, has been my vice.
For many of us, social media is integral to our lives. We check it daily, use it to commu nicate with our loved ones and share details of our lives. I’ve always seen social media as es sential to maintaining contact with my friends and family abroad. Over time, we’ve seen numerous apps join the market — including VSCO, TikTok and Instagram. Even as I write this, I’ve received a few messages telling me to download “BeReal” — an app that encour ages everyone to simultaneously post a photo of themselves at a random moment in the day. The pandemic greatly increased the amount of time we spend online, especially when COVID-19 restrictions limited our face-to-face communication.
As pandemic restrictions loosen, our reli ance on social media has led me to an addic tion. My Instagram feed was filled with pic tures of friends, celebrities, news and stories of social and political injustice. I endlessly swiped and refreshed my feed, hoping for an update even as Instagram told me I’d seen everything possible. I spent countless hours tapping through people’s stories on Snapchat and obsessively checking my streaks. I vividly remember celebrating with a friend when we reached a 1,000-day streak; that means I was active on Snapchat every day for almost three years.
My social media addiction negatively im pacted my emotions. As I scrolled through oth ers’ posts, I was volatile with anxiety and jeal ousy, as though they had something I didn’t. When I posted pictures online, I worried about how many likes they would receive, obsessive ly making sure I posted the right photos at the right time. When my friends posted, I felt un settled if I wasn’t mentioned in a post, even to the extent of questioning my friendships. The most concerning factor, however, was the time I spent. I started monitoring my screen time over the summer, only to discover that I was spending eight hours a day on my phone, with a significant portion coming from social media.
And I’m not the only one who is made anxious by social media: Use of these apps has been tied to an increase in depression and anxiety. Moreover, repeatedly seeing curated images of others’ lives promotes what the United King dom’s Royal Society for Public Health called a “compare and despair” attitude in a large report on youth social media use. The report
on social media. As my conversations shifted to topics other than the latest Instagram trend, I felt more relaxed knowing I wasn’t being judged online.
Now, I feel relieved. If I want to share pho tos, I message friends and family directly — without the social pressure to appear like I have a perfect life. When I’m out with friends, I am
University and New York University researchers showed how less time spent on Facebook re sulted in more time with friends and family and an improved mood. I feel much more secure in my friendships than I did before my detox, as I focus more on developing genuine relationships rather than on social comparison. Even without social media to help me stay in touch with peo ple long-distance, I feel confident that genuine friendships can remain alive after months with out contact.
noted that apps that include more images of others, such as Instagram, were linked to worse self-image.
So, I decided to take action: At the end of August, I challenged myself to a social media detox. Right before returning to Brown this fall, I completely cut myself off. Snapchat, In stagram, Tiktok, Facebook, Twitter and even LinkedIn disappeared from my phone.
Initially, the experience felt somewhat iso lating, as I wondered whether I was missing out socially. It felt rather odd to not keep up with the latest social media trends and see what my friends and family far away were doing. When I visited the activities fair earlier this semester, I realized that most clubs use social media to promote their events, making it difficult for me to connect with others through those events. But the disconnect allowed me to spend my time in different ways. I spent more time get ting to know the people in my dorm in-person, rather than spending all of my time in my room
no longer concerned with the quality of pho tos we take, nor how many likes posting them would receive. Before, whenever I unlocked my phone, my first instinct was to swipe toward my social media folder, a subconscious tic I had unknowingly developed. After a week, it disap peared.
When I compare my mental well-being now to last semester, I genuinely wish I’d tried cut ting out social media sooner. Spending less time on my phone has improved the duration and quality of sleep I get every night. The extra time I have in the morning from not checking my phone has created healthier habits, such as journaling and eating a full breakfast. Even though watching Netflix remains one of my fa vorite hobbies, it is far less stressful than scroll ing through other people’s lives online. Elimi nating the need for validation has allowed me to focus more on improving myself.
My personal experiences have been validat ed by academic research. A study from Stanford
The University and most clubs on campus have done a good job of keeping people updat ed on campus events without social media, be it through the Today@Brown emails, Eventbrite notifications or even email lists. I know that programming for residents of Sternlicht Com mons, where I live, has constantly reminded us of the importance of staying connected phys ically and emotionally, prioritizing sleep and living in the present. The University should try to promote initiatives like these across cam pus. As a community, it would be worthwhile to have greater discussion of social media’s effects. People’s identities shouldn’t be tied to their social media profiles, and students should feel comfortable knowing they can still be part of a community without constantly checking their feeds.
At the end of the day, almost everyone I know continues to use social media. I acknowl edge that it can be difficult to break such an ingrained habit. Social media will remain a popular communication and marketing tool for the foreseeable future. However, even if people are reluctant to commit to a full detox, I would strongly recommend cutting at least a few apps out of your lives as a small step. Each small action won’t just help you, but also encourage others to do the same.
Taha Siddiqui ’24 can be reached at mo hammed_siddiqui@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@brown dailyherald.com and other op-eds to opin ions@browndailyherald.com.
“Eliminating the need for validation allowed me to focus more on improving myself.”
both the Providence and BrownRISD chapters lost momentum, with the University chapter ultimately dissolv ing in late 2020, said Nick Kolbas ’24, a founding member of the University’s new chapter.
According to Kolbas, the relaunched chapter originated in a course he took in the spring with Gregory Hitch PhD’22, who was a graduate student at the time, called ENVS 0705: “Equity and the En vironment: Movements, Scholarship, Solutions.” Hitch encouraged his stu dents to revive environmental activism on campus, and as a final project, the class looked into the history of Sunrise Movement at Brown and considered how they could bring back the chapter, Kolbas said.
Students in the class were on board with the relaunch, citing a lack of ac tive environmental groups on campus. “When I came to Brown, I was shocked that there wasn’t an environment group on campus,” said Griffiths, who also took Hitch’s course.
After the spring semester, a small group of students in the class continued working over the summer to “lay the groundwork” for the chapter’s relaunch, Griffiths said. This core group slowly
grew as they drew in activist partners from related organizations on cam pus. This included members of Students Against Koch Influence, a group that seeks to push back against the influence of the Koch Foundation, an organiza tion run by billionaire and conservative political mega-donor Charles Koch, at the University.
The swift relaunch of the chapter was also propelled by the addition of three first-years to the leadership team, Kolbas said. These students “brought so much energy and excitement” to the relaunch and pushed the group to move up the timeline of the club’s return, Kolbas said.
The chapter’s new leadership con sists of three first-years, two sopho mores and four juniors.
“It’s nice to know that there are younger people who will be able to continue (the chapter’s work) once we graduate,” Griffiths said.
Current leadership and goals
The leaders of the new chapter emphasized that the group’s leader ship structure will be informal and fluid. The chapter’s leaders “feel very strongly that this group will evolve and will change,” said Ma’iingan Wolf Garvin ’25, a co-leader of the environ
mental justice and Providence task force. The chapter is “really focused on collaboration, and as people come in and bring their ideas, (it will) ebb and flow.”
“I don’t want this to be another group with an (executive board) that really controls things,” said Ethan Drake ’24, a leader of the University task force. “I have no more standing as a climate activist than anyone else on this cam pus,” he added.
“Having our task force model and giving students the ability to guide the issues that the group focuses on will keep engagement high,” said Isaac Slevin ’25, the chapter coordinator. The executive board hopes to draw on ex perienced climate organizers and advo cates on campus and “use the collective energy and knowledge we have,” Slevin added.
Additionally, the chapter plans to pay special attention to the way it en gages with local environmental justice groups in Providence. The environmen tal justice and Providence team will focus its efforts on “using the resources and the privilege that we have as Brown students to support the work that is already going on” in Providence, Grif fiths said.
“There are a lot of good people doing
really good work already” in Providence, Wolf Garvin said, “and our goal is really to see how we can use our resources at Brown to help.” The chapter plans to reach out to local environmental justice groups and see where they could use support from University students. In doing so, they hope to build long-term relationships with these organizations, Wolf Garvin added.
This messaging resonated with stu dents who attended the interest meet ing, such as Diana-Abasi Archibong ’26. “The chapter’s leaders understand what it means to be a Brown student in relation to the legacy we inherit” and students’ responsibilities to the greater Providence community, she said.
Archibong attended the interest meeting because she is eager to ed ucate and mobilize the University community around climate issues while also “listening to the needs of the Providence community,” she said. According to Archibong, Sunrise Movement Brown is the right space to engage in this work, as the group is “by students for students” and guided by leaders who “have a unique aware ness of the linkage between societal oppression and environmental jus tice.”
Looking to the future
With the official launch of Sunrise Movement Brown last week, the new chapter and its members have a lot of work ahead, Slevin said. In addition to their petition surrounding the pro vost position and their protest of last week’s ExxonMobil event, the chapter will spend the next few weeks building out task forces and brainstorming col lectively on future projects and actions to pursue, Griffiths said.
According to Drake, the chapter also eventually hopes to expand into RISD, returning the chapter to its pre-pan demic state. Additionally, members hope to establish a media presence in order to get coverage on the work they are doing on campus and with groups in Providence, Drake said.
Despite a busy launch period, the chapter’s leaders and members are ea ger to get started. “I feel really excited because, for the first time, I am seeing people really, really committed to the things that I am also committed to,” Wolf Garvin said.
Many students came to the Univer sity eager to organize and enact change, Wolf Garvin said, and “as Sunrise is starting up, there (will be) a lot of op portunities to have a hands-on role in making that change.”