Wednesday, October 26th, 2022

THE BROWN DAILY

Chelsea Manning discusses big data’s impacts

Urban Studies Program celebrates 50 years at U.

gram. During that period, more than 100 major riots ensued in cities as a result of racial and economic tensions.

BY EMMA GARDNER METRO EDITOR

With recent rapid advancements in data technology, “what often gets lost is the human element,” said whistleblower and trans activist Chelsea Manning to a packed audience in the Granoff Center Tuesday evening.

“The values we have, the connec tions we have, are not just data points,” Manning continued. “We have beliefs, we have history, we have emotions, and all of these things are impacted by this technology.”

At the event, entitled “The Future of Privacy and Data,” Manning discussed the social implications of social media and big data, diving into issues of so cial alienation, political polarization, government abuse of technology and attacks on both abortion access and LGBTQ+ rights. Manning, who is best

UNIVERSITY NEWS

known for leaking records of American military abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan, drew on her own experiences as a for mer intelligence analyst for the U.S. military to make the case for greater oversight of Silicon Valley.

The talk was sponsored by Brown War Watch, a campus anti-war ac tivist group, in conjunction with the Pembroke Center, the departments of history and mathematics, the Data Science Initiative, the Cogut Institute

RISD launches new ‘brand identity’

New RISD brand identity’s cohesive aesthetic is met with student pushback

BY RYAN SMITH

SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The Rhode Island School of Design launched a new “brand identity” last month to better reflect the school’s “vision, values and priorities,” the culmination of a process that began last spring and involved input from hundreds of community members, according to a Sept. 28 press release.

Through its “simple and modular layout,” the branding emphasizes the work of RISD students and faculty, according to the press release. The rebranding also aims to establish a visual representation of a “guiding idea” — “question to create, create to question.”

RISD collaborated with the design studio Gretel, the research agency ON ROAD and alum Ryan Bugden on the rebranding project. Bugden designed the “RISD Serif” typeface — which is

used in the new logo — and redrew the institution seal, which was over 70 years old, according to the press release. Gretel and ON ROAD solicited input from students, faculty, staff, alums and community members for input. ON ROAD also conducted re search with BIPOC RISD students and independent artists to “understand the contextual dynamics around the changing perceptions of post-second ary arts education,” according to the press release.

The color accompanying the logo, coined “RISD Blue,” connects the history of “the first synthetical ly produced pigment to hyperlink blue of the early internet,” accord ing to the RISD identity guidelines website.

“At RISD, we are educating artists, designers and scholars to challenge and create the ideas that shape the future and to design a more just, fair and sustainable society,” RISD President Crystal Williams said in the press release. “By strengthening how RISD presents itself to the world, this work will enable us to more pow

for the Humanities and the Center for Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

“We have entered an unprecedented time in which we hand over our in formation to companies that have no ethical standards,” Manning said. Ev erything about how we use social media, down to how long we watch certain videos or the way we scroll through our feeds, “can determine your age, your

ARTS & CULTURE

BY SOFIA BARNETT SENIOR STAFF WRITER

In 1972, the University’s Urban Stud ies Program was born out of faculty volunteerism and a steadfast com mitment to the principles of inter disciplinary exploration unique to Brown. Fifty years later, the program is celebrating half a century of com munity engagement, scholarship and development.

Professor of Economics Benjamin Chinitz and Professor of Sociology Ba sil Zimmer were inspired to launch the program by the “heightened interest in urban affairs as a result of the in tense urban violence of 1964 to 1968,” said Howard Chudacoff, professor of American history and one of the initial professors who contributed to the pro

“It is important to note that all of us who were involved were volun teers,” Chudacoff said. “All that we did evolved from participation which oc curred over and above our responsibil ities to our respective departments.”

“Our contributions to courses and administration derived from our genuine interest,” he added. “We did not seek any compensation for our efforts.”

The Urban Studies Program is no longer dependent on faculty vol unteers, with 12 faculty members running the program directly and 13 associated faculty from other de partments teaching courses in urban studies-related fields, according to Samuel Zipp, professor of Ameri can Studies and director of urban studies.

Before the establishment of urban studies as a distinct program within

Mural highlights Indigenous community

BY AALIA JAGWANI ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR

Down College Hill and across the Prov idence River stands a large brick wall, home to a mural that has become an integral part of Downtown Providence. The mural depicts a contemporary Nar ragansett woman holding a portrait of her tribal elder, surrounded by vivid and deeply symbolic imagery of native flora.

Painted by Baltimore-based mu ralist and street artist Gaia in 2018, the work is called “Still Here” and rep resents the “Indigenous presence still here contemporaneously in this coun try,” Gaia told The Herald. The process of painting the mural took exactly 14 days, he added.

While working on the mural, Gaia collaborated with Nicholas Platzer, mu ral program manager for The Avenue Concept, the organization responsible for commissioning several major Prov idence murals.

Gaia asked Platzer to dig up infor mation about the location of the wall

and its history, Platzer told The Herald.

Platzer then went through archives at the Providence Preservation Society to uncover information about the building that used to stand there, and Gaia noticed that most of the historical documentation available was centered around “white European male settlers,” Platzer said.

“The history of our location extends well beyond that,” he added. “There’s no real written history of what actually happened on that site before any of these European male settlers arrived.” This drove Gaia to pay tribute to Indig enous people who have “been on that location and on that site hundreds and

hundreds of years longer than any of these people,” Platzer explained.

Gaia said that an “80 by 100 foot wall smack-dab in the middle of down town” was a “real opportunity” to make a statement about Indigenous presence in the city.

Once they began to examine the history of the area, Gaia and Platzer also discovered that Weybosset Street — which runs close to the mural — was once a “natural trail” that “Indigenous tribes used to follow that would lead them to the mouth of the river,” Platzer said.

Peng ’26: Ambiguous characters help us discover our own values

DESIGNED BY BRANDON WU ’24 DESIGNER GRAY MARTENS

UNIVERSITY NEWS Faculty members discuss program’s founding, impact, plans for anniversary

Whistleblower, activist says tech companies must consider effects on privacy, well-being

2018 artwork celebrates contemporary Indigenous presence in Rhode Island

COURTESY OF THE AVENUE CONCEPT

The mural aims to not just represent subject Lynsea Montanari but the entire Indigenous community, according to artist Gaia.

EMMA GARDNER / HERALD

Chelsea Manning drew on her own experiences as a former intelligence analyst to make the case for greater oversight in Silicon Valley.

U. gifts $5 million to Women and Infants Hospital’s delivery, labor center

BY ALEX NADIRASHVILI UNIVERSITY NEWS EDITOR

The University donated $5 million to Care New England to support the build ing of a new labor and delivery center at Women and Infants Hospital, according to an Oct. 20 press release from the hos pital. The new center, which is expected to begin construction in January 2023, will be named the Brown University Labor and Delivery Center.

“Our goal is to help Care New En gland create a world-class labor and de livery center that will serve generations of families to come, provide improved resources for clinicians … and strength en Rhode Island’s ability to attract top medical talent to the state,” University Spokesperson Brian Clark wrote in an email to The Herald.

The University’s gift will contrib ute to Care New England’s ongoing fundraising campaign, which aims to enhance its quality of service, facili ties and educational initiatives, said Shannon Sullivan MA’21, president and chief operating officer of Women and Infants Hospital, in an interview with The Herald.

“This labor would not be able to be paid for with operational funds,” she added. The Women and Infants Hospital posted a nearly $11 million operating loss for fiscal year 2020, according to a July 2021 Boston Globe article.

The hospital’s current labor and de livery center has not had any capital improvements since it was built in 1986, according to Sullivan. “We are providing Ivy-League, world-class clinical care … in a very outdated facility with very small rooms,” she said.

The new labor and delivery center will be built off of the hospital’s main building, adding 20 rooms to the hos pital which will include private baths

and externally-facing windows, Sullivan said. Most of the construction will not touch the main building and will not disrupt clinical care, she added.

At 400 square feet in size, the rooms will also mark “an increase from the current 220-square-foot rooms at Wom en and Infants,” according to the press release. Sullivan said this will help the hospital to focus on patient-centered care and allow patients to bring in more family members, midwives and doulas into the delivery room, which the cur rent rooms cannot accommodate.

“Four out of five babies born in Rhode Island are delivered at Women and Infants Hospital,” Clark wrote. “For families across the state, … this space will provide an even more welcomed and comforting experience, high-qual ity obstetrics for all patients … and the ability to better accommodate the full range of child delivery experiences de

sired by patients.”

“We’re working very diligently on our disparities in health equity and care,” Sullivan said. The new center will allow the hospital to focus on more low-intervention care by working with more midwives and doulas. This will lower rates of cesarean delivery and lead to “better birth outcomes,” according to the press release.

The hospital is also working to promote health equity by dedicating an estimated $5 million from its total fundraising campaign toward its re search and education initiatives. This will include bolstering the Constance A. Howes Women’s Health Innovation Research Fund, which focuses directly on the health of women and their fam ilies, Sullivan said.

The new center will also include increased spaces for academic teams, which will allow for improved clinical

team communication and an enhanced ability for the hospital “to recruit and retain top clinical and research talent,” according to the press release.

The hospital’s current set-up, which does not include any academic team spaces, is “terrible” for collaboration, Sullivan said. The new center will include a variety of rooms where at tending physicians can teach medical students and residents directly in the spaces where care is happening.

Better academic spaces will directly benefit the large numbers of residents and medical students from the Warren Alpert Medical School at Women and Infants Hospital, Sullivan said.

The University’s gift “will further build on a (long-standing) partnership” between the medical school’s Depart ment of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the hospital, Clark wrote. Many of the physicians at Women and Infants also

have University faculty appointments, he added, and the hospital is home to the medical school’s residency program in obstetrics and gynecology.

“This new facility brings the poten tial to benefit all of those clinicians and trainees both from the standpoint of the care available to patients and the research they conduct.”

Sullivan said the hospital also hopes to expand its collaborations with oth er nursing and pharmacy schools and open up new opportunities for “inter disciplinary coordination and academic teaching.”

Women and Infants “is one of the only freestanding women’s health hos pitals in the country,” Sullivan said. “Having state-of-the-art facilities to be able to care for women in this current political state is really important. … Rhode Island is incredibly lucky to have a hospital like this.”

New center will offer larger rooms, allow increased participation of midwives, doulas

COURTESY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

The University’s gift “will further build on a (long-standing) partnership” between the Warren Alpert Medical School’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the hospital, University Spokesperson Brian Clark wrote in an email to The Herald.

Weybosset Street is one of the only streets downtown that does not run in a straight line but rather “zigzags,” he added. A spot by the mouth of the river, which is close to the location of the mural, was “one of the original trading points for multiple tribes” from around Rhode Island.

Discovering this connection was a beautiful moment, Platzer said, espe cially because so much of what they learned was through conversations with Indigenous communities and wasn’t information found in text books.

“That’s stuff you only learn when you’re really entrenched in this and talking to people who know what’s go ing on,” he said.

Gaia also emphasized the impor tance of conveying that “these people are present among us, they are not rel egated to the past.” This is why Lynsea Montanari, a Rhode Island-based ac tivist and educator whose portrait is in the mural, is pictured in contemporary clothing rather than traditional garb, Gaia said.

Wearing “modern clothing” was Montanari’s idea and was especially important to her because “that is a rep resentation of who we are today,” she said in an interview with The Herald. “If people look up and see me in my regalia, they are going to put me into a past tense even though I’m a modern person.”

“I wanted to play with perception,” Gaia added. Montanari is also seen holding a black-and-white portrait of

a tribal elder, Wampanoag and Nar ragansett leader Princess Red Wing, which highlights the rich “duality” of the contemporary and traditional, he said.

Patzer said Montanari’s background as a Narragansett activist and educa tor made her “the perfect candidate.” Lorén Spears, executive director of the Tomaquag Museum, recommended Montanari for the mural. Spears was not available for comment by press time.

Both Gaia and Platzer emphasized that the mural aims to represent not just Montanari but an entire commu nity, a sentiment Montanari echoed. “More exciting than seeing my face on the mural is seeing the visibility that it brings to our communities,” she said.

Being able to represent her commu nity is “really exciting” to Montanari, who said she “didn’t always feel like (she) was Indigenous enough” growing up due to internalized perceptions of what Indigenous people should look like. It’s exciting for the “young, inse cure kid” in her to be a figure of Indig enous representation, she said.

Now, she added, she’s proud of who she is and does not let stereotypes de fine her.

Montanari’s family performed a blessing at the site of the mural once it was complete. “Hearing the drumming in that cavernous downtown that has been built on the wetlands, it was very powerful,” Gaia said. “I think it was a good alliance.”

“From an artistic perspective, I can’t think of a better billboard for decoloni

zation or for thinking about our past, our future and our contributions to de mocracy,” as well as diverse histories, he added.

Platzer also emphasized the im portance of representation. “For In digenous people to be able to look up and see themselves represented on this wall,” he said, “I knew (that) was going to be hugely significant and important.”

“So many times people tell me they’ve never met an Indigenous per son, and I truly believe that’s because they don’t know what Indigenous peo ple look like,” Montanari said. “That Indigenous people look like everyone else, and we go to Walmart and we go to school, we’re in your classrooms and we’re at your jobs.”

“We are still here,” she emphasized.

location, what language you speak, what your background is, what your religion is, what your sexual orientation is, what your gender identity is,” she said.

This data boom, which Manning characterized as “information over load,” is not just available to tech nology companies in Silicon Valley, she said — noting that it extends to civilians as well. For example, when she was a U.S. military intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2010, she had “less information, less access to things in a classified environment with all of these data streams from the U.S. government” than she does now as a civilian “witnessing everything that’s going on in” the Ukraine invasion,

she said.

This data boom is creating an in creasingly disconnected society, Man ning said. “We need to consider the paradox that technology has provided us, in which we are more diverse and more a connected society, and yet we’ve never felt more alienated,” she said.

“I think this is actually a public health problem,” she added. “We have essentially gamified everything into this slot machine world where we get that dopamine hit every single time that keeps us engaged. It keeps us on, and it’s sucking the life out of us.”

The lack of ethical standards or reg ulation in the technology industry also gives governments at home and abroad more tools for repression and social control, Manning said. Many abusive

governments are empowered by the rapid spread of information technology, she said.

“We’ve reached the point where we have so much information that’s floating around,” she said. “But now corporations and governments and various institutions have recognized that they’re not able to keep secrets anymore.”

Instead, these entities have turned to “muddying the waters” by spreading disinformation, Manning said. “I think the risk, in the 21st century, is having the bad things be done in plain sight, in the open, and yet have hundreds of people who see that have a different interpretation of it or an alternative version of events.”

In the United States, the un

checked growth of data and surveil lance technologies poses a threat to a number of marginalized groups, Man ning said. One such threat is racist predictive policing, “in which you are essentially taking an algorithm that you developed … based on histori cal data that are clearly biased,” she said. “Then you knowingly implement this tool, this technology, in order to maintain your standing in society” by targeting people of color or im migrants, she added.

Government surveillance is also becoming an increasing threat in the wake of the overturn of Roe v. Wade and restrictions on trans healthcare, she said. Activists face “the potenti ality of having a massive, well-funded state actor to be able to surveil them, to

collect information, to … disrupt their ability to” take action, she said.

To solve these problems, Manning said, those in the technology industry must consider the social implications of the products they are releasing into so ciety. “We have a duty as technologists, not only to ourselves, to hold ourselves to a standard and to hold ourselves ac countable, not just to each other but to society at large,” she said.

Manning emphasized the impor tance of the “human element” in de cisions about technology. “We’re hu mans,” she said. “We’re flawed, we’re scared, we’re overwhelmed. … If we want to create, or even just maintain, the world that we have before every thing comes apart, then we have to do something.”

PRIVACY

Shameless marketing undercuts Taylor Swift’s lyrics on ‘Midnights’

BY AALIA JAGWANI ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR

At the end of August, Taylor Swift an nounced her 10th studio album in an Instagram post and invited her fans to “meet her at midnight” on Oct. 21. “This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night,” she wrote in the post, calling the album a series of “terrors and sweet dreams.” The album was set to have 13 tracks, detailing 13 sleepless nights “scattered throughout (Swift’s) life.”

In anticipation of the album’s re lease, Swift rolled out new merchan dise for the album earlier this month, including four different editions of the album on vinyl, the covers of which form a clock when put together. She also released individual videos revealing the names of each track on the album in a TikTok series she called “Midnights Mayhem with Me,” pulling out balls from a bingo machine to determine the track number. It’s never been a secret that Swift is adept at marketing, but often in the past it has been easy to acknowledge that her strategies serve to bolster the success of the music itself.

But the tactics she employed to generate hype for “Midnights” seem as shameless as they are clever, seep ing into the songwriting itself — most notably on the album’s standout and lead single, “Anti-Hero.” The song is supposed to be an intimate exploration of Swift’s insecurities and flaws, but the hook sounds like it has been crafted for TikTok: “It’s Me. Hi. I’m the problem, it’s me,” she sings over and over again.

It didn’t help that the day the album was released, she invited fans to join her #TSAntiHeroChallenge in an offi cial collaboration with YouTube Shorts.

“Share your anti-heroic traits,” the cap tion of the video says, with a YouTube blog post noting that “an anti-heroic trait could be as simple as always grab bing the last slice of pizza, clapping at the end of movies, always putting your feet on the car dashboard.” What could have been a truly sincere rumination on the insecurities that haunt Swift is

instead a gimmicky social media trend.

This marketing is all the more trag ic because it was wholly unnecessary.

“Anti-Hero” had the potential to be one of the album’s highest points in itself, and its verses are clever and poignant.

“I’ll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror,” she sings, one of the hardest-hitting lines Swift has written.

From the pure honesty of “I wake up screaming from dreaming/One day I’ll watch as you’re leaving/Cause you got tired of my scheming” to the per fectly-delivered wit of “Did you hear my covert narcissism/I disguise as altruism like some kind of congressman,” the songwriting is quintessential Swift.

At the end of the song, she details a comically-vivid dream, once again in a voice typical of Swift: “I have this dream my daughter-in-law kills me for the money/She thinks I left them in the will.” It is a powerful nod to the coun try narratives she has always excelled at building, but it is dampened in the song’s music video by the unnecessary insertion of a tedious dialogue scene, a

failed attempt to replicate her brilliant ly executed “All Too Well” short film.

Ultimately, Swift becomes her own “anti-hero,” diluting a resonant work of art by trying too hard — not just in this one song, but in the entire album. Her commercial strategies are directly at odds with the promised concept of the album: a stripped-down exploration of what keeps her up at night.

This is particularly shocking to wit ness because Swift has always been the master of reinventing herself, staying relevant through the years and crossing genres seamlessly from country to pop to indie-folk. “Midnights” is arguably the first time the amount of effort she put into her experimentation has been completely transparent to audiences, and her innova tion feels less natural than it usually does.

In the past, Swift’s melodies and structures have remained relative ly basic and uninventive even as she evolved. Instead, she leaned into what is undoubtedly her greatest strength as an artist: her lyrics. Swift is known for using repetitive tracks and one-note

melodies, but they work well when they create space for her much more nuanced storytelling.

She goes in a different direction on “Midnights,” focusing on sonic experi mentation that is not as innovative as it claims to be. A lot of the sounds are interesting, sleek and catchy — but they seem to have been inserted forcefully. They also obscure the original concept of the album, which makes the work as a whole seem much less sincere. From the early ballads an entire generation has grown up scream-singing to the intricate storytelling on the earthy “folklore” and “evermore,” Swift’s music has always been full of raw emotion — but in “Mid nights,” it is drowned out by the noise.

Still, there are moments of clarity when her sheer genius shines through. The album’s final song (excluding bo nus tracks), “Mastermind,” cleverly and radically turns the idea of a fated love on its head, as Swift reveals that she has been orchestrating destiny all along.

But the most profound track on the album is arguably one of the seven

bonus tracks Swift released at 3 a.m.: “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve.” She reflects on a relationship she had at 19, wishing it had never happened: “I wish you had left me wondering,” she sings. Her voice gets increasingly anguished as she approaches the bridge, which sin gle-handedly delivers the unmarketed, unobscured sincerity wanting on many of the original tracks.

“Midnights” is not a bad album — listeners that are patient enough to dig through the noise until they can see the substance will find enough of what they’re looking for. But it is also hard to escape the disappointment that this album did not live up to the expectations created by its predecessors — and the feeling of unfulfilled potential from the scarce mo ments of unbridled talent on “Midnights.”

Swift’s lyrical prowess shimmers through at these moments, but they would have been far more powerful if she had restrained from casting a blinding light on an album originally written for the subdued dimness of the midnight hour.

TODAY’S EVENTS

Lunch with Sharmin Hossain 12 p.m. Sarah Doyle Center for Women and Gender Lounge

Visiting Artist Stephanie Dickins 5 p.m. List Art Building Room 120

Darrell West: John Hazen White Sr. Lecture 5 p.m. Stephen Robert ’62 Hall

On the Uses and Abuses of An tisemitism in Russia 7:30 p.m. Petteruti Lounge

TOMORROW’S EVENTS

Faculty/Staff Flu Shot Clinic 7:30 a.m. 295 Lloyd St.

Dawson Phillips, Mira Goodman and Simone Klein: Gallery 8 a.m.

Art Building

Biomedical Engineering Seminar: Alex Vitkin 11 a.m. Barus and Holley Room 190

Study Abroad 101 Information Session 12 p.m. Page-Robinson Hall Room 411

Swift becomes her own ‘anti-hero’ on her 10th studio album as she explores new sounds

RHEA RASQUINHA / HERALD

Brown launches new Operational Plan for Investing in Research

Plan seeks to double investment in University research within seven years

BY CHARLIE CLYNES SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The University released the details Monday morning of its Operational Plan for Investing in Research, which aims to increase University research output over the next five to seven years through investments in “space, faculty, staff and students,” according to a letter from President Christi na Paxson P’19 and Provost Richard Locke P’18.

After a months-long planning phase that began in January and evolved over the summer with faculty and staff in put, the Corporation — the University’s highest governing body — approved the plan last week.

The plan involves a three-pronged investment in people, space and sys tems meant to expand the University’s overall research enterprise, Locke told The Herald. This will mean increasing the number of on-campus researchers, renovating and constructing research buildings and making current research interfaces more efficient and navigable, according to the plan.

These initiatives reflect an increased focus on graduate programs and re search output that began with the Uni versity’s Building on Distinction plan, a 10-year strategy launched in 2014 that called for expansions to faculty

support and undergraduate financial aid. In June, the University released a first draft of the Operational Plan that faculty and staff reviewed over the summer.

The University has already in creased its federally sponsored re search expenditures by 41% over the last five years, according to the plan. Additionally, the total number of arti cles published by faculty has increased by 30% since 2013, while citations in creased by 60%.

Under the new plan, the University intends to double “internal funding available for research across the Uni versity,” including “competitive grants and cost-sharing programs across all disciplines,” in the next five to seven years.

“We just need more people involved in research,” Locke said. The University will add more research faculty, PhD students and research staff, as well as expand sabbatical compensation and increase support for efforts to obtain research funding, he explained. “Even when you look at the research we’re currently doing, we don’t have enough graduate students to help do it,” he added.

Research space has also been in short supply recently. “We did a sur vey of all space that was dedicated to research at the University a couple of years ago,” Locke said. “It turns out it’s very efficiently utilized — we just ran out of space.”

To address this shortage, the plan encourages a number of construction and renovation projects both on College Hill and in the Jewelry District. The

Biomedical Center, Barus and Holley and Andrews House — which will house the Cogut Institute for the Humanities — are slated for renovations, while the University intends to construct new buildings for life sciences and the Car ney Institute of Brain Science.

Additionally, several spaces on cam pus — including the School of Public Health, the Department of Computer Science, the Department of Economics and a number of life sciences depart ments — could see renovation or relo cation in coming years, the plan states.

In past years, some community members have voiced concerns regard ing expansion into surrounding neigh

borhoods. In Fox Point, for instance, long-term residents were forced out as students moved to the neighborhood in the second half of the 20th century, The Herald previously reported.

Locke maintained that future con struction will not disrupt local com munities. “The research buildings that we’re thinking of investing in are in empty parking lots or buildings that are already dedicated to research,” he said. “The University, I think, has gotten much better over time, thinking about a much more balanced approach” to expansion.

To support researchers, the plan outlines new investments in “library

resources, special collections, internal research funding” and multiple other administrative networks, according to the letter.

“There are all these systems that Brown has, but they don’t necessarily talk to each other,” Locke said. This forces administrators to input large amounts of data manually, decreasing the efficiency of these support systems.

“We have already started to invest in new systems just to make it easier for people to do their work,” Locke said. “We don’t want them to spend all their time re-inputting data and writing re ports — we want them to do the work that they want to do.”

JACK WALKER / HERALD

The University released its Operational Plan for Investing in Research to increase research over the next five to seven years, specifically hoping to grow the number of research faculty, PhD students and research staff.

erfully share the incredible ideas

expressions that emanate from

community and more clearly

stood why the administration might want to create an easily recognizable identity, to foster a “more unified look” between Brown and RISD.

the critical role

and design play in the world.”

But the rebranding was met with mixed reception by students, some of whom voiced concerns about the sud denness of the change.

“I think because (upperclassmen) have been here (before the rebrand ing), it’s a rapid shift that seems so unnecessary,” said Katrina Larner, who studies film, animation and video.

“I don’t think a solid identity is ever necessary, (and) it can be limit ing,” said architecture student Mara Gemeda-Breka. At RISD, many stu dents identify more with their majors and “everyone’s experience in their respective majors is so vastly differ ent,” she added.

“It seems antiquated to care so much about an image, and it pulls the art that’s made here back into the past,” said illustration student Carmina Lo pez. “It seems sanitizing.”

But Lopez added that she under

The new brand identity is “focused on guidance for harmonizing how RISD departments and offices communicate,” and has little to do with “influencing or changing student expression,” wrote Senior Director of RISD Public Rela tions Jaime Marland in an email to The Herald.

“We’ve never had an institu tion-wide identity before and that often resulted in confusion and incon sistency — it was hard to know what was officially RISD or not,” Marland wrote. “The system we’re introducing creates more cohesion and hopefully will make it easier for important au diences like students and prospective students to connect with and learn about RISD.”

Since the announcement, RISD has updated its admissions materi als, campus flags and banners, social media and RISD Store merchandise, according to the press release, and the school soon plans to update its campus vehicles and central website as well.

AREEZ KHAN / HERALD

RISD has updated its admission materials, campus flags, social media and RISD Store merchandise following the

“brand identity,” according to a RISD press release.

Peng ’26: Literature needs morally gray characters

We love morally gray characters — from Snape in “Harry Potter” to Wanda in Marvel movies, viewers and readers have continually gravitat ed toward those who seem to do clear moral wrong. But why do we love characters who often do awful things?

At 10 a.m. three times a week, I sit down in Professor of English James Egan’s course ENGL 0100F: “Devils, Demons, Do-Gooders,” where we seek to answer that same question, de constructing significant characters from “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, “Franken stein” by Mary Shelley, “Kindred” by Octavia Butler and many other works. In class, we in vestigate three fundamental questions about the literature we read: What counts as “good,” what counts as “evil” and who gets to decide? I’ve noticed that while some characters hold a twisted view of the world, their unconvention al moral code is precisely what makes them so interesting to follow — and maybe even root for. Despite engaging in arguably monstrous behav ior, these morally gray characters possess a dis tinct humanity that purely altruistic or immoral characters often lack.

Human beings are flawed. We struggle with pain and sometimes the confusion of not know ing what is right. Real humans rarely act incon ceivably evil or wholly in pursuit of the greater good. That’s why some readers are fascinated by characters in the moral gray area. While some critics worry that humanizing villains could cause a blurring of morals in the younger gen eration, they fail to realize that analyzing am biguous characters does not translate into em bodying their values. Literature needs morally ambiguous characters to reflect real-life inse curities about right and wrong. Reading about gray characters is essential, as it can reveal darker attributes of the human condition and cause us to reevaluate: What exactly is the line

between black and white?

To me, a morally gray character is someone who lives by a consistent moral code that devi ates from social standards of right and wrong. This is a character who feels incredibly human — often, someone who tries to do right, fails and falls into bad tendencies. As a reader, you may not necessarily agree with the actions of a morally gray character, but you can see how

from city to city searching for the vinegar man. To survive, the girl turns into an unapologetic killer, often slaying innocent people to survive one day longer so she could make the vinegar man pay.

Someone doing bad things to you does not justify you doing bad things to other people — I understand this. Yet, as I read Jemisin’s short story, I couldn’t help but root for the

complex characters is part of a condition called moral disengagement — when we excuse a char acter’s negative actions and loosen our moral standards for the sake of enjoyment. Tsay-Vo gel found in a study that we don’t all morally disengage to the same degree. In fact, some of us don’t morally disengage at all. Our ability to justify a character’s actions is largely dependent on our mindset when consuming media. Read ers who see the world through the lens of that character are more likely to morally disengage and enjoy the storyline as opposed to casting judgments on negative actions.

their past experiences and inner moral compass compelled them toward those choices. There’s a complexity of thought you can understand even if you can’t personally relate to it. A well-writ ten morally gray character makes you think, “I know this is technically not a ‘good’ thing to do, but given their situation, I get it.” If you were in their shoes, you can’t be certain you wouldn’t do the same thing.

This is the type of character I am fascinated by. For example, in “Stone Hunger,” one of the short stories I read in class, N. K. Jemisin writes of a morally gray protagonist and how she takes revenge on the “vinegar man” after he kills her family. Set in an apocalyptic world, Jemisin’s story follows the nameless girl as she wanders

nameless girl in spite of her immoral actions. There is something fascinating about how tragic events in the girl’s past transformed her into her present character. I found myself wondering whether I would also grow callous if I were placed in her situation, and if I did, whether there was still a chance for redemp tion. Through this process of rationalizing her moral ambiguity and relating it to myself, I be gan to reflect on my own values of justice and family. This reflection is exactly why we must continue analyzing and reading morally gray characters: It makes us more empathetic and self-aware.

According to Boston University researcher Mina Tsay-Vogel, the act of empathizing with

Some psychologists argue that this mor al disengagement is dangerous; it can cause readers to make unethical decisions without guilt or self-censure. I disagree. That assertion fails to account for the one thing that makes morally gray characters so appealing — their endless potential for discussion. By temporar ily disengaging to understand characters from their point of view, readers inevitably explore crucial questions about morality: Are all peo ple redeemable? Do the ends really justify the means? In what ways do our environments change who we are? Seeing the world from the perspective of a morally gray character can give you a deeper sense of what it means to be hu man. You will recognize how wrongdoers can often be misguided people and learn to avoid the same mistakes. Reading about characters who struggle with situations that lack clear-cut answers can help us work through moral dilem mas in the real world, where not every choice is black or white.

Christina Peng ’26 can be reached at christi na_peng@brown.edu. Please send respons es to this opinion to letters@browndaily herald.com and other op-eds to opinions@ browndailyherald.com.

“Reading about characters who struggle with situations that lack clear-cut answers can help us work through moral dilemmas in the real world.”

the University, the only means of pur suing this field of study was through the University’s independent concentration option, Zipp said. While urban studies emerged as an academic program in 1972, it wasn’t a designated concen tration until 1973.

“In 1972, there was a big course called ‘Urban American Problems and Perspectives,’ ” Zipp said. “Then, 10 students graduated with an indepen dent concentration in urban studies in 1972 and 20 (students) in 1973, so it was that year when the College eventually created a standard concentration.”

Although the Urban Studies Pro gram has its own official concentration, it still borrows from other disciplines.

Zipp shared that the Urban Stud ies Program works closely with “pro grams that tend to be very practi cally oriented on policy, planning and design” and is influenced by the University’s architecture, English, history, art history and American studies departments.

“Urban studies continues to be a re ally vibrant concentration — the quint essential Brown concentration — that draws from the humanities and social sciences, attracting students who are interested in a wide range of different kinds of study and career options,” Zipp said. The program seeks to ensure that students receive a deep, conceptual understanding of urbanization that they can bring to a range of practical career work.

The academic breadth of the Urban Studies Program is strategically de signed for student success in a variety of career fields, Zipp said, noting that the program produces well-rounded concentrators who become familiar with multiple academic disciplines.

“Many of our students are interested in working across the spectrum — in the public sector to the private,” Zipp said, citing that graduates often work with government, community, design and law groups. “It’s a very broad range of skills that students learn.”

Toby Arment ’23, urban studies de partmental undergraduate group leader, said that the Urban Studies Program has provided him a wide range of skills that will aid him in his postgraduate pursuits.

“I’ve been given a lot of practical tools,” Arment said. “The people within this department have equipped me with networks of practicing professionals … that will prepare me to hopefully make a profound impact in the real world.”

This desire to make an impact is consistent with the mission of the pro gram, as explained by Zipp.

“Such a huge part of how we think

about what the concentration does” comes from community engagement, Zipp said. Many urban studies con centrators engage with the Providence community through the Swearer Cen ter for Public Services, internships within city government and everyday urban studies class assignments.

“Whether it’s housing or working through transportation problems, vari ous public questions involving the plan ning and economic life of Providence

pop up,” Zipp said. “Our program is always finding ways to get students to interact on our front.”

Consistent with efforts for greater community involvement, the urban studies program is hosting a lecture series to celebrate its 50th anniver sary, bringing in external speakers to talk about their experience as scholars, planners, organizers and more within the field of urban studies.

“We’re bringing world-renowned

urbanists to Brown to talk about urbanization at the biggest, most conceptual level,” Zipp said. “We’re hosting (professionals) from around the country with various specific areas of expertise, … and what’s exciting about these events is that they’re not just talks, they’re conversations be tween these renowned urbanists and our faculty.”

Arment said he is excited to engage with the urban studies lecture series

and to hopefully interact with younger undergraduate students to expose them to the wonders of the Urban Studies Program as his time as a DUG leader comes to a close.

“We have huge events going on to celebrate our anniversary, which is very exciting,” he said. “I’m excited to put on events, both this semester and next semester, … to bring more people into this field and to better understand our urban future.”

DANA RICHIE / HERALD

Professor of Sociology Basel Zimmer joined Professor of Economics Benjamin Chinitz to form the Urban Studies Program in 1972. The concentration now draws on various disciplines including architecture, English, history, art history and American studies, professors say.