Wednesday, October 27th, 2021 - The Brown Daily Herald

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2021

VOLUME CLVI, ISSUE XXXI

UNIVERSITY NEWS

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UNIVERSITY NEWS

Ad Hoc Committee releases fiscal recs ROTC students reflect 10 years after program return Recommendations will eventually save University $26 to $57 million annually

BY CAELYN PENDER UNIVERSITY NEWS EDITOR

The University’s Ad Hoc Committee on Promoting Financial Health and Sustainability released its final recommendations Oct. 1, providing guidance in five categories intended to give the University increased opportunities to make “strategic investments in academic excellence” and work to eliminate its “relatively small but persistent” annual structural deficit, according to the Com-

mittee’s final report.

The University will implement these recommendations through a new Program on Innovation and Financial Sustainability, which combines these recommendations with those of the Education Innovation Committee, The Herald previously reported.

SEE FISCAL PAGE 4

TRACY PAN / HERALD

The committee was organized into five subcommittees: personnel, strategic sourcing and procurement, non-personnel, new revenue streams and growing the undergraduate student body.

University hosts ‘Race & Inequality in America’

BY KAITLYN TORRES SENIOR STAFF WRITER The Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America partnered with the Office of the Provost to host the first event of the year of the University’s “Race & in America” series Tuesday, a webinar titled “Race & Inequality in America.” The series invites University experts to examine the effects of anti-Black racism within the United States.

The webinar featured talks from three Brown faculty members: Professor of Sociology Jose Itzigsohn, Sarah and Joseph Jr. Dowling Professor of Sociology Prudence Carter and Assistant Professor of Behavioral & Social Sciences and the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship Jennifer Nazareno.

Provost Richard Locke P’18 introduced the event, while Tricia Rose, the

BY EMILY FAULHABER SENIOR STAFF WRITER This year marks the 10-year anniversary of the return of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps to Brown, after the program was discontinued on College Hill in 1969.

ROTC, an intensive program sponsored by the U.S. military, allows Brown students to become commissioned officers with the Army, Navy and Air Force upon graduation. As part of the program, students partake in frequent training in preparation for a mandatory service requirement of four years on active duty or eight years in the reserves, receiving full tuition payment along with monthly stipends throughout their participation in the program at Brown. Participating in the reserves also comes with a monthly training commitment with the unit

in one’s area.

The ROTC program was discontinued at Brown in 1969 because ROTC officers could not hold faculty status and ROTC course units could not carry credit. Since then, there were a few attempts to bring ROTC back to Brown. The decision to not reinstate the program was reaffirmed in 1981 and again in an additional assessment in 2002. In 2011, former University President Ruth Simmons assembled a committee to reevaluate the University’s policies on ROTC, especially in light of the U.S. House and Senate votes to end the ban on openly gay troops serving in the military.

Chair of Visual Art Leslie Bostrom was one faculty member selected to be on the committee, which was composed of seven faculty members, three students and one administrator, and which met regularly during spring 2011.

“We learned about the history of ROTC in general, and we had some visiting speakers who were pretty in depth,” Bostrom said. “The opportu-

SEE ROTC PAGE 3

UNIVERSITY NEWS

UNIVERSITY NEWS

First event of this year’s series focuses on the intersections between race and class

A program with rich history at Brown, participants have weekly trainings, lab

director of the CSREA and professor of Africana Studies, moderated.

In his opening remarks, Locke said that this series was important since “there is no more pressing issue right now (than) addressing systemic racism in the United States.”

The first iteration of the “Race & in America” series last year began with the “Race & Slavery” webinar Sept. 9, 2020. Last year’s series garnered 3,000 attendees over eight events, and this year’s series hopes to expand on “the roots and effects of racism in the U.S. and to explore the arts more fully,” according to its website.

In the first talk, “The Radicalized Class System: Racial Capitalism and the Intersections of Class and Race,” Itzigsohn presented research on the intersections of class and race through the lens of occupation.

According to Itzigsohn, this approach allows researchers to distinguish between different sectors within the working class, such as service and manufacturing. He added that this helped them see the diversity of

SEE RACE PAGE 6

New ENGN course explores robots, art, CS Project-based course facilitates multidisciplinary learning through robots

BY DANA RICHIE CONTRIBUTING WRITER “Help, stop, listen and think” appeared to artist Eva Goetz in a dream as robots’ warning to humanity.

Her concerns for the ethical dilemma of technology led her to teach the project-based, multidisciplinary course ENGN 1931U: “The Robots Are Coming!

The Robots Are Coming!” Cross-registered in the engineering and computer science departments, the class is co-taught by Goetz and Professor of Computer Science and Engineering R. Bahar as a way to integrate engineering, computer science, art and ethics into a single course.

“There’s several parts of this class,” Bahar said. “There’s the art part, the thoughtful design part, the technical point of view, the mechanical part, the electrical part, the software part and then there’s this societal, ethical part that we’re pondering.”

Moved by her dream about robots,

DANA RICHIE / HERALD

The course is co-taught by artist Eva Goetz and Professor of Computer Science and Engineering R. Bahar, combining robotics with STEAM. Goetz created her “Think A Bot It” art exhibition, which opened Dec. 14, 2019 in Portland, Maine. When Deb Mills-Scofield, advisory council member for Brown’s School of Engineering, saw Goetz’s exhibit in January 2020, she thought, “this is just so Brown.” She was determined to share Goetz’s art and ideas with students, introducing Goetz to Bahar. With funding from the Brown Arts Initiative, the computer science department, the engineering department and the Brown Design Workshop, Goetz and Bahar were able to make the course a reality.

Science Technology Engineering

University News

Arts & Culture

University News

Commentary

Faculty hired during pandemic express campus disconnect, excitement Page 3

Sarah Chavez speaks on death-positivity and Día de los Muertos in virtual talk Page 3

University eliminates testing requirement for vaccinated undergraduate students Page 5

Walsh ’23: Spin bikes, scooters pose safety risk to those with disabilities Page 6

Art Mathematics “is endemic and inherent within Brown and in our world,” Mills-Scofield said.

The class distribution itself reflects a variety of interests. According to Bahar, the class is roughly equally made up of engineering concentrators, computer science concentrators and Rhode Island School of Design or art students. Both Goetz and Bahar believe that multidisciplinary learning opportunities are necessary to prepare students for real world situations.

“Our jobs often require working

SEE ROBOT PAGE 5

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2021

ARTS & CULTURE

Death positivity advocate dicusses Día de los Muertos, burial rituals Both contemporary, historical celebrations of the festival are rooted in resistance

BY RYA VALLABHANENI CONTRIBUTING WRITER Co-founder of the Death Positive movement Sarah Chavez visited Brown virtually Monday evening, kicking off a three-part event series the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology is holding in honor of Día de los Muertos, which is celebrated Nov. 1 and 2. Her talk, “Día de Muertos: A History of Resistance,” focused on the tradition, culture and opposition surrounding contemporary and pre-colonial celebrations of the dead.

“It is such a rich and also kind of complicated, nuanced history,” Chavez said in the presentation.

Along with her work as a museum curator and writer, Chavez is a founder of The Collective for Radical Death Studies and a host of the podcast Death in the Afternoon. She is also a founder of the Death Positive movement, which encourages people to speak openly about death and dying instead of treating them as taboo subjects. “Everyone’s own practice and belief is a very individual thing,” she said.

Chavez began the talk by describing the culture of Mexico’s Indigenous peoples before Spanish colonization.

To these diverse groups, “the dead remained vital members of the community,” Chavez said. In contrast with European treatment of the dead as a source of contamination to remove, Indigenous Mexican cultures connected the dead with life, burying them under homes and in communal areas.

As Chavez said, their treks to final destinations in the afterlife were “every bit as real as the world we inhabit now.”

Next, Chavez discussed colonization and Spain’s attempts to eradicate Indigenous Mexican cultures. It seemed as if colonizers launched a “targeted attack” on the customs of Día de los Muertos, Chavez said, creating mandatory burials, forbidding

mourning practices and capping funeral expenditures. Yet Chavez was quick to acknowledge the determination of Indigenous peoples to preserve their cultures. Given what these communities endured, she said, “it’s really incredible that we have some version of their practices today.”

Although contemporary Día de los Muertos practices in Mexico are strained by what Chavez called a “grief over loss of language, culture and spiritual life,” their success in bringing families, communities and the dead together persists. Many Mexicans still parade candles through the streets and bake pan de muerto, a traditional holiday treat, Chavez said. The scent of the cempasuchil flower, a type of marigold, features in Día de los Muertos celebrations, and cemeteries, as Chavez said, are still “bustling with

activity” and “full of life.”

On the first day of the celebration, children who have passed are believed to visit their living families. On the second day, the adults are believed to visit. Families place ofrendas, which are gifts such as food and flowers for the dead, on altars, “sacred and powerful” spaces, according to Chavez.

“You’re creating a portal between the living and the dead,” she said.

When outlining Día de los Muertos practices in the United States, Chavez had a very different story to tell. Widespread celebration did not begin until the early 1970s with the emerging Chicana movement, a response to the Vietnam War in which Mexican-Americans advocated for social and political empowerment through honoring their cultural heritage. Even today, Chavez said, “Día de los Muertos practices in

the U.S. continue to be rooted in activism and social issues.”

Adeline Allen ’25, an attendee of Monday’s talk, found Chavez’s discussion of the Chicana movement to be one of the most surprising parts of the event. “It’s interesting how identity and identity politics play into cultural celebrations and how we view them,” she said.

Chavez ended the event by reiterating that the current “colorful characterization” of Día de los Muertos in popular culture fails to consider the history of death culture in Mexico. She also added that those who frown upon Mexican death culture, including many people living in the U.S., “have not been afforded the privilege of denying or hiding from death.”

The Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, which partnered with The

Collective for Radical Death Studies to organize Monday’s talk, will hold the second event of its three-part series on Saturday, Oct. 30. Members of the Brown and RISD community are invited to create tissue-paper cempasuchil flowers at Manning Hall. By beginning the series with a virtual event, the museum was able to increase accessibility for some attendees, as well as Chavez herself, who actually tuned in from California, according to HMA Manager of Museum Education and Programs Leah Burgin MA’17. “We’ve had people enjoy our programs globally in a way that hasn’t really happened before,” Burgin said. The third and final event consists of the official Día de los Muertos celebration, which will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 2 at North Burial Ground and is open to the public.

COURTESY OF THE HAFFENREFFER MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY

Chavez also discussed Spanish oppression of Mexican cultural rituals, calling their colonial practices a “targeted attack” on the complex rituals of Dia de los Muertos. She says that pop culture references to the celebration overlook the complex history of death culture in Mexico.

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UNIVERSITY NEWS

Newly-hired faculty transition from virtual to in-person teaching Faculty cite challenges connecting with colleagues without inperson activities

BY GRACE HOLLEB CONTRIBUTING WRITER For any recently hired faculty member, adjusting to a completely new work environment and connecting with their department and students are never easy tasks. And for anyone hired within the last year and a half, this transition has been made even more challenging by the pandemic, which has necessitated Zoom classes and limited opportunities to get to know their colleagues.

Assistant Professor of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences Malik Boykin, who was hired as a faculty member July 2020, said that because he is not physically in Providence, he feels disconnected from the University.

While still a postdoctoral student in spring 2020, Boykin taught a course that was interrupted by COVID-19.

Since then, he has continued to teach remotely. Currently in California, Boykin stays connected with students through his lab’s weekly meetings.

Still, he said that he doesn’t feel like a “real faculty member.”

“I’ve gotten so accustomed to being (somewhere) else that I still feel like a remote research professor that works at Brown,” Boykin said.

Because of his remote status, Boykin has shifted the focus of his research from the role race plays in virtual spaces to algorithmic bias, since his initial topic became much more difficult to study while virtual.

ROTC FROM PAGE 1 nities that (ROTC) provides (are) good.”

There were also veterans on the committee who lended additional perspectives and knowledge to the group.

A vote was held among the committee members, a majority of whom recommended to the University bring the program back. Since then, students have been able to apply to ROTC at Brown. ROTC students are still unable to receive formal academic credit for any aspect of the program.

Brown’s ROTC program prepares participants for the physical and mental toll of military service. Physical training practices take place Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings each week from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. Physical training practices take place at Providence College on these mornings, with ROTC members taking part in cardio exercises and other group activities such as squad and small unit tactics. Besides physical training, there are class and lab sessions that take place on Wednesdays from 2:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. Lab and class sessions alternate each week with the skills taught in class being utilized in lab the next week.

Lab sessions include practicing “ambushes or attacks” or wilderness skills such as “learning to find your way with a compass or protractor,” Hank Hultman ’23 said. These sessions take place at Bryant University throughout the semester and then culminate in a field training exercise over a long weekend at a nearby army base.

Physical training and labs include

BILAL ISMAIL AHMED / HERALD

The Sheridan Center’s Anchor Program provided newly hired faculty with resources for online teaching as they arrived to a virtual campus.

“I’m going to be a different researcher on the other side of this than I thought I was going to be on the way into it,” Boykin said.

Assistant Professor of Nuclear Security and Policy and Political Science Reid Pauly, who was hired fall 2020, said he benefited from the Sheridan Center’s Anchor Program on virtual pedagogy in his transition to the University. The Anchor Program is taught

by Brown experts and faculty facilitators who teach instructors about evidence-based practices for teaching fully online and remotely.

“It was certainly a challenge to arrive at Brown during the pandemic and dive into virtual teaching,” Pauly wrote in an email to The Herald. “Fortunate-

ROTC students from other schools as well. The University takes part in a “battalion” of participating schools including Bryant University, Providence College, Rhode Island Community College, Johnson and Wales University and University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, said John Fullerton ’24.

“It’s a really great opportunity to meet people from outside of Brown and you can meet a plethora of people that you might not otherwise have access to,” Hultman said.

The ROTC community has become tight knit within Brown, and students are appreciative of the fact they also have the ability to meet students from other schools.

“It totally is like a community, like a sports team,” Fullerton said. “We do spend a lot of time together.”

Balancing academics and an intense ROTC schedule has also helped participants improve their time management skills. Cadets spend around 10 to 15 hours per week participating in physical trainings, class and lab sessions. In terms of rigor and time commitment, “I equate (ROTC) to a club sport,” Lily Johnson ’25 said.

“It’s essentially like I’m taking five classes this semester, but I only get credit for four,” Hultman added.

Students join ROTC for a variety of reasons but a common one is the possibility of giving back to the country through providing service.

“I’ve grown up very privileged, and I wanted … to help out in a different way (and) serve my country,” Hultman said.

Fullerton also acknowledged his

ly, the students had a positive ‘we’re all in this together’ attitude that made even online learning feel personal.”

During the 2020-21 academic year, department chairs were urged to connect with new colleagues virtually and try to integrate them into their respective departments, Dean of the Faculty Kevin McLaughlin wrote in an email to The Herald.

“There was very limited opportunity to bring new faculty together,” McLaughlin said. “I do believe that the individual departments were very good about forming relationships with and assisting with the transition of new faculty to their communities.”

This fall, the University organized

an in-person event introducing the new faculty to a range of offices and administrators on campus. The same event was conducted remotely in fall 2020. In addition, faculty hired this past academic year were invited to an in-person reception this semester with department chairs at the home of President Christina Paxson P’19.

The University hopes it can make up for the gap in social contact caused by the pandemic now that more in-person events are able to take place on campus, McLaughlin wrote.

For Professor of Engineering Linda Abriola, who was hired this fall, teaching during the pandemic posed various challenges, including being unable to meet her postdoctoral student for eight

months. Abriola is now grateful to be able to meet her colleagues through in-person events like the School of Engineering’s “social lunches.”

“I am so grateful to be able to meet people in person now and to be on campus,” Abriola wrote in an email to The Herald.

Boykin hasn’t been able to participate in any new faculty mixers or meet students in person. Although he has been physically away from campus because of the pandemic, Boykin said he still feels very supported by the University community.

“I’ve got good people looking out for me at various tiers of the organization,” Boykin said. “From my department all the way up to the provost.”

ELISE RYAN / HERALD

A committee formed in 2011 recommended to reinstate the ROTC program at Brown. ROTC training takes place at Providence College three times a week, in addition to weekly lab sessions and physical trainings. privileged upbringing and how he wanted to find a way to give back to the community.

“I see (ROTC) as a way to give back rather than (having) an entirely selfish career right away,” Fullerton said.

While Brown and the U.S. military are both long-standing, established entities, “Brown and ROTC are polar opposites,” Johnson said.

The Army is a “very traditional, antiquated environment and Brown is (one of) the most progressive institutions” in the nation, Fullerton noted.

But taking part in these two differ-

ent “worlds,” as Fullerton put it, has made him appreciate what both have to offer.

“I find … (those) who go to Brown and join the army (to be) a very interesting group of people. It’s just a myriad of personalities and really great, really driven people,” Fullerton said.

ROTC also offers opportunities to their cadets through internships and the immediate benefit of tuition payment.

If an ROTC cadet decides to drop out of the program during their first year, the military will continue to pay tuition for the remainder of the year, but if a cadet

drops out in their second year, then they will have to pay that year’s tuition back.

ROTC programs outside of Brown also may pay for room and board.

While ROTC is a sizable time commitment, each participant mentioned the sense of community and bonds they have formed throughout their participation.

“There’s this truth to (a) shared experience of digging deep with a group of people and sacrificing a lot,” Hultman said. “You’re working hard, then you form deeper connections much quicker.”

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

FISCAL FROM PAGE 1 Once implemented, the Committee estimates that these recommendations will yield $26 to $56 million annually — $6 to $7 million in savings and $20 to $50 million in new revenue, according to the report.

The report emphasizes that this review was not prompted by the financial difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rather, the University hopes to reduce its reliance on tuition and fees over time.

President Christina Paxson P’19 convened the committee in fall 2020, which was organized into five subcommittees each with different focuses: personnel, strategic sourcing and procurement, non-personnel, new revenue streams and growing the undergraduate student body. It was chaired by Provost Richard Locke P’18 and consisted of students, faculty and staff.

“Our approach was values-driven and holistic, with the goal of directing our limited resources to where they can have the greatest impact,” Locke wrote in an Oct. 1 letter. “This means ensuring the continued growth in quality of our academic programs and investing in our faculty, staff and students.”

The personnel subgroup, which focused on staffing structures, skills and training and development opportunities within academic departments, advised the University to create “centers of excellence” in which departments can share staff with specialized skills.

It also recommended piloting administrative support networks within departments and centralizing operations in areas “such as cybersecurity, technology and human resources,” according to the report.

“Little by little, the University has been evolving,” committee member Ira Wilson, professor of health services, policy and practice, said, and this committee was an opportunity “to address really fundamental issues of how the University is organized, administered and run.”

“To me, that’s the movement (away) from a tiny New England town view of how things should be run, (where) every department has all its own people even if it’s a tiny department,” Wilson added.

The subcommittee estimated that the implementation of these measures would save $800,000 for each of the first two years and $400,000 for the two following years.

“Over time, staff will have clearer

career pathways and more opportunities for professional development, and there will be less siloing among departments,” the report reads. “The University community will benefit from the highly skilled workforce more equitably and effectively.”

The strategic sourcing and procurement subgroup recommended strengthening the University’s Strategic Purchasing, Contracts and Insurance office, implementing an eProcurement technology solution — which utilizes software to expand strategic sourcing — and to update campus-wide purchasing policies. It also recommended that the University hire a second strategic sourcing category manager and a future contract manager to mitigate risks These changes are meant to not only increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the University’s SPCI office, but also to improve transparency and ease of access, according to the report. These changes are estimated to save $1.4 million annually.

Committee member Ella Kirsh GS identified the work of the strategic sourcing and procurement subgroup as one of the most important set of recommendations to come out of the committee’s work. “The subcommittee worked really hard, interviewing over 60 people across 15 different departments and amassing a huge tranche of data,” Kirsh wrote in an email to The Herald.

“They came up with some elegant solutions to nudge the way the University handles spending and acquisitions, to produce a simpler, more transparent and less idiosyncratic set of processes.”

The non-personnel subcommittee focused on how to adopt cost-saving measures that came about due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It recommended the creation of a University travel management program as a joint effort with the strategic sourcing and procurement subgroup, and it also advised the reduction of non-critical, in-person events and their associated food and beverage budgets.

“One of the things the pandemic did teach a lot of us ... is that you can do a lot of types of business by Zoom,” Wilson said.

These recommendations cited the University’s $22 million travel expenses from Fiscal Year 2019 as a rationale for a targeted reduction in costs.

“Travel booking and expense reimbursement are primarily self-directed, which is inefficient, labor intensive and often frustrating,” the report continues.

“Travel practices are decentralized, and

while the University has a preferred travel agency vendor, it is not widely known.”

The committee estimates these recommendations would save the University $550,000 annually, and they would also support the goal to reduce carbon emissions the University outlined in its Strategic Sustainability Plan. Aiming for a 30% reduction in pre-pandemic travel levels could save another $3.2 million annually. A 30% reduction in University catering could save an additional $1.4 million annual.

The subcommittee on diversifying revenue streams recommended growing non-traditional academic offerings such as summer and winter sessions and pre-college programs as well as laying the groundwork to expand research commercialization through industry partnerships and royalty-paying licenses and startups.

As part of this recommendation, the subgroup also advised the University to create more online master’s and executive master’s programs intended for mid-career professionals.

“Universities all around the country have been doing this for a long time, and Brown, I would say, is a little bit late to the game,” Wilson said. The committee “tried to decide which programs or initiatives would both have a market presence that would be worth (it) to people but also (consider whether) they align with Brown’s skill set and mission and so forth.”

The revenue growth from increased academic programs is estimated to increase University revenue by $14 to $23 million annually.

A final subgroup looked at the University’s undergraduate student population and recommended growing it by 5% to 10% through increased enrollment and increased study away and experiential learning opportunities to help accommodate a larger student body. The committee estimated that this would increase the net revenue of financial aid by $13 to $27 million annually.

“Many of our discussions centered around the possibilities of bolstering and expanding Brown’s study abroad programs, so being an international student (albeit at the grad level), and indeed one outside the USA for the whole period that the committee met, informed my approach” to committee deliberations, Kirsh wrote.

Kirsh feels the committee’s recommendations will have positive long-term impacts on the University’s

CA L E N DA R

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2021

finances.

“These sorts of conversations, though they seem kind of dry to begin with, actually go to the core of an institution’s personality and values,” Kirsh wrote. “The committee’s charge was open-ended enough to give the opportunity to rethink and re-examine a whole variety of different corners of how Brown functions. Pretty much

everything was up for discussion and re-evaluation — that’s why the recommendations are so varied in their approaches.”

“I hope the long-term impact is to continue to open up these vital conversations to the groups who will be affected by the changes they involve,” Kirsh added, “and to see where the community takes it from here.”

COVID -19 AT BROWN LAST 7 DAYS*

OCTOBER S

3

M

4

Tu

5

W

6

Th

7

Completed Tests

People Tested

F

S

7,856

7,256

1

2

Confirmed Positives

Positivity Rates

7

0.1 %

8

9 SINCE AUGUST 24, 2020*

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24/31

25

26

27

28

29

30

Completed Tests

People Tested

565,724

18,031

Total Cases

Prevalence

813

4.5 %

*AS OF OCT 26.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2021

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

5

UNIVERSITY NEWS

U. makes asymptomatic testing optional after positive cases stay low All testing sites will remain available, decision follows lack of increase in cases

BY MAISIE NEWBURY AND GABRIELLA VULAKH SENIOR STAFF WRITERS The University will no longer require fully vaccinated students to undergo asymptomatic testing for COVID-19, according to an Oct. 25 email announcement, The Herald previously reported. In an interview with The Herald, Executive Vice President for Planning and Policy Russell Carey ’91 MA’06 and University Spokesperson Brian Clark addressed the reasoning behind the decision, as well as testing availability and expectations moving forward.

“We wanted to make this change as soon as we could, but waited until we had data supporting that it would be prudent to do so,” said Carey.

Testing became optional for all vaccinated campus community members except undergraduate students Oct. 6. In the following two and a half weeks after the change, the University observed “no change in terms of the (COVID-19) positivity rate” and “no concerns of severe illness, hospitalizations or indications of virus spread,” Carey said.

The University specifically kept an eye on positive cases during Family Weekend from Oct. 15 to 17 before making the change. “It’s now more than a week past Family Weekend, when we had thousands of (additional) people here, and we’ve seen no increase from that either,” he said.

During the week of Oct. 19 to Oct. 25, there were seven positive asymptomatic COVID-19 cases on campus, according to the Healthy Brown COVID-19 Dashboard. Carey said that this low positivity rate has remained relatively constant since mid-September.

All students will remain enrolled in the testing program and have the option to receive an asymptomatic test once

ROBOT FROM PAGE 1 with very diverse teams, because what you’re trying to build (and design) … requires expertise from different perspectives,” Bahar said.

According to the syllabus, students are expected to ultimately design “a new mode of robot communication through sound, light (or) motion” either by creating a robot from scratch or augmenting existing robots. For their first task, students were divided up into teams with members of different skill areas and charged with redesigning a split flap, or messaging device, for a robot in Goetz’s exhibit. According to Bahar, each team came up with a unique solution.

“They all helped each other,” Bahar said. “One person would jump in, (saying) ‘I understand this concept’ and offer some assistance and some ideas. The most successful teams were the ones who worked very tightly together in problem solving and troubleshooting.”

Students then split off into task-specific teams —­­­­­­­­ including software, electrical and computer-aided design groups ­­­— to tackle different components of implementing split flaps for a

NAT HARDY / HERALD

Low positivity rates for the past month, especially after Family Weekend, prompted the policy change. The week of Oct. 19 to Oct. 25 saw seven positive cases total, consistent with low positivity rates from asymptomatic testing since September when testing was raised to twice a week. a week. Students can also elect to get tested if necessary for travel or if they are concerned about a potential exposure, The Herald previously reported.

Unvaccinated community members must continue asymptomatic COVID-19 testing twice weekly, or every four days.

All students can also still receive symptomatic COVID-19 testing through Health Services. “If a student presents themselves at Health Services (and) providers assess that someone has symptoms that might potentially be COVID-19, they’ll do a test,” Carey said.

Since faculty and graduate student asymptomatic COVID-19 testing became optional, 25% of employees and 20% of graduate students have continued testing, according to Carey.

“I think people are definitely taking advantage of the opportunity to not test as frequently as they were previously,” he said.

In spite of the significant drop in

testing volume among faculty and graduate students, the University has not altered its testing sites or schedules. “If we can reduce hours, drop down to one testing site on College Hill and one in the Jewelry District, it will definitely be worth looking into,” Carey said. But, “we have to see how our testing volume is impacted by this (latest) policy shift.”

The University does not directly employ workers at testing sites, so it cannot say how those workers would potentially be relocated in response to the policy. “We contract for testing through a company called Verily, who in turn processes through the Broad Institute, where our samples are processed,” Carey explained. Another company called Advanced Clinical staffs and operates the testing sites.

The University is also prepared to return to a regular testing cadence if necessary with the help of Verily and Advanced Clinical, Carey said.

COVID-19 variants, changes in public

single robot. Each split flap, which can display a single letter, was calibrated with each other such that they formed a word. One team was designated to write poetry specifically about scientific ethics that will eventually be spelled out by the split flaps.

Joshua Phelps ’24, eager to take a project-based class, found this course by searching up “robots” in Courses@ Brown. He said that this course has helped him realize that the “aesthetics of what we’re building” matters.

“It’s making robots that are art, and the point of the art is to make people think about technology,” Phelps said.

“It’s a challenging project.”

Phelps also said that he’s learned a lot from the other students and their backgrounds.

“It’s just more interesting than just a class of engineers,” Phelps said.

Throughout the course, Goetz and Bahar weave in discussion of the ethics of technology. They believe that both engineers and artists need to be aware of the societal impact of their work.

“Whose agenda does that technology support?” Goetz said. “These are questions to ask.”

The structure of the course itself

is flexible. Students spend five hours a week either attending lectures, working in the BDW or receiving critiques. Since this fall is the first time the class is being taught, the curriculum is redesigned “on the fly” to fit the needs of different assignments, Goetz said.

Bahar and Goetz often complement each other in their teaching methods and backgrounds, with Bahar contributing the technical knowledge and Goetz providing the artistry.

“We both come together for the vision,” Goetz said. “We’re aesthetically aligned.”

Since the course involves students directly working on Goetz’s art installation, the course will only offered this fall. Bahar, Mills-Scofield and Goetz hope that students can continue to explore their interdisciplinary interests at Brown; some plans are in the works for crafting a design engineering concentration, according to Mill-Scofield, The Herald previously reported.

“I do hope that in the future, there will be other offerings in project-based, multidisciplinary design courses where there is a clear need for engineers, computer scientists, artists, ethicists and everybody working together,” Bahar said.

health guidance or COVID-19 outbreaks on campus would lead to the return of regular testing, increased mask mandates, more restrictive campus activity levels and remote teaching.

In removing required community-wide testing as a safety measure, the current mask mandate on campus — masking for everyone indoors regardless of vaccination status — is serving as an “additional precaution,” Clark said. The masking requirements “are more extensive than what might be required in a near-universally vaccinated population otherwise,” Clark added.

All students, regardless of vaccination status, will be required to test after Thanksgiving break, contributing to the University’s hesitancy about altering testing sites and schedules before the end of November.

Students will need to schedule appointments on day one and day five following their return to campus, or

test twice, five days apart, the week after break, regardless of if they remained on campus or in their off-campus residence during the break.

“We have to be staffed appropriately for that week,” Carey said. “We want to manage testing as we have been and make it as convenient for people as possible.”

To enforce testing following Thanksgiving break, the University will continue to monitor student compliance and send reminder emails.

“Not complying could be met with disciplinary follow-up,” Carey said, though he does not anticipate that compliance with testing will be a problem given a positive track record among students this semester.

“Student compliance has been excellent in the past. … When students get reminded, they follow right up and schedule (an appointment),” he said. “That’s been the spirit all along.

This is a commitment to personal and collective community health.”

6

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | NEWS

RACE FROM PAGE 1 class distribution within groups such as Asian-Americans.

Understanding the links between race and class, he added, is “important for contemporary politics.”

One of the theories he cited was racial capitalism, a system in which social and economic values are derived from the racial identities of other people, according to the Harvard Law Review.

“Racial inequality has ways of reconstituting itself in different forms,” Itzigsohn said. His research aims to understand how racial inequality changes over time and in different places.

After Itzigsohn, Carter gave a talk on racial inequalities within education.

“Education is one of the most impactful social institutions,” Carter said. Yet systems of education within the United States reproduce racial class systems in both K-12 and higher education, she added. She presented data from Sean Reardon, professor of poverty and educational inequality at Stanford University, who analyzed 40 million test scores from students across every school district in the United States. Reardon found that not a single predominantly poor or economically disadvantaged communities had test scores above the national average.

Districts that fell above the national test average were more affluent.

“In this country, there is an inextricable link between race and ethnicity and socio-economic background,” she said, adding that “we live in a society where achievement gaps are driven by opportunity gaps.”

The pandemic has exacerbated these inequalities, as economically disadvantaged students may not have had access to the same resources as did their more affluent peers, Carter said.

This includes access to technology, online resources and support within the household.

Carter referenced her book, “Closing the Opportunity Gap: What America Must Do to Give Every Child an Even Chance,” in which she and her colleague Kevin Welner focused on

the causes of inequality within the American public school system.

She attributed racial and class inequalities within education to multiple factors, including opportunity hoarding, or when privileged groups control and withhold access to community resources.

Carter also emphasized the importance of teaching anti-racism in schools. She said that while research has shown that ethnic studies increase academic engagement in the long run, lawmakers have pushed back on implementing social justice and anti-racism within school curricula.

Nazareno spoke last and discussed Filipino-American women in entrepreneurship and within the medical field.

She began by discussing how immigrants represent 30% of the United States’ entrepreneurs, yet make up only 13% of the population. In addition, 45% of immigrant entrepreneurs are women.

Nazareno’s research specializes in the study of Filipino-American women and immigrant women who she said are “often invisible when we think about entrepreneurship.”

Nazareno pointed out that Filipino-American women in particular have built businesses in healthcare and long-term care services since the 1970s. Because of this, she argued that these women’s businesses have continued to serve as part of today’s “de facto mental health facilities” in California.

These businesses also tended to take care of vulnerable populations, including those on Medicaid, she said.

Nazareno also discussed the role of immigrant Filipino women nurses in both healthcare and long-term care systems, adding that one of 20 registered nurses are Filipino in the U.S. The presence of these nurses, she argued, is a product of U.S. colonialism in the Philippines.

Still, she noted that while Filipino nurses make up a large portion of the healthcare system, their sacrifices are often not highlighted. She said that they have been on the frontlines of

COURTESY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

The CSREA panel, the first of this year’s “Race & in America” series, featured Professor of Sociology Prudence Carter, Professor of Sociology Jose Itzigsohn and Assistant Professor Jennifer Nazareno. the SARS outbreak and the AIDS and Ebola epidemics, but their service has not been brought to light until the COVID-19 pandemic, when Filipino nurses accounted for about 25% of COVID-19 deaths among nurses as of June 2021.

Carter said that laws against teaching inequality in curriculum have passed in states with low-unionization within education. Itzigsohn added that he believes educational reform will occur when there is unionization of low-income workers.

To mitigate the effects of opportunity gaps, Itzigsohn argued that the

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political discourse around inequality should be shifted and families should be given the resources and tools to lessen the gaps.

Nazareno said that histories of marginalized communities should be taught in schools, as she did not learn about the history of Filipino women in school.

“When we have this historical amnesia … you’re not taught to think more critically,” she said.

Regarding the pandemic’s impact on institutional inequality, Itzigsoh said that the pandemic has “exacerbated the tensions of capitalism” in which

low-income workers do not want to do jobs in which they are undervalued and which they get little out of.

Carter added that workers no longer want to risk their lives for exploitive labor and cited a social media post she recently saw which advertised a server position in which the salary was $2.13 an hour plus tips.

Nazareno said that we should ask if we are “paying (workers) like they’re essential,” citing the “essential workers” who continued to work through COVID-19 lockdowns.

“They are definitely undervalued, and now they are essential,” she said.

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD | COMMENTARY

7

Walsh ’23: Spin’s ubiquity on campus poses a safety hazard more convenient for users, but it also ostensibly cuts down on Spin’s expenses, allowing the company to introduce more vehicles for a low cost.

But Spin’s cost-effectiveness is exactly why their vehicles are becoming a public nuisance. Because Spin does not invest in desig-

location of our vehicles so that we can quickly respond if an e-bike or e-scooter is incorrectly parked.” How, exactly, Spin holds its rule-defiant users accountable is unclear. Unless Spin deploys an army of parking compliance officers — an unlikely prospect, given the company’s already barebones approach to vehicle parking

cles are dockless. Building docking stations and requiring users to park there would eliminate the program’s convenience. On the other hand, Spin could install many stations across the city, preserving convenience but potentially jeopardizing its fiscal bottom line. Spin, therefore, must find a way to ensure responsible parking

streets and parked on sidewalks and quads — have become a fixture at Brown almost overnight this semester. Though Mayor Jorge Elorza signed a contract with Spin in 2019, the company that makes the scooters, they have become particularly common this fall. And after another contract a few months ago, a stock of Spin e-bikes joined scooters in the city. Now, anyone who has downloaded the Spin app can find a bike or scooter, unlock it for a dollar and ride to their destination for 29 cents per minute.

The vehicles’ arrival in Providence has been met with generally positive reception. Brown students, particularly athletes, have noted that they expedite their commutes across campus.

Other proponents of the Spin program predict that it will increase access to public transit and discourage people from commuting via car, reducing traffic and emissions. Indeed, bike- and scooter-share programs have the potential to become a legitimate and cost-effective solution to transit woes in the United States. But Spin must invest more in Providence — and the city must commit more to bike infrastructure — lest the vehicles remain a general nuisance and a hazard for people with disabilities.

Cost-effectiveness and convenience are the two major features of the Spin program. What differentiates Spin from other vehicle-sharing services is that its bikes and scooters are “dockless,” meaning the company does not provide designated parking and charging stations. Instead, users can leave their vehicles wherever they end their commute. This is key to Spin’s business model, as bike-sharing ser-

nated docking and charging stations, scooters and bikes often clog pedestrian walkways. The

— scooters and bikes are likely to continue to clog sidewalks.

entrance to the Ittleson Quadrangle near the Jonathan Nelson’77 Fitness Center, for example, is frequently obstructed by scooters and bikes, congesting pedestrian traffic. For most people, dodging these vehicles is a tiny, mindless inconvenience. But not so for those with disabilities. Blind people rely on clear pedestrian walkways for safe foot travel. And when a scooter or bike blocks a sidewalk, people in wheelchairs have to choose between crossing the curb onto the street — a dangerous task in the absence of a curb ramp — or simply moving the vehicles in order to avoid them. While Providence is making strides toward bringing its sidewalks up to par with Americans with

Despite Spin vehicles’ pitfalls, they do offer legitimate benefits as a transit solution. Experts contend that vehicle-share services can solve the “last-mile” problem, a dilemma in urban planning where individuals are discouraged from using mass transit when the distance between a transit stop and their final destination is too long. In turn, programs like Spin can dissuade commuters from driving cars.

Among Brown students, for whom taking the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority is fairly uncommon, Spin does not facilitate greater access to transit, instead supplanting walking around campus. Of course, shorter cross-campus commutes are certainly a worthy goal, and

in a cost-effective manner, or else it will remain a nuisance for Providence residents.

The city’s efforts to increase bike ridership through Spin must be met with a commensurate improvement of cycling (and scootering) infrastructure. Among developed countries, the United States has among the highest rates of bicycle fatalities per billion kilometers of travel — an unsurprising fact, given ingrained car culture and the dearth of bike lanes in U.S. cities. Given the dangers inherent to street scootering and cycling, without paths set aside for them, Spin users are likely to ride on the sidewalks, raising the likelihood of pedestrian crashes. Sidewalk-riding detection technology, which Spin is developing, could help alleviate this problem. But the bottom line is that we need more bike lanes if Spin is to remain in Providence. The city has begun to make this commitment through its Great Streets Initiative, which is guided by the belief that “every street in Providence should be safe, clean, healthy, inclusive and vibrant.” If the city makes good on this promise, Spin could indeed become a real transit solution. But if it does not, the company will remain both a safety hazard and a nuisance.

With the Spin program in its infancy, both the company and the city still have the power to shape its future. If citizens and public officials do not put pressure on Spin to improve parking compliance, then the vehicles will be at best irksome and at worst hazardous for people, especially those with disabilities. If the company cannot rise to the occasion, Providence should

vices that require riders to dock their vehicles at dedicated stations — such as the Citi Bike system in New York City and the Bluebike system in Boston — are simply less convenient and user-friendly. Moreover, Spin crowdsources charging, hiring individuals to retrieve the vehicles and recharge their batteries. These features not only make accessing Spin vehicles

Disabilities Act of 1990 requirements, Spin bikes and scooters, by artificially narrowing walkways, could erode this progress.

The Spin app does provide information on proper parking practices, urging its users to leave vehicles “on wide sidewalks, closer to the curb” or on bike racks. Furthermore, the company claims it is “dedicated to monitoring the

there is nothing inherently wrong with riding an e-bike or scooter. For students who cannot afford their own bikes or scooters — or who simply want to be able to shorten their commute on an ad hoc basis without committing to buying a vehicle — Spin is ideal.

But again, a hallmark of Spin — and a key aspect of its business model — is that its vehi-

BY MATT WALSH OPINIONS EDITOR

Electric bikes and scooters — the bright orange vehicles often seen zipping down College Hill

“The city’s efforts to increase bike ridership through Spin must be met with a commensurate improvement of cycling (and scootering) infrastructure.”

consider invoking its right to end its contract with Spin altogether.

Matt Walsh ’23 can be reached at matthew_ walsh@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald. com and other op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

The Lemley Family Leadership lecture series

F E AT U R I N G

Rebecca Henderson John and Natty McArthur University Professor, Harvard University, author of Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire

Reimagining Capitalism Capitalism is in danger of destroying itself — and our world. Learn about what’s wrong with modern capitalism and how business can help create the change we need.

Wednesday, October 27, 2021 | 5 p.m.

A conversation moderated by Provost Richard M. Locke, Schreiber Family Professor of Political Science and International and Public Affairs, will follow the talk.

Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs Stephen Robert ’62 Hall, 280 Brook Street, Room 101

Registration required For more information, please visit lemley-lecture.brown.edu Event attendees must comply with all University COVID-19 policies and protocols in place at the time of the event.

Closed captioning will be provided. To request additional accommodations or assistance for this event, please contact the Office of University Event and Conference Services at universityevents@brown.edu.

BROWN UNIVERSITY 2021