The Harvard Crimson - Volume CXLV, No. 103

The Harvard Crimson THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873 | VOLUME CXLV NO. 103 | CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS | TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2018

EDITORIAL PAGE 10

NEWS PAGE 7

SPORTS PAGE 12

It is within our power as a student body to fulfill our civic duty and vote.

Former West Wing staffers discuss their White House experiences.

Last-second field goal caps off close Harvard win.

Harvard, SFFA Face Off In Day One of Trial Admins Replace Forum

By ALEXANDRA A. CHAIDEZ and DELANO R. FRANKLIN and SAMUEL W. ZWICKEL CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

The opening day of the highly anticipated Harvard admissions trial drew hordes of spectators and reporters — enough people to fill two courtrooms and a jury assembly room. Proceedings stretched from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. with a roughly 50-minute break for lunch around 1 p.m.

The first day went mostly as expected. Lawyers for both sides offered lengthy opening statements arguing their respective cases — Students for Fair Admissions asserted Harvard discriminates against Asian-American applicants, while the University vehemently defended its use of race in the admissions process. SFFA, an anti-affirmative action advocacy group, first sued Harvard over allegations of discrimination in 2014.

Adam K. Mortara, one of SFFA’s trial lawyers, spoke first, pointing to what he called clear statistical evidence proving that Harvard discriminates.

The University’s lead trial lawyer William F. Lee ’72 — the senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation, the University’s highest governing body — spoke next, referencing Supreme Court precedent he said demonstrates the College’s admissions process is legally sound.

After the attorneys finished, Harvard’s Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons took the stand.

SEE TRIAL PAGE 9

Harvard to hold listening sessions about shopping week.

By SIMONE S. CHU and ANGELA N. FU and LUCY WANG CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

William F. Lee ’72, who leads Harvard’s legal team in its defense against Students for Fair Admissions, is currently a partner at law firm WilmerHale and the senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation. CALEB D. SCHWARTZ—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Legal strategist Edward Blum is the head of Students for Fair Admissions.

CALEB D. SCHWARTZ—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Former Solicitor General and Harvard Overseer Seth P. Waxman ’73 is representing Harvard in the trial. CALEB D. SCHWARTZ—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Union, Harvard Begin Bargaining

By SHIRA S. AVI-YONAH and MOLLY C. MCCAFFERTY CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

After five years of organizing, two elections, three legal appeals, and more than a few rallies, members of Harvard’s graduate student union entered their first bargaining session with Harvard administrators Monday afternoon.

Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Automobile Workers marked the occasion with a kickoff rally in Harvard Yard. Mid-day Monday, around

Visit thecrimson.com for photo essay.

40 union members gathered under overcast skies to celebrate a day that, as recently as last semester, many believed would never come.

The makeup of the crowd reflected just how long graduate students have been pushing to make these negotiations a reality — almost no one present was among the first group of HGSU-UAW organizers that formed five years ago. Some were not even students at Harvard when eligible graduate and

SEE UNION PAGE 9

HMS Requests Papers Retracted

By LUKE W. VROTSOS CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

After years of lawsuits, investigations, and controversy surrounding research malpractice, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital requested retractions Sunday for 31 papers written by a former faculty member.

The professor, Dr. Pierro Anversa, held a joint appointment between the Medical School and Brigham and Women’s. He left the Medical School in December 2015, school spokesperson Gina Vild wrote in an email.

The research conducted in Anversa’s laboratory primarily concerned cardiac stem cells.

“Following a review of research conducted in the former lab of Piero Anversa, we determined that 31 publications included falsified and/or fabricated data, and we have notified all relevant journals,” a joint statement from Harvard and INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Harvard Today 2

Harvard Graduate Students Union kicked off their bargaining session with a “Bargainfest” at 11:30 am by the John Harvard statue. JOSHUA Y. CHIANG—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

News 7

Editorial 10

SEE PAPERS PAGE 9

Sports 12

SEE SHOP PAGE 9

Whole Heart Opens in Square

SEE PAGE 9

Brigham and Women’s reads.

Anversa could not be reached for comment for this story.

The institutions also underscored the importance of ethical research practices.

“A bedrock principle of science is that all publications are supported by rigorous research practices,” the statement reads.

“The scientific community is interdependent and reliant on the rigor and good faith of researchers as we work collaboratively to advance knowledge and transform human health.”

The statement did not name the journals from which they had requested retractions.

These retraction requests are not the first time Anversa’s research has come under scrutiny. In 2014, both institutions launched an investigation into his findings, prompting the journal Circulation to retract one of his papers and The

­ ours before students were H supposed to meet with administrators at an Undergraduate Council town hall to discuss the possible elimination of “shopping week,” the College’s embattled course registration system, Harvard officials announced they had changed their minds.

In lieu of the student-run forum, College staffers will instead hold Harvard-led events at which students can share their thoughts on shopping week, Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda J. Claybaugh wrote in an email to undergraduates Monday afternoon.

A Harvard committee convened in Sept. 2018 and tasked with seeking alternatives to shopping week — the weeklong period during which students freely wander in and out of courses before officially enrolling — will host three “listening sessions” for undergraduates throughout October, according to Claybaugh’s email. Chaired

by Philosophy professor Bernhard Nickel, the committee will spend fall 2018 exploring new ways undergraduates can sample and choose classes.

The committee will then formulate one or more proposals and present them to the Faculty Council, which will vote on the suggestions in the spring semester before passing the proposals to the full Faculty for a vote. The Council — the highest governing body of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences — voted to approve the convening of the shopping week committee at one of its biweekly meetings in September.

Claybaugh wrote in an email to The Crimson Monday that the Undergraduate Council “agreed” to replace its town hall with three administrator-managed sessions. Sruthi Palaniappan ’20, the chair of the UC’s Education Committee, wrote in an emailed statement that Claybaugh “informed us late last week” of the change of plans.

By LUKE A. WILLIAMS and RUOQI ZHANG CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

A student astronomy group recently announced that the Loomis-Michael Observatory is under repair. SUUBA M. DEMBY—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

TODAY’S FORECAST

RAINY High: 57 Low: 43

Whole Heart Provisions opened in the Smith Campus Center Sunday, boasting a colorful vegetarian and vegan menu of mixed vegetable bowls as well as snacks like shishito peppers, seared avocado, and brussel sprouts.

The Harvard Square branch is the plant-based restaurant chain’s third location.

Co-founders Rebecca Arnold and James V. DiSabatino said they hope the location will become an integrated part of Harvard. The duo handed out free t-shirts to the first 20

SEE FOOD PAGE 7

VISIT THECRIMSON.COM. FOLLOW @THECRIMSON ON TWITTER.

pete davidson

THE HARVARD CRIMSON |

OCTOBER 16, 2018

PAGE 2

HARVARD TODAY

For Lunch Coconut Curry Chicken Philly Cheese Steak Sub Vegetable and Multigrain Spaghetti Caponata

For Dinner Chipotle Chicken Haddock Olive Caper Relish Maple and Chipotle Chicken Creamy Chilaquile Casserole

TODAY’S EVENTS

IN THE REAL WORLD

Brittany Packnett Study Group IOP, 4:30 p.m.

Paul Allen, Billionaire Who Co-Founded Microsoft, Dies at 65

The IOP is hosting a study group to discuss the role of art and media in activism. Symone Sanders and Sophia Bush will be featured guests.

Paul Allen, a tech genius who was close friends with Bill Gates and helped him found Microsoft, passed away on Monday. He had been battling lymphoma for over thirty years.

Powerpoint Party Charles Hotel, 7:00 p.m.

Saudi Arabia May Admit Dissident Journalist Was Killed

Get bougie and head to the Charles Hotel for a Powerpoint party, where each participant gets to present about a topic of their choosing. Share your passion and get the chance to win a prize!

Amid a string of differing stories on the death of Jamal Khashoggi, information has emerged that Saudi Arabia may admit that he was killed in an interrogation gone awry, thus laying the blame on the intelligence agent rather than the crown.

Lecture Cambridge Forum, 4:00 p.m.

The Cambridge Forum is organizing an event with journalist Rebecca Traister, who will speak about the history of feminism and the #MeToo movement.

Casper Dehnavi ’20 announces The Record Hospital, a station for WHRB. WILLIAM H. WU—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

DAILY BRIEFING The opening day of the highly anticipated Harvard admissions trial drew hordes of spectators and reporters — enough people to fill two courtrooms and a jury assembly room. Lawyers for both Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions offered lengthy opening statements arguing their respective cases.

In other news, College staffers will hold Harvard-led events at which students can share their thoughts on shopping week, Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda J. Claybaugh wrote in an email to undergraduates Monday afternoon.

Sen. Warren Releases DNA Analysis Showing Native American Ancestry Mass. Senator Elizabeth Warren released Monday the results of a DNA analysis corroborating her previous statements regarding her Native American ancestry. Warren released the report after a public challenge by President Donald Trump that he would donate $1 million to a charity of her choice if she underwent a DNA test proving her ancestry claims.

AROUND THE IVIES YALE A number of first-year students at Yale reported being drugged at a dormitory party this past weekend, the Yale Daily News reported. Two female students were brought to Yale New Haven Hospital Friday night, where one tested positive for Rohypnol, a tranquilizer known colloquially as “roofie.” When mixed with alcohol, it is known to increase risk of blackouts and death. The party’s host, who was not identified, said that he and at least two additional students were drugged at the event. University police informed students of the incident Sunday night in an email.

UPENN The University of Pennsylvania now requires faculty on its hiring committee to undergo bias training, the Daily Pennsylvanian reported Monday. The school began offering its unconscious bias training to faculty hirers in 2006, but this year is the first time it is mandatory, a decision made in March 2017 as part of a Faculty Inclusion Report. More than 80 faculty penned a letter to administrators in April 2017 asking the school to expand its program to reduce bias and encourage fellow faculty to participate.

CORNELL Ithaca’s Mayor — Svante Myrick, a Cornell graduate — called on the university to pay the city more in an interview with the Cornell Daily Sun Thursday. “Ithaca would be a better place to live if Harvard were here instead of Cornell,” Myrick told the Sun. “The streets would be better paved, we’d have more police officers and the taxes would be lower.” The school is expected to pay $1,365,594 to the city in 2019, a nearly $30,000 increase from the previous year as a result of tax increases.

THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873

The Harvard Crimson Derek G. Xiao President Hannah Natanson Managing Editor Nathan Y. Lee Business Manager

Associate Managing Editors Mia C. Karr ’19 Claire E. Parker ’19 Associate Business Managers Dahlia S. Huh ’19 Max W. Sosland ’19 Digital Strategists Jamie D. Halper ’20 Caroline S. Engelmayer ’20 Editorial Chairs Cristian D. Pleters ’19 Emmanuel R. R. D’Agostino ’19

STAFF FOR THIS ISSUE Arts Chairs Mila Gauvini II ’19 Grace Z. Li ’19

Design Chairs Morgan J. Spaulding ’19 Simon S. Sun ’19

FM Chairs Marella A. Gayla ’19 Leah S. Yared ’19

Multimedia Chairs Amy Y. Li ’20 Ellis J. Yeo ’20

Blog Chairs Lydia L. Cawley ’20 Stuti Telidevara ’20

Technology Chairs Nenya A. Edjah ’20 Theodore T. Liu ’20

Sports Chairs Cade S. Palmer ’20 Jack R. Stockless ’19

Copyright 2018, The Harvard Crimson (USPS 236-560). No articles, editorials, cartoons or any part thereof appearing in The Crimson may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the President. The Associated Press holds the right to reprint any materials published in The Crimson. The Crimson is a non-profit, independent corporation, founded in 1873 and incorporated in 1967. Second-class postage paid in Boston, Massachusetts. Published Monday through Friday except holidays and during vacations, three times weekly during reading and exam periods by The Harvard Crimson Inc., 14 Plympton St., Cambridge, Mass. 02138 Weather icons made by Freepik, Yannick, Situ Herrera, OCHA, SimpleIcon, Catalin Fertu from flaticon.com is licensed by CC BY 3.0.

Night Editor Phelan Yu ’19 Assistant Night Editors Jamie D. Halper ’20 Aidan B. Carey ’21 Story Editors Hannah Natanson ’19 Claire E. Parker ’19 Kenton K. Shimozaki ’19 Graham W. Bishai ’19 Brian P. Yu ‘19

Design Editors Katie E. Wang ’20 Margo E. Shang ‘21 Photo Editors Justin F. Gonzalez ’21 Karina G. GonzalezEspinoza ’21 Editorial Editor Shireen Younus ’20 Sports Editor Eamon J. McLoughlin ’21

CORRECTIONS The Harvard Crimson is committed to accuracy in its reporting. Factual errors are corrected promptly on this page. Readers with information about errors are asked to e-mail the managing editor at managingeditor@thecrimson.com.

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | OCTOBER 16, 2018 | PAGE 3

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Film History is Unearthed in Screening and Panel Discussion of

‘The Lost City of Cecil B. DeMille’ MIRANDA ENG CONTRIBUTING WRITER

In the midst of a modern age of obsession with Hollywood culture, a timely examination of the American film industry’s origins came in the form of a screening and panel discussion of director Peter L. Brosnan’s “The Lost City of Cecil B. DeMille” at the Harvard Art Museums on Oct. 10.

On the surface, Brosnan’s film appears to simply be a documentary about archaeology, focusing on the unconventional excavation of a movie set — that of legendary filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille’s 1923 blockbuster “The Ten Commandments”: City of the Pharaoh, an artificial ancient Egyptian metropolis. As the movie unfolds, however, it weaves Brosnan’s own story with that of DeMille’s, offering an in-depth look at the parallels between both of their acts of perseverance and defiance.

While DeMille was known for commissioning some of the most extravagant movie sets of all time and reaching unprecedented success in cinema despite his studio’s doubts in his abilities, Brosnan also sought to do what was never done before. He wanted to find DeMille’s City of the Pharaoh, although many claimed it had been demolished immediately after the filming of “The Ten Commandments.”

In the panel following the screening, producer Dan J. Coplan, executive producer Francesca Judge Silva, and project archaeologist M. Colleen Hamilton voiced their continued interest in the recovery of DeMille’s city, showing pictures of the archaeology team’s progress in unearthing a third plaster-cast Sphinx from the excavation site in California’s Guadalupe-Nipomo dunes. They explained how DeMille’s city was built by an army of workers using enormous amounts of lumber, then later torn down by cutting the cables anchoring the main buildings and letting them freefall, dynamiting the pharaoh statuary, and burying the plaster-cast Sphinxes in trenches of sand. The panelists soon shifted from discussing their personal interest in the excavation project to why the recovery of Hollywood artifacts should be significant to the general public.

Hamilton spoke about how learning more about the filming of DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments” could inform our understanding of American history. “Keep in mind that there was a group of 2,500 individuals on site for three plus months — those building the set, those acting,” Hamilton said. “One of the things we are still looking for and are working actively to find is the tech, which could be really interesting in terms of learning how these people were living, especially during Prohibition.”

Hamilton’s comment on the crossover between film history and American history echoed the sentiment that director Brosnan expressed in a 2016 interview with Streamline.

“In 1923, Cecil B. DeMille buried enough artifacts in the Guadalupe Dunes to fill several museums. They are a direct link to the earliest days of an American industry that went on to become one of the most powerful cultural forces of the 20th Century,” Brosnan said. “These artifacts

need to be saved. Yesterday’s garbage helps us understand who we are now.”

Not only were the artifacts recovered from DeMille’s city important, but so was the public distribution of a film about the excavation. Archaeological discoveries and films about archaeology have a mutually beneficial relationship in which press coverage for one of the two will lead to an increase in general interest in the other. Hamilton also used the example of DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments,” which depicts the religious epic of Moses, set in ancient Egypt.

“At the time when it [‘The Ten Commandments’] was released, it was when the first excavations were going on in Egypt, and that spurred on the audience’s interest — not only in the film, but also in the representation [of archaeology], which was communicating, at a global level, the interest in Egypt,” Hamilton said.

Further, the excavation is also a source of local pride among those living near the Guadalupe-Nipomo dunes.

Those whose grandparents witnessed the filming of “The Ten Commandments’” feel that their family history is linked to the movie relics found in the dunes.

“It’s poignant because where the artifacts are right now in the Dunes Center in Guadalupe, California, is thanks to some of the families that you saw [in Brosnan’s documentary],” Silva said. “A couple of the ranchers, their remaining families have donated a larger building so that the Dunes Center can display the bigger pieces that are recovered.”

Despite the significance that the excavation of DeMille’s lost city may have in terms of shedding light on general American history, bringing attention to the field of archaeology, and playing a part in the family history of many Guadalupe locals, Coplan said the leaders of the film industry today are largely indifferent to the project.

“It’s show business, emphasis on business. The reality is that studio heads don’t give a rat’s ass about their history. They’re worried about keeping their profits up so they can keep their perks and their positions of power,” Coplan said. “The ’56 remake of ‘The Ten Commandments’ is played, still, on ABC every year on Passover and Easter, and you would think that they would have an ingrown curiosity about that film and the history of it, but so far I’ve reached deaf ears.”

The creators behind “The Lost City of Cecil B. DeMille” and the documentary itself both assert that Hollywood’s history provides a unique lens to view American history.

There are so few films from the 1920s that are still accessible to us today that the remnants of DeMille’s elaborate movie set may be the best chance we have to understand American popular culture of that era. Despite the disinterest of major film studios in the excavation of DeMille’s city, Coplan, Hamilton, and Silva hope to screen “The Lost City of Cecil B. DeMille” in more museums in the future to raise public awareness about the film history that is slipping slowly through their fingers.

the week in arts

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TUESDAY EXHIBITION TOUR: TREADING THE BORDERS: IMMIGRATION AND THE AMERICAN STAGE Houghton opens its major fall exhibition, which explores the influence of immigrant artists on American performing arts.

Houghton Library. 12:30 p.m. Free.

Wednesday MATTILDA BERNSTEIN SYCAMORE PRESENTS SKETCHTASY The writer and queer activist will conduct a discussion and book-signing of her latest novel, Sketchtasy.

Harvard Book Store. 7 p.m. Free.

Thursday BOSTON ASIAN AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL PRESENTS THE JOY LUCK CLUB The 10th occurence of this festival begins with the groundbreaking 1993 film The Joy Luck Club, which turns 25 this year. The festival will run through Oct. 28.

Brattle Theater. 7:30 p.m. $20.

Friday HRDC PRESENTS CHICAGO (OPENING NIGHT) Experience Harvard Radcliffe Dramatic Club’s performance of the American musical about murder, celebrity, and jazz.

Loeb Drama Center. 7:30 p.m. $10 or $5 with Harvard ID

Saturday ALCESTE The Harvard University Choir performs Alceste, an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck, with period instrument ensemble Grand Harmonie.

The Memorial Church Sanctuary. 7:30 p.m.

Free.

Sunday BOSTON CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY / MOZART, SAINT-SAËNS, AND RAVEL The Boston Chamber Music Society comes to Harvard for the second installment of this season’s Sanders Series. Listen to Mozart’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, K. 478; Saint-Saëns’s Oboe Sonata in D major, Op. 166; and Ravel’s Piano Trio in A minor.

Sanders Theater. 7:30 p.m. $62, $50, $38, $26.

MOnday A POLITICAL POETRY: A READING AND CONVERSATION WITH POET SOLMAZ SHARIF Solmaz Sharif, an award-winning poet and Radcliffe Institute visiting scholar, will perform a poetry reading and participate in a discussion with Evie Shockley RI ’19.

Knafel Center. 4:15 p.m. Free.

COURTESY OF HARVARD ART MUSEUMS

16 October 2018 | Vol CXLv, ISSUE xVI Arts Chairs Mila Gauvin II `19 Grace Z. Li `19

Editor Associates Kaylee S. Kiam ’20 Caroline A. Tsai ’20 Aline G. Damas ’20

Noah F. Houghton ’20 Edward M. Litwin ’19 Petra Laura Oreskovic ’20 Ethan B. Reichsman ’19 Yael M. Saiger ’19 Caroline E. Tew ’20 Jonathan P. Trang ’19 Lucy Wang ’20

Executive Designer Hanna Kim `21

Design Associates Mireya C. Arango ‘20 Julia Reed-Betts ‘19 Alysssa D. Truong ‘21

Executive Photographer Kathryn S. Kuhar `20

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THE HARVARD CRIMSON | OCTOBER 16, 2018 | PAGE 4

FILM

In ‘First Man,’ Triumph for White Male Dreams CAROLINE A. TSAI CRIMSON STAFF WRITER At the beginning of “First Man,” Neil Armstrong has a job interview. It’s not poetic, like the swirling, musical audition in “La La Land,” Damien Chazelle’s 2016 polarizing awards show darling and the most recognizable oeuvre in the Academy wünderkind’s corpus. Nor does it command the militant energy of the disciplinarian teacher’s voyeurism in the opening scene of Chazelle’s 2014 “Whiplash.” It’s not even central to the action of “First Man,” which largely revolves around the terrifying and death-defying space missions that follow. But like the other interviews, it encapsulates the main character’s — in this case, Armstrong’s — work ethic, a demonstrated commitment to his raison d’être. “I don’t think it’ll be exploration just for the sake of exploration,” he explains patiently, of the Gemini 9 mission. “I think it’ll be more the fact that it allows us to see things that maybe we should’ve seen a long time ago.”

Armstrong, like the rest of Chazelle’s characters, is a dreamer. He believes wholeheartedly in the value of this mission, not just as a political pawn in the space race against the Soviets (though that’s undeniably a pressing impetus, both in the film and real life), but as a societal good. Space travel has inhabited the American mythos for the past few generations — Armstrong’s children themselves are already in their 50s and 60s — so it’s unlikely that “First Man” is the first dose of outer space imagery for most moviegoers.

Somewhat self-consciously, the biopic, directed by Chazelle and featuring Ryan Gosling in the titular role, doesn’t claim to be an all-encompassing account. Rather, it approaches Armstrong’s story from an intensely human angle, focusing on the emotional cost of the endeavor rather than reveling in the achievements. It also chronicles the trials and tribulations of spaceflight in this era, from governmental roadblocks to domestic conflicts. Rounding out the latter category is familial tension, centered around Neil’s wife, Janet (a dynamic Claire Foy, who proves her chameleonic abilities again and again). It’s a hefty undertaking to make suspenseful film that centers on one of the most well-documented events in modern history, and Chazelle attempts it with aplomb and boyish admiration. Yet there’s something disappointing about its narrow scope, which eclipses other characters in favor of orbiting one man as the film’s gravitational center.

To Chazelle’s credit, “First Man” makes a good faith effort to steer away from the overblown triumphalism of past space travel accounts. (The right-wing controversy about the flag omission proves as much.) Mundane moments, from office drudgery to tedious physics lessons, show that being an astronaut isn’t just the sparkly, glamorous stuff of kindergarten ambitions. This mission is a terrifying endeavor with a body count, and scenes of immense pathos — a private moment of shuttered grief during a funeral, pained recollections of fallen colleagues — attest to the stakes of this enterprise, grounding Armstrong’s triumphs with deeply human tragedy.

These scenes also, however, point to the mores of masculinity that men of the era were expected to espouse: stoicism, strength, and little tolerance for sentimentality.

Solitude and quiet brooding are Armstrong’s modus operandi, which Gosling plays accordingly with clenched jaw and clipped terseness. Though this portrayal can distance viewers from Armstrong’s consciousness, it’s certainly factual, as the real-life Armstrong exemplified this brand of masculinity: Janet, who quietly divorced

COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

Armstrong in 1994, once said, “Silence is Neil Armstrong’s answer. The word ‘no’ is an argument. He is a very solitary man.”

Poor Janet. It’s easy to imagine those words from an exhausted woman whose emotional and domestic labor held down the fort at home, while Armstrong made a name for himself in space. True, the Armstrongs share tender moments, like the one where they sway in their darkened living room to “Lunar Rhapsody,” a theremin-heavy crooner.

But on the whole, Janet’s life is as turbulent as her husband’s career, with the added pressure of being an unwavering constant in an effectively fatherless household. “I wanted a normal life,” Janet says wistfully in the film. “Neil seemed so different from all the boys on campus. He seemed so stable.

All I wanted was stability.”

Maybe it’s Foy’s stellar performance or the intensity of this familial turmoil. But the most compelling drama is arguably neither outside of Earth’s atmosphere, nor at mission control, but in the humble, one-story Ohio house where Janet raises the Armstrong boys. It’s too bad that Chazelle leaves this complex drama unplumbed, that it’s merely a device to further Armstrong’s character. The film tacitly suggests his emotional repression is not emblematic of toxic masculinity, but rather a kind of quiet strength.

His fatherhood, which is negligent at best and absentee at worst, is simply indicative of a higher calling. Leave the child-rearing to Janet, right? Foy easily ramps up passivity to annoyance, eventually escalating to outright fury. “What are

the chances you’re not coming back?” Janet snaps, the night before Neil’s departure. “I don’t want a fucking number. It’s not zero, is it?” Foy’s anger is refreshingly raw, the kind of stripped-down performance that anchors a film — and a man — that desperately wants to take off. Disappointingly, this seems to be a recurring motif for the filmmaker: Janet fits easily into the cadre of Chazelle’s other stifled female characters (“Whiplash”’s Nicole, “La La Land”’s Mia), the ones who are told to step aside, lest they stand in the way of their male partners’ success.

To that end, the film tends to veer toward triumphalism anyway, partially because it’s hard not to portray Armstrong and other men of his ilk in a heroic light. Undeniably, white men are at the helm of this film. They cluster around clunky computers and tensely murmur to each other. They take long walks. They sit in backyards and clink bottles of beer, gazing at stars. While their story is a valid and meaningful one, it’s also historically been the only one, and in an age of increasing representation — even in another film regarding this very historical event — it’s hard to view “First Man” as anything other than regression. The story is already jam-packed, tightly edited, propulsive, and economical, but undeniably, it’s also a little myopic. Janet’s feelings of erasure prove a point: When you only care about the First Man, it seems, there’s no room for anyone else.

Staff Writer Caroline A. Tsai can be reached at caroline. tsai@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @carolinet-

COLUMN

Pop-Punk

and Powdered Sugar ALLISON J. SCHARMANN CRIMSON STAFF WRITER A few years in time and a two-hour drive away from the bed I sleep in now is a donut shop getting ready to close. As the hands on the clock inch their way toward 6 p.m. there is an unspoken understanding that this time is not for last-minute customer service, but for preparation. My friend empties the cash registers. I grab the trash bags from the back hallway. She puts out the speaker. I run for the key. When the minute hand hits zero I am already at the door. I hear the opening line of “12 Feet Deep” by The Front Bottoms blast from the speaker before the click of the lock. We stop to serenade the end of another shift together. We repeat this ritual each time we close until, one day, neither of us is there to sing.

All I have left of these days are vignettes of our camaraderie and a sweatshirt that, no matter how many times I wash it, still seems to smell like Sunday mornings spent pouring coffee and commiserating. It didn’t matter if the shop was empty at 5 a.m. or packed at noon — we were in constant conversation and, when it came to the subject, everything was on the table. Frequently, it was music. I can’t prove that the hiring process was intentionally designed to indoctrinate me to the music of Blink 182 and The Story So Far, but every one of my coworkers was obsessed with rock music ranging from indie to poppunk to screamo. I was hired as an awkward, nerdy 15 year-old who had never been to a concert, let alone a mosh pit, and who listened to soundtracks from Broadway musicals on rotation. That any of these people would put up with me long enough to become my friends was a plot twist rivaling “Wicked’s.”

After a few months of post-work trips to the ice cream shop next door, shared rides home, and shift-long heart-to-hearts, my co-workers and I became inseparable. It was inevitable that some of their music taste would rub off on me. I developed a particular soft spot for the folk-meets-punk-meets-indie band The Front Bottoms, specifically for

their EP “Rose,” which comprised much of the playlist of our first summer together. In retrospect, our friendship must have caused a scheduling headache for our boss. One the one hand, we were always willing to work the longest shifts together. On the other, we always wanted the same days off. When we finished work in time, we would pile into whoever’s car was most functional that day and drive to the Granville Gorge, a swimming hole in the foothills of the Berkshires. When I drove, the top down on my 2002 Sebring, the wind should have made it hard to hear the radio. My passengers made sure I never missed a line.

I moved to Cambridge while my friends stayed home to work and attend community college. Soon I found myself watching the adventures I used to be a part of via Snapchat stories in my dorm room. What still brings us together, across the distance and time and work and school schedules, is music. A friend’s tickets to a show at the Sinclair or to Boston Calling are opportunities for milkshakes at Boston Burger Co. and lunch between sets. I learn that many of my former coworkers now work at the same restaurant just 20 minutes from our donut shop and wonder, had I not moved away, if I would be working there too.

Last weekend, closing the restaurant I work in now, I asked my coworkers: “Can I play a song real quick that I used to listen to while working in high school?” They agreed and I attached my phone to the speaker, looked up The Front Bottoms, and put on “12 Feet Deep.” I closed my eyes and I swear, for a second, I could smell powdered sugar.

Staff writer Allison J. Scharmann’s column, “Music as Memory,” explores music through personal narratives.

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THE HARVARD CRIMSON | OCTOBER 16, 2018 | PAGE 5

Ike Barinholtz Talks Family Life in Trump’s America

FILM

SIENNA R. SANTER CONTRIBUTING WRITER With midterm elections on the horizon and the increasing political unrest in the country dominating daily headlines, Ike Barinholtz’s film directorial debut, “The Oath” — a dark political satire about family dynamics and political ideologies in a shifting America — hits a little too close to home. The film follows staunchly liberal Chris (Barinholtz) and his wife Kai (Tiffany Haddish) as they attempt to survive Thanksgiving with Chris’s Republican family members after a government loyalty pledge has divided the country.

Though he had directed and produced episodes of “The Mindy Project” before, Barinholtz stepped into new territory with “The Oath,” writing, directing, and starring in the film. Barinholtz praised the newfound freedom while discussing his experience in these new roles.

“If you’re just an actor, you have these filters,” he said. “You have the writer’s words as one filter, and then the director’s vision as his or her filter, and then the same thing with the editor. The appeal of having an idea and being able to present it to people without those filters was very attractive to me.” Barinholtz conjured up the idea for the film directly after the November 2016 elections, citing how important it was throughout the subsequent writing process for

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the script to stay current with the rapidly changing political events in the country.

“Initially Mason (Billy Magnussen) in my mind was an older guy — he was a guy in his late 50s,” he explained. “And then when I watched the footage on Charlottesville, I wasn’t seeing a lot of oldies, I was seeing a lot of young men. And so immediately the next day I started refashioning the character.” It was both relieving and terrifying, Barinholtz explained, to see the craziness of his script modeled in current events.

It waswas important to Barinholtz that some comic relief balance out the tone of the film. One such example occurs in the middle of a violent and suspenseful scene when Chris’s dad (Chris Ellis) attempts to turn on the TV and keeps pressing the wrong buttons.

“My dad has never once used the remote correctly,” Barinholtz said, laughing. “That [scene] was pulled from the headlines of my life.” While he strove to treat the problems expressed in the film with the sincerity they deserved, Barinholtz felt it was important to maintain a comedic tone, adding small lines of comedy to the tension in order to maintain a level of humanity.

Though the role he plays is mostly autobiographical, Barinholtz hopes that people don’t become like his

character, Chris.

“It is okay to unplug,” he said, asserting it is important not to let fluctuations in the world determine our happiness. “I was basically Chris. A year up to the election, and the year after the election, I was glued to my phone, and I was letting it dictate my mood. I was letting something that Mitch McConnell said affect my mood when I was playing with my daughter.

How stupid is that? We’re on this earth for, like, eight seconds, and if we are just so wrapped up and we’re letting it dictate our lives so much, I think you would look at that as a waste of time one day. So I’m hoping people can find the balance that I’m still trying to find.”

“I know so many people who are like, ‘I’m not going to talk to my aunt ever again,’” he added. “I hear a lot of that — ‘I’m done with him.’ I’m not telling people what to do… you have to make those decisions [for yourself]. But I do believe in cycles.”

He went on to describe a world after Donald Trump.

“If we have cut all these ties to anyone who challenges us, I think we won’t be able to get those ties back and I don’t know how we move forward,” he said. “I feel like we have an obligation to try at least to keep somewhat tethered to the people that we’re supposed to care about… You meet new friends in your life, but your

BOOKS

‘Friday Black:’ An Ingenious Attack on American Society JENNA X. BAO CONTRIBUTING WRITER

COURTESY OF HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT

“If I had words left in me, I would not be here,” reads a line from “Friday Black’s” first piece, “The Finkelstein 5,” capturing the feeling that pulses through each and every story in the collection. “Friday Black,” Nana Kwame AdjeiBrenyah’s debut short story collection, is unflinching in its criticism of pervasive elements in modern America, tackling racial injustices, capitalism, school shootings, and more. Yet, even in pressing hot button issues, these stories remain firmly rooted in the people who inhabit them, calling for empathy even, and especially, for the characters who seem to least deserve it.

Several stories are set in a near future that is all too plausible and far too close for comfort. The titular story, “Friday Black,” depicts a Black Friday rush from the perspective of a hard and seasoned retail employee who watches corpses get swept aside casually in a sea of desperate shoppers who turn to rabid and incoherent animals in search of “newly purchased happiness.”

In “Zimmer Land” (likely an allusion to George Zimmerman who fatally shot Trayvon Martin), an amusement park sells the opportunity to get “justice” in simulations that include defending a neighborhood against a stranger or stopping a school shooter. Perhaps most horrifying and familiar of all is “The Finkelstein 5,” which depicts a man’s acquittal after decapitating five young black children with a chainsaw in the name of self defense in a world where “if you believe something, anything, then that’s what matters most.” The exaggeration in these scenarios creates visceral discomfort that is only exacerbated when you realize how familiar they seem.

Adjei-Brenyah is far from the first to attempt to tackle the issues plaguing American society through literature, but the ingenuity of his premises works to set this collection apart from the rest. The prose is not particularly lofty, but it features an urgency and concision that presents the fastpaced plot and voice without distraction like in the opening

of “Lark Street”: “An impossible hand punched my earlobe.

An unborn fetus, aborted the day before, was standing at my bedside.” It is fantastically unexpected ideas like aborted fetuses demanding answers from their father that make the 192 pages flash by.

That is not to say “Friday Black” is an easy read — it is meant to be challenging. Practically every chapter contemplates difficult aspects of humanity, and there is no shortage of gore and visceral depictions of violence. In “The Finkelstein 5” and “Friday Black,” Adjei-Brenyah rides the line between being sharply poignant and on the nose, between literary fiction and straight satire. But considering how truly ridiculous these situations are, and how we as a society come to accept them, this only strengthens his criticism.

The book’s prime accomplishment is in inspiring empathy for the marginalized and the feared. Themes of the black experience are consistently detailed explicitly, from the feeling of being the only black man in the room to maintaining constant consciousness of one’s “Blackness” on a 10-point scale. Yet, Adjei-Brenyah goes further with the standout story “Light Spitter,” which follows the spirits of a school shooter and his victim just after death, expounding on the social isolation so often associated with shootings with minimal cliché. In “Through the Flash,” even a sadist earns a touch of humanity in her eagerness to be better when she confesses to “the worst thing anyone has ever done...to everyone.” Such appeals could be trite in the hands of another author, but Adjei-Brenyah is effective in asking not for forgiveness, but for understanding.

Adjei-Brenyah uses a lens of exaggeration to lay bare harsh truths about our reality and dares his reader not to flinch.

“Friday Black” is a strong debut collection that introduces a demanding young voice. Hopefully, for all our sakes, this author has plenty more words left in him to share.

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ARTS

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | OCTOBER 16, 2018 | PAGE 6

TV

F L O W K C I D M O R F E M A S E H T F O E R O M S I ’ I B ‘F

COURTESY OF CBS

ne.

ALEXANDRA C. KIM CONTRIBUTING WRITER A massive bomb detonates in a New York apartment building. The FBI rushes to the scene — the fire department is already there, nine minutes after the explosion.

All hands are on deck. FBI detective Maggie Bell (Missy Peregrym) commands everyone to evacuate. She seems to suspect something others don’t — and, sure enough, the second bomb goes off, and the entire building explodes. And thus, the pilot episode of “FBI” starts off with a bang.

CBS’s brand new television series has immense promise. Directed by Emmy-winner Dick Wolf, it gives a dramatic behind-the-scenes peek at the Federal Bureau of Investigation in New York. The episode begins with FBI special agents Maggie Bell and Omar Adom “OA” Zidan (Zeeko Zaki) arriving at the scene of a recent explosion. These first five minutes are action-packed. While a dramatic pilot episode is a good tactical move, this opening scene is somewhat too exaggerated.

The bombed building comes down in a massive, dusty crumble, while the adjacent buildings remain perfectly intact. This portrayal might detract from the credibility of a show about a bureau as serious as the FBI, but it is thrilling nonetheless.

The drama doesn’t stop there. Maggie and OA go back to the office to embark on solving this crime. While spying on a suspect, there is yet another bomb scene outside a store front, at which point the narrative starts to feel like an overwrought action movie. And of course, as in any dramatic crime show, there must be at least one gory murder. An interviewee connected to the crime is found brutally killed.

Bombs, gangs, murder: What else does this crime show need? To top it all off,

Dallas Roberts a very convincing performance as a white supremacist.

“FBI” has all the elements of a quintessential Dick Wolf show. For a start, Maggie is the classic crime show heroine: powerful, a little bit angsty, but sensitive nonetheless. Not only can she force required information out of an interviewee by instilling immense fear, but she is also deeply rattled by the death of a little boy from the building bombing. A good crime show must also pull at the heartstrings, and in this first episode Wolf achieves this through Maggie. Additionally, there is promise of a strong partner dynamic between Maggie and OA, as well as a fierce FBI team supervisor, Dana Mosier, played by Sela Ward. There is some dynamic footage of the FBI office and high tech data analysis, as one might expect.

“FBI” obviously has great drama and suspense. The episode ends exactly as a pilot episode should: The immediate issue is resolved, but the plot has the potential to expand in many directions. Multiple characters have been introduced, and there is now ample room for character development. Overall, there is no question that this premiere is exciting and promises a thrilling season to come. Unfortunately, the show does not prove to be original: It is exactly what you might expect from a Wolf show about the FBI — there isn’t much that distinguishes it from other crime shows like “Law and Order” or even “Criminal Minds.” It has all the usual elements, but not much more. Perhaps it will find its footing in the coming episodes and evolve into a more unique show. But for those who love a classic, predictable crime show, this is the new series for you.

FILM

‘B eautiful B oy’: COURTESY OF FRANCOIS DUHAMEL / AMAZON STUDIOS

A Startlingly Clear Picture of A ddiction KYLE SARGENT CONTRIBUTING WRITER

“Beautiful Boy” has hard answers for hard questions.

Based on the separate memoirs of New York Times contributor David Sheff and his son, Nic Sheff, the film unflinchingly chronicles the cost of addiction on a onceclose relationship between father David (Steve Carell) and son Nic (Timothée Chalamet). Viewers watch David’s pride turn to disappointment and impotent rage as Nic tests his family’s love and trust to fuel his methamphetamine habit. Throughout the film, Nic and his father fight raw, emotional battles over the scope of their responsibilities to each other. Is David obliged to give Nic a second, third, or fourth chance that he may not deserve but desperately needs? Does Nic owe it to anyone but himself to sober up? In the end, “Beautiful Boy” is more horror than Hollywood, and takes no artistic shortcuts to portray addiction honestly: as incurable, unpredictable, corrosive, and dangerous.

Anchoring “Beautiful Boy” are strong performances

by Chalamet and Carell. As their relationship is slowly poisoned by Nic’s addiction, Carell masterfully portrays David’s turmoil, deftly transitioning between

shock, anger, and numbness. His performance reflects an understanding of David as an essentially flawed human being with grand plans for his son — plans put in jeopardy by Nic’s failings. In a particularly charged scene, a drug-addled Nic and David argue at a diner they frequented in happier times. After Nic asks for money, David expresses his disappointment — that Nic was going to college and would play on the water polo team — and has thrown it all away, saying, “This isn’t you; this isn’t us.” Carell looks convincingly crushed at Nic’s response: “This is me, Dad. This is who I am.” Parallel to the rawness and humanity of Carell’s performance is Chalamet’s Nic: alternately charming and ruthless, ultimately inscrutable and hollow. When Nic comes home late or claims to have a steady job, his occasionally truthful professions of sobriety are always convincing — but never fully.

Carell and Chalamet are supported by a strong ensemble cast. Amy Ryan, who once played Holly Flax on “The Office,” returns opposite Carell as Vicki Sheff, David’s ex-wife. For viewers of “The Office,” Carell and Ryan’s strong, dramatic dynamic may prove jarring — here, the two are divorcés whose tried-and-true response to Nic’s relapses is to bitterly blame each other. Their emotionally charged arguments provide an effective context

for exposition. Andre Royo puts in a short but strong performance as Spencer, Nic’s Narcotics Anonymous (NA) sponsor, who understands Nic’s demons but is powerless to stop them. And Maura Tierney plays Karen, David’s current wife and Nic’s stepmother. Karen is more clear-headed about the havoc Nic is wreaking, and more willing to hold him responsible. With Karen as a reference point, David’s unreasonable optimism becomes more and more divorced from reality. Karen ultimately loves Nic, and Tierney brings these emotions to the surface in a poignant scene following a heartbreaking betrayal.

Screenwriters Felix Van Groeningen and Luke Davies have produced a realistic and honest script. The nature of addiction means “Beautiful Boy” cannot follow a traditional story arc; false highs become new lows again and again as Nic relapses. Where a weaker script may have shied away, “Beautiful Boy” confronts harsh realities in exposition. When David visits a doctor to try and understand the damage Nic is doing to himself, there is no relief: A methamphetamine addict’s brain is quickly and permanently altered for the worse, and Nic’s chances of full recovery are slim to none. In short, the eponymous beautiful boy is gone forever. The transformation is hard to watch, but demands one’s full attention.

PAGE 7

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | OCTOBER 16, 2018

EPS 10 Explores Earth’s History

By AMY L. JIA and SANJANA L. NARAYANAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

The Earth and Planetary Sciences department has a new rising star.

Earth and Planetary Sciences 10: “A Brief History of the Earth” — an introductory course taught by EPS professor Jerry X. Mitrovica — has almost doubled its enrollment numbers every semester it has been offered, according to data released by the registrar’s office. The course has been taught three times since its inception in Spring 2017.

The course, currently comprised of 59 undergraduates, offers EPS concentrators and non-concentrators alike a glimpse into important processes in the history of the Earth — from the emergence of oxygen in Earth’s early atmosphere to the contemporary challenges of rising sea levels caused by global warming.

According to Mitrovica, EPS 10 allows students to explore the historical trends behind recent natural events such as Hurricane Michael, which made land-

FOOD FROM PAGE 1

Whole Heart Debuts Sunday customers, reading “Eat Kale Beet Yale.”

In September 2015, Whole Heart Provisions opened its first location in Allston, followed by one in Central Square this past spring.

Around the same time, according to DiSabatino, Harvard approached the co-founders about a location in the Smith Center.

“At first, we didn’t know if we wanted to open two new locations in the same year,” DiSabatino said. After the initial hesitation, it was the Smith Campus Center setting that persuaded them.

“As soon as they showed us pictures of what this building was going to be, we kind of said ‘Yeah, I think we need to be part of it.’”

Whole Heart’s Communications Director, Meghan S. Goodwin ’15, who is also the head coach of the Harvard Cheer team, said the restaurant’s business model emphasizes healthy eating above all.

“First and foremost we want to create delicious food that people crave. That’s our number one goal. I guess, the second tier of our mission is ‘It’s good for your body.’ We always say ‘You can eat Whole Heart seven days a week. You’re never going to go into a food coma,’” Goodwin said.

DiSabatino added that he sees a meat-free diet as a forward-looking move.

“I think it’s just looking at the future. A hundred years from now are we going to be eating less meat or more meat as a society? I think it’s pretty clear it’s going to be less, because the planet kind of depends on it,” DiSabatino said.

Customers eagerly flocked to the Smitch Center when Whole Heart opened for business Sunday morning.

Steven Wang, who said he is a regular at Whole Heart’s Central Square location, grabbed sesame shishitos—and a free “Eat Kale Beet Yale” shirt—at the opening.

“Definitely going to be repping the shirt a lot. It’s gonna be pretty dope,” Wang said.

Jacqueline F. Tubbs ’22, who is working towards being vegetarian, said the restaurant would make her transition easier because it’s centrally located and healthy.

“It’s for us, for people who aren’t eating meat as much. So it’s cool,” Tubbs said.

Whole Heart Provisions is the final restaurant to open in the Smith Campus Center, which itself opened to fanfare last month after more than two years of renovations.

The campus center now boasts seven restaurants on its ground floor.

“We really like to immerse ourselves in the community,” Goodwin said. “We’re kind of psyched, even just by our location, to already be knee-deep in it.”

fall in Florida last week — and actively participate in conversations about these incidents.

“The typical discussion that happens after a hurricane is ‘Are these hurricanes happening at higher frequencies?’” he said.

“We want our students to be able to, even if they can’t speak to that with expertise, understand the discussion that goes around them.”

He added that earth science courses like EPS 10 try to avoid the technical jargon found in academic settings that Mitrovica said can serve as an “obstacle to learning.”

“The language of earth science is the language of the general public — certainly, Harvard undergraduates,” he said.

“I think it’s an attraction for them in that it gives them a really good first course that covers the whole range [of Earth’s history].”

Several students said they were enjoying the course, with some ranking it as their favorite course of their semester.

“Jerry Mitrovica is a meme of a man, he’s an absolute riot,” said Sophie C. Webster ’21, a stu-

dent in the class. “Going to his lectures is like going to an hour of vaguely stand-up comedy.”

“There’s this stereotype around geoscience that it’s very boring and very dull — rocky as it were — but he does a really good job of delivering it with so much verve and enthusiasm,” she added.

Mitrovica said he and the course teaching fellows have made enhancing students’ experiences in EPS 10 their “priority.” To this end, they plan to offer students opportunities to extend their learning beyond the classroom — for example, by exploring the origins of pigments at the Harvard Art Museums and walking through a tectonic fault in EPS Department Chair John H. Shaw’s virtual reality lab.

Mitrovica said one of the lesser-appreciated legacies of a successful course is the sense of “community” it fosters. This is something he and the teaching staff of EPS 10 have striven to promote through class excursions and lighthearted discussions.

Kendra N. Wilkinson ’21, an-

other student in the class, said she thinks Mitrovica’s teaching is effective because he encourages his students to genuinely enjoy the material.

“Rather than making it a super hard class, he makes it very fun, but you learn just as much as you would otherwise,” Wilkinson said.

Mitrovica said the course’s growing size has presented some logistical challenges in terms of maximizing student interaction.

To accommodate the influx of students, the course was relocated from a smaller room, where students gathered around a U-shaped table, to a less intimate lecture hall.

Still, Mitrovica said he likes the direction the course is going this semester.

“We have lots of lighthearted times in the class, which I cherish and I think they do too,” he said.

“Hopefully [my stories] are relevant, but, to be honest, many of them aren’t.” amy.jia@thecrimson.com sanjana.narayanan@thecrimson.com

Students Gather Following Kavanaugh Confirmation

By REBECCA S. ARATEN and KEVIN R. CHEN CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

A group of students met to discuss how the contentious confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh affected student life and mental health at Harvard on Monday in the Grays Hall basement.

The discussion, entitled “Being in and of the World: Do Societal Changes Affect Social Life at Harvard?” was the second in a Diversity Dialogue Series sponsored by the Office of Diversity Education & Support.

The first event was a discussion about the affirmative action lawsuit against the University.

Diversity Peer Educators, who serve as student ambassadors to the Office of Diversity Education & Support, directed the conversation.

“Primarily, we just wanted to create a space,” Diversity Peer Educator Michelle Liang ’19 said. “The Kavanaugh case was really pressing and creating a lot of emotions that were just floating around and, at least for me, not necessarily having an outlet. As the DPEs, we just wanted to create a space where we could turn this energy into something productive.”

At least two women stepped forward in the weeks prior to Kavanaugh’s confirmation to accuse the judge of sexual assault perpetrated decades ago.

Undergraduate and graduate students protested Kavanaugh’s nomination following the accusations, and called on Harvard Law School to bar him from returning in the winter to teach as a lecturer. Days before his confirmation, Law School administrators announced that Kavanuagh would not be teaching his scheduled winter course.

Hannah A. Lemmons ’20, a Diversity Peer Educator, said that the event allowed students to speak what was on their minds.

“The primary goal is to provide students a space to talk about issues that they might not necessarily get a chance to discuss in their daily lives,” Lemmons said. “Whether that means you don’t get a chance to talk about this with your friends [or] … an academic context, you can come to these dialogues and get some of those thoughts off your chest.”

While other campus support resources exist for students who have experienced sexual assault on campus, like the Office for Sexual Assault Prevention & Response and the Title IX office, the peer educators said they had a specific responsibility to create a separate event to process the Kavanaugh confirmation.

“OSAPR focuses on resources, providing resources to survivors. We’re more about creating a space for students, especially

for talking and processing together,” Liang said. “We’re different from counselors in that respect too, because it’s more about opening up dialogues between students.”

Liang also said that the event specifically fell within the realm of the Office of Diversity Education & Support.

“What’s going on in the Kavanaugh case in the White House is the result of a lack of diversity and lack of diverse perspectives and diversity in background, race, gender. I guess where DPEs come into this is recognizing the harm that lack of diversity can cause and also the affirmative action case was really about that too, making sure that diversity continues to be a part of this campus,” she said.

Some students attending the event said it was important to have a space where they could discuss societal issues.

“The reason I really like these dialogues is because they allow me to self-reflect and bounce ideas off of other people, and by doing that, to refine my own ideas,” Sydney A. Lewis ’22 said. “It’s unlikely that I’ll come in feeling a certain way and leave with a completely new understanding, but I don’t think that’s the goal. I think the goal is more introspection and self-reflection and coming to term with your own views and also respecting the views of others.”

Lev. House Deans Settle Into Role

By CONNOR W.K. BROWN and EDWARD W. KARR CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Leverett House Faculty Deans Brian D. Farrell and Irina P. Ferreras have quickly settled into their new positions following the departure of Howard M. Georgi ’68 and Ann B. Georgi at the end of the 2017-18 academic year.

The Georgis — affectionately known as “Chief” and “Coach” — served as deans of Leverett House for over 20 years and the pair played a major role in developing Leverett’s current identity.

According to Leverett resident Vitor DeFreitas ’19, Farrell and Ferraras have “big shoes to fill.”

“All of the parts of the House community have been working closely with us to make our transition easy,” Farrell and Ferraras wrote in an emailed statement.

The new faculty deans have maintained many of the traditions left by the Georgis, while also putting their own stamp on the House with new art.

“Monkey Bread and Math and Physics Night are still strong traditions at Leverett,” Farrell and Ferraras wrote.

“The David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and the Hutchins Center

for African and African American Research have very generously loaned us many pieces of contemporary art that are on display in the common areas of McKinlock.”

The new deans also have restructured the Senior Common Room experience for students in the house.

“We are actively building our Senior Common Room with new faculty and visiting scholars and will inaugurate a series of lunch talks in the spring to introduce them to our students,” they wrote.

The new deans also hope to add a increased cultural and artistic elements to future Leverett Open Houses by “bringing student music groups.”

Freitas said he is optimistic for the future of the House.

“They’re really cool,” says Freitas. “They see the students and have lunch, have dinner with them.”

Farrell and Ferreras said they wanted to leave a legacy in the House of a culture of appreciation for the arts.

“The House will be known for Music, Art, International Culture and for Nature (that is, the M.A.I.N.) House!” they wrote.

“As the largest House, we want to build a strong feeling of belonging and inclusiveness for all.”

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Former West Wing Staffers Talk White House at IOP

By MICHELLE G. KURILLA and AMANDA Y. SU CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Former White House officials recounted their experiences working in the West Wing and encouraged students to not lose faith in politics at a forum hosted Monday by the Institute of Politics.

At the forum, titled, “West Wingers: Personal Stories of Public Service,” the four speakers each discussed the time they spent working in the West Wing, and focused conversation on their recently published book.

Their conversation was moderated by Aneesh V. Raman ’01, a former speechwriter to President Barack Obama.

Following their tenure serving under the 44th president, the speakers penned and published a book together with other West Wing staff members titled “West Wingers: Stories from the Dream Chasers, Change Makers, and Hope Creators Inside the Obama White House.”

Gautam Raghavan, a former White House BGLTQ and Asian American Pacific Islander liaison, pitched and edited the book.

“Each chapter in the book is a personal story and a policy story, showing ways that, for each of us, our work at the White House became the work of our lives,” Raghavan said.

“We push for new commu-

nities to have a seat at the table and for new voices to secure their place in the telling of the American story.”

During the event, they shared insight on some of their personal portfolios while in the White House and recounted some of their “coolest Obama moments.”

Raina Thiele, a former White House liaison for intergovernmental affairs, talked about a humorous moment where Obama asked her, “How’d I do?” after his historic trip to Alaska as the first sitting president to cross the Arctic Circle.

The speakers reflected on times when Obama demonstrated humor and humility, as well as unwavering positivity, especially following the results of the 2016 presidential election.

Ned Price, a former senior director of the National Security Council, recounted Obama reminding tearful White House staffers, following the election results, “History zigs and zags; it doesn’t move in a straight line.”

Despite the hardships that the five panelists said they have each experienced, the common thread throughout all of their narratives was their hope in the Obama administration and its work.

“I stayed fundamentally because I believed in Barack Obama,” Raghavan said.

Rumana A. Ahmed, a Kennedy School student and for-

Former West Wing staffers talked about their personal experiences serving in the Obama administration at the Institute of Politics on Monday evening. KATHRYN S. KUHAR—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

mer National Security Council staffer, urged attendees to not only focus on the “now,” but instead to remember that the conditions of American society today are the result of struggle and unrest but also historical resilience.

Drake E. Johnson ’22 said he is considering a career in politics and said he felt inspired by

the experiences of the speakers.

He said he gained valuable insight into the ways individuals can take simple steps to impact others around them.

“I’ve always wanted to have a great impact but I’ve always struggled with how to make that impact,” Johnson said. “I want to help instill hope and develop hope.”

When an audience member floated the possibility of the panelists running for office themselves, Ahmed responded with a clear message to voters: “I think it’s important to keep in mind that you don’t have to be running for office, but every single one of you here should be taking your own butts to vote — and get your friends to vote too.”

THE HARVARD CRIMSON |

OCTOBER 16, 2018

PAGE 8

HUHS Begins Annual Flu Vaccination Campaign

A sign advertises flu vaccines offered for Harvard affiliates by Harvard University Health Services.

KARINA G. GONZALEZ-ESPINOZA

— CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

KARINA G. GONZALEZ-ESPINOSA

By BRIE K. BUCHANAN and OLIVER L. RISKIN-KUTZ CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Harvard University Health Services, with the help of undergraduates, is gearing up to prevent a flu epidemic on campus this winter, holding vaccination clinics and encouraging people to get their flu shot.

Earlier this month, HUHS

started hosting vaccination clinics, offering free flu shots to all University affiliates. Harvard students, faculty, and staff can walk over to HUHS in the Smith Campus Center to receive their shots, and HUHS is also running mobile clinics out of the Law School, Business School, Medical School, and undergraduate dining halls.

HealthPALS member Mar-

garet “Maggie” E. Reynolds ’20 said the student organization assists HUHS in coordinating these clinics for College students.

“All they have to do is fill out a form, they get in line, the nurse gives them their flu shot, and then they get a little ‘I got my flu shot’ sticker at the end of it,” Reynolds said.

Riley E. Hoveland ’22 said

she appreciated the convenience of the clinics.

“It takes literally three seconds and it doesn’t hurt, so why wouldn’t you get one?” she said.

Donna V. Campbell, the infection control surveillance officer for HUHS, said the flu clinics aim to immunize a large percentage of Harvard affiliates by making vaccinations convenient and accessible.

“We’re aiming for herd immunity,” Campbell explained.

Herd immunity is an epidemiological term that describes a situation where a large percentage of a population is immunized from an infectious disease, thus also protecting individuals who are not immune from the disease.

“You’re getting a flu shot, but you’re basically trying to protect other people who can’t,” she added.

In addition to the flu clinics happening throughout the week, Reynolds also encouraged people to take simple preventative measures to limit the spread of the flu. Reynolds said it’s “all the silly things we’ve learned since we were five” — washing hands, covering coughs, and being aware of the people around you.

Campbell agreed, saying these preventative measures, in addition to the vaccine, are essential for limiting the virus’s spread.

The Center for Disease Control found that last year’s vaccine was only about 40 percent effective; most experts estimate that the vaccine takes two weeks to be fully effective.

William P. Hanage, a epidemiology professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, said part of this problem arises from the way the vaccines are created.

“Flu is a moving target,” Hanage said. “We have to make a very educated guess, or as educated as you possibly can be, as to what’s going to be a problem down the line.”

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This year, Hanage said the flu seems to be derived from the H1N1 strain, the same one that caused the 2009 swine flu pandemic.

He warned about the unpredictability of the flu, especially this early in the season.

But from observing the flu season so far in Australia, he said this year’s flu seems moderate.

Nevertheless, Campbell said the unique nature of a college campus environment affects community efforts to prevent the spread of the flu.

Campbell said college students might be particularly prone to infection: “Any kind of communal living situation is kind of a hotbed for anything that’s infectious.”

On the other hand, Reynolds said the close-knit environment of a college campus can also have advantages for flu prevention.

She said people often go with their friends to get shots, or are prompted by seeing the “I got my flu shot” stickers.

Campbell said HUHS encourages people to get their shot soon. She added that most cases of the flu are observed after Thanksgiving because affiliates leave campus and often return with diseases from other environments.

She said the most important thing to prevent a flu epidemic on campus is for everyone to be vaccinated.

“Everybody should have a flu shot. Everybody,” she said.

Hanage agreed. “If you’re offered a vaccine, take it,” he said.

PAGE 9

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | OCTOBER 16, 2018

Observatory In Repair

By JULIET E. ISSELBACHER and LUCY LIU CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

The Loomis-Michael Observatory Telescope — located on the tenth floor of Harvard’s Science Center — is undergoing a series of improvements that student astronomers say will renew and revitalize its role on campus.

The improvements include a thorough cleaning of the lenses and a mechanical repair of the hand paddle, which allows for fine control of the telescope’s movement. The astronomy department has also authorized improvements to the observatory’s dome and the telescope’s pier, which is used to support the telescope. The changes are minor, but long overdue, according to Student Astronomers at Harvard-Radcliffe President Rodrigo E. Cordova ’19.

Prior to the improvements, observers could see the dust on the end of the telescope when looking through it. The hand paddle, meanwhile, had been broken for most of STAHR’s institutional memory, according to Cordova. He laughed when recalling having to manually adjust the instrument in past years.

“I remember teaching a class and having to say, ‘If it’s almost in the center but not quite there… just pat it,’” Cordova said.

Cordova added that the telescope’s recovered capacity for fine, mechanized adjustment will allow the club to pursue its burgeoning interest in astrophotography.

Funding for the repairs comes out of the Science Center’s facilities budget. Some repairs, like the fixes made to the hand paddle, have already been completed. The upcoming repairs will not interfere with student use of the telescope, Cordova said.

The telescope’s history at Harvard extends all the way back to 1976. Yellowing logbooks, stuffed rather haphazardly into the drawers of a filing cabinet, are witnesses to this decades-long history.

Students who took the time to look through the logbooks have occasionally stumbled across a familiar name.

“Couldn’t sleep,” begins one 1:45 a.m. entry by Neil deGrasse Tyson ’80.

The telescope itself is old, but its design is even older, predating Isaac Newton’s modern reflecting telescope. According to Cordova, “this is the older

type of [refracting] telescope, the kind that that Galileo, for instance...pointed at the sky.”

Since the telescope is outdated, the Loomis-Michael Observatory is not used for classes or research, but is primarily meant for recreational use.

Students who complete a telescope training course run by STAHR receive swipe access to the observatory.

Though the telescope is not technically impressive, even compared to the smaller, portable telescopes owned by STAHR, Cordova said there’s something special about “actually learning how to run an observatory, and how to spin the dome, and how to move a telescope up and down.”

Demand for the telescope course is high — while STAHR can train around 60 students per semester, over 200 apply each time the club releases applications for the class.

Astronomy Professor Jonathan “Josh” E. Grindlay, who used the Loomis Michael Observatory telescope during his graduate studies at Harvard, said he found the telescope to be a great opportunity for undergraduates, who can “look at lots of things visually and learn a lot from what [they’re] doing.

And it’s beautiful.”

PAPERS FROM PAGE 1

SHOPPING FROM PAGE 1

HMS Requests Admins Papers’ Retraction Replace Lancet to publish an “expression of concern” about another.

Anversa and one of his co-authors subsequently sued Harvard and Brigham and Women’s in response, alleging that their investigations were illegal and harming the researchers’ reputations.

In an August 2016 decision, the University and the hospital won the lawsuit.

After leaving Harvard and Brigham and Women’s in December 2015, Anversa went to work at Cardiocentro Ticino, a Swiss institute affiliated with the University of Zurich.

April Rusconi, assistant director at Cardiocentro Ticino, wrote in an email that Anversa no longer works there.

Last April, Brigham and Women’s and its parent company, Partners Healthcare, paid a $10 million settlement to the federal government for alleged research fraud Anversa committed in obtaining tens of millions of dollars in funds from the National Institutes of Health.

A press release from the Department of Justice stated at the

time that Anversa and his colleagues had violated several research norms.

“The government alleges that problems with the work of the laboratory included improper protocols, invalid and inaccurately characterized

A bedrock principle of science is that all publications are supported by rigorous research practices.

Harvard and Bringham Women’s Statement

cardiac stem cells, reckless or deliberately misleading record-keeping, and discrepancies and/or fabrication of data and images included in applications and publications,” the press release stated. luke.vrotsos@thecrimson.com.

TRIAL FROM PAGE 1

Lawyers for Harvard, SFFA Give Opening Statements He testified for over an hour, facing down a long string of largely technical questions from SFFA’s lawyers. SFFA’s main line of questioning Monday centered around the group’s allegation that Asian-Americans must earn higher scores than Harvard hopefuls of other races to earn a coveted letter inviting them to apply to the College. Fitzsimmons did not deny the charges, but said Harvard crafts its outreach to high schoolers to ensure the school reaches “people from all backgrounds.”

The University’s top administrators — including former University President Drew G. Faust, Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana, and former Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Michael D. Smith — did not miss out on the action. Dressed in business formal attire, they sat together in the back left corner of the courtroom. Faust, Khurana, and Smith watched silently as lawyers kicked off a trial that could decide the fate of affirmative action in the United States.

The trial is expected to last for three weeks — but, no matter how Judge Allison D. Burroughs ultimately rules, the disappointed party will likely appeal and the case will likely make its way to a right-leaning Supreme Court.

Below, The Crimson breaks down the arguments and evidence introduced on Day One.

MORTARA

At 10 a.m., SFFA lawyer Mortara stepped to the podium to offer opening statements — and he did not mince words. “The evidence in this trial will show that

Harvard intentionally discriminates against Asian-American applicants,” he said.

Mortara mostly stuck to previous SFFA talking points during his roughly hour-long speech.

He complained that Fitzsimmons and Khurana had chosen to ignore an internal Harvard study that concluded the school’s admissions process disadvantages Asian-American applicants. Documents made public as part of the suit over the summer revealed that the University’s Office of Internal Research concluded in a series of confidential reports circulated among top administrators — including Fitzsimmons and Khurana — in 2013 that the College’s admissions process produces “negative effects” for Asian Americans. College officials took no serious action to address the study at the time.

“Instead, Dean Fitzsimmons and Harvard decided that the system was working as they intended,” Mortara said.

He also pointed to another summer revelation: that Asian-American applicants to Harvard receive substantially lower ratings for their personal traits as compared to students from other racial backgrounds.

“The personal rating is crucial to admission for Harvard,” Mortara said. “You have let the wolf of racial bias in through the front door.”

Mortara noted that SFFA’s expert witness — Duke economist Peter S. Arcidiacono — “found a substantial penalty” for Asian Americans when he analyzed data related to Harvard’s admissions process. He added that Arci-

diacono used a “conservative” statistical model that likely “underestimates” the extent of Harvard’s alleged discrimination.

LEE

Just after 11 a.m., Lee replaced Mortara to deliver Harvard’s opening statement. He began by naming and waving at the administrators in the courtroom including Faust, Fitzsimmons, Khurana, and Smith (some of them waved back). Lee argued the University’s top brass has never participated in discrimination against applicants of any race.

Lee mostly focused on precedent in his roughly hour-long remarks. He frequently pointed to previous Supreme Court cases which he said established Harvard’s method as a legal way to consider race in the admissions process.

He dismissed the statistical analysis conducted by SFFA-employed economist Arcidiacono.

Lee quoted former Federal Reserve Chair Janet L. Yellen and 17 other economists who, in a previous court filing, declared that analysis “simply not reliable” and its conclusions “implausible.”

“If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything,” Lee said.

Lee further defended Harvard’s race-conscious admissions by pointing to the Supreme Court’s opinion in the 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger case.

That case, Lee said, set the precedent that it is “permissible” to pay “some attention” to the numbers when crafting an incoming class of Harvard freshmen — though it is still forbidden to use

racial quotas.

Lee also defended Harvard’s use of “soft” — or non-academic — factors to distinguish among academically exceptional applicants.

He noted that, for the Class of 2019, more than 8,100 applicants to the College boasted “perfect” grade point averages. The students were competing for fewer than 1,700 spots.

Lee showed the court excerpts from an admissions office handbook that lists “tip” factors meant to help Harvard reviewers evaluate applicants. The factors included “outstanding and unusual intellectual ability,” “unusually appealing personal qualities,” and “geographic, ethnic, and economic factors.” A marked-up Harvard application a College senior previously submitted in court showed that school admissions officers paid close attention to the student’s personal traits and immigrant background.

“Harvard never considers an applicant’s race to be a negative,” Lee said. “If it considers race, it’s always considered in a positive light.” Near the close of his speech, Lee said a Harvard applicant’s status as Asian-American does not affect his or her chance of admission. It’s “not distinguishable from zero,” Lee said.

FITZSIMMONS

Fitzsimmons — in many ways the man of the moment — took the stand at 2 p.m. to face examination from SFFA lawyer John M. Hughes. Fitzsimmons has served as dean of admissions since 1986.

Citing internal Harvard admissions documents made public as part of the lawsuit, Hughes

asserted that Asian-American students must score higher than high schoolers of other races on the PSAT and SAT in order to receive a special letter inviting them to apply to the College. Hughes specifically asked Fitzsimmons to explain why a white student with a PSAT score of 1310 would receive a letter while an Asian male who had earned a 1370 would not.

Fitzsimmons did not contest Hughes’s charges. But he vehemently disputed the notion that this method of outreach constitutes racial discrimination.

He said Harvard’s recruitment method “is just about reaching out to people of all backgrounds, especially those with disadvantaged economic backgrounds.”

“What we are trying to do with the students who are not Asians is to get a sense of what extent economic background might make a difference in their ability to score on the PSAT or SAT,” Fitzsimmons said. “It comes down to the stark economic differences.”

Fitzsimmons said he wants to advertise Harvard in areas like “the heartland of America” where the university is not necessarily “on anyone’s radars.”

The University currently faces a political climate in the United States that is increasingly hostile to higher education; President Lawrence S. Bacow recently traveled to Pontiac, Mich. to convince locals Harvard isn’t so bad. alexandra.chaidez@thecrimson.com. delano.franklin@thecrimson.com. samuel.zwickel@thecrimson.com.

UNION FROM PAGE 1

Grad Union and Harvard Begin Initial Bargaining Sessions undergraduate students first voted on whether to form a union in Nov. 2016.

If the union succeeds in advocating for major reforms, the negotiations could radically change the student experience of HGSU-UAW’s roughly 5,000 members. At the rally, attendees were asked to shout out what they hope the first contract will produce. Among their asks: “fair pay,” “vision and dental,” “accountability against abuse,” “protect international workers,” and “childcare support.”

In agreeing to bargain in good faith with the union, Harvard joins a small handful of private universities — including Brandeis University, Tufts University, New York University, the New School, and American University — that have entered formal contract negotiations with their students. Of these

cases, HGSU-UAW’s negotiations are of an unprecedented scale — at around 5,000 members, HGSU-UAW’s bargaining unit is about five times the size of other student unions’.

The union’s sheer numbers could complicate negotiations — and the makeup and complexity of the bargaining unit, which is comprised of undergraduate and graduate teaching and research assistants, may also prove thorny.

As they work towards a contract, HSGU-UAW and administrators will have to navigate the financial status, harassment policies, and administrative priorities of Harvard’s 12 schools — all of which may not necessarily align.

HGSU-UAW’s bargaining committee spent much of the summer and fall surveying its constituents and develop-

ing an 80-count list of preliminary bargaining goals. Experts called the list, which spanned topics from childcare to anti-discrimination protections, “very ambitious,” a charge several speakers refuted at Monday’s event.

HGSU-UAW Civil and Human Rights Committee member Felix Y. Owusu said his prior experience as a member of another graduate student union — the UC Student-Workers Union at the University of California, Berkeley — leads him to believe that HSGU-UAW can negotiate a contract that touches every aspect of members’ experience.

“Ignoring the fact that this is negotiations — we don’t want to compromise preemptively — some of the things that people talked about that seems like they were pie-in-the-sky, kind of ‘reach’ things, are not,” he

said.

“A lot of the things that we’re saying that we could never do or we couldn’t afford here at Harvard University, with an endowment the size of the GDP of some nations, are things that other universities already have in their unions’ contracts.”

Despite the gravity of their asks, the pre-bargaining event also included lighter moments.

Students drank “solidarity cider,” and sang or spoke chants.

Bargaining committee member Ege Yumusak ’16 — a former Crimson magazine editor — said her team would be late if they didn’t leave the Yard soon.

Soon after, the entire crowd began shepherding the 13-member bargaining team towards their meeting with the University, held in the Office for Labor and Employee Relations.

Representatives from HG-

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SU-UAW declined to comment on how the session went.

In an emailed statement, University spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain emphasized the unique circumstances under which the negotiations are taking place.

“We were pleased to begin negotiations today with our newest union partners as we begin the process of creating, from scratch, the first-ever contract of its kind here at Harvard,” he wrote.

“We remain focused on engaging in productive, thoughtful discussions that will move the negotiations forward and result in a superior contract for both parties, upholding Harvard’s commitment to excellence for all students.” shera.avi-yonah@thecrimson.com. molly.mccafferty@thecrimson.com.

UC Forum

“Administrators said these three listening events will be more productive as they are directly with the faculty committee working on the alternative proposals that will be voted on in the Spring,” Palaniappan wrote.

Undergraduate Council representatives plan to hold a shopping week “organizing session” Tuesday in place of the cancelled town hall. As of Monday evening, more than 100 Facebook users had marked themselves as “Going” to the nixed event — and more than 200 had marked themselves “Interested” in attending.

In her message to undergraduates Monday, Claybaugh wrote Harvard administrators are “no longer certain that the benefits of shopping period are worth the costs.”

The shopping week committee’s formation comes after years of back-and-forth among Harvard professors over whether to alter the College’s course registration process. The debate reignited at the March 2018 faculty meeting when Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana raised the topic, spurring denunciations of shopping week from several professors.

Khurana did not introduce a formal proposal to change Harvard’s class registration process at the time. Several months later, Claybaugh formally proposed switching to early registration at a September Faculty Council meeting. Under an early registration system, students would register for classes prior to the start of the semester.

The Council chose not to vote on Claybaugh’s proposal; it will instead wait for the shopping week committee to complete its work.

Multiple professors have said shopping week prevents them from planning for courses in advance and also creates uncertainty about the number of teaching fellows they need to train and hire. Graduate students have said the week of undergraduate indecision forces them into a state of limbo, unsure which courses they will be expected to teach.

In an interview earlier this month, FAS Dean Claudine Gay said she supports replacing shopping week with an early registration system.

Claybaugh wrote that the “listening sessions” will offer shopping week committee members more chances to hear from students.

“We wanted to have three sessions, rather than one, to multiply the opportunities for students to be heard,” Claybaugh wrote in an email.

Palaniappan wrote that she hopes the faculty committee will seriously weigh student input. She wrote the consideration of undergraduates’ voices should not become “just a formality.”

“Students need to be part of this conversation as shopping week is an integral aspect of the academic experience here at Harvard and something many people hold dear to their heart,” Palaniappan wrote.

Chloe A. Saracco ’21, who said she had planned to attend the UC town hall Tuesday, said she was “definitely disappointed” when she first heard the event was cancelled. But she added she is glad administrators will hold future listening sessions.

Without shopping week, Saracco said, “I would have been stuck in three or more courses that I would not have been excited about. I definitely want to express that to [administrators].”

The UC is currently surveying students to sample campus opinion on shopping week.

The Council’s survey has garnered over 1,700 responses since representatives sent it out in early October, according to UC President Catherine L. Zhang ’19.

Going forward, Zhang wrote in an email, the UC plans to “use [the survey’s responses] to inform the way we advocate, since the Undergraduate Council wants to first and foremost be representative of student opinion.” simone.chu@thecrimson.com. angela.fu@thecrimson.com. lucy.wang@thecrimson.com.

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | october 16, 2018

Page 10

Editorial The Crimson Editorial board

Beat Yale (At the Ballot Box)

A

lthough the 2016 Harvard-Yale football game was a tragic letdown (the Crimson fell to the Bulldogs 21 to 14), Harvard prevailed over our New Haven neighbor by a razor thin margin in something arguably more important that year: the rate at which undergraduate students voted.

In 2016, 57.8 percent of Harvard students voted in the presidential election, compared to 56.7 percent of students at Yale. Those numbers might seem surprisingly low, but according to a survey by the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement, the average rate of voting in 2014 among participating institutions of higher education was just 18.8 percent. Yet while Yale might claim to be part of the voter-turnout elite, Harvard still managed to #BeatYale.

In order to increase voter turnout for the significant upcoming elections, organizers have coordinated to launch the Harvard-Yale Votes Challenges, a competition to see which school could garner a higher number of pledges to vote.

We are in full support of this idea — any match in which we can prove Harvard’s objective superiori-

ty is a match we’d like to see. In a year when many students fear that the relocated Harvard-Yale football game will be a dud, we wholeheartedly welcome another creative outlet to rally our school spirit, crush Yale, and (perhaps) even more importantly, get out the vote. Voting is a vital civic duty.

We wholeheartedly welcome another creative outlet to rally our school spirit, crush Yale, and (perhaps) even more importantly, get out the vote.

It is especially important for young people, who are notoriously absent at the polls, to participate.

Less than half of Americans between the ages of 18 and 30 voted in the 2016 election, while over 70 percent of seniors did. In a year

Why We Simplify

art for non-artists

I

’ve spent countless conversations defending abstract art — paintings like a red line slashed over a blank white background, or shapeless layered scribbles and splatters, or multicolored boxes suspended across a canvas. The kind of art that makes people scoff and conclude that “any child could have made it.” The kind of art that I, too, used to consider boring, pointless, and overly simplistic.

But my mindset began to shift in a painting class at Harvard last year.

Sitting through lectures showed me how to truly contemplate paintings that I would have dismissed in seconds on my own.

And when assignments demanded that I make the kind of art that I didn’t like or understand, I realized that an incredibly time-consuming and complex process goes into creating simple-looking paintings.

Because simplicity forces artists to whittle their art down to its barest, most basic elements. And it forces viewers to work hard for comprehension. Unlike photorealistic art, for example, nobody can look at an abstract painting and instantly understand it. Each detail matters, but its significance is elusive.

There’s no “right” reason to explain why a certain shape’s mismatched edges don’t form a perfect square, why a particular combination of colors is oddly jarring, or why a specific line travels along jagged angles, rather than through smoothly meandering curves.

It’s easy to answer these questions by deeming the artwork aimless and arbitrary, something “any child could have made.”

But it’s much more interesting to view these works as interpretive puzzles, exercises for the imagination, inviting artists and viewers to somehow make sense of what they’re seeing.

We can transform abstract art into a streamlined version of reality, a representation of actual images and events, or even a simple narrative about balanced, bizarre, or surprising relationships between shapes, colors, and lines. And humans are built to generate meaning out of simpler things.

We stare at the clouds to construct shapes, pictures, animals, and people from drifting water vapor. We connect random clusters of stars into constellations that tell stories.

We can’t help but see faces in inanimate objects everywhere — trees, wall sockets, car bumpers, or Jesus famously burnt into toast. And we can translate extraordinarily minimalist symbols like “:)” or “:(” or “:/” into complex emotional perceptions.

Yet so many people seem to be

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

End Shopping Week isabella C. aslarus—Crimson illustrator

Isabella C. Aslarus

when there are a great number of key political seats at play, students should have no shortage of opportunities to have their voices heard.

It is for this reason that we find it especially regrettable that Yale students, who reside in a more electorally competitive state than Harvard students, have voted at a lower rate than us in the past.

Today marks three weeks until Election Day, and 33 days until Harvard-Yale. While the outcome of The Game remains unknown, it is still well within our power as a student body to fulfill our civic duty and vote — and to fulfill our duty to Harvard by voting more than Yalies do.

After all, nothing is scarier than the thought of Yale students choosing our future leaders.

averse to simplicity.

This aversion manifests itself in negative responses to abstract art (my own initial response included).But it also manifests in so many other areas — like the joke about a physics problem that “assumes a spherical cow in a frictionless vacuum,” which critiques oversimplification in scientific and mathematical modeling.

The real world is impossibly complicated, so simplicity can be seen as a failure, something detached from reality, unable to tell us anything practical or useful. And this same aversion is manifested in our everyday lives.

At Harvard, people tend to complicate rather than simplify.

There are always more meetings, lunches, lectures, clubs, comps, shows, or practices to squeeze into our calendars. And our jam-packed academic, extracurricular, and social lives are often scheduled down to the minute.

We’re more enthusiastic to take on responsibilities than to drop them.

And I think that sometimes we forget to ask ourselves why.

Valuing simplicity doesn’t mean that we should indiscriminately slash our schedules, cut down our activities, or seek to accomplish the bare minimum. It just means that we should take the time to contemplate everything we’re doing in broad strokes, with the same meditative energy that allows us to look at an abstract painting and find a bridge between its complexity and simplicity.

The day-to-day workings of our lives can and will be complicated and difficult, but our overarching goals and values tend to be much clearer.

And it’s important to make sure that these two facets align with each other.

We often feel like we have to take certain classes, join certain groups, pursue certain leadership positions, aim for certain jobs — but there’s no point to doing so if they won’t bring us happiness, won’t reward and fulfill our values, won’t actually help us realize our dreams.

It’s okay to simplify our lives when simplification ultimately preserves these core underlying goals.

Simplicity and complexity are two sides of the same coin.

They teach us the most when we join them together: Abstract art and reality, spherical cows and living ones, our broader aspirations and the countless daily steps we take to get there.

Without complicating interpretations, abstract art remains dismissible, boring, arbitrary — in the same way that, without concrete actions to achieve them, our aspirations remain abstract and unattainable.

And we must always stay faithful to these broader aspirations to the simplest reasons why we wake up every morning and make it through the daily grind, in order to give it greater meaning.

—Isabella C. Aslarus ’21, a Crimson Design editor, lives in Leverett House. Her column appears on alternate Tuesdays.

T

By Jeff D. williams

he Faculty of Arts and Sciences is considering changing to an early registration system starting as early as spring of 2020, moving away from the current “shopping week,” a period at the start of each semester during which students can sit in on courses before enrolling.

It’s about time. While shopping week may allow undergraduates to obtain slightly more information about courses, it is simply not worth the costs borne largely by graduate student teaching fellows.

Every semester, graduate student TFs face problems caused by shopping week. Because there is no way to determine the final student enrollment for courses, it is impossible to accurately predict where TFs need to be assigned.

In my department, this has resulted in at least one TF needing to be moved after shopping week in every semester I’ve been at Harvard.

In my first semester teaching, this happened to me, where after spending weeks preparing for one course — meeting with the professor and other TFs, preparing readings, planning sections, and doing other administrative tasks — I was forced to move to a new course with only two days to prepare for my first section. Not only was this a problem for me, but my students also had to deal with the change.

Additionally, the lack of ability to plan can lead to more serious labor issues. Some TFs that aren’t guaranteed teaching can lose their funding if their assigned course ends up under-enrolled.

In another example from my department, a TF agreed to take on a section of another course — along with a corresponding pay increase — in addition to two sections of her assigned course. But when her first assigned course was under-enrolled, one of her two sections was removed along with her pay increase, leaving her teaching two sections of two different courses, while being paid the same rate as any other TF. There are also downsides for professors. When one course I was assigned to ended up over-enrolled, our department had to find two additional TFs and a new classroom that could accommodate the class size in less than a week. The professor, meanwhile, had to alter her course to reflect the change from 40 to over 100 students, while working with the new TFs and a lessthan-ideal classroom.

Professors also cannot expect students to complete work — or at times even show up — during shopping week, making planning difficult.

Students are also adversely affected by shopping week. Lotteries for courses often don’t occur until the end of shopping week, and sections often cannot be planned until two or even three weeks into the semester. This makes it difficult for undergraduates to plan their schedules, especially for those who have jobs or are engaged in

extracurricular activities.

All of these problems are completely avoidable with an early registration system, something that many other universities in the United States have.

Here is how the system works, for example, at my alma mater, the University of Virginia. The course catalog for the upcoming Fall semester is released in March, allowing students ample time to search for courses and read posted course syllabi and course reviews. Registration begins in April, with more senior students signing up earlier, while incoming first year students sign up during a mandatory meeting with an advisor during their orientation (and some space in certain courses popular among first years is reserved).

Nobody is locked into place, however, as students are still allowed some flexibility to change courses during an add/drop period in the first two weeks of the semester.

The difference is that the burden is on the student, where in order to change courses, the new course must have space and must fit their schedule.

Students are also responsible for any material and assignments missed due to joining a course late. Data from other universities, meanwhile, shows that while there is plenty of student movement in the add/drop period, the

There are too many benefits to be gained from early registration to offset a very small cost. The uncertainty that comes with the shopping week — particularly for graduate students — is simply not worth keeping this unique Harvard feature. It’s time for shopping week to go. overall numbers for most courses do not deviate significantly from the early registration period.

During the period between early registration and the start of the semester, however, necessary adjustments can be made.

If a course is over-enrolled, there is time either to set up a waitlist or lottery, or to find a larger classroom to accommodate more students. Whether a class is under- or over-enrolled, professors have time to adjust the design of their courses, and TFs can be properly assigned.

There are too many benefits to be gained from early registration to offset a very small cost. The uncertainty that comes with the shopping week — particularly for graduate students — is simply not worth keeping this unique Harvard feature. It’s time for shopping week to go.

—Jeff D. Williams is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in Music in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

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THE HARVARD CRIMSON | OCTOBER 16, 2018

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

Good thing we’ve got both.

Bringing you the sights and sounds of Cambridge, seven days a week.

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SPORTS

FOOTBALL

ABOUT THE TEAM

2018 Overall Record 3-2 ______________________________________

Points Allowed Per Game 22.6 ______________________________________

UPCOMING GAMES ______________________________________

Conference Record 1-1 ______________________________________

Yards Per Game 439.8 ______________________________________

Home Record 2-1 ______________________________________

Rushing Yards Per Game 207.8 ______________________________________

Football vs. Princeton 12:00pm, at Harvard Field

Away Record 1-1 ______________________________________

Passing Yards Per Game 232 ______________________________________

Points Per Game 28.0 ______________________________________

Streak WON 1 ______________________________________

Football vs. Dartmouth 1:30pm, at Dartmouth

NOTEBOOK

Last-Second Field Goal Caps off Close Harvard Win

By JACK STOCKLESS CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

One play during the third quarter of Harvard’s clash with Holy Cross on Friday night effectively summed up the entire matchup.

Sophomore running back Aaron Shampklin secured the handoff from quarterback Tom Stewart and burst forward.

Shampklin advanced 16 yards to the Crimson’s 38, but that’s where everything went awry.

During a collision, his grasp on the ball faltered and all of a sudden possession was up for grabs.

Crusaders cornerback Josh Hicks scooped up the bouncing ball, but as soon as he appeared set on guiding his team toward Harvard’s end zone, he too fumbled. The Crimson’s John Stivers recovered and took the ball to his team’s 33 yard line. Gain of 11 yards, first down.

Harvard led for most of the contest, surrendered its lead in gut-wrenching fashion, and just as quickly settled down to reclaim its edge. Though Crimson fans may have been expecting their team to triumph more comfortably over Holy Cross, the final score is much more important than the way in which points find themselves added to the board, just as Harvard’s offense was more than content with an 11-yard gain after two fumbles.

“First of all, I don’t think I could be any prouder of our kids, every one of them,” Crimson coach Tim Murphy said.

“We always talk situationally about [how to] expect adversity, to embrace adversity...and you’ve just got to fight through it. That’s all we did. We had to make play after play after play, after being 16 points up in the fourth quarter.” ­

CRUNCH TIME Four plays during Harvard’s final drive stood out above the rest.

Facing third-and-two at the Crusaders’ 49, senior running back Charlie Booker jutted forward out of the backfield only to be enveloped by a mass of his own linemen and opposing defenders. The pile’s tug of war ultimately came up Crimson, as Booker forced the ball just inches past the first down marker.

Several snaps later and in a worse spot, Stewart took to the air on fourth-and-four. His throw found its target, as sophomore Tyler Adams corralled the pass just before absorbing a big hit. The sophomore maintained possession and again did just enough to move the chains.

On the very next play, Stewart hit Adams again. This connection was good for 30 yards, and it was on this play that Harvard dramatically increased its chances of winning. Without a large gain such as this one, the Crimson would have been in no man’s land outside of field goal range with a clock quickly ticking down to 0:00.

Last but not least, kicker Jake McIntyre delivered in a pressure-packed situation.

With two seconds on the clock — and as a result no room for error — the junior was iced but coolly knocked the 25-yard kick through the uprights to seal the 33-31 victory as time expired.

With number one receiver Justice Shelton-Mosley out of action for the Holy Cross contest, Murphy had to toss another wideout into the mix. That receiver turned out to be Adams.

“Tyler’s obviously a great athlete,” Stewart said. “You saw him on that one quick slant over the middle, he was able to break

a tackle and take it to the end zone. And then when we needed him the most he came up with a play and made a catch — a very tough, contested catch that was a pass interference. I believe in every single one of my guys regardless of what’s going on, and it was incredible. Incredible effort out of him and an incredible team win tonight.”

All told, Adams recorded 117 total yards, 110 more than he had posted in his collegiate career before Friday night.

Perhaps surprisingly, Adams was not the only sophomore receiver who caught his first career touchdown pass on Friday night. In the second quarter, James Batch grabbed a pass from Stewart to extend Harvard’s lead to 20-7 heading into the locker room.

BEND BUT DON’T BREAK A consistent descriptor of Murphy’s defense this year has been “bend but don’t break.” The defensive unit did exactly that against the Crusaders this past weekend.

“I’m just really proud of the guys, the resiliency we showed,” said captain and defensive back Zach Miller. “It starts with those guys up front. They bust their butts every single down.

They go unnoticed a lot, those D-linemen, and they’re some of the top guys in the league, so for them to establish the line of scrimmage two yards back, three yards back every play, that’s such a huge opportunity.

And it’s impactful for the guys on the back end, the second and third level.”

Though this cannot be pinned entirely on the defense, as the offense and the special teams unit have struggled, the Crimson has blown double-digit leads in back-to-back weeks.

STEWART BIG Senior quarterback Tom Stewart eludes two defenders. TIMOTHY R. O’MEARA—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Against Cornell, the defense was unable to counteract that of the Big Red, which held Harvard scoreless for the final 10 minutes. This week, however, the defense came up with a huge stop in the fourth quarter that allowed the Crimson time to get down the field for its game-winning drive.

After stuffing Stewart on a fourth-and-five run, there appeared to be a buzz on the Holy Cross sideline. The visitors commanded a slim one-point lead, but they would get the ball back with just over five minutes remaining on the clock.

As it had all game, though, Harvard’s run defense stepped up to the task. Crusaders running back Domenic Cozier took the handoff three times in a row, and he lost five yards in the process. Just like that, the Crimson procured a crucial threeand-out to return possession to

Stewart and his offensive cache.

NOT SO SPECIAL With one half of the season in the books, it has become clear that Harvard has made a number of costly mistakes on special teams that have cost the team points and have disrupted its offensive rhythm.

The team has surrendered two safeties thus far. The first came against Rhode Island when freshman punter Jon Sot was pinned back against his own end zone, received a difficult snap, and booted the ball off his own lineman’s back. On Friday night, Stewart found himself in a similar situation in which the snap simply flew high and out of the end zone.

It may surprise some to learn that the most recent safety occurred directly following a kickoff. With the current kickoff rules, it is difficult not to ad-

vance the ball to at least your own 20, but this time, an apparent miscommunication led to return man Adam Scott having to make a desperation dive to stop the ball on his own two yard line.

After regrouping from the safety, the Crimson had to offer a free kick from its own 20.

Holy Cross picked up an early first down on this drive, but that is all it would get, as junior defensive end Brogan McPartland sacked quarterback Geoff Wade to force a punt. On this punt, Harvard would make another costly special teams mistake.

Returner Henry Taylor muffed the fair catch, and the Crusaders’ Cristos Argys recovered at the Crimson’s 13. This change in possession allowed Wade to hit receiver Martin Dorsey to put Holy Cross up, 31-30. jack.stockless@thecrimson.com

BASKETBALL

Brandyn Curry ’14 Helps with Basketball Non-Profit

By HENRY ZHU CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

For many who have advanced through Tommy Amaker’s basketball program at Harvard, one common theme is prevalent: a challenge to excel beyond the basketball court and truly make a genuine difference in the community.

Two former members of the program, All-Ivy standout Brandyn Curry ‘14 and team manager Mike Evans Ed.M.’11, have exemplified this message through prolonging their relationship outside the walls of Lavietes Pavilion.

For Evans, the idea to develop his own non-profit called

Full Court Peace preceded his time in Cambridge. The former Hamilton College graduate was playing professionally in Northern Ireland in 2006, a country embroiled in political tension amongst Protestants and Catholics even in the post-Good Friday years. While in Belfast, Evans recognized the opportunity to transform his passion for basketball into a unifying force for children growing up in this polarizing milieu.

“Basketball there was not tied to a religion,” Evans said. “...The youth basketball community was very small, so it was an opportunity to unite Catholic and Protestant youth together. That was the catalyst for the

GIVING BACK Brandyn Curry ‘14 takes some time off the court to strike an ecstatic pose with one of his many mentees. COURTESY OF BRANDYN CURRY

idea.”

A few years of hard work later, Full Court Peace began to see a noticeable impact in Belfast as basketball served as a vehicle to reduce animosity and bridge together largely isolated groups.

Children were bonded together through sport, and Evans recognized an opportunity to expand his “pilot” project across the globe.

In the past 10 years, Full Court Peace has organized service trips to Cuba where Americans and local Cubans work together to revamp rundown basketball courts. In addition, Full Court Peace organizes cross-background camps and leagues in Fairfield County, Conn., where socioeconomic gaps are amongst the largest nationally.

“The repeated interaction, the repeated winning and the repeated losing creates bonding for the kids,” Evans stated. “...

What we’re trying to do now is to have more of our trips to represent what we do in Connecticut, which is bringing together the have and the have-not communities.”

Shortly after turning over control of the Belfast program in 2009, Evans enrolled in the Harvard Graduate School of Education with hopes of elevating his non-profit and upping his knowledge in sports diplomacy. Here, the former overseas athlete decided to remain invested in basketball and became a manager for the Harvard Men’s Basketball team in 2010-11.

For Brandyn Curry, it was Evans’ persistent dedication to the sport that first stood out when the two first met. The Huntersville, N.C., native had just come off a stellar rookie season for the Crimson.

“You could tell [Evans] was an extremely hard worker, going to school and working hard for us,” Curry said. “He would also be working hard playing

basketball, he would shoot after and work on his own game.

So you could tell he really loves the game.”

The numerous conversations between the Crimson star and graduate student manager continued even after Evans earned his degree from the Ed. School in 2011 and the future sociology graduate signed his first overseas professional contract in 2014. While still cementing his basketball career first in Holland and later in Germany, Curry began to explore options for giving back and quickly connected back to Evans’ work with Full Court Peace.

“I am in a position where I am fortunate to be able to do what I want to do for a living, to get to play overseas,” Curry said.

“I definitely want to give back as much as I can... I had been keeping up with Mike [Evans] and everything and I looked more into what he was doing and it was just perfect.”

Curry added that the core philosophy of Full Court Peace as an organization to unite people of varying backgrounds particularly stood out to him.

“Basketball has done a lot for me, it has changed my life and it took me to places I never would have been without it,” Curry said. “It is such a powerful game and using it to change the lives of kids all around the world, it is how I should give back.”

The former Crimson guard’s contributions to Full Court Peace extend beyond his financial donations as one of the non-profit’s only monthly donors. Through his relationship with Wendell Maxey—a then public relations and media manager for Curry’s agency Core Sports Management— Curry was able to partner with an apparel company called XvsO Sports, based in Massachusetts.

This company, in which Maxey is now the VP of Marketing & Media, specializes in

representing memorable sports plays as works of art on t-shirts and posters. Examples of memorialized plays include the ‘Minneapolis Miracle’ catch by Vikings receiver Stefon Diggs or Duke legend Christian Laettner’s “The Shot”.

“There are these plays that might capture a moment in time but there is usually a story,” said founder and designer Mark Guarino. “If you put the moment in context you [realize] what the story is all about. It is usually what makes it more interesting.”

In recent years, XvsO has also sought to partner with athletes like Curry in order to create customized shirts of their most renowned moments. For the Harvard graduate, three shirts were created under his name and available currently for sale: The ‘Lefty Dunk’ play in Harvard’s defeat over Yale on February 18, 2012; Curry’s ‘Game Winner’ while playing for Dutch team Den Bosch in 2015; and most recently, the ‘Corner Three’ in the 2018 DBL Championships in Holland.

This project became more than just a commemoration of the Crimson alum’s personal moments. Here, Maxey and Curry recognized a chance for the t-shirts to be used as a platform for good. In reaching back to Evans and Full Court Peace, the two decided to form a partnership where a portion of the sales for Curry’s shirts would go toward Evans’ non-profit.

“The amazing thing was that Wendell and Brandyn came to me, and said that if there was to be a charitable component to it, [they] wanted to incorporate Full Court Peace,” Evans said.

“It was a win-win for all of us,” Maxey added. “...if people support what [Full Court Peace] is doing, they can purchase a shirt even if it is not for them.

The shirt is basically the canvas. And what happens between those lines with Mark [Gua-

rino]’s creativity as a designer and us saying, let’s collaborate and work with some people.”

This initiative has continued to today as Curry transitions to playing in the top-tier French professional league for ESSM Le Portel this season. Throughout this process, many working around Brandyn have appreciated his desire to contribute to organizations like Full Court Peace and help fellow athletes realize a larger perspective to their careers.

“Brandyn really sees the opportunity to go beyond his own achievements by starting to promote some of these other amateur athletes,” Guarino stated.

For Curry, much of this mentality and willingness to engage in partnerships like that between him, XvsO Sports, and Full Court Peace connect back to his time in Cambridge under the guidance of Coach Amaker.

“Coach Amaker is really big on being more than just a basketball player, really being a role model, taking an initiative to give back to your community, because we are all blessed to attend Harvard University,” Curry said.

This Crimson connection made on the basketball court nearly 10 years ago has lasted to the present, connecting together shared goals between business and non-profit. With all three parties—Full Court Peace, Brandyn Curry, and XvsO Sports— still in their developmental trajectories on and off the court, it is the appreciation for the role of sport and basketball that has been the unifying factor throughout this collaboration.

“I see firsthand how powerful the game of basketball is,” Curry concluded. “...Basketball brings us all together and I think it is a really powerful tool when used the right way.” henry.zhu@thecrimson.com