Friday, November 8, 2024

THE BROWN DAILY HER ALD

Brown students react to Trump victory with dread, fear and self-reflection

Students expressed concern about the future of abortion rights, immigration and climate change.

The Herald spoke with 21 students, most of whom reported feeling sadness, disbelief and fear after seeing the results.

The vast majority of brown students who planned to vote intended to do so for vice President Kamala Harris.

BY ELENA JIANG SENIOR STAFF WRITER

early Wednesday morning, former President donald Trump was projected to win the presidency in a clear rebuke of democrats, leaving many students at brown University shocked, mournful and fearful. o ver the course of Tuesday night, the former president secured victories in North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania before clinching Wisconsin — four key states that put Trump over the 270 electoral vote threshold he needed to return to the oval office.

ELECTION 2024

“ i am sick to my stomach. it is extremely upsetting,” said Summer Tullai ’27, a sophomore from indiana. “When i woke up this morning, i looked it up, and there it was. it’s a big shock.”

in the hours following Trump’s victory, Catie manning ’25 and madeline day ’25, who both voted for Harris, sat on the steps of Campus Center looking out onto a quiet main Green. Their professor had decided to move their 8:30 a.m. class outside to get a breath of fresh air.

expecting the results to be unknown for days as it was in 2020, day was “sur-

Harris wins RI, but counties shift red

The election was called shortly after polls closed on Tuesday

BY AVANI GHOSH METRO EDITOR

despite victories for democrats throughout rhode island, voter bases in all of the ocean State’s counties shifted republican as compared to 2020.

i n Providence county, there was an estimated 10-point shift toward the r epublican presidential candidate over 2020, the New york Times estimated. Harris won the county with 55% of the vote as of early Wednesday morning, when over 95% of votes were reported.

Newport, bristol, Kent and Washington counties also shifted red by between 3 and 6 points as of early Wednesday morning.

Kamala Harris won r hode i sland’s four electoral votes, while incumbent Senator Sheldon Whitehouse held onto his seat for a fourth term. The a ssociated Press called both elections shortly after polls closed at 8 p.m. Tuesday evening.

d emocratic incumbent representative Gabe a mo and Seth m agaziner also held onto their seats for r hode island’s 1st and 2nd Congressional d istricts, respectively.

“There is work to do to continue to lower costs, deliver economic opportunity for r hode i sland families and protect our freedoms,” a mo said in a press release following his victory.

Four out of five ballot measures passed. These include issuing bonds for

prised that i woke up and it was already called,” adding that she was “shocked” and “still processing” as of Wednesday afternoon.

many of the students The Herald spoke to echoed this feeling of disbelief. Surya Gopal ’28 pointed to Trump’s felonies and his plans to pardon Jan. 6 rioters, calling it unbelievable. “The absurdity of the situation made me think that, okay, Kamala has to win. i don’t know. How could anyone vote for this person?” he said.

inside the blue room, students felt “defeated,” “disheartened” and “worried.”

Gabby baptist ’27, a Harris voter hailing from ohio, described leaving her dorm that morning and hugging her friend in silence.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen: the fate of our lives, our rights and just our country. it’s very uncertain,” she

said. “but there’s a certainty that things will be going in a backward direction.”

Students expressed concern about the future of abortion rights, immigration and climate change.

vermont native Scarlet Stimson ’27 said that living in democratic stronghold states is a “privilege” when it comes to is sues of abortion, “but nationally, it matters a lot where the president falls.”

“Trump has made so much impact on the Supreme Court already,” she added, referencing the three conservative Su preme Court justices Trump appointed during his first term in office. “This is the last thing we need.”

For Leah Freedman ’27, who voted for Harris in massachusetts, Trump’s victory

Polling centers navigate registration challenges

BY HERALD STAFF METRO SECTION

as rhode islanders headed to the polls to vote in the 2024 presidential election, The Herald visited three poll locations in Providence and spoke to voters and poll workers.

Rep. Gabe Amo visits Hope High School on Election Day

U.S. representative Gabe amo (d-r i 1), who won his second term as the representative for rhode island’s First Congressional district, started the day off by voting at Hope High School.

“voting is something that we all have to participate in, and it’s always a good

nudge at the end to get every single vote out and let people know that you’re voting,” amo said about his decision to vote. “it’s a matter of public record, and it’s a matter of public responsibility.”

Paul Klinkmann has worked the polls for about 20 years. This year, he wanted to be there “just in case we had some nuts that wanted to interfere with the election.” Today, things ran smoothly, he said.

There was a WiFi outage at Hope High School that led to a pile-up of ballots that had to be entered in manually after the WiFi came back on. “it took an hour to feed all of the collected leftovers,” Klinkmann said.

Hailey Santos, a 16-year-old high school student and poll worker, said the turnout was much higher than when she worked the polls for the primary elections. in Sep-

Students described a community grappling with shock

2024 ELECTION

puts a weight on her family and her brazilian community back home.

“ my mom is an immigrant. She’s a naturalized citizen, and i’ve been feeling particularly worried about her. my grandma just got a green card,” she said. raf awa ’26, a junior from New york who voted for Jill Stein, said that he voted third party because he looks for certain things in candidates, particularly on immigration and foreign policy. He “didn’t find it” in either Harris or Trump.

but he added that the election “didn’t really affect me too hard.”

many students also found the national rightward shift alarming. “The craziest

ELECTION 2024

thing to me is the margins of it all. in 2016, donald Trump barely won michigan, the state that i’m from,” matteo Papadopoulos ’26 said. “it’s absolutely insane to me that his margins are greater after all that he’s done.”

Compared to his 2020 showing, Trump outperformed in key states like Pennsylvania, michigan and Wisconsin. as of Wednesday evening, he is on track to win the popular vote. if successful, he would be the first republican candidate to do so in 20 years.

Sohali vaddula ’27, the national director of communications for College d emocrats of a merica, acknowledged that her work for the democratic National Committee put her in a democratic space where it was commonplace to believe that Harris would win.

but she stressed the importance of a political education that “comes from both sides” to prevent “echo chambers that perpetuate the same narratives you see around you.”

ben marcus ’26, the president of brown College republicans, said that the election highlighted the “limited range of perspectives” in brown’s academic environment

which “trickle into the student body.” according to The Herald’s fall poll, 91% of students who intended to vote planned to cast their ballot for Harris. a mere 4.9% planned to vote for Trump. an additional 4.5% planned to vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein, or another candidate.

marcus described being “taken aback” by the mood of the 24cast.org event in Salomon Tuesday night. “Trump’s face popped up on the screen and everyone started booing,” he said. marcus ended up leaving and finishing the night in the quiet of his apartment.

“in terms of our reaction as a club to last night’s Trump victory, we’re pretty enthusiastic about it,” he added.

Kevin Kim ’25, wrote in an email to The Herald that he was “disappointed” by the election’s outcome. “regardless of political views, i think there is a dangerous precedent of allowing a person with 34 felonies and 2 impeachments to take the seat of greatest power in america,” he added.

Kim was also “saddened by the amount of hostility from both sides.” Growing up in ohio, he described seeing “cases locally where people with polar opposite views come to compromise for the betterment

of the people they serve.” He hoped the same could happen at brown.

For student leaders like vaddula, Trump’s victory signaled a need to confront the “larger issues within the democratic Party that have just gone ignored.”

mahir rahman ’26, the president of brown College democrats, said Trump’s clear lead in the popular vote serves as a wake-up call.

“in 2016, at least Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but she lost the electoral vote,” adding that democrats blamed the electoral college system, “which is unfair.” in 2024, “Trump is winning both.”

“it’s a clear vote against the d emocratic Party, and it’s a mandate for the republicans, who it seems are much better at strategy than the democrats,” he added.

vaddula said that democratic messaging had “abandoned” the working class and “put blanket statements” on issues like the economy and the border.

“it’s hard to talk to voters about these issues. but the way the democrats do, it’s just not working,” she said. vaddula believes Trump is messaging “in a way that is simple” and accessible to more voters.

“ d emocrats need to feel the pulse

in communities. They can’t take people for granted anymore,” rahman said. For his work with brown dems, he plans to “continue to focus heavily on local politics,” engaging with “with senators and representatives,” including Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (d-r i.) and rep. Gabe amo (d-r i. 1).”

o n Tuesday night, the G o P also flipped three seats to regain control of the Senate. Control of the House remains up in the air as of Wednesday night. Whitehouse and amo held onto their seats with comfortable margins.

aliza Kopans ’25, a Harris supporter from massachusetts, returned to campus Wednesday morning after a bout of canvassing in Pittsburgh.

“i’m sad in a lot of ways and scared in some ways, and i think it’s really important for us to have time to grieve and feel whatever we’re feeling, and then go make change,” she said. “We will be okay, and we will make it okay for ourselves and for others, whatever that means.”

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 7, 2024

Behind the scenes at Brown University’s biggest election-night event

24cast.org provided live political analysis of election results

BY MAYA NELSON SENIOR STAFF WRITER

at midnight this Tuesday, asher Labovich ’26 received a standing ovation from a crowd of hundreds gathered in Salomon Center’s auditorium. He had spent the night providing real-time political analysis to students as presidential election results poured in nationwide.

“Let’s go, a sher!” whooped a voice from the crowd.

The event was the culmination of hundreds of hours of work for many — including Labovich, who said he had compiled “100 pages worth of notes (and) read over 500 pages of news sites and election data” in preparation.

Hosted by Labovich and directed by ariel Shifrin ’27, the election night event was coordinated and sponsored by the Watson institute for international and Public affairs and a number of student organizations, including brown Political review, brown Political Union and brown votes.

24cast.org, an election prediction model affiliated with bPr , was at the forefront of the event. displayed on the auditorium’s screen, the interactive website flashed live election updates all night long.

Founded by Labovich, 24cast.org was born out of bPr’s model forecasting the 2022 senate midterm elections.

Labovich, Shifrin and a team of nearly 50 students have spent the past two years expanding the new model. according to Labovich, 24cast.org is unique because of its use of machine learning — technology that he says has “never been seen before in the political sphere.”

Shifrin explained that election prediction models are typically built by full-time staff at large corporations over a long period of time. “We didn’t have that,” he said. 24cast.org’s final estimate was that Harris would have a 70% chance of winning.

The election-day event took over the entirety of Salomon: 24cast.org’s live broadcast was displayed in the auditorium, stress-reducing activities were held

in the basement and states were called in a decision room on the second floor.

To gain entrance into the event, students lined up outside Salomon well into the night. in the lobby, volunteers handed out pizza, ice cream and other refreshments as polls in swing states closed and stress levels began to rise.

d espite the event’s smooth appearance and prompt start, Labovich and Shifrin revealed that there was some turbulence behind the scenes. The decision desk’s dashboard was broken for the first 20 minutes, leaving the coding team “scrambling” to fix it, Shifrin said. Labovich also only began commenting on exit poll data about two hours into the event. “That was because we had literally just finished building the exit poll explorer,” he said.

around 8 p.m., Sarah Frank ’25 described the atmosphere as “nervously optimistic,” adding that a “positive blue energy” permeated the room.

Throughout the night, the crowd buzzed with nervous excitement, erupting whenever the fateful “ProJeCTioN” slide swept across the screen. Collective booing filled the auditorium when 24cast. org called states for Trump, while cheers and enthusiastic applause rang twice as loud when Harris’s face flashed across the screen.

a number of student, faculty and local speakers addressed the crowd throughout the five-hour event. r i. House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi (d-Warwick) encouraged students to get involved with the state house and spoke on the importance

of affordable housing. Providence mayor brett Smiley described his experiences darting across polling stations and chatting with first-time voters, sharing that he still gets “butterflies” on election night.

Three brown professors — marques Zarate and Paul Testa, assistant professors of political science, and anthony Levitas, a senior fellow in international and public affairs — shared their perspectives on Latinx voting, the accuracy of polling and the future of immigration, respectively.

Two student panels also punctuated the night, but they were frequently interrupted by Labovich as new races were called.

d ownstairs, bWell’s Wellness Peer education team led a collaborative event with bPr involving an immersive sound bath, journaling activities and an array of squishies and fidget toys for students

to keep.

Kieran Flores ’27, a wellness peer education coordinator, described the room as “a little less tense” than the other rooms in Salomon.

d uring the event, there was also a meditation room and several viewing centers where students tuned into CNN, abC and other broadcast channels.

“it’s been really lively and exciting to see how many people are involved,” anna duong ’25 said, adding that the live projections cultivated a spirit of “camaraderie” in the room.

Frank also appreciated Labovich’s analysis following each call. She noted that his detailed dissection of information was “really helpful” and easy to understand for those less fluent in political language.

“it feels like i’m sitting in Salomon to witness history, not disaster,” Frank added.

b ehind the scenes, a team of eight 24cast.org members spent the night analyzing polling data in the decision room on the second floor.

Tiziano Pardo ’28, a member of the decision desk, said that each team member was assigned two swing states to focus on, comparing data from previous elections with 2024 results from the a ssociated Press.

once a team member felt confident enough to call their state, the verdict was relayed to decision-desk lead Logan rabe ’26, who approved it for display on the projection screen.

in the decision room, half-eaten Chipotle bowls lay scattered around the room, and every open screen displayed a dense

spreadsheet of data. it was the quietest room in the entirety of Salomon — even the bWell station produced more chatter.

“i think that our team did a phenomenal job preparing for this event, both here on the data side, getting us prepared for the decision, as well as up front with the programming,” Pardo said. as the night crept on and projections seemed to increasingly favor Trump, the booing grew more determined. Students whispered their anxieties to one another, and laptops dotted around the auditorium displayed CNN broadcasts and the New york Times’s live coverage.

alongside Labovich, 24cast.org members continued to analyze key counties that could make or break the election in Pennsylvania, michigan and Wisconsin — three states that became vital for a Harris victory as it became progressively clear that other contentious states like iowa, North Carolina and Georgia were going to Trump.

Students filtered in and out of the auditorium all night, but even by 11 p.m., the room remained nearly at capacity.

“i’d rather be Trump right now,” Labovich repeated to the crowd as the clock ticked toward midnight.

The event was scheduled to run until 3 a.m., but Shifrin said that most students had left by 1 a.m.

Labovich and Shifrin said they were proud of how the event had gone and expressed gratitude for the team of students behind them.

“i’m so glad the campus was able to see the product of that work,” Shifrin said. “i did not expect a packed house. i did not expect a line out the door.”

24cast.org was officially dissolved after the event, according to Labovich. Shifrin said their goal was to put on an “incredible event,” and that now that this had been achieved, the organization had fulfilled its purpose.

“ i need to take a break,” Labovich added.

“This was a special team to work with,” Shifrin said. “i don’t know that i’ll have many projects in my life that will feel like this.”

Kaia yaL amaNCHiLi / HeraLd

Asher Labovich ’26, founder of 24cast.org, provided live data analysis of election results throughout the Tuesday night in Salomon.

spent the night

polling data in the decision room on the second floor.

Kaia yaL amaNCHiLi / HeraLd

LABOR

Shuttle drivers warn of strike if agreement not reached by next week

The union of Brown, RISD and RIC shuttle drivers voted in September to authorize a strike

BY ETHAN SCHENKER SENIOR STAFF WRITER

after seven months of bargaining with private shuttle operator Transdev, shuttle drivers at brown, the rhode island School of design and rhode island College could go on strike next week if an agreement is not reached by their next bargaining session on Nov. 12.

The 51 shuttle drivers unionized as part of Teamsters Local 251 in November 2023, seeking higher compensation and improved working conditions. They began negotiations in march 2024 with employer Transdev, the multinational private transportation company that operates brown’s shuttle services.

For months, the two parties have been stuck at an impasse on key contractual issues, Teamsters Local 251 President matthew Taibi told The Herald. a federal mediator has been present at negotiations since august, he said.

Frustrated with the lack of progress, union members voted in late September to authorize a strike. according to racquel moran, a bargaining committee member and brown shuttle driver, the union has reached agreements with Transdev on nearly all contract items except compensation and healthcare — the most important parts of the contract for moran and her colleagues, she said.

if the parties can’t agree on a contract during the Nov. 12 bargaining session, the union is prepared to potentially begin a strike, Taibi said. The union bargaining committee plans to meet on Nov. 15 to discuss a path forward if an agreement isn’t reached next week, he added.

i feel like they’re not taking us seriously,” said daven Cox, who sits on the union’s bargaining team and drives for riSd rides. “We’ve compromised a lot for things that we do not even understand why they asked for,” Cox added. “but they don’t seem to be willing to come any closer to us on really key issues.”

“We continue to work closely with the negotiating committee to reach an agreement that is both fair and equitable,” mitun Seguin, Transdev’s vice president

On average, Transdev drivers earn $20 per hour.

of marketing and communications, wrote in an email to The Herald.

“We are hopeful that we can come to a resolution quickly and without any disruption of service,” Seguin added.

Some drivers feel as though they are not fairly compensated for their work, according to moran. “especially the evening drivers, who are working from 6:30 p.m. to three o’clock in the morning,” she said, noting that there is no difference in pay for night shifts.

according to Taibi, the union’s drivers earn an average of just over $20 per hour. moran compared this wage to increases in a contract with unionized Transdev workers in buffalo. in the new contract, drivers received a 26% pay raise.

The union has not been in touch with the University as it weighs a strike, Taibi told The Herald.

“We are in touch with Transdev and engaged in contingency planning with a focus on how we could best minimize disruption to operations on our campus in the event of a work stoppage,” University Spokesperson brian Clark wrote in an email to The Herald.

“While our hope is that shuttle operations continue as normal, we’ll communicate to our campus quickly in the event there are any impacts or if we need to shift operations to prioritize the most critical shuttle services,” Clark added.The drivers hope to avoid a strike “at all costs,” moran said.

“but like i said: if we have to, we have to,” moran added. “What can we do?”

STUDENT GOVERNMENT

UCS discusses adding student representatives to Corporation at town hall

The meeting follows referendum demanding student seats passed with 73% of the vote

BY KATE BUTTS AND CHIUPONG HUANG SENIOR STAFF WRITER AND CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The Undergraduate Council of Students hosted a town hall to discuss its initiatives to increase student representation in and engagement with the University’s administrative bodies.

The event follows a UCS-organized referendum demanding student seats on the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body. The non-binding referendum passed by a margin of 1,368 to 508 students with a turnout rate of 26%, The Herald previously reported.

The Corporation has no obligation to honor the referendum’s outcome nor has it promised seats to students. Previously, it has chosen not to permit students to become Corporation trustees, according to University Spokesperson brian Clark. as part of those deliberations, the Corporation added seats for recent alums.

around 25 students gathered in barus and Holley on Wednesday to discuss how to actualize the referendum’s demands and involve students in University decision-making processes.

at the event, students divided into small groups to brainstorm what a student seat on the Corporation might look like in practice. in the small groups, attendees considered what would qualify students for a seat on the Corporation.

attendee Kenneth Kalu ’27 said he found the Corporation’s recent decision to reject brown divestment Coalition’s proposal for divestment from 10 companies with ties to the israeli military, among other decisions, to be “upsetting” and “concerning.”

Kalu believes that “having a formalized process through which elected groups of students can condense and disseminate the perspectives of the student body” on the Corporation could be a helpful mechanism of change.

but other attendees worried that introducing an

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election process to select student representatives would only encourage students that are more politically active to run for seats, potentially skewing the applicant pool.

UCS appointments director isaac Slevin ’25 hopes the position will be filled by “students whose job is not to be experts in the field, but to speak directly to the student experience.”

but without an election process, attendees were unsure how the student representative could be unbiased and reflect the priorities of the student body, rather than promote a specific agenda.

attendees also stressed the importance of student government in holding the University’s administration accountable.

UCS has “a responsibility to represent the entire student body, whether they voted for us or not,” Slevin said. “We need to make ourselves as open as possible to everyone.”

in hopes of increasing transparency, UCS President Niyanta Nepal ’25 outlined proposed and ongoing revisions to the council’s current structures, including reintroductions of the general body, a group within UCS that is open to any brown undergraduate. it was previously eliminated in fall 2022.

Nepal invited attendees to become voting members of the revamped general body.

She also discussed plans to increase student engagement with UCS through informal dinners between club leaders and UCS members to meet “students where they’re at.”

UCS will also introduce a committee to gather student opinions on a proposal for student seats on the Corporation that they hope will be pitched to the governing body.

Nepal said that the Wednesday town hall was a valuable source of feedback and engagement from the student body.

i think that there is a base of students who have a lot of insightful opinions” on potential occupancy of a Corporation seat, she said.

Slevin characterized the event as a success. “This is the start of a long road towards getting students the changes at the University that we need,” he said.

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 7, 2024

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LOCAL POLITICS

City

approves $1.5 million in lieu of taxes from Lifespan

The council also voted for first passage of the Comprehensive Plan

BY AVANI GHOSH METRO EDITOR

o n Thursday evening, Providence City Council approved an agreement for brown University Health — previously Lifespan — to pay $1.5 million in lieu of taxes to the city, an agreement commonly abbreviated as PiLoT. The motion passed 12-2.

The council also voted on the first passage of its Comprehensive Plan, a ten-year roadmap for the city, on a margin of 11-2 with two voters absent.The City Council will vote on the Comprehensive Plan for second passage on Nov. 21.

The PILOT agreement brown Health will start its PiLoT payment program in fiscal year 2025. The agreement expires in three years, at which time brown Health will propose a new agreement. in exchange for the payments, Providence will extend the hospital sub-district occupied by brown Health’s rhode island Hospital and approve its construction of a road nearby, The Herald previously reported.

The agreement follows last year’s PiLoT agreement between the city and four local nonprofit universities — brown, Johnson and Wales, Providence College

LOCAL POLITICS

the rhode island School of design.

Councilor Sue anderbois (Ward 3) said that she sees this agreement as “a down payment for future negotiations.” a lthough most nonprofit institutions are exempt from paying taxes to the city, “there is still a duty to contribute,” she added.

While feeling “frustrated and disappointed” with the payment’s amount, “we are not in a position to say no as a city,”

Council President rachel miller (Ward 13) said. She added that if the city were to reject the proposal, it would receive no financial contributions since there would be no further negotiations.

Councilor miguel Sanchez (Ward 6) encouraged other councilors to place more

pressure on brown Health and other nonprofit institutions to secure greater contributions in future agreements.

First passage of Comprehensive Plan Councilor James Taylor (Ward 8), who voted against the plan on Thursday, argued that not enough hearings were held to gather community input after the City Council proposed amendments to the plan. He said that more research should have been completed for the gas station amendment, which prohibits the development of new gas stations “except by special use permit if the targeted land is unsuitable for residential development,”

The Herald previously reported. in Taylor’s opinion, a lack of gas sta-

tions will decrease competition, thus driving up prices. but Sanchez believes that the amendment will not impact gas prices.

Several councilors said that although the Comprehensive Plan is “not perfect,” neither is any one policy.

“i think this is an incredibly strong plan. i think it addresses a lot of the major concerns we have as a city,” anderbois said. “We’re not going to get 100% of everything we want.”

“We have visionary ideas in our city’s policies,”said Councillor Shelley Peterson (Ward 14), adding that she believes the plan “invigorated our fight for equality, for justice, for a better future.” .

“These (are) real opportunities for all of us, for all of our communities,” she said.

higher education facilities, affordable housing development, environmental and recreational infrastructure and cultural arts.

voters rejected Question 1, which proposed holding a constitutional convention to amend the state’s constitution, according to the New york Times.

r hode i sland has voted for a d emocratic presidential candidate in the past nine elections and has leaned blue since the early 20th century. i n the 2020 presidential election, d emocratic candidate Joe b iden won r hode i sland with 59.4% of the votes.

The race was called shortly after polls closed Tuesday evening.

This election, Republican and Democrat organizers have their eyes on local races

R.I. activists discuss grassroots movements, strategy and morale

BY MEGAN CHAN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

When Christopher b ove became president of College d emocrats of r hode i sland, he couldn’t help but notice the lack of lacking difference in political enthusiasm.

i think organizing in this climate is really difficult,” b ove said. People no longer “have this insane kind of energy that (they) had after 2016.” ...

“That was my biggest experience running C dri i couldn’t get people to go to our events,.”added b ove.

He attributes this, in part, to political apathy, noting that “the d emocrats have a tendency to take our hold on r i for granted.” v ice President Kamala Harris and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse are both projected to win by wide margins in the historically d democratic state of r i ., the Herald previously reported.

b ut “politics at the local level has always leaned conservative,” said b ove said. He called attention to the state’s political make-up, whose ich has observed a waning d democratic majority has waned in recent years. Since 2016, registered r epublicans have increased from 11.8% to 14.2% of registered voters, while. b ut, registered d emocrats fell from 40.6% to 37.7%.

r epublican organizer Jess m arie identified the medical freedom movement —, which sprung from the pandemic —, as a major political turning point for her.

d rawing on her background as a

healthcare worker, m arie has’s platform rests on advocating for “autonomy over your own body.” i n the past, she’s organized rallies against vaccination mandates and, pro-life policies and gun control. r ecently, she’s been participating in pro-Trump rallies across the state.

“ r hode island is heavily d emocratic, i know this from my upbringing,” said m arie said. When “How would you know (about other political perspectives) unless you’ve explored?”

“There is still support for Trump here growing, and we are going to continue to work to show that there’s a different side of the political spectrum,” m arie continued.

Kenneth Naylor Jr. has made analso directed effort to mobilizeefforts towards mobilizing the state’s republican minority through his role as President of r i young r epublicans.

“People want to talk about national issues in r hode i sland, but a lot of the issues that face day-to-day r hode islanders (face) come right in their backyard, from their school committee or town council member,” said Naylor said. m uch of his work focuses on identifying, platforming and empowering young conservative candidates to run for local office. “There is simply not enough youth in the room,” Naylor said, referring to a local G o P meeting in late 2019.

“a re we going to see a majority r epublican leadership this year in r hode i sland? Probably not. Will we see it in 2026? m aybe not,” said Naylor. “ b ut we want to keep growing our numbers.”

H d ata-driven strategies have been a big part of his advocacy has been mainly led by date-driven strategies, which has allowed the r epublican party to “identify direct voters” and “new folks” for

massive text blasts according to Naylor.

Using “data that (they’ve) been tracking for years,” the r epublican party was able to send out “massive text blasts to about 1000 people,” which “brought in new folks that have been waiting to get involved,” Naylor continued.

m arie employs a similar technological approach through social media group chats and pages, which has broadened her outreach throughout the state. “ i t’s finding people and inviting them, and we try to have another rally (scheduled) so that we can let people know,” she added.

b ove is not particularly worried about local conservative politics, noting that “this isn’t a new phenomenon.” b ut

Jocelyn Foye, executive director of feminist nonprofit The Womxn Project, is exercising “trepidatious optimism” leading up to the election.

as a local feminist progressive organiz-

er, Foye feels “that rhode island is going to, at the federal level, protect the rights that we’ve fought for so long.” at the state and local level, she’s less certain.

“There’s a lot of far- right organizing, and they’’ve been doing it very quietly until last year,” said Foye said.

Her nonprofit currently spearheads the bodily Freedom Forever index, a data-driven initiative that tracks the stances of local elected officials on bodily freedom. She identifies this as a relatively novel strategy within democratic spaces, which tend to neglect smaller, local offices.

“We’re going in and we’re saying, how do you rank people based on analytical data?” added Foye. Through its consolidation of social media posts, public comments and voting history, the b FF i hopes to empower voters by advocating for political transparency.

Foye lamented the way that local politics are often overshadowed during election season, but identifieds grassroots efforts as the core of The Womxn Project’s community work.

“ i just think that government needs more everyday, real people,” said b ove said. Like others, he has been doing local canvassing and phone banking to “get more younger, progressive people into municipal governments.”

“a s far as grassroots, it’s just getting right to the voters and knocking on doors,” said Naylor said.

“ o ur power, our strength, is being as local as possible, because we’re only a state of 1.1 million,” said Foye said. “So we think we can have an impact with a lot of this.”

R.I. activists discuss grassroots movements, political strategy and morale.

HARRIS FROM PAGE 1

and

mUKUL KHaNNa / HeraLd

The City Council will vote on the Comprehensive Plan for second passage on Nov. 21.

HOUSING

New HousingWorks RI fact book details challenges faced by homeowners, renters

Report finds high share of cost burdened individuals

BY SANAI RASHID SENIOR STAFF WRITER

in 2023, the median value of single-family homes in r hode island increased by 15.1%, marking the greatest increase in the country, according to a new report from HousingWorks ri

Since HousingWorks ri began 20 years ago, the organization’s annual fact book has provided a comprehensive look at the relationship between housing and economic impacts for r hode island residents.

a ccording to b renda Clement, executive director of HousingWorks ri , the high share of “cost-burdened” individuals — homeowners and renters who pay more than 30% of their income toward housing costs — has been “a persistent problem for over 20 years.”

The fact book states that, “ o f the more than 32,000 lowest income renter households, 55 percent, or 17,686 of them are severely cost burdened, meaning they are spending more than half of their income on housing.” The report adds that “an additional 17,043 households earning up to $59,172 are also severely cost burdened.”

Clement explained that even high-income levels are burned with spending too much of their income on housing, which means having to make sacrifices such as not buying a second car or going on a trip. b ut, “as you go further down the income level, those choices become much more dire,” she said.

This year was the first time since the

LOCAL BUSINESSES

organization began collecting data that there was no municipality where households with an income under $100,000 could affordably purchase a single-family home, Clement noted.

a ccording to the report, the state’s median household income is $81,370. i n Woonsocket the necessary income to buy a home is $119,123 — the lowest in the state.

For renters, the numbers are no better.

Clement described renters as particularly “hard-pressed in this market.”

a ffordably renting a two-bedroom for the average price of $2,107 requires an income of more than $84,000. according to Clement, this exceeds the state’s median rental income by more than $40,000.

“ o ur colleagues at the food bank say all the time that rent eats first,” she added.

The report also details how rising housing costs in r hode island have had an increasing impact on economic stability in the state.

While a national report found that the hourly full-time wage needed to rent a modest home in r hode i sland was $33.20, HousingWorks ri calculated that affordably renting or buying in the state requires an hourly wage of $40.52 and $69.08, respectively.

melina Lodge, executive director of The Housing Network of r hode island, emphasized that “there is a broad swath of r hode i slanders who are struggling with housing these days. it’s not just a low-income problem anymore.”

The high prices partially stem from a housing shortage in the state. When asked why r hode i sland is so behind compared to the rest of the country in housing production, Lodge said part of it

came down to the state’s size. “at the end of the day, we’re only so big,” she said.

Zoning also plays a large role. Lodge explained that 87% of housing in r hode island is zoned for single-family homes, referencing a statistic from the organization’s Zoning a tlas. “That means one house per lot. There’s only so many lots that can happen in a small state.”

r hode i sland is also behind nationally in homeownership rates for minority households. National homeownership rates for b lack, Hispanic and a sian households are nine, 14 and eight percentage points higher than r hode i sland’s, respectively, according to the fact book.

m inority groups have been often left out of “what is the best wealth creation strategy that we have: owning your own home,” Clement said.

i ncreased attention on building multi-family homes, improving existing housing stock and creating more affordable housing are some of the many changes needed to fix r hode island’s housing crisis, Lodge said.

The state’s worsening homelessness crisis is also deeply tied to the housing shortage, according to Kerri Tallman, a communications and development associate for The r hode i sland Coalition to e nd Homelessness.

i n 2024, the Point in Time Count, an initiative which counts the number of “sheltered and unsheltered people experiencing homelessness on a single night” found that 2,442 people were without housing on January 24 of this year.

“The 2024 fact book confirms what we have already known — the housing situation in r hode i sland is dire, leading to increased numbers of people becoming homeless,” Tallman said. “a s our January 2024 Point i n Time Count indicated, homelessness rose 34.9 percent since the P i T prior to the impact of C ovid -19.”

“a ll state and local leaders need to invest time and resources into addressing this growing crisis. Housing is a human right,” said Tallman.

The HousingWorks ri fact book found that student homelessness has been a particular issue in r hode i sland since the pandemic.

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 3, 2024.

Rhode Island’s Nitro Bar is soaring amid viral TikTok fame

The coffee shop wheeled its way from pop-up cart to a TikTok sensation

BY MAYA KELLY SENIOR STAFF WRITER

regulars at The Nitro bar in Providence have come to expect a line out the door as they await their weekly dose of caffeine.

i n its eight years, the business — which now has three operating locations in rhode island — has become a “hot commodity,” Nitro bar regular becca day told The Herald. day, who just moved to Providence a few months ago, attributed her constant visits to the coffee shop’s unique environment, rotation of seasonal flavors and kind employees.

“it’s full of life,” said Lauren roche, an employee at Nitro bar. “a lot of people from the neighborhood come in, so we know someone every day.”

The local coffee shop was established in 2016, when co-founders audrey Finocchiaro and Sam Lancaster built what Finocchiaro dubbed “a shitty box on wheels.” The couple maxed out Finocchiaro’s $1600 credit card in the process. “you can’t let the dollar amount in your bank account dictate how you feel about yourself as an entrepreneur,” Finocchiaro said.

in the beginning, Finocchiaro and Lancaster rolled their cart around the streets of Providence with minimal success, often ending days with negligible profits.

once they started hiking up College Hill, though, the enthusiasm of brown students “really changed the trajectory of the cart,” Finocchiaro said. Sales spiked and the pair was eventually approached by investors to jumpstart their wholesaling journey. in Providence, they opened up their first permanent location inside d ash bicycle Shop on the West end in 2018. in Newport, they opened a location on Thames St. in 2019 and another on Pond ave. in 2021. each of the three operating locations has its own “vibe,” according

to Finocchiaro.

Now, the brand has gone viral on TikTok, amassing over 418,000 followers since 2020. Their most popular video has almost 17 million views and 2.6 million likes.

The Providence location is the company’s first and smallest. The store on Pond ave. in Newport “has more sit-down, larger vibes” with more tables and space, while the Thames St. location boasts a “more refined menu,” she said. The stores may each offer a different niche, but for

Finocchiaro, they’re “like children. i love them all the same.”

Finocchiaro “never expected to have that kind of reach,” but “the brand somehow caught some attention and kept it rolling,” she said.

Since their TikTok account gained traction, sales have increased by 60%.

When she creates content, Finocchiaro tries to “show up authentically,” working hard to create content that she’d want to watch herself. it’s about “posting the content that you feel good about and trusting

yourself in the process,” she added. but above all, the coffee shop prioritizes “people, quality and the finer things in life,” Finocchiaro said.

“it’s always been important to us to treat our team like family,” she added, and “transcending that onto the customers that come in.” and that effort seems to be paying off. “my favorite thing about working here is the sense of community,” roche said. “all of my coworkers and i are super close.”

While Finocchiaro and Lancaster are excited to expand in the future, they want to keep their sights set on where they got their start. “We’ve gotten approached a ton to do franchises, but it’s not something that Sam and i are interested in,” Finocchiaro said. “We like having control over the environment and everything that goes into it.”

but that doesn’t mean the shop has stopped rolling forward: The Nitro bar is currently looking for another location. “We love our location over on the West end, and never want to leave there, but we definitely would love a second location in Providence,” she said.

For Finocchiaro, it’s “crazy” that so much has changed since 2016. but it seems like more change is imminent. Nitro bar’s website proclaims that the cart’s next stop is “the moon.”

maya KeLLy / HeraLd

The local coffee shop opened its first location in 2018 inside of Dash Bicycle Shop on the West End of Providence, and has since added two more locations in Newport.

SPORTS

Volleyball sweeps Penn, battles blow-for-blow with Princeton in failed comeback

Bears are now one game out of a playoff spot with four matches remaining

BY LINUS LAWRENCE SPORTS EDITOR

With their season entering its final stretch, the women’s volleyball team (7-13, 4-6 ivy League) split a pair of sets last weekend against Penn (10-9, 4-6) and Princeton (10-10, 8-2) at home.

a fter getting swept in four out of their first five conference match-ups, b rown’s prowess has shone recently. The team’s sole two losses were against top seeds in the league — Cornell and Princeton. Now, the b ears sit one game out of a playoff spot with four contests remaining in the regular season.

“We come in week after week and identify the problem, and then we throw everything we’ve got at it, and week after week we’re getting better,” said Head Coach Taylor v irtue.

o n Friday night at the Pizzitola Sports Center, the b ears swept Penn in three heavily contested sets, winning by finals of 25-23, 25-22 and 26-24. Though b runo trailed late in each set — falling behind 20-17 in the first, 20-18 in the second and 23-20 in the third — the team managed to claw its way back every time.

The narrow wins were especially notable given b rown opened the season 0-6 in sets decided by two points. i n addition to enhanced confidence, v irtue attributed the shift to specific practice exercises that play out “red zone” scenarios where the team is down and needs to come back.

“ i n every set against Penn, we were down in the ‘red zone’ and came back and won,” v irtue said. “So credit to them taking those drills seriously — because it doesn’t matter if you do them, it matters if you take it seriously and you come in and translate that into a match.”

Kayla Griebl ’25 led the b ears with

15 kills on Friday, while m ariia Sidorova ’26 followed with 14. Griebl’s .361 hitting percentage was her best mark since an o ctober 2022 match at d artmouth.

Griebl and Sidorova once again led the way on Sunday afternoon against Princeton, with Griebl putting up 14 kills and Sidorova erupting for a career-best 26-kill performance. Together, Griebl and Sidorova delivered 69 kills across the two matches.

“The i vy League should be scared if they keep that up,” v irtue said.

Sidorova was quick to give credit to the rest of the team for her success.

“Getting kills means that the whole team is working as a unit,” she said, shouting out the team’s back row and setter, rookie Julia Kakkis ’28, who racked up a career-high 53 assists in the match.

b ut despite b rown’s valiant efforts, they could not overcome the Tigers,

who have now taken six consecutive i vy contests.

i n the first two sets on Sunday, the b ears once again found themselves trailing by just a few points late. b ut unlike what they accomplished against the Quakers, b rown couldn’t stage a successful comeback in either set — despite a show of support in the stands from the b rown baseball team and an especially rowdy football team.

With their backs against the wall, b rown took a hard-fought third set 2520, setting up a fourth set which began in hotly contested fashion. b ut after Princeton went up 9-8, the b ears suddenly shifted into a second gear, berating the Tigers with kill after kill to win eight straight points, resulting in a resounding 25-15 victory.

Set four could be labeled as the ‘Sidorova Show.’ The junior recorded

Men’s soccer sends Columbia packing

Bruno secured a 3-1 victory against the Lions on Sunday

BY AURA MACHANIC CONTRIBUTING WRITER

on Sunday, the men’s soccer team (7-7-1, 2-4-0 ivy) faced off against the Columbia Lions (1-11-1, 1-4-1 ivy) in New york City. Ninety minutes and three hard-earned goals later, the bears walked off the field with a victory under their belts.

“The dynamic was great between our whole squad,” Head Coach Chase Wileman wrote in an email to The Herald. “We showed a great fight.”

The first half of the game was action-packed from the kickoff, with Columbia’s adrien Wheaton-Schopp scoring a goal in the first two minutes. brown was given a shot at redemption within the next four minutes after an offside from Columbia gave them a free kick but did not score.

Shortly after the 18-minute mark, the bears evened the score with a goal from midfielder and defender mads Stistrup Petersen ’26. Following a throw-in from forward Greyson mitchell ’26, Petersen

headed the ball past the goalkeeper and directly into the net.

Less than three minutes later, the bears took the lead with another goal from mitchell, the first in his collegiate career.

The first half of the game finished without any additional goals from either team, though brown goalkeeper Henrik Weiper ’26 saved several direct shots. Halftime was called with bruno up 2-1.

“a fter conceding a goal early, we showed great resilience to stay calm, respond and play our game,” Wileman wrote.

The second half took a slower pace, with both teams receiving yellow cards but neither side scoring in the first 20 minutes of the half. Forward Lorenzo amaral ’27 took a direct shot on goal around the 65-minute mark, but missed by several feet.

“i knew that we needed a third goal to really seal the game off,” amaral wrote in a message to The Herald.

Just a few minutes later, amaral found a chance to score after his penalty kick was rebounded back to him. Seizing the opportunity, amaral launched the ball into the net, bringing the bears to a 3-1 lead.

“i was really happy to be able to get our team the penalty for the third goal,”

amaral wrote. When the penalty was saved, “i wasn’t happy with it but the ball came back out to me and i was able to put it away,” he added.

Wileman wrote that he feels “very proud of the team” and their ability to maintain a strong mentality throughout all 90 minutes of the game.

With bruno’s last game of the regular season this Saturday, Wileman said “the key now is to stay humble, not get complacent and prepare well.” The faceoff will be crucial in determining whether brown will progress to postseason play.

“We’re just gonna keep putting in the work in the training ground and take each day moment by moment,” amaral wrote.

“it’s important that we put our full focus on this weekend against yale, and whatever comes next we will train hard to prepare ourselves fully for what’s to come.”

This Saturday at 7 p.m., the bears will face yale at home with a livestream on eSPN+.

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 7, 2024.

seven kills and two service aces in the span of 24 rallies, accounting for over a third of the points won by either side during that period.

b ut just when momentum seemed to be swinging in the b ears’ favor, Princeton pounced on b runo early in the final set, seizing a commanding 10-4 lead. The b ears went on a run to bring the score to 12-9, but ultimately were unable to complete the comeback.

Still, the b ears battled blow for blow with one of the best teams in their league, proving their potential to compete and win should they advance to the i vy League Tournament.

“Princeton’s a really complete team, so props to them for sticking through it. i t’s hard to execute a reverse sweep and it’s also hard to stop one, and they did that today,” v irtue said following the match. “This is an exciting moment for

us to learn from and get better and build on for next weekend and the weekend after that.”

“We’ve got everything we need on this team and in this room to win a championship,” she added.

o f the four games remaining, none will be bigger than Friday’s home showdown against Harvard’s team, who currently hold a one-game lead on the b ears in the race for the final postseason spot. Should b rown lose that match, their path to the playoffs would become far murkier. Should b rown win, every moment of the team’s final regular season matches against d artmouth, Cornell and Columbia will be critical as they look to clinch.

b rown and Harvard will begin play at 7 p.m. on Friday night at the Pizzitola Sports Center. The match will be available to stream on e SPN+.

Mariia Sidorova ’26 erupted for a career-best 26-kill performance on Sunday afternoon against Princeton.

With Bruno’s last game of the regular season this Saturday, the faceoff will be crucial in determining whether Brown will progress to postseason play.

Women’s ice hockey continue unbeaten start to season, rout Harvard 5-1

Sikich ’25 named Ivy Defender of the Week for second time this season

BY DENNIS CAREY SPORTS EDITOR

No. 14 ranked women’s ice hockey (6-0-0, 40-0 eCaC) is off to a storming start to the 2024-25 season.

after two thrilling victories against No. 7 Quinnipiac and Princeton on oct. 25 and 26, respectively, and advancing to No. 15 in the polls ahead of the weekend, bruno was primed and ready. Coming into two post-Halloween matchups against ivy opponents dartmouth (0-6-0, 0-4-0 eCaC) and Harvard (2-3-0, 1-3-0 eCaC), the bears took home no tricks, only treats.

The bears currently remain undefeated and sit atop the eastern College athletic Conference with 11 points. across the undefeated stretch, the bears have outscored opponents 13-6 — the best goal differential across the 12-team conference.

“by playing a fast game, we can apply constant pressure and not let our opponents gain momentum,” defender ella muralt ’28 wrote in an email to The Herald. “i feel that the forwards are doing a great job getting shots to the net and the defense is solid on the blue line, which keeps our opponents on their heels.”

“The team entered the season with high aspirations and a deep commitment to taking a step forward as a program,” Head Coach melanie ruzzi added in an email to the Herald. “So we felt confident that we would have a chance in every game but the resulting 6-0 start is still something we are

FOOTBALL

really proud of. With that, the season is young and we still have so many areas in which to grow as a team.”

Cameron Sikich ’25 was named the eCaC defender of the Week for her performance this weekend. This is her second selection this year, in a season that has only spanned three weeks so far. Sikich leads the team in points with nine total, including six assists and three goals across the first six games.

“it’s really exciting to be selected for this award twice already this year,” Sikich wrote, “but even more exciting to see our team being recognized more and more for our achievements. Personally, i don’t think i could have received these awards without the standout efforts of my teammates.”

bruno’s first two conference games were separated by a margin of only one goal. The affair in Hanover was no different.

after an eventless first period, wherein the bears and the big Green were nearly even on shots 10-9 and bruno failed to convert on the power play, it was dartmouth who managed to get in gear first. a tripping foul by Gali Levy ’26 early in the second period gave her two minutes in the box. The bears managed to hold out on the backfoot for as long as they could, but a well-placed shot by dartmouth put the bears on the wrong side of a 1-0 scoreline.

However, less than four minutes later, an interference foul gave the bears the one-woman advantage they were looking for.

With time ticking away and only 16 seconds left on the power play, bruno managed to find the back of the net. a goal from ava deCoste ’27 — assisted by Sikich and india mcdadi ’26 — gave the bears their much-needed equalizer.

Following the goal, bruno managed to kill off dartmouth’s power play, keeping themselves in the game and allowing no shots.

The bears were looking strong in the third period, outshooting the big Green 9-6, but the goal wasn’t coming. after finding themselves on the power play late, it was time for defender muralt to step up. With five minutes left in the game, muralt fired the bears ahead 2-1.

“it felt great as it was my first game-winning goal in college,” muralt wrote. “as a freshman, it’s important to me to contribute as much as i can this season.”

after killing off another dartmouth power play and taking the match, bruno turned their momentum towards Cambridge.

This momentum carried bruno to a 5-1 domination over their ivy League rivals.

The bears’ suffocating pressure and phenomenal team interplay helped them keep the puck, giving the offense plenty of chances and the defense a light affair.

“one of our team goals for our game against Harvard focused on using our speed and starting off the game strong which we succeeded in,” forward monique Lyons ’28 wrote in an email to The Herald.

after shredding the Crimson in the first — outshooting them 17-4 — and mcdadi scoring her first goal of the season, bruno was shocked to be tied 1-1 on their way into the locker room. but in the second, the sharp disparity in shots turned into a sharp disparity of goals.

17 seconds into the second period, Lyons turned a power-play opportunity into a 2-1 advantage for the bears after a shot by margot Norehad ’27 was deflected into her path.

Shortly after, the bears looked in trouble

after Jade iginla ’26’s tripping penalty gave Harvard the power play advantage. but bruno turned the opportunity on its head after they pounced on Harvard’s over-commitment in the attack, leading to a short-handed goal by Jess Ciarrocchi ’25.

“We have been working on our special teams a lot in practice this past week, specifically our (penalty kill),” Lyons wrote. “it builds so much momentum for our team to kill off a penalty and even more to get a shorthanded goal. it was great to see the (penalty kill) get rewarded when Jess Ciarrocchi put one in the net to extend our lead.”

bruno would continue to crash Harvard’s net in the second leading to a goal by abby Hancock ’25.

The 4-1 hole was far too deep for Harvard to climb out of, so bruno was happy to sit off the puck in the third period. despite being outshot 15-7 — the only time bruno was outshot during a period all weekend — it was Lyons who found the goal in third, slamming the door shut on the Crimson.

Football falls to Penn despite late comeback attempt

Cameron Sikich ’25 was named Ivy Defender of the Week

BY LYDELL DYER SENIOR STAFF WRITER

on Saturday afternoon, the football team (3–4, 2–2 ivy) faced off against the Penn Quakers (3–4, 1–3 ivy) with the hope of emulating last week’s success against Cornell. but despite a 21-point effort in the second half, mistakes on special teams destroyed the bears’ momentum, and brown fell 38–28.

“Penn is a really good football team,” Head Coach James Perry ’00 said in an interview with The Herald. “if you play a good team, you have to play well right out of the gates … We dug a hole for ourselves with some uncharacteristic mistakes in the first half. We have to make those corrections and just keep playing hard.”

Though brown’s defense forced Penn three-and-out on their first possession, the earliest of what would be a flurry of mistakes soon befell the bears. backpedaling to corral a sailing punt, Samuel baddoo ’25 muffed the catch, sending the ball sprawling across the turf and turning the ball over to the Quakers at brown’s 39-yard line.

Fortunately for the bears, the defense fired on all cylinders. mirroring their earlier efforts, bruno kept the Quakers out of the end zone, resulting in a 42-yard missed field goal attempt.

The early offensive struggles that have riddled the bears in past weeks continued, resulting in two consecutive punts. Then,

the Quakers struck, as quarterback Liam o’brien connected with Jared richardson on a 10-yard go-route. With two minutes left in the first quarter, the Quakers claimed a 7–0 lead.

“The final score may tell a little bit of a different story,” quarterback Jake Willcox ’24.5, who leads the ivy League in passing yards, said after the game. “but i want to acknowledge our defense. They played a really good game and we just have to score more on offense.”

When the second quarter began, the bears’ offense found its stride. Starting on their own 31-yard line, brown relied heavily on the run game led by Stockton owen ’25. once at midfield, the bears took to the air. Turning to his favorite target, Willcox connected twice with mark mahoney ’24.5 for 19 yards before uncorking deep for a 31-yard touchdown strike.

Streaking down the right sideline, ma-

honey found himself one-on-one against Penn’s devin malloy. Standing at 5 feet 11 inches, malloy was no match for mahoney’s 6-foot-5-inch frame, and mahoney headtapped malloy to equalize the game with 9:22 left in the half.

yet even as the game heated up, the special teams unit remained an issue. With five minutes left in the half, the Quakers blocked an austin alley ’25 punt attempt and recovered the ball at the 25-yard line. From there, Penn’s running back malachi Hosely made quick work of the short field, covering the entire distance to the end zone in one run to reclaim a seven-point lead.

“it is tremendously uncharacteristic for that to occur,” Perry commented, alluding not only to the muffed and blocked punts, but also to the two field goals the team missed over the course of the game.

“We have to correct that,” he continued. “but we’re a deep football team. The

competition on special teams is always a source of strength for us, and we’ll tap into that this week.” as the first half came to a close, Penn continued to play their best half of the season. Jared richardson, who scored the early touchdown, remained a threat to the bears’ defense, propelling the Quakers into the red zone on a 25-yard catch-and-run. o’brien sealed the drive with his legs, rushing 10 yards through the middle to advance Penn’s lead to 21-7.

With 26 seconds left in the first half, the Quakers had already scored more touchdowns than they had in any other ivy League game this season.

Coming out of the locker room, the Quakers picked up where they left off. dominating on the ground, aided by penalties and getting a pair of clutch catches from wide receivers Hosley and bisi owens, Penn extended their lead to 28-7 with 13 minutes left in the third.

Now down by three possessions, the bears got crafty. With a hurry-up offense pressuring Penn’s defense, the substitution of backup-quarterback Will Jarvis ’25 to wide receiver went unnoticed by the Quakers. Just past midfield, Perry dialed up a Philly Special, and after getting a pitch by Childs, Jarvis connected with Willcox for a 33-yard gain. once near the end zone, brown brought out its goal line package, and Qwentin brown ’26 punched it in from one yard away to collect his seventh touchdown of the season and bring the score to 28-14.

Penn punched back by scoring on two straight possessions, pulling away 38-14 with 10 minutes left.

“it’s very exciting to be undefeated so far but there is definitely more pressure as every team we play will want to end our winning streak,” muralt wrote. “This is definitely a confidence booster and i want to continue to work hard for my coaches and teammates to keep the winning streak alive.”

The bears will look to carry their winning streak into and beyond this weekend’s homestand against No. 5 Colgate (9-3-0, 2-0-0 eCaC) and No. 12 Cornell (2-3-1, 1-1-0 eCaC). Look for the matches on eSPN+.

“This team has been building ever since my freshman year and while many people might be surprised by our start this year, every single one of us knew it was something we were capable of,” Sikich wrote. “it’s amazing to get off to such a strong start but there’s still a lot of season left and i’m excited to see what our team can do.”

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 5, 2024.

but then, in classic brunonian fashion, the team launched a late comeback attempt. on a 75-yard drive, the bears scored on a one-yard rush by matt Childs ’28. desperate to claw their way back, the team went for two — but after an incomplete pass, it remained an 18-point game. in the battle for points, even the defense played their part. With 7:37 left in the game, linebacker John Perdue ’26 dragged o’brien out of the end zone for a safety, bringing the score to 38-22.

invigorated, the offense lashed out, covering 75 yards in four minutes before Willcox, running backwards to escape pressure in the pocket, miraculously connected with Solomon miller ’26 for the score.

“Like every week, i think we did a really good job of fighting to the end,” Willcox finished. “That’s really the most important thing you can ask for in a football team. but we have to execute better at the beginning of the game. at the quarterback position, we have to do better.”

in crucial need of a two-point conversion to transform the game from a twoscore to a one-score affair, Willcox underthrew mahoney’s route under pressure, allowing Penn to retain their ten-point lead. by now, the clock had almost run out, and the bears were unable to stage a comeback, ultimately falling 38–28.

Now, the bears look ahead to a matchup against yale next Saturday in New Haven. The game will be streamed on eSPN+ and begin at noon.

Turning to his favorite target, Jake Willcox ’24.5 connected twice with Mark Mahoney ’24.5 for 19 yards before uncorking deep for a 31-yard touchdown strike.

The Bears currently remain undefeated and sit atop the Eastern College Athletic Conference with 11 points.

ICE HOCKEY

Letter from the Editor

Dear readers,

This past weekend I cooked a full dinner for my roommates for the first time. It was a continuation of our new Sunday night tradition—the eight of us squeezed around a much too small, scratched up dining room table inherited from the tenants before us. We had looked forward to days like this for years; when we could trade our takeout boxes and plastic forks for mismatched ceramic plates and silverware. I cooked dishes that I had no qualification to make, scrambling to piece together family recipes that I had never watched my parents make closely enough. Hours later, we had produced a meal not perfect, but beautiful nonetheless, that made me long for dinners at home.

This week in Lifestyle, our writers too reflect on rituals. Our managing editors come together to write a collection of stories on fall traditions, while Zoe gives a rundown on her apple-driven road trip through New England. Nina also meditates on nature, writing about a place in rural New Mexico and the wildfire that consumed it. Pooja talks about finding friendship during her admission to a hospital for mental health concerns. In A&C, Eliot discusses Janelle Monae's afrofuturistic discography, while Isa reflects on her first love through Clairo’s “Bags.” In post-pourri, our writer unpacks the science behind typos. Finally, in Feature, our writer reflects on being an extrovert, and how that changed when she went abroad to Copenhagen. To top it off, our crossword lights up this issue, just in time for daylight savings.

This weekend was a foretelling of many Sundays to come. Family Dinner, as we call it, is a chance for us to sit together, and even if just for a moment, separate ourselves from the whirlwind of our lives. As the weather begins to cool, and I search for an extra bit of comfort, I am reminded of how much I have to be grateful for, and how thankful I am to have people to share parts of home with. I hope you find the same notes of home in this week’s issue of post-.

Cooking for my family,

Tarini Malhotra No Strings Attached Tabitha Lynn Lifestyle Managing Editor

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“The smell of rain on the sidewalk. The way flakes of white fall from the sky and leave drops behind on my cheeks instead of staining my lungs gray. The way, each time I step outside, the first thing I notice is nature running circles around me, making itself known.”

—Liza Kolbasov, “As the Leaves Do” 11.11.22

“When disclosure of the self exists within a superficial sphere of dressing in a way that’s true to yourself or being proud of the music you listen to regardless of what others think, how can we turn the focus of expression to personhood?”

—Eleanor Dushin, “Am I Still Your Type?” 11.16.23

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7. Trader Ming

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9. Spicy with 10. Trader Joe’s Chocolatey Coated Chocolate Chip Cookie Dunkers

BY Ishan Khurana

OPINIONS

Davis

’27,

Hudes ’27: Democrats started losing once we thought we were ahead

a crowd funnels into the vast Salomon deCi auditorium for what they have waited years, months, weeks, and days for. election night is upon us. Students nurse diet Cokes and enjoy warm slices of domino’s as the program commences. Several speakers address the nervous, yet passionate, room as results trickle in. Trump takes Kentucky and indiana. The room erupts in boos. This is to be expected. No one would ever foresee Harris winning these states. yet, for some reason, we’re all put on edge.

Some time passes before our very own 24Cast calls the next state: Harris takes vermont. Now we’re talkin’ — this is an election.

For every boo shouted in vain of donald Trump, a tenfold applause rips through the auditorium. The atmosphere is electric. These students care. These students believe in the democratic process. This energy is stoked by the first two speakers: Speaker of the rhode island House of representatives K. Joseph Shekarchi and Providence mayor brett Smiley. each speaks confidently of Harris’ chances and

paints a bright picture of the future for the students in the room.

The democratic Party never expected to win in a landslide, but it did expect to win by a margin. but as the night raged on, reality set in. The oceanic feeling observed within democratic circles buzzing of a potential “blue wave” simply never came to pass. as we write, Harris’ pathway to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency is becoming narrower and narrower.

in the democratic Party’s effort to fight against donald Trump, it used the unprecedented unity under Kamala Harris to treat Trump’s supporters as something other than american. by treating the values and perspectives of non-democrats across the country as ridiculous — with belief in a surefire Harris presidency offering us license to do so — we lost the same voters who may have helped us defeat Trump.

even if the fleeting blue wave magically reappears and clinches the race, a Harris win would only further clear us to refuse engage-

ment with those we disagree with. if we’re winning, why should we bother?

during tonight’s election watch party, in response to questioning about what the country would look like under a second Trump term, mayor Smiley affirmed his commitment to protecting the rights of people of color, women, and those identifying as LGbTQ+, all under his jurisdiction against federal extremism.

mayor Smiley answered the question: if our values are not upheld by our federal government, who will protect us? We have brown, and we have mayor Smiley to uphold our values. Thus, we are exempt from the elbowing and close-quarter contact of political division. We are not forced to confront how drastically disparate our fundamental political values are from approximately half the country’s. instead, from our ivy tower, we can condemn those who just handed Georgia’s votes to Trump as backwards and undeserving of our sincere engagement.

We at brown exemplify the worst of an

establishment democrat’s culture: alienating moderates and conservatives, especially when we’re ahead. it is all too easy to pretend they don’t exist. However, we must as critical thinkers and future leaders of this nation not make the same mistakes that allowed this election to transpire.

This is where we leave you: Trump currently holds 244 electoral votes to Harris’ 214 and Trump is favored in Pennsylvania, michigan, and Wisconsin. The odds of the United States of america electing Kamala Harris as its next President are exceptionally unlikely.

We still hope for a Harris win. but for the sake of our nation, we need to realize the missteps that have allowed the democratic Party to end up where it is today.

‘Paul Hudes is a staff columnist and a member of the editorial page board for the Brown Daily Herald. His column is wide-ranging but focuses mostly on American politics. Paul studies Applied Math Economics and English Literature.

Aizenberg ’26: This election is impossible to predict — but I’ll try anyways

Harry Truman’s re-election campaign in 1948 seemed like a losing effort. His approval rating hovered in the mid-30s, and many of his fellow democrats were jumping ship. Some left for segregationist Strom Thurmond. others defected to Henry Wallace, the founder and leader of the Progressive Party. With polls showing Truman trailing by about 13 points to republican Thomas dewey, many pollsters stopped surveying voters weeks before election day, assuming the outcome was obvious. and a day after the election, the Chicago daily Tribune plastered the headline “deWey deFeaTS TrUmaN” across its front page.

However, in a stunning turn of events, Truman won the election decisively, outperforming the polls by around 17 percent.

While 1948 is an extreme case of polling error, it still highlights that regardless of how clear a race seems, it is impossible to predict the result confidently. Pre-election polls are never entirely accurate, and error is always expected.

many people, particularly nervous democrats, believe that current polls may again be underestimating Trump, given that he outperformed them in both 2016 and 2020. While polling errors in those elections indeed favored Trump, their magnitude was surprisingly small. in fact, the 2016 national polls were more accurate than those in 2012. Trump was also underestimated in 2020 (with one outlier poll giving biden a 17-point lead in Wisconsin, a state he won by less than 1 percent), but the errors generally fell within the typical range seen in election polling. This discrepancy may even be attributed to democrats exercising caution about Covid and avoiding crowded polling areas.

Some have speculated that these past polling errors were partly due to tendencies unique to Trump voters. in 2016, some evidence suggested that Trump supporters were likely to lie to pollsters because they felt that it was socially unacceptable to support him openly. While embarrassed Trump voters may have impacted the 2016 polls, this will likely not be the case in 2024. Trump has since become a well-established figure, making support for him less socially taboo. Furthermore, following his assassination attempt in July, his approval rating has surged to its highest point in years.

another challenge is that Trump voters tend to distrust institutions, including polling firms, making them harder to reach in surveys. Pollsters are mindful of this fact and have adjusted their sampling methods and response weighting to better capture Trump’s base. These efforts have shown

improvement: 2022 was a historically accurate year for political polling.

Polling averages are therefore the best information available for predicting the outcome of the election. (Note: all 2024 polling numbers i discuss from here to the end are from Nov. 2). Currently, all swing states are a typical polling error away from tipping to either candidate — the least close being Georgia, where Trump leads by about 2.5 percent. With margins this tight, even a small sys-

ministration’s handling of the israel-Hamas war. across the aisle, Trump has polled the strongest in arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina. These three states have relatively large concentrations of nonwhite voters, among whom Trump has been performing better than any republican in decades. Notably, Georgia, which voted for biden in 2020 and elected two democratic senators shortly after, is Trump’s strongest swing state this year. Using polling data and weighting based on de-

tematic polling error could swing all of them to one candidate, making the outcome of the election appear deceptively lopsided. Prediction markets give both Trump and Harris about a 20 percent chance of a sweep. among the swing states, Harris has polled the strongest in michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. michigan, her best-performing state of the three, shows her currently ahead by 1.2 percent and she has not trailed there since July. although Pennsylvania and Wisconsin remain essentially tied, Harris has generally held a narrow lead in both states for the past months. These three states each have a high percentage of white voters and share similar economic concerns, and, as a result, trend the same way electorally. Like biden, Harris has polled better with white voters than Clinton did in 2016, helping her maintain a lead in these states. one potential wrinkle, however, is michigan’s high concentration of arab-american voters, who strongly disapprove of the biden-Harris ad-

mographics and “fundamentals,” statisticians have been working to forecast the election. The three most respected models — Nate Silver’s Silver bulletin, FiveThirtyeight, and The economist — each give Harris and Trump equal odds of winning, with Pennsylvania projected as the likely tipping-point state. Prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi see Trump as an ever-so-slight favorite but agree that Pennsylvania will tip the election. Historian alan Lichtman, famed for correctly predicting elections based on 13 (somewhat dogmatic) trueor-false questions, believes that Harris will win. both candidates have reasons for optimism. Trump can be encouraged by the trend of incumbents faltering worldwide in 2024. He might also hope that left-leaning independents, such as Jill Stein, will siphon votes from Harris, especially since right-leaning independent rFK Jr. dropped out and endorsed him. additionally, Trump may be bolstered by Harris’s potential error of not choosing Josh Shapiro, the highly popular governor of

Pennsylvania, as her running mate. on the other hand, Harris may be heartened by the possibility that pollsters have added too much pro-Trump weighting in an effort to correct for previous underestimations. a recent high-quality poll showed Harris leading in iowa, which has recently voted solidly red, suggesting that she may be underestimated in the midwest. additionally, Harris has a higher approval rating than Trump, which should translate to more votes. Furthermore, left-leaning mainstream media sources may be overestimating Trump’s chances due to negativity bias, perceiving a Trump victory as more likely because it’s viewed as an unfavorable outcome. With all of these projections in mind, i will try to predict the election myself. i am writing this on Saturday, but given that polling has been relatively steady recently, there’s little reason to expect any major shifts by Tuesday. also, many americans have already voted, limiting the extent to which new political developments can influence the outcome of the election. it is worth noting that the early vote is not predictive of the election outcome — for example, in 2016, Clinton led the early vote in West virginia by 12 percent, despite ultimately losing the state by over 40 points.

my prediction is that Trump will ultimately win the election. There will be no surprises in the deep-red and deep-blue states, leaving the election to be decided by arizona, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, michigan, Wisconsin and possibly Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional district, which votes separately from the rest of the state. i anticipate that Trump will carry arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, while Harris will win michigan, Nevada (by less than 0.5 percent) and Nebraska’s 2nd district, and eke out Wisconsin. Trump will win Pennsylvania — the tipping point state — by 0.3 to 0.8 percent, giving him an electoral College victory of 281 to 257, despite Harris winning the popular vote by around 0.7 percent. The polls, i believe, will underestimate Trump by 0.5 to 1 percent.This is just one story of how the election will unfold, and i will probably end up proven wrong in some regard. either candidate could be underestimated in the same way Harry Truman was in 1948. anything could happen on Tuesday — we’ll just have to wait and see.

Ben Aizenberg can be reached at benjamin_aizenberg@ brown.edu. Please send responses to this op-ed to letters@ browndailyherald.com and other op-eds to opinions@ browndailyherald.com.

SUmmer SHi / HeraLd

Rahman ’26: Dear young progressives, third party is not the answer

i f we wake up on Wednesday morning and d onald Trump is elected president, our world will fundamentally change for the worse. When we wake up a year later and lament the damage, what will we say we did to prevent it?

o n Tuesday, a merica faces a clear choice between a historic visionary or an authoritarian demagogue. While i ’d assume the right choice would be an obvious one, in all seven swing states, the election is needlessly nail-bitingly close. To my progressive friends who care deeply about climate change, abortion rights, immigration policy, criminal justice reform and the humanitarian catastrophes in Gaza and Lebanon, i say to you that sitting this election out is profoundly misguided.

donald Trump is wholly unfit to lead this country. He is a twice-impeached convicted criminal with a troubled relationship with the truth. He brags about sexually assaulting women. He has called to “terminate the Constitution,” referred to his fellow americans as “enemies from within,” suggested journalists should be investigated for treason and vowed to prosecute his political opponents. in the words of his former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Chief of Staff, Secretary of defense, attorney General and vice President, he is a “fascist” who puts “himself over the Constitution,” is “unfit” for the presidency and “shouldn’t be anywhere near the oval office.”

Trump poses an extreme threat. b ut in reconnecting with many of my progressive classmates back home in m ichigan, i ’ve encountered an unparalleled sense of pessimism about the d emocratic party that stands in stark contrast to the hope we felt just four years ago. For many, particularly my a rab a merican and muslim friends, the current administration’s overly accommodating policy toward israel is a decisive factor influ -

encing their decisions to vote, to stay home or even to vote third party. i share these same frustrations. yet i urge us to see past our anger so that we do not enable ourselves to elect Trump, who will discard these concerns and only exacer-

victory and enacted a bold liberal vision for a merica. in the run-up to the election of 1968, anti-v ietnam War protests sprung up on college campuses across the nation. Sound familiar? While good in intentions, the protests cata -

If you’re willing to accept a worse outcome for Palestinians because no candidate exactly supports your position, then it was never about Palestinians in the first place.

bate the suffering.

young voters have the power to decide this election. They have historically been a key constituency within the d emocratic coalition, which has become increasingly fractured as a merica is whipped up by populist fervor. rather than working to reform the d emocratic party, many are increasingly turning to the Greens or even Trump as an outlet for their disillusionment. This would be a historic mistake. d espite disingenuous overtures, Trump is not a friend of progressives, Palestinians or their supporters. He has called on israeli Prime m inister b enjamin Netanyahu to “finish the job,” reversed US opposition to illegal israeli settlements and vowed to reinstate his un-a merican muslim ban.

We have seen this story before. in the election of 1964, President Johnson won a decisive

strophically backfired, ushering in the election of r ichard Nixon who dragged out the war for years and caused the deaths of many more a mericans and v ietnamese.

For a more recent example, we can look to the election of 2000 in which the number of votes Green Party candidate ralph Nader received in Florida could have secured d emocrat a l Gore’s victory. a Gore presidency, perhaps, could have allowed for decisive action on climate change and avoided two devastating wars in iraq and a fghanistan. a nd once again, history repeated itself in 2016 when the Greens cost Hillary Clinton m ichigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, delivering Trump his first term. This is the very reason Trump himself signaled his enthusiastic approval of the Green Party candidate Jill Stein at a rally in June, saying she “takes 100 percent”

Valdes ’27: Behind Brown — Rachel Fontes

Behind Brown is a series of vignettes about staff members of the University.

The engineering research Center Cafe, located on the first floor of barus and Holley, boasts ceilingto-floor windows and enough caffeine to see you through any problem set. it’s known to be home to an ecosystem of busy students who thrive in its outlet-rich environment. What truly makes the erC special, though, are the familiar faces behind the counter you’ll find listening to 2000s hits and greeting their regulars every morning.

born and raised in Cranston, ri, rachel Fontes has worked in the erC for over two years. Long

lines of orders, even on the busiest days, are punctuated by her familiar greetings and compliments. i was lucky enough to sit down with rachel outside of rush hour to talk about her life and the behindthe-scenes of the cafe.

“We’re definitely a family, and we’re all personable too,” she said. in my opinion, personable is far too humble an adjective to describe rachel’s coworkers, like allen “dJ Lefty” Pires.

“allen, yes he’s the oG. been here for thirty years. and when you come to him, he’ll give you any type of advice just based on the experience that he has. He has a lot to give,” rachel said.

rachel and allen are joined by Samantha, a cashier who has worked at brown for over ten years and whose compliments always stick, as well as Stewart, the head chef.

“We’re always there to pick each other up,” said rachel. “a lot of things that we say to each other are like, ‘oh my gosh, that was a laugh that was well-needed based on the day that i was having’.”

a day at the cafe for rachel begins by making sure that all the syrups, drinks, pastries and sandwiches are fully stocked. This process is finetuned to the chaos of the semester: “The last few moments before opening we’re like, ‘okay, are we approaching exams?’ if so, we know that we’re gonna get a whole bunch of lattes and matcha and everything like that. So let’s make sure that we’re prepared for that,” she explained.

This kind of care and consideration is what draws so many students to the erC cafe: The fact

from the d emocrats. regardless of their purported values, the effect of the Greens is notably illiberal.

m any feel that voting for the Green Party is their only avenue for signaling discontent with the d emocrats, but this is not the case. The rise of a lexandria o casio Cortez as a mainstream voice and the future of the d emocratic party provides a pivotal example of how working within the system can shift the balance of power. rather than tear everything down, we as voters have immense power to create the kind of party we can be proud of, particularly in primary elections. i f every single young person voted, we could tip the outcome of any election and bring our priorities to the forefront.

m ake no mistake, if you are a single-issue voter acting in protest and the other guy is worse on the very issue that you’re protesting, your single issue is that you’re shortsighted. i f you’re willing to accept a worse outcome for Palestinians because no candidate exactly supports your position, then it was never about Palestinians in the first place. voting pragmatically might not feel as gratifying as a protest vote, but if you waste your vote, all i ask is that you prepare to look into the eyes of the people for whom a second Trump term will hurt.

i am voting for Harris not because she was my first choice or represents everything i stand for, but for the people who don’t have the same rights as i do and who will suffer the consequences of our inaction. i hope that you’ll join me.

‘Tas Rahman ’26 can be reached at tasawwar_rahman@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and other op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

that the person you are collapsing before for a coffee notices the bags under your eyes and the mid-semester panic.

“Seeing a student that came in seeming all frazzled, whether it’s because of studying, exam time or what have it, just being able to put a smile on their face by a simple compliment is really what makes our day go round,” rachel said.

Similar to the blue room, the erC cafe gets its pastries from Seven Stars bakery, a locally-owned business. rachel kindly tipped me off to the new pumpkin Kouign-amanns, a round laminated dough pastry filled with pumpkin puree and topped with pumpkin seeds, that they’ve been getting delivered on Tuesdays and Thursdays. infamously, the cafe takes real money. So i asked rachel if she could tell when a regular runs out of flex points by the fact that they start idling by the counter debating whether to drop a couple bucks on a muffin.

“yeah, we do, and we give a little bit more grace,” she laughed. “We’re here to give and we’re here to feed you guys at the end of the day. i’m not gonna let anybody starve in our faces. it’s really not that deep.”

rachel often empathizes with the students in the lobby glued to their work: “it gives me flashbacks to when i was doing the same thing in college, just attacking my laptop,” she said. rachel studied Spanish education and is fluent in the language. “i have a big passion and love for the Latin community. i intend to go back for my master’s and give my all to somewhere like the Providence

Public School district, where they need great teachers,” she shared.

Just as many people can attest to rachel’s kindness having an impact on their day-to-day lives, rachel recounts memorable experiences she has had with students.

“you know, we’re so used to asking ‘Hey, how’s your day?’ and doing the drill. but there’s also other people that purposely come over, saying ‘Hey, i just wanted to check to see how you guys are doing.’ and we appreciate that so much,” she said. When rachel’s mother passed away two years ago, a senior created a GoFundme page to help support rachel and her family. “i was looking at the names, and i didn’t even recognize half of them, but the fact that they took a minute to read the page and to be generous, it really stuck with me. it still sticks with me to this day,” rachel said. rachel is a testament to what brown’s community is at its best: considerate, hospitable and deeply human. it is thanks to her and each of her coworkers that the erC cafe is such a unique space on campus that has resonated with its many customers and friends.

So, if you’re more frugal than i am and have flex points to spare, go ask rachel about the pumpkin Kouign-amann. and try to beat the lunch rush.

Camila Valdes ’27 can be reached at camila_valdes@ brown.edu. Please send responses to this column to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

ARTS & CULTURE

INSTALLATION

The Blind Urban Subject stands at attention on Thayer Street

The art installation was officially launched last Friday

BY ALYSSIA OUHOCINE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Passersby on the northwest corner of Thayer and a ngell Street might have noticed a new addition to their route: a binocular tower viewer. When peered into, the tower simulates the perspective of people with four visual conditions: glaucoma, cataracts, diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration.

officially launched on Friday, the art installation — dubbed “The blind Urban Subject” and spearheaded by daniel Solomon ’26 — is the work of a collective of brown and riSd students with the support of both universities, multiple organizations and the City of Providence.

born with ocular albinism, a genetic condition that affects vision and light sensitivity, Solomon said he was motivated by his own experiences as a legally blind individual. Through his activism within the blind community, he sought to increase urban accessibility and raise awareness about the ways in which visually impaired individuals engage with their environments.

“at its core, ‘The blind Urban Subject’ offers passersby a vantage point to experience a familiar urban intersection — Thayer Street and angell Street — from the perspective of someone who experiences life much differently than most,” Solomon wrote in an email to The Herald.

“even if only in some small way, we hope that this installation helps people

STUDENT PRODUCTION

gain a more mutual understanding of the blind and visually impaired,” he added.

The event generated much buzz, attracting attendance from brown administrators and rhode island elected officials. Following a short reception on the steps of the Lindemann Performing arts Center, organizers introduced the art installation and recognized the many contributions that led to its creation.

Zoe Goldemberg ’27, a brown-riSd d ual d egree student, served as the installation’s design engineering director. Goldemberg was part of the entire construction of the installation, from research and prototyping to the physical installation.

“i put together a team of riSd industrial designers who each had a specific role in

terms of mechanical design, rapid prototyping and additive manufacturing,” Goldemberg wrote in an email to The Herald.

The design team, consisting of riSd students Gresh Chapman, Hudson Hale and b rown- ri S d d ual d egree student yutaka Tomokiyo ’27, worked alongside medical professionals to better understand different visual conditions and how they could be depicted through the binocular tower viewer.

Throughout the speeches, much of the conversation centered around an important theme: increasing accessibility for visually impaired individuals in Providence. rishika Kartik ’26, the installation’s community engagement and outreach director, has worked extensively with the blind community. Together with Solomon,

she helped co-found blind@brown, an organization dedicated to advocating for blind, visually impaired and low-vision students.

i hope visitors learn that blindness isn’t taboo, mysterious or something to be afraid of,” she wrote in an email to The Herald. “We hope people realize that the majority of blind people are also very engaged in urban life, and because of that, urban accessibility is all the more crucial. Ultimately, we hope that people are encouraged to consider accessibility more, as a friend, citizen, employee and member of the world.”

Providence mayor brett Smiley, one of the elected officials in attendance, emphasized the importance of urban accessibility.

“accessibility in this city is very broadly defined, and we want to be inclusive,” he said. “We need empathy to ensure that we are building a city, an infrastructure, that works for all.”

Grace Pires, the president of rhode island’s National Federation of the blind chapter, also spoke at the event, emphasizing the necessity of curiosity in cultivating inclusivity.

“it is incumbent on us, the blindness community, and our allies to raise awareness — not only of the barriers that we face, but also about the capacity of blind people,” Pires said.

in the presence of the many elected officials, Pires reminded attendees that in addition to being a groundbreaking art installation, The blind Urban Subject also serves as a reminder of the work that still needs to be done to make urban cities

more inclusive.

Following comments by speakers, Solomon led guests on a walk down angell Street for the ribbon-cutting ceremony that would inaugurate the installation for the public. Lining the path down angell and Thayer Street were decals that describe the types of blindness featured in the installation.

i’ve been passing the art installation during my everyday walk, so i was really curious about it,” launch attendee Sofia Kassalow ’26 said. “i figured i would learn all about how it came to fruition and the story behind it.”

Patricia Poitevien, the interim vice president of the office of institutional equity and diversity, also attended the event.

“i’m thrilled that space is being created for students who have different abilities because they are a very important part of our community, and in particular, an important part of underrepresented populations,” she said.

“ i think it’s a really hard thing to understand what it’s like to live with a visual impairment,” said Jack morris ’25, a visually impaired student who attended the launch. “i hope people will just come take a look and try and get a sense of the unique physical perspective that we all have in navigating the world.”

For Solomon, the opening of The blind Urban Subject is just the beginning.

“We want people to think new thoughts,” he said. “We want them to challenge their realities.”

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 3, 2024.

‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead’ student production opened last weekend

Students put eerie spin on classic by Tom Stoppard

BY ROSE FARMAN-FARMA STAFF WRITER

“a udiences know what to expect, and that is all they are prepared to believe in” is one of the most memorable quotes of “ r osencrantz and Guildenstern are d ead,” but i certainly did not know what to expect when i went to see it this past weekend. a ll brushed up on my Shakespeare quotes, i entered the theater unsure whether to be — or not to be — braced for a philosophical upheaval.

From Thursday to Saturday, b rown student theater group Something on the Green took over the Granoff Center for an eerie three-day production of Tom Stoppard’s classic. a functionally absurdist spin-off of “Hamlet,” the tragicomedy somehow manages to make Shakespeare’s tragedy even more discombobulating and existential.

The perplexing play raised a bombardment of questions about fate, purpose and what happens when you cast the spotlight onto two minor characters. rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two rather irrelevant figures in “Hamlet,” spend almost the entirety of Stoppard’s play questioning what they should be doing. Prince Hamlet has gone mad, and it is up to them to find out why — but along the way, it seems that everyone has been driven insane by the limitations of their

Brown and RISD students built the stage, designed costumes and managed lighting and sound on their own, and the results were remarkable.

destinies.

While most of the play consists of witty reparté and slapstick jokes, director Calvin Ware ’26 walked a masterful line between the ridiculous and the tragic, as the audience found themselves both rolling their eyes at and clutching their chests for these lost characters.

The play is demandingly metatheatrical.

i t plays daringly with dramatic irony, constantly pushing the audience to consider what it means to be helpless in

one’s own story.

r osencrantz and Guildenstern are warned repeatedly that they are “marked for death,” yet they cannot bring themselves to believe it. a t one point, Guildenstern sums up their position in the metaphor of their being passengers on a boat: “We can move, of course, change direction, rattle about, but our movement is contained within a larger one that carries us along as inexorably as the wind.”

b rown and ri S d students built the

stage, designed costumes and managed lighting and sound on their own, and the results were remarkable.

“ i t really feels like i know where every limb of this operation is coming from because it’s all kids i ’ve hung out with and worked with before,” said colead Harry Tarses ’27, who played Guildenstern. That, he added, contributed to a “sense of togetherness that i think is rare and a really community building experience.”

Ware hailed his production team and cast. “ e veryone is really putting their heart and soul into everything, and i ’m confident in all of us,” he said.

This environment of collaboration came through in the performance’s attention to detail and precise execution. From rapid enigmatic monologues and linguistic spars to perfectly coordinated action scenes, Ware did justice to a convoluted and challenging play. i t felt like a mixture of “Waiting for Godot” and “ d umb and d umber,” as the stumbling duo of r osencrantz and Guildenstern ask theater’s — and life’s — most unanswerable questions amid word games and jests.

audience member Conrad Gardey ’28 said that the play was “absolutely phenomenal. Phenomenal performance from both Harry Tarses and Zane e linson.” e lla r ummery ’28 said that the play was both “childish and philosophical in a way that everyone could understand.” i left the show moved and confused, thinking about a line from i sabelle Levine ’28’s character, The Player. “ i f life was a bet,” they propose, “you wouldn’t take it.” yet, as reflected in like the play’s opening coin toss that always displaysshows up heads, Stoppard shows how humanity is an absurd, impossible bet against death, played out through the inevitable beheading of our dear r osencrantz and Guildenstern.

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 5, 2024.

maX robiNSo

The design team,worked alongside medical professionals to better understand different visual conditions and how they could be depicted through the binocular tower viewer.

Director RaMell Ross discusses portrayal of Black experiences in ‘Nickel Boys’

Actress Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor ’92 also participated on the panel

BY GABRIELLA WRIGHTEN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

d irector r a mell r oss and actress aun -

janue e llis-Taylor ’92 discussed their upcoming film, “Nickel b oys,” in a m onday Q& a discussion moderated by Prudence Carter ’91, the director of the Center for the Study of r ace and e thnicity in a merica.

The film, adapted from Colson Whitehead’s 2019 novel of the same name, follows two b lack teens — e lwood ( e than Herisse) and Turner ( b randon Wilson) — and their experiences at Nickel a cademy, a reform school based on the infamous d ozier School for b oys in Florida, which inspired Whitehead’s novel.

“ i hope that the film creates an experiential monument of the d ozier School for b oys,” r oss said at the panel. “ i think that’s the best we can do given the incalculable loss and the repair that seems almost impossible.”

r oss, a professor of visual art at

REVIEW

b rown, said he strives to question historical reproductions of b lack experiences in the media.

“Nickel b oys,” for example, avoids explicit depictions of violence against b lack bodies, though it does not shy away from the horrific, violent nature of the school. i nstead, the entirety of the film is told through point-of-view shots from either e lwood or Turner, highlighting their personality and character, rather than placing a focus on the abuse they endure.

“ r eproducing trauma makes it seem like that’s supposed to happen or that’s normal,” ross explained. “ i ’m interested in creating media that’s as complex as the result of the violence.”

The cinematography also seeks to capture subjective experience. The cuts in the film “aren’t plot-driven,” r oss said. “They’re all more ephemeral and fleeting representations of the attempts to be in someone’s head.”

r oss and his co-writer Jocelyn b arnes hoped that the film’s themes of love — highlighted in e lwood’s grandmother Hattie ( e llis-Taylor) — would carry more emotional weight than the depictions of violence. i n an interview with The Herald, r oss discussed how

Director RaMell

experiences in the media.

both e lwood and Turner afloat. r oss also spoke on the importance of working on a project about social equality and discussing it at b rown.

“ i t’s always grounding to work on projects about social equality when

more disenfranchised,” he said.

e llis-Taylor, who plays Hattie in the film, said that as a b lack artist, her ability to perform in such a project is “an anomaly.” i get to be a part of the correction

of the absence of truth and that gives

“Nickel b oys” is set to have a limited theatrical release on d ec. 13.

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 7, 2024.

‘A Real Pain’ puts a lighthearted twist on touching family story

moving story explores the importance of family with a lighthearted twist.

BY MANAV MUSUNURU SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Jesse e isenberg returns to filmmaking with his recent dramedy film “a r eal Pain,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January. The deeply

The film focuses on the journey of polar opposite cousins b enji (Kieran Culkin) and d avid Kaplan ( e isenberg) as they go on a tour through Poland to pay tribute to their late grandmother, who was a Holocaust survivor.

The film skillfully juxtaposes the cousins’ contrasting personalities as they adventure to Poland, displaying how the extroverted b enji easily strikes

up conversations with random strangers, fellow tourists and even a TSa agent. meanwhile, the more subdued d avid tries to stay in the background, sheltered under his i U baseball cap like a turtle in its shell.

An advance screening of the film was hosted by the Ivy Film Festival C

When the pair arrives at their hotel, they meet up with their tour guide James (Will Sharpe) and are introduced to several fellow travellers: recent divorcee m arcia (Jennifer Grey), couple d iane (Liza Sadovy) and m ark ( d aniel o reskes), and e loge (Kurt e gyiawan), a survivor of the r wandan genocide. i t is during this meeting that audiences are fully exposed to just how different b enji and d avid are.

Culkin’s portrayal of the well-intentioned, yet socially inept b enji is praiseworthy. a s e loge recounts his experience of converting to Judaism after fleeing r wanda, b enji continually interrupts the story with exclamations of surprise and wonder. While these actions would generally be considered rude, e loge doesn’t seem to mind the disturbances, praising b enji’s curiosity. Later, b enji makes small talk with m arcia, who warms up to his personality and frequently confides in him about her family life.

b ut not all members of the group strike friendly relations with the outspoken b enji. d uring a train ride, b enji has an outburst, during which he highlights the irony of traveling in first class, while their Jewish relatives were crammed into the back of vehicles on the way to concentration camps. a nother outburst occurs later at a cemetery, when he admonishes James for spewing too many facts and ignoring the solemn nature of the tour.

i n these scenes, audiences are transported directly into the body of d avid, who is always off to the side, attempting and failing to de-escalate the situation.

v iewers are overcome with second-hand

Throughout the film, the contrasting personalities of cousins Benji and David are skillfully juxtaposed with one another.

embarrassment, grimacing as they watch the painful social ineptitude that b enji frequently displays throughout the film. e isenberg’s performance of d avid is no less commendable. i nitially, he portrays the character as a timid and shy workaholic, struggling to fit in with the tour group. b ut, as his qualms with benji increase, d avid’s inner discomfort and repressed annoyance slowly bubble to the surface, resulting in him becoming progressively more stern with his cousin.

d uring intense moments of the film, the facade of comedy falls to reveal a poignant tale about the importance of family. a t a group dinner, d avid reveals that, as he continued to advance in his career in New york City, he drifted further and further away from his former best friend: his cousin b enji. d avid acknowledges that, after the death of their grandmother, he remained unaware of b enji’s worsening mental state.

The bond between the cousins, though initially presented with an air

of unseriousness, is ultimately the film’s emotional core. d avid is not annoyed at b enji, but rather concerned for the well-being of someone he loves and has not seen in years. a udiences can easily relate to their dynamic and are moved to tears as the cousins eventually express their care, love and gratitude for one another.

a s the movie comes to an end, viewers are taken back to the airport, mirroring the opening scene of d avid and b enji’s initial departure. Having reached the end of their trip, the two cousins part ways in an anticlimactic and bittersweet goodbye. Though it may seem like their relationship has reverted to its previous state, their shared journey proves to have brought them closer, even for just a fleeting moment. With its subtle narrative moves, “a r eal Pain” seems to understand that family is not always defined by overt displays of affection, but rather the shared memories — and pain — that bring people together.

Ross, a professor of visual art at Brown, said he strives to question historical reproductions of Black

SCIENCE & RESEARCH

RESEARCH

Complete map of fly brain provides a fruitful resource for neuroscientists

FlyWire connectome published after more than four years of work

BY ELISE HAULUND SENIOR STAFF WRITER

With 140,000 neurons, 50 million synapses and over 100,000 cell label annotations, the fruit fly brain has been mapped and published in a series of papers written by scientists worldwide, including contributors at b rown. it’s a marked advancement in neuroscience that researchers say will improve our understanding of the human brain.

This complete connectome — a diagram mapping every connection between neurons in a brain — for d rosophila, otherwise known as fruit flies, was put together by the FlyWire consortium comprising hundreds of collaborators.

The development is an important step in scaling up brain mapping to larger organisms such as mice and even humans, according to Sven d orkenwald, a research fellow at the a llen institute of b rain Science and the University of Washington, who authored the flagship paper with these findings last month.

b ut brain mapping with this level of detail is difficult. Creating a completely annotated d rosophila connectome that shows each individual synapse — junctions between neurons — took over more than four years.

“Flies have about 130,000 neurons in their brain,” said Karla Kaun, an associate professor of neuroscience at brown who

STUDY

Researchers compared the connectome to Google Maps, providing detailed information about various parts of the

contributed to the project. “Humans have more connections than there are stars in the m ilky Way. a nd so if you want to study things one neuron at a time, it’s impossible to do that even in a mouse brain at this point.”

d espite being degrees of magnitude less complex than the human brain, the drosophila connectome serves an invaluable role in understanding “how neurons are connected and how those connections drive neural activity and behavior,” Kaun said. She added that her research leverages the FlyWire connectome as a “roadmap.”

many of the brain components in flies “are highly conserved,” she added. “So

how it works in a fly brain is very, very similar to how it works in our brains.”

d espite its similarity to human brains, the fruit fly brain is far simpler and easier to manipulate, Kaun explained. So, studying it can yield a “fundamental” understanding of cell functionality that can be extrapolated to the human brain.

The d rosophila connectome is like “Google m aps” for the fly brain, said Philipp Schlegel, a senior research associate at the University of Cambridge and the medical research Council Laboratory for molecular b iology, who authored a companion paper to the connectome’s release.

The grayscale, un-annotated images of the connectome are comparable to satellite images of the e arth, he explained. but more information is needed to label the neurons and discern their functionality. Further annotations provide additional details to understand the brain, similar to the building descriptions or restaurant reviews on Google m aps, Schlegel added.

a ccording to Kaun, the interactive connectome would allow users to “pull out which things are attached to which things” for a more complete understanding of how different parts of a d rosophila brain work together.

d ifferent labs use the connectome to understand the bridge between the physical connections of neurons in circuits to the functional impact, Kaun said. b ut each expert “has their own little thing” that they focus on, including smell, hearing and navigation. i n fact, having numerous experts who focus on just a couple of “favorite neurons” ended up being central to the production of FlyWire’s connectome, d orkenwald and Kaun said.

The first step to completing the connectome was to attain the high resolution image data via electron microscopy. after acquiring images for 8,000 slices of the brain — each of which is 40 nanometers in depth, 0.0005 times the width of a human hair — researchers converted this to a 3 d model using artificial intelligence, showing all the neurons and synapses, Schlegel explained. b ut this needed proofreading.

ai has gotten extremely good,” but

not perfect, d orkenwald said. “Just a few errors that you make by reconstructing those neurons means that your data is unusable for analysis.”

“The good news,” he added, “is that just a few corrections make it usable.” in an effort to catch errors and recruit scientists to collaborate on the project, the FlyWire consortium made the connectome open access, so labs could join and correct neurons of interest. Kaun’s lab, for instance, contributed “in a minor way” thanks to the work of one of her former graduate students, Kavin Nuñez ’15 Ph d ’21, who characterized a few octopaminergic neurons, she said.

This work allowed Kaun’s lab to understand how rewarding alcohol was to hungry flies. “We discovered, using the connectome resources, that there was a hidden neuron,” she said. “i t turned out that (it) was the neuron that was responsible for the behavior.”

even though the FlyWire connectome was only published this year, over 30 publications used the resource before it was even fully annotated, d orkenwald said.

The fact that “there are so many labs around the world that came in to work together is very unique, and is really at the heart of this project,” he said.

Kaun said the FlyWire connectome exemplifies the value of open science.

“i think it’s setting a new standard on how science should be done,” she added, “and i think that’s really exciting.”

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 7, 2024.

US spent over $22 billion on Israel’s military operations in past year, Watson finds

Project has researched ramifications of US involvement in conflict

BY CLAIRE SONG SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The United States spent over $22 billion on military aid to israel and related operations between o ct. 7 of last year and Sept. 30, 2024, according to a research article released by the Costs of War project at the Watson institute for international and Public a ffairs.

This figure includes $17.9 billion in U.S. security assistance to i srael and $4.86 billion spent on U.S. military operations “against Houthis in and around yemen,” according to the paper.

“$17.9 billion is the most the U.S. has ever provided i srael in a single year,” said Stephen Semler, a co-author of the paper. Semler noted the previous highest amounts provided by the U.S. came after the Camp d avid peace accords for the e gypt- i srael conflict and when former president r ichard Nixon “bailed out israel” in 1973.

The new record funding levels come from israel’s intense military operation in Gaza and the middle east that followed Hamas’ o ct. 7, 2023, attack, Semler said. He called i srael’s campaign “the single worst act that humans can do to one another.”

The report is divided into four parts — U.S. support for israel’s military operations, historical context, the broader economic costs of recent U.S. engagement in the m iddle e ast and a list of

weapons companies that benefit from the spending.

The paper characterized $17.9 billion as a conservative estimate. The estimate included an approximate cost of operations, approved security assistance funding and funding for regional operations, but did not include other potential costs, such as commitments to future spending.

d etermining these spending estimates was not a simple process, Semler said. “ you have to effectively become a lawyer” to read the legislation allocating

funds for israel and make sense of it, he explained.

m any of the numbers are available through public sources, said William Hartung, another co-author of the paper. b ut, while the Pentagon and the State d epartment regularly share military aid numbers, researchers had to “dig a bit” for other factors, he said.

“There’s a stockpile of weapons in israel, and it took some journalistic digging to find out how much there was,” Hartung said. He and other researchers

scoured logs of aid shipments and excess defense article programs, where extra defense equipment is given to other governments or organizations “for free or for the cost of transportation,” he said.

The Costs of War project emerged in 2010 in order to provide the “fullest possible account” of “the human, economic, political and environmental costs” of the U.S. at war. The project aims to inform U.S. foreign and domestic policies, according to its website.

“The project aims to encourage

a mericans to think critically, ask the big picture questions, and hold the U.S. government accountable in regards to war,” said Stephanie Savell, the director of the Costs of War project and a senior fellow at Watson. Contributors often work to garner media attention when a paper is released, hoping to shape public conversations, Savell added.

an aP exclusive article regarding the paper was reprinted over 700 times in major news outlets, such as the Washington Post, and was featured over 150 times on broadcast television, according to Savell.

Savell added that discussion surrounding the money spent on war cannot occur without “talking about the human toll as well.”

a companion paper released by the Costs of War project discussed both the direct and indirect human toll that have resulted from the israel-Hamas war. according to the paper, 96% of Gaza’s population faces acute food insecurity and over 62,000 people in Gaza have died of starvation since o ct. 7 of last year.

“That’s a dramatic human impact,” Hartung said. “Combined with the fact that U.S. taxpayers are paying to make it happen, i think we’re hoping the paper will get people to think twice about staying quiet and to actually come out and oppose these policies.”

“ o ur government is enabling war crimes, and some analysts even have called it a genocide,” Hartung added. “The U.S. is complicit in these crimes and it’s going to have a negative effect on relationships with countries all over the world.”

HUayU oUyaNG / HeraLd

An AP exclusive article regarding the new study was reprinted over 700 times in major news outlets, such as the Washington Post, and was featured over 150 times on broadcast television, according to Stephanie Savell, the director of the Costs of War Project.

STUDENT LIFE

Brown students cultivate community and spiritual growth in religious spaces

The Herald spoke to campus groups to explore religious life at Brown

BY GRACE HU SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The Herald’s fall 2024 poll revealed that about 25 percent of the undergraduate student body is not religious, while 17 percent identify as agnostic. To better understand religious life at brown, The Herald spoke to students and chaplains along with spiritual and religious leaders about their experiences in religious communities on campus..

Chaplain of the University Janet Cooper Nelson said that religious identity encompasses “belief, behavior and belonging” — and that a poll may be unable to capture the nuances of how these facets interact. She also highlighted that religious and spiritual life manifests in a multitude of ways on campus.

Lia antico, who has led the Christian mindfulness meditation group since 2022, aims to combine meditation, spirituality and mindfulness in an intergenerational, interfaith space. She noted that the word “spirituality” comes from the Latin word “spiritus” whichthat means “vital breath.” at its root, it does not necessarily refer to involvement with any organized religion.

“What i try to say to students that can be a bit afraid of spirituality is that (it) is what animates you, what brings you life inside,” she said. “it can be religion, but it can also be something else.”

The group meets on Tuesday evenings in manning Chapel, where they engage in a guided meditation and mindfully listen to a bible passage. “They can have a time for themselves to pause and to listen to others,” antico said.

at its monthly meetings, the College Hill buddhists for Peace gather to study and share their perspectives on buddhist

PUBLIC HEALTH

philosophy.

The buddhist approach is to “look in and down into us, instead of looking out and up,” said alvin Huang, the group’s religious Life affiliate, brown’s office of Chaplains and religious Life’s liaison to lead the various religious groups on campus.

Huang believes that people who have not previously been exposed to buddhism “hold a very conventional idea about religion,” thinking that all religions involve “powerful beings out there for people to believe or even worship.” but he said that in buddhism, “the object of our worship is buddha, which means you and i.”

Huang said that the diversity of the group, including believers and those just interested in learning more, creates “very interesting conversation.”

“We all have questions of ‘where did i come from? Who am i? What is right and wrong?,’’’ Paul Smith, who serves as the rL a for the baha’i Faith, said. Smith describes his role as “helping students explore ideas of spirituality” by facilitating weekly Sunday devotional gatherings and Thursday fireside discussions and meeting with community members one-on-one.

in addition to campus groups exploring the spiritual dimensions of religion, others focus on maintaining religions’ cultural practices as well. Geeta Chougule, the rL a for the brown Hindu Student association, said that the club focuses on organizing Hindu religious festivals, such as pujas, or prayer services. recently, the club organized a puja for the autumn Navratri season — a festival in honor of durga, a form of divine female energy in the religion. “a few students have said to me that when they attend these pujas, it kind of gives them … a taste of home,” Chougule said.

The University also offers interpersonal care and support to students via chaplains through individual meetings, according to Cooper Nelson. “These offices are confi-

dential,” she noted.

“our role is still very much the one of saying, ‘What does it feel like to be you in the brown community?’”, she continued, adding that they work to foster a sense of belonging for students who feel disconnected from campus.

“every single person that is in the brown community matters,” she said.

Cooper Nelson also co-leads the bereavement Group, a weekly informal and non-religious gathering for students dealing with grief and loss.

imam amir Toft, the associate chaplain for the muslim community, described his role in providing pastoral care “as varied as human beings are.”

When students approach Toft, he says they often entrust him with “something that is perhaps even more valuable than their physical possessions.,” such as their private thoughts. “That’s a really weighty responsibility that i take seriously as a muslim and, as a team, we take seriously as chaplains.”

Cooper Nelson also highlighted the uniquely inclusive inclusive nature of religious groups on campus: “you’re not going to be disqualified, nor do you have to qualify, right? it’s just an open door.”

“at brown, it’s really easy to place your value on what you do and how well you do it,” said Kevin Kim ’25, who is on the Leadership Team of the Salt and Light Christian Fellowship. “but the thing is that oftentimes you never feel like that’s enough.”

Kim was invited to a fellowship gathering his sophomore year during a period of personal difficulty. While he was not initially religious when joining the group, Kim remained with the group because of the community he found. “There was such a love and care that each person had for each other that i’d never seen on brown’s campus,” he said. “it was very lightening for the burdens in my life.”

He aims to nurture a community within the fellowship where “it’s okay if you’re strug-

gling because we’re all struggling.”

Toft also described one of his roles as encouraging and fostering the presence of a “broad community” where people of different levels of practice, backgrounds and dispositions can get involved. To accomplish this goal, Toft initiated Friday lunches following weekly prayer services so that “people have the time to cultivate that companionship as believers who share something in common.”

He described witnessing the building of these connections as “one of the most satisfying things” about his role.

Students involved in religious organizations tend to agree, describing the community they found as built on shared identity.

Layla ahmed ’27, the Service Chair of the muslim Students association, said “mSa has a lot of spaces where you can casually talk to someone and from there build deeper friendships.” ahmed, who became involved in mSa in her first year, felt that she could connect with people in the club “more easily due to common ground.”

Nathan Seelig ’27 was surprised to find that brown-riSd Hillel was “as robust as it is,” often attending their weekly Shabbat dinner. although Seelig doesn’t describe himself as particularly religious, he continues to return to Hillel in part due to the community he’s found there.

When first transitioning to college, orli Hockenstein ’27 found it difficult at first to observe the Jewish holidays she observed back home. but after becoming involved with Chabad, a center for Jewish students, she found it easier to continue her observance of Jewish traditions.

She described feeling initially wary that her more egalitarian observance of Judaism wouldn’t fit in with the more traditional religiosity observed by Chabad. but she described feeling welcome despite her original trepidation. “Chabad is so welcoming to everybody. They know that they’re here with college students from all over,” she said,

adding that “plenty of people that come to Chabad that aren’t observant at all.”

Lila david ’26, a board member of Chabad and president of Jewish Women at brown, also never expected to be so involved in the Jewish community at brown. “it’s such a happy plot twist,” she said, calling it “an amazing community” that “is only getting stronger.”

“i’m more religious now than i’ve ever been,” she said. “i’m learning so much about all these aspects of Judaism that i didn’t really know before.”

Fabio villatoro ‘26, an international student from el Salvador and the outreach Chair of the brown-riSd Catholic Community, was initially intimidated to join the group. bbut after making an effort to meet new people he was able to buildbuilt meaningful connections after making an effort to meet new people. He advises those looking to join religious organizations to build relationships organically. “Try to meet people slowly, get to know what they’re doing. and use it as a resource to fulfill that part of your identity,” he said.

vivian miller ‘26, who attends Quaker meetings organized by Providence Friends meeting at moses brown, describes them as a welcome escape from the “bubble” of being a college student. The meetings include an hour of silent reflection and meditation, which miller describes as a time she can be with herself away from campus: “i’m a part of this broader community, and i’m a person in a larger world than just brown.”

Cooper Nelson said that students often have the opportunity to learn from one another in religious spaces at brown, drawing a parallel to academic spaces. “it’s all learning,” she said, but during students’ time in college, “some of the learning you have to do is in your heart.”

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 6, 2024.

Inside the app Brown researchers are developing to curb young adult drinking

The School of Public Health research team is conducting a randomized trial

BY SAMAH HAMID CONTRIBUTING WRITER

a group of researchers at brown are developing an app to reduce drinking in young adults and encourage healthier drinking habits.

The researchers just completed a second open trial to test the feasibility of the app, named alcohol, reflection and morning evaluation, or a-Frame a randomized trial is being launched, according to a press release from the school.

The main goal of the second trial was to “confirm the latest version of the tool was acceptable to young adults,” Jennifer merrill, an associate professor of behavioral and social sciences and the team lead, wrote in an email to The Herald. “We wanted to test whether they would actually use it for 28 days and find it valuable to use.”

These results and feedback were positive, merrill explained, with users appreciating “the different feedback features, the ability to make choices about what feedback they wanted to get, and ability to set goals that are specific to their own interests.”

a-Frame personalizes daily feedback by using information that users enter about

The program was set for participants to use over the course of 28 days, but some participants indicated that they wanted to use it for longer.

their alcohol use the previous day, merrill wrote. This can include how much and what participants drank, among other details from their experiences.

The program gives participants an analysis of their drinking experiences, such as “how last night’s drinking compares to what the ‘typical’ young adult drinks, or a calculation of what blood alcohol concentration they reached the day before,” merrill explained. Users can set goals depending on how they would like to change their drinking habits.

The program was set for participants to use over the course of 28 days, but some participants indicated that they wanted to

use it for longer, merrill added. Currently, the app is still not fully developed and the program is operated through a survey platform.

“once we transition to an actual appbased program, i think people could make decisions themselves about how long they found it useful,” she wrote.

The sample wasn’t limited to college students. Zoe Logan, a senior research assistant at the merrill lab, said the team also hopes to connect with “adult education areas in rhode island” and across the country. They have reached out to unions in the area, particularly because many young adults who did not attend

university went to tech school and are now a part of unions.

The team hopes to “build longer-standing relationships with these types of institutions to make sure that their young people, who they have working for them, are getting these supports in the same way that university students get them too,” Logan said.

other studies often neglect to study non-college students, which can result in biased samples, she added. about half of the trial’s participants are non-university students, which includes students at technical schools and community colleges. recruitment for the

ongoing randomized trial began in august and will continue until February 2025, with the final round of data collection coming in during march.

in addition to the information collected from the daily surveys, participants also take part in a “final post-trial interview about how usable and interesting participants found the app to be,” roselyn Peterson, a postdoctoral fellow on the team, wrote in an email to The Herald.

The program has changed with feedback from prior trial participants. The app was altered to “allow even more goal options, leave the survey open longer, turning the interface into a formal app with app capabilities, assess drinking reasons/context, and make more connections with research,” according to Peterson.

o nce the data is collected, the researchers will look for any trends that indicate long- or short-term effects on individual drinking habits. but they still intend to transform the program into an app, Logan said.

“The next step is really hoping to get the next round of funding for this to actually put it into software and hire a programmer who can do an application for us,” she said.

METRO

POLLING FROM PAGE 1

tember, “we didn’t get a lot of people at all,” she said. but, by 6:20 a.m today, there was already a line outside.

Santos, Klinkmann and their fellow poll workers all were at Hope High School for 15 hours.

Parents like ellie Pavlick, an associate professor of computer science, also came to vote at Hope High School as soon as

m argaret b arrows lives across the street from Hope High School. as an older individual, she found voting in person to be the easiest and most accessible way to make her voice heard.

City Hall redirects several voters to other polling locations according to michael Narducci, admin-

istrator of elections for the city of Providence, nearly 10,000 Providence residents voted early.

a lmost 2,000 people casted their ballots on monday, the last day of early

the polls opened.

Pavlick said that she likes “the ritual” of voting in person. Though Pavlick’s daughters are too young to vote, she brought them to the polls with her in hopes that “they can start to learn about the process,” she said.

For Liam donohoe, this was his first time voting in a U.S. presidential election. “i’d had a green card for many years, and i realized two years ago that i really wanted to vote to express my opinion,” donohoe said.

poll moderator. most of her morning had been spent redirecting people to other polling locations such as amica mutual Pavilion, the only polling location that is able to process same-day voter registrations.

“ i just registered about a week ago, and i had no idea that i had to register almost a month before the election” to vote in state and local elections, said Camila Guerrero, a first-time voter. She had already been to three polling locations this morning to cast her vote for president and vice president.

For Josie medina, voting is a step towards creating a “safe environment” for themselves and their Puerto-rican family. my rights as a woman, as an LGbTQ member, as a nonbinary person, as a minority person” are at stake, medina said. b ecause of this, medina and their mom “feel incredibly pushed to vote.”

City Hall also marks medina’s third polling location of the day. Like Guerrero, medina and their family were redirected from City Hall to another polling location to cast their ballots.

a ccording to r iess, fewer people are registered to vote at City Hall since the precinct is mostly composed of commercial and public property.

voting. Terence riess, a supervisor at the Providence City Hall polling location, described that day as “really amazing.”

“everyone was excited to vote,” riess added.

but at City Hall, where only 152 people registered to vote, election day was slower than monday.

“Unfortunately, a lot of people are coming in as first-time, non-registered and inactive voters,” said michelle Narducci, a

“ most of the people that are registered (in this precinct) are because of the homeless shelter here,” riess continued.

m ichelle Narducci emphasized that poll workers “don’t turn anybody away” unless they are unable to vote. rather, they assist voters by locating appropriate documentation, providing support services and having Spanish speakers on site.

a ccording to m ichelle Narducci, some people “say that the navigation of the (voting) system is a little hard.” The best way to tackle this, she believes, is by encouraging voters to vote more to become more familiar with the process.

Polling location on campus was convenient for students

Situated in the Kasper m ultipurpose r oom, b rown’s on-campus polling location drew in students and non-students alike.

Nozomi Greimel ’27 said that she wanted to vote in person because there was a polling location on campus. Though getting to the polls was simple for Greimel, she faced some difficulties with voter registration.

because Greimel is not from the U.S. and does not have a U.S. driver’s license, she could not register to vote in r hode island online. “i had to mail in my registration, which took weeks and weeks to process,” she said. “That waiting period was quite long and also rather stressful.”

Hélène Comer ’25 said that both convenience and uncertainty around the

mail-in ballot process factored into her decision to vote.

Filling the ballot out “in person, putting it back and then getting an ‘ i voted’ sticker is very nice and satisfying,” Comer added.

m atthew mcQuistion ’25 initially intended to vote from his home state of o klahoma, but an unexpected issue prevented him from doing so.

“ i wanted to vote in o klahoma, but then i learned i was purged from the voter rolls … because i ’m an inactive

voter,” mcQuistion said. “a nd then it turned out that i was registered to vote in r hode island.”

Though mcQuistion also encountered a slight hiccup at the polls, rhode i sland’s same-day registration system made it easy to resolve this issue. “They just had

all the stuff (so) i could sign (up) here,” he said.

Nearing the end of polling hours, poll worker rob a dams said he chose to staff the polling station because “it’s an important election.”

“ i feel like you can always do more — more than just voting,” a dams said.

He noted that the polling location faced “the normal challenges” associated with college student voting: slight errors in addresses, or recent housing moves that haven’t been accounted for in their voter registration.

a dams came to the polling station before 6 a.m. and will be leaving at 9 p.m., he said. “it’s a long day, but it’s worth it.

Voters at Hope High School.

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A poll worker.

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A voter at City Hall.

maX robiNSoN / HeraLd Josie Medina (left) and Iris Alvarez (right).

maX robiNSoN / HeraLd Camila Guerrero.

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Henry Peguero.

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Henry P. Cley.

By Sanai Rashid, Abigail Donovan, Avani Ghosh, Ciara Meyer, Andrea Li and Megan Chan