Thursday, November 16th 2023

SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD VOLUME CLVIII, ISSUE 48

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2023

BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM

WHAT’S INSIDE

METRO

RISD students arrested after allegedly vandalizing Textron world headquarters PAGE 4

ARTS & CULTURE

Sofia Coppola beautifully scrutinizes age gap in new film ‘Priscilla’

PAGE 12 KAIOLENA TACAZON / HERALD

BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now has retained a lawyer, but group representatives declined to comment on any legal proceedings, representatives said.

SCIENCE & RESEARCH

Students arrested in sit-in charged with trespassing, await late November hearing

PAGE 15

20 students were arrested in sit-in calling for ceasefire, divestment Nov. 8

BY JULIA VAZ METRO EDITOR Each of the 20 Brown students arrested on Nov. 8 following the sit-in at University Hall face a trespassing charge, according to University Deputy Director for News and Editorial Development Amanda McGregor. The students have an expected court date of Nov. 28, The Herald previ-

ously reported.

Attorneys for the city of Providence will likely try to prove that the students “remained upon land owned by Brown University after having been forbidden to do so by a duly authorized agent of the university,” wrote Andrew Horwitz,​​ associate dean for experiential education at Roger Williams University School of Law, in an email to The Herald.

According to University Spokesperson Brian Clark, the University issued multiple trespassing warnings, The Herald previously reported. The presence of the students at University Hall posed a “se-

SPORTS

W. Soccer earns victory to open NCAA tournament Bears beat Quinnipiac 3-0, will face Mississippi State this weekend

BY NICHOLAS MILLER SENIOR STAFF WRITER Last season, forward Ava Seelenfreund ’23.5 scored 10 goals — tied for most on the Brown roster — on her way to being named to the Ivy League First Team. But this year, ahead of the women’s soccer team’s matchup against Quinnipiac Saturday, in the first round of the NCAA tournament, she had only scored once.

Against the Bobcats, the 2022 version of Seelenfreund returned. At the heart of nearly every Brown attack, Seelenfreund recorded a staggering 10 shots, including a goal in the 15th minute of what became a 3-0 Brown (12-2-2, 7-0-0 Ivy) victory over Quinnipiac (13-4-1, 9-0-1 MAAC).

“I’ve been putting in a lot of work,” Seelenfreund said. “The ball might not

be bouncing my way a few times and I’m getting a little unlucky, but I have not put my head down. It felt really good to put one away early and keep the result going.”

Seelenfreund’s performance was part of a dominant showing from the Bears a week after they lost in the first round of the Ivy League tournament to Columbia, breaking a 28-game unbeaten streak against conference opponents.

Quinnipiac, which entered the game 12th in the nation in goals per game, failed to record even a shot against the Brown defense until the final seconds of the game, while the Brown attack had 24 attempts, nine of which were on target.

“The team played tremendous from start to finish,” Head Coach Kia McNeill said.

“I’m just so grateful to play behind a fantastic back line,” goalkeeper Clare Gagne ’24 said. “That one shot on goal

SEE SOCCER PAGE 6

curity concern,” Clark wrote.

BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now organized the sit-in, which was in solidarity with the walk-out organized by Brown Students for Justice in Palestine and the Brown University Palestine Solidarity Caucus that afternoon, The Herald previously reported.

Representatives from Jews for Ceasefire Now confirmed that they have retained a lawyer but declined to comment on any legal proceedings.

Under Rhode Island state law, individuals who “willfully trespass … shall be punished by a fine not exceeding one

thousand dollars …or imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year, or both.”

In cases of civil disobedience, Horwitz said, defendants usually have few or no defenses given the intentions of protestors. “The entire point … was to make a point by violating the law in order to get publicity and in order to bring attention to the cause and the belief connected to the cause.”

The organizers of the sit-in demanded that President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 publicly support divesting the

Urban Environmental Lab remains space for environmental exploration

post-

SEE SIT-IN PAGE 16

ON-CAMPUS ACTIVISM

Faculty sign letter in support of arrested student protestors Faculty members call for University to drop charges, facilitate conversation

BY RYAN DOHERTY & ANISHA KUMAR SENIOR STAFF WRITERS Last week, over 160 faculty signatories called for President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 to urge lawmakers to support a ceasefire in Israel-Palestine in addition to affirming academic freedom. Paxson discussed these demands with faculty members on Tuesday, asserting the University’s support for academic freedom and stating that there is no “Palestine exception” to free expression, though she declined to comment on calls for a ceasefire.

Wednesday evening, after The Herald published the initial faculty letter addressed to Paxson, Uni-

versity community members witnessed the arrests of 20 students part of BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now, who staged a sit-in at University Hall following a campus-wide walkout organized by Students for Justice in Palestine and the Palestine Solidarity Caucus. The 20 students arrested refused to willingly leave University Hall until Paxson committed to supporting “a divestment resolution in the next meeting of the Brown Corporation,” The Herald previously reported.

The students who participated in the sit-in have been charged with trespassing and have an expected court date set for Nov. 28.

On Thursday, faculty members held an emergency meeting to plan a course of action in light of Wednesday’s events. At this meeting, faculty met with representa-

SEE LETTER PAGE 3

SEE PAGE 8

ARTS & CULTURE

SEE PAGE 12

PAGE 2

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2023

TODAY WEEK IN HIGHER ED

1

HERALD FILE PHOTO

WEEK IN PHOTOS:

Sprawled across the facade of Trader Joe’s, “Confluence” was one of 13 public art installations introduced by The Avenue Concept this year and collages 19th-century Providence signage as a nod to the city’s river trade history.

Pro-Palestine groups suspended at Columbia following walkout

Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace were suspended from Columbia last week. The university cut off their funding and ability to hold on-campus events for the rest of the fall semester. A high-level campus official described the groups’ walkout as “unauthorized.”

2

Former California community college chancellor faces felony charges

“Parade,” located on Weybosset Street, is a fantastical reimagining of Providence summers, bikers and WaterFire by Michelle Perez, a Providence-based illustrator and designer.

Former San Mateo County Community College District Chancellor Ron Galatolo faces charges of theft of public funds and embezzlement — on top of 21 additional charges .

3

Undergraduate students form new labor union at University of Oregon

The UO Student Workers Union will represent food service workers, resident assistants and other student workers — marking one of the first times that undergraduate workers have unionized at a public college or university.

New England-based artist Lydia Musco hoped to meld urban and natural architecture through her sculpture “Twelth Unconformity,” located on the corner of Empire and Fountain streets.

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE AVENUE CONCEPT

THIS WEEKEND In Conversation: Black and Indigenous Histories and Pedagogies Symposium Nov. 16, 10:15 a.m.- Nov. 17, 3:45 p.m.

Petteruti Lounge

Football Senior Day v. Dartmouth Nov. 18, 12:00 p.m.

Brown Stadium

Camille Donoho Double Bass Capstone Recital Nov. 18, 7 p.m.

Grant Recital Hall

Fall Dance Concert Nov. 17, 8:00 p.m.

Ashmau Dance Studio

NEXT WEEK Fedor Sandomirsky Theory Seminar Nov. 20, 4 p.m.

Robinson Hall Vilde Aaslid Music Talk Nov. 21, 4 p.m.

Orwig Music Building

International Friendsgiving Nov. 21, 7 p.m.

Global Brown Lounge Home for the Holiday Brunch with the Alumni Pride Association Nov. 25, 12 p.m.

Stonewall House

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

LETTER FROM PAGE 1 tives from Jews for Ceasefire Now, several faculty members told The Herald. Jews for Ceasefire Now declined to confirm their presence at the meeting.

“The main spirit of discussion was to find ways to support our students,” Yannis Hamilakis, professor of archeology and modern Greek studies, said in an interview with The Herald.

After Thursday’s meeting, over 190 faculty members signed off on a second letter sent to Paxson which called on the University “to insist that all legal charges against the students be dropped immediately, to exempt the students from any University disciplinary proceedings (and) to open a campus-wide conversation that engages seriously with the students’ demands.”

Nadje Al-Ali, director of the Center of Middle East Studies, presented the second letter to Paxson Friday at a meeting originally scheduled to discuss the first letter.

Several faculty members also met with Paxson Monday to discuss the second letter in support of Jews for Ceasefire Now. Associate Professor of History Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar said she believes Paxson “listened to what the faculty had to say,” adding that faculty will “see what will unfold from” the meetings.

The Herald spoke with multiple faculty members about their reactions to Wednesday’s events.

‘Incredibly moved and incredibly inspired’ Al-Ali said she arrived on campus as soon as she heard about the arrests. She was “shocked” at the police presence, she said.

Al-Ali described feeling “incredibly moved and incredibly inspired” when she saw hundreds of spectating students singing a song in

PAGE 3

UNIVERSITY NEWS

Hebrew while standing in solidarity with the students being arrested.

“In its horror, it had beauty as well,” she said.

“Police walking out handcuffed students who protested peacefully,

entails “a basis for thinking not simply from the demands of business as usual … but to also be able to reflect, debate and consider.”

The arrests on Wednesday complicated Paxson’s stated support of

nonviolently, beautifully, singing songs and giving statements — how did we get to this?” Al-Ali recalled thinking.

Zamindar, who signed both faculty letters, said she was “deeply moved by the courage of the students,” particularly those affected

by Wednesday’s arrests.

She said that the events of Wednesday night were an example of “civil disobedience,” which she noted has a long history at Brown.

Andre Willis, associate professor of religious studies, wrote in an email to The Herald that he felt the arrests “left a chilling effect on (the University) community.” Willis also signed both faculty letters.

“I experienced the peaceful sitin … as an eloquent expression of solidarity, a veritable workshop of grace and a virtuous enactment that reflected the best of what we can say and do in the world: To ‘build this world from love,’” Willis wrote, echoing the words sung by the students gathered outside University Hall Wednesday.

academic freedom from Tuesday’s faculty meeting, several faculty members noted.

“Many of us were encouraged by her remarks saying that there is no ‘Palestine exception,’” Hamilakis said. “In terms of the principle of academic freedom, these were important remarks.”

“To have the arrests (a day) after was surprising,” he added, noting that there was “a sense of bewilderment and disappointment” among community members.

Willis wrote that he hopes the Brown community can come together and move forward following the arrests.

“To repair this damage and help our community heal requires thoughtful, sensitive responses, from the heart and soul of the best of Brown’s visionary intellectual leaders, not a technocratic, managerial response,” he wrote. “Brown is an institution that can be creative in the execution of rules towards ends.”

“Wise flexibility and courageous vision will help us move together towards a greater trust so that we can join, again, to raise our voices in solidarity against violence.”

‘A new kind of solidarity’ Multiple faculty members expressed that they hope a larger dialogue can be started on campus around the demands made by student groups like Jews for Ceasefire Now. “We have an opportunity at Brown to be the kind of place that brings people together to have difficult conversations. … We can model a new kind of solidarity,” Zamindar said, citing the events of Wednesday as an example of such solidarity.

To Zamindar, academic freedom

Several faculty members also met with Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 on Monday to discuss a second letter that called the University “to insist that all legal charges against the students be dropped immediately, to exempt the students from any University disciplinary proceedings (and) to open a campuswide conversation that engages seriously with the students’ demands” KATY PICKENS / HERALD

Additional reporting by Owen Dahlkamp and Sam Levine This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 15, 2023.

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PAGE 4

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2023

METRO

CRIME & JUSTICE

RISD students arrested, arraigned for alleged vandalism at Textron headquarters Students allegedly spray painted building in light of ongoing violence in Gaza

blockages and ground invasion of Gaza from Israeli armed forces.

Textron is a $12.9 billion, multi-industry company involved in defense manufacturing that works with the U.S.

“We want all our residents to know we take these crimes seriously, we understand the impact it has on our residents feeling safe and our officers will remain vigilant in preventing sim-

RISD SJP noted that RISD has received funding from Textron for exhibits, scholarships, fellowships and studios.

“Despite claiming to listen to student voices, RISD has stayed silent in an at-

perts on the conflict in the Middle East and because of that Farm Fresh does not have an official statement to share beyond our sincere hope that the violence and the loss of human lives comes to an end.”

BY TOM LI & CIARA MEYER SENIOR STAFF WRITER & STAFF WRITER

Department of Defense, which recently reiterated its commitment to “flowing critical security assistance to Israel.” The Israeli Air Force currently holds aircraft manufactured by Textron subsidiaries Bell and Beechcraft in its arsenal.

Thursday’s graffiti is the second recent case of vandalism at the Textron headquarters. Police also reported to the scene on the evening of Oct. 30, when the words “Free Gaza” were found spray-painted on the building.

The most recent spray-painting occurred on the morning of Nov. 1 and was reported later that day, according to a press release sent to The Herald

by Lindsay Lague, public information officer for Providence’s Department of Public Safety. The Providence Police Department apprehended both suspects, holding them in custody overnight.

ilar acts that result in further damage across the city,” said Mayor Brett Smiley and Colonel Oscar Perez in the press release.

“Textron appreciates the swift response from the City of Providence,” Michael Maynard, director of corporate communications for Textron, wrote in an email to The Herald. Maynard specifically thanked the Providence Police Department, members of the Downtown Improvement District and Mayor’s Office for their efforts.

Maynard declined to comment on any direct connection between Textron and the Israeli military.

In an Instagram post shared on Nov. 7, RISD Students for Justice in Palestine wrote that “Textron is not just complicit, but is an active supporter of the genocide and displacement of the Palestinian people.”

tempt to maintain its relationship with Textron,” the post continues. “Our education is tied to blood money.”

RISD SJP did not respond to The Herald’s requests for comment.

The graffiti follows a series of activist efforts targeting Textron. On Oct. 21, community members protesting in support of Palestine marched from the Rhode Island State House to Textron’s headquarters, The Herald previously reported.

On Oct. 21, Graffiti and flyers with the phrase “Free Palestine” were left at Farm Fresh RI, a non-profit organization advocating for accessible and sustainable local food systems.

“Our expertise lies in those specific areas directly related to our mission,” wrote Jesse Rye, executive director for Farm Fresh R.I., in a statement sent to The Herald by Delite Primus, Farm Fresh’s director of advancement. “We are not ex-

On Oct. 30, red paint was found on the door of the RISD Store, in an incident the Providence Police Department said it was investigating as potentially related to other acts of pro-Palestinian graffiti. RISD’s Department of Public Safety declined to comment on the incident.

“RISD is deeply committed to providing a safe and supportive campus environment for our students and we do not tolerate unlawful behavior of any kind, on- or off-campus,” Jamie Marland, RISD’s senior director of public relations, wrote in an email to The Herald.

Marland declined to comment on the incidents of potential graffiti at the RISD Store and the arrests of the students.

The two students could not be reached for comment.

On Nov. 2, two Rhode Island School of Design students were arraigned in Providence District Court for misdemeanor charges of alleged vandalism at the Textron world headquarters on Westminster Street.

The two students are under investigation for allegedly spray-painting the words “Kills Kids” on Textron office’s main entrance on Nov. 1. At the arraignment, the students pled not guilty and were held on $1,000 personal recognizance. The students’ next hearings are scheduled for Nov. 15.

The alleged vandalism comes in light of the ongoing violence in Gaza following Hamas’s Oct.7 attacks on southern Israel and subsequent retaliatory airstrikes,

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 12, 2023.

COLLEGE HILL, FOX POINT & JEWELRY DISTRICT

Seymour Foods brings locally sourced groceries to Wickenden Street New grocery store focuses on making food affordable, accessible

BY ABIGAIL DONOVAN SENIOR STAFF WRITER From Oct. 6-8, Seymour Foods celebrated the grand opening of their first brickand-mortar location, tucked away under the arch at Corliss Corner on Wickenden Street. The location offers a colorful array of baked goods, produce, beverages and more, primarily sourced from Massachusetts and Rhode Island, according to co-owners Lisa Kellogg and Chloe Fasano.

The company aims to make locally sourced food “affordable and accessible,” according to their website. According to Fasano, they strive for accessibility through home delivery, as well as accepting varied forms of payment including SNAP — Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly called food

stamps. In terms of affordability, “the more we buy from local producers, the more they can lower their prices,” she said.

The idea was born out of communication with vendors, Kellogg said. Both co-owners previously worked at a company which did local food delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic, but when it shut down suddenly, vendors asked the duo if they would be willing to take over, she said.

“Then we started brainstorming,” Kellogg said. Initially, they focused on Community Supported Agriculture, which involved delivering fresh produce to customers. With time though, they started operating pop-up shops and selling at farmers markets, she added.

“We don’t just know our farmers — we spend time with them,” the shop’s website reads. “We pick up the inventory (directly) so we can see the operation for ourselves.”

This close relationship with vendors is

what sets Seymour Foods apart, according to its owners. “This would not exist if we didn’t know them well,” Fasano said.

It also allows them to answer questions about the producers. “Somebody will pick up a jar of syrup, and they’ll be like, ‘Oh, tell me about this,’” she said.

“We’ve talked to the person whose idea it was to create (the product).”

This allows them to relay the “story” of the product to customers. “It’s a different shopping experience,” Kellogg said.

The duo “jumped at the chance” to get a physical storefront, Fasano said. “We always knew we wanted to do retail.”

Having a storefront allows them to have more conversations with customers and even facilitates collaboration between vendors, Fasano said. “It’s building a community.”

ABIGAIL DONOVAN / HERALD

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 12, 2023.

The store’s owners emphasized the importance of interacting with farmers and food providers, citing them as the inspiration for the store’s concept.

TRANSPORTATION

Providence, U. community members discuss fare-free RIPTA programs Riders discuss importance of programs after end of R-Line fare-free pilot

BY MIKAYLA KENNEDY SENIOR STAFF WRITER Last month, the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority faced an end date for two free-fare programs: one for all passengers of the R-Line and another for low-income passengers on all RIPTA lines. The former program expired, but RIPTA directors voted to extend the latter program for another six months.

The Herald spoke to RIPTA riders and Brown community members about the pilot programs and their experiences using the buses.

R-Line fare-free pilot RIPTA’s R-Line, which runs from the

Pawtucket Transit Center to the Broad City Line, was free for all passengers from Sept. 1, 2022 through September 2023.

According to a quarterly RIPTA report, the R-Line “is RIPTA’s most frequent and highest ridership route.” In mid-2022, the R-Line carried roughly 16% of RIPTA’s bus ridership, the report reads.

The fare-free pilot “intended to increase transit ridership and improve access and mobility for low-income people,” according to the report. The pilot served as “an opportunity to advance the conversation about how best to assist with climate goals and offer equitable and expanded transportation choices in Rhode Island,” the report reads.

Maria Monteiro rides the RIPTA every day while commuting to and from work, picking up her grandkids and

running errands. “It’s my car. It’s my ride,” she said. “I need it.”

“I miss the pilot,” Monteiro said, adding that the pilot program “was a big help in getting from Providence to Pawtucket.”

Based on RIPTA data, the end of the pilot program has resulted in an approximately 24% ridership decrease, ecoRI previously reported. During the pilot, year-over-year ridership increased by 40%.

Alice Ragan, an academic program coordinator for the University’s Department of Education who frequently uses the RIPTA, noted that “there were a lot more young people on here, a lot more students were able to use it” while the R-line fare-free pilot was in place.

She added that the pilot program “increased accessibility and it made a lot more people aware of, and active users of the bus system.”

Peggy Overton, who used the pilot to access RIPTA transportation after losing her bus pass, described the pilot program as “a godsend.”

“I hope they bring it back,” she said, referring to the pilot.

Overton noted that the R-Line route goes “all the way to Pawtucket,” which has a shelter and a location for harm reduction nonprofit Project Weber/Renew. She said the program was “good for people who need those services” but who “don’t always have two dollars to get on the bus.”

Alex Bautista ’25, an outreach worker with the University’s Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere club, which distributes single-use bus passes to locals in need, said more people have requested such passes since the end of the pilot program.

Bautista, who takes the RIPTA to volunteer at the Rhode Island Free Clin-

ic, said he noticed a lot more people on the R-Line during the fare-free pilot program.

“The R-Line stops right in front of the clinic,” he said. Without the farefree program, “I feel like a lot of people now have to think, ‘Is this cost going to affect me?’”

Iris Fernandez, who uses the RIPTA about once a week, said she believes RIPTA should make the bus free more often. Without a bus fare, some people are “stranded,” she said.

While riders may be seeking more fare-free programs from RIPTA, Raposo Perry noted RIPTA has only been able to maintain a balanced budget through the 2024 fiscal year due to emergency relief funding from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Without a new funding source, she

SEE RIPTA PAGE 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

PAGE 5

METRO

CITY & STATE POLITICS

Marisa Angell Brown starts as Providence Preservation Society director Angell Brown describes focus on socially conscientious preservation at PPS

BY AVANI GHOSH SENIOR STAFF WRITER On Oct. 10, Marisa Angell Brown stepped into her role as the Providence Preservation Society’s newest executive director. In her new role, Angell Brown aims to form lasting relationships across Providence’s many neighborhoods, as well as approach preservation work by more conscientiously thinking about its effects on environmental justice and public health.

Before her role at PPS, Angell Brown served as the associate director of the Rhode Island School of Design’s Center for Complexity and assistant director of programs at Brown University’s John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage.

Angell Brown said she got involved in preservation efforts when her own family’s history and heritage began to make her question “whose heritage gets preserved and whose doesn’t.”

Her father’s side of the family has

been in the United States for hundreds of years and has well-documented archives and stories that have been passed down. Angell Brown’s mother, however, emigrated from South Korea — leaving a country that “she had mixed feelings about” — and didn’t share much of her family history, Angell Brown explained.

“As I got older, I was really interested in how, within your own family stories, … some get elevated (while others aren’t) really talked about,” she said.

In her academic work, Angell Brown is particularly interested in art and architectural history. “What are the things that a culture decides to spend a lot of resources conserving, protecting, elevating and interpreting?” she asked.

“And what are the things that we decide are not valuable or we’re going to let be demolished or erased?”

Angell Brown hopes to answer these questions and make preservation efforts more relevant to the communities PPS serves by identifying what it is about spaces and their histories that make them valuable to the people who use them every day.

Angell Brown’s goals are in line with the broader mission of PPS, which “has been dedicated to the preservation and

revitalization of place, neighborhoods and the overall built environment within the city for decades,” according to Adriana Hazelton, an advocacy manager at the organization.

Hazelton wrote that with its Strategic Plan, PPS hopes to “demonstrate how preservation can play a larger role … in supporting affordable housing and vibrant neighborhoods,” an effort now aided by Angell Brown’s “substantial history and experience with community-centered preservation, history and design.”

Brent Runyon, former executive director of PPS, said that one of the most important goals of the society is focusing on “how preservation can be a tool for revitalization in neighborhoods.”

“Our neighborhoods are the heartbeat of our city,” he said. According to Runyon, preservation needs to play a part in both maintaining architectural heritage and the “stewardship of resources that have already been expended to create buildings.”

Hazelton said that PPS’s other goals include “expanding … preservation trades and building works programming,” forming relationships within the city and creating spaces for residents

to advocate for preservation and plan initiatives.

Angell Brown said that she is excited to work with all 25 of Providence’s neighborhoods in her new role: “It’s an amazingly diverse city for its size, and it’s really exciting to get to work at this scale.”

She also discussed how preservation involves the consideration of public health and environmental justice, as both construction and demolition produce significant carbon emissions. She hopes to build coalitions in support of these considerations.

But Angell Brown’s new role does not mean an end to her work with the University — where she hopes to continue publishing original research on Providence’s architecture and heritage.

“I’m really interested in thinking about how we work with artists and writers and performers to bring historic sites alive (and) create work that speaks critically back to spaces that have really problematic or complicated histories,” she said.

Runyon said that he hopes PPS “is able to think about neighborhood revitalization in a more just way,” especially when it comes to thinking about how preservation is associated with gentri-

fication and displacement. “That work is hard, and there is no magic bullet,” he said.

While it may vary across neighborhoods, “the data is always going to show that preservation equals gentrification and displacement,” Angell Brown said.

She believes that working with policymakers to ensure there are measures — such as affordable housing units — in place to prevent displacement would be beneficial.

PPS is also currently researching homes and businesses previously owned

by Black people on College Hill that are now University property. Angell Brown said this work “comes on the heels of the significant research that has already been done by Stages of Freedom and the Black Heritage Society, (who) have been the field leaders in elucidating this history.”

Ultimately, “we have a responsibility to really think through the impacts of the work and what it does to people and their … ability to remain in a place after preservationists have come into it,” Angell Brown said.

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 13, 2023.

RIPTA FROM PAGE 4 added, relief funding will be exhausted in less than two years and RIPTA will begin experiencing “annual financial losses exceeding $30M simply to maintain existing service levels.”

No Fare Pilot Program RIPTA’s No Fare Pilot Program enables low-income riders to take the bus for free.

In Oct. 2022, RIPTA’s Board of Directors led staff to establish a no-fare pilot program for low-income and unsheltered people who needed transportation and “did not qualify for any existing transit benefit program,” RIPTA representative Cristy Raposo Perry wrote in an email to The Herald.

The program, conducted in partnership with twelve human services organizations, established a “pool of 775 participants” upon its initiation, Raposo Perry wrote. According to RIPTA’s outreach to community partners and shelter locations, “many people experiencing homelessness did take advantage of the program to access support services, hopefully on their way to stable housing.”

In light of its extension, the No Fare Pilot Program “will shift the responsibility of funding and managing bus passes from RIPTA to partner organizations,” Raposo Perry added.

Raposo Perry also wrote that “while RIPTA is not a social service agency,” it understands the “value and importance of transit to low-income Rhode Islanders” and is “committed to helping our partner agencies secure the resources needed to fund bus passes for low-income and unhoused individuals who do not quality for other existing transit assistance programs.”

Norman LaMoore uses the RIPTA every day for transportation to Amos House, a local soup kitchen and social services nonprofit.

LaMoore said the RIPTA is an important service for individuals such as formerly incarcerated people who may

HERALD FILE PHOTO

The fare-free pilot, a quarterly RIPTA report noted, was “intended to increase transit ridership and improve access and mobility for low-income people.” not have access to other transportation options.

“People that get out of prison … should be able to use their prison ID as a bus pass until they can get back on their feet,” he said, adding that the $20 replacement fee for bus passes should be eliminated.

Brown and RIPTA Nearly 30% of University students reported that they had never used the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority’s buses or other public transportation services, according to The Herald’s Fall 2023 Poll. A similar share said that they rarely use the system, while an additional 33% of respondents reported they take the RIPTA either a couple times per semester or a few times a month.

Just seven percent said they take the RIPTA weekly and less than 1% reported using the RIPTA daily.

Through the RIPTA’s University pass program, which Brown has been a member of since 2009, “all members of the Brown community … with a valid Brown ID are able to ride on all RIPTA buses/ routes at no cost to the student, faculty member, or staff member,” Carleia Lighty, director of transportation and Brown Card Services, wrote in an email to The Herald.

The University’s partnership with RIPTA aligns with Brown’s “goals toward reduction of carbon emissions,” Lighty added. “The more that members of the Brown community can take advantage of RIPTA, the greater the reduction in reliance upon automobiles.”

Ragan, who rides the RIPTA every

day to and from work, said the University’s partnership makes RIPTA “a lot more accessible” and pushes her to use the bus service more frequently.

But Ragan said that the bus system can sometimes pose scheduling issues.

“With RIPTA, sometimes, a lot of things are off schedule,” she explained. “It can be hard to plan ahead because of that, especially when a bus takes off five minutes before it’s supposed to and I’m late for work.”

In 2022, RIPTA was on time for 81% of weekday trips, which is within its target range, ecoRI reported this year.

Kristen Rodriguez, a financial coordinator for Brown Dining Services, said the RIPTA has become her primary mode of transportation since her car began having issues.

Rodriguez emphasized that some

University staff can’t “always afford things” like bus fare and many “actually do take the bus.”

“It goes back to having the card swipe and it being free,” Rodriguez explained. “It’s very convenient.”

Despite the timing issues he sometimes experiences using the bus service during his transit to the Rhode Island Free Clinic, Bautista said the University-RIPTA partnership “makes commuting more convenient.”

“I probably wouldn’t have thought about volunteering outside of Brown’s campus if it wasn’t for the fact that Brown pays for RIPTA,” he said. “It makes leaving campus a lot easier and more convenient.” Bautista added that, for consistent RIPTA riders, the “fare could definitely rack up as an expense, especially for students.”

PAGE 6

SPORTS SOCCER FROM PAGE 1

really speaks for itself. I didn’t have to do much this game.”

On Friday, Brown — the No. 3 seed in its quadrant of the bracket — will face the sixth-seeded Mississippi State (11-5-5, 5-3-2 SEC) at Stanford University. The Bulldogs defeated Providence College 1-0 Saturday in overtime to advance to the next round.

After a balanced first 15 minutes of play, Seelenfreund capitalized on Quinnipiac’s indecisive defense to net her opener. Defender Jessica Hinton ’24 floated a ball into the box, where it was flicked on by forward Brittany Raphino ’23.5 and landed near Seelenfreund.

Her marker let the ball bounce multiple times, hoping the Quinnipiac goalie Sofia Lospinoso would come to claim it, but she was too late to arrive, allowing Seelenfreund to lunge with her right foot and poke it into the back of the net.

The Bears doubled their lead 15 minutes later, again taking advantage

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2023

of a Quinnipiac mistake. A corner kick from defender Sheyenne Allen ’23.5 was flicked on at the near post by a Quinnipiac player and landed right at the foot of unmarked midfielder Layla Shell ’25.5 at the back post. Shell’s shot deflected off an opposing defender and flew past the inside of the post.

“We knew that Quinnipiac was susceptible on set pieces and service in general so we really tried to focus on that in training,” McNeill said.

While the Brown attack went completely quiet in the latter half of the loss to Columbia, the Bears continued to dominate Quinnipiac for the second half, racking up 15 shots. But it took until the final minute of the game for the Bears to notch their third goal. It came off the foot of Raphino after a Quinnipiac goal kick was headed back by midfielder Lucinda Anderson ’24, which gave Raphino a breakaway. Raphino calmly slotted the ball past an off-balance Lospinoso to record her 13th goal of the season and her 10th

TALIA LEVINE / HERALD

Forward Ava Seelenfreund ’24 recorded 10 shots in the Bears’ Saturday game against Quinnipiac. in the last eight games.

The Bears were aided by tactical adjustments McNeill made from the game against Columbia, which included using substitutes for longer periods and returning Seelenfreund to a forward role instead of the attacking midfield position she played against the Lions.

“Last week, we didn’t really sub a ton in the game and I think sometimes some people’s legs got heavy towards the end of the game,” McNeill said. “So today it was nice to be able to go to our bench and give a jolt of energy from our bench and utilize the depth we have on this team.”

Brown will likely face a tougher test

against Mississippi State, which ended the regular season ranked 18th in the nation. Brown features the stronger attack in the matchup, averaging 2.06 goals per game to the Bulldogs’ 1.14, but both teams allow less than 0.7 goals a game.

Mississippi State finished third in the SEC, a conference with seven teams in the second round of the NCAA tournament. But the first round was also a success for the Ivy League, with all four teams that made the tournament advancing to the next round.

Brown will look to take its tournament success a step further than last year, when it lost to UC Irvine in penalty kicks in the second round.

“We’re excited to be going back to the second round of the tournament.

I feel like we have some unfinished business from last year,” McNeill said.

“I definitely feel our team can make a good run.”

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 9 2023

MEN’S SOCCER

Men’s soccer shocks Penn on PKs; stellar run stops short of Ivy Championship, NCAA Tournament berth with loss to Yale

After an improbable run to cap their incredible season, the men’s soccer team (5-5-8, 2-0-5 Ivy League) finally

with 18 minutes remaining. The Bears never backed down, quickly responding in the 76th minute with a goal from Harri Sprofera ’25, but they were unable to find the net again as the clock wound down.

Yale never took their foot off the gas, applying pressure on Brown until the last seconds.

“They are physical, strong, mature and (they) limit mistakes,” Wileman

proceeded to go 4-0-7 the rest of the way. According to Brown Athletics, goalkeeper Hudson Blatteis ’24 is the first player in Ivy League history to allow zero goals in regular-season conference play.

“I thought during the beginning of the season, we had some difficult times, but we were able to pick ourselves up and turn our season around,” forward Lorenzo Amaral

for the Bears in their second year under Wileman’s leadership.

“This fall, we were one game away from a trophy and an NCAA tournament appearance, and we were also a couple of results away from winning the regular season trophy,” Wileman wrote. “In 2022 I think we did some good things as well, so we are close. …The reality is we haven’t won anything, but there is a good

they believe we can win, and that is because of the winning culture the seniors helped to create,” Wileman wrote. “Myself and the rest of the staff are very thankful for their efforts and I know each of them will go on to do great things.”

Expectations will surely be higher for the 2024 team, as this year Brown was ranked seventh in the Ivy Preseason Poll.

fell 2-1 in the Ivy Championship to Yale (10-5-3, 3-1-3) Sunday afternoon. It was the Bears’ first loss in 12 games, leaving them two goals short of an automatic NCAA tournament berth.

“Yale was good in the game and deserved to win the trophy, credit to them,” Head Coach Chase Wileman wrote in a message to The Herald.

“That being said, we were in the game and we still had chances to win it. We never stopped and threw everything at them; it just wasn’t meant to be.”

After a scoreless first half, the Bulldogs broke through Bruno’s defense late with two goals in five minutes to take a commanding lead

wrote of the Yale squad. “They also do a good job of testing you by putting balls in the box and making you defend.” Wileman also cited Yale’s all-Ivy attackers Eric Lagos and Max Rogers, who recorded a goal and assist, respectively, as “the difference in a tight game.”

“We showed a lot of fight to get a goal back and continue to apply pressure until the end after going down two goals,” midfielder Charlie Adams ’24 wrote. “Yale played well and although we didn’t have our best quality, we fought hard.”

The game closes the book on the Bears’ 2023 campaign. After opening the season on a 1-4 skid, the team

’27 wrote. “The work that we put in from trainings to the coaching staff preparing us every game was a massive contribution to our success this season.”

The Bears snagged the last spot in the inaugural Ivy League tournament and pulled off a phenomenal upset to defeat the top-seeded Penn in penalty kicks.

“The win on Friday against Penn was a game I’ll remember forever,” Adams wrote. “After the rough start to our season, to finish in the Ivy Championship with a chance to win is something we’re all very proud of and can hold our heads high about.”

The season marked a major step

foundation there as we continue to build the program back up.”

This was potentially the final game for members of the Brown senior class, including players like Adams, Blatteis and First Team All-Ivy selection Kojo Dadzie ’24. Wileman noted that this is the final class with a COVID-19 eligibility waiver due to the canceled 2020 season and that some seniors may be returning.

“We improved a lot throughout the year and had our best stuff at the end, which was exciting,” Adams wrote. “What I’ll remember most is my teammates and all the time we spent together on and off the pitch.”

“Our team expects to win and

“This season shows how much this program has progressed and what the team is capable of achieving,” Amaral wrote. “I believe that our team has the quality and ability to keep improving, giving our fans next year exciting games to watch and a team that expects and wants to win week in and week out.”

Bruno bested 2-1 by Yale in conference final, lose first game since Sept. 16

BY LINUS LAWRENCE SPORTS EDITOR

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 15, 2023.

COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS

Bruno emerged victorious in a penalty shootout following a back-and-forth match

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

PAGE 7

SPORTS

Volleyball celebrates Senior Night with third straight sweep CLAIRE DIEPENBROCK / HERALD

Bears win weekend matches over Cornell, Columbia to close out regular season

BY DENNIS CAREY SENIOR STAFF WRTIER The volleyball team (18-6, 9-5 Ivy League) swept both Cornell (7-16, 5-9) and Columbia (3-20, 1-13) in their last weekend of regular season play. The Bears have now swept their opponents in three straight matches since their Nov. 3 loss to Harvard.

“You love to win in that fashion. It’s pretty dominant,” Head Coach Taylor Virtue said. “It gives us the confidence to know that we’ve got more and we’re capable of doing that to just about anybody as long as we’re firing on all cylinders.”

“We definitely took a rough loss to Harvard, which was really beneath the level and the standard that we tried to set for Brown volleyball, and I think that that was a real wake-up call for us,” Kate Sheire ’24 said. “So there’s been a shift in our determination since then.”

The team celebrated their Senior Night during their last home game of the season Saturday.

“I have the best group of seniors

that have led this (team) alongside me and it’s such a gift to be able to rely on your leadership the way I’ve been able to,” Virtue said. “We’re gonna miss them dearly and work really hard to make them proud.”

Bruno’s win over Cornell Friday clinched them a spot in the Ivy League tournament for the second straight season, as well as a postseason berth for Virtue in her first year as the Bears head coach.

Friday’s effort was led by Beau Vanderlaan ’25, who dominated the net as usual. The 2022 First Team AllIvy middle blocker notched nine kills and four blocks with a staggering .529 hitting percentage.

Cierra Jenkins ’24 continued to put on a show with 31 assists and 10 digs, posting one of the team’s two double-doubles — the other coming from Mariia Sidorova ’26, who notched 10 kills and 10 digs.

“This week, we really (worked) on staying focused and disciplined no matter who our opponent was,” Jenkins said Saturday, when she notched another 25 assists. “So spreading out the offense, establishing my hands and going back to the middle really helped us be successful tonight.”

The first set against the Big Red was

a challenge for the Bears, who found themselves down 14-9 early, but they battled back, winning eight of the next ten points to regain the lead 17-16.

From then on, Cornell never regained the lead and Bruno coasted to a 25-21 set win.

The second set was a defensive struggle for both teams, with Cornell hitting a paltry .022 and the Bears only hitting .186. Despite the struggles offensively, the Bears remained efficient, committing only six errors, while Cornell committed 10 of their 20 total errors in the second set alone.

After the Bears took a 17-11 lead, the Big Red tried to mount a comeback, winning five straight to get back into the match — but Cornell could not keep up the momentum and fell 25-22.

The third set was a domination, with the Bears outhitting the Big Red .433 to .038. The match looked contentious at the beginning, as Brown had to battle back from a 5-1 deficit to get ahead 11-9. The teams traded four points apiece to bring the score to 15-13 before the Bears went on an 11-2 run to clinch their spot in the postseason tournament.

On Saturday night, the Bears honored seniors Ada Agolli ’24, Kate Danaher ’24, Jenkins, Sheire and Jilienne

Widener ’24.

“We have a really special group of seniors and it’s their last chance here, their last moments in this gym in a competition,” Virtue said.

“I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to play here. This place is very special and this program is unforgettable,” Jenkins said.

“The coaching staff, the players, the culture and the overall experience of being a student-athlete at Brown will be life-changing for me forever, and I give credit to my whole team for how awesome we are on the court and off the court. We will be friends for life.”

“This program is everything to me,” Sheire said. “It’s definitely big but it’s like a family.”

Sheire notched eight kills and three blocks in the match against Columbia.

Vanderlaan also notched six blocks and, with 22 digs from Jessie Golden ’26, the Bears managed to hold the Lions to a hitting percentage of .133.

“We do a lot of preparation for the game,” Sheire said. “So going into it we have some spots that we think we’ll find success and we know hitters’ tendencies.”

Offensively, the Bears had seven players hit above a .300, an onslaught

led by Jenkins’s 25 assists and four kills. Sidorova, meanwhile, notched a career-high five aces to lead the team from behind the service line.

Following the pregame celebrations, the Bears quickly set the tone for the night, going up 18-3 in the first set.

While the Lions attempted to regain some momentum, the deficit was far too much and the Bears took the set 25-12, the Bears’ largest margin of victory in a set since Oct. 27 against Penn.

It was not much of a competitive match throughout the whole night, as the Lions were unable to break 20 points in any of the three sets. The Bears handily took the second and third sets by scores of 25-15 and 25-18, respectively.

The Ivy League postseason begins for the Bears on Friday with a 4 p.m. match against second-seeded Princeton in New Haven.

Bruno went winless against the Tigers in the regular season and will look to change that trend. The match will be streamed live on ESPN+, and the winner will advance to the Ivy title match against either Harvard or Yale.

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 12, 2023.

MEN’S FOOTBALL

Brown football comes up clutch to beat Columbia 21-14 in overtime

Jake Willcox ’24 throws late touchdown pass to Graham Walker ’24 to seal victory

BY DREW LERNER STAFF WRITER Coming off one of their worst losses of the season last week against Yale, the football team (5-4, 3-3 Ivy) responded with a hard-fought 21-14 victory over Columbia (2-7, 0-6 Ivy), courtesy of an overtime touchdown from quarterback Jake Willcox ’24 to wide receiver Graham Walker ’24. With the win, the football team has now posted their best campaign through nine weeks since 2013.

“That’s a very good (Columbia) team — we got their best effort for sure, and we just responded,” Head Coach James Perry ’00 said. Perry was “really proud of the guys, and we’ll just try and build on it.”

“The win means a lot,” defensive lineman Terrance Lane II ’24 said.

“The defense played well, we played

our scheme, we played our game. It means a lot for the next game too, because it’s momentum going forward.”

Saturday’s game in New York City was a low-scoring affair where defenses dominated, with both teams putting up just a single touchdown each through the first three quarters.

The Lions started the game with the ball and put up a touchdown after a 15-play, 78-yard drive that culminated in an 11-yard passing touchdown from Columbia quarterback Joe Green to receiver JJ Jenkins.

Brown later answered Columbia’s touchdown at the beginning of the second quarter when backup quarterback Nate Lussier ’24, on third-andone from the Columbia three-yard line, faked the handoff and ran into the endzone, with the extra point tying the game 7-7. From there, the Brown defense dominated, not allowing another Lions score until the fourth quarter.

In the fourth quarter, the Bears made the game 14-7 after running back Stockton Owen ’25 rushed the

ball four yards to conclude a 14-play, 91-yard drive. But Columbia went on to score on the following drive after backup quarterback Caden Bell threw a 32-yard pass to Jenkins to tie the game at 14 and force overtime, where Willcox and Walker ultimately made their decisive connection. After the Bears found the endzone on their opening overtime possession, Bruno’s defense held firm, forcing a turnover on downs to secure the victory.

Wes Rockett ’23.5, who continued to stake his claim as one of the Ivy League’s best receivers this year, reeled in 11 receptions for 62 yards.

Rockett also returned four punts for an additional 64 yards en route to winning Ivy League special teams player of the week honors. Rockett now leads the Ivy League in all-purpose yards with 123.9 per game, ranking 18th in the FCS. Rockett “is just incredible,” Perry said. “His returns were huge for us today … He’s just a complete football player.”

“The coaches were putting us in

positions to succeed all day. I think Jake played a hell of a game,” Rockett said. “Especially on punt, we (had) a ton of guys just blocking their tails off, trying to open creases for me, especially when (Columbia’s William Hughes) is gonna kick it that far.”

Perry praised the wide receiver corps as a whole. “We’ve got a deep group there, and you saw it at the end,” he said. Walker “is also a very, very talented kid, and I’m really proud of him too.”

Willcox completed 31 of 48 passes — a 64.6% completion percentage — for 265 yards and a touchdown, an improvement over his 51.3% completion rate last week against Yale.

“Everything about (Willcox) just oozes confidence, strength and leadership in general,” Rockett said. “I have the utmost confidence in him in any scenario, and you see it in the last play of overtime for us. Just making a play, finding Graham, and Graham does what he does best.”

In a game dominated by both team’s defensive efforts, Lane II led

the Bears with a pair of sacks. After the game, Lane II discussed the importance of preparation, “being consistent with my technique and always being ready to play the pass, run or anything.”

“The (defensive) effort was incredible, the D-line’s effort especially,” Perry said. “It starts up front against the D-line and against the O-line …

It was a fifteen-round boxing match that went to the end.”

The Bears will now hope to carry their momentum into their season finale at home against Dartmouth (54, 4-2 Ivy) Saturday. A win over the Big Green would seal Brown football’s first winning season since 2013.

As the team looks towards a difficult matchup, Perry made clear his expectations going forward. “I expect us to get better,” he said. “Today, (we) played some of our best football, so we’re just going to try and build off that.”

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 13, 2023.

post-

APR 14 — VOL 31 — ISSUE 9

See Full Issue: ISSUU.COM/POSTMAGAZINEBDH

NOV 16 — VOL 32 — ISSUE 8

Letter from the Editor Dear Readers, Happy Thursday! I say that with a strong emphasis on Thursday; as in, T-minus five days until I’m outta here. Or maybe four? Three? An alarmingly low percentage—roughly 25%, give or take—of my classes record their lectures, and the fleeting remains of my high school do-everything-all-the-time self still shudders at the thought of missing any potentially enlightening content. And all of this is remarkably ironic to my present day try-my-hardest-but-just-get-by self who is really just trying to make my way home. On one hand, I’m angry about the way my young spritely self overcommitted and burned me out a little, but I’m also grateful for all of the refreshing pools, like Brown, that he pushed me into. In a deeply roundabout way, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I regret that I don’t take enough time to say thanks for the home I’ve been lucky enough to create here. I can’t lie though, I still can’t wait to head back to the home I’m from.

This week in post-, the writers are looking towards home, and all the comfort and uneasiness that home induces around this point in our twenty-something lives. In Feature, our writer reflects on the similarities but mostly the differences between their youth and that of their mother. Meanwhile, in Narrative, our writers think about the homes that exist in their memories, whether those be of their mother or of the haircuts they have given and received. Our A&C writers are looking towards all that makes them what they are, be it the type of person they are labeled as, or the feelings they have been floating in and around for years. Finally, in Lifestyle, our writers think about the homes you can find in unconventional places, namely big, enveloping coats and your favorite bookstores. Oh yeah, and don’t forget to check out this week’s crossword; what’s more homey than a nice little word game?

The other day, I had a crit for my Digital Photography class, and I had to share my photographs of small people in a big world—predominantly strangers in vast Providence landscapes. I’ll admit, my images were remarkably uninspired; what was originally an exciting look into the quirks of my little college world had become a played-out motif. All I had to explain myself: “I’ve got to get out of Providence.” Thankfully, I shall soon. Wherever you choose to spend your break, whether you are traveling far, staying near, or just floating in between, I hope you get the chance to pull up the most recent issue of post-. Maybe share it with whoever reminds you of home. :) Homeward bound,

Joe Maffa

See Full Issue:

A&C Managing Editor

(and crossword answers)

ISSUU.COM/POSTMAGAZINEBDH

Our First Lives audrey wijono

6

Triptych of Bathroom Haircuts emily tom

Playing Home liza kolbasov

Am I Still Your Type?

Notes on Coats

Eleanor Dushin

Sean Toomey

Writing ‘Around,’ as Guided by Jensen Mcrae’s “Good Legs” alaire kanes

Which Independent Providence Bookstore Are You? Tiffany Kuo

“I could probably euthanize you tonight, if you wanted. I have a lot of drugs.”

1. Your post-grad plans 2. Hamilton Roblox Simulator 3. Roe v. Wade 4. Physician-assisted suicide 5. Your new piercing 6. Your aunt’s ex-husband 7. Switching from pre-med to Medieval Studies 8. Your favorite class, Pornography 9. Telltale signs of a failing marriage 10.Lil Nas X

“He’s my boyfriend AND he’s a Yu-Gi-Oh champion.”

2

1

Additionally

3

by aj wu

Across

1 4

5

Bone that's a bit of a tease

4 Units of an excel sheet 6

Faith that follows the Báb and the Universal House of Justice

7 Big name in shapewear

6

regret 8 Mid-semester over not choosing this grade option

Down

7

8

1

When he ___ what he sows

2

Minnesota representative Omar

3

Sauvignon ___

4 NBC rival 5 Half a dozen EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Kimberly Liu

“The reality of life—as distressing and unsettling as it may be—is that very little happens for a reason. There is no irrepressible plan or automatic response, as we observe in biological processes. There are often events for which we can find no justification, no sanity or sense. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people.”

—Zoe Creane, “Facing Death” 11.19.21

“Green thumbs are not green but a dark, sunkissed shade of brown, speckled lovingly with sunspots and creased deeply and irreversibly with age.”

—Audrey Wijono, “King of Fruit” 11.18.22

Section Editors Emily Tom Anaya Mukerji

FEATURE Managing Editor Klara Davidson-Schmich

LIFESTYLE Managing Editor Tabitha Lynn

Section Editors Addie Marin Elaina Bayard

Section Editors Jack Cobey Daniella Coyle

ARTS & CULTURE Managing Editor Joe Maffa

HEAD ILLUSTRATORS Emily Saxl Ella Buchanan

Section Editors Elijah Puente Rachel Metzger

COPY CHIEF Eleanor Peters

NARRATIVE Managing Editor Katheryne Gonzalez

Copy Editors Indigo Mudhbary Emilie Guan Christine Tsu

SOCIAL MEDIA HEAD EDITORS Kelsey Cooper Tabitha Grandolfo Kaitlyn Lucas LAYOUT CHIEF Gray Martens Layout Designers Amber Zhao Alexa Gay STAFF WRITERS Dorrit Corwin Lily Seltz Alexandra Herrera Liza Kolbasov Marin Warshay Gabrielle Yuan Elena Jiang Will Hassett Daphne Cao

Aalia Jagwani AJ Wu Nélari Figueroa Torres Daniel Hu Mack Ford Olivia Cohen Ellie Jurmann Sean Toomey Emily Tom Ingrid Ren Evan Gardner Lauren Cho Laura Tomayo Sylvia Atwood Audrey Wijono Jeanine Kim Ellyse Givens Sydney Pearson Samira Lakhiani Cat Gao Lily Coffman Raima Islam Tiffany Kuo

Want to be involved?

Email: mingyue_liu@brown.edu!

post–

Want to be involved?

Email: mingyue_liu@brown.edu!

november 16, 2023�7

PAGE 10

COMMENTARY

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2023

Feder ’24: A call for empathy and understanding from my Jewish community On Oct. 7, Hamas-led militants killed an estimated 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped over 240 hostages (many of them children). The horrific casualties of Israel-Palestine did not start, nor did they end on that day. Since Oct. 7, Israel’s military has exponentially increased the death toll: over 11,000 Palestinians, including thousands of children, have been killed in Gaza. Even as you, rightfully or not, fume at my audacity to write these sentences next to each other (all are furious at anyone who dares to ‘equate’), I hope that you’ll continue to read my essay.

The victims of the violence overseas are not just numbers to me; they are family, friends, teachers and partners in the fight for justice and liberation in Israel-Palestine. My cousins are Israeli soldiers in Gaza. Convinced they’re in a kill-orbe-killed scenario, their lives are on the line. They are my family whom I love beyond words. In Gaza, homes, buildings and hospitals are crashing and burning, burying people and hope under horrifying rubble. After news of a blast, my Palestinian friends await news of who from their families survived. In uniform, my 22-year-old best friend is full of fear and rage as her boyfriend remains in captivity; she is convinced that there is no choice but to fight.

I fear for her every night as I lay in bed, failing to sleep. My friends from Masafer-Yatta (West Bank, Palestine) are being forced from their homes and shot at while fleeing armed settlers, unchecked by Israeli soldiers. They are friends who’ve grown up knowing no security or safety. I cry not knowing if their houses remain standing, their fields unburnt, their families alive. After Oct. 7, my aunt went to three funerals in one day; my uncle traveled towards the massacre site of Kibbutz Be’eri to help identify the dead and missing; my cousin went to the Dead Sea to help hundreds of newly orphaned and traumatized children. In Gaza, there are too many dead to count and I can’t imagine there’s enough time for a proper funeral before another hundred are dead.

For a long time, I didn’t understand how these realities could all stand as simultaneously true.

Within the false binary of Zionist Jews and anti-Zionist antisemites, there is no room for me or the broader progressive Jewish community. On this campus particularly, there is no room for the nearly 90 other members of BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now. Equating critiques and condemnations of Israeli military campaigns with antisemitism creates a narrative that cannot possibly include us.

Our leftist Jewish existence complicates the narrative too much, so we’re asked to disappear, cast aside as self-hating Jews. I stopped calling myself a Zionist last year — not as a political statement, but because it became clear that every person using the label, whether as an identity marker or as an epithet, was working with a different definition.

Labeling myself with a single word, I realized, was an impossible starting point for dialogue. What a shame that would be, as dialogue is how I ended up realizing how shallow my understanding was, and how much I had yet to learn.

I grew up having Passover seder with my grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins in Israel. I’ve always loved that Israeli bus drivers say Shabbat Shalom and that even the lively streets of Tel Aviv are empty on Yom Kippur. I spent my gap year in Jerusalem, and I was educated in a New York Jewish day school where I learned how to “defend Israel

on college campuses.” When learning about and experiencing the state of Israel, the concept of having a safe haven for all Jews made perfect sense to me — my ancestors have been chased out of every land they’ve dared to settle. Yet, protecting Israel’s manifestation as a nation-state to the exclusion of Palestinian rights, safety and security never sat well. I don’t think it should sit well.

Perhaps this will get me ostracized by my friends and family, but I want to spend this essay attempting to understand why we’re all so uncomfortable and unable to humanize each other. I used to respond viscerally to chants like “from the river to the sea.” I never questioned why, but I assumed that the chant called for the complete and violent destruction of the state of Israel and the murder of every Israeli in it. I believed, then, that anyone who said those words was calling for my family to be killed. Recently, for the first time, I asked what it meant. In 2021, the Palestinian-American writer Yousef Munayyer noted that “the claim that the phrase ‘from the river to the sea’ carries a genocidal intent relies not on the historical record, but rather on racism and Islamophobia.” He further notes how the intentions and implications of the chant have been completely manipulated. From the river to the sea, he says, calls for “a state in which Palestinians can live in their homeland as free and equal citizens, neither dominated by others nor dominating them. When we call for a free Palestine from the river to the sea, it is precisely the existing system of domination that we seek to end.” How do I reconcile Jewish discomfort with the words and the Palestinian need for them? No answer seems evident, and people continue yelling past each other.

My family in Israel deserves to live there in peace and security, and so do Palestinians — in Gaza, the West Bank and anywhere within the 1967 Green Line (Israel proper). Regardless of what fringe extremists might claim, they are the meaning of from the river to the sea. And they, too, must be free.

I don’t recognize a Jewish “safe haven” whose existence necessitates human rights violations. A Jewish ‘democracy’ necessitates a Jewish majority, a project that requires demographic engineering that comes at the expense of, in Israeli politician Ayelet Shaked’s own words, human rights. I don’t respect a government whose ministers call for a military onslaught with words that indicate genocidal intent.

I refuse to defer to generals who, when referring to plans for collective punishment in Palestine, say “human animals must be treated as such…there will be no electricity and no water. There will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell.” I don’t recognize a Jewish community that doesn’t hold its leaders and community members accountable, even in our darkest moments.

We can’t continue casting people aside because of what we assume they think. I have told friends in SJP why their statement after Oct. 7 made me uncomfortable. I learned about their process and heard their fear and pain, and I think they heard me and mine too. In these honest conversations, I found more similarities than differences between me and my Palestinian peers calling and crying for liberation. Why, then, should we be pitted against each other? The pain, fear, and commitment to safety and justice are core to both our identities. Why must I choose between our survival and theirs? I refuse this premise. I refuse to surrender

to an imperial narrative that cannot recognize a simple truth: Jewish and Israeli safety is impossible if it excludes Palestinians. Our liberation and security are far from mutually exclusive; they are inextricably intertwined.

It is a scary time to be a Jew — I know because I’m a Jew and I’m terrified. The online threats to the Jewish community at Cornell felt viscerally painful; images of mass Jewish death, Israeli or not, trigger a generational trauma that cannot be so simplistically and naively narrowed down to the left’s accusations of “white fragility.” Friends and families from our communities are still being held hostage in Gaza. Antisemitism is real, and I’m scared of the physical threats being made against the Jewish community.

I can only imagine how scary of a time it is to be Palestinian, to go to sleep unsure if your family is going to be alive by morning. My own fears about my friends and family in Israel never leave my body — the nausea has been incessant for over a month.

The difference, though, is that I know my family has bomb shelters and Palestinian families don’t. I know that the Iron Dome is intercepting Hamas missiles, while Israeli warplanes continue to bury children under rubble in Palestine, unencumbered. While my family has access to healthcare and escape routes out of their country, such a privilege doesn’t extend far beyond the Green Line. Why do I have to choose for whom I have empathy? Can our hearts not be big enough to understand that both can exist? Can we not embody the Jewish concept that refutes a binary, claiming that “elu v’eilu divrei elokim chayim?” We have failed to embody these words.

My heart breaks anew every day because we have failed to embody these words. The rhetoric in many Jewish communities has turned ugly. I now fear that perhaps a call for internal interrogation and dialogue within my community is an empty plea. People have forgotten how to engage with opinions, words and phrases that make them uncomfortable; they have instead opted for public shaming. Doxxing is rampant, and even as I write this carefully worded op-ed, I fear that I am risking future job prospects or my place at Shabbat dinner tables. A community that claims to value the Jewish tradition of face-to-face conflict,“machloket,” is busying itself with public shame instead of honest interrogation of differing opinions and experiences. To indict all who oppose the military operations of a nation-state as antisemitic is to rob me, a Jewish Israeli-American who is a descendant of Holocaust survivors, of my own history. I will never claim to be a military strategist. I do know, though, that there is no legitimate explanation or moral justification for a military strategy that involves collective punishment; that cuts off water, fuel, and electricity to all 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, kills over 11,000 people and targets hospitals.

The cycle of violence in Israel-Palestine is not new, and it shatters me time and time again. Don’t get me wrong, Hamas is a terrifying entity. The words of their original charter (it has since been changed) are hard to forget, and the horrors of Oct. 7 are still fresh in my mind. Yet, to see the rise of Hamas as separate from Israeli policy is naive. It is historically inaccurate to pretend that its existence is solely due to Iranian funding and the Islamophobic stereotype that all Palestinians want dead Jews — my Palestinian friends were the first to check in

on me after Oct. 7. Hamas exists insofar as Israel has allowed it to, both financially and politically.

Still, Hamas is not exempt from responsibility for their own war crimes on Oct. 7. As war crimes do not justify other war crimes, though, the clear imbalance of power compels leftist Jews to differentiate ourselves from the Jewish mainstream. It compels us to hold the Israeli state responsible for putting an end to the horrifying cycle of violence that has plagued its entire existence. The end of both the siege on Gaza and the greater military occupation is, we believe, the only hope left for peaceful and just coexistence. Our ability to live together in one land, without the ideologies of BenGvir or Hamas and despite all the fear and trauma, cannot be so impossible.

I am a descendant of Holocaust survivors and refugees fleeing the pogroms of Eastern Europe.

My heritage is one that knows no home, no consistency and no citizenship that is not borrowed.

I am a student of Abraham Joshua Heschel, who taught, through deliberate thought and action, that the core of Jewish identity is its pursuit of “tikkun olam” and social justice. I am a student of my great-great-grandfather, Rabbi Moshe Avigdor Amiel who, as the first chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, wrote that if the highest form of religious redemption were to come at the cost of even one innocent Palestinian life, “we must reject this ‘redemption’ with both hands.”

I refuse to allow my generational trauma to be weaponized to justify the infliction of more violence. I won’t stand by while the Israeli government continues to make Palestinians the victims of Jewish victimhood. My history is not a tool. It is not a justification. It is not a warcry. My heritage is a continued broken scream on deaf ears. It is a prayer through tears that begs someone to embody and actualize the wisdom that we preach: “Nation shall (one day) not take up sword against nation; they shall never again know war” (Yeshayahu 2:4). To value this message and not be yelling for a ceasefire and the release of hostages is, to me, devastating. We, evidently, cannot trust the Israeli government to prioritize returning the hostages home.

Calling for a ceasefire is not a functional surrender to Hamas, but a recognition of the sanctity of life.

I am full of seeming internal contradictions and emotional turmoil. But I know some simple truths. I know that the horrifying and indiscriminate bombing in Gaza must end. That we must call for a ceasefire. That the hostages must be returned home. For now, that’s all that matters. Even if you disagree, that does not make me, or the people to whom I’m showing solidarity, antisemitic.

To my Jewish community – the world is a scary place. Let us not lead with fear as motivation and justification for more death, pain and suffering; let us not continue casting aside those with whom we disagree. Let us lead with love. With compassion.

With empathy. Knowing that both Jewish and Islamic liturgy teach that “whoever saves a single life is considered by Scripture to have saved the whole world.” With calls and cries and screams for peace and coexistence.

Rita Feder ’24 can be reached at rita_feder@ brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and other op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

Faculty letter in support of BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now Editors’ Note: This letter was originally sent to President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD20 on Nov. 9, 2023, with additional signatories who opted not to make their names public.

We, the undersigned, are writing in response to the events that took place on the evening of Wednesday, Nov. 8, when 20 undergraduate students from the group BrownU Jews For Ceasefire Now were arrested and detained by Providence police at the instruction of the University following a sit-in at

University Hall. We are deeply dismayed by the decision to have the students arrested, and we call upon our University leadership to engage with the deeper stakes and matters of conscience that our students have sought to foreground at this difficult time. Specifically, we call on the University: 1. To insist that all legal charges against the students be dropped immediately 2. To exempt the students from any University disciplinary proceedings 3. To open a campus-wide conversation that

engages seriously with the students’ demands.

In the statement that you shared with Brown faculty on Nov. 7, you emphasized your commitment to “ensure that individual members of the community are free to voice their views, including using their voices to urge lawmakers or other universities to take specific actions or, more generally, express their beliefs on matters of conscience,” adding that these are “the rights that freedom of expression guarantees.” We agree wholeheartedly, and would further note that freedom of expression

is not restricted to speech but includes the right to protest and to perform civil disobedience. The students in question undertook a peaceful act of civil disobedience, following a time-honored American tradition. Protest in the form of sit-ins is a vital part of the legacy of Brown University, of which we can all be proud. Brown’s most important historic commitments, including the increased matriculation of students of color in 1975, partial divestment

SEE FACULTY PAGE 11

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

FACULTY FROM PAGE 10 of $4.6 million of holdings from corporations “aiding South African racism” in 1984-85, need-blind admissions in 1992 and our signature Open Curriculum, emerged partly as outcomes of such sitins and occupations by which students “express(ed) their beliefs on matters of conscience.”

As each student was led out handcuffed from University Hall, they were greeted by hundreds of students — Jewish, Arab, Black, Hispanic and many others — singing prayers and songs of solidarity in Hebrew. Many were watching the livestream of this event and sharing videos that have now received tens of thousands of views nationally and internationally. At a time when peer universities are experiencing unparalleled levels of conflict, tension and toxicity, Brown’s students enacted on Nov. 8 the kind of moral courage and peaceful solidarity that we at Brown have historically cultivated and defended. Their action illustrates dramatically

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that Brown has a singular history and legacy.

In your opinion piece in the New York Times on April 21, 2023 defending free expression as the “bedrock principle of this country,” you wrote of college campuses as “a place for controversial issues and emerging ideas to be taught, discussed and debated.” You wrote, stirringly, that the “proponents of censorship and repression” who had through history repressed such views as those of Galileo, Darwin or those accused of Communist leanings during the McCarthy era, “all had one thing in common: they were on the wrong side of history.” As we all know, the movement of history is one in which views deemed marginal or unpopular gather the moral or evidentiary force to become collectively held commitments. We join the people of the world (as represented by the majority vote in the United Nations General Assembly and protests across the globe) in affirming that a ceasefire is not a radical thing to ask for but the very minimum that the world should

ensure — a call to stop the killing and to give the bereaved the time to bury and mourn the dead.

The next few weeks are likely to continue to be very difficult, both in terms of the suffering wrought by the war in Gaza, as well as the continued clashing of viewpoints on the situation.

Please let what happened yesterday at University Hall be not a crisis but an opportunity for Brown to show its moral leadership and to provide a model for how a community may come together and what it may thoughtfully do.

We call on you, Madam President, to lead the way in proactively initiating a conversation on the important issues raised by the BrownU Jews For Ceasefire students: the call for a ceasefire in Gaza, the active and explicit protection of students’ and faculty’s right to speak up for Palestinian rights and the call to reopen discussion on divestment, starting from the basis of the 2020 ACCRIP recommendation on this subject.

We note that Yale University is reconsidering its own policies regarding in-

COMMENTARY

vestments in weapons manufacturing companies following student protests.

Once again, we call expressly on the University: 1. To inist that all legal charges against the students be dropped immediately

2. To exempt the students from any University disciplinary proceedings 3. To open a campus-wide conversation that engages seriously with the students’ demands, which are in line with our educational mission and our collective commitment to “liberation and life for all,” as described in a Nov. 8 open letter from Jewish students in the Brown Daily Herald.

We urge you to exercise thoughtful, moral leadership at this critical time, Madam President, and thus enable Brown University to be on the right side of history.

Sincerely,

Nadje Al-Ali, Department of Anthropology, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs and Center for Middle East Studies Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, Departments of Modern Culture and Media & Comparative Literature Anthony Bogues, Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice Beshara Doumani, Department of History Elias Muhanna, Departments of Comparative Literature and History Matthew Shenoda, Department of Literary Arts and Brown Arts Institute Thangam Ravindranathan, Department of French and Francophone Studies Vazira Zamindar, Department of History To see a full list of signatories, visit the online version of this letter.

Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald. com and other op-eds to opinions@ browndailyherald.com.

An open letter in support of Israel, from Jewish students and alumni at Brown University Editors’ Note: This letter was circulated among Jewish students and alumni over the past few days.

(This message was signed on to by over 600 Jewish students and alumni as of publication on Wednesday evening. We, the authors of this oped, now invite both Jewish and non-Jewish students and alumni to add their names to the list of signatories using the link at the bottom of the online version of this letter.)

We, Jewish students and alumni at Brown University, stand with Israel. Just over one month ago, Hamas terrorists slaughtered, mutilated, raped and burned over 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, and kidnapped over 240 additional people. The victims included babies, women, men, children and the elderly — even Holocaust survivors. Yet, on college campuses across the world, displays of compassion were quickly overshadowed by an eruption of terrorist justification, vilification of Israel, threats to Jewish students and, in some cases, violence.

On Nov. 8, 20 of our Jewish peers joined the conversation on Brown’s campus. Members of a new student group called BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now were arrested for trespassing during a sit-in at University Hall to demand an immediate ceasefire and that the University divest its endowment from Israel-affiliated companies and weapons manufacturers. Since then, their actions have been lauded and reposted on social media by hundreds of students. They do not represent us.

We want to acknowledge that many Jews and Israelis — including many of us — do not support Prime Minister Netanyahu today, nor some of his administration’s policies. We recognize the heartbreaking loss of Palestinian life that has occurred in this war, and we understand how difficult it is for the Palestinian community to lose innocent civilians. We feel for our Palestinian friends who are deeply affected and worried for their loved ones.

The signatories of this letter may hold very different opinions about Israeli politics and policies, but we are united in our belief in a secure, safe and democratic Israel. Jewish anti-Zionists do not speak for us. And they do not speak for the vast majority of the American Jewish population.

We now ask you to listen to us: 1. Many Jews on campus are scared.

In the past month, Jewish and Israeli communities on campus have been confronted with blatant antisemitism. At Brown, we have seen dozens of half-torn posters of kidnapped Jewish children as we walk to class. We have heard our classmates declare “glory to our martyrs,” “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “the resistance lives!” At other schools, students have chanted

that “resistance is justified” and called to “globalize the intifada.” During the first and second intifadas, or Palestinian uprisings, hundreds of Israeli civilians were killed in terrorist attacks. And on campus chat platforms, we have seen calls for Israeli Jews to “go back to Europe” and claims that “there is no such thing as an innocent Israeli.”

This rhetoric scares us. How can we feel welcome on campus when we see our people so despised, with the Brown community championing only a minority of the larger Jewish Diaspora as the acceptable face of Judaism? A Jewish professor at Columbia has warned his children against attending his university. Our Jewish friends at Cornell have received death threats. We feel scared, alone and abandoned by our community. We are immensely saddened by the lack of compassion for our Jewish peers. Where are the cries for the 240 people held hostage in Gaza to be released? Where are the protests for the freedom of 10-month-old Kfir Bibas, who has now spent 10% of his life in a Hamas tunnel? Where are the calls for Hamas to surrender? The silence on our campus is telling.

2. The State of Israel is fundamental to the survival of the Jewish people.

This is the essence of Zionism: the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in our ancestral homeland of over 3,000 years. Many Jews living in Western democracies have the privilege to feel that they do not need Zionism, but most throughout history have not been so lucky.

Between 1948 and 2022, over 1.3 million Jewish people fleeing Eastern Europe found safety in Israel. In 1948, bombs were detonated in Cairo’s Jewish quarter and Iraq made Zionism a capital crime. Almost all of the 900,000 Jews living in Arab countries across the Middle East were forced from their homes, and 650,000 of these Jews fled to Israel because “it was the only country that would admit them,” as academic Avi Beker writes.

More recently, since the 1970s, over 95,000 Ethiopian Jewish refugees have made Israel their home, fleeing violence and persecution.

Today, the story is similar: Despite comprising just over two percent of the American population, Jews were the victims of over half of religiously motivated hate crimes in 2022. As antisemitism skyrockets globally and Jews across the world face vicious prejudice and violent assaults, Israel’s existence remains fundamental to the preservation of the Jewish people. Zionism saved the lives of our ancestors and continues to protect our lives today.

3. Israel has the right and obligation to defend itself against Hamas.

Hamas is a U.S.-designated terror organization whose founding charter calls for the genocide

of the Jewish people. In early November, senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad expressed Hamas’ intent to repeat the Oct. 7 attacks “a second, a third, a fourth time.” We refuse to silently accept the murder of our people. Israel has an existential duty to eradicate Hamas. The war has tragically killed many Palestinian civilians. We grieve for the victims and their families, and we offer Brown’s Palestinian community our love and sympathy.

It’s important to note that many of these deaths are attributable to Hamas’s longtime approach of using Palestinian civilians as human shields, a tactic that directly leads to civilian deaths. Hamas’s headquarters is located under the Al Shifa Hospital Complex — the largest medical facility in Gaza — according to independent U.S. intelligence reports. Historically, Hamas has also purposefully fired missiles from civilian areas — and rockets fired from Gaza sometimes misfire and land within Gaza. When this happens, they turn to the tried-and-true practice of blaming the Jewish state.

Israel’s war against Hamas is not a genocidal one. Israel regularly warns civilians that airstrikes are coming via millions of leaflets and automated messages. Hamas, by contrast, has reportedly prevented civilians from fleeing to safety. Just recently, Israeli soldiers delivered 300 liters of fuel to Shifa Hospital in Gaza — the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry rejected the shipment. Throughout history, Israel has also made genuine attempts to coexist with the Palestinian people, and multiple Israeli administrations have sought to further a two-state solution. Hamas’s founding charter, by contrast, explicitly called to indiscriminately kill all Jews and eliminate the State of Israel — a view echoed by contemporary Hamas leaders.

We, like many on campus, hope for the cessation of hostilities in Israel and in Gaza. But there was a ceasefire on Oct. 6. Another ceasefire would only give Hamas an “opportunity to reload,” as stated by the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal. As such, these calls for a ceasefire miss two critical requirements for lasting peace: the safe return of all American, Israeli and foreign hostages in Gaza and the unconditional surrender of Hamas.

4. Israel is not an ethnostate.

Despite some claiming that Zionism is white supremacy, many Jewish Israelis are not white.

The Jewish population of Israel consists of Mizrahi Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardi Jews, Ethiopian Jews and more. And nearly two million — 18% — of Israel’s citizens are Muslim Arabs who enjoy full equal legal rights. Arab Israeli citizens are also represented in the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) and on the Israeli Supreme Court.

Israel is by far the most democratic state in

the Middle East, and actually ranks higher than the U.S. does on the Economist 2022 Intelligence’s Democracy Index. Israel is also the only country in the Middle East that provides constitutional protections for its LGBTQ+ community. Of course, tensions still exist between different demographic groups in Israel, but this applies to every democratic society. We ask BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now to stop promoting disinformation regarding the nature of the Israeli state and the Jewish populace by calling it a “Jewish ethnostate.”

5. “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” explicitly calls for the elimination of the State of Israel.

“From the river to the sea” is an unambiguous call for the end of the Jewish state. The American Jewish Committee describes it as a “catch-all phrase symbolizing Palestinian control over the entire territory of Israel’s borders, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.” This message has deep historical context. Before the establishment of the State of Israel, Jews were regularly targeted and murdered in the British Mandate of Palestine.

Jews were also exiled from the vast majority of Middle Eastern countries throughout the 20th century. Antisemitism runs rampant among members of Hamas, as well as the current president of the Palestinian Authority. There is no historical basis to believe that a Palestinian government exercising authority “from the river to the sea” would not seek to expel or eliminate Jews. This slogan does not call for a two-state solution, nor does it call for coexistence. It calls for the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state, an outcome tantamount to the ethnic cleansing of its Jewish inhabitants.

In conclusion: We will not be silenced. We are devastated by the horrific loss of life in Israel and Gaza, but lasting peace is impossible as long as Hamas remains in power in Gaza. We stand with the State of Israel and its right to self-defense. And we urge Brown University to actively combat the recent unprecedented rise of antisemitism we have seen on campus.

To see a full list of signatories, visit the link in the online version of this letter. The writers of this op-ed invite Jewish and non-Jewish students and alumni to add their name.

Rachel Blumenstein ’24, Theodore Horowitz ’24, Jillian Lederman ’24 and Ben Piekarz ’24 can be reached at rachel_blumenstein@ brown.edu, theodore_horowitz@brown. edu, jillian_lederman@brown.edu and ben_ piekarz@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald. com and other op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2023

ARTS & CULTURE

FILM REVIEW

‘Priscilla’ offers powerful perspective on relationship between Priscilla, Elvis Film smartly approaches Elvis’s marriage from Priscilla’s point of view

BY NED KENNEDY SENIOR STAFF WRITER “Do you like Elvis?” asks a twenty-something army officer to 14-yearold Priscilla Beaulieu (Cailee Spaeny) at a diner in West Germany.

“Of course, who doesn’t?” she confidently responds.

This is the moment Young Priscilla learns that Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi) is stationed at the same military base as her father, and her enthusiasm for the officer’s question has gotten her an invite to a party hosted by the rock and roll legend that evening. Priscilla — small, delicate and soft-spoken — is promptly thrust into Elvis’s orbit without much consideration. It appears normal, natural even, for a girl her age to be fraternizing with a man 10 years older than herself.

Sofia Coppola’s 2023 film “Priscilla” brilliantly sheds light on Elvis’s stardom from the perspective of his wife, exploring the significant age gap and power imbalance that defined their relationship from its inception in 1959 to its end in 1973.

“Priscilla” received considerable press attention following Lisa Marie Presley’s disapproval of the film’s script before her untimely death in January 2023. Lisa, Elvis and Priscilla’s daughter, objected to the film’s controversial portrayal of her father: According to a September 2022 email published by Variety, Presley felt that “My father

only comes across as a predator and manipulative” in the film.

“As his daughter, I don’t read this and see any of my father in this character,” the email continued. “I read this and see your shockingly vengeful and contemptuous perspective and I don’t understand why?”

The film, produced by Priscilla Presley and based on her 1985 memoir “Elvis and Me” lies in stark contrast to Baz Luhrmann’s acclaimed 2022 film “Elvis.” Luhrmann’s flashy biopic explicitly honors Elvis and celebrates his impressive legacy, in the process overlooking many of the unfavorable attributes that lay behind his epic persona and generally obscuring the role of Priscilla. “Priscilla” is much the opposite, delving into the nitty-gritty that defined the couple’s relationship through the ’60s and early ’70s. Coppola certainly doesn’t shy away from casting Elvis in a critical light.

The beginning of the film finds Priscilla’s family recently relocated to a U.S. military base in Bad Nauheim, West Germany. Isolated and struggling to adjust to her new life, Priscilla finds solace in her relationship with Elvis.

When they first meet, Priscilla is 14 and he is 24 — an age gap that is emphasized by the stark differences in their respective appearances. Elvis towers over Priscilla, is surer in the way he speaks and sports a confidence and charm that reels Priscilla in.

The film’s opening scenes are jarring, made all the more uneasy by the sense of normalcy that characterizes them. There is no

looming sense of awkwardness or danger in the initial interaction between Priscilla and the aforementioned military officer who approaches her in the diner, which is precisely what makes the whole interaction so disconcerting. There also don’t seem to be any moral objections to Elvis’s attraction to Priscilla — the couple’s first kiss is presented by Coppola as any girl’s first kiss might be, pure and wonderstruck.

Yet the grooming that lies at the root of their relationship can’t be overlooked.

Despite being 14, Priscilla is treated as if she’s a grown woman. Coppola’s ability to effectively convey the couple’s relationship without glamorizing it or compromising the film’s aesthetic is one of the work’s hallmarks.

It is interesting to witness how the objects Priscilla surrounds herself with begin to change as her relationship with Elvis progresses. Her girlish trinkets, shown in a gorgeously curated montage early on in the film, are gradually swapped for stilettos, cosmetics and bottles of Chanel No. 5 as she begins her pre-

mature entry into adulthood. During her first trip to Vegas with Elvis, milkshakes at the military base are swapped for martinis and amphetamines. Her exposure to gambling, luxury and paparazzi all prove to be factors that open up Priscilla to a new realm of experience, challenging her to quickly mature and adapt to a vastly different lifestyle.

The pacing of “Priscilla” is one of the work’s most intriguing features. The film follows a certain rhythm wherein one moment Elvis is unable to take his attention off of Priscilla, and in the next is all too ready to coldly dismiss her.

Priscilla, initially a naive child, is too weary to recognize his pattern of emotional abuse. He is older, more mature and a star — and she seems terrified to lose him. As she grows, though, Priscilla begins to more astutely recognize and respond to the cycles of his behavior. By the end of the film, it becomes clear to both Priscilla and the audience that there is no future in the couple’s relationship. Priscilla is

unable to live a life of her own if she exists to serve Elvis.

Even if the film portrays Elvis in a negative light, it consciously maintains his humanity. He is not shown to be evil, but instead emotionally turbulent and discontent. The film, bearing Elvis’s erratic emotional state in mind, treats the subject with complexity. This is not an overtly negative portrayal of Elvis just for the sake of shock value. The film instead draws from Priscilla’s perspective, with her being the foremost one to endure his erratic behavior during these tumultuous years.

Coming out a year after Luhrmann’s “Elvis,” Coppola’s “Priscilla” effectively adds a new perspective to the story put forth by the former. In this regard, the work comes at an opportune time. It is a sympathetic exploration of growth and identity, an insightful work that poses questions that are often overshadowed

by Elvis’s impressive legacy. It is, without a doubt, worthy of your attention.

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 12, 2023.

COURTESY OF A24

FILM REVIEW

‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ doesn’t live up to chilling source material Unnecessary plot details, lack of scares distract from source material, sink film

BY MATTHEW SHABINO STAFF WRITER “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” the newest horror film to hit theaters this season, pulled in a whopping $130 million during its opening weekend, unseating 2018’s “Halloween” as horror producer Blumhouse’s largest box office opening.

Despite the massive haul, “Five Nights at Freddy’s” offers a bland, largely unscary experience, leaving fans of both the source material and horror genre more broadly with much to be desired.

Writer and director Emma Tammi’s newest film follows Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson), a security guard hired to work the night shift at the now-abandoned Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria. What starts as an easy payday to care for his sister Abby (Piper Rubio) soon turns into a nightmare, as horrific animatronics begin hunting the restaurant for blood.

“Five Nights at Freddy’s” had so much going for it: a terror-fueled, cult classic game with deep lore to use as source material, a director coming off a wildly successful entry in the horror genre with “The Wind” and a group

of monsters so iconic that they’ve spawned additional games, graphic novels and collectible toys. On top of it all, the movie boasts a trio of bonafide stars, featuring Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Lail and Matthew Lillard.

Despite having so much to work with, Tammi squanders much of the film’s potential with far too many missteps. For a game renowned for its creepy atmosphere and jumpscares, the film adaptation surprisingly lacks both. One reason for this might be the studio’s decision to keep the film at a PG-13 rating. Without this limitation, Tammi would have had much greater freedom to dial up the gruesome deaths and nightmarish images that the film lacks.

The film focuses on Mike’s repressed trauma over the disappearance of his younger brother and his struggle to maintain custody of his sister. While this narrative adds some emotional weight to the film’s characters and story, it ultimately detracts from any opportunity to build prolonged tension.

Part of what made the original game so effective was how trapped players felt in the decrepit ruins of Freddy Fazbear’s. Stuck within the confines of the restaurant’s security room, players’ survival hinged on meticulous surveillance of the security cameras and the hope that animatronic monsters wouldn’t

find them before the night was over.

Tammi does nothing to replicate this desperate need for survival. Instead, the film’s focus on Mike’s family issues seems to actively pull its characters

away from Freddy’s at any chance it gets.

Breaking any potential for tension, Tammi’s lead finds himself in suburbia fighting for custody of his sister just as

Freddy’s animatronics begin to wreak havoc. For a film titled “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” Tammi seems to hate setting the film at its namesake location.

For fans of the game, what might ultimately make or break their experience is the film’s depiction of Freddy, Chica and the rest of their mechanical friends.

Here, “Five Nights at Freddy’s” finds some success in its faithful and creepy recreation of the game’s antagonists.

Unfortunately, much of this creep factor is lost due to Tammi’s lack of understanding of how to best use these iconic characters. Rather than portraying the film’s animatronic monsters as formidable adversaries, Tammi opts for a hastily crafted origin story that casts them as misunderstood creatures more inclined to offer a comforting hug than pose any genuine threat. Tammi’s loud, sluggish villains feel like a far cry from the game’s quick, ever-threatening one. Anyone capable of moving at a walking speed could outrun Tammi’s animatronic antagonists.

Tammi ultimately disappoints with a horror film that lacks any genuine scares and frequently becomes entangled in unnecessary plot details. For some moviegoers, “Five Nights at Freddy’s” might be five too many.

COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL PIICTURES

Director Emma Tammi ultimately disappoints with a horror film that lacks any genuine scares and frequently becomes entangled in unnecessary plot details.

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 9 2023

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

PAGE 13

ARTS & CULTURE

FEATURES

Black Music Lab builds community at Brown and beyond Hub supports projects, work of faculty, students, guest artists

In the future, Lumumba-Kasongo said she hopes the lab will continue to provide support for student performanc-

BY RYA VALLABHANENI ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR Though it’s relatively new to Brown’s arts scene, the Black Music Lab — an in-development hub that works to amplify both artists on campus and beyond — has already managed to establish its presence on College Hill.

Currently housed within the Brown Arts Institute, the lab was founded in fall 2022 by Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo, the project’s faculty director, and Charrisse Barron, an ethnomusicologist who has taught at Brown and is now an assistant professor of music at Harvard.

“We noticed or recognized that there were so many amazing programs happening on campus in terms of Black musical performance and study, but it was kind of dispersed,” Lumumba-Kasongo said. Forming the lab was a way to both amplify artistic projects occurring on campus and connect them to creative work being done in the greater Providence community, she added.

To help connect artists across Brown and Providence, the Black Music Lab holds mixers at the beginning of each semester that are open to all community members. The lab also hosts and sponsors events such as artist talks, performances and symposia throughout the semester, and works to support Brown faculty members in their studies of Black music.

Past programming has featured

new book “Why Willie Mae Thornton Matters.”

Lumumba-Kasongo described the lab’s first semester as the beginning of a three-year incubation period. She said that the lab’s focus was mainly on making connections within Providence’s vast music scene.

“I really wanted to take my time and figure out what are the needs on campus and needs in the community, and how can we show up in a way that supports all the work going on,” Lumumba-Kasongo said.

She also stressed the importance of the term “lab” in defining her work: “This is kind of an experiment in thinking about how … (to) create something that’s precious enough to grow and expand but that also has some shape to it.”

Equally important to defining the lab’s work is its focus on “building community around the study (and performance) of Black music,” Lumumba-Ka-

and ideas” across time, the diaspora and discipline, she explained.

The Black Music Lab has also worked to provide financial support to student artists, currently funding three Undergraduate Teaching and Research Awards for undergraduate fellows.

Makayla McPherson ’24, one such fellow at the lab, is “currently planning a live-music event centered around music as a tool for mindfulness and meaningful community building,” she wrote in an email to The Herald. She also collaborates with the other award recipients — Jade Hardwick ’26 and Jemima Alabi ’24 — to help compile and disseminate the lab’s weekly newsletter.

Hardwick uses the lab’s support to combine her love of music with her passion for dance. This past Friday, she hosted a Waistline Workshop in collaboration with Brown’s Students of Caribbean Ancestry, during which she fused

their hips — they gained some confidence while they were learning my piece,” she said. “That’s kind of part of the Black Music Lab — exposing people to different cultures and different styles of music.”

As far as upcoming projects go, Hardwick also plans to choreograph and teach a hip-hop piece for students at local Providence schools, hoping to form lasting connections with dancers from the local community.

The lab has also provided financial support to Marcus Grant GS, a third-year Ph.D. student at Brown studying musicology and ethnomusicology. With the lab’s funding, Grant organized a concert last spring highlighting the work of Abbey Lincoln and Nina Simone.

Grant also credited the lab with helping promote his arrangement of “Vampire Nation” — part of the University Library’s exhibition on Mumia Abu-Jamal — this past September.

guest artists like rapper bbymutha and interdisciplinary artist and scholar DJ Lynée Denise, who visited Brown last spring and this fall while working on her

songo added.

“I just want people to have a sense that there are all these conversations happening, and there are unifying themes

Bacardi and Calypso styles of dance to create an Afro-Caribbean piece.

“People who are very uncomfortable with dancing — let alone dancing with

“In pretty much any project I have, they’re very much involved in showing support and literally just … pulling up to the project,” Grant said.

COURTESY OF JONATHAN PITTS-WILEY

In the future, Faculty Director Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo said that she wants to carve out a regular meeting time and space for anyone who would like to be involved with the Black Music Lab.

es, carve out a regular meeting space for anyone who’d like to be involved with the project and create more opportunities for artist talks.

From speaking with students, Lumumba-Kasongo said she has also gathered that many want to better understand professional paths in music. She hopes to “use the lab to actually arm people with practical tools for navigating life as a musical artist, so we’re not just thinking about music in theory but really invested in what it means to sustain a life as a Black artist.”

“There is a social justice piece to this,” Lumumba-Kasongo continued.

“How do we empower people? How do we give people resources? How do we support the work that’s going on so that we can resist systems of exploitation that often are attached to Black artists and Black artistry?”

“I love the fact that it’s called the Black Music Lab — that it focuses on the work and the art of Black musicians — but it doesn’t necessarily alienate any other folks from being involved and other folks from supporting,” Grant said. “There’s a lot of collaborations happening.”

McPherson similarly praised the Black Music Lab’s “community-driven perspective.”

“The lab works to expand notions on what community means through collaboration that extends beyond the confines of the Brown bubble,” she wrote. It offers “musicians an expansive perspective of (what) community is and how to offer and find support as a creative.”

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 13, 2023.

TV REVIEW

‘The Morning Show’ turns up the drama in gripping third season Chaotic, crazy, charismatic characters make latest season entertaining watch

BY SAHIL BALANI STAFF WRITER The latest season of “The Morning Show” ended its eight-week run on Nov. 8. The drama intensified with each episode, forcing viewers to wait in eager anticipation of the next.

Before show creator Jay Carson got involved in film and entertainment, he worked in politics. Carson’s experience as a press secretary for Hillary Clinton during her 2008 presidential campaign served the show well, resulting in highly dramatic, entertaining and accurate political plotlines.

Amid post-pandemic life, the show focuses on how the United Broadcast Association is struggling to keep subscriptions and profits up. This season introduced Paul Marks (Jon Hamm), a billionaire entrepreneur and prospective buyer of UBA. Marks comes across as an Elon Musk-Jeff Bezos type, specifically due to his roles in the commercial space race and purchasing a media company.

As always, Jennifer Aniston and Re-

ese Witherspoon — who play Alex Levy and Bradley Jackson, respectively — excelled in their roles navigating through this potential buyout deal. Levy, trying to protect her interests, is split between trusting Marks, UBA executives and her co-anchor Jackson. All of her interactions with other company members feel effortlessly real as she balances the chaos.

The show did a phenomenal job of integrating major news stories covered by the U.S. media into the personal lives of its characters. Witherspoon showed her acting brilliance as she dealt with the ethical conundrum of reporting on the Jan. 6 riots and subsequently find out her brother, Hal (Joe Tippett), was one of the rioters.

Another major force behind the show’s engaging drama was Karen Pittman, who was vividly realistic in her portrayal of UBA producer Mia Jordan.

Pittman is recovering from the betrayal of a love interest in a professional and dignified manner — undoubtedly earning her the respect of all audience members.

Actors Nicole Beharie, Mark Duplass, Julianna Margulies and Greta Lee also bring color to the show. Their characters were strong and bold but had their faults like every other human being. While the show did a decent job

coupling their general arcs and personal motivations, these characters still deserved more screen time, particularly Amanda Robinson (Tig Notaro).

Many members of the cast have powerful character-defining scenes. Lee demonstrated her character’s ability to balance professional duties and personal vulnerability while Beharie showed strength when interviewing a network executive who made racist comments about her character.

The show’s costume designer also deserves special mention. Elizabeth Lancaster styled each character distinctively and with suave. From Lee’s

turtleneck power suits to the Celine Besace crossbody purse on Aniston, each piece of costume felt perfectly curated for the moment.

Like with most drama series, certain scenes and episodes dragged at times. The entirety of episode five, for example, was set in a flashback during the peak of the pandemic, an interruption that felt like it was taking away from the very entertaining drama happening in the present-day storylines.

The season finale also felt disappointing compared to previous episodes. The anticipation built over

the season was shut down in a rushed manner, resulting in missed opportunities, with too much happening in too little time.

Season 4 of “The Morning Show” is already under production. It will be interesting to see how the plot unfolds with either the potential of a new merger or the start of a new production house and where all the characters — whom the audience has invested heavily into — will end up.

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 13, 2023.

THIS WEEK Midday Music Concert Nov. 16, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Sayles Hall Fall Dance Concert Nov. 16 - 18, 8:00 p.m.

Nov. 19, 2:00 p.m.

Ashamu Dance Studio

COURTESTY OF APPLE TV+

The show does a phenomenal job of integrating major news stories covered by the U.S. media into the personal lives of its characters

Camille Donoho Double Bass Capstone Recital Nov. 18, 7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Grant Recital Hall

PAGE 14

SCIENCE & RESEARCH

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2023

Exploring computational neuroscience, Brown’s newest interdisciplinary concentration Concentration investigates intersections between brain, computer sciences

BY GABRIELLA VULAKH SENIOR SCIENCE & RESEARCH EDITOR How do you analyze the data recorded from hundreds of neurons at a time? How do you understand the neural circuitry behind memories and decision-making? How can you use what you know about the brain to inform machine learning?

The Department of Neuroscience’s new undergraduate concentration in computational neuroscience — currently in its final stages of review with the College Curriculum Council — will help students answer these questions. The University hopes to launch the concentration by spring 2024, said Monica Linden, distinguished senior lecturer in neuroscience.

The degree combines cross-disciplinary study in the computer and brain sciences with learning objectives spanning computational skills, neuroscience, data analysis and ethics.

“Computational neuroscience is pretty broad and we’re at this exciting point where the field has really been taking off because the computing power is there and the data is there,” said Linden, who is helping spearhead the new concentration. “There’s so much research at Brown that falls under this umbrella … so we want students to see that and be able to engage with that.”

As with any new concentration, the course requirements are undergoing a “rigorous curricular scaffolding,” according to Sydney Skybetter, deputy dean of the College for curriculum and co-curriculum.

“Interdisciplinary pedagogy is hard, and so when new concentrations are proposed, we partner with faculty, staff and departments to ensure the sorts of longitudinal support necessary in the long-term.”

While the exact courses are being finalized, the concentration will likely include classes from existing introductory neuroscience and computer science sequences, a new introductory computational neuroscience course, math-related background courses and electives including a senior capstone, according to Linden.

How the computational neuroscience concentration came to be Over the last decade, the University has seen consistent interest in a computational neuroscience concentration, according to Professor of Neuroscience David Sheinberg,

3D DESIGN BY OXTERIUM

who is currently helping develop the new concentration.

Eight students had graduated with the Independent Concentration as of 2018 and four more were pursuing it as of last year, he explained. “That seems like an indication of a larger demand.”

Students curious about computer and brain sciences often found that their interests “couldn’t quite fit into a box of a concentration that already existed,” said Lila Zimbalist ’23, one such independent concentrator.

Herald podcast producer Carter Moyer ’24 said he was motivated to pursue an IC as a way of merging his interests in engineering and computer science — “which I really enjoy from a technical perspective and see as really crucial to the future”— and brain and human cognition, which relates to his “future career plans as an aspiring physician.”

Rather than pursuing an IC, Benjamin Schornstein ’24 chose to complete both a computer engineering and neuroscience concentration after enrolling in “ENGN 1220: Neuroengineering” and realizing that “how computers work is intuitively related to how the brain works.”

But to fulfill all 21 computer engineering requirements and 17 neuroscience requirements, in addition to taking courses to fulfill medical school requirements, Schornstein has had to take five courses during each of his semesters at Brown.

Though Moyer said he enjoyed how creating an IC gave him “ownership” over his coursework, students pursuing the IC reported extra steps with completing concentration applications and fulfilling all their requirements.

Whenever Moyer’s course plan changes or he is unable to secure a spot in a class, he needs to seek approval from both his IC advisor and the director of undergraduate studies for the IC program — which is an “administrative burden,” he explained.

“Making this concentration mainstream … reduces a lot of the work that students have to do and gives them a lot more resources and a community,” Moyer said.“Making this concentration mainstream … reduces a lot of the work that students have to do and gives them a lot more resources and a community,” Moyer said.

Schornstein added that the concentration will allow students to take “courses that are relevant to both computer science, engineering and neuroscience while also being able to explore the open curriculum,” an experience he had less time for as a double concentrator.

Officially establishing the concentration at the University was one way to make it more accessible to a “diverse student population,” said Zimbalist, who advised independent concentrators in her last three semesters at Brown.

Lowering “the barrier to entry … so that people don’t have to go through the IC process, which is very rigorous and might be excluding some students,” was another motivator, Linden said.

Solidifying course requirements, getting departmental support In going through this “rigorous” process, independent concentrators paved the way for future students.

Last spring, Zimbalist began fleshing out an official concentration as part of her IC’s senior capstone project. She went through “every single past independent concentration that was either titled ‘computational neuroscience’ or ‘computational cognitive neuroscience’” and created a list of consistent courses sorted by difficulty level and department.

“Having a student help us made all the difference,” Linden said. “Her work was instrumental to actually getting (the concentration) moving forward.”

Sheinberg, Linden and Zimbalist then reached out to professors from those departments, asking for feedback on the classes they had identified as crucial to the concentration and requesting written letters of support from each department to submit to the CCC. Zimbalist and Linden did a “truly remarkable amount of work to both scour the landscape of what was here and put together the curriculum, map the course offerings and create the learning objectives,” Sheinberg said.

Computational neuroscience will also include a newly designed introductory course that Moyer is helping to design with Brian Ji ’25 through an Undergraduate Teaching Research Award overseen

by Linden.

“The course is designed to help students build competencies in computer programming … and also heavily leans into neuroscience topics,” Moyer said. “We are trying to help introduce neuroscience students to computer science and machine learning, and computer science students to neuroscience, biology and human cognition.”

Moyer and Ji are “very intentionally” designing assignments, final projects, assessments and learning goals based on their own experiences as students that they hope will serve as “recommendations” for

the professor who ultimately teaches the course, Moyer said.

While the new concentration will live within the neuroscience department, “partly as an administrative support,” Sheinberg emphasized that it is “truly a multidisciplinary, multi-departmental program.”

“We really want other faculty from across the campus to feel like participants,” Sheinberg said. “We need partners and we are depending on our colleagues a lot.”

The Carney Institute for Brain Science will also support students in the concentration. Several faculty members from the institute are open to serving as advisors for students’ capstone projects.

Students will have access to “expertise across multiple departments and people who are interested in many levels of analysis that link … from molecules and genes all the way up to cognition, consciousness and artificial intelligence,” said Michael Frank, director of the Institute’s Center for Computational Brain Science.

Finding a home for the ‘multidisciplinary, multi-departmental’ concentration While the new concentration will live within the neuroscience department, Sheinberg emphasized that it is “truly a multidisciplinary, multi-departmental program.”

“Even if it’s being run out of neuroscience, partly as an administrative support, it’s not only neuroscience — we really want other faculty from across the campus to feel like participants,” Sheinberg said, adding that “it’s important to make sure that is the message from the very beginning, that we need partners and we are depending on our colleagues a lot.”

The Carney Center for Brain Science will also support students in the concentration, with faculty from the center being open to serve as advisors to students for their capstone projects.

Students will have access to “expertise across multiple departments and people who are interested in many levels of analysis that link all the way from molecules and genes all the way up to cognition, consciousness and artificial intelligence,” said Michael Frank, Director of Carney Center for Brain Sciences.

“The brain is one of the biggest mysteries and one of the most wonderful physical systems in the universe and trying to address it from a single discipline level of analysis can only give you so much insight, so learning from the different levels and disciplines is really helpful,” Frank added.

Where to go after pursuing a computational neuroscience degree Now a graduate, Zimbalist said that her computational neuroscience degree has proven helpful with data analytics in her current work as a health care consultant.

Zimbalist said that creating the IC also gave her “a larger perspective on how the world of academia works and what steps you have to take to approach a really daunting project and plan out a map to get from start to end.”

Sheinberg added that positions are “advertised every day for people whose focus is on computational neuroscience,” speaking to a demand for individuals who can both perform experiments and data analysis.

Students in the concentration could also explore careers in the biomedical industry, data science and technology while being “truly informed by the nervous system,” Sheinberg said.

“You can study the biophysics of neurons that produce a certain brain rhythm or you can study the algorithmic functions that the brain is trying to achieve at the cognitive level,” Frank said. Many studying the field end up pursuing a career in “artificial intelligence or in some cases (use) artificial intelligence to inform what the brain is trying to do.”

Schornstein hopes this field can help researchers better understand the neurotechnology used for neurological disorders like epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease.

He explained that when using deep brain stimulation as a therapeutic approach in Parkinson’s disease, “you need to know which area of the brain you want to stimulate to know where to implant electrodes.”

“But from an engineering perspective, you also need to know how to actually develop these electrodes,” he added. “The computer science element answers the question of how you make a model to accurately map what is going on in the brain.”

“In the next decade or so there is going to be a big emergence of neurotechnology in everyday life and it will especially help people for whom medicine has not yet satisfactorily improved their quality of life,” Schornstein said. “This is a great time to start the concentration and Brown can really be a leader in computational neuroscience.”

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 13, 2023.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

ARCHIVAL

PAGE 15

SCIENCE & RESEARCH

Nearly demolished twice, Urban Environmental Lab remains well-loved campus presence Building that began as “alternative technology laboratory” now houses IBES

BY CATE LATIMER STAFF WRITER Laughter radiates from the kitchen as students sit in the greenhouse to study.

Professors and students mingle while making coffee. Environmental groups hold planning meetings. The Urban Environmental Lab, home to the undergraduate education component of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, is like nowhere else on campus.

Positioned in the heart of campus near the corner of Angell and Brown streets, the UEL has served as a community gathering place for environmentally minded students and faculty alike.

In recent years, the Lindemann Performing Arts Center — the subject of fanfare and national attention alike — has overshadowed its across-the-street neighbor, literally and figuratively. The Lindemann, in fact, nearly led to the demolition of the UEL before a concerted campaign saved the building.

As the Lindemann welcomes visitors, The Herald looked through its archives to revisit the UEL’s tumultuous history and understand why it still stands today.

In 1979, the University’s Center for Environmental Studies proposed converting the then-94-year-old Lucian Sharpe Carriage House into the UEL to create an “alternative technology laboratory,” according to the University’s 1979 grant proposal to the U.S. Department of Energy, The Herald reported at the time. Members of the Center for Environmental Studies wanted the UEL to be a space to explore ideas from solar technology to experimental food production.

Plans for the space included meeting

rooms, a library and offices for the Center for Environmental Studies. Spaces for the living quarters of five students were also built. By living at the UEL, these students committed themselves to a sustainable lifestyle and attempted to “practice what the UEL preaches: conserving food, water and electricity” through efforts such as growing the majority of their own food in the building’s greenhouse.

In 1981, Brown’s plans became reality with a grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation and construction began at 135 Angell St. At the time, students were deeply involved with the project, with more than 45 students even serving as construction workers for the building as an on-campus job.

Not everything in the construction process went as planned.

In 1982, a student construction worker fell from the roof of the UEL, sustaining serious injuries. And in January 1983, Brown ran into a $250,000 gap in construction funds, temporarily halting construction altogether.

The University eventually found funding and the UEL opened Nov. 11, 1983, The Herald reported at the time.

Since then, the UEL has remained beloved by students and faculty alike, creating an environment where students and professors interact in a building that many describe as a home.

“This building just continues to be for me, this living lab,” said Kurt Teichert, senior lecturer in environment and society. “This building is just a physical manifestation of who I am and what I do.”

Teichert has been at Brown since 1992 and experienced the earlier years of the UEL when students shared meals and research every Thursday with environmentally focused faculty and concentrators.

While the department has grown

since then, the UEL still continues to be “the cultural and community home for the students in the undergraduate program,” Teichert said.

The UEL at risk Twice in the last 20 years, the University has proposed the demolition of the UEL. Twice, those proposals were met with vocal community opposition.

In 2006, the University identified the UEL site as a location of potential construction, and UEL staff were told that the building wouldn’t exist in 10 to 15 years, The Herald reported at the time.

In 2007, the University announced plans to construct the Mind, Brain and Behavior building on the site. Students, staff and alumni were furious.

“Its destruction represents a short-sighted and, dare I say, stupid decision on the part of the University,” Laura Genello ’07 wrote in a Herald op-ed at the time.

The University offered to move the environmental studies department to another location on campus, but many believed that the new space wouldn’t create the same atmosphere. Students and staff tried to advocate for moving the building, but the University found that it would be too expensive and that there was no lot to which it could reasonably move.

Eventually, the University decided the building could be moved to Orchard Park, a beloved community green space, The Herald reported at the time. The community was at odds: They didn’t want the UEL or Orchard Park to be destroyed. Plans for the new building were eventually scrapped in 2009, in part due to financial concerns.

In 2017, the UEL again faced a threat for the proposed construction of the Lindemann.

The University planned to demolish the UEL along with four other buildings to make space for the performing arts center.

In protest, Jon Gewirtzman ’17 and Lauren Manus ’19 created a “Save the UEL” petition, garnering campus support and over 300 signatures.

“When I thought we were going to get demolished, I was coming into work and just crying because I just thought (the UEL) was so special,” said Jeanne Loewenstein, academic program manager for the environmental studies and environmental science concentrations and the UEL’s caretaker.

Public protest delayed the first vote on the project proposal. An op-ed defending the UEL, advised by the Providence Preservation Society, was a “turning point” in saving the building. Brown soon after announced that the Lindemann would be situated where it stands today — demanding the movement of Sharpe House from Angell Street to Brown Street.

Many people assume Teichert hates the Lindemann Performing Arts Center, he said — an incorrect assumption.

“It’s an engineering and architectural marvel,” Teichert said. “It’s just that there were a lot of resources spent trying to put it in an inappropriate place to begin with, and the disruption to me, my work and our program — I’m not happy about that (but) I’m glad we’re still here.”

‘Built to be a home’ Much has changed since the UEL’s inception 40 years ago. Students no longer live in the building and some of its once-revolutionary technology is wearing, according to Teichert and Loewenstein.

Both Teichert and Loewenstein said they are deeply appreciative of the UEL but recognize that the building is due for some upgrades such as window replacements, adding solar panels and upgrading to a heat pump system.

With upgrades on the horizon, Loewenstein said she hopes that the UEL’s charm will stay intact. “A lot of times peo-

ple are looking at what’s flashy … and not thinking about the fact that people are going to live in and work in these spaces,” she said, referring to some of the more unique features of the UEL, such as doors salvaged from construction sites.

Some “students … have told me that the UEL is what got them through their time at Brown,” Loewenstein said.

Charlie Usadi ’25 pointed to another beloved element of the UEL — the community garden that lies in front of the building. Previously a parking lot, the garden now has around 25 plots held by students, faculty and community members.

“It’s so special to have places like this in urban environments. They’re just a nice way to connect people to nature and bring (the) community together,” said Usadi, caretaker of the community garden. Usadi does everything from weeding to starting seedlings in the UEL’s greenhouse.

“One thing that makes me really happy is in the summer, people will consistently stop out front and take photos,” Usadi said. During this time, the raised beds are filled with strawberries, tomatoes, summer squash and wildflowers.

“I spend anywhere from 60 to 80 hours a week here,” Isabella Garo ’24 said. As the building is central to campus, she consistently works, attends class, spends time with friends and meets with Sunrise Brown, a climate organization on campus in the UEL. “It’s nice to have a building where you can do everything you need to do,” she said.

“It’s built to be a home,” Garo said, referencing the remnants of student housing you can see around the building, from showers in some of the bathrooms to offices being built as bedrooms. “I think that’s why people are so drawn to it,” she said. “It feels … like you’re coming home to a family.”

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 13, 2023.

HERBARIUM

Renowned 1920s botany professor’s mushroom samples return to Brown Herbarium now houses collections of Walter J. Snell, former Brown professor

BY ROBAYET HOSSAIN STAFF WRITER This fall, the Brown University Herbarium welcomed back a piece of the University’s history: mushrooms pressed onto paper.

Tucked away inside the boxes — overflow from the University of Rhode Island’s herbarium — were the collections of former Brown professor, pro baseball player and botany luminary Walter H. Snell, class of 1913.

Snell was integral in mycology — the scientific study of fungi — and a notable figure in Brown’s history. But the decadesin-the-making homecoming of Snell’s mushroom masterpieces also signal a leap in the biological diversity of Brown’s cherished herbarium.

“Having these specimens incorporated into our database and being able to make them available to people is really important,” said Rebecca Kartzinel, director of Brown’s herbarium, interim director of the Plant Environmental Center and lecturer in ecology, evolution and organismal biology. “But I love the history of having Snell’s work back here.”

From URI to Brown It started when the URI Herbarium ran out of space.

According to Keith Killingbeck, professor emeritus of biological sciences at URI, the university’s herbarium has two rooms: one that houses its more than 12,000 specimens and a smaller room that stores dozens of boxes. URI is converting the smaller room into an office space. That compelled Killingbeck to search for a new home for an overflow of 49 boxes of plants and fungi.

Brown — with the closest herbarium to URI, a large collection of Rhode Island specimens and an active staff — was the perfect home for URI’s extra specimens, Killingbeck said.

He contacted Kartzinel, and she traveled to the herbarium with Martha Cooper, curatorial assistant for Brown’s Herbarium, to determine if the specimens would be significant additions.

“It was a very big and exciting acquisition for us,” Kartzinel said. The donated samples range from plants collected in the late 1800s to Costa Rican flora from the 1960s to other samples from Rhode Island — which the Herbarium is “particularly interested in.”

Over the course of multiple weeks, the boxes were shipped to Brown. There, they were frozen for about two weeks to get rid

of any insects and bacteria, Kartzinel said.

Since the specimens inside the boxes had not been cataloged, Kartzinel and Cooper had to go through the boxes themselves, most of which were “fungal specimens,” Kartzinel said.

“We noticed the name Snell came up a lot,” she added. “When I Googled him, I realized his name sounded familiar because he was a professor at Brown.”

And not just a professor: He was a Brown student athlete, a notable figure in the advancement of mycology and a professional baseball player.

Snell at the University Snell was a professor of botany at the University from 1920 to 1959, according to his Encyclopedia Brunoniana entry, chairing the department nearly the entire time. He was responsible for establishing the University’s fungal collection, according to David McLaughlin PhD’62, emeritus professor at the University of Minnesota and a fungi curator. McLaughlin wrote a short biography on Snell in 1983.

“He did this mushroom field work at a time when there was no color photography to capture the colors, which are important for identification of these fungi, so he taught himself to paint them in watercolors,” McLaughlin wrote in an email to The Herald. “These paintings became

a major part of his book on the boletes of northeastern North America and his “Glossary of Mycology.”

The book was a “culmination of his life’s work,” co-written with Esther Dick, class of 1931, another Brown professor and Snell’s wife, Kartzinel said. The watercolors are “beautiful,” she added.

Along with contributing to the understanding of mushroom groups and plant diseases, Snell was also the vice president of the Mycological Society of America during the second World War and a Major League Baseball player.

Snell served as a baseball, football, basketball and soccer coach for Brown for many years in addition to his position in the botany department, according to the Department of Athletics website. In a 1943 Herald article, Snell was identified as “one of Brown’s greatest athletic figures.”

McLaughlin worked for Snell as both an undergraduate and graduate student.

“He was a very important mentor for me, and it led to a 50-year career in fungi and to becoming a curator,” he wrote.

According to McLaughlin, Snell was “a gifted storyteller and always had an amusing story to tell. … He often talked about catching for Babe Ruth during his baseball career. ” He said that he still uses Snell’s glossary on a regular basis.

In 1979, Snell’s fungal collection was

donated to the mycologists at what was then URI’s botany department.

This semester, those same fungi returned to Brown.

The future of the collections Kartzinel said that it will take several months, if not years, to organize all of the specimens. That process includes filing them in the databases, taking images and mounting certain specimens onto paper.

“We welcome anyone who is interested in working on the project,” Kartzinel said, including students to help file and organize specimens.

Kartzinel said one of the herbarium’s recent missions is to document the “flora of Rhode Island” to assess how the state has changed over time and get a “good snapshot” of what the state’s specimens have looked like during this time period.

“We think that this was the best outcome for these so-called ‘orphan specimens,’” Killingbeck said, referring to the flora being transferred to Brown.

“I’m just really pleased.”

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 15, 2023.

PAGE 16

UNIVERSITY NEWS SIT-IN FROM PAGE 1

University’s endowment from “companies that enable war crimes in Gaza” as well as calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, The Herald previously reported.

Over 190 faculty members signed on to a letter that was sent to Paxson Thursday and published in The Herald Monday. They called upon the University “to insist that all legal charges against the students be dropped immediately.” They additionally called for the students to be exempt from disciplinary action within Brown and to spark a “campus-wide conversation that engages seriously with the students’ demands.”

According to Horwitz, the students would likely face one of two scenarios in court. First, the charge might be dismissed “based on the accused doing something to show some kind of remorse or to accept some kind of responsibility for violating the law,” Horwitz said, such as engaging in community service or writing a letter of apology.

Otherwise, the students may be offered a filing. After the accused accepts criminal responsibility, the charge is put on file for a certain period of time and if, after that time, the accused does not engage in any other criminal activity, the case is dismissed. “The case then gets

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2023

removed from your criminal history like it never happened,” Horwitz explained.

“Those realistically are the likely outcomes,” he said.

Separate from criminal charges, the students might also face disciplinary actions at the University.

“Brown has detailed procedures in place to investigate alleged violations of the Code of Student Conduct, resolve them and implement appropriate disciplinary outcomes in instances when students are found responsible,” McGregor wrote. “All students who are engaged in a conduct process are offered a range of support resources.”

McGregor did not address whether the 20 students were going through internal disciplinary processes.

Horwitz speculated that Brown may “be satisfied by the fact that (the students) were removed by the police and that they are facing whatever consequences they need to face in the criminal justice system.”

“As protests and rallies continue related to the war, we continue to advise students of their rights and responsibilities as they make their own choices related to activism,” McGregor added.

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 13, 2023.

COURTESY OF BROWNU JEWS FOR CEASEFIRE NOW

RESIDENTIAL LIFE

ResLife launches off-campus info program BLOC offers resources on leases, community associations, interpersonal skills

BY ANISHA KUMAR SENIOR STAFF WRITER University students hoping to live off campus can now look to Brunonians Living Off Campus, a three-part educational program created by the Office of Residential Life in partnership with the Undergraduate Council of Students that aims to help undergraduates navigate living outside of dorms.

According to UCS President Mina Sarmas ’24, the BLOC is designed to inform students about the types of support the University can provide, including matching students with potential roommates, demystifying city-wide ordinances, explaining the rent agreement process and connecting students with community associations.

The BLOC is part of the Division of Campus Life’s internal strategic roadmap, according to Brenda Ice, senior associate dean and senior director of residential life. In the summer of 2022, she and other members of Campus Life contacted campus partners and community leaders to better understand the relationship between students living off campus and their surrounding communities.

This spring, after hearing both positive and negative feedback from local residents, ResLife “created and recommended a ‘good neighbor program and initiative,’” said Mary Jordan, director of new student

programs and community initiatives.

According to Ice, the “good neighbor initiative” evolved into the BLOC through conversations with UCS. The program is divided into three phases, each designed to help students navigate a different aspect of off-campus life.

Launched on Nov. 1, the BLOC’s first phase, “Student,” provides resources and advice to students on topics ranging from lease agreements and negotiating expenses to evaluating health and safety requirements, Ice and Jordan wrote in an email to The Herald. Resources for the first phase, released on the BLOC’s website, include a budget tracker, roommate agreement and apartment checklist.

The second phase, “Community,” will help students engage with local neighborhood associations. In February 2024, leaders from neighborhood associations on College Hill, Fox Point and the Jewelry District, among others, will record welcome videos to introduce students to their communities, Ice and Jordan wrote.

The BLOC’s website will be updated to feature links to neighborhood association websites and information about relevant local ordinances.

In April 2024, the third phase, “Neighbor,” will encourage students to engage with those living around them, offering workshops on interpersonal dialogue, according to Ice and Jordan.

“Too often our students meet with their neighbors in conflict,” Ice said, adding that building a rapport makes it “easier (for neighbors) to humanize the student living next door and have conversations”

instead of reaching out to city authorities in the case of a conflict.

Sarmas, who lives in Fox Point, said that students are often not prepared for the level of responsibility that living off campus requires and don’t know how to reach out to the University for help. “People sometimes don’t realize that you’re still part of the Brown community, even if you’re not physically on campus,” she said.

The BLOC’s upcoming events include a roommate mixer on Nov. 28 and a “virtual lunch and learn” session on Dec. 1, according to the program’s website. Plans for a “BLOC party” in fall 2024, where off-campus students can get to know their neighbors and celebrate “another year at Brown,” are also in the works, Ice and Jordan wrote.

The initiative’s future plans include expanding support to graduate students and continuing to incorporate feedback from the student community, Ice said.

“Ultimately, the program is designed for students, and the only way it will continue to thrive is through student input,” she said.

Jordan added that the BLOC’s initiatives also hope to prepare students for life after graduation.

“We want to educate students so they can be good neighbors and recognize their role as ambassadors of Brown in the community,” Jordan said. “But they can also take these skills with them through life.”

This article originally appeared online at browndailyherald.com on Nov. 15, 2023.

Department of of History Department Brown University Brown presents presents

The The 44th 43rd William F. Church Memorial Memorial Lecture

the Apocalypse to theEnslaved “On Race“From and Reinscription: Writing Idea of Progress Early Modern Europe” Women into theinEarly Modern Archive” John Jeffries Martin Jennifer L. Morgan

Professor of History, Duke University Professor of History, New York University Thursday,November November16, 3, 2022 Thursday, 2023 5:30 5:30 p.m.

Smith-Buonanno Room 106 106 Smith-Buonanno Hall Hall || Room

open to to the the public. public Free and open

5 sixteenth the first half the seventeenth century, In In thisthe talk, Jennifer and L. Morgan uses theofhistory of three black women expressed their hopes for the an apocalyptic, fromEuropeans the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to future explorewithin questions of methodology even millenarian frame.

But in seventeenth and throughout the and archives in the early history ofthe the late Black Atlantic. Through evidence from eighteenth a new language of hope emerged as the and Ideapossibilities of Progressof visual art, law,century and commerce, Morgan considers the challenges took hold.

This presentation transition attention crafting a social-historical study ofexplores women this whose voices arewith so often absentboth from to record, the emergence oflives secular and tohave shifting notions of the archival but whose and values perspectives proven to be essential for Divine Providence the early modern world. comprehending the in origins of racial capitalism.