The Dartmouth 02/06/2020

VOL. CLXXVI NO. 130

SNOW HIGH 31 LOW 30

NEWS

Q&A WITH COMPUTER SCIENCE PROFESSOR PATRICIA HANNAWAY PAGE 2

ARTS

COMPETITIVE FIELD FOR 2020 OSCARS ENSURE AN EXCITING SHOW PAGE 4

OPINION

MALBREAUX: CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE PAGE 6

LEVY: DOCTOR’S ORDERS PAGE 6

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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2020

HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

Search underway for Busy flu season leads to heavier permanent Safety traffic at College infirmary and Security director B y JACOB STRIER

The Dartmouth Staff

T he College beg an a search last November for a permanent director of the Department of Safety and Security, a position that has been held by interim director Keysi Montás for the past three years since the retirement of former director Harry Kinne in May 2017.

Vi c e p re s i d e n t fo r institutional projects Josh Keniston said the search for a new director began following

an internal assessment of the department’s needs. He noted that Montás, who had previously served as deputy director of the department, has been vital in his role as interim director over the past few years due to his intimate knowledge of the campus and past experience.

Ke n i s t o n s a i d t h a t since Montás’ move to interim director in 2017, his responsibilities as deputy director have been absorbed SEE DIRECTOR PAGE 3

Dartmouth holds firstever ‘Designathon’ B y EMILY ZHANG The Dartmouth

The first-ever Dartmouth Designathon was held at the Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1. Four student teams participated in the “Unplugged” design challenge, in which they were asked to design solutions to address the issue of screen dependence and promote techlife balance. The event was cosponsored by the Dartmouth Design Collective, the nonprofit

organization LookUp.Live and the Magnuson Center. The winning team won a $5,000 cash grant to further develop their project.

While similar to HackDartmouth — a yearly Hackathon event on campus that has happened for the last five years — the Designathon marked the first time the College hosted a competition focused on human-centered design.

AccordingtoDartmouthDesign SEE DESIGNATHON PAGE 5

STAFF PHOTO

An increase in cases of Influenza B has led to a busier-than-usual winter term at Dick’s House.

B y DEBBY COBON The Dartmouth Staff

Flu season has arrived in Hanover, and Dick’s House has seen heavier traffic in recent weeks — making it difficult for students to secure primary care appointments or a bed in the College’s infirmary.

According to health service director Mark Reed, the spike in cases of the flu is not exclusive to Dartmouth and represents a national trend. Reed said that Dick’s House typically sees more students with colds and flulike symptoms in the winter and spring, but this year there has been an increase in cases compared to last year.

“This year, we’re seeing more of Influenza B,” Reed said. “January has been higher than we’ve seen in the last couple of years. There were a couple days where in primary care, the appointments were full, but this week has been a little slower — so most days if students call they can be seen the same day now.”

Students have reported difficulties, however, with being treated at Dick’s House.

Isabelle Wilson ’23 said that earlier this term, she had been experiencing a high fever and flu symptoms but was unable to receive treatment for a few days, despite being advised to seek immediate attention after describing her symptoms.

“I asked if I could drop in

but was told that they were not accepting drop-ins anymore because they just didn’t have the capacity for it,” Wilson said.

Wilson said she then tried to receive an appointment, but was told that Dick’s House was fully booked. A few days later, after her symptoms persisted, her mother called Dick’s House and was able to secure her an appointment.

After seeing a doctor, Wilson was eventually able to stay overnight at Dick’s House, which she said helped improve her condition, and she is since feeling better. But she added that other students had similar experiences to SEE FLU PAGE 3

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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2020

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

Q&A with computer science professor Patricia Hannaway B y JASON ROMERO The Dartmouth

After graduating from Smith College in 1984, computer science professor Patricia Hannaway first worked as a corporate analyst on Wall Street. However, the span of her 40-year career has taken her in a multitude of creative directions. After working on Wall Street, Hannaway helped animate Disney films such as “Mulan” and “Pocahontas,” and also served as senior animator for “The Lord of the Rings” character Gollum. The Dartmouth sat down with Hannaway to discuss her current projects and how she finds a balance between teaching and creating.

How does one go from working on Wall Street to working at Disney?

PH: Well, it’s an interesting story. I came from a conservative family just outside of Boston, and I always did artwork. I was always creative, but like a lot of us, our parents want us to do things better, more practical.

My parents always said, “Well, art is nice, but make sure you can get a check.” That’s why I’ve always looked for ways of combining my more practical thing with my artistic interests. That’s really what brought me to animation. I was accepted to a business school, and just before I was due to go, one of my professors from college happened to be in New York City, and he said, “Pat, you’re really a wonderful artist, and we wish you wouldn’t give up so quickly.” I said, “Oh yeah, but I can’t make a living at it.” And she said, “Well, Andy Warhol is creating a fabulous school called the New York Academy of Art,

and he is taking 20 students from around the country on a yearlong scholarship program. It would be wonderful if you to consider that program.” That Sunday, I got a call from Andy Warhol, and he asked if I was interested in being in the program — if I would consider it.

I really liked to come and do the scholarship program for a year, so that’s really what I ended up doing.

After that, it just led to doing artwork with the computer. I ended up with one Master’s in fine arts and then another Master’s in computer animation. So I didn’t know who would want someone who was an investment banker, a painter, an artist and a little bit of a philosopher.

Disney feature animation did. I never did go to business school, and I ended up being recruited as one of a group of 12 to go and train in Disney animation. All your great artistic heroes are there; you work directly with them, learning from just some of the greatest. I mean, it really was like some of these people draw like we breathe. It’s so innovative, and so it was a real privilege to be there.

At your time in Disney, do you have any specific memories or challenges when creating these animated works?

PH: I was based in the Orlando studio, because that’s where my mentors were, and what was great is it was only a group of about 150 people. Our studio — because it was so small — you could go and talk to the directors or talk to the story team or go talk to some of your heroes and, you know, you’d see him at lunch. It was just very accessible. I think that made for a very special learning situation. I

CORRECTIONS Correction appended (Feb. 4, 2020): The Feb. 4 article “Activists urge College to pressure Irving to cancel energy contract” originally stated that a spokesperson for Irving Oil declined to comment. The spokesperson did provide a brief statement to The Dartmouth but declined to comment on the specifics of the Weymouth case.

The online version of the article has been updated to include her statement.

We welcome corrections. If you believe there is a factual error in a story, please email editor@thedartmouth.com.

was just constantly amazed at the quality of the artwork that was being done. I mean, the people who do backgrounds can paint like some of the best landscape painters.

You know, being in figure drawing classes with some of these artists, I mean, they draw like Michelangelo!

A lot of times the actors we use in the animated feature film are very well known. We were constantly interacting with those people, and it was just very normal. One of our first features was “Mulan,” and when we got something, we really made it our own. That’s why “Mulan” is such a strong movie, because we took something that wasn’t expected to be anything, and we really made it something special. That was one of my early experiences, and it was just great.

What have you learned from following one path in life to then choosing a different path completely?

PH: When I was in school, I always felt like an outsider, because I’m not like so many other students. Even my cousins all had this one path. They were either doctors or lawyers or engineers or scientists, and they had a definite label. For a lot of time, I felt like there was something wrong with me. Everyone else seems so sure of what they were doing, and I felt so unsure of what I was doing. And what strikes me now looking back on that is that there wasn’t anything wrong with me. It’s just that everyone around me was so d—n scared that they were wearing labels with certainty; instead of taking time to see and find out who they were and what they liked to do. I was taking time to find out, and that enabled me to adapt and be flexible going forward.

Yes, I went to Wall Street. I did what I was supposed to do coming out of a fine college. I did it, and I realized I could do it, but I realized it’s not how I wanted to spend my time — that there must be more to life than just chasing money. I decided to look for ways of combining computer technology with art. That led me on the path of kind of computer graphics and animation and just a

wonderful journey. I tell students that if they do not fit into one path to realizing that it’s not a problem.

That’s what I’d really like students to know — that they should stop trying so hard to fit themselves into a hole and kind of embrace their varied interests and look for ways combining things in that multidisciplinary way that the future is multidisciplinary.

What made you want to start teaching?

PH: What happened is I was just finishing up on “Shrek,” and I was tired because we had a very tight production deadline. At the end of that, we were all really burned out. There were about 20 of us that were animators, and we were just exhausted. I thought I need to take some time off. I ended up doing a little teaching at Stanford, and they were trying to do some work in computer graphics. They’ve got a computer science department with just hardcore computer science. They were starting to look at ways of combining arts and technology together. I ended up doing some work and teaching there, and I would go back and forth between computer science and the art building. I’d just keep going down the well-worn path. That’s where I met Lorie Loeb, who is the head of the digital art program here. She knew of my work over at Stanford, and she said, “Look, at some point, I’d love you to come over and do some teaching at Dartmouth.” That’s how I ended up here, and our digital arts program here is really growing.

We have a new computer science building coming along, so we’ll be able to have more students, so it’s an exciting time to be here. But I really split my time between Los Angeles and Hanover. I spend part of the year here and part of the year back in LA. You have artwork at work, and you’re also teaching. How do you find a balance between those two worlds?

PH: Well, what’s nice about the teaching is when I’m working on big projects — film projects or painting projects — I need huge blocks of time to work so that I can just focus. What’s

nice about the teaching is I can come here, I can do some teaching, and then what I can do is take like two or three months off and focus on my painting or my film projects.

T hose of us from feature animation really have a desire to pass it on to the next generation, because that’s really what our mentors did for us. Now, with all the technology, I feel like sometimes the principles get lost. I make sure the principles guide the technology; the technology doesn’t guide the principles. I really enjoy being able to share things with my students, do some of my own personal work and do some work with colleagues back in LA. Do you have any tips for the future generation for those who want to pursue animation?

PH: I think now there are so many more ways to apply your artistic skills to technology than when I was just starting out. I would tell students to embrace the variety of the things that they like and realize that innovation is how you combine them. I think we have a unique opportunity here at Dartmouth to be able to help prepare people for kind of Silicon Valley and new ventures and products for the future.

The other thing I was thinking about is how it’s hard to train people for jobs that don’t exist yet. I can’t train you for the job that I don’t know exists yet. What I can do is train you to think flexibly so that you can take advantage of it when you come across it and adapt in the future. I think the world of constant learning is important, especially in anything related to technology. Stuff changes so quickly, but you need to be flexible. You can’t be rigid in your thinking. You’ve got to be like, “Oh, what’s this?” And then you must take the initiative and learn how it works and jump in and realize that when you’re on the cusp of technology and cusp of innovation, it’s not a well-worn path. You must figure it out. But I think that figuring it out is part of the fun.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2020

PAGE 3

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

Health director says a variety of resources are available to students FROM FLU PAGE 1

hers.

“There were several people that were coming into Dick’s House saying that they thought they had the flu and they — Dick’s House — just turned them away because they didn’t have any more equipment available and they didn’t have any more beds,” Wilson said. “And so there were just a ton of people either looking for the next available doctor to see them or people were just turned and went back to their dorms with the flu.”

Wilson added that she thought it was concerning to have students with cold and flu-like symptoms stay in their dorms untreated, as more students could get sick.

College spokesperson Diana Lawrence wrote in an email statement that students should speak to College nurses over the phone for advice and

engage in self-care in light of Dick’s House increase in traffic.

“Often students with influenzalike illness do well to rest, selfisolate, and take over-the-counter medications,” Lawrence wrote. “A nurse can help to direct a student with next steps and determine when the student should be seen. They have openings in Primary Care for triage visits on a daily basis to assess ill students. We encourage students to call first and leave messages.”

Reed said that there may have been a misunderstanding among students who feel that they were turned away.

He said that students experiencing cold or flu-like symptoms should call ahead before coming into Dick’s House as standard procedure.

Reed said there are many resources available to students even if they cannot be served in person, such as 24-hour telephone advice, after-hour triage assessments provided by nurses

and self-care guides for common problems available on their website.

“Not everyone who has cold or flu-like symptoms needs to be seen,” Reed said. “This is to make the best use of available resources and to provide the best services in order to protect the community from transmission.”

According to Reed, Dartmouth is one of few institutions nationwide with an infirmary available for primary care and mental health patients, although there are only 10 beds available in the inpatient department.

Reed said that Dick’s House prioritizes attending to students who are especially vulnerable and exhibit severe symptoms.

“For flu and cold symptoms, the people we encourage to come in are those with a high fever or other conditions like asthma or if they are immunosuppressed,” Reed said.

“They’re at a higher risk for more serious complications from the flu.”

Dick’s House has been working with other on-campus facilities to ensure the well-being of the Dartmouth community and prevent the spread of the flu, Reed said.

“We’ve worked with facilities to do more frequent cleaning around campus to disinfect services,” Reed said. “The usual precautionary thing we’ve been telling people is to get the flu vaccine and wash their hands frequently.”

Students also have the option of being serviced at a local medical care provider if they insist on being attended to, and in most cases their health insurance will roll over, according to Reed.

“We have a close partnership with Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and a few other hospitals in the region,” Reed said. “All hospitals have periods where they are full,

so if someone were really sick and needed to be in the hospital, DHMC is always available, and you can use their emergency room if you need to be admitted there.”

Reed said that the rates of colds and flu-like symptoms have been waning back to a normal rate and that availability at Dick’s House has been opening back up to normal.

Students can now expect to be able to see a doctor the same day so long that they notify in advance.

“We may have some difficult days, but now if students call they can be seen the same day,” Reed said.

“There have been some times when the in-patient unit beds have been full, but right now the beds are busy, but available. Since late last week, there have been beds available, but there are people coming in and out.

We encourage triage so that we can use the beds for the students who need them the most.”

Candidates required to have at least 15 years of relevant experience FROM DIRECTOR PAGE 1

by other members of the Safety and Security team.

“We are really fortunate to have Keysi, who had been the deputy director, to step into the interim role,” Keniston said. “Keysi is incredibly capable and part of what we wanted to do was conduct some assessments, and he understands what’s needed for the department.”

While Keniston declined to offer specifics about why the position was held vacant for nearly three years, he mainly pointed toward Montás’ experience and abilities from his past years with the department which he joined in 2007.

Montás declined to comment for this story. Safety and Security officers were unable to comment as well.

Keniston said the assessments largely surround an evaluation of Safety and Security’s balance between community engagement and “reactive needs,” or emergency

response. Keniston added that across the security industry, there has been a movement to balance the two goals.

“A lot of people think of Safety and Security as just showing up on the scene when something happens,” Keniston said. “The question of community engagement is, how can Safety and Security also be involved in committees with students and members of the town, or community training and forums?”

Keniston said this type of engagement can help establish a better relationship between security and the Dartmouth community.

The College has enlisted the services of search consultant Spelman Johnson to fill the vacant position, according to Keniston.

He said the move to use an outside agent is something the College does regularly, and helps create a “national pool” from which to select candidates. So far, the search committee is receiving resumes and

vetting candidates, Keniston said.

According to a posting for the position on the Spelman Johnson website, “The Director leads an unar med, non-swor n team of approximately 30 security and dispatch professionals, and manages and administers safety and security programs, physical facility security, compliance, training, emergency preparedness, and critical incident response for the College.”

The search committee is casting a wide net for individuals with a wide range of backgrounds, Keniston said.

“We are open to individuals which maybe don’t have experience specifically in a college like Dartmouth but have deployed programs similar to the objectives I stated earlier,” Keniston said.

“Folks with a background at other institutions are certainly part of the mix.”

The online posting says attractive candidates would “bring an understanding of the residential

STAFF PHOTO

Safety and Security has been without a permanent director since May 2017.

campus, replete with a strong Greek culture, to the role.”

The posting further notes the position requires a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, emergency management or a related field, and specifies that 15 years of relevant experience and an advanced degree

is preferred. It also notes the new director will report to executive vice president for finance and administration Rick Mills.

College spokesperson Diana Lawrence said in an email that the College hopes to make an offer to a candidate in the spring.

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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2020

THE DARTMOUTH ARTS

Competitive field for 2020 Oscars ensure an exciting show B y WILLEM GERRISH The Dartmouth Staff

The Oscars are developing a bit of a reputation for incompetence, seen in 2017 when Warren Beatty erroneously announced that “La La Land” had won Best Picture — the Academy had actually voted on “Moonlight” — and they’ve struck again this week by accidentally tweeting a slate of winners for each category under the heading “My Oscars Predictions” on the official Academy Twitter account.

The Academy started a program this year of accepting user-submitted predictions and turning them into a graphic before sending them back to the user — one of which evidently got tweeted instead of directly messaged in a glitch. The blunder felt like another lamentable stumble by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but it will surely generate some extra buzz ahead of the 92nd Academy Awards, which air on ABC on Sunday at 8 p.m.

Unlike the Ricky Gervais-helmed Golden Globes of January, the Oscars have foregone a host for the second year in a row, instead relying on a slate of presenters and performers. This year, the list of presenters includes Timothée Chalamet, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, LinManuel Miranda and Kristen Wiig alongside the four winners of the acting categories in 2019 — Mahershala Ali, Regina King, Olivia Colman and Rami Malek — who will continue the Oscars tradition of presenting to their successors. This host-less format played out well last year, helping shuffle the often-bloated awards ceremony along and keep attention on the winners.

Speaking of winners, awards season momentum — which culminates in the Oscars — and popular predictions can give the impression that the victors are all but decided, though the Academy is known for throwing out curveballs from

time to time. Colman’s Best Actress win over the seemingly unstoppable Glenn Close at last year’s ceremony or the surprise victory of “Moonlight” over “La La Land” in 2017 were both shocking.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at some of the major categories set to be decided on Sunday:

Sea.” Yet despite my deep admiration for Baumbach’s script, I can feel the Academy sliding toward Quentin Tarantino’s flashy “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood” script. Tarantino has had his moment and “Hollywood” is far from his best script. Give Baumbach the Oscar.

Adapted screenplay Unlike the Golden Globes, the Oscars splits the screenplay award into two categories — ‘adapted’ and ‘original.’ In the adapted category, Steven Zaillian’s powerhouse of an epic mob script for “The Irishman” — adapted from the book “I Heard You Paint Houses” by Charles Brandt — charges into Sunday with the most steam, carrying both the prestige of its director, Martin Scorsese, and the quality to back it up. Zaillian’s script weaves through violence, greed and death with insidious precision, eschewing gratuitous moments for a subtle undercurrent that sticks with you long after the three-and-a-half hour marathon. The competitors are an impressive bunch, including Greta Gerwig’s exquisite adaptation of the classic American novel “Little Women” (Gerwig was snubbed in the Best Director category) and Anthony McCarten’s incredible script for “The Two Popes,” so I wouldn’t be surprised if Zaillian gets pushed aside in favor of a more unexpected choice.

Best director A star-studded list of nominees — Scorsese and Mendes have won this award before and Tarantino is a perennial favorite — makes this category feels like a true toss-up this year. Mendes is riding the wave of his Golden Globes win and “1917” is indeed the kind of film that garners a directing Oscar, but it’s hard to argue with names like Scorsese and Tarantino. Bong Joon Ho has a legitimate shot for his lucid work on “Parasite” and Todd Philips’s visceral “Joker” has a lot of buzz around it, so it’s anyone’s game, really. With Bong Joon Ho as a sleeper pick, Mendes feels like the obvious choice, after orchestrating a film with more cinematographic virtuosity than any other this year.

Original screenplay Sam Mendes’ “1917,” for all its technical prowess, is not a well-written film. Yet somehow, Mendes and cowriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns garnered a nomination in this category, a true head-scratcher which I can only hope doesn’t turn into a victory. Most deserving is Noah Baumbach’s heartwrenching “Marriage Story,” which is just about the best-written film I’ve seen in three years, since “Manchester by the

Best supporting actress Laura Dern is full steam ahead on this one, and I couldn’t be happier.

“Marriage Story” is extraordinary and her performance only makes it more so, as she walks the line between sympathetic and sadistic as a fierce LA divorce lawyer.

Kathy Bates and Florence Pugh are the biggest threats, but this is Dern’s category to win.

Best supporting actor Brad Pitt’s time has come. After three acting nominations and a career of sultry, magnetic performances, Pitt is poised to earn a gilded reward for his role in Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood.” As a hardened warveteran-turned-stuntman, Pitt exudes charisma and gravity in a subtle physical

performance that sneaks up on you with its quality. Despite a truly loaded slate of opponents — Joe Pesci, Al Pacino, Anthony Hopkins and Tom Hanks — Pitt has all the momentum and the star power to boot. A win from Pesci or Pacino would be surprising but not undeserved, and Hopkins’s performance in the “The Two Popes” was such a master class in acting prowess that it felt effortless. But I expect Pitt to be the one on stage giving a charming acceptance speech.

Best actress Renée Zellweger is this year’s Glenn Close, storming into Sunday with the Hollywood equivalent of a commanding fourth-quarter lead for her stunning performance as Judy Garland in “Judy.”

But Colman ended up taking the prize from Close last year and this year’s shocker could be Cynthia Erivo’s underrecognized performance in “Harriet” or the inimitable Saoirse Ronan in “Little Women.” I adored Scarlett Johansson in “Marriage Story,” but it feels as if her performance and, unfortunately, “Marriage Story” as a whole, are losing steam ahead of Sunday’s ceremony.

Best actor It’s a two-way duel between Adam Driver and Joaquin Phoenix here, a clash between the naturalist emotion of Driver’s “Marriage Story” role and Phoenix’s transformative and unnerving display in “Joker.” Phoenix feels like the slight favorite, especially having taken home the Globe last month. But I like Driver better, not just because I think his performance is superior — nuance can be harder to pull off than the exaggerated drama of “Joker” — but also because the Oscars tends to favor classical prowess over extravagance. Leonardo DiCaprio could slide in with a win for “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood” on the coattails of his star power and history of impressive performances, but I’d

be surprised if it’s someone other than Driver or Phoenix on stage at the end of the night.

Best picture This category feels like a tossup, and I think it’s because many of the films have different strengths when it comes to quality, execution and originality.

“The Irishman” and “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood” are the films of the old guard, made by masters and filled with bona fide movie stars. “Joker” is a glittery modernization of cinema past (Scorsese’s cinema, in particular) combined with the ethos of comic book lore. “1917” is a film based around technical execution rather than writing and acting, and “Parasite” and “Jojo Rabbit” hit atypical chords of original filmmaking. “Marriage Story” was my favorite movie of the year, but its lack of victories in the awards season so far may foreshadow a lack of enthusiasm on the part of Academy voters. “Joker” has some momentum, but I don’t think the Academy will fall for its gilded façade, and I hope it doesn’t — the movie doesn’t have the originality or staying power of a true Best picture winner. “1917” could ride its awards season glory to a culminating victory at the Oscars, but it lacks the completeness in all its facets to really deserve the win. Tarantino’s “Hollywood” is one of his least-thrilling films, either in action or in linguistic flexibility, but it has that Tinseltown sheen that Academy voters love. That leaves “The Irishman” and “Parasite” (“Jojo Rabbit” feels too indie to have a chance), but a surefire win for “Parasite” in the international film category might diminish its chances a bit. By process of elimination, that lands us at “The Irishman,” an impeccable film — by our nation’s greatest living filmmaker — which would both be an unsurprising and wholly deserving film for the night’s biggest prize.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2020

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THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

Event focused on digital addiction’s impact on youth mental health FROM DESIGNATHON PAGE 1

Collective president and Designathon organizer Anca Balaceanu ’20, the goal was to “keep the model of a fast-paced, creative environment, but with a focus on the human-centered design process.”

“The Designathon allows people who may not be as technical [as participants in Hackathon] to have a clear place to work on some sprint, intensive activity — and to see their ideas come to life,” said DALI Lab director and computer science professor Lorie Loeb, who served as one of the Designathon judges.

The Designathon focused on the issue of digital addiction and its impact on youth mental health, which is “an emerging global epidemic,” that has been linked by some to the “escalating mental health crisis” among youths, according to the Dartmouth Designathon website.

Balaceanu said the theme was inspired by Lookup.Live’s cofounder Susan Reynolds ’85, who Balaceanu said seeks to empower youth to find a balance between technology use and real lives. According to Reynolds, the goal of the organization is to shift social norms away from people being on their phone toward encouraging real-life engagement.

“My mission would be that you walk into Foco and nobody would be on their phone,” Reynolds said. “Just like there used to be people smoking in restaurants, but now you would never see that.”

From 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday evening, experienced designers helped the teams understand the event prompt and unpack the user research they conducted before coming to the event.

On Saturday, the teams focused on the ideation process — where they built prototypes, conducted user testing and presented their projects. That evening, the winning team was chosen on the spot by the judging committee.

Team “Zzz,” consisting of Maxine Perroni-Scharf ’21, Chloe Son ’21, Winston Wang ’21 and Timothy Yang ’21, won first place and the grant with their idea of a phone app named “Sleeping Pet.” The app proposal includes a customizable night sleep routine, as well as the physical features of a virtual sleeping pet, which gets

sleepy and prompts the user to sleep if the user continues to use the phone after their set bedtime.

“When you personalize the avatar, you have a personal investment and attachment to it, so if you see it really wanting to sleep, and your actions are inhibiting it from sleeping, then maybe that would push people more towards getting themselves to bed,” Son said.

The team is planning on continuing their project next term, and using the grant on development and advertising.

“We are planning on using a lot of the grant on optimization of the product so that we could make it into something really relevant to the students here at Dartmouth or beyond Dartmouth’s campus,” Son said.

In addition to the cash grant, the winning team will be funded with an allexpenses-paid trip to the LookUp.Live Collaborative Summit this April in San Francisco, and will be provided with both a mentor outside of Dartmouth and the opportunity to join the LookUp.Live’s collaborative learning lab. The runnerup team, “RG Box,” won a full-year Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.

“RG Box” proposed a box with a green and red side to indicate whether the user is open for conversation while in a public space such as a restaurant, according to Balaceanu.

The other two Designathon teams also proposed solutions to address phone overuse. Balaceanu said that one team designed a box that locks users’ phones and provides conversation prompts to promote genuine, face-toface conversations between people.

The other team proposed an awareness campaign to warn people of the harmful effects of excessive technology use using stickers and memes.

“It can yield very diverse solutions to approach the same problem,” Balaceanu said.

For Balaceanu, organizing the Designathon was both a rewarding and challenging experience. As a teaching assistant in ENGS 12, “Design Thinking,” Balaceanu said she enjoyed helping designers to develop their projects.

“I really enjoy facilitation and helping people understand how design works,” Balaceanu said. “[But] the challenging part of an event that lasts for so long is

COURTESY OF ANCA BALACEANU

The first-ever Dartmouth ‘Designathon’ was held last weekend.

how I keep my own energy level high while giving to the community and helping them achieve a state of creative flow.”

In order to stimulate the teams’ creative output, the Designathon organizing committee provided meals

for participants and planned different energizer games to keep people engaged.

“One thing that the Designathon taught me is that it is really possible to do work while having fun,” Son said. “The normal assumption for college students is that if you are doing work, it’s normally

not as much fun. But because we were having fun, we were able to have some fresh, interesting ideas.”

According to Balaceanu, the second Designathon will be hosted on April 25 in conjunction with Boston Consulting Group Digital Ventures.

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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2020

THE DARTMOUTH OPINION

STAFF COLUMNIST TYLER MALBREAUX ’20

STAFF COLUMNIST GABRIELLE LEVY ’22

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Doctor’s Orders

The economy is booming, but it must be kept in context.

At Tuesday’s State of the Union address, President Donald Trump paraded the country’s rising tide of economic success.

The unemployment rate is at a 50-year-low at 3.5 percent, and hourly wages for some of the country’s lowest income earners have risen . Americans’ attitudes generally reflect those numbers, as many feel better about the economy than they did a year ago.

Trump spent much of this portion of his speech by pandering to various marginalized and minority communities. He mentioned that unemployment and poverty rates for blacks, Hispanics and women are at historic lows. And in one display of his remarkable showmanship, Trump singled out a man who was sitting in the House gallery: Tony Rankins, a black man from Ohio, who overcame drug addiction and formed a profitable construction company. Trump credited Rankins’ success to the GOP-led 2017 tax cuts.

It’s hardly possible to sidestep the fact that Trump enjoys a strong economy, one which seems to be improving for almost everyone and shows no immanent signs of downturn.

The strong economy presents a formidable challenge to Democratic candidates making their case against Trump. A successful economy is indeed everyone’s success. But in no way should a few strong economic indicators fool voters into thinking all is well.

Before we continue, it’s important to remember that Trump cannot fully take credit for all these positive economic indicators.

Unemployment rates had been decreasing for years prior to Trump’s inauguration, and hourly wage growth began its increase

DEBORA HYEMIN HAN, Editor-in-Chief

under President Obama . These and other trends, including GDP and stock market growth, indicate that Trump inherited an economy that was already strong. Given that fact, it’s hard to say how much of the good economy is due to Trump — if anything, his unprompted trade war with China risks losing the economic gains made in prior years.

But the story of Tony Rankins may point to a different conclusion. Trump can clearly take credit for tax cuts and the creation of “opportunity zones,” both key components of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The tax cut created so-called opportunity zones as a way for economically distressed neighborhoods to attract outside development. By allowing investors to defer capital gains taxes , wealth can flow into poor, usually minority communities, leading to job creation and much-needed housing development.

However, while Rankins may have been a beneficiary of an opportunity zone, there is little evidence to suggest that stories like his are common. Studies of opportunity zones’ long-term effects do not exist, since the concept was only recently enacted into law. But one flaw identified by skeptics is that the law does not specify what kind of developments can be built. A developer can build affordable housing units — but he could just as easily build high-end apartment complexes, displacing residents and failing to help the people who supposedly stand to benefit from the opportunity zones. This is already happening across the country. Hedge funds and wealthy investors receive enormous SEE MALBREAUX PAGE 7

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Financial barriers to medical school hurt everyone.

When New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine announced that it was going tuition-free in August 2018, thousands of pre-med and medical students across the country reloaded their browsers in disbelief.

As Dartmouth’s eager pre-meds are aware, the high costs of applying to and attending medical school are no secret — and no joke.

With application season just around the corner, cost is certainly an issue weighing heavily on many applicants’ minds. According to the Health Professions Program at Princeton University, students should expect to spend approximately $4,000 on medical school applications. For the 2018-19 school year, the Association of American Medical Colleges reported that tuition costs ranged from an average of $36,755 for in-state public medical schools to an exorbitant $60,474 for out-of-state private schools. But beyond just placing an unreasonable burden on students and families, the high entry barrier to medical school harms society as a whole by reducing the diversity of caregivers.

The daunting price tag for medical school applications and tuition means that many young people who have the potential to be excellent caregivers never even submit an application. Indeed, more than half of medical students come from the wealthiest 20 percent of families in America, while only five percent of medical students come from the poorest 20 percent of American families. High medical school costs also disproportionately affect minority racial groups. In particular, this has caused an intense underrepresentation of black and Latino Americans. Take Massachusetts General Hospital, the famed teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School: Out of its more than 2,000 physicians, only three percent are black. Equally troubling is the fact that the proportion of black males attending medical school has not increased over the last 40 years.

As a result of this lack of diversity, racial biases and stigma prevail, and minority patients receive worse qualities of care.

Stereotypes negatively impact the health of minority patients in a multitude of ways, including demonstrably altering clinical decision-making. For instance, research suggests that American clinicians assume white patients are more responsible for their health than black patients. The result is that doctors provide white patients with more treatment on average because they believe

they are more likely to benefit from it.

A number of studies have also proven that racial bias is predominant in pain assessments, causing black Americans to be “systematically undertreated for pain relative to white Americans.” For example, a 2015 survey of medical students revealed that 50 percent held false beliefs about black patients, such as believing that the skin of black people is tougher than the skin of white people.

Even if white doctors do not exhibit signs of conscious racial bias, research suggests that clinical interactions that take place across racial lines are generally of lower quality than interactions between doctors and patients of the same race. Specifically, interactions across racial lines, according to a 2013 study, “are of shorter duration, are less pleasant, and are characterized by less patient involvement and shared decisionmaking.” Since American physicians and medical personnel are predominantly white, black Americans and other minority patients tend to have negative experiences with health care professionals. This negativity in turn promotes avoidance of health care professionals among minority populations, which is detrimental to both the health of these patients and American health care costs as it inevitably results in an increased demand for emergency care.

It is evident that the high costs of medical school limit the diversity of doctors and lead to less successful care and a less healthy society overall. But what can be done? After all, not every medical school is blessed with a $250-million alumni donation. One option is forgivable loans, where student loans are forgiven if graduates work toward increasing equality of care. This can mean choosing to practice in underserved communities or in disciplines with a shortage of doctors, such as going into primary care instead of specializing in a high-paying sub-field.

Of course, there is still the problem of who exactly would be doing the forgiving of these loans. But no matter how implausible the solutions to the exorbitant costs of medical school may seem, it is important that we continue to seek ways to lower the barriers to applying and attending medical school in order to increase the socioeconomic and racial diversity of medical students. At the end of the day, we all stand to benefit from increased diversity and the healthier society that would result.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2020

DARTMOUTHEVENTS

PAGE 7

THE DARTMOUTH EVENTS

FROM BOSTON, WITH LOVE

CASEY SMERCZYNSKI ’20

TODAY 4:45 p.m. – 5:45 p.m.

Talk: “Memory Works,” with Marcelo Brodsky. Sponsored by the Hood Museum, Gilman Auditorium.

5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Talk: “What Has Become of His Dreams,” with Rev. Liz Theoharis and Rev. Dr. William J. Barber. Sponsored by the Rockefeller Center, Room 003.

7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.

Performance: “Jordi Savall,” with Hesperion XXI and La Capella Reial de Cataluyna. Sponsored by the Hopkins Center, Spaulding Auditorium.

TOMORROW 3:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Talk: “Sapentia Lecture Series: ‘Memorials and Memories,’” with Shen-yi Liao. Sponsored by the Philosophy Department, 103 Thornton Hall.

7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.

Film: “Atlantics.” Sponsored by the Hopkins Center.

Loew Auditorium.

FROM MALBREAUX PAGE 6

tax breaks on property developments, while displacing lower income residents at the same time.

The mixed message of opportunity zones reflects a broader reality that Trump kept out of view during his address to the nation — that the rules of the economy still disproportionately favor the well-off. Tax cuts have concentrated their benefits on the wealthy, with 60 percent of total tax savings from the 2017 tax cut going to just 20 percent of income earners. Meanwhile, middle-class Americans, especially those living in states Trump carried in 2016, have often seen declining wages.

The State of the Union is, of

course, is not likely to change the country’s political landscape. Minds are not likely to be changed, as most viewers have already made up their minds about the President. For his part, though, Trump is likely to use the good economy as a talking point for stump speeches as he vies for victory in the 2020 presidential campaign. He already has — the economy is a regular talking point at his rallies. But that isn’t the whole story. Voters must keep in mind that Trump cannot take all the credit for the current economy, and that though the economy is working for some, there are still many Americans left out of Trump’s self-proclaimed “greatest economy we’ve had in the history of our country.”

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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2020

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