The Harvard Crimson - Volume CXLIX, No. 56

The Harvard Crimson THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873

|

VOLUME CXLIX, NO. 57 | CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

|

TUESDAY, APRIL 19, 2022

EDITORIAL PAGE 8

OP ED PAGE 8

SPORTS PAGE 10

Likely letters uplift marginalized students at Harvard College

Dear Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, you are my role model

Football to face St. Thomas in homeand-home series beginning in 2023

Proctors Strained by Large Freshman Class Students Rewrite Racist Operetta

By VIVI E. LU and LEAH J. TEICHHOLTZ CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

When Hakim J. Walker began serving as a proctor in Harvard’s freshman dormitories in 2018, he was assigned eight to ten freshmen to advise.

Proctoring, Walker said, was the “perfect role” to learn more about Harvard. Like many proctors, Walker said he loves working with students and is passionate about the advising aspect of his job.

But when he arrived on campus this fall, Walker was assigned 16 freshmen to advise.

The transition to taking on more advisees, Walker said, was “definitely taxing.”

Proctors help freshmen transition into college life, overseeing an entryway of 20 to 40 students by planning study breaks and enforcing residential rules. In addition, proctors are required to advise a smaller cohort of students academically, providing course recommendations and educational support.

Proctors — who must be enrolled in a Harvard graduate program or employed by the University — report to Harvard’s First-Year Experience office, which oversees advising and residential life for freshmen. In exchange for their work, they receive free housing in their freshman entryway and a meal plan in the freshman dining hall.

This year, the College’s 78 freshman proctors are responsible for the largest class in the school’s history — likely a con­

The 20 freshman dorms, left to right and top to bottom: Apley, Canaday, DeWolfe, Grays, Greenough, Hollis, Holworthy, Hurlbut, The Inn, Lionel, Massachusetts Hall, Matthews, Mower, Pennypacker, The Prescotts, Stoughton, Strauss, Thayer, Weld, and Wigglesworth. JULIAN J. GIORDANO—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

sequence of Covid-19. Almost 350 members of the Class of 2024 deferred their enrollment while instruction was virtual, joining the oversized Class of 2025.

The large class size has augmented many proctors’ workloads, which some say has created burnout and worsened the quality of freshman advising.

In interviews with nine current and former proctors over

the last month, many said Harvard’s First-Year Experience Office has not provided enough support as advising responsibilities have increased. Some proctors spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation from the FYE. Though some proctors believe a smaller freshman class next year will alleviate some of their concerns, others worry that the proctor program and

its compensation structure are breeding burnout and tension between proctors and the FYE Office.

‘It Was Really Hell’ According to archives of the Harvard College Dean of Students Office’s website, no proctors left mid-year during the 2020-2021 school year. But this year, five have departed mid-

year, forcing Harvard to scramble to fill spots.

Nekesa C. Straker, a senior assistant dean who oversees the FYE, wrote in a statement that many residential staff — not just proctors — have left mid-year.

“There are a number of reasons, some of which are personal and some of which result from changes in Harvard affiliation,” Straker wrote.

Ben D. Grimm ’18, who left the proctor role mid-year due to dissatisfaction with his graduate program, said he believes there was a “miscommunication” between proctors and the FYE before the fall about the number of students each proctor would advise. In his first year in the role this fall, Grimm was assigned 15 advisees.

In past years, proctors have typically been responsible for six to 12 advisees, according to Aliya S. Bhimani, who directs the Advising Programs Office.

But this year, most have 12 to 18, Bhimani wrote. The DSO’s website says proctors should expect to advise eight to 10 students.

A first-time proctor who was assigned 15 advisees said the workload was “extremely rough.”

At least three proctors said the larger cohort of advisees created significant stress at the start of the fall semester, when students meet with advisers for help with selecting courses and transitioning into college life.

One proctor said they stayed up until 3 or 4 a.m. preparing for meetings with their 15 advisees at the beginning of the semester.

CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

The Kraft family, which owns the New England Patriots, donated $24 million to Harvard Business School earlier this month to establish the Robert K. Kraft Family Fellowship Fund, which will be the largest endowed fellowship fund at the school.

The donation, announced

by HBS on April 7, will endow a fellowship aimed at supporting students from underrepresented backgrounds. HBS will also name its financial aid office after the Kraft family in recognition of the gift.

The fellowship was endowed

by Robert K. Kraft, the Patriots’ principal owner, and his son, Jonathan A. Kraft, who ­

The Kraft family dedicated the largest endowed fellowship fund to Harvard Business School in its history..

CHRIS HIDALGO—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

serves as president of the team.

It marks the second major donation the family has given to Harvard in the last seven years.

The fund was announced at an event with Robert and Jonathan Kraft — both HBS alums — and Business School Dean Srikant M. Datar.

The fund aims to support students who would not otherwise be able to attend HBS. The donation comes seven years after the Robert and Myra Kraft Family Foundation pledged $20 million to support activities that advance precision medicine at HBS. “Being part of HBS changed my life, and I am deeply grateful for the chance to help others benefit from the

Throughout the last weekend of March, students from the Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert and Sullivan Players transported audiences to London in the year 3070 through their musical “The Milk Made.”

The production, performed from March 24 to March 27 at Harvard’s Agassiz Theater, told the story of a boat worker in a futuristic Chinese-dominated London who schemes to achieve her dream of herding goats and to help her sister marry, overcoming the existing class structure.

HRG&SP adapted the musical from Arthur Sullivan’s operetta “The Mikado,” keeping the original score but completely rewriting the play to eliminate the use of yellow-face and racism found in the original work.

Keagan Yap ’25, the music director of the production, said the cast and crew members were able to bring their personal experiences into the new play.

“A number of our cast and crew members also have Asian heritage and belong to these cultures and to come onto this project — and imbue their identities and imbue their cultures and experiences into this work that has drawn music from centuries ago — I think was a very enlightening experience,” Yap said.

Katherine “Kate” Vandermel ’25, who played the lead role, said the production’s promotion of inclusivity made the show very meaningful for her.

“New lyrics were used to create this show, a show that gives Asian Americans more representation in the arts, and also has a really unique plot and sort of different twist that reflects more contemporary standards,” Vandermel said.

Vandermel said the production saw a successful turnout and was applauded for its reinvention of Gilbert and Sullivan’s work.

“It was really heartwarming to see a lot of people come to see the show,” Vandermel said.

“Especially people that were very surprised by this production and how it was able to really innovate traditional Gilbert

SEE KRAFT PAGE 9

SEE OPERETTA PAGE 9

SEE PROCTORS PAGE 7

HBS Receives $24M from Kraft Family

By PAUL E. ALEXIS

By ELLA L. JONES and MONIQUE I. VOBECKY

­

HDS Student Talks Two Undergrads Named as Truman Scholars Religion and Health

By CARRIE HSU

CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

By KENNETH GU CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

A ns Irfan, a public health expert and student at the Harvard Divinity School, discussed his project on religion as a structural determinant of health during a virtual presentation on Monday.

Diane L. Moore, the faculty director of the Religion and Public Life program at HDS, moderated the presentation, which also included remarks from Jason J. Ashe, another expert in religion and health who is affiliated with Duke University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Irfan’s presentation is the first talk held by the Master of Religion and Public Life program at HDS, which brings to­

INSIDE THIS Harvard Today 2 ISSUE

gether a small cohort of professionals and academics from around the world to study religion’s connection to society and service.

Irfan began by addressing the popular notion that health is solely influenced by biology.

While biology influences public health outcomes, Irfan argued that social and structural determinants play a large role but are often forgotten.

According to Irfan, social determinants include “where you grow, live, learn, work, age, and so on,” while structural determinants are affected by macro-level economic, housing, and trade policies.

“Now we understand that only about 15-20 percent of

SEE HDS PAGE 9

Arts 3

News 7

T wo Harvard College students were awarded the Truman scholarship — an honor recognizing leadership, commitment to a career in public service, and academic excellence — according to a press release issued last week.

Amisha A. Kambath ’22 and Oksanna A. Samey ’23 were among the 58 aspiring public service leaders from 53 colleges and universities nationwide who received the distinction this year.

The Truman scholars will be awarded $30,000 in funding for post-graduate studies, along with leadership training, career counseling, and special employment opportunities within the federal government, per the scholarship’s website.

A Social Studies concentrator in Dunster House, Kambath ­

Editorial 8

Sports 10

said she knew since arriving at the College that she wanted to enter the legal profession.

She tailored her extracurriculars around this interest, getting involved with the Harvard College Project for Justice and the Institute of Politics. Kambath has also conducted research with Harvard Kennedy School professor Sandra Susan Smith.

Kambath credited her exposure to the criminal justice system, including a summer internships at the public defender’s office in Washington D.C. and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, for helping her more clearly envision how she wants to move forward in her career. “[These intern experiences] helped me have a much clearer conception of where I wanted to position myself and how I want to position myself in terms of working to change the crimi-

TODAY’S FORECAST

Amisha Kambath ’22

Oksanna Samey ’23

PHOTO COURTSEY AMISHA KAMBATH

PHOTO COURTSEY OKSANNA SAMEY

nal legal system and kind of the landscape economic opportunity around it,” she said. “So I think that — if I had to guess — paid off pretty well in the application.”

Kambath added that the process of putting together the Truman application was “really wonderful” because it allowed

her to reflect on her various roles and research experiences at Harvard.

“I just think the mode of engaging with the application and the Truman process — like what it kind of pulled out of me — is something that I’m really, really

SEE TRUMAN PAGE 9

VISIT THECRIMSON.COM. RAINY High: 56 Low: 40 FOLLOW @THECRIMSON ON TWITTER.

pita

THE HARVARD CRIMSON |

APRIL 19, 2022

PAGE 2

HARVARD TODAY

For Lunch Chicken Vindaloo Grilled Reuben Sandwich Palak Tofu

For Dinner General Gao’s Chicken Honey-Ginger Salmon Beijing-Style Crispy Tofu

TODAY’S EVENTS Catching Up on Delayed Work Academic Resource Center, 4-4:45 p.m.

IN THE REAL WORLD

This workshop is for you whether you are behind on work due to illness, emergencies, or procrastination.

Older Brother of Boston Marathon Bombing Victim Runs the Boston Marathon

Henry Richard completed the Boston Marathon in honor of his brother Martin, who was killed in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. The winner of the 2014 Boston Marathon, Meb Keflezighi, handed Henry his medal in an emotional finish.

Inclusions: Envisioning Justice on Harvard’s Campus Harvard Commons or Virtual 5 p.m.-6 p.m.

Curious about the new art installation that popped up in the yard? The lead creators of the installation will be hosting a conversation on artmaking and justice on Harvard’s campus.

The Future of Affirmative Action HLS Milstein West A or Virtual 6:30 p.m.

Join Asian American and Pacific Islander student organizations from across Harvard to learn more about the lawsuit filed against the College’s race-conscious admissions process.

Florida Judge Ends National Mask Mandate on Public Transportation

The Science and Engineering Complex sits in the sunlight that surrounded campus on a cool day Monday. TRUONG L. NGUYEN —CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

AROUND THE IVIES YALE: Candidates Prepare for Uncontested Yale Council Election —THE YALE DAILY NEWS CORNELL: Sen. Chuck Schumer Attends Ceremony for Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source Expansion —THE CORNELL DAILY SUN

A federal judge in Florida struck down the national mask mandate for travelers, stating the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not follow proper rule-making procedures when putting the mandate in place. The ruling led to several airlines announcing that they would no longer require face masks.

As Covid-19 Cases Rise, Philadelphia Reinstates Mask Mandate

A rise in Covid-19 infections led Philadelphia to reinstate its indoor mask mandate only a month after it was lifted. The mask mandate went into effect Monday, and only businesses that check for proof of vaccination are exempt.

PRINCETON: East Pyne Courtyard Film Set for ‘Oppenheimer’ Creates Campus Chaos —THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN PENN: Houston Hall to be Revamped into ‘Hub for Students’ by Vice Provost for University Life —THE DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN

COVID UPDATES

LAST 7 DAYS CURRENTLY

CAMPUS

294 In Isolation

490 1.74% Total New Cases

Positivity Rate

LAST 7 DAYS

CAMBRIDGE

684

Total New Cases

3%

Positivity Rate

76%

Fully Vaccinated

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY Public Library Target of Attack

An Arlington resident threatened to sue the City of Cambridge, alleging that its public library breached the separation of church and state by having religious inscriptions on its walls.

April 19, 1995

College Issues E-Name Rules

The provost’s office issued new guidelines requiring University users to obtain permission before using “Harvard” in an Internet domain, an e-mail address or a website title.

April 19, 2000

THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873

The Harvard Crimson Raquel Coronell Uribe ’22-’23 Associate Managing Editors President Kelsey J. Griffin ’23 Taylor C. Peterman ’23-’24 Jasper G. Goodman ’23 Managing Editor Associate Business Managers Amy X. Zhou ’23 Taia M.Y. Cheng ’23-’24 Business Manager Isabelle L. Guillaume ’24

STAFF FOR THIS ISSUE Arts Chairs Sofia Andrade ’23-’24 Jaden S. Thompson ’23

Design Chairs Yuen Ting Chow ’23 Madison A. Shirazi ’23-’24

Magazine Chairs Maliya V. Ellis ’23-’24 Sophia S. Liang ’23

Multimedia Chairs Aiyana G. White ’23 Pei Chao Zhuo ’23

Blog Chairs Ellen S. Deng ’23-’24 Janani Sekar ’23-’24

Editorial Chairs Guillermo S. Hava ’23-24 Orlee G.S. Marini-Rapoport ’23-24 Sports Chairs Alexandra N. Wilson ’23-’24 Griffin H. Wong ’24

Technology Chairs Ziyong Cui ’24 Justin Y. Ye ’24

Copyright 2022, The Harvard Crimson (USPS 236-560). No articles, editorials, cartoons or any part thereof appearing in The Crimson may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the President. The Associated Press holds the right to reprint any materials published in The Crimson. The Crimson is a non-profit, independent corporation, founded in 1873 and incorporated in 1967. Second-class postage paid in Boston, Massachusetts. Published Monday through Friday except holidays and during vacations, three times weekly during reading and exam periods by The Harvard Crimson Inc., 14 Plympton St., Cambridge, Mass. 02138 Weather icons made by Freepik, Yannick, Situ Herrera, OCHA, SimpleIcon, Catalin Fertu from flaticon.com is licensed by CC BY 3.0.

Night Editor Simon J. Levien ’23-’24 Assistant Night Editors Christine Mui ’23 Charlotte P. Ritz-Jack ’25 Story Editors Jasper G. Goodman ’23 Kelsey J. Griffin ’23 Brie K. Buchanan ’22-’23 Taylor C. Peterman ’23-’24

Design Editors Camille G. Caldera ’22 Julia Freitag ’25 Rahem D. Hamid ’25 Toby R. Ma ’24 Photo Editor Cory K. Gorczycki ’24 Editorial Editor Guillermo S. Hava ’23-24 Sports Editor David Aley ’23-’24

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

THE HARVARD CRIMSON |

APRIL 19, 2022

|

PAGE 3

ARTS BOOKS

CARMEN MARIA MACHADO’S READING DIVES INTO THE QUEER, THE SEXY, AND THE APOCALYPTIC

3

BOOKS

Within the dystopian world of “A Bright and Fearful Star” — told in the confines of Barker’s austere Plimpton room — were tales rich with queer intimacy and raw desire.

Carmen Maria Machado’s Reading Dives Into the Queer, the Sexy, and the Apocalyptic

‘TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES’: CARNIVOROUS MOTEL ROOMS, ALLEGORICAL SCI-FI AND THE BOLD VISION OF FRESH INK THEATRE

4

THEATER

The team at Fresh Ink hope that once “Truth or Consequences” opens, people will indeed read it, love it and share it. That is, if they aren’t devoured by a sentient motel room in the meantime.

4

‘OUTLANDER’ SEASON SIX RECAP: OLD CHARACTERS, NEW REVOLUTION

5

FROM THE BOSTON UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL: “MEDUSA” IS A SENSUOUS AND STUNNING EXPLORATION OF PATRIARCHY AND LIBERATION

SAWYER TAYLOR-ARNOLD CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The sixth season of STARZ’s hit series “Outlander” premiered on March 6, ending two years of what fans called “droughtlander.”

TV

FILM

In the world of Anita Rocha da Silveira’s “Medusa,” everything is heightened.

5

‘THE JUST AND THE BLIND’ REVIEW: A DISPLAY OF ART AS RESISTANCE

6

SPECIALTY COFFEE EXPO REFLECTIONS: A REFRESHING RETURN TO AUTHENTICITY IN A POST-COVID-19 WORLD

6

SWAE LEE AND SAM FELDT SMASH YARDFEST AS MUSIC RETURNS TO HARVARD YARD

CAMPUS

CULTURE

MUSIC

Shakur’s words remind us that throughout the history of Black subjugation and oppression, the ability of love to persevere within communities was an act of resistance.

Over the weekend of March 7, coffee professionals and enthusiasts from all over the world gathered in Boston’s colossal Convention Center for the annual Specialty Coffee Expo.

Hundreds of Harvard students flocked to Tercentenary Theater on April 16 to witness live music’s return to Harvard Yard as Swae Lee headlined the first in-person Yardfest since 2019.

Students gathered in the Barker Center’s Plimpton Room last Thursday, April 7 to hear best-selling author Carmen Maria Machado read from her newest piece of fiction, “A Brief and Fearful Star.” Quiet anticipation cloaked the room before the reading began; Machado broke the silence by asking Abby McElroy ’24 about the pink and white knitting she had brought with her, which McElroy feared looked a bit too much like raw meat. “That’s a selling point,” Machado told her, in a manner characterized by a fascination with the strange and the corporeal that fans of Machado’s work have come to love. The room sparkled with laughter, relaxed, and the reading began.

Machado released her memoir “In the Dream House” in 2019 and a collection of eerie short stories, “Her Body and Other Parties” in 2017. Students were thrilled to be in the presence of the award-winning writer — many had been long-time fans.

“I’ve been reading Carmen Maria Machado’s work forever, and as soon as I saw that she was going to be coming to talk at the Barker Center I was so so so excited,” said Sofia Andrade ’24. “I have been following her writing ever since she published her first short story.”

Machado read from “A Brief and Fearful Star,” a new piece of fiction she’s been working on about a “comet that enters space … I think.” The collection of stories about this sci-fi phenomenon expands upon a short story of the same name released in 2018. After publishing her memoir, Machado decided she wanted to return to fiction — specifically short stories — and challenge herself to weave in historical research using the skills she gleaned while writing “In the Dream House.” She plans to continue working on “A Bright and Fearful Star” in the fall.

For 40 minutes, the room sat in rapture while Machado read a poetic excerpt, saturated with heavy themes and broken by moments of humor throughout the text. In it, a narrator living in a world disrupted by the comet flits in and out of different timelines, different lives and settings, all the while attempting to hold on to an intimate relationship with a woman who doesn’t return her feelings. Though Machado assured students that she conceived of the book’s idea prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, she acknowledged how the mass panic afflicting the world of her novel after being struck by a comet seems eerily similar to the present day.

“I thought it was incredible,” Julia Pastreich ’25 said. “It was exciting to hear something new she’s been working on and it was really powerful… In many things she writes, the imagery she uses really makes you feel something.”

Within the dystopian world of “A Bright and Fearful Star” — told in the confines of Barker’s austere Plimpton room — were tales rich with queer intimacy and raw desire. Students found the sci-fi world of Machado’s imagination to be both alien and intimately close, dotted with moments of self-reflection seemingly drawn from Machado’s own experiences after publishing her recent memoir.

“I was really excited that she was reading a new piece — I had expected her to read something from one of her existing books, so it felt really special to

be in the room and get a sneak glimpse,” said McElroy. “I was also surprised by how personal and intimate the piece was, and I’m excited to one day see how it fits into the larger picture.”

In addition to the reading, Machado answered the questions of eager students, discussing a wide range of topics such as the relationship between pain and writing, the reception of her memoir, and even her love for Shirley Jackson’s “The Haunting of Hill House” — a novel described by Machado as the “perfect horror story.” When she realized only a few students in attendance had read Jackson’s canonical text, Machado responded in disbelief. “What are you guys doing at this school?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

She also spoke about her writing process and the themes that reappear across her body of work. “I’m a very vibes-y writer,” she said. Some authors may start with the logistics, the characters, or the plot.

But Machado? “No no no,” she said. “Vibes. Pure vibes.”

In one hour, Machado left students in awe of her ability to speak in both beautiful abstracts and vivid detail, her capacity to write about intimacy and loss and mass panic with humor, and the inner works of her mind both on and off the page.

Courtesy of Carmen Maria Machado/Wikimedia Commons

WA

19 April 2022 | Vol CXLX, ISSUE 56 Arts Chairs Sofia Andrade ’23-’24 Jaden S. Thompson ’23

Editors-at-Large Clara V. Nguyen ’23-’24 Sara Komatsu ’23 Chibuike K. Uwakwe ’23

Editor Associates Hannah T. Chew ’23 Isabella B. Cho ’24 Daniel S. de Castro ’24 Nina M. Foster ’23 Anya L. Henry ’24 Ryan S. Kim ’23

Zachary J. Lech ’24 Charles W. McCormick ’24 Jamila R. O’Hara ’23 Harper R. Oreck ’23 Alisa S. Regassa ’24

Executive Designer Nayeli Cardozo ’25

Design Associates Ashley E. Bryant ’23 Brandon L. Kingdollar ’24

THE HARVARD CRIMSON |

APRIL 19, 2022

|

PAGE 4

THEATER

‘Truth or Consequences’: Carnivorous Motel Rooms, Allegorical Sci-Fi and the Bold Vision of Fresh Ink Theatre KIERAN J. FARRELL CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Courtesy of Fresh Ink Theater

“I really wanted to approach this as a love letter to ‘X-Files.’ It’s two agents from some secretive government who find themselves in a motel room, and they find out the motel room is carnivorous and is planning on eating them.”

To call the artistic vision of playwright Andrew Siañez-De La O unconventional would be a gross understatement. To write it off for the same reason, though, would be a gross mistake.

At a virtual event Thursday, April 14, Siañez-De La O and his colleagues at Fresh Ink Theatre had the opportunity to discuss their production, “Truth or Consequences.” SiañezDe La O was joined in conversation by Louise Hamill, Fresh Ink’s Artistic Director, as well as Jasmine Brooks, the Director

of “Truth or Consequences.” The event, hosted by the Boston Center for the Arts, was part of a series of lunchtime talks the organization holds with its resident artists, one of which is Fresh Ink Theatre.

True to its name, Fresh Ink Theatre is relatively fresh on the scene in Boston. And though the 11-years-old Fresh Ink may not be the largest theater company out there, Hamill believes that there are big benefits to being small.

“We’re working under a very small budget and a small capacity,” she said, “but therefore creating super cool work because we don’t have to deal with people that might put constraints on our work. And [we] can then truly make it as creative and expansive as possible.”

In keeping with Hamill’s description, Fresh Ink embraces such creativity in its production of “Truth or Consequences.”

“It’s not what it seems like it’s going to be,” said Brooks.

“Though it is sci-fi, I feel like it’s using sci-fi elements to highlight toxic work environments, racism, colonialism, gentrification… There are so many topics that are being exploded (sic) by these sci-fi elements. It’s been such a joy to watch it grow.”

When Brooks talks about the play’s growth, she really means it. Siañez-De La O said the script for “Truth or Consequences” has taken on three different endings throughout the course of its development. It is specifically this type of malleability, though, that he believes has contributed so much to the crew’s connection with the story.

“Every single time we approached this with a new cast, with a new workshop, we’ve discovered so much about this world,” he said. “[The play] has become so expansive in what it’s trying to combat.”

The process of writing new pages for the script continued

until unexpectedly late points in production; even then, opportunities to enrich the play presented themselves. The result of this relentless effort has definitely turned some heads, attracting nationwide recognition even before the premiere.

“Not to toot my own horn, but I’ve talked to Netflix, I’ve talked to some agents, I’ve talked to some people,” he said.

“Nothing super real, but there is such a love of sci-fi and a need for things like this.”

The members of Fresh Ink live for “things like this” — plays that, beyond telling important stories, push the crew into uncomfortable territory. Such a reality particularly shines through in Brooks’ experience with “Truth or Consequences.”

“Louise had sent me the draft, and I read it, and I was like, ‘This is not something I would typically work on,’” Brooks said. “It made me excited but nervous, and I was like, ‘Alright, I gotta do it.’”

Ultimately, regardless of how powerful a given story might be, its true power lies in sharing it with others.

“It’s all because someone down the road read the script and passed it on,” Siañez-De La O said, referring to the conversations he had about possibly bringing the play to other places.

“So much of playwriting success is people saying, ‘I read it, I loved it, I shared it.’”

Siañez-De La O and the team at Fresh Ink hope that once “Truth or Consequences” opens, people will indeed read it, love it and share it. That is, if they aren’t devoured by a sentient motel room in the meantime.

Staff writer Caroline Gage can be reached at caroline.gage@ thecrimson.com.

TV ‘Outlander’ Season Six Recap: Old Characters, New Revolution CAROLINE GAGE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

T

he sixth season of STARZ’s hit series “Outlander” premiered on March 6, ending two years of what fans dubbed “droughtlander.” This season, based on the sixth novel in Diana Gabaldon’s “Outlander” series, follows beloved leads Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire Fraser (Caitriona Balfe) as they navigate their new life in the American colonies, facing mounting tensions in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War. Similar to previous seasons, “Outlander” Season Six succeeds in completely immersing viewers in the time period at hand. Whether it was 1940s England, 1970s Boston, or in this case, 1770s North Carolina, the combination of set design, costuming, and character-driven writing makes the story believable and fully engaging. The show effectively navigates the complexities of Brianna (Sophie Skelton), Roger (Richard Rankin), and Claire’s knowledge of the future, highlighting their struggles and successes assimilating to a time they were previously familiar with only from textbooks.

At the beginning of the season, all is well on Fraser’s Ridge, the family’s settlement: Claire is back to work in her clinic, Brianna is bringing modern inventions to the 18th century, and the settlers are prospering. It quickly becomes evident, however, that conflict is imminent. The happy dynamic is quickly interrupted by flashbacks to Jamie’s harrowing years at Ardsmuir Prison following the failed Jacobite Rebellion and the arrival of fellow inmate Tom Christie (Mark Lewis Jones) on the Ridge.

The arrival of Christie and his group of staunch Protestants immediately presents a challenge to Jamie. Ever the peace-maker and leader, Jamie sets aside their previous differences and welcomes Tom, even aiding the new settlers in building their cabins. The interactions between Claire and Tom, however, are more compelling; Claire’s quick retorts to Tom’s misogynistic comments offer a moment of comic relief to an otherwise heavy show. In episode two, Claire responds to Tom’s comments: “Clearly Saint Paul also met a woman he couldn’t out-argue.”

Besides the ideological differences explored through Christie’s arrival, the first few episodes of Season Six also explore individual characters’ attempts to heal following the traumatic events of the Season Five finale. In the dramatic final episode, pregnant Marsali (Lauren Lyle) was beaten and Claire was kidnapped and raped by Lionel Brown (Ned Dennehy). The overuse of sexual violence is a serious issue on the show, and one that seemed to be too quickly forgotten in previous seasons. In this season, Marsali’s husband Fergus (César Domboy) appears to struggle more with the attack than Marsali herself: he falls into alcoholism and attempts suicide, plagued with guilt about not protecting his wife.

Claire also struggles to cope with the immense trauma she experienced despite putting on a brave face for her husband and family, a departure from how previous seasons have addressed rape. She continues to practice medicine, but misuses the anesthetic she created for surgeries, putting herself to

sleep when she is reminded of her trauma. This storyline falls flat at times, as it not only seems at odds with Claire’s character but ultimately pushes her experience to the side. “I’m fine, darling,” is Claire’s response in episode one when Brianna brings up the subject, and little changes in subsequent episodes.

This season also continues to explore the relationship between colonists and nearby Native American tribes, a storyline established in previous seasons, when Jamie accepts the role of Indian Agent, a sort of litigator between the crown and the Native leadership. When Jamie learns that Richard Brown (Chris Larkin), the Fraser’s rival and brother of the man who kidnapped and raped Claire, is the alternative candidate, he tells the Governor, “If it’s between me and him, I cannot let him do it.”

Because of Jamie’s diplomatic role with the Cherokees, he and Young Ian (John Bell) must travel frequently to speak with leaders, opening a discussion of Ian’s time with the Mohawk. Both viewers and Ian’s family finally learn more about his experience as a member of the Mohawk tribe, as well as his marriage. He struggles to reconcile his conflicting affiliations, which is a genuinely moving part of the show. Ian is one of the most caring and empathetic characters in the cast, and the episode exploring his story is an engaging one.

Young Ian looks up to his uncle, Jamie, who is almost exhaustingly good in this season. It seems as though he cannot misstep, somehow always taking the lead and saving the day.

Despite this characterization of Jamie as eternally good feeling a bit unrealistic, it works. The audience grows to share the same belief as Claire: When Jamie is there, things will work out. This is what makes Malva Christie’s (Jessica Reynolds) claim that she is pregnant with Jamie’s child in episode six

Courtesy of Christine Ring/ WikiMedia Commons

so jarring to the audience — it is entirely at odds with Jamie’s character. The showrunners force everyone to question Jamie’s faithfulness, ultimately affirming it.

Jamie’s characterization is also challenged by his political affiliations. In the first parts of the season, it feels wrong that Jamie cooperates with the British government, especially given his knowledge of the impending war’s outcome. This tension is finally resolved in episode f]ive when Jamie joins the Sons of Liberty, immediately singling himself out as a leader in the group. His monologue at the meeting exemplifies the qualities many fans love about Jamie, and serves as a reminder of his background as a leader of the Jacobite Rebellion.

The pace of the season picks up considerably after this pivotal moment as the various plotlines become overshadowed by impending war. The mounting tensions in the colonies finally reach the previously separated Fraser’s Ridge just as Malva’s accusations sow doubt in the community, and Jamie is forced into action. The return of old favorite Lord John Grey (David Berry) further calls back to the urgency and intensity of previous seasons as John raises the stakes of Jamie’s involvement in the rebellion.

Even in its lulls, “Outlander” is impossible to stop watching. The chemistry between its leads, beautiful costume design, and compelling historical setting make it an engaging escape from reality. Even so, it would benefit from further exploration of its many characters’ deep traumas, especially before they are plunged into war.

Outlander is streaming on STARZ. The finale will air on April 24.

THE HARVARD CRIMSON |

APRIL 19, 2022

|

PAGE 5

FILM

I

n the world of Anita Rocha da Silveira’s “Medusa,” everything is heightened. Every room is saturated with color, dripping with neon light; each public moment is calibrated to present a polished image; every prayer is passionately spoken then sung in pop-inflected songs on a church stage; and modern life is a minefield of temptations dangled by the devil. That is, at least, according to the film’s main characters, who belong to a sisterhood of pious young women determined to resist the corruption around them, shunning sex and independence as they strive to achieve Godly perfection. Yet their activities aren’t limited to singing, praying, and making upbeat vlogs about “how to take a selfie for the glory of God.” As audiences see in the early moments of the film, which screened at the Boston Underground Film Festival last week, their orthodoxy has a darker edge. At night, they become a roving squad of violent vigilantes, donning masks to track down women whose behavior they deem improper, beat them, and film them professing allegiance to God. Audiences first meet them in their masked mob, stalking a young woman down the street like something out of a “Mean Girls”/”The Purge” crossover special. As the film progresses, dedicated vigilante Mari (Mari Oliveira) begins to second-guess the teachings of the church and her sisters, especially the ringleader Michele, after she is injured in a scuffle with a victim and gets fired from her job. Embarking on a career as an intensive care nurse, Mari decides to track down the disgraced celebrity Melissa, who was disfigured years before by the original vigilante girl-squad. As Mari attempts to find and photograph her, she descends into the haunted, hallucinatory world of an end-of-life hospital and faces unexpected temptations that lead her to question her faith.

The central vigilante-squad premise, which could easily come across as gimmicky or heavy-handed in its depiction of petty teenagers lashing out, is emotively executed and unpredictably developed. Rather than satirizing her main characters as ridiculous caricatures, Silveira leans into the

Courtesy of Boston Underground Film Festival

insidious sincerity of their mission and the glossy aesthetics they hide behind, introducing the story in a hyper-stylized ‘80s palette that fades into a lush, organic green color scheme in film’s second half, when Mari explores the decaying hospital where she works. In the film’s first half, which focuses mainly on Mari and the girls she patrols the street with, Silveira’s heart-racing chase sequences, Oliviera’s nuanced performance, and João Atala’s mesmerizing cinematography manage to ground the absurd violence of Mari’s girl-gang in a twisted and believable reality, emphasizing the relatable humanity of the film’s characters. In the second half, though, the focus shifts to Mari’s hospital job and the fractured politics of her church, and the film’s editing and score heighten the tension of otherwise everyday moments, finding horror in the mundane. In one standout scene, Mari’s hospital is hit by a rolling blackout, throwing the cavernous rooms into intermittent darkness as the dim generator lights flash.

As Mari and her coworkers check the patients’ machines, shadows flooding in around them, their routine activity becomes chilling.

Silveira’s antiheroes are at once repulsive and sympathetic, appearing not as caricatures or fools but as complex young people seduced and ultimately alienated by an ultraconservative religious movement. Through careful narrative and visual incorporation, Silveira shows how the church’s influence is reinforced and ensured through its male vigilante groups, who show off their strength in pageants of masculinity in an attempt to woo the church’s young women and eventually marry one. Where similar narratives of feminist liberation like “The Handmaid’s Tale” frame violent patriarchy as a dystopian threat rather than a historical reality specifically weaponized against Black and brown women, “Medusa” is firmly contextualized within its presentday setting and historical context, showing how communal ties to the church (such as Mari’s boarding house’s religious foundation) maintain antiquated influences and gender roles.

Silveira’s portrayal of the young church members’ heavilysupervised joint activities — from speed dating events to the men’s physical training sessions, which the girls observe — are fraught with repressive expectations, trapping the young women of Silveira’s story in a politely misogynistic and terrifyingly antiquated system. When they finally rebel — in a striking last act sequence — it is the most exaggerated moment of the film (even prompting laughter from the audience) and a symbolic sigh of relief, allowing both the characters and viewers a cathartic experience that ends not where it begins — with violence — but someplace new, outside the cycle of retaliation and rage that propelled the plot thus far.

Through the interplay of these elements, “Medusa” delivers a nuanced take on religious orthodoxy, patriarchy, and sexual liberation, which is particularly relevant in a moment when women are being pulled into anti-feminist backlash movements like the “tradwife” internet phenomenon under the guise of empowerment and self-respect. Silveira treats

the patriarchal underpinnings of her fictional community’s misogynistic traditions with the seriousness they deserve, using the horror format to highlight the link between the oppressive system and the inherent violence of its enforcement (from domestic abuse to vigilante assault). Yet Silveira handles these subjects with deft humanity and understated precision, culminating in a film that is at once a gripping horror thriller, a work of visual art, and a resonant social commentary.

—Staff writer Harper R. Oreck can be reached at harper.oreck@ thecrimson.com.

From The Boston Underground Film Festival: ‘Medusa’ is a Sensuous and Stunning Exploration of Patriarchy and Liberation Dir. Anita Rocha da Silveira HARPER R. ORECK CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

CAMPUS ‘The Just and the Blind’ Review: A Display of Art as Resistance JULIA J. HYNEK CONTRIBUTING WRITER “Love is contraband in Hell, cause love is an acid that eats away bars.”

These words — written by civil rights activist and Black Panther Assata Shakur — are manifest in every aspect of “The Just and the Blind.” The evening-length multimedia performance, which premiered on April 1, is composed of a series of vignettes that are linked by themes of mass incarceration, police brutality, and systemic racism.

Shakur’s words remind us that throughout the history of Black subjugation and oppression, the ability of love to persevere within communities was an act of resistance, and the fostering of something beautiful against all odds. “The Just and the Blind,” too, unapologetically showcases love despite its themes of extreme marginalization: the love of the artists for each other and their craft; a love for family, Black sons, and community; and a love for the possibilities of the future.

Innovative, artistically brilliant, and powerfully urgent, “The Just and the Blind” is a deeply moving performance that provokes thought and emotion far past its conclusion.

Any discussion of the show would be remiss without discussing the array of media it so thoughtfully employs.

Linked by common themes of mass incarceration, police brutality, and systemic racism, “The Just and the Blind” synthesizes four main artistic components: spoken word poetry, dance, singing, and instrumentals. Against a backdrop of visuals from animator Xia Gordon and photography from Oakland-based photographer Brittsense, each live element has something unique and necessary to add.

It is difficult to imagine the performance without spoken word artist and poet Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s lyricism. His poetry drives the show forward, including anecdotes from various stages of the speaker’s life. And while Joseph’s text is stellar on its own, his articulate and deliberate delivery elevates the influence of his words. Speaking with a deep voice that rings through the hall, Joseph is able to channel every one of the speaker’s states of being through to the audience.

Through pain, hope, anger, and fear, Joseph’s poetic rhythms carry listeners along the highs and lows of the narrator’s emotions and life experiences.

Joseph’s speech is complemented by the instrumentals of

composer and musician Daniel Bernard Roumain, primarily on piano and electric violin. Roumain’s inventive soundtrack of melodies ranges from calmly contemplative to hauntingly shrill. Roumain also displays a flair for the unconventional, occasionally playing his violin like a ukulele (while the bow is held between his teeth) and using a synthesizer to create a reverb effect. Pushing the boundaries of tradition, Roumain’s musical contributions are refreshing, creative, and suited for the evocative themes of the show.

The performance is also interspersed with the captivating dance performances of KingHavoc, a Brooklyn native who for nearly 10 years has been one of the key players in establishing Flexing — a style fusing elements of dancehall, reggae, and hip-hop — as an art form. KingHavoc delivers a showcase of extraordinary physicality and rhythm that pays no heed to the rules of anatomy and physics, maneuvering a complex series of floor moves, hopping on and off the central platform, and effortlessly assuming gravity-defying positions. His rhythmic contortions are at once deliberate and sharp but also fluid and free, and when combined with Roumain’s musical backing and Joseph’s storytelling, they bring a focus to the physical body with them. KingHavoc’s dancing represents the many dimensions of the Black body, expressing stories of strength and vulnerability, innocence and criminalization, and confinement and freedom.

Last but certainly not least in the performance are the two songs performed by Boston-based vocalist and Grammy nominee Débo Ray. The pieces were both letters from prison — one from Assata Shakur, the other from Martin Luther King Jr. — adapted into song through melodies composed by Roumain. Ray delivers both pieces with gripping emotion, showcasing her gorgeous, rich tone and her impressive range; she takes full command of the ringing highs, the resonant lows, and everything in between. In these performances, viewers are reminded once again why music and song have been so key to Black culture and resistance for centuries.

The talent present across the four artists cannot be overstated. “The Just and the Blind” achieves a careful balance between allowing each performer to shine solo and combining two or three forms at a time. Thanks to this,

viewers can enjoy each artist’s skills individually, but also appreciate what unfolds when they are so masterfully united.

Most of all, The Just and the Blind creates a moving, nuMost of all, “The Just and the Blind” creates a moving, nuanced portrait of the Black experience in America. From the lighthearted tale of Joseph’s narrator getting caught smoking weed in Senegal to his discussions of Black criminality and cycles of incarceration, the performance is a timely piece perfectly situated within modern contexts of racial reckoning in America.

Furthermore, it reminds us that art is not marginal, but rather central to, resistance against all forms of oppression.

It is a way of processing emotions and experiences as much as it is a way of building solidarity and creating beautiful things among pain and fear and marginality. A true labor of love from all those involved, “The Just and the Blind” achieves all of these things and more, leaving a lasting artistic and thematic impression on anyone who had the honor to watch.

Courtesy of Robert Torres

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | APRIL 19, 2022

|

PAGE 6

CULTURE

Specialty Coffee Expo Reflections: A Refreshing Return to Authenticity in a Post-Covid-19 World WILLIAM MCKIBBEN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

O

ver the weekend of Mar. 7-10, from all over the world, coffee professionals and enthusiasts gathered in Boston’s colossal Convention Center for the annual Specialty Coffee Expo. This year’s expo marked a return to the scale and breadth of pre-pandemic events for the first time in over two years. Hosted in a different city each year, the Specialty Coffee Expo is the largest gathering of specialty coffee professionals in the nation. From roastery engineers to branding designers, rural farmers to small coffee shop owners, every aspect of the coffee industry was represented at the convention. Lectures and workshops on topics ranging from food service incorporation to coffee roasting chemistry were available to all attendees, coffee professionals or not. More than 420 vendors and over 10,000 attendees visited the convention this year, bringing with them a diverse array of perspectives and experiences, all shaped in some way or another by the COVID-19 pandemic.

After postponing the convention in 2021 and leaning into a hybrid, half online, option, 2022 was the closest to normal that the convention has seen in a while. A rigorous testing policy and mask wearing recommendations helped ensure a safe return to connection and community within the world of coffee. The COVID-19 pandemic dealt a devastating blow to the coffee community, forcing many shops to close permanently and a lucky few to continue with mobile or to-go ordering. Nobody was left untouched by the economic shock; coffee farmers on the far reaches of the Earth were unable to sell their products and likewise coffee shops were unable to market it to a society, isolated and at home.

While the pandemic will be a part of everyday life for years to come, decreased case numbers and increased vaccine availability has allowed for a return to normal life, or rather a new normal. Likewise applies to coffee. The Specialty Coffee Expo 2022 was a beautiful and passionate representation of the perseverance and emergence of coffee through the trials and tribulations of the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of the pillars of this post-pandemic authenticity comes from the coffee farmers themselves. Spanning from Indonesia to Yemen, the far reaches of the Ethiopian highlands to the rainforests of Brazil, coffee farmers from every coffee region of the world were present at the convention, proudly rep-

MUSIC Swae Lee and Sam Feldt Smash Yardfest as Music Returns to Harvard Yard

resenting not only their beans but the culture that produces them. One such example was a coffee farm in Colombia called La Esperanza. La Esperanza’s representatives said that they were third generation coffee farmers, representing not only their country but also their families heritage and the heritage of those before them. Offering eleven different lots, or varietietals, of beans, La Esperanza yields some of the most successful South American beans on the market right now. [THEIR] geisha beans prove to be especially difficult to process , low crop yield, and proclivity for misfermentation. [THEIR] natural processed geisha beans are few and far between in the specialty coffee market. La Esperanza claims they don’t grow beans and offer the varietals because it’s easy, but because they want to be true to their farm and to their ancestors that came before them, who spend decades nurturing the same plant they do. In pursuing the best beans that they can produce and choosing to stay close to their ideals of quality and authenticity, even at the cost of production value, farms like these are beacons of hope in an ever changing coffee industry.

Excited to be able to sell their beans again, passionate farmers like those at La Esperanza represent the steadfast desire to remain true and authentic.

La Esperanza represents the earliest stage in the coffee production , but the shift to authentic, transparent production is present on the consumer side as well. Minor Figures is an oat milk company based out of London that has expanded into the US, trailblazing with an uncompromising commitment to remain true to their foundation as baristas and more importantly: coffee-lovers. Minor Figures makes oat milk by baristas for baristas.

In speaking with Alix Walper, the companies’ Director of Foodservice Sales, she spoke of the brand’s ethos and what sets them apart from other oat milks in the increasingly flooded market of non-dairy milks. She said that first and foremost they produce oat milk that is as beautiful and as pure as can be, but that it must remain just that: oat milk. She said that a lot of other non-dairy milks rely on a lot of smoke and mirrors, promising that their oat milk tastes exactly like milk, or that it has the exact same texture. She said that Minor Figures authentically makes really incredible oat milk that tastes exactly like oat milk, nothing less nothing more.

H

undreds of Harvard students flocked to Tercentenary Theater on April 16 to witness live music’s return to Harvard Yard as Swae Lee headlined the first in-person Yardfest since 2019.

The event was a return to tradition for Harvard students new and old alike. While Yardfest was held virtually in 2021, featuring artists Aminé and Trevor Daniel, it failed to match the excitement of its in-person counterpart.

“It just doesn’t feel the same,” said Isha Agarwal ’24, the director of the College Events Board’s Arts and Entertainment Committee, about virtual concerts.

This year, the committee sought to bring high energy back to Yardfest for its grand return. “We were looking for a good performer, someone who is super high energy, and has a lot of exciting and upbeat songs that can really get the crowd going,” said Agarwal. Finding such an artist proved to be a difficult task for the committee. The selected artists had to appeal to a wide audience while remaining in-budget and musically distinct across the event.

For the headliner, Swae Lee fit the bill. Bringing his unique blend of hip hop, trap, and pop melodies, he was sure to offer something for every audience member despite their different tastes in music. The artist is most well known for his work as one half of the hip hop duo Rae Sremmurd, a project in collaboration with his brother Slim Jxmmi. For Yardfest, Swae Lee performed both Rae Sremmurd hits like “Come Get Her” and “Black Beatles,” as well as solo collaborations like 2018 crowd favorite “Sunflower” with Post Malone.

“It was a very intimate concert experience, which I’ve never had before,” said Raina Cohen ’24 about Lee’s Yardfest performance at Tercentenary Theater.

Throughout the performance Swae Lee leaned into the Harvard experience, coining himself “Professor Swae.” Fittingly, he reminded students in the audience to stay in school and continue working hard. He even lectured the audience on his hopes for a brighter future with Harvard students as the next generation of leaders.

JEN A. HUGHES CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Julian J. Giordano—Crimson Photographer

Minor Figures has a very short ingredient list that stays true to pursuing the best that oat milk can be, instead of imitating what it isn’t. Alix said that their oat milk isn’t stark white because oats aren’t white, and oat milk shouldn’t have to be. Their business model and production is uncompromisingly honest, profoundly refreshing in a coffee market that is filled with replacements, artificial this and thats and fake, hype-filled consumerism.

From coffee farmers to Oat Milk millennials, the 2022 Specialty Coffee Expo was a delightful return to not what coffee looked like before the pandemic but rather what it should look like after it. After spending so much time away from each other during the pandemic, coffee lovers did what the rest of the world did: took a step back and found what matters most to them. The many voices, companies, and perspectives represented at the expo proved that coffee and its community are remaining true to their foundations while innovating towards an authentic, honest, and sustainable future for coffee.Over the past two years, the world of coffee, like many aspects of social society, was forced to take a step back and reevaluate what is important. The Specialty Coffee Expo was the result and representation of this reevaluation, a resounding return

Courtesy of William McKibben

Dutch DJ Sam Feldt acted as the celebrity opener, performing a high-energy EDM set to warm up the audience. Feldt stuck to a collection of crowd-pleasers, remixing hit songs like Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now,’’ David Guetta’s “Titanium” featuring Sia, and “Something Just Like This” by Coldplay and The Chainsmokers. He also mixed in some of his own tracks, including 2020’s “Hold Me Close” featuring Ella Henderson, and his most recent release, “Follow Me” featuring Rita Ora. In addition to the celebrity acts, Harvard’s own talent was on display throughout the day. Student bands Charles Revival and Yard Bops both played sets to open up the event after winning the opportunity through the College Events Board’s Battle for Yardfest competition that took place earlier this semester. “We’re really grateful for everyone coming out and supporting,” said Alexander K. Park ’23, a member of Yard Bops.

“It was really special for us because we had aspirations to open my freshman year,” said Park, citing how the pandemic had interrupted their first opportunity. “It felt like a really great way to see a culmination of a couple years’ work come together.”

Yard Bops covered many bops in their set, adding their signature funk spin to a collection of pop classics. Highlights included covers of Silk Sonic’s “Skate,” a Lady Gaga mashup featuring “Bad Romance,” “Telephone,” and “The Edge of Glory,” and Earth Wind and Fire’s “September” — all of which were newly arranged by members of the group.

While student reactions to the music selections at Yardfest were generally positive, the same cannot be said for the concert-going experience. Several audience members noted the lack of mosh-pit etiquette among Harvard students in the crowd, citing an excess of pushing and shoving throughout the event.

“I thought the crowd was less enjoying music, more trying to shove each other,”said first-time Yardfest attendee Steven Cho ’24. It was an environment that “caused more people to worry about not falling or being injured,” Cho added.

There were multiple times when audience members fell to the ground, unable to get up without the help of others.

Thankfully, Swae Lee seemed to be aware of the audience’s rowdiness. The artist paused on several occasions, asking the crowd to take a few steps back to prevent any audience members from being crushed by the masses.

Not only did it achieve the high-energy atmosphere organizers set out to accomplish, but this year’s Yardfest also marks a return to form for Harvard traditions more broadly.

It brought together the Harvard community in a way that only live music can, reminding students to take a break from work and simply have fun.

PAGE 7

THE HARVARD CRIMSON |

APRIL 19, 2022

PROCTORS FROM PAGE 1

With More Advisees, Some Proctors Report Burnout “It was really hell,” they said.

That proctor took a week off from their full-time job to focus on proctoring early in the semester, when they said they worked 70-80 hours per week.

Proctors attributed their high advising loads to the increase in freshman class size.

The Class of 2025, at 1,965 students, is the largest in Harvard’s history, largely due to Covid-19 deferrals and a high yield rate.

Just 1,415 members of the Class of 2024 enrolled last fall, compared to 1,666 in the Class of 2023 the year prior.

Straker wrote that her office was “realistic” about expectations for the year, making adjustments to support proctors.

She acknowledged the unique challenges proctors may face.

“Working with students to enforce ever-evolving on-campus protocols while also balancing your own personal and family life can certainly take a toll,” Straker wrote.

Not all proctors have felt burnout. Grimm, who previously worked at a boarding school, said the transition into proctoring was smooth and that he loved his job.

But five proctors said they worried that having more advisees lowered the quality of their advising. When some raised concerns about this last

fall, the FYE allowed proctors to hold group advising sessions instead of the standard one-onone meeting — a change three proctors decried as an ineffective substitute.

‘Compensation Inequality’ All proctors receive a limited number of meal swipes per day and housing in a freshman dorm as their only payment, which makes it difficult to raise compensation if workload increases.

“You’re increasing the workload without any increase in benefits, because it’s not possible to increase the benefits,” Grimm said. “What are you going to do, give us more food at Annenberg?”

When two proctors raised concerns to the FYE that dining halls were closed before students returned to campus and their rooms lacked kitchens, they said they were told to purchase takeout.

“Proctors have been encouraged to utilize common kitchens throughout the Yard, as well as grab-and-go meals from the dining halls,” Dean of Students Office spokesperson Aaron M. Goldman wrote in an emailed statement.

The accommodations in freshman dorms vary widely, which at least four proctors said creates an unequal compensa-

tion structure.

“There’s a lot of compensation inequality,” one proctor said. “Housing is so dependent on your yard, your family situation, how long you’ve been here, and whatever the FYE decides.”

Despite taking on the proctor role for free housing, Grimm said he found himself in a freshman dorm without basic amenities.

“I lived in one of the worst proctor apartments — it’s no bathroom, no kitchen, no closet, on the fifth floor of Weld,” Grimm said. “It, at the beginning, was really odd for me to run into people that I was technically in charge of while I was brushing my teeth.”

Proctors aren’t the only ones who advise Harvard freshmen: Some students are instead assigned non-resident advisers, who do not live in freshman dorms and work on a voluntary basis. Bhimani wrote that more than 310 faculty and staff serve as non-resident advisers.

According to the APO’s website, non-resident advisers receive two to eight students to advise, a lighter advising load than proctors.

“That’s a frustration for proctors as well: you have way more advisees than the non-residents, and you have advisees that require a lot more time and energy,” Grimm said.

Three proctors said they believe advising has suffered as a result of poor organization in the administration.

Straker wrote the College and Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences expanded housing and proctor hiring to support the larger freshman class.

‘Environment of Anxiety’

The Harvard College First-Year Experience Office is located at 6 Prescott St. in Cambridge. ADDISON LIU—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Five proctors who have brought negative feedback to the FYE office said they feel their concerns have fallen on deaf ears.

Others — including proctors on one-year contracts who are hoping to extend their tenure — said they were afraid to speak out.

“If you don’t know exactly

CAMILLE G. CALDERA—FLOURISH CHART

what is going to be stepping out of line and you don’t feel trust that if you make a mistake that it will be held with care, that creates a real environment of anxiety,” one proctor said.

When The Crimson contacted nearly every freshman proctor in March, Straker messaged proctors via Slack saying they could “feel free to ignore” the newspaper’s inquiries — a statement some viewed as intimidation and attempted censorship.

“It sounds like a number of you have received emails from the Crimson regarding your experiences as a proctor. Feel free to ignore the message,” Straker wrote in a March 29 message to proctors that was obtained

by The Crimson. “Not trying to censor your thoughts but just trying to learn more about the intent of the article. If for some reason you have talked with them, please let me know so I can work with communications appropriately.”

Later that day, she sent a second message saying she was not seeking to censor, but to “figure out what was going on.”

“If you feel you would like to share your experiences in the proctor role with the Crimson, you should feel free to,” Straker wrote in the follow-up message. “However, from my nearly 20 years working with student newspapers, it does not go the way one hopes it will.”

Five proctors said they took issue with the Slack messages from Straker. One proctor said

the messages made it feel “intimidating” to talk to The Crimson.

“I shouldn’t have to loop in the person overseeing these working conditions when I’m trying to talk freely about those working conditions,” another proctor said.

In a statement to The Crimson, Straker wrote that she works to create a “supportive and positive environment” for proctors and FYE staff.

“It is always disappointing when we hear about staff members having had a bad experience, but we use these opportunities to continuously grow and make improvements,” Straker wrote.

Five proctors interviewed by The Crimson said last fall, many proctors discussed unionizing. Those interviewed said it appears unlikely the plans will move forward, in part because proctors do not receive financial compensation and because there is a lack of complete buyin.

Five proctors who raised concerns about the FYE acknowledged that not all of their colleagues share their frustrations, saying that there is a wide range of feelings among proctors writ large about the office.

‘This is Not Sustainable’ Going forward, some proctors are hopeful that a smaller freshman class will ease some of this year’s stressors, while others

expressed reservations.

“This is not sustainable in the long run, having this many advisees,” one proctor said.

Another proctor said if a strong support system were in place, proctor burnout would be less prevalent, even with a higher number of advisees.

Straker wrote that the FYE incorporates feedback from proctors each year in planning.

“Moving forward, we will continue to work with the Proctors, and other partners like the Advising Programs Office, Yard Operations, and those who plan programs for first-year students to support them in their time at Harvard,” she wrote.

One proctor said they feel the role has become more bureaucratic than expected, with study breaks being used to share information around evolving Covid-19 policies rather than promote bonding within the entryway.

Still, some proctors are hopeful that conditions will return to normal in the coming years due to a decrease in the number of advisees or reforms to the proctoring system.

“I really love first-year students,” one proctor said. “I just hope that there are institutional changes that make it easier to be a proctor — make it easier for us to take care of our students and more enjoyable to be part of the community.” vivi.lu@thecrimson.com leah. teichholtz@thecrimson.com

THE HARVARD CRIMSON |

APRIL 19, 2022

PAGE 8

EDITORIAL THE CRIMSON EDITORIAL BOARD

OP-ED

A Likely Good

Dear Ketanji Brown Jackson

Likely letters do their job well, and their targeted focus is admirable.

D

id you get a likely letter? Ironically unlikely, at least for Harvard students. But rest assured — if you did, you’re in good company.

In an effort to soften the transition from high school to university, many colleges have taken to sending out “likely letters” to students, offering them a sneak peak into their admission outcomes before their scheduled decision day. While Ivy League schools do not promise admission to students before an agreed date, dubbed “Ivy Day,” Harvard and other schools notify a small group of applicants of their “likely” admission, contingent on maintaining their current level of academic achievement. According to Crimson reporting, Harvard sends out about 300 of these likely letters every year, 200 to recruited athletes and 100 to students from underrepresented backgrounds.

The cutthroat world of elite college admissions — starting with Harvard’s new, declining acceptance rate normal — can make these institutions feel remote and inaccessible to many applicants. For students who come from backgrounds where going to college is uncommon, or who are themselves first-generation applicants, the process can be even more harrowing and intimidating.

To such candidates, likely letters offer a jolt of joy, validation, and affirmation

halfway through a taxing and uncertainty-ridden admissions process. This extra support can be particularly invaluable to students from underrepresented backgrounds, securing their sense of belonging at our institution and preemptively dispelling the much-feared impostor syndrome. That alone is undeniably commendable.

To be sure, these letters add a positive varnish to a system that, overall, remains riddled by deep-rooted flaws. Indeed, of the large pool of quality applicants, only a tiny fraction are accepted to institutions like ours — an inequity partially driven by these institutions’ unfortunate propensity to favor those born with a silver spoon and a leg up. Legacy admissions and Harvard’s secretive “Z-list” are only the most egregious examples.

Thus, while likely letters provide deserved joy to many, and even if their targeting of underrepresented applicants is laudable, they remain part of a highly-elitist system that denies that same joy to many on questionable grounds.

Frankly, even a perfectly fair iteration of our current admissions system would suffer from a culture, so pervasive in some American high schools, which links self-worth to admissions success.

Admission to a school like Harvard comes with more gravitas than it should, and we wish that prestige were valued

less. Until that day comes, though, making an effort to share that prestige with deserving and underprivileged students is an unambiguous plus. Well beyond the momentary joy they provide, likely letters are a key tool for the worthy goal of bringing less privileged students to Harvard. The special attention they provide can give Harvard a better shot at the diversity essential to our school’s mission.

Likely letters do their job well. Getting one provides a much-appreciated nudge and confidence boost to deserving students who might just need them to pick Harvard. Their targeted focus on underrepresented students, definitionally the sort of applicants that we wish we could see more of at Harvard, is admirable.

Harvard should aspire to be a community that uplifts marginalized students. These letters bring us a tiny step closer to that ideal, and for that we are grateful.

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

Submit an Op-Ed Today!

The Crimson

@thecrimson

COLUMN

Diverse Thoughts on Neurodiversity Anuksha S. Wickramasinghe ADHDVENTURES

“N

eurodiversity: (noun) the range of differences in individual brain function and behavioral traits, regarded as part of normal variation in the human population (used especially in the context of autistic spectrum disorders).”

The word “neurodiversity” was first coined by Judy Singer, an autism rights advocate, and Harvey Blume, a New York journalist. Popularized by the autism rights and advocacy movement, “neurodiversity” has grown to encompass a variety of “neurological and developmental conditions” to quote Harvard Health Publishing. Nowadays, it is frequently used as a purposefully inclusive umbrella term to allude to conditions including ADHD and dyslexia.

Recent years have seen a much-needed rise in discussion and awareness about neurodiversity, largely aligning with the rise of the internet. Rosanna K. Kataja ’24, who finds herself to be very similar to her autistic brother but is undiagnosed, believes the movement and its social media use have led to an amplification of neurodivergent experiences: Neurodiverse people “are more heard now. Naturally, through social media, everything gets more traction or easier traction.”

In her own activism, the internet has played a powerful role, from the insightful pieces she has written on disability and neurodiversity to the petition that she and Nina M. S. Jensen ’25, created against Sia’s movie, Music, which has been criticized for being ableist towards autistic people. Currently, the petition has 152,479 supporters.

The neurodiversity movement aims to center, uplift, and embrace diverse neurological and cognitive differences.

In many ways, the increased dialogue has lent itself to fostering a community for individuals who identify as neurodivergent or with the neurodiversity movement.

Kataja describes the changes she’s seen surrounding dialogue and community regarding ADHD and autism: “I’ve seen personally, ADHD gets a lot of attention, but it used to be like, ‘I have ADHD. I can’t tell anyone’; ‘I have autism. I can’t tell anyone.’ Now, people are like, ‘oh, guess what? I have this.’” In other words, neurodiversity is beginning to receive the attention it hasn’t historically received.

I’ve found the neurodiversity movement to be one that has empowered me.

That’s simply the case for me — finally learning that I had ADHD and anxiety provided me with an explanation I’d been searching for desperately. In the

movement’s widespread solidarity and awareness, I felt like I wasn’t alone. Instead, I felt inspired to share my own lessons and experiences as I continued to grow and learn about the ways my brain works.

This is not a take shared by everyone.

Alexander J. Chen ’24 offers a different perspective: “Since [neurodiversity’s] rising popularity in conversation, it has always been attached with a bit of a negative salience built-in. In that, when people say, ‘Oh, you know, I’m neurodiverse,’ it always precedes or proceeds a conversation about struggles.”

That much can only be expected — after all, as Chen notes, “People who are outwardly neurodiverse have struggled within our society, whether either structural limitations or personal confrontations and emotional damage.”

Like with any movement, neurodivergent terminology continues to change.

Particularly with a cause so deeply personal, how individuals identify and relate to it may vary significantly; like any other group or movement, the neurodiversity movement is not a monolith.

Take the use of “neurodiverse” versus “neurodivergent.” On a grammatical level, individuals may argue that only groups of people can be diverse, which is why they believe that individuals who identify with the movement should be referred to as “neurodivergent.” It’s a take that Chen disagrees with based on the implications of the word “divergent”: “Frankly I prefer neurodiversity — because neurodivergent implies a sort of norm.”

He continues, “When people say, ‘Oh, look, so-and-so is neurodivergent,” they’re implying that there’s a sort of norm that everyone has to adhere to.”

Ultimately, it’s up to everyone to use the movement’s language as it suits them best.

It’s also a movement, like any movement, with its own limitations and room for improvement.

Kataja sees many of the problems of the neurodiversity movement as ones that are due to problems with the internet, considering the movement’s significant digital scope and reliance.

Anonymous individuals, emboldened by the guise of the internet, may harass and bully neurodiversity advocates, potentially not realizing how harmful their behavior is, she details.

That isn’t to say that the movement’s shortcomings are exclusively internet-based.

Kataja provides several examples of its non-web-based flaws. There are “actual problems, not just ‘we have a movie that doesn’t represent us well.’”

Of course, media representation comes with its host of secondary issues.

“Many people think, ‘Well, it’s just a movie,’ but that’s how people start to

view autism and be like, ‘Oh, they’re just like this,’” she adds.

That, in turn, can lead to “employment problems or not getting your diagnosis and having problems with the doctor’s office because of all these stereotypes.” She hopes “the movement would lead to more than just, funny memes on Tik Tok,” though she acknowledges that it is a start in engendering dialogue.

Kataja recounted a story from her own life, with her brother’s autism diagnosis: “The doctors were like as if somebody had died, ‘I’m so sorry about the news. He’s autistic.’” But in reality, her mother was grateful to know what was going on.

It’s a stark reminder of how pervasive the stigma is around neurodiversity.

Simply put, as Kataja says, “being neurodiverse is not a death sentence.”

Chen also points to neurodiversity’s philosophical limitations, by delving deeper into the cultural and linguistic nuances of neurodiversity’s implications.

He explains the following: “I’m really glad that the word neurodiversity has really gained more and more societal acceptance over the past decade. Frankly, in my personal opinion, I don’t think the word should be limited. I think the word still retains a stigma of being a substitute for words that we no longer want to use.

I think the word should be here in a variety of different fields, whether academic or in social discourse.”

He believes that neurodiversity “should be used to destigmatize to the point where everyone is neurodiverse,” while acknowledging that there are nuances, especially when one’s “own manifestation of neurodiversity is outwardly apparent,” which may “be the case with people, with ASD, maybe with ADHD at times,” and his own experiences with stuttering.

He concludes: “I do identify as neurodiverse.” But, he adds, “I wish for a day, where saying that ‘I identify as neurodiverse,’ isn’t a shocking thing to anyone.

‘Yeah, okay, cool. And the sky is blue.’”

For all our diverse thoughts on neurodiversity, it’s up to all of us to provide space and understanding for the infinities of experiences we hold within ourselves and our worlds, past, present, and future.

Neurodiversity isn’t merely about neurodivergent individuals. It’s about all of us; after all, considering our brains will never be the same, your experiences contribute to neurodiversity, in the most literal sense, as do mine. In Chen’s words, “we should all be able to accept that.”

—​Anuksha S. Wickramasinghe ’24 is a Neuroscience concentrator and Crimson Editorial editor in Mather House. Her column “Adhdventures” usually appears on alternate Wednesdays.

By KELISHA M. WILLIAMS

D

ear Judge Ketanji — pronounced “kuhtahn-jee” — Brown Jackson ’92, you are my role model. You are the embodiment of a successful Black woman and the blueprint for Black girls everywhere. You are the coalition of the strength of our Black mothers and our ancestors’ greatest pride. You are the inspiration of my Harvard experience and a pioneer for defining what Black excellence is within white America.

Dear Ketanji Brown Jackson, as an alum of Harvard, you are one of the greatest to have walked these halls. I write this with intentional and precise wording.

You are not one of the greatest Harvard has produced.

Harvard did not produce you.

You are the embodiment of a successful Black woman and the blueprint for Black girls everywhere Harvard was merely a stepping stone for your illustrious career and achievements. You are among the alumni that make Harvard one of the greatest universities in the world. Your presence is the very reason that so many others flock to this school. All in hopes of becoming like you.

You make this University.

Dear Ketanji Brown Jackson, our skin tone is one that incites riots. One that causes us to be murdered freely and unjustifiably. One that subjects us to experiencing three times the amount of police brutality than our white counterparts and subjects us to the constant injustice of legal processes. One that shimmers in the sunlight and protects our cells from UV rays. One that invokes creativity and creates entirely new genres of music. One made up of resilience so strong, that after years of the generational trauma we have experienced, we still hold our heads high and fight for what is ours.

Dear Ketanji Brown Jackson, as you looked into the eyes of those who despise you during your confirmation hearing, you smiled a toothy grin that made them seethe on their podiums. Your smile beamed with the aura of unrivaled and unadulterated progress. Your intelligence scared and intimidated those upon the stand who could not believe that a woman of your “background” could ever be so qualified. You proved exactly to this country just how qualified you were, and just how overqualified other Black women have to be in this country.

Dear Ketanji Brown Jackson, you are one of the most qualified Supreme Court Justices currently appointed to uplift, serve, and enforce our country’s constitution. You being exceedingly knowledgeable and experienced is of no doubt in my mind not a coincidence. Being a Black woman you know what it is like to fight for a seat at the table. You know you must be the most versed within the room to even have a mere place among the discussion in white America.

You proved exactly to this country just how qualified you were, and just how overqualified other Black women have to be in this country.

Dear Ketanji Brown Jackson, your tears shed on the Senate floor have not gone unnoticed. Your prideful posture that commands a room does not go unnoticed. Your intricately woven locs that adorn your crown and arouse feelings of prejudice in others do not go unnoticed.

The eloquent manner in which you speak your words and answer back the racist remarks circling the Senate chamber only speaks to the composition of your being. The happiness upon your face as you were confirmed for the seat as a Supreme Court Justice — which persisted even while others disrespectfully walked out — only adds to your magnificent character.

You showed me that the little Black girl from Kentucky inside me can go on to make history.

Dear Ketanji Brown Jackson, as you fought for confirmation and the court voted for you, two Republican senators arrived in casual clothing to show rebellion. But that did not deter you. You continued with your head held high, reaffirmed with the vigor of our ancestors cheering you on, and went on to make history.

As a Harvard student, this only pushes me to do more. To achieve the dreams I have without hesitation even if I haven’t seen someone who looks like me do it before.

You showed me that a little Black girl from Miami inside you can go on to make history. You showed me that the little Black girl from Kentucky inside me can go on to make history.

Dear Ketanji Brown Jackson, I clapped for you and imagined being on the front row as you were being confirmed.

Dear Ketanji Brown Jackson, you are the shining fruit of our ancestors’ past suffering and will forever go down in history as a part of the definition of Black Excellence.

Dear Judge Ketanji — pronounced “kuh-tahnjee” — Brown Jackson, you are my role model.

—Kelisha M. Williams ’25, a Crimson Editorial editor, lives in Matthews Hall.

PAGE 9

THE HARVARD CRIMSON |

KRAFT FROM PAGE 1

APRIL 19, 2022

OPERETTA FROM PAGE 1

Kraft Family Donates $24 Mil to HBS Students Rewrite Racist Operetta

transformational power of this experience,” Robert Kraft said in the press release. “Our family is proud of the extraordinary difference that our fellowship recipients make in the world.”

Robert Kraft has owned the Patriots since 1994, leading the franchise to six Super Bowl titles. His net worth is estimated to be $8.3 billion, according to Forbes.

In 2019, Robert Kraft was charged with soliciting a prostitute in Florida, where he was allegedly caught on a hidden police surveillance camera paying for sex acts at a day spa. The charges were later dropped and Kraft has since apologized for the incident.

In a statement, University President Lawrence S. Bacow said Harvard “is grateful” for the Kraft family’s “generosity and for the deep care with

which they support the members of our community.”

“Harvard Business School has a long and proud history of educating leaders who make a difference in the world, among them Robert and Jonathan Kraft,” he said. “Through this extraordinary act of philanthropy, father and son ensure that more lives are transformed as theirs have been.”

In a press release, Datar, the HBS dean, thanked the Krafts for their support.

“Having the voices of fellow students from a range of cultures, industries, and socioeconomic backgrounds in the classroom broadens everyone’s perspectives on the real-world challenges they will face as business leaders,” Datar said in the press release.

paul.alexis@thecrimson.com

Robert K. “Bob” Kraft is the chairman of the Kraft Group and the owner of the New England Patriots. PHOTO COURTSEY THE NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS

and Sullivan music and turn it into something new that would reflect a more diverse and more culturally appropriate context.”

Despite the show’s success, Vandermel said the production faced challenges due to its timing, as the show began the week after spring break.

“It was definitely a big challenge in terms of getting everything together, but we did in the end, and I’m really proud of the efforts of everyone in the productions because we were able to put on a successful show,” Vandemel said.

In rewriting Sullivan’s play, the group aimed to ground it in the culture it originally misrepresented.

“At the very core of all of this is just, there’s this long-standing feeling that we want to just respect what for Gilbert and Sullivan was a foreign culture,” Yap said.

Vandermel praised the creativity of Harvard students involved in theater.

“I think it’s really cool coming into this theater scene at Harvard to see like all sorts of unique takes — whether it’s a rewrite of an old show or a completely new show — that are being created alongside more mainstream shows that we already know of,” Vandermel said. ella.jones@thecrimson.com monique.vobecky@thecrimson.com

TRUMAN FROM PAGE 1

Two Undergrads Selected for 2022 Truman Scholarships appreciative of,” she said.

Kambath said she plans to use the funding for law school and is “strongly considering” pursuing a Ph.D. Samey — an Integrative Biology concentrator in Mather House — said the scholarship validated her “more unconventional route” to public service.

Samey, who hails from Minneapolis, worked with grassroots activists during the pandemic to deliver wellness supplies to residents in her hometown who could not access grocery stores due to health concerns and the murder of George Floyd.

She said the experience contributed to her understanding that public service is “fluid.”

“All that you really need to impact the community around you is a desire to do so,” Samey said. “You don’t need permis-

HDS FROM PAGE 1

Student Discusses Religion, Health what determines your health is clinical care, on which we are spending about three and a half trillion dollars each year,” Irfan said. “And the rest of it — 8085 percent — is determined by all of these upstream policies, which we call social and structural determinants of health.”

Irfan said that while religion has been analyzed as a social determinant of health, little literature exists on the role of religion as a structural determinant of health. Irfan speculated the gap in knowledge may be attributed to the conception of public policy as secular in the United States.

“What I do think is that, in any number of policies, one of the normative assumptions in policymaking, including public health policymaking, is that we operate in a secular society when we don’t,” Irfan said.

Ashe built upon Irfan’s comments, citing the varied health outcomes for Black and white Christians in the U.S. to highlight religion’s varied impacts for different groups.

“At a macro level, we also need to be looking at how religion in the U.S. may be helping some people and also may be harming others, particularly those who identify as LGBTQ, particularly those who identify as women, particularly people who are living with disabilities, particularly those who are living at the lower-end socioeconomic status,” Ashe said.

Irfan repeated that he does not have exact answers to these complicated questions surrounding the relationship between religion and health, but raising these questions and concerns is necessary.

“If you’re not even acknowledging it, how are you going to go about making any interventions towards it?” Irfan said. kenneth.gu@thecrimson.com

sion from academic credentials or from the place that you’re employed to determine whether or not you can actually impact your community.”

Samey also cited her research in Covid-19 vaccine credential hesitancy, in which she investigated how different identities correlated with distrust in healthcare infrastructure.

She said the experience highlighted why public service initiatives should include the perspectives of the people they aim to help.

“Looking at that information really showed how people are informed by their circumstances,” she said.

Samey added that she was able to apply the lessons from her research to her work as the inaugural diversity and inclusion officer and second-ever

Black chief of CrimsonEMS, Harvard’s student-run emergency medical service. Within the group, she has focused on initiatives to increase patient agency and decrease bias.

“That made up a lot of who I am and how I view medicine, how I view public health and public service,” she said.

Samey said she plans to use the scholarship to pursue an MD/MPH and hopes to work on bridging access gaps and mitigate racialized disparities in healthcare through a career in preventative care.

“For me, it was really influential to win the Truman Scholarship, because it shows that there’s more than one route towards public service in a way that I wasn’t able to conceptualize before,” she said. carrie.hsu@thecrimson.com

Harvard, 24/7.

The Crimson thecrimson.com

SPORTS

WEEKLY RECAP

SCORES

WOMEN’S TENNIS AT PENN W, 4-1 ___________________________________________________________

MEN’S VOLLEYBALL AT GEORGE MASON W, 3-0 ___________________________________________________________

MEN’S TENNIS VS. PENN W, 5-0 ___________________________________________________________

WOMEN’S LACROSSE AT COLUMBIA W, 14-8 ___________________________________________________________

BASEBALL AT COLUMBIA L, 7-3 ___________________________________________________________

MEN’S LACROSSE AT PENN L, 11-8 ___________________________________________________________

WOMEN’S WATER POLO AT BROWN W, 10-6 ___________________________________________________________

FOOTBALL

Harvard set to Face St. Thomas Starting in 2023

By GRIFFIN WONG and SYDNEY FARNHAM CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

In its storied history, Harvard has played 1,342 football games, winning roughly 68 percent of the time it takes the field. Of all of its opponents, it has lined up against Yale the most times, facing the Bulldogs 137 times in the rivalry known as The Game.

But, starting in 2023, it will add a new opponent to its ledger, as the team announced via its Instagram account on April 12 that it will play a home-and-home series against the University of St. Thomas, beginning with a clash at Harvard Stadium on Sept. 16, 2023, and ending at O’Shaughnessy Stadium in St. Paul, Minn., on Sept. 15, 2029.

Although few teams have the celebrated history of the Crimson, the Tommies first competed in 1904 and have also taken the field more than 1,000 times.

St. Thomas was one of the inaugural members of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in 1920 and, since then, have won twenty MIAC championships, including seven in its last ten seasons. It achieved its pinnacle of success in 2012, when it finished as the national runner-up in Division III, repeating its feat in 2015. The Tommies have produced quite a few notable alumni, including Seattle Seahawks general manager John Schneider and Vince Lombardi Jr, the eldest son of the late NFL legend. Head Coach Glenn Caruso took the reins at St. Thomas in 2008, and has since been named National Coach of the Year six times at the Division III level. After winning 35 out of its 36 home games between 2014 and 2019, it joined Division I prior to the 2021 season.

After making the leap to the top flight, St. Thomas found success in its first season at the Football Championship Series (FCS) level. Last year, it claimed a 12-9 victory at Michigan Tech in its first top-level game on ­

MINNESOTA MIRACLE? Harvard athletes take the field this past November in the 137th matchup against the Yale Bulldogs. Starting in 2023, the Crimson will face a new opponent from Minnesota and hopes to start hot in this new series. JOSIE W. CHEN—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Sept. 11. Overall, it finished 7-3, with its 6-2 record within the Pioneer League good enough to tie for third in the conference. The Tommies won on the strength of their defense, which allowed opponents to score just 17.80 points per game in 2021, 0.40 points more than Princeton’s 12th-ranked unit.

“They went right into the Pioneer Conference and played at a very high level,” said Harvard head coach Tim Murphy on his initial impressions of St. Thomas. “[They] were in virtually every single game, and they’re a big, strong, physical team.

They’ve got a lot of typical or

stereotypical big, strong offensive and defensive linemen.”

For the Tommies, playing the Crimson allows them to prove that they can compete with top FCS programs after they lost, 44-3, to their lone ranked opponent, No. 15 Northern Iowa, in 2021. It will give St. Thomas exposure to competition in the Ivy League, a defensive-oriented conference that saw three schools – Harvard, Princeton, and Dartmouth – enjoy national top-25 rankings for portions of last season.

“The opportunity of having both home and away contests with the Crimson allows us to

highlight two programs that take both education and football very seriously at the FCS level,” said Caruso in a story posted to the St. Thomas Athletic Department’s website.

The series also marks a drastic shift for Harvard. In Murphy’s 27-year stint at the helm of the Crimson, which has seen him become the winningest coach in conference history, he has never coached a game in the Midwest. In fact, when the Crimson travels to St. Paul in 2029, it will be the first time it has played in the region since a 14-12 loss to Michigan on Nov. 9, 1929. Murphy is hopeful that

through the game, the Crimson will be able to strengthen its recruiting efforts in the Midwest after it rostered just one Minnesotan, junior linebacker Matt Cavanagh, in 2021.

“Just the opportunity to give us some more national-type games,” said Murphy when asked what he was most looking forward to about the series. “Now we’ve played on the West Coast, we’ve played in the Midwest, and we’ve certainly played most of our games on the East Coast, just to give our players, fans, alumni, the opportunity to become a little more national.”

The game will serve as the season opener for Harvard in both 2023 and 2029, with the Ivy League’s conference schedule slated for the latter half of the season. All time, the Crimson is 120-25-2 in its season openers, including 19-8 under Murphy. Meanwhile, since the Pioneer League starts play earlier in the year, the Tommies will be playing their third game of the campaign. As part of the comprehensive 10-year deal struck

by ESPN and the Ivy League in 2018, the 2023 contest will be broadcast on ESPN+. griffin.wong@thecrimson.com

GROUND AND POUND Junior running back Aidan Borguet shakes a defender in a 38-13 victory against Holy Cross this past October. Harvard will look to set the tone with a robust rushing attack early against their various opponents in 2022 and gearing up for St. Thomas in 2023. OWEN A. BERGER—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER