THE HARVARD CRIMSON
In Allston, a Scourge of Overcrowding
TITLE DEFENSE. Harvard women’s rugby team clinched its second straight national title on Nov. 23, defeating Dartmouth, the top-ranked team in the nation, by a final score of 19-12 in the NIRA National Championship game.
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STAFF-ED. As Harvard’s leadership crisis made clear, the University needs leadership insulated from outside pressures to uphold its core values. That’s why we support the creation of a faculty senate, a formal body composed of faculty members elected by their peers.
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LIBRARY BANS. Participants at two recent study-ins at Widener Library and the Harvard Law School Library left the premises before administrators managed to check their Harvard IDs. Now, it seems, they will escape punishment entirely.
SEE PAGE 4
Harvard Apologizes, Reverses Housing Decisions
The Harvard College Housing Office offered campus winter recess housing in emails to dozens of international students on Monday afternoon, reversing its initial decision to reject the housing applications and subsequent appeals. In a Monday email, the Housing Office informed students that “after careful consideration, the College Housing Office decided to reconsider your recent application and approved your request for Winter Housing.”
“We apologize for any misunderstanding that may have been caused by the inconsistency in language we used around the criteria in making these decisions,” the Office wrote. The email did not specify why the students’ applications and appeals were previously rejected and why the decision had been reversed.
The decision to suddenly grant the students winter housing came two days after The Crimson published an article about how many international students
on financial aid were scrambling to find lodging over break after their requests to remain on campus were denied. More than 280 people had also signed a petition calling on the College to “address Harvard’s winter housing crisis.”
Several international students said they were relieved and grateful that the College decided to reverse its decision.
“I was so happy,” said Camilo R. Vasconcelos ’25, who is from Brazil. “I still have a lot of faith in Harvard, so I had hope that in the end they would make the right decision.”
M. Faseeh Jawed ’27, who is from Pakistan, said he was “very positively surprised” by the email, adding that he had begun preparing alternative housing due to the initial rejection.
“I was already almost done with preparing for the arrangements, and I’m glad that it worked out even before I had to do any of that,” Jawed said. Still, some students said the hectic and stressful process overshadowed Monday’s good news.
“Harvard has made me buy a plane ticket home for more than $1,600 because I didn’t initially have a place to stay here, which caused severe stress,” Sarra Guezguez ’27 wrote in a Monday statement.
“Now we have access to the dorms, but that money will not be refunded.”
Nyasha B. Runhare ’27 said that the updated decision “obviously comes as a relief.”
“However, it’s been a very demeaning experience having to be vulnerable about my circumstances and financial situation so many times as a low income student,” Runhare added.
Ian Toyota ’27 wrote in a statement that being denied housing was a “heavy burden to bear,” particularly coupled with impending midterms and finals.
“Getting denied housing had a significant impact on both my mental and academic health,” he added.
Last week’s rejected appeals seemed to mark a change in the winter housing application process, as many students said it was their first time being asked for “other unique circumstances” beyond being an international student on financial aid — but the Housing Office did not provide clarification about the decision. College spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo declined to comment and referred The Crimson to the language from the Housing Office’s Monday reversal email.
“We understand that this led to confusion as students were planning for winter recess,” the email stated. “Please know
this was never our intention, and we hope that this updated decision is helpful to you.”
Several international students who were initially rejected said they were contacted by College alumni, professors, grad students, and House tutors to arrange alternatives for the break, including some Cambridge-based alumni offering spare bedrooms in their homes.
“Once the story came out, there were a lot of emails from Harvard affiliated people — like professors or former tutors or people in the Boston area,” João Pedro Rocha Frazão ’26 said, referring to the Crimson article published on Saturday. Rocha Frazão added that the Woodbridge Society, the College’s main affinity group for international students, “was going to make a matching form to get host families to house some students.”
John A. Carey, a former resident tutor of Pforzheimer House, said he was “disappointed that the University wouldn’t offer more hospitality” and offered guest bedrooms in his home for international students in need.
Penelope “Penny” D. Lawrence ’60 reached out offering housing hoping to
ARTIST PROFILE. One year ago, Jenn Tran was studying to become a physician’s assistant at Tufts. It feels a world away from the woman who first graced TV screens this January as a contestant on “The Bachelor,” starred in her own season of “The Bachelorette.”
Despite its $5 billion endowment from about 1,400 school-specific gifts, Harvard Medical School will run a deficit this year.
Only slightly more than a quarter of HMS’ operating revenue comes from “endowment income made available for operations,” per the Medical School’s official news publication. Of the remaining sources, 38 percent comes from “sponsored support,” 11 percent from “education revenue,” 8 percent from “gifts for current use,” and 15 percent from “other.”
According to an HMS Office of Finance document obtained by The Crimson, “despite the optics of the Medical School’s endowment, HMS’s budget is perpetually underfunded.”
“Deficit spending is an increasing problem at HMS,” reads the document, which details the school’s deficit spending policy.
At the school’s 2024 State of the School address, HMS Dean George Q. Daley ’82
announced that the school was facing a $37 million shortfall due to “a perfect storm of negative financial headwinds.” According to HMS officials, the deficit is the result of National Institute of Health funding not keeping pace with compounding cost inflation, increased labor and construction costs, and poor endowment returns — and with former U.S. President Donald Trump’s reelection, money issues may only worsen.
Declining NIH Funding
The NIH has long been a critical source of funding for Harvard and HMS researchers. In 2018, the NIH was responsible for 71 percent of Harvard’s federal funding and half of all Harvard research funding. In fiscal year 2024, NIH funding decreased for the first time in 11 years. Since fiscal year 2003, funding for HMS from the NIH has declined by 2.7 percent, adjusted for inflation.
In an emailed statement to The Crimson, Daley wrote that “the NIH is a tremen-
When the Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery initiative’s Remembrance Program identified more than 100 living descendants of enslaved people owned by University affiliates, it marked just the beginning of what will likely be a yearslong process to engage and support those descendants.
Though Harvard has not begun engaging with the living descendants, citing the need for the University to first complete its efforts to research and identify living descendants, similar initiatives at peer universities across the country offer an indication of how Harvard might approach its engagement efforts.
Richard J. Cellini, the director of the Harvard Slavery Remembrance Program, previously spearheaded the Georgetown Memory Project, a successful independent effort that discovered more than 10,000 living descendants of people who were enslaved by Georgetown University affiliates. Though Georgetown University had
no official connection to Cellini’s efforts, it launched the Working Group on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation Project in 2015 which produced a series of recommendations to university leaders as part of a report on how to redress Georgetown’s ties to slavery.
Within three years, Georgetown — a private Jesuit university — issued a formal apology to descendant families and began a series of conversations to engage descendants.
Now, Georgetown offers descendants the same admissions preferences that other legacy students receive in the application process and publicly lists resources for people who are doing genealogical research to determine whether they are a descendant.
While these are possible routes the University could take as it seeks to “identify, engage, and support direct descendants,” Harvard spokesperson Sarah E. Kennedy O’Reilly wrote in a statement that “direct engagement has not yet begun” with living descendants. “This planning is grounded in the
19 percent said they had no opinion. Another 19 percent said they did not have enough information to answer. BY JOYCE E. KIM AND AZUSA M. LIPPIT, CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
AROUND THE IVIES
A DEAD ELM TREE WAS A ‘MAIN PRESSURE POINT’ IN BROWN’S DECISION TO DIVEST
Students involved in negotiating the ending of Brown’s pro-Palestine encampment in late April told the Brown Daily Herald that a dying elm tree on Brown’s main campus gave protesters leverage when striking an agreement with administration to end the encampment. The 80-year-old elm tree died during the 2023-24 school year and needed to be removed before commencement. The Department of Facilities Management planned to remove the tree in April, giving administration a tighter timeline for ending the encampment to prepare for the university’s commencement ceremonies.
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
UPENN ADVISES INTERNATIONAL AFFILIATES TO RETURN TO U.S. BEFORE TRUMP INAUGURATION
University of Pennsylvania administrators recommended in a statement that international students return to the United States from winter break before the January inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump “to avoid any unexpected issues,” the Daily Pennsylvanian reported Monday. Trump, who graduated from UPenn’s Wharton School in 1968, announced plans to implement a travel ban barring travelers from majority Islamic countries and Palestinian refugees. The statement also mentioned Trump’s indications that he would sign executive orders on his first day as president that focus on immigration.
THE DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN
HANOVER POLICE ISSUE ARREST WARRANTS FOR ALLEGED HAZING INCIDENT
The Hanover Police Department issued an arrest warrant for three suspects after a report of violent fraternity hazing, the Dartmouth reported on Wednesday. A Dartmouth student reported that while pledging for membership with Theta Beta Beta, a campus fraternity, in late September, he was struck with a wooden paddle and forced to eat an onion which caused him to vomit — then was pressed to eat the vomited onion. A press release from the HPD said the student had visible injuries. The suspects face a fine of up to $1,200.
THE DARTMOUTH
NEW DETAILS REVEALED IN ASSAULT AND TRESPASSING CASE AGAINST CORNELL STUDENT
Cornell University student Noah Rebei, who was arrested after he was discovered under the bed of a female student in late October, told police the incident was a prank gone wrong, the Cornell Daily Sun reported Tuesday. Rebei, who was charged with criminal trespassing and third-degree assault, faces up to two years in prison and up to $2,000 in fines. According to a recently-released report from the Cornell University Police Department, the victim stated that Rebei was under her bed for over two hours including while she was engaged in a personal phone call. Rebei told police he was under the bed for approximately ten minutes. Later, he told police he stayed for no more than 30 minutes.
THE CORNELL DAILY SUN
In Photos: Bookshelves Around Campus
BY CRIMSON MULTIMEDIA STAFF
“My bookshelf has a lot of small things that I have gotten during my travels.” “I have shot glasses from Egypt — one from Egypt, one from Indiana, one from Paris. I went as a tourist to Texas, and I think it’s always funny, and so, like, I like to travel a lot, and that’s what a lot of these things are.”
Y. Garcia ‘25
“I probably have too many books. It’s because when I came here, I stupidly thought that I’d want a bunch of books to read while I was here. So I came here in my first suitcase with sort of probably half a shelf of books, which is more than any person really needs.” “
S. Max Fan ’26
My sense of home has become really associated to the objects I own, rather than the places I’ve lived. And so this bookshelf is super representative of that.
My family has always collected CDs, and so it sort of reminds of the bookshelves I have at home that are full of a lot of CDs that are from my parents’ collections that they had in college, so I feel like I’m kind of continuing that tradition.
GRACE
JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Coby
BY STELLA A. GILBERT — CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Irati Evworo Diez ‘25-26
BY GRACE E. YOON — CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Max C. Surprenant ’26
BY RACHEL CHAN — CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
BY ELLEN P. CASSIDY — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
FRENCH PRIME MINISTER MICHEL
The French Parliament passed a no-confidence vote forcing Prime Minister Michel Barnier to resign on Wednesday. 331 out of 577 lawmakers voted to remove Barnier, marking Barnier as the shortest-serving prime minister in France’s history and the first since 1962 to be removed by a no-confidence vote according to CNN. a Until French President Emmanuel Macron appoints a new prime minister, Barnier’s cabinet will serve in a caretaker capacity.
UNITEDHEALTHCARE C.E.O.
SHOT AND KILLED IN MANHATTAN
UnitedHealthcare C.E.O. Brian Thompson was shot and killed outside of the New York Hilton Midtown Wednesday morning in Manhattan, an attack that the New York Police Department described as “brazen” and “targeted.” Thompson was on his way to the company’s annual investor conference before being assailed. The gunman was caught on cameras throughout the morning and fleeing on a bicycle into Central Park, where he was last sighted as of Wednesday night according to the New York Times.
SUPREME COURT LIKELY TO UPHOLD BAN ON TRANSGENDER CARE
The Supreme Court heard arguments on upholding a Tennessee law denying transition care to transgender youth on Wednesday according to the New York Times. The law does not allow medical providers to provide hormone therapy, prescribe puberty-delaying medication, or perform surgery to treat “purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity,” as described by the law. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said “The Constitution leaves that question to the people’s representatives, rather than to nine people, none of whom is a doctor,” following a similar approach to the court’s conservative majority’s approach in Roe v. Wade in 2022 where medical policies are a matter for the states.
SOUTH KOREA UNDERGOES
MARTIAL LAW FOR EIGHT HOURS
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law in a national television broadcast Tuesday night, deeming it necessary “in order to defend the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces,” according to AP News. Soon after the declaration, crowds of citizens protesting the martial law gathered outside the National Assembly building as police and soldiers prevented protesters and parliament members from entering the building. Lawmakers voted to lift martial law 190-0 a few hours after its declaration, and Yoon announced early Wednesday morning that he ordered the withdrawal of military forces after the parliament’s vote.
What’s Next
Start every week with a preview of what’s on the agenda around Harvard University
Friday 12/6
SUMMER OPPORTUNITIES FAIR
Student Organization Center at Hilles, 1 – 4 p.m.
Come to the SOCH to attend Harvard’s largest summer planning event of the year. Representatives from Harvard centers and outside organizations will be there, advertising volunteer, shadowing, internships, research, and study abroad opportunities.
Saturday 12/7
HARVARD CONTEMPORARY
COLLECTIVE FALL SHOW
Harvard Dance Center, 2 p.m.
Come watch Bloom, a dance performance by the HUCC. It features student choreography and original works by professional choreographers. This show is the debut of choreography from Madison Hicks called “How to Fall.”
Sunday 12/8
SCIENCE BY CANDLELIGHT
Science Center Lecture Hall B, 10 a.m. – 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. – 2 p.m.
There will be experiments, interactive demonstrations, and other family activities to show the scientific ideas that inspire something as seemingly simple as a burning candle.
Monday 12/9
RIVER WEST WINTER FORMAL
The Grand & Scorpion Bar, 9 p.m. – 12 a.m.
Winthrop House, Kirkland House, and Eliot House invite their residents to the Winter Ball! There will be a plethora of light refreshments, including alcoholic (21+) and nonalcoholic drinks, as well as several snacks.
Tuesday 12/10
ABORTION, EMANCIPATION, & REP.
DISOBEDIENCE IN UKRAINE
Pritsak Memorial Library at Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 12 – 1:30 p.m.
Kateryna Ruban will give a lecture on her book regarding abortion rights and the way they shaped female emancipation in Ukraine throughout the 1910s-1960s.
Wednesday 12/11
SPANISH LANGUAGE TABLE
Private Dining Room in Winthrop Dining Hall, 6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. All proficiency levels are welcome at this event! Come and get food from Winthrop Dhall and then have the chance to speak Spanish in an easygoing, low-pressure setting.
Thursday 12/12
CERAMICS PROGRAM SHOW & SALE
Office for the Arts, 10 a.m. – 7 p.m. At the Ceramics Program’s Winter Show and Sale, students, staff, and instructors will present their ceramic work, including dinnerware, sculptures, ceramic jewelry, planters, home decor, and more.
Friday 12/13
DIARY OF A TAP DANCER
Loeb Drama Center Tap dancer and choreographer Ayodele Casel and collaborator director Torya Beard weave together dance, narrative, and song to explore language, culture, and identity in a play that will return to the A.R.T. this holiday season.
STEAMY STREETS
SOPHIA
Pritzker Defends Harvard’s Federal Funding
and innovations that power our economy and improve our competitiveness, or the research that strengthens our national security, these are all to the benefit of the United States writ large,” she added.
Amid growing calls from Washington to defund elite colleges and universities, Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker ’81 made the case for why the University needs federal funding during an interview with The Crimson last week.
“This partnership between the federal government and Harvard University, and frankly, all universities, has offered a considerable return to the American people,” Prtizker said.
“If you think about the medical discoveries and treatments that contribute to the well-being of people across our country and the world, or the research
Both Pritzker and University President Alan M. Garber ’76 are under subpoena by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce as part of its investigation into campus antisemitism. Since January, Harvard has weathered bipartisan calls from Congress to cut its federal funding over the University’s alleged failure to combat antisemitism.
Harvard’s uneasy relationship with Washington may further deteriorate as President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House with Republican control of the House and the Senate. On the campaign trail, Trump and Republican allies repeatedly denounced Harvard and peer schools as bastions of leftism and a threat to conservative ideals.
Trump and House Majority
Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) have both said Harvard could lose the accreditation necessary to receive any funding during Trump’s second term. While unlikely, the threats combined with new political power increase the pressure on Pritzker and Garber to ease tensions with Republicans.
The university currently receives more than $600 million in annual funding in the form of research grants and student loans and is subject to federal regulations. Trump allies have suggested that such regulations could be grounds for revoking funding.
“I think part of our job is to work with Congress to have them understand these contributions and why their investment in universities across our country is so important for the benefit of the United States of America,” Pritzker said, making her case for Harvard as calls to strip the Universi-
Harvard Offers International Students Winter Housing
find “a group of alums” that could respond to housing needs. Lawrence said it was disappointing to her that “the University has become so unfriendly.” Santiago Pardo Sánchez ’16, an Adams House residential tutor, also expressed frustration that the students had been denied housing in the first place.
“I’m very glad that compassion and sanity prevailed, because the stress that this episode put our students through was unnecessary,” Pardo Sánchez wrote.
The initial move to deny housing to international students on financial aid was met with a wave of backlash, and more than 300 people signed a petition last week calling on the Housing Office to reverse the decisions.
Some students pointed to the language in the Housing Office’s
latest email — and the timing of the reversal.
“They said they are ‘accepting it after a lot of consideration,’ but it didn’t really say why they hadn’t considered that much in the first place,” Rocha said.
“I don’t know exactly whether this is them hinting that they’re going to change the language on the website,” Vasconcelos said.
“Or that they shouldn’t have taken this decision, and that in the future, this misunderstanding won’t happen again.”
“I guess the lesson learned is that when we are frustrated and there’s a decision that doesn’t make sense, we should mobilize, and we should make a petition, and we should talk to the media — because apparently that’s all Harvard cares about,” Rocha said.
Vasconcelos said it’s “scary” to speak up regarding problems
on campus, “especially if you’re low-income.”
“When you already feel like maybe you’re not supposed to be in this place, you think that you can’t demand certain things,” Vasconcelos said.
Nathalie A. Milbradt ’26, the Woodbridge Society’s co-president, said she was glad the College ultimately did “the right thing.”
“When the University doesn’t, we will represent students. We will find homes for them. We will find a host family,” Milbradt said.
Still, Milbradt said she recognizes that Woodbridge Society members “probably shouldn’t be the ones doing that.”
“I’m really glad that they changed their minds,” she added.
rachel.fields@thecrimson.com azusa.lippit@thecrimson.com meghna.mitra@thecrimson.com
ty of federal funding grow louder.
In the interview, Pritzker said Harvard, under Garber’s leadership, will “continue to make the case for an effective and strong partnership between higher education and the federal government.”
“We take seriously any kind of criticisms from Washington,” Pritzker said.
Over the past year, Garber has made the trek to Washington to meet with lawmakers multiple times, including both Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress and members of the Biden administration.
Since Gay resigned on Jan. 2, Pritzker has been the subject of significant scrutiny from faculty members who criticized her role in selecting Gay and then for her role in Gay’s disastrous congressional hearing.
When asked what about Gay’s
search made the Corporation decide it needed to reevaluate its presidential selection process, Pritzker said the pressure from Washington had changed considerations for such searches.
“We’re in a different time,” Pritkzer said. “We’re under enormous scrutiny from government. We’re dealing with changes in the culture of Harvard.”
As part of the investigation, Pritzker sat for an interview with the committee in August where legislators grilled her on the University’s negotiations with encampment protesters and Harvard’s disciplinary processes. Documents released in the report revealed that Pritzker personally pushed for a condemnation of the phrase “from the river to the sea” and said it should result in disciplinary action under recently updated protest restrictions. After the report was
released in October, a University spokesperson declined to say whether the phrase would result in disciplinary action. Pritzker declined to comment further on whether she thought Harvard should enforce stricter disciplinary measures on protesters who use the phrase “from the river to the sea” in the interview.
“I made my statements in my testimony,” Pritzker said. “I’m going to let that stand for itself.”
“The University leadership — the administration — has adjusted the rules around time, place and manner of protest,” she added. “I believe that protest is an important use of free speech, but I think there’s appropriate places and times for that. And the University is addressing that.”
Some Study-In Participants Dodge ID Checks, Library Bans
consistent — if largely symbolic — library suspensions to participants, pointing to a University policy that bans protests in libraries.
Participants at two recent studyins at Widener Library and the Harvard Law School Library left the premises before administrators managed to check their Harvard IDs. Now, it seems, they will escape punishment entirely.
Weeks after the study-ins — which occurred at Widener on Nov. 9 and the HLS library in Langdell Hall on Nov. 16 — participants have not been disciplined, a break from Harvard’s policy of issuing two-week library bans to study-in participants. Silent study-ins have become a favored tactic for pro-Palestine protesters at Harvard, as well as faculty who argue the University’s penalties suppress free speech. Harvard has doled out
After other study-ins this semester, participants were notified within two weeks that their access to the library where they conducted the demonstration would be temporarily suspended.
But Harvard Business School professor Reshmaan N. Hussam and Law School professor Andrew M. Crespo ’05, who helped organize the Widener Library study-in, both told The Crimson that participants had not received sanctions.
Third-year Law School student Corinne Shanahan, a co-president of the HLS chapter of the National Lawyers’ Guild, also wrote in a text message that she was not aware of any pun-
ishments that had been issued to participants in the Nov. 16 studyin. The NLG maintains a form to track library bans and assist students in filing appeals. Shanahan joined the Langdell Hall protesters after they left the library but did not participate in the study-in. Harvard Library spokesperson Kerry Conley declined to say why study-in participants were not punished and whether Harvard was able to identify the protesters. Conley also declined to say whether administrators made an attempt to identify participants after the two study-ins ended. “We do not comment on individual matters related to library access or privileges,” Conley wrote in a statement.
Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker ‘81 speaks at Claudine Gay’s inauguration in September 2023. JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
POLITICS. The Corporation’s senior fellow made the case against pulling funding from Harvard.
Harvard faculty read silently in Widener Library during a study-in protest last month. Some protesters have gone unpunished by the administration weeks after participating in the study-in. ELLEN P. CASSIDY
BY EMMA H. HAIDAR AND CAM E. KETTLES CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
BY TILLY R. ROBINSON CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Harvard Tightens Missed Class Policies
Harvard College students who miss two weeks of classes will be placed on involuntary leaves of absence “in most cases” under a Student Handbook amendment that will take effect in the 2025-26 academic year.
The committee that drafted the amendment described it as an attempt to curb students’ expectations that they can attend classes online — a trend some faculty say has emerged in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences approved the changes during a Tuesday afternoon FAS meeting in a unanimous vote.
At the meeting, Comparative Literature professor Karen L. Thornber — who chaired the committee — argued that the new language was a clarification of Harvard’s existing practices, not a new policy.
Harvard already uses two weeks of missed classes as a guideline for placing students on involuntary leave, Thornber said.
“Current policies do not need to be changed, but we need to make some things more explicit,” she said. Under the amendment, instructors are “not expected or required to excuse absences for interviews and extracurricular activities, including athletics.”
The amendment also states that a standard four-credit course should require 12 hours of work per week, including class time. The guideline, which was not previously specified in the College Student Handbook, aligns with the U.S. Department of Education’s definition of a credit hour.
Tuesday’s amendment adds a line to the Student Handbook specifying that “course recordings may not be used as a substitute for in-person attendance.”
Under existing policies, instructors are “generally prohibited” from recording courses unless they are permitted to provide a simultaneous enrollment option or are accommodating a student’s documented disability un-
der authorization from the FAS Disability Access Office.
Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda Claybaugh said at the November FAS meeting, when the amendment was introduced, that online schooling was “at odds” with Harvard’s focus on residential education.
“An education conducted over Zoom would not be worthy of the Harvard name,” she said. At the November meeting, Romance Languages and Literatures professor Annabel Kim said she thought the amended policies could unfairly penalize disabled students, particularly those experiencing sudden flareups of chronic illnesses. But the amendment that passed at Tuesday’s meeting had not been changed since November. The amendment “will not change our ability to accommodate students with registered disabilities,” Thornber said. Kim wrote in an email that she
was reassured when Claybaugh spoke to her after the meeting to clarify that the policy was not targeted at students who miss class because of illness, but instead focused on reducing the number of students who attempt to continue with courses while leaving campus for extended spans of time.
Still, some students said the change could prevent them from pursuing extracurricular goals.
Melody Cao ’26 — who took two weeks off at the beginning of the fall 2024 semester to film episodes of a television show and regularly pursues auditions for acting roles during the school year — said she was worried about the new policy.
“It doesn’t give me flexibility to pursue my professional career alongside school,” she said. Cao, who is a double concentrator in Computer Science and Economics, said students in those concentrations may have an easier time catching up after a leave
of absence because many already skip class and watch the recorded lectures later.
“It’s really not that much of a difference,” Cao said.
“I think that would be a little bit different for something like an English major, where heavily in-person experiences are what make up the majority of the curriculum,” she said.
An FAS spokesperson declined to comment on student criticisms.
Ron N. Nachum ’26 said he occasionally missed his CS classes to attend conferences but caught up with recorded lectures. Though he was sometimes “a little bit hesitant” to pursue start-up opportunities, Nachum decided to officially take a leave of absence his junior year. His artificial intelligence startup recently raised $8.7 million in funding.
“The four-year structure of college is definitely not something that needs to be standard for everybody,” Nachum added. “So I
commitment to engaging thoughtfully with care and sensitivity, as the University believes these initial conversations about the findings of Harvard’s research will be the basis for ongoing, long-term relationships between Harvard and these families,” Kennedy O’Reilly added.
Susan M. Glisson, a fellow at Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative, had informal conversations earlier this year with Cellini, Bleich, and former Legacy of Slavery executive director Roeshana Moore-Evans about how to facilitate dialogue with living descendants.
The conversations with Glisson, who recently led reconciliation dialogues between enslaved and free descendants of Confederate general Robert E. Lee’s plantation in Arlington, fazed out around the same time Moore-Evans suddenly left Harvard.
Harvard is also a member of the Universities Studying Slavery consortium, which comprises more than 100 other institutions in five countries that have also undertaken efforts to study their own historical ties to slavery. Many of the schools that are part of the consortium, which was
launched by the University of Virginia, have already begun to engage with direct descendants, providing insight into the types of paths Harvard might take when it starts to engage with descendants.
However, efforts to engage with descendants have been a learning process for some universities, like Georgetown, that have already begun the process.
Former President of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States Timothy P. Kesicki, who was involved in Georgetown’s efforts to engage living descendants, said in an interview that the initial
working group faced criticism that it started without any input from descendants.
“I think the listening is essential, but I would say listening is not enough. Descendants need to be in the room where the decisions are being made, and that was essential for us moving forward,” Kesicki said. “It’s a partnership. It’s descendants joining the leadership and coming together to form an answer.”
Monique T. Maddox, a descendant of Jesuit enslavement who also serves as CEO of the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foun-
think definitely if it was stricter, it’d be sad to see people take less risk, because I think there’s so much cool stuff to do.”
Pranav Ramesh ’26 similarly took time off to attend hackathons and start-up conferences. Ramesh said the new policy will discourage students from pursuing entrepreneurship opportunities.
“The whole point of a liberal arts education is that, yes, you do engage in classes, you engage in thoughtful discussions and all that,” he said, “but at the same time, at Harvard, you can do anything, right? And so you should be exploring.”
Still, Ramesh said, he thought the new policy would be more fair to professors, who expect students to participate in classes.
Tomoki Matsuno ’25, who took two weeks off to attend COP29 — the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference — said he had initially anticipated some difficulties catching up with missed lectures.
“But given one of the classes gave me an option to attend on Zoom, I think overall it was not as stressful as I initially imagined,” he said.
Thornber and her fellow committee members wrote in a report proposing the amendment that they were sympathetic to students’ reasons for long-term absences — such as pitching a startup to investors, shooting a television pilot, competing in the Winter Olympics, or returning home after a family crisis. But, the report argued, students anticipating spending their semester off-campus should take voluntary leaves of absence, rather than try to complete coursework online.
“An extended absence, whatever the cause, will necessarily interfere with their education,” the report’s authors wrote.
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dation, said that “when you don’t allow descendants to take the lead, those in power then begin making decisions that are often in their own best interest.”
For Harvard, Maddox believes that consulting with descendants is the key for the Legacy of Slavery initiative to properly carry out its reparative goals.
“As descendants, I think Harvard would be best suited in speaking with some of those descendants about what exactly their most pressing needs are and being able to outline programs that could help them,” Maddox said.
The University of Mississippi also formed a research group in 2014 to identify people who were enslaved at the school as well as their living descendants. The group, which is co-chaired by professor Jeffrey T. Jackson, has opted to begin conversations with descendants even as its research remains ongoing.
“We’ll get queries from family historians, from family genealogists, and then we just share with them what we have,” Jackson said in an interview.
Jackson’s group published a list of the names of individuals enslaved on campus along with historical information and documents that provide background on the identity of these individuals. This also allows individuals who may be potential descendants to contact the researchers themselves and share their own family histories and records, which add to the primary sources already avail-
able at the University of Mississippi. Jackson said that public transparency is a priority for them in helping reconnect descendants with their families.
“People are looking for it, and so we kind of have a responsibility to share what we find,” Jackson said. The University of the South, which is located in Tennessee, has taken a different approach from Harvard and other schools as it engages descendants. Woody Register, the director of the school’s Roberson Project Slavery, Race, and Reconciliation, said that they opt to form relationships with communities where descendants may have lived as a remedy for lacking “precise genealogical information” on descendants themselves.
“We have thought to develop relationships and partnerships in areas that were the epicenter of fundraising for this university,” Register said.
Jackson, the University of Mississippi professor, said that in an era where universities across the country are now working to reckon with past entanglements to slavery, it is essential for schools to work together.
“We all should strengthen our attempts to collaborate and to learn from each other and share information,” Jackson said. “We’re all trying to do something that’s pretty difficult and doesn’t have a very clear roadmap.”
In Allston, New Arrivals From Brazil Overcrowd to Get By
BY JACK R. TRAPANICK CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
BOSTON — When Zilda, her brother, and her two children first arrived in the United States from Brazil in 2021, they had to share everything.
They shared a three-bedroom apartment in Brighton with five other people, some of whom slept in the living room. The nine subtenants together shared a kitchen and a single bathroom. Inside their one bedroom, Zilda and her family all shared a single bed. And everyone in the unit shared the stress of trying to avoid discovery by a landlord unaware that her unit was secretly being sublet.
The stress was for good reason. The landlord’s nephew, who lived upstairs, eventually realized too many people were going out of the same unit to work each day and reported them to his aunt. All of the subletters were turned out.
Allston-Brighton, where rentals comprise 90 percent of the housing stock, has long been asso-
ciated with overcrowded and poorly maintained units. Many locals know the neighborhood for hosting a large portion of the city’s student population, where five or six students may pack into the same unit. City officials cracked down on student overcrowding after a Boston University student living in an illegal apartment died in a 2013 house fire because the unit lacked a second exit, prohibiting five or more unrelated persons from sharing an apartment. But even as the city has tried to quash overcrowding among young renters in the neighborhood, Allston’s sizable population of immigrants arriving from Brazil and Central America has lived for years under similarly cramped and dangerous conditions to far less attention. The problem has gotten worse in recent years as economic instability in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic channeled an influx of immigrants into an increasingly unaffordable housing market.
They live, as many as 13 to a single apartment, in informal sublets with rental agreements sometimes scribbled onto a piece of paper. As subtenants, they are at the mercy of a subletter who may put extreme limits on their ability
to move around the apartment, use common spaces, or even turn on the heat in the winter.
Over the last several months, The Crimson spoke with dozens of people in and around Allston-Brighton about the problem of overcrowding within the area’s long-standing Brazilian community. Local clergy, housing activists, and nonprofit workers told a story of a decades-long problem that has grown worse since the pandemic as family arrivals have spiked and the city’s housing crisis has reached new heights.
“Eighty percent, maybe more, of the calls we get from people, the whole family lives in a room,” said Heloisa M. Galvão, the executive director of the Brazilian Women’s Group, a Brighton nonprofit. “Sometimes they even rent the living room, a corner in the kitchen.”
The Crimson interviewed 10 different people, almost all in Portuguese, who live or have lived in overcrowded apartments, some of whom spoke on condition that they would be identified by their first name, fearing retribution from landlords. The residents described dangerous physical conditions in overcrowded units and said sharing such a small space with so many other people took an overwhelming mental toll.
“We used to see rats wandering at night. I was afraid of my baby being born under these conditions, living there,” Zilda said. “Life is really hard, because no one enjoys living this way.”
“We feel like nothing, like nothing,” she added.
‘Abandoned Inside of a Room’
When Geilson, a Brazilian painter who asked to be identified by his first name, arrived in Watertown — just across the river from Allston — in 2021, he landed in a single bedroom for $1,200 a month, far less than what he would have paid for a full apartment in Boston.
But there were strings attached.
He was prohibited from using almost anything outside the bedroom. He had access to the kitchen only once a week and had to keep a separate fridge in his room with his own food. Even in the bitter New England winter, he was forbidden from turning on the heat.
For Geilson, like so many other Brazilians who arrive in Boston without adequate connections or resources, such restrictive and unstable living situations are frequently the only way to get by.
Boston’s eye-popping rents — combined with debt reaching $20,000 from the journey north —
make it sometimes impossible for many recent Brazilian immigrants to afford a traditional apartment.
Even if they could, many Brazilian residents often lack the necessary documents, like identification or proof of income, required to enter a formal rental agreement. The fact that many are living in the U.S. without legal immigration sta-
know, where kids are sometimes left under the supervision of young children who happen to be just a few years older.
Living in such close quarters with strangers also puts children at high risk for sexual abuse, Galvao said.
Alessandra Fisher, the director of immigrant integration and el-
Eighty percent, maybe more, of the calls we get from people, the whole family lives in a room. Sometimes they even rent the living room, a corner in the kitchen.
tus adds a further layer of risk and complication.
So, they wind up renting a room — or portion of a room — often from another immigrant of the same background, cheaply and off the books. And they make do.
Geilson’s subletter “spent the whole winter without turning on the heater,” Geilson said in Portuguese. He ultimately settled for using a space heater given to him by a sympathetic coworker — but only after the subletter had fallen asleep each night.
“I only had access to the kitchen once a week,” he said. “I had to cook for the whole week.” And the living room was off limits entirely.
“It was very hard,” he said. The situation is even harder for children. Parents said their children struggled to understand the restrictions associated with a communal apartment, and expressed concerns that living in such a confined environment would hamper a critical period of development. Many parents said children can develop behavioral issues under such conditions.
“They are trapped inside the bedroom,” said Mirliane Mendes, a house cleaner and babysitter who lives with two children in Brighton, speaking in Portuguese. “It affects socializing with other people — it’s inevitable.”
Many parents said they tried to keep their children strictly confined to the bedroom — both to avoid bothering the other tenants and to keep their children safe.
Childcare also presents a constant dilemma. Parents are caught between bringing their children with them to work or leaving them in a house with people they hardly
der services at the Massachusetts Alliance of Portuguese Speakers, wrote in an emailed statement that “children growing up in these conditions are frequently left traumatized.”
“Our staff educates clients about the potential risks of sharing apartments, but unfortunately, many times families feel they have no other options, she added.” Zilda, now living in a three-bedroom apartment and working as a house cleaner, said that living in those conditions with her children, then 15 and 17,
“The
“You feel abandoned inside of a room,” she said. “Nobody speaks to anyone.”
“You don’t have a friend,” Mendes added.
‘No Questions Asked’ As serious as the mental and physical toll can be, immigrant families in overcrowded apartments also described living in fear that they might be thrown out onto the street at any moment. Because most overcrowding happens informally and without the landlord’s knowledge — frequently in violation of rental agreements or local ordinances — current and former residents described having to be especially discreet about their living arrange-
JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Heloisa M. Galvão Executive Director of the Brazilian Women’s Group
ments. If the landlord finds out, the result can be eviction.
Safi Chalfin-Smith, who works in local outreach and emergency housing assistance for the Brazilian Workers Center, said the organization frequently encounters homeless families who were forced out after they were discovered living with a relative or friend.
“Doubling up really puts people at risk of eviction,” she said.
When Zilda was evicted from her overcrowded Brighton apartment, she was panicked.
“I was scared because it was just me and my children. How was I supposed to find a house?” Zilda said. “But then my daughter began working, and helped me rent a one-bedroom apartment for us.”
The illicit subleasing can also create a dangerous incentive for both parties to keep quiet when things go wrong inside the apartment — a common occurrence, considering that many overcrowded apartments are decades old and frequently have bed bugs, mold, leaks, or malfunctioning utilities.
The tenant subletting their apartment may decide to take on the effort or expense of small repairs in the apartment to avoid calling the landlord and risking discovery of the subtenants. More severe problems like pest infestations — which are harder to address without the landlord’s help or knowledge — may simply go unaddressed.
Geilson, who is himself now subletting a room to a family for $1,200 a month, said he takes pains to keep up the apartment, like repainting the walls or repairing issues in the bathroom.
“You don’t share any of these needs with the landlord to prevent him from going there as much as possible,” he said. “This way there are no questions asked.”
‘A City With Corners’
Though overcrowding has risen substantially in recent years, most people interviewed for this article stressed that it has been a problem in the area for decades.
“This is as old as Brazilian immigration is to Boston,” said Carlos Siqueira, a professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Boston and coordinator of the Gaston Institute’s Transnational Brazilian Project.
Brazilians began moving to Allston in the 1980s, as Brazil’s economic crisis spurred a wave of immigration to the U.S. Coastal Massachusetts, with existing communities of Portuguese speakers, immediately emerged as an attractive destination.
Just as today, financial and institutional barriers to renting drove many arrivals to the neighborhood to overcrowd while they found their footing — although most at that time were single adults, not families.
Roselia Souza, a house cleaner who first came to Allston in 1986, said she shared an apartment with seven other women. They all slept on mattresses on the floor.
“We lived in a one-bedroom apartment and no one had a bed,” she said.
The Brazilian population throughout Eastern Massachusetts has continued to grow from just a few thousand in 1980 to more than 100,000 in 2017, according to figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. That figure almost certainly omits scores of immigrants living in the state without legal immigration status.
Overcrowding worsened as the
steady flow of new arrivals coincided with Boston’s growing housing shortage. Local nonprofit workers said things only escalated following the pandemic: In 2021, U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded almost 20 times as many apprehensions of Brazilians as just five years ago, in 2016.
As Brazilian immigrants came in growing numbers to Massachusetts, many found a landing pad in Allston-Brighton, which by then already housed a vibrant Portuguese-speaking community.
“It’s almost like temporary housing until they find other ways to survive in other neighborhoods,” Siqueira said.
The neighborhood is walkable and serviced by the Green Line, commuter rail, and many buses. The local Catholic church, Saint Anthony Parish, offers weekly masses in Portuguese. Several nonprofits cater specifically to Brazilians, while Brazilian restaurants, butcheries, and bakeries offer traditional meals — cooked with ingredients imported directly from home.
“It looks like where they come from,” said Galvão, who leads the
Brazilian Women’s Center. “We have an expression that says, ‘A city with corners,’ meaning you walk on the street and you find the people you know. You meet people you know and you stop and chat.”
“Allston-Brighton has that feeling for us,” she said.
Fear of Speaking Out
Advocates looking to improve substandard housing conditions for overcrowded families said they were stuck between a rock and a hard place: ask for help from the city and spark fears of eviction, or say nothing and let people continue living in cramped and dangerous conditions. Even if Boston’s Inspectional Services Department — who stressed that they would never turn any occupant out onto the street — becomes aware of overcrowding, the housing resources they ultimately connect residents to are stretched dangerously thin. And though the ISD can enforce violations of the state sanitary code, which requires 150 square feet of space for the first tenant and 100 more square feet for each addi-
ing a citation to the landlord only risks forcing residents from what may be their only option for housing. Galvão said many immigrants don’t speak up out of fears of retaliation from their landlords or getting in trouble with the city. But she encouraged residents to reach out to ISD, adding that anyone paying rent to live in an apartment, formally or not, has “all the rights of a tenant.”
“The major problem that I see is fear,” she said. “When you are fearful, you don’t raise your voice, you don’t raise your hand, you
“They
In an interview, Boston ISD’s Assistant Director of Housing Inspections Regina Hanson said that the department was meant to serve occupants threatened by unsafe conditions — not be a threat itself. She said the department does not evict occupants, does not ask about immigration status, and requires an occupant’s informed consent before even entering.
“When we go in to do the inspection, we’re looking at the violations of state sanitary code. We are not looking at people’s immigration status,” Hanson said. “Occupants are occupants.”
She added that the department would connect any displaced occupant to “wrap-around” services from the city’s housing and immigration departments. But the city’s main ways of offering housing assistance to residents — lotteried affordable units, public housing, or Section 8 vouchers — often come with yearslong wait lists. ISD itself has limited staff, making it difficult to carry out its mandated inspections of each apartment in the city every five years. Some landlords never register their rentals with the city to begin with, meaning they are never subject to a regular inspection.
In a statement, ISD Commissioner Tania del Rio said that the department inspected 25,000 apartments a year, and has recently been increasing the number of proactive inspections performed.
While Allston-Brighton sees a particularly high concentration of overcrowding, the issue persists across many areas of the city and many different demographics, including Irish and Chinese immigrants and students.
Zafiro Patiño, an organizer with the housing justice group City Life/ Vida Urbana, said she has seen overcrowded conditions all across Boston. “There are mattresses on the floor, forget about rooms,” she said. “You feel like, ‘Wow, this is happening? This is Boston?’” jack.trapanick@thecrimson.com
Heloisa M. Galvão, executive director of the Brighton-based Brazilian Women’s Group, poses for a portrait at her desk. JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Posters for immigrant rights on a door at the Brazilian Women’s Group, which offers a range of language, civic, and legal services. JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
A sign displays English and Portuguese mass times at St. Anthony Parish on Holton Street in Allston. JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Lil Xan Kicks Harvard Student, Prompting Investigation
phone before kicking him in the face. A second video appears to show the student giving Leanos the middle finger shortly before the assault started.
Nicholas Diego Leanos, a rapper known as “Lil Xan,” repeatedly struck and kicked a Harvard College sophomore in the face during the Harvard-Yale pregame at the Royale nightclub on Nov. 23, prompting the Boston Police Department to investigate an alleged aggravated assault.
In a video of the incident, Leanos can be seen repeatedly striking the student with his micro -
The student briefly lost consciousness after the assault, prompting the student’s father to call first responders to the nightclub, according to a police report of the incident. However, the student refused medical attention when the first responders arrived on scene. The ticketed event — which was co-hosted by the A.D. and Fly Clubs — has already drawn intense criticism after students were left stranded in the rain as they waited to enter the nightclub. In a statement posted on Ins-
tagram, Leanos claimed that the student attempted to touch him inappropriately while he was on stage.
“To people thinking I did what I did unprompted y’all need to chill,” Leanos wrote. “I gave him multiple warnings to stop but he did not and kept trying to touch me.”
Still, Leanos added that he feels “terrible” about his actions at the nightclub.
“Am I proud of how I acted or handled the situation? Hell no,”
Leanos wrote. “I am a human just like you and I will be doing heavy reflecting after this.”
The student declined to speak for this article or comment on Leanos’ allegations. Leanos and his management team did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Officer Michael Torigian, a spokesperson for BPD, wrote in an email to The Crimson that the investigation is still ongoing.
Leanos, an emo rapper with more than one million monthly
dous engine for both human health and economic vitality,” and the U.S.’ standing as a global leader in biomedical research “has been built on sustained funding by the federal government to support basic and translational science.”
According to some professors, labs at HMS are feeling the pressures caused by a strained budget paired with the high inflation of the past few years.
“The buying power of the dollar going down — especially in an inflationary climate — leads to very significant reductions in the ability of scientists to perform their work,” HMS professor Reza Dana said. According to the HMS deficit spending policy document, the HMS Office of Finance has placed limits on gift usage and departmental spending.
The document also stipulates that the Office of Finance produce a plan to resolve the deficit by the end of the fiscal year and work with various departments to meet mutually agreed upon targets.
Timothy T. Hla, a professor of surgery at HMS, said “it’s not getting any easier” to receive research funding, an issue he attributed to more than just inflationary pressures.
“Cost of trainees like postdocs and students have gone up a lot. Cost of supplies have gone up a lot,” Hla said.
Hla also noted that receiving an NIH grant has become increasingly difficult nationwide, with the rate of successful grant applications declining from roughly 20 percent to less than 10 percent for some institutions.
“Researchers have been squeezed from many, many different directions for so many years,”
Hla said.
A ‘Devastating’ Lab Impact
As a result of the constrained budgets, HMS scientists are pursuing a number of avenues to maintain their ability to perform high-quality research.
Hla summarized many labs’ approach to the issue as to “just work harder,” pursuing more “entrepreneur routes” — such as receiving therapeutic development funding from pharmaceutical and biotech companies or venture capital firms — rather than only relying on government grants.
HMS Microbiology professor Lee Gehrke wrote in an emailed statement to The Crimson that the decline in research budgets from the U.S. government to research universities “raises questions about the sustainability of research at private institutions, which are being asked to make up the difference through philanthropy and foundation grants.”
But the shift to privatized research funding has not come without pushback.
Earlier this year, HMS affiliates had mixed reactions to the rise of private sources of funding for HMS research, weighing the benefits of large streams of funding against potential strings attached to the sums.
Hla — whose lab is based at Boston Children’s Hospital — said HMS is a “soft money institution” — one that does not directly fund researchers, but instead requires researchers to pursue outside sources of funding, such as through the NIH.
Though labs at HMS-affiliated institutions like Boston Children’s Hospital are not directly funded by HMS, the school offers several in-
ternal funds that faculty may apply for. In addition, approximately one-third of the gifts HMS receives contain terms that require the money be used in a clinical setting or for hospital-based research.
According to Hla, state universities typically provide more hard money to its researchers, allowing them to spend less money on operational costs such as personnel and supplies.
To solve this problem, Hla said that HMS “should support the talent that they have” and invest more in its own faculty.
“If you lose the human capital, and if you stop training the next generation of biomedical investigators, that will have a devastating impact,” Hla added.
An ‘Uncertain’ Future
With Trump poised to take a second term in the White House, many at HMS are concerned that the school’s financial issues will only worsen.
The changing political landscape “just adds uncertainty to this already uncertain environment,” Dana said.
Such uncertainty “breeds a lot of anxiety,” especially in junior researchers, according to Hla.
“My fear is that the Trump administration will take unilateral action to cut NIH budgets,” Jeffrey Holt wrote in an emailed statement to The Crimson, on top of already declining funding.
For Philip A. Cole, an HMS professor of medicine, the last Trump administration’s proposed cuts for the NIH suggest a somber outlook.
While Congress did not pass the cuts, the current federal deficit could mean “more motivation on the part of folks to cut wherever
they can,” Cole said.
NIH grants typically have two components: direct costs that go to a lab’s principal investigator and indirect costs that go to an institution. Cole envisions that indirect costs in particular — which fund infrastructure, utilities, and lab renovations — could see reductions.
“They’re critical dollars for all institutions,” Cole said.
Potential consequences of such cuts could include a reduction in workforce and a change in the scale of biomedical research activity at HMS, Cole said, resulting in the school pivoting further into industrial partnerships to make up the difference.
“The pressure will be on us even more because we cannot rely on the government to the extent that we have been historically,” Dana said.
But others are hopeful that the bipartisan support for the NIH will shield the organization from the most zealous members of the new administration.
“My experience is that we always come back to the bipartisan support,” former NIH Director Elias Zerhouni said in an interview with The Crimson.
“The people, the patients, and those who talk to their legislators are saying, ‘Look, you can touch XYZ, but don’t touch my hope for a cure for my disease,” Zerhouni added.
“Scientists think they are influential. They’re not as influential as you think,” he said.
“It’s the patients that really protect the NIH.”
HMS professor Jonathan C. Kagan also points to the naturally sinusoidal nature of scientific funding.
listeners on Spotify, rose to fame with his 2017 song “Betrayed.” Leanos also made news in 2018 when he was hospitalized for consuming an excessive amount of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, the BBC reported.
BPD officers responded to the scene after receiving a radio call reporting an assault and battery at 1:38 a.m., according to a police report of the incident.
The student’s father, who was in attendance at the pregame, told police officers that Leanos “assaulted the
also noted that Royale staff members witnessed Leanos assault a second patron and a security officer before fleeing the scene. The officer filed a report for aggravated assault but did not include Leanos’s name on the report. Instead the suspect’s name is
French professional tennis player Caroline Garcia has used her offseason to enroll in Harvard Business School’s semester-long Crossover Into Business program.
With career-high rankings of No. 4 in singles and No. 2 in doubles, Garcia is the 2022 WTA Finals champion and a two-time major champion in doubles, winning the French Open women’s doubles in 2016 and 2022.
Garcia, who founded the “Tennis Insider Club” podcast with her partner Borja Durán in 2023, said in an interview with The Crimson that the opportunity to study at HBS is “perfect timing” for her personal and professional life, combining her interests in both sports and media journalism.
“I’m more at the end of my career in tennis, and I’m looking forward to expanding my knowledge outside,” she said, pointing to other professional athletes like LeBron James who have worked extensively in media.
The Crossover Into Business program, piloted by HBS professor Anita Elberse in 2017, aims to help professional athletes “develop their business acumen by working with MBA student mentors,” according to the HBS website.
Though the Crossover Into Business program was originally launched in partnership with the NBA, it has since expanded to represent athletes from a variety of sports leagues, including the WNBA, NWSL, NFL, and NHL.
This year, Garcia is one of five Hologic Women’s Tennis Associa-
tion players enrolled in the Crossover program, joining Aldila Sutjiadi, Angelina Gabueva, Fernanda Cotreras and Katarzyna Piter. Despite knowing past WTA players who have completed the program, Garcia said she “was not expecting” the opportunity to join herself.
“I got an email from WTA asking if I wanted to enter the program, which was kind of a sign,” she said. “I haven’t had the chance to go to school since my 18th because of tennis, so I felt it was a good time to go back to school and learn new things.” Elberse, who teaches the popular MBA course “The Business of Entertainment, Media and Sports,” said the mentorship in the Crossover program helps combat the “sobering” statistics of professional athletes who face financial difficulties following their fame.
“I think where it started for me was the realization that many, many athletes make a lot of money during their careers, then they lose it very quickly after their careers,” Elberse said.
The Crossover Into Business Program, in Garcia’s case, also serves as an environment separate from the “stressful” sport scene.
“The first crossover I’m doing now is quite short in time, but it was already a good success for me to put the first step in experiencing a different environment,” she said. “I’m learning a lot and meeting a lot of great people through the program, so I will be happy to keep joining the program in the future.”
District May Close K-Lo Elementary School
SHUTTERED. The Cambridge Public Schools interim superintendent suggested the district may close Kennedy-Longfellow.
BY DARCY G LIN AND EMILY T. SCHWARTZ CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Cambridge Public Schools
interim Superintendent
David G. Murphy suggested the district may close the Kennedy-Longfellow School in East Cambridge during a School Committee meeting on Tuesday.
Rumors have swirled over the past month that the district might shutter K-Lo, a kindergarten through fifth grade school which has long suffered from low test scores and under enrollment. Murphy and other CPS officials have already held at least two meetings with teachers and parents at K-Lo to discuss concerns about the school’s performance.
At each meeting, CPS officials have faced questions from teachers and parents about whether the district is planning to shut down the school. Though Murphy has remained vague about his plans, the district has promised a “final decision” by January 2025.
“Status quo cannot continue” read one slide from a district presentation to parents on Monday, calling it “an untenable situation.”
The School Committee will have the final say over whether to close the school.
Though Murphy did not explicitly advocate for shuttering the school, some School Committee members got that impression at the meeting.
“I think what you’re ultimate-
ly recommending is that K-Lo, the Kennedy-Longfellow School, be closed,” committee member David J. Weinstein told Murphy. In an email to K-Lo parents on Tuesday, Murphy acknowledged the ongoing discussions about the school’s future but wrote that K-Lo “will continue to operate through the course of the 2024-2025 school year.”
During Tuesday’s meeting, Murphy walked through the process of responsibly relocating students “in the event that we transition the Kennedy-Longfellow from its current structure as a K-5 school in a way that forces us to disperse students and staff to elsewhere in the district,” promising to put any displaced students into higher-achieving schools.
Committee members largely agreed with Murphy’s assessment that significant changes were necessary at K-Lo, with some members also suggesting that the district may need to close the school.
“As I just look at the general health of the school, I don’t understand how the school can survive,” school committee member Richard Harding, Jr. said.
The prospect of K-Lo closing has left the school’s teachers uncertain about their future employment in Cambridge — especially as the city, which is facing financial strain, prepares for belt-tightening in fiscal year 2026. Funding for Cambridge Public Schools is the single biggest line item in the city’s budgets, at $268.25 million this year.
Cambridge Educators Association President Dan Monahan, who leads Cambridge’s union for teachers, said in an interview that teachers with “professional teacher status” — those who have taught for more than three years under their professional teachers license — will likely remain employed in the district. However, teachers are not protected from layoffs caused by budgetary limitations, according to Monahan.
CPS spokesperson Lily Rivera wrote in an emailed statement on Wednesday that “the conversation regarding the Kennedy-Longfellow school and the systemic factors contributing to the schools performance is extensive and ongoing.”
Rivera said that the district expects to present its recommendations for K-Lo’s future at the Dec. 17 School Committee meeting. At Tuesday’s meeting, Murphy and the committee members said K-Lo suffered from a vicious cycle of under enrollment and an over-concentration of the district’s most vulnerable and highneeds students, which contributed to the school having a negative reputation among CPS parents.
While discussing the challenges facing K-Lo, Murphy partially blamed the city’s controlled choice system, which allows parents to rank their preferred schools for Kindergarten enrollment. The school’s poor reputation has made it the least-demanded school on average among
parents for the last 10 years.
K-Lo’s English Language Arts results on the 2024 Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System were the lowest in the district, with only 17 percent of students meeting or exceeding expectations.
The school was also an outlier in its student demographics, with high needs enrollment — which includes students who are low-income, English learners or former English learners, or who have disabilities — comprising 86 percent of students. One-fifth of students at the K-Lo are homeless,
darcy.lin@thecrimson.com
emily.schwartz@thecrimson.com
HLS Student Government Spars With Admin Over Referendum
The Harvard Law School student government is embroiled in a bitter feud with Dean of Students Stephen L. Ball over a proposed referendum to condemn the administration for taking disciplinary action against students who participated in pro-Palestine study-in protests. The dispute started after student government members and Ball clashed over scheduling and finalizing the language of the referendum, but escalated when HLS administrators deactivated the student government’s email account in response to a school-wide email that was sent without Ball’s approval. On Nov. 16, the student government passed a resolution calling for a referendum to be held within 10 business days. The referendum would ask students if they agree to condemn the bans, that “students who abide by all rules of behavior in a space cannot reasonably be punished merely for doing so as a group,” and that the suspensions “are part of Harvard’s ad hoc creation and weaponization of overbroad rules against those who speak in defense of Palestinian life.” The referendum further calls
for the library bans to be removed from students’ records and for “an end to Harvard’s use of intimidation tactics and its escalating restrictions on freedom of expression, assembly, and access to campus resources.”
However, the student government’s self-imposed deadline of 10 business days approached without Ball approving language in the email announcing the referendum. The Dean of Students Office is required to approve language in emails that the student government sends to the entire student body, per a longstanding agreement between the student government and the school. The lack of confirmation from
Ball prompted the student government’s leaders to take matters into their own hands by informing students of the referendum in an unauthorized email on Nov. 26. The email also claimed that voting would begin on Dec. 4. But the voting never started.
Instead, Ball criticized the student government’s unauthorized communication in an email to the student body on Tuesday, one day before the intended vote. In the email, he also wrote that the Dean of Students Office would work with the student government to administer the referendum after winter break.
“Before we had finalized plans for SG’s proposed communications, and without prior notice to DOS, SG emailed individual students last week announcing the referendum would proceed on Wednesday,” Ball wrote.
The referendum is currently slated for Jan. 6, 2025, according to a Law School administrator who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the matter publicly.
However, the administrators’ promises to hold the referendum have done little to quell the anger among students.
HLS student government co-presidents Déborah V. Aléxis and John M. Fossum disputed Ball’s characterization of events in a statement to The Crimson on
Wednesday.
“Student Government leadership has never had a conversation with the Dean of Students Office about a referendum date after winter break,” Aléxis and Fossum wrote. “The response to the referendum from the HLS Dean of Students office has ranged from disappointing to openly dishonest.”
Amid the referendum’s delay, more than 250 HLS students signed a petition that alleges Ball is obstructing students’ right to vote in “another unprecedented and unacceptable display of repression.”
Supporters of the referendum hung flyers around the school that read: “John Goldberg and Stephen Ball: Let us Vote!” and “Election Interference at Harvard Law”. The flyers direct readers to the petition link and provide context about the referendum and Ball’s response.
Students delivered the petition to interim HLS Dean John C.P. Goldberg in-person Wednesday evening and also emailed a copy to Ball.
Law School spokesperson Jeff Neal declined to comment for this article.
Gilbert Placeres, a member of the student government, said in an interview that Ball “doesn’t think that we are a natural student government that’s supposed to represent students that has some degree of independence.”
“He thinks that we can only do what he allows us to do, and we can only communicate the ways that he allows us to communicate,” Placeres added. The conflict between the student government and the administration caps a semester at the Law School defined by study-ins and conflict over protest guidelines. All three of the student government’s resolutions this semester have been about administrative responses to student protests. After the HLS administration disciplined protestors with library bans for their participation in study-ins in Langdell Hall, the HLS Student Government passed a resolution on Nov. 12 condemning the library-bans. The condemnation passed on a 13-1 vote, with one abstention.
Despite Ball’s pledge to hold a vote after winter break, some student government members remained pessimistic that the referendum would be allowed to happen.
“At this point, what I believe in is the ability of students to come together and to advocate for one another,” Courtney Chrystal, a member of the student government, said.
“What I am uncertain of is the ability of the Dean of Students to commit to administering it.”
Faro Cafe Faces Disciplinary Action From City for Exceeding Capacity
pacity of 24, and that staff were unaware of the limit.
Cafe owner Henry F. Hoffstot insisted that the cafe would adhere to licensing regulations going forward and designate a staff member to oversee headcount.
The promises weren’t enough for the Licensing Committee.
and DJ sets open to the public. At a Monday disciplinary hearing, a city inspector said he visited the venue in October following a noise complaint and found that the space contained 48 people, double its ca-
“It’s concerning to me that you’re operating at double your capacity,” Nicole Murati Ferrer, chair of the Licensing Committee, said. “I mean, that’s insane.” “I don’t understand how you as owner were also confused as to what your capacity was,” she added. “These are life safety issues.” The committee did not decide on consequences for the cafe. The
decision remains “under a matter of advisement,” according to Cambridge city spokesperson Jeremy Warnick.
Some students who frequent events held at Faro said they were unconcerned about the venue becoming overcrowded.
“One thing I can say for certain — it never felt unsafe,” said Sam E. Weil ’25, a Crimson Magazine editor. Eden A. Getahun ’25, who also goes to events at the cafe, agreed.
“It’s definitely packed, but I wouldn’t ever say that I felt endangered,” she said. “They’ll make it work — people stand outside and listen when there’s actual events, they do pay attention to capacity
once it gets to a certain level.”
Weil added that she enjoys Faro’s alternative to the “anxious, frenetic Harvard party culture bubble.”
“Faro is serving a real desire in Cambridge for the kind of people who care about music culture and dance culture and about convening in those shared interests, without the sense of exclusivity,” she said.
“And the fact that 48 people show up is a testament to the lack of alternative spaces, the lack of third spaces, for people to come together,” she added.
The Kennedy-Longfellow School is located at 158 Spring Street. EMILY T. SCHWARTZ — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Cambridge Considers Zoning Overhaul
BY LAUREL M. SHUGART
Cambridge officials are considering a dramatic change to the city’s zoning code in an effort to spur housing development and address what local politicians and advocates have described as a severe and far-reaching housing shortage.
The proposal would fully eliminate single-family zoning across the city, instead allowing developers to construct apartment buildings and condominiums of up to six stories anywhere in Cambridge. Currently, almost one-third of residential land in Cambridge only allows for one- or two-family homes.
If Cambridge moves forward with the proposal, it would be among the most ambitious zoning reforms approved in any American city. Local officials have framed the change as an antidote to the city’s housing crisis, granting developers more freedom to pursue larger-scale projects containing many more apartments. They have also said low density zoning is a relic of exclusionary and racist housing policies that barred residents of color and low-income residents from parts of the city.
But the rezoning has met fierce blowback from some residents,
who said the city has been unclear about what the proposal entails and worried that it will permanently disfigure Cambridge’s urban fabric. It has quickly become one of the most hot-button issues facing the City Council, which is expected to take a final vote on the proposal in the coming months.
“We all realize that we need to build more housing and affordable housing. I think we’re unified in that,” said City Councilor Catherine “Cathie” Zusy in a November meeting of the Council’s Ordinance Committee.
“The question is how to do it in a way that is in keeping with our city and less destructive to our city,” she added.
As the Council draws nearer to the crucial vote, The Crimson broke down the rezoning to explain what it means for Cambridge, and why, exactly, it has generated such controversy.
What Does the Rezoning Entail?
Nearly one-third of residential land in Cambridge is zoned for singleand two-family housing, significantly limiting the number of units that could be developed in a large part of the city. For developers to exceed these limits, they are required to secure special permission from the city in a long and often contentious process.
The zoning proposal on the table would eliminate these limits, with the goal of allowing and promoting the development of more multifamily housing — buildings with at least three units — across
Cambridge. Though multifamily developments currently comprise only 35 percent of all residential buildings in Cambridge, they contain nearly 80 percent of the city’s total housing units.
In addition to allowing multifamily developments in any area of the city, the rezoning would significantly loosen height restrictions, letting buildings stretch up to six stories at a 75-foot height limit. Advocates say relaxing zoning regulations is crucial to incentivizing more housing development.
“We are in the midst of a nationwide housing crisis driven mostly by the fact that we’re just not building enough housing, largely due to our restrictive zoning laws,” said Casey Szilagyi at a December Committee meeting.
In a September interview, Harvard Economics professor Jason Furman ’99, a former chair of the Council of Economics Advisors under President Barack Obama, said the proposal comes amid an increased nationwide focus on housing availability.
“You’re seeing more YIMBY enthusiasm from Democrats nationwide and just an increased focus on supply, and you can’t have supply without building, and you can’t have building without zoning reform,” Furman said.
But increasing the size of developments without the need for special permission from the city has set off alarm bells for some residents, who say the city needs to better regulate the size and style of new buildings.
“I think design review is an es-
sential part of the process, both for residents, for zoning administrators, and for the planning department to each have a say in what is built,” said John LaFreniere, who has worked as an architect in Cambridge for more than 30 years.
Though fewer developments would have to file for a special permit, Community Development Department Zoning Director Jeff Roberts stressed that there will still be project oversight from the city under the proposed zoning.
“I think there’s a misconception that everything that gets built is subject to design review, which usually it’s not,” Roberts said, adding that many often conflate having to apply for a special permit from the city with “design review.”
Instead, developments will fall under the CDD’s project review process, which requires an advisory development consultation with city staff.
The proposal would also loosen a number of other requirements — including the amount of space between a building and its property line — to allow for “rowhouse” style developments. Instead, space between buildings would be regulated by building and fire codes.
How Will It Impact Cambridge?
In interviews, city officials said they project that the change will lead to roughly 1,600 new units by 2030. That projection amounts to a 2.76 percent increase to the city’s total housing units, which currently number roughly 58,000.
“It’s a small fraction of our total
housing stocks, so I think that to put that in context is really important for folks,” said CDD Chief of Planning Strategy Melissa Peters.
But Peters acknowledged that the city’s estimates are somewhat shaky, and that the true impact depends on where developers choose to buy land and break ground.
“It’s difficult to know where that will be and in what neighborhoods and how fast that will happen, but that is our estimate to give people an idea of the impact.” she said.
Unlike Cambridge’s last zoning overhaul — a policy, known as the Affordable Housing Overlay, allowing for even taller buildings containing only affordable housing — this change makes no explicit mention of affordability.
Still, the city’s zoning code requires all developments with at least 1o units to set aside a fraction for income-restricted affordable housing.
City staff said they are trying to strike a balance between allowing for market-rate developments, which tend to be far more profitable, while still incentivizing developers to build affordable housing under the AHO.
“As we have worked on developing the zoning for multifamily housing that is encouraging market rate development, we have tried really hard to make sure that we are not making things problematic for AHO developments,” said Assistant City Manager Iram Farooq.
Why Are Some Residents So Upset?
Though Cambridge residents agree for the most part that the city needs more housing, the proposal has been met with fiery resistance from some quarters, who’ve said in lengthy public meetings that the city is moving too fast without considering the rezoning’s impact.
Chief among their concerns is the fear that indiscriminately allowing six-story buildings anywhere in Cambridge would disrupt the low-density character of much of the city.
“Everybody will agree that maybe we should have some multifamily housing everywhere, but it should fit the character of the neighborhood,” said John Hanratty, a member of Cambridge Voters for Good Government, a group that has largely voiced opposition to the zoning.
But Justin N. Saif ’99, a co-chair of pro-housing advocacy group A Better Cambridge, said it was a small price to pay to address the city’s housing crunch. I think a little bit of inconvenience or not wanting to see a tall building pales in comparison to the importance of Cambridge families
having stable housing,” Saif said. Other local advocates have raised concerns that the proposal — rather than increasing and preserving specifically affordable housing — would displace residents living in market-rate housing whose rents happen to be affordable for a range of incomes. Many of these units exist in smaller buildings, often in neighborhoods that are currently zoned for single- and two-family.
“The biggest concern that we have is that it would encourage tearing down older, existing, socalled ‘naturally occurring’ affordable housing,” said Lee Farris, president of the Cambridge Residents’ Alliance.
Jeremey Mendelson, a member of the Boston Democratic Socialist of America’s Cambridge Working Group, echoed this sentiment, stressing that there needs to be increased support for residents who are displaced as a result of this zoning.
“Let’s say you tear down a triple decker, and there’s three families living there. Then you build a building that is going to have more than three units,” Mendelsen said, “But those people, what happens to those people?”
But though the city has not projected the proposal’s impact on naturally occurring affordable units, officials say that these units will not remain affordable forever.
“Those properties will eventually turn over, and high housing costs provide an incentive for developers and investors to renovate and reposition this housing at market rates without affordability protections,” CDD staff wrote in a Frequently Asked Questions document, noting that these units have continued to decline.
What’s Next?
The rezoning, which has already been discussed in a series of public meetings, still has to jump through several hoops before it is finalized.
The Cambridge Planning Board will convene on Dec. 17, where it is expected to vote on a nonbinding recommendation to give to the City Council. In previous meetings — despite substantial pushback from some attendees — the board members seemed tentatively sympathetic towards the proposal. The City Council’s Ordinance Committee met Wednesday,
Don’t Forget About the Faculty Senate
for greater involvement in University decision-making. But the creation of the council shouldn’t stall the campaign for a more formal body to represent the faculty.
As Harvard’s leadership crisis made clear, the University needs leadership insulated from donor influence and other outside pressures to uphold its core values. That’s why we support the creation of a faculty senate, a formal body composed of faculty members elected by their peers.
Harvard’s faculty just got more say in its governance. It could obstruct its push for greater influence.
Late last month, University President Alan M. Garber ’76 announced that he will convene a council of faculty advisers in an apparent attempt to placate Harvard’s faculty amid calls for the creation of a faculty senate.
The council seems a step in the right direction. More faculty input is better than less, and we are glad that Garber appears to be heeding professors’ calls
Faculty consensus, gathered through a representative body, would help steer Harvard through the rocky waters still to come. Insofar as the faculty council shares the virtues of a senate — or paves the way for its creation — we’re in support.
But as proposed, a few flaws with the faculty council concern us. For one, it’s hardly guaranteed to be representative. Harvard’s faculty is large — over a thousand strong across the twelve schools. A small group of
15 to 20 faculty — more than two times smaller than the proposed faculty senate’s planning committee — can’t hope to properly represent that diversity.
That’s doubly true given the proposed selection process. Members of the new body will be nominated by their schools’ deans, who are themselves selected by the University’s top leadership. Deans and administrators should not have such control over a body meant to reflect faculty opinion.
We had hoped that more faculty participation in University governance would do away with the panoply of task forces assembled over the past year.
As a group with nebulous advisory responsibilities and dean-selected membership, the faculty council looks rather like a task force itself — a worrying prospect.These issues notwithstanding, much remains to be seen. At present, we don’t know when the faculty council will be selected or when it will meet. We don’t know the extent of their actual influence. All that seems guaranteed is a two-year trial
period, after which the effectiveness of the council will be evaluated. In any event, it remains clear to us that an empowered, representative faculty senate could give Harvard a feel of the faculty’s pulse on the myriad hot-button issues currently facing the University. The faculty council — while a nice start — shouldn’t slake the faculty’s thirst for real representation. So let’s call the faculty council what it is. It’s a good, albeit slightly flawed, avenue for faculty governance — not the faculty senate’s replacement.
What Our Editors Are Thankful For
TURKEYS AND GRATITUDE. This week, students returned from Thanksgiving break. In the spirit of gratitude, we asked our editors to reflect on what they feel thankful for at Harvard.
BY THE CRIMSON EDITORIAL BOARD
This week, students return from Thanksgiving break, flocking to once-empty dining halls and (hopefully) attending the last stretch of lectures before the winter recess. In the spirit of gratitude, we asked our editors to reflect on what they feel thankful for at Harvard.
—Tommy Barone ’25 and Jacob M. Miller ’25, Editorial Chairs
I am thankful for the Charles.
—Violet T.M. Barron ’26, Associate Editorial editor
I am thankful for Plympton Street: home of The Harvard Crimson and, more importantly, Blue Bottle Coffee.
—McKenna E. McKrell ’26, Associate Editorial editor
I am thankful for the Music Building, Black Sheep Bagel Cafe, and my friends, who are always willing to sit beside me on Winthrop’s wooden dorm floors while we listen to music.
—Jasmine N. Wynn ’27, Crimson Editorial editor
I am thankful for a finally functional, slow zone-free Red Line.
—Clyve Lawrence ’25-’27, Crimson Editorial editor
I’m thankful for the countless people who make life here possible. For Harvard’s custodians, dining hall workers, and teaching fellows. For my parents, grandparents, tías, and tíos. For my blockmates and friends. For my twin sister. For community and family, blood-related or otherwise.
—E. Matteo Diaz ’27, Crimson Editorial Comp Director
I am thankful for Mather House.
—Nuriel R. Vera-DeGraff ’26, Crimson Editorial editor
I am thankful for Eliot House, Texas, and all the people that make these places home.
—Kawsar Yasin ’26, Crimson Editorial editor
I’m endlessly thankful for brilliantly stupid late-night
dining hall conversations, formals season making finals season bearable every semester, house grille milkshakes, and our red brick building on Plympton Street that I have been lucky enough to find myself in for the last three years on campus with the lovely people who I now call my friends.
—Hailey E. Krasnikov ’25, Crimson Diversity and Inclusion Chair
This Thanksgiving, I’m especially thankful for the Currier House staff. All the little things they do to make us feel welcome do not go unnoticed.
—Max A. Palys ’26, Associate Editorial editor I’m thankful for the continuous supply of lucky charms at Brain Break.
—M. Austen Wyche ’27, Crimson Editorial editor
This Thanksgiving, I am grateful for all the Teaching Fellows and Course Assistants whom I constantly hunt down for help (answers). Your aid in my learning is essential.
—Dalevyon L.J. Knight ’27, Crimson Editorial editor I have adored serving as Editorial Chair of The Crimson this past year like nothing else. I’ve adored working with my co-chair Jacob, our president Sellers, and the dozens of bright, thoughtful, funny people that make our section run. I’ve adored seeing the young members of this team grow into leaders I can be glad to hand this board over to. I’ve adored poring over coverage I earnestly believe makes this campus a better place. But I have to say: This Thanksgiving, I was thankful the job is almost done.
—Tommy Barone ’25, Editorial Chair
I am thankful for the opportunity to have so many incredible and insightful conversations across campus, including with fellow members of the Editorial Board! And, as always, I am grateful for the unconditional support of my friends and family.
—Sandhya Kumar ’26, Crimson Editorial editor
This Thanksgiving season I am especially thankful for my family back home, my peers on the Editorial Board, and the Eliot House community — undoubtedly the best house on campus.
—Henry P. Moss, IV ’26, Crimson Editorial editor I am thankful for the various tall places on our lovely campus, perfect for people-watching.
—Julia S. Dan ’26, Associate Editorial editor
BY ISAAC R. MANSELL
In the 1920s, Canada had a problem: fears of an American invasion. Their solution? Defence Scheme No. 1, a pre-emptive battle plan devised by Lieutenant Colonel James “Buster” Sutherland Brown. (Covertly dispatched to Vermont, he observed that his American adversaries were surprisingly affable and harbored a Prohibition-fueled thirst for Canadian beer.)
A century later, tensions are once again flaring. Last month, President-elect Donald Trump threatened a 25 percent tariff on all Canadian goods. And, as a Canadian who’s spent two and a half years navigating the States, I feel struck by the same calling that must have driven Buster. Consider me a modern-day reconnaissance agent, embedded among Cantabrigians in their natural habitats: Trader Joe’s, bleak General Education classes, and brain breaks. My verdict? Americans have no idea what Canada really is. Look no further than Harvard’s campus, where
Canadians exist in a bizarre liminal space: too familiar to be intriguing, yet just foreign enough to prompt weird questions. We blend in seamlessly until someone hears us pronounce “pasta” or “been” (or, God forbid, “garburator”), and suddenly our Canadian identity is revealed.
“What’s poutine like?” “Imagine still having a monarch…” “Why is your milk in a bag?” And we answer politely, while calculating whether it’s worth explaining the metric system or that Toronto is not, in fact, a province. The real insult, however, is Harvard’s course catalog. A search for “Canada” yields a paltry 11 results, including a course featuring Geoffrey Canada (great guy, different Canada).
By comparison, Brazil boasts 32 results, and Turkey gets 13 if you chuck in results for Ottoman too. Among G7 nations, Canada ranks dead last in Harvard course search results. That’s on par with lowly Australia, which is basically just a distant, warmer, and less populated Canada.
Despite these meager academic offerings, Canadians are only growing more ubiquitous on campus. In the class of 2027, 44 Canadians were admit-
ted. By 2028, that number skyrocketed to 78. Look to your left. Look to your right. Do this 10 times, and odds are you’ll spot someone daydreaming of the Great White North. At this rate, we’ll eclipse the American portion of the student body by 2030.
But misconceptions about Canada aren’t limited to the ivory tower. The right imagines us as a socialist hellscape where Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — Fidel Castro’s long-lost son — confiscates guns, bans free speech, and doles out low-quality universal healthcare while euthanizing so-called free thinkers en masse.
And the left, who periodically threaten to escape northward when things don’t go their way, sees us as an aspirational utopia where guns, capitalism, and anything remotely resembling freedom have long gone extinct.
Neither depiction is accurate. Canada is largely a normal, functional country with more coastline than every other nation combined.
So how can Americans better understand their sparsely-populated northern neighbor? Perhaps Harvard, the People’s University, is the perfect place to start. It’s time we offer courses like “What
Aboot Canada, Eh?” or “Garrison Mentality: Examining U.S.-Canada Relations.”
If courses aren’t your thing, do not fear — there are plenty of ways to get your Canada fix. Watch Vancouverite YouTuber J.J. McCullough, road trip to the Maritimes with friends, or try sneaking across the northern border (brush up on your curling slang to blend in). In fact, you might have already accidentally befriended a Canadian — they’re the one who walks into Dunkin’ and wistfully asks for a double-double.
Of course, there’s always plan B: annexation.
The US could easily become the 11th province. Consider the perks — mediocre universal healthcare, territorial contiguity with Alaska, and hockey rivalries that actually make sense. Sure, you’d have to give up gallons for liters and Fahrenheit for Celsius, but isn’t that a small price to pay for cultural enlightenment? Don’t worry, we’ll even throw in some Timbits.
JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
By Punishing Protesters, Harvard Has Forgotten Its Values
BY CHARLES R. NESSON
By punishing students participating in this semester’s “study-in” protests, Harvard has compromised its core academic mission.
Harvard purports to strive for fairness and respect for our diverse academic community. But the University’s selective application of its new rules about demonstrations, particularly in the case of this semester’s study-ins, signal that Harvard has bent the knee to outside forces. When enforcement of policy strays from its guiding purpose of fostering a safe and nurturing learning environment, the University should instead err on the side of benevolent negligence.
The silent study-ins, which sought to draw attention to the conflict in Gaza, adhered to a high standard of respect for the solemnity of the library. Still, Harvard chose to enforce its rules against “demonstrations,” temporarily banning more than 70 students and dozens of faculty from libraries across campus.
To be sure, rules and norms are meant to maintain order in shared spaces. A library, by its nature, demands quiet respect. But enforcing these rules should take more than the bare letter of the law into account.
A better approach would embrace the principle of radical empathy, seeking to understand and appreciate the motivations of those who might technically violate a rule but do so in a way that aligns with that rule’s underlying values. In the case of the study-in protesters, their actions aligned with rules governing general library use — silently reading is perhaps the quintessential library function.
In response to the study-ins, Harvard administrators conducted ID checks and disciplined students and faculty alike for silent, non-disruptive protest. If anything, it was not the protesters but University administration that ultimately created the greatest disturbance in our libraries.
A reaction like a statement reaffirming the importance of a quiet library while acknowledging the non-disruptive nature of the protest would
It’s Time for Harvard Students To Pick Up a Book
BY CLAIRE V. MILLER
When was the last time you read a book cover to cover?
For me, a prospective English concentrator, it was last week. But ask my peers in other concentrations and you’re more likely to get a shrug.
Harvard students complain about readings constantly. They lament any assignments requiring they conquer more than twenty-five pages as tedious or overwhelming (if they aren’t passing the work off to ChatGPT). It’s far too rare that we’re assigned a full book to read and rarer still that we actually finish them. Literature is worryingly absent from many Harvard students’ course of study. My proposal? The College should instate a new requirement: an English course. Though it’s true that the College requires all students to engage with the liberal arts through the Arts and Humanities and Expository Writing requirements, literature courses have fallen by the wayside. It’s entirely conceivable that students could graduate Harvard College without having read a book of fiction in full. Case in point: A number of Expository Writing courses don’t require students to read whole novels. The same is true for many classes that satisfy the Arts and Humanities requirement. Courses like these are still deeply valuable, but they cannot replace the study of literature. No other medium offers the opportunity to engage deliberately with moral ambiguity quite like literature. Fiction allows us to stop and recognize a problem where we might not have otherwise. It requires that readers attempt to understand uncomfortable truths and sympathetic villains. Through reading fiction, students find their own answers to these questions. As such, our aversion to literature results in a collective inability to engage in challenging conversations and disagreements — and puts at risk the University’s new favorite project of “intellectual vitality.” Taking an English class at Harvard doesn’t just expand your perspective — it’s also enjoyable. The courses are personal; professors encourage their students to ask questions and disagree with them. Unlike my typical Harvard section which seems to always be filled with dis-
engaged students obsessively checking the clock as they count down the minutes until they can race out the door, my English section is ripe with thought-provoking conversations.
Some argue, rightly, that the decline in reading books stems from inadequate reading requirements in high school rather than college curricular shortcomings. But it is exactly for this reason that Harvard has an obligation to its students to reinvigorate their respect for literature.
The current Quantitative Reasoning with Data requirement offers a model for a potential English requirement. To fulfill the QRD, students can take anything from ASTRON 2: “Celestial Navigation” to ECON 1123: “Introduction to Econometrics.” Similarly, a required English class would not need to be one-size-fits-all — Harvard could create literary offerings targeted to those interested in medicine, law, math, or history to ensure the requirement is engaging for students who may not have signed up for a traditional English course otherwise.
Classes that fulfill the requirement need not overwhelm students with a book every week like Humanities 10: “A Humanities Colloquium.” Assigning a few novels and teaching them well is all it takes to cultivate an appreciation for literature.
And yes, I am well aware of the fact that many people don’t like reading — and that a required course may not change their minds. It’s perfectly acceptable to not enjoy reading, just as I don’t find joy in doing three problem sets a week for a calculus class.
However, education is not about simply liking what you’re learning; requirements give us a necessary well-rounded education. Through this course, more Harvard students would begin to see the merits of both reading and humanities, and perhaps might open to reading a book for pleasure in the future.
Every night, my friends and I sprawl across the couches of the Cabot Science Library. While I read whatever novel was assigned to me that week, they look over jealously, remarking on how cool it is that I have actual books in my backpack.
Reading physical books shouldn’t feel so foreign to Harvard students. An English requirement would go a long way to change that.
have better harmonized Harvard’s goals of fostering an inclusive educational community and allowing students to respectfully express their beliefs. This kind of approach would have emphasized the spirit of the rule — permitting dialogue while recognizing that certain spaces require expressive restraint — rather than relying solely on punitive measures to do so.
Harvard’s fixation on punishment extends beyond a single incident. Barring unapproved signage, banning chalking, and prohibiting amplified noise without prior approval all point toward a University more interested in regulation than dialogue.
This focus on enforcement risks alienating its own academic community by prioritizing external perceptions — whether that be congressional investigations, donor pressure, or other outside actors — over internal integrity. Decisions that appear to cater to external audiences undermine the trust students and faculty place in the institution to foster open, challenging, and authentic discourse.
Instead of rigidly adhering to its rulebook, Har -
vard should focus on creating structured opportunities for dialogue around divisive issues. By ensuring such conversations remain central to its mission, the University can model the kind of intellectual growth and respect it aims to teach. Harvard’s prosecutorial response to the student and faculty study-ins reflects its priorities as an institution. Moving forward, will it focus on enforcing rules in ways that earn external approval? Or will it embrace its responsibility to cultivate a community where intellectual exploration thrives?
In exacting punishments — or choosing not to — Harvard must balance enforcement with empathy, discretion with understanding, and order with the values that underpin Harvard’s educational mission. In doing so, Harvard can reaffirm its role as a place where students and faculty learn not only from each other but also from the challenges and complexities of our world.
The Season of Sickness is Here
BY M. AUSTEN WYCHE
The season of sickness is upon us. College students are constantly in contact with others. From attending packed lectures and sitting alongside one another in the dining hall to sharing a glass at a party, we are constantly exchanging germs.
The result of this lifestyle — as The Crimson reported earlier this year — is that our campus has faced high rates of respiratory illnesses, including the flu, Covid-19, and RSV. There is nothing the college can do to prevent all illnesses — but it is Harvard’s responsibility to ensure students can still learn without infecting their classmates. Currently, Harvard lacks sufficient academic accommodations for sick students. For lectures that are not recorded, the choice is either to miss class and fall behind or attend in person and potentially infect classmates. In a population of grade-obsessed students — which Harvard certainly is — the academic incentive to attend class ensures that your lecture hall will always be filled with coughs and sniffles.
There are a couple of avenues Harvard can pursue. For starters, Harvard should institute mandatory live recording of lectures and offer them to students with valid claims of illness, allowing them to watch lectures in real time from their dorm. To discourage abuse of the policy, professors should limit the number of recorded lectures distributed to a particular student before an official doctor’s note is required.
Or, professors could adopt the model from Economics 1010A: “Intermediate Microeconomics.” The class does not require attendance, but it provides bonus points for those who attend more than 75 percent of lectures. This way, students have an incentive to attend lecture without reason to abuse the policy. For non-lecture based seminars, the solution should be the same — just with higher attendance requirements.
Alongside recording lectures live and adjusting attendance policies, professors should consider offering more virtual office hours. Doing so would allow sick students to stay up to date on their work and generally enhance accessibility for students who can’t always attend in person. To make sure ill students are still engaged, professors could further implement virtual discussion posts or other forms of attendance vali-
dation. Such an approach has benefits outside of just monitoring sick students, too — checks ensure students broadly are digesting course material. On a campus that lacks quality air conditioning in most dorms, students are inevitably at a higher risk of contracting respiratory illnesses. Because the risk of Covid-19 infection is higher in poorly ventilated areas, Harvard should consider putting air conditioning in dorms and common spaces. If Harvard plans to continue the policy of no ventilation in dorms, University administrators should prepare for the consequences.
Above all else, the burden of protecting our campus from illness falls on students, too — as the Editorial Board has noted, simple measures like covering your mouth, staying home, and taking Covid-19 tests are probably a good idea when you aren’t feeling well. We must call on the University — and other students — to take proactive measures protecting our student body. Our University has an obligation to protect each and every Harvard affiliate’s mental, physical, and emotional health. Strict attendance policies that force sick students into crowded classrooms are more than just irresponsible — they are unethical.
Until solutions are implemented, the perpetual cycle will continue. One student gets sick, and — on account of strict attendance policies — is forced to attend class. Inevitably, another student becomes ill, and the cycle continues. It is past time Harvard takes action and mandates policies that prevent the willful spread of disease. At the core of this issue lies the inarguable principle that universities should be healthy and
FRANK S. ZHOU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
‘Long Live’ (Anna and Allison’s Version)
We, the Arts Chairs of the 151st Guard of The Harvard Crimson, write to you from our impending dinohood, reflecting back on our time at this infamous red-brick building. Though we didn’t know each other yet, we both had a calling to spend our Monday evenings at 14 Plympton Street during our freshman year. While neither of us had previous journalistic experience, Sofia Andrade, Arts Chair and Comp Director emeritus, took us under her wing and enticed us to comp with tales of glamorous film festivals and selfies with Timothée Chalamet.
Arts pitch meetings introduced us to the exciting world of arts criticism and gave us an outlet to write about anything from music reviews, like TWICE or Radiohead’s newest single, to the resurgence of in-person theater or What the Hell Happened with West Elm Caleb. Yet, what we truly fell in love with was the community here at Crimson Arts. Kalos K. Chu’s “Frozen”themed birthday pitch meeting and the space cowboy-themed Fringe Prom showed us that Crim-
son Arts shows up for lovers of the arts — musicians, dancers, readers, film and TV connoisseurs, and, of course, the musical theater kids. Then came Grand Elections: a rite of passage, especially for members of the Arts board. We scavenged. We roasted. We toasted. We consumed what little pizza there was. And most importantly, we became the newest staff writers of the Arts board. We also, coincidentally, ended up right next to each other in our board photo, almost like it was meant to be. Motivated by our love for “Dancing with the Stars” and Taylor Swift’s “evermore,” we decided to shoot for Comp Director and Arts executive positions — eventually, we found ourselves spending Mondays and Wednesdays at 14P. Comp directing was a chance to connect with new writers and pass on wisdom, an opportunity to make Crimson Arts a welcoming home to compers and watch them fall in love with a space that’s been so good to us. Our Arts Chairs, Anya L. Henry and Alisa S. Regassa, guided us through exec-dom, from pitching and editing to liaising with press reps. The Music section enjoyed a prosperous time, publishing a wide range of festival coverage like Boston Calling and Re:SET Boston alongside thinkpieces, reviews, and profiles of musicians from
a variety of genres. The Campus Arts section also reached new horizons with the addition of Metro Arts, giving voice and visibility to all the talented local artists in Boston and Cambridge.
In the second half of our exec term, all of the Arts board huddled together on the rooftop, mesmerized by “Twilight.” There, Jen A. Hughes, a prolific music writer and K-pop fan, taught us the intricacies of the Twilight love triangle and inspired a fervent love for the film among the board.
Once we stepped into chairdom, our first act in our new roles was lifting the infamous ban on Taylor Swift’s music at production nights, playing “Red (Taylor’s Version)” for the entire newsroom to hear. While we encountered a slew of unexpected challenges early in our time as chairs, we leaned on each other and came “back stronger than a ’90s trend.”
From the Flower Power social and the space opera-themed Fringe Prom, to endless production nights, we spent almost every waking moment surrounded by the vibrant Arts community — and occasionally with friends from other boards, including Design, Fifteen Minutes, Flyby, Multimedia, and Tech.
Despite our hectic schedule full of Arts Chair responsibilities, we managed to find moments of
Snowport: Winter Festivities
BY LESHUI (JADE) XIAO CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
spirit awakens in Boston’s Seaport. Under glistening lights and ornate mistletoe archways, exuberant visitors bundled in their cozy winter jackets traverse the winter wonderland of Seaport’s annual holiday transformation. The delectable smells of rich hot chocolate and comforting apple cider saturate the air with their sweet perfumes, along with the diverse variety of delicious dishes from vendors that surround the bustling gathering space. Beyond the decadent treats, a multitude of unique, welcoming shops greet the visitors as festive tunes resonate through the entire Holiday Market at Snowport. Now in its fourth rendition since its inauguration in the winter of 2021, Snowport returns as a joyous epicenter of holiday cheer and community celebration. With over 120 business, 17 dining options, and many holiday-themed events, Snowport offers a dazzling array of seasonal festivities and animates the city. As one steps through the glimmering gates, the urban scenery transforms into a fantastical wonderland of vibrant decorations and a cheerful atmosphere. Any dreariness from life’s frigid monotony dissipates among the majestic lights and eager chatter. Along the market’s perimeter, bustling food stalls serve a great variety of heartwarming meals that vanquish the cold air. Visitors and pets alike wait
eagerly in line for sweet waffles, sugary festive drinks, and satisfying soups, to name a few specialties. Huddled around their delicious meals and glancing around at the cheery scene, visitors fill the open-air lounge and the heated tent with satisfied smiles.
Promenading further into the marketplace, visitors peruse brightly lit stalls and shops, eagerly searching for unique holiday presents and trinkets. From boutique clothing to handmade décor and gourmet dessert vendors, there is an endless sea of charming storefronts to wander through. Such a wide, diverse range of unique small businesses adds yet another dimension of novelty and excitement to Snowport. For Michaela McGee, who currently works at participating business Love and Flour but has visited Snowport as a guest in years past, one of her personal favorite aspects of the Winter Market is finding unique Christmas presents.
“Being able to shop in a place that’s authentic and creative is definitely up my alley,” McGee said.
Snowport’s curated marketplace particularly uplifts local small businesses. With 65 percent of the vendors being local to New England and 22 percent being new to the market, Snowport offers an invaluable opportunity for visitors to grow acquainted with these businesses and for the companies to gain traction and exposure.
“It’s the busiest thing and the most exposure we can get as a small business in the area,” Rosaline Hansen, the owner of Pet Wants Newton, said. The market also presents a multitude of engaging free activi-
ties, such as a photo set with a festive decorated background and a chalkboard Winter Wish Wall on which visitors are encouraged to doodle or add holiday wellwishes. Snowport also offers activities such as Curling Lanes, the Betty the Yeti Bar Crawls, and a Crafting Corner that captivates the visitors’ attention and brings the community together despite the winter chills.
The principal aspiration of Snowport’s organizers is to uplift the city and be an enlivening source of “fun and cheer,” according to onsite general manager Olivier Miller.
“The thing I try to strive to provide is to create a very polished and whimsical atmosphere where the seams aren’t showing too much,” Miller said.
The effort to foster community connections permeates throughout the festival. The holiday cheer animates the entire market, and at every turn, there is lively chatter and laughter. Alyssa Lannan at Melsy’s Illustration cited the people as her favorite part of Snowport thus far, and that the event is truly “about the community more than anything.”
“People are wonderful. They’re in a festive, happy, holiday mood. They’re having a good time. So it’s a really positive environment to be in,” Hansen said.
Bringing Boston together in a cheerful, festive wonderland, Snowport vividly ushers in the holiday spirit and intimately connects the local community.
Snowport is open daily through Dec. 29 in the Boston Seaport Neighborhood.
jade.xiao@thecrimson.com
joy and continued to write for our beloved board. Our boundless creativity manifested in album and concert reviews, live performance reviews, and even some co-written vignettes. Together, we talked about music for Women’s History Month, candy from our childhood, and music we’re thankful for. Writing is, of course, central to our board and has been a way for us to reconnect with our Arts origins.
For our final production night of the year — in true Arts fashion — we blasted the new “Wicked” soundtrack, with a few brave souls singing their hearts out across the newsroom. We even considered replacing our beloved Arts mascot Timothée Chalamet with the in-
ternet’s latest obsession: Jonathan Bailey. As we near the end of our tenure, we want to thank all of the people who have shaped Crimson Arts into what
Thank
our compers, who dominate the Top
Most Read, and thank you to our staff writers, who express their passion for the arts through
nalism and provide no shortage of content for us to proof. Thank you to the Managing Editor for your guidance. And
anna.moiseieva@thecrimson.com
allison.park@thecrimson.com
ADDISON Y. LIU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Jenn Tran on Fame, Family, and Finding Somebody
‘THE BACHELORETTE’ star Jenn Tran spoke with The Crimson about her journey from being a pediatrician at Tufts Medical Center to becoming the reality TV franchise’s first Asian American star. “This whole year has been really crazy,” she said.
BY ANGELINA X. NG CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Just over a year ago, Jenn Tran was in her pediatric rotation at Tufts Medical Center, studying to become a physician’s assistant. But interviewing her over Zoom, it’s hard to imagine that she was taking kids’ blood pressures and administering physicals that recently. It feels a world away from the woman who first graced TV screens this January as a contestant on “The Bachelor,” starred in her own season of “The Bachelorette,” and then took a turn (or two!) on “Dancing with the Stars.” Tran agreed with this assessment.
“This whole year has been really crazy,” she said. Tran was first invited to interview for “The Bachelor” after a producer reached out to her about her TikToks on studying to become a physician’s assistant, but making the actual decision to join the cast “was really hard.”
“I didn’t want to just go on a TV show,” Tran said, “unless I really thought that I could find somebody.”
As it is, Tran’s journey to “find somebody” is now heavily documented for the world to see. It’s chronicled most obviously in her season of “The Bachelorette,” the franchise where she sought out a fiance
from a cast of potential suitors over the course of nine weeks.
In her “Bachelorette” season, Tran was the first Asian American to lead “The Bachelor” franchise, male or female. It’s a distinction that she did not take lightly, and Tran was insistent on showcasing her Vietnamese heritage throughout the show, even though her family themselves didn’t fully understand the concept of reality TV.
“[My family] thought I was crazy,” Tran said with a laugh. “They thought I was getting kidnapped, the first time when I was going on ‘The Bachelor.’ They were like, ‘No way you’re going on a TV show!’” Even so, they were gradually won over, and Tran’s mother and brother even appeared in the final episode of “The Bachelorette.” Though her mother had studied English in preparation for the show, Tran was determined that her family be portrayed as authentically as possible, and she wanted to include her conversations with her mother in Vietnamese.
“This is my life, and I want it to be as authentic to me as possible. So I was excited that we were able to speak Vietnamese, and we were able to have a translator on set so that people could understand her,” Tran said. “That was the first time I’ve ever seen Vietnamese being spoken on television.” There is another precedent
that Tran has set within “The Bachelorette” history, though it’s not something she’ll be particularly proud of. In a nowinfamous finale, it was revealed that her engagement to the winner, Devin Strader, was broken off just months after filming concluded.
Because each finale is three hours long and includes a live broadcast, audience members — both in the studio and seated at home — watched as Tran broke down sobbing before confronting Strader for the first time since breaking off their engagement, all while she watched a recording of herself proposing to him. For a dating franchise in a genre already criticized for humiliating and exploiting its participants, the finale proved the final straw for some viewers, who called it “absolutely cruel and unnecessary,” according to @benhigggi on X.
This dissonance of reality and television was the most difficult aspect of the show for Tran to handle, as she had to promote the show on social media even when “things weren’t great at home.”
“I didn’t know how things were gonna end for the longest time in real life versus what was being shown on TV,” Tran said. “It was hard to go through a heartbreak and rewatch your love story.”
Even before the finale, Tran had to contend with the public’s opinions on her roman -
tic choices as she sent suitors packing — a decision that is usually reserved for the sphere of one’s personal life. As her season aired, she found herself having “to put [her] phone down” because of the constant feedback loop on social media.
“They were really ripping me apart a lot of the time,” Tran said. “And you know, at the end of the day, I had to realize that that’s what I signed up for, being on reality TV. People want to make a spectacle of your life. They don’t understand a lot of the times that it is your life. You’re not just a character on a TV show.”
Despite this struggle, Tran drew strength from the public and her family alike. On Sept. 7, just four days after the dramatic finale aired, she threw the first pitch at the Red Sox game in Fenway Park.
“I really felt like I came home after the finale,” Tran said. “I had my friends and family there, and then everybody [at Fenway] was cheering for me, and that was exactly what I had needed after going through a very publicly devastating moment.”
As someone who has lived and worked in Boston, Tran felt that Fenway held a special place in her heart, which only made the experience more surreal.
“I’ve always wanted to get engaged at Fenway Park and have a private dinner there,”
Saus Review: The Taste of Comfort
BY MAKAYLA I. GATHERS CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Tucked away between dimly lit bars on Boston’s Union Street, a zesty little restaurant glows in the night. Just a short walk from the Government Center MBTA Station, this restaurant promises an exploration of unique flavors and a tender, home-like customer service experience. The menu has the classics: chicken sandwiches, burgers, hot dogs, and salads. But each dish has its own twist, incorporating the taste of kimchi or cool ranch
chips into the staples. The two stand-outs are the poutine and the menu of dipping “Saus,” including categories like “The Mayos,” “The Vegans,” and “The Misfits.” The wait for the food is not long at all, especially considering how much attention must be paid to masterfully assemble all of the pieces of each dish. The well-seasoned beef of their messy chili-cheese burger mixes perfectly with the tanginess of cool ranch chips, while the cheese seals the whole creation together. Falling apart in your hand, the burger lives up to its name, proving that neatness
is irrelevant when something tastes that good. While satisfying by itself, finding your favorite “Dipping Saus” for the burger can make the next bite go from good to great.
The “Secret Saus” is a great pick for any menu item. With a mayo base, the sauce is creamy yet complimented with a spicefilled, smoky flavor. Likewise, the Truffle Ketchup is showstopping, taking a simple ketchup and fries to a Michelin-star-level tasting experience. The MVP of the meal is, without a doubt, the poutine. The poutine features crispy hand-cut
fries that hold their own against the creamy gravy and toppings. The warm gravy is straightforward, not distracting, and solidifies the poutine as the perfect savory meal for the winter months. At Saus, there are numerous ways to construct poutine, but the addition of bacon strips and kimchi has to rank among the top variations. Aside from good food, Saus is an establishment with personality and an essence that will turn first-time visitors into regulars. In addition to being very inclusive, Saus is able to turn every item on the menu into a vegan
Tran said.
In lieu of a betrothal, Tran instead celebrated the end of her engagement, standing atop a bar table with a bottle as a Bostonian crowd chanted, “Fuck Devin!” beneath her. A clip went viral on TikTok, garnering over a million views.
“It was crazy!” Tran said when asked about that moment. “I mean, it was in the heat of everything; it was so funny. People started the tune. And I was like, ‘You know what? I’m just gonna go with it.’” And go with it Tran did. Almost immediately after the finale, she was announced as a last-minute addition to the cast of “Dancing with the Stars,” which she described as “the best time of [her] life.”
“I put a lot of pressure on myself because I want to do well, and it’s something that I love so much. I wanted to keep dancing every week,” Tran said. “I would say ‘Dancing with the Stars’ was more emotional for me, which is funny, because you talk about emotions on ‘The Bachelorette,’ but on ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ it brought out a different side of me.”
Tran did well on the reality dance competition, finishing in seventh place with her pro partner Sasha Farber. But even after “The Bachelorette” ended, her relationships continued to be scrutinized. Speculation on the nature of her relationship with Farber dominated the tabloids,
especially when the two continued to post photos and videos of them together after their elimination. When asked, Tran remained vague on the subject.
“I’m just living my life, trying to be happy and trying to do fun things,” she said. But she also noted that she wanted to keep her dating life private in the future, particularly after how her romantic entanglements this year unfolded under the public eye.
“I think after ‘The Bachelorette’ and everything, I’m really gonna try to keep my dating life private, because I don’t think that it’s necessary for anyone else to know about besides me and my partner,” Tran said. Even so, fans don’t stop obsessing over the photos that Tran posts of her and Farber, or the tidbits that they drop in interviews.
In the meantime, though, Tran says that she plans to return to her studies as a physician assistant.
“A big part of my decision going into reality TV was like, how are my patients?” Tran said.
“But I also think that everything blows over. So I hope that when I go back it won’t be too crazy, and in a few years, nobody will know me, so I can still work as a physician assistant.” Given her whirlwind year, it’s hard to blame her for dreaming of obscurity.
version — the staff ensures a personalized experience, happily offering substitution suggestions and recommendations for soldout options. Saus’s relaxed, welcoming air is not just apparent from the accommodating staff but in its open architecture that also establishes this welcoming presence. With a partially visible kitchen, the ability to not just see but converse with the cooks evokes a cozy feeling — like watching a family member cook a homemade dinner. This vulnerability and approachability is a foundational element of Saus’s homey environ-
FIFTEEN MINUTES 15
Reginald D. Betts, founder and CEO of Freedom Reads — the only organization in the country with a mission to open libraries in prison cell blocks — is a poet, activist, lawyer, and a father. A 2021 MacArthur Fellow, his latest collection of poetry, “Felon,” was awarded the American Book Award and an NAACP Image Award.
Throughout Betts’ work, prison is a central theme. Memory of his adolescence and young adulthood function as both a location and a metaphor for the consequences of human desperation.
With his sons in the backseat of the call, the visiting professor of English sat down with Fifteen Minutes to discuss poetry, prison literature, and collective memory.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
“Can you explain the mission of Freedom Reads and why you believe access to literature is essential for people who are in carcerated?”
“The mission is essentially to bring joy and hope for the pos sibility of the future to people in prison. We use libraries, the Freedom Library, in particular, as a conduit for that. I think litera ture and books are essential, just because — I think I riff on Harold Bloom a lot, but he has this quote where he says that you ‘can’t know enough people.’ You go to books because you can’t know enough people, because you can’t know yourself well enough. And be cause you need to have knowledge of the way things are.”
“As a poet, educator, and advo cate, you work at the intersec tions of literature and prison re form. How do you see literature as a tool for social justice, and what are some practical ways it can be used to transform the criminal justice system?”
“I’m not sure if I would use the word literature and practical in juxtaposition with each other. I think literature allows you to think about what’s not practical at all, and I think in thinking about what’s not practical, you can help imagine what needs to become. Literature is not a tool in the same way that a placard is a tool, in the same way that a stamp is a tool.
“It’s art, and it demands some thing just as much as it gives. I think a lot of institutions have not thought about what it really means to make artists really a part of what they do.
“I can name Gwendolyn Brooks, who was in the mix in the ’60s. She had a profound influence. So did James Baldwin. I’m not sure if we could talk about our artists in the same respect, if we were being frank and thought about how they were really engaged in whatever moment we think is driving our time.
“And I include myself.”
“What do you think that would look like for them to be profoundly engaged in the same ways as Baldwin?”
“I think that we do have way more access than Baldwin did and than anybody did in that era. So, we aren’t just asked to be artists. We’re often asked to be organizers. And I think that we would have to think about what it means to be an artist and organizer.
“I find myself constantly thinking about it because I run an organiza tion, and I think about my voice as Reginald Dwayne Betts, the poet — how that might create challenges. But in the same way, I think about how it might create challenges for me as a father. Sometimes what I say doesn’t map on to what’s the most effective way for me to be in the world as a father. And so, I think, organizationally, that’s the same kind of thing that you think about. You want to find an artist who’s able to navigate it and in the most efficient way.”
Q&A:
REGINALD DWAYNE BETTS ON MEMORY, FREEDOM READS, AND VULNERABILITY
THE VISITING LECTURER ON ENGLISH sat down with Fifteen Minutes to discuss his work as a poet and activist and the importance of literature for people who are incarcerated.
desire.”
“ In your memoir, ‘A Question of Freedom,’ you reflect on the way prison strips away agency and how literature offers a form of resistance. With the current political atmosphere and the increasing push for censorship, how do you reconcile your experiences with the broader attack on freedom of expression today?”
“Broader is such a dangerous word.
“When we say a broader increase in censorship, I ask myself what that refers to. But also, I also want to ask you, when was the last time you heard somebody read a poem out loud to you?”
“This semester?”
happening.”
As he gets out of his car, the moment sparks a tangential thought. “For women, I think about Lucille Clifton. She talked about one of the reasons why she writes really short poems is because she had [six] children. While she was working on being a writer, she was also being a mother, and so, she learned to write in her head in short poems that were sometimes written while cooking.
Suddenly, Betts’s thoughts were interrupted by his sons asking for the keys to their house.
“Sorry. We got domestic things
“You asked about being a activist or in the community and being a writer, and I just picked my sons up from school. I’m about to cook dinner. A lot of times my work as a writer doesn’t
include the ways in which we struggle to also be a part of our communities. That also means being a present figure in, first and foremost, the lives of our children and our partners.”
“You explain how, to combat the sorrow, isolation, and oppression of prison cells, some men in solitary confinement created an underground library, with this wildly inventive book delivery system. Could you describe what this innovativeness looked like?”
“I mean, you’re literally talking about sliding books under a cell door. You’re talking about somebody calling out for a book, and then somebody else
hearing him and saying, ‘What cell?’ And it’s, ‘Alright boom, here you go.’ SHHH and sending it.” Bett mimicked the sound of sliding books.
“At that point, the architecture was just: If I have a book and you need one, I’m gonna give it to you. Imagine an underground railroad, but instead of passing bodies along, you’re passing books along.”
“SHHH, SHHH, SHHH. That was powerful because it was actually people trying to satisfy a need — that folks were articulating, that was visceral and didn’t actually translate into what others on the outside might have thought was the most urgent
“When was the last time you think your mother or your father or some loved one or uncle, heard somebody read a poem to them?”
“Probably a while.”
“So I would like to think that we have long censored ourselves,” Betts replied.
“I think that we are the people that have a problem. So I would just like to say we should be doing the work to expand the way we think about this world, to expand the landscape, or to expand who has access to literature.”
“Many of your poems feature the voice of Shahid, a persona you’ve developed. How does Shahid allow you to explore themes of imprisonment, personal struggle, and spiritual redemption differently than in your personal work?”
Shahid is not a persona. He’s a person. I went to prison when I was 16, and Shahid is the dude that, you know, he did that time. So when I invoke Shahid, I’m invoking the me that served time in prison, who has, sometimes, a set of experiences that I feel wildly and strangely disconnected from, even though they ostensibly belong to me.
But Shahid is a person, you know. It’s just somebody that breathes, that has a story, a narrative.
“Who or what continues to give you a reason to fight in your resistance?”
“You know, I was on a call earlier today. I got an email about a friend of mine named Keith, and his lawyer was asking if I would write him a letter. And I thought about him a lot.
“I told the people I was with, I was like, ‘Man, I gotta stop doing this.’ But I didn’t really say it to them. I said it to myself. It’s like the longer I live, the longer it’s people that I grew up with are still in prison.” Lost in his thoughts, Betts brushed it off.
“I don’t know, man, I mean, what does anybody owe anybody? But recognizing that you owe something to people who others would ignore is sometimes a deeply powerful motivator.
when you yourself feel close to worthless. It’s a good dopamine fix.”
TRACK AND FIELD
Blanks Makes History With NCAA Title
finish line. His final time of 28:37.2 broke the previous course record of 29:08.0. The 10,000m is Blank’s most decorated race at the NCAA level, but the distance runner was also an Olympian earlier this year competing in the 5,000m, the distance at which he set an NCAA record last December (before the record was topped by Northern Arizona’s Nico Young in January).
For the second consecutive year, Harvard’s Graham Blanks is a national champion. With a course-record finish last Saturday, Blanks defended his title in the 10,000 meter race at the NCAA Cross Country Championships, becoming just the 13th runner in NCAA history to win consecutive titles.
Running at the Zimmer Championship Course in Verona, Wis., the senior entered as the defending champion after he became the first Ivy League athlete to win the 10,000 meters at the 2023 NCAA Championships. In that race, Blanks rode a late surge to a three-second margin over New Mexico’s Habtom Samuel, finishing with a time of 28:37.7.
Adding to his historic achievements, this year Blanks was named the USTFCCCA Northeast Region
Men’s Cross Country Athlete of the Year for an unprecedented fourth time, making him the first in NCAA history to receive this honor on four occasions.
In Wisconsin, New Mexico’s Samuel — the 10,000m at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in June — was hot on Blank’s tail for a second straight year. Blanks made his signature late move with about 1500m left in the race, overtaking Samuel and Furman University’s Dylan Schubert and ultimately edging Samuel by 1.7 seconds. After looking back to make sure Samuel and Schubert wouldn’t catch him, Blanks clutched the Harvard logo on his shirt and waved at the cheering crowd as he crossed the
Saturday’s race began with the tightly packed start typical of most cross country meets. During the first 3,000 meters, Blanks maintained his position within the lead pack. By the 5,000 meter mark, he strategically began to surge, climbing the leaderboard and positioning himself in third place.
“Most cross country races at the national level get out to a really fast start,” Blanks explained. “You get off really fast from the start line to try to get to a good position. I spent a lot of the first two minutes just sprinting to get to the front, and then from there the pace kind of settled down throughout the next 20 minutes.”
A true running tactician, Blanks highlighted the crowded nature of the race when reflecting on his path to victory, explaining how the congestion not only hindered several of his competitors but also posed significant challenges for him throughout the meet.
“There were a couple falls throughout the middle of the race just because it’s so crowded and because everyone’s so good that they can actually stay with the front pack,” the senior said. “I almost got caught up in a fall halfway through the race around 5k.”
The race did not truly intensify until the final two kilometers, when the pace began to pick up significantly.
“At two kilometers left a guy from Oklahoma State started pushing the pace and from there it was just the two of us who went off the front of the pack,” Blanks
said. “We hit this hill on the back end of the course with about a kilometer left — around three minutes left in the race — and I just started sprinting to try to break off from the front.”
Blanks credits his victory to the decisive move he executed with one kilometer remaining, a strategy he had planned weeks in advance.
“With how good everyone is in the NCAA, when you make a strong move, you have to be very intentional about it, you can’t leave any doubt,” Blanks explained. “If I were to make a half measured move, one of those guys in the back could have hung on to me and maybe would have been able to beat me.
So I started sprinting from about a kilometer out and just sprinted for the rest of the race. I had enough of a gap that I knew I had won the race from about 100 meters out.”
Blanks explained that his typical race strategy is to practice strength running: long, hard running close to the end of the race instead of trying to make up ground right before the finish line, when it is an all out sprint. Blanks also plots out the course on a topographic map before the race to determine where he should make his moves.
“I knew I had a better shot of winning if I made the race really hard in the last five minutes,” Blanks explained. He summarized his pre-race strategy as “basically just make everyone hurt, and try to make the race honest.”
At the conclusion of the race, Blanks and second-place finisher Samuel exchanged jerseys, taking inspiration from the jersey swaps commonly seen in other sports.
The Harvard star and the New Mexico runner have represented the pinnacle of long-distance college running on the men’s side for the past two years. With Blanks set to graduate in May, the Lobos’ star will have one fewer rival to chase at the end of races.
With his collegiate cross coun-
try career now behind him, Blanks is now focused on savoring the final moments of his college experience before transitioning to professional running.
“I’m not looking too far forward, just trying to enjoy the moment,” Blanks said. “Next year I’ll be running professionally which is a lot different from collegiate running, so I’m trying to enjoy these last seasons that I have because collegiate running has been a lot of fun.”
The Athens, Ga. native, who spoke openly after last year’s NCAA win about his doubts during the re-
BY PRAVEEN KUMAR
In an intense rematch of last year’s national championship battle, Harvard’s women’s rugby team (8-1-1) retained its title on Nov. 23 by defeating Dartmouth (8-1-0) — the top-ranked team in the nation, by a final score of 19-12 in the NIRA National Championship game.
Harvard avenged its only loss earlier in the of the season against the Big Green and earned its third championship in five years under Head Coach Mel Denham, who is serving in her eighth season.
On the chilly afternoon in Hanover, points were hard to come by. The game remained scoreless after 20 minutes, as both teams struggled to keep the ball, with the defenses forcing several turnovers in a physical contest.
According to senior fullback Chloe Headland, the team remained undeterred at the slow start, knowing the work they put in to be in this position would pay off.
“Going into this season there was a lot of pressure riding on us as National Champions but we were prepared,” Headland said.
“Before the season even began we talked about having the ‘earn it’ mindset and locking in to all that was to come in the upcoming season.
“By the end, it was evident that everyone bought into our team
value, ‘earn it’, and used that every day whether it was a win or a loss to become a better player, which helped us win the championship,” Headland added. “That buy-in from everyone is what allowed us all to keep pushing and keep fighting for what we knew we could achieve together.”
Harvard struck first in front of a packed crowd. Junior Tiahna Padilla, the 2024 NIRA Championship Most Valuable Player, found Headland, who crossed the try line in the 24th minute to put the Crimson up 5-0. Headland subsequently converted the kick, extending the advantage to 7-0.
Along with the strong performances of upperclassmen, senior flyhalf PK Vincze emphasized the importance of contributions from younger members of the team in maintaining their national champion status.
“I feel like some big impacts from our first-year class and the sophomores stepping up from last year was the piece that we needed to do it again,” Vincze said.
Seven minutes after the opening score, Harvard continued to build on its lead. After Padilla fell just short of the try line, the ball wound up in Vincze’s hands. Out wide on the play, the senior dove across the line to make the score 12-0.
The Big Green, however, wouldn’t bow out without a fight. As the first half wound down, the Crimson allowed a try, tighten-
cruitment process that he could win a national title at Harvard, has now added two trophies to the Crimson’s mantle, with this year’s win representing the 23rd national title in program history. Blanks’ performance at the NCAA championships headlined a solid all-around performance from the Crimson, with a 27thplace finish on the men’s side and a 28th-place performance from the women. With top-five finishes from both squads at the NCAA Northeast Regionals and the Ivy League Heptagonals earlier in the month, the Crimson has continued its dominance of recent years. For most Crimson runners, the first meet of the indoor season will be the HBCU and Ivy Challenge in Cambridge, held on Saturday, Dec. 7. However, Blanks will compete that day at Boston University’s Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener, the same race where he broke the NCAA 5,000m record last year. He will aim to continue smashing his own records before the clock hits zero on an incredible collegiate running career.
jack.silvers@thecrimson.com natalie.weiner@thecrimson.com
Harvard Beats Dartmouth for National Title
ing the score to 12-5 as the teams looked to recharge during halftime.
Momentum continued to swing in Dartmouth’s direction as the second half started, with the Big Green tying the game at 12-12 after another successful try.
Coming off of its 20-12 15s victory over the Big Green in 2023, Harvard knew the pressure was on.
“This was a tough year because we knew that we had a big challenge coming off two national championship wins in both 7s and 15s last year and some early close games and a tie,” said Vincze.
Despite the adversity, which included the tie against Quinnipiac University and close games against Sacred Heart and Brown, Headland said the Crimson remained levelheaded.
“This team, when compared to last year, has definitely experienced some more lows than I think we were originally expecting, but it also wasn’t something we ever wanted to shy away from,” Headland said. “We expected a challenge and embraced it. It showed us what we needed to work on and every single player took those challenges personally, doing the most to correct them in order to move forward. No one ever backed down from the challenge and we all were ready for it.”
In the 58th minute, Harvard’s decisive, championship-winning moment arrived. A strong maul from the Crimson resulted in se -
nior Carly Lehman crossing the try line, with several members of the team advancing her into the try zone. The scoring play gave Harvard a commanding 19-12 lead entering the final 20 minutes of action, and drove the dagger into Dartmouth’s hopes of winning the national championship. After several strong defensive stands from the Crimson, whistles blew in the 81st minute, marking just the third time that the away team won the NIRA title. As the game ended, the team joyously celebrated, with all emotions letting loose.
“Entering the final as the second-place team, after losing to Dartmouth just a month earlier, was a scary realization,” Headland said. “Yet, our team’s connection and shared sense of ‘RadLove’ gave us the drive to lean on each other and leave everything on the field in order to win.”. In pursuit of sustained success, Vincze emphasized the determination that allowed the pack to repeat as national champions. “I think that in the final we wanted it more, and I remember turning to Chloe at approximately 15 minutes into the game and thinking we can absolutely win this,” Vincze said.
“Overall, a really good way to end my career at Harvard and I am sure I can say the same for the rest of the senior class,” Vincze added.
Then-junior Graham Blanks takes a
DEFENDING CHAMP. Graham Blanks defended his national title for the second year in a row, the 13th runner to ever do so.
Painting a Brighter Future with ArtLifting
BY KAYLA H. LE — CONTRIBUTING WRITER AND PHOTOGRAPHER
LIFTING BOSTON ARTISTS. In 2013, Elizabeth J. Powers ’10 founded ArtLifting through Harvard Innovation Labs with her brother, Spencer Powers, to help artists with disabilities and financial insecurity. The organization’s mission is to connect artists with opportunities to share and sell their work. Eleven years after its inception, ArtLifting now represents more than 190 artists in 35 states. For Billy M. Megargel and Lisa Murphy, two artists based in Massachusetts, ArtLifting supports them in different ways. Megargel uses painting as a form of self-expression and ArtLifting has helped him reach wider audiences through social media platforms. Murphy, who is an abstract artist, has been able to establish her art business with the assistance provided by ArtLifting.
Lisa Murphy is an abstract artist who works with paint, printmaking, and paper scraps. Murphy first got into art through classes and open art studios at Boston University’s Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation — a branch of the university that provides non-medical support to individuals with psychiatric disabilities. It was at BU where Murphy developed an appreciation for the creative process.
“I had just stumbled and, you know, made a whole bunch of messes,” she said. “And that was really transformative for me because having a chance to make art without just pens and pencils and paper.” Murphy said that she realized drawing was not her preferred style of producing art, instead finding joy in multimedia art which was “just making a mess and having emotions.”
That wasn’t, you know, drawing wasn’t really, just making a mess and having emotions, it was great,” Murphy said.
Billy Megargel, a painter with autism who communicates nonverbally using a visually based communication system, draws on a wide variety of tools — ranging from kitchen appliances to car parts — to capture movement in his pieces.
Eve Megargel, Billy’s mother, said her son “reminds me a little bit of Jackson Pollock style, you know, kind of like throwing the paint, kind of moving the brushes.”
“When Billy was a child, there was no art program for Billy,” Eve Megargel said. “They had no access to a program and the kind of art they did was where you would sit at a table and an assistant would give you something, and you would glue it on a paper. And pretty much that was kind of the extent of the art.” The lack of accessible art led Eve
his paintings.
“When he presses a kitchen tool, he presses it hard,” she added. “It’s his style.” Billy Megargel’s art journey began in early childhood when his mother, spurred by her son’s love of colors, introduced him to painting. Though he enjoyed working with paint, the scarcity of accessible art programs made it challenging to nurture that interest.
Additionally, Murphy completed a program at Gateway Arts, a creative agency that works with artists impacted by disabilities, where she created a portfolio that would be submitted to ArtLifting and eventually get her accepted into the program. Her painting “Four Hands” was one of the works included in the collection.
“Four Hands” features a defining characteristic of Murphy’s artwork: morse code. Murphy’s father served in the Air Force and through their conversations about the unique call signs for words, she was inspired to include them in her art.
“So it’s, you know, with the tapping the shorts and longs, you can see, like the circle here, you know. He just said, this needs to be in your art somewhere,” Murphy said.
The four corners of the painting depict different concepts through hand signs accompanied by dots and dashes that spell out (purple) “peace,” (green) “punch,” (yellow) “power,” and
of The Harvard Crimson: THANK YOU
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