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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Dear Blueno Posts
Description
An account of the resource
Screenshots of posts from the public Facebook group "Dear Blueno," an anonymous online forum used dominantly by the Brown community to express their opinions, concerns, or other articulations.
Item names are either excerpts from posts or the posts in full.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
PNG
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document
2133* - I understand people are pissed at Lancastre for Macro. But we need to understand that he is posting pre-recorded lectures that are SUFFICIENT for the class-> these would be the equivalent of what would happen if we were on campus. The zoom live sessions are just for further clarifications, he literally goes over the same thing in the same manner. We are not required to attend the zoom lectures.
As for the midterm and people complaining that we have the same time, if you look at the mock midterm, it's the exact same as a physical one would have been and it's being done like a Canvas quiz. So we don't have to do it on paper. We had 50 minutes for the physical, now we have 60 (I assume the extra 10 is to give time to upload the 2 graph images).
Can we also appreciate all that he is doing for students? My other classes are straight up posting a scanned midterm and giving us the same time to solve the entire midterm on paper and upload the entirety of it.
He's also scheduled alternative zoom sessions for the international students, and from what I hear from my international friends, it is actually helpful because the live sessions were at an atrocious time for them. He also has TA hours and TA sections being offered at international suitable times.
I understand it's easy to blame profs in this time but we should consider that it's not easy for them and things are not as bad as they seem. Like we definitely are not required to or need to attend both sessions.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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2133* - I understand people are pissed at Lancastre for Macro. But we need to understand...
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Dear Blueno
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
April 5, 2020
course changes
International Students
Online Classes
verified
-
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46246a2a726bda2793068ba4f491a725
Dublin Core
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Today@Brown
Description
An account of the resource
This collection captures the different events announced on Today@Brown, a daily email received by all members of Brown, as screenshots.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Text
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Though our physical spaces remain closed to patrons, the Library began phase one of a scaled return to in-person academic support on Monday, June 29, 2020. A small number of Library staff members will be onsite to scan materials for Fall 2020 courses and to retrieve books for contactless pickup.
Safety
To protect the safety of staff and patrons, we will be operating at minimum staffing levels with modified workflows to allow for social distancing and quarantine of materials. We will add staff and increase service levels as public health guidance allows.
Materials requested for pickup will be placed in bags on carts and quarantined, untouched, for a minimum of 72 hours. Please do not clean or disinfect library materials. It would likely damage the item(s) and is not necessary given the precautions Library staff are taking. The most current research tells us that 72 hours (three days) of quarantine is safe for circulating library materials.
How Long Will Requests Take?
Requests may take up to seven days. Quarantine protocols for handling physical materials will make requests for rush or expedited delivery less feasible for the time being.
Requesting Physical Materials
Current Brown faculty/instructors and students may request up to ten (10) items per week from our collections, including books. Materials available at the Rockefeller Library, the Library Annex, the Sciences Library, and Orwig Music Library should be requested directly through Josiah, the Library’s online catalog. Library staff will retrieve the items and email the requestor with instructions for pickup when the items are ready. Pickup for ALL items will take place in front of the Rockefeller Library.
Requesting Special Collections
The John Hay Library will digitize special collections material for research and teaching needs. Requests from current Brown faculty and graduate students will be prioritized. Other requests will be fulfilled as time allows. This service is limited to members of the Brown community. To make a request, email hay@brown.edu or fill out the request form.
Requesting Course Reserves
Faculty members should continue to use Online Course Reserves Access (OCRA) to request materials for course reserves. Once received, the Library will make the reserves available to students through the course site in Canvas.
Expanded Access to Digital Content and Services
The robust slate of online Library support, services, and resources made available during the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to be offered.
Interlibrary Loan (ILL)
Interlibrary Loan (ILL) for physical materials will not resume until a later phase, and (by agreement with our Ivy-plus partners) no earlier than September 1. We will continue to accept and fill ILL requests for articles and book chapters that are available electronically and will be sent via email to patrons. We will also continue searching for electronic versions of requested books.
Questions?
Email rock@brown.edu with questions. If you have a question about special collections, email hay@brown.edu.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Resumption of Limited Library Services
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Brown University Library
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Today@Brown
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
June 30, 2020
library
reopening
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2dfe5801635671568e42b0bb037d20fe
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Brown Daily Herald
Description
An account of the resource
This collection consists of articles published by the Brown Daily Herald, the undergraduate daily student newspaper, in regards to COVID-19 at Brown.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document
When news broke that the University was moving to remote learning and telling students to leave College Hill, Jessica Zhu ’20 was not surprised.
She was expecting the announcement. In many ways, it felt as though her whole semester had been building to that moment. Zhu, a senior from Beijing, had returned to campus back in January wracked with worries about her family’s safety back home in China: News reports were beginning to trickle in about a new virus sweeping parts of the country. She placed an order for masks on Amazon just in case the situation in China worsened, so that she would be able to send supplies to her parents. She spent time consoling a close friend who attends Wuhan University — located in the province which would become the epicenter of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic — after it was announced that the university would close indefinitely.
As the semester plowed full steam ahead, death tolls climbed in China, and then around the globe. Zhu began to comprehend that the U.S. was not immune to this crisis — and to fear that those around her were not taking it seriously enough. “Do you want us to mail masks to you?” her mother asked a few weeks ago. The tables, it seemed, had turned. “If only I could teleport home,” she thought.
When the March 12 letter from President Christina Paxson P’19 circulated, telling students the semester would continue remotely, it brought a mix of relief, sadness and uncertainty. Zhu was brimming with unanswered questions: Would she be able to travel home? If she left the U.S., would she be able to return to begin work after Brown? What about her visa?
Certain that other students would be finding themselves in a similar position, Zhu created “Brown Internationals against Coronavirus,” a Facebook group which she hoped would serve as a space for international students to build community, ask questions and find answers. “It was clear that a lot of students might be under distress,” said Zhu. “I wanted everybody to have a place to share information.”
Now, the group has grown to over 800 members and features questions about evolving international travel restrictions, tips for airport hygiene, offers to help with moving and much more.
When Paxson asked students to go home, many — including those for whom going home means crossing international borders — were left asking: How? For students with extenuating circumstances, Brown provided an option to petition to remain in University housing. Though Zhu, and others, spoke highly of the University’s handling of the situation, many said remaining on a suddenly empty campus presents its own difficulties.
Zhu could not believe her luck last week when she was able to find a flight back to Beijing at the end of the month. Just two more weeks, and I’ll get to be with my family, she thought. But a couple of days ago, she received the news that her flight was canceled. She will likely be spending the remainder of the semester in her apartment. Her only roommate moved out last week.
To date, 319 undergraduate students remain on campus, 174 of whom are international students, according to Associate Vice President for Campus Life Koren Bakkegard. Many more, like Zhu, remain scattered throughout College Hill, living in their off-campus residences with any friends who also remain — or sometimes, no one.
“Everybody is going through something right now”
For Alberto Trovamala ’20, word came from home via hurried phone calls and instant messages in his family group chat: Italy was shutting down.
When he received notice later that week that the University was asking students to leave campus, Trovamala, who is from Milan, knew that returning home was not a realistic option. As an international student who is used to being far away from home, “I was already working on the assumption that I didn’t know when I was going to see my family,” Trovamala said, speaking hours after Brown announced their transition to remote learning. But COVID-19 had punctured all hope of seeing his family anytime soon.
While his family remains in government-mandated lockdown, Trovamala says he can do nothing but take life one day at a time. “I’m focused on trying not to fall too far behind on classes, trying to graduate on time and supporting my friends,” he said. “You know, everybody is going through something right now.”
But this doesn’t soothe the ever-present worries Trovamala has for the safety of his family, particularly for his two grandmothers, both of whom have compromised immune systems. They haven’t left their homes in weeks. “I don’t know if you’ve heard,” Trovamala said before a long pause; in Italian hospitals, buckling under the load of so many patients, it may become necessary to establish an age limit for access to intensive care, he added.
Trovamala lives on-campus in Machado House. His petition to remain on campus was approved by the University, but he is awaiting news of which residential building he will call “home” for the next few months.
“I’m worried, but I know Brown is doing their best right now,” he said last week. “And I really appreciate the way they are handling this.”
While students who remain on campus continue to take things day by day and make the most of online ways of communicating with loved ones, University faculty and staff are also coming to terms with the semester’s disruption while maintaining their commitment to students.
“So many colleagues and peer mentors have been dedicated and diligently committed to supporting our international student communities over the last few weeks even while navigating their own health challenges, family concerns and obligations,” wrote Associate Dean for International Students Asabe Poloma in an email to The Herald.
And though her team’s “visible initiatives and efforts have been dedicated to material concerns and challenges faced by students,” Poloma wrote, they remain “aware of the socio-emotional and psychological impact of these global health challenges as well as the unique challenges faced by international students.”
Following Brown’s announcement, Trovamala set up a meeting with Vice President for Campus Life Eric Estes and then posted on “Brown Internationals against Coronavirus,” the page Zhu created, to crowdsource questions that people wanted answered. Dozens replied.
“Not losing my visa”
Among those who felt they had unanswered questions was Anna Corradi ’20, also a senior from Italy. She felt supported by deans and advisers at the Global Brown Center for International Students, but was particularly warmed by “student-led efforts to build community.”
Visa limitations topped many international students’ lists of concerns. U.S. government regulations typically allow international students on visas to take just one online class per semester. Students hoping to stay in Providence — or those who are unable to leave — were perplexed at how they could complete the semester with a full online course load without jeopardizing their visa status. Corradi did not even realize this was a possible problem until another student posted in “Brown Internationals against Coronavirus” that the Trump administration had adapted the policy in light of COVID-19. The Facebook page “became an important source of information,” Corradi added.
Corradi, like Trovamala, is in the process of applying for Optional Practical Training (OPT), which allows students on F-1 visas to work in the U.S. for a 12-month period following graduation. Students are required to be in the U.S. at the time they submit their OPT application.
She’s found herself exhausted from the mental gymnastics of trying to balance and reason the conflicting positives and negatives of remaining in Providence or traveling to her parents, who currently live in Kenya. “For days, I’ve been going back and forth in my mind between choosing to be stable in Providence, in terms of not losing my visa and knowing that in the U.S. I have Brown health insurance,” Corradi said. “But also, knowing that on the other side of the coin, staying here amid closing borders means that I don’t know when I’m next going to see my family.”
Corradi couldn’t help but wonder, “What is the right choice?” — to stay or to go? But what does “right” mean in such unprecedented circumstances? She isn’t sure. “It’s tricky knowing that rationally, staying here is the best choice, but right now, given there is so much uncertainty, it would be nice to be with family.”
“My version of being with family”
Maddy Noh ’22 has been thinking a lot about what constitutes “home” in recent days. She, like many others, finds herself bound to remaining in Providence. Most of her extended family, including her parents, live in South Korea and “though things are improving there,” she worries about her ability to return to the U.S. for summer job plans if she travels home now. She has a grandmother in California, but does not want to put her at risk by moving in. “Obviously I want to be home with my parents,” she said, “but logistically, I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Her petition to remain in University housing was approved, but she felt growing anxiety that remaining in a dorm would have other mounting health implications. She, along with three other friends who are unable to return to their home countries, began searching online for College Hill homes left vacant from the departure of other Brown students, which they could sublease for the remainder of the semester.
Though she knows the semester ahead will be tough, grounding herself with a couple others will be invaluable, she said. “Since I can’t go to my personal home, being with a few friends is my version of being with family.”
Her parents wish her family could all be together, but they find comfort in knowing there are resources in place to support their daughter some 6,900 miles away. “Since my first step on Brown’s campus, my family has been far away,” Noh said. “But in two short years, so many different people, so many different resources — Residential Peer Leaders, Student Support Deans, international coordinating staff, registrar, financial aid teams — have helped me.”
“If I leave, I can’t come back for senior year”
For Nazem Droubi ’21, being far away from his family has also become a fact of life: He last saw his parents in Lebanon in 2018, and has not returned to his home country of Syria since the summer of 2016.
“I’ve kind of got used to it,” he said. “I do accept that my family isn’t really part of my life right now.”
Still, with life in flux and news updates trickling in daily, space between himself and his parents, some 5,500 miles away, has rarely felt so vast. “It really sucks,” he said. “There is no way to sugarcoat it.”
Returning to his parents living in Damascus would oblige Droubi to serve in the Syrian military, as per the country’s compulsory military service laws.
After fraught discussion, his parents decided to pay the military exemption fee last week. But another obstacle remains: persisting uncertainties around the U.S.-imposed travel bans which place stringent restrictions on travel to the United States for citizens of Libya, among 12 other countries.
“They want me to come back,” Droubi said of his parents last week. “But, at the same time, they’re concerned that if I leave, I can’t come back for senior year.”
“How strong the Brown community can be”
By the afternoon of the March 12 University announcement, Trovamala said that multiple people had asked if he needed help with storage, since he wasn’t able to take his belongings home. Others told him they were keeping him and his family in their thoughts.
Professors had been sending their best wishes and reminding students that they were there for them, Droubi noted. Deans, Noh said, have readily answered questions to the best of their ability.
For Corradi, though the daily stressors of being far from family remain ever-present, she is warmed by the outpouring of support and coalition-building. “This whole thing has really shown how strong the Brown community can be,” she said, “students and staff alike.”
Zhu is pleased that the Facebook page she created has been able to offer vulnerable students a sliver of reassurance amid so much uncertainty. It felt good to lend a helping hand to a community that has offered her so much, she said. “If it’s the last thing I do at Brown, I’ll be content.”
— Olivia George ’22 is an international student from the U.K. who remains in Providence.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Online newspaper article
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
'If only I could teleport home' International students and COVID-19
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Olivia George
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Brown Daily Herald
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Brown Daily Herald
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
March 26th, 2020
International Students
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b87304e9a05f50eb0a7be0da7d802e75
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Brown Daily Herald
Description
An account of the resource
This collection consists of articles published by the Brown Daily Herald, the undergraduate daily student newspaper, in regards to COVID-19 at Brown.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document
While President Christina Paxson P’19 said she is “very cautiously optimistic” that an on-campus experience split into three terms could happen for the coming academic year, the safety of community members and the observance of public health guidelines will remain priorities.
At Tuesday’s faculty meeting, Paxson and Provost Richard Locke P’18 presented ideas on how in-person academic experiences on College Hill could change if the University holds three separate fall, spring and summer terms.
Paxson also announced that the University is working on contingency plans for a regularly scheduled, two-term academic year and a fall semester of remote learning, The Herald previously reported. Paxson will make a decision on which of the plans to follow by July 15.
Large gatherings, which typically characterize several features of University life including sports games, lectures and social events, would be difficult to accommodate if guidelines continue to limit the number of people who can gather together. Holding the school year over three terms would reduce population density on campus and possibly prevent the spread of the virus.
Locke said that classes with more than 100 students will most likely have to be taught in a flipped classroom, in which lectures are recorded, but smaller in-person discussion groups will be allowed. Locke assured faculty that many of the University’s small classes would be offered as traditional in-person classes, taking their same pre-pandemic form. Medium-sized classes, according to Locke, would still be offered in-person, but students would have to be spread out in large lecture halls.
Paxson also wrote that the University is planning to offer online classes to students who cannot physically return to campus due to travel restrictions or health conditions.
To accommodate the three-semester plan, the University would have to offer some classes twice as often as usual. Still, Locke stressed that this outcome would not require extra work from faculty, as most of the courses that would be offered twice would be large intro classes that would have a lecture capture component.
Faculty would also have the choice of which of the two semesters they teach and would not have to teach three semesters if they did not want to, Locke added.
Locke stated that the University is going to work closely with departments in determining which courses would be offered in each of the three proposed academic year models.
The University would then offer an expanded number of classes during the summer for undergraduates. It would simultaneously continue to offer its pre-college programs, such as Summer@Brown. Locke added that the University would be able to support all students on campus for both summer programs and the staggered second semester due to new residence hall construction and housing usually not being filled by summer programs in recent years.
Paxson explained that the three-semester system was inspired by a model that Dartmouth already had in place before the COVID-19 crisis to deal with overpopulation on their campus. “They structured it in such a way that it’s seen as a wonderful experience, instead of a burden,” Locke said. Because of the model’s success at Dartmouth, Locke and Paxson said that they are optimistic about how students will respond to this idea.
“We are going to try to find out what the preferences of the students are” for the three-semester schedule, and “of course that means some people might not get their first choices but we want to make the whole academic year a wonderful experience,” Locke said.
Locke also added that the University is going to try its best to provide programming for students in the semester that they are not on campus. Locke said this could be done by offering online internships with alumni or no-fee online classes.
Paxson said that students will have an important role determining what will happen. In a community-wide email Wednesday, Paxson wrote that a confidential survey will be sent to new and continuing students on May 17 “to guide and refine our plans.” She strongly encouraged students to take the survey and wrote that there will be virtual town halls for students “to share updates on planning.”
According to Paxson, the data from the survey and information from the town halls will be key in aiding the University’s planning. Royce Family Professor of Teaching Excellence and Professor of Economics Emily Oster, head of the Healthy Fall 2020 Task Force, said during the faculty meeting that the best ideas of safety measures on campus have come from students.
Paxson stated that she believes that students are conscious of the importance of social distancing measures and will be able to respect those both in classes as well as in social spaces of the University.
The University must wait in order to ultimately “weigh these factors to make a better and more fully informed decision,” Paxson said.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Online newspaper article
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
‘Next year may very likely look different’: What Brown could look like in three terms
Subject
The topic of the resource
University administrators outline how safety measures could change college experience
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Livia Gimenes
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Brown Daily Herald
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Brown Daily Herald
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
May 6, 2020
fall 2020
Online Classes
spring 2021
summer 2021
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f61dc5e3622694cc67be2d1cc7b076ca
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Brown Daily Herald
Description
An account of the resource
This collection consists of articles published by the Brown Daily Herald, the undergraduate daily student newspaper, in regards to COVID-19 at Brown.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
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Not Quite Spring Weekend, a virtual benefit concert organized by a group of University students, rocked the screens of many via BeLive and Facebook on May 30. The festival comprised 12 student performers and 10 professional acts, which altogether provided students and the public with over 10 hours of original music.
From the steps of the Blue Room, Ben Stewart ’20, known artistically as folk-pop singer Tetrapod, strummed his guitar in a surgical mask; Bree Zhang ’22 performed a mesmerizing and ethereal piece on the guzheng, a Chinese plucked string instrument. In a pink wig, New Zealand artist Theia danced to splashy electronic beats in front of five sparkling images of Britney Spears; Lily Porter-Wright ’20 strummed powerful and folky ballads, as members of the audience cheered “GO OFF” and “I love this song!!!” in the comment section.
Shubham Makharia ’21, Anwen Lin ’23, Jack Riley ’23, Katie Baumgarten ’23, Joey Urban ’21, Zach Kapner ’21, Alex Park ’23 and James Bove ’23 organized the virtual concert in response to the cancellation of Brown’s beloved Spring Weekend — a University tradition that dates back to 1950. The team is part of Tunes For Change, a student organization that “puts on benefit shows and student busking drives during the year,” Kapner said.
Although Not Quite Spring Weekend was neither a part of Tunes For Change nor affiliated with Brown, the group of friends organizing the event sought to continue their organizations’ message virtually. “One of the issues we ran into was that since it’s outside of the Brown calendar it’s not allowed to be a Brown event. So even though the (organizers) are all in Tunes for Change, the event itself is not affiliated with Brown” Lin said. But for that reason, the event was not just open to Brown student listeners “but students everywhere.”
The team started planning their virtual concert in early April after students left campus due to the pandemic. “We started talking about planning some kind of virtual thing. We had seen a bunch of videos on Facebook, on YouTube, lots of folks able to stream and share,” Makharia said. “We knew that Spring Weekend was canceled, so it seemed like a good synergy.”
All proceeds from ticket sales were donated to the Rhode Island Foundation and United Way of Rhode Island’s COVID-19 Response Fund. Entry to the online festival consisted of an early-bird $5 donation or a $7 donation from May 28 onward. The organization ultimately collected a total of $2,100 for the Rhode Island Foundation and COVID-19 Response Fund.
“It’s kind of a win-win, we’re raising all this money to give to a really great fund and we also get to hear some really cool artists,” Lin said before the festival. “Most of them are performing live and we have student performers too. It’s just a cool community event and I’m really excited to be able to interact with some of these artists.”
About 180 participants were admitted to the private Facebook group that streamed the festival. Twenty-five performers, including students Chance Emerson ’23 and Zoe Butler ’20 alongside professional artists and groups like DAP the Contract, The Greeting Committee and We Three, streamed live or sent in recorded performances, playing and singing from their bedrooms, basements, garages and more.
“It was fun to play music for people again,” Emerson said, acknowledging that “Livestream concerts are different and arguably harder than playing live because you don’t get much immediate feedback from the audience. Sometimes it can feel like you’re playing to a metal box.”
“I think my favorite part (of the festival) was Tetrapod and Amelia Chalfant. I think that’s also when the stream was in highest attendance,” Makharia said. “Everyone was just really vibing in the comments. People were really positive and loving. It was cool to see the most attended part was when students were performing, not when the other conventionally larger acts were. People were interested in seeing their friends play, which was really cool to see.”
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‘Not Quite Spring Weekend’ broadcasts musical artists, raises money for COVID relief
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June 5, 2020
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In the shadow of Hasbro Children’s Hospital, Chief Pediatrics Resident Alexis Thompson bowed her head in silence. She was motionless, surrounded by dozens of colleagues, clad in their white jackets, blue-green uniforms and face masks.
Together, they knelt for eight minutes and 46 seconds — the same amount of time 46-year-old George Floyd was pinned down by the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer on his neck before his death last month.
In this moment, Thompson, who is Black, thought of all the other Black lives taken without accountability. She thought of her colleagues and mentors. She thought of her graduation ceremony, due to take place a few hours later on June 5, and of celebrating the completion of her three-year pediatric residency program — an aspiration since childhood. And she thought what it would be like to have the feeling of someone’s weight on you as you gasp for air.
“We are still fighting for basic human rights,” she recalls thinking.
COURTESY OF: PATRICIA POITEVIEN
Healthcare workers knelt for almost nine minutes outside of Hasbro Children’s Hospital June 5
That Friday afternoon, medical workers were taking part in similar acts of solidarity across the country, as part of White Coats for Black Lives. Nurses, students, residents, doctors and other hospital staff from Philadelphia to San Francisco protested against systemic racism and police brutality in the wake of Floyd’s killing.
For Patricia Poitevien ’94 MD’98, like Thompson, participation in the demonstration was both deeply personal and professionally profound.
“I am a physician. I am a person of color. I am a mother of two boys who are Black,” said Poitevien, who is the residency program director for the department of pediatrics and an assistant professor in the division of pediatric hospitalist medicine at Hasbro Children’s Hospital. She is also assistant dean for the Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs at the Warren Alpert Medical School.
“The events that are currently occurring in our nation,” she added, “impact me across the landscape of the roles that I play in my life.”
For Poitevien and other healthcare workers, these protests are all the more poignant at a time when they have strained to meet the challenges posed by COVID-19 for months — a pandemic which is disproportionately affecting patients of color.
To see so many coworkers from all different racial identities kneeling together in condemnation of systemic racism was moving, Poitevien added.
“It showed me that my colleagues understand how this impacts me as one of their colleagues,” she said, “but also the patients that we all care for.”
Black people comprise 13 percent of the nation’s population, but 24 percent of deaths from COVID-19 where race is known.
In Rhode Island, Hispanic or Latinx residents comprise 44 percent of positive COVID-19 coronavirus test cases in the state and non-Hispanic Black or African American residents comprise 13 percent, according to data released by the state’s Department of Health. These residents are also disproportionately represented in COVID-19-related hospitalizations, though they make up only 15 percent and 6 percent of the population of Rhode Island respectively.
This reality is part of what prompted Erin Baroni, a third-year internal medicine/pediatrics resident, to march in her white coat with some of her colleagues from Rhode Island Hospital to the State House Friday afternoon. There, they took part in what became the largest protest in recent state history, drawing about 10,000 people.
Though Baroni expressed concerns that large gatherings could cause a second wave of COVID-19 cases, she said that the protests and police brutality, like the coronavirus pandemic, are a reminder of the disproportionate health risks that Black Americans face.
She participated “to show solidarity, not only for our Black colleagues but our patients and community,” Baroni, who is white, said. “Racism is a public health issue.”
Baroni, who has been involved in LGBTQ+ and sexual-gender minority advocacy work for almost a decade, also wanted to highlight the disproportionate effects of violence on Black transgender women.
Giovanna Deluca, a first-year emergency medical resident at Rhode Island Hospital, voiced similar worries about balancing her involvement in protests and adhering to public health guidelines.
“We are worried about resurgence,” she said, but felt determined to stand with her colleagues and community members demanding justice by attending the protest.
At a time when people are especially reliant on the expertise of the medical community, Deluca added that the role of healthcare workers in ongoing demonstrations is particularly important.
“We have strong voices by being in the medical field. I think it’s really important to use them,” Deluca, a New York-native who is of both Italian and Japanese descent, said.
“We fought so hard for PPE because we were scared for ourselves,” she added. “We should be fighting for this, too.”
Deluca also partnered with colleagues, including Baroni, to build a photo collage of solidarity. This, she hoped, would be another way of demonstrating a commitment to justice — especially for her colleagues who might not have been able to attend the June 5 protest.
“We have a really diverse patient population here in Providence,” she added. “We were trying to find a way to show our community that we stand with them.”
Originally, Deluca only asked her co-residents to participate, but word swiftly spread around the hospital and staff from a range of departments — from pediatrics to surgery, internal medicine to family medicine — emailed photos to be included in the collage.
Within 48 hours, she had received over 200 pictures — some from colleagues she had never met before.
The rush of involvement demonstrated “ how strongly the voice of the medical community and of the hospital points towards justice,” Deluca added.
And, for many, the unity and sense of community demonstrated at protests has been a comfort after months of seeing patients struggling in isolation, as many hospitals have banned or strictly limited visitors during the pandemic. “To have so many people together feeling strongly about justice,” Baroni added, “was incredibly uplifting.”
The vigil ended — with some in tears — and Thompson headed home to prepare for her graduation ceremony. Others walked back into the hospital building to face another battle waiting for them inside.
Poitevien hopes “that this isn’t just a moment in our history but a real turning point,” she said.
For Thompson, the day, one of tremendous pain, also brought celebration. A few hours after the vigil, her residency class held their graduation ceremony — online, because of the persisting COVID-19 crisis.
That Friday, she added, felt like “a story of what it’s like to be Black in America.”
She paused, before continuing: “To know that bad things, terrible things, are happening but still finding the strength to realize the good in life.”
Correction: Due to an editing error, a previous version of this article specified the date of the protest and graduation as June 12, last Friday, when it was in fact June 5, a week ago Friday. The Herald regrets the error.
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‘Racism is a public health issue’: Medical workers unite to support Black Lives Matter
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Olivia George
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June 15, 2020
healthcare
police brutality
protests
providence
racism
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As protests against anti-Black police brutality have swelled across the country after George Floyd was killed by a white police officer on May 25, many University students from St. Paul, Minnesota to Atlanta, Georgia are among the tens of thousands taking action.
The demonstrations, beyond calling for justice in Floyd’s death, also follow a string of recent killings of unarmed Black victims, including Ahmaud Arbery on Feb. 23 and Breonna Taylor on March 13.
Over the past eight days, protests have been held in every major U.S. city and dozens of smaller communities, including Providence. Protesters have expressed devastation, grief and outrage over the disproportionate and repeated murders of Black individuals by police, and have condemned this fatal manifestation of the continued systemic racism endemic to the United States.
The Herald reached out to several students who expressed support for the protests on social media, and interviewed six. These students described how and why they have participated in the movement.
Why students have taken action, and how
For Trinity Foley ’22, who is Black, the death of Ahmaud Arbery was “really just kind of the one in these recent events that shook me the most.” While jogging in a Georgia neighborhood, Arbery was pursued and shot by white residents.
Foley, who attended Black Lives Matter protests in 2016 in her hometown of Atlanta, Georgia following the three back-to-back police shootings that took place that summer, saw the Arbery case as “kind of it for me. I’ve never been so distraught.”
As “someone who was really big on pushing people to call the police stations,” Foley called multiple numbers, including the office of Georgia’s Governor Brian Kemp, asking for the arrest of William Bryan. Bryan recorded the video of Arbery’s death that was widely circulated on social media after being leaked May 5. He was arrested May 21.
“Being a citizen of Georgia, I don’t feel safe knowing that he is able to walk these streets free,” she told the clerk who answered her calls, adding, she found it “just blatantly (unjust) to the point where I don’t know how (you can) go to sleep at night knowing that you did not arrest this man.” She said she received “a very blanket response.”
Elise Ryan / Herald
Near the site of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, Ahmaud Arbery is listed among other unarmed black victims.
In a May 31 interview, Foley told The Herald she was planning on attending a protest in Atlanta later in the day, but expressed despondency about how much change last week’s wave of protests will bring.
“I’m feeling just kind of hopeless.”
Although “we will keep raising hell until something is done, I really just don’t know what it’s going to take,” Foley said. “I’m feeling just kind of hopeless. I feel like all the riots and protests are going to fall on deaf ears, especially with the person we have in the presidential office right now.”
“This country is leaving me pretty lost for words,” she added.
The moment has had a profound impact on the people around her, Foley said. She has seen her father, who has lived through various protest movements in America, “excited that things are finally getting to a point that’s like, ‘Okay, we’re going to force you to hear us.’”
Foley’s mother, who is an Atlanta native, “feels the same way as far as it’s time for progress,” but also has a “double layer” because of her connection to the city — a connection that made her “sad to see parts of the city really getting destroyed,” Foley added.
The “desire for people and companies and institutions in power to open their ears and recognize that this is a problem” is one aspect of the situation driving Foley to protest.
Foley hopes this moment can help “turn all of these racial issues from little flare-ups of people protesting, and then government officials saying whatever is necessary to quiet them, into long-standing conversations.” This requires “having everybody feel that same sense of urgency for solving this as Black Americans feel because we’re faced with it every day.”
For Undergraduate Council of Students Chair of Equity and Inclusion Jai’el Toussaint ’22, who is Black, what he hopes this moment can help achieve is “hard to wrap it all up in one word, but … peace. Liberation, freedom, autonomy.”
“To live,” added Kathleen Riche P ’22, Toussaint’s mother, who was in the room at the time of the interview and also shared her reflections with The Herald. “To not have to weigh in ‘am I going to die’ if I get pulled over for a traffic ticket.”
“When it comes to us, it’s like they have to kill us for the littlest things ever,” she added. “But when it comes to them,” she said, referring to white people, “they could shoot up a school and then they’d still get the better treatment. I think that doesn’t make sense. And we’re tired.”
“This is a state of living for me.”
Toussaint, who regularly comes into close contact with immunocompromised relatives, has not attended any protests due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. He’s been “juggling concerns” about wanting to join the protests and keeping his relatives safe from COVID-19. “There are multiple battles that you’re facing,” he said.
“This is a state of living for me. This is a reality for me and so many millions of people around the world, across the nation,” he said. It’s “a fight for your life that you have to engage with every day.”
Toussaint has been supporting protesters by donating and sharing resources on social media, including donation links, protesting tips and generally raising awareness. “I’m not trying to say I have all the answers but just (share) things that I see across my feed that would be beneficial for people to know,” he said. “I’m waiting for payday to donate in greater amount(s).”
Adrianna Maxwell ’22, who is Black, has not attended protests taking place near her home outside Chicago, Illinois. She has also been donating to show support.
“Even though I’m interested, I don’t really know much about protesting … or how to protect yourself,” she said. “So, I would have felt like if I did protest I would have gone into the situation unprepared.”
Maxwell chose to donate to grassroots organizations working actively in the streets because she “felt that their voices should be amplified.” In addition, she donated to a looted, minority-owned restaurant and to bail funds to help arrested protestors. Though she made a small donation, she hopes to donate more in the future, she added.
Making these efforts was important to her because police brutality against Black people is a “problem (that) has been going on for a really long time,” she said. Grassroots organizations, like the ones she has donated to, “have the knowledge and the tools to work actively to try to address these issues.”
Toussaint added that he appreciates the vast numbers of people going out and protesting. While it’s “tragic that we’re in a situation where we have to do that,” he said, “it is inspiring to see so many people across racial lines, class lines, pursuing that fight.”
Michael Pérez ’22, who is Latino, went alone to a May 29 protest in San Antonio, Texas. “It felt good knowing that my city showed up, and that the communities there and the people feel the same way and feel that same pain,” he said.
Pérez sees his own role and the role of non-Black people in these protests as showing support and solidarity, not just empathizing with the Black community, but understanding “our own place within how we feed and benefit from the system.”
Three years ago, when he was 17, Pérez was sitting in his car on the side of a street at night, waiting for his girlfriend at the time. Then a police officer, whom he thinks was called by a white neighbor, showed up. He “started to harass me,” Pérez said.
When the officer first started addressing Pérez, he didn’t roll down the window all the way: “I was like, what’s going on, why are you bothering me, I don’t get it.”
The officer asked to see Pérez’s license. “He took forever to roll my license,” said Pérez. While he waited, two more police cars rolled up. “It was really scary, and really eye-opening, too,” he said.
“There shouldn’t be a benefit to being a lighter skin color. That’s ridiculous.”
Eventually, the officer returned his driver’s license, and asked why he hadn’t rolled down his car window all the way at first. When Pérez told the officer he hadn’t felt safe, the officer retorted that he didn’t feel safe with Pérez there.
“I was like okay whatever, just let me go please,” Pérez said. He was let off, but “it fucks you up.”
And Pérez was haunted by how much worse it could have been. “That one night, I’m pretty sure I benefited from … not being Black,” he said. “There shouldn’t be a benefit to being a lighter skin color. That’s ridiculous.”
Pérez described “shaking” and feeling physically sick now, knowing that “there are people out there actually getting harmed and killed.”
“It means a lot to me because within my own community I know there’s been a lot of instances of police brutality and a lot of racial discrimination and profiling,” he added. But in considering his own experience of being harassed, “it’s worse knowing that maybe if I was a darker skin color, I don’t know what would have happened.”
“That pains me. I feel it in my heart,” Pérez said.
Elise Ryan / Herald
People gather around a memorial for George Floyd, consisting of flowers, candles, signs and messages spray-painted on the street, in Minneapolis.
Seamus Hubbard Flynn ’21, who is white, joined a May 30 protest which marched toward the site of Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Flynn, who is from St. Paul, was motivated by “a sense of not wanting to just sign petitions or donate, but also, since this is going on in my very own city and it was, I thought, for a very urgent cause that I believed in, I couldn’t just stand by.”
With the National Guard deployed to the streets and a curfew in place, “you hear a lot of military-grade helicopters hovering low over our houses and waking us up in the middle of the night,” Flynn said.
While “there’s an atmosphere of tension,” Flynn has had some “heartening” experiences while attending daytime protests in St. Paul. People wore masks during the march in an effort to halt the spread of COVID-19. Flynn’s friend, who brought extra water bottles to hand out in case people wanted some, found that everyone else had had the same thought.
“There was just this huge overabundance of water,” Flynn said, adding that, often, “that’s the sort of thing that you don’t hear about in the news coverage of this.”
‘Stop, listen, donate’: taking action as allies
While social media sites like Instagram are flooded with information on how to constructively aid protesters and the movement, the protests have amplified a deeper discussion about what anti-racism and non-Black allyship really mean. The students interviewed by The Herald shared their own perspectives and the ways they believe others can and should help.
“This would not have happened if he was white. Period.”
From non-Black people who want to consider themselves allies, Foley would like to see “unambiguous solidarity” and recognition of the unjust horrors Black people, like George Floyd, face.
One way to do this can be by posting on social media to help raise awareness, she said, but without using “fluffy language.”
“This would not have happened if he was white. Period. Point blank. Be direct, be blunt.” Foley also encouraged students to donate.
Toussaint agreed. “If people, especially at Brown, want to be helpful, want to consider themselves allies, they need to stop, listen and donate,” he said, adding that “anybody who has any critique for how Black people exercise their voice … really should look inwards and think: Why is that my first thought?”
While non-Black people who want to be allies can take an active role in reading and learning about racism, Foley added that they should “not put … that burden of you trying to become more educated” on the Black community.
“This is a call to reexamine yourself and the communities you’re a part of.”
Maxwell also mentioned the importance of “not putting the labor of explaining … different systems of racism on Black people … but trying to understand those systems and taking it upon themselves to explain to other people, like people in their families.”
“Behind the scenes, there’s a lot of responsibility to talk with loved ones,” Flynn said.
Olivia McClain ’22, who is white, attended a peaceful protest in her hometown of West Bend, Wisconsin. She has also donated and shared resources and information on social media, while focusing on “taking leadership from the people that are affected,” she said. “Right now, I’m going to listen to Black people — people who are actually feeling the effects.”
For non-Black students at Brown, and white students specifically, “this is a call to reexamine yourself and the communities you’re a part of and start to reckon with the racism in your own community, the racism inside yourself,” she said, adding that “just because you go to an Ivy League school that’s pretty progressive, that does not mean we are anything near to a perfect institution.”
“Not everybody knows what to say,” said Riche, Toussaint’s mother. “So if you don’t know what to say, donate to bail people out.”
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‘This country is leaving me pretty lost for words’: Students from Brown participate in, support George Floyd protests
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Students attend protests, donate, spread awareness, discuss ways to act as allies
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Clara Gutman Argemí
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June 3, 2020
police brutality
protests
providence
racism
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Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, spoke through screens to the Brown community and the public Friday afternoon, sharing practical public health advice and updates on the nation’s COVID-19 response. Fauci was interviewed by Ashish Jha, the incoming dean of the School of Public Health, who is currently the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute.
Opening the event, President Christina Paxson P’19 introduced Fauci as a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases for over 35 years and an advisor to six presidents on domestic global health issues, as well as a principal architect of the AIDS response in the 1980s.
To exemplify Fauci’s commitment to mentoring young scholars, Paxson cited the story of Luke Messac — a current emergency medicine resident at the University — who tweeted in mid-July that as a Harvard undergraduate 13 years ago, he sent Fauci an email “out of the blue,” requesting an interview for his thesis. After the thesis was complete, Fauci read Messac’s work and sent back a glowing response. When Messac posted a screenshot of Fauci’s endorsement to Twitter, the post garnered over 431,000 likes and 51,000 retweets.
Thursday evening before the event, Jha looked forward to his conversation with Fauci, a scientist who he has long considered a personal role model.
“One of the things I really admired about (Fauci) is his ability to communicate effectively to people,” Jha told The Herald. “He doesn’t dumb things down.”
Jha added, “I think it’s really important that public health leaders speak up at a moment like this, especially when there’s so much misinformation out there … it’s particularly important to have credible scientific forces.”
During the event, Fauci addressed a wide range of complex topics, from the development of an efficacious COVID-19 vaccine to his past work combating HIV/AIDS, as well as the policy surrounding states’ closing and reopening plans.
“Anybody who says we are not living in a divisive era in our country is not paying attention,” Fauci told viewers.
“If we can somehow get the country unified together, we could make it into the fall and winter looking good.”
“It was as if there’s public health principles, and then there’s ‘open up the country,’” Fauci said, emphasizing how problems have arisen as reopening plans have not strictly enforced public health guidelines. “One is not the enemy of the other — one is the gateway to get to the other.”
Fauci listed his pillars of proper public health practices: “Universal wearing of a mask, physical distancing, avoid crowds, outdoor better than indoor, washing your hands … and — if you’re in a situation where it applies to you — stay away from bars. Bars are bad news when it comes to the spread.”
“Those things work,” he said. Still, he acknowledged that some states have been better able to enforce these practices than others.
“If we can somehow get the country unified together, we could make it into the fall and winter looking good,” Fauci said.
Jha and Fauci also discussed the process for vaccine creation and implementation. Fauci said he feels “cautiously optimistic” about the vaccine process, citing the results of ongoing vaccine trials.
Fauci explained that phase one clinical trial data as well as research in animal models indicates that the vaccine candidate “induces a response with neutralizing antibodies. That’s at least as good, if not better than the plasma of convalescent people, which tells me that’s a good start,” Fauci said.
He added: “We know that the body is capable of making a good response … because we have so many people who clear the virus and do well. So the goal of a vaccine is to do as well, or hopefully better than natural infection in inducing a good response.”
But even when a vaccine makes it through all stages of clinical trials, the issue of disseminating the vaccine throughout the population remains. Fauci said that even if a vaccine were ready by early 2021,“we’re not going to have 100 million doses — we’re going to have tens of millions of doses, which means that we’ve got to prioritize.”
“It’s going to end because of science.”
Fauci said that when a vaccine is released, it doesn’t mean life will automatically return to normal. He advised, “You must never abandon the public health approach. You’ve got to think of the vaccine as a tool to be able to get a pandemic to no longer be a pandemic, but to be something that’s well controlled.”
No vaccine is 100% effective — the common flu vaccine was only 46% effective in preventing the flu during the 2019 – 2020 flu season — but some, like the shot for measles, are around 98% effective.
For COVID-19, Fauci said, “I believe we’ll get an effective vaccine. But we don’t know if it’s going to be 50%, or 60%. Hopefully, I’d like to see 75% or more, but the chances of it being 98% effective is not great.”
To contextualize current scientific efforts to combat COVID-19, Jha and Fauci recalled their own experiences dealing with other highly infectious diseases. Fauci detailed some of his scientific work fighting HIV, while Jha saw pneumocystis pneumonia drastically decrease in severity during his time as a resident at the University of California at San Francisco between the years of 1997 and 2001. “Science, when it works, really is miraculous,” Jha said.
“This is going to end,” Fauci said. “And it’s going to end because of science,” Jha added.
Fauci also brought up the prospect of developing antiviral drugs that could stop the infection as soon as a patient gets a positive test result. “Quite frankly, there really is no reason why we cannot do that. There’s no reason why that’s not possible. Heck, if we did it for HIV, we can do it for coronavirus,” he said.
After the initial discussion, Jha introduced University students, who posed their own questions for Fauci. The first came from Shekinah Fashaw, a PhD’23 student at the School of Public Health in Health Services Research. She asked Fauci to give his perspective on the impact of the “two pandemics that we’ve seen colliding:” COVID-19 and racism.
“Dr. Fauci is like my Beyonce as a public health student, so it was definitely an amazing experience to be able to ask him that question,” Fashaw told The Herald after the event.
Fashaw’s dissertation work focuses on the racial and socioeconomic disparities in access to Medicare home health services, and she has also studied disparities in nursing homes. “I don’t think I ever saw my work as timely or important as I see it now,” she added.
“Maybe it will be a wake-up call for society to change.”
“COVID-19 didn’t create these disparities, it didn’t create racism, it didn’t create the issues of health equity, but it really did highlight and exacerbate many of the disparities that we see,” Fashaw said. “Racism and residential segregation (are) … truly the fundamental cause of the health disparities and health inequities that are experienced in this country by Black and brown communities,” she added.
“Maybe it will be a wake-up call for society to change,” Fauci said, referencing this collision of racism and COVID-19. “The thing that you can do now is make sure that resources are concentrated geographically to those demographic groups that are clearly at higher risk for infection,” he said.
Other student questions came from medical student Katie Barry MD’23, who asked for Fauci’s advice for future physicians, Watson Institute Master of Public Affairs student Margaret Elam GS and recent graduate Abdullah Shihipar MPH ’20.
As the event came to a close, Jha asked Fauci: “Have you had a day off since this pandemic began?”
“Not to engender any sympathy — but I have not had a single day off since the very beginning of January when we decided that we were going to start working like crazy on a vaccine,” Fauci said.
He credited his wife with helping him keep up the busy schedule, adding “we also are fortunate in that we are taking care of one of my daughter’s dogs. … That dog never does anything but, just, want to be near me.”
So what is key to Fauci’s consistent engagement at the NIH, at the White House on the Coronavirus Task Force and when responding to the countless emails that flood his inbox?
The simple respite of a long dog walk, he said.
—Additional reporting by Emilija Sagaityte.
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‘This is going to end:’ Anthony Fauci joins Ashish Jha to address COVID-19 pandemic in live-streamed Brown event
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Cate Ryan
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Brown Daily Herald
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Brown Daily Herald
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August 8, 2020
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Emilija Sagaityte
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Brown Daily Herald
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This collection consists of articles published by the Brown Daily Herald, the undergraduate daily student newspaper, in regards to COVID-19 at Brown.
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When they first found out that the University was asking undergraduates to vacate dorms in response to COVID-19, many students from low-income backgrounds faced immediate challenges.
“How am I going to pay for this?” Adrianna Maxwell ’22, a student staffer at the Undocumented, First-Generation College and Low-Income Student Center, who also identifies as a U-FLi student, wondered. “In the moment, I was stressed. I’ve got to get home and I’ve got to pack my stuff. … How am I going to pay for storage?”
Hannah Ponce ’22, who is also a U-FLi student, said that as soon as she heard the University was sending students home, she had to figure out how to make ends meet without her two jobs in Providence as an intern for Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and as a student cashier for Brown Dining Services.
“I can’t afford my bills without working, so before even thinking about how I was going to get off campus, I was already calling … to get my job back” in her home state of California. “We’re in the middle of a global pandemic, and I was like ‘I need to make money,’ but that’s just the experience of being a U-FLi student.”
Many students in the U-FLi community shared Maxwell and Ponce’s concerns. “I was hearing a lot of those things from students” in the days following the University’s March 12 announcement of its decision, said Julio Reyes ’12, the program director of the U-FLi Center, who has been providing individualized support for students facing the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.
Now, a month after the University first announced its transition to online learning,many U-FLi students have returned to financially challenging situations at home and are facing a different kind of struggle. “What end(s) up coming up … (are) all the issues related to being at home and being a student at home,” Reyes said.
“I was worried about income”: Financial instability and household responsibilities
After applying for emergency funding to cover the costs of moving out and changing her flight home to an earlier date, Maxwell eventually made it back to Broadview, Illinois, a town just outside Chicago where she lives with her father and brother.
But “when I got home, the worries kind of changed,” she said. Her father works in the automobile industry, and his plant initially closed down in response to the pandemic.
Lacking paid leave benefits, he had to file for unemployment. Even though her 21-year-old brother, who works at a call center, was able to keep his job, “I was worried about income,” Maxwell said.
After two weeks of uncertainty, Maxwell’s father’s plant opened up again, and he was able to return to work. “I guess the automobile industry was seen as essential workers,” Maxwell said, but added, “it still kind of worries me because … he could be exposed to the virus at any point.”
Concentrating on academics back home has been tough. “I had a lot of anxiety when my dad was let go without paid leave, so it’s just stuff like that that you’re worried about and you’re not focused,” Maxwell said.
Other students are looking to juggle supporting their families with their academic obligations. Ponce’s two jobs in Providence have continued to pay her temporarily — her position at BuDS will pay her for her scheduled hours through May 4. But now that she’s home, Ponce is taking on more responsibility in maintaining her household because her mother is an essential worker and her father is at elevated risk of contracting the virus. “Even though I’m not working, it’s still really hard to manage my home life and school work,” she said.
Some students whose parents have been laid off are “saying that they now want to take on what’s considered an essential job in their city in order to support family,” said Reyes.
That situation can be particularly hard on students who are U.S. citizens but who come from mixed-status families.
Undocumented working parents who are laid off from their jobs or choose not to work because of health risks might not have access to federal support services. In that case, “the students now feel like they have to support their families,” Reyes said. “It’s been tough.”
“It’s not an equal playing field”: Challenges to academics at home
Direct pressure to provide income and household support is not the only challenge afflicting students; with remote learning comes inevitable technical roadblocks. A couple weeks ago, a power line in Maxwell’s neighborhood went out, abruptly cutting off her Wi-Fi access. The power stayed out for about eight to 12 hours, Maxwell added, forcing her to miss one of her classes via Zoom.
The loss of power didn’t come as a “big surprise,” Maxwell said. While not a regular occurrence, “it’s not out of the blue that the power could go out” in her neighborhood. Her house is older and the power infrastructure isn’t very efficient or new.
Remote classwork has proven to be difficult to manage at home for Ponce as well. While she believes she can still do well in her courses, she supported the Universal Pass campaign because she understands “what it’s like to have to make sacrifices for your academics that you shouldn’t have to.”
Various proposals concerning temporary modifications to the University’s grading system this semester have been widely and intensely debated. Dean of the College Rashid Zia ’01 acknowledged some students’ desire for Universal Pass in a March 30 email, but upheld the University’s decision not to adopt either Universal Pass or mandatory Satisfactory/No Credit system. In this email, Dean Zia wrote that for certain students who had overcome challenges after struggling academically earlier in their time at the University, “letter grades this semester – even if only in one class – could showcase their resilience in the face of adversity.” Instead, the University opted to extend the deadline for students to elect to take classes S/NC; students now have until May 1 to change their grade options.
Ponce said that many of the administration’s public statements about UPass have been “really inconsiderate of the experiences that U-FLi students are having. Saying that this is a time when we can display our resilience is ridiculous.”
“When we’re not on campus, we’re not equal to other students,” she said. Without equal access to libraries, computer labs and other resources, and with the added stress of family life, U-FLi students face challenges that students with more at-home resources do not. “There are so many more things that affect U-FLi students that make it more difficult to just focus on your academics,” she said.
Associate Dean for International Students Asabe Poloma works alongside Reyes on the team that coordinates the COVID-19 Transition E-Gap Fund. She and the rest of the E-Gap team have been working to support students, but they are aware that the situation is complex and ridden with inequalities beyond their control. “In a context of structural poverty and an infrastructure that exceeds Brown’s campus, how do we manage that and account for that?”
With college campuses closing across the country, forcing many low-income students to continue school work from home, the pandemic has revealed the class inequities that run deep in the student bodies of many colleges and universities across the U.S., according to the New York Times.
For Maxwell, who also supports UPass, the pandemic has only made more evident a reality that already exists on campus. “Even at Brown, you see class differences and struggles,” she said. “But when people go home, those are exacerbated, and it’s not an equal playing field.”
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‘When we’re not on campus, we’re not equal to other students’: Challenges of COVID-19 for low-income students
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Low-income students confront financial strains leaving campus, face unstable family incomes; U-FLi Center, E-Gap funds work to address struggles
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Olivia Burdette and Clara Gutman Argemí
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Brown Daily Herald
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Brown Daily Herald
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April 16, 2020
grades
Rashid Zia
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Brown Daily Herald
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This collection consists of articles published by the Brown Daily Herald, the undergraduate daily student newspaper, in regards to COVID-19 at Brown.
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When Jenny Huang’s ’23 acting class transitioned to remote learning after the University canceled in-person classes and evacuated campus in March, her professor asked students to switch to performing monologues telematically.
But for Huang, performing via Zoom from her apartment in Beijing, where she’s waiting for the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic to subside with her parents and grandmother, presents some logistical difficulties.
The acting class starts at 10 p.m. Beijing time — or 10 a.m. EDT — and can run until almost midnight. Huang’s monologue, an excerpt from “Angels in America” which she called “a little bit crazy,” requires her to raise her voice, which she doesn’t dare do while her family is sleeping.
“I don’t want to yowl or speak in a very loud voice because I don’t want to wake them up,” she said, adding that keeping her noise level down is a challenge in her classes.
For many international students, returning to their home countries entailed a long process riddled with challenges and uncertainties. But as many have transitioned to remote learning from their homes in different time zones and under varying lockdown conditions, they face a new set of challenges.
Zooming across time zones
When Huang first arrived in China, a government policy required her to quarantine in a hotel for 14 days because she was returning from abroad. She feels lucky that she was able to make it home. Some of her friends waited too long to buy tickets and were unable to return to China once the country suspended international travel.
Huang’s family sent food, snacks and books to her hotel, but couldn’t see her in person.
“I felt like online courses went really well in that period because I was in a hotel alone,” she said, and didn’t worry about disrupting her family while she virtually attended 2 a.m. and 7 a.m. classes.
Huang is not alone in taking classes at strange hours.
Ding Wei ’22 did not initially realize the impact that a time zone shift of six hours would have on his life when he moved back home to Budapest, Hungary. “Right now, my life schedule and daily schedule are completely different from before,” he said. “To be honest, I’m still struggling to get used to that.”
“My schedule before I left Brown was very structured and well-balanced,” Wei said. As a morning person, Wei finds the awkward breaks between his midday classes difficult to adjust to. “This time period is asking me for a lot more discipline than before,” he added.
Returning home also involves making adjustments for family. “I was concerned about how I would juggle between my classes and family duties,” Wei said. As a result of the public transport restrictions in Hungary, he is responsible for driving his mother to and from her work.
After leaving campus and returning to his parents’ house in South Korea, Dave Song ’23 has also been forced to acclimate to a new normal: He goes to bed around 5 a.m. and he wakes up at noon.
Song said that he has felt supported by both the University and his professors throughout the transition to remote learning.
Song’s architecture studio class originally ran for five hours, but has since been broken into different sections in order to accommodate students across time zones. Now, instead of having to attend class from 2 a.m. to 7 a.m. (which would have been 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. in Providence), Song attends a two-hour section tailored for students who are in East Asia and later joins the whole class for an hour lecture.
Instead of joining his engineering lecture at 3:30 a.m. his time, Song has individual meetings with his professor twice a week and catches up with the lecture recordings on his own time. Despite now effectively having “twice the amount of work,” Song said that he prefers the new arrangement because it gives one-on-one time with his professor.
“I felt supported and good about their effort to understand everyone’s situations. I understand it’s really hard (for) Brown because it’s a group of diverse students,” said Song.
University resources
Aanya Parikh ’21 agreed with Song that a key part of her transition to remote learning was her professors’ capability to understand and accommodate her having to return to her home country of India. Still, Parikh believes that the University has not done anything “that stood out” to accommodate students.
Parikh expressed frustration with the University’s delayed response to cancel in-person classes, compared to other institutions, as well as not changing the grading policy to a mandatory Satisfactory/No Credit system.
“I found out on Thursday that we had to leave and get out of campus, and I had to book a flight for that Saturday because India was closing its borders,” said Parikh. “I packed in a day and said goodbye to everyone, for who even knows how long.”
Since the start of the pandemic, Associate Dean for International Students Asabe Poloma has been a major point of contact for international students individually to provide support and arrange University financial resources when necessary.
At first, her work focused on helping students who needed to get home, but now she is working with students to adapt to online learning for the rest of the semester, wherever they may be.
Many international students are facing issues relating to Wi-Fi access, connectivity and affordability, which “look very different when we’re talking about it in the U.S. versus abroad,” Poloma said.
“What (Wi-Fi) access looks like to a student in rural Alabama or a Navajo reservation in the U.S. is similar in very interesting, intersectional ways for an international student who finds himself back home in Pakistan and is saying, ‘There is no way I can do a Zoom lecture on a mobile data plan,’” she added.
Taking classes late at night raises connectivity problems, Huang said. The Wi-Fi in her Beijing apartment building is slower late at night, which can make it hard for Huang to complete her coursework.
During a live-time Canvas quiz for her Italian class, the internet crashed and she was unable to complete her work. While the instructor was accommodating, Huang was “freaking out,” she said.
Staying in touch
While living in other countries and time zones poses unique challenges to students’ academic experience, social time has also been greatly impacted.
Now at home under lockdown in Bordeaux, France, Mathilde Barland ’21 is in a strange situation — between boarding school and college, she has been living away from home for eight years, five of which were spent abroad. “It feels weird, and it just doesn’t feel like home anymore,” she said.
Barland wonders when she’ll next be able to return to the U.S. “All my stuff is in the U.S. I only have one suitcase with me” in France, she said. “I have people close to me in the U.S. Being so far and not being able to be close to them and support them is really difficult.”
Song and Parikh also expressed concerns and uncertainty about being able to stay in touch with friends.
“While I am sleeping they’re awake, and now, when I wake up they’re asleep,” Song said. “So we only have this two-hour period in the day where we can text and call, unless one person stays awake till four.”
“I am international, I have friends from every single corner of the world,” said Parikh. This makes it even harder for her and her friends to coordinate a time when they would be able to get some sort of group interaction.
And connection to friends is what makes other difficulties more manageable, Wei said.
Wei believes that staying connected with people helps him normalize his situation. “It is a great reminder that school is still going on and other people are doing work so you should probably get back to your problem set now,” he said.
Livia Gimenes reported from Maringá, Brazil; Clara Gutman Argemí reported from Barcelona, Spain; and Trisha Thacker reported from Mumbai, India.
— With additional reporting by Kayla Guo in Long Island, New York
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‘While I am sleeping they’re awake, and now, when I wake up, they’re asleep’: For international students at home, remote semester presents unique challenges
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Clara Gutman Argemí, Livia Gimenes, and Trisha Thacker
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Brown Daily Herald
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Brown Daily Herald
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April 24, 2020
International Students