Next week, while many college students fly off to tropical destinations or binge watch “New Girl” in the comfort of their cozy childhood rooms, others will be getting their hands dirty building houses for Habitat for Humanity, helping out with environmental issues in another state or immersing ...
Monday was World Poetry Day, and coffee houses carrying Julius Meinl roasts around the world offered coffee in exchange for a poem. I have always considered coffee quite a poetic beverage, but I have not always recognized its symbolism. As well-seasoned caffeine connoisseurs, college students should ...
Recently, President Christina Paxson P’19 published the Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan, a 19-page proposal announcing her intention to spend over $150 million to create “a just and inclusive campus” with “a concrete set of actions to promote diversity and inclusion and confront the issues ...
The course announcement for the 2016-2017 academic year, along with the new website, Courses@Brown, was released not long ago, and ever since, many of us have been working on plans for the next two semesters. As we excitedly read course descriptions, fill our shopping carts and imagine next year’s ...
Before coming to Brown, I had the false impression that spaces would assume well-defined roles in my public or private life, as they had during my high school years. But that is not the case; the university environment does not entitle me to spatial security, so to speak. Consolidation of public and ...
Brown students are known for their enthusiasm about social justice. Just last month, we made national headlines once again for being the type of students who care more about the community to which we belong than about our own academic achievements. Many news outlets and outside observers seemed to think ...
Two weeks ago, a coalition of students wrote to Janet Mock, petitioning her to reconsider the Brown/RISD Hillel sponsorship of her March 21 Moral Voices talk. We sought to show the political implications of Moral Voices’ series of lectures on violence against LGBTQ+ communities being complicated by ...
We believe in the power of stories, for better or for worse. In our society, the voices that most need to be heard are too often silenced. The stories we hear from men (primarily cisgendered men) are often told in a way that silence the voices of women and trans folks. White men’s stories in particular ...
With the Senate Republicans trumpeting their opposition to President Barack Obama’s nomination of a respected, qualified moderate Wednesday, it’s hard to figure out their long game. Merrick Garland is as palatable as any Democratic nominee could be — U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-UT, has called him ...
Last week, a petition began circulating online that demanded the acclaimed trans activist Janet Mock disassociate her lecture from its sponsors, Moral Voices and Brown/RISD Hillel. Among other accusations, the petition charges Hillel, and by extension, Israel, of “pinkwashing” the Israel-Palestine ...
Since this year’s primary season began Feb. 1, just over half of the 50 states have gone to the polls to express their preferences for the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees. With the exception of the border region containing Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland and Delaware, all of the ...
It’s been over two weeks since Viola Davis spoke at Brown, and I have yet to stop thinking about her opening line and message about the power of storytelling. It’s something we should all still be thinking about. She pronounced, “My name is Viola Davis, and I am a hero” before using the narrative ...
Recently, I have begun to think more deeply about what I believe politically. This year I will be voting in my second presidential election, and I have changed a lot as a person since the last. I hope that any student planning on voting gives their political beliefs similar thought. Some might not find ...
Several months ago, as a wide-eyed freshman eager to call Brown her new home, I purchased more Brown merchandise than I wish to admit. Where did the sudden burst of school pride come from? Maybe it was the repressed cheerleader inside me, who hadn’t had the chance to tap into her pep in a European ...
When U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-MD, who represents the predominantly black localities of Baltimore County, spoke in MacMillan Hall Tuesday, he was unsparing in his excoriation of the new American condition. In a talk that was largely extemporaneous and unprepared — “My speeches come from my heart, ...
When I first saw the emerging presidential field last January, I remember making a rather obvious pronouncement: “Well, at least 2016 will be entertaining.” As part of the generation raised on election coverage from “The Daily Show” and “Saturday Night Live,” I had high expectations. Given ...
For us African students here at Brown, culture shock comes in many forms — some trivial, some funny and others grim. You never know when it might strike. So, when I attended a social event one week into my freshman year, I was thrilled to devour some of the highly acclaimed American cheese and scavenge ...
In February of this year, Brown accepted a scholar who had been displaced by the Syrian Civil War. Tarek, who spoke to The Herald last week as a part of its series on Syrians in Providence and whose name has been changed to preserve anonymity for the sake of his and his family’s safety, left his ...
I don’t have to convince anyone reading this that Brown is a costly school to attend. The school covers about a third of my costs, but even so, every semester my family and I shell out a veritable fortune to allow me to be here. Almost 71 percent of the nation’s class of 2015 took out loans to pay ...
I rarely like to make a big to-do about religion because I feel like it is a very private, personal thing. But I have recently begun noticing that religion is often pitted against academia and intelligence, as if the two cannot exist together. I wanted to take the chance as a columnist to write a two-part ...
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