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.

When the police arrived on Westminster Street between late on the evening of June 1 and early in the morning of June 2, Assistant Professor of Economics Teddy Mekonnen was standing alongside his neighbor.

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. 

In recent months, Brown students have been leading a nationwide food redistribution effort to help farms whose usual supply chains have been disrupted.

Data released by the Rhode Island Department of Health revealed that, of the 59 percent of positive test cases where race was reported, 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.

Fascinated and concerned by public health crises from a young age, Rhode Island resident and University student Maddie McCarthy ’23 has created Community For COVID, a website focused on involving undergraduates with community efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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.

An unidentified prisoner at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility tested positive for COVID-19, according to a daily report sent from Daniel Martin, the facility’s warden, to United States Chief District Court Judge John McConnell Jr. ’80. The prisoner is one of the 490 people currently being held at the facility.

Streams of protestors drove around the R.I. State House last Friday, blaring their horns and carrying signs in support of increased releases of incarcerated people from the Adult Correctional Institutions — releases that they say have taken on a potentially life-or-death-significance, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Earlier this semester, a Monday afternoon on Thayer Street would mean students filling the windows of Blue State and Ceremony Tea, with lines stretching along the counters of Bajas or East Side Pockets. Now, the street is nearly deserted.