SINCE 1891
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD VOLUME CLVIII, ISSUE 25
Friday, March 24, 2023
UNIVERSITY NEWS
UNIVERSITY NEWS
U. permanently eliminates undergrad loans U. exceeds fundraising goal initially set in 2017 for implementation of Brown Promise
RISD students carve new legacy for historic tree Students use wood from centuries-old tree removed due to fungal infection
BY NATALIE VILLACRES SENIOR STAFF WRITER The University has completed its 2017 fundraising goal to eliminate loans from undergraduate student financial aid packages, officially making the Brown Promise initiative permanent, according to a Thursday press release. In September 2017, the University announced the Brown Promise initiative, a $120 million fundraising campaign with the aim of eliminating loans from undergraduate financial aid packages. By that December, it had successfully raised $30 million, enough to replace all loans with grants for the 2018-19 academic year, The Herald previously reported. Since then, loans have not been part of the University’s undergraduate financial aid packages — and nearly six years later, the University has reached its $120 million goal, making that elimination permanent, according to the
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BY HALEY SANDLOW & SOFIA BARNETT UNIVERSITY NEWS EDITORS
DANA RICHIE / HERALD
Brown hit its initial $30 million goal for the Brown Together initiative in 2017 and reached the $120 million threshhold this winter. release. Funded entirely by donors, the Brown Promise initiative has enabled the University to increase access and affordability — especially for moderate-income families who qualify for less aid than low-income families — while reducing the number of students who take out loans, according to the press release. The percentage of incoming firstyear students from moderate-income families has increased from 54% in the 2017-18 academic year to 67% in the
2022-23 academic year, according to the release. “Making Brown an affordable choice for extraordinarily talented students from every income level is nothing short of transformational,” President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 said in the press release. Since its inception in 2018, over 3,500 students have been impacted by the Brown Promise, including 58% of all undergraduates in the 2022-23 ac-
SEE LOANS PAGE 8
As Brown was growing through the centuries, so was a beech tree on Power Street. Cat Love, a senior at the Rhode Island School of Design studying furniture design, had always loved the European Beech, more than 200 years old, planted in the garden of Nightingale Brown House. She passed it on her way to class her junior year, noticing the tree stretching well above the garden’s brick wall. But on a gray day in October 2021, Love was greeted by a crane and a lumbering team. A worker was strapped to the tree with a chainsaw, cutting it down branch by branch.
Love, in a car with a friend, did a lap around the block and passed by the scene again. During her gap year, she had spent much of her free time under that tree’s shade in the garden reading, writing or spending time with friends — “the perfect place,” she called it. According to Ron Potvin, assistant director and curator at the John Nicholas Brown Center, the tree “was probably the oldest living organism on the grounds.” He recalled Brown students visiting the garden on sunny days, trying to scale “the very tempting climbing tree.” Love got out of the car and asked the workers what they were doing. Someone on the team told her: the tree had a fungus and needed to be taken down. “I was just so distraught and just so emotional about it,” Love said. The Department of Facilities Management’s full-time arborist first discovered tree rot in the beginning of 2015, according to Paul
SEE TREE PAGE 3
UNIVERSITY NEWS
UNIVERSITY NEWS
Student runs 10Ks for Nepali health care
GLO, Brown continue contract negotiations
Roshan Sapkota ’23 fundraises for global health project in Nepal by running 10Ks BY JENNIFER SHIM SENIOR STAFF WRITER On March 20, Roshan Sapkota ’23 ran a 10K — his 10th in a series of long-distance runs. The runs were part of Sapkota’s effort to fundraise for a global health project based in Nepal that employs community health workers to “test if an innovative, trauma program will improve patient outcomes,” according to Ramu Kharel, assistant professor of emergency medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School. Sapkota became involved in the project last semester, after reaching out to Kharel, who has a “a big presence” in advocating for public health measures in Nepal, Sapkota said. “He was really accepting and inviting and he had a project centered around improving pre-hospital care that we wrote up a grant application for.”
Sapkota explained that pre-hospital care is the treatment a patient receives before arriving at the hospital, specifically after experiencing traumatic injuries. “In the United States … you can dial 911 and have access to an ambulance in a very quick time,” he said. But Nepal’s hospital healthcare system and terrain pose “a very significant challenge to provide pre-hospital care.” According to Sapkota, the project specifically aims to “supply the community health workers in a remote … city named Achham” with equipment such as cervical collars and long spinal boards, which are used to help stabilize patients and safely transport them to care. “We realized a lot of patients, they’ll have a traumatic injury, and they’ll just walk to the hospital, which is sometimes 50 to 100 kilometers away.” This often further adds to their injuries, Sapkota said. “Our plan is to supply the community health workers with equipment to help … stabilize patients and to help them safely transport patients.” To help fund the project, Sapko-
SEE FUNDRAISER PAGE 9
Worker position distinctions, safety among key issues at negotiation sessions BY KATIE JAIN SENIOR STAFF WRITER The Graduate Labor Organization and the University discussed workplace safety and accessibility, leaves of absence and discrimination policy at their fourth contract negotiation session Wednesday. Since Feb. 15, the two parties have exchanged proposals while renegotiating GLO’s collective bargaining agreement, which is set to expire on June 30. In the meetings, GLO has proposed a number of new measures for the updated contract, including clearer distinctions between positions and new language on workplace discrimination. At the second negotiation meeting, which took place March 1, GLO’s bargaining committee proposed that the contract more clearly distinguish between different graduate worker positions and include an express right to workplaces compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act with stronger enforcement, according to GLO’s Twit-
Metro
Metro
Commentary
Protestors rally against use of pigs in physician training Page 2
House passes extension for harm reduction pilot Page 9
Gupta ’25: How to handle mismatched sex drives Page 7
HERALD FILE PHOTO
Since Feb. 15, the two parties have been exchanging proposals in an effort to renegotiate GLO’s collective bargaining agreement. ter updates for the meeting. The bargaining committee also asked that the bargaining unit — and therefore the contract — expands to cover all graduate students, even when they are not actively teaching. Currently, the bargaining unit only includes graduate students who work as teaching assistants, teaching fellows, research assistants or proctors. This change would allow GLO to represent a more expansive graduate student population, GLO President Sherena Razek GS told
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The Herald. At the following meeting March 8, the University put forth a counterproposal agreeing to further distinctions between teaching assistant IIs and teaching fellows, according to GLO’s Twitter updates for that meeting. According to the existing contract, teaching assistant IIs “bear primary responsibility for instruction and grading of a particular course,” while teaching
SEE GLO PAGE 5
TOMORROW
DESIGNED BY
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TIFFANY TRAN ’26 DESIGNER JOYCE GAO ’24 DESIGNER SIRINE BENALI ’23 DESIGN EDITOR NEIL MEHTA ’25 DESIGN CHIEF