SINCE 1891
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD VOLUME CLVIII, ISSUE 16
Friday, March 3, 2023
BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM
UNIVERSITY NEWS
Computer science TAs vote yes to union Assistant Labor Organization followed nearly three months of campaigning — and organizing efforts that stretch back at least to October 2022 — to create the first undergraduate labor union on campus. TALO’s win makes it the second student bargaining unit on campus, following the Graduate Labor Organization’s successful formation in 2018. While TALO will unionize as part of GLO to gain access to more resources and ensure stability, it “will have a separate contract and bargain with Brown independently,” according to a TALO Instagram post. The announcement followed a day of in-person, anonymous voting, which took place from 12-3 p.m. and from 5-8 p.m. on the fourth floor of the Sciences Library under the supervision of NLRB representatives. All undergraduate, meta and head teaching assistants who are current-
TALO organizers celebrate win, contemplate next steps as official union BY ASHLEY CAI & SAMUEL LEVINE SENIOR STAFF WRITER AND UNIVERSITY NEWS EDITOR Undergraduate computer science teaching assistants voted 303-28 in favor of unionizing, a National Labor Relations Board representative announced following the tabulation of votes cast in Thursday’s election. 331 total votes were cast, with 91.5% in favor and 8.5% opposed. The decisive victory for the Te a c h i n g
ly working were eligible to vote in the election, as were all undergraduate, meta and head teaching assistants who worked in the fall 2022 semester, The Herald previously reported. “I’m just so proud of everyone in this room,” Galen Winsor ’22.5, a graduated TALO organizer, told The Herald after the vote tally was announced. “This was not easy,” he said. “This took a ton of work. And even though the count ended up being incredibly on our side, that just reflects how much everyone had to put into it.” TALO is “looking forward to making TA working conditions better and delivering the world-class education that Brown promises,” said Colton Rusch ’23, a TALO organizer, in an interview with The Herald after the vote tabulation. He added that TALO is “very grateful for everyone who has gotten us here, and overall thankful for Brown as well, and
we’re looking forward to a cooperative bargaining experience with them.” Once the NLRB officially certifies the election, “the University will recognize the Graduate Labor Organization as the exclusive representative of computer science TAs in the bargaining unit on employment matters,” wrote University Spokesperson Brian Clark in an email to The Herald. “After the NLRB’s certification, and per the law and conventions governing collective bargaining, the union will present the University with an intent to bargain,” Clark wrote. “When that happens, the parties will work cooperatively to establish a schedule for negotiations over the terms of a collective bargaining agreement.” “We look forward to working productively, collegially and in good faith around the im-
portant matters of terms and conditions of employment for the members of the bargaining unit,” Clark added. “The undergraduate TA program in computer science is a distinguished program at Brown with a long and valued history, and the University and the Department of Computer Science remain fully committed to ensuring that it is a valuable academic experience for generations of students to come.” CS TAs launched their campaign to
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DANA RICHIE, SAM LEVINE / HERALD
UNIVERSITY NEWS
A look at Brown’s most popular classes Hearing, happiness classes attract most students for spring semester BY ANISHA KUMAR SENIOR STAFF WRITER When Isaiah Nawaz ’25 walked into a MacMillan Hall classroom for his neuroscience course during shopping period, he was surprised by how quickly the lecture hall’s seats were taken up. “Every single seat was taken,” he said. “If people walked into class two minutes late, there were no seats, so they’d stand … the whole time.” Nawaz, a prospective neuroscience concentrator, had not anticipated that NEUR 1065: “Biology of Hearing” would be such a highly demanded course. According to data reviewed by The Herald from the Office of Institutional Research, the nearly thirty-year-old course is the most popular class at
Brown this semester. The course has 578 students enrolled across two sections, with 427 students in its larger, in-person section, according to Courses@Brown. “Biology of Hearing” is followed in popularity by: CSCI 0200: “Program Design with Data Structures and Algorithms,” which boasts an enrollment of 461 students; RELS 0010: “Happiness and the Pursuit of the Good Life,” which has an enrollment of 408 students; CHEM 0350: “Organic Chemistry I,” which currently has 482 total students enrolled; and APMA 1650: “Statistical Inference I,” which has 408 students. ‘Biology of Hearing’: embracing the ‘unconventional’ “Biology of Hearing” aims to provide an overview of how sound is received and processed by the ears through an interdisciplinary approach, exploring fields like anatomy, neuroscience, physics and psychology, according to the course’s syllabus. Professor of Biology James Sim-
mons, who has been an instructor at Brown since 1984, said he first began teaching “Biology of Hearing” in 1996 and has taught it “more or less continuously” since then. The course was initially intended to be a companion to the formerly offered “Biology of Vision” course. The class has remained largely unchanged throughout its nearly threedecade-long existence, with only occasional updates to the course content to reflect new research on the subject, Simmons said. According to Simmons, this year’s high enrollment — nearly triple the usual amount of students — could be explained by his announcement of his plans to retire in the next two or three years. “This will be the last time I teach the class,” he said. “I announced that right at the beginning (of the semester), and a whole lot of people flocked to take it.” In response to the unexpected in-
UNIVERSITY NEWS
Brown’s payments to Providence, explained
PILOT, memorandums of understanding generate revenue in lieu of property taxes BY RHEA RASQUINHA METRO EDITOR As a nonprofit institution, the University does not pay property taxes on its institutional properties — a condition that dates back to the University’s 1764 charter. Commercial properties owned by the University, though, such as the Brown Bookstore, are taxed — as are properties in which Brown is a tenant — including the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship and South Street Landing. According to a Jan. 2022 report from the Providence Finance Department and the Office of then-Mayor Jorge
Elorza, the University would pay close to $50 million annually if it paid full taxes for all of its properties, which are valued at over $1.3 billion. If all nonprofit land parcels were taxed at the commercial rate, Providence would see an annual yield of over $130 million, the report continued. Laws and agreements in place supply Providence with part of the University’s estimated full tax revenue to the city. One is state-funded: payments in lieu of taxes funding, also known as PILOT, which does not involve payments from the University. The University also has two agreements with Providence for voluntary payments: a 2003 memorandum of understanding that also includes Rhode Island School of Design, Providence College and Johnson and Wales University, and a 2012 memorandum of agreement. The latter two agreements expire
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TIFFANY TRAN ’26 DESIGNER JANE ZHOU ’25 DESIGNER SIRINE BENALI ’23 DESIGN EDITOR NEIL MEHTA ’25 DESIGN CHIEF