SINCE 1891
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD VOLUME CLVIII, ISSUE 38
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2023
BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM
WHAT’S INSIDE UNIVERSITY NEWS
Get to know the class of 2027 with the first year poll SEE POLL PAGE 14
ARTS & CULTURE
Absurd high school comedy hits funny bone SEE BOTTOMS PAGE 12
UNIVERSITY NEWS
New agreements would increase Brown’s voluntary payments in lieu of taxes to Providence Brown will pay average of $8.7 million annually in individual, joint agreements BY SAM LEVINE AND RHEA RASQUINHA UNIVERSITY NEWS EDITOR & METRO EDITOR The University would pay an average of $8.7 million annually to the city of Providence under two proposed voluntary payment agreements announced at City Hall Tuesday afternoon. The agreements, which now await
approval from Providence’s City Council, were the product of months of negotiation between the city and the four private higher-education institutions that have signed on to the agreements. The first agreement, a memorandum of understanding signed by Brown, the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence College and Johnson and Wales University, would direct more than $177 million to the city’s coffers over 20 years, $128.7 million of which would come from Brown. The second, a separate memorandum of agreement solely between Brown and Providence, accounts for an
additional $46 million over the next 10 years. If approved by the City Council, the proposed agreements would result in more than $174 million in voluntary payments from Brown to Providence between 2024 and 2043. Direct monetary payments from Brown to the city, though, can be decreased through University activities that are deemed to provide direct tax revenue to the city — such as development projects and collaborations or the sale of tax-exempt institutional properties, returning parcels to the commercial tax rolls. The University confirmed that negotiations were underway this winter, and in the
time since, several student demonstrations demanded that Brown increase its annual contributions to the city in lieu of taxes. As a non-profit institution, Brown is exempt from paying property taxes on its educational buildings but does pay taxes on its commercial holdings. A 2022 report from the Providence Finance Department estimated that the University would pay nearly $50 million annually if it were eligible to be taxed on all of its property, The Herald previously reported. For fiscal year 2023, Brown
STAFF & STUDENT LABOR
Paxson earned $1.77 million last year
New TALO contract adopted
AAUP members describe stagnating salaries, undervaluing of faculty BY CHARLIE CLYNES & NEIL MEHTA UNIVERSITY NEWS EDITORS
President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 was paid $1,765,827 in the calendar year 2022, University Spokesperson Brian Clark wrote in an email to The Herald. Paxson’s compensation will be reported in the University’s tax filings in May 2024, Clark wrote. It will be second only to Paxson’s compensation of just over $2,000,000 in 2021. A Herald analysis of compensation data — from IRS form 990 tax filings since 2013 and the Office of Institutional Research — identified a growing gap between compensation for Paxson
and faculty members. And professors from Brown’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors voiced concerns with existing faculty compensation schemes. Paxson’s total 2022 compensation drops 14% from record-high $2 million in 2021 Paxson’s $1.7 million dollar compensation in 2022 is down 14% from an all-time high of just over $2 million in 2021. The record compensation in 2021 was driven by a deferred compensation payout of $782,945. The payout came from six-figure installments that accumulated every year since 2017. Clark wrote to The Herald that among executives at Brown, compensation is decided by the Committee on Senior Administration of the Corpora-
SEE PAXSON PAGE 3
BY ASHLEY CAI SENIOR STAFF WRTER The Teaching Assistant Labor Organization — which represents undergraduate computer science teaching assistants and other computer science employees — ratified an interim contract for the 2023-2024 academic year in August, The Herald previously reported. Over a 72-hour voting period ending Aug. 25, 168 of 377 eligible voters cast their ballot, with over 99% of votes cast in favor of the contract according to ballot results reviewed by The Herald. The interim contract only lasts for the 2023-2024 academic year and is expected to be replaced by a full contract that TALO and the University will negotiate in the coming months, according to Joe Maffa ’25, a TALO organizer. “Negotiating a contract could take over a year, and we wanted to protect our workers
SEE ADMISSIONS PAGE 4
AAPI HERITAGE MONTH SPECIAL ISSUE
SEE PILOT PAGE 13
UNIVERSITY HALL
Interim contract secures pay increases, outlines job responsibilities
New committee to examine admission policies
as soon as possible,” Maffa told The Herald. Within weeks of successfully unionizing in March, TALO formed a bargaining committee and began negotiations with the University. The parties held eight bargaining sessions over the spring and summer before agreeing on an interim contract in late August. Maffa and Deputy Provost and Associate Professor of Engineering Janet Blume, who served as the University’s lead negotiator, described negotiations between the two parties as generally productive and cooperative. “TALO leaders were very receptive, and I felt that we worked together well,” Blume wrote in an email to The Herald. TALO was “thoughtful and well-organized, and we shared their goals of ensuring that the computer science student employee experience and learning environment be strong, inclusive, healthy and well-supported.” The University was “pretty receptive to our needs, and willing to compromise on a lot of things that we talked about,” Maffa said. Other CS TAs told The Herald that TALO
SEE TALO PAGE 13
SEE AAPI PAGE 6
PRIDE 2023 SPECIAL ISSUE
SEE PRIDE PAGE 10