As another academic year comes to a close, it seems like only yesterday that I mailed my annual letter to incoming Brunonians. Maybe you remember receiving or reading it? Now, I send a final grateful goodbye through the pages of The Herald. Though in my retirement, the situation on College Hill will ...
As an alum, I have watched with growing concern as Brown clings to outdated admissions practices that undermine its mission and tarnish its legacy. Over the years, I have written to President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 and published three op-eds in The Herald with suggestions for making the ...
During the holiday of Passover, Jews around the world retell the Exodus story — the Israelites’ passage from bondage in Egypt to freedom, from narrow places of fear and intimidation to a more expansive world. As Michael Walzer taught in his book “Exodus and Revolution,” Passover serves as a ...
Earlier this month, the Trump administration broke news about plans to freeze $510 million of Brown’s federal funding. The threatened cuts are nothing short of extortion, an attempt to use the power of federal research dollars to force universities like Brown into policy changes that would destroy ...
Brown faculty must reject or revise the recent “Draft Statement on University Values” to ensure that it includes strong, explicit protections for shared community governance in every aspect of University operations.
Brown is just the latest major university to be threatened with the loss of federal funds by the Trump administration. But while the White House has not yet formally frozen Brown’s federal funding nor presented the University with a list of demands as conditions of restoring that funding, we can be ...
I first began giving tours of Brown as an impressionable first-year. On the second stop of the tour outside University Hall, I would gather my modest crowd of overachieving high schoolers and their anxious parents to extol the virtues of Brown’s unique curricular system. After responding to a host ...
About a year ago, I received a text from Brown’s Southeast Asian Studies Initiative about an upcoming course, taught by SEASI and Filipino Alliance ally Grace Talusan: ENGL 1050Y: “Traces of Empire: Writing Filipino and American Experiences.” The title alone lingered with me — an invitation ...
Earlier this week, inspired by a Harvard Crimson op-ed, I sent a letter to President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 and Provost Francis Doyle with recommendations on how Brown might help our country’s academic institutions escape the Trump administration’s encroaching darkness.
Last week, Rasha Alawieh, an assistant professor of medicine at Brown, was deported from the United States at Boston Logan International Airport despite holding a valid H-1B visa. Her deportation was on the heels of the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent resident of the United States who, as of ...
I am deeply concerned by the relentless — and also maybe clueless — use of antisemitic tropes that continues to pervade campus protests. This includes Thursday’s rally protesting the arrest and detainment of Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil. Considering the overt use of these antisemitic elements, ...
A few weeks ago, I had the extraordinary opportunity to discuss my work — the role of faith and struggle in democratic politics — with a group of students at the University of San Diego. Despite being in sunny California, we found ourselves drawn to the troubling question: What will we do when our ...
On April 30, 2012, Brown and the City of Providence signed a Memorandum of Agreement in which the University purchased sections of Benevolent, Brown and Olive Streets. In addition, the City licensed 250 revenue-producing on-street parking spaces to Brown for faculty and staff use. In turn, the University ...
Last month, I attended the “Non-Zionist Jewish Traditions” conference hosted by the Cogut Institute for the Humanities. The conference consisted of five panels and two roundtable discussions across two days. I attended one each day. While I, unfortunately, did not experience the full program, the ...
U.S. tourists have a global reputation. They’re known for their college merchandise, poor sense of geography and very loud conversations. While some of these traits may be comical or even endearing, the nature of such tourism can also be harmful. As a native of Puerto Rico — a destination where ...
Over the last four months, Provost Francis Doyle has repeatedly sounded the alarm on the state of the University’s finances. In December, he announced a series of “community actions” that aim to tackle Brown’s 2025 $46 million structural operating deficit. Notably, these actions include reductions ...
Experts are calling it a coup. Law professors warn of a constitutional crisis. And we’re just one month into the second Trump administration.
Dog meat for sale? Bewildered, I tried to avoid eye contact with the smiling guy who called out to me saying, “Would you like to try some dog meat?” His hand was outstretched, holding a small toothpick with God-knows-what on the end of it. I said “No, thanks” and hurried into the Sharpe Refectory. ...
In the past five years, homelessness in Rhode Island has more than doubled, and unsheltered homelessness has almost increased fivefold. In 2024, 2,442 Rhode Islanders were experiencing homelessness. In response to this crisis, there has been a significant increase in police presence and crackdowns on ...
In my sophomore year at Brown, I wrote a 20-page proposal for an independent concentration that I never submitted. It was called “The Principles of Love,” and my goal was to determine — once and for all — what love actually is.
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