Since March 2020, the student experience at the University has been largely relegated to Zoom meetings and recorded lectures. But the novel prevalence of online technology in the University curriculum has provided a chance for the University to examine how it educates and challenges faculty and students alike.

As COVID-19 positivity rates decline nationally and more community members get vaccinated, a question remains: Moving forward, how does online learning fit into the Brown experience?

Online learning before the pandemic

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the University was already looking to increase its use of online resources and remote instruction. The University’s 2013 Building on Distinction Strategic Plan announced that it would develop new online curricular resources and experiment with online courses.

The plan noted “substantial uncertainty about how online courses (might) affect the higher education marketplace.” But, by increasing the usage of technology in Brown academics, the plan hoped to “increase the quality of education, strengthen the curriculum in key areas and expand opportunities for Brown students.”

“There had been this wave that had been going on in recent years of online education … and seeing (it) as a complement to the residential experience,” Provost Richard Locke P’18 told The Herald. “I don’t think anyone at Brown in 2013 ever thought, like, ‘Yeah, we’re going to do online education instead of the residential experience.’”

But community members began wondering whether increasing the use of technology in courses would better serve Brown students in their educational endeavors. Many advocates for online learning at the time thought that recorded lectures would be a more effective method of conveying “timeless” information — course fundamentals that would remain mostly constant throughout a course’s lifetime — Locke said. This would leave students with class time to apply these theories to more “timely” information relevant to the present day, as well as more time to get involved with interactive aspects of each course.

There was some hesitancy from faculty, Locke explained, as a fully residential experience had long been standard for the University.

“When I became provost in 2015, we did a survey of faculty asking them (their feelings about online learning),” he said. Out of nearly 400 faculty respondents, about 70 percent used some sort of web-facilitated resource, like Canvas. “But, when you asked them, ‘Are you interested in online (instruction)?’ … 40 percent said, ‘I have no experience (with it),’ and 30 percent of them said online education is not part of the future, and it’s not going to be.”

In March 2017, the University created professional Master’s programs with courses offered partially online and partially in-person. Online technology had already become part of Brown academics, albeit to a limited extent.

All at once: COVID-19 and the transition to remote operations

When the University canceled all in-person classes and programming due to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, what had been a gradual transition toward online instruction became immediate as the University had to suddenly create remote alternatives for all educational operations.

Before the switch from in-person to online instruction, Professor of English James Egan taught select classes asynchronously to allow a “wider range of students” from different disciplines to have access to English courses. 

But when the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic forced all classes to transition to remote learning, Egan was left without the option to teach in-person. 

Where remote education had once served as a way to increase access for students interested in Egan’s courses, universal adoption of remote learning revealed stark disparities in how students were able to engage with Brown’s curriculum. 

During the switch to remote instruction, Egan sensed there were “a lot of people who were … struggling psychologically,” especially with the implementation of exclusively online learning which required “different (kinds) of learning strategies.” 

Throughout the pandemic, remote learning has posed challenges to student mental health. Recent efforts from the University and community care organizations have aimed to better support students during this time, but many students still struggle with mental health amid online learning.

Harshini Venkatachalam ’23, who has studied remotely from her home in Arizona for the past year, said her “experience with remote learning was tough.”

“I wasn’t ready for the shift to remote learning, and I had a difficult time with motivation and getting things done on time,” she said.

Similarly, for many students, accessibility barriers posed challenges in engaging with the University’s curriculum after their departure from campus.

Some students need the “visual stimulation” and “kinetic movement” of being in a classroom setting, Tere Ramos, interim director of Student Accessibility Services, said. These aspects are lost in remote learning environments, which can make it challenging for students who value traditional in-person methods of instruction, she added.

In finding ways to support student mental health and accessibility concerns, the University as an institution learned how to better serve its student body, Locke said. University administrators listened to student feedback and found that resources like pre-recorded lectures, lecture capture and alternative modes of class participation actually enhanced their engagement and experience with courses.

This increased accessibility of online resources was a highlight of remote learning during the pandemic for some students, like Christopher Vanderpool ’24. Vanderpool agreed that recorded lectures meant a level of flexibility that he enjoyed, as he was able to access the lectures at his convenience.

Moving forward

Some offices at the University, including Digital Design & Learning, have worked with professors to “incorporate digital tools” into their courses through online activities during the pandemic, Shankar Prasad, the deputy provost for strategic initiatives, wrote in an email to The Herald. 

According to Prasad, the pandemic has helped the University “uncover opportunities for innovation” in both teaching and learning that can be used to “enhance experimental education and faculty research” in the future.

“What I’m thinking about going forward (into the fall 2021 semester) is (ensuring that) … a sufficient number of courses in every concentration are remote-accessible,” Locke said. “There may be some students who, for health reasons, can’t come back to campus, or for travel restriction reasons can’t actually get here. But they should be able to continue their education,” he said.

In upcoming semesters, many faculty members have opted to teach remotely and offer recorded lectures, namely for large, introductory courses, Locke added. Still, residency requirements would ensure a level of “faculty contact,” including “in-person recitation and office hours.”

The increase in faculty interest in online instruction came as a byproduct of instruction during the pandemic, according to Locke. After both the fall 2020 and spring 2021 semesters, feedback from professors regarding online instruction improved, and by the end of the spring semester, roughly 90 percent of professors said they felt well-prepared to teach online, he said.

Egan said that he would continue to teach some of his courses online since he believes “they can really serve a lot of students.” He also noted that during the pandemic he has become more creative with content for his courses and feels “more enthusiastic about teaching … these courses in the future.”

Likewise, Locke found that student feedback showed increased “satisfaction and engagement post-pandemic” relative to fall 2019, the last fully in-person semester at the University, suggesting students on average feel more comfortable with increased technology in their courses. “It seems to be working for students — not every course, not every instructor… but on average the feedback from students is higher,” he said.

“What I’m hoping for going forward is that Brown will continue to offer these online courses… (and) that that will do at least three things. One is enrich the residential teaching and learning experience … (by using) precious class time to do more interactive, engaging things. Two is promote accessibility… (and three is) create more opportunities for students,” Locke said.

In terms of creating opportunities, many students who hope to study abroad in college abstain because they cannot afford to miss out on course requirements, Locke explained. Increasing online courses could mean students can live abroad, or even could work at an in-person internship, non-profit or start-up while taking University classes, he added.

Locke also hopes that online resources could reach a larger community than the University’s curriculum can currently serve.

The University has previously offered classes with edX, a remote education platform that allows students to take free online courses. Now that the University has begun to create so much recorded and web-based educational content, Locke said that offering online courses to the public might be able to increase economic accessibility.

“We only have 1,650 slots per class when we admit students, and we have 46,000 applicants. It’s hard to get in, but there’s a lot of really qualified people who could benefit from what we offer,” Locke said. 

“We’ve been working really hard with a bunch of community colleges recently,” Locke said. “Imagine if now (their students) can take some Brown classes fully online, they can show they can get the grades — that’s going to really strengthen their applications to become transfer students. And they don’t have to be in Rhode Island, they can be anywhere. I see that as another opportunity for us that fulfills our mission of being a truly accessible university, and a more diverse university.”

But after more than a year since the University’s initial transition to online learning, many are excited to simply get back to in-person learning. “(I am) not sure students are going to be interested in online classes for a while,” Egan said.

For Venkatachalam, the past year has been enough online learning for the foreseeable future. “I would (consider online courses) if they helped me fill my concentration requirements,” she said. “But if it wasn’t absolutely necessary, I wouldn’t.”

You’ve made it. After a tough two semesters, which felt much more like 20, you’ve once again made it to the season of much-needed relaxation and wonderful summer weather. It’s time for pool parties, poor decisions and brand new summer playlists. But it’s also a time to celebrate all the people in your corner that […]

The sunset made me cry and other clichés

6 p.m. Orange turns to pink which turns to purple which turns to the darkest of blues. Seamlessly, the classic colors wash over each other. Perhaps most notably, tears spill out of my eyes and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why. 

Minutes later, as the merging blues and purples turn into twinklings of the city, my tears subside. I wipe them away quickly, hoping my companion didn’t catch those momentary lapses in composure. The twinklings, luckily, are calming, reminding me of the whole world outside — of the thousands of lives and lights that regularly operate on frequencies that don’t concern me. It is both humbling and otherworldly; both so routinely everyday and yet somehow still moving. 

Sunsets in general are the stuff of Instagram posts and Hallmark cards — monopolized by cameras and exploited by influencers, a sunset’s beauty doesn’t always feel real. It’s difficult to feel moved by a phenomenon that exists everywhere — we are desensitized, unsurprisingly so. 

Yet there was something undeniably emotional about focusing on the sun as it went down that day. It reminded me of that scene in “Notting Hill,” when Hugh Grant walks down a street in London and all four seasons fade into each other in his stride. It’s a gorgeous, seamlessly edited scene, representing the months that pass by after Julia Roberts’ character leaves and Grant is left to deal with his heartbreak. In film jargon, this is called temporal ellipsis: witnessing the passage of time in a few seconds. 

Sunsets feel a little bit like that — the nature of a sunset is of transition, of the inevitable acceleration of time. When you watch a sunset, that passage is laid out bare in front of you — the slow motion and brilliant hues, all screaming reminders of temporality and at some tiny level, our own mortality. What could be more humbling?

I can confirm that there is a certain kind of power we feel when we latch onto a piece of art that no one has chanced upon yet. It is intimate, almost like a secret conversation with the artist and the deepest, most clandestine parts of ourselves. But this is different — everyone sees the sunset. A little bit like watching a movie in the cinema hall, one is bathed in light and entrapped in an intimate space. It is as public as viewing gets. Yet unlike a movie screening, a sunset is simple: There are no relatable characters or tear-inducing tragedy. I find myself questioning why it feels more emotional.

Perhaps it is the organic, inherent realness of the phenomenon. Perhaps it is the blanket silence with my companion that the scene invites, and the consequential introspection on the weight of the present moment. Perhaps it is the bittersweet knowledge that the day is ending; that nature seems to want to let me know that the active hours of daylight with the person next to me have come to an end. 

I feel inclined to admit that there is a certain allure to shared, universal experiences, no matter how cliché. These experiences may not give me an opportunity to forge a certain kind of deep, specific connection with somebody, but they forge a bond that goes unsaid — a sort of mutual understanding of the weight of the moment. The same applies to how we experience art: Not everyone might relate to my often-boring propensities for strange movies or maximalist fiction, but everyone can watch a sunset. We don’t need to have a mutual cultural understanding or watch the same films or read the same novels; the beauty of a sunset is that it is abstract. It speaks for itself, like a Pollock or a Mondrian, giving me the opportunity to either ruminate or to remain delightfully blank, basking in its glory. 

It is difficult to admit that these everyday experiences have the power to move me – that an Ariana Grande song can be more than just a shower song, that I can genuinely, unironically enjoy a superhero movie, or that something as basic as the sun setting every day has the ability to induce unexplained tears. Art not only has a remarkable power to do that, but it also has the power to forge deep human connection beyond logical explanation. 

I still won’t fully know why I cried that day. What I do know is that I don’t want to shy away from enjoying the ordinary. Despite my grievances, I do want to embrace the mainstream as a more accessible base to connect with the people around me, to recognize that moments of shared emotion are just as valuable a part in experiencing art. Emotion doesn’t always have to be logically reasoned. Like a sunset, it can just be felt — passing through us and moving us inevitably.

Megha Ganapathy writes the Monday A&E column on learning and growing from experiences with art. Contact her at mganapathy@dailycal.org.

The Daily Californian

Sunday morning, June 6, the lawn and steps of the Utah State Capitol were covered with the colors of a 200-foot rainbow flag and people celebrating the end of 2021 pride week hosted by the Utah Pride Center. 

The week had several other events as well, including the Washington Square Pride Story Garden, an interactive outdoor exhibit with gardens such as “Utah Queer History” and “Remembering Stonewall.” 

The rally began with quick impact speeches from local leaders and members of the LGBTQ community. 

“We stand on broad, powerful shoulders of queer people that come before us … let’s not forget that that’s why we’re here today,” said Utah Sen. Derek Kitchen.

The march started at the Capitol and headed down State St. before finishing at Harvey Milk Boulevard and Liberty Park. 

Anna Nielsen, an incoming student at the U said she was on the verge of tears looking at all the smiles and bright outfits filling the crowd. 

“I grew up in the church, and I was a whole homophobe until I was 12, and then somebody told me it was okay to be gay for the first time, and that led to my own realization that I was bisexual, and that I didn’t really love the gender binary,” Nielsen said. 

Roller skaters and walkers alike flew traditional pride flags and flags from subsections of the LGBTQ community. Blocking off the streets as they marched, the hundreds of people held signs reading “Utah has pride,” “Proud to be LGBTQ+” and “Queerness is sacred.” 

While June is historically pride month, Gov. Spencer Cox declared June 2021 as LGBTQ+ Pride Month in Utah, making state history as the first Utah governor to do so. 

Nielsen said she was shocked the turnout for the rally was so big, especially in a state like Utah. 

“We were towards the front of the crowd, and then we got down the hill and we looked up and it’s just people for a mile,” she said. “The entire street, I was in awe at how many people there are.”

Miranda Paulson, a resident of Salt Lake City, was happy to be at her first pride event. 

“I was really nervous to come to Pride, it’s just like a big hurdle to come as your first one, but I just love the energy here and it’s just the most amazing thing to happen to Salt Lake and I love that it’s at Liberty Park,” she said. 

Kevin Randall, who works for public relations for the Utah Pride Center, said after COVID-19 cancelled last year’s events, they knew they needed to find a creative way to get the entire community involved in a safe way. 

“The thousands of people who are clearly here in Utah, they are allies, they’re members of the LGBTQ community, and they clearly wanted to participate and be part of this and it’s amazing to see everyone come out here,” Randall said. 

 Randall said the Utah Pride Center was pleased with the event’s turnout. 

“We couldn’t be happier to have everyone out here participating — all the hard work that we put into this was definitely worth it,” Randall said. “I think it’s been healing for everyone to be out here among each other, to feel supported and loved.”

k.silverstein@dailyutahchronicle.com

@chronykayleigh

n.colby@dailyutahchronicle.com

@natalie__news

The post Pride Returns to Salt Lake, Filling City Streets with Rainbows appeared first on The Daily Utah Chronicle.

UC Berkeley study finds Earth’s core grows asymmetrically

A study published Thursday co-authored by three UC Berkeley researchers found that the Earth’s core grows asymmetrically.

Campus researchers Daniel Frost and Brian Chandler and professor Barbara Romanowicz, joined by Marine Lasbleis from the Université de Nantes, discovered that the Earth’s solid inner core grows faster on its eastern side than its western side, according to a UC Berkeley press release. The research project was given $152,142 from a National Science Foundation geophysics grant, according to Frost, the assistant project scientist. 

“The Earth’s core has two parts; it has the liquid iron outer core and the solid iron inner core,” Frost said. “As the Earth cools through time, the liquid iron outer core is freezing, solidifying and that grows the inner core.”

Studies from 30 to 40 years ago have shown that seismic waves travel faster from north to south than they do from east to west, Frost added. The current study sought to answer why.

According to the press release and Frost, all studies used data obtained from seismometers, or machines that measure seismic activity such as earthquakes, placed around the planet.

The researchers first created a model which could simulate different versions of the Earth’s core. They then adjusted the model to fit the data from the seismometers and found that the one that best fit the data had an inner core growing faster on the eastern side than the west, according to Frost.

“We varied a few parameters just to try to get the match,” Frost said. “We weren’t approaching this from the direction of knowing how the inner core grows. It’s more a case of asking the question — how does the inner core grow? The only constraint we have on that is the seismology.”

The asymmetrical growth of the inner core has significant implications for how the planet’s magnetic field works, Frost added. The magnetic field, which we use for navigation and protects life on Earth from too much sun, is generated by the movement of liquid iron in the outer core.

Frost said he speculates that the reason for the inner core’s asymmetrical growth is that some unknown force is cooling the planet’s eastern side faster than its western side. Frost added that one potential source could be the increased subduction in the eastern hemisphere, which takes cold parts of the crust and places them near the crust-mantle boundary.

While the researchers have not yet found how the inner core’s growth affects the flow of the outer core, Frost said he has recently obtained more funding from the National Science Foundation to continue his research.

“You’re never done. There’s always another question to be asked,” Frost said. “(We’ll be) actually testing with real materials how the inner core can move.”

Contact Christopher Ying at cying@dailycal.org, and follow him on Twitter at @ChrisYingg.

The Daily Californian

Starting June 7, fully vaccinated students will no longer need to “conduct regular asymptomatic screening testing,” Associate Vice President and Executive Director for COVID-19 Response and Recovery Amir St. Clair announced in a June 3 email to students. This change reverses previous guidelines stipulating that on-campus students must get tested weekly. 

Students, faculty and staff who are not fully vaccinated by July 1 will be required to participate in weekly screening testing, University President Gregory Fenves announced earlier that day. 

(The Emory Wheel/Gabriella Lewis)

Over the past few weeks, the Centers for Disease and Control Prevention (CDC) eased their COVID-19 guidelines, including lifting the mask mandate and social distancing recommendation for vaccinated individuals in most settings on May 13. The CDC also announced that younger campers who are not vaccinated generally do not need to wear their masks outdoors on May 28. 

The University will transition from a yellow to a green operating status on July 1, St. Clair wrote. Although current mask guidelines remain in place, effective July 1, all campus spaces will return to normal density limits. Updates regarding gathering and visitor policies and study abroad operations will come in later weeks, the email noted. 

Emory shuttles will also resume normal operations with full capacity. COVID-19 safety measures, however, will still be in effect, including daily shuttle disinfecting and the installation of bi-polar ionization units and MERV 7 HVAC filters.

Access to the Woodruff Physical Education Center, Student Activity and Academic Center and Blomeyer fitness facilities will be limited to those eligible for membership, with some areas requiring advanced reservations. 

Both Fenves and St. Clair encouraged Emory community members who are not fully immunized to get vaccinated. Students who have been fully vaccinated need to upload proof of immunization to Student Health Services, for the Atlanta campus, or Oxford Student Patient Portal, for the Oxford campus.

To assist with vaccine distribution, Emory will host on-campus vaccine clinics starting at the end of June.

The post Emory to Lift COVID-19 Screening Requirement for Vaccinated Individuals appeared first on The Emory Wheel.

150 Years of The Daily Californian

David McAllister/Staff

(David McAllister/Staff)

Contact Alex Zhao, Maia Alviar, Jocelyn Huang and Jordan Harris at projects@dailycal.org.

The Daily Californian

Our Take: 4.5 Stars

Young love turned sour? Eighteen year-old Disney star-turned pop phenomenon Olivia Rodrigo just released the teenage heartbreak album of the year that puts everything about a tough breakup into words. With over 300 million streams within just one week of its debut according to Billboard, “Sour” is the second-biggest debut by any female artist and had the second-largest non-R&B/hip-hop streaming week ever, coming in close behind Ariana Grande’s “Thank U, Next” in 2019.

Rodrigo’s music career and rapid rise to fame seemed to come out of nowhere and doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon. Before releasing music, Rodrigo had been known on the little screen for her roles as Paige Olvera in “Bizaardvark” on Disney Channel and more recently as Nina Salazar-Roberts in “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” streaming on Disney+.

On January 8, 2021, Rodrigo dropped her surprise debut single “Drivers License.” The song and accompanying music video shook the internet and became an instant No.1 hit, kicking her musical career into full gear. “Drivers License” sparked drama on TikTok as fans speculated that it revealed details of the artist’s suspected romance with HSMTMTS co-star Joshua Bassett and potential love triangle with a certain blonde girl, believed to be singer-actress and fellow Disney star Sabrina Carpenter.

Not even five full months later, Rodrigo released “Sour,” and the whole world fell in love. The album takes listeners on a journey through the stages of a breakup — heartbreak, anger, sadness, jealousy, acceptance and everything in between.

As is characteristic of newer Gen-Z albums, “Sour” speaks for itself, and Rodrigo’s lyrics are raw and full of authentic emotion, leaving nothing hidden or understated for the listener. Rodrigo speaks directly to the hearts of teenagers across the world with themes such as driving in the suburbs, first love and insecurities that are relatable to the modern day teenage experience. The emotions explored in the album such as jealousy and sadness after a breakup are universal, but “Sour” narrows in on what those emotions feel like to a young person and amplifies teenage voices that are often looked down upon or not taken seriously.

“Sour” also blends genres that transition with the emotions explored in each song. The first song of the album, “Brutal,” has heavy, wiry guitar and fuzzy vocals that sound straight out of the 90’s riot grrrl era. The song is angsty and angry in all the best ways, and the brutally honest lyrics transport listeners back to the time of self-criticism and insecurity that is high school.

The next songs on the album are tearjerkers, focusing on how it feels to have a fast-moving ex while still heartbroken and thinking of all the things the relationship could have been. The heavy use of guitar and vocal reverb in these dreamy pop hits heightens the sense of individual loneliness. The chord progressions of “Traitor” and “Drivers License”, however, give the songs an anthem-like feel that emphasizes the universal experience of these feelings.

Besides “Drivers License”, “Good 4 U” is the biggest success on the album. This uptempo alt-rock hit is about jealousy over an apathetic ex-boyfriend that will have listeners headbanging in the car. With guitar and drums reminiscent of 1990-2000s era alternative punk rock, “Good 4 U” is the first rock hit to score No.1 on Billboard’s Top 100 charts in years.

The end of the album simmers down with uplifting, hopeful songs about things ending up okay and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. At this point, listeners have felt all the emotions of Rodrigo’s rollercoaster of a breakup journey and can now take a breath as the album concludes with a sense of self-reflection and acceptance.

Southern Automated Logistics and Technology (SALT) partnered with Georgia Southern last Wednesday to open a new educational avenue for IT and computer science students to train and work in software development.

“The development and software industry is under-resourced and in major demand, which puts inexperienced people in jobs that require significant experience,” GS alumnus and founder of SALT Stacey Roach said. “We should be able to find a way to embrace what we do at SALT, bring our expertise into the regions we live and work and also empower the next generation to build their careers here in tandem with GS where we can make a large regional impact.”

Students are selected from the College of Engineering and Computing and receive hands-on training through every part of the development process and work on projects for customers.

“The agile methodology that SALT is practicing is a great tool to let everyone in the team get involved in the developing process,” GS graduate and SALT apprentice Dmitry Bakalov said. “Everyone has an opportunity to be a part of every aspect of the developing job, which is very valuable on the market.”

More information about SALT can be found on GS’ Office of Career and Professional Development’s website.