Undergraduate students who live in off-campus residences are also “strongly encouraged to travel home.”

President Christina Paxson P’19 wrote that students had to move out “as soon as possible and no later than Sunday, March 22,” in an email sent to the University community March 12, The Herald previously reported. But the mandated move-out date is now March 17, according to an email sent today by Provost Richard Locke P’18, Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Barbara Chernow and Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services Eric Estes. 

“Brown remains open,” read the email, “but given these fast-changing events, we have no choice but to expedite the departure of students from campus and to take steps to limit the exposure of Brown employees to the virus.”

The date by which University students can petition to remain in residence halls due to exceptional circumstances — such as the prevalence of COVID-19 coronavirus in their “home country,” visa issues, severe financial hardship imposed by departing campus or lack of an alternate place to go — has been moved to noon on Sunday, March 15. Requests will be reviewed on a rolling basis as quickly as possible. 

The email also announced that “all undergraduate students who receive financial aid will receive $150 to defray travel and moving expenses.” Previous emails from the University had not included mention of such a provision. Students who have not yet departed from campus and require immediate funding access to facilitate travel “should submit an application to the COVID-19 Transition E-Gap Fund,” the email stated. Students who have already finalized travel plans are being asked to “delay their submission until next week,” so that the University is best able to support students in need of funding for immediate travel.

Effective Monday, only essential personnel should report to work in person, the email added. Also beginning Monday, dining services will be available only in the Sharpe Refectory on a “take-out” basis.

“These may seem like exceptional measures for Brown to take, but they are warranted by the public health crisis that is taking place across the country and the world,” read today’s email from Locke, Chernow and Estes. “For continued updates, please consult Brown’s COVID-19 website.”

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

A member of the Brown community has tested positive for COVID-19, according to the University’s website. 

“The University has learned that yesterday, for the first time, a member of our community tested positive for novel coronavirus,” wrote Provost Richard M. Locke P’18 in an email to the University community today, which was also signed by Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Barbara Chernow and Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services Eric Estes.

The Rhode Island Department of Health contacted “students and employees who were in contact with the diagnosed individual,” Locke wrote. The email from RIDOH, which The Herald reviewed, does not specify the identity of the person who tested positive, such as whether the individual is a student or a professor.

Those who attended class with the affected individual were requested to self-quarantine until March 19, according to the email.

Individuals who were in the class “should not attend school, after-school programs, sports practices or go into the community during this time, even if you are not experiencing symptoms,” according to the email. Quarantined students are directed to take their temperature twice a day to monitor for fever as well as “be vigilant for any other symptoms.” Other household members of quarantined students are not required to quarantine. 

David Kleinman ’20, who received the email from RIDOH, said his initial reaction upon receiving the news that he may have been in contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19 was “shock, mainly.”

Even if he were to contract COVID-19, Kleinman said, “I know that I am likely not going to be the one to suffer the most from it,” acknowledging that his quarantine is a protective measure not only for himself, but for the larger community. 

Kleinman lives off-campus, and plans to stay in his apartment for the duration of his quarantine. Health Services contacted Kleinman following the announcement of his quarantine, indicating that it would be preferable for him to quarantine even further from campus. Though his family’s home is just thirty minutes north of the University, Kleinman worries that he would put even more people at risk by quarantining at his home rather than in his apartment near campus. 

Another student who received the email and requested anonymity for fear of personal repercussions lives in Graduate Center B, where she is currently being quarantined. She added that she and other students quarantined on campus were notified that they might be moved to an alternate location in coming days. 

Students in quarantine were notified in the email that they will receive a daily text message through a “Text Illness Monitoring” system in order to track their condition. 

RIDOH also provided a “COVID-19 Daily Symptom and Temperature Log” as well as detailed instructions for accurately self-monitoring symptoms in the email sent to the selected students. 

Many students are currently in the process of moving off campus and returning home after all undergraduate students living on campus and in University-owned properties were asked to leave campus by March 17. Students were previously asked to leave by March 22, but the date was moved forward because of “news reports of the possibility of increased challenges with national and international travel,” Locke wrote. The University recently announced that all classes will be canceled beginning Monday, and will resume online following an extended two-week spring break. 

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

The University set a goal in the fall of 2019 to administer 5,000 flu vaccinations to students by Valentine’s Day. This same goal had been established the year prior. “We surpassed that goal earlier this year” by a couple hundred vaccines, said Vanessa Britto, associate vice president for campus life and executive director of health and wellness.

Although many in the University community are preparing to leave campus due to concerns about the spread of COVID-19, Health Services will continue to operate at this time, Britto said, making the flu vaccine still available for students staying in Providence. “It is not too late to get the (influenza) vaccine.” But she reminded the community that the vaccines are only effective for a given flu season and that new flu vaccines, based on the predicted flu strain, are created every summer.

The University’s Health Services is a “sentinel site,” one of many sites around the country that regularly works closely with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to “provide eyes and ears for the CDC.” The University has been participating in this national effort to help the CDC identify the prevalence of flu cases around the country. This information is publicly available through the CDC’s FluView website.

Other illnesses spreading alongside the flu worldwide include the common cold and, this year, COVID-19. A major difference between the symptoms of the common cold and influenza are that common cold symptoms happen gradually while flu symptoms happen abruptly, Britto said. “In a clinical evaluation, (patients report that they) felt fine and then all of a sudden they felt sick. The flu is usually not subtle.”

To stay well this season, Britto reminded students to wash their hands frequently and thoroughly for 20 seconds. “My mantra is, if I can’t remember when I last washed my hands, I wash them.” She also recommended that students and their families invest in a thermometer to monitor their temperature when they feel sick.

There are many resemblances between the symptoms of COVID-19 and the standard flu. Both can cause pneumonia, making it particularly challenging to distinguish between each disease in the elderly, said Stefan Gravenstein, professor of medicine, health services policy and practice and geriatric medicine. Gravenstein is also the principal investigator of a national flu vaccine study of elderly nusing home residents. Nursing home conditions can be conducive to the spread of infectious diseases, as the frailest and most vulnerable of the population reside there in close proximity, he said.

Estimates from the CDC claim that influenza has a 0.1 percent mortality rate while COVID-19 has a 3 percent mortality rate. Gravenstein believes that the mortality rate of COVID-19 is skewed based on the lack of tests that have been completed so far. “Healthy people are not part of the denominator,” making this rate appear higher, Gravenstein said.

While the flu vaccine does not protect against COVID-19, it can confer significant preventative protection against influenza, particularly in elderly populations, Gravenstein added.

But the vaccine takes about two weeks to develop a protective response, said Penelope Dennehy, professor and vice chair of pediatrics and director of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at Hasbro Children’s Hospital.

“We cannot clinically tell the flu from (COVID-19) until it is too late,” Gravenstein said, reminding students, “especially now, if you haven’t gotten the flu vaccine, get it.”

“If people got the flu vaccine, it could help us sort out what is (COVID-19) and what is the flu,” Dennehy said. She added that wearing masks doesn’t protect healthy people. “The purpose of masks is to put them on someone with symptoms so that they can’t infect others, as well as for providers who will be interacting with individuals with symptoms,” Dennehy said. Currently, there is a shortage of masks in the hospital as people have come in and taken them. “We (providers) are having to reuse our masks, unfortunately,” Dennehy said.

Another advantage for the elderly who receive flu vaccines is that “we could also prevent heart attacks that the flu would cause,” Gravenstein said. The vaccine has an efficacy equivalent to preventative measures such as quitting smoking or taking cholesterol-lowering medications, he added.

Gravenstein’s study on flu vaccines compares the impact of two different types of vaccines: the standard influenza vaccine and a recombinant vaccine. The standard vaccine contains four antigens — two for influenza A and two for influenza B — while the recombinant vaccine has three times as much antigen. An influenza antigen is a component of the virus that the body learns to recognize, so if the real virus infects a person, the immune system responds faster to combat it. Another difference between the standard and recombinant vaccines lies in their creation. Gravenstein is currently measuring the health of study participants who received each vaccine using factors such as hospitalization rates.

According to Dennehy, who has been studying flu vaccines as well, “this (flu season) has been … particularly interesting and bad,” with high cases of influenza type B. It was especially problematic for children. “In children, the last time we had high cases of influenza B was in 1991, so most children have no exposure to that virus.” As a result, their immune systems are not as familiar with the antigens for influenza type B as those of the elderly, who have more commonly been exposed to this strain of the flu and have developed a greater immune response to it. Consequently, there has been a higher rate of hospitalizations due to influenza for younger children and a lower one for the elderly this year, Dennehy said. As influenza B cases waned after students returned to classes from winter break, “we’ve now been seeing the typical (influenza) A strain and … H1N1 circulating.” She added that the rise of influenza B cases remains a mystery and that even the “people at the CDC are completely surprised.”

Because flu vaccines are based on scientific guesses about the potential flu strain of the season, they are not as effective as the measles vaccine, for example, which has 95 percent effectiveness, Dennehy added. “Even in a good year when the strains are well-matched, the (influenza) vaccine’s effectiveness is 40-50 percent.” Nevertheless, the flu vaccine typically “makes the disease milder in those vaccinated,” Dennehy said. Last year, over 70 percent of the children who died because of the flu were eligible for the vaccine but didn’t receive it.

“The flu has been around every year, so people are unfortunately kind of used to seeing the flu and often don’t pay (as) much attention to (it) as they should,” Dennehy added.

No such measures have been taken in the United States. U.S. officials in the Trump administration have consistently mishandled the prevention and containment of this virus, either by downplaying its severity or enacting inefficient protocols for screening. This outbreak truly exposes the weaknesses in the Trump administration and just how ineffective the private health care sector is in combating contagion.

The Trump administration has continuously and vehemently downplayed the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak, spreading lies as quickly as the virus has spread around the world. For example, President Trump claimed that the disease will die out by April. Trump has also attempted to reassure the general public that the risk to the average American “remains low,” most likely referencing the relatively few cases the country has compared to others that are now experiencing sustained community spread like Italy, Japan and Iran.

These ideas are ludicrous. There is no evidence to suggest that the virus will behave like the seasonal flu, and public health officials have urged people to expect the virus to continue to spread. Moreover, the low amount of confirmed COVID-19 cases is indicative of insufficient widespread testing and proper preventative screening measures. This virus has been circulating since December. It is highly unlikely that cases are limited to those  330+ officially reported in the United States as of March 7.

Clearly, there is no immediate end in sight. Therefore, it is irresponsible of the Trump administration to give the American people false hope. The American public lacks access to affordable health care, efficient testing and overall an effective plan to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Meanwhile, President Trump and his cabinet are thoroughly protected from infection.

The lack of confirmed cases in the United States may expose one of the most crucial flaws of the American health care system: It’s mostly privatized. Reports are varied, but COVID-19 testing appears to cost $1000 or more, depending on the type of insurance coverage. As more private laboratories take on coronavirus testing, the out-of-pocket costs for testing are sure to skyrocket. And while the CDC might be funding some of these testing costs, most tests will occur at sites like hospitals whose personnel will bill an insurer. The tests, in addition to the time spent in isolation while recovering, can be upwards of thousands of dollars. Not everyone may be at risk of COVID-19; most people will identify their symptoms as the common cold or flu and easily recover. But for vulnerable patients with severe respiratory illness, the necessary testing and hospitalization may be financially inaccessible.

The main entity at fault for these failures in testing is the Trump administration. In 2018, it cut the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s budget for fighting infectious disease by nearly 80 percent, further exposing an already vulnerable U.S. population to a devastating pandemic or bioterrorism attack. The domino effect of this action is evident today; currently, the CDC is running an extremely short supply on test kits for COVID-19. Potentially eradicating the disease is nearly impossible if the patients cannot be identified and isolated properly. Adding on the exorbitant price tag of these tests, inefficient testing is certainly one of the main pitfalls that has exacerbated COVID-19’s spread. The virus has reached countries across the globe, racking up more than 4,900 deaths and infecting more than 134,500 people as of March 7.

Thankfully, some state and local governments have realized that the only way to accurately assess the spread of this virus is to make testing free and accessible to all. On Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that California residents on private or Medi-Cal insurance plans would be eligible for free lab tests for the novel virus. At last, people will not have to make a choice between their health and their wallet.

In a time where transparency with the public is crucial to preventing widespread panic and frenzied doomsday stocking of supplies, the Trump administration has failed in every possible way. Once again, this administration has put the American public in jeopardy, funneling money out of Medicare and other Obama-era policies. The government has colossally failed to address the coronavirus crisis, which proves that it is time for change in the U.S. health care system. COVID-19 is circulating in this country as we speak, camouflaging itself in the midst of seasonal colds and the flu. The lack of confirmed cases of COVID-19 proves why we need universal health care in the U.S., and why President Trump’s policies have only heightened the danger the pandemic poses to the public.

Rachael Schmidt ’21 can be reached at
rachael_schmidt@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to
letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

Undergraduate students living on campus and in University-owned properties have been asked to leave campus by March 22 and remain away from campus for the rest of the semester, according to a community-wide email sent from President Christina Paxson P’19 Thursday morning. Students with certain circumstances will be allowed to petition to stay on campus.

Remote learning will begin March 30 and will remain in place for the rest of the semester, according to the email. The shift will take place after a two-week break allowing students and faculty to transition to online learning.

Making the decision

The University’s move to remote learning follows its suspension of all non-essential University-sponsored travel and admissions events, as well as the restriction of attendance at athletic events. It also follows Gov. Gina Raimondo’s declaration of a state of emergency in Rhode Island, The Herald previously reported.

This announcement follows similar decisions by several peer institutions across the country, including the rest of the Ivy League.

These changes have been under discussion by the University’s Core Crisis Team for several weeks, University spokesperson Brian Clark told The Herald. “It’s been an evolving conversation, and that’s very much guided by what we are learning from conversations that happened with public health officials,” he said. “The process to make decisions is led by the Core Crisis Team, and decisions are ultimately made by the University and senior leaders.”

Clark added that the members of the Core Crisis Team “have very extensive and deep connections to student concerns,” and that many of the individuals on this committee interact with students on a daily or hourly basis. He said the team considered input from students and from various offices including the Division of Campus Life, academic advisers and the Dean of the College office. “That input is a part of the equation and is informing the way that everybody on the Core Crisis Team is thinking about the implications for members of our community,” Clark said. “That’s not the only consideration. First and foremost here is the safety and health and well-being of the broad Brown community and folks whom we interact with beyond our campus.”

These measures align with broader efforts by governments and institutions worldwide to mitigate the COVID-19 outbreak, which has not been successfully contained and poses serious threats to public health both locally and globally.

“Fortunately, the COVID-19 mortality rate for young adults appears to be quite low,” Paxson wrote. “However, there are Brown students and employees who, due to age or underlying health conditions, may be at significant risk if they contract the virus. We must take steps to protect them, as well as other vulnerable members of the local community who interact with Brown students on a regular basis.”

The University will remain open for the duration of the semester, and academic and administrative offices will continue to operate, Paxson wrote. “The various offices that support students are making plans to offer their services remotely,” she added.

The Rhode Island School of Design also announced Thursday that it will require students to vacate residence halls by March 22, but it will continue to hold in-person classes until March 20 before transitioning to remote learning March 30, according to an email sent to RISD students.

“This is a unique moment,” Clark said. “It’s a public health emergency across the globe. So that is the driving force behind our decisions … finding the right ways to enable our teaching and learning and research and scholarship to continue to the greatest extent possible, is our second priority.”

Moving off campus

Students “whose circumstances would prevent them from leaving campus due to international travel restrictions or other extraordinary circumstances” may petition for an exception from moving off campus, Paxson wrote. These include international students who may be unable to return to campus later due to visa issues, international students with concerns about the “difficulty returning to their home country due to the prevalence of COVID-19,” students without an alternate place to go and students who would encounter “severe financial hardship” by leaving.

While it is unclear whether there is a specific limit on the number of students who will be able to remain on campus, the Office of Residential Life “will absolutely consider every petition that comes in through that process,” Clark said. He added that decisions will be made based on the individual circumstances of each student.

Students who do remain on campus are unlikely to stay where they are currently living, Clark noted. Although he does not know which facilities will be used to house these students, “members are likely to be asked to move based on what the final numbers look like and what the right approaches from the standpoint of community health (are) for those that remain on campus,” Clark said.

Students granted exceptions are required to remain on campus through spring break, but “should fully pack their belongings for reassignment to a new residence” after March 22, according to Paxson’s email. Exceptions will be decided on a “rolling basis” beginning Monday, March 16.

A number of offices, including International Student and Scholar Services “will work with students individually to support a lot of the questions around travel” and visa status, Clark said.

“A major concern is that Brown simply does not have the facilities or personnel needed to manage the large-scale quarantine or isolation of students that would be necessary if the virus begins to spread through our residential student community,” Paxson wrote. “The only way to limit this risk is to dramatically reduce the number of students residing at Brown.”

For the “unused portion of their room and board,” students will receive a credit on their student accounts based on their family’s contribution, she wrote.

In addition, the on-campus housing lottery has been postponed for two weeks, according to ResLife in a separate email sent to students living on-campus or in Brown-owned properties Thursday morning.

Moving courses online

Faculty members have been preparing for this change in recent days by familiarizing themselves with online teaching tools, especially Zoom video conferencing. The University continues to offer remote teaching training sessions to professors and teaching assistants.

The Department of Computer Science, which has started virtualizing nearly all of its classes this week, decided to “start early” in anticipation of University’s decision.

The department is still working to move teaching assistants’ interactions with students online, using “home build software” and Zoom to have one-on-one conversations with students virtually.

“One big issue with (remote learning) is what sort of interactions are we going to have with virtualized classes. This becomes a problem particularly if students are going home to different time zones,” said Thomas Doeppner, associate professor and vice chair of the CS department.

While online classes “may not be the best possible experience … we are going to do our best to make sure we can move on,” Doeppner added.

For some classes, such as dance classes, art studios and classes involving hands-on labs, moving online may seem difficult or impossible. But faculty are working on solutions that will allow students to continue to progress academically. “I don’t know that I can share with you precisely what a dance course would look like,” Clark said, “but that’s a decision that faculty in that department are working through, with support from University offices, in order to figure out what may work best.”

Faculty are “encouraged” to teach during reading week to make up for the classes missed

during the week of March 16, according to Paxson’s email.

Study abroad programs impacted

The Office of International Programs is also suspending many international study abroad programs taking place in Europe, according to an email from Director of International Travel Risk Management Christine Sprovieri and Director of the Office of International Programs Kendall Brostuen, sent Thursday to students currently abroad.

This decision aligns with University policy that “dictates the suspension of programs taking place in countries with a (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) designation of Warning Level 3,” according to the email. The CDC elevated Western Europe to a Level 3 warning March 11, telling travelers to avoid “all non-essential travel to this destination.”

Commencement and Reunion Weekend

Since the condition of the pandemic weeks or months from now is difficult to predict, the University has not yet made a decision about whether Commencement and Reunion Weekend will take place as usual.

“In an ideal world, if the situation with COVID abates over the coming month, we are going to welcome students, seniors and their families back to campus and hold Commencement, and in a way that doesn’t look tremendously different from what happens every year,” Clark said. “I don’t know whether that’s possible; nobody does at this point. So for that reason, we are jumping into the work of exploring what do alternatives look like.”

These alternatives could include holding Commencement and Reunion weekend at a later date or in a different format, Clark said.

“Commencement and Reunion Weekend is a massive undertaking” at the University, he added, “so we’re certainly hopeful about making a decision in the coming weeks, but we’re … putting that off until we can make it based on our current information.”

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Egilman published a paper titled “Grave fraudulence in medical device research: a narrative review of the PIN seeding study for the Pinnacle hip system” in the journal “Accountability in Research” in December 2017. According to the paper’s findings, a study conducted by DePuy Synthes, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, had been a covert “seeding trial,” which aimed to generate data for marketing their Pinnacle hip replacement system rather than study empirical results of the product’s use.

After the paper was published, Egilman told The Herald that an employee of Johnson & Johnson asked “Accountability in Research” to retract the paper, alleging that Egilman’s role as a paid expert witness against DePuy in a previous class action lawsuit corrupted the paper’s findings. Plaintiffs alleged that they were injured by the hip replacement technology.

Egilman and the paper’s other authors disclosed in the journal article that they were not compensated for their work on the paper and the lawyers for the injured plaintiffs in the suit had no input on the paper’s content.

“Accountability in Research” conducted an internal review based on Johnson & Johnson’s allegations, and “found no grounds for retraction” of the paper, according to the University grievance report reviewed by The Herald. “Accountability in Research” and DePuy did not respond to requests for comment.

In January 2019, Executive Dean of Administration for the Med School Kimberly Galligan sent Egilman a cease-and-desist letter, which was obtained by The Herald. The letter requested that Egilman remove his Brown affiliation from his publication in “Accountability in Research.” It also requested he disclose when his research was not a product of his work at Brown on future papers, in accordance with University policy.

Galligan declined to comment due to the confidentiality of personnel matters.

The grievance committee found that Galligan’s request that Egilman remove his University affiliation from his publications was arbitrary and “in express violation of University policy that states that faculty involved in outside activities may reference their Brown appointments in publications,” and that the removal of Egilman’s course was largely due to misinformation, according to its report.

According to the grievance report, several deans of the School of Public Health decided that Egilman’s course, PHP 1050: “Science and Power: The Corruption of Public Health,” would no longer be offered because, in their understanding, Egilman was to be terminated and removed from the faculty of the University in relation to the journal publication. Egilman said he had taught the course multiple times, beginning in 1987.

Following the removal of his class and the cease-and-desist letter, Egilman said that he filed a complaint with the American Association of University Professors and with the University Grievance Committee, alleging “violations of Academic Freedom arising from undue corporate influence on his research and teaching activities,” according to the grievance committee’s report.

“We fully and unequivocally reject any suggestion of any external influence at all on our process or decision-making,” University spokesperson Brian Clark wrote in an email to The Herald. “Decisions on faculty appointments, research by Brown scholars (and/or) courses offered on campus are in no case influenced by corporations. The University’s actions and decisions related to this grievance would have been no different if the journal article in question were on any other topic,” he wrote.

In response to the grievance report, the University is “beginning the process to outline … expanded guidance … to clinical faculty on how and when to appropriately list their Brown affiliation,” Clark wrote. “The University is fully confident in the decisions made in this recent grievance matter,” Clark added.

While the committee did not find direct evidence of corporate influence in the University’s actions, it wrote that it found the decisions to be “inherently suspicious and (they open) the door to the perception of corporate influence.”

The committee recommended that the cease-and-desist letter be retracted and that Egilman’s ENVS 1552: “Science and Power: The Corruption of Environmental Health” course be reconsidered for registration by the School of Public Health Curriculum Committee, according to the grievance committee’s report. The University did not respond to whether or not the recommendations were followed.

Egilman had submitted a proposal for this new course in the environmental studies department to be taught in spring 2020. But, Egilman said he chose to cancel the course from fear of being removed from the faculty before the course’s conclusion.

Gorton graduated from Pembroke College in 1952, where she was a top-ranked badminton player and captain of the softball team. She returned to campus in 1961 as director of physical education. She was tasked with running all seven women’s club-varsity teams, the highest level of athletic competition available for Pembroke women at the time, on a $2,000 budget. Gorton also taught in the physical education department at Pembroke until the merger with Brown in 1971. She then assumed the role of assistant athletic director at the University, which she held until her retirement in 1998, the same year that she was honored with the Division I Administrator of the Year Award by the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletic Administrators.

Many recalled the tenacity with which Gorton pursued equal rights for women in sports, participating in two landmark cases related to the successful implementation of Title IX. “Arlene was involved in two of the most high-profile lawsuits in Brown’s history,” said Peter Mackie ’59, a Brown Athletic Hall of Fame 2007 inductee and the sports archivist for the Edward North Robinson Collection of Athletics at Brown. “She was a head of a committee that was very involved in the Louise Lamphere case, which was a watershed case regarding the tenure of female faculty members at universities. … She was in the hot seat with (the Title IX suit) as well, because there was a lot of pressure brought to bear on coaches and athletic administrators, but she testified anyway.”

Despite her involvement in multiple suits against the University, Gorton is remembered fondly by Brown’s athletics department. “Arlene Gorton played an instrumental role in the history of Brown Athletics,” said Director of Athletics Jack Hayes. “Through her efforts and leadership, women’s athletics at Brown continued to develop and prosper.”

Carolan Norris, senior associate director of athletics in Student-Athlete Services, recalled her early days in the department with Gorton. “Arlene was a mentor for me in athletics and was ahead of her time in the advancement for equity and inclusion of women. She has touched many areas of the University, even beyond athletics, and her soul will be deeply missed at Brown,” Norris said.

Gorton had a lifelong commitment to expanding opportunities for women in athletics. “When she was in the second grade, her parents were called in to be chastised by the principal because Arlene insisted on playing softball with the boys and refused to stay on the girls’ side of the playground playing hopscotch,” Mackie said. “She wanted to play outfield for the Boston Red Sox. When she got older and realized that, as a woman, she would never play outfield in the major league, it was a real shot across the bow. She became determined to do something about the sexual stereotyping of women in sports.”

For athletes who played under Gorton’s administration, her presence was a literal game-changer. “When I arrived at Brown in 1972, there were four varsity sports available to women. Tennis was one, and we played two matches a season,” said Nancy Neff ’76, a varsity tennis and basketball player and the first ever recipient of the Arlene Gorton ’52 Cup. “Anyone could just come into her office, so in my first year, I expressed disappointment to her about the athletic options at Brown. … Then Arlene went forward with helping to get Title IX passed, and when I returned only a year later as a sophomore, suddenly Arlene had brought in 13 varsity women’s teams with full game schedules and had grown the budget to 10 times its original size.”

“Arlene gave her blood, sweat and tears to Brown,” Mackie said. “She was 24/7. She ran summer camps, she rode the buses with the athletes, she supported her coaches, her door was always open and she was never afraid to start a new sport.” According to Mackie, after being questioned on why Brown did not have a women’s ice hockey team, Gorton began one of the first women’s ice hockey program in the United States.

An outpouring of support was planned for Gorton’s now-postponed memorial service. Despite the postponement, her students and colleagues united as a community to write eulogies, publish op-ed articles and return to visit campus. “We heard from many former coaches and student-athletes following the announcement of Arlene’s passing,” Hayes said. “It was obvious that she impacted many individuals during her tenure at Brown.”

A campaign spearheaded by Mackie aspires to honor her memory by doubling down on an ongoing campaign to have the softball field at Brown named for Gorton. “Not only did she play softball here — she captained the team,” Mackie said. “Then she came back and coached softball here. Then in 1975, she elevated women’s softball to the varsity level.”

When Gorton was asked in a 2010 interview what she hoped her legacy would be, she said, “Stirring the pot and raising the questions … You know, they used to say to me whenever I fought for an issue, ‘there you go again.’ And my answer was, ‘I have to go, or who will? If you go, I won’t need to.’ And it is now time for others to go.”

Aughavin, who is concentrating in political science, hails from Glen Head, New York. He attended North Shore High School, where he was a three-sport athlete in lacrosse, football and basketball. Aughavin was an All-American in lacrosse and received All-State honors in both lacrosse and football. For his impressive performance Sunday, Aughavin has been named The Herald’s Athlete of the Week.

Herald: How did it feel to score three goals and lead the Bears in taking down the eighth-ranked team in the country?

Aughavin: We got lost in the storm … we played really well. We were down 8-2 (in) the second quarter and everyone was getting a little nervous, but we just had to chip away and do what we had to do to get the win.

During your time at Brown, what do you think has changed on the team to allow the Bears to capture this come-from-behind victory?

It is the team camaraderie — there are 48 of us and (numbers) one through 48 are good friends with one another. Being great friends off the field transcribes so well to being on the field (together). You can trust the guy next to you.

Do you feel that you have improved your skills while at Brown?

Physically, I have gotten stronger, but the main thing was practicing against these guys. It is hard not to get better each day when you have these talented players around you. In high school, I was the only player (at my school) to (commit) to play (lacrosse) in college.

When did you start playing lacrosse?

I started playing in seventh grade. I made the switch from baseball — both of my brothers played baseball. Being from Long Island, everyone played lacrosse, so it seemed pretty natural at the time … it was definitely a great decision.

Throughout your career, have you been inspired by specific role models or coaches?

My high school coach … with me starting late, was very influential. The coaches here at Brown have also helped me out a ton.

How did your background playing other sports help develop your lacrosse game?

A lot of the skills from football translate (to lacrosse) … if you are super athletic, they can probably find a spot for you (in both sports). Also, my two older brothers were very tough on me. Honestly, I think having that mental and physical toughness from an early age helped me the most in all of my sports.

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

While the new location and rental terms of the substation have not been determined, the PPD is in active discussion with the University to consider possible relocation to an alternative University-owned space, according to University Spokesperson Brian Clark.

The Brook Street substation is currently leased to the PPD on a $1 per month rental agreement. Though the rent may seem exceptionally low, it is actually common for substations in Providence to receive such minimal rates.

Lt. Joseph Dufault, commander of Districts 8 and 9, which encompass University grounds, said that the city does not have the funds to build new substations or pay high rents. Instead, the city enters into a rental agreement for a very low price, or the building is “donated outright for use by the police department.” Dufault said he believes that the new location will have a similar type of agreement and be of no cost or very minimal cost to the city.

“We like (the Brook Street substation), so it’s unfortunate that we have to move,” he said. “While we did get used to that place because we’ve been there for a long time, we also realize that the nature of Brown University growing and expanding is that (for) property they own, they look to maximize.”

The University has a long-standing partnership with the PPD. The proximity of its Brook Street substation to campus and to the Brown Department of Public Safety “is a key element in the cooperative relationship between those agencies, which partner every week on everything from community policing and crime prevention strategies to incident response and active investigations,” Clark wrote in an email to The Herald. Additionally, the University maintains a shared PPD and DPS substation on Elm Street in the Jewelry District.

Based on recent discussion with the PPD, the University is confident it will “find a solution that enables this mutually beneficial arrangement to continue for the years ahead,” Clark wrote.

Dufault said he does not believe that the relocation of the substation will impact campus safety, and that the goal is to find another location on campus or nearby. “We’ll be in a different location, so there’ll be some adjustment for the guys and girls who work up there, but we’ll still be visible; people will still see us up there.”

From this article, two issues become clear. First, there is no standard, well-publicized way to report coaches’ misconduct if it falls outside of Title IX. Second, the University does not appear to have a mechanism to hold coaches accountable and protect players from abusive behavior.

In an op-ed published in The Herald, Kerrissa Heffernan  argued that criticism of Behn is biased, as male coaches don’t face the same scrutiny. Heffernan does not to seem to see a problem with Behn’s behavior, describing her coaching style as “direct and corrective.” But we cannot dismiss the real grievances of players, nor should we excuse Behn’s behavior as simply “direct.” The solution to potential bias shouldn’t be to let Behn off the hook. Instead, the University should hold all coaches to a higher standard.

The University needs to start prioritizing players’ well-being. To do so, it should create a well-publicized way to report misconduct and then hold coaches accountable for their behavior.

When I was a member of the women’s crew team fall 2017, we were required to attend a meeting where administrators informed us of University policy concerning hazing and Title IX rules. The Univeristy has clear policies on these issues because hazing is illegal under Rhode Island law, and because Title IX rules are informed by federal regulation. In this meeting, we learned about resources available to report hazing and Title IX violations; we also were warned about the steep consequences the University would impose if we engaged in hazing.

But we didn’t learn how to report other kinds of misconduct. For example, what mechanisms are in place for a team that is required to practice beyond the 20-hour-a-week limit mandated by NCAA rules (which I know happens at this school from my own experience and that of others)? The University also doesn’t have a well-publicized procedure to report coaches for pressuring students to train through injuries, or for using abusive or demeaning language. While I know I haven’t been actively involved on a Brown sports team in a few years, I suspect misconduct procedures have not changed.

When it comes to the coach-athlete relationship, coaches hold all the cards — the only recourse players have is to quit. But quitting a sport isn’t easy, especially when most of your friends are on the team. I know this from personal experience: Quitting the crew team was one of the hardest decisions I’ve made during my time here at Brown. The University needs to create a way to hold coaches accountable, so students aren’t forced out of the sports they love. Furthermore, the University should track the number of students who quit every sport, and potentially investigate teams where an unusually high number of students have quit.

Brown takes reports of alleged student misconduct, like hazing, very seriously. Most recently, Brown conducted a thorough investigation and ultimately suspended the men’s swimming and diving team for spring 2018, and canceled their competitions during fall 2018. But when it comes to coaches’ behavior, the University doesn’t pay much heed to students’ and parents’ concerns.

The University should strive to create a student body that is happy, healthy and ready to learn. This means ensuring Brown employees — including coaches — are treating students with respect and holding them accountable if they don’t.

Rebecca Aman ’20 can be reached at
rebecca_aman@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to
letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.