Panhia Lee

Brown provost joins global leaders awarded for work on fairness and human rights

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Society for Progress recognizes Richard M. Locke with an inaugural Progress Medal for his scholarship on working conditions and labor rights in the global economy.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The Society for Progress has named Richard M. Locke, Brown University provost and professor of political science and international and public affairs, recipient of one of five inaugural Progress Medals awarded to leaders across the globe for scholarship on issues of fairness and well-being.

The award recognizes Locke’s “work on labor justice in global supply chains and the influence and limits of private standards in integrating equity and efficiency,” the Society stated in announcing the awards on Sept. 23.

“I am both honored and humbled to be a recipient of this award,” said Locke, a scholar and authority on international labor relations and worker rights, and comparative political economy.

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Students to meet, interview refugees for class project on immigration, cultural diversity

NEWPORT, R.I. (Sept. 22, 2016) – On the next two Saturdays, 22 Salve Regina University students will be meeting and interviewing clients from Providence’s Refugee Dream Center, after which they will transcribe and edit their interviews, and send the finished product back to the Center for its use as part of a class project designed to expand students’ understanding of cultural diversity.

The project blends tenets of the university’s mission with experiential learning and community engagement. The students are enrolled in Dr. Chad Raymond’s UNV 101, a university seminar designed for first-semester students in which Raymond is inspiring them to take a broader look at immigration, which is one of the Mercy critical concerns. Salve Regina is a Mercy institution and the university seminar is a core requirement designed to refine students’ skills of inquiry, analysis and communication.

“The purpose of the project is to get first-semester students interacting in the community with people whose cultural backgrounds and life experiences are very different from their own,” said Raymond, who is chairman of the Department of Cultural, Environmental and Global Studies. “This interaction benefits the Refugee Dream Center by providing it with documentation that it can use to inform others about its services.”

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Where Writing Meets Studio Work

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Emily Frances Winter MFA 15 TX describes her research-driven thesis as “an argument for the potency of textiles as a medium.”

When Jane Androski MFA 11 GD and Emily Rye MFA 11 GD were collaborating on their joint master’s thesis five years ago, they often referred to it as “the work before the work” – a way to establish and visualize the terms and goals of a professional partnership post-graduation. Now co-principals of Design Agency, a Rhode Island-based studio they founded to embrace design as an agent of change, their experience stands as a prime example of the theme at the center of Formative & Persisting, the most recent iteration of a biannual exhibition that highlights the research, dimensions and dynamics of the written thesis at RISD. The exhibition, on view through September 25 at Sol Koffler Graduate Student Gallery, presents the thesis as a living document-one that frames and propels work done at RISD as much as it sustains future practice.

Supported by Graduate Studies and curated by Senior Lecturer Anne West, Director of Campus Exhibitions Mark Moscone and current grad student Elizabeth Leeper MFA 17 GD, the show includes written theses by 30 graduates (including Androski and Rye) along with visual representations and descriptions of their creative practice. The curatorial team has divided the work into six categories – blueprint, catalyst, method, monograph, pedagogy and research – that suggest the various ways the thesis is, as the title suggests, both formative and persistent. With outcomes that range from a graphic novel questioning approaches in arts education to a speculative magazine focused on the future of wearable technologies, the work showcases the diversity and depth of voice found within the graduate community at RISD.

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Brown’s First-Generation College and Low-Income Student Center opens

In a ribbon-cutting ceremony, speakers talked about the efforts that led to the center’s establishment and its essential role at Brown.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Brown University’s First-Generation College and Low-Income Student Center celebrated its official opening on Sept. 16 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and reception in its new, dedicated space in the University’s Sciences Library.

In joining students, faculty and staff from Brown at the opening ceremony, Brown President Christina Paxson said the center will serve as a vital resource for students who are the first in their family to attend college or come from a low-income background — and acknowledged the essential role that Brown students played in the creation of the center, the first of its kind in the country.

“Students here have a lot to be proud of. Not just for what you are doing on this campus, but for what you are doing around the country. It’s really remarkable,” she said.

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