Making music with a group, whether it’s crowded into a bar or standing in a church, fulfills in a way that singing alone does not. But we can still try.
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Saturday, May 16, 2020
Friday, May 15, 2020
Rapper E-40 gifts 1,000 gallons of hand sanitizer to California prisons
Men and women behind bars are particularly vulnerable during the coronavirus pandemic, so Rapper E-40 stepped up to help mitigate the risks by donating 1,000 gallons of hand sanitizer to California prisons.
READ MORE: Ludacris and Nelly are set for the next Verzuz battle and fans are already taking sides
Thursday, the rapper, who is a Bay Area native, made the big announcement on Instagram by posting a video showing the sanitizer being produced and packaged for delivery to the prisons.
E-40, who is an investor in several wine and spirits brands, donates 1,000 gallons of hand sanitizer to Lompoc & San Quentin State Prison,” read the straight forward caption accompanying the clip.
After learning of a COVID-19 outbreak at San Quentin and Lompoc prisons in California, the rap icon said he wanted to do his part.
“As you know, hand sanitizer is made with alcohol, and I sell dope beverages so I know many distillers all over the country,” the rapper told ABC7 News. “I said let me get 1,000 gallons and send them to San Quentin and Lompoc. I hope that it makes a good impact.”
Fellow Bay Area native, NFL running back Marshawn Lynch, who last played with the Seattle Seahawks, also made a donation to the Santa Rita jail.
Back in March, Mayor Bill de Blasio said the mayor’s office of criminal justice was working to protect those in custody who are at high risk of becoming infected after a prisoner at Rikers Island tested positive for COVID-19. Several states have also announced the early release of inmates, as well as an intentional, reduction in new arrests to curb the spread of the virus.
According to Buzzfeed, in Los Angeles County, the prison population shrunk from 17,076 inmates to 16,459 in about two weeks. Their report notes in the Los Angeles County Jails, dozens of inmates are in quarantine across three locations after showing symptoms of COVID-19.
READ MORE: ‘Just Mercy’ campaign launches COVID-19 fund to help the incarcerated
As high-profile prisoners like Tekashi 6ix9ine continue to get granted early release due to health concerns, more and more political leaders and advocates are calling for the same precautionary measures when it comes to non-violent offenders.
At the forefront of this fight is the Last Prisoner Project—a nonprofit organization dedicated to freeing inmates convicted of nonviolent marijuana crimes— which has recently launched an initiative that it believes will help slow the spread of COVID-19 behind bars.
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Comedian Sarah Cooper goes viral with TikTok lip-sync of Donald Trump
Sarah Cooper didn’t anticipate she’d go viral on TikTok. Eight of the platforms top ten most followed are young, white, and either singers or dancers, some of whom have built a following through other platforms.
READ MORE: HBO drops trailer for ‘Yvonne Orji: Momma, I Made It!’ comedy special
Cooper, a 35-year-old Jamaican-born author and comedian best known for her books “100 Tricks To Appear Smart In Meetings” and “How To Be Succesful Without Hurting Men’s Feelings” isn’t the channel’s main demographic, but she found something that struck a chord with its viewers.
Her lip-sync of the infamous Donald Trump press conference when he suggested ingesting bleach and getting UV light inside people’s bodies to help them fight coronavirus brought Cooper 16 million views on the social media platform.
How to medical pic.twitter.com/0EDqJcy38p
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) April 24, 2020
“It is interesting because as a writer you want to heighten how ridiculous things are. But everything he says is already so ridiculous that it is hard to heighten it,” Cooper told The Guardian.
Whether its the spot-on mannerisms and the perfect timing of the lip-syncing we don’t know but TikTok viewers (and news anchor Lawrence O’Donnell) loved it.
“I feel like we’ve been gaslighted for years, being told it is totally normal for a president to say things like this,” Cooper added. “It is a very validating thing to see something remind you that, no, this is actually ridiculous and we can all agree on that.”
Since then, Cooper has also lip-synced to the president’s discussion of vice-presidential aide Katie Miller’s positive test for COVID-19.
How to testing pic.twitter.com/y9iwLK0N12
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) May 9, 2020
On April 23, at his then-daily coronavirus briefing, the president suggested that he’d had discussions with scientists that included possibly injecting people with disinfectant and getting UV light inside their bodies that drew not just derision, but responses from both the Surgeon General and the makers of Lysol.
“I see disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute, and is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning,” Trump told the assembled media. “Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that. So you’re going to have to use medical doctors, but it sounds interesting to me. So, we’ll see. But the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute, that’s pretty powerful.”
Trump later said he was being ‘sarcastic.’
READ MORE: YouTube comedy series ‘In My Head’ focuses on reality vs. expectations
You can watch the original speech here:
“As a global leader in health and hygiene products, we must be clear that under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route),” the makers of Lysol and Dettol said in a statement.
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Indianapolis cop suspended over Sean Reed ‘closed casket’ remark
The officer who made the crude remark following the police shooting of 21-year-old Sean Reed has been suspended.
According to the Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police chief, Randal Taylor told the press that the officer has been suspended and reassigned. The chief did not say how long the suspension is nor did he disclose the officer’s name out of concerns for his safety.
READ MORE: Detective in Sean Reed shooting joked ‘it’s going to be a closed casket’
The unnamed detective remarked, “I think it’s going to be a closed casket, homie,” after Reed was shot by another officer after a car chase.
The comment was captured on Facebook Live as Reed was streaming from his phone during the chase and the shooting. The video was watched by more than 4,000 people.
Reed was killed on May 6 following a high-speed chase. IMPD alleges that he fired at officers who returned fire killing him. His family maintains that he was unarmed. The police chief has vowed that the investigation will be transparent.
The shooting was the first of three officer-involved killings in Indianapolis in 24 hours. 19-year-old McHale Rose was also shot by police, and 23-year-old Ashlynn Lisby was struck by an officer as she walked up an expressway off-ramp.
The three deaths sparked demonstrations in Indianapolis. Protesters have demanded transparency and reforms for IMPD. There have also been dozens of threats against IMPD officers which are being investigated.
Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett and Taylor announced this week that the department will create a new use-of-force policy and use-of-force review board that will include civilian participation.
READ MORE: Indianapolis police fatally shoot Sean Reed, 21, during Facebook Live
They also announced that IMPD will deploy a body camera program this summer.
In a video to TMZ, Indianapolis native Mike Epps said that “cops gotta be punished,” he said that many police are not “culturally connected” to the communities that they serve. Epps also said that young black men “have to stop giving (police) the opportunity to kill us.”
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JPMorgan Chase Uses Real-Time Data to Explore Financial Impact of Coronavirus
JPMorgan Chase released the first in a series of studies that use real-time data to investigate the financial impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
The first JPMorgan Chase study focuses on the initial household spending response to the coronavirus pandemic. The study used consumer credit card transactions from March 1 – April 11, 2020, to examine the changes in household spending and how it varies by household income and industry of employment.
The first finding the study unearthed was the average household credit card spending amount has fallen by 40% by the end of March when compared to last year. According to the study, spending was stable through the beginning of March, but the coronavirus pandemic hit the job market and as Americans began losing jobs, spending hit a standstill.
The study also found spending on essential products increased by 20% before falling to pre-coronavirus levels. At the same time, spending on non-essentials fell by 50% and account for nearly all of the total spending decline.
The drop in non-essential products can be attributed to states’ non-essential businesses including restaurants, bars, movie theaters, and gyms being forced to close by state and local governments. Additionally, stay-at-home orders prohibited the ability to travel and citizens may have curtailed spending in order to save money or in response to an income loss.
“This is the first time we have an integrated view into how COVID-19 and interventions like stay-at-home orders are impacting families’ spending across income levels,” Diana Farrell, president and CEO, JPMorgan Chase Institute said in a statement. “Across the income spectrum, we see that the large cut in consumer spending through early April was driven primarily by the pandemic and stay-at-home orders and, so far, less so by job loss. While surprising, we expect this may change over time as layoffs, furloughs and unemployment insurance further impact families’ bank accounts.”
JPMorgan Chase also found spending has dropped significantly for households across all income levels with higher-income households accounting for slightly larger drops in spending. The top income earners have reduced spending by about 46%, or $400, by the second week of April while the bottom income earners reduced spending by 38%, or $150.
The difference in the spending drop can be attributed to higher-income earners having more money to spend on non-essential items. Lower-income earners typically have less money to spend on non-essentials as the majority of money earned goes toward rent and food. That theory is backed up by data showing job losses were four times higher for the lowest-income earners than for the highest-income earners.
A study by JPMorgan Chase in April showed African American and Hispanic families are struggling the most due to the economic ramifications of the pandemic.
It was also reported in March that low-wage workers have a higher rate of being infected. Many low-wage workers are immigrants or minorities that cannot work from home and are forced to interact with strangers.
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MIT student leaders go virtual with global startup competitions
On April 22, the MIT Water Club hosted its annual Water Innovation Prize Pitch Night, the culminating event of a year-long international competition for student innovators seeking to launch water sector companies. This event, now in its sixth year, normally gathers over 250 people to MIT’s campus to cheer on finalist teams from around the world as they compete for cash awards. Yet, six weeks before the event, when the Water Club would usually be finalizing logistics and collecting RSVPs, Covid-19 upended our world.
At the same time that the Water Club’s student leaders were gearing up for their event, the MIT Food and Agriculture Club was in its own final stages of planning its annual pitch competition, the Rabobank-MIT Food and Agribusiness Innovation Prize. Now in its fifth year, this event is a national innovation competition for student startups spanning all aspects of the food system. For both clubs, these events are the largest and highest-profile of the year and provide important networking and professional development opportunities for finalist teams and attendees. Bringing signature MIT resilience and ingenuity, student leaders from both clubs persevered through physical distancing measures, successfully pivoting both events to virtual space.
From shared disappointment to supportive action
At the outset, both clubs' leaders were very disappointed. Zhenya Karelina, a second-year MBA student at the MIT Sloan School of Management who is also the Food and Agriculture Club’s co-president and director of the Rabobank-MIT Prize, had been so excited to lead the Rabobank-MIT Prize. She “had this vision of what it would look like at the end,” but under the circumstances she “felt like [she] had to let it all go.” But cancelation simply wasn’t an option. As Erika Desmond, a first-year MBA student at MIT Sloan and vice president of growth for the MIT Water Club, puts it, “the first priority is making sure that the finalists still get the opportunity of getting their innovations out there and to compete for the prizes.”
Zhenya’s initial disappointment quickly led to her realization that other MIT startup competition leaders must be feeling the same way. So, she started a Slack channel to connect with other student leadership teams who were dealing with similar losses and to collectively brainstorm what it could look like to take things virtual. “A lot of these MIT prizes are very similar, but we tend to run them in silos. This seemed, to me, to be a cool opportunity to learn from each other,” Zhenya reflects. The Slack group included leaders from the Clean Energy Prize, the 100K Prize, the Water Innovation Prize, and the Rabobank-MIT Food and Agribusiness Innovation Prize. “We were all in the same boat,” recalls Javier Renna, a sophomore MBA student at MIT Sloan who is one of the co-directors for the Water Innovation Prize. “I was amazed by the sense of community in saying, ‘We’re all trying to do the same thing’ and ‘What can we do to help each other out?’”
New challenges and silver linings
For any organization to pivot one of its biggest in-person events of the year online is no easy task. Inevitably, both the Food and Agriculture Club and the Water Club faced technical, strategic, and personal hurdles while organizing their online events. Both clubs loosely maintained the traditional format of each pitch event: keynotes, pitches by student teams, and Q&A with judges, immediately followed by deliberation and award announcements. One aspect that they struggled to replace, however, was in-person networking. When students and entrepreneurs from around the country gather for these events, networking is “one of the main value propositions,” says Desmond. As a replacement, the Water Club tried smaller virtual breakout sessions through Zoom, to mixed effect.
Another huge challenge was to hurdle the technology gaps. “I was the host of the webinar and I remember that it was very scary at first,” recalls Renna. “I had no idea how to run a webinar and I thought ‘how am I going to manage all the different stakeholders with people watching?’ It felt like a recipe for a disaster.” But after tapping a friend experienced in webinars, he managed to learn the ropes. “Once she started to explain it, I started to feel more comfortable.” Renna says. Ultimately, he was able to share his newfound knowledge with leaders of the Food and Agriculture Club, helping them to open up their webinar to the public.
Overcoming initial roadblocks led to a shift in thinking for both teams. “The biggest thing for us was pivoting from looking at [going virtual] as a disadvantage … to how we could use it to our advantage,” Desmond recalls. For Karelina, shifting her mindset was key. “By the end … I could see how the virtual environment actually enables all these really cool opportunities that I hadn't even thought about.” In fact, going online ended up revealing some key advantages. Among them was how the virtual events enabled the participation of a more diverse audience base, one that wouldn’t have been possible under normal circumstances. “Someone from Japan contacted me asking how they could watch the event,” Renna says. “We had people logging onto the Water Innovation Prize from Africa, the UK, the East Coast, the West Coast, Mexico, and more!”
Significant startup support for five winning teams continues
Despite all the changes, the energy and creativity of the diverse group of participating student entrepreneurs was palpable as they competed for cash awards. The two clubs together awarded $75,000 across five winning teams. In fact, the Water Club was able to increase the total prize amounts for its competitors by diverting money saved from other event cancelations. So, the increased award of $25,000 came as a pleasant surprise for Blue Tap, the team winning first place in the Water Innovation Prize. This team, based out of the University of Cambridge, uses 3D printing technologies to bring affordable clean water to the developing world. They have focused development efforts of their main product, a simple and cost-effective chlorine injector, in Uganda. Their work there has also involved community development as they have partnered with over 30 plumbers to train them in water treatment practices and entrepreneurship.
Runners up in the Water Innovation Prize included second-place winner Floe. The team, from Yale University, was awarded $12,500 to further the development of their system that prevents ice buildup on roofs. Ice buildup affects nearly 62 million buildings across the United States every year and can lead to serious structural damage. An MIT team, Harmony Water, took home a third-place prize of $7,500, to support their continued research and development of a low-cost water desalination system that can produce more water and less brine using 30 percent less energy than present methods.
Eight teams competed for the MIT-Rabobank Food and Agribusiness Innovation Prize, which awarded two top prizes totaling $30,000. MotorCortex, a student team out of Carnegie Mellon, won the first-place prize of $20,000 with advanced robotics technology that could change the future of the fruit packing industry. The group has developed an algorithm to guide robotic arms in food packing plants that optimizes “pick-up-points” on delicate fruits like avocados and apples. Varying shapes and sizes of individual fruits have historically made automation of the industry a particularly difficult challenge — until now. Their invention could potentially cut fruit packing costs in half as their robotic arms would replace human laborers — in low-wage, high-turnover positions — and increase packing efficiency.
In second place, winning $10,000, was Antithesis Foods, a team from Cornell University using high-protein chickpeas and a novel processing technology to produce healthier chocolate snacks. Their garbanzo bean-based product, Grabanzos, was all set for rollout previous to Covid-19. However, the sudden shuttering of production facilities, storefronts, and campuses, has greatly hindered their progress. The startup will now use their prize to pivot their original business plan to an online sales platform.
Innovation prize sponsors inspired by student resilience
The main sponsor of the food prize is Rabobank, a global financial services leader in the food, agribusiness, and beverage industries. Rabobank executives working with members of the Food and Agriculture Club were impressed by the students’ resilience and drive. Throughout the past months Jennifer Jiang worked closely with the club. As vice president of strategy and business development at Rabobank, she reflects that she has been “inspired by the creativity and novel thinking of the team to run an event that gave viewers and participants alike an energy that so closely resembled that of an in-person event.”
MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) serves as a mentor to both teams in the production of these innovation prizes, and is also a co-sponsor. Working day-to-day with the students, J-WAFS saw this resilience firsthand. Each year the prizes grow in participation and success, and despite the unprecedented challenges of physical distancing and other measures over the last few months, the students produced thoughtful, engaging events. "We were again delighted by the dedication, creativity, and achievements that students from MIT and across the country bring to challenges in the food and agriculture sectors,” says J-WAFS Director John H. Lienhard V. The students’ perseverance in the face of adversity demonstrated their commitment to see these impactful competitions through to their end, as well as to advancing solutions to global water and food challenges. As we move forward through these challenging times, we can look to the collaborative spirit, commitment, and drive of these young water and food leaders as inspiration.
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Black Delivery Driver Held Against His Will in Gated Community by White Resident
In the latest edition of black people being held to a different standard, a black delivery driver was “imprisoned” in a gated Oklahoma City complex by white homeowners, according to ABC News.
For more than an hour, a black delivery driver was trapped in an Oklahoma City gated community earlier this week by a white man who said that he was the president of the local homeowner’s association.
Travis Miller, who is a home appliance and furniture delivery driver, had filmed the encounter on his Facebook Live account while driving through the neighborhood of Ashford Hills.
“I just know that emotionally, it was hard to maintain restraint, especially when I’m dealing with death in the family, two family members within two days of each other,” Miller told KFOR-TV on Wednesday. “I just did the best I could to not make a bad situation worse.”
Miller had been given the code to the gate by the client who ordered the items to be delivered. After completing the delivery, Miller and his colleague were questioned about why they were on that street by a white man, who identified himself as David Stewart and said he was a board member of the homeowners association, as can be seen on the Facebook Live clip of the confrontation.
“Got me blocked in so I can’t leave,” Miller said, referring to Stewart as he blocked them in with his car.
“I want to know where you’re going?” said Stewart, who told Miller that he was driving on a private street.
Miller then says, “It’s none of your business. I’m going out, that’s where I’m going.”
Miller remained seated in his truck and recorded the interaction on Facebook.
“I was gripping the steering wheel, and I made sure I kept my seat belt on,” he told KOCO-TV. “I locked the doors, tried to keep the window up.”
After about 30 minutes, another homeowner joined the man in his inquiry.
“All we want to know is why you’re in here and who gave you the gate code,” the second homeowner said. “That’s all we need to know.”
Miller refused to reveal his client’s personal information.
“I don’t know what prompted him to, or what has happened in that neighborhood, for him to respond the way he did,” Miller said.
“I knew if I get out this truck, no matter what happened, I would have been in the wrong,” he said. “I always say to myself, ‘I’m going to go home to my wife and my kids.’”
Police did not go to the scene because the original caller phoned back and said officers were no longer needed, police Capt. Larry Withrow said.
“If our original caller tells us they no longer need us, unless we have reason to believe there is something wrong or something illegal happening, we cancel the call,” Withrow said.
Miller said Stewart eventually moved his car because his customer arrived at the scene and confirmed that he had just received a delivery.
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Achieving advisory equilibrium
Converting raw potential into a dissertation is no easy feat. Dependable mentorship can play a profound role in cultivating engaged, capable, and resilient scholars. Professors Paola Cappellaro, Warren Seering, and Lily Tsai have been honored by their graduate students as “Committed to Caring” for their adaptability and stable guidance as advisors, helping their students weather setbacks and continue to find delight in discovery, even in the midst of a pandemic.
Paola Cappellaro: Igniting enthusiasm
Paola Cappellaro is a professor of nuclear science and engineering. She leads the Quantum Engineering Group at the Center for Ultracold Atoms at MIT and is a member of the Research Lab for Electronics. Her research aims to enable practical quantum nano-devices, such as medical sensors and stimulators, as well as develop deeper knowledge of quantum systems and their environments.
As an advisor, Cappellaro effectively navigates the balance between attending closely to students’ needs while also giving them space to explore. Students fondly recall Cappellaro’s ability to summon details about minor experiments they conducted weeks before, or wish them well on an event they had once mentioned in passing.
Encountering research obstacles is de rigueur, particularly during graduate school. When students are stumped by experimental results, Cappellaro advises them to take “sideways steps” to consider the challenge from another angle. In her words, she aims to “cultivate and preserve [each] student’s love for research and science … especially when … things do not work out in the lab or because of external pressures.”
One external pressure currently affecting everyone is the Covid-19 pandemic. Many students had to make sudden, significant decisions about their lives or research in response. Cappellaro has been a reliable support, helping students decide whether to vacate or remain on campus, ensuring students were provided funds from the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering to enable moves, and helping her laboratory group find ways to maintain connection and banter in virtual interactions.
A particular point of stress for many students is whether they will be able to move forward with their experiments and degrees, notes Cappellaro. In the short term, the lab has found ways to run their experiments remotely. Emphasizing the need to accommodate people with varied schedules, time zones, and child care in this trying time, Cappellaro is flexible in organizing group meetings and the research process. She notes, “I try to nudge people to reach out to each other even in lockdown” — and is excited that — “new collaborations among the group [have] sprout[ed] from this situation.”
Cappellaro says that fostering “a caring and open community, where one feels valued and welcomed to ask and provide help,” is critical to enabling graduate students to be productive. Building such a friendly and inclusive work environment is a mentoring guidepost identified by the Committed to Caring (C2C) program. Cappellaro notes that the “best strategy [as an advisor is] to foster cohesion among the student group so that they care for each other and help each other out.” Group outings such as the lab’s annual ski trip contribute to this feeling of community.
Cappellaro’s advising centers on igniting and reigniting enthusiasm for experimentation.
Warren Seering: Nurturing autonomy
Empowering students to become fully realized scholars, Warren Seering has a generous and supportive presence for his advisees and the wider community. Seering “makes it clear that his commitment to anyone working with him is equal,” according to a student nominator.
Warren Seering is the Weber/Shaughness Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Systems at MIT. His work has focused on dynamic systems and robotics, as well as on product design and development. Currently, his research addresses methods for evaluating and improving corporate product development capabilities.
Seering underlines the need to build a caring relationship with students, before difficulties arise in their lives or studies. He writes, “Communication is key. Establishing a relationship that enables communication has to happen before the [hardship] so that students know they can look to an advisor for support.”
Seering speaks to the dilemmas of an advisor’s focus during the pandemic: “It’s tempting to say that the urgent [is] constantly displacing the important, but for the last six weeks, so many things have been both urgent and important.” He normalizes the fluctuations students are having in mood and productivity. Seering notes, “We need to be on call for our students, and conversations need to include wellness check-ins to give students the chance to ask for help or guidance.”
An uplifting voice, Seering is a champion of students at the Institute. One student recalls being discouraged by others at the Institute from pursuing the PhD. Some said the student’s research was too interdisciplinary, or that being older would be an impediment. When the student turned to Seering, the response was supportive: “Seering is a big reason why I chose to follow through with completing my PhD.” Validating students by demonstrating interest in their research and belief in their capabilities is a mentoring guidepost.
In the research process, Seering’s ideal is for the advisor to enable students to develop independent research capabilities. He emphasizes the value of students setting their own short-term research agendas.
“Given the freedom and lack of structure associated with independent study, keeping to a schedule is a challenge; it takes practice,” writes Seering. He encourages students to closely track work hours and achievements, then limit professional work to 40-50 hours per week to preserve work/life equilibrium, a mentoring guidepost.
Students affirm that these methods are invaluable. Writes one student nominator, “Seering keeps me from veering off track, while allowing me to push the limits … [providing] the ultimate balance of high commitment, availability, and guidance.”
Lily Tsai: Solidarity and resilience
A “wise and perceptive mentor,” Lily Tsai attends closely to her advisees’ well-being and intellectual growth, according to student nominators.
Lily Tsai is the Ford Professor of Political Science. Tsai is also the founder and faculty director of the MIT Governance Lab, a group of political scientists working collaboratively with practitioners on research and innovation in citizen engagement and government accountability. Her research focuses on Asia and East Africa.
Exceptionally generous with her time, Lily Tsai is available for students whether it is the week or weekend, and even when she is on leave. Notably, though, she explicitly does not set the same standard for her students. Writes one nominator, “she encourages us to take weekends off and to take vacations, and respects these times by not emailing or making demands on us.”
When students are facing hardship, be it academic or personal, Tsai is a reliable support. One student mentions Tsai’s enduring encouragement as their dissertation proved harder to complete than anticipated: she “signaled that she believe[d] in me as a scholar — which is really important when facing self-doubts.” Another student recalls being invited to spend Christmas with Tsai and her family when in the midst of a distressing life shift.
Bolstering diversity in concrete ways matters to Tsai. She attends student-faculty meetings and brainstorming sessions exploring gender and diversity within the department, and serves on a diversity committee. Tsai talks openly with her students, providing “invaluable advice,” in the words of one student nominator, on navigating the balance between family, life, and work as a female academic.
Tsai admires scholars who are good at “talking to, understanding, and translating across a range of people from different families, cultures … [and] communication styles” because they can “synthesize different streams of data and ideas.” She works to build these skills as part of a toolkit for her mentees. Such dedication to fostering a friendly and inclusive work environment is a mentoring guidepost.
Exploring the dynamic tensions between flexibility and certainty bodes well for navigating a pandemic, in Tsai’s view. She notes, managing amid unpredictability is “hard because people naturally want structure and certainty — and that decreases with diversity.” Varied backgrounds and communication styles can lead to miscommunication and tension. “But as we’re finding … being able to live with and adjust to high levels of uncertainty can be a huge strength.”
The Committed to Caring program is an initiative of the Office of Graduate Education and contributes to its mission of making graduate education at MIT “empowering, exciting, holistic, and transformative.”
C2C invites graduate students from across MIT’s campus to nominate professors whom they believe to be outstanding mentors. Selection criteria for the honor include the scope and reach of advisor impact on graduate students’ experience, excellence in scholarship, and demonstrated commitment to diversity and inclusion.
By recognizing the human element of graduate education, C2C seeks to encourage excellent advising and mentorship across MIT’s campus. More information about these and other C2C honorees and their advising practices may be found on the Committed to Caring pages.
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Meet the Black Ballerina and Entrepreneur Helping People Heal From their Trauma
Tyde-Courtney Edwards, founding director of Ballet After Dark, is a classically trained black ballerina, art model, and survivor of sexual assault who is on a mission to help others heal from their trauma through the art of ballet. Now, during the pandemic, she is helping people unwind and reset their focus on healing virtually as her studio is closed.
Edwards began her journey at the Baltimore School for the Arts and has over 20 years of dance training and experience. She is trained in various styles of dance including classical and contemporary ballet, pointe, modern, lyrical, jazz, tap and hip-hop. And she has trained with esteemed companies such as the Debbie Allen Dance Academy, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Peabody Conservatory, Joffrey Ballet, Alvin Ailey and other institutions while receiving training from local dance pioneers such as Anton Wilson and Stephanie Powell.
With myriad dance experience, Edwards was inspired to create trauma-informed ballet classes after overcoming an adverse experience of her own. Ballet After Dark is an organization that provides holistic dance therapy to trauma survivors and other disenfranchised individuals.
Their curriculum introduces participants to various elements of self-care while infusing beginner’s ballet and athletic conditioning. Survivors can expect to develop ballet fundamentals such as technique and terminology while being encouraged to heal in an empowering, trauma-informed environment. The program culminates in a showcase performance that highlights ballet technique learned throughout the program.“
Healing Through the Arts
“I conceptualized Ballet After Dark after struggling with recovery following my own sexual assault. I often say the program was born out of necessity. It was a struggle finding welcoming, safe spaces where other black women were working through trauma while struggling to reconnect with their bodies,” said Edwards.
“The reality I was faced with is that the resources did exist—they just seemed to benefit women that didn’t look like me. I wanted to surround myself with my sisters who had the same feelings and questions that I had. I was desperately searching for the space that would gradually let me feel like myself and allow others into my intimate space again,” she added.
While COVID-19 has forced many small black-owned businesses to close, it has opened the virtual doors for Ballet After Dark.
Ballet Amid COVID-19
“I like to think that COVID-19 has forced me to explore my creativity and business savvy on a deeper level. While the most devastating impact of the crisis has been not being able to host in-studio classes and workshops for our survivors and allies, we’ve adapted recognizing that there is still opportunity during this otherwise chaotic time.”
She went on to say that while going digital has been an exciting adjustment that is stretching the company in new ways.
“While challenging, it’s definitely not impossible thanks to platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Zoom. In fact, we’ve been able to conceptualize a way for us to host our first virtual trainer-to-trainer workshop series! Happily, even during this pandemic, we’re still able to create opportunities for more women within our community. It pleases my heart to be able to formally announce that we will be hiring virtual instructors,” Edwards shared.
“The impact virtual classes have had has been extraordinary. We’ve been able to touch and connect with survivors and allies who may have never had an opportunity to experience our curriculum in the studio. We’re planning to roll out our new digital format out at the end of June,” she added.
During quarantine, it is important for people to remain active and engage in activities that promote wellness. Beyond the ‘quarantine 15’, Edwards says the best advice she can offer to others is to be gentle to themselves during quarantine.
“You’re smarter than you think and you’re stronger than you know… if you’re feeling motivated to move or create then do that! Listen to your body and don’t succumb to any pressure in reference to the types and frequencies of activities you should stay engaged in to have a “successful” quarantine. At the root of everything, Ballet After Dark is about healing and self-care and having a transparent realization of what that journey may look like… because it’s going to be different for everyone,” said Edwards.
from Black Enterprise https://ift.tt/2T5Jcu0
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