04 08 2015

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THE TUFTS DAILY

TUFTSDAILY.COM

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 2015

VOLUME LXVIV, NUMBER 36

Where You Read It First Est. 1980

Tufts to accept undocumented students, provide financial aid

by Arin Kerstein Assistant News Editor

Tufts United for Immigrant Justice (UIJ) held a rally on Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. on the Lower Campus Center Patio for National Institutions Coming Out Day in Support of Undocumented Education Equity.

Speakers at the rally included UIJ President Zobella Vinik, former UIJ President Liz Palma, Latino Center Director Rubén Stern, Student Immigrant Movement (SIM) Representatives Carlos Rojas Alvarez and Renata Teodoro and Director of the Consortium of Studies in Race, Colonialism and Diaspora Adriana Zavala.

Speakers shared their stories and expressed support for UIJ’s demand for education equity for undocumented students who are interested in attending Tufts.

At the end of the rally, Dean of Admissions Lee Coffin announced that Tufts will now consider all undocumented student applicants to the university as domestic applicants, including, but not limsee AID, page 2

Nicholas pfosi / the tufts daily

Dean of Admissions Lee Coffin announced Tufts’ support for undocumented students’ equity in education at UIJ’s National Institutions Coming Out Day in Support of Undocumented Education Equity on the Lower Campus Center Patio yesterday.

Maine Track program sees continuing success

by Jei-Jei Tan News Editor

The Maine Track MD Program, a program run in partnership between Tufts University School of Medicine ( TUSM) and Maine Medical Center (MMC), saw its third cohort of students matched into residency programs on Match Day this year.

In an email to the Daily, TUSM Dean for Educational Affairs Scott Epstein said that the Maine Track program is for students with “close ties to the state of Maine, from those that were born and bred there to those who went to high school or college in Maine, or have a demonstrated interest in rural medicine.”

“Throughout the state of Maine, there’s a shortage of healthcare professionals,” Jo Linder, director of student affairs in MMC’s Department of Medical Education, said. She added that it is especially difficult to recruit doctors to practice in rural areas.

“Maine has one of the lowest rates of students going to medical school [even though] we have one of the highest rates of students that graduate from high school,” she noted. “This program was one way to encourage students from Maine to go to medical school.”

Epstein and Linder explained that the program begins with a two-week orientation in Maine, after which Maine Track students join other TUSM students in Boston. They spend most of their first two years on the Boston campus following the same curriculum, but they also take courses at MMC and complete their primary care preceptorships in Maine.

According to Epstein, students spend their third year entirely in Maine, either in traditional core clerkships or in a Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship that immerses them in a community for nine months, while fourth-year students complete rotations in Maine that culminate in a week-long capstone experience.

Meg Curran, a student of the Maine Track program who is graduating this year, said that the program has a twofold purpose.

“One of them is to create a medical school program for people from Maine” she said, adding that this is the only allopathic medical school available in the state. “The other one — and they go hand in hand — is to provide students with exposure to the way rural medicine is practiced, and hopefully that gets students more interested in rural medicine.”

“The state of Maine becomes our entire campus,” Linder said, noting that students travel to many different areas and faculty come from all over the state.

Linder explained that in addition to TUSM’s fully-accredited program with defined objectives and competencies, Maine Track students study Maine data and learn about patient issues that are unique to the state.

“There’s some nuances that we provide in the Maine curriculum,” she said.

“I’m from Maine, I went to college in Maine, I intend to practice in Maine, and it’s really nice to be able to stay here for residency,” Curran said. She added that the majority of her third-year rotations see MAINE, page 2

Inside this issue

China-US Symposium to kick off this weekend

by Patrick McGrath News Editor

The eighth annual two-day ChinaU.S. Symposium will take place this weekend. It will feature a variety of panels on topics related to U.S.-China relations based on this year’s theme, “Common Ground.” The symposium, which is presented by the Sino-U.S. Relations Group Engagement (SURGE), will be held in the Cabot Intercultural Center.

According to SURGE Director and Programming Coordinator Sean Gunn, the theme focuses on the interests that China and the United States both share.

“We talk a lot about the U.S. and China clashing,” Gunn, a senior, said.

“We want to talk about, OK in those clashes, where can we find this common ground? Where can we find where the interests align? Because we can talk until we’re blue about fighting over control of the South China Sea. Let’s start moving forward.”

The symposium will kick off on Friday at noon and will continue through Saturday afternoon.

Panels this year include “The Hungry Superpowers, China and Americas Search for Alternative Energy,” “States, Secularism, and Security: the Future of Strategic Engagements in East Asia,” “Dancing With Sensitivity: Public Expressions in Modern China” and “Turbulent Waters: The Future of the South China Sea.” On Saturday, Hemispheres, Tufts’ undergraduate journal of international affairs, will sponsor breakout sessions, which are smaller classroom workshops, according to Gunn. SURGE

Marketing Director and Website Coordinator Panayiotis Koutsogeorgas explained that some of the subjects covered by the breakout sessions include China’s investments in Latin America and prostitution in China.

This year, the symposium’s organizers sought to take better advantage of experts on and around the Tufts campus, according to SURGE Deputy Director and Finance Coordinator Joe Mark.

“We’ve been stressing bringing in sort of local talent, because we have such a great resource of schools in the area,” Mark, a senior, said.

In past years, the symposium has not fully made use of the knowledge base available on campus, according to Gunn.

“We also push trying to use Tufts resources because, in past symposiums, there are several professors at Tufts who have great understanding of these issues, and we hadn’t used [them],” he said.

Assistant Finance Director and Curriculum Coordinator Winnona DeSombre added that the subject of this year’s symposium has enabled them to cover a variety of topics associated with the U.S.-China relationship.

“One of the main [reasons] why this sort of overarching theme is so general is because now that the China-U.S. Symposium is not about solely security, it can branch out into a lot more different topics,” DeSombre, a firstyear, said.

Koutsogeorgas, a senior, noted the importance of China’s environmental impact in particular. see SURGE, page 2

Today’s sections

The Muslim Student Association has provided a home for students at Tufts from a variety of cultural backgrounds.

The Jumbos impressed on the track and in the field at Amherst on Saturday.

see FEATURES, page 3

see SPORTS, back

News 1 Features 3 Arts & Living 5 Editorial | Op-Ed 8

Op-Ed 9 Comics 10 Sports Back

2

The Tufts Daily

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

News

Maine Track program hopes to maintain long-term relationship with Tufts MAINE

continued from page 1

were at MMC, allowing her to see what the culture and teaching experience was like there.

“It really led me to make a pretty informed decision about where I wanted to go for residency,” she said.

Curran emphasized the highquality teaching she received through the program and the benefits of a small class.

“I feel like I got excellent teaching up in Maine,” she said. “I had a lot of [attending physicians] that were really involved in my education and were really excited about … the opportunity to mentor us.

[That] as well as having such a tight-knit group of classmates is one of the biggest things that differentiates the Maine Track from other medical schools.”

According to Epstein, 71 percent of the graduating class has been matched to a primary care specialty — either internal medicine, family medicine or pediatrics — which is a higher percentage than there has been in previous years, he noted.

“Primary care providers are traditionally not paid as highly as specialists … so we’re always hopeful that students who want to do primary care will go into primary care and be happy in that area,” Linder said, adding that primary care physicians are especially needed with the push to have more U.S. citizens covered by the Affordable Care Act. “The … success of the program will be measured by how many Maine Track graduates ultimately practice in Maine, and how many choose to care for underserved rural populations — that data will be available later in the decade,” Epstein said. “Survey data suggests that many of those who have chosen to do residen-

shirley wang / the tufts daily

cies outside of Maine intend to return to Maine for practice.

Of the 34 students in this year’s graduating class, 10 were matched to residency programs at MMC, according to Linder.

This number includes Curran, who is also a Maine resident.

Over 50 percent of each year’s class has been matched to residencies in New England, Linder mentioned. She added that there are data showing

that an overwhelming majority of doctors will practice near the site of their last training.

“Even though we have no graduates yet, we have had some faculty who have been hired to practice at some of these rural community hospitals [who] said that they’ve come because they have the opportunity to teach medical students,” Linder said. “That’s one side benefit that has hap-

Symposium to explore ‘common ground’ between China and U.S.

SURGE

continued from page 1

“We all think that [the U.S.China relationship is] a really important relationship, and that both countries need to make moves when it comes to the environment,” he said.

“I think that they should be helping each other out in that aspect, because it is a local issue, but there are still global implications.”

According to Gunn, planning for the event began last August. The group discussed potential themes for the panels to determine what would be feasible and what would be interesting to the group’s members before contacting potential speakers, he explained.

Marketing for the event has included advertising through social media, putting up posters around campus, spreading information by word of mouth and collaborating with professors to share information with their students, as well as reaching out to other professors in the area, according to Mark.

“This past week, we’ve been doing a lot of flyering, we’ve made banners, … Facebook events, Twitter,” Koutsogeorgas said. “I made a website for SURGE this past week.”

Mark underscored that the symposium is meant to be understood by all students.

“I’d like to think it’s a very approachable event,” he said.

“I think the speakers that we have coming are of a quality that they’ll be able to make it approachable. And especially with the breakout sessions, we like to bring in students to that because it just gives them the opportunity to ask the questions that you wouldn’t really want to ask in a big lecture hall.”

Koutsogeorgas agreed, noting that the event can help provide some more in-depth insights for students who may not know very much about relations between the two countries.

“I just think it’s good for people that don’t really know that much about China and its relations to its neighbors and in relation to the U.S.,” he said. “It’s just a good learning experience and kind of eye-opening in general.”

SURGE officially started on campus last fall after the China-U.S. Symposium was separated from the Institute for Global Leadership, according to Gunn. He also noted that the symposium will still include a framework similar to those of past symposiums.

The symposium was formerly organized by the Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services (ALLIES), according to DeSombre.

“We went into it with this mindset that the symposium was going to be a lot smaller

[this year], and we’ve actually ended up with an event that is pretty similar to what we ran last year, which we’re pretty happy with,” Mark said.

Mark noted that the group has undergone significant growth since its inception in the beginning of the academic year.

“We started out the semester with I think four members that carried over from last year, and now we have a fully operating [executive] board, and we have plans for next year,” he said. “We’re … pretty confident about the future of SURGE. It’s definitely been a learning and a building process this year, but I think we’re pretty happy with the way it’s gone.”

Gunn explained that the group now has about 20 board members, but more students show up for the organization’s discussion groups.

SURGE has hosted a number of events throughout the year, including a lecture

by Kathleen DeBoer, deputy head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Washington Center, in October and a trivia night earlier this semester, according to DeSombre.

“It seems like people are definitely interested in the China-U.S. relation in general and learning more about it,” Koutsogeorgas said.

Admission to the symposium is free, according to Mark.

pened, that the medical community has been energized by this program.”

She added that several students who are completing their residencies outside Maine have also expressed intentions to return and become involved with teaching in the Maine Track program.

According to Epstein, the Maine Track program’s seventh class, which will matriculate in August 2015, will have 40 students and

make up 20 percent of the TUSM class. This is up from the approximately 36 students that were admitted in previous years, he said.

“In the future, we actually want to grow the program,” Linder said. “We hope to have a very long relationship with Tufts, and we look forward to having many alumni who practice in Maine — as well as in New England and throughout the United States — providing excellent care.”

Five undocumented students accepted for class of 2019 aid

continued from page 1

ited to, students with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status.

Coffin said that the administration is in support of UIJ’s efforts and announced that this policy is “retroactive” to the Class of 2019, noting that at least five undocumented students have been accepted and offered financial aid.

Since they established UIJ last year, the group’s members have worked diligently to educate themselves and community members about problems facing undocumented students, Vinik explained.

She said they have also met regularly with administrators to push for higher education equity.

“After our [TCU] Senate resolution and open letter were passed and published last year, we knew that students were behind us on this effort,” she said.

Un i v e r s i t y P re s i d e n t Anthony Monaco released a statement supporting the announcement.

“Our announcement is in keeping with Tufts’ long-held values of inclusion and access … and is consistent with our past support for the Dream Act,” he stated. “We welcome these applicants and the value that they will add to our undergraduate student body.”

Coffin noted that this change will be reflected in

the Admissions Committee’s future recruitment efforts.

“The undergraduate admissions staff will proactively and openly recruit undocumented students,” Coffin remarked, explaining that these changes are now reflected on the admissions website.

He explained that these students will be met with the full financial aid opportunities of domestic students.

Because undocumented students and students with DACA status cannot apply for federal aid, applicants will receive Tufts institutional aid instead.

“Tufts will meet 100 percent of the demonstrated need of every undocumented student offered admission to Tufts, and undocumented students will be awarded need-based aid under the same packaging guidelines as domestic students, although all federal aid will be replaced with Tufts aid,” Coffin said.

Coffin also pledged to create a working group to encourage enrollment of these applicants and ensure universitywide support for them during and after their time at Tufts.

He said that this group will include admissions, financial aid and student affairs staff, as well as current students.

Palma ended the rally by discussing similar goals for the future, such as creating an atmosphere at Tufts which is “undocumented-friendly.”

Features

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tuftsdaily.com

Muslim students seek to dispel Islamophobia, build community around faith

by Lily Sieradzki Features Editor

Sophomore Umar Shareef stands in the main room of the Interfaith Center on on the afternoon of Friday, March 27. Behind him, four rows of men — comprised of both Tufts students and community members — stand shoulder-to-shoulder, barefoot on the red carpets that cover the floor.

Two rows of women, many of whom wear a head scarf, or hijab, stand in a separate section behind the men. Shareef sings “Allah hu-Akbar,” calling the Tufts Muslim community to prayer.

This prayer, hosted by the Muslim Student Association (MSA) every Friday afternoon, is called Jummah, Arabic for “coming together.” This Friday’s prayer includes a sprinkling of non-Muslim students who are here for Interfaith Jummah, one of the many events making up the MSA’s Islamic Awareness Month.

According to MSA president and senior Abdurrahman Abdurrob, the purpose of Islamic Awareness Week is to increase the Muslim community’s presence at Tufts and educate students about Islam in the face of stereotypes linking Islam with violence.

“As Muslims, we don’t support violent acts around the world — ISIS isn’t Islamic, regular Muslims don’t have these views,” he said. “That’s been a focus of this Islamic Awareness Month, trying to tackle that issue of violence, and the fact that when we’re doing religious acts, they’re not radical acts.”

Along with Interfaith Jummah, Islamic Awareness Month has included a HalalKosher dinner on March 30, bringing Jewish and Muslim students together over dietary laws, a panel on April 3 called Islam 101: Debunking Islamophobia and an “Ask a Muslim” stand on March 25 in the Campus Center at which students were asked what “jihad” means to them.

According to junior Samira Manzur, the MSA’s Interfaith and Social Justice Chair, the stand aimed to detach the connotations of terrorism from the word “jihad.”

“When we explained that in Islam, [jihad] means struggle — your inner struggle or your outer struggle — some people said it was their bio-chem test or just waking up in the morning, or their struggle was having several struggles at the same time,” she said.

Sophomore and MSA Secretary Shaan Shaikh said that Muslim communities have been facing mounting Islamophobia in American society. He pointed out the burning of a mosque in Tennessee in 2007 and the shooting of Muslim students at UNC Chapel Hill this year, as well as arson and vandalism around the country.

“It’s definitely a tough time,” he said. “But I feel that, at the same time, I’m not too afraid of the hardships our community has to go through, because it’s times like these that you come together and become stronger.”

According to Abdurrob, the membership and activity of the MSA has exploded since his first year. Currently, the group has around 30 active members, a regular turnout of around 80 people at weekly Jummah and a large and proactive class of first-years.

For students, the MSA serves many purposes: it is a tight-knit social community, with game nights and an off-campus Muslim Culture House, and it is a religious center, providing a place for communal practice and learning. Specifically, prayer and the Koran, two fundamental tenets of Islam, have been centered in the MSA through weekly Jummah and Koran circles immediately after.

Muslim Chaplain Celene Ibrahim-Lizzio, who joined the community last summer, sees the MSA as a family for Muslims on campus, as well as a space for her own family — her daughter and husband often attend services.

“It’s a space that’s so welcoming to all parts of me, not just professional, but the part that’s a mother, the part that’s a wife,” she said. “One of the most beautiful things is that I’m so nourished, praise to God, by

Courtesy of the Muslim Students Association

Prayer rugs are laid out at the Interfaith Center. the depth of spirituality, piety, pious practice and devotedness that’s in this MSA.” As president, Abdurrob has sought to increase religious programming in order to make Islam itself the center of the community. This goal accompanies his own renewed practice of Islam, as he has recently began praying five times a day in accordance with traditional Muslim practice.

“For me, I think it has a lot to do with MSA and taking leadership in it, and realizing that for myself, I needed to become more connected to my faith on a consistent basis,” he said.

The MSA includes a spectrum of religious practice. Shaikh, who was raised in a moderate American Muslim family, sees the MSA as a resource for increasing his knowledge of Islam.

“Being around other Muslims helps you be a better Muslim,” he said.

Manzur grew up in Bangladesh, a majority Muslim country. During high school, she began to question her relationship with Islam.

“I felt like religion wasn’t playing the role I wanted it to play in my life, and there were other forms of ideas and spirituality that I leaned more toward than what was there in Islam for me,” she said. “But I’m still very connected to the cultural aspects of it, and the Muslims on campus in general.”

First-year Saja Alani considers herself a practicing Muslim. She prays five times a day, avoids alcohol -- which is forbidden under Islamic law -- wears a hijab and keeps her arms and legs covered.

“The way I dress is kind of a walking image of Islam,” she said. “In a way, it acts like a filter, because people who are open-minded aren’t afraid of that; they come talk to me [about it].”

The MSA also contains a wide variety of cultural backgrounds that include converts, people of Arab descent and people of South Asian descent.

Abdurrob and Manzur were both born in Bangladesh, Alani’s parents are Syrian and Shaikh’s grandparents are Pakistani.

Shaikh, Alani and Abdurrob all took care to distinguish between culture and religion — while religious guidelines remain constant, cultural traditions may vary greatly.

“We learn the culture of where our parents are from, but then we grow up in a different culture,” Alani said. “Each one of us goes through our own journey of melding our identity together and mixing those cultures. So it’s the religion that brings us all together.”

Older generations of Muslims may be split down cultural or ethnic lines in a way that younger, American-born generations are not, according to Alani. Shaikh said that the Tufts Muslim community is much more culturally mixed and tolerant than the more strict Muslim communities in which he grew up.

“One time during Eid dinner, I was about to sit at a table and one of the teenage guys a year or two older than me said, ‘Whoa, stop, this is the Syrian table.’ I did not expect that.

Instead of arguing, I just picked up my stuff and left,” he said. “That’s unheard of here.”

According to Ibrahim-Lizzio, gender and relationships are a topic that Muslim students at Tufts are eager to explore. With an academic background in gender studies and Islam, Ibrahim-Lizzio has worked to lift up women’s spaces, such as discussion on women’s sexual health in Islam. Manzur added that next year, the MSA will have both a female and a male religious chair.

“We have many knowledgeable and very powerful women in the community, and I really enjoy seeing their leadership and the ways in which they’re carrying the community,” Ibrahim-Lizzio said.

Abdurrob noted that while the MSA’s executive board is split evenly between men and women, much of Islamic practice is oriented toward men.

“The female experience of Islam is very different than the male experience,” he said. “Historically, I think as Muslims we have a problem being considerate — we don’t do justice to giving everyone an equal voice. [Ibrahim-Lizzio] has definitely helped change that.”

Alani explained that in order to preserve the dignity of marriage that maintains equality for men and women, premarital relationships are not allowed in Islam, She said that a man and woman get to know each other by spending time together, similar to dating for non-Muslims. However, young people must gain their parents’ approval for marriage.

“Because marriage comes with responsibilities, it’s not like you’re just doing it for the fun of it — you don’t objectify anyone in any way,” she said.

According to Ibrahim-Lizzio, Muslim students must navigate their relationships based on these rules.

“There’s a lot of curiosity and people sensing where they want to draw their boundaries ethically, morally, religiously in terms of interacting across gender lines,” she said.

While Tufts is an accepting environment for Muslims according to most students, there are some logistical barriers. Praying five times a day can prove difficult, especially since there is no permanent, on-campus designated space for Muslim prayer. While early morning and late night prayer is done at the Muslim House, the MSA books a room in the Campus Center where students complete their three midday prayers. Alani also uses the bottom floor of Tisch Library as a place to pray during the day.

According to Abdurrob, the MSA’s shortterm goals include designating a Muslim space for prayer on campus. Its long-term goals include founding a Muslim Center that will serve the entire community. IbrahimLizzio has already begun the process of fundraising through alumni networks and University Advancement.

“I don’t want it to be something that only I’m working on; I want it to be an owned project. There’s a huge horizon of ‘that’s possible’ and it’s going step by step,” she said.

Miranda Willson | Ecofeminism for All

Learning to engage, not enrage

I

n previous columns, I’ve talked about whether feminists should make it a priority to cater to the interests of men to promote their feminist worldviews, ultimately concluding that it isn’t feminists’ jobs to make men feel comfortable.

I still feel this way, and I still believe that no one should compromise their opinions, regarding feminism or other social issues, in order to appeal to others. But in practice, I find that I can rarely manage to engage respectfully with someone whose opinions differ from mine without somehow compromising my beliefs.

I rarely call people out about harmful statements — at least, not the people I should be calling out. Maybe I’m shy, or I’m afraid that I’ll be stereotyped or shut down. Whatever the reason, in so many situations where I could actually educate someone about something important, I freeze up and shut up.

Take this weekend, when my family visited. After seeing pictures of one of my close friends at Tufts, my older sister remarked that she was “exotically beautiful.” I told her that she should not use the word “exotic” when describing someone; I wanted to elaborate, to explain that the term carries racist connotations, implies that someone is attractive despite their nonwhite or non-European features. But she told me that she meant it “in a good way” and that she “wasn’t saying it because your friend isn’t white.” For some reason, I decided to drop it.

Or take last Christmas, when my stepbrother decided to talk about the idiocy of gender-neutral bathrooms, explaining how easy it might be for a “regular guy” to go into a women’s bathroom “claiming to be” transgender and then spy on or film naked women. I told him, “That would never happen,” and I should have told him why, but for some reason, again, I didn’t. I dropped it.

Why is it so difficult to explain why I disagree with or am offended by someone, especially someone in my family or someone I’m close to? Part of it has to do with not wanting to start an argument, but I know there are ways I could explain my opinions without doing that. Nonetheless, when the time comes for me to actually inform someone about another side of an issue or to provide an alternative viewpoint, too often, I don’t.

Instead, I write a weekly column about these issues — a column that is probably read mostly by people who already agree with some or most of what I have to say.

Instead, I attend events like the People’s Climate March and talk to people there who already agree with me.

Activists often have a way of not engaging with people who don’t agree with them.

We might post something on Facebook in response to noteworthy news or a recent tragedy or injustice, but we don’t necessarily directly engage with people who are not on our side. And when we do decide to engage with them — or at least, when I finally decide to — it isn’t always in a respectful manner because I’m usually bottled up with frustration by the time I finally speak up.

So, I end up not saying anything — or not saying enough — when I am given the opportunity to challenge someone’s opinion, thus implying that what they’re saying is accurate or acceptable, and then eventually engaging hastily and hostilely.

No, I don’t have to cater to anyone’s opinions, nor does anyone, nor do I want to. But I do need to figure out how to communicate my opinions peacefully and respectfully. I need to learn to address microaggressions and (sometimes) unintentionally offensive remarks without sounding patronizing, even though it’s easier to assume that people are a “lost cause”… or to just curse them out.

Miranda Willson is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major. She can be reached at miranda.willson@tufts.edu.

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Arts & Living

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Interview

Emily Gruzdowich | a caffeinated critic

Andy Grammer offers insight into his latest tour, advice for aspiring musicians

by Dana Guth Arts Editor

The past few years have been kind to Andy Grammer: after riding sugary pop singles like “Keep Your Head Up”(2011), “Fine By Me”(2011) and this winter’s “Honey I’m Good”(2014) to the top of the Billboard charts, the singer-songwriter-producer is selling out headline tours around the country. Before playing at House of Blues in Boston on March 19 as part of his tour alongside fellow headliner Alex & Sierra, Grammer caught up with the Daily to discuss honesty, the writing process and his roots as a street performer.

Tufts Daily: How’s the tour going so far?

Andy Grammer: It’s my favorite ever.

So fun. It’s the luckiest gig to play music for a living; it’s crazy. In the band, we just have a lot of fun with the instruments, the stupid dance moves … it’s just so much more than me and my guitar.

TD: Any reason it’s been so much better than the last tour?

AG: The last tour we did was over the summer, and the new album hadn’t come out yet. So I was playing a lot

Mark Runyon via Flickr Creative Commons

Andy Grammer’s infectious pop hits have put him on a fast track to stardom. of the new songs to everybody, and they were liking it, but when everyone comes and already knows [the songs] and has a connection to the songs, it starts to get really good. Basically, you start a song and everyone screams all the words … it’s heaven. It’s the best.

TD: Which of your songs end up get-

ting the most intense responses? Are there any you just love to play?

AG: When we were recording the album, we had an inkling that “Honey I’m Good” would be, like, a cool song.

I had no idea people would like it as see GRAMMER, page 6

Album Review

Album Review

'Eclipse' lacks originality, seeks commercial appeal

Barnett delivers quirky garage rock

by Ascher Kulich Contributing Writer

George Lewis Jr. has a lot to hang his hat on. Twin Shadow, his stage persona, has maintained a strong presence in the

Eclipse Twin Shadow Warner Bros. Records indie pop scene for the past five years.

“Forget” (2010), his debut album, introduced listeners to his unique booming voice, one infused with a confidence and masculinity rarely seen in pop.

The tracks on “Forget” were upbeat and danceable, but the production was refined and pristine. Lewis was able to avoid the pitfalls that many pop singers stumble over: overly grand beats, cliché subject matter, simple, repetitive song structures — everything that can be heard on JAM’N 94.5. His second

album, “Confess” (2012), was equally as effective, and it quickly became clear that Lewis had created a sound that could really stick in the genre, and one that could stick for a while.

Twin Shadow’s third album, “Eclipse,” is his first under new label Warner Bros., and it’s a clear step back for him in terms of artistry and musicality. It feels like Lewis succumbed to the pressure of developing a commercially appealing sound for a major label.

The production of “Eclipse” is more grandiose than anything on “Forget” or “Confess.” The highs of “Eclipse” are so overblown that any intended message — a common theme is rejuvenation — is made irrelevant, as Lewis’ boastfulness seems undeserved. Lewis’ voice, his best skill, rarely varies in dynamic range, and the majority of “Eclipse” feels repetitive. One may argue that “Eclipse” has more commercial appeal than Twin Shadow’s previous works, which may have been Lewis’ desired see ECLIPSE, page 6

Aurelien Guichard via Flickr Creative Commons

Courtney Barnett’s new album makes the most out of ordinary observations.

by Yotam Bentov Contributing Writer

Courtney Barnett’s “Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit,” released March 23, starts with a story of a man who Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit

Courtney Barnett Mom + Pop Music

Lou LE GUILLOUX via FLickr Creative Commons

George Lewis Jr., aka Twin Shadow, delivers a repetitive, simplistic album that favors mainstream commercial appeal over the fine-tuned nuance of previous albums.

cut work to go watch the world from the top of a skyscraper. Barnett speaks from his perspective: “I’m not suicidal, just idling insignificantly / I come up here for perception and clarity / I like to imagine I’m playing SimCity.” There isn’t any sting or irony to the song; it’s simply the story of a man “idling insignificantly.” These words capture the entire essence of the Australian singer-songwriter’s garage rock album. It’s an album full of stories about the mundane and inconsequential. The beauty of Barnett’s work, however, is in see BARNETT, page 6

The beauty of extravagance

M

imicking the architecture of a Venetian Palazzo, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum exudes an air of opulence.

Masked by an unassuming modern outer structure, the original foundation lies beyond the concrete and glass barrier.

The transparent concourse linking the modern architecture with the retrofitted early 20th century original acts as a conduit, transporting the museum-goer not only into the extravagance of 20th century Boston, but also farther back into the golden age of Venice.

The museum itself is a conglomeration of ancient pastimes and modern marvels. It features a collection of over 3,000 books, Flemish master paintings, Venetian seminal works, religious memorabilia, American watercolors, intricately woven tapestries and gilded Chinese panels. The breadth of the collection is astounding. Often overlooked in comparison to its monumental neighbor, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (MFA), the Gardner houses a smaller — yet significant — collection.

However, the works hung within the Gardner’s walls are not the sole spectacle. The marble structures redirect translucent beams of light.

United by a common origin, the borrowed architectural elements combine to generate the illusion of 16th-century Venice.

Furthering this image of beautiful extravagance, orange blossoms cascade from the third-story balconies. As stipulated in Isabella Gardner’s will, the courtyard is adorned with arrangements of seasonal flowers. The synthesis of budding new growth and maturing artworks is beguiling, prompting one to see the past and present on a continuum rather than in isolation.

Offering a unique viewing experience, the Gardner intimately connects each work with the viewer. As the museum was not initially conceived as a public attraction, the works are accessibly hung for the benefit of casual viewing. The works are arranged in the style of Gardner’s time, hung in close proximity against sumptuous wall coverings. Initially, the gallery appears cluttered, the pieces overwhelmed by their magnificent surroundings. However, order gradually emerges from disorder upon continued viewing.

This lavish room design can best be seen in the Titian Room. Situated on the third story, the Titian Room offers an ideal vantage point to observe the gleaming colonnaded central courtyard. Bathed in natural light, the crimson walls appear to pulsate. Hanging on the far right wall, “Europa”(1560-2), Titian’s masterpiece, is characterized by the absorption and transmission of light. In its rendering, the grotesque and the abhorrent are seemingly made beautiful. The canvas envelops the viewer, thrusting the onlooker into the tumultuous waves of the euphoric scene. “Europa” harnesses the kinetic activity trapped within the room and, through presenting a scene of disorder, it imposes order.

Differing from a typical museum format, the Gardner eliminates the extraneous space that separates a viewer from works of art. Soaring walls and artificial lighting are exchanged for a household setting with natural lighting. The rooms are historically accurate, retaining the original furniture from Gardner’s time while the walls are free of clunky explanatory placards. There is a familiarity in experience; one is visiting a home rather than a manufactured institution. Housed museums, such as the Gardner, evidence the passion behind collecting. They also speak to the subjectivity of collecting through emphasizing that “beauty” and “art” are both subjective, as well as personal, constructs. More so than an institutionalized museum, these intimate spaces forge a relationship between the viewer and the collection. Art portrayed in this manner seems attainable as well as relatable.

Emily Gruzdowich is a sophomore majoring in political science. She can be reached at Emily.Gruzdowich@tufts.edu.

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The Tufts Daily

Arts & Living

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Andy Grammer’s bubbly melodies, charming energy show his potential as a star in the making GRAMMER

continued from page 5

much as they do, so that’s always kind of a surprise. Especially right now, everyone loses their minds.

TD: Part of the reason [“Honey I’m Good”] is getting so much buzz is because of the way it handles the topic of love and monogamy. Do you have any relationship wisdom or advice?

AG: Honesty. But, like, brutally, uncomfortably, terribly honest. If there’s one little thing over there you don’t like to talk about … that’s not really honesty in the full sense, and you can’t move forward and work on anything.

And there’s a little bit of that in the song, like … “did you really just say you’re looking at that girl?” But you’re lying if you say there’s no temptation out there. [“Honey I’m Good”] is an anthem for the people who are still trying to do it all the right way.

TD: Does that [honesty] play into your songwriting process?

AG: I call it “breaking the back of a song.” Trying to figure out what the hell I’m talking about. I never want to be onstage singing about something that’s not really worth it. It’s so easy to just be like, “oh, that word fits!” and I’m so against that, but that means writing a lot of songs until you stumble upon something that you care about.

It’s like I’m outside a house, and I have to check every single way to get in.

jason williamson via Flickr Creative Commons

In an interview with The Daily, Grammar stresses unyielding honesty in relationships and songwriting.

Check every little avenue until you can get inspired. Once you’re inspired, it’s super fun. But you can go two, three weeks without getting inside.

TD: That must mean going through a

George Lewis Jr., or Twin Shadow, takes backward step with latest album

Lou LE GUILLOUX via FLickr Creative Commons

Twin Shadow’s third album, “Eclipse,” has trouble getting a coherent message across due to its desire to appeal to a wider audience.

ECLIPSE

continued from page 5

goal for this project, but playing to such a supposed appeal has diminished Lewis’ artistic integrity in the process.

Eclipse isn’t a total failure, as some songs hold up to Lewis’ previous work.

“Old Love / New Love” is the album’s strongest track. On the song, Lewis sings “drill me to the floor/ this hurts even more than I expected it to do,” as a catchy, drum-and-piano beat thumps in the background. It’s a playful take on the relationship between the singer and his lover. He progresses the theme — love is harmful and addictive — and, despite the lover calling and hurting him, the singer “loves her still.” “Old Love / New Love” preaches a familiar message, but here, for once, Lewis seems self-aware of its cliché nature.

There are other pleasant moments on Eclipse. “Turn Me Up” paints a bleak scene at the beginning, as a simple beat is broken up by an intermittent, jarring guitar riff. The listener is left wondering where the track will end, and, unfortunately, it climbs to the same zenith of self-gratitude that other tracks on the album are all too

eager to reach. The rest of “Turn Me Up” plateaus on this same high energy level after the intro.

On “Watch Me Go,” Lewis sings over a groovy beat, and the drums are particularly nice, but Lewis’ grainy vocals get lost somewhat in all the excitement.

On “Flatliners,” the album’s opening track, Lewis sings the least, and allows the background noise some breathing room. The focus on the instrumentation gives the track an impressive depth, and as a result, “Flatliners” is more effective than other “anthem” songs with a similar structure.

“To the Top” is the track most representative of the hollow message presented throughout Eclipse. While not a bad track by any means, “To the Top” adds little to Twin Shadow’s unique profile, one previously filled with original, rich and refined pop songs. Twin Shadow feels he’s near the top of the mountain, and he wants you to high-five him for his achievements and sing-along, too.

The subject matter on “Eclipse” lends itself to predictable, unoriginal production, and Lewis’ vocals can’t save the album from its ultimate collapse. On Eclipse, Lewis is quite far “from the top.”

lot of songs before hitting the jackpot…

AG: For my album, I wrote a little over 100. There’s a lot of songs just laying by the wayside that feel close, but not quite.

TD: All the songs that do make it [onto

the album] are so sunny and positive.

How do you keep up this energy all the time?

AG: The overall vibe of the tour is gratitude. We’re just super psyched about what we do. You catch us all backstage saying, “Really? There’s a big crowd out there that wants us to come out?”

I was a street performer for a really long time. For four years I was begging people to stop as they walked by. In its very essence, it was asking if what I was doing with my voice and my guitar was enough for them to care. If it’s not, it’s on me to be better. There’s a level of brutal honesty in a stranger walking by and saying “I like you” or “I don’t like you.” It holds true when I’m performing today. Hopefully, the whole time, I’m serving people.

TD: It speaks to your validity as a performer…

AG: I remember, one time, I got a knock on my door in Santa Monica. Someone had posted a sticky note that just said, “give up the dream” [laughs]. But you just keep pushing. And now the show’s just a big party. A blast.

TD: Any advice to college musicians?

AG: College is a time to experiment.

You should be doing everything. To get good, you have to fail so much … my own songwriting ratio is pretty bad!

In college, nothing’s being counted against you. So never stop. Be the person who’s never in your dorm room.

Storyteller Barnett pokes fun at life’s mundane oddities BARNETT

continued from page 5

the way she captures the ordinary — with shades of complexity, empathy and halfhumored boredom.

Barnett is currently enjoying a chain of recent successes; she was notably featured by international music magazines, including Pitchfork in 2013 and Stereogum in 2014, which both also gave her album stellar reviews. Barnett has been releasing compilations and EPs off her Milk! Records label since 2013. Now, this album, off the label Mom+Pop Music, stands as her debut full-length record. It marks a highlight in Barnett’s climb to prominence as a leader of the current Australian indie rock and garage rock scenes.

Barnett’s work is fueled by two contrasting sounds. One is the angry, distorted guitar that drives Barnett’s garage rock sounds.

The other is Barnett’s singing, which has a less abrasive quality than her guitar; it is a middle ground between a scream and a yawn. There is something humored about Barnett’s delivery, an understanding of the essential comic value of her subject: the little oddities and quirks of being in your late twenties and a bit burnt out.

The record pulls in influences from all brands of vintage rock, including the surfrock inspired “Aqua Profonda!” which tells the story of Barnett trying to impress a guy at the pool with her backstroke and lung capacity. On tracks like “Debbie Downer,” Barnett borrows from the synth-fused rock sounds emblematic of bands like The Doors.

In the album’s second track “Pedestrian at Best,” Barnett flexes her grunge muscles with loud, electric guitar power chords and riffs. “Pedestrian at Best” also has an accompanying music video, in which Barnett plays a woman working as an unsuccessful clown

at a small entertainment park. The video focuses on the “Clown of the Year 2013” award, a pennant which Barnett’s character wears; Barnett’s character glumly gazes over at a successful clown at the park, wearing the current “Clown of the Year 2014” pennant, while entertaining a crowd of several dozen happy, laughing park-goers.

Meanwhile, Barnett sings: “Put me on a pedestal and I’ll only disappoint you.” The line, juxtaposed with Barnett’s clown attire, puts a humorous twist on standing in the spotlight. Barnett recognizes the attention she’s been receiving, but she embraces this success with a sense of irony. She sings: “I think you’re a joke but I don’t find you very funny.”

One of the album’s bleakest moments comes on the track “Depreston,” in which the listener finds Barnett going to an open house in Preston, a suburb of Melbourne.

Barnett describes all the little memories and stories that physically manifest themselves in the house: “a photo of a young man in a van in Vietnam,” a “collection of those canisters” that have accumulated over the years.

Finally, Barnett ends the song with the hook: “If you’ve got a spare half million / you could knock it down and start rebuilding.”

Barnett’s album is presented as a tribute to all those little moments of insignificance. Even vengefulness is offered with a sense of dullness on the song “Small Poppies.” She sings, “At the end of the day it’s a pain that I keep seeing your name / but I’m sure it’s a bore being you.” Barnett’s album isn’t a tour de force of noise and harshness — it’s an ode to the quiet quirks of everyday life. Its quality comes from the execution of Barnett’s outlook — from the way she can use a single verse to contextualize the existential beauty of the bored and ordinary.

Aurelien Guichard via Flickr Creative Commons

Barnett fuses witty, tongue-in-cheek lyrics with raw guitar riffs on her March 23 release, “Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit.”

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

The Tufts Daily

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THE TUFTS DAILY Drew Z. Robertson Editor-in-Chief

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Wednesday, April 8, 2015

EDITORIAL | op-ed

Editorial

Eschewing predatory college practices, Tufts commits to financial aid

The increasingly popularity and necessity of attending college has gradually transformed the professional world, and as a result, the college degree has become a tremendous marker of inequality. Today, college degrees provide the basic standard for employers to make hiring decisions. This dominating benchmark for assessing job seekers in the market has allowed colleges to set the cost for education outrageously high. Often times, this money is funneled directly into the salaries of administrators, as seen in a recent piece in the New York Times.

If universities will insist on reaping the rewards of this perverse marketplace, why can they not engage in a redistributive policy? To answer a complex question simply, they can.

Colleges must focus on three things in the following order of priority: financial aid, educational improvements and then, finally, campus enhancements. What is important to note about that list is that it does not include paying administrators and trustees huge sums of money. Awarding seven-figure salaries for administrators while students scrimp and save in order to stay in school is not fair.

As colleges compete to market themselves by polishing their aesthetic attractiveness, students and parents confront the costs of the constantly rising tuition fees. As higher education becomes more and more competitive, it is a sad truth that financially strapped students will end up having to bear larger and larger burdens.

With U.S. college graduates’ debts reaching upwards of $1 trillion and the grim economics of higher education being felt by parents and students across the country, Tufts University’s commitment to democratizing education is a silver lining that we hope to see at more academic institutions.

President Monaco ensured that financial aid for students is the university’s top priority, and the university is striving to reach the $100 million goal in its fundraising project to increase the pool of resources allocated to providing Tufts students the luxury of the college experience. In addition, yesterday’s move to accept undocumented applicants and provide them with financial aid is another bright spot. Tufts should be praised for putting its money where its mouth is.

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Off the HIll | Brown university

Being sober in college

by Sara Al-Salem

The Brown Daily Herald

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Before coming to college, I thought I was unsure of many things but one: I would never drink alcohol. I was lucky enough to grow up in an environment where drinking wasn’t a part of the culture, so I definitely attribute that lifestyle to my pre-college mentality.

But I never expected to find myself dealing with conflicting qualms about drinking until I thought my sobriety put my social life at risk.

As teenagers, we are taught that it is wrong to instigate or fall for peer pressure. But it is always depicted as this blatant action where someone is urging someone to do something: pushing a drink into her hand or mocking her for not holding a solo cup. But the way drinking actually works on college campuses is a lot more emblematic of peer pressure than any obvious bullying shown on PSA clips.

It’s important to me that I first preface the following sentiment with two key facts: I absolutely do not judge those who drink, and my experience is not intended to voice anyone else’s.

I know a few people who do not drink and appear to have as great a time at social outings and clubs as anyone else.

My doubt about being unwilling to start drinking began late in my freshman spring semester, when a close friend who also didn’t drink left campus for the semester. Without her company during the weekends at

The Tufts Daily is a nonprofit, independent newspaper, published Monday through Friday during the academic year, and distributed free to the Tufts community. EDITORIAL POLICY Editorials represent the position of The Tufts Daily. Individual editors are not necessarily responsible for, or in agreement with, the policies and editorials of The Tufts Daily. The content of letters, advertisements, signed columns, cartoons and graphics does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Tufts Daily editorial board.

events, I felt a disconnect between myself and the social scene. Everyone always says it must be terrible to be the sober one at a party, but I had never really understood that until I was the only sober one at a party.

When I had a friend along with me, I did not sense the isolation between those who drank and those who didn’t.

I do not think that people who drink at parties actively try to make those who abstain from alcohol uncomfortable or neglected. I don’t think anyone wants to make someone feel excluded, but it is only natural to get along with people who are at the same energy or excitement level. The person who stands back as everyone else gathers around to do vodka shots at a pregame seems not to be enjoying the night as much as everyone else. To some, the person who does not drink becomes a burden or floats around aimlessly.

The response to a situation like the one I described would be, “Oh, then just don’t go to parties with alcohol.”

This presumes the fact that college isn’t a place where drinking is the beating heart of the social scene. If you decide to forgo parties, you are forced to cut your friend group essentially in half. If they ask you to hang out and you decline, you are labeled as a hermit or, worse, flaky. I cannot emphasize how hard it is to explain to people with whom I want to spend time that I value their friendship but that I must also take into account how I almost always feel after college par-

ties — irrelevant and unwanted.

I focus on college parties because I have found that outside of college, drinking isn’t such a frantic, be-allend-all of a party. I have gone to parties where everyone ended up drunk, but it was still a great time. I found that because the goal was not to get drunk, the attitude toward alcohol wasn’t that of “I can’t have fun or enjoy myself without alcohol.”

Similarly, this more mature mentality toward drinking also seems more prevalent in international communities, especially of students raised in countries with younger drinking ages, where drinking is less taboo than it is in the United States. When these students come to college, their attitude toward drinking is thus a lot more lax.

Like everyone, I have grown a lot since coming to Brown, and I have found myself accepting my sobriety as a sort of closed gate to a certain college social life. But for anyone else who may have also struggled with this, it is important to know it’s okay to have doubts, and it’s okay to decide to drink — as long as you do it for the right reasons and not to fit a certain status quo.

And if you decide not to drink and you find yourself exiled from a community, remember that those who really value you will make time for you if they understand the drinking scene isn’t your scene. You will eventually find your place in your own social scene. I promise.

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Wednesday, April 8, 2015 Op-Ed

The Tufts Daily

The double standards of working out

Alex Dorfman

The other day, when I was at the gym, I accidentally caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the blank TV screen on the treadmill. What I saw was, well, a bit terrifying. My hair was pulled back in a ponytail that was anything but smooth. Right on top of my head were two giant bumps of hair that made me look like a baby dragon.

“Ugh,” I thought, “why can’t my hair be slick and smooth like that girl over there on the bike? Why does it have to frizz all over the place, with fly-aways sticking sweatily to the back of my neck?” Of course, I immediately realized that the only person whose fault that my hair is like this is my own. I’m way too impatient and uncoordinated to fix my hair into a perfectly smooth ponytail. But upon gaining this bit of self knowledge, I next wondered, why do I care? I mean, I’m going to the gym to work out, not to look cute. If I go to a coffeeshop or class, I want to look cute.

Okay, that’s not true. When it comes to class, I care more about getting there than I do about how I look once I get there. But if I am going to…say, a party or to a restaurant, then I will put effort into my appearance. But the gym? Why on earth would I care about how my hair looks at the gym?

Probably because in so many magazines and websites, I’m constantly being told how I should make my hair look when I go to the gym. And I’m not just talking about BuzzFeed and Pinterest — both of which have forums Op-Ed Contributor

explaining how a person can improve their appearance while working out.

Publications that go beyond the internet like InStyle and Seventeen magazine also contain these terrible lists.

And the suggestions, at least for people like me who don’t really have the time to go to the gym but go anyway, are absurd. Braiding your hair in some cool, convoluted thing on top of your hair? Sure, it says out of your face, but I can barely put my hair in two regular braids on the side of my head.

Smoothing down fly-aways with hairspray? I certainly don’t own hairspray.

One description even had something about straightening gel. I don’t even know what that is. What happened to just going to the gym to work out?

Okay, but InStyle and Seventeen are beauty magazines. They focus on beauty and appearance. Fine. Maybe I’m just angry because I get touchy when people try to tell me how to look or what to wear. For example, no matter how often I am told I wear too much plaid, I will continue wearing plaid because I like plaid and it is comfortable. But beyond that, why are all these lists geared towards women?

I’ve never seen lists with tips for men on how they should look when they go to the gym. In my opinion, maybe someone should write one, and possibly include a tip about not wearing such short shorts. Just kidding. Wear what you want, I don’t really care.

The point is, its normal for women to receive suggestions on their appearance while working out, but not men.

That, in turn, harks back to the whole

idea that a woman’s appearance is of utmost importance, which, as we all know, decreases her value as a human and makes her into more of an object.

And that’s not cool. I’m not an object.

Don’t objectify me.

Even in sports stores, this lie that women are, or should be, beautiful while exercising persists. In Sports Authority, my favorite place to go for running clothes, there are these huge pictures of women running down beautiful mountain trails looking calm and blissful. Now, I don’t run much in the mountains, but I’ve done a bit of hiking, and I’m pretty sure their faces wouldn’t look, well, serene, while running up a mountain. I mean, if they’re in like insanely good shape, probably, but I know that after I run seven miles on a flat surface, I certainly don’t look calm, and neither does anyone I know.

In other words, these posters are simply lying. And, going back to the idea of the double standard, the posters always show women looking calm and happy, while the ones of men show them sweating and snarling at the camera. I definitely look like the latter while working out because, well, running can be pretty painful.

All I’m saying is, what happened to working out simply being working out? Can’t we all agree that there’s really no such thing as looking beautiful — at least in the magazine sense of the word — while trying to get a good bit of exercise in? So, if you see me at the gym, and my hair is all over the place, sorry. I lost my bottle of straightening gel.

Off the hill | University of Virginia

April Fools’ is no excuse

by Christopher Broom The Cavalier Daily

There is a reason The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post don’t produce April Fools’ issues: readers’ trust is hard to build and easy to shatter. No matter the intention, satirical or joke pieces in a newspaper that generally reports news and offers opinion on matters of the day is a risky proposition. The risk of offending or alienating those who read or look to the paper for fair, balanced coverage is high. What some might think is funny others will see as offensive.

The Managing Board of The Cavalier Daily made a bad decision when they chose to publish at least two articles in their April Fools’ issue. The “ABC officers tackle Native American student outside Bodo’s Bagels” and “Zeta Psi hosts ‘Rosa Parks’ party” articles were in poor taste and exacerbated stereotypes. I imagine that the Managing Board and the writers and editors involved in both pieces thought they were satirizing many of the various issues that have been raised in the wake of the several disturbing and horrific events that have occurred near U.Va. recently. Intent, though, doesn’t make up for offending people and trivializing their experiences.

What is worse than just the problematic articles is that the print edition of the April Fools issue supplanted one of the normal print issues of

The Cavalier Daily. Having cut back to only two print issues per week to save money, it is concerning that one of those issues was a joke/satire issue.

Local news picked up the story on the April Fool’s issue, with TV stations NBC 29 and CBS 19 both posting articles and garnering many comments.

It wasn’t only a local issue, though.

The public editor for the New York Times, Margaret Sullivan, retweeted a Poynter news story about The Cavalier Daily articles entitled “When April Fools’ Day goes wrong.”

Following some backlash, the Managing Board of The Cavalier Daily deleted the articles from the website and pulled the PDF copy of the print edition. After that they published an apology online. The apology was less than ideal. The Managing Board wrote, in part: “The April Fools edition is meant to start a conversation and provide satirical commentary on important issues.

The April Fools edition is not meant to come at the expense of our peers. We neglected to foresee that these pieces would come across as the latter, and for that, we regret their publication.”

This ends up reading as something on the order of “we’re sorry if you were offended.” “Neglected to foresee that these pieces would come across as the latter …” seems to put the onus on those who read it in a way different than it was intended. When reading the pieces, though, I’m not sure how else anyone would have interpreted them. There is already a conversation

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Op-Ed

happening in and around the university about race, victimization, power and privilege. The April Fools’ issue didn’t need to start or encourage that conversation. Satire is certainly an accepted form of humor and an effective form of pointing out positions of power or privilege, but these stories didn’t feel like satire so much as slightly altered retellings of recent stories.

The Cavalier Daily strives to be a voice for students at the University of Virginia. They are independent financially and editorially from the university and that gives them a special place from which to write both news and opinion. It also gives them a tremendous burden of trust and a duty to not squander that special place. The April Fools’ edition of The Cavalier Daily squandered that trust.

It was not at all careful of the students and others who read the paper. In an effort to be funny, the people who read the paper were forgotten and when that happens the end product suffers.

The Cavalier Daily staff has damaged the trust readers had in the paper. The main point of the paper is to be an independent voice at the University of Virginia. The paper can’t be that if no one trusts it and if no one is paying attention. The April Fools’ edition of the paper has done harm to the Cavalier Daily and to its readers.

I’d like to hear from you about what The Cavalier Daily can do to start earning that trust back.

Write an Op-Ed for the Commencement Issue of The Daily!

Email opinion@tuftsdaily.com with your submissions.

Caitlin Thompson | Oppressive Regimes

A year for global protests

F

or much of 2014, global protests against oppressive regimes took center stage in international dialogue.

With people flocking to the streets in Venezuela, Ukraine, Hong Kong and the United States, no region is immune to unrest. Many of the same movements continue in 2015, proving the fight against dictatorship and oppression is not over.

It may have been global protests’ five minutes of fame, but 2014 was not unique in the vitality of displeased global citizens. 1968 saw protests in the United States across the country in response to the Vietnam War, as well as the Prague Spring. In 1989, the Chinese military massacred students at Tiananmen Square, an event that still resonates with those fighting repression. Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring, though vastly different, stole the stage in 2011.

The last decade has seen movements explode around the world. Protests are becoming more common, if not more connected. Between 2006 and 2010, the number of movements around the world increased overall, as did the number of participants.

Oxfam estimates that 37 protests in this time drew over one million protesters. Most have centered on economic injustice, political representation and human rights.

The success of protests in 2014 is mixed.

Jeremi Suri, a University of Texas historian studying global revolutions, says, “Protests were fragmented; there wasn’t one movement. We’ve learned … that it’s a lot easier to get people out in the street than it is to make a political difference.”

To an extent, he is right. Valiant students in Hong Kong failed to change the governmental status quo. But this statement does not extend to all of 2014’s most famous movements. The protests on Maidan in Ukraine effectively ousted the corrupt President Yanukovych, which, despite the continuing turmoil, is no doubt an adequate measure of success. Key protesters in the Ferguson movement met with President Obama, proving their influence in the United States government and hinting at the possibility of further concrete victory.

In this conversation, activist Phillip Agnew told the president, “Nothing short of major capitulations at all levels of the government to the demands of the people could prevent [continued unrest].” The fight is not over in either of these cases, but they have clearly sparked at least some level of change.

Suri also refers to the connections between global demonstrations. Today, experts see no communication between protests. Movements may have similar root causes, but they are not feeding off each other like they did in 2011 with the Arab Spring, nor are they speaking up in support of similar movements. It may be a decade for visible protests, but global unrest is not united.

There are many factors that are correlated with the success of mass protests, but protests in 2014 undermine these established connections, resulting in unexpected failure or success. One element is nonviolence. Research by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan at University of Denver found that non-violence is the “most important factor in determining … success.” But the student movement in Hong Kong was non-violent and ultimately failed, while Maidan resorted to physical aggression.

Additionally, the Hong Kong protests were highly organized, with manuals expressing goals and rules of conduct, while the Ferguson protests lacked equivalent structure and long-term planning. For many reasons, some of 2014’s protests should have been more successful, while others should have seen more limited results.

The success of protests boils down to the sentiments of the people. 2014 was a year of movement against oppressive regimes because of widely recognized dissatisfaction and a condemnation of repression. The hope is that 2015 will follow this trend and build on its predecessor’s success.

Caitlin Thompson is a sophomore who has not yet decalred a major. She can be reached at Caitlin.Thompson@tufts.edu.

10

The Tufts Daily

FOR RELEASE APRIL 8, 2015

Crossword

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Wordart

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis

ACROSS 1 Victorian 5 Like much 67Down 10 Bay of Bengal setting 14 Extinct pigeon relative 15 First name in puppetry 16 __ jar: lab glass 17 Hold banned in amateur wrestling 19 Take one’s leave 20 Make sure of 21 Stretched to the max 23 Reggae cousin 24 Premier League athlete 28 Apply gently 31 CBS-owned cable sta.

32 Pond gunk 33 Prefix with footprint 34 Pulls down 37 Winter pick-meup?

40 Innocents 44 Mite-sized 45 “Tut-tut!”

46 Actress Tyler 47 Important stretches 50 Beef cut 51 Maple syrup source 52 Influential teams 57 Louisville Slugger wood 58 Comfy footwear 59 Jewish scholar 63 Swindle 65 April golf tournament, four of whose winners appear in 17-, 24-, 40- and 52Across 68 Movie plantation 69 Sea-born jewelry material 70 “Right now!”

71 Song and dance 72 Urgency 73 Snoopy DOWN 1 Sharable digital docs 2 Libertine

4/8/15

By D. Scott Nichols and C.C. Burnikel

3 Onetime Palin collaborator 4 Feathers one’s nest, in a way 5 Full of: Suff.

6 Gp. with Sharks and Penguins 7 Decorator’s asset 8 Cheering like crazy 9 Hangers in lockers?

10 Justice Fortas 11 Figures in 9Down 12 “Very nice!”

13 A proposal may ultimately lead to one 18 Lasso loops 22 Dr. Mom’s forte 25 Spiced tea brewed in milk 26 Toe woes 27 Mustang, for one 28 Chapter 11 factor 29 Berry in faddish supplements 30 Star of a classic sitcom set at a Vermont inn 35 Imprecise degree 36 Like provolone piccante

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Comics

Tuesday’s Puzzle Solved Tuesday’s Solution

Married to the Sea ©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

38 1998 Sarah McLachlan ballad 39 Initial request for an answer?

41 Brontë heroine 42 German actor Jannings 43 Some outdoor grills 48 Slot machine part 49 __ tape 52 Macaroni Grill selection

4/8/15

53 Acting honor 54 Golfer Lorena 55 AOLers, e.g.

56 “Paradise Lost” figure 60 Spanish smooch 61 Lingerie catalog buys 62 Car trip game 64 Some advanced degs.

66 Floor pad 67 Part of IPA

THAT SCRAMBLED WORD GAME

by David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek

Unscramble these four Jumbles, one letter to each square, to form four ordinary words.

©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC All Rights Reserved.

PITNE SNELOS

DAILNN Answer here: Yesterday’s

SUDOKU

Check out the new, free JUST JUMBLE app

PODTA

www.marriedtothesea.com

Level: Actually getting a ticket for an event.

Now arrange the circled letters to form the surprise answer, as suggested by the above cartoon.

(Answers tomorrow) Jumbles: CYCLE HOLLY ARCADE BOTANY Answer: After sinking the winning basket, he and his teammates — HAD A BALL

Late Night at the Daily

Tuesday’s Solution

Jewel: “We don’t want balls just hangin’ there.”

Please recycle this Daily.

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

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Tufts wins second meet in a row MEN’S TRACK AND FIELD continued from back

Tufts once again fared well in the hurdles, with Zhou (15.99 seconds) along with fellow sophomore Ptah Osayande (16.04) claiming second and third, respectively, in the 110meter hurdles, while first-year Andrew DiMalti (55.64) and sophomore Nick Usoff (55.94) took the top two positions in the 400-meter hurdles.

In the 1,500, senior Mitch Black claimed yet another first-place finish with a time of 4:02.41. It was an impressive performance for the 800meter national champion.

In the 400, juniors Francis Goins and Alex Kasemir took first and second place with times of 51.40 and 52.01, closely followed by senior Alex Sheltzer with a time of 52.04. Goins, Kasemir and fellow junior Bryson HooverHankerson finished in second, third and fourth with times of 23.00, 23.36 and 23.37, respectively, in the 200.

“We’re definitely a younger group than in years past,” assistant coach Mike Schmidt said. “We’ve had to look to some of the younger guys to step up and a lot have started to do just that. We still need some of them to

start taking roles that were filled by seniors in years past, but we’ve been impressed.”

The track was not the only place the Jumbos had a strong showing; they also recorded a number of strong finishes on the field. First-year Stefan Duvivier placed first in the high jump, with a clearance of 6’ 2,” and in the triple jump, where he flew 40’ 4.25.”

He was followed in the high jump by sophomore Jared Asselin, whose 6’ jump was high enough to secure second place.

First-year Linus Gordon also placed behind Duvivier with a leap of 40’2.25”in the triple jump. Gordon’s best finish was in the long jump, where he was measured at 19’3.25,” and firstyear Peter Clarke jumped 19’2.33” to lock up yet another one-two finish for the Jumbos. Senior Brian Williamson placed first in the shot put (48’9”), while junior Atticus Sweat continued the team’s dominance in the field events by winning the discus (121’8”).

“We came in looking to compete,” Schmidt said. “We’ve set ourselves up to challenge for the NESCAC Championship, but we still have some work to do in the next few weeks. This

Tyler Maher | Beantown Beat week we have the weather to really work on qualifying, so hopefully our guys have the mindset that they won’t let anything stop them from competing.”

With the win fresh on their minds, the Jumbos hope to carry some of their momentum forward into the coming weeks as they look toward the championship meets at the end of the season.

“It’s a testament to the team not letting anything stop them from giving their best effort,” Schmidt said.

“We knew we were ahead by a lot, but the guys competing in the second half didn’t let that stop them from trying their hardest.”

Zhou saw the meet as a good indicator of the team’s fitness level early in the season.

“Following this meet, we’re going to keep up with the intense workouts,” Zhou said. “I think we’ve done a really good job recognizing everyone’s efforts, which is really important in track where you can get fragmented because we all do different things. I’m confident we’ll be a strong contender in the NESCAC championship this year.”

Next weekend, the Jumbos will be competing at the Silfen Inviational hosted by Conn. College.

Early season results can be misleading

INSIDE MLB

continued from back

rem (a probability rule), one can find that expected true talent winning percentage based on the results from the beginning of the season for teams is approximately equal to (35 + Wins)/ (70 + Wins + Losses).

Basically, each team’s new expected talent level is a weighted average between their performance at the beginning of the year and a league average winning percentage (.500).

Seventy games into the season, these two portions are weighted equally, meaning that after 70 games, a team is just about as likely to perform at the league average rate as they are to perform at their rate up to that point in the season. For less than 70 games, teams are more likely to perform at league average for the rest of the season, and for more than 70 games, teams are more likely to perform at their current winning percentage rate.

These are estimates, so with total games close to 70, current performance and average performance are negligibly different.

However, this is an unlikely prior distribution. Most expect teams like the Dodgers and the Nationals will be dominant this year, and teams like the Braves and the Phillies will be weaker.

Using the most advanced projection systems (like PECOTA or Steamer) for our prior probabilities, it is possible to better model the prior distribution.

It is still the case that it takes around 70 games for the season performance

Bettina Hansen / Seattle Times / TNS / MCT

Felix Hernandez struck out 10 en route to a 4-1 Opening Day victory over the Los Angeles Angels. His early-season performance, however, should be taken with a grain of salt. to be a better indicator of future success than the prior distributions, but with improved models the two probabilities are likely closer to each other, assuming the changed prior distribution is better.

So, while it is certainly exciting that baseball is back, predictions should not be changing until about two months from now. In the meantime, just relax and watch some baseball.

Young Jumbos provide optimism for the future

GOLF

continued from back

College Invitational, which stalled any momentum they picked up over break.

After just barely missing the NESCAC championship in the fall, the Jumbos are refocused on improving and doing as well as they can in this three-tournament series.

“It was pretty motivating,” Zorniger said. “We realized we played pretty well. It wasn’t that we missed out on a shot we should’ve had. We played well and we didn’t make it. I think what the

team took from it was [that] our best isn’t good enough yet, and that’s okay; we have to keep working. … [ We] just realized we have to kick it into high gear to achieve our goals.”

Although the roster is composed of mostly first-years and sophomores, the Jumbos have been more successful this year than in past campaigns.

Four years ago, when Zorniger was a first-year, he remembers the team’s struggles and its inability to escape the NESCAC cellar. Now, however, an influx of young talent has Tufts looking to break into the top tier of NESCAC

competition and qualify for the championship tournament next fall.

“I actually think right now we have as much talent as we’ve had since I’ve been here,” Zorniger said. “I think it’s been a constant slow build to this point. Unfortunately, I’m a senior, but I expect these results at this point in time. We feel that we are just right there below the top competitors in our league, and we weren’t there before. Creating that environment where people can get better and the team is consistently up there has been my goal as captain.”

Boston World Series bound?

I

f the 8-0 Opening Day pasting of the Philadelphia Phillies was any indication, the Boston Red Sox are back. Back to being World Series contenders, as they were in 2013, instead of being a last-place team, as they were last year and in 2012.

Boston looked terrific in Monday’s season opener, blasting five home runs and holding Philadelphia to a mere three hits.

Though both teams finished last season with near-identical records, they have very different outlooks for 2015. The rebuilding Phillies are doomed to spend the year in the NL East basement, whereas the newlook Red Sox were just declared oddson favorites to represent the American League in the World Series. What a difference six months makes.

Without an obvious top dog in the AL this year, the Sox are as good a bet as any. They’re also my pick to win the American League. Here’s why: 1) That lineup is going to mash After fielding a bottom-five offense in the American League last year, Boston loaded up on bats and now has what projects to be the best lineup in baseball. With offense down across the sport, that just might be a winning strategy. Boston’s star-studded lineup is incredibly deep, as the Sox have an aboveaverage hitter at every position save catcher, which could change when Blake Swihart is promoted. If younger players like Xander Bogaerts, Mookie Betts and Rusney Castillo break through, then watch out. Boston should score more than enough runs to cover the mistakes of its pedestrian starting rotation. The 2013 squad went all the way behind a dynamite lineup and merely decent pitching, so maybe this team can too.

2) Young talent An often overlooked component of a winning ballclub is having young assets to absorb the blows of a grueling 162-game schedule. No team survives the regular season intact, which makes organizational depth crucial. Attractive prospects also come in handy when it’s time to make those necessary in-season trades for bullpen depth, an extra bat or a frontline starting pitcher. Boston’s farm system, ranked

by Baseball Prospectus as the sixth-best in baseball, has a glut of major league-ready talent waiting in the wings. So not only do the Red Sox have an army of prospects to plug leaks as the season progresses, but they’ll also have plenty of trade chips come July. The only question is: will general manager Ben Cherington be willing to part ways with whoever it takes to land the ace his team so desperately needs?

3) The AL East is theirs for the taking The Bosox may not look like a World Series team on paper (that starting pitching…), but they still project to be better than the rest of their division.

Boston’s rotation looks elite compared to the those of Baltimore and Toronto.

Tampa Bay has arms but no offense to speak of. The Yankees are in decline and likely headed for their first losing season since 1992. No wonder FanGraphs gives the Red Sox a 45 percent chance of winning the AL East, far and away the best odds in the division. Boston has a clear road to the postseason, and it’s worth mentioning that the last two times the Sox took their division, they also won the World Series.

It’s far too early to tell if the Red Sox have what it takes to win the pennant, but they’re going to have a real shot at it, and you can take that straight to the bank.

Tyler Maher is a senior majoring in economics and English. He can be reached at tyler.maher@tufts.edu.

Sports

12

tuftsdaily.com

Golf

Tufts places fifth in Rhode Island

by Phillip Goldberg Assistant Sports Editor

Pouring rain and blistering winds couldn’t stop the Jumbos from placing fifth out of 17 teams at the Rhode Island College Invitational.

The par-72, 6,458-yard Valley Country Club course was in good condition considering the inclement weather and recently melted snow. This was the first of three tournaments for Tufts this spring, and a solid finish in the other two could allow the team to compete to be the overall winner.

On Saturday, the Jumbos fought against winds in excess of 30 mph and, despite their excellent showing the day before, shot 337. First-year Taylor Nordan was the first scorer on Saturday with an 80, while sophomore Owen Elliott pitched in an 83. Junior Jay Wong and senior captain Alex Zorniger struggled, shooting 88 and 86, respectively.

“I think [for] the team right now in the season, regardless of the wind, it can be difficult to put together two solid rounds,” Wong said. “It’s really easy to lose focus in the wind because you can hit a lot of good shots and they just end up not at all what you expected them to do. I know myself, I hit four or five shots that I thought were perfect, right on the pin and [they] ended up not even on the green. We definitely didn’t play as well as we

Courtesy Owen Elliot

The Jumbos faced tough conditions at the Rhode Island College Invitational last weekend. could have, but the wind was absolutely a factor that day.”

Wong led the Jumbos on Friday, shooting a 75 when the winds were less of an obstacle. However, pouring rain throughout the later rounds

provided a different complication. The 75 was good enough to tie him for eighth overall on the first day, but an 88 on the second day, when the winds picked up, settled Wong at 25th. This was

Inside the MLB

Wong’s first competitive round of golf since last spring. He had been abroad in Rome during the fall season and missed the NESCAC qualifier.

“Jay [ Wong] shooting a 75 for his first round in a year

is awesome,” said Zorniger. “I won’t be here next year but we will still have a lot of talent because I’ll basically be replaced by Jay [ Wong]. I’m leaving, he’s coming in, so I think we will be even better.”

Nordan and Elliott both tailed scores of 77 on Friday — tying them for 14th on the day — and Zorniger was the Jumbos’ fourth scorer with an 81. Tufts’ 310 on Friday put them in third place, wedged between Rhode Island College (305) and Western New England (312).

Wong felt that Williams College and Rhode Island College had an advantage on Friday since they played early and missed the majority of the rainstorm. The teams ended up placing first and second, respectively.

“It poured rain literally our whole entire round and the team did a great job of staying focused and putting up decent numbers, at least for the start of the spring season when people don’t usually play as well because they haven’t been playing as much,” Wong said.

The Jumbos went on a training trip to Arizona over spring break, but because of remaining snow and adverse conditions back at Tufts, they were unable to practice for the two weeks between then and the Rhode Island see GOLF, page 11

Track and Field

Excited for baseball? It doesn’t matter (yet)

by Morris Greenberg Daily Staff Writer

After the Cardinals and Cubs kicked things off Sunday night, baseball is officially back. After one of the crazier off-seasons in recent memory, many are closely following how the regular season will play out. People are already monitoring the young Cubs team that has the potential to be one of the best in baseball and the completely rebuilt Padres. Who wouldn’t be excited for the season?

It is important, however, to remember that the baseball season is 162 games. It is very hard to draw any meaningful conclusions from the first few games of the season. Everyone is still in the hunt, and very little can be said about changes in reasonable expectations for individual season performances, given that baseball results do not tend to stabilize quickly. At the beginning of the season, what is it possible to conclude?

Small datasets that have meaning are still datasets that have meaning. Obviously, naively extrapolating a player’s performance for the rest of the season based on the first 10 games’ results would cause far more incorrect predictions than correct ones. In reality, people expect each player to have a true talent level, and given enough time, his observed talent level will converge to his true talent level. There is an expectation of each player’s and team’s true talent levels before the season starts, and then that expectation changes as the 2015 season progresses. This sort of thinking can be modelled math-

ematically, specifically with Bayesian statistics.

Bayesian statistics most basically splits problems into two parts: a prior probability distribution, and a posterior probability distribution. A prior probability distribution for baseball is what is expected to happen before any games are actually played.

Different people could have different prior distributions. Some may think Jose Abreu has over a 50 percent chance of hitting 40 home runs going into this season, others may not. The posterior distribution is the changed probability distribution after data has been collected. For instance, if Jose Abreu hit 30 home runs halfway through the season, most posterior probability distributions would be more favorable towards Abreu, since he outperformed most prior probability distributions in the first set of games. The degree to which posterior distributions change depends on how much weight is given to every individual event collected.

The problem can be simplified significantly by assuming that all players and teams are expected to be league average talent-wise, and all deviances from league average in the past were due to randomness. This would be a very simple — though likely incorrect — prior probability distribution, which could give some insight into what can be expected from teams.

Sabermetricians like Phil Birnbaum and Tom Tango have done analyses for team winning percentages on this prior distribution. Using Bayes’ theosee INSIDE MLB, page 11

Annie Levine / The Tufts Daily

Hee Jae An competed in the long jump over the weekend.

Jumbos take first at Amherst's Spring Fling

by Eddie Samuels Contributing Writer

The men’s track and field team dominated at the Amherst Spring Fling this Saturday. The team scored a total of 176 points, over 100 more than secondplace Amherst (72). It was the team’s second victory in as many weeks after besting a field of 22 at home the previous week.

Once again, the conditions were not optimal for fast times and long throws.

Despite some harsh weather, including winds of almost 30 miles per hour, the Jumbos were able to outlast their competition in the third meet of the spring season.

“We had a couple of things going against us,” sophomore Henry Zhou explained. “Our coach [Ethan Barron] was sick, and the weather was against us, but in spite of that, we brought our A game and did our job and came out of the meet feeling really good.” see MEN’S TRACK AND FIELD, page 11