04-30-2012 by The Tufts Daily

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THE TUFTS DAILY

TUFTSDAILY.COM

Monday, april 30, 2012

VOLUME LXIII, NUMBER 59

Where You Read It First Est. 1980

TCU Senate passes resolution supporting Bahá’í community by Stephen Johnson

Contributing Writer

Andrew Schneer / The Tufts Daily

Lupe Fiasco, The White Panda and Guster performed before a raucous crowd of Tufts students at Saturday’s Spring Fling.

At its last meeting of the year on April 15, the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate passed a resolution (18-1-4) encouraging the administration to express disapproval of the Iranian government’s persecution of the Bahá’í faith, to promote respect of the right of access to education for all and to accept credits and transcripts of students from Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education (BIHE). The resolution was submitted by sophomores Alexander Kolodner, Navid Shahidinejad and Fiona Weeks. The international academic community has grown concerned over the Iranian government’s denial of the right

to education to people of Bahá’í faith following a raid on BIHE, a prominent Bahá’í university, last May. “The Iranian government does not acknowledge the Bahá’í faith, and therefore they do not acknowledge the Bahá’ís,” Shahidinejad said. “In very covert ways, they have been trying to attack the Bahá’í faith and slowly strangle it to death. And one of the latest attacks that has occurred is the denial of the right of education.” “There needs to be an international effort to support those Bahá’ís that are being persecuted, because this is an international human rights issue,” Kolodner said. “Tufts prides itself on being a school with an intensive see BAHÁ’Í, page 4

Students’ stories left out Students organize petition for of sexual assault gallery more free-range meat at Tufts by

Melissa Wang

Daily Editorial Board

Due to issues of confidentiality, miscommunication and timing, an exhibit containing pictures of and quotes by four Tufts student survivors of sexual assault was not included earlier this month in a gallery for Sexual Assault Awareness Month in Tisch Library, as had been previously planned. The four female students whose pictures and quotes were not part of the exhibit object to the decision because they feel that they are being prevented from expressing their stories in the ways they want to and believe they deserve, according to a source who was one of the four students but chose to remain anonymous. The gallery, entitled “Faces of Survivors: Voices Reclaimed,” was a compilation of pictures of sexual assault survivors from outside the university taken by professional photographer Catherine Pedemonti. The Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO) and the Women’s Center co-sponsored the gallery as part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, according to Senior Director of Health and Wellness Services Michelle Bowdler. Bowdler said that four students volunteered to participate in the gallery after they were approached by former Violence Prevention Education Coordinator Elaine Theodore, who knew of their sexual assault history. The exhibit was originally supposed to include a picture of part of each woman’s body that would not reveal their identities along with a statement about their experiences with sexual assault, the anonymous source said.

“It’s a beautiful exhibit that is an attempt to show that survivors come in every variety of a person that you could possible imagine,” Bowdler said. Bowdler said she and the OEO ultimately decided against displaying the pictures and quotes from Tufts students because one of the students’ statements made specific allegations that would have necessitated an investigation before the university could display it. She said that the organizers lacked the time to appropriately address the issues because the administration had already paid for and planned out Pedemonti’s portion of the exhibit weeks in advance and these issues were only brought up several days before the gallery’s set unveiling time. “There was not enough time for us to meet our obligation to address a very serious situation described by one of these students,” Bowdler said. “There was a lot of back-andforth, and you can’t conclude an investigation in a day.” The anonymous source believes that her rights were violated by Bowdler and the OEO’s actions. “I know they specifically didn’t like my text because I mentioned Tufts, and I told them that there had already been an investigation and my text was still very applicable [to Sexual Assault Awareness Month],” the student said. “I didn’t really care if I was contacted by OEO, but it got to the point where I was so frustrated and wanted my text and picture up, because this was an exhibit about survivors’ voices, and I felt like I was being silenced again. It basically sounded like see GALLERY, page 4

Menghan Liu

Contributing Writer

Students enrolled in the Environmental Justice and U.S. Literature class taught by English Professor Elizabeth Ammons last Thursday collected signatures in Dewick-MacPhie Dining Hall and outside Carmichael Hall for a petition asking that Tufts Dining Services offer more free-range meat options in the dining halls. The petition, which is also available online at Change.org, asks Dining Services to dedicate 10 percent of its meat purchases in the 2013-2014 academic year to free-range and to incrementally increase meat purchases to 50 percent free-range by 2020. Free-range meat is a farming method that allows livestock and domestic poultry to roam over a relatively large area. Non-free-

range meat, despite being soaked in ammonia, has 20 times more E. coli bacteria than free-range meat, according to the petition. Additionally, the petition says that free-range meat is free of growth hormones and that free-range chickens are not raised in enclosed coops or forced to stand in feces. The petition is aimed at raising awareness about the environmental and personal health benefits of eating free-range meat or not eating meat at all, according to senior Chelsea Ongaro, a member of the class. “The industrial meat system isn’t very clean,” sophomore Kara Daniels, a member of the class, said. “People have died from E. coli outbreaks. It just really affects people.” While acknowledging the additional costs associated with free-range meat, students in the

class said the environmental and personal health benefits outweigh the extra cost. The petition also requests that the Tufts Administration and Finance Committee allocate more funds to Dining Services to help make up for the higher costs incurred by purchasing free-range meat. The petition is part of a final project for the course based on a social action demonstration. Students enrolled in the course last spring successfully petitioned Hodgdon Good-to-Go to stop offering plastic bags. “The goals for today are to get the word out,” Stephen Meno, a senior enrolled in the class, said at Thursday’s event. “A lot of people don’t think of meat as environmentally damaging as it is.” The class decided to tackle see FREE-RANGE, page 4

MCT

Students enrolled in the Environmental Justice and U.S. Literature class are petitioning Dining Services to introduce more free-range meat in the dining halls.

Inside this issue

Today’s sections

The Daily takes a look back at the major developments on campus during Spring 2012.

The Daily sits down with Jeremy Goulder, one of the producers of “#ReGENERATION.”

see NEWS, page 2

see ARTS, page 7

News Features Arts & Living Editorial | Letters

1 3 5 8

Op-Ed Comics Classifieds Sports

9 12 13 Back

The Tufts Daily

News

Spring 2012: A semester in review

Monday, April 30, 2012

—Compiled by the Tufts Daily News Department

More administrative changes on the Hill

Justin McCallum / The Tufts Daily

Active citizenship on the Hill The KONY 2012 campaign hit the Hill this semester as it did across the country, with Tufts’ chapter of Invisible Children organizing a lecture by a survivor of Joseph Kony’s regime who spoke about his experience. Two Tufts student organizations, Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Tufts Friends of Israel (FOI), were the source of frequent debate on campus. Each group hosted a weeklong series of events, called Israeli Apartheid Week and Israel Peace Week, respectively. The groups throughout the semester also organized and sponsored various other events and lectures. Members of SJP confronted several Tufts Community Union (TCU) senators about an advertisement in the Daily in early March featuring several TCU senators pledging their support for the U.S.-Israel relationship, which SJP members said violated a Senate bylaw

Distinguished individuals visit the Hill Well-known scholar, activist and advocate for global and domestic civil rights Cornel West spoke about the need for democratic and social reform as part of the Faculty Progressive Caucus’ American Democracy in Crisis Series. Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren visited the Hill to discuss the U.S.-Israel relationship. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley and Chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party John Walsh visited the Hill to participate in the College Democrats of Massachusetts’ annual Winter Summit, hosted by Tufts Democrats. Father Patrick Desbois spoke about his search for unidentified mass graves from the Holocaust. Lois Gibbs, an environmental activist that spearheaded the Love Canal campaign, spoke about the intersection between environmental activism and the media.

forbidding senators from using the Senate’s name to promote causes not approved by the body as a whole. However, the TCU Judiciary ruled at a hearing later in the month that no bylaws had been breached. SJP members walked out of a lecture by Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren while wearing red tape across their mouths. Protest participants said they were carrying out an act of “civil disobedience” rather than walking away from dialogue. The Tufts Occupiers continued their efforts from last semester, including organizing a kiss-in protest in Boston with other members of Students Occupy Boston to protest student loan debt. Most recently, at the Karl Rove lecture sponsored by the Tufts Republicans, students protested by staging a waterboarding re-enactment. They said they took fault with Rove’s involvement in torture under the Bush administration.

David Harris, senior associate dean at Cornell University’s College of Arts and Sciences, beginning this summer will assume the position of university provost and senior vice president. The position was vacated last summer by Jamshed Bharucha and is currently filled on an interim basis by Vice Provost Peggy Newell. Eric Johnson, former executive director of development, assumed the position of vice president for university advancement this month. He had previously held the position on an interim basis after former Senior Vice President for University Advancement Brian Lee left to fulfill a position at California Institute of Technology in March. Associate Professor of Philosophy Nancy Bauer last week was appointed dean of academic affairs in the School of Arts and Sciences. She will assume

Policy changes on the Hill The Committee on Student Life (CSL) unanimously agreed to remove any record of a student being on Disciplinary Probation II (Pro II) from his or her transcript at the end of his or her probationary period. This was a dramatic change over the previous policy, wherein students’ Pro II status remained on their transcript for four years after the start of the probationary period, regardless of the length of probation. The new policy also applies retroactively to alumni, who previously could still have the indication of Pro II on their transcripts even if the probationary period started late in their freshman year.

President of Iceland Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson visited the Hill for a two-day dialogue concerning government, business and media leaders from the eight Arctic Council countries. After the Tufts Republicans announced that Herman Cain had canceled his appearance set for earlier this month, the group booked Karl Rove, former senior advisor and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, who last week spoke about his White House career. NBC Nightly News anchor and managing editor Brian Williams discussed his career, entertainment journalism and the upcoming elections last week for the seventh annual Edward R. Murrow Forum on Issues in Journalism. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick will give a lecture tonight on immigration reform at 8:00 p.m. in Cohen Auditorium as the keynote speaker for the 2012 Merrin Distinguished Lecture Series.

Students also pushed to change the marijuana policy at Tufts this semester in an attempt to separate it from the alcohol policy and bring it more in line with Massachusetts state policy. Although the TCU Senate, Tufts University Police Department, Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman and University President Anthony Monaco approved the policy change, a referendum intended for this election cycle did not go forward after the CSL pointed out that implementation of this change might violate federal policy, causing the university to lose federal funding. Tufts Students for Sensible Drug Policy will continue to push for reform.

Tobias Reeuwijk / The Tufts Daily

TCU branches wrap up semester of initiatives The TCU Senate in February launched the monthly TCU Newsletter as a means of providing students with relevant information about upcoming events and initiatives within the Tufts community. The first issue was sent in an email to the entire undergraduate student body, and a second was sent to students who opted in to subscribe to later editions. The TCU Senate in March rejected a resolution that would have encouraged the university and campus groups to interpret the non-discrimination policy in a way that allows religious groups to choose leaders who reflect their views. Several members of the body expressed the belief that the resolution was proposed as a response to controversy surrounding the Tufts

Admissions rates once again hit an all-time low

William Butt / The Tufts Daily

the position this summer, replacing Dean of Academic Affairs for Arts and Sciences Andrew McClellan, who will return to teaching in the Art History Department. She will work alongside Dean of Academic Affairs for Arts and Sciences James Glaser. At The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Professor of International Politics Vali Nasr (F ’84, LA ’83) is leaving the Hill to take up a post as dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University this summer. Nasr has served on the Fletcher faculty since 2007. Leila Fawaz, the Issam M. Fares professor of Lebanese and Eastern Mediterranean Studies and founding director of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies, will leave her position as director of the Fares Center at the end of this year. Fawaz plans to return to the faculty and focus on research.

The Office of Undergraduate Admissions at the end of March announced its admissions decisions for Tufts’ Class of 2016, which had an acceptance rate of 21 percent, the lowest in Tufts’ history. Despite an

Christian Fellowship, which has faced discrimination complaints from students barred from serving on its leadership board. The TCU Judiciary in February revamped the club re-recognition process in an attempt to clarify which student groups are currently active and to keep all club records current. The new system did not constitute a policy change but instead served to streamline the re-recognition process. Junior and TCU Vice President Wyatt Cadley was elected TCU President this month over Senator Logan Cotton, also a junior, in a race in which both sides extensively used social media platforms. The election saw a student voter turnout of 49.79 percent, up from last year’s 31 percent, and gave Cadley the win with 60 percent of the total vote to Cotton’s 40 percent.

applicant pool slightly smaller than last year’s, the acceptance rate was the second consecutive record low and the third straight year in which the acceptance rate has declined. Fewer students were accepted because of a change in the Office of Admissions’ expected yield rate due to higherthan-expected yield in recent years.

The Tufts Daily

Monday, April 30, 2012

News

New university programs underway After years of student and faculty campaigning, the Africana studies major will launch in the fall of 2013 under the umbrella of the new Critical Studies in Disparities and Diasporas (C2D) program. The Race and Ethnicity Working Group is proposing an Asian American studies minor, which would also be housed in the C2D program. The administration also launched the Office of Intercultural and Social Identities Programs in March as a space for students to bring attention to issues of racial, ethnic and identity diversity on campus. In the fall, the Geology department will change its name to the Earth and Ocean Sciences department in an effort to modernize and clarify its mission to the student body.

Lupe Fiasco, The White Panda and Guster perform at Spring Fling With a new budget of $150,000, Concert Board hosted Spring Fling this year featuring artists Lupe Fiasco, The White Panda and Guster. Although LMFAO was chosen as the Spring Fling headliner through a survey sent to students last December, Concert Board was later informed by LMFAO’s agent that, although Tufts outbid other promoters and universities for the group, the duo “got injured doing the wiggle” and had to cancel their spring tour. Rather than choosing one of the survey’s less popular options, Concert Board chose to book an artist with LMFAO’s “high energy.”

Tony Cannistra / The Tufts Daily

Transportation off the Hill The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) in January proposed several fare increases and service cuts in an attempt to close an estimated $161-million fiscal year 2013 budget deficit. The most recent MBTA plan was a 23-percent

fare hike for riders, the first fare increase since 2007. The MBTA’s $80-million Red Line construction project, which stopped weekend Red Line service outbound of Harvard Square beginning in November, was completed on March 4. The Red Line, including the station in

Davis Square, re-opened to travelers on March 10. The Tufts weekend shuttle to Harvard Square, which was implemented in the fall semester to compensate for the stoppage in Red Line service, ran for the entire spring semester because of its popularity among students.

Scott Tingley / The Tufts Daily

Tufts goes green

Scott Tingley / The Tufts Daily

Conferences and symposiums on the Hill The 27th Annual Norris and Margery Bendetson Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) International Symposium brought together students, intellectuals, activists and political figures to discuss “Conflict in the 21st Century.” The third annual Barack Obama and American D e m o c ra c y c o n f e re n c e brought together a collection of academics, activists and authors, including poet Sonia Sanchez, to reflect on healthcare, active citizenship and civic engagement through the lens of Obama’s presidency.

The two-day-long ChinaU.S. Symposium focused on leadership transitions in the United States and in China and on the two countries’ political and social relations, highlighting the fact that both nations are having presidential elections this year. Tufts Emerging Black Leaders held its eighth annual symposium, which addressed the issues of meritocracy, or lack thereof, in American society. The Tufts Energy Conference featured panelists from industrial, governmental and nonprofit organizations, as well as professors who discussed global and local energy issues and potential solutions to those problems.

Arts and Sciences faculty meetings and Arts, Sciences and Engineering faculty meetings became more environmentally friendly this school year by encouraging recycling, composting and reducing paper copies of agendas. The Department of Geology and the Facilities Services Department installed a geothermal well outside Lane Hall, which is being used to heat and cool a classroom.

This unit serves both as a green initiative and as a way for students to observe and learn about geothermal heating and cooling. Software technology company Greenbean Recycle installed a recycling machine in the Mayer Campus Center to encourage more students to recycle. Recyclers receive five cents for each bottle or can recycled. The new Campu s Sustainability Council has been meeting about ways to

continue promoting sustainability at Tufts. The Environmental Studies Program proposed a change to its curriculum that would allow students to explore an interdisciplinary core of courses in addition to more course requirements for their specific concentrations. The current curriculum has eight core courses and three electives in any one track, while the new proposal would have five core courses and five specialized courses.

Clarissa Sosin / The Tufts Daily

The Tufts Daily

News

Monday, April 30, 2012

Students in English course petition Tufts for change in meat products FREE-RANGE

continued from page 1

courtesy justin mccallum

Spirit of Color brought a blend of intricate hip-hop and smooth contemporary dance to its spring show, entitled “SOC Presents: And The Beat Drops,” in Cohen Auditorium this weekend.

the problem of free-range meat because it found this particular issue to be applicable to many students, according to Ongaro. “Even just a small difference of meat that we buy would make a huge environmental impact,” Meno said. In addition to the petition to introduce more free-range meat in the dining halls, students compiled an informational handout describing how environmentally damaging meat consumption is, as well as a pledge for people to give up meat once a week. Most places claiming to be free-range only use 80 percent free-range meat, according to Ongaro. The goal of the petition is not to convert the dining halls to free range all at once but rather to begin a process of change, she said. “It can be difficult, and we understand that,” Ongaro said. “And we know it’s expensive, but it’s important.” The petition is broadly modeled after schools like Northeastern University and University of Massachusetts Amherst, which already use free-range meat, according to Meno. The project is largely motivated by topics

on food justice that students have learned about in class this semester. As part of its unit on the industrialized food system, the class watched “Food, Inc.,” a 2008 documentary film directed by Emmy Awardwinning filmmaker Robert Kenner. After watching the documentary, Ongaro now only buys free-range meat. “They show you what mass-produced meat is like … essentially, it’s no longer food,” she said. “It’s definitely an eye-opening film and makes you feel awful about eating meat.” Daniels enrolled in the class to learn about environmentalism through a nonscientific lens and shares many of Ongaro’s sentiments. “The treatment of the animals was just really gross and shocking to see,” Daniels said. “It’s cool to do this and try and do more free-range at Tufts and try to change that system.” Daniels said that every person in the class is aiming to collect 20 signatures. Before Thursday’s event, they had obtained 196 signatures total. “Around 400 [signatures] would be nice to submit to Dining Services,” Ongaro said. “We’re hoping more people will come through.”

Student survivors of sexual assault unable to share stories in gallery GALLERY

continued from page 1

they were trying to protect Tufts instead of trying to let us have our voices.” She also said she was asked to change her text to what she believes is a much vaguer account of her experience. “They wanted me to say, ‘Finding a way to speak up and have a voice can help survivors heal,’ which I thought was extremely hypocritical considering they weren’t letting me use my voice at all,” she said. Bowdler cited confidentiality as a major problem for the exhibit and believed that Theodore did not correctly inform the students that their confidentiality would be at risk if they included specific details in their statements. “It’s not a simple matter of saying that it’s okay to me if you post [my photo and quote] and you can post it anonymously, because we [as the administration] have legal obligations that we’re bound by when people say that they were harmed,” Bowdler explained. “It’s not an attempt to silence. No one wants to silence anybody.” Another of the students involved also disapproved of the way the administration dealt with this situation. She said she was disappointed that she was not ultimately included in the exhibit and that she felt her contribution was censored by the decision. “There has to be a middle ground between not investigating sexual violence reports and going so far that survivors are silenced because if they speak up they may be forced to allow their case to be investigated,” she told the Daily anonymously. Bowdler responded to the second

Justin McCallum / The Tufts Daily

The administration decided not to feature the experiences of four Tufts students in a planned gallery to promote sexual assault awareness. anonymous source’s frustration by saying that she wanted to be fair in including either all or none of the pieces in the exhibit. “If we can’t post all of them in a way that the survivors wish, and we haven’t had time to do the work we need to do to talk to the survivors and investigate their

concerns, we’re not going to post any of them until we can post all of them,” Bowdler explained. Bowdler hopes that the pictures and quotes of Tufts students will be displayed in the future. She said the recent complications only caused a delay, rather than a cancellation, of the exhibit.

“I understand that the students are disappointed by this delay, and so am I,” Bowdler said. “I hope that students will understand that the delay is the result of our commitment to taking any concern about sexual violence very seriously and investigating complaints thoroughly.”

Students urge administration to speak out against persecution of Bahá’ís BAHÁ’Í

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International Relations [IR] program, but Tufts cannot call itself an IR-associated school if it does not actively pursue programs that support social justice.” The resolution called for the administration to recognize transcripts and credits from BIHE. The four TCU senators who abstained from voting did so because they believed the student government was not responsible for action of this sort, according to Shahidinejad. “It is neither the prerogative nor the duty of the undergraduate student government to make official statements about

foreign national governments,” Senior Senator Jonathan Danzig, who abstained from voting, said. “We could spend every single Senate meeting debating and passing nonbinding resolutions on human rights abuses around the world, or we could work on issues that affect Tufts and Tufts’ students, what student government is supposed to do.” Danzig said his decision to abstain from voting was based solely on the line of the resolution requesting that “Tufts University join the international academic community in voicing its concern over the Iranian government’s denial of the right to education to Bahá’í students.” Weeks said she believes it is

hard to oppose this issue from a student’s perspective. “I feel like a lot of students can empathize with what is happening in Iran, and it’s kind of natural to want to support their education as we are students ourselves,” she said. “I think it might encounter more opposition at the administrative level, just because accepting credits from this unaccredited university has practical implications.” Kolodner also acknowledged that the resolution might face some resistance at the administrative level. “It will be hard to get [the administration] to commit to things, but at the same time I feel like if they realize that this is an international issue

that has international support from a wide variety of figures, then it’s something they could use to gain footing and influence with by showing their commitment,” he said. The Bahá’í faith, a monotheistic religion founded in the 19th century in Iran, emphasizes the spiritual unity of humanity. “When the Bahá’í faith was started, over 20,000 Bahá’ís were martyred,” Shahidinejad said. “Throughout the years, Bahá’ís have continued to be persecuted in Iran, but the persecution has evolved. Today they are not allowed to own property or businesses, they are wrongfully imprisoned with no justified cause, and they do not have the right to a fair trial.”

Weeks acknowledged that there was still much more to be done in advancing the initiative beyond the Senate resolution. “This is a first, very preliminary step, and it’s exciting, but I think that we have a long way to go before the real fruits of the resolution come to pass,” she said. Kolodner encourages anyone interested in helping the cause to initiate contact with the Tufts Bahá’í group. “If people are passionate about helping other people, it just takes that individual initiative to make it happen,” he said. “And I think that’s what the Bahá’ís need now — people with individual initiative to really push those programs forward.”

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Locations on campus like the International House provide foreign students with a place to form friendships and break down cultural barriers.

International students face challenges in bringing diversity to Tufts by

Lily Sieradzki

Daily Editorial Board

Tufts boasts a large and varied international community, making up 16 percent of the undergraduate population. These students come from over 65 different countries, ranging from China to Ghana to Moldova. Their experience at Tufts is quite different from that of the average American student, as many face significant academic and social challenges within the Tufts community with which American-born students do not have to contend. The first and most daunting task for international students is adapting to American university culture. For many, understanding jokes and cultural references is difficult, especially when the context is unfamiliar. Language is another major hurdle, according to Puerto Rican freshman Giovanna Castro. “I was surprised that, even though I’ve been speaking English since I was six years old, the sudden change of speaking English all the time [was] hard,” Castro said. “It still is kind of hard. It’s easier for me to express myself in Spanish.” “My English level wasn’t ideal when I arrived,” Pablo Fernandez, an exchange student from Spain, said. “It was basically really difficult to understand people.” Freshman Adiel Pollydore is originally from Guyana, but she has lived in Beijing, China since the age of six and attended an international school there. She has noticed several cultural differences between China and the United States. “China is very crowded, and there are a lot of people, and there’s no such thing as a personal bubble of space,” she said. “Here, people are very much about, ‘this is my space, don’t step into it, give me my room’ — not all up in each other’s business all the time, which is an interesting part of the culture.” Pakistani senior Asad Badruddin pointed out another major change in culture he has experienced in America.

“Culturally, America, or at least college in America, is different in the sense that people here are a bit more individualistic,” he said. “[ That’s] not necessarily a negative thing, but they’re very focused towards their goals in life — I mean, everyone is, but more so here.” Academics in the United States and at Tufts are another aspect of life where many students need to adjust. Lecturer Lynn Stevens, director of the English 3 and 4 courses, teaches a first-year English course for international students called “Reading, Writing and Research.” She says that many international students are behind in these three areas. “Many students already come at a huge disadvantage,” Stevens said. “They have huge amounts of text to read, arguments to write … and their educational system may not have provided them with an understanding of how to move forward in this field. This is true of U.S. students too, but [international students] particularly struggle.” “I’d never written papers longer than 600 words,” Badruddin said. “Writing papers three to five pages and longer was hard for the first couple of semesters.” Fernandez, who is a graduate of the University of Alcalá in Spain, noticed differences in American students’ academic expectations. “It’s really different, because everyone expects to get an A, and having an A or a B+, 90 percent of people could have it,” he said. “In Spain, I would say about 20 percent of people get a top grade. It really shocked me.” Food is another important part of Chinese culture that Pollydore misses. “Food is a big part of it, because eating burgers and pasta and French fries — the stuff that Dewick has for lunch sometimes — I eat that when I’m at home around once every two weeks,” she said. “When people here say they’re going to eat Chinese food, it’s not actually Chinese food, that’s American Chinese food.” Many international students par-

ticipate in International Orientation (IO), which provides an opportunity to meet and form friendships with other students going through the same transition process. According to Jane Etish-Andrews, the director of the International Center, it is a starting point for students to build strong relationships, both between international students and between international students and Americans. “At International Orientation, we include Americans, so coming into it, you’re already a part of that community,” she said. “It is a truly bonding experience for new students.” “I was able to meet a lot of students who were going through the same thing as me,” Pollydore said. “They were getting used to being in college, but also being in college in a country that wasn’t their home country.” Sophomore Michelle Choi, who is from Korea but has lived in the United States for eight years, is an active participant in IO. She was part of the program as a freshman, served as a host advisor this year and will coordinate it this coming summer. She sees benefits, but also drawbacks, to the experience. “I think it goes both ways, at least from my experience,” she said. “You meet a lot of people before school starts as a freshman, and that’s a comforting thing ... you’re making the transition a lot faster. But at the same time, it could be limiting ... Obviously some people do branch out, but some just don’t.” According to Choi, one negative stereotype about international students on the Hill is that they isolate themselves within the wider Tufts community. While this tendency may come from seeking comfort in those with similar backgrounds or experiences, Choi says that this disunity is detrimental to everyone involved, because it furthers a lack of understanding. “It is true that ... a lot of the international students tend to stick together and form a separate community [within] see INTERNATIONAL, page 6

Every mother likes to brag about her kid. I’m not sure if it’s a competitive thing — a one-upmanship with the other neighborhood parents, or what — but her biggest nightmare would be to have her bouncing bundle of joy grow up to have a cringeworthy job title. She’s probably the one who proudly slapped the Tufts bumper sticker on the back of the car when you got accepted to college, or who latched onto that one time you mentioned you maybe wanted to become a lawyer and now tells the grocery clerk about your legal ambitions. The majority of the careers I’ve researched for this column have been quirky, and let’s face it — coming out to your friends and relatives as a golf ball SCUBA diver or a pet acupuncturist might not be a picnic, particularly if they think you’re on an engineering track. But those can’t be as hard a sell as being a hooker. Actually, it’s not the world’s oldest profession. In fact, it’s only been a position as long as the lumber industry has been semiautomated. Hookers are the people responsible for loading and hauling logs in cable yarding systems. It’s a physically demanding job (tee-hee). In all seriousness, though, you work with a forestry team that fells timber and removes trees via helicopter. Each logger has a specific niche, from scaling and chopping down trees to driving trucks to haul the lumber. As a hooker, you make sure the logs are removed safely. The helicopter lowers a cable, you thread the logs onto a huge hook, and then you’re in charge of making sure everyone’s out of the way (falling trees present a slight safety concern). According to the U.S. Department of Labor, hookers (if you’re Googling, make sure to type “LOG hookers”) earn $17,000 to $38,000 annually, with an education level that generally tops out with a certificate (Tufts is not, unfortunately, listed in the top 50 schools for log hooker education, though apparently Harvard has a decent forestry program). As deforestation progresses, I imagine the job prospects will fall off some. Of course, hookers work in conservation, too, thinning forests to prevent wildfires and maintaining national parks and nature reserves. If you’ve got a green thumb but don’t think hooker is the right job for you to put your talents to use, you could become a weed farmer. No, no, don’t get too excited! I’m not endorsing marijuana usage, and cultivation is still very illegal in Massachusetts (unless House Bill 1371 passes in the next committee session). Weed farmers are those who purposely grow pests most people want out of their gardens. They can then sell these to universities or agricultural schools to do research on weeds. Indeed, there is a Weed Science Society of America that publishes three peer-reviewed journals and is devoted to “fostering awareness of weeds” and promoting “extension outreach activities related to weeds.” Together, these research partnerships investigate the effects of herbicides, soil composition and other factors on weed growth. Weeds are an important part of the ecosystem, and farmers are increasingly encountering species of ragweed and other unintentional crops that are resistant to herbicides. Weed control is a burgeoning field, particularly with the surge in the popularity of organic cultivation. Whoever came up with these job titles is either completely oblivious to the possibilities for innuendo (which I could exploit further, except that I only have one skinny column) or has a sense of humor — I can’t decide which. I don’t recommend telling Mom you want to be a hooker or a weed farmer, though, unless you’re planning to give her gray hair or cardiac arrest this Mother’s Day. Alyson Yee is a senior majoring in biology and French. She can be reached at Alyson. Yee@tufts.edu.

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International students address stereotypes, integration on campus INTERNATIONAL

continued from page 5

Tufts. To some extent, they are conscious of the fact that they are segregating themselves from the rest of the community,” she said. “The stereotypes that American students have of international students are there because they don’t necessarily have a chance to interact with international students.” International students are aware of the divide that is consequently created. “It’s like two different worlds, my American friends and my international friends,” Castro said. Many international students participate in clubs or groups pertaining to their specific country or culture, in addition to international programs such as IO and the International Club. Badruddin cites the importance of this form of cultural unity, but the necessity for integration as well. “I think there’s definitely a place for groups relating to specific nationalities or ethnicity or race, but I also think that everyone needs to make an individual effort to challenge themselves ... with the situations they put themselves in,” he said. Pollydore, who is currently the downhill freshman representative to the International Club, sees the situation a bit differently. From her experience, the international community balances solidarity and assimilation into the Tufts community. “I think that within the international community, when we’re together, we’re very strong,” she said. “But I feel like people really do make an effort to integrate themselves into other parts of Tufts’ campus.” Another pervasive stereotype about international students at Tufts is that they are significantly wealthier than the typical American student. EtishAndrews acknowledges that this perception is based in reality. “For our undergrad students, it is quite expensive to come to Tufts, so if you’re not on any financial aid, you

need to show that you’re able to come as an American would,” she said. “I think there is some reputation among international students developing throughout the country that they’re coming from wealthy families, and there’s some truth to that.” Castro agrees that the stereotype is true in many cases. “Most of the international kids I know are really rich. And it makes sense, because they’re studying abroad,” she said. However, Etish-Andrews also points out significant advances over the recent years in the availability of financial aid for international students, which enhances the internal diversity of the international community itself. “With that mix, as it has grown over the years, you have the opportunity to really interact with students who would never have gotten here without some type of financial assistance from Tufts,” she said. “That population enriches what is already a very interesting population.” The demographics of the international community have changed over the years and continue to change, especially in terms of region of origin. According to both Stevens and EtishAndrews, there has been a recent influx of international students from Asia, especially China. Both see this change as reflective of larger changes in the world political and economic situation. Because of their non-American backgrounds, international students can bring a unique perspective both to Tufts and to American society. “Tufts does create this sort of bubble, and you can go to university and not understand what’s outside the bubble,” said Badruddin. “Coming from a different country with different problems gives you a perspective on what’s outside that bubble.” Castro has experienced this, particularly when it comes to the American political situation and its flaws. “I think I can see a lot of problems with the United States that a typical American [wouldn’t] ... My perspective,

especially coming from a place that’s been colonized by the United States, [is that] the United States is very political,” she said. These perspectives reinforce an existing academic framework at Tufts that emphasizes international relations and a general global outlook. According to Stevens, the insight that international students can provide in this setting is often useful for both international and American students. “[International students] bring an opportunity for U.S. students to learn beyond the limit of their perspectives and find out that not everyone in the world approaches things the way you do,” she said. “Meeting international students makes them curious about global issues in a personal way and talk about controversial issues in a meaningful way.” Etish-Andrews agrees, citing the importance of relationships between international and American students in adding to both academic and nonacademic global learning. “If you become friends or interact with international students, you learn so much about an area of the world, or a country, an ethnicity, a religious group ... If you’re talking about something happening in Turkey, and Turkish students are in the class or part of that environment, it can enrich the experience,” she said. Pollydore has experienced this knowledge exchange firsthand. She says that in addition to bringing new understanding to American students, international students go through their own learning process from being at Tufts and in the United States. “I think that as an international student on campus, you bring your experiences and your views and everything that you know and kind of weave that into the already existing global perspective on campus,” she said. “It facilitates good dialogue back and forth between international students and between American students. [International stu-

dents] shine light on issues pertaining to America just as much as we shine light on issues pertaining to our home countries.” For Castro, this learning is happening in a much more diverse atmosphere than she could have experienced in her country of origin. “Here ... it’s so much more open, in the sense that there are so many people, so much diversity. Puerto Rico is very homogeneous,” she said. “With my international and American friends, I’m finding out about their lives and their cultures, and who they are as people.” Fernandez mentioned several aspects of an open and diverse American society that he plans on bringing back with him to Spain. “Here, I’ve met people from almost all over the world,” he said. “I didn’t know that Tufts was such an accepting university for the homosexual and bisexual and LGBT movement ... now I know a bunch of sexually diverse people, and I understand their problems way better, and I support them.” Some, however, see room for improvement. Stevens thinks the Tufts administration could be more aware and proactive concerning the individual needs of international students. “There are some areas where international students are impacted more severely — there could be more sensitivity to their needs. They are so far from home and need help with the housing system and how to use their own voices for change,” she said. “It’s up to the Tufts administration to be sensitive. It’s up to faculty to be aware of international students in their classes.” Pollydore celebrates the level of national — as well as racial, socioeconomic and ethnic — diversity that Tufts has attained so far. But she thinks that it can still be improved. “I do feel like there’s more to be done, with regards to diversity, in a way that makes people more aware, excited and interested,” she said. “People are, but I feel that they could be more so.”

Find a mentor this summer and

Build career skills If you’re interested in having a Tufts alumnus/a mentor you this summer, register by April 30. The Connecting Alumni and Student Experiences (CASE) Network pairs Tufts undergraduate, graduate and professional students with alumni mentors for an enriching summer experience. The CASE Network is offered in Boston, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.! Interested students must register by April 30 and submit an application by May 15th, 2012. For more information visit activecitizen.tufts.edu/casenetwork or contact Rachel Szyman, Tisch Program Coordinator, rachel.szyman@tufts.edu.

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Monday, April 30, 2012

International students address stereotypes, integration on campus INTERNATIONAL

continued from page 5

Find a mentor this summer and

Arts & Living

tuftsdaily.com

Interview | Jeremy Goulder

Producer Jeremy Goulder promotes social activism in ‘#ReGENERATION’ Tufts alum and film producer discusses newest project by

Zachary Drucker

Daily Editorial Board

In the aftermath of the Occupy movement, “#ReGENERATION,” a documentary exploring today’s youth and contemporary social activism, promises to promote discussion among America’s future leaders. The Tufts Daily’s Zach Drucker had the opportunity to speak with Jeremy Goulder (LA ’00), a Los Angeles-based producer of the film, regarding “#ReGENERATION’s” lengthy gestation and production process. Interested students will have the chance to see a one-night only premiere of the film on May 3 at 7:30 p.m. at the AMC Loews Harvard Square 5 Theater. Zach Drucker: What did you do on a daily basis for this film? Jeremy Goulder: ‘Producer’ is kind of an elastic term. This project has been in production for seven years. My brother [Joel Goulder] and I and our company, Engine 7 films, have been involved since the very beginning. Our role was everything from planning who we’re going to interview to creating the story that we wanted to tell. Equipment, planning and preparation: Those all fall under the realm of producer. ZD: How was this idea originally hatched? JG: The director [Phillip Montgomery,] the other producers and I started as friends before working together. Back in 2005 — after Bush had been reelected and Hurricane Katrina had just happened — we looked at all the issues that

David Shankbone via Flickr Creative Commons

Producer Jeremy Gould met with Kalle Lasn, the man behind the Occupy movement were taking place in our society and the level of activism. And we wondered, “Why weren’t people doing more?” Because we were all feeling such frustration internally. We looked at some of the issues of the ‘60s and ‘70s and some of the political activism you saw in the streets, and, in our opinion, the issues [in 2005] were just as grave. But we weren’t seeing that public outcry, so we asked, “Why is that?” It really started as

a conversation and exploration. ZD: How did you recruit people like Noam Chomsky, Talib Kweli, Ryan Gosling and Howard Zinn to participate in the film, and what was it like to work with them? JG: To be a producer, you can’t take see INTERVIEW, page 8

Music Review

With ‘The Money Store,’ Death Grips masterfully blends punk, rap by

Andrew Garsetti

Contributing Writer

Buy an album in its original form today, and it’s almost certain to bear a “Parental Advisory” label in the corner. Almost every song on the radio

The Money Store Death Grips Epic comes from a single or album that boasts the warning. It has become an honor bestowed so frequently that it has essentially lost all of its meaning. Nevertheless, in the case of “The Money Store” — the first official LP of hardcore/punk/rap outfit Death Grips — the stamping is well-earned. Those already familiar with Death Grips won’t be particularly surprised by its content, but rapper Stefan Burnett (MC Ride), drummer Zach Hill, of “Hella” fame, and Andy Morin (Flatlander) have created one of the most vile, aggressive and shockingly catchy albums in recent memory. The dark mess of energy present in last year’s excellent debut mixtape, “Exmilitary,” is still alive and well here and at certain points is able to reach even higher levels of distorted violence. Burnett’s rusty bellows continue to nestle perfectly into place between Hill and Morin’s magnificently abrasive soundscapes. These elements

Joe Perez via Flickr

Death Grips has built a strong fan base since its formation two years ago. notwithstanding, “The Money Store” is rich in hooks — a baffling prospect considering the album clocks in at a mere 41 minutes. The chaotic production is a mucky cauldron of drum machines, harsh synths and various field recordings (one of which is a Venus Williams post-swing grunt on “The Fever (Aye Aye)”). Hill and Morin’s dedication to finding the weirdest and most obscure sounds pays dividends: Each of the 13 tracks has a distinct personality, but they end up sounding unified by their apparent ugliness. “Punk Weight”

begins with an accelerated sample of a Bollywood tune but gets a builds in production until, after forty-five seconds, it explodes into a cacophony of dense beats. The pathos here is disturbingly visceral. Burnett’s lyrics — when comprehensible — are a compost heap of viciousness, paranoia and anarchy that would befit the mind of a deranged transient. While he’s more restrained on this album than on “Exmilitary,” the fire is definitely still see DEATH, page 8

Jacob Passy and Alex Kaufman | Sassy Cinema

Do you believe in magic?

t’s been quite the semester, folks, and for our second-to-last column, we’re going back to our roots: Disney. Who grew up without seeing at least one Disney movie, memorizing all the lyrics and running around the house waiting to meet Mickey Mouse at Disney World? This time, we’re sure it’s not just us. Disney has made itself integral to childhood and has reinvented itself to stay current with animation and digital technologies. But what makes Disney different than other animation studios? To put it simply: the magic. Disney was famous for producing “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937), the first feature-length full-color animated movie, which is still regarded as one of the all-time greatest animated films. Even more importantly, it had music. Disney’s magic comes largely from the strength of its songs and scores, and classics like “Some Day My Prince Will Come” (1937) and “When You Wish upon a Star” (1940) from Pinocchio are still household songs today. In each of Disney’s animated classics, there is at least a song or two that the moviegoer will be singing after the film is over. As the film industry grew, Disney made its magical mark with innovative and catchy melodies that impeccably captured the moment. When we hear “A Whole New World” (1992), we are instantaneously transported to another time and place. Meanwhile, “Beauty and the Beast” (1991) teaches us that we must learn to see past the superficial traits of a person. However, we would be remiss to discuss Disney’s animated films without talking about their animation. What has also distinguished Disney’s entries from the canon of animated films is their organic quality. The hand-drawn imagery reflected the themes of magic and wonder that were found within these films. With the advent of computer-generated animation about twenty years ago, the animated film was forever changed. While Pixar’s films bring a wholly different sense of beauty and awe, they cannot attempt to recreate the breathtaking moments from the classic Disney canon of animated films. Why? Films like “Finding Nemo” (2003) and “Up” (2009) bring the same type of heartwarming stories found at the heart of classics like “The Little Mermaid” (1989). Yet the animation is too perfect, complex and life-like. Although these films retain the splendor of animation, computer animation is too referential to the real world. Hand-drawn animation’s magic lies within its impossibility. The images that these artists create may look like real life -- but you know you can’t find them there. When the Fairy Godmother turns Cinderella into a princess in a blue dress, you suspend your disbelief. The same is not true of movies like “Finding Nemo.” These films’ animation is not heralded just for its beauty, but also for how it can so closely recreate the world we live in. Disney’s recent animated offerings, such as “Tangled” (2010), bring a new style to the viewers. We consider these films to be “new classics.” Computer animation may lose the magic of hand-drawn films, but there’s still magic to be found. And with “Brave” (2012) on the horizon, it looks like Disney hopes to expand its canon of computer-generated films even further. That being said, there’s a reason why Disney continues to return to the hand-drawn films that it’s best at. Disney announced this past week that it is currently in the process of creating a hand-drawn film to follow up its recent box-office success, “The Princess and the Frog” (2009). Computer animation may be the future of this genre, but there always will be room for more magic in our lives. Make classics “Part of Your World” (1989) by reliving the magic yourselves. After all, you don’t know what’s “Just Around the Riverbend” (1995). A Disney classic could be the perfect cure.

Jacob Passy is a junior majoring in international relations. He can be reached at Jacob.Passy@tufts.edu. Alex Kaufman is a sophomore majoring in sociology. He can be reached at Alexander.Kaufman@tufts.edu.

The Tufts Daily

Arts & Living

‘#ReGENERATION’ documents social activism among today’s youth

Death Grips’s vulgar, pathostinged lyrics defy classification

INTERVIEW

DEATH

continued from page 7

“no” for an answer. But we got a lot of “no’s.” The turning point for us was Noam Chomsky. We called his office at [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] and Noam agreed to do a thirty-minute interview. He was the first of the bigname interviews that we got, and once Noam said “yes,” it made it that much easier to get the next one. Every big name you get on a project validates the project and says, “This is worthy of your participation.” Making this film changed my life. It forced us to hold a mirror up to ourselves. We’re every bit as much a part of society as everyone else. With Howard Zinn — who unfortunately has passed on — we sat down in his office at [Boston University], and it was amazing to sit across the table from a man who had such an amazing life, experience, history of social and political activism and education. It was easy to lose sight of the fact that we were making a film and just enjoy the moments we had along the way. ZD: Were there any specific shoots that stick out in your mind?

JG: Some of them were surprising. When we were interviewing Tucker Carlson, for example, I didn’t know what to expect. I’d always seen Tucker as more right-leaning, and I didn’t know if he would sing the same message as some of the left-leaning people we were speaking to. We wanted to have voices from the

continued from page 7

Pascal Maramis via Flickr Creative Commons

Goulder’s documentary looks at how civil protest has evolved throughout the last decade right and the left, but he ended up saying the exact same thing that all the other people were saying. He was also hilarious. At one point we had to break the interview because my brother and I were laughing so hard. But you can learn from everyone. We would sit down with someone who was not an academic — someone on the street — and they would share something unbelievably prolific. ZD: How did the film change in scope with the development of the Occupy movement? JG: Occupy developed while we were in production — we started in 2005. One of the interviewees we have in the film, Kalle Lasn, who works with Adbusters in Vancouver, was

the man who actually branded the Occupy movement. The first two acts of the film start with the question, “What are the influences on our culture that are creating this sense that we can’t do anything to change the systems that are in place?” And then, you start to see this answer coming from the Occupy movement. The goal of the film was to create a conversation and encourage people to look at their own lives, look at their communities and identify something they feel passionately about and act on that issue. There are so many different reasons why people participate in the Occupy movement. it’s not any one issue. So I think it’s the perfect way to end the film.

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Monday, April 30, 2012

there, with lines like “ankles tied to cinder blocks” in the aforementioned “The Fever.” However, the occasional moments of poignancy that come out of nowhere make the lyrics all the more rewarding with lines like “My existence is a momentary lapse of reason” from “Hacker.” Burnett has an uncanny ability to write hooks in the face of all this discordance. “I’ve Seen Footage” recalls a chopped and screwed version of Salt-n-Pepa’s “Push It,” but its creepy synths and dense howls make it seem like a rabid RZA has broken into the studio and decided to shout his thoughts over the mix. “Get Got” is a post-apocalyptic take on ‘80s synth-pop, a retrofitted maelstrom of screeches and white noise that’s anchored by Burnett’s infectious repetition of the title’s two words. The vocals’ ostensible brusqueness isn’t a ploy to alienate those giving the album a first listen but rather a brutal challenge. Being able to discern the moments of melodic clarity takes a keen ear, but it can become extraordinarily satisfying with patience. “Hacker’s” ominous chorus, “I’m in your neighborhood/ I know the first three numbers,” is tempered by its manically contrastive verse, whose backing beat evokes the early, filthy tracks of LCD Soundsystem. Likewise, the staccato grunts on “Double Helix” are like backbreaking snare hits that smatter Burnett’s overflowing,

Joe Perez via Flickr

The Death Grips performs in true thrash style. stream-of-conscious lyricisms. Perhaps the most striking thing about this album is the label it’s been released on. Epic Records, home of artists like Celine Deon and Ted Nugent, made one of the boldest moves in recent music history and signed Death Grips for both of their planned record releases this year. The refreshing move by L.A. Reid is one that will hopefully set a precedent for the rest of country’s conservative major labels. I’m unequivocal in my belief that this is one of music’s most original sounds of the past decade, if not longer. Death Grips’ dystopian displays of rampant heathenism have set a new level for musical misanthropy — they’re bleak and grotesque but fundamentally listenable. It’s the future that nobody wants to be a part of, but everyone has to be.

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Monday, April 30, 2012

Censoring survivors

The Tisch Library earlier this month hosted a gallery to bring awareness to issues of sexual assault as a part of Sexual Assault Awareness month. The gallery’s title was “Faces oM Survivors: Voices Reclaimed,” but according to some of the survivors meant to be featured, their voices were silenced rather than reclaimed. Four undisclosed female Tufts students were approached by the Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO) staff and asked to write about their experiences as survivors of sexual assault. Their stories were supposed to be featured alongside a photograph of a part of each woman’s body, which would not reveal any identifying characteristics. But the piece was never featured in the gallery, because some of the statements referenced specific allegations that would have required the university to conduct an investigation before displaying them. Discussing issues of sexual assault requires the utmost sensitivity, and the administration failed in this regard. Instead, four women were deprived of the chance to share their stories due to poor planning and com-

munication by the administration. The public airing of sexual assault experiences, no matter what the context, is almost certain to run into some legal red tape. These experiences are extremely personal, emotional and controversial, and the university should have made clear to the survivors long before the planned gallery was created the level of specificity that was acceptable in their accounts. Senior Director of Health and Wellness Services Michelle Bowdler’s claim that this issue only surfaced a few days before the display was set to open is not sufficient. Perhaps more problematic is the fact that one of the students was allegedly asked to rewrite her story into something that would be less likely to require a university investigation. Although the Daily is not privy to the specific details that the student who originally submitted the text was asked to edit out of her submission, she has said that it was due to the fact that her statement specifically mentioned Tufts. The edited version would have disassociated the testimony from the university in a way that the

student felt diminished its authenticity. This is especially concerning because when it comes to limiting free speech, Tufts’ administration has an inconsistent history. This issue is also disturbing from a moral standpoint. It deprives these students of the opportunity to express themselves that they deserve. These women were told they would have the chance to display both their experiences and bodies and were deprived of it at the last second. The gallery was also meant to provide a voice for the narratives of the abused, and it has managed to do the opposite — the survivors were silenced rather than empowered. And displaying their stories would have made a much more powerful statement to the Tufts community, because most of the other pictures and statements were from non-Tufts survivors. This gallery would have been an excellent opportunity to showcase the voices of sexual assault survivors, and the administration’s failure to take advantage of it is an affront both to survivors and to this community.

Cousens Gym by advancing to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament and Lupe Fiasco ensured that the show would go on all night. Junior Wyatt Cadley was elected TCU president, and sophomore diver Johann Schmidt captured the program’s first national championship since 1982. University President Anthony Monaco told the Daily that he is focused on tackling “big world problems” as his first year in Medford comes to a close, and the Tufts community learned that Cornell University dean David Harris would soon follow in Jamshed Bharucha’s footsteps as provost and senior vice president on the Hill. In just the past week, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams and former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove visited Tufts to share their experiences, and Governor Deval Patrick will speak on the Hill this evening. Reporting on these events and hundreds of others has been a highlight of our spring, but the stories we print are just one part of the Daily experience. If you’ll forgive the cliche from my sportswriting days, the Daily is a team — a team of writers and editors, photographers and producers, full-time students and fast friends who come together to make each of our 60 issues possible.

It has been my honor and pleasure to work with our 117 masthead members and countless contributors throughout the past semester, and I am eternally grateful to each of them for their efforts. I want to especially thank our production and copy editing departments for contending with temperamental computers and a server gone rogue — technological issues that kept us in the office into the wee hours of many mornings but that often inspired them to rise well beyond their normal call of duty. Before I bid you farewell and let you return to your books and notes, on behalf of everyone at the Daily, I want to thank you, our readers. However you take in our content — in print or online, via laptop or iPhone, in the back row of Barnum 008 or the comfy chairs in Brown & Brew — we appreciate your time and hope that the Daily has enhanced your life at Tufts. And remember, if you ever feel the urge to join the Daily, the opportunity to write, edit or help produce each issue is an email to daily@tuftsdaily.com or a visit to Curtis Hall away.

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Letter from the Editor Dear Readers, It’s that time of year again — the time when we students are equal parts anxious about finals and eagerly awaiting summer break, when the New England weather gods can’t decide if 50s or 70s are preferable and when Red Sox fans on campus and around the Boston area fret endlessly about their team’s apparently inevitable demise. Our spring opened with a flood and closed with a Fling — and before I go any further, I want to thank the members of Guster for their shoutout to the Daily on Saturday. Many of us have spent more than 20,000 minutes in our temporary home on the second floor of Curtis Hall this semester, minutes that we would not trade for anything but that we could certainly now use to catch up on our sleep. Though you won’t find a Sudoku to distract you from your calculus problem set or history reading on Tuesday, we will be back on May 20 with our Commencement issue and back to our usual schedule to help you through all of your staring-at-the-minute-hand lectures in the fall. Since our first issue of the spring on Jan. 19, Tufts Friends of Israel and Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine waged a spirited debate about the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict, the women’s basketball team thrilled fans at

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Monday, April 30, 2012

The Tufts Daily

Op-Ed

Our pledge to Tufts by

Emily Friedman and Alex Stein

As former president of the Inter-fraternity Council (IFC) and an executive member of Panhellenic, we would like to share our reflection on Lauren Border’s op-ed “Pledging to never rush,” which was published on Wednesday, April 25. This response is not ours alone: Entire chapters and over 50 individuals sent us statements to incorporate. Criticism is crucial to our chapters’ success; we especially appreciate criticism that is constructive and grounded in accurate information. To that end, we offer a meditation on the unique challenges that Greek organizations face and the measures our community takes to answer those challenges and strive for improvement. But first, let us clarify some misconceptions: “Pledging to never rush” questions the validity of Greek philanthropy. The overwhelming success of our community service and fundraising is well documented, a view the Leonard Carmichael Society’s (LCS) copresidents, sophomores Shayna Schor and Zachary Michel, echoed in an unsolicited endorsement: “At its core, a Greek organization is about service to its members and the community. Throughout its 54 years on campus, LCS has benefitted tremendously from the Tufts Greek community, [which] come[s] together to give back in an invaluable way; their unparalleled contribution is what enables us to help the citizens of Medford and Somerville.” As with any organized group, it’s important for fraternity and sorority members to be self-conscious of their personal relation to collective ideas — but our collective impact through philanthropy and community service is without question. What is sometimes harder to qualify is how our funds raised and hours volunteered reflect our values as individuals who also identify with larger groups. Border seems to perceive the loss of distinguishing identity traits as a necessary consequence of group membership — at least

where letter organizations are concerned. Let’s break down the generalizations about Greek life that enable this mentality. Junior Chris Blackett of Alpha Epsilon Pi, wrote, “You cannot use catch-all descriptions for Greeks because our interests are as varied as non-affiliated students. When you join Greek life, your interests and activities don’t suddenly contract … fraternities and sororities do not pressure you to conform to a certain identity or attitude. Rather, they provide dozens of brothers and sisters who encourage your differences, attend events that matter to you, support efforts that you support, take the time to learn who you are and respect your identity completely.” Each organization is the sum of its individuals, not the other way around. We hope to shed light on the unique opportunities and connections Greek life makes possible. We also take our responsibility to the Tufts community seriously: We have to be honest about ongoing difficulties, and though we take issue with the way in which Lauren voiced her opinion, we commend her bravery for sharing a contentious viewpoint and intend to answer those of her points that raise valid concerns. So what are the tangible benefits of membership, beyond looking fly in our Spring Fling pinnies? A senior brother of Delta Tau Delta said, “Membership in a fraternity is a unique bond that ties dozens of individuals, allowing them to collaborate and help each other become better men. I’ve relied on my brothers countless times … and I’m grateful that I have a large group of people that have experience and can help me make better decisions.” Senior Lauren Kidd of Chi Omega wrote, “Chi Omega is the sole reason I decided not to transfer freshman year. The support of my sisters has been overwhelming in times of need and helped me [become] the confident woman I am today.” These sentiments are representative of the feedback we’ve received from our peers. The values we share are constantly evolv-

ing, and we occupy an interesting area in social progress: Today’s organizations are the product of hundreds of years of tradition, yet the common impetus of our traditions is to innovate and achieve positive social impact. Fraternities are historically based on the principle of exclusion, insofar as the first fraternities were founded by members of ostracized spiritual groups who sought refuge in secret societies (this accounts for modern multi-cultural and faith-based chapters; it also sheds light on the entrenched division between brotherhoods and sisterhoods, if we acknowledge that these societies’ 18th century founders were not versed in feminism). Now we’ve arrived at a time to retain the values that still inspire us, while creating new opportunities to form a cohesive community. Wednesday’s article focused on gender inequality fostered by the Greek system. There are systemic problems in our organizations that we are constantly working to resolve. But the persistence of these issues should not overshadow hallmarks of progress. A senior in Alpha Phi said, “As a member of the queer community at Tufts, Alpha Phi and rugby (two all-female groups) are probably the two places where I feel my bisexuality is a non-issue … I have never felt pressure to conform to gender stereotypes or express myself in a certain way. I see these groups [as] safe space[s] for women to be whoever they are without fear of being stereotyped or ridiculed.” Emily Shaw, a senior and member of ATO of Massachusetts, was the first woman to serve on Tufts’ IFC executive board, and after her term as vice president of philanthropy, was asked to assume the responsibility of IFC president. Gendered double standards are not the only problem we are committed to overcoming. Recent news proves that hazing is still a problem nationwide; as a community we are not naive to that, but under the direction of Su McGlone, our new Greek director, tremendous progress has been made to promote

non-hazing practices and mitigate high-risk behavior overall. Katherine Marchand, a freshman, said she is “a proud sister of Chi Omega … During my pledging process, I was never forced to do anything I didn’t want to do. I never felt degraded, worthless, or part of a single identity. However, Lauren Border’s article made me feel these things. To be placed under the stereotype of an ‘incredibly stupid girl who is always ready to service frat guys’ was upsetting and degrading.” As for this op-ed’s co-authors, in our four years of dedication to our campus and chapters, we’ve come to expect our peers to hold us and our fellow Greeks to high standards, and also to celebrate our diversity and achievements. Another member of our graduating class, Bryn Kass of Chi Omega, does the latter eloquently: “We are not carbon copies, not statues, not Barbie dolls. We are humans, athletes, singers, dancers, comedians, presidents, artists, advocates, travelers, stylists. We are liberals and conservatives, introverts and extroverts, engineers and English majors. Everyone has their place and their role, and every time another sister graduates, there is a small hole that will never be filled, but bittersweetly remembered and loved.” Our love for our Greek families does not end at graduation. To us, Greek life is in many ways the foundation of who we’ve become as students. It’s what will keep us connected to Tufts as alumni. As Chris Blackett says, “Fraternities and sororities aren’t for everyone. Nobody said they were. But for the brothers and sisters who have discovered the benefits of Greek life, they are indispensable.” Emily Friedman is a senior majoring in Spanish. Rho Gamma for the Panhellenic Council, she is a sister of Chi Omega. Alex Stein is a senior majoring in English. A former president of the Interfraternity Council, he works for the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life and is a brother of Delta Tau Delta.

I’m a ‘stereotyping, ignorant outsider’ who is still pledging to never rush by

Lauren Border

I’ve spent the last few days sitting back analyzing reactions to my first op-ed, and I began to realize that the severe backlash I was experiencing was often due to people inadvertently expanding upon my ideas or misinterpreting them altogether. Though I still agree with the analysis of my original article, I do apologize that my words may have caused anger. I ask that you read the following with an open mind to gain a better understanding of my original intentions, which was to create a space for intellectual discussion and ideological debate about the principles of Greek life. First, many people have called me a “hypocrite” for enjoying the social scene at Tufts, but spending nights at these institutions with members of my community whom I like and respect is more important to me than the weak message single-handedly boycotting fraternities would send. I hope we can continue to debate general concepts behind Greek life on campus without feeling I am making “malicious accusations against [Greek members] personally,” as one Facebook status suggested. I feel disheartened that my choice of words made people feel defensive, as many sincerely believed I used generalities in my op-ed to show how I think members of Greek life are homogenous. This was not

at all my intention. Feminism, in itself, is the movement to deconstruct stereotypes and expected societal roles. Many outraged responses were written under the mistaken assumption that I myself believed the stereotypes of the “dumb sorority girl” or “beer chugging frat dude.” My point here is not that all people in Greek life act a certain way but that being labeled and stereotyped are often unfair side effects to conforming to a collective identity that is based upon biological sex. I wanted to show that members of Greek life are often subjected to unwarranted labels. Did your organization come to mind when I used the provocative words “hot b---h” sorority or “date rape” fraternity? If so, you’ve already been subjected to false stereotyping. I think the backlash against my mere mention of the stereotyping that occurs shows just how sensitive members of Greek life can be to this issue, because they may have already faced being unjustly labeled. Another criticism that was voiced that grew out of misinterpretation of this same idea specifically concerned the philanthropic aspect of Greek organizations. Unlike one op-ed stated, I did not suggest that “it should be obvious that Tufts’ Greek houses don’t do real philanthropy.” With my line, “Some say they’re known for philanthropy, and, well, really?” the key words here are “known for,” as I was speaking solely about the reputa-

tions these organizations have on campus. It was never my intention to undermine the great work that many Greek organizations have done on and off campus. I simply wished to suggest how the social scene at Tufts might not depict them in this light. Another criticism I faced was that it was “disgusting” that as an “uninformed outsider” I “think [I] know about something [I’m] not a part of.” I never claimed to have the same lived experience as a member of a sorority/fraternity. But I still do actively experience the effects of Greek life, and I openly expressed my opinions from an outsider’s point of view. Whether or not people agree with my particular perspective, the outsider perspective, statistically speaking, is also the majority perspective at our school. To say that we can’t criticize a system because we aren’t a part of it is dangerous. I urge you to think of where we would be as a society if people were to abide by this logic. I never once claimed to have knowledge that every organization at Tufts hazes, and I know that this is definitely not the case. I had wrongfully assumed that those organizations that are open about their non-hazing policy would realize that my criticisms do not apply to them. My argument on gendered hazing was intentionally vague as to allow the counter-argument that I had “no concrete stories/evidence”; I did not, and still do not, feel the need to “out” specific

organizations or betray people who shared their stories with me in confidence. What it really comes down to is that I did not join Greek life because of the way I believe it upholds the gender binary and gender roles and can be harmful to both men and women. And the fact that hazing exists in the general system is enough of a black mark for me to pledge to never rush. You may not share the same priorities that I do and feel differently because of it, and that’s fine: We all have the right to express our opinions in a civilized discussion, as were my intentions in publishing my op-ed. I do not wish to demolish the Greek system at Tufts. I wrote an article to the Daily to reach out to my peers on an issue I feel strongly about, because I believe the potential for the most social change begins with the student body. I imagine a Greek system with an effective zero-tolerance policy on hazing. I see a co-ed system that allows men and women to form strong relationships through the same organization, and one that effectively balances its values and philanthropy with its sociability. We have the power to change the system; I simply urge us to try. Lauren Border is a junior majoring in Spanish.

Correction In the April 26 Op-Ed entitled “Greek life? Yes. Really.” the author, sophomore Phil Ballentine, wrote that Zeta Beta Tau (ZBT) brothers “raised more than $3,000 for Children’s Hospital Boston.” Members of ZBT clarified that the figure was $5,000. The photograph accompanying the April 27 Sports article “Jumbos prepare to fight for playoff lives in Maine” was incorrectly credited to Josh Berlinger. In fact, the photograph was taken by Scott Tingley.

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Comics

Monday, April 30, 2012

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Monday, April 30, 2012

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sports

Jumbos jump two spots from last year’s result MEN’S TRACK

continued from Back

affected by the wind. Yancy earned another fourthplace finish during the day in the discus throw with a launch of 140-4 and took fifth in the shot put with 45-9 3/4, behind freshman Brian Williamson, who finised in third with 49-3. Back on the track, sophomore Daniel Lange Vagle earned two thirdplace finishes in the sprints. Lange Vagle’s times of 10.94 seconds in the 100-meter dash and 22.33 seconds in the 200-meter dash were good for top-three finishes in both events. In the 400-meter hurdles, freshman Ptah Osayande was the runner-up, crossing the line in 55.54 seconds. Meanwhile, in the 400-meter dash, the Jumbos took home a pair of top-five finishes, with senior Ben Crastnopol finishing fourth and sophomore Graham Beutler finishing fifth, at times of 52.26 and 52.37, respectively. In the 10,000-meter run, junior Tyler Andrew snagged fourth in a time of 31:41.25. Tufts also earned top-five finishes in the 4x100meter, 4x400-meter and Distance Medley relays. With stellar performances across the board, the Jumbos were pleased to improve two spots from 2011. “I would say our team this year is very gritty, and this year our heavyhitter guys are coming in first, second or third, instead of fourth, fifth or sixth, which is a huge difference in points,” Ajayi said. “The team has just matured from last year.” The squad hopes to continue to improve on its standing in the NESCAC next year, when it will return many of its top athletes. All three Tufts victories came from juniors, and just two of the team’s top-five finishes came from seniors. “The strength of our team is in our juniors. There is no doubt

Monday, April 30, 2012

Tufts to host ECSU, Middlebury this week BASEBALL

continued from page 19

Courtesy Scott Wilfert

Junior Jeff Marvel earned a dramatic victory in the 1,500-meter run at the NESCAC Championships on Saturday, edging out the runner-up by a mere 0.02 seconds. about that, so that is very exciting for ... going after the win next year,” Ajayi said. Moving forward with the 2012 season, the squad will compete at MIT this weekend in the Div. III New England Championships. “We’re going to go after Div. IIIs, and then after that the focus shifts to more individualized stuff. At the end of the season, the goal is getting national caliber guys to nationals,” said Ajayi, who has aspirations of earning nationals berths in the both

the long and triple jumps. “Other than that, at this point, it is just about having fun and competing, since there’s not much more we can do between now and the season ends to make anyone that much better or faster.” After the Div. III event this weekend, the squad has three more weeks of competition — the Open New England Championships, the ECAC Championships and finally the Div. III NCAA Championships on May 24 in California.

Freshman closer Willie Archibald didn’t fare much better, loading the bases in the seventh after another Tufts error. Consecutive hits against freshman Tom Ryan brought the Polar Bears within one run and, after freshman Kyle Slinger surrendered an RBI single and walked Buddy Shea to load the bases, Sam Canales stroked the walk-off single to left that did in the Jumbos. “Looking back, it’s hard to handle,” junior right fielder Eric Weikert said. “We didn’t come out with the fire in our belly, we didn’t make the plays we had to make, and you’re going to lose to a good team that does that. Reflecting on it a day later, it sucks that it has to end this way. But like coach said in the locker room, it’s history now, and it’s something we have to wear from here on out.” Tufts managed just three hits in the inconsequential series finale, tallying three more errors that gave them seven on the weekend. Entering the week, the Jumbos ranked fourth in the nation in fielding percentage. Sager went 4-for-11 over the weekend, and is now hitting .400 on the season with two games remaining. He’s already set the career doubles mark; his 137 career runs are the fourth-most in Tufts history — besting David LeResche (LA ’11) by four — and his 191 hits are second all-time, 28 behind leader Dan Callahan (LA ’02). Sager has also brought

his four-year career batting average to .361, which ranks among Tufts’ top 15 all-time. After the weekend ended, Sager reflected on his time with the program instead of dwelling on a loss that effectively concluded the season. “You learn a lot about yourself through adversity, and any time an end is near, it makes you appreciate the journey more, so it’s definitely been an emotional weekend for myself,” Sager said. “It just solidifies everything I’ve come to understand about playing baseball here.” Tufts will miss the NESCAC playoffs for the first time since 2004 after Bowdoin secured the NESCAC East’s second seed behind Trinity. The Jumbos’ 4-8 in-conference record marks the first time they have finished below .500 in the conference since record-keeping began with the 2000-2001 season. But the team still has three home games remaining, beginning with Monday’s afternoon matchup against Eastern Connecticut State University and ending with a Sunday doubleheader versus Middlebury, which also missed out on a postseason bid. “To me, personally, the next couple home games are all about going at it the right way,” Sager said. “It’s about appreciating everything Tufts baseball has meant to me and using the last couple games of my Tufts baseball career to instill in younger guys what it means to be a part of this program.”

Another winning season abruptly ends in disappointment WOMEN’S LACROSSE continued from page 18

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the second half with four unanswered goals to reduce the deficit to 8-6. Junior attackman Kerry Eaton scored twice during the streak, adding to her teamhigh total of 38. In its quest for a conference record eighth NESCAC title, Middlebury fired back. A goal by sophomore midfielder Liza Herzog pushed the score to 10-6, and junior attackman Margaret Souther finished off the scoring with 6:33 remaining. “Middlebury clearly started to get nervous when we got within two goals of them, showing they knew we weren’t about to give up the game and could pull into the lead like we did last year,” senior tri-captain defenseman Katie Lotz said. “They started to stall pretty early, and unfortunately they were able to hold onto the ball long enough to keep the lead.” Tufts once again struggled on the offensive end and ended the game with fewer total shots and free position shots than Middlebury. Those issues were the result of poor ball control, as the silly turnovers that have hindered the Jumbos all season reared their ugly heads again. Middlebury also dominated Tufts at the faceoff X. Nonetheless, the Jumbos looked much better overall than they have at many points this season and kept fighting back even when the Panthers went ahead. “One of the good things about the game yesterday was the fact that it was completely different from the first time we played Middlebury this season,” Lotz said. “It shows that we improved so much this season, in pretty much every aspect of the game … We also practiced their attack against our defense, so we were ready for how they were going to play and it wasn’t as much of a surprise as last time.”

With the loss, the Jumbos dropped to 9-6 on the year and 5-6 in the NESCAC, having lost every conference game they have played against teams with a winning conference record. Although the NESCAC is probably the deepest Div. III conference in the country, its lack of quality victories puts Tufts on the outside looking in for an at-large NCAA bid. “Unfortunately, the chances of an NCAA bid are slim,” Lotz said. “Overall, I think this year was great, even if it didn’t have the ending outcome that we had hoped for, because we still had so much fun as a team this season. We all worked as hard as we could yesterday, and the whole season, so while not making it as far as we wanted to is unfortunate and upsetting, knowing we gave it our all is a great thing.” Tufts was ranked in the top 15 nationally for the entire season and at one point was as high as first in the NESCAC. However, since No. 19 Hamilton upset No. 6 Colby in the first round of the conference tournament, the Colonials may have taken the inside track toward gaining the atlarge bid over the Jumbos. “Losing to Middlebury yesterday was definitely the hardest moment of the season,” Lotz said. Whatever the selection committee decides, the final verdict on the Jumbos’ season will certainly be mixed. It was another winning season overall, but for a program used to competing with the NESCAC’s best, the quick tournament exit will have to be seen as a disappointment. “Unfortunately, there really isn’t much of a chance that we’ll get an NCAA bid,” Applegate said. “It’s the end of the season for us, which is a very hard idea to get used to. We’re graduating eight seniors who have a huge presence on the team, and they’re going to be missed.”

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John Dame shows unquestioned commitment to team JOHN DAME

continued from Back

Ryan Pollock, prefer country. “He really knows how to balance his roles,” freshman linebacker Tommy Meade said. “He’ll be in the coaches’ office for hours on end during camp, but he’ll also come hang out with us on the weekends.” John Dame was never a football player — tall and thin, he hardly looks like one, either — but his knowledge of the game is unparalleled for someone of his age and in his position. On game days he helps chart. Practices are spent on the move, shuffling between the clock and equipment piles, a paper containing the day’s plan folded up hot dog-style in his hand. He’s at the point now where he’ll see things before Civetti even asks. And it’s all done on pure merit. Civetti will occasionally toss him some Jumbos gear. Pay was taken off the table a long time ago. Before this year, Civetti wanted to put him on the website and give him an official title. No dice. “He doesn’t do this for notoriety,” Civetti said. “He does it just for pure love of being a part of this football program. It’s the most pure example of commitment, work ethic and energy that anybody could exemplify. His efforts are never flagged and his commitment is one of a kind.” In a spacious room on the second floor of Halligan Hall, the walls draped in white boards with player names decorating the surface in four colors, John Dame arrives to go to work. Wearing Tufts football sweatpants, Nike sneakers and a green wristband that reads “PROVE PEOPLE WRONG,” he sets about helping the Jumbos, who went 0-8 in Civetti’s first year, follow that mantra next season. “In my opinion, he’s one of the more valuable guys in this program,” Civetti said. “He’s a tireless worker, his passion for this program and commitment to what we’re trying to do here is impressive. We’re lucky to have a guy like that along.” He’ll spend hours in this room each week, combing through film on a Dell laptop adjacent to a Mac desktop, looking through defensive alignments

and game action. This is the perfect way to play this, he says, as Meade drills an opponent in what he calls the “boom zone” as the cursor dances on the screen. Coming from Baltimore, physical, defensive football is always top-of-theline stuff for John Dame. *** “He grew up in the restaurant business.” So reads the caption to an audio slideshow on the Tufts Journal, which dispatched a photographer to Linwoods Restaurant in Baltimore. John Dame’s parents founded Linwoods more than 20 years ago. In the opening picture, John Dame is smiling, wearing a jacket and collared shirt, as chefs go to work behind him. This is the closest John Dame has gotten to even toeing the spotlight — or to skimping on work. His duties often go unnoticed outside the football team; the hours spent watching film or texting players are a product of his desire to be around the game and those associated with it. This past spring break, Rayner and some teammates roadtripped down south. They stopped at Linwoods. John Dame hooked them up with dessert. “He’s done his homework, to say the least,” Doll said. “It helps a lot at practice, because it give you a different perspective. He’s not coach or a player, he’s just your friend.” In eighth grade, he founded a middle school radio station. When he moved to high school, he founded another. Between school years, he worked for WNST sports radio and the now-defunct WVIE. He earned weekly appearances to talk Ravens on Saturdays, got credentialed for Orioles games and still worked the restaurant on Saturday nights. He founded Ravens Blackout, a fan blog that received 1,000 views per day at its peak but closed shop in September. Earlier this season, he got former Baltimore receiver Qadry Ismail to deliver an inspirational speech to the Jumbos via Skype. Last summer, he worked with 92 Q, a Baltimore hip-hop station. That was his final foray into radio. “I’d rather be on the inside than on the outside,” he said, cracking a smile. “If I get successful, and then I get fired

like everyone else does, then maybe I could go into the media.” This summer, John Dame will work with the Towson University football staff, absorbing all he can before he returns to Civetti’s program. He’ll then welcome in the Class of 2016 — a new crop of Jumbos, a new crop of friends. *** John Dame is sitting in the middle of a green, L-shaped sofa between a running back and an offensive lineman, elbows dug into his knees, staring at a wall-mounted television in a third-floor bedroom at Delta Upsilon. A defensive end spreads out on another couch, wearing boxers and a bathrobe. A dark brown lab-shepherd-collie mix alternates between lying prone on the windowsill and peeking out the door. Today is Wednesday. Wire Wednesday, as they call it. They gather to watch the Baltimore-based HBO drama, but the tradition’s official moniker makes it seem like John Dame is the main attraction. Wire Wednesday with John Dame. This is John Dame’s third time through the series. The wildly popular character Omar is the background on his iPhone. “There’s a reason why Omar’s so popular: He kills dealers to steal their drugs,” John Dame said. “At the same time, he’s very philosophical. Like he says, ‘You come at the king, you best not miss.’” Every week, John Dame walks to the Professors Row fraternity to watch “The Wire.” He knows the front door’s access code by now. Walking up to the white porch, he notices new pillows on the second-floor balcony. It’s pledging week. The house should be clean today. Not one step into the room, he’s greeted by a chorus of full-name cheers. Today, they’re on season four. Once his red-and-black book bag hits the floor and he plops into that green L-shaped sofa, the players begin talking about the show, its characters, plot and John Dame’s city. At sporadic moments throughout the episode, the idle chatter shifts to football. It always shifts to football.

SOFTBALL

Tufts extends winning streak to nine with sweep The softball team continued to rumble toward the postseason this weekend with a two-game sweep against non-division NESCAC opponent Wesleyan. The Jumbos pitching staff dominated all day, allowing just three runs on 10 hits as the team extended its winning streak to nine games. Wesleyan had no answer for junior second baseman Emily Beinecke, who had six hits, a run and an RBI on the day. Sophomore catcher Jo Clair, one of the frontrunners for NESCAC Player of the Year accolades, continued her stellar season, belting two homers in the doubleheader. In game one, the No. 8 Jumbos defeated the Cardinals 7-5 behind the right arm of junior Rebecca DiBiase, who threw a complete game, fanning nine hitters while allowing seven hits. Tufts jumped out to an early 2-0 lead, as Clair hit a solo shot in the first and freshman right fielder Michelle Cooprider knocked an RBI single in the second. Wesleyan came back to take a 3-2 lead into the sixth inning, but behind the powerful bat of senior tri-captain first baseman Lena Cantone, the Tufts offense erupted for four runs in the frame. The Cardinals almost managed a comeback in the seventh, scoring two runs before DiBiase struck out the game’s final two batters to seal the 7-5 victory. The second game was a familiar sight for the Jumbos, as freshman sensation Allyson Fournier was dominant, hurling a threehit shutout with 14 strikeouts. Fournier, who owns the Tufts single-season strikeout record, retired the game’s first seven batters before allowing a bunt single to junior Ashley McLaren with one out in the third. The Jumbos held on to a 1-0 lead until the sixth inning before Clair and Cantone hit back-to-back home runs to extend the advantage to 3-0, which stuck as the final score. With the two victories, the Jumbos are now 32-4 and have lost just once since their spring break trip to Florida. The team will finish its regular season today with a doubleheader at Springfield before facing off against Middlebury on April 4 in the first round of the NESCAC playoffs. —by Alex Baudoin

Tufts will take on streaking Conn. College in semifinals on Saturday MEN’S LACROSSE

continued from page 19

That helped give us more possessions and gave our defense a break.” Goalie Patton Watkins also had one of his best games of the season, making 12 saves on the afternoon, including several where the sophomore split and lunged across the crease to make a series of nerve-racking, athletic stops. “Patton and the entire defense played great and has been our anchor all year,” Wood added. “We play so uptempo on offense that it usually means we play a lot of defense. We have a lot of faith in those guys and they’ve been huge all season.” Early on, the Jumbos led 5-0, and it appeared that they might run away with a victory even larger than their 15-5 defeat of the Lord Jeffs two weeks earlier. Bailey and Wood connected for a goal at the 11:36 mark, and McCormick and senior midfielder Geordie Shafer combined for three more goals to push Tufts’ lead to four at the end of the first quarter. A minute into the second stanza, Bailey dished out his first of three assists, finding Kirwan on the crease to extend the margin to five goals. On the next possession, however, junior Mark Findaro drew a one-minute penalty for slashing and the Lord Jeffs capital-

ized. Senior attackman Evan Redwood notched his first and only goal of the day on the man advantage, opening the door for Amherst, which came knocking with a vengeance. In the next seven minutes, sophomore Devin Acton, last year’s NESCAC Rookie of the Year, tacked on four straight Amherst goals to tie the game at 5-5 with three minutes remaining in the half. “We know that every team is going to go on big runs,” Wood said. “We don’t worry too much when another team goes on a run against us, and we don’t become complacent when we go on big runs.” From there, McCormick took things into his own hands. The midfielder stopped the bleeding and silenced the Lord Jeffs with a dangerous strike, besting keeper Sam Jakimo as time expired in the opening half. In the second half, both teams came out ready to fight. Senior midfielder Alex Fox opened the third quarter with an Amherst goal to equalize, but Tufts reestablished its lead on the following possession. In transition, junior midfielder Sam Diss found Wood at the top of the key, and Wood finished with a flawless shot to make it 7-6. It took Rhoads just six seconds to

double the Jumbos’ lead. The senior, who has been sensational on faceoffs this season, picked up the ball on the run and blazed past Amherst’s entire defensive unit, finding the back of the net for an 8-5 advantage. Acton scored twice more to tie the game for the third time, but Wood and McCormick settled the Jumbos’ nerves with two goals to end the quarter with Tufts clinging to a 10-8 lead. In the final quarter, Acton, a constant thorn in the Jumbos’ side, finished another look to pull the Lord Jeffs within one, but that was the closest they came, as Bailey and Kirwan bested Jakimo for three more goals, prompting coach Jon Thompson to pull the senior from the net. “We rarely change our offensive game plan, and this game was no different,” Wood said. “Some people may say we need to slow it down after a long defensive hold to protect our defense, but we feel that we do that by scoring goals, which is why we are always going to the goal as hard as possible, trying to get the best shots.” Sophomore midfielder Aaron Mathias notched the Lord Jeffs’ third man-up goal of the day, but the Jumbos then posted five solid minutes of lockdown

defense to close out the game. The Jumbos could not have closed out the contest in a more fitting way, as the NESCAC’s leading assist (Bailey) man found its leading goalscorer (Wood) to put the game on ice. “[Saturday] was a game of runs,” Watkins said. “Amherst is a strong team. We knew they would do good things, but by controlling the tempo of the game and sticking to our game plan, we were able to convert on a few more looks down the stretch to snag the ‘W.’” On Saturday, the conference tournament’s top-seeded Jumbos will host the Camels at Bello Field as they look to three-peat as conference champions. In the two teams’ last meeting, Tufts defeated Conn.College 16-9, but the Camels have been hot of late. After dropping their first three games of the season, including the loss to the Jumbos, the Camels have won 10 of their last 12 games and surged to a 6-4 NESCAC mark, good for a tie for third place. When a streaking Camels squad rolls into Medford this weekend, a repeat of the Jumbos’ dominant March 13 performance is unlikely. The spot in Sunday’s conference championship is up in the air in what should be a thrilling contest.

The Tufts Daily

Sports

Women’s Lacrosse

Panthers bounce Jumbos in first round of NESCAC tournament A week before its first-round NESCAC tournament game against No. 7 Middlebury on Saturday, the No. 14 women’s lacrosse team had reason for optimism. Although they fell to the Panthers 15-6 earlier in the season, the Jumbos were coming together at the right time, and they looked poised to repeat last year’s tournament upset by poaching the Panthers at their own stadium. But Middlebury had other ideas, and it turned on the jets in the second half to run away with a 12-8 win that leaves Tufts waiting and hoping for a very improbable bid to the NCAA tournament. The Jumbos were only forced to play the Panthers because of Tufts’ overtime loss to Bowdoin on the last day of the regular season. But in many ways, the game was a microcosm of the Jumbos’ whole year, as struggles against the top half of the NESCAC proved to be their undoing time and time again. Those problems have been largely the result of inconsistent play, as Tufts can perform extremely well for stretches but then suddenly allow opponents to go on extended scoring runs. There was perhaps no better example all season of that type of mercurial play than in the first half against Middlebury. After pulling the score back to 3-2 with 18:11 remaining on a goal by sophomore attackman Gabby Horner, the Jumbos seemed to fall apart, allowing five unanswered goals and going into halftime down 8-2. “The last 20 minutes of the first half pretty much determined the outcome of the game,” sophomore midfielder Kate Applegate said. “Middlebury by

David McIntyre

Daily Editorial Board

Virginia Bledsoe / The Tufts Daily Archives

Junior Kerry Eaton scored a game-high four goals on six shots in Saturday’s NESCAC quarterfinal game at Middlebury, but Tufts could not overcome a first-half deficit and was eliminated by a final score of 12-8. went on a five-goal run and managed to take our attack out of our practiced plan to break their defense.” However, just when it seemed that

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4/13/12 5:40 PM

Tufts might be the victim of a blowout loss, it stormed out of the gate in see WOMEN’S LACROSSE, page 16

Monday, April 30, 2012

Thrower Allen dominant yet again for Jumbos WOMEN’S TRACK continued from Back

added another win for the Jumbos in the triple jump, hitting 39-1 1/4, and senior Heather Theiss claimed runner-up status in the pole vault by clearing 11-9 3/4. Junior Kelly Allen won the discus with a throw of 158-3, setting a new school record and matching the third-best mark in Div. III competition this season. She also won the shot put with a toss of 41-4 1/2, placed second in the hammer throw with a mark of 158-10 and finished fourth in the javelin with a 113-1, giving the team a total of 33 points. Junior Ronke Oyekunle backed Allen by placing third in the shot put, with her own toss going 40-1 1/2, while sophomore Robin Armstrong mustered a runner-up effort in the javelin with a throw of 114-1. “Everyone was on top of their game,” Price said. “Everyone was ready to give it their all, their 110 percent, and we just had a great attitude that showed in our performances. Despite graduating two All-Americans, the team managed to finish one place higher than last year’s third-place NESCAC result under head coach Kristen Morwick, a trend that could very well continue into next season. “We’re losing a lot of great seniors this year, but we also have a lot of promising freshmen coming in, so I think we’ll be just as good next year if not better,” Tang said. With NESCACs out of the way, the team will now focus on the remainder of the postseason, beginning with next weekend’s New England Div. III Championships and followed by the New England Open Championships, both of which will be hosted by MIT. After New Englands, the team will look to improve individual marks at the ECAC Championships at RPI and finish the year at the NCAA Championships in Claremont, Calif.

Monday, April 30, 2012

The Tufts Daily

Sports

Baseball

Out in the cold: Jumbos swept by Bowdoin, eliminated from NESCAC playoff race by

Alex Prewitt

Daily Editorial Board

The season hung in the balance, six outs offering a flicker of hope between near-disaster and a fresh start. And then, everything came crashing down. With two innings remaining and a chance to earn nine more innings to fight for its playoff life, the baseball team squandered a six-run lead, failing to force a rubber match as Bowdoin walked off in an 8-7 decision, burying Tufts’ postseason chances in Brunswick, Maine. Rather than mounting the sort of heroic comeback that had become commonplace for the Jumbos in recent years, they were instead swept by the Polar Bears in three games at Pickard Field, officially ending their bid for a third consecutive NESCAC championship. “We knew what we had to do, we knew it came down to how we played, and in the end we just didn’t get done what we had to do,” senior cocaptain Sam Sager said. “The results speak for themselves. You get what you deserve.” Tufts already had its back against the wall after losing the series opener, 5-3, and falling victim to 13 strikeouts from Bowdoin ace Oliver Van Zant that broke the school’s career strikeout record. But things looked bright when Saturday’s doubleheader kicked off. Though the Polar Bears struck first in their opening at-bat against sophomore Christian Sbily, the Jumbos responded in the third when freshman Wade Hauser doubled down the right-field line, driving in sophomore Tim Mitropoulos, Sager and senior cocaptain left fielder Matt Collins, all of

WillIAM Butt / The Tufts Daily

Senior co-captain Sam Sager is Tufts’ all-time leader in doubles, and ranks second in program history in hits and fourth in runs scored. whom had been walked by Bowdoin starter Christian Martin. The Jumbos tacked on three more in the sixth on a two-RBI single by Mitropoulos, who has assumed the starting second base role and is hitting .375 (12-for-32) since April 13.

Mitropoulos later scored on a Collins sacrifice fly, pushing Tufts’ lead to 7-1. Then, the floodgates opened. Bowdoin chased Sbily in the sixth after two errors and a wild pitch. see BASEBALL, page 17

Men’s Lacrosse

Jumbos get last laugh against Lord Jeffs Kate Klots

For the No. 5 men’s lacrosse team, the scoreboard at the end of Saturday’s NESCAC quarterfinal game against unranked Amherst didn’t tell half the story. The Jumbos rode a late surge to a 14-10 victory, advancing to this weekend’s semifinal against playoff fourthseed Conn. College. But throughout the game, costly penalties allowed the Lord Jeffs to keep the Jumbos in their sights. Amherst tied the game three times and pulled within one in the final quarter before Tufts staged a late 4-1 run to come away with the win. “Going into the game we knew that this could have very well been our last game this season, and I think that our motivation came 100 percent from that and thinking about our seniors,” sophomore attackman Beau Wood said. “I don’t think we really thought too much about the last [Amherst] game. I’m sure they had the same thought, and the combination of their talent and that motivation made it a tough game.” Freshman Cole Bailey led the Jumbos in scoring for the second straight game with a five-point effort, furthering his bid for a Rookie of the Year nod. Meanwhile, Wood and senior co-captains Sean Kirwan and Kevin McCormick each tallied hat tricks amid their four-point performances. Senior midfielder Nick Rhoads had a sensational day at the faceoff X, securing 18 of 24 draws, including five of six in the final quarter, an effort that proved to be the deciding factor as the Jumbos pulled away. “Rhoads and the entire faceoff crew have been incredible all season,” Wood said. “When Amherst went on their runs, they responded by dominating in between the lines on ground balls. by

Daily Editorial Board

see MEN’S LACROSSE, page 17

virginia bledsoe / the tufts daily archives

Senior co-captain attackman Sean Kirwan scored three times in the win over Amherst.

Zach Drucker | The Loser

The Odd Coples

he situation was all too familiar. Jets fans brimming with excitement, anxiously awaiting the announcement of the missing link, the player who would re-energize the franchise. This was the year. The year the New York Jets organization would atone for their abysmal track record at the NFL Draft and select a player who would make them a true contender. The year Rex Ryan and company would shake up the NFL, vindicating his big-bellied bravado by bringing a big-name player to the Big Apple. And then the Jets announced their firstround pick, and the cacophonous chorus of boos rained down. Yes, the situation was all too familiar for the Gang Green’s faithful. Once again, Jets management had swindled the team’s loyalists, choosing a player described as “too inconsistent” by ESPN analyst Jon Gruden. With the 16th pick in the draft, the Jets selected Quinton Coples, a 6-foot-6, 284pound defensive end from the University of North Carolina. For years, sports anchors, Jets staffers and fans alike have echoed the same sentiment: The Jets need a prolific pass-rusher off the edge. In 2008, the Jets got their man: Vernon Gholston. The Ohio State defensive end was noted for his penetrating quickness, superhuman strength and freakishly long arms, great for snagging quarterbacks. Compiling 21.5 career sacks with the Buckeyes, Gholston dazzled scouts at the NFL combine and was taken sixth overall. Gholston currently holds the title of Jets all-time biggest draft bust. He was released after three dismal seasons and is currently out of the league. He recorded as many NFL sacks in his shortlived career as my grandma: none. (But had my grandma entered the NFL, she would have collected at least one sack. She’s a tough cookie.) Immediately, Coples’ selection evoked agonizing memories of Gholston. Physically, however, Coples does not resemble Gholston. According to Ryan, Coples is more of a bruising inside pass rusher a la Shaun Ellis or Trevor Pryce. He boasts enormous size and deceptive speed suited for tracking quarterbacks. Perhaps he better resembles another infamous Jets draft bust: University of Kentucky defensive tackle and fourthoverall pick in 2003, Dewayne Robertson. Coples was deemed a dicey pick off the bat; he had top-10 ability, but did not always display maximum effort. His sack total in his senior year reflected a dramatic drop from a stellar junior season. When you are a young football player competing at the collegiate level, you are like a fine wine: You should get better with age. Coples got worse, so now his draft day circumstances most closely resemble those of Detroit Lions defensive tackle Nick Fairley. Originally advertised as a top-two pick in the 2011 draft, Fairley’s poor showing dropped him down to No. 13. The Lions thought they were stealing Fairley, but he underperformed throughout his rookie season with a measly 15 tackles and one sack in 10 games. Fairley was also recently arrested for marijuana possession. So, should the Jets have traded up to select, say, a Trent Richardson or Michael Floyd? The Jets have an uncomfortable history of trading up for picks. Just look at former golden boy Mark Sanchez. The USC quarterback was taken fifth, with the Jets sacrificing their first- and second-round picks and three players in the process. Sanchez was originally lauded as the second coming of Joe Namath, but has since heard what Coples heard on draft day: New Yorkers booing. Perhaps the Jets should’ve traded up, but this draft was top-heavy on offense, the first five picks having all been offensive players. The Jets, as their fans have preached for years, need a defensive force. Gang Green has not seen an explosive edge rusher since John Abraham was traded in 2006. We’ll see if Coples can be the next big thing.

Zach Drucker is a senior majoring in international relations and Spanish. He can be reached at Zachary.Drucker@tufts.edu.

Sports

INSIDE Women’s Lacrosse 18 Baseball 19 Men’s Lacrosse 19

tuftsdaily.com

Football

The football team’s best-kept secret: John Dame by

Alex Prewitt

Daily Editorial Board

The football team’s backbone is an enigmatic specimen, quiet almost to the point of secrecy yet knowledgeable to the brink of brilliance. He is a team manager, a defensive assistant and a music coordinator. He is a coach, a teammate and a friend. He is John Dame. Descriptions of the sophomore usually range anywhere from the declarative —“John Dame is THE man” — to an obscene gerund affixed to some derivation of “awesome,” as in “John Dame is f---ing awesome.” And these aren’t wrong. On the football team and within the athletics department, to be John Dame is to be universally liked. More importantly, it means universal respect. “I think it comes from who he is as a person,” junior offensive lineman Andrew Rayner said. “Try to name one bad quality the kid has. You can’t do it. He’s out there to help people. All he does is help people. That in itself commands a lot of respect.” It’s also always John Dame. Never John. Never Dame. Maybe a two-syllable name lends itself to constant total utterance. Maybe it came from Bill Samko, the former Tufts coach whom Dame contacted as a high schooler, asking to become the

alex prewitt / the tufts Daily

Sophomore John Dame does a bit of everything as an assistant to the Tufts football team, whether it’s studying game film or watching The Wire. Jumbos’ manager. Or maybe, as coach Jay Civetti said, he’s just more deserving of multiple names. “There’s no doubt, it’s clear to us and everybody involved that John Dame cares,” freshman quarterback Jack Doll

said. “We take that very seriously. What John Dame brings to the table, it really can’t be measured.” *** Ask John Dame his official title with the football team, and he’ll spend more

Women’s Track & Field

time ruling out what he’s not. He’s not really a manager — that’s more of the stock answer he likes to give. Nor is he the players’ dad. And he’s certainly not an intermediary between players and the staff. John Dame used to say “football agent” when people inquired about his career ambitions. Over time, player personnel became a better fit for his style. Agents can be slimy people. There’s more value to being part of the organization. “It makes our team closer,” Rayner said. “He’s a person who everyone on this team hangs out with. It’s almost like being very good friends with one of your coaches, whether it’s a coach but in a social environment, social situation where you can just be yourself around him.” Semantically, there’s not much difference between slimy and fluid, but the words are miles apart when it comes to describing the easygoing John Dame. He navigates groups within the larger unit with ease, transcending positions and grades. He knows class schedules and due dates. During pregame in the fall as well as for basketball and lacrosse, he operates the Jumbos’ pump-up music. Individual preferences are second nature. Junior tight end Nick Kenyon wants hip-hop. Others, like Rayner and sophomore running back see JOHN DAME, page 17

Men’s Track & Field

Tufts fights to earn runner-up spot at NESCACs Lauren Flament

The men’s track and field team fought for every inch, second and mark, earning a runner-up finish at the 2012 NESCAC Championships at Bates on Saturday, a two-place improvement over last year’s fourth-place effort. Among 11 teams, the Jumbos’ 146.25 points were bested only by the host Bobcats’ 156.25. Tufts distanced itself from Middlebury, which finished third with 124 points, whileWilliams and Bowdoin were fourth and fifth, with 111.74 and 104 points, respectively. “I was happy with how it went,” senior tri-captain Adam Aronson said. “If you look at the numbers there weren’t terribly too many [personal records], but … [The energy] was great. We all went into this meet with our heads down looking ready to work hard, and we did just that.” “Overall we were very happy,” junior Gbola Ajayi added. “Bates just had a better day than we did. [The competition this year] teamwise was stronger. There were five teams that could have won, as opposed to two, which has been the case every other year I have been here.” The conditions on Saturday were not conducive to setting personal bests, but the Jumbos fought against the wind to top their competition. “The conditions were pretty horrendous, but they affected us all equally,” Aronson said. “Coach [Ethan] Barron let us know that we would have to be tough as nails to compete, and we brought it. I couldn’t be more proud to be a member of the team. We fought harder than any team I have ever been on before.” The squad was led by three victories and 19 additional topfive finishes on Saturday. The juniors demonstrated their strength throughout the day, by

Daily Editorial Board

Scott Tingley / The Tufts Daily

Sophomore Jana Hieber defended her conference title in the 400-meter hurdles on Saturday and also took home the NESCAC crown in the long jump.

Jumbos race past competition to place second at NESCACs by

Andy Wong

Senior Staff Writer

The women’s track and field team entered the NESCAC Championships this Saturday at Bates College ready to clean house. They did just that, delivering a total of six wins and five additional top-three finishes in the 21-event, 10-team meet en route to a second-place finish. “We’re really proud of the team,” senior co-captain Katherine Tang said. “This has been our focal point all season, to pull off what we did this weekend, and we went out and did it.” In total, the team scored 159

points, edging Middlebury’s 157 points for top-two honors and trailing only Williams’ 180. “Williams has always been a very tough competitor, so we’re happy to have beat out Middlebury and secured second,” senior co-captain Anya Price said. “It was a good day. Everything worked out in our favor. I think we were able to score in just about every event, which is huge for us. We definitely made our presence known.” Freshman Christina Harvey started the Jumbos off by winning the 100-meter dash with a final time of 12.32 seconds, followed by a fourth-place finish in the 200-meter dash with

a time of 25.96 to give the team 15 early points. Sophomore Jana Hieber, who won the 400-meter hurdles last spring, successfully defended her crown with a time of 1:02.83 after placing fifth in the 100-meter hurdles in 15.25 seconds. On the field, she also won the long jump event by clearing 18-1, giving her a total of 24 points for the event. Price wrapped up on the track by earning six points after placing third in the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a time of 11:03.14. On the field, the team also started the championship season strong. Senior Nakeisha Jones see WOMEN’S TRACK, page 18

with Jeff Marvel, Ajayi and Brad Nakanishi capturing the three first-place performances. Marvel earned the lone win on the track, taking the 1,500-meter run in a time of 4:00.36 and edging out the runner-up by just 0.02 seconds in a sprint to the finish. In the pole vault, which was held indoors because of inclement weather, Nakanishi cleared 15-3 to take the win, earning his second NESCAC title in the event. Sophomore Trevor Rothaus supported Nakanishi in the event with a fourth-place finish, clearing 14-3 1/4. Ajayi contributed the final win to the Jumbos’ cause, leaping a new personal best distance of 23-4 3/4 for the top mark in the long jump by just over an inch. The mark ranks Ajayi 17th nationally in the event. Tufts earned 20 points in the long jump, with junior Michael Blair taking third with a jump of 21-7 1/4 and sophomore Andrew Osborne capturing fifth at 21-6. Ajayi and Blair also each contributed a third-place finish in the jumps. Ajayi launched himself 46-5 1/2 in the triple jump, while Blair cleared the bar at 6-2 3/4. “It was very gusty, so I think the conditions hurt because it made it difficult to know when to jump. ... On a gusty day like that, it doesn’t let you get into a rhythm,” Ajayi said of his triple jump. The throws were another area of strength for the Jumbos, with five top-five finishes. Aronson took runner-up in the hammer throw, heaving it a distance of 167-0, and junior Curtis Yancy also placed well in the event, taking fourth with a throw of 161-11. “I was content with how I did. It was over a meter off my [personal record], but I fought for that second place and Curtis did the same with his fourth-place finish,” Aronson said about the throws, which across the board were see MEN’S TRACK, page 16