The Tufts Daily 10/2/14

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THE TUFTS DAILY

Where You Read It First Est. 1980 TUFTSDAILY.COM

VOLUME LXVIII, NUMBER 17

OCL discontinues rental van service indefinitely

by Daniel Bottino Daily Editorial Board

Nicholas Pfosi / The Tufts Daily

TEDCC parents, Tufts faculty and community members bring their children and rally signs to the Academic Quad for the Save TEDCC play-in in protest oon July 31.

Tufts administration responds to letter about TEDCC transition

by Hannah Fingerhut Daily Editorial Board

The Tufts administration responded on Monday to an open letter from university faculty, staff and graduate students calling for the establishment of a one-year task force following Tufts' decision to hand management of the Tufts Educational Day Care Center ( TEDCC) to Bright Horizons Family Solutions.

The letter outlined what

the Arts, Sciences and Engineering Committee on Faculty Work/Life found to be flaws of the decision, including the lack of communication with the committee and consequently the violation of the committee’s bylaws, and the ways the decision adversely impacts faculty, staff and graduate students. It also presented data and research on university-affiliated day care centers across the country.

“Our hopes are twofold,

really," Elizabeth Remick, associate professor of political science and co-chair of the work/life committee, told the Daily in an email. "First, we hope that the task force can be a model for how faculty, staff, students and administrators can work together to solve problems when we understand and respect each other's concerns. And second, we hope that the task force can develop see TEDCC, page 2

ALLIES hosts discussion on counterinsurgency

by Patrick McGrath Daily Editorial Board

Tufts Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services (ALLIES) hosted a panel discussion on the future of counterinsurgency featuring three experts in the field on Tuesday night at 6 p.m. in Barnum Hall.

Colonel Andrew Zacherl, International Security Studies Program military fellow at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, spoke first, detailing his personal experience in military information support and the challenges that counterinsurgency faces.

Zacherl explained that one must first understand what constitutes an insurgent, which includes those involved in armed revolt against a recognized authority. In recent years, however, there has been a rise in multipolarity, in which mul-

tiple armed groups are involved in an insurgency.

"It extends the concept of insurgency to situations where there is no recognized authority," he said, noting the Somali Civil War as an example.

Zacherl explained that current definitions of insurgents often do not include nonviolent movements, which he believes is a mistake given that some insurgent movements may be partially non-governmental organizations as well.

He highlighted three primary issues in the future of counterinsurgency, the first of which was the movement of population to urban centers, where targeting insurgents without collateral damage may be a serious issue.

"Urban areas become very attractive targets for ... terrorist activities," he noted.

The second challenge Zacherl

discussed was the growing role of information and the leveraging of this information in conflicts.

"All activities will be subject to portrayal ... framing by all the parties," he said.

He explained that it is vital to understand how information will be framed and how actions will be portrayed by different parties to properly assess risks.

The third challenge Zacherl brought up was the human aspect of conflicts and the length of insurgencies. He explained that during a conflict, people take on different livelihood structures that often fall on the new state to deal with.

"If we want to be effective in counterinsurgency, we need to take a look at urbanization and at information," he said. "If we don't want counterinsurgency

Inside this issue University celebrates storied mascot with Art Gallery’s “Jumbo: Marvel, Myth and Mascot” exhibit. see FEATURES, page 3

see ALLIES, page 2

The Tufts Office for Campus Life (OCL) has discontinued its rental van service this semester but will help facilitate use of alternative rental agencies such as Zipcar, according to OCL Director Joe Golia.

Golia explained that the OCL felt that renting out the vans was a responsibility that was unnecessarily burdensome and not consistent with the OCL’s function at Tufts. OCL had offered two minivans for rental by student organizations and academic departments, a service that had been in place for many years.

“We have pushed for years to get out of the van business,” he said. “We’re doing a million things, [and] the fact that we then became a van rental office was ridiculous … I understand the service being needed, but it was not really something we should be doing.”

Golia added that serious problems had interfered with OCL’s rental van service, including the difficulty of coordinating among the many OCL employees and the aging condition of the vans.

“The vehicles were getting very old — well over 12 years old — [and] breaking down,” he said. “They were certainly safe to drive, they passed all inspections … but we were having a lot of issues in this office when they were breaking down, and where the people were and how they were going to get back …

lots and lots of problems.”

Usage of the OCL vans had decreased significantly last semester, with only a few student organizations making use of them, according to Golia.

“They were mostly being used by [the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), which] has an agreement with the university where the university does cover their travel back and forth to MIT, and there was an agreement made long before I got here where they could use the vans without charge,” he explained.

Golia estimated that, aside from ROTC, the vans were rented out by other groups only about 10 times all of last year. He added that last year’s change in the allowable travel distance to a 30 mile radius may have been a cause in the vans' disuse.

Now that the OCL has terminated their van rental service, Golia explained that the university has worked to make other options available to student groups. One of the new developments is the extension of Zipcar service to Tufts students from the age of 18 and up, instead of 21.

“The university now has a signed contract with Zipcar, and one of the biggest things they needed to get over was under-21-year-old drivers,” Golia said. “The university now has a contract signed with Zipcar where, through the university system, they will allow, with some added see VANS, page 2

Tufts poet’s grave rediscovered

by Patrick McGrath Daily Editorial Board

"This is the world, the kingdom I was looking for." These words, written by poet John Holmes (A '29), Tufts professor and alumnus, live on in Tufts memory, despite the passing of the poet himself. Now, however, Tufts students will be able to pay their respects at Holmes' grave. Walter Skold, founder of the Dead Poets Society of America, re-discovered the poet's burial site on Sept.

24. Skold has been visiting and documenting the graves of American poets across the country; Holmes' grave is officially the 402nd grave he has visited since he founded the organization in 2009.

Skold explained that he began the project to document the variety and uniqueness of American poets' graves around the East Coast as a form of commemoration.

"Since I was a photographer and poet, I just thought no one else was really documenting this to the extent I wanted to, so I just began to follow that and, like sometimes happens, it can turn into sort of a passion," he said.

According to Skold, his original goal was to just cover poets' graves in the Northeast, but later expanded to focus on poets in all parts of the United States. He said that his search for Holmes came about in part through his connection to Tufts through his son, Charles Skold (LA '11), who was a student at Tufts.

When he began his search for Holmes' grave, Skold initially reached out to former director of the Digital Collections and Archives Anne Sauer (LA ’91, G ’98) in 2012, but she said they did not know where he was buried. see POETS, page 2

Today’s sections Alt-J’s newest album disappoints.

see ARTS, page 7

News 1 Features 3 Weekender 5 Editorial | Op-Ed 8

Op-Ed 9 Comics 10 Classifieds 11 Sports Back

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News

Tufts ALLIES panel covers future of counterinsurgency ALLIES

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to become a perpetual state in many places of the world ... we need to take a hard look at livelihoods."

The next speaker was Stephen Henthorne, program manager of concept development at the Joint Civil-Military Interoperability Group, who spoke about stability operations and the need for a more functional connection between military and civilian organizations.

Henthorne said that stability needs to be treated equally alongside defense and offense. He added that he believes that increasing overall mission success will solve the basic problem, noting that this is something that could be corrected in the short run, although not much has been done yet.

"We really haven’t solved anything," he said.

It is ultimately most important for groups to work together through the entire process to bring an end to the root causes of insurgency for a true victory, according to Henthorne. He noted that the U.S. mentality of taking societies used to single rulers for centuries and expecting them to adapt and implement a U.S. system in a short period of time is particularly problematic, especially as funding for the country will decrease if the mission is not immediately successful.

Henthorne also discussed the U.S. "warrior mentality," which he said dictates that it is more warrior-like to be involved with larger, traditional conflicts rather than smaller, stability operations.

He concluded that a coordinated effort is the best means to success.

"The operations that work are civilmilitary coordinated," he said.

Montgomery McFale, Minerva Chair at the U.S. Naval War College, was the third speaker. She discussed the past and future of counterinsurgencies and the necessity of socio-cultural understanding for success.

"In this country ... we have fought in many, many wars and insurgencies," she explained.

McFale noted that the United States tends to prefer conventional operations rather than counterinsurgency missions, given that they may be difficult, timeconsuming and bloody.

"Small wars and insurgencies are treated in this paradigm of war fighting that we have as a nation as diversions from the main event," she said.

McFale highlighted the emphasis put on traditional warfare and conflicts, noting that the focus is on initial entry operations.

"Lethal operations ... are overvalued as a skill-set -- something that makes or breaks people's careers," she said.

McFale explained that the lack of socio-cultural knowledge is extremely detrimental to counterinsurgency efforts. She said she believes it is of the utmost importance to understand issues such as the relevant power structures, history, language and economic system of a country to be truly successful, noting the failure to convey this learning in conflicts such as the Burma Campaign, the Vietnam War and the War in Afghanistan.

"As a nation we could have done so much better," she said. "We knew exactly what we needed to do."

The three lectures were followed by a question and answer session open to audience members.

OCL encourages student use of Zipcar VANS

continued from page 1

paperwork, people who are under 21 to rent from Tufts.”

Golia added that ROTC will now use Zipcar, and Tufts will pay for the rental cost due to the university’s previous agreement with the ROTC. As for the other clubs who used the OCL’s van service in the past, Golia stated that they can easily use Zipcar or other rental agencies for a cost similar to the OCL’s van rental fee.

Overall, Golia expressed confidence that outside rental agencies such as Zipcar will adequately fill the gap left by the departure of the OCL vans for student groups who need transportation.

He also explained that student groups looking into outside rental agencies should first meet with Annie Wong, the OCL business manager, who will help them through the process.

Some students have expressed surprise at the abrupt termination of the the OCL’s van rental service. Brian Pollock, co-treasurer of the Protestant Student Association (PSA), explained that his group recently needed transportation to travel to the PSA’s yearly retreat in North Andover, Mass., and the loss of the OCL vans did cause problems, most significantly in terms of added cost.

“It was an inconvenience because when we made our budget, that wasn’t something that we were aware we needed to budget for, and getting off-campus vans tended to be much more expensive,” Pollock, a junior, said.

PSA President Emma Levitt, a senior, added that she was bothered by the fact that the OCL did not give any warning to student groups that they would be ending their van service this year.

Although Golia explained that he was unsure of whether Tufts would ever again offer to rent university vehicles to student groups, he did say that Tufts is in the process of hiring a new position to manage the university’s vehicle fleet.

According to Director of Public and Environmental Safety Kevin Maguire, the new position’s title will be “Transportation/Fleet Manager”, and the new hire's responsibilities will include overseeing transportation demand management, sustainability and parking resources, among other duties.

“The need for this position was documented through an examination of current university practices in transportation / fleet management as compared to best practices at other institutions of higher education,” Maguire told the Daily in an email.

University acknowledges flaws in TEDCC decision-making process

TEDCC

continued from page 1

a comprehensive, data-driven, and do-able plan for childcare provision over the long term.”

The decision to transition management of TEDCC was first announced on July 16. Initially, parents petitioned the administration to reverse its decision. A week later, on July 23, about 25 faculty and staff members penned a first letter that loosened their request, asking to postpone the transition for a year.

The transition to Bright Horizons management was effective Sept. 1, and the first day of school was Sept.

2. On Sept. 3, the work/life committee circulated the open letter around faculty, staff and graduate students.

Signed by over 200 members of the Tufts community, the letter was sent on Sept. 16 to University President Anthony Monaco, Provost and Senior Vice President David Harris, Executive Vice President Patricia Campbell and Interim Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences James Glaser.

The administration’s response acknowledged the flaws in the decision that the open letter outlined.

“In order to move forward, we first acknowledge that the decision-making process in this instance did not include representatives from all of the key constituency groups," the letter to faculty said. "We did not anticipate the strong reaction to the decision, though we should have, and we apologize to those faculty and staff members who were affected, and to the broader community of faculty and staff that has taken an interest in

this decision. Although we aspire to open and transparent decision making and to effective faculty governance, it is clear that in this instance we fell short.”

The administration's response also ultimately agreed that a task force should be implemented to effectively address the work/life committee agenda. Harris has already met with the committee to begin discussing the first steps in establishing the task force, according to the letter.

Before the formal response was circulated, Director of Public Relations Kim Thurler commented on the issues brought up in the open letter.

“Tufts supports efforts to look thoughtfully at the work/life issues that are important to each member of our community,” Thurler told the Daily in an email. “The senior leadership team is committed to engaging with Tufts community members to identify opportunities for positive change.”

According to Remick, the committee also hopes to see progress made in a number of work/life areas, including policies related to medical leave and housing, among others.

“As for the administration's relationship with the work/life committee, we have always done our best to work constructively in partnership with the Arts, Sciences and Engineering administration, and together over the last few years we've made a lot of progress on work/life policies in AS&E,” Remick explained.

“We hope that after this recent setback we can get back on track and continue that progress.”

5chw4r7z via Flickr creative commons

Under a new agreement with Zipcar, students 18 and up will be allowed to rent vehicles.

Dead Poets Remembrance Day to celebrate work of Tufts poets POETS

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"[Sauer] didn't know, and he promised her he'd come back and let her know when he found the grave," Tisch Library Administrative Assistant Harriet Chenkin explained, noting that Skold reached out to her last week after his discovery, because she helps coordinate the annual John Holmes Memorial Poetry Reading in April.

"There was no information anywhere, not even in Tufts, and they have his archives," Skold said.

He added that Sauer told him that there were many people on campus who still remember him and his legacy at Tufts.

Skold explained that he decided to pursue his own search for the grave and first went to the funeral home in Medford that Holmes had gone through. He was then sent to Oak Grove Cemetery in Medford, where he was given a map from the cemetery's records of the grave's precise location.

"We weren’t sure we found it last week, Charles and I, because there was no gravestone there," he said. "But we recounted, and it turned out that was the space we were told it was."

Skold explained that he was very surprised not to find any sort of tombstone for Holmes' grave.

"That’s only the third poet’s grave I’ve encountered without a tombstone," he said.

Skold added that he and his son found a piece of quartz rock and wrote down Holmes' name, dates of his life and profession to mark the grave.

"I think it’d kind of be cool if finding his grave eventually led to him having a bigger tombstone to honor his place in American literature," he noted.

In 2010, Skold introduced the Dead Poets Remembrance Day, a holiday which commemorates the life and work of American poets across the country. Following the recent discovery of the grave, the Dead Poets Remembrance Day celebration in Massachusetts will be held at Holmes' grave in Medford on Oct. 7 at 5:30p.m. The event will feature public readings of poems by six poets who are related to Tufts: Holmes, Anne Sexton, Jane Turell, John Ciardi, Deborah Digges and Maxine Kumin.

"It’s the idea that going to poets’ graves and having readings is a way to commemorate what they meant to our literary culture and our history," Skold said.

He explained that the origin of the event in 2010 went back to a six week trip he took to 20 different states during which he interviewed 13 different state Poet Laureates.

"We were thinking … 'Why isn’t there some kind of celebration of our poets?'" he said.

The inaugural event that year met with success, according to Skold.

"There was enough positive feedback to just continue to try and spread this idea every year, and this year we have events in eight different states, so I’m pretty excited about that," he said.

The event generally takes place around Oct. 7, given that this is the date of poet Edgar Allan Poe's death and the birthday of poet James Whitcomb Riley, as well as not far from Dia de los Muertos, All Saints' Day and Halloween, all of which celebrate life after death.

Skold said that from here he will continue work on a documentary film and a book about his journeys.

"It’s a great project that he’s doing, and the documentary I’m sure will be fascinating," Chenkin said.

Features

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University honors mascot through art

by Sophie Lehrenbaum Contributing Writer

With a robust resume that boasts piggyback rides for the likes of Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt (literally carrying the fate of the world on his back), a life memorialized in Walt Disney movies and a name that has permanently altered dictionaries and fast-food orders everywhere, it is easy to say that Jumbo has left an elephantine mark on the world.

But at his time at Tufts, Jumbo has become much more influential than even "The Greatest Show on Earth" could has anticipated, acting as a source of inspiration and a rallying figure for generations of Tufts’ students who proudly refer to themselves as “Jumbos” in his honor.

This year marks the 125th anniversary of Tufts’ adoption of Jumbo the elephant as its mascot. While his audience have changed over the years, the multifaceted figure still elicits the strong sense of pride and respect that he did in crowdfilled arenas during his glory days in Barnum and Bailey’s circus.

The university will pay homage to the revered elephant in a number of ways throughout the upcoming year. Currently it is presenting an art exhibit entitled “Jumbo: Marvel, Myth, Mascot.” The exhibit, curated by Professor of Art History and Museum Studies Andrew McClellan, showcases Jumbo’s 25-year life — from his humble roots in Ethiopia, to a stint as a beloved London-based zoo-animal, to his rise to stardom as P.T. Barnum’s four-legged grand finale.

“The goal was to bring together objects and images to tell the story of Jumbo across his various lives,” McClellan said. “While the story [of Jumbo’s life] was well-known, there had never been any attempt to bring together the extraordinary images that tell his story in a new, fresh way ... it all began to come together by the 125th anniversary.”

The university approached McClellan with an offer to curate the show because of his known interest in Jumbo’s life and his authority as a Jumbo expert. McClellan’s process of gathering research began incidentally: He recalled collecting information on the elephant around seven or eight years ago for his own personal interest. In 2011, he published an article about Jumbo and Tufts’ Barnum Museum of Natural History, and the release date for the book he authored

NICHOLAS PFOSI FOR TUFTS UNIVERSITY

Visitors to the exhibit can view the history of Jumbo, who was made Tufts' official mascot 125 years ago this year. on Jumbo is set to coincide with the exhibit and the anniversary, according to a May 21, 2014 article on TuftsNow. While the exhibit is primarily a tribute to the animal that has become almost inextricably linked to the university, sophomore and Visitor Service Ambassador Olivia MeyerJennette said she believes there is a greater value in revitalizing community engagement in Jumbo.

"I've noticed personally as a student at Tufts ... the idea of school spirit isn't huge here," Meyer-Jennette said. "But I think that people are really proud to go to Tufts and proud to be here on this campus and people really enjoy it so I think that ... a lot of people identify with Jumbo. We call ourselves Jumbos.

It's good for people to know the story."

According to Meyer-Jennette, the exhibit also allows students to interact with art in a more direct manner than what is often associated with art exhibits, leading to higher student interest.

"There have definitely been more people coming through [the gallery with the Jumbo exhibit]," MeyerJennette said. "I hope it's kind of raising an awareness of the gallery on campus because in the past, I've met a lot of students who didn't know we

NICHOLAS PFOSI FOR TUFTS UNIVERSITY

Visitors view Professor of Art History Andrew McClellan’s “Jumbo: Marvel, Myth and Mascot” exhibit in the Koppelman Family Gallery in the Aidekman Arts Center on Sept. 11.

had an art gallery ... a lot of students and a lot of alumni ... [have] had a lot of interest ... there are lots of facts that I didn't know about our mascot ... and it's an interesting story."

While the exhibit will be running through Dec. 7, Tufts has also worked to procure a more enduring monument to Jumbo. A new bronze Jumbo statue financed by Former Vice President of Operations Dick Reynolds (LA '67) will be erected outside of Barnum Hall sometime during the late fall. Reynolds said he was disappointed by the previous statue's inaccurate representation of Jumbo. According to the TuftsNow article, he decided that in lieu of a relatively tiny sculpture, a monolithic monument of Jumbo proportions would be more appropriate.

Last year, a committee comprised of faculty, staff and students met to decide on whom to give the commission. Headed by McClellan, the group initially conducted independent research on artists with prior experience in large-scale bronze sculptures of animals. According to TuftsNow, after preliminary discussions, they created a limited competition in which they invited artists to submit design ideas.

Tufts' Executive Director of Advancement Communications and Services Christine Sanni described how important it was to commission an artist with experience in this medium.

“Steven Whyte was chosen by the committee because of his experience creating large-scale bronze models," she said. "The process of building the sculpture is labor intensive. It involves creating a model of the sculpture in one material, covering that model in clay and then creating the features, then creating a mold from the clay model and finishing it in bronze."

Jumbo stole the hearts of his visitors at the London zoo, which fought to keep him in England. After his trip to the United States, along with 400 significantly smaller European immigrants, he commanded the attention of audiences across the continent. Even in present times, the legacy of Jumbo endures through the fresh sets of students who arrive on campus annually, ready to make an impact on the world around them and seize the day by the tusks.

“Jumbo as a mascot is almost as old as the university itself," Sanni said. "Recognizing an anniversary like this one gives us an opportunity, as a community, to look back on our past and take pride in the progress of the university."

MIRANDA WILLSON | ECOFEMINISM FOR ALL

The limited lens of IR Although I’ve been warned about the conservative, neoliberal and Western-centric curriculum in the International Relations department, as a prospective IR major, I was hoping these claims were exaggerations. Now that I’m taking Intro to IR, I understand why some of my friends and the cool folks behind the 2014 Tufts Disorientation Guide warn about the IR department’s “saviour complex and propensity to cheerlead for the global status quo.”

In Intro to IR, we’ve so far read 21 articles by 22 authors. Most of the articles are problematic for one reason or another. Some of the authors argue that countries must always ensure their security — even if this means exponentially expanding their defense budget and shrinking budgets for education, healthcare, social security and other vital services. Other authors insist that the existence of nuclear weapons has prevented major wars over the past several decades and that investing in these inconceivably deadly (and expensive) weapons is good — but that only the “Western” countries can be trusted with them. Or they praise the “obsolescence” of war among democracies, citing how in recent years wars have become less frequent between democratic countries — while discounting bloody civil wars in the Middle East, the death toll in Iraq during the Iraq War and the more than 2,000 Gazans killed this past summer alone during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge.

The single (aka token) female author we’ve read, Margaret Mead, took a strikingly different view in her article, “Warfare Is Only An Invention — Not a Biological Necessity.”

Though the piece — written in 1940 — is dated at times, the basic premise remains relevant. War developed just like any other institution, she argues, and happens to have stuck around. Its persistence in no way suggests its inevitability, just as other institutions and practices like religion, marriage, slavery, torture and racism were constructed by people and are not necessary for the progress of human civilization.

Is it significant that the only female author we’ve read in the class is also the only one who rejects war for everyone living, not because it might hurt increasing “economic interdependence” between democratic countries, but because it is destructive, socially-constructed and stupid? Isn’t it also kind of screwed up that the field of international relations is so dominated by (mostly white) male elites that this is the only female perspective in the course?

I’m not sure I can answer these questions in a 600-word column post, but I will say this: International relations could seriously benefit from an ecofeminist analysis.

Here’s what that analysis might look like: An ecofeminist would note that in many of my IR readings, countries are referred to as “she,” and that this feminization of countries/land is not a new phenomenon — think of the term “virgin land” used by colonists in reference to the New World. An ecofeminist would examine how rulers in a patriarchal society continue to exploit the Earth’s resources for economic gains and litter the globe with nuclear weapons and armed forces, in the process destroying the environment and any peoples in the way. An ecofeminist would then consider how patriarchy might explain not just the oppression of women, but the destruction of an Earth suitable for human life.

I’m not saying we should completely denounce the IR major; I’m certainly not ready to do that just yet. But I hope that IR has room for criticism, not just from an ecofeminist perspective but also from antiracist, anticolonial and other perspectives completely ignored in my IR readings. And for all you IR buffs, I encourage you to take some classes outside the major and to recognize that the field of IR doesn’t necessarily paint an unbiased — or accurate — picture of the world.

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

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Thursday, October 2, 2014

It’s a Choice Tufts Can Afford Tufts’ budgetary priorities reflect the university’s values. If it chose to pay part-time lecturers the same salary per course that it pays fulltime lecturers, Tufts’ budgetary decisions would align with its stated commitment to teaching.

Students and their families pay the same tuition for courses whether they are taught by part-time or full-time faculty.

Students and the university hold part-time and full-time faculty to the same standard of excellence.

Yet Tufts pays part-time lecturers significantly less per course than it pays full-time lecturers.

In negotiations with the administration, the part-time faculty union has proposed that part-time lecturers be paid the same for their teaching as full-time lecturers are paid for theirs, and that the per course increase be phased in by 2017.

The university can afford to pay its part-time faculty fairly.

By 2017, implementing this proposal would cost Tufts only about .2% of its total operating revenue. That’s less than a quarter of a penny out of every dollar to show the university’s commitment to teaching.

“It is critical that Tufts continues to provide opportunities and resources for faculty as well as staff to develop and deploy their talents in ways that will enhance what is already an extraordinary Tufts student experience.”

TUFTS’ T10 STRATEGIC PLAN 2013-2023 PAGE 15

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Weekender

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Arts & Living

Weekender

Courtesy Aishvarya Arora

'Not Your Mother's Monologues' aims to expand feminist narrative

by Dana Guth

Daily Editorial Board

After a few on-and-off years of hosting “The Vagina Monologues” (1998), the Tufts producers of Eve Ensler’s iconic feminist series are giving the show a makeover, revamping it as an all-inclusive, entirely student-written performance. In an effort to expand upon Ensler’s concept and to amplify the voices of any and all female-identifying individuals, “Not Your Mother’s Monologues” will signal a modern departure from the monumental but nevertheless outdated script written almost 20 years ago.

At the helm of the project are sophomores Aishvarya Arora and Julia Doyle, both of whom performed in “The Vagina Monologues” last spring. After taking on directorial roles and beginning the collaborative process this year, the girls agreed it was time for meaningful change.

“Before, we were both cast members using the original script, and it was so rewarding to get the word out that we care about these issues, to create a dialogue,” Arora said. “But when it comes down to it, Eve Ensler’s writing is just insufficiently inclusive.”

To demonstrate, she explained that “The Vagina Monologues,” despite its expressed desire to be as comprehensive as possible, only incorporated one act by a woman of color and one by a queer-identifying woman. According to Arora, the problem here lies in the show’s inability to reach out to all walks of life, only appealing to a very particular subset of females.

“It’s pretty unfair to women on this campus who perceive the show as being something that might pertain to them,” she said. “Part of the reason it’s iconic is its effort to break down barriers and speak for all women. But it must be very frustrating for women of color, trans women or women of different socioeconomic classes, just going to this play and expecting to have their voice heard and then not ... we want to change that this year.”

In the overhaul of Ensler’s original production, the directors made it clear that they had no intention of mitigating its core values and cultural relevance.

Instead, the goal here is to create something of a snowball effect, continuing the boundary-pushing trend and adapting it to meet the urgent need for inclusiveness in 2014.

Those behind “The Vagina Monologues” at Tufts are certainly not the first student organization to begin veering away from the show’s initial message. Amherst has

already changed its performance to the campus-specific “Women of Amherst,” and Duke puts on its annual “Me Too Monologues,” which focuses on diversity in identity and steers clear of all genderbased restrictions.

just feminist issues you can talk about, but all sorts of life experiences. It doesn’t have to be something related to the previous version of the play.”

“What Eve [Ensler] did was groundbreaking,” Doyle continued. “It was an

Courtesy Aishvarya Arora

"Not Your Mother's Monologues" hopes to be maximally inclusive.

“Not Your Mother's Monologues,” then, will insert itself as a progressive middle ground between the two ideas: There will be no limit to the type of subject matter allowed; the only parameter being that of a female-centric space, meaning only those who identify as a woman will be featured.

Still, dropping the word “vagina” from the production’s title was a very conscious decision made by the directors in an attempt to stretch the concept of inclusiveness as far as possible.

“We’re intentionally disengaging from the ‘vagina’ aspect because that was excluding to people who identify as female but don’t have vaginas and/or people who have them but don’t identify as female,” Arora said. “The similarity is that, in terms of subject matter and topic, we stray far away from saying we’re a new version of 'The Vagina Monologues’ because it’s not

important thing to do that started a dialogue about women and created this movement that we’re now just trying to move forward and follow on that legacy, saying ‘how many more people can we include, how much wider can we push this dialogue?’”

For Doyle and Arora, this has meant shifting the monologues from a national standard to a private, Tufts-specific environment where women on campus can share stories that remain untouched and untold in any other space. It’s a movement towards intimacy, closeness and most importantly understanding, as certain experiences are shared with others who might be able to reach out and relate.

As Arora and Doyle described it, “Not Your Mother's Monologues” is less of a production, and more of a community effort.

“We want to make it applicable to the people who hear it,” Doyle said. “This

year, we want students to go to the monologues and think, ‘these are my peers speaking, these are the women on my campus and these are their problems, joys, their embarrassment ... all of it.’

We’re hoping people interact and engage with the play on a more personal level.”

To this end, it was imperative that “Not Your Mother’s Monologues” include performances not only of sexual, female and gender-specific issues, but ideas of all kinds, and that’s no exaggeration.

“Write to us about your race, your culture, your ethnicity, your socioeconomic class, or you can tell us about your family, your friends, your boyfriend and the crush you had in fifth grade,” Doyle mused. “You can talk about your style of clothing — why you always wear black. Why you like to work out on the elliptical and not the treadmill. Do you do crunches every night before bed and what does that mean to you? What was your favorite book, your favorite name you came up with for a pet or a story … we’ve been brainstorming, and I could go on forever.”

Submissions for “Not Your Mother's Monologues” can be sent to notyourmothersmonologues2015@gmail.com and will be accepted until Nov. 15.

This will coincide with an appeal to get more students involved in the production process as well. Before the Nov. 15 submission deadline, the students running “Not Your Mother’s Monologues” will be hosting workshops to run through everyone’s writing and discuss ideas of their own. Arora and Doyle are also crossing their fingers for co-editor contributions once more submissions begin piling in.

“If we want to put together a truly representative show, we need people with varying identities on the submissions committee who can work together as a team,” they said.

The duo is already laying out a timeline for the actual show, with high hopes for a polished and put-together play materializing by winter break. Once spring rolls around, the team will be shifting their focus towards auditioning actors and working on the production aspects onstage. The final show will take place in late March or early April of 2015.

Arora wrapped everything up by reinforcing the mission statement of the reboot: to provide a safe space for writers.

“If you want to submit anonymously, go for it and it will have a totally objective reception,” she said. “Whatever you need us to do. You can perform it yourself or cast someone to perform it for you. We’re completely flexible — and super excited!”

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weekender

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Artsy Nugget

'The Legend of Korra' enters fourth and final season Beginning its fourth and final season on Oct. 3rd, Nickelodeon’s “The Legend of Korra” franchise brings about the end of the extended universe of its predecessor “Avatar: The Last Airbender” (2005-2008). The hullaballoo surrounding the beginning of the end for “Korra” is not simply due to the fanatical following that the show has garnered over the years. In part, the intrigue surrounding the show’s end has to do with Nickelodeon’s revolutionary way of providing the content: Instead of broadcasting the show on television, Nickelodeon has switched to purely digital releases of episodes through its website Nick.com. This may not be news to many loyal followers of the show; many episodes of the show's penultimate season, which aired at the beginning of this past summer, were also available exclusively online.

However, it seems that fans are still split over this transition. Apparently, show creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino — the same folks who were behind “Avatar: the Last Airbender” — parterned with Nickelodeon in its decision to shift from traditional broadcasting to online streaming. With the majority of the show’s viewers either in their last years of high school or their first years of college, the Internet is where the show’s constituency lives.

Regardless, for many die-hard fans this change is hard to bear. This, coupled with the creeping disappearance of Saturday morning cartoons, seems to be a harsh reminder that the digital age is here to stay.

—by Veronica Little

Gage skidmore via wikimedia commons

Actor David Faustino voiced the character Mako in “The Legend of Korra.”

Sophomore Isha Patnaik takes a leap into the world of comedy

by Veronica Little Daily Editorial Board

If you told sophomore Isha Patnaik two years ago that she would be a part of a huge sketch-comedy collective in college, she likely would have “lol'd” (or “laughed out loud”). Since becoming a

Jumbo, however, Patnaik’s involvement with the sketch comedy group, Major: Undecided, has become a quintessential part of her Tufts experience.

“It’s the one thing in college that kind of defined my experience,” Patnaik said.

As a freshman, Patnaik was pulled

Tufts Programs Abroad 2015-16

into the world of Major: Undecided because of her love for sketch comedy shows like “Saturday Night Live” (1975-present), and more importantly, the group’s overwhelming inclusiveness and support. Both comedy veterans and newbies share the creative space and stage in Majors, so students like Patnaik — who does not come from a comedy or theater background -- felt like they could try their hat in the world of sketch comedy.

“It’s been one of those things that you didn’t think you were capable of,” said Patnaik, “but you meet up with

these people and they’re really serious about making people laugh.” Patnaik has attributed her success and love for sketch comedy to the vast support system of creative and passionate students that Majors has afforded her.

Now one of two PR directors for the group, Patnaik said she’s still learning.

“With creating stuff comes paralyzing insecurities ... but I am a part of a group that wants me to succeed,” she said.

Check out Major: Undecided at their upcoming show in Barnum 008 on Oct. 10 at 9 p.m.

Upcoming Informational Pizza Parties

Tufts in Hong Kong:

Thursday, October 2nd at 6:00pm Dowling Hall, Room 745B

Tufts in Chile:

Tuesday, October 7th at 6:00pm Dowling Hall, Room 745A

Tufts in Japan:

Thursday, October 9th at 6:00pm Dowling Hall, Room 745A Other Upcoming Tufts Programs Events: Tufts in Oxford: Tues., 10/14 @ 6pm in Dowling 745B Tufts in London: Wed., 10/15 @ 6pm in Dowling 745A Tufts in Madrid: Tues., 10/28 @ 6pm in Dowling 745A Tufts in Tübingen: Thurs., 11/6 @ 6pm in Dowling 745A Tufts in China: Wed., 11/12 @ 6pm in Dowling 745A Tufts in Ghana: Thurs., 11/13 @ 6pm in TBD Tufts in Paris: Tues., 11/18 @ 6pm in Dowling 745A

Applications due Feb. 2 (Oxford: Dec. 1) http://uss.tufts.edu/studyabroad

Nisha Bhikha courtesy Isha Patnaik

Major: Undecided provides an open, enthusiastic space for budding comedians.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

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7

weekender Nikki Blank | A SWUG's Life

Album Review

When a fire starts to burn

D

ear SWUG, My car blew up on Homecoming in the Zeta parking lot. What should I do with my totaled car?

— I Didn’t Start the Fire

Eddy BERTHIER via Wikimedia Creative Commons

Alt-J fails to live up to hype on second studio album attempt.

Alt-J fails to innovate with sophomore album release

by Charlotte Gilliland Daily Editorial Board

Indie-rock band alt-J certainly had big shoes to fill after its first full-length record, “An Awesome Wave” (2012),

This Is All Yours

alt-J Atlantic Records peaked at No. 13 on the U.K.’s Top 20 chart. It seemed like every radio station from here to Switzerland played the popular single, “Tessellate" (2012), on repeat. This “folk-tronica” crew formed in 2007 in Leeds, England, the inspiration for their name coming from the Macintosh keyboard shortcut for a triangle — “alt” and “j” (perhaps a preemptive attempt to teach their hipster following just how to use their brand new MacBook Pros).

In the afterglow of the band’s 2012 success, some critics went as far as to pronounce them the “new Radiohead.”

Coincidentally, the Sept. 22 release of their second album, “This Is All Yours,” came in the same week that Thom Yorke’s surprise new album was announced online and made available through a file sharing software. But, after alt-J’s keyboardist Gus UngerHamilton joked in 2012 that his posse was "doing better than Radiohead" in their early years, the indie-rock world will have to be the judge of how this competition plays out. Unfortunately for alt-J, their second release makes it fairly clear that they have some catching up to do.

“This Is All Yours” is, at best, pleasant background music for your next study session at Starbucks. “Intro” sounds much too familiar to the intro track of its predecessor album. The whimsical flutes in the background of “Every Other Freckle” are intriguing to say the least and the bonus track, “Lovely Day,” may leave you with a slight grin on your face. But there’s not much that sticks out: no track worthy of playing on repeat until it simply becomes unbearable, no moment that will completely take a listener's breath away.

Alt-J doesn’t fail to produce interesting sounds — a knack it demonstrated most successfully on its first album — blending both acoustic guitars with electronica effects beneath vocalist Joe Newman’s raspy, folksy voice. And, with a sample from Miley Cyrus’s “4X4” (2013) in “Hunger Of The Pine,” the band proves it knows how to have a little bit of fun. Yet, this latest release sounds like a subpar continuation of its first album. It's as if the band decided that the addition of a few new flutes and medieval-sounding choruses would be a simple enough addition for its sophomore variation.

The album is hauntingly framed by a connection to Nara — a city in Japan known for its free roaming deer. It opens with “Arrival in Nara,” a soothing, largely acoustic track featuring piano melodies and soft guitar plucking. Newman’s crooning voice weaves in and out of the track, telling the story of neither an arrival nor of Nara, but of an ending: a girl “sucking splash into her lungs” and drowning.

The titular city is finally mentioned in the next track, in which Newman declares he wants “to be a deer in Nara,” a claim accompanied by men-

tions of “Bovay” and “Alabama.” He sings “love is the warmest color” — perhaps alluding to the recent film “Blue Is the Warmest Color” (2013) — but the exact message alt-J is attempting to convey remains largely vague and unrealized.

Newman's point may be a grand political statement. "Bovay" could be a reference to Alan Bovay, credited with founding the United States Republican Party, while Alabama is possibly the most conservative state in the country. These potential allusions occur alongside the mention of a lesbian romance film and Newman’s declaration of love for a man. Could these lyrics be a comment on gay rights and the legality of same-sex marriage?

Or perhaps Newman merely thought “Alabama” sounded exotic enough to enhance his repetitive, sparse lyrics and threw the state’s name into the mix on a whim.

If anything, the desire “to be a deer in Nara” encapsulates the fairy tale vibe of this album as a whole. One can easily envision a couple’s celebratory prancing during “Garden of England — Interlude,” moving freely to its odd medieval flutes and chirping birds.

“Left Hand Free,” a lo-fi rock-and-roll track that sounds a whole lot like The Black Keys is worthy of a few head nods, too. Later, Newman’s optimistic “Warm Foothills” provides some tranquil moments, featuring a collaboration with Conor Oberst and a bit of Andrew Bird-like whistling.

"Warm Foothills" condenses the spirit of the album as a whole. It's pleasant easy-listening, flavored with just enough innovation to allow the average American Top-40 listener to feel that they’re “expanding their horizons.”

Events Box

What’s Up This Weekend Looking to make your weekend artsy? Check out these events!

Sunday at Tufts Com mu ni ty Co nc e rt Series — Celebrating Frank!: Come celebrate pianist Frank Glazer’s 100th birthday as he and performance faculty violist Scott Woolweaver lead this week’s performance concert featuring selected pieces

by Beethoven, Hindemith, Clarke and Vaughan

Williams. (Sunday at 3 p.m. in Distler Performance Hall, Granoff Music Center.

Admission is free.)

Create Date: Join other artistic students in this week’s create date. Make crafts at the Tufts Art Gallery for free! (Thursday at 7 p.m. in the Tufts Art Gallery. Admission is free.)

An Evening with Esperanza Spalding: Thank you October! Berklee grad and celebrated bassist, vocal-

ist and composer Esperanza Spalding returns to Berklee for a special performance as part of a two week tour to celebrate her “birthday month.” Along with longtime collaborators Leo Genovese and Lyndon Rochelle, Spalding will perform songs from her various releases including “Junjo” (2006), “Esperanza” (2008) and “Chamber Music Society” (2010). (Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Berklee Performance Center.

Tickets are $36 and are available online.)

Radio 92.9 WBOS Presents Lykke Li: The moody and powerful Swedish songstress will be performing songs from her new moving album “I Never Learn” (2014). Featuring Mapei as the opening artist.

(Friday at 7 p.m. at House of Blues. Tickets start at $37.25 and are available online.)

—by Nika Korchok

Dear I Didn’t Start the Fire, Phew, its getting hot in here. My Nana always says, if you play with fire, you’re going to get burned, and this is exactly what she was talking about. From now on, Homecoming 2014 will be remembered as the day when that BMW blew up and all the parties got cancelled. Like moths to a flame, scores of Tufts students captured the incident via Snapchat. Punny captions ensued. Rumors will circulate for weeks about cocaine, perfectly flung cigarettes and acts of terrorism. Spontaneous combustion is the new black.

I think you should use this new found f(l)ame and fortune (if insurance companies cover stolen vehicles ... BURN!) to create a sculpture garden in the Zeta parking lot. The blowing up of your car was performance art, and the remnants represent the death of the American dream. Goodness gracious, great balls of fire! We’ve been burning the candle from both ends for too long. It’s hard to work all week and party all weekend and still have time to catch up on "Burn Notice" (2007 - 2013), "Chicago Fire" (2012 - present) and "The Big Bang Theory" (2007 - present). We’re susceptible to crashing and burning, and its hard to keep the fire lit under our asses for seven real semesters and a semester abroad just exploring the Parisian suburbs.

We’ve seen fire and we’ve seen rain and we’ve seen sunny days that we thought would never end (until the smoke from your car engulfed campus). What better represents our plight than the metal frame of a German-made automobile?

Or maybe after the smoke settles, you could donate the ashes of your beamer to the Tufts Art Gallery. They currently have a jar of Jumbo’s ashes on display, so they’d probably appreciate the embers of Homecoming 2014. Another option to keep the fuel burning is to collaborate with Fan the Fire and blow your car up for every home football game. The Jumbos will soon be praying to Vulcan (the Roman god of fire) before games, and our beloved mascot will spit flames from its trunk. Your totaled car will rise from the ashes like a newborn phoenix as a memento to partying.

Please stop playing with matches, SWUG

Dear SWUG, Can my professor tell that there's Andre in my Nalgene?

— Andre You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana Dear Andre You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana, Your professor calls you Cady instead of Katie, can barely see you behind that football player in the third row and constantly talks about his upcoming sabbatical, so the chances that he even notices that you’re present, let alone own a Nalgene, are slim.

But just to be sure, invest in a tinted water bottle and cover it with socially conscious stickers. No one suspects Ms. “I choose to reuse” to be casually sipping on a sugary $7 champagne in the middle of Western Political Thought. Although... no one really ever suspects anyone to be sipping on Andre unless they’re zip-tied to a partner in a frat basement and forced to finish every last drop.

Maybe you should try sipping white wine out of a ziploc bag as a starting point and then go from there. I’ve also heard that beer helmets are a subtle way of saying: "I’m here and I’m drinking beer." Or you could go the hardo jock route and fill a gallon water jug with Rubinoff. The possibilities are endless when you realize that no one gives a f**k about what you are doing.

Bottles up, SWUG Nikki Blank is a senior majoring in English. She can be reached at Nicole.

Blank@tufts.edu

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THE TUFTS DAILY Alexander J. Schroeder Editor-in-Chief

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Thursday, October 2, 2014

Editorial | Op-ed

Editorial

Ending of OCL van service not as bad as it seems The Office of Campus Life (OCL) recently announced that it will be taking its vans out of service. The OCL vans have been used in the past by campus clubs, academic departments and other organizations for their activities. While many students may call discontinuation of the rental vans a bad decision, the OCL is making the right move.

The office's vans have served their purpose of transporting students up, down and away from the Hill for many years now. But upkeep for the vans, which are “well over twelve years old” according to OCL Director Joe Golia, has become much too expensive for their services, which were only employed by a few organizations last semester.

Students may be concerned that this will make transportation more difficult to find, but the administration has done good work in finding a suitable and accessible substitute for the OCL

vans through the expansion of Zipcar on campus. The administration recently negotiated a change in the rules for using Zipcars on campus, which will now allow students 18 years and older to use Zipcars, as opposed to the old rule which only allowed students 21 years of age or older. The school will also not have to spend money on the upkeep of the vehicles and the OCL will hopefully be able to save money to put to better use elsewhere.

Tufts students have expressed concern about getting off campus. Many students are aware of the “Tufts bubble” that, in the midst of a busy semester, prevents students from getting out and about as much as they’d like. Last year, the Tufts Transit Coalition grew into a significant force for reform on campus to address that problem. While the OCL changes may look like a step back, if the administration fills that need

with Zipcars (and the rarer but more spacious Zipvans) students will have more and better ways to get around than they did with just the OCL vans.

Though the university is right to make this decision and has covered its bases in terms of preparing campus for the aftermath, there will be a continued need for transportation infrastructure on campus. This is especially true for groups like the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), which in the past has used the OCL vans to get to meetings that are not easily accessible by T. The hiring of a new transportation manager is an important step — and the university should look to expand transportation options further.

Students should take this change as a moment of opportunity. As the university plans to change its transportation offerings, we should look forward to expanding our horizons outside of Tufts.

amy bu

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Off the Hill | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Green future is bright

by Brian Vaughn The Daily Tar Heel

It's very easy to come off as a pessimist when talking about environmental issues. Ocean acidification, the extinction of thousands of species every year and environmental racism aren't the most cheerful conversation topics.

But the people and organizations working to fix these problems are the most inspiring I've known in my 19 years on planet Earth. Their commitment is infectious.

On Sunday, Sept. 21, I had the chance to attend the People's Climate March in New York City with about 20 other UNC students. It was an empowering feeling to be surrounded by new friends, college students, parents, children, members of marginalized communities and environmental organizations — all marching for climate justice.

The march opened my eyes to a generational shift between baby boomers

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

and millennials. Overwhelmingly, our parents bought into the fossil fuel lifestyle. According to CNN, between 1970 and 2000, the percentage of Americans living in suburbs increased from 38 to 50 percent.

But today, public transit ridership is at a 50-year high. A survey of transit users

by TransitCenter found that millenials are much more likely to use public transportation than their older counterparts.

It's time for our infrastructure to reflect this demand. The Department of Transportation must begin shifting investment to light rail and bus rapid transit options to provide our generation with the means to be mobile and productive.

This desire for further sustainable investment can be applied elsewhere.

At the forefront of this power shift are students at universities across the country advocating for the divestment of the schools' endowment from fossil fuels.

The Board of Trustees at UNC unanimously adopted the Sierra Student

Coalition's proposal to "target investments in clean energy" — an acknowledgment of this generation's priorities.

This success is owed to the SSC's willingness to work with the administration to accomplish a positive step in the direction of sustainable investment, one of Student Body President Andrew Powell's platform planks.

The SSC knows the ultimate goal of divestment is not yet achieved. For now, its most vital responsibility should be holding the board, the chancellor's office and the UNC Management Company accountable to ensure effective implementation.

The future holds great potential for the change needed to save the planet's climate from becoming too unstable to support life. Though the actions of university students might seem small now, their collective effects will be significant. My favorite sign from the march bore a simple message. "If not us, who? If not now, when?"

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ADVERTISING POLICY All advertising copy is subject to the approval of the Editorin-Chief, Executive Board and Executive Business Director. A publication schedule and rate card are available upon request.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

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Off the Hill | University of Southern California

"America's Best College" does not exist

by Erin Rode The Daily Trojan

College application season — that time of year is here once again. Nationwide, high school students and parents alike are now getting ready for the quest to find a perfect fit for the next four years. More often than not, the search begins with rankings. Early last month, U.S. News & World Report released the latest edition of its "Best Colleges" list, widely accepted as the go-to for college rankings.

USC placed 25th on the U.S. News rankings this year, but placed fourth on the list of schools with the most billionaire undergraduate alumni, recently released by Wealth-X and UBS's "Billionaire Census." In fact, the obsession with rankings has spurred new lists based on all kinds of criteria, including everything from best dorm food to most beautiful campus to highest starting salaries of recent graduates. In light of the increasing number of rankings, it's hard to tell which lists have real merit.

Biased and trivial, the criteria for the U.S. News rankings have little to do with actual student satisfaction and more to do with schools' reputations and historic prestige.

"Undergraduate academic reputation" accounts for a whopping 22.5 percent of the weighing in the ranking formula. This reputation doesn't come from undergraduate student input, but rather from an assessment by top administrators — deans, presidents and provosts — of peer institutions.

This creates a cycle in the rankings process: Top academics evaluate a peer institution based on its reputation, which was established in the prior year's rankings, which

in turn prevents schools from moving dramatically up or down in the rankings during any given year.

Finances also play a large part in the U.S. News ranking methodology. Faculty resources, financial resources and alumni giving rate add up to 35 percent of the total weight. Financial resources are judged by per-student spending, but U.S. News doesn't account for the fact that high per-student spending is often funded through high perstudent tuition.

Not coincidentally, some of America's "top colleges" are also those known for their costly tuition. The high demand for top schools means that they can get away with exorbitant prices.

Blatantly absent from U.S. News' criteria are factors like affordability and student satisfaction. Including these factors would force colleges into a competition to improve themselves for their students. If affordability were a factor, colleges would set costs that would better help students, and the rankings system would inspire competition that benefits students. Instead, schools are rewarded for their financial and faculty resources.

Perhaps the most pointless criterion for the ranking is the "selectivity" factor. Just as how "undergraduate academic reputation" creates a cycle of rewarding the same schools, the selectivity factor makes it harder for new schools to break into the top list.

When a school is named one of America's top colleges, more students will apply there, increasing the selectivity. This lowered rate of admissions will then help the school in the next year's rankings, and since the school remains on the top list, its selectivity rate will remain high.

Obviously, these rankings should mean more to the schools themselves than to students looking for prospective colleges. The U.S. News and World Report ranking system is essentially just a way for elite colleges to pat themselves on the back and justify rising tuition costs.

Simply comparing the U.S. News rankings to rankings that utilize different criteria exemplifies this. For example, the Washington Post recently released a list of the colleges with graduates who had the highest average starting salaries, which seems more helpful to students than endowment or selectivity. Not a single one of the top 10 schools on the Washington Post's list were Ivy League universities, which made up half of U.S. News' top 10.

Unfortunately, many high school students rely heavily on well-known rankings like U.S. News during their college search process.

Most students don't apply exclusively to top 10 schools, but many students rely on the rankings when choosing their "dream schools." Just because a school received the number one ranking, however, doesn't mean it should be everyone's number one choice. Top schools won't necessarily be the best choice for every student. For instance, Caltech (ranked 10th) might not be the best option for an English major.

When choosing a school, students should ignore the rankings and focus on factors like environment, academic programs for their specific major and affordability. Instead of allowing U.S. News & World Report to tell them which school is the best, students need to do their own research and attend a school that will meet their personal needs and interests — regardless of that school's rank.

Off the Hill | Wake Forest University

Government nutrition programs should improve

by Ian Rutledge Old Gold and Black

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the Food Stamp Program, is marred with controversy.

Even when you get past the primary debate of whether or not SNAP should exist, there is an underlying question of whether or not the use of SNAP funds should be restricted to food and beverages that are nutritiously beneficial.

Should the government be allowed to dictate the dietary choices of those enrolled in SNAP? Would such interference not violate the principals of independence, free will and liberty that this country so proudly boasts to the world? The answer, simply put, is no.

In 2011, SNAP cost the federal government $75 billion, constituting approximately 1.9 percent of the federal budget for the 2011 fiscal year. Although the program takes up only a small portion of the federal budget, a program that spends billions of taxpayers' dollars should be responsive to the will of the U.S. populace.

According to a survey conducted by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, 82 percent of respondents were in favor of "providing additional benefits that can only be used on healthful foods" and 69 percent of respondents were in favor of "removing SNAP benefits for sugary drinks." Such widespread support is a demand for policy makers to make alterations to a program that consumes a large amount of government funds.

KVDP via Wikimedia Commons

9

Op-Ed

Moreover, the program should not be altered simply because of a popular demand for change, even though that reason is quite compelling.

It should be altered so that it actually works to accomplish the program's stated goal of supplementing the nutrition of those who cannot afford it.

This is a necessity, as America's obesity epidemic continues to run rampant and threaten the lives of numerous individuals in the coming years.

The question then, assuming that alterations are to be made to SNAP, becomes what method will be most successful in incentivizing healthier eating?

The Healthy Incentives Pilot (HIP), created by the 2008 Farm Bill, was a $20 million pilot program that incentivized the purchase of fruits and vegetables with a 30 percent discount of said foods covered by the program. The program participants ended up purchasing 25 percent more vegetables and 95 percent of the participants reported that they wanted the program to continue.

The federal government should develop a broader, all-encompassing program that mirrors HIP to increase the use of SNAP benefits for the purchase of fruits and vegetables.

Some may argue that the last thing the federal government ought to do is increase spending on SNAP. However, if you look at the larger picture, this will end up being the less expensive option.

This is because a majority of SNAP beneficiaries are enrolled in Medicaid and healthcare costs will continue to increase due to obesity to the point where such costs are greater than a larger HIP-type program would be to the federal government.

Thus, the launch of a broader program will result in more food with greater nutritional benefit being consumed by numerous Americans, ameliorating the overall well-being of the nation and reducing obesity-related healthcare costs for the government in future years.

Walt Laws-MacDonald | Show Me the Money

Alibaba and the IPO

C

hinese e-commerce giant Alibaba went public earlier this month, raising nearly $22 billion in the largest initial public offering (IPO) ever. Founded by Chinese national Jack Ma in 1999, the company takes its name from the classic tale of “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,” which tells of a poor villager who opens a secret treasure trove by shouting “open sesame!”

Just as Ali Baba unsealed a cave of treasures, Jack Ma and Alibaba have unsealed an enormous market.

Literary comparisons aside, Alibaba is huge. With a market value of almost $220 billion, Alibaba is worth more than both eBay and Amazon combined and controlled $170 billion in sales in 2012.

So how does a company you’ve probably never heard of before overshadow household names like eBay and Amazon with ease? Alibaba’s business model isn’t unique, and it isn’t very new either. Visit Alibaba. com — the company’s primary operation — and you will see a site eerily similar to the homepage of eBay or a similar consumerto-consumer retailer.

To put it simply, Alibaba is China’s eBay. It’s also China’s Amazon. It’s also China’s Groupon, Overstock and PayPal. And WhatsApp. And Yahoo!

With half a dozen different “stores” and websites, Alibaba’s various domains make up a substantial portion of Chinese web traffic. This strategy of decentralized shopping also benefits Alibaba’s business strategy by preventing one site's results from showing up on another. Rather than using Google — or Bing, if you’re into that sort of thing I guess — to research the best price for a product, Chinese consumers must search each site independently. And, wouldn’t you know, the majority of those sites are owned and operated by Alibaba.

Alibaba’s divide-and-conquer strategy has earned it massive revenues and engrained itself in the Chinese economy. As the second biggest market in the world, China has allowed Alibaba to grow into a much larger and stronger company than it could’ve in many other places. If, for instance, Alibaba had begun in the Republic of Korea — or a similarly well-developed but small economy — it would have had to expose itself to international markets and pressures much earlier on in its lifetime.

Instead, U.S. investors got their first look at Alibaba as a fifteen-year-old, fully grown company. Alibaba has proven itself a capable player on a massive scale, working through the kinks of rapid growth and expansion in a more controlled environment.

Alibaba does face many new concerns in the international market, however. E-commerce relies on a healthy middle-class — something that China hasn’t exactly fostered in recent years. Ma and Alibaba are aware of this trend, and have pushed into Europe and other regions in recent months. As it continues to expand into new countries and areas of business, Alibaba will face new threats and dynamics that the heavily regulated Chinese market does not contain.

These same regulations made U.S. investors weary of taking a stake in Alibaba’s success earlier this month, as each relationship between the Chinese government and Alibaba — whose business practices are licensed in the Cayman Islands — has its own nuances and complexity.

The IPO itself, however, was deemed a success. Shares jumped from the offer price of $68 to over $90 in the first day of trading, turning Jack Ma into the richest man in China. Yahoo!, which had purchased a substantial stake — at one point 40 percent — of Alibaba going into the IPO, also saw a huge windfall.

For many American investors, Alibaba is the first of its kind: an internet giant on the scale of Amazon that is neither U.S. born nor U.S. raised. Alibaba’s ability to expand into other markets will surely be tested in the coming years, but for now it has received a resounding vote of confidence.

Walt Laws-MacDonald is a junior majoring in quantitative economics. He can be reached at Walt.Laws_MacDonald@tufts.edu

Op-ed Policy The Op-Ed section of The Tufts Daily, an open forum for campus editorial commentary, is printed Monday through Thursday. The Daily welcomes submissions from all members of the Tufts community; the opinions expressed in the Op-Ed section do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Daily itself. Opinion articles on campus, national and international issues should be 600 to 1,200 words in length. Op-Ed cartoons are also welcomed for the Campus Canvas feature. All material is subject to editorial discretion and is not guaranteed to appear in the Daily. All material should be submitted to oped@tuftsdaily.com no later than noon on the day prior to the desired day of publication; authors must submit their telephone numbers and day-of availability for editing questions. Submissions may not be published elsewhere prior to their appearance in the Daily, including but not limited to other on- and off-campus newspapers, magazines, blogs and online news websites, as well as Facebook. Republishing of the same piece in a different source is permissible as long as the Daily is credited with originally running the article.

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The Tufts Daily

FOR RELEASE OCTOBER 2, 2014

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

CROSSWORD

ACROSS 1 Hint 6 Insincere flattery 11 Town in a Hersey title 12 Book before Joel 13 Roadie’s burden 16 Like some ALS Ice Bucket Challenge videos 17 Home of the bush ballad 19 Greek letter 20 Take in 22 Hardest to get close to 23 Rocky pinnacle 24 Brit who might lose a stone?

26 __ tape 27 Cicero, for one 29 From the top 31 Half a drink 32 CV component 33 Three sheets to the wind 34 Selassie of Ethiopia 36 Stew base 38 Snake eye?

39 Doctoral candidate’s hurdle 40 Seventh-century pope 41 Blu-ray player ancestor 42 Swindle 43 Sturdy tree 44 Astra or Insignia 46 Salad vegetable 49 DWI-fighting gp.

51 Genesis 53 “__ Cried”: 1962 hit for Jay and the Americans 54 Prepares (oneself), as for combat 56 Pooch sans papers 57 Diminutive, diminutively 58 Fated 60 Send, in a way 62 Ice cream maker Joseph 63 Bars with character, to some 64 Slower than adagio

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Comics

Doonesbury

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis

by Garry Trudeau

Non Sequitur

By Jeffrey Wechsler

65 Act surprised 66 Puts on cargo DOWN 1 Donated for the benefit of 2 One checking stories 3 Classic music hall song that lent its melody to the “Howdy Doody” theme 4 Santa __ Mountains 5 Lake Erie city 6 Trading unit 7 Apt challenger of this puzzle’s circled locations 8 Long-eared beast 9 Hit the hay 10 Painter Chagall 13 Unalaska, e.g.

14 Name incorrectly 15 McDonald’s supply 18 Succor 21 Service station offering 25 Wide key

10/2/14

WEDNESDAY’S SOLUTION Wednesday’s Puzzle Solved

Married to the Sea

©2014 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

28 Small South American monkey 30 “No one knows” 33 Enthusiast 35 Yankee suspended for the 2014 season 36 Start of a confession 37 Like family 45 Reminder of a kind

10/2/14

46 Slowing, in scores 47 Certain Muslim 48 Greetings 50 Room with a remote, often 52 Letterman interviewee, say 55 Old Fords 59 Reproductive cells 61 __ culpa

www.marriedtothesea.com

THAT SCRAMBLED WORD GAME

by David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek

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

©2014 Tribune Content Agency, LLC All Rights Reserved.

DIRGI FORTPI

AGENTE

Check out the new, free JUST JUMBLE app

ZAGEL

SUDOKU Level: Having a meaningful conversation at a frat party.

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

Ans. here:

(Answers tomorrow) Jumbles: ONION SWIFT DOCKET WRENCH Yesterday’s LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Answer: Asked if their band would score, Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey said — WHO KNOWS Wednesday’s Solution

Montana: “I’m going to name my first child InDesign.”

Want more late-night laughs?

Follow us on Twitter at @LateNiteAtDaily

Please recycle this Daily.

by Wiley

Thursday, October 2, 2014

The Tufts Daily

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Sports

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Editors’ Challenge | Week 5

Hey sports fans! The sports editors are back with our picks for Week 5 of the NFL season.

We all made so much money betting on games in Vegas this week that we bought ourselves new cars. But as we found out, we all have very different tastes.

Maclyn “Chevrolet” Senear loves his country and wants everyone to know it. He spends every sunday sucking down Bud Lights, praying to Jesus and watching the Dallas Cowboys.

Stars and stripes!

Alison “Volvo” Kuah just wants everybody to be safe. When she’s not rooting for safeties in football, she follows everyone around complaining about fire hazards and talking about the importance of side-impact airbags. You can never be too careful.

Alex “Smart Car” Schroeder wants everybody to know that he cares about the earth. Even though his Smart Car gets significantly worse gas mileage than a Prius, its the image that counts.

As long as his car looks absurd, he’s accomplishing his goal.

Jake “Buick” Indursky looks like an old man, writes like an old man and drives like an old man.

And luckily for us, lately he’s been picking NFL games as if he lost his reading glasses. After going 5-8 this week, he lost his claim on first place.

Alex “Hummer” Connors bulldozed his way into first place this week, though it cost him dearly.

The trip from the middle of the page to the left side of the page, approximately four inches, used up 18 gallons of gas. He sits at 36-25 and five polar bears killed.

Wil “Audi” Glavin has a sweet R8 but still somehow couldn’t do better than 5-8 this week.

OVERALL LAST WEEK MIN at GB CIN at NE CHI at CAR CLE at TEN STL at PHI ATL at NYG TB at NO HOU at DAL BUF at DET BAL at IND PIT at JAX ARI at DEN KC at SF NYJ at SD SEA at WSH

Alex C 36-25 8-5 GB NE CAR TEN PHI ATL NO DAL DET IND PIT DEN SF SD SEA

Chris 36-25 7-6 GB NE CAR TEN PHI ATL NO DAL DET IND PIT DEN SF SD SEA

Jake 34-27 5-8 MIN NE CHI CLE STL ATL TB HOU BUF BAL JAX ARI KC NYJ WSH

Tyler 34-27 7-6 GB NE CHI TEN PHI ATL NO DAL DET IND PIT DEN SF SD SEA

Alison 32-29 6-7 GB NE CAR TEN PHI ATL NO DAL DET IND PIT DEN SF SD SEA

Deb the only Tufts player to reach the quarterfinals

women’s Tennis continued from back

“We are all so excited that [Deb] got so far in the tournament,” Louks said.

“It's awesome to have one of the best girls in Division III on our team.”

Although no other Tufts players reached the quarterfinals, Louks was able to win two matches to earn a spot in the round of 16. She beat Jordin Dubin of Smith College by a score of 6-1, 6-0 in the first round and followed that dominant performance with a 6-3, 6-3 win over MIT freshman Sonya Das. In the round of 16, however, Louks faced Raventos, who easily won the match 6-2, 6-2 on the way to her finals appearance.

“The biggest challenge against [Raventos] was probably missing my serve,” Louks said. “When I would miss my serve my confidence was lower.”

The rest of the Jumbos did not fare as well. Calabro gave a valiant effort but ended up losing in the first round to Nicole McCann of Wesleyan, 5-7, 6-4, 10-4. Meltzer lost in the first round to third-seed and eventual champion Linda Shin of Williams 6-0, 6-0. Hayashi lost to Williams freshman Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio by a score of 6-0, 6-1. Miller won her first match against Sarah Monteagudo of Amherst on Friday by a score of 7-5, 6-4, but lost to second-seed Elysa Kohrs of MIT in the second round 6-0, 6-1.

This was the first tournament of the season for the Jumbos, and despite the results, Calabro believes the tournament was a good experience for the team.

"I think the team chemistry progressed tremendously over the weekend," she said. "Spending every moment together from Thursday night to Sunday afternoon is a lot of time. The long van rides together, the early morning wakeups, pre-match nerves, post-match relief — we really were there for each other at the best and worst of times."

The team will have plenty of opportunities to gain experience and learn

from mistakes, starting today at Babson. If this weekend was any indication, the team chemistry is increasing and the team is having more fun “The team chemistry is really good this year,” Louks said. “We have a small team of 8 players this year which makes us all super close.”

Caroline Geiling/ The Tufts Daily

Two Tufts players reached the quarterfinals of the ITA Regional Championships at Williams College this weekend.

Maybe he should stop obsessing about his LED headlights and focus on football.

Sam “Ford” Gold ‘s 21-40 record after four weeks has put him so far in debt that he was the only one who couldn’t afford to buy a car this week. He bareley had enough money to rent one for the day, just so he could participate in this gag. Enjoy your one glorious day with that 2003 Ford Focus Sam! Steven “Subaru” Hefter likes granola and long hikes and has already covered his car with social justice bumper stickers. His 28-33 record isn’t him not knowing anything about football, it’s just him sticking it to the man!’

Tyler “Honda” Maher gave me a lesson on drag racing today in his souped-up Civic straight out of “The Fast & The Furious.” His 34-27 record, just like his body kit and giant spoiler, is pretty impressive.

Chris “Ferrari” Warren ran into the Daily office to enter his picks toady and ran back out so fast that no one knew he was ever there. Athletes are cool. We definitely need more athletes in the sports section.

Jorge “Lexus” Monroy-Palacio wanted to spend as much money as possible for a Toyota, because he just really likes Toyota. He learned the art of picking NFL games from an expert in Tokyo, who also happened to love Toyota. You think it’s weird? I agree.

Nitesh “BMW” Gupta drove down from his mansion in Cambridge to give us his guest picks for this week.

Wil 32-29 5-8 GB CIN CHI CLE PHI ATL NO DAL DET BAL PIT DEN SF SD SEA

Jorge 31-30 5-8 GB NE CHI CLE PHI ATL NO DAL DET IND PIT DEN SF SD SEA

Maclyn 31-30 4-9 GB NE CHI CLE PHI ATL NO DAL DET IND PIT DEN SF SD SEA

Alex S 29-32 7-6 GB NE CHI CLE PHI ATL NO DAL DET IND PIT DEN KC SD SEA

Steven 28-33 6-7 GB NE CHI CLE PHI NYG NO DAL DET IND PIT DEN SF SD SEA

Sam 21-40 6-7 MIN NE CHI CLE STL ATL TB HOU BUF BAL JAX ARI KC NYJ WSH

GUEST Nitesh Gupta GB NE CHI CLE PHI ATL NO DAL DET IND PIT DEN KC SD SEA

Sports

12

tuftsdaily.com

Soccer

Jumbos tie Lord Jeffs at Homecoming

by Jake Indursky Daily Editorial Board

As is often the case in soccer, stats can belie a team's true ability. For the Jumbos, their 0-1-1 record against top-10 teams this year fails to show how close they

MEN’S SOCCER (5-1-2 Overall, 3-0-1 NESCAC) at Kraft Field, Saturday Amherst Tufts

1 1

0 0

OT 2OT 0 0 — 0 0 —

1 1

have come to going 2-0. Tufts' 1-1 tie against Amherst on Homecoming left it winless for the ninth-straight time against the NESCAC foe. However, for the first time since coach Josh Shapiro has been at the helm, his team looked like a legitimate contender for the entire match.

Although the Jumbos have had experience against other highly-touted programs, their matchup against the Lord Jeffs was a unique challenge.

"Playing Amherst is different than playing other top-10 teams, just because of the physical, athletic nature of the big NESCAC contest," Shapiro said. "It's as much about playing your soccer as much as it is being able to be up for the battle and competing physically for 90 minutes, which is what Amherst makes you do."

There was no doubt that Amherst brought its aggressive style of play to Kraft Field, as the two teams combined for 43 fouls, with Amherst committing 27. The result of that chippy play was a low shot count for the Jumbos, who only got off 12 shots over 110 minutes of play.

Despite Tufts leading the NESCAC in shots and goals, the team is not afraid to play a compact brand of soccer.

"When you play the best teams in the country, it's generally not going to be a wide-open, 25-25 shots, run up and down [kind of game]," Shapiro said. "We want to be a team that's compact, and handles our defending first. We want to keep it a little tighter and control what they do well, and I think we did that, [while] still creating enough chances."

In order to combat the physical presence of the Lord Jeffs, who often bypass their opposing team's midfield line and put pressure on the back four, Shapiro also made tactical adjustments, which were met with success.

"We adjusted, and changed formations to put a few players into deeper roles to help us protect against those long balls, and then [we] also left an extra player high to threaten them when we get a hold of [the ball]," Shapiro said. "It worked out success-

fully, and I credit our guys [because] it was the biggest tactical shift we've made all year."

Despite playing a less up-and-down game than they are used to, the Jumbos were still the first team to strike, with junior midfielder Jason Kayne finding the back of the net in the 25th minute for his fourth goal of the year. "[The goal] came from a throw-in in Amherst's half," Kayne told the Daily in an email. "The ball found its way to [senior co-captain forward] Maxime Hoppenot who beat his defender and slotted the ball to [sophomore forward] Nathan Majumder. [Majumder] turned with the ball and passed it to me across the penalty box. I took a couple of touches with my left foot, shot the ball and it ended up in the back of the net."

After the goal, Amherst ramped up its pressure even further, and finally in the 35th minute, broke through thanks to an inadvertent handball in the box that gave senior midfielder Milton Rico a penalty kick. Rico had no trouble converting, rocketing a shot to the top right of the goal, while sophomore goalie Scott Greenwood dove to the opposite side.

Greenwood was forced into action twice more before halftime and performed admirably in both cases. First, Greenwood tipped a header from 6'6" sophomore midfielder Andrew Orozco over the crossbar. Off the ensuing corner, Greenwood stopped another shot, this time from junior forward Greg Singer, whose shot from outside the 18 managed to find its way through the box.

In the second half, both teams continued to press for the go-ahead goal, and despite creating the opportunities, neither side was able to convert before the end of regulation.

"When you play a game at that level, there's not going to be 25 chances," Shapiro said. "There's going to be three, or four, or five, or six and you just have to be shrewd enough to take those chances."

The Jumbos faced an even bigger uphill battle when senior defender Peter Lee-Kramer picked up his second yellow card, forcing the Jumbos to take out one of their attacking midfielders in order to keep four players in the back.

Despite playing a man down, Tufts still managed to get off five shots compared to Amherst's one in the two overtime periods, but again, neither team could convert. The tie leaves Tufts second in the NESCAC behind Amherst heading into the second half of the season with increased confidence.

"We felt that we played really well," Kayne said. "We just need to continue creating chances and keep our composure in the final third, and the goals will come. Our defense played amazing, and we just need to give the same effort that we had in this past game and I think we will get the result."

Although a victory on Homecoming would have provided a happy ending for the Jumbos on Saturday, the tie against the Lord Jeffs shows that the Jumbos are a legitimate contender this year and leaves them wanting more for a possible postseason matchup with the Lord Jeffs.

"I thought our kids played their hearts out," Shapiro said. "[But] what was also indicative of the group was that we weren't satisfied with that, and there wasn't a lot of giddy happiness after the game. Instead it was, 'wow, we played well, and we probably should have come out with a win.' That's where our expectation is — it's that we can play with anybody and beat anybody if we're on our game."

Nicholas Pfosi / The Tufts Daily

Junior midfielder Jason Kayne dribbles up field during the Homecoming match.

Women's Tennis

Deb the lone bright spot at weekend tournament

by Steven Hefter Daily Editorial Board

Despite numerous home games during Homecoming weekend, other teams competed on the road. The women’s tennis team participated in the three-day long ITA Regional Championships, hosted by Williams.

Six Jumbos — freshmen Lauren Louks, Aandrita Deb and Zoe Miller, and sophomores Conner Calabro, Alexa Meltzer and Chelsea Hayashi — played in both the singles and the doubles bracket of the tournament, which lasted from Friday to Sunday.

The standout performance of the weekend came from Deb who won four matches in the 64-person bracket, landing in the semifinals before falling to seventh-seeded Juli Raventos

of host team Williams. Nevertheless, a top-four finish from Deb laid the foundation for a potentially great season. On Friday, she defeated Babson freshman Jenny Quenard by a score of 6-0, 6-3, and then later in the day prevailed 7-5, 6-4 against a tough challenge from Middlebury sophomore Kaysee Orozco.

"I think [Deb's] success has a huge impact on the team because she represents the school when she gets to the semifinals," Calabro said. "She is showing the other schools that Tufts has strong, impact players [who are] good enough to advance to the final four."

Deb's strong weekend continued in the Round of 16 on Saturday morning when she faced off with fifth-seeded Melita Ferjanic of Trinity. The match went back and forth, with Ferjanic

winning the first set 6-2 and Deb winning the next set by the same score.

Ultimately, Deb fought off Ferjanic in the third set, winning 6-4 and earning a spot in the quarterfinals. Waiting for her there was Vickie Ip of Amherst and the two played what was quite possibly the best match of the tournament, featuring two tiebreakers that went beyond the conventional seven points. Deb won the first set 7-6 (9-7), and Ip won the second set by an identical score. A spot in the semifinals was one set away for each player, and Deb was able to outlast her Lord Jeff opponent, winning the third set by a score of 6-2. Deb ultimately lost in the semifinals to the Ephs' Raventos by a score of 6-4, 6-2. see WOMEN’S TENNIS, page 11

Steven Hefter | The Association

This is Hawkward

W

hile the NFL has undergone serious, and warranted, scrutiny over incidents revolving around big name players Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson, the NBA has seemingly flown under the radar this offseason. When the same domestic violence issues do unfortunately spill onto the court, NBA franchises have looked more capable in handling them.

For example, Charlotte Hornets (yes, the Bobcats no longer exist) forward Jeff Taylor was arrested early Thursday morning in East Lansing, Mich. and charged with domestic assault, assault and malicious destruction of property.

The team promptly dismissed him from all team activities, which includes training camp. With the start of the season fast approaching, the Hornets did the right thing by ridding the locker room, and the NBA, of that type of presence.

But there are still intrinsic issues in the NBA that are not being addressed harshly enough. We all know about Donald Sterling, and Commissioner Adam Silver made all the right moves in enacting the harshest penalty possible for the Clippers former owner. But there was another incident this offseason involving leaked comments that were said in private. It was revealed that Atlanta Hawks General Manager Danny Ferry, in a conference call with Hawks owners, read a scouting report about then-free agent and current Miami Heat forward Luol Deng that stated that Deng had “a little African in him.”

Immediately following the incident, it seemed almost impossible for Ferry to keep his job. But then Ferry took a leave of absence and issued a longer, more heartfelt apology. Deng has forgiven Ferry for the racially charged comments. Various players with African ties have forgiven Ferry and do not believe him to be a racist, including Congo native and Oklahoma City Thunder forward Serge Ibaka and two-time NBA champion and Nigerian-American center Hakeem Olajuwon. Olajuwon was recently appointed as the NBA’s Ambassador to Africa. Despite the support from the African NBA community, Ferry should not be the general manager of the Hawks, or any other team, for that matter. What complicates the matter even more is the Hawks are in the midst of an ownership change of their own.

Hawks owner Bruce Levenson’s ownership stake in the team is being sold after an email he wrote in 2012 expressed his desire for more “whites” to attend Hawks games. According to Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed, Levenson’s partners Ed Peskowitz and Todd Foreman are also selling their ownership stake. These three owners held the majority of Hawks ownership stake. Thus, there will be a new majority owner of the Hawks. If I were anyone with an ownership stake of the Hawks, I would not want Ferry as my general manager.

After all, the GM is the person who is supposed to lure free agents to join the family that is an NBA franchise and be a part of the community that houses it.

What free agent is going to want to play for team with a general manager who expresses such views? According to New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony, “Nobody would want to go there.”

The issue runs deeper than whether a person is particularly proficient at building a championship roster or coaching a team. If Gregg Popovich, who is hailed by many as the best coach in the NBA, had said something in the same light of what Ferry said, he should not coach in the NBA again. The NBA should foster an atmosphere of inclusion, and Ferry’s actions should result in consequences.

Steven Hefter is a Sports Editor at the Tufts Daily. He can be reached at steven.hefter@ tufts.edu