December 7, 2015

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T HE T UFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXX, NUMBER 57

Monday, December 7, 2015

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

IFC resolves not to bring new fraternity to Tufts, will reevaluate after spring semester

tuftsdaily.com

Lucius rocks the Carzo Cage

by Vibhav Prakasam Staff Writer

The Interfraternity Council (IFC) voted not to bring the fraternity Pi Kappa Phi into the Tufts Greek community at this time after an hour-long deliberation last Wednesday.

“Until we make progress in [inclusivity] and continue to grow in terms of safety and responsibility, the IFC executive board did not feel comfortable in welcoming Pi Kappa Phi at this time,” IFC President Rob Jacobson told the Daily in an email. “Our primary goal is to allow the Greek community to focus on the issues and challenges that are still in front of us, and to continue to evolve and improve what already exists before we extend [an invitation for] a new organization to join us.”

The IFC, which represents the 10 national and local fraternities on campus, promotes safety and education in fraternity affairs, according to the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life website.

According to Jacobson, a senior, the decision was made by the five elected student officials of the current IFC executive board, who assessed the pros and cons of establishing a Tufts chapter of Pi Kappa Phi. Jacobson said he also spoke with fraternity presidents, other Greek community members and the students who were interested in a new fraternity to help assess the situation.

Jacobson said there is still a strong possibility that Pi Kappa Phi will join Tufts’ Greek life at the start of 2016’s fall semester after the board reevaluates its decision at the end of the academic year.

“We are expressing interest to Pi Kappa Phi that the current [IFC] executive board would like to reevaluate the decision at the end of the spring semester, and if the IFC feels that we have made progress on our goals by then, we hope to extend Pi Kappa Phi an invitation to join us in the fall,” Jacobson said.

IFC Vice President Alexander Spring said the decision to deny Pi Kappa Phi permission to organize on campus had nothing to do with the fraternity itself. see FRATERNITY, page 2

Mostly Sunny 56 / 34

Evan Sayles / The Tufts Daily

Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe of the band Lucius perform at Cage Rage in the Carzo Cage on Dec. 5.

UMass Boston professor to receive Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award

by Gil Jacobson Staff Writer

Padraig O’Malley, professor at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) in Boston, will receive the Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award and give a lecture tomorrow evening in ASEAN Auditorium.

O’Malley, professor of peace and reconciliation at the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at UMass Boston, will give a talk about the feasibility of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, according to the Institute for Global Leadership’s (IGL) website. The Mayer award recognizes “scholars and practitioners” who exemplify former Tufts President Jean Mayer’s belief that “scholarship, research and teaching” should be used to help solve global issues.

According to IGL Associate Director Heather Barry, O’Malley is receiving the award mainly for his contribution to the reconciliation between Iraqi political parties.

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O’Malley, who is also a former graduate student and teaching assistant at Tufts, said he is proud to join a host of international relations leaders who have been recognized for this award. He said that Martti Ahtisaari, for example, is a previous Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award winner and a Nobel Peace Prize winner with whom O’Malley worked on reconciliation issues among Iraqi political parties in Helsinki, Finland from 2007 to 2009.

Barry said O’Malley also collaborated with IGL Executive Board Co-Chair Robert Bendetson (A’73) and IGL Founding Director Sherman Teichman on these Iraqi reconciliation efforts. According to the IGL website, “In September 2007, O’Malley, in collaboration with…Ahtisaari’s Crisis Management Initiative (CMI) and [the IGL], assembled senior negotiators from Northern Ireland and South Africa to meet in Helsinki with their counterparts from Iraq. The partnership was known as ‘The Iraq Project.'”

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Barry added that the group went on to hold additional meetings in Helsinki called Helsinki I and Helsinki II. “We brought initially a range of people to talk about Iraq moving forward, including some politicians from Iraq, [along] with people who had come from other conflict-ridden societies, but [who] had resolved their issues,” Barry said. “Helsinki I and Helsinki II…brought together politicians from all parts of the Iraqi political parties, except al-Qaeda, to start thinking about political reconciliation. Then [O’Malley] spent six months in 2009 working in Baghdad to get to a point where they were able to announce non-violent principles to think about political reconciliation.”

Teichman added that O’Malley took Tufts students to Northern Ireland in 1985 to help hunger strikers achieve political status during a similar conflict in that region during that time.

“He continued…to advise our students

News............................................1 Features.................................4 Arts & Living....................... 7

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Visiting the

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“Synaptic Scholars Fireside Chat Series: Pedagogy in the Natural Sciences” Details: Joshua Kritzer, professor in the Department of Chemistry, and David Hammer, professor in the Department of Education, will speak about effective and innovative teaching methods in the natural sciences as a part of the Fireside Chat Series by Synaptic Scholars.

When and Where: 6 p.m., Terrace Room, Paige Hall Sponsor: Institute for Global Leadership

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tUESDAY

“Israel and Palestine: Is a Two-State Solution No Longer Feasible?”

Details: Padraig O’Malley, professor of peace and reconciliation at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, will give a lecture on the two-state solution for the

Kristie Le Executive Business Director Chris Chininis Ad Director Yiran Xu Receivables Manager Eva Sachar Ad Manager Evan Sayles Jahlyn Hayes Qinyue Yu Caroline Talbert Marketing Director Qinyue Yu Marketing Manager Scott Geldzahler Social Media Editor Vera Masterson

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Israel-Palestine conflict and accept the Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award.

O’Malley will also be speaking about his new book “The Two-State Delusion: Israel and Palestine, A Tale of Two Narratives” and will do a book signing after the lecture.

When and Where: 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., ASEAN Auditorium, Cabot Intercultural Center Sponsor: Institute for Global Leadership

THURSDAY

“Talloires Declaration: Past, present, future” Details: As a part of the Environmental Studies Program Lunch and Learn lecture series, William Moomaw, the co-director of the Global Development and Environment Institute, will speak about the Tailloires Declaration, the climate commitment Tufts and other schools signed. This year will mark the 25th anniversary of Tufts’ signing the declaration, and Moomaw will discuss what has happened on campus since then.

When and Where: 12 p.m. to 1 p.m., Rabb Room, Lincoln Filene Center Sponsors: Environmental Studies Lunch and Learn Program and Tufts Institute of the Environment

IFC focuses on addressing Greek life culture at Tufts before adding new fraternities on campus FRATERNITY

continued from page 1 “We really had no cons for welcoming Pi Kappa Phi specifically,” Spring, a junior, told the Daily in an email. “Our cons were focused on the general idea of expansion at the current time.”

Spring, who is also a co-founder and the newly-elected president of Pi Delta, explained that Tufts is one of the few remaining schools within the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) with an active Greek system. Other NESCAC schools such as Trinity College, Wesleyan University and Hamilton College have campus Greek life, but fraternities have been banned at all the other NESCAC schools, such as Amherst College, according to their websites.

“This means [Tufts fraternities] are held to a high standard and need to operate as such,” Spring said.

The process of possibly introducing Pi Kappa Phi began at the start of the semester, when a few students were interested in having a new fraternity at Tufts, according to Jacobson. Two national organizations, Pi Kappa Phi and Beta Theta Pi, were interested in founding a chapter at Tufts and were invited to visit the campus, he said.

“The purpose of the visits was to get a feel for each organization and how they could contribute to and fit in with the Tufts community, as well as for them to get a sense of the Tufts community as a whole,” Jacobson said.

During their Nov. 4 visit to Tufts, Pi Kappa Phi representatives made an open presentation to the IFC, met with

Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life Su McGlone and went to dinner with the IFC executive board, according to Jacobson. Beta Theta Pi withdrew their interest at the last minute, which is why only Pi Kappa Phi was considered during Wednesday’s IFC meeting, he said.

Jacobson said that the IFC decision reflects the council’s current goals to promote a positive conception of Greek life at Tufts.

“The IFC has made strides to change the fabric of the Tufts community in a positive way,” Jacobson said.

Spring said the council is addressing specific issues such as financial aid and inclusivity, and hopes to make those plans concrete during the spring semester.

These efforts include the recent launching of the Risk Management Assistance Team (RMAT), a team of volunteer sober-monitors trained to maintain safety at fraternity events.

“Now that we have gained momentum in changing the attitudes surrounding Greek life, the IFC executive board wants to expand our existing frontiers this spring, starting with recruitment,” Jacobson said.

There will be an emphasis from both the IFC and the fraternities themselves to ensure that fraternities are “inclusive organizations who are seeking members from all backgrounds,” according to Jacobson.

The IFC’s decision on Pi Kappa Phi also follows many recent organizational changes in Greek life; earlier this year, Alpha Epsilon Pi reorganized under the name Pi Delta and in November, Sigma Phi Epsilon — now known as 92 — chose to disaffiliate

from their national organization.

“Greek culture is changing and evolving in a way that can only happen in the environment that Tufts provides,” Jacobson said. “Thoughtful students are reflecting not only on their organizations, but also themselves and on the values they want to project to the world.

In the case of Pi Delta and 92, the values of the students no longer completely aligned with their national organizations, so we’ve seen both make the decision to stand on their own.”

Spring encouraged students who were originally interested in starting a new fraternity to rush current fraternities next semester.

“We have nine fraternities on this campus, each with their own community and feel,” Spring said. “I would hope that if those students were still interested in Greek life, that they would try to rush as many houses as possible.”

Despite their decision, Jacobson explained that IFC members left the meeting with a favorable opinion of Pi Kappa Phi. “[We] got a great sense of the organization, and found ourselves very impressed with [Pi Kappa Phi’s] emphasis on leadership and philanthropy,” he said. “We felt strongly that their national reputation, in conjunction with their vision for a chapter at Tufts, was a great fit.”

He added that Pi Kappa Phi will be a top choice for future fraternity expansion at Tufts.

“When we do expand, Pi Kappa Phi will certainly be our first choice,” he said.

“They are a quality organization and have the potential to enhance the experience of many budding student leaders on campus.”

UMass Boston professor's work on Iraqi political reconciliation recognized with Mayer award

AWARD

BUSINESS

hill this week

continued from page 1 and to work with them in many, many spots over the world,” Teichman said.

O’Malley’s work also includes Forum for Cities in Transition, an international network of governmental and nonprofit leaders, academics, students and the business community. According to Teichman, it represents 11 cities across Europe, the Middle East and Africa and is equally representative of all sides of their civil conflict and religious divides.

“[These cities] had been…ridden [with] ethnic and religious divisions and hatred,” Teichman said. “[And they looked at] how these folks could possibly be reconciled on a municipal level [and] on a countrywide level.”

Barry explained that IGL board members and staff, as well as the Mayer family, select the recipients of the Dr. Jean Mayer Award.

Other recipients of the award this academic year include Ambassador Lamberto Zannier, who is the secretary general of the Organization for Security and

Cooperation in Europe, and Combatants for Peace, a non-governmental organization dedicated to a non-violent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The IGL is also sometimes able to create internships or research projects with the groups with whom Mayer recipients have collaborated or worked, she said.

According to Teichman, Mayer award recipients are not paid to speak at Tufts.

“They come for their respect for the program, our education and our students,” he said.

Monday, December 7, 2015 | ADVERTISEMENT | THE TUFTS DAILY

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FIRESIDE CHAT SERIES presents

PEDAGOGY IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES

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Terrified of orgo? Or F=ma?

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Monday, December 7th, 6:00pm Terrace Room, Paige Hall IGNITE YOUR INTELLECTUAL SPARK Please RSVP at tuftsynaptics@gmail.com

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Features

Monday, December 7, 2015

Janitorial Restructuring

Henry Jani Lexiconversation

The Scandy way

W

ord of the Day: etymology noun \eh-tuh-MAH-luh-jee\ -the history of a word or phrase shown by tracing its development and relationships When I do homework, I listen to Swedish radio. I don’t speak Swedish, don’t personally know any Swedish people nor have I even ever visited Sweden. Nevertheless, the language is beautiful, and I’ve unequivocally decided that Scandinavians just do it all right: timeless Finn Juhl chairs and Danish design, limitless amounts of grayscale, boxy yet sexygrandma-chic clothing and adding lingonberries to every food possible. Additionally, Scandinavian languages have historically created some of the best words imaginable. They kind of sound like IKEA furniture names, but trust me — they’re so much more than your typical Smörball duvet cover.

First is the Swedish verb and noun fika, which refers to the act of having coffee leisurely with friends and enjoying each other’s company. You can arrange a fika or refer to the action as a fika. A whole culture has developed around the word itself, dating back to its emergence in 19th century slang.

Going to “grab a coffee” is certainly not like grabbing a double shot espresso before work or even catching up with someone in a brief conversation — the entire experience is about using coffee to facilitate meaningful discussion and sincerely engaging with company. Scandinavian people are often thought of asbeing somewhat standoffish or cold, but this comes from the fact that most people prefer a few committed friendships to many acquaintances. Living in American culture, which champions social extroversion, I find this notion emotionally refreshing. Fika forever.

Another Swedish term is lagom, or “just the right amount.” Again, the true meaning is lost in translation. The originally-Viking term refers to behavioral aspects more than physical measurements. The word is still rooted in effortlessness and never alludes to perfection, reaffirming historical Scandinavian colloquial connections to simplistic lifestyles.

Ina Garten preparing a kale salad in the kind of chic tunic middle-aged women often wear: lagom. Guy Fieri’s Mac-Daddi-Roni salad sponsored by Ed Hardy himself: not so lagom. You get the picture.

Lastly, the Danish word hygge may just be my favorite word in the entire Scandinavian lexicon. Pronounced hue-gah, it refers loosely to a warm environment that encourages good times with friends and family. Places can certainly be hygge but so can objects.

The two often work together to create the ultimate hygge experience. Personally, I know exactly what my ideal hygge environment would be. It’s based off a picture of a cat enveloped in a white duvet, smiling with its eyes closed while basking in an ideal early morning sun. I, too, would be completely enveloped in my sheets, eating sugar cookies while drinking a triple-shot Americano. For a few weeks.

So do as the Scandys do. It’s not without any reasoning that Scandinavian nations are often rated the happiest countries in the world. Meet your friends, drink coffee for hours and appreciate life’s most physically and emotionally comfortable moments.

Henry Jani is a sophomore majoring in English. He can be reached at henry.jani@ tufts.edu.

Nicholas Pfosi / The Tufts Daily

Executive Vice President, Patricia Campbell addresses TLC leaders during the Tufts Labor Coalition sit-in in Ballou Hall on Tufts Medford/ Somerville campus on Dec. 9, 2014.

by Nicholas Pfosi

How Tufts stacks up

Staff Writer

The university’s decision to restructure janitorial services, which has been met with sustained objection from many students, staff and faculty members since its announcement in November 2014, was made due to analyses that showed Tufts to be less efficient than comparable institutions in its deployment of custodial staff.

“The reorganization was informed by a DTZ analysis that showed that cleaning operations here at Tufts were less efficient than those at comparable colleges and universities in the Boston area,” Vice President of Operations Linda Snyder and University Executive Vice President Patricia Campbell wrote in an April 27 op-ed in the Daily.

According to Executive Director of Public Relations Kim Thurler, DTZ’s analysis came after a company called Sightlines provided information to Tufts about the efficiency of its facilities. She said that Sightlines is used by more than 450 higher education institutions, and that Tufts uses the service to compare its facilities practices with those at other universities.

“Sightlines measures custodial efficiency based on the number of gross square feet (GSF) cleaned by a full-time custodian,” Thurler told the Daily in an email. “[The administration] looked at the most recent data we had for past years, which showed that the average of 10 institutions in our [peer] group was 32,749 gross square feet/custodian. Tufts custodians cleaned an average of 27,501 gross square feet, or about 19% less than the average.”

According to Thurler, the nine institutions other than Tufts included in the Sightlines peer group were Boston College, Northeastern University, Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Notre Dame, Northwestern University, Duke University, University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins University. This analysis prompted the administration to request a plan to reallocate custodial labor from DTZ, she

explained. “[W]hen collaborating with an institution, we work diligently to develop appropriate comparative groups based on such parameters as size, location, mission, academic program, age profile, building characteristics, etc.,” Jay Pearlman, associate vice president of Sightlines, told the Daily in an email.

As reported in the third part of this feature, the $900,000 projected to be saved annually from reorganizing the custodial staff, according to Campbell and Snyder’s op-ed, is part of a $15 million in expected savings from a larger staff reorganization

called Tufts Effectiveness in Administrative Management (TEAM). The TEAM website says that the initiative includes changes in purchasing strategies and the consolidation of administrative duties in positions related to finance, information technology and research administration. TEAM’s implementation is slated to be completed in July 2016, according to a Nov. 23 update.

“We continue to expect approximately $15 million in annual savings while the cost to implement TEAM is expected to come under budget,” Campbell wrote in the update. “While much of the annual savings will be reinvested in programmat-

Time off on a working contract after two years of service

Vacation Days

Sick Days

Tufts custodians

Boston College Custodians

2 weeks vacation after 2 years of work 9 days of “earned leave”

2 weeks vacation, 12 sick days

harvard custodians

Northeastern Custodians

2 weeks vacation, 6 sick days

2 weeks vacation, 6 sick days

mit custodians

Carnegie Mellon Custodians

2 weeks vacation, 2 sick days 20 days vacation, 12 sick days

Boston University Custodians

Brown Custodians

10 days vacation, 12 sick days

15 days vacation, 8 sick days

Monday, December 7, 2015 | Features | THE TUFTS DAILY

tuftsdaily.com

F e at u r e s

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F e at u r e s

ic priorities, we expect about $4.5 million of those savings will fall to the university’s bottom line.”

Campbell said that the projected $4.5 million in annual surplus revenue is important, in part, to absorb unexpected losses or expenses.

“An organization of our size should have operating results that produce a margin of at least three percent and ideally larger,” Campbell told the Daily via an email from Thurler. “This margin is extremely important as it serves as a buffer when precipitous changes in finances (such as those experienced in the great recession) occur … [It] allows Tufts to issue debt to finance new construction, to establish reserves used for capital investment and to demonstrate sound financial health to those who invest in Tufts, including our many donors.”

In the previous installments of this feature, the Daily reported on the current status of custodial employment and student resistance at Tufts, the history of shifts in Tufts’ custodial employment practices and the broader trend of outsourcing in higher education. For the fourth and final part of this feature, the Daily has compared Tufts’ employment practices with six of the institutions identified as peers by Sightlines — Boston College,

Local living wages If an adult is working full time and is the sole provider of their family, does their custodial wage exceed the living wages of their geographical area?

This line indicates living wages for 1 adult (Adjusted by Location)

$$$ Tufts

wages

Harvard

wages

0 children 1 child 2 children

Northeastern University, Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University and University of Notre Dame — as well as three other Boston-area schools: Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston University. While those universities outside Tufts’ Sightlines peer group differ from Tufts across several metrics — Harvard University’s operating revenue for the 2015 fiscal year was $4.5 billion dollars, according to its 2015 financial report, for example — the Daily has included them due to their proximity to Tufts. According to Pearlman, factors such as endowment do not necessarily influence whether schools’ facilities practices are comparable.

“Endowment and tuition are often taken into account peripherally as institutions sometimes like to create peer groups of admissions peers or members of various consortia for example,” Pearlman told the Daily in an email.

The Daily was unable to obtain custodial employment information for Northwestern University, University of Pennsylvania, Duke University or Johns Hopkins University, and only limited information from the University of Notre Dame’s Human Resources website. Each of the contracts from which the information represented in this graphic was culled are set to expire at different times — some will be terminated in 2016, while some extend until 2018 — and each contract contains different timelines for wage and benefit increases. We have used two years of full-time employment as a benchmark for comparing expected base wages as an average; some contracts describe janitorial positions whose pay increases annually, while others describe positions whose pay increases for the first time after three years.

All of the data used by the Daily are representative of wage and benefit information in effect as of press time.

Brown university Tufts’ base pay is 33% below the local living wage for adults working full time with one child.

0 children

wages

Brown will cover $5050 of employees’ children’s expenses. Employees must have worked for at least five years of years of full-time service. Brown also has a tuition aid program which helps provide financial aid for the children of university employees.

NOrtheastern university

1 child

No

2 children

Northeastern offers employees two weeks of vacation leave after two-years of full-time employment. Employees get six sick days a year.

0 children

MIT

Sort of...

1 child

Tuition Remission as staff benefits Does the university offer tuition benefits such as financial aid or full-ride to their staff members or their family members?

Tufts

No Tufts has no parity policy, which would extend its tuition benefits to outsourced workers. Tufts does offer tuition benefits for their directly employed staff up to a maximum of $4,000.

Harvard

Sort of...

Harvard allows employees to take classes at the Harvard Extension School for $40 per class. Work contracts include a “Wage and Benefit Parity Policy” that extends benefits to outsourced workers.

MIT

Yes MIT offers 100% tuition remisson for employees’ children and the employees themselves.

Boston university

Yes BU offers 100% tuition remission to full time employees for the first semester and 90% remission for subsequent semesters. The employee’s spouse can receive a 50% tuition reduction. BU also offers a free apprenticeship program for trade-skills and automatically promotes custodians who successfully complete the program.

boston college

Yes Boston College offer 100% tuition remission for undergraduate courses for its employees, as well as 50% remission for spouses. After five years of consecutive service, employee spouses are entitled to 100% remission, as are children admitted to Boston College.

2 children All Graphics by Shirley Wang / The Tufts Daily

boston university

0 children

wages

2 children

boston college

0 children

wages

1 child

1 child 2 children

northeastern 0 children

wages

1 child

2 children

Carnegie Mellon

0 children

wages

2 children

Brown university

0 children

wages

2 children

Notre Dame

0 children

wages**

1 child

1 child

1 child 2 children

Outsourced

University-Hired

**This number assumes a $0.50 annual raise increase from entry-level base rate, based on other contracts source / Living Wage Calculator, RESPECTIVE LABOR CONTRACTS

Nicholas Pfosi / Tufts Daily archive

DTZ staff protest outside 150 Boston Ave, the Tufts Facilities Services building on Tuesday, March 10.

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Monday, December 7, 2015

ARTS&LIVING Movie Review

‘The Night Before:’ when ‘Pineapple Express’ meets ‘The Polar Express’

Sarah Shatz / Columbia Pictures / TNS

Seth Rogen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anthony Mackie star in “The Night Before.”

by Jocelyn Contreras

comedy fans will have no trouble recognizing the voice as Tracy Morgan’s, whose rhyming skills are not to be triDirector Jonathan Levine, along with fled with. He introduces Ethan ( Joseph Seth Rogen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gordon-Levitt), who is mourning the who previously all worked togeth- death of his parents. After about five er on 2011’s “50/50,” reunite in “The seconds of introductory detail, his best Night Before” (2015) to create a sto- friends Isaac (Seth Rogen) and Chris r ybook-wonderland-tur ned-Chr ist- (Anthony Mackie) decide to “get him out of his funk, so they take him to a bar mas-stoner-comedy.

The first voice the audience hears is and get his ass drunk.” Thanks, Tracy.

It is the night before Christmas, and that of the faceless narrator, but true the trio takes on New York City’s greatest offerings with vigor, as they hit karaoke bars and toy stores with unsuspecting bystanders, marking the start of a yearly bromance-affirming tradition.

Un d e r s t a n d a b l y, life happens, and the gang slowly lose interest in the ritual. Isaac is going to be a dad, Chris is becoming too famous to hang out with the other two and Ethan finds that it gets harder and harder for everyone to go on with this beloved tradition. For their (presumed) last big night together, Ethan scores three shiny tickets to the Nutcracka Ball, Sarah Shatz / Columbia Pictures / TNS an ultra-exclusive Anthony Mackie, Seth Rogen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in “The bash that they had Night Before.”

Contributing Writer

spent the last 15 years pining over — a true Christmas miracle.

From then on, the film turns into a long pregame, and what takes place surely rivals anything the guys in “The Hangover” (2009) could have encountered. This plot starts to stretch a little thin the closer they get to the Ball, but still manages to string along a series of unforgettable moments that will leave the audience laughing well after it leaves the theater. Isaac, for example, spends the majority of the night tripping on basically every drug in existence in a way that only Rogen is capable of selling. He steals the scene every time.

One of the best features in “The Night Before” is the onslaught of considerably high profile cameos, ranging from Mindy Kaling to Michael Shannon, who nails the role of philosophical pot dealer so successfully that the movie is definitely worth seeing if only just for the chance to experience every scene he’s in. As the night drags on, the audience may start to wonder if the Nutcracka Ball will even be worth it.

The answer is yes, a million times yes.

Miley Cyrus even gives a show-stopping performance of “Wrecking Ball” (2013), making it clear that the song will never lose its power.

Unfortunately, there are several moments that run a little long and are hard to believe in light of how realistic the main characters’ friendship seems to be. Nevertheless, fans of Rogen’s previous work in “Neighbors” (2014) or even “This Is The End” (2013) will enjoy the antics in “The Night Before” all the same. Only time will tell if it will become a holiday comedy favorite, but, for the time being, it will surely be a great stocking stuffer for moviegoers to enjoy with their age-appropriate buds. Key (hyphenated) word: age-appropriate.

7 tuftsdaily.com

Natalie Girshman Bibliofiles

Books that love books

O

ne of the things that any bibliophile likes best is a book about books. Whether it features a magical bookstore, a vast library, an eccentric author or even a gentle satire of literary tropes, the author’s love for books and the world that they contain radiate off of every page.

“The Invisible Library” (2014) by Genevieve Cogman is a delightfully funny, marvelously creative steampunk-influenced adventure. Its heroine, Irene, is an agent for the mysterious Library, which retrieves endangered books from different dimensions. Irene is sent to a dangerous dimension, where steam-powered machinery and chaos-spreading supernatural creatures exist side by side, to rescue a book, only to find that it’s already been stolen. Cogman creates two fully developed and fascinating worlds: the immense Library and the dimension to which Irene is sent. Each is packed with telling details and cleverly inserted bits of background information. Irene is a character ready to face the challenges of her world, always ready with a clever quip and an even more clever plan to get herself out of trouble. Her mysterious assistant, Kai, is the perfect foil for both her wit and her sense of adventure, and he also happens to be hiding a secret that makes for a dazzling plot addition.

“The Invisible Library” has a little bit of everything a reader could want: books, adventure and plenty of banter.

“Ink and Bone” (2015), by Rachel Caine, also features an all-powerful library, and though it technically qualifies as young adult fiction, it can be enjoyed easily by readers of all ages. It imagines a world where the Great Library of Alexandria had never burned down and instead acquired a monopoly over knowledge that it is willing to do anything to keep. The novel follows Jess, the son of book smugglers, as he goes through training at the Library and attempts to uncover its secrets. Male protagonists are rare in this genre, but Jess both has a realistic voice and defies the usual male stereotypes, emerging as a well-rounded and sympathetic main character driven by his love of books. Moreover, Caine writes fluid, engaging prose that develops the novel’s world without ever just dumping information on the reader — it makes the pages practically fly by. The plot is fast paced and massively entertaining, as it leaps from the library headquarters in Egypt to the wartorn countryside of Wales to a high-speed train traveling through the desert, and I’ve been yearning for the sequel ever since I read this book.

Finally, Jasper Fforde’s “The Eyre Affair” (2003) is a clever literary mystery and an engaging, quick read. In a world where the entire population of Great Britain is passionately invested in literature, detective Thursday Next must investigate the disappearances of classic characters from the pages of their books. This book is an English major’s dream, packed with sly literary references like the Baconists, who go from door to door trying to convince the general public that Shakespeare didn’t write Shakespeare but rather that Francis Bacon was the true Bard. If you’ve ever been torn between a mystery and a classic, “The Eyre Affair” may be your perfect match.

Natalie Girshman is a senior majoring in history and drama. She can be reached at natalie.girshman@tufts.edu

8 tuftsdaily.com

Opinion editorial

The New York Times front page editorial is more than just opinion “End the Gun Epidemic in America.”

On Friday, The New York Times published a front page editorial, its first since 1920, under this unequivocal headline.

In the article, the paper’s editorial board called for American politicians and policymakers to take concrete action to end the mass shootings that occur with alarming frequency in this country.

Our country’s most passionate defenders of gun rights will likely see this decision as the mainstream media’s liberal bias rearing its ugly head once again.

Those people are wrong.

Newspapers have a responsibility to be neutral and to represent all perspectives, regardless of their writers’ and editors’ personal beliefs. What they do not have a responsibility to do, however, is cede space in their pages to arguments that, at their core, promote violent or hateful behavior. Doing so would be tantamount to the paper endorsing these ideas as worthy of legitimate consideration.

The problem of guns and gun control in the United States is one such issue — it

is no longer a story with two sides. To simply accept gun violence in America as the natural state of things is to tacitly endorse the murders occurring each and every day across the country. In running this editorial on the front page, the Times made the kind of statement newspapers often do not for fear of being labeled biased and partisan. The paper’s editorial board used the paper’s front page — a powerful platform even in this age of declining print journalism — to argue that American politicians who take no action when faced with these seemingly ceaseless horrors are complicit in the violence. They are part of the problem. For the Times to have pretended otherwise would have been a disservice to its readers and a violation of the role newspapers play in public discourse.

This is not to say that there is no room to quibble about the policy suggestions put forth by the Times. The editorial calls for bans on assault weapons, though according to a Sept. 12, 2014 Times article, smaller handguns kill the majority of Americans. Militarized assault weapons,

like those used in San Bernadino, often receive heavy media attention because they are frequently the weapons of choice in mass shootings. But curbing gun violence will involve more than banning assault rifles. It is not just mass shootings that need to end, but the smaller, less publicized acts of violence — the ones that occur in poor neighborhoods, the ones that disproportionately affect Black Americans. “[America’s high rate of gun murders] is fueled by a relentless drumbeat of deaths of black men,” wrote Lois Beckett in a Nov. 24 New Republic article. The national conversation about gun violence often excludes these stories. If the United States is to truly solve its gun epidemic, that must change. We cannot turn a blind eye to these people and their deaths.

The Times was undoubtedly limited in the policy changes it proposed. The decision to run the editorial itself and to run it on the front page, however, was an example of journalism at its most powerful and at its most responsible.

editorial cartoon by issy del priore

The Tufts Daily is a nonprofit, independent newspaper, published Monday through Friday during the academic year, and distributed free to the Tufts community.

The content of letters, advertisements, signed columns, cartoons and graphics does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Tufts Daily editorial board.

Editorials 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.

Op-Eds 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 and submitted to oped@tuftsdaily.com. The editors reserve the right to edit letters for clarity, space and length. All material is subject to editorial discretion and is not guaranteed to appear in the Daily. Authors must submit their telephone numbers and day-of availability for editing questions.

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Monday, December 7, 2015

Aren Torikian The Arena

Cruz control?

N

ovember was an awful month for turkeys, the Philadelphia 76ers and perhaps most of all, Dr. Ben Carson. He went from top in the polls to 15 points behind Donald Trump in all of three weeks. Referring to Hamas, the Palestinian political organization viewed by the United States as a terrorist group, as “hummus,” a Middle Eastern dip viewed by the United States as a vehicle for pita chips, will do that to you. Emerging from this inevitable decline are Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz — as of now the two most likely bearers of the Republican standard next November.

On face, the two share remarkable similarities. Both are children of Cuban immigrants. Both are 44 years old. Both are first-term senators — Rubio from Florida and Cruz from Texas. Both have already developed big reputations — Rubio for his role in immigration reform, and Cruz for filibustering Obamacare for 21 hours. Both, in theory, make sense for the Republican party, which has an aging base and needs to do better with Hispanic/Latino voters (Obama took 71 percent in 2012). But as the campaign moves toward being a twohorse race, we can expect more and more attacks directed at Rubio and Cruz, including from each other.

The two campaigns have attacked each other for being weak on a core issue. Rubio’s campaign used this week’s San Bernardino attacks to bring up Ted Cruz’s record of arguing against extensive government surveillance. Cruz previously voted for the USA Freedom Act, which weakened the federal government’s ability to collect and store metadata. Cruz responded by reminding Rubio of his support for NATO’s intervention in Libya, which has since spawned an even larger civil war in the country.

Cruz has criticized Rubio’s immigration reform history, especially concerning amnesty, and alleges that Rubio would provide a path to citizenship to undocumented workers en masse. Based on Rubio’s track record as part of the “Gang of Eight” senators who proposed 2013’s immigration bill, Cruz is not entirely wrong. In a blatant move of politicking, Rubio has since distanced himself from the bill, adding that the border with Mexico must first be secured before addressing current immigrants. Particularly because of Donald Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric, the entire immigration debate has moved further and further to the right, and Cruz is looking to take advantage of this.

This back and forth is going to define the next few months up until February’s Iowa caucuses, especially as Carson, and potentially Trump, continue to hemorrhage support. From a Republican perspective, if the goal is to beat Hillary Clinton in November, Rubio makes much more sense than Cruz. Beyond giving the Republicans an extremely strong chance at winning the must-win state of Florida, Rubio has a degree of universal appeal that Cruz simply does not. Cruz once read “Green Eggs and Ham” (1960) in front of the United States Senate, while Rubio has some history working with members of both parties on immigration. One is good politics, the other good parenting.

Aren Torikian is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major. He can be reached at aren.torikian@tufts.edu.

Monday, December 7, 2015 | Opinion | THE TUFTS DAILY

tuftsdaily.com

Opinion Opinion

op-ed

A plea for filling out course evaluations

by Joel Rosenberg Under the old system, it was simple.

An instructor would set aside the last 10 minutes of a course’s final session and distribute a two-sided paper evaluation form. The instructor would then leave the room, and an appointed student would collect the completed forms and deliver them to the departmental office.

It wasn’t a perfect system. Ten minutes, after all, isn’t a lot of time to think carefully about a course, let alone provide concrete suggestions for changes or say what worked in a course when it worked well. Some students gave no comments at all and simply provided numerical ratings. But the main advantage of the paper evaluation was that most students attended the final session and thus more evaluations got turned in. Yet since we’ve moved to an online system, the response ratio has been distressingly low. The percentage of completed evaluations is now around 50 to 60 percent, and I have sometimes received even fewer.

It bears little or no relation to whether students liked the course. In one of my courses last spring, students applauded at the end of our final session. But that translated into a response ratio of only 55 percent for the online evaluations.

I can sympathize, in a way, with the inertia. I spend too much of my life online, and I mostly hate filling out surveys. If you’re a student, you have so many obligations at the end of the semester that a course evaluation must seem like just one more annoying task to get out of the way — or, worse, to ignore. And it seems to have a much lower priority than the things you’re required to do, like taking final exams or turning in term papers. But please consider the broader social consequences of blowing off the task of evaluating a course.

Think of it this way. How would you feel if you didn’t get more than 55 percent of your course grades, simply because some professors didn’t feel like grading you? Quite apart from the fact that you’d have no way of measuring your own progress, it would throw the whole university system into chaos, making impossible applications to graduate or professional schools or fellowships or foreign study or teaching programs or internships or jobs — all those vital institutions that launch you into your life and on which your eventual livelihood will depend.

Something similar applies to course evaluations. They become the basis for teachers’ salaries, promotions and, for many at the lecturer level, continued

employment. They are a primary way of enhancing and ensuring excellence in education, and they are thus integral to the university’s reputation. This, of course, will benefit you, the postgraduate, when having a degree from Tufts, as opposed to Shmendrick U., might make the difference in your getting a desirable job you’re applying for.

For me, reading my course evaluations has been vital to making me a better teacher. I find especially useful the written comments, but the numerical rankings are also valuable signals that allow me to work on, one way or another, improving a course. Although I’ve taught for many years, I’m still far from considering myself at the top of my game in the classroom, but each year, thanks to my past students, I get a bit closer. Still, the disheartening depletion of students willing to fill out evaluations has made the array that I do receive seem flat, formless and untrustworthy.

While each response is valuable, I no longer have a sense that I’m getting a consensus — and often that makes all the difference in the world.

The Tufts Daily wants to hear from you.

Send your op-ed submissions to oped@ tuftsdaily.com.

Joel Rosenberg is the Lee S. McCollester associate professor of Biblical literature, co-director of the Judaic studies program and member of the Educational Policy Committee, and can be reached at joel. rosenberg@tufts.edu.

Introduce new Jumbos to the Tufts Experience Applications Due 1/27/16

Innovative and Energetic Leaders Needed to Coordinate Orientation 2016!

Positions in Major Events/Co-Curricular Programs,

Training/Leadership and Communication/Social Media (3 Full-Time Paid Summer Positions…June, July, August)

more information &application at: http://studentservices.tufts.edu/orientation

9

THE TUFTS DAILY | Comics | Monday, December 7, 2015

tuftsdaily.com

Comics

Late Night at the Daily Sophie: “You’re going a little slow; it’s okay, it’s your first time. But it’s not mine ;)”

FOR RELEASE DECEMBER 7, 2015

Comics

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis Crossword

our location

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11 AM to 10 PM

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ACROSS 1 Supplier of fake tunnels to Wile E. Coyote 5 Dictionary entry 9 Attempt to scam using email 14 Small songbird 15 “Am __ early?”

16 Saul Bellow’s “The Adventures of __ March” 17 *One held above criticism 19 Gossip spreader 20 What push may come to 21 *Magician’s secret exit 23 1953 Alan Ladd Western 24 Subject in which Freud is studied, briefly 25 Boring routine 26 Ballpoint, for one 27 Goose egg 29 Popular thesaurus 31 Most populous continent 33 Sign offering freebies 36 Day ender on Wall Street ... and, literally, what each answer to a starred clue has 39 Hyundai sedan 40 Increase dramatically 43 Bearded spring blooms 46 List shortener, for short 48 Carry a balance 49 Lion’s lair 50 Set one’s sights on 53 Caught with a lasso 55 *Swanson frozen meal 57 Closet pests 58 Made public 59 *Traditional 62 Blinding driving hazard 63 Dam in a stream 64 Giggly Muppet 65 “Night Moves” singer Bob 66 Ginger cookie 67 Rod companion

12/7/15

By Debbie Ellerin

Friday’sPuzzle Solution Saturday’s Solved

DOWN 1 Reactions to puppies and kittens 2 Falls asleep from exhaustion, in slang 3 Pit crew worker 4 Scandal-plagued energy company 5 Like EEE shoes 6 Needing no Rx 7 Carrots and turnips 8 Bridal estate 9 Obsolescent streetcorner communication device 10 Tinted 11 Give the cold shoulder to 12 Take a break from 13 Valentine symbols 18 Not odd 22 One in a human pyramid 23 Mud bath site 24 Ordinary 28 “That’s just wrong” 30 Takes shape 32 Tavern orders 34 Round Table VIP: Abbr.

©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

35 “Snowy” bird 37 Poisonous ornamental 38 Contract ambiguity to exploit 41 More than cool 42 VIP carpet color 43 Dog collar attachments 44 Malign 45 Wearing opposite-sex clothing

12/7/15

47 Gator cousin 51 Cat calls 52 “Over the Rainbow” composer Harold 54 Significant __ 56 “Able was __ ...”: palindrome start 57 Dealership sticker fig.

60 Day, in Spain 61 “u r 2 funny!”

THAT SCRAMBLED WORD GAME

by David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek

JUMBLE

TYIFF ©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC All Rights Reserved.

NATSD PURNGS

GRUBRE “ Difficulty Level: Ignoring all of your end-of-semester responsibilities.

Friday’s Solution

Saturday’s

Check out the new, free JUST JUMBLE app

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

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

-

10

”

(Answers tomorrow) Jumbles: ONION WILDLY WIGGLE Thx for the shoutout,FROWN Tufts Snapstory!

Answer: The marathoner won race after race and had a huge — FOLLOWING

Non Sequitur

By Wiley Miller

Monday, December 7, 2015 | Sports | THE TUFTS DAILY

tuftsdaily.com

Sports

11

Sports

Mary Money discusses history of women’s rugby at Tufts WOMEN'S RUGBY

continued from back bonding in itself because we all thought we were members of a very special sport,” Money said. “We were speaking a new language — talking about hookers, and scrum-halves — that most Americans could not speak. When you look at the game of rugby, you’re physically connecting with your teammates, and it’s something that we women [had] never done… before. The pure newness of the whole thing helped the team bond, feel empowered, special and different.”

This team spirit and culture stuck with the squad. Kara Yimoyines (A ’98) spent four years as a player before coaching the Tufts team from 2000 to 2013. She recalled being a player as an undergraduate: “I remember driving with my co-captain in my senior year all the way to Rhode Island to pick up goalpost pads so that we could have games [and] we wouldn’t be injured,” Yimoyines said.

“There weren’t many providers for rugby equipment back then, so we had to roadtrip down to Rhode Island, and the whole way back we sang rugby songs.”

After leaving Tufts, Yimoyines went on to earn her rugby coaching certificate.

Like Money, she was a pioneer, starting the girls’ rugby side at Marshfield High School. When Yimoyines returned to coach at Tufts in 2000, the team was going through a rough spell, having lost its coach two years earlier.

“I really didn’t want Tufts to lose the program because there was no decent coach,” Yimoyines said. “The team in the previous year had gone 0-6 and they only had about 15 people on their roster.

I was young and passionate enough not to care if I was paid enough and I just stayed on after.”

In Yimoyines’ first season as coach, the team went 3-3, before narrowly missing out on the National Championships the following year. More importantly, however, Yimoyines helped restore some of the team’s traditions.

“Some of the culture was lost as the size of the roster diminished and veteran players had disappeared,” Yimoyines

said. “I taught them songs just so that they wouldn’t lose the oral history of the team. It was important they didn’t lose that part of the team’s tradition.”

Yimoyines, who has been involved in rugby for more than 20 years, said she enjoyed watching the women on her team grow.

“Rugby was more than just a sport; it was a rugby family, a group of women that bond within and also outside the sport,” Yimoyines said. “As a coach, it was a privilege to watch these women grow from 18 years old, coming into Tufts, watching them beyond their Tufts career and see the amazing things they do.”

Senior co-captain fly half Gracie Dietshe said her time with the rugby team has become key to who she is.

“I saw a poster for rugby at a different school and decided that was the sport for me,” Dietshe said. “After the first practice, I was hooked, and never left. Now it’s a part of my identity.”

The fact that the team’s alumnae are now at least 100-strong seems to suggest that the community is growing stronger. Ties within the rugby community go beyond team affinities, and reflect Money and the other pioneers’ attempts to reach out to as many different teams as possible, just to play and share their love for the sport.

“Rugby helps you to be a strong person and to find a community where [you’re] comfortable,” Yimoyines said.

“You could be loud [and] obnoxious [in a way] that women were typically not allowed to be, but in a sportsmanlike way.

You leave the animosity on the field and become friends after. It’s a valuable life lesson, too — you go play hard, but you leave it on the field.”

Apart from being strong, the Tufts rugby community also prides itself on embracing people of all sexualities, though that was not always the case. At one point during Yimoyines’ time as coach, the rugby team was labelled homophobic — an odd trait for a rugby team, Yimoyines said, since rugby is often seen as a welcoming sport for players of all sexualities. “[W]e had an intervention of sorts with the LGBT community,” Yimoyines said. “Some of the women gave their

coming-out stories and we as a team sat and listened. Some of them shared why they felt uncomfortable being on the team, but since that moment, we’ve had an open, accepting, lesbian-friendly community.”

It is this all-encompassing nature that continues to make the team special.

“What draws people to rugby is the cultural core of the game, as it features a combination of camaraderie, loyalty and respect that’s not always found in other sports,” coach Sam Perino said. “The Tufts women’s rugby team embodies this culture and they act more like a family than a club sports team. At each match or practice, they support and push each other to be their best.”

Rugby’s growth in popularity in the United States over the years mirrors changing attitudes toward women in sport as well, Money said. During the 35th anniversary celebration of the team’s founding, Money shared that in the 1970s, sports bras had not been invented yet and women were not yet allowed to participate in marathons because they were deemed physically unable to complete the 26.2 mile course.

Part of the beauty of rugby, Money said, is that it helps you learn to overcome adversity.

“You learn to work your butt off [in rugby], you learn to be disciplined, you learn teamwork [and] confidence in yourself,” Money said. “You certainly learn to get up when you’ve been knocked down.”

“Every single player is a story of resilience,” Dietshe said. “In the sport, you get hit hard, but every single player has gotten back up again and gone right back into the play.”

While the team no longer plays on Fletcher Field, the legacy started by Money and her teammates lives on today.

“The camaraderie is still very important, but it’s still an amazing social life with women who love to play rugby,” Money said. “Things have evolved, but it’s still the same rules as the men, still the same positions, still a game of 15 against 15, two 40-minute halves.”

Jumbos have three games remaining before winter break WOMEN'S BASKETBALL

continued from back going and actually getting some baskets.

But I think those are definitely things we can work on in practice this week and definitely in the three games this week.”

The Polar Bears were led by senior co-captain Shannon Brady who totaled 27 points throughout the game and scored 10 in the second quarter alone. She tacked on 15 rebounds and four blocks as well. Bowdoin was able to expand its lead to as many as 17 by the end of the second quarter.

Roberson said the Jumbos’ stagnant offensive performance was caused by a mix of Bowdoin’s defensive efforts and Tufts’ trouble executing.

“I think it was a combination of the two,” she said. “Bowdoin is a really tough defensive team; we knew that going in. They played a 2-2-1 press on us. We don’t see a lot of presses, so I think it’s a combination of that, the fact that they were playing aggressive on-theball defense kind of forcing us to make bad passes and even kind of just dribble right into them. We had some bad turnovers. But I think it was also us, too. We’re trying to execute our offenses, [but] we didn’t do a great job of it. You know, they came out ready to

play, and we didn’t have our best game.”

After halftime, Tufts was able to make up a little ground but could not push the Bowdoin lead to any fewer than 10. North and sophomore forward Melissa Baptista scored a combined 13 points in the third quarter. Tufts limited Bowdoin to just nine points in the period, but Bowdoin started the fourth quarter on a 7-2 run to put the game out of reach for good.

Bowdoin’s other statistical leaders were sophomore guard Kate Kerrigan (nine points, four rebounds, three steals, three assists) and junior guard Marle Curle (eight points, five rebounds, four assists).

The Jumbos were led by Roberson’s 18 points and five rebounds. Roberson is also leading the team in points per game with 13.3. Baptista scored eight points and pulled down six rebounds, while North and Lee both added seven points apiece. The Jumbos’ bench was held scoreless throughout the game.

Another telling comparison was the 3-point percentage between the two teams.

Bowdoin hit 46 percent of its attempted 3-pointers (7-for-15), while Tufts converted on just 20 percent (3-of-15) shots from beyond the arc.

While an early season loss is tough to sustain for a team hoping to reach the NCAA tournament once again, the Jumbos are fortunate to have gotten this experience to build from — especially from a NESCAC game that does not count toward the team’s conference record.

“I think we’re pretty lucky [because] it’s great that we played them out of conference, and we’re playing Conn. next week at an out-of-conference game; so we’re pretty lucky that we get to see it without it actually counting as a NESCAC season game,” Roberson said. “And it does show you [that] every NESCAC game is always really close [as it is every year]. I think teams get really excited — I know we do — to play other NESCAC teams, so you’re really seeing everyone’s best game once it gets into our conference games. I think it’s a little bit of a kick in the butt for us, too. I think it just will motivate us more to know that we have a lot of things to work on offensively and defensively. I think, in the long run, it stinks to lose, but it can only be good for us.”

Tufts will next take on Bridgewater St. tomorrow night at Cousens Gym before traveling to Wheaton and Conn. College to play its last games before a short winter break.

Zach Ohara The Best Kept Secret

The end of an era

A

s Kobe Bryant walked to the bench at the beginning of the third quarter a during game against the Portland Trailblazers, he turned to coach Byron Scott and told him he was retiring after this season. Although there had been speculation earlier in the year that Kobe would retire after this season, it was not made official until last weekend, after the Lakers’ 108-96 loss to the Trailblazers.

What has been an illustrious 20-yearlong career is finally coming to an end, as Kobe begins his farewell tour. As he plays his final games in each city, he is getting cheers from crowds showing their admiration for his incredible success. Although many NBA fans like myself are not exactly fond of Kobe, we still show our respect for him and admire him for how good he really was and for what a role model and icon he was for our generation. For many fans who were too young to witness Jordan in his prime, Kobe was our Jordan. The young stars of the NBA today, such as Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry, grew up watching Kobe and imitating his moves. And unless you’re a Lakers fan, your memories of Kobe are likely of him burying an impossible game-winning jump shot against your team.

Kobe has had so many iconic moments in his career. A five-time NBA champion, two-time finals MVP, one-time league MVP and 17-time Allstar, Kobe has seemingly accomplished everything a player could hope for in his career. Yet at this stage of his career, his focus is not on winning a championship or scoring points, but on staying healthy and mentoring the young talent on the Lakers roster. Much of what Kobe has done in the way of mentoring has come from leading by example. No other player in the league can say that they work harder than Kobe does on his game. Kobe has the will of a champion and undeniable resilience. Rumors say that when Kobe had a bad shooting night and had to fly to another city for a back-to-back, he would make sure that there was an open court for him to shoot around in as soon as he landed.

He would shoot for hours until he was satisfied with his shot and ready for the next game. The funny part about that statement, however, is that Kobe was never satisfied, and that’s what made him such a phenomenal player. His talent boosted him to immortal status, but his work ethic and determination cemented him as an NBA legend.

What many fans have found so admirable about Kobe’s career is his loyalty to the Lakers organization. A 20-year NBA veteran remaining with the same team for his entire career is unheard of, and I don’t believe that we will ever see it again. With today’s crop of talent (like Lebron James) running for greener pastures every time their contracts run out, it’s unlikely that we will ever find a player like Kobe again. Just as many fans looked for the next Jordan following his retirement, we, too, are now looking for the next Kobe Bryant.

Zach Ohara is a junior majoring in economics. He can be reached at zachary. ohara@tufts.edu.

Sports

12 tuftsdaily.com

Monday, December 7, 2015

WOMEN'S RUGBY

Tufts women’s rugby: a legacy of community

by Yuan Jun Chee Staff Writer

It was the 1970s, and women’s sports were on the rise. The Title IX Act, which prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity, had just recently been passed. There was not yet a women’s rugby team at Tufts; in fact, Mary Money (E’ 80), one of the Tufts Women’s Rugby Football Club’s founding members had never played nor even seen the sport before.

Money had been a varsity swimmer for Tufts in 1978. Tufts had a men’s water polo team at that time, and by the new ruling, the university was obligated to have a female team, too. Money and the rest of her teammates had never seen a game of water polo, but they decided to give it a shot. It was Money’s first experience with contact sports, and she loved it.

“We started to think about ourselves as athletes in a different way,” Money said.

While waiting for the bus during the players’ first season, Money and a couple of her teammates watched a TV clip of women’s rugby players tackling and passing the ball as one unit.

Soon after, the Tufts Women’s Rugby Football Club was born.

The path ahead seemed filled with uncertainty. Some members of the male rugby team had offered to train the squad, but many logistical challenges, such as finding opponents, remained.

Courtesy Alison Kuah

The women’s rugby team poses for a group photo on Nov. 14.

“Figuring out how to set up games outside of the athletics department was challenging because we did not know who else we could play,” Money said.

The local Beantown Rugby Football Club assisted the Tufts team in putting players in touch with the Boston College and Boston University teams. Wherever the men played, the women followed, in the hope of building contacts with other schools.

The team’s very first game was played against Beantown’s B-side at Fletcher Field. Money said the experi-

ence was empowering.

“It’s a great sport for women because it makes you feel confident, powerful and strong, and none of us had played a game where we had to tackle,” Money said. “We loved it [and] we thought we were real pioneers, doing stuff other women have never done before.”

Part of why Money loved the sport so much was the team’s great sense of camaraderie and humor.

“It didn’t take [us] long to sing…dirty songs,” Money said. “It was different in

the ’70s. Not many women had even said four-letter words out loud in public … And that was empowering to us … All of a sudden, people found their voices.”

Bonding was also a key part of training and games, Money said. She believed that the physical nature of the sport helped strengthen the team’s spirit.

“It was not a varsity sport, so we didn’t have a lot of school supervision, and training together for a physical sport was see WOMEN'S RUGBY, page 11

WOMEN'S BASKETBALL

Bowdoin hands Tufts first loss of season

by Alex Schroeder Sports Editor

Last year, Tufts beat Bowdoin 65-55 in the two teams’ regular season meeting. Two weeks later, the Jumbos squared off with the

women’s Basketball (43-61 Overall, 3-1 NESCAC) Saturday, Dec. 5 Tufts Bowdoin

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Polar Bears again, this time for the NESCAC championship. Again, Tufts took home the win and, with it, earned a second consecutive conference title.

On Saturday, in Brunswick, Maine, though, Bowdoin flipped the script. In a non-conference matchup against the No. 3 Jumbos, the Polar Bears won handily 61-43.

This game gave the two teams a sneak peek at what competitive conference play will look like come January when the NESCAC season officially starts.

“All NESCAC games and NESCAC teams are gonna be tough, and they’re gonna want to compete with us,” junior center Michela North said. “I, personally, have beat Bowdoin…four times [in the past two years], so they were definitely out to get us, and every team that plays us is going to give us their best because we have a target on our backs from previous years. They’re just going to want to beat us every time, and so we need to bring the energy and rise to the occasion.”

Tufts shot 31 percent from the floor and turned the ball over 20 times compared to Bowdoin’s 16 turnovers. Despite

Evan Sayles / Tufts Daily Archive

Tufts sophomore guard Lauren Dillon tries to sidestep a Bowdoin defender in the NESCAC championship on Feb. 22. starting the game on an 8-0 run, Tufts soon surrendered the lead to Bowdoin, who took over for good with about two minutes to play in the first quarter. Junior tri-captain guard Josie Lee kicked the scoring off with back-to-back buckets, and then senior tri-captain guard Emma Roberson and sophomore point guard

Lauren Dillon converted layups to add to the initial Tufts lead.

The Jumbos struggled to keep things moving, however, a credit to the defensive pressure of the Polar Bears who stepped up into press. They failed to score a basket for a six-minute-long stretch of time leading into the second quarter.

“Bowdoin played great defense, and they had a lot of ball pressure,” North said. “It was hard for us to execute and even set up our plays. I mean, their press made it so that we only had about 20 seconds each time to actually run a play, so it was tough getting see WOMEN'S BASKETBALL, page 11