Sunny 70/50
THE TUFTS DAILY
TUFTSDAILY.COM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2010
VOLUME LX, NUMBER 21
Where You Read It First Est. 1980
Tufts teams up with BC to offer new dual degree program BY
MICHAEL MARKS
Contributing Writer
Tufts’ Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Boston College (BC) have teamed up to offer a new dual degree program through the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning (UEP) and BC Law School, filling in gaps in the curriculum at both schools. The program, approved in June, will allow graduates to receive a Master of Arts in UEP from Tufts and a Juris Doctor degree from Boston College in four years instead of the five years it would normally take to obtain the degrees separately. “The fields of Law and Planning are inexorably linked,” Professor and Chair of the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning Julian Agyeman said. “[Tufts] doesn’t have a law school, and BC doesn’t have a planning department, so the synergies were obvious.” Jon Witten, a UEP lecturer and an adjunct professor at BC Law School, approached faculty at both institutions about the possibility of creating a joint degree program after
the certification of UEP by the Planning Accreditation Board, according to BC Law School Professor Zygmunt Plater. Agyeman said the faculties of both schools unanimously approved the program. The program’s coordinators originally planned to start the program in the 2011-12 academic year. But two law students at BC, Lum Fobi and Julia Bramley, heard about the nascent program and requested to start taking classes for their UEP degree this year. After clearing some administrative hurdles, both students started taking Tufts UEP classes in September, they said. Although there are only two dual degree students this year, administrators expect the program to grow rapidly, according to Plater. “A number of kids who were applying to [UEP] were interested in the program,” Plater said. “Next year I think we will have a very interesting market response,” Plater said. For next year, students will apply to each school independently and undergo separate evaluation processes. Once in see DUAL DEGREE, page 2
ASHLEY SEENAUTH/TUFTS DAILY
Network safety lies largely in students’ hands, University Information Technology officials said.
Tufts network’s openness places onus of security on its users BY
PATRICK DONNELLY Contributing Writer
Tufts’ recent ranking as the most dangerous school in the country might have students clutching their handbags close to their bodies, but one hazard remains overlooked: Internet crime. October marks the seventh annual National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and Tufts’ network may be less secure than one would expect. The contemporary world has become increasingly reliant on technology to store large amounts of personal information and to keep that
information safe. But the process of securing data is a difficult task — especially at an institution like Tufts, whose network stores an immense amount of information and needs to make that data available to a large number of users. The broad range of digital resources to which Tufts offers its students and professors access is only made possible with very limited censorship and a relatively open network, according to Dawn Irish, the director of communication and organisee SECURITY, page 3
MCT
Administrators and safety officials are responding to two local on-campus incidents, at Regis and Boston Colleges.
Acts of violence on Boston-area campuses spotlight security BY JENNY
WHITE
Daily Editorial Board
Campus safety has come under close scrutiny in the Greater Boston area with the occurrence of two separate cases of on-campus stabbings in September. From news website The Daily Beast’s “Most Dangerous Colleges 2010” ranking — in which Tufts and Harvard University took first and second place, respectively — to recent incidents at nearby Boston College (BC) and Regis College, college and university security measures are the center of attention amid heightened anxiety about campus safety. On Sept. 24 and Sept. 25, two unrelated stabbings occurred on the Regis and BC campuses in the early morning hours. In both cases, individuals unaffiliated with the universities were allegedly involved in the incidents.
Waltham resident Elhadji Malick Ndiaye in the early hours of Sept. 24 was fatally stabbed in an altercation at a dormitory parking lot near Regis. His attacker, identified as a Wheelock College student, has since been arrested and charged with murder. The next day, BC senior Jeremiah Hegarty was stabbed in the abdomen outside of his Brighton dormitory. Hegarty has since been released from the hospital. Police have issued a warrant for Hegarty’s assailant but have not made any arrests. In the incidents’ aftermath, officials at both Regis and BC are confronting a shaken sense of security among their respective student bodies while seeking to downplay outside media scrutiny. Last month marked the first time any kind of violent incident has occurred inside the gates of Regis’ suburban
Weston campus, according to Special Assistant to the President M.J. Doherty. Doherty stressed the isolated nature of the recent incident. “We are a peaceful community with a zero tolerance for violence,” Doherty told the Daily. The Regis campus’s main gate typically remains open to allow students to get on and off campus easily, according to Doherty. In the week after the stabbing, campus police guarded the main gate and checked identification of every person entering the campus. Doherty said the campus may decide to start locking its main gate after certain hours. “We’re reviewing our security policies, and if we need to make permanent changes, we will,” he said. BC similarly increased its security in the immediate aftermath of the stabbing, according see VIOLENCE, page 2
Cummings introduces new conservation medicine program BY
MARISSA GALLERANI Senior Staff Writer
A new master’s program in conservation medicine introduced by Tufts’ Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine is now accepting applications. Conservation medicine is an emerging interdisciplinary field that studies health issues related to the interaction between the environment, animals and humans. The Cummings master’s program, which lasts one year and does not include a thesis, will begin offering classes in Fall 2011. Applications for
Inside this issue
the program are due on April 1 of next year. “The new emerging pandemic threats are largely coming from newfound and unusual associations between people and animals,” Gretchen Kaufman, director of Tufts’ Center for Conservation Medicine ( Tufts CCM) and an assistant professor at Cummings, said. “New diseases have emerged in humans that wouldn’t have otherwise, diseases like AIDS or ebola,” she said. Kaufman said the master’s program, based out of the Tufts
CCM, is the first of its kind in the country. “There are a few graduate programs in Europe, but none are as diverse as this one,” Kaufman said. The master’s program marks “the first time that a diverse group of people got together to talk about this interdisciplinary field and tried to define the term of conservation medicine,” Kaufman said. “The program is meant to add on to an individual person’s expertise, and we are training see CUMMINGS, page 2
Today’s Sections
The play ‘Five Down, One Across’ explores the difficulty of coming out.
The volleyball team remains undefeated with a win at Wellesley.
see ARTS, page 5
see SPORTS, back
News | Features Comics Arts | Living
1 4 5
Classifieds Sports
7 Back