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THE TUFTS DAILY

TUFTSDAILY.COM

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2010

VOLUME LX, NUMBER 41

Where You Read It First Est. 1980

Committee to tackle questions raised by Referendum 3

Heartbreak at Tufts: Both field hockey and volleyball upended in NESCAC title games

BY

BRENT YARNELL

Daily Editorial Board

ANDREW MORGENTHALER/TUFTS DAILY

The field hockey team fell 3-0 to Bowdoin in yesterday’s NESCAC Championship at Bello Field, ending hopes for a title repeat. Meanwhile, the volleyball team, after upsetting No. 1 seed Amherst on Saturday, lost to No. 2 seed Middlebury in yesterday’s title game. See Sports on the back page for details.

The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate has convened a special committee to draft the bylaws necessary for the implementation of the community representative overhaul specified in Referendum 3.

As senators debate the guidelines for putting Referendum 3 into action and explore specific bylaw changes to conform to general principles outlined in it, however, they are finding that there may be more holes to fill than previously thought.

Referendum 3, passed in a school-wide vote in September, grants community representatives the right to vote on fiscal matters, confers greater authority to the four culture centers on campus in choosing community representatives, and establishes the diversity and community affairs (DCA) officer position to manage diversity issues throughout campus.

Many details of the reform, according to TCU Parliamentarian Dan Pasternack, remain up in the air. While the specific lan-

guage of the referendum cannot be negotiated, the bylaws, he said, would clarify some of the less defined points.

Pasternack, a senior, chairs the special committee tasked with drafting the bylaws.

The bylaws, he said, will detail the community representatives’ responsibilities, the process by which they are elected and the nature of the DCA position.

The referendum and its bylaws will function similarly to the Senate’s own constitution and bylaws, according to TCU President Sam Wallis, a senior. While the Senate’s constitution defines the roles of senators, its bylaws list their specific duties and responsibilities.

“The constitution is the framework that governs the structure of student government,” Wallis said. “The bylaws are the specific procedures by which we go about executing the constitution.”

The committee consists of Wallis; TCU Vice President Tomas Valdes, a senior; Pasternack; Referendum 3 sponsors and senators Nadia Nibbs, Chartise Clark and Carolina Ramirez, all seniors; all four community representatives; Culture, Ethnicity a n d see REPRESENTATIVES, page 2

Senator reaches out to Greeks on LGBT concerns BY

CORINNE SEGAL

Daily Editorial Board

Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senator Logan Cotton has initiated a dialogue aimed at making Greek life more accessible to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) students.

In a recent e-mail to the LGBT Center listserv, Cotton, a sophomore and Theta Delta Chi (123) brother, requested suggestions for ways to create safe environments for LGBT students within the Greek community.

“Our goal is to establish a greater level of understanding between the LGBT community and the Greek community so that the two can interact and support one another without the barriers of animosity to obstruct,” Cotton said in the e-mail.

Cotton further elaborated in an interview with the Daily that, based on his conversations with students, there was a perception that Greek life was somehow incompatible with the LGBT community.

“People told me that there were a lot of ways that Greek life, implicitly or explicitly, can be inhospitable to students who identify as LGBTQ,” Cotton said.

Cotton said establishing a positive relationship between the LGBT and Greek communities would be mutually beneficial.

“I know how big a role Greek life played for me when I first came to Tufts,” Cotton said. “I think it’s a shame if a student can’t take advantage of all the opportunities because the environments that are created are inhospitable, but I also think it’s a real loss for Greek life in general if Greek life can’t capitalize on having such fantastic leaders as the LGBT students in our community.”

TCU Senator Tabias Wilson, the chair of the Senate’s Culture, Ethnicity and Community Affairs (CECA) Committee, is working with Cotton on the initiative and said that the goal is to establish the Greek chapters as “safe spaces” on campus.

A safe space, according to Wilson, a sophomore, is a place where students can be comfortable with their identity.

“A safe space is a place where you don’t necessarily need to be cognizant about what identity you may have,” Wilson, a Theta Chi brother, said. “If you have to go into a place and you act like you have to take certain precautions because of an identity you have … that’s probably not a safe space.”

Discussion about LGBT life within Greek houses began during the Pride Flag initiative, in which students were encouraged to hang rainbow flags from their house and dorm room windows to show support for the LGBT community, according to Cotton’s e-mail. see LGBT, page 2

ZOE MOORE/TUFTS DAILY

The third edition of Shepard Fairey’s Mayer Campus Center mural is not identical to previous incarnations.

Street artist Fairey’s mural revamped on campus BY

AMELIE HECHT

Daily Editorial Board

The lower Mayer Campus Center patio wall recently received a face lift as artists created the third installment of a mural by street artist Shepard Fairey.

The mural, a collage of several prints with an anti-war theme, is one part of a larger exhibition organized through The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) that displays the artist’s work throughout Boston.

Fairey gained widespread public recognition and fame for “Hope,” his 2008 portrait of Barack Obama, and the “Obey Giant” campaign.

Inside this issue

Fairey erected the original mural on campus in January 2009, coinciding with the Institute for Global Leadership’s (IGL) 2009 Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) International Symposium on Global Cities.

The mural, a series of paper prints bonded to the wall by wheat paste glue, is not meant to be permanent, according to Pedro Alonzo, co-curator of Fairey’s ICA exhibition.

“They are temporary, and that is his intention,” Alonzo said. “They last as long as the weather allows.

In the harsh climate of Boston, they have a hard time staying up.”

Snow melted on top of the wall soon after the mural’s first installation, stripping off the adhesive, Alonzo said. Six months later, Fairey returned to restore the wall.

Over the past year and a half, the weather eroded the images once again, necessitating the mural’s restoration, according to IGL Director Sherman Teichman.

Fairey himself did not participate in the installation, instead sending several of his installation artists, according to Alonzo.

“Shep tries to be part of the installation of as many of the see MURAL, page 2

Today’s Sections

A study has shown that modern-day college students spend far less time hitting the books.

Acclaimed director Danny Boyle discusses the making of his latest film, ‘127 Hours.’

see FEATURES, page 3

see ARTS, page 5

News Features Arts | Living Comics

1 3 5 9

Editorial | Letters Op-Ed Classifieds Sports

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Restored Fairey mural now in third iteration MURAL continued from page 1

murals as possible,” Alonzo said. “But this time, he couldn’t come, and since what we did was actually just restore the mural, I oversaw it.”

Alonzo said Fairey and his team have not made an effort to perfectly replicate the mural each time but rather have used whatever images are available at the time of installation.

“There is no sense in [Fairey] repeating himself,” Alonzo said. “All that matters is that the combination of the designs looks good, but there is no one specific combo for the mural to be effective.”

The mural is “a culmination” of Fairey’s works, Alonzo explained.

“The building blocks are the individual pieces he designs that are normally displayed,” he said. “He uses a tiling effect to create a multiplicity of images.”

Fairey originally chose the location by the Jumbo Express convenience store due to its high visibility, according to Alonzo.

“The wall has great public visibility,” he said. “There is a lot of student traffic coming through that area.”

Teichman, through a personal friendship with ICA Director Jill Medvedow, was originally responsible for bringing the mural to campus.

“The EPIIC special events committee wanted to and did think about the whole question of public space and public art and questions of graffiti and [the] interface of politics, society and art,” Teichman said. “The Shepard Fairey mural was a great way to spark a dialogue on campus.”

Fairey selected over 15 other outdoor sites across the city to display his work that January, including the Tufts Medical Center, according to Alonzo.

“The exhibit wouldn’t work if everything was inside the museum. His work is about taking it to the people and taking it outside,” Alonzo said. “It is very important that there be many works outside.”

Teichman said that the mural had the added effect of improving the appearance of one of the less aesthetically pleasing spots on campus.

“It’s a wall that covers up a garbage area,” Teichman said. “He wanted to make an impact on a less attractive space, and I think that he is successfully doing that.”

The university maintains a strong relationship with Fairey, according to Teichman.

“This is one physical manifestation of an evolving relationship,” Teichman said. “I am as pleased by the ongoing relationship as I am with the physical art space.”

Committee works to draft bylaws for implementation of Referendum 3 REPRESENTATIVES continued from page 1

Community Affairs (CECA) Committee Chair Tabias Wilson, a sophomore,;a member of the Senate Rules Committee; and one member from the TCU Judiciary, according to Pasternack.

Wallis said that the committee is limited in size to ease the process of crafting the draft.

“Whenever you’re creating something new or writing something, I think its better to do it with a smaller group and then revise it later,” Wallis said.

Pasternack plans to submit a draft of the bylaws to the Senate by the end of the calendar year.

At that point, the Senate would seek feedback from the student body and the respective directors of the Group of Six, the group of culture-related centers at Tufts, before passing the final bylaws.

“After the bylaw is drafted, that’s when the real work begins, because then we’ll have some document that starts a conversation,” Wallis said. “We can’t have a conversation with nothing in our hands, with just hypothetical out of thin air.”

The committee intends to finalize the bylaws in time for the Senate elections in April, he said.

Electing community representatives One of the committee’s major tasks is to specify the election process for community representatives.

Under Referendum 3, the four culture centers that have community representatives — the Africana Center, the Asian American Center, the Latino Center and the LGBT Center — select a few candidates during a primary review and these nominees are then subject to a school-wide election.

The referendum, however, does not detail how the centers’ initial vetting process should be conducted. Though center directors will have to review the candidates, Pasternack said, what the review process actually looks like and who else is involved must be specified in the bylaws.

Clark said the intention of the initial review by the culture centers is to allow members of the community in question to vet the candidates before they enter the general school-wide election.

“I think that it would be really important for them to interact with students in whatever community they would be running for,” Clark said. “The idea is that it will be people from the communities which they’re trying to

represent.”

But determining which students are considered eligible to represent a certain culture center may prove challenging, according to Wilson.

“How do you define the Africana community? Do you have to be part of that community or do you have to be active in the center?”

Wilson said. “For the LGBT Center, do you have to be gay? Can allies vote?”

Wilson believes the voting population in the initial review process should be limited to ensure that the community representative actually represented the community in question.

Without these restrictions, Wilson said, the community representatives would function as senators without sufficiently representing their respective centers.

The power of the center directors The committee must also determine how big a role the directors should play in the process, relative to other student representatives within the centers.

Because the bylaws could outline new responsibilities for the center directors, Pasternack said, the committee intends to communicate with them and take their views into account.

“We want to make sure the center directors are okay with whatever we decide,” Pasternack said.

“We do want to make sure that they know what they have to do, that there’s no expectations that we have that weren’t communicated with the center directors and also no expectations that they have that weren’t communicated.”

In an e-mail to the Daily on behalf of all four directors of the culture centers with community representatives, LGBT Center Director Tom Bourdon said he planned to make himself available to community representatives but declined to elaborate further.

Both Ruben Stern, director of the Latino Center, and Katrina Moore, director of the Africana Center, offered no comment.

Linell Yugawa, director of the Asian American Center, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Wilson said that he, Wallis and Pasternack would meet with the center directors some time soon to discuss the referendum and the bylaws.

Association of Latin American Students (ALAS) representative Eddy Santana, a sophomore, believes that the culture center

Monday, November 8, 2010

NEWS

directors should play a central role in the primary review process.

“They’re really in the middle of things,” Santana said. “To ignore that voice is counterintuitive.”

Queer Straight Alliance (QSA) representative Alex Lis-Perlis, a sophomore, said that the bylaws should be flexible because each center operates in a different manner.

The committee must also decide whether the Elections Commission (ECOM) will oversee the primaries, according to Wilson.

Ill-defined responsibilities for community representatives, DCA Referendum 3 outlines several responsibilities for the community representatives, including that they sit on CECA and that they meet with their respective center directors. Their position also allows them to sit on any Senate committee and vote on all matters, including fiscal ones.

When it comes to the specifics, however, these responsibilities become a bit blurry. The referendum does not indicate how often the representatives must meet with center directors. It requires that the representatives represent the views and interests of their communities but does not outline exactly how they should go about doing that.

Clark believes that the bylaws should require that the community representatives meet with the center directors and with leaders of groups within the centers at a specified frequency.

The committee must also itemize in the bylaws how the DCA is elected, whether the individual is considered a member of the Senate and whether the position is part of the Senate Executive Board, Pasternack said.

Referendum 3 requires the DCA to advise the Executive Board about issues pertaining to marginalized communities on campus, but it does not specify whether they should be a member of the body. The referendum similarly requires the individual to chair CECA but does not require that they actually be a senator.

Clark said the writers of Referendum 3 intended for the DCA to be a senator. She said the authors meant for the DCA to be vetted by the Senate but had not determined whether the DCA would be elected during in-house elections or whether the Senate would vet candidates for the DCA to be later elected by the whole school in regular elections.

Cotton looks to creates ‘safe spaces’ in Greek community LGBT continued from page 1

“Many members of the Greek community, after having been made aware of the degree to which their houses are considered hostile environments for many members of the LGBT community, turned to the LGBT Center for answers,” Cotton said in the e-mail.

Wilson said that students often perceive Greek life as unwelcoming of LGBT students.

“Just because it’s a Greek system doesn’t mean it has to be an unsafe place. I think a lot of times that people get that misconception,” he said. “If that’s true, then that should probably be changed.”

Wilson said that the discussions are still in the early stages with no concrete plans in place.

Cotton hopes that there will be a result to the discussion in time for Greek recruitment.

“The eventual goal … is to have something ready by spring rush that incorporates [the InterGreek Council,] that incorporates Senate, hopefully, and that works with the [Group of Six] centers,” Cotton said.

LGBT Center Director Tom Bourdon praised the Greek houses for their involvement in the pride flag campaign.

“We did see a lot of support coming from different Greek chapters around the whole rainbow flag initiative,” he said.

Bourdon said he has contacted Director of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs Tanya McGinn Paolo about future ways to create safe spaces within Greek chapters.

“When Tanya came on board, she and I connected and started talking immediately about how we could hopefully work together,” he said.

Interfraternity Council President Alex Stein said that Greek chapters have recently shown their support for the LGBT community.

MEREDITH KLEIN/TUFTS DAILY

A rainbow flag flies over the door of Delta Upsilon fraternity house.

“I do understand, by and large, frats and sororities showed a lot of support for Coming Out Day and for solidarity week,” Stein, a junior, said.

Stein said that he did not have any additional knowledge about the initiative and declined further comment.

Bourdon said individual students affiliated with the Greek system have shown support for on-campus LGBT life in private conversations.

“I had a lot of fraternity and sorority members talk to me directly about how they want to show support for the community,” he said. “There’s been tons of positive feedback and very intentional signs of support coming from different Greek chapters.”

Bourdon hopes to create a tip sheet to help Greek houses become safe spaces for LGBT students. He also said he and Cotton had raised the possibility of having a safe space competition.

“What we’re doing is just brainstorming,” Bourdon said. “I think it’ll continue to grow and relationship-building can take years, but I think we have a lot of people who are interested.”

Visiting the Hill this week MONDAY “Inside the Activist’s Study” Details: Investigative journalist and author David Goodman will lead a discussion with Alan Khazei, co-founder of servicebased organization City Year and CEO of Be the Change, Inc., a coalition of nonprofit efforts. The talk is another installment of the Inside the Activist’s Study lecture series, which aims to bring activist leaders to campus.

When and Where: 7 to 9 p.m.; Barnum 008 Sponsors: Communications and Media Studies Program, Peace and Justice Studies Program TUESDAY “Medicine of Kids” Details: Melvyn Levine, a clinical instructor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, Boston University School of Medicine and Tufts School of Medicine, will speak about pediatrics and the medical community at large.

When and Where: 7 to 8:30 p.m.; Pearson 104 Sponsor: Tufts Pre-Medical Society “Criminal Prosecution from Brooklyn, New York” Details: James Leeper, executive assistant district attorney for Brooklyn, N.Y., will speak about his experience as a criminal prosecutor for Brooklyn’s

District Attorney’s Office, as well as offer advice for students interested in criminal prosecution.

When and Where: 8 to 9 p.m.; Robinson 253 Sponsors: Tufts Pre-Law Society, Lecture Series, Programming Board THURSDAY “Veterans Day Ceremony” Details: Retired U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Edmund Johnson (A ‘51, M ‘55) will offer brief remarks following a ceremony on the Memorial Steps in honor of Veterans Day. When and Where: 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.; Coolidge Room Sponsors: Tufts ROTC Joint Operations, Advocates for Tufts ROTC, Tufts University Alumni Association FRIDAY “Are the Oceans Shrinking?”

Details: Professor Terry Plank of Columbia University’s LamontDoherty Earth Observatory will speak on the evolution of the ocean over the next few billion years, as well as how this may affect volcanic eruptions in the future.

When and Where: 2 to 3 p.m.; Lane 100 Sponsor: Department of Geology, Mineralogical Society of America —compiled by Alexandra Bogus

Features

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tuftsdaily.com

STEPHEN MILLER | COUNTERPOINT

Club Tisch and STDs

F TIEN TIEN/TUFTS DAILY

Students are increasing the amount of time they devote to leisure activities and decreasing the amount of time they spend studying, according to two University of California researchers.

Kids these days spend less time studying and more time playing, study shows

BY SYLVIA

AVILA

Contributing Writer

Many a parent have said that modern college students have no idea what a work ethic is: We don’t work hard enough and we won’t know what hardship is until we walk fifteen miles uphill through snow to get to school like they did. Two University of California professors have recently attempted to prove such claims — or at least the sentiment behind them — are true.

Two months ago, Mindy Marks, assistant professor of economics at the University of California, Riverside, and Philip Babcock, assistant professor of economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, pub-

lished a study comparing study hours reported by college students from 1961 to 2003.

They analyzed four surveys completed at different points during the 42-year time period.

What they found was a significant decline in the amount of time students devoted to studying. On average, students in 1961 studied 24 hours a week, while students in 2003 studied only 14 hours a week.

In an attempt to explain the decrease, Marks and Babcock took into account whether surveyed students had part-time jobs, what majors they were completing and what kinds of schools they were attending.

What they found was that none of these factors had any influence on whether studying hours declined; studying hours fell across

the board — for students of all majors, at all types of colleges, of all genders and both with and without part-time jobs.

But Marks and Babcock’s results are not necessarily obvious to long-time observers of students like Sol Gittleman, professor of German and former provost at Tufts, who said that based on 47 years of anecdotal evidence, he does not find that students have become less committed to their studies at Tufts.

“I personally don’t see any change in study habits, in intensity, in anxiety, in capacity to party,” he said. “The kids in ’64 seem, to me, to be the same as the kids in 2010.” see STUDYING, page 4

Study raises questions about accuracy of statistics showing low college graduation rates for United States BY

LAURA MORENO

Daily Editorial Board

A recent study by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) found that in the last five years, taxpayers spent $9 billion on college dropouts, but before asking why people are paying hefty sums in state and federal financial aid for students to complete their freshman — and only — year of college, many have wondered whether United numbers accurately reflect college graduation and dropout trends.

One problem lays in the definition of a college dropout, according to Associate Commissioner for External Affairs at the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, Katy Abel. The graduation rate for U.S. four-year colleges within six years is just 53 percent, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Education based on full-time students who entered 1,400 colleges and universities as freshmen in 2001. But students are only considered to be college graduates if they obtain a bachelor’s degree within six years of attending college.

Abel explained that often times at community colleges and state universities, students raise families or work while they go to school. Such situations often result in college degrees that take students more than six years to complete — but are college degrees nonetheless. Students might enroll for a few years, leave to work and earn money and eventually return, using the earned money to pay for the remainder of their education.

Additionally, students who transfer out of colleges and universities and into others are often considered dropouts simply because they did not earn their degrees from the institutions in which they began their college careers.

“Some students use community college as a stepping stone to other opportunities — some of them leave before graduation to transfer to other institutions,” Abel told the Daily. “This ‘stepping stone’ approach isn’t failure; sometimes they are moving on

to a greater academic challenge. But for the community college, that student’s departure counts against their overall graduation rate.”

Weverton Silva, a sophomore and transfer student from Bunker Hill Community College, is currently enrolled in Tufts as an economics major with a full scholarship.

After dropping out of high school when he was 15, Silva obtained a General Education Development (GED) diploma at Bunker Hill Community College before transferring to Tufts. Despite his current enrollment at Tufts, his departure from Bunker Hill means that he is still considered a dropout.

Silva believes that dropout numbers would be much more accurate if the progress of each student were independently tracked, she said.

“The only way to know if your tax money is working is to track results.”

Another heated debate prompted by the announcement of the large sum of money allocated to dropouts’ education is whether sending eventual dropouts to college for a single year is worth taxpayers’ money.

According to Mark Schneider, vice president of AIR and former commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, the cost resulting from college dropouts is an unnecessary strain on taxpayers, since these college dropouts are not obtaining their bachelor’s degrees. The organization’s study, Schneider writes on the AIR website, shows that during a time when universities face financial struggle, a needless amount of money is being spent on students who will not fulfill their academic goals.

Peter Levine, director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, believes that even one year in college is beneficial to society, however.

“We find that obtaining some college education without completing a B.A. does boost students’ civic engagement, although not as much as completing college does,” Levine said.

Still, there are better ways to use tax money in order to improve American education and increase graduation rates, according to Levine. In its goal for American graduates to constitute the highest percentage of college graduates in the world by 2020, the Obama Administration’s hardest task will be allocating tax money carefully, according to Levine. Many students drop out of college because they cannot handle university curricula and expectations, he said, and although it is unlikely that the costs to taxpayers will decrease, funds could be used to benefit university students more directly.

“A lot of students struggle with college because they struggle with the system,” Levine said. “I think money has to be spent more wisely, targeted [at] programs that keep students in college. There have been rigorous experiments that find positive effects from things like individualized guidance counseling in college. It may not be possible to save money overall, but the money should be allocated in ways that boost graduation rates.”

After having attended Bunker Hill, Silva believes that the biggest setback to graduation rates begins in high school. Many high schools do not adequately prepare students for the rigorous academic demands of college, he said.

“At community college, students come in under-prepared from high school,” Silva said. “Some don’t know how to add fractions or write a paragraph.”

Furthermore, Massachusetts State public universities and colleges have suffered budget cuts in recent years, including the 9C cuts of 2009. Despite the lack of adequate funding, however, the enrollments at these institutions continue to rise.

It is easy to see that as funding decreases, the institutions’ qualities are affected, according to Silva.

“The quality decreases due to the lack of infrastructure and funds,” he said. “With the 9C budget cuts, community colleges suffer the most.”

or the second time in as many weeks, I find myself in a very unfamiliar place.

I’m at the beating heart of the most social spot on campus: Club Tisch.

Now, I should be finishing a midterm paper for an English class due in two days, but that would first involve starting it, and that’s not really my style. Instead, I’ve been looking up what my roommate likes to call “IN THE FACEEEE” videos — e.g. a little kid hit in face with an enormous ball. It is infinitely more entertaining.

However, on this peaceful Monday night, I’m very much disturbed. I have a pair of those ridiculously large noise-canceling headphones that make me look like a nerdy Tiesto.

I’m currently listening to Hans Zimmer’s score for “Inception” because it’s awesome, and for some reason movie music helps me work. It’s not helping today, though.

I think that’s because despite my enormous headphones and the loud, dramatic music, I can hear every single person in this whole godless building coughing and sneezing up a storm. Apparently, Tufts is pumping swine flu directly into the air in here. The zombie apocalypse is upon us, and I’m sitting at ground zero.

Given my penchant for hyperbole, I understand if you think I’m joking. Trust me; I’m not. I will even document the exact time and number of sneezes/coughs I hear while I write this, starting now. It’s 9:20 p.m., Monday, Nov. 1, 2010.

Due to this terrifying experience I would like to propose a new medical term: STDs. No, dirty child, I’m not talking about that scandalous, sweaty action someone’s getting down on Level G. No, this is a new term, which stands for Studying Transmitted Diseases. These are the fevers, colds, viruses and bugs running rampant across this campus. And their breeding grounds? Libraries. Think about it: It’s midterm period, everybody’s all stressed out, it’s the beginning of flu season, and people are crammed into Tisch getting significantly less sleep than they need. Sounds like a perfect cocktail for a mass breakout of STDs. Quick check on the stats: 9:31 p.m. — 39 sneezes and coughs. That’s more than three and a half STDs per minute. I came here perfectly healthy, and I’m now 100 percent convinced it’ll actually be the truth when I tell my professors I’m not feeling well next week, which is a rarity.

S---. A very large shipment of Danish pastries rolling through the library just distracted me. Just after snatching a particularly tastylooking apple turnover, my incredibly sick friend reached over and fondled the rest of the pastries. I won’t be having seconds.

Clearly, we have a problem here. Here are some thoughts on how to stay alive in this highly contaminated area.

1. Wear one of those hilarious SARS masks.

Why will this never happen? Look around at how many cute girls have clearly gotten dressed up for the library. It’s the place to be seen on campus. It’s the Kentucky Derby with fewer hats. Think they’ll mess up that perfect study outfit with a goofy mask?

2. Practice safe studying. Buy 7,000 containers of Airborne and Purell and use them every time. Use two just to be safe.

3. Hide in the quiet room where sneezers, coughers and other involuntary noisemakers are berated fanatically.

4. If you are sick, don’t go to Tisch. Only you can prevent rampant STDs. 5. Clearly the easiest and most obvious one for me: Don’t go to Tisch at all. I’m not sure why I’m here in the first place. I legitimately haven’t done s---. On top of that, I now need to go to Health Service for an STD test. FML. Final tally: 9:20 to 9:51 p.m. — 88 coughs and sneezes and one blatant pastry STD grab for a total of 2.87 STDs per minute. Gross.

Stephen Miller is a senior majoring in English. He can be reached at Stephen.

Miller@tufts.edu.

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THE TUFTS DAILY

Students do not study as much as they used to, researchers find STUDYING continued from page 3

The researchers hypothesized that one reason for the decline in study hours might be the advent of the Internet age, resulting in speedier studying processes. The largest shift, however, took place between 1961 and 1981; over the 20-year period, studying fell from 24.4 to 16.8 hours a week, long before university students had Facebook or smartphones.

Conversely, Gittleman, who has been at Tufts since 1964, believes that the Internet has only intensified students’ workloads.

“I see kids grinding, working, studying, expanding their horizons through the Internet and accumulating a greater amount of knowledge and information than the other kids 40 years ago [who] didn’t have access to it,” he said.

The researchers concluded that the only possible explanation for the drastic decrease in students’ average study time that they detected is a falling standard at postsecondary institutions in the United States.

“Students appear to be studying less in order to have more leisure time,” Marks and Babcock reported in their study.

At Tufts, however, some community members feel as though an average Jumbo’s study time is much higher than the researchers’ reported 14 hours.

“There’s doing the homework, and then there’s doing the reading, and there’s the studying. All of that together I would say it’s closer to 20 [hours per week] than to 14,” senior Samia Zahran said of her own study habits.

Zahran believes that at Tufts, students devote an immense amount of time to studying but also acknowledged that not all students at all schools follow the same model.

Still, Marks and Babcock’s study found that the trend of decreased study hours is true of students at all types of schools.

“It does feel like we study all the time, [but] you also know people at other schools that aren’t studying all the time, or they just study before tests,” Zahran said.

Laura Rogers, a lecturer of education at Tufts, sees more eye-to-eye with the researchers. She said that the decrease in students’

time allotted to studying has been slow and steady and that there has also been a decrease in students’ time spent in class.

“The greatest decline occurred during the years when the role of ‘student’ in this nation was being redefined and increasingly being a ‘student of life,’ and actively engaging in a range of other activities during the student’s years became just as important as studying or going to football games,” she said.

Despite not observing a downward shift in student study hours, Gittleman said he has noticed a shift in student schedules overall.

Students are not necessarily devoting less time to their work but, rather, are choosing to do work at times traditionally not deemed study time, he said.

“We’re sort of asynchronous in terms of our time, but they stay up late, they start going to their activities at ten and they have a hard time getting up earlier in the morning,” he said.

“Sunday morning, the library is open, and at other schools you find that Sunday is still a day of rest. Here it is not.”

Rogers pointed out that the researchers’ definitions of “studying” and “leisure” could also affect their results and misrepresent the intricacies of student study habits.

“The authors report that there has been a rise of ‘leisure,’ commensurate with the fall in studying,” Rogers said, “which is not surprising since ‘leisure’ is defined as all time that is not academic or paid work, which includes sleep. It might be interesting to learn whether students during the ’60s and ’70s, when academic time declined most, began to spend more time in professional apprenticeships, or political activism, or arts, or athletics, or social activities,” she said. “For women, for example, pursuing athletics took up more time, once Title IX [which equalized men’s and women’s college athletic programs] allocated the resources and opportunities to do so.”

In addition, an increase in leisure activity does not necessarily cut into students’ work hours, Gittleman said.

“Work? Constantly. Play? Constantly. And that’s what you get. Kids that have the capacity to do everything,” Gittleman said. “I’m pretty much in awe of them.”

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Arts & Living

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INTERVIEW | DANNY BOYLE

Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle discusses the production of ‘127 Hours’ BY

MITCHELL GELLER | MAKES IT RAIN

ADD RAP

ROBERT GOTTLIEB

Contributing Writer

W

Danny Boyle is the acclaimed director of such films as “Trainspotting” (1996), “28 Days Later…” (2002) and “Slumdog Millionaire” (2008), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director. The Daily spoke with Boyle as part of a roundtable interview to discuss his latest film, “127 Hours.”

The film, which stars James Franco, tells the story of Aron Ralston, the mountaineer who in 2003 was forced to amputate part of his own arm after getting trapped under a boulder while hiking alone. Boyle discusses his directorial approach to the source material, James Franco and his body of work, among other things.

Question: If you have a character stuck in one place, you wouldn’t necessarily think one could make such an epic film. When did you first hear about Aron’s story, and at what point did it strike you as being something theatrical?

Danny Boyle: I mean, I heard about it in 2003 when it actually happened. It was one of those stories that snags. I read his book in 2006 and I tried to make the film then.

[Aron] wanted to make a documentary or kind of drama-doc, whereas I wanted to make it a real experience, real-time experience thing that you don’t get released from until he does the deed.

I think it’s because when you go to the cinema, you’re in a black box. It’s not like television. I mean, it’s voluntary, obviously.

You can get up and walk out. But if you’re enjoying it and you’re connected to it ... and in fact, you’ve paid money to go in that black box as well, so you’re unlikely to leave it, unless it’s s---. We pay 12 bucks or whatever CBC.CA

see BOYLE, page 6

James Franco, star of “127 Hours,” with the man he plays in the film, Aron Ralston.

GALLERY REVIEW

Powerful imagery in Buddhist art on display at MFA

BY WILLIAM OWEN Contributing Writer

“Heaven and Hell in Japanese Art” is an eclectic mix of statues, paintings and tapestries exhibited in the Buddhist

Heaven and Hell in Japanese Art At the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, through May 1, 2011 465 Huntington Ave 617-267-9300 wing of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston through May 1, 2011. Most of the pieces on display are from the Edo period in Japanese history and represent conceptions of heaven and hell in the Pure Land Buddhist tradition.

For followers of Pure Land Buddhism, Amida is the Buddha of Infinite Light.

Amida judges the sincerity of faith in his followers after they die, granting them rebirth in his Western Paradise, where they can more easily attain Enlightenment, or leaving them to the mercy of the Ten Kings of Hell. The Ten Kings condemn individuals who fail to attain salvation to one of six agonizing realms of reincarnation.

Popular representations of Heaven include regal sculptures of the Amida Buddha and intricate tapestries of his Western Paradise. Conversely, images of Hell are far from soothing: Statues of the Ten Kings and paintings of suffering serve to instill fear in followers of Pure Land Buddhism and to warn them of the consequences that would arise from lack of devotion.

The first room of the exhibit pertains to Buddhist Heaven, a tranquil space with

dim lighting and awe-inspiring statues of Amida. The most eye-catching statue in this room is “Amida, Buddha of Infinite Light and Attendants” (1737). This piece is of a woodblock construction with inlaid rock-crystal eyes and gilding. The statue demonstrates the majesty of Amida as he descends to the Western Paradise on a cloud, accompanied by two loyal attendants. The stunning intricacy of its woodwork and gold exterior makes it the most dramatic creation in the room.

Another beautiful piece in the first room is “Taima Mandala,” an 18th-century hanging scroll with ink and gold on silk. The scroll depicts Amida’s Western Paradise. The deceased who have attained salvation are shown being reborn from lotus flower buds in a peaceful pond, with Amida in the scroll’s center welcoming them to his realm. “Taima Mandala” boasts a gorgeous array of colors — reds, greens and blues, but most notably gold.

Several other magnificent statues grace this first room, including the eighth to ninth century “Bodhisattva” and the 12th century “Daiitoku, King of Wisdom.”

The second room of the exhibit has a similar mood to the first until you look more closely at the contorted facial features of the statues and the unsettling images in the paintings. This is undoubtedly the room with Buddhist depictions of Hell, with frightening figures of the Ten Kings and provocative tapestries of suffering.

The most striking statue in this room is “Aizen, King of Passion,” created during the 14th-century using cypress, polychrome, gold, and inlaid crystal. This deity is believed to transform the desire for matesee HEAVEN AND HELL, page 6

ALBUM REVIEW

‘Sidewalks’ brings light-hearted tunes for aural pleasure BY

CAROLINE WELCH

Contributing Writer

“Sidewalks,” Matt and Kim’s newest release, is the ultimate feel-good music. Evidence of the band’s skill and

Sidewalks Matt & Kim Fader Label talent is clear with their incorporation of an eclectic array of instruments and unique beats that are heard in each of the album’s songs. “Sidewalks” remains lighthearted and fun without becoming fluffy. It emanates a cheerful vibe without losing its substance or maturity. see SIDEWALKS, page 6

hen you hear hip-hop, all that matters is the feeling: Does it have a good beat? Does the rapper’s voice sound good?

Can you dance to it? Listening is a different story: How are the lyrics? How do the vocals interact with the beat? What samples can you pick out?

Rap songs from the “golden age” (’80s and ’90s, roughly) usually told a story.

For the longest time, I didn’t know what Biggie was saying on “Juicy” when he rapped, “smoking weed and bamboo, sipping on Private Stock.” But it was OK because knowing that he was getting high and drinking didn’t really add anything to the song.

“Juicy” is easily one of the top 10 rap songs ever, but that’s not why it’s a great example of a song you have to listen to; to really get the song, it’s crucial to hear what the Notorious B.I.G. is saying. The song describes the differences between his (then-current) high-rolling lifestyle and his pre-fame poverty. And the lyrics are classics.

Walk into any crowded space and shout, “It was all a dream/I used to read ‘Word Up’ magazine,’” and I guarantee that someone will join in. 100 percent of the time.

But for the most part, they don’t make songs like “Juicy” anymore, and listening to modern commercial hip-hop is a tiring pursuit. Lil Wayne, your favorite rapper and (sometimes) mine, is the king of free association. Find me a Weezy song that has a full story arc. Or follows some logical thread from one line to the next. Can’t do it.

Now don’t get me wrong: I love Lil Wayne, but listening — really listening — to him spit is mental aerobics. He leaps from one line to the next, often connected by nothing more than a huge stretch of a slant rhyme, stitching together mindboggling tapestries of amazing similes and metaphors.

One of Wayne’s most famous lines addresses this directly: “And when I was five my favorite movie was ‘The Gremlins’/ Ain’t got s--- to do with this but I just thought that I should mention.” This is from a song on “Da Drought 3” (2007). It’s preceded by the line, “Relying on rappers, but in the kitchen I’m a chemist,” and followed by, “You looking for divine and a little intervention,” and it actually has nothing to do with anything. But it sounds great in the song, and that’s all that matters.

If you hear it, it’s a hilarious line. If you’re listening, though, it’s almost jarring.

We’ve been accused of being an ADD generation, and our hip-hop reflects this.

You don’t need any attention span at all to listen to 99 percent of what’s on the radio today. Weezy caters directly to this.

But this is no lament from “golden age” hip-hop. I love this stuff. I love all of it or I wouldn’t be writing this.

As usual the exception is coming from Kanye West. If you didn’t know, he’s been releasing a new song every Friday for the past month or so through his G.O.O.D. Music label (“G.O.O.D. Fridays”). Every track has been a ridiculous posse cut featuring the likes of Jay-Z, Mos Def, Pusha T, RZA and everyone else you love, and nearly every song has clocked in at over five minutes. And they’re all great.

It’s thanks to artists like Kanye and Pusha T that the roots of hip-hop aren’t being forgotten in the mainstream. If you don’t know Pusha, half of Clipse, he’s basically rap’s MVP right now; he does the metaphors but manages to string them together anyway. His verses are awesome in the classical definition of the word.

And when Yeezy and Weezy collaborate? Magical.

As Mos Def raps, “We’re alive in amazing times.”

As Gucci Mane raps, “Burr! Burr! Burr!”

MATTANDKIMMUSIC.COM

The cover’s gritty buildings and pastel overtones will have every hipster drooling.

Mitchell Geller is a senior majoring in psychology and English. He can be reached at Mitchell.Geller@tufts.edu.

THE TUFTS DAILY

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Monday, November 8, 2010

ARTS & LIVING

Boyle speaks about his experience working with James Franco, Aron Ralston BOYLE continued from page 5

you pay to get in and you’re sort of committed to seeing it, to seeing it through. I thought that if you can get that ride, the experience of living in that confined space with him will be something that the audience can share. So I loved that idea about it. I said [to the studio:] The only way you will ever be able to tolerate watching this man cut his arm off and doing it properly — i.e., it takes him 40 minutes — is if you are invested in it, you want him to do it and you want to help him, in a way. And you want him to get out of there because you want to get out of the black box as well. I think that’s the essence of the story — its connection with us.

Q: Do you think that’s an accomplishment of the scene? Were you trying to make people uncomfortable or removed? Did you hear about people walking out?

DB: There’s not many. Only a handful. I understand, obviously it’s very intense, but for most

people, it’s an experience that they go through, just like he went through. It’s not like, “Oh great, here it comes.” It’s not like a horror movie, like, “Right, let’s see his head cut off,” it’s like, “Okay, let’s do it. It’s tough, but you do it.”

Q: Speaking of choosing that one actor, how did you end up with James Franco?

DB: I was very interested in him to begin with. I know he’s not a lookalike, which is one way you can go. Unusually for lead actors, his work has real variety. I thought that would be important because there’s no villain coming into it, there’s no comic character coming into it. He has to do all of that himself. And that literally ended up with him playing multiple characters as the talk show host. Because the film is static, the danger is that the film becomes inert. And the only way it doesn’t become inert is if he can create contrast so you feel movement. You can help with rhythm or music, but it’s him that’s doing it mostly.

Q: How do you feel your body of work has changed, from your more bleak films like “Trainspotting” to your more vibrant films like “Slumdog?”

DB: I think they have the same spirit in them, but it’s more muted because of the circumstances. That’s all, really. You do different stories at different times and find different things in it. When you’ve made a few films, people start using expressions like “your body of work,” and you don’t really think like that when you’re on the inside of that. I think it’s deadly, in fact, to think, “Right, for the next bit … my body of work will be this...” You kind of just go for a story that fascinates you and you can’t resist it. So that’s what I do.

Q: Did Aron Ralston collaborate with you on the script or the set?

DB: He was always around to teach us, tell us stuff we weren’t clear about. But I also said to him, I was very clear about this, that it was going to be our version of his story and that what I didn’t want was him

MFA exhibits Edo-era Buddhist art HEAVEN AND HELL continued from page 5

rial gain into Enlightenment, conquering ignorance in individuals. This statue is incredibly demonic-looking, with red skin, six arms, a lion-headed crown and three eyes. He has a frighteningly twisted face, and the condemnation in his three eyes reveals that he sees all ignorance.

Another standout work in the exhibit is a 19th century hanging scroll of ink, color and gold on silk titled “The Inevitable Change.”

The scroll conveys the nine stages of decay that Buddhist teachings claim dead bodies go through, representing the ephem-

eral nature of human life. The images in the piece are deeply humbling. An aristocratic woman in red is shown in the foreground, surrounded by cherry blossoms. The eye of the observer is then drawn upward, first to the woman’s swollen, newly dead body.

This state of decay is followed by an image of her with bulging, lifeless eyes, then to one of her body being eaten by wolves and vultures. The piece culminates in her being little more than an eroded skeleton.

“The Inevitable Change” is so moving because it reminds the observer that all people ultimately end up in the same place regardless of wealth or social stature.

being there the whole time overshadowing James, saying like, “Oh, no, actually I did this. I tied the other shoelace.” I said we will be faithful and truthful and, by the time it’s finished, it will feel emotionally truthful to what you went through.

But I do want James to go through it as well. The circumstances will be exactly the same to what you went through, but I want James to go through it, rather than James copying you going through it.

Q: After meeting Aron, reading his book and working to put the movie together, do you feel like the premonition was influenced spiritually or did you want to include that somehow?

DB: I don’t know whether it comes across or not, but my feeling about it is that a lot of people say this story is a story of an extraordinary individualist courage and self-sufficiency, but I don’t think that’s true at all, and I never did. Right when I first read the book, I thought that he’s incredibly individualist when he goes in there, he’s incredibly self-

sufficient, he runs ultra-marathons in the desert, he doesn’t need anybody, he goes on his own, he turns himself against the clock, he likes beating everybody else. He’s that typical example of the complete heroic individual, and nature stops him and says to him, “Okay, unique individual, get out of that.” And he can’t. His power, all that strength he’s got — he’s 27, he doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t really drink, he’s at the absolute pinnacle. ... Nothing. He can’t do anything.

And it’s only when he learns that he belongs in a chain, which is parenthood if you like, and when he learns he’s been careless with people’s affection for him. He doesn’t return phone calls. That girl who loved him, he treats her not cruelly, but casually, and he realizes that there’s something much bigger than supreme individualism.

There’s a commonality that bonds us all together, which is amazing, and it’s much more powerful than in spirituality, and that’s something I deeply believe. I tried to convey that in the film, how he literally swims back to people at the end.

‘Sidewalks’ delivers saccharinsweetness without the cavities SIDEWALKS continued from page 5

Matt and Kim is a pop-dance-punk duo composed of keyboardist Matt Johnson and drummer Kim Schifino. The band was formed in 2004 after the two met at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y., and they released their first self-titled album in the fall of 2006. After performing at major festivals such as Lollapalooza the following year, Matt and Kim became more prominent on the indie-pop music radar. Their second album, “Grand” (2009), hit 165 on the Billboard 200.

“Sidewalks” is notable mainly because of its thrilling musicality: Fun, dominating beats make up the backing of each song, and it’s impossible not to toe-tap in time with the music. “Red Paint” leads in with an electronic rhythm, similar to vintage video game sound effects. These beeping scales continue for the duration of the song, fusing subtly with the melody. “Block After Block,” the first track, utilizes cymbals and more electronic noises to create a measured tempo but also adds hand claps to accentuate the rhythm.

By emphasizing rhythm in all of their tracks, Matt and Kim manage to keep listeners hooked and maintain a sense of cohesiveness throughout the album.

Another unique aspect of “Sidewalks” is the wide range of instrumentation present on the album. Every sound comes together so seamlessly that it may be hard to pick up during the first listen, but after a while it becomes easier to dissect the individu-

al sounds. For example, in “Where You’re Coming From,” a series of piano chords play in unison with a light plucking of violin.

“Red Paint” is a cornucopia of noise, with guitar, a woodwind — perhaps a flute or clarinet — and triangle. “Northeast,” the one melancholy track on the eleventrack album, alternates low, drawn-out piano chords with jingling bells, while “Ice Melts” emits a joyful aura with trumpet notes and what appears to be the banging of empty cans or a cowbell. This variety of instruments cements the musical credibility of Matt and Kim while captivating listeners.

Not only does the music exude a joyful attitude, but the lyrics also play a key role in the feel-good nature of “Sidewalks.” Without being too corny, the vocals express optimistic sentiments. Johnson sings all the tracks on “Sidewalks,” and his vocals are solid without being too overdone or drawn out.

On “Good for Great” he chants, “Bruises and scrapes, our life’s mistakes are nothing but bad weather.” Simple lyrics such as these express bliss and delight without slipping into the trap of being cliche and cheesy.

Sometimes you want to crank the volume up, roll the windows down and listen to some shallow, saccharin-sweet songs because they’re just fun. With “Sidewalks” you can get the same effect without sacrificing your indie cred; Matt and Kim’s musical backbone remains strong while still creating that zippy, light-hearted, feelgood mood that causes so many to gravitate toward music.

MATTANDKIMMUSIC.COM

The duo poses for a shot over a scenic highway.

Monday, November 8, 2010

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DOONESBURY

BY

NON SEQUITUR

GARRY TRUDEAU

BY

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COMICS CROSSWORD

WILEY

FRIDAY’S SOLUTION

MARRIED TO THE SEA

www.marriedtothesea.com

SUDOKU Level: Getting into your liberal arts elective of choice as an engineer

LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Friday’s Solution

Carter: “See, Pandora is handing you retribution for skipping a great song like ‘Sexy Chick.’”

Ellen [laughing uncontrollably]: “Did you just call Sexy Chick a great song?”

Carter: “It’s the best song of the year.”

Please recycle this Daily.

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EDITORIAL

Olbermann and objective journalism

BENJAMIN D. GITTLESON Editor-in-Chief

EDITORIAL Managing Editors

Ellen Kan Carter Rogers Matt Repka Executive News Editor Alexandra Bogus News Editors Michael Del Moro Nina Ford Amelie Hecht Corinne Segal Martha Shanahan Brent Yarnell Jenny White Daphne Kolios Assistant News Editors Kathryn Olson Romy Oltuski Executive Features Editor Sarah Korones Features Editors Alison Lisnow Emilia Luna Alexa Sasanow Derek Schlom Jon Cheng Assistant Features Editors Maya Kohli Amelia Quinn Emma Bushnell Executive Arts Editor Zach Drucker Arts Editors Mitchell Geller Rebecca Goldberg Ben Phelps Anna Majeski Assistant Arts Editors Rebecca Santiago Matthew Welch Rachel Oldfield Bhushan Deshpande Larissa Gibbs Dave Kellog Kevin Luo Jeremy Ravinsky Daniel Stock Elaine Sun Devon Colmer Erin Marshall Lorrayne Shen Louie Zong Craig Frucht Rebekah Liebermann Ashish Malhotra Josh Molofsky Michael Restiano Alexandra Siegel

Executive Op-Ed Editor Assistant Op-Ed Editors

Cartoonists

Monday, November 8, 2010

EDITORIAL | LETTERS

The Oct. 30 Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, hosted by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, drew in tens of thousands who gathered to express their exasperation, in part, at the lack of objectivity in news media, calling for a return to truth-seeking journalism. Many media giants forbade their employees from attending the rally, although Jon Stewart claimed that the rally was non-partisan.

One such news organization, MSNBC, again appeared in the news on Friday, when Politico reported MSNBC’s suspension of Keith Olbermann, the host of “Countdown” known for his highly opinionated and left-leaning coverage of daily news events. Olbermann was suspended indefinitely and without pay after being discovered to have contributed to three democratic campaigns in the lead-up to the Nov. 2 election. Last night, MSNBC announced he could return to his show tomorrow.

News of Olbermann’s suspension was met with considerable contention by the public. Many found his suspension seemingly out of the blue and undeserved, noting that Olbermann is hardly the first reporter to have donated to political causes. Fox News, for example, does not even discourage its employees from publically making these sorts of contributions to political candidates and parties.

In following the loyally outraged viewers’ reasoning, one must consider the fact that “Countdown” is well known as a liberal source and Olbermann has offered frequent and open criticisms of right-wing policies since the show’s inception in 2003.

It is no secret that Olbermann supports many liberal causes, and therefore, his recent donations should hardly surprise people or create such an uproar. If MSNBC’s goal for “Countdown” was to provide unbiased reporting, then the show failed years ago. It is absurd for MSNBC to pretend that Olbermann’s show is any less biased than Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor.”

It could be argued that just as reporters have a right to vote for whichever candidate they please, so too should they have a right to support those causes in which they believe strongly.

Olbermann never publicized his donations until they came to light last week.

Many have pointed to the unfairness of singling out Olbermann when he was only one of multiple NBC News personalities to have contributed to campaigns. But it must also be noted that Olbermann did not go through the procedures required of NBC News reporters desiring to support a particular political cause.

Additionally, Olbermann is one of the most well known hosts on MSNBC, and his network’s decision can be seen as a strategic statement against such behavior in general.

Perhaps MSNBC’s decision is a sign that the network was listening when Americans called for a return to previous standards of accuracy in journalism last week at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.

The entire incident points to the larger fact that these news corporations, and cable news stations in particular, are corrupting their role as a purveyor of objective information. We can fall victim to this game, allowing show hosts to preach their politics as facts and only listening to sources of information that agree with our own biases.

In the process, we forget that each time we let this happen, another door to the truth is closed.

Whatever NBC’s reasoning was for suspending Olbermann, the controversy calls attention to the fact that we are continually subjected to subjective partisan media. The question is, are Americans ready to demand the truth, or are we going to continue to limit ourselves to picking out the facts from an ever — going back-and-forth debate over which media giant can shout their partial truths the loudest?

Secondly, that the comment is treated as jest and quoted in a publication representing our student body is equally lamentable. Even if the intentions of this quotation were not to offend, people ought to consider the potential consequences that result when phrases are taken so brashly out of context.

As allies, we were disheartened when we read this quotation and we hope the Daily can be more cau-

tious about the context in which they choose to quote fellow Jumbos. Thank you for your understanding.

LOUIE ZONG

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR Dear Editor, We were surprised and disappointed to read in the Nov. 4 issue of the Daily that a fellow Jumbo commented in the “Over-herd on the hill” feature: “Will there be a day when we accept bestiality the way homosexuality is becoming accepted today?”

Firstly, this statement is in and of itself both offensive and distasteful, particularly in light of recent events.

EDITORIAL POLICY Editorials that appear on this page are written by the editorialists, and 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.

Sincerely, Katie Balch Class of 2013 Grace Bambushew Class of 2013 Lauren Rose Class of 2013

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Monday, November 8, 2010

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OP-ED

Obama’s Latin America policy: No policy at all BY

CORY SISKIND

President Obama is ignoring Latin America. Granted, he has been quite busy dealing with problems at home: The financial crisis recovery and health care reform certainly did not go over smoothly, and the midterm elections dealt him a tough blow.

In terms of foreign policy, the United States has its focus elsewhere. The stakes are great in the Middle East with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and worries over a nuclear Iran. A booming India directs American attention to South Asia, and a looming China, growing ever stronger, directs American attention to the Far East.

Europe is always an important part of the American agenda. Latin America is therefore left out. With all these more pressing regions abroad, the United States is neglecting its own “backyard.”

While Washington sleeps in the Americas, incredible changes are occurring in the South. The latest World Economic Outlook, published by the International Monetary Fund, reveals that Latin America is recovering from the global economic crisis much more rapidly than expected, with a 5.7 percent growth rate for 2010. Substantial growth in Chile, Brazil, Peru and Colombia is changing the economic makeup of the Southern Cone and the Andean Region.

On the other hand, Hugo Chávez’s socialist “Bolivarian Revolution” in Venezuela boasts strong support in many Latin American countries, and Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador are struggling with their neo-populist super-presidents. All the while, the Obama administration’s Latin American policy features the lowest level of engagement in a century.

There are several possible explanations for why Obama is ignoring Latin America.

First, as noted above, Obama is spread thin dealing with domestic problems and more pressing regions of the world.

Second, after the Cold War era, growing socialism seems like a laughable threat to the United States compared to extremism abroad. Third, with a sordid history of meddling and intervention in Latin America in the past, the United States in many ways feels it is damned if it does and damned if it does not.

I propose a fourth option for why the United States is playing dead. Throughout the past century, the United States has promoted a rhetoric of electoral democracy in Latin America — a type featuring free and fair elections — while failing to promote liberal democracy, with permanent constitutions, individual rights and freedoms, respect for civil society,

MCT

separation of powers, checks and balances and established institutions that are above individual leaders.

The United States has witnessed and aided a rise in regimes that mix elections with authoritarianism, or what Fareed Zakaria calls “illiberal democracies.” The quagmire the United States faces today is that after years of promoting democracy with free elections, some Latin American countries have elected leaders that are hostile to the United States and anti-liberal democracy in their own countries.

The United States would like to condemn illiberal democracies but fears sounding hypocritical or backtracking on its narrow, pro-election foreign policy.

This is not to say that U.S. foreign policy is the sole impetus behind the adoption of illiberal democracies in Latin America.

Many other factors have increased the support for neo-populist leaders, such as the unification and politicization of indigenous groups. Additionally, the socalled failure of neo-liberalism and the Washington Consensus — a series of policies designed to open markets — led to the rejection of what many Latin Americans defined as “free-mark fundamentalism” and an over-simplistic approach of “stabilize, privatize and liberalize.” However, despite other factors, U.S. foreign policy has undoubtedly contributed to the growth of illiberal democracies.

It is important that the United States face reality in Latin America for three reasons: If it does not, first, it will lose the chance to capitalize on Obama’s popularity in the region, which is overwhelmingly high compared to that of former President George Bush’s; second, it will continue to see the election of neo-populist leaders hostile to America; and third, other countries, such as China, Iran and Russia, will increase their involvement and influence in the region.

Nonetheless, the United States cannot return to a policy of stomping around carelessly in Latin America. It must proceed with extreme caution in promoting liberal democracy so as not to encourage the grassroots support for the region’s demagogic leaders that propelled them into office.

I propose a delicate but strategic approach. First, the United States should increase support for pro-liberal-democracy non-governmental organizations, especially student and youth organizations. When the neo-populist leaders fall, Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia are going to need liberal, capable young people to become the countries’ future leaders.

Second, the United States should exercise pressure through multilateral organizations, such as the United Nations and the Organization of American States, on states degrading liberal institutions

by censoring press, hampering civil society, manipulating their constitutions and over-expanding the role of the executive.

The United States should also be more vocal in its support for its liberal, democratic allies. For example, when Hugo Chávez meddles in presidential elections in Colombia or supports the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia within Venezuela’s borders, the United States should stand by its ally Columbia, preferably through a demonstration of support via international institutions.

Third, the United States should establish free-trade agreements with its allies.

Obama has stalled the approval of free trade agreements with key partners Colombia and Panama that have been pending since 2006. Stronger free trade agreements expand alliances, trade and cooperation. All of the above measures will help support liberal democracy in Latin America without fueling the fire for the “Bolivarian Revolution.”

President Obama has pushed aside Latin America for too long. It is time for the United States to see the benefits of reengaging Latin America and acknowledge the dangers of its present course of action.

It is time for the United States to wake up.

Cory Siskind is a senior majoring in International Relations.

Visiting the Royall House: Slavery in our midst BY

EMILIE PARMLIND

Where can a 15-minute walk from the Tufts campus bring you? You might head down Broadway and get some scrumptious stuffed French toast at Sound Bites.

You could stroll over to Davis Square and splurge on a $10 savory sandwich from Dave’s Fresh Pasta. Or you could take a trip down College Avenue, turn right onto George Street and stop at a large half-brick edifice on your left.

You would have arrived at the Royall House, believed to be the only extant Slave Quarters in the northern United States.

It might make your stomach churn in an entirely different way.

The Royall family and 27 of their slaves came to Boston in 1737, Isaac Royall Sr. having made his fortune in the lucrative sugar trade in Antigua. Slavery began in Massachusetts in the 1640, and the Royalls were among the richest and largest slaveholders in Massachusetts.

Sugar has a history that is anything but sweet.

Prior to the flourishing of sugar cane plantations in the Caribbean, sugar was a luxury product. But enslaving the indigenous people of Santo Domingo proved to be a profitable endeavor, and once the native population had been depleted due

to savage cruelty, deadly and dehumanizing working conditions and the flourishing of diseases, African slaves were brought to replace them. This new source of forced, unpaid labor was considered heartier and, in being an ocean away from family, home and culture, less likely to succeed in organized rebellion.

At first there was not a wide market for sugar, as it had for centuries been conceived of as a luxury product reserved for the wealthy. But Britain began to aggressively market sugar to create a demand for the vast quantities it was producing in its Caribbean colonies. It became an act of patriotism to consume cups of tea sweetened with this newly affordable commodity harvested by slaves.

New England flourished as a result of its involvement in the Atlantic slave trade.

In an arrangement commonly referred to as the triangle trade, the Caribbean sent the raw materials of sugar and molasses to Europe and New England, where it was distilled into rum and shipped to Africa, where people were captured and sent on the infamous Middle Passage to the Americas as slaves.

Isaac Royall Sr. made his fortune on a sugar plantation in Antigua before settling in Massachusetts. New England’s economy remained reliant on the slave trade

and production of rum, with Medford acting as a major production center. In 1770, 75 percent of all New England exports were tied to the slave trade in some way.

Slavery had a firm foothold in the heart of Medford. The Slave Census of 1754 from Charles Brooks’ “History of the Town of Medford” records that “there were in Medford 27 male and seven female slaves and 15 Free Blacks; total 49 blacks in Medford.” In 1744-45, a resolution was passed to enforce a curfew for slaves in Medford by pain of whipping in the marketplace, “not exceeding 10 stripes.”

Census and probate records preserve the names of 63 persons enslaved by the Royalls.

A woman named Belinda stands out among these, having successfully petitioned for a pension from the Royall Estate in 1783.

Although slavery became illegal in Massachusetts in 1783, profiting from the labor of the enslaved did not. Belinda, a former slave of the Royall family, successfully petitioned for restitution for her years of unpaid servitude. It is speculated that she may have written the petition with the help of the active leader and also formerly enslaved Prince Hall or, alternately, with the help of famed poet and former Royall House slave Phyllis Wheatley.

While we are able to piece together a bit about Belinda from her petition, it is

difficult to comprehend the situation of the remaining people enslaved by the Royall family. They are reduced to names on a paper. For this reason, a visit to the Slave Quarters is highly recommended.

An archaeological excavation undertaken by a Boston University team a decade ago unearthed many artifacts belonging to both the Royall family and the people whom they enslaved. Examining a child’s marble found in the Slave Quarters makes the people who lived there more tangible to us. Here, a mother watched her child play, filled with the knowledge that her own child could be sold upon the owner’s whim or be brutally beaten or raped.

Next time you are stirring a packet of sugar into your coffee, reflect. Your college campus is not just a 20-minute T ride from Boston. It is also only a 12-minute walk away from the only extant Slave Quarters above the Mason-Dixon Line. Make it a goal to pay it a visit at some point during your four years at Tufts. It is important to remember that this country was founded upon slavery. The reminders and scars it has left are not only in the South, but also within a short walk away from our campus.

Emilie Parmlind is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major.

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Jumbos burned five timeouts in single game to ice Bendit BENDIT continued from page 15

propel the Mules to their third straight win.

“I felt really good about it, despite his demeanor,” Colby head coach Ed Mestieri said.

“He looked pretty comfortable with the situation. I was more concerned with protection, because they had put some heat on us earlier in the day, but I felt good about David’s chances to make it.”

On the game’s final drive, Kmetz — who set new single-game program marks for total offense, completions and attempts — directed a 17-play, 73-yard effort that included three third-down conversions and two fourthdown conversions.

Such situations are nothing new to Kmetz and the rest of the Colby offense.

Each Wednesday, the Mules’ practice plan includes a drill called “Red, Red,” in which a random scenario is thrown at the first-team offense and defense, which then go headto-head for bragging rights.

This past week in practice, the defense won the drill. On Saturday, it was the offense’s time to shine.

“You think about that stuff growing up, moments like that,” Kmetz said. “And you hope things play out and things go well. I’m just so excited; I don’t know what to say. That’s probably the biggest win of my life.”

When Bendit lined up to attempt a 24-yarder with one second remaining in the second half, Jumbos coach Bill Samko burned his two remaining timeouts to ice the sophomore. A small mistake

by Bendit caused the field goal to sail to the right, allowing Tufts to head into the break with a halftime lead for

LANE FLORSHEIM/TUFTS DAILY

For the second straight year, the Jumbos, above in a game against Williams, advanced to the conference championships and fell to the No. 2 seed. This year, Middlebury defeated Tufts in four sets to claim its third NESCAC title.

Middlebury denies volleyball team NESCAC title VOLLEYBALL continued from page 16

“We dealt with a lot of adversity this year, but never let it overcome us,” Updike said.

“We worked through our challenges and beat Williams every time we played them, and also [top New England team] UMass Boston,” Spieler said. “We finished on a high note and are so proud of each other.”

Saturday’s semi-final win over Amherst — which entered the match ranked No. 1 in New England — was the Jumbos’ finest performance all season.

Against a Lord Jeffs team that had beaten them twice already in 2010, the Jumbos dominat-

ed play, holding Amherst to a paltry .197 hitting percentage on the strength of double-digit digs from junior libero Audrey Kuan, Spieler, Updike and senior quad-captain Nancy Shrodes. The Jumbos won the match in straight sets, 25-15, 25-22, 25-20.

Tufts will graduate quite a bit of talent this year in Updike, Joyce-Mendive, Shrodes and fellow quad-captain Kelly Engelking. But next year’s squad will still likely be competitive for a conference title as well, with Spieler and junior Lexi Nicholas anchoring the attack. Lord will benefit from another year of collegiate experience under her belt and Kuan,

who is also an online editor for the Daily, will return as the most experienced libero in the league.

“It’s kind of surreal to think that they are all graduating,” Spieler said. “They all have great presences on and off the court and we’ll miss all of them.”

This season ended in bittersweet fashion, but the returning Jumbos will use it as motivation to climb back to the top of the NESCAC and New England standings next season.

“I think that they’ll be great and coach [Cora Thompson] also has a solid recruiting class coming in,” Updike said.

the sixth time this season.

But when the opportunity for redemption came knocking, this time with the game on the line, Bendit seized it, even though Samko, with the clock ticked to zero, burned all three of Tufts’ timeouts before the extra point in an attempt to ice Bendit again.

“I was totally cool by then,” Bendit said of the icing. “The icing, it’s not that big of a deal. You keep a cool head on the way out and you keep it on the way in. I can’t really cheer for the offense that much because I can’t really get my heart rate up. I kept to myself for the first couple of minutes, then went out there and did my thing.”

“I didn’t want to talk to him or get him out of his rhythm,” Kmetz said. “He’s a pretty quiet kid. And I thought that if they called one more timeout I’d probably roll over and die. When it went through, though, it was pure jubilation.”

Following the celebration and the obligatory postgame congratulations, Kmetz plopped down in the south end zone to take stock of the wild finish, utterly exhausted from the effort. Next to him, a member of the Mules’ program squatted on the goal line and sawed a screwdriver through the ground, intending to pull up some dirt and grass as a tangible souvenir of the moment.

Though the goal-line carver eventually thought better of his actions, there was really no need to bring a small square of grass, incapable of realistically being distributed to the entire team, back to Waterville, Maine.

The excitement, though?

Now that will be shared forever.

THE TUFTS DAILY

Monday, November 8, 2010

13

SPORTS

Jumbos need a victory in final game to avoid last-place finish in NESCAC FOOTBALL continued from page 15

the fourth down gave the Jumbos the ball and some much-needed confidence.

“The goal line stand was unreal,” junior defensive end Donnie Simmons said. “All the sideline, all the coaches were pumped and we thought in our heads that would give us enough momentum to finish the game out.”

Fucillo and the Tufts offense proceeded to march 98 yards down the field and into the end zone on a 17-play drive that featured two crucial third-down conversions by senior Pat Bailey.

Classmate Greg Stewart caught an 11-yard touchdown pass from Fucillo and, though Colby blocked junior kicker Adam Auerbach’s ensuing PAT, the Jumbos took a 41-28 lead two minutes into the fourth quarter.

Tufts’ offensive surge was part of a seesaw scoring battle between the two teams, which totaled a combined 1,017 yards of total offense when the dust had settled.

Colby took an early lead when senior running back Conor Tidgwell plowed ahead for a 4-yard touchdown through a gaping hole in the offensive line on the Mules’ very first possession. Tidgwell finished with 25 carries for 106 yards, becoming this season’s seventh 100-yard rusher against the Jumbos’ conference-worst run defense.

The teams exchanged leads four times in the first half and Tufts took a 28-21 lead into the break on Bailey’s 2-yard touchdown run on third and goal — one of his three in the game.

Bendit missed a 24-yard field goal heading into halftime and the home team carried its momentum into the early part of the second half.

With the Jumbos leading by two scores in the fourth quarter, senior defensive lineman Alex Gresham intercepted a tipped pass and returned it 27 yards into the Mules’ territory.

“There wasn’t a doubt in my mind, I don’t think there was

VIRGINIA BLEDSOE/TUFTS DAILY

In his final home game, senior Pat Bailey, above in a game against Williams, had three total touchdowns and extended his NESCAC-best receptions total to 54. a doubt in anyone’s mind that we weren’t winning that game,” Fucillo said.

The offense took over in position to put the game away, but Colby’s defense returned the favor, tipping a Fucillo pass that found the hands of Mules senior tri-captain Ryan Murphy.

The Mules proceeded to methodically move 70 yards down the field to score, fueled by two third-down conversions by Kmetz on quarterback draws. Kmetz found senior Nat Carson wide open for a 16-yard touchdown connection to finish the drive as the tight end motioned across the formation to run a seam pat-

QUINT KAPPEL | FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

tern seemingly undetected by the Jumbos’ defense.

Kmetz had a dominant performance through the air, completing 40 of 53 passes for 392 yards and three second-half scores. His 473 yards of total offense broke the school record and earned him coNESCAC Offensive Player of the Week honors. He also set the new Colby mark for single-game completions and attempts, in addition to crossing the 3,000-yard plateau for career yardage.

Though Tufts had an opportunity to run time off the clock on its next possession, the Jumbos’ new no-huddle spread scheme did not lend itself to doing so.

Bailey attempted to run the ball on first and second down after the Mules had cut the deficit to 41-35, but only managed 1 yard on the two plays.

“We don’t have a … smash-itdown-your-throat-type offense,” Fucillo said.

Tufts was forced to punt and Colby’s next possession, which included two fourth-down conversions, boiled down to a final play with two seconds to go and the ball at Tufts’ 1 yard-line.

The Jumbos sent a blitz on the play but Kmetz audibled to a shotgun formation pre-snap and found Merwin, who had broken free of the defense, for the winning score.

It was one of Merwin’s 10 receptions on the afternoon.

With the win, Colby has a realistic shot of finishing with a winning record for the first time since 2005. The Jumbos, on the other hand, need a victory next week at Middlebury to send their seniors off on a high note and to avoid finishing last in the NESCAC. “We’ll all come together. I think it will all come to fruition in the last game,” senior linebacker Matt Murray, who led the team with 13 tackles, said. “That’s all I’m focusing on, is just having this last week of practice, going out everyday, having a good time, enjoying what’s left of football.”

THE TUFTS DAILY

14

Monday, November 8, 2010

SPORTS

Jumbos hope for at-large bid to repeat 2008 run to the NCAA Championships FIELD HOCKEY continued from page 16

The Jumbos, despite looking relatively unimpressive, were able to keep the Polar Bears at bay for almost 10 minutes after the first goal. But with 6:40 remaining to play in the half, Clegg worked some more magic.

This time, she set up senior co-captain Ingrid Oelschlager, who did not hesitate as she put one into the right corner past a screened Zak. “I think part of the problem was communication,” senior co-captain Jess Perkins said of the Jumbos’ defensive frustrations. “I think that we communicated pretty well but definitely could’ve done a lot better from the back to the front and all the way through. And I think that we had moments where we let up and, against a team like Bowdoin, you can’t let up … it was clear that if you let up against them it’s going to be a goal.”

Halftime could not have come soon enough for the Jumbos, who hoped to regroup after giving up four corners and nine shots while only managing two corners and a single shot of their own. The offense was in need of a new approach, as Bowdoin had effectively taken senior Tamara Brown — the NESCAC’s leading goalscorer — out of the game with a physical double team low in the Jumbos’ offensive zone.

Unfortunately for Tufts, the second period proved a similar story to the first as Bowdoin came out gunning to increase its lead, while the Jumbos seemed to have their proverbial shoelaces tied together. By the time the Jumbos began to put it together, Oelschlager had already ripped a shot from the top of the circle that never gave Zak a chance, increasing the lead to 3-0.

Tufts began to take control of possession and even created some shots, but the score remained the same as the clock wound down. Soon enough, Bowdoin fans began the inevitable countdown. It was strangely reminiscent of 2008 as the buzzer sounded, bringing with it the Polar Bears’ newest NESCAC title, their fifth in six years.

“I think we weren’t really playing together as a unit the way we did [Saturday] and have

ANDREW MORGENTHALER/TUFTS DAILY

After a goal and an assist in Saturday’s 3-0 NESCAC Semifinal victory over Trinity, senior forward Tamara Brown was double-teamed and held scoreless in yesterday’s title match against Bowdoin. in the past,” senior forward Melissa Burke said. “Things just weren’t clicking the way that they have, so I think that was the difference: They came out and everything was clicking for them and it just wasn’t for us.”

Saturday was a different story altogether, however, as the Jumbos did click and played what was arguably their best game of the season. Feeding off a desire to avenge their only regular season loss and for a shot at a follow-up title, Tufts put national No. 19 and NESCAC six-seed Trinity on its heels from the start.

The game looked to be completely in the Jumbos’ hands from the beginning, but the scoreboard did not reflect that until the 21st minute, when sophomore Lia Sagerman won a one-on-one on the left side of the field for an open shot at junior goalkeeper Gina Dinallo.

Sagerman took advantage, and

her blast from the top of the circle struck the backboard for a 1-0 Tufts lead.

The defense mirrored the attack’s dominance throughout the game, not allowing a shot or penalty corner before the break.

After the intermission, it was another strike from Sagerman that doubled the Jumbos’ lead.

The play, which began with a free hit outside the striking circle, was an exemplary example of Tufts’ usual style: smooth, composed passing combinations — a style that eluded the team in Sunday’s title match.

First, freshman Emily Cannon connected with her sister, junior Sarah Cannon. Upon receiving the pass, the elder Cannon found Brown, who easily drew Dinallo to the left before slipping the ball to Sagerman on the opposite post.

The goal seemed to light a fire under the Bantams, but it proved to be too little too late,

especially after the Jumbos scored one more time. Senior Tess Guttadauro set up and fed Perkins a clean insert, and Perkins attempted to play one in. Brown found Perkins’ shot in the air and deflected it over Dinallo’s left leg for a 3-0 lead.

But the Bantams refused to go down without a fight. With their first two corners coming five minutes later, Trinity had their first real shot at Zak. They did not waste it either, as senior cocaptain Robyn Williams ripped a shot at Zak’s chest. But the goalie’s hands were ready and she deflected the ball out of bounds for her only save of the game.

Then, Tufts began to stall as the energy of the impending victory spread throughout the team.

Though the 1-1 weekend does not guarantee Tufts a spot in the NCAA tournament, an at-large bid for the Jumbos is probable. And as the season continues to develop more and more

like 2008 — during which the Jumbos lost to Bowdoin in the NESCAC finals on Bello Field only to meet the team again in the national championship — one cannot help but wonder if the field hockey gods are giving the Jumbos a chance to do what they could not two years ago: win the NCAA crown.

“I think it feels a little bit too familiar since we’ve been there before,” Perkins said. “But we know that we can come back and come back stronger. I think it will force us to look at some of the things that we’re doing wrong that we might have overlooked otherwise. So I’m excited going in to this week to just work even harder and get even better and come back stronger for the NCAAs.” “I think we just need to take this as extra motivation and remember how this feels,” Burke said. “And then use it to just play our best every game.”

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Monday, November 8, 2010

THE TUFTS DAILY

15

SPORTS

FOOTBALL

FOOTBALL

Bendit like David BY

ALEX PREWITT

Daily Editorial Board

stood dejectedly to the side.

“It’s just a big disappointment to be a senior and lose on your home field in your last [home] game, especially in that fashion,” quarterback Anthony Fucillo, who threw for 359 yards and four touchdowns, said.

Just a quarter earlier, the Jumbos stuffed the Mules on four consecutive downs in a goal line stand that left Tufts poised for victory. With the score 35-28, the Mules had the ball on Tufts’ 5 yard-line with an opportunity to tie the game up. But the Tufts defense stood strong and an incomplete pass on

David Bendit wasn’t about to let his past come back to haunt him.

Not this time.

On Oct. 10, 2009, Colby’s thenfreshman kicker missed the gamewinning extra point near the end of regulation in the Mules’ road date with Wesleyan. When a Cardinals penalty gave Bendit a second chance, he misfired on that one, too.

So when Bendit lined up on Saturday with a chance to give Colby one of its most exciting wins in program history, memories of the Wesleyan debacle were swirling in his normally calm mind.

But history, normally a cyclical demon bent on plaguing poor souls, refused to torment Bendit anymore.

As time expired in the fourth quarter, Bendit booted the gamewinning PAT, sending Colby into a raucous celebration and spoiling Tufts’ Seniors Day with a 42-41 victory on Zimman Field.

It was sweet redemption for Bendit, who calmly stroked the ball through the south goalposts, simultaneously erasing memories of a failed field goal in the first half against Tufts as well as in the Wesleyan game 393 days earlier — which Bendit ultimately won with a 22-yarder in overtime.

“It feels a lot better than last year when I was in the same situation and couldn’t do it,” Bendit said. “But we’re clicking on all cylinders this year and it feels great.”

Facing a Jumbos offense that the week before put up a NESCACrecord 671 yards and 49 points versus then-undefeated Amherst, it took a superhuman effort from junior quarterback Nick Kmetz in the fourth quarter, not to mention some stoic kicking from Bendit, to

see FOOTBALL, page 13

see BENDIT, page 12

VIRGINIA BLEDSOE/TUFTS DAILY

Senior quarterback Anthony Fucillo (16), above in a game against Williams, was one of 13 honored on Seniors Day.

Jumbos squander two-score lead to Colby BY

BILLY RUTHERFORD Daily Staff Writer

If games ended at halftime, Tufts’ football team would be 6-1 this year.

Unfortunately for the Jumbos, games are 60 minutes long.

FOOTBALL (1-6 NESCAC) Ellis Oval/Zimman Field, Saturday Colby 7 14 7 14 — 42 Tufts 13 15 7 6 — 41

Yet another second-half collapse, this time on Saturday against the visiting Colby Mules, led to the Jumbos’ Seniors Day defeat on Zimman Field. The defeat drops Tufts to 1-6 on the season and extends its losing streak to six games.

With its heels on the goal line for the final play of the game, the Tufts defense could not stop the Mules (4-3) from scoring on a 1-yard, game-tying touchdown pass from junior quarterback Nick Kmetz to classmate Spencer Merwin. The ensuing PAT by sophomore kicker David Bendit was enough to put the game away and send the Colby sideline charging onto the field while Tufts players

Sports

16

INSIDE Football 15 For Your Consideration 13

tuftsdaily.com

FIELD HOCKEY

Brown stifled, Jumbos take runner-up in NESCAC tournament BY

CLAIRE KEMP

Daily Editorial Board

NESCAC field hockey seems to have developed a pattern: Two powerhouse teams arise FIELD HOCKEY (8-1 NESCAC, 15-2 OVERALL) NESCAC Championship Bello Field, Sunday Bowdoin Tufts

2 0

1 0

— 3 — 0

NESCAC Semifinals Bello Field, Saturday Trinity Tufts

0 1

0 2

— 0 — 3

over the course of the regular season, one team wins the head-to-head and then the other team triumphs in the conference championship game.

It has happened in every season since 2008, and the Jumbos have been involved in all three cycles. Unfortunately for the Jumbos, this year, they assumed the role of runners-up.

After defeating Trinity — the only team to hand it a loss during the regular season — by a margin of 3-0 on Saturday to advance to the NESCAC finals, national No. 4 and conference one-seed Tufts fell by the same margin to No. 5 Bowdoin, the two-seed, in the finals yesterday afternoon.

ANDREW MORGENTHALER/TUFTS DAILY

Senior co-captain Amanda Roberts and the rest of the field hockey squad was smothered by a unwavering Bowdoin defense during yesterday’s 3-0 loss in the NESCAC Championship.

The game was a stark contrast to the Jumbos’ semifinal performance against Trinity, with the Polar Bears controlling the pace of play right out of the gates and rattling the Jumbos’

usually solid defense to its core.

And though the Jumbos gained momentum late in the second half, it was not enough to climb out of the 3-0 hole that their own disorganization had dug.

Bowdoin started scoring in the 20th minute. With the Tufts defense scrambling to get the ball away from junior keeper Marianna Zak’s pads, Bowdoin junior Elizabeth Clegg was

VOLLEYBALL

Tufts’ season ends in heartbreaking fashion BY

BEN KOCHMAN

Daily Editorial Board

Once again, this time in Sunday’s NESCAC Championship match, the Jumbos were unable to defeat the team VOLLEYBALL (7-3 NESCAC, 22-10 OVERALL) NESCAC Championship at Amherst, Mass., Sunday Tufts 22 25 21 24 — 1 Middlebury 25 21 25 26 — 3 NESCAC Semifinals at Amherst, Mass., Saturday Tufts Amherst

25 25 25 — 3 15 22 20 — 0

NESCAC Quarterfinals at Amherst, Mass., Friday Conn. Coll.

Tufts

19 23 18 — 0 25 25 25 — 3

that has bested them time and again this season — the Middlebury Panthers.

After upsetting top seed Amherst on Saturday to reach its second straight conference title match, the No. 4 seed volleyball team fell to the Panthers in four sets at Amherst’s LeFrak Gymnasium. It was Tufts’ third loss to Middlebury this season and will likely be the final chapter of a grueling 2010 campaign.

“Middlebury played super well and a few calls didn’t go our way, but both teams battled,” junior Cara Spieler said.

“We fought hard all the way through.”

Tufts had won only one set all season against the Panthers coming into Sunday’s second set. After losing the

first set, Tufts rebounded by taking the second, 25-21. Middlebury then won the third frame 25-21, moving within one set of the NESCAC title and an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. In the fourth set, Tufts was up 21-17 before the Panthers rallied, eventually earning championship point at 24-23.

With her team desperately needing the point, senior quad-captain Caitlin Updike came up with a huge kill, one of her team-leading 25 on the day. But Middlebury took the next two points — one on a kill from hitter Jane Handel and the final tally on an illegal net touch by the Jumbos — to win the set, and the match, 26-24. The victory was the Panthers’ first NESCAC volleyball championship since 1998.

Tufts’ season is now likely over, barring the team receiving an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament for the second consecutive year.

The Jumbos’ final record of 22-10 may not be as impressive as last season’s 31-5 record, but the defining characteristic of this year’s group was resilience. It was evident from the beginning of the year. Despite playing without their top hitter from 2009, senior quad-captain Dawson Joyce-Mendive, the Jumbos sprinted out of the gates, at one point winning a NESCAC-record 25 straight sets.

After starting the season 10-2, the team spent three weeks playing only on the road and had to contend with their starting sophomore setter Kendall Lord taking a leave of absence and Updike going down with a fracture in her ankle.

But the Jumbos were able to overcome all of this adversity to get within two sets of their ultimate goal: reaching the NCAA tournament.

able to find a lane to freshman Olivia King, who capitalized for her first collegiate goal and a 1-0 lead. see FIELD HOCKEY, page 14

POWER RANKINGS compiled by the tufts daily

Two title-winning efforts from the Panthers weren’t enough to vault Middlebury into the top spot in the final NESCAC Power Rankings of the fall season. Amherst held on strong to the top spot thanks to balanced efforts across the board, while Middlebury was ultimately undone by its football team despite capturing NESCAC Championships in volleyball and men’s soccer.

After taking the women’s soccer title, Williams moved into third place, just ahead of Bowdoin, whose field hockey team beat Tufts in the finals and sent the Jumbos to fifth place overall. Spots six through 11, as usual, remained unchanged.

Check back next week for the preseason installment of the winter sports rankings.

THIS WEEK

SCHOOL

FOOTBALL

MEN’S SOCCER

WOMEN’S SOCCER

FIELD HOCKEY

VOLLEYBALL

AVERAGE

1

AMHERST

2.43

3.29

2.14

3.71

2.43

2.80

1

2

MIDDLEBURY

6.14

2.29

3.57

3.57

1.43

3.40

2

3

WILLIAMS

1.14

3.29

1.71

9.57

5.14

4.17

4

4

BOWDOIN

7.29

1.29

7.29

1.43

4.57

4.37

5

5

TUFTS

8.71

6.86

3.00

1.57

2.14

4.46

3

6

TRINITY

2.43

8.57

5.14

3.57

1.43

5.69

6

7

WESLEYAN

4.57

5.57

6.86

5.57

8.00

6.11

7

—

9.29

9.29

7.00

5.29

7.71

8

8 CONN. COLLEGE

LAST WEEK

9

COLBY

4.43

5.71

9.71

9.43

10.86

8.03

9

10

BATES

8.43

8.86

6.29

8.00

9.14

8.14

10

11

HAMILTON

9.43

—

—

—

9.86

9.64

11

The poll was devised as follows: Each voter ranked all NESCAC schools in each sport, and those scores were averaged to create a composite ranking for each sport. The composites were then averaged to determine each school’s overall ranking. Note that Hamilton does not compete in field hockey, men’s soccer or women’s soccer in the NESCAC, and Conn. College does not compete in football.

This week’s list was determined by polling Amro El-Adle (Amherst Student), Rob Yee (Colby Echo), Mike Flint and Nick Woolf (Conn. College Voice), Dave Meisel (Hamilton Spectator), Katie Siegner (Middlebury Campus), Ann Curtis & Emily Gittleman (Trinity Tripod) and Alex Prewitt (Tufts Daily).

DESIGN BY STEVEN SMITH/TUFTS DAILY

see VOLLEYBALL, page 12