2011-04-04

Rain 49/46

THE TUFTS DAILY

TUFTSDAILY.COM

Monday, April 4, 2011

VOLUME LXI, NUMBER 40

Where You Read It First Est. 1980

New group leaks confidential Tufts financial information online by

Mick B. Krever

Daily Editorial Board

courtesy David Schildmeier

Tufts Medical Center nurses picketed last month over ongoing contract negotiations that center around the hospital’s staffing procedure.

Nursing contract negotiations continue by

Laina Piera

Daily Editorial Board

A protracted dispute between the Tufts Medical Center and the union representing its nurses continues amid talk of an impending nurses strike.

Following changes to the hospital’s staffing pattern undertaken in early 2010, which strained tensions between Tufts Medical and its nursing staff, the hospital has offered a one-year contract extension to members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA), the professional association and union supporting Tufts’ 1,200 nurses.

Negotiations, which began in November of last year, are still ongoing, and public statements from both sides indicate the two sides are still at odds in advance of the current contract’s expiration date of April 11. Negotiators will meet again tomorrow and then again next Monday, but the future of negotiations beyond that point is unclear.

Tufts Medical has proposed a one-year extension of the current contract that also includes changes such as a 3-percent raise for all nurses and has offered to maintain current health and pension benefits.

The offer also includes proposals to hire additional nurses who would be available on a moment’s notice to fill shortterm staffing needs, add charge nurses that serve solely as a clinical resource and limit the use of overtime and temporary reassignments of nurses.

“We have received very good feedback on the offer from our nurses and we understand that many of them would like the opportunity to accept this proposal,” Julie Jette, director of

media relations and publications at Tufts Medical, told the Daily in an email.

The hospital’s proposal, however, does not set a concrete limit to the number of patients assigned per nurse, which an MNA representative called the main issue at stake in the negotiations. “[Tufts Medical Center has] said they can not consider our proposal because they can never set a firm limit that would have to be held to on how many patients a nurse takes care of,” David Schildmeier, director of public communications for the MNA, said.

The hospital changed its staffing pattern in January 2010, resulting in a savings of $34 per patient per day, which Schildmeier said put economic concerns over those of patients.

“They’re cutting millions of dollars of care,” Schildmeier said. “It’s totally an economic interest. ‘Let’s cut the cost of care to patients, the money we spend taking care of them, so that we can profit more money for ourselves.’”

Jette said the hospital, a nonprofit institution, insisted that the changes were undertaken in order to improve the institution’s financial standing, not for profit’s sake.

“We do not have shareholders who derive earnings from our revenue,” Jette said.

“Whatever margin we generate — if any — is invested back into the hospital. In order to invest in the vital equipment we need to save lives and to improve quality, we must generate some margin to reinvest.”

Jette said the MNA’s proposed nurse-to-patient ratios see NURSES, page 2

A group of current and former Tufts students identifying themselves as “Jumboleaks” on Saturday posted online an outdated list of university financial holdings, citing financial transparency and responsible investment among their motivations.

The list, posted to the website Jumboleaks.org, comprises 35 companies ranging from CVS Caremark to Monsanto, a provider of agricultural products that has often been linked to controversial business practices. According to senior Will Ramsdell, a representative of Jumboleaks, the list presents a snapshot of Tufts’ direct holdings from sometime in 2010.

Ramsdell said that to the best of Jumboleaks’ knowledge, the list presents the university’s direct holdings in their entirety for the time period it represents.

Tufts has long maintained that its policy of keeping its financial holdings secret is crucial to the success of its endowment.

Ramsdell declined to identify the source of the document.

Director of Public Relations Kim Thurler would not comment on the authenticity of the

document. She did, however, tell the Daily in an email that the university does not currently hold any direct investments. This would mean that the Jumboleaks document is wholly outdated.

Ramsdell rejected the significance of this fact.

“I don’t really think that that’s relevant to the issue here,” he said. “The 2010 list is still a valid representation of what the Tufts endowment represents.”

The initial Saturday post on Jumboleaks.org did not identify the list as specifically reflecting information from 2010, nor did it acknowledge that the information was no longer current.

Remsdell acknowledged that Jumboleaks had prior knowledge of both of these things. The organization updated its website late Sunday evening to reflect this information.

Jumboleaks approached the Daily in mid-February about releasing the content of the leak.

The Daily declined to run a story at the time because the significance of the information the list brought to light did not seem to outweigh the university’s desire for investment secrecy. The editors elected to cover the story today only after Jumboleaks independently published the

financial document online.

A new player In his interview with the Daily, Ramsdell was opaque about the makeup of Jumboleaks. He said that the organization consists of Tufts students and people whom he believed to be Tufts graduates.

Ramsdell described the organization as a group of likeminded individuals who were drawn together by a common interest when the document surfaced.

“The organization formed around the existence of the leak itself,” he said.

He said there was no hierarchy within the organization and that he had volunteered as spokesman largely because he was not fearful of legal repercussions.

“I’m one of the people in the organization who’s willing to come forward and use my name,” he said.

Jumboleaks did not consult the university about the accuracy of the list before posting it online, Ramsdell said, explaining that the organization feared repercussions.

The organization vetted the see JUMBOLEAKS, page 2

mct

The Roots, pictured above, will be the main performance at this year’s Spring Fling concert.

Roots, RJD2 to perform at Spring Fling concert Hip-hop/neosoul group The Roots will headline this year’s Spring Fling concert, Concert Board announced at the annual Battle of the Bands contest on Saturday.

DJ and instrumentalist RJD2, who creates and produces a mix of hip-hop and electronic music, will also play.

The choice for Spring Fling acts is a matter of balancing costs with wide appeal, Concert Board co-Chair Kelsey Schur, a junior, said.

“A lot of times it comes down to who’s available,” Schur said, adding that she was satisfied with the result of the process.

“I’m extremely happy, I’m so proud of this,” Schur said. The bands will appeal to a wide range of students, she added.

“They worked out on so many fronts that it was just an obvious choice for us,” Schur said. “RJD2 is … probably not as well-known as The Roots; that’s often the case with the artist that comes out before the headliner.”

Two student bands, the American Symphony of Seoul and Explicit, earned a performance spot at

Inside this issue

Spring Fling alongside the two professional acts, according to Schur.

“I think [what we’re looking forward to the most] is just the opportunity to perform in front of our friends and perform before The Roots and get the chance to meet them,” Explicit vocalist Rashad Davis, a sophomore, said. Davis said the group’s style was undefined but that at Battle of the Bands they played music ranging from funk to rock.

The Roots played Spring Fling in 2004. “We don’t repeat within the same four years, but past that it’s fine,” Schur said.

The board finalized the process of securing The Roots in February and chose RJD2 to complement them.

“I’m very happy with how things are turning out,” Schur said.

For more on The Roots and RJD2, see Arts, page 5.

—by Martha Shanahan

Today’s sections

What is responsible for the recent resurgence of the ’90s?

“Merchant of Venice” meets Wall Street in a refreshing rendition

see FEATURES, page 3

see ARTS, page 5

News Features Arts | Living Editorial | Letters

1 3 5 8

Op-Ed Comics Classifieds Sports

9 10 13 Back

The Tufts Daily

2

News

Monday, April 4, 2011

Visiting the Hill this Week MONDAY “Trade Liberalization When Resources are Misallocated” Details: Amit Khandelwal, assistant professor of economics and finance at Columbia Business School, will offer a lecture on Chinese textile exporters as part of the economics department’s Seminar Series.

When and Where: noon to 1:20 p.m.; Lincoln-Filene Center, Rabb Room Sponsors: Department of Economics, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy “The Fukushima Nuclear Accident and its Implications” Details: Dr. Richard A. Meserve, (A ‘66), president of the Carnegie Institution, will receive the School of Engineering’s inaugural Vannevar Bush Dean’s Medal, given to a global technology leader, and speak about the Fukushima nuclear accident.

When and Where: 3 to 4 p.m.; Alumni

House, Nelson Auditorium Sponsors: The School of Engineering “Fares Lecture: What Future for Jerusalem?”

Details: Salim Tamari is director of the Institute for Jerusalem Studies and professor of sociology at Birzeit University, located in Palestine. He will discuss the fate of Israel’s capital.

When and Where: 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.; Cabot Intercultural Center, seventh floor Sponsors: Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies “Reclaiming Health in the Age of Chronic Disease and Environmental Peril” Details: Well-known doctor and author Jill Stein will discuss economic and environmental changes that can be made to reduce the propensity for chronic disease.

When and Where: 7 p.m.; Alumnae Lounge

Sponsors: Public Health at Tufts, Tufts Institute of the Environment, The Community Health Program WEDNESDAY “Maryruth Coleman: Current U.S. Economic Priorities” Details: Maryruth Coleman, director of the State Department’s Office of Economic Policy Analysis and Public Diplomacy, will discuss issues such as the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and U.S.-OECD relations.

When and Where: noon to 1:20 p.m.; Olin 012 Sponsors: The International Relations Program “Trends in the Growing Business Partnerships between China and the U.S.” Details: Douglas Menelly, author and vice president of investor relations and communications at China-based electronics

Advocates praise dissemination of document JUMBOLEAKS

continued from page 1

document’s content through conversations with the leaker, or leakers, he said.

Jumboleaks’ motivation for posting the document appears to be multifaceted. On its website, the organization expresses dissatisfaction with the university’s decision to invest in several of the companies that appear on the list.

“A list of Tufts University investment holdings includes ethically suspect companies like Nike, Goldman Sachs, and the infamous Monsanto Corp,” the website reads. “We believe Tufts can and should hold itself to higher standards of investment ethics, particularly considering our image as a leader in international affairs and global citizenship.”

Despite the fact that the university does not currently have any direct financial holdings in the companies mentioned on the list or otherwise, Ramsdell believes that the list and the information it contains are still relevant.

“I think they made a move to increase their stability, but I don’t think they made a move to improve the ethical content of their actions,” he said. “I think the point is that Tufts has been OK to be invested in things like this … and their change doesn’t represent a change in philosophy.”

Ramsdell said that he believed Tufts students were being disenfranchised by their inability to influence university financial holdings.

“In a capitalist society, money is a vote, and we’re basically having our votes made for us,” he said.

Ramsdell acknowledged that it was unrealistic for every student to be able to vote on the endowment but said that, at the very least, the student body deserves to know how the university is invested.

“It’s our money, in large part, and the money of previous students. And I just think it’s something we deserve to know, honestly,” he said.

Name aside, Jumboleaks seems to have been heavily influenced

by WikiLeaks. In two interviews with the Daily, Ramsdell repeatedly referred to the organization and its leader, Julian Assange, as inspirations. He sees Jumboleaks as following in the footsteps of his whistleblower website WikiLeaks.

“I’m a transparency advocate. I’m not a radical transparency advocate, much like Julian Assange, I think, would probably also argue,” he said. “I think this piece of information in and of itself is important. … But more than anything, I think bringing the leak model home to people is something that’s probably [going

to] be the bigger service in the long run.”

Impact and implications Starting soon after Jumboleaks’ website went live on Saturday, its URL began to spread on Facebook and Twitter, but its distribution appeared to have been largely contained to circles of students with an interest in university finances.

Sophomore Caroline Incledon, president of Students at Tufts for Investment Responsibility (STIR), said that she found out about the leak Saturday night after one of her friends posted it on Facebook.

“We’ve been trying to research the endowment holdings for a while, so I was personally really surprised because the endowment is not transparent, and we’ve never been able to get a list of endowment holdings,” she said.

STIR has no affiliation with Jumboleaks, Incledon said, but she expressed enthusiasm about the document’s being made public.

“From what I’ve seen even from the Facebook post, a lot of people seem to resonate with the idea that Tufts should hold itself to higher standards in investments,” she said.

Before Jumboleaks posted the document, only three students were privy to the university’s investment information. The university created the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR), composed of three undergraduates, in 2007 to allow students to have input on what kinds of companies Tufts invests in and how it uses its proxy votes at those corporations.

Senior Hena Kapadia, one of the three students on the ACSR found out about the leak Sunday morning. Unlike Incledon, she called it an almost reckless push for transparency.

“To have a website called jumboleaks.com (sic) — I think it’s irresponsible to put up any institution’s holdings for the whole world to see,” she said.

The administration grants ACSR access to the list of Tufts’ financial holdings, and the group discusses the investments with Executive Vice President Patricia Campbell roughly twice per semester. The students occasionally present to the Board of Trustees, though Kapadia said they have not done so in the last two years.

Martin Bourqui (LA ’09), one of the founders of STIR and currently the national organizer for the nonprofit Responsible Endowments Coalition, told the Daily that he had mixed feelings about the leak, both personally and professionally.

“I’m of two minds. It’s unfortunate that confidential information was disclosed in this

way,” he said. “I cannot endorse these methods, but I think the awareness and dialogue it creates can be a learning experience for all of us.”

Gabe Frumkin (LA ’10), who was influential in the founding of ACSR and served on the committee for two years, was similarly positive about the sudden availability of the documents.

“I think it’s pretty cool that we’re able to have this discussion,” he said. “This is … a conversation that a lot of other universities are able to have.”

The leak comes in the midst of a national trend among universities to increase financial transparency, according to both Bourqui and Frumkin. It remains to be seen whether this leak will induce the administration to change its endowment practices.

“This is information that plenty of other schools make public of their own volition,” Bourqui said. “Unfortunately, at Tufts, the administration still has not made a real commitment to working on or talking about these issues in a serious way, as many of its peer institutions are now doing.”

It is also unclear whether the administration will pursue the leaker.

All three current students on ACSR, Kapadia and sophomores Kelsea Carlson and Maggie Selvin, emphatically denied being the source of the leak in interviews with the Daily. Members of ACSR are required to sign nondisclosure agreements, which continue to apply after graduation, according to Kapadia.

Carlson said that ACSR’s involvement with a leak would be counterproductive to the committee’s goals.

“We really appreciate our relationship with the Board, and I don’t think anyone would do anything to sacrifice that,” Carlson said.

Ramsdell expressed little trepidation about the legal implications of leaking the document. He said that Jumboleaks did not have a lawyer on retainer.

“As far as I can tell, there’s really no serious legal action they can take against us,” Ramsdell said.

Jumboleaks is hosting its website on servers located off-campus in an effort to avoid falling under the jurisdiction of Tufts network administrators, according to Ramsdell.

“We’ve read through a lot of the student handbook to try to make sure we’re not [going to] get blind-sided with something like that,” Ramsdell said. “And I think we’re [going to] be OK. But we’re definitely OK from a truly legal standpoint of national and state law.”

Martha Shanahan contributed reporting to this article.

company SinoHub will discuss East-West business connections.

When and Where: 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.; Mugar Hall 200 Sponsors: The International Business Center at the Fletcher School THURSDAY “Environmental Studies Lunch and Learn: Eric Friedman” Details: Eric Friedman, director of the Commonwealth’s Leading by Example Program, will discuss the implementation barriers and strategies to environmental policy initiatives.

When and Where: noon to 1 p.m.; Lincoln Filene Center, Rabb Room Sponsors: Environmental Studies Program, Tufts Institute of the Environment —compiled by Elizabeth McKay

Tufts Medical nurses call staffing ratios ‘unsafe’ NURSES

continued from page 1

would cost the hospital an additional $33 million a year, which would not be financially sustainable.

The 2010 changes enabled the hospital to initiate more specialization among its nursing staff, benefiting a blood phlebotomy program and the process by which they conduct X-rays, according to Jette.

“The work we have done to reduce costs per patient day is part of a much larger effort involved in redesigning the way we care for patients to improve safety, quality and the patient experience,” Jette said.

The new model of care assigns more patients to one nurse, according to the MNA. Prior to the change, each nurse usually had no more than four patients at a time, Schildmeier said. Now, he furthered, it is common for a nurse to have up to seven patients at one time, which the union says poses a danger to patients. “[ The studies] say that when you cut staffing, you increase the risk of infection, medical errors and patient death,” Schildmeier said.

“There’s a direct correlation. … No nurse should ever have more than four patients on a typical hospital floor and no more than two in an ICU. This hospital regularly assigns nurses five, six, seven and even eight patients on a medical surgery floor, and regularly assigns three in the ICU — an unheard practice that is unsafe by any measure.”

Jette calls into question the credibility of these statistics.

“There is absolutely no proof or evidence in the research that the staffing ratios called for by the NNU/ MNA … would enhance the quality or safety of care delivered at Tufts Medical Center,” she said, referring to National Nurses United, the parent union of the MNA. An additional area of concern raised by the MNA involves “floating,” a practice under which nurses are assigned to areas of the hospital where they have no prior experience. Longer shifts and mandatory overtime work are also at issue.

While Jette said instances of floating are rare and carefully considered, MNA representatives were not so positive.

“There are cases where patients were harmed because we weren’t able to respond to what they needed,” Barbara Tiller, a Tufts Medical nurse of 21 years and the chair of the MNA bargaining unit, told the Daily. “That occurred because the hospital set us up with not enough staff.”

In a March 16 press release, Tiller said staffing changes “transformed [Tufts Medical] from being one of the beststaffed hospitals in Boston to the worst-staffed in the city.”

Jette said there has been no change in quality and said the use of staffing ratios was a poor indicator.

“The NNU/MNA would like to use nurse-staffing ratios as a stand-in for quality,” Jette said. “It is absolutely false to do so. Tufts’ quality ratings in key quality measures reviewed by third-party health care rating organizations demonstrate that we have better quality than a number of hospitals who have higher nurseto-patient ratios.”

Nurses on March 16 held an informational picket and rally outside the main entrance of the center and have staged flash mobs inside. If an agreement is not reached, a strike is possible, Schildmeier said.

“The nurses are prepared to take whatever steps are necessary, including a strike, if that’s the only thing that will work to convince them,” he said.

The hospital is preparing for a potential strike by contracting with a firm that provides temporary nurse staffing, according to Jette.

“Nobody wins in a strike,” Jette said. “Tufts MC estimates that a strike will cost the Medical Center a minimum $4.2 million. However, the NNU/MNA has left Tufts MC with no choice but to prepare for a walkout. … After a walkout, it will take time to rebuild our census and many nurses will not be able to return to their jobs immediately.”

Tiller said the NNU/MNA is prepared for a strike.

“We need something that holds them accountable for the staffing at the hospital,” Tiller said. “It can’t be on the nurses. Do we want a strike?

No. Is there room for a conversation? Yes. We need to come up with something in the middle that we can both agree with. Unless they’re willing to agree to something that we can all be accountable to, we can’t accept it.”

Features

3

tuftsdaily.com

Nostalgia for the ’90s proves to be ‘all that’ matters for the ‘Millenial’ generation by

Angelina Rotman

Daily Editorial Board

Whether it is Furbies, Pokémon or the extensive use of neon colors, the ’90s, for most Tufts students, were “all that” and a bag of chips — especially all things brought to us by Nickelodeon. For those born during the late ’80s and early ’90s, shows like “All That” and “Rugrats” were an essential part of childhood. Now, as the generation that grew up waiting for a chance to be slimed turns into 20-somethings, Nickelodeon is taking note of all the ’90s nostalgia.

Recently, and to great acclaim, Nickelodeon announced its “The ’90s Are All That” programming block on TeenNick. Reruns of “Kenan & Kel,” “The Adventures of Pete & Pete,” “The Amanda Show,” “Clarissa Explains It All,” “Rugrats” and of course “All That” will soon be catering to our nostalgic needs from midnight to 2 a.m beginning this fall.

The rise in television nostalgia may be indicative of current programming.

“We had those TV shows that were fun and quirky,” freshman Brooke Jaffe said. “A lot of [television] is more live-action today and the shows are not so genuine. People still have this leftover love of that.”

This ’90s nostalgia, clearly noted and taken advantage of by Nickelodeon, has become more prevalent lately and some are wondering just why that is.

According to a March 10 article on Entertainment Weekly’s website, the network’s choice to revive childhood favorites from the ’90s is due to a huge display of interest in early Nickelodeon shows on social media sites.

“It may just be … nostalgia is in right now,” sophomore Nadav Hirsh said.

“There’s not much to be nostalgic about at our age, but they’re going to market it anyway. Things are generally marketed in the 15- to 20-year-old bracket. And it’s ’90s nostalgia that’s right there.”

Senior Alyssa Trevelyan notes that while this nostalgia may have been spurred by pop culture itself, there may also be an underlying wish for more stable times.

“I feel like a lot of that began with those silly ‘I love the ’80s’ [shows] and they brought back the nostalgia,” Trevelyan said. “But I’m curious if a lot of our nostalgia is this weird little political vacation between the Cold War and Sept. 11.

The economy was great. Even those boy bands — it’s the most saccharine music you’ve ever heard.”

Often called “the Millennials,” ours is the generation that grew up alongside the Internet. Having gone from the heyday of AOL keywords to the iPad, the Millennials bridge a unique time span, neither truly children of the ’90s nor children of the new millennium.

“I feel like as a generation we’re more the 2000s, the Millennials,” Trevelyan said.

“We were very shaped by all the [technological] changes that were going on. I wonder if that’s part of the ‘90s nostalgia.

We saw all that moving very, very fast. I

MCT

The Spice Girls and ’N Sync were both mainstays of the 1990s. think technology has a lot to do with this.”

For Hirsh, the defining characteristic of the Millennial generation is acceptance of and necessity for the Internet.

MCT

Collecting Pokémon cards was a ceasless ordeal in the ’90s.

“I think the Internet is the first thing since money that we’ve created that we can’t live without,” Hirsh said. “We’re more Millennials because we see the Internet as it currently is. We lived through the experimental phase of the Internet, but we forgot it. I think of Internet now as how it’s always been.”

Though children of the ’90s, it is one’s teenage years that really leave the impact, according to Jaffe.

“Being born in ’92, I consider myself a child of the ’90s … but I think what’s more important is when you were an adolescent, because that’s when you start coming into your own, and I think that’s really influential,” she said.

While there may be marketing or political motivations behind the surge of ’90s nostalgia, for some it is as simple as a wistful look back on childhood as adulthood creeps ever nearer.

“I remember the first website I ever went on was the Beanie Babies one, because they had the address on the back of the tag,” Trevelyan said. “I remember memorizing it as h-t-t-p-colon-slashslash-w-w-w-dot.”

Stephen Miller | Counterpoint

So … The Roots

W

ell, apparently Spring Fling hasn’t been canceled yet, and just this weekend Concert Board announced the lineup. The rumors were true; The Roots are coming to Tufts. Oh greaaaat …

For those of you who didn’t quite catch it, that was sarcasm. Not that I specifically have anything against The Roots. I can’t really form much opinion, seeing as the only song of theirs I know came out when I was 13 (“The Seed 2.0”). In my fourth year, however, I’ve come to a realization. The band selection is basically insignificant. In the words of esteemed musical critic Jeremy Grey (aka Vince Vaughan in “Wedding Crashers”), “It’s a great band. It’s a bad band. Who gives a sh--? It’s like pizza, baby. It’s good no matter what.”

Through the multiple Spring Flings I’ve attended now, I remember exactly two songs: the 30 seconds of “I’m Shipping Up To Boston” that the Dropkick Murphys graced us with in 2008 and Ludacris’ “Area Codes” in 2009.

And why exactly do I remember only two songs? Well first off, simply walking in a straight line generally requires about 80 percent of my focus during Spring Fling, but more importantly, no one is really listening to the music. It’s sunny and warm, all of your friends are gathered in Bacow’s backyard and everyone is slammered. Further, in years past, seniors could bring beers into the event, and people drank casually inside. Now, with the ban on alcohol on-site, everyone shows up blacked out. But don’t get me started on Tufts’ policies.

Spring Fling is a great event. It’s probably my favorite event of the year, but it would be just as terrific if Michelle Deery, my baby-sitter when I was 5, came out and put on Raffi’s Greatest Hits. Actually, thinking about it, that may even be better. Jamming out to “Baby Beluga”? I think yes.

The musical merits of our Spring Fling bands don’t matter. RJD2, the secondary attraction, is actually real dope. It’s some of the tightest electro-beats this side of Ultrafest. But there’s a major problem with the selection. No one ever makes it to the event until the headliner. Tough day, RJ. And then there are the Tufts bands playing the thankless transitions between sets and being generally ignored by every person in attendance. This year, the American Symphony of Seoul is taking the stage. And while I was a bit too hungover to make it down to the Battle of the Bands on Saturday, I did look them up online and I like what they’re doing. A little funk on Spring Fling. I’ve been preaching that what we really need is George Clinton and P-Funk. Too bad we missed the boat on James Brown (R.I.P). A goofy funk or soul band would be perfect. Go listen to “Get On Up” right now and tell me you don’t get all warm and bubbly. Now add a bottle of André.

That’s my idea of a party.

Instead, this year we have The Roots coming to the Hill. And the general reaction I’ve heard is, “The Who?” — and not as in Pete Townshend and the cast of “Tommy.” People don’t really know The Roots, and that’s fine.

Previous years’ attempts to drum up excitement with big names have generally fallen flat. Dropkicks right after “The Departed,” The Decemberists, OK Go, even Ludacris, none were particularly exciting the day of.

So how will The Roots grade out this year? They’ll make some noise, everyone will get drunk, and no one will really listen.

Sounds like a great Spring Fling.

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

Miller@tufts.edu.

The Tufts Daily

4

Features

Monday, April 4, 2011

Islam Awareness Week Muslim Students Association at Tufts

April 4th – April 8th 2011

Ask A Muslim Stand – 11:00 – 2:00 – Campus Center Monday General Interest Meeting- 9:00 – Campus Center 207 Paint the Cannon! – Midnight Tuesday Islamic Jeopardy – 7:00 pm – Cabot 206 Wednesday Halaqa with Chaplain Taymullah – 7:30 at Muslim House (176 Curtis Street) Friday

Jummah Prayer – 1:00 pm at the Interfaith Center (58 Winthrop Street) Movie Screening – Allah Made Me Funny 8:00 pm Olin 011

Race4Rwanda 5K Walk/Run Join us for a 5K walk/run around Tufts’ campus to support: x Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village in Rwanda x The Welcome Project in Somerville x The Medford Family Network WHEN: Sunday, APRIL 10TH 10am: Sign-in • 11am: Race Begins and ends at Outdoor Track WHERE: (Ellis Oval), Tufts University REGISTER: Online at www.Rwanda5K.com

$10 Tufts Students-$20 General Public Pre-Registered-$25 Day of

Arts & Living

5

tuftsdaily.com

Theater Review

Shakespeare seamlessly given a modern twist Wall Street theme adds to complex dynamic in ‘Merchant of Venice’ by

Aparna Ramanan

Contributing Writer

Facing high expectations, “A Merchant of Venice” seemed bound to fail. Featuring an Oscar-winning actor, the modern inter-

The Merchant of Venice Written by William Shakespeare Directed by Darko Tresnjak At the Cutler Majestic Theatre through April 10 Tickets $25 to $100 pretation of the classic Shakespearean play opens with an electronic score and a stage illuminated by three Apple laptops. Yet while modern interpretations unfortunately tend to resemble Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” (1996), the focus on Shakespeare’s script allows the play to move beyond the clash between old (English, that is) and new. As the first act concludes, the unassuming nuance of F. Murray Abraham combined with the fast-paced, cutthroat world of Wall Street leaves the audience mesmerized by a truly remarkable interpretation of a classic play.

Courtesy of Gerry Goodstein/Ashmont Media

Lucas Hall and Tom Nelis share a heart-wrenching moment, breaking the grave and impersee MERCHANT, page 6 sonal nature of the play’s Wall Street theme.

Ballet Review

‘Elo Experience’ showcases unique ‘theatrical journey’ by

Martha Shanahan

Daily Editorial Board

There are few moments as bittersweet as when you stumble upon a treasure — a book, a designer, a recipe — only to find

Elo Experience Music by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Philip Glass, Bernard Herrmann, Vladimir Martynov, Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Antonio Vivaldi, Eugene Ysaÿe Choreography by Jorma Elo Costumes by Charles Heightchew At the Boston Ballet through April 3 that you are late to the scene and that your newfound infatuation is actually something

already widely known to be remarkable (“You never had tiramisu before? It’s only the best dessert ever”). The experience can be humbling, but the challenge of catching up on years of ignorance can, if approached correctly, be a joy.

Fortunately, for a newcomer to Jorma Elo’s choreography, Boston Ballet’s latest program delivered a window into what the Bostonbased choreographer has been working on over the past decade with the company. In case his star-studded résumé didn’t harbor any clue, Elo has been up to quite a lot — including being named Boston Ballet’s resident choreographer in 2005 — and deserves every bit of the international praise he’s received.

“Elo Experience,” billed in the program as a “theatrical journey,” offered up a minuteby-minute succession of at once thrilling, tender and clever moments from Elo’s career thus far. see BALLET, page 6

Gallery Review

MFA exhibits American expatriates’ work by

Puloma Ghosh

Contributing Writer

Europe has for years served as a Mecca for artists looking to study and spend time with the famous, histori-

Artists Abroad Exhibit: London, Paris, Venice, and Rome 1825-1925 At Gallery 231, through June 26 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 465 Huntington Avenue Boston, Massachusetts 02115 617-267-9300 cal masterpieces. American artists have especially found these European cities inspiring and the “Artists Abroad” exhibit, currently at the Museum of see ABROAD, page 6

Spring Fling Preview

Diverse talents of The Roots and RJD2 will make for a lively Spring Fling The Roots just might be the hardest working band in hip-hop. In the past year alone they released two albums, won a Grammy award and now appear as the house band for NBC’s “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.”

The group, originally known as The Square Roots, formed in the late 1980s when Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter (The Roots’ frontman and emcee) and Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson (the charismatically afro’d drummer) met at the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts and started making music together.

Since then, they’ve dropped the “Square” and added a full roster of musicians, which now includes Kamal Gray and James Poyser, both on keyboard, F. Knuckles on percussion, Captain Kirk Douglas on electric guitar, Damon “Tuba Godding Jr.” Bryson on sousaphone, Owen Biddle on bass

and Dice Raw as a second emcee. The group has released 10 full-length studio albums, two compilations, two EPs and a live album.

The Roots take a unique approach to hip-hop, drawing in various influences to their music, from jazz to soul to rock to funk and everything in between, to create something uniquely exciting.

Rather than rely wholly on samples and electronically produced beats, The Roots do it all themselves.

The group’s live shows are often cited as being more akin to rock concerts than typical hip-hop shows. With a big sound, a full roster of musicians and the talent to back it all up, Black Thought, ?uestlove and the rest of the band often seem like less of a rap act than a reliable music-making machine, churning out one great album after another, and constantly touring and performing between releases. Their

enthusiasm and high-energy performances can be seen nightly on “Late Night.”

RJD2, the show’s opening act, is DJ/ producer/multi-instrumentalist Ramble John Krohn. He specializes in a unique mix of hip-hop and electronic music. His tracks are mellow, often akin to lounge music, making him a somewhat odd choice for the Spring Fling opening slot.

His best known work is “A Beautiful Mine,” which is used in the opening credits of AMC’s “Mad Men.” Though neither artist currently has a hit single on the Billboard charts — The Roots have only broken the Hot 100 a handful of times, and RJD2 has never appeared on the charts — both are well-known within their respective genres and have dedicated fan bases that can attest to their talent.

—by Mitchell Geller

Eugene Kim | Alleged but Not Convicted

The last action hero

K

ids these days, man, they don’t know what they are missing.

When I was growing up I got to watch “Predator” (1987) with The Governator, “Demolition Man” (1993) with Sylvester Stallone and “Universal Soldier” (1992) with good old Jean-Claude Van Damme. These action movies shaped my childhood and made it totally awesome.

But nowadays all we get is the Jason Statham fare, the quiet professional fixer/ driver/hitman who doesn’t say much and kicks a lot of butt. This January’s “The Mechanic” is the perfect example — Statham kills people and does it while looking really cool and with some fast editing. I miss the age of the action hero.

I miss the big explosions with gratuitous violence. When was the last time we saw a helicopter fight that ended with a great deadpan one-liner like, “You’re fired”?

We lost something when the old breed retired. They came back for one last hurrah in last year’s “The Expendables,” which was a sort of changing of the guard — it had all the old action heroes and the new guys like Statham, Jet Li and Terry Crews. But is this really the turn we want our movies to take? A lot of seriousness and much less awesome? I don’t see much hope for a return to the days of my youth, except in one awesome place: The Rock.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is going to be the next action hero. Sure, you say, but what about guys like Vin Diesel, Statham, Li, Will Smith, John Cena or Matt Damon?

FOOL! Think before you speak! These punks have nothing on Arnie or the old awesome heroes of the past. Can you really name a movie they’ve been in that matches The Governator’s “Commando” (1985) for one-liners, property damage and bullets fired? Only The Rock comes close to that, and as a part-Samoan former WWE star, he’s basically a real-life superhero. Statham has male pattern baldness.

I can name only a handful of starring roles that retain the charm of the ’80s and ’90s, and the shining example is The Rock in “The Rundown” (2003). This movie had everything you’d ever want. An evil Christopher Walken who enslaves a bunch of South Americans to mine his gold, The Rock getting in capoeira fights with spry little angry rebels and Rosario Dawson being Rosario Dawson. Explosions, gunfights and Seann William Scott (aka Stifler) getting his butt kicked for two hours — what’s not to like?

With “Faster” (2010), The Rock got to play a more sullen and vengeful role with a great amount of butt-kickery. He’s also in the upcoming “The Fast and the Furious” (2001) sequel, “Fast Five,” which is a franchise I fully support because it also follows the spirit of awesome action movies, and I’m certain he’ll get in plenty of dropkicks and eyebrow raising.

Why is it important to get these action heroes back? Because, like action movies, they are escapism. I don’t want to admire them, I want them to do things that are physically impossible: Pick up a phone booth and throw it down some stairs! Break through the roof and complete a flip kick straight into the bad guy’s throat! I want superheroes without a cape. Is that too much to ask?

An action movie without an action hero is like a chair without a cup holder — what is the point? A few weeks ago I talked about how we need action flicks back, but we also need stars and not just any will do. You wouldn’t wear a shirt without a pocket protector, would you? Or eat walnuts without a spoon? Or walk into a room without tapping the doorknob four times? Of course not! Action movies need superheroes, and I think The Rock will be our next Superman — my only question is, Who will be his Batman?

Eugene Kim is a senior majoring in biology. He can be reached at Eugene.Kim@ tufts.edu.

6

The Tufts Daily

Arts & Living

Monday, April 4, 2011

Retelling of ‘Merchant of Venice’ sure to dazzle Boston audiences MERCHANT

continued from page 5

Courtesy the Boston Ballet

A sample of Elo’s innovative choreography is depicted in this performance, making viewers thirst for more.

Innovative choreography gives a taste of Elo’s surrealist ideas BALLET

continued from page 5

Through a complementary combination of versatile lighting, mobile set pieces and, intriguingly vocal dialogue, these moments were strung together into a complex but seamlessly constructed show. Excerpts from Elo’s past works, “Slice to Sharp,” “Lost on Slow,” “Plan to B,” “Double Evil,” “In on Blue,” “Lost by Last” and “Brake the Eyes,” comprised the stops on a whirlwind tour through Elo’s past and a glimpse into a much-anticipated future.

Jeffrey Cirio and Larissa Ponomarkeno served as our charming tour guides. At times reminiscent of a shy teenage couple, and later taking on the nonsensically argumentative tone of two aging pastry-shop owners, they intermittently conducted bewildering conversations comprising non-sequitur phrases.

“Does she like sunshine or does she like moonlight?” Cirio wondered aloud, echoed by the corps.

“How fast was I going, officer?,” Ponomarkeno replied, later losing herself in a stream of rapid-fire Russian.

The dialogue became tedious at times and felt a bit too much like a ploy to con-

vince the audience that this was, in case anyone missed it, modern ballet.

The choreography and the company’s world-class dancing could have often stood on its own, without the boyish Cirio and the regal Ponomarkeno stepping in to chatter and bicker as if part of some surreal sideshow. Elo’s excerpts did need something to tie them together, however, and the pairing was certainly an inventive and entertaining way to do so.

The choreography and dancing confirmed, beyond a shadow of doubt, Elo’s status as a world-renowned artist and Boston Ballet’s reputation as a bright spot in the dance world. Each excerpt left the audience members new to Elo not only wondering what would come next, but also wistfully imagining what each ballet excerpt would have been like in its full form.

That may have been the only other downside of the program’s structure: Each small taste only left a wispy indication of what the truly innovative choreographer accomplished. His work leaves no trace of a formula, bouncing throughout the night from sheer athleticism to understated melancholy.

Presented by ArtsEmerson: The World on Stage and directed by Darko Tresnjak, “Merchant” is playing through April 10 at the Cutler Majestic Theatre, a stunningly beautiful, fairly small theater.

It tells the story of a loan gone awry, as wealthy merchant Antonio (Tom Nelis) borrows money from the Jewish lender, Shylock (Abraham), to fund his friend Bassanio’s (Lucas Hall) proposal to the fair Portia (Kate MacCluggage). Shylock agrees, but tells Antonio that if he reneges on the money, the Jew will carve a pound of flesh from the merchant’s body. When Antonio’s ships (and all his money) are lost at sea, he is unsure what to do, as Shylock seems intent on getting his revenge.

The program divulges the plot, as suspense is not the motivation of Tresnjak. Recognizing the difficulty of understanding Shakespeare, he chooses instead to focus on Shylock’s quiet struggle, which moves past dealing with antiSemitism into the fundamental humanity of each person. Abraham’s moving performance, which elicits sympathy as he begs for mercy, is complemented by his crueler side, which is reminiscent of his Oscar-winning role as Salieri in “Amadeus” (1984).

Even in the moments of silence, he manages to convey an unparalleled depth of emotion through his longing glances toward the audience.

But Abraham does not overshadow his supporting actors. MacCluggage, in particular, delivers a standout performance as Portia, whom she plays with grace, yet ferocity. Her more serious role balances the humorous performances of Jacob Ming-Trent, who plays Shylock’s servant Launcelot Goddo.

Ming-Trent delivers a stellar soliloquy managing, without altering any of the original lines, to imply that he was on drugs and is fighting a battle with himself.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the show is its comparisons to Wall Street.

Tresnjak utilizes the fast-paced world of stock trading to portray the themes of greed and money that permeate the play. All of the men wear suits and type rapidly on their smartphones while delivering their lines.

In fact, the best moment of the show is a normal street conversation between two side characters, in which both actors type furiously on their phones, then look up at the same time and gesture with their hands as if they were on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Accompanied by the background recording of many people talking and other ambient noise, the coordination between the two men and the ease with which they speak is remarkable.

Although these characters, and the rest of the male cast members, interact well with one another, it only makes the lack of chemistry with their female counterparts more obvious. While “Merchant” discusses themes of greed, discrimination and even feminism, it is also a love story. The lack of attraction (or even fake attraction) between the couples was problematic, considering the centrality of love in all of Shakespeare’s plays.

Flawed as the chemistry was, though, it did not irreparably mar the play. The subtlety of the overall performance is made especially clear in the ending scene (no spoilers ahead) when the actors neither rejoice nor grieve over what has been done. Instead, they each seem lost in their own worlds, as all of the characters ponder what they have gained and lost over the course of the play.

Tresnjak seems to want the audience to understand that the consequences are not black and white.

In the hands of Murray and his supporting players, “Merchant” takes on new meaning.

It becomes relevant beyond the overt antiSemitism, moving instead toward a picture of human motivation and relationships. The Bard would be pleased.

MFA’s exhibit, ‘Artists Abroad,’ captures robust body of work in small space ABROAD

continued from page 5

Fine Arts, Boston, consists of works that resulted from this inspiration from 1825 to 1925.

The gallery is small, with each wall made up of stylistically varied works created in different European cities.

The exhibit, subtitled “London, Paris, Venice, and Rome,” showcases an extra wall of works created in Paris, a popular destination for expatriate artists.

At the time when these works were created, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing in London. The city was becoming increasingly populated and covered at all times by a thick layer of smoke, which affected each artist differently.

James Abbot, in his 1878 lithotint “Limehouse,” used the soft effects of lithography to depict how the smog softened the linear edges of the city.

With blurred lines and shapes of objects being suggested rather than defined, Abbot emphasizes the smoke that separates the viewer from the scene.

Alvin Langdon Coburn uses a different technique to achieve a similar effect. In 1905, he created “St. Paul’s Cathedral,” a photogravure depicting the cathedral and the city around it from a higher vantage point. The city is dark and shadowy in the print, as if covered in soot. Thick clouds perpetuate that darkness, setting up a striking contrast that directs the eye through the piece.

These and several other prints effectively capture the grayness of London in this era and convey the atmosphere these artists were exposed to in their time in the city.

Rome, on the other hand, was depicted as very bright and warm. Frederic Crowninshield’s 1891 watercolor, “Church in Rome,” depicts a stone church and its greener surroundings. The colors are mostly earthen tones, giving a sense of the nature that still flourished in Italy at the time.

Another watercolor, big and noticeably bright, is “St. Peter’s Rome,” painted by Edward Darley Boit in 1912. It focuses more on the architecture of the

buildings in Rome, capturing their columns gleaming in the sunlight. Boit’s piece depicts a relaxed atmosphere; passersby stroll casually through the background of his painting, enjoying the day.

Some of the Paris pieces also focus on architecture and scenery. Another large watercolor by Boit, “Place de l’Opéra, Paris” (1883), captures Paris much like the way he captured Rome. The architecture is as magnificently depicted as in “St. Peter’s Rome,” but the people shown in “Place de l’Opéra, Paris” are bustling around in carriages or on foot, exuding the city’s liveliness.

William Odiorne, in his photograph “The Café du Dome, Paris” (1925), and James Wells Champney in his two graphite sketches, “Two women in a restaurant” (1866-67) and “Man in restaurant” (1866-67), showcase the popular cafes and restaurants that France is known for.

There are also many drawings and prints by artists such as Champney and Winslow Homer, created in the Louvre Museum, which replicate old masterpieces and observe other artists who traveled to the Louvre to do the same.

The other pieces from Paris are dedicated almost entirely to Mary Cassatt, an American whose work mostly consisted of drypoint and etching, many of which are embellished with aquatint to add color.

In Cassatt’s “In the Omnibus,” a softground etching and aquatint drypoint made in 1891, the artist shows two women and a child occupied with each other, making the viewer wonder where they were going and what they were discussing. “The Umbrella” (1879), another of Cassatt’s soft-ground etchings, captures a quiet moment of a woman sitting with an umbrella. “The Umbrella” gives insight into female behavior during this period.

Overall, the exhibit nicely compiles a great variety of pieces. There is a diverse mixture of different styles, media and subject matters, all of which come together to effectively capture the experiences of artists traveling abroad in this period.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of William Emerson and The Hayden Collection Charles Henry Hayden Fund Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

‘The Letter,’ by Mary Stevenson Cassat

The Tufts Daily

Monday, April 4, 2011

7

Arts & Living

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The Biology Department Presents THE BARNUM MUSEUM LECTURE 2011 3/7/11 4:01:25 PM

VIRGINIA ZAKIAN

Princeton University Harry C. Wiess Professor of Life Sciences

“DNA replication through G-quadruplex motifs is promoted by the S. cerevisiae Pif1 DNA helicase�

Friday, April 8th, 2011 4:00PM-5:00PM Barnum 104

The Tufts Daily

8

THE TUFTS DAILY

Editorial

Alexandra W. Bogus Editor-in-Chief

Editorial Mick Brinkman Krever Saumya Vaishampayan Managing Editors Martha Shanahan Executive News Editor Michael Del Moro News Editors Nina Ford Ben Gittleson Amelie Hecht Ellen Kan Daphne Kolios Kathryn Olson Matt Repka Corinne Segal Jenny White Brent Yarnell Elizabeth McKay Assistant News Editors Laina Piera Rachel Rampino Minyoung Song Derek Schlom Executive Features Editor Jon Cheng Features Editors Sarah Korones Emilia Luna Romy Oltuski Alexa Sasanow Falcon Reese Assistant Features Editors Angelina Rotman Sarah Strand Amelia Quinn Ben Phelps Executive Arts Editor Emma Bushnell Arts Editors Mitchell Geller Rebecca Santiago Matthew Welch Allison Dempsey Assistant Arts Editors Andrew Padgett Joseph Stile Ashley Wood Rebekah Liebermann Bhushan Deshpande Larissa Gibbs David Kellogg Rachel Oldfield Jeremy Ravinsky Daniel Stock Elaine Sun Devon Colmer Erin Marshall Alex Miller Louie Zong Craig Frucht Kerianne Okie Michael Restiano Joshua Youner Ben Kochman Philip Dear Lauren Flament Claire Kemp Alex Lach Alex Prewitt Daniel Rathman Noah Schumer Ethan Sturm Matthew Berger Aaron Leibowitz David McIntyre Ann Sloan Meredith Klein Virginia Bledsoe Jodi Bosin Danai Macridi Dilys Ong James Choca Lane Florsheim Meagan Maher Justin McCallum Oliver Porter Ashley Seenauth Aalok Kanani Andrew Morgenthaler

Executive Op-Ed Editor Op-Ed Editors

Editorial | Letters

Monday, April 4, 2011

Great power and great responsibility

A new organization called Jumboleaks, composed of current and former Tufts students, on Saturday released confidential information online regarding the university’s investment holdings. The leaked document contains the names of companies that the group alleges the university invested in during 2010. The administration later denied that the information was current to the Daily, calling into question the slipshod manner in which the information was disseminated.

Jumboleaks’ desire to reveal this information is understandable. Unlike a number of its peer institutions, including Swarthmore and Williams Colleges, Tufts is consistently tight-lipped about its investment practices.

The administration has made clear that it will not disclose certain financial information, including its direct investment holdings, publically. The surfacing of the list, therefore, offered an opportunity that Jumboleaks couldn’t pass up — a chance to make transparent information that the university likely would have never revealed otherwise.

Yet while the motivations of the group were reasonable, the dissemination of what is clearly considered classified information requires rigorous vetting, which Jumboleaks failed to carry out at the time of initial publication. A representative of the group in an interview with the Daily said that Jumboleaks vetted the document’s authenticity with the individual, or individuals, who leaked the information. The leaker, whose identity

remains unknown, was clearly driven by the desire to publicize this information; corroborating the list solely with him is insufficient.

The group’s irresponsible manner in vetting the information is further reflected in the initial posting of the list: When Jumboleaks.org launched Saturday, nothing on the website, including the investment list itself, delineated what year the document was from, leading viewers to believe that it represented a current list of holdings. The group last night changed the website to reflect that it dated back to 2010, only after the Daily informed it — based on confirmation from a university spokesperson — that Tufts has no direct investments at this time.

Jumboleaks’ push for transparency is reasonable, but the privilege of having the investment information brought with it the responsibility that the group authenticate the document sufficiently before publicizing it. It did not fulfill this responsibility, and, as a result, will permanently taint the administration’s trust in its students and will likely motivate administrators to close the door even more.

Yet it would be unfair to view Jumboleaks as the only misdoer in this episode. To be sure, the document posted online does not represent the university’s current investment holdings and the university’s spokesperson did not verify that the document was an accurate depiction of the university’s 2010

holdings. Still, we cannot overlook several of the companies the list includes, companies which seem to be at odds with the university’s core values.

Monsanto, for example, is the world’s largest seed company. The firm is largely involved in genetically modified seeds and produces a large amount of herbicides, two practices which are often found to be out of line with environmentally friendly standards. The U.S. Department of Justice has also investigated the company for overly aggressive market tactics.

Schlumberger, another of the companies listed, is the world’s largest oilfield service company.

While both companies appear to be fiscally sound, Tufts is not practicing what it preaches. A university so focused on finding alternate sources of energy should not invest in an oil company. Investing in an ethically questionable company like Monsanto is also suspect. Active citizenship and green alternatives are akey part of the university’s values; these companies provide services that go against these tenets.

Although these investments are made to benefit future generations of Tufts students and the university as a whole, staying true to one’s beliefs should take priority over the possibility for financial gain. With great power comes great responsibility, and neither the university nor Jumboleaks has lived up to the latter.

managing editors and I met with several representatives of Jumboleaks to get a better sense of its authenticity and the group’s motivations in disseminating it.

After extensive deliberation, we decided not to publish the information for several reasons.

First, the document had not been authenticated at the time. Its timeliness and accuracy were uncorroborated by officials, university-affiliated or otherwise, and the group could not confirm its veracity.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, we did not believe at the time that the list was merited publishing. The university keeps its investing practices highly confidential. Whether or not we agree with Tufts’ disclosure practices, the fact remains that the revelation of these holdings represents a breach of secret information. The information therefore needed to be grave enough — a matter that was in the public’s interest to know — in order for us to publish it.

We did not feel this qualification was

met. Though some may consider several of the companies named on the list unethical, none of them to our knowledge have engaged in illegal practices.

Essentially, we determined that the university’s investment in a few controversial companies did not warrant revealing confidential information.

So why are we printing the article now?

The minute Jumboleaks posted the list online, it became public information and thus our responsibility to report on the leak, as well as the authenticity of the list.

We intend to follow up with additional reporting in the coming weeks.

Essentially, though certainly a great “scoop,” the information presented to us was little more than that. Now that Jumboleaks has disseminated it publically, we will do our very best to report on the issue in all its facets.

Devon Colmer Cartoonists

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PRODUCTION Andrew Petrone Production Director Sarah Davis Executive Layout Editor Leanne Brotsky Layout Editors Adam Gardner Jason Huang Jennifer Iassogna Sarah Kester Alyssa Kutner Steven Smith Rebecca Alpert Assistant Layout Editors Jennifer Betts Shoshanna Kahne Mackenzie Loy Alexia Moustroufi Emily Rourke Alexandra Husted Executive Copy Editor Sara Eisemann Copy Editors Niki Krieg Andrew Paseltiner Zehava Robbins Elisha Sum Ashley Cheng Assistant Copy Editors Benjamin Considine Linh Dang Patrick Donnelly Lauren Greenberg Drew Lewis Rebecca Raskind Melissa Roberts Alexandra Salerno Alison Williams Stefanie Yeung Darcy Mann Executive Online Editor Emily Denton Online Editors William Wong Ammar Khaku Executive Technical Manager Michael Vastola Technical Manager

BUSINESS Benjamin Hubbell-Engler Executive Business Director Laura Moreno Advertising Director Dwijo Goswami Receivables Manager P.O. Box 53018, Medford, MA 02155 617 627 3090 FAX 617 627 3910 daily@tuftsdaily.com

Letter from the editor Dear readers, As you may have learned from the news article that appears in today’s Daily, the newly established group Jumboleaks on Saturday posted a document online that listed what it alleged were 35 companies that the university directly invested in last year. The Daily has confirmed with a university spokesperson that the document is not a current list of the university’s investments.

The news article mentioned that Jumboleaks approached the Daily in mid-February with this information and that we declined to print it at the time. I feel that we owe you further explanation for this decision.

Jumboleaks approached the Daily with the intention of having us publish the list in the name of transparency and university accountability. The document they provided us included the exact same companies as the list posted to the group’s website on Saturday. After examining the document at the time, the Daily’s two

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

Sincerely, Alexandra Bogus Editor-in-Chief

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters must be submitted by 2 p.m. and should be handed into the Daily office or sent to letters@tuftsdaily.com.

All letters must be word processed and include the writer’s name and telephone number. There is a 450-word limit and letters must be verified.

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Monday, April 4, 2011

The Tufts Daily

9

Op-Ed

Food allergies: Something to take seriously

by Jacob

Passy

On Friday night, Tufts students received yet another security alert from the university. Yet unlike the usual stories of students in danger while walking off-campus, this security alert detailed the possible attempt of a Tufts student to attack a female by triggering her food allergy. Yes, Friday was April Fool’s Day and it may have seemed funny to pull a prank on someone. Yes, the perpetrator was later found to not present a credible threat, according to the Tufts University Police Department.

But food allergies are serious and the repercussions of the near-prankster’s actions could have been as serious.

While I cannot attest to the potential victim’s peanut allergy, serious food allergies generally can lead to anaphylaxis, an intense reaction in which an allergen causes anything from vomiting to breathing trouble and, in cases like mine, can be deadly.

To put it simply, this security alert scared me. I have had severe food allergies to milk, eggs, peanuts and tree nuts since I was born. When I was two, I nearly died after eating a hot dog that contained milk as a binding agent.

Since that near-death experience, my family and I have taken every precaution imaginable to ensure that something similar never happens. Years later, I still get nervous whenever I eat a new food. The knowledge that anything I eat could trigger a deadly reaction continues to be difficult to deal with. At the same time, I’m prepared for such a reaction — I always carry multiple EpiPens and my MedicAlert medical identification card with me.

Food allergies are a daily hassle for those who have them. When I was little, I remember being upset at every birthday, including my own, when I couldn’t eat the birthday cake. As a college student, the difficulties are only magnified. I do not have the luxury of

L

rallied for in the United States. It’s true that the story of Morocco may be like the stories of Tunisia and Egypt and, eventually, maybe of Yemen and Bahrain and the rest of the region.

It may be someday just a clause in a paragraph in a history book about the year the Arab world rose up in revolt.

But for now it is about a nation of so many peoples and backgrounds united — an incredible panorama of banners, flags and fists rising into the air and voices crying out.

The rain that had been threatening all day began to fall once the mass was assembled in Parc de la Ligue Arabe, a great plaza in the middle of Casablanca. Leaves spiraled down from the trees, their boughs shaking as the people pushed past them, and mixed with the cold droplets that left protest placards waterlogged. But the voices were not dampened. Everyone seemed to have a camera lifted into the air to document this moment: digital cameras, cell phones, camcorders and little Kodak disposables. The people of Casablanca wanted to commit this moment to history, to upload these images to Facebook or Tumblr for the world to see, to print it on glossy paper, frame it and hand it down to their sons and daughters.

And the chanting grew and grew until the vibrations were enough to fill your heart. People sat or stood, crouched or climbed trees or leapt on their neighbors’ shoulders for a better view of all the thousands. And they smiled. They smiled because they know what comes next.

Kyle Paoletta is a junior majoring in English.

He is currently on a leave of absence travelling around Europe and Morocco.

Ashish Malhotra is a senior majoring in international relations and political science He can be reached at Ashish.Malhotra@tufts.edu.

jodi bosin/tufts daily

eating at on-campus eateries beyond the dining halls, which have worked extensively with me to accommodate my dietary restrictions by providing foods free of milk, eggs, peanuts and tree nuts. This means that I must either stay on a meal plan or commit to cooking literally every meal I eat.

Off campus, the prospects are even dimmer. Because of my many allergies, it is very difficult to eat in restaurants, and when I do, I risk having a reaction that could land me in the hospital or worse. What makes having a food allergy worse is that it is a hidden disability. People cannot tell you have allergies by looking at you, which only makes it worse for those with allergies who are sensitive to the smell of foods, as I once was.

Beyond the day-to-day implications are bigger ones. As I prepare to study abroad next year, I face the likelihood that I will have to cook every meal for myself, and I may not be able to travel around Europe as many other students

Kyle Paoletta

Wandering through downtown Casablanca, Morocco, I suddenly found myself on a boulevard filled with people, a festival of up-thrust fists and ideals. I had noticed orangeand-white barriers and immaculately groomed policemen surrounding the area and assumed that some sort of protest must be going on (this is North Africa in 2011, after all). But I was not prepared for the scale of it all.

The weathered Art Deco facades of French Imperialism that line Boulevard Mohammed V stood over a great crowd of people: Moroccan Arabs, sub-Saharan Africans, Berbers in traditional garb with bright colors and golden baubles and European and American tourists bumbling confusedly past. The crowd seemed a perfect microcosm of this country, perched between Europe, Africa and the Middle East — a great crossing point of people and cultures.

I let myself be carried along with procession. A chain of people holding hands and wearing white sashes emblazoned with Arabic script divided the flow of onlookers on the sidewalk from the mass of demonstrators, but both groups seemed to step to the same pulse, a tempo of controlled, trenchant excitement. Snapping pictures and watching faces, I found myself comparing this march to Inauguration Day 2009 in Washington, D.C. But though that had been a truly ebullient display, it felt shallow compared to what was unfolding before my eyes. That was a victory party; this was a celebration of what could be.

This scene seems all too familiar to us in the West now. The idea of pro-democracy protests in a predominantly Muslim country is old news,

India’s Captain Cool

eading a country with extreme inequalities, poverty and a massive population must be tough for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. But if you ask Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni what the toughest leadership position in India is, he might just say it’s his.

That’s because for many of India’s 1.21 billion people, the prime minister is not the leader they follow most closely. Rather, their eyes and the weight of their hopes, expectations and dreams are perpetually on Dhoni and his team. This was never more the case than over the past 10 days as India romped through the final stages of the International Cricket Council Cricket World Cup, beating threetime defending champions Australia and regional archrivals Pakistan and Sri Lanka to become the World Champion.

Dhoni and his men are now the heroes of an entire nation and its global diaspora.

This includes many residing at Tufts, where around 50 people gathered for both the semifinal and the final, despite the fact that the matches began at 5 a.m.

With this level of dedication and idolatry from fans worldwide comes enormous pressure. Not surprisingly, then, it is not always glory that the Indian captain experiences.

Even before Dhoni became captain, he experienced what it means to be a leader when the going gets tough. Angry fans destroyed his house and burned effigies of him in 2007 after India was bundled out of the World Cup during the group stage. Still, unlike many of the captains that have preceded him, Dhoni is generally emotionless on the field. By looking at him alone one would never be able to tell if India is winning or losing. While he often makes puzzling and frustrating tactical decisions, the manner in which “Captain Cool” deals with the pressure deserves great praise.

During Saturday’s final, India’s captain, whose own play has been heavily criticized in the media, took the risk of promoting himself in the batting order ahead of eventual Man of the Tournament Yuvraj Singh.

With India in a tight situation, Dhoni led from the front, the look of steely determination in his eyes making it clear to all that he would not let India lose.

The power of a successful Indian cricket team can reach far beyond the cricket field, to politics and society at large. India’s victory over Australia gave Prime Minister Singh the opportunity to invite his Pakistani counterpart, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, to India to watch the India-Pakistan match as a gesture of goodwill between two nations.

India’s triumphs gave Bollywood stars Aamir Khan and Shahid Kapoor, as well as prominent politicians Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, the opportunity to sit in stadiums pulsating with the excitement and passion of the masses.

The power of the team’s success extended to Tufts, bringing together curious IndianAmericans who have never before watched cricket and die-hard fans who have followed it their whole lives. Undeterred by the wrath of the Hill Hall Resident Director fifteen minutes earlier, this pluralistic congregation erupted into a thunderous roar upon India’s victory in the semifinal, a sound that reverberated in my ears until Saturday when it was replicated in Barnum upon India’s moment of ultimate triumph.

Furthermore, the two matches screened at Tufts saw Indians, Pakistanis and Sri Lankans watch with one another in the spirit of goodnatured competition. That these matches were able to bring so many people together captures the beauty of sport. It is not, as some describe it, a bunch of strong, athletic and unintelligent individuals running around.

When sport transcends barriers, it becomes more than “just a game.” This would not be the case without the poise, mental strength and intelligence of those leaders who create the magic on the field for us. Credit must be given where it is due. So thank you, Mr. Dhoni. And thank you, Team India, for a week and a half I will never forget.

do. For me, this recalls the fears I had coming to Tufts. While I knew I would be accommodated, I still worried. To some extent, I was afraid I would not be able to eat anything or have the same experience. After all, eating food is often a social event. I never get to enjoy a late-night pizza from Pizza Days or a sausage from Moe’s.

In short, having life-threatening food allergies is no fun, nor is it fun for others. When I hear stories like those presented in Friday’s safety alert, I wonder if I can ever feel safe.

It reminds me of when I was younger and had my own food tainted with things I was allergic to “as a joke.” For me, it has never been funny. My life has been defined by allergies and will continue to be until a cure is found.

Events like these don’t make it any easier.

Jacob Passy is a sophomore majoring in international relations.

Democracy rising in Morocco by

Ashish Malhotra | Follow the Leader

mct

and most observers of the events in Morocco, as well as the media, simply assume that King Mohammed VI will happily go along with the protestors’ demands. He has been steadily guiding Morocco towards liberalism since ascending to the throne in 1999, after all. There’s not enough drama in these proceedings, no potential for violence or disaster, only the possibility that a nation’s hopes for democracy may soon be fully realized.

The year 2011 already seems like it will be for North Africa and the Middle East what 1848 was for Europe: a year of great, spontaneous uprising. It wasn’t easy back then either. Many people were beaten and many were killed, but in the end it became the year that the Germans, the Hungarians, the Danes, the Swiss and the people of the rest of Europe saw what was happening in the world around them and began to believe that the English and the Americans had no exclusive right to democracy. Democracy was there for the taking by all peoples who believed in their own ability to rule themselves.

To walk with these people — not a century and a half ago, but today — to hear their cries and see their faces, stirred me far more than anything I’ve

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

The Tufts Daily

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Comics

Monday, April 4, 2011

Doonesbury

Crossword

by

Garry Trudeau

Non Sequitur

Friday’s Solution

Married to the Sea

www.marriedtothesea.com

SUDOKU Level: Picking Josh Hamilton for your fantasy team

Late Night at the Daily Thursday’s Solution

Kochman: “I feel like you always have a lot anger pent up in you. I feel like you should break something.”

Rebekah: “Are you that something?”

Please recycle this Daily.

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Monday, April 4, 2011

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With crushing win, Tufts on a roll heading into game against Bates Tuesday MEN’S LACROSSE

continued from page 16

losing the first three.

The defense was also efficient in the clearing game. Despite the lack of experience among its young players, the defense managed to get the ball out of its zone 25 of 29 times. It also excelled at keeping the area in front of the goal tightly defended, taking away Wesleyan’s ability to play the cutting-style game they are used to.

The Cardinals were rattled early and with good reason. After Wesleyan senior midfielder Adam Michael tied the game at one with a sizzling long shot less than five minutes into the first quarter, the Jumbos caught the Cardinals on their heels and, after a whirlwind 17 seconds, the Jumbos had built a 4-1 lead. Twice during the stretch, a face-off violation was called on junior midfielder Joe Del Visco, and as

he attempted to get off the field, Rhoads stuck with the play, turning the situation into a man-advantage for Tufts.

The streak, which included both a goal and assist from senior quad-captain longstick midfielder Alec Bialosky off the wing, seemed to suck the life from Wesleyan, which stumbled to halftime down 9-4. But unlike in other matchups this season when Tufts has let teams back into games, the Jumbos did not make the mistake of taking their foot off the pedal in this one.

“Our mentality is always sixty minutes, not just three quarters,” Watkins said.

“So at halftime, everyone was stressing that there’s still a lot of game left, so we can’t let up now.”

Coming out of the half, the Jumbos did anything but let up. They opened the third period with another three-goal run and ended with a goal by Kirwan,

who received a pass from senior quadcaptain attackman Ryan Molloy and put it away, while balancing on the edge of the crease with just 0.5 seconds to play.

“We knew we could really take it to these guys — it would just take a collective effort and a lot of focus.”

Sean Kirwan junior attackman After a man-up goal from sophomore Sam Diss, the score sat at 15-5 one minute into the fourth. Tufts began to tap into its reserves, who continued to fend off Wesleyan. The Cardinals’ three

Cold weather, wind slows down times for Tufts WOMEN’S T & F

continued from page 16

everything up.”

Saturday’s meet may have not been filled with recordbreaking performances, but Tufts was dominant overall, adding four runner-up finishes to the three individual top marks. The 4 x 400-meter relay team of sophomores Julia Hajnoczky, Alyssa Corrigan, Sam Bissonnette and Toby Crispin ran 4:17.46 for second place, edging out the fourthplace finisher, Tufts’ allsenior team of Rosanna Xia, Amy Wilfert, Jennifer Yih and Kabongo, by four seconds.

“It was a blast. We have this nice little tradition where we do class relays at home meets,” Bissonette said. “I thought that

jump with a distance close to a personal record.

“It was obvious who had gotten the extra week to practice,” Bissonette said. “Rosie is an example of someone who was more experienced with the outdoor season. For everyone else, we kind of viewed this meet as another chance to practice and weren’t too concerned with times, because the weather is so different every year.”

With this weekend of outdoor experience under their belt, the Jumbos will continue their season at the George Davis Invitational at UMass Lowell next Saturday.

we would do well because our class has a lot of people who consistently run the 400, but I was worried that the seniors might pull through.”

Sophomore Kelly Allen added to the class of 2013 tally, racking up three runnerup finishes in the discus throw (133-10), hammer throw (1407) and shot put (38-0). The seniors had their fair share of good results as well, including a 2:21.55 fourth-place finish from Wilfert in the 800meter and a fifth-place finish

by Wilfert in the 1,500-meter with a time of 4:41.82.

Xia, who was one of the few Jumbos to compete last weekend, used the extra week of experience to her advantage, finishing fifth in the long

Steven Soroka contributed reporting to this article.

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goals to finish the game meant little, as the Jumbos celebrated another conference blowout.

“I just think that our poles really held it down,” Watkins said of the defense.

“They did a great job keeping the shooters on the perimeter and keeping away all the inside shots.”

The defense looked arguably better than ever on Saturday, an important step for such a young unit. It will get another chance to test itself on its home field Tuesday as Tufts host Bates (4-4, 1-3 NESCAC) at 7 p.m. Just four days later, Tufts will trek down to Connecticut for a key matchup with No. 15 Trinity, the only other undefeated team in the NESCAC. “The key is doing nothing different,” Kirwan said. “We know what kind of defense we run, and we just have to stick to it … just applying the basic fundamentals and communication.”

Only three weeks remain until NESCACs championships MEN’S T & F

continued from page 15

“They were both really happy with their races,” Rand said.

“30:41 is great for Nick’s first ever 10K. He ran a nice, evenly split race, and Tyler did the same.

That was a huge, almost 40-second PR for Tyler, and they both got [Eastern College Athletic Conference] qualifiers.”

The next day, the rest of the Tufts squad suited up, looking to fend off the wind and give some strong performances of its own to start the season. The Jumbos combined to get 167 points to finish first, well ahead of secondplace Springfield’s 145 points.

Individually, Tufts claimed three first-place finishes. Senior co-captain Sam Read took first in the pole vault, clearing a height of 13-11 1/4.

“It was definitely not where I want to be overall, but it was still a decent starting point, considering weather and the time of the season,” said Read, who switched to a longer pole during the indoor season. “It’s still a work in progress, but hopefully that will come together as outdoor finishes up.”

Another victory came from junior Alex Orchowski in the high jump. Orchowski, who joined track for the outdoor season and averaged 7.4 rebounds a game for the men’s basketball team in the winter, cleared a height of 6-1 1/4.

“Yesterday was Alex Orchowski’s first meet ever and really it was only his second time ever high jumping, and he won the meet and went 6-1, which is really impressive,” Read said.

Freshman Ben Wallis added a first-place finish in his first collegiate 3,000-meter steeplechase. Wallis’ time of 10.01.76 was over 21 seconds ahead of the runner-up.

Additionally, sophomore Gbola Ajayi earned two secondplace finishes. His long jump of 21-9 1/2 — an outdoor PR — and triple jump of 43-10 were good enough for runner-up in both events.

Freshman Graham Beutler added another second-place finish in the 400-meter, finishing in

50.91 seconds, just off his PR of 50.70 in the event last weekend.

Freshman Brian McLaughlin also earned second place in the 1,500-meter run with a time of 4:03.04. Tufts had three top-five finishers in the event.

Freshman Atticus Swett was the highest finisher among the Tufts throwers this weekend, taking third in the javelin throw with a distance of 162-6. Adding a third of his own was classmate Kevin Norman in the 400-meter hurdles, with a time of 1:01.74.

The team is optimistic about the starting point at which this weekend leaves them.

“This team doesn’t have the studs that last year’s team did, but we’ve got a lot more depth, so we’re hoping that will pay off for us outdoors.”

Sam Read senior co-captain

“It’s early in the season, so the weather’s never great and people are still getting back into training, but the team that we have this year is definitely built more for outdoor than indoor.

We had a decent team indoor, but I think we can do a lot more outdoors,” Read said. “This team doesn’t have the studs that last year’s team did, but we’ve got a lot more depth, so we’re hoping that will pay off for us outdoors.”

Next weekend, the Jumbos head to UMass-Lowell for the George Davis Invitational looking to build off of this weekend’s performances.

“We’re really just trying to get up to peak performances as quick as possible because there’s only three more weeks between now and NESCACs,” Read said.

“With such a short season before NESCACs, it’s definitely important to get people to qualify in what they need to qualify in.”

The Tufts Daily

14

Sports

Monday, April 4, 2011

Second-place Tufts to face first-place Trinity on Saturday in home matchup Women’s Lacrosse continued from page 16

it, and that’s the key,” sophomore attackman Kerry Eaton said. “We work really hard on the offensive end, stay patient and make sure we get the best opportunities to score.”

Despite the seemingly lopsided score in the Wesleyan game, the game was actually quite close until the last few minutes, with Tufts taking just a 12-8 lead into the halftime break. The turning point of the contest came in the second half, as the Jumbos slammed home the first five goals after the break and shut down the Cardinals’ offense to take a commanding 17-8 lead and effectively end all hope for a Wesleyan comeback.

“In the second [half ] we knew that they were going to come out strong, so we were really pumped up and excited to play better,” said Eaton, who finished with four goals and one assist in the game.

“We knew we had to put them away, and fortunately our offense and defense really started to gel.”

Unlike some Div. III rosters, which are dominated by one or two star attacking players, Tufts’ is marked by scoring balance. Four Tufts players scored three or more goals in the match against Wesleyan.

The team now has six players on its roster with 10 or more goals, which is the main reason for the squad’s conference-leading total of 68 goals in NESCAC play.

“The past few games, the key has been patience and waiting for the opportunities to come,” freshman attackman Gabby Horner said. “It’s about waiting for the right cut, possessing the

Andrew Morgenthaler/Tufts Daily

Junior midfielder Casey Egan, here at an early-season scrimmage, now has 15 goals this season after scoring five against Wesleyan Saturday. ball, and then making the most of the scoring chances.”

The victory over Wesleyan leaves Tufts at 4-1 in the conference, with their only loss coming from Colby on March 18. The team has already played the majority of its

NESCAC schedule, meaning that the April 9 home matchup with first-place Trinity, a team ranked No. 4 nationally, will likely decide who gets the No.1 seed for the conference tournament.

“We definitely can’t overlook

the Babson game [on April 5], because every game is important,” Eaton said. “But we know the Trinity game is important.

Last year we won on their home field, so we know they are going to come out strong, but we feel that we have the

ability to beat them again.”

“Beating Trinity would be a statement,” Horner added.

“Not only would it help us in the rankings, it would show to all the other teams in the NESCAC that we are the strongest in the league.”

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Monday, April 4, 2011

The Tufts Daily

Men’s Track and Field

Ethan Sturm | Rules of the Game

Rand hits NCAA provisional qualifier in 10K by

Lauren Flament

Daily Editorial Board

The men’s track and field team kicked off its season with the Snowflake Classic, hosted by the Jumbos at the Dussault MEN’S TRACK AND FIELD Snowflake Classic Dussault Track, Saturday 1. Tufts 2. Springfield 3. Harvard

15

Sports

167 145 78

Track this Saturday. Tufts won its first fullsquad meet of the season, but the performance of the weekend came the night before at the Sam Howell Invitational hosted by Princeton University.

Sophomores Matt Rand and Tyler Andrews, as well as graduate student Nick Welch (LA ’10), traveled to the invite with hopes of excelling in the 10,000meter run, and the team did just that.

Rand’s time of 30:59.86 qualified him provisionally for nationals, well under the 31:13 mark. The personal record (PR) for Rand puts him in sixth on Tufts’ alltime list for the event.

“I was really happy with it,” Rand said.

“I knew the field would be really competitive, and I’d have 20 guys to pull me along. I wanted to go out between 15:30 and 15:40 [for the first 5K], and that’s what I did — 15:33. Then the second 5K is just everything you have every lap, and I latched onto a group of six or seven guys and let them carry me through the second half of the race.”

According to Rand, his time will likely not travel to nationals, since in this competitive year he will need a time of around 30:30 to qualify. When the sophomore competes in the event later in the season, he hopes to drop his time closer to the automatic qualifier of 30:10.

“The next few weeks, our workouts will be at a quicker pace, so that my body will get used to get to it and then running a drawn out 10K won’t feel as hard, and hopefully I can take off anywhere from 15 to 20 seconds,” Rand said. “It will be difficult, but it is certainly possible.”

In his first ever 10K, Welch added a strong performance, finishing in 31:41.00. Andrews was just behind with a PR of 31:46.13.

Andrew Morgenthaler/Tufts Daily

see MEN’S T & F, page 13

Sophomore Matt Rand, here at a cross-country meet last fall, took a few steps toward qualifying for nationals in the 10,000-meter run on Friday night at Princeton University.

A Muggle’s guide to Quidditch

W

hen it comes to Tufts Quidditch, you either hate it like a pukeflavored Bertie Botts Every Flavor Jelly Bean or love it like a tasty Butterbeer (I promise the references end here). The debate over the legitimacy of the team spread far and wide after the Tufflepuffs almost won the World Cup in November, and was even the topic of CJ Saraceno’s Nov. 17 column in the Daily, becoming Tufts’ equivalent of finally making it to the Major Leagues.

I’m no Saraceno, and I have no intention of attempting to persuade you to care or not care about Quidditch. But I do have an obligation to keep my readers informed, and with word of the team’s success not disappearing, as well as rumors of hundreds of broom-wielding, broken-glasses-wearing college students converging on the Hill this weekend for a regional tournament, it’s time for me to hit the rulebooks and break it down for you.

For the rest of the column, I will be using Muggle terms, though I’m sure anyone with a working knowledge of Harry Potter (and let’s be honest, if you go to Tufts, you’ve probably got one) can piece it together: Chasers (white headband) The main offensive players in the game, the chasers play exclusively with a single, partially deflated volleyball. Each team has three chasers, whose job it is to score by putting the volleyball through any of the three hoops on the opposing side. A goal is worth 10 points.

A chaser in possession of the ball has no limit to how long he or she can possess it or how far he or she can move with it. Opposing chasers can try to force a turnover with either a one-armed tackle or a bullrush. The game the chasers play ends up looking very much like a rugby match, with hoops at each end instead of end zones.

Sports Briefs

Power outburst from Clair propels softball to sweep

No. 5 women’s tennis continues to roll

Led by three home runs from freshman catcher Jo Clair, the women’s softball team opened its conference slate with a three-game sweep of Bates this weekend.

Clair, who finished the weekend with nine home runs on the season, showed off her power during Sunday’s doubleheader, going 5-for6 with three home runs and seven RBIs. In the early game, Clair hit a two-run blast in the bottom of the fifth with the Jumbos only ahead 4-2.

The Bobcats could not recover and fell 9-3.

In Sunday’s second game, sophomore Rebecca DiBiase was locked in a pitcher’s duel with Bates sophomore Caroline Gattuso, with the Jumbos earning a one-run lead on another Clair slam. But in the bottom of the fourth, Tufts exploded for five runs, including a three-run shot from Clair.

DiBiase continued to shut the door on the Bobcats, and the Jumbos added two more in the bottom of the fifth to earn a mercy-rule victory.

Saturday was the toughest game of the weekend for the Jumbos, who found themselves down 5-1 after two and a half innings. But Tufts scored the next eight runs, putting together fourrun rallies in both the third and fifth innings. Bates looked to rally in the seventh, plating two runs and loading the bases, but DiBiase entered the game and took care of three straight hitters, sealing a 9-7 win.

The freshly ranked No. 5 women’s tennis team lived up to its new spot this weekend, thrashing Colby 9-0 Saturday while not dropping a set in singles play, then dominating both No. 18 The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) and No. 30 Brandeis Sunday at the Wellesley Invitational.

Senior Julia Browne, the No. 1-ranked singles player in the country, teamed up with freshman Shelci Bowman at first doubles for a dominant 8-1 victory and then took her singles match 6-0, 6-1.

Freshman Sam Gann was also dominant at fifth singles, winning 6-0, 6-2.

The Jumbos looked almost as dominant Sunday, defeating TCNJ in straight matches 5-0 and following it up with an 8-1 victory over Brandeis. With the three wins, Tufts improves to 6-1 on the spring and 1-0 in the NESCAC. The squad hosts No. 12 Bowdoin Friday before traveling to Trinity Saturday.

Walk-off from Rose seals baseball’s sweep of Bates Senior right fielder Chase Rose hit a walk-off single with the game tied to plate senior second baseman Frank Petroskey and gave the baseball team a 3-2 win and a three-game sweep over visiting Bates this weekend.

After senior starter Derek Miller gave up two runs in the opening frame to the Bobcats, he settled down before giving way to freshman Christian Sbily and junior Jake Crawford, who closed the

door on Bates’ chances at stealing the series’ third game. Junior Matt Collins hit his second home run of the week to cut the Bobcats’ lead in half, and Tufts tied things up in the seventh.

On Friday, junior Kevin Gilchrist pitched a complete-game shutout to give the Jumbos a 5-0 win in Tufts’ NESCACopener. He struck out six, walked none and scattered 10 hits over nine innings of work. Collins went 3-for-3 with two runs scored and Petroskey went 3-for 4. Junior left fielder Ian Goldberg added two RBIs as Tufts broke open a scoreless game with a four-run fourth.

For more details on the weekend series, including an in-depth look at Gilchrist’s gem, see tomorrow’s Daily for full coverage.

Men’s tennis comes back to reality with loss to Bowdoin After starting its NESCAC schedule with a dominant 9-0 win over Conn.

College on Thursday, the men’s tennis team was convincingly beaten yesterday by No. 14 Bowdoin, 8-1. Senior Tony Carucci earned the only win against the Polar Bears at the No. 6 singles spot, but Bowdoin was in control for much of singles play. Sophomore Andrew Lutz, playing at first singles, gave Bowdoin senior Stephen Sullivan, the nation’s 15th-ranked player, two tough sets, falling 6-4, 6-2.

Tufts has the week off before heading to No. 20 MIT on April 13.

—by The Daily Sports Department

Beaters (black headband) While the chasers play rugby, the two beaters on each side play dodgeball with three balls. Any player hit by a beater throw must drop all balls in their possession and return to their own hoops before continuing play. Chasers can deflect beater throws with a volleyball, while opposing beaters can protect themselves with either their own dodgeball or by catching the throw.

Friendly fire has no effect.

Keepers (green headband) The keeper is basically a glorified chaser.

They follow all of the same rules with the exception of some special immunity: While in their own defensive zone, keepers cannot be bludgeoned, nor can they be tackled.

Some of the top teams, including Tufts, use their keeper as a fourth offensive player, while others prefer to keep him back as a full-time defender.

Seekers (yellow headband) The seekers’ job is to grab the tennis ball that hangs in a sock out of the back pocket of a neutral party dressed from head to toe in yellow and gold. This person is known as the snitch. The snitch has no boundaries and can go anywhere it pleases, from subways to unicycles (I’ve actually seen this occur). Usually, the snitch will have a time limit for returning to the field.

If a seeker catches the snitch, his or her team receives 30 points and the game ends immediately. If the snitch falls to the ground at any point, it is uncatchable and receives a 3-second head start before the seekers can follow. The snitch can be as forceful as it chooses, and they have been known to spray seekers with hoses, beat them over the heads with bicycles and threaten them with a gun. Or was it a wrench?

So there you have it. These rules are extremely simplified but should get you through your first viewing or playing experience. For more detail, check out the International Quidditch Association’s website. Who knows, you might even enjoy it.

Ethan Sturm is a sophomore majoring in biopsychology. He can be reached at ethan. sturm@gmail.com.

Sports

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INSIDE Men’s Track and Field 15 Sports Briefs 15

tuftsdaily.com

Men’s Lacrosse

Jumbos trample No. 16 Cardinals at Bello to remain No. 1 by

Claire Kemp

Daily Editorial Board

Coming into Saturday’s game against No. 16 Wesleyan (6-2, 2-2 NESCAC), there was much MEN’S LACROSSE (7-0, 4-0 NESCAC) Bello Field, Saturday Wesleyan Tufts

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speculation in the lacrosse community that this could be the game in which No. 1 Tufts (7-0, 4-0 NESCAC) would finally fall. Instead, the Jumbos proved once again that they are deserving of staying at the top of the rankings.

After a 17-second, three-goal Jumbo run in the first quarter broke a 1-1 tie, the Cardinals never again came close to erasing the deficit. In notching their 17th straight win with a 15-8 victory, Tufts once again looked clean but aggressive — a far cry from its performance just days earlier against Western New England.

“Definitely having a couple days off helped,” said junior attackman Sean Kirwan, who

tallied a hat trick against the Cardinals. “We just played three games in six days and that was pretty taxing. But I think the biggest thing was that we really focused on dominating that third quarter because that’s something we really haven’t been able to do this season. …

We knew we could really take it to these guys — it would just take a collective effort and a lot of focus.”

The Jumbos’ game plan undoubtedly paid off. Not only did they take the third quarter by a resounding margin of 5-1, but the defense prevented the Cardinals from putting together consecutive goals until the game was well in hand and the starters had long since been taken out. This allowed Tufts to keep the momentum throughout.

The game included goals from nine different Jumbos and 15 saves from freshman goalie Patton Watkins, who was making his first collegiate start.

Though Tufts finished with only a slight 49-42 shot advantage and a 33-32 edge in ground balls, junior midfielder Nick Rhoads was dominant in the face-off circle, controlling 15-of-21 after

Virginia Bledsoe/Tufts Daily

see MEN’S LACROSSE, page 13

Junior attackman Sean Kirwan ended the third quarter Saturday with a thrilling, buzzer-beating goal.

Women’s Track and Field

Women’s Lacrosse

Tufts routs Wesleyan, moves to 4-1 in NESCAC Three wins in field events launch Jumbos to victory by

David McIntyre

Daily Editorial Board

The women’s lacrosse team had what would favorably be described as an up-and-down start to the seaWOMEN’S LACROSSE (5-2, 4-1 NESCAC) at Middleton, Conn., Saturday Wesleyan Tufts

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son — after a 14-13 opening day win against Amherst, the squad lost its next two games, including a bitter 11-10 defeat by the Colby Mules. But the Jumbos seem to have forgotten their early struggles and have rattled off four straight wins, including Saturday’s 19-9 blowout victory against Wesleyan.

The result leaves Tufts tied in wins with conference leader Trinity and also represents the highest-scoring game of the season for the Jumbos, whose mark of 19 is also the highest number of goals scored by any

NESCAC team in a conference game this season.

Tufts has managed to reach double digits in every game this season, a feat made even more impressive by the fact that the team was held to single digits in four different conference games last year. The offensive explosion has been spearheaded by a pair of juniors, attackman Lara Kozin and midfielder Casey Egan, who are tied for the team lead with 15 goals apiece.

“We don’t just shoot it to shoot see WOMEN’S LACROSSE, page 14

by

Ben Kochman

Daily Editorial Board

The women’s track and field team hosted and won the Snowflake Classic on Saturday at Dussault Track on the strength of three individual wins in field events.

WOMEN’S TRACK AND FIELD Snowflake Classic Dussault Track, Saturday

Criterium rolls through campus

1. Tufts 2. Springfield 3. Dartmouth

Virginia Bledsoe/Tufts Daily

The center of campus turned into a sea of blurred spandex yesterday as the Tufts Campus Criterium, the third and final event of the Boston Beanpot 2.0, rolled into town. Fifteen Tufts riders and over a hundred cyclists competed as students got a rare chance to see the sport up close. For more, including an exclusive video of the event, check out The Score at blogs.tuftsdaily.com/thescore.

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Senior tri-captain Kanku Kabongo won the long jump with a length of 17-8 1/2, junior Heather Theiss took first in the pole vault with 10-8 and freshman Kristen Roberts won the high jump with 5-1, as Tufts racked up 147.5 points to finish first out of 15 teams and 17 points ahead of second-place finisher Springfield College.

The team won even while dealing with weather that, despite the meet’s snowy name, made it difficult for the athletes to warm up. Saturday’s competition was the first outdoor meet for those on the team who did not compete last weekend at the Westfield State Invitational. The harsh Boston winds required swift adjustments for runners and jumpers and were so strong that race organizers had to switch the direction of the 100-meter dash and 100-meter hurdles.

“After the [indoor] season ends, we take a break, so we were rusty,” Kabongo said. “Plus, it was really cold outside, and it was hard to get and stay warmed up. If wind is in your face, you run slower and run less far; it can mess see WOMEN’S T & F, page 13