2011-4-6

Mostly Sunny 55/35

THE TUFTS DAILY

TUFTSDAILY.COM

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

VOLUME LXI, NUMBER 42

What’s being built? Construction continues on SIS building

Lewis, campus center to get facelifts this summer

by Jenny

White

Daily Editorial Board

Danai Macridi/Tufts Daily

Construction began April 1 on a 7,200-square foot temporary building in front of South Hall that will serve as the headquarters for the university’s two-year project to develop a replacement for the current Student Information System (SIS). Beginning this summer, the building will house over 50 Student Services and University Information Technology staff members from across Tufts’ schools, Vice President for Operations Dick Reynolds told the Daily last month. The current stage of construction involves constructing the footings on which the units will sit.

“The … units will be coming on-site in May with an expected occupancy by the SIS people in the latter half of June after the interior work is completed,” Reynolds said in an email.

Where You Read It First Est. 1980

Just in time for the beginning of next school year, Lewis Hall and the Mayer Campus Center will receive brand-new looks.

Following next month’s Commencement activities, the Department of Facilities Services will begin summer-long renovations of all bathrooms and common areas in Lewis Hall and the refurbishing of the campus center’s interior.

The two projects will cost the university a combined $2.5 million, according to Director of Facilities Services Bob Burns.

Facilities plans to install an air conditioning system throughout the campus center, according to Senior Construction Manager Ray Santangelo, who is managing both projects. Air conditioning is currently limited to Hotung Café.

This installation will require removing the existing ceilings throughout the building, Director of the Office for Campus Life (OCL) Joe Golia said. He added that a large pendant light fixture in the lobby will serve as the final touch to the area’s revamp.

More striking aspects of the renovations include painting the interior, adding new carpeting and replacing all ceilings and lighting, according to Santangelo. These updates will take place in the parts of the campus center that were not incorporated into the recent renovations of the lobby, The Rez and Hotung Café.

“This is another phase of what we’ve already done,” Santangelo, who has overseen previous campus center transformations, said. “We’re trying to bring the other areas up to the same level as The Rez ...

Hotung and the lobby.”

The work in Lewis Hall will consist of a total gut renovation of all the bathrooms, common areas and hallways, according to Santangelo. Changes will include new carpeting and wall paint, he said.

Facilities plans to replace some of the lighting in the common areas and fix up the reception area with new furniture and finishing, Santangelo said.

Every dorm room will receive new dressers and fresh wall paint, he added. see RENOVATIONS, page 2

Comedy show canceled, funds roll over to next fall by

Matt Repka

Daily Editorial Board

For a second straight semester, the comedy show has been left without a comedian.

Nick Swardson, the host of the Comedy Central program “Nick Swardson’s Pretend Time,” canceled his performance at Tufts’ Spring Comedy Show, which was slated for Thursday evening at Davis Square’s Somerville Theater.

Swardson, who had already signed a contract to perform this week, backed out of the performance because of a time conflict with the production schedule for the second season of his television show, according to Entertainment Board co-Chair Austin Glassner, a junior.

“I guess it’s just the risk you take when you try to book a TV or film star,” Glassner told the Daily in an email.

Tickets for the event, which had already gone on sale, can be refunded at the Mayer Campus Center’s Information Booth, according to Glassner.

A replacement for the act was not possible given time constraints, he said.

“Getting somebody to replace Nick in see COMEDY, page 2

Danai Macridi/Tufts Daily

The 2011 census showed both a slight decrease in Somerville’s total population and a higher population of minorities.

Somerville population down slightly, diversified, according to census data by

Brent Yarnell

Daily Editorial Board

U.S. Census data released in March indicate a slight decline in Somerville’s total population, while showing significant increases in its Hispanic and Asian populations.

Though Somerville’s total population grew during the 1990s, it declined in the past decade by 2.23 percent to

Inside this issue

75,754 as of this year. The Asian and Hispanic populations grew by 32.4 percent and 18.1 percent, respectively, while the white population declined by 6.1 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Census data indicate that the African-American population remained roughly constant, with a slight growth of 2.5 percent.

Somerville Alderman Dennis

Sullivan said the figures on changing ethnic demographics would inform the city’s plans for a wide variety of services.

“It’s something we can use when we determine curriculum in the schools to reflect everyone’s culture and diversity,” he told the Daily, adding that such changes could include bringing see SOMERVILLE, page 2

Today’s sections

Educators and employers are emphasizing the importance of blogging for young professionals.

The Daily explores a day in the life of Larry Bacow.

see FEATURES, page 3

see SPECIAL, page 5

News Features Arts | Living Special Feature Editorial | Letters

1 3 5 10 12

Op-Ed Comics Sports Classifieds

13 14 17 18

The Tufts Daily

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News

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Cancellation means no comedy show again COMEDY

continued from page 1

less than a week was really difficult,” he said. “We tried, but the artists said they could not confirm with us until Monday. We would have had a show had we been able to get a response by Friday, when we found out.”

Selling 900 tickets — the capacity of the Somerville Theater — would have also proven difficult, Programming Board co-Chair Sarah Habib, a senior, added.

The cancellation of this semester’s show is the second consecutive withdrawal from a performance date this year. Swardson’s decision follows on the heels of comedian Michael Ian Black, who was slated to headline the fall comedy show last semester.

Funds allotted to staging that event were rolled over into the spring show, giving Entertainment Board a wider range of performers to choose from.

Now, with Swardson’s cancellation, the money that would have gone toward the show is available once again.

The tentative plan is to carry the money from both comedy shows into the next semester.

“Right now we are working with the [Tufts Community Union ( TCU)] Senate to get the money to roll over to next year,” Glassner said. “That way we can still have enough money to bring in a big comedian next year.”

Representatives from Programming Board plan to meet with TCU Treasurer Kate de Klerk, a junior, in the near future to finalize plans to do so, according to Programming Board co-Chair Adam Fischer, a senior.

Daily File Photo

Lewis Hall’s bathrooms, common rooms and hallways will undergo major changes this summer.

Facilities plans renovations of Lewis Hall, campus center RENOVATIONS

continued from page 1

Burns said Lewis Hall residents will not immediately notice some of the major updates in their building.

“We’ll be replacing all of the infrastructure, the piping in the bathrooms,” Santangelo said. “It’s absolutely necessary in the bathrooms.”

The work, although relatively easy to complete, will mark a significant improvement, according to Santangelo.

“It’s not a huge project, but it’s going to make a huge impact,” he said.

Lewis Hall’s renovation is part of Facilities’ goal of refurbishing and upgrading the interior of at least one residential hall each year, Burns said.

Last year, Facilities renovated West and Hill Hall bathrooms and common areas, while remodeling in summer 2009 focused on Carmichael Hall,

Santangelo said.

“Students have given us feedback in the past regarding the conditions of the bathrooms, common areas,” Director of the Office of Residential Life and Learning Yolanda King said. “I’ve been told that perception-wise, for students, Lewis is the least desirable building. This will be a tremendous improvement, and I think it will change students’ perception of the building.”

Burns hopes this summer’s changes will make Lewis Hall and the campus center more student-friendly. “We try to freshen it up to make it more appealing and modernized,” he said.

Past improvements to the campus center’s interior have garnered positive feedback from the student body, Santangelo said. His intention is that by next semester the building interior will be unified in the contemporary design

and color scheme established in the three completed rooms.

Golia said he hopes that additional improvements will be possible even after this summer’s project is completed.

“Unfortunately, this [project] will not include new furniture in the meeting rooms,” Golia said. “In the future, that will be the next step. Even AC in all the rooms would be great to have.”

While the campus center typically remains open on a shortened schedule during the summer, this year the building will be closed, according to Golia. He said the OCL staff will temporarily work in empty offices in Dowling Hall until Facilities finishes the renovations and cleanup in the campus center.

Both the Lewis Hall and campus center projects will start on May 24, with a projected end date of Aug. 1, Santangelo said.

Housing units increase in Somerville despite overall population decrease SOMERVILLE

continued from page 1

in more interpreters or bilingual police officers.

Levy said the increases in minority populations were consistent with Somerville’s history as a diverse community.

“Somerville’s always been a home to immigrants, so it’s not surprising that the immigrant population continues to seek Somerville as a home,” Levy said.

The slight decrease in overall population may be a result of working families leaving Somerville due to a lack of affordable housing, according to Meredith Levy, director of community organizing at the Somerville Community Corporation.

“A lot of families have moved out as prices become less affordable,” Levy said, “and then you have young people without kids moving in.”

The population dip, Assistant Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy Planning Justin Hollander said, might also have resulted from Somerville’s increasing appeal to wealthier residents, who tend to live in larger houses with fewer people.

“As an area becomes more desirable, more expensive, oftentimes multifamily housing is converted into smaller units,” Hollander said. “So that means that the average household size, of the average people per housing unit, has declined.”

If that were the case, Hollander said, the number of housing units would not decrease as the overall population shrunk. Census data showed, however, that the number of housing units actually increased by 3.7 percent as the total population decreased. This change seems largely attributed to the city’s recent vote to increase inclusionary housing, the percentage of units in any new housing development that must be affordable, according to Sullivan, who serves on the Board of Aldermen’s Housing and Community Development Committee.

Somerville’s capability to make affordable housing available has diminished as the economic slowdown has strained the city’s budget, Sullivan added.

daily file photo

Development in Davis Square and elsewhere in Somerville, which can drive housing prices up, may be a factor in the city’s population decrease.

“We’d love to do more, but where are you going to take it from?” Sullivan said. “I think we’re in a downward cycle for the next several years of very lean times.”

Yet while the increase in housing units has made the city accessible to a greater number of economic classes, Sullivan warned that such efforts could discourage developers from coming to Somerville.

“It’s a balancing act — if you raise it too much, you might stunt development,” he said. “You can say ‘let’s double housing,’ but then it might not be attractive for that developer.”

Levy said efforts to develop the city, such as the extension of the Red Line to Davis Square in the 1980s and the

plan to expand the Green Line into Somerville by 2015, could increase the desirability of living there, thus increasing the property values of housing units and driving working families out.

“That’s been a big issue here in Somerville because we’re about to build the Green Line with six new stops, so we’re keeping an eye on how is that going to impact who lives here five or ten years from now,” Levy said.

While he acknowledged that urban development including the introduction of rapid transit could increase living costs, Sullivan said such measures also increased quality of life for Somerville residents.

“If we weren’t making Somerville a great place, what would be the flip side?

Davis Square wouldn’t be the place that it is now,” Sullivan said. “Development done right, and with the proper zoning and safeguards, enriches the city.”

While Somerville’s population trends might conflict with those of the greater Boston area — which increased by almost 5 percent over the past decade — Hollander said they did not conflict much with overall urban trends.

“The city of Boston grew over the last ten years, and the Boston metro area grew. There were probably three other cities of comparable size in Massachusetts that lost population,” Hollander said.

“I don’t think it’s too much of an outlier, but certainly it does go against the trend,” he said.

Features

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Blogging: The necessary tool in the job market Jumbos aware of importance of blogging as a skill in the journalism world by

Emilia Luna

Daily Editorial Board

For many college graduates preparing to enter a difficult job market, having the right qualifications may seem like a Herculean task. They are trying to master a particular field, get good grades and attain work experience and specialized skills; but that’s not all. Jobseekers, on a variety of career paths, need to understand and be comfortable with important technological trends; for many, that means they need know how to blog.

Blogging may have a way to go before it is seen in as being on par with other writing or editing careers, but knowing how to blog is an increasingly important component for success in the workplace.

Julie Dobrow, director of the Communications and Media Studies Program (CMS) at Tufts, said that blogging is certainly a useful skill to have professionally. She explained that CMS graduates from the class of 2010 reported that the number-one question they were asked at job interviews was whether they blogged.

The incorporation of blogging in the educational experience is an accelerating trend, according to Dobrow. Last fall, she required students in her Media Literacy class to keep a blog and she found it to be extremely beneficial.

“As a professor, it helped me to get a

window into my students’ thinking in a way that I wouldn’t have otherwise gotten,” Dobrow said. “It was a really interesting outlet for students to be able to write in a more informal style and be more creative.”

Dobrow said that blogging is becoming an important aspect not only of journalism, but also of other media, such as filmmaking, advertising, marketing and public relations.

“If you want to go into journalism you need to have a whole set of skills, and blogging is one of them,” Dobrow said.

For students at Tufts, the increasing importance of mastering digital media — including blogging — is clearly part of the recipe for success in the professional world.

Junior Danielle Carbonneau said that one of the benefits of blogging is being able to share one’s ideas with the world in an easy and accessible way. Carbonneau manages the blog for Outbreath, the Tufts literary magazine.

She explained that the magazine started its blog as a way to keep the magazine, which comes out only once a semester, alive during the entire term. “[Blogging] is very easy to do especially when no one is telling me what to write on,” Carbonneau said. “Everyone has access to the Internet, and it is really the people’s voice. It’s someone’s take of what is going on in the world.”

For Carbonneau, blogging is something she would consider doing professionally. One of the reasons why it is so appealing to her is that she can write in her own style about important topics, despite not being interested in formal journalism.

Nonetheless, Carbonneau said that she would not necessarily expect to get paid exclusively for blogging in a job. “If it is more for fun, no one will pay you,” she said. “If it is to complement something professional that is making a profit, then you should get paid.”

Sophomore Aeden Pillai manages the Tufts Roundtable Commons, a commentary website that originated as a way to complement the opinion and political magazine on campus published by the student organization of the same name.

Today, although still under Tufts Roundtable, the website has gained a character of its own: one that goes beyond the magazine. Pillai said that people at Tufts are always looking to share their opinions and that their aggregator site, or collection of posts from other blogs alongside original content, is an easy way to do so.

“We soon realized that there are a lot of Tufts students that are opinionated and have ideas and want to share them,” Pillai said. “Whether it’s a post about see BLOGGING, page 4

Jodi Bosin/Tufts Daily

Local tanning salons, like this one shown above, often gloss over the beauty treatment’s associated dangers.

AAP calls for teenage tanning ban, joining long list of health organizations by

Amanda Warren

Contributing Writer

With appearances at the top of any teenager’s list, the high use of tanning salons by adolescents has recently revived the heated debate among health organizations. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) on Feb. 28 released a policy statement urging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to impose a ban on teenage tanning, citing evidence that directly links tanning beds with an increased risk of skin cancer.

The statement intended to put mounting pressure on the FDA, which is meeting next month to update their policies.

The American Academy of Dermatology and American Medical Association have made similar assertions in the past, claiming the FDA needs to impose stricter regulations on the use and sale of tanning beds.

For now, tanning beds are listed as a “Class I” medical device by the FDA, meaning they are subject to minimal regulation and oversight, despite their classification as highly carcinogenic by the World Health Organization.

Most states, including Massachusetts, require parental permission for teenagers to tan, but the AAP’s statement asserts that this is not a responsible policy.

Senior Elisabeth Lesser, who is from Massachusetts, started tanning at 16.

She and her friends got around the rule about parental permission by lying about their ages at a local salon.

“They weren’t very strict and never checked if we were actually eighteen,” Lesser said.

Junior Tiffany Casanova, who has also been a frequent tanner since 16, says regulations didn’t stop her from going tanning during her teenage years. “I went before prom and other special events in high school,” she said. “I’d go with my mom, who wasn’t necessarily the best influence, because she loves to tan also.”

But local tanning salons object to the proposed ban, claiming it would hurt their small businesses. An employee of Smart Tan Salon in Davis Square, who requested to remain anonymous, said that teenagers make up roughly half of their business.

“I think if they have permission from

their parents, then it’s okay,” she said.

“We have all our customers take a lot of safety precautions before tanning.”

Smart Tan Salon stocks its lobby with books and posters lauding the supposed health benefits of tanning, and plays a looping video titled “The Truth About Tanning.” The video features advice from women dressed in white lab coats exclaiming, “I tell all my patients — get in the sun!” A voice says gently, “Tanning is safe and natural,” while a soothing image of the ocean lapping on a beach at sunset plays in the background.

While most adults don’t believe these so-called benefits of tanning, these deceptive practices could be influential over some young teens and their parents.

“Those kinds of claims should be absolutely forbidden,” dermatologist and pediatrician Bob Haber said. “It’s completely misleading and irresponsible.

There are no health benefits to tanning.”

Although Casanova has not ceased to use tanning beds, she supports a ban on tanning for teenagers.

see TANNING, page 4

Alanna Tuller | The Archives Addict

I

Golfer’s delight

’m just going to be honest and admit that I really don’t have the best time-management skills. Though I’m convinced Spanish essays only take an hour to write, three hours later I am inevitably still sitting at my computer and cursing my inability to conjugate verbs into the subjunctive. At the same time, I definitely do not have the worst timemanagement skills in Tufts history. Take, for example, the Jumbos who believed it would take just two weeks to construct a golf course on the current site of South Hall.

Well, surprise! Construction took a lot longer than two weeks.

When golf first arrived at Tufts in the late 1800s, the men’s and women’s golf teams practiced at courses quite far from campus.

Eventually, the men’s golf team decided that the commute was not worth its time. In the fall of 1923, a group of Jumbo golfers proposed to outfit Tufts with a six-hole golf course to be built by students. And, to make construction even more fun, students were divided into teams and promised an unspecified prize upon the course’s completion. President John Albert Cousens ardently supported the students’ initiative and even put them in touch with a renowned golf-course architect.

As plans to break ground on the course got underway, a veritable wave of golf-mania swept campus. Those organizing the project issued a gung-ho statement in the Tufts Weekly claiming that the course would be finished in two weeks and ready for the end of the fall semester.

At first, it actually seemed as if that old Jumbo can-do spirit would propel the project toward an early completion. But this project wasn’t just about scattering some grass seeds and filling a few sand traps; rather, the construction of the golf course required intense physical labor. What, you might ask, kept students motivated during long days of digging and hauling stones?

One student interviewed by the Weekly reminded fellow Jumbos that “with just a little more whole hearted support … we’ll soon be stepping out in our checkered golf socks.” The Weekly also highlighted a group of students who “conceived the happy idea of making a good-sized box of fudge and sending it down [to the student workers].” The project also allowed for quality time with the many professors who flocked to work alongside their students and contribute to the effort.

Between the fashionable footwear, fudge and improved faculty-student relations, what could have possibly gone wrong?

For starters, it appears that the golf team members in charge of the project weren’t necessarily the kindest leaders. A month and half after construction began, one of the organizers updated the Weekly by stating, “The work on the golf course is slowly nearing completion … [and] can be done if every delinquent will put in one afternoon’s work.”

First of all, it isn’t very nice to call your classmates “delinquents.” And second, I think the golf team might have been a little too idealistic. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from spending time in the archives, it’s that college students have been pretty consistently lazy over the last century-and-a-half. Even with the leaders’ constant claims of a “mythical prize” for the winning student team, it’s quite understandable that students grew bored of digging up rocks for six weeks.

Although it took longer than the initial estimate of two weeks, Tufts’ golf course was completed a year later in time for the fall 1924 golf season. The Weekly described the course on opening day in the following fashion: “The weather was perfect. The rolling fairways, the level greens with their red flags flying, and the sight of groups of men carrying golf bags … was enough to give every golfer a real thrill.”

I know South Hall is sort of important because it houses hundreds of students, and I don’t actually know how to golf, but it’s time for Tufts to reclaim its status as a golferfriendly university.

Alanna Tuller is a sophomore majoring in English and Spanish. She can be reached at Alanna.Tuller@tufts.edu.

The Tufts Daily

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Features

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Blogging gives students crucial work experience, a forum for expression BLOGGING

continued from page 3

the dining halls and removing trays or an existential post about ‘why am I living,’ anyone can read and share opinions.”

Tufts Roundtable Commons gives students a mix between receiving information from Facebook and Twitter and having a personal blog, Pillai explained.

Anyone from Tufts can write or link their independent blogs to be posted to the website and therefore enjoy a wider readership.

Pillai said that their website could be seen as parallel to the Huffington Post, in the sense that they receive posts daily and pick which ones will get featured.

He explained that doing this on a regular basis has not been much of problem; the greater challenge they have faced is persuading the Tufts community to use blogging as a means to share their experiences and ideas.

“We are trying to bring topics to the surface, but when you say ‘blogging’ everyone has a different idea of what it is,” Pillai explained. “Some people share, ‘What am I going to do today?’ and then at the other side of spectrum other people think they need 1,000 words and a completely innovative point.”

But Pillai emphasized that there is room for both of those extremes. For blogging to be successful, he said, people need to be passionate about what they are writing. He mentioned that

they haven’t been as successful with people who are just writing for the sake of writing.

Pillai said that the fact that most bloggers are not paid does not determine the quality of the blogs produced. For him, being passionate and having something insightful to say are enough to make a blog good and potentially profitable.

“People that have an agenda to project can use blogging as a mouthpiece for it,” he said of unpaid bloggers. “You shouldn’t be compensated just because you’ve decided to make your living off of something. You need to be good at it.”

Pillai emphasized that blogging is a useful skill to have in the professional world as a means to express things that are worth saying. “There is a large mass that you can get lost in if you don’t have something interesting to say,” he said.

“It is humbling and sobering at the same time.”

For senior Andrea Schpok, whose blog “Here’s The Dish” focuses on nutrition and healthy-food-related events happening on campus, blogging was the perfect platform to communicate information to promote a healthy life style.

Schpok has also found blogging to be a crucial tool in her work experience.

Last summer she interned in Media Projects Inc. in Dallas, Texas, and was in charge of the company’s digital market-

Ashley Seenauth/Tufts Daily

Blogging is now emphasized as a marketable skill in the job-search process. ing where she learned the importance of blogging in the professional arena.

“A blog is a really good way to showcase personal stories, information, photos and recipes, and it is very easy to run [and] user-friendly,” she said.

Although Schpok says she could not imagine just blogging as a career, she said that increasingly people enhance their main work by blogging. This

coming summer, Schpok will intern at another health-related company, where she will be working mainly on the company’s blog.

“I don’t think a blog can be your career, but it can really enhance what you are doing for a company and you can make that a big part of your career,” Schpok said. “It is such a needed thing and it is also really fun.”

Potential ban elicits mixed responses from doctors, business owners TANNING

continued from page 3

“I know it’s hypocritical, but I have a little sister who’s sixteen, and I don’t want her to tan, ever,” she said.

“Everyone thinks skin cancer is this mythical thing that is never going to happen to them, but that’s not true.”

Still, Casanova said she is reluctant to stop tanning herself although she’s aware of the risks she faces. “I know it’s

bad for you, I’m not dumb,” she said.

“In the back of my mind, I’m worried, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop.”

According to Haber, who practices in Ohio, 80 to 90 percent of non-melanoma skin cancer is caused by UV exposure.

Yet Haber does not support the ban.

“I don’t believe in outlawing behavior,” he said. “I believe in educating people and allowing them to make their own

Friday April 8, 2011 9:30am-5:30pm 155 Granoff Music Center

decisions. It doesn’t make sense to ban tanning beds unless you ban people from going to the beach and from all sun exposure. It’s inconsistent to forbid one type of behavior like that.”

Lesser also believes the decision should be a personal one.

“I don’t think the ban makes sense because I don’t think it matters how old you are; tanning is bad for everyone,” she said. “Parents should have

the right to make that decision for their children.”

Lesser decided to stop tanning when she saw news stories about the health risks of tanning. “I finally realized it wasn’t worth it to keep doing that kind of damage to myself and my skin,” she said.

Haber said he hopes that through education, both parents and their children will make the “smart decision” and choose not to use tanning beds.

The Arab “Nahda” reconsidered: the 19th and early 20th century Arab cultural renaissance in a global comparative frame

Seeds of Revolution: Symposium The rise of revolutionary social movements that have spread across Arab societies in recent months has raised questions about the intellectual ground-springs of the ideals that these movements have espoused: often radically democratic, humanist and secular in orientation, culturally innovative and socially egalitarian. In many ways the conception of these ideals must be traced back to the Arab nahda, or renaissance — the 19th and early 20th century movement for cultural rebirth in the Arab world, an intellectual, cultural and social movement that sought solutions to the challenges of modernity.

This symposium will bring together scholars from a variety of disciplines to share new perspectives on the Arab nahda. By placing the nahda into a broader comparative framework, we may Þnd new ways to engage with the promise of its ideals, and to better comprehend contemporary currents in the Arab world.

The symposium is free and open to the public. Refreshments and lunch will be provided for participants and registered attendees – to attend the lunch RSVP to vicky.cirrone@tufts.edu by April 5th.

The symposium is organized by Kamran Rastegar, Department of German, Russian and Asian Languages and Literatures. The full symposium program is available at: http://sites.tufts.edu/nahdasymposium. Funding for the symposium is generously provided by: the Tufts Arabic Program, the Tufts International Relations Program, the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Tufts University, the Tufts Diversity Fund, the Department of German, Russian and Asian Languages and Literatures, the Charles Smith Endowment Fund, and the Tufts Faculty Research Awards Committee.

Arts & Living

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Movie Review

‘Limitless’ as smart as its futuristic drugs

Bradley Cooper delivers a strong lead performance in the new thriller by

Melissa MacEwen Daily Staff Writer

What would you do if a pill could help you achieve your wildest dreams?

In “Limitless,” this is the question con-

Limitless Starring Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Abbie Cornish Directed by Neil Burger fronting Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper), a washed-up writer who stumbles upon the designer pharmaceutical NZT and finds that taking the pill instantly banishes his shyness, allows him to draw on every memory he’s ever made and quickly launches him to the top of Wall Street.

Morra is living a life of personal disappointment in New York City when the audience meets him. After getting dumped by his unimpressed girlfriend, Lindy (Abbie Cornish), Eddie is wandering home when he has a chance encounter with Vernon (Johnny Whitworth), the brother of his exwife, Melissa (Anna Friel).

Drug-dealing Vernon manages to get Eddie’s attention long enough to show him his new product: a cutting-edge pharmaceutical called NZT. The drug’s manufacturers claim that humans only use around 20 percent of their brains and that NZT will activate the other 80 percent.

After a series of coincidental incidents leave Eddie with all of Vernon’s NZT stash, he quickly takes advantage of his extraordinary increase in focus and motivation to learn an incredible array of skills, rekindle his relationship with Lindy and mastermind the stock market, while working for one of the most powerful men in the world, Carl Van Loon (Robert De Niro). Eddie’s new powers come at steep cost, however, as he soon comes to realize.

Despite being a movie whose primary premise is that of a mind-altered slacker fleeing from a power-hungry band of gangsters, “Limitless” does impressively well as a film. This success is, in no small part, due to Cooper’s acting in the lead

MCT

Bradley Cooper stars in ‘Limitless’ as a man who has unlocked his potential thanks to a mysterious new drug. role. From his first, heavily foreshadowing lines of the movie, (“Why is it that, the moment your life exceeds your wildest dreams, the knife appears at your back?”), Cooper manages to seem relatable, witty and incredibly human as his character evolves and develops throughout the movie’s ongoing voiceovers.

An added pleasant surprise in“Limitless” is the soundtrack. Though a large portion of action and science-fiction movies tend to rely predictably on some form of industrial electronic or house music, the soundtrack in “Limitless” makes the characters seem somehow more relatable and more sincere with its use of The Black Keys and its warm, DeVotchKa-like electronica sound. The music of “Limitless” avoids

TV Review

‘Mildred Pierce’ brings noir back to television by

Benjamin Ross

Contributing Writer

There just aren’t many noir films being made today. Sure, Quentin Tarantino borrows heavily from the genre and some

Mildred Pierce Starring Kate Winslet, Guy Pearce, Evan Rachel Wood Airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO films incorporate an occasional throwback reference, but overall, the heavyhanded dialogue of smooth talking Humphrey Bogart-like characters, the harsh lighting and the mysterious, often gruesome, plotlines have been replaced by the more contemporary trends of understated acting, 3-D gimmicks and whatever you’d like to call the phenomenon that is Michael Bay. “Mildred Pierce,” a five-part HBO miniseries directed by Todd Haynes starring Kate Winslet in the title role, tries to prove, however, that noir still has a place in the 21st century.

The series is set in Depression-era Los

Angeles, and the story follows Mildred Pierce as she experiences the challenges of being a single mother trying to provide for her family in a time of staggering gender imbalances. The series is based on James M. Cain’s 1941 book of the same name, which was previously adapted into a 1945 film noir that won Joan Crawford the Academy Award for Best Actress.

While Mildred is a far more human character in the miniseries than in the somewhat misogynistic noir film, the miniseries does borrow heavily from the previous adaptation in terms of acting, lighting and mise en scène. This style has mixed results, however. At first, the noir-style dialogue comes off as stilted, making it feel like an Arthur Miller play is being acted out on screen. It is eventually possible to adjust, however, from contemporary expectations for the dialogue and to become comfortable with the reliable noir cadence.

The series explores the themes of gender inequality and class struggle as Mildred is forced to work a dreaded “uniform job,” as she describes it. First working as a waitress, she eventually tries to elevate herself to the upper class by opening her own chicken and waffles see MILDRED, page 8

some of the hyped-up neuroticism that has long lingered around psychological sci-fi classics like “A Scanner Darkly”(2006) and “Minority Report”(2002) and manages to make Morra a more emotionally appealing character.

This character-empathy is crucial, as without it, the movie would certainly grate on the audience’s nerves. The entire movie is narrated by Eddie, and one frequently sees the world literally through his eyes, with clever cinematography succeeding in letting the viewer feel unnerved, anxious or euphoric.

One might even argue that “Limitless” focuses too much on Eddie at the exclusee LIMITLESS, page 6

Restaurant Review

Tamarind House offers quality Thai cuisine by

Nicholas Bayhi

Contributing Writer

Thai food has long been something of a little brother to Chinese food — it’s the other Asian cuisine that you

Tamarind House 1790 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02140 (617) 491-9940 Price Range ($-$$$$): $$ don’t think about when you browse through the takeout options saved on your phone. A meal at Tamarind House, however, is enough to put a serious dent in that stereotype and make you think again before you order General Tso’s chicken for the umpteenth time.

Tamarind House is located about a block past the Porter Square T stop on Massachusetts Avenue, nestled between Rosie’s Bakery and the Stone Hearth Pizza Company. Don’t see TAMARIND, page 6

Emily Balk | Whisk-y Business

When food tries too hard

O

nce upon a time, I ate at DewickMacPhie Dining Hall, that hallowed hall of downhill dining, at least twice a day. I knew the ins and outs of specialty nights (because I studied the menu ahead of time) and learned how to craft a mighty fine panini. Waffle Tuesday was an event (or sport) among my friends, and we perfected the art of microwaving Rice Krispies treats. It wasn’t too often that I got tricked by Dewick, until one fateful day: The brownie looked so rich and chocolaty, but the dusty taste and texture revealed it to be a vegan brownie booby trap. Lesson learned, Dewick; a brownie without butter and eggs is no brownie at all.

You could say that since then I’ve had a beef with vegan recipes. Too often, they seek to mimic foods that absolutely require animal products. How could these attempts at producing flavors and textures that don’t exist in the veggie world succeed? For the most part, they can’t. Taking the cream out of alfredo sauce and substituting soy yogurt not only strips it of its satisfying richness but nullifies its identity as an alfredo sauce. And don’t even try to serve me chopped-up carrots with fake soy sauce and call it tuna, vegans, just don’t. It will upset me.

I will grant that, together, creative cooks and technology have produced some pretty amazing fake meat products and vegan baked goods. People go berserk for BabyCakes, the vegan (gluten-free, wheat-free, soy-free, casein-free, egg-free, refined sugar-free, kosher) bakery that started in New York City. I cannot imagine what they make cupcakes out of (Phoenix ashes? Unicorn breath? Are those vegan?), but kudos to them for doing it.

I am not a vegan, but I wish only the most delicious food unto vegans. There are so many wonderful, naturally vegan dishes out there that weren’t designed to be an animal product-free version of something else. Why struggle to replicate the flavor of cheese using cashews, water and salt? I foresee only failure in that endeavor.

Instead, I believe that branching out and exploring the cuisines of other countries is a great way to discover dishes that provide variety in both flavor and nutrition without overstepping dietary guidelines. Small adjustments may be needed, but in the end, each new recipe will be one that can be enjoyed by all because it was designed to be that way.

Som tam is an oft-overlooked Thai salad composed primarily of shredded green papaya, tomatoes, long beans and crushed peanuts and a sauce of lime juice, palm sugar, chilies, garlic and fish sauce (yes, a vegan version exists). It was a hit with everyone at the last vegan dinner party I attended. The flavors of som tam are balanced and complex, as Thai food often is, with the interplay between sour, sweet, hot and salty elements. The green papaya — simply the unripe version of the fruit — makes a satisfyingly crunchy vehicle for the sauce. The result is an impressive, refreshing and authentic dish when served alongside sticky rice or rice noodles.

For the sauce, mix: 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 tablespoon palm sugar, granulated sugar or brown sugar 1 Thai bird chili, minced 1 1/2 tablespoons fish sauce (for the vegan version, use vegan fish sauce, obviously) 1 1/2 tablespoons lime juice For the salad, mix: 1/2 cup long beans or string beans chopped into bite size pieces 1/2 cup cherry tomatoes sliced in half 2 tablespoons chopped raw unsalted peanuts 2 cups shredded green papaya Pour sauce onto salad and smash with a wooden spoon to combine.

Emily Balk is a senior majoring in biopsychology and community health. She can be reached at Emily.Balk@tufts.edu.

The Tufts Daily

6

Arts & Living

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Porter Square’s Tamarind House makes an impact with duck, chicken dishes TAMARIND

continued from page 5

let the tacky font and the garishly colored logo dissuade you: Inside you will find a classy restaurant featuring cloth napkins and leather seats.

The first thing you notice at Tamarind House is that the service is excellent.

Although the waiters were not completely comfortable with their English skills, they were extremely courteous and made sure you never saw the bottom of your water glass for more than a moment before it was filled again.

The menu at Tamarind House is divided into dishes featuring a protein (poultry, seafood, etc); noodles and rice, where you find the standard Pad dishes and the fruity fried-rice dishes; and “Classics,” where they feature various other traditional Chinese and Thai dishes. We got a plate of steamed

dumplings to share as an appetizer, and then — banking on the idea that a restaurant’s namesake is likely to be delicious — we ordered both the Tamarind Chicken and the Tamarind Duck, as well as the Pad Thai, for dinner.

The dumplings were small but numerous: nine dumplings for $6. The dumplings themselves were decidedly average, but they were served with a delicious sweet sauce for dipping.

The Pad Thai featured both shrimp and chicken, and was available with anything from zero to three peppers-worth of spiciness. Adventurously, we ordered the twopepper level of spice. On this they delivered: Indeed, one of us was still feeling the heat 10 minutes after taking just one bite.

However, the dish could have been hotter, temperature-wise. When the Pad Thai’s rice noodles cool, they get kind of sticky

and lump together, which could have been avoided if it was served warmer.

The Tamarind Chicken was also advertised as “2 Pepper Spicy,” but it was actually much less so than the Pad Thai. Its name was misleading because it was actually a curry sauce with tamarind in it, served with red peppers, green beans and onions. The vegetables themselves were a little tough, but the chicken was moist and flavorful and the sauce was delicious. Indeed, the sauce alone served over rice would have made for a scrumptious side.

It was the Tamarind Duck that really stole the show. To make it, the chef deboned half a duck and fried it in pieces, served on a bed of broccoli, mushrooms and other vegetables, and covered in a sweet tamarind sauce.

The sauce was sweet and tangy, without any spiciness at all — perfect for people with misgivings about Thai food’s spicy

reputation. The vegetables were all cooked very well, and served as an excellent saucedelivery service. The duck was, of course, the star of the dish. Duck is a very flabby bird, and it often ends up fatty and unappealing when cooked improperly. Not so at Tamarind House: The skin was crisp and golden, and the inside was tender and juicy without being greasy. My two friends agreed that it was the best duck they’d ever tasted and joked with each other about coming back the next weekend to order the same thing.

The meal at Tamarind House exceeded all expectations, but on a college budget it was a little pricy ($45 for three people). However, this included the dumpling appetizer, and we all had leftovers to take home. Tamarind House was well worth the price and the minor trek, and I highly recommend it.

Smart cinematography and strong acting bolster sci-fi thriller ‘Limitless’ LIMITLESS

continued from page 5

sion of other characters. This exclusive focus, however, is necessary for the viewer to be drawn into Eddie’s world, and drawn in they are.

Arguably the most engaging scene in the entire film unfolds when Eddie first takes NZT. Shot from Eddie’s perspective, the viewer can practically feel his euphoric, genius rush of invincibility and feel his thrill of success as he navigates a prickly social situation. The cinematography also mirrors this mental transition, as the scene’s colors change from muted grays to warm, gold-based tones.

In his discovery of NZT’s powers, Eddie thinks mostly of his new mental agility, as does the viewer. He is fascinated when he discovers his new productivity and is understandably horrified when he starts to realize the side effects of the relatively untested NZT: memory lapses and mania

when he is on the drug, then nausea and perpetual attention deficit if he stops taking his ever-increasing daily dose. The viewer’s full involvement is necessary to understand the psychological nuances of Eddie’s increasing fear as a combination of the drug’s side effects, an abstract and incredibly dangerous conglomeration of hit men and the rising pressures of his new high-flying careers start to take their toll on Eddie’s well-being.

Indeed, “Limitless” goes so far as to probe a few philosophical questions that haunt our modern society: How far does one have to go to get ahead? Is the game ever completely honest in high profile, lucrative careers? Though a fair amount of the science in “Limitless” is dubious at best, the movie certainly succeeds in conveying a relevant, thought-provoking message to its audience while garnering plenty of heart-pounding and laughs along the way.

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The Tufts Daily

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

7

Arts & Living

The Education of Shelby Knox

Sundance award-winning documentary filmmaker Shelby Knox comes to Tufts to tell you why sex isn't a bad thing when you know what you're doing.

April 6th, 8 PM Barnum 104 Brought to you by Vitality at Tufts Hillel

The Tufts Daily

8

Arts & Living

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Borrowing heavily from previous adaption, HBO’s miniseries ‘Mildred Pierce’ offers charming portrait of Depression-era family and class struggles MILDRED

continued from page 5

restaurant. The plot is driven by the conflict between Mildred and her various love interests and by the relationship between Mildred and her ridiculously highbrow 14-year-old daughter who resents the family’s middle-class status.

Veda Pierce, played in her younger incarnation by Morgan Turner and later

by Evan Rachel Wood, is the most hilariously unbelievable character in the series. Her first line is in French and her subsequent dialogue is peppered with references to Emily Brontë and Chopin.

She comes across as an intellectual, erudite version of the terrorizing tot in “The Bad Seed” (1956), scrutinizing her mother and providing obnoxiously enlightened commentary on Mildred’s life decisions.

Veda is mirrored by the character of Monty Beragon, a deviant playboy played by the smooth-talking Guy Pearce of “The King’s Speech” (2010) and “Memento” (2001). Monty and Veda both judge Mildred for lowering herself to the working class and are off-putting almost to the point of being unbearable.

Thankfully, they are balanced out by the lovely performance by Melissa Leo of “The Fighter” (2010), as a wise, fasttalking friend to Mildred. Leo provides much-needed comedic relief, and she brings the noir dialogue alive more than most of the actors with whom she shares the screen.

Despite a slow start and the occasional ridiculous dialogue, the story picks up steam by part two of the series and it eventually becomes possible to identify with Winslet’s character as she struggles to find her place in the world.

Although pacing is not the series’ strong point, there are plenty of enjoyable moments to be had in this world if you’re patient enough to find them. The main pitfalls of the series occur when the overacting is pushed too far and

MCT

Director Todd Haynes and actress Kate Winslet work on a scene for ‘Mildred Pierce.’ instead of empathizing with the characters, we can only laugh at them.

Thus far, though, the series is gener-

ally charming and engaging. By reinvigorating an antiquated genre, “Mildred Pierce” succeeds in creating a rich, warm,

FALL 2011

FALL 2011

DR 0093-02:

DR 112-01: VOCAL PERFORMANCE MW 2:00-3:45 Performance Hangar

LATINO THEATRE and FILM K+ MW 4:30-5:45

NOE MONTEZ

PROFESSOR BARBARA W. GROSSMAN

Newly-Appointed Assistant Professor of Drama This course examines the emergence of Latino theatre and film as a potent creative and political force in the United States.

Representative

works by Latino playwrights, performance artists, and filmmakers will be discussed in light of issues such as labor and immigration, gender and sexuality,

generation

gaps

in

Latino

culture,

old-fashioned world that soaks us into Mildred’s reality in the same spirit of noir films of the past.

hybridized

identities,

interculturalism, and the United States’ relationship with Latin American nations. Occasional film screenings are required. No prerequisite.

Whether your goal is performing on stage, leading a group, or speaking

effectively in public, this class will help you improve the quality of your

voice and discover a freer, fuller, more resonant and more confident

sound.

Through an exploration of various approaches to speaking

training, you will learn how to use your voice with increased power,

clarity, and skill to meet specific performance challenges. Class will

involve intense physical as well as vocal work, so come dressed to move!

No prerequisite. Enrollment limited to 18.

Tufts University Department of Drama and Dance, Aidekman Arts Center, 40 Talbot Ave., X73524

Tufts University Department of Drama and Dance, Aidekman Arts Center, 40 Talbot Ave., X73524

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

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special feature

A day in the life of Larry Bacow

Wednesday, April 6, 2011 See Jumbo Slice at blogs.tuftsdaily.com for more photos.

by Ellen Kan Photos by Meredith Klein

Daily Editorial Board

It is a well-known fact that University President Lawrence Bacow runs marathons. Yet while a 26-mile race and the confines of a Ballou Hall office seem worlds apart, his hobby and his job of presiding over a major university with three campuses and 10 schools are intrinsically connected. A glimpse into a typical day in his life reveals how marathon training perfectly prepares one for the stamina and energy that the life of a university president demands.

Bacow’s morning started, as it does every day, at 5 a.m. with a quick read of the newspapers and the emails in his inbox. As he readies to leave Gifford House at 7 a.m., he makes sure to stop and call up the stairs, where Adele is playing the flute, to say goodbye. The couple became grandparents on March 31 with the birth of their first grandchild, Adam Landon Bacow.

Mike, a public safety officer, gives Bacow a ride downtown to avoid the hassle of parking. In what is to emerge as a common theme throughout the day, Bacow spends most of the car ride glued to his BlackBerry; he receives hundreds of emails in a day and personally reads each of them.

Given that just the week before, Bacow took the bold step of declaring an end to the Naked Quad Run (NQR) — an established university tradition — many of the emails in his inbox that day feature the cancellation as their subject, including from a supportive parent sharing that her son nearly died during NQR in 2004. Bacow is fully aware of the unpopularity of his decision, expressing surprise that he has not received any angry emails.

Once the board meeting ends, Bacow quickly crosses over to the Sackler School auditorium for a Boston campus town hall meeting scheduled to take place at 10:30 a.m. These meetings are held once a semester on each of the three campuses and present an opportunity for staff and faculty to hear Bacow’s overview of the university and ask questions.

This is the final town hall meeting of the semester, and Bacow’s last. These “lasts” have been coming more frequently in recent days for Bacow, who is stepping down in June after 10 years at Tufts; just the night before, he and Adele hosted an emotional final Senior Dinner at Gifford House.

Bacow stands at the front of the auditorium alone, checking his email, but as the room fills up, he slips easily and naturally into the role of teacher and educator that is his first love. He launches into an overview of macroeconomic trends, delving into the implications for the university. The picture he paints is one of cautious optimism and, as he acknowledges later in response to a question, the worst of the economic troubles appears to be over.

A remarkably candid exchange follows Bacow’s presentation as staff and faculty voice their questions and concerns. A common sentiment in the room is anxiety over the impending departures of a number of senior administrators, including the provost and the deans of several of the university’s schools.

Bacow reiterates that the university is in a good position to weather this transitory period given that the core team of senior administrators will remain intact and that the central values of the institution will continue to serve as a firm foundation.

“The presidential search showed the strength and the integrity of the Tufts culture — our core values were clearly communicated, and they are a far deeper commitment that goes beyond just individuals,” he says.

The meeting takes a more personal turn as Bacow responds to questions about his hopes and future plans, which he defines as a more contemplative lifestyle with a mixture of service, teaching and research.

“You know, I’ve absolutely loved the job, and it was made more manageable because at the start I said 10 years; there was an end point and I could pace myself.

But at the end of 10 years, I’m tired and looking forward to other things,” he says.

Bacow is excited to once again have the time to enjoy the luxury of boredom after leaving his hectic life at Tufts. He also looks forward to spending more time with Adele and his new grandchild, reading recreationally and sailing.

“I’ve enjoyed these conversations and the opportunity to be in a ‘classroom.’ The future of this institution is incredibly bright; it’s a special place with a really dedicated team of individuals,” Bacow says as his final town hall meeting draws to a close. His words are greeted with an extended round of applause, a reception that visibly moves him.

The first item on the day’s agenda is a Tufts Medical Center Board of Directors meeting.

Although the hospital and university are distinct entities, Bacow sits on the board of the medical center, the School of Medicine’s principal teaching hospital. The hospital and the university buildings share a connecting walkway that serves as a physical manifestation of the close institutional link between them.

Bacow has his first meal of the day at the board meeting, helping himself to the bagels, fruit and tea set out in the boardroom while making conversation with fellow board members, one of whom is a former student of his from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Every remaining meal of the day will similarly be eaten on the job at various appointments and functions.

“I call myself the university stomach — I eat for Tufts. And that’s why I have to run, so that I can eat,” he says.

Following a few jokes about upcoming retirements, the board’s work progresses quickly.

For the first 90 minutes, board members listen to and deliberate on briefings by the hospital’s senior administration on major developments and updates, including recent labor negotiations with the nurses’ union. The board also votes to pass a number of resolutions, including one to make the medical center campus a tobacco-free zone.

The meeting then shifts for the remaining hour into an executive session to plan for upcoming leadership transitions: Like Bacow, Tufts Medical Center President and CEO Ellen Zane, widely credited for the once-flailing hospital’s transformation and revival, is stepping down from her position later this year.

There is little time to linger after the meeting as Bacow moves on to the medical school to participate in Match Day, a ceremony in which fourth-year medical students at Tufts and across the country find out where they will be serving their residencies.

Amid a tense and buzzing atmosphere, the medical school’s dean and the dean of students deliver their remarks to the nervous students, many decked in green for St. Patrick’s Day. Bacow joins in the champagne toast and looks on as the room erupts in shouts, screams, laughter and tears as students receive their match letters. The

class of 2011 has done extremely well, with many placing into highly competitive specializations and programs.

Bacow receives an honorary match letter of his own and laughs appreciatively as he reads that he was found not a match for Tufts but instead had been assigned to “relaxation in Hawaii.”

He grabs a plate of food from the prepared lunch reception and, as he eats standing, begins to clear the emails that have amassed over the course of the last hour. It is not long, however, before he has to duck out to field two phone calls, one regarding Tufts’ study abroad program in Japan and the other from a trustee.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Bacow returns to the medical center, where he is scheduled to have a working lunch with Zane at 12:30 p.m. The two make it a point to meet monthly to ensure that the relationship between their respective institutions is one of mutually beneficial collaboration. These lunches are a reflection of years of deliberate effort at relationship-building and mark a departure from the conflictridden time of their predecessors. In fact, for a time, the hospital dropped “Tufts” entirely from its name and had a crimson logo.

The New England Medical Center has since become the Tufts Medical Center and adopted the typography and color scheme of

The Tufts Daily the Tufts logo in a deliberate blurring of lines.

“We have changed from conflict to co-dependency. This is not a power struggle but a relationship of equals,” Bacow says.

The chemistry between Bacow and Zane is obvious, and the two have developed a certain level of ease around each other. To his disappointment, Bacow’s boxed lunch came without dessert, and Zane offers up her mint chocolate chip brownie in response. One gets the sense that this is a meeting of minds — the coming together of two individuals who have a unique grasp of the intricacies and complexities of leading large influential organizations and are committed to putting aside their egos to work together and iron out their differences.

By 1:30 p.m., Bacow is done with his engagements on the Boston campus and heads back to Medford. En route to Ballou Hall, he comes across a tour group and stops to give a spiel about how to pick a school. The group of parents and prospective students seem shocked that the university president is addressing them. While Bacow has plenty of advice to give, he steers clear of a hard sell of Tufts.

Back in his office at 2 p.m., Bacow has his first down time since 7 in the morning. He proceeds to clear his mail with the help of his assistant Elise, whom he has known since 1972 — longer than he has known Adele.

As he looks through his mail, he dictates his responses to Elise. Many of the letters come from individuals writing to introduce themselves and request meetings. One in particular is from the president of Dartmouth College, who asks him to join in a group examining the problem of high-risk drinking.

Bacow then returns phone calls and touch-

Bacow spends his evening at the Westin Copley Place Boston Hotel, where he is being honored at a gala fundraiser dinner for Bottom Line, an organization that helps lowincome, first-generation college students in the Boston area get admitted to and graduate from college.

Asked to assess his day, he says, “I feel like I haven’t done much, actually. Well, we got some stuff done this afternoon, moving forward on some decisions. But a lot of it is ceremonial, like this morning.”

Bacow breaks down his role as university president into two key components: running the university and representing the university, the latter a more symbolic function that took some getting used initially but which he has come to accept as part of the job.

Adele and her mother, who is in town, join him for the dinner. He estimates that he and his wife dine

11

special feature

privately two to three times in a month; the rest of the time he is either attending a function, hosting a function or traveling.

But the dinner is far from all work and no play. As two individuals approach the couple, there is an eruption of gaiety and laughter as Bacow turns and introduces Patti and Lynn, saying, “These are our dearest friends in the whole world.”

When most of them were new to the city, the group gathered for dinner and continue to do so 34 years later as a close, tight-knit group of friends who have essentially been each other’s Bostonian family.

Tufts has one table at the “Get In, Graduate, and Go Far Dinner,” and present at the dinner are the Bacows, Jeka, Director of Public Relations Kim Thurler, Senior Legal Counsel Deke Mathieu, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Lee Coffin and Associate Director of Enrollment Walker Coppedge.

His staffers’ ease with him is evident at the table, and jokes abound throughout the live auction, with Coffin suggesting a bid for the vacation packages so that the admissions office can go on an exotic retreat.

Bottom Line Executive Director Gregory Johnson opens the dinner, which he calls a collective effort to end the educational completion crisis. Johnson introduces Bacow as the night’s honoree with a string of NQR jokes, drawing laughter from the room. Throughout the night,

Bottom Line students share their success stories of having overcome incredible odds to graduate with distinction. Bacow is being honored as a champion of Boston students and for Tufts’ support of the Bottom Line program — there are currently just over 20 Bottom Line students at Tufts, including one of Bacow’s former advisees.

As the night’s honoree, Bacow will be delivering the keynote and throughout the dinner, he takes notes and modifies the speech outline he has prepared. His chief of staff, Michael Baenen, says that Bacow is very “low-maintenance” when it comes to speech writing: Baenen generally provides him with a few background materials and leaves him to do the rest.

The Bacows request a vegetarian meal, and as the food is brought to the table, Bacow leans over and whispers that that same food was served at a function the week before. His dinner and conversation are punctuated with interruptions, as individuals including Tufts parents and alumni, among others, approach the table to introduce themselves.

“This is how it usually is — he can’t carry on a conversation for long because everyone wants to come up and speak to him wherever we go,” Adele says.

Tufts Bottom Line student Marian Younge, a sophomore, takes the stage to tell her story of adjusting to

es base with Adele for the first time since saying good-bye that morning. By then, the dictated letters are ready for him to sign, and he works at his computer replying to emails until Vice President of University Relations Mary Jeka arrives for their weekly meeting.

Jeka, one of a handful of administrators who report to Bacow directly on a weekly basis, oversees an office covering government relations on the state, city and national levels; community relations; legal affairs; and communications. Her meeting with Bacow today centers on budgetary decisions — the university’s budget for the upcoming year is in the process of being finalized — and Tufts’ response to the city of Boston’s proposal to institute pilot payments, where tax-exempt nonprofits have to make contributions to the city.

Provost Jamshed Bharucha, the chief academic officer of the university, then meets with Bacow to discuss the search processes and interim appointments for departing senior administrators. The administrators preferred to keep these discussions private and confidential.

life in America after she arrived with her mother and younger siblings from Ghana when she was in eighth grade. She is joined by the other Tufts students, and the Tufts contingent rises to give them a standing ovation. Bacow approaches the stage and shakes all the students’ hands before starting to deliver his address, which he has shortened, as the program is running late.

The work of Bottom Line and the stories shared that night have struck a personal chord with Bacow, who is himself the child of refugees. He reiterates his belief in the transformative power of higher education and the collective responsibility to support these students. But he goes further, challenging the Bottom Line students

to give back to the next generation in response to the opportunities that they have received.

The evening draws to a close around 10 p.m., and the Bacows head home, but the night is not yet over. A file full of preparation materials for the next day’s engagements awaits, as do the emails Bacow has yet to clear. And tomorrow he will rise again at 5 a.m., rinse and repeat, except he will be heading to Detroit to fundraise. The weekend will bring more of the same.

“You know, we don’t even really know how he does it either. It really is a lifestyle and not just a career,” Coffin says. Where does Bacow find the energy to do this day after day?

“That’s why I run marathons,” he says shrugging his shoulders.

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12

THE TUFTS DAILY 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 Devon Colmer Erin Marshall Alex Miller Louie Zong Craig Frucht Kerianne Okie Michael Restiano Joshua Youner

Executive Op-Ed Editor Op-Ed Editors

Editorial | Letters

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

editorial

Moussa Koussa decision a good strategy for Libya

The Obama administration announced on Monday that financial sanctions it imposed last month against Moussa Koussa, Libya’s former foreign minister, have been dropped.

The move follows Koussa’s recent defection to the United Kingdom.

Despite being free at the moment, Koussa has not been granted immunity regarding any possible criminal charges. So long as it follows certain conditions, the removal is a positive move by the administration.

Koussa’s reward was issued as a way to encourage other Qaddafi officials to follow suit. The financial sanctions against Libya and its leaders have served as a tool to weaken Libya economically. Now they will also be used as leverage against Qaddafi, enticing his top officials to resign and defect.

Evidence is mounting that there is much internal conflict within Qaddafi’s camp. There is speculation that one of Qaddafi’s seven sons will eventually replace him as leader. There seems to be little agreement on which of his sons it will be, though Seif al-Islam, who is relatively moderate, is the apparent frontrunner. Regardless, it seems as

though a relative stalemate has arisen between Qaddafi’s forces and the rebels, with NATO unwilling to pursue more intrusive military intervention.

For these reasons, a strategy with the objective of undermining Qaddafi’s rule is wise.

Notwithstanding the strategically beneficial aspects of dropping the sanctions, there are moral issues that must be addressed. Koussa is widely suspected of being behind the 1988 airplane bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people, mostly Americans. He has also been implicated for helping to supply terrorist groups with weapons, notably the Irish Republican Army. As Libya’s ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1980, Koussa publicly approved of his country’s practice of hunting down and murdering Qaddafi opponents worldwide.

At first blush, this seems like the last man the United States should be assisting in a graceful, dignified step-down from power. The European Union, in fact, has maintained sanctions on his assets on its side of the Atlantic. But immunity for any of Koussa’s offenses

has not been granted. Koussa fled to London of his own accord and can still be tried. And if the unfreezing of the former leader’s U.S. assets spark further defection, then it is not only an acceptable move to make but a prudent one.

Using Koussa’s case as an example, the administration is attempting to indirectly debilitate Qaddafi and his regime. With the international community almost certainly unwilling to invade or take military action beyond the no-fly zone and naval embargo, the sanctions are an effective supplement.

Using them in this new dimension will also be a useful way to help dismantle Qaddafi’s loosening grip on Libya.

It is clear that such dealings could become rife with corruption if not handled correctly. So far, however, it seems as though the administration and foreign governments have been handling the issue in good faith. If the international community follows the pattern begun with Koussa, in which no immunity was granted to a man once referred to as the “envoy of death” by intelligence officials, the strategy will remain effective and morally sound.

Alex Miller

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Off the Hill | University of Southern California

Drilling proposal must make safety a priority by

Kastalia Medrano The Daily Trojan

April of last year was shaping up to be just another normal month. The weather was warming up. We were preparing for finals. Larry King had just left his seventh wife.

And suddenly, there was that really big oil spill, the one that killed 11 workers, thousands of friendly sea creatures and potentially [1] million jobs.

You’d think we would have lost our appetite for offshore drilling for at least a year.

But [on] March 29, House Republicans proposed several bills calling for a slew of new oil drilling projects off the coast of Southern California, and several other locations, within the next five years.

At the moment, the Pacific [coast] is free of oil rigs, safe under President Barack Obama’s wing. Republicans in the House are working to change that.

Many people’s knee-jerk reaction is probably along the lines of, “This is a horrible, horrible idea.”

That reaction might be right. So many different explanations and sketchy facts surrounded last year’s spill, it’s hard for the public to gauge whether any real changes in safety precautions

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.

have been made since then.

Still, as much as most of us hate the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe and, by association, BP, some might be able to grudgingly concede the accident was an anomaly. Statistically, the chances of a similar disaster are low.

But the new bills proposed in the House hold the familiar, faintly sinister ring of oil-hungry higher-ups rushing a delicate process. “[This is the] same pre-spill mentality of speed over safety that was held

by BP and others,” said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) in [The] Los Angeles Times.

Nervous yet?

To be fair, Republicans in the House are not pushing for new drilling sites for no reason.

The proposed bills are a direct result of the recent spike in gas prices, which caused many politicians to emphasize the need to decrease our dependence on foreign oil.

This might mean springing for new offshore drilling sites is actually our best bet.

But even if that’s the case, there’s no reason to rush into such a controversial and potentially dangerous decision.

Gas prices have risen before and will almost certainly rise again. We can

take a little more time to consider our options, to explore incentives for alternative energy and carpools or even to tap into our national oil reserves, though that last point is a controversial decision in and of itself.

If the Interior Department and all parties involved are confident in the strides our safety systems have made since the Deepwater Horizon spill — and can prove that key improvements have been made — then adding new drilling sites might be viable.

If not, the House is playing chicken on the Pacific Ocean’s railroad tracks.

High gas prices aren’t enough to warrant risking the same disaster twice if nothing has changed.

Last May, Rush Limbaugh famously proclaimed, “The ocean will take care of [the Deepwater Horizon spill] on its own if it was left alone and left out there. It’s natural. It’s as natural as the ocean water is.”

Even if we could accept for a moment that such a proclamation might be true, new offshore drilling rigs mean we’re no longer “leaving it alone.”

Without substantial improvement to our safety measures, it’s at best a gamble. At worst … well, we can look forward to Limbaugh’s attempt to make us feel better about it.

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Wednesday, April 6, 2011

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13

Op-Ed Prashanth Parameswaran | The Asianist

Gandhi tests Indian democracy

M daily file photo

Thoughts on the liberal university by

Pat Andriola

In its latest edition, The Primary Source criticized a proposal that would require Tufts students to take a course on social justice. The Source claimed it opposed the incursion of politics into the university, regardless of whether the politics were liberal or conservative. This first raises the issue of whether or not this proposal truly is liberal and then, even if it is, if that fact necessarily makes it a bad decision.

Although this proposal appears to be liberal, I believe that the Source is seeking to politicize social inequality by turning an educational issue into a partisan one. The course-specific emphasis on a form of oppression should not be characterized as being on any side of the aisle just because the studied power imbalance favors one group at the expense of the other. We do not shy away from learning about the horrors committed

by Stalin and Mao because we are worried about students rejecting communism, nor do we ignore the American Revolution because it may rile up nationalistic and jingoistic fervor. If the Source, in response, were to say that the messages taken away from those events are not as “bad” as the one taken away from a class on social justice, then they are simply injecting their own moral values into the classroom, something they are ironically supposed to be opposing.

However, the idea that Tufts ought to towards making certain moral judgstray from its liberal inclinations also ments about societal institutions, but seems to be political in nature; real- one must wonder why this is a bad ly, this is a group of conservatives who thing. If students are presented with hisare unhappy with what they view as tory, are then allowed to read differing a potentially liberal university policy. viewpoints on the matter (which hapUnfortunately for the Source, Tufts is a pens frequently in these classes), and socially progressive institution of higher then allowed to discuss issues openly learning; from the faculty to students, as a class, I think they have been given Jumbos tend to be left-leaning, and the ample opportunity to internalize their community at large has embraced this own opinion. If studying history tends philosophy. Because of the inherent to bring out certain moral responses in nature of the university, Tufts is often students, it is more likely that the subject met with making decisions that overlap material is simply eliciting already-held with political issues. Students on campus moral convictions rather than instilling are able to get free condoms and partici- them itself. pate in LGBT organizations, permissions Nobody takes issue with the moral that may be considered “leftist.” For Tufts lessons taught regarding slavery and segto never make policy decisions because regation, yet when we try to study why their rationale could be deemed as ideo- these tragic phenomena occur, we are logical would make the system horribly told that it could affect our viewpoints. I wonder what the Source is afraid people inefficient and insanely unproductive.

What the Primary Source does not may learn. The Source continuously steseem to understand is that the study of a reotypes these courses as being more subject is not the endorsement of a view- about indoctrination than education. point. In classes on social inequalities, This characterization is not only biased students are not asked to pick out the and factually incorrect, but offensive at “good guys” and “bad guys” on their final its core. For the Source, it is easy to poke exams, nor are they given lectures that fun at others for “hurt feelings” when indicate who was “right” and who was they consistently ignore the reasons why “wrong.” In these classes students learn people may be upset in the first place. the abundant history of inequality in society; to deny the history of discrimination is simply to euphemize atrocities. Pat Andriola is a senior majoring in The Source may claim that the sub- history. He is president of the Tufts ject matter itself can guide the students Debate Team.

Off the Hill | University of Michigan

Religion is becoming extinct by

Dar-Wei Chen

The Michigan Daily

As society enters the Information Age, more can be questioned and researched.

Everything is on the table, even deeply held personal beliefs like religion. A recent study by the University of Arizona and Northwestern University suggests that religion, and Christianity in particular, “will be driven toward extinction” in nine countries in the near future. This trend, while disturbing to people of faith, makes sense as Internet access becomes more widespread across the world.

Contact with people of other faiths can cause people to question whether they picked the right one: How do you know you have picked the right deity to believe in? Literally millions of gods have existed over the course of mankind, making the chance somewhat slim that yours is the real one.

The trend also makes sense because scientific progress can refute many of the basic tenets in holy texts. For example, scientists now know that the Earth is billions of years old, not several thousand as implied in the Bible. The stories about Jonah and the Whale, as well as Noah’s Ark, can also be safely assumed to be fictional, due to knowledge of digestive acids and fossil records, respectively (if you think the Bible is allegorical, those are your words, not God’s). The new religions are equally as wacky: Scientologists believe that Xenu, dictator of the Galactic Confederacy,

brought billions of people to Earth and blew them up with hydrogen bombs in volcanoes, whose souls are stuck to the bodies of the living today. How they decided this story was more believable than Noah’s Ark is beyond me. But if you say I cannot prove God doesn’t exist, I say you can’t prove Xenu doesn’t exist.

Many of my friends, even religious ones, would admit that their holy texts have stories that cannot be taken seriously. They even admit many of the laws in those books are draconian (by the way, how can a deity be omnipotent if he can’t make rules that stand the test of time?).

However, they usually argue that religion has produced a net positive effect for the world. Even if their chosen faith is not believable and their deity’s rules are blatantly immoral, the spirit of their religion is a good one, they say. It’s amazing how many people admit to thinking this, somehow implying that they don’t believe in their religion and subscribe to it like they are supposed to. Some nonbelievers defend religion in this way, suggesting that it is beneficial to mankind.

I take issue with the statement that religion has been good for the world.

Believers say that faith-based groups perform charitable work to help those in need and give hope to those in pain.

I do not discount that — people have indeed been lifted up through faith.

However, those good deeds come at a price: keeping the “religion excuse” alive. Historically, religion has caused much violence — the Crusades and the

Inquisition to name two. Nowadays, religion causes Middle East violence, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, subjugation of homosexuals, abortion clinic bombings and countless other ghastly events. Of course, many believers will say their religious beliefs do not imply the endorsement of those violent activities. True. But as long as faith is used as the vehicle for these good deeds, and religion permeates as a result, others will always have the “religion excuse” to do terrible things.

Physicist Steven Weinberg once said that in a regular society, you will have “good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things … for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”

Mankind has already proven that it can do secularly all the good things that faith groups do, but without the aforementioned complications. If we can eradicate religion and do charitable works from the goodness of our hearts, and not because of a higher power, we not only show true compassion, but we also eliminate a few of the good people doing evil things that Weinberg talked about.

Religion does not make much sense anymore in the 21st century. The Internet and science are exposing many religious beliefs that have been accepted for a long time. Furthermore, secularism is showing it’s more than capable of providing charity and hope to those in need — and without religious baggage. The only thing secularism can’t do is provide a deity to save you … but how likely is it that your deity is the right one anyway?

ohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the deified father of modern India, was quick to remind his followers that he was seduced by the same desires as they were. “I am of the earth, earthy. ... I am prone to as many weaknesses as you are,” Gandhi is thought to have once quipped.

Yet some Indians are still unwilling to acknowledge the earthiness of their “Mahatma” (Great Soul). A fresh book on Gandhi, “Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India” (2011) by former New York Times executive editor Joseph Lelyveld, has been slapped with bans in Indian states for alleging that he was a bisexual and racist. Gujarat, Gandhi’s birthplace, has censured the book even before its release in India, and others are mulling it over. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India’s main opposition party, has even proposed a nationwide ban.

As with many a literary controversy, the brouhaha seems to be more about a book review than the book itself. Andrew Roberts, a British historian, penned a scathing Wall Street Journal piece dismissing Gandhi as “a sexual weirdo, a political incompetent and a fanatical faddist.” The book itself paints a generally admiring portrait of Gandhi but does take him to task for racism against South African “kaffirs” and quotes effusive letters from him to German-Jewish architect Hermann Kallenbach, with whom Gandhi lived in South Africa before World War I. Much of the discussion since has focused on the specifics of the allegations and what it says about Gandhi. How could Mahatma, someone known for his austerity and celibacy, write passionately of how cotton wool and Vaseline constantly reminded him of another man? Is this the act of a disturbed man who never forgave himself for making love to his wife when his ailing father passed away? Or was this just another one of Gandhi’s tests to not succumb to corporeal desires (in the same way his experiments sleeping next to naked women and “nightly cuddles” with his 17-year-old great-niece were)?

Yet all this psychoanalytical drivel is irrelevant. More important is what this will mean for India as the world’s largest democracy. In the coming weeks, Indians may be eager to defend their leader from blasphemous attacks, and the BJP and Congress Party may look to score political points by playing to fierce nationalist fervor. There may even be a temptation to enact a nationwide ban, since the Indian constitution does allow for “reasonable restrictions” on offensive speech and Indian officials have often censored movies, books and art.

But while a ban might be legal, it is not the wisest course. The best way to pay tribute to Gandhi’s legacy is to preserve the freedom that he fought for — which includes the freedom of expression. Freedom, Gandhi once said, was never dear at any price, for it was the breath of life. Indians may have to contend with others digging up parts of their leaders’ pasts that they would prefer to bury, but they ought not to pour cold water over their ideals just because they cannot acknowledge the earthiness of their founders. Freedom of speech ought to apply not only to topics that Indians feel comfortable talking about but also to stigmatized ones like homosexuality.

Tushar, Gandhi’s great-grandson, has made it clear that “draconian, anti-democratic measures” on the pretext of protecting his honor “must be condemned and opposed.” One only hopes the rest of India sees the wisdom in his remarks and follows suit.

Prashanth Parameswaran is a first-year Fletcher student. He can be reached at Prashanth.Parameswaran@tufts.edu. His blog is asianist.wordpress.com.

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

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14

Comics

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Doonesbury

Crossword

by

Garry Trudeau

Non Sequitur

by

Wiley

Tuesday’s Solution

Married to the Sea

www.marriedtothesea.com

SUDOKU Level: Correctly picking the Huskies to win it all

Late Night at the Daily Tuesday’s Solution

Kochman: “I didn’t ask to see his ID; I just took him at his word that his name was Manny Ramirez.”

Please recycle this Daily.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

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Thursday, April 7, 2011 4:30pm Fung House, 48 Professors Row Q&A and Reception to follow

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Sports

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tuftsdaily.com

Tuesday night lights: No. 1 Tufts glides by Bates

Equestrian

No “neighsayers” as Tufts wins region for first time in 11 years by

Ben Kochman

Daily Editorial Board

Andrew Morgenthaler/Tufts Daily

The men’s lacrosse team shined in its first night game at Bello Field this season, holding off a second-half surge from Bates to beat the Bobcats 18-9. Junior attackman Sean Kirwan and senior quad-captain attackman Ryan Molloy led the Jumbos with four goals apiece, and freshman Patton Watkins had 16 saves in his second collegiate start.

Women’s lacrosse

Tufts bashes Babson on the road, 15-4 Eight Jumbos found the back of the net yesterday as the No. 12 women’s lacrosse team trampled non-league opponent Babson, 15-4.

Tufts surged to a 9-0 lead and gave up one goal before halftime to carry a 9-1 advantage into the start of the second half. The Beavers scored twice to open up the later period, cutting the deficit to 9-3, but the Jumbos responded with three straight goals to jump ahead 12-3 and put the game out of reach for good.

Junior attackmen Casey Egan, Lara Kozin and Kelly Hyland scored three goals apiece, while Kozin and Egan each had two assists, as did freshman attack-

man Gabby Horner. Egan, Kozin and Hyland are the team leaders in points with 30, 29 and 19, respectively.

Tufts outshot Babson 39-16, had a 24-11 advantage on ground balls and forced 13 turnovers.

Beavers freshman Ashley Martin scored two goals, as Babson fell to 3-7 on the year. They have now lost four in a row.

With the victory, the Jumbos improved to 6-2 overall and now have won five straight games. On Saturday, they will welcome undefeated Trinity to Bello Field for a crucial conference showdown.

—by Aaron Leibowitz

After disappointing third-place finishes at the first two shows of the spring season, the equestrian team’s dream of winning Zone 1, Region 4 was in doubt. Lackluster performances at the March 5 show in Medway, Mass., hosted by Wellesley College, and the March 13 event in Pembroke, Mass., hosted by Mount Ida College, meant that the 24-rider coed club squad’s lead in the region standings had dissolved, and perennial power Stonehill College, a varsity team, had wrested back the top spot.

An all-too-familiar storyline was once again unfolding for the veterans on the Tufts’ roster.

“At that point, a lot of us were thinking, ‘I guess we’ll just finish second again in the region to Stonehill,’” senior co-captain Katie Christiansen said.

Christiansen had good reason to be skeptical. Before this spring, Stonehill had represented the 11-team Zone 1, Region 4 at the Zones tournament seven years running and even won an Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (IHSA) national championship in 2003.

Stonehill led Tufts 297-288 heading into the regular season’s final weekend, a pair of shows on March 26 and 27. But by outscoring the Skyhawks 45-33 on March 26 at August Farm in Holliston, Mass. — the same place where the Jumbos practice — Tufts boosted itself back into contention.

And after the team finished first again the next afternoon at Saddle Rowe in Medway, Mass., the dream of winning Regionals that had eluded Tufts since 2000 became a reality, with one look at

the final standings: Tufts 372, Stonehill 262.

“It’s always been our goal to win the region,” Christiansen said. “The first two shows in the spring were rocky, but we made a huge comeback. This has been a long time coming, and we finally did it.”

Tufts’ already-impressive season got even better on Saturday at the regional meet at Holly Hill Farm in Hanover, Mass., when four individual riders — Christiansen and freshman Audrey Carlson in the open flat, and sophomores Risa Meyers in the intermediate fences and David Eder in the walk-trot — all qualified for the individual show at Zones next Saturday at the Mt. Holyoke College Equestrian Center by finishing in the top two in their respective events.

An eight-rider Tufts team will compete against the winners of the three other regions — Brown, which boasts the most individual Regional qualifies in the Zone with 13; University of New Hampshire; and Mt. Holyoke, which will be competing on its home course using familiar horses — in the team show on Saturday. The top two teams at Zones qualify for IHSA Nationals, which this year will be held May 5-8 in Lexington, Ky., at the Kentucky Horse Park.

Christiansen, who was voted Captain of the Year by the region’s coaches and ended the regular season as the thirdhighest scorer in the region, likes Tufts’ chances to advance.

“It’s going to be hard because those are some good teams, and Mt. Holyoke will have a home-field advantage,” she said. “I feel optimistic about our chances to make Nationals, though if our season ended now it would still be see EQUESTRIAN, page 18

Men’s Rugby

Rugby club ranked ninth nationally after semifinals appearance A larger-than-usual team, upperclassman leadership make the Jumbos hopeful for next season by

Lauren Flament

Daily Editorial Board

The success of the Tufts University Rugby Football Club (TURFC) this fall did not go unnoticed. The season, highlighted by a trip to the semifinals of the New England Rugby Football Union (NERFU), earned the Jumbos a top-10 national ranking.

The National Small College Rugby Organization (NSCRO) released the rankings earlier this year, naming the top 20 Div. III rugby programs. Tufts came in at ninth on the list.

The rankings are not only a testament to TURFC’s strength, but also to the skill across New England, with the region’s top four teams ranked among the top nine on the national list.

In the New England semifinals this past fall, Tufts fell in a close match to Springfield, who sits in sixth on the NSCRO poll. Salve Regina went on to win the region and earn a spot atop the latest rankings, as well as a chance for a bid to Nationals this spring.

For New England teams, the NSCRO looks at the fall season, while for many other parts of the country — the teams which compete during the spring — the rankings are based off early spring-season matches combined with results from 2010.

For Tufts, the fall sea-

Daily File Photo

The men’s rugby team will practice and scrimmage all spring to prepare to defend its top-10 ranking next fall. son opened with a bang; the Jumbos did not allow a single point in their first four games.

Their fifth match, however, was a wake-up call: On Oct. 16, 2010, Colby scored on Tufts in the first two minutes and held

on for a 25-17 win.

But the Jumbos rallied back even stronger after their loss, winning their final two games and ending the regular season leading the Div. III North Conference, with a 6-1 record.

The Jumbos led their division in points scored (207) by over 50 and allowed over 50 fewer points than any other team in the division. In fact, Tufts’ 45 points allowed was the lowest among all 32 teams in Div. III.

“We got the No. 1 seed in our conference going into New Englands, [which] was really big was for us, and it gave us home field for the first round,” junior co-captain Gabe Perrone said. “Then we beat Eastern Connecticut State at home, which was exciting.”

The loss to Springfield ended the Jumbos’ season, leaving them with a final record of 7-2.

Co-captains Perrone and Kyle Boutin, also a junior, both attribute the program’s gains in the past few years to the leadership and the new attitude athletes have adopted.

“Our committed coach, Bob Ryman, has been here for the past three years, and Gabe Perrone was rookie captain two years ago, and he was captain last year too, so he’s been a constant on the team,” Boutin said. “There’s been strong leadership, and they’ve made sure that we’ve had crisp practices, that people are committed and that we’ve had a brotherhoodlike team vibe.”

The team thrived this fall under the leadership of cocaptains Perrone and senior Andrew Ward, before Boutin took over the position this spring. Boutin and Perrone will lead the team next semester alongside TURFC President Asher Rosenfeld, a junior. see MEN’S RUGBY, page 18

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Sailing

Tufts catches a second wind midway through spring semester Strong finishes at five regattas this past weekend leave Jumbos confident in future by

Nick Woolf

Daily Staff Writer

Neither stormy conditions nor a jampacked schedule could stop the No. 12 coed sailing team from building upon its recent success: The Jumbos rolled to three topfive finishes this past weekend, including a first-place at the Mystic Lake Team Race Invitational.

“We were really excited to go into the first big team race event of the season and our expectations were pretty high,” junior quad-captain Massimo Soriano said. “As a team, we wanted to prove ourselves on the circuit and show that we can be a contender in team racing.”

The squad performed impressively despite sending teams to five different regattas this past weekend, finishing third in the BU

Trophy at Boston University, second in the Tyrell Trophy at the University of Connecticut and winning the Mystic Lake Team Race. After moving up three spots to No. 12 in the most recent Sailing World release on March 23, the Jumbos might see another boost in the rankings after this coming weekend’s results.

Hosting their first regatta of the spring, the Jumbos entered the Mystic Lake Team Race Invitational with high expectations and left with their third victory of the spring. Tufts dominated all three rounds of the competition, going 20-3 overall, against the likes of No. 2 Boston College (16-7) and No. 4 Roger Williams (16-7).

“We were extremely happy about our team-racing squad winning the invite at home,” Soriano said. “It makes us confident knowing that we’re practicing against a good B-team and can count on them to push us

Crew

Tufts kicks off spring at home

Mixed results for men’s and women’s squads

Daily Editorial Board

The men’s and women’s crew teams began their respective spring seasons this past weekend with a regatta at home on the Malden River, competing in head-to-head races in varsity eights, varsity fours and novice eights.

Both squads hosted Vermont, Tulane and Hamilton on the 2,000-meter course, and the women also took on Mount Holyoke and Simmons. No overall team scoring was kept.

Much of the Jumbos’ success came on Sunday. The women, who raced three varsity eights, a varsity four and two novice eights over the course of the weekend, earned three victories on the day — one from their second varsity eight, one from their first varsity eight and one from their lone varsity four.

The first varsity eight blew away Tulane by 25 seconds in a time of 7:43.8 and the other two wins came against Hamilton, with the second varsity eight defeating the Continentals in 7:15.4 and the varsity four winning in 8:50.4.

The women’s first varsity eight on Saturday went winless, but the second and third varsity eights picked up the slack, each defeating Mount Holyoke and Simmons. The second eights edged out Mount Holyoke by just six seconds (7:34.9) and beat Simmons by nine secby

Aaron Leibowitz

onds (7:45.2). Meanwhile, the third varsity eight handled Mount Holyoke in 8:23.3 and Simmons in 8:03.0. The first and second novice eights each added one victory on Saturday as well.

Tough weather conditions played a large role in the outcome of this weekend’s races.

“There was a big headwind this weekend, so the times posted might look slower,” senior Bianca Velayo said.

“Especially if you compare times from earlier in the morning to later in the afternoon, they get slower, not because we got slower but because the wind picked up.”

Still, the third varsity eight and the varsity four were each undefeated for the weekend, and the team feels good about its performance.

“Overall we are feeling very positive,” Velayo said. “It was just a great opportunity for us to finally compare ourselves to other schools — see what we have to work on, see what kind of strength and power we’ve built over winter training.

We’re all encouraged and feel like it’s a really good start.”

On the men’s side, the team entered a varsity eight, two varsity fours and a novice eight. Although the men won only a few races, both first varsity boats came away with wins on Sunday.

see CREW, page 19

everyday. The fact that they managed to step up and win the event was definitely one of the highlights of the weekend.”

Freshman David Liebenberg and sophomores Andrew Meleney and Will Hutchings skippered the three boats for the Jumbos in the team race, while senior Sally Levinson, sophomore Mackenzie Loy, also an assistant layout editor for the Daily, and freshmen Kathleen Kwasniak and Julie Pringle rotated as crew.

Another highlight of the weekend came from freshman Willem Sandberg. In the BU Trophy, the B-Division boat of Sandberg and sophomore Amelia Quinn, also a features editor for the Daily, paved the way for the Jumbos’ third-place finish. Sandberg and Quinn came in second out of 14 other B-Division boats.

“That was a really big regatta for

[Sandberg],” Soriano said. “We were really psyched to see [him] fight it out right up until the last race to get second in the division.”

The most competitive event of the weekend took place at the Southern New England Team Race Intersectional at the Coast Guard Academy, where the Jumbos sent a group including Soriano, senior quad-captain Margaret Rew and freshman standout William Haeger to compete. The squad managed to win seven races but, due to losses to the three other teams that finished with 7-8 records, dropped to 10th place overall after a tiebreaker. Despite this, the team recorded wins against No. 7 Yale, No. 10 Hobart and No. 11 Stanford.

“All of the New England teams sent their top teams to the regatta, so it was definitely one see SAILING, page 19

Experienced leaders Perrone and Boutin to lead Jumbos into future MEN’S RUGBY

continued from page 17

“Upperclassmen leadership has definitely been more solid than in the past, and we’ve brought in a lot of younger kids,” Perrone said. “We’ve tried to transition the team attitude into one that works really hard and wants to win just as much as any other team.”

Each year, the team builds off freshman newcomers. According to Boutin, it is uncommon for any of the athletes to have played rugby before coming to Tufts. Rather, most kids come from backgrounds of soccer, lacrosse or football.

Another big accomplishment for the team this season was the number of athletes who ended up sticking with the program. In the past, many interested at the beginning of the fall tended to steer away by the end of the semester.

TURFC finished the season with around 40 members.

“We probably had the most kids [ever] join and stay with rugby this year,” Perrone said. “It’s hard the first couple years you play, because some kids don’t pick it up as quickly as others, so you might have to go through a few years playing B-side or not playing much time, but hopefully we get those kids sticking with it, because junior and senior year, they’re the big contributors.”

Ending their season just two wins

away from earning a bid to Nationals for the second year in a row, the Jumbos have a hunger to build off their performance next fall.

“Our main goals are to try and win New Englands and improve upon what we did last year,” Boutin said. “We have a solid returning pack, so we think we can make it the next furthest step and make it to Nationals.”

While the NERFU competes only during the fall, the athletes use all school year to prepare for the season, attending captains’ practices a few times a week to get into shape or joining other leagues to gain more experience.

The team is also planning its first annual alumni weekend to celebrate its success and the support its found from TURFC alumni.

“We’ll have an alumni game, which will be a bunch of college kids playing a bunch of old guys trying to relive their college days, so that should be pretty fun to watch,” Perrone said.

The team is optimistic about the athletes and the skills it carries to next year, and will be ready to prove that a top-10 national ranking is what it deserves — and where it will stay.

“We’ve been doing really well the past three years, and we’ve played really consistently, so we are just trying to improve upon that in the fall,” Boutin said.

Freshmen and sophomores provide team’s depth as riders aim for Nationals EQUESTRIAN

continuedfrom page 17

a success.”

Tufts’ usurping of Stonehill for the regional crown is a true underdog — er ... underhorse — story. While the Skyhawks are a varsity team with oncampus facilities, Tufts’ riders travel 45 minutes to Holliston in order to practice. And as a club team, Tufts must raise thousands of dollars to even afford to compete in a highly expensive sport, because of limited funding from the Tufts Athletics Department, riders on the team said.

“We don’t have the same types of resources that Stonehill does,” Christiansen said. “We have to pay for our coaches, entry fees and practices.

Being on the team at Tufts is a financial burden.”

Christiansen is the undisputed lead-

er of this team, but its depth lies in the underclassmen. Sophomores Hannah Tadley, Demi Marks and co-captain Kennon Ulicny, as well as freshman Daryl Cooley, will also compete this weekend at Zones.

“All of us are here to support and learn,” Meyers said. “We have some talented riders, but mostly we help the team with depth.”

It will take stellar performances from all of Tufts’ eight riders to advance as a team to the national show, while the four individuals are also gunning for a historic appearance. According to Christiansen, an individual berth at Nationals would be the first in her four years riding at Tufts.

“Even to win the region was exciting for us, but to win as a team or even send one individual to Nationals would be incredibly special,” she said.

Courtesy Katie christiansen

Senior co-captain Katie Christiansen, left, and freshman Audrey Carlson finished first and second, respectively, in the open flat last Saturday, earning individual bids to Zones this weekend.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

The Tufts Daily

19

Sports Brian Rowe | Calls the Shots

158 games left...

S

Courtesy Kaylee Maykranz

The women’s first varsity eight boat beat Tulane once and Hamilton twice on Sunday on the Malden river.

Women’s third varsity eight and varsity four undefeated CREW

continued from page 18

The first varsity four overcame Hamilton by seven seconds (7:31.6) in its only race of the day and the first varsity eight snuck past Vermont by just three seconds, crossing the finish line in 7:09.3.

Saturday was more of a struggle for the Jumbos, who came away with just a novice eight victory in four total races.

The first and second varsity fours were

each defeated by Vermont, while the first varsity eight lost to Tulane.

The team was slightly disappointed with Saturday’s results, but was encouraged by Sunday’s wins. The men have just six rowers on the roster and therefore had to mix and match to fill boats throughout the weekend. In addition, the Jumbos called up three members from the novice squad.

The rowers feel that the lack of depth

is both a blessing and a curse.

“It’s a problem in the sense that you have to race multiple times in a day and that tires you out,” senior Alex Ross said. “But it’s also good because there is competition for that first four, and that helps drive us.”

Tufts will compete on the Malden in its second regatta of the spring this Saturday hosting Bates and Wesleyan, among others.

Freshmen Haeger, Sandberg excel in tough conditions SAILING

continued from page 18

of the most competitive events we get to sail in,” Soriano said. “I think the most promising thing — and the results probably don’t show it — is that we were always in every single race and, in fact, we were actually leading, at some point during the race, in every single race except for one, something that was definitely a confidence booster.”

According to Soriano, the regatta was slated to be a full round robin of all 16 teams, after which, under normal circumstances, several more rounds would take place. Each new round would cut the field in half until only two teams were left. Due to shifty winds on Saturday, however, the entire regatta only consisted of one full round.

“We were never blown away speed-wise and, boat handling-wise, we never felt that we were really off the mark,” Soriano said.

“The negative thing was being a little behind on executing and finishing.”

The No. 11 women’s team competed this past weekend at the Dellenbaugh Women’s

111

Trophy hosted by Brown, placing ninth out of 17 schools. The B-Division boat, skippered by sophomore Natalie Salk, led the way for the Jumbos, accumulating two first-place finishes and two second-place finishes in her division.

“The conditions were pretty windy but [Salk] stayed pretty consistent throughout most of the regatta,” senior quad-captain Meghan Pesch said. “She did a great job.

In the A-Division, we were switching skipper-crew combos to try and find one that would work. With the tough conditions we had some good moments but just couldn’t put it all together.”

Salk said the B-Division boat put forth a strong effort, especially given the tough conditions.

“We really put it all out there and did the best that we could every single race,” Salk said. “We definitely stepped it up throughout the regatta. When the wind picked up we actually did much better. A lot of the fleet couldn’t deal with hiking as hard and that played into the wind shift big time, so that

DAILY DIGITS

2.125

definitely helped us out.”

Ultimately, the rest was out of the Jumbos’ hands and in the hands of the competition.

“The competition was pretty strong — everyone had their best sailors out there,” Pesch, who skippered the A-Division boat, said. “Its probably the last time for a while that we’re going to see some of the teams that are going to be at Nationals like Hobart and Stanford and other out-of-conference schools, so it was a good last chance to see how we stack up against them.”

The Jumbos’ unrelenting schedule doesn’t get any easier in the upcoming weeks, with the New England Dinghy Championships looming on April 16. The coed team will also co-host the Marchiando and Friis Trophies Team Race next weekend with MIT. “This week we’re really concentrating on the team race, getting set for that and building off of the hard work and confidence from the past few weekends,” Soriano said.

“But once this upcoming weekend comes to a close, we’re going to really have to switch gears.”

19

Pitches thrown by junior Kevin Gilchrist in his complete-game shutout of Bates on Saturday. The southpaw struck out six and walked none in the Jumbos’ 5-0 victory and improved to 3-1 with a 2.67 ERA for the year. Gilchrist, who now has two career complete-game shutouts, allowed 10 hits but let just one runner reach third base all afternoon. After sweeping their first NESCAC series, the Jumbos are now 9-4-1 and are riding a six-game win streak.

Freshman catcher Jo Clair’s mammoth slugging percentage during the softball team’s three-game sweep of Bates this weekend.

Clair went 7-for-8 with three home runs, eight RBIs and six runs scored in the series to earn NESCAC Player of the Week honors.

Clair leads the NESCAC with 10 homers, seven more than anyone else in the league and four shy of the Tufts single-season record.

She also leads the league in total bases (56) and slugging percentage (1.018).

Goals scored by the women’s lacrosse team against Wesleyan on April 2. In the 19-9 victory, Tufts recorded the highest goal total of any team in NESCAC play this season, adding to its league-best total of 68 goals in conference play. Tufts has not been held to single-digit goals in any game this season, and six different players have goal and point totals of 10 or more. The victory leaves Tufts tied in wins with first-place Trinity.

Pitches thrown by Cardinals pitcher Jaime Garcia in his complete-game shutout of the Padres on Sunday. The second-year southpaw fanned a career-high nine batters while allowing just four hits and two walks in his second career shutout. He gave the Cards their first win of the season while becoming the first St. Louis pitcher to toss a complete-game shutout in the first series of the year since 1984.

The (measly, compared to Jo Clair’s) MLBleading slugging percentage of Texas Rangers second baseman Ian Kinsler in the Rangers’ sweep of the Red Sox last week.

Through Sunday, Kinsler led the American League in home runs (three), runs (five) and OPS (1.971) and helped contribute to the panic that has swept across Red Sox Nation.

However, history suggests the Sox will win a game soon and that Kinsler won’t keep up his pace for 162 home runs.

1.400

15

102

Saves by freshman Patton Watkins in his first collegiate start, against Wesleyan on April 2. In the game, a convincing 15-8 victory for the defending national-champion Jumbos, Watkins faced 23 shots and played the full 60 minutes, giving a rest to regular goalkeeper Steve Foglietta, a junior, who had started every other game this season up until that point.

o we recently had this little event in the sports world called Opening Weekend. I was treated to the sight of a Jon Garland ( White Sox-style) jersey and Barry Zito (Giants) jersey for three days straight and couldn’t have been happier. Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford were written on the same lineup card, and all was right in the world.

Anyway, I’m sure many of you watched part or all of some these games, rooting for your idols and wondering what these small sample sizes prophesize for the rest of the season. Maybe you didn’t; maybe you watched some college basketball game in which you can’t name a single player. Hopefully you didn’t do that. Either way, here are some rock-solid MLB truths: Phillies-Astros: Yes, the Astros are that bad, and yes, the Phillies pitching is as good as advertised. Otherwise, Raul Ibanez looks like he’s about 87 years old, Bill Hall is still the worst player in baseball and Jimmy Rollins is out to prove he’s not completely washed up. Expect a good season for the Phillies as a whole, somewhere in the vicinity of 14 wins for the Astros and too many comments along the lines of “Wow, the Phillies’ fourth starter could be the ace of a lot of other teams!” Really, Sherlock? The Phillies have a good staff?

White Sox-Indians: Chicago’s other team is going to score a lot of runs this year. A whole lot. Yes, they came out extra hot, but I expect a top-three AL finish in runs scored. I expect a top-three finish for the Indians too ... top three in having a grand total of seven people show up to every game.

Seriously, it’s Opening Weekend! We all know the Indians are going to be awful minus Santana and Choo, but still. The White Sox will find a way to do well but not win the division, the Indians will find a way to challenge the Royals for last and everyone will continue to ignore the AL Central.

Giants-Dodgers: The defending World Series champions came out with a couple of losses, but nothing they can’t bounce back from. Lincecum will have a few more 8,000-calorie In-n-Out meals, Zito will get knocked around every five days, Pablo Sandoval will look perpetually hungry and they’ll win the West over the Rockies. The Dodgers got an early spark from Donnie Baseball, Kershaw will win the NL, Cy Young and Andre Ethier will have a huge season.

That last one might be a pipe dream purely for keeper-league fantasy purposes, but a man can hope.

Tigers-Yankees: The Yankees have a 71-year-old left side of their infield, a 41-year-old closer and precisely one reliable starter. Why do they still scare everyone? Mostly because I have nightmares they might actually trade for King Felix. Putting the best pitcher in baseball in pinstripes can only mean bad things for the rest of the league.

But until that happens, the Yankees are the slight Wild Card-favorite at best.

The Tigers have one hope for the year: to discover how Jim Leyland hasn’t had six strokes by now. Seriously, have you seen him? The man better have the closest hospital on speed dial.

Rangers-Red Sox: Texas will challenge the Red Sox for tops in the league in runs scored. They will also pan to Nolan Ryan 47 times during every home game. We get it: He’s a fat, old man who was good at throwing a baseball 25 years ago. I’m slightly more interested in what’s happening on the field.

And Boston? They just didn’t want to intimidate the league too much right out of the gate. There will be plenty of time for that when October arrives.

Brian Rowe is a senior majoring in economics. He can be reached at B.Rowe@tufts.edu.

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