The Tufts Daily - Sunday, May 22, 2022 (Commencement)

THE

INDEPENDENT

STUDENT

N E W S PA P E R

OF

TUFTS

UNIVERSITY

E S T. 1 9 8 0

T HE T UFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXXXIII, ISSUE 52

tuftsdaily.com

COMMENCEMENT

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

Sunday, May 22, 2022

2022

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THE TUFTS DAILY | IN THIS ISSUE | Sunday, May 22, 2022

tuftsdaily.com

In This Issue Investigative

TAs discuss pay disparity across different departments page 4

Students eat up the chance to work with lab-grown meat in the Kaplan Lab page 24

Overenrollment stresses community to house students off campus

Tufts administration must be more transparent with students page 47

Responsible investment in wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine

page 6

Features News

Editorial

Science

page 48

Sports

Amma Agyei on breaking barriers, student leadership page 26

Q&A: Monaco discusses the year’s successes and challenges page 10

Pena sets goals for upcoming TCU presidency page 10

John Lazur talks radical hospitality, anthropology and religious pluralism page 27

page 49

Students and their parents experiencing college together page 31

Medford residents grapple with limited tenant protections

All-American Adam Pidedjian reminisces on rugby page 53

Arts

page 12

Women’s lacrosse seniors have changed the game

Women’s volleyball makes run in NCAA Elite 8 page 54

Local newspapers merge amid changing media landscape page 14

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INVESTIGATIVE

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NEWS

A constant of Tisch College — producing changemakers year after year page 19

Tenants union perseveres in protesting LaCourt Realty page 19

A conversation with Tufts’ newest chaplains page 19

Megan Szostak discusses the arts, Tufts Daily page 36

Tufts performers gather for a concert in support of Ukraine page 37

Film industry flickers back to life after the pandemic page 41

PHOTOS

15, 18, 34

SCIENCE

24

FEATURES

26

ARTS & POP CULTURE

36

GRAPHICS

44

OPINION

46

SPORTS

49

FRONT PHOTO CREDIT: CECILIA WANG / THE TUFTS DAILY BACK PHOTO CREDIT: KATRINA AQUILINO / THE TUFTS DAILY

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Sunday, May 22, 2022 | COMMENCEMENT | THE TUFTS DAILY

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR IN CHIEF

THE TUFTS DAILY

Congratulations, Class of 2022 Dear Class of 2022, family and friends, We now reach the pinnacle of achievement, the most sacred ceremony in the American education system: commencement. To get to this moment, we have endured quite the semester, and, for our graduating class, quite the collegiate experience.

In your hands right now — or more likely on your screen — is our greatest accomplishment of the semester. The 2022 Tufts Daily Commencement Issue holds 56 pages of our very best reporting, writing, photography, filmography, audio mixing, graphic design, layout and creativity. Over the last three weeks, we have dedicated our lives to putting together our paper’s annual flagship issue. It is a culmination of everything we have worked so hard to achieve. I know very few of us read a newspaper cover-to-cover like a book nowadays, but if there’s any of our work that deserves to be fully read, I promise it’s this.

This semester, as a publication, we have written, edited, fact-checked, edited again and laid out over half a million words in 52 separate issues. We have taken hundreds of photographs, illustrated nearly as many graphics and filmed several original videos.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which banished us all from campus over two years ago, has left many student organizations reeling and redefining what it means to create community here at Tufts. For us in particular, we were forced to learn how to produce and print a product that no one was on campus to pick up. We took it as an opportunity to truly broaden and bolster our online presence.

With an increased emphasis on our multimedia sections, we have begun to transform our product from one that — since 1980 — was a print publication that also posts online to an online publication that also prints. While this transformation remains ongoing, the steps we have taken to bring our publication into the latest era of journalism have been incredible.

Along the lines of modernization, I want to share some truly exciting news with you all. I’m super psyched to announce that come next semester, the Daily is going to have a fresh online presence with a completely revamped website! The new site should allow us to present our work in the most visually appealing way possible and open the door to more interactive and modern journalism.

I’d like to thank everyone who helped us as an organization get to this point.

To our staff, the writers, editors, photographers, artists, videographers and producers, thank you for giving us the words, images, film and audio that have made it possible for this paper to exist.

To my tireless executive board, thank you for sticking with me through thick and thin, for making the difficult decisions, for putting in countless hours and for dedicating your semester to making The Tufts Daily the best it could possibly be.

To my nightly office squad — the layout and copy teams — you were what made the newsroom such a fun place to work, transforming the basement of Curtis Hall from an otherwise lifeless dungeon into an expressive, vibrant and welcoming space. For that, thank you.

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Alexander Janoff Editor in Chief

As I reach the end of my tenure as your editor in chief, I also want to take some time to express gratitude to those individuals who have supported me ever so eagerly during my time here at the Daily.

To my incredible managing board — Peri, Sam, Phoebe, Mac, Elizabeth, Kendall and Campbell — you were the best co-leaders, the best friends and the best support system out there.

Thank you for spending your semester committed to improving the way the Daily works.

To my superstar predecessors upon whom I have relied heavily for advice this semester: Maddie, Megan and Jess, thank you for teaching me how to lead a student newspaper day in and day out.

Your advice may have seemed small at the time, but the effect it had on both me and the paper is immeasurable.

Robert, I could not have asked for a better friend or mentor. You helped me ask and answer the big picture questions surrounding the Daily’s role on this campus and the not insignificant politics of running a student organization. You were my sounding board, my go-to guy. Selfishly, I wish you would never leave; I’m going to miss you so much, but I’m incredibly excited to see you walk today.

To the Class of 2022 — my graduating friends and peers — congratulations!

Revel in this moment culminating all you have accomplished. Celebrate your achievement. I can’t wait to see what comes next; the best is yet to come!

With great admiration and gratitude, Alex Editor in Chief, Spring 2022

THE 85TH MANAGING BOARD OF THE TUFTS DAILY

— EDITORIAL — PERI BAREST SAM RUSSO PHOEBE WONG Senior Editors

ELIZABETH FOSTER KENDALL ROBERTS Associate Editors Chloe Courtney-Bohl Zoe Kava Flora Meng Emily Thompson Aditya Acharya Coco Arcand Rebecca Barker Aaron Gruen Ella Kamm Sara Renkert Anton Shenk Ethan Steinberg Michael Weiskopf Fernando Cervantes Charlotte Chen Claire Ferris Olivia Field Skyler Goldberg Tess Harmon Maddy Mueller Maddy Wilson

Executive News Editor Deputy News Editors News Editors

Assistant News Editors

Delaney Clarke Executive Features Editor Juanita Asapokhai Features Editors Amelia Becker Mark Choi Chris Duncan Saya Ameli Hajebi Assistant Features Editors

Sam Dieringer Sophie Wax Kaitlyn Wells

Maeve Hagerty Executive Arts Editor Jack Clohisy Arts Editors Sadie Leite Ellie Lester Yonatan Margalit Colette Smith Megan Szostak Drew Weisberg Emmy Wenstrup RaiAnn Bu Assistant Arts Editors

Henry Chandonnet Siavash Raissi Carl Svahn

Faye Shen Li Thijssen Executive Opinion Editor Elizabeth Buehl Opinion Editor

Gian Luca Di Leonardo Sara Kessel Reya Kumar

Makenna Law Editorial Editor Teagan Hart Editorialists

Jack Maniaci

Isaac Karp Executive Sports Editor

Matt Chen Sports Editors David Cooperman Matt Goguen Ethan Grubelich Aiden Herrod Emma Joyce Ananda Kao Sruthi Kocherlakota Keila McCabe Arnav Satechi Nicole Setow Noah Stancroff Brigitte Wilson Jack Adgate Assistant Sports Editors

Sharan Bhansali Steven Landry Jenny Lu Bharat Singh Timothy Valk Michael Wallace-Bruce Arielle Weinstein

Alex Viveros Investigative and Science Editor Aaron Klein

Executive Audio Editor

Mina Terzioglu Executive Photo Editors Kiana Vallo Ian Lau Photo Editor Ty Blitstein Executive Video Editor Michael Yung Executive Graphics Editor

— PRODUCTION — MAC CALLAHAN Production Director Mike Kourkoulakos Executive Layout Editors Maddy Noah Charlene Tsai Julia Shannon-Grillo Executive Copy Editors Abigail Vixama Aedan Brown Copy Editors Emma Rao Caroline Vandis Abigail Zielinski Sophie Dorf-Kamienny Assistant Copy Editors

Sarah Goldstein Jack Maniaci Marlee Stout Michael Weiskopf

Elise Fong Executive Social Media Editors Sydney Spivy

— BUSINESS — CAMPBELL DEVLIN Business Director Hannah Harris Outreach Coordinators Emily Walker Joe Posthauer Web Manager

Contact Us P.O. Box 53018, Medford, MA 02155

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The Spring 2022 Managing Board poses on the balcony outside of the Daily’s newsroom on May 8.

Please rec ycle this newspaper!

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INVESTIGATIVE

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Some undergraduate teaching assistants paid below minimum wage as stipends, hourly rates inconsistent among departments

by Ethan Steinberg News Editor

Editor’s note: Jackson Parsells has previously served on the Daily’s executive board as the web team lead. Parsells was not involved in the reporting, writing or editing of this article. Evelyn McClure has previously served on the Daily’s managing board as business director. McClure was not involved in the reporting, writing or editing of this article.

A day before classes began this semester, junior Nina Collins received an email from her former boss. It was part-time lecturer Thomas MacIntyre, whom she had worked with in the fall.

MacIntyre teaches a photography course on the Medford/ Somerville campus that operates under the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. The class is closed to SMFA students, reserved mostly for upperclassmen looking to put a slash through their distribution requirement for arts.

Collins had taken the class as a student and then worked for a semester as its “studio assistant” — the SMFA equivalent of a teaching assistant for an undergraduate course. She loved it: three hours a week, no office hours, a couple field trips to museums. A good gig.

She spent the winter break under the impression that she’d continue in her position in the spring, only to open her inbox on Jan. 18, a day before the start of classes, to discover that she wasn’t being rehired. At least not for pay.

The instructor told Collins that budgetary constraints had left the school unable to pay Collins as a studio assistant for the spring, despite having done so in the fall.

The news came as a shock to Collins but also to the instructor, who told Collins that he had found out about the situation that same day, according to emails between MacIntyre and Collins. MacIntyre did not return the Daily’s request for comment.

Collins’ story is reminiscent of others from students who work as course assistants in some humanities and fine arts classes. But for the most part, it contrasts sharply with the narrative conveyed to the Daily by students who work in STEM courses and some social science departments.

A months-long investigation conducted by the Daily that included interviews with more than 50 faculty, administrators, and undergraduate and graduate students found that course assistants in some departments are vastly underpaid, including some below the university minimum wage.

Interviews also lifted the veil on a pervasive culture of overwork and burnout among

MINA TERZIOGLU / THE TUFTS DAILY

A classroom in Pearson Chemistry Lab is pictured on May 10. undergraduate course assistants in some departments. And in a number of cases, course assistants raised concern about what they deemed to be inadequate support from higher-ups.

This investigation recounts the stories of some of the 40 current and former undergraduate course assistants, spanning 15 departments and programs and all three undergraduate schools, who were interviewed by the Daily. “Course assistant” is a title the university uses to refer to undergraduates who assist instructors with tasks like grading, office hours and leading recitations. Undergraduates and faculty members often colloquially refer to them as teaching assistants.

Executive Director of Media Relations Patrick Collins did not directly comment on the extent to which university administrators oversee the wages of course assistants. In an email to the Daily, he wrote that course roles for undergraduates “are limited,” and that support for them may vary “based on the school or program in which the student is enrolled, the assignment provided, the discipline and available funding, among other factors.”

“Every school tries to provide opportunities to students that are academically engaging and provide support for the student’s academic program,” he wrote.

Enough for ‘a couple burritos from Picante’ Nina Collins’ wage was the lowest among the undergradu-

ates who were interviewed for this article. The SMFA studio assistant was paid $12.50 per hour, a dollar below the university minimum at the time.

“Twelve-fifty is pretty stingy, especially for just working three hours,” Nina Collins said.

Her duties consisted mostly of attending a three-hour class once per week, being there so she could assist the professor, answering questions from students and providing in-class feedback on photo assignments.

“Even 20 bucks an hour wouldn’t have been a dent,” Nina Collins said. “But it was fine, it really was just three hours out of my day, once a week.” She said her weekly salary, which she quantified as sufficient for “a couple burritos from Picante,” was fair overall.

The going rate for studio assistants has since been upped to $15, in alignment with the new university minimum that went into effect at the beginning of the year, according to Interim SMFA Dean Nate Harrison.

“If it’s $12.50, then we should definitely look into that because I believe it has been hiked to $15,” Harrison said. “But certainly I want to make sure that students get paid properly.”

The university-wide wage hike — which saw the minimum grow from $13.50 to $15 between fall 2021 and spring 2022 — matched a wage increase for federal contractors that went into effect at the end of January. The university’s minimum also exceeds the

state-wide minimum of $14.25, which was put in place on Jan. 1 and represented an increase from $13.50 the year before.

Massachusetts is set to raise its rate to $15 per hour on Jan. 1, 2023.

Nina Collins was far from the only student interviewed to be affected by departmental budget constraints.

Avery, an undergraduate course assistant who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of professional repercussions, said they were limited to logging six hours per week for their job, even though their work usually spanned closer to 10 hours.

Avery, who worked as a learning assistant last fall, requested that the social sciences department they worked under not be named, fearing that doing so would expose their identity.

Avery was paid a $1,800 stipend for the semester, earning $120 for 15 weeks. Department administrators framed the wage as equivalent to $20 an hour for a student working six hours per week.

But, for the learning assistants who realistically worked 10 hours per week, the $1,800 stipend translated to an hourly wage of $10 per hour — well below the university minimum at the time.

Avery also mentioned that the stipend salary they received had been slashed in half from what graduate teaching assistants had earned for the same course in the past. The course typically employed one teaching assistant,

so when both Avery and their friend initially approached the professor about working for the course, they were told that they could do so on the condition that they each accept less pay than what the course’s single TA had received in the past, according to the anonymous student.

In larger departments and programs, students reported being hired with more ease and regularity.

The computer science department employs an army of roughly 200 TAs each semester, according to the department’s website, including “a few dozen” graduate students and more than 100 undergraduates.

The introductory course, CS 11, employs around 40 undergraduates as course assistants, according to junior Jackson Parsells, who works as a teaching fellow for the course. CS 15, the second course most computer science students take, is employing 39 undergraduate TAs this semester. CS 160, an upper-level course, is employing 20.

Chair of the Department of Computer Science Jeffrey Foster did not return the Daily’s request for comment.

According to interviews, undergraduates in the department are paid $16 per hour for working as teaching assistants.

Teaching fellows — undergraduates who oversee the teaching assistants for a given course while taking part in logistical and see COMPENSATION, page 5

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Sunday, May 22, 2022 | INVESTIGATIVE | THE TUFTS DAILY

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TAs report lack of training, unclear communication about wages COMPENSATION

continued from page 4 administrative duties like writing rubrics and creating exams — are paid $18 per hour.

The wage rates represent an increase from last semester, when teaching assistants were paid $14.50 and teaching fellows $16.50, according to interviews.

The change kept the department’s TA wages consistently $1 above the minimum.

Students in some other departments, like psychology and economics, told the Daily that they receive semesterly stipends that translate to a rate that approaches — and in at least one estimate, exceeds — $40 per hour.

Ava Masse, an undergraduate course assistant for the Introduction to Cognitive and Brain Sciences course this spring, said she is receiving a $5,000 stipend for the semester.

Masse, who said they typically work 10 hours per week, partners with a couple other TAs to grade assignments and answer questions from the course’s 196 students.

Masse, a junior, said she enjoys working for the course — her favorite part is getting to listen to the guest speakers who come and lecture to the class. But they said the scale of the work “can be quite a lot,” given the number of students enrolled.

Sam Sommers, the chair of the Department of Psychology, which houses the introductory course for which Masse is a TA, said that graduate students make up the majority of the department’s teaching assistants, with undergraduates filling spots in some cases based largely on availability.

Other departments that pay at least some of their undergraduates with a fixed stipend for the semester, as opposed to an hourly rate, include chemistry, economics, math, biology, community health, as well as the Department of International Literary and Cultural Studies, which houses many of the non-Romance language programs.

In at least once case, wage disparities existed among students working in the same posi-

tion in a single department.

Evelyn McClure made $3,000 this semester working three to four hours per week as a grader for the class Math of Social Choice. But McClure, a junior, said she would have made less than half that amount — $1,450 — working in the same position under a different professor last semester, according to emails exchanged between McClure and members of the math department.

Senior Alycia Wong, who was a grader in the fall for the math class Differential Equations, worked approximately 10 hours per week and earned a $1,750 stipend for the semester — just over half the amount that McClure, who worked many fewer hours, earned while working for the same department this semester.

Stipends and wage rates varied widely among other departments, too. Junior Meghan Schroeder, who spent between six and seven hours each week as a course assistant for an introductory economics class last semester, said she was paid a stipend of $4,000. Logan, a course assistant in the chemistry department who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of professional repercussions, earned a $2,200 stipend working roughly 10 hours each week.

Course assistants in some departments aren’t paid at all, instead receiving course credit for their work, according to Miranda Feinberg, a senior who was compensated with semester-hour units for her work as a teaching assistant for a film production course.

“It is a big time commitment, and I think that if I were to be in a position where I needed to get a job during the semester, it would not be possible while also doing this,” Feinberg said in an interview in October. “I think it’s a lot of work, where it does warrant some sort of payment.”

Film and media studies lecturer Natalie Minik, who taught one section of the course Feinberg worked for, told the Daily last fall that the TA position was “intended to give our advanced production students a chance to apply the skills and

knowledge they have acquired during their time at Tufts in a teaching setting.”

“We are working as a program to standardize this experience for all our TAs who participate in this elective,” Minik said at the time.

Of the 40 course assistants interviewed for this article, Feinberg was the only one not offered pay for her job.

Wages and workload for other course assistants include: Sophomore Emilia Marchelek, a Biology 14 learning assistant, earned an $895 stipend this semester working four to six hours per week.

Senior Samantha Keepax, a teaching assistant for the Organic Chemistry I lab, earned $300 per week working about 20 hours.

Junior Kaitlyn Szalay, a Biology 14 lab learning assistant, earned an $800 stipend working six to seven hours in the eight weeks she had lab this semester. Szalay said that the lab assistants she works with who are working in their jobs for a second semester earn a $950 stipend.

Junior Kate Wujciak, a learning assistant for the mechanical engineering class Engineering Design, earned $15.50 per hour working between 4 ½ and 6 ½ hours per week.

Sophomore Anna Quiros, a course assistant for an EN 1 class in the electrical engineering department last semester, earned $15 per hour working about five hours per week.

Senior Sarah Gottesman, a course assistant for a Hebrew course, earns $50 per week working four-to-five hours.

‘I do sometimes see a lot of people doing free work’: In the computer science department, some students allege being underpaid Many of the computer science students who were interviewed for this article spoke highly of the community among the course assistants in the department.

“It’s probably my favorite thing that I do here at Tufts,” junior Lexi Blair, a teaching assistant for CS 15, said about her job. “The staff and everyone is awesome and it’s a good community to be a part of, and

KATRINA AQUILINO / THE TUFTS DAILY

A classroom in Eaton Hall is pictured on Feb. 8.

there’s a lot of really good things that go on.”

Several TAs also cited the department’s tightknit community as one of their primary motivations for being TAs. But for some, the supportive community and collaborative atmosphere in the computer science department has taken a toll on their life outside their job.

“Say you add an extra office hour shift, and other people haven’t canceled their office hours,” Jordan, a CS 160 TA who asked to remain anonymous for fear of losing their job, said. “If you’re just trying to be a nice human because students are struggling and they really, really need more support, and the infrastructure of the course and the department budgets do not allow that — that’s when you see a lot of TAs putting in hours they’re not paid for.”

Jordan recalls reading in an orientation document and hearing from other TAs that they should be careful not to work too many hours in order to prevent the department from exceeding its budget.

Including Jordan, three computer science teaching assistants independently told the Daily that they believed the department spent more than its budget in the fall. Junior Claudia Aranda Barrios, one of the teaching assistants, said that she believed the extent of the budget deficit was several thousand dollars. Diane Souvaine, the professor who teaches CS 160, was not able to provide a comment. Foster did not did not return the Daily’s request for comment.

But senior Jake Little, who worked as a teaching fellow for CS 160 in the fall, which is before Jordan began their tenure in the position, said he remembers professors being very clear with TAs at the time in telling them that they should log and get paid for as many hours as they work. He said that after concerns about workload and compensation were raised by some TAs in a meeting last fall, he and the professor who was in the room at the time told the students that “if the department is going over budget for TAs, then that’s the department’s responsibility to figure out.”

Jordan alleged that a lack of transparency in the department has led them and other TAs to log fewer hours than they work.

“I personally don’t know how the system works, so I don’t know who I’m jeopardizing by logging extra hours,” they said.

“It kind of feels like at times it’s just such an anonymous thing — that you don’t know who it’s trickling up to so you don’t want to try.”

Little also said that he had heard some TAs raising concern about a six-hour limit on logging hours per week, but he said at the time that he wasn’t sure where that idea came from.

In another sign of budgetary issues in the department, Jordan said that in the upcoming fall

semester, CS 160 will be slashing its teaching fellow staff in half — from four to two. Jordan’s account was independently confirmed by another course assistant for CS 160.

The teaching fellows, who typically work more than 20 hours each week, help administer the course and the TA staff while also holding office hours and picking up normal TA duties, according to interviews.

“To my knowledge, those people work insane hours, and I do not understand why a budget is such that two people should be slogging the whole semester,” Jordan said.

They added that they believe the alleged issues with compensation and overwork within the computer science department are concentrated mostly in the CS 160 course.

“But what I will say is that I do sometimes see a lot of people doing free work,” Jordan said.

Many TAs in other computer science courses expressed satisfaction with their compensation and hours worked. Parsells is a teaching fellow for CS 11.

He said he loves the TA community; he loves working with students and the professor. And Parsells said he cherishes having the opportunity to potentially “change someone’s path in life” by helping students who are new to computer science fall in love with the subject.

Parsells typically works 15 hours per week, but his hourly commitment has dipped to as low as 10 hours and surged to as high as 30 hours in a single week, usually near the exam period. Parsells, who has worked as a TA or TF since fall 2020, said the weekly workload can also depend on which professor teaches the class and how much freedom the professor lends to the teaching fellows.

Course assistants in other departments have also raised concerns about burnout as well as imposter syndrome. Some also said they felt undertrained when they first began their positions.

Alycia Wong, who has worked as a course assistant for three departments, including mathematics and chemistry, said she was “surprised by the lack of training for all my jobs beyond weekly virtual meetings.”

In an interview, Keepax, who worked as an Organic Chemistry I lab teaching assistant, expressed what many course assistants said in their interviews: She was surprised to find out that students in other departments were earning different wages than her.

“I have spoken to some of my friends that are TAs in other departments, and I would say that every time I tell them what my position entails, they’re always a little shocked,” Keepax said. “Because either their vetting process was much more grueling than mine, depending on the department,” or, she said, because “they’re paid significantly less than me for the hours they work.”

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THE TUFTS DAILY | INVESTIGATIVE | Sunday, May 22, 2022

tuftsdaily.com

Reviewing housing at Tufts: Can a crisis years in the making be put in the past?

by Liz Shelbred

Senior Staff Writer

A shuttle marked with “Hyatt Direct” on its headsign. The construction of modular homes on the Vouté Tennis Courts. Students making do in forced triples and doubles.

Whether you are a prospective student, a senior or a longtime Somerville or Medford resident, one stroll around Tufts’ campus is sufficient to see the pervasive effects of the housing crisis.

Tufts has expanded its undergraduate population for decades, resulting in a slew of problems for students and community members, ranging from a lack of accessibility and encroachment on our host communities to last-minute changes in housing and competitive housing lotteries. Many have criticized the university for failing to follow up its expansion with adequate on-campus accommodations.

Since building Sophia Gordon Hall in 2006 — the last dorm constructed on the Medford/ Somerville campus — the university has resorted to alternative solutions to address campus overflow, including sending students to a hotel and building modular housing on campus. Throughout the same period, Tufts has completed other high-budget developments on campus, including the $110 million Science and Engineering Complex and the $90 million Joyce Cummings Center.

This year, Tufts announced plans to finish an apartment-style dorm for about 370 juniors and seniors by the fall of 2026. The design and location of the dorm have yet to be determined. While some were relieved by the announce-

ment, others remain concerned that it is not enough to address the protracted effects of Tufts’ expansion on surrounding communities.

Increased student demand for off-campus housing, which Tufts’ recent increase of about 200 students is likely to compound, could exacerbate already increasing rent prices in the area due to the construction of the Medford/Tufts stop on the Green Line Extension (GLX).

Some fear that these developments, along with the upcoming end of the eviction moratorium in Somerville, could displace residents and reduce cultural and socioeconomic diversity in Medford and Somerville.

History of the housing crisis at Tufts The history of Tufts housing is marked by a constant pattern of unanticipated increases in the student population met with an inadequate supply of on-campus housing.

As early as 1977, undergraduate overenrollment prompted the university to house 170 upperclassmen in the Sheraton Commander Hotel in Cambridge. Even after Tufts added over 400 beds to campus with the construction of Latin Way and Hillsides in 1980 and reduced admissions in 1981, Tufts was only able to guarantee housing for 70% of its students at the time.

This trend continues 30 years later. When more first-years enrolled than expected in 2007, the university planned to house sophomores in the Hyatt Place in Medford Square but canceled after students expressed that they did not want to live far from campus. Instead, the university resorted to housing

QUAN TRAN / THE TUFTS DAILY

West Hall is pictured on April 13.

148 first-years in forced triples on campus.

In 2015, the university resorted to placing the “unusually large” group of incoming students in overflow housing, or on-campus spaces that the Office of Residential Life and Learning typically sets aside in case people need to be moved during the academic year, including on-campus apartments and special interest houses.

Tufts’ undergraduate student population has grown by more than 2,100 students over the past 45 years, with 4,395 undergraduates enrolled in the 1976–77 academic school year and 6,499 in fall 2021. But over the same period, the university has built five high-capacity housing projects — Latin Way, Hillside, Harleston Hall, Sophia Gordon and CoHo — which added roughly 1,200 beds on campus.

In an effort to address the crisis, Tufts announced, in July 2018, the implementation of a tiered housing system, which stratifies housing into different cost ranges. According to the Tufts Student Services website, tiers are meant to “reflect variations in room configuration, kitchen access, and amenities” and, for the 2022–23 academic year, will range from $9,160 per school year at the lowest tier to $11,388 per school year at the highest. While 73% of Tufts housing was at the lowest tier in 2019, many of the options available for upperclassmen are in the highest tier, such as Community Housing, also known as “CoHo,” or Sophia Gordon Hall, also known as “SoGo.” Those high-tier options are also usually in the highest demand — because the upperclassmen housing lottery only guarantees a certain number of spots, many students are either left to live in lower-tier housing or live in off-campus houses.

Many students were not happy with the change. Tiered housing on campus in tandem with ever-rising rents in the Somerville and Medford housing markets engendered a wave of protests by students and community members. About 200 students, faculty and community members convened in November 2018 to march in protest against the implementation of tiered housing on Tufts’ campus.

Supplemented by workshops, teach-ins, performances and a physical demonstration of the crisis known as “Tier Town,” protestors criticized Tufts’ housing policies and called for the need to build a new, high-capacity residence hall on campus. Protestors expressed concerns that the new program would lead to further expansion into nearby neighborhoods and segregation among students of different socioeconomic statuses. Students also worried that the change would harm low-income students.

Still, upon completing the controversial CoHo project in 2019, which provides apartment-style living for 141 juniors

MINA TERZIOGLU / THE TUFTS DAILY

Carmichael Hall is pictured on May 10. and seniors, Tufts implemented tiered housing in the 2019–20 academic year. CoHo displaced residents that had formerly occupied the houses, provoking protests from faculty and community members against Tufts’ expansion into its host communities.

Tufts Housing League asserted in a 2018 statement that tiered housing would only drive more students off campus in search of more affordable housing, “forcing the housing crisis out of the hands of administrators and into the surrounding community.”

THL launched a petition, pressing Tufts to discard the tiered housing program, which garnered over 1,500 signatures.

Students, local residents and elected officials alike have long supported the need for a high-capacity dorm on campus. Edward Beuchert, a longtime resident of nearby Conwell Avenue and co-founder of the West Somerville Neighborhood Association, advocated for the construction of a new dorm in an open letter to the Tufts administration, published by the Daily in 2015. Katjana Ballantyne, Somerville mayor and former Somerville City Council president, has also called for the construction of an on-campus dorm for years.

Despite these concerns, in the fall of 2018, Tufts introduced a multiyear plan to expand enrollment. The effort, as detailed by Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences James Glaser in a faculty meeting on Oct. 24, 2018, would increase the size of each firstyear class by about 100 students for another two years, ultimately aiming to increase Tufts’ undergraduate population by 400 students by 2020. The program was instituted in an effort to ensure the financial sustainability of the university.

The school aims to have approximately 6,600 full-time undergraduate students by 2026 — about 100 more full-time students than were enrolled in fall 2021, Patrick Collins, Tufts’ executive director of media relations, told the Daily in March.

Coinciding with these developments is the construction of the Medford branch of the GLX, which is slated to open this summer after many delays.

In the years since its announcement, community members and town officials have expressed

concerns that the extension would drive up property values and rent prices in Somerville and Medford. According to a 2014 report by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council of Massachusetts, rents near the planned GLX stations could rise by as much as 67%.

The housing crisis at Tufts today What might have started as unforeseen increases in class sizes and routine development in Somerville and Medford has boiled over into a multidimensional housing crisis on Tufts’ campus, affecting both students and local residents.

The student population at Tufts is larger than ever. Over 6,600 undergraduate students, both part-time and full-time, are enrolled at the university. That number is over 1,000 students larger than the total undergraduate population just four years earlier and over 1,700 students larger than the 2006– 07 academic school year, when Sophia Gordon Hall — the most recent dorm on Tufts’ campus — was built.

Tufts’ on-campus bed capacity for undergraduates was 3,465 in 2006, which would allow housing for about 70% of the university’s 4,982 undergraduate students. Today, there are just over 4,000 beds on campus, or enough for 61% of the undergraduate student population.

The Class of 2025 is the largest class in Tufts’ history to enroll at the university, with 1,807 students enrolling in 2021 — almost 200 students larger than the Class of 2024.

Patrick Collins attributed this unexpected increase largely to “extraordinary forces related to the pandemic,” such as a spike in applications associated with Tufts’ decision to drop standardized testing requirements and fewer students studying abroad.

Tufts has added more than 450 beds to its campus in the last several years and expects enrollment growth to slow in the coming years. According to Collins, the university has incurred a total cost of about $30 million on three of its main responses to overenrollment: housing first-years at the Hyatt Place, housing first-years in modular units on the Vouté Tennis Courts for the next five see HOUSING, page 7

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continued from page 6 years and optimizing on-campus residential capacity.

But the university’s expansion has already had a profound — and for some, an irreversible — impact on Tufts’ community, most notably on student housing.

Bed optimization and overcrowding in dorms Beginning in 2017, Tufts initiated bed optimization, a multiyear project involving the renovation of existing on-campus housing units to maximize their capacity. The university contracted LDA Architecture and Interiors to perform a code analysis and feasibility study of this plan.

Through bed optimization, many singles have been converted into doubles and many doubles into triples — commonly referred to by students as “forced” doubles and triples.

During the summers of 2017 and 2018, Tufts added a total of 162 new beds in eight dorms: Bush Hall, Harleston Hall, Haskell Hall, Hodgdon Hall, Metcalf Hall, Richardson House, West Hall and Wren Hall.

For first-year Sara Dolan, a resident of Hodgdon Hall, living in a forced triple has been a mixed experience.

“It’s ridiculous how small the space is,” Dolan said. “I really do love my triple; it’s just, I wish the space was bigger.” When seeing the size of her room, Dolan said her first thought was, “My parents are not going to be happy with this.”

Although Dolan has not been able to compare her triple to others on campus, she said that it was clear that her space was forced.

“There are people in my hall that have doubles that are like the same size as my room,” she said.

When asked how she thinks Tufts could better accommodate students in her situation, Dolan proposed making revisions to the first-year rooming survey.

Because those living in triples have limited space, Dolan urged that it was especially important for those placed in triples to have aligned living preferences.

“All my roommates, … we do not have similar sleeping schedules,” she said. “We’ve made it work, but I know for some people that’s really hard, to have dissimilar living habits.”

The most important thing for Dolan was to allow incoming first-years to have a choice of whether or not to live in a forced unit.

“I know some people that would definitely love to be in a triple. … Maybe [Tufts should] allow people to pick their triples,” Dolan said.

When asked what she would do if given the choice, Dolan said, “I would prefer a forced triple over living on the tennis courts,” referring to the modular homes that will house first-years next year.

She also suggested that those assigned to forced triples

should receive better numbers in the housing lottery for the following year, similar to what Tufts did with students assigned to the Hyatt earlier this year.

Dolan emphasized how formative first-year living experiences can be.

“Especially freshman year, having roommates really helps to introduce you to other groups. … [It can] kind of make or break your experience,” she said. “It’s important to have a good first year.”

Conversion of campus spaces to underclassmen housing As incoming class sizes grew, Tufts converted spaces that formerly housed upperclassmen into exclusively first-year and sophomore dorms. The Office of Residential Life and Learning announced in 2017 that Stratton Hall and Lewis Hall would house only sophomores, barring any juniors and seniors. Though ORLL said that more apartment-style housing would be available for upperclassmen, this change ultimately reduced the number of dorm-style units for seniors, which are far more affordable.

In April of 2021, ORLL changed West Hall, which previously served as sophomore housing, to a first-year dorm. The decision, which was made just hours before rising sophomores were supposed to form housing groups, divided friend groups and forced students to re-enter the lottery system for random selection.

Blakeley Hall, which was previously a graduate student dorm for students in The Fletcher School, was converted into undergraduate housing for the 2021–22 academic year. Matt Gomez is a sophomore who lived in a triple in Blakeley this past year. After Gomez failed to get a single on campus after all spots were taken, he went months without knowing where ORLL would put him for the following academic year.

“For a while, I was homeless,” Gomez said. “I think I got the email that I couldn’t get into a single … in March or April. So for months, I just didn’t know where I was going to live.”

In July, ORLL informed him that he would be living in Blakeley. Aside from the uncertainty he experienced with finding sophomore housing, Gomez said that living in Blakeley has been a positive experience.

“I’m pretty happy with how it turned out,” he said. “I got the benefit of having my own room but also two built-in people to have there as friends. … It’s fine because it’s all sophomores, so we’re all in the same situation.”

Tufts is also converting other spaces on campus to student housing. The university is in the process of adding beds to 114 Professors Row and 123 Packard Avenue — which formerly housed the fraternities Theta Delta Chi and Delta Upsilon — and is preparing to convert more Tufts-owned wood frame homes into apart-

ments for juniors and seniors, according to an email sent by Camille Lizarríbar, the dean of student affairs and chief student affairs officer.

Tufts is converting the buildings for the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning — 97 Talbot Avenue and 72 Professors Row — into student housing.

“My department’s being kicked out of our houses,” Laurie Goldman, a senior lecturer in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, said. “We’re moving to Bromfield-Pearson [Hall].”

Goldman expressed disappointment in the decision.

“I’d feel better about it if they were turning it into high-density residential housing,” she said.

Short-term solutions for first-years After the size of the Class of 2025 exceeded expectations, Tufts scrambled to find space to accommodate all incoming firstyears for the 2021–22 academic year. ORLL announced last fall that it would house approximately 100 first-years in the Hyatt Place in Medford Square, marking the first time Tufts used a hotel for housing since 1977.

Josh Hartman, former senior director of residential life and planning, told the Daily in September that this decision does not indicate any form of housing crisis, despite Tufts’ consistent and long-standing inability to meet the demand for campus housing.

Hartman stated at the time that the Hyatt offers superior housing accommodations, including luxury bedding, free laundry services and complimentary room cleaning. But many first-years have faced challenges living in atypical first-year housing.

Rhys Hitzig-Santamaria, a first-year assigned to the Hyatt, explained that he felt distanced from life on campus while he was at the Hyatt. “[There is a] disconnect between … where I’m living and where everybody else is living and where everything’s happening,” he said. “It is just a hotel. … There’s one common room downstairs for three floors, whereas when I’m in Houston or Miller, there’s common rooms on two sides on each floor. So whenever I get home, I actually feel like I’m getting back to a hotel and that I’m disconnected from everybody else. I never see anybody else. I don’t know what my neighbors look like.”

When Hitzig-Santamaria found out that he would be living in the Hyatt over the summer, he did not anticipate to feel so far away from Tufts.

“They really made it seem like the Hyatt was pretty much on campus in their emails,” he said.

Hitzig-Santamaria said that even though there have been attempts to build community at the Hyatt, it can be difficult to balance events on and off campus. “You’re doubling your commitment to build this community at the Hyatt,” he said.

QUAN TRAN / THE TUFTS DAILY

Miller Hall is pictured on April 13.

In order to stay near friends and avoid traveling back and forth on the shuttle between classes, Hitzig-Santamaria said that he stays on campus all day.

“I pack my bag — it’s always very heavy — and I come to campus usually around 9:30 or 10 a.m.,” he said. “And depending on the day, I come back sometime between 1–3 a.m.”

Without a strong sense of community at the Hyatt, HitzigSantamaria forged a de facto community in Houston Hall.

“I’ve basically made a home in the second floor common room of Houston Hall, and most people [who] actually live in Houston think I live at Houston,” Hitzig-Santamaria said. “One of the big annoyances is that when everybody else is saying ‘Oh, you know, I’m tired, I’m going to bed,’ I’m like, ‘Alright, hold on, let me call a Lyft,’ or, ‘Let me go find the shuttle schedule.’”

Hitzig-Santamaria said that though the sometimes unreliable shuttle schedule is compensated by the Lyft vouchers given to students living in the Hyatt, university strategy seems like a very “cobbled together strategy to patch every mistake and error.”

When local resident Edward Beuchert got notice of Tufts’ plan to house students in the Hyatt, he was disconcerted.

“When I first saw the story about people living at the Hyatt, I just thought, ‘Oh, wow, they really did screw up,” he said, referring to the university.

Although students will not be living in the Hyatt again next year, Tufts announced in an email on April 8 that, because this year’s incoming class was larger than expected, they will instead be housing 150 first-years in temporary modular housing. The buildings will be located at 91, 93 and 95 Professors Row — on the university’s Vouté Tennis Courts, the site of the current mods.

The ‘luxury Mods,’ as some have called them, will include upgrades from the current modular housing units, which consist of small single rooms with a desk, bathrooms and a pantry. Each renovated building, in contrast, will include a kitchen, a common area, a study space, numerous bathrooms and a laundry room.

When incoming first-year Trevor Wallace applied to Tufts this year, he was unaware of the possibility that he could live in modular housing.

“I had no idea about [the firstyear modular housing] until they

mentioned it at the tour [on a ‘Bo Day in April],” Wallace said. “Part of me is kind of like, I wish they had said something when I was applying. But on the other hand, I feel like they probably didn’t really know.”

As a high school senior and college applicant himself, Wallace acknowledged that universities across the country have had to adapt to the “crazy” changes in the college admissions process.

“I understand that it’s the way it has to be in order for these schools to have this many kids attend there and have this many kids get this education,” he said.

At the same time, Wallace said that living in modular housing would not be his first choice.“I mean, it kind of sucks,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to live in temporary housing if I had the choice between living in a normal dorm and living on the tennis court.”

Wallace still managed to make light of the situation. “There’s going to be 150 kids living in there — I feel like it’ll be kind of like a camaraderie, and then it’ll be a good conversation starter.”

Competitive housing lotteries More than 500 juniors and seniors were given lottery numbers this year, according to Angy Sosa, associate director for residential operations. Because ORLL has not yet finished assigning housing for juniors and seniors this year, it is unclear what portion of applicants will receive on-campus housing.

ORLL anticipates, however, that they will be able to accommodate some of the students on the waitlist.

Sosa said that a large number of students who receive lottery numbers end up not opting in to the on-campus housing process, possibly because of the time that placements become available. While details for on-campus housing often do not get released until March or April — or even later on in the summer, for some — the swarm of students toward the off-campus housing market can begin as early as July or August of the year prior to moving in.

“Let’s say 10 years ago, when it came time to rent the apartments I used to get calls right after the winter break. So late January, early February, see HOUSING, page 8

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continued from page 7 I would get sophomores calling me up saying, ‘Hey, I need a place for September,’” John Kourafalos, a landlord of two off-campus student houses, said. “Now I’m getting them in September.”

Sosa said that in past years, the university has been able to offer housing options to many, if not all, of the students on the housing waitlist, and that patience, along with on-time applications, resulted in the best outcomes for those students.

Nevertheless, many upperclassmen continue to experience uncertainty regarding whether or not they can secure a spot on campus.

When Gomez tried to apply to live on campus for his upcoming junior year, he was denied a lottery number and was placed in the 90th spot on the waitlist for on-campus housing. Gomez was hesitant to sign a lease off campus before hearing back from ORLL about on-campus housing options. He said that it would have been easier to make a decision between living on or off campus if Tufts had given him a concrete answer sooner.

Rising sophomores also faced uncertainty about their future housing assignments in April, when they selected housing for next year. When students with lower lottery numbers tried to select housing, the housing website showed no beds available, leaving applicants confused and with no indication of when their housing would become available.

As Beuchert and others have previously argued, increasing class sizes has adverse effects on other parts of campus life — from longer lines in dining halls and crowded study spaces to safety concerns and difficulty getting into required classes.

“It seems like the resources that are necessary, … we’re really pushing close to running out of them,” Beuchert said.

While Tufts denies the existence of a housing crisis of any kind, and claims that the problems facing Tufts are due to “unexpected” factors, students and activists have long worried about the exact situation that is emerging. Nathan Krinsky, a co-founder of Tufts Housing League who spearheaded major protests in 2018 and is now an engineer working in New York, is one activist who is not surprised.

“The problems that Tufts is running into now are in no ways unavoidable or unpredictable,” Krinsky wrote in a message to the Daily. “It’s exactly what we and our off-campus coalition partners were saying would happen years ago.”

Constructing a new Tufts dorm After years of demands from students and community members to build a high-capacity dorm on Tufts’ campus, Tufts announced on April 29, 2021 that it would apply $250 million in bonds toward funding an

NATALIE BROWNSELL / THE TUFTS DAILY

Hodgdon Hall is pictured on April 18. on-campus, high-capacity dorm for undergraduates.

About a year later, Dean Lizarríbar wrote in an email to the Tufts community that the university is “actively planning a new residence hall with apartments and suites for 370 junior and seniors by fall 2026,” 20 years after the opening of the last dorm built, Sophia Gordon Hall.

According to Barbara Stein, vice president for operations in the Office of the Trustees, the university conducted a programming study last summer to help determine the residential hall’s optimal location, the ideal number of residents and the style of units, amenities and other requirements.

The study resulted in the creation of a space program, which allows an estimated 350–400 students in apartment-style housing. The dorm, which would exclusively house juniors and seniors, will feature a combination of four-to-six-bedroom apartments with single bedrooms, kitchens and living rooms and a few larger suites.

During its next phase, the university will complete a design for the building, incorporating feedback from stakeholders such as the student advisory council, a group of resident assistants, and local community members.

Rocco DiRico, executive director of government and community relations at Tufts, said that the university will be soliciting input from its neighbors, elected officials and city department heads regarding the construction of a new dorm.

“Before we submit any plans for a new residence hall, we’ll share our plans with the community at a public meeting,” DiRico wrote in an email to the Daily.

“After we submit our plans to the city, we will follow the city’s thorough procedures for meetings, hearings and public feedback.”

The university has not hired a builder for the project yet.

Tufts will also be investing in dining infrastructure and other capital projects to position the university for the future, according to Stein.

Community members were relieved after hearing the announcement but not entirely satisfied.

“That’s what they gotta do, because students are here and they gotta live someplace,” Beuchert said. “That’s really my reaction to the building of this new dorm. It’s not joy, … it’s not

solving a problem, it’s just beginning to solve a problem that should have been solved more in the past.”

“This would have been great 10 years ago,” Kit Collins, a Tufts alumna and Medford city councilor, said. “I applaud Tufts for taking on this new development.

At the same time, it’s scratching the surface. … If Tufts wants to be a leader, Tufts should take full responsibility for housing its students, full stop.”

Goldman shared Beuchert’s and Kit Collins’ reactions. “That’s great,” she said in regard to the announcement, “but we need more of that.”

Goldman also noted that the construction of a new on-campus residential hall does not necessarily resolve the existing financial accessibility problems with on-campus housing.

“I hope that [accessibility of the new dorm] is considered in how the university is subsidizing them,” she said. “There are equity issues within. … The price tag of a Tufts tuition is very high in and of itself, and then you add that to the cost of living.”

Protracted effects on Tufts and its host communities: Rising rents, cultural displacement Tufts has fulfilled some community demands with its decision to build a new dorm, but concerns about the impact of Tufts’ expansion on the surrounding Medford and Somerville communities persist.

Increased student demand off campus could raise rents in surrounding communities, displace residents The Class of 2025, which is over 250 students larger than the Class of 2022, will move off campus before the new upperclassmen dorm is slated to be completed — likely driving more juniors and seniors to

seek off-campus housing than ever before.

This potential pressure on the off-campus housing market would coincide with an already burdened one in Somerville and Medford.

“There is a housing scarcity crisis, and there is a housing cost crisis,” Kit Collins said. “And that has a domino effect of many other macro and micro crises that can affect … the people who want to join and stay in our community.”

Even before the pandemic, it was clear that the Metro Mayors Coalition, a group of cities and towns in the urban core of metro Boston, was well behind its goal of creating 185,000 new housing units — especially near transit — between 2016 and 2030.

Problems facing low-income households have only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The situation was bleak, even before the pandemic, and it’s certainly only gotten worse,” Shomon Shamsuddin, an associate professor in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, said. “I think it’s going to be even more difficult for low-income households to be able to make it in these towns.”

Somerville town officials attempted to alleviate economic pressure on residents by implementing a residential eviction moratorium, which prohibits the removal of tenants for not paying rent. Even though the moratorium was recently extended to June 30, many residents continue to fear eviction and foreclosure.

“In a lot of places, landlords were able to remove tenants by bypassing the traditional means of the eviction moratorium,” Shamsuddin said. “Sometimes tenants aren’t aware of their rights. Sometimes they miss out on being able to file the appropriate paperwork.”

According to Shamsuddin, increased student demand for off-campus housing without a corresponding increase in the number of housing units off campus will likely result in increased rents in the area.

“Those rents will go up for everybody, not just students but also for people living in the community,” Shamsuddin said.

Increases in rent prices are especially seen when there is increased student demand around a college campus, as landlords tend to charge high-

NATALIE BROWNSELL / THE TUFTS DAILY

Metcalf Hall is pictured on April 18.

er monthly rent rates to units occupied by groups of students than to a single family.

This has ripple effects on rents in the community, according to David Gibbs, the executive director of the Community Action Agency of Somerville, which is the federally designated anti-poverty agency that helps local families and individuals achieve financial security in the Somerville area.

“When you’ve got a population of people who can afford market rents that are much higher than what most residents of the city can afford, that tends to drive prices up, as landlords respond to that,” he said.

Kourafalos, a landlord of two off-campus houses on Winthrop Avenue and College Avenue, explained that while increasing class sizes benefit his business, he is not looking to take advantage of his tenants.

“I’m not looking to gouge people,” he said. “I have bills to pay, I gotta pay them. And I don’t like to be gouged either.”

Kourafalos explained that while rent prices might increase as a result of rising demand, his income would not be increasing as much, as his own expenses — such as property taxes — would be increasing.

“There’s things outside of us.

For instance, the interest rates are going up already. So if the interest rates go up, the price of houses has to go down.”

Kourafalos agreed that when rent prices go up, it affects residents more than it affects landlords, because landlords may be paying more in property taxes.

Residents of Medford and Somerville have already witnessed the effects of increased student demand for off-campus housing.

“People specifically in — just to name a few — South Medford, Hillside community, were really noticing the impact of college students competing with other types of residents for the scarce housing that we have in those neighborhoods and others,” Kit Collins said.

Kit Collins made it clear that residents’ concerns about competition were unrelated to their opinions on Tufts students in general.

“It is not an issue of ,‘We don’t want to live alongside students.’

It’s not an issue of, ‘We don’t want these people in our community,’” she said. “You have a major institution that is bringing more residents to an area and not taking … full responsibility for what that’s going to do to a very, very scarce resource [of ] housing.”

Because of the nested nature of the university in the surrounding community, housing prices on campus react to and reflect off-campus rent prices.

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continued from page 8 as water, electricity, cable and support, are set to be competitive with the off-campus housing market.

“Tufts student surveys have indicated that the total cost of living off campus is on average similar to the cost of living on campus,” Patrick Collins wrote in an email. “As a result, financial aid awards are the same whether a student lives on or off campus.”

Patrick Collins said that while the university cannot offer additional grant aid to students who have higher off-campus living costs, they are able to provide assistance in securing student loan funds to meet these additional costs as needed on a caseby-case basis.

Green Line Extension adds to community fears of displacement Rents in the areas surrounding Tufts could further increase in response to the construction of the Medford/Tufts station on the GLX, potentially posing more barriers to accessing affordable housing in the area.

“Real estate prices are just allowed to skyrocket around new public transit stations,” Gibbs said. “As a community, we have not figured out how to really capture the added value of public transportation and transmit that added value to the people most in need of it.”

“I would wager to say there’s probably not a renter in the greater MBT community areas of Medford … who doesn’t feel trepidation for what their rent increases are going to be like next year,” Kit Collins said. “We already saw a huge leap from this time in 2021 to this time this year — a double digit increase in rents — and our Green Line [Medford stop] isn’t even open yet.”

As a renter in South Medford since 2017 and a resident in the area since she first enrolled at Tufts in 2011, Kit Collins fears that even her and her housemates will eventually be displaced.

“It’s been something that my housemates and I have — I hesitate to say joked about because it’s really extremely dire … now that [the Green Line] is finally here. We’re like, ‘Well, … I guess we’ll just stick around until we get priced out,’” she said.

Leading up to the completion of the GLX Union Square station, located five stops away from the new Medford/Tufts stop, residents in the neighborhoods surrounding the station shared similar worries that the development would displace residents. Goldman, who was involved in the campaign to protect low-income residents in Union Square, said that a movement for “development without displacement” emerged.

After nearly eight years of Union United’s advocacy, the Union Square Neighborhood Council and developers reached a community benefits agreement, which captures some of the profit reaped by the devel-

oper and redistributes it to the community in the form of affordable housing and other benefits. Some of the benefits include an increase to the housing linkage fee as well as both job creation and training secured by the Job Creation and Retention Trust Fund.

Even with all of the tools put in place to secure affordable housing in Somerville, people are still being displaced. Displacement, according to Goldman, does not only look like people who want to stay being forced to leave. It can also look like people who are unable to move to Somerville because housing has become too expensive. “[These potential residents] can’t be with their families,” Goldman said. “They can’t take advantage of the kind of diverse community that we have always had in Somerville, as a working class community of immigrants.”

More than 50 languages are spoken in Somerville schools, and over a quarter of the population was born outside of the country; Somerville and Medford are socioeconomically diverse.

Culturaldisplacement— a potential result of rising rents — in addition to displacement of lower-income residents, could threaten the diversity of Somerville, according to Goldman. Kit Collins also shared this concern for the demographic composition of Medford.

“When you have a community that is diverse, that is socioeconomically diverse, that is diverse in terms of national origin, that is racially diverse — that is really a treasure,” she said. “When you make a community very financially inaccessible, through things that you do, or things that you fail to do, you’re saying, ‘I don’t care about maintaining this diversity.’”

Goldman said there was a lot to be learned from the case study of community organizing in Union Square. When asked if a similar agreement could come to fruition in Medford, Goldman was doubtful.

“I think it’s harder [to reach a community benefits agreement] in Medford for a few reasons,” she said. “One is that Medford doesn’t have the organizational capacity that Somerville has had.”

Due to budget-conserving mechanisms that turn stations along the GLX into stops, Goldman explained that there would not be as much commercial development surrounding the Medford/Tufts stop, making the payoff for community activists smaller.

“It doesn’t mean it’s impossible. In fact, there have been several small, much smaller-scale agreements signed between more modest developments in Union Square or the abutting areas to Union Square with the neighborhood council,” she said. “But it won’t solve all of our problems.”

What can town officials and the university do to protect the interests of residents?

Community members pointed to Tufts and Somerville officials to prevent the further escalation of this crisis and protect vulnerable residents in the area.

Gibbs noted that while transient populations like university students tend to have less incentive to get involved in their surrounding communities, university institutions themselves have a responsibility to find sustainable solutions. “[Students] don’t see themselves as long-term residents. In my mind, that creates more of a responsibility on the part of the university to provide housing for their student population,” he said.

Goldman also emphasized the responsibility that Tufts could use its power and influence to play a larger role in responding to the needs of surrounding communities.

“Universities are key anchor institutions and have responsibility for leading the way,” she said.

A major theme of the solutions that students, residents, organizers and officials proposed was a demand for a longer-term, sustainable plan to guarantee housing for most, if not all, students.

“It’s Tufts’ responsibility to house a significant portion of their student population. …

We know that there is definitely demand for students to be living on campus,” Beuchert said.

Beuchert suggested that while there should be a lottery for choice of housing, every student who wants to live on campus should be able to.

“We’re going in completely, utterly, the wrong direction on that,” Beuchert said.

Goldman also affirmed Tufts’ responsibility for housing more students on campus, arguing that the construction of more on-campus housing, if well designed, could be very beneficial to the Tufts community and to its relationship with the broader Medford and Somerville communities.

Due to Tufts’ location in the community, Goldman and others emphasized that these responsibilities extend beyond campus borders as well.

“Tufts needs to be as vocal as [organizers] are about the desirability of truly affordable housing right next to Tufts,” Gibbs said.

One way that Tufts could do this, Gibbs argued, is to support policies like rent stabilization, rent control and a statewide transfer fee proposed by organizers and town officials.

“Tufts, as an academic institution, is well positioned and has the resources to do the kind of research that would back up some of these ideas and add weight to the arguments that the policymakers and the activists are putting forward,” Gibbs said.

Shamsuddin also backed university collaboration with local government officials, citing mutual benefits.

“Even things around planning, around growth, there’s ways for the university and the city council and the mayor to

MINA TERZIOGLU / THE TUFTS DAILY

Houston Hall is pictured on May 10. really coordinate on some of this stuff, because ultimately, it’s going to be an interest of both sides to be able to make this work,” he said.

A field project in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning titled “Priced Out: The Future of Graduate and Faculty Housing at Tufts” offers several recommendations to Tufts on how to maintain affordable rents for graduate students in the area, including leasing units in an existing apartment building and establishing a partnership with a private student housing developer.

“A private partnership could produce cost-competitive apartments for graduate students at no cost to the University through a long-term ground lease to a developer, who would build and operate the housing,” the report explains.

Others identified payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) as another avenue for Tufts to maximize its community impact. Goldman argued that the university could pay more in PILOT than it currently does, and Kit Collins agreed that these payments are not enough. As of 2021, the university paid $1.415 million in PILOT to its host communities, meeting 87% of the payments requested by the Boston PILOT program.

“I think that’s not enough.

I think that that’s another area where Tufts should say, ‘We’re a global leader. Let’s start right here in the community,’” Kit Collins said. “I’d like to see that equitable, equal amount of tax paid to the community, commensurate to what everybody else pays back into the community. … Step one is Tufts needs to pay its fair share.”

Kit Collins explained that more investments into the community could be earmarked for affordable housing projects, climate change real estate projects and a municipal affordable housing trust.

Proposed legislation has advanced such demands; bill H.3080, filed

by State Representative Erika Uyterhoeven last year, would require Tufts and other nonprofit institutions with property valued over $15 million to pay 25% of the taxes that would be required of them if they were not tax exempt. The Massachusetts Senate concurred with the bill in March.

Gibbs and Goldman underscored the importance of addressing the problem upstream by directing efforts toward the job market. For Gibbs, an even bigger issue than housing inaccessibility is wage inequality.

“Is it reasonable and right that senior Tufts administrators make $400,000 or $500,000 a year when somebody who’s working long hours in the kitchen is making $25,000 or $30,000 a year?” Gibbs said. “Tufts needs to get on board with paying people better wages at all levels of the university.”

Gibbs explained that if wages do not rise in tandem with area rent prices, the staff members that Tufts relies on — janitorial, kitchen staff and landscaping staff — will need to relocate to and commute from areas much farther from Tufts, such as Lawrence and Lowell — a trend that is unsustainable.

Goldman echoed Gibbs’ call for a workforce development infrastructure on and off Tufts’ campus.

“We could be doing so much more to make sure that more residents who live in places like Somerville and Medford have the kinds of training and related supports to find employment that pays a living wage,” she said.

Community organizing is another essential method of inciting change on a grassroots level, residents said. Goldman said that we need to build the organizing capacity of community organizations, such as the Mutual Aid Medford and Somerville network, in order to enact progressive, institutional change.

Kit Collins also said that Tufts students could also play a role by getting involved with organizations like MAMAS and Our Revolution Medford.

Ultimately, Goldman believes that the Tufts community should assume a collective responsibility to preserve university-community relations.

“We have some responsibility to be movers in how we shape the built environment and the way we live in it, beyond the footprints of our campuses and beyond the indviduals who are the students and the faculty and the staff,” she said. “We’re part of the fabric of all of this and an important and influential part.

And that comes with responsibilities. The responsibilities [to be] creative.”

10 Sunday, May 22, 2022

News

tuftsdaily.com

Q&A: University President Anthony Monaco talks expansion, mental health, anti-racism initiatives, Gifford House bunnies

by Chloe Courtney Bohl and Alexander Janoff

Executive News Editor and Editor in Chief

University President Anthony Monaco sat down with the Daily to discuss Tufts’ ongoing expansion, pandemic response, mental health and diversity, among other topics.

Monaco also offered updates on the university’s finances and outlined his goals for the remaining year of his presidency.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Tufts Daily (TD): What have been the most significant accomplishments and challenges Tufts has faced this year?

Anthony Monaco (AM): Well, let’s start with successes. COVID19 obviously was a challenge, but at the same time, I think it was also a success for our community because we were able to keep operating in person and tried to respond flexibly to the changing conditions. That allowed a lot of the awards ceremonies and other traditions that we’ve missed for two years to happen. I think that was really great to see the university coming into a new normal.

Also, despite the pandemic, we did keep some of our very important capital projects going to improve facilities. The Joyce Cummings Center is a stellar example of that; it’s being used now quite actively by the whole community. Athletics had some improvements: Ellis Oval was turfed and we’re planning projects around baseball and tennis.

MINA TERZIOGLU / THE TUFTS DAILY

University President Anthony Monaco is pictured on the Academic Quad on May 5.

The other success is that despite the pandemic, we’ve been able to manage our finances well by staying open, and that has put us in a much better economic state coming into the uncertainty of inflation and possible recession going forward. The Brighter World Campaign continues to be on track, and we have one more year to reach our goal of $1.5 billion, supporting students, faculty and staff. It’s great to see that despite the pandemic, our alumni, donors and friends have not stopped supporting us and our mission.

We also had a lot of new leadership: Caroline Genco is the provost ad interim, Helen Boucher is the ad interim dean of the

medical school and also a part of Tufts Medicine as the chief academic officer. We’re working with the deans of The Fletcher School, Tisch College, the SMFA and the School of Engineering as they are making transitions.

On the diversity, equity, justice and inclusion front, we’re continuing to push on the anti-racism initiative. One of the significant events was the Leading While Black event, where we recognized Black leaders who helped make Tufts what it is today. We had the opening of the Indigenous Center, as well as recommendations and reports on policing, leading to a new arming policy as well as a hybrid response policy. Also relat-

ed to DEIJ, but more specifically related to admissions and financial aid, we had the largest and most diverse applicant pool ever and the most selective admitted class ever, and the quality of diversity is just breaking all kinds of our records. To help us with that, we’ve had a large gift of $25 million from the Schuler Access Initiative, and that will really help us provide support for Pell Grant eligible students and students with DACA and undocumented status.

Finally, our research continues to garner national and international acclaim, particularly in some areas where we have unique capabilities, like nutrition. It was just announced this

week that The Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and Dean Dariush Mozaffarian will be helping to lead a White House conference on nutrition, which hasn’t happened in more than 50 years, since Jean Mayer.

We’re really pleased that David Kaplan has been getting acclaim for his work in cellular agriculture.

As you would expect in a time of a pandemic, our faculty working on infectious diseases have done very well in garnering grants to support more research.

I think one of the biggest challenges, especially this spring, was the painful losses in our community of both students, faculty and senior administrators with the passing of the incoming Dean of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Margaret Rose Vendryes; Danielle Abrams, a faculty member; Sheldon Krimsky, a longtime faculty member here; as well as losing a student, Cher Xiong.

Our community had to manage the grief and the painful loss by coming together.

There continues to be a challenge to the campus climate around issues that are difficult to discuss. The polarization in the country plays out on our campus.

The polarization comes out in issues around discussing Palestine and Israel. That sometimes stretches into antisemitism. Also, we need to continue to combat racism, but we have made great strides.

We also had a challenge this year of higher enrollment, which was see MONACO, page 14

TCU President-elect Jaden Pena talks diversity, mental health

by Tess Harmon

Assistant News Editor

Jaden Pena was elected as the next president of the Tufts Community Union on April 27.

He will serve as TCU president for the 2022–23 academic year.

Students cast their ballots between noon on April 26 and noon on April 27, and election results were announced shortly after the final votes were submitted.

According to the Elections Commission’s Instagram, Pena won 58% of the votes cast, while the other two candidates — Enrique Rodriguez and Max Morningstar — won 23% and 13% of the votes, respectively. A total of 2,024 votes were cast, denoting a voter turnout of 31.09%, a slight decrease from last year’s turnout rate of 33.96%.

Two referendums also passed in the election. The first will allow the TCU Senate to efficiently add more community senator seats in the future, while the second created the Indigenous community senator position.

The rest of the Senate executive board positions — vice president, treasurer, diversity officer, parliamentarian and

COURTESY JADEN PENA

TCU President-elect Jaden Pena is pictured. historian — were filled by internal elections on Sunday, May 1.

Class of 2024 Senator Arielle Galinsky, who served as Services Committee chair this past year, was elected vice president for the 2022–23 academic year.

Sophomores may remember Galinsky as the lead organizer of April’s Class of 2024 Prom.

Class of 2023 Senator and former Associate Treasurer

Jalen Little was elected treasurer and former Women’s Community Senator Krystal Mutebi was elected diversity officer. Junior Julie Baik was elected historian.

The 2021–22 academic year was Pena’s first full year on the Senate. He served as diversity officer, which meant chairing the Community and Diversity Committee. Outside of the

Senate, Pena sings with the Tufts Beelzebubs, plays on the football team — for which he is one of the Green Dot representatives — and is a member of the Tufts Black Men’s Group.

Pena reflected on his time as diversity officer and says he hopes to use the experiences he gained in that role to better inform his decisions as TCU president.

“I hope to work extremely closely with the diversity officer next year to continue some of the work that I was doing,” Pena said. “Some examples are working on the Tufts as an Anti-Racist Institution initiative and reallocating those funds so that they support our identity centers and … the athletics department, the health services and CMHS department and the School of Engineering to recruit and hire more BIPOC and LGBTQ+ faculty and staff.”

Pena envisions a Tufts community whose commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion extends beyond its campus.

“I want to work with admissions to send Tufts representatives to more socioeconomically diverse high schools across the country, and not just the ones that they’re being sent to now,” Pena said.

During his campaign, Pena committed to uplifting underrepresented voices and advocating for student mental health, a topic that was of central focus in the last couple Senate meetings of the semester.

“The construction of an entire Wellness Center is a tall see PENA, page 11

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Sunday, May 22, 2022 | News | THE TUFTS DAILY

11

Evicted on short notice, some Medford TCU President-elect Pena Square tenants receive little help from aims for student accessibility PENA local, state governments continued from page 10 task, but it’s something that I’ve been working on for … two years now, even before I was on Senate,” Pena said. “Something that I really want to prioritize in my term as president is pushing administration to really, really focus on the betterment of students’ mental health.”

Pena expressed his gratitude for the support he received during the campaign process.

“I’m just very grateful and very appreciative of everyone that supported my campaign and everyone that came to the events and everyone in the communities that I’m closest with,” Pena said. “I’m just very appreciative of everything that they did, and … all the unconditional love and support that they gave me.”

Now that campaigning is over, Pena is excited to step into the role of president.

“I am most excited to work with such a diverse, talented and passionate group of senators,” Pena said, referencing the fact that the majority of

by Ella Kamm News Editor

Residents of 18 units on month-to-month leases in The Bradlee Apartments, an apartment building in Medford Square, were given notice in late March that they had 30 days to permanently vacate their homes so that the building’s new property managers could renovate the units. The time frame was extended to 60 days after advocacy by city staff — placing the final move-out deadline in late May — but affected tenants said that was still too little time to find new housing and that local and state agencies were largely unhelpful.

The building was sold last year, at which point Atlas Group assumed property management duties.

“When this property was purchased, it was done so with the intent of renovating all the building’s kitchens and bathrooms, which is desperately needed,” a spokesperson for Atlas Group wrote in an email to the Daily. “We have gone through the process of removing asbestos from the property and now have moved on to upgrading all kitchens and bathrooms. Tenants received notice that their leases would not be renewed in order to do the work.”

Bradlee tenant Liza Maloney, who has lived in the building for over five years, said that she received a certified letter on March 28 informing her that she needed to remove all of her belongings from her unit by April 30. Maloney said that the timeline of the eviction notices has been distressing.

“It’s just deeply upsetting,” Maloney said. “I don’t think any of us have gotten a lot of sleep …

Why did it have to happen this way? This building was sold in March 2021, so the owners have had over a year to give us notice that that was their plan, to modernize the building, to upgrade it and give us more time, but that was not what happened.”

Medford City Councilor Kit Collins (A’15) and her colleagues became aware of the situation when Bradlee tenants began emailing them and showing up at city council meetings. While the evictions are legal, Collins said that as the only renter on Medford City Council, she felt a need to advocate for the tenants.

“I felt it’s my responsibility to stay abreast of the situation, stay in contact with the residents and see to it that the city, through … what the city is able to do — which, to be honest, is not much directly, legally — and through other resources, other connections and negotiations, that we’re able to make sure that all of these residents are able to be in safe, stable situations,” she said.

“Being told that you have just a month or two to find a whole new home, potentially a whole

QUAN TRAN / THE TUFTS DAILY

A clock in Medford Square is pictured on May 1. new community, obviously is no small thing.”

After the city council got involved, Atlas Group agreed to extend the move-out period to 60 days.

“After speaking with officials from the City of Medford, we agreed to extend each tenancy by an additional thirty days to accommodate those who needed additional time,” the spokesperson wrote. “We remain committed to working with our tenants and the City of Medford as we continue these improvements and in providing safe, quality housing.”

Another tenant, who has lived in the building for 22 years and requested to speak on the condition of anonymity with the Daily, had just sprained their ankle when they received their eviction notice. The injury made it difficult to pack up their belongings and search for a new apartment, but they said the property manager denied their request for more time to move.

The tenant also said that they sought help from local and state government agencies and from Action for Boston Community Development, but they were redirected between agencies and received little actual help.

Action for Boston Community Development suggested that they stay in a government shelter, while State Rep. Paul Donato’s office told the tenant that they were eligible for Residential Assistance for Families in Transition funding to cover some of the costs of moving. However, to get RAFT assistance they would have had to choose from a very limited selection of apartments and come up with money

Tufts professor Erin Kelly wins Pulitzer Prize

by Emily Thompson

to supplement the RAFT funds on short notice.

“I just got the run-around,” the tenant said. “That’s how the system works. So no matter what I do, I feel like I’m always just being stonewalled, and I feel as though that no matter who you talk to, even [Governor] Charlie Baker’s office, they always refer you to somebody else.”

The anonymous tenant eventually found a new apartment on their own through Craigslist. The new apartment is not in Medford.

“It’s more money, but you know what? It’s better than being on the street,” they said.

Maloney echoed the anonymous tenant’s frustration with the bureaucracy involved in getting city assistance with housing issues such as this one.

“One thing that I talked to [Collins] about [was] … if there could be … one-stop shopping at the city level,” Maloney said.

“If there was one phone number that we could call.”

Medford’s expensive and competitive real estate market poses a significant challenge for tenants who have been told to move out on short notice.

“We’re in the middle of [a housing scarcity crisis] all throughout the Greater Boston area, and Medford is no exception,” Collins said.

Maloney said that in addition to the lack of safe, accessible and affordable housing on the market, the eviction notice is particularly distressing given the vulnerable populations being evicted, such as seniors and families with young children. The anonymous see EVICTION, page 12

current TCU senators are people of color. “We have some people returning, and we have a lot of new faces on Senate, which is super exciting as well.

Every time new thoughts, ideas and perspectives are brought to Senate, it creates a new opportunity for us to better serve more students.”

Pena hopes to make TCU Senate a more accessible student organization that is better connected with the student body.

“I think the TCU president should be someone that every single person on campus — no matter if they’re a firstyear or a senior in their last week of classes — feels comfortable going to them and saying anything or addressing anything they feel needs to be addressed,” Pena said. “I think trying to be the most accessible person on campus should always be a huge goal for the president, and that’s what I want to bring to the role. I want to be the person that people feel comfortable coming to [and] talking about anything.”

Deputy News Editor

Professor of Philosophy Erin Kelly won a Pulitzer Prize in the biography category for “Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South” (2022), which Kelly co-authored with Winfred Rembert, the biography’s subject. Rembert, who died in 2021, received the prize posthumously.

Awarded annually since 1917, the Pulitzer Prizes recognize outstanding achievements in American journalism, letters and music.

The Pulitzer Board described Rembert and Kelly’s book as “a searing first-person illustrated account of an artist’s life during the 1950s and 1960s in an unreconstructed corner of the Deep South, an account of abuse, endurance, imagination and aesthetic transformation” in their live-streamed announcement of the 2022 prize winners.

Kelly reflected on winning the Pulitzer and discussed her book in a conversation with the Daily.

Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

The Tufts Daily (TD): How did you find out that you won the Pulitzer? And what was your reaction?

Erin Kelly (EK): I received a couple of congratulatory emails before I knew what they were about. And a friend of mine called me and told me. So I was just sort of flabbergasted and stunned. It was unexpected and really exciting. I felt just joyous for Winfred and his legacy and for the book. I didn’t know that we were finalists because they only announced

the finalists at the same time that they announced the winner, so it was a big surprise.

TD: How are you feeling now that you’ve reflected on the news?

EK: It’s very moving to receive this great honor in recognition of Winfred’s accomplishments and the significance of the book. I guess I’m kind of speechless. I feel very grateful for all the people who supported the book, who made it possible. Most of all to Winfred Rembert for sharing his story in such a thoughtful and reflective and important way.

Winfred unfortunately died before the book was published, so this is bittersweet. I feel sad that he’s not here to be recognized and to understand the impact of his story in the book and his art. But I’m grateful that we finished the book and that we can share it with the world and that he will be remembered.

TD: How do you imagine Winfred Rembert might have reacted to winning the Pulitzer?

EK: I think he would have been thrilled; he would have been eager to talk about the book himself. He would have been very moved at the opportunity to draw the public’s attention not only to what he went through in his life but to a lot of other people in Georgia in the Jim Crow era that they lived through and the ways in which they struggled under those conditions.

So I think that he viewed this book as speaking for others as well as himself, as telling the story of an important and recent part of American history. That was important to him. I think he see PULITZER, page 12

12

THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Sunday, May 22, 2022

tuftsdaily.com

Displaced tenants say 60 days not enough to find new housing in hot market EVICTION

continued from page 11 tenant said that very low-income residents are concerned about losing their Section 8 housing assistance, which pays a portion of their rent.

“They shouldn’t be allowed to treat people like this,” the anonymous tenant said.

“Politicians shouldn’t be saying … ‘There’s nothing we can do because they own the property.’ That isn’t right.”

Collins said that the state needs more protections for renters as well as more affordable housing options, pointing to legislation proposed by State Reps. Mike Connolly and Nika Elugardo and State Sen. Adam Gomez that would lift the state’s ban on rent stabilization.

“A system that allows people to be ousted from their homes in the midst of a housing scarcity crisis … That’s not humane,” she said. “It’s not any one indi-

vidual person’s fault, but that is the status quo, and that’s not okay.”

Collins added that state governments have more power to change housing policy than local governments. The city is considering petitioning the state to expand its powers in this area, she explained.

“So many measures are currently not available to us as a municipality with what we have the jurisdiction to do,” Collins

said. “[I and City Council Vice President Isaac Bears introduced] many home rule petitions about rent stabilization, about tenant right to counsel, regulating just cause eviction protection.”

In the meantime, landlord-tenant interactions are governed at the state level.

“A lot of this work that we’re doing on the city level is an uphill battle, but it has to be done in tandem with work on the state level as well,” Collins said.

Kelly discusses winning the Pulitzer Prize with the Daily PULITZER

continued from page 11 would have been very proud to have this recognition and to have the opportunity to share what he wanted to say with so many people.

TD: Can you talk a little about what it’s like to receive so much recognition for a book that details such pain? What does it mean for a book like this to receive a Pulitzer?

EK: I hope that it’s — and I believe that it will be — a moment of education for this country. I think it’s important to recognize what Winfred lived through and not only his remarkable talent as an artist and his resourcefulness as a person but also just the many ways in which he survived under conditions that many ordinary people had to go through.

I feel a lot of appreciation for the Pulitzer committee and for their courage in recognizing this book and what it represents.

TD: How do you hope people reading the book today receive the history and stories detailed in it?

EK: I think when you read the book, you’re impressed by how recent some of the experiences that Winfred unfortunate-

ly went through are. I think it brings history up to the present in a powerful way.

Winfred was someone who was incarcerated for many years. We’re currently in an era of mass incarceration, where many, many people’s lives are being ruined by the incredibly punitive response that our criminal justice system has decided to take to crime and social problems. So I think it calls attention to the life experience of people who have been and are incarcerated. I think that’s an important thing to think about and to reckon with and to try to change.

TD: How do you see this book fitting into your work as someone who studies philosophy and as a professor at Tufts?

EK: As someone who’s interested in ethics and in criminal law, the project was an opportunity to learn from somebody who had experienced incarceration and had a lot to say about the life experience and social setting that led him to end up being caught up in the criminal justice system. From an ethical point of view, the complexity of a person’s life experience under conditions of social injustice is worth meditating on and trying to understand and draw some lessons from.

ERIK BRITT / THE TUFTS DAILY

Philosophy Professor Erin Kelly is pictured on Feb. 5, 2018.

TD: What’s next for you?

EK: I have some philosophy projects on notions of accountability in criminal justice and in ethics. It’s led me to think about restorative justice as a model that presents an alternative to more punitive notions of accountability that are familiar to us and in criminal law. So I’ve been thinking about restorative justice, writing a little bit

about it, and am excited to pursue work on that subject.

TD: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

EK: Winfred was just such a dynamic person; he had this great sense of humor.

He was very determined and resourceful and insightful. It was a privilege to hear him reflect on the significance of his life and think about how he wanted to tell his story.

tor of transportation and infrastructure for the city of Somerville, reflected on the GLX’s progress thus far.

“The MBTA GLX service to Union Square and the new Lechmere station is operating safely, with daytime service frequencies of 7-10 minutes and typical travel times of roughly 3 minutes between Union Square and Lechmere,” Rawson wrote in an email to the Daily. “Union Square station can be accessed from Prospect Street and from Allen Street, although several interim and temporary conditions exist while nearby construction is completed. Given the active and ongoing nature of GLX construction, testing and training, we advise patience during these early months of operations.”

Rawson emphasized that the city of Somerville and its residents are looking forward to the completion of the project this summer and the easier access it will provide between Somerville and Boston.

“When the Medford branch of the GLX opens, tens of thousands of Somerville residents, workers and visitors will have new choices to get around the City and the region without driving,” he wrote. “The GLX will provide many Somerville residents with more travel choices, offering typical service frequencies between 7-10 minutes and the option of a one-seat transit trip to key regional destinations such as the Fenway or Longwood neighborhoods of Boston.”

Medford city officials did not return the Daily’s requests for comment.

Acknowledging some of the frustrations regarding delays in the GLX’s rollout, Battiston emphasized that the project is moving forward and is still set to be finished this summer.

“The MBTA continues to track toward this summer for the start of service on the Medford branch,” Battiston wrote. “Work continues on power, communication, train

control, and signal systems. This will be followed by testing and the commissioning process (the same activities that preceded the start of service on the Union branch).

Crews are also in the final stages of electrical work at each newly built station. All of these ongoing activities have required a little more time than originally anticipated, but the work has been advancing at a good pace in recent months. The MBTA appreciates that there is much anticipation about the opening of the Medford branch, and the MBTA is grateful for the public’s patience as plans are readied for another GLX celebration in the coming months.”

In March, the opening of the Union Square branch was marked by a celebration, with speeches delivered by a number of public officials, including Governor Charlie Baker, Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, and Mayor Katjana Ballantyne of Somerville.

Rawson also thanked Somerville residents for dealing with the delays in construction over the past several years.

“Our community has exhibited incredible patience and tolerance for the impacts and inconvenience of this massive construction effort,” Rawson wrote. “The City is grateful to our residents, workers, business owners and visitors for their courage and compassion during this challenging period.”

Rawson also noted that Somerville residents have relied on public transit for years, but that the completion of the GLX will make it even easier for residents to get around.

“Somerville is already one of the most transit-oriented cities in America, and with the new GLX service we anticipate that even more of our residents, workers and visitors will choose to take the T for a variety of trips,” he wrote.

Medford branch of Green Line Extension set to open this summer

QUAN TRAN / THE TUFTS DAILY

The Green Line Extension is pictured near the Joyce Cummings Center on April 28.

by Michael Weiskopf News Editor

The Medford branch of the MBTA’s Green Line Extension — which includes a stop on College Avenue, adjacent to the Tufts campus — is on track to open this summer after a slew of delays.

The contract for construction on the GLX was awarded in November 2017, nearly five years ago. After several delays, the Union Square branch opened on March 21, providing easier access from parts of Somerville to downtown Boston. Upon completion, the Medford branch will have five stops through both Somerville and Medford, the last of which will be located on College Avenue, next to the Joyce Cummings Center and Dowling Hall.

The MBTA’s website summarized the purpose of the GLX project.

“GLX will provide service in areas that historically did not have access to fast and

reliable public transit,” the website reads.

“By supporting an increased ridership of more than 50,000 trips per day, this project will significantly reduce vehicle emissions on the road.”

Lisa Battiston, deputy press secretary for the MBTA, further explained some of the benefits that the GLX will bring to Medford and Somerville residents, as well as to Tufts students.

“When fully complete, Green Line trains will operate every five to six minutes in the peak periods, providing fast and efficient service in areas that did not previously have access to reliable public transit,” Battiston wrote in an email to the Daily.

“GLX will also significantly reduce vehicle emissions on the road by supporting anticipated increased ridership and dramatically improve local and regional air quality when GLX is complete.”

Several weeks after the opening of the Union Square branch, Brad Rawson, direc-

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Gannett to merge Somerville and Medford weekly newspapers

by Peri Barest Senior Editor

National newspaper chain Gannett plans to cease print publication of 19 weekly papers in eastern Massachusetts and merge another nine papers into four, beginning this month. Tufts’ host communities will have their papers — the Medford Transcript and the Somerville Journal — merged into one. The combined paper will still be distributed in print weekly.

Following these transitions, Cambridge will remain one of only three cities in the state to have its own Gannett reporter, while the nearby towns of Arlington and Winchester will see their papers merged into one weekly publication.

This announcement by Gannett — the largest newspaper publisher in the country and parent company to USA Today — follows a national trend of corporate debt accumulation and local newspaper closures.

Newsroom employment across the country declined by 26% between 2008 and 2020. In Massachusetts alone, 27% of newspapers folded between 2004 and 2019, with overall circulation decreasing by 44%.

According to Gannett, the closures and mergers come in response to a transformed media landscape.

“Strategies for reaching our audiences have evolved significantly, as well as the capabilities of our enhanced digital platforms,” a Gannett spokesperson wrote in an email to the Daily. “We remain committed to the future of local journalism, and encourage our readers to continue supporting our reliable, accurate, and community-focused news sources across all of our platforms.”

How did we end up here?

Jon Chesto, who covers business for The Boston Globe, described the transitions in corporate ownership that, along with the digitalization of classified ads and rise of social media, have contributed to this series of closures in an interview with the Daily.

In the 1990s, Fidelity Investments owned many Massachusetts papers under the Community Newspaper Company publisher. After being sold to Pat Purcell of the Boston Herald, the newspapers were acquired by Liberty Group Publishing in 1998. Fortress Investment Group bought Liberty in 2005, renaming the company GateHouse Media.

“The investment thesis then was that GateHouse would keep buying papers and would consolidate corporate functions and [would] use that better buying power to negotiate better rates for newsprint and other expenses,” Chesto said.

Mass newspaper acquisition was only sustainable for so long. The Great Recession led to bankruptcy, after which point GateHouse was rebranded to the publicly traded New Media

NATALIE BROWNSELL / THE TUFTS DAILY

An edition of The Somerville Times, published on April 20, is pictured.

Investment Group. Finally, GateHouse acquired Gannett in 2019, taking the latter company’s name.

Chesto explained that this transition made publishers answerable to investors, forcing them to pursue higher profit margins.

“It’s unfortunate that these machinations at the corporate level have an impact downstream at local news, but that’s exactly what happened,” Chesto said.

Erica Perel, director of the Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said that private investment companies do not see news as their primary mission. “[Investment companies] are making a bet that this industry is not a growth industry,” Perel said. “But they’re gonna try to squeeze as much money out of it as they can while there’s still money in it.”

Perel also described the cyclical nature of newspaper turnover. As companies starve newsrooms of resources, the quality of the papers decreases, contributing to declining readership, she said.

Executive Director of the Center for State Policy Analysis at the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life Evan Horowitz added that newspapers were never just about the news.

“It’s not like old people used to really care about local policies,” Horowitz said. “The story is that they used to care about movie times, and they still care about movie times but they don’t need to get the local politics bundled in with the movie times.”

Local journalism and civic engagement Perel said that the loss of local journalism has been linked to lower voter turnout.

“When a community loses its newspaper, especially if that newspaper was high quality, … there is a loss of civic engagement. … People are less likely to vote,” she said.

Chesto said that the wider community loses when newspapers close, a trend he feels is concerning for democracy.

“You lose the broader public. The activists will always be engaged, … but as time will go on, the broader public will become less and less interested in civic affairs,” Chesto said.

“The community affairs will be dominated by groups that have a certain slant.”

According to Horowitz, local papers have a vital role in oversight and tracking. “[Lack of local journalism] does seem to increase corruption,” he said. “The big function [of newspapers] really is oversight of politics in your town.”

Despite these observations, Perel said it is important to consider journalism’s flaws, citing the institutional racism embedded in midsize city legacy papers. Moreover, she explained that other forms of news — local radio, cable, broadcast television — can make up for some of the lost content.

Moving forward Chesto said he believes the model of local journalism can still have potential if given the right funding sources.

“The model can still work,” Chesto said. “It’s … when you layer on the need to have a profit margin that goes to a larger corporate entity that it becomes problematic.”

Chesto sees promise in a nonprofit model for journalism, whereby contributors can get a tax benefit from donating, although he acknowledged the model is not without challenges. Chesto added that the subscription model — which The

Boston Globe uses — provides a more reliable funding source.

Perel supports a “news ecosystem” model for its emphasis on collaboration and diverse perspectives in media.

“I do think very highly of this idea of a ‘news ecosystem,’ … where instead of having a monopoly player in a market, you have multiple news outlets that are working together in some way and all taking a piece of the story of the community,” she said.

Creating a successful ecosystem model requires a mindset shift, Perel said.

“Local media organizations have traditionally thought of themselves as competitors, and that’s not actually helpful because the competitor is Facebook and the competitor is Netflix and the competitor is Amazon … in terms of advertising revenue and attention and time,” she said.

The Tufts community The Medford Transcript and the Somerville Journal are not the only weeklies that cover Tufts’ host communities. The Somerville Times has been a free, locally owned, weekly newspaper since the late ‘60s.

Bobbie Toner, the publisher of the Somerville Times, said she understands why local papers have had to close, citing rising printing costs and salaries.

“Sometimes we would go without our paycheck just to do it because … if there’s no advertising, then how do you pay printers and everybody?” she said.

Toner — who manages the paper largely on her own — works closely with her editor and a team of committed columnists. She said the Somerville Times had a fulltime staff of at least 10 people when she began, a number that has dropped to just two today.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been especially hard for the paper, which cut down its page count and distribution capacity in response.

Despite the challenges of working in local journalism, Toner said she is grateful to have the community’s support and continues to pursue the highest quality content possible.

“Whether we have one paper [or] 10 papers, I’m still going to have my mindset of trying to do the best I can,” Toner said.

In addition to the Somerville Times, residents of Somerville and Medford can read Tufts’ many student publications, which occupy a range of news, literary and pop cultural niches.

Chesto and Horowitz agreed, however, that cities the size of Medford and Somerville deserve professional reporters. They said that student journalism alone cannot sufficiently close the gap in local news created by closures and mergers.

“The way a student newspaper traditionally functions is that it’s serving as a kind of apprenticeship for people who want to be journalists,” Horowitz said. “And that’s an extremely valuable, important thing.”

Perel added that student journalism has a unique opportunity to determine the news needs of young readers, encouraging student journalists to “[give] people what they need in a format that they want.”

She said that successful student journalists will focus on their local communities instead of emulating national publications like The New York Times. “[Have] a relentless focus on what your community needs,” Perel said. “For too long student media has tried to be a mini version of big media, and big media is failing, so we need to reinvent it.”

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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Sunday, May 22, 2022

tuftsdaily.com

Monaco to prioritize anti-racism, fundraising, housing during his final year MONACO

continued from page 10 due to a higher yield than we had expected. We had to work through that by addressing the dining and housing consequences.

I would also say because of COVID-19, because of the loss of members of our community and the general sense of isolation coming out of the pandemic, mental health challenges continue to be real. We’re trying to respond to them with increased resources and flexibility.

Lastly, I’d say the economy is a challenge, looking ahead to inflation and a possible recession. And there is the hiring challenge: With many staff members deciding to retire, it’s been hard to get staff in all of our positions as we usually do.

TD: You mentioned the economy and potential recession. How does that affect higher education?

AM: First, we borrowed money to build the new dorm and to complete other major capital projects. Construction inflation is probably near 10%, so the longer you delay in using that money the less value it has, so the dollars that we have for capital may not go as far. Inflation cuts into our salary pool, so we’ll have to react by increasing salaries appropriately, but it’s hard to increase tuition to make up for that because we want to keep tuition as low as possible.

That’s a challenge, but since we did well during the pandemic, we now have a cushion of positive margin and that cushion could help us in the next couple of years.

The other way we can manage it is drawing on the endowment, but with the cushion we have, I don’t think that’ll be necessary.

TD: Is the university’s current rate of growth sustainable? Do we have the space and resources to provide a high-quality college experience to every undergraduate?

AM: We had a plan to grow the undergraduate population by 50 to 100 students per year to get up to an eventual student body of around 6,600. Last year, the yield was higher than we expected and we overenrolled and had to put people in temporary hotel accommodations. We’ve managed it better this year in terms of being conservative in how many offers we make. Because of that, we can slow the growth this year to make up for the extra growth last year, and then we will pick up our plan to get to 6,600.

The reason we want to grow the undergraduate population is to increase access. We feel that a Tufts education could be accessible to more students, especially since we also have more financial aid to offer. The experience here is very rich and transformative, and it’s a shame not to be able to offer it to more people, provided we can keep the faculty to students to staff ratios the same and keep the experience the same. To do that we have to invest, and that’s what we’re doing in the areas of housing and dining. We created a lot of accommodation within woodframe houses and by renovating different dorms and configuring them better.

We also will be adding temporary housing for 150 students. The reason that is needed is because we’re going to build a new dorm on Boston Avenue — if all the approvals go through — which will house 350 to 400 upperclassmen. During that project, we will have to take some beds offline in the adjacent dorms because of the noise and disruption from construction, and that’s what the Vouté courts will be used for. They will be modular units, but we will build them and specify what we want. The ones we got previously were just what we could get at that time, but these will be proper dorms with common rooms, kitchens and more.

We’re also continuing to convert wood-frame houses and different campus residences to add beds over the next couple of years. We hope that by investing in dining infrastructure and expanding that capacity, as well as building the new dorm and building and renovating other smaller units, we will keep up with the growth in students. We want to get more students on campus; that is the plan.

TD: What has the university been doing and what will it continue to do to support the mental health of Tufts community members?

AM: Mental health is a particular priority for me personally, because it’s an area that I do research on. I knew that rates were going up before the pandemic and had already started a task force. The idea was to review all of our resources and also what best practices could we institute or add because the rates of mental health disorders are going up. We finished that work and then created a steering committee which met almost monthly during the pandemic to constantly monitor our situation. Some of the immediate, tangible steps we’ve taken is that Counseling and Mental Health Services really worked to increase access, not only through their own counselors but also through other providers to expand the number of appointments. We used peer education around mental health so that students were better informed of where the resources were and what it all meant, and how they could navigate things when they had particular problems.

We partnered with the Division of Student Diversity and Inclusion and the identity centers to offer programs that were tailored to the students in those communities and offered grants of up to $500 for students, staff or faculty to fund different mental health and wellness projects.

Just as significantly, we implemented university-wide neuropsychology testing, which is necessary for anyone with particular mental health disorders or learning disabilities. They need the testing in order to get their academic accommodations, but it’s quite an involved process, it’s expensive, and some insurance providers don’t cover it.

Over 18 months we had 20 students already take advantage of

our pilot program and receive a report, which is then used to help them navigate which accommodations they need.

Also, the Massachusetts college and university presidents have been meeting regularly to discuss mental health issues, and we’re trying to learn from each other and institute more practices. It’s always good to talk to your peers, so you don’t feel like you’re experiencing this on your own.

TD: This semester, both the TCU Senate and the Faculty Senate each voted to eliminate the legacy question in our undergraduate admissions process. Is that something the university is looking at?

AM: The legacy consideration as a part of admissions is really something that each school decides for itself based on its own context. The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences doesn’t ask about family affiliation in its application, but the undergraduate school does. Our medical school no longer asks about family affiliation. So each school has tried to analyze it and make a decision for themselves. Deans Glaser and Lee have asked the dean of admissions to conduct such a study for the legacy question on undergraduate admissions. They need to look at data to better understand the implications, and then they’ll put a recommendation forward for us to review. They’ll do the work this summer. If it’s going to happen, we just want to understand what the implications are.

TD: Could you tell us about the progress that has been made in the Tufts as an Anti-Racist Institution initiative?

AM: The first success is that we’ve been able to increase the diversity of the incoming class due to more financial aid and the larger applicant pool among undergraduates. We’re also making grounds in the compositional diversity of students across our professional schools. However, we need to do more on faculty and staff diversity, and we’re putting a large focus on faculty and putting funding forward for cluster hires and other mechanisms to bring more faculty of color, particularly in the STEM subjects, where we’re not doing as well on compositional diversity.

The other area where we are progressing is putting capacity and infrastructure into diversity efforts. Now the provost’s office is hiring a vice president for DEIJ who will be looking at issues around racism.

I think the training and education — particularly of search committees and students who are coming to the university for the first time — is really important in changing our culture toward becoming an anti-racist institution. And so our recruitment and hiring practices, faculty search and promotion processes are undergoing education and training so that we can work on that particular area of possible bias.

We have always had a diversity and inclusion leadership council, which I chair, but we have now two oversight or advisory councils

— one on anti-racism and one on antisemitism — made up of faculty and staff from across the university to advise the senior team.

TD: From an administrative perspective, what might the next phase of the university’s pandemic response look like?

AM: We are now in a new normal, and what’s good about it is we can start functioning more in person without the risk of hospitalization and death. Originally, by meeting in person, you would be putting people at risk of hospitalization. Now, with the vaccines and the boosters and protocols, we were able to conduct ourselves in a way that allowed morale to improve. We would like to keep it that way, but we will have to make decisions like requiring masks and testing depending on how the different variants come through and how severe they are.

If they’re like the variants we have now and they’re less severe, we can manage that with our current protocols, but if they come back next year and are more virulent and make people more sick, then we will have to take some more serious measures.

TD: What’s the current state of the university’s financial health?

How’s the endowment doing broadly?

AM: We had a really impressive return last year, almost a 40% return. This year the market has been much choppier. As of a month ago, we were about the same level we were year on year. So it hasn’t lost any value, but it hasn’t gained any either.

However, it had a 40% return the year before and I’ve seen that many times where you’ll have an amazing return one year and the next year it’s flat, so on average, the two together make a more average return.

Regarding fossil fuel investments, we’re no longer investing directly in coal and tar sand companies, and we’re taking steps to reduce indirect investments, but our indirect exposure is only 0.7% of the endowment. We’re trying to reduce that while also increasing the amount of money we put into social impact investing, including solar and other technologies.

So far, we have about $18 billion invested in that. The idea is we keep expanding that and reduce the other one.

Regarding Russian investment, we don’t have any direct Russian exposure. And through our commingled funds, it’s 0.2% — much less than even fossil fuels. We’ll work with our managers of those funds to see what they’re doing to reduce exposure.

TD: What does it mean for Tufts to reduce indirect exposure?

How does that work?

AM: Let’s say you give a fund $10–20 million of the endowment to invest, so they go away and they do that. And then they might say, “We have another fund starting, and we would like you to put another chunk with us since we’ve done well for you here.” When they do that analysis, we can put pressure on them at that point because we can say, “What is this new fund? We’re not decided yet.

We want our funds to have these

goals.” We don’t want investments in fossil fuels, so that’s the point of decision. If they’re not willing to change, then the Investment Office has to make a decision on whether they move on and look at another fund.

We can put pressure from our side every time a fund comes back and asks us to reinvest. We can tell them what our goals are, and if they’re not matching them, then we will move on and find another investment. I think that’s why it’s slow progress, because once you’ve given the funds the money you can’t turn around and say, “I don’t like the way you’re investing that 10% or 5% of it.”

TD: You announced earlier this semester that you will be stepping down from your position in summer 2023. Could you tell us a bit about your hopes for the final year of your presidency?

AM: There’s still a lot of work to be done in the next year or so.

We want to continue the work on anti-racism and antisemitism and other forms of discrimination. We want to finish up the Brighter World campaign so we can raise the funds to resource many of our initiatives. Then there’s the Tufts Medicine initiative: Our medical school is now aligned with Tufts Medical Center and its partner hospitals in a new endeavor to bring our research together under one roof, offer new educational programs and to brand it as a Tufts University partnership with Tufts Medicine. We believe it’s really important for the future of the medical school and also biomedical research at Tufts more generally. I want to make sure, with Caroline Genco and Helen Boucher and our partners at Tufts Medicine, that this really solidifies in the next year and then makes its impact. The new residence hall is also a big priority.

TD: What will your next steps be after Tufts?

AM: I haven’t thought that far ahead, but right now, I’m very focused on the mental health disorder crisis in this country — trying to understand the causes and possible interventions, trying to make things better. At least for the near future, that’ll be my primary focus. I’ll be doing this work with my scientific hat on.

But I don’t know beyond that what I’ll be doing.

TD: We heard from a trusted source that over the course of the pandemic, you befriended some of the rabbits who live around Gifford House. Can you tell us about that?

AM: Well, I befriended all the animals in the garden. It’s enclosed and it’s got tall pine trees, so it’s a nesting site for blue jays and northern cardinals, robins, squirrels, doves and rabbits, and so I slowly got to know all of them. I have names for all of them. They recognize me, and the rabbits all eat out of my hand.

There’s Mama Doe, Papa Doe, Junior, Quarter Pint, Half Pint, White Nose, Little One, Little Two, I can keep going. They all have distinguishing marks and personalities. Some are more eager to interact with you and others are more reticent.

P

Sunday, May 22, 2022 | PHOTOS | THE TUFTS DAILY

In Photos: Tufts in bloom

PHOTO CREDITS: KATRINA AQUILINO, OLIVIA BELLO, NATALIE BROWNSELL, IAN LAU, MINA TERZIOGLU AND KIANA VALLO / THE TUFTS DAILY

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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Sunday, May 22, 2022

tuftsdaily.com

Cover to cover:

Class of 2022’s 4 years on campus, reviewed

RACHEL HARTMAN / THE TUFTS DAILY

JULIA MCDOWELL / THE TUFTS DAILY

Students participate in “Picket for a Fair Dining Contract” in front of Carmichael Dining Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor walks through the aisles to speak to the Tufts community on Sept. 12, 2019.

Center on March 5, 2019.

NICOLE GARAY / THE TUFTS DAILY

A Tufts student drops their ballot into a mailbox on Oct. 17, 2020.

by Rebecca Barker News Editor

Editor’s note: The 2018–19, 2019– 20 and 2020–21 recaps in this article are reprinted from the 2020–21 Commencement Issue of the Daily.

2018–19 The year began with the initial rollout of CoHo, bringing in 45 new beds to campus for juniors and seniors. By the second semester, 39 more beds were added as the second phase rolled out, with the final phase set for the following fall.

The political climate on campus was tense leading up to the midterm elections. On Nov. 1, 2018, less than a week before the midterms, reporters at the Daily discovered posters reading, “It’s ok to be white” around campus, covering get-out-thevote signs placed by JumboVote.

The posters have been linked to white nationalists, including David Duke, former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard.

The ballot questions for that year’s midterm elections were equally important to Tufts, particularly Question 3, which threatened to exclude gender identity from a list of state-held protections. The statewide Yes on 3 campaign, which upheld transgender rights, was campaigned for aggressively on Tufts’ campus, and Question 3 passed in favor of retaining protections based on gender identity.

During the midterm elections, Ayanna Pressley was elected to represent Massachusetts’ 7th District in Congress. Pressley is the first African American woman to represent Massachusetts on the national stage.

During the spring semester, Julián Cancino, the former director of the Latino Center, left Tufts, leaving three of the Division of Student Diversity and Inclusion centers without permanent directors. The FIRST Resource Center, aiming to serve first-generation students, opened for its first academic year.

Housing in areas other than CoHo also saw major changes throughout the year. In February, the Office of Residential Life and Learning announced that the SMFA Beacon Street dorms would house only first-years in the coming academic year due to historically large class sizes.

Carmichael Hall would house only first-years in the coming year; Harleston Hall would house only sophomores.

In February, Rabbi Naftali Brawer found posters containing anti-Israel messages defacing the Granoff Family Hillel Center. The act was decried as antisemitic and as holding the whole of the Jewish diaspora responsible for the acts of the state of Israel.

Identity-based tensions on campus continued as a message supporting survivors of sexual assault on the cannon was paint-

ETHAN STEINBERG / THE TUFTS DAILY

Classes in the new Joyce Cummings Center began in January. ed over with “Trump 2020” and eggings on campus occurred.

One of the victims cited “transmisogyny” as the reason for the egging.

The year also saw rising tensions between dining workers and Tufts, as UNITE HERE Local 26 continued to negotiate for a fair contract. In particular, students and workers held a picket outside of Carmichael Hall, with an attendance of over 800 as students shouted slogans in support of the dining workers. Shortly afterward, the dining workers voted to authorize a strike, which was narrowly avoided when Tufts and the workers reached an agreement on April 29.

2019–20 The Class of 2022’s second year at Tufts was shaken by a series of developments that again made Tufts the focus of national news, before being cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic in March.

Former Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, U.S. Senator for Massachusetts Ed Markey and Karl Rove, a former special advisor to U.S. President George W. Bush, were some of the many guests who visited Tufts as part of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life’s Distinguished Speaker Series.

While impeachment proceedings of U.S. President Donald

Trump prevented then-Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bennett from visiting, fellow candidate Marianne Williamson met with Tufts Democrats in October.

Margot Cardamone became the FIRST Resource Center director after the Office of Student Success and Advising was dissolved in September, and Marvin Casasola was hired as the next Latino Center director.

Early in the fall, the Tufts campus was struck by three consecutive incidents of hate within one month. First, a Jewish student returned to their residence hall on Sept. 15 to discover a swastika affixed to their door; second, a different student found a homophobic slur carved into their door on Oct. 2; third, a sign was defaced at the African American Trail Project exhibit in the Aidekman Arts Center. After the final incident, Monaco announced the formation of two bias response teams to focus on supporting the Tufts community.

The Tufts community also learned in September that Monaco attended a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman the previous year, though the university did not disclose it at the time.

Tufts again made headlines in December by deciding to remove the Sackler name from its health sciences campus and

programs, and establishing a $3 million endowment focused on substance abuse and addiction prevention and treatment.

The university made the decision following the completion of an independent review of its relationship with the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma by former U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts David Stern and Attorney Sandy Remz.

Tufts announced on Jan. 2 that for $2 million over 10 years, “Medford/Tufts” would be the name of the new Green Line Extension station under construction at the intersection of Boston Avenue and College Avenue. When completed, the station will be directly adjacent to the Joyce Cummings Center, a new academic building under construction since June 2019 and in planning since 2015.

Spring semester began with Tisch College’s historic move to Barnum Hall from LincolnFilene Hall, which also coincided with the beginning of its 20th anniversary celebrations.

Barnum Hall had been closed for about a year since extensive renovations began in May 2018 and finished the following summer.

Divestment lobbying made headway in February when the administration appointed members to the Responsible see HISTORY, page 17

Ne w s

Sunday, May 22, 2022 | News | THE TUFTS DAILY

17

Class of 2022 graduates after 4 years marked by COVID-19, campus change HISTORY

continued from page 16 Investment Advisory Group for a review of Tufts’ investments in the fossil fuel industry. The Board of Trustees established the advisory committee four months prior, after nearly seven years of student activism on the issue.

The semester was upended, however, when Monaco announced on March 10 the closure of campus and shift to online classes due to the escalating COVID-19 pandemic. Tufts confirmed its first positive case days later while students spontaneously organized financial and material support through Tufts Mutual Aid. Although classes resumed remotely on March 25, campus buildings were shuttered as many students were forced to return home, some petitioned to remain and others still were quarantined on campus. Students studying abroad as well as exchange students at Tufts all returned home, though some faced great difficulty as travel bans were implemented worldwide.

Dining workers’ hours were cut with most dining locations closed, but they secured an agreement to extend benefits through the end of the semester.

Among other academic policy modifications, faculty approved a new and temporary Exceptional Pass/Fail grading system, which was opt-in and would satisfy all academic requirements.

The administration reaffirmed its commitment to meeting full demonstrated need in financial aid, despite an expected $15 million budget deficit in the current fiscal year and an estimated $50 million shortfall in the next.

Having initially canceled ceremonies entirely, the administration responded to outrage from many members of the Class of 2020 by promising to hold in-person Commencement when it would again be safe to do so. On May 17, Tufts instead held a virtual all-university degree conferral ceremony.

2020–21 The class of 2022’s third year began unconventionally, as Tufts’ academics and activities adapted to a hybrid model in adherence with COVID-19 public health guidelines. While Tufts welcomed students back to campus, some opted to either attend classes remotely or take a leave of absence.

Tufts implemented a number of measures to ensure the safety of community members, including routine testing for students, pooled testing that extended to Somerville and Medford residents and the implementation of the Mods, which facilitated the ability to quarantine students who tested positive for COVID19 and their close contacts.

Online programming allowed for a robust lineup of speakers through Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life’s Distinguished Speaker Series.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Dr. Anthony Fauci, voting rights activist and former gubernatorial candidate Stacey

Abrams and author Ijeoma Oluo were only a few of the speakers to visit Tufts virtually this year.

The Division of Student Diversity and Inclusion was renamed as part of a larger restructuring effort. This change additionally welcomed three new full-time staffing positions.

The year was also marked by student activism and political engagement. Members of the Tufts community marched in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, formed new campus organizations focused on anti-racism and reevaluated the lack of representation in departmental curricula. This came after a summer of protests and a national reckoning with police brutality and white supremacy in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. Student organizations also phone-banked, assisted with voter registration and worked at the polls leading up to the presidential election in November.

Shortly after Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election was announced, Tufts faced challenges within its own student government when the Tufts Community Union Judiciary suspended the Senate Executive Board and Elections Commission (ECOM) in November. The Judiciary believed that the Senate Executive Board and ECOM were planning to appoint students to vacant Senate seats — a violation of the TCU Constitution. The Judiciary then revoked its suspension after less than 24 hours, having resolved what had been a miscommunication between the three branches.

TCU also held a special election at the end of November, which included referenda by Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine and Tufts for a Racially Equitable Endowment. Although 42% of the student body voted — the highest turnout for a special election in Tufts’ history — the university announced that it had no plans to take action on either referendum.

Many students left campus early this fall, with Tufts asking those who traveled for Thanksgiving to remain home and complete classes virtually.

Students did not return to campus until late January for the spring semester, which began Feb. 1. Most study abroad programs remained suspended and spring break was condensed into a three day weekend, in part due to traveling risks posed by COVID-19.

Tufts and its surrounding communities were affected by multiple acts of hate early in 2021. Many reacted to the insurrection at the Capitol that took place on Jan. 6, as well as the involvement of Jessica Turner, a member of the Somerville Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

The university shared the results of an investigation in February regarding a September incident involving Tufts University Police Department’s response to three women of color hanging a mask on the Jumbo

statue as part of a university-sponsored effort to promote JumboVote and Healthy@Tufts.

The investigation concluded that discrimination did not factor into the incident.

This announcement came only days before two Zoom bombing incidents — one at a diversity, equity and inclusion event — occurred back to back. President Monaco subsequently announced the creation of Bias Education Response Teams in March, which are designed to address the impact of hateful and discriminatory acts, as well as provide support to the community.

The Board of Trustees voted to ban direct investments in 120 coal and tar sands companies, which was announced in a Feb. 10 email to the community. However, many environmental organizations on campus remained unsatisfied with the decision, citing a lack of change in current investments.

President Monaco also shared the recommendations of five workstreams created in July 2020 as part of the university’s commitment to becoming an anti-racist institution in a Feb. 17 email. The workstreams — Institutional Audit and Targeted Action, Campus Safety and Policing, Public Art, Compositional Diversity and Equity and Inclusion — were composed of faculty, staff and students.

The Class of 2022 played a key role in reforming and restructuring Greek life on campus during its final year. Following discussions prompted by the online account “Abolish Greek Life at Tufts” over the summer, all members of Alpha Phi and the majority of members in Chi Omega disaffiliated from their national chapters, creating local sororities The Ivy and Thalia, respectively.

New members were welcomed through virtual recruitment in the spring.

The university announced that it would close the Confucius Institute in March. The decision came after months of weekly protests from the local Tibetan, Uighur and Hong Kong communities.

A record-low 11% of students were offered admission to the Class of 2025, and the accepted students comprise the most ethnically and racially diverse undergraduate class in Tufts history and are part of the first class that applied under the university’s new test-optional policy.

TCU President-elect and rising senior Amma Agyei made history this year as the first Black woman elected to the TCU presidency. Agyei won over rising senior Tim Leong, who served as TCU vice president.

For the second year in a row, the university planned a virtual Senior Week and Commencement, despite concerns voiced by the senior class.

Tufts welcomed civil rights lawyer and author Bryan Stevenson to deliver the 2021 Commencement address on May 23.

2021–22 The Class of 2022’s final year at Tufts saw the return of majority in-person classes, extracurricular activities and study abroad programs, though new variants of COVID-19 left many pandemic guidelines in place, such as masking indoors and routine testing.

To facilitate a return to in-person activities, the university required that all students arrive at Tufts fully vaccinated, assisting international students with vaccinations if they were not yet available in their home countries.

However, not all students were able to live on campus.

Approximately 100 first-year students were assigned housing at the Hyatt Place in Medford — a decision meant to temporarily mitigate the longstanding housing crisis at Tufts.

The first week of academic classes was marked by an act of hate. A student reported the removal of a mezuzah — a traditional Jewish symbol — from their doorpost in early September. Later that month, another mezuzah was stolen, and Black Lives Matter posters were found purposefully torn down on campus.

The beginning of the academic year saw a number of changes in leadership, with the arrival of Dayna Cunningham as the new dean of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, Kyongbum Lee as the interim dean of the School of Engineering and Yolanda Smith as executive director of public safety.

Tufts mourned the passing of community members this fall and spring, including students Madie Nicpon ‘23 and Cher Xiong ‘24; Margaret Rose Vendryres, the incoming dean of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts; Danielle Abrams, professor of the practice in the performance department at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts; and Sheldon Krimsky, the Lenore Stern professor of humanities and social sciences in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning.

Tufts students rallied around local campaigns leading up to the 2021 mayoral elections in Medford, Somerville and Boston on Nov. 2. Somerville saw the election of Katjana Ballantyne, its first new mayor in 18 years, while Boston elected Michelle Wu, who is the first woman and first person of color to hold the position in the city’s history.

Students also sought to reverse the university’s proposed discontinuation of the Portuguese program at Tufts — a decision that came without warning to faculty and students teaching and studying Portuguese. Despite their efforts, the program will be discontinued after the 2022–23 academic year.

The university announced its intent to establish an Indigneous student identity center under the Division of Student Diversity and Inclusion in November, hiring Vernon Miller as its director in February.

In April, the community voted

in favor of a referendum proposed by the Tufts Community Union to add an Indigenous community senator seat to its organization.

After years of construction, the Joyce Cummings Center finally opened its doors to students in late November. The six-story building, for which planning began in 2015, houses the Departments of Computer Science, Economics and Mathematics, as well as two Fletcher School programs.

The fall semester was cut slightly short when a December outbreak of the omicron variant of COVID-19 led the university to move all finals online after Dec. 17. The first three days of the spring semester were held remotely due to high caseloads in January.

In February, President Monaco announced his intent to step down as university president during the summer of 2023, marking the end of what will be a 12-year tenure.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, students rallied to support Ukraine by protesting, compiling resources on the war and putting on a concert to raise money for medical aid to the country.

Tufts saw yet another increase in the number of applications and offered admission to a record-low 9% of applicants to the Class of 2026. To compensate for a lack of housing for these incoming first-year students, the university announced its intent to build temporary, dorm-like structures where The Mods are currently located.

The Working Group on TUPD Arming announced its recommendation that TUPD alter its arming status to a “hybrid model,” comprising a combination of armed officers and unarmed security professionals, on March 29. This announcement comes a year after five workstreams released report recommendations on how the university can become an anti-racist institution.

The School of Medicine announced plans to open a new Center for Black Maternal Health and Reproductive Justice on April 8, which aims to address and combat structural racism seen in health care fields.

Tufts held its first in-person Spring Fling since 2019, featuring performances from Tufts student Ella Jane, BIA and Aminé. Senior week also featured in-person events for the first time in three years.

The Class of 2022 will celebrate commencement on May 22, while the Class of 2020 will have an in-person ceremony on May 27. Award-winning scholar Erika Lee (A’91) will deliver the commencement address for the Class of 2022, while Neil Blumenthal (LA’02), co-founder and co-CEO of the eyeglasses company Warby Parker, will deliver the commencement address for the Class of 2020.

Robert Kaplan and Austin Clementi contributed reporting to this article.

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In Photos: Animals

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PHOTO CREDITS: OLIVIA BELLO, NATALIE BROWNSELL, ELIN SHIH, MINA TERZIOGLU, QUAN TRAN AND KIANA VALLO / THE TUFTS DAILY

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Dean Cunningham, Tisch College reflect on year of civic engagement, community involvement

by Madeline Wilson Assistant News Editor

The Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life has worked this year to integrate civic engagement into higher education, private and public institutions and active community involvement.

Under the leadership of Dayna Cunningham, who just concluded her first academic year as dean, Tisch College has been focusing its research and initiatives on building a multiracial democracy through civic education. The college houses several research institutes, hosts events and leads an array of community initiatives, all of which progressed in their work amid the turbulence of the past year.

In an interview with the Daily, Dean Cunningham spoke about the role that Tisch College plays in building a multiracial democracy, especially in the face of unexpected challenges.

“What we bring is so relevant and so in service to this moment,” she said. “We have to understand better: What does fair representation look like now in a country where there won’t be a single governing majority?”

In 2021, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement

celebrated its 20th year of research. CIRCLE Director Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg spoke about the center’s plans to introduce a new, more comprehensive framework for growing voter participation among young people in June.

“That’s really a culmination of the last 20 years of work and thinking about and watching these challenges of inequality. …

Representing that inequality in voter participation then leads to different representations of different segments of our communities, including youth, but especially young people of color or immigrant youth or low-income youth,” she said.

One of the major outputs of Tisch College’s research is the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement, a study created by the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education. Since its inception, more than 1,100 campuses have participated in the NSLVE. Nancy Thomas, director of IDHE, spoke about the importance of work like the NSLVE in managing threats to democracy.

“Our work is about an educational agenda,” she said. “It is in the context of threats to democracy that we are developing this framework for higher education’s role. … Colleges and universities

MINA TERZIOGLU / THE TUFTS DAILY

The Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life inside Barnum Hall is pictured on May 10. should be the truth tellers; they should be the ones clarifying the record when there’s disinformation out there.”

Because of its focus on civic engagement, much of the work of the Tisch College research institutes operates on a timeline that aligns with the U.S. election cycle and fiscal year. Evan Horowitz, executive director of the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tisch

Tenants union continues organizing against LaCourt Realty, doubles down on demands

College, highlighted the institute’s research into certain ballot initiatives for the upcoming midterm election.

This year, cSPA released a report on a 2022 ballot question that would label rideshare and gig workers as independent contractors rather than employees.

It also analyzed the potential impact of the Massachusetts Fair Share Amendment, or “million-

Assistant News Editor

EMILY THOMPSON / THE TUFTS DAILY

by Claire Ferris

Assistant News Editor

Editor’s note: Mouhab Rizkallah, owner of LaCourt Realty LLC, sued Alexander Janoff, the Daily’s editor in chief, and Emily Thompson, a deputy news editor, in March 2022 over the Daily’s coverage of the LaCourt Tenants Union. The case was later dismissed with prejudice. Janoff and Thompson were not involved in the reporting or writing of this article.

In February, members of the LaCourt Tenants Union, an organization of LaCourt

Realty LLC tenants and community supporters, protested LaCourt’s lawsuit against a former tenant, Alona Brosh, who the company sued for $28,875 of “unpaid rent.” Since then, the LCTU has continued organizing against evictions and rent increases, claiming LaCourt — which has roughly 3,000 tenants in the Greater Boston area — has continued to raise rents during the pandemic. LaCourt acknowledges that its prices have risen with inflation but says it has made efforts to absorb costs on tenants’ behalf. The LCTU is also

monitoring ongoing legal proceedings between Brosh and LaCourt.

The LCTU’s current work LCTU organizer Thane Hale explained why the union is concentrating on rent increases.

“What is going to materially hurt tenants the most is the increasing rate of rent, which is ongoing,” Hale said.

Mouhab Rizkallah, owner of LaCourt as well as The Braces Place in Somerville, addressed the subject of rent increases in an email to the Daily. see LACOURT, page 20

see TISCH, page 20

Q&A: New chaplains reflect on accomplishments from their first year on the Hill

by Madeline Mueller

Protestors are pictured outside the Davis Square MBTA station on Feb. 3.

aire’s tax,” a ballot question that would change the state constitution to institute a 4% surtax on annual incomes over $1 million.

“I think on the public-facing side, [a highlight] has been the work we did on the millionaire’s tax with Professor [Thomas] Downes, which has been great and has really reset the debate

As the Class of 2025 finishes its first year on campus, three members of the University Chaplaincy staff are also able to look back at their first year at Tufts. Buddhist Chaplain Ji Hyang Padma and Humanist Chaplain Anthony Cruz Pantojas joined the chaplaincy in summer 2021, while Muslim Chaplain Najiba Akbar started in fall 2021. The three chaplains reflected on their first year in interviews with the Daily.

Editor’s note: These interviews have been edited for length and clarity. Padma spoke to the Daily in an interview and Cruz Pantojas and Akbar responded via email.

The Tufts Daily (TD): What drew you to join the Tufts chaplaincy?

Najiba Akbar (NA): I was drawn to chaplaincy because of the opportunity it offers to walk alongside others on their journeys of faith, meaning and purpose. I was drawn to Tufts specifically because of the wonderful team of people that make up the University Chaplaincy. I really appreciate how integrated the Chaplaincy team is and how we collaborate and work together to serve the campus as a whole.

Ji Hyang Padma (JHP): I have been involved in Buddhist college chaplaincy since 1994,

and so it’s a particular passion of mine. I feel like by giving a good foundation in meditation practice and ethics and … looking into the big questions, that really prepares us the best for the rest of our life. Tufts is a beautiful place to go about that.

Anthony Cruz Pantojas (ACP): During my graduate studies at Andover Newton Theological School, I had faculty and mentors who I looked up to. One of them was Dr. Celene Ibrahim who was formerly the Muslim Chaplain at Tufts. She invited me to visit the Tufts campus. During my initial visit, I felt connected to the community. When the position for Humanist Chaplain opened up, a few colleagues suggested I apply. I feel honored to be part of a dynamic and vibrant University Chaplaincy community.

TD: What has been your favorite part of working at Tufts so far?

NA: I have really enjoyed getting to know students and working alongside them to co-create our programming and community life. It’s also been a joy to coordinate the Ramadan programming this year and be able to break fast in community twice a week.

JHP: I think … just the range of life experience of students and the worthwhile goals and dreams that I see being nurtured here. see CHAPLAINCY, page 20

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As Cunningham concludes first year as dean, Tisch College continues to produce research, guides Tufts’ institutional trajectory TISCH

continued from page 19 in terms of expected revenues,” Horowitz said. “I’m very proud of that work and the way it’s been received and the effect it’s had in terms of getting people to appreciate the risks and the likely impact.”

Many of the initiatives that Tisch College is spearheading are still feeling the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, as health restrictions continue to make it difficult to “build trust and to do hands-on work,” as Cunningham put it. Cunningham also noted the ways that the pandemic has created new opportunities for civic engagement.

“It has strengthened our audiences for our marquee program, the Solomont Speaker Series, so we have gotten bigger audiences than we have ever had,” she said. “We did our Leadership for Social Change program, which is [for] high school students already recognizing themselves as civic leaders and wanting to begin a process of strengthening their leadership in community with other like minded people. We were able to expand that.”

Kawashima-Ginsberg noted the ways that youth populations stepped up during the pandem-

COURTESY ROBIN SMYTON

Dayna Cunningham, dean of Tisch College, is pictured. ic, as young people and college students are a key demographic that Tisch College works with to enhance civic engagement.

“We were able to ask questions about how the pandemic itself is letting young people serve in different ways in the community,” she said. “But of course, we highlighted the fact that there’s so many young people that are

struggling with mental health issues and how that was exacerbated by loss of employment, financial instability and so on.”

Looking forward, Cunningham mentioned the recent launch of the Generous Listening and Dialogue Center at Tufts, which hopes to “promote authentic connection through dialogue and generous listening, even across

differences,” according to the Tisch College website.

Cunningham also noted the role of Tisch College in Tufts’ upcoming presidential transition, as University President Anthony Monaco is set to step down from his position in 2023.

“Tufts has always had a focus and a strength in prioritizing civic engagement, and I think

that is going to continue to be really important during the transition and onboarding of the new president,” she said.

“How do we help make palpable for that person the strengths, the importance and the contributions of Tisch to the overall culture and value proposition of Tufts?”

Tisch College is currently nearing the conclusion of the Strategic Plan it developed in 2015, which set a series of goals and commitments for 2016 to 2023 structured around education, research and practice.

Strategic planning is in process for the future of the College beyond this framework, and Cunningham is optimistic about the important role that Tisch College will continue to play in addressing essential questions about democracy and civic engagement.

“We’re an institution of higher education, and so our greatest contribution is knowledge and preparing the next generation of leadership,” she said. “For us, what is important is remaining connected to people who are frontline changemakers, so that we understand the kinds of questions they’re asking that we can help to inform.”

Tenants criticize landlord's rent increases, property maintenance, communication LACOURT

continued from page 19 “LaCourt Realty believes in affordable housing, and recognizes that the world population has doubled in the past 50 years,” Rizkallah wrote. “Until high density zoning and streamlined permitting is established

by City leaders, housing costs will continue to rise.”

Rizkallah further outlined LaCourt’s response to rising inflation.

“With 3 tenant exceptions, LaCourt has absorbed about 50% of the past three years’ inflationary costs, and offered lease renewals at rents below what the market would bear,” Rizkallah wrote. “Despite that increased profit opportunity, LaCourt has restrained its profitability on existing tenants, because LaCourt genuinely likes most of its tenants, and understands that tenants need help getting through this difficult time.”

Halting evictions and rent increases were the top two demands the LCTU made of LaCourt in February 2020. The demand letter that the union sent to Rizkallah also called for improved maintenance and access to free, functional washing machines and dryers for all tenants. Hale said that the demand for washers and dryers remains salient for tenants in 2022. He added that “maintenance is slightly better” today than it was before, although “it’s still not up to the best standard.”

Tenants diverge in their characterization of LaCourt Hale connected the Daily with three current and for-

mer LaCourt tenants, including Brosh, who discussed their experience with the management group.

A current LaCourt tenant who wished to remain anonymous explained that they have had two maintenance issues with LaCourt. They said one of their issues was quickly fixed, but LaCourt blamed the other one on the tenants and took several weeks to resolve it.

An anonymous former tenant agreed that LaCourt’s responsiveness was mediocre, noting that they did not experience many maintenance issues.

“It’s kind of 50-50 — they do about half the things … we requested,” they told the Daily.

This former tenant also expressed frustration with LaCourt’s false advertising of free laundry to potential new tenants.

Rizkallah put the Daily in contact with two current LaCourt tenants who say they have had positive experiences with the company.

“I’ve never personally had an issue with LaCourt, and they’ve always been good to me as a tenant,” tenant Rob Hamilton wrote in an email to the Daily.

Dana Cechinio, another tenant, said LaCourt treats its tenants well.“They have nice apartments and have always been responsive,” Cechinio wrote in an email to the Daily.

Brosh countered that LaCourt refused to fix a crack in her window, opting instead to put tape over it.

“Good housing is a right,” the anonymous current tenant wrote

in an email to the Daily. “If you can’t provide excellent housing to 3,000 tenants then you shouldn’t have 3,000 tenants.”

LaCourt’s lawsuits against tenants Hale said that aside from what he sees as LaCourt’s property maintenance and administration shortcomings, LaCourt abuses its power by suing its tenants. “[Rizkallah is] just very litigious,” Hale said. “And in fact, this is what is impinging on our organizing. [Litigation is] their strategy to keep tenants from coming to the press, from going to the government or just organizing generally. It can be really intimidating.”

LaCourt has active lawsuits against Brosh and Michael Ventura, another former tenant.

Brosh echoed Hale’s frustration over the lawsuits, highlighting the vulnerability tenants experience as defendants.

“There’s no lawyer who’s going to fight for tenants,” Brosh said. “Truthfully, we’re the ones who need protecting.

We don’t have the resources that landlords do.”

Hale emphasized the importance of the LCTU as a community and social organization.

He explained that the union primarily wants to set up meetings with members, organize social events and engage in dialogue with LaCourt. He stressed the LCTU’s aversion to and frustration with the current legal aspects of its work.

“It’s so stressful to have these lawsuits hanging over you,” Hale said. “But on the other hand, we know what

we’re doing is right. And what is required of us to do what’s right can be a lot.”

Brosh and LaCourt in ongoing litigation Hale said that the LCTU is also involved in advocacy on behalf of two former tenants, including Brosh.

Brosh, whom LaCourt is currently suing in the Somerville District Court for “unpaid rent,” said that in May 2020 the realty company informed her and other tenants that they were expected to keep paying rent despite pandemic conditions. Brosh had recently lost her job.

Soon after, LaCourt sent Brosh and her two roommates an “intent to renew” letter to sign. Brosh said her memory and understanding of the letter was that it would constitute a lease only if all three of them signed. She signed the letter, but her two roommates did not, at which point she began searching for new roommates.

Brosh claims she found at least seven candidates to fill the rest of her unit, including one who sent LaCourt a money order for their $50 background check fee, but that LaCourt took too long to process the background check, causing the prospective housemate to look for housing elsewhere.

“I made a good faith effort to find roommates and LaCourt … dragged their feet and I lost out on a lot of candidates during a pandemic when people were not keen to move,” Brosh said.

At that point, a few days before the upcoming lease cycle and unable to find roommates,

Brosh decided not to renew her lease with LaCourt. She claims LaCourt sent her a lease to sign for the upcoming lease cycle nine times, and that she declined to do so each time.

Rizkallah contradicted Brosh’s recollection of events. “[Brosh] informed LaCourt that she was not going to renew, and LaCourt rented her space to new tenants,” Rizkallah wrote. “[Brosh] then desperately asked LaCourt to let her renew her lease, and LaCourt reminded her that she did not have roommates. She indicated to LaCourt that she would take the responsibility to find roommates, and she begged LaCourt to accept her ‘intent to renew’ form.”

“LaCourt was frustrated because LaCourt now had to disappoint the new tenants that wanted the apartment,” Rizkallah wrote. “Two months later, the day before the new lease was due to begin, Ms. Brosh shockingly indicated to LaCourt that she could not find roommates and would be exiting the space. Her behavior was egregious negligence that hurt others, violated a binding contract, and LaCourt held her legally accountable for this.”

Brosh explained her decision not to renew her lease.

“I was unemployed because of the pandemic,” she explained. “I did not have the income to support my living there by myself,” Brosh said.

“That was not a possibility. And also, I did not want to live there anymore, because it was not kept up to date.”

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New chaplains discuss programming, collaborations of the past year CHAPLAINCY

continued from page 19 ACP: The ethos, collegiality, and commitment to foster social justice have been incredible to experience.

During moments of joy, sorrow, pain, and uncertainty, I have witnessed how support is mobilized for the campus community. For example, I was on an accepted students panel through Student Services to answer parents’ questions about mental health and wellness — hearing my colleagues from around the institution and our shared transdisciplinary commitment to student well-being reminded me of how we are ‘inspiring minds and transforming the world’ together in community.

TD: What is something that you have done this year that you are most proud of?

NA: I was thrilled with how our interfaith iftar went this year! We had about 90 students come together at the Interfaith Center from all different backgrounds to break fast with the Muslim community. It was

wonderful to have an opportunity to share that special moment and also hear reflections from students about their own journeys with faith, fasting and community.

JHP: I led two weekend retreats for the Tufts Buddhist Mindfulness Sangha and I think that the Fall Retreat had more applications than any retreat that we’ve had previously as an organization. …There were some students who told me that that was the highlight of their fall semester!

ACP: Having had the opportunity to co-build a community of learners, inquirers, and explorers who believe that coming together, serving, and mentoring others is necessary to revitalize the human condition.

TD: What is something about your role that felt new or took some adjustment?

NA: Learning all of the logistics required to do my role has taken some adjustment, however I’ve had great support from the chaplaincy staff in figuring that out. I now

MINA TERZIOGLU / THE TUFTS DAILY

A sign displays members of the University Chaplaincy outside Goddard Chapel on May 10. feel much better equipped in working with other departments as needed to do my programming.

JHP: I think one thing that took adjusting was all of the different campus locations. It’s

TUPD makes policy reforms under new leadership

by Aaron Gruen News Editor

The Tufts University Police Department has made reforms related to arming and mental health under the new leadership of Yolanda Smith, the first Black woman to directly oversee TUPD. The reforms, which have been met with mixed reception, stem from suggestions made by the Working Group on Campus Safety and Policing which was assembled as part of the Tufts as an Anti-Racist Institution initiative.

Smith, the executive director of public safety, addressed recent reforms in an email to the Tufts community on April 21. In the email, Smith outlined changes to TUPD policy, including the formation of the Campus Safety Advisory Board,

a new mental health response model and improved training programs for TUPD officers.

Citing the Working Group on TUPD Arming’s suggestion of a “hybrid model” of policing, Smith also announced that an unarmed “campus security officer” would address nonviolent situations on the Medford/ Somerville campus beginning in fall 2022. In an email to the Daily, Smith said that “the primary focus of the new model will be de-escalation [and] diversion from arrests.”

Students from Tufts’ Student Prison Education and Activism Coalition, a group that has been critical of TUPD policies in the past and believes that TUPD should be abolished, expected different changes to come from the working group on arming’s findings. Laura Kelly, a member

of SPEAC, found Smith’s latest email to be “misleading.”

“While [TUPD does] say that [it is] working to disarm, it just means adding more unarmed officers,” Kelly, a sophomore, said. “That’d be a bigger police presence on campus, which is not a win in our eyes.”

Grace Borbon, who is also a member of SPEAC, agreed with Kelly.

“We took [the hybrid model] to mean that they were going to disarm or retrain a part of their current armed force … whereas they’re keeping all of their armed officers, and supplementing that with an entire new force of [unarmed] officers,” Borbon, a first-year, said.

Amma Agyei, the outgoing president of the TCU Senate, was see TUPD, page 22

MINA TERZIOGLU / THE TUFTS DAILY

The TUPD office is pictured on May 8.

one thing to get a kind of internal map of the Medford campus, but then also to go to the Boston campus, to go to SMFA … to keep track of all that — that took some getting used to. … I have not worked at a

college that had that extensive a campus before.

ACP: Taking public transportation across campuses usually takes over an hour. I have to say that I am thrilled the Green Line is expanding near my home.

Ed Markey, Gina McCarthy visit Tufts for climate conference

by Aaron Gruen News Editor

Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey (H’19) and White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy (AG’81) visited Tufts to discuss measures in combating climate change on April 29.

Markey toured the Tufts campus before he took part in the Massachusetts Climate Summit, titled “Confronting the Climate Crisis: Global Solutions, Local Action.”

“It’s absolutely inspiring to be here at Tufts, because all of these young leaders are up and active and insistent that we pass the legislation that makes the United States the leader on the planet in fighting for [policy] change,” Markey told the Daily during his visit.

During his tour, Markey met with members of the Tufts Pollinator Initiative and briefly spoke about ways young activists can stay motivated in the fight against climate change.

“The previous generations have let down this generation,” Markey said. “We need to ensure that this generation does not agonize, but it organizes to make sure that we put the preventative measures in place that make it possible to avoid the worst, most catastrophic consequences of climate change.”

In the ASEAN Auditorium at the Cabot Center, Markey began his speech by offering some advice and praise to students.

“You have to learn how to work smarter, not harder,” Markey said. “That’s what Tufts is all about.”

Markey then called for the passage of the Green New Deal.

“Real leadership will come through an equitable transition to a zero-carbon economy and a 100% clean, renewable and carbon-free energy grid,” he said. “And we can do it. Our fossil fuel addiction is a catalyst for conflict. The Green New Deal is a pathway to peace.”

Following his speech, Markey introduced McCarthy as the keynote speaker. McCarthy, who served as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under former President Barack Obama, spoke about the urgency of transitioning to green energy sources and the importance of leading the world in climate action.

“If the U.S. doesn’t show some leadership, then it’s going to be very difficult to get other countries that are not as wealthy as we are to understand the benefits of clean energy,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy stressed the intrinsic link between the climate and humanity.

“We want to deliver for people, not the planet,” McCarthy said. “The planet will be benefited by the action we take. But please don’t start by telling people that we’re killing our planet.

We’re killing our people.”

McCarthy discussed the climate portion of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan, which would provide more than half a trillion dollars in tax credits and investments in renewable energy.

“We need Congress to deliver us $550 billion,” McCarthy see CLIMATE, page 22

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TUPD reforms met with mixed reactions TUPD

continued from page 21 pleased that TUPD will change its current response model.

“I felt like it was unnecessary to have armed police officers showing up for non-emergency reasons,” Agyei said. “We need mental health professionals instead of … armed police officer[s] which could escalate the situation.”

During her TCU Senate campaign, Agyei’s platform supported a hybrid police response rather than complete disarmament of TUPD. “Past [TCU Senate] presidents … have been fighting for the complete disarmament of TUPD,” Agyei said. “I felt like coming to a middle ground and then moving on from there was a better approach.”

According to Smith, the new hybrid model will decrease the presence of municipal police on campus, while handling mental health calls holistically to de-escalate crisis situations.

Following the completion of the Campus Safety and Policing Workstream’s final report in February 2021, TUPD announced that it would create a new mental health working group in collaboration with Counseling and Mental Health Services.

“TUPD is currently working out details to embrace a Crisis Intervention Team program that will give officers more tools to do their jobs safely and effectively,” Smith wrote.

While Borbon disagreed with TUPD’s plans to address mental health crises, she said this is a step in the right direction.

“It is important that [TUPD is] recognizing at least that … nearly all students don’t want an armed response for building checks or for mental health crises.”

Smith encouraged the community to view the public safety dashboard, which follows the status of various TUPD initiatives in response to the working group’s report. The dashboard is part of a larger effort from TUPD to increase transparency and collaboration. “[TUPD is] also looking to onboard a Communications Manager who will help with the website and internal communications between TUPD and the community,” Smith wrote.

Agyei believes that, in the future, TUPD officers should appear more approachable. “[TUPD officers’] mission is to keep us safe, is to be there for us,” Agyei said. “The whole uniform, guns, sitting in the car … it almost seems like [they’re] just

KIANA VALLO / THE TUFTS DAILY

A TUPD car is pictured parked in the basement of Dowling Hall. waiting to get someone else in trouble … [they] should be here to help us and not intimidate us.”

Borbon said that these changes — although not perfect — mark action from the administration that has been lacking in the past.

“There [have] been attempts to make meaningful change on the part of the student body, and the administration just has not responded to that,” Borbon

said. “This would probably be their most concrete step towards any type of change, even if it’s not necessarily the change that we want.”

Agyei, who had never been inside TUPD’s office prior to meeting Smith, said the new executive director of public safety was very approachable and open to conversation. “[Smith] made herself super available to me,” Agyei said.

“She was willing to listen to my ideas. … [Smith was] definitely more available than past chiefs of police.”

Kelly hopes that Smith will be receptive to students’ concerns and suggestions in the future.

“I’m hoping that as we continue to push and to promote different strategies of campus safety that she will be attentive and listen to students,” Kelly said.

Markey, McCarthy call for the passage of the Build Back Better plan during Tufts summit CLIMATE

continued from page 21 said. “Is that a lot of money?

Yes. Is it too much? No … because the cost of climate is so much higher.”

Following their addresses, Markey and McCarthy answered questions submitted by students from around the country.

Markey explained that the U.S. should use federal funds to help lower the costs of electric vehicles and to offer tax breaks for individuals looking to go electric.

“Wind and solar, in most states, are actually more affordable for utilities to deploy than coal or natural gas,” Markey said.

McCarthy echoed Markey’s points about the affordability of wind and solar power.

“The secret that sometimes folks in D.C. forget is that wind and solar and battery storage are cheaper than fossil fuels,” McCarthy said. “In fact, electric vehicles will save people money. All we need is to make sure that the sticker price doesn’t stop people from having access to a car that will keep themselves and their families healthy.”

Markey and McCarthy addressed the disproportionate effects of climate change on communities of color.

“There’s some difficulty in understanding the inherent structural discrimination against communities of color,” Markey said. “The commitment is that 40% of [the $550 billion allocated to climate action in

AARON GRUEN / THE TUFTS DAILY

Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and Gina McCarthy address climate change in a speech at The Fletcher School on April 29. the Build Back Better plan] will go to communities of color.”

McCarthy added that environmental justice communities should be encouraged to participate in projects and be included in the decision-making process.

“If we want environmental justice communities to access these grants, then you have to give training,” McCarthy

added. “You have to invest in HBCUs, you have to invest in community colleges, so that everybody can understand how they can invest in … the technologies of tomorrow.”

Markey emphasized that students would help implement the solutions to the climate crisis.

“Young people want change,” Markey said. “They

realize that there’s an urgency to this problem. They can see that the planet is dangerously warming. The planet is running a fever, and there are no emergency rooms at Tufts Medical School for plants.”

During her speech, McCarthy paid tribute to her mentor Sheldon Krimsky, a longtime Tufts professor in the Department of Urban and

Environmental Policy and Planning, who passed away on April 23.

“He will live on in our memories and in the work of his students, who he demanded that we go out and make the world a better place,” McCarthy said. “I just want him to know, wherever he is, that I keep trying, and I always will. So his legacy will live on.”

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Indigenous Students’ Organization at Tufts, new Indigenous Center build community together

by Olivia Field

Assistant News Editor

The Division of Student Diversity and Inclusion announced a new identity center for Indigenous students at Tufts last fall, following recommendations from a workstream report the university published in early 2021. More recently, the university hired Vernon Miller to direct the center.

“The Indigenous Center, under the leadership of Vernon Miller, will work to support students who identify as Indigenous through programming, and collaboration with others in the Tufts community along with external Indigenous communities,” Vernon Miller and Ellisse LaMotte, associate dean of student diversity and inclusion, wrote in a joint statement to the Daily. Miller began his role as the center’s director in March.

The new center will work to amplify Indigenous students’ voices at Tufts while providing social, academic and cultural programming as well. The center joins the DSDI’s six other resource and identity centers as the university’s latest effort to promote diversity and inclusion at Tufts and create more resources for students.

“The Indigenous Center fits into the broader effort and connects to the Compositional Diversity Anti-Racism Workstream efforts and the Tufts as an Anti-Racist Institution initiative directly, in that the Director will work with Admissions to participate in efforts to increase the

indigenous student population and will simultaneously develop programming to support the students who enroll into Tufts,” LaMotte and Miller wrote.

Alongside the DSDI, the Indigenous Students’ Organization at Tufts, or ISOT, has played an important role in the new center’s launch. Cyrus Kirby, a co-founder of ISOT, celebrates the expansion of support for Indigenous students on campus.

“Broadly speaking, our goals are to raise the well-being of Indigenous peoples on campus, which can take many forms,” Kirby, a senior, wrote in a statement to the Daily. “The IC [and] its director Vernon Miller is a huge success for us because it gives us a space to gather, relax, and take some of the load off planning.”

Miller and LaMotte emphasized the collaboration and engagement between the new center and ISOT to expand on their programming and goals.

Last spring, ISOT met with Nandi Bynoe, the former assistant dean of diversity and inclusion, to consult on what the organization wanted to see in a new center. Students of ISOT also interviewed potential candidates for the center’s director in January of this year.

“The Indigenous Center has and will continue to be the hub for ISOT, and other allies of the Indigenous community at Tufts,” Miller and LaMotte wrote.

The Indigenous Students’ Organization at Tufts and the Indigenous Center will also

KATRINA AQUILINO / THE TUFTS DAILY

The Indigenous Center, located on 112 Packard Ave., is pictured on Feb. 22. interact in a more operational capacity and help to strengthen the connection between the work being done by the center and students. The Indigenous center plans to support ISOT programming on Indigenous Peoples’ Day and to aid the student organization with retention and recruitment.

“Tufts, and other predominantly White institutions should create community cultures that emphasize a sense of belonging and provide resources supporting students who are underrepresented on the campus, helping to foster this belonging,” LaMotte and Miller wrote. “Tufts works to accomplish this through the

diversity centers, DSDI, the Chief Diversity Office efforts as well as other efforts throughout the institution.”

LaMotte and Miller outlined how the project was approved and how funding for the new center was allocated.

“There was an interest put forth by the ISOT student organization to open an Indigenous Center and with the approval of the Deans, center funding and a location for the Indigenous Center were allocated. Soon thereafter, a search for the director took place and Vernon Miller was hired in February and started as Director in March 2022,” they wrote.

Formed on campus in 2019, ISOT has high hopes for how the new Indigenous Center can assist and support students on campus.

The DSDI team is currently working on developing programming for the center in preparation for the upcoming academic year.

“Vernon has some great ideas concerning the entire pre-Tufts to post-Tufts process, starting with recruitment and ending with successful placement in a job or grad school,” Kirby wrote. “Part of that involves getting more targeted mental health resources, helping to find internships, and giving ways and a space for students to express their culture on campus.”

In Photos: Tufts Daily Newsroom Concert Series

COURTESEY RILEY BRAY, AARON GRUEN / THE TUFTS DAILY

Veronica Stewart-Frommer (left) and the members of Emperor Jones (right) are pictured performing in The Tufts Daily’s newsroom.

24 Sunday, May 22, 2022

SCIENCE

tuftsdaily.com

Meet the new meat: Kaplan Lab cell agriculture research propelled

by USDA funding

AVERY HANNA / THE TUFTS DAILY

Lab technician Connor Joyce holds up a vial of cell culture medium.

by Avery Hanna Staff Writer

Faint bubbles twist their way to the top of an inconspicuous green container about the size of a hand. Among the miscellaneous bottles and boxes on the countertop, you wouldn’t give the box — called an SDSPAGE — a second glance, and you certainly wouldn’t guess what it was up to. In reality, this device is not a more boring version of a lava lamp, but a part of a larger effort at Tufts and beyond to redefine the food industry.

The small green container, nestled in a corner of Tufts’ antiquated Science and Technology Center, is one of many tools researchers are using as they work day and night to change the game of growing edible meat in a lab through a process known as cellular agriculture. If they’re successful, cellular agriculture could have huge implications for climate change, food safety, animal welfare and more.

“Think of it as using cells to make the food of the future,” says David Kaplan, who is the principal investigator of the lab and the chair of the Department of

Biomedical Engineering at Tufts.

It’s a future many, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture, are excited about; the USDA in October awarded a grant of $10 million over five years to the Kaplan Lab in conjunction with colleagues at Virginia Tech and four other institutions.

Kaplan looks to the promise of cellular agriculture with hope and a healthy amount of skepticism. The idea of a largescale industry around cultivated meat has been touted as the future for years, but Kaplan and many other scientists say that the logistics and practicality

AVERY HANNA / THE TUFTS DAILY

This green SDS-PAGE gel can be found hidden in the corner of the Science and Technology Center lab. Andrew Stout, a Ph.D. student in the Kaplan Lab, explained that it separates proteins by size using an electric field.

The goal of this effort is to assess whether some of these proteins from relatively low-cost plant sources could replace more expensive ingredients in the media that is fed to cow cells in the process of growing meat.

of such a promise are far more complex than many companies make them out to be.

Though the field has seen successes in small-scale laboratory environments, the process of growing meat in a lab is monumentally expensive.

Before cultivated meat can be on everyone’s kitchen tables, a whole industry and the infrastructure that goes with it must be developed, which includes the construction of large-scale bioreactors that grow the cells.

To combat these problems, researchers at the Kaplan Lab are looking to rethink and improve the bioengineering process of creating meat in a lab. They also hope to make the final product more like what we expect from taking a bite of a steak or any cut of meat; right now, the industry has struggled to mimic the food in its entirety. It’s one thing to generate a bunch of meat cells — it’s another to have that product resemble the structure and texture of traditional meat.

The process of lab-grown meat starts with taking a biopsy of muscle tissue from an animal in a quick procedure that doesn’t harm them. Once those cells are plated on a lab petri dish, they grow from a small bundle of cells into a mass of billions.

Eventually, they can develop into something that resembles a small slab of ground beef. To create different types of meat, the researchers use scaffolding, which are structures made of a biomaterial that guides cell growth. This allows the researchers to create meat with

the desired form, texture and taste. The scaffolding could be created in several different ways, from 3D printing it to making it in a traditional cast and mold.

“It's almost like being a sculptor,” Kaplan said. “You decide, ‘I need to have something that looks like this, and I use the right tools to make it.’”

This technology isn’t some far-fetched reality. The first example of cultivated meat came out of the Netherlands in 2013 in the form of a $330,000 hamburger which two food critics ate at a news conference. They both agreed it was close to meat but with differences in juiciness, texture and taste. More recently, the world’s first cultivated meat product hit the market in 2020 in the form of chicken served at a restaurant in Singapore.

Around the globe and within the United States, many cultivated meat startups have been founded with the promise that lab-grown meat will lure climate-conscious consumers, much like plantbased meats did with products such as the Impossible Burger in recent years. These promises, in turn, have fueled huge private investments. Upside Foods, a company based in San Francisco, just opened a scaled-up production plant with the capacity of producing 50,000 pounds a year of cultivated meat, seemingly bringing that promise closer to reality.

But there is a key difference between cultivated and plantbased meats: the high costs. see KAPLAN, page 25

SCI

Sunday, May 22, 2022 | SCIENCE | THE TUFTS DAILY

25

Kaplan Lab generates conversation around cell-based meat KAPLAN

continued from page 24 Some stakeholders, like startups looking for investments, say costs will come down as production becomes larger scale and the infrastructure is developed, while others say cultivated meat will never be economically feasible. Prices have certainly dropped since that first $330,000 burger — a cultivated meat burger today costs about $9.80. But Kaplan said that the answer is unclear.

“I don’t think any of the projections are really accurate, because no one knows,” Kaplan said. “There’s no data, right? So that’s our goal is to fill that gap.”

Andrew Stout, a Ph.D. student in the lab, agreed that at the moment, it’s unclear how costs will change in the coming years.

“There’s been a lot of hype — and potentially unrealistic hype — about the timeframe that these sort of products might reach the market,” Stout said.

So while cultivated meat may not reach the low target costs companies claim they will within five to 10 years, it’s still possible that scientific advancement in the next 20 or 30 years could bring consumers closer to purchasing the meats at an affordable price in the store.

Despite the uncertainty, researchers are pushing forward because the intense threats of climate change and population growth demand innovative solutions.

“I get questions like, ‘Well, do you think this is going to work?’”

Kaplan said. “And I said, there’s no choice, it has to work because if you look at the projections of the population going forward … there’s no way you can feed the planet the way we do it now, so we need alternative ways to generate protein-rich foods.”

Cultivated meat isn’t the only answer to reworking our food production system to feed a population of unprecedented size, but it could be an important one. There are a lot of different possibilities for meats that could eventually reside in grocery aisles; on top of beef, Kaplan’s lab is working to grow cell-cultivated fish, pork, chicken and even insect meat.

Along with providing a valuable source of nutrition for the growing population, cultivat-

ed meat could have profound impacts on the environment, food safety, food security and animal welfare. The meat industry uses huge amounts of land, water and energy, so many hope cultivated meat could be a less wasteful alternative. Still, the impact isn’t entirely clear because the process of growing meat in a lab still requires inputs like water and energy.

“The projections seem to suggest lower energy, lower water, lower land use,” Kaplan said.

“But how much is not clear yet.”

What we do know is that our current means of meat production have significant environmental costs associated with them. Almost 40% of land across the globe is used for agricultural purposes, a significant portion of which acts as pasture for grazing cattle. Though land will be needed for bioreactors in the production of cultivated meat, it will certainly be much less than that needed to raise millions of cows.

While sustainability is often used in explaining the value of cultivated meat, Kaplan said the impact on food safety is underappreciated. Society could avoid the regular safety recalls of infected meat products and limit concerns over antibiotic resistance by growing meat in a closed environment without the need for antibiotics.

Kaplan and his team hope to develop the solid science that the field of cultivated meat needs to cut through the hype.

“There’s been so much investment in startups to produce these foods, that there’s a gap between what academic fundamental science has demonstrated versus what companies are promising,” Kaplan said. “We’re trying to fill that gap.”

To accomplish this goal, Tufts will collaborate with Virginia Tech, Virginia State University, the University of California, Davis, MIT and the University of Massachusetts Boston in their research funded by the USDA grant — each coming at the problem from a different angle.

Ph.D. students working in the Kaplan Lab emphasized the importance of this joint collegiate effort, especially in a field that is dominated by private investment and companies that keep their research findings tightly sealed.

AVERY HANNA / THE TUFTS DAILY

In a room down the twisting white halls of the Science and Technology Center, master’s student Jordan Skeens examines a glowing green blur on a computer screen. Though the picture may look like a poorly painted flower bud to the untrained eye, it shows the expression of green fluorescent protein (GFP) that Stout manufactured into cow cells he has been growing. The green glow on his computer shows that his engineering efforts have paid off; the cow cells appear to express GFPs that they normally wouldn’t.

“I think it was very exciting to get the grant,” Jake Marko, a first-year Ph.D. student, said.

“But I think a bit of the flip side is that there’s just a lot of private funding right now. And this is one of very few public funding options for cultivated meat. So I’m very optimistic that there’ll be a lot more of those in the future.”

The funding from the grant will go toward establishing the National Institute for Cellular Agriculture at Tufts, which will also include other investigators involved with the project.

“Tufts will become a location, along with our partner institutions, where anybody can come in for good quality scientific information about the field,” Kaplan said.

Kaplan explained that the institute will be a resource to anyone looking to learn more about cultivated meat from biotech companies to farms to politicians.

“They would know that this center would be a place where information is available, where we can help them with the tools or the education needs or whatever it is so that they get informed quality advice,” Kaplan said.

Both Kaplan and the Ph.D. students emphasized they were

AVERY HANNA / THE TUFTS DAILY

Lab technician Connor Joyce changes the cell culture medium on mackerel muscle cells.

open to talking with students or anyone interested in learning more about the lab or the field.

There’s a lot to learn and a lot more research to be done.

It’s not clear when cultivated meat will be easily available on the shelves, but one strategy to bring down costs and bring us closer to that day is to combine the new technology with already familiar and successful plantbased products. By combining cell-based products with the cheaper plant-based products that are already so prevalent, companies may be able to find a compromise between the similarity of their products to meat and cost.

“I think that there is definitely a possibility that it’s never economically feasible,” Stout said. “Adapting to that potential has been the thinking of cells as an ingredient, rather than necessarily a full food product.”

Another element of uncertainty comes in the form of infrastructure and scale-up. Right now, cultivated meat is generally produced on a very small scale in laboratory settings. However, many envision a future in which the industry feeds the nation.

“If it were to be really largescale, creating the infrastructure to allow that to happen would also be a big challenge,” sec-

ond-year Ph.D. student in the Kaplan Lab Sophie Letcher said.

“But that’s not something that we really work on that much right now. Because we’re pretty small-scale just on the academic research side.”

How that industry is set up can also have significant impacts on cost. Marko explained how distribution costs could vary depending on the number and size of bioreactors across the United States where cultivated meat would be grown. He said that if we want to keep those distribution costs low, we’ll need to be intentional and organized about how we develop the infrastructure.

Evidently, there is still a lot to figure out before cultivated meat is widely available, which is why research like that of Kaplan and his colleagues is so critical. Despite the challenges and the questions of feasibility, the potential impact of cultivated meat keeps it a relevant research focus and prevalent topic of debate.

“Research never is linear,” Kaplan said. “Two steps forward, three steps back, three steps forward, one step back.

We learn every day. But we have enough momentum and positive output so far that we’re all very, very excited.”

AVERY HANNA / THE TUFTS DAILY

Undergraduate student Tina Guo examines cow cells under the microscope.

26 Sunday, May 22, 2022

Kate Seklir Kate in Paris

E

The end

ndings, as I am sure we have all heard or felt ourselves, are often bittersweet. There is sadness in closing one chapter and knowing that things will likely never be exactly as they once were, and there is apprehension in the thought of what might come next. Will it match what came before? Did we make the most of the time we had when we had it, before it was gone?

But, of course, there is sweetness.

And that is what I am choosing to focus on as I close out what has been a truly wonderful semester spent writing this column about my time in Paris.

These 4 ½ months really went by in the blink of an eye. I remember sitting down to write the first installment of my column, thinking of how to synthesize the ups and downs of my first month here into coherent thoughts.

Back then, the time that stretched out before me seemed endless, full of opportunities, experiences not yet had, friendships not yet made. Looking back at each iteration of my column, I see myself becoming more and more at home here, becoming more self-confident and more open to new experiences. More myself. And now we are here — when this last column installment is published, I will likely be mid-air on my flight from Paris to New York, my semester here tucked away in my back pocket and packed up in my suitcases, kept alive in my camera roll, my fond memories, my new friendships and this column. It’s a sweet thought. No bitterness here.

And while my own Tufts commencement is still a year out, I get that same feeling when I scroll through my camera roll, reflecting back on the three years I have spent as a Tufts student.

Memories from my time as a first-year through my junior year rush back, and I see growth and change accumulate and reveal itself over time. The sweetness of my Tufts experience, no matter the time lost to a pandemic and the ‘what ifs’ that might circulate as a result, still prevails.

I have been very fortunate to study abroad and tack this semester onto my overall Tufts experience, a fact that has not been lost on me. I have had the time and space to grow into myself — to put myself in a new environment and figure out how to adapt quickly.

And I have been able to do it all with the knowledge that, even though the semester itself that I have spent here is finite, I can carry this experience with me wherever I go from here onward.

And so, even though I have chosen to so melodramatically title this last column “The end,” I know it isn’t, really. That is why endings are often not actually endings, but commencements — the start of something new.

You take the experiences and memories with you as you move on, and they become a permanent part of who you are. My time in Paris will live on in the way I remember it, the friendships I’ve made, the knowledge I’ve gained and the stories I tell.

Kate Seklir is a junior studying political science. Kate can be reached at kate.seklir@tufts.edu.

FEATURES

tuftsdaily.com

Senior Profile: TCU President Amma Agyei reflects on her student government leadership

COURTESY AMMA AGYEI

Outgoing TCU President Amma Agyei is pictured.

by Abby Stern Staff Writer

On the night of the 2021 Tufts Community Union Senate presidential election, Amma Agyei waits at the phone, surrounded by her friends, anxiously anticipating the outcome of her campaign. The phone rings and Amma answers, listening to the call with a blank expression. With all eyes on her, she hangs up the phone and promptly screams with joy. Agyei has now become the first Black woman to be elected TCU president.

“It felt surreal in that moment,” Agyei said. “Especially since I was going to be the first Black woman student body president. I felt like that was just so powerful.”

Agyei, who moved from Ghana to the U.S. at the age of sixteen, is finishing up her term as TCU president and preparing to graduate from Tufts. Though she attended her last two years of high school in the U.S., she sees Ghana as her home base.

“I consider Ghana as my home, because that’s where I learned all my morals and values,” Agyei said.

Those morals and values helped Agyei thrive in high school at Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School in Marlborough, Mass., where she was part of the biotechnology program.

Agyei applied to Tufts after hearing about the early assurance program through Tufts Medical School. She transferred to the School of Engineering after her first-year fall and declared a major in biomedical engineering.

Agyei wanted to begin college by focusing mainly on academics; however, she felt something was missing. As someone who has always had a passion for leadership roles, Agyei knew she needed more.

“I have all this free time. I should put it to use. I should do things,” Agyei said. “There’s so many things I saw at Tufts that I wanted to change.”

For Agyei, running for TCU Senate seemed the best way to begin. At the end of her first year, Agyei ran for and won a seat as a Class of 2022 senator. The next year, she ran for and won the position of Africana community senator.

Over the course of her time at Tufts, Agyei has been a part of Roti and Rum, the only Caribbean dance group on campus; the National Society of Black Engineers;

an Africana Center peer leader; a FIRST Resource Center peer leader; a Students’ Quest for Unity in the African Diaspora pre-orientation coordinator; president of the Black Student Union for two years; and a three-year member of TCU Senate.

Engaging in productive change and creating progress on campus fuels her energy the most.

“It might be stressful, … but at the end of the day, this gives me life,” Agyei said. “It gives me life to know that I’m trying to make changes happen.”

After two years as a TCU senator, Agyei had no intention of running for president.

Agyei felt she could have had enough of an impact without holding the top job, and she simultaneously struggled to believe she could win even if she tried.

“I just told myself, ‘You can’t do it. You’re not qualified, and no one’s gonna vote for you, … you’re gonna lose,’” Agyei said.

The night before nominations for president, Agyei was still unsure whether she could run. It was a call to her mother for advice that finally convinced her to try.

“She said, … ‘I didn’t bring you up to think there’s nothing you can do. So if that is how you think, then I didn’t do a good job,’” Agyei said. “She said, ‘I raised you to believe that you could do everything.’”

Inspired, Agyei knew she owed it to herself to run.

“I felt like if I wasn’t putting myself in that position to run for president, then I was kind of neglecting all my morals and values,” Agyei said.

Agyei was also inspired by her mentor Katrina Moore, the director of the Africana Center. Moore helped push Agyei to run, and throughout her time at Tufts, Moore has been a constant presence for advice.

With the push from her mother and Moore, Agyei quickly assembled a campaign team and created her slogan: “She’s With Us.” As many different clubs and organizations started giving endorsements, she knew she wanted to stand for all types of students and groups at Tufts.

“I have to take into consideration that I’m representing students from different backgrounds and ethnicities and races,” Agyei said. “That is how I embody ‘She’s With Us.’” After winning, Agyei began to understand the weight of the job. She had to know the

rules of the Senate perfectly, and she constantly received emails informing her about additional responsibilities of the position. She also understood the importance of being the first Black woman to be elected to this role.

“I was like, ‘There’s never actually been one.’ And I was like, ‘You know what? I’m gonna start. I’m gonna be the first one. And [there’s] going to be multiple after me,’” Agyei said.

During her time as president, Agyei has accomplished many of her goals, such as increasing the number of people of color on the Senate and chairing a governing body with students from many different backgrounds.

Beyond that, her proudest accomplishment is the progress made toward reforming the Tufts University Police Department.

Tufts created a working group to brainstorm recommendations for new campus safety practices in April 2021. After protests and student advocates fighting for change, Tufts released recommendations in March to deploy either armed police officers or unarmed security professionals depending on the emergency.

“There’s still work to be done, but I feel better knowing that something was going to come off all of these protests and all these like campaigns,” Agyei said.

Agyei knew TUPD would not move from armed to disarmed in just one year, so she thinks this middle ground is a great step in the right direction. She strategically understood that Tufts would not change without solid evidence.

“As a scientist, you need data to support what you’re arguing for, and Tufts’ argument was that if they didn’t have armed police officers, there would be incidents on campus,” Agyei said.

Agyei feels that if the two task forces can be implemented, evidence can be gathered that an armed task force may be unnecessary. If the armed task force is only deployed once or twice in a year while the disarmed task force is deployed 10 times — for instance, to address mental health issues — then maybe that will show the university that more reform is necessary.

Though she is proud of this progress, Agyei still feels Tufts can improve in many ways. She has spent much of her time on Senate fighting for a laundry stipend program for low-income students, and this project has yet to be enacted.

“A struggle is that you only have a year to work on things, and you start things and then they’re just dropped, because you don’t have enough time to finish,” Agyei said.

She hopes future presidents and Senate members will continue her mission to create a laundry stipend.

Agyei is thankful for her time at Tufts and as TCU president.

“I’m now in a position where I can do anything.” Agyei said. “I feel Tufts has given me the tools to be in any leadership position that I want to be in, giving me the tools to be able to advocate for disadvantaged communities.”

Agyei will continue her education at Tufts next year as she pursues a master’s in mechanical engineering. She has always wanted to be a neurosurgeon, and she is studying mechanical engineering in order to invent the surgical tools she would use in the future.

Agyei has marked Tufts with her leadership and hopes that future students will make the most of their years here.

“Just stick to your values,” Agyei said.

“Stick to what you believe in, and do what you love.”

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Sunday, May 22, 2022 | FEATURES | THE TUFTS DAILY

Senior Profile: John Lazur fosters ‘radical hospitality’ through interfaith leadership, academic research

27

Chris Duncan Talking Transit

Transit funding is on the ballot this fall — please vote for it

Y

COURTESY ALONSO NICHOLS

Senior John Cioci Lazur is pictured on March 31.

by Mark Choi

Features Editor

Growing up in a Unitarian Universalist Humanist congregation in Minneapolis, Minn., John Cioci Lazur was fascinated by the diversity of religions and faiths early on.

As part of their Sunday school program, Lazur participated in a series where they learned about different religious traditions, which included visits to and lessons about Zen Buddhist temples, synagogues, mosques and various Christian churches.

Lazur shared that it was their exposure to different faiths and religious ideas that helped them become a curious thinker.

“There was that sense of encountering religious otherness or spiritual otherness and also learning how to be a visitor in these spaces,” Lazur said. “Growing up in that congregation and my parents’ support of asking questions and wondering about myself but also trying to understand myself through other people’s religious experiences was really helpful and very formative.”

Ever since Lazur arrived at Tufts, that sense of wonder has animated and shaped their college journey. After completing the 1+4 Bridge Year program in León, Nicaragua, Lazur participated in the Conversation, Action, Faith and Education pre-orientation program as a first-year. “[I had] this realization that what I really wanted to do in college was learn about how I related to other people and how I could hold myself in community,” Lazur said.

While Lazur initially intended to major in chemical engineering, they ultimately found a passion for anthropology.

“By the time I came on campus as a first-year, I knew that I didn’t want to do engineering. I didn’t want the rigidity of that structure. I felt really inspired to lean into this romanticized vision of liberal arts as a collage of academic and intellectual experience,” Lazur said. “I had taken one anthropology class with professor Alex Blanchette. … I [would] leave the class every day and have to go sit on the lawn and just process, because I felt like that class made me rethink how I was living in a daily way.”

At its core, anthropology is about a particular way of storytelling, which resonated deeply with them, Lazur explained.

“I really started to see a lot of academic disciplines as a particular way of telling stories,” Lazur said. “I think that the way that anthropology — or the courses that I was taking, at least — asked me to think about the stories that I was telling was really a perspective-shifting approach.”

Outside the classroom, Lazur found the joy of storytelling through their interfaith communities at Tufts.

“I love stories; I love telling stories. I am quite the talker, and I love listening to stories. One of the chaplains here, Lynn Cooper, the Catholic chaplain, once described listening to stories as a sacred act,” Lazur said. “That has so deeply resonated with me, that there’s something holy about listening to one another in that way. And I think … stories are important to me because they change the world we live in.”

Throughout their four years at Tufts, Lazur served on the Interfaith Student Council and organized a number of programs and events hosted by the University Chaplaincy. Lazur also participated in the Tufts Summer Scholars program and is working as one of the co-coordinators for CAFE this summer.

In recognition of their leadership and academic accomplishments, Lazur was awarded a Senior Award by the Tufts University Alumni Association.

Academically, Lazur has grappled with religious pluralism as a focal point of their studies, particularly in their senior capstone that aims to examine the university’s religious history through oral histories and archival materials.

Lazur articulated what religious pluralism means as a philosophy and its salience to the Tufts community.

“In this global world, especially on a college campus, we are living in a religiously diverse space. That is the fact of being at Tufts,” they said. “What we do with that diversity is the question we get to answer, and I think engaging with religious pluralism, specifically, is this: ‘I am not just going to tolerate that you have different beliefs, but I am also energetically curious about that.’”

Lazur looks forward to sharing their senior capstone project with the Tufts community.

“To think about religious pluralism at Tufts is to talk about the DNA of Tufts, … describing Tufts in a way that is complicated and nuanced but also trying to understand where we’ve come from and how we’ve gotten to where we are in terms of religious diversity,” Lazur said. “I’m working on developing a series of mini presentations around different core themes that trace … these core notions of religious pluralism, of ethical leadership, of multi-faith sacred spaces [and] of Universalism on campus … [that have shaped] decisions of the university since 1852.”

In light of their senior capstone and life experiences, Lazur elaborated on how religious pluralism can help make the world a better place.

“Being really involved in the chaplaincy community, … [it] has been really clear to me that we’re not just coming together to come together — we’re coming together to build community so that we can use those relationships going forward to expand the kind of work that we want to do,” Lazur said.

Reflecting back on their four years at Tufts, Lazur shared that they can now see how different aspects of their college journey helped them become the person they are today.

“The beauty of my liberal arts experience is that all of those academic endeavors that I have been on and all my [moments of ] ‘this seems like a cool class,’ they all ended up connecting and helping me articulate these are the really nuanced questions that I am trying to answer right now,” Lazur said.

Ultimately, Lazur hopes to have fostered a sense of “radical hospitality” through their academic and extracurricular involvements at Tufts. “[Radical hospitality] is that willingness to say, ‘I don’t know who you are’ or ‘I do not know why you are here, but I am happy that you are here,’” Lazur explained. “It is that offering of belonging — you don’t need to be someone different to belong here.”

ou’ve (maybe, hopefully) voted before, and you may have come across specific questions on your ballot asking whether you want a certain policy to pass. There are tons of examples of big-deal ballot questions from places like Massachusetts and California, states where many Tufts students come from.

California’s Proposition 13 is perhaps the most famous ballot question in recent history, having passed in the 1970s and dramatically limiting the state’s ability to raise revenue from property taxes, leading to crippling cuts in public services, especially schools.

Such is to say that ballot questions are, at times, extremely consequential and demand your close attention. And one of those questions — of the extremely consequential variety — will be on the ballot this fall.

On the Massachusetts ballot this fall is what is called the Fair Share Amendment.

This is a proposed amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution that, if passed, could allow the state to levy a progressive income tax. Under our commonwealth’s constitution as is, no tax can be levied at a progressive rate, meaning no one can be taxed more or less at the state level based on their income. The passage of the Fair Share Amendment would authorize the commonwealth to levy a 4% annual tax on income over a million dollars, which has led to its labeling by some as a “millionaire’s tax.”

Why should I care about this as a transit nerd, you ask? Because the money raised through this tax will be constitutionally earmarked for crucial public services including education and — that’s right — transportation. So our transit authorities across the state, chief among them the MBTA, will be blessed with a wonderfully stable source of annual revenue should the amendment pass. And this would come at a critical time, as coverage over on Streetsblog notes that transit authorities are currently staring down the barrel of huge budget shortfalls as federal pandemic aid dries up. Luckily, the tax, if passed, would be implemented very quickly, and revenue would begin to trickle in as soon as early next year. Our transit authorities could always use more investment; think of how much could improve in terms of reliability, coverage and speed if the money was simply there. Furthermore, stable, consistent sources of revenue are key as we try to move toward fare-free service, and this tax is a wonderful start to that process.

So, hear me out: If you support this amendment, and you don’t expect to have many competitive races on your ballot this fall wherever you’re from, register to vote in Massachusetts. If you care about the public services that make communities flourish, then this question deserves your attention, and you should vote for it. You can even email me for help changing your registration if you want. At the end of the day, this amendment needs to pass, and you can help make that happen.

Chris Duncan is a junior studying political science. Chris can be reached at christopher.duncan@tufts.edu.

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THE TUFTS DAILY | FEATURES | Sunday, May 22, 2022

tuftsdaily.com

Senior Profile: Claudia Guetta reflects on involvement with TUPIT The wide world of

David Wingens Potty Talk

I

bathrooms

n honor of commencement and the last ever Potty Talk, I have decided to turn my attention briefly away from Tufts University and toward everywhere else. In these next 500 words, I will attempt to review all of the world’s bathrooms that are not on Tufts University’s campus with my four-metric scale that some have called infallible. I can already hear the complaints of people who think that the earth has too many bathrooms to review them all in one column, but folks, I’ve probably spent more time reviewing bathrooms over the last two semesters than I have doing readings for class — I think I can handle this.

AMBIANCE Certainly, the world contains nice bathrooms, but I assume that the bad ones probably outweigh the good in terms of design, so they’ll get a 4/10.

PRIVACY The beauty of bathrooms that are not at Tufts is that the likelihood of an awkward interaction plummets. This is due both to a corresponding dip in the awkwardness of the people and the fact that even when privacy in a bathroom is less than ideal, you probably won’t need to worry about sitting next to the person in the stall over in EC 05 tomorrow. 8/10.

CONVENIENCE At Tufts, convenience is king.

Wherever you find yourself, there are at least two bathrooms nearby that you can run to in the event of an emergency.

We often take for granted this luxury. I have been off campus a couple times, and I regret to inform the graduating seniors that this is not the case in other parts of the world. Whether you’re in a city, a suburb, or a rural area (seriously, why is there no way to say that in one word?), there is a high likelihood that if you are in public, you will be in a bathroom desert.

Often, the solution is to do the ‘popin,’ which is when you pop into a business, be it anything from a restaurant to a cobbler, and try to use its bathroom.

The problem here is that you will likely end up feeling guilty about taking advantage of a business for its bathrooms without buying anything. You would be amazed at how many soft drinks I have purchased just to use the bathroom with a clean conscience. Worse yet, you will sometimes have to ask employees for a key or code to get in. This is just a tool to embarrass you, and I would recommend leaving that establishment before facing the ignominy of having to grovel at the feet of some power hungry barista just to use the toilet. 1/10.

HOW MANY THINGS DO I HAVE TO TOUCH Tufts is probably better than the global average in terms of bathroom tactility, and it is not very good. 3/10.

While Tufts bathrooms are not always the cleanest or the most modern or even wholly functional, Tufts has some pretty nice facilities that the rest of the world can rarely match.

David is a junior studying international relations. David can be reached at david.wingens@tufts.edu.

by Kayla Butera Staff Writer

Going to prison — as a class — ended up being a life-changing experience for Claudia Guetta.

Before Guetta ever stepped foot in a prison, she grew up in Westport, Conn. with two older sisters. From a young age, her interests varied from playing musical instruments to baking with her dad, where her love of science blossomed.

“I also was definitely interested in science in different ways. I’d always bake with my dad when I was growing up, and I think that was like actually a start that I didn’t realize of thinking about science in new ways.”

As a high schooler, she was part of her school’s EMT team, cementing her connection to science, and in particular, caring for others. When it came to choosing a college, Tufts simply gave her a good feeling.

“I was always really captured by how interdisciplinary Tufts was and the focus on out-of-classroom learning,” Guetta said.

The out-of-classroom learning experience proved to be incredibly important as she approached her first semester, when she took a class sometimes known as Inside/Out. Officially called The Literature of Confinement and taught

by Hilary Binda, the class brings several Tufts students together with incarcerated classmates to learn about the literature of confinement.

While this class takes place in different facilities, Guetta went to the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord, a medium-security prison for men.

“It just completely changed my life, just learning with people across barriers and boundaries that seem like they’re really strict and really important in our world, but then realizing you actually have a lot of similarities with people just across education and compassion and humanization,” Guetta said.

Although she went into Tufts with a science mindset, she realized she couldn’t “just study science and be okay with it.”

Influenced by her prison experience, she found sociology and community health, which became her two majors, to be complementary to her interest in medicine and restorative justice endeavors, which extended beyond The Literature of Confinement: “The class finished, and I just was like, ‘I can’t leave,’” Guetta said.

As an incoming first-year, Guetta became exposed to the Tufts University Prison Initiative of the Tisch College of Civic Life via a Facebook group post by Nora Maetzener, who would become her mentor. According to the TUPIT website, the program aims to bring Tufts community members together with “incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, educators, organizers, corrections staff, and scholars of criminal justice” to collaboratively tackle the problems of mass incarceration and racial injustice.

When COVID-19 hit, the program adapted by corresponding through the mail, since prisons lacked technological resources. In fall 2020, Tufts community members were able to go to the prisons masked and distanced. Throughout her time there, Guetta has been a teaching assistant in the prisons for classes on topics ranging from health and human rights to genetics to writing, organizing successful crowdfunding campaigns and working on expanding programs for the incarcerated people participating in TUPIT.

COURTESY CLAUDIA GUETTA

Senior Claudia Guetta is pictured.

“Since its inception, [TUPIT] has always really needed support that it doesn’t always get from the school, and the world more largely,” Guetta said.

While TUPIT has certainly made progress, Guetta still saw a need for continued support once people were released from prison. In this context, TUPIT has since created MyTERN, a reentry program for people who have recently completed the Tufts program and were released from prison, Guetta detailed.

Since the program began, incarcerated people have been able to earn an associate’s degree from Bunker Hill Community College and acquire credit by taking Tufts courses due to the university’s lack of associate’s degree offerings. Recently, a vote by Tufts faculty allowed incarcerated people to complete a bachelor’s degree with a major in civic studies from inside the prison.

“So our students, our first cohort … this past December was the first graduating class in Massachusetts to finish a college degree in prison,” Guetta said.

“They finished in December — all with honors — and they are now starting their bachelor’s degree from Tufts with a major in civic studies on the inside, and then, when that first cohort graduated from the associate’s degree, we started with a second cohort, and so now they’re starting their associate’s degree program where the first cohort is finishing their B.A.” Outside of TUPIT-related efforts, Guetta works with a restorative justice program in the Boston area called the Transformational Prison Project, which seeks to expand the perception of justice as something that only exists in the criminal justice system. The program facilitates spaces for people to think about harms: the harms they’ve caused, they’ve experienced and how to heal from them.

According to Guetta, the program aims to create accountability as people in a community.

In addition to her work on restorative justice, Guetta looked back fondly on her favorite activities at Tufts, including “sledding down Pres Lawn with my friends, stargazing on the Tisch Library roof and swimming in the Mystic River.”

Guetta will be attending Tufts University School of Medicine this fall after being accepted for the Early Assurance Program, which guarantees acceptance to TUSM before the main application process.

There were certain points where she questioned her path to medicine, but her experiences made her realize that she can connect health with justice, even if she hasn’t figured out exactly how that will be.

“I can [study medicine] in a different way, and I know that health and medicine are what I want to be doing, but I just want to be thinking about it in different ways,” Guetta said. “I just want to be in a place where I can learn and think about health in a really holistic way, and I don’t know exactly what that’s going to look like.”

After four years at Tufts, Guetta reflected on the experiences and the significance of TUPIT. “The best learning experience has been being able to be a part of one that breaks down these barriers between people that seem so different and uncovers these deep similarities of passion for education, and the ability for a program like this to exist at Tufts where we can redefine what it means to be a traditional Tufts student and a traditional college student and form a really strong community,” Guetta said.

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Sunday, May 22, 2022 | FEATURES | THE TUFTS DAILY

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Senior Profile: Emma Downs inspires change at Tufts through JumboSwipes, theater

by Mark Choi

Features Editor

As soon as Emma Downs discovered that Massachusetts had the nation’s highest increase in food insecurity rates during the pandemic, she knew something had to be done.

The idea was simple, Downs recounted.

“I realized that I had 38 [meal] swipes left, and it was a week before finals,” Downs said. “I posted on the POC Jumbos Facebook group, [asking], ‘Is there a way to donate these swipes to outside organizations?’”

When Downs realized that there was not yet a way to donate her meal swipes, she decided to take on the initiative. “[I thought], ‘Okay, I am just going to start this,’” Downs said.

“I had the idea, I posted on Facebook, got a group together [and] we organized things.”

What initially started out as a social media post soon grew into the student-led group JumboSwipes, which continues to combat food insecurity in Tufts’ host communities of Medford and Somerville by redistributing students’ meal swipes.

Downs shared how her Instagram post, which invited community members to donate their meal swipes, went “semi-viral.”

“I started posting on my [Instagram] story being like, ‘Hey, these are some stats, I had this idea, does anyone want to help?’” Downs said. “Suddenly, it started going around the school, and we got over 500 sign-ups to donate.”

Downs explained that since there is no way to transfer the university’s meal swipes directly to outside organizations, she would collect Tufts students’ meal donations — purchased with their meal swipes — and deliver them to local homeless shelters or community fridges.

Through it all, Downs underscored that JumboSwipes has been a collective, not individual, effort led by the Tufts community members.

“Everything from seeing students drop off everything they have in their house on my porch to give away or people volunteering to sit on my porch and sort food for an hour during finals week … it’s incredible to me,” Downs said. “Dropping off food at [the community] fridge and talking to the people who run the fridge, and them telling me how much that this is making a difference … to me, it’s inspiring.”

Overall, she elaborated on the significance of JumboSwipes, particularly in light of her understanding of equity and racial justice in the United States.

“For me, what has always driven me is the goal to create a positive impact on the world and to promote inclusion and equity,” Downs said. “My mother is a diversity consultant, so I’ve always grown up understanding how inequality manifests itself in our institutions and in the world and in our interactions with everyone around us.”

Downs added that issues such as food insecurity disproportionately impacts the Black and Latinx communities in Massachusetts. In this context, Downs noted that JumboSwipes has been a vehicle through which she can bring about substantive changes on the ground, for the greater good of society.

“Actually going into the community and affecting lives in some way is progress toward resolving all of the issues that we care about, [such as] racial inequality because a lot of this disparity is based on racial lines,” Downs said.

On top of JumboSwipes, Downs has pursued a wide range of academic and extracurricular passions over the past four years. She taught an Experimental College course titled Deconstructing Avatar: the Last Airbender, interned for Massachusetts State Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz and produced podcasts for the Observer. She has also worked as a data analysis intern within the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life.

Among her many interests and passions, though, Downs emphasized that the theater community has been her anchor and a constant during her time at Tufts.

“I’ve been in musicals since I was in sixth grade, and I’ve been singing since I could speak,” Downs said. “At Tufts, I think [theater] has really allowed me to explore [my identity], especially in the last production I was in, ‘Spring Awakening’ (2006).”

As a political science and theater and performance studies double major, Downs can ultimately see how her manifold interests help her “imagine” and “create” a better world.

In this regard, Downs highlighted the interconnectedness of politics and art.

“I think all theater is political, and all politics is theater,” Downs said. “Theater is political because it is representing ideas and people … [and] it’s helping [to] spread information and new ways of imagining the world and what is possible. … Art is a fundamental aspect of many political movements, [ranging from] feminist movements in Cuba to even now with Black Lives Matter. Art is essential to how we relay political messages and reach hearts and minds.”

OLIVIA BELLO / THE TUFTS DAILY

Emma Downs is pictured outside Ballou Hall on May 1.

On such a view, Downs contextualized JumboSwipes and her love for theater as a part of her desire to foster understanding and, by extension, her passion for social justice and equity.

In light of her outstanding service and leadership, Downs received this year’s Presidential Award for Civic Life. Downs also won the prestigious Critical Language Scholarship, awarded by the U.S. Department of State, to study abroad in Gwangju, South Korea this summer.

Half-Korean, Downs shared that the opportunity to study the Korean language and culture resonates with her personally.

She elaborated on her plans going forward.

“After [studying in Korea], I need to take a class next semester [at Tufts],” Downs said.

“What I am going to try to do [then] is to audition for theatrical productions and [have] a day job in something having to do with equity.”

In the future, Downs hopes to continue inspiring changes through her academic and professional endeavors, as an extension and outgrowth of her journey at Tufts.

“Expanding people’s perspectives through storytelling and art is extremely important to me,” Downs said. “All my interests revolve around my goal of making this world a better, more inclusive, more understanding, more culturally comprehensive place.”

4 years of friendship: Class of 2022 roommates since 2018

by Elizabeth Zacks Staff Writer

The Class of 2022 was the first class at Tufts to have randomly assigned first-year roommates, and, despite whatever discomfort that might have caused at first, some seniors decided to live with their first-year roommate all four years.

Tejus Govani and Robby Nooney first lived together in a forced triple in Hodgdon Hall.

In an interview with the Daily, Govani said that before moving in, he didn’t know anything about Nooney, as he wasn’t able to find his new roommate on social media. However, he did find someone with the same name whom he could tell he didn’t want to live with. When Govani arrived on campus, he set out to determine if they were the same person or not.

“I was like, ‘I need to know anything about this person.’ So,

I opened one of his drawers, and the first thing on the very top of this drawer was a sweatshirt that said varsity theater. And I was like, ‘Okay, so I’m good. We’re going to get along fine,’” Govani said.

They met on move-in day, which was marked by a strange experience with local journalism.

“This woman came into the dorms and walked into our room … [and she said], ‘Hi, we’re with the Boston Globe and … we’re just covering move-in day at Tufts University,’” Govani said.

Govani said that the reporter asked him how he felt about Nooney taking the only non-lofted bed, which became an inside joke between them. They described that their friendship formed pretty quickly.

“We just spent a couple of days together at college, and it’s like, okay, so we’re best friends now,” Govani said.

After rooming together for four years, they learned a lot about each other.

“Tejus likes to stay up late at night … and likes to have some engrossing conversations. … It was a great time to bond. We had lots of fun. It also meant that, my freshman and sophomore year, I got no sleep,” Nooney said.

This year, Nooney joined Govani in performing in “The Lightning Thief” (2014) at the last minute when other cast members were struck with COVID-19, and the two went to visit Robby’s family together over spring break along with their third first-year roommate.

Hannah Kerber and Grace Murray also lived in a forced triple in Hodgdon Hall during their first year at Tufts.

“I feel like it worked out so perfectly for us because we probably would’ve chosen someone similar had we been able to

choose. … We were lucky enough to be paired with each other.”

Murray said.

Their sophomore year, Kerber and Murray lived in a double in Harleston Hall, and after that, they lived in the same house both junior and senior year. Along the way, they have learned lessons about themselves and about each other.

“Hannah’s a super patient and understanding person, so it’s been very nice to live with her,” Murray said. “It’s just been like a really warm and nice experience.”

Kerber added, “I feel like it’s really nice to know that we’re on the same page about things. … I always am like, ‘Oh, I know Grace will … have good advice to give in general but also know me well enough to help me specifically.’”

Greta Van Curan and Barrett Laird were also in Hodgdon Hall for their first year at Tufts. The two shared their first impressions of each other with the Daily.

“I didn’t really know what to expect when I was coming in to meet Greta. She’s very outgoing, and I’m very quiet, so it was just funny. But … [then] we realized that it was kind of a match made in heaven,” Laird said.

Van Curan said that she and Laird are opposites, but they are “opposites that work.”

“I overthink everything. I love the library,” Laird said, to which Van Curan interjected, “I think I’ve stepped into the library twice in my four years here.”

Despite their differences, there are also a lot of similarities between Laird and Van Curan.

“We both mesh really well because we kind of reality check each other always and really help to remind each other of what’s important and kind of stay on the right track,” Van Curan said. see ROOMMATES, page 30

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THE TUFTS DAILY | FEATURES | Sunday, May 22, 2022

tuftsdaily.com

Stories of seniors who lived with their first-year roommate all 4 years ROOMMATES

continued from page 29 Laird said that their roommate relationship and friendship has worked really well and was an important part of her time at Tufts.

“I wouldn’t imagine my Tufts experience without Greta,” Laird said.

There must have been something in Hodgdon’s social scene during the 2018–22 academic year because Sam Klugherz and Michael Friedman are another four-year roommate duo who lived in Hodgdon Hall their first year. However, move-in day wasn’t the first day they saw each other.

“Apparently, we were both at the same Jumbo Days. … My mom took a photo of me trying out a sweatshirt in the [Mayer Campus Center], and Sam’s in the background of the photo,” Friedman said.

In their dorm room, Friedman said that they had a rhythm.

“Sam and I didn’t always talk. … We had [these] unstated principles,” Friedman said. “Sam and I had this unspoken, ‘1 a.m. lights out’ [rule].”

Klugherz and Friedman quickly became friends, bonding over their shared love of music.

Klugherz said that Friedman inspired him to have his own radio show on WMFO, and they would hang out in the studio and have fun.

“When I look back on college, it’s like, Sam’s always been

there. Which is just really … a very comforting, very nice feeling to have, [a] nice memory to hold onto,” Friedman said.

Aneri Parikh and Maddie O’Donnell lived in Tilton their first year and are both from the Bay Area. They immediately hit it off and found many shared interests.

Outside of living together, Parikh wrote in an email to the Daily that she and O’Donnell have taken one class together every semester and have both been on the executive board of Tufts Students for National Abortion Rights Action League since their first year at Tufts. On top of that, Parikh wrote that their parents are friends and “conspire against” them.

Recalling their first year, O’Donnell said, “It was super nice to have a built-in best friend right away.”

Whether they would continue to live together after their first year wasn’t even a question for Parikh and O’Donnell.

“We’re both only children, … so it was kind of nice the first kind of sibling-y experience was this,” O’Donnell said.

Parikh added that the two of them would do everything together and today, all of their mutual friends are each other’s friends. Even now in their senior year, while they don’t technically live in the same room, their rooms are “conjoined” and they can talk through the walls.

“It’s crazy to have someone who you live with and you’re so close with because you literally know so much about them. You see them more than you see anyone else, so they know all sides of you,” O’Donnell said.

Similarly, Allison Chow and Caroline McCarthy look back fondly on living in Houston Hall together their first year. Looking back on orientation, McCarthy said, “I think we just did so well.

We really hit it off.”

Chow is a biopsychology major and McCarthy studies biology. Chow said that they’ve taken seven classes together over their four years.

“I feel like we’re not competitive. We do our work together and help each other out,” McCarthy said.

Not only do they have similar majors, but they will have the same role in health care consulting after graduation, albeit at different companies.

After living together for four years, Chow said, “We [learned] each other’s personalities and style, and we could answer questions for each other.”

McCarthy said through her friendship with Chow, she’s become more vocal and confident.

“It’s hard to hide stuff from someone that you’ve lived with for as long as [we have],” McCarthy said.

Harrison Witt, Noah Shamus and Peter Lindblom lived in a triple in Bush Hall their first year.

They said that although the living situation wasn’t ideal, they made it work.

“The entire room [was] basically three bunk beds where your nose was about five inches from the ceiling. All of our [stuff ] was pushed underneath, and then we moved in some couches from the common room and kind of just made it our own. … It was definitely not the most ideal sleeping arrangement — especially because Pete would also scream in his sleep,” Witt said.

After their first year, they lived in a ten-person suite in Haskell.

“All three of us were in the suite, but none of us lived together, which was probably for the best, coming off of spending every second together freshman [year],” Witt said. “But we got to hang out all the time.”

Outside of the room, although they had different majors, they ended up learning a lot from one another.

“We don’t all have the same interests, for an academic side.

Especially with Noah, I don’t have a lot in common with CS … and so talking with him about that always is interesting to me,” Lindblom said. “[We have] very different living habits and also interests too. … Had we not been put in that room, who knows what would have been?” Witt said.

Jordan Sclar, Naomi Karmel and Parker Killenberg were in a

triple in Metcalf Hall their first year at Tufts.

Looking back at their four years together, Sclar said, “Overall … it was just a lesson in how people with different characteristics and personality traits and people that you might not necessarily think might be matched end up working really well together.”

Sophomore year, they were split up due to bad lottery numbers but managed to all end up in the same hall in Harleston.

The three lived together during their junior and senior years, and after graduation, Sclar and Killenberg will be living together in Boston; Karmel will be just a couple of T stops away.

Sclar described the different roles they play in their friend group.

“Our dynamic was very much like, I would cause trouble, …

Parker would instigate and just go along with whatever, and Naomi would just shut it down,” Sclar said.

Karmel talked about what she has learned from their friendship, which reflects how chance meetings at the start of someone’s time at Tufts can change not just their four years here but also who they are as a person: “They taught me to chill out and have fun. … Coming in freshman year, I would get really annoyed because they were just being silly, and by senior year, I’ve become silly with them.”

IMAGES COURTESY INDIVIDUALS PICTURED, GRAPHIC BY DELANEY CLARKE

A collage of roommates is pictured. Madeline O’Donnell and Aneri Parikh outside their first-year dorm room in Tilton as seniors (top left). Parker Killenberg, Jordan Sclar and Naomi Karmel (top middle). Tejus Govani and Robby Nooney (top right). Caroline McCarthy and Allison Chow (center left). Greta Van Curan and Barrett Laird (center). Hannah Kerber and Grace Murray (bottom left). Harrison Witt, Peter Lindblom and Noah Shamus (bottom middle). Michael Friedman and Sam Klugherz (bottom right).

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Sunday, May 22, 2022 | FEATURES | THE TUFTS DAILY

2 generations of Jumbos: Faculty with children at Tufts

by Sam Dieringer and Miriam Vodosek

Assistant Features Editor and Staff Writer

For the children of Tufts professors, Tufts University has played a central role in their lives. Now, many of those children have become Tufts students themselves.

Here are the stories of Abby Sommers and her father Professor Sam Sommers, Iman McPherson and her parents Professor Erin Kelly and Associate Professor Lionel McPherson as well as Sascha Denby and his father Distinguished Senior Lecturer David Denby.

Abby and Sam Sommers Tufts has played a role in Abby Sommers’ life since she was born.

Her father, Sam Sommers, is professor and chair of the psychology department at Tufts, where he has worked since 2003. Now, a first-year at Tufts, Abby is thinking about majoring in film and media studies or biology.

Sam taught his first class at Tufts 2 ½ weeks after his daughter was born. The university and the campus played a significant role in her childhood. Abby grew up visiting campus frequently to attend camps and courses. She recalled watching women’s basketball games and sledding down President’s Lawn in the winter months with her family.

When it came time for Abby to decide on a college, she said Tufts was one of her top schools. The school had pretty much everything she was looking for in a university, though she was hesitant, at first, to attend a school where her father works.

“I will admit that I wasn’t immediately super excited to be 20 minutes away from home or go to school where [my father] works. But I think now that I’m here, especially for the first semester, being able to go home, if I needed to, or get stuff from home if I needed to, or go see [my father] in his office in the middle of the day if I needed to, that kind of thing was nice,” Abby said. “So, I think I was a little bit nervous about it at first, but it’s turned out to be a positive thing.”

Even though they are on the same campus and Abby is not far from home, she is able to have the college experience she had hoped for.

“I think I’ve made a point of trying to stay on campus [though]

I definitely do go home occasionally,” Abby said.

Sam said he has enjoyed having his daughter on campus and his main wish is for his daughter to be independent and happy regardless of which college she decided on.

“I wouldn’t want her to go here if she didn’t want to be here,” he said. “But, I mean, I can’t lie and say, I’m not happy to have her around.”

Even though they enjoy seeing each other, they are able to have their own experiences on campus.

“I think we ran into each other going to [the] COVID-19 testing center by surprise, but otherwise … it’s a big campus, it’s a big enough place and I don’t hang out near the [Residential Quad]. And I don’t hang out in the dining halls and [Abigail doesn’t] hang out in the psych department. So we can do our own thing,” Sam said.

Sam noted that he has appreciated gaining more insight on the student experience since his daughter started studying at Tufts.

“Every email I get now that’s sort of a nervous first-year student trying to declare a major or getting in touch and saying, ‘I’m having difficulty with the transition,’ it’s hard not to hear each of those emails and be like, ‘My kid easily could be sending that same message to her professor right now’,” Sam said. “I hope … to respond to these students in a way that I would hope that my colleagues respond to her or her friends.”

Sascha and Daniel Denby For senior Sascha Denby, roaming the halls of Tufts is a familiar endeavor. His father is David Denby, a distinguished senior lecturer in the philosophy department.

Tufts was pretty much always in the cards for Sascha. Having interacted with various faculty members alongside his father growing up, he saw Tufts as a great opportunity to continue to learn and grow. “[It] was definitely compounded by the positive experiences I had had with Tufts,” Sascha said.

“So it wasn’t as if it was just this option that I had that I had to take. But it was something that I was actually excited for — a good opportunity.”

In terms of interacting with each other on campus, Sascha was actually a student in a few of his father’s classes. He explained

that being in his father’s classes was a cool experience in terms of seeing his father’s work within a new context.

“I’ve seen [my father’s teaching] obliquely, like maybe [watching] him recording his slides or something like that … but never kind of in that direct context in the kind of way it’s meant to be experienced,” Sascha said.

David echoed that having his son in class was a fun and normal experience.

“Having Sascha in the class was not terribly different from having him at home. As [Sascha] says, it’s a kind of different context … I’d just treat him as any other student,” David said.

When asked about his plans after graduation, Sascha explained that he aspires to attend law school, and that he attributes his father’s role in philosophy as having been a factor in shaping this plan. “[It] was due to my experiences with philosophy, which obviously, I took because of [my father] … ”Sascha said. “My general upbringing, the inclination toward philosophy that I had, the interest that I had, pushed that [interest in law school].”

As Sascha moves on from Tufts, David expressed sadness but steadfastness toward continuing his work.

“It’ll be a shame. He’s moving on. … So I don’t move on.

I’m kind of just here,” David said.

“Whereas for Sascha, there’s college and then there’s something else and something else.”

As David and Sascha reflected on their overall experience together at Tufts, they both expressed their appreciation of the supportive but not overbearing nature of their relationship.

“There’s been that proximity without it being kind of suffocating. It’s not as if we’ve been kind of forced into each other’s spaces,” Sascha said. “But we have been there for each other and always had that access.”

Iman McPherson and Erin Kelly Few know the Tufts experience as well as Iman McPherson. Iman is a senior and her parents, Erin Kelly and Lionel McPherson, are both professors in the philosophy department.

Iman’s Tufts experience began when Kelly enrolled her at the Eliot-Pearson Children’s School. Iman attended the school until second grade and

also attended various Tuftssponsored camps.

“Now almost graduating, things have really come full circle, because it was my preschool and now college”, Iman said.

Iman explained that during her college search, the university wasn’t the most appealing option at first.

“Tufts didn’t feel like the most exciting option because it’s felt really familiar, it’s like 20 minutes away from my house and … I’ve been around Tufts for my whole life,” Iman said.

Despite her initial reservations, Iman explained that, over time, she grew to appreciate Tufts as an enriching college experience.

“It did not end up feeling too familiar,” Iman said. “It ended up still being a totally new experience which makes sense, because college is just a whole new experience, a new chapter in your life.”

For Kelly, having Iman around was an exciting experience because it gave her new insight into different aspects of university life that she was unaware of before.

“It kind of introduced me to Tufts in a new way,” Kelly said. “I think it really sort of reinvigorated some of my passion for teaching and just attentiveness to the undergraduate experience.”

With plans to move to Boston next fall, Iman will be farther than she’s ever been from her parents. Kelly expressed some sadness about Iman McPherson’s departure, as well as excitement for her future.

“Well, it will be a little sad … not to have her around,” Kelly said. “Boston is not so far away, but I won’t be running into her just by chance.”

Iman again expressed her appreciation for her Tufts undergraduate experience, stressing that prospective students who are the children of faculty should consider Tufts as a legitimate school to attend.

“I’d say for other kids of faculty, I know sometimes people are nervous, like how I felt nervous to go to Tufts [because] I was worried it would be too familiar,” Iman said. “I would say to them that that was not a problem and that I would definitely take Tufts as a serious option. College is still going to be a new experience no matter what.”

COURTESY ERIN KELLY, SAM SOMMERS AND DANIEL DENBY

Iman McPherson and Erin Kelly (left), Sam and Abby Sommers (middle) and Sascha and Daniel Denby (right) are pictured.

31

Julia Appel In Pursuit of Eggcellence

The finale

F

or my birthday this year, my mom got me an egg cup that is shaped like a knight. It has a little spoon for a lance.

You take off the helmet, whack the eggshell with the little spoon until it opens, and eat the egg out of the suit of armor like a ravenous dragon. I highly recommend the experience.

All I need now is a hoard.

That aside, as we conclude the semester and my column comes to an end, I have an announcement to make. Beloved readers, I have done it. On an unassuming April evening, I made the perfect dorm room softboiled egg. Rain pattered gently; my desk lamp cast a soft glow on the room. I sat with bated breath, ramen beside me, and tapped the egg gently against the table. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Attempt #4 For my final column of the semester, I decided to return to my microwave roots. With my deadline looming, a chill in the air and a number of eggs to eat before returning home for the semester, I decide on soup for dinner.

Setting the Scene: April 2022 — a rainy night. I return half-soaked from a foray to Carm, where I have secured my latest idea for ramen additives: a cup of salad bar edamame. I put in frozen peas a couple of months ago, and that was pretty good, but I’ve run out and haven’t made it back to Davis. So smuggled edamame it is. I am once again catching up on “Riverdale” (2017–).

In case you were wondering, Archie is invulnerable, Jughead is deaf and can read minds, and Cheryl is being possessed by the spirit of her ancestor who was burned as a witch. Truly the best show on television.

Methodology: I placed the egg into my small mug, boiled water for the ramen and poured some of it over the egg. After 1 ½ minutes in the microwave, I just let it sit in the microwave for two minutes. I carefully lifted it out with a spoon, stuck it in the freezer and left it there until I remembered to get it out. I’d estimate about three minutes.

First impression: Forgetting it in the freezer for three minutes seems to have really helped. For once, I do not feel like the skin is peeling off my fingers.

Second impression: The shell is coming off nicely… very promising.

Third impression: It’s perfect.

It’s glorious. The yolk holds together while I drop the egg into my cup and when speared by a chopstick spills out thickly into the broth and swirls around the noodles. I may have achieved my life’s purpose.

Someone call Cook’s Illustrated.

As you all know, this is a very scientific column. Of course, for my result to be science, it must be replicable. There are more experiments to be made, more eggs to be boiled. The glorious possibilities of the summer await. I have GOT to get myself a lab coat.

Julia Appel is a first-year who has not yet declared a major. Julia can be reached at julia.appel634628@tufts.edu.

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34

THE TUFTS DAILY | PHOTOS | Sunday, May 22, 2022

tuftsdaily.com

In Photos: Flashback to 2018

COURTESY ANNA MILLER FOR TUFTS UNIVERSITY

The Class of 2022 lights candles during the Illumination Ceremony on the hill on Sept. 1, 2018.

COURTESY ALONSO NICHOLS FOR TUFTS UNIVERSITY

Members of the Class of 2022 share a laugh during the Matriculation Ceremony on Aug. 29, 2018.

COURTESY ALONSO NICHOLS FOR TUFTS UNIVERSITY

Tory Kolbjornsen (E’18) leads a warm up during the FIT pre-orientation on Aug. 28, 2018.

COURTESY ALONSO NICHOLS FOR TUFTS UNIVERSITY

Members of the Class of 2022 attend the Matriculation Ceremony on Aug. 29, 2018.

COURTESY ALONSO NICHOLS FOR TUFTS UNIVERSITY

GO students participate in the Amazing Race scavenger hunt on Aug. 26, 2018.

COURTESY ANNA MILLER FOR TUFTS UNIVERSITY

The Class of 2022 lights candles during the Illumination Ceremony on the Hill on Sept. 1, 2018.

COURTESY ALONSO NICHOLS FOR TUFTS UNIVERSITY

A mix of Medford residents and Tufts undergraduate students pack lunches for Meals for Medford during the FOCUS pre-orientation on Aug. 26, 2018.

COURTESY ALONSO NICHOLS FOR TUFTS UNIVERSITY

BEAST, SQUAD and CAFE participate in an icebreaker before starting their scavenger hunt on Aug. 26, 2018.

COURTESY ALONSO NICHOLS FOR TUFTS UNIVERSITY

Kylie Jost-Price, Emily Lew and Tyler Whitaker work on a drawing for a risograph during the CREATE pre-orientation at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts on Aug. 28, 2018.

36

ARTS & POP CULTURE

tuftsdaily.com

Sunday, May 22, 2022

Former Editor-In-Chief and Executive Arts Editor Megan Szostak looks back on her influence, Class of 2022’s legacy

by Maeve Hagerty

Executive Arts Editor

Editor’s note: The Daily’s editorial department acknowledges that this article is premised on a conflict of interest. This article is a special feature for Commencement 2022 that does not represent the Daily’s standard journalistic practices.

A former executive arts editor and former editor in chief of the Daily, senior Megan Szostak, sat down with Maeve Hagerty, the current executive arts editor, in a Zoom interview on April 15 to reflect on her experiences at the Daily and with arts on campus. A sociology major, double minoring in music and Medieval studies, Szostak’s presence at the Daily has been characterized by her mentorship, journalistic integrity and an empathetic leadership style that has been responsible, at least for this author, for creating a welcoming community within the Daily and the arts section specifically.

Szostak first started in the Daily as a Features columnist during the spring of her freshman year, writing about classical music history in her column, “Lisztomania.”

She explained that her ascension to the position of executive arts editor was thanks to her growing passion for writing about the arts, which was ultimately what inspired her to join the section and apply to become the executive arts editor at the end of her sophomore year.

For Szostak, being an Arts writer was so special because “you’re not getting assigned stories that you might not be passionate about. Every story that’s pitched is pitched by somebody who’s so passionate about what they’re about to write about.”

Further, as the executive arts editor, she felt that one of her favorite elements of the role was “reading the writing that is just filled with voice and filled with passion.”

However, her experience as executive arts editor was tainted by the COVID-19 pandemic and

its effect on the arts at Tufts, as well as arts on a larger scale.

Szostak described some of the challenges of being the executive arts editor during fall 2020, the first full semester at Tufts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“One of the biggest losses to the pandemic was the loss of live arts events,” Szostak said.

“There weren’t exhibitions that were in person. There weren’t theater productions. There weren’t concerts.”

Further, Szostak noted how difficult it was, as an executive editor, to get her section excited about attending virtual arts events, as opposed to traditional live events.

Szostak and the rest of her class are the last graduating class at Tufts to have gotten a full year of campus life pre-pandemic. However, when asked if she noticed any changes to the arts scene at Tufts now that the COVID-19 restrictions are being relaxed, Szostak noted that the arts did not seem any less vibrant.

“I think that there certainly were losses,” Szostak admitted.

“Students weren’t allowed to sing or play winds and brass [instruments] for a period of time due to restrictions. And that was a great loss for the talent of all those students, all those musicians, but also for the community that wasn’t able to hear a choir concert or wasn’t able to hear a wind ensemble concert.”

Further, Szostak commented on the ingenuity required of many groups on campus in keeping the arts alive.

“Different student groups were very creative in ways they were able to continue producing art and continue spreading music, spreading theater, spreading visual art through different media than how they were spreading it pre-pandemic,” Szostak said.

Szostak pondered the unique position of her senior class, commenting on how, because they had lived through a year and a half of normalcy at Tufts, her grade felt the burden of the

pandemic’s changes at Tufts very deeply.

“But that just means we’re feeling the resurrection of the arts that much more, because we felt the loss,” Szostak explained.

“We knew what it was like, we knew what we were missing. So now, every time we hear someone singing, we realize how much we missed it and how much it means to be able to hear it again.”

As she subsequently spoke of her role as editor in chief with true humility, Szostak revealed another piece of what has made her such an impactful figure within the Daily: the people she worked alongside with.

“I think what’s the most important thing is surrounding yourself with people who you know will support you and who you can offer support to as they perform their jobs,” she said.

“Without them, I think the successes that I had wouldn’t have been as great as they were.”

Szostak turned back to her love for classical music, the driving force behind her beginning to write for the Daily, and her motivation for joining the Tufts Symphony Orchestra as a violist.

She reflected on the content of her freshman year Lisztomania column.

“I wish I had dug a little deeper to find composers who didn’t fit the mold of what a classical musician or a classical composer looked like … throughout so much of history,” Szostak said.

When speaking of the legacy that she will leave behind, she felt particularly proud of her role as vice president of TSO, and how she and the rest of the executive board worked to “increase representation in the music that we perform, in the music that our ensemble chooses to include in our concerts, which I think was a really wonderful thing.”

Szostak spoke with strength when discussing the changes that took place in TSO, making it clear how important to her it had been to witness TSO’s focus

COURTESY MEGAN SZOSTAK

Former Tufts Daily Editor-in-Chief and Executive Arts Editor Megan Szostak is pictured holding her viola. on representation and inclusion within the arts.

“Seeing how the orchestra changed alongside this national, international, movement to increase representation within the arts and within what art is shared, whose voices are heard, whose music is heard, I think that was a really special thing to be a part of,” Szostak said.

Szostak spoke about starting her new life after commencement.

“I’m feeling so ready for the next chapter,” Szostak admitted.

“But also, it’s hard to leave a community that has been supporting you and that you’ve supported back for four years. … I think that those are sentiments that are shared by a lot of graduating seniors.”

Watching seniors like Szostak, who have made such an incredible mark on Tufts and the students here, graduate and move on is certainly a bittersweet

moment. The contributions and legacy of Szostak and the rest of her senior class have been essential to Tufts’ return to normalcy, and they will certainly continue to influence Tufts arts and culture for years to come.

Szostak closed the interview by stating that “there’s been a lot of loss in the arts and in their practice and performance on campus, just due to COVID. There’s been a lot of other loss, immeasurable loss, due to COVID.” But to her, these losses were not what defined her class or her time at Tufts; rather, Szostak emphasized the growth that resulted from such loss.

“We’ve learned ways of being creative,” she said. “We’ve learned ways of incorporating new voices into the repertoire, and I think that that’s been just such an important thing that might not have happened otherwise.”

4 seniors brew up a reinvented production of ‘Macbeth’

by Henry Chandonnet Assistant Arts Editor

Four seniors gathered around their ‘cauldron’ of a show, each adding their own ingredients and flair. The result was an experimental, redefined “Macbeth” (1623), which intentionally diverted from the standard practice of show-making. These seniors are Tatyana Emery, Caitlin Morley, Margaret Parish and Abi Steinberg.

Coming together for the completion of Emery’s thesis and Morley’s and Steinberg’s cap-

stone, the group struck down the traditional rehearsal process, eliminating the role of the director and reformulating the power structures within theater.

Central to this production of “Macbeth” is the process itself. By removing the role of the director in the rehearsal space, the group explored new and innovative dramatic methods. Morley considers this to be a form of research, an experiment in an almost entirely new methodology.

“We wanted to create a collaborative rehearsal space that focused on nonhierarchy and

took away the role of the director in the room, which sort of made all of us equal collaborators,” Emery said.

By removing hierarchy from the process, each of the four seniors brought their own influence to the production. This brought about the cauldron metaphor, which the group uses to describe their show.

“The premise [of ‘Macbeth’] is that the four witches tell this story, and they are the four of us,” Parish said. “They have been telling the story for hundreds and hundreds of years

and tell it over and over again, each time sort of in the hopes that something will change.”

With the spirit of equal contribution and group vision, each of the independent contributors shines. All four of the seniors provide their own unique take, amalgamating into their ‘soup’ of a show, as Emery would describe it. Thus, all four co-creators individually deserve their praise.

Starting with Emery, who is using this production as their thesis, the group gushed over their kindness, talent and stellar impression of Monica Aldama.

“Tatyana is, like, ‘actor extraordinaire,’” Steinberg said. “I feel lucky to get to watch [them] do this, to get to watch [them] live in this moment and feel the words that [they’re] saying.”

“Tatyana has this ability to make you feel like you are the most important person in the world,” Parish said.

Next is Morley, who is using this production for her theater capstone. The other co-creators raved about Morley’s see MACBETH, page 37

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Sunday, May 22, 2022 | ARTS & POP CULTURE | THE TUFTS DAILY

37

Macbeth production challenges hierarchy, emphasizes importance of care MACBETH

continued from page 36 joy and brilliance, whether it be her bonding with Emery in their four-year stint in the Local Bard’s Players or reflections on Morley’s perfume-infused performance of sapphic poetry. “[Caitlin] is so in love with what she does that it beams out of her,” Emery said. “She’s the kind of person who can walk into a space and be like, ‘Oh, this is really exciting to me,’ and draw other people into that.”

“She is one of those people that you feel lucky to be able to be in their life,” Steinberg said.

Continuing on, Parish is a theater minor who was brought onto the project after its proposal. The other seniors remarked on Parish’s emanating sense of charm and inclusion, ranging from her community creation in the Mayer Campus Center with Steinberg to her top-notch hugs.

“No one has a bad word to say about her because there’s not a bad word that exists next to her name,” Emery said. “It’s impossible, because she just truly embodies love in every sense.”

“Margaret’s the most talented actor I’ve ever met,” Morley said. “I think that Margaret is so honest and earnest in her characters, and she’s such a lovely,

giving scene partner. She’ll listen to you.”

Finally, Steinberg is similarly using the production as her senior capstone. The other seniors spoke on Steinberg’s drive and care, referencing her revival of the student theater organization 3Ps. “Abi is so passionate about not only theater, but making creative opportunities for her and her friends,” Morley said.

“The only thing stopping her from running the world is that nobody has let her do it yet,” Emery said.

When all four of these forces come together, the result is a challenging, empathic, dramatic process. Each of the seniors adds their own insight, and their individual perspective, to create a production unlike anything seen at Tufts and beyond.

Central to that mission, of course, is care for each other.

“Our production of ‘Macbeth’ is about the way that care, and care for each other, can disrupt the harm that hierarchy causes,” Steinberg said. This is manifested both in the rehearsal process, with its nonhierarchical structure, and within the narrative itself.

Coming out of their production of “Macbeth,” all four of the seniors expressed individual hopes and goals. These ranged from Steinberg’s reflec-

tion on taking the opportunity to experiment while they have it to Parish’s desire to revel in the process itself.

For Morley, it’s about proving something bigger about the nature of theater and discourse.

“I would just want to remember that you can create academic and artistic work that is challenging and rigorous, while prioritizing empathy and care”, Morley said.

For Emery, their hope is actualized in the production itself. Emery wants to show all the moving pieces and to display each individual creator’s influence. In short, they want you to see the ‘cauldron’ for what it is.

“If all of us can come to the cauldron, throw our ingredients in and know that that’s the perfect piece to the puzzle and it would be a completely different show without it, I think we’ve succeeded,” Emery said.

“I want to know that we created a space where our community can see us work and be like, ‘They did that.’”

That group spirit, and that creative cohesion of vision, is manifest within all the individual creators. One need look no further than the production itself, and its commentary on hierarchy and care, to see the genuine joy and love that these seniors encapsulate.

COURTESY ABI STEINBERG

The promotional poster for the TDPS production of “Macbeth” (1606) is pictured.

‘Tufts Concert for Ukraine’ rages against apathy

by Carl Svahn

Assistant Arts Editor

The walk to the auditorium was a quiet one — and cold. The rain-smelling April 16 night gave little notice that any kind of event, let alone a heavily promoted concert to support Ukraine amid the 2022 Russian invasion, was about to begin. It was only as the streetlamps leading to the Granoff Music Center fizzled to life that the open door to the center came into view.

There were a few disparate groups around the lobby. A woman in a bright red dress conversed with theater staff next to the main entrance to Distler Performance Hall. Across from her, an older couple had set up a small table to sell pins of the Ukrainian flag.

As students and local supporters tricked in, some moved to buy a

pin to show support. A car with a sign titled “Say No to Putin” parked just outside the entrance.

One student pointedly remarked as they passed by, “That’s what will stop Putin — signs.” Yet the doors opened to Distler soon after, giving way to a surprisingly powerful event. Artem Dinh, the organizer of the concert and the recent Rally for Ukraine, took the stage clad in a Ukrainian vyshyvanka.

Dinh did not want to do the rally at first, he told the Daily in an interview on April 20. He openly admits that he is “not an activist, [he’s] an engineer” and did not initially see the point in organizing anything at Tufts. But after seeing the success of other universities, Dinh felt he had to do something, especially with the ambivalence he saw from staff and students through all-too-standard emails and Sidechat jokes. It’s from this

CARL SVAHN / THE TUFTS DAILY

Maria Kotova is pictured performing at the “Tufts Concert for Ukraine” on April 16.

same desire that the concert eventually came into existence.

Quickly following Dinh was junior Archit Jain, who touched on how, after an emotional dinner with Dinh, they had decided to write a poem for all who felt the burdens of the war. The poem, titled “Spoken Words for Peace,” clearly meant a lot to the poet and earned the first round of applause for the evening.

Olga Lisovskaya, the woman in red from earlier, followed Jain’s exit. As a local soprano artist, she displayed her talents by leading the room in the Ukrainian national anthem. Natasha Sky, the woman selling pins in the lobby and founder of the Sky International Center, then joined Lisovskaya on the stage. Both from Ukraine, they thanked Dinh for putting the performance together and encouraged the audience to become more involved in supporting Ukraine.

Lisovskaya then finished by performing three folk songs from her youth, “Watching the sky and thinking a thought”, “Yak tebe ne liubyty, Kyieve mii!” (the anthem of Kyiv) and “Gandzia.” At the end of her emotional set, the entire audience gave her the loudest applause of the night.

The Klezmer Ensemble, also known as the Jumbo Knish Factory, performed next with two pieces of Ukrainian Jewish music. A combination of a violin, accordion, bass and trumpet carried out a quick yet varied repertoire, leading to a memorable performance.

Sophomore Kevin Tang then unleashed a piano solo of his own,

titled “Oppression and Peace.” An initially dark but soon uplifting piece, it felt as if Tang’s rage and passion were personified in the notes now ringing in the hall.

Cindy Wang then sang “As Wished” by Faye Wong. Despite technical issues that made it difficult to hear her at times, Wang persevered in performing a soft but sweet song.

Sam Sjostedt and Sueda Catakoglu, a pair of Armenian Americans from Berklee, soon emerged to perform a series of Armenian folk songs. With Sjostedt on the duduk and Catakoglu on piano, the pair effortlessly performed the calming “Oror,” and the more passionate “Krunk” and “Chinar es.”

Janngo, also known as Mariam Janjghava, and Preston Gasser, also from Berklee, were up next to give a rendition of the song “Oj, de ty jdes.” Technical issues with sounds were frustrating again, but Janngo’s professionalism and Gasser’s piano skills carried the segment.

The Amalgamates, one of the two Tufts a cappella groups invited to perform, gave an excellent rendition of The Rescues’ “My Heart with You” (2008). Their prowess was on full and effective display.

Sophomore Leslie Yuan persisted through continual technical hiccups while playing Mavis Fan’s “War,” and sophomore Janice Wang brought back the momentum with Giveon’s “Heartbreak Anniversary.”

Dinh then reemerged to introduce Maria Kotova, a Russian soprano singer. She again performed “Watching the sky and

thinking a thought” but this time carrying a yellow flag in her right hand, waving it through the more emotional segments of the tune. She followed this with “The Cossack Rode Beyond the Danube” and threw small yellow flowers into the audience. Her performance captured the audience’s love yet again.

Toward the end, the next a cappella group, Tufts sQ!, gave an excellent rendition of “Run to You”

by Pentatonix. Lizi Nikvashvili finally closed out the performances with returning pianist and fellow Berklee student, Gasser. After a standard piano piece, Nikvashvili performed two Georgian songs that raised the crowd from its endof-show stupor. With the crowd’s full love and attention, Nikvashvili noted how proud she was of the Ukrainian people.

As the music concluded, Dinh took the stage once again to invite three students, all Ukrainian, to the stage. Tufts first-year Eulalia Tisnovsky, Harvard University graduate student Alexander Nikolaenko and Northeastern second-year student Alex Nikanov stunned the audience into silence with their stories of drafted family members, friends who have passed away and the pride of being Ukrainian.

When it came time to end the show with a chant in solidarity with those on the frontline, even the few individuals who had mocked the concert’s efforts fell silent. They joined the rest in standing and shouting the now famous call: “Slava Ukraini!

Heroyam slava!”

38

THE TUFTS DAILY | ARTS & POP CULTURE | Sunday, May 22, 2022

tuftsdaily.com

Senior Profile: Eli van der Rijn dances through it all

by Sadie Leite

Assistant Arts Editor

Graduating senior Eli van der Rijn is a double major in international literary and visual studies and biopsychology.

In his academic career, classes that stood out include a Spanish class on the Argentine short-story writer Jorge Luis Borges and Experiments in Physiology, a class that gave its students a certain amount of freedom, as they designed their own experiments. Between classes, van der Rijn helps students better their writing skills as a writing fellow. This semester, he assumed the leadership role of head fellow. After graduation, he will take a position as a research assistant at a neurobiology lab in Boston.

However, a critical part of van der Rijn’s time at Tufts has been his participation in Sarabande, a dance group that combines contemporary, ballet, jazz and modern dance styles.

Van der Rijn started dancing when he was two years old with his older sister, Maddy. He stayed at a dance studio, participating in their competition team for a handful of years.

He also supplemented his skills with school musicals. When he was 16, he began studying contortion at a youth circus.

It was a pre-professional training program in which van der Rijn was given the opportunity to perform on exciting platforms. He did a gig at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and another with a professional cabaret.

His reasoning behind auditioning for Sarabande was rooted in his desire for a team environment –– contortion, mainly, is a solo practice.

Van der Rijn went to an open class with his sister Maddy, who, as a senior, was already involved with the dance teams at Tufts. She was the director of Spirit of the Creative, another dance group at Tufts which

focuses on hip-hop and jazz. So she knew a lot of members of Sarabande. He thought, “What’s the worst that could happen?” before his audition, knowing little about how Sarabande would intertwine with his college experience.

The dance team consists of around 20 members.

“We have a pretty tight community. … All of this year, any waking hour that people exist, there has been somebody in Sarabande in the [Mayer] Campus Center, sitting at one of those tables,” van der Rijn said. “People just hanging out.

That sort of community is very present and very social.”

Rehearsals for the team are geared toward an end of the year performance. All members have the chance to choreograph a dance and each dance is given an hour of rehearsal each week.

Sometimes, the choreographers who run the practices will switch things up, choosing to lead their dancers in an improv workshop.

“There’s one dance that’s required of everybody. It’s our finale: the ‘All Sarabande Dance’ that’s choreographed by all of the seniors together,” van der Rijn said.

Most members go into the team with studio training and experience with competition.

“It’s a very familiar environment to us, … and it’s nice to continue that sort of routine,” van der Rijn said.

With that, van der Rijn explained, “We’re people who have had no free evenings for the majority of our lives.”

Consequently, when their semester show comes to an end, they find themselves floating strangely. Van der Rijn outlined this feeling with an anecdote. After their April show, “Chrome,” one of his housemates (also in the performance), came into his room and said, “I don’t know what to do. I am so bored. I have tried on all of my pants, and I have

looked at them in the mirror, said, ‘huh,’ and then put them away. That’s where I’m at.”

When asked to reflect, van der Rijn said, “Let’s start at the beginning.” In March 2020, the group had most of their dances choreographed –– they were about two weeks from tech week, and then everyone was told to go home. “We said, ‘You know what, we want to do a little show because we’re this far into the semester.’” So they did. It was a little clumsy with no lights or costumes, but the group came together before they all left Tufts’ campus.

In the fall of 2020, Sarabande approached the year with a mindset of choreographing dance videos. Van der Rijn noted that adjusting to the new format was a process.

“It was crazy … but we pulled things together,” van der Rijn said. “We were really excited, and we were about to go into filming.”

However, in November 2020, as COVID-19 restrictions increased, many students left campus for a second time before Sarabande’s dances were filmed.

“Spring of 2021, we were very exhausted and tired of not getting to produce anything, [any] final product,” van der Rijn said.

Instead of practicing and preparing for a show, the team just had open rehearsal slots.

Members could use the time as they pleased. Either a dancer would lead a combo, hold an open class or concoct a different, fun idea.

Finally, in spring 2022, Sarabande got its April show, “Chrome.”

Van der Rijn choreographed a dance. He decided on the James Blake song “When We’re Older” (2020). “[Blake] is all of a sudden harmonizing with himself in 12 ways. It’s very loud and powerful,” he said. “It’s [this] moment of the song that made me choose the song.”

COURTESY ELI VAN DER RIJN

Senior Eli van der Rijn performs with Sarabande in April.

Van der Rijn remembers the first practice when he saw his dance fully.

“Seeing it, for the first time, that big moment that I wanted to happen … it had the impact I was going for, and all of these people were moving together but differently. It was pretty crazy. And then I watched on repeat for three hours,” he said.

Another impactful Sarabande moment for van der Rijn was performing the senior dance. Each show, the seniors will choreograph and perform their own numbers. Van der Rijn and his friends invented a song mashup with funny soundbites and clips of popular songs, which accompanied their on-stage performance.

“All of a sudden, the adrenaline took us. … We did that [dance] harder than we had ever done it before,” van der Rijn said.

For van der Rijn, after devoting close to 11 hours a week to Sarabande, discovering his friends and housemates within the group, it’s difficult to think that this chapter of his life may be coming to a close as the semester ends.

“This is probably the end of my career as a dancer. I’ve been dancing or doing things for so long, and it’s a new stage of my life where extracurriculars are a lot harder to do,” he said.

More specifically, van der Rijn will miss the creative freedom, leadership and ingenuity Sarabande encourages.

“I’m really going to miss the opportunity to dance and also the opportunity to choreograph,” he said. “That’s something that’s been really awesome and crazy from my experience in Sarabande –– my ability to set choreo and make visions happen on other people.”

In a final reflection, van der Rijn described the community he will leave in a few weeks.

“It’s a place where upperclassmen share [advice] with underclassmen; … so much of that exchange happens there,” he said. “We get to welcome new people in and have to say goodbye to old ones.”

But from talking to van der Rijn, it’s clear that saying goodbye means so much more than just leaving: It’s the passing on of a legacy to another generation of Tufts dancers.

TFL seniors reflect on 4 years in Tufts comedy

by Anne Savage and Alex Soo Contributing Writers

The Class of 2022 will always be remembered for our extremely historically unprecedented undergrad experience.

Obviously, the worst thing to ever

happen to us, collectively, was when an a cappella group had to sing its cover of “Dancing Queen” (1976) by ABBA in 97-degree heat at matriculation. Otherwise, our four years at Tufts were remarkably calm, normal and free of turmoil.

COURTESY ALEX SOO AND ANNE SAVAGE

TFL seniors Alex Soo (left) and Anne Savage (right) are pictured.

In all seriousness, though, for many of us, our clubs and campus organizations became a touchstone of relative normalcy when our classes, home lives, health and futures were plagued with uncertainty. Tufts’ comedy groups, in particular, have made us laugh when we’ve dearly needed the catharsis. For those of us who do comedy, it’s been not exactly a reminder of normalcy — because comedy is never normal, and we wouldn’t want it to be — but a chance for community, for creative expression, for ab workouts from laughing at one another’s content.

Most of us missed out on a spring show during our sophomore year. When we returned to campus — or to remote classes — in the fall, we had to transition from making live content to digital. We had to be inventive and adaptable. We had to ask ourselves what it meant to be in

a club and craft jokes when we weren’t able to enjoy the camaraderie of gathering together, listening to the sounds of our friends’ laughter, just barely able to see the curves of each other’s smiles in a dimly lit auditorium.

But we adjusted. Last year, each comedy group made exemplary content despite the restrictions. And this year, we once again got to perform live. We got to stumble, half-drunk, from the Institute straight to the Major’s show in the same night, because there are only so many weekends in the semester. We got to have our suggestions accepted or mostly ignored at Cheap Sox (we thought “scientist in love with the octopus they’re studying” was a pretty good idea, but oh well). We got to trudge up the hill, with a camera in one hand and a tripod slung over the other shoulder, to film in the mornings. Then we spent all night editing. We got to

frantically test the audio system in Barnum 008, to wonder which stage lights would catch on fire this time, to tell Tufts Technology Services that, yes, we did already try turning the computer on and off again.

All of Tufts comedy has gone above and beyond these past four years. But we’re from TFL, so we just want to take a moment to reflect on how much the group has evolved since we were first-years. Before coming to college, most of us had never done comedy before. We’ve learned how to film, how to edit, how to subvert expectations in a standup set, how to pause for laughter and applause, how to project our voices, even how to put on a choreographed karaoke musical parody. In the past four years, membership in TFL has more than doubled. We’ve see TFL, page 39

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Savage and Soo look at Tufts comedy's past and future TFL

continued from page 38 gone from one show a semester to two. We’ve raised hundreds of dollars for the charity For the Gworls. We’ve gone from begging everyone we knew to come to our shows, to telling a packed house that people can

Ellie Lester and Sadie Leite The Art of Good Soup

Biggest one yet

I

t was a Wednesday afternoon, and Sadie and Ellie had a fire in their tummies. They had just gotten yelled at. On hump day?! The audacity.

“That was unhinged,” Sadie said. She looked at Ellie, her ginger eyes burning like her passion for a stable career, house in the suburbs and a British lord. Not a passion for anything else.

“I can’t take this, I need to put something in my mouth!” she yelled. Sadie’s stomach grumbled. The last thing she consumed was watermelon that tasted like tuna. Not in a fishy way, per se, just in a mind-bending one. Sadie didn’t know much about fruits or tuna, but she was certain they should not taste like one another.

Ellie stepped in. “I know just the place. It came to me in a dream, after a hairy man with a lumpy torso fell flat on the ground and died.” Ellie always had weird dreams, usually involving Sadie’s ex-lovers.

Exclusively lumpy torso ones.

sit on the floor in the front of Barnum. We’ve been banned from Dunkin’, dabbled in Greek life and won a Super Bowl … or at least our version of one.

We’ve come up with countless TFL acronyms, from Truckers for Lorde to Teething Feral Labradors.

Tufts comedy is genuinely one of the most welcoming spaces on campus. Its members are endlessly creative, endlessly supportive, endlessly resourceful, endlessly enthusiastic and, of course, endlessly funny. College comedy is a unique experience in our lives.

For most of us, it won’t ever be

replicated in the adult world of bills and obligations and ‘real life’.

When we think back on the last four years, we feel wistful, proud, nostalgic (Is somebody playing “Landslide” (1975) by Fleetwood Mac?). Maybe we don’t quite feel ready to go. But the juniors, sophomores and first-years who

have joined Tufts comedy in these last three chaotic years are more than capable. They’re hilarious and inspiring. No matter what happens in the next four years (hopefully nothing more dramatic than another sweaty rendition of “Dancing Queen”), Tufts comedy is in good hands.

And ones with cartilage piercings and really bad blogs. Sadie has really bad taste. That’s why, at Ellie’s instruction, the two packed their bags and headed for the T. They rode the T for one stop then promptly climbed off.

They weren’t in the train long, but it felt like ages. The doors opened to Porter Square, and they rounded the corner to see a massive escalator. This was the biggest thing they’d ever seen. They’d ridden a lot of escalators but never any this incredibly, amazingly, gobsmackingly huge. They had to tell their friends about it.

After getting that high — on the escalator of course — they were even hungrier. Luckily, it was a short walk to Yume Wo Katare.

“Wow, there’s already a line!”

Sadie said. But then again, she was used to waiting for things, like texts and Thursdays.

“I’m sure it’ll move quickly,” Ellie said. The two glanced around at others waiting. First in line was the pushy blonde, trying to enter despite the rule that the full party must be present to sit down. Sadie shouldn’t have been sympathetic, but Ellie is always late, so she knew what it was like and sympathized greatly. But the lady had a low ponytail. Gross. She was also 5’2” and annoying. She looked like a founding father.

Their attention shifted to

a couple. The two had a foot between them. She could’ve been an WNBA all-star. He would fit in just fine with Willy Wonka’s Oompa Loompas.

They were a beautiful pair.

“Wonder how that works,” Ellie said, giving Sadie a nudge.

“Well, I’m clearly not a physics major. How would I know?”

Sadie replied.

“Right,” Ellie said. “Neither am I, but I’m still curious.”

“Me too.” They stood there for a while, imagining things. A kind man with a ponytail came and told them to enter. Time for the real action.

First, they were led to a table at the front of the small room.

They took a cup of water and a pair of chopsticks, filing into the last row in the restaurant.

Filling the space were three long wooden tables with every seat taken. If you looked up, you could see written messages from past customers floating in painted clouds. They were dreams! Why? Because after each soup-er finished, they were invited to share their dreams.

Matt hoped to open a motorcycle shop. Marcy wished her boyfriend would propose.

Samantha just wanted to find happiness (a little unoriginal for wall writing, Sadie and Ellie thought).

They sat for a moment.

Then, they were asked, “Would you like some delicious gar-

lic?” The answer was yes, obviously. When a sweaty stranger offers you garlic, you always say yes. It makes for a great start to the night.

Next, they were called up to grab bowls from the cheery host. The smell was nothing short of magical. It made their bodies tingle from their nostrils to their toes. The broth was hot, but they still went face first. It was also perfectly salty, and they could taste the garlic.

It was chewy and slimy.

“I’m in love,” Sadie said.

“Finally?!” Ellie exclaimed.

She was kidding, of course. If Ellie had a dollar for every time she heard Sadie say that, she would feel a little more secure about being an English major.

The first thing they noticed were the sprouts. They looked dainty and slim next to bulbous slices of pork. But the girls weren’t intimidated; they knew what they were doing.

They had been training for months now. Visiting different places, consuming various liquids. They had a soup count of seven — higher than all their friends.

They went quiet as it got more intense. They wanted to reach bowl bottom so badly.

So badly. It hurt, but in a good and satisfying way. Their stomachs were filling up fast, but if they could just last a little bit longer…

It was Sadie who finished first.

She let out a groan. “I can’t do it anymore.”

Ellie then laid down her chopsticks. She was out of breath. There was nothing left to give. She was so close to bowl bottom that it stung a little when the man next to her finished with a clean bowl and a satisfied smile.

“Ugh, I think it’s just a guy thing,” she said. She looked around the room. “No women ever finish.” The woman with her short king also had a fraction of soup remaining.

Unsurprisingly so.

It was true that the portions were so large, only those with a pit for a stomach could finish them off. Albeit, this time it was nobody’s fault that Sadie and Ellie couldn’t finish. They had only themselves to blame.

Still, they were given the chance to share their dreams with the other customers. The host quieted the restaurant and gave Sadie and Ellie the stage.

They would tell you, but then they would have to kill you. That’s how dreams work, dummy. Nice try.

Sadie and Ellie rate this soup 19 spoons. It was unlike any they had tasted before. A real home run.

Ellie Lester is a sophomore studying sociology. Ellie can be reached at eliana.lester@tufts. edu. Sadie Leite is a sophomore studying English. Sadie can be reached at sadie.leite@tufts.edu.

Tufts Spring Dance Concert sends off seniors with a bang

by Siavash Raissi

Assistant Arts Editor

On April 23 and 24, the Tufts Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies presented this year’s Spring Dance Concert, a performance dedicated to sharing the senior capstone projects of its hard working students. With over 20 student dancers across 10 unique performances, each choreographed by a graduating Tufts senior, this year’s concert provided viewers with a final opportunity to witness an impressive display of the chemistry and relationships developed within the department over the past four years.

These capstone projects, choreographed by seniors themselves with varying influences across a variety of dance, music and narrative genres, represent an artistic climax of their personal experiences and thoughts. Speaking with the Daily, Laporsha Dees, a dance minor from Hartford, Conn., took the time to reflect upon the processes involved in developing her senior cap-

stone project, titled “Fractured Progress.” Discussing the themes behind her work, she stated that her project “has been a culmination of my last four years, and me coming out of it, like a new person.”

For those unfamiliar with the timeline involved in developing a senior capstone project, Dees explained that she, like other seniors, first scheduled a meeting with department advisors the semester prior.

“They were basically saying, ‘You should just come up with an idea,’” Dees said.

Students are then offered the opportunity to pursue one of three types of capstone projects: a performance capstone, a choreographic capstone or a research project.

Dees chose a choreographic capstone project, which she claims “turns out to be a bit of a struggle, but I kind of fell in love with it.”

Then, at the start of the semester, students begin to search for their projects’ dancers through auditions as they see CONCERT, page 40

COURTESY RENATA CELICHOWSKA

Dancers in The Tufts Spring Dance Concert are pictured following their performance on April 23.

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tuftsdaily.com

Seniors showcase capstone and research projects in Spring Dance Concert CONCERT

continued from page 39 continue to refine their original ideas. As these dancers practice the project’s choreography throughout the semester, they also have the opportunity to receive academic credit for their time dedicated to the work. Eventually, each senior capstone project evolves over multiple iterations, and the final product of each student’s hard work is displayed at the Spring Dance Concert.

In these personal displays, students are provided with ample creative freedom and encouraged to design their projects to their own liking.

When discussing her favorite artistic styles of theater and dance, Dees explained

that “my background is hiphop, Caribbean dance, and contemporary and liturgical dance.” Thus, she claimed that “Fractured Progress” primarily functions as “a modern contemporary piece.” As a result, the final performances represent a student’s preferred mode of expression and are indicative of various stylistic choices that were incorporated into the project.

Reflecting on her time as a dance minor at Tufts, Dees said that she “loved every moment, every class [and] every person in the dance department.”

As she spoke about the department’s consistent support and commitment to its students, she remarked that their work has provided its

members with “a healthy environment for dancing, and for people who aren’t used to dancing.”

When asked about potential advice for future students interested in pursuing a dance minor, Dees only had one thing to say: “My advice is to just go for it.”

After years of dancing experience, she enthusiastically promoted the supportive nature of her peers in the department.

“If you feel like you’re not as experienced as everybody else, that’s fine,” Dees said.

With a variety of students in the department, ranging in character and technical ability, Dees claimed that students considering the minor will

have the important chance to “see dance from a different perspective.”

In addition to its final sendoff for seniors, the concert also featured dances choreographed in the Tufts course titled Afro-Haitian Dance: From Roots to Stage, organized

by Jenny Oliver. “Tout Nasyon,” the course’s performance, began with an engaging dialogue between its 11 student dancers as they reflected on their cultural origins and differences and how these elements have consequently influenced their identity. Then, once “Tout Nasyon” by RAM played on stage, the performers’ began to move in sync with the song’s upbeat rhythm. As they danced in unison, their capti-

vating movements immersed audience members within an impressively choreographed performance with deep cultural roots and boundaries.

Overall, this year’s Spring Dance Concert represented a final culmination of years’ worth of emotions, challenges, accomplishments and growth among its student performers and faculty. The variety of performances across multiple styles and genres demonstrate the creativity of the department and its members’ ability to collaborate. In a year filled with hardships from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Spring Dance Concert brought Dees’ own words to life, reminding the Tufts community that “dancing is surviving.”

Senior Reflection: Geoff Tobia Jr. on student performance culture

by Geoff Tobia Jr. Arts Editor

On-campus activities were undeniably an extremely fulfilling and rewarding facet of my college experience. While I’ll do my best to describe my experiences and navigation through the sea of extracurriculars that Tufts has to offer, I want this reflection to mostly serve as advice. There are two focal points of advice that I have; both incoming classes of Jumbos and current Jumbos of any class can follow them.

First, trust the process. Sticking with what makes you happiest and pursuing it will lead you in exciting new directions.

Second, take every opportunity you’re presented with and actively seek new ones. These ideas ended up making me feel very fulfilled and satisfied with my time at Tufts, and I hope that anyone that feels lost or uncertain can take these into account and find something they’re passionate about.

That’s what college is about, is it not? Sure, I may still not know what I want to do in terms of a career path (sorry Mom and Dad!), but I was able to narrow down my passions through some trial and error, and a lot of stumbling upon great people. Meeting and getting friendly with people who welcomed me and had fascinating experiences and passions is what led me to some of my favorite groups of people: The Tufts Daily (of course), club fencing and Major: Undecided, to name a few. Without these people who welcomed me with open arms, and who helped create such fun and unforgettable times, I wouldn’t be formed into the person I confidently and proudly am today. Of course, it goes without saying that my close friends, most of whom I’ve known since my first year at Tufts, are my biggest cheerleaders, and they fuel my motivation to both trust the process and actively seek chances to keep fueling and expanding what I’m passionate about.

As a matter of fact, it took years of formation for me to find what has brought me an immense amount of joy: playing bass guitar for my band, Fossil. Sure, the COVID19 pandemic led me to pick up the instrument in August 2020, but years of molding my music taste at Tufts, as well as the attachment that I grew to music while at Tufts, gave me the drive to practice bass and perform for my friends and for the Tufts community.

What was so rewarding about being passionate about playing bass guitar was the consistent joy I would get just from picking it up to play. And that’s something I know everyone can do, even if they’re not already doing it: find something that brings you a constant sense of joy and time well-spent. There were many examples of songs I wanted to learn from artists I really like, such as Jessie Ware, Masego and Omar Apollo. On top of that, listening to albums from popular artists like Charlie Puth and Dua Lipa, and the way they use bass guitar to make incredibly catchy tunes, inspired me to write bass guitar riffs of my own. So once I got the actual instrument in my hand, I got to work, and it spawned the therapeutic nature of practicing bass on my own and the rush of performing live with my band.

I saw a variety of on-campus shows and Boston-area concerts as a Tufts student, and I was always a little jealous of the performers onstage. Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed the shows I covered, such as Tool, Tyler, the Creator and Origami Angel. But after interviewing artists like Kota the Friend, Lady Lamb and No Suits, and talking to on-campus performers, there started to grow a desire for me to be the one onstage, performing for my friends and for fellow music-loving strangers. That’s where Fossil took off.

With my good friends Brandon Karavitch, a senior, and juniors Joe Sinkovits and

COURTESY GEOFF TOBIA JR.

Arts Editor Geoff Tobia Jr. is pictured.

Max Chow-Gillette, we’ve turned the pandemic’s limits on the outside world into a space for us to create. I’m very thankful that, for Brandon and I, we have been able to play in front of live Tufts audiences before our senior year concludes. Little did I know how intensely satisfying the feeling would be as a performer in a rock/metal band. It’s totally electrifying, seeing how people dance to the music you’re playing. That’s a feeling that goes with any live music perfor-

mance, but finding my place in metal music took lots of feeling out and lots of music-related experiences at Tufts for me to get where I am now. And, man, am I so thankful for where that has brought me.

Any aspiring musicians should make their presence known on campus. Get in contact with groups like WMFO and AppleJam, both of which have the greatest and utmost support for Tufts musicians. They will host your shows, cheer you on and keep you moti-

vated to keep performing for the amazing crowds that Tufts bands draw. And this translates with lots of other groups as well. If you’re passionate about comedy, for example, there are people in comedy groups who can tell you about spaces in the Boston area that are great for comedians to grow their platform. Connections like these are what help turn your dreams into realities. And that’s why I implore people to pursue their passions and get involved with the things Tufts has to offer.

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2021–22 academic year sees the return of the movies

IMAGES COURTESY WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, GRAPHIC BY MAEVE HAGERTY

The promotional posters for notable films of the 2021–22 school year are pictured.

by Emmy Wenstrup Arts Editor

This academic year was a big one for the movies. Major, long-anticipated blockbusters finally hit the theaters after being delayed by the pandemic. As COVID-19 restrictions relaxed, the film festival season also picked back up and delivered some excellent smaller productions that fostered discussion, praise and accolades.

For the blockbusters, the fall semester was dominated by “Dune” (2021). The star-studded science fiction epic raked in over $400 million from the global box office and shared a joint release in theaters and on HBO Max on Oct. 22. The film was so technically spectacular that it scored six Academy Awards for sound, original score, visual effects, production design, cinematography and editing. A review for the Daily described it as “an imaginative love letter to one of science fiction’s greatest stories.”

In the spring, “The Batman” (2022) reigned supreme. The

film starred Robert Pattinson as the famed superhero as he worked to uncover Gotham City serial killer the Riddler (Paul Dano). After opening exclusively in theaters on March 4, the film secured over $760 million worldwide. The nearly three-hour movie takes inspiration from the film noir style and delivers a gritty and violent take on the comic book story. As a reviewer for the Daily wrote, it’s “as perfect as a ‘Batman’ film can likely be and the most ambitious superhero film in recent memory.”

Over winter break, franchise blockbuster lovers were treated to “The Matrix Resurrections” (2021) and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” (2021). The former offered a critical and selfaware look at the existence of franchise culture itself while delivering the signature visual style that characterized the original trilogy. It was sharp in its cultural critiques, engaging in its special effects, nostalgic in its characters, costumes and references, and heartwarming in its love story.

The latter was a Marvel smash hit whose box office drew in nearly $1.9 billion worldwide. Similarly drenched with nostalgic references, the film saw Tom Holland’s iteration of Peter Parker team up with his earlier predecessors Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire to fight the villains of earlier Spider-Man films, like the maniacal Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) and Doc Ock (Alfred Molina). The film received a raving review in the Daily and was so popular that there was, for a moment in time, serious consideration as to whether it would be nominated for Best Picture.

Though “Spider-Man” did not receive that nomination, this year’s awards-bait ‘art’ films are as worth noting as the blockbusters. “The Power of The Dog” (2021) was particularly exceptional. Though its pacing feels glacial at times, the film offers a masterclass in slow burn and tension building, scoring director Jane Campion an Academy Award.

Benedict Cumberbatch stars as

a cruel and machismo rancher whose limits are pushed by the new wife (Kirsten Dunst) and son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) of his brother ( Jesse Plemons). Every scene of the film is remarkably constructed and rife with sexual tension, markers of toxic masculinity and sweeping Western landscapes.

“Spencer” (2021) was similarly incredible. It starred Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana in a biopic turned psychological thriller. She hallucinates Anne Boleyn, eats her pearl necklace at dinner and jousts with royal employees. It also earned Stewart her much-deserved, first-ever nomination for an Academy Award. As stated in the Daily’s review, it’s “a movie made to near perfection.”

At the end of the academic year, cinephiles were treated to A24’s science-fiction adventure smash hit “Everything Everywhere All At Once” (2022).

The film stars Michelle Yeoh as, according to A24’s website, “an exhausted Chinese American woman who can’t seem to finish her taxes.” As of early May,

the film sits at a stellar 4.6 out of 5 on popular film social media site Letterboxd and holds a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. The five-star review for the Daily describes it as a “breathtaking visual delight” complemented by irreverent humor and themes rooted in “hyperhuman universal experiences.”

All in all, the year offered movie-goers with a variety of excellent choices. Marvel fans were rewarded with the long-anticipated return of “Spider-Man,” while DC enjoyers were treated with Robert Pattinson’s turn as everyone’s favorite brooding billionaire with a bat obsession. Sciencefiction lovers finally got to see the long-awaited “Dune,” while fans of arthouse film enjoyed a wide range of projects from “Everything Everywhere All At Once” to “The Power of The Dog” and “Spencer.” With the reopening of the Somerville Theater in Davis Square after its hiatus during the pandemic, Tufts students had plenty of opportunities to enjoy the movies this year.

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F& G

tuftsdaily.com LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Maddy: “Commencement is just one big Seder.”

FUN & GAMES

SUDOKU

PEAK MALE FORM

Difficulty Level: Expressing my appreciation for The Tufts Daily <3

By Greg Osha

4/29 Solutions

SEARCHING FOR HEADLINES...

CROSSWORD

AT FIRST I WAS EMBARRASSED. ME, A CAT, LIVING WITH A SINGLE GUY. BUT WHEN I WATCH HIM PICK SOMETHING UP WITH HIS HANDS AND EAT IT, I CAN’T HELP BUT LOVE HIM. — MARU adopted 01-10-10

Amber, Cara, Christian, Dariush, Grace, Jocelyn, Meher, Michael, Rowan, & Samantha

We are all cheering louder than the Spring Fling crowd for you today.

Congratulations!

John & TUSC

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GRAPHIC BY MIRIAM VODOSEK AND MICHAEL YUNG

46 Sunday, May 22, 2022

OPINION

tuftsdaily.com

EDITORIAL

It’s high time to end legacy admissions The time has come to end legacy admissions at Tufts. In November, the Tufts Community Union Senate passed a resolution calling on undergraduate admissions to remove questions on applications regarding whether applicants have a familial connection to the university, whether to current students, alumni or faculty. Last month, the faculty senate passed a similar resolution to end legacy consideration in the admissions process at all levels of the university.

Additionally, this past year, The Fletcher School as well as Tufts University removed questions about legacy status from their applications. Graduate school applications for the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering also do not ask about legacy status. Given this support by students, faculty and administrators alike, Tufts should move to end legacy consideration in admissions at all levels of the university.

Legacy admissions began in the early 20th century as a nativist practice to preserve acceptances among white, wealthy and Protestant applicants and to continue to benefit similar demographics today — legacy students

at elite universities are significantly more likely to be white and wealthy.

Legacy status has been estimated to double or quadruple a student’s chances of being admitted, though many schools, including Tufts, do not make the exact numbers available. A lawsuit against Harvard University, for example, has laid bare the inner workings of admissions at elite schools, and a recent study using data made available from the case not only found that recruited athletes, legacies, dean’s interest list students, and children of faculty and staff (ALDCs) are disproportionately white and wealthy relative to the overall applicant pool but also estimated that about 75% of white ALDC admits would have been rejected had they not been part of this privileged cohort.

By not removing legacy consideration, Tufts upholds admissions practices that compound privilege and disproportionately benefit white students. This impact directly counters Tufts’ mission in becoming an anti-racist institution. Tufts considers the initiative “a pledge to find and eradicate any structural racism

at Tufts,” but with legacy admissions debates notably left out of the compositional diversity workstream, Tufts won’t find answers to questions it isn’t asking. Ending legacy consideration is an easy reform for college admissions and one that would greatly advance the university’s mission as an anti-racist instution.

According to Patrick Collins, Tufts’ executive director of media relations, “No single factor determines an admissions decision.

We do not reserve seats for applicants with family ties to Tufts.

And, importantly, no student is admitted to Tufts because they have a family connection to the university.”

Tufts claims that its consideration of legacy status does not necessarily “perpetuate privilege” because its definition of legacy also includes an applicant’s siblings, but given that the university has stated that it prioritizes parental connection, it’s questionable how much this operationalized definition of legacy does to mitigate issues of generational wealth and privilege.

In 2010, Susan Ardizzoni, then director of undergraduate admissions, said that they

look “very closely” at students with parental legacy connections, given that alumni often “continue the tradition of support of the university.” We are not saying that students with a familial connection to Tufts won’t feel a sense of familiarity with the university and thus have more of a desire to apply, but this commitment to Tufts that admissions officers often look for is impossible to disentangle from the compounding privileges of wealth and whiteness that legacy admits often hold.

University administrators across the nation often argue in defense of legacy admissions by citing fundraising concerns; however, evidence suggests that this concern may be unfounded. One study found no statistically significant association between total alumni donations and legacy admissions policies.

At Johns Hopkins University, for example, which first began phasing out legacy preference in 2014, the number of Pell Granteligible first-years more than doubled over 10 years, diversity increased and the school didn’t bear any apparent major financial hardship.

Importantly, this summer, Tufts Admissions will conduct a study regarding legacy preference, as requested by Deans James Glaser and Kyongbum Lee. “The study will gather data … and provide a better understanding of the implications of legacy in admissions at Tufts and how to address the policy moving forward,” Collins wrote in an email to the Daily.

Many individual legacy students are certainly worthy of admission, but ending legacy preference is about the structures of power and privilege implicit in the admissions process. We have previously expressed support for the reform of admissions practice regarding need-blind admissions and test-optional policies, and abolishing legacy consideration should be only one step in a move towards more equitable admissions.

Tufts must prioritize transparency and communication in its review of legacy admissions this summer. Further, the university should account for the broad support by student and faculty governance and its commitment to becoming an anti-racist university and move to end the practice.

VIEWPOINT

From the classroom to the hospital and back again

by Ethan Jaskowiak Staff Writer

I can’t remember when I had my first seizure, but it must’ve been at least eight years ago. I’m sure it happened like most of them — a few seconds of confusion, a sprinkle of vision loss, shaking arms and that signature, distant look my friends have since come to recognize. It started as a curiosity, something to be experimented with, often by standing up suddenly to see if I could trigger one, whatever they were. It was easy to dismiss them in high school as a strange quirk springing to life a dozen times a year: odd, but nothing to worry about. The arrogance of a young man was enough to protect me, I was sure of it.

However, as the seizures became more frequent and the doctor’s appointments and car accidents piled up, anxiety started to nose its way through. The doctors were stumped, and my condition was becoming a nuisance, happening a few times a week, often at the most inopportune times. I had stopped driving and, by the end of my gap year, I was experiencing about 150 seizures a day, still no closer to a diagnosis. It came to a head one night in my first-year dorm room, 3 months into classes. During a game of Big Two — my favorite card game — on a makeshift table haphazardly

constructed from a closet door and desk chairs, I seized. Hard.

It took every bit of consciousness spared by my seizures not to collapse on the table and my guests.

My friends held me as I shook, my beer sloshing down our legs.

When I woke, the expressions on their faces finally broke any illusions of control or dismissal I had maintained up to this point.

I knew I could no longer dismiss these symptoms.

In the 4 ½ years since that night, the annual three weeks in hospital, trips to the Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins and enough medications to fill a small-town pharmacy still have not brought me any closer to a real diagnosis. My condition thoroughly permeates all facets of my life, forcing me to abandon some of the things that previously had been core tenets of my identity. I was too embarrassed to continue playing drums, including with the Tufts jazz ensemble, as I couldn’t go a whole gig without seizing and losing the rhythm.

I stopped playing goalie, afraid I’d lose consciousness, concede a goal and be shamed by my teammates. I couldn’t approach anyone I was interested in for fear I’d seize, forget their name or what we were talking about and look like a jerk. Anxiety and depression moved in, weighing me down, preventing me

COURTESY ETHAN JASKOWIAK

see CHRONIC ILLNESS, page 47

The equipment I wore in hospital at Brigham and Women’s for my multiple day, overnight monitoring (almost) every year (2019).

O

Sunday, May 22, 2022 | OPINION | THE TUFTS DAILY

47

Jaskowiak navigates chronic illness, life at Tufts CHRONIC ILLNESS

continued from page 46 from enjoying what I had left. To most students on campus, I assimilated to college life like any other. I walked to class, lived in the dorms, went to parties, participated in clubs and ate at the same cafeterias they did, but I felt like there were fathoms separating me and my fellow students.

Unfortunately, I was not alone. I now know many Tufts students felt the same way due to disabilities, mental health or any chronic internal health condition. This is not unique to Tufts; around 20% of all students in higher education have a disability, learning or otherwise. At Tufts, support for students with medical conditions

is strong, at least compared to the nationwide average, so take advantage. The StAAR Center and Counseling and Mental Health Services are valuable resources for students struggling with health issues and accommodations for tests and papers are a lifesaver, trust me.

Embarrassment and shame surrounding health conditions is natural, but that should not stop students from seeking help.

To current students struggling with chronic health issues: You are not broken, and you can succeed just like any other student, in college and beyond.

Additionally, fret not about taking extra time for your studies. It took me five years and summer sessions to finish my degree, and I would not have succeeded

without taking time for myself, regardless of how fruitful that time may have been.

The diagnosis is not the end; it is up to us to find ways to live within our means that still give us pleasure and excitement. While I did give up music and sports, I found other hobbies to occupy my time. Cooking, video games, TV and movies, writing for the Daily and friendships have given me back much of what I felt I’d lost to my conditions. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed, helpless, isolated, hopeless and panicked, but it’s how we deal with those feelings that defines us. If an unstable, anxiety ridden, seize-y, chronically depressed, ADHD poster child like me can graduate and succeed, so can you — I guarantee it.

VIEWPOINT

The Class of 2021 deserves closure and celebration

by Reya Kumar Opinion Editor

This May, Tufts is holding an in-person ceremony celebrating the deserving students of the Class of 2022. We are also celebrating the students of the Class of 2020, whose college experience was unceremoniously cut short by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. While it is undeniable that these students missed out on the communal rituals that signal the end of an undergraduate education, it is also important to acknowledge the similar experience of the Class of 2021.

Last year’s graduating class was not forced to leave in the middle of their spring semester, however, it is undeniable that their final year was nowhere near normal. It was a year that can be summarized by one word: virtual. Even for the many students that came to campus, most classes, clubs and groups were experienced only on Zoom. Commencement and Senior Week were no different.

As Chris Duyos explained in a recent op-ed published in the Daily, last year’s seniors were filmed walking across the stage weeks before finals, watching

the commencement video in May in small groups at home or in off-campus apartments. This starkly contrasts with the celebration of collective achievement that graduations are meant to be.

As Duyos said, it was “​​ no replacement for a real graduation.” In a way, I can also personally relate to this experience.

As a member of the Class of 2024, my high school graduation was conducted in a similar way. I walked across the stage in my cap and gown, receiving no diploma, with only my family and my friend — who scheduled her walk right after mine — in attendance. Weeks later, we watched the video together on a TV my dad set up in my backyard. The experience of closure and joy with peers, teachers and family that graduation activities are meant to bring were conspicuously absent.

In an email to the Daily, Phoebe Sargeant shared her feelings on the topic, writing “I am grateful that Tufts still let us walk, but watching my colleagues from high school get a ‘normal’ graduation really emphasized what was stripped from the class of 2021.” While safety is of the utmost impor-

tance, many other schools in the area successfully pulled off graduations that were COVIDsafe while also resembling community celebrations.

For example, Boston University held an in-person commencement for the Class of 2021. Advanced and bachelor’s degrees were split into two separate ceremonies held on the field, graduates were socially distanced, and — though family and friends could not attend in person — students were able to receive their diplomas with their peers and celebrate their shared triumph. Northeastern students had a similarly beautiful, socially distanced ceremony at Fenway Park with friends and family both online and in the stands. Harvard and MIT, who did not hold fully in-person commencements last year, are each holding an in-person celebration for the Class of 2021 alongside the Class of 2020 this May. It is clear that the Tufts Class of 2021 did not find a sense of closure and celebration, nor did they have the chance to say goodbye to four years of their life with last year’s live-streamed commencement. Still, there are mixed feelings on what Tufts should do now. In his op-ed, Duyos stated, “The Tufts administration can and should give us an in-person graduation,” calling for a re-do similar to the one being held for the Class of 2020 this year. Conversely, Sargeant wrote that a redo graduation would not “change the animosity [she holds] towards Tufts and the global situation,” explaining that she would likely decline to attend an in-person graduation if it was offered next year, accepting that it is “all in the past.”

Ultimately, Tufts should hold an in-person commencement ceremony for the Class of 2021. Regardless of whether every student decides to attend, it will give this class that lost so much of their senior experience a chance to celebrate their achievements and the journey they completed together.

COURTESY ETHAN JASKOWIAK

My dashing outfit at the magnetoencephalography lab at Mass General in 2018.

EDITORIAL

Tufts community deserves better communication from university administration Though COVID-19 restrictions may be easing, Tufts students and the Tufts community still face a number of challenging decisions. At the Daily, we strive to report honest and timely accounts of academics and campus life to keep the Tufts community safe and informed.

Amid the pandemic, students at Tufts relied on the university for data on COVID-19 case numbers and information regarding testing policies and care. We are incredibly grateful to the administration for developing a COVID-19 dashboard and public interface to keep both Tufts and our host communities informed.

However, this dashboard is incomplete — namely, Tufts does not publish raw cases daily.

The university also neglects to provide COVID-19 data in a visual manner, which would help Tufts students understand historical trends.

These issues and lack of clarity ultimately led to the creation of the Daily’s COVID-19 dashboard in February 2021. In an ideal world, the Daily’s dashboard would be obsolete, and the university would cover all information pertinent to the health and well-being of students.

Because the administration does not report how many cases occurred in a single day, Tufts community members are unable to track COVID-19 updates in a timely manner. The Daily has sought to calculate these raw new case numbers each day. Based on these figures, the Daily has also calculated a seven-day trailing average.

By tallying the seven-day case numbers, the developers of the COVID-19 dashboard have run into issues where the Daily’s calculated total does not match the one Tufts provides. Isolation data suffers from similar calculation difficulties. Yet, so long as Tufts accurately reports updates on its dashboard day by day, these numbers should match; however, these discrepancies make our job of providing correct and timely updates to the community difficult.

Last February, when Tufts was averaging only about five new cases a day, the number of cumulative positive cases — a metric that should only increase — went down by 20 cases in one day, meaning the university was retroactively taking cases out of the positive pool. Today, when see TRANSPARENCY, page 48

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Tufts must provide more transparency for students, community TRANSPARENCY

continued from page 47 Tufts experiences much higher numbers, this is much harder to detect. We are committed to providing the most accurate COVID-19 data possible, but based on all the available data, it’s unclear to both the Daily and the Tufts community when testing anomalies like this occur, or even if they still do.

The irony is that Tufts likely has this daily COVID-19 case data; the university is just not providing it to students and the community on its public dashboard. Tufts reports data on the number of tests performed, positive cases, percent positivity and the percent of new cases identified for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s COVID-19 dashboard. Other university dashboards, like those at Cornell and Harvard, publish information on daily case counts.

We understand the difficulties of updating COVID-19 data, especially as Tufts faculty, students and staff have changed testing cadence and students have been pulled in and out of testing pools amid the two years of pandemic life. These measures are complicated and technical epidemiological metrics, but they’re also vital to the health of our community. The university should be providing this information in an accessible manner for the well-being of its students and staff.

Especially as the university moves to voluntary testing, COVID-19 data transparency is more important than ever.

Voluntary testing means a large number of cases will likely go undetected, and given that a large number of in-person events are set to occur at the end of May, including commencement and alumni reunions, Tufts students should be informed to the fullest extent on the limited data on COVID-19 that Tufts will still be collecting.

With insufficient data given by the administration, the Daily has been forced to overextend its role as a bridge between the administration and the student body, and this lack of communication outside the realm of the pandemic similarly does a disservice to the Tufts community. Especially given the recently announced consolidation of the Somerville Journal and the Medford Transcript, these issues not only just affect Daily reporting but also students’ broader understanding of issues impacting our campus and communities.

As the student newspaper of record at Tufts, it is important that we are able to get the clearest picture possible of news, events and developments on and around campus.

This requires that we speak with administrators so that our reporting can be as full and correct as possible. Otherwise, we risk misleading our readers with an incomplete picture of administrative decisions.

While we understand that the conversations and discourse that may arise from the reporting of these topics may be controversial or uncomfortable, it is truly important that these dialogues occur. Tufts cannot grow and improve as an institution without them, and our community merits clear communication from the university on these central issues.

It is our duty as journalists to provide all members of the Tufts community with the most accurate, up-to-date information about not just the current COVID-19 numbers but every decision made by the university that could alter student life. In this transitional period at the end of the semester, we urge the university to finally take the steps to provide the clear, accessible health data they should have made available at the beginning of the pandemic.

tuftsdaily.com

EDITORIAL

Commingled funds put Tufts at odds with social values Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Tufts community has drawn attention to the fact that Russian securities make up a small but notable portion of the university’s endowment. In the wake of this scrutiny, university representatives have expressed an unwillingness to divest from the four commingled funds Tufts has invested in that include Russian securities because it is “too risky.”

Tufts is currently invested in between 80 and 100 commingled funds, a type of pooled fund with assets from multiple accounts that are managed by a third party and not the university. Together, such funds make up the vast majority of the university’s investments.

While the university is seeking to speak with fund managers about minimizing the investments’ exposure to Russian companies, the endowment should be a reflection of Tufts’ priorities, and this is not the first time the university’s investments in commingled funds have put it at odds with upholding social values.

Some might say that Tufts’ divestment from Russian securities would be inconsequential, with little to no impact on the invasion of Ukraine. If Tufts and its peers divest from Russian securities to protest the war, the stocks will leave the hands of institutions under pressure to act in a socially responsible manner only to be bought up by those who simply don’t care what happens. This may be true, but this situation is not about managing the direct impact of Tufts’ investments.

After all, Tufts invests very little in any direct holdings, opting instead to work with managers of commingled funds.

This situation is about the philosophy behind Tufts’ investment practices. While the hedge fund managers who will inevitably buy up

stocks following divestment may not share Tufts’ moral code, the endowment should reflect Tufts’ institutional values. As in the case of fossil fuel divestment, the conflict between Tufts’ attitude on a specific moral issue demands its effort to rid itself of any benefit from the financial gain of Russian industries. At the very least, this means being up front about the university’s intentions and abilities as it relates to specific parts of commingled funds.

Just because Tufts has “no direct exposure” and “minimal indirect exposure” to Russian securities, as Executive Vice President Mike Howard stated, the university should not be excused from providing a statement and updating the community on the issue. The currently available information about this comes from Howard’s comments in a Faculty Senate meeting, which was not an official statement by the university.

Howard stated that he expects the investments in Russian securities “will continue to decline beyond the $5.7 million,” but the status of this reduction remains unclear. Though the university typically does not issue public statements on the endowment, we encourage clear communication with the community about the status of these investments in the weeks since Howard’s initial Faculty Senate presentation.

Such updates will also provide a measure of accountability for the present efforts.

Financial entanglement with Russia is only one of many instances where commingled funds have drawn criticism over responsible investment; in the past, students have criticized the endowment’s exposure to South African Apartheid, fossil fuels and the prison industrial complex.

Past conflicts between values and investments surrounding Tufts’ divestment from fossil fuels led to the creation of the Responsible Investment Advisory Group. The RIAG is “a process by which the Tufts community may raise and study concerns surrounding potential social impact caused by investing activities and provide advisory recommendations on such issues to the Investment Subcommittee.”

Given the magnitude of Russian atrocities in Ukraine, we encourage the university to make use of this check on the endowment and conduct a thorough review of exposures to Russian securities. The university currently is working with the investment managers to limit and/or eliminate exposure to Russian securities; however, these negotiations are private conversations with investment managers, which don’t allow for community input or any political statement from the university.

Deliberation through the RIAG on how to potentially extricate all assets from Russian connections would demonstrate a commitment to responsible divestment, a willingness to sacrifice financial holdings for moral reasons and an emphasis on the university’s responsiveness to community concerns.

The road to divestment is difficult and may lack an immediate reward, but it is an important consideration given Tufts’ social values. In the case of Russian investments or others, Tufts cannot ignore that its principles are opposed to its current investments or claim that nothing can be done about this situation. Again, full divestment is hard and may not be possible, but the university owes it to its community to explore the possibility further and to strive to reconcile its investments with its philosophy.

ION OF STA IAT TE OC

STERS RE FO

NATIONAL A SS

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

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

EDITORIALS Editorials represent the position of The Tufts Daily. Individual editors are not necessarily responsible for, or in agreement with, the policies and editorials of The Tufts Daily.

VIEWPOINTS Viewpoints represent the opinions of individual Opinion Editors, Staff Writers and Contributing Writers for the Daily’s Opinion section. Positions published in Viewpoints are the opinions of the writers who penned them alone, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Daily itself. All material is subject to editorial discretion.

OP-EDS The Op-Ed section of The Tufts Daily, an open forum for campus editorial commentary, is printed Monday through Thursday. The Daily welcomes submissions from all members of the Tufts community; the opinions expressed in the Op-Ed section do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Daily itself. Opinion articles on campus, national and international issues should be 600 to 1,200 words in length and submitted to opinion@tuftsdaily.com. The editors reserve the right to edit letters for clarity, space and length. All material is subject to editorial discretion and is not guaranteed to appear in the Daily. Authors must submit their telephone numbers and day-of-availability for editing questions.

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SPORTS

49 Sunday, May 22, 2022

The class that changed the women’s lacrosse program

MEG HATTON / THE TUFTS DAILY

The Tufts women’s lacrosse team wins the 2022 NESCAC Championship over Middlebury on May 8.

by Isaac Karp

Executive Sports Editor

Eight seconds left. Tufts up by one against the best team in the nation with a final free position opportunity for Middlebury’s Hope Shue versus senior Molly Laliberty in goal. The whistle blows, and the ball is blocked out of bounds by the Jumbos’ defense. Game over — Jumbos win the NESCAC Championship.

The last time the Brown and Blue faced Middlebury, they

got humiliated by a team that looked superior. By the time the NESCAC Championship rolled around, the Panthers were unbeaten for 42 games in a row and ranked No. 1 in the country. The Jumbos had an up and down season after losing some players who graduated in spring 2021. The Class of 2022, who led the program into a new age of national recognition, defeated Middlebury in an epic match and are now on their way to the NCAA playoffs as the hottest

MAC CALLAHAN / THE TUFTS DAILY

Tufts seniors Anna Clarke, Molly Laliberty and Madison Lehan are pictured from left to right.

team in the country. Since losing to Amherst and Middlebury in early April, the Jumbos have rattled off eight straight wins including the 9–8 NESCAC Championship rematch game against their conference rivals.

The game came down to a final showdown between Laliberty and Middlebury’s attacker Hope Shue, a first-year who had already scored two goals in this game. The defense reached Shue before the Panthers could get to Laliberty, and the ball rolled out of bounds until the clock ran out. The Jumbos threw their sticks into the air and the celebrations began for a team that has been through so much over the past year; all their hard work finally paid off. But it’s not just about what this team has accomplished, it’s the environment that the team has built for the players that truly defines the Tufts women’s lacrosse program.

“It’s pushed me athletically, it’s pushed me mentally, … but I think overall, the team and the group of women that come together on the field is something that also is going to stay with me probably more so than the lacrosse itself,” Clarke said.

Lehan spoke about the culture of the team for new players coming to Tufts by comparing it to what it was like when she first arrived. “[Newer players] already see what an established culture looks like of being great, so I think that’s the main difference. We come into every season now with the expectation that we will be number one, and anything less than that is not a failure, but it’s not what we want and not what we expected,” Lehan said.

The senior class who led this team to the back-to-back

NESCAC titles and the finals of the NCAA Championship — a class that arrived before Tufts was just beginning to get recognition as a women’s lacrosse powerhouse — includes: Ananda Kao, Madison Lehan, Kathryn Delaney, Mae Briody, Anna Clarke, Colette Smith and Molly Laliberty. Clarke spoke about how the team has gradually gained recognition and support over the course of her time at Tufts.

“Whether it is to the lacrosse community, or to parents, students, [increasing social media presence and recognition] is another step forward that this program has taken. And I think it’s gonna also result in pretty positive things for this team,” Clarke said.

In 2018, Tufts women’s lacrosse had a solid year. The team finished 13–5 but got knocked out of both the NESCAC and NCAA playoffs. When the Class of 2022 came in as first years, the team made a major jump, losing in the NESCAC Championship to Middlebury and making it all the way to the final four of the NCAA Championship before losing to Salisbury.

“In 2019, we were freshmen, so we kind of came in just super blank slate, not really knowing anything. But I think pretty much everyone in the current senior class had opportunities to contribute in really significant ways throughout the season,” Laliberty said.

After coming close to silverware, the Jumbos were ready for another successful season under the helm of coach Courtney Schute.

Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic cut the 2020 season short, and the Jumbos lost a shot at going all the way. Lehan talked about the lost opportunity.

“[When] we came into that year, our team was super talented, our seniors [were] super talented [and] our team was really honed. I think we were ready to win a national championship. I think we would have done it that year, and to lose that season was so disappointing,” Lehan said.

Despite the loss, Laliberty reflected on how far the team has come since 2020.

“I definitely think that we’ve grown in ways we couldn’t have imagined from having that season taken away from us,” Laliberty said.

After a long hiatus from competitive lacrosse, Tufts returned to Bello Field in 2021. The team won all of its five regular season games and went on to take the NESCAC Championship over Wesleyan in a 14–3 blowout.

The Jumbos cruised to the NCAA Championship, where they played Salisbury in a tight game that they lost by one goal.

They fell short again. They also never had to play Middlebury, a team that ran the NESCAC years prior but didn’t compete in 2021 because of the pandemic.

“Just losing by one goal.

We know now what it takes to make it there, and I think for our grade, we know that we have everything we need to get there because we’ve done it before,” Lehan said.

2022 offered a return to a normal season for the Jumbos, who lost key attackers like Emily Games. Without a clear idea of who would lead the offense, the Jumbos turned to their younger players to step up, and first-year Margie Carden answered the call. She has scored 51 goals and has a total of 60 points on the season so far. Carden was also awarded NESCAC AllConference honors. The three other players given this award are seniors Clarke, Laliberty and Lehan.

Defensive Player of the Year Molly Laliberty has led this team’s defense through a great year. Kao and Lehan also make up the core of this unit that has held opposing teams to around eight goals per game, while scoring about 13. They also bring a great deal of energy to their team by stopping opposing teams from playing fluidly.

They are leaders in the locker room, steadying the younger players and helping the team work through the ebbs and flows of the season to keep the end goal in mind: winning a national championship.

“Most programs aren’t able to talk about winning a national championship and have it really been a feasible thing. I would say that’s probably one of the biggest changes I’ve seen.

But the core of the team and the heart of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it have remained pretty much the same,” Clarke said.

50

THE TUFTS DAILY | SPORTS | Sunday, May 22, 2022

tuftsdaily.com

Tufts pickup basketball scene struggles without space to play

by David Cooperman Sports Editor

Last year, the Daily covered the booming pickup basketball scene on the Tufts campus.

Particularly when Tufts’ COVID19 policies were the most restrictive, the consistently packed courts served as a rare beacon of normalcy. Every warm and sunny day, countless full and half-court games were played while skateboarders added to the engaging atmosphere.

Now, as the weather warms and summer approaches, the South Courts are mostly empty.

The courts were painted over in order to address the Medford/ Somerville campus’s newfound tennis court shortage, and only two hoops remain. Tufts’ campus now has zero locations for students and other players to play full court games outdoors, and the athletes who used to spend so much time at the South Courts are feeling that void.

“Especially when the weather was nice, people wanted to play,” Chris Hale, a junior, said.

“But now, it’s frustrating because you can’t enjoy the outside and play basketball [outdoors] on campus.”

Hale, a regular on the South Courts last year, also voiced his frustration that the lack of full-court availability even transferred to the intramural league this year. Games were played half-court with limited time, and most of the results seemed rushed and unrepresentative of the overall course of the game.

This rule limited interest from those who signed up, and many stopped coming after the first couple of weeks.

“People wouldn’t show up to play all the time when it was inside,” Hale said. “The quality wasn’t as great as I expected, [compared to] how they described it when I signed up.”

Additionally, current COVID19 restrictions still mandate mask usage from those playing pickup and intramural basketball inside.

Pickup basketball players at Tufts sought to avoid wearing a mask while playing basketball whenever possible. The South Courts provided an outdoor option and a form of normalcy last year.

While the Tisch Sports and Fitness Center holds two courts — the varsity court and the intramural court — demand for time on them is high from varsity, club and intramural sports alike. Hale pointed to the uniqueness of playing pickup basketball outside that cannot be matched by an indoor game.

“It’s very hit or miss whether there are people there now or not, but I felt like when it was outside, people were always excited to play,” Hale said, “It’s just so much better to be outside because it’s a guarantee that you see the same people and make friends.”

Despite the newfound lack of courts on campus, the pickup community is still making do. Nightimes at Tisch see the gym filled with those looking for a game with competitive,

high-energy tilts, most of which are almost always decided by a single point.

These games are also a way for varsity athletes who participate in other sports to get in some competition.

“I love football, but there’s also a special place in my heart for basketball games with my buddies,” sophomore Travis White said. “A lot of my teammates also [play pickup basketball], and it’s a big relaxation [thing] for them.”

MINA TERZIOGLU / THE TUFTS DAILY

One of the basketball hoops at the South Courts is pictured on May 8.

Senior Profile: Isaac Gorelik’s impact on tennis

by Steven Landry

Assistant Sports Editor

“Everyone on our team knows Isaac has the best forehand in the country.”

This was tennis co-captain senior Jack Moldenhauer’s first thought in a message to the Daily about his classmate and co-captain Isaac Gorelik. On a typical spring day, Gorelik can be found sporting a monochromatic sweatsuit, equipped with a headband and a radiant smile as he trains with his teammates on the tennis courts next to Harleston Hall.

While his punishing forehand has helped him achieve national notoriety in his fourth year in Medford, his teammates will remember the senior more for his servant leadership and his natural ability to bring people together.

Gorelik hails from Weston, Massachusetts. While his hometown is only about a 20-minute drive from Medford, his journey to become a Jumbo was anything but straightforward.

Drawing inspiration from his older brother, “a Weston high school tennis legend,” as Gorelik described him, he first picked up a racket at five years old and began to take the sport more seriously at age 10, when his parents began enrolling him in lessons.

“I started playing tournaments when I was 12, and from then on, I was playing a lot,” Gorelik said. Tennis absorbed much of Gorelik’s time as he trained and competed frequently at a young age, but it wasn’t the only competitive activity he was involved in.

“I didn’t compete in anything else except ballroom dancing,” Gorelik said. While tennis and dancing may seem like a rare pairing, professional tennis player Jelena Ostapenko believes that dancing can help improve a player’s footwork, which can be a key advantage in between the lines.

While he’s currently ranked at No. 4 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Northeast singles rankings, Gorelik was not a highly sought after prospect on the junior tennis circuit.

“I wasn’t a very strong recruit; a lot of coaches just said, ‘No, you’re not good enough.’”

As fate would have it, many of the schools that glossed over Gorelik on their recruiting searches have been on the Jumbos’ schedule this year and have had the chance to see what they missed out on.

In the end, Gorelik found Tufts, and it met all of his requirements. “I wanted a school with a really good academic reputation [and] a school

where I could play tennis and something that is moderately big or urban, and Tufts is both. All the other NESCACs are smaller,” he said.

Gorelik found an ideal environment in Medford but less than ideal team results in the spring of 2019. In his first season, men’s tennis finished 8–9 overall, with a 4–5 record in the NESCAC, and bowed out to Middlebury in the first round of the NESCAC tournament.

On the positive side, Gorelik had plenty of opportunities to develop his game and was a regular starter in the singles brigade. Maybe more important, he was taught the foundation and expectations of this program.

“What surprised me was just how close everyone was on the team, how much time we spent together, and how badly guys wanted to win. … Guys were so hungry to do better,” Gorelik said.

With a 2021–22 roster of only 17 players, a major factor in the success of this team is its chemistry and the players’ trust in one another. Ending this regular season with a 15–1 record, Gorelik and his senior peers have clearly instilled a culture of winning — but what may be more impressive is their commitment to creating a genuine environment of inclusivity and welcomeness.

“[I] try to build a sense of community and spend a lot of time with the guys. I feel like it’s important, especially since we have so many guys who are international. We have four [first-years], three are international, the American kid’s from Idaho — they’re far from home” Gorelik said.

His true care for his teammates’ well being does not go unnoticed, and his effervescent spirit has helped shape the identity of this year’s squad.

“He does a really great job checking in on people, making sure people are doing well,” sophomore Corey Marley said.

“His happiness and character are a big reason why we consider our team chemistry to be so strong,” co-captain Moldenhauer wrote.

After the conclusion of this season, Gorelik will go back to his hometown of Weston and coach tennis at local Wightman Tennis Center. When the fall comes around, he plans to travel across the country to pursue a master’s degree in computer science at Stanford University and walk onto a well-regarded tennis team.

A data science major here at Tufts, Gorelik has enjoyed the rigor of challenging courses.

“A lot of people dread [CS] 40, I loved it. … It’s almost like

they just drop you in a new country and you have to find your way home. You either get lost or you get it done,” said Gorelik.

Another course Gorelik highlighted was a required class he took in his second semester at Tufts.

“My freshman year, I loved my discrete math class in the spring with professor David Smith. … He conveyed everything in a way that felt relevant and interesting and piqued my curiosity,” he said.

Despite the pressure of finals and excitement surrounding graduation, Gorelick and his team have kept up a focus on both academics and athletics. After dropping a close 5–3 match to Middlebury in the NESCAC finals on May 8, Gorelik and the Jumbos finished their regular season as conference runners-up. The first round of the NCAA tournament began on Saturday, May 14.

While the NESCAC tournament began after this issue of the Daily went to press, the team’s aspirations extend far beyond the Northeast region.

With strong chemistry, limitless depth and Gorelik in the No. 1 spot, it’s possible that this team’s season continues deep into May.

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Sunday, May 22, 2022 | SPORTS | THE TUFTS DAILY

51

Strength staff raises over $10,000 in first annual Sufferfest

IAN LAU / THE TUFTS DAILY

The Tufts Varsity Weight Room is pictured on May 4.

by Ananda Kao Sports Editor

The first ever Strength Staff Sufferfest commenced at 9 a.m. on April 14. Three members of the Tufts Strength and Conditioning staff — Dan Kopsco, Alex O’Keefe and Ethan Bare — participated in a 24-hour long fundraiser to increase the number of people of color entering into the strength and conditioning field.

“Currently, we’re standing number two as far as any athletic department coming out of the winter season in all of Division III,” Director of Sports Performance Coach Kopcso said in a promotional video posted on Youtube and Instagram. “The challenge we’ve come across is in the last two hiring cycles for a strength coach out of more than 100 applications, less than five were people of color. So we racked our brains trying to figure out why this is — what are maybe some of the advantages or opportunities we had that aren’t happening getting some of these people into the field.”

Kopcso and the rest of the staff acknowledged that while there are many athletes of color at Tufts, as well as across collegiate athletics, there are substantial barriers to entry when it comes to the strength and conditioning field. According to Kopcso, often a candidate is required to intern for one to two years, in addition to com-

pleting a fellowship program, which means candidates do not get paid enough until a couple years into their careers. The three strength and conditioning coaches hope that by creating this fundraiser, they can begin to break down these barriers and provide more opportunities for people of color.

“We want to create a position where we can pay a really competitive hourly wage and try to pull some of these underrepresented populations into the position because we know once you’ve been a strength and conditioning coach, it is an unreal experience,” Kopcso said in the video. “It’s fulfilling, it’s challenging, you work with future leaders of tomorrow — we’ve got lawyers, doctors, dentists, future politicians all here — and honestly, I think most days we learn as much from them as they learn from us.”

In the promotional video, O’Keefe, the assistant strength and conditioning coach, said that the strength and conditioning staff likes to earn everything they do in the weight room, so they decided to work for all the money they wanted to raise during Sufferfest.

Kopcso committed to doing pull-ups for 24 hours and Bare, an assistant strength and conditioning coach, aimed to do as many squats at 405 lbs in two hours as possible. The varsity athletes voted on the

exercise that O’Keefe, one of the assistant strength and conditioning coaches, would have to do, ultimately deciding on him running treadmill sprints at a 10 degree incline at level 10 speed for as many minutes as he could in 24 hours.

“This is a really original idea for a fundraiser, not something I’ve seen before [and] probably only something that can be thought up by its strength trainers who spend all their days thinking how best to torture athletes to get them stronger,” Ian Daly, a senior defender on the men’s soccer team, said. “When Dan [Kopsco] talked about the issue and talked about what they were raising money towards, it was clearly something he’d put a lot of thought and time into. … Something he’d seen a lot of is lack of representation in this field, … so I thought it was great that they were personally taking the initiative to try and make a change instead of pushing it to other people.”

The strength and conditioning staff raised money through donations as well as pledges.

Student-athletes, coaches and staff were encouraged to drop by the weight room throughout the 24 hours to support, cheer, and pledge or donate.

Common pledges included one cent donated per pull up, $1 per minute on the treadmill or a flat amount of money for completing the day of work.

Bare even received an addi-

tional donation if he did all of his squats while wearing jean shorts, a flannel shirt and a beanie hat.

“I was in there from about midnight to 1 a.m., and they looked like they were in the worst condition I’ve ever seen anyone before,” Daly said. “But right when I walked in there, Dan got up and did one pull up.

It took him about 15 minutes to do one pull up, but that’s what he was doing. For every person that walked through the door, he’d do one rep.”

After the excruciating 24 hours, Kopcso completed 2,200 pull ups, and O’Keefe ran 48 minutes of treadmill sprints at level 10 speed at a 10 degree incline, which is equivalent to running approximately eight miles at a six-minute mile pace. Bare did 115 squats at 405 lbs for two hours of the fundraiser. Through the day-long fundraiser, just over $10,000 was raised.

However, the success of this fundraiser cannot replace the physical and mental pain endured by Kopcso, O’Keefe and Bare throughout the day.

“It was grueling at times to watch them warm up 15 minutes for five seconds of 10-10s or one pull up, but you could see how much it meant to them to fundraise this money and work towards an issue they care so deeply about,” Daly said.

With the help of the Tufts community’s support, multi-

ple t-shirts and pairs of shoes, as well as snacks and plenty of water and gatorade, they made it through. The strength trainers hope that this fundraiser will become an annual tradition for Tufts Athletics; however, the format may vary year to year.

Daly explained that it was motivating for the strength and conditioning staff to see the Tufts athletic community come together to cheer them on.

“I think it was nice that so many people were going because it meant they fundraised more money, but also their moods lit up when they saw the student athletes come in,” Daly said. “As much as each team is a family with our coaches, the strength trainers are a part of every one of these teams’ families because they spend so much time with all of us.”

The student-athletes, who were both working out alongside the coaches throughout the day as well as cheering them on, accounted for a large portion of the total amount fundraised.

“I think it was especially great that there were so many student-athletes behind this cause,” Daly said. “You could tell it was something that we cared equally about and was something that we also wanted to fix and maybe more than anything, we just like watching our coaches beat their [bodies] up for a day because they spend so much time beating our bodies up.”

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THE TUFTS DAILY | SPORTS | Sunday, May 22, 2022

tuftsdaily.com

Getting to know the faces of men’s soccer in 2021: Kyle Dezotell, Calvin Aroh, Travis Van Brewer

by Ethan Grubelich Sports Editor

The 2021 season was a pivotal one for the Tufts men’s soccer program. It was the first season played under Head Coach Kyle Dezotell, who was hired in March 2020 after the Jumbos won their second consecutive Division III National Championship ― their fourth in six seasons ― under former Head Coach Josh Shapiro.

Seven Jumbos from the 2018 and 2019 National Championship teams ― Calvin Aroh, Mati Cano, Derek Enge, Max Jacobs, Biagio Paoletta, Alex Ratzan and Travis Van Brewer ― found ways to extend their NCAA eligibility during the COVID-19 pandemic so that they could compete in the 2021 season.

Aroh and Van Brewer both stressed that having one final fun season with the soccer team was their main reason for delaying their graduations to play for the Jumbos.

“I felt like my college experience itself wasn’t really over,” Van Brewer said. “I think the pandemic took away some of the appeal and the fun activities of senior year, so I was really looking forward to being able to come back and have a transition phase where I could enjoy my last year.”

The Jumbos appeared to pick up where they had left off in the 2021 season, as the team won their third NESCAC Championship in program history. Tufts also made an appearance in the NCAA Elite 8, where they narrowly lost 5–4 to Connecticut College, who later went on to become the NCAA national champions.

The expected graduation of the aforementioned seven Jumbos, however, leaves a bit of uncertainty heading into the 2022 season with regards to whether the team will be able to sustain the high level of play that they’ve consistently displayed over the last several seasons. New and existing players will be thrusted into bigger roles, which is an inevitable truth for every college sports team, but it will no doubt be a challenge for the Jumbos to replace some of their best and most decorated players in program history.

Coach Dezotell’s leadership and coaching style will also have a greater impact on this team than before, as a group coached by Shapiro for three years departs.

We’ll have to wait until this fall to begin finding answers to these questions about the men’s soccer program. Until then, let’s get to know Coach Dezotell and two of the graduating players whose partnership in the center of midfield formed the backbone of the 2021 team ― Aroh and Van Brewer.

From an early age, Dezotell achieved outstanding success

COURTESY KYLE DEZOTELL

Kyle Dezotell, head coach of the Tufts men’s soccer program, is pictured. in a wide range of athletics. In high school, he earned National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) Gatorade Vermont Player of the Year in soccer and was a state and New England champion in Nordic skiing. He subsequently competed as a student-athlete on the Middlebury College men’s soccer team from 1999 to 2002, where the Panthers won the inaugural NESCAC Championship in 2000 and Dezotell was selected to the All-NESCAC first team in 2002.

Today, he still holds the record for most career goals and is tied for second in career assists in Panthers’ program history.

He became an assistant coach for the Division II Saint Michael’s College men’s soccer team in 2003, following his graduation from Middlebury, and landed his first head coaching job at Division III Johnson State College, now Northern Vermont University, a year

later. He later had Division III head coaching positions at Norwich University (2006–15), Manhattanville College (2016) and Ithaca College (2017–19) before joining Tufts.

Dezotell explains that he values coaching Division III soccer because student-athletes get to play the game they love but are also able to pursue their other interests, something he experienced while playing soccer for Middlebury.

“I think there’s 10 to 15 of us that are in college soccer coaching that graduated from Middlebury,” Dezotell said. “I think the common thread for many of us that have gone into coaching and certainly for me, is we all loved our college soccer experience at Middlebury College and with our coach, and it was fun being part of those teams.”

In addition to setting high goals for his team, Dezotell also wants fun to be a primary motivator for his athletes.

“I also thought it was really important with this group, who had such high expectations and so many guys who came back for an extra year, … that we tried to have as much fun as possible because if you’re just going out there and the only goal throughout your whole college soccer season is to try to win the national championship, then that’s a really burdening feeling,” Dezotell said. “We truly value having fun and make certain that it’s an intentional part of our program.”

Fun, of course, isn’t the only ingredient in Dezotell’s recipe for team success.

“I value the relationships much more than I value the tactics of a soccer game,” Dezotell said. “I’m [also] just a big believer in having really high standards and expectations.”

Ta c t i c a l l y speaking, Dezotell’s coaching style stresses the importance of cre-

ating offensive opportunities from playing good defense.

“Whether you’re a striker or a midfielder or a defender, you’re going to defend if you want to be a part of our team and get on the field,” Dezotell said. “We really value the pieces of the game like transition.

I think transition moments are hugely important.”

Under Dezotell, Aroh and Van Brewer both had standout seasons in midfield in 2021.

Adding six goals and three assists to his ability to dominate possession in the center of the field, Aroh earned NESCAC All-Conference first team honors for the second consecutive season and United Soccer Coaches All-American first team honors for the first time in 2021.

For Aroh, he believes he has gained more confidence as a player while at Tufts, as well as more awareness of where he needs to be on the field during games.

“In certain games, it would be me staying back and defending, and in certain times, I could be more of a player playing forward,” Aroh said.

Van Brewer started all but one game for the Jumbos in 2021 and netted five goals and three assists on his way to NESCAC All-Conference first team honors, after earning NESCAC All-Conference second team honors in 2019.

Aroh graduated in December 2021 from the School of Arts and Sciences with a major in economics and a minor in entrepreneurship. He’s now working as an associate for an accounting firm and their advisory group in New York City.

Van Brewer graduated summa cum laude in May 2021 from the School of Engineering with a major in civil engineering. He will also earn his master’s degree in civil engineering this spring as part of the school’s combined degree program. He will work in Boston as an associate for EY-Parthenon, a software strategy group, following his graduation.

Dezotell praised both Aroh and Van Brewer for their contribution to Tufts men’s soccer.

“Guys like Travis Van Brewer and Calvin Aroh don’t come around very often,” Dezotell said. “Those are just special talents in Division III.” The two players will also take valuable lessons from the men’s soccer program with them into life after college.

“I like how Tufts men’s soccer has just been a pretty level playing field regardless of grade,” Van Brewer said. “Just in life and moving forward, especially in the workplace, where I’ll go from being a senior to sort of lowest on the totem pole, it’s a good lesson just that anyone can contribute and just to look for opportunities to make an impact anywhere you can in life.”

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Sunday, May 22, 2022 | SPORTS | THE TUFTS DAILY

Senior Profile: Dual athlete Mac Bredahl leaves his mark on the lacrosse field, golf course

by Caroline Cromwell Staff Writer

Two-sport star athlete Mac Bredahl graduates this spring after leaving his mark on the Tufts athletics world. Bredahl, a senior from Chatham, New Jersey, is an attacker and captain of the Tufts men’s lacrosse team as well as a top player for the Tufts golf team in the fall. Despite his seasons as a Jumbo being cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Bredahl has made the most of every second on the field.

As a sophomore in 2020, he was named Inside Lacrosse’s 2020 Breakout Player of the Year for all of Division III, and as a junior last year, he was named both NESCAC and New England Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association Player of the Year. He was also named to USILA Dynamic All-American first team after leading the Jumbos with 69 points. He also led the NESCAC in both assists and points per game.

Eighteen games into his senior campaign, Bredahl is leading Tufts and the NESCAC in points, with 116 on the season, comprising of 61 goals and 55 assists. It is rare for a player as dominant as Bredahl to have such an equal number of goals and assists. The equality of these stats shows not only that Bredahl can finish, but he can also see the field very well and set his teammates up for success.

Bredahl highlighted the importance of his team and coaches more than the

importance of any wins or seasons over the course of his four years on the team.

He values all the time spent with his teammates, not necessarily on the lacrosse field but in the smaller moments in the locker room or socializing.

“My advice [for a first-year]: I would just say, and I think a lot of you hear it all the time, but the time really does fly by so there’s not really a second to waste,” Bredahl said.

Throughout his time at Tufts, Bredahl has received many accolades, but perhaps the two most impressive came before and during his senior season. Going into this season, Bredahl was named Division III Preseason Player of the Year and partially through the season, he was added to the Tewaaraton Watch List. The Tewaaraton Award is an award that recognizes the best collegiate player, across all three divisions.

On a list filled with Division I players, Bredahl was one of the few Division III players to be included, showing his amazing level of play. Despite receiving these impressive awards, Bredahl is very humble and credits his team for these successes.

“I think it’s important to note that we have a very, very good team,” Bredahl said.

“I happen to get those accolades, but it’s not just me. We have a really, really sound team all around.”

Bredahl, a leader on the field, is also deemed a leader off the field by his teammates. Tufts has a unique team culture

that the players pride themselves on.

Bredahl attributes many of the lessons he has learned through his collegiate career to this culture.

“Being grateful is something that we really emphasize and I think that’s really cool,” he said. “The things that we do really aren’t that tough in the grand scheme of things, so [keep] that in perspective and everything from there kind of takes care of itself.”

Bredahl is an example for other players on his team to look to. His teammates say that he exemplifies his love and commitment to the team and sport in everything he does, both on and off the field. Bredahl is constantly working to make himself and those around him better. He takes his responsibility as a leader of the team very seriously while maintaining an open and supportive relationship with his teammates.

“It’s not just what he does on the field. …

He’s checking in with guys, looking at our goal sheets, making sure that we’re all on track,” first-year Owen Sedransk said. “And yes, he’s always working on his craft, but he’s always willing to teach others and bring guys along, which is not only making himself better, but it makes the entire team better.”

Bredahl has brought intensity and determination to the athletic community at Tufts during his four years. Bredahl is not sure what he is going to do after graduation, but he may take his game elsewhere to see what else he can accomplish.

Senior Profile: Adam Pidedjian named Rugby All-American, reflects on season

by Isaac Karp

Executive Sports Editor

Playing rugby takes guts. It takes getting up after big hits, playing through painful injuries and making the right decision in high-pressure situations.

Senior Adam Pidedjian came into Tufts with barely any rugby experience. He played soccer in high school but joined the rugby team as a first-year at Tufts and quickly fell in love with the sport.

Many students may not be aware that Tufts rugby competes in Division I, against schools like Boston College, Rutgers and Binghamton University. After dominating the NESCAC, they were promoted to the highest level of college competition where they have proven themselves worthy by beating schools like UMass Amherst and Nazareth College.

“It’s definitely difficult, being a smaller school just in terms of numbers, competing with them, but it really focuses us to try to push our program to be more serious so that we can try to compete with these teams,” Pidedjian said.

This year, Tufts randomly got matched up with Nazareth college for the Liberty Rugby Conference Challenge Series Bowl game. Ranked in the top 30 schools in the country at that point, Nazareth was the favorite to defeat an injury-stricken Tufts side with a 1–5 record. Tufts emerged victorious, beating Nazareth 29–22 with a try late in the second half. Pidedjian spoke about what this win meant for the program and for his senior season.

“Winning that game and pulling off the upset was pretty unbelievable.” Pidedjian said. “For myself and other seniors, it was our last game of our careers. So going out on a high was pretty sweet as well.”

After four years of taking a beating on the field, the rugby player from Manhasset, New York has had his fair share of injuries.

ELIN SHIH / THE TUFTS DAILY

Senior Adam Pidedjian is pictured on April 28.

“I had a few hits this year where I don’t think I really thought about quitting but definitely thought about [how] maybe this isn’t the most sustainable lifestyle sport,” Pidedjian said.

Nevertheless, his toughness is one of the qualities that defines him as a player. Pidedjian ended his career on a high note, receiving All-American honors as a flyhalf, one of the highest honors you can receive in Division I rugby. The senior talked about his reaction to the news.

“Rob Lester, one of my teammates in our captain messaged me, then our coaches as well, and honestly, I was surprised. It wasn’t something that I had really anticipated or expected at all. But … it was a nice way to go out in that last season.”

As his time at Tufts comes to an end and he moves onto a career as an invest-

ment banker with Barclays, Pidedjian reflects on his time at Tufts and what being recognized on a national level has meant to him.

“I’d say just being someone who, four years ago, had no idea how to play the sport … getting that recognition allowed me to take a step back and see I’ve come a long way from that journey,” Pidedjian said.

Pidedjian also endorses the Tufts rugby program wholeheartedly and speaks highly of the culture and the welcoming environment that the team has established.

“If you were involved in sports in high school, and you want to keep that going at Tufts in an atmosphere that’s both competitive but also everyone’s really laid back and down to earth, … give it a shot, because it was one of the best parts of my Tufts experience,” Pidedjian said.

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Bharat Singh The Final Whistle

Introducing Erik Ten Hag

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ince Sir Alex Ferguson left Old Trafford in 2013, Manchester United has endured its worst-ever decade in the club’s modern era. From a side that once boasted the likes of Ryan Giggs, Eric Cantona, Paul Scholes and David Beckham, United is a shadow of their former selves. With a squad that includes World Cup winners Raphael Varane and Paul Pogba alongside club legends David de Gea and Cristiano Ronaldo, it’s not so much the names but rather the revered identity that has faded since the Ferguson days. After sacking Ole Gunnar Solskjær in November 2021, Interim Manager Ralf Rangnick has overseen the club and will now be permanently replaced by Dutch manager Erik Ten Hag. Born in the small town of Haaksbergen in eastern Holland, Ten Hag has experienced Dutch football both as a player and manager, most notably known for the latter. After his playing career, Ten Hag began his managerial journey at Football Club Twente where he managed youth teams before becoming an assistant coach for the first team.

Soon, Ten Hag would join PSV Eindhoven as an assistant manager before getting the chance to coach the Go Ahead Eagles in 2012.

From 2013 to 2015, the Dutchman worked at Bayern Munich with current Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola as the head coach of the reserve team. In Munich, Ten Hag developed his football philosophy that was grounded in fluid passing and productive possession, two trademarks of Guardiola’s iconic “tiki-taka” style.

After returning to Dutch football in 2015, Ten Hag guided FC Utrecht into the Europa League and famously defeated Ajax toward the end of his spell. Climbing the ranks of European managers, Ten Hag was handed the Ajax job in 2017 where he would establish himself as one of the brightest managers in world football. Renowned for its stellar academy, famous graduates including Dennis Bergkamp and Marco van Basten, Ajax has always built its most successful squads around a core of homegrown players. Under Ten Hag, Ajax played a fearless brand of attacking football that encouraged physicality and pace going forward. At the time, Frenkie de Jong and Matthijs de Ligt, two exciting Dutch prospects, were centerpieces of this team that dethroned defending champion Real Madrid before eliminating Italian giant Juventus in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.

Although Ajax was tragically defeated on away goals by Tottenham Hotspur in the semifinals, Ten Hag and his spirited underdog squad had etched themselves into history books.

What separates Ten Hag from other managers is his tactical adaptability.

Different countries and coaches are often defined by playing style, much like musicians are by genre. Having coached across Europe, Ten Hag’s philosophy is a fusion of Guardiola’s intricate passing, the relentless German “gegenpressing” and “total football,” a Dutch concept where all outfield players can play interchangeably. Such flexibility is desperately needed at United, which struggles with creativity on the ball.

As United’s fifth manager in the post-Ferguson era, Ten Hag will look to rebuild his squad by bringing in fresh talent and might be forced to sell bigger names like Paul Pogba and Nemanja Mati.ć Ten Hag’s appointment will hopefully reignite the Red Devils as they look to reclimb the pyramid of European football.

Bharat Singh is a first-year studying international relations. Bharat can be reached at bharat.singh@tufts.edu.

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THE TUFTS DAILY | SPORTS | Sunday, May 22, 2022

Oliver Fox Sports and Society

Championship banners

Senior Profile: Justin Brandt reflects on Tufts hockey career

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he All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, which annually hosts Wimbledon, one of the world’s most prestigious tennis tournaments, made a historic announcement earlier last month. The organization announced that it would ban all Russian and Belarusian players from the competition due to the two nations’ roles in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine War. Is it fair to punish players for the actions of their governments, regardless of the individuals’ political affiliations, opinions or individual positions? Does an athlete’s nationality carry a global position, one that can be met with consequences?

To the AELTC, the answer to those questions is yes. All levels of society must be mobilized in condemnation of Russian aggression, and athletes are not exempt. As several Western countries including the United States, Switzerland, France and the United Kingdom continue to present sanctions that target the Russian economy, the AELTC may feel it took a harsh but necessary step in the wake of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Unfortunately, millions of Russian civilians are bearing the brunt of the worldwide siege on their economy; now, high level athletes must face career altering consequences for their government’s actions.

However, players’ bodies — the Women’s Tennis Association and the Association of Tennis Professionals — have a different opinion. These organizations declare that tennis players represent themselves — not their countries — making it discriminatory and ineffective to put a flat ban on athletes that hail from Russia and Belarus.

If you ask me, it’s just not that simple. Both arguments have strengths and weaknesses, but the complexity of this situation makes it one of the great ideological minefields for “Sports and Society” enthusiasts such as myself. For Wimbledon to hold true influence in the Russia-Ukraine War, it will take an active commitment from both the players and the tournament executives to make opposing the war central to the tournament. To me, the ban is of secondary importance to what Wimbledon and its participants do next.

At face value, banning all Russian and Belarusian participants seems in line with other corporate boycotts of Russia and general economic sanctions. But, as the WTA and ATP will tell you, there is no precedent of players’ representing their home nations at Wimbledon. They play for themselves, and not a cent of the winner’s purse goes to their home government. But I’d wager this is far from the real reason Wimbledon imposed the ban, with some possibilities more problematic than others.

One could be that, as stated, the AELTC saw allowing Russian and Belarusian competitors as a safety hazard for the players themselves. Fans could be a problem for sure. But allowing the players to compete puts them in an impossible position, likely forcing them to constantly dodge questions about support for the war. They may also fear the repercussions of speaking out against Russian President Vladimir Putin as someone of influence on an international stage.

But it could also be that Wimbledon hopes to avoid any politicization of the event that could jeopardize its viewership and sponsorships. Welcoming Russian athletes would likely amplify the discussion of the current crisis at Wimbledon but could have had a true, positive impact if handled correctly. By excluding them, the AELTC is giving themselves an out — whether or not they use it is critical.

Oliver Fox is a first-year who has not yet declared a major. Oliver can be reached at oliver.fox@tufts.edu.

tuftsdaily.com

COURTESY JUSTIN BRANDT

Senior Justin Brandt is pictured.

by Arielle Weinstein

Assistant Sports Editor

Justin Brandt has been a staple of the Tufts men’s hockey team for the past four years, leading his teammates to success in three competitive seasons. Hailing from the hockey mecca of Ann Arbor, Mich., the senior forward entered his collegiate career looking to simply have the opportunity to keep playing.

“When I first came in, it was more of going to a good school and doing well in school, and then playing a sport while I’m at it,” Brandt said.

He made an immediate impact on the team, being a starting player in just the third game of the 2018–19 season against Babson College. Brandt capitalized on the opportunity presented and scored his first ever collegiate goal early in the second period on a wrist shot from the left faceoff circle.

He appeared in 19 games for the Jumbos in the 2018–19 season, racking up eight points on three goals and five assists in a fruitful firstyear campaign. The Jumbos came in eighth

place in the NESCAC Championship that season, with an overall record of 6–16–3 and a conference record of 3–12–3.

During his sophomore year, Brandt truly stepped into more of a leadership role, becoming a potent offensive weapon for the Jumbos. He led the team in scoring, totaling 18 points on five goals as well as 13 assists. Those 18 points were good enough to rank him No. 14 in the NESCAC offensively, among other schools’ main powerhouse players.

Throughout his career, the emphasis in Brandt’s play has consistently been focused on assists rather than goals. “[It’s just] getting it through your head that an assist is the same as a goal. If somebody else is scoring, it helps the team the same way,” Brandt said.

In addition to his on-the-ice prowess, Brandt earned NESCAC All-Academic Team Honors for his achievements in the classroom for the 2019–20 season.

Junior year looked drastically different for Brandt, as the season was canceled due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Despite the changes, Brandt was unfazed by the effects of the virtual year and even spoke about some positive outcomes he learned from it.

“I think it honestly allowed the team to get a lot closer with a COVID year, but I don’t think it had as big of an effect as some might think on my career at Tufts,” Brandt said.

The year off allowed the Jumbos to hone in on their skills and return with renewed energy and vigor in their pursuit of a NESCAC Championship title.

In Brandt’s senior year, the team’s more skilled players were older, and that granted them an advantage heading into their competitions.

Brandt emphasized that he really wanted to leave it all on the ice heading into his final season. “[It was my last season of playing competitive hockey, so I think missing out on that year has made us all realize how thankful we [all] are to be playing this game,” Brandt said.

The team battled hard, putting up a good fight in NESCAC play and winning some tough matchups against more hockey-focused programs like Wesleyan University on

Jan. 21. When the Jumbos did lose, it was typically by a margin of one or two goals, demonstrating how far the team had come since Brandt’s first year.

The Jumbos secured a matchup against the Middlebury College Panthers at home in the first round of the NESCAC tournament.

In a thorough performance, Tufts prevailed 4–1, including a hat trick from sophomore defender Andrew Gunlock supported by an assist from Brandt.

Brandt described the game as one of the most memorable of his Tufts career.

“It was one of the best if not the best game our team has played since I’ve been at Tufts,” Brandt said. “It was also my last game ever on our ice arena, and I think that will just always kind of live with me that it was the last win I’ll ever have in a Tufts jersey.”

Unfortunately, the win in the play-in round meant that the Tufts had to face top-seeded Colby College away from home in the NESCAC quarterfinals, presenting a difficult obstacle to overcome. Despite a display of good fight throughout the game, the Jumbos lost 5–1 to end their season. The team finished No. 8 in the NESCAC conference.

Individually, Brandt had another great year, ranking No. 11 in the NESCAC offensively and tenth in assists. He also led the conference in short-handed goals.

Brandt attributes some of his success to those who have helped him along the way, including former Tufts hockey teammate Anthony Farinacci as well as his support from home.

“My mom specifically is always pushing me and supporting me and really allowing me to even come to Tufts,” Brandt said.

Exiting his time at Tufts, Brandt hopes to leave behind a legacy to propel the hockey program in a positive direction.

“Just competing and wanting to win whether it’s in practice or in a game, I hope that those two things other people would have hopefully seen [from me] and can hopefully carry on as Tufts hockey continues,” Brandt said.

One thing is for certain: Justin Brandt’s mark on Tufts hockey and the name he has made for himself will not be forgotten.

Reliving women’s volleyball’s NCAA Elite 8 run

by Keila McCabe Sports Editor

The players on the Tufts women’s volleyball team excitedly rushed to celebrate with tears in their eyes, exchanging hugs all around and forming an eventual Jumbo pile of winners on the court. The Brown and Blue had just won their NCAA Regional Championship against the No. 1 nationally ranked team and defending national champions, the Johns Hopkins University Blue Jays, in Maryland on Nov. 14.

After a year hiatus from competitive play, the Tufts volleyball team came back strong with a final overall record of 21–6. Despite losing to the Wesleyan Cardinals in the NESCAC Championship Semifinals in a tough 3–2 (25–19, 25–27, 25–18, 19–25, 12–15) contest, the Jumbos received an at-large bid and made a run in the NCAA tournament.

Sophomore setter and opposite hitter Rileigh Farragher said the season was a fun reintroduction to competitive play.

“It was a super fun season because none of us had played in three years basically,” Farragher said. “We all wanted to go very far in the playoffs, obviously but didn’t realize what that meant until later. Once we started winning and got to regionals and were up against the

No. 1 seed is when it kind of really set in. Then we beat [ Johns Hopkins] and got super excited for everything else.”

Considering both the first-year and sophomore classes had yet to have played collegiate volleyball, the on-court team dynamic needed to be established essentially from scratch.

Off-court team culture appeared to serve the Jumbos well for cohesion and dynamism throughout the season.

“We like to talk about team culture a lot when we are together and everyone likes to say that we’re like one big family,” Farragher said. “We all just really like each other, and we like playing together. When we’re in season especially, we all have the same goals [and] same mindset and we just make that super known.”

At the beginning of the season, the Jumbos were off to a hot start, winning their first six matches. The team’s first loss was served to Tufts by NESCAC opponent Wesleyan University on Sept.

18. This 3–2 loss started a small trend of hard fought five-set matches to come later in the season against Endicott College and Williams College.

Tufts experienced a season turning point in its match against Trinity University (Texas) on Oct. 9. Despite Trinity’s being an accoladed program

and a tough opponent, Tufts faced the team head on to take its first five-set victory and set the tempo for a winning streak that would continue until the end of its regular season.

After losing to the Wesleyan Cardinals in the NESCAC Championship Semifinals, the Jumbos did not secure an automatic bid to the NCAA Div. III Volleyball Championship. However, the team’s strong record earned it an at-large bid into the tournament. The Jumbos, however, got a seemingly unfortunate draw, as the No. 1 seeded team in the country, the Blue Jays, were hosting the regional tournament that the Jumbos would be traveling to compete in.

Sophomore setter Maddie Yu commented on the miraculous Johns Hopkins win in the NCAA Championship Sweet 16.

“I think we had won the first two sets and lost the third,” Yu said. “Instead of getting down on ourselves after that third set, we really pushed ourselves and we believed in ourselves. Rather than retreating back and playing scared, we came out and played a really clean game and then won it in four.”

Tufts advanced to the Elite 8 in St. Louis, Mo. and eventually lost to the see VOLLEYBALL, page 55

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Sunday, May 22, 2022 | SPORTS | THE TUFTS DAILY

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Senior Profile: Basketball captain Molly Ryan looks back on mentors, memories

by Matt Chen Sports Edtior

It may be hard to believe that the Class of 2022 is enjoying its last weeks as Tufts students.

Such a time is due for reminiscing on the memories made over these past four years in Medford. For senior basketball Captain Molly Ryan, her time at Tufts has forged long-lasting friendships and memories that will not be soon forgotten.

Basketball runs deep in the family for Ryan, a senior from Westfield, N.J. Ryan’s father, Billy, was a four-year starter and Ivy League champion at Princeton University, while her cousin is a name Tufts fans may remember fondly: former captain and 2019 graduate Jac Knapp. Ryan was drawn to the strong academics Tufts offered and her experience and interactions with the team while watching Knapp play.

“I had the opportunity to come to some of her games when I was a sophomore and junior in high school,” Ryan said. “I really looked up to her,

and I had the opportunity to meet the team obviously when I would come up and watch her play.”

Most first-year athletes go through the growing pains of not getting much playing time early on. However, Ryan was a starter right out of the gate. As a first-year being thrust into a large role immediately, Ryan credited her teammates with making her feel welcome as soon as she stepped on campus.

“My freshman year everyone was so welcoming,” Ryan said.

“We had a smaller three coming in. It was just me, Sophia [Rosa] and Janette [Wadolowski]. … It immediately felt like we had a place on the team.”

Ryan is among the few college players to experience playing for multiple head coaches.

Playing for Carla Berube and then Jill Pace once Berube left for Princeton after Ryan’s first year, Ryan leaves Tufts with nothing but positive impressions of her two coaches.

“They’re amazing, phenomenal coaches but just even better people off the court,”

Ryan said. “I’ll always cherish the relationships I’ve had with them here, and I’m very, very lucky to say that I was coached

by Coach Berube for one year and Coach Pace for three.”

All college students leave school with quality memories. For Ryan, the ones that stand out to her span both on and off the basketball court.

From winning the NESCAC Championship and seeing Knapp score her 1,000th point to traveling to California for a winter break tournament this past season, Ryan fondly looks back on many moments in her collegiate athletic career.

Off the court, Ryan was involved with Big Brothers Big Sisters, and she was a Green Dot representative on campus.

But her fondest memories are those made between her and her teammates.

“I would just say my favorite memories are with my teammates. I’m so lucky to say that my teammates will be my best friends for life,” Ryan said.

“There are just so many [favorite memories] to choose from,

NATALIE BROWNSELL / THE TUFTS DAILY

Women’s basketball captain, senior Molly Ryan, is pictured on April 28. but [my teammates are] all a part of them.”

Ryan also highlighted her family as a huge part of her positive experience at Tufts.

“I’m very lucky that they’re my biggest supporters. Every weekend, they would come up [to watch],” Ryan said.

On the court, Ryan enjoyed another strong season as a co-captain of the team.

Averaging 14 points, 4.8 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game, Ryan was a steady force

on a Tufts team that saw tremendous success once again.

While the senior is moving on from collegiate basketball, Ryan plans to stay in the Boston area to work for a startup company.

With all of her contributions on and off the basketball court over the past four years, Ryan leaves a lasting impact on Tufts and the women’s basketball team, as well as leaves with memories that will last a lifetime.

Tufts volleyball to return with big upperclassmen presence for 2022 season VOLLEYBALL

continued from page 534 University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire on Nov. 18, the team that would later go on to win the NCAA National Championship.

The program will lose senior outside hitter Cate Desler, senior setter Ariel Zedric and senior middle and opposite hitter Jennifer Ryan

next season. The three players made huge contributions for the Jumbos, all as impactful starters in the majority of games during their careers.

Desler led the team for the year in kills with a whopping 330. Zedric was second to Yu’s 530 with 479 assists on the season. Ryan was one of the team’s top leaders in hitting

percentage with an impressive .331 on 275 total attempts.

However, the majority of the roster are the sophomores and juniors, with seven sophomores and six juniors. Farragher commented on the large upperclassmen presence for next season.

“We’ve got the biggest juniors and sophomores class, so I think it’s going to feel super

familiar since there’s so many of us coming back and now we’re all going to be upperclassmen, which is going to put everyone in more of a leadership role,” Farragher said.

Junior outside hitter Jennelle Yarwood said the season gave their team good experience and motivated them for competitive seasons to come.

“While we didn’t do as well as we might’ve hoped, it was still just a really good experience and I feel like we learned a lot about ourselves as a team,” Yarwood said. “And we got to play the team that ended up winning the national championship so that was pretty cool. So I think it’s just made us really excited for next season.”

COURTESY JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY ATHLETICS

The Tufts women’s volleyball team celebrates its NCAA Regional Championship win on Nov. 14, 2021.

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THE TUFTS DAILY | COMMENCEMENT | Sunday, May 22, 2022

tuftsdaily.com

“When I tell you that the world needs you, I really, really do mean it.”

- Madeleine Albright, Tufts Commencement 2015