Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Don’t go, ‘Bos: Group looks to help elephant conservation efforts see FEATURES / PAGE 3

BASEBALL

Jumbos take 2-of-3 from Bantams

Moratorium on ‘Rick and Morty’ no more with April Fools’ episode see ARTS&LIVING / PAGE 5

SEE SPORTS / BACK PAGE

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Wednesday, April 5, 2017

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

Somerville Board of Aldermen authorizes bond issue for new high school

by Natasha Mayor

Assistant News Editor

The Somerville Board of Aldermen unanimously voted to approve a bond issue for the construction of a new high school on March 22. The Board of Aldermen’s appropriation totaled $255,982,704, making Somerville High School the most expensive high school building project in Massachusetts history, according to a Nov. 8, 2016 Boston Globe article.

Somerville Superintendent of Public Schools Mary Skipper explained that given the ever-changing nature of education, the Somerville High School needed an improvement of its facilities to allow for more effective teaching and learning.

“The project is designed to optimize evolving educational practices with more flexible spaces that allow for more collaborative and cross-disciplinary work, while keeping and upgrading some of the more current structures such as the Field House and the Career and Technical Education shops,” Skipper told the Daily in an email.

In particular, according to the city’s website, the current high school has significant structural problems, and the school’s physical condition caused its accreditation with the New England Association of Schools and Colleges to be at risk.

High School Building Committee Chair and former Superintendent Tony

TIM PIERCE / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Somerville High School is pictured on Aug. 21, 2009.

Pierantozzi said that students may begin using new facilities by fall of 2020, and that the projected completion year for construction is 2022.

Pierantozzi said the oldest section of the high school, the main entry, was

constructed in 1895 and will be preserved for its historical significance.

Similarly, the exterior of the library will remain intact while the interior is converted into an auditorium.

Pierantozzi said the rest of the new

school will be built to the east of the existing property, and Somerville High School will have its own sports field for the first time. see HIGH SCHOOL, page 2

Tufts and Stockholm Environment Institute celebrate 10-year anniversary

by Hannah Uebele News Editor

Tufts Institute of the Environment (TIE) and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) will host a symposium on April 11 celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the partnership between Tufts and SEI. Named the Tufts-SEI Nexus Symposium, the public event will bring together Tufts and SEI researchers as panelists to share their perspectives and research on the global issues of water, energy, food, health and climate, according to Jill Parlee, assistant director for programs at TIE.

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Annette Huber-Lee, a senior scientist at the SEI U.S. Center, explained in an email to the Daily that in 2005, SEI decided to associate each of its international centers with a local academic institution, choosing Tufts for the SEI U.S. Center.

“We considered a range of local universities [for the SEI U.S. Center], but for us, the choice was clear, given Tufts University’s vision of openness and engagement ‘to be an innovative university of creative scholars across a broad range of schools who have a profound impact on one another and the world,’” Huber-Lee wrote.

Huber-Lee said that over the course of the 10-year relationship, Tufts and SEI

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have partnered on a number of projects within TIE’s Water: Systems, Science & Society graduate program, the Global Development and Environment Institute and The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy’s Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship program.

SEI-U.S. Center Senior Scientist Eric Kemp-Benedict explained some of the areas in which SEI has been working and how Tufts has played a part with their efforts.

“In those 10 years, the center, with its offices in Somerville, Seattle, Wash. and Davis, Calif., has established an international reputation in

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the areas of water and energy resource planning, climate mitigation and climate equity,” Kemp-Benedict told the Daily in an email. “Tufts students and faculty have joined us in much of this, particularly in the area of water resources planning.”

Parlee further explained the value of the collaboration between Tufts and the SEI’s U.S. Center, which formed due to the similar research endeavors of the two institutes.

“Having an interdisciplinary focus doesn’t usually come from one person.

You really need to get multiple per-

NEWS............................................1 FEATURES.................................3 ARTS & LIVING.......................5

see TIE-SEI, page 2

OPINION..................................... 7 SPORTS............................ BACK

2

THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Wednesday, April 5, 2017

T HE T UFTS D AILY Kathleen Schmidt Editor-in-Chief

EDITORIAL

Jei-Jei Tan Miranda Willson Managing Editors Joe Walsh Ariel Barbieri-Aghib Zachary Hertz Gil Jacobson Robert Katz Liam Knox Daniel Nelson Catherine Perloff Emma Steiner Hannah Uebele Charles Bunnell Emily Burke Daniel Caron Aneurin Canham-Clyne Juliana Furgala Elie Levine Natasha Mayor Jesse Najarro Minna Trinh Costa Angelakis Becca Leibowitz Jake Taber Emma Rosenthal Emma Damokosh Zach Essig Elie Levine Jessie Newman Sean Ong Hermes Suen Grace Yuh

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Executive Features Editor Features Editors

Tufts to organize symposium, internship program to recognize anniversary of Stockholm Environment Institute-Tufts relationship TIE-SEI

continued from page 1 spectives to be able to address issues,” Parlee said. “[At] Tufts, we foster collaboration amongst schools and faculty. We encourage it to spread beyond Tufts with other partners, and SEI has an exceptional reputation for excellent research.”

Parlee added that researchers at the two schools regularly work together and collaborate on different research opportunities.

An internship opportunity between the two institutions has also been formed to further celebrate the anniver-

sary, according to Parlee. She said that in the past, Tufts students would take on SEI internships, but the two organizations have decided to formalize that relationship by establishing the joint internship program.

“In this case, the person who will be working for SEI will also be participating in the fellowship activities that we do generally for students here at Tufts through our program,” she said. “So they’re going to get a dual benefit from participation in that internship.”

According to the SEI website, the beginning of the partnership was cele-

brated by a 2007 Climate Symposium, with additional symposiums being held over the last ten years that discussed climate, sustainability and energy.

“These convening moments represent not only the two organizations’ focus on research but also their enduring commitment to collaboration and inter-disciplinary conversation,” according to a joint statement from TIE and SEI. “These events have allowed for ideas, research and experiences to be shared by peers across organizations and disciplines and represent the primary goal of Tufts and SEI-U.S.’s association.”

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Eran Sabaner Executive Arts Editor John Gallagher Arts Editors Cassidy Olsen John Fedak Assistant Arts Editors Libby Langsner Setenay Mufti Paige Spangenthal Anita Ramaswamy Executive Op-Ed Editor Stephen Dennison Cartoonists Shannon Geary Noah Kulak Lydia Ra Miranda Chavez Editorialists Julia Faxon Hannah Kahn Lena Novins-Montague Lanie Preston Madeleine Schwartz Daniel Weinstein Eddie Samuels Executive Sports Editor Yuan Jun Chee Sports Editors Maddie Payne Maclyn Senear Liam Finnegan Assistant Sports Editors Savannah Mastrangelo Brad Schussel Sam Weidner Sam Weitzman Ray Bernoff Executive Photo Editor Margot Day Staff Photographers Scott Fitchen Lilia Kang Max Lalanne Rachael Meyer Vintus Okwonko Zachary Sebek Alexis Serino Seohyun Shim Angelie Xiong Ezgi Yazici Sitong Zhang Ezgi Yazici Executive Video Editor Olivia Ireland Executive Video Admin.

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New Somerville High School to be most expensive high school building in state history HIGH SCHOOL

continued from page 1 “By adding a field, it’ll put a little less pressure on the competition and the shared spaces that we have in the city,” Pierantozzi said.

Bill White, president of the Board of Aldermen, explained that three independent estimates were made regarding the price figure, and they all agreed the costs would not exceed the estimated amount.

In addition, according to White, the Massachusetts School Building Authority, a state agency, has approved a grant of $124 million for the school’s construction.

“Based on the schematic design and grant from the State, the City’s cost would be $131 million,” White told the Daily in an email.

Pierantozzi said that construction is needed soon and that the longer it is delayed, the pricier this project will become. He cited two instances in the past in which attempts were made to renovate the high school in the 1950s and the 1980s. Pierantozzi said that the project is already more expensive than it would have been a few decades ago, and he credited voters for recognizing the pressing need.

“Obviously, the cost has skyrock-

eted since those two dates, and the same thing would happen if we waited another 20 or 30 years, in addition to the fact that we’d have to spend millions of dollars short-term just to make the building usable for that 30 year period,” Pierantozzi said.

Pierantozzi noted that a new high school could have other positive impacts on the community. He said that he observed a rejuvenation of surrounding areas as a result of two schools that were constructed during his time as superintendent.

“A new school, particularly a high school, revitalizes the area,” Pierantozzi said. “The use of the building is not just as a school, it’ll be a community center.”

However, Brian McCarthy, chairman of the Somerville Republican City Committee, opposes the construction of a new high school primarily because of the negative effects he believes the increased property taxes will have on Somerville residents.

McCarthy believed that voters were deceived when they voted to approve bonds for the new high school last November. He claimed that the ballot question did not include the fact that Massachusetts’ Proposition 21/2, which limits the amount of money a city can levy from property taxes, would be overridden.

“I didn’t see the ballot question until just days before the actual vote on it,” McCarthy said. “It didn’t say anything about a Prop 21/2 override or people’s rents going up.”

However, this was stated in the wording of the ballot question regarding the new high school.

“Shall the City of Somerville be allowed to exempt from the provisions of proposition two and one-half, so-called, the amounts required to pay for the bond(s) issued in order to design, engineer, construct and equip the new Somerville High School?” the official text of Ballot Question 5 reads.

According to White, the city’s bonds will be for 30 years, with property taxes gradually increasing over the years. The largest increase will not been for about a decade.

“Because of this phasing, the major impact of the funding of the bonds on property taxes will not be seen until 2026, where the annual cost for a single family home is projected to be $290 per year and a two-family at $345,” White said.

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Features

Tufts Elephant Conservation Alliance looks into root problems behind elephant endangerment

by Alex DeBellis

Contributing Writer

In 1881, an orphaned African bush elephant was purchased as a new addition to P.T. Barnum’s circus and given the name Jumbo. Four years later, the stuffed hide of Jumbo was donated to Tufts University and the student body almost immediately made him their mascot.

At that point in time, about 12 million elephants roamed Africa and Asia. Since then, this number has decreased by 97 percent, leaving a population of fewer than 400,000 African elephants on the planet.

Deforestation and poaching continue to threaten the already fragile elephant population throughout Africa and Asia. For this reason, some members of the Tufts community have been joining the effort to save elephants from extinction through the Tufts Elephant Conservation Alliance (TECA).

According to TECA cofounder Ellen McDonald, a reference librarian at the Fletcher School, this initiative first began in November 2015 when a group of faculty members from various departments convened to discuss how the university could utilize its many resources to aid elephant conservation efforts.

McDonald pointed out that Tufts has the necessary resources and manpower to propel conservation efforts and address the complex issues that endanger the elephant population.

“The timeline is short when we look at the numbers,” McDonald said. “We’ve been inspired by everything about elephants and we have a duty to protect Jumbos’ descendants.”

An elephant is slain and de-tusked every 15 minutes for its ivory tusks, which are used for unproven medicinal purposes or to satisfy the market for ivory trinkets and jewelry. TECA seeks to look at the root problems of this negative trend and work to educate students on the methods they can use to aid in protective efforts.

Some of TECA’s efforts will include monitoring elephant population sizes and migrations, tracking trade routes, visiting villages to debunk myths about ivory’s healing properties and finding ways to limit corruption and illegal trading, McDonald explained.

She added that by working to decrease corruption and inequality in impoverished African villages, dependence on wildlife trade will decline and protective policies will be more likely to be implemented.

English Lecturer Dale Peterson, another founding member of TECA, emphasized the need for Tufts to take advantage of its diverse resources to help reverse the trend toward elephant extinction.

“This is way bigger than anything in politics, because this is permanent,” Peterson said. “At this point, we should ask our-

3 tuftsdaily.com

MJ Griego Mind the Gap

Feminized fear

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RAY BERNOFF / THE TUFTS DAILY

A statue of Jumbo outside Tisch Library is pictured on April 17, 2016. selves, ‘What is the attitude we should have? Is there a serious moral question that Jumbo raises for us as a university?’”

Peterson is currently teaching an Experimental College class, The Jumbo Imperative: On Elephants and Elephant Conservation, as one of TECA’s first initiatives. The class focuses on elephants, their role in the environment and the cultural, social, economic and political factors that need to be analyzed in order for elephant conservation efforts to be effective.

The class was introduced as a method to gauge student interest in conservation efforts, according to Peterson.

The class surpassed enrollment capacity a few weeks into the semester.

Sophomore Elisabeth Frick, who is taking Peterson’s class, said that she has gained an understanding of the interdisciplinary approaches that are necessary for wildlife conservation efforts.

“It’s interesting that there’s more to [conservation] than just the biological aspect,” Frick said. “We’re being taught how to use computer software to help conservation efforts, we had a lecturer from the veterinary school and we had someone come in to talk about public policy.”

In the near future, TECA hopes to use its connections with organizations such as the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) to organize internships and field research for Tufts students, according to McDonald. In the long run, the group would also like to help conserve other endangered animals.

McDonald noted that as a keystone species, elephants provide important resources for other species. For example, they maintain grasslands by feeding on trees and dispersing seeds. Additionally, the indents left by their footprints create puddles from which small animals can drink.

“If we can bring it all to the table for elephants, we can help ensure a future for a lot of other species,” explained McDonald.

TECA hopes to fuse Tufts’ diverse resources and the community’s connection to Jumbo to preserve biodiversity and maintain the balance of fragile ecosystems of elephants.

“Take a look at Jumbo,” Peterson said. “What does he mean to you? Is he a trinket, or is he a signifier of an animal species in desperate need of our aid?”

n the first day of sixth grade, a popular girl had a crush on me. (I know because she later confessed this to me at a birthday party.) She had thought I was a boy, with my awkward bowl-cut/bob hybrid and lime green cargo capris. Perhaps this was because I was in the habit of wearing an oversized Gumby sweatshirt and had a sturdy figure. Perhaps this was because I was at the edge of an angsty phase in elementary school and my frown looked masculine.

As I traversed middle school, I found myself deliberately dressing in wild clothing. I had an obsession with rainbows; I owned a belt, suspenders, leg warmers and socks covered with them.

This, in addition to my intent denial of male attention, caused me to be called a “lesbian” fairly often, which I also intently denied. It took me until high school to realized that it wasn’t having attraction to women that bothered me but being boxed into labels by strangers.

Now, as an adult, I carry a little bit of bitterness — bitterness toward the strangers that categorize me with a look but more toward the categories themselves. The last few years, I have intently analyzed what gender means to me (this changes) and contextualized the events of my childhood in regards to my socialization and presentation. I first pushed against femininity because I resented being read as a woman, and then I resented dominant queer culture for pressuring me to conform to a restricting standard of white/thin androgyny. At the end of high school, I had tried out some form of ‘womanhood’ while always feeling an air of ‘otherness.’ I often tended to appear just a little outlandish, wearing things like a pink fishnet shirt under a lime green dress. At the same time, I enjoyed putting emotional labor into projects.

‘Femininity’ was a standard that I tried to put on in layers over my both inherent and socialized softness.

Sometimes, thinking about societal influence ties you in knots. I trap myself still in thoughts like, “Would I be doing this organizing or cooking for friends if I hadn’t been socialized into thinking that was my role?,” “Where does my socialization end?,” “Where does the real me begin?” I can only say that the process of parsing out oppressive socialization (the kind that boxes you into always taking on a care-taking role or tells you you always deserve a leading one) is constant.

The pressures of feminine socialization have always made me feel like I have to be great at something before someone can see me do it. Even something as casual as playing video games in front of people leads me to worry that my skill level will prove my total value. I find it hard to let someone see me try new things. My tip is to think of the twinges of discomfort or anxiety that you get when you’re worried you’ll embarrass yourself. Try to note when you can afford that bit of fear and when you can push yourself to try.

MJ Griego is a junior majoring in sociology. MJ can be reached at madeline. griego@tufts.edu.

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ARTS&LIVING TELEVISION REVIEW

Surprise season premiere of ‘Rick and Morty’ is rousing success

by John Fedak Assistant Arts Editor

While some people might have had reason to curse on April Fool’s Day, fans of Adult Swim’s hit TV show “Rick and Morty” (2013-present) had reason to celebrate: the network unexpectedly announced that the premiere of season 3 would be airing that night, with the option to either streaming it or watching it live. Pandemonium ensued as people tried to confirm whether it was all just a cruel joke, but there was no joke to be found. “Rickshank Redemption” premiered in spite of this chaos, a fitting entrance for the convention-breaking show.

“Rick and Morty” has always focused on heavier topics ranging from alcoholism to failing marriages to teenage angst and all of the show’s characters are deeply flawed in their own individual ways. It was wonderful to bask in the show’s dark humor once more. The episode opens with Rick Sanchez’s interrogation in a Galactic Federation prison, where he remains prisoner from the end of season 2. Back on Earth, his family is living under the thumb of the Federation.

Unhappy with this new life, Rick’s granddaughter Summer decides to free Rick, dragging a hesitant Morty, who’s lost faith in his grandfather, along for the ride. As expected, the two manage to mess up Rick’s plans, and the show quickly takes a turn (or ten) for the worst.

Any fan of “Rick and Morty” will appreciate this long-awaited premiere, as it jams everything there is to love about the show into an action-packed 25 minutes with plenty of the usual self-aware melancholy that viewers likely expect at this

Assistant Arts Editor

April Fools’ Day — once infamous for cling-wrapped toilet seats, toothpaste-filled Oreos and the birth of the Weasley twins — has transformed into a wildly marketable holiday for companies, granting them a free pass to dupe consumers for ‘fun’ and, you know, money.

Even if you didn’t wake up to an app telling you that you were pregnant last Saturday and momentarily believe it (thanks, theSkimm), odds are you fell for some of the other ridiculous, clever or downright mean April Fools’ pranks made by brands and celebrities this year.

Snapchat is tired of copycats Although Snapchat has faced accusations of whitewashing, black face and general lazy weirdness with some of its “lens” filters in the past, the company is obviously the one to beat, having set the trends of facial recognition software, augmented reality and photo-video “stories” that are sweeping social media. As the OG trendsetter, it’s more than a little annoyed by companies like Instagram and Facebook that have taken its central ideas (stories and photo messaging) and done little to adapt them before incorporating them into their own platforms.

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Abigail McFee Advice from Dead Poets (and Some Living)

Robin Coste Lewis on interpreting text messages

“H CARTOON NETWORK STUDIOS

Rick Sanchez (Justin Roiland) brandishes a gun in the season premiere of ‘Rick and Morty.’ point. It is fitting that the episode was released on April Fool’s Day, because so many of the series’ charm lies in its aforementioned willingness to break conventions. Anything and everything, from the nature of humanity to the driving forces behind each character, is criticized and juxtaposed within the show, and “Rickshank Redemption” delivers more of this meta content.

The highlight of the episode, however, is the ending, which mirrors the ending of the first episode of season 1. In a way, everything has come full circle, but the viewer is left with a sense that in spite of all that’s happened to the Smith family, they remain trapped in various stages of self-loathing, unable to progress in light of the literal collapse of a galactic empire.

The writing is, as usual, phenomenal. Each character comes alive once

more through witty and well-thought out dialogue, and viewers will find themselves in stitches throughout the whole episode. The voice actors do a great job, bringing the show’s characters to life once more through sarcastic and intriguing interactions.

Perhaps most fitting about the episode, however, is that at the end, the only thing that matters to Rick is a forgotten McDonald’s Szechuan dipping sauce. This type of punchline is “Rick and Morty” at its finest, with nonsensical and irrelevant topics becoming points of obsessed fixation, even for a mad genius like Rick.

The only downside to the premiere was the announcement that fans of the show will have to wait until the summer to catch the rest of season 3. But with such a strong return, the wait will hopefully be worth it — as long as Rick finds his Szechuan sauce, that is.

Brands, celebrities capitalize on April Fools’ Day

by Cassidy Olsen

5

On April Fools’ Day, Snapchat decided to get cheeky and create a fixed filter that made the user’s photo look exactly as though it had been posted to Instagram. The highlight is the extra burn of the default “like” on the photo from a user called “my_mom,” implying that Instagram is reserved for family-friendly material while Snapchat is where the cool kids are. Snapchat: 1, Instagram: 0.

Celebrities premiere new looks on Instagram Ah, the classic makeover prank. Although not exactly original, faking a dramatic haircut or style choice is a safe go-to for April Fools’ that we’ve seen time and time again, but it can still be jarring. Gigi Hadid posted a selfie Instagram on Saturday with her hair bleached and cropped into a pixie cut, a stark change from her usual long and dark blonde locks. Some fans were extremely distressed, but she was quick to reveal it as a prank. The popular Instagram @thegaybeards also posted a photo of the typically bearded pair with their famous beards shaved right off. Luckily, it was an old photo, as one commenter noted from the outdated iPhone model.

Google and Amazon launch alternative home assistants Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home have been successful at bringing the

internet of things and Siri-like assistants into everyday homes, but for April Fool’s, both brands decided to go further and premiered tongue-in-cheek videos about new products: Amazon with Petlexa and Google with Google Gnome. Petlexa acts as a home assistant for your animals, allowing them to eerily ‘voice’ control the device and, say, order a million rawhide treats online. But Google takes the cake with their sassy Google Gnome, an assistant that will only complete outdoor tasks and will certainly let you know when you’re being dumb with your requests. Honestly, there could be a real market for either one.

Dunkin’ keeps it Boston Lastly, in a hilariously self-aware move, Dunkin’ Donuts shared a punfilled press release on Saturday about “Vanilla Nut Tap Munchkins,” a new menu item inspired by an SNL digital short about the company featuring Boston native Casey Affleck.

Dunkin’ claimed to be selling the buttercream-filled munchkins at limited locations around the country in collaboration with SNL before revealing it to be an April Fools’ prank. Despite the gross anatomy-related puns and shaming of Boston natives involved in the campaign, the treats do look like they’d make a decent breakfast.

is messages became… curt,” a friend explained to me over coffee, shrugging her shoulders. She was describing a shift that had taken place in an undefined relationship: the trailing-off in text messages that often signals the end of knowing the person.

“Mmm,” I agreed. “You always know.” I didn’t mean her, specifically. I meant that most people can feel when the shift has taken place: It’s a knowledge that settles into you.

Later that night, the same friend texted me a screenshot of a conversation that Curt Guy had initiated. Everything was back to normal.

Somehow, in the course of a few hours, two thoughts had been true: You always know, and you never know.

Aside from the fact that texting is an ambiguous form of communication, there is the ambiguity of human beings to contend with.

Our words and gestures offer only a glimpse of who we are and what we want, while other things circle inside of us, unseen.

In her poem “Summer,” the contemporary poet Robin Coste Lewis writes about finding a snake skin on her porch two mornings in a row: “I pretended as if I did not see them, nor understand what I knew to be circling inside me. Instead, every hour I told my son to stop with his incessant back-chat.

I peeled a banana. And cursed God — His arrogance, His gall — to still expect our devotion after creating love. And mosquitoes. I showed my son the papery dead skins so he could know, too, what it feels like when something shows up at your door — twice — telling you what you already know.”

Many of the poems in Lewis’ collection, “Voyage of the Sable Venus” (2015), are pages long and stunningly complex. They mimic linguistic patterns and draw from her knowledge of Sanskrit. The title poem is composed solely of titles of artwork depicting black women from ancient to modern times.

In comparison, “Summer” seems straightforward. The speaker tells a story in easy statements and with humor. But the poem derives its power from what is inaccessible to the reader: what the speaker “kn[ows] to be circling inside [her].”

Lewis doesn’t exploit the shedding of skin as a metaphor for change. She seems more interested in the idea of what was once part of the body and no longer is: “the papery dead skins,” the banana peel, the child chatting in the background. What the speaker and the snake both know, then, is a kind of loss.

When I heard Lewis read the poem aloud at an event last month on the Tufts campus, the last six words struck me as urgent and sad: “telling you what you already know.”

She spoke them slowly and intently. They followed me out into the dark when the reading was over. I didn’t know exactly what they meant. What I wanted to carry with me was their ambiguity, which — like the ambiguity of curt text messages — could mean anything at all.

Abigail McFee is a senior majoring in English. Abigail can be reached at abigail. mcfee@tufts.edu.

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Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Opinion EDITORIAL

Tufts should further support adjuncts As negotiations for a new contract begin between the part-time faculty union, represented by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the Tufts administration, Tufts should continue to increase the wages and benefits for parttime faculty and create more tenure-track positions.

The most recent contract, negotiated in 2014, is due to expire on June 30, according to a March 27 Daily article. Included in it were substantive increases in wages and benefits. However, the salaries and benefits of part-time faculty still lag significantly behind those of full-time faculty despite the two often teaching the same number of classes. According to a Oct. 27, 2014 Boston Globe article, adjunct faculty at Tufts make a minimum of $7,300 per course. Given that faculty members cannot realistically teach more than three courses a semester, their annual pay is less than half that of the average associate professor at Tufts, which was about $100,000 in 2015, according to crowdsourced data from the The Chronicle of Higher Education.

These differences in pay and benefits matter. Since adjuncts are paid per class, there is a strong incentive to take on many classes to make as much money as possible. The Delphi Project on the Changing Faculty and Student Success, a group of education experts headed by the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California in partnership with the Association of American College and Universities, finds that higher reliance on non-tenure-track faculty and on part-time faculty has led to “diminished graduation and retention rates … [and] reduced faculty-student interaction.”

As a university that prides itself on cutting-edge research and student-faculty collaboration, Tufts should re-invest in its faculty. Providing higher pay and more tenure-track positions would encourage more high-quality faculty to work at Tufts in the long run. Creating more tenure-track positions would give previously adjunct faculty the time, resources and freedom to pursue more academic projects and research.

It can also be difficult for students and faculty to develop close relationships with

adjunct professors. The faculty member’s position at the university is uncertain, and adjunct faculty may leave during the student’s time at the university. This prevents students and faculty from forming bonds that ignite intellectual and academic growth in students.

Additionally, raising pay for adjuncts would help Tufts better recruit talent from other universities. A university is only as good as its faculty, and by increasing the quality of its instruction, Tufts will benefit both its students and its reputation.

The 2014 contract signed between Tufts and the adjunct faculty union made Tufts a leader in standards for adjuncts. According to the above-mentioned Globe article and a March 10, 2015 Daily article, the unionization and contract reached at Tufts led adjuncts at other Boston-area schools to push for unionization and better contracts. By increasing adjunct pay and benefits in the newest round of negotiations, Tufts can both increase its quality of teaching and research and pave the way for better treatment of adjuncts across Boston.

ONE OF US

MJ GRIEGO 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.

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 oped@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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Khuyen Bui Dear Jumbo

Three truths and no lie

O

n April Fools’, three friends shared with me three truths.

Truth A: Accept good intentions. This comes to you at some points during your Tufts experience when you inevitably have an argument about whether human nature is good or bad.

From a dear friend: “Most people don’t intend to hurt others. Even the most wicked characters in history simply wanted good for themselves and the people they care about. Yet deep down we are well aware that ALL of us have the ability and potential to hurt each other, and we inevitably do.”

Alas, the gap between intention and reality is vast. The problem is not that people are bad, it is that good people unknowingly end up doing bad things. We will get hurt, even though no one intends to hurt us. So what do we do? We go about life putting up walls.

Which brings me to Truth B: bending the beam of attention back to ourselves.

“If we worry about how much of the budget governments spend on defense, think about how much of our energy many of us spend on defending ourselves. If we worry about the U.S. President putting up walls against Mexico, think about the enormous walls we put around ourselves every day against those around us.”

Where do these walls come from? The bricks of fear. From fear of having nothing to feed ourselves to fear of not being enough, from fear of misunderstanding to fear of hurting others. Given how complaints and cynicism are all-time favorites in college, we should bend the beam of attention back onto ourselves and realize that we are part of the very system we like to criticize. So much critical thinking, not enough critical hoping. Which brings me to Truth C: checking in with the body.

“The academic building at Tufts that has seen most tears is perhaps the Department of Drama and Dance.”

It is not because the classes are so brutal that they bring students to tears. It is because performing arts have an uncanny way of bringing out what our body knows but has not yet been able to articulate.

Good performaning art teaches us to not shy away from these feelings but rather to embrace them.

I’ve indeed seen many tears on the dance stage, and it scares me how easily we ignore how much our body has to hold. Joy, pain, excitement, anxiety, intelligence, stupidity … all live there. Despite the walls we put around ourselves, we still accumulate physical and emotional wears and tears just from going through everyday life. Yet we rarely give our body the attention it needs to explore, process and heal. Our emotions either leak out as passive aggression or explode as a tantrum. Who bears the damage? The people around us whom we least intend to hurt. See how it goes back to Truth A? If we could listen more to our bodies, our life and the lives of others we interact with would be much richer.

There you go, the ABC Truths — Accept good intentions, Bend attention back and Check in with your body. Happy April Wise. Please share your truths with me at bit.ly/dearJumbo.

Khuyen Bui is a senior majoring in computer science. Khuyen can be reached at g.khuyen@gmail.com.

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Sports BASEBALL

Jumbos take two of three games against Bantams despite snow delays

by Savannah Mastrangelo

Bradley Schussel The Coin Toss

MLB Award Predictions

W

Assistant Sports Editor

The baseball team continued to stay hot after returning to New England after spring break. The Jumbos went 4-1 in the last week, which includes taking two out of three games from Trinity in the team’s first NESCAC East series of the season.

The Jumbos now stand at 12-2 overall (2-1 NESCAC) and are still ranked eighth in the country by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) and D3Baseball.com. With 152 runs in just 14 games this spring, the team’s offense has been powering much of its success so far.

“Our approach is not to just get a hit, but to be focused on having a quality at-bat,” junior DH Mike McLaughlin said. “And we see an effect where one guy has a great at-bat, and then you have four or five great at-bats after that.”

Since returning to New England, Tufts defeated Mass. Maritime 8-2 last Wednesday and Salem State 10-4 on Monday. Despite the delayed start caused by the weekend storm, Trinity still hosted the team for the scheduled NESCAC East series in Hartford, Conn., with Tufts winning Saturday’s matchup and splitting Sunday’s doubleheader.

Monday’s game against Salem State — which was Tufts’ home opener since last week’s game against Mass. Maritime was moved — saw Tufts’ high-powered offense rally in the late innings for a comfortable win. After the Vikings scored two runs in the top of the third inning, the Jumbos trailed 4-3 until the bottom of the sixth.

Junior first baseman Nick Falkson led off with a double, immediately followed by McLaughlin crushing a double down the right field line to tie the game 4-4. Junior Malcolm Nachmanoff then knocked McLaughlin in with a single to retake the lead.

The Jumbos padded their lead with a series of extra-base hits in the bottom of the seventh, starting with first-year Elias Varinos’ triple to right field followed by a double from senior Oscar Kutch.

Sophomore Casey Santos-Ocampo singled to left field with two outs to score Kutch, and in the next at-bat, McLaughlin hit his first home run of the season.

Salem State went to the bullpen, but Nachmanoff stepped to the plate after the switch and homered as well, sealing the 10-4 win.

First-year reliever Brad Marchetti, who entered the game at the start of the seventh, turned in his best performance of the season so far by blanking the Vikings for three innings and not giving up any hits to clinch his first save of his career.

The series against Trinity over the weekend featured more prolific run production from Tufts hitters, including a wild 15-run inning in the final game on Sunday afternoon en route to a 23-5 victory. The Jumbos were trailing 3-2 entering the seventh inning in the rubber match of the series after losing 9-6 earlier in the day and winning 10-5 on Saturday, but they took advantage of a worn-down Bantam bullpen, went through the batting order three times and picked up nine hits against four different pitchers in that frame alone.

Senior second baseman Tom Petry, Kutch, junior third baseman Tommy O’Hara, junior shortstop Christian Zazzali and senior tri-captain left field-

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

elcome to The Coin Toss, where I make some bold, unlikely predictions about your favorite sports.

Last week, I picked the winners of the final four games. I was able to correctly predict that Gonzaga would defeat South Carolina. However, UNC beat Oregon, busting my second prediction. So, I was one-for-two on the week.

Baseball is back! Naturally, I have to make some way-too-early predictions for the MLB’s season awards. Here are my picks…

ANGELIE XIONG / THE TUFTS DAILY

A Jumbo stands at-bat during the game against Brandeis on April 9, 2016. er Harry Brown all had at least one base hit in the inning. Nachmanoff also hit a triple, and Brown had a double on the inning.

Senior right hander Rory Ziomek, who came on in relief in the sixth inning, got the win after pitching four innings and giving up two runs — one earned — on four hits, striking out five Bantams in the process.

Nachmanoff explained that Trinity had depleted its bullpen, giving the Jumbos more opportunities behind the plate.

“We were able to see their main guys in the first game, then they went to the same guys on Sunday,” he said. “So we had either seen them or they brought in lower-end guys who weren’t as effective. That played into why were able to score so many runs.”

In the loss to Trinity earlier that day, Tufts held an early 6-2 lead entering the bottom of the fourth but gave up five runs in a sloppy defensive inning.

The Bantams capitalized on both a Jumbo fielding error and a passed ball to pick up two unearned runs on the inning, along with another three earned runs on three hits and three walks. Trinity scored one last run in the bottom of the fifth inning after a double from Tyler Buckley to clinch the 9-6 victory.

“We just defensively weren’t playing our brand of baseball,” McLaughlin said. “Trinity has a lot of good hitters and is a good team.

We knew they were going to score some runs, but we never expect to give up five runs in one inning by any means.”

In the first game against Trinity and in the conference, Tufts won 10-5, maintaining the lead for the entire game. Kutch went three for five with a home-run and two RBIs. Senior tri-captain Speros Varinos earned his fourth win on the season with five strikeouts, nine hits and two earned runs.

With a single from McLaughlin and a double from Santos-Ocampo earning the team two RBIs, the team solidified the victory in the top of the ninth. Junior pitcher Ian Kinney closed the game in the bottom of the inning.

Against Mass. Maritime, Tufts clinched an easy win in the first game back in New England at 8-2. Kutch had a homer in the game and is now batting .377. The team scored four runs in the bottom of the eighth with a single from Brown, an RBI on a sacrifice fly from sophomore Harrison Frickman, a double from Kutch, a single from Falkson and a single down the right side from Santos-Ocampo. Tufts also capitalized on two Mass. Maritime errors.

Nachmanoff said the team is hoping to cut down on some of its mistakes going back into the conference.

“I think we’ve made some errors and given up free bases, so we are focusing on taking care of the baseball so that when we go back into conference, we will compete better and cut down on these mistakes,” he said.

The team will face MIT at home on April 6, with the Engineers coming into the game 8-4 on the season, but having won five of their last six games.

AL MVP: Francisco Lindor, CLE The favorite here has to be Mike Trout, but he’s one of those players who could win it every year. Lindor isn’t a popular pick for MVP, but maybe he should be. The Indians were a 94-win team last year, and they only stand to get better. Lindor will be the star of the team and the main attraction in an offensive tour de force. The shortstop slashed .301/.358/.435 last year, and I think he’ll improve on that and take home the MVP. NL MVP: Corey Seager, LAD Remember who won this award last year? In 2016, Kris Bryant was a sterling young infielder in his second season building off of an impressive rookie campaign. He also was the centerpiece of one of the league’s best offenses. Doesn’t that description fit Seager perfectly? Seager should be ready to explode this year, just as Bryant did. The Dodgers’ shortstop hit 26 home runs last year and posted a .877 OPS. His numbers last year were impressive, and they should get better, giving him a solid chance at the NL MVP award.

AL Cy Young: Chris Sale, BOS This is a more obvious pick than some of my other ones. Sale has had Cy Youngworthy numbers for basically his whole career. Now he comes to Boston, a team that is one of, if not the best, teams in the AL. He’ll have the run support, and if he continues to be the great pitcher he has been, he should take home the Cy Young.

NL Cy Young: Noah Syndergaard, NYM Here’s another underdog. Syndergaard has to beat Clayton Kershaw for this award. Kershaw is another guy that could win it every year as long as he’s healthy. Perhaps he might, but if anyone is going to beat him out, it’s Thor.

He posted a 2.60 ERA and a 2.29 FIP last year, and the team around him is still solid. Syndergaard could challenge Kershaw for the Cy Young, and I think he’ll take it home.

AL ROY: Andrew Benintendi, BOS Benintendi is the best rookie who’s already posted great numbers. He’s going to get playing time in a great lineup. How could you not pick him? The outfielder is an easy choice for ROY. NL ROY: Dansby Swanson, ATL This pick was also fairly easy. Swanson is 23 years old; he’s older and more experienced than every other ROY candidate, and he’s about to be the cornerstone for the Braves’ franchise.

Bradley Schussel is a sophomore majoring in biomedical engineering. Bradley can be reached at bradley.schussel@tufts.edu.