Monday, April 3, 2017

Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group targets discriminatory redistricting with mathpower see FEATURES / PAGE 5

MEN’S LACROSSE

Tufts to face Williams Wednesday to tie team record

‘Life’ struggles to breathe new life into dead movie tropes see ARTS&LIVING / PAGE 7

SEE SPORTS / BACK PAGE

THE

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T HE T UFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXXIII, NUMBER 38

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Monday, April 3, 2017

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

Students protest Greek life, spread awareness of alternatives

by Elie Levine

Assistant News Editor

Coordinated recruitment for two Tufts sororities — Kappa Alpha Theta (Theta) and Alpha Omicron Pi (AOII) — began this week, after the suspension of recruitment for all Greek life organizations was lifted. During the week’s recruitment events, some students gathered to protest Greek life as an institution and promote alternative social spaces.

The week’s events began on Tuesday with an orientation for potential new sorority members in Barnum 008. About 15 students outside the room handed out fliers to prospective members that listed dozens of alternatives to Greek life. They also offered to speak to students about places in which they have found community at Tufts.

“The goal is to raise people’s awareness and make people feel that communities are reaching out to them and that they don’t have to do the work of finding alternatives to Greek life,” Zoe Schoen, a sophomore who was part of the group outside Barnum 008, said.

Michelle Chan, another sophomore in the group, explained that her identity and background has prevented her from interacting with members of Greek life.

She believes that the effort to acquaint people interested in joining Greek life with other organizations on campus was

RAY BERNOFF / THE TUFTS DAILY

Student activists protest outside AOII during sorority recruitment events on March 30. an effective way to foster interactions across different groups.

“As a low-income student, as a person of color [and] as a queer person, Greek life isn’t attractive to me in a lot of ways,” she said.

“People in Greek life might not know about the things that I find a home in. I think being here is a great opportunity to bridge that gap.”

Bailey Siber, a junior, looked at Greek life through the lens of her own expe-

rience as a former member of ATO of Massachusetts, Tufts’ co-ed fraternity.

She said many students at the gathering see GREEK LIFE, page 3

Sophomore Harper Hopkins organizes protest of antitransgender bus tour

Senators give updates on ongoing projects, pass resolution for new language minors

by Robert Katz

by Vibhav Prakasam

News Editor

Boston-area supporters of the transgender community protested the arrival of a bus spreading an anti-transgender message along the East Coast on Thursday, March 30.

The bus, branded the “Free Speech Bus,” began its Boston route at the Boston City Hall, followed by the Massachusetts State House and a midday stop in Cambridge, near Harvard University, according to sophomore Harper Hopkins, who organized a group of the protesters.

The bus is sponsored by multiple anti-LGBTQ organizations, including CitizenGO, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and the International Organization for the Family, according to the NOM website.

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The vehicle’s sides displayed the slogan, “It’s Biology. Boys are boys … and always will be. Girls are girls … and always will be. You can’t change sex. Respect all.” The text was accompanied by male and female figures representing a gender binary, with the letters “XY” and “XX” positioned above each, respectively.

Hopkins organized a delegation of protesters through a Facebook event which was subsequently shared with other Boston residents through the Queer Exchange Boston Facebook page, according to Hopkins.

Boston was the beginning of a restarted Free Speech Bus tour, following its original start in New York City on March 23, when it was vandalized by protesters. As a result of this vandalism, CitizenGO announced on Twitter that its planned Boston visit on see FREE SPEECH BUS, page 3

For breaking news, our content archive and exclusive content, visit tuftsdaily.com @tuftsdaily

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Senate Correspondent

The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate met last night in the Sophia Gordon Multipurpose Room to discuss several supplementary funding requests, as well as a resolution calling for Spanish and French minors.

Senate initially planned to vote on a resolution calling for the abolition of Greek life at last night’s meeting. However, the resolution’s authors chose to postpone the vote and hold further dialogue on the issue, according to a statement by Senator Sylvia Ofoma, one of lead authors.

The meeting opened with representatives from the TCU Judiciary giving their monthly update. The Judiciary changed its bylaws again so that only one Judiciary member has to come to the Senate meeting per month instead of the entire group, and

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made the language for competition group recognition stronger such that to be defined as one, their mission in their constitution must be to compete.

The Judiciary also modified the requirements for culture groups so that in order to maintain recognition, they need to have one large public event and two open meetings, in contrast to the previous requirement of three public events. Sophomore Senator Charlie Zhen recently wrote an article in the Tufts Observer advocating for the threeevent rule to be changed.

TCU Senate President Gauri Seth then took the floor to announce that next week’s meeting will be very long, as there would be updates on the state of the TCU, the Treasury and Diversity and Community Affairs, two potential resolutions, votes on

NEWS............................................1 FEATURES.................................5 ARTS & LIVING....................... 7

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COMICS.......................................9 OPINION....................................11 SPORTS............................ BACK

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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Monday, April 3, 2017

T HE T UFTS D AILY Kathleen Schmidt

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Senators pass resolution calling for Spanish, French minors

Editor-in-Chief

EDITORIAL

Jei-Jei Tan Miranda Willson Managing Editors

Joe Walsh Executive News Editor Ariel Barbieri-Aghib News Editors Zachary Hertz Gil Jacobson Robert Katz Liam Knox Daniel Nelson Catherine Perloff Emma Steiner Hannah Uebele Charles Bunnell Assistant News Editors 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 Eran Sabaner John Gallagher Cassidy Olsen John Fedak Libby Langsner Setenay Mufti Paige Spangenthal Anita Ramaswamy Stephen Dennison Shannon Geary Noah Kulak Lydia Ra Miranda Chavez Julia Faxon Hannah Kahn Lena Novins-Montague Lanie Preston Madeleine Schwartz Daniel Weinstein

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Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate holds its regular meeting on April 2 in Sophia Gordon Multipurpose Room Executive Arts Editor Arts Editors Assistant Arts Editors

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PRODUCTION Sebastian Torrente Production Director Connor Dale Executive Layout Editors Ezgi Yazici Morgan Berman Layout Editors Jewel Castle Julie Doten Ricci Ji Peter Lam Nasrin Lin Brianna Mignano Ellah Nzikoba Emily Sharp Astrid Weng David Westby Sharmitha Yerneni Alice Yoon Peter Lam Executive Graphics Editor Gil Jacobson Zachary Hertz Jack Ronan Arthur Beckel Caroline Bollinger Reena Karasin Bibi Lichauco Katie Martensen Netai Schwartz Nihaal Shah Liora Silkes Dan Strauss Mary Carroll Madhulika Gupta Anna Hirshman Tess Jacobson David Levitsky Ali Mintz Alexis Serino Anahita Sethi Seohyun Shim Hannah Wells Jiayu Xu Vanessa Zighelboim

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BUSINESS Josh Morris

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SENATE

continued from page 1 budgets for all student groups for the next fiscal year and a closed session.

Next, TCU Senate Vice President Shai Slotky took the floor to announce that the strategic plan for Senate will be wrapped up and presented during an internal meeting after the election of next year’s senate body.

He then asked for committee updates from the various chairs.

Student Outreach Committee Chair and Asian American Community Senator Jacqueline Chen said that they are still working on cataloging Senatorss’ projects.

Both Services Committee Chair Kevin Gleason and Administration and Policy Committee Chair Sylvia Ofoma said that they do not have many updates this week.

Services is continuing to work on Jumbocash expansion, while Administration and Policy is working with Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life on offering courses related to active citizenship.

Culture, Ethnicity, Community Affairs (CECA) Committee Chair Benya Kraus then gave a preview on the potential resolutions next week, both of which are a culmination of CECA’s work throughout the semester. In particular, CECA members have worked with the Consent Culture Network to reach out to as many students as possible and wish to maintain that network throughout the year.

Additionally, they are working to explain

the health and reproductive services offered by Health Service.

Kraus and other CECA members also announced that a peer leader program during orientation week will be implemented starting this year. Additionally, Tufts does not yet support the Massachusetts Safe Communities Act, but administrators are willing to meet again with senators once more research has been done for the resolution.

The addition of the new First Generation Community Senator position will be voted on next week now that there are enough signatures on the petition, according to CECA members. Finally, there is a survey for the indigenous studies minor being sent out soon to show student support for the initiative.

In place of Education Committee Chair Nesi Altaras, TCU Senate Historian and committee member Rati Srinivasan announced that the Professor of the Year is Diren PamukTurner from the Department of Chemistry.

The committee will also implement a textbook exchange in the Mayer Campus Center from May 1 – 8, which will be a physical equivalent of the Tufts Textbook Exchange Facebook group.

It aims to provide a physical place for students to store their books and sell them.

Other updates from the body included continued work on club sports and the modified result of a resolution last semester allowing students to reschedule tests if they have three or more in a 48-hour period. As a temporary solution, instead of applying to tests, the policy would apply only to final exams.

Next, Parliamentarian Adam Rapfogel took the floor to introduce a resolution written by Treasurer Chris Leaverton calling on Tufts to offer French and Spanish minors for students in the School of Arts and Sciences, since they are already offered for School of Engineering students. There were not many questions, and the resolution passed by by acclamation.

The final order of business was several supplementary funding requests from Best Buddies, Sino-U.S. Relations Group Engagement (SURGE), Applejam, African Student Organization, Tufts Financial Group, ENVY, Armenian Students’ Association, Pre-Dental Society, Tufts Bhangra, African Dance Collective, Tufts Labor Coalition (TLC), Pan-African Alliance, Association of Multiracial People at Tufts, Queer Students Association, Vietnamese Students Club and South Asian Political Action Committee.

Most of the Allocations Board (ALBO)’s recommendations for funding passed, except for ENVY and for TLC. For ENVY, there was a debate over whether or not to cut the cost for hiring a videographer to record the group’s performance, and after three funding amounts were proposed, the body settled for funding half of the videographer’s price.

For TLC, there was a short debate about spending money on an event after the last day of classes, since the event would be on May 6 and 7, but this was quickly resolved and the ALBO recommendation passed.

The meeting then adjourned.

Events on the Hill – Week of April 3 MONDAY “The Politics of Human Rights” Details: Judith Butler, a philosopher studying feminist theory and a professor at University of California, Berkeley, will give a speech about the nature of human rights throughout history through a postcolonial, critical legal studies and political thought lens.

Where and When: Alumnae Lounge; 5:30 p.m.

Sponsors: Mellon Sawyer Seminar in Comparative Global Humanities

“Beyond the Conservatism of Emoji” Details: Luke Stark, a postdoctoral fellow studying sociology at Dartmouth College, will give a talk about how the history of emojis is linked to corporate strategies and campaigns.

Where and When: CHAT Seminar Room (48 Professors Row); 4:30 p.m.

Sponsors: Science, Technology and Society Program, Film and Media Studies Program, Department of Anthropology and Department of Sociology

TUESDAY “Faith, Feminism and the Fight Ahead” Details: Reverends Gloria WhiteHammond, a pastor at Boston’s BethelAME Church and a member of the Tufts Board of Trustees, and Mariama WhiteHammond, one of the organizers of the Boston Women’s March for America, will speak about political activism.

Where and When: Rabb Room; 12 p.m.

Sponsors: Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, the Africana Center and the Tufts Chaplaincy

“It Happens Here 2017” Details: It Happens Here is an annual event, now in its fourth year at Tufts, in which survivors of sexual violence share their narratives, either in-person or through a peer. The It Happens Here project initially began at Middlebury College, and takes place annually at several other colleges across the United States.

Where and When: Cohen Auditorium; 8 p.m.

Sponsor: Action for Sexual Assault Prevention

WEDNESDAY “Art, Race and Politics in America” Details: Jazz musicians William Parker, Matthew Shipp and Daniel Carter will speak about the role of music in politics and racial issues, followed by a performance by the three artists.

Where and When: Distler Performance Hall; 7:30 p.m.

THURSDAY “An Acidifying Ocean: Where Might It Lead?”

Details: Professor of Biology Jan Pechenik will discuss the dire ecological and environmental consequences of ongoing ocean acidification, and will talk about its connection to climate change as part of the Environmental Studies Program’s Lunch and Learn Series.

Where and When: Rabb Room; 12 p.m.

Sponsor: Environmental Studies Program

— Joe Walsh

Monday, April 3, 2017 | News | THE TUFTS DAILY

News

3

Tufts student, local activists say anti-transgender 'Free Speech Bus' promotes fear FREE SPEECH BUS

continued from page 1 Monday would be moved to Wednesday and Thursday so that the bus could undergo repairs.

CitizenGO’s Twitter feed then claimed that the Free Speech Bus would spend two days in Boston, but the bus never appeared publicly on Wednesday and only seemed to be in the Boston area on Thursday.

On both days, Hopkins and other members of a reconnaissance group organized through Facebook attempted to track down the bus, finding nothing on Wednesday and discovering it parked at Boston City Hall at around 10:20 a.m. on Thursday, according to Hopkins.

Several protesters attempted to prevent the bus from moving by standing in front of it, but dispersed after those on the bus threatened police action, according to Hopkins.

Afterward, Hopkins said that 12 to 20 people protested at the Massachusetts State House. That number rose to about 30 to 40 people at the bus’ stop in Cambridge, outside Harvard.

Other groups were present, including members of the Harvard College Office of BGLTQ Student Life, who handed out fliers in support of the transgender community.

At the Cambridge stop, NOM spokesperson Joseph Grabowski exited the bus to speak with protesters and pedestrians.

According to Hopkins, protesters placed lunch meat under the bus’s tires, scratched the bus and wrote on it with Sharpies. In addition, some protesters chanted slogans, such as “No platform for hate speech” and “When trans lives are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back.”

Eventually, transit police arrived and informed the bus driver that the bus was parked illegally at a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority bus stop, Hopkins said.

Grabowski, speaking to a member of the crowd, said that, while the social idea of gender is not based in biology, biological anatomy should inform lawmaking.

“What you can make distinctions about are XX and XY chromosomes and their expression in biology. Not necessarily neurology, which can be influenced by all sorts of circumstances including environment and how a person is raised,” Grabowski said. “But expressed in biological anatomy, we can make useful distinctions about that and that’s a better standpoint for public policy and law.”

Nat, a transgender woman who protested the bus in Cambridge and preferred to

only give a first name, saw Grabowski’s platform as a danger to transgender people.

“They’re going around with this message, saying girls are girls, boys are boys, based on what genitalia you were born with,” Nat said.

“What that does is it erases trans people, it basically tells people around here that we aren’t real or our lives aren’t valid and that we’re crazy. That we’re making it all up in our heads and that we want to get in the bathrooms and sexually assault people.”

Another protester, Herbie Simon, pointed to one of Grabowski’s messages denouncing the use of hormone therapy by transgender people. “[The use of hormones] is not promoting some trans agenda, it’s not promoting that everyone should get their sex changed.

[There are] just people who would feel 100 percent more comfortable in a different body or a slightly adjusted body with the hormones that make them look more like what they want to look like,” Simon said.

“People have every right to do that, they should have every right to do that, and this [stance] is promoting hate. It’s promoting fear. It’s the kind of fear that causes trans kids to commit suicide.”

Hopkins said the bus’ decision to end its public appearance in Boston by the early afternoon reflected the efficacy of protest efforts.

COURTESY HARPER HOPKINS

Protestors rally against the ‘Free Speech Bus’ in Harvard Square on March 30. “[The bus] had a lot of daylight left and they didn’t use it, and that says good things about our efforts,” Hopkins said.

Anti-Greek life activists protest coordinated recruitment events GREEK LIFE

continued from page 1 had experiences with Greek life that prompted them to push for alternatives.

“I can say I firsthand understand what [students interested in recruitment] are going through … and why Greek life … can seem like a really exciting thing that makes you feel good and makes you feel supported,” Siber said. “But … there are so many problematic things about Greek life, even if fraternities and sororities are trying to address [them].”

Julia Depp, a junior in the group, emphasized the importance of spreading awareness about communities outside of fraternities and sororities.

“The point of this was to get a bunch of really interesting and involved people who have sought the community elsewhere, and just [say], ‘Hey, we get where you’re coming from. You want community. Here it is. This is how you can have it,’” Depp said.

Later in the week, on Thursday at about 6:20 p.m., approximately 20 picketers took to the streets to protest the institution of Greek life on campus. They began protesting at AOII and walked to Theta afterward, spending 20 minutes outside of each house.

Potential new members entered the houses for a scheduled recruitment event as protesters stood outside.

Protesters held signs that read “Abolish Greek Life,” “Greek Life is an Instrument of White Supremacy” and “AO-Bye.” They chanted “Up, up, up with communities!

Down, down, down with sororities!” and “Hey hey, ho ho! This racist system has got to go!” In contrast to the gathering on Tuesday, these protests were explicitly anti-Greek.

Nicole Joseph, a junior who was present both at the community-building action outside of Barnum 008 and the Thursday protests, described the impetus for the actions.

“Since rush … started this week and we tried to do a more inclusive and community-building action [on Tuesday], we thought that we still wanted to show that there are people in opposition to Greek life on this campus,” she said. “We wanted to put pressure on Greek life as an institution.”

Joseph explained that protesting could help influence the Student Life Review Committee’s decisions on the Greek life system that will be made toward the end of the academic year, as well as an upcom-

RAY BERNOFF / THE TUFTS DAILY

Student activists protest outside AOII during sorority recruitment events on March 30. ing TCU Senate resolution on Sunday that sororities at Tufts, noted that Panhel calls for the abolition of Greek life. supports the rights of the protesters to Ben Kesslen, another student present at express their opinions as well as their the Thursday protests, explained that the efforts to publicize alternate social spacprotesters take issue with Greek life’s contin- es and clubs on campus. ued presence at Tufts.

“Though we may have different means “We think Greek life is racist, classist, trans- of achieving these goals than the protestphobic, queerphobic, ableist and ultimately ers, the Panhellenic Council is committed just really violent. And I think it’s proven itself to facilitating positive change within the to be that, whether it’s the DTD stabbing, Tufts community,” Fitzgerald, a senior, [reports of hazing at] Pi Delta [or] all the frats told the Daily in an email. on cease-and-desist,” Kesslen, a junior, said.

According to Su McGlone, the direcProtests started up again at 8:20 p.m. and tor of the Office of Fraternity and followed the same structure. According to Sorority Life, Greek life as an institution Kesslen, between 40 and 50 people came to has undergone changes this year in the second round of protests. He explained response to concerns about safety and that there is no name for the group of stu- inclusivity. She said that coordinated dents who protested, nor do they operate recruitment represents an important under an organized structure. change, but that they are discussing “We’re just a group of students who think further reforms to the recruitment systhat Tufts would be a safer, more inclusive tem in the long term. and a healthier place without Greek life,” McGlone explained this year’s coordiKesslen said. nated recruitment structure is a hybrid Sara Fitzgerald, the recruitment coor- between formal and informal recruitdinator for the Panhellenic Council ment. It will allow for longer events, more (Panhel), which represents Panhellenic autonomy for prospective members

and transparency about financial and gender-inclusive policies for individual sororities, she said.

“The structural changes are a first step that complement the discussion, preparation and work that is being done outside of recruitment by the Greek organizations themselves in collaboration with our office to improve the Greek life system,” McGlone told the Daily in an email.

Likewise, Dean of Student Affairs Mary Pat McMahon said that sororities have worked to change their new member recruitment system to ensure that it is inclusive. “[Greek life] leaders’ efforts to coordinate further and more inclusively around recruitment represents a positive step and a great deal of work this academic year,” McMahon told the Daily in an email. “I appreciate that our sororities are thinking differently and with thoughtful intention about recruitment and how they introduce new members into their organizations.”

Clarification: This article has been updated to reflect that Bailey Siber is a former, not a current, member of ATO of Massachusetts.

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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Monday, April 3, 2017

Police Briefs – March 31 Stolen Beauty A student reported his skateboard stolen at 2 p.m. on March 24. The skateboard, which was decorated with blue paint on the bottom and a white drawing of a geisha on its face, was taken from the front of Dewick-MacPhie Dining Center on March 15. It had been left there for the better part of the day, and when the student returned he had found his skateboard missing. The skateboard has still not been found. The incident is currently under investigation.

tuftsdaily.com

T:11.5”

Mold and Mayhem On March 27 at 6:46 p.m., a student in Tilton Hall reported that he had found mold in his room. The room, which was a double, was checked out by workers from Tufts Environmental Health and Safety as well as Residential Facilities. The situation was taken care of and the mold was removed.

University Police Department ( TUPD) received a report by a Tufts employee of personal property damage.

She found her black car damaged in the Fletcher Lot. A left-side panel above the wheel showed signs of contact, probably by another vehicle. The individual who caused the damage was not around. Officers advised her on how to contact her insurance company and file a claim.

Road-ent Rage TUPD officers responded after a Facilities employee ran his car off the road on March 29 at 11:35 a.m. near the Capen Street extension. The employee stated that he had swerved to avoid hitting a squirrel that was running across the street in front of his car. He was forced to leave the car in an embankment where it had to be towed.

Hit-and-Run At 4:20 p.m. on March 29 the Tufts

Join the Feeding America nationwide network of food banks to help provide meals to people in need. Visit FeedingAmerica.org.

T:21”

1 in 6 people struggles with hunger in America.

— Juliana Furgala

Monday, April 3, 2017

Features

Math professor helps lead geometry-based efforts to combat gerrymandering

by Patrick Wolfe

Contributing Writer

Gerrymandering, the redrawing of political districts to favor a particular group or agenda, is an increasingly relevant phenomenon in American politics. Common forms of gerrymandering include partisan gerrymandering, in which a political party attempts to redraw district boundaries in order to favor their party over another, and racial gerrymandering, in which the party in power manipulates district lines to either disenfranchise or support voters of certain races.

The term gerrymandering has a local origin, taking its name from Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry’s redrawing of districts around Boston in 1812 to favor a political ally.

A satirical cartoon in a local newspaper depicted the elaborate and unorthodox shape of the district as resembling a salamander, hence the “mander” half of the phrase.

The practice continues today, despite its controversial nature, but one Tufts professor recently decided to address the issue through her discipline. Professor of Mathematics Moon Duchin founded the Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group (MGGG) earlier this semester with the goal of combatting gerrymandering.

As evidenced by its name, MGGG uses metric geometry to identify U.S. districts that may have been gerrymandered. Using a combination of legal knowledge and mathematics, the group hopes to educate others about the issue of gerrymandering as well as the mathematics behind what constitutes a fair district and help create solutions prior to the 2020 U.S. Census, in which congressional redistricting will almost certainly occur.

Duchin explained that MGGG is specifically invested in the prevention of negative racial gerrymandering, citing a gap in mathematical research on that specific topic.

“We’re really interested in racial fairness,” Duchin said. “We think that’s been the aspect of redistricting law that’s received the least mathematical attention.”

Duchin’s interest in gerrymandering began when she decided to discuss the mathematics of redistricting while teaching the class Mathematics of Social Choice.

Upon looking into the issue of gerrymandering, she found that the field was not as fully explored as she had thought. For example, she realized that a measure used to police redistricting attempts known as compactness was often only described in nebulous terms that obscured the motivations behind redistricting.

“Only a few states have any kind of definition of compactness, yet about half of the states require it explicitly,” Duchin said.

After Kristen Clarke, an old friend of Duchin’s and president of the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (LCCRUL), spoke to Duchin’s class about issues regarding redistricting

and gerrymandering, Duchin saw an opportunity.

“I realized that the problem was still interesting for mathematicians and there was a need out in the field for mathematicians to work on court cases,” Duchin said.

More specifically, Duchin said that litigators have noticed lack of available expert witnesses available to testify in court cases regarding gerrymandering.

Shortly after Duchin started the MGGG, it gained traction on Facebook and other social media platforms, which led to the group being featured in media outlets such as the Chronicle of Higher Education and NPR’s Science Friday.

“It’s been amazing,” Duchin said.

“We set up a gift account so that people could give money to the project, and the donations have been rolling in from people who want to help out what we’re doing.”

One way to detect which districts are engaged in gerrymandering is to look at how people in those districts voted and check if it clearly benefitted a certain group or agenda. However, this can only be accomplished after an election has already happened, likely as a result of a lawsuit that is calling for fairer redistricting, according to Duchin.

Visiting Assistant Professor Mira Bernstein for the program in Science, Technology and Society (STS), a longtime friend of Duchin and another founding member of MGGG, said the group is therefore basing its findings off of the geometric shapes of districts.

“Our group is not focusing on statistics of which voters voted how, it’s focusing on shapes of districts,” Bernstein said.

MGGG seeks to compile guidelines for determining whether or not a district has biased boundaries based on its shape.

“The focus is on achieving a systematic and fair understanding of geometric issues related to gerrymandering, as well as how mathematical structures affect how to design fair districting plans,”Justin Solomon, another member of the group and an assistant professor at MIT in electrical engineering and computer science, told the Daily in an email.

Duchin pointed to North Carolina’s 12th congressional district as an example of a district whose shape, which resembles a river, indicates boundaries that were created with biased motives.

Ironically, some of the congressional redistricting that occurs today is facilitated by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which gave states the power to create majority-minority districts in order to better represent minority groups. However, Duchin said this provision can be manipulated by representatives to actually drown out minority votes, because it allows legislators to create unfairly shaped districts under the pretense of creating majority-minority districts.

“Everybody uses it to cheat,” Duchin said.

5 tuftsdaily.com

Rainbow House 2016-2017 On Queer

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EVAN SAYLES / TUFTS UNIVERSITY

Mathematics department professor Moon Duchin poses for a photo at the Faculty Inspirations event in Tisch Library on Nov. 10, 2015.

A primary goal of the MGGG is to educate mathematicians so that they may serve as expert witnesses in gerrymandering cases. Bernstein said the work done by Clarke and others at the LCCRUL has aided them in these efforts.

“They [LCCRUL] are our anchor to the real world, where this is necessary,” Bernstein said.

One way in which MGGG hopes to educate both the public and expert witnesses about gerrymandering is through the Geometry of Redistricting summer school program, which will be held at Tufts from Aug. 7 to 11. The workshop will begin with three days of talks given by professors and experts from fields ranging from political science, law, mathematics and computer science, highlighting the interdisciplinary nature of MGGG and its goals.

The final two days will be geared specifically toward expert witnesses who plan to testify in court about gerrymandering and toward high school teachers and college professors who want to incorporate aspects of the project into their own curriculums, according to Duchin.

The group also plans to hold similar programs later in the year in states that have experienced gerrymandering extensively, such as Wisconsin, North Carolina and Texas.

Looking forward, Duchin said she has been contacted by graduate students who want to study what the group has been working on at Tufts.

“I’d like to build something longterm, because I think this project has legs,” Duchin said.

Bernstein elaborated on the group’s long-term goals.

“Our long-term plan is to serve as a hub for people approaching these types of issues … as well as connect people with scientific expertise to lawyers and redistricting committees,” Bernstein said.

On Peer Pressure

remember sitting on the bedroom floor of the first girl I ever loved.

We were chatting about identity and eating Tostitos. She decided to tell me the story of how a friend of hers had recently slept with a girl from her math class. It was her friend’s first time.

She had all of the nitty-gritty details of the story. Her friend had been sitting doing homework in this girl’s apartment. The girl turned to her, put down her calculus textbook and said “Hey, want to do it?” The rest was history.

My friend was trying to help me figure out how to label myself. At the time I was trying to determine whether I was asexual, a label that wound up not fitting me. My friend told me she had a definitive test for me and my sexuality.

“If a girl from your math class had turned to you and said ‘Hey, want to do it?’ would you have said yes?” she asked me.

I thought about the question for a while, and decided that no I would not have assented to this impromptu hookup.

“Oh,” said my friend. “Then yeah, you’re definitely asexual.”

There are so many reasons I would have said no to my hypothetical math classmate. I would’ve barely known her. I wouldn’t have wanted my first time hooking up to be outside of a relationship. It was a Sunday night, and I would have wanted to watch “The Voice.” Why is it that my not wanting to take part in sexy times with a near stranger label me as ace?

One thing that annoys me about hookup culture is that it puts a blanket over so many people. Hookups can be great and healthy for some people, but not for others. Yet if we don’t want to take part in random hookups, we are somehow labeled as ‘other’ for it.

This culture completely delegitimizes asexual people as well. To group me with an asexual person is to ignore the fact that we don’t have the same experiences and that the ace person will have had genuine struggles which I have not had to face.

Sexual peer pressure is real, and it is pervasive. I wish my friend had known how confused she would make me by implying that my not wanting to have sex just yet made me something other than who I am.

I hope someday soon we can all step back and throw out the culture which makes us feel pressured to do things we are not comfortable with.

And to all the people out there, asexual or not, who don’t want to have sex just yet or don’t want to do it at all, know that you are normal, healthy and not alone.

This article was written by an anonymous member of the Rainbow House. They can be reached at rhousecolumn@gmail.com.

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MELLON SAWYER SEMINAR COMPARATIVE GLOBAL HUMANITIES

CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES AT TUFTS

JUDITH BUTLER

Maxine Elliot Professor of Comparative Literature and Critical Theory UC Berkeley

Philosopher and gender theorist, Judith Butler, is the author of more than twenty books, including Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990), Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex" (1993), The Psychic Life of Power: Theories of Subjection (1997), Precarious Life: Powers of Violence and Mourning (2004); Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? (2009), Is Critique Secular? (co-written with Talal Asad, Wendy Brown, and Saba Mahmood, 2009). Her most recent books include: Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism (2012), and Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly (2015).

Public Lecture

“The Politics of Human Rights” Monday, April 3, 5:30‐7:00 pm Alumnae Lounge, Aidekman Arts Center

This lecture considers the role of human rights in critical legal studies, political thought, and postcolonial theory, with consideration of social movements for justice in various global locations.

Center for Humanities at Tufts Fung House 48 Professors Row, Medford MA http://ase.tufts.edu/chat/seminar/ 617.627.3342 humanities@tufts.edu

Monday, April 3, 2017

ARTS&LIVING

Iconic filmmaker shares wisdom with art students in ‘Make Trouble’

Dolce and Gabbana, and the celebration of culture in fashion

by Eran Sabaner

Executive Arts Editor

I PEN AMERICAN CENTER

John Waters, author of ‘Make Trouble,’ appears at Pen America/Free Expression Literature on May 5, 2014.

Man, recently published it in book form under the name “Make Trouble” (2017).

RISD students (or any student pursuing a degree in the arts) are inherently idealistic, as they seek to contribute to society by utilizing creativity. Waters is in agreement with this goal, as his career can be interpreted as an attempt to better society by challenging its norms.

The filmmaker, who self-identifies as “prince of puke” and “the people’s pervert,” has defined queer culture with his collaborations with drag queen Divine, contributed to the mainstream-ization of drag with his movie “Hairspray” (1988) and pushed the notion of filth see MAKE TROUBLE, page 8

FILM REVIEW

‘Life’ is a disappointing copy of ‘Alien’

Jake Gyllenhaal plays one of several astronauts on the International Space Station in ‘Life.’

by John Fedak

Assistant Arts Editor

As far as science fiction films go, those that play on the ‘trapped in space’ trope have much to offer, but also much to overcome. Jumpstarted by Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic “Alien,” this category of sci-fi films typically features characters who are forced to battle disaster, aliens or both, while attempting to escape from some sort of spaceship.

The main problem with this genre is the lack of meaningful innovation.

Most trapped-in-space films rely on good acting, special effects or plot lines in order to compensate for follow-

tuftsdaily.com

Antonio Bertolino Art-à-Porter

BOOK REVIEW

What makes a successful commencement speech? Perhaps the most crucial component is the speaker. Usually, the speaker must come from a background that meets the interests of the majority of the graduating class: while an 80-year-old litigator might excite prelaw students, biology majors might end up staring at their phones during the entire duration of the speech. With a student body that is more homogeneous in terms of its interests and majors, finding the right speaker might be relatively easier. But at any school, if the speaker is able to understand the set of values and aspirations the student body has, then the speaker will have no problem appealing them.

Tufts seems to have settled on media personalities as having a broad appeal, at least for the past two years with actor Hank Azaria in 2016 and “Black-ish” (2014–present) producer Kenya Barris this year.

The above reasons are precisely what make Rhode Island School of Design’s (RISD) choice to have John Waters as the commencement speaker for the 2015 graduating class. In fact, the speech was so popular that Waters, a filmmaker, actor and general Renaissance

7

ing a somewhat unoriginal storyline.

While 2017’s “Life” does a decent job of immersing the viewer in a cinematic experience, it ultimately falls flat, relying too much on a cliché story, effects and characters to truly be a hit.

The story itself is very safe and feels familiar. The movie is about a crew on the International Space Station (ISS) who are waiting to intercept a capsule returning from Mars with soil samples.

When they discover a single-celled organism amongst the samples, it seems as though humanity has reached a new era of discovery and understanding. However, as the organism begins to grow, the crew slowly realizes it might not be as benevolent as it seems, and

SKYDANCE MEDIA

after an accident allows it to escape, horror sets in as the crew frantically searches for the missing Martian.

The acting is perhaps the film’s strongest point. The cast is robust, featuring Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds in addition to international actors Rebecca Ferguson, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ariyon Bakare and Olga Dihovichnaya. While these six actors compromise virtually the entire cast of the movie, they each bring a unique personality to the table, and their varied interactions aboard the ISS feel real and authentic. Everything from their jokes to their fears are rewarding to watch unfold on-screen. see LIFE, page 8

n the fashion world, few designers have been able to constantly draw inspiration from their national and cultural heritage and remain relevant for a long time like Italian designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana.

Dolce, who is originally from a town near Palermo, never fails to incorporate visual motifs from the Sicilian tradition in his designs, such as daisies, lemons and Byzantine mosaics.

The first way in which the two designers draw inspiration from their heritage is how they use Italian icons as muses for their fashion collections. An example of this is their Haute Couture show of Fall-Winter 2016-17, which celebrated the film star Sophia Loren, who acted as the designers’ muse for this show. Many dresses paid homage to Loren’s extraordinary legacy in Italian cinema, both through a celebration of her persona and through praise to Naples, which is where the actress is from originally. The show actually took place on the Neapolitan cobblestone streets, which caused several models to trip in their high heels. Nonetheless, the show glorified the uniqueness of Southern Italian culture in all of its facets, from religion to soccer, and the beauty of the Italian countryside.

One of the most representative shows ever presented by Dolce and Gabbana was the Fall 2013 Ready-to-Wear. In many pieces of the collection, the duo referenced the Cathedral of Monreale, a Sicilian church full of mosaics dating back to Byzantine times.

Like most artwork from this timeframe, the mosaics inside the Cathedral are largely covered in gold foil. This artistic element was reflected in many pieces that graced the Dolce and Gabbana catwalk, which were of a similar color. Moreover, many models wore dresses embellished with stones similar to the ones emperors and empresses would sport in Byzantine times, as illustrated by the same mosaics, all while wearing headdresses that looked like religious attire. The models seemed to be tiptoeing on a fine line between being a metaphor for the church of Monreale and for the figures that make up the Church as an institution.

A contemporary artist who makes sculptural pieces that are visually similar to the mosaic-inspired Dolce and Gabbana dresses is El Anatsui. The Ghanaian artist is known for making works that draw inspiration from his heritage and specifically the technique that gives birth to ‘kente’ cloth, which is a type of fabric interwoven with cotton and silk native to South Ghana. El Anatsui, using this technique, sews together aluminum bottle tops to create cloth-like sculptures that are typically hung on walls. The aluminum gives these pieces a metallic quality that is astoundingly similar to the way mosaics present in the Monreale cathedral and the Dolce and Gabbana dresses reflect light. El Anatsui’s pieces are compositionally similar to mosaics in the way the artist creates a work on a large scale starting from minuscule parts. It is therefore evident that both El Anatsui and Dolce and Gabbana use their heritage as a source of creative and compositional inspiration when making their work.

Antonio Bertolino is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major. Antonio can be reached at antonio.bertolino@tufts.edu.

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THE TUFTS DAILY | Arts & Living | Monday, April 3, 2017

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Commencement speech transformed into illustrated pocket book MAKE TROUBLE

continued from page 7 and humor to the extreme for over four decades. Waters is creative enough to inspire a batch of art students, popular enough to interest parents and provocative enough to keep the audience on the edge of their seats.

The result, simultaneously witty and inspirational, has the potential to top the best commencement speeches of all time.

Waters’ “Make Trouble” is accompanied by illustrations from artist Eric Hanson, and will include highlights and charming aphorisms from Waters’ famous speech.

The book will touch on many life lessons

from Waters and celebrates creativity, self-expression and art.

Waters’ speech has a very conventional structure: he starts off by talking about his own career, then proceeds to give advice to the graduating class and addresses the parents in the audience as well. Yet because Waters’ career is not ordinary, his speech ends up pretty unique too. When referencing his own success, Waters is quite humble: “The final irony — a creatively crazy person who finally gets in power,” he writes.

He is, after all, perceived to be an anomaly as an outcast embraced by the

mainstream. Waters, however, opposes the idea that he is the exception to the rule, insisting that the times have changed. He considers students today to be very lucky because they are encouraged to practice creativity.

“Today, you could possibly even make a snuff movie in college and get an A+,” Waters jokes. “Who would have ever thought a top college would invite a filth elder like myself to set an example to its students?”

The speech includes many life lessons in the form of aphorisms — sometimes hilarious and off-topic (“Don’t hate rich people!”), sometimes insight-

ful and — questionably — more mature (“Go out in the world and fuck it up beautifully”). These lessons will surely be useful to students preparing to enter the real world.

“Make Trouble” is only 72 pages long and it takes 10 minutes to finish it. Its average reader is probably someone flipping through it while waiting on the checkout line of a museum shop, rather than someone who actually owns it. Yet it still makes for a great read.

With simple, imaginative illustrations, it inspires all outsiders who strive to change society one brushstroke, word or shot at a time.

‘Life’ features dull special effects, talented cast LIFE

continued from page 7 But aside from the stellar performances, “Life” visibly falters. The first major issue is that the movie is not original in any way. In fact, one would not be remiss for labelling it “Alien 2.0.” The plot itself feels like a lazily-done, modern-day “Alien,” and everything from character deaths to the main monster are too similar to the classic. In short, this movie has been done before, and what it attempts to offer is not enough

to distinguish it from other space films.

The plot twist at the end is a case in point, a moment that is supposed to be shocking and novel but actually feels predictable and cheesy.

Additionally, while the special effects are good, these, too, have been done before. Anyone who has seen 2013’s “Gravity” is already familiar with destruction and explosions in space, and “Life” is simply more of the same. The only uniqueness lies in the film’s gorier effects, and while interesting, they are

few and far between and nowhere near good enough to salvage the rest of the film. The biggest disappointment in the realm of special effects is the alien itself.

In the beginning of the movie, it looks unlike most other aliens, making it genuinely interesting and very disturbing.

However, by the end of the film, it too looks too much like an “Alien” xenomorph for its own good, and the once-interesting alien becomes boring and dull, another carbon copy of something that’s already been done.

The one other saving grace of the film is that, at times, it is genuinely scary. Audience members should expect to jump out of their seats multiple times.

Even with the solid performances from its cast, “Life” fails to define itself as a truly distinct movie, relying too heavily on established sci-fi stereotypes and becoming little more than a grade-B horror movie. The potential is there, but the movie cannot seem to find it, resulting in a disappointing end product no one should rush to see.

Hiring for May Senior Week Alumni Weekend Commencement Tufts Dining is recruiting for student workers to help out in May! Great opportunity to be a part of Tufts tradition by helping out with major events! We are seeking student workers that can assist with production, help set-up and breakdown events, and serve customers.

We will train students with a can-do attitude who take pride in their work. May 14th thru May 21st is a great time of the year to be on-campus. Tufts Dining will provide room and board for any students who sign-up.

If you would like to apply or learn more about working for Dining between May 14th thru May 21st, please reach out to Anthony.mahoney_pacheco@tufts.edu, Anthony is Tufts Dining Student Coordinator.

All requests for extended stay on campus must be received by April 7th!

Monday, April 3, 2017 | Comics | THE TUFTS DAILY

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Comics

LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Liam: “Tony says, ‘Please just give me my beakers back.’”

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Opinion

Monday, April 3, 2017

OP-ED

Rags to riches to ignorance

by Jamie Neikrie While President Trump’s cabinet nominees were the main story during the first few weeks of his presidency, their shortcomings and inexperience have flown under the radar during debates on healthcare and the budget.

A lot has been made out of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s refusal to label Vladimir Putin a war criminal or Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ confusion about the debate surrounding standards and growth benchmarks.

But Ben Carson’s confirmation as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was largely ignored by the media, diminished by the perception that HUD is a second-tier department with little authority.

In reality, HUD plays a crucial role in combating poverty and housing discrimination. HUD boasts a budget of $47 billion and employs over 8,000 workers. It operates the Section 8 housing program, which allows 7 million Americans every year to secure private and public homes. The department is tasked with upholding the 1968 Fair Housing Act, which calls on states, cities and municipalities to combat housing discrimination and segregation in their communities, “affirmatively furthering” fair housing. Now that he is confirmed as Secretary of HUD, Carson is positioned to cripple every one of these programs.

The majority of news surrounding Carson’s nomination and confirmation centered on his lack of experience. Carson, a renowned neurosurgeon, was initially President Trump’s pick to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, a more natural fit, but Carson declined the job.

His qualifications to be Secretary of HUD are far murkier. Carson has no experience conducting housing or urban development policy. But during his confirmation

hearing, Carson highlighted his childhood, in which his family lived in poverty in inner city Detroit. Carson never lived in public housing, though his family received food stamps, a program operated by the Department of Agriculture.

Far from demonstrating to him the importance of governmental assistance programs, Carson’s rise from poverty to wealth and stature has imbued him with a narrow, myopic notion that the only recipe for success is individual effort. His autobiography, “Gifted Hands,” (1990) included this lesson from his mother: “If you don’t succeed, you only have yourself to blame.”

Carson championed this message during his 2016 presidential bid, arguing that welfare programs make the poor “dependent.” Conveniently forgetting the federal assistance he and his family received, Carson referred to poverty as “a choice more than anything else.” While Carson is entitled to draw his own conclusions from his experiences, his outlook on welfare programs could be incredibly detrimental to the work done by HUD. The Section 8 housing voucher program helps about 5 million people pay for private housing. Another roughly 2 million people are in public housing.

Despite the success of the Section 8 housing program, which has been demonstrated to reduce poverty, 75 percent of poor Americans who meet the qualifications for housing assistance don’t receive it. Will Carson fight to make sure that these Americans are provided a home when he believes that assistance will only create more poverty?

HUD also operates the Federal Housing Administration, a crucial sub-agency that grants more than $1 trillion in mortgages to low-income families every year. Without these loans, many Americans would be unable to

afford private homeownership and the tax benefits that come with it.

Last summer, the Obama administration announced that HUD would begin withholding federal funding from communities that fail to uphold the Fair Housing Act. Under this law, the communities are tasked to use data on demographics, school and housing qualities and poverty – much of which is collected

by HUD itself – to create a community where minority and low-income families aren’t denied access to good schools and homes. The Obama administration tasked a select number of communities to craft a plan to address their community disparities and present it to HUD. In a Washington Times op-ed, Carson decried this policy as “failed socialism.”

Carson demonstrates a genuine concern for poverty and housing discrimination and seems to recognize some of the sources of these inequalities. “To be fair,” he writes, “white flight was not exclusively the consequence of forced integration policies. Other private and public housing policies such as redlining, restrictive covenants, discriminatory steering by real estate agents and restricted access to private capital … exacerbated the suburban segregation in the 1970s and ‘80s.” Carson sees these discriminatory practices as “social-engineering schemes” and views the Obama administration’s attempts to right these wrongs as just another scheme.

Carson is now in a position of great power, one for which he is entirely unprepared and unfit. If unchecked, Carson has the power to assure that few poor, minority families ever reach his level of success, no matter how hard they try.

Jamie Neikre is a junior majoring in political science. Jamie can be reached at benjamin.neikrie@tufts.edu.

TUFTS ALUMNI NETWORK

STEPHEN DENNISON 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.

ADVERTISING All advertising copy is subject to the approval of the Editor-in-Chief, Executive Board and Executive Business Director.

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Evelyn Bellew and Jessica O'Flanagan Food for Thought

The sound of soylence

R

ecently, a friend from high school told me about how, during midterms, she and her peers buy bottles of Soylent in bulk and drink them to replace daily meals. Both of us come from homes where food is a means of catching up and staying close. Fast forward to college, and both of us mutually agreed that in some regard, life would be easier if we did not have to eat. How did we go from setting the table to scarfing down peanut butter to make up for lost meals?

It’s fairly safe to say that most of us don’t think taking time to eat is worth it, often translating into meals spent alone to save time. Today, 82 percent of college students say that they would eat healthier if time were not an issue, and the average American eats 1 out of 5 meals alone in the car. Preparing meals and eating them with others does not take priority against endless to-do lists. Despite this newfound rush, in her book “Eating Together,” Alice Julier identifies social eating as an important part of fostering positive relationships, passing down cultural values and even encouraging a more diverse and inclusive world. No matter where we come from or what we believe in, everyone needs to eat.

We often mock first-years incapable of surviving Dewick without an entourage, but perhaps this dining hall monophobia is healthier than eating alone. For those over the age of 65, eating alone can be indicative of serious health issues like extreme weight loss, malnourishment and depression. While eating alone is not as hazardous for the younger population, it poses similar threats to overall nutrition. Whether it be undereating or overeating, our habits worsen when no one is watching.

In the long-standing tradition of broke college students, we arrive at school expecting to forgo the food pyramid for noodles.

Eating is often expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. On-campus co-ops like Crafts House eat dinner together every night, with each member spending only $20 per week to cover all meals; this is only possible in a cooperative living situation. We should all question why there aren’t more on-campus spaces that prepare and eat food in an effort to build community.

During the school year, time seems almost as scarce as money. For some, eating is an annoying interruption from studying. Others reward productivity with sugary treats. In both approaches, eating is time lost to our greater goals in life and certainly not a priority. It is critical to all of our healths that we challenge this standard — that we make plates for ourselves even when we feel we don’t ‘deserve’ them, and that we take time to eat even when Easy-Mac seems like the only option.

If you are what you eat, then the average college student is nothing but a walking, talking, ‘socially liberal’ pack of insta-noodles. No one could be blamed for eating cheap and suspiciously delicious foods in a four-year drought of time and money. However, to stay physically and mentally healthy, it’s critical that we remove stress from the table and use mealtime to build community. It doesn’t have to be a feast — how about next time you find yourself hastily gulping a Pop-Tart, you consider inviting a friend?

Evelyn Bellew is a sophomore majoring in environmental studies and political science. Evelyn can be reached at evelyn.bellew@icloud.com.

Jessica O'Flanagan is a sophomore majoring in computer science and English. Jessica can be reached at jessica.o_flanagan@tufts.edu.

12 tuftsdaily.com

Sports

Max Goder-Reiser Out of Left Field

MEN'S LACROSSE

Jumbos two wins away from notching new program-record start

by Maddie Payne Sports Editor

With nine wins, the No. 2 Jumbos remain undefeated so far this season and are one win away from matching their previous best starts of 10-0 in 2015 and 2010, when they won National Championships both times. For a fairly inexperienced team with a new coach, they have exceeded expectations, producing impressive score-lines against both conference and non-conference opponents.

Over the weekend, the Jumbos travelled to New London, Conn. to face off against the Conn. College Camels (4-4, 1-3 NESCAC), coming away with a 12-6 victory after sophomore attackman Danny Murphy tallied five points off a pair of goals and three assists. Murphy now leads the NESCAC in points (goals plus assists) and ranks sixth in goals scored, with 24 on the season.

Murphy opened the scoring just over five minutes into the game, followed by an unassisted goal from sophomore defenseman Arend Broekmate to jump out to a two-goal lead. Both players added their own assists in the following minutes to contribute to three more goals from senior midfielder Lucas Johnson, senior attackman Zach Richman and first-year midfielder Nick Shanks.

Each team scored twice in the second quarter, with both Jumbo goals coming from junior attackman Nico Pollack.

Both goals were scored from far outside, as the Camels failed to put pressure on him. Two Camels scored on either side of Nico Pollack to stay competitive at 7-3 as the game moved into the second half.

“I was an attack wing previously on this team and got switched to midfield, so I get to dodge against short sticks a lot more, which helps my team because it draws the slide more easily,” Nico Pollack said.

“When I got in, I tried to take advantage of that and shoot if the slide didn’t come, or pass if it did to get the offense flowing.”

In the second half, Tufts outscored Conn. College 5-3 to secure its fourth conference win. All three goals for the Camels were scored by junior attack-

man Jackson Kleintz, who also picked up one earlier in the game to score four overall for his team.

All five Jumbo goals were scored by different players, with Murphy tallying one goal and two assists and Richman taking advantage of a fast break opportunity off an assist from senior co-captain Tucker Mathers. Sophomore attackmen Ben Connelly and Nick Katz both grabbed goals and senior attackman Michael Mattson added one more to round out the half for the final score of 12-6.

According to Mathers, the Camels have a very different style of play than the Jumbos.

“Conn. wants to get the ball and hold it for a minute to get the timer because they haven’t initiated offense, then they’ll take a possession shot,” Mathers said. “They’re basically trying to eat up as much clock as they can. It’s really different from how we play, because we like to play fast.”

Junior keeper Robert Trieber stood out against Conn. College, saving six of eight shots that came his way during the second half. He now leads the NESCAC with the fewest goals against, followed closely behind by sophomore goalkeeper Ben Shmerler. Despite having graduated one of Div. III’s best goalies last season, Alex Salazar (LA ’16), the Jumbos have had no trouble stepping up to fill his shoes.

On Tuesday, the Jumbos nearly tripled the score of their opponents, the Western New England (WNE) Golden Bears, winning 22-8 in a non-conference match-up. Fourteen Jumbos found the net on Wednesday, the most in one game so far this season.

Again, Murphy led in points with one goal and five assists for six total points, followed closely by Katz, who scored four goals as the game’s high scorer.

Katz and Richman scored early, but the Golden Bears answered with two to even the score. Then, junior midfielder Frank Hattler rolled the crease to score a low angle shot, but WNE scored two further to take the lead. Despite a man-up goal from Connelly, the Golden Bears added another to end the quarter

Monday, April 3, 2017

with a 5-4 advantage.

The second quarter saw a drastic turnaround, as Tufts scored nine goals compared to only one from WNE, four of which came in less than two-and-ahalf minutes. Lucas Johnson, Richman and Katz each netted two, the most impressive of which was Richman’s second goal, which came after Murphy shot down WNE’s clear before they reached the halfway line and fed the ball to Richman who had been left unmarked on the crease.

Broekmate took Shmerler’s clear all the way to WNE’s goal, where he was completely undefended and had an easy shot.

Murphy and Mattson each had their own, while Murphy tallied two further assists.

“I don’t think anything specific changed [going into the second quarter],” Nico Pollack said. “We just tried to do the same thing. We might have just gotten off to a slow start [in the first quarter], but we knew that if we kept doing what we knew how to do it would work eventually.”

In the third quarter, the Jumbos completely shut out the Golden Bears, scoring five goals and conceding none.

Each goal came from a different player and three of the five were unassisted because the WNE defenders did not slide, allowing the Tufts attackmen to put shots on goal. Robert Trieber was only forced to make one save the entire quarter after WNE mustered only two shots in 15 minutes.

Despite an 18-6 advantage with 15 minutes left, the Jumbos did not let up, scoring four more to end the game with 22 versus the Golden Bears’ eight.

Three of the four goals were scored by first-years, two of which were first career goals by defenseman Jack Donohue and attackman Christopher Williams.

On Wednesday, the Jumbos face the Williams Ephs at home on Bello Field.

The Ephs are 2-2 in the NESCAC right now, and with the Jumbos having produced dominant scores against them last year during the regular season and the NESCAC semifinals, Tufts is the favorite to win.

EVAN SAYLES / THE TUFTS DAILY

Tufts attacker Ben Andreycak (LA ‘16) maintains possession of the ball after an errant shot in the NCAA Div. III men’s lacrosse semifinal against Saint Lawrence University on May 22, 2016.

The day before opening day

T

his was originally going to be a preseason predictions column.

Then I went to pick up my press credentials from Fenway Park and had another idea.

(My predictions for those who want to chirp me in October: Red Sox, Indians, Astros; Nationals, Cubs, Dodgers. Indians over Dodgers in the World Series.)

I was hired as a stats stringer by MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM) this winter (more on this in another column). With this job comes media credentials granting me access to Fenway. I dropped by on Sunday around noon, the day before the Red Sox home opener, to pick them up. Initially, I was going to just grab them and then head back to Tufts to work on my medical school personal statement.

But two hours later, I found myself sitting on the first-base side watching batting practice. I’m writing this now sitting above Pete Abraham, Ian Browne and the rest of the Boston press.

I started my day at Fenway by walking past a group of fans passing security on the way to their ballpark tour. I grabbed my lanyard and my media pass and found out how to get to the press box as quickly as possible. After hanging out there for a while, I trekked over to the Green Monster. Every season, I tell myself I’ll buy tickets to sit atop it for a game and then every season I see the price and my wallet tells me no, so this was a unique experience for me. I took in the view and then watched as Red Sox rookie left fielder Andrew Benintendi practiced fielding balls off the wall. I even managed to snag one the hitting coach accidentally hit over.

Once I saw the Sox players taking the field to stretch before batting practice, I bolted down to the field-level seats. I parked myself in the first row of the seats directly to the right of the home dugout and took it all in, from watching Dustin Pedroia field grounders to Dave Dombrowski and John Farrell chatting during the calm before the 162-game storm.

The first thing that stood out to me was how massive of a person Hanley Ramirez is up close. The guy is jacked and hit three balls that cleared the Monster easily. Benintendi is also a very large person for a 5-foot-10-inch man.

He said he put on about 20 pounds of muscle over the winter. I believe it. On the exact opposite side of the spectrum is Chris Sale, the Red Sox’s newest ace. To paraphrase Michael Scott, “Chris you’re six [feet] six [inches tall], and you weigh 180 pounds. Gumby has a better body than you. Boom, roasted.”

Batting practice began and the balls started flying. Inundated by the sounds of “High School Quiz Show” (2009– present) unexpectedly playing on the TV in front of me, the crack of the ball off the bat and Jackie Bradley Jr.’s laugh, I sat there beaming, as excited about this opportunity as I would have been 10 years ago. I’m so glad Opening Day is here.

Max Goder-Reiser is a senior majoring in biology. He can be reached at max.goder_ reiser@tufts.edu.