Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Tufts alumnus and father held as Iranian political prisoners see FEATURES / PAGE 4

Jumbos looking strong, continuing to qualify as NCAAs approach

The 1975’s second album seeks to earn group credentials as more than just pop see ARTS AND LIVING / PAGE 6

SEE SPORTS / BACK PAGE

THE

INDEPENDENT

STUDENT

N E W S PA P E R

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TUFTS

UNIVERSITY

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T HE T UFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXXI, NUMBER 26

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Wednesday, March 2, 2016

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

Linda Abriola to assume role as director of the Tufts Institute of the Environment

by Isha Fahad News Editor

Linda Abriola, former dean of the School of Engineering, has been named director of the Tufts Institute of the Environment (TIE), a role that she will assume on Sept. 1.

TIE is an interdisciplinary, university-wide establishment that promotes education and research for building a sustainable future through numerous on and off-campus projects and initiatives, according to its website.

Abriola, who serves as one of five University Professors, the highest academic honor position at Tufts, said that her research on environmental concerns — including subsurface contamination and water quality — and her experience as dean have prepared her for her upcoming role.

“I have worked for many years with colleagues and students who come to environmental work from diverse areas, so I understand some of the problems and challenges that we face in trying to foster interdisciplinary research and education,” she wrote to the Daily in an email. “In addition, my twelve years as dean of the School of Engineering have given me an excellent understanding of how the university operates and has enabled me to get to know many of our faculty members.”

Antje Danielson, the current administrative director of TIE, has led the institute through a planning period over the past year and a half to develop plans for improving the institution in the near future, she explained.

“The overwhelming majority of surveyed faculty, students and university leaders voted to make the enhancement of the Tufts Institute of the Environment a priority of the university, and Professor Abriola has the passion, standing and experience to lead this effort,” Danielson wrote.

Danielson explained that university administrators selected the most ambitious of four strategies presented from TIE leadership for further developing the establishment, which included selecting a prominent faculty director charged with achieving the institute’s goals.

“TIE will grow in all dimensions of research, education and outreach,” Associate Provost and Professor of Mathematics Boris Hasselblatt wrote to the Daily in an email.

“This growth will be sustained by increasing its resources through grants, philanthropy and revenue-generating educational programming, and it will be accompanied by an expansion of the engagement with schools and academic departments.”

Hasselblatt explained that he believes that Abriola’s position as one of the world’s

Please recycle this newspaper

Rainy 51 / 22

/thetuftsdaily

Tufts students take to the polls on Super Tuesday

by Gil Jacobson

Assistant News Editor

ZHUANGCHEN ZHOU / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVE

Linda M. Abriola, former Dean of Engineering, poses for a portrait Jan. 17, 2013. Abriola will be the new director of the Tufts Institute of the Environment. leading environmental engineers made her a natural choice. According the Hasselblatt, Abriola’s leadership in the School of Engineering demonstrated an outstanding capacity to grow and transform an entity dedicated to research, education and outreach.

“She knows Tufts more intimately than any external hire could,” he wrote.

From Abriola’s perspective, the overall goals of TIE are to raise awareness and understanding of environmental issues across the university, help bring faculty together to educate the next generation of environmental professionals and develop new knowledge, methodologies, technologies and tools that will have a lasting impact on the sustainability of our planet.

“In addition to learning more about the current operations and programs within TIE, I plan to schedule meetings with faculty leaders across the university who have an interest in research and/or educational programs related to environmental sustainability,” Abriola explained. “I hope to cast a wide net [to include those with interests in water, energy, environmental health — human and animal — and ecology].”

Abriola noted that in her role, the goal will be to get a more comprehensive view of TIE’s strengths and how the department has to build on these strengths. From there, she hopes to work with administrators and faculty to develop a strategic vision for TIE’s future. “[This will be helpful] to identify targeted interdisciplinary areas of existing strength that we can further develop by fostering

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collaborations through the TIE platform,” she noted.

While Abriola plans on talking with various stakeholders about changes for TIE, she does not anticipate changing TIE’s relationship with Office of Sustainability.

“Right now, I do not expect that TIE’s relationship with the Office of Sustainability will change, but I have not yet had an opportunity to meet with those folks to discuss this,” she wrote. “TIE will focus on formal education and research, while the Office of Sustainability will continue to focus on the university environment and community awareness.”

Nolan Nicaise, the program administrator at TIE, said the institute staff is thrilled about the appointment of Linda Abriola to the role of faculty director.

“I cannot know how the direction of Linda Abriola will change the way that the Tufts Institute of the Environment interacts with the many schools, departments, institutes and offices at Tufts University, but it is my hope that the Tufts Institute of the Environment builds upon its existing capacity to promote and facilitate cross-school collaborations related to environmental research and teaching,” he told the Daily in an email.

Hasselblatt also emphasized his excitement for Abriola to take charge of TIE. “I greatly look forward to the privilege of working with her as TIE is being transformed in the coming years,” he explained. “The Tufts community owes a great debt to Dr. Danielson and the TIE co-directors for having the foresight and initiative to bring about this reconsideration of the future of TIE.”

Contact Us P.O. Box 53018, Medford, MA 02155 617 627 3090 FAX 617 627 3910 daily@tuftsdaily.com

Students who are registered to vote in the state of Massachusetts headed to the polls yesterday to cast their ballots in the state’s primary election. Massachusetts was one of 13 states and one territory to hold primaries and caucuses on the day known as Super Tuesday.

In Massachusetts, former Secretary of State and New York Senator Hillary Clinton (D) won the Democratic primary over Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) with 51 percent of the vote, and businessman and demagogue Donald Trump (R) won the Republican primary with 49 percent, according to the New York Times.

For this season’s primary election, Jumbo Vote 2016, a newly created coalition of Tufts political and advocacy groups, worked to mobilize as many registered Tufts students to vote as possible, according to Jumbo Vote 2016 Leader Ben Hoffman. Overall, he said he was impressed with the voter turnout.

“We definitely shuttled upwards of 75 students and I saw many more walking to the polls,” Hoffman, a senior, said.

Registered Tufts students voted at several local locations, depending on their places of residence. Precinct locations for on-campus students included the Holy Bible Baptist Church, Tufts Administration Building and Visiting Nurse Assisted & Senior Living Communities in Somerville, and the Gantcher Center in Medford, according to Diane Alexander, president of Tufts for Bernie and an Assistant Features Editor for the Daily.

The Daily spoke with 25 voters who cast their ballots at some of these precinct locations yesterday. Of these students, 12 said they voted for Sanders, 11 for Clinton, one for Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and one for Ohio Governor John Kasich (R). Seven of these voters were seniors, four were juniors, five were sophomores, four were first-years and five were graduate students at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

NEWS............................................1 FEATURES.................................4 ARTS & LIVING.......................6

see SUPER TUESDAY, page 2

OPINION.....................................8 COMICS.....................................10 SPORTS............................ BACK

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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Wednesday, March 2, 2016

T HE T UFTS D AILY Sarah Zheng Editor-in-Chief

EDITORIAL Nicholas Golden Mengqi Sun Managing Editors Nicholas Pfosi Associate Editor Arin Kerstein Executive News Editor Isha Fahad News Editors Abby Feldman Melissa Kain Sophie Lehrenbaum Emma Steiner Ariel Barbieri-Aghib Assistant News Editors Kyle Blacklock Gil Jacobson Robert Katz Liam Knox Catherine Perloff Vibhav Prakasam Hannah Uebele Joe Walsh Kendall Todd Executive Features Editor Nicole Brooks Features Editors Nina Joung Jake Taber Diane Alexander Assistant Features Editors Constantinos Angelakis Emily Cheng Emma R. Rosenthal John Gallagher Executive Arts Editor Lancy Downs Arts Editors Justin Krakoff Josh Podolsky Jonah Allon Assistant Arts Editors Cassidy Olsen Eran Sabaner Hannah Hoang Dorie Campbell Emily Karl Erin Sifre Stephen Dennison Abigail Feldman Shannon Geary Allison Merola Cassie Bardos Miranda Chavez Frances DeFreitas Jake Goldberg Emma Henderson Michael Lefkowtiz Anita Ramaswamy Noah Weinflash

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Maclyn Senear Executive Sports Editor Ray-Paul Biron Sports Editors Ross Dember Phillip Goldberg Alex Schroeder Chris Warren Yuan Jun Chee Assistant Sports Editors Maddie Payne Eddie Samuels Noah Smith Sofie Hecht Executive Photo Editor Alex Knapp Caroline Ambros Picture Tufts Editor Ray Bernoff Staff Photographers Laura DeArmas Maria Ferraz Henry Hintermeister Katlyn Kreie Mia Lambert Jiaxun Li Nora Nord Nicholas Pfosi Julia Press Evan Sayles Angelie Xiong

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Students vote in Massachusetts primary election SUPER TUESDAY

continued from page 1 Four of the five Fletcher students said they voted for Clinton. Fletcher student Cassandra Pagan-Araujo explained that she voted for Clinton based on her policies involving the Middle East, which is Pagan-Araujo’s area of study at Fletcher. She explained that she is fearful that Trump will be elected President.

“Trump scares the shit out of me,” she said. “I can’t believe that we have come to that.”

Fletcher student Julian Moore, registered as an independent voter, said he voted for Rubio in an effort to prevent Trump from winning the Massachusetts Republican primary.

Moore explained that he wanted the presidential election to be an interesting competition and said it would be a “joke” if Trump becomes the Republican nominee.

Among Sanders voters who were polled, climate change and income inequality were cited as important issues. Other issues voters referenced included foreign policy, the economy, immigration reform, the prison

industrial complex, racism, reproductive rights, healthcare, continuing President Barack Obama’s legacy and shifting the narrative to the left.

Many students who spoke to the Daily spoke about civic duty and a particularly high-stakes election this year as reasons why they were voting in the primaries.

One voter, sophomore Richard Bernard, said he has a unique opportunity as a Puerto Rican citizen to vote in both the primary and general elections as a registered Massachusetts resident. While Puerto Rican voters can vote in the primary, they can not vote in the general election.

Senior Charlotte Clarke said that she has always voted in Massachusetts, where presidential elections are not generally decided, she was excited to finally vote in a competitive election.

However, things did not run smoothly for every Tufts student today. Senior Charlotte Gilliland said she encountered difficulties voting at the Holy Bible Baptist Church. Gilliland, who had voted at the church during the 2014 midterm elections, said she was deleted from the voter registration system because she moved to a

Medford address this year. She and senior Eva Batalla-Mann said that one of their friends claimed that his address had automatically been updated in the system, and another friend had been sent to the church from Medford.

Tufts Democrats Vice President Chris Wikler, who drove vans of students to the polls for Jumbo Vote 2016, Tufts CIVIC and Tufts Democrats in an attempt to get as many students to the polls as possible, also mentioned voter problems at the Gantcher Center.

“It’s not a new thing, and this has happened many times before,” Wikler, a sophomore, said. “But this year, some students were denied a provisional ballot…after submitting voter registration forms, [and] did not show up on the rolls.”

Hoffman said that voting in elections is an important form of expression for citizens.

“The best, easiest and sort of most essential way to get the change that people really want to see is through voting,” Hoffman said. “It is your expression of opinion in the most official manner possible, and there’s a direct correlation. Who you vote for reflects who represents you.”

Wednesday, March 2, 2016 | PHOTOGRAPHY | THE TUFTS DAILY

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For Whom the Jumbos Vote Mollie Beek (LA ’17), left, for Sanders: “I really like his platform, and I also think that although Hillary has experience and is intelligent, I think she’ s phony.” Maya Blackstone (LA ’17), right, for Sanders: “I really like his personality and what he stands for. I think Hillary goes way too back-and-forth.”

PHOTOS BY EVAN SAYLES / THE TUFTS DAILY

Alex Demircan (LA ’19), undecided: “ I consider myself a moderate, and I’ m still undecided, but I’ m surprisingly probably going to vote in the Republican primary. I think the political climate has been far too polarized on both the right and left. We need a moderate President who represents the majority of Americans, not just one side.

We need a President who can compromise and get things done, instead of fighting a Congress that won’ t cooperate.”

Mary O’Kane (LA ’16), for Ted Cruz: "Ted Cruz is the candidate who best represents conservative, right-wing values. He also is the one who would uphold the Constitution and what this country was originally founded on."

Rachel Wahlert (LA ’18), undecided: “ I think that information about the primaries isn ’t well-disseminated, and I don’ t know enough to make an informed decision.

There should be a holiday for election day, so people can have time and resources to get to a polling place.”

Nick Nasser (LA ’17), for Sen. Bernie Sanders: “ H illary speaks kind of like the robots you see on TV f or the interests that support her. Bernie ’s the one who talks about society as a whole. He’ s not doing it to get votes, he ’s doing it because it ’s what he believes in.”

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Chris Rackey (LA ’19), for Sec. Hillary Clinton or Gov. John Kasich: “I’m more politically moderate and both of them are more moderate than Bernie or the other Republicans.”

4 tuftsdaily.com

Features

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Tufts alumnus and Iranian-American detained without charges since last October

Rayn Riel Bridge the Gap

by Nicole Brooks

he Green Line Extension, which theoretically would reach our campus at the College Avenue and Boston Avenue intersection, may not be built.

Unlike the Green Line elsewhere, this section would be built alongside the existing commuter rail tracks, separated from the roads, so it would be faster and more convenient.

And our campus would have a new gateway — perhaps to be fondly known as College Square — with extended sidewalks and new facilities for learning and socializing. This area of campus is already growing, with 574 Boston Avenue and the soon-to-be completed SEC. In fact, Tufts rightly understood that space would be available atop the station entrance for development, so they proposed an Air Rights Building and developed a public-private partnership (P3) in order to have a 99-year lease on air rights. Tufts will be paying for project redesign and construction changes for the station below (if the project moves forward), and paying for ongoing maintenance and station security. This practice is known as value capture and in particular, joint development, and it is a form of transportation finance.

While the T may be risk-averse, especially concerning real estate development, Tufts clearly does not appear to share these traits.

In fact, Tufts even tried to build directly atop South Station’s train platforms between the terminal and the bus station, creating the Tufts University Development Corporation (TUDC) in the 1980s in order to secure permits and air rights and build a skyscraper originally designed with a height of 759 feet.

Of course, former University President Jean Mayer, arguably Tufts’ greatest visionary, was the man behind this proposal, envisioning the creation of a skyscraper dedicated to medical research decked atop the station.

Due to a lack of real estate expertise of this scale and complexity, the university brought on Hines Interests LP, a development firm, in the 1990s. Since then, money and politics have gotten in the way, as well as additional complexities related to decking and ventilating atop New England’s busiest (diesel) rail terminal. Thus, the South Station Tower remains on hold, with potential plans for a hotel, condominiums and office space. Moreover, due partly to vibrations from the trains below, it is unlikely that Tufts will have a place in the skyscraper. However, Jumbos would nevertheless be the visionaries behind improving South Station, providing real estate revenue to MassDOT and improving the Northeast Corridor experience.

According to Professor Gittleman, President Mayer had a vision of pharmaceutical companies coming into Boston and attaching themselves to the Tufts Medical School, with Tufts building facilities atop rail and road transportation assets from South Station to the Boston Extension of the Massachusetts Turnpike.

While this impressive, LEED pre-certified building is on hold, President Mayer succeeded in getting the university itself “on track,” with a sizable endowment and the creation of the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, the nutrition school and the veterinary school.

Clearly, President Mayer understood the importance of interdisciplinary connections — bridging the gap socially, economically, politically and physically — and taking risks. In fact, his vision increased undergraduate enrollment so much that, while new dorms were being built, the university needed to shuttle students to a hotel in Harvard Square. And no, unfortunately, they did not just give them free T passes.

Features Editor

“This is a nightmare I can’t describe.”

These are the words the mother of Tufts alumnus and Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi (A ’93), who was detained and arrested by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) without any public charges last October, wrote last week. Siamak is estimated to have been in detention for over 130 days, where he has practiced a hunger strike, according to his mother who learned this from his cellmate. At the time of Siamak’s arrest on Oct. 15, 2015, IRGC forces “ransacked the house, confiscated property and took the dual national to Evin prison,” according to an Oct. 30, 2015 article in The Atlantic.

The Namazi family dealt with another setback when Effie Namazi confirmed in a Feb. 24 Facebook post that her husband and Siamak’s 80-year-old father, Baquer Namazi, had been taken from the family’s Tehran home on Feb. 22 and detained in Evin Prison.

“I have been trying to find out more information but have been unable to do so, and the lawyer also couldn’t get any information or get to see him. I am extremely worried sick for Bacquer’s health since he is an 80-year-old man and has a serious heart [condition and others], which requires him to take special heart and other medicine,” Effie Namazi wrote. “I pray to God that my Siamak and Baquer return home to me and that they are released.”

Siamak’s arrest by IRGC forces follows a pattern of American nationals being detained in Iran, with his detainment occuring days before the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a deal made between Iranian and U.S. governments to ensure Iran’s nuclear program would be “exclusively peaceful,” was adopted. According to a Jan. 17 Washington Post article, Iran also agreed to the release of five American prisoners in the nuclear deal, which included six nations — the United States, Germany, France, China, Russia and Britain. These prisoners included Iranian-American Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, Christian pastor Saeed Abedini, U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati and businessman KhosraviRoodsari.

At the time of his detainment, Namazi was head of strategic planning for Crescent Petroleum Co. and living in the United Arab Emirates. He previously did business consulting and humanitarian work as a Middle East and North Africa public policy scholar for the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., where he researched and conducted a report focusing on how U.S. sanctions against Iran were denying Iranians access to necessary medicines and medical supplies, according to the Wilson Center’s website. In 2007, Namazi was named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, according to a Feb. 22 Global Gathering article.

Namazi holds several degrees including a BA in international relations from Tufts, an MBA from the London Business School and a masters in Urban Planning and Policy Development from Rutgers University. Amir Soltani, a

Fletcher graduate and former teaching fellow, said he taught Namazi when he was an undergraduate at Tufts in a class on Middle East history.

“He was fun, he was gregarious and he was very bold,” Soltani said. “He had no problem challenging other students or me, so he had quite a gutsy character, so he was actually a very good student.

He cared very deeply for and cares very deeply for Iran.”

Namazi had left Iran with his family in 1983 to live in New York while his father served as a United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) representative to Somalia, Kenya and later Egypt, according to a Nov. 25, 2015 Huffington Post article. Following his graduation from Tufts, Namazi chose to go back to Iran and serve in the military, Soltani said.

“He did his military service,” Soltani said. “Which for somebody from his background and class and all of these things was quite surprising. And he learned a lot about Iran from that experience. I think what I want to convey is that he is somebody who cares very deeply. He’s never been completely Americanized. His Iranian identity was a great part of who he was.”

Evin Prison, where Namazi is located, is an infamous detention center where several detainees are held and subject to heavy interrogation and is notorious for allegations of torture.

According to a Jan. 28, 2013 Fox News article, the prison is described as “Hell on Earth,” where detainees are subjected to beatings, torture and mock executions. Hadi Ghaemi, the Executive Director of International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, said that experiences of detainees in Evin Prison are devastating, and detainees are often coerced into admitting to charges.

“Most of the detainees are held in Evin Prison many times under temporary detention orders,” Ghaemi said.

“They are not charged in the beginning, and they are heavily interrogated.

Usually that is the process in Iran, but in this case the process is reversed.

There is no evidence for [a] charge so they try to hold the person in solitary confinement, cut them off from the outside world, interrogate them heavily and try to find out and ask them questions that they hope will lead to any new charges that they would bring against them.”

In response to Namazi’s continuing detainment by Iran, several IranianAmerican groups, such as the nonprofit Pars Equality Center, have called on the U.S. Department of State to pressure Iran to release him. On Feb. 5, several groups signed a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry urging him to ensure Namazi’s release, describing his detention as both unjust and lacking in any legal foundation, according to a Feb. 8 press release by the National Iranian American Council.

Nazy Fahimi, senior director of the Pars Equality Center’s legal department, signed the letter on behalf of the organization. According to Fahimi, Namazi’s arrest is a clear violation of international human rights.

“It appears that as with many arrests there, this violates the U.N.’s Declaration of Human Rights and other

applicable U.N. and international mandates,” Fahimi told the Daily in an email. “There is no indication there are any grounds for the arrest, detention or explanation of charges, trial or sentencing. The potential rights being violated include: freedom from false arrest, torture, lack of fair trial and freedom of movement, speech and thought.”

The IRGC, whose forces detained Namazi, is under the control and jurisdiction of the Iran’s current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The Supreme Leader’s position within Iranian politics is the highest head of state uniting both political and religious authority and is superior to Iran’s democratically elected president, Hassan Rouhani.

“The official government of President Rouhani, which carried out the nuclear negotiation, personally has much more access to communications with the State Department and Secretary Kerry than Iran has ever had,” Ghaemi said.

“But so much is held by the other center of power… People who are competing with the Iranian government and are trying to undermine them. And typically, [holding] Iranian Americans in detention shows that they have the power to influence foreign policies.”

Iran has a long history of taking American hostages, as President Jimmy Carter’s and President Ronald Reagan’s handling of the Iranian hostage crisis made headlines following the overthrow of the U.S.-supported leader Reza Shah in 1979. Following the Shah’s exile, a new Iranian state was led by the first Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini, who led Iranian groups to vilify and oppose any contact with the West. According to Soltani, the recent nuclear agreement Iran made with Western countries has challenged these beliefs and have ignited conservative groups to action.

“Ideologically since 1979, certain groups in Iran have defined themselves as well as defining Islam in terms of enmity against America,” Soltani said.

“So the nuclear deal has eroded some of their ideological strengths. They are dealing with America, ‘the great Satan.’ So as a way of showing up their anti-Americanism they target people like Siamak, who has done a lot. Being both Iranian and American, he becomes a target.”

Although Rouhani agreed to the nuclear deal, the fragmentation of Iranian politics under Khamenei demonstrates a continuing aversion to Western relations. Bijan Khajehpour, Namazi’s former business partner, said that understanding Iran’s current political climate is key to understanding why Namazi is being detained.

“What we need to understand is that the majority of the society is in favor of the reformist / moderate policies,” Khajehpour told the Daily in an email.

“This was underlined both in the 2013 election of President Rouhani as well as in the twin elections that were held on 26 February. Therefore, the hardline elements are being marginalized by the society and need to come up with excuses to continue their actions and operations. Such excuses are now see DETAINED, page 5

Joint Development

T

Rayn Riel is a graduate student in City/ Urban, Community and Regional Planning.

He can be reached at Rayn.Riel@tufts.edu.

5

Wednesday, March 2, 2016 | Features | THE TUFTS DAILY

F e at u r e s

Tufts alumnus, family member both inprisoned in Iranian prison described as ‘Hell on Earth’ DETAINED

continued from page 4 reflected in the notion that the West (especially the U.S.) is trying to ‘infiltrate’ Iran in the aftermath of the nuclear deal. It is a ridiculous concept, but it is one based on which they can arrest people like Siamak and clampdown on civil society and independent media.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has yet to make a direct statement about Namazi’s case; however, according to a Feb. 24 CBS News report, Kerry acknowledged at a Feb. 17 Senate panel hearing that he was aware of the situation and “could not comment due to privacy considerations.” According to Fletcher Professor of International Conflict Analysis and Resolution Eileen Babbitt, prisoner negotiations are often dealt with internally.

“I don’t know the internal processes at the State Department for such negotiations; such things are handled in an ad hoc manner,” Babbitt wrote in an email to the Daily. “I presume that if

this case has been brought to the attention of those at the State Department who have been meeting with diplomats from Iran, they may have developed sufficient personal relationships to inquire informally about his release. On the other hand, these two matters may be handled completely separately by different parts of the State Department.”

The recent arrest of Siamak’s father Baquer, who like Siamak is a dual Iranian-American citizen, reveals the dangers that Iranian-Americans have to consider when traveling to Iran. As one of the few countries around the world that does not recognize dual citizenship, Iran has national identity laws that are based on the nationality of the father rather than place of birth. Bijan Khajehpour, who has also been detained in Evin Prison, said he believes Baquer’s arrest is meant to be a deliberate tactic to deal with Siamak.

“My reading is that they arrested Baquer Namazi, an 80-year-old, respected former UNICEF official, to

put pressure on Siamak,” Khajehpour said. “It is not clear to me what they are trying to impose on Siamak, but now they have moved to such dirty tactics, whatever Siamak or his father ‘confess’ will be worthless because both father and son will try everything to help the other one in the process.”

Soltani said that Namazi’s case is significant for other Iranians within the diaspora, since it creates a panic for families like the Namazis with individuals being detained without any public charges.

“You can imagine the panic and pain that it causes for family and friends because you just don’t know who has arrested someone, and it’s just not safe,” Soltani said. “Ultimately in a way the hostage crisis with the American people is over, but the hostage crisis for the Iranian people continues…and just about anyone can end up in a situation like Siamak’s.”

Efforts to get the Namazis released have been largely ineffective, as friends and family are very much uninformed

on the conditions of both Siamak and his father. According to Effie Namazi, her lawyer has been unable to see or communicate directly with the detainees. Evin Prison visitation rules have also been highly limited in the past. According to Khajehpour, Iranian-Americans have a role to play in securing his release.

“Iranian-Americans should use any opportunity to remind the Iranian officials that arbitrary arrests such as these two cases will undermine the willingness of the Iranian diaspora to return to Iran and help the country’s development,” Khajehpour said. “This may be exactly what the hardline forces want, but it cannot be what the Iranian moderates, society and business community want.”

Soltani said that the Tufts and Fletcher community should help push for the release of the Namazis.

“He was a Tufts student,” Soltani said.

“We should ask our alumni, Fletcher alumni who are in positions of power all over the world, to speak on his behalf.”

Take the pledge at ItsOnUs.org

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Law Day on the Hill Thursday, March 3, 2016 6pm-8:30pm Alumnae Lounge ♦

Reason #8: Get PRIORITY registration for future Jewish immersion programs, AND stipends! www.israelwithisraelis.com Sign up today!

Sara Legasey | sara.legasey@tufts.edu

Ever wonder what it’s like to sit in on a law school classroom? Want to hear from Alumni in the legal profession about law school and the work force? Do you want to practice your networking skills? If you answered yes to any or all of these questions then Law Day on the Hill is a great event for you to attend!

Register Online: go.tufts.edu/prelaw Sponsored by Pre Law Advising, the Alumni Association and Tufts Lawyers Association

6 tuftsdaily.com

ARTS&LIVING

Vidya Srinivasan Screen Time

ALBUM REVIEW

The 1975 evolve on long but rewarding sophomore LP

Monsters next door

S

by Justin Krakoff Arts Editor

Back in 2013, British pop band The 1975 burst on to the music scene with its debut self-titled album. The record, to say the least, polarized critics leaving some to appreciate the group’s pop proclivities and others to denounce them as just another pompous boy band.

Failing to garner true critical or commercial success, The 1975 risked fading into obscurity before its career even took off.

Leading up to The 1975’s second album, lead singer Matthew Healy found himself unsure of how to address the shortcomings of group’s debut LP. In response to this challenge, Healy revealed that the goal was to create a body of work unlike anything the band had previously done. In an interview with SPIN, Healy said, “I think that [the album will] change a lot of people’s minds about who we are as a band.” He further elaborated on the nature of the album stating, “You can’t not acknowledge the record for what it is. It’s obviously a body of work which a lot of time and attention to detail has gone into.”

The resulting album, titled “I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It,” was released

MANUEL NAUTA VIA TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

“The 1975” performs at the MTV Woodie Awards during SXSW in Austin, Texas, in 2014. on Feb. 25, and the record perfectly captures the essence of what makes The 1975 such an oddity in today’s pop music sphere. The album is an absolute, gorgeous mess. As if the title were not an indicator, the album runs a lengthy 74 minutes, and the listener will certainly feel that time pass at certain points. Yet, the borderline unmanageability of the album is what makes it more than worth listening to because it is impossible to absorb everything in just one play.

The record borrows from a wide range of influences including Duran Duran, The Police, David Bowie, INXS and George Michael. The album roots its sound gloriously in this 1980s sheen but with more references to sex and drugs than Taylor Swift and Carly Rae Jepsen made on their respective 80s-influenced records. Accordingly, The 1975’s sophomore effort comes across as a love letter to the bands and artists of yesteryear see 1975, page 7

OSCARS COMMENTARY

Chris Rock’s Oscar monologue offers biting humor, incisive social commentary

by Jonah Allon Arts Editor

With the controversy over the lack of black Academy Award nominees reaching a fever pitch in the past couple of weeks, Chris Rock’s host was an unknown quantity. Expectations for his opening monologue, which promised to be a brutal, unsparing take on the pressing #OscarsSoWhite issue, were running high.

He didn’t disappoint.

From his first joke, which mocked the low bar Hollywood sets for diversity — “I counted at least 15 black people on that [opening] montage,” he said, feigning surprise — Rock made it clear that he wasn’t going to tiptoe around Hollywood’s diversity problem.

His follow-up to that joke doubled as an

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Chris Rock (shown on Feb. 27, 2007) hosted the Oscars this year.

indictment of the Academy itself: “I’m here at the Academy Awards, otherwise known as the White People’s Choice Awards.” With these barbs, the tone of the evening was set. The lack of black nominees this year, symptomatic of a broader, systemic lack opportunity for people of color in Hollywood and the entertainment industry as a whole, would be front-and-center during the proceedings. But impressively, Rock didn’t just nod at the problem and then move on to cover boilerplate monologue material. Instead, race was his sole focus over the course of a searing 10-minute monologue that touched on such wide-ranging topics as the efficacy of boycotting the ceremony, Will Smith’s acting career and creating a new category exclusively for black actors.

That last one was the subject of a joke that may have been the high point of the entire evening. Taking aim at the persistent problem of black underrepresentation in the acting categories, Rock proposed a simple fix: add categories that only accept black nominees (like “Best Black Friend,” for example). But in making his case for his proposal, Rock picked up on something brilliant: the sheer lack of a coherent logic behind the separate categories for male and female actors, something often taken as a given. “It’s not track and field,” he pointed out succinctly. It was one of those rare awards show jokes that made you laugh and made you think at the same time.

Not all of the host’s wisecracks hit the mark, however. Beyond his disappointingly tone-deaf joke at the expense of three young Asian children, it seemed at times that he started sending mixed messages. While exploring why 2016 was the year that the long-building simmer of resentments against the entertainment industry finally came to a full boil, he mentioned

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

that during the Civil Rights era, “we had real things to protest at the time,” going on to make a couple stray references to lynching.

The glib remarks, with their undertones of sneering condescension, seemed aimed at delegitimizing the very legitimate grievances black actors have. It was also completely antithetical to the spirit of the monologue, which otherwise seemed to be very much in their corner. Nonetheless, it showed that Rock had no sacred cows. In his routine, everyone was a ripe target for skewering.

Later on, he took on Jada Pinkett-Smith, who has been one of the most vocal critics of the Academy and who even went so far as to decide not to attend this year, with a devastating takedown.

Some traditionalists will inevitably take issue with Rock’s monologue for omitting any mention of the cinematic achievements this year. And it’s true; other than a brief joke about “Creed” (2015), which starred Michael B. Jordan (who — surprise! — wasn’t nominated), any mention of this year’s movies or performances was conspicuously absent.

But that’s not the point. Had Chris Rock gotten up on stage and done a series of bloodless one-liners about the bear in “The Revenant” (2015) and Sly Stallone’s latestage comeback, these urgent issues would have been swept under the rug, and those concerned about the lack of diversity would have had to keep agitating at the margins for incremental advances. Instead, he fearlessly marched into the belly of the beast and told it like it is. And despite his caustic, boundary-pushing humor, he ended on a plaintive note: “We want opportunity. We want the black actors to get the same opportunities as the white actors.”

That’s something we can all get behind.

ometimes, TV can be a bit like pizza.

Bear with me here. Everyone likes it. But, really, have you ever met anyone who likes exactly what you like?

For exactly the same reasons? No, which gives rise to one mutually applicable cardinal rule: don’t yuck someone else’s yum.

This week, I’m letting you in on one of my most closely guarded television secrets: my most-watched show on Netflix. Though far from the best show I’ve ever watched — certainly, the one most panned by my beloved AV Club — I always find myself coming back.

Oh, and it’s about monsters. Did I mention that yet?

In a world saturated with supernatural programming, the North American remake of “Being Human” (2011 – 2014) is “my” little genre show. Remember our Golden Rule?

You can have your Vampire Diaries and Teen Wolves and Walking Deads, as long as I can have my earnest, quirky, shoestring-budget chronicles of the three worst flatmates in history.

Meet Aidan (Sam Witwer), whose interests include leather jackets and brooding about his blood-fueled past. There’s Josh (Sam Huntington), a petrified med school dropout, prefers flannels and existential anxiety.

Then there’s Sally (Meaghan Rath), confined to haunting the house she died in and navigating her increasing corporeality. A vampire, a werewolf and a ghost shack up in downtown (not!) Boston — it sounds like the setup for a very niche joke. But if you’re anything like me, you won’t actually care all that much about the events that follow.

Instead, you’ll care about how it happens — how these unlikely companions keep each other clinging to the shreds of their humanity, even as the body count inevitably ticks higher and higher. Every monster show leaves a requisite trail of dead people in its wake, but “Being Human” is refreshingly unwilling to glamorize the incessant violence. The show grounds itself in our deadly trio’s insistence that monster lives may come with impossible choices, but each of them must be held accountable for ruining their own and so many others’ lives.

I’m a sucker for a good “chosen family” story. And at the end of the day,” Being Human” is that in spades. Amidst plotlines that stretch credibility, the show feels surest in its precious moments of peace: Josh, Sally and Aidan sharing (well, sort of) a pizza or sitting quietly together on their front steps or just being. As Josh reminds Aidan on more than one occasion, their home is “sacred”– an escape from the struggle to survive and to feel worthy of that survival, a place where they can find unconditional love. And it’s that anchor — the extraordinary normalcy of it all — that keeps me coming back.

Hidden Gem: Suren (Dichen Lachman), reluctant ruler of Boston. Honestly, I would watch Lachman do commercials for paint thinner; here, she brings tenderness and the weight of history to what otherwise could have been another of Aidan’s very unmemorable flings. #RelationshipGoals: Josh and his cleaning supplies, no matter the monstery mess at hand.

Selectively Forget: Aidan and Sally’s season four arc, which suggests the Powers That Be lost touch with what made their show great — and sours the otherwise admirable choice to end the series on their own terms.

Vidya Srinivasan is a senior majoring in international relations. She can be reached at vidya.srinivasan@tufts.edu.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016 | Arts & Living | THE TUFTS DAILY

A&L

7

The 1975's new album is eclectic, unique 1975

continued from page 6 while also infusing them with a variety of sounds, among them house, gospel, New Wave and synthpop.

“Love Me,” the lead single of “I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It,” is one of the album’s most thrilling songs. The funky 80s sounding jam sounds completely out of place amidst America’s current radio landscape, but the track’s brilliance lies in the juxtaposition of Healy’s brash tone with his clear yearning for love and affection. “UGH!” continues to prove that such dark subjects

can be tackled with pop sensibilities as Healy keeps the funk going in order to sing about addiction.

The album slows down on “A Change of Heart,” and the results are simply emotionally devastating. The New Wave-inspired breakup anthem deals with the venom that comes from falling out of love with someone. When Healy deadpans lines such as “You were coming across as clever / Then you lit the wrong end of a cigarette,” the listener can still feel the anger in his voice despite the romantic tone of shimmering synths. “She’s American” and “If I Believe You” continue the album’s scat-

tershot sonic shifts; the former continues to explore the funky vibes of the previous two tracks, while the latter comes off as a gospel tribute to the king of the 80s — Michael Jackson.

Towards the end of the album, “The Sound” comes blasting through the speakers reminding the listener that — for all intents and purposes — The 1975 is still a pop band, and they are damn good at making some pop magic.

The track seemingly fuses house music and disco-inspired synths to create an upbeat anthem of fearless proportions.

The song’s hook is so eloquently constructed and enunciated that one will

be singing “Well I know when you’re around cause I know the sound / I know the sound, of your heart” along with Healy almost instantaneously.

The fact that “I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It” touches on such a wide range of topics from love to drugs to mental illness to family is a testament to both The 1975’s budding skills and the scope of its vision as artists. While at times this ambition almost swallows the record whole, this double LP is unlike anything else one will hear all year and is a fascinating product that nonetheless deserves to be more than noticed.

TV REVIEW

More mature yet equally charming, ‘Girls’ season 5 is worth watching

by Eran Sabaner

Assistant Arts Editor

VOICE YOUR VOTE! WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT

Gun control Affirmative Action Divestment Minimum wage increases

Once controversial, “Girls” (2012 – present) has now become a veteran show that is mostly forgotten by mainstream audiences. After surviving diversity criticisms, anti-feminist prejudice and hysteria towards Lena Dunham after the release of her book, the show is not garnering the attention it received two years ago. Whether you are a fan or not, “Girls” has so far managed to represent female camaraderie in an authentic and unique way. Furthermore, like “Sex & the City” (1998 – 2004), the show has given urban, independent and educated women a voice, something that is often neglected in TV perhaps out of intimidation. Intersectionality is a major problem, however, with the version of feminism put forth by “Girls” as all of the girls are white, upper-middle class and heterosexual.

Nevertheless, “Girls” offers us a realistic look at what is like to be a twenty-something woman in a big city, which is unfortunately still regarded as brave in TV world.

Last season, “Girls” had its highs and lows.

Overall, the girls were significantly more mature. Seeing Hannah finally landing a job she is good at and dating a nice guy, Shoshanna moving to Japan and Jessa deciding to become a psychologist (which is arguably the best path for her character) all prove that things turn out to be better for women in their twenties. Yet, season four also saw the show lose its edge.

Aside from the painfully hilarious love triangle between Hannah, Adam and Mimi Rose and the awesome friendship between Jessa and Adam, the show often felt dull and trite. The new season, if anything, resembles the fourth season, which is both good and bad.

The first episode of season five centers on Marnie’s disastrous wedding. While other girls have enjoyed making smart decisions over the last season, Marnie has more or less remained the same. It seems as if creators of the show, Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner, truly hate

the character and purposefully make her unlikeable. Not only is she clearly marrying the wrong person but she is also a total control freak at her wedding. Marnie’s antagonism towards the other girls for not being there for her is wrong and misplaced. Hannah once again takes the blame as the self-involved friend; yet this time, her insensitivity seems plausible. For once, Hannah wants to get away from the drama and spend time with her genuinely nice boyfriend Fran. Yet Marnie dismisses Fran, forces Hannah to have a hairdo and bickers about how “inappropriate” she is.

On the boys’ side, things are worse. Ray is obviously depressed about the wedding, since he is still in love with Marnie. Clearly uncomfortable with each other, Adam and Fran have the most awkward interaction ever.

It is also revealed that Desi has bailed out of eight engagements before, and now he is once again having cold feet. Predictably, Ray is the one who convinces him to marry Marnie.

The episode has some laugh out loud moments; yet, overall, it is much calmer than the episodes of the previous seasons. Aside from the marvelous pond scene between Desi and Ray and Marnie’s truly horrific makeup, the humor is tamer yet more subtle. In the end, Marnie and Desi get married despite bad weather, Marnie’s makeup and Desi’s breakdown. It is clear that Hannah is not particularly favoring the marriage, though she is supportive of Marnie. It is exciting to see Hannah and Marnie reconcile and support each other, considering their relationship has been quite rocky over the past few seasons.

“Girls” will end its run next year, and the fifth season premiere has given us the first signals of how things will unfold. Admittedly not as fun to watch, this new “adult” version of “Girls” is different, yet as equally charming as the “Girls,” we shamefully loved in its first season. While it is bittersweet, it is essential for the fans to see the girls grow up before letting the show go.

TUFTS POLITICAL CLIMATES SURVEY http://bit.ly/tufts-super-tuesday Run by the Tufts Daily and Tufts Enigma

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The stars of HBO’s “Girls” from left, Zosia Mamet, Lena Dunham, and Allison Williams backstage at the 70th Annual Golden Globe Awards show at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Sunday, January 13, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calf.

Opinion

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EDITORIAL

The cost of study abroad Globalization has a history of hundreds of years but has in the last two ramped up drastically. Settler-colonial empires, international organizations and transnational companies have all impacted the way that people worldwide perceive and engage with their global peers. Some nations fight for limited resources in an unequal world, while others profit immensely from cosmopolitan language studies. In light of this, a new expectation for young graduates competing in a global market is to have cross-cultural knowledge and international experience. Taking all this into account, study abroad programs in college become central to applying for the best jobs — programs that are not always affordable.

At Tufts, the study abroad experience is highly valued, at least in comparison to the rest of the United States.

While only 10 percent of college graduates in the United States participate in a study abroad program, 40 to 45 percent of Tufts undergraduates do so.

However, Tufts offers only 10 programs for students looking to study abroad for a semester or full year.

Boston University, on the other hand,

offers 36 different study abroad programs, 24 of which are available to students enrolled at other universities. Tufts offers one program in South America, one in Africa, three in Asia and five in Europe. The Office of Programs Abroad, however, ignores regions such as Australia and the Pacific, Central America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. This is the case despite the fact that students can choose to focus their studies on these regions with majors such as Arabic, Middle Eastern Studies and Russian and Eastern European Studies.

Students with an increased interest in the regions excluded from Tufts study abroad must seek options for non-Tufts study abroad programs. This poses a significant problem for students on financial aid. A Tufts student who chooses to study abroad through Tufts will continue to receive their financial aid while abroad, but if that same student was to decide to study abroad through a non-Tufts program, their financial aid would not transfer.

Students are only able apply for awards such as Pell Grants, state scholarships or Stafford loans while on a non-Tufts

study abroad program. Even so, if the cost of the program is less than the cost of Tufts’ programs, some students may not be eligible for their loans while abroad. Additionally, all students who study abroad through a non-Tufts program must pay the university a fee of $800 “to meet the cost of administrative procedures.”

Low-income students should be able to have the same opportunities as other students at Tufts, but this is clearly not the case. Students on financial aid at Tufts seeking to enrich their college experience through study abroad have a much smaller range of options than students without financial aid do. For lower-income students this could mean a disadvantage in the job market. Tufts should put more effort into equalizing opportunities for students across different socioeconomic classes, not perpetuating a lack of equal opportunity.

By adding new study abroad programs, Tufts would increase diversity in its study abroad enrollment and offer students — regardless of their financial status — an exceptional international experience.

EDITORIAL CARTOON

BY SHANNON GEARY

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Pooja Sivaraman and Rebecca Solomon New York Style Delhi

Leap of Faith

P

ooja: As I am writing this on the 29th of February, I am reminded of a strange feeling.

The 366th day of the year can have different meanings based on who you talk to. For Cam, it is now his eleventh birthday (Modern Family)! For the 1310 seniors and myself graduating in May, it is a reminder that our next round of fours are almost up. If you ask me what I did last Feb. 29, I couldn’t tell you exactly. However, I could tell you that I shared the same sense of anxiety, displacement, change, nostalgia and sentimentality that I feel now. On Feb. 29, 2012, I was a senior in high school with the same excitement and terror for Tufts as I now have for the real world. If you ask me about the leap year before that (2008), I was a gawky eighth grader with similar sentiments about entering high school. I would like to dedicate this week’s column and this leap year to the Class of 2016, who have taken much more than just a leap of faith for the past three February 29ths (for those who follow this schedule of fours). I’d like to think we are given something on the 366th day of the year — we’re given the chance to acknowledge how far we’ve come. We’re given an anniversary of perspective on how much we’ve grown and how much growth is left to come.

Dear NYSD, What should I name my dog?

Rebecca: This is easy — you should name your dog after Pooja. Her name is quite versatile; we even had a friend who would use her name as an expletive. If his team were winning the football game, he would scream, “Pooja!” If his team were losing the football game he would dejectedly sink into his seat, whispering, “Oh, Pooja.” Pooja is clearly the best choice for your dog’s name.

However, if you were looking for something more traditional, choose Skip.

Dear NYSD, I think my boyfriend loves me, but he hasn’t said it yet, what does that mean?

Rebecca: I have never been good at the “wait and see” method; I need a deadline. I need to know exactly when and how something will happen.

Therefore, reader, it pains me to say that there is no exact time your significant other will tell you he loves you.

Here you have two choices — you can wait and see without an end in sight, or you can be bold and say it first. Here at NYSD, we like Woody Allen, believe that 80 percent of life is just showing up, but a fifth of the time you have to do a little more heavy lifting. So be bold, reader, say it first, and if your significant other does not feel the same way, you can move onto finding someone who will!

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.

That’s all that we have for this week — keep submitting questions to our Google Doc! Pooja Sivaraman is a senior majoring in economics. She can be reached at pooja. sivaraman@tufts.edu. Rebecca Solomon is a senior majoring in economics. She can be reached at rebecca.solomon@ tufts.edu.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016 | ADVERTISEMENT | THE TUFTS DAILY

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THE TUFTS DAILY | Comics | Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Comics

tuftsdaily.com LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Sarah: “I told my professor I had Norovirus so I didn’t have to go to class.”

Comics

CROSSWORD

SUDOKU

JUMBLE

Difficulty Level: Figuring out how to get an absentee ballot.

Tuesday’s Solution

NON SEQUITUR

BY WILEY MILLER

Wednesday, March 2, 2016 | Sports | THE TUFTS DAILY

Sports

Jumbos to enter final weekend of preparation, qualifying before NCAAs WOMEN'S TRACK

continued from back minutes] — but like every track runner, once you PR you always want to go faster,” she said. “While it’s huge to finally check off the sub-5 mile, I’m focusing in now on hitting sub 4:55 to set myself up for [a] sub 4:30 1500 in the outdoor season.”

Sophomore Amylee Anyoha was the only Jumbo field athlete in competition, as her huge personal best from Div. III New Englands in the weight throw catapulted her to qualify for the event. Anyoha continued the momentum, throwing the weight 48 ft.

6.25 in. for her second-longest throw ever.

Her past two competitions will set her up nicely for the outdoor season, where she will hope to be a big contributor to the team at the NESCAC Championships.

As most of the team is on a short break or getting geared up for the outdoor season, Harrison and Smith offered a few notes about this year’s squad.

“The team has a lot of potential and people who have the ability to make a big impact,” Harrison said. “In past years, I could tell who was going to have their breakthrough performance and just about when it would happen, whereas this year that big moment can come from anyone at anytime.”

“The team this year I think has more talent in the field events than I’ve seen since freshmen year, which is something our NESCAC rivals don’t have, so that bodes well for outdoor,” Smith said. “If we can pair that talent with our indoor success in the sprint events and tap into the seventhin-the-nation cross country finish from the fall, I think we could be set up for some big upsets in outdoor.”

A number of Jumbos, such as Harrison and Smith, will remain in competition for a few weeks. Harrison, who will be competing at the national championships, will take a week of competition off, but athletes

like Smith, who are close to qualifying for the national championships in their respective event, will take to the Gantcher Center on Friday evening for Tufts’ Last Chance Meet.

“I’ll be running at Last Chance, although the coaches and I haven’t yet decided whether I’ll race the mile or 800,” Smith said. “Sitting at 22nd in the mile [the top 17 athletes nationwide will travel to nationals] makes it a tough decision because that puts the nationals bid out of my hands and forces us to gamble on people not declaring and on no one running a faster time this weekend. It’s a balance of qualifying but also not being fatigued heading into nationals weekend, which we may risk if I run the mile for a third week in a row.”

The action kicks off this Friday as some Jumbos will head to the ECAC Championships (site TBA) at noon while a number stay home at Gantcher for the Last Chance Meet starting at 5 p.m.

Jumbos look to move past NEICAAA to ECACs, IC4A this weekend MEN'S TRACK AND FIELD

continued from back this past weekend except with senior tri-captain Alex Kasemir instead of Black — was just 0.18 seconds behind host and winners MIT. Senior Bryson Hoover-Hankerson and sophomore Peter Clark duked it out through the preliminaries and finals for the Tufts 60-meter dash record, with both beating HooverHankerson’s school record of 7.14 seconds.

In the finals, Hoover-Hankerson ended up finishing fifth in 7.07 seconds, while Clark finished eighth in 7.14, though his 7.09-second time in the prelims had briefly been the school record.

The NED3 meet also saw first-year phenom Josh Etkind continue to impress as he notched himself an 8.25-second 60-meter hurdles time, good for the school record and

third at the meet, while it is also the 14th-fastest time nationally.

Though last weekend was certainly a hiccup in the team’s season, the Jumbos know they already have previous successes like the NED3 meet under their belts as they look forward to the rest of the championship season and hope to get back on track after a meet that did not go their way. They will have the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Championships this Friday and Saturday, the Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America (IC4A) Championships at Boston University on Saturday and Sunday and the NCAA Championships in Grinnell, Iowa on March 11 and 12.

Coach Williams has also steadfastly believed all season that high team morale is a big factor in the Jumbos’ success.

“[The team has] to continue to rally for each other,” Williams told the Daily in a Jan. 24 email. “Circling the track to cheer, lining up along the jumps runways and throwing circles to make sure our teammates know we are there for each other. Each guy, from the national level guys to the guys learning how to be a jumper, each one needs to know that every teammate has their back and vice versa.”

The Jumbos have done this all season — they’ve pumped up their teammates and cheered them on to incredible performances. They have the talent and the motivation to score big in championship meets, and they will surely be looking to take advantage of those strengths in the remaining competitions going forward.

EVAN SAYLES / THE TUFTS DAILY

Mitchell Black in the Tufts Men’s Track New England Intercollegiate Ammeture Athletic Association meet this weekend.

Eric Smiley Flashes of Brilliance

Spring Training

B

aseball is boring. Most of the time, the players are stationary: waiting around as the pitcher rubs the ball, removes and replaces his hat, tugs on his belt and peers in towards the catcher’s calloused fingers for a sign. There are too many commercials, too many pitching changes, too many strikeouts. The stakes for each game aren’t life and death, and the worst hitter gets as much opportunity as the very best. For these reasons and countless others, young people don’t like baseball, don’t watch baseball and don’t care about baseball. Baseball is a dying sport.

This week, all 30 Major League teams play baseball again. In the Spring Training locales of Arizona and Florida, all the simple joys of the greatest game are back again. After a long winter of transactions, the action once again becomes the story. A fastball pops in a catcher’s mitt. The bat unleashes a mighty crack on a long home run. A player slides hard into second base to break up the double play. Mike Trout, Clayton Kershaw and Manny Machado will all play baseball this week. Baseball is back.

For the next seven months, there will be baseball practically every day. The best team will lose at least one third of its games, and the worst will win at least one third. Each day, the worst team has a very real chance of beating the very best team. No one player is as important to his team as Stephen Curry, Tom Brady or Lionel Messi is to his. My favorite team will lose three or four in a row and look completely helpless. They will win nine out of 11 and look unbeatable. A superstar will lose the season to a fluke injury, and a team will vastly overwperform its projection through some combination of luck and hidden talent. So much will happen before the next champion is crowned.

The games this week don’t matter at all.

The games this week do not count yet, and the teams won’t try all that hard for the entire month. But baseball is a game of time and attrition, and there can be none of the unforgettable games of September and October without the unmemorable simplicity of those in March. I will never argue with those who opine on the monotony of baseball. If I wasn’t the kid memorizing Derek Jeter’s batting stance and throwing a tennis ball against the foyer wall each and every day, I might even agree with them. But I was that kid, and baseball holds perhaps too important a place in my heart. Baseball is perfect.

Almost 100 years ago, the great Rogers Hornsby said, “People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”

Well, spring is finally here, the bases are 90 feet apart, and I can’t wait for Opening Day. Eric Smiley is a senior majoring in Mathematics. He can be reached at eric.smiley@ tufts.edu.

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Sports

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

WOMEN'S TRACK

Harrison’s stellar season continues in leading Jumbos at Open New England Championships

by Chris Warren Sports Editor

Over the weekend, a few athletes on the women’s track and field team traveled to Boston University (BU) for the annual NEICAAA New England Championships, otherwise known as Open New Englands, where Tufts finished 19th overall out of 32 teams. The meet features competition at the Div. I, II and III levels from all over New England, as athletes compete to run, throw and jump to their greatest potentials.

Current U.S. No. 3 in the 60-meter dash, senior quad-captain Alexis Harrison, had a fine day on the track. Harrison blazed through the prelims in the 60 meter in 7.74 to nab a semifinal spot, where she then won her heat in 7.71 seconds. Later in the day, in the final, she smoked a 7.69 to take second by the narrowest of margins (0.01 seconds) to beat the University of New Hampshire’s senior Lauren Perrodin.

This season, Harrison has risen to an entirely different level. To put this into perspective, she ran her three 60-meter races on Saturday — the prelims, the semis and the finals — in times faster than her previous school record of 7.78 seconds from two years ago. She currently sits third on the national qualifying list and she will absolutely be in contention for an All-American honor, if not a national title, this season.

Showing her versatility, she later returned and placed 20th in the long jump, bounding out to 16 ft., 10 in.

“I’m very happy with how the season is going so far,” Harrison said. “If you told me freshman year that I was going to eventually run 7.63 in the 60-meter, I think I would’ve been a bit skeptical. Four years of hard work has been paying off, and I’m surprising myself every weekend.”

Classmate and fellow quad-captain Marilyn Allen was also in action. Allen made it through the prelims of the 60-meter

hurdles, but bowed out of the semifinals with a 9.09 second time. Sophomore Julia Prusaczyk was the only other sprinter in action on the weekend, taking 21st in the 500-meter in a time of 1:20.17.

A few of the distance women were in action, looking to take advantage of BU’s sharp banked track to run fast times. In the 1000-meter, sophomore Sara Stokesbury ran well, setting a personal best with a 3:04.42, 21st place finish. Junior Kelly Fahey and sophomore Olivia Nicholson ran fast in the 5000-meter, as Fahey placed eighth in 17:56.79 while Nicholson ran a four-second personal best of 18:04.17 for 13th overall. Sophomores Eliza Lawless and Margot Rashba competed in the 3000meter, working together the entire race.

Lawless was 21st in 10:22.66 while Rashba was a few seconds behind her in 23rd in 10:25.56.

However, the race of the day belonged to senior quad-captain Sydney Smith in the mile. Although she has run a sub-5 minute mile equivalent in the 1500 before, Smith was able to break five minutes for the first time, running 4:57.89 for sixth overall.

“My goal was just run an aggressive race and stay towards the front of the pack to cover any moves made in the race,” Smith said. “I haven’t been as sharp racing as I would have [liked] this season, so this was a great opportunity for me to find that extra competitive edge again. It was the first race all season where I think I really just raced rather than over-strategizing, and it felt great to get back to that level of focus.”

Needless to say, Smith was very happy breaking five minutes for the first time, but believes this performance can help set her up for an even stronger outdoor season.

“It’s definitely been a major goal of mine since I started racing the mile [to break five see WOMEN'S TRACK, page 11

ALEX KNAPP / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVE

Tufts women’s track and field competes at Tufts Stampede on Jan. 30.

MEN'S TRACK

Jumbos struggle against stiff competition at New England Championships

by Bradley Schussel Staff Writer

Tufts men’s track and field came away from the New England Intercollegiate Amateur Athletic Association (NEICAAA) meet this weekend in 35th place out of 36 competing teams from Div. I, II and III programs. This meet, which serves as the championships for New England indoor and outdoor teams, sits as an outlier in the Jumbos’ successful season.

Many of the athletes’ times have already qualified for nationals, and plenty of Jumbos have set school and personal records so far this season. Rookie head coach Joel Williams brought a new, refreshing attitude to the team that has cultivated a winning culture. The success that the Jumbos experienced, however, came predominantly against fellow Div. III opponents, but this past weekend the team struggled against some of the top Div. I teams in the country. As championship season gets into full swing, the Jumbos will continue to test their team and individual strengths against the region and the country’s best athletes.

Tufts scored a total of three points as a team, falling behind every team besides Worcester State, which finished with two points. Contributing to a rough Saturday for the Jumbos was an unfortunate error in the 4 x 400 meter relay. The relay team consisted of sophomore Drew DiMaiti, first-year Nico Agosti, junior Nick Usoff and senior tri-captain Mitchell Black. According to DiMaiti, the team was right in the race until he collided with another racer which caused him to drop the baton.

“We were right where we wanted to be when I was about to hand off the baton,” DiMaiti said. “A member of the MIT team was running in the lane beside us, and he passed it off first and suddenly stepped in front of me. I had my hand out, about to hand out the baton, so the baton fell into the infield. So Nico Agosti had to go into the infield to grab the baton and by that time four seconds had already passed. The guys ran hard though, even though we were out of the race at that point.”

The team still recorded a 3:20.86 time that came very close to beating its collective sea-

son best of 3:20.81, though they finished 14th out of 25 teams in the race and did not score any points.

There were, however, a couple of individual performances that scored for the team. Senior Veer Bhalla placed seventh in the 800-meter, scoring two points for Tufts. Junior distance runner Tim Nichols placed eighth in the 3,000meter race, scoring one point. Those two races comprised the three total team points for the Jumbos. Nichols, though, remarked that there were plenty of promising performances by some of his teammates.

“There were some pretty positive performances,” Nichols said. “One of our [firstyears], Christian Swenson, broke the [firstyear] 3K record. Other than the 4×400 being kind of a disappointment, nothing really bad happened. It was really just because we were facing a lot of Div. I teams that day that put us so far back in the team standings.”

Though the team did not score any points to open the weekend-long meet on Friday, Tufts had a few impressive non-scoring efforts, particularly from some of the team’s underclassmen. First-year Anthony Kardonsky ran

Tufts’ fastest time of the season in the 200 meters at 22.32 seconds, good for 19th in the race. Classmate Hiroto Watanabe finished 13th in the 1,000 meter race with a time of 2:30.69, followed by sophomore Sam Little, who finished 18th in 2:32.28.

The disappointing results from this past weekend do not diminish the team’s impressive third-place finish the previous weekend Feb. 20 at the New England Div. III Indoor Championships. Seniors Veer Bhalla and tri-captain Mitchell Black headlined that meet with a win each to help Tufts tally 74 points on the day and beat out all Div. III teams in the region besides MIT and Williams, who finished first and second, respectively.

Bhalla won the 600-meter for the third straight year, breaking Black’s year-old school record in the event with a 1:20.10 time, while Black won the 800-meter for the second time in his career with a 1:52.00 time. The dynamic duo now have eight New England Div. III indoor titles between them.

The 4×400 meter relay team — the same as see MEN'S TRACK AND FIELD, page 11