Wednesday, March 15, 2017

FEATURES

Environmentally themed artwork by husband-wife duo added to permanent collection at Tufts see ARTS&LIVING / PAGE 7

Muslim students reflect on their diverse backgrounds, representation at Tufts

Jumbos claim a trio of wins to remain undefeated see SPORTS / BACK PAGE

SEE FEATURES / PAGE 5 THE

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VOLUME LXXIII, NUMBER 31

tuftsdaily.com

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

Kenya Barris to speak at this year’s Commencement

by Joe Walsh

Executive News Editor

Screenwriter Kenya Barris will address the Class of 2017 at the Commencement ceremony on May 21.

Barris serves as the creator and executive producer of “Black-ish” (2014-present).

The show centers on an affluent AfricanAmerican family, and it addresses topics such as family dynamics, racial identity and politics. The family documented in “Blackish” is partially based on the lives of Barris, his wife and his children, according to an interview with The New Yorker.

“Kenya Barris’ witty and wise work entertains and enlightens millions of viewers every week, using humor to open challenging social issues for discussion without sugar-coating them,” University President Anthony Monaco said in a press release.

“We are delighted to welcome him to Tufts and excited to hear his address to this year’s graduates, their families and friends and the university community.”

“Black-ish” won a Peabody Award in 2015 and was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series in 2016. In a recent interview with NPR, Barris said that President Donald Trump’s 2016 electoral victory has caused him to refocus the show on addressing difficult-to-discuss issues.

“We have to dig in deeper and stay later and have more real conversations and argue

amongst ourselves more,” Barris said in the NPR interview. “We have a responsibility. It’s not just TV for us anymore.”

42-year-old Barris grew up in Los Angeles.

He has written for a number of comedy and drama shows, co-created reality television show “America’s Next Top Model” (2003– present) and co-written his first movie, “Barbershop: The Next Cut” (2016).

Barris will be given an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree at Tufts’ Commencement ceremony, according to the press release. A number of other people will be awarded honorary degrees as well. Howard Hughes Medical Institute Vice President for Science Education Sean Carroll, former Administrator of the Small Business Administration Maria Contreras-Sweet, Cummings Foundation Co-Founder Joyce Cummings and longtime former Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO) Executive Director Jean McGuire will receive honorary Doctorates of Public Service. Juilliard School President Joseph Polisi will be given an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts.

Also, NBC News’ Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Richard Engel will speak at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy for Class Day, and former Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack will address the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at its Commencement.

COURTESY KENYA BARRIS

Kenya Barris, pictured here, will speak at the Commencement ceremony in May.

T-Pain to headline Spring Fling 2017, with openers Aminé, Tinashe

Tufts and SMFA look to address lack of art studio space on Medford/Somerville campus

by Liam Knox

by David Nickerson

News Editor

The performers at this year’s Spring Fling concert will be hip-hop artist T-Pain, up-and-coming rapper Aminé and R&B artist Tinashe, according to an announcement by Tufts University Social Collective (TUSC) Concert at noon on Monday. The concert will take place on April 29.

The announcement was made to a crowd of students in a packed DewickMacPhie Dining Center with a photo booth in the lobby and a video in the main hall. The photo booth printed the names of the performers at the bottom of pictures taken by students, while the video announcement featured hooded members of TUSC Concert stealthily moving through campus to post a

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list of the performers by Tisch Library.

Students who were gathered in the dining hall appeared excited by the lineup.

T-Pain, famous for 2000s hits such as “Bartender,” “Take Your Shirt Off” and “Buy U a Drank,” will be the concert’s headliner. Aminé, whose chart-topping 2016 single “Caroline” earned him widespread fame, and Tinashe, whose career kicked off with her 2014 song “2 On” featuring Schoolboy Q, will be the opening acts.

Alex Mitchell, co-chair of TUSC Concert, said the lineup was a “best-case scenario” for the organization.

According to Mitchell, a junior, this year’s concert came in under budget, and the extra money will be used to pay for other attractions and necessary expenditures see SPRING FLING, page 2

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

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tuftsdaily

Staff Writer

Amid complaints from students and faculty about a lack of art studio space on the Medford/Somerville campus, Tufts and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) have stated their commitment to create new art studios on campus in the near future, according to SMFA Dean Nancy Bauer.

Freshman dual degree student Rachel Yao said the current art facilities housed in Lane Hall are inadequate.

“It’s really cramped, and there’s not enough space on the walls to display your art work because other classes are using the space,” she said.

Yao added that the studios in Lane do not have enough resources for woodworking, ceramics and other specific disciplines.

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She explained that the lack of studio space on the Medford/Somerville campus creates problems because it means art students have to take the shuttle to SMFA to find enough space to do their work. She added that going to SMFA can take up to an hour each way during a busy commute.

According to Dean of SMFA Nancy Bauer in a March 3 Daily article, improvements and expansions of the shuttle service are on the horizon, in response to student demand.

Yao noted that the frequent trips to the SMFA campus in the Fenway neighborhood of Boston are not as much of a problem for her as for other students because she already needs to go to the SMFA campus to take a drawing-intensive art class.

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

see SMFA, page 4

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

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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Wednesday, March 15, 2017

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

EDITORIAL

Jei-Jei Tan Miranda Willson Managing Editors Joe Walsh Executive News Editor Zachary Hertz News Editors Gil Jacobson Robert Katz Liam Knox Daniel Nelson Catherine Perloff Emma Steiner Hannah Uebele Ariel Barbeiri-Aghib Assistant News Editors Charles Bunnell Emily Burke Daniel Caron Aneurin Canham-Clyne Juliana Furgala Elie Levine Natasha Mayor Jesse Najarro Minna Trinh Costa Angelakis Executive Features Editor Becca Leibowitz Features Editors Jake Taber Emma Rosenthal Emma Damokosh Assistant Features Editors Zach Essig Elie Levine Jessie Newman Sean Ong Hermes Suen Grace Yuh Eran Sabaner Executive Arts Editor John Gallagher Arts Editors Cassidy Olsen John Fedak Assistant Arts Editors Libby Langsner Setenay Mufti Paige Spangenthal Anita Ramaswamy Executive Op-Ed Editor Stephen Dennison Cartoonists Shannon Geary Noah Kulak Lydia Ra Miranda Chavez Editorialists Julia Faxon Hannah Kahn Lena Novins-Montague Lanie Preston Madeleine Schwartz Daniel Weinstein Eddie Samuels Executive Sports Editor Yuan Jun Chee Sports Editors Maddie Payne Maclyn Senear Liam Finnegan Assistant Sports Editors Savannah Mastrangelo Brad Schussel Sam Weidner Sam Weitzman

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University Chaplaincy hires Muslim associate

by Daniel Caron

Assistant News Editor

Abubakr Fakhry Abou-Elala was appointed as the Muslim associate in the University Chaplaincy last semester, as current Muslim Chaplain Celene Ibrahim is finishing her doctoral studies at Brandeis University.

Abou-Elala is scheduled to be on staff until May, according to Ibrahim.

She noted that Abou-Elala is an important resource for the Muslim community at Tufts as she completes her studies.

“Increasing my bandwidth to be present to student needs by bringing on a temporary associate has been a great blessing and asset to the community,” she told the Daily in an email. “Many Muslims students, staff and faculty are doing double-duty; they are having to pursue their own educations, career objectives and life-goals while simultaneously functioning as cultural and religious diplomats. This double-duty can be quite exhausting.”

Abou-Elala has spent much of his career in youth work and is also the youth director at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, where he founded the youth leadership and mentoring program ARKanum.

According to the Chaplaincy website, he also co-founded Utopia – Boston, another program for Muslim youth in the area, and is a fellow at Boston Bridges, an inter-

faith engagement program organized by Hebrew College in Newton, Mass.

Abou-Elala explained that, as the new Muslim Associate, he is working closely with Ibrahim as she completes her doctoral studies, supporting students on campus, meeting with students individually as needed and getting to know the Tufts environment.

“I am basically working with the chaplain, Celene [Ibrahim], in facilitating different activities and events for the community,” he said. “I lead at the Friday sermon once or twice a month, and I speak in different activities for them.”

Muslim Students Association (MSA) President Nazifa Sarawat said that the community is very happy to have AbouElala’s support in the Chaplaincy.

“He seems really well received in the community,” Sarawat, a senior, said. “He’s a really knowledgeable and approachable guy, and he’s supporting our program.”

Abou-Elala said that he is excited to work with the MSA during his time at Tufts.

“For now I’m still new to the community, still observing before I set any particular goals or direction for me to take,” he said. “The MSA is really very active, so my role is really to support [them]. They are very well organized.”

Ibrahim noted that support for the Muslim community is especially important right now, given the rise of Islamophobia.

COURTESY ABUBAKR ABOU-ELALA

Abubakr Abou-Elala is pictured on Oct. 17.

“Muslim community members and other targeted minorities need robust support systems. Tufts has commendably stepped up to meet this needed support with different initiatives across the university to support students in this trying political climate,” she said.

Ibrahim explained that Abou-Elala is dedicated to serving the Tufts community.

“Abubakr brings a wealth of experience, a deep commitment to Islamic learning, to pluralism and to forging human connections,” she said. “I am pleased and proud to call him a colleague.”

TUSC Concert hopes to sell out Spring Fling with T-Pain, Tinashe, Aminé

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T-Pain, pictured here performing in 2007, will headline Spring Fling this year.

SPRING FLING

continued from page 1 for Spring Fling. The surplus will not be put toward next year’s lineup because rollover is not permitted in the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Treasury budgeting process.

Mitchell said that this year’s all-black lineup was an intentional choice.

“Over the past couple years, lineups have been criticized for not having enough representation [for people of color], and we agreed with that assessment, so we wanted to respond to that feedback,” he told the Daily in an electronic message. “We chose the artists based on their appeal, not just their race, but it was definitely a consideration.”

The concert is capped at 6,000 attendees, according to Mitchell, who said that TUSC’s goal this year is to sell out the show.

“We wanted to have a top-40, hiphop/R&B-leaning show from the getgo, especially after Waka Flocka sold out so quickly,” he said, referring to last semester’s Fall Fest concert featuring rapper Waka Flocka Flame. “I imagine that our lineup will attract lots of visitors.”

Junior Trenton Manns said he is looking forward to this year’s Spring Fling performers, especially Tinashe and Aminé. In particular, he is excited to see Aminé because he is such a new rapper.

“I think it’s really cool … that Tufts is providing a platform for him to be more widely exposed,” Manns said.

Multiple students, including Manns and sophomore Adam Rapfogel, said they are more excited about this year’s performers than those of previous years,

including 2015 headliner Kesha and 2016 performers Matt and Kim. “In general, I’m happy with them,” Rapfogel said. “I think that, compared to Matt and Kim, Borns and Shaggy, almost anything is a good set of choices, no offense to the people who chose it last year.”

Erik Poppleton, a senior, said that the lineup did not represent a diversity of genres.

“Though I don’t listen to him, I think T-Pain is a good headliner, but I would be happier if we had some rock or [electronic dance music] as openers instead of more rap,” he told the Daily in an electronic message.

Seohyun Shim contributed reporting to this article.

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Wednesday, March 15, 2017 | News | THE TUFTS DAILY

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Stella Snow Day

— BEN KIM AND SEOHYUN SHIM

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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Wednesday, March 15, 2017

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News

N e w s looks to identify space for expanded art studios alongside other Tufts ongoing projects SMFA

continued from page 1 Bauer said that administrators recognize that Lane is in need of improvements and that Tufts is currently looking into enhancing the building’s art facilities.

“Everyone understands that Lane Hall in and of itself is not a fantastic studio space,” she said. “[But] we’re invested in making sure we have better facilities there.”

Lois Stanley, director of campus planning, said she has not received any budget requests to add on to Lane or to improve the art facilities housed there.

Bauer, who also serves as a dean of academic affairs for the School of Arts and Sciences, explained that there is no current budgetary proposal to fix Lane because all relevant members of the administration have not yet decided how they want to parcel out space on the Medford/Somerville campus.

Bauer added that issues regarding space are especially complicated this year because of the new Science and Engineering Complex (SEC), which is expected to be done by the end of the year.

“Because the Science and Engineering Complex is going live by the end of this year, there’s going to be some movement into that building and out of other spaces on the campus,” she said. “So that creates a kind of musical chairs situation where we decided to move some people from here to there.”

Bauer compared the ongoing process of finding space for art students postSEC completion with the process that

SEOHYUN SHIM / THE TUFTS DAILY

Students work on their art projects in Lane Hall art studio on March 9. occurred during the construction of the Collaborative Learning and Innovation Complex at 574 Boston Ave. “The same exact process happened when we processed 574 Boston Ave.,” she said. “There are all of these musical chairs in a long period that they call interim planning.”

Although Bauer said that she is unable to put a time stamp on when the future space arrangements for arts students will be available, she said that more studio space will be added in the near future.

“I’m very confident that we will have better studio space in the relatively

near future, but the actual plans are honestly not there yet,” she said. “I do know there’s strong commitment on the Medford campus to find a better place for studio artists and that we are going to be doing a lot more collaboration with the SMFA on the Medford campus as well.”

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Features

‘It takes time and effort:’ Muslim students discuss perceptions of Islam on and off campus

5 tuftsdaily.com

MJ Griego Mind the Gap

Mixed-race mindset

M

RAY BERNOFF / THE TUFTS DAILY

Senior Nazifa Sarawat poses on the Memorial Steps on Feb 20.

by Jake Taber

Features Editor

This is the second part in a two-part series documenting four Muslim students’ experiences on and off Tufts’ campus. This part features two students, Shadath and Nazifa. The full article appears online today.

Shadath Shadath Chowdhury is a sophomore majoring in electrical engineering from Hamtramck, Mich. When he was younger, he used to repair cars in his spare time. After college, he said he might want to start his own car company or work with robotics in the auto industry.

His hometown, a diverse community home to immigrants hailing from dozens of countries, is likely one of the only majority-Muslim cities in the United States. In 2015, Hamtramck elected the country’s first majority-muslim city council.

“There’s Bosnians, Yemenis, Syrians, Bengali people, Indian [and] Pakistani people,” Chowdhury said. “It’s a pretty diverse area in itself, but also it’s a very Islamcentered area.”

In 2004, the city approved an Islamic center’s right to broadcast the Adhan, the Islamic call to prayer. Both then and after the 2015 city council election, the city received national media attention over supposed tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims in the once-majority-Polish city. Other outlets, however, have said reports of conflict have been overblown.

Chowdhury said that today, the Adhan is just a part of life in his hometown.

“It became something that was normalized in our city because everyone kind of just got used to it,” he said. “Every city has churches, and churches use their bell chimes … they have complete seven minute songs that play on those bells, and our call is just five times a day and it only takes about thirty seconds.”

Chowdhury is well aware of how much less central Islam is at Tufts than it was in Hamtramck. He said that being away from home and continuing to practice his faith has been a test. “[Back home] people already know that you’re Muslim. Here you’ve got to tell people that you’re Muslim,” Chowdhury said.

“Your spiritual being is tested in that you are truly responsible for praying and being

close to God, whereas over there you’re sort of reminded by your family and by the people you’re surrounded by that your religion comes second to none.”

The presence of other Muslims, he said, makes it easier to remain dedicated to his faith.

“Just having a community is pretty good.

In my opinion, two [people] is a community, having two Muslims in the school is a community,” he said. “You have a support system sort of thing.”

Despite having grown up in a vibrant Muslim community, Chowdhury said that his faith was tested in a similar way when he was in high school. He attended a private school 20 miles away on a scholarship. For three years, he was the only Muslim student there, until his sister started at the school during his senior year.

Many students at his high school came from conservative families. Chowdhury said that most of them had never met anyone who practiced Islam and that many were surprised that their school had admitted his sister, who wears a hijab.

“People would come up to her and ask her about being Muslim and what it was like,” he said. “[The] freshmen would go up and [tell] stupid terrorist jokes to her, but that didn’t shake her because she’s a stronger person than most people, and that didn’t shake me either … we just never made it about identity, we made it about how our faith is.”

Chowdhury said that although he does not experience the same insensitivity here at Tufts, the Medford campus is host to a different set of stereotypes about Muslims.

He said that in his experience, non-Muslim Tufts students often typecast Muslims as victims, treating them differently than they treat others.

“I wouldn’t say [Tufts students are] accepting. Tolerance is a much better word to explain how Tufts kids act toward other faiths or people that don’t look like them,” he said. “They automatically see you as victims of something — that we obviously had no part of — [but] still, it’s more of a condescending way to speak to people.”

Chowdhury wonders whether he prefers to deal with the direct stereotyping and accusations he and his sister dealt with in high school, or the “victim first, friend second” relationship he sometimes encounters

here, which he has had trouble calling out.

“I’d rather be accused of something that I didn’t do then be spoken to in a condescending tone, because at least I can defend myself,” he said. “If you call people out on it and then they feel uncomfortable, if you want to be accepted, then that’s not the thing you want to do, right?”

Chowdhury said that as an engineering student, accommodating the five daily prayers into his timetable can be a challenge, but that ultimately prayer provides him with a valuable balance.

“The closer to God you get, the better mental state you’ll be in and [the] better spiritual state, where you can get more work done I think,” he said. “Faith is one of the most important formulas of being happy and just having balance in your life.”

Chowdhury is active in the Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) at Tufts, though he does not think the organization does enough to promote itself and its events.

“We’re a big group here at Tufts. We have our own house, did you know that?” he said, referring to the Muslim House at 176 Curtis St. “Not a lot of people know what the MSA is or that we even have an MSA, so it’s pretty important to have better publicity.”

Chowdhury said he’s running for an elected position within the group. He’d like to help improve the group’s visibility on campus, as well as its outreach and publicity efforts during periods of heightened Islamophobia, such as the current post-election climate or the aftermath of the shootings in Orlando and San Bernardino in 2016 and 2015, respectively. He said that last year, he felt as though students running for MSA positions were not focused enough on outreach. “[San Bernardino] was the biggest thing that happened, and then it was Orlando, and then it was obviously the election, but [students running for MSA positions] didn’t want to talk about how the MSA would reach out to the community, and how the MSA would react to some of the things that went on in current events,” he said. “That’s just really concerning because you have this group on campus that really should be reacting to a lot of these things.”

He said that spikes in Islamophobia have been tumultuous for Muslims back see MUSLIM STUDENTS, page 6

ost strangers who pass me on the street think I’m white. I don’t blame them for this, as I’m pale as hell. I got some sort of mid-point of my parents’ genes: my obviously brown father and my paperwhite mom, his black hair and her light brown, her 5-foot-7-inches and his 6-foot4-inches. Growing up, I got so tan in the summers, and I brought in Nana Griego’s homemade tortillas for show and tell. My friends joked about how I loved burritos and that I was like a maid. The confusion of childhood takes a lifetime to unpack, and I find myself looking back with terror on things that I couldn’t have understood at the time. Yet without fully knowing about their repercussions, these tiny moments come together to form a huge part of the way everyone sees the world.

As a child, I felt both that being Latinx was a vital part of myself and an invisible one. Most people of color could tell you this, as our cultures are flattened and warped until they are comfortable for white people to consume. But being mixed is a unique experience in itself, especially taking into account the different cultures parents can come from. In popular culture, ‘mixed’ is often taken by people to mean ‘mixed with white.’ Mixed people are fetishized if they appeal to white beauty standards, like if they have light brown skin with blue eyes. We are stuck being made into caricatures on TV under the guise of inclusivity, all the while reinforcing westernized beauty standards of pale skin, small noses and straight hair.

Sometimes I feel like a weapon turned against myself.

Being mixed-race has made me feel like I am ‘both and neither’ white nor brown. I have always felt like I straddled the lines between categories. Every new context means different treatment and different visibility, and most contexts erase some part of my identity.

Those who grow up this way see fluidity in things that others might see as fixed. Being mixed-race has pushed me to see the many layers of privilege and oppression people encounter each day. I have the privilege of ‘passing’ as white to most people. I have the privilege of being invisible in tandem with the presumption that I have two white parents.

In so many ways, white people see race as the absence of whiteness. Growing up in America, the infamous ‘melting pot’ is only melting in that it is falling apart. People of color in America are taught that we are are the other, the last priority. Being mixed feels like the pain and confusion of being American, when all that America has ever been made for is the exploitation of people of color. This is a country built on slavery, violent seizure of Indigenous lands and forced erasure of culture of both Indigenous and Black Americans (only to name a few groups). How am I supposed to feel good in a country that romanticizes this foundation to this day? Being mixed feels like confusion and anger and ‘we deserve better,’ and I think it always will.

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

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THE TUFTS DAILY | Features | Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Alec Whipple Red, White and True

The final hours of the filibuster

“I

f you give up your rights now, don’t expect to get them back.”

–Rand Paul In 2013, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid spearheaded an impactful change on the Senate floor. An overwhelming majority of Senators voted to eliminate the filibuster in situations where legislation was being introduced on the Senate floor. Later on, Reid invoked the “nuclear option,” which eliminated the filibuster on executive branch and judicial nominees. This change in Senate procedure signaled the beginning of the end for a procedure that has stood to protect the ability of the minority to have an impact in the Senate. In today’s Congress, the Republican majority will likely kill the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees at the first sign of Democratic resistance, which will further gut the procedure. The filibuster has been an important tool for the minority in the Senate, and its loss will further polarize an already divided legislative body.

In the early days of the United States, both the House of Representatives and the Senate had the same rules for debate in their chambers — it could be ended quickly and moved to a vote. However, Vice President Aaron Burr convinced the Senate that this ability was underused and should be eliminated. The filibuster was born at this moment, and although it took a while for its usage to become commonly accepted, it soon became a staple of the Senate chambers. Over the next few centuries, the filibuster became a tool to extend debate for an unlimited amount of time and could only be killed through a cloture vote, which typically involved more than a simple majority of senators voting to end debate.

The Democrats’ changes to the filibuster in 2013 were made because of frustration with Republican resistance to confirm President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees. A similar situation occurred in 2005, when Republicans threatened to eliminate the filibuster because of Democratic resistance. When Democrats actually invoked the nuclear option, they changed the way the Senate operated in an irreversible manner. The Senate has historically been the body of Congress that has passed legislation in a more deliberate manner. Unlike the House, Senators have always been more moderate because of a larger swath of constituents that they must represent. However, party politics have changed this in the past few decades. Now, senators will act with their party no matter the issue. We have seen this with Republican resistance to the Obama agenda and Democratic resistance to the Bush/Trump agenda. This means that a majority will have almost absolute power in Congress, and a minority party will have next to none save for the power of the filibuster. If that is gone, then there is little that will stop a majority party from pushing its agenda and its nominations through without recourse.

The filibuster has always been a tool to promote bipartisan compromise and minority rights in the Senate, but it has recently become a way for senators to drag their feet if the other party is doing something that they don’t like. Unfortunately, this will lead to its likely elimination in the near future, destroying one of the last parts of government that punishes polarized attitudes in a body that is severely polarized.

Alec Whipple is a sophomore majoring in political science. Alec can be reached at alec.whipple@tufts.edu.

tuftsdaily.com

Hailing from diverse backgrounds, Muslim students at Tufts seek community and explore faith MUSLIM STUDENTS

continued from page 5 in Hamtramck. After the installation of the loudspeaker for the call to prayer in 2004, he said his mosque was visited by the Klu Klux Klan.

“I’d see people with Kentucky license plates lined up outside our mosque, ready to just be very aggressive with us as we enter or exit,” he said. “But we would just be nonviolent and get back in our cars, go back home and not think about it.”

After the city elected a majority-Muslim city council, Fox News’s Pete Hegseth visited Hamtramck and produced a report that played up fears about the city’s muslim residents not “assimilating.” Chowdhury believes that portrayals like Hegseth’s can do damage.

“On a deeper level, it’s really concerning because some people would watch that that Fox News episode, especially older people, who would be scared somebody would elect a Muslim majority council in their city,” he said.

The political rhetoric surrounding Islam in the United States has not made Chowdhury question his faith or change his practices. He noted that even as Islamophobia swelled after the Sept. 11 attacks, his family and his community remained dedicated to their religion.

“Even in the time of our prophet … everyone was Islamophobic, even back in the days when Islam was being created, so that shouldn’t deter us from doing or believing what we believe in,” he said. “Muslims are strong, because the scriptures say so, the scripture says to be strong and to keep persevering through whatever adversity is on your way. I wouldn’t say it’s that big of an issue now, because we’ve been through the worst of it.”

Nazifa Nazifa Sarawat is a senior and the current president of Tufts’ MSA. A Brooklyn native, she grew up in a Bengali family and lived in a neighborhood of Bengali Immigrants.

Sarawat said she did not feel the need to participate in her high school’s MSA. That changed when she arrived at Tufts. Away from her family, in a new city and on a campus with few other Muslims, she sought out community and a way to stay connected to her faith.

“This was such an integral part of my life in New York, and it’s suddenly not there unless I create it for myself,” she said.

She further said her experience was not unique among Muslims who attend a university with Christian roots.

“I think that’s what a lot of college students who grew up Muslim feel: that this is something that they have to go out of their way to find at a liberal, ‘secular’ Christian school,” Sarawat said.

While participating in Voices — Tufts’ diversity-centered admissions overnight program — during her senior year of high school, she met Tufts students who would eventually introduce her to the MSA when she arrived as a first-year.

That year, she ran for the MSA’s Freshman Representative position. She’s been deeply involved in the Muslim community here ever since.

“I don’t know if it was necessarily me looking to be connected to faith, or just me connecting to people of similar backgrounds and wanting to be a part of that community,” she said. “I think Islam is very community centric: There [are] a lot of individual practices, but the practices that give you the most blessings are the ones that you do together.”

The MSA regularly hosts speakers and events, such last month’s interfaith Friday prayer, or Jummah. Aside from the programming, Sarawat said that being part of a community of Muslims is valuable because it exposes her to other students who can

relate to the ways in which her college experience differs from that of the majority of Tufts students.

One of the most obvious differences between her and other students is her decision not to drink in accordance with her faith.

“Not drinking is a big one because alcohol is such a pillar and cornerstone of college culture,” she said. “[Not drinking] is such a regular thing, or should be.”

After growing up in New York with Muslims from backgrounds similar to her own, Sarawat said she was struck by the diversity of the students who she met through the MSA. “Seeing all these different types of Muslims from different socioeconomic classes and ethnicities was an eye-opener for me,” she said. “I learned a lot from that, about how much my understanding of Islam was tied into culture and how Islam was so much bigger than that.”

Sarawat said that although she had always aspired to practice Islam more regularly, she began to take steps to do so after having met Tufts students who had integrated their faith into their daily lives.

She started by attending Jummah prayers on Fridays more regularly — what she called a weekly break from her daily routine. Today, she does her best to complete the five daily prayers, which provide her with regular breaks from the cycle of work and classes, bringing her faith to the foreground.

“Because I’m making my day around prayer instead of doing prayer when it fits into my day, it makes my mindset shift,” she said. “I think people can get so caught up in these day-to-day things and being busy.

But from my own experience, if I don’t have a reason to do them, then it becomes easier to be sad.”

Though she has personally increased her commitment to Islam, Sarawat stressed the importance of an MSA that accommodates people who practice in different ways.

“I want MSA to be a space for people regardless of how much they practice … spiritually speaking, people have a diversity of connection,” she said.

One way in which Sarawat hopes to keep the organization’s membership varied and accepting is by respecting and considering the many different branches of Islam that students follow.

She also believes that class, in particular, is an important factor for the MSA to keep in mind. In the United States, she said, Muslims’ socioeconomic status and the communities in which they live can potentially affect how they perceive their Islamic faith, their ‘Americanness’ and their identity at-large.

Sarawat said that from her perspective, and based on conversations she’s had with other Muslim students, a Muslim growing up in a wealthy, majority-white suburb might value assimilation into American culture and identifying as American. During her own experience growing up, however, Sarawat said she was not urged to replace her Bengali identity with a more ‘American’ one.

“I grew up in a working-class neighborhood, and the archetype of American was never something that I was told to try to achieve,” she said. “I was told subliminally through media and stuff like that, but my parents raised me and they were like, ‘Being Bengali is important and being Muslim is important, even if you’re in the United States.’”

Sarawat described the pressure to assimilate as a pressure to surrender aspects of one’s culture. She said that Muslims in America can often be held to an assimilationist standard that says they’re only ‘good’ if they are patriotic and adhere to American cultural values.

According to Sarawat, that expectation is present to some degree at Tufts. “[At Tufts] in general, people’s perceptions of Islam line up with … the perception of Islam which is, ‘Oh, they’re not all bad,’” she said. “The whole point is that being different isn’t bad in itself … just the idea that you have to be American in order to be worth fighting for something, which is a weird one.”

For Sarawat’s family, the Sept. 11 attacks had a deep and lasting impact on their relationship to their faith. Her father was only a couple of blocks away from the Twin Towers that day. When the subways and roads shut down, he walked home over the Brooklyn Bridge.

Sarawat added that her father, who is Muslim, voted for President Trump in this year’s election. She believes that the events of Sept. 11 profoundly shaped his worldview.

“This is me psychoanalyzing my father, which I’ve spent a lot of time doing: I think he just comes from a place of deep fear of what he saw,” she said. “He doesn’t trust mosques or Islamic institutions.”

Her mother stopped wearing the hijab after the attacks. The family also stopped regularly attending mosque, and Nazifa and her siblings stopped attending Arabic school.

Growing up, Sarawat says she dealt with internalized Islamophobia — occasional feelings of doubt about her faith that would arise when people confronted her with stereotypes and pointed questions about Islam. When faced with these misconceptions, she felt the need to counter them.

“I had a script in my head … [of how] to answer these questions: questions about hijabs like, ‘Isn’t Islam anti-women?’ or, ‘So you’re not taught to kill people who aren’t Muslim?’” she said. “It was my job as the Muslim in the classroom to know the answer and be able to address them and defend my religion.”

As she tried to dispel misconceptions about her faith, she was sometimes presented with questions to which she did not know the answer. “[When] there’s a point that you don’t know, you start to think, ‘Wait a minute, what if I’m wrong and Islam is evil and the worst thing ever?’” she said. “As an 11-yearold kid, I’m not going to be able to win every argument against every kid in my grade.”

After graduating high school, Sarawat said she was able to take the time to focus on her own Islamic knowledge and connection to God, rather than how to change people’s minds about Islam. She particularly likes a biweekly series the MSA runs at the Interfaith Center called “Wonder Woman Fridays,” which focuses on the stories of women featured in the Quran and in Islamic tradition.

Back home in New York, however, Sarawat said she has seen members of her family dealing with the same doubts she once faced more acutely.

“I was talking to my younger cousins — they were in high school — and it was Thanksgiving dinner and they were talking about Islam in general and then saying, ‘You know, some of these points are kind of true, right, like the ‘Islam is anti-women’ thing,’” she said. “These are young Muslim kids.”

Nonetheless, Sarawat said Islam is beautiful to her now because it offers her a relationship she can always rely on: that between her and God. “Using religious practice as a way to improve my relationship with God, like with any relationship, I think it takes time and effort,” she said. “People can let you down and institutions can let you down, but if the most important thing is something that can’t let you down … [that’s] pretty powerful.”

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

ARTS&LIVING GALLERY REVIEW

Famed artist duo’s gift to Tufts reimagined in Tufts Collection Spotlight: Christo and Jeanne-Claude

by Libby Langsner Assistant Arts Editor

In 1997, the married artistic duo Christo Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude, known collectively as Christo and Jeanne-Claude, gifted a selection of drawings and photographs to the Tufts University Permanent Art Collection.

From March 1 to 30, the Aidekman Arts Center’s Slater Concourse Gallery will be, quite literally, putting these works into a new light. After many years of hanging in the Tisch Library, many of the photographs and sketches lost much of their quality and sharpness from the library’s harsh lighting. For the 20 year anniversary of receiving these prints, art history graduate student Mallory Ruymann, assisted by seniors Rotana Shaker and

Chloe Hyman, curated a new exhibition with the images.

The original plans from the 1997 display of these works from Christo and JeanneClaude were not recorded. This second show puts the works into a new light and casts a different impact onto the works from what may have been 20 years ago.

The exhibition features some of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s most famous works, including “Running Fence” (1976), a project installed in California’s Sonoma and Marin Counties; “Wrapped Reichstag” (1995), in which the artists wrapped the German government building; and “The Gates” (2005) in Central Park.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude use fabric to wrap certain objects, simultaneously obscuring and highlighting the site. All their projects are public and often in nature,

so they are subject to the forces of nature as well as of people. Christo and Jeanne-Claude have been slotted into many artistic movements, including Earth art, monumental art and site-specific art. The site-specificity and scale of their works are what have made them so memorable, but they are also what makes them difficult to categorize.

The duo is known for their staunch defense that their works do not try to make a political statement. However, many theorists and critics have disagreed with this sentiment and have placed political weight on the works. “Wrapped Reichstag” completely covered the German Reichstag, a site that represented the new German government which claimed to be transparent.

By literally shielding the Reichstag, viewers see CHRISTO AND JEANNE-CLAUDE, page 8

FILM REVIEW

‘Logan’ is a fitting end for Wolverine

TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORPORATION

Hugh Jackman plays Logan/Wolverine, one of the X-Men, in ‘Logan.’

by John Fedak

Assistant Arts Editor

Looking back, the X-Men movie franchise hasn’t always been the most successful superhero franchise. Although some, like 2014’s “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” play much better than others, most, such as 2009’s “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” are far more lackluster. Thankfully enough, “Logan” (2017) falls into the former category, with strong performances and good character development combined with a dark-but-engaging plotline all contributing to the movie’s success.

Set in the year 2029, “Logan” follows a visibly-aged Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), now known as Logan, living on the Mexican border in a world where no new mutants have been born for decades, taking care of Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), who is suffering from a degenerative brain disease and losing control of his powers.

Logan is contacted by a woman who begs for his help in taking a mysterious girl named Laura (Dafne Keen) northward to Canada.

At first reluctant to help, Logan soon finds himself in the middle of dangerous forces and begins rushing northward while being pursued by a malicious corporation.

One large reason “Logan” is so successful is that the actors all deliver memorable, and in some cases fantastic, performances. The standout here is without a doubt Jackman himself; past films have attempted to delve into Wolverine’s character and the emotions behind his rage, but most of them have failed to touch upon anything of substance. Finally, “Logan” allows a window into the soul of Wolverine that is both depressing and long overdue.

In the film, Jackman deftly portrays a burnt-out Wolverine who is at the end see LOGAN, page 8

FILM REVIEW

‘The Great Wall’ is amusing, unimpressive “The Great Wall” (2016) — released Dec. 15, 2016 in China and Feb. 17, 2017 in the United States — blends bits of Chinese history and mythology with good old American heroism to create, if nothing else, an entertaining action movie. It all begins with two European mercenaries named William Garin (Matt Damon) and Pero Tovar (Pedro Pascal), who have traveled to China in search for explosive “black powder” to aid them in battle. They hit the Great Wall and are captured by soldiers of the Nameless Order, led by General Shao (Zhang Hanyu) and his protegee Commander Lin Mae (Jing Tian), but the soldiers are busy expecting

the incoming threat of the Tao Tei, large reptilian monsters that attempt to breach the Wall and lay siege on all of China. William and Lin take a liking to each other, but as the danger of total oblivion becomes imminent, William is faced with the choice of escaping or staying to fight.

The real strength of this movie lies in its aesthetics, particularly in its battle and battle preparation scenes. Upon hearing that the Tao Tei are coming, hundreds of soldiers mobilize into color-coded brigades with spears, axes and spiked shields. They raise massive crossbows over the edge of the wall and attach ropes to the all-female Crane Corps,

who jump down the Wall with double-ended spears to fight the Tao Tei and then get yanked back up. Low, dramatic drum beats signal short-range combat and long-range flaming cannonballs as needed. The battle scenes offer all the explosions an action lover would want, thanks to the black powder, but the rest of the warfare is also exceptionally engaging. The Tao Tei would seem an odd choice for a made-up Chinese monster, except they are actually based on the taotie, zoomorphic faces found on bronze vessels from the Shang dynasty, when “The Great Wall” is set. The see THE GREAT WALL, page 8

7 tuftsdaily.com

Abigail McFee Advice from Dead Poets (and Some Living)

T.S. Eliot on living with fear

I

wasn’t supposed to enjoy the poem as much as I did. That’s the sense I got when I first read “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1915) as an assignment for my AP English class.

The famous poem by T.S. Eliot is filled with obscure allusions, and the images are jarring. (Eliot compares the expanse of the evening sky to “a patient etherized upon a table.”) When my group presented our analysis of the poem to a few rows of sleepy classmates, they stared back disinterestedly.

But I never forgot the poem’s speaker. I carried him around with me — this bizarre man named J. Alfred Prufrock, who muses and obsesses but doesn’t do anything. His words came to me spontaneously, in conversation with a friend or in the shower, even though I had only read the poem a couple of times. “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,” Prufrock says. He wonders, “Do I dare / Disturb the universe?” I thought he captured, perfectly, the anxiety of living. I was often scared as a child. I had nightmares for weeks in a row and obsessed during the day over illnesses I might get. I dreaded saying goodbye to my parents, worried something would happen to them at the grocery store. My central fear, from which the others stemmed, was that the world is an unpredictable place.

As I’ve grown older, there have been entire years when I’ve slid easily by — when the sky has been the sky (not an etherized patient), when the universe has been expansive and warm (not a careful balance that I might disturb).

But there have also been weeks and months when fear has crept out of the corner like a forgotten party guest, struck up a conversation with me and lingered.

“And indeed there will be time,” Eliot writes repeatedly in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” It’s the kind of thing I might say to myself on a Sunday morning, when I realize that I can turn off my alarm and go back to sleep for an hour.

But when Prufrock repeats, “And indeed there will be time,” the sentiment is not comforting. He seems to be saying: There will be more time to worry. There will be more days to ache with the weight of not knowing what to do.

Poetry has the power to make us feel good — that’s what I love about it. But something I appreciate equally is that poetry doesn’t require the reader, or the poet, to come to the page feeling good.

The best piece of advice Eliot has given me is not a typical mantra, but I walk around sometimes repeating it as if it were: “And in short, I was afraid.” That line appears quietly near the middle of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” stated only once yet somehow anchoring the poem. I think it’s beautiful: to say what we have all felt and to say it so simply.

Abigail McFee is a columnist at the Tufts Daily. She is a senior majoring in English.

She can be reached at abigail.mcfee@ tufts.edu.

8

THE TUFTS DAILY | Arts & Living | Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Tommy Gillespie On Location

A

Brazil

bout halfway through “Aquarius” (2016), protagonist Clara (Sônia Braga) walks with her nephew and his girlfriend out of her apartment in Recife, on the northeast coast of Brazil, down the beach to visit her longtime housekeeper. As they talk, Clara says they are crossing from the wealthier district into the poorer district.

“This sewage pipe is kind of the boundary,” she explains. The bubbling pipe, its discharge predictably aimed toward the poorer section, is only one of the film’s many reminders of the inequality that looms over both middle-class and poor Brazilians.

Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “Aquarius” details the struggle of Clara, a widowed music critic and cancer survivor, as she fights a construction company that intends to redevelop the apartment building where she raised her children. The film’s portrayal of corruption in the Brazilian economy and politics made headlines at Cannes last spring, where the cast and crew protested the impeachment of former President Dilma Rousseff. Their criticism sparked boycotts of the film from the Brazilian right.

Mendonça, a Recife native, injects a distinctly local flair into the film, making generous use of lingering landscape shots of Recife’s beaches and cityscape.

The sets and score communicate a slow, relaxed way of life. However, this slowbut-steady attitude is threatened by an aggressive, businesslike modernity, aided by corruption. Clara’s determination to remain in her building adds an edge to that notion as she fights to maintain a firm connection to the ground she stands on.

The long, questionably legal processes that frame the construction company’s attempts to start work on the other apartments in the building contrast with the long scenes of conversation between Clara and her companions. These scenes are the film’s best, interweaving her views on politics, love, memory, gossip and frustration with both her family’s ambivalence about her situation and what she perceives as a more deeply held ambivalence in Brazilian society. Shots linger and drift between friends, the lively music slows but retains its character and the sets juxtapose past and present. At one point, Clara throws up her hands and laments, “This is so Pernambuco [Recife’s state]. This is so Brazil.”

“Aquarius” is about people, not politics; it is a character-based story about Clara and how she copes with life changes and personal history in the context of modern Brazil. It is a place that is radically different from 10 years ago, much less 20 or 30. Similarly, Clara is a very changed woman compared to her youth. She has fought cancer, lost her husband and built a career all while maintaining her forceful yet joyful self.

Most importantly, Braga and Mendonça both deliver on the film’s central theme: a sense of uncertain certainty, in both Clara’s life and Brazilian society as a whole. The film meanders along, slowly driving home its chief takeaway: that nothing that happens to either Clara or Brazil can be predicted but that whatever happens will be predictably “so Pernambuco” or “so Brazil,” for better or worse.

Tommy Gillespie is a first-year who has not yet declared a major. Tommy can be reached at thomas.gillespie@tufts.edu.

tuftsdaily.com

Works by controversial artist duo re-exhibited 20 years later CHRISTO AND JEANNE-CLAUDE

continued from page 7 could not see into it while the politicians who used the buildings could not see the public outside. Christo and Jeanne-Claude brought civilians’ attention to the building by wrapping it, perhaps also alluding to the fact that the public is only engaged with government when it is absent and fails to do its job. These works have also certainly stirred up their own political controversies. When reports came out that the work “Surrounded Islands” had destroyed some of the ecosystems of the Biscayne Bay in Miami, Christo and Jeanne-Claude went to federal trial over the project. The featured sketches of the project “Over the Arkansas River” also display the artists’ failed projects. The project proposed to install 5.9 miles of silver fabric panels suspended over a 42-mile stretch of the river. The project stirred up so much controversy that a local Colorado environmental group, Rags Over the River, filed

multiple lawsuits against multiple departments and courts in order to prevent the project’s completion.

If these works were meant to be site-specific and engaged with in person, visitors to the Slater Concourse show might wonder why these projects were so well-documented if part of their beauty and purpose rested in their ephemerality. When creating works that often span miles, budgeting is a huge concern.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude did not want to use federal funding because they did not want to be limited in what they could and could not do with their projects. To bolster funding for their projects and to document their processes, Christo and Jeanne Claude sold multiple sketches and drawings as well as photographs of finished projects. Thus, the large-scale temporary works (sometimes only up for two days) would last far beyond their designated times.

“Although the projects sometimes culminate in the physical manifestation of an idea, the success of each project is not dependent upon a finished object. The essence of each project resides within its planning. Because Christo and Jeanne-Claude select public or semi-public sites for their projects, the scope and scale of their operations mimic corporate entities,” the exhibition’s press release noted.

One would imagine that the photos create a completely different effect than that of the large-scale installations, but they also pose some benefits. Our eyes can only see so far and so wide, and the photos bypass the limitations of our vision.

However, the photos and sketches also lack the first-hand experience that only the site-specific installations can procure.

Visitors will have to determine what the works lose or gain through photography and drawing on their own terms.

‘Logan’ is strong character study of an iconic hero LOGAN

continued from page 7 of his heyday, barely trying to survive as he struggles with the past and his uncertain future. Jackman is able to convey Wolverine’s failing and complicated relationship with Charles, his confused feelings about Laura and his struggle to come to terms with his life in a way that feels real without being over the top. His performance is engaging and complex, and we finally get to experience the human side of Wolverine. Notable too is the fact that for most of the movie, he doesn’t go by this name, indicative of his inner struggle.

Other standouts include Stewart’s performance, wretched as it is to watch him play once-great Professor X descending into helplessness, and Keen, whose character’s periods of silence and inner rage speak far louder than any words could.

But the focus of the film, and its genius, remains on Logan/Wolverine. Especially since “Logan” is Jackman’s final film as Wolverine, it is more than a fitting tribute to the character Jackman has grown into over the last 17 years.

Another high point of the film is its adaptation of the American Western genre.

The redemption story “Logan” attempts to tell works perfectly set in a pseudo-Western setting, and it manages to draw on the best aspects of a Western. The action itself feels like a Western, albeit one set in the future, and the fighting sequences are gory but strangely satisfying to watch. Again, though, the focus of the movie is on character development, and by using Western genre conventions, the film is able to perfectly set up Logan as a flawed hero.

Speaking of the plot, although “Logan” is technically a superhero movie, you

wouldn’t recognize it as one most of the time; “Logan” avoids most of the superhero genre’s conventions to great effect, only occasionally falling into clichés, and this further helps the film sing Wolverine’s swan song.

If the movie has a weakness, it lies in some of the supporting characters, who feel underdeveloped and used for special effects. Nevertheless, the movie manages to avoid floundering and ultimately ends on a high note, with the final scene more than heartbreaking and providing Wolverine with a sense of closure. As Jackman says his final lines, the reality of the movie hits home, and by building up to this moment over the course of its runtime, “Logan” becomes an excellent story about the humanity behind superheroes and a fitting finale to the painful, heartbreaking and yet hopeful story of Wolverine.

‘The Great Wall’ has exciting battle scenes, lackluster plot THE GREAT WALL

continued from page 7 meaning and role of the taotie in Chinese mythology is unclear, but showing the potential horror of this mysterious iconography is a creative choice. And when General Shao is killed early on in the film, the constant fighting and scrambling takes a break for a breathtaking funerary scene, in which the soldiers sing mournful dirges, accompanied by those same drums, and release hundreds of paper lanterns into the night.

Upon hearing the storyline of “The Great Wall,” one clear worry is that the movie will devolve into a ‘white savior’ narrative. Fortunately, the film more or less manages to escape it. The interactions between William and the Chinese defense, especially Lin, form a continuous back-and-forth of education and advice instead of consistent teacher and student roles. The practical lessons are typically granted by William and the philosophical lessons by Lin, but while that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, William’s constant heroism and starring role in the Chinese army can be cringeworthy. William’s most significant contribution is harpooning the Tao Tei with whaling practices he’s seen in Spain, while Lin’s most important lesson for William is the value of trust. But the film does not show preference for either; it was, after all, directed by the native Chinese Zhang Yimou and released by the studio China Film Group Corporation in conjunction with Universal Pictures in the United States. Nevertheless, it is impossi-

LEGENDARY / UNIVERSAL

Lu Han plays Peng Yong, a young soldier defending China against the Tao Tei, in ‘The Great Wall.’ ble to ignore the fact that the two leads in a film about the Great Wall of China are white men.

Movies have never existed in a bubble or remained indifferent to their times and “The Great Wall” is no exception. A significant part of President Donald Trump’s campaign platform focused on the growing threat of China, and even a willingness to go to war with that country. This film, by contrast, centers on a story of Westerners and Chinese learning from one another to defeat a common enemy. That common enemy may be lizard creatures, but in this movie it originated from a meteor that crashed thousands of years ago to punish the emperor for abusing his power. Now, as the Wall’s strategist Wang explains, they

come back every 60 years to “remind us of what remains when greed is not checked.”

It’s an appropriate and noble message to send, even if it is mostly hidden by stylized fight scenes and sexual tension between William and Lin. The major problem with “The Great Wall,” however, is that its image of an epic, legendary tale is never resolved. The film begins with onscreen text explaining its mythic origin and the mythic nature of the tales that are about to unfold. But why begin a movie by emphasizing its role as a great mythic tale and then end it without showing the implications of this story in the future?

Nevertheless, overall, “The Great Wall” is a good choice for an amusing action movie with some heart.

9

Wednesday, March 15, 2017 | Comics | THE TUFTS DAILY

tuftsdaily.com

Comics

LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Joe: “I feel like I need to shower after reading this.”

Comics

SUDOKU

GARFIELD

BY JIM DAVIS

NON SEQUITUR

BY WILEY MILLER

Difficulty Level: Waiting patiently for spring to arrive

Monday’s Solution

FOR RELEASE MARCH 15, 2017

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited byCROSSWORD Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis ACROSS 1 Franklin’s faith 6 Civil rights org.

11 Nursery offering 14 More than just saber-rattling 15 Not as well 16 Numero __ 17 1980 Clint Eastwood film about a Wild West show 19 Elton’s title 20 Forward 21 “Isn’t that something” 22 “Hold it right there!”

23 1965 Jerry Lewis/Tony Curtis farce involving flight attendants 26 Prey for cheetahs 29 Little League airer 30 Fishing spot 31 GPS suggestion 33 Milk source 37 Pro 38 Low-budget cinema ... and, literally, the four longest puzzle answers 41 Program file ending 42 Two-step, e.g.

44 College URL ending 45 Lyra’s brightest star 46 Et __ 49 Really dull 51 2005 Christian Bale superhero thriller 55 Jackson 5 hairdo 56 Item under many a top 57 Requiring quarters, briefly 61 __ Mini: Nintendo console 62 2003 Disney animated feature with talking grizzlies 64 Hip-hop Dr. 65 New York mayor before Koch 66 Top-flight 67 “Of course!”

By Mark McClain

68 Asp cousin 69 Robert’s “Out of Africa” role DOWN 1 Puts on gently 2 Basic French verb 3 Victor’s cry 4 Shallows hazard 5 Hip dude 6 Tip of a Bic 7 Set straight 8 Claim 9 Tabloid subjects 10 Snoop 11 Rolls with rice 12 Salad bar sliver 13 Bandanna cousin 18 Like challenging push-ups 22 Go on (one’s way) 24 Comparison phrase 25 Composer’s work 26 Tablet with Mini and Pro versions 27 Flaky mineral 28 Hammer end 32 Genesis matriarch 34 Thoughtprovoking 35 Army vet

3/15/17

Monday’s Solution Tuesday’s Puzzle Solved

©2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

36 Predict using, as tea leaves 38 Banjo legend Fleck 39 “Gotcha, man” 40 Special Olympics founder Shriver 43 Hunter’s garb, for short 45 Easily seen 47 Deep-seated 48 Using one’s passport, say

3/15/17

50 Didn’t sleep quietly 51 Indecent 52 Burning 53 Takes a shot at 54 Cake words Alice abided by 58 Düsseldorf denial 59 Like granola bars 60 W. or LBJ 62 Management major’s deg.

63 __ Honor

10

THE TUFTS DAILY | ADVERTISEMENT | Wednesday, March 15, 2017

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

tuftsdaily.com

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Opinion

11 tuftsdaily.com

OP-ED

Ableism at Tufts and the ‘Life, Animated’ screening

by Aaron Herman

On Feb. 10, the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development hosted a screening of the documentary “Life, Animated” (2016), about an autistic person named Owen Suskind with a special interest in Disney characters.

The Coalition for Autism Support at Tufts (CAST), of which we are officers, agreed to co-sponsor this event.

However, after having participated, we were extremely disappointed by the way it was managed. The event pushed autistic perspectives as far into the margin as possible, which is antithetical to the values of our club.

CAST is a club primarily run by and for autistic Tufts students. We host weekly discussions for autistic students and neurotypical allies, along with larger events aimed at increasing autism acceptance on campus.

Given that part of our mission is to empower the autistic voice, we were hoping that this event would be another opportunity to have our message heard. Instead, it was an opportunity for neurotypical people to pat each other on the back and tell the story of our lives without our input. Having attended the event and participated in the co-sponsorship process as CAST’s discussion coordinator, I would like to tell the story of this event from my autistic perspective and describe what went wrong, in hopes that readers will be able to learn from this debacle.

When Senior Lecturer Julie Dobrow first emailed us on behalf of EliotPearson, she described the “panel of autism experts and activists” that they were planning to assemble and asked us for co-sponsorship. After we agreed, we heard nothing until a month and a half later, when there was a mass email to all co-sponsors, listing the members of a fully-formed panel that was appallingly lacking in the aforementioned ‘activists.’ The panelists were Owen Suskind’s father Ron, who wrote the book on which the film is based, and three academic or medical professionals: Eliot-Pearson Associate Professor Calvin “Chip” Gidney, Associate Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard School of Public Health Michael Rich and Boston Medical Center’s Autism Resource Program Coordinator Lauren Bartolotti (G ’12). Not a single panel member was autistic.

We emailed back, asking for autistic people from our club to be included on the panel. Professor Dobrow replied that the department would love to have “a speaker” from CAST included.

One autistic speaker to serve as the sole representative of all autistic people. One autistic speaker on a panel of five. Did we get what we wanted?

Could we really justify asking for more?

We picked Justin Robbins, our club president and our most expe-

rienced speaker. Professor Dobrow’s plan for the panel was to pose questions to panelists herself, then open up to questions from the audience.

She asked Ron Suskind two questions, each other neurotypical person one and Justin none. She took two questions from the audience, the second of which was mine. Other than my question, Justin was never given the opportunity to speak. In addition, after anyone else was done speaking, Ron Suskind would jump in and talk uninterrupted for a long time, as though he automatically had the floor. Thus, Ron got the vast majority of the speaking time, whereas Justin barely got a word in. Here is Justin’s description of how he felt at the event and how he chose to respond: “When you’re autistic, there’s one thing you’re never taught in social skills classes: what to do when someone else messes up. That’s how I felt at the ‘Life, Animated’ screening. When I was passed over by the moderator, I knew something was wrong. Listening to the simple questions, my own sidelining and Ron Suskind’s near-continuous talking and interrupting, I realized what the entire event was: a self-congratulating publicity opportunity for Mr. Suskind.

I was miserable. I was anxious. I was panicking. How are you supposed to navigate that social situation? How are you supposed to raise your voice when the expected behavior screams silence? I had to interrupt, every chance I got. I had to pick out the millisecond-long lulls in monologue and jump in perfectly, passing it all off as casual and affable. I had to do this every chance I got.

I wrote to Professor Dobrow, explaining my concerns. She responded by claiming she did ask me a question. I asked multiple people in attendance about this, and none of us recall her alleged question. I was led to question my own memory of events I witnessed based on the false statements of Professor Dobrow. This is gaslighting.

My name is Justin Robbins. I am the co-founder and president of the Coalition for Autism Support at Tufts.

I am an autistic advocate. I am not your diversity token. I am not your bauble. I am not an object to be exploited so that you can feel better about yourself. I sat down at that panel ready for a nuanced discussion of the film’s strengths, weaknesses and implications. Instead, I got a deluge of ableism. I am disappointed, but I am not defeated. We will not allow that hypocritical and prejudiced behavior to silence us. We have been through far too much to let that happen.”

It should be obvious that Justin was treated extremely rudely before, during and after the event. I now want to explore the ways in which, as Justin mentioned, ableism factored into this

situation. Justin’s mistreatment bears a great deal of similarity to the ways that autistic people have been mistreated countless times.

With “Life, Animated,” Mr. Suskind cements himself in the grand tradition of neurotypical people profiting off autistic experiences. From “Rain Man” (1988) to “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” (2011), this tradition stretches back as far as psychiatric recognition of autism. The authors in this tradition have been accepted in our culture as more worthy to portray, in intimate detail, the thoughts and feelings of their autistic protagonists. Their voices are amplified over those of autistic people, despite these authors’ at times reckless disregard for the authenticity of their descriptions.

Thus the necessity of having autistic people on the panel. We asked for autistic representation, because we saw that a film about an autistic person would be presented by neurotypical people to other neurotypical people, and we could not in good conscience allow that to happen in a public forum without a member of our community there to provide critical analysis.

Why a member of our community?

Because we autistic self-advocates are the foremost experts on portrayals of autism in the media. We know what it is like to be autistic because we are autistic. We know which types of portrayals of autistic people are empowering and which are damaging, because we directly face the consequences of the ways in which the media chooses to portray us. No one else, not even a Pulitzer Prize winner, can claim to be better qualified to make judgment calls about those topics than autistic people themselves.

However, the experience of being denied a voice by neurotypical people who think they are qualified to speak for us is all too common. People with degrees or professional experience tend to think that because they wrote, or at least read, the book on autism, they don’t have to consider first-person perspectives. Parents of autistic people tend to assert that because they know their children so well, they should be able to speak on their children’s behalf with just as much authority. The public subscribes to both of these beliefs, but they are misguided. A parent can love, understand and listen to their child, but they are not their child. No matter how much they ‘get it,’ they will never be more qualified to talk about autism than an autistic person, and they should recognize that in their thoughts and actions.

Ron did not do this. It was clear from his conduct at the screening that he supposed himself to be the automatic and default center of attention and did not consider the autistic person five feet away from him to be anything but a prop to further elevate himself, his work and his organi-

zation, Sidekicks. After Justin spoke, Ron would say, “I love this guy!” or he would wax inspirational about the incredible resilience of autistic people in their eternal struggle to communicate. Everything he said was presumptuous or condescending. I hope Ron will forgive me if I don’t find it particularly inspiring how Owen, Justin and I are forced by society, on pain of eternal loneliness, to develop strategies for communicating with others. As I sat in the audience watching a parent’s voice prioritized over an autistic person’s, I couldn’t help but feel that it was symbolic of the way autistic people are treated in the wider world.

When Professor Dobrow came up to Justin and thanked him after the panel ended, I wondered: What was she thanking him for? Given how she treated him, it certainly couldn’t be that she actually wanted to hear him speak. If Justin was not at the event to speak or to be asked his opinion, then why was he there? Was he there as a prop for Eliot-Pearson so that the department could appear politically correct? Was he there as a prop for Ron Suskind so that he could self-promote and advertise his company? Was Professor Dobrow thanking Justin for allowing himself to be used?

To truly amend this situation will require more than just words. An apology might make Justin and I feel slightly better, but it wouldn’t do anything for the people who sat with me in the ASEAN Auditorium that afternoon, and it certainly wouldn’t do anything for the multitude of autistic people who have experiences like ours. A promise not to make the same mistake next time wouldn’t help either, since I expect that CAST will be wary about collaborating with academic departments from now on. If you are reading this op-ed as a member of the department and feel directly or indirectly responsible for what happened, here are ways you can show it: Read about ableism and how it pervades academia. Read about the intersections of ableism with other identities. Identify the ways that the organizations you work for or run perpetuate ableism and do your part to end it. Impress upon your colleagues and students the importance of listening to autistic voices. Advocate against autism ‘treatments’ that are really abuse and against autism ‘charities’ that are really hate groups. Do all these things even when you’re not facing a challenge to your reputation or an attack on your character; do them more than you need to. Then, maybe we’ll believe you when you say you have our interests at heart.

As it stands, though, we’re sick of being silenced, and we won’t be coming back for a second helping any time soon.

Aaron Herman is a senior majoring in music. Aaron can be reached at aaron. herman@tufts.edu.

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12

THE TUFTS DAILY | Opinion | Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Khuyen Bui Dear Jumbo

Y

Vu Deja

ou may have heard of Deja Vu, but have you heard of its alter ego, Vu Deja? If Deja Vu is the feeling of having already experienced a seemingly new situation, then Vu Deja is the exact opposite. It is seeing something we already know as if it were the first time.

I first experienced this at a silent meditation retreat. Sitting still with my eyes closed for several hours got really boring. I had no choice but to stay with that boredom, because I’d signed myself up for the challenge and I was too ashamed to quit.

After the first day, I told my meditation teacher about it, to which he said, “You have to explore what boredom is.”

That frustrated me even more. I protested, “What else is there besides the fact that I’m really bored?”

I’m glad I sat through it for the next few days, for I now know boredom more intimately. What I first thought of as boredom was a kind of numbness, a thick fuzzy blanket that I could not see through. My untrained mind was like a low-resolution camera; no matter how much I tried to zoom in, I could not enhance the scene. Only when I sharpened my concentration could I see the vast sea of details under that blanket.

I emerged from the retreat with a profound insight. *Boredom is a sign of inattention.* As such, the antidote to boredom is the freshness of the moment. In other words, it is Vu Deja. *Who cares? Why do I need to see everything fresh?* The short answer is it makes life more fascinating. If you ever skip around Netflix too much, you know how dissatisfying that feels. It is like going to a restaurant, flipping the menu pages and then leaving hungry.

Vu Deja can also cure FOMO. By definition, FOMO happens when we fantasize something new *out there* instead of appreciating what is *in here.* Vu Deja is getting so absorbed in the moment that you forget about time and place.

It goes even deeper than making you enjoy Netflix more. When practiced at a more advanced level, Vu Deja becomes a life orientation. It is fascination by default. What allows one to see opportunity while another sees banality? Vu Deja.

Vu Deja is noticing a falling leaf and then dancing with it. It is seeing your best friend for the 1,000th time as if it were the first time. It is yelling at boredom, “I don’t believe you are boring!”

The bad news is that Vu Deja is not easy. While endlessly chasing after something new is way too tempting, looking at the same thing with a stubborn fascination takes disciplined practice. But the reward is better, for if we know how to appreciate, we will never cease to see the magic behind the mundane parts of life.

The good news is that you don’t have to go to a meditation retreat to learn it.

In fact, it’s better practiced in daily life.

The next time you are in a conversation with someone, take a brief pause to savor the moment. Look at their nose and how it is expanding and contracting, and remember to write me at bit. ly/dearJumbo Khuyen Bui is a senior majoring in computer science. He can be reached at g.khyen@gmail.com.

tuftsdaily.com

EDITORIAL

ResLife staffing problems require reform Greek life is only one of many aspects of student life being examined by the Student Life Review Committee. Other facets of student life, including residential strategy and experience at Tufts, are also under examination.

The Office of Residential Life and Learning’s (ResLife) bungling of their Sophomore Survey — the same editable Google Docs document was sent to the entire sophomore class — serves as a reminder that ResLife’s practices also need review. The survey document released quickly became an unintelligible mess until ResLife revised it.

ResLife is one of the most vital departments on campus, and it therefore deserves a high level of scrutiny.

Almost every student lives in dorms operated by ResLife for at least two years. For students living on campus, the office plays a huge role in determining their residential experience.

This is why it is so troubling to hear the various issues Resident Assistants (RAs) have had with ResLife. RAs have highlighted several specific issues, including disjointed communication and unclear expectations from upper-level staff, and many said they would not recommend the position to others. More worryingly, however, many RAs have had negative experi-

ences with central office staff — which includes ResLife Director Yolanda King, Associate Director of ResLife Jerome Holland, Jr. and Assistant Director for Community and Judicial Affairs Carrie Ales — and see them as immune to criticism.

RAs have expressed concerns about a lack of support from ResLife. For the entire fall 2016 semester, there was no Area Residence Director (ARD) for Area 1. Former ARD Tanya Mascary left at the end of spring 2016, according to a Sept. 14 Daily article, and ResLife could not find a replacement. It was an entire semester before Graduate Residence Directors were hired for the Area 1 buildings in the spring.

Through the entire fall semester and until the spring semester when GRDs were hired, Holland oversaw the area.

It is too much to ask for an associate director who already has to manage the more than 3,000 students living in residential housing to also directly manage and supervise 21 RAs. These staffing issues have been going on for the past two years. An Oct. 1, 2015 Daily article highlighted the understaffing problem ResLife faced at that time, and this issue still persists.

For example, before this academic year started, former ResLife

STRONG AND SILENT

NOAH KULAK

Programming Coordinator Liz Hartford left Tufts for another institution. That position, according to the ResLife website, still remains vacant. The current special projects coordinator, Brittney Washington, only joined the team in February, resulting in another semester-long vacancy in the position during the fall 2016 semester.

Why have these structural staffing problems continued?

RAs and their direct supervisors evaluate each other and deliver those evaluations to the central office staff, which includes Holland, King and Ales.

However, there are no formal evaluations of ResLife leadership nor formal procedures for RAs and their direct supervisors to level complaints they may have about central office staff members.

Moving forward, the Student Life Review Committee should create systems to supervise all areas of ResLife staff. This would enable RAs and other students to give more honest and critical feedback, which they cannot do currently.

For students at Tufts who have suggestions for the committee, contact information is available at http:// president.tufts.edu/student-life-review-committee/.

Wednesday, March 15, 2017 | Opinion | THE TUFTS DAILY

Opinion

MARTY WALSH ADVOCATES FOR GAY VETERANS

Nesi Altaras Looking In

P

SHANNON GEARY

The Tufts Daily wants to hear from you!

Have a problem with our coverage?

Upset about something happening at Tufts or in the community?

The Daily welcomes all thoughts, opinions and complaints from all readers. Have your voice heard!

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13

Jon Ossoff

resident Donald Trump recently appointed Representative Tom Price (R-GA) to serve as his Health and Human Services secretary. After he got confirmed, his seat, the sixth congressional district of Georgia, was officially open.

Georgia’s sixth is a mostly white, conservative suburb of Atlanta and has had Republican congressmen for the last generation. Price won the district by a huge margin every time he ran, as did Mitt Romney in 2012. But here’s the catch: Trump won the district by one point over Clinton, 48 to 47. This is what’s giving Democrats hope: to flip traditionally conservative suburbs of large cities to take back the House. Trump lost a lot of these mostly educated districts across the country that were supposed to be safely Republican.

GA-6 is one of these districts. Besides being traditionally conservative, they’re also above the national and state average for being college educated. When they reelected Tom Price, they expected Hillary to be in the White House, but now that Trump’s president, the 47 percent who voted for Hillary could send in a Democrat to check Trump if they turn out enough voters for the special election.

Enter Jon Ossoff: a Georgetowneducated former congressional staffer and local of the district. He is a Democrat running to replace Price. Georgia has a jungle primary system, so candidates from both parties will run in the primary and the top two vote-getters will go to a run-off if no one takes more than 50 percent in the primary.

Democrats across the country are so energized that Jon Ossoff has raised millions of dollars in only a few weeks. After Daily Kos sent out a fundraising call for him, he broke their fundraising record, raising more than the previous record set

by Elizabeth Warren.

The special election is set for April 18 and Democrats are hoping for Ossoff to place into the top two. His election is the national bellwether for the Democratic strategy to take back the House. Democrats are 24 seats short of a majority in the House of Representatives.

With the current gerrymandered state of most districts (due to Republican control of redistricting after the 2010 census), there are not a lot of seats even in the range of possibility for Democrats. If Ossoff can pull off a pretty surprising and unexpected win in Georgia’s sixth, it will give a lot of momentum to Democrats running in conservative suburbs everywhere and it will scare Republicans into taking this new Democratic strategy seriously. Right now, Republicans are not scared. They are not taking this strategy seriously.

If Democrats can turn out enough voters for Ossoff, they have a shot at winning, which will take money and organizing. Money has been rolling into Ossoff’s campaign from progressives around the country and so has support from local Democrats in the Atlanta area.

So, pay attention to Jon Ossoff’s campaign on April 18. If he does win, that means Democrats have a chance in 2018 to finally take back the House of Representatives.

Nesi Altaras is a sophomore majoring in international relations and economics.

Nesi can be reached at nesi.altaras@ tufts.edu.

14

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Wednesday, March 15, 2017 | Sports | THE TUFTS DAILY

S p o rts

Undefeated Jumbos look to stay atop NESCAC MEN'S LACROSSE

continued from back page torically one of the top teams in the always-tough NESCAC and conference runner-up behind Tufts last season. The scoreline was even through the first and second quarters, which finished 4-4 and 6-6, respectively.

Hollen struggled early, with Middlebury winning the first seven face-offs. Defense faced a lot of pressure to get turnovers to give Tufts offensive possession. But the Jumbo defense performed well and Tufts got the first goal in the competition when sophomore attackman Ben Connelly found the far right corner of the net.

The Panthers answered twice with a fast-break goal off a face-off possession and then a low and away goal. The Jumbos drew level at 2-2 via a goal, but it was short-lived, as the Panthers made it 4-2 off scores on back-to-back possessions. “[I] can’t say enough positive things about the face-off unit (including the wings) that [fights] to get our offense the ball and, in turn, protect our defense,” Mattson told the Daily in an email.

“If they statistically had a tough game against Middlebury, I didn’t notice, as all I remember was those guys getting their knuckles dirty in the snow and ice, picking up ground balls and fighting to get our team possession.”

When senior defenseman Tyler Carbone was called for slashing, the Jumbos were dealt their first man-down situation in the game. Against the odds, however, senior co-captain Tyler Olney forced a turnover in the defense, took the ball the entire length of the field and found junior midfielder Holden Rosen Grupp, who was completely unmarked next to the goal. Finally, senior midfielder Lucas Johnson fired a bounce shot past the keeper to level the score before the end of the quarter.

The second quarter was slow for both teams in terms of scoring and the play was wrought with turnover

after turnover. Both Middlebury goals scored in the half were on fast breaks, and it was a full seven minutes before either team found the net. Murphy grabbed a goal off a behind-the-back feed from Connelly, and Lucas Johnson scored another bounce shot for the other, but Middlebury leveled to make it 6-6 into the half.

“We play in a way that is advantageous to having a transition game. We like to push transition a lot,” Richman said. “We have a lot of good playmakers that are able to make plays when we aren’t necessarily in a set offense.

[Friday] benefitted us because we played a lot that way, so we were able to push and take advantage of that.”

The Jumbos finally saw progress in the third quarter, with tough battles fought on both ends of the field. Junior goalkeeper Robert Trieber chased two balls off the back line to repossess the ball for the Jumbos at key moments in the game. On the attacking end, Mattson went to town on the Middlebury defense, scoring three identical goals in a row, favoring a low release rising shot that fooled the goalkeeper every time. Five other Jumbos scored in the quarter – Richman, Connelly, Murphy, Mathers and Cordrey — to generate a 14-9 advantage.

“We would prefer to attack when it’s unsettled, and we like chaos out there,” D’Annolfo said. “So any time that that happens it’s to our advantage.”

The Panthers had four goals in the final quarter, but two more scores from Mattson maintained the Jumbo lead as the hosts held on for the 16-13 win.

Last Wednesday’s competition against the Keene State Owls had a big turnout thanks to mild temperatures and a sunny day, and the Jumbos gave their fans a show, scoring 24 goals to the Owls’ 16. Keene State opened the scoring, largely thanks to unmarked players playing low in the attack. However, senior attackman Austin Carbone answered with back-to-back goals, one

assisted by his twin brother Tyler, to erase the deficit.

“Personally, I see it more as a hardfought first quarter than a letdown from any phase of our game,” Mattson said. “Keene is a tough opponent who we respect a lot. They came out swinging and we had to swing back. We like our chances when we continue to apply pressure on the opposing team, which I think we continued to do in the second quarter.”

Early in the second quarter, the Owls extended their lead to three goals, scoring seven times to the Jumbos’ four, but the Jumbos went 7-1 in the final nine minutes of the half to take the lead. Mattson scored three, Connelly and junior attackman Andrew Seiter both took advantage of man-ups and Cordrey and Lucas Johnson both found the net to grow the lead to 11-8 at halftime. Meanwhile in the defensive end, sophomore goalkeeper Ben Shmerler made seven key saves that kept the Jumbos competitive.

The third quarter was slow for both teams, with two goals apiece, but the fourth quarter made up for it with Tufts outscoring Keene 11-6. Ten different Jumbos scored, with Cordrey the only repeat scorer in the quarter. Olney and junior attackman Nico Pollack both netted the first goals of their seasons, while Katz, Hollen, Murphy and Richman rounded out the scoring for the game.

Statistically, the Jumbos dominated all three games, taking more shots, winning more ground balls and completing more clears than their opponents in all three match-ups. Now, every single Jumbo on the roster has seen playing time, and D’Annolfo hopes the trend will continue as the season goes on.

Tufts faces Colby (1-2 overall, 1-1 NESCAC) in Maine on Saturday. With no weekday games this week, the Jumbos are enjoying a nice break after an uncommonly busy stretch of four games in eight days to start the season.

Fifth, eighth place NCAA finishes highlights for Jumbos in indoor season WOMEN’S TRACK

continued from back page was just enough to propel her into an All-American honors spot, earning Bowman her second All-American honors after being named an AllAmerican in cross-country earlier this fall. Bowman’s time in this race was also a personal record of over four sec-

onds from her previous banked track time. Junior Taryn Cordani of Ithaca College finished first in the event with a time of 16:28.15.

Bowman started the race strong, running in fifth place after the first 1,000 meters.

“I tried to pace myself throughout the race, I tried to be smart about it.

RAY BERNOFF / THE TUFTS DAILY

Senior Alice Wasserman competes in the second 4,000-meter DMR heat at the New England Div. III Indoor Championship at MIT’s Johnson Athletic Center on Feb. 18.

Throughout the whole race I was anywhere from sixth to eighth,” Bowman said.

She settled in after that and heading into the final 1,000 meters of the race Bowman sat in 10th place. However, just 200 meters later she had managed to push ahead of runners Katherine Treanor, a firstyear from Amherst College, and Erin Artz, a senior from St. Norbert College. Artz continued to push Bowman for the rest of the race, never falling behind by more than a handful of seconds on their splits, but in the final 200-meter push Bowman edged out Artz to finish ahead of her by less than two seconds and earn the final coveted scoring and All-American position.

Bowman and DeBari will now likely take a short but deserved break while the the Jumbos prepare for the beginning of their outdoor season, which they will kick off in Las Vegas, Nev. at their Spring Break meet on Saturday.

Morwick is optimistic about the team heading into the outdoor half of the season and hopes to improve on the success of indoor.

“We are looking forward to a great spring and are hoping to improve significantly on the indoor season,” Morwick said. “We had a ton of injuries and with all those kids back and healthy, we should have an awesome outdoor season.”

15

Sam Nowicki Teeing Off

I

O Canada!

n a day that was supposed to be calm and clear for the native son of our neighbor to the north, Adam Hadwin sure made himself earn his first career PGA Tour win. But, he did earn it (as well as the praise of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau).

Hadwin entered the final round of the Valspar Championship, hosted at Innisbrook Resort in beautiful Palm Harbor, Fla., with a four-shot lead. The Canadian took that four-shot lead to the through the first eight holes, but from there things became interesting.

Patrick Cantlay began a chase of the leader with birdies at 10, 11, 13 and 14, closing the lead to one stroke. And after Hadwin double bogeyed the 16th (Cantlay bogeyed the 15th to give one back), the two were tied for the lead at 14-under par.

But, on the final hole of the tournament, Cantlay hit his approach into the green-side bunker and failed to get up and down. The dropped shot here cost him a shot at a playoff for the championship, as Hadwin easily brushed in a two-footer for par to win the Valspar.

Hadwin is a first time winner on the tour this season, a new trend for a year that had been thoroughly dominated by superstars. This week continued another trend that this writer can’t state enough: the exceptional play of Wesley Bryan. The former Gamecock finished tied for seventh with Henrik Stenson, earning another $200,000+ in winnings and securing his card for next season.

This finish will likely move Bryan (previously 78th) inside the top 75 in the world golf rankings, but the question for Bryan is how far inside the top 75 can he get. Next week’s event is the Arnold Palmer Invitational; it will be followed by a World Golf ChampionshipDell Match Play Championship, which extends invitations to the top 64 golfers in the world rankings. These two high-profile events could move Bryan inside the top 50 in the world (with good finishes), thus securing him an invitation to The Masters in 23 days.

Hadwin joins great company with his victory at Innisbrook. Most notably, he joins Jordan Spieth, who won the event in 2015 just weeks before he began his incredible major run with his victory at The Masters. Hadwin will also receive an invitation to Augusta because of his victory as well as a cool $1.1 million in winnings. Oh and also, Hadwin is getting married in a couple weeks… guess it’s time to upgrade the honeymoon plans?

Also this week, the European Tour traveled to India for the Hero Indian Open. SSP Chawrasia, from India, took home the title in New Delhi.

The European Tour continued its swing through the Middle East and Australasia as the tour seeks warmer, friendlier climates. Next up for the Euros is the WGC-Match Play in Texas in 2 weeks and then The Masters in four weeks. The European Tour finally comes home to Europe, after more stops in Africa and China, in May, when it returns to the Centurion Club in St. Albans, England.

Sam Nowicki is a junior majoring in biochemistry. Sam can be reached at samuel. nowicki@tufts.edu.

16 tuftsdaily.com

Sports

Bradley Schussel The Coin Toss

MEN'S LACROSSE

Tufts at 4-0 after three wins in one week

Madness!

by Maddie Payne

W

Sports Editor

The No. 3 Jumbos are 4-0 after sweeping all three match-ups of the last week, including their first — and likely their toughest — conference match-up of the regular season against the then12th-ranked Middlebury Panthers. Tufts matched the program’s sixth-highest single-game goal total in a 24-16 win in the home opener against Keene State, then overcame Middlebury 16-13 and undefeated Endicott 18-10.

The Jumbos heated up early on Sunday despite sub-zero temperatures with the wind chill on Bello Field, scoring five goals in the first three minutes against the Endicott Gulls. Sophomore attackman Danny Murphy shined in the opening minutes, picking up two unassisted goals, both scored off crease rolls.

The Endicott defense was rife with mistakes, with their own goalie knocking the ball off the back line, handing the Jumbos a free possession. After senior attackman Zach Richman made it 3-0 off an assist from sophomore attackman John Cordrey with 13:11 on the clock, the Gulls called a timeout, but the Jumbos went on to add five more goals before the end of the quarter.

“We knew we didn’t want to come out slowly, so we had the mentality to start fast, and I think we did that,” Richman said. “The face-off and defense did a great job to make stops and get the ball to the offense early on in the game.”

Rounding out the scoring in the first quarter, sophomore attackman Nick Katz ripped a shot from 12-15 yards out, taking advantage of a pick, and Murphy added three more, all unassisted, to bring the score to 7-1. Katz added another long-range shot, finding the top left corner to make it eight. Endicott got a goal back, but the Jumbos maintained an 8-2 advantage heading into the second quarter.

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

Last week, I made some NFL free agency predictions, two of which have already been busted. Alshon Jeffery signed with the Eagles (I had Titans) and A.J. Bouye signed with the Jaguars (I had Texans). We’re still waiting on Dont’a Hightower, Jamaal Charles and Adrian Peterson to make their decisions.

I usually do professional sports, but it’s a special time of year: March Madness starts this week! I thought I’d share some upset predictions for the round of 64. These picks are in my bracket, so you know I’m not just throwing them out there. Let’s get to it.

COURTESY JUMBOS LAX TV

First-year attackman Matt Treiber moves the ball downfield in the game against Endicott on March 12.

Twenty seconds into the second quarter, the Jumbos added another goal when senior co-captain defenseman Tucker Mathers drew the double team and fed wide-open Richman in front of the net.

The Jumbos rained shots on the Gulls, with six coming in a two-minute window, before the seventh by senior attackman Michael Mattson finally found the net.

A minute later, Mattson added a second.

For the rest of the half and into the first minute of the third quarter, Murphy played tag with Endicott senior attackman Will Jennings, with Murphy scoring three times for the Jumbos, each followed by a goal from Jennings.

The streak brought Murphy’s total to seven goals on the day, six of which were unassisted, to go along with a pair of assists.

Coach Casey D’Annolfo praised sophomore face-off specialist Henry Hollen for his performance at the face-off X. “That’s the way that we normally want to play. [Hollen] did a really great job at the face-off X and won us the

balls that got us early possessions,” D’Annolfo said. “Our attack and midfielders were fantastic, taking a lot of quick opportunities. We like to play at that tempo and attack like that.”

The second half saw a host of bench players get playing time, including every first-year on the roster but one.

D’Annolfo emphasized that giving the whole roster more game experience was a priority, and the starters on Sunday gave the team a chance to do this by generating a 14-4 lead by halftime.

The Jumbo offense slowed down in the second half, but Mattson added a third goal and the team capitalized on three man-up opportunities. Despite the Gulls scoring six goals, with sophomore midfielder Bryan MacManus scoring four, the Jumbos were too far ahead to be caught, and the contest ended 18-10.

Friday night was a tougher competition for Tufts, with Middlebury hissee MEN'S LACROSSE, page 15

WOMEN’S TRACK

Bowman, DeBari earn All-American honors at NCAA Championships

by Sam Weidner

Assistant Sports Editor

Heading into last weekend’s NCAA Div. III Indoor National Championship meet, coach Kristen Morwick said the biggest obstacles facing Tufts’ two runners, juniors Brittany Bowman and Annalisa DeBari, would be mental.

“Both Britt [Bowman] and Nal [DeBari] know what they need to do to prepare for their races. They are healthy and excited to compete,” Morwick told the Daily in an email the Tuesday before the meet. “The toughest part is just waiting for Friday.”

However, their nerves did not seem to affect them too much as both DeBari and Bowman capped off their first track national championship races by becoming first-time All-Americans.

On Saturday DeBari ran a time of 8.86 seconds in the 60-meter hurdles to take fifth place and earn the All-American honors awarded to the top eight competitors. Senior Rachael Kraske of

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

George Fox University took first place in the event with a time of 8.63 seconds. DeBari’s run came a day after her prelim time of 8.87 seconds, which qualified DeBari for the final, seeding her fifth. These runs are just the second and third times ever that DeBari has run the 60-meter hurdles in under nine seconds, with the first time coming last weekend at the Tufts Last Chance meet where she ran a time of 8.85, a personal record of 0.21 seconds and the time that propelled her to qualifying for nationals. Before the season DeBari had never run a time faster than 9.33 seconds in the event and even going into the Last Chance meet her time of 9.06 seconds was ranked 36th in the nation, 19 spots out of qualifying.

Morwick spoke to DeBari’s confidence while running over the weekend, saying it allowed her to remain consistent in her times despite never having run that fast before last week.

“Annalisa was seeded eighth going into the meet, but we knew it would be

really tough to make the final given it was her first time running at Nationals.

She ran a great trial, finishing second in the first heat (to the eventual winner) in 8.87,” Morwick wrote. “In the final, despite hitting two hurdles, she ran 8.86 to finish fifth. The top four athletes in the race are all seniors, as well as the two athletes behind her.

They had all been to NCAAs before and that experience is huge. For her to be top five in her first attempt at NCAAs is incredible.”

On Friday, in addition to DeBari’s preliminary heat run, Bowman competed for the Jumbos in the 5,000-mete race. Because of the strain running the 5k can put on a runner, there is no prelim, but simply one final heat competed in by 17 athletes.

Bowman ran a time of 17:06.47 on the banked track, placing eighth in the race despite coming in being seeded 13th. The five-position jump see WOMEN’S TRACK, page 15

West Region: 10 VCU over 7 Saint Mary’s VCU has always been a tournament team that loves being the underdog. It’s no longer under coach Shaka Smart, but this team has the same kind of grit and tenacity that it did back in its final four run back in 2011. I won’t say that the Rams will get quite far, as they’d likely have to face Arizona in the second round. However, I do think they can make it out of the first. VCU has a solid defense that forces almost 15 turnovers per game. The St. Mary’s offense depends on moving the ball.

If the Rams can make it a sloppy contest, they should come out on top. Additionally, St. Mary’s only had two wins against top 50 WPI teams this season. That lack of success in big game situations could seriously hurt the Gaels in the tournament. That’s why I think they’re due for a first-round exit against VCU. Midwest Region: 11 URI over 6 Creighton Creighton comes into the tournament off of a loss to Villanova in the Big East Championship game. It had a strong showing in that game, and it did make it to the championship round. However, Creighton was only 10-8 this season in its conference. The Blue Jays finished the season with a 25-9 record and are facing a tough team in the URI Rams. Suffice it to say I like the teams with “Rams” as their nickname to get upsets. URI has a good chance to win this game. It holds its opponents to 64.9 PPG on average, and that stout defense will go a long way against a team like Creighton. After all, that’s what doomed Creighton in its loss to Villanova; it was held to only 60 points. Additionally, the Rams have a few capable scorers and are a great rebounding team. I’m taking the 11th-seeded URI in this match-up.

West Region: 11 Xavier over 6 Maryland Maryland was a somewhat surprising pick as a sixth seed. It came into the tournament 24-8 with a team largely made up of first-years. This is what I think will be the team’s demise. Kemba Walker led a group of first-years to a championship with UConn.

I don’t think Melo Trimble will be able to do the same for the Terrapins. Additionally, I think Maryland will lose to an 11th seeded Xavier. The Musketeers struggled toward the end of the season but got a few big wins leading up to the tournament, one of which was over Butler in the Big East tournament. Butler went on to earn a fourth seed in the South Region. Xavier is a team with veterans that have been tested on big stages. Maryland simply doesn’t have that.

That’s why I chose this game for an upset.

The pick is in: Xavier over Maryland.

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