The Tufts Daily - Wednesday, August 28, 2019

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Tufts community remembers former student Sam Lobley see FEATURES / PAGE 9

TUFTS ATHLETICS PREVIEW

Jumbos anticipate competitive fall season

MFA exhibit considers photography, industrialization, modernity see ARTS&LIVING / PAGE 16

SEE SPORTS / BACK PAGE

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T HE T UFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXXVIII, ISSUE 1

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

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Tiered housing implemented as CoHo’s final phase opens its doors by Madison Reid

Assistant News Editor

The start of this school year marks both the end of construction on Tufts’ latest housing development and the implementation of a major new housing policy. According to the Tufts Student Life (TSL) website, the anticipated tiered housing policy, which will change on-campus housing prices based on quality, is to be implemented in the 2019 –20 school year. In an email to the Daily, Josh Hartman, director of residential life and learning (ORLL), confirmed that the new housing development Community Housing (CoHo), which is set to be on the highest tier, is open for move-in. Tiered housing at Tufts Per the TSL website, accommodations in the lowest housing tier, which include traditional doubles, triples, quads and first-year singles, cost $8,220 per school year. CoHo joins Sophia Gordon Hall in the top tier, with housing costs clocking in at $10,219 for the school year, according to the TSL website. In an email to the Daily, Patrick Collins, executive director of public relations at Tufts, stated that 73% of Tufts housing options are at the “base rate,” meaning the lowest tier. “This includes all first-year spaces (including first year singles), FYA/CDA spaces, traditional doubles/triples/quads, and woodframe doubles or triples (no kitchen),” Collins said. Students have been vocal about the tiered housing policy. According to a November

2018 Daily article, nearly 200 students, faculty and community members protested tiered housing with a march on Ballou Hall. The article reports that the march was followed by workshops, teach-ins, performances and a community dinner on the academic quad. As part of the protest, student activists set up “Tier Town,” a group of tents in the academic quad representing the lowest tiered housing at Tufts. One concern around tiered housing was the fear that it may drive more students to seek off-campus housing, according to a July 2018 article in the Medford Transcript. Rocco DiRico, director of government and community relations at Tufts, said in an email to the Daily that he hasn’t seen this concern come to fruition. “We have not seen more students move off-campus as a result of tiered housing. There is still excess demand for on-campus housing, which we are trying to accomodate by adding more beds,” DiRico said. “Generally speaking, our neighbors in Medford and Somerville are supportive of our efforts to create more housing for our students.” The tiered housing page on the TSL website states that the Financial Aid Office does not disclose the names of those who do and do not receive financial aid to the ORLL. According to the Collins, 40% of Tufts students receive financial aid from the school. Forty percent of the students in standard rate rooms receive financial aid, and 48% of the students in tiered-priced rooms receive financial aid.

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22 Bellevue St., one of the houses designated for CoHo living, is pictured here on Feb. 1. Community Housing (CoHo) project In an email to the Daily, Hartman confirmed that the 14 CoHo houses listed on the TSL website are completed and ready for students to move-in this fall, marking the completion of the last of three phases.

The houses are located behind Wren Hall between Capen Street and Boston Avenue. Furnished houses includes single bedrooms, full kitchens, living rooms, community lounges and laundry rooms.

see COHO, page 4

News roundup: Top headlines of last year by Elie Levine News Editor

Bookended by the national midterm elections in November 2018 and the end of the Tufts Dining workers’ contract campaign in April, the past academic year was rife with Tufts-specific controversies as well as large-scale events. The following is a rundown of the biggest stories on the Hill last year. August and September In late August, the Class of 2022 arrived on campus as Tufts’ most diverse class of incoming first-years ever at that time — now, the Class of 2023 is even more diverse. The start of the academic year was marked by Ayanna Pressley’s historic defeat of Representative Michael Capuano in the 2018 Democratic Primary for Massachusetts’

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Seventh Congressional District, which includes Tufts. In the following months, Pressley would visit the university for a Tisch College of Civic Life lecture and a childcare panel, as part of Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s “Speaker in the House” series. She is the first AfricanAmerican woman to serve in Congress for Massachusetts. The fall also saw several changes to spaces on and around campus. Tufts began its year-long renovation of Barnum Hall, while Tufts Housing League pushed back against the university’s announcement of a new tiered housing system that raised prices for higher-quality student housing. Construction continued on the Green Line Extension, leading to the year-long closure of the Ball Square Bridge in Somerville.

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The university administration overhauled its student code of conduct and followed up with students to solicit feedback. These revised policies led to protests in October, eventually leading to a policy change in December. Ahead of Election Day, student activists pushed to support transgender rights through the Yes on 3 campaign. Later, the Somerville Board of Aldermen unanimously approved the campaign’s resolution. On Sept. 21, 2018, the university announced that it had renewed its contract with the Confucius Institute despite growing controversy around the institute’s ties to the Chinese government. October On Oct. 2, 2018, journalist and Saudi expatriate Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in Istanbul, prompting Tufts professors to reconsider how they taught about the kingdom.

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The Office of Residential Life and Learning hosted the first event in its semester-long series of information sessions on off-campus housing, headed by new Assistant Director for Housing Operations Angelic Sosa. This month also saw increased activism against sexual assault. In anticipation of Homecoming weekend, Action for Sexual Assault Prevention by Tufts Men hosted a discussion on toxic masculinity. In a rally in front of Goddard Chapel, students gathered at the Cannon, painted with the phrase “We Believe Survivors,” in response to Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court. The FIRST Resource Center, which supports first-generation, low-income and undocumented students, celebrated its grand opening. Arts and Sciences graduate students ratified their first union contract, and Tufts Community see ROUNDUP, page 2

NEWS............................................1 FEATURES.................................6 ARTS & LIVING..................... 15

FUN & GAMES....................... 18 OPINION...................................19 SPORTS............................ BACK


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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Wednesday, August 28, 2019

THE TUFTS DAILY Jessica Blough Editor in Chief

EDITORIAL Ryan Eggers Justin Yu

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2018–19 sees dining worker contract ratification, housing changes, faculty departures ROUNDUP

continued from front page Union (TCU) Senate passed resolutions in support of transgender rights and Tufts Dining workers’ rights to unionize. November Nationally, the most notable event of this month was the Nov. 6 midterm election. The Tufts Daily’s election coverage outlined local races to watch and described Massachusetts ballot questions. On election night, students gathered for a watch party in Hotung Café. While Tufts turned much of its attention to issues beyond the university, events on-campus set the community on edge. Tufts community members demonstrated when a Tufts Dining manager alleged that she experienced retaliation for comments she made in the Tufts Observer. Posters with the message “It’s ok to be white,” which has been linked to white nationalism, appeared overnight on get-out-the-vote signs on campus on Nov. 1. Students continued to protest housing policies, and J Street U petitioned Tufts Hillel to include a Palestinian speaker on its Birthright Israel trip. Several high-profile speakers visited Tufts, including environmentalist Bill McKibben; former Representative Steve Israel; SoBe beverage brand founder John Bello; Republican strategist Anna Navarro; Michelle Obama’s former communications director, Maria Cristina González Noguera (LA’97); Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey; NBA champion Kevin Love; and former Secretary of State John Kerry.

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December Tufts installed solar panels on the roof of Lewis Hall and announced changes to the housing lottery process. Responding to student backlash, the university rolled back a requirement that students register large protests with the Office of Campus Life, turning it into a recommendation. January The dining workers’ union continued negotiations with representatives from Tufts in a four-hour meeting, but reached no agreements. Dining workers and student activists on Tufts Dining Action Coalition held an emergency community meeting to review the state of negotiations. In a Tufts Daily op-ed on Jan. 16, Latino Center director Julián Cancino announced his departure from the university. Also on Jan. 16, Tiffany Filler, who had been a doctoral student at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, was expelled for alleged grade hacking, which she denied. Nathan Foster (LA’18), who had campaigned for an alumni seat on Tufts’ Board of Trustees, was not chosen for the ballot. On Jan. 24, after a photo of a student in blackface circulated on the internet, the Tufts community erupted in backlash. With the goal of implementing the recommendations the Student Life Review Committee made in spring 2017, the Board of Trustees created a subcomittee to focus on student affairs. Tufts received a record amount of Early Decision applications for admission to the Class of 2023. February Andrew Shiotani was hired as the new director of the International Center, replacing Jane Etish-Andrews, who had retired in October after leading the Center for 35 years. Kamran Rastegar was named the new director of the Center for the Humanities at Tufts, replacing Lisa Lowe, who now teaches at Yale University. With construction completed on Miller Hall and underway on Houston Hall, some

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Students protesting in support of dining workers are pictured on March 5. juniors and seniors moved into the houses designated for the university’s second phase of its Community Housing project. TCU Senate pushed for gender parity in university leadership and called on Tufts to make voter registration a part of its Student Information System. Activism remained a theme. University President Anthony Monaco wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of Education that criticized Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ proposed changes to Title IX sexual misconduct policies. Students and non-Tufts activists demonstrated when Raytheon, a weapons contractor, visited the Career Fair. Hundreds of students delivered letters to Ballou Hall in support of dining workers’ negotiations. A walkout commemorated the one-year anniversary of the Parkland shooting. Adjusting to new university requirements barring first-year students from fraternity recruitment, Delta Tau Delta, Kappa Alpha Theta and other Greek organizations recruited new members last spring. Tufts announced its plans to make former fraternity Theta Delta Chi at 123 Packard Ave. into a residential hall starting this fall. On Feb. 13, posters with offensive images and anti-Israel messages defaced Tufts Hillel, prompting a community-wide response. A Tufts lecturer resigned after he was arrested for secretly photographing a nude person at the Harvard University swimming pool. Four candidates competed for two open seats on Tufts’ Board of Trustees. March During the first week of March, the International Club expanded its annual Parade of Nations event into a week of activities celebrating international identities. This week of events followed on the heels of the second-ever Sex Health Week, a series of seminars and discussions hosted by the student organization Sex Health Reps. March also saw the first-ever Global Tufts Week, which celebrated international engagement. Court documents filed at the end of January by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts with allegations against the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma prompted responses from the Tufts administration and graduate students at the Sackler School of Biomedical Sciences. Later, a TCU Senate resolution addressed Tufts’ “complicity in the opioid crisis” and asked for clarity regarding the “oversight of trustees and advisors.” Following these inquiries, Tufts announced a review of its relationship to Purdue Pharma, led by attorney Donald K. Stern. After more than 800 people attended a picket for dining workers, the union voted on whether to strike on March 14. Students and staff braced for a strike that was averted when workers ultimately arrived at a temporary agreement with the university. TEDxTufts highlighted speakers’ passions at Mosaic in Motion, its annual conference.

For the sixth year in a row, Tufts was named a top producer of Fulbright winners. The university slated renovations for Bush, Tilton and Harleston Halls for summer 2019. A glitch in the housing selection process led to the cancellation of 700 rising sophomores’ housing selections. Tufts continued to negotiate a new partnership agreement with Somerville, which some hoped would address requests for more payments from the university to the city. Tufts also announced changes that would improve the accessibility of the Swipe it Forward food bank program, which collects unused meal swipes.

April Tufts Dining workers unanimously ratified their first contract with the university. The Experimental College hosted a debate on the future of cannabis use and legislation. Interfaith leader Eboo Patel discussed the state of interfaith engagement in America. TCU Senate opted to partially fund the Hall Council and Residence Hall Association initiative, set to be implemented this fall, which creates committees of elected first-year residents who will develop programming for first-year residence halls. Staffing changes on the Hill included the appointment of Rachel Kyte as the dean of the Fletcher School, Alastair Cribb as the dean of the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and Annie Soisson as the director of the Center for Enhancement of Learning and Teaching. Linell Yugawa retired as the director of the Asian American Center, following the departures of Julián Cancino from the Latino Center in January and K. Martinez, director of the Women’s Center, a year prior. Senior Shannon Lee won the TCU presidency with close to 60% of the vote. Her contestant was Phil Miller, also a senior. A new student group, Sack Sackler, formed to publicly oppose Tufts’ ties to the family. Eggings and pro-Trump slogans on the Cannon, which were painted over slogans honoring those killed in the Great March of Return by Students for Justice in Palestine, raised tensions on campus. Tufts Admissions accepted the Class of 2023, its largest class yet. May An armed robbery in Davis Square on May 1 rocked Tufts’ neighborhood. The suspect was caught and apprehended at the end of May in Rhode Island. Hidden cameras in a bathroom in Harleston Hall ignited student responses and a Tufts University Police Department investigation. Dean of Student Affairs Mary Pat McMahon and Muslim Chaplain Celene Ibrahim left the university for appointments at other universities. Investor Lori Roth and entrepreneur Kenneth Fan won the election for the two slots on Tufts’ Board of Trustees.


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Wednesday, August 28, 2019 | News | THE TUFTS DAILY

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Greg McGonigle departs from Tufts, Jennifer Peace named interim chaplain by Bridget Wall Staff Writer

Former University Chaplain Reverend Greg McGonigle left Tufts to serve as University Chaplain and Dean of Spiritual and Religious Life at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga., according to a July 2 email from McGonigle and University President Anthony Monaco. McGonigle served as the chaplain at Tufts since 2013. In an emailed statement to the Daily, Catholic Chaplain Lynn Cooper praised McGonigle’s ability to integrate student ideals and social justice in his programming and vision as chaplain. “Greg brought to Tufts an expansive understanding of what it means to be an interfaith chaplaincy in contemporary higher education,” she said. “From day one, he focused on student energy and social justice, approaching his leadership from a place of deep listening and compassion.” According to Michael Baenen, chief of staff in the office of the president, McGonigle expanded support for various religions at Tufts. “Some of the major accomplishments of [McGonigle’s] time here included establishing new Chaplain positions supporting Buddhist and Humanist traditions as well as overseeing the development of prayer spaces to meet the needs of Muslim students,” he said in an email to the Daily. McGonigle worked with the other chaplains to strengthen the university as an interfaith community, according to Baenen.

“We want to continue to build on what Greg accomplished during his time here,” Baenen said. Before leaving Tufts, McGonigle sent an email to the student body reflecting on his time at the university, crediting various organizations and bodies on campus, from student affairs to faculty and alumni, for making the chaplaincy what it is today. “We have built, I believe, one of the finest university spiritual life programs in the country,” McGonigle wrote. McGonigle cited several reasons for wanting to join Emory’s chaplaincy, including building a multifaith program like the one at Tufts. “This opportunity [to join Emory University] arose unexpectedly, but it will offer me an exciting opportunity to engage more deeply with my longstanding passions for human and civil rights and peace, while helping Emory to build the kind of global, multifaith spiritual life program we have been developing at Tufts,” he wrote. McGonigle also stressed that his decision to leave Tufts did not come easily and held an open house at Goddard Chapel on July 10 to say goodbye to members of the community. “Because I love Tufts, this was a difficult decision, and I will miss the students, faculty, staff, alumni, families, friends, and neighbors whom I have been blessed to become close with over these past six years,” he wrote. McGonigle did not respond to the Daily’s requests for comment at press time. An Aug. 16 email from University President Anthony Monaco announced that Jennifer Howe Peace would serve as the chaplain ad interim in the coming year.

Peace said in an email to the Daily that McGonigle reached out to her when he found out Tufts would need an interim chaplain. According to Peace, McGonigle introduced her to Michael Baenen, who will also chair the search team for McGonigle’s replacement. “I first met Greg many years ago when he attended an interfaith event hosted by the interfaith center I co-directed with Or Rose from Hebrew College and Celene Ibrahim (the same Celene who served for many years as Tufts Muslim chaplain),” she said. “I have always been impressed with his work at Tufts to develop a distinct model of multi-faith chaplaincy.” According to Monaco’s email, students, staff, faculty and others will have the chance to be involved in the search process, which is set to begin at the start of the academic year. Overall, Baenen expressed hope that his search committee would be able to fill McGonigle’s position with a qualified candidate long-term. “Given Tufts’ standing as a university, and the strong position in which Greg has left the Chaplaincy, we believe the position will be attractive to a range of outstanding candidates,” Baenen said. In the meantime, Peace said she is excited about working at Tufts and applying her experience as a faculty member at Andover Newton Theological School and co-director at the Center for Interreligious and Communal Leadership Education. Peace first met McGonigle many years ago during an interfaith event that she co-hosted with Celene Ibrahim, the former Muslim chaplain at Tufts, according to Peace. Since then, Peace has also visited the Tufts campus to

attend different events hosted by the chaplaincy during McGonigle’s time as university chaplain including the Russell Lecture on Spiritual Life, conversations on models of interfaith studies, and visits to the Interfaith Center with students from her classes, according to Peace. “Much of the work I have done as associate professor of interfaith studies and co-director of an interfaith center, dovetails well with the work of university chaplaincy,” Peace said. During her time as interim chaplain, Peace said she hopes to continue to build on the work that McGonigle was doing before he left, including continuing processes to strengthen support for both Hindu and Africana spiritual traditions. “I think that students will find in [Peace] someone who cares deeply about their experiences, and whose personal values and commitments align with the university’s own spirit,” Baenen said. Cooper echoed Baenen’s sentiment, saying she was excited to work with Peace. “Like Greg, she brings a unique expertise and spirit to Tufts and it will be a joy to continue this critical work with her and our chaplaincy team,” she said. Peace is working with the members of the chaplaincy to understand the different values and priorities currently in place so that she can effectively serve as interim chaplain. “My first week on the job has involved a series of warm welcomes and insightful conversations about the values and priorities of the Chaplaincy team. I see my job as both continuing to build on the momentum of good work already underway while offering my services in areas where I have expertise,” Peace said.

Nadeem Karimbux replaces Huw Thomas as dean of dental school by Austin Clementi

Executive News Editor

University President Anthony Monaco announced Nadeem Karimbux, who has served as associate dean of academic affairs and a professor in the periodontology department, will serve as the new dean of Tufts University School of Dental Medicine (TUSDM). According to the May 16 email, Karimbux’s deanship began on July 1. Born in Kenya and of Indian descent, Karimbux said in a phone interview with the Daily that he first came to Massachusetts in 1982 to study at University of Massachusetts-Amherst. From there, he graduated from Harvard School of Dental Medicine, specializing in periodontology and serving as academic faculty at Harvard University. Karimbux said that working at a small dental school like Harvard led him to want to work at a larger school like TUSDM. He said he moved to Tufts as associate dean of academic affairs in 2012, attracted by TUDSM’s global reputation and location. Karimbux described his time as associate dean as conducive to his taking a higher role, saying he got to work with both Doctor

of Dental Medicine students (DMDs) and advanced specializing students. “With that administrative experience of working within those two different areas and being able to implement a lot of change in a school that is this large, I felt that I had developed the skills to bring faculty together, to have dialogues with them, and move them in certain directions because of my leadership style,” he said, noting that the changes he brought as associate dean also prepared him for his new deanship. Former Dean Huw Thomas, who still serves as a professor at TUSDM, said that Karimbux had a major impact on the curriculum at the dental school during his time as associate dean of academic affairs. “He’s done a really excellent job at reforming our curriculum, making it more contemporary and more integrated across all four years of the school, so I think he was really well positioned to become a dean,” he said. Karimbux added that the dean of the dental school also manages the clinical program at the school, in which students see around 45,000 patients per year, as well as communications with alumni and faculty. He emphasized that, as dean, he must set a five- to 10-year plan which he will name “Imagine 2030.”

Technological innovation will make up a large part of this plan, according to Karimbux. “We really think that our graduates are going to live in a very transformative time … That transformative time is going to involve technology, both in the way they learn and are assessed. We mean technology in the way that’s going to impact them, not only in how they practice but in how they might interact with patients,” he said. Karimbux emphasized that because TUSDM is the second largest dental school in the country, the use of technology would be particularly useful for promoting more active learning in the large classes that come as a result. According to Karimbux, he introduced Learning Catalytics, an online program which allows students to respond to their professors during a lecture, to the dental school before the program spread to other schools in the university. In addition, the dental school introduced computer-based examinations, according to Karimbux. “These exams now allow the faculty member to make the exams much more multidimensional, so you can show images, for example, you can show videos, you can have the students not only do multiple choice, but they can also do fill-in answers,” he said. “You’re actually testing

a whole different skill set that students need to think about things and apply knowledge.” Karimbux also noted that greater “interprofessional education” and “interprofessional practice” would characterize the dental school, an initiative that his predecessor, Thomas, had taken on before. “Some of the initiatives that we’ve done in interprofessional education and what we call interprofessional practice are things that we’ll have to continue to look at and implement with the partner schools,” he said. TUSDM Executive Associate Dean Mark Gonthier said in an interview with the Daily that Karimbux was an “excellent choice” as dean. “He’s somebody who knows the school that also brings great outsider energy and a driven vision and enormous self-discipline,” Gonthier said. According to Gonthier, Karimbux was an editor of the Journal of Dental Education, giving Karimbux an idea of current trends in the field of dentistry. Thomas, who served as dean since 2011 before Karimbux’s appointment, reflected these sentiments. “I’m delighted that he chose to stay at Tufts and take over the helm; I think he’s going to do a great job,” he said..

TRASHING ONE EGG WASTES 55 GALLONS OF WATER


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Alumnae Lounge murals taken down over absence of people of color by Alexander Thompson News Editor

A team of painting conservators removed 1955 murals depicting Charles Tufts, other university founders and prominent white alumni from the Alumnae Lounge over the summer, according to TuftsNow. The decision to remove the murals came after the recommendation of a review committee formed in 2018 following outcry about the absence of people of color in the murals, according to an email from University President Anthony Monaco. In a Feb. 13 memo to then-Provost ad interim Deborah Kochevar, the six-member review committee unanimously recommended the removal of the murals. “While acknowledging the progressive purpose of the room and its decorative program, the committee strongly feels that the murals … do not reflect the dynamic, ever evolving composition of the student and alumni body (or faculty and staff),” Andrew McClellan, the chair of the committee and a professor of art history, wrote in the recommendation. The review committee consisted of McClellan; Katrina Moore, director of the Africana Center; Robert Mack, chief diversity officer; Pearl Robinson, an associate professor of political science specializing in African American politics; Katherine Kaplan (AG’95), an alumni trustee; and Dina Deitsch, director and chief curator of the university art galleries. McClellan and Robinson did not respond to repeated requests for further comment on the decision while Mack and Moore declined to comment. Kochevar stressed that creating an inclusive environment was central to the decision. “We want to attract a diversity of people to the university. But no less important, when they arrive, we want them to feel they belong here,” Kochevar told TuftsNow. Deitsch told the Daily in an email that the egg tempera murals were painted on canvas, enabling their removal without damage to the walls. Before the murals were removed, they were professionally photographed and merged into a 360 degree image which will allow them to be viewed online, according to Deitsch. Deitsch said the discussion about the murals was part of the reason for the establishment of a new public art committee to decide the future of the Alumnae Lounge. The committee will also lay out new policies governing the maintenance and the commissioning of new permanent and long-

term art installations to augment the existing Permanent Art Collection policy. That committee, chaired by Deitsch, will set an agenda for these issues at a meeting in September. Sung-Min Kim, who spoke at a symposium on the fate of the murals in March 2018 and wrote an op-ed in the Observer calling for their removal a month later, praised the decision. “The truth is that people actually feel uncomfortable in that space because of the murals and the racist whitewashed narrative that it tells,” Kim, a junior, said in an email to the Daily. “The murals cause a deep and disturbing level of discomfort rooted in colonial history. And this mural is in a space full of students who are still learning to be comfortable in their skin. So in my logic, there’s no space for a mural like that on this campus.” While Kim agreed that the murals do not reflect current Tufts students, she went further, saying they represented a case of intentional exclusion. “It’s not a mistake that this mural asserts a racist whitewashed colonial narrative that completely erases the violent history on colored bodies that the university was founded on and continues to benefit from,” she said. “This kind of racist narrative is deep in the foundations of the university and this mural was simply one visual illustration/example of such.” Adriana Zavala, an associate professor of art history who also supports the decision, stressed the omission in the murals of any of the black students who attended Tufts in 1955 as harmful for the Tufts community, and she dismissed arguments for keeping them up. “[The murals are] an example of a sort of white dominance of the historical narrative. You can make the argument that they are a teachable moment, but that doesn’t address the ongoing daily violence they do to people whose histories are omitted in this country chronically,” she said. Zavala recalled the paradox of a November 2017 dinner in the Alumnae Lounge for what is now the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora with the theme of racism’s global manifestations, surrounded by the all-white figures on the murals. Maxine Bell, who, like Kim, spoke at the 2018 symposium, described similar discomfort caused by the murals during Orientation Week events and the Day of Remembrance, which commemorates Japanese American internment. “It’s not easy to be in a space where you’re trying to uplift communities of color and then

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The mural painted on the walls of the Alumnae Lounge is pictured on March 5, 2018. have none of that represented around us,” Bell, a junior, said. The decision comes in the context of a series of debates over depictions of minorities in public art, and in murals more specifically. Debate over what to do with Work Progress Administration murals showing the life of George Washington at a San Francisco high school have made headlines around the globe, while murals at Dartmouth College, Kalamazoo College, the University of Kentucky and the University of New Mexico have sparked controversy in recent years. However, the Alumnae Lounge murals have their own unique history. Adrienne Pruitt, a collections management archivist at Tufts, explained that the Ruth Capen Farmer Alumnae Hall Fund, which built the Alumnae Lounge, likely paid for the murals. Boston artists Nathaniel J. Jacobson and Matthew W. Boyhan were commissioned to paint the mural and worked with Provost John P. Tilton, Dean of Men Clifton Emery Jr. and the public relations office to decide who would be portrayed, according to Pruitt. The murals pay particular attention to alumnae such as Ruth Capen Farmer (WA’1902), the founder of the Association of Tufts Alumnae; Etta Philips MacPhie (WA’1913), the first female member for life of the Board of Trustees; and Cora Polk Dewick (WA’1896), the first woman elected to the Board of Trustees. Pruitt said she has not found evidence in the historical record of unconscious bias in the selection of the figures, but highlighted the role structural bias may have played. Echoing the review committee, Pruitt highlighted the fact that there were prominent

black alumni at the time who are absent from the mural. She named Forrester Blanchard Washington (A’1909), a pioneer in social work, and Madeline Barnard (J’1920), a public servant, among others. “It’s not like they put in anybody who wasn’t at Tufts or depicted things that weren’t at Tufts, [but] they were definitely selective about what parts of history they included and it definitely wasn’t an inclusive decision,” she said. Pruitt noted that work by former Tufts professor Gerald Gill showed that at least 25 African Americans were enrolled at Tufts between 1905 and 1945 and 50 more between 1945 and 1965, representing a tenth of 1% of total enrollment. According to Deitsch, the paintings are now in long-term art storage and will be restored by the conservators due to tape and water damage. For Kim, the removal of the murals represents an opportunity for new art installations in the Alumnae Lounge that would be progressive and inclusive. “If there were to be a new mural I think it would be crucial to have as many students involved as possible. The various centers (Latino Center, Africana Center, AA Center, etc) would be a great place to start with smaller discussions on what people would like to see in a public mural,” she said. The committee agreed with Kim’s sentiment. “Should the administration agree to remove the murals, the committee further recommends that … whatever group is tasked with the future decoration of the space should be fully representative of the rich diversity of Tufts students and alumni,” the report said.

Tufts adds 435 beds through CoHo, dorm renovations COHO

continued from page 1 “We had three phases, the first of which included 5 houses and was completed and occupied in Fall 2018, the second of which included 3 houses open for January 2019, and the remaining 6 were finished this summer and ready for occupancy this fall,” Hartman said. A May 2018 Daily article reported that Tufts has space for 63% of undergraduates. The CoHo project comes as an effort to add more beds for Tufts undergraduate students. DiRico wrote that Tufts has added more than 435 beds over the past three years. According to DiRico, CoHo will provide 141 beds for juniors and seniors. “The average residence hall on campus has fewer than 200 beds, so we have added the equivalent of 2 residence halls in an efficient and effective manner,” he said. “To put that in perspective, the last residence hall that we built on campus was Sophia Gordon [Hall] and it houses 125 upper class students.”

According to a March 19 Society for College and University Planning presentation entitled “A Housing Program Tailored to Tufts,” the project included the renovation of 13 homes, as well as a full construction job for one home. The CoHo project totaled $19,654,707. A summary provided in the presentation shows that adding beds to existing rooms in several residential halls cost $15,100 per bed in summer 2017 and $33,500 per bed in summer 2018. CoHo’s renovation and construction added beds at $139,400 per bed. An article published in the Daily last August quoted DiRico as stating that Tufts would be conducting a feasibility study in fall 2018 to explore a housing project similar to CoHo on the Somerville side of campus. When asked about the statement during the reporting of this article, DiRico stated that the university is exploring many options. “Housing is an issue that is very important to the University, Medford, and Somerville, so we will continue to work on adding more beds.

It’s premature to say where new housing would be located or what it might look like,” he said. DiRico posited that the community would appreciate the renovations Tufts invested in. “I think that our neighbors will be very pleased with CoHo. All of the homes have been completely renovated. Tufts also improved the landscaping on each property, added bike racks, and will prohibit student parking in the neighborhood. Finally, we added lighting, fire suppression systems and TUPD blue boxes to enhance the safety and security of the neighborhood,” he said. CoHo themed housing CoHo includes two houses with specific living conditions, namely a house designated as a 24-hour quiet space as well as a substance-free house. However, according to Christopher Rossi, dean of student life and engagement, there are no themed houses set for 2019-20 school year. Themed housing will be implemented for the 2020-21 school year through a process that will be decided upon with students.

The process will begin to roll out mid-fall semester of 2019, with themed housing ready for move-in in fall 2020, Rossi said. The theme selection and funding process will be run by the ORLL, but according to Rossi, will offer opportunities for students to weigh-in. Rossi stated that themed houses are currently allocated $200 in funding, with options to petition the Office of the Dean of Student Affairs for supplemental money. Looking ahead to themed housing in CoHo, Rossi wants to ensure students are involved with funding. “We also want to take students’ input on what the right funding model and level is, so we’re waiting until the fall because we want students to be involved in that process,” Rossi said. He emphasized the importance of collaboration between the university and students when deciding upon themes and funding. “We don’t want to take a proposal from groups like [Tufts Community Union] and then run with it — we want to make sure that both the student government and individual students who are looking to organize for specific things are involved every step of the way,” he said.


News

Wednesday, August 28, 2019 | News | THE TUFTS DAILY

5

Construction on Green Line extension progresses amid schedule pressures, community concerns

EVAN SLACK / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

A sign promoting the MBTA Green Line Extension Project is pictured on April 17, 2018. by Connor Dale News Editor

- Construction on the Massachusetts eBay Transportation Authority’s (MBTA) Green Line Extension (GLX) project has tprogressed this summer and is projected sto finish on time despite growing conscerns from state transportation officials ,about schedule pressures, according to -GLX Program Manager John Dalton, who ois overseeing the $2.3 billion project. At an MBTA Fiscal and Management sControl Board meeting on August 12, the livestream of which is available on the oMBTA website, Dalton provided an update ron the GLX’s construction and emphadsized to board members that the project dwas progressing according to schedule. fHowever, Dalton admitted that certain internal, non-contractual targets embedded in the timeline of the GLX construction have not been met. “Overall, the project is on time,” Dalton said at the meeting. “However, there are indicators now that remind us that there’s a lot to do in a short amount of time, and where we have recently seen internal milestones being pressured, we want to mitigate those as best [as] we can.” A delayed track shift is generating the most concern among state transportation officials. According to Joe Pesaturo, director of communications at the MBTA, workers are currently relocating a set of existing commuter rail tracks in order to make way for the extended Green Line, which will run alongside the Fitchburg Commuter Rail Line and the Lowell Commuter Rail Line. “In the fall, the commuter rail tracks are scheduled to be shifted back to the east side of the corridor into their permanent location, in order for work to continue on the west side of the project alignment,” Pesaturo told the Daily in an email. The track shift was supposed to occur by the end of September. However, Dalton said at the meeting that they now hope to finish the shift before the winter season sets, citing schedule pressures.

“Count us as very worried,” Joseph Aiello, chair of the MBTA’s Fiscal and Management Control Board, said after Dalton’s presentation at the meeting. “We’ve got to get this job on schedule for the people who are waiting for the service as well as the larger context of what we’re trying to achieve as an organization.” Dalton attributed the schedule pressures to the project’s design-build structure as well as various unforeseen variables, such as contaminated soil and dirty groundwater at some of the worksites. He said that the project managers will take several measures to recover the lost time, including implementing longer work hours, accelerated design reviews and adding additional staffing and equipment resources. According to the Daily, design-build projects distinguish themselves from most construction projects because a single team of designers and contractors work on the project together, rather than independently. The design-build nature of the GLX means that cities and the MBTA only know what new construction must take place a few weeks in advance. Despite schedule pressures, Dalton was optimistic about the project finishing on time. “The fact that we are two years away from being done with this project means there is time to recover,” Dalton said at a press conference following the meeting, according to the Boston Globe. Passenger service on the route is scheduled to begin in December 2021. The new GLX tracks will extend from Lechmere Station into the Medford and Somerville communities in two branches. According to Rocco DiRico, director of government and community relations at Tufts, the Medford branch of the extension will add a stop at the intersection of College Avenue and Boston Avenue. He said that it will ultimately connect three of Tufts’ campuses, including its main campus in Medford/ Somerville, the Tufts Health Sciences campus in Chinatown, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts in Fenway.

“The GLX will be a tremendous benefit to Tufts University, Medford, Somerville, and the entire region,” DiRico told the Daily in an email. “It will allow our students, faculty, and staff to easily travel between the campuses.” However, Tufts students and members of the Somerville and Medford communities have continued to express concerns about the project. Medford and Somerville residents worry that the GLX will increase area housing prices, potentially displacing many low- and middle-income residents. A 2014 report by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, a regional planning agency, projected that rents near the planned GLX stations could rise by as much as 67% as GLX construction is completed. “It’s really ironic that the whole purpose of bringing the Green Line to Somerville was to right a historical wrong,” Somerville Ward 3 Councilor Ben Ewen-Campen said. “Historically, this is a low-income population that suffered from having highways come through the city instead of having high-quality public transportation. And now when we’re getting it, I think a lot of the folks who it was meant for have been displaced already.” Ewen-Campen applauded the amount of community organizing that has taken place in Somerville over the last several years to ensure that residents win community benefits that coincide with the GLX’s development. Most recently, he said, the Union Square Neighborhood Council and developers for the area surrounding the upcoming Union Square Green Line station reached a community benefits agreement, which includes additional affordable housing being built up front. Additionally, Ewen-Campen said that he is continuing to work with community members to develop an affordable housing plan that will keep housing costs low and stable as GLX construction continues. He said that the implementation of community land trusts, in which nonprofits comprised of community members acquire

land with the stated goal of creating and preserving affordable housing, has drawn an enormous amount of interest from Somerville residents. “It’s a new model for treating land, not just as a way for developers and real estate professionals to get rich, but to create affordable housing to keep our community diverse and vibrant,” Ewen-Campen said. DiRico acknowledged the additional burden that rent increases would place on the roughly 37% of Tufts undergraduates who live off-campus. He said that Tufts has continued to expand its on-campus housing options, through methods like bed optimization, the Community Housing project and the renovation of Miller Hall and Houston Hall, in order to compensate for rising rents and a lack of affordable housing in the areas surrounding campus. “In anticipation of the GLX, Tufts University has made a considerable effort to add more than 435 student beds in the past three years — the equivalent of more than two dorms,” DiRico said. “In doing so, Tufts has been able to add beds in an efficient and cost effective manner.” Community members have also expressed concerns about the accessibility of the upcoming stops along the GLX. According to Ewen-Campen, Somerville City Council and activists had to fight for improved accessibility to be included in the construction of Union Square’s Green Line station. He also said that there are currently no plans in place for the station near Somerville’s City Hall to include an elevator, which, according to Ewen-Campen, renders the stop completely unusable for people in wheelchairs. “To varying degrees, there are serious accessibility issues at every station,” he said. “It’s really frustrating to be getting off on the wrong foot for the most vulnerable people in the community.” Ultimately, Ewen-Campen affirmed his full support for the GLX project and increased investment in public transportation but emphasized the need for careful planning in order to prevent further displacement. “There’s no question that the Green Line Extension is going to transform the area,” Ewen-Campen said. “I think the role of the community and the city government at this point is to make sure that the benefits are shared equally — as much as possible.” Community members have also expressed concerns over the closing of the Broadway Bridge in Ball Square, which has not been operational since March 22 due to ongoing GLX construction. Some worry that the closure, among other detours in the area, has contributed to increased congestion around Medford and Somerville as well as delays traveling to and from Boston. “As part of construction, the GLX had to close multiple bridges in Somerville this year, which has led to detours and increased traffic in Medford and Somerville,” DiRico said. “While these temporary closures can be frustrating, the GLX should help alleviate traffic congestion in the area, take cars off the road and improve air quality for years to come.” Overall, though, DiRico expressed that the long-term benefits of the GLX outweigh the short-term costs. “The GLX project has strengthened our relationship with Medford, Somerville, and the MBTA,” DiRico said. “Now that construction is underway, we are working very closely with both cities, our neighbors, and the MBTA to ensure that the Medford/Tufts station is designed to meet the needs of our students, faculty, staff, neighbors, and visitors.”


6 Wednesday, August 28, 2019

FEATURES

tuftsdaily.com

History on the Hill: The Women’s Center by Amelia Becker Features Editor

The Women’s Center first received funding from the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate in December 1972, with the goal of creating an intentional atmosphere addressing matters of specific concern to women, according to the Center’s website. The student group was given a space in the basement of Miller Hall, shared with the Tufts University Abortion Action Coalition. The Center’s first official workshop and discussion, titled “Women and their Bodies,” took place in March 1972. Since then, its mission has evolved to consider equality on a much broader scale, with goals that prioritize recognizing the damages of the gender binary as well as breaking down the patriarchy. According to Jessica Mitzner, the interim program administrator of the Women’s Center, the Center today is meant to be a place open to people of all genders who want to explore and discuss women’s experiences and the role of gender in peoples’ lives. “The Women’s Center is a space for education, dialogue and community. We work to create events and programming that will help all of us get more informed about issues related to gender, especially as it intersects with other forms of identity, and we aim for our programming to create opportunities for all of us to discuss the way these issues impact our lives,” Mitzner said. Women’s Center intern Kira Lauring said in an email to the Daily that she sees the modern role of the Center as to “provide a physical, central, brave space on campus to facilitate and engage with conversations regarding gender oppression and patriarchy, as it relates power and other forms of oppression. And to support students who may be struggling with the effects of these real issues in their everyday lives.” The Women’s Center’s creation is particularly significant at Tufts University because while women were first admitted to Tufts in 1892, they were matriculated to Jackson College, the on-campus women’s college associated with Tufts, beginning in 1910. Jackson College was fully integrated with Tufts University in 1980, but Jackson College appeared on women’s diplomas until 2002. The Women’s Center predates the merging of Jackson College and Tufts University: It has been a part of the Tufts campus since 1972. From the start, the Women’s Center has sought to “create an atmosphere that is intentional, supportive, and intellectually rich,” according to its website. There was a brief period in 1973 when the group running the Center disbanded, but it was started again later in the year. Throughout 1974 and 1975, the Women’s Center programming flourished, with initiatives like the first Women’s Film Festival, the founding of The Rape Collective, and the publishing of the feminist literary magazine Out of the Ashes in spring 1975. An external grant helped the Women’s Center expand perception of women’s roles on campus, fueling the establishment of the first Women’s Week and coordinating the Women’s Center Conference in Amherst in spring 1977. However, the Women’s Center faced setbacks when a fire forced a relocation to Bendetson Hall in April 1977, with a counseling room for the Center in Miner Hall. Budget cuts from the TCU Senate in 1978 resulted in minimal pay for the Center’s Health and Sexuality Counselor Linda Luz-Alterman. In 1979, the Women’s Center received

JULIA MCDOWELL / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

The Tufts Women’s Center pictured on Feb. 3, 2018. funding from TCU Senate to hire a new part-time coordinator. The additional funding allowed for the creation of new programming between 1979 and 1980, including the first “Take Back the Night” march, the Women Centered publication and the Women in Wilderness Leadership Training Project. The Women’s Center received more outside support, namely four two-year grants, which gave the Center over $1,000,000 in funding, from the Department of Justice in the fall of 1999. With these grants, the Center established the Campus Violence Prevention Project, which has worked toward coordinating services for victims of violence. More recent history of the Center includes the start of a student-run crisis hotline, Student Sexual Assault Response Assistance, and the launch of Vagina Monologues, both in 2001. The Women’s Center has seen many changes in staff since its start as a small student group. The Center was first able to hire staff in 1974, recruiting Gail Koplow, a feminist therapist, as coordinator. Ruth Shapshay, a public health nurse, and Karen Edlund, a health and sexuality counselor, were also on staff. Peggy Barrett was hired as the health and sexuality counselor in 1979 and transitioned to Women’s Center director and administrator of women’s, gender and sexuality studies in 1985. Barnett left the Center in 2006 to become the Director of Community Awareness and Prevention Programs at the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. Following the long tenures by Peggy Barnett and successor Steph Gauchel, K. Martinez became director of the Center in 2017. They created P.O.C. Circle as a community space for people of color to build coalitions and solidarity. Martinez left in 2018 to act as Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the Mazzoni Center. They were recently dismissed from this position, prompting protest. Hope Freeman is currently the interim Women’s Center director, in addition to being

director of the LGBT Center. “I volunteered to support the Women’s Center as interim director because the initial search for a Women’s Center Director failed last summer,” Freeman said in an email to the Daily. “I was supported by [the Office of the Dean of Student Affairs] because we wanted to make sure that the Women’s Center constituents knew that they were supported by placing someone directly in the center.” Today, the Women’s Center hosts a variety of events throughout the year. These include P.O.C. Circle, Dinner and a Movie and Lunch & Learn. Last year saw the founding of Comic Relief, a comedy collective intended to highlight the works of people of color. All upcoming events are listed on the Women’s Center Facebook Page. Today, the mission of the Women’s Center has expanded to “investigate gender at the intersections of other identities such as race, sexuality, class, and citizenship status.” “By centering the experiences of women of color, trans women, nonbinary femmes, and nonbinary folx this allows for a more inclusive space with more diverse conversations and programming,” Freeman said. Freeman notes that while women’s centers in general have served varying roles, they have typically catered to the experiences of heterosexual, cisgender white women. Programming at Tufts aims to change this. According to Lauring, “intentional changes” following Martinez’s arrival helped to make the Women’s Center “more focused on a lens of justice that focused on the experiences of people with non-dominant racial, sexual, gender, etc. identities.” While Lauring had not been to the Women’s Center before Martinez’s arrival, she said the programming offered related to her “lived experiences as a queer Asian American person.” Lauring attributes the Women’s Center to her being able to “find a community with people who were also drawn in in that way,” Lauring said. Additionally, the Women’s Center hosts a symposium on gender and culture each year. The annual symposium features an array of work, ranging from essays and presenta-

tions, to workshops, visual and performance art and works in progress. The topic of the First Annual Women’s Center Symposium, in 2010, was “Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance with Feminism.” Most recently the topic was “Divisions/Redivisions of Labor,” focusing on how identity impacts the work we do. The 2018 topic was “Metaphors of the Body.” The Women’s Center is ultimately a “space for the entire Tufts community,” Mitzner said. Staff at the Center help to support students through programming as well as providing a space to gather. “All in all, Women’s Centers are places where community is created and empowerment grows through an intersectional feminist lens; whether it is coupled with an academic department, headquarters for student activism, a place to talk about institutionalized sexism, or even for students to just decompress about their day and what they have experienced in classes,” Freeman said. Today, the Women’s Center aims to act as a multipurpose space for students, whether for organized discussions, spontaneous conversations or study sessions. “This is where I feel Tufts Women’s Center is now. It is a space open to all genders and identities where students are able to talk about topics and issues broadly related to the experiences of women,” Freeman said. Lauring echoed Freeman’s sentiments, stating that time she has spent in the Women’s Center has broadened her outlook in multifaceted ways. “It’s a place where I’m always learning new things that change my perspective on the world and how I relate to other people! It’s been an integral and foundational part of my time at Tufts. I really felt lost before I found the Center community,” Lauring said. topic that took center stage when Senator Booker’s opening remarks were interrupted by chants of “Fire Panteleo” which referred to the “NYPD officer who put Eric Garner in a deadly chokehold five years ago” according to a tweet from Grace Rauh, NY1’s political reporter and podcast host.


F e at u r e s

Wednesday, August 28, 2019 | Features | THE TUFTS DAILY

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Democratic campaigns for 2020 presidential election hit Tufts campus by Jessie Newman Features Editor

Disclaimer: Hannah Kahn is a podcast editor for the Tufts Daily. Conor Friedmann is an assistant news editor for the Tufts Daily. Neither Kahn nor Friedmann was involved in the writing or editing of this article. The 2020 race for president of the United States will not be easily ignored. Campaigns for the Democratic primary and the ramp up of Donald Trump’s campaign have taken over news television, social media and print journalism; as of Aug. 26, 21 individuals within the Democratic party have announced their candidacy, ranging from former Vice President Joe Biden to spiritual self-help author Marianne Williamson and former tech executive Andrew Yang. Eight of the Democratic candidates are current or former United States Senators, including Massachusetts’ own Elizabeth Warren and Vermont’s Bernie Sanders. With the prevalence of these campaigns and the political engagement of the Tufts student body and faculty, there will be a considerable amount of action surrounding the 2020 election on the Tufts campus over the next three semesters. To date, there have been two rounds of Democratic Party debates. Each debate was split into two nights as a result of the large number of candidates running for the Democratic nomination. On July S 30 and 31, twenty candidates walked onstage to discuss issues with focuses on health care, the criminal justice system and police brutality — a topic that took center stage when Cory Booker’s opening remarks were interrupted by chants of “Fire Panteleo” aimed at Bill de Blasio, referring to the New York Police Department officer who killed Eric Garner five years ago, according to CBS. In addition, climate change and immigration were central in the debate discussions. Throughout the election cycle, there may be as many as twelve debates for the Democratic Party nomination, Democratic National Committee president Tom Perez announced to reporters in December 2018. “Perez announced late last year that there would be 12 DNC-sanctioned debates over a period of about a year — twice as many as the committee initially planned for in 2016. The committee also prioritized securing prime-time TV slots on weeknights after the DNC faced criticism for a sleepier schedule in 2016 that favored the front-runner Clinton and relegated two of the six debates to Saturdays,” Russell Berman wrote in an Atlantic article titled “The DNC isn’t apologizing for Its Debate Rules.” The Tufts student body has a higher level of political engagement than the general population of the United States, Tufts Political Science Professor and Department Chair Deborah Schildkraut told the Daily in an email. This election thus will play a large role on campus in a way that may not be as obvious at other college campuses or in communities across the country. “For many Americans, a lot of the Democratic candidates are still relatively unknown. Yet I’ll bet that many of my students know most of the candidates and could tell me how they differ from one another,” Schildkraut said. In addition, Schildkraut spoke to the proximity of New Hampshire which, because of its early primary, is a significant state for all political candidates.

According to FiveThirtyEight, the primary in New Hampshire will be held on Feb. 11, 2020. “We are quite close to New Hampshire, which brings many easy opportunities to get involved. So I suspect that our students will be very engaged in the primaries as they unfold,” Schildkraut said. Tufts Democrats President Conor Friedmann said that one of the group’s first initiatives of the semester will be sending Tufts students to the New Hampshire Democratic State Convention. “I think that most, if not all, of the presidential candidates are going to be there so we are going to be running a trip up through Tufts Dems, and we will be sending out a sign-up sheet shortly,” Friedmann, a senior, said. According to the New Hampshire Democratic National Convention website, the event will take place in the SNHU arena in Manchester, New Hampshire. The website confirms Friedmann’s statement that all Democratic candidates for president will be in attendance. “We are working with different campaigns to get the transportation provided for us and if not … it will be provided in our [the Tufts Democrats’] transportation budget for the club so the transportation will be provided regardless,” Friedmann said. Student groups have already emerged with a singular focus on one candidate, including Tufts for Warren and Tufts for Harris. The Daily spoke with Tufts for Warren co-leaders first-year Amanda Westlake and senior Hannah Kahn about their goals for the semester. “Our group is very much in the beginning phases. This summer, I worked with the Warren campaign in New Hampshire which was a very cool experience and there are students all over the country who are starting campus for Warren chapters all over the country,” Westlake said. “We are trying to engage students and get the word out about her policies and what she stands for.” According to Westlake, Tufts for Warren plans on having a debate watch party for the coming rounds of Democratic debates. The Daily also spoke with Matthew Tolbert, president of JumboVote, which, according to its webpage is a “university-wide initiative to boost political learning, engagement, and voting in that year’s presidential election.” A pillar of JumboVote’s on-campus work is that voter engagement begins with voter registration. For this election cycle, Tolbert says, JumboVote is focused on working with different communities on campus, moving beyond traditional political clubs and campaign partnerships to engage as many students as possible. “When thinking about a presidential primary, it’s important to think about who is engaged in that process. It’s safe to say that those who are invested in this primary process will turn out to vote for their favorite candidate. We are more interested in asking, who isn’t engaged in this process and why?” Tolbert told the Daily in an email. “We hope that the many political groups on campus engage their members throughout the primary and general election season, and we are ready to support and work with these groups in helping their members cast their ballots and expand civic engagement opportunities to those who cannot vote,” Tolbert said.

He added that JumboVote will be collaborating with the FIRST Center, the Group of Six and the School of Engineering to promote voter engagement. One factor in the voting conscience of Tufts students is their common age. Youth is a large factor in how people vote and which issues are important to an individual. In addition, younger voters often find themselves in higher levels of contact with social media, which is covered in campaigns and many perspectives. “Age may prove to be a significant dividing line in the Democratic primary. Biden is doing particularly well with older potential primary voters. Sanders is doing particularly well with younger potential primary voters. That doesn’t necessarily mean that Sanders will be the top choice for Dem-leaning Tufts students,” Schildkraut said. In addition, the 2020 election is predicted to see the highest voter turnout in the century, according to the New York Times’ TheUpshot. Tolbert noted a prospective uptick in youth voter turnout. “If 2018 is any indication, we can expect to see higher turnout in the 2020 general election. The issues candidates around the country are running on reflect the changing dynamics of the electorate,” he said. “Student loan debt, gun violence prevention, and climate change are just a few of the issues that candidates are running on to earn the youth vote.” Westlake and Kahn emphasized the importance of Warren’s student debt loan policy as one of the key issues that

is affecting students across the nation and on Tufts campus. Both Kahn and Friedmann spoke on their goals of collaborating with each other during the following semesters in reaching as many different people and groups on campus, as well as in the surrounding areas. “The Tufts Dems want to work with those clubs and one of our biggest goals for this semester is to bring maybe a club that is just for Warren or just for Kamala, and we want to bring them together for discussion with the Tufts Dems as well and work closely with them throughout the semester,” Friedmann said. Kahn has reached out to the Tufts Democrats for collaboration this semester and also looks forward to working with other student groups on campus to spread the word about Warren and her electability. “I just want to make clear because I have talked to a lot of people that say, ‘I like Warren but I don’t know if she is my candidate,’ and I would still encourage those people to come to our meetings and our events and learn more about her… It does not mean that you have to be dead set on her in order to participate,” Kahn said. Tufts is sure to see further political action, conversation and engagement over the following semesters as the 2020 presidential election continues to near and campaigns ramp up.Not in the Image of Godschallenging patriarchal power structures and addressing and ending damaging impacts of an enforced gender binary.


8

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F e at u r e s

Wednesday, August 28, 2019 | Features | THE TUFTS DAILY

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Tufts students, professors remember Sam Lobley ’19 by Fina Short

Executive Features Editor

In Sam Lobley’s creative writing senior honors thesis proposal, he wrote of plans to portray characters whose lives were not defined by illness. Containing one story with autobiographical elements, his short story collection “Not in the Image of Gods” explores the role of illness in family and personal life as well as life beyond disease or disability. “Illnesses are often portrayed quite dramatically in popular culture — authors illustrate them as tragic or attempt to romanticize the suffering,” Lobley wrote in the proposal. “I will take a more realistic approach, showing illness and disability as a component of people’s lives, but not the definition of them.” Lobley, a Class of 2019 student from Long Island, N.Y., died days before graduation in May after a long battle with cystic fibrosis and complications from a lung transplant, according to an announcement from the Office of the President. At Tufts, his work ethic and aptitude on the page inspired professors and students alike. “How fortunate you are to have lived in the time of Sam Lobley,” Tufts Commencement speaker Alfre Woodard said to the Class of 2019, “to have been inspired by his perspective, touched by his kindness, stirred by his ideas and infected by his joy.” Lobley excelled academically throughout his college career. He was elected to Tufts Phi Beta Kappa in January; in May, he was to be awarded the Tufts Department of English Prize at graduation and had earned summa cum laude

Latin honors as well as honors for his senior thesis. “Sam thoroughly enjoyed his time at Tufts. He loved being a student,” Lisa Lobley, Lobley’s mother, said. “He was so excited to have that opportunity … he never took the privilege of being a college student for granted.” Tufts English Professor Jonathan Wilson, who taught Lobley in two creative writing classes and directed his senior honors thesis, said that he stood out in class for his wit and insightful feedback. “First of all, he was a wonderful writer,” Wilson said. “Secondly, he was sort of an indelible presence in the classroom, and a very … fair and honest participant in the workshops. Sam was always a very perceptive and generous critic of others’ work, in addition to being a very engaging writer himself.” While growing up, Lobley played the piano, violin and saxophone and acted in musical theater productions. Additionally, he was a hardworking student who took school seriously. “He wanted to be known as a student first always,” Lisa Lobley said. “Even as a younger kid … to be honest, the one thing that came easily to Sam in his life was school. He loved it; he loved to learn.” During his senior year, Lobley and his mother lived briefly in Texas while waiting for a pediatric lung transplant. He took advantage of his time in Houston by writing the mystery novel “No One Is Innocent” for a school assignment. The novel can be purchased from Dog Ear Publishing. At Tufts, Lobley was known as a determined student who remained dedicated to school despite difficult circumstances.

“Although it took an extraordinary effort for him to get to class, to be in class, he never allowed his illness to define him,” Wilson said. “He maintained a kind of extraordinary wit and a great sense of humor and he was just a … wonderful and courageous human being.” While parts of Lobley’s senior thesis contained autobiographical elements, Wilson said that his work more broadly addressed the complex impact of illness on families, with characters in various short stories facing distinct challenges. “I’ve always felt that he was somewhat influenced by Raymond Carver,” Wilson said. “The stories … would build very slowly, towards a very punchy ending … they’re very alert to the nuances of character.” Shane Woolley (LA’19), who was Lobley’s classmate in an Experimental College seminar, described him as a thoughtful student that he admired in school. “He was an incredibly smart and kind guy who was usually quiet, but when he spoke everybody paid attention,” Woolley told the Daily in an electronic message. Amrutha Chintalapudi (A’19), Lobley’s classmate in Spanish 2 and 3, echoed Woolley’s sentiments, praising Lobley’s work ethic and drive to take classes in a wide variety of subjects while at Tufts. “Taking as many things as he did, knowing his health condition, he must have really loved school,” Chintalapudi said. “He was a wonderful person, and it’s sad that he was dealing with this for the majority of his life. It was just not something anyone could imagine.” Fletcher Professor of English Literature Lee Edelman, who taught Lobley in

his class on Alfred Hitchcock’s films, described him as a surprising student in many ways. “He had an incredibly deep, loud voice, and he himself was rather small and slight and that discrepancy seemed to suggest that this very small body contained within it so much more than was visible on the outside,” Edelman said. “I think that was reflected in his passionate engagement with ideas and his real capacity to absorb and to produce new ways of thinking.” Edelman’s class was located in Tisch Library. Although the Tisch Library website states that the building’s entrances and exits are accessible, Edelman said the lack of disabled parking spots located near the building’s entrance had made it difficult for Lobley to get to class. “I do think that one way the university could honor Sam is to think seriously about issues of ability and disability on campus, and to think about, for instance, dedicating in his honor a parking space or a series of parking spaces so that every student on campus could have access to Tisch Library,” Edelman said. Ms. Lobley recommended that those interested in contributing to efforts against cystic fibrosis consider donating to CF Bridge of Hope. According to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Patient Registry, more than 30,000 people live with cystic fibrosis in the United States today. “He never defined himself by his illness,” Ms. Lobley said of her son. “He wanted to be known as a student first always. Even as a younger kid, he would never ask for anything even that he was entitled to because of his illness … he never felt sorry for himself. He was always trying to live the best life that he could.”


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THE TUFTS DAILY | Features | Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Summer Captures By The Tufts Daily Photo Staff

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Wednesday, August 28, 2019

ARTS&LIVING

15 tuftsdaily.com

2019 summer music roundup by Christopher Panella

Executive Social Media Editor

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Top Left: Album art for ‘IGOR’ by Tyler, the Creator is pictured. Top Right: Album art for ‘Dedicated’ by Carly Rae Jepsen is pictured. Bottom Left: Album art for ‘Clarity’ by Kim Petras is pictued. Bottom Right: Album art for ‘Fever’ by Megan Thee Stallion is pictured.

Sure, 2019 might just feel dominated by the Billboard Hot 100 record-breaking “Old Town Road” and its array of remixes, but there have been plenty of other releases to talk about. Some artists, like Katy Perry, have been slowly making new hit songs. Others, like Taylor Swift, have released some incredibly mediocre music, with lessthan-stellar results. Ed Sheeran released a collaboration album that’s simply forgettable and messy. The Jonas Brothers capitalized on their comeback, with their album “Happiness Begins” having the biggest pure sales week since 2017. But those are just a few artists in a field of many. In no particular order, here’s a roundup of some of the summer’s best music. Honorable mentions include Vampire Weekend’s “Father of the Bride,” Sabrina Carpenter’s “Singular: Act II,” Banks’ “III,” Beyoncé’s “The Lion King: The Gift” and Peppa Pig’s “My First Album” (no, that’s not a joke). Tyler, the Creator: “IGOR” His first U.S. chart-topping album, “IGOR,” is a concept album — it tells a story, explores a love triangle and creates a character. Its production is fantastic. Every song has layers of sounds with texture and taste. “RUNNING OUT OF TIME” is a spacey, sparking hit. “EARFQUAKE” is a bright love song. It’s a funky R&B album

with plenty of gorgeous music to unpack. While it might be one of Tyler’s most creative works, it’s also incredibly vulnerable. “IGOR” focuses on what Tyler’s been hiding in previous albums. It’s too early to tell if it’s his best work of hazy hip hop, but it’s a contender. “IGOR” treads the line between heartache and heartbreak, and that’s where it should stay.

Carly Rae Jepsen: “Dedicated” “Dedicated” is a purely fantastic body of pop music. From the serotonin-inducing “Julien” to the traditional Jepsen hit “Now That I Found You” and the guilty self-pleasure “Party for One,” Jepsen has crafted one of the year’s best works. The album’s arguably best song “Everything He Needs” is a buzzy bop and might just capture “Dedicated” best — there’s longing and devotion, but also a hint of something else, a relationship on the cusp of beginning and ending simultaneously. It’s a love and heartbreak album, but when Jepsen struggles with relationships, the songs are still infectious dance-pop. There are some real complexities on “Dedicated,” but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a pop album to dance to at 3 a.m.

Megan Thee Stallion: “Fever” If you heard people or brands using the phrase “hot girl summer,” or maybe seen the popular motto on social media,

see SUMMER MUSIC, page 17

2019 summer movie roundup by Tufts Daily Arts Staff This year’s box office has been Disneydominated — from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) to remakes, Disney has half of the 10 highest grossing films of the year. It’s no surprise that some of these films have been summer blockbusters, but there are other films that rose to success. Here are the Tufts Daily’s arts editors’ roundup of 2019’s summer movies. “Avengers: Endgame” Considering that Marvel Studios has been building up to the culmination of the “Avengers” series for over 10 years, “Avengers: Endgame” clearly had a tall order to fill this summer. Luckily, the long-anticipated finale executed this task with finesse and aplomb, focusing not only on the epic conclusion of the battle with Thanos but expertly navigating the relationships between the Avengers themselves. Essentially, “Endgame” continues to remind us that our heroes have been fighting for the last 10 years. Not only does it dive into the physical and emotional toll of such a battle, especially after the end of “Infinity War” (2018), but it also (without spoiling too much) offers a compelling retrospective on the series as a whole, making the film not only the finale of the fight with Thanos but a satisfying conclusion to the end of a Marvel era as well. “Spider-Man: Far From Home” After the ambitious release of “Endgame,” Marvel lightened things up with the release of “Spider-Man: Far From Home.” Peter Parker’s (Tom Holland) globetrotting adventures on his class field trip force him to balance the responsibility of saving the world with his desire to be a high-schooler, which includes

professing his feelings for his classmate, MJ (Zendaya). This classic teenage struggle adds welcome levity and familiarity to complement Peter’s responsibilities as an Avenger — especially after the seriousness of “Endgame.” In addition, “Far From Home” moves away from the familiarity of New York City; the films locations, including Paris, Prague and London, make for some fantastic new Spidey stunts that make this addition to the MCU loads of fun. “Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood” “Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood” emulates its name. Nearly the entire film is a slow buildup as reflected by the “Once Upon A Time in…” — the ellipses functioning as a sort of dramatic grammatical drumroll. The film ends with a scene so entertaining and bold that it could only be represented by the film’s setting and final word of the title — “Hollywood.” More structurally similar to “Hateful Eight” (2015) than “Inglorious Bastards” (2009) and “Django Unchained” (2012), acclaimed director Quentin Tarantino combines all of the elements that have won him praise in the past — dialogue, storytelling and fascinating characters — to create his newest masterpiece. The film is chock-full of famous actors and many have memorable moments, but Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt steal the show as a fictional actor and his body double living in 1969 Hollywood, during the twilight of its golden age. “The Lion King” To see the shortcomings of “The Lion King,” it’s best to compare it not to the original, but to the other recent CGI remake of a beloved, animal-centric children’s story — “The Jungle Book” (2016). Both see SUMMER MOVIES, page 17

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A promotional poster for ‘Avengers: Endgame’ (2019) is pictured.


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THE TUFTS DAILY | Arts & Living | Wednesday, August 28, 2019

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‘Viewpoints’: An anthology of photographic poems about modernity

by Ruijingya Tang

Arts Editor

The Industrial Revolution brought the world into an era of intrigue. Rapid technological advancements transformed the means of production and transportation, in turn creating diverse — even conflicting — cultural shifts, such as the increasing alienation of workers from their work and community and the unprecedented confluence of people and ideas through the railway and press. Following the Roaring Twenties, the gift of prosperity from the Revolution deteriorated into a curse of depression and war. The quick turns of the twentieth century continue to fascinate scholars and laymen. With its newly opened exhibition, “Viewpoints: Photographs from the Howard Greenberg Collection,” the Museum of Fine Arts surveys the photographic voices of the twentieth century as an artistic study of modernity. Metropolises constitute the quintessential phenomenon of modernity. Revisiting the epitome of such phenomenon — New York City — “Viewpoints” explores the simultaneous reflections of the city environment as dangerous, cold and alien and as a convenient safe haven for privacy and humanity in the eyes of the 1950s. “Village Idiot” (1950) by Saul Leiter captures the eccentricity and emotional aloofness of the urban machine. The photograph depicts a heavily costumed and masked person in what seems

to be New York City at night. This eerie figure is a metaphor for both the City and its human constituents. As the face of the City, the figure characterizes it as a bizarre otherworld, conjuring up the modern literary trope of urban myths. The sense of reality and familiarity of this photo are further blunted by the abstraction of blurred lights and objects in the background, which consequently is contained in a dreamy ambience. However, the City is not all emotionally gloomy. In his photograph “New Year’s Eve, Times Square, NYC” (1951), Dan Weiner highlights the sentimentality of New York City. In the photograph, a couple kisses in the stereotypically crowded Times Square. Albeit reminiscent of arguably the most famous photo of Times Square kissers — “V-J Day in Times Square” (1945) by Alfred Eisenstaedt — Weiner’s work resembles its precedent in only the most literal sense that they both depict kisses in Times Square. Compared to “V-J Day,” “New Year’s Eve” involves much less staging-like quality and therefore feels more intimate, realistic and relatable. First of all, shown in their full bodies, Eisenstaedt’s couple seem literally more removed from the audience than Weiner’s, in which only the head and shoulder parts of whom are shown in a closer shot. Besides, “New Year’s Eve” assumes a blurrier and less unfocused texture, capturing the heart of New York City at night as it is best known: fast-moving, evanescent and a bit sweaty from the

crowd. The moving embrace of Weiner’s couple tells another urban myth: a less uncanny one in which the overall vast, complex and impersonal city community creates private social spaces where people can engage in intimacy without the surveillance of public attention. Modernity brought structural changes to not only architectural infrastructure but also social values. The “Bearing Witness” section of the exhibition showcases photojournalistic works by some Farm Security Administration photographers, many of whom photographed the African American community. James Karales’ photograph “Selma-to-Montgomery March for Voting Rights in 1965” (1965) documents one of the pivotal movements in African American history, when African American activists fought for their voting rights through civil protests, which successfully led to the passing of the Voting Rights Act (1965) under President Lyndon B. Johnson. “Selma” pictures a procession of African American activists marching in assertive strides under a vast, cloudy sky. The photographer sits at a lower vantage point than the marching caravan, and the resultant awe-inspiring, bottom-up portrait of the activists highlights the virtue and majesty of the cause of the movement. The photo radiates with magnificence. Artistically, this majestic portrait feeds on the legacy of Romanticism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Specifically, the aesthetic of a national flag piercing

into a foreboding sky in “Selma” draws almost directly from Romanticism paintings depicting the French and American revolutions, such as “Liberty Leading the People” (Eugène Delacroix, 1830) and “Washington Crossing the Delaware” (Emanuel Leutze, 1851). Through such art historical references, “Selma” documents black history with the same exalting visual language as that used to glorify white history, challenging master narratives on race and the American identity. Impressively, the curators of “Viewpoints,” including Henry Greenberg himself, have created an eclectic anthology of photographers and subjects. That being said, this photographic collection can still be quite visually and symbolically monotone, as all photos featured are black-andwhite, and most tend to assume a certain critical and dreary quality, leading their audience into reveries regarding the faults of last century. However, modernity, at least from an American perspective, for all its Gatsby-esque wasteful luxury, is also creative, entertaining and lively from technological innovations and the novelty of urban life. The jolly of modernity seems underrepresented in “Viewpoints,” as it is in many other retrospective narratives about modernity. In this sense, “Viewpoints” excels in the quality of its content, but does not break boundaries in terms of perspective. The exhibition will remain on view through Dec. 15. Tufts students get free entry with valid Tufts IDs.

TV REVIEW

‘Stranger Things 3’ explores new themes but similar plot by Ananya Pavuluri Contributing Writer

This review contains spoilers. Netflix released the third season of “Stranger Things” (2016–), an international sci-fi smash hit, on Independence Day this past summer. In this season, the children and adults of Hawkins once again have to battle a grotesque monster from another dimension, one that uses human beings as a vessel to enter our dimension and grow larger and stronger. This season also presents us with new settings, more iconography and heightened nostalgia for older viewers. The season begins with a couple of episodes packed with teen angst that allow the audience to catch up with the kids of Hawkins. We get to see Mike and Eleven navigating their romantic relationship and dealing with an overprotective Hopper, Dustin telling tales of his girlfriend from summer camp (whom his friends are reluctant to believe exists) and perhaps most poignantly, Will feeling left behind by all of his romance-obsessed friends. The writers and producers do an excellent job ensuring that the characters grow and mature with their actors, presenting us with realistic adolescent confusion. Sadie Sink’s character, Max, was given much more attention and depth this season. Max, who was introduced last season, was not a very strong character. She seemed to have been written in solely to create romantic tension between the boys. This season, however, devotes time to her friendship with Eleven, in which she teaches Eleven all about being a ‘normal’ girl and assures her that “there’s more to life than stupid boys.” This new

relationship is a wonderful portrayal of supportive female friendships and also a fantastic way to remedy the poor choice to pit these two girls against each other in the last season. “Stranger Things” has gotten its deserved share of negative reviews from critics and viewers alike for poor development of female characters in its previous seasons. Many even claimed that the series failed to pass the Bechdel Test despite its many episodes, which were all nearly an hour long. It is clear that the Duffer Brothers took this criticism into account. Other than changing the dynamic between Eleven and Max, the writers also introduced Robin, a new female character who is funny, brainy and already a fan favorite. Throughout the season, we see her relationship with Steve unfold and expect them to fall in love; instead, we learn that Robin is interested in women, causing Steve to embrace her as a friend rather than pull away due to rejection. The season also shows us the overt sexism Nancy has to face in her workplace, which was a very pressing issue for women in the ’80s and can likely still resonate with many working women today. Overall, the plot of this season was more or less the same. A fleshy monster from the Upside-Down finds its way into the world. Different subgroups of characters notice various signs that something is off in Hawkins and go on their respective quests to figure out what is happening. All of these smaller groups merge at the end with a main goal: fighting off the monster. The writers stuck to their classic “Stranger Things” formula. Unfortunately, this season’s plot lacked any world-building or back-

VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The logo of the TV show ‘Stranger Things’ (2016–) is pictured. ground information, which are essential components of the supernatural/ science-fiction genre. Although the Russians are clearly defined as the main villain, their motivations behind opening the portal are not revealed. Perhaps this will be explored in a later season. Possibly the greatest disappointment of season 3 was that there was not even a mention of any of the others who were victims of the Hawkins Lab experiments. Perhaps it was because the reviews for the episode in which Eleven found Kali (number 008 from the Hawkins Lab) were overwhelmingly negative, and fans thought it stuck out like a sore thumb in an otherwise brilliant season. However, instead of using this feedback to write in Eleven’s other ‘siblings’ in a different way, the writers of the show simply played it safe with a repetitive plot.

“Stranger Things” reached its height not because of its science-fiction plot — one that was created by borrowing aspects of various ’80s media — but because of its fantastic set of memorable characters and the talented actors. However, there were no outstanding performances this season or any significant evolutions in any character, and for this reason, the repetitive plot was less forgivable and the season as a whole felt a bit underwhelming. Despite all of this, the ending of the season most definitely deserves praise. Unlike previous seasons’ endings, this season makes sure to leave some loose ends untied. “Stranger Things 3” closes with cliffhangers and limitless potential for the next season, leaving fans all over the world already waiting for “Stranger Things 4.”


Arts & Living

Wednesday, August 28, 2019 | Arts & Living | THE TUFTS DAILY

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In defense of ‘Vox Lux’

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,A promotional poster for ‘Vox Lux’ (2018) is pictured.

nby Tommy Gillespie Arts Editor

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Just 22 minutes into “Vox Lux” (2018), Willem Dafoe’s buttery narration succinctly summarizes the genesis and damnation of its troubled star. Just days into the new millennium, the teenage Celeste Montgomery (Raffey Cassidy) stands at the candlelit pulpit of a close-knit Staten Island Catholic church to sing at a vigil for the victims a Columbine-like shooting, perpetrated by a guylinered, metalhead outcast.

Accompanied by older sister Ellie (Stacy Martin), Celeste unsteadily takes her position and begins singing “Wrapped Up,” the first of the film’s 11 electrifying Sia-penned tracks. We zoom in on the opportunistic eye of a news camera as Dafoe’s voice explains, “The entire country fell in step with her sentiment. It was not her grief, it was theirs.” And from this distinctly modern and American tragedy, pop’s next “It Girl” has emerged. Celeste’s music, plucked from her visions of an endless tunnel between life and death, becomes a filter for their collective trauma, dispersing it harmlessly into the air. At this point, cinematographer Lol Crawley has already placed us behind a gun barrel as it fires multiple rounds into a seated music teacher, scaled back to the now-familiar image of children escaping out of second-story classroom windows, and stood unflinchingly before Celeste as her blood splatters onto the blackboard. The America of “Vox Lux” has only seen one of these images. Yet, this America will claim Celeste as their liberation from fear, rising to dance along with her from the splintered remnants of what was, in the year 2000, a burgeoning and terrifying phenomenon. The subtitle of “Vox Lux” calls the film “A 21st Century Portrait,” and director Brady Corbet places Celeste’s career at the heart of our era’s maturation. The sense of center-cannot-hold paranoia that encroaches throughout mass media and culture during this time becomes her milestones. She ventures to Sweden with Ellie to record an album, sampling her first piece of the thumping euphoria of a pop star’s life. From there, they travel straight to Los Angeles with a smarmy manager ( Jude Law), where Celeste becomes pregnant by an English musician. In the wake of 9/11, Celeste releases her most iconic video.

Disney dominates summer box office SUMMER MOVIES

continued from page 15 films are directed by actor-turned-director Jon Favreau, of Marvel fame, who seems to have had the same goal in mind for each — expanding on classics and lifting them higher than their originals. With “The Jungle Book,” Favreau arguably succeeds, adding new, interesting, world-building plot points and upgrading characters such as King Louie and Shere Khan, and tweaking the songs to help the film flow. Favreau tries to do this in “The Lion King,” yet Scomes up considerably short — any changes to the plot (though few and far between) don’t liven up the story; big characters, such as Scar and the hyenas, come off as downgrades in appearance and personality; and the songs don’t inspire nearly that aural sense of wonder we all had when hearing the originals. “Booksmart” From director Olivia Wilde’s first screenings back in April to its re-release a few weeks ago, “Booksmart” has been the talk of the summer. It’s a fresh take on the high school comedy — a generational anthem in line with “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” (1982) and “Superbad” (2007). But “Booksmart” is better than what has come before it. It’s not about clichés or tropes. It’s about real characters struggling to gain their footing in a place of transition. Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever have electric chemistry as best friends Molly and Amy, and the ensem-

ble cast that surrounds them includes some of the funniest performances of year (especially from Billie Lourd). “Toy Story 4” At first glance, “Toy Story” was about the last franchise that needed another entry — especially after the near perfect “Toy Story 3” (2010). But “Toy Story 4” proves Woody, Buzz and the gang still had stories that needed telling. What the film does best is focus on Woody himself — long lost from his days with Andy and feeling purposeless amongst the variety of toys his new owner, Bonnie, has. Woody’s journey feels honest and complete by the end of “Toy Story 4,” and it almost tugs at the heartstrings more than its predecessor. Its animation is gorgeous, and its voice acting is fantastic. Truthfully, it might just be the best “Toy Story” installment since the original. “Midsommar” “Midsommar” helps confirm that A24 will go down as one of the best film companies of our time. The film features phenomenal performances from leading actress Florence Pugh, along with supporting actors Jack Reynor and Vilhelm Blomgrem. There’s a lot to appreciate when you pay close attention to this film, including impressive costume design, clever camerawork and complex symbolism. However, you don’t have to pay too much attention to get captivated by the terrifying plot and trippy visual effects. From an artistic standpoint, “Midsommar” is a must-see horror film.

This idea that American culture has become increasingly commandeered by violence and its associated hysteria is certainly not a revolutionary one. Nor is “Vox Lux” alone in suggesting that cultural phenoms like Celeste become draftees in a type of mass cultural combat, having their lives, perspectives and struggles co-opted by the public to gain a sense of victory over, or perhaps more accurately a release from, the tumult of our time. Perhaps the film’s position in today’s cinema landscape doomed it. In a year dominated by films like “Bohemian Rhapsody” (2018), “A Star Is Born” (2018) and “Rocketman” (2019), perhaps the viewing public was unwilling to acquaint themselves with the new, fictional star of “Vox Lux” when they could see the lives of reallife icons on the next screen. Combined with a fairly tepid critical response, the writing seems to have been on the wall for “Vox Lux.” This does not make the critics and moviegoers ignorant rubes who wouldn’t know good cinema if it smacked them across the face; the film certainly has issues beyond Natalie Portman’s halfhearted Staten Island accent. “Vox Lux,” however, stands above its peers for its unrelenting focus on exactly who gains what from that all-important release and what its true ramifications are. Corbet devotes the film’s second act and finale to answering these questions in the space of a single day. Picking up in 2017, 31-year-old Celeste (Natalie Portman) is returning to Staten Island for the opening show of a sci-fi-influenced comeback tour. Beset by issues with arrests, alcohol and substance abuse, she struggles to maintain her relationships with her daughter, Albertine (Cassidy), and Ellie. Ahead of a press conference, her longtime publicist (Jennifer Ehle) brings disturbing news: A group of terrorists wearing the same masks from her video have just gunned down a dozen tourists on a Croatian beach.

With this terrorist incident halfway across the world, Celeste’s life cycle begins anew, having found, as Celeste’s bitter diner-table lecture to Albertine explains, “an angle.” Portman’s Celeste, propped up by drugs, drink and meds, may be semi-estranged from her daughter, spew bilious hatred at Ellie and crumple before the show into a blubbering, despondent mess. But these terrorists have now joined the litany of naysayers and hostile actors determined to Bring Celeste Down, and, as she defiantly declares onstage to her fans, they’ve been trying to take her down for years. But she won’t stay down. This new bloodshed, at the hands of figures from Celeste’s artistic pantheon, is not visited upon her and later collectively transcended by legions of inspired fans. Celeste’s career, incubated by a shocking act of violence, has become a symptom of our era’s wider saturation of violence. Trauma has refracted off her since she stared into the eyes of the gunman, and it has finally moved beyond her reach. But, like any good soldier, Celeste instinctually reworks the playing field to advance the saga of Celeste, whatever the personal cost. Exhorting these hostile actors to believe in Celeste rather than in their extremism, she steps onstage for the grand finale and unbinds the imaginary distinction between herself and the violence that made her. Stardom and terror collide into the bass that shakes the arena. Portman’s Celeste squints and weaves this untameable energy through her vocal chords as she belts her lineup of Sia-written bangers. The blocky letters of a jumbotron flash between “PRAY” and “PREY.” Celeste dances the language of battle. We see her conquer the darkness beneath the surface; we know Celeste will always prevail. The beat drops. The lights explode. Her voice echoes. We close our eyes and are weightless.

Summer playlist: Jepsen, Willow, Petras SUMMER MUSIC

continued from page 15 thank Megan Thee Stallion. Houston’s newest prodigy has released what might be the best debut album of the year so far. “Fever” is catchy, well-developed and full of bangers. There’s an authenticity to Megan and her music. The opening track “Realer” showcases Megan’s talent, “W.A.B” is a sickeningly catchy bop and “Running Up Freestyle” is just awesome. Beyond her rapping skills, Megan’s also a genius writer. She’s written some of the best lines of the year, including one off “Realer”: “Don’t wanna link with these bitches, ain’t feelin’ ‘em/I’ll knock the shit out that bitch like a enema, ah.” It’s hard to believe “Fever” is a debut album. For many artists, something this good is unachievable. Kim Petras: “Clarity” Looking for some forward-thinking and catchy pop perfection? Petras’ debut album “Clarity” comes after a few years of some great extended plays, including the spooky-but-make-it-sexy “Turn Off the Light, Vol. 1” (2018). But “Clarity” stands above all of Petras’ previous works — it feels more complete, like there’s a deeper story here. “Icy” is a post-heartbreak jam while tracks like “Got My Number” and “Sweet Spot” are sexy Saturday night fun. With “Clarity,” Petras has found a way to point herself out as a leader of the ever-changing pop landscape — someone whose nuanced take on the genre makes her light-years ahead of some pop

stars who are struggling to see where pop music is going. It seems like Petras really does have clarity.

Willow: “WILLOW” For people who only know her from her single “Whip My Hair,” here’s an introduction to an older and far more fantastic Willow Smith. Her third album “WILLOW” is a creative vibe perfect for a long beach day or not-so-sober late nights. There’s a certain maturity on here that’s almost treading on wisdom — Willow sings about relationships and love on “PrettyGirlz” while tackling a sense of loneliness and a lack of belonging on “Time Machine.” It’s all very genre-mixed and wild, with guitar strings and soft drums and Willow’s dreamy voice swirling all around. “WILLOW” deserves appreciation just for experimenting, but even more so because the experiments resulted in such a wildly cool experience. There are plenty of releases to look forward to, albums that just arrive on the cusp of the end of the summer and will certainly make for a smooth transition into the beginning of fall. Taylor Swift’s “Lover” (2019) will most likely be a less-developed “Red” (2013), Charli XCX’s “Charli” (2019) is finally bringing Sky Ferreira out of the hole she’s been in since 2013, and Lana Del Rey’s “Norman F**king Rockwell” (2019) is finally coming after speculation it would release this past March.


THE TUFTS DAILY | FUN & GAMES | Wednesday, August 28, 2019

F &G FUN & GAMES

tuftsdaily.com LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Austin to Jess: “We’re [redacted] each other’s [redacted] now.”

SUDOKU

LINDA C. BLACK ASTROLOGY

Virgo (Aug. 23–Sept. 22)

Notice your dreams, aspirations and ambitions. Does it match your current situation? Choose your direction. You can make things happen. Wait and consider.

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Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Opinion

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EDITORIAL

Welcome Home and Welcome Back also like to look back. Time away from this hilltop home does not mean we’ve forgotten the Tufts community’s most pressing issues. It is imperative that we continue past conversations, start new ones and remain attentive to what is happening, both on campus and in the world. Last year, students fought to raise the minimum wage on campus and stood with dining workers as they sought fair working conditions through unionization. Last year, our community was rocked by serious allegations surrounding its involvement with the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma, and it was subjected to acts of anti-Semitic and racist intimidation and harassment on campus. Last year, student groups advocated for justice and change, our editorial board pushed for solutions to critical campus problems and fights were won and lost. Even as new issues arise this fall, we must not let summer distance us from the progress and action we took last year. This work must go on. We will fight for the identities of students on this campus and support members of the Group of Six amidst a time of change. We will keep in mind the citizens of Somerville and Medford and be aware of how our university is impacting and changing their lives. We will continue to advocate for solutions to continuing problems with student housing, work towards increasing the power of student voices in community decision-making and hold our university accountable. Another school year is in front of us, and while we don’t know all of what is to come, we’ll continue fighting for the values dear to this campus and community. Welcome back to the hill.

SMOKEYBEAR.COM

BY JULIA BARONI

ION OF STA IAT TE OC

TERS RES FO

Only YOU Can Prevent Wildfires.

EDITORIAL CARTOON

NATIONAL A SS

Class of 2023: Welcome home. Welcome to Tufts University, to a community where — not to sound like an admissions brochure — you can truly be yourself. We’re doers and fighters, artists and entrepreneurs, athletes and poets, activists and scientists and much more. It’s into this community which you’re about to plunge for the next four years, so take the time over the next several weeks, months and semesters to discover who you are or become someone new. In these first dizzying weeks, there are things you’ll hear over and over. We put them in print at the Tufts Daily because we mean them. When we say we’re excited to see what you do here at Tufts, what you bring to life and what you change: We mean it. When we say we’re lucky to have you here, we’re thrilled to get to know you and we’re glad you’re with us as we work to better our community: We mean it. When we say you can turn to us (personally) for advice or ask for help: We mean it. When we say that we’re a close community and we’re happy you chose to come to Tufts: We mean it. We mean it, too, when we say that we’re excited to read what you have to write in the pages of the Tufts Daily. Make Tufts as bright as it can be, and have fun while you’re at it. Read, write, do, create, build, perform, laugh and enjoy your first year. Welcome home, Class of 2023. Sophomores, juniors and seniors: Welcome back. It’s been a long summer, with plenty of time away from class, clubs and campus chaos. As we welcome the newest members of our Tufts family and leap forward into a bright new year, we’d

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The Tufts Daily is a nonprofit, independent newspaper, published Monday through Friday during the academic year, and distributed free to the Tufts community. The content of letters, advertisements, signed columns, cartoons and graphics does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Tufts Daily editorial board. EDITORIALS Editorials represent the position of The Tufts Daily. Individual editors are not necessarily responsible for, or in agreement with, the policies and editorials of The Tufts Daily. OP-EDS The Op-Ed section of The Tufts Daily, an open forum for campus editorial commentary, is printed Monday through Thursday. The Daily welcomes submissions from all members of the Tufts community; the opinions expressed in the Op-Ed section do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Daily itself. Opinion articles on campus, national and international issues should be 600 to 1,200 words in length and submitted to opinion@tuftsdaily.com. The editors reserve the right to edit letters for clarity, space and length. All material is subject to editorial discretion and is not guaranteed to appear in the Daily. Authors must submit their telephone numbers and day-of availability for editing questions. ADVERTISING All advertising copy is subject to the approval of the Editor-in-Chief, Executive Board and Executive Business Director.


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THE TUFTS DAILY | Opinion | Wednesday, August 28, 2019

tuftsdaily.com

OP-ED

A Tribute to Sam Lobley by Franny Kiles It is May 14, 2019, the day that I turn 21, and the day that President Monaco emails with the news that Sam Lobley passed away from complications related to cystic fibrosis (CF). As another Tufts student with CF, reading this email makes me feel guilty. It makes me feel lucky. It makes me wonder, why not me? Why am I the one who is healthy, who is celebrating her 21st birthday? I am so very glad to be alive, and today I am celebrating that fact, but this news hits me hard. It makes me feel sad and helpless that not everyone with CF can be as lucky as I have been. That not everyone can be healthy on their 21st

birthday. That not everyone benefits from the new generation of medications that have come out over the past few years. That some people with CF start out their lives immediately struggling with their health while others are asymptomatic for years. CF is a serious, chronic and progressive disease. It is genetic and is caused by a defect in a protein known as cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR). This single defect affects many parts of the body, but usually the most dire consequences present in the lungs. Despite the severity of CF, the internal nature of the disease often makes it completely invisible to outside observers. It would be very difficult for

someone who did not know me to guess that I have a chronic illness; I look like your average Tufts student, yet I have been hospitalized for several weeks due to serious lung infections and am on a multitude of medications in order to maintain my health. CF research has made extraordinary progress over the past two decades, moving the average life expectancy from only 16 into late 30s, but we still need to do better because it is not fair. It is not fair that some people with CF are dealt an even tougher hand than others–that some people get to live an entire life while others’ lives are cut short. The fact that CFTR modulator drugs have completely changed certain peoples’ lives is

remarkable, but we still need to do better. We need to widen the scope of these new treatments so that they help every single person with CF, no matter their particular CFTR mutations. Sam, I wish I could have known you, and I send my deepest condolences to the family and friends who did know you and must now cope with this tremendous loss. You sound like a very special, strong, wonderful person who touched many lives, and even though we never met you’ve touched mine. You were a fighter. People with CF? We are all fighters. We can and must keep fighting to better the lives of everyone affected by CF, on behalf of the living and in honor of the passed.

OP-ED

Can Blood and Water Flow Together? by Atrey Bhargava

I am an Indian national, and I traveled to Pakistan to research a water-sensitive topic. The summer of 2018 brought me an invaluable opportunity: the privilege to visit the Pakistani cities of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, and Lahore. Growing up in Lucknow, India, I was raised on the stories of undivided India. These memories were preserved in the food, language, culture, and ethos of my Indian city, and in Pakistan as well. My journey to Pakistan started with my undergraduate education at Tufts where I had the fortune of meeting my closest friend and research partner, Uzair Sattar. For our freshman summer, we wanted to look at transboundary water distribution in the Indus Basin, and in our naiveté we choose Pakistan as our research destination. Little did I know that the ensuing visa process would take months, and Uzair and I would more than once break down on our dream to

conduct this project. Inshallah, my visa did arrive for the three cities aforementioned. On landing in Islamabad, I could not help but wonder how worth it the tedious visa process had been. In my time there, I met the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) — the Pakistani equivalent of the CIA — in all three cities that I visited. I met military officials, local police, professors, thinktanks, international lawyers, politicians and journalists. In all of them I saw the remnants of the Lucknavi adaab, or hospitality. In a rather unique set of circumstances, an ISI official wrote me a list of places to visit in Islamabad and the police departments expedited my visa papers because I am an Indian national. In meeting Uzair’s relatives, I found a family in a different country which spoke the same language, ate the same food and watched the same cricket, albeit the opposing side. I was gifted Peshawari chappals, for my visa did not extend to Peshawar, and was greeted with humongous helpings of kebabs, parathas, biryanis and goshts–comparable only to those

which I have found with my mom and dad on home turf. I became one of the very few Indians to see the Wagah border from both the Indian and the Pakistani sides, to visit the tomb of Jahangir after seeing the tombstones of the other Mughal emperors in Delhi and Agra, and to visit the Minar-e-Pakistan and see Pakistani military headquarters. I was able to get a haircut in Islamabad with Uzair’s preferred barber who upon meeting me could not help but reminisce about the countless times he went into Punjab to sell goods before the boundaries were impossible to cross. When I went to buy gifts for my family, the shop owners could not resist selling me their shawls, kurtas, and shalwar-kameez, because they thought that those items were unique to Pakistan. In fact, they were not, and while manufactured in Pakistan, the similarity of goods, services and attitudes across the border stood out to me. As I would later recall to my mother, the food, clothing and customs were much similar

between Pakistan and North India than my experiences with the south, east and west of my own country. While my research was attempting to enquire whether India was responsible for the water scarcity in Pakistan, my conclusion not only cleared India’s name from Pakistan’s water problems but also argued that India had no present capability of affecting Pakistani water supply, and the political rhetoric on both sides is completely misguided. This conclusion sets on record that above politics, religion or historical differences, the entire subcontinent is tied together by a string of common values and customs. No boundary devised by anyone, let alone a British cartographer, can divide the oneness of people across both our countries. It is perhaps my connection to Uzair which has so uniquely transformed my relationship with Pakistan, and while many of us Indians do not have a chance to meet another Pakistani national, we perhaps need to be more critical and cognizant of our biases when we hear about our “little brother.”

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Letter from the editor to the Class of 2023 To our newest readers, I’m probably not the first to welcome you to campus; that was the responsibility of your preorientation leader, or your FYA, or whoever wrote your admissions letter when it made its way into your mailbox. But I hope that does not make this welcome seem any less genuine. I am glad that you are here. You are, at least for this moment, exactly where you are supposed to be. Your first-year at Tufts might be the greatest year of your life thus far. It might be full of new friends and new experiences, community that you’ve always longed for, academics that spark your interests and extracurriculars that provide exciting challenges for you. It might also be messy, full of rejection and loneliness and confusion and change. It will likely be both (it was for me). So here’s my encouragement for the next four years: don’t be afraid to use your voice. Every day, I am lucky to be surrounded by people who are using their voices, whether they are just starting out with shaky words or confidently speaking out. The pages of this paper, and of many past and future issues of the Tufts Daily, are full of people using their voice tell stories, to expose injustice, to draw attention to issues that deserve attention. The Tufts Daily could not

exist without the passion, outspokenness, and motivation of Tufts students. Tufts is the smallest American university with an independent daily newspaper, which means that we have to work harder to produce the paper everyday and keep it afloat, but we’re very stubborn and very thankful for our independence. We could never do what we do without it. And never forget that with raising your voice comes the responsibility to recognize when you have misused it or made a mistake. We at the Daily have made many mistakes, and we will surely make more, though I sincerely hope that we never repeat the same mistakes. Be open to criticism and listen when you’re called out for using your voice improperly (you will be). Always be open to apologizing; always be open to learning. Other than that, find a couple great people and hold tight to them. You’ve got a wild week ahead, and a strange four years after that. You’re going to need each other. On behalf of the Tufts Daily masthead, welcome to Tufts. You are exactly where you are supposed to be. Sincerely, Jessica Blough Editor in Chief, The Tufts Daily

The “It’s Not Like I’m Drunk” Cocktail 2 oz. tequila 1 oz. triple sec 1/2 ounce lime juice Salt 1 too many 1 automobile 1 missed red light 1 false sense of security 1 lowered reaction time Combine ingredients. Shake. Have another. And another.

Never underestimate ‘just a few.’ Buzzed driving is drunk driving.


Sports

Wednesday, August 28, 2019 | Sports | THE TUFTS DAILY

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Men’s soccer, women’s field hockey seek to maintain success (including Wesleyan) finishing the season ranked in the top seven nationally.

EVAN SAYLES / TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

Tufts’ senior midfielder Brett Rojas defends the ball in the team’s 4–0 Elite Eight win over Montclair State on Nov. 18, 2018.

FALL SEASON

continued from back page ous season. Tufts will look to kick off its run at the 2019 crown with a home game versus Framingham State University on Sept. 3. Women’s Soccer With a stellar 9–4–2 regular season record and a No. 4 finish in the ever-competitive NESCAC, the Tufts women’s soccer team qualified for its second-straight NCAA tournament berth last fall. In the first round of the tournament, hosted at William Smith College in Geneva, N.Y., the Jumbos defeated the Penn State Behrend Lions 2–0 off of two early goals from rising junior forward Liz Reed. But their season soon ended in the second round with a 1–0 double overtime loss to the William Smith Herons, who were playing on their home field. Coach Martha Whiting now enters her 21st season as head coach of the Jumbos and will look to continue to lead her program to success in a tough NESCAC division. Offensively, the Tufts squad should pick up where it left off, as Reed and rising junior midfielder Sophie Lloyd led the way last season, scoring 10 and seven goals, respectively. In the net, however, the Jumbos graduated Emily Bowers (LA’19), who started at goalkeeper practically every game since she was a first-year. Tufts is slated to begin the fall season with a non-conference matchup at home against Emerson on Sept. 4. The first NESCAC game falls on Sept. 7 as the team will travel to Williamstown, Mass., to take on Williams. Formidably, this year’s schedule also features eight straight games against NESCAC opponents to close out the season. Men’s Tennis The No. 19 nationally ranked Tufts Jumbos rallied hard for an 8–9 overall record and a 4–5 NESCAC conference mark in 2018–19. The team also secured its spot in the NESCAC tournament for the first time in three years, yet ultimately fell to the No. 6 Middlebury Panthers, 5–3. Coach Karl Gregor detailed the team’s improvement and focus on improving its doubles game as crucial to the past year’s success. “The biggest thing I was focusing on was ways to improve our doubles,” Gregor said. “We spent a considerable amount of time on doubles and were way over .500 in doubles this year. It really helped in getting us momentum.” While the Jumbos displayed flashes of brilliance, they struggled to break through

in matches against top 10 nationally ranked opponents, going 0–7 against those teams. In particular, Tufts suffered two heartbreaking 5–4 losses to then-No. 7 Wesleyan and then-No. 6 Williams in the final sets of both matches. In the 2018–19 season, the Jumbos consisted of a young team led by its lone senior, co-captain Ross Kamin (LA’19). This season, however, is different. The majority of the team will feature upperclassmen, with rising junior Boris Sorkin at the helm at No. 1 singles. Sorkin has quickly established himself as one of the most talented athletes to play for Tufts tennis, having been awarded to the 2019 NCAA Div. III All-American singles team, making him the first men’s tennis Jumbo to earn the title since 2002. With a roster full of seasoned upperclassmen, the Jumbos seek to establish themselves among the very best, hopefully advancing deeper in the NESCAC tournament and breaking into the top 10. Tufts kicks off its fall preseason at the Middlebury Invitational in September. Women’s Tennis The Jumbos finished off an average 2019 season with a record of 5–4 in the NESCAC (9–10 overall) and ranked no. 9 in the nation. For the first time since 2016, the team didn’t make it past the first round of the NESCAC tournament, falling 5–2 to the Amherst Mammoths. While the Jumbos seemed to make a comeback during their first NCAA tournament match in a 5–0 sweeping victory against the Stevens Institute of Technology Ducks, a shocking 5–0 wipeout by the Middlebury Panthers in the next round promptly ended their season. Despite disappointment in the NCAA tournament, a highlight of the season came in the form of Tufts’ 5–4 win over the Williams College Ephs on March 22. The victory ended a longstanding 35-match, 28-year losing streak against the Ephs. Following the graduation of two of its key players, Tomo Iwasaki (LA’19) and Otilia Popa (LA’19), the team is now powered by underclassmen. Rising sophomore Maggie Dorr led the squad her first season, playing first singles and first doubles, and looks to do the same this year. It’s difficult to say how many first-years the team will add to the mix this season, as coach Kate Bayard holds try-outs that include recruited athletes and walk-ons each fall. However, it’s safe to say that whoever makes the cut will face fierce conference competition, with Wesleyan fresh off its first NCAA championship and four NESCAC rivals

Field Hockey This fall, the distinguished Tufts field hockey team — who finished last season ranked No. 4 in the country — will look to capitalize on its dominant 2018 campaign, which saw the team fall just short of a title in both the NESCAC tournament and the NCAA Div. III championship finals. Despite dominant performances against almost every team they faced, the Jumbos were denied an otherwise perfect record by one in-conference rival: the Middlebury Panthers. The Panthers, who ended the season with a 17–1 record atop the NESCAC along with both a conference and national crown, were the only team to defeat the Jumbos in 2018, thus cementing Tufts’ record at 19–3 for the season. Following the departure of six influential graduating seniors, including two AllAmericans, coach Tina Mattera — who is in her 16th year leading the Jumbos — will be looking to guide her team against the Panthers, and, in the process, hopefully capture Tufts’ second-ever national title. Volleyball Two seasons away from its 2017 perfect conference record (23–7, 10–0), the Tufts volleyball team looks to improve upon its 2018 campaign (16–10, 6–4) this fall and hopefully return to the NCAA regional for the first time in two years. The team, led by Tufts alumni and coach Cora Thompson, was defeated 3–2 in the NESCAC semifinals by a Bowdoin team that eventually went on to win its third NESCAC championship. Despite the graduation of two seniors, including outside hitter/opposite MacKenzie Bright, the team enters the 2019 season in more than capable hands. The Jumbos are led by the efforts of sophomore and NESCAC Rookie of the Year Cate Desler, who led the team in both total kills, with 247, and total points per set, with 3.4 total. Men’s and Women’s Cross Country Both the Tufts men’s and women’s cross country teams found success last season, with both teams qualifying for NCAA championships to complement their already relatively successful 2018–19 campaigns. The men’s team capped off its season with a 25th place finish at the NCAA championship, a great step forward for a team that missed the previous two NCAA championship meets altogether. Although the men’s team lost eight key seniors — including Brian Reaney, who was the Jumbos’ fastest runner in the 8k at the NCAA championship — the team looks to emulate its success with a roster of 24 expected returning players. Likewise, the women’s team finished the season in a promising position, earning a 12th place finish in the NCAA championship race last November, along with a fourth-place finish in the NESCAC championship. Despite graduating six seniors — four of whom led the team with the four fastest times in the team’s NCAA performance — the team looks to its returning talent to hopefully return to a top-30 nationally ranked team position in the fall. Sailing The Tufts co-ed sailing team is back in action for the fall, kicking off on Sept. 8 with a tour of regattas in Boston, Rhode Island and Maine in its first weekend of racing. The team graduated 14 seniors in 2019, including team co-captains Jack Bitney, Ian Morgan, Chris Keller and Sabrina van Mell. Together, they led the Jumbos through a total of 98 events throughout the year, culminating in an 11th place finish last spring at the Co-ed National Championship Finals. Nevertheless, the 56-member roaster remains one of the youngest on cam-

pus, with two-thirds of members from the Classes of 2022 and 2023. Rising sophomores Charlie Hibben and Ansgar Jordan will have the chance to build off of outstanding rookie performances last season. The then-first-years dominated on home water, leading Tufts to win the Nickerson Trophy at the New England Freshman Championships on Oct. 28, 2018, and contributing throughout the season in the A and B teams. Rising seniors Emily Calandrella and Emma Clutterbuck as well as junior Matthew Galbraith will captain the team in the 2019—20 season. One of the few Div. I teams at Tufts, co-ed sailing competes in the Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association and faces some of the toughest competition in the nation. Included among its many formidable adversaries are NESCAC rival Bowdoin College, as well as half of the Ivy League.

Crew The Tufts men’s crew first varsity eight capped its 2018–19 campaign with a fourthplace finish at the National Invitational Rowing Championship (NIRC) and a fifthplace run in the final of the New England Rowing Championships (NERC), the latter of which paved the way for the top boat’s best result in the event in 27 years. The postseason left the Jumbos in fourth place in the NESCAC behind Wesleyan, Trinity and Bates. The team graduated a total of 11 seniors, including four seniors in the first boat and second-team All-NESCAC rower James Miller as well as former co-captains Ryan Bell and Isaac Mudge. Junior captain and first-team All-NESCAC rower Rick Boer, as well as senior co-captain Mats Edwards — who has been in the first eight every spring since his first year — are among the eight returning members of the first and second boats looking to improve upon last year’s performance. Joining them will be a large contingent of incoming rowers from the Class of 2023 that will be tasked with filling in much of the gap left by last year’s graduates. The women’s team found particular success in the second varsity eight, which ended its season with a second-place finish at the NIRC. The fourth-place runs for the third and second boats — alongside a win in the petite final for the first eight at the NERC the week prior — helped to solidify the team’s place as a top contender among the NESCAC teams in the field. Both squads are due to start their fall campaigns at the Green Mountain Head Sept. 29.

Golf Last season saw Tufts golf take a large step forward, landing a spot in the NESCAC championship for its second year in a row. While the weekend ended in a fourth-place finish out of four, the Jumbos look to return with a mostly intact roster that is hungry for more. Although 2019 saw the team graduate a pair of seniors, according to rising sophomore Travis Clauson, the returning squad is still young and ready to take the jumps necessary for a run at the title. “The team feels that this will be the best chance to win the championship that the program has ever had,” Clauson said. Clauson went on to further acknowledge the strong class of juniors, which includes three players — Alex Honigford, Henry Hughes and Harry Theodore — who made the trip to the finals last year. Everyone is excited to return to the sprawling fairways and vibrant greens with an extra year of experience under their belts and to kick off the season with a weekend at the Detrick Invitational in Newington, Conn., on Sept. 7 and 8.


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THE TUFTS DAILY | Sports | Wednesday, August 28, 2019

tuftsdaily.com

Sorkin receives All-American status, highlights summer athletic success POSTSEASON

continued from back page The St. Petersburg, Russia, native won his opening match at the NCAA Div. III singles championships before falling in the Round of 16. Sorkin dominated at the No. 1 singles spot for the Jumbos, tallying impressive victories against several top players like Amherst’s Sean Wei and Wesleyan’s Andrew Finkleman . The junior was previously ranked No. 1 nationally by the International Tennis Association (ITA), and he ended the season at No. 9 in the ITA Div. III final rankings. During the 2018 fall preseason, Sorkin rallied hard for three titles and became the first Jumbo to win the 2018 ITA Cup Div. III singles national championship in Georgia. Sorkin was also awarded a place on the NESCAC All-Conference first team in singles and finished with a 24-6 overall record for the 2018–19 season. The Jumbos will look to advance even further under Sorkin’s leadership in the fall preseason. Three outdoor track athletes compete in NCAA championship Three Jumbos from the women’s track and field team journeyed to Geneva, Ohio, to compete in the 2019 NCAA Div. III Outdoor Track and Field Championships from May 23-25. The University of Mount Union and the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission hosted the championships. Kylene DeSmith (LA’19) qualified in the heptathlon, Kelsey Tierney (LA’19) qualified

in the 1500-meter run and senior Rhemi Toth qualified in the 800-meter run. DeSmith accumulated 4,498 points in the heptathlon — good for 15th place — setting a personal record in the shot put along the way. Tierney and Toth raced in the preliminary rounds of their respective events, but neither placed high enough to qualify for the final race. Tierney finished 21st in the 1500 with a time of 4:54.08 and Toth took 21st in the 800 with a time of 2:21.60. For all three athletes, this was their first time competing in the NCAA Div. III Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Berube moves to Princeton, Jill Pace hired as replacement After 17 years at the helm of the women’s basketball team, coach Carla Berube accepted the head coach position at Princeton University. Berube led the Jumbos to four consecutive NCAA Championship Final Fours from 2014 to 2017, two appearances in the NCAA Championship game in 2016 and 2017, and three NESCAC championship victories in 2014, 2015 and, most recently, in 2019. Overall, she amounted a 384–96 record (.800 winning percentage) during her tenure with the Jumbos. With the move to Princeton, Berube will make the jump from Div. III to Div. I. Princeton is one of the stronger teams in the Ivy League, with back-to-back Ivy League championship wins in the last two seasons.

MADELINE OLIVER / TUFTS TRACK AND FIELD

Senior Ann Roberts (left) and junior Melissa Rowland (right) stride to the finish line at the Purple Valley Classic in Williamstown, Mass. on Sept. 22, 2018. “I think that Tufts and the Jumbos, they are in a really good spot here,” Berube told the Daily in an interview in May. “It’s bittersweet, and it’s hard moving on. But I know that [the Jumbos] are right for a national championship. I think that it’s never an easy time or the right time, but I think it’s just the best time for my family and me.” Replacing Berube will be Jill Pace, who previously served on Berube’s coaching staff as an assistant coach from 2014–16.

Pace spent the last three seasons as the head coach of Pomona-Pitzer. Under her leadership, Pomona-Pitzer qualified for the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2002 last season. Pace is no stranger to the NESCAC; in addition to her former role at Tufts, she played guard at Bowdoin, graduating in 2012. Hired at the end of June, Pace looks to continue the team’s success this winter.

Tufts finishes 7th in the Director’s Cup by Arlo Moore-Bloom Sports Editor

In regard to perhaps the most comprehensive and thorough sports award the NCAA has to offer, Tufts University finished seventh in the Div. III Learfield IMG Directors’ Cup competition for the 2018–19 academic year. The award cements Tufts’ status as one of the top athletic institutions in Div. III. This year’s finish marks Tufts’ eighth top10 finish in a row in the competition that compares 338 Div. III schools’ athletic performances. The Director’s Cup seeks to rank schools based on a wide range of NCAA tournaments performances, highlighting the best sports schools in the country. The Directors’ Cup is the brainchild of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics and USA Today. Founded in 1995–96, the competition awards points on a sliding scale between zero and 100 based on a school’s performances in nine men and women’s sports, four of which are required to be men and women’s basketball and men and women’s soccer. No. 7 Tufts’ 884 points were 57 short of No. 4 Middlebury Panthers and a whopping 233 points short of champion Williams Ephs, the only NESCAC schools ahead of the Jumbos. All told, Tufts qualified five fall teams, four winter teams and six spring teams for national championships. The 2018–19 fall season was Tufts’ most successful of the year, helped largely in part by men’s soccer’s national championship title — Tufts reached a perfect 100 points for its third national championship in five years. Men’s soccer was Tufts’ only team sport to win a championship in the last academic year. Field hockey reached the NCAA final, gaining 90 points for Tufts. The two sports accounted for more than half of Tufts’ 353.5 points in the fall. Other top performers included the women’s cross country team and the women’s soccer team, which reaped 64.5 and 50 points, respectively.

In the winter season, coach Carla Berube led the women’s basketball team to No. 5 in the nation, good for 73 points. It was her 17th and final season at the helm before she moved to coach the Princeton Tigers for the upcoming season. The lacrosse teams put on a show in the spring, accruing 156 points between the men’s and women’s squads; this was the best performance by a single sport across two squads on the year. Women’s lacrosse did 10 points better than the men for its semi-final finish. The men’s team lost 13–11 in a heartbreaking home game against rivals Amherst in the NCAA quarter-finals. Staying true to its close rivalry with the Amherst Mammoths, the Jumbos just barely beat their conference rivals by a score of 884 to 879, cementing their place as the No. 3 athletic school in the NESCAC — for last year at least. This year’s 884 point total is almost 100 points more than their No. 8 finish in 2017–18. The NESCAC led all conferences with four schools in top-10 places, living up to its reputation as the most prolific Div. III conference in the country. Though historically true for the conference as a whole, this athletic prominence is a generally new development for Tufts. Since the Director’s Cup began in 1995–96, Tufts has finished in the top 10 11 times overall; nine of those have been since 2010. Tufts best athletic years to date were 2015–16 and 2016–17, when the Jumbos finished fourth place and third place, respectively. Changes since the early 2000s include multiple athletic revamps — a new gym that opened in 2012, a redone website and a change in personnel — as well as a greater focus on athletic performances as a means to market the school to a wider demographic. Though Tufts’ quirkiness and academic prestige is perhaps better chronicled and sought after, it has quickly become one of the strongest Div. III athletic powerhouses in the country.

EVAN SAYLES / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVE

Tufts senior defender Arend Broekmate races up the field in the NESCAC championship game against Wesleyan University on May 6, 2018.

EVAN SLACK / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

Junior forward Rachel Hamilton chases the ball during Tufts’ 2--0 win over Williams on Oct. 20, 2018.


Sports

Wednesday, August 28, 2019 | Sports | THE TUFTS DAILY

23

NESCAC Who’s Who by Jeremy Goldstein, Haley Rich and Alex Viveros Sports Editor, Sports Editor, Executive Sports Editor

Bowdoin College Middlebury College Last season, the Middlebury Panthers were the most successful team in the NESCAC, earning a conference-high six championships across six unique sports. For three of these titles — field hockey, women’s lacrosse and men’s track and field — the Jumbos were runner-ups in their respective championship sports. Historically, women’s lacrosse has been a strength for Middlebury; the Jumbos found their only non-NCAA losses of the season to the Panthers, who barely edged out a victory last season in the NESCAC championship game en route to their 10th conference title in the sport.

Williams College Among the most esteemed and successful sporting schools in the NESCAC, the Williams College Ephs — who are nicknamed after school founder Ephraim Williams — once again proved their athletic prowess this year with their seventh-straight Learfield IMG Directors wCup first-place finish. The cup, which is used to evaluate the top overall performing teams in Div. III sports, has been awarded to the Ephs in Williamstown, Mass. a whopping 22 times in the cup’s 24-year history. Although the school was tied in 2018 with Trinity for the second most conference championship victories at five (trailing Middlebury’s six), the Ephs led all other teams in total NESCAC championship game appearances with 12.

The Bowdoin Polar Bears may call chilly Brunswick, Maine home, but the surrounding weather has by no means served as a limitation on their athletic success. This is especially evident on the men’s tennis front, where recently graduated duo Jerry Jiang (LA’19) and Grant Urken (LA’19) triumphed in the NCAA doubles championships. Usually dominant, Bowdoin’s field hockey team slipped up in the NESCAC tournament and could not add on to its previous eight conference titles. The volleyball team also captured a NESCAC title, which was Bowdoin’s sole title during the 2018–19 season.

Bates College

Founded in 1813 and long overshadowed athletically by its Maine neighbors Bowdoin and Bates, the Mules from Waterville, Maine are making strides to catch up. Colby shocked then-No. 2 seeded Tufts by knocking them out on penalties in the 2018 NESCAC men’s soccer tournament before downing Amherst and Williams to claim the NESCAC title and an unexpected spot in the NCAA tournament. On the track and field, rising senior Sage Bailin took third in the 400-meter hurdles at NCAA Div. III championships. Flaunting the colors of blue and gray, Sophie Stokes Cerkvenik (LA’19) captured fifth in the 60-meter hurdles at the indoor NCAA Div. III’s before claiming sixth in the 100-meter hurdles in the outdoor NCAA Div. III championships.

The Bobcats of Bates College have rocked garnet red around the fields of Lewiston, Maine since 1855. Of course, when it comes to the playing field, one has to turn their attention to the water instead and follow the continued dominance of both the men’s and women’s crew teams. Both teams captured NESCAC championships this year, granting them four of the last five conference titles for the men and five-ofsix for the women. The rowing legacy was furthered by Canadian Olympian and Bates alumnus Andrew Bynes (LA’05), who won Gold in Beijing in the men’s eights. Apart from its crew teams, no other Bates team placed first or second in any of the NESCAC championships last year.

Amherst College

Hamilton College The only NESCAC school not located in New England, the Hamilton Continentals reside in Clinton, N.Y. and boast buff and blue as colors. The college gets its name from Board of Trustees member and Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, and became a coeducational institution in 1978 after merging with the all-women Kirkland College. The Continental’s first and only national championship came in 2008 in women’s lacrosse. Since 1980, Hamilton and old rival Middlebury face off in the annual Rocking Chair Classic football game. Middlebury has maintained possession of the “Mac-Jack Rocking Chair” — the winner’s prize — for the majority of the rivalry’s lifespan.

Trinity College

Colby College

With blue and gold colors, the Trinity Bantams of Hartford, Conn., are perhaps the most widely recognized for their dominance on the Gridiron. Tufts’ own football coach Jay Civetti is an alumnus of the program. Despite a resurgence of NESCAC domination for his team, Tufts football still owes its longest losing streak to Civetti’s prior team, having not won against the Bantams since 2007. With additional 2018–19 NESCAC titles in men’s golf, men’s ice hockey and both men’s and women’s squash, the Bantams are among the top adversaries for the Jumbos in the NESCAC.

Wesleyan University The Wesleyan Cardinals were unwillingly referred to as the Methodists until the 1933 baseball captain wore a baseball jacket with a cardinal on the pocket, and the name stuck. Although their nest in Middletown, Conn. hasn’t been a powerhouse historically, it has been heating up lately, especially in women’s tennis. This year, the team not only captured their first-ever NESCAC title, but went on to capture Wesleyan’s second-ever team NCAA championship after men’s lacrosse won their first in 2018. They accomplished this even after the graduation of alumnus and tennis phenomenon Eudice Chong (LA’18), who was the first person in NCAA history to win four consecutive titles.

For most of their history donning purple and white colors, the now-Mammoths of Amherst, Mass. were informally known as the “Lord Jeffs.” It was only in 2016 that the mascot of the school was changed in reference to a large mammoth skeleton that is on display in one of the school’s museums. With the selection, the Mammoths became Tufts’ only other proboscidean rival in the NESCAC, and this gigantic-sized rivalry is reflected throughout a wide array of sports. Specifically, the Mammoths are an infamous basketball powerhouse — the women’s team has clinched three NESCAC and two NCAA championships since 2016.

Connecticut College The Camels of Conn. College in navy and Carolina blue reside in, guess where, Connecticut — New London, to be specific. Founded in 1911, Conn. College failed to register a first or second-place finish in any NESCAC competition last season. However, the Camels still managed to boast their fair-share of All-Americans and All-American honorable mentions, including 15 in women’s swimming and diving. The women’s team placed 15th at NCAA Div. III National Championships, while men’s soccer made the second round of the NCAA Div. III tournament.

KATHARINE PINNEY / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES


24 tuftsdaily.com

Sports

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Jumbos look to continue fall season excellence

EVAN SLACK / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

Defender Taylor Koscho clears the ball upfield during Tufts’ 1–1 draw against Hamilton on Sept. 30, 2018. Tufts Daily Sports Staff

Football The Jumbos will return to the gridiron Sept. 14 as they open the season in a home game against the defending NESCAC champions, the Trinity Bantams. In the weeks to follow, their schedule will not get any easier, as they are set to face off against the Williams Ephs and Amherst Mammoths, who finished the 2018 season with records of 5–4 and 8–1, respectively. Tufts will inevitably look to get redemption early in the season, as its only two losses in the 2018 season came at the hands of Trinity and Amherst.

Additionally, the Jumbos will have a new face under center following the graduation of former quarterback Ryan McDonald (LA’19), who along with being both the leading passer and rusher for the Jumbos in 2018, was named the 2018 NESCAC Co-Offensive player of the year. After three years with McDonald at the helm, the offense will look for new leaders not only in the backfield but also at the wide receiver and offensive line positions. The Jumbos graduated their top three receivers this past spring, along with two All-NESCAC offensive linemen. The defensive side of the ball will see less of an overhaul, as the Jumbos’ top three tacklers from the 2018 season return in the fall. Coming off of his third straight first-

team All-NESCAC selection, rising senior linebacker Greg Holt will return to Ellis Oval to lead the defense for his final season. Although it may be difficult, the Jumbos will look to improve upon their 7–2 record from just a season ago and ultimately aim to take home a NESCAC title. Men’s Soccer Last year was a year of dominance for the Tufts men’s soccer team, who inked a storybook season that included a perfect undefeated record, a whopping 12 shutouts and a 2–1 victory over Calvin College in the NCAA finals to clinch the Div. III crown. Throughout the postseason, the Jumbos stomped through a gauntlet of challengers

that saw them boast an impressive 13–2 scoring differential in favor of the Jumbos. Looking ahead to 2019, the team looks to return a similar squad after graduating four seniors. The roster boasts enviable depth, headlined by a sturdy collection of talent and experience in eight rising seniors, including Joe Braun, who led the team with seven goals last season. The rising sophomore and junior classes also include eight players apiece. The amount and prestige of returning players, all boasting significant postseason experience, virtually ensures Tufts a spot among the Div. III elite and a great shot at repeating its incredible feats from the previ-

see FALL SEASON, page 21

Tufts delivers strong performances in summer postseason play by Tim Chiang, Jake Freudberg and Jacob Dreyer Sports Editor, Sports Editor, Staff Writer

Baseball wins NESCAC Championship in midst of successful season It was a summer of success for the Tufts baseball team, who was once again crowned NESCAC champion in an 8–3 game seven win over Middlebury on May 12. Coach John Casey added milestones to his already illustrious career, being inducted into the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame and the New England Intercollegiate Baseball Hall of Fame. In Casey’s 37th year leading the Jumbos, the team’s championship suc-

cess last spring marked its third NESCAC title in the last four seasons. Needless to say, the Jumbos dominated the 2019 season, going 31–11 overall and 10–2 in conference with a stellar .312 team batting average. Depth also played an important role in the team’s success. Athletes playing for their first or last time with the Jumbos stepped up in big ways. Sophomore infielder Peter DeMaria won the Rookie of the Year award for the NESCAC, hitting an impressive .361 on the season. DeMaria joined three other Jumbos making an All-NESCAC team, which included co-captain and pitcher R.J. Hall (LA’19), senior infield-

er Elias Varinos and senior outfielder JP Knight. DeMaria, who stands as the third Tufts player since 2014 to be named the NESCAC Rookie of the Year, had nothing but praise for his team’s success last season. “Everyone put in tremendous effort this year. We worked hard all the way through the winter,” DeMaria said. “Baseball is a team sport. Everyone was really well prepared. ” Hall proved to be the perfect leader for the team with his work on the mound, going 8–0 with an outstanding 1.45 ERA. Although the Jumbos lost in the NCAA Regional tournament and came up short of making it to the NCAA championship

tournament, ultimately the season saw many positives that the Jumbos will be sure to take forward as they work toward next season.

Sorkin announced as an All-American After another outstanding season at the top of the lineup for Tufts men’s tennis, junior Boris Sorkin earned a spot on the 2019 NCAA Div. III All-American singles team. Sorkin is the first All-American on the Tufts men’s tennis team since 2002, and he also became the first Jumbo to play in the NCAA singles tournament in 15 years.

see POSTSEASON, page 22


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