The Tufts Daily - Thursday, March 14, 2019

‘Cogent Message’ examines higher education through art see WEEKENDER / PAGE 6

WOMEN’S LACROSSE

Jumbos beat MIT, Wellesley ahead of 1st home game

Women’s ski team shreds at nationals see SPORTS / BACK PAGE

SEE SPORTS / PAGE 11

THE

INDEPENDENT

STUDENT

N E W S PA P E R

OF

TUFTS

UNIVERSITY

E S T. 1 9 8 0

T HE T UFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXXVII, ISSUE 36

Thursday, March 14, 2019

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

tuftsdaily.com

Cummings School student Tiffany Filler expelled for alleged grade hacking, maintains innocence

by Austin Clementi News Editor

Tiffany Filler, a former doctoral student in her final year at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts, was expelled on Jan. 16 after a monthslong investigation by the university into her alleged grade hacking in the 2018 spring and summer sessions, according to a TechCrunch article written by journalist Zack Whittaker. Both Filler and Whittaker dispute Tufts’ charges of grade hacking.

Since Filler’s expulsion, the Harvard Graduate Students’ Union-United Auto Workers (HGSU-UAW ) have been circulating a petition demanding due process for her. The petition cites potential discrimination based on Filler’s immigration status as well as Whittaker’s article in Filler’s defense. The petition has 347 signatures, close to 200 of which are from Tufts undergraduates and alumni.

Filler has moved back to her home in Toronto since her expulsion and is currently looking for work or to return to another veterinary school, but she told the Daily that this will be difficult considering her expulsion.

“I’ve been looking at different vet schools [to see] if I could transfer credits if at all possible … [but if ] universities see that expulsion notice, they’re

VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine is pictured. going to freak out,” Filler said. “Also, most of them require a dean’s recommendation and that’s not exactly something I can look forward to.”

Filler was first notified of an investigation on Aug. 22, 2018, after Barbara

Berman, the associate dean of student affairs for the Cummings School, called her to the Grafton campus in an email. There, Filler met with Berman and Nicholas Frank, the associate dean for academic affairs.

“Dr. Frank and I need to meet with you at that time regarding an important and time­ - sensitive issue,” the email read. see FILLER, page 3

Somerville groups push for more payments from Tufts

by Joe Walsh News Editor

As Tufts and Somerville negotiate a new partnership agreement, activists are pressuring the university to offer more robust financial contributions to its host communities.

Two dozen community, labor and student groups signed a letter urging University President Anthony Monaco to “bargain in good faith” with Somerville.

Tufts’ partnership agreements with both Medford and Somerville — which include payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT ) and community benefits — expired in June. Officials from Tufts and Somerville say negotiations for a new agreement are still in progress.

“Negotiations are actively ongoing,” Somerville Director of Communications

Please recycle this newspaper

Partly Cloudy 53 / 43

/thetuftsdaily

and Community Engagement Denise Taylor told the Daily in an email. “The City’s participation is being guided by the priorities outlined by the community.”

As part of a new agreement, the school is prepared to “significantly increase” its payments to Medford and Somerville, Tufts’ Director of Community Relations Rocco DiRico said in an email to the Daily.

Tufts gave each city $275 thousand in annual voluntary PILOT payments under the school’s previous five-year agreements. The school is exempted from property taxes on most of its landholdings due to its nonprofit status, but Tufts’ property would have netted Somerville an extra $6.6 million per year in 2014 if it were taxable, according to a city assessment.

Somerville resident Joyce Shortt, a member of Somerville Mayor Joseph For breaking news, our content archive and exclusive content, visit tuftsdaily.com @tuftsdaily

tuftsdaily

tuftsdaily

Curtatone’s PILOT Negotiating Team, said this PILOT figure is too low.

“There was no question that $275,000 was a very modest amount, considering how much Tufts benefits from Somerville,” Shortt said.

PILOT payments help pay for basic city services that Tufts uses, including Somerville’s fire and police departments, City Council President Katjana Ballantyne explained. Residents also noted that the school benefits from being in a desirable and conveniently located city like Somerville.

Residents have expressed frustration that Tufts’ PILOT payments to Boston — which hosts the school’s medical campus — are significantly larger than its Medford and Somerville contributions.

Tufts gave Boston about $584,000 in cash contributions last fiscal year,

Contact Us P.O. Box 53018, Medford, MA 02155 daily@tuftsdaily.com

more than double its contributions to Somerville or Medford, even though the school’s property in Somerville is valued about twice as high as its Boston property, according to documents from both cities.

The letter from local advocates suggested that Somerville use Boston’s model, which asks nonprofits to pay 25 percent of their tax bill if they were taxable, half in cash and half in community benefits. DiRico explained that the three cities use different property assessments and tax rates, so comparisons are challenging, though the school plans to keep its payments to Medford and Somerville equal.

Alongside PILOT payments, Tufts offers in-kind benefits like athletic field

NEWS............................................1 FEATURES.................................4 WEEKENDER..........................6

see PILOT, page 2

FUN & GAMES.........................8 OPINION.....................................9 SPORTS............................ BACK

2

THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Thursday, March 14, 2019

THE TUFTS DAILY Elie Levine Editor-in-Chief

EDITORIAL

David Levitsky Anita Ramaswamy Managing Editors Luke Allocco Jessica Blough Austin Clementi Charlie Driver Jenna Fleischer Juliana Furgala Kat Grellman Abbie Gruskin Liza Harris Zachary Hertz Gil Jacobson Rachael Meyer Catherine Perloff Seohyun Shim Hannah Uebele Joe Walsh Alejandra Carrillo Robert Kaplan Noah Richter Jilly Rolnick Alexander Thompson Grace Yuh Costa Angelakis Jenna Fleischer Sean Ong Michael Shames Fina Short Sidharth Anand Amelia Becker Mark Choi Sarah Crawford Mitch Lee Ellie Murphy Ananya Pavuluri

Libby Langsner John Fedak Tommy Gillespie Stephanie Hoechst Setenay Mufti Christopher Panella Rebecca Tang Danny Klain Yas Salon

Aneurin Canham-Clyne Mikaela Lessnau Kaitlyn Meslin Amulya Mutnuri Elizabeth Shelbred Simrit Uppal Shane Woolley Arlo Moore-Bloom Yuan Jun Chee Ryan Eggers Liam Finnegan Jeremy Goldstein Savannah Mastrangelo Maddie Payne Haley Rich Brad Schussel Josh Steinfink Sam Weidner Julia Atkins Tim Chiang Jake Freudberg Noah Stancroff Helen Thomas-McLean Alex Viveros Daniel Nelson Madeleine Oliver Christine Lee Anika Agarwal Ann Marie Burke Mike Feng Ben Kim Max Lalanne Meredith Long Julia McDowell Evan Slack Kirt Thorne Caleb Martin-Rosenthal Ann Marie Burke Annette Key

Associate Editor Executive News Editor News Editors

Assistant News Editors

Executive Features Editor Features Editors

Assistant Features Editors

Executive Arts Editor Arts Editors

PILOT

continued from page 1 access for youth sports, SAT prep and other school programs, grants to local nonprofits and space to host community events, as outlined in the previous partnership agreements.

These programs have continued even though the last partnership agreement expired last year, DiRico added.

Some community members say they want more dialogue on community programs, with Ballantyne noting that collaboration with local schools benefits both Tufts and the city.

“That is an opportunity for the university,” Ballantyne said. “That advances their mission.”

Some residents say Tufts can best assist the city by addressing the area’s

housing needs. Tufts’ full-time undergraduate population grew by more than 400 between 2007 and 2017, but the school has not added a major new dorm since Sophia Gordon Hall opened in 2006, leaving more students to search for housing off campus.

Edward Beuchert, a member of the PILOT Negotiating Committee, says this dearth of on-campus housing has put enormous pressures on the neighborhood.

“Families can’t afford to pay what a landlord could [charge] by renting it out to students,” Beuchert said. “It’s not affordable for people to get an apartment around here to house a family.”

Residents like Beuchert want Tufts to address this gap head-on by building a new dormitory. DiRico noted that the university is studying the feasibility of a new

dorm building, but it is still working to add hundreds of new beds to its campus housing stock by optimizing existing property.

“We’re aggressively taking these other steps, recognizing the need to address housing as an important priority for the university and our host communities,” DiRico said.

Ballantyne and Beuchert emphasized that they do not see Tufts students as adversaries. Rather, they hope to work alongside students who are concerned about housing and community issues.

While Shortt, the Somerville resident and Negotiating Team member, is somewhat frustrated that PILOT negotiations are still ongoing, she is optimistic that the city will craft a strong agreement.

“If the outcome is a positive one,” Shortt said, “it will be worth the wait.”

Tufts Housing League hosts panel on housing rights

Executive Opinion Editor Editorialists

Executive Sports Editor Sports Editors

Assistant Sports Editors

Investigative Editor Executive Photo Editors Staff Photographers

JULIA MCDOWELL / THE TUFTS DAILY

Nate Krinsky (LA ‘18) and sophomore Connor Goggins, members of the Tufts Housing League, pose for a portrait outside of Mayer Campus Center on Oct. 17, 2018.

Executive Video Editor Video Editors

Daniel Montoya

Production Director

Isabella Montoya

PILOT negotiations still ongoing, Tufts prepared to increase payments

Assistant Arts Editors

PRODUCTION Ryan Eggers Catalina Mengyao Yang Mia Garvin Jordan Isaacs Maygen Kerner Aidan Menchaca Kiran Misner Alice Yoon

tuftsdaily.com

Executive Layout Editors Layout Editors

Executive Graphics Editor

Myshko Chumak Justin Yu Caroline Bollinger Mary Carroll Rachel Isralowitz Nathan Kyn Ali Mintz Nihaal Shah Liora Silkes Avni Ambalam Rebecca Barker Simone Lipkind Chloe Lyu Ethan Resek Ryan Shaffer Aadhya Shivakumar Filipa Sturm Russell Yip Abigail Zielinski

Executive Copy Editors

Deepanshu Utkarsh Roy Kim

Executive Online Editor Online Editor

Esra Gurcay Rebecca Tang Asli Akova Ercan Sen Amy Tong Mitch Navetta Amanda Covaleski Olivia Ireland Lillian Miller Christopher Panella

Executive Social Media Editors

Copy Editors

Assistant Copy Editors

Social Media Editors

Assistant Social Media Editors Outreach Coordinator

BUSINESS Olivia Davis Executive Business Director

by Madison Reid Staff Writer

Disclaimer: Shane Woolley is currently an editorialist at the Daily. Woolley was not involved in the writing or editing of this article.

Tufts Housing League (THL) and Tufts Democrats hosted the Housing Rights Panel in the Terrace Room in Paige Hall last night. Panelists discussed the rights of students renting from landlords and the implications of Boston’s housing crisis. Other topics included housing affordability, the emotional burden of housing instability, the racial history of housing policy in Boston and the ethics of universities’ housing policies. Shane Woolley and Jaya Khetarpal, both seniors, moderated the panel.

Khetarpal, who joined THL last semester, said the goal for the panel was to teach students about their housing rights.

“We were trying to create an event that would help provide students with more information about housing prices not just at Tufts but in our neighboring communities, [and] also give them the tools to fight for their housing rights,” she said.

The panelists included practitioners from the Greater Boston area: Robert Burdick, director of the civil litigation program at Boston University School of Law; Gabrielle Rene, a community organizer at grassroots community organization City Life/

Vida Urbana; Grace Holley, a community planning and housing consultant and Alex Milvae, a third-year student at Harvard Law School. Burdick is also an lecturer for Tufts’ Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning.

Holley said that the sheer number of students in Boston who live off campus places an enormous strain on the city’s housing market.

“Developers and real estate owners and speculative owners know that they can charge per head for students,” she said. “That really inflates the market.”

Milvae provided tips for students as they navigate off-campus housing. He said that students should not call their landlord, but instead should email or text about bad conditions in a house. He also encouraged students to use their intuition when considering their landlord’s decisions and to not agree to anything that makes them uncomfortable.

At the panel, Rene stated that housing is a human right.

“The American dream is to have peace of mind knowing that you can go home and sleep, whether it is a property that has the deed in your name or not,” Rene said. “Every single day, people are fighting to save their homes.”

Nesi Altaras, a senior who attended the event, said he attended to learn more about the housing crisis at Tufts and in Boston.

He said he believed Tufts’ payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) to Medford and Somerville

remains lackluster despite the school’s increasing enrollment. “[Tufts] keeps enrolling more and more people every year — they should really cap their class sizes,” he said.

Woolley, who has been involved with THL since 2017, sees parallels between the housing crisis at Tufts and that in the greater Boston area.

“The dynamics that we see here in our housing crisis at Tufts, [like] the lack of available on-campus housing and affordable off-campus housing, mirrors the inequalities and structural housing problems that exist across the country,” he said.

THL organized several high-profile actions last semester to protest the tiered housing system, including a community block party and the Tier Town rally. THL is now working on a housing guide to release by the end of the semester, according to Woolley.

“This semester, we’re trying to take all that energy and redirect it towards more practical guides for students to understand their [position] in the local housing market and at Tufts,” Woolley said.

Khetarpal added that Tufts is currently negotiating its PILOT agreement, so THL is focusing on working with representatives like Mayor Joseph Curtatone of Somerville and Mayor Stephanie Burke of Medford. They are also planning to meet with University President Anthony Monaco about the agreement.

Thursday, March 14, 2019 | News | THE TUFTS DAILY

tuftsdaily.com

3

University stands by decision to expel Cummings student FILLER

continued from page 1 Filler said she only was notified of an investigation and not the nature of the charges brought against her. After the Aug. 22 meeting, Berman sent an email to Filler that spoke only of her “computer issues” without bringing up possible disciplinary action.

At the time, the Cummings School’s Student Ethics and Grievance Committee (SEGC), which would decide the charges on Filler, had already obtained a detailed report from Tufts Educational Technology Services (ETS) and Tufts Technology Services’ Office of Information Security. The heading on the report indicates that it was sent to the SEGC on Sept. 28, 2018, nearly a month before Filler would be notified of the charges against her. The document also states that the investigation began on July 9, 2018 and ended Aug. 20.

Filler said she was notified of the nature of the charges on Oct. 18. Filler, as quoted in the TechCrunch article, and the petition both accuse Tufts of not following its own terms of due process, as outlined by the Cummings School Student Handbook.

The handbook states on page 49 that “The student about whom a Complaint or Inquiry is made will be informed in writing of the type of allegation (Complaint or Inquiry) and the substance of each allegation at least seven days before hearing of the Ethics and Grievance Committee.”

Charges and Expulsion The charges against Filler include allegations that she electronically changed her grades and the grades of her classmates through a Tufts University Sciences Knowledgebase ( TUSK) account under the name “Scott Shaw” with the username “sshaw02.”

According to the ETS document sent to the SEGC, the account was first discovered after investigating the deletion of an assessment on July 9, 2018.

Filler was implicated in the creation and inappropriate usage of this account for several reasons, according to the document.

“We … saw a pattern where the only legitimate login from the same place — IP address — at the same time was tfille01 (Cummings School student Tiffany Filler) access,” the report says.

The report adds that ETS “saw a pattern of activities that would benefit tfille01,” following up with five incidents of abuse, although the report acknowledges that “a lot of activity” was seen.

In an email to Filler sent on Dec. 10, 2018, Cummings School Dean ad interim Joyce Knoll said the account sshaw02 first appeared on Dec. 12, 2017

“from TF’s [Tiffany Filler’s] residential IP address.” According to Filler and the TechCrunch article, Tufts administration never shared which IP address it found with her, or how it found it.

Filler said she had three housemates using the same IP address, including her landlord.

The first recorded incident with the sshaw02 account occurred on Feb. 13, 2018 at 2:02 p.m., according to a summary of the incidents from the SEGC provided by Filler. The incident report accuses Filler of using “the sshaw02 account to look at the answers of [a] quiz before she took it.” Filler said she has no recollection of the assessment, which was a bonus quiz in a Small Animal Medicine & Surgery II class. In a screenshot from Filler’s private messages, a classmate of hers also said she did not remember taking the quiz.

The bonus quiz changed Filler’s grade in the class from a 99 percent to a 103 percent, worth a total of four points, according to documents provided by Filler to the Daily.

Filler said that several other students’ grades were improved, with only one person’s falling. As of today, no other students have been charged with grade hacking, according to Filler and the TechCrunch article.

The documents also state that the attacks continued to occur periodically until July 2018. The nature of the hacks included changing grades, attempting to log in to other students’ accounts, posting new assignments with higher scores and looking up answers to assessments.

Knoll originally met with Filler on Jan. 9 to announce her expulsion from Tufts, according to a letter from Knoll. Filler appealed the decision and presented more evidence to Knoll, but Knoll reaffirmed the expulsion on Jan. 16.

Patrick Collins, executive director of public relations for Tufts, said in an email to the Daily that the Tufts administration stands by its decision.

“We understand that the story — and the social media attention it has received — has upset a number of people, including students, alumni, and others, who have raised concerns about the university’s review,” he wrote. “We are confident in our determination, which was based on the totality of evidence uncovered during our extensive review. We recognize the gravity of student disciplinary decisions, and we take action only after thorough and thoughtful deliberation.”

Alibis and Explanations The TechCrunch article, which was published on March 9, raises questions about the validity of Tufts‘ accusations against Filler, featuring the results of

a month-long investigation conducted

by Whittaker that uncovered and confirmed several alibis Filler presented to the administration. These alibis were confirmed in the documents Filler sent to the Daily.

Several of the incidences occurred early in the morning, such as an incident on June 27 at 1:03 a.m. Filler provided the Daily with screenshots of her sleep tracker app, which showed her to be asleep at these times.

In other instances, Filler says she was away from her computer entirely. A June 28 hack described by Tufts occurred between 5:30 and 6:30 p.m.

Filler provided both the Daily and the Cummings School administration with a screenshot of a picture of her, which was placemarked at the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Conn. and timestamped 5:17 p.m., and another screenshot of a photo of her in front of the house at 6:11 p.m.

Filler also had reported malware on her computer to Apple Support during the time in which the attacks occurred, which were corroborated through transcripts of the phone call sent to Filler by Apple Support.

During the phone call, which occurred on Nov. 14, 2018, Filler explained that her computer was “was behaving weirdly and … [her] mouse was acting on its own and the green light for the camera started turning on.” The Apple technician recommended that Filler back up and reset her computer to factory settings, and Filler ultimately took her computer into a local Apple store for these services, according to the TechCrunch article.

Knoll remained unconvinced, asking Filler in the Jan. 16 letter, “Why wait until after you’d been informed that you were going to be expelled to show me months’ old photos?”

Knoll also questioned the validity of the photos Filler provided.

“Date stamps are easy to edit,” Knoll added later in the letter.

The TechCrunch article, however, confirmed through a former National Security Agency hacker and digital forensics entrepreneur that the date and location stamps presented by Filler did not appear to be modified.

Deportation and Petition After being expelled, Filler, a Canadian citizen, said she was given one day to leave the United States. In an interview with the Daily, Filler also said she was required to repay $10,000 worth of student loans she had accumulated in her time at the Cummings School.

She has since sought legal counsel but says that she cannot afford the prices that many lawyers quote her, which she says

are often in the six-figure range.

In an electronic message to the Daily, Filler clarified that Tufts allowed her six months without needing to pay back her loans as of the date she was expelled, which is the standard time given to students after they graduate before federal student loan payments are due. According to the TechCrunch article, Filler has already been contacted by Tufts to start collecting her loan repayments.

In response to this, Filler contacted several graduate student unions, such as HGSU-UAW, who have since drafted a petition decrying Filler’s case as discriminatory.

“We are concerned that Ms. Filler may have been treated differently by the Cummings School because of her immigration status and national origin,” the petition reads.

Filler confirmed this, saying that she felt vulnerable as an international student lacking both the money and legal privilege to defend herself against Tufts.

Niharika Singh, an organizer with the HGSU-UAW, was involved in writing the petition with the organizing committee surrounding the petition. Filler confirmed that she reviewed the petition for accuracy before it was published.

As a Canadian international student herself, Singh found Filler’s case to be particularly important for the rights of international students.

“To my mind, it’s like advocating for Tiffany is advocating for ourselves, is advocating for the larger international student community on our campuses across the country,” she said in an interview with the Daily.

Singh also emphasized Filler’s issue as a “violation of civil rights,” adding that the main demand of the petition is due process for Filler. Singh also explained that third-party arbitrations for Filler, which Harvard graduate students call a “no carve out” grievance process, could have helped protect her from said civil rights violations.

“That puts pressure on the employer to actually respond,” she said. “I think there are just very concrete ways … like building power through mobilizing students and workers in your support that you address situations like this before they get to the point of expulsion.”

Cummings School students are not represented by a union.

Filler said she hoped to continue veterinary school or research in the future.

“I would love to continue veterinary school because that is my passion, but I’ve always been interested in research.

So I’m thinking of potentially just going into the sciences again and trying to focus on potentially getting a Ph.D. somewhere down the line,” she said.

Jessica Blough contributed reporting to this article.

TRASHING ONE EGG WASTES 55 GALLONS OF WATER

4

Thursday, March 14, 2019

Features

tuftsdaily.com

Music engineering minor brings together technology, art

NICHOLAS PFOSI / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

Students practice in Distler Performance Hall in the Granoff Music Center, led by conductor and director John Page on Feb. 11, 2014.

by Sarah Crawford Staff Writer

Since the launch of the Musical Instrument Engineering program in 1998, Tufts has been bridging two constantly evolving fields: music and technology.

According to its website, the program, now called the Music Engineering program, expanded in 2011 to include music recording and production and electronic instrument design as a part of its curriculum. However, the minor in music engineering is a more recent development. Paul Lehrman, director of the Music Engineering program, started teaching a course in electronic musical instrument design in 2001. Lehrman created a formal minor in music engineering in 2011 with the help of Chris Rogers, who is co-director of the music engineering program and a mechanical engineering professor, and Dana Messina (E ’83), a former CEO of Steinway Musical Instruments.

The minor in music engineering is available to students in both the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering. Lehrman explained that students who pursue the minor choose from three tracks: acoustic musical instrument design, electronic musical instrument design and music recording and production. According to Lehrman, between four and eight students graduate with the minor each year, and generally two-thirds of them are in the School of Engineering.

However, Lehrman and Rogers hope to expand the program in coming years.

Lehrman stated that a course called Introduction to Music and Engineering,

which will be a requirement for the minor, will be available in the fall of 2019.

“We’re making it more inclusive, so that students have a wider variety of courses that they can take to satisfy the minor,” Lehrman said.

Lehrman and Rogers are also looking to make the minor more accessible to students in the School of Arts and Sciences.

“When it’s all engineering, there’s all sorts of pre-requisites that Arts and Sciences [students] wouldn’t typically take, like four semesters of calculus … so the idea is that we’re redesigning it … The new minor we’re setting up … will give students more flexibility,” Rogers said.

Students design their own musical instruments in Computer Tools for Musicians course Rogers said that the minor in music engineering emphasizes hands-on projects and that most of the core courses in each track involve students creating their own musical instruments.

“The idea behind all the classes is that they have to design, fabricate, compose for and perform on an instrument,” Rogers said.

Sponsorships and outside funding from instrument manufacturing companies allow students to help design specific instruments. These companies include Zildjian, a cymbal manufacturer, and piano companies QRS Music Technologies and Steinway & Sons. According to Lehrman, students are currently working on a self-playing violin for QRS Music Technologies.

James Hoder, a senior who is minoring in music engineering, spoke about his

involvement in the project for QRS Music Technologies.

“I got involved with the Violin Project after taking Professor Lehrman’s Computer Tools [for] Musicians class for the Music Engineering Minor.” he told the Daily in an email. “It is a violin body with a robotically controlled bow moving across it, to give the appearance that the violin plays itself. The sound of the violin is actually produced using the Bela electronic synthesizer, which sends audio to a surface transducer speaker, which sends vibrations through the violin body. Thereby, the body of the violin is used as the amplifier for the sound produced by the synthesizer, just as a real violin body is used as the amplifier for the sound produced by a string.”

Hoder explained that his contributions included programming the synthesizer and utilizing the transducer.

In addition to the self-playing violin, past projects have involved creating a system to determine where a low-volume cymbal was being hit for Zildjian.

“They wanted to devise a method of determining where the cymbal was being hit when you hit it so [it could be used] with an electronic drum set … so we had students working on that, and we came up with a system, which we actually got a patent on,” Lehrman said.

Rogers also recalled a project for Steinway & Sons that examined the effect of temperature and humidity on pianos.

“What we found is that as you start to get changes in humidity, the time between when you hit the key and the hammer hits, the string changes by a couple of milliseconds, which is enough for the play-

er to think it goes from being a bright, responsive piano to a sluggish piano,” he explained.

Electronic Musical Instrument Design course focuses on collaboration, construction Lehrman said that group work and the interdisciplinary connection between music and engineering are important aspects of the minor in music engineering. In his Electronic Musical Instrument Design course, Lehrman teaches students about music synthesis, electronics, mechanical design and programming.

Additionally, students work in teams to build electronic musical instruments, which they present and play at the end of the semester.

“The students work on projects in teams, and each team is set up so they have a cross section of skills … There is nobody who comes into the class who can do everything, so the students work together with complementary skill sets and teach each other,” Lehrman said.

Rogers also emphasized the importance of group work in allowing students to learn from each other.

“If you pull students with completely different knowledge sets and get them to work together, you can make a really cool product … better [than] if you had two students with the same knowledge set. I look for opportunities where I can take people that have knowledge that my engineers don’t and have them figure out how to work together and build cool things,” Rogers said.

see MUSIC, page 5

F e at u r e s

Thursday, March 14, 2019 | Features | THE TUFTS DAILY

Music engineering minor explores intersections of art, science MUSIC

continued from page 4 Bridging engineering and art: Music and the Art of Engineering Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Jeff Hopwood highlighted the connection between music and engineering in his Introduction to Engineering course, Music and the Art of Engineering. Though the course is not a requirement for the minor in music engineering, Hopwood hopes it will generate interest in the minor.

“We’d like to make it part of the music engineering minor, but the problem is it’s a first year course, so if somebody decided they wanted to do the minor later they would have to go backward and do this … so I think of it as a way of generating … interest in music and engineering together,” Hopwood said.

According to Hopwood, the course is divided into three parts. After learning about the general science and math of sound, students begin a unit on the creation of sound through electronics, in which they design a functional electronic musical instrument that they must play in a class presentation.

Finally, students learn about computer based music production and then complete a final project. Throughout the course, Hopwood places a strong emphasis on the importance of handson learning.

5

“My philosophy … is [that] people actually learn when they’re doing it,” Hopwood said.

First-year Sam Cohen, who took the class last fall, appreciated the aspects of the class that facilitated active learning.

“It’s really refreshing to have a bit of lecture up front and then [to] go immediately into using the concepts you learned just minutes before, and applying them, and seeing what happens when you do,” Cohen said.

First-year Zev Pogrebin, who took the class with Cohen, enjoyed the class’ exploration of the unique connection between engineering and music.

“I’ve always been interested in things that have both a creative and a technical element to them … I think sound engineering or recording was the thing that really got me to electrical engineering in the first place,” Pogrebin said.

Cohen and Pogrebin worked together to build a synthesizer as their electronic musical instrument and improved the synthesizer for their final project. Even after the class ended, they continued to work on the synthesizer.

“As of now it’s mostly an experiment just to see what kind of improvements can be made, but we always design our products with the intent of making them manufacturable,” Cohen said.

Both Cohen and Pogrebin are majoring in electrical engineering, but their different interests within the field allowed them to work together.

“I like music, but my interest in how it was made came from Zev, and that’s what inspired us to build the synthesizer, the second version and who knows what after that,” Cohen said.

An interdisciplinary minor Lehrman noted that through this variety in previous musical experience and diversity in fields of study, the interdisciplinary nature of the music engineering minor allows students who are interested in both engineering and music to pursue both subjects and explore their complementary nature.

“It’s remarkable how many engineers are really good musicians … and making musical instruments, making recordings, is a really good way of teaching other skills, like programming, mechanical [design] and electronics, because you come out with something that’s really tangible and really enjoyable,” Lehrman said.

Hoder said that this interdisciplinary element is a large part of why he decided to pursue the minor.

“I have a great interest in electronics and circuit design, and I was looking for a means to apply my electrical engineering major to my interest in creating music. So, I began to pursue the minor with a concentration in electronic instrument design in order to merge my electronics education with my passion for music,” he said.

5

Douglas Berger Ripple Effect

F

Free trade for whom?

ree trade certainly has its skeptics in the world’s wealthiest economies, especially in our own. Lost in the narrative of shuttered Detroit auto shops and a booming China, though, is the fact that trade liberalization doesn’t always shift production from rich countries to poor.

In fact, the opposite can happen. The story of our globalizing world is far more complicated than any one narrative would have us believe.

The example of Cameroon, a largely agricultural nation of nearly 25 million, perfectly illustrates this. Pulling down trade barriers with the EU has led to rapid change in the markets for two of Cameroon’s most important agricultural products: onions and chickens.

This may seem insignificant, but even small shifts can have life-changing impacts.

As cheap onions from the Netherlands have flooded the Cameroonian market, onion farmers can no longer make money selling their product in city markets. Many farmers and village cooperatives have had to shift to other crops, like cassava.

So what? Isn’t this just the kind of adaptation that a free market rewards?

Yes, perhaps, but consider that onions are one of Cameroon’s most important staple crops, serving not just as a base for sauces, but also as a digestive remedy and antiseptic.

No longer self-sufficient in the production of a staple, Cameroonians are now more vulnerable to price fluctuations.

Then there are the less quantifiable drawbacks: the loss of human capital in the form of onion farmers’ now useless specialized knowledge, the inability of these same farmers to cook their traditional cuisine using their own crops.

A similar debacle struck the country’s chicken farmers in the early 2000s. A loosening of poultry import restrictions allowed European chicken producers to dump unwanted frozen chicken parts into a number of West African markets. As a result, as many as 92 percent of Cameroon’s poultry farmers went out of business within a few years. Many were left with no source of income.

On the other hand, the cheap imports allowed entrepreneurial port traders to make huge profits selling cheap chicken parts to city markets. Chicken had long been an expensive status symbol. For the first time in memory, daily meat consumption was accessible to the masses.

The cheap chicken boom had an unexpected side-effect, however — disease. It turns out that frozen chicken, when introduced into a refrigerator-less supply chain in a tropical climate, becomes an incubator for dangerous bacteria. A study by the Pasteur Center estimated that 80 percent of the frozen chicken reaching market was not suitable for consumption. Local chickens had always been sold live, meaning raw poultry did not sit in the hot sun for hours before being sold.

These are the inconvenient complexities of supposedly free trade. The knock-on effects of trade liberalization can be damaging in ways economic analysis misses.

Altering existing patterns of commerce can be disruptive in unexpected, unquantifiable ways. Furthermore, despite its commitment to free trade, the EU uses subsidies and tariffs to protect its agricultural markets from the fate of Cameroon’s. Which begs the question, free trade for whom?

Douglas Berger is a senior studying international relations. Douglas can be reached at douglas.berger@tufts.edu.

6

Thursday, March 14, 2019

WEEKENDER

tuftsdaily.com

Chantal Zakari’s ‘Cogent Message’ deconstructs institutional failings

COURTESY CHANTAL ZAKARI

Postcards from Chantal Zakari’s ‘Defunct Colleges’ (2019) are pictured.

by Ruijingya Tang Arts Editor

The recently revealed college admissions scam reinforced the long-established image of higher education institutions as the playground of the privileged.

With Tufts being the epitome of such institutions, it is almost impossible to argue against the socioeconomic homogeneity of universities. However, it is also important to recognize that numerous higher education institutions are also victims of financial crises, as emphasized by Chantal Zakari in her latest work “Defunct Colleges” (2019), currently on display at her show “Cogent Message” at Kingston Gallery.

A Turkish-Levantine currently residing in Boston, Zakari came to the United States at a young age. She studied visual communications at the Art Institute of Chicago. After graduation, she accepted various freelancing design jobs while working as an art teacher and an independent artist. Chantal Zakari is a full time faculty member at the School of Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) at Tufts.

She was also an associate member of the Goat Island performance group (1995– 2010) and a board member of Belmont World Film.

The exhibition, entitled “Cogent Message” features the work “Defunct Colleges,” a series of 16 postcards, each depicting an architectural feature of a failing or failed American university. On one side of the postcards are prints of the features, accompanied by short introductory texts regarding the universities’

histories, present plights and possible futures. “Defunct Colleges” was created in the postmodern manner of appropriating found images. While Zakari photographed some printed photos, such as the photo of Newbury College, most photos were found on the internet. However, all the photos were stylistically altered, as they were photoshopped and Risographprinted with various innovative halftone patterns. And similarly, the stories for the universities came from the internet, but were significantly edited and shortened.

The inspiration for “Defunct Colleges” originated from Zakari’s realization of the transience of institutions while she was a professor at the SMFA when it was undergoing financial issues before merging with Tufts.

“The inspiration came from the fact that the SMFA was closing. And so I personally, along with my colleagues … went through a really overwhelming period of time. So here’s an institution that’s [150] years old, and I have a job there, and I will be there forever, and I will retire there. And I get this understanding that no, this institution can close. So that’s the significance of this architecture … but it falls apart.”

Zakari intended for the “Defunct Colleges” series to be both visually and conceptually diverse.

“Part of how I created this series was [by] looking at the images [and figuring] out which images were more interesting. The architecture was what drove this collection; the way I selected them [was intended to generate] a variety of architecture,” Zakari said. “I wanted a

variety of stories being represented here.

There are no same stories, and there are no same buildings.”

When speaking of the related issues of the rising costs of both attending and operating a college, Zakari attributed the problem, in part, to upgraded infrastructural support on college campuses.

“Part of [the rise of college tuition] has to do with the fact that when I went to school, there were no dorms at the Art Institute [of Chicago]. Food was difficult, I had to make my own food … there wasn’t a gym [or] all these things that you guys have, [including a] mental support system…”

According to Zakari, faculty treatment was improved alongside physical conditions.

“Maybe 40 years ago, faculty, especially in art, didn’t even have full-time jobs, they did not have healthcare, they didn’t have retirement,” Zakari added.

However, Zakari’s main goal is not to prescribe specific solutions to the issue of rising costs. Zakari expects that “Defunct Colleges” will serve as a historical record and raise awareness about the issue.

“I can’t foresee the future. There are academics that could. [But] looking at [academic institutions] from an artistic standpoint, I am alerting people to the change that’s happening in the industry. As an artist, I’m more interested in pointing at things [and] luring [my] audience in with images and stories. I don’t have a thesis — that’s not my role.”

More concretely, Zakari felt the need to tell the stories of defunct colleges because of their widespread relevance.

“[This project is informed by] not just by my personal experience of being in a college that was closing, but [also] your personal experience as a student, with all the debts that you have to pay,” Zakari said.

“Defunct Colleges” also captures the mournful nostalgia of decaying architecture in relation to the disappearance of the original institution that it once hosted.

“The separation of the institution and the building is very difficult. Like when you think about Harvard, you do think of the building as well as the institution. [But] when the institution disappears, the building transforms into something else,” the artist said.

To create this sense of nostalgia, Zakari used the traditional methods of printing one color at a time mixed with modern techniques to generate both antique-looking and innovative patterns on her works, which she called “postcards from the future.” “[Antique shops] usually have … a little box with old postcards. There is a whole series of Curt Teich postcards, which used to be a company from a 100 years ago. So I’m kind of mimicking [the old Curt Teich postcards], but I’m printing them in a very high-tech way,” Zakari said.

By appropriating older methods of printing, Zakari is able to transform the eclectic and older modes of postcard production.

“Typically, [with halftone printing], you make only dice. But I changed that, and I manually created different colors.

And I’m also printing [my images] myself, one color at a time, so they are not digital prints, they are really screenprints. [The enlarged dots] make the [postcards] more interesting texturally, but they also make a reference to the old postcards … I am kind of like the postcard designers from 50 years ago, but I’m also making patterns from the future.”

Alongside the exhibition of “Defunct Colleges” is “Cogent Message” (2018), the eponymous work of the exhibition, another higher-education-related installation by Zakari. “Cogent Message” is a collection of artificial letterheads of defunct American colleges. To compile the collection, Zakari printed found logos of the defunct colleges online on linen paper. In addition, the letterheads included faint prints of found images of college professors and college students, listed in the order in which they appeared on Google.

While composing “Cogent Messages,” Zakari had a deeper realization as to the severity of the financial struggles faced by small, independent universities.

“I had to stop [including defunct colleges after 2013]. Because I couldn’t find the logos of schools that were defunct past 2013. Some of the logos [of the schools] start disappearing; their corporate identity disappears. And that’s the ultimate death of the school.”

With her show “Cogent Messages,” Zakari’s work directs viewers’ attention to small, struggling institutions of higher education amidst the current stereotype that colleges have capital, privilege and power.

“Defunct College” and “Cogent Messages” will be on view at the Kingston Gallery in Boston until March 31, 2019.

Arts & Living

t g ] , ”

e t

n e o o

, s d e e d

a s , a g m ”

f e d

, d t y y e e e s m

t , s f e d n s s y

” e d

d t e e

t s n . t e h

Thursday, March 14, 2019 | Arts & Living | THE TUFTS DAILY

7

8

THE TUFTS DAILY | FUN & GAMES | Thursday, March 14, 2019

F &G FUN & GAMES

tuftsdaily.com LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY

Elie, on colonialism: “I can’t believe they came here and called everything India.”

SUDOKU

LINDA C. BLACK ASTROLOGY

Pisces (Feb. 19–March 20)

Sink into domestic comforts. Focus on home and family, before looking farther out. Make renovations and organize the space. Give away stuff you no longer need.

Difficulty Level: Having assignments due the day before spring break.

Wednesday’s Solutions

SHELTER PET & FASHION ICON Amazing stories start in shelters and rescues. Adopt today to start yours.

TOAST 325K+ Instagram Followers

CROSSWORD

CARROLL'S Monday-$1 Oysters Wed- $7 Burger, Add a Bud for $3 Thur-Select 1/2 priced apps Fri-50 cent Wings $6 Cheese Pizza during Pats Games *14 draft lines & tons of craft beers 21 Main St, Medford, MA 781-395-3344

9 tuftsdaily.com

Ria Mazumdar Peripheries

Opinion

Thursday, March 14, 2019

CARTOON

Women’s Day

M

arch 8, now marked as International Women’s Day, is a day of celebration in America, with motifs such as celebrating the increased proportion of female CEOs. However, this day did not begin as a celebratory one. The first Women’s Day celebration took place in May 1908, when the U.S. Socialist Party led a protest of over 1,000 women. According to Birgitte Søland, history professor at Ohio State University, protests by working-class Russian women on March 8, 1917 helped trigger the Russian Revolution. In those days, Women’s Day was marked as a day of struggle. It is important to remember this context today as we navigate various contemporary women’s struggles.

It is impossible to discuss this issue without addressing that critical buzzword: intersectionality. While there is talk of convergence in the gender pay gap, the wage gap for women of color increased between 2016 and 2017. Within this group, the gap hits black, Latinx and Native women significantly more than Asian women. This seems to reflect the structural disparities among women of different races, a systemic issue that, contrary to Sheryl Sandberg’s claims, simply can’t be resolved by “leaning in.” However, in privileged spaces like Tufts, women of color are encouraged to “lean in” in practically every respect. We are told that institutions are trying to improve on diversity. We are told that we have what it takes to succeed in male-dominated spaces. In particular, we are surrounded by images of female CEOs, investment bankers and hedge fund managers.

Such discourse surrounding feminism has thinned its power and caused a shift away from crucial issues. Feminism should not simply be about adapting to existing conditions. At its core, feminism has uplifting, revolutionary potential to alter the status quo. In her critique of “Lean In” (2013), bell hooks calls Sandberg out as a “faux feminist.” What is a real feminist? Colloquially, people often say that all it takes to be a feminist is to want equal rights for women and men. bell hooks incisively points out that such framing misses the point: “The reality was and is that privileged white women often experience a greater sense of solidarity with men of their same class than with poor white women or women of color.”

Sheryl Sandberg’s comments about a lack of confidence are certainly true in some contexts. However, women facing oppression along racial and class lines are not simply hindered by these cultural norms, but by very concrete material barriers that “lean in” feminism ignores.

When Sojourner Truth asked “Ain’t I a woman?” she spoke to the exclusionary nature of the feminist movement and conceptualizations of gender as a whole. In many places around the world, including Spain and Turkey, International Women’s Day is an opportunity for solidarity centered around strikes and mass resistance.

The nature of its celebration in America is an indication of “lean in” feminism’s stronghold in our consciousness, and we should reject it in favor of a more actionbased paradigm.

Ria Mazumdar is a junior studying quantitative economics and international relations. Ria can be reached at ria.mazumdar@tufts.edu.

BY MARIA FONG

When life throws you a financial challenge, you’ve proven you have what it takes to ace it.

Now it’s time to tackle your retirement savings at AceYourRetirement.org

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.

10

THE TUFTS DAILY | Sports | Thursday, March 14, 2019

tuftsdaily.com

Fifteen different goal scorers highlight depth of Jumbo squad WOMEN'S LACROSSE

continued from page 11 First-year attacker Colette Smith could not be contained by the Engineers’ defense. Her trademark left crease take resulted in three unassisted goals in the first half, and a fourth goal came from a quick feed by junior attacker Emily Games following a switch behind goal.

Only three Tufts goals in the entire game were assisted, compared to an average of nine assists over the first two games.

“I think that the [offense] didn’t have enough time to settle into the attack and work together to set up plays which tend to target more assisted looks,” sophomore attacker Claire Wright said. “We never got the chance to start working plays for the MIT game, whereas for Wellesley we had more of a settled attack which allowed us to work on running plays.”

MIT sophomore goalkeeper Hannah Adams allowed 10 goals within the first 15 minutes of the game. The Engineers substituted Adams for first-year goalkeeper Kiely Smiga-McManus, who fared better

as she saved seven out of 14 shots in the remaining 45 minutes of the game.

“At the start of the game we came out really hard, which enabled us to get a running clock quickly and give many people playing time,” Wright said.

The second half was a different story, with a telling scoreline of 3–3. The most significant difference was the Jumbos only managing three goals on 12 shots, including finishing only one of their six free position opportunities. Tufts initially extended its lead to 17–1, but MIT came back with three goals in a row to close out the game.

“I think our intensity went down [in the second half ], and we were never able to get organized in the defense or attack because there was so much transition,” Wright said. “We definitely could have improved our shot selection, which was a lot better in the first half.”

The game ended with a resounding 17–4 win. All 29 players on the roster saw time on the field.

On Saturday, the Jumbos held the Wellesley Blue to a 21–0 shutout that saw

14 different Jumbos get on the scorecard.

The top scorer of the day was Wright, who netted three goals on nine shots. Wright was tied with Smith, who also scored three goals and provided two assists.

Like in the MIT game, Tufts dominated possession off the draw, winning 14 overall compared to Wellesley’s nine. But what really gave them an edge was the strength of their ride, or in other words, re-defending the ball on the opponent’s clear to regain possession in their own attacking end. The Jumbos capitalized on these second-chance opportunities to push their goal count higher and higher.

“We had a great ride and we regained possession most of the time on clears against us,” Shute said. “That was key in keeping possession and limiting Wellesley’s possession against our defense. We won a lot of draws and we capitalized on the opportunities that we had. I thought that was a great team win on Saturday.”

On the defensive end, senior goalkeeper Audrey Evers and first-year goalkeeper Molly Laliberty shared time in the cage,

with Laliberty mustering seven saves over the two games, and Evers tallying two.

Laliberty and Smith are just two members of a strong first-year class which got a chance to find its collegiate legs this weekend. Thirteen of the team’s 38 goals over the last week were scored by firstyears, with every single player making an impact on the field.

The Jumbos look ahead to their first home match and second conference opponent of the season in the Colby Mules (3–0). The Mules currently top the NESCAC, starting the season with a 2–0 conference record. Though Tufts overcame Colby last season 11–9, Colby historically holds a strong record against Tufts, boasting seven wins out of the last 10 meetings between the two sides.

“Colby will be a great team, they always are,” Shute said. “They’re well coached and always play hard. I think the staff and team are looking forward to a competitive game on Saturday, and looking forward to being on Bello for the first time too.”

The Jumbos will take the draw against the Mules on Saturday at 1 p.m. on Bello Field.

S

before anything else, we’re all human rethink your bias at lovehasnolabels.com

Sports

Thursday, March 14, 2019 | Sports | THE TUFTS DAILY

Baseball recovers from 14–8 deficit in season opener

ALLISON CULBERT / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

Junior Elias Varinos is congratulated by his teammates after scoring a home run in the game against Colby on April 21, 2018.

BASEBALL

continued from page 12 the inning with a double to left center field, scoring in Day and SantosOcampo for two runs and narrowing the deficit to four runs, with the score standing at 12–8.

Frey responded once again with a double to right center field and two

RBIs. Entering the bottom of the seventh, the Jumbos were down 14–8.

Despite the increasing lead for Brandeis, the Tufts offense exploded in the seventh, totaling six runs in the inning to tie the game at 14 runs apiece.

Santos-Ocampo got hit by a pitch with the bases loaded, scoring in Shackelford with the unearned run. Daues then grounded out to first, scoring in Mills.

Following a walk and a single from senior catcher Eric Schnepf, the Jumbos tallied two more unearned runs. Shackelford then singled, scoring in Varinos.

“The [seventh] inning really was a shoot-out, but we did a really good job at the plate,” Frickman said. “Obviously, there are areas of our game that [we] are looking to improve and will improve, but we competed the entire game, which is what put us in a great place late in the game to win it. Our guys just really wanted it more.”

There was no response in the eighth from the Judges, who were held scoreless. The Jumbos capitalized on this and continued their offensive barrage in the bottom of the inning. Knight hit a sacrifice fly to left field, scoring in Day. Schnepf was walked, scoring in SantosOcampo, and Shackelford was hit by a pitch, which scored in Daues to end the inning with a 17–14 lead. Brandeis tallied just one run in the top of the ninth to bring the game to a close at 17–15.

With their first win under their belts, the Jumbos are now preparing for their 10-game spring break trip.

“As it gets more into the field, we need to fine-tune the mental aspect more, because a lot of times games are won by one or two plays when, if you make the heads-up play, you win, and if you don’t make the play, you lose,” Day said. “So I feel like that’s a primary focus for us as we continue to play outside and head down south.”

The trip kicks off in Virginia with a doubleheader against Castleton on March 15.

Two games, 38 goals — women’s lacrosse sweeps MIT, Wellesley

RAY BERNOFF / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

Sophomore defender Emma Tomlinson picks up a ground ball during Tufts’ 26–5 win over Wellesley on March 14, 2018.

by Maddie Payne Sports Editor

The No. 10 Tufts Jumbos trounced the MIT Engineers and the Wellesley Blue in two dominant games that boasted an overall record of 38 goals scored and only four conceded. Though both victories were against non-conference opponents, the matches showcased the depth of the Jumbos’ bench: there were 15 different goal scorers over the two games.

“I knew going into the season that our team had great depth, and I think the first three games have showed that,” coach Courtney Shute said. “It’s given everyone a great chance to get minutes on the field and show individually what everyone’s capable of, and it translated into some really great team moments.”

On Monday night, Tufts (3–0) traveled to nearby MIT (1–2), a team Tufts had beaten in their past three matchups. In the first half of the game, the Jumbos scored

a whopping 14 goals and only conceded one because they went 14-for-19 on shots, including 4-for-4 on free positions. Part of what allowed the team to do this was its domination of the draw in the first half — it claimed 12 compared to MIT’s five. The possession allowed the Jumbos to push the ball down the field at a high pace, which culminated, at one point, in scoring three goals in 39 seconds. see WOMEN'S LACROSSE, page 10

11

Arjun Balaraman Off the Crossbar

A changing of the guard

T

he Champions League treated soccer fans with a host of captivating fixtures last week: Porto and Manchester United overcame 2–0 first leg deficits to advance to the quarterfinals, while Dutch side Ajax defeated Spanish giants Real Madrid 4–1 to overcome a first leg defeat and send the threetime defending champions crashing out of the competition. Despite an obvious gulf in experience and reputation, Ajax thoroughly outclassed Madrid and deserved the victory.

On paper, the match should never have been close — according to Ajax’s director of football Marc Overmars, the Dutch side’s wage bill for their first, second and youth teams is equal to the annual wage of Real Madrid’s star Gareth Bale. It was a fascinating battle between two historic clubs with diametrically opposed philosophies, and perhaps signaled the end of an era in the European game.

On one side you have Ajax Amsterdam, a club renowned for its commitment to youth players and playing the game the “right” way. The club’s philosophy of playing possession-based, attacking soccer is ingrained in the players’ heads from the moment they join the team, regardless of age. Star midfielder Frenkie de Jong is perfect example. The 21-year old is just as comfortable taking on players in the opposition’a final third as he is making last-ditch tackles in his own defensive third. Club captain Matthijs de Ligt is just 19 but has been at the club since he was about eight years old — a symbol of Ajax’s belief in its youth.

On the other side, you have Real Madrid, one of the most powerful clubs in the world with a roster full of superstars.

With a shaky-at-best La Liga campaign this year, Madrid was looking to their favorite competition for redemption.

Club President Florentino Perez is famous for his transfer strategy of spending exorbitant sums of money for so-called “Galacticos” — players who command respect both on and off the field.

While Madrid obviously had to cope with the loss of Cristiano Ronaldo this past summer, the rest of the Spanish side has remained relatively unchanged.

But after years of success, the game has finally passed this group by. De Jong and his midfield partners ran circles around Madrid’s central trio of Luka Modric, Toni Kroos and Casemiro, a group that in past years has outclassed almost every other midfield they came up against.

There is a new wave of young players emerging in the European game today, most notably led by French sensation Kylian Mbappé. This generation grew up watching Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona teams dissect opponents with their tiki-taka style of play, and, like the Frenchman, almost all of them are athletic and comfortable on the ball.

Ajax’s win signaled a change of the guard in modern soccer. With stars like Messi and Ronaldo approaching the end of their careers, the time is now ripe for the next generation of players like Mbappé and De Jong to make a name for themselves on the global stage.

Arjun Balaraman is a sophomore studying quantitative economics. Arjun can be reached at arjun.balaraman@tufts.edu.

Sports

12 tuftsdaily.com

Thursday, March 14, 2019

Tufts women’s ski team shows out at USCSA National Championship

COURTESY TUFTS SKI TEAM

The Tufts men’s and women’s ski teams are pictured.

by Helen Thomas-McLean Assistant Sports Editor

Disclaimer: Annette Key is a former executive video editor of the Daily. Key was not involved in the writing or editing of this article.

For the first time in program history, the Tufts women’s ski team traveled to Jackson Hole, Wyo. to compete in the U.S. Collegiate Ski and Snowboard Association (USCSA) National Championship. The team competed in women’s giant slalom (GS) on Tuesday, and competes in women’s slalom today.

The 82-person team is represented by junior captain Sami Rubin, senior Taylor Hart, freshman Pippa Hodgkins, junior Olivia Wentzell and sophomore Annette Key. Each of the five skiers competes in both slalom and GS. Rubin explained the difference between the two alpine skiing races.

“GS is a wider radius turn,” Rubin said.

“We end up going a little faster, around 40–50 miles per hour. Slalom is a more technical event and it’s a much shorter turn. It’s about 25–30 miles per hour.”

The USCSA encompasses club programs, like the Tufts men’s and women’s ski

teams, as well as varsity programs across the U.S. In order to qualify for nationals, the team had to rank within the top five in the Eastern conference, which is a notoriously competitive division within the USCSA. At the Eastern Regional Championships on Feb. 23 at Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine, the team qualified for the national championships alongside varsity and club teams alike. The Jumbos placed fourth, determined by combining the times of the team’s top three finishers.

The team carried their momentum from regionals into their first day of competition at nationals on Tuesday. In the GS competition, the team placed ninth out of 21 teams with a combined time of 6:41.65, one slot behind local rival Northeastern. Rubin led the pack, finishing 22nd out of 73 competitors with a combined time of 2:09.1 between her first and second runs. Also included in the team’s combined time was Key and Wentzell, who posted impressive 2:12.15 and 2:20.36 combined times, respectively. Although the team is successful across the board, its greatest strength is the slalom, which they are set to compete in today.

This season marked the first year a Tufts ski team qualified for a national championship. While the men’s and women’s teams compete separately, the teams are close; they practice together, socialize, cheer for one another and share the same coach, Brent Talbott.

“We’re basically a coherent team,” Rubin said. “I consider my teammates to be people of all genders.”

Aside from their undeniable talent and strong work ethic, the team cites its sportsmanship as the secret to their successful season.

“When it’s time to race, we are really dialed in and ready to compete,” Key said.

“We are competitive but super supportive of one another.”

The team believes that its positive energy helped carry its to nationals. During the regional slalom race, conditions on the slopes were particularly difficult. The howling winds and freezing weather caused the men’s race to be cancelled, but the women’s team persevered through the harsh weather.

“We were feeling it — we were in it,” Key said. “We embraced the miserable

weather and were, 100 percent, the most positive team.”

Above all, the team is united by its passion for skiing. The skiers approach every competition as an opportunity to improve.

“We definitely look to be one of the teams having the most fun,” Wentzell said.

Regardless of Thursday’s results, competing in the USCSA National Championships is a major milestone for the Tufts ski team.

Because it is a large team that embraces skiers from a broad range of experience levels, sending team members to nationals demonstrates the heights that the team can reach when its members work hard and take advantage of every opportunity.

Although competing in nationals is a highlight of the season, the athletes explained that the most fulfilling part of being on the team is getting to watch new team members compete for the first time.

Competing in nationals is a dream come true for the program.

“It shows that we’re a good club team that can beat varsity teams,” Rubin said. “We don’t need to be a varsity team to be a significant presence in the Div. III skiing world.”

Jumbos prosecute Judges in season opener

by Savannah Mastrangelo Sports Editor

The Jumbos opened their 2019 season with a comeback victory against the Brandeis Judges at the New England Baseball Complex, edging out their opponents in a 17–15 shootout. This marks the first official outdoor game for Tufts baseball since their loss to Amherst last season in the NESCAC Championship.

“Well, having it be our first game and the first time we were outside, I feel like it was really high energy. Everyone was really excited to get outside,” junior catcher Ryan Day said. “There were a lot of mistakes too, which we can hopefully work to fix, but the energy was really good.”

Junior outfielder Justin Mills kickstarted the game for Tufts with a home run to right center field in the first inning. Soon after, senior outfielder Casey Santos-Ocampo extended the lead with a home run to left center field.

With two outs and two men on base, junior infielder Elias Varinos stepped to the plate and hit a single to center field, scoring in junior outfielder JP Knight and sophomore infielder Kyle Cortese, giving Tufts a strong 4–0 lead moving into the second inning.

Brandeis recovered the lead in the next two innings, scoring three runs in the second and two more in the third.

Following a double from sophomore outfielder Dan Frey, junior right fielder Dan O’Leary hit a home run to left field, earning two RBIs and landing

Brandeis on the scoreboard. Brandeis then earned one more RBI off of a ground ball to third.

At the top of the third inning, Brandeis tied the game 4–4 after earning a run off of a Tufts error, then took the lead with a double to left center field. Brandeis was shut out in the top of the fourth inning, making the score 5–4 entering the bottom of the inning.

Senior co-captain Harrison Frickman started the fourth with a lead-off home run to left field, tying the game 5–5. Day advanced the lead, doubling to right field and scoring in senior co-captain Will Shackelford.

“I think it was a tie game at that point, so I was really trying to get on base and let the guys behind me get to the plate,” Frickman said. “I had

an immense amount of trust in Will Shackelford behind me and once our lineup turns over, we have Mills and Day up next and they both have been seeing the ball well all preseason, and it showed yesterday.”

This lead was short-lived, however.

Brandeis went on a scoring spree in the top of the fifth, totaling five runs with two singles, two doubles and a triple, taking a 10-6 lead in the process. The Jumbos were unable to retaliate in the bottom of the inning, managing just one hit and no runs.

Frey and O’Leary hit back-to-back doubles in the top of the sixth to put the Judges’ up 12–6. Sophomore infielder Ryan Daues answered in the bottom of

see BASEBALL, page 11