Matriculation 2022: Defining moments from the past year
Rather than being housed within a particular school or col lege, the IGL was conceived as a “cross-school program of the university” with a mission of pre paring students to be engaged globalCarolinecitizens.Genco, provost and senior vice president ad interim, attributed the decision to close the institute to “a mission that overlapped with other university entities, difficulty growing enroll ment, insufficient infrastructure and marketing resources due to its lack of an academic ‘home,’
Tuesday, a ugus T 30, 2022VOLUME LXXXIIII, ISSUE 1 THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF TUFTS UNIVERSITY EST. 1980 MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS. FEATURES Tufts is growing — is that a good thing? page 6 OPINION Letter from the EIC: Welcome to Tufts page 14 SPORTS Class of 2022 leads women’s lacrosse to national recognition page 17 NEWS 1 SCIENCE 5 FEATURES 6 PHOTOS 10 FUN & GAMES 11 ARTS & POP CULTURE 12 OPINION 14 SPORTS 17 tuftsdaily thetuftsdailytuftsdaily The Tufts Daily The Tufts Daily daily@tuftsdaily.com T HE T UFTS D AILY In this Matriculation Issue of The Tufts Daily, we have reprinted articles published during the past year that reflect the student experience at Tufts during that time and showcase the strength and breadth of our reporters’ work. The articles are republished almost exactly as they were published originally, with original publication dates listed for each one. Authors’ bylines have been updated to reflect their current standing at the Daily. We hope that this issue serves as a warm welcome to Tufts, and we encourage all students interested in the Daily to get involved by scanning the QR code at the top of this page! — The Tufts Daily Managing Board, Fall 2022
NICOLE GARAY / THE TUFTS DAILY Somerville City Hall is pictured on March 12.
The Pulitzer Board described Rembert and Kelly’s book as “a sear ing first-person illustrated account of an artist’s life during the 1950s and 1960s in an unreconstructed corner of the Deep South, an account of abuse, endurance, imagination and aesthetic transformation” in their live-streamed announcement of the 2022 prize winners. Kelly reflected on winning the Pulitzer and discussed her book in a conversation with the Daily. Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. The Tufts Daily (TD): How did you find out that you won
Originally published May 10, 2022. see ,
page 4 Join us!
UNIVERSITY Professor of Philosophy Erin Kelly won a Pulitzer Prize in the biography category for “Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South” (2022), which Kelly co-authored with Winfred Rembert, the biog raphy’s subject. Rembert, who died in 2021, received the prize posthumously.Awarded annually since 1917, the Pulitzer Prizes recog nize outstanding achievements in American journalism, letters and music.
The Somerville City Council unanimously passed an ordinance protecting the rights of individuals seeking gender-affirming care on June 9. The ordinance prohibits City of Somerville law enforce ment from helping to enforce laws enacted by other states that pre vent individuals from accessing gender-affirming care.
TheMonth.ordinance prevents the Somerville Police Department from undertaking investigations or assisting in law enforcement action against any person seek ing or facilitating gender-affirm ing care. The policy also forbids the city from sharing information requested by other jurisdictions in the context of related civil or crim inal action. To Burnley Jr., this puts into place a set of “enforcement mechanisms” that ensure gen der-affirming care remains safe and“We’reaccessible.creating non-com pliance by saying the City of Somerville will not help any of these transphobic or sexist laws … by materially contributing to them at all,” Burnley Jr. explained. Another provision of the law allows individuals to file an offi cial complaint in the event law enforcement or city personnel vio late any part of the ordinance. In a statement to the Daily, Kade Crockford, Technology for Liberty program director at the ACLU of Massachusetts, noted the importance of legislation like Somerville’s new ordinance for ensuring safe access to gender-af firming services, particularly in today’s political climate. “Across the country, hundreds of bills targeting LGBTQ youth have been introduced in state leg islatures, including efforts to crim inalize gender-affirming care,” Crockford wrote. “At the same time, the recent leaked Supreme Court decision shows that other funda s omerville City Council passes ordinance protecting those seeking gender-affirming care by Madeline Wilson Deputy News Editor
Originally published June 30, 2022. see CARE, page 3
Tufts
Tufts University offered admis sion to 9% of applicants to the undergraduate Class of 2026, the admissions office announced Tuesday, marking the lowest accep tance rate in university history. In a year that saw applica tions climb and admissions offers plunge, the Class of 2026’s accep tance rate eclipses the previous record-low of 11% set by the Class
UNIVERSITY
Tufts announced on July 21 that it will disband the Institute for Global Leadership. The institute, founded in 1999, supports global education and scholarship through 28 program offerings, including student-led clubs, internation al exchange programs, research opportunities and alumni mento ring. The news came as a shock to IGL students and alumni, who have since mounted a campaign urging the university to reverse its decision.
see ADMISSIONS
KATRINA AQUILINO / THE TUFTS DAILY Bendetson Hall, the location of the Tufts Office of Undergraduate Admissions, is pictured on March 29. see IGL, page 2
Philosophy professor erin Kelly wins Pulitzer Prize by Emily Thompson Executive News Editor
PULITZER
LOCAL
Originally published Aug. 4, 2022. by Ethan Steinberg Executive Investigative Editor
UNIVERSITY
Tufts dissolves Institute for global Leadership by Aaron Gruen Deputy News Editor
Originally published March 30, 2022. ,
accepts record-low 9% of applicants to Class of 2026
page 2
Somerville City Councilors At-Large Willie Burnley Jr. and Charlotte Kelly sponsored the leg islation, which received support from the ACLU of Massachusetts. It became effective immediately upon passage and coincides with the celebration of June as LGBTQ+ Pride
Carolina Hidalgo-McCabe, a Tisch Summer Fellow and Tisch Scholar who is also active within the IGL, said that institutional backing by Heather Barry and the IGL have been essential to EPIIC and ALLIES’ success. McCabe believes that moving those programs to Tisch College and dissolving the IGL itself will be damag ing to students for whom the institute has been a source of academic and profession al enrichment.“Allofasudden, these two things that have been my homes on campus are being put together in a way that I think is doing a lot of harm to what the IGL’s mission is,” Hidalgo-McCabe, a rising senior, said. “[The IGL] is, for me, the central place for inter national relations students at this university … the pedagogy of it is so unique, and to be dismantling it and to be taking away the club part of it and to be disrupting the alumni net work which is so powerful, which makes the IGL so unique … that’s where I see it’s doing a lot of Carlosharm.”Irisarri (A’21), a current student at the Fletcher School who was active in the IGL as an undergraduate, said that unlike Tisch College, the IGL is fundamentally stu dent-led.“Allof the clubs [in] the IGL, they have all been … founded by students [and] orga nized by students. The funding has been raised by students,” Irisarri said. “At the end of the day, the people who are losing the most from this [are] obviously future stu dents that are not going to have the chances that we Alongsidehad.” its course offerings and clubs, the IGL has an expansive alumni network that connects students with internships, job opportunities, research positions and men torships. The IGL’s external advisory board, a group of alumni and scholars who offer guidance and monetary support to current students, will also be disbanded.
record for diversity ADMISSIONS continued from page 1 IGL continued from page 1
“We appreciate what IGL has contribut ed to the university over the years,” Genco wrote to the Daily. “However, the univer sity and higher education in general have evolved significantly since IGL’s inception … At the same time, Tisch College has grown in stature and resources over time, and now has the academic oversight, infra structure and network needed to support and grow the type of programming that IGL hadFollowingdelivered.”the announcement, Maria Figueroa Kupcu (A’93) and Jennifer Selendy (A’90), the chair and vice-chair of the IGL’s advisory board, criticized the decision in an email to fellow IGL alumni.
selective on record,
The Institute for Global Leadership is pictured on Sept. 9, 2021. Some IGL programs to be moved to Tisch College of 2025 and falls nearly six percentage points below the admissions rate from 2020. More than 34,880 students applied for admission, and fewer than 3,200 were left with letters of acceptance.Despitethe university’s intent to grow the undergraduate student body, the size of the admitted class has shrunk considerably over the last two years. Approximately 600 fewer students were admitted to the Class of 2026 than to the Class of 2024 and nearly 400 fewer than to the Class of 2025. Dean of Admissions J.T. Duck said in a statement on Tuesday that higher yield for the Class of 2025 motivated the contrac tion of this year’s admitted class. Just over 50% of admitted students chose to enroll at Tufts last year, a jump from 42.97% for the Class of 2024. Last year’s higher-than-expected yield left university officials scrambling over the summer to house the incoming class, which occupies an additional residence hall that formerly housed sophomores and includes approximately 100 students who are housed in the Hyatt Place in Medford.Justover 56% of students in the admitted class are people of color — matching the record-breaking total set by the Class of 2025 — including 11% who identify as Black, 14% who identify as Hispanic or Latinx and 20% who identify as Asian American. Twelve percent of admitted students would be the first in their family to attend college, up from 10% a year ago. Women comprise a majority of the admitted class at 55%, a slight decrease from last year’s 56%. Women also account for 55% of students admitted to the School of Engineering, setting a university record. Four percent of admitted students identify as nonbinary or genderqueer, up from 2% in the Class of 2025. Students admitted to the Class of 2026 hail from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa. International students account for 11% of the admitted class, representing citi zenships from 84 countries, according to the university’s press release. Admitted students also represent 15 tribal nations. Twenty-four students matched with Tufts through the QuestBridge National College Match program, up slightly from 20 for the Class of 2025.
Leaders of clubs that rely on IGL funding, such as Women in International Relations and the South Asian Regional Committee, are unsure if they will be able to operate without the IGL’s support. Gowri Kashyap, the president of SARC, told the Daily that the future of her club is “uncertain,” as all of its funding comes from the IGL. “The success of our club has been because the IGL believes in us, and there’s no other space on campus that allows students to do this much research and really explore their academic interest in South Asia,” Kashyap, a rising junior, said. “Without the IGL, we lose ourAshleymoney.”Jones-Flores, a rising junior and the co-president of Women in IR, said that while her club would be able to survive without the IGL, “our capacities are going to be lowered and our programming is going to be cut short.” In the weeks following the announce ment that the IGL would be disbanded, hundreds of students and alumni penned letters to Genco, University President Anthony Monaco, Chairman of the Board of Trustees Peter Dolan and Vice-Chair Jeffrey Moslow, praising Barry’s leadership within the IGL and urging them to revisit theThedecision.Office of the Provost has sent iden tical emails in response to several of the letters. “[T]hough we recognize there is dis agreement about our decision … We are confident that Tisch College, whose mission is so aligned with that of IGL, is the right home for this work,” the responses read.
“We’re shocked and sad, because [the IGL] is a beloved institution and an institu tion that’s really about the people and the community,” Herman said. “So for the com munity not to be involved in that decision feels like a big letdown.”
THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Tuesday, August 30, 20222 tuftsdaily.com and additional issues around funding pre dictability and governance,” in a written statement to the Daily.
For Hidalgo-McCabe, the IGL offered a unique community space that can’t be replicated elsewhere at Tufts. “It’s incumbent on the university to create spaces where students can come together and connect on shared passions,” she said. “Instead, Tufts has decided to dis band this space of community.”
SOPHIE DOLAN / THE TUFTS DAILY
Admitted
“While we wholeheartedly agree that IGL needs institutional support and have advocated that position fiercely for many years, we do not believe that these deci sions are in the best interest of IGL’s unique pedagogical model,” Figueroa Kupcu and Selendy wrote. Abi Williams (F’86, F’87), the current direc tor of the IGL, will teach the EPIIC symposium this fall according to the July 21 announce ment. Genco declined to comment on wheth er Heather Barry, the associate director of the IGL who has worked for the university for more than 30 years, will remain at Tufts in another position. Barry did not respond to the Daily’s interview request.
All Tufts centers and institutes are required to undergo a review process by the provost’s office every five years. Genco led the regu larly-scheduled review of the IGL which ulti mately resulted in its disbanding. Some IGL programs — including its flag ship course, Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship, and the Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services, a student organization that works to improve civilian-military relations — will be moved to the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life.
For the second consecutive year, about 60% of the admitted class, compared to roughly 50% of applicants, chose to sub mit SAT or ACT scores. The current appli cation cycle is the second year of Tufts’ three-year test-optional pilot. Regular decision offers of admission were released Tuesday at 7 p.m., following two rounds of early decision offers sent in December and February, respectively. The university has not publicized the number of students admitted through each round. For the first time in three years, admit ted students will be invited to campus for in-person ‘Bo Days in April. These admit ted students’ days will be supplemented by virtual programming throughout the month, according to the press release. Students have until May 2 to reply to Tufts’ offer of admission. Class of 2026 the most matches previous
Elizabeth Herman (A’10), who took EPIIC as an undergraduate and mentored stu dents through the IGL, has been active in organizing alumni support for the institute.
Rabb was disappointed that the other students at the event seemed uninterested in the answers to his questions and blamed the univer sity for fostering what he charac terized as an apathetic culture.
“We can think for ourselves,” an event attendee said to Rabb. Others shared that attendee’s frustration — “Some of us want to get jobs,” one said. The overwhelming sentiment among the engineering students in attendance was irritation. Someone eventually called secu rity on Rabb, but the two Tufts police officers who responded to the call promptly departed, tell ing the Daily that neither Rabb nor the protesters outside were in violation of Tufts’ Student Code of Conduct. Rabb eventu ally left the room and the event resumed.“[Rabb] was being extremely disrespectful,” one engineering student, who spoke to the Daily on the condition of anonymity, said. Another engineering student who attended the event said that Rabb’s interjections jeopardized the professional development of students who had come to the event in earnest. “He almost forced [the speak ers] out, and that just ruins our opportunities,” the student said. “This kind of job, it’s very compet itive to get, … and it’s these kinds of events that start that journey of getting contacts, of getting intern ships, getting experience.”
Burnley Jr. also described how the legislation sits at the intersec tion of a number of different polit ical and social issues — including LGBTQ+ rights, access to health care and police reform — and that policies like this one are funda mentally about bodily autonomy. “We live in an intersection al world, and our system is very multifaceted,” Burnley Jr. said. “If we want to reduce criminaliza tion and if we want to stand up against these bigoted laws — that, to me, are at root about bodily autonomy — then we have to have the ability to constrain our police departments, or to at least say that they will not go out on a limb to damage people’s lives. …
see RAYTHEON, page 4 UNIVERSITY
Alexander Janoff Faye MariannaThijssenSchantz
Hope Freeman, senior director of the LGBT and Women’s Centers at Tufts, outlined the ways that these legal decisions have con tinued to restrict the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals and put their lives at “Sincerisk.January 2022 there have been hundreds [of] anti-trans bills introduced nationally; hundreds in 2021, hundreds in 2020, etc.,” she wrote in an email to the Daily. “Many of these bills are structured to deny the right to health care of trans and/or nonbinary young people. I point that out to say that given what is happening with Roe v. Wade there were always trans and/or nonbinary youth that did not have autonomy over their own bodies through anti trans legisla tion across many states in the US.”
News 3Tuesday, August 30, 2022 | News | THE TUFTS DAILY THE TUFTS DAILY Chloe Courtney Bohl Editor in Chief – EDITORIAL –Delaney Clarke Julia Shannon-Grillo Managing Editors Emily Thompson Aaron Gruen Ariana MichaelMadeleineMadelinePhillipsWilsonAdityaAcharyaAitkenCocoArcandPeriBarestClaireFerrisOliviaFieldSkylerGoldbergEllaKammMaddyMuellerWeiskopfCharlotteChenDanielVosElizabethZacks Executive News Editor Deputy News Editors News AssistantEditorsNews Editors Aaron Klein Executive Audio Producer Contact us P.O. Box 53018, Medford, MA 02155 recyclePleasethisnewspaper! Ty AbigailBlitsteinVixama Associate Editors Mark Choi Kaitlyn Wells Juanita IsabelleSamJillianAsapokhaiCollinsDieringerChrisDuncanSamRussoKateSeklirEmmaBittarKaylaButeraMayaKatzKaminskyLaylaKenningtonElizabethZacks Executive Features Editor Deputy Features Editor Features AssistantEditorsFeatures Editors Jack Clohisy RaiAnn Bu HenryEmmySiavashChandonnetEllieLesterRaissiCarlSvahnWenstrupBlakeAndersonAlexisEnderleOdessaGainesRyanFairfieldNateHall Executive Arts Editor Arts AssistantEditorsArts Editors Reya Kumar Liz Buehl Gian Luca DiSaraLeonardoKessel Executive Opinion Editor Opinion Editors Keila McCabe ArielleOliverWeinsteinFox Ethan MichaelSamArnavEmmaGrubelichJoyceSachetiBharatSinghDieringerHenryGorelikTimothyValkWallace-Bruce Executive Sports Editor Deputy Sports Editor Sports AssistantEditorsSports Editors Flora Meng Peri Barest Avery Hanna YanqingIanHuangLau Emilia Nathan SarahCindyChrisSandlowTomoZhang Executive Science Editor Science Editors Ethan Steinberg Executive Investigative Editor Julia Carpi Executive Video Editor Natalie BrownsellIanLau Executive Photo Editors – PRODUCTION –Charlene Tsai Production Director Maddy Noah Mike Kourkoulakos Executive Layout Editors Avril Lynch Camilla Samuel Executive Graphics Editors Rachel Liu Christopher Vergos Aedan SophieCarolineEmmaBrownRaoVandisDorf-KamiennySarahGoldsteinJackManiaciMarleeStoutMichaelWeiskopf Executive Copy Editors Copy AssistantEditorsCopy Editors Liz Buehl Caroline Vandis Executive Social Media Editors Evelyn Altschuler Executive Newsletter Editor – BUSINESS –Sam Berman Business Director Michelle Alizada Izzy EileenFrancisChenRyanSorbi Ad ReceivablesManagersManagers KendallKateRobertsSeklir Alumni Liaisons Odessa Gaines Avery Hanna Intentionality & Inclusivity Committee Chairs Skyler Goldberg Education Committee Chair Madeleine Aitken Mariel Priven Social Committee Chairs
For me, it is all about bodily autonomy, because if we do not have that, we have nothing.” In light of the recent Supreme Court decision and the shifting political climate, Freeman noted that the City of Somerville as well as Tufts will continue to provide support for those affected by antitrans and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. She emphasized the importance of making sure LGBTQ+ students know about the resources avail able to them at Tufts, such as support groups, trans care teams and medical and social transitions covered by Tufts Student Health Insurance.“[TheLGBT Center at Tufts is] committed to showing that the LGBTQIA+ community is not a monolith by centering anti-rac ism, equity, justice, and truth tell ing,” she wrote. “We are very for tunate that Somerville knows the value of gender affirming health care as it is wholeheartedly tied to reproductive justice and body autonomy.”
CARE continued from page 1
Students and community members protested a Raytheon BBN career event hosted by the School of Engineering in Halligan Hall on May 2. The protest was the second demonstration against a defense contractor on Tufts’ cam pus in less than a week. Raytheon BBN is the technolo gy research and development sub sidiary of Raytheon, a multination al defense conglomerate based in Waltham, Mass. Raytheon manu factures missiles, missile defense systems, naval systems, computer software and other weaponry and technology. It is valued at $145.39 billion, making it the second-larg est defense corporation in the world, as of 2021. Its top customer is the U.S. Department of Defense, but it also sells to foreign militar ies. BBN, the subsidiary, develops shooter detection systems and sensors.Monday’s event featured two Raytheon BBN employees, Scott Ritter (EG’90) and Arda Cam, and was geared towards undergradu ate and graduate students in the School of Engineering seeking jobs and internships. Ritter and Cam each gave informal presentations on their career paths and then took questions from the audience of over 25 Chantsstudents.of“Tufts and Raytheon sitting in a tree, sharing all their blood money!” were audible from the room where the event was tak ing place. Just outside the build ing, protesters distributed flyers calling attention to a Raytheonmanufactured bomb used in an attack that killed 91 Yemenis in January and to the missiles and surveillance aircraft the company has sold the Israeli government and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol,Raytheonrespectively.BBN,Ritter and Cam did not respond to the Daily’s request for comment. Raytheon BBN career event reveals divide among Tufts stu dents
“It became evident to me as I was in there that the culture of a lot of computing and engineer ing students here is that they don’t really care,” Rabb said. “I think it’s really shameful that a supposedly prestigious uni versity with tons of computing students and tons of engineer ing students would never have anything in their curricula or anything in their institutional culture that would push people away from — or even introduce people to — the idea that their work may be … used for horrible things. It’s like they don’t even mental rights, including the right to get the reproductive health care we need, are at risk. Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, saves lives, and shouldn’t be the subject of a criminal investigation.” Access to safe and affordable healthcare has recently been a prominent issue in U.S. politics. A draft of a Supreme Court majority decision leaked in May suggested that the court would strike down Roe v. Wade, and the landmark decision was officially overturned in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization with a 6–3 vote on June 24. In addition to this significant ruling, anti-LGBTQ+ and antitrans legislation continues to be passed across the country, put ting those seeking gender-af firming care particularly at risk. In May, the Texas Supreme Court allowed state law enforcement to investigate parents of transgender children who have received gen der-affirming care for child abuse, though such investigations were temporarily halted by a judge ear lier this Burnleymonth.Jr. referred to these recent state actions as “appalling,” and emphasized the need for peo ple across the country to advocate for those affected by homophobic and transphobic legislation. “I’m really tired of being on the defensive on these kinds of issues,” Burnley Jr. said. “We can absolutely take a stand and push for more rights and protections for folks here and elsewhere.”
City council prevents Somerville police from interfering with individuals’ access to gender-affirming care
During Ritter’s presentation, a graduate student named Nick Rabb raised his hand to ask wheth er Ritter had qualms about work ing for a military company. Ritter replied frankly, acknowledging that “Raytheon is a missile com pany,” but “BBN is a sensor com pany” whose research and devel opment focuses on defensive sys tems. Ritter said that although he doesn’t always have a choice about how the technology he works on gets used, his work is on defensive projects.AsRabb, who is a third-year Ph.D. candidate in the School of Engineering studying comput er science and cognitive science, continued to ask critical questions about Raytheon, the speakers and the audience became increasingly impatient with him.
The anonymous students also shared that a School of Engineering professor had offered a 100% quiz grade and free pizza to students who attended the Raytheon BBN event.
by Chloe Courtney Bohl Editor in Chief Originally published May 6, 2022.
Editorial EditorialistsEditor
The student, who stayed after the event to network with the organizers, said they don’t mind that Raytheon is a defense company.“Idon’t generally look at if [the] company is in defense or not, I look at if they [offer] good pay, good salary, benefits,” they said. “I guess [it is true] that defense companies do pay more but at the same time … a lot of these companies have fund ed [other technologies]… which have improved the world.”
MAC CALLAHAN / THE TUFTS DAILY Students and community members are pictured outside the Joyce Cummings Center on May 2 protesting a Raytheon BBN career event at the School of Engineering.
students, community members protest Raytheon career event at s chool of engineering
Nevertheless, Rabb said he left the interaction feeling shocked andInconfused.awritten statement to the Daily, Executive Director of Public Safety Yolanda Smith said that Curry tried to engage with“Lt.Rabb.Curry does not handle dis cipline for the university; there fore, he would not suggest the outcome of disciplinary action,” Smith wrote. “Lt. Curry made several attempts to engage in a conversation with the student, encouraging the student to follow policy and procedure as it pertains to student protests in an effort to mitigate any issues. Lt. Curry even offered to meet with the student in plain clothes to have an open conversation to build rapport and establish trust with the student. The student was not amenable to a meeting but indicated that they appreciated Lt. Curry’s efforts.”
“BBN has come to Tufts to show their projects and discuss career opportunities for many years,” Chang wrote in an email to the Daily. “They benefit our students and our students love it. Whether they go to work for BBN or not, they benefit from hearing about the perspectives of a section of the Computer and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science“Whileindustry.”Iadmire the protesters’ commitment to their beliefs, I am disappointed that they chose to disrupt the event,” Chang wrote. Kyongbum Lee, dean ad interim of the School of Engineering, dis cussed the back-to-back protests in a written statement to the Daily. “We encourage students to voice their opinions on any topic about which they are passionate, but to do so in a safe, respectful, and inclusive way,” Lee wrote. “We recognize that demonstrations can educate and enlighten the community about important issues, but they must be conducted with respect for the free dom of other community members to inquire and express themselves fully and in a way that preserves a climate that is conducive to learning and“Disruptinggrowth.” and obstructing University events violates the student code of conduct policy,” Lee added. Dissenting student alleges intimidation by TUPD officer During the protest, the Tufts University Police Department dis patched Lieutenant Moses Curry in response to a call for service. Rabb told the Daily that he spoke to Curry outside of Halligan Hall, and that Curry told him he and the protesters had not com mitted any conduct violations.
THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Tuesday, August 30, 20224 tuftsdaily.com know, and they’re coming from a culture where their privilege shields them from it.”
“There were absolutely insti tutional connections. And there’s clearly still connections,” Rabb said of Raytheon and Tufts. Monday’s demonstration was not the first time a Raytheon visit to Tufts has been met with student and community protest. In 2019, students, faculty and community members protested a Raytheon company booth at the Tufts Spring Career Fair, leveling many of the same criticisms at the company and the university.
EK: I hope that it’s — and I believe that it will be — a moment of education for this country. I think it’s important to recognize what Winfred lived through and not only his remarkable talent as an artist and his resourcefulness as a per son but also just the many ways in which he survived under conditions that many ordinary people had to go through.Ifeela lot of appreciation for the Pulitzer committee and for their courage in recognizing this book and what it represents.
TD: How do you hope people reading the book today receive the history and stories detailed in it?
Protesting student alleges intimidation by TUPD officer
Kelly discusses winning the Pulitzer in biography PULITZER continued from page 1
/ THE TUFTS DAILY
Feb. 5, 2018. RAYTHEON continued from page 3
Rabb continued pressing Curry on whether the university admin istration wanted to take disci plinary action against any of the protesters.Rabbadded, “I asked him directly after that … ‘So are you saying the administration wants to kick people out because of this?’ And he was like, oh, no, no.”
TD: Can you talk a little about what it’s like to receive so much recognition for a book that details such pain? What does it mean for a book like this to receive a Pulitzer?
EK: I think when you read the book, you’re impressed by how recent some of the experiences that Winfred unfortunately went through are. I think it brings histo ry up to the present in a powerful way. Winfred was someone who was incarcerated for many years. We’re currently in an era of mass incarcer ation, where many, many people’s lives are being ruined by the incredi bly punitive response that our crim inal justice system has decided to take to crime and social problems. So I think it calls attention to the life experience of people who have been and are incarcerated. I think that’s an important thing to think about and to reckon with and to try to change.TD:How do you see this book fitting into your work as someone who studies philosophy and as a professor at Tufts? EK: As someone who’s interested in ethics and in criminal law, the project was an opportunity to learn from somebody who had experi enced incarceration and had a lot to say about the life experience and social setting that led him to end up being caught up in the criminal jus tice system. From an ethical point of view, the complexity of a person’s life experience under conditions of social injustice is worth meditating on and trying to understand and draw some lessons from.
Rabb pointed out that Tufts and Raytheon have a shared history. Two of the company’s three founders, Laurence K. Marshall and Vannevar Bush, were Tufts graduates. Former President of Raytheon Charles Francis Adams served on the Tufts Board of Trustees from 1970–80 and on The Fletcher School Board of Visitors from 1971–91. Adams’ stints on these boards overlapped with his terms as chairman and director of the Raytheon Board of Trustees, positions he held between the years of 1960 and 1997.
“The Tufts University Police Department for many years, and with regular reinforcement, has had policies and training in place that emphasize that everyone must be treated with dignity and respect,” Smith wrote. “When we respond to demonstrations, we try to engage with the leaders or organizers in an effort to determine needs and expectations … we comport our selves professionally and in accor dance with the University policy.”
Students, community mem bers protest Raytheon At least 15 protesters gathered outside the Joyce Cummings Center and then moved to the front of Halligan Hall. They took turns chanting into a bullhorn and displayed posters calling attention to Raytheon’s arms sales.
TD: How are you feeling now that you’ve reflected on the news? EK: It’s very moving to receive this great honor in recognition of Winfred’s accomplishments and the significance of the book. I guess I’m kind of speechless. I feel very grateful for all the people who supported the book, who made it possible. Most of all to Winfred Rembert for sharing his story in such a thoughtful and reflective and important way. Winfred unfortunately died before the book was published, so this is bittersweet. I feel sad that he’s not here to be recognized and to understand the impact of his story in the book and his art. But I’m grate ful that we finished the book and that we can share it with the world and that he will be remembered.TD:Howdoyou imagine Winfred Rembert might have reacted to win ning the Pulitzer?
TD: What’s next for you?
Maya Morris, one of the stu dents who organized the protest, was unsurprised that Raytheon BBN representatives visited Tufts’ campus just a week after she and other protesters shut down a recruiting event for defense con tractor General Dynamics. Morris, a senior, said that when the uni versity sponsors career events with defense contractors, it feeds the military-industrial complex. “It’s not that the university doesn’t understand that these arms man ufacturing companies are building bombs, tanks, weapons, et cetera,” she said. “It’s that they promote it as being the case that these different arms corporations are working to defend our country, as if our coun try is on the innocent end of things … and defending democracy in the face of terror, which is not actually the case. Our country … along with these corporations, [is] solely work ing in their own interests when they instigate wars. … These arms corpo rations are standing to make profits off of these wars so they continue to perpetuate them.” Morris stressed that the pro test was against Raytheon, not against the students who attend ed the event.
However, Rabb said that as the conversation continued, Curry’s statements became increasingly threatening.“Hewas telling me that the administration was really not happy about what was going on,” Rabb said. “I remember really specifically, he said, like, ‘I’m just here to look out for you guys, it would be a shame if something happened to all the $70,000 of tui tion you all pay a year.’ And that was pretty shocking to me. That seemed like a stereotypical threat.”
In a written statement to the Daily, Associate Dean of Student Affairs Kevin Kraft said he was unable to disclose whether any of the student protestors violated university policy. “As an educational communi ty, Tufts also has a responsibility to ensure that our students, fac ulty, and staff can carry out their academic and professional work without undue interruption, disruption, or obstruction,” Kraft wrote. “As a general mat ter, Tufts’ policy on Gatherings, Protests, and Demonstrations allows for robust protest in a manner that does not disrupt others in an undue manner, cre ate unsafe situations, or inter fere with the fundamental pur poses of an institution of higher education.”TheDaily was unable to iden tify any violations of the Student Code of Conduct, including the regulations listed under the Disorderly Conduct, Disruption or Obstruction of Community Activity and Gatherings, Protests, and Demonstrations sections. the Pulitzer? And what was your reaction?ErinKelly (EK): I received a cou ple of congratulatory emails before I knew what they were about. And a friend of mine called me and told me. So I was just sort of flabber gasted and stunned. It was unex pected and really exciting. I felt just joyous for Winfred and his legacy and for the book. I didn’t know that we were finalists because they only announced the finalists at the same time that they announced the win ner, so it was a big surprise.
Engineering faculty, adminis tration respond to protesters Chorng Hwa Chang, asso ciate professor of electrical and computer engineering, organized the event and said it was a valuable professional development opportunity for students.
EK: I have some philosophy projects on notions of account ability in criminal justice and in ethics. It’s led me to think about restorative justice as a model that presents an alternative to more punitive notions of accountabil ity that are familiar to us and in criminal law. So I’ve been think ing about restorative justice, writing a little bit about it, and am excited to pursue work on thatTD:subject.Isthere anything else you’d like to add? EK: Winfred was just such a dynamic person; he had this great sense of humor. He was very determined and resourceful and insightful. It was a privilege to hear him reflect on the signif icance of his life and think about how he wanted to tell his story.
ERIK BRITT Professor of Philosophy Erin Kelly is pictured on
“The engineering students aren’t the culprits in this situation. They are being sold on a lie about what these corporations are really about,” she said. “They shouldn’t feel like we are criminalizing them because what we’re doing is we’re trying to criminalize and bring to light exact ly what Raytheon is about, … not saying that engineering students are evil for attempting to get jobs.”
Smith further elucidated TUPD’s policies for responding to protests such as this one.
EK: I think he would have been thrilled; he would have been eager to talk about the book himself. He would have been very moved at the opportunity to draw the public’s attention not only to what he went through in his life but to a lot of other people in Georgia in the Jim Crow era that they lived through and the ways in which they strug gled under those conditions. So I think that he viewed this book as speaking for others as well as himself, as telling the story of an important and recent part of American history. That was import ant to him. I think he would have been very proud to have this recog nition and to have the opportunity to share what he wanted to say with so many people.
In another, students were tasked with printing medical devices, like compound tweezers and a scalpel handle. Ma and other students empha sized the importance of offering opportunities to learn 3D print ing. Still, the class’s future is uncertain, since Fitzpatrick says he plans to return to France in a year or so. Patten hopes someone will step up to continue the class in future years — perhaps one of the current graduate students — and believes Tufts needs more 3D printing-based classes. “I have a feeling 3D printing is very much the future, and if any thing, there might be a need for two classes,” Patten said. “I think we’re a bit behind in bioprinting classes, or we might be right on time, or a bit behind — one or the other. We’re definitely not ahead of the curve, I’ll say that.”
The Tufts Daily is on YouTube! Scan to get an inside look at 3D printing in action.
Among the 3D printers throughout the room, Vincent Fitzpatrick, a postdoctoral bio medical researcher at Tufts University, holds up a gray unas suming piece of plastic, criss crossed with a cage-like structure. Hidden beneath a series of sup port structures that have yet to be removed, he explains, lies a perfect replica of a patient’s bone — assembled from data isolated from a CT scan so that it would have a Cinderella-like fit if surgi callyThisimplanted.isjustone of the many models throughout the room that students in 3D Printing the Human Body — a new course in the biomedical engineering department — have created, and it represents just one way 3D printing has revolutionized and continues to redefine modern medicine.Fitzpatrick decided to teach the class when he noticed the lack of classes available for students interested in 3D printing.
While she has used 3D printing in the past, she said this was the first class she’s taken that was entirely dedicated to the skill. In one lab, Ma printed a scaled-down version of an ana tomically correct skeletal hand.
While the class covers a wide range of 3D printing applica tions, Fitzpatrick’s own research focuses on tissue engineering. Specifically, his lab prints bone and bone-adjacent tissues. He and his team created a method of 3D printing a biocompatible and degradable implant to allow bone in the jaw to regrow.
Self-described “3D-printer-guy” Riley Patten, a teaching assistant for the class and a member of the Kaplan Lab, where Fitzpatrick also works, said the value of the course comes primarily from the 3D printing experience.
“3D printing is a lot of sitting down next to each other and trying to figure out why [things] didn’t work,” Patten said. “It’s tough with a lot of people. We didn’t have that experience going in, but we’re fig uring it out, and each week, we have a set plan of what we want to do. Usually [it] never works, but we’re figuring it out.” The larger class wasn’t the only surprise for Fitzpatrick. “I hadn’t realized until I was doing this class that I’ve actually developed a nice little network in the Boston area of people working in 3D printing,” Fitzpatrick said. He was able to incorporate seven guest lectures into the course material. So far, the class has heard from several CEOs, researchers and other professionals in the field. Luke Isayiw, a junior in the class who also works in the Kaplan Lab, has enjoyed the guest presenta tions and the hands-on elements of the class, like printing a vertebra from an MRI scan.
Fitzpatrick said he is glad to have a class where he can share these exciting possibilities with students.“It’sbeen a nice class with great students,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s been a pleasure. I hope they’re enjoying it. It’s been nice sharing this. I keep being surprised how few classes at Tufts — but it’s the same at all the universities — are actu ally teaching students bioprint ing and 3D printing in general. Because, from where I stand from a research perspective, there’s a lot of stuff that’s going that way.”
Originally published Nov. 30, 2021.
A working 3D printer, 3D-printed tweezers and several skeletal models are pictured.
“With regards to 3D printing, I think one thing that we’re quite far from still is printing organs,” Fitzpatrick said. “There are a few groups that have made advances in it, but the organs they generate are still usually not to scale and usually not really functional.”
“I remember it was always very scary to look at a 3D printer or a bioprinter and be like, ‘Well I have no idea how that works; I’ll do something else,’” Patten, a senior, said. “I think the goal is getting people comfortable looking at them and using them.” Because it’s the first year the class has run, Fitzpatrick has had to adapt the course as it unfolds. Though he initially expected moderate interest that would lead to a small class of between 10–15 students, he wound up with over 30. Patten said this presented additional challenges.
s CI e NC e TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2022 5 tuftsdaily.com
“Learning those little details on how to use this program also just gave me so many other ideas as to how I want to manipulate a project that I want to work on,” Ma said. “I think it definitely helped me grow a little bit more creative.” Ma sees lots of potential to apply 3D printing skills in areas beyond regenerative medicine.
3d printing class pushes students to frontier of modern medicine by Avery Hanna Science Editor
WILL FLAMM / THE TUFTS DAILY, COURTESY MICHELLE MA
“The idea of the class is to cover as wide a range as possible of new technologies and applica tions of 3D printing in the medi cal field,” Fitzpatrick said. What makes the course unique is the opportunity for hands-on work with a variety of bioprinters.
3D printing surgical implants generally works by following four steps: Researchers take a scan of the patient, compare that scan with healthy bone structure to determine the shape of the implant, print it and then later surgically implant it into the body. In his research, Fitzpatrick hopes to develop ways to use 3D printing that allow the body to regrow structures, rather than using 3D printed implants to simply replace parts. Fitzpatrick mentioned that in the long term, he hopes researchers will devel op an on-site method that prints implants into the body itself. Imagine that someone’s arm was severely injured in a car crash. In a simplified sense, the idea of printing on-site means you would have to put an extreme ly advanced 3D printer over that arm that had the ability to detect where there was damage and what was needed to repair it. The printer would then go ahead and print those elements directly into the body. In doing so, it would repair the arm in the moment, which is preferable to waiting for an implant to print separately. In many cases, patient conditions may change over the course of their treatment; when the time comes for surgery, physicians sometimes find that previously printed implants no longer work. Printing on-site would help save much of the healthy tissue, which is currently removed large ly out of necessity. Such proce dures are still far from being put into standard practice but could be one of many exciting future possibilities of 3D printing.
“We’ve had a couple of guest lecturers come in and talk about how they use 3D printing in the real world,” Isayiw said. “It’s cool to see how 3D printing can actu ally be Seniorapplied.”Michelle Ma, who majors in mechanical and biomedical engineering, found that learning about the intricacies of applying 3D printing has been one of the most valuable aspects of the class.
3D printing organs is another hot topic, since it would address the constant issue of organ short ages and could limit chances of rejection. To get there, Fitzpatrick says printing with various kinds of materials and general precision need to be improved.
In areas of the Mystic River, individuals will fish for food with out knowing the water is contami nated. Wagner worked with a team at MyRWA to put up fish advisories that explain the dangers of fishing in polluted water.
after the storm: environmental injustices in Massachusetts’ sewage system
While select groups are putting in the work to combat wastewater pollution, the issue is not yet univer sally“[What]prioritized.my colleagues and I had done for sewage discharges, I believe that is the first and still only [environmental justice] anal ysis of this type of pollution that’s been done in the country, at least that I’m aware of,” Sanders said.
After a storm, sewage systems can get overwhelmed with water. Instead of pouring excess sew age into basements, the system is designed to discharge sewage into nearby rivers — the same bodies of water that are used for drink ing and recreational purposes. The contaminated water has been linked to an increase of various diseases. Due to redlining and sys tematic racism, these contaminat ed waters are more likely to run through low-income populations and communities of color. As a public health issue that is expensive to fix and one that disproportionately affects mar ginalized groups, solutions are not prioritized by legislators and engineers. Yet, despite these bar riers, there are currently people educating communities about water quality and cleaning up pollutedNathanwaters.Sanders, a data scien tist and a volunteer member of the Mystic River Watershed Association (MyRWA) policy committee, has done extensive research on the Massachusetts sewage system, using an environmental justice lens.
“The judge determined that Massachusetts has to clean them up, we have to fix the sewage dis charges,” Sanders said. “The court also recognized that it’s too expen sive … and that just wasn’t going to happen. So the court allowed for what is called a long-term control planning process.” The long-term control planning process (LTCP) allowed for the state agency to complete an analysis on how it could most efficiently spend its money to deal with the pollution. This resulted in wealthier areas being prioritized for cleanup. For example, the City of Cambridge spent a portion of the $1 billion on cleaning the Charles River, accord ing to TheSanders.reporting of water quali ty has been the most controver sial barrier in dealing with sew age overflow, due to the expen sive cleanup cost. The operators of sewage treatment plans do not want to report water quality because they don’t want to be held responsible, according to Jehlen. Alongside others, Jehlen pro posed a bill for public notification of sewage discharge.
Jehlen explained how legislation can also be used to encourage more resilient infrastructures.
FeaT u R es TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2022 6 tuftsdaily.com
“For years, we couldn’t pass this bill because certain operators said, ‘We don’t want to report when we release partially treated sewage,’” Jehlen said.
To begin, the system was creat ed for a much smaller population and not for the scale it is today. “Three hundred years ago, I think that made perfect sense. We had these bodies of water that weren’t necessarily used by a lot of people … and the volume of sewage was relatively low at that time,” Sanders said. “Adding a trickle of sewage to a big flow ing river maybe didn’t seem like a big problem. But now, as … the volume of the sewage discharge has grown, and we have more people using the river actively, it’s created a real public health concern.”Rachel Wagner, a senior studying environmental studies, interned at the MyRWA, where she focused on water testing and environmental justice work. She explained that levels of nitrogen and phosphorus increase in the water after a storm due to runoff and sewage discharge. “There are a lot of problems with this pollution of phosphorus and nitrogen, because they come from excess fertilizers on people’s lawns [and from] people who don’t pick up their dogs’ waste that has nitrogen and phosphorus,” Wagner said. “That runoff that goes into storm drains, which goes directly into our water sources. [It] is basically an lover-stimulant in the environment, and it causes intense reactions of growth and thenThesedeath.”chemicals are also in the sewage that is discharged in the river, causing bacteria to grow. “Phosphorus and nitrogen are both limiting nutrients, which means that they basically are the predictors of growth and they are required for the growth of algae,” Wagner said. “You’ll see [algae] blooms … so you see a lot of dead fish in the rivers after huge stormWhenevents.”itstorms, there is an increase of various diseases due to sewage overflow and runoff pollut ing the Massachusettswater. State Sen. Pat Jehlen, who has been combating sewage overflow for over a decade, explained that after a storm, there is an increased number of hospi talizations. Even COVID-19 may spread through sewage in the Mystic River after a storm. Similarly, Sanders noted there is an increase in gastrointesti nal illnesses being reported after rainstorms.“Themain concern for the Mystic River is recreational con tact,” Sanders said. “People who are boating or swimming in the river, who may incidental ly touch the river while they’re walking along it, or if they fall out of the boat. That has also led to illnesses.”Theareas where these sewage discharges are located are com monly found in marginalized communities, making wastewater pollution an environmental justice issue, according to Wagner. “You see all of [the pollution] downstream, and the communi ties that are downstream tend to be those at high risk, like com munities of color [or] low-in come populations that are put at a heightened risk for no reason,” Wagner said. As with many problems in the United States, sewage overflow is connected to systemic racism.
“We said [the bill] includes partially treated [sewage], so the new [regulators] have a new term which exempts blended sewage, which is the same as partially treated [sewage],” Jehlen said.
There are also ways to change infrastructure to prevent water pollution during a storm. “You got infiltration trenches, which are a super helpful way to prevent that phosphorus and nitro gen pollution that you’re seeing from those intense storms,” Wagner said. “Rain gardens [are] also a really good way to hold on to the water.”
“It has to do with your building codes and your zoning so that you don’t allow the building of impervi ous [structures, like] giant parking lots, which cause runoff,” Jehlen said. “They don’t cause it, but they don’t have any filtration.”
by
“There’s systemic racism that has caused those communities that are on less desirable lands to be the ones that are affordable,” Sanders said. “I think the under lying connection here is the histo ry of industrialization and urban development in our state which has caused certain communities to develop with these combined sewerHigher-incomesystems.” communities have had the privilege of being able to deal with water pollu tion. In 1985, the Boston Harbor Case, under the interpretation of the Clean Air Act, decided that Massachusetts had to clean up the wastewater pollution.
The Deer Island Wastewater Treatment Plant in the Boston Harbor is pictured.
“The way our sewer systems are designed in Massachusetts and in many other older communities is to intentionally dump sewage into the river when it rains,” Sanders said. “That is a little bit appalling and essentially illegal under fed eral law, but there are very under standable reasons why the system is designed that way.”
As climate change only contin ues to progress, there will be more storms leading to more water con tamination. Wagner encourages students to use their privilege to get involved with water cleanup.
Features Editor Originally published Dec. 2, 2021.
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
In January, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker signed the bill; however, regulators have played with terminology to get around reporting water quality.
The fight for public notifica tions is ongoing, but there are other ways to educate communi ties about their water quality.
“A lot of environmental justice communities get their food, espe cially fish, from the Mystic, which is really problematic,” Wagner said. “[We’re] putting up signs in different languages, especially in Spanish, in areas like East Boston, Chelsea [and] Revere.”
“It’s so easy to get sucked into a ‘Well, we have clean water, we have accessible food that is not polluted,’” Wagner said. “As such privileged people at Tufts … we have an opportu nity to make our voices heard, to be part of organizations that are helping like MyRWA and try to do some work.” Jillian Collins
According to Collins’ email, the goal of increasing the under graduate enrollment is to “make a transformative Tufts education available and accessible to more students, with the goal of pre paring more young people to make a positive impact on the world.”On such a view, Tufts’ ever-growing application pool presents the university with a new opportunity to welcome a student body that is more talented and diverse than ever.
“I’m a bit worried about [Sidechat] as a dialogue researcher because it does take away something extremely important in dialogue, which is coherence,” de Ruiter said. “Having no identity is some thing [different] than having anonymity. Anonymity is that there is an identity at the other end, but you don’t know where they live, and how old they are, and how they look, but there’s still a unique identity. Whereas [on Sidechat], you just also get rid of Shahaniidentity.”added that it can be difficult to determine whether the contents are credible in the first“Honestly,place. I just don’t believe anything on the app … I’ll just assume everything on the app’s a joke. That makes my life so much easier,” Shahani said.
by Kaitlyn Wells Deputy Features Editor
Fea T u R es 7Tuesday, August 30, 2022 | FeaTuRes | THE TUFTS DAILY
“It’s just really unfair that we have to wait in these long lines, Mark
When asked for comment, Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences James Glaser said that there is a “substantial” and “advanced” con versation within the university administration “about another res idence hall being built on campus.”
The sidechat storm: an anonymous social media application takes over Tufts campus Sidechat is arguably the hot test online development to have struck Tufts campus this year. It is a smartphone application where users can post short mes sages and images complete ly anonymously in a domain accessible to anyone with an active Tufts email account. On Sidechat, usernames do not exist. Other features include anonymous com menting, direct messaging between users and a system of points, known on Sidechat as “karma.” This feature tal lies how many times a user’s posts or comments have been upvoted or downvoted: the karma level of an individual user can only be viewed by that user. The exception to this is a public leaderboard of the top ten levels of karma that users have reached — none of which are attached to a name. Sidechat was developed by the New York-based company Flower Ave Inc. The CEOs of Flower Ave Inc. declined the Daily’s request for an Prithviinterview.Shahani, a first-year in the School of Engineering, is an active Sidechat user and claims to hold one of the ten highest karma rankings at Tufts Sidechat at the time of his interview with the Daily.
Class of 2025 Tufts Community Union Senator Natalie Rossinow similarly explained how the Tufts community could benefit from having more talented students who will bring a wider range of perspec tives and ideas to the campus.
In light of the university’s long-term plans to expand its undergraduate population to 6,600 full-time students, howev er, Rabiya Ismail, a senior and former TCU senator, noted that more immediate and extensive measures are needed for stu dents today. “I don’t think that [even build ing] one dorm is going to be enough because if that fits 300 more stu dents — and Tufts is enrolling another thousand [students] — I do not think that it’s sustainable for Tufts [in the long run],” Ismail said. “I think that [the university] just [needs] to build multiple dorms, maybe three dorms, to even fill how many students are on campus at this exact moment. In the future, they will have to build even more thanIsmailthat.” elaborated that there have been “too many temporary solutions” for “permanent prob lems” such as the ongoing hous ing crisis, overenrollment and packed classrooms. Rossinow similarly added that while she has had a generally positive first-year experience, she is upset by how many other first-years have had a much more difficult school year.
As Tufts University continues to expand its undergraduate enroll ment, many community members have wondered whether a bigger Tufts will be the new normal, and if so, how big will ultimately be too big for the Tufts undergradu ate population. Many undergrad uate students and faculty, in fact, were surprised to hear about the university’s long-term enrollment expansion as they expressed con cerns about the issues that might come with overenrollment. The conversation around the undergraduate enrollment is espe cially salient as the university’s application pool grows each year, with more than 34,000 students applying to the Tufts undergradu ate Class of 2026. Considering that Tufts received slightly less than 20,000 applications for the Class of 2019, the university has seen near ly a 78% increase in the number of applications in just seven years.
J.P. de Ruiter, a professor in the Computer Science and Psychology departments, shared his concerns with the applica tion’s anonymous feature, partic ularly as the lack of usernames on the platform disables users from verifying the continuity of the original participants.
While acknowledging many benefits of expanding the undergraduate enrollment, John Lurz, an associate professor of English, can also see how pre serving the quality of under graduate experience might be a challenge for Tufts. “The positive [of increasing the enrollment] is that you get more smart people in one place, and … there’s more opportunity for collaboration and communi cation,” Lurz said. “The down sides are if the infrastructure of the institution can’t support that, and I think the Hyatt Hotel [is] the most obvious and egregious of the [situation].”AsLurz pointed out, it is no secret that the university admin istration scrambled to house approximately 100 first-years in the Hyatt Place for the 2021–22 academic year and converted Blakeley Hall, a previously gradu ate student dorm for Fletcher stu dents, into undergraduate hous ing. Compounded by the ongoing pandemic, the university also has faced challenges in isolating com munity members who test positive for Overall,COVID-19.as the demand for on-campus housing continues to exceed the number of beds available on campus, the uni versity’s increasing undergrad uate enrollment further exacer bates the ongoing housing crisis in Medford/Somerville campus and its host communities — an issue that long predates this year’s overenrollment.
In a Feb. 18 email, Patrick Collins, Tufts’ executive director of media relations, wrote to the Daily that the “university is halfway through a multi-year enrollment growth man agement plan that at its conclusion in 2026 will level off with an under graduate student body of approxi mately 6,600 full-time students.”
Samuel Sommers, profes sor and department chair of psychology, elaborated on the implications of Sidechat’s ano nymity from a psychological perspective.
Shahani estimated that Sidechat surfaced at Tufts at the beginning of the Spring 2022 semester. He described how Tufts students have engaged with the platform.“Ifeel like it’s just a way for people to relate with their com munity and share funny memes that people at Tufts can relate to, or talk about what’s currently going on, such as … recently, some Senator visited, I believe, so everyone was like, … ‘Oh, my God, Elizabeth Warren was here, oh my God, she used the washroom in the Commons,’” Shahani said.
“I think that … increasing the student population [can be] good for everyone,” Rossinow said. “Having brighter peers and people from all these different experienc es [and] internationally is really beneficial, [and] personally … [it can mean] having a better educa tion and learning from the people around you. … There are so many bright people … [who] deserve to be here, and I think, maybe, the admissions thought that too and had a hard time saying no.”
The university, however, has not announced any official plans to build new dormitories, dining facilities, or other related campus facilities that appear increasing ly necessary with the universi ty’s continued expansion of the undergraduate enrollment.
The expansion of Tufts’ undergraduate enrollment, Part 2: How big is too big for Tufts?
Per Collins, to meet the student body’s ever-growing demand for housing, the university is “continu ing to focus on adding more beds and building or renovating more residential spaces on campus” and “[adding] temporary housing on campus next year.”
by
Choi Executive Features Editor see OVERENROLLMENT, page 8 GRAPHIC BY MIRIAM VODOSEK see SIDECHAT, page 9 Originally published March 8, 2022. Originally published April 29, 2022. The Tufts Daily is on Spotify! Scan to listen to Executive Features Editor Mark Choi reading part two of his twopart feature.
Throughout the exhibit, archival research is juxtaposed with artwork from various medi ums, as a means of almost carv ing out a new archive.
unsettling the archive’ exhibit examines Tufts’ impact on the surrounding landscape
“When I was thinking about intervening in an archive, I was thinking about how can this show create a new archive, where we have videos, perfor mances, there’s photographs, there’s paintings, there’s a mural on a building. This exhibition, in and of itself, can kind of inter vene within the existing archive … it can challenge what we think an archive can be,” Gearin said.
by Delaney Clarke Managing Editor see EXHIBIT, page 9 Long lines, limited housing and crowded classes:
Glaser said that the university is committed to providing quality undergraduate experience, add ing that the university will “have a bumper crop of faculty” coming in for the next school year in con junction with other institutional efforts.“We are having a very bountiful year of faculty hir ing … [and] we have the new Cummings building that has opened up, and that’s creat ing new space opportunities,” Glaser said. “We are sort of working our way towards that newUltimately,equilibrium.”Glaser is opti mistic about the future of the university, its unique culture and its potential. “I think [that] Tufts cul ture goes way beyond the number of students that we have,” Glaser said. “I think the culture is set by the kinds of people that we have, and the culture is defined by all kinds of things.”Lizarríbar added that “[there] are big universities that feel intimate, and small colleges that feel vast and lonely.” She emphasized that Tufts is “a student-centered research university that has caring, connected students, faculty and staff.” Moving forward, Ismail hopes to see a greater input from the student body in deliberating the university’s long-term enrollment plans. “I think [the university administration needs] to put out a student climate survey, pretty immediately, because I think things have changed since the last one,” Ismail said. “There are students in hotels. … [By] doing that, they will be able to see how students actually feel, and I think also they need to really be reading those and acting on those. … I know that students voice their concerns on this survey, but I’m just not sure if they’re ever listened to.” In the future, Lizarríbar said that there will be more oppor tunities for the student body to improve the undergraduate experience in general. “[We] are in the midst of creating a five-year strategic plan to explore what … oppor tunities we have before us,” Lizarríbar wrote. “We created a Student Advisory Group to con sult with us and provide student input on both this plan and on Student Affairs in general.”
Overall, Glaser elaborat ed that the university is currently upgrading and trying to “make sure that what we’re offering students is … really commensurate with what their expectations are [which] requires a lot of investment.”
Ismail added that in the future, if Tufts were to continue to expand, the university first has to make sure that it can continue to provide quality res idential undergraduate experi ence that encompasses many aspects of traditional college experience.Acknowledging the many chal lenges that the Tufts community has faced, especially during this school year, Glaser introduced the university’s efforts to maintain its qualitative standards as the under graduate enrollment continues to expand.
“The university archives are … a very rich resource for peo ple who want to understand Tufts’ past. There’s a ton of interest … in the land that Tufts was built on, how Tufts came to own that land, and building from there, how the landscape changed and how the uni versity altered the landscape, and there’s just a ton of great resources,” Santamaria said.
Ismail pointed out that while the university is introducing ini tiatives such as the initiative to make Tufts an anti-racist insti tution, the university’s housing policies leave much left to be desired in actualizing its goals on the“[An]ground.anti-racism initiative does not only mean accepting more diverse groups of students, it [also] means creating equitable … practices throughout the uni versity, and I think that includes housing,” Ismail said.
How do institutions like Tufts come to be? Tufts University Art Galleries’ exhibit “Unsettling the Archive: Exploring Tufts’ Relationship with Land” con veys how Tufts’ creation and ongoing expansion have impacted the environments and communities within and around its campuses. Prior to the exhibit’s con ception, Tufts University Art Galleries had been working on formulating a land acknowledg ment to acknowledge that the gallery resides on the ancestral homelands of the Massachusett people and within the territories of the Nipmuc and Wamponoag tribes. However, Natalie Gearin (LA’21), former fellow of Tufts University Art Galleries, noted that both she and the gallery wished to explore the topic of land acknowledgment more extensively.“Whenyou acknowledge that Tufts is on Indigenous land, it brings up a lot of questions about the history of that land. … Who did the land belong to? How has the landscape evolved over time? How has Tufts inter vened into it?” Gearin said. This exhibit involves a dia logue between Tufts’ archives and contemporary perspectives, an idea that Gearin developed through having conversations with people who were also involved in discussions about land acknowledgment. To find pieces that explored Tufts’ his tory, Gearin worked with Pam Hopkins, Public Services and Outreach Archivist for the Tufts Digital Collections and Archives. Hopkins outlined the process of researching through such a vast collection of archives.
‘
Echoing Ismail and Rossinow’s sentiment, Max Miller, a senior and trustee representative for the TCU Senate, shed light on how much the monthly rent has gone up in the host communities of Medford and Somerville, espe cially as the increasing under graduate enrollment has pushed more students into off-campus housing. Miller’s sister graduated from Tufts six years ago, which gives him a reference point in his comparison.“It’sgoing to be tough even for people living off campus to find [housing] options. Rent’s going up,” Miller said. “[Compared to what my sister paid] six years ago … versus what somebody in that house, I imagine, is paying now, based on what I know … I think it’s an increase of $300 in six years, per month.”
“I cast a wide net to bun dle as many different resourc es, and [to] provide context for those resources, as I can to really empower the researcher to sit down and start going through [the archives] … and it becomes this iterative, building upon, process,” Hopkins said. Dan Santamaria, director of Digital Collections and Archives, explained the capacity that Tufts’ archives has for exploring how the university came to be.
The pieces included in the exhibit not only traverse medi ums, but also time, starting with an advertisement posting from 1856 meant to “[commence] a village” around Tufts. Next to this advertisement is a portrait of Sachem of Mistick, a female Massachusett tribal leader from the late 16th and early 17th centuries, created by art ist Lilly E. Manycolors. Further down the wall are artifacts and images from Royall House, an estate near Tufts’ campus on which more than 60 people were enslaved from 1739 to 1779. There are also works from more recent history. Near the end of the exhibit is imagery depicting the expansion of the New England Medical Center, of which Tufts was a constit uent. This expansion began in 1970, and over 15 years, NEMC acquired numerous buildings in the Chinatown and South Cove areas, a move that many Boston Chinatown residents were ardently opposed to. Gearin explained that includ ing imagery of this expansion was meant to highlight that the impact the university has on the surrounding landscape is ongoing.“Iwanted to make sure that [the exhibit] wasn’t grounded in the past and, in framing this idea, you could think of Tufts’ presence on the land as some thing that’s constantly chang ing, and really, it’s expanding,” Gearin said. The exhibit will also soon include projects from under graduate students in Ninian Stein’s environmental cap stone course. Examining the effects of
overenrollment OVERENROLLMENT continued from page 7 GRAPHIC BY MICHAEL WU Originally published Dec. 13, 2021.
THE TUFTS DAILY | FeaT u R es | Tuesday, August 30, 20228 tuftsdaily.com that we have to live in a hotel off campus, and you have such trouble registering for classes. It’s just unfair as a student that this is the place that we chose to be,” Rossinow said. “If we are getting treated like that and not seeing a change, [then], what’s the plan … [and] where is this going?”Inregards to housing, Dean of Student Affairs Camille Lizarríbar wrote to the Daily, explaining that the university “current ly [does] not anticipate need ing to use the Hyatt next year.” Lizarríbar also wrote that the university’s enrollment growth plan will encompass the plans “[involving] investment in hous ing, dining and related areas that are important for student life.” “That work has been under way and is ongoing,” Lizarríbar wrote. “We [have already] added more than 450 on-campus beds in the last five years. That’s the equivalent of building two new dorms. … We will continue to grow our housing stock next year, and … we will be building a new dorm with 370 new beds.”
“An app that’s sort of spe cific to one university is likely, even if it’s anonymous, … to be less problematic just because … there’s already a sense of community, like a sense of physical community here,” SchaffnerMovingsaid.forward, Schaffner added that Sidechat has the potential to shape wider campus public opinion as the application continues to become more popular among Tufts“Peoplestudents.probably go on [Sidechat] to feel some sense of validation, … [which] can prob ably help to crystallize opinion, I guess, in a more aggregate way. … I think that would have an effect on public opinion in a way that might matter beyond the app,” Schaffner said. As Sidechat is still in the early stages of development, its users are the primary deter minants of the ways in which students will engage on the forum. Sommers underscored the responsibility of the appli cation’s users in this context.
Fea T u R es 9Tuesday, August 30, 2022 | FeaTuRes | THE TUFTS DAILY
COURTESY JULIA FEATHERINGILL “Unsettling the Archive: Exploring Tufts’ Relationships with Land” at Tufts University Art Galleries. SIDECHAT continued from page 7 Tufts art exhibit traces the university’s
According to Stein, who is a lecturer in environmental studies and anthropology, the capstone projects are intend ed to think about the concept of institutional change — how people influence and commu nicate, and how people change institutions from within and fromCommunicationoutside. is a key area of Stein’s research and teaching. Each year, she brings students from her “Environment, Communication, and Culture” class to the galleries, so that they may explore art as a medium of communication for difficult topics.
and
to indigenous culture, local environment EXHIBIT continued from page 8 Tufts community members discuss the development and far-reaching implications of Sidechat
Genia hopes that “Wapka” and the other pieces included in the exhibit will inspire people to understand more about various Indigenous philosophies and think more critically about the history of different lands. “I just wanted to share that Native peoples’ philosophies are really important,” Genia said. “I think people need to understand a lot more about Native people … and also the history of places. The history that [children] are taught about this place is a whitewashed history that doesn’t adequately give the Gearinfacts.”noted that she wants visitors to understand that the process of forming an institution like Tufts is not fluid, and instead leaves a complex and lasting impact on the landscape. “I guess the thesis of the exhibition is that Tufts and its campuses are not this organ ic entity that just appeared. [Tufts] hasn’t just naturally coalesced over time,” Gearin said. “I’d also really like to people to come away with the idea that the idea of settle ment, the idea of presence and of expansion on the land scape, is ongoing, it can take many forms and [it] impacts all different kinds of people in multiple ways.”
“Being anonymous makes us feel less accountable to some of the social expectations and norms that otherwise govern our behav ior. … People put things online that they would never ever say to other people in regular conversa tions face-to-face,” Sommers said. Illustrating Sommers’ insight, de Ruiter cited the lyrics of Brad Paisley’s ‘Online.’ “If you just look at the lyrics you’ll see … it’s about a kind of a loser type sitting in [his parent’s basement]. But online, he’s like a superstar with a Maserati and 17 girlfriends. It’s really interest ing how Brad Paisley sings about that,” de Ruiter said. “So [the song] suggests … that there can be, of course, a very big differ ence between people’s online personality and real personality.”
“At the beginning, it was pret ty much really basic things like campus happenings, but people started actually making memes for the app. But at the same time, people have also started [talking about] edgy, controversial topics on the app since it’s anonymous and it can’t be linked to them,” Shahani said. “[It’s] sometimes good to have that kind of dis course but at the same time, [it’s] sometimes bad since their opinions could be harmful to the community.”Inlightof this development, Sommers and de Ruiter under scored the salience of commu nity standards and moderation for social media platforms such as Sidechat.“Itdoes feel like things can deteriorate on anonymous message boards to the point where they have to be mod erated or they have to have some community standards in place,” Sommers said. “The kinds of bullying and kinds of problematic commentary that maybe we as a community don’t want to see … [is] always going to be at risk [on anony mous platforms].”
Stein described the power of artwork to raise awareness around certain issues. “I think art is a very potent way to communicate around hard topics … and is a wonder ful way to think through differ ent ways that we can receive and communicate messages,” SteinOnesaid.component of the exhib it is found outside the gallery. This is “Wapka,” a mural that was created by Erin Genia, an artist and lecturer in the sculp ture and performance depart ment at the SMFA. Bright and beautiful, “Wapka” is an image of the Mystic River overlaid with imag es of the Anpa O Wicahnpi — Morningstar — which is Dakota imagery. Genia is a Dakota per son, a member of the SissetonWahpeton Oyate/Odawa, and she includes the Morningstar symbol in many of her piec es. Genia used this symbol within “Wapka” to present an Indigenous perspective on the river. This mural was commis sioned by Abigail Satinsky, an art curator at the SMFA. The Mystic River has close ties to Tufts’ history. According to Hopkins, Charles Tufts was a descendant of Peter Tufts, who made money in the brick trade, an industry that took clay from the river, and owned extensive farmland in the area.
Overall, Shahani recalled that activity on Sidechat increased after the leaderboard was intro duced around what he estimat ed to be late February to early March. He also noticed a general shift towards more discussion around controversial subject matters over time.
… For example, I believe [there] was some sort of conflict out side of Hodgdon like a week or two ago, and they were banning people left and right for that,” Shahani said. “Otherwise, … if there were fights on the app, or people going full anti-mask er back when [COVID-19] was extremely bad, they were cool with that kind of content. So, I’m not really sure what’s up withSidechatthat.” does indeed have community guidelines, yet the only way the Daily was able to access them was through a hyperlink buried in their Terms of Service.BrianSchaffner, Newhouse Professor of Civic Studies, first heard about Sidechat through a Slack channel of current and former students from his Public Opinion class. Schaffner sus pects that self-moderation might naturally take place on Sidechat because each unique user belongs to the same institution.
According to Shahani, it appears that Sidechat may hire students to act as moderators on the app. Shahani was reached out to by Sidechat to become a moderator himself. He was not interested in the role, however, and he subsequently declined theShahanioffer. shared that he has been banned from Sidechat mul tiple times, ranging from about one hour to 48 hours. When users are banned from the plat form, they can still access the app, upvote and downvote, but they cannot post or send direct messages, Shahani detailed. Shahani shared his misgiv ings about the way moderation is carried out on Sidechat. “I feel like they selectively choose what content they want on the platform and … that’s a really dangerous game to play because that pretty much, … could like control the narrative.
“What I would suggest is that if people feel like an anon ymous platform like this is a useful part of the Tufts conver sation, then, you know, use it for good,” Sommers said. “I’m skeptical because sometimes these things don’t go [in] that direction. But hopefully we can make the best of this platform while it’s around and have it be a plus for the university and not … a source of stress or dis paragement.” history its interconnectedness
THE TUFTS DAILY | P H o T os | Tuesday, August 30, 202210 tuftsdaily.com In Photos: Landmarks on campus PHOTO CREDITS: EMMA BOERSMA, ANN MARIE BURKE, SOPHIE DOLAN, NICOLE GARAY AND MINA TERZIOGLU / THE TUFTS DAILY THE TUFTS CANNON TISCH LIBRARYBESSIE THE RHINO JUMBO THE ELEPHANT GODDARD CHAPEL
Tuesday, August 30, 2022 | FuN & g aMes | THE TUFTS DAILY 11tuftsdaily.com Fun & Games F & g Sam: “I had the greatest idea of all time yesterday. What if we did a Blue’s Clues Booze Cruise.” LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY CROSSWORD Difficulty Level: Protecting the Daily’s website from domestic and international hackers. SUDOKU Never miss a newsletter — subscribe here!
see CONCERT, page 13 NICOLE GARAY / THE TUFTS DAILY
August
see THEATER, page 13
Discussing the themes behind her work, she stated that her project “has been a culmination of my last four years, and me coming out of it, like a new person.”
Tufts spring dance Concert sends off its seniors with a bang by Siavash Raissi Arts Editor Originally published May 20, 2022.
For those unfamiliar with the timeline involved in developing a senior capstone project, Dees explained that she, like other seniors, first scheduled a meet ing with department advisors the semester prior.
Dancers in the 2022 Spring Dance Concert are pictured following their performance on April 23.
Tufts has a vibrant theater community, with many options and on-ramps for prospec tive members. They range from department-run to student-led and vary in commitment level. This includes all facets of the ater engagement, whether it be acting, directing, tech, cos tume designing or anything in between. For incoming students, the most important note is just how open and accepting the theater community is. However involved you want to be, in what ever form you would like, you’re welcomed. So, here’s an incom plete list of all the theater oppor tunities at Tufts. This list will surely miss a few, mostly because the theater opportunities here at Tufts are constantly changing and growing. Still, it’s helpful to have an idea of what the broader theater community looks like. So here it is: a nonexhaustive guide to Tufts theater. To start, there are the clas sic department-run shows. These are the closest to “pro fessional” and thus may expect higher commitment levels. The Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at Tufts will generally put on two mainstage shows a year, though it may support other produc tions on an ad hoc basis. The TDPS department put on two shows this year: “Almanac” (2021) in the fall, a student-writ ten musical based in the past and present history of Black art, and the new-age hit “Spring Awakening” (2006) in the spring. Anyone can take part in these shows, either by auditioning to act or by contacting the pro duction team for more behindthe-scenes roles. The TDPS department is also supporting one student-led production this semester, with four seniors directing and acting in their own production of “Macbeth” (1606) for their capstone. In addition to these shows, there is, of course, a myriad of classes students may take within the department, each having performance and technical opportunities. Overall, the TDPS department provides bountiful theater opportunities that are both professional and accessible.Interms of student-run theater, the organizations are divided between musicals and dramas. Tufts’ musical the ater student organization is called Torn Ticket II and will generally put on three or four shows a year. In the fall, Torn Ticket II produced “Mamma Mia!” (1999), and the spring brings both “Chicago” (1975) and “The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical” (2014) to the stage. These produc tions are entirely student-run, with the whole production team made up of students. In a nonexhaustive guide to Tufts theater by Henry Chandonnet Arts Editor Originally published April 15, 2022. Aidekman Arts Center, home of Tufts TDPS, is pictured in 2020.
When asked about potential advice for future students inter ested in pursuing a dance minor, Dees only had one thing to say: “My advice is to just go for it.” After years of dancing experi ence, she enthusiastically promoted the supportive nature of her peers in the“Ifdepartment.youfeel like you’re not as experienced as everybody else, that’s fine,” Dees said.
aRT s & Po P Cu LT u R e TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2022 12 tuftsdaily.com a RT & P o P C u
“They were basically saying, ‘You should just come up with an idea,’” DeesStudentssaid. are then offered the opportunity to pursue one of three types of capstone projects: a perfor mance capstone, a choreographic capstone or a research project. Dees chose a choreographic capstone project, which she claims “turns out to be a bit of a struggle, but I kind of fell in love with it.” Then, at the start of the semester, students begin to search for their projects’ dancers through auditions as they continue to refine their orig inal ideas. As these dancers practice the project’s choreography through out the semester, they also have the opportunity to receive academic credit for their time dedicated to the work. Eventually, each senior capstone project evolves over multi ple iterations, and the final product of each student’s hard work is dis played at the Spring Dance Concert. In these personal displays, stu dents are provided with ample cre ative freedom and encouraged to design their projects to their own liking. When discussing her favor ite artistic styles of theater and dance, Dees explained that “my background is hip-hop, Caribbean dance, and contemporary and litur gical dance.” Thus, she claimed that “Fractured Progress” primarily func tions as “a modern contemporary piece.” As a result, the final perfor mances represent a student’s pre ferred mode of expression and are indicative of various stylistic choic es that were incorporated into the project.Reflecting on her time as a dance minor at Tufts, Dees said that she “loved every moment, every class [and] every person in the dance department.”Asshespoke about the depart ment’s consistent support and commitment to its students, she remarked that their work has pro vided its members with “a healthy environment for dancing, and for people who aren’t used to dancing.”
On April 23 and 24, the Tufts Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies pre sented this year’s Spring Dance Concert, a performance dedi cated to sharing the senior cap stone projects of its hard working students. With over 20 student dancers across 10 unique perfor mances, each choreographed by a graduating Tufts senior, this year’s concert provided viewers with a final opportunity to witness an impressive display of the chem istry and relationships developed within the department over the past four years. These capstone projects, choreo graphed by seniors themselves with varying influences across a vari ety of dance, music and narrative genres, represent an artistic climax of their personal experiences and thoughts. Speaking with the Daily, Laporsha Dees, a dance minor from Hartford, Conn., took the time to reflect upon the processes involved in developing her senior capstone project, titled “Fractured Progress.”
COURTESY RENATA CELICHOWSKA
THEATER continued from page 12 Originally published April 7, 2022.
With a variety of students in the department, ranging in char acter and technical ability, Dees claimed that students considering the minor will have the important chance to “see dance from a differ entInperspective.”additionto its final send-off for seniors, the concert also featured dances choreographed in the Tufts course titled Afro-Haitian Dance: From Roots to Stage, organized by Jenny Oliver. “Tout Nasyon,” the course’s performance, began with an engaging dialogue between its 11 student dancers as they reflected on their cultural origins and dif ferences and how these elements have consequently influenced their identity. Then, once “Tout Nasyon” by RAM played on stage, the per formers’ began to move in sync with the song’s upbeat rhythm. As they danced in unison, their cap tivating movements immersed audience members within an impressively choreographed per formance with deep cultural roots andOverall,boundaries.thisyear’s Spring Dance Concert represented a final culmi nation of years’ worth of emotions, challenges, accomplishments and growth among its student perform ers and faculty. The variety of perfor mances across multiple styles and genres demonstrate the creativity of the department and its members’ ability to collaborate. In a year filled with hardships from the COVID19 pandemic, the Spring Dance Concert brought Dees’ own words to life, reminding the Tufts commu nity that “dancing is surviving.” capstone and research projects in Dance Concert
aRT s & Po P Cu LT u R e 13Tuesday, August 30, 2022 | aRTs & PoP CuLTuRe | THE TUFTS DAILY
Anticipation grew further as handlers prepared the stage for McRae to start her set. The crowd screamed when a large ‘T’ and ‘8’ were revealed behind the stage, and the adrenaline in the Royale spiked. The crowd cheered loudly as the music and lights started, and McRae and her two backup dancers appeared, starting the show with her song “stupid” (2020). From the first moment, McRae spread her high energy by waving and smiling at fans in the audience and going up to the edge of the stage to be closer to them. She even took a fan’s phone and filmed herself from the stage. This first song set the mood for the rest of the livelyThroughoutconcert. the concert, McRae showcased her musical range. McRae delivered a vari ety of songs from slow ballads that highlighted her stunning voice to upbeat dance pop songs that allowed her to show off her talent as a dancer. She performed songs off of her 2021 EP “Too Young to Be Sad” including “bad ones,” “rubberband,” “r u ok” and “wish i loved you in the 90s.” McRae also sang some of her early releases including “One Day” (2017), which went viral that same year after she posted a video of herself singing it on YouTube. She also performed her newer songs “feel like shit” (2021) and “she’s all i wanna be” (2022). McRae mentioned that she had announced her debut album earlier in the day on social media. She told the audience the debut album titled “I Used to Think I Could Fly” will be coming out May 27. She had a big smile on her face as the audience cheered and cele brated the announcement with her for a McRaemoment.alsoperformed the popular song “You” (2021), an upbeat collaboration with Regard and Troye Sivan, as well as a cover of the song “Breakeven” (2008) by The Script. She told the audience that the song by The Script has always been very special to her and that she has always reso nated with Attendeesit. impressively belt ed the singer’s lyrics at the top of their lungs and danced along throughout McRae’s entire set. After a flawless performance of McRae’s most popular songs, fans were eager to hear more. Fans chanted for her to return to the stage for an encore. Shortly, the stage lights started to flicker and the music began again. McRae returned to the stage for one final song and ended her concert with “you broke me first” (2020). Her impressive vocals and dancing pushed her stage presence over the edge. It was nearly impossible to look away. The concert was over quickly, and McRae’s fans noticed her appear on the balcony of the Royale directly after finishing her set. Fans cheered as she waved down. The concertgoers left the venue with smiles on their faces,humming the melo dies to McRae’s songs.
CONCERT continued from page 12
Spring
fact, the shows are proposed and voted on in Torn Ticket II student meetings. This means that if there’s a musical you’ve always wanted to put on, Torn Ticket II might be your chance to do it here. Torn Ticket II also puts on its biannual “Over The Rainbow” cabaret, which is also open to all for submissions. Torn Ticket II allows students to produce and perform in a number of different shows each year, giving them freedom that they may not have had in their high school programs.
Eighteen-year-old Canadian singer-songwriter and danc er Tate McRae brought her 2022 North American Tour to Boston’s beautiful Royale night club on Friday. The night was filled with high energy and girl power, and it featured an all-fe maleWaitinglineup.in anticipation for McRae to perform, the audience kindly welcomed TikTok-famous singer GAYLE, who performed four of her songs. The crowd’s energy picked up when she sang her final song “abcdefu” (2021), and the audience chanted along to the popular song that has been trending on TikTok. Mimi Webb followed as the second opener. The English singer sang her hit songs including “Dumb Love” (2021), “Good Without” (2021), her newest single “House on Fire” (2022) and a beautiful cover of Adele’s “Someone Like You” (2011), which the crowd sang back loudly. Both GAYLE and Webb watched McRae’s set from the balcony of the Royale and waved down to fans cheering for them.
MIRIAM VODOSEK / THE TUFTS DAILY Tate McRae is pictured performing at The Royale on Apr. 1. by Miriam Vodosek Contributing Writer
Pen, Paint, and Pretzels — known as 3Ps — is a student-run drama program that puts on traditional shows and origi nal student works every year. In the fall semester, 3Ps put on “Dry Land” (2014) by Ruby Rae Spiegel and “Trainwreck” (2021), written by student Tatyana Emery. The spring brought “The Impromptu at Versailles” (1682) by Molière and “Opus 1” (2022) by stu dent Ryan Pratt. This means that whether you want to act in, direct or even write a play for 3Ps, you can do it. These shows also have many students in technical roles helping behind the scenes, bringing another opportunity for students inter ested in theater tech. Finally, there are also two audition-based children’s the ater groups on campus. Trunk! puts on shows for schools in the area, performing silly skits and scenes for younger chil dren. The group also occasion ally performs shows on campus, still bringing that fun children’s theater air. Local Bard’s Players, which is housed under 3Ps, is the other children’s theater group on campus, specifically adapting Shakespeare’s plays for young school audiences. These productions are often silly and goofy but make Shakespeare’s complex language more digest ible for a younger audience. Local Bard’s Players also does occasional on-campus shows and this school year, the group is putting on the parody show “A Very Hamlet Musical.” Surely this list is missing a couple of shows, as there’s sim ply too much theater to list. This also ignores the count less a cappella groups, comedy and improv troupes and even a mime performance group. If this list tells you anything, it’s that arts and creativity at Tufts is expansive and liberat ing. You can do whatever you’d like with whatever involvement you want. Theater can be your main thing, or it could be a twoto-three week stint. In sum, if there’s anything Tufts theater has, it’s nearly everything.
Tate McRae brings her North a merican Tour 2022 to Boston’s Royale
Seniors showcase
Tufts offers a vibrant theater community
The Tufts Daily is a nonprofit, independent newspaper, published Monday through Friday during the academic year, and distributed free of charge to the Tufts community.
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR IN CHIEF Welcome to the Tufts community
VIEWPOINTS AND COLUMNS Viewpoints and columns represent the opinions of individual Opinion editors, staff writers, contributing writers and columnists for the Daily’s Opinion section. Positions published in Viewpoints and columns are the opinions of the writers who penned them alone, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Daily itself. All material is subject to editorial discretion. OP-EDS Op-Eds provide an open forum for campus editorial commentary and are 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.
The content of letters, advertisements, signed columns, cartoons and graphics does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Tufts Daily editorial board.
oPINI o N TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2022 14 tuftsdaily.com
ADVERTISEMENTS All advertising copy is subject to the approval of the editor in chief, executive board and business director.
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.
To the newest members of our community,Whether you’re a first-year, transfer student or new hire, it’s my privilege as editor in chief of The Tufts Daily to welcome you to campus and introduce you to ourFirst,newspaper.Iwantto take a moment to recognize what a strange and special time this is for you. After a whirlwind of applications, cel ebrations and goodbyes, you’ve arrived — I can promise you it only gets more chaotic, and more beautiful, from here. Major life transitions such as arriving at college tend to be marked by uncertainty and grow ing pains. There’s so much new ness to absorb all at once — new place, new people, new routines, maybe even a new version of yourself that you’re growing into. I’m not here to tell you this tran sition will be easy. At times, it will probably be hard. I can, how ever, assure you that you’re sur rounded by people who are going through the exact same thing. In addition to your shared circumstances, you’ll find that there are other common threads connecting you to your peers here at Tufts. This campus is full of thoughtful, purposeful, out spoken people who, on balance, value kindness and individuali ty over status and self-promo tion. You’ve probably met some of them by now, and you’re sure to meet many more in the com ingPerhapsyears. even more so than our similarities, the strength of our community here at Tufts derives from our many differ ences. We hail from across the country and around the world. We study philosophy and chemi cal engineering and internation al relations. We dance and write and organize and debate and play.For all this, Tufts is far from perfect. Yes, our community is diverse — but not as diverse as it could and should be. Yes, we strive to be good neighbors to the residents of Medford and Somerville — but we could cer tainly do better. Yes, anyone from any walk of life can thrive here — but there are systems in place that make it harder for some. I know this, yet I am hopeful that although we are imperfect, we are progressing each year thanks to each new class of students. Your skills and perspectives, your fresh eyes on an old institution, are exactly what we need. With that in mind, I’d like to take this opportunity to intro duce you to The Tufts Daily. We’re the independent student newspaper of record at Tufts and we’ve been around since 1980. We publish every weekday and print weekly. There is a place for you at the Daily no matter who you are, what you want to say or how you want to say it. We strive to publish content that informs and engages our read ers, giving them the tools they need to be active in the Tufts community. Some of us report the news as it happens, unpack ing controversies and holding our peers and the administra tion to account. Some write arts columns or opinion essays. Some produce podcasts, and some work behind the scenes to run our business. Though our primary purpose is to serve the Tufts campus, we’re also increasing our coverage of our host communities of Medford and Somerville. On top of being a media organization, we’re a student club, and we have lots of fun in our cozy (if cave-like) office in the basement of Curtis Hall. Ultimately, we want to be a resource for you, whether you read the paper or join our staff. As someone who found a home on campus and a pas sion for journalism through this newspaper, I sincerely encourage you to consider joining the Daily if you enjoy writing, editing, mul timedia production or design. Scan the QR code on the front of this newspaper or email me directly at chloe@tuftsdaily.com if you’d like to learn more. I look forward to hearing from you! Alternatively, if you don’t want to join the Daily but still want to contribute to the campus conversation, I hope you will submit an op-ed at some point during your time at Tufts. To do so, contact our Opinion Editor at opinion@ tuftsdaily.com.LikeTufts,the Daily is far from perfect. As reporters we hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards and never intend for our work to be harmful to any individual or group. However, we sometimes make mistakes and when we do, I hope you call us out. If you notice there’s a side of the story we haven’t considered, I encourage you to submit a letter to the editor or anonymous tip. We value your criticism and readily admit that we have room to grow. On behalf of the entire Tufts Daily staff, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Pax et Lux, Chloe Courtney Bohl Editor in Chief, Fall 2022
Three Harvard University graduate stu dents last month filed a criminal complaint against the prestigious Boston-area univer sity, claiming it mishandled sexual miscon duct accusations brought forth against the long-standing anthropology professor John Comaroff.When Harvard’s student newspaper, The Crimson, published allegations of mis conduct against Comaroff in May 2020, the university placed him on paid leave. Later, the school placed Comaroff on unpaid leave, prohibiting him from teaching required courses the next academic year, after a pair of university-led investigations found the professor liable for verbal sexual misconduct against his students. Meanwhile, 38 faculty members at Harvard signed an open letter that used Comaroff’s prestige as an attempt to excuse his actions. The letter, which ques tioned the credibility of the university’s investigation and the female graduate stu dents’ accusations, was signed by some very renowned and powerful professors at Harvard, including former Dean of Harvard College Evelynn Hammonds and five highly esteemed university professors. The message was met with a response letter signed by 73 faculty members, pub lished in the Crimson last month. However, after the lawsuit against Comaroff was filed last month, 35 pro fessors retracted their support in a letter titled “We Retract.” They claimed to have signed the letter with insufficient infor mation and said they took issue only with what they said was a lack of transparency in the process. “We failed to appreciate the impact that this would have on our students,” the faculty members wrote in the retraction letter. The accusations against Comaroff have been floating around for years now. What’s even more infuriating is that the grad uate students’ careers were threatened To many within the Washington foreign policy establishment and even the public at large, the idea of India as a future great power has been accepted as a foregone conclusion since the days of BRICS. However, much of the thinking behind why this is the case has been obscured, as have the substantial challenges that India will face in the pro cess of rising to regional hegemony. Under the (sexist and islamophobic) leadership of Narendra Modi’s nationalist BJP, India has started exerting more control over managing its own bilateral relation ships instead of subjecting them to the whims of Washington, and it has become more of an assertive player in regional pol itics. India is unlikely to abandon its more prominent role in determining interna tional security, for one main reason: India is fearful for its own security. China and Pakistan contest Indian-claimed Jammu and Kashmir. As many in New Delhi see it, the only way to secure Indian interests and prevent further instability is to expand its own military capabilities, driving it to become a regional great power. India has the two main determinants of geopolitical success going for it — demo graphics and geography. On the front of demographics, a large proportion of India’s population is of working age (around 50% of its population is between the ages of 15 and 44), with the large labor force mean ing India’s economy can continue to grow, sustaining future great-power status. On the geography front, despite the con cerns I have already laid out, India’s stra tegic positioning is ideal in many ways. Geographically jutting out into the ocean affords India an ability to access nearby seas, from the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz to the Straits of Malacca. It also effectively allows the country to extort nations that want to use the crucial trade routes of the Indian Ocean for protection money — over 80% of the world’s trade passes through the area. This would desig nate India as the security arbiter for coun tries from the Middle East to Oceania. The only step India would need to take to realize this future would be building up a farther-reaching navy to better project its powerDespiteabroad.all my bullishness thus far, India’s domestic barriers to realizing its great power future abound. This is primar ily the matter of economic and infrastruc ture integration. For a country as large as India, its infrastructure is not up to par, with weak power and transportation infrastructure which holds national eco nomic development back and keeps many parts of the population in poverty. Without improved infrastructure, India cannot hope to become a leading regional power, as its economy will remain stagnant and relatively uncompetitive. However, Modi has recently announced $1.3 trillion of new infrastructure spending which could go a long way to integrating India’s regions and preparing it for regional leadership. Whether India rises or continues to muddle along, while other nations fall to a coming global disorder driven by American disinterest in playing the role of world police, India remains poised to seize on the new region-led order to its advantage.
Two weeks ago, Tufts released informa tion about the admitted students of Class of 2026. The selectivity and demographic diversity of the admitted students pool offers vital insight to Tufts’ future. Over the course of the last few years, we have seen application numbers rise and acceptance rates drop among colleges all over the United States, but Tufts, in particu lar, has exemplified these trends. This year, Tufts’ acceptance rate is in the single digits at 9%, the lowest ever recorded at Tufts, dropping from 11% last year. That 9% was taken from a record-breaking applicant pool of over 34,800 students, showing a 50% increase in applications since 2020. Closer inspection of this trend, coin ciding with the pandemic, reveals that policies like virtual tours and optional test score submission which arose amid the pandemic are partially responsible for the increase. Tufts Dean of Admissions JT Duck noted that it is easier than ever for students to learn about colleges and apply to them because of new policies and new technology. Additionally, Tufts’ adept handling of the pandemic in comparison to other universities along with a test-op tional admissions process may have also contributed to the increase in applica tions. In fact, 40% of admitted students chose not to submit test scores.
by Vihaa Kapadia Staff Writer
While Duck wrote in an email to the Daily that he is encouraged by the fact that “some of the most significant growth in applications in recent years is coming from students who have been traditionally underrepresented at Tufts,” the increase in applications could be damaging to under privileged students that are applying. A larg er applicant pool drives down acceptance rates and makes colleges more selective, consequentially making it more challenging for students to set themselves apart from others. Prospective students without access to certain extracurriculars or resources, such as college counseling, that others can utilize may find difficulty attracting attention in the admissions Additionally,process.withacceptance rates now in the single digits, which is often seen as a sign of prestige among selective institutions, Tufts may be seen as more elite. The accep tance rates of many similar institutions have been dropping as well, with Brown University and Rice University among those who hit record lows with the Class of 2026. We hope that, regardless of its perceived prestige, Tufts will find ways to responsibly navigate the changes in application pools to ensure equal opportunity for all. Despite these potential issues, the Class of 2026 admitted student pool is also historically diverse. This diversity stems from a historically diverse appli cant pool, which included 52% students of color, with Black, Latinx and multiracial applicant numbers showing the greatest increase. Geographic diversity has also increased, with 22% international appli cants in addition to representation from every U.S. state and four U.S. territories.
VIEWPOINT Originally published March 16, 2022. Originally published March 2, 2022. GRAPHIC BY ANNABEL NIED The Class of 2026: More selective and diverse than ever by Reya Kumar and Henry Murray Executive Opinion Editor and Staff Writer Originally published April 15, 2022. see LAWSUIT , page 16 see 2026 , page 16
Ascension of the elephant Daniel Chung managing multipolarity Daniel Chung is a sophomore at Tufts who has not yet declared a major. He can be reached at daniel.chung@tufts.edu.
oPINI o N 15Tuesday, August 30, 2022 | oPINIoN | THE TUFTS DAILY
VIEWPOINT
Harvard lawsuit follows national trend of institutions ignoring sexual harassment
Additionally, a record 19% of the applicant pool is comprised of first-generation col lege students.
Accordingly, the pool of admitted stu dents is astonishingly diverse. Of admitted students, about 56% are students of color and 11% are international students repre senting 84 different citizenships. Last year, 50% of admitted students accepted offers from the university. In particular, the School of Engineering has shown a marked increase in diversity. This year’s admitted pool includes 55% women, which is the highest percent age on record. It also includes 13% Black students, an even higher representation compared to the 11% admitted to Tufts in general. This increase in historically underrepresented groups in engineering demonstrates how Tufts is moving toward a more diverse community throughout its schools and programs. The admission of first-generation college students at Tufts rose from last year’s 10% and now comprises 12% of the incoming student body. The Schuler Access Initiative has played an important role in encouraging first-generation students to join the Tufts community. The initiative will invest $500 million in a matching gift challenge across 20 universities over the next 10 years, including Tufts. The Schuler Foundation aims to fund scholarships for Pell Grant-eligible students as well as those with undocumented or DACA status. The mean household income of first-genera tion students tends to be lower than that of students whose parents attended col lege, making the Schuler Access Initiative an important change for first-generation students. Tufts’ test-optional program may
GRAPHIC
misconduct LAWSUIT continued from page 15 New
have also made applying to Tufts more affordable for lower-income students given the high cost of taking standardized tests and sending scores to various univer sities. These initiatives are vital, as private universities like Tufts may often feel out of reach for many qualified low-income students due to their high cost. Overall, the demographics of the admitted students pool show that the Class of 2026 will bring a variety of perspectives and expe riences to the Tufts community.
As Tufts admits a more diverse class each year, our community is enriched by new ideas and viewpoints. These students will join performance groups and clubs, play sports, take class es and write for the Daily, all the while sharing what they’ve learned from so many different places and backgrounds. Trends toward lower accep tance rates and higher diversi ty may change things at Tufts, but they won’t change what draws in so many students in the first place: Tufts’ welcom ing and open atmosphere that focuses on collaboration and interdisciplinary studies. We are excited to see what new and unique ideas the Class of 2026 and other classes will bring to our campus. BY ALIZA KIBEL
2026 continued from page 15
Susan Fortney, a law professor at Texas A&M University, believes that universities should be required to incorporate screening for misconduct, by an agency like the Department of Education, into the accreditation process when hiring new faculty. This would make schools more responsible while hiring since they could be held accountable if a past offender repeats their Harvard’sactions.alleged ignorance toward this prolonged issue of harassment is disheartening. Students’ well-being and suc cess will always be reflected in the success of an institution, and universities must hold them selves and their faculty account able for upholding these values as a foremost priority.
Universities continue to ignore faculty students bring new perspectives
THE TUFTS DAILY | oPINI o N | Tuesday, August 30, 202216 tuftsdaily.com for speaking out. Opportunities in today’s competitive world are more valuable than ever before. Sadly, the faculty at higher edu cation institutions have a tre mendous influence on their students’ futures out of college. Despite the support of some fac ulty, the demonstration of those 38 professors showed a profound lack of support for victims of this system. This abuse of power, especially to assert control over women, contributes to gender discrimination and unequal opportunities. This lawsuit right fully challenges this imbalance of power commonly seen in the cases filed under Title IX — the federal education law that pro hibits gender discrimination. This is also not the first time such drastic steps needed to be taken. In 2019, Dartmouth College reached a $14 million settlement in a sexual assault lawsuit brought by nine women against three professors. In 2017, a Columbia University profes sor retired as part of a sexual harassment lawsuit settlement. Women have been continually denied sufficient support from their universities and have been forced to resort to the legal sys tem to protect their opportuni ties and well-being. In each cir cumstance, academia’s male-bi ased dominance shows itself more and more. Yet, change has not occurred because schools continue to place value on pre serving their reputation over addressing systemic issues like sexualThemisconduct.lawsuitdetails anony mous allegations of Comaroff’s inappropriate past behavior during his time at the University of Chicago, suggesting that the University of Chicago faculty warned Harvard of this “decadeslong pattern of harassment and retaliation” prior to his hiring in 2012, yet the university proceed ed to employ him regardless. This incident is a part of a national problem observed in the higher education sector, which is described as “pass the harasser.” This phrase describes a phenomenon in which faculty members accused of harassment quietly leave, only to be hired by other institutions, costing stu dents their safety and futures. The sooner this pattern is bro ken, the safer students will feel putting their trust in faculty that have influence over their futures. Addressing this problem has become inevitable. With rising complaints, lawsuits and cam paigns, universities must estab lish better procedures to rid themselves of ill-intentioned professors. In the event of a sim ilar complaint from a student, universities should have policies in place that would free them from any authority the accused professor may have over the stu dent until a conclusive investiga tion has been carried out. Additionally, the tenure system also burdens universities to pro tect the guilty in order to protect themselves. Therefore, universities should have policies against that conflict of interest. The University of California, Davis, for example, implemented a policy to only con sider candidates for tenured posi tions if they waived their privacy, allowing past employers to share any history of harassment.
Feigin also explained that he was not the only first-year crit ical to the Jumbos’ success on Saturday.“[The first-years] really show how every player on the team is capable of making a big impact,” Feigin said. “This weekend, we were unfortunately missing sev eral key players due to injury, and it meant that a lot of us younger guys had to step up and play big gerTheroles.”Tufts back line held strong yet again, keeping a clean sheet despite a ram
The Tufts women’s lacrosse team wins the 2022 NESCAC Championship over Middlebury on May 8.
KIANA VALLO / THE TUFTS DAILY
“It’s pushed me athletical ly, it’s pushed me mentally, … but I think overall, the team and the group of women that come together on the field is some thing that also is going to stay with me probably more so than the lacrosse itself,” senior Anna Clarke said.
The Tufts men’s soccer team is pictured in its win in overtime against Amherst on Oct. 16, 2021.
pant Middlebury attack all game. Lauta saved five shots in another spectacular perfor mance in goal. “What makes this team spe cial is the grit and determination we share,” Lauta said. “No matter the conditions, we always come out hungry to win … Losing sim ply isn’t an option.” With one championship in the bag, the Jumbos begin the NCAA Div. III tournament this week end. Tufts will host New England College in the first round on Saturday at Bello Field. claims Nes CaC title changed the women’s
With victories over Middlebury on Saturday and Connecticut College on Sunday, the Tufts men’s soccer team claimed the NESCAC tournament title. The champion ship win marks the Jumbos’ third in the last four seasons. Sunday’s championship game was a defensive battle, with both teams combining for only five shots on goal across 90 minutes. Tufts junior forward Sean Traynor cracked through early for the Jumbos, scoring an unassist ed goal just nine minutes into the first half. Only once in the first half did the Camels threaten Jumbo first-year goalkeeper Erik Lauta, who saved their only shot on Graduategoal. student midfielder Travis Van Brewer padded the lead for the Jumbos in the second half with another unassisted goal that put things out of reach for theTheCamels.defensive prowess of the Jumbos’ back line came to the forefront in the second half on Sunday. The Jumbos only conceded one shot on goal the entire“Defensively,half. we could not have been better in these past three games,” Lauta said. “Three shutout wins in the playoffs is a huge accomplishment, and it feelsTheamazing.”2–0victory marked Tufts’ third straight clean sheet — the team didn’t allow a single goal in the entire NESCAC tourna ment. The NESCAC crown comes back to Medford for the second straight season (after 2020’s sea son was canceled), and for the first time under head coach Kyle Dezotell.Ina more back-and-forth semifinal, the difference for Tufts came in a goal from first-year midfielder Ethan Feigin, assist ed by fellow first-year Anthony Bhangdia. After a wild first half in which both teams took nearly double-digit shots, Feigin finally cracked through to put the Jumbos ahead. The goal was Feigin’s first of his collegiate career. “It felt amazing [to score], and there’s truly no better feeling than sprinting over to the corner and celebrating with the whole team,” Feigin said. “I’m really happy I was able to contribute in getting the win.”
“Currently, we’re standing number two as far as any ath letic department coming out of the winter season in all of Division III,” Director of Sports Performance Coach Kopcso said in a promotional video post ed on YouTube and Instagram. “The challenge we’ve come across is in the last two hiring cycles for a strength coach out of more than 100 applications, less than five were people of color. So we racked our brains trying to figure out why this is — what are maybe some of the advantages or opportunities we had that aren’t happening get ting some of these people into theKopcsofield.” and the rest of the staff acknowledged that while there are many athletes of color at Tufts, as well as across col legiate athletics, there are sub stantial barriers to entry when it comes to the strength and conditioning field. According to Kopcso, often a candidate is required to intern for one to two years, in addition to com pleting a fellowship program, which means candidates do not get paid enough until a cou ple years into their careers. The three strength and conditioning coaches hope that by creating this fundraiser, they can begin to break down these barriers and provide more opportunities for people of color. “We want to create a posi tion where we can pay a really competitive hourly wage and try to pull some of these under represented populations into the position because we know once you’ve been a strength and conditioning coach, it is an unreal experience,” Kopcso said in the video. “It’s fulfill ing, it’s challenging, you work with future leaders of tomor row — we’ve got lawyers, doc tors, dentists, future politi cians all here — and honestly, I think most days we learn as much from them as they learn from us.” In the promotional video, O’Keefe, the assistant strength and conditioning coach, said that the strength and con ditioning staff likes to earn everything they do in the weight room, so they decid ed to work for all the money they wanted to raise during Sufferfest.Kopcso committed to doing pull-ups for 24 hours and Bare, an assistant strength and con ditioning coach, aimed to do as many squats at 405 lbs in two hours as possible. The varsity athletes voted on the exercise
lacrosse program by Isaac Karp Staff Writer Originally published May 22, 2022. Originally published Nov. 10, 2021.
strength staff annualover $10,000 inraisesfirstsufferfest
Men’s soccer
by Jack Adgate Former Assistant Sports Editor The class that
COURTESY MEG HATTON
s P o RT s TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2022 17 tuftsdaily.com
Eight seconds left. Tufts up by one against the best team in the nation with a final free position opportunity for Middlebury’s Hope Shue versus senior Molly Laliberty in goal. The whistle blows, and the ball is blocked out of bounds by the Jumbos’ defense. Game over — Jumbos win the NESCAC Championship. The last time the Brown and Blue faced Middlebury, they got humiliated by a team that looked superior. By the time the NESCAC Championship rolled around, the Panthers were unbeaten for 42 games in a row and ranked No. 1 in the country. The Jumbos had an up and down season after losing some players who gradu ated in spring 2021. The Class of 2022, who led the program into a new age of national recognition, defeated Middlebury in an epic match and are now on their way to the NCAA playoffs as the hottest team in the country. Since losing to Amherst and Middlebury in early April, the Jumbos have rattled off eight straight wins including the 9–8 NESCAC Championship rematch game against their con ference rivals. The game came down to a final showdown between Laliberty and Middlebury’s attacker Hope Shue, a first-year who had already scored two goals in this game. The defense reached Shue before the Panthers could get to Laliberty, and the ball rolled out of bounds until the clock ran out. The Jumbos threw their sticks into the air and the cele brations began for a team that has been through so much over the past year; all their hard work finally paid off. But it’s not just about what this team has accom plished, it’s the environment that the team has built for the players that truly defines the Tufts wom en’s lacrosse program.
see LACROSSE, page 18 see STRENGTH, page 18
The first ever Strength Staff Sufferfest commenced at 9 a.m. on April 14. Three members of the Tufts Strength and Conditioning staff — Dan Kopsco, Alex O’Keefe and Ethan Bare — participated in a 24-hour long fundraiser to increase the number of peo ple of color entering into the strength and conditioning field.
by Ananda Kao Former Executive Sports Editor Originally published May 22, 2022.
The student-athletes, who were both working out along side the coaches throughout the day as well as cheering them on, accounted for a large portion of the total amount fundraised.
May 4. STRENGTH continued from page 17
Clarke spoke about how the team has gradu ally gained recognition and sup port over the course of her time at Tufts.“Whether it is to the lacrosse community, or to parents, stu dents, [increasing social media presence and recognition] is another step forward that this program has taken. And I think it’s gonna also result in pretty positive things for this team,” Clarke said. In 2018, Tufts women’s lacrosse had a solid year. The team finished 13–5 but got knocked out of both the NESCAC and NCAA playoffs. When the Class of 2022 came in as first years, the team made a major jump, losing in the NESCAC Championship to Middlebury and making it all the way to the final four of the NCAA Championship before losing to Salisbury.“In2019, we were freshmen, so we kind of came in just super blank slate, not really know ing anything. But I think pretty much everyone in the current senior class had opportunities to contribute in really significant ways throughout the season,” Laliberty said. After coming close to silver ware, the Jumbos were ready for another successful season under the helm of coach Courtney Schute. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic cut the 2020 season short, and the Jumbos lost a shot at going all the way. Lehan talked about the lost opportunity. “[When] we came into that year, our team was super talent ed, our seniors [were] super tal ented [and] our team was really honed. I think we were ready to win a national championship. I think we would have done it that year, and to lose that season was so disappointing,” Lehan said. Despite the loss, Laliberty reflected on how far the team has come since 2020.
However, the success of this fundraiser cannot replace the physical and mental pain endured by Kopcso, O’Keefe and Bare throughout the day. “It was grueling at times to watch them warm up 15 minutes for five seconds of 10-10s or one pull up, but you could see how much it meant to them to fundraise this money and work towards an issue they care so deeply about,” Daly said. With the help of the Tufts community’s support, multi ple T-shirts and pairs of shoes, as well as snacks and plenty of water and Gatorade, they made it through. The strength
THE TUFTS DAILY | s P o RT s | Tuesday, August 30, 202218 tuftsdaily.com
Lehan spoke about the cul ture of the team for new players coming to Tufts by comparing it to what it was like when she first arrived.“[Newer players] already see what an established culture looks like of being great, so I think that’s the main difference. We come into every season now with the expectation that we will be number one, and any thing less than that is not a fail ure, but it’s not what we want and not what we expected,” Lehan said. The senior class who led this team to the back-to-back NESCAC titles and the finals of the NCAA Championship — a class that arrived before Tufts was just beginning to get rec ognition as a women’s lacrosse powerhouse — includes: Ananda Kao, Madison Lehan, Kathryn Delaney, Mae Briody, Anna Clarke, Colette Smith and Molly Laliberty.
Women’s lacrosse
After the excruciating 24 hours, Kopcso completed 2,200 pull ups, and O’Keefe ran 48 minutes of treadmill sprints at level 10 speed at a 10 degree incline, which is equiv alent to running approximate ly eight miles at a six-minute mile pace. Bare did 115 squats at 405 lbs for two hours of the fundraiser. Through the day-long fundraiser, just over $10,000 was raised.
“I think it was especially great that there were so many stu dent-athletes behind this cause,” Daly said. “You could tell it was something that we cared equally about and was something that we also wanted to fix and maybe more than anything, we just like watching our coaches beat their [bodies] up for a day because they spend so much time beat ing our bodies up.” wins NESCAC Championship over Middlebury
trainers hope that this fund raiser will become an annual tradition for Tufts Athletics; however, the format may vary year to year. Daly explained that it was motivating for the strength and conditioning staff to see the Tufts athletic community come together to cheer them on.
Strength and conditioning coaches raise money through 24 hours of work
“I think it was nice that so many people were going because it meant they fund raised more money, but also their moods lit up when they saw the student athletes come in,” Daly said. “As much as each team is a family with our coach es, the strength trainers are a part of every one of these teams’ families because they spend so much time with all of us.”
IAN LAU / THE TUFTS DAILY
“I definitely think that we’ve grown in ways we couldn’t have imagined from having that season taken away from us,” Laliberty said. After a long hiatus from com petitive lacrosse, Tufts returned to Bello Field in 2021. The team won all of its five regular sea son games and went on to take the NESCAC Championship over Wesleyan in a 14–3 blowout. The Jumbos cruised to the NCAA Championship, where they played Salisbury in a tight game that they lost by one goal. They fell short again. They also never had to play Middlebury, a team that ran the NESCAC years prior but didn’t compete in 2021 because of the pandemic. “Just losing by one goal. We know now what it takes to make it there, and I think for our grade, we know that we have everything we need to get there because we’ve done it before,” Lehan said. 2022 offered a return to a normal season for the Jumbos, who lost key attackers like Emily Games. Without a clear idea of who would lead the offense, the Jumbos turned to their younger players to step up, and first-year Margie Carden answered the call. She has scored 51 goals and has a total of 60 points on the season so far. Carden was also awarded NESCAC All-Conference honors. The three other players given this award were seniors Clarke, Laliberty and Lehan. Defensive Player of the Year Molly Laliberty has led this team’s defense through a great year. Kao and Lehan also make up the core of this unit that has held oppos ing teams to around eight goals per game, while scoring about 13. They also bring a great deal of energy to their team by stopping opposing teams from playing flu idly. They are leaders in the lock er room, steadying the younger players and helping the team work through the ebbs and flows of the season to keep the end goal in mind: winning a national championship.“Mostprograms aren’t able to talk about winning a national championship and have it really been a feasible thing. I would say that’s probably one of the biggest changes I’ve seen. But the core of the team and the heart of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it have remained pretty much the same,” Clarke said. that O’Keefe, one of the assis tant strength and conditioning coaches, would have to do, ulti mately deciding on him run ning treadmill sprints at a 10 degree incline at level 10 speed for as many minutes as he could in 24“Thishours.isa really original idea for a fundraiser, not something I’ve seen before [and] proba bly only something that can be thought up by its strength trainers who spend all their days thinking how best to tor ture athletes to get them stron ger,” Ian Daly, a senior defend er on the men’s soccer team, said. “When Dan [Kopsco] talk ed about the issue and talked about what they were raising money towards, it was clear ly something he’d put a lot of thought and time into. … Something he’d seen a lot of is lack of representation in this field, … so I thought it was great that they were personally taking the initiative to try and make a change instead of pushing it to otherThepeople.”strength and condition ing staff raised money through donations as well as pledges. Student-athletes, coaches and staff were encouraged to drop by the weight room throughout the 24 hours to support, cheer, and pledge or donate. Common pledges included one cent donated per pull up, $1 per minute on the tread mill or a flat amount of money for completing the day of work. Bare even received an addi tional donation if he did all of his squats while wearing jean shorts, a flannel shirt and a beanie hat. “I was in there from about midnight to 1 a.m., and they looked like they were in the worst condition I’ve ever seen anyone before,” Daly said. “But right when I walked in there, Dan got up and did one pull up. It took him about 15 minutes to do one pull up, but that’s what he was doing. For every person that walked through the door, he’d do one rep.”
LACROSSE continued from page 17
The Tufts Varsity Weight Room is pictured on
a 19Tuesday, August 30, 2022 | adVeRTIseMeNT | THE TUFTS DAILY
THE TUFTS DAILY | adV e RTI se M e NT | Tuesday, August 30, 202220 tuftsdaily.com
