PM Snow 28/10
THE TUFTS DAILY
TUFTSDAILY.COM
thursday, February 12, 2015
VOLUME LXVIV, NUMBER 16
Where You Read It First Est. 1980
MLK clothing and supply drive successful by Kathleen Schmidt News Editor
Grace Cooper / The Tufts Daily
Students can now book Brown and Brew for events on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
Brown and Brew now available for student events by Jei-Jei Tan News Editor
The Brown and Brew Coffee House can now be booked for student events on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 7 p.m. to midnight. The cafe, with a capacity of 80, will be suitable for small events such as acoustic shows, spoken word performances, trivia nights and extended club meetings, according to Director of the Office for Campus Life Joe Golia. The space can be reserved through Tufts’ online room scheduling system, he said. “We are very tight for space on campus … so it’s just another option for student organizations if it fits with what they need,” he said. Golia said that the Tufts Community Union ( TCU) Senate had been talking about opening up Brown and Brew to student groups for the past few years. “We were aware that this was something students were looking for, and we wanted to be able to respond to that,” Director of Dining and Business Services Patti Klos said. Before the Tower Cafe in Tisch Library opened in 2004, Brown and Brew used to host late-night acoustic entertainment organized by Programming Board, Klos said. This is why the cafe has spotlights, a raised platform with a backdrop and a limited house sound system, she explained. Klos emphasized that while students can now book Brown and Brew for small events, they should be respectful of the space and leave it in the condition they found it. Furniture can be rearranged but not removed, and decorations should not be excessive and cannot be taped to the walls, she said.
“We care what it looks [like] when we come in to open up at [8:00 a.m.],” she said. “The person who opens the store has a schedule based on the room being in the condition that we left it the night before. If [it is not], that throws everything off and prevents us from being able to start service when the community is accustomed to being able to come in here and get their breakfast or coffee.” Klos noted that Tufts Dining Services will have to provide a staff member at each event, because Brown and Brew’s serving area cannot be secured. Tufts Dining Services will cover this cost, at least for the time being. Student groups will not be allowed to bring in their own food, she said. Instead, Dining Services will be available to work with them to supply coffee, soft drinks or snacks such as popcorn and cookies. Golia explained that this semester, the OCL is running a pilot program before deciding whether to expand the available booking days. “And then in the fall we can really push it with the start of the school year,” he said. “We’ll be meeting with student organizations, sending a lot of information out, having introductory meetings. That’s a much better time to talk about new things that are happening.” Golia mentioned that even though many groups have already booked their events for this semester, he hopes the OCL “can get a few things in [Brown and Brew] this spring.” He explained that the OCL can now start offering Brown and Brew as a possible location for student events. “As events come through the normal registration process for other spaces on campus, we’re
going to start suggesting to these groups, ‘Hey, have you thought of Brown and Brew?’ and I think that’s how it will eventually start being used,” he said. “We’re hopeful that it is successful for everybody and that it meets the need for student organizations, that they respect the space … and that enough groups feel like it’s a good destination that it’s worth what it’s going to take to support it,” Klos said. Sophomore Jacob Katsiaficas, a member of Applejam Productions, said that Brown and Brew seems like a good venue for hosting low-key, folk and acoustic shows. Dan Turkel, a senior involved in student booking group Midnight at Tufts, echoed this sentiment. “While this is the first I’m hearing of it, we’re excited to hear about Brown and Brew becoming available for events. There are very few appropriate spaces available for groups like ours that are looking to put on small-scale concerts,” he told the Daily in an email. “We’d definitely be interested in exploring that for something like an acoustic or jazzy show – the coffeehouse vibe would suit it quite nicely, I think.” Golia added that another room in Curtis Hall, where the cafe is located, is being renovated into a graduate student lounge, which he hopes will attract graduate student groups to Brown and Brew as well. “The graduate students will actually be having a dedication and opening sometime near the end of February, so we hope that besides the undergraduate groups, some of the graduate student organizations might start using Brown and Brew for their events because it’s … right next to their lounge,” he said.
Inside this issue
The MLK Youth Homelessness Drive, sponsored by the Tufts University Chaplaincy and the Africana Center, wrapped up on Feb. 6 after collecting items for two weeks to benefit Youth on Fire, a drop-in center for homeless and street-involved youth in Cambridge, according to Joie Cummings, a college transition advisor who served on the committee of staff and students who coordinated the event. Cummings said three medium and large sized boxes full of items were collected on the Medford/ Somerville campus. This collection will be added to the items collected from the Boston campus as well, where the drive is continuing to Feb. 13, she said. Cummings said they asked for donations of notebooks, small winter items such as gloves, hats and hand warmers, along with first aid supplies like band-aids, cough drops, sanitizing wipes and first aid kits. The committee worked with student leaders from Capen Bible Study, Catholic Community at Tufts, Protestant Students Association, Hillel at Tufts, Campus HOPE, Multicultural Greek Council, Tufts Hindu Students Council and Tufts Freethought Society to place boxes in 10 different Medford/ Somerville campus locations and to collect the donations, Cummings said. University Chaplain Reverend Greg McGonigle said Youth on Fire came to his and the organizers’ attention as the Chaplaincy’s Program and Outreach Specialist Zachary Cole and sophomore Aviva HerrWelber of Tufts Hillel, both of whom served as leaders for the MLK Day of Service, researched possible sites with which Tufts could partner for a service drive. “An interesting connection is that we learned Tufts has already had a connection with Youth on Fire through the Leonard Carmichael Society’s HIV/AIDS initiative,” he told the Daily in an email. Cummings added that while this was the first time that this committee had collected items for Youth on Fire, the Latino Center collected items for them last December. According to McGonigle, this year the Office of the President, the University Chaplaincy and the Africana Center collaborated on three main events to honor the life and legacy of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The first event, the MLK Day of Service, took place on Jan. 19. Approximately 60 students volunteered off campus for the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter, the Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth and Many Helping Hands 365 in Cambridge.
The second event was the Annual Community Celebration, which was held on Jan. 22 at 6 p.m. in Goddard Chapel. The event included remarks by the president and other university leaders, readings from King’s speeches by interfaith student representatives and creative contributions by S-Factor and the Spoken Word Alliance at Tufts, McGonigle said. The final component, the Youth Homelessness Drive, was an opportunity for individuals to honor MLK even if they were not able to particpate in ceremonies on MLK day, according to McGonigle. “We wanted to provide an opportunity for the whole campus, even if they were not able to serve with us on MLK Day, to be in service to those in need in MLK’s honor,” McGonigle said. According to Africana Center Director Katrina Moore, this is the first time service projects have been included in the annual MLK Day celebrations and therefore the first year of the drive. “Since students returned to campus from winter break before the MLK holiday, we were eager to extend programming with as many opportunities to honor MLK’s legacy as possible,” she told the Daily in an email. “Through our theme ‘A Revolution of Values: Poverty, Peace, Power,’ we were able to work with local community organizations in Cambridge and Boston to organize opportunities for members of the Tufts community to serve, build relationships with local service providers and put values into action.” Moore said that while many people are aware of Dr. King’s work with civil rights, few know about his focus on poverty, peace and power during the final year of his life. These were the themes that were incorporated into this year’s celebration and service, she said. Moore said she was pleased with the outcome of the drive. “I would consider the project to be successful and thank the Tufts community for responding positively to our request for donations,” she said. Cummings also expressed her enthusiasm about the drive. “This is the first year we have conducted this drive, and we are excited to have collected so many items from the Tufts community to donate to Youth on Fire,” she said. Cummings added that they are still collecting items on the Boston campus at the Tufts University School of Medicine in the Arthur M. Sackler Center for Medical Education with the support of the Student National Medical Association and the Office of Multicultural Affairs at the School of Medicine. The Boston campus drive will be running through Feb. 13.
Today’s sections
At Nijiya customers can order all-you-can eat sushi for a reasonable price.
The hockey team suffered two big losses to Conn. College over the weekend.
see WEEKENDER, page 3
see SPORTS, back
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