The Tufts Daily - Friday, February 25, 2022

THE

INDEPENDENT

STUDENT

N E W S PA P E R

OF

TUFTS

UNIVERSITY

E S T. 1 9 8 0

VOLUME LXXXIII, ISSUE 20

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

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Friday, February 25, 2022

ANNABEL NIED, IRIS YANG AND MICHAEL WU / THE TUFTS DAILY

CMHS keeps up with pandemic Tufts Digital Collections demand, brings on additional providers and Archives unveils 124 years of student media through new collection

by Ella Kamm News Editor

Amid a nationwide college mental health crisis, Tufts Counseling and Mental Health Services reports that students are being scheduled to see counselors in a timely fashion, aided in part by the addition of two counselors from outside provider Mantra Health.

“CMHS counselors are aware of the challenges of being a college student during the pandemic and in the current racial, environmental, and political climate in the U.S. and the world,” Julie Jampel, CMHS director of training and continuing education director, wrote in an email to the Daily. “We want to be there for the students who want to speak with us and welcome our colleagues from Mantra Health to help meet this n ​ eed.”

Jampel said that first appointments with clinicians are currently being scheduled for the following

by Chloe Courtney Bohl Executive News Editor

ELIN SHIH / THE TUFTS DAILY

Sawyer House, the location of Tufts Counseling and Mental Health Services, is pictured. week, a timeline that is typical for CMHS. During particularly busy periods, such as around midterms, appointments may need to be scheduled for a few weeks out.

Jampel also said that there is no difference in the quality of mental health services offered by the

Mantra Health clinicians currently employed by CMHS. “All clinicians are highly skilled, licensed mental health professionals and are experienced in working with college students,” Jampel

Tufts, writing about invasive beetles, among other topics.

“I thought it was a really fun thing to report on,” Kaplan said.

“I got to go into Somerville, meet some Somerville people. [I] went to City Hall, and that kind of started me off on doing some more serious reporting that connected things going on in Tufts’ host communities with our campus community.”

Kaplan moved through the ranks of the news section, covering student government, Tufts’ research institutes and Massachusetts state news, before becoming the section’s executive editor in the spring of his sophomore year.

It was an intense but rewarding job, Kaplan said, made all the more so when students were sent home after the outbreak of COVID-19.

“Everything that one does as a journalist has two parts,” Kaplan said. “There’s the overt function and the underlying motivation, and so [the pandemic] is where I really began to question the difference between the two in a way that I think we hadn’t been doing a lot at the Daily in quite a while.”

Kaplan said that the onset of the pandemic pushed him to reflect on the differences between “reporting for reporting’s sake” versus fulfilling the newspaper’s role as “the bedrock of the active citizenship virtue that Tufts holds so dear.” For the rest of that semester, he and the rest of the news section continued reporting university and local news from afar, publishing digitally amid an unprecedented pandemic.

see CMHS, page 2

Daily veteran Robert Kaplan discusses the role of journalism in a community

by Chloe Courtney Bohl Executive News Editor

One of Robert Kaplan’s first assignments for The Tufts Daily was an article about an invasive beetle that was wreaking havoc upon Somerville’s ash trees in fall 2018.

He remembers the story piquing his interest in journalism.

“The thing that I was interested in, which wasn’t being addressed by the Somerville Tree Warden — yes, it’s a real job — was ‘what about the trees on Tufts’ campus?’” he said.

Kaplan, now a senior, would go on to hold positions such as executive news editor, business director, podcast host and features columnist at the Daily. But he got his start as a contributing writer in the news section during his first year at

see KAPLAN, page 2

Tufts Digital Collections and Archives launched Newspapers @ Tufts, a digital collection of thousands of issues of the Tufts Weekly, the Tufts Observer and the Tufts Daily, in January 2022. The collection documents 124 years of university history through the lens of student media.

The digital collection currently contains 6,000 issues of the three student publications totaling around 80,000 pages. DCA is working on digitizing a final batch of 1,900 issues comprising approximately 34,000 pages, at which point the project will be caught up to the present day.

Dan Santamaria, director of DCA, said the Newspapers @ Tufts project was born out of DCA’s belief in the potential impact of making past issues of student publications readily accessible to the wider Tufts community.

“We’re constantly looking for ways to improve access to the material that’s under our stewardship, and … using staff expertise and judgment about what’s the most

valuable and what would have the most impact,” Santamaria said.

“These student publications consistently rise to the top in whatever method that you look at. They’re used a lot for classes, they’re used a lot by archivists trying to answer questions about the university.”

Santamaria spoke about the role of student publications as records of university history.

“They’re essential documentation of university history because they provide, more than any other source, the student voices about whatever was happening at Tufts at that particular time, on that particular day,” he said. “They balance out the official records that we get from university offices over time.”

DCA started planning the Newspapers @ Tufts project in 2018 and began digitizing publications in 2019. Sari Mauro, digital collections project manager for DCA, described the process of digitizing the preexisting physical collection of student publications and creating a platform where users could easily search the collection by publication title, date and keywords. see ARCHIVE, page 2

MINA TERZIOGLU / THE TUFTS DAILY

The physical collection of archived issues of The Tufts Daily are pictured in the Daily’s office in Curtis Hall on Feb. 24.

PHOTOS / page 6

OPINION/ page 10

SPORTS / back

Vibrant views of Tufts’ campus in winter

Jackson College women pave the way for contemporary female journalists at Tufts

Women’s basketball ekes out a victory vs.

Wesleyan in NESCAC quarterfinals

NEWS 1 FEATURES 3 ARTS & POP CULTURE 5 PHOTOS 6 FUN & GAMES 9 OPINION 10 SPORTS BACK

2

THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Friday, February 25, 2022

THE TUFTS DAILY Alexander Janoff Editor in Chief

— EDITORIAL — PERI BAREST SAM RUSSO PHOEBE WONG Senior Editors

ELIZABETH FOSTER KENDALL ROBERTS Associate Editors Chloe Courtney Bohl Executive News Editor Delaney Clarke Executive Features Editor Maeve Hagerty Executive Arts Editor Faye Shen Li Thijssen Executive Opinion Editor Makenna Law Editorial Editor Isaac Karp Executive Sports Editor Alex Viveros Investigative and Science Editor Aaron Klein Executive Audio Producer Mina Terzioglu Kiana Vallo Executive Photo Editors Ty Blitstein Executive Video Editor Michael Wu Executive Graphics Editor

— PRODUCTION — MAC CALLAHAN Production Director Mike Kourkoulakos Maddy Noah Charlene Tsai Executive Layout Editors Julia Shannon-Grillo Abigail Vixama Executive Copy Editors Elise Fong Sydney Spivy Executive Social Media Editors

— BUSINESS — CAMPBELL DEVLIN Business Director Hannah Harris Emily Walker Outreach Coordinators Joe Posthauer Web Manager Contact Us P.O. Box 53018, Medford, MA 02155 daily@tuftsdaily.com thetuftsdaily tuftsdaily tuftsdaily

Please rec ycle this newspaper!

The Tufts Daily is a nonprofit, independent newspaper, published Monday through Friday during the academic year, and distributed free to the Tufts community.

The content of letters, advertisements, signed columns, cartoons and graphics does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Tufts Daily editorial board.

EDITORIALS Editorials represent the position of The Tufts Daily. Individual editors are not necessarily responsible for, or in agreement with, the policies and editorials of The Tufts Daily.

VIEWPOINTS Viewpoints represent the opinions of individual Opinion Editors, Staff Writers and Contributing Writers for the Daily’s Opinion section. Positions published in Viewpoints 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 The Op-Ed section of The Tufts Daily, an open forum for campus editorial commentary, is printed Monday through Thursday. The Daily welcomes submissions from all members of the Tufts community; the opinions expressed in the Op-Ed section do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Daily itself.

Opinion articles on campus, national and international issues should be 600 to 1,200 words in length and submitted to opinion@tuftsdaily.com. The editors reserve the right to edit letters for clarity, space and length. All material is subject to editorial discretion and is not guaranteed to appear in the Daily. Authors must submit their telephone numbers and day-of-availability for editing questions.

ADVERTISEMENTS All advertising copy is subject to the approval of the Editor in Chief, Executive Board and Business Director.

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Pandemic-driven isolation, loss, economic hardship main drivers of CMHS demand CMHS

continued from page 1 wrote. “Like CMHS counselors, counselors from Mantra Health provide therapy within short term treatment models and are familiar with all on-campus resources, including Tufts Deans, the Centers within the Division of Student Diversity and Inclusion, and the StAAR Center, among other resources and offices at Tufts.”

Daniel Schwartz, a sophomore, has called to schedule an appointment with CMHS twice in the past year. The first time, in December, he was able to schedule an appointment with a Mantra Health provider 11 days after his call.

“I think by the end of the semester, there was a lot of demand, and it was pretty crowded,” Schwartz said. “It was a little unfortunate because it was when I needed it the most.”

Schwartz called a second time over winter break and was able to get an appointment for the next day.

Jampel said that CMHS always keeps a set number of appointments open for sameday scheduling.

“A limited number of same day appointments are available to students who need one and can be scheduled by calling CMHS first thing in the morning,” she wrote.

“Students with urgent situations or crises will always be seen the same day.”

Schwartz said that securing one of the same-day appointments during busy periods seemed difficult.

“You have to be one of the first callers when they first open, which isn’t the most convenient,” he said.

Theresa Quinto, a sophomore, decided to reach out to CMHS last spring. She had heard that demand had been high and that appointments were difficult to get in the fall, which made her initially hesitant to seek an appointment.

However, after talking to her resident assistant about options for mental health care on campus, she decided to call CMHS. She found the entire process to be user-friendly and appreciated having a list of different providers to familiarize herself with.

“I thought the website that lists all of the counselors there … was very welcoming,” Quinto said. “The people that answered the phone were so nice. Just their tone of voice [made me think] ‘You know what, this is okay … I feel okay.'”

Quinto was able to schedule an appointment for a week or two after her call, and her only request was to be paired with a female-identifying counselor. Quinto was very satisfied with the counselor she met with and appreciated her help with finding more long-term therapy options.

“After the first appointment, it was super easy to book more with the same person,” Quinto said.

In recent years, CMHS has seen a higher number of students

accessing its services. Jampel said that this shift has been observed at many colleges and attributes it to both current events and the destigmatization of seeking mental health treatment.

“Students are living in and attending college in very difficult times, including a long-standing pandemic that has brought isolation, loss, and economic hardship to many people,” she wrote. “Also, at Tufts the visibility and accessibility of CMHS has increased over the years, and at the same time, the stigma around needing or accessing mental health care has decreased. Information about and discussions of mental health have proliferated in the media and social media. Public figures– including highly respected athletes from the summer and winter Olympics–have shared their struggles with mental health conditions and have made it easier for everyone to seek the support and care they need.”

Digital archives of student publications preserve university history ARCHIVE

continued from page 1 “It became clear that we could digitize these newspapers, but the key to making them really useful [was] how you could search them,” Mauro said. “Those two things sort of coincided — our digitization of newspapers with our need for a robust search platform — and became Newspapers @ Tufts.”

The collection begins in 1895 with the inaugural issue of the Weekly and goes on to document the final issue of that publication in December 1968, the emergence of the Observer in January 1969 and the publication of the first issue of the Daily on Feb. 25, 1980.

Santamaria said he noticed the student media landscape evolving over time as worked his way through the Newspapers @ Tufts collection.

“If you look at those early issues of the Weekly [you see] factual stories, a lot of it based

on the social life on campus,” he said. “But then as you get into the latter part of the 20th century … there’s a very clear evolution to students seeing themselves more as journalists and having a role in transparency and providing a view on the university and the administration specifically about what’s happening at Tufts.”

Mauro noticed that, especially with physical issues of the Weekly, the content and form of the published issues reflected the historical events surrounding their publication.

“When paper becomes scarce because there’s a war, it becomes fewer pages. And because to digitize, I have to count every page of every issue, I can see that trend happen,” Mauro said. “So there’s this materiality that you can also track as world events impact what’s happening on campus even down to like, how do you produce a news-

paper heard during a World War? And [also] just tracking, what are they writing about? What’s making the front page, what isn’t? What’s happening that isn’t mentioned at all? And then how is the production of the paper affected?”

Efforts to collect and archive student publications at Tufts predate the Newspapers @ Tufts project.

Luke Allocco (A’21), a former associate editor and outreach coordinator at the Daily, undertook a project of indexing headlines, mastheads and images from past Daily issues in preparation for the paper’s 40-year anniversary in 2020.

“I’ve always been really interested in history,” Allocco said. “Wherever I am, I’m sort of a sponge. I just have this need to know about the history of where I am and what I’m doing.”

Allocco echoed Santamaria’s sentiment that student publications function to preserve university history.

ad sales, introducing the Daily’s newsletter and creating the Tufts Daily Alumni Council — all aspects of the Daily that younger readers and writers might have assumed had always existed.

“I think that really reshaped the Daily in a lot of ways,” Kaplan said.

“And that’s probably my proudest legacy, even more than my experience as [executive news Editor].”

Kaplan spoke to the difficulty of cultivating institutional memory at an organization such as the Daily, where leadership and membership turn over completely every four years. Some of the changes he implemented targeted this challenge.

“The hope is to give some more continuity over time so we can actually accumulate knowledge [and] experience and, therefore, progress and improve as a paper,” Kaplan said.

After his stint as business director, Kaplan pivoted to a low-stakes

and more enjoyable role as host of The Rewind, a Tufts Daily podcast.

“I’ve always been told I had a good podcasting voice, … so that really appealed to my ego,” Kaplan said.

This semester, Kaplan is teaching a course out of the Experimental College designed to help current members of the Daily’s executive and managing boards critically reflect on the work of publishing an independent student newspaper.

Kaplan, who will be graduating this spring, said that teaching the ExCollege course feels like a fitting end to his time at the Daily. “[The course] facilitates discussions that guide members of the executive and managing boards to coherent and articulate conclusions about their experiential learning as members of Daily leadership in ways that are useful for the Daily, for improving the Daily over time … but also for themselves

“When researchers are looking back at what the day to day life was like for a student at Tufts in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, or reacting to President Monaco’s retirement, they’re going to come to the Daily, or they’re going to come to the Observer, and they’re going to look in these archives,” Allocco said.

Allocco added that archival issues of the Daily help build institutional memory for future writers and editors.

“When these big events happen, and when we make changes in the way we do things, sometimes that information gets lost as students graduate and new students come in,” he said. “It’s been really important for us at the Daily as an organization to learn from our history and learn what we’ve done in the past. And I think that helps us make better decisions about where we’re going in the future.”

Kaplan recalls accomplishments as executive news editor, business director

KAPLAN

continued from page 1 The following semester, Kaplan became the Daily’s business director, a role he redesigned to address the structural problems and financial needs of the paper in that moment.

“I spent the whole summer doing a diagnosis, an internal research project on the Daily,” Kaplan said. “I got like 12 people involved from across the [executive] and [managing] board, dove deep into what all the problems with the Daily were, we interviewed alumni and so on. And then it culminated in my authoring a 36-item memo that was like, ‘Here’s different problems that [the] Daily has, and ways we can address them.’”

In the end, Kaplan says his “reform agenda” was an overall success. By his count, the paper implemented 30 out of his 36 recommendations including reintroducing special issues, reorganizing

COURTESY ROBERT KAPLAN

Senior Robert Kaplan is pictured. when they leave the class. Because that’s a timeless skill,” he said.

Kaplan counts professional skills and lifelong friendships among his takeaways from the many positions he has held at the Daily.

“When you spend so much time pouring yourself into something that you love, it’s only natural that you’ll resonate with other people who do the same,” Kaplan said. “I’m extremely grateful for the many friends that I have from my Daily experience.”

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Features

3 Friday, February 25, 2022

Former Editor-in-Chief Alex Viveros reflects on hardship, joy, community at the Daily

by Abby Stern Staff Writer

Though many know the saying “jack-of-all-trades, master of none,” when it comes to the Tufts Daily, a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ can be exactly what is needed.

When the right kind of hardworking person finds their passion at the right time, mastery comes naturally.

Former Editor-in-Chief Alex Viveros has taken on eight different roles over the course of his four years at the Daily. Now a senior, Viveros looks back on the way he devoted his college life to the paper.

As a pre-med biology and community health student with little writing experience, Viveros signed up for the Daily on a whim his first-year fall. When asked what section he wanted to join, he blurted out “Sports,” since it was the one section of the newspaper he really knew.

Viveros almost quit after his first article when he messed up the due date, leaving him to scramble to write the piece at midnight while also studying for a Bio 13 exam he had the next morning. He remembers thinking at the time, “Oh, my God, I’m never doing this again.”

The next day, however, Viveros went to complete his interviews for the article, and found that the experience of getting to interact with the players and the coach was actually fun.

He decided to give the Daily one more shot.

One more shot became two more shots, then three, then four, until Viveros was writing a piece every two weeks. Writing for Sports trained him to write fast and meet tight deadlines.

Over the course of his time at the Daily, he would always be thankful for the sports section and the skills it instilled in him.

“I think a lot of people that aren’t in the sports section don’t realize how timely it is,” Viveros said. “I had situations where I had a game one night … and we want to [get it] in the paper for the next morning. So I’d have like an hour to write the entire thing and get all my interviews, which is actually incredible training.”

By spring of his first year, Viveros was promoted to assistant sports editor and was responsible for covering football, women’s basketball and men’s lacrosse. Then, in his sophomore fall, Viveros took on the role of executive sports editor, becoming the only sophomore on the fall 2019 executive board. He credits this as one of his most stressful positions over the course of his four years.

“I had to recruit a lot more people because we came in with … like 10 or less writers,” Viveros said. “For sports, when you’re

producing like a bunch of articles a day, that’s not enough. So I was​​ kind of scrambling for a while.”

He eventually made it work, and he soon moved up to the position of managing editor during his sophomore spring.

Though stressful at first, Viveros eventually hit his stride, loving the work he was doing and truly finding a home in the Daily office.

“When I was managing editor, I was vibing for a while in the office,” Viveros said. “I actually found that I really liked being in the office and I liked the managing editor’s job. I liked jumping from Arts to Features to Opinion to Sports, and editing, all of that was really rewarding.”

All was well until March 10., when Tufts announced it was closing for the remainder of the semester due to the COVID19 pandemic. Viveros remembers sitting with the Daily staff, watching the news unfold.

“I just remember we were all in the office in shock,” Viveros said. “But it was like all the gears went into motion … we were like, ‘Okay, we need to write about this.’”

With his biology and community health background, writing about COVID-19 fit right into Viveros’ interests. He had been following the news of COVID-19 since January, and Tufts’ closing was like a call to action, encouraging him to inform the public.

He remembers thinking, “This is what I need to do right now in order to process what’s happening. I need to be here in this office writing about infectious disease and stuff. A lot of the things that the CDC was talking about … it made sense to me, so I was like, ‘Okay, I’m built for this. I’m gonna go, go, go.’”

The pandemic showed Viveros that writing was his calling. He could use his words to help people make sense of the world falling apart.

“I just remember sitting at [my] desk … And I was like, ‘This is what I’m meant to do.

This is what I need to do right now,’” Viveros said. “It felt like I was doing something when the world was kind of ending.”

When COVID-19 turned the world upside down, it turned the Daily upside down as well. In the hubbub, the position of editorin-chief was left unfilled for the incoming fall semester. Prior to the pandemic, Viveros had had no intention of becoming editor-in-chief. By the end of the spring semester, however, when members of the Daily suggested he fill the role, he decided to take it on.

Throughout summer 2020, Viveros and the other members of the Daily’s managing board worked tirelessly to ensure the newspaper’s survival. Viveros noted that Robert Kaplan, the Daily’s fall 2020 business director,

COURTESY ALEX VIVEROS

Alex Viveros is pictured. went the extra mile to restructure the Daily’s business side in order to keep the paper afloat.

Viveros calls being editor-inchief “the most stressful thing I ever did in my life and the best thing … I ever did.” In some of the darkest times of the pandemic, running the Daily alongside a devoted managing board and executive board anchored Viveros in something good.

After securing the Daily’s future during the fall, Viveros took a step back to the bare bones of the Daily: writing.

The second semester of his junior year, he worked as a news editor. Viveros was given free reign to write what he wanted, and he credits this time as the most fun he has had at the Daily.

“Honestly, [I] had so much fun just writing about whatever I wanted, breaking stories,” Viveros said. “I was the one that broke that Carm was gonna be gluten-free. I remember the meme pages went crazy and it was so funny.”

Going into senior year, however, it was time to get serious about his own future and the future he wanted for the Daily.

After realizing that he wanted a career in writing, he decided to no longer be pre-med and took an internship at Science Magazine in the summer of 2021. There, he saw new ways of running a publication, and as he returned to the Daily as a senior last fall, he brought along new ideas.

Viveros started the science section of the Daily, with the goal of trying out a new way of running a section.

“I started the science section with a different … way of handing in articles, doing pitches, doing edits, stuff like that,”Viveros said. “So, the way we do it at Science is a little bit different than the way the other sections do it. It’s kind of like my little … experiment.”

Viveros also currently wears another hat at the Daily, that of investigative editor, however the details he could share on that front are limited.

“We’re working on stuff that’s more long-form,” Viveros said. “And that is the maximum amount of details I can give about that.”

On top of all of this, Viveros’ crowning achievement at the Daily is the COVID-19 Dashboard, which he calls his “baby.” Started in January 2021, the dashboard keeps track of the total number of cases on campus, informing the public even when the school does not.

“Tufts doesn’t report how many cases happen per day,” Viveros said. “They never have … The only people [who] know this is basically us because we’ve been keeping track of it every single day for like a year.”

It is important to Viveros to mention that, though he loves writing, there is much about the field of journalism that

he’d want to change. Viveros has seen through his own background and family the problems that occur without access to information, whether this be through paywalls, educational barriers or language barriers.

“My biggest thing is there’s been this barrier in terms of … who has access to the right information,” Viveros said. “Whether that’s the way scientific journals are written, whether that’s literally access to scientific journals, you have to pay a lot of money to get all those. We ask people to do their own research, but they can’t, because it’s behind a million paywalls.”

Viveros’ time, leadership and passion have helped shape the Daily over the past four years. Though he has set the Daily on a steady path of progress, he remains modest regarding his immense contributions to the paper. He is constantly thankful for the friends he made along the way and the peers that helped him over the course of his college journalism career.

“I’m a link in the chain that will be the Daily … I feel like I held my job as ‘link’ and now it’ll be onto the next person that’ll be an even stronger link,” Viveros said. “I feel like I helped in its natural progression, but … I really want to highlight that it was the people that worked around me.”

4

THE TUFTS DAILY | Features | Friday, February 25, 2022

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Features first-year Kaitlyn Wells talks all things Tufts Daily with former Executive Features Editor Amelia Becker

by Kaitlyn Wells

Assistant Features Editor

Senior Amelia Becker is a sociology and economics double major from Norwalk, Conn.

The Tufts Daily has been lucky to have her as a veteran contributor, with nearly eight semesters under her belt.

Amelia Becker (AB): I started my freshman fall writing for Features, so I’ve written and edited for Feats all four years, also serving as Feats [executive editor] for one semester.

And then I also have done copy [editing] briefly and I worked on The Rewind podcast for one semester doing some audio recording.

Kaitlyn Wells (KW): Features?

No way, me too! Well, hopefully the irony is coming through because this is not the first time that we’ve met … as a first-year rookie myself who joined the team last semester, I’m excited to learn more about you and your journey through the Daily. So, were you involved in any type of publication or media outlet before Tufts?

AB: No, this was my first foray into doing any sort of journalism.

KW: Given that there’s a variety of student publications on campus … why did you choose to get started with the Daily?

AB: Freshmen fall, I kind of browsed around and the Daily really stuck out just for the number of options of … how I could get involved. And I think there’s just been some really important pieces of work that have been published through the Daily so I was excited to get more formal journalism experience.

KW: Were there any … aspects that you found challenging when you were new to the Daily, and if so, did those challenges change over time?

AB: Yeah, I am, by nature, a more shy person, so the idea of having to reach out and interview someone is kind of scary, but I also knew that it’d be a good thing for me … even now like four years later, [I have] a bit of nerves every time I’m interviewing someone.

KW: How would you describe the culture of the Daily?

AB: I feel like there’s a lot of really thoughtful people that want to cover what’s happening on campus in an intentional way, but also, people have fun with it. Especially Features, we [joke around a lot] … like the whole thing recently about Pini’s Pizza. We’re like, ‘Oh, my God, someone needs to talk about this’ … it’s a really cool community to be part of.

KW: Definitely. I also really like how the Daily seems to be

founded on [a] sense of mutual trust. Everyone trusts each other to take their responsibilities seriously, and because of that trust, we have the leeway to mess around a bit and get playful with things. Personally, I was expecting to face a lot of vetting to join a college newspaper. But that didn’t happen. There’s training, but I really love and appreciate how the Daily is very … embracing of any sort of interest or enthusiasm … and they see involvement as a learning process rather than … you having to prove yourself.

AB: Yeah, for my first article, they were just like, “Go for it,” which is scary at first; I was like, “I don’t know what I’m doing” … but also a lot of fun to learn as you’re going, and with each article, you learn something new.

KW: Speaking of articles, can you recall one or two of your favorite pieces that you’ve worked on?

AB: Well, [the] first article that I wrote was about the proposed [Native American and] Indigenous Studies minor. So I wrote that my freshman fall and it’s been pretty cool to see how the minor itself has evolved over my time here.

KW: That’s awesome … Okay, this is a big one: How has journalism impacted your life?

AB: I think personally, it’s opened my eyes to like a different career path than like I initially expected … I’m not going into journalism after graduation… [but] I’ve thought more so about … writing as something that I want to do and [will] put in whatever career that I go into.

KW: And you were part of The Rewind podcast for a while.

How was that experience different from Features and copy editing?

AB: I hadn’t done audio in any capacity, … so getting to see behind the scenes of how that works was a lot of fun. And I think it’s similar to Feats in a lot of ways, like the interview process, but … I feel like your voice comes through a bit more, [both literally and] in style, it can kind of flow a bit more than the structure of a Feats piece.

KW: Let’s imagine the Daily in 10 years time: What do you picture?

AB: I picture, similar [to now] in a lot of ways, a group of students being really excited about what they’re doing, being curious … And I think in the future, it will be cool to still have a physical paper but also, as we’ve started to do, expand into other things like video and audio and whatever the next thing [is] that journalism is diving into.

COURTESY NEAL CHAN

Kaitlyn Wells and Amelia Becker are pictured.

KW: So you were the Feats exec during the pandemic, do you want to talk more about what that was like?

AB: I think generally [being an executive editor is] a big time commitment but a fun experience. You have to schedule all the content and edit everything and work with a group of people but … [I was] figuring out how to support a group of people through [uncertain times].

KW: And when you were starting out in your Features executive editor role … how were you prepped for that? I’m curious about how the voice of the Daily is passed down to new leadership.

AB: I was a bit apprehensive because I was a sophomore going into the role … so that was a little intimidating. It was also great because I had a lot of people … who had been writing for years before who could kind of help me through the ropes …

My [executive editor] before me, Fina, was really great at helping me through.

KW: Do you ever feel the impact of the Daily being financially independent? Does that play into what we do?

AB: Yeah, it’s not something I think about, which is kind of a good thing in that we have the freedom to write whatever we want to write. And so as I’m thinking of things that are interesting on campus, I’m not like, ‘Oh, can we say this?’ We’re able to make those editorial decisions because of that.

KW: Is there anything else you’d like to chat about?

AB: I mean, I love Feats. I am really happy to be part of the section and like, I feel kind of old now. But it’s been fun to see all the various iterations of it and the different people that have come and gone. … It’s also a lot of fun to learn what’s happening on campus. In a way … I feel like it’s easy to kind of be in your own bubble, and so forcing myself out of that a bit to see what’s happening and talk to people is a lot of fun.

KW: I agree. Certainly, being a part of the Daily makes me feel very in the know, not only because we help each other out and discuss ideas for articles, but you kind of walk through the world with your ears open.

AB: Yeah … it’s cool to see how conversations reach a broader audience, and even if it is [a topic] that maybe you’re not as interested [in] or don’t know as much about [it] can then become more accessible to more people.

Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

ARTS & POP CULTURE

tuftsdaily.com

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Friday, February 25, 2022

A message from our Assistant Arts Editors for Daily Week

by Tufts Daily Arts Staff To celebrate the Daily this week, the arts section’s new assistant editors explain what their experience with the Daily has been and what it’s meant to them.

From Henry: As someone who didn’t write for a student newspaper in high school, the idea of starting up in college seemed a bit daunting. Still, the Daily made it easy for me to involve myself. My movement toward the arts section seemed logical; as someone who prides themself on their strong Letterboxd and Goodreads profiles, artistic criticism came somewhat naturally for me. Still, writing for Arts has not only taught me how to properly discuss art and media but also how to analyze the broader impact art can have on our surrounding world. Media fundamentally impacts our conscience, both representing and molding the world around us. Thus, art criticism must not only dissect the entertainment mechanisms of a project but also the cultural impact. When I first started writing for the Daily, simply responding to the weekly ‘beats’ email with a movie I wanted to review, I don’t think I truly understood that. However, in the process of writing (and ultimately editing) for the Daily, I’ve come to terms with the broader social power of media. In editing for the Daily, I hope to bring that bigger focus to not only my own writing but to the section at large; it’s not only about the media we consume but the sociocultural implications.

From Carl: I’m not really someone who likes to share. Having lived my whole life with a mix of social anxiety and Asperger’s, I’ve struggled with social settings and getting people to understand how I feel about anything. Writing has always been my escape from that. So when I first learned about the Daily during my freshman COVID-19 lockdown on campus, I jumped

to write about the things that made me happiest: comic books, movies and TV. The Daily has been a consistent source of escape and fun for me, and while I eventually expanded to work for the news and video sections as well, Arts has always been where I’ve felt most at home. The writers and editors for this section were always so nice and always open to me writing whatever caught my interest, and it’s them that ultimately made me decide to want to be an editor for it myself.

I chose to cover the ‘off-beat’ section content, mainly due to the fact that it’s where I could write about comics, but I also love the freedom and unpredictability this beat provides.

There are few places at Tufts where I have felt more at home than the Daily, and it’s hard to put into words what that means for me these days.

From Siavash: Throughout high school, I had very few interactions with the school newspaper, only ever writing a single movie review.

When I signed up for the Daily, I imagined I was inadequately prepared, entering an organization purely composed of veteran writers and editors. But despite this, I found my initial exposure with the Daily to be very encouraging. I first started as a contributing writer for the arts section, only writing a couple of album and TV show reviews per semester. But as I began to find my passion for art history at Tufts, I translated that interest into my article topics and started to write more about museum exhibitions and artistic events in the local Boston area. I noticed that these topics, mostly focusing on institutional art, did not have a dedicated category in the Daily’s arts section. Thus, inspired by my interest in popularizing and promoting the visual arts, I pitched the idea of an ‘exhibition arts’ subsection and applied to be its first editor. As a result, my editorial duties directly correlate to my academic passions, encouraging my involvement in

COLLAGE COURTESY MAEVE HAGERTY

Assistants Arts Editors RaiAnn Bu, Siavash Raissi, Henry Chandonnet and Carl Svahn are pictured (from top left to bottom right). the paper and its topics. Since then, the Daily has functioned as an extension of myself and a medium in which I can write about the things I truly enjoy.

From RaiAnn: During high school, the school newspaper was the plight of the day. Both my friends were editors in chief and constantly filled me in on the stresses of completing the newspaper each month. As a result, I wanted to stay as far away from the newspaper as I could for the rest of my life given my secondhand experience. Over the summer, I met multiple people who were involved with the Daily, such

as my friend Jack. They told me how fun writing for the Daily was and how it operated as a creative outlet for their interests and hobbies. I joined the Daily with great fear and intimidation. Throughout my entire time in college, I haven’t written essays in classes or been in an English course; I also believe that grammar rules are a suggestion. But I found the Daily to be the creative outlet I greatly missed within my school curriculum. I have always had a strong interest in the arts and fashion, which were often sidelined because of traditionally academic endeavors.

Writing for the arts section has become one of the highlights for the week, because I’m finally able to geek out about all the things my chronically online brain likes to investigate.

Sometimes I feel like I’m writing into a void where no one actually reads my articles but in a way that’s comforting. The Daily allows me to write about things I have always wanted to express but felt limited by because of the pressure of academic excellence. I hope to continue being an editor because of all the great pieces I get to read by my fellow writers and to have an excuse to be more chronically online.

Feminism, sex and Ali Wong: ‘Don Wong’ is a comedic masterpiece

by Ryan Fairfield

Contributing Writer

This year, Ali Wong decided to give Netflix subscribers a unique, untraditional Valentine’s Day gift with her comedy special, “Ali Wong: Don Wong” (2022). “Don Wong” marks Wong’s third Netflix comedy special in addition to her previous work with Netflix for her film, “Always Be My Maybe” (2019), and her voiceover work for the series “Big Mouth” (2017–). As in her previous specials, Wong is still sporting her red glasses and patterned dresses that became

greatly associated with her comedic image.

In her first comedy special, “Baby Cobra” (2016), Wong stated, “I think feminism is the worst thing that ever happened to women.” Anyone who has seen this special, or her second one, “Hard Knock Wife” (2018), knows that Wong does not actually hate feminism — she just believes that feminism ruined her dream of being “a trophy wife,” as feminism often encourages women to go out into the workplace and take charge, while Wong would much prefer to sit at home and be, in her words,

“a trophy.” The irony behind this joke is that not only is Wong now the breadwinner of her family after having an extremely successful career, but her comedy itself is inherently feminist.

Wong expresses feminism in her comedy by calling out various gender disparities and sexism. At the start of “Don Wong,” Wong jokes about how when men become successful comedians, their romantic lives thrive and they start dating actresses and supermodels — just look at Colin Jost. When women become successful comedians, however, they find

their dating lives to be bleak.

Wong claims this is due to the fact that men fear women who have more money and power than they do. It is moments like these in Wong’s comedy, where she says something insightful and intriguing, but in a wonderfully funny way that really emphasizes what a good comedian she is.

In addition to feminism, Wong’s comedy is incredibly sexual. Wong makes countless jokes about various sexual encounters she had or dreamed of, whether it be masturbating to Jason Momoa or wanting to cheat on her

husband. From joking about a sexual fantasy involving the cast of “The Avengers” (2012) to acting out various sexual positions, Wong confidently, and hilariously, proves her comedic genius once again.

Wong also discusses the iconic character, Hello Kitty.

A short 15 minutes into the special, after discussing how her direct messagess are filled with creepy messages from her male fans, Wong states “I never check my DMs, and when I do, its only to see if Sanrio, the owners of Hello Kitty, have see FEMINISM, page 8

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THE TUFTS DAILY | PHOTOS | Friday, February 25, 2022

Captured: Campus in Color

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PHOTO CREDITS: KATRINA AQUILLINO, NATALIE BROWNSELL, SARAH GOLDSTEIN, CORA HARTMANN, IAN LAU, ELIN SHIH, QUAN TRAN AND KIANA VALLO / THE TUFTS DAILY

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Friday, February 25, 2022 | PHOTOS | THE TUFTS DAILY

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THE TUFTS DAILY | Arts & Pop Culture | Friday, February 25, 2022

tuftsdaily.com

Wong's new Netflix special is everything we hoped for and more FEMINISM

continued from page 5 finally contacted me to offer sponsorship.”

Hello Kitty aside, the shining star of “Don Wong” is the jokes Wong makes about cheating on her husband.

Toward the start of the special, Wong says, “I think about cheating on my husband every five minutes. I haven’t done it yet. Not because I’m a good person, only because no worthy opportunity has presented itself.” She brings up cheating on her husband quite frequent-

Sacha Waters Public Cinemy No. 1

Sexualization in ‘Euphoria’

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very teen drama criticized for graphic portrayals of sex is met with arguments that many teenagers do have sex lives, and that these shows’ portrayals are realistic and refreshing. Although many high schoolers are indeed sexually active, the casting of adult actors by shows like “Euphoria” (2019-) and “Riverdale” (2017-) can become distasteful fast. While I don’t believe in pearl-clutching over teenage sexuality nor in not portraying it at all, I am disturbed by Hollywood’s

ly, but she does not address the topic for an extended period of time until much later.

Approaching the end of her special, Wong answers the question that many in the audience and those watching at home might have regarding how her husband feels about these jokes. Wong provides the perfect answer to the question: “Right now … my husband is at home, in the house that I bought, telling time on the Rolex I got him for Father’s Day, jacking off to porn he streams on the high-speed

internet I pay for every month … He doesn’t give a shit about what I say on stage, because he’s too busy living the life I wanted for myself.” Not only is this joke perfect toward the end of her set, because it is a parallel to all of her “trophy wife” jokes from her previous special, but it also fully captures her essence as a fearless comedian who does not care how people view her — she lives her life how she wants.

As a whole, Ali Wong delivers another spectacular comedy special with “Don Wong.”

The special is most definitely her dirtiest, most sexual one yet; however, she stays true to her roots of untraditional feminist comedy which her fans have come to love. With her third special, Wong has solidified her place as one of the elite standup comics of the modern age, with the ability to connect with her audience and her confidence to say whatever she wants, no matter how others might react.

For many Asian Americans, it is refreshing and inspiring to see Wong continue to grow as

tendency to cast adult actors to play minors. The fine line between a realistic portrayal of teenagers and over-sexualization is found in how teenage sex is portrayed, and the current, popular teen drama “Euphoria” fails on many counts.

Euphoria sometimes portrays sex as empowering for female characters, which can be a great thing and a departure from much other media. However, this sexual empowerment often manifests in a way that co-opts the women’s empowerment movement as an excuse to cater to the male gaze. This is exemplified through the characterization of Kat’s (Barbie Ferreira) sexualized cam girl arc as a method of empowerment. While women should be free to express their sexuality

and exert control over their own bodies, this perversion of feminism by male directors, writers and producers not only eroticizes female bodies, but also pressures women and girls to chase desirability in harmful ways and to base their self-worth on sexual attractiveness as Kat did in the show. This can exacerbate the objectification of women and underage girls.

F u r t h e r m o re, while “Euphoria” can successfully cover nuanced topics like addiction, its empathetic visage feels shallow due to the show sexualizing its characters.

Nate ( Jacob Elordi), Cassie’s (Sydney Sweeney) love interest in Season 2, is framed as unsympathetic because he sexualizes her, but my inner cynic rolls its eyes at this would-be noble attempt to reject the

male gaze when the show turns around and crafts intentionally erotic cinematography when shooting Cassie. While Nate is hospitalized, he has a feverdream sex fantasy of Cassie.

Female characters in the show do have similar sexual fantasies—like when Kat pictures a hyper-masculine Viking—but the scenes are shot incredibly differently. While Kat’s Viking is filmed at more of a distance, making the viewer less involved with the scene, Cassie is pictured from Nate’s point of view, with close-up, sexualized angles. Kat’s fantasy is a way of conveying information about her to the audience. Nate’s is intended to tantalize us as it does him. When cinematography is actively sexualizing teen girls, the show is no longer subversive, or a commentary—it is complicit.

COURTESY IMBD

Ali Wong’s Netflix special “Don Wong” (2022) is pictured.

With underage girls, Hollywood toes a line of technicalities. 37-year-old Sam Levinson’s history of sexualizing underage female characters in his work and Drake’s (“Euphoria” Executive Producer) previous predatory behavior is ignored in the show. Hollywood’s strange fixation with underage girls hints at a bigger societal problem: the barely curtailed obsession of adult men with underage and barely legal teens. TV creators and consumers alike must be more aware of the impact of sexualizing minors, and should treat “Euphoria” and similar shows with a careful, critical eye.

Sacha Waters is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major. Sacha can be reached at sacha.waters@tufts.edu.

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Friday, February 25, 2022 | FUN & GAMES | THE TUFTS DAILY

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F& G

LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Alex: “Why are breakfast potatoes iPad kids? I’m offended.”

FUN & GAMES

SUDOKU

WHAT TYPE OF TUFTS POTATO ARE YOU?

Difficulty Level: Limiting the amout of Girl Scout Thin Mints Pretzels I eat.

By Juju Zweifach

SEARCHING FOR HEADLINES...

Thursday’s Solutions

CROSSWORD

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10 Friday, February 25, 2022

Liz Buehl The Journey

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Founding principles

he idea of journalism is one founded upon much more than just publication. It encapsulates the core of human interconnectedness and fairness. This semester, I have had the privilege of learning from Dr. Ravi Shankar in the course Creative Writing: Journalism.

When registering for this course, I was in search of an arts credit to satisfy a distribution requirement; in the end, I found much more. Just a few weeks into the class, I have developed as a journalist through writing pieces in a variety of styles and perspectives I had not previously explored.

This evening, I found myself realizing the power of journalism in dismantling unjust systems through listening to Dr. Shankar’s reflections on some of the impetus behind his newly released novel “Correctional” which cites the racist practices that are inseparable from the punitively based American incarceration system. His work not only highlights the reality of being a person of color in America but also the importance of writing and journalism in pursuing justice for all.

When asked to write a piece for the Daily reflecting on the publication’s history, I found myself continuously thinking back to the founding principles that drove former Tufts students to start the newspaper in 1980. Knowing the importance of investigative journalism and simultaneously aiming to keep biased practices at bay while also bringing to light issues that may not otherwise surface, I commend the Daily’s founders for creating a space for student journalists to probe issues on campus and beyond. Now, over 40 years after its founding, the Daily continues to serve as a place for students to not only deliver breaking news but to share sentiments that bring the community together in the scope of affirming and poking holes in Medford, Somerville and the world beyond.

The Daily’s financial and executive independence from Tufts University provides it with the unique opportunity for students to voice their most honest and genuine perspectives on the topics they find important. From the series of op-eds in 2017 criticizing Anthony Scaramucci’s place on the Fletcher School Board of Advisors and the controversy which followed to the 2018 investigative report on “Dark Money at Tufts,” the Daily continues to uphold the fundamental goals of journalism through the platform it provides for students and the influential conversations it prompts in our community.

As I sit in my Creative Writing: Journalism class weekly, I am thankful for the privilege to study at Tufts University, a place that allows me to not only amplify my voice through mediums like the Daily but also learn to refine my words and stay in tune with my identities and opinions at an educational institution. It is through the practice of journalism that everyone can keep the spirit of democracy alive, from professionals in the field to students like myself. Through these experiences we have the opportunity to exercise freedom of speech, bring our diverse opinions to light and unearth the truth behind the societies we exist in.

Liz Buehl is a sophomore studying psychology. Liz can be reached at elizabeth. buehl@tufts.edu

Opinion

tuftsdaily.com

VIEWPOINT

Progress in publication: WWII-era archives reveal history of women in Tufts student journalism

COURTESY DIGITAL COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES, TUFTS UNIVERSITY

A 1944 edition of the Tufts Weekly shows the first two women to be editors of a student publication at Tufts.

by Reya Kumar Opinion Editor

Student-run publications have always been a vital part of campus life at Tufts. However, these publications have evolved in many ways. Looking back at issues from student publications from the 20th century, it is clear that Tufts and its publications have become more thoughtful and inclusive.

Today, Tufts is the smallest school to have an independent daily student newspaper, which a significant portion of the Tufts student body interacts with; over 300 students are currently involved with the Daily as staff members, with many more who participate as regular readers. Prior to the Daily’s inception in 1980, the Tufts Weekly was Tufts’ primary student newspaper. The Weekly primarily focused on campus news, highlighting sports, social events and Tufts alumni, though it also discussed critical events happening on a national scale. Though it has now been replaced with the Tufts Observer, it can also be seen as a precursor to the Daily, which now fulfills the role as Tufts’ primary news publication.

From 1895 to 1900, the Weekly had no women on staff. In 1901, Charlotte Raymond Lowell, an associate editor, was the first woman on the Weekly staff.

After the creation of Jackson College, the women’s college that existed at Tufts until its integration in 1980, women in the Weekly mostly focused on columns specific to Jackson, rather than contributing to content intended for the wider Tufts community. In the 1940s, this began to change.

During World War II, many young American men were drafted or enlisted in the war effort, opening up many more opportunities for women across the country. With the editors sent off to war, women were encouraged to

increase their participation in “traditionally male” activities, with Jackson students writing for and even leading the Weekly. In 1944, Betty Waterhouse and Phyllis Ahern became the first female executive editors of the Weekly.

In the term following, Ahern became the first woman to head the Weekly alone. Today, 66% (19/29) of the Daily’s managing and executive boards identify as women, a change in journalism on campus that began with Ahern and Waterhouse’s tenure.

Much like the current content of the Daily, student publications like the Weekly also served as a window to the other experiences of students at Tufts.

For example, during WWII, engineering courses were offered for Jackson women for the first time. These included courses such as chemistry, physics, mathematics and other sciences.

A few years before the end of the war, Charlotte Taylor was the first woman to graduate from Tufts’ engineering school, as a Weekly headline from 1943 proclaimed.

However, not everyone was happy with the increased presence of women in science and engineering, which the Weekly also reflects. In the long-running column Engineairs, which focused on topics of interest to engineering students, Harold Tremblay wrote that “In general, it has been found that women have not been able to grasp technical material as quickly or as thoroughly as the opposite sex,” claiming that women should take only the lowest level jobs in the science and engineering fields to free up space for men to take on more technical roles. Despite these complaints, the Weekly also highlighted Jackson alumni with technical wartime jobs, such as Mabel Keyes who served as chief of the Chemical Warfare Procurement Lab in Boston, showing

pride in successful alumni regardless of gender.

Evidently, while the Weekly was moving toward more inclusion of women during this period, it still contained many misogynistic views. Later in the Engineairs column Tremblay wrote, “The women’s job is to step in when she is needed and to retire silently and gracefully when she is not needed,” revealing a common view on the Tufts campus, and throughout the nation, that women were only filling in for the men who were fighting and would return to their rightful place as the more qualified men returned after the war. These views are clearly problematic and ignored Tufts trailblazers like Charlotte Taylor and Phyllis Ahern.

The university has come a long way since these blatantly misogynistic publications. Nearly 60% of college students nationwide identify as female. Since Jackson College was integrated into Tufts in 1980, the percentage of students who identify as women has grown to 54% among undergraduates in the School of Arts and Sciences and 46% among undergraduates in the School of Engineering.

Today, the Daily works to ensure that its coverage is respectful, inclusive and representative of all Tufts students.

This effort includes the Intentionality and Inclusivity Committee, which is dedicated to ensuring that the Daily’s content is “equitable, accurate and contextualized.”

Past publications in Tufts history are a window into the thoughts and experiences of Jumbos from years past.

Through this window, it is clear to see the progress we’ve made in making our publications more representative of our community, as well as the continued importance of newspapers like the Weekly and the Daily to student life and expression.

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Friday, February 25, 2022 | SPORTS | THE TUFTS DAILY

Women's basketball defeats Wesleyan to earn semifinal bid PLAYOFFS

continued from back Despite Ryan and graduate guard and co-captain Erin Poindexter McHan both having subpar shooting performances, both players made crucial contributions elsewhere. Ryan scored eight points while logging four assists and nine rebounds, six of which were offensive rebounds. Poindexter McHan scored five points to go along with four rebounds and solid defense.

“They’re both just such great leaders, and they both … both just bring so much energy,” Russell said of Ryan and Poindexter McHan. “They’re always constantly communicating on the court, which we need as a team and they just make us as a team so much better.”

Offensive rebounds played a huge factor in Tufts pulling out the win with the Jumbos grabbing 18 offensive boards. Pace praised the team’s effort and hustle on the offensive glass, even when the rebounds didn’t necessarily translate to points.

“It’s something we’ve been emphasizing especially as of late and I thought the team did a really nice job,” Pace said. “I think there was one possession there in the third quarter where we had like four offensive rebounds. We didn’t end up scoring but the ball was on our end for maybe a minute of the game clock.”

Next up for Tufts is the NESCAC Championship Semifinal against the No. 3 seed Amherst in a game that will feature the

NESCAC’s No. 1 offense vs No. 1 defense.

Tufts averages 70.3 points a game while Amherst holds opponents to an average of 48.1 points. Knowing the challenge that lies ahead, Russell knows what the Jumbos need to do to win.

“Amherst is just a great defensive team,” Russell said. “I think we just have to keep working the ball around and it’s going to be like a battle of the defenses in this game.”

The Jumbos will travel to Trinity Bantams with the chance to bring their fourth NESCAC title back to Medford. No. 5 seed Bates and No. 1 seed Trinity square off in the first semifinal game on Saturday at 2 p.m. while Tufts and Amherst tip off at 4:30 p.m.

ranging from the game recaps, which are more of your typical reporting, to profiles and features that are more [of a] deep dive — almost investigative-type pieces — and also columns.

Alex Sharp, a junior, served as executive sports editor in spring 2021. Sharp has also written a column, covered the men’s basketball beat and served as an assistant sports editor and sports editor. He has also written for The Provincetown Independent and The Student Dispatch, a newspaper run by Associate Professor of Political Science Eitan Hersh.

IK: What attracted you to the Daily in the first place?

Alex Sharp (AS): I just love sports. [I am a] washed up high school athlete. I like to write … I was interested in just the sports section because [sports] is a fun thing to write about. I think there’s just some really special things about sports. I’d say in my 21 years, the purest forms of the human spirit seen have been in competition. I think the purest form of the human spirit is in competition. I think sports can be a microcosm for life in a lot of ways. The relationships you see, the failures, the successes, the funny moments that happen.

IK: During your time with the Daily, you were a columnist, an editor and you’ve been an exec. You’ve basically covered all facets of the Daily during your time. What was the most enjoyable part for you, did you like being [executive sports editor] the most?

Or did you like being a columnist the most?

And why?

AS: I really enjoyed being an exec, because I had a great squad, a great team underneath me, probably the best in recent memory, and it was just fun to work with

everyone. I think, really what sports writing should be, and what the sports section of the Daily should be, is kind of an extension of just talking sports, like you would at a barber shop or a bar, just with your buddies. I think that’s kind of what it was for me with the section, and I enjoyed working with them all. I enjoyed going into battle for them all, when I had to. It was fun to kind of be guiding the direction of the section. It was fun to be a part of sports coming back to Tufts, which was a big thing for the community, I think a big thing for the athletic community in particular, and kind of a sign of leaving [COVID-19] behind.

IK: If you could do one thing to increase [the sports] fandom here, what would you do, and how would you go about it?

AS: I think we have a lot of athletes on campus because we have a small school with a lot of sports teams. But then the nonathletes generally aren’t as engaged in sports as they would be at a bigger school, like a state school, which is not necessarily a terrible thing. We have a lot of kids that really focus on their academics. I think the role of the Daily sports section should be really to create fun content surrounding our sports, and a pitfall that could happen in the sports section is just taking itself too seriously … Then as a school, just building a culture, someone’s got to start it … Someone’s got to start a student section and just kind of get it going, I think, … get to some of these games because they can be exciting. I’m sure a lot of kids here went to high schools where there were electric atmospheres at their basketball games or football games. I don’t see why we couldn’t replicate that at a DIII school.

Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Former executive sports editors discuss sports fandom among student body SPORTS WRITING

continued from back those high schools still have more energy or more school spirit. Why do you think Tufts is so limited in that realm and also what do you think is a possible solution to increase school spirit?

AK: I’m honestly not really sure why our games don’t get as many fans … Maybe athletics just doesn’t get as much advertisement, or people just go to the games when it’s convenient for them, rather than them feeling invested. I don’t know if that’s something with social media. I [also] know that there is a divide at Tufts in general between athletes and nonathletes, and so maybe it has something to do with that.

IK: You’ve been at the highest level in the sports section. What do you think is one thing that you would change [about the Daily], and how would you go about that?

AK: Something that both of us have focused on and [something] the Daily is starting to [focus on] as a whole is the whole social media aspect of [journalism]. I think that’s a way to get people more engaged and interacting and wanting to be a part of it, if they see super cool content coming out on social media. I think that’s just an easier way to reach students, especially of the generations that are coming in, like the freshmen and sophomores and people to come in the future. I think that’s a really important platform to be able to utilize.

IK: Is there anything else you want to add about anything related to the sports section or to the Daily in general?

AK: I think that the sports section and sports writing is really unique in the sense that we have such a focus, but also such a wide variety of articles in our section,

Men's swim sets records, comes up short of Williams in NESCAC Championship

SWIM

continued from back bined for a new school record in the 800-yard freestyle relay, with a time of 6:38.76. Schreier’s time of 1:39.17 set the school record for the fastest leadoff split in the event.

These record-setting swimmers are among those who made the NCAA B-cuts and will have a little under three weeks to prepare for the NCAA Championships. This is enough time even for Tufts swimmers who set personal records at this meet to embark upon setting new personal records at NCAA Championships.

“The focus right now: we’re just gonna get back to work for the next couple weeks and rest a little bit, a couple days going into the championship,” Schreier said. “This is going to be a great experience … Everybody who’s going just wants to have a good experience with the team and to swim fast.”

The NCAA Championships will take place in Indianapolis, Ind. from March 16 to March 19.

COURTESY NORIE HAMMOND

The Tufts men’s swimming and diving team does a team cheer at the NESCAC Championship on Feb. 17.

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Aiden Herrod The Intangibles

The impact of NBA player mobility on the fan experience

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ver since LeBron James aired “The Decision” live on ESPN in 2010, the NBA’s structure has been radically changed. The past decade has been defined by a new wave of player empowerment and mobility, whether it’s through strategically timing free agency, mutually working through trades with team general managers or dramatically forcing themselves out of their organizations.

We know what this has done to the game itself. We’ve seen countless Big Threes formed across the league. We’ve seen superstars cause drama that has propelled them to more favorable situations which have paid off big-time. Los Angeles traded for Anthony Davis, Toronto traded for Kawhi Leonard and Golden State signed Kevin Durant. If you want a ring, you need the star power to do it.

The last time an NBA team won a ring without a player recently named to the list of the NBA’s 75 greatest players of all time was in 2006, by the Detroit Pistons.

It’s evident that superstars drive the league forward, and teams are all but lost to mediocrity without them. But what does this do to the fan experience?

First and most obviously, it narrows the league’s range of outcomes. Right off the bat, if you don’t have an all-NBA-caliber player, your team is on thin ice. A majority of fan bases are immediately relegated to rooting for tanking or smaller victories.

Even when these star-barren teams make the playoffs, their inability to boast the best player on the court for any given game or series makes those squads hopelessly lost.

Oftentimes, fans of teams lacking superstars begin to look to Twitter or ESPN for the ever-churning rumor mill of disgruntled stars. At any given time, it seems multiple all-star players are unhappy with their situations and want out. This gives fans hope that a turnaround can happen fast if their team can acquire the right superstar.

But again, it reduces the range of outcomes. You either win the lottery sweepstakes or you don’t. Fans of smaller markets can find themselves locked in an endless spiral of getting hopes up for acquiring a Damien Lillard or Bradley Beal, only to see the big market teams like Los Angeles and New York swoop in at the last minute.

This is certainly fun for fans of those larger franchises, but I’d argue this level of superstar mobility is more harmful than helpful. The media diet of fans woefully reading tea leaves in hopes of their franchise’s next great savior coming along is full of empty calories. But there is certainly reason for hope.

While Milwaukee did win their championship after swinging big in the trade market, they did the majority of their legwork through homegrown stars like Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton.

Meanwhile, in Memphis, another notably small market, superstar Ja Morant became an all-star starter and proclaimed his love and devotion to the city of Memphis.

Players like these are changing the narrative, and it gives hope that well-run franchises with strong cultures can skillfully navigate the landmines of Twitter rumors and dramatic superstars to deliver their fans a long-awaited title.

Aiden Herrod is a senior studying film and media studies. Aiden can be reached at aiden.herrod@tufts.edu

12 Friday, February 25, 2022

SPORTS

tuftsdaily.com

Women’s basketball opens NESCAC tournament with win over Wesleyan

KIANA VALLO / THE TUFTS DAILY

Tufts Women’s basketball wins first quarterfinal game against Wesleyan on Feb. 20.

by Matt Chen Sports Editor

The Tufts women’s basketball team opened up NESCAC Championship play this past weekend with a hard-fought 58–55 quarterfinals win over Wesleyan.

Seeded No. 2 in the NESCAC Championship, the Jumbos were awarded a first round bye and

were matched up with the No. 7 seeded Cardinals as a result of Wesleyan’s 63–52 win over the No. 10 seed Hamilton two days prior in the first round of the conference tournament. In a game in which neither team led by more than six points, the Jumbos used a combination of strong defense and offensive intensity to grind out the win.

“Wesleyan’s a great team,” Head Coach Jill Pace said. “They have such great leadership and we knew they would come out firing … Those end game situations are great experiences for us, and we’ve been in a few this season. I think our experience there really shined in the game and just proud of our team for pulling it out.”

Current executive sports editor discusses sports culture and the Daily with former sports section heads

by Isaac Karp

Executive Sports Editor

Isaac Karp, the Daily’s executive sports editor sat down with several of his predecessors to discuss all things sports writing and Tufts’ sports culture.

Ananda Kao, the Daily’s executive sports editor for the fall 2021 semester, is a senior on the women’s lacrosse team. She also founded Morgan’s Message, a club focused on mental health in athletics, and is a part of the Athletes of Color Club.

Kao has written for the Daily since her sophomore year and has spent time as an assistant sports editor and sports editor before becoming the section’s executive editor.

Isaac Karp (IK): What originally brought you to the Daily?

Ananda Kao (AK): I was part of my high school newspaper, called The Phillipian. I also was a part of the sports section there. One of my friends got me into writing. I think also, probably my sophomore year in high school, I kind of climbed the ranks, like I did at the Daily, and was part of the managing board in the end … I saw joining the Daily as a kind of parallel to still being able to pursue this interest and passion of mine [while] being able to still pursue other things academically … I think at Tufts, it’s definitely

The visiting Cardinals got out to a scorching hot start shooting the ball, shooting 58.3% from the field overall and 50% from the 3-point line in the first quarter. However, it was the Jumbos that led after one 21–18, despite shooting 42.1% from the field in the first. Despite the Cardinals seemingly unable to miss, the Jumbos used strong ball movement and maintained confidence in their offense to take the lead.

“We had pretty good movement offensively,” Pace said. “I think we had some good looks, so it was just about staying confident knowing that they would fall and then just making some adjustments on defense.”

The second quarter provided more back-and-forth basketball with Tufts sophomore forward Maggie Russell opening the scoring with a jump shot assisted by senior guard and co-captain Molly Ryan. However, in what seemed to become a pattern throughout the game, Wesleyan answered right back with two threes from senior guard and co-captain Caleigh Ryan to take the lead 24–23. The two teams would proceed to spend the rest of the quarter trading baskets and playing strong defense, with Tufts taking a 33–31 lead into the locker room at the end of the second quarter.

While the first half featured plenty of offensive production

from both teams, the third quarter saw both Wesleyan and Tufts struggle to hit shots. Wesleyan shot only 16.7% from the field in the third quarter while Tufts shot 33.3% from the field but 14.3% from three. With strong defense on both ends once again, the game remained a nail-biter heading into the fourth quarter.

Pace attributed the team’s strong defense as a crucial element to keeping Wesleyan in check after the first quarter.

“They’re a really fast-paced team who shoots the ball really well, so I think we did a nice job slowing them down,” Pace said.

With neither team unable to pull away in the fourth quarter either, the Jumbos used a combination of efficient offense, strong defense and rebounding, and clutch free throw shootings to come out with the win. First-year guard Annika Decker split a pair of free throws with 20 seconds left to put Tufts up 56–53 before a layup from Wesleyan senior guard and co-captain Maddie Clark trimmed the lead back down to one. A pair of free throws from Russell extended the lead back to three before a 3-pointer from Ryan to tie the game missed at the buzzer, sending Wesleyan home and Tufts to the next round.

by Ethan Grubelich

us over the last two to three months.

Obviously, throughout the season, we’ve been doing a lot, but especially over our training trip in Florida, I feel like we’ve really stepped it up.”

This response echoed the sentiments of Tufts swimmers who swam at the Boston Open and similarly were competing for the first time since the team’s training trip in Florida.

Senior Victor Vollbrechthausen was another Tufts swimmer to set a new school record on Saturday.

In this case, it was in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:39.03.

On Friday, first-year Emmett Adams earned the second-best time in school history in the 50-yard breaststroke with a time of 25.44 seconds. In the 50-yard backstroke, senior Nate Tingen also earned the second-best time in school history, with a time of 22.40 seconds.

Tingen and Adams swam these strokes again as they joined Schreier and junior Peter LaBarge in a school record-setting 400 medley relay performance at 3:16.08.

OnThursday, day one of the meet, first-year Eric Lundgren, Schreier, Tingen and Vollbrechthausen com-

Men’s swimming and diving places second at 2022 NESCAC Championship meet Sports Editor

NICHOLAS PFOSI / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

Behind the scenes in The Tufts Daily office in the basement of Curtis Hall on Sept. 1, 2014, the night before the first fall issue. been a cool outlet or angle for me to be able to talk to different coaches and different players that maybe I’m friends with, or maybe I know through my team. Being able to speak with them and cover certain stories that I normally wouldn’t read or would see out there, just [by] being an athlete here.

IK: One thing I was thinking about was — especially for younger writers — when they interview athletes or interview coaches, I think they have a difficult time getting comfortable or feeling like they can be themselves. What would you recommend, for younger writ-

ers, on how to talk to athletes in interviews?

AK: As a writer [who is] interviewing someone, keep in mind and keep perspective that these athletes are just like you. Going into it in more of the mindset [that] this is a fellow classmate, rather than, “This is some big athlete,” because we’re all at Tufts, we’re Division III. The Tufts community is pretty small compared to other schools.

IK: Even though the Tufts community is small, it’s bigger than a lot of high schools, but a lot of see SPORTS WRITING, page 11

see PLAYOFF, page 11

The Tufts men’s swimming and diving team spent Presidents Day weekend at Colby College competing in the 2022 NESCAC Championship Meet. As a team, Tufts finished as runner-up at the meet with a score of 1,577.5 points — well behind meet winners Williams College at 2,086 points but well ahead of third-place finishers Amherst College at 1,069 points.

On Saturday, first-year Ethan Schreier and junior Joshua Balbi made the NCAA B-cut in the 100yard butterfly with times of 48.28 seconds and 49.09 seconds, respectively. Schreier’s time marked a new record in the 100-yard butterfly for the Tufts swimming and diving program and was the last of three school records that he broke over the course of the weekend.

When asked about what helped him succeed in this meet, Schreier said, “I had some good food the night before with everyone, and then [everybody on the team] was getting together, getting everybody hyped up. We were all super excited going into the meet. The coaches, I think, also did a great job preparing

see SWIM, page 11