The Tufts Daily - Monday, April 4, 2022

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T HE T UFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXXXIII, ISSUE 39

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

tuftsdaily.com

Monday, April 4, 2022

Senator Tim Scott talks criminal justice reform, education, Ukraine, Supreme Court in Tisch College event by Chloe Courtney Bohl Executive News Editor

United States Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) sat down with Dayna Cunningham, dean of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, for a wide-ranging conversation about criminal justice reform, education, internal and external threats to democracy and partisan divides in the latest installment of the Solomont Speaker Series on April 1. The event was co-sponsored by the Department of Political Science and the Tufts Republicans. Scott began his political career in local and state government before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010. When he joined the U.S. Senate in 2013, he made history as the first Black person to serve in both chambers of Congress and the first Black senator from South Carolina. He sits on the Senate Finance Committee; the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs;

and the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, and he is the ranking member on the Special Committee on Aging. Cunningham opened the conversation with a question about Scott’s Opportunity Agenda, a plan to create so-called “Opportunity Zones” across America by offering tax breaks to businesses that invest in rural communities with high poverty rates. Scott said the agenda was informed by his own upbringing in a poor, single-parent household in North Charleston, S.C. “It seemed like for me to find opportunities, I had to leave my community,” Scott said. “And that was always frustrating because some of the most talented individuals I’ve ever met lived in my neighborhoods.” Scott believes that private sector investment, not government spending, is key to creating jobs and increasing property values in impoverished communities without gentrifying them. “Where I lived we had plenty of government money coming in trying to be helpful … truth is

that it provided some assistance but not a lot,” Scott said. Building on the idea of opportunity, Cunningham shifted the conversation to education access and affordability in Scott’s home state of South Carolina. According to Cunnignham, the annual income of a single parent earning minimum wage there, which is $7.25 per hour in 2022, is approximately $14,000, while the cost of one year’s in-state tuition at the University of South Carolina, the state’s largest public university, is about $13,000. Cunningham asked Scott to justify this barrier to education for working-class, single-parent families. Scott argued that few single mothers in South Carolina make minimum wage and pointed to the state’s high rate of Pell Grant, merit- and need-based higher education scholarships. “South Carolina, for the first time, will make your first two years of community college free and those credits transfer to a see SCOTT, page 2

VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) is pictured.

Incoming SMFA dean Vendryes passes Erika Lee (A’91) to deliver Class of 2022 away unexpectedly commencement address by Chloe Courtney Bohl Executive News Editor

Margaret Rose Vendryes, the incoming dean of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts, has passed away unexpectedly, Dean of the School of

Arts and Sciences James Glaser shared in a March 31 email to the Tufts community. “​​Our community was anticipating her arrival with great excitement, and I was personally looking forward to working closely with her in the years

COURTESY MARGARET ROSE VENDRYES

Margaret Rose Vendryes is pictured.

to come,” Glaser wrote in the email. “While most of us only met her briefly, she made quite an impression and we are deeply saddened by this news.” Vendryes was an art historian, curator and professor. She chaired the Department of Performing and Fine Arts at York College at the City University of New York and published the definitive biography of the Black American sculptor Richmond Barthé titled “Barthé: A Life in Sculpture.” She was also a visual artist who celebrated Black women performers’ power and agency in “The African Diva Project,” a series of paintings and mixed media created over the span of 15 years. In an interview with TuftsNow earlier this year, Vendryes shared her hopes for advancing diversity, equity and inclusion at the SMFA. “I’m hoping that I can be the face of change,” she said in the interview. “As a Black, queer practicing artist, historian, and curator, I openly represent, and advocate for, these groups and professions.” see VENDRYES, page 2

by Aaron Gruen News Editor

Erika Lee (A’91), an a w a rd - w i n n i n g scholar of immigration and Asian American history, will deliver the commencement address to the Class of 2022 on May 22. Tufts announced on April 1 that Lee would deliver the address and receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree, along with five other distinguished individuals. “It is such an honor to be able to come back to campus as the 2022 commencement speaker!” Lee wrote in an email to the Daily. “I credit my experiences at Tufts – both inside and outside of the classroom – for making me the person I am today: a professor, writer, advocate, and engaged citizen.” Lee is the regents professor of history and Asian American studies at the University of Minnesota, where she also directs the Immigration

SPORTS /back

FEATURES / page 3

ARTS / page 4

Women’s lacrosse commemorates Madie Nicpon in memorial game

After a roughly two year break, Tufts junior publishes third book of poetry

Swashbuckling pirates start off on a good tack in “Our Flag Means Death”

History Research Center. Lee received her Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Berkeley after receiving her bachelor’s degree from Tufts. “Dr. Lee is one of our nation’s leading historians of immigration and the Asian American experience, and I look forward to welcoming her to campus to share her important message for our graduating students,” University President Anthony Monaco wrote in an April 1 email to the Tufts community. Lee’s main areas of study include xenophobia, immigration and racism in the United States. Lee has authored four books on Asian American history. Her 2019 book “America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States,” won an American Book Award and the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. Lee is president-elect of the Organization of American see COMMENCEMENT, page 2 NEWS

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