NEWS

THE TUFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXXXIII, ISSUE 46 MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

Friday, april 15, 2022

tuftsdaily.com

MICHAEL WU / THE TUFTS DAILY

University seeks to control enrollment, admits fewer students this year ‘Bo Days return for the Class of 2026

ELIN SHIH / THE TUFTS DAILY

The statue of Jumbo, located in front of Barnum Hall, is pictured on April 10.

by Ethan Steinberg

News Editor

Jana Dia has never been to the United States before, but she knows she wants one of her first stops to be Medford, Mass.

This rising first-year hails from a city in eastern Paraguay that borders Argentina and Brazil. She knows four languages — she hopes to learn a fifth at Tufts — and come September, she’ll be one of just two students from her graduating class attending college in the U.S.

“When I was researching Tufts, of course I wanted to look into the clubs and organizations that make you feel at home and that give me a sense of belonging,” Dia said. “And since I’m someone from a multicultural background, I found all the clubs and all the organizations that do make me feel like I’ve landed at home at Tufts.”

Dia, who applied through the federal program EducationUSA, is one of less than 3,200 students who were offered admission to the Class of 2026 out of more than 34,880 applicants. Applications this year increased by 12%, and the acceptance rate dropped to a record-low 9%.

“The students we have admitted this year are very impressive — both for their accomplishments, and for their aspirations,” Dean of Admissions JT Duck wrote in an email to the Daily. “This is a very civically engaged class. Through their community engagements and activities, and through the essays that they wrote, our admitted students showed a strong interest in bringing their voices and energy into conversations about how institutions and societies govern themselves.”

Civic engagement is one of Tufts’ core values, one that’s embodied by the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life. And it’s a message that resonated with at least one rising first-year.

Luca O’Neil, of Weston, Conn., said he was drawn to Tufts after a pair of students approached his tour group last summer seeking signatures in support of Tufts Dining workers. At the time, activists were rallying for workers to continue receiving pay from the university after many were not offered work at Tufts over the summer.

“Nowhere else is the student body so engaged,” O’Neil said in an interview.

The Connecticut native said he plans to study chemistry and join student activist groups. An enthusiast of the “Pitch Perfect” (2012) group The Barden Bellas, O’Neil said he’s also looking forward to attending a cappella concerts on campus.

see ADMISSIONS, page 2

by Claire Ferris

Assistant News Editor

For the first time in three years, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions will welcome thousands of high school seniors to campus this month for a batch of rebranded Jumbo Days — known as ‘Bo Days — in hopes of offering members of the admitted class a glimpse into life at Tufts. In-person events, divided across six days, will supplement a month-long supply of virtual programming for admitted students, a remnant of the pandemic.

During in-person ‘Bo Days, prospective students can expect tours, student and faculty panels and lunch catered by Tufts Dining, according to Paz Pitarque, senior assistant director of undergraduate admissions.

“For ‘Bo Days, we will offer a half-day full of meeting some current students whether that is tour guides, our Admission Fellows, and students representing DSDI centers,” Pitarque wrote in an email to the Daily.

Welcoming prospective students to campus requires more planning during the pandemic, Pitarque noted. Tufts has restricted the scope of ‘Bo Days, compared to pre-pandemic Jumbo Days.

“A big difference will be the number of people we are able to welcome to campus,” Pitarque wrote. “We want to be mindful of the number of people we welcome on cam-

see 'BO DAYS, page 3 New hybrid public safety model to supplement armed police with unarmed security officers

by Madeline Wilson

Assistant News Editor

Tufts will transition to a “hybrid” model of arming its university police department based on the recommendations of the Working Group on TUPD Arming, according to a March 29 message to the Tufts community from Executive Vice President and WGTA Chair Mike Howard. The working group recommended that authorities transition to a hybrid model of arming that specializes the response to the nature of the call.

According to the group’s final report, the hybrid model will be coupled with a new “differential response” system. The Department of Public Safety will employ both armed officers and unarmed security professionals, and choose which to deploy depending on the particular public safety situation. Armed, uniformed officers will continue to respond to criminal complaints and “potentially dangerous situations,” while unarmed campus security officers will respond to “most routine calls for service,” such as lockouts and most wellness and alarm checks.

The report disclosed that TUPD currently employs just one community service officer on the Medford/Somerville

see TUPD, page 3

FEATURES / page 4 Students discuss their gap year experiences

ARTS / page 8 EDITORIAL / page 11

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ARTS & POP CULTURE 8 FUN & GAMES 10 OPINION 11 SPORTS BACK

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New TUSM center to harness power of community, combat maternal health inequities

by Aaron Gruen

News Editor

Tufts announced on April 8 that it will open a new Center for Black Maternal Health and Reproductive Justice (CBMHRJ) within the School of Medicine. Dr. Ndidiamaka AmutahOnukagha, the Julia A. Okoro professor of Black Maternal Health at the Tufts University School of Medicine, will direct the center.

The center aims to address systemic inequities in Black maternal health outcomes through research, advocacy and training. Black women in the United States are currently three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. Structural racism and implicit bias on the part of health care providers contribute to this disparity. In an interview with the Daily, AmutahOnukagha stressed the urgency of the center’s work.

“We are fighting for Black lives,” she said. “There has to be an air of justice and an air of timeliness and priority.”

Before founding the CBMHRJ, Amutah-Onukagha launched the Maternal Outcomes for Translational Health Equity Research (MOTHER) Lab, a research, mentorship and advocacy center which addresses inequities facing Black women who give birth, in July 2020. Amutah-Onukagha is also the assistant dean of diversity and inclusion for the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at TUSM and worked with colleagues Anthony Schlaff and Fernando Ona to develop an anti-racism curriculum for TUSM students.

Amutah-Onukagha told the Daily that her immediate priorities for the center include putting together a team of clinicians, researchers, faculty affiliates, medical students and community members, all of whom will be essential to the center’s success.

To begin, Amutah-Onukagha is focused on assembling a team of specialists from various community health and medical backgrounds.

“We’re going to be recruiting from my department, [from] Tufts Medicine, people that have an interest and commitment to Black maternal health or maternal health inequities,” AmutahOnukagha said. “That looks like engaging with researchers, epidemiologists, nurses, clinicians, OBs. … Once we get those major players in house, then we’ll figure out [the] affiliated faculty and affiliated people that need to be at the table.”

She added that she hopes to “build a pipeline for doctoral students, for postdocs, for masters students [and] for clinician students” between the School of Medicine and the new center.

Once the CBMHRJ is up and running, its programming will focus on reproductive justice and anti-racism in medical education and medical practice.

“Everything we do has to have a lens of justice,” AmutahOnukagha said.

The center will also offer doula training led by Black doulas.

“Doulas are a part of the public health and professional workforce that can help disrupt these [mortality] rates,” Amutah-Onukagha said.

Amutah-Onukagha emphasized that the center is a national-scale project and will need to be funded accordingly.

“I need $10 million for me to be able to fund the center, to fund my faculty leads, for me to be able to stipend my students, for me to be able to get the full time staff I need,” Amutah-Onukagha said. “This is a national coordinating center, so I need resources.”

In the future, AmutahOnukagha plans to open a physical space for the center in Boston where students, researchers and specialists can collaborate.

“It would be incredible for us to be able to actualize and cement this dream in a way that is building a sustainable legacy for students,” AmutahOnukagha said.

Amutah-Onukagha also emphasized that community interaction will play a key role in the center’s work.

“A physical building for the [CBMHRJ] is not for me — it’s for the community,” AmutahOnukagha said. “Community members should be able to come here and grapple and talk and celebrate and strategize around how to reduce these inequities in their communities.”

The center will be the first of its kind in the country, and Amutah-Onukagha hopes it can serve as a blueprint for future institutions.

“I think this could be a national model because what we’re doing here is really unique,” Amutah-Onukagha said. “I want to highlight … community-engaged research, policy and mentorship of student development.”

Laura Baecher-Lind, dean of educational affairs at the School of Medicine and a practicing obstetrician and gynecologist at Tufts Medical Center, said that the center “is very exciting because it first recognizes the disparities that Black women face in obstetrics as far as increased morbidity and mortality … and helps us to work towards mitigating those risks and improving the health care that we deliver to our patients.”

Baecher-Lind noted that, since well-intentioned interventions can sometimes cause harm, the center will be instrumental in creating effective treatment measures.

“We want to be thoughtful in any interventions that we develop and implement to reduce the rates of disparities in obstetrics,” Baecher-Lind said. “That’s what the center will help us afford — doing this [research] in a strategic and evidence-based manner.”

Amutah-Onukagha announced the creation of the CBMHRJ on April 8 at the fifth annual Black Maternal Health Conference, which she founded and organized. Judith Jeanty, the conference coordinator, said that over 1,800 people registered to attend the conference.

“We had amazing physicians, pediatricians … just amazing speakers in their field who really were highlighting the policy needs for Black maternal health,” Jeanty said. “This is the crux. We need policy to make effective changes for women and mothers.”

Among the speakers at the conference were Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under the Biden administration. During the conference, AmutahOnukagha’s work was recognized and congratulated by the City of Boston.

KATRINA AQUILINO / THE TUFTS DAILY Tufts Medical Center is pictured in Chinatown, Boston, on Feb. 5.

Admitted students reflect on college decision process

ADMISSIONS

continued from page 1

When asked if he plans on joining one of the groups, O’Neil responded, “No, oh God, no. I’m not a good singer.”

O’Neil is part of the class of students entering college this fall that mostly began touring and applying to colleges well after the pandemic was underway. Piled on top of the anxiety that college admissions is known to produce, in-person tours — muted by the pandemic — didn’t always provide what O’Neil envisioned to be an authentic glimpse into what life in college was really like.

O’Neil said he felt a disconnect between himself and the students he saw on some of the campuses he toured, in part because of mask mandates and the way that the pandemic was affecting campus life.

“On tours,” he said, “It was so ever-present that [COVID-19] was there, and the people were not the same.”

Nonetheless, O’Neil was able to come to campus for a tour, and since his admission, he has spent time connecting with his future classmates on Instagram.

One incoming student spent a greater percentage than many of his peers on Zoom for his secondary school years. Julian Kelly is a high school junior from an island located three miles off the coast of Maine, where the population is just under 600 and where the only access point to the coastal United States is via ferry.

Kelly will graduate in June and begin studying at Tufts in the fall — a year earlier than he expected. He’ll be one of 13 students to graduate this year from his K–12 school, which has less than 40 students in grades 9–12, according to Kelly.

Duck explained that as applications have swelled, the admissions office has relied increasingly on its “committee-based evaluation process of reviewing applications.”

“This reading process relies on small committees of application readers discussing each application and deciding together whether that application continues moving forward in our iterative process,” Duck wrote. “This process leans into committee dialogue, and our belief is that multiple readers working together make better decisions than one reader alone.”

The university offered fewer students admission this year than in recent years, after enrollment for the Class of 2025 exceeded expectations and left about 100 first-years housed in a Hyatt hotel off campus.

As the university continues to expand the size of the undergraduate student body, officials announced last week their plans to install temporary residence halls on the Vouté Tennis Courts, where modular units have housed COVID-19-positive students over the past two academic years. Approximately 150 first-years will live in the new housing units next fall, which will continue to house students for the next five years, Dean of Student Affairs Camille Lizarríbar confirmed in a campus-wide email.

But most of all, O’Neil said he is excited for “something new, being somewhere that I can be myself and meet new people and have new experiences.”

QUIRN TRAN / THE TUFTS DAILY

Miller Hall is pictured on April 13.

'BO DAYS

continued from page 1 pus and for capacity reasons, we expect about 300 guests each ‘Bo Day. We will also be doing lunch and registration outdoors.”

She also noted that, this year, prospective students won’t be allowed to stay in residence halls overnight, a hallmark experience of the admitted students’ days that represents yet another casualty of the pandemic.

In accordance with university health guidelines, campus visitors will be required to show proof of vaccination and wear disposable 3-ply or KN95 masks indoors.

Haitong Du, a tour guide, said prospective students are permitted inside buildings on campus, excluding residence halls. Du, a senior, added that tours on ‘Bo Days will focus more on the guides’ individual Tufts experiences rather than the school as a whole.

Pitarque said this year’s virtual Jumbo Month content will remain similar to last year’s, complete with mock classes and social events.

“We have many current student volunteers signed up on our Tufts Admitted Student Network (TASN) platform and they are opening discussions with students, serving as resources when students ask questions like ‘What is the closest grocery store to campus?’, and connecting with admitted students who may be interested in certain student organizations,” Pitarque wrote.

Pitarque added that virtual events are key to enabling all prospective students to learn about Tufts in an accessible manner, since coming to campus for ‘Bo Days may not be financially feasible for some.

“We typically ask any student that may need some type of assistance coming to campus, to contact our office directly,” Pitarque wrote. “However, like last year, a lot of our efforts are focused on Jumbo Month where we aim to make Tufts as accessible as possible to all admitted students.”

However, virtual admissions events cannot fully replicate the experience of physically visiting campus, according to Du and Aarav Gupta, an incoming first-year.

“Although I’ve never attended any previous in-person admitted student days as a tour guide, I could guess that prolonged in-person exchanges were much more comfortable and effective,” Du wrote. “Many admitted students make the final decision as they visit and ‘experience’ the campus in-person, so I very much look forward to … ‘Bo Days this year.”

Gupta said he applied to Tufts through the Early Decision II program in January.

“I would’ve wanted to do more in-person tours, because I’m sure that helps you get a better feel for the school, but I only did one, which happened to be Tufts,” Gupta told the Daily.

Gupta explained that being able to meet other incoming first-years and prospective Tufts students in person and on campus is very important to him, even as a committed student.

“I’ve gotten to know people [through social media], but it’s not the same once you really meet them in person and get to know them that way,” Gupta said. “That’s why I kind of pushed to go for this [‘Bo] day.”

Gupta added that, after realizing that the opportunity to come to campus and connect with prospective first-years was not available the previous two years, he thinks it’s valuable to meet his peers in advance.

The most important thing for Pitarque and the admissions team as they designed ‘Bo Days was finding the balance between hosting exciting events for admitted students and maintaining a COVID-19safe environment for the rest of the community on campus.

“A lot of our planning has taken into consideration things like room capacities, vaccination requirements, striking the right balance of outdoor/indoor activities with our guests,” Pitarque wrote. “We are hopeful that though our events are smaller this year, students can get a better understanding of the Tufts community whether it is through ‘Bo Days or Jumbo Month — or both!”

Working group recommends new TUPD arming model based on community feedback

continued from page 1 campus and plans to hire more as it adapts to the new policing model. Across all of its campuses, Tufts currently employs nearly 50 armed officers.

The Working Group on TUPD Arming was formed last year as an offshoot of the Working Group on Campus Safety and Policing, which in turn was conceived as part of the Tufts as an Anti-Racist Institution Initiative. The goal of the WGTA was to examine more closely the issue of arming TUPD officers, using community-based data to determine what kind of structural changes might be necessary.

“This vision called for a renewed and broader understanding of campus safety that encompassed the physical, psychological, and emotional well-being of our entire community,” the report says.

The working group was composed of representatives from across Tufts’ campuses, including faculty, students, staff, administrators, one police officer and Executive Director of Public Safety Yolanda Smith. Through campus forums, focus groups, a community survey on arming and an analysis of over 150,000 calls for service, the group concluded that transitioning to a differential response would be the best course of action.

“One theme that we heard consistently throughout our discussions with community members is support for flexibility in response, greater reliance on mental health resources, and low preference for greater involvement of municipal police,” Howard wrote in an email to the Daily. “Many of those who participated in our surveys and discussions indicated that they were interested in differential response, which allows for public safety responses to vary depending on the nature of the call, the campus, and other factors.”

According to the report, most of the community members surveyed said they would support a departure from TUPD’s current operational model, which keeps all officers armed. The data collected by the working group also showed that “less than half of the Tufts community currently feel that an armed TUPD makes the Tufts community more physically safe.” Support for an armed TUPD was reported to be lowest among undergraduates.

“One of the results of this approach will be fewer interactions between community members and armed officers, supporting the psychological and emotional well-being of our community and reducing potential trauma,” Howard wrote.

Smith emphasized that the transition to a differential response model represents just one step the university is taking to re-envision campus safety. Tufts has also hired a crisis intervention and threat assessment manager to manage some of the mental health components of public safety and made other structural changes to the system.

“We’re expanding the training that TUPD officers receive on issues related to mental health,” Smith wrote in an email to the Daily. “And we’ve introduced the option of contacting the counselor on call directly after hours by calling the number for Counseling and Mental Health Services without having to call dispatch.”

According to the report, officers will be required to complete a “specialized police curriculum” training that aims to decrease the risk of serious physical or psychological harm that may occur during an interaction between police officers and people with mental illness.

Groups like the Student Prison Education and Abolition Coalition have been pushing for the restructuring of TUPD for years.

“SPEAC works on investigating and trying to dismantle the ways that the carceral state manifests itself at Tufts,” Olivia Barker, a member of the Student Prison Education and Abolition Coalition, said. “Currently, our goal is to disarm the TUPD, but our overall goal is the abolition of the TUPD.”

According to the report, the working group decided that disarmament would not be an effective solution to community concerns because it would lead to an increased reliance on municipal police as the primary responders to many service calls.

“In these situations where municipal police would be primary responders, the university would give up control and decision-making authority,” the working group’s report said. “As a result, this model would subject Tufts community members to the policies and procedures of the municipal police as well as their respective protocols around detainment and arrest.”

Barker noted that while the transition to a hybrid model is a step in the right direction, it may not be enough for Tufts to maintain a safe and healthy anti-racist institution.

“It shows that the administration is thinking about disarmament, and they’re considering it,” Barker, a sophomore, said. “But this differential model is really an increasing of policing. They’re hiring campus safety officers, but they’re going to retain … the nearly 50 armed officers that they already have. So although it’s a step to be thinking about it, it is not towards abolition or justice.”

KIANA VALLO / THE TUFTS DAILY

A TUPD car is parked in the basement of Dowling Hall.