The Tufts Daily - Monday, October 19, 2020

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Monday, October 19, 2020

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Faculty Senate condemns administration’s handling of dental school furloughs, lack of transparency

VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The Tufts University School of Dental Medicine is pictured.

by Matthew McGovern News Editor

After the Faculty Senate issued a resolution on Sept. 30 condemning Tufts’ lack of communication and transparency in its decision to lay off employees and reduce salaries at the Tufts University School of Dental Medicine (TUSDM), universi-

ty officials responded in an Oct. 13 statement that the decision was not within the scope of the Faculty Senate.

The Senate, which includes members from all schools within the university, expressed outrage and concern in its resolution and stated that Tufts’ actions severely damaged trust between faculty and administration.

Fletcher hosts annual conference discussing role of feminism in foreign policy

by Chloe Courtney Bohl Contributing Writer

The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy’s sixth annual Conference on Gender and International Affairs hosted a virtual panel titled Feminist Foreign Policy on Oct. 14. In this second installment of the conference’s fall webinar series, panelists Jamille Bigio, Dr. Toni Haastrup and Judicaelle Irakoze discussed how feminist foreign policy is constructed and implemented.

Stephanie Foster, co-founder and partner at Smash Strategies, moderated the event. She opened the discussion by asking the panelists about how they formulate feminist foreign policy.

“Women’s rights is a very necessary, but an insufficient condition for feminist foreign policy,” Haastrup, a senior lecturer

in international politics at the University of Stirling in Scotland, said. “Feminist foreign policy must be emancipatory — it must be intersectional.”

Judicaelle Irakoze, founder and executive director of the organization Choose Yourself, spoke about the importance of viewing feminism outside of gender. “[I want to] think of feminism as a tool that allows us to critically analyze even outside of gender … other issues that may appear separate … by collective, like race, classism and power imbalance,” Irakoze said.

Foster then asked each panelist what feminist foreign policy looks like in practice.

Jamille Bigio, a senior fellow in the Women and Foreign Policy program at the Council on Foreign see FLETCHER, page 2

The resolution cited a July 22 meeting, where Executive Vice President Mike Howard and Vice President for Finance and Treasurer James Hurley presented a report to the Senate on the finances of the university. At the meeting, the Senate asserted that Hurley and Howard did not make clear that major furloughs and budget cuts were on the horizon.

Lynne Pepall, president of the Faculty Senate, said that no one expected any particular school to be harshly affected, and acknowledged the dental school’s difficult financial situation.

“I don’t think anyone left that meeting thinking that any particular school was in trouble,” Pepall said. “Having said that, the dental school relies significantly

on clinical revenue, and that literally just dropped off a cliff.”

Roger Galburt, a TUSDM professor who was furloughed in September, echoed Pepall’s statements.

“In all meetings with senior administrators on both the university and school level, the necessity for this level of action being implemented shortly was not emphasized,” Galburt wrote in an email to the Daily. “Lay-offs and other status changes were referred to as something for later stages of financial correction.”

Galburt, who taught at TUSDM for over 40 years, also took issue with how the school communicated these furloughs to faculty.

“Decisions, some of which ended careers, were communicated individually to those affected directly in very brief conversations, which had been scheduled the previous day,” Galburt said. “After teaching for over 40 years, one day, in a 10-minute Zoom I was told my position was eliminated.”

He also compared how TUSDM faculty members’ achievements are regarded by the school in comparison to their private practices. see DENTAL, page 2

Headlines from off the Hill Amy Coney Barrett is questioned by the Senate Judiciary Committee President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, endured almost 20 hours of questioning from the Senate Judiciary Committee over two days last week.

Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham announced that her confirmation by the panel is not certain, but incredibly likely. The panel is set to vote on her confirmation on Oct. 22, when senators are expected to vote along party lines to confirm her.

During the hearings, Barrett refused to comment on how she would rule on controversial topics, including climate change, voting rights and health care. She primarily discussed her originalist approach to law, similar to that of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Throughout the hearing, Barrett remained calm and measured, much to the frustration of Democratic senators who were unable to get her to comment on the more contentious issues.

Early voting causes problems across the country Early voting fiascos are plaguing the country this week. The California Republican Party has been setting up unofficial ballot drop boxes in at least four different counties across the state. The state issued a cease-and-desist order over the boxes with which the party has said it will not comply and contends that they are legally ballot harvesting. Virginia’s voter registration website crashed on Tuesday, which was the last day to register to vote in the state.

The website remained down for more than five and a half hours.

Several Virginia government officials have called for the deadline to be extended. Citizens across the country have also reported hours-long waits for early voting, which some say point to continued efforts to construct barriers to voting. For example, in Georgia, many residents reported waiting more than eight hours to cast their ballots after the state closed several of its polling locations. In predominantly white areas, the average wait time to vote was six minutes, while in

EDITORIAL / page 7

FEATURES / page 3

SPORTS / back

Reassessing spring break is vital to community wellness

Alumnus discusses importance of global journalism in 21st century

Tufts cricket fans find Spotify podcast success

predominantly minority regions, the average wait time reached 51 minutes.

Major COVID-19 vaccine trial paused after a volunteer’s ‘unexplained illness’ Johnson & Johnson announced Monday that the company was pausing its COVID-19 vaccine trial following a volunteer’s “unexplained illness.” Last month, the company began phase three of trials. Although Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine development process was far behind multiple companies, the prototype had several advantages over the others. Additionally, this trial would have been the largest; it aimed to test 60,000 volunteers. There is a chance the trial will resume if the illness is not deemed to be a significant safety risk. The company did not announce whether the sick participant received a placebo or experimental vaccine.

Johnson & Johnson is not the first major company to halt its trial — AstraZeneca paused its COVID-19 vaccine efforts after two participants became ill after being vaccinated.

— Jilly Rolnick NEWS

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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Monday, October 19, 2020

THE TUFTS DAILY Alex Viveros Editor in Chief

EDITORIAL

Faculty Senate members say layoffs, abrupt changes were unexpected DENTAL

Rebecca Barker Hannah Harris

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“In [their] practices [dentists] are leaders equivalent to a CEO, President, or Chairman at the University,” Galburt said.

“When they come to the school, this is often not recognized or respected.“ Pepall, who is also a professor of economics and chair of the Department of Community Health, spoke to how the TUDSM treats its faculty.

“Faculty don’t like to think that we are run like a corporation. We like to think that we’re a different kind of organization,” Pepall said. “So I think it bothers faculty to see us treated as though we are like employees that are here today, gone tomorrow.”

The Faculty Senate resolution indicates that the personnel decisions at TUSDM are of intrinsic concern to the Senate, and outlines steps the university can take to increase transparency and to rebuild trust.

In the Oct. 13 statement, Howard and Senior Vice President and Provost Nadine Aubry expressed appreciation for the Senate resolution and input, but challenged the notion that the personnel decisions were within the scope of the Senate’s authority.

“Respectfully, we disagree that school-specific personnel decisions are intrinsically for the Senate to approve or veto.

The TUSDM bylaws similarly do not establish any required process for such input,” the statement said.

The statement went on to defend how the university conducted the personnel decisions and invoked the autonomy of individual schools as justification for the decision-making process.

“We believe a dean’s decision to make difficult personnel choices is at the heart of such autonomy,” the statement said.

“Dean Karimbux led this initiative and he did so with care and diligence.”

The statement also asserted that Karimbux acted with adequate transparency given the circumstances, and that his decisions were in line with the university’s critical diversity, equity and inclusion principles.

Galburt asserted that the university could have acted in a more transparent and humanistic manner.

“The faculty has no idea as to who was laid-off or had other adjustments to their employment,” Galburt said.

Pepall also addressed the idea of autonomy within individual schools, which was addressed in both the Faculty Senate’s resolution and in the university’s response.

“TUSDM and the communications between the administration and the Senate are of university-wide concern and cannot be shielded from scrutiny by the invocation of school autonomy,” she said.

Galburt provided his own perspective on the impact of the dental school furloughs.

“It felt as if a close friend had suddenly died,” Galburt said. “I was shown the door without an explanation or a goodbye.”

Panelists speak about United States' difficulty to address, secure women's rights

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Jamille Bigio, Judicaelle Irakoze, Toni Haastrup and Stephanie Foster are pictured during the Conference on Gender and International Affairs hosted

by The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy on Oct. 14.

FLETCHER

continued from page 1 Relations, observed a disconnect between many countries’ outward embrace of feminist initiatives and their failure to implement substantive policies. Despite compelling data on the positive effects of increased gender equality on economic growth, the strengthening of democracy, improved community health and more, she noted that institutions continue to dismiss this notion.

“If [institutions] truly unlocked the potential of half the population as partners and allies in that work … [they] would see different results,” Bigio said.

Irakoze identified another dimension of the international community’s failure to adequately address issues of gender equality.

“Women and girls come in different layers,” she said. “The needs and the struggles of women in a refugee camp are very different [from] the needs …and everyday struggles of women in a capital city.”

She argued that given the spectrum of challenges faced by women in different circumstances globally, the solutions should be just as specific and diverse in order to attain a feminist foreign policy.

Foster also asked whether the United States, the European Union or the African Union will ever adopt a feminist foreign policy.

The speakers described several barriers to the implementation of a true feminist foreign policy, including the divisiveness of the term “feminist,” the complexity of multinational structures like the European and African Unions and the presence of conflicting policy

goals that preclude countries from embracing certain policies.

Bigio cited a Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security study to demonstrate that the United States has failed to achieve women’s rights domestically. “[The study] found that maternal mortality rates in Louisiana are as high as they are in Libya; that in West Virginia, [women make up] the same percentage of state legislatures [as in] Burkina Faso,” she said.

These statistics would reduce the United States’ credibility even if it did choose to champion feminist policies on the world stage, according to Bigio.

Haastrup spoke about the current climate surrounding feminist foreign policy.

“It would be remiss not to mention the fact that we are currently

living in the midst of a massive anti-gender backlash,” she said.

Finally, the panelists addressed the common characterization of feminist foreign policy as being overly radical. Irakoze rejected this criticism and advocated for increased pressure on institutions of authority.

“I think we should push for more, because we deserve a world full of peace and security for women and girls,” she said.

This determination to continually push for progress, despite systemic injustices and structural barriers, was echoed throughout the seminar.

The Fletcher School’s Conference on Gender in International Affairs will host two more virtual seminars this fall: Bodies of Resistance on Nov. 18 and The Politics of Appearance on Dec. 9.

tuftsdaily.com

Features

3 Monday, October 19, 2020

Alumni Interview: Jonathan Wood Rosen, freelance writer

by Ari Navetta

Contributing Writer

Freelance journalist Jonathan Wood Rosen (LA’04) was inspired to pursue a career in global journalism after taking Martin Sherwin’s course Rewriting America.

“The task was to produce a magazine that was centered around different periods in American history,” Rosen said.

“I had one about the Great Depression, one about the Los Angeles riots in the early ’90s after the beating of Rodney King … so that had got me thinking more about the possibilities of journalism.”

Now, Rosen is introducing a new generation of Tufts students to journalism with his Experimental College course, Behind the Reporter’s Notebook: The Practice of Global Journalism in the 21st Century.

To Rosen, global journalism provides a journalist with significant creative freedom: the ability to write anywhere in the world, for any audience and in whatever style fits the story best.

“From the perspective of the class, I break [global journalism] down into two branches,” Rosen said. “There’s what we think of as foreign correspondents, so in our case, reporters from one country, in another country, writing for their home audience, typically, versus more local global journalism, which is looking at how the domestic media in a given country operates. We try to hit both in the class.”

The course is not meant to teach students how to be foreign correspondents, but there is an element of learning the skills of working internationally as a journalist.

“It’s not a how-to course per se, but I do hope to convey some sort of practical element that might not be there in a more traditional academic course,” he said.

Rosen hopes students will gain firsthand experience with the work of a foreign correspondent

Lena Leavitt Little Bit of History Repeating

Salmon sushi

S

almon sushi did not exist before the 1990s, and no one told me. I had taken its “authenticity” (whatever that means) as a Japanese dish for granted, when really we have Norway’s ridiculous persistence to thank for its creation.

In the 1970s, Norwegian farmers became too successful in raising commercial salmon. By the 1980s, they had started filling industrial freezers with the fish.

Desperate, the government hired a man named Bjorn Eirik Olsen to find a place to export them.

so they have a deeper understanding of a career as a global journalist, as well as become more appreciative consumers of global news.

“I’m hoping that through my experience, and all the readings and films we watch, [I] can convey to them just how that news is gathered and what sort of decisions go into producing that news, and figuring out who should be reporting it and what should be covered,” he said.

Rosen’s interest in journalism and global correspondence began while studying abroad in Talloires the summer before his senior year.

“Before that, I hadn’t really spent much time outside of North America at all. That really piqued my interest in travel, and I would say in international affairs more broadly,” Rosen said.

However, it was not his enjoyable time in Talloires, exactly, that brought about this global interest. His experience there made him aware of resource and wealth disparities internationally, bringing Rosen’s attention to lower-income countries.

After Rosen graduated from Tufts, he went to Kenya to teach English at a high school. He was unsure of what he wanted to do after college, but he wanted a taste of what life was like in a different place. While there, he started writing again.

“I had a few articles published about my experience,” he said.

“That really piqued my interest in later going back as a proper journalist, which I ended up doing a few years later.”

Rosen’s first official journalism position came while completing graduate school at Johns Hopkins University. Hired as an editor for a travel magazine in Zanzibar, he gained experience writing for an audience outside of the United States, and with a form of journalism outside of his comfort zone.

“I don’t like doing a travel piece just for the sake of writing about a place from a trav-

el perspective. I like using an adventure as a window into the politics and culture and history of a place,” he said. “The point is to use the narrative of the travel to get something larger.”

By this point, Rosen’s interest in Africa was solidified.

“You can be in one place and be in the contemporary world if you’re in an affluent neighborhood of a capital city, but also step back in time, a couple hundred years, if you go out into a village somewhere, and I am drawn to that dichotomy,” he said. “Going there once, I got drawn back, and so in some ways, it’s the inertia that’s kept me there.”

With a few years’ experience under his belt, the possibilities were endless, and the stories became evermore interesting. An editor at National Geographic provided Rosen with his first opportunity in investigative journalism, getting to the bottom of a dramatic series of events in Rwanda.

“In the Eastern Congo, there was a shooting on the edges of Virunga National Park. The head warden of the park was shot — he survived — but it was in the context of oil exploration happening there,” Rosen said.

This warden had been playing a critical role trying to stop oil exploration in the area, which had possible links to corruption among local government officials.

“Trying to figure out who to talk to and how to convey what the potential [of ] drilling for oil could mean for this park in this region, incredibly rich in biodiversity, and what it would mean for local people … is certainly the most memorable reporting experience of mine because it’s just like a week full of adrenaline,” Rosen said.

As a freelance journalist, Rosen does not feel limited to any one news organization or type of journalistic writing. Even stories that may be outside a global journalist’s area of exper-

Because of overfishing, overpopulation and rising incomes, Japan was willing to pay five times the usual price for sushi grade fish, making the country the perfect market. Olsen met with Japanese fish industry executives and unveiled his exciting new proposal: salmon sushi!

The executives were not impressed. In an NPR interview, Olsen recalls their saying, “It’s impossible … It doesn’t taste good … The color is wrong also; it should be redder. It has a smell. And … the head has the wrong shape.”

People in Japan thought raw salmon was not only disgusting, but a health risk. Pacific salmon, unlike Atlantic salmon, contained parasites. Japanese chefs always cooked it. To someone living near the Pacific Ocean,

being told to eat a raw slab of salmon was like being told to eat a raw piece of pork. Japanese fishermen thought that Olsen was crazy.

But that didn’t stop Olsen. In 1986, Norway launched “Project Japan,” an initiative devoted entirely to promoting raw salmon in Japan. Olsen became responsible for market research.

He was going to make salmon sushi a thing if it killed him. The question was, how? He couldn’t exactly market Norway’s raw salmon as “not poisonous.”

So Olsen made advertisements displaying Norway’s clear waters. Those did not work.

Project Japan then developed ads targeting importers, distributors, market chains, restaurants and consumers. They even had the Norwegian ambassador

COURTESY JONATHAN WOOD ROSEN

Jonathan Wood Rosen is pictured. tise are attainable, so long as the journalist maintains an open mind, willingness to learn and endless curiosity, as Rosen does.

“I occasionally do some science writing too, and I don’t have much of a science background, but I found that as long as you’re curious and don’t mind delving into the details of a subject that you might be a little bit uncomfortable with, it’s still possible to do a good story, because in the end you’re writing for a general audience,” he said.

One story Rosen wrote was about a project in Rwanda to generate electricity from methane gas that was dissolved in a lake. The process was different from Rosen’s usual style, but it pushed him to explore something new.

“That entailed talking to a lot of scientists, chemists, water experts and engineers and was far from my typical beat, but as long as you have the curiosity and the flexibility, it’s possible to really write about anything,” he said.

In another extension of his varied interests, last year Rosen decided to try teach-

ing an ExCollege course at Tufts, Behind the Reporter’s Notebook, which was an idea that had been in the back of his mind since taking ExCollege classes himself. Teaching at Tufts also brought Rosen full circle, since his career as a journalist ultimately started while working as a teacher in Kenya.

This is a tough time for a new visiting lecturer, as COVID19 guidelines have completely upended the way courses are structured and taught, a difficult transition for anyone to make no matter how much experience they have. Yet Rosen is taking it all in stride, simply another adventure to embark on.

At the end of the day, there is one lesson Rosen would like to instill in his students — and the world as a whole — above all else.

“One thing I would try to get people thinking about is an appreciation for the process that went into gathering the information in the story and thinking about how this reporter got access to certain people, what people are cited or quoted in the piece — and which people are not,” he said.

to Japan serve salmon to guests, and they organized a promotional visit by the Norwegian Crown Prince and Princess.

Nothing worked.

After a decade of rejection, Olsen faced pressure to give up on his salmon sushi dream.

He couldn’t. He figured he just needed to make one big sale.

Olsen contacted Nishi Rei, a popular frozen food brand that sold dumplings, chicken nuggets and squid. Olsen offered them 5,000 tons of raw salmon for cheap if they would sell it as sushi and just give it a chance.

Nishi Rei said yes.

“It was a day of happiness … there was a feeling of making history,” Olsen said.

Once Nishi Rei sold raw salmon, it seemed more normal to eat it. One Tokyo resident, Tadashi

Ono, remembers trying it in the ’90s: “Yeah, at first time I said, eh, but, you know, second time, maybe, third time, OK, you know? … It’s actually buttery. It’s creamy, melt-in-your-mouth. You know, it’s very soft meat.”

Now, restaurants all over Japan offer salmon sushi (although it tends to be more popular outside of Japan. It’s mild, fatty and kids like it-friendly — perfect for America). After Norway’s 10 long years of Norway’s incessant asking and advertising, Japanese markets and consumers, with their strong culinary traditions, heaved a huge sigh and said, “fine.”

Lena Leavitt is a first-year who has not yet declared a major. Lena can be reached at arlene.leavitt@tufts.edu.

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Arts & POP ARTS Pop CULTURE Culture

tuftsdaily.com

Monday, October 19, 2020

Omar Apollo continues to shine on ‘Apolonio’

by Geoff Tobia Jr. Arts Editor

VIA SPOTIFY

The cover for “Apolonio” (2020) is pictured.

While his collaboration with singer Ruel, “Want U Around,” isn’t a terribly interesting single, its slow, sexy tempo and flawless note-hitting make it not worth the skip. It’s more of a vocal showcase than anything for Apollo. However, as we go into “Stayback,” we get an even sexier instrumental with a more emotionally powerful lyrical message. In an interview with NME, Apollo described the piece as “a song about being in love for a long period of time. After years of being hurt emotionally, I moved on and decided to treat the relationship as a memory instead of

fantasising it and trying to make it work.”

The most exciting surprise on the record is the Kali Uchis collaboration on “Hey Boy,” an unsurprisingly beautiful song. Also unsurprising is the sexy nature of the song with a reverb-heavy instrumental. It’s unfortunately less than two minutes, but this fact is forgotten when “Dos Uno Nueve (219)” comes on. Apollo, who is of Mexican descent, sings this song in Spanish, which is frequent in his music. Two guitars in each stereo channel, played by Oscar Santander, play an excel-

lent melody as Apollo sings in his boldest tone of the album.

The last three songs of the album are far from forgettable, something that Apollo knew he had to avoid on his debut album.

“Useless” kicks off with a chord progression a la Steve Lacy, which is joined by drums from Mk.gee, an artist/band that joined Apollo on his “The Voyager Tour” 2019 tour. “Bi Fren” is an interesting change in pace, as Apollo raps over the most unique beat on the album. The drum sounds are very artificial, but everything from the snares to the distorted,

bass-heavy kicks are super neat.

Atmospherically, this song is almost jarring, but it is hypnotic at the same time. “The Two of Us” is a perfect closer. It is nearly a solo endeavor, as the entire song was written and performed by Apollo, apart from further guitar contribution from Santander.

Overall, Apollo has capitalized on his already solid musical career. This album should not be skipped by anyone. Regardless of whether you’re a fan of pop and R&B, it will be one of your most worthwhile 25 minutes of music this year.

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Omar Apollo is a sight to behold. This is clearly evident, judging by the album cover for his debut album “Apolonio” (2020). Pictured with his bright teal hair, Apollo is seen bathing in a shimmery purplish liquid with butterflies resting on his legs, chest and fretboard. His swagger is amplified even more by previous works in his discography. “Stereo” (EP, 2018), and “Friends” (EP, 2019) are two nearly flawless pop/R&B projects that have given Apollo a name for himself. By listening to any of his songs, you can see the wide range of emotions he has, and how his singing and instrumentation are a consistent formula for quality music (and success). He set a high bar of expectation for his debut album to meet, and he had no problem meeting it.

“I’m amazing.” That’s the name of the lead single off this record, and it is quite the intro.

There are only nine songs on the record, so the intro couldn’t be passed off as some sort of segue into the real content. It had to be real content. Fear not, for Apollo kicks off his album with a bang. The track kicks off with a distorted guitar segment, courtesy of Michael Uzowuru, and transitions into a spacey guitar and bass combination, with its astral elements blending perfectly with a unique trap-like drum pattern. It’s a more artificial sound than what we are used to when it comes to listening to Apollo’s percussion selection, but this choice makes more sense in the stylistic path that its fellow instruments follow.

Going into its successor song, “Kamikaze,” Apollo’s guitar and bass guitar continue to dazzle the listener. In an Anderson .Paak-esque groove, Apollo sings in an extremely hooky melody, drowned in reverb. His own backup vocals are another really neat element of the chorus, coming through different stereo channels for an added atmospheric element. Lyrically, there seems to be an attitude directed towards an enemy, which is a recurring theme in the record.

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Monday, October 19, 2020 | Arts & Pop Culture | THE TUFTS DAILY

‘The Cabin with Bert Krischer’ is a long trip for a ‘meh’ destination

by Drew Weisberg Assistant Arts Editor

I’m not sure what brought about “The Cabin with Bert Kreischer” (2020–), a Netflix miniseries which, despite a few laughs and unexpectedly emotional moments, fails to stitch together a wholly satisfying experience. The show centers around comedian Bert Kreischer’s attempt to detox from his hectic lifestyle of travel, performance and perhaps too much heavy drinking mostly at his wife’s behest. That said, the series immediately takes a detour from the promise in the first episode, as Kreischer informs his wife that he decided to turn his recovery trip into a TV show on a clearly staged video chat.

From this point, the show runs through a routine of Kreischer putting his guests, which includes everyone from comedians like Joel McHale to public figures like Caitlyn Jenner, through a gauntlet of “recovery” activities that seem more closely tailored for jokes and goofs than the

initial premise of helping Kreischer heal.

The trouble is that the show shifts in tones so quickly that it can feel like genuine moments fizzle out that before they can deliver the emotional punch they are owed.

For instance, Kreischer’s being brought to tears by a revelation about his father can be left in the dust as the show barrels forward. The show’s sub-30-minute format doesn’t allow nearly the detail necessary to communicate the kind of in-depth look I wanted into both Kreischer and his guests.

Too much pressure is put on the audience to know who Kreischer’s guests are, and for that matter, we aren’t told too much about Kreischer outside of the basic premise of a hard-working comedian who needs a break from it all. The series falls victim to the same issue as another Netflix offering from this year, “Challenger: The Final Flight” (2020), where segments either need to be cut or lengthened to create a more consistent product.

The good news is that Kreischer is a likable enough fellow, and even if his

sense of humor isn’t quite to your liking, he has a strange charm that helps to carry the program through some of the raunchier moments like getting a coffee-based enema with comedian Bobby Lee. That previous sentence communicates another hurdle for potential viewers of the series: It is hard to get through each episode if you aren’t a fan of grossout comedy. However, while Kreischer is not shy about his body (going so far as to be in some state of undress in all but one of the episode introductions), his openness and seemingly genuine enthusiasm makes him a loveable if off-kilter protagonist for the series.

When deciding whether or not to watch “The Cabin,” do not ask “who is this for?” A better question might be “how many times can you see Bert Kreischer naked before you shut off a Netflix show?” If your answer is anywhere below “a lot” I would say “The Cabin” is not for you. Otherwise the show is worth a look for a few chuckles and a handful of genuine moments.

VIA IMDB

A promotional poster for “The Cabin with Bert Kreischer” (2020–) is pictured.

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Maeve Hagerty Maeve’s Music Mondays

In defense of the viola

A

s someone who spent a rather large amount of their Starbucks barista savings on a nicer viola, I find myself rather defensive whenever my instrument is subject to the popular jokes and scorn cast on violas and violists. For those of you unfamiliar with the viola, it is the wider twin to the violin with the range of a high-octave cello. Ever since the 18th century, violas have been the butt of endless jokes and mockery. As it was often unaccomplished violinists who were made to take up the viola for the sake of the orchestra, the viola became an instrument associated with inferior musicians.

My high school orchestra experience was characterized by jokes like, “What’s the only thing a violinist can do better than a violist?” “Play the viola.”

Even I can appreciate the humor of jokes like this, but after 300 years of dragging the viola’s reputation through the mud, one would think the violinists of the world would have been tired of the same poor puns. To me, the viola is a wonderfully rich instrument integral to any quartet or orchestral piece. Often left with the harmony, the viola is easy to overlook, but it still bridges the gap between the higher register of the violin and the lower tones of the cello and bass.

While I myself cannot claim to be a virtuosic violist, due entirely to the fact that I do not practice enough, I am truly infatuated with the viola repertoire. In an orchestral or soloistic setting, there are truly some amazing pieces written for the viola. From Igor Stravinsky’s “Elegy” (1944) for solo viola to the George Frideric Handel/Henri Casadesus Viola Concerto in B Minor (1924) for viola and orchestra, it is evident that the viola is a versatile instrument, capable of carrying higher-range, ethereal melodies and lower, darker themes to contrast those.

The third movement of the Johann Christian Bach/Casadesus Viola Concerto in C Minor (1947) has always been one of my favorite pieces to play.

The Rebecca Clarke Viola Sonata (1919) is one of the staples of the viola repertoire and is another one of my favorites. The four movements of Robert Schumann’s “Märchenbilder” (1851) are each stylistically unique and exciting to listen to in a concert setting. In addition to pieces like these, which were written for the viola, violin and cello music can easily be transcribed for the viola. The Bach Suites for Solo Cello (1717–23) are adored by violists and it is a rite of passage to play one of them for the first time.

As for my favorite viola piece, I would have to say that it is the Henri Vieuxtemps Capriccio “Hommage a Paganini” for Solo Viola, which was published posthumously several times between 1881 and 1887. I have been playing and listening to it for almost a year now, but I’ve never gotten bored of the music. There’s always another small nuance or intricate articulation that shifts the tone entirely. And I think that is why I truly love the viola: Despite all the jokes and the boring harmony lines, its versatility and power continue to surprise me.

So, until next week, happy listening!

Maeve Hagerty is a first-year who has not yet declared a major. Maeve can be reached at maeve.hagerty@tufts.edu.

6

THE TUFTS DAILY | Arts & Pop Culture | Monday, October 19, 2020

F& G

tuftsdaily.com LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Rebecca: “One time I got my friend to eat a leaf.”

FUN & GAMES

SUDOKU

TOOTHPASTE CHRONICLES

Difficulty Level: Doing an in-person chemistry lab by yourself.

BY JULIA BARONI

Friday’s Solution

Friday’s Solution

SEARCHING FOR HEADLINES...

CROSSWORD

Opinion

tuftsdaily.com

7 Monday, October 19, 2020

EDITORIAL

Adjust spring plans to prioritize student mental health CARTOON

The Faculty Senate voted on Friday, Oct. 9 to delay the start date of classes to Feb. 1 and shorten spring break. Students will arrive on a staggered basis between Jan. 19 and 29, granting more time for deep cleaning and the completion of student testing and quarantine requirements before classes begin. Extending winter break will also give Tufts’ staff sufficient time off following months of preparation and hard work under stressful conditions.

According to Dean of Un d e rg ra d u a t e St u d i e s Carmen Lowe, spring break will be shortened in order to accommodate for the missed instructional days from the spring term delay. Instead of the traditional nine days, spring break will be reduced to a long weekend with classes suspended only on Friday, March 26.

This plan aims to preserve the health and well-being of the Tufts community; however, sacrificing a longer spring break will negatively affect the mental health and academic performance of Tufts students.

Tufts should reassess breaks within the spring semester schedule in order to provide students with sufficient time off and mediate community stress.

As experienced this semester, hybrid learning poses many challenges to academic success. Normally landing in the middle of the semester, spring break occurs when students feel the heightened stress of rigorous academics

and midterm exams, desperately requiring time off. For some, spring break gives time to catch up on school work or prepare for exams; a shortened spring break will mean too little time for students to properly breathe, reset, study and become ready to face the rest of the semester. Inadequate time off will certainly lead to burnout and mental health consequences for some community members.

A limited break will also adversely affect remote students’ mental health as they may lack adequate academic resources and have no option but to learn in an unconducive environment. On top of unfavorable academics, remote students can feel isolated and stressed without the usual outlets to socialize and decompress. Taking away a much-needed break only adds to these stressors as students must sacrifice their mental well-being in order to keep up with a condensed timeline and workload.

Additionally, suspending classes on Friday does little to help students and faculty recuperate; many classes do not meet on Fridays. The decision to replace a traditional oneweek spring break with a long weekend does not account for these concerns and must be addressed by the Tufts administration.

They should consider shifting the current spring break schedule and designated vacation days to prioritize students’ mental health and academic

success. Suspending classes on Monday, March 29 instead of Friday, March 26 would alleviate students’ workloads while still accommodating for lost instructional days. In addition, Tufts should shift the Presidents Day break held on

Monday, Feb. 15 to later in the semester when classwork and assignments increase.

Tufts’ scheduling constraints are valid but do not have to prevent the administration from prioritizing community wellbeing. Health is

both mental and physical, and the academic calendar is not immutable; especially during this unpredictable time, any scheduling precedents can and must come second to properly balancing academic continuity and health.

Matt Rice The Countdown

fected by the rightward shift of his party, announced his departure from the Republican Party to become an independent and caucus with the Democrats, who thus gained control over the chamber.

Jim Jeffords spent decades casting lonely votes as a staunch supporter of disability rights, LGBTQ rights, access to affordable healthcare, environmental protection and many other causes, most of which are not supported by today’s Republican Party. He was praised for his ability to stand up for what he believed in rather than take the easy path of towing the party line.

Since Trump’s election, many powerful Democrats have proclaimed that some Republican senators would follow in Jeffords’ footsteps and

stand up to a far-right takeover of the GOP. When Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and John McCain voted alongside Democrats to kill their party’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, some hoped that Senate Republicans would take a harder line against Trump and challenge him more often.

These hopes were naive from the beginning.

All you have to do is check how often these senators are voting with Trump.

Even ignoring prominent votes like impeachment or the Kavanaugh confirmation, most Senate Republicans have rarely strayed from their party.

Of every Republican who has served in the senate during the Trump presidency, only five have voted with the president less than 80% of the time. Even

one of the most “anti-Trump” Republican senators, Maine’s Susan Collins, has voted with Trump twice as often as she’s voted against him.

Sen. Cory Booker said Republicans should “honor their word” about not confirming a Supreme Court nominee during an election year. Yet Judge Amy Coney Barrett is poised to be confirmed just days before the election. Earlier this year, Chuck Schumer suggested that four “conscientious brave Republicans” would vote to allow witnesses at Trump’s impeachment trial.

Only two did.

Jim Jeffords left the Senate in 2007. How could Democrats be so naive to even consider there might be another like him lurking

somewhere in the Republican cloakroom?

When Jeffords died, he was praised by none other than his successor Bernie Sanders for being an effective, prominent supporter of the arts, education, the environment and disability rights.

Trump is the ultimate end state of what Republicans have wanted for decades. I am sure many Democratic senators remember the good ol’ days of civility and deal-making decades ago, but that environment does not exist anymore.

With today’s political climate, there is no more room for another Jim Jeffords in the Republican Party.

Stop waiting for another Jim Jeffords The 2000 election left the U.S. Senate split 50-50. But with Dick Cheney as the tie-breaking vice president, Republicans were given control. This majority gave Republicans untold power over the legislative process. Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi could set the Senate’s agenda and choose who chaired each Senate committee. But in May 2001, Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont, disaf-

BY ANNABEL NIED

Matt Rice is a senior studying political science. Matt can be reached at matthew.rice@ tufts.edu.

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.

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.

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

8 Monday, October 19, 2020

Sports

tuftsdaily.com

Through Direct Hit podcast, cricket enthusiasts build fanbase at Tufts

indefinitely. As he was attempting to fill the void by talking about cricket nonstop with his equally passionate friends, he noticed something.

“I love talking,” Mehta said.

He saw a natural opportunity from the coupling of both those interests.

“I thought, ‘I spend a couple of hours of my day talking about cricket to my friends, even in an offseason of cricket,’” Mehta said. “Why don’t I just take it one step forward — we record our conversations and put it up for people to [hear].”

Just like that, the Direct Hit podcast was born, with Mehta leading the charge. The pod-

cast, which published 15 episodes over the summer, featured “blunt opinions, sharp takes, and a delightful celebration for their love of the game,” according to the podcast description on Spotify.

Sophomores Akash Jyothish and Pranav Jain, as well as senior Sid Anand, who are all Mehta’s close friends from the Tufts Cricket Club, jumped on the idea that they could spend quarantine conversing about their favorite sport while maintaining contact with their friends from Tufts.

Anand also brought his cricket-loving friend, junior Uzair Sattar, onto the podcast. He quickly became a mainstay and

developed a close bond with the rest of its members.

“Even though I barely knew Saumya and his friends before, the podcast quickly became my favorite quarantine activity because of the fact that I was able to connect with them so easily through cricket,” Sattar said.

Although Mehta initially thought that the podcast would just be a fun, short-lived project, Anand asked him after recording one episode, “Let me know what we’re doing next week,” assuming that there would be more.

Mehta realized that the podcast could be bigger, noticing that his friends were gaining the same sense of ownership towards the podcast that he had.

Jyothish, Jain, Anand and Sattar all became regular guests on the podcast. Although Mehta was the host for most of the episodes, the others occasionally took on the hosting role.

Jain led an episode that centered around his interest in data analytics. In the episode, Jain spoke about new technologies, including ball-tracking devices and how careful statistical analysis may change the way players are chosen for cricket teams. The episode also featured an extra contribution from junior Kiran Misner, the head of analytics at the Tufts Cricket Club.

Anand hosted an episode about the cricket World Cups, while Jyothish led a talk discussing the role and importance of captains in the sport. Juniors Charles Short and Akash Mishra also joined as key contributors for some of the episodes.

These unique ideas and conversations, including an idea by Sattar to discuss the need for cricket in the Olympics to grow its popularity, were inspired by a change in Mehta’s mindset.

“If I bind everyone to a structure, then topics such as these will just get overlooked,” Mehta

campus concerts several years ago. While the free concerts did not turn out to be an issue, the NCAA uncovered the minor financial aid errors. The mistake was made after some players moved from on-campus housing to cheaper off-campus housing and their financial aid housing rate remained the same when it should have decreased. It resulted in the players’ collectively receiving a few thousand dollars more than they were supposed to. UMass basketball head coach Matt McCall is on a $3.25 million contract.

No players or coaches did anything wrong and nobody affiliated with the program or working at UMass knew anything incorrect had occurred.

Nevertheless, the NCAA cracked down and forced the team to vacate three years of wins.

Imagine if a professor decided to vacate your last three test scores because, upon further review, you had accidentally used a number three pencil instead of the number two pencil required by the syllabus. If a teacher, parent, boss or any other authority figure acted this way, it would leave us scratching our heads in disbelief. But this is the way the NCAA has governed for years.

The NCAA’s UMass decision makes no sense, but it pales in comparison to past cases of pure ridiculousness. University of Nevada, Las Vegas basketball player Chris Richardson had nothing to sleep on when he moved to campus as a first-year in 1998 so an assistant coach gave him a used mattress. The NCAA deemed this an improper gift and suspended Richardson for part of his junior season.

During the 2018 college football season an Oregon recruit’s dad forgot his razor during a trip to Eugene, Ore. A member of the Oregon game day staff found out and bought the dad a basic traveling toiletry set.

Apparently, the NCAA prefers five o’ clock shadow to a clean shave because they ruled it a “breach of conduct” and a level three rule violation.

The NCAA reported over a billion dollars in revenue during the 2016–17 academic year.

You’d think an organization with so much money would allow its unpaid employees to eat as they please, but that’s not how the NCAA rolls. When three Oklahoma athletes attended a graduation banquet in 2014 and ate the pasta that was served, the NCAA claimed they had violated its rules. In case you haven’t

VIA SPOTIFY

Podcast art for Direct Hit is shown.

by Arnav Sacheti

Assistant Sports Editor

Disclaimer: Pranav Jain is a sports editor at the Daily. Pranav was not involved in the writing or editing of this article.

When the world came to a grinding halt in mid-March, so did the second-most-watched sport in the world, cricket.

In Mumbai, India, Tufts sophomore and cricket-fanatic Saumya Mehta was looking for something meaningful to do. The Indian Premier League, which is the most popular three-hour cricket match league in the world, had just postponed its 2020 season

Alex Sharp Sharp from the Sofa

A used mattress, pasta and the NCAA

T

he men’s basketball team at Massachusetts’ flagship university was put on probation, forced to vacate wins and fined on Friday for ever so slightly overpaying some of their players’ financial aid between 2014 and 2017.

UMass Amherst initiated an investigation into their men’s basketball team to determine whether players improperly received free tickets to on

said. “The scope that cricket possesses [is] beyond being about the stadium and the ground and about stuff more relevant such as the Olympics and the politics behind the game. Those things really changed how I looked at the podcast.”

Although Mehta initially wanted a strict structure to the episodes, after recording the first few he realized that the conversations were going slightly off track. However, Mehta was reassured by his close friend Archit Jain that this was OK. “When we had it scripted, we were planning what to talk about and everything was scheduled. When it was unscripted, the enthusiasm was really natural,” sophomore Archit Jain said. “Sometimes more than the content, it’s the enthusiasm that everyone has that matters.”

Mehta noted that the encouraging comments and messages that the podcast received on Instagram, even from those who initially knew little about cricket, were big motivators to keep producing passionate content.

Although the podcast has since grown with tens of thousands of listens on Spotify and over a hundred followers on Instagram, the basic passion behind it was simple: a love for and happiness through the game of cricket.

Mehta sees the potential of the podcast to grow even further, especially with what they have added apart from the podcast. Direct Hit has livestreamed seven of its episodes and has also engaged with its Instagram followers through thought-provoking polls.

“This podcast has the potential to no longer remain a podcast but to become a community platform for people to engage with everything related to cricket,” Mehta said.

caught on yet, just about everything is against NCAA rules. The NCAA made each player pay $3.83 to charity to regain their eligibility. One of the players, offensive lineman Austin Woods, joked, “we felt we ate more than $3.83 so we donated $5.”

The NCAA calls itself a “member-led organization dedicated to the wellbeing and lifelong success of college athletes,” but its rules consistently serve to undermine and restrict the livelihood of college athletes.

Hypocrisy: noun. “The practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform” (Oxford).

Alex Sharp is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major. Alex can be reached at alex.sharp@tufts.edu.