The Tufts Daily - Monday, September 23, 2019 by The Tufts Daily

The Blank Quintet takes its performance to Cambridge, Medford next see ARTS&LIVING / PAGE 8

PHOTO SPREAD

Climate strike takes over Boston, Campus Center

Football loses against Williams, faces Amherst this weekend see SPORTS / BACK PAGE

SEE PHOTO SPREAD / PAGE 6

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T HE T UFTS DAILY Monday, September 23, 2019

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Tufts students participate in global climate strike in Boston

CONNOR DALE / THE TUFTS DAILY

Protestors cross the street to City Hall Plaza to join the Boston climate strike on Sept. 20. by Connor Dale News Editor

In a crowd outside the Mayer Campus Center that overflowed onto Talbot Ave., university students attended a strike last Friday to demand action on the climate crisis before joining a crowd of more than 7,000 protestors at City Hall Plaza in Boston. The Tufts contingent, organized by Sunrise Movement Tufts, Tufts Climate Action and a coalition of other activism groups on campus, coincided with a day of global climate protests in which masses of young people on every continent poured into the streets to denounce government inaction on climate change. “My priority right now is not my math class,” Caitlin Colino, an organizer for Sunrise Movement Tufts who put together

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much of the action leading up to Friday’s strike, said. “My priority right now is saying to our governments that radical policy change has to be made immediately in order to save our planet.” Students congregated outside the Campus Center around 10:15 a.m. on Friday, where Ella McDonald, another organizer for Sunrise Movement Tufts, energized the crowd with a collection of songs and chants. Colino, a sophomore, and fellow organizer Olivia Freiwald then addressed the group. “I’m so honored to be here and to know that you are fighting here too,” Colino said. Colino and Freiwald, a junior, told stories of their own personal connections to the climate crisis. They emphasized climate change’s disproportionate impact on low-income communities and communi-

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ties of color, highlighting the need for environmental justice, a transition that invests in prosperity for those on the front lines of poverty and pollution, to be part of any government action regarding the climate. Above all, the two activists stressed the urgency of the situation. “Business as usual is a death sentence for our generation,” Freiwald said, inciting a roar of applause from the crowd of students. Friday’s strike was supported by a coalition of Tufts activism groups including Students for Environmental Awareness, Tufts Labor Coalition, United for Immigrant Justice and more than ten others. Colino also said that while initially thinking about how to participate in Friday’s global action, Sunrise Movement Tufts was planning on simply offering an easy way for students to get to the strike in Boston.

However, she said that the groups decided to hold their own strike at Tufts in order to call attention to the university’s role in perpetuating the climate crisis through its investments in the fossil fuel industry. “We want to send a message that students here — including alumni, faculty and grad students — all care about the university’s involvement in perpetuating and causing climate change,” Hanna Carr, an organizer for Tufts Climate Action, said. “And we hope that through our activism, the university will ultimately divest from fossil fuels.” Tufts Climate Action has been pressuring the university to divest from its investments in fossil fuels, which account for 2% of the university’s total assets, since

NEWS............................................1 FEATURES.................................4 PHOTO SPREAD.....................6 ARTS&LIVING.........................8

see CLIMATE STRIKE, page 2

FUN&GAMES.........................10 OPINION....................................11 SPORTS............................ BACK

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THE TUFTS DAILY | NEWS | Monday, September 23, 2019

THE TUFTS DAILY Jessica Blough Editor in Chief

EDITORIAL Ryan Eggers Justin Yu

Managing Editors Mykhaylo Chumak Austin Clementi Alejandra Carrillo Connor Dale Abbie Gruskin Liza Harris Robert Kaplan Elie Levine Natasha Mayor Alexander Thompson Daniel Weinstein Nico Avalle Andres Borjas Bella Maharaj Matthew McGovern Sara Renkert Jilly Rolnick Anton Shenk

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university’s connections to the fossil fuel industry. They then called on Tufts to do something about it. “Our school should care about our future,” they said together. “Tufts University, will you lead with us?” Tufts a capella group Essence performed following the organizers’ remarks, concluding actions at the Campus Center. Student activists then led the crowd down College Avenue as they marched to Davis Square and boarded the Red Line in waves. The protestors rode to Park Street, where they eventually joined the Boston climate strike at City Hall Plaza. By the time the Tufts group got there, thousands of young people had already converged on City Hall Plaza to push for more aggressive action on climate change. The Boston climate strike was planned entirely by people under the age of 20 who, at the rally, proclaimed themselves the “generation of the Green New Deal.” In addition to youth organizers with Massachusetts Climate Strike, speakers included former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy, Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu, Mayor Marty Walsh and Hartman Deetz of the MashpeeWampanoag tribe, according to WBUR. After the speakers delivered their remarks, the youth organizers marched to the Massachusetts State House with thousands of people in tow. A majority of the crowd converged on its steps, while a few hundred people — led by the youth organizers with Massachusetts Climate Strike — entered the State House. Standing inside Memorial Hall, the activists called for Massachusetts

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Governor Charlie Baker to come out of his office to respond to their demands: that he declare a statewide ecological emergency, that lawmakers pass policies that help people who live in already poor and polluted areas and that Massachusetts stop using fossil fuels and stop building infrastructure to support it. When Baker did not make an appearance, the youth organizers vowed that they would be back next week. The strike in Boston was one of more than 800 actions that took place in the U.S. alone on Friday in advance of a major United Nations climate summit. Organizers estimated Friday’s turnout to be around four million in thousands of cities and towns worldwide, according to The New York Times. The global strike was largely inspired by 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, whose one-person strikes in Stockholm have ignited an international movement to demand action on the climate crisis. In August 2018, Thunberg began skipping school on Fridays to protest outside Swedish parliament, contending that her studies were insignificant when compared to the impending climate crisis. Similarly, Elliott Trahan, an organizer for Sunrise Movement Tufts, said that a professor once asked him why he was still sitting in class if he truly believed in the urgency of climate change. It was Trahan’s inability to come up with an answer that led him to devote himself to Sunrise this semester and to demanding action on the climate crisis more generally. “This is an emergency,” Trahan, a sophomore, said. “Let’s act like it.”

Amid confusion, School of Medicine clarifies research institute plans News Editor

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Jesse Rogers

CLIMATE STRIKE

continued from page 1 2012. According to a 2014 statement from University President Anthony Monaco, the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate passed a resolution organized by Tufts Climate Action in February 2013 asking the Tufts Board of Trustees to refrain from any new investment in fossil fuel companies, which was followed by a student referendum that passed in the fall urging the university to divest from fossil fuels entirely. In 2014, however, the Board of Trustees accepted the recommendations of a Tufts Divestment Working Group report, whose majority opinion was not to divest. On March 31 this year, TCU Senate unanimously passed another resolution organized by Tufts Climate Action calling on the university to transition to a carbon neutral endowment and to disclose information on Tufts’ connection to the fossil fuel industry; however, according to Carr, a senior, the Board of Trustees has yet to acknowledge the resolution. “Tufts signed a commitment to be carbon neutral by 2050, and while they have been operationally moving towards that goal, their investments have not been part of the conversation,” Carr said. “Tufts prides itself on active citizenship — but right now, they are still financially supporting the institutions that are most to blame for climate change.” The resolution calls for a response by October 2019. Following Colino and Freiwald’s remarks at Friday’s strike, Carr and fellow Tufts Climate Action organizers Celia Bottger and Erica Nork, both seniors, explained the

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Boston climate strikers flood Mass. statehouse

The Tufts University School of Medicine (TUSM) is revising plans for a new health research institute, following faculty opposition to aspects of the preliminary proposals of departmental reorganization, according to Professor of Developmental, Molecular & Chemical Biology Brent Cochran. While the details have yet to be finalized, a committee has been formed to explore the possibilities of creating an institute, Linden Hu, vice dean for research at TUSM, wrote in an email to the Daily. He said one of the motivations behind the institute is to foster collaboration among researchers at the School of Medicine, in line with a growing trend in the field. “More and more, the best research is being done not by solo investigators as in the past, but by teams of researchers with different expertise working together,” Hu explained. He added that the ultimate goal is to create an institute model which allows any university or university-affiliated researchers to work together on projects, regardless of which school they are connected with. However, parts of the initial plans for the institute sparked confusion and controversy among some of the TUSM’s faculty. Cochran and his fellow professor of Developmental, Molecular & Chemical Biology Larry Feig, along with Professor of Molecular Biology & Microbiology Michael Malamy, began raising concerns about the institute over the summer. Cochran, Feig and Malamy are all senators on the TUSM faculty senate and were surprised when they heard about the planned research institute, Cochran said. Malamy explained that usually such important conversations include the faculty senators. He added that faculty members, including himself, have already begun

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The Arnold Wing of the Tufts University School of Medicine is pictured. to develop research centers. But despite their positions on the senate, the professors only found out the plans were serious when one of the department chairs mentioned it over the summer, Cochran said. “There’s been no communications directly to the senate,” Malamy said. “By the existing bylaws, the senate, whose only power is to gather information, is to be informed of any major plans, decisions [and] changes of direction in advance so that the senate could in fact solicit opinions from other faculty and serve as a conduit between the administration and the faculty.” Hu rejected the idea the faculty had not been involved, writing that they comprised half of a committee tasked with discussing a potential institute and that the Dean’s Research Advisory Council, an entirely faculty committee, was also asked for input. In total, the dean said that 20% of basic science, tenured and tenure track professors have already had a hand in the planning process. “We have not yet brought the plans to our faculty senate because we are not far along in the planning process to have anything concrete to discuss,” he wrote. Cochran said that the initial plans for the new institute implied a major faculty reorganization, immediately raising wor-

ries about the potential negative consequences it could mean for professors. “All of the basic science departments would be dissolved, the institute would be created, certain faculty would be invited to be part of that institute, and that faculty that were not invited into the institute might be in jeopardy of losing their jobs even if they were tenured,” Cochran said. Since then, Hu held a meeting to clarify the proposal and told his department that reorganization was off the table. The four science departments are no longer going to be dissolved and faculty tenure will remain intact under the institute model. Given this major update in how the institute would affect faculty, Cochran said that many of the qualms he and other professors had have been resolved. Hu said he does not have a concrete idea for when the institute would launch, emphasizing that faculty members, including himself, had already begun some research institutes. “I am already working on developing a new center for it around my area of interest, Lyme disease, which will encompass the med school, vet school, Fletcher and the undergrad campus,” Hu wrote, referring to TUSM, Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Tufts Medford/ Somerville campus. Cochran said he does not have enough information on the research institute model to reject it entirely. He added that the faculty do not generally reject the idea of creating institutes focused on specific research topics and admitted that the institute model could aid fundraising efforts. “We were told that one of the motives for creating an institute was it might be easier to fundraise for institutes that were organized around particular diseases,” Cochran said. “That’s what I imagine might happen.”

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Monday, September 23, 2019 | NEWS | THE TUFTS DAILY

Events on the Hill — Week of Sept. 23 by Austin Clementi

Executive News Editor

MONDAY “Wear Blue in Solidarity” Details: Tufts Community Union Senate announced in an email last night that students should wear blue to show their support for the Jewish community at Tufts. Where and When: Tufts University, all day. TUESDAY “Annual Environmental Brunch” Details: This event provides those inter-

ested in the environment opportunities to learn and speak with members of Tufts Institute of the Environment, the Office of Sustainability and members of the environmental studies program. Where and When: Barnum Hall rear entrance; 12–1:30 p.m. WEDNESDAY “Distinguished Speaker Series: Karl Rove” Details: Karl Rove, former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff for former President George W. Bush, will speak at

Tufts at the invitation of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life. Where and When: ASEAN Auditorium, Cabot Intercultural Center; 6:30–7:30 p.m.

a talk and listening session of various marine sounds. Where and When: Curtis Hall Multipurpose Room; 12–1 p.m.

THURSDAY “Can You Hear Me Here?: Understanding and Protecting Underwater Soundscapes in US National Marine Sanctuaries” Details: The environmental studies program will host Dr. Leila Hatch, a marine ecologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in

FRIDAY “Chile and Latin America in a Changing World” Details: Scholars and activists from around the world will attend this symposium to analyze Chile’s past and current struggles for social justice. Where and When: Cabot 701/702, all day.

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4 Monday, September 23, 2019

FEATURES

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‘Here Come the High Notes’: Marka teaches music Stock Market 101 through storytelling Ryan Gell JumboCash

ast week, we established the basic relationship between risk and return as well as how diversification can reduce risks. The next step in understanding investments is to understand how stocks work, how they can deliver returns and why they are risky. One of the most widely known security types are stocks, commonly referred to as “equity.” When corporations want to raise money to expand their businesses, they can sell ownership of the company by issuing shares of the company to the public. By purchasing even one share of Apple Inc., you can legally own a portion of the company and thus be entitled to a portion of any future profits they earn. There are two main ways to achieve a return on investments in stocks: dividends and price appreciation. When a company makes a profit, they can choose to distribute a portion of those profits to shareholders, typically in the form of cash, which is called a dividend. On the other hand, some companies choose to reinvest their profits into the business to further expand. In fact, many publicly traded companies are not profitable, but investors are willing to buy their stock with the expectation that the company will earn profits in the future. Aside from the cash flow from dividends, investing in stocks can lead to a return through price appreciation. If you own shares of a company and that company becomes more valuable, the shares you own will be worth more. Hence, other investors could be willing to buy the shares you own for a higher price than what you originally paid. Although stocks can lead to high returns through dividends and price appreciation, they are among the riskiest assets. There is no guarantee that a business generates high profits or does so for a long time period. As the economy evolves, businesses are constantly created and shut down. By looking at the annual returns of the S&P 500, an index that tracks the performance of the U.S. stock market, the risks of investing in equity become very clear. From 1928 to 2015, the average returns for the S&P 500 were around 10% annually. However, the standard deviation of those returns, a measure of the dispersion of return outcomes, is about 20%. Because the standard deviation is so much greater than zero, the returns fluctuate a lot: They are not consistently around 10% each year. A way of illustrating the variation of returns, and the potential risks involved with stocks, is by looking at some of the worst performing years. In 1931, the total return of the S&P 500 was an astounding -44%. In fact, there were 11 years when the S&P 500 declined over 10%. In 1957, however, the total return was a whopping 53%. Overall, it is clear that the high average annual returns of stocks do not guarantee high performance in any given year. The risk of low-performing years exemplifies the risk involved in equity investing; but, in the long run, bearing such risks has the potential for high average annual returns. Ryan Gell is a senior studying economics. Ryan can be reached at ryan.gell@tufts.edu.

by Russell Yip

Contributing Writer

Alumna and book author Marin Marka (LA’15) has had many years of experience with young musicians-to-be, having taught piano lessons since she was a sophomore in high school. Although Marka said she had witnessed some students struggling with the music learning process, she noticed that her students all loved talking about their favorite television shows and characters during lessons. “If you really want to be able to connect with them, you’ve got to know ‘PJ Masks’, ‘Paw Patrol’, all of that,” Marka said. “But I was thinking, why doesn’t music have characters? If they can tell me the names of 10 different dogs on a TV show, they could tell me the names of 12 different notes on the music staff if they saw them in stories.” This realization led Marka, who currently works as a pediatric occupational therapist in Grantham, N.H., to explore the use of storytelling as a music teaching platform. With that, the 12 colorful and furry characters of “Here Come the High Notes” — each with unique personalities — were born. The first title in the FableNotes series, “Here Come the High Notes” is a mnemonic picture book authored by Marka and illustrated by Alexandra Tatu that teaches music notation through storytelling. It has an accompanying workbook for students to apply what they have learned. The book, featuring characters such as “Snooty C,” “Bottom-Line E” and “Speedy G,” was launched earlier this year in March through Kickstarter. The book is currently available in paperback and is expected to be available in hardcover and electronic formats by October. According to Marka, she first thought of what would soon become FableNotes while taking a class at Tufts for her child study and human development major. That class explored creative movement in children and dance as a teaching tool and was taught by Renata Celichowska, director of dance at the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance studies. “We learned about all these different ways that you could teach math through dance, and I watched [Celiachowska] do it at the Eliot-Pearson [Children’s] School with a whole bunch of kids. It was just such a cool thing to see how much they were learning through dance,” Marka said. “I realized that if I could just make [music] a little bit more creative, the way that we teach it, I could actually open up opportunities for a bunch of kids.” Marka said that her personal experience with music also played a part in the genesis of the project. Reflecting on her own music education, she acknowledged that reading music was initially a struggle for her. She added that her lessons growing up did not have the creative elements that she incorporates in the lessons she teaches today. Marka shared that her writing process began three years ago in 2016. It took a total of 34 drafts for her to distill her ideas into the story and its 13 distinct and fun characters that we see today. “I started off with everything from kings to astronauts, and it just didn’t really… it was a world that didn’t make

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Marin Marka is pictured holding her book ‘Here Come the High Notes’ (2019). any sense. And so the more I stripped it down, the more I realized that [the kids] don’t need anything else to really learn it than just adjectives,” she said. The story includes many music terms that are introduced to the reader in context. That people, especially children, learn languages and words best this way was something that Marka learned through her classes at the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development. “I just kind of blended all of these music words like clef, treble, staff, skips … I incorporated them and repeated them in context throughout with pictures,” Marka said. “It’s the same reason that we read books to kids to help them with their vocabulary development.” Other notable features of the book include its rhyming text, the use of color to help readers distinguish characters and thus notes on the staff, as well as its vibrant illustrations. Tufts Department of Education Senior Lecturer Linda Beardsley, who currently teaches a class on the role of storytelling in education, shared her thoughts on how people are inherently drawn to stories. “Narrative is something we’re naturally drawn to. We’re innately wired to the idea of a narrative: the beginning, the middle, and … the ending of the story is very compelling to us from a neurological, intellectual perspective,” Beardsley said. She added that stories can be an effective teaching tool in class at all grade levels and in many subjects, including music. “To start a lesson with a story really appeals to people. And I think … having a story allows you to remember so much more than if you just get a list of stuff to think about,” Beardsley said. “I think it’s a wonderful concept that she has, I think it’s really neat. And, you know, I would encourage her to continue in that line, certainly to use it with children.” Edith Auner, coordinator of private lessons and outreach at the Tufts Department of Music, said that she considers the use of storytelling in music education a good way to make music more approachable to children with potential for further development. “I think if you could make a child really love that story, and then get interested more in playing music with this background, and [provide] a way in that’s not scary or too technical, I think it’s wonderful,” Auner said.

According to Marka’s Kickstarter page, this book was written to be as approachable as possible to children with learning disabilities so that “every student can participate confidently with their peers.” Marka, who also does occupational therapy work in a school district in Claremont, N.H., said that another of her objectives in publishing this book is to make music education more accessible to students in underfunded school districts. “A lot of times, teachers in these [high needs] districts … do not have enough funding for actual music classes with a music professional; [they] are responsible for incorporating [music] into their curriculum, and they don’t even know where to start,” Marka said. By providing educational material in music that is accessible even to non-professionals, Marka hopes to be able to help manage the challenges these schools face. In support of this cause, she has donated books and workbooks to several Title I schools across the country and continues to do so on a need-based application basis. One of Marka’s biggest challenges in creating this book had to do with the publishing aspects of the process, including dealing with the book’s layout. “It’s not in my wheelhouse, really, knowing how to deal with all of the page alignments and the gutter in the center of the book. I could teach a class now … but that was really the biggest hurdle that I wasn’t quite prepared for,” Marka said. Another was dealing with the loss of her father, Harry Amyotte, who was involved in the production process but passed away while Marka was working on the book’s final drafts. “Here Come the High Notes” is dedicated to him. “He was a photographer and videographer. And it was really hard to launch it without his skills because we had kind of been teaming up on the production side of it together,” Marka said. “So I had to teach myself all the things that I had been preparing for him to do with me.” With the full release of “Here Come the High Notes” underway, Marka is already working on the next book of the series, focusing on notes on the bass clef. She also looks forward to expanding the curriculum beyond just books to more interactive platforms. “I learned a lot throughout that [writing] process,” she said. “[It] took me a while to make the first idea good, and now I’m going to focus on that next book to make sure that all the notes are covered, and then I’ll see where it goes from there.”

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Monday, September 23, 2019 | ADVERTISEMENT | THE TUFTS DAILY

THE TUFTS DAILY | PHOTO SPREAD | Monday, September 23, 2019

Boston Climate Strike

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Approximately 7,000 people, including many Tufts students, attended the Sept. 20 strike PHOTOS BY CONNOR DALE, CHRISTINE LEE / TUFTS DAILY

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Monday, September 23, 2019 | PHOTO SPREAD | THE TUFTS DAILY

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ARTS&LIVING

Sammy Park Bangers and Bops

Monday, September 23, 2019

INTERVIEW

Q&A: The Blank Quintet talks performing live, Confessions of an blending genres

uncool girl

’m always slightly disappointed when Spotify releases its year-end report of what kinds of music I’ve been listening to. Despite that dark period of October where I only listened to Death Grips and the inevitable Kreayshawn-spiral (also known as a downward spiral) that happens at 3 a.m. the night before a paper is due, my top genre is always pop. Now, on a fundamental level, I fully understand that the consumption of art should be based on pleasure, not some elitist need to always know bands that haven’t reached millions of streams or downloads. But every December, I am still expecting to see a badge of honor from a tech company that probably has too much of my personal data that I, Sammy Park, have the best music taste. This is the column of someone whose music taste isn’t niche enough to have a college radio show. But I compensate for not knowing the hottest Bandcamp darlings by stealing. I steal from my friends and acquaintances and even from those restaurants that play their music too loud for baby boomers to handle. This June, my friend played “I <3 My Choppa (2017)” by Tay-K as she was driving me home, and that very night I was plotting how to do pro bono legal work for a 19-year-old currently serving time in prison for a murder charge. During my first year in the state of Massachusetts, I had a middle-aged Lyft driver who was a huge Jonathan Richman fan, and suddenly, “Roadrunner (Once)” appeared on my Spotify playlist dedicated to a hypothetical situation in which I would need to impress a potential employer who was from Boston. All that to say, I know I’m not cool. I know the music I listen to is an amalgamation of TikTok anthems, whatever comes on shuffle and songs on the “Twilight” (2008-2012) movies’ soundtracks. However, while I know I’m not cool, I also know you aren’t either. Because of the ubiquitous presence of global music streaming services, we’re all just at the mercy of whatever the algorithms decide we like. Listen to enough Rico Nasty and Spotify will conclude that you will also enjoy Megan Thee Stallion. Incidentally, or perhaps damningly, I love both. Our music taste is not individual; it is more accurately described as communal. And because the vast majority of us listen to music alone, it is hard to imagine the very real fact that while you’re in the library listening to Playboi Carti, so is the boy across from you and the girl across from him. In the aggregate, our aesthetic preferences are all just millions of circles in the most chaotic Venn diagram ever, so even the mere idea that there are “cool” and “uncool” tastes is fake. Ultimately, who cares? I know that everyone can see when I’m listening to “Fast Car (1988)” by Tracy Chapman for three hours, uninterrupted. But firstly, the song is a timeless banger (and Chapman is a Tufts alumna), and secondly, there are a gazillion more important things than worrying about your friends’ and random Facebook users’ opinions on what you enjoy. Sammy Park is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major. Sammy can be reached at samantha.park@tufts.edu.

by Geoff Tobia Jr.

Assistant Arts Editor

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Tufts-based band The Blank Quintet (previously The Blank Quartet until the addition of trumpeter Pat Wright) has begun taking its jazz endeavors off campus, and its latest show on Thursday, Sept. 19, at the Lilypad in Cambridge was the most recent concert in its run. The quintet includes Wright, drummer Harrison Clark, bassist Max Miller, pianist George Behrakis and saxophonist Ben Mizrach. The Daily spoke with Clark, Miller and Wright two days after the show. The Tufts Daily (TD): What do you guys enjoy most about performing in front of an audience? Harrison Clark (HC): I think that music is something that, for me at least, through my childhood and family traditions, has brought people together. Being able to bring people together around and play jazz music, which we experiment with and create new things, and being able to create art together is pretty special. And then the fact that people spend their time to come watch us is pretty cool, and it means a lot. Pat Wright (PW): I’ve always loved the energy of just playing in front of a live audience. It energizes everyone, and I know Harrison plays very differently in front of a live audience. [Laughs] There’s just so much interplay between everyone, and everyone’s listening to each other. It’s just a really great feeling to watch that unfold, live, in front of everyone. Max Miller (MM): Yeah, you really get into … the zone when you’re live, and you really can’t replicate that in the studio or in the practice room or wherever. When you’re playing live, you kind of have to transcend to a better level of play. TD: When you record or perform, do you guys like to blend genres into your music? And if so, which genres?

HC: Definitely, yeah! We fuse elements of hip-hop, elements of funk, Latin stuff, really all over the place. Jazz is so versatile as a genre that we feel like we can mix and match pretty much anything, and it comes out in some interesting and creative way. MM: It’s great that we can make jazz tunes into funk or hip-hop, or we can take popular music and give it more of a jazz flare. But now that we’ve been writing our own material, it’s a lot easier for us to incorporate everything right off the bat. PW: Very few of our songs are only influenced by jazz, there’s a ton of influence from hip-hop and funk, and that kinda keeps it interesting. If you kept playing jazz from the same time era, it just gets kinda boring. TD: What would you say are some artists/bands that have inspired or influenced you guys to start performing or writing music? HC: I grew up on a lot of ska punk music in California. My dad was in a ska punk band in high school, so he played it for me growing up. Also, I was just into hip-hop in middle school because that’s what was popular back then. I think what really transformed my view on music, and how I thought about music, was Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly” (2015) because it was a combination of everything that I loved. Between being a hip-hop artist, and also bringing all the incredible jazz musicians on that album, there was just so much flavor to it. I was like ‘Wow, I could do that! I could be a part of something that tells a story and incorporates all these different elements from different genres together into one.’ That’s when I decided that I could be a jazz musician, but also do all these other things. MM: I took a lot of influence from rock music because that’s what I grew up listening to, lots of classic rock, Beatles, etc. Part of the thing that’s so liberating about jazz is that, as a bass player, rock music

is a pretty confining genre, and so I can take the influences of classic rock for the purposes of songwriting … but just play my instrument a lot more creatively. PW: I try to bring everything back to the blues at some point. It’s just one of those art forms that sounds good over everything. There’s a lot of soulfulness in it, naturally. You can bring that out, even if you’re playing very modern stuff under it, like a jazz/hip-hop fused beat, you can still find a way to put the blues over that. It kinda makes it full circle. TD: Why should people appreciate jazz more, especially those who don’t listen to it? MM: You gotta listen to jazz live. You gotta listen to it with all of your senses. You gotta watch the musicians, actively listen to it, and I think that if you really commit to just trying it out and listening to it live, you’ll find that it’s a lot more fun than an only instrumental genre would maybe seem. You can get lost in the grooves and harmonies, and the combination of notes are so expressive. It’s a testament to how you can use this music to express emotions and feelings that words sometimes can’t convey. PW: Listen with open ears. You don’t have to understand it, very few people can; I certainly don’t. You’ll start to understand the form of the songs better. It’s better to see it live … because you can see the artists react to different changes. HC: Nowadays, anyone with a smartphone can make music. If you can do that, why would you want to pick up a hunk of metal and blow into it? For us, people that have grown up around instrumental music … jazz is the pinnacle of that. To watch the masters of it, and to strive to be like them, is the mission. It’s our mission, especially. And like Max said, you gotta see it live. You have to put yourself into it and experience it that way. The Blank Quintet will be performing live next at the Washvault Lab in Medford on Thursday, Oct. 17.

CONCERT REVIEW

Parker Quartet dazzles in concert series kickoff by Sam Heyman

Assistant Arts Editor

The acclaimed string ensemble Parker Quartet gave a free performance at Harvard University’s John Knowles Paine Concert Hall on Friday evening. The Grammy Award-winning string ensemble performed “String Quartet No. 11 in F minor, Opus 122” (1966) and “String Quartet No. 9 in E-flat Major, Opus 117” (1964), both by Shostakovich, as well as Dvořák’s “String Quartet No. 13 in G Major, Opus 106” (1895). Friday’s concert was the first installment of the Blodgett Chamber Music Series at Harvard, an annual program of performances which are free and open to the public. The concert series will run through the spring. Although they’ve won acclaim on the international stage, the Parker Quartet is Boston-bred. Violist Jessica Bodner, cellist Kee-Hyun Kim, and violinists Daniel Chong and Ken Hamao formed the Parker Quartet in 2002 during their sophomore year at the New England Conservatory. In 2014, the group accepted a position at Harvard as the

Blodgett Artist-in-Residence. The Blodgett Chamber Music Series is just one of many responsibilities that come with the job; the artists also co-teach an advanced music course, give other performances around campus and debut the winning piece from an annual student composition contest. On top of all that, the ensemble still maintains a packed schedule of performances outside of Cambridge. Last week’s performance featured a trio of string quartets, which were penned about 70 years apart. In a culture molded by the conveniences of ceaseless technological innovation, it’s easy to underestimate the value of hearing music in the format for which it was written. Shostakovich formed particularly close partnerships with his musicians, who in turn played a significant role in elevating his music to global renown. The first piece in Friday’s lineup, the seven-part “String Quartet No. 11 in F minor,” is haunted by the sudden death of second violinist Vassily Shirinsky just months before the piece’s debut. Like a wordless eulogy, the work’s serpentine rhythms and sinister melodies give voice to

the terrible bewilderment of grief. By comparison, the neatly defined movements of Dvořák’s “String Quartet in G Major” sound like pop songs. Such deeply personal music suits an intimate setting like Paine Concert Hall. Seated at the center of the hall, you can hear the players breathing in time with the music and distinguish the unique tonal hues of their glossy caramel-colored instruments. The effect is nothing short of mesmerizing. Speaking with the Harvard Gazette, Bodner remarked that it took some time for audience members, many of whom have attended these annual concerts for over a decade, to “warm up” to their ensemble. Be that as it may, the audience certainly felt warmly on Friday; amid uproarious applause, the performers took an extra bow at intermission and three at the end of the show. Events like the Blodgett Chamber Music Series are an idiosyncrasy of Boston-area college life. A free, truly public concert —

see PARKER QUARTET, page 9

tuftsdaily.com

Monday, September 23, 2019 | ARTS&LIVING | THE TUFTS DAILY

Boston-bred Parker Quartet showcases Dvorak and Shostakovich at Harvard PARKER QUARTET

continued from page 8 as in, one that’s accessible to students and locals alike without insider knowledge or months of planning in advance — given by world-class musicians in so intimate a setting would be as inconceivable in New York City as in a New Jersey suburb. For anyone with even a casual interest in classical music, these shows are a must-see. For those looking to get acquainted with the world of classical music, it’s difficult to imagine a warmer introduction than this. Tickets can be reserved for free at the Harvard box office or online for a $3.50 service charge. While Friday’s concert was sold out, attendants encouraged prospective concert-goers to wait in line by the door to snag unclaimed tickets. Truancy is apparently common at these free performances. When the lights dimmed, there were still some seats to spare, like an invitation for newcomers to join the crowd. The next concert in the Blodgett Chamber Music Series will be held on Nov. 17 at 3 p.m.

SAM HEYMAN / THE TUFTS DAILY

The Parker Quartet performs at John Knowles Paine Concert Hall on Sept. 20.

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Monday, September 23, 2019 | FUN & GAMES | THE TUFTS DAILY

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LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Shim: “On my deathbed with lung cancer, I will think about Tisch Library and the Daily office.”

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Monday, September 23, 2019

OPINION

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OP-ED

Culture is more than descent

by Aniket De

“Culture is more than fact,” pontificates the Sept. 16 Tufts Daily editorial lampooning white instructors teaching South Asian culture classes, “it is the emotion, habit and ritual formed from accumulated and shared experience. It flows from community.” It is therefore downright insensitive of the university, it concludes, to hire white professors, outside the “community” — defined through bloodlines of “roots” or “descent” — to teach South Asian culture to diasporic students. As an alumnus (LA’16) from India who studied the cultural history of South Asia at Tufts, I have only one question: whose community? While the logic is largely wordplay (I am not entirely sure what “culture flows from community” means), it does make one point: that primarily, if not exclusively, people with “roots” (again, bloodline) in a community should teach classes on its culture. On its way, it slides down an assumption gently, almost imperceptibly: that classes on South Asia are classes on the South Asian diaspora. They are not. They are classes on South Asia. It is remarkable how easily the article merges experiences of South Asians with experiences of the South Asian diaspora. In reality, they could not be more different, even on the Tufts campus. When I arrived from India at Tufts, in fall 2012, the coldest reception I (and many fellow South Asians, especially the poorer ones on financial aid) received was from the South Asian diaspora: my Indian accent laughed at, my sartorial sense criticized, my views on religion dismissed. I too was quite amazed by what I saw — the culture and the habits of the diaspora was unlike anything in India; most of them were also, simply, richer than anyone I ever saw in India (given the pop-

ulation below the poverty line in India, this is not difficult to prove statistically). I say this not to blame the diasporic community on campus, but to highlight the ocean of cultural and economic disconnect between South Asia and its diaspora. If one takes seriously our author’s contention that culture flows from community — then “South Asian culture” (whatever on earth that means), must flow from communities in South Asia and not the diaspora. Of course, I do not mean to delegitimize diasporic culture, which is rich in its own right. All I mean is that it cannot be equated with cultures from South Asia. If the author demanded that a diasporic Hindu teach “Intro to Hinduism in America,” there would be less at stake. But the article charges the white instructor of “Intro to Hinduism” for not having “Indian roots.” I am, in fact, taking the argument one step further: having Indian roots is not enough. If “accumulated and shared experiences” define community for our author, then one must share experiences with communities in South Asia, and not in the South Asian diaspora in the U.S. Trust me when I, a Tufts financial aid recipient from a lower-middle-class family in India, say that diasporic experiences in the U.S. have really nothing to do with actual lived realities of South Asia. Once we realize that it is having shared experiences with communities in South Asia (and not “Indian roots”) that matters, the problem gets interesting. Who is a better part of a South Asian community (and not the diasporic community): the white woman who has spent 10 years studying Hinduism among low-castes in Kolkata, or the brown man who has left his Hindu household in Kalamazoo only to visit his extended family in India a few times? Judging by the parameters of “accumulated and shared experience” set by the author, undoubtedly the former, simply because there is little of India

to accumulate in Kalamazoo. Of course, had the brown man spent an equal time in India, both would be equal. But until he does, simply belonging to the diaspora in the U.S. means nothing so far as shared experiences with Indians is concerned. Descent in America does not guarantee shared experiences with South Asia. Now comes the question of race: How can a white woman really be part of a South Asian community, even if she spends 10 years in Kolkata? Isn’t the brown man from Kalamazoo, if he goes to Kolkata, all said and done, a Hindu? This problem comes because, of course, the author defines community through blood: descent, root, race. If blood was the only form of community-making, then this argument could be considered closed. But there are plenty of ways to make a community, especially in South Asia. Language, for one. Caste, for another. If a white person learns Indian languages and eats on the same floor with a low-caste community, they instantly grow closer to a lower-caste community, irrespective of race, than an upper-caste, rich diasporic Hindu (many of whom are upper-caste and rich by Indian standards) ever will by virtue of descent alone. I am not glorifying savior complexes and colonizing attitudes, all too common among many white scholars, or downplaying the power dynamics of race. All I am saying is that bloodlines and race cannot be the sole criteria to judge belonging to a community, especially in South Asia. Don’t look at South Asia with American lenses of race: If white people are considered aliens in India by virtue of their race, so will be many diasporic Hindus due to their class and caste privileges. The criteria of communitarian belonging is complex and not directly linked to bloodlines. What are those criteria, then, and how are we to know it? How can undergraduates

know if their professors were accepted by communities in India? The easiest easy way out is to read their works and ask them. Irrespective of your instructor’s race, brown or white, ask them about their experiences in South Asia (and not in the diaspora community). You’ll know if they exoticize or patronize South Asia, or if they engage, critically and factually, with communities of scholars, thinkers and other people in South Asia. If the author thinks that “shared and accumulated experience” as the basis of community, then so be it — judge their experience, ask how long they have lived in South Asia and what experiences they have accumulated; descent is less an accumulation of experience than of genes, which, unless one wants to stretch this argument to eugenics, is not of much consequence. I fully support the presence of more faculty of color in academia — I myself am an aspiring candidate of that social group. But making appalling arguments based on descent and blood severely damages the case, and opens itself to the kind of fallacies I have pointed out above. For some reason, the article chose to omit the fact that Tufts has been one of the leading centers of South Asian studies in New England — run by important scholars from South Asia (do they not count because they are not part of the Hindu diaspora?). The article’s close interlinking of “Hindu” (not Muslim) and “Indian” also does not speak well of the politics of the editorial page of the Tufts Daily. It should be our goal to make sure that people of color get their due recognition, and making baseless charges on lines of race and blood does not help towards that goal. If culture is more than fact, it is more than descent as well. Aniket De (A’16) is a PhD Candidate in history at Harvard University. He has a BA in history and anthropology from Tufts. Aniket can be reached at aniket_de@g.harvard.edu.

EDITORIAL

Apology and retraction of Sept. 16 editorial Last week, the Daily ran an editorial titled “Sensitivity is necessary when mandating instruction in diaspora cultures.” This editorial touched on the subject of cultural instruction at Tufts, and in the process

conflated identities and sought to advance cultural gatekeeping that is not aligned with the editorial ethos of the Tufts Daily. Therefore, we are retracting this editorial. We sincerely regret allowing these words to reach the printed page and have personally taken steps to alter and improve the editorial

process. The writers of the piece have expressed regret, and the entire Editorial Board has taken the opportunity to reflect and learn with the aim of ensuring that similar insensitivity and conflation will not make it to print again. The Tufts Daily sincerely regrets the insult to the professors indicated in the

editorial and to those in the South Asian communities on campus and beyond. Sincerely, Tys Sweeney, Executive Opinion Editor Editorial Board of the Tufts Daily Managing Board of the Tufts Daily

ION OF STA IAT TE OC

TERS RES FO

NATIONAL A SS

Dear readers,

U N D E D 192

12 tuftsdaily.com

Jeremy Goldstein Schmuck of the Week

Sports

Monday, September 23, 2019

Football falls to 1–1 in Williamstown

Stephen A. and Gottlieb

aining the spotlight in the sports media industry can be a tough ask. Meticulous work over decades with fine attention to detail can be swept under the rug in a heartbeat by a Stephen A. Smith eardrum-paralyzing rant. In the modern era of goldfish-level attention spans, either you maintain your permanent celebrity status like doctor (for lack of a better term) Stephen A., or you settle for your 15 seconds of fame. For some, those 15 seconds might catch one at a moment when their eloquence slips: a moment when one is pushing the envelope of a given social media outlet, perhaps Twitter, to test just how absurd one needs to be to get national attention. Anyone can spew a controversial statement about, well, anything. But at a certain point, the line becomes slightly blurred between controversial and offensive, a territory where one unlocks a collective backlash among like-minded individuals. That then sets the rest of the audience with a choice: Do I support this maligned media figure who may be desperate for attention or the targeted audience that they’ve perturbed? The answer is almost always the latter, but it certainly should be taken case by case. However, sometimes no analysis is necessary. A tweet or statement can be looked at, the viewer should utter to themselves, “Wait, are they being serious?” and question the legitimacy of the given tweeter: “Is this really their professional job?” “Someone would listen to this schmuck’s radio show every day?” Ah! The key word! Everyone has a fill-inthe-blank for someone who’s being a fool, and one could infer from the title of this column what this writer’s is. Why schmuck? Schmuck, which can often be interchanged with putz, is an old Yiddish expression that transports me to a version of my hometown (Brooklyn baby) 100 years before my time. I imagine a duplicitous shopkeeper who knowingly rips off a kid trying to buy a stick of gum every afternoon; the said shopkeeper continues with such actions until the child’s parents come to the store and rips them anew with a slew of loyal customers listening in the background. The other customers, upset at the shopkeeper’s manners, threaten to find another store. Now let’s quickly examine Doug Gottlieb, an occasional fill-in for Colin Cowherd on The Herd and talk show host for Fox Sports, who decided to offer his hat in the ring at the recent Andrew Luck retirement. Luck, who has faced years of injuries including a lacerated kidney, torn cartilage in two ribs and a torn labrum in his throwing shoulder, cited the wear-and-tear on his body has been too mentally and physically challenging for him to continue playing football. Enter Gottlieb on Twitter: “Retiring cause rehabbing is ‘too hard’ is the most millennial thing ever.” Angering a large swath of people (millennials)? Check. Being completely insensitive and lacking any empathy to someone else’s situation? Check. A helpless stab at increasing celebrity? Check. A bonafide schmuck? Check and mate. Jeremy Goldstein is a junior studying political science and film and media studies. Jeremy can be reached at jeremy. goldstein@tufts.edu.

EVAN SLACK / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

Junior kicker Matt Alswanger completes an extra point during Tufts’ 28–21 win over Williams on Zimman Field on Oct. 20, 2018. by Noah Stancroff

Assistant Sports Editor

Coming off a huge victory against the Trinity Bantams, the Jumbo football team was unable to find the same success in Williamstown, Mass., against the Williams Ephs, losing the match by a score of 44–8. It was a much different story for the Jumbos this week on both sides of the ball, as the offense struggled to get going and the defense had trouble containing the dynamic duo of Ephs’ 2018 second-team All-NESCAC junior quarterback Bobby Maimaron and first-team All-NESCAC junior wide receiver Frank Stola. Coach Jay Civetti spoke about the offensive leaders for Williams. “They were awesome,” Civetti said. “My hats off to Williams for doing a great job, but we have to play better.” The first drives for each team turned out to be indicative of the way the game played out for the rest of the afternoon. On just the second play after the kickoff, junior running back Mike Pedrini fumbled the football and an Ephs defender came up with the ball at the Tufts 20-yard line. The Jumbos’ lost fumble was one of two on the day and one of eight turnovers in total, including those on downs. The unfortunate turnover margin in favor of Williams was uncharacteristic of Tufts, as the Jumbos only lost four fumbles in all of last year. The Ephs jumped on the Jumbos’ mistake as Maimaron ran 17 yards untouched for the first score of the game — giving Williams a 7–0 lead just under two minutes into the game. The Jumbos offense struggled throughout the contest as the Ephs’ sophomore kicker Andrew Schreibstein put 14 points on the board — more than the entire Tufts offense. While Tufts was able to rack up 330 yards, its inability to convert on third and fourth down along with its lack of consistency on the ground and in the air

plagued them. After the initial Williams touchdown, the next two Tufts possessions resulted in only 17 yards gained. Civetti responded when asked about Tufts’ offensive performance on Saturday. “I need to put us in better positions to be successful,” Civetti said. “I think overall our execution across the board needs to be better. But it starts with me.” After forcing the Jumbos out after three plays roughly halfway into the first quarter, the Ephs took advantage of their next opportunity. On a fourth-and-1 play from the Tufts 35-yard line, Maimaron found Stola streaking down the sideline for a touchdown, the first of Stola’s four receiving touchdowns of the game. The 35-yard play also added on to Stola’s eventual 233 receiving yards on the day, where he broke Williams’ single-game record for both touchdowns and receiving yards. While it seemed as though Williams would pull away at this point, Tufts came back with a quick answer. In just under two minutes, the Jumbos were led down the field by Pedrini and senior quarterback Jacob Carroll. The drive was capped by a beautifully thrown ball from 27 yards out that floated in the air until it landed in the hands of junior wide receiver OJ Armstrong, who led the Jumbos with nine receptions on the day. After a bobbled snap on the resulting point after attempt, sophomore wide receiver John Andre picked up the ball and ran in for a successful two-point conversion, cutting the Ephs’ lead to six with a score of 14–8. However, the Jumbos were not able to add to their point total for the remainder of the game. Carroll would only remain in the game for four more drives before first-year Trevon Woodson entered as his replacement. Woodson, who had only attempted one pass in his career prior to Saturday, finished out the game for the Jumbos under center. The New York, N.Y., native finished with 124 passing yards and

79 yards on the ground to lead the Jumbos. However, he turned the ball over twice in the opponents’ territory with an interception at the 9-yard line and a fumble at the 1-yard line as he tried to extend into the end zone. Civetti spoke about the performance of his first-year quarterback. “I think Tre[von Woodson] did a great job,” Civetti said. “I think he managed the offense well, I think he moved the ball … [but] he’s certainly learning the position and learning our offense.” On the other side of the ball, the Jumbos struggled to contain the dualthreat Maimaron, who was under the helm for Williams. Maimaron finished the afternoon with 289 passing yards, 102 rushing yards and five total touchdowns, four of which were through the air. The four touchdowns through the air all found the hands Stola who tied the Williams career receiving touchdown record with his spectacular day. Civetti spoke about how the Jumbos tried to shut Stola down. “We tried some different looks,” Civetti said. “We tried some different things … I think the Williams coaching staff did a great job taking advantage of some of our weaknesses.” The forceful Williams defense was led by senior defensive back Ben Anthony who tallied five solo tackles and caught two balls thrown by Tufts quarterbacks. His two interceptions in the game add up to one-third of the total interceptions he has in his career. Beside him wreaking havoc on the Tufts offense was Williams junior linebacker TJ Rothmann, who recorded seven tackles and forced one fumble. The Jumbos return to action at the Ellis Oval on Sept. 28 when they face the Amherst Mammoths (2–0). The task will not be any easier for the Jumbos as the Mammoths are averaging 25.5 points per game, the fourth most in the NESCAC.