TuftsDaily03.03.14

THE TUFTS DAILY

Cloudy 21/5

VOLUME LXVII, NUMBER 27

BY VICTORIA

LEISTMAN

Daily Editorial Board

Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns delivered Friday’s keynote address on America’s position in the Middle East to officially open this year’s EPIIC symposium.

Following an introduction from Provost David Harris who thanked the event’s sponsors including the Bendetson family, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the board of the Institute for Global Leadership (IGL), IGL Director Sherman Teichman acknowledged the work that made the event possible.

“This evening is the product of an extraordinary fusion, an intellectual collaboration,” he said. “Our students are our core, they are our metric, our beating heart.”

Dean of the Fletcher School Admiral James Stavridis introduced Burns, who has served in the foreign service for 32 years in positions that include Ambassador to Russia and to Jordan. “[His current position] speaks volumes about his professionalism, [his] deep knowledge of the world and his leadership,” Stravridis said. “He is endlessly kind, thoughtful and leads by example in every case. You are in for an enormous treat tonight from America’s leading diplomat.”

Burns began by explaining an important lesson he learned during his service and work on Middle Eastern issues.

“The Middle East is a place where pessimists seldom lack for company or validation, where skeptics hardly ever see wrong,” he said. “It’s a place where American policy makers often learn humility the hard way.”

Burns said that change in the Middle East is challenging to come by, and that it is often nonlinear, messy, cruel and unpredictable.

“I’ve learned that stability is not a static phenomenon and that regimes which do not offer their citizens a sense of political dignity and economic possibility ultimately become brittle and break,” he said.

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MONDAY, MARCH 3, 2014

Deputy Secretary of State gives keynote address Burns discussed why the Middle East still matters in American foreign policy and how it is changing. He then outlined elements of a positive American policy agenda in the region.

“It is a truism that America’s chief foreign policy challenge[s] are domestic renewal, strengthening our homegrown capacity to compete [and] promote our interests and values around the world,” he said. “We don’t have the luxury of pivoting away the Middle East, which often has a nasty way of reminding us of its relevance.”

Burns said that the second Arab awakening is about several different layers of change, and that revolutions leave open spaces for extremists to take advantage of. Those changes will come down to the question of whether the Arab world will become one in which an old order is replaced by democratic states or one in which extremists emerge in leadership roles, he said.

“The United States has a powerful stake in that very complex competition and in shaping the careful long term strategy we’re enhancing the chances for a new moderate order which best protects our interests and reflects our values,” he said. “What we need to convey is a clear sense of what we stand for, not just what we stand against — an agenda that offers a powerful antidote to extremists.”

According to Burns, the best way to promote that agenda is through a longterm, workable American strategy with three interconnected aspects: support for pluralism and democratic change, economic opportunity and regional peace and security.

Burns then briefly talked about Syria, Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. He said that the United States cannot afford to pull back because, with persistence, it can make a difference in the region.

“These are areas in which American policy can make a difference and within which we have a profound stake,” he said. “Our interests and credibility are at risk.”

NICK PFOSI / THE TUFTS DAILY

Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns delivers EPIIC’s friday evening keynote address.

Inside this issue

Where You Read It First Est. 1980

EPIIC The 29th Annual Norris and Margery Bendetson Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) International Symposium, a five-day event sponsored by the Institute for Global Leadership (IGL), began last Wednesday. The symposium’s theme was “The Future of the Middle East and North Africa” and featured international experts — including keynote speaker Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns — discussing ongoing political, economic and social conflict in the regions.

NICK PFOSI / THE TUFTS DAILY

Sherman Teichman, the IGL Director, awards Richard C. Jankowsky (AS ’95) with the IGL Alumni Award during the EPIIC Cultural Evening. The award was given in the Distler Performance Hall in the Granoff Music Center on Wednesday, Feb. 26, the first day of the 2014 EPIIC Symposium: The Future of the Middle East and North Africa.

R. Nicholas Burns: U.S. foreign policy extremely complex

BY SARAH

ZHENG

Daily Editorial Board

Sunday morning’s keynote address on “American Policy and the Arab Revolutions” featured R. Nicholas Burns, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.

Burns, a professor at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, stressed his respect for President Obama and explained the difficult foreign policy balance that he must maintain.

“Obama is trying to juggle two competing American interests,” Burns said. “On one hand, he is continuing the great tradition of our foreign policy to support people beyond our shores who want to struggle for freedom and democracy ... and trying to uphold what is the essence of American foreign policy: democratic policy. On the other hand, the U.S. has a history of [playing] a role in the Middle East and Obama need[s] to secure the security interests of the U.S.” Burns cited the contrast of the U.S. support of the Egyptian uprising in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, but the lack of support of the protesters in Bahrain’s Pearl Square, as an example. He explained that while it appears the U.S. is acting hypocritically in its support for democratic uprisings, it is in the country’s best interest due to the complex conflict in the Middle East.

“Many people thought that it was a hopeful time for the Arab people,” Burns said. “We need to keep that image because when you think about our time now, we’re really looking at a burning Middle East — there’s really no way else to put it.”

With the possible exception of Morocco

and Tunisia, Burns said, very few of the 22 countries in the Middle East are better off today in terms of stability than they were three years ago.

Burns also spoke about the situations in Syria and Iran, and what is currently unfolding in Ukraine. Active American leadership is needed in Syria against President Bashar al-Assad and his regime’s use of chemical weaponry, Burns said.

“We can’t be the world’s policeman, but when 9.3 million of the 22.4 million people in Syria are refugees, it’s everyone’s concern,” Burns said. “It’s a problem that the U.S. needs to turn and face.”

Burns also complimented Obama for his work toward an interim nuclear agreement with Iran, the first diplomatic talks between the two nations in 34 years.

“Our first impulse has to be diplomacy, not the use of force,” Burns said. “We need to exhaust the use of diplomacy.”

With regard to the unfolding situation in Ukraine, Burns said that it would be irrational for the U.S. to employ military force against Putin, especially because America has no security commitment to Ukraine.

“It would be catastrophic — it would be a war of two nuclear powers,” he said.

“There will be not a military counterpunch to Putin’s land grab in Crimea.”

However, he suggested that economic sanctions would likely be employed and that Obama should not attend the G8 summit scheduled to take place in June in Sochi.

“It’s time to expel Russia from the G8,” Burns said. “We can’t have a country there who is abusing sovereignty and territorial integrity of the other countries.”

Today’s sections

‘Non-Stop’ stars Liam Neeson in an archetypal role but falls apart thanks to poor script.

‘Adventure Time’ attracts young and old audiences alike through creative comedic style.

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NEWS

Monday, March 3, 2014

Saturday: ‘Vying for Influence: Iran and Saudi Arabia’ A four-person panel on Saturday morning, “Vying for Influence: Iran and Saudi Arabia,” discussed ongoing tensions between the two nations as well as the conflict’s underlying causes, which panel members agreed were not sectarian but geopolitical in nature.

2014 EPIIC Colloquium member Ayesha Forbes, a junior, moderated the discussion between panelists including Associate Professor in the Department of Arabic Language and Culture at Peking University Wu Bingbing, International Crisis Group Senior Analyst for Iran Ali Vaez, Senior Associate in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Frederic Wehrey and President of the Kuwait Center for Strategic Studies Sami al-Faraj.

Bingbing began the presentation by outlining China’s foreign policy stance towards Iran and Saudi Arabia. China is interested in strengthening ties with both nations, though it has some concerns about the spread of terrorism from Syria into the Saudi Arabian region, Bingbing said.

He also asserted that conflict between the two countries centered on geopolitical concerns, citing Iran and Saudi Arabia’s sometimes friendly but sometimes hostile relationship during different historical periods, such as during the Islamic revolution in Iran and during the Gulf War. Sectarian conflict, in fact, was rarely mentioned by scholars on the region until 2004, Bingbing said.

“We think the sectarian conflict is only phenomenal, or only a result instead of a cause,” he said. “If we focus on this sectarian conflict, we cannot solve the problem.”

Vaez, who spoke next, echoed Bingbing’s beliefs about the real causes for animosity between the two countries. Vaez said the key to understanding the struggle lies in the triangular relationship between Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Whenever one country is isolated by the other two, that country tends to resort to sectarianism as a way to compensate,

he said.

According to Vaez, both Iran and Saudi Arabia tend to make decisions based on their fear of the other nation.

“In the eyes of the Iranians, the Saudis are facilitators and collaborators of the American power in the region designed to, [in the] best case scenario, encircle Iran and weaken it, and, [in the] worst case scenario, topple the regime,” Vaez said. “The same fear factor applies to the Saudis. They believe that America is leaving the region ... and is going to allow Iran [a] free hand to pursue its hegemonic plans in the region.”

Wehrey argued next that the central geopolitical triangle did not include Iraq, but rather the United States. He also contended that although the governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia operate on realist political goals, their local actors are often guided by sectarian values. In this way, both countries seem to fuel dangerous identity politics in the surrounding nations.

Despite shifting American politics, Wehrey said he doubted there would be any drastic realignment in the region.

“America is currently undergoing tactical tensions with Saudi Arabia, but there is strategic cooperation,” he said. “We could argue that the reverse is true with Iran. There may be some tactical alignment with Iran right now, but fundamentally we’re still in a stage of strategic confrontation with that country.”

Al-Faraj explained Kuwait’s relationship with Iran, and said that, because Iran is a much larger and more powerful nation, Kuwait must try to match Iran qualitatively in militaristic and economic areas to protect itself from Iranian influence. He also examined Iran’s possible attack strategies and stressed the small country’s need to correctly assess danger.

“In the United States, you are quite far and you are big,” he said. “But if we make a mistake, we are decimated.”

—by Abigail Feldman

NICK PFOSI / THE TUFTS DAILY

Bernardo León, Special Representative for the Southern Mediterranean Region of the European Union speaks Friday night during an EPIIC panel on U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East and North Africa.

Friday: ‘U.S. Foreign Policy and Security in the Middle East and North Africa’ Four panelists explored American foreign policy during a Friday panel titled “U.S. Foreign Policy and Security in the Middle East and North Africa.”

2014 EPIIC Colloquium Member Rebekah Waller, a freshman, moderated the panel, which included Special Representative for the Southern Mediterranean Region of the European Union Bernardino León Professor of International Relations and Anthropology at Boston University Augustus Richard Norton, Director of the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy Tamara Cofman Wittes and former Director for Democracy and Governance at National Security Staff Dafna Hochman Rand.

León began by discussing his work as the Foreign Policy Advisor in the Office of the Prime Minister in Spain and explained why the presence of the United States and European Union (EU) continues to be essential in the region. He asserted that only these two bodies have the capability to rebuild the economies of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries and that doing so would benefit their investments in tour-

Saturday: ‘International Institutions and Intervention’ A six-member EPIIC panel entitled “International Institutions and Intervention” explored the role of international institutions and foreign intervention in conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa on Saturday afternoon.

The topic was particularly controversial due to the myriad of ongoing conflicts in the region and the international community’s mixed record in responding to these conflicts, moderator and 2014 EPIIC Colloquium member Elissa Miller, a senior, explained.

Saad Eddin Ibrahim, founder of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies in Egypt, began by speaking the history of foreign intervention in the Middle East and North Africa.

“Foreign intervention in Middle Eastern and Arab affairs is as old as the French [Napoleon’s] expedition,” he said. “No decade has gone by without American intervention in our part of the world.”

Ibrahim also pointed to the protracted despotism in Middle Eastern countries as a cause for the Arab Spring, where the age difference between the average citizen and the nation’s rulers was about 50 years, or a two-generation gap.

“You could see why the region was going to explode sooner or

later,” he said.

Tufts’ Edward Keller Professor of North African and Middle Eastern History Hugh Roberts, an expert on Algerian politics, spoke out against foreign intervention and argued that the United Nations is in need of reform. The UN is dominated by five countries and claims to represent the international community, even though many other nations — some of which opposed foreign intervention in the Middle East — are not represented, Roberts said.

Richard Atwood, research director of the International Crisis Group, explained that interventions in Syria and Libya have exposed the weaknesses of the “responsibility to protect” doctrine — the belief that the international community should enforce a state’s duty to protect its population from mass atrocities.

Atwood then discussed the effectiveness of using force to end conflicts and discussed the problems of the International Criminal Court.

“Instead of cutting through politics, it became part of politics,” he said.

Emergency Response Coordinator at Questscope Michael Niconchuk, who works with refugee youth, discussed

how the system of international humanitarian aid could be improved. He cited the slow speed and high costs of the current system, which he said lacks a client feedback mechanism that takes into account refugees’ psychosocial and emotional needs. Instead, he encouraged the utilization of refugees’ skills.

Mark Katz, professor of government and politics at George Mason University, followed with an explanation of Russian foreign policy and its view of international relations in the Middle East.

“Now that the US ... is not so willing to intervene ... Putin is happy about this,” he said.

However, he contended that Russian’s current Syrian policy is impossible to implement without foreign cooperation.

Duncan Pickard (A ‘10), nonresident fellow at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, concluded by discussing the Libyan Revolution of 2011 and the governing bodies of other nations in transition, including the National Transitional Council (NTC).

According to Pickard, international recognition for the NTC gave it political credibility despite its lack of legitimacy and power.

—by Jei-Jei Tan

ism and oil industries, as well as help to encourage democracy in the region.

Norton spoke next and suggested strategies to resolve the conflict in Libya. If powerful nations are unwilling to put boots on the ground, he said, then they should focus on humanitarian aid and regulating the flow of arms into the country.

Though Libya faces the daunting task of starting from scratch, Norton still had hope that foreign aid would greatly benefit the country.

“My hope is that [the United Nations resolution is] not a high water mark for cooperation, but instead a model for future dialogue and consensus,” he said.

“I have no big answers, only a couple of small suggestions.”

Wittes spoke next on the “political earthquake” of the MENA region and the United States’ role in it. She argued that the U.S., which needs stability above all else, cannot turn its back on the region because its economy is most stable when the countries with which it interacts are also stable.

“We have to learn the lessons

of the last decade of war, but we cannot let them paralyze us,” Wittes said. “As a country with global interests, we have a stake in how other countries manage their business.”

She addressed how U.S. citizens’ aversion to overseas involvement affects government foreign policy. One way that the administration tries to maintain public support, she said, is to focus on specific crises, such as biochemical weapons in Syria, rather than on overall conflict.

Rand spoke about the various ways in which the U.S. leverages its power in the MENA region, including through military intervention, economic pressuring, civilian assistance and public and private diplomacy.

After discussing the pros and cons of each, she concluded that, in general, these methods are still effective and there is not sufficient justifications to leave the region.

“The popular view in Washington [is] that our leverage is in decline [and it] becomes quickly an excuse not to act,” Rand said. “It creates a fatalistic cycle of neglect and defeat.”

—by Kathleen Schmidt

Saturday: Al Sabah receives Bendetson Award for Public Policy Former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kuwait Sheik Dr. Mohammad Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah was awarded the 2014 Robert and JoAnn Bendetson Award for Public Policy at the annual EPIIC Symposium Saturday morning.

Al-Sabah’s positions in the public policy and diplomatic fields include serving as the Ambassador of the State of Kuwait to the United States, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kuwait, and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Kuwait Fund, 2014 EPIIC Colloquium member Lilly Tahmasebi, a freshman, said in her opening remarks.

“Committing to education initiatives among his own young constituents, Dr. Al-Sabah’s endowment in [Harvard University] has enabled young Kuwaitis to come to the U.S. to study, putting his country on the world map,” Tahmasebi said.

In addition to his work in education, Tahmasebi highlighted Al-Sabah’s stance against corruption and his commitment to development across borders which have helped Kuwait become respected internationally.

Al- Sabah joins other highly accomplished intellectuals in receiving the Bendetson Award, including Massoud Barzani, President of Iraqi Kurdistan, who received the award for his work in stabilizing Iraq, according to Tahmasebi.

University President Anthony Monaco joined Tahmasebi in presenting the distinguished award.

Monaco thanked Al-Sabah for his admirable work.

“I am so honored and privileged to be recognized with such a distinguished recognition by such a prestigious institution,” Al-Sabah said. “Thank you very much Tufts, thank you very much [Institute of Global Leadership].”

Al-Sabah commended the Institute of Global Leadership (IGL) and EPIIC for their work in building leaders and raising awareness about global issues.

“I can see how the IGL has really grown people from all walks of life to interact and change for the betterment of humanity ... I’d like to say that the lectures over the past two days have been really quite valuable,” Al-Sabah said.

—by Denali Tietjen

THE TUFTS DAILY

Monday, March 3, 2014

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Thursday: Thompson covers effects of World War I on Middle East

NICK PFOSI / THE TUFTS DAILY

Dr. Mohammed S. Dajani Daoudi speaks to fellow panelists and audience members during the Political Islam and Governance Panel on the Friday of the 2014 EPIIC Symposium: The Future of the Middle East and North Africa in Cabot Auditorium on February 28, 2014.

Friday: ‘Political Islam and Governance’ Five experts discussed the role of Islam in the politics of Middle Eastern states during a Friday afternoon panel entitled “Political Islam and Governance.”

Panelist Robert P. Parks, the director of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies’ Centre d’Etudes Maghrebines en Algerie described the role of Islamic parties in Algeria’s political system, particularly during the 2012 Algerian parliamentary elections. Islamic parties did much worse than expected, and Parks suggested that the Algerian public does not see political Islam as a viable political solution, but rather sees Islamist parties as stakeholders in the system.

Issandr El Amrani, the director of the International Crisis Group’s North Africa Project, spoke next about the political performance of Islamic parties in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. According to El Amrani, Islamic parties were able to win a large number of votes in these countries due to party discipline and cohesion, as well as a popular belief that their times had come.

He noted, however, that the situation is more complicated than it might appear.

“To say ... that in a democratic system in these countries, the Islamists would automatically win, I think hides the real diversity of views in these societies,” El Amrani said. “Elections are more complicated than a popularity contest ... and they have very specific conditions depending on the electoral system being used ... that does afford for a wide range of results.”

Mohammed S. Dajani Daoudi, founder and executive director of the Wasatia Moderate Islamic Movement in Palestine, spoke about his personal experience with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He explained that while he held radical positions as a youth, he now is an advocate for a peaceful solution. One of the key avenues to the establishment of a moderate and rational peace is the clarification of misinterpretations of Islam, Daoudi said.

Hugh Roberts, the Edward Keller Professor of North African and Middle Eastern History at Tufts, then spoke about understanding Islamism in the present day.

According to Roberts, the term “political Islam” is a misnomer,

Friday: ‘Iraq: Its Uncertain Future’ Three international security experts discussed recent changes in Iraq during a Friday morning EPIIC panel titled “Iraq: Its Uncertain Future.”

Mowaffak al-Rubaie, former National Security Advisor and Member of Parliament in Iraq, opened with an optimistic perspective on Iraq’s democratization.

“What I believe is going to happen is slow but progressive improvement and progress towards a full-[fledged] democratic parliamentary system,” he said.

Emma Sky, senior fellow at the Jackson Institute at Yale University and former political advisor to U.S. General Ray Odierno, had a more solemn outlook on the future of the nation.

“I have to say ... I am not optimistic for Iraq’s future,” she said.

She explained that many of the problems Iraq faces today could have been avoided with different choices, particularly from 2010 onward.

Peter Harling, Senior Middle East and North Africa Advisor for the International Crisis Group, further unpacked both Al Rubaie and Sky’s arguments by elaborating on the current events taking place in Iraq.

“In between the reconstruction of the very centralized, hegemonic state that we see in the region in the 20th century and partition, I think there is much we need to explore,” he said.

After the three panelists spoke

about the future of Iraq, Yassir Abbas, a senior and 2014 EPIIC Colloquium member, shared the story of his experience growing up in Iraq and working as a translator for the United States Army.

“Thanks to the now well-known mismanagement of the U.S. war, Iraq was soon engulfed in chaos and I was there with the rest of our countrymen watching our country being burned to the ground,” he said. “At that time I was faced with two very difficult options: to sit on the fence and watch, or to get involved and do something.”

Elayne Stecher, also a senior and 2014 EPIIC Colloquium member, then spoke about the research she conducted over winter break as part of EPIIC, doing interviews and examining case studies in both Jordan and Iraq.

“Through my research and travels I hoped to be able to use Jordan as a case study to understand the influence of Syrian refugees in the country and apply this knowledge to my understanding of the refugee situation in Iraq,” she said.

The presentations were followed by dialogue between the panelists and then the floor was opened to questions from the audience.

Ultimately, the panel provided a wide range of opinions and predictions on future directions for Iraq.

“There are so many challenges in confronting our future in Iraq,” Al Rubaie said. “But I believe in this nation.”

—by Annabelle Roberts

since it presupposes a dichotomy between politics and Islam.

“One of the problems with [this] binary view is that it assumes that Islam on its own has no builtin implications for governance, whereas I would argue that it does, because it is a religion of law like Judaism and unlike Christianity,” he said.

Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a former National Security Advisor to the Iraqi government, spoke last and agreed with Roberts that “political Islam” is a misnomer because politics are a product not of the Islamic religion but of Muslims themselves. He also emphasized that while Islamism and secularism can be viewed on opposite sides of the political spectrum, there is an alternative.

“There is a third way, which I call civil order, whereby religion and politics run in parallel to each other, and religion has an advisory rather than a supervisory role on politics ... [religion and politics] have their own responsibilities and authorities ... and they complement each other,” he said.

—by Daniel Bottino

Associate Professor of History at the University of Virginia Elizabeth Thompson on Thursday night delivered the first keynote address of the conference titled “100 Years After World War I: Enduring Consequences for the Middle East and North Africa.”

Thompson said it was important to recognize the centennial of the First World War, given its devastating and transformative impacts, especially in the Arab world.

“When you think about how the Civil War in the United States has defined this country, our political culture and our shift in racial policies ... you begin to get an understanding of what World War I means for the people of the Middle East,” she said.

Thompson said that many of World War I’s impacts remain unstudied, particularly those in the Ottoman and Mediterranean regions where the nation-states that were meant to be formed during this period failed miserably, leading to widespread human suffering and unrest. Outside imperial forces that were operating in this region, especially France and Great Britain, had neither the ability nor the interest to spend money on populations who had been devastated by the war, she said.

“What World War I brought was the breaking of faith that one could have a polity ruled by law that included many people ruled as one,” she said.

“If democracy could have worked in the Middle East, it would have had to be ... an indigenous form of democ-

racy, one which was truly inclusive — one devised by the regime and not imposed from without.”

Thompson recognized Arabs’ struggles to achieve political sovereignty in the post-World War I era and spoke about the Syrian National Congress, which she said was founded in Damascus in 1919 and which called for the Allies to recognize Syria as an independent state, to be ruled by King Faisal I. “The interesting thing that they [did] here, is that they passed what probably could stand ... as the most liberal and the most democratic constitution in the Arab world for most of the 20th century,” she said.

Thompson said that the British and French refused to recognize Faisal’s regime as legitimate. In the years after the Congress was formed, these two nations embarked on a campaign of modernization and cultural colonization in the Arab peninsula, often disrespecting Islamic principles.

Thompson said that Egyptian imam Hassan al-Banna became inspired to found the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic revivalist organization, in 1928, in response to the injustices many Arabs and Muslims suffered while under foreign control.

“That is the legacy which we live with today ... [a result of] the trauma and distress of these people from being excluded from humanity,” she said. “A sad legacy, but one that is useful to ponder as a sort of mindset of the deep impact of this war.”

—by Josh Weiner

Friday: ‘Civil-Military Relations and Security Sector Reform in Political Transitions’ Speakers during Friday afternoon’s EPIIC panel entitled “Civil-Military Relations and Security Sector Reform in Political Transitions,” discussed the institutions that need reform in post-transition states, including military forces and intelligence agencies that provide security for civilians.

2014 EPIIC Colloquium member David Riche, a senior, moderated the three-member panel which included professors and government officials. The presentation focused primarily on Libya and Egypt as examples of countries in political transition.

Panelists mentioned that ending conflict is only the beginning.

Professor of International Politics at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy Richard Shultz spoke first and explained that the concept of security sector reform is fairly new.

“This idea emerged in 1990 by the United Nations and [the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] when they began to engage in dialogue about important institutions that needed reform in post-conflict transition states,” he said. “These areas of reform include military, police and intelligence agencies.”

Shultz and the other panelists focused their presentations on Libya and Egypt as examples of countries in political transition.

“We have to be focused on postconflict situations and reconstruc-

NICK PFOSI / THE TUFTS DAILY

Karim Haggag, the Deputy Director of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry’s Policy Planning Division speaks during this year’s EPIIC Symposium. tion,” Shultz said. “It is the end of authoritarian rule and the transition to a system where there is a rule of law that is so important.”

Deputy Director of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry’s Policy Planning Division Karim Haggag followed Schultz with a discussion on how security sector reform can be implemented.

“This is a complex idea, and it takes time and effort,” Haggag said. “There are few success stories because, in authoritarian rule, security institutions develop an institutional identity. Our task is to keep these two things separate.”

According to Haggag, Libya is an example of a country where these two institutions are fused together.

“The security sector and regime

were one [unit],” he said. “When you have a collapse in authoritarian regime, the military system collapses with it.”

Fletcher School Ph.D candidate Jean-Louis Romanet Perroux then spoke about the research he and his team conducted in Libya. The purpose of their research was to provide recommendations to the U.S. Department of State on how to help secure peace in the Middle East.

“We looked at how hypocritical the civilian leadership was,” he said.

“It is supposed to be direct democracy but in reality, a small and elite group held power.”

—by Alexa Horwitz

Features

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tuftsdaily.com

LEX ERATH | SUGAR AND SPICE

Drunk phone

H

i, my name’s Lex, and my iPhone has a problem: It’s a bit of a drunkard. No, I’m being completely serious. This is a very real everyday struggle for both my phone and me, and we’re looking for help.

I’ll back up a little bit to when our troubles first began. About a month ago, I upgraded to the new iPhone 5S when my 4S started misbehaving. My new phone and I got along wonderfully until about two weeks ago, when it began hitting the happy juice behind my back. (Don’t ask me how it’s getting its nonexistent hands on the goods; I’m only 19 and it’s definitely underage.)

Anyway, I’m sure you’ve all experienced “drunk texting,” when you’re a little too, ah, intoxicated to type on a tiny phone screen with any degree of accuracy. The results, when you re-read your messages the next morning, are often embarrassing and always entertaining. Well, my phone has recently developed the irritating habit of drunk texting at all hours of the day. It will change words as I type them, or be even more dastardly and change everything as I hit send, so right as I think I’ve actually managed to send a coherent message, it will win in the end. Sometimes it will even pull up random message chains and send texts, all of its own volition.

This has, as I’m sure you can imagine, been more than a little problematic. For example, a few days ago I was trying to make dinner plans with two of my good friends. Friend No. 1 proposed a specific night. I agreed. Friend No. 2 chimed in with a conflict and offered an alternative, in which time my phone managed to take a quick six or seven tequila shots.

Friend No. 2: I have a meeting that night ’till 8. But it usually ends earlier.

Me: Eellike. (Oh no!)

Friend No. 1: You have chapter at night?

We could do brunch instead?

Me: Wi have fun (I have to run) No. 1: Or we could go into Davis and do homework?

Me: W jv one l (I’d be down) It took my friends a surprising amount of time to notice my abnormal answers.

Friend No. 2 had previously experienced my drunken phone and was a skilled translator.

No. 1: ...

Me: I’m Taryin (I’m trying) No. 2: Her phone spazzes.

Me: TYING (Trying) No. 2: Trying.

Me: TWWUNGw (trying) You get the picture. My friends continued to make plans, as I occasionally chimed in with insights like “piete in the coweneww” and “Puwt twhencOw.” Eventually our plans were cemented, but only once I managed to use Siri to type for me.

And my drunken phone’s antics don’t stop there. While I was sitting in lecture, it attempted to call the same person six times in a row, with me furiously hitting the “end” button right before it managed to connect. Or a few weeks ago — I was in the shower and came back to my room to see my phone (alone in the room) having a grand old time FaceTiming random contacts, including an ex-teammate I haven’t spoken to in years and my very confused great aunt. More than a little awkward, as I’m sure you can imagine.

In any event, my phone is quickly becoming a full-on alcoholic. I’ve been making excuses for as long as I can, but there’s only so long you can pretend not to notice when someone close to you is in a downward spiral.

If anyone can recommend a good Alcoholic Phones Anonymous support group to me, my email is below. In the meantime, I’m hopeful that things will start to turn around; I recently confiscated two handles, and I think my phone is running out of hiding places.

Lex Erath is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major. She can be reached at Alexandra.Erath@tufts.edu.

New CSL policy allows election of student leaders to rely on democratic process BY

EMMA ARNESTY-GOOD Daily Editorial Board

Almost a year and a half after the derecognition of the evangelical student religious group Tufts Christian Fellowship (TCF), the heated debate over qualifications for student leadership positions for religious groups came to some resolution with a new policy from the Committee on Student Life (CSL).

Alva Couch and Haydn Forrest, the CSL faculty and student co-chairs, wrote a Feb. 6 op-ed to the Daily, which detailed the significant alterations that the CSL made to the policy.

“The most important change in the policy is that groups are no longer able to seek an exemption from the Tufts nondiscrimination policy,” Forrest, a senior, told the Daily an email.

In November of 2012, CSL passed the “justified departure” policy, which permitted student religious groups to apply for exemption from the non-discrimination policy. Couch, an associate professor of computer science, said the previous policy set a dangerous precedent. “...The basic problem that they had with [the policy] is [that] if you allow someone to discriminate for religious reasons, why don’t you allow people to discriminate for non-religious reasons?” Couch said.

Couch also explained that he saw the exemption policy as an experiment.

If the “justified departure” exemption were granted, it would allow the student religious group to require students in leadership roles to have certain characteristics, such as adhering to certain beliefs or abstaining from “sexually unchaste” activities, according to Forrest.

In an interview conducted last fall, Forrest told the Daily that transparency was one of the key mechanisms of the justified departure policy. The point was to ensure that incoming students would be fully aware of the conditions needed for leadership positions in groups they were joining, he said.

Junior Kumar Ramanathan, who was a member of the CSL last spring, disagreed with the idea that transparency was the key to solving the issue.

“I think that’s a false dichotomy — that discrimination is just going to happen and either it can be secret or it can be out in the open,” he said.

Student opposition to last semester’s exemption policy was heavily voiced by the organization Coalition Against Religious Exclusion (CARE), of which Ramanathan is a member.

Senior Walker Bristol, a student representative of the CSL and also a member of CARE, said the group’s activity ramped up when the justified departure policy was released.

CARE realized that in order to change the policy, they would have put their resources into packing the CSL with people who wanted that change, according to Bristol.

“I wanted to be able to advocate for religious communities and people who have religious identities [who] wouldn’t be represented by people in power in religious organizations,” Bristol said.

CARE was not the only student group who functioned as an oppositional voice.

The Equal Educational Opportunity Committee (EEOC) sent the CSL a letter last fall detailing their argument that student religious groups are first student groups, then religious groups. If students wish to practice their religion in a way that doesn’t follow Tufts law, they argued, they can do that outside of a TCU-funded group.

Couch echoed this sentiment from EEOC. “Most of the conflict that occurred within campus was [because] people felt that we were not sufficiently treating [student religious groups] as student organizations and, as such, the student government was not empowered to govern them,” he said.

According to Couch, the student government was in crisis and grew con-

SHELBY CARPENTER / THE TUFTS DAILY

The controversy over the derecognition of Tufts Christian Fellowship has brought much discussion to the interfaith community at Tufts. cerned for what they would do if they didn’t want to recognize a student group.

Senior Jonathan Jacques, chair of the TCU Judiciary, said the new policy removes a lot of pressure from the Senate.

“We don’t have the possibility anymore of groups coming to us and wanting an exemption from the non-discrimination policy, and us having to figure out, ‘Well, is it specific enough [or] is it not specific enough?’” he said. “The biggest issue with [the previous policy] was that we had to think a few steps ahead and think, ‘Well, if a new student is going to come to this group, are they going to know exactly what they’re getting themselves into’ ...

That had a lot of grey area, and that’s completely removed from the picture now.”

Ultimately, Couch saw it as a question of whether or not the non-discrimination policy could accommodate student religious groups with requirements for leadership. But, in his first year as CSL cochair, he was able to come to an answer.

“The reason that the policy is so volatile and changed is that I think the answer to that is no — but it took us an entire term to figure that out,” he said. “And that is the real issue here.”

Senior Menghan Liu is a member of the Vision and Planning Board of the Interdenominational Christian Fellowship, which is now unaffiliated with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, a national campus ministry organization with which TCF was initially affiliated. Liu served on the executive board for TCF since fall of 2012.

“We felt that our desire to require our leadership to have certain beliefs was actually an expression of non-discrimination on the grounds of religion rather than an exemption from [discrimination, and] based off of that the CSL took our appeal and created the policy,” she said, describing the sentiment of last spring.

However, she said that over the last year there has been a great deal of dialogue between the members of TCF about what their group’s beliefs are, and that the group has removed language in its constitution that requires leaders to be “sexually chaste.”

According to Liu, the group had planned on requesting exemption from the non-discrimination policy so they could reapply for recognition. They were

told, however, that the policy was under review and could not be used.

“There’s a variety of opinion even within the fellowship about what that means for us on campus, but at least the general consensus is that we would like our leaders to have certain religious beliefs because that flows naturally out of who we are,” she said.

When asked why the phrase “sexually chaste” was taken out of their constitution, Liu explained that there were still a variety of opinions within the fellowship about the requirements for a leader.

“When choosing leadership, it will be about that person and whether they are truly and genuinely pursuing their religion or pursuing living out their faith, or pursuing a greater relationship with God or with Jesus Christ ...” she said.

Whether or not sexual practices factors into that definition, Liu said, is something that not everyone agrees on.

Couch sees the new policy as a solution, however, because it removes requirements for leaders and still allows them to be selected through an equal voting process.

“We are definitely not saying that a non-Christian can be the leader of a Christian group,” Couch said. “We are saying that in the democratic process, supposedly ... takes care of that. And one question I would ask of the critics is, do they really feel so insecure about the democratic process that they feel they have to impose controls on it?”

Nonetheless, codifying democratic elections is not something that is outlined in the new CSL policy. According to Bristol, it would be difficult to implement.

“The point that we can appoint leaders or elect leaders is still ongoing,” Bristol said. “That’s a TCU question.”

Bristol also mentioned that it might be hard to control the election process with groups that are horizontal or elect leaders through an application process, such as Peer Health Exchange.

Couch said he sees the democratic process as the critical, even though it’s not outlined explicitly in the policy. “[For] a group that adapts to the people in the group — that’s not necessarily because the leadership is non-Christian; it’s because the group has shifted its boundaries,” he said.

Arts & Living

5

tuftsdaily.com

MOVIE REVIEW

NATALIE GIRSHMAN | LOVE ON SCREEN

Love me, love me not

Liam Neeson can’t save ‘Non-­‐Stop’ BY

DAN O’LEARY

Daily Editorial Board

Rather than trying to explain the premise of “Non-Stop” to someone, it might be better to simply show them the film’s the-

S

Non-Stop Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra Starring Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, Scoot McNairy, Michelle Dockery atrical poster. The image shows star Liam Neeson airborne in a plane cabin (that is clearly tumbling out of the sky), yet he remains coolly poised while firing a gun, reprising his tough-guy persona cultivated in previous movies like “Taken” (2008). This is essentially “Non-Stop” in a nutshell, because when the dust settles, the lasting memory of the film is just Neeson on a plane — and so the audience’s enjoyment of the movie will likely depend on how entertaining it finds this concept. While “Non-Stop” certainly has potential in its creative set-up, the film seems content to merely coast by on Neeson’s presence and gradually give way to sheer ridiculousness, making for an ultimately hollow experience.

“Non-Stop” centers on air marshal Bill Marks (Neeson), whose characterization in the movie’s first five minutes involves sighing wearily and staring off into the distance. The writers vaguely hint that Marks has a troubled past and they give him a documented history of alcoholism. The filmmakers seem to believe that making their protagonist an alcoholic automatically makes him a multidimensional and interesting character.

Unfortunately, they take what could be

COURTESY MYLES ARONOWITZ / UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Star Liam Neeson elevates the script of ‘Non-Stop,’ but he isn’t enough to save the film from its numerous flaws. a compelling character flaw and instead only address it at face value, never moving beyond the occasional shot of him taking a drink on the flight. And, in the end, Marks’s penchant for alcohol has zero impact on the plot as a whole.

The main narrative of “Non-Stop” begins when Marks boards an international flight to London. Once in the air, he is greeted by a series of cryptic text messages from an unknown number, threatening to kill a passenger on the flight

ALBUM REVIEW

every 20 minutes unless $150 million is wired to an off-shore bank account.

From this point onward, the threats and Marks’s subsequent attempts to find the culprit occupy most of the film’s attention, with little time devoted to sub-plots and character development. And for the most part, this works well. While secondary characters like Julianne Moore’s Jen — who see NON-STOP, page 6

TV REVIEW

‘Adventure Time’ transcends age in ϐ

BY VERONICA

LITTLE

Daily Editorial Board

The fifth season of Cartoon Network’s cult favorite show “Adventure Time” began with a continuation of a major

Adventure Time Starring Jeremy Shada, John DiMaggio, Hynden Walch Airs Mondays at 7 p.m. on Cartoon Network

The album’s cover, which pictures Schoolboy Q wearing a bonnet and ski mask, strikes a nerve with its blend of menace and playfulness.

This juxtaposition is emphasized in the album’s opening track “Gangsta,” in which the sound of talking young children precedes the rapper snarling the song’s title multiple times during the refrain. The verses that follow would sound at home on an N.W.A. record: Schoolboy Q offers listeners a look into the gritty side of urban Los Angeles. “Real n----s don’t die, homie, we multiply,” he raps, quoting the group that placed his native Compton

cliffhanger. At the end of season four, Finn (voiced by Jeremy Shada) and Jake (voiced by John DiMaggio), the main protagonists and post-apocalyptic heroes of the expertly animated show, were finally facing down their ever-present foe, The Lich. Since season one, Finn and Jake have been slowly creeping closer and closer to an encounter with the immortal cloaked skeleton man who is powered by toxic elements left over from the Great Mushroom War. As season four ended, the fate of Finn and Jake was uncertain, and many fans speculated that the next season would be an entirely different iteration of the series. Fortunately, the beginning of season five shattered any and all expectations. The two-part premiere was riddled with intensely funny, shockingly poignant and bizarrely moving sequences, paving the way for what has been the show’s most exciting season to date.

Although “Adventure Time” is a show

see OXYMORON, page 6

see ADVENTURE, page 6

DARNELLE HAILEY VIA FLICKR CREATIVE COMMONS

Schoolboy Q and Kendrick Lamar collaborate on the stellar track, ‘Collard Greens,’ the highlight of ‘Oxymoron.’

Schoolboy Q’s anticipated Ǯ ǯ ϐ

BY JOSH

WEINER

Daily Editorial Board

Before Kendrick Lamar even released an album, his longtime rap companion Schoolboy Q had begun work on what

Oxymoron would be his own major-label debut LP.

Schoolboy Q Interscope Records Twenty months in the making, “Oxymoron” has finally surfaced, and the hard work of the Compton MC shines throughout in spite of some lyrical shortcomings.

aying “I love you” for the first time is half a declaration and half a question. We blindly, wildly declare ourselves and wait in anticipation for a reply — a reply that will either elate or crush us. Other tropes may have a wide variety of outcomes, but saying “I love you” has only two: the person you love either says it back or says nothing. And, strangely enough, the media reflects that in a mostly accurate way.

First comes the decision to say it. Some characters know from the very beginning that they’re in love, like Ted (Josh Radnor) in “How I Met Your Mother” (2005-present), who infamously scared off Robin (Cobie Smulders), the woman who he has been hopelessly in love with for nine seasons too many, by telling her that he was falling in love with her during their first date. Other characters take far too long to say it, like Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick) in “Gossip Girl” (2007-2012), who caused inordinate amounts of fan angst with his inability to tell Blair (Leighton Meester) that he loved her.

Other characters require extensive encouragement, needing everything from a prince to a near-death experience to give them the necessary courage. Characters from books, on the other hand, seem to have it a little easier as the eloquence of their writers guides them to the perfect way to declare their love. One of my favorite examples is from Ian McEwan’s “Atonement” (2001), where we know that Cecilia and Robbie say “I love you” without seeing it written on the page.

Sometimes, a few subtle lines can outdo any grand gesture.

The first, and best, outcome is for the person they love to say it back. If it’s a couple that was clearly meant to be from the first moment they appeared together, it can be the culmination of their relationship. The one who says “I love you” first may not even doubt that the other will say it back. These scenes tend to take one of two forms: the grand, romantic gestures or the impulsive-yet-perfect declaration that feels so right.

But then there’s the placeholder couple, often made up of one half of a meant-tobe couple and a character invented solely to prevent them from getting together with the other half of their pair. That pairing’s saying “I love you” can evoke fan reactions from cringing discomfort to fistshaking, never-ending frustration. I’ll take an example from my own life. This season on “Nashville” (2012-present), Zoe (Chaley Rose), Scarlett’s (Clare Bowen) former best friend, declared her love to Gunnar (Sam Palladio), Scarlett’s former boyfriend — and he said it back, albeit in a rather unenthusiastic monotone. I shouted at my computer screen for almost a minute, falling into the classic fan trap of trying to give the characters advice, before my roommate started giving me odd looks.

Finally, there’s the evil “I love you.” Two evil characters, or one evil character and one character who has been brought over to the dark side, declare their love and promptly start plotting world domination.

This either prompts dismay or — for a certain kind of viewer — dark satisfaction.

The second outcome is the disastrous one. The “I love you” is said to empty air as the other person stares back and lets the seconds go by, making everything clear with what they’re not saying. Those declarations are best forgotten quickly as the couple either breaks up or finds their way to an “I love you” that they both mean. But maybe we need to see those failed firsts, to remind us of the fine, fine line between joy and desolation. Maybe they help us walk that narrow tightrope and maybe the most important thing isn’t whether the person we love says it back to us, but that we sumNatalie Girshman is a sophomore majoring in history and drama. She can reached at Natalie.Girshman@tufts.edu.

THE TUFTS DAILY

6

ARTS & LIVING

Monday, March 3, 2014

Ǯ ǯ ϐ ADVENTURE

continued from page 5

for kids on a network that focuses on children’s programming, it represents a new category of animated entertainment. Beginning with patently adult animated shows like “The Simpsons” (1989-present) and “South Park” (1997-present), the landscape of animated shows for both children and adults has been changing drastically over the past decades. These shows, noted for their biting satire and sharp wit, have influenced cartoon programing for kids: creators have become increasingly unafraid to walk the line between adult and youth subject matter, between humor and relationships.

Today, this line is more blurred than ever, with the fan base of many animated shows for children tending to be all but dominated by viewers in their mid-twenties.

Cartoon Network has been instrumental in recent years in bringing quality cartoon programing to children and nostalgic adults. Starting with shows like “Chowder” (2007-2010), “The Misadventures of Flapjack” (2008-2010) and culminating today with “Regular Show” (2010-present) and “Adventure Time,” Cartoon Network has fearlessly forged forward into this new genre, creating shows that are bizarre and undeniably entertaining. Undaunted by critics of their style and dedicated to rewarding bold animators and storytellers like Pendleton Ward — the creator of “Adventure Time” —

Cartoon Network has created interesting programing and garnered a massive and loyal following.

This newest season of “Adventure Time” is a testament to this fearless programing.

Many episodes of this season, which ends on March 17, are peppered by the tropes that the show is known for — silly jargon and crazy action. However, although these episodes are fun to watch and easy to love, it is installments like “Simon and Marcy” and “Puhoy” — episodes that are bittersweet and heart-wrenching — that make this show so incredible. “Adventure Time” impressively juggles many different sub-plots, touching on various aspects of the lives of children and young adults.

Because the show deals with familial relationships and friendships and themes such as popularity and community, it is supremely relatable.

Moreover, season five represents somewhat of a growth period for the main protagonist Finn. Though Finn has always been involved in love-triangles and dangerous quests, now we see him mature into a young man. (The character, now 15 years old, was 12 when the series started.)

In what is the longest season to date — with a total of 52 episodes planned — Finn and Jake have forged unbreakable bonds with those around them, which adds a newfound, more adult depth to them as characters. Their growth mir-

DRAGAROO VIA FLICKR CREATIVE COMMONS

Joe DiMaggio and Jeremy Shada, who voice Jake and Finn, respectively, bring heart and life to Cartoon Network’s beloved characters. rors the growth of the audience, as many have matured with Finn and Jake as they become young adults.

Though it seems many are skeptical about the show’s characters and quality, the poignancy and humor of “Adventure

Time” are undeniable. Individual episodes, which run about eleven minutes, are chock full of incredible and surprising moments. This show is “tops bluebee” and worth a watch. Give it a try — you may just end up surprising yourself.

Neeson’s action star status isn’t enough to support ‘Non-­‐Stop’ NON-STOP

continued from page 5

DJ LINDA FLORES VIA FLICKR CREATIVE COMMONS

Schoolboy Q produces a polished gangsta album with ‘Oxymoron.’

gansta rap OXYMORON

continued from page 5

on the musical landscape right around the time he was born.

“Oxymoron” is devoted to lyrical ground that has been well-trodden over the quarter-century since gangsta rap first emerged. “So many ladies wanna share my tongue,” Schoolboy Q raps on “Hell of a Night,” and continues with many less PG-friendly variants of the same theme throughout the record. His musings on sex get especially risqué in tracks like “Grooveline, Pt. 2” and “What They Want,” as does his gun talk on “F--k LA” and “Hoover Street” and his odes to drugs on “Prescription/Oxymoron.”

While there’s nothing wrong with sticking to one’s roots — all of this was part of the world the rapper knew during his past affiliation with L.A.’s Crips gang — this record would have likely been improved with more thematic variety, not to mention a more thorough treatment of the topic of fatherhood, which Schoolboy Q regrettably only brushes at here.

On a brighter note, the guest appearances on “Oxymoron” are uniformly high-quality and never feel out of place.

“Collard Greens” is arguably the album’s high point, as Lamar adds another spectacular acrobatic verse to his ever-growing repertoire, while also showing off his comic side by rapping a few bars in Spanish. “Blind Threats” serves as a classic case of old meets new, as Schoolboy Q teams up with Raekwon, one of hip-hop’s most admired veterans, who impressively

rhymes “suitcase king” with “screwedface grin” and stays consistently threatening in standard Wu-Tang Clan style.

Plenty of the other invitees, especially Tyler the Creator on “The Purge” and BJ the Chicago Kid on “Studio,” knock their verses out of the park.

The production team’s contributions to the album merit just as much praise.

The infectious beat on “Man of the Year” — crafted by Schoolboy Q’s frequent collaborators, Nez & Rio, and backed by a sample of “Cherry” (2012) by synthpop group Chromatics — arguably make this song the most radio-ready cut on the album. Other high-profile record producers do great work on various songs, with DJ Dahi on “Hell of a Night,” the Alchemist on “Break the Bank” and Pharrell Williams on “Los Awesome” delivering especially impressive numbers. The prolonged recording process has molded “Oxymoron” into an all-around impressive sonic achievement.

Ever since 50 Cent and G-Unit slipped into irrelevancy about six years ago, gangsta rap has been widely viewed as passé within the hip-hop community.

“Oxymoron” ought to change that impression now that Schoolboy Q has provided the genre with one of its most consistently thrilling and engaging entries in recent memory. This album will serve as a launching pad for a promising mainstream career, which will hopefully allow the rapper to temper the slight overload of lyrical clichés which harms his otherwise stellar debut.

is seated next to Marks — are kept to the periphery for most of the movie, “Non-Stop” wisely keeps its momentum moving forward by constantly following its air marshal protagonist and keeping action onboard the flight, with only occasional interruptions from the ground (initially) coming in the form of phone calls from Marks’ supervisor.

Neeson is a highlight of the movie, and certainly elevates the film with his gruff performance, while also providing an anchor for the film to center around.

Thanks to savvy editing and creative camera angles — such as highlighting how difficult it is to identify a texting passenger due to seats blocking Marks’s sightlines — “Non-Stop” is able to wring a surprising amount of tension out of its setup for the first two-thirds of the film, making viewers constantly second-guess who they think the culprit is in a relatively engaging “whodunit” game.

But by the third act, the film completely squanders whatever tension it could squeeze out of its ludicrous script and instead devolves into an utter train wreck.

Once Marks discovers a bomb hidden on the plane (a plot point already revealed in

numerous trailers for the film), the level of ridiculousness keeps escalating until the movie reaches camp territory — though it doesn’t seems to realize it. It’s difficult to keep a straight face as Marks — in what is supposed to be a character-defining moment — delivers a speech about his troubled past and alcoholism to a cabin full of passengers while he knows a bomb is ticking away in the corner. Without divulging spoilers, many of the climax’s twists are simply ludicrous and some try to attach half-baked political statements to characters’ motives without any context or background. By the time the credits roll, the audience is left pondering the convoluted and comical mess that is the finale.

While “Non-Stop” is certainly a competent and, at times, a tense thriller, it is dragged down entirely by its latter half. The film’s promotional campaign indicates that the studio is trying to capture the same cultural enthusiasm that marked “Taken,” but instead the movie shares more in common with the campy “Snakes on a Plane” (2006) than the former’s breakout success.

While Neeson is certainly able lend the film a touch of gravitas with his action star status, his presence alone isn’t enough to keep the potential in “Non-Stop” from grinding to a halt.

COURTESY UNIVERSAL PICTURES

One of the strengths of ‘Non-Stop’ is its ability to keep the audience guessing which passenger could be the culprit.

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Wherever you are, online courses give you more options.

Are you a healthy man between 18 and 40 years old?

The Massachusetts General Hospital is conducting a study investigating the structure and function of the brain of adult men, ages 18-­‐40, both with and without autism spectrum disorders. The study involves several visits, including a brain MR-­‐PET scan. Individuals who participate will be compensated.

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EDITORIAL

EPIIC is valuable resource for all

CAROLINE A. WELCH Editor-in-Chief

EDITORIAL J.L. Hoagland Stephanie Haven Managing Editors Justin Rheingold Executive News Editor Daniel Bottino News Editors Jenna Buckle Abigail Feldman Daniel Gottfried Alexa Horwitz Victoria Leistman Annabelle Roberts Denali Tietjen Josh Weiner Sarah Zheng Meredith Braunstein Assistant News Editors Dana Guth Kathleen Schmidt Jei-Jei Tan Charlotte Gilliland Executive Features Editor Emma Arnesty-Good Features Editors Emily Bartlett Hannah Fingerhut Caitlin McClure Sabrina McMillin Jessica Mow Shannon Vavra Maya Blackstone Assistant Features Editors Sophie Laing Jake Taber Kendall Todd Lancy Downs Executive Arts Editor Brendan Donohue Arts Editors Veronica Little Dan O’Leary Drew Robertson Dana Guth Assistant Arts Editors Nika Korchok Wakulich Anthony Martinez Jake Indurksky Executive Sports Editor Alex Baudoin Sports Editors Alex Connors Ross Dember Sam Gold Zachey Kliger Kate Klots Aaron Leibowitz Tyler Maher David McIntyre Jason Schneiderman Alex Schroeder Alison Kuah Assistant Sports Editors Jorge Monroy-Palacio Maclyn Senear Chris Warren Nicholas Golden Executive Op-Ed Editor Tom Chalmers Op-Ed Editors Matthew Crane Scott Geldzahler Susan Kaufman Benjamin Boventer Cartoonists Amy Bu Keran Chen Jehan Madhani Kyle Allen Editorialists Jorge Monroy-Palacio Jonathan Moore Bailey Werner Caroline Geiling Executive Photo Editor Sofia Adams Photo Editors Ethan Chan Matt Schreiber Christie Wu Caroline Ambros Assistant Photo Editors Maya Blackstone Annie Levine Alexander Knapp Staff Photographers Nick Pfosi Kyra Sturgill Mitchell Katz Executive Multimedia Editors Rachel Sheldon Alexander Kaufman Senior Multimedia Editor Jake Hellman Multimedia Editors Aastha Chadha Assistant New Media Editor Ethan Chan Jade Chan Kristie Le Tanay Modi Blair Nodelman Joshua Podolsky Grace Segers

PRODUCTION Jen Betts

Production Director Montana Miller Executive Layout Editor Adrian Lo Layout Editors Daniel MacDonald Elliot Phillips Falcon Reese Emily Rourke Andrew Stephens Chelsea Stevens Betsy Allman Assistant Layout Editor Hannah Fingerhut Kathy Lu Hannah Steinberg David Westby Hadley Gibson Executive Copy Editors Charlotte Rea Julia Russell Copy Editors Rachel Salzberg Vidya Srinivasan Arthur Beckel Aastha Chadha Assistant Copy Editors Kelsey Davenport Jose Garcia Kristiana Jordan Reena Karasin Sophie Krakoff Vanessa Miller Patrick O’Shea Jei-Jei Tan Tai Williams Yan Zhao Nitesh Gupta Executive Online Editor

BUSINESS Daphne Wu Executive Business Director Li Liang Receivables Manager Jade Chan Ad Managers Chris Chininis Kristie Le Tanay Modi Yiran Xu P.O. Box 53018, Medford, MA 02155 617 627 3090 FAX 617 627 3910 daily@tuftsdaily.com

Monday, March 3, 2014

It’s not often that one of the countless acronyms that circulates around the Tufts campus gathers such a following, but each year EPIIC manages to garner a fair share of the limelight. These five letters can often become all-consuming for the cohort of students involved in the program each year; however, while EPIIC is publicized to the entire Tufts community, its offerings can sometimes be passed over by those who are not a part of the program. This inconsistency raises a few questions: What exactly is EPIIC? Who should be paying attention to it and why?

EPIIC, or “Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship,” takes center stage each year with its annual symposium, a four or five-day public forum that brings international figures and speakers to campus. These experts, activists, academics and journalists lead presentations, panels, discussions and workshops, stitching together a compelling and educationally valuable

conglomerate perspective on the symposium’s chosen topic. This year, the 29th annual EPIIC symposium was held from Wednesday, Feb. 26 to Sunday, Mar. 2, and featured presentations about “The Future of the Middle East and North Africa.”

But EPIIC does not begin nor end with the symposium. At the heart of EPIIC is a year-long, intensive and multidisciplinary course that prepares approximately 50 students to think critically and analytically about global issues. This year’s roster of students, who went through an application process and round of interviews in order to gain admission into the course, included a diverse set of perspectives, with some students having studied the Middle East for their entire Tufts career and others having little academic experience with the region.

The class, which meets twice a week for two and half hours each, hears from different speakers each session. In order for

the students to be able to participate in discussions with the presenters, they are assigned extensive readings each week and are tested via three comprehensive exams.

At the time of the symposium, students are asked to play key roles in committees, sometimes preparing short speeches and presenting awards to featured speakers.

EPIIC, which is a rigorous and exceptional program, deserves all of the attention it gets — and then some more. While the audience typically consists of a mixture of students, faculty and other academics, the symposium should be piquing the interest of the entire student body, not just the International Relations majors. EPIIC is an invaluable resource that provides eye-opening perspectives for all those who desire to be an active citizen, and everyone should be taking advantage of it — even if it’s only by asking to hear about all of the hard work and dedication that our peers have put in.

JEHAN MADHANI

OFF THE HILL | UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

United States must learn from Afghanistan failure BY

NATHANIEL HAAS The Daily Trojan

President Barack Obama is about to join Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Lord Auckland and Leonid Brezhnev in a very exclusive club that only adds a new member every few decades: world leaders who have tried and failed to successfully invade and reshape Afghanistan, occasionally referred to in history books as “the graveyard of empires.”

The Obama administration announced on Feb. 25 that it is planning a full withdrawal from Afghanistan, to be completed by the end of 2014, according to the Washington Post. The plans were made necessary by the failure thus far of negotiations between President Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai over the Bilateral Security Agreement, the last hope for securing U.S. presence in the country past the end of this year.

Negotiations began to unravel last November. Though the Loya Jirga, a gathering of 2,500 Afghan elders, endorsed the signing of the BSA, Karzai balked when a U.S. drone killed several civilians last November.

Karzai has since expressed a laundry list of preconditions for his signature, ranging from the end of drone strikes to a mandate for direct peace talks with the Taliban.

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Whatever happens in the negotiations, Karzai’s objections speak to deeper problems in the American war machine. These problems make it not only impossible to negotiate with Afghanistan, but also directly hamper allied cooperation in the future. Rather than the short-term tunnel vision that has dominated the U.S. approach to Afghanistan and the War on Terror, a more pragmatic approach, consistent with international norms, is our only hope for the future of engagement with the international order.

The U.S. should commit to full resolution of the indefinite detention of detainees both at Guantanamo Bay and abroad. This is something that President Obama promised during his candidacy and has since failed to do. One of the sticking points over signature of the BSA is the continued detention of Afghan citizens at Guantanamo.

The 2014 National Defense Authorization Act gives the government the power to begin transfers abroad but still bans any funds for transfer to the United States for trial or imprisonment, leaving many in Guantanamo for the foreseeable future.

Guantanamo Bay and detention abroad in general have come to be seen by allies as the most egregious characteristic of post9/11 policy. The Germans may have raised temporary hell over the tapping of German

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone, but you can bet her data plan that they took much more seriously the alleged torture of Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen born and raised in Germany.

Even if the war in Afghanistan is winding down, can the U.S. really afford to leave the precedent set by the last 13 years of detention on the books? The next time the U.S. war machine finds itself abroad, it would do well to have a precedent against the kind of indefinite detention that still exists today.

Furthermore, even if negotiations with Karzai fail, the U.S. will get another shot when the country’s next leader takes power after the April elections. But it is naive and shortsighted to think that these issues are specific to Afghanistan alone. U.S. allies have turned a blind eye to the aforementioned practices for long enough, and the trend is beginning to grow unsustainable.

The challenges of the 21st century — be they climate change, global proliferation of nuclear weapons or collapsing regimes and rogue states — will require close collaboration with our allies abroad. That cooperation will be less effective if our preferred means of overcoming these problems are hampered by our inconsistent and hypocritical military industrial complex.

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Monday, March 3, 2014 OP-ED

THE TUFTS DAILY

9

OP-ED KEVIN CRISCIONE | ILL LITERATES

Palestine is about America

Favorite books

by Leah Muskin-Pierret

Upon entering Tufts — an elite liberal institution — we are discretely told which problems to focus on and which problems to ignore. “Think beyond borders,” we are encouraged; be a “global citizen.” Go solve Rwanda’s, India’s, Guatemala’s and Jordan’s problems; export the values of freedom and equality that America has to offer.

Typically, these initiatives come from places of good intention. Often they succeed somewhat in alleviating difficult conditions in the “underdeveloped” (or more accurately, over-exploited) world, but they nearly always serve to minimize similar domestic issues of inequity and poverty and obscure the reality that the U.S. caused many of these problems in the first place. We are told to focus on the global periphery and not told that our domestic problems and international problems often stem from the same interconnected systems. We are told to care, but in very specific ways that uphold colonizing systems, about everywhere.

Palestine solidarity work is often grouped into the “external” category. The IsraeliPalestinian conflict is perceived as a tribal feud, a religious war and a lost cause. Despite the vast geographic distance between the U.S. and Palestine, the issue remains very close to home. Palestine is so controversial here in the United States precisely because it isn’t really about Palestine, it is about the destructive way many U.S. systems operate around the world. The question of Palestine raises issues that expose internal American institutions of power that prefer to operate incognito. Naming systems of oppression begins the process of dethroning them.

Palestine is about the United States, and Palestine is about anti-racism.

First of all, anyone who studies the history of Palestine and “the Nakba”, or the ethnic cleansing of over 700,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1948, must recognize the glaring resemblance to the history of genocide, settler-colonialism and anti-Indigenous racism that the U.S. is built upon. Seeing the reservation-like population centers that Palestinians have been forced onto and the perpetually expanding Israeli settlements, many Americans cringe to remember the historical land grabs white settlers partook in, stripping Native Americans of their homes and properties. The United States is terrified to acknowledge the humanity of Palestinians because that would mean having to do something about its marginalized, erased and ghettoized indigenous peoples who have survived the American project of expansionism and cultural genocide.

Secondly, we have legalized corruption.

According to a report from the Congressional Research Service, “Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since WWII. To date, the United States has provided $118 billion (current, or non-inflation-adjusted, dollars) in bilateral assistance.

Almost all U.S. bilateral aid to Israel is in the form of military assistance.” At a time when the U.S. economy is struggling, this is a glaring anomaly in our political system.

Lobbies like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the only superficially more progressive J-Street continue to strong arm congressmen and presidents alike to swear their allegiance to Israel and hound those who dare voice even tepid dissent, such as Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.

Meanwhile, the National Rifle Association (NRA) blocks overwhelmingly popular background checks, and pharmaceutical lobbying combats grassroots reform of the healthcare system, all with the same corrupt political money. One begins to wonder, do we live in a democracy or a plutocracy where the dollar is king?

Third, prisons there support prisons here.

The U.S. prison-industrial complex finds a global partner in the Israeli system of child detention and mass incarceration. The state of Israel detains hundreds of children each year and holds over 100 political prisoners in administrative detention, allowing the “democratic” state to hold Palestinians indefinitely without evidence or trial, according to Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association. If you are a Palestinian male living in the Occupied Territories, there is a 40 percent chance you have served prison time since 1967, according to Addameer.

W

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

In the United States, that statistic is about 30 percent for black males, according to the Center for Children’s Law and Policy. As Tufts students, our tuition dollars are invested in companies that profit from prisons both here and in Palestine, such as Motorola, which wires the infrastructure of jails and checkpoints, as an investigation by the Israeli nongovernmental organization Who Profits revealed. We are implicated in twin unjust criminal “justice” systems.

Fourth, there is a perception of enemies being everywhere. Israel has come close to finishing its apartheid wall, an eightmeter high concrete barrier more than twice the height of the Berlin Wall that weaves its way around the West Bank (only 15 percent of it runs on the internationally recognized Green Line border established in 1967) separating farmers from crops and families from relatives.

Israel has also begun the construction of high-voltage electric fences across its Syrian and Lebanese borders — the physical manifestation of the problematic ideology of demonizing those that you fear.

In a similar vein, the U.S. has constructed portions of a wall along its southern border fueled by xenophobia, racism and corporate interest. It is no coincidence that the same company, Elbit Systems, has been contracted to construct portions of both the Israeli and U.S. walls. structures in the U.S. and Palestine are being built by the same company, Elbit Systems.

Fifth, cameras in each country fail to see clearly. The counter-narrative of the Palestinian struggle is purposely omitted from the U.S. mainstream media, revealing the complicity of the media in Palestinian suffering. Liberals scoff at Fox News without also noting that, on Palestine, even the New York Times is brazenly uncritical of the violence of the Israeli state, refusing to include words like “Occupied.” The politics of what makes a tragedy reveal bias: Sarah Weir discovered that in one major U.S. publication, Israeli children’s deaths during the Second Intifada were covered at 25 times the rate of Palestinian children’s deaths.

Palestine is neatly obscured by the “free” press, revealing a black hole of awareness and complicity in injustice that swallows

up everything from indigenous rights to workers’ strikes in the United States.

Sixth, understanding the question of Palestine exposes the contemporary policies of American colonialism across the Middle East, a region where the U.S. has toppled democratic regimes, propped up dictators and coveted petroleum and strategic military outposts with bottomless lust. The Islamophobia and anti-Arabness informing U.S. foreign policy are visible in the harsh grip the U.S. holds on the Middle East. Most of the ruling governments in the region have been funded and supported by America for years, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq and Bahrain, amongst others. The U.S. has a history of bankrolling tragedies in the region, from weapons sales to both sides of the Iran-Iraq war to massive support for the brutal Saudi regime today. We come to realize that Uncle Sam’s boot is still on the throat of the Arab world and truthfully, much of the global south.

The systems of oppression that govern the Occupied Territories and police bodies of color abroad mirror American systems. In the words of academics Sunaina Maira and Magid Shihade, “Every war waged by imperial states abroad is accompanied by a war at home.” Just as this was true for Japanese Americans facing internment during World War II, it is true today for Arab-Americans, Muslim-Americans and anyone perceived as such in the so-called War on Terror.

The Students for Justice in Palestine believe that solidarity with Palestine is absolutely in line with the values America prides itself on but often does not act upon.

Just as so many groups in America have and continue to bravely organize to demand their rights, Palestinians fight for their own freedom from Western domination. When America is finally able to turn the looking glass on itself, then Palestine will be free of its neo-imperialist chains.

Leah Muskin-Pierret is a sophomore majoring in American studies and international relations and is a member of Students for Justice in Palestine.

She can be reached at Leah.Muskin_ Pierret@tufts.edu.

hen asked about my favorite books, I’ll sometimes draw a complete blank. It might sound strange to some, but questions like that feel like unfairly timed pop quizzes to me. Perhaps they are because, in my head, I take a convoluted route to answering questions that involve picking favorites.

When asked about my personal favorites, I tend to seriously factor in the “personal” aspect of that category. I pretty much trace my own life journey with books. In the way that some memories are like floodgates, unwilling to be called forth at all unless they come in a torrent, these titles sometimes slip my mind. But when I begin to remember, they come back in startling detail.

I guess it all started with “The Book Thief” (2006), a modern classic of young adult fiction more affecting than most adult-oriented novels I have read. I recall 12 or maybe 13-year-old Kevin vacationing with my family to the azure-skied summery coast of Rhode Island and being more excited about finishing the second half of this dark tale than the sun or the waves or any of that jazz. I was that kind of kid sometimes. The novel explores disturbing subject matter, yet manages to find redemption and beautiful reasons to exist within the darkness. It does all this while presenting an engaging story that manages to be heartbreakingly real and entertainingly surreal, at times tragic and at times comic and intellectually interesting yet accessible to pre-teen readers.

Many books had an impact on me throughout my teenage years, but what really stirs my memory is a trifecta of books I encountered during my senior year of high school. “Freedom” (2010), a critically acclaimed dramatic epic by Jonathan Franzen that attempted to simultaneously define our modern era and harken back to the way novels used to influence society, came first. Next was “White Teeth” (2000)

by Zadie Smith, a laughably farcical yet socially realistic demographic mapping of modern-day London. Capping off my senior spring was “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” (2007) by Junot Diaz, in which the Dominican immigrant experience in America is given a narrative using a hapless, eternal virgin with a love for science fiction. Each of these stories electrified me in a different way, showing me parts of myself and the world that I never knew existed. Together, they provided me with a sweeping view of my nation and my world, and gave me reason to question the comfortable position I inhabit in both. As a lateblooming, emotionally confused adolescent, these books told me that it was okay to undergo dark and uncertain periods in life, and that the world is full of human stories of weird heartache, inconsolable tragedy, unexpected bliss and other states of emotion that aren’t often in the public view.

So, what do our favorite books say about us? That is a question that I knew I would try and fail to answer in this column — rather, I just rambled on about my favorite novels for 600 words. I think one reason I could never be any kind of literary critic is that I wouldn’t even be able to pretend that my taste is of a high scholarly order that is isolated from my personal experience and identity. Instead, my favorite book follows suit with my favorite bands, films and television shows. I love them not only for what they are, but for the timely manner in which they stumbled into my life.

The only conclusion I can think of here is that the thought and strategy someone puts into choosing his or her favorite book is just as important as the book itself.

Book of the week: Your favorite book! Yes, that one. That one you are so very embarrassed about.

Kevin Criscione is a sophomore majoring in English. He can be reached at Kevin.

Criscione@tufts.edu.

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WOMEN’S TRACK AND FIELD

Jumbos continue postseason at NEICAAAs BY

CHRIS WARREN

Daily Editorial Board

Although most of coach Kristen Morwick’s squad had the day off, some members of the women’s track and field team traveled five miles down the road to the Boston University Track and Tennis Center for the New England Intercollegiate Amateur Athletic Association (NEICAAA) championships, also known as Open New Englands.

“Only a select few run at this meet because it has the hardest qualifying standards,” sophomore Hanako Shigenobu said. “At this point, everyone’s goal was to compete well and improve on marks to qualify for Nationals.”

The distance squad was the most represented Tufts group at the two-day meet, as a slew of Jumbos set seasonbest times. The distance medley relay (DMR) quartet of Shigenobu (1,200-3:41 split), senior Jana Hieber (400-56.2 second split), junior Lauren Gormer (8002:16 split) and sophomore Audrey Gould (1,600-5:10 split) was able to place 10th overall, running a time of 12:05.46 for a season-best mark. This time was a 0.13 second improvement over their DMR time from the Cupid Invitational two weeks ago and puts them nationally at No. 19, down from their previous No. 9 ranking, as other teams have moved past them in the standings.

“Our goal was to qualify for Nationals in the DMR, but unfortunately, we did not run well,” Shigenobu said. “We were ninth nationally coming into the meet and only 12 are invited, but we were bumped out of the top 12 after this meet.”

Senior tri-captain Laura Peterson was able to achieve a personal best in the mile by over five seconds, as she ran a time of 5:04.18 to take 15th overall in a tightly bunched finish that saw the top eight finishers cross the line within five seconds of each other.

“Individually, I wanted to run a faster mile time than my times over the previous weeks and race the heat,” Peterson said. “As a team, we did not have many entries, but all of us competed well.”

In the 3,000-meter run, sophomore Olivia Beltrani ran herself under the 10 minute barrier, posting a national No. 18 time and new personal record (PR) of 9:55.03. Only the top 17 in the nation get an automatic bid to compete at Div. III Nationals, placing Beltrani right on the bubble.

“We definitely improved from where we were before, but we will be looking

continued from back

team combined for 23rd place out of 37 scoring teams.

Williamson and Swett placed seventh and eighth respectively, garnering both All-New England honors, with throws of 51’ 1 1/2” and 50’ 5 1/4”. Although Williamson failed to set a personal best, Swett finished on a high note and beat his personal best by nearly two feet.

“I was hoping to break the 15-meter mark today, and on my last throw of prelims I was able to get a big release,” Swett said. “Overall [Brian and I] were really pleased with our performances — I for breaking through to a next level, and Brian for putting in another solid performance.”

Back on the track, freshman Nick Usoff and sophomore Veer Bhalla came closest to adding to Tufts’ point total.

Bhalla turned in yet another solid time in the 800-meter by running 1:53.16 but, given the depth of the field, was not among the eight to advance out of the

All wins aren’t created equal

I

ANNIE LEVINE / THE TUFTS DAILY

The women’s track and field team sent a small contingent of athletes to Open New Englands this past weekend to try to qualify for Nationals. to improve our relay teams,” Peterson said of the team’s performance. “We have more athletes in the hunt to qualify [for Nationals].”

The Jumbos also had a successful day in the sprints. Sophomore Marilyn Allen set a new personal best of 9.09 seconds in the 60-meter hurdles preliminary round, good enough to advance to the semifinals. She bowed out of the competition by placing 13th in the semifinals, though, running a 9.21 second time.

Senior tri-captain Anya Kaufmann competed in the 60-meter dash with a time of 8.00 in the preliminary round. Senior Colleen Flanagan also raced well, placing third in her heat of the 500-meter dash by running 1:21.33 seconds, equivalent to a 1:42.48 600-meter time.

Perhaps the most impressive sprinting performance on the day, however, came not from any one team member but from four athletes collectively. In the 4x400 relay, the team of junior Lauren Gormer, Allen, freshman Rita Donohue and Hieber placed second in its heat behind Sacred Heart University, running a time of 3:54.83, making them the 16th fastest 4x400 team in the nation.

“At ECACs, our 4x400 team will be looking to run an even faster time than

they did this weekend, since they are on the bubble for qualifying for nationals,” Peterson said.

Although most of the field event athletes had the day off from competition, one still competed in the meet. Freshman pole vaulter Keren Hendel crossed the bar at 11’ 5 3/4” en route to a 10th place finish. Hendel’s mark was a new PR by 10 centimeters, and it places her nationally at No. 32 for the event.

The Jumbos will next compete at their own Last Chance Meet, held at the Gantcher center on Thursday, where they will hope to either end the season on a strong note, or, for those preparing for the Div. III Nationals, to improve on their seed marks. Athletes who cannot qualify at Last Chance will travel to Roxbury’s Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center for the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Championship meet on Saturday to take another shot at earning a qualifying mark.

“I’ll be running the DMR on Thursday, and we’ll be looking to run a strategic and fast race to qualify,” Peterson said.

“Many of our distance runners will also be looking to qualify in their event, so it is really important that we are on our game this weekend.”

4x400-­‐meter team sets school record, looks to Nationals MEN’S TRACK AND FIELD

JORDAN BEAN | SACKED

preliminary round, crossing the line in ninth place. The same fate befell Usoff, who finished 13th in the 500-meter in a time of 1:06.06, eleven-hundredths of a second from qualifying for the finals.

Although, on the bright side, his time was good enough to put him at number four all time for the Jumbos.

Also finishing ninth, with the second-highest individual placement on the day, was junior Allan Yau, who accumulated a personal-best 4,003 points in the heptathlon.

Junior Marshall Pagano and freshman Luke O’Connor both notched personal bests as well, joining the late-season surge that has witnessed Tufts rise in both the national and individual rankings. Pagano finished the 3,000 in a time of 8:43.14, good enough for 21st, and O’Connor finished the mile in 4:18.05, also putting him in 21st place.

Backing O’Connor in the mile was sophomore James Traester, who finished 27th with a time of 4:22.66.

The day also came with a few surprises as well, as Pagano, O’Connor, senior Bobby McShane and junior Joe St. Pierre teamed up in the 4x800-meter to run 7:51.11. Despite the fact that these runners are not a part of Tufts’ “A-team” 4x800-meter, they still set the sixth fastest 4x800-meter time ever run by four athletes in a Jumbo uniform, thus exemplifying Tufts’ extreme depth across many events.

In further preparation for the NCAA Championships on March 14 and 15, the Jumbos will part ways this coming weekend to participate in three different meets in three days: Tufts’ Last Chance meet, the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championships and the Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America Championship at Boston University.

“As of now, it looks like we will be sending a large number of Jumbos to Nationals in a couple of weeks,” Levitin added.

Hopefully for Tufts, things stay the same.

’m not impressed. Although its record reads 31-0 and it is ranked second in the polls, Wichita State is far from the second best team in the nation.

Are we really all in agreement that it deserves this ranking? Is a team that has defeated teams such as Bradley, Drake, Evansville and Emporia State better than a North Carolina team which has defeated then-No. 3 Louisville, then-No. 1 Michigan State, then-No. 11 Kentucky and then-No. 5 Duke?

While the ongoing quest for the mid-majors to earn our respect is in full force with the likes of Boise State and Northern Illinois in football along with Wichita State and Butler in basketball, they simply do not stack up against better competition on a week-in week-out basis.

The common argument for these teams, especially Boise State, is that their records against top-tier teams are above average.

However, if we look closer, there is a pattern that appears. Boise State’s recent noteworthy wins have come against Oregon, Oklahoma, Georgia and Virginia Tech.

Three of the four games came on the opening night of their seasons and the other was a BCS bowl. Boise State had at least one, if not many, months to prepare, plan and practice for the opponents. The game became its “Super Bowl”, while for the others it was just another game.

After the matchup, teams like Georgia would go on to their rigorous SEC schedules while Boise State falls back to its Mountain West conference games, a considerable difference from playing Alabama and LSU. It’s not necessarily the fault of the midmajors that their schedules do not compare favorably to the others, but it is the reality of the situation. The truth is that strength of schedule should be a very important ingredient in how we rank and assess teams.

I prefer to see University of North Carolina challenging itself against No. 2 Syracuse and losing by twelve than to watch Wichita State survive a three-point-overtime win against Missouri State.

I would even go as far as to say I would bet that Duke, or many top-25 teams, would run the table if it switched schedules with Wichita State. I cannot say the same for the reverse. I would even argue that with Duke’s schedule, Wichita State would have at least five losses by this point, including Arizona, Syracuse, Kansas and others. Would we still call it the number two team in the nation then?

Come tournament time, power conference teams will have already been accustomed to playing ranked opponents, whereas for Wichita State the level of competition is a drastic increase.

While it’s not uncommon to see these teams make a run, it’s partly due to the inflated regular-season statistics. They receive a high seed based on a better regular season record compared to teams with more losses and harder schedules. With this ranking, they are able to face the 14 or 15 seed, which compares very favorably to being an eight or nine seed and having a tougher road to the Final Four.

If we’re going to penalize a team for its losses, maybe we should consider penalizing a team for its wins too. When the selection committee comes to Wichita State, I hope they will take a long hard look at who they have beaten on its road to an undefeated season.

While being able to win all of the games on a schedule is admirable, it doesn’t necessarily make it impressive in the bigger picture. When we are trying to make comparisons between conferences and schedules, there really is no comparison between mid-majors and power conferences.

Understand that a win may not mean what you think, or else — you’re sacked!

Jordan Bean is a sophomore majoring in economics. He can be reached at Jordan.

Bean@tufts.edu.

Sports

12

tuftsdaily.com

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

ϐ ϐ

BY

ZACHEY KLIGER

Daily Editorial Board

In a season filled with accomplishments, the women’s basketball team reached its most impressive milestones yet Sunday by

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL (26-1 Overall, 10-0 NESCAC) at Cousens Gymnasium, Sunday Amherst Tufts

22 29

24 33

— —

46 62

at Cousens Gymnasium, Saturday Trinity Tufts

27 31

20 26

— —

47 57

capturing the program’s first ever NESCAC title and securing a perfect season in conference play with its 62-46 victory over second-seeded Amherst.

Before advancing to Sunday’s finals, Tufts first had to take care of business on Saturday in the semifinal game against a Trinity squad that had won six straight games. From the opening tip, the Bantams proved the game would be a fight to the finish.

Tied at four points early in the game, Tufts went ahead 8-4 on back-to-back buckets from juniors Hannah Foley and Hayley Kanner. The teams traded baskets for much of the opening frame, with neither squad able to assert any type of control over the contest. Freshman center Michela North’s traditional three-point play with 9:13 remaining in the half gave the Jumbos a 21-15 edge, their largest lead of the half.

But every time it looked like Tufts might pull away, Trinity had an answer. The Bantams orchestrated a 10-4 run of their own to knot the game at 25-25 with 4:22 left. The Jumbos then finished the half on a 6-2 spurt to head into the break with a slim 31-27 lead.

Tufts struggled from beyond the arc all afternoon, shooting a dismal 0-11 from distance in the first half, while hitting only 2-8 in the second half. Tufts’ poor 3-point shooting kept Trinity in the game, but Tufts’ depth ultimately proved too much to handle.

Desperately holding on to a tight 40-38 lead with 12:53 left, Tufts went on a 12-3 run over the next 8:49, sparked by five critical points from sophomore reserve guard Emma Roberson. The short burst extended the Jumbos’ lead to eleven points and essentially put the game out of reach. Tufts finished the game strong on the defensive end and held off Trinity to secure a 57-47

NATHAN YEUN / THE TUFTS DAILY

Freshman Michaela North stepped up in her first NESCAC championship, finishing with 14 points and 10 rebounds en route to a conference title. victory, ensuring that Tufts would host another game on Sunday.

The team had little time to revel in Saturday’s victory before taking the floor Sunday against second-seeded Amherst in front of a packed house at Cousens Gym, with the NESCAC title on the line.

“It was amazing playing in front of our fans,” senior forward Ali Rocchi said. “It’s

definitely one of the perks of hosting the NESCAC tournament. Our fans are always extremely supportive and fun to play in front of.”

The Jumbos had hosted the Lord Jeffs back on Jan. 17, a contest that saw the Jumbos earn a hard-fought 63-56 victory.

“I think getting to play them on our home court earlier in the year and having

that win under our belt definitely gave us confidence that we could beat them,” junior point guard Kelsey Morehead said.

“It was a big win for us, but that was the middle of the season and we knew Amherst would be stronger now,” Rocchi added. “We scouted them in the little time we had and made sure to pay attention to the different personnel and little details for today’s game.”

On Sunday, Amherst jumped out to an early 5-0 lead, silencing the home crowd in the early going. Looking for an offensive spark, head coach Carla Berube decided to put North in the game earlier than usual, and the move paid quick dividends. North finished with 14 rebounds and 10 points, including a layup that capped an 8-3 run and knotted the game at eight.

The teams then traded baskets before Tufts, sparked by a 3-pointer and pair of free throws from Kanner, rallied off nine straight points to pull ahead 19-10 and take control of the game. The Jumbos finished the half shooting a lowly 29 percent from the field, but relied on their energy and defensive intensity to hold on to a 29-22 advantage at intermission.

“Honestly, you don’t really feel fatigue in the game because there’s so much adrenaline, you have the crowds behind you and you’re just in the moment,” said Morehead, who played all 40 minutes of Sunday’s contest.

The Lord Jeffs hung around for much of the second half, but never got over the hump, clawing within eight twice before the Jumbos pulled ahead by doubledigits again.

Kanner led the Jumbos with a gamehigh 21 points, while Morehead, North and senior tri-captain Liz Moynihan each pitched in with ten each. But as has been the story for most of the season, the Jumbos’ defense stole the show. Tufts held Amherst to 29 percent shooting from the field and outrebounded the visitors by four.

Sunday’s contest was retribution for Tufts’ failures in its previous two conference final showdowns against Amherst in 2012 and 2008. With the NESCAC title under their belts, the Jumbos will now turn their attention to the NCAA tournament.

Expectations are high.

“We’re still soaking in today’s win, but we know what’s ahead,” Rocchi said. “I think it’s exciting to have an automatic NCAA berth. At this point, we have a day off but we’re right back at it on Tuesday with practice. We have a very talented group of girls, and we’re excited by the opportunities we’ve had and will continue to have this postseason.”

MEN’S TRACK AND FIELD

BY SAM

GOLD

Daily Editorial Board/

As championship season begins to heat up with athletes from around the country looking to qualify for the NCAA Championships, Tufts has recorded a slew of national-caliber performances and is poised to send a large contingent to Lincoln, Neb. come mid-March.

“Things can change with last chance meets popping up around the country to get those last national qualifiers, so nothing is certain,” senior Max Levitin said. “But what is certain is that Tufts track and field is competitive at the national level and should be a formidable presence going forward.”

In that spirit, the Jumbos posted some more strong showings at the Open New England Championships held at Boston University this past weekend.

The 4x400-meter relay team of senior Graham Beutler and sophomores Mitchell Black, Alex Kasemir, and Francis Goins, set a new school record with a time of 3:15.35, breaking the old record established in 2012 by the quartet of Beutler, Goins, and graduates Vinnie Lee and Ben Crastnopol. The team currently sits in fourth place in the nation and will most likely qualify for nationals by season’s end.

“It’s been a career goal of mine to travel to Nationals with a four by four team, and it’s looking likely that I’ll get to cross off that goal this season,” Beutler said. “[It’s] definitely a race that I’ll always remember.”

Juniors Brian Williamson and Atticus Swett provided the only other scoring at the meet, as their three points and the five earned by the 4x400-meter relay see MEN’S TRACK AND FIELD, page 11

ANNIE LEVINE / THE TUFTS DAILY

Many tufts runners and throwers have qualified for Nationals with strong individual and relay team performances.