The Tufts Daily - Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Students speak on military service, academic experience see FEATURES / PAGE 4

EDITORIAL

Students should show solidarity with dining workers today

Sports performance trainers keep the Jumbos strong see SPORTS / BACK PAGE

SEE OPINION / PAGE 9

THE

INDEPENDENT

STUDENT

N E W S PA P E R

OF

TUFTS

UNIVERSITY

E S T. 1 9 8 0

T HE T UFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXXVII, ISSUE 29

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

tuftsdaily.com

Tufts Civic Semester to offer overseas service opportunities to incoming first-years

by Liza Harris News Editor

Incoming first-year students in the School of Arts and Sciences will be able to spend their first semester in Urubamba, Peru or Kunming, China while earning academic credit and completing service work through the Tufts Civic Semester, a new program jointly offered by the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life and the School of Arts and Sciences.

The program, announced by University President Anthony Monaco on Feb. 27, includes 12 semester hour units, according to Jennifer McAndrew, Tisch College’s director of communication, strategy and planning. Participating first-years will arrive on campus in early August and begin coursework for two classes, both of which will be taught by Tufts faculty. Every student will take Introduction to Civic Studies and another class that focuses on the culture and history of the region where the student will be going. Participants will also take an in-country language course, either Spanish or Mandarin, and receive internship credit for their volunteer work.

According to the program’s website, students will engage in service work related to “education, sustainability, community health, entrepreneurship, and more.”

“Civic Semester is intended to be embedded in the academic experience at Tufts,” McAndrew said.

The program is fully funded by tuition, and all financial aid that a student receives is applied to the Civic Semester, Dean of Tisch College Alan Solomont said. “[The Civic Semester] really should be open to all students,” Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences Jim Glaser said.

Students participating in the program will complete on-campus orientation with their fellow classmates in September, according to Glaser. Glaser expressed his belief that completing regular orientation on campus with students who are not participating in the program will be a positive experience.

“They will go through orientation with all of the students they come back to,” Glaser said. “The beauty of this is that it … allows students to have a full [orientation] experience.”

Tisch College partnered up with Where There Be Dragons, a well-known program provider for academic gap semesters and years, according to Solomont. “[Tisch College] looked at all the programs who do this just to pick the best one,” Solomont said.

In the program’s first year, it will admit 25 students. However, Solomont said that there is room for growth in the program, saying that it could expand to 100 more students in future years.

Diane Ryan, associate dean for programs and administration at Tisch College,

MADELEINE OLIVER / THE TUFTS DAILY

The two locations of the Tufts Civic Summer program: Urubamba, Peru and Kunming, China are marked on a map. said that the program may also expand in terms of how many locations are offered and expressed her hope that Civic Semester will eventually offer a program in Africa.

“We are planning to expand to other continents in future years,” Ryan said. “We hope that it will be very popular and that we will be adding more overseas locations.”

Though the programs are organized by Where There Be Dragons, Tisch College helped select the locations and chose Peru and China because of the opportunity stu-

dents will have to learn and improve their language skills.

“We wanted to offer a Spanish-speaking country and one other [country],” McAndrew said. “And we thought a lot of students might be deeply interested in improving their Mandarin skills.”

Offering one program in a Spanishspeaking country was “an obvious choice,” Solomont said. “Chinese is

see CIVIC SEMESTER, page 2

Robin DiAngelo, Jack Hill visit campus to speak about ‘White Fragility’

by Sara Renkert Staff Writer

Robin DiAngelo and Jack Hill held a session yesterday with the Tufts community centered around DiAngelo’s recently released book, “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism” (2018). The talk focused on the discomfort white people exhibit when their views on race are challenged, and how they can overcome this discomfort and engage instead in productive self-reflection and dialogue.

DiAngelo coined the term “white fragility” to describe the defensive reactions white people can display when they are confronted with discourse about race.

The evening also included a general overview of how white fragility develops in young Americans and what practices are required to combat it.

The first of the two speakers, DiAngelo, is an educator who earned her Ph.D. in mul-

Please recycle this newspaper

Mostly Sunny 32 / 17

/thetuftsdaily

ticultural education from the University of Washington in 2004, according to her website. She is currently an affiliate associate professor of education at the University of Washington and has conducted research in the fields of whiteness studies and critical discourse analysis.

Hill also spoke at the event, acting as a moderator to the conversation. He was introduced by Chief Diversity Officer and Associate Dean Rob Mack as an award-winning journalist, diversity consultant, and educator with background and expertise on race and education in America. Hill currently works as the middle school dean at Cambridge Friends School.

Hill began by asking whether or not DiAngelo considered herself to be a “woke” woman. In response, she explained that she “does not call [herself ] woke, an antiracist or an ally.”

“That is for people of color to decide, that if at any given moment, I am behaving For breaking news, our content archive and exclusive content, visit tuftsdaily.com @tuftsdaily

tuftsdaily

tuftsdaily

in antiracist-ally ways,” she said. “Thinking about things like that keeps me humble and accountable as I am the least able to make that determination. It reminds me that [the term] is not a place to arrive at, but it is an ongoing struggle.”

The pair then began to work through some of the major themes and terms that were mentioned in DiAngelo’s book.

White fragility was their launching point into deeper discussion about whiteness in America.

Hill said that whiteness is not “fragile,” due to its cultural dominance, and that the term “white fragility” can block discussion if it is not used in the correct context.

“It is a form of defensiveness; it can shut down conversation. It can be a form of bullying,” he said.

DiAngelo clarified the meaning of “white fragility.”

“It is a coddling and caretaking that so many white people need around the con-

Contact Us P.O. Box 53018, Medford, MA 02155 daily@tuftsdaily.com

versation [of racism]” she said. “The fragility part was meant to capture how little it takes to cause white people to melt down.”

She said that many white people, especially those who consider themselves progressive, view themselves as separate from racism, but they are not exempt from it.

“We must grapple with this collective … socialization … because we are swimming in the same water,” she said.

DiAngelo also went into depth about the differences between white supremacy, whiteness, white privilege and white fragility. She defined white supremacy not as simply as “neo-Nazi racists and the KKK,” but also as the “highly descriptive sociological term for the society we live in that holds white people up as the norm for humanity and as the ideal human.”

DiAngelo described whiteness as the structure that supports white supremacy,

NEWS............................................1 FEATURES.................................4 ARTS & LIVING.......................6

see WHITE FRAGILITY, page 2 FUN & GAMES.........................8 OPINION.....................................9 SPORTS............................ BACK

2

THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Tuesday, March 5, 2019

THE TUFTS DAILY Elie Levine Editor-in-Chief

EDITORIAL

David Levitsky Anita Ramaswamy Managing Editors Luke Allocco Jessica Blough Austin Clementi Charlie Driver Jenna Fleischer Juliana Furgala Kat Grellman Abbie Gruskin Liza Harris Zachary Hertz Gil Jacobson Rachael Meyer Cathy Perloff Seohyun Shim Hannah Uebele Joe Walsh Alejandra Carrillo Robert Kaplan Noah Richter Jilly Rolnick Alexander Thompson

Grace Yuh Costa Angelakis Jenna Fleischer Sean Ong Michael Shames Fina Short Sidharth Anand Amelia Becker Mark Choi Sarah Crawford Claire Fraise Jacob Fried Mitch Lee Ellie Murphy Ananya Pavuluri Libby Langsner John Fedak Tommy Gillespie Steph Hoechst Setenay Mufti Chris Panella Rebecca Tang Julian Blatt Stephanie Hoechst Christopher Panella Danny Klain Amanda Rose Yas Salon Aneurin Canham-Clyne Arlo Moore-Bloom Yuan Jun Chee Ryan Eggers Liam Finnegan Jeremy Goldstein Savannah Mastrangelo Maddie Payne Haley Rich Brad Schussel Josh Steinfink Sam Weidner Julia Atkins Tim Chiang Jake Freudberg Noah Stancroff Helen Thomas-McLean Alex Viveros Daniel Nelson Madeleine Oliver Christine Lee Anika Agarwal Ann Marie Burke Mike Feng Ben Kim Max Lalanne Meredith Long Julia McDowell Evan Slack Kirt Thorne Caleb Martin-Rosenthal Ann Marie Burke Annette Key

Associate Editor Executive News Editor News Editors

Assistant News Editors

Executive Features Editor Features Editors

Assistant Features Editors

Executive Arts Editor Arts Editors

Assistant Arts Editors

Executive Opinion Editor Executive Sports Editor Sports Editors

Assistant Sports Editors

Investigative Editor Executive Photo Editors Staff Photographers

Executive Video Editor Video Editors

PRODUCTION Daniel Montoya

Production Director Ryan Eggers Catalina Mengyao Yang Mia Garvin Jordan Isaacs Maygen Kerner Aidan Menchaca Kiran Misner Alice Yoon Isabella Montoya

Executive Layout Editors Layout Editors

Executive Graphics Editor

Myshko Chumak Justin Yu Caroline Bollinger Mary Carroll Rachel Isralowitz Nathan Kyn Ali Mintz Nihaal Shah Liora Silkes Avni Ambalam Rebecca Barker Simone Lipkind Chloe Lyu Ethan Resek Ryan Shaffer Aadhya Shivakumar Filipa Sturm Russell Yip Abigail Zielinski

Executive Copy Editors

Deepanshu Utkarsh

Executive Online Editor

Esra Gurcay Rebecca Tang Asli Akova Ercan Sen Amy Tong Mitch Navetta Amanda Covaleski Olivia Ireland Lillian Miller Chris Panella

Copy Editors

Assistant Copy Editors

Executive Social Media Editors Social Media Editors

Assistant Social Media Editors Outreach Coordinator

BUSINESS Olivia Davis Executive Business Director

tuftsdaily.com

DiAngelo discusses systems of racial oppression and white privilege at book talk WHITE FRAGILITY

continued from page 1 white privilege as the result of whiteness and white fragility as doubting the legitimacy of these three things.

The pair also touched on the issue of implicit racism in schools and the “value gap” that people of color face in school, as Hill said that people of color are viewed as less valuable. He pointed out the inequality in funding between schools that are white-majority and schools that are not.

In reference to that point, DiAngelo brought up Ibram Kendi’s National Book Award-winning novel, “Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America” (2016), to illustrate that any policy that creates a racially unequal outcome should be considered racist.

“If you truly believe all people are equal, the only explanation for all these gaps you’re talking about is institutionalized discrimination … by that measure, every university and school policy is racist,” she said. “So you have to get them back on the table and reexamine them.”

Hill ended the conversation with a call to action.

“There needs to be a conversation about white responsibility … about what to do when we make a racist observation,” he said.

CHRISTINE LEE / THE TUFTS DAILY

Dr. Robin DiAngelo and Dr. Jack Hill discuss ‘white fragility’ in America with the audience in Breed Memorial Hall on March 4.

DiAngelo made her final comment to that point.

“Racism is a white problem because we created it, we maintain it and we wield the advantages of it,” she said. “That does not mean we play our part in it or collude in it.

However, because we control the institutions … it is ultimately on us.”

In hopes of continuing this conversation at Tufts, Mack said that he and his colleagues will be setting up spac-

es to respond to this conversation in the future.

Bronwyn Fulton, a first-year student who attended the event, said that the event made her want to read DiAngelo’s book.

“I have pages worth of notes that I need to go back and read to really process,” Fulton said. “Racism and race are such important things to talk about to understand my role as a white person, like being complicit in the system of racism but also how to resist it.”

First-year placements in Peru and China will begin next fall CIVIC SEMESTER

continued from page 1 increasingly popular and important, so we liked the mix.”

No prior experience with Spanish or Mandarin is required, according to Jessye Crowe-Rothstein, the Tufts 1+4 program administrator at Tisch College.

“There is no language requirement to participate, and language classes will be offered at different levels to meet the needs of students with varying language backgrounds,” Crowe-Rothstein told the Daily in an email.

According to Ryan, students will be able to retake the language placement exam once they return from the semester abroad which is traditionally offered during orientation in September.

The program is entirely optional, meaning that students must be admitted to Tufts and then decide to apply to it.

“We want people to self-select for this.

We think that there will be a great demand for this because … it provides a transformational experience while they get credit, and we think that it will be the touchstone for everything students do from that time forward,” Ryan said.

However, the program has practical benefits as well, Glaser said. He explained that the university would like to be able to admit more students in January, as there are fewer students on campus in the spring and therefore more available beds.

“We would like to be able to bring first-year students in in January because we have more beds that are available for them and this sort of evens out our fall and spring population,” Glaser said. “The university has a pragmatic interest in balancing spring and fall populations, both in terms in beds and faculty and staff effort. We have several hundred fewer students in the spring than in the fall, so this is a way of rebalancing that.”

The program has enormous benefits for students, according Glaser.

“It can help us provide a richer experience for those students who want to participate in it, and it does it in a very Tufts way, in a way that makes all the things about Tufts distinctive,” Glaser said.

McAndrew agreed that the program has practical benefits but emphasized its educational value. “[Civic Semester] addresses the pragmatic concern … about second semester beds in a way that is consistent with Tufts values and that advances our mission at Tisch College,” she said in an email to the Daily.

Solomont said that the program was inspired by the belief that civic service should be a universal rite of passage for students. “[The program will] give incoming students a transformational learning experience doing serious community service work living in a new community,” Solomont said. “The reason people would do this is because … they see this opportunity of challenging themselves and learning more about the world and getting themselves ready for college in a unique way.”

McAndrew echoed this sentiment.

“Tufts believes that having this sort of immersive, civically-engaged experience at the start of your Tufts career is a foundation that is very consistent with Tufts’ values,” she said. “At Tisch College, we think that that will prepare students not only for their academic experience on this campus but for a robust civic life.”

Discussions about the program began in the summer of 2018, according to Solomont, and Glaser and Solomont were the two original proponents of the program. Both Glaser and Solomont made it clear, however, that many different parts of the university were crucial in allowing the program to come together so quickly. “[The program] is a testament to Admissions, Residential Life, the Dean of Student [Affairs] Office, Financial Aid, Tisch College, Dean [of Undergraduate Studies Carmen] Lowe, and faculty and committees that have embraced the idea. When we’re all working together, good things can happen,” Glaser said.

Solomont echoed this sentiment, saying that the project was between Tisch College and the School of Arts and Sciences, but that they worked with Financial Aid, Student Life, the dining staff, Dean of Student Affairs Mary Pat McMahon, and most importantly, Admissions.

“You can’t do something like this by yourself,” Solomont said.

According to Solomont, the civic semester is similar in many ways to the Tufts 1+4 Bridge Year Service Learning Program in that both programs offer students an opportunity to engage in meaningful service work while immersing themselves in a new community. However, the two programs have notable differences.

The 1+4 program is a full year, whereas the Civic Semester is only one semester long. Furthermore, students who participate in the Civic Semester will be fully matriculated Tufts students, whereas students who participate in 1+4 are not. Full financial aid applies to the Civic Semester program, but the 1+4 program is funded through philanthropic donations for students on financial aid.

Glaser also said that students who do a Civic Semester will be making progress toward their degree and will be on track to graduate in four years, whereas students who participate in 1+4 do not make progress toward their degree during their time abroad and instead expand their college experience to five years.

McAndrew, Solomont, Glaser, CroweRothstein and Ryan all acknowledged the concern of integrating students who do the Civic Semester back into campus life in the spring but said that the university is making concrete plans to ensure a smooth transition.

“We have been thinking about this challenge since planning for the program began, and are working to make sure students have as much support and information as they need,” Crowe-Rothstein said.

“We are working with A&S on the most effective ways to ensure that students are successfully reintegrated when they return to campus, including another orientation in January and support during the spring semester.”

Furthermore, students will be housed together on campus once they return from the civic semester, Crowe-Rothstein said.

“They will live together after they return so that they can take advantage of the bonds they created throughout the program as they adjust to campus life,” CroweRothstein said.

Tuesday, March 5, 2019 | ADVERTISEMENT | THE TUFTS DAILY

tuftsdaily.com

P R E S E N T E D B Y T HE C U M M IN G S / HIL L E L P R O G R A M F O R H O L O C A U S T & G E N O C ID E E D U C AT I O N

MARCHING 1/4 AD PAST1/8 DEATHAD A SURVIVOR ’ S S TORY F R OM AUS CH WIT Z TO TODAY

GUE S T SP E A K ER

JUDITH A LTM A NN

1/2 AD

Mrs. Judith Altmann was born in Jasina, Czechoslovakia several years prior to the invasion of the Nazis, which occurred in 1939. In 1944, Mrs. Altmann was arrested and transported to Auschwitz, and was selected for labor alongside her niece. As the war neared an end, she was sent on a death march, which ended in the notorious Bergen-Belson concentration camp in Germany. Mrs. Altmann was near death with typhus when she was liberated by the British Army in 1945. Mrs. Altmann moved to Sweden following the war, and was given the opportunity to immigrate to the United States in 1948. Mrs. Altmann serves as the Vice President of the Holocaust Child Survivors of Connecticut, and often shares her story of survival and resilience with student groups.

TUESDAY, MARCH 5 | 8 PM CABOT AUDITORIUM

T UF T SHIL L EL .OR G

3

4 Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Allison Morgenstern Making my (Den)mark

Amsterdam

M

y first travel weekend: complete. Last weekend, I took an excursion to Amsterdam with two of my DIS friends.

First of all, I’d just like to say that European airports are way more efficient than those back home. I’m not even kidding; it took 15 minutes total to get through security and all the way to our gate. Amazing.

I have several recommendations for all you readers out there who are thinking of going to Amsterdam in the future.

First: See the Anne Frank House. For this museum, it’s important to look into tickets far in advance, otherwise they’ll be sold out. This was by far the most incredible part of the weekend. After years of learning about Anne Frank and the Holocaust in high school and Hebrew school, I never thought I’d actually get to visit the house I’d heard so much about. Going in, I had expected to venture into just one small, closet-sized room, so I was surprised to end up in the entire annex in which the Frank family hid. The museum and house were curated and laid out very thoughtfully and respectfully. It was less of an exhibit and more of a way to experience of Anne Frank’s story and the history behind the Holocaust in a new way.

It was so different from simply reading about them. To be honest, I could’ve left Amsterdam after just seeing the Anne Frank House, and I would’ve been satisfied.

Second: Visit the art museums. I think it would take me several months to get to them all. The three of us visited the Van Gogh Museum and the Moco Museum. The Van Gogh Museum was underwhelming and overwhelming at the same time. There wasn’t really anything special or unique about the layout or curation of the museum, but there were so many people that it was hard to enjoy what I was seeing. The Moco was not overwhelming at all. It had a really efficient, quick-paced layout so it took about 45 minutes to see all of the artwork. The Banksy exhibit was the highlight and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed such modern art. Plus, the Banksy Garden featured an interactive horse statue that I managed to climb onto without falling off and breaking my nose. Oh, and a life-size gummy bear.

Loved that.

Lastly: Eat stroopwafels. If you aren’t familiar with the name, stroopwafels are delicious Dutch pastries made of a very thin waffle, sliced and sandwiched together with caramel. You can even get them dipped in chocolate and covered in various toppings, if you’re feeling ambitious (or just extra hungry). I recommend stopping by van Wonderen and trying a stroopwafel dipped in chocolate with crushed Oreos. I could not stop talking about this sweet treat for the rest of the day. Literally.

This was a great first weekend trip after a month of exploring Copenhagen, and I’m thankful I had great friends to keep me from getting totally lost — and who didn’t hate me too much for making so many Amsterdam puns.

Allie Morgenstern is a junior studying child study and human development. Allison can be reached at allison.morgenstern@tufts.edu.

Features

tuftsdaily.com

International students reflect on military service, its impact on college experience

EVAN ZIGMOND / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

The International House is pictured on April 14, 2018.

by Akash Mishra Staff Writer

While most Tufts students do not consider a career in the military, a number of international students, either by obligation or by personal choice, commit themselves to serving their native armed forces during or after their time at Tufts. Andrew Shiotani, who works with students who need to take leaves of absence for such reasons in his role as director of the International Center, estimated that only a very small percentage of Tufts students are affected.

Sophomore Denise Looi from Singapore is one such student. After completing basic training and a portion of officer school before her matriculation at Tufts, Looi now spends summers back home in Singapore completing various internships while preparing to enter a full-time, six-year commitment of service after graduation as an air warfare officer in the Republic of Singapore Air Force. Looi expressed excitement for her upcoming service.

“I’ve always been drawn towards the notion of serving my nation in some way, and although joining the military was going down the path less trodden, I’m incredibly excited to start my career,” Looi told the Daily in an email.

Looi’s military commitment puts her in different position than many Tufts students with regard to her plans during and after her undergraduate studies.

While many Tufts students may struggle to secure a summer internship or solidify their career paths after graduation, Looi is well set for a military career in Singapore.

“I know I’m really lucky and fortunate … to have both internships and a job secured post-graduation,” Looi said.

But committing to serve in the military comes with its own unique set of challenges. Like any Tufts student, Looi spends most of her time juggling a rigorous academic curriculum with a rich grouping of extracurricular and personal activities, which includes Tufts Tae Kwon Do and the Chamber Singers.

“Academics are still my number one priority and most of my time is spent either at Ginn [Library] or at the music library. I’m

also in ALLIES [Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services]. Of course, being in the military it’s really important to keep fit — I do have a fitness test every year — so I dedicate some time each week to work out at the gym,” Looi said.

But while Looi’s military commitment will only affect her during summers and after she graduates, first-year Matt Kim will be negotiating the complications of mandatory military service in the coming academic years.

According to Kim, as a South Korean citizen with a mandatory service commitment, he will most likely spend two years working for his home nation’s military in an office-job type role. For him, leaving Tufts to fulfill his service obligation is a daunting process.

“Since I go to school in the U.S., I have to take a gap year, at least two years, because [I] need time to adjust to Korean society and the army. After I finish my military service, I have to go back and study again,” Kim said. “Culture-wise, I would say it’s … a big gap for all Korean men — [especially in] your twenties … [it’s a] period of life where you could do so [many] things.”

From a logistical perspective, Kim faces challenges even in confirming the exact time when he will serve.

“I was having problems with when I should go serve … It’s like getting an internship or job … Time-wise [the process] was a struggle for me because I applied for a job [in the military] this last December. I couldn’t get it because there were so many people,” Kim said. “Since I didn’t get it … I’m going to apply again after sophomore year, but then if I don’t get it, it’s unfortunate — [I] have to go after I finish college.”

Kim said that the social ramifications of entering into a military commitment have also hit home, and he worries that he may lose friends or miss out on important college experiences. For Kim, this is the standout consideration he faces that most other students do not. Kim also said that most South Korean students with military obligations face the challenge of having to readjust to the college academic environment, even dealing with the possibility

of not retaining material they may have spent years learning.

Regardless, Kim said that his upcoming service commitment hasn’t affected his academic interests and adds that the commitment didn’t affect his earlier decision to apply to Tufts.

Karen Richardson, dean of admissions and enrollment management, said that Tufts makes no consideration of an impending military commitment in deciding on a student’s admission into the university.

“Tufts has great respect for students who choose careers in the service of others, whether in the military or otherwise.

We welcome applicants who have served in the military or who have military service to complete and give their service due consideration during our holistic admissions review. The need to complete service does not factor into our review,” Richardson told the Daily in an email.

Kendra Barber, associate dean of undergraduate advising for the School of Arts and Sciences, said that the university works closely with students to help them balance commitments to military service with their education.

“Students who must fulfill a mandatory military service requirement can take a personal leave of absence and then return to Tufts after they have completed their military service,” Barber told the Daily in an email. “We welcome questions from students with military service obligations. Our goal is to provide guidance and help students smoothly transition out of — and back into — school as they fulfill their requirement.”

When asked what kind of further support the university could provide for a student in his situation, Kim suggested that some kind of academic credit for his experiences would be welcome.

Kim encouraged other students who do not have similar service commitments to appreciate the breadth of opportunities available to them in the four years they spend at Tufts.

“I just want to tell people … they’re fortunate to … spend more time with friends here and study what they want. And I just want to tell them [this] is a golden time,” Kim said.

Tuesday, March 5, 2019 | ADVERTISEMENT | THE TUFTS DAILY

tuftsdaily.com

Call for Submissions!

Beyond the Classroom:

Student Forum for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality

Submit proposals

by March 7

Friday, April 5, 2019 12:00PM – 4:30PM Rabb Room, Lincoln Filene

This forum is an opportunity for all students to share their work on women, gender, and/or sexuality with the wider Tufts community. Undergraduate and graduate students from a range of disciplines present on research that includes creative projects and performances done in classes or independently.

(Refreshments will be provided)

• Students each present for 5-7 minutes.

• We welcome submissions of any length and help you work to develop the presentation.

• Please submit: a paragraph proposal-long of the research and, if it is complete, part or all of the project.

Submission Deadline: Thursday, March 7, 2019 **Applications should be submitted to the WGSS office at 111 Eaton Hall or by email to wgss@tufts.edu**

5

6

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

ARTS&LIVING

tuftsdaily.com

EXHIBITION OVERVIEW

‘Let Me Explain to You What This Means’: power lost in translation

COURTESY OF TUFTS UNIVERSITY ART GALLERIES

Gabriel Sosa’s ‘Let Me Explain To You What This Means’ (2018), a graphite drawing transferred to wheatpaste installation is pictured.

by Ruijingya Tang Arts Editor

Today, in an era of globalization and mass media, power manifests itself as the agency to express oneself or control others’ expressions, probably more prominently than ever. The malleability of language — especially during the process of translation — becomes a possible mechanism of control and exploitation. Working within this cultural landscape, the Boston-based artist Gabriel Sosa created “Let Me Explain to You What This Means” (2018), as part of the Artist Response project at the Tufts University Art Galleries, to highlight the vulnerability of those whose words were modified or misinterpreted in court translations. The exhibition is on display in Tufts’ galleries in both Medford and Boston.

Both the Medford and Boston venues of “Let Me Explain to You What This Means” establish a rather hostile institutional atmosphere. The Medford venue features the entire media wall in the Tufts Art Gallery covered by hardly intelligible text. Written with words closely interlocked and overlapping with one another, the text yields rudimentary, broken meanings that convey no more substance than merely an institutional formality and alienness. Amidst the enmeshed and, in some parts, randomly arranged letters are a few

painfully hard-to-see yet recognizable words and phrases, such as “illness,” “you may,” “protection,” “criminal,” “please state your name” and “jury…”

The words are written in all capital letters and in a font similar to Times New Roman, except more elongated. The formal, dispassionate style of the words communicates a sense of unapproachable legal authority.

The venue of the exhibition, the School of Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts (SMFA), features not one but three text-covered walls, which emphasize the all-encompassing and overwhelming nature of institutional power. In the middle of the walled space is a white table holding a shelf of books. The book collection features eight books related to translation and the American criminal justice system, including “After Babel” (1975), “Fundamentals of Court Interpretation” (1991), “Crook County” (2017), “The Case Against the Supreme Court” (2014), “The New Jim Crow” (2010), “Is That a Fish in Your Ear?” (2011), “The Bilingual Courtroom” (1990) and “You Have the Right to Remain Innocent” (2016). For obvious security reasons, the books are all secured underneath the table with silver wires. Be it accidentally or intentionally, this imagery of ‘handcuffed’ books serves as a visual metaphor for the incarcerated, some of whom are potential victims of this translational inefficiency in court on which Sosa shines the

spotlight. In contrast with the clustered, tiny books, the walls appear even more high-standing and majestic. This spatial relationship between the books and its surrounding structure mirrors the assymetry of power between the incarcerated individuals and the justice and prison system.

Sosa continues to underline the vulnerability of individuals who are subject to institutional exploitation by emphasizing their lack of both literal and figurative voice. As previously mentioned, the text printed on the wall could be seen as representing the indifferent orders of judicial institutions.

However, communication is a two-way process. Consequently, a gap between the communicating parties will result in mutually insufficient or inaccurate perceptions of the other by both parties. As a result, the impersonal manner in which the institution communicates with its subjects is reciprocated by the inability of the subjects to effectively express themselves in front of the institution.

Therefore, the words on the walls of the SMFA and Medford galleries also represent the voices of the subjects of the legal system. While printed in a font resembling Times New Roman — symbolizing stylistic formality and bureaucracy — the words assume a fluid dynamic among themselves. The letters are not printed in a uniform size and opacity and

are not written along straight lines. In general, the more removed a letter or a word is from the main bulk of entangled text, the more likely it is small, gray and slanted. Therefore, the overall composition on the wall depicts the words as slowly fading away from the main focus of the audience’s vision. The gradual disappearance of words mirrors the stepwise loss of meaning which the translated words of some court subjects undergo during translation. The lack of voice of those that require an interpreter in U.S. courts also manifests itself in the form of the insufficient representation of their struggles, which is, though likely inadvertently, portrayed by the conspicuous location of Sosa’s installation.

Located in the basement of the SMFA, the installation is literally beneath most people’s everyday life, just as how the issue of mistranslation in court flows like an undercurrent in most people’s lives.

That being said, Sosa’s installation is not entirely a pessimistic; it is not a dead end. By offering the audience books and a reading table as part of his artistic work, he invites his audience to study the issues of race, law and language in the language not only through art, but also through logic and academic factuality.

“Let Me Explain to You What This Means” will be on view for the 20182019 academic year. To access the SMFA venue, Tufts students need to present their student ID at the reception desk.

A rtuftsdaily.com ts & Living

Tuesday, March 5, 2019 | Arts & Living | THE TUFTS DAILY

ALBUM REVIEW

Hozier shows he is back on his fulfilling album ‘Wasteland, Baby!’

by Christopher Panella Arts Editor

A lot can change in the music industry in five years. An artist’s outlook and creative process can be completely different — as can their degree of mainstream success. La Roux’s album “Trouble in Paradise” (2014) came five years after “La Roux” (2009), with “Trouble in Paradise” (2014) barely capturing the essence of the success of their debut or the single “Bulletproof.” Lorde’s masterpiece “Melodrama” (2017) followed “Pure Heroine” (2013), and while “Melodrama” just might be a better album overall, it didn’t produce a big hit like “Royals.”

Irish musician Hozier might just join La Roux and Lorde in their five-year club with his second album “Wasteland, Baby!”

(2019) coming five years after his self-titled debut. While “Wasteland, Baby!” is a better, more cohesive album, it’s unlikely to produce a song on the level of “Take Me to Church” (2013).

Hozier has always been an interesting figure in music. His debut was one of the best of 2014, and even now, “Take Me to Church” is an earworm for anyone who dared to turn on the radio that year. This time around, Hozier seems to have gone for sounds that flow from song to song, rather than have any one song stand out against the rest.

“Wasteland, Baby!” opens with the rambunctious, in-your-face “Nina Cried Power (feat. Mavis Staples).” The song was the lead single off Hozier’s fourth EP “Nina Cried Power” (2018), which served as an appetizer to the main course of “Wasteland, Baby!”

There’s a lot to be said for Hozier’s dedication to telling various stories in his songs.

If any song is the epitome of storytelling, it might just be this lead single, which both sets the stage for “Wasteland, Baby!” and reminds listeners that Hozier is just as good as he was five years ago.

In many ways, “Wasteland, Baby!” shifts Hozier from his place of music comfort to a land that he’s newly exploring. And while no song Hozier releases will ever top “Cherry Wine (Live)” (2016) — which was recorded on the roof of an abandoned hotel at 5 a.m., according to Twitter — Hozier tries his best to stretch himself.

The album is a garden for Hozier, allowing him to nurture new and exciting sounds that make “Wasteland, Baby!” an enjoyable listen. There are pure moments of fun, like Hozier’s yelps and guitar on “Nobody,” the somewhat tropical sound

COURTESY HOZIER.COM

The ‘Wasteland, Baby!’ (2019) album cover is shown. of “No Plan,” the mischievous guitar riff of “Talk Refined” and the harsher electricity of “Be.” Hozier includes plenty of emotional ballads, his bread-and-butter.

“Shrike” is a lighter, mistier breath and “Sunlight” is a reminder of the power his vocals can have, something listeners learned on “Take Me to Church.”

If one song on “Wasteland, Baby!” showcases Hozier’s musical growth while also serving as a reminder of his strengths, it’s “Dinner & Diatribes.” It’s a harder, blues rock song, and a great listen.

It allows Hozier to go wild for a moment, something the album shows more of as it progresses. “Dinner & Diatribes” is the climax of this craziness, and if Hozier could release an album full of songs just like this, it would be the perfect listen.

The album’s final song, the title track, is a nice closer that puts Hozier right back in his place, with a soft-sung guitar seemingly rocking listeners to sleep after a fun “Wasteland, Baby!” party.

That might just be what “Wasteland, Baby!” is: a fun romp that has some moments of rest, but not many. When playtime is finally over and it’s time for

bed, Hozier knows just how to do it. This isn’t to say the album lacks any sort of lyrical depth — it’s exactly what any listener would expect from the songwriting powerhouse. There is heartbreak, love, excitement and desperation. There’s plenty of chanting and hoping for something new.

On the title track, Hozier sounds dreamier and more all-knowing than ever, as he addresses a lover. “Wasteland” is just as deep and complex as it is enjoyable.

Just like La Roux and Lorde’s second efforts, it appears “Wasteland, Baby!” won’t produce a particularly successful international hit. While he’ll certainly dominate Ireland’s music industry in the coming months – “Nina Cried Power” peaked on the US charts at 10 – it’s doubtful that any song on “Wasteland, Baby!” will reach the level of “Take Me to Church.”

Regardless, “Wasteland, Baby!” is an album to be thankful for. It’s everything fans of Hozier could want, and if any alternative rock music fans felt a little hungry in 2019, Hozier is here to feed them. Here’s hoping we won’t have to wait five more years for another Hozier release.

7

Tuna Margalit Review Rewind

‘The Giver’

T

he movie: The Giver The year: 2014 The people: Brenton Thwaites as the uncomfortably static lead character, Jonas; Odeya Rush as the incredibly boring love interest, Fiona; Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep as the Giver and Chief Elder, respectively, both roles completely underutilizing the acting abilities of the two stars; and Taylor Swift as The Giver’s daughter and former student, Rosemary, the most pointless and cash-grab-y cameo ever.

The non-revealing plot: Jonas lives in a dystopian society, where there is no color or emotion or good acting. There’s an annual graduation for the various age groups within society, and Jonas and his friends are at the age where they receive their life-long career assignments. Jonas gets a particularly wacky assignment.

The unofficial genre: An “American social science fiction dystopian film,” according to Wikipedia. That seems too generous.

My opinion (emotional): I understand that the film’s emotional aspects would be inconsequential for most of its duration due to the society being devoid of emotion. However, once Jonas begins to receive memories and, by proxy, emotions, there should be some depth added to the film. However, absolutely none of that is present in the film.

My opinion (technical): The movie starts with some on-screen writing that explains the situational components to the film’s plot. The font used made it seem like I was about to watch a second-semester high school senior’s iMovie project for AP Environmental Science. The narration sounds unnatural and the conversations between the teenagers seem like a promotional video for a summer camp rather than an actual film. Meryl Streep is one of the best actresses ever, but even she can’t make her character interesting, which is important for any movie villain. The most frustrating aspect of the movie was when Jonas would receive memories from the Giver and they’d look like travel advertisements. There’s one where Jonas is on a boat watching the sun set and he’s so evidently greenscreened into the video that may very well have been copied and pasted from Go Hawaii. At one point in the film, Jonas asks something along the lines of “If I’m the ‘Receiver,’ then what are you?” to which Jeff Bridges’ titular character replies “The ‘Giver.’” It’s one of the most obnoxious movie title name drops ever. For whatever reason, the director of this film decided that when Jonas realized he wanted to rebel against the Chief Elder and his society, a montage would be added depicting people such as Nelson Mandela. The connecting theme of fighting for freedom is a nice thought, but the comparison of angsty teen Jonas to Nelson Mandela is just laughable.

Overall rating: I have to give props to Katie Holmes for drawing inspiration from her recent marriage to play a brainwashed parent, so 0.5/10 If you like this, you’ll also like: Jack and Jill (2011), Divergent (2014) and steaming hot trash.

Tuna Margalit is a first-year who has not yet declared a major. Tuna can be reached at yonatan.margalit@tufts.edu.

8

Tuesday, March 5, 2019 | FUN & GAMES | THE TUFTS DAILY

F &G FUN & GAMES

LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Jess: “Everyone is so incompetent.”

SUDOKU

LINDA C. BLACK ASTROLOGY

Pisces (Feb. 19–March 20)

A new communications era begins with Uranus in Taurus. Big changes reveal opportunities to contribute, connect and interact. With Mercury retrograde, revise and refine the message.

Difficulty Level: Finding out today about an exam that’s on Thursday.

Monday’s Solutions

CROSSWORD

Opinion

tuftsdaily.com

EDITORIAL

Students should join workers in action for a fair contract Last spring, Tufts Dining workers voted to unionize with nearly 90 percent of ballots in favor of joining UNITE HERE Local 26. Negotiations for a contract started in August, but the school has not agreed to many of the terms set forth by the workers. Employees and activists have found that the university is unresponsive to or dismissive of demands for a fair workplace, according to Edwin Jain, a senior and member of Tufts Dining Action Coalition. In an interview with the Daily, Jain called on Tufts students to show their support for the dining workers by attending the Picket for a Fair Dining Contract at Carmichael Dining Hall on March 5. Solidarity between students and the workers will show the university that many stakeholders on campus support a fair contract for workers.

The key issues that must be resolved include job security, fair promotions and better healthcare. Jain explained that temporary workers (temps) suffer from insecure employment. Temps are workers who often work full-time hours, or close to it, and many have been working at Tufts Dining for years. Temps do not get paid the

same amount as their full-time counterparts despite working the same amount of hours simply because of the contractural classification of their position. Temps have few benefits and no job security. Every semester, temp workers have to wait on the letter from Tufts Dining saying they’ve been rehired. Only after the union vote did the university agree to get rid of the temp position, Jain stated. Despite this win, conditions are far from fair.

The dining workers are also demanding fair promotions. Jain told the Daily that there is no set system of yearly raises, meaning workers receive uneven compensation with no explanation. We believe this irregular system of pay is questionable and unethical. Jain said workers feel the current system of promotion is based in favoritism and racism. Workers hope to win an equitable system of raises and promotion that is formalized in writing to protect against potential bias.

Additionally, workers want to win fair healthcare. Some healthcare plans for workers cover less than 70 percent of costs. Given the price of healthcare in the

country and Tufts’ resources as a private university, this number is unjustifiable.

Maria Sheehan, a dining worker who has been at Tufts for a year and a half, said she and other workers struggle with healthcare costs because they only work during the school year, which is about 42 weeks.

Sheehan’s insurance covers her family. This means money is tight, because she has to pay for health care all year, but she isn’t at her job or getting paid for two and a half months of the year. This is unacceptable.

Workers should not have to worry about whether or not they can afford to go to the hospital or the doctor in times of need to support their family. Workers should have quality, affordable healthcare, and their premiums during the summer should not stretch finances.

Showing up at the picket is one important way that we can show our support for the workers who provide for us every day.

The event is on Tuesday, March 5, at 4:30 p.m. at Carmichael Hall. We should come together to demand change for our dining workers, as they deserve to feel content and secure. United we bargain, divided we beg.

OP-ED

Transparency and the student voice

by Noah Weinflash Tufts prides itself on its students’ activism, self-advocacy for their liberal world view and desire to make the world a better place. Unfortunately, the university also stifles our ability to do great activist and advocacy work to make Tufts a better place.

By keeping budgetary, staff and academic decision-making processes and rationale hidden from students, the Tufts administration dissolves the student body’s trust of the administration and Board of Trustees.

The administration makes it more difficult to receive student input, as students cannot give informed criticism. While we recognize that certain information is sensitive and cannot be released by the university, Tufts could improve its transparency to match that of peer institutions, the specifics of which will be spelled out in coming op-eds.

To be clear, “transparency” is an amorphous concept, and what it means varies based on what is both legal and feasible for Tufts to dispense. The end goal of transparency, though, should be clear: Tufts community members should all be able to get an informed view of major decisions at Tufts, the rationale for them and the process by which they are decided — from financial decisions to decisions regarding departmental expansion.

A lack of transparency in any hierarchical institution naturally leads to frustration,

confusion and anger. First, let’s talk about it from the student perspective: not telling us information regarding specific rationale for budget cuts or tuition increases results in students seeing the administration as their adversary, as having something to hide.

This, in turn, makes students more willing to believe unconfirmed rumors about university priorities or spending decisions, increasing student hostility and decreasing morale. We are also rendered less effective at advocating for ourselves and community members when we have less information.

We’re unsure whether initiatives or proposals we support are actually realistic given Tufts’ finances, or what makes a proposal viable. When this comes to academic decisions, Tufts students feel as if the university’s decision-making apparatus is a black box, while we are all at its mercy, leaving many people feeling stressed and academically discouraged.

It’s not just that a lack of transparency negatively impacts students; while the administration is generally the reason for a lack of transparency, they also are hurting themselves by not being more upfront with students. First, as a result of the overly adversarial relationship it creates between decision-makers and students, administrators feel less supported by the community. Second, the lack of transparency indirectly frustrates members of the Board of Trustees and administration by leading

to more unrealistic proposals from students — certainly, some requests made by students could be untenable based on the university’s finances. Without transparency, students have to make these proposals in the dark and end up pushing proposals that are impossible for decision-makers at the university to support. The source of the tension here is not any inherent opposition — the problem is that students do not have access to the knowledge that would allow us to make more informed proposals. This isn’t just true when it comes to budgetary decisions — at every level, greater transparency would allow for a better, more mutually beneficial relationship between those who make the decisions and the broader Tufts community.

In this series of op-eds, we’ll be examining many of the ways Tufts lacks transparency and ways in which it could be improved.

Specifically, we’ll examine transparency with regard to the Board of Trustees, budgeting processes, and academic and disciplinary proceedings. We hope that this begins the conversation about realistic ways that Tufts could improve its transparency and tap into the great resources that we, as students, can be in making Tufts a better place.

Noah Weinflash is a junior studying cognitive and brain sciences and quantitative economics. Noah can be reached at noah. weinflash@tufts.edu.

When life throws you a financial challenge, you’ve proven you have what it takes to ace it.

Now it’s time to tackle your retirement savings at AceYourRetirement.org

The Tufts Daily is a nonprofit, independent newspaper, published Monday through Friday during the academic year, and distributed free to the Tufts community.

The content of letters, advertisements, signed columns, cartoons and graphics does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Tufts Daily editorial board.

EDITORIALS Editorials represent the position of The Tufts Daily. Individual editors are not necessarily responsible for, or in agreement with, the policies and editorials of The Tufts Daily.

OP-EDS The Op-Ed section of The Tufts Daily, an open forum for campus editorial commentary, is printed Monday through Thursday. The Daily welcomes submissions from all members of the Tufts community; the opinions expressed in the Op-Ed section do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Daily itself. Opinion articles on campus, national and international issues should be 600 to 1,200 words in length and submitted to opinion@tuftsdaily.com. The editors reserve the right to edit letters for clarity, space and length. All material is subject to editorial discretion and is not guaranteed to appear in the Daily. Authors must submit their telephone numbers and day-of availability for editing questions.

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

9

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Ria Mazumdar Peripheries

Kashmir, an ongoing crisis

L

ast month, the deadliest suicide bombing in decades struck Indian-occupied Kashmir. Then, India crossed the Line of Control to conduct a retaliatory airstrike in Pakistan. This escalation of tensions between the two countries has been unprecedented in the past three decades. However, while this geopolitical dynamic between the two nuclear-armed countries should certainly raise alarm, Kashmir has been plagued by pressing human rights concerns for decades, which have not received the same level of international outcry. Estimates suggest that at least 47,000 people have died in the violence since 1947, with many more disappearances.

News coverage of the recent events in Kashmir has largely bought into nationalist narratives on both sides, which neglect the full historical context of the crisis. The New York Times wrote that Kashmir was left in an undetermined state after the 1947 partition, and currently India controls much of Kashmir while Pakistan has a smaller portion. While this is not factually incorrect, positing Kashmir as a mere bargaining chip between the two countries totally erases the history of indigenous self-determination impulses. At the time of independence, even the Hindu Maharaja who ruled over the Muslim-majority province wanted to remain neutral. He signed the treaty of accession to India only after an invasion by Pakistani troops left him cornered.

The New York Times further notes that Kashmir has seen “decades of violence from militants seeking independence.” Because they live in one of the most heavily militarized zones in the world, Kashmiris resisting occupation have become labeled militants regardless of context. This social categorization perpetuates India’s nationalist narrative that Kashmir is, in fact, a part of India, and dissenters are simply terrorists with no legitimate claims. De-emphasizing and neglecting the nature of occupation in Kashmir paints a totally different image of the conflict to the rest of the world. Furthermore, the emphasis placed on terrorism has decidedly diminished the coverage of atrocities against Kashmiris and Muslims in the rest of India, where hundreds have been arrested as Prime Minister Modi placates his Hindu nationalist base just ahead of general elections.

The erasure of human rights violations in South Asia is reflective of the fact that the region is often marginalized in academic circles and news cycles. At Tufts, South Asian area studies within the international relations major are lumped together with the Middle East. As Arabic and Middle Eastern studies are currently trending and politically relevant, interest in South Asia throughout the ‘West’ has largely become relegated to South Asian students. In journalism, a combination of the U.S.’s close alliances with India and Pakistan and an emphasis on terrorist groups in South Asia in Afghanistan has come at the expense of understanding state dynamics and the experiences of citizens alike.

The ‘crisis’ in Kashmir did not begin last week. The crisis began with military occupations and systematic human rights violations, which have been occurring since 1947. We have the collective responsibility of making ourselves aware of these atrocities, and the Kashmiri people deserve our outrage and action despite being marginalized and dismissed in the mainstream media.

Ria Mazumdar is a junior studying quantitative economics and international relations. Ria can be reached at ria.mazumdar@tufts.edu.

10

THE TUFTS DAILY | ADVERTISEMENT | Tuesday, March 5, 2019

tuftsdaily.com

The 34th Annual Norris and Margery Bendetson EPIIC International Symposium

MIGRATION in a TURBULENT WORLD March 7-9, 2019

The 2019 EPIIC International Symposium will be three days of discussions on issues critical to understanding the pressing challenges facing countries and migrants, from the tensions between state sovereignty and global migration to the policies that allow the continued existence of slavery and human trafficking, from the impacts of South-to-South migration to the vanguard role cities play in migration, from the securitization of migration to the roles gender and climate change are playing and will play in future policies.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Miroslav Lajฤ รกk and Renowned Economist Sir Paul Collier

For more information: tuftsgloballeadership.org

Sports

Tuesday, March 5, 2019 | Sports | THE TUFTS DAILY

Tufts' strength and conditioning coaches work to keep athletes strong STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING

continued from back page and conditioning staff proved to be too inefficient and burdensome, especially for a sport like track and field that tends to require a greater amount of individualized training.

Kristen Morwick, head coach of the women’s track and field team, explained that she and her assistant coaches are very experienced in strength and conditioning, so they manage their athletes’ programs on their own.

In the past, working with the strength and conditioning staff prevented the women’s track and field coaching staff from controlling and adjusting the training programs based on injuries, specific needs and scheduling.

“For us, it was becoming increasingly difficult to coordinate what we were doing on the track and on the field with strength and conditioning, in terms of being able to shift gears if we needed to adjust or change things,” Morwick said. “The bread and butter of what we do is strength and conditioning, plus technique. The best track coaches all create their programs for their team; they don’t technically use strength and conditioning.”

Without proper control over their athletes, Morwick noted an increase in injuries.

“We were finding too that we were having kids with the bigger muscles having more tightness, more injuries, more pulls, more strains … When we’re not writing the programs and in control of the programs, we can’t make those changes as we see fit based on what our kids are doing in our practice every day,” Morwick said.

Kopcso emphasized that teams are by no means required to work with the strength and conditioning coaches but that most choose to utilize his staff to some extent.

“They just prefer not to use us,” Kopcso said. “I think most of the coaches here know that’s our area of specialty, where our degrees are in, and enjoy letting us have our control … It just depends on the coach; however active a role they want to play, we’re happy to meet them.”

Vandervelde also mentioned that the strength and conditioning resources provided by Tufts exceed those at other NESCAC schools, and even other Div. III schools across the country. For example,

TOAST 325K+ Instagram Followers

Sam Weidner Weidner's Words

Leadership in NBA Locker Rooms

F

CHRISTINE LEE / THE TUFTS DAILY

Head Strength and Conditioning Coach / Fitness Center Director Dan Kopcso poses for a portrait in the Steve Tisch Sports and Fitness Center on March 4. no other NESCAC school has three fulltime strength and conditioning coaches.

Hamilton has three listed in their directory, but one also works partially in sports medicine as an athletic trainer.

Tufts also outranks the rest of the field in terms of its training facilities. When the Steve Tisch Sports and Fitness Center was renovated in 2012, the former fitness center was converted into the varsity weight room. The superior facilities, along with the staffing level, have contributed to the Jumbos’ national excellence.

“I know that our facility … is definitely a standalone thing, almost in all of Div. III,” Vandervelde said. “If you go to other schools and look at what their turf is, they have like a strip of turf, and we have almost a field. It shows — Tufts is routinely in the top five of the Learfield Director’s Cup. …

And that’s out of 440 Div. III schools. Tufts is definitely on the map, and we get good athletes now.”

Throughout the past seven years, the varsity weight room has been improved through various fundraising efforts.

“It was really not a welcoming place,” Kopcso said in reference to the old varsity weight room. “In the last couple years, we’ve been able to fundraise and get all the turf here you see, all the walls painted, all the graphics, and as you can see, we’ve got a lot of new racks coming in and some of these older things are getting phased out […] Some people come here and say ‘Wow, this is better than Div. I.’” At the end of the day, the strength and conditioning coaches use their resources the best of their ability, and as Vandervelde explains, it serves as a form of equity across all sports.

“Strength and conditioning helps everybody,” Vandervelde said. “For the teams that don’t get a great opportunity to see other support from around campus, they get the same support from us because they get to use the same facility.

All the teams are the same in that room.”

SHELTER PET & FASHION ICON Amazing stories start in shelters and rescues. Adopt today to start yours.

11

or the first time since 2011, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics are dominating the headlines of the NBA. It’s not because they are the favorites to compete for the title like almost a decade ago, but rather because they seem to be stuck in an endless cycle of team dysfunction. Whether the coverage is fair or not, Kyrie Irving and LeBron James have not been subtle this year in calling themselves and their teammates out for subpar focus and play.

Irving, after a loss to the Orlando Magic on Jan. 12, said to reporters: “The young guys don’t know what it takes to be a championship level team. What it takes every day. And if they think it is hard now, what do they think it will be like when we’re trying to get to the finals?”

These comments roundly drew criticism from people saying that Irving was deflecting responsibility for the loss onto others.

LeBron made similar comments that were seen as criticizing his teammates for a lack of focus: “Just come and do your job. We do our job at a high level and that’s not a distraction. That’s what you want. That’s what you want every game. You want to feel like you’re fighting for something.”

While it’s true that James was simply answering a question from a reporter regarding whether or not questions of a playoff push were seen as a distraction, the phrasing of his response definitely directs some critique onto the attitude of Lebron and his teammates during their recent losing streak.

For both Irving and James as well as the Lakers and the Celtics, these quotes sum up the pattern of discussion surrounding the teams all season long. With both teams underperforming, the leadership of James and Irving has been called into question time and time again. The juggernaut that is the sports media is doing all that they can to enlarge these stories.

Despite all the noise surrounding both teams, there isn’t anything unique about the Lakers and the Celtics’ problems this season. Each year, every team that is on top, or comes in with a starfilled roster or simply has LeBron James, faces this criticism. The teams that continuously distinguish themselves are the ones that push past the constructed narratives and prove the media wrong.

The Warriors’ winning run over the past few years is even more impressive when you consider their ability to ignore all the calls of division and stick it out for not just an exhausting 82-game season, but also a two month long playoff push as well. Almost every dynasty in history has been disrupted by internal division on the team. Kobe and Shaq feuded, MJ and the Bulls’ front office feuded. The hardest obstacle is making it past those internal divisions. James has proven before that he can do so and is getting another chance to prove it again, and the Celtics are realizing that they must prove it as well.

Sam Weidner is a junior studying mathematics. Sam can be reached at samuel. weidner@tufts.edu.

12 tuftsdaily.com

Sports

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Women’s tennis set to start spring season at Trinity

by Noah Stancroff

Assistant Sports Editor

The No. 7 Jumbos begins their spring season at Hartford, Conn. on Saturday against the No. 38 Trinity Bantams, an in-conference opponent, on March 9.

The team looks to start off play in March in the same dominant fashion with which it finished its fall season earlier this academic year.

The Jumbos last took to the courts in October when they participated in the Bowdoin Invitational in Brunswick, Maine.

The Jumbos ended the fall season on a high note at the invitational when they took on the Wellesley Blue, the Skidmore Thoroughbreds, the Bates Bobcats and the hosts, the Bowdoin Polar Bears. Four doubles and four singles went undefeated across the two day event.

“We’ve worked really hard during the offseason,” senior Tomo Iwasaki said when asked about the break from competition.

“We’re just really excited to get back into competition.”

Although the fall season does not count towards the team record, it gives individual players an opportunity for intercollegiate competition and allows first-year players to gain some experience at the college level prior to heading into the long winter break. This experience could prove to be immensely beneficial for the Jumbos, who have a relatively young roster with only two seniors and one junior. The rest of the roster consists of two sophomores and four first-year players.

“I’m really excited for the season because we have a very young team,” Iwasaki said. “[The first-years] all bring their own talent to the court, so it’s going to be really exciting to see them compete this spring.”

After facing the Bantams, the Jumbos will take a break from action for just over a week before traveling out west for four different matches over spring break. The trip to the Los Angeles area starts with a match against the Redlands Bulldogs in Redlands, Calif. The Jumbos will then face the reigning Div. III champions and No. 1 ranked Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Athenas. Tufts will look to avenge last

year’s defeat at the hands of ClaremontMudd-Scrips, when the then No. 8 Jumbos fell 5–4 to the Athenas.

Following the match in Claremont, Calif. the Jumbos will stay out west and travel to Whittier College where they face familiar NESCAC opponent in No. 4 ranked Williams Ephs, a semifinalist in last year’s Div. III tournament. In the 2018 spring season, Tufts faced Williams twice prior to the NCAA tournament. The Ephs dominated the Jumbos in both matches, as they left Medford, Mass. with an 8–1 victory in April and then shut the Jumbos out 5–0 in the NESCAC tournament semifinal. The spring break trip concludes for the Jumbos with another top 10 matchup as they travel to back to Claremont, Calif. for a match at No. 8 Pomona-Pitzer.

“I think it will be really exciting to really just jump right into really tough competition,” Iwasaki said. “I think it sets a tone for the rest of the season by playing just really tough teams in the beginning and then building up whatever we learn from those matches and bringing that to the rest of the season … it will be exciting to see how we do.”

Following the trip to California, Tufts returns to campus where seven of their remaining 11 matches will be against fellow NESCAC schools. Seven of the 11 matches for the Jumbos throughout the end of March and all of April will also be against preseason top-20 teams, a sign of the NESCAC’s strength in women’s tennis.

“I try to make sure the team is not categorizing any teams for better or worse,” coach Kate Bayard told the Daily in an email. “We just have to continue to focus on how we can prepare the best we can for each match ahead of us. No doubt we always have a tough schedule. I feel scheduling the toughest teams possible makes us stronger and stronger as the season progresses.”

The Jumbos look to improve on their 13–7 record in the 2018 spring season that included an appearance in the NCAA Regional Final against the then 20–2 MIT Engineers. In the past three seasons, the Jumbos have been knocked out of the NCAA

BEN KIM / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

Mina Karamercan (LA ‘18) serves during a doubles match in Tufts’ 8–1 loss to Williams on April 28, 2018. tournament in the third round, something they hope to change this coming season.

“So far this spring, team members have really come together to create a phenomenally tight team,” Bayard said. “It seems to

have happened without pressure and quite naturally, which is always a bonus. So far so good. I look forward to seeing how team members continue to come together to support one another this spring.”

Keeping the Jumbos strong: strength and conditioning at Tufts

by Jake Freudberg

Assistant Sports Editor

With the power to lift 700,000 pounds, elephants are some of the strongest creatures on Earth. But keeping the Jumbos strong is nonetheless an elephantine endeavor.

That’s where the strength and conditioning coaches come in.

In his role as director of sports performance, Dan Kopcso oversees strength and conditioning for Tufts varsity athletes.

Kopcso also manages the fitness center and teaches a physical education course, Advanced Principles of Exercise. Alongside Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach Marten Vandervelde and Strength and Conditioning Assistant Alex O’Keefe, as well as a team of several undergraduate and graduate interns, Kopcso works with Jumbos in the weight room throughout the year to ensure they stay healthy for the entirety of their season.

“Our number one goal across the [board] is injury prevention: How do we eliminate or minimize these injuries, whether it’s based on that sport, the type of

person we’re talking about or the individual themselves?” Kopcso said.

Kopsco said performance enhancement was second to the goal of injury prevention.

“I would argue that everybody does the physical side of things. The big thing we also try to do is spend a lot of time on the psychological side — teamwork, competitiveness, putting people in mental environments that are challenging for them, often times having them take a leadership role as a [first-years] and having them make a lot of mistakes and suck at it and get better,” he said.

For Vandervelde, one of the two assistant trainers on staff, the role of the strength and conditioning coach manifests itself beyond just lifting weights and training.

“The misnomer is that everyone thinks we’re here to make people stronger and faster,” Vandervelde said. “Can we keep people healthy by convincing them to sleep more hours, drink more water, eat better foods and things like that? Even if they’re working out a lot — let’s say three hours a day, so 21 a week — that’s 21 hours out of 168. Life outside the gym is much more important.”

Each team is assigned to a strength and conditioning coach — either Kopcso, Vandervelde, or O’Keefe — who works primarily with that team, writing and administering sport-specific workout plans. The interns assist in the implementation of the programs, and by the end of the academic year, the graduate interns also write their own programs for the teams.

Most teams have scheduled team lift times in season during which athletes are required to work out in the weight room.

In the offseason, depending on the sport, training programs are more flexible, and athletes can work out when they want and sometimes follow more individualized programs.

“In season, it’s definitely more of a teambased program — that’s the time when we’ll bring a team and have a set ‘This is what you should do,’” Kopcso said. “But, any time there [are] injuries, individual differences [or] positional differences, there’s a lot of juggling those things. Throughout the year, athletes come in to work with us, and we want to see what they need to develop as opposed to just, ‘Here’s a soccer program.’”

Working with each team requires different programs that depend on the skills required and coaches’ preferences. Although they work with a large number of athletes and teams, the strength and conditioning coaches try their best to maintain constant communication with the team’s coaches about what specific areas need to be addressed.

“We do have a structured meeting usually at the end of the season,” Kopcso said. “‘How did it go? What went well? At the beginning of the season, what are our objectives?’”

Kopcso also said the strength and conditioning staff members regularly communicate with the athletic trainers of the sports medicine staff to consider any immediate concerns and to attempt to prevent any particular injuries that arise.

“They’re really the first line of defense because they see what’s happening quickly in season: some injury pattern happened, or something that’s come up or even just concerns about an athlete,” Kopcso said.

However, one team — women’s track and field — found that working with the strength

see STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING, page 11