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tuesday, october 29, 2013

VOLUME LXVI, NUMBER 36

Where You Read It First Est. 1980

Tufts alumna apppointed Smith College president by

Alexa Horwitz

Daily Editorial Board

Trustee of Tufts Kathleen McCartney (J ’77) was formally inaugurated as Smith College’s 11th president during ceremonies that took place on Oct. 19.

McCartney, who until recently served as dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, credits her undergraduate time at Tufts as playing a role in leading her to the new position.

After working in her academic advisor Brenda Steinberg’s child development laboratory at Tufts, McCartney was encouraged to apply to doctoral programs in psychology.

“I don’t think I would have had the courage to apply without [Steinberg’s] encouragement and support,” McCartney told the Daily in an email. “Her advice set in motion a chain of events that led directly to this position at Smith. I found my passion at Tufts, and that is what a good liberal arts education should provide.”

McCartney comes to Smith with a background in education, according to the Smith College website. After receiving both her master’s degree and doctorate from Yale University, McCartney joined the faculty at Harvard as an assistant professor of psychology in 1982.

She was then tenured at the University of New Hampshire as an assistant professor of psychology, as well as director of the Child Study and Development Center. In 2000, McCartney returned to Harvard as a professor in early childhood development.

McCartney’s research has focused on childcare and early childhood life, and she see SMITH, page 2

pxtang photography via Flickr Media Commons

Eugene Fama (A ’60), shown on the left, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics this month for his work on market efficiency.

Economist alumnus receives Nobel Prize by

Denali Tietjen

Daily Editorial Board

Eugene Fama (A ’60) was this year awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his studies on asset pricing and market efficiency, the Nobel Committee announced in a press release on Oct. 14.

Widely respected in the field of economics, Fama is commonly known as “the father of modern finance” for his research on how markets operate, according to the University of Chicago Booth School of Business site. He shares the prize with economists Lars Peter Hansen of the University of Chicago and Robert

Shiller of Yale University.

University President Anthony Monaco congratulated Fama on his achievement.

“The award of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Economics to Tufts alumnus Eugene Fama is an incredible honor for the university,” Monaco told the Daily in an email. “He is known for his pioneering work in understanding how financial assets such as stocks and homes are priced, and we are very proud that this ‘father of modern finance’ got his start at Tufts.”

Though Fama’s interest in economics took root at Tufts, it came late in his academic career, according to his auto-

biography. Fama came to Tufts with the intention of becoming a schoolteacher and a sports coach, graduating magna cum laude with honors with a degree in romance languages.

“At Tufts, I started in romance languages, but after two years became bored with re-hashing Voltaire and took an economics course,” Fama wrote. “I was enthralled by the subject matter and by the prospect of escaping a lifetime of starvation on the wages of a high school teacher.”

Fama continued his studies at the University of Chicago Booth School of see NOBEL, page 2

Students debate real-world dilemmas at first Ethics Bowl

Color for a cause

by Sarah

Zheng

Daily Editorial Board

Ethan Chan for the Tufts Daily

Theta Chi held the first university-wide Tufts Prism Run this past Sunday to raise money for non-profit organization Direct Relief. Students were invited to run a course around the campus as spectators splashed them with color.

Inside this issue

The first annual Tufts Ethics Bowl, a debate-style competition on ethical dilemmas, was held this past Saturday at Miner Hall.

During the event, co-sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and the Experimental College, five teams of a minimum of three members presented arguments for a set of 15 real-world cases, according to Ethics Bowl coach Anthony Adrian.

“I think it went really well,” Adrian, a second year student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, said. “There was a great turnout and everyone was really excited.”

According to Adrian, the winning team of the tournament, called Megaminds, had four members — freshmen Jonathan Sirota, Sylvia Ofoma and Henry Jacqz and sophomore Shanice Kok. Each member received a baseball cap inscribed with the words “Winner of the Tufts Ethics Bowl” and a signed book from different faculty members of the Tufts philosophy department.

Adrian, along with classmate Kevin Dupree, has been working to train students see BOWL, page 2

Today’s sections

Students at Tufts learning American Sign Language find opportunities to practice in Boston.

‘The Walking Dead’ resumes with exciting plot and character development.

see FEATURES, page 3

see ARTS, page 7

News Features Arts & Living Editorial | Op-Ed

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Op-Ed Comics Classifieds Sports

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Tuesday, October 29, 2013

New president of Smith College credits undergraduate Tufts education SMITH

continued from page 1

has written more than 150 articles and book chapters on childcare. At Harvard, McCartney created a strategic plan that lead to the creation of two new degree programs — the doctorate in education leadership and a new faculty Ph.D. in education.

University President Anthony Monaco, who explained that McCartney was on the Presidential Search Committee that selected him, expressed excitement over the selection of McCartney to lead Smith College.

“She brings to the role a tremendous commitment to students, as well as keen insight into the challenges and opportunities facing higher education today,” Monaco told the Daily in an email. “I had the privilege of formally representing Tufts at her formal inauguration last weekend, and it was clear that the Smith community has responded enthusiastically to her warmth and dedication.”

Former University President Larry Bacow, who worked with McCartney at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, was also happy to see McCartney in her new role. “[McCartney] has been nothing short of spectacular, launching new programs that cross disciplinary and school boundaries, raising resources and recruiting first rate colleagues,” Bacow said.

The inauguration concludes a nearly year-long presidential search that began last January. The Smith Board of Trustees appointed a 12-person search committee to identify and suggest candidates to succeed former Smith College President Carol Christ, who retired in June 2013.

Elizabeth Mugar Eveillard, chair of the Smith College Board of Trustees, believes that McCartney is an excellent fit for Smith College.

“We sought a president who could powerfully articulate the college’s mission of educating women for leadership,” Eveillard told the Daily. “As we came to know Kathy through the search process and engaged with those who know her accomplishments and personal qualities, we came to understand that she brings all of that and more.”

Jim Gipe / Pivot Media

Kathleen McCartney (J ‘77), a member of the Tufts Board of Trustees, assumed her new position as 11th president of Smith College on Oct. 19.

Fama says interest in economics started at Tufts NOBEL

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Business, where he received his Master of Business Administration and doctorate, according to the University of Chicago website. He now serves as the Robert R. McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at The Booth School.

Fama is most famous for his “efficient markets hypothesis,” which proposes that the market always accurately values stock, making it impossible for investors to find undervalued stocks, according to an Oct. 17 article on Forbes.com. The hypothesis also argues that it is impossible to predict stock price trends over the short term since changes in market prices happen instantaneously. “[Fama’s] findings not only had a profound impact on subsequent research, but also changed market practice,” the Nobel Committee said in the release.

“The emergence of so-called index funds in stock markets all over the world is a prominent example.”

Fama attributes much of his success to his undergraduate experience and professors at Tufts.

“The [Tufts] professors were as inspiring as the research stars I later profited from at the University of Chicago,” he said.

“My professors at Tufts encouraged me to go to graduate school.”

Fama’s appreciation for his Tufts education is encouraging news for members of the university, Monaco said.

“It is especially gratifying to know that his research career was sparked by working on a project with one of his Tufts professors, just as so many of our students do today,” Monaco said.

This is Tufts’ third recognition by the Nobel Committee, according to a list compiled by the Wall Street Journal. Fama joins Roderick Mackinnon (M ’82), who won for chemistry in 2003, and former physics professor Allan Cormack, who won the prize for physiology or medicine in 1979.

Ethics Bowl participants may move on to regional competition BOWL

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for the competition twice a week since preparations began at the beginning of the year, according to Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy Susan Russinoff, who was the event’s coordinator.

Adrian said that the idea for the competition first came from Chair and Associate Professor of the Department of Philosophy Erin Kelly, who met the Morehead-Cain Alumni Distinguished Professor at UNC Chapel Hill Geoffrey Sayre-McCord at a conference.

Melody Ko / Tufts University

Professor of Philosophy Daniel Dennett served as one of the judges at the first annual Ethics Bowl competition, which took place in Miner Hall on Saturday.

“[Sayre-McCord] runs a center for ethics ... and this was one of the things they do over there,” he said. “[Kelly] got really excited about it, so last semester she approached myself and [Dupree] to sort of get this thing going.”

Teams at the Ethics Bowl prepared their arguments for cases created by the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE), the organization that sponsors these intercollegiate ethics tournaments, Adrian said. The cases were designed around real-world topics, such as the question of whether to criminalize transmission of HIV or where the elder Boston Marathon bombing suspect should be buried.

A number of faculty in the Department of Philosophy, including Kelly, Professor Daniel Dennett, as well as some graduate students served as judges, according to Lecturer Monica Link, one of the Ethics Bowl organizers.

Adrian explained that Ethics Bowl judges check for the competitors’ skill in presenting arguments in order to choose a winner.

“One of the interesting features of the Ethics Bowl is that when you compete against another team, you don’t necessarily have to take an opposing view,” Adrian said. “Traditionally, debates have a pro or con assignment, but in this case we’re just looking for a well presented argument. Two teams might be defending the exact same position and argue for it in very different ways with varying strength of the argument.”

Link explained that Adrian and Dupree also worked with teams from local high schools like Medford High, who held a special demonstration tournament at the competition.

Before the final competition, Dennett, a renowned philosopher, writer and cognitive scientist also gave a short speech titled “Free Will as Moral Competence,” according to Link.

Originally, Link said, she planned to teach Philosophy 91: Ethics Bowl Boot Camp, an applied ethics course that

would serve as preparation for students participating in the Ethics Bowl and help them think critically about ethical dilemmas. Due to low enrollment, though, the class was canceled.

Russinoff explained that, while the course was canceled this semester, there is no reason to think that there will never be a formal course.

“We may very well offer an Ethics Bowl class in the future,” Russinoff told the Daily in an email. “Since we received the grant that supports the competition quite late in the spring semester, we didn’t have adequate time to advertise the course for this fall.”

In order to motivate students to join the bowl, Link and fellow Lecturer David Denby gave their philosophy students an opportunity to forgo one of the short papers required for their class if they participated in the tournament and attended some of the coaching lessons, Link explained.

“Most of the people involved in the Ethics Bowl [were] students who are currently enrolled in a Philosophy 001 class or Introduction to Ethics,” she said.

Link hopes to attract students outside of the philosophy department for future bowls.

The level of interest in the tournament was great, considering that the Ethics Bowl was a new initiative at Tufts, Russinoff said. She added that she hopes to send two teams to the New England Regional Ethics Bowl in late November.

The goal is that students will take the critical thinking skills that they used to analyze the various ethical cases and be able to apply them to other situations in their lives, according to Link.

“Whether they become a scientist, whether they become a lawyer or a teacher, all of us are going to face certain kinds of dilemmas where we wonder what the right thing to do is, how to fairly treat this person, et cetera.” she said. “We want to get people from all walks of life to understand how to reason through.”

Features

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Petar Todorov | Lab Notes

Playing defense in space

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mct

Although the three ASL courses offered at Tufts were recently approved to qualify for the first part of the foreign language requirement, students interested in understanding the Deaf community further must venture off campus to experience it firsthand.

Tufts ASL program sees growth in popularity, opportunities to interact with Deaf community

by Sabrina

McMillin

Daily Editorial Board

Silence and sign language characterized Northeastern University’s annual event, “A Deaf, Deaf World,” on Oct. 10. This simulation, sponsored by the American Sign Language (ASL) Program at Northeastern, gave hearing students learning ASL the experience of interacting in a world where ASL is the dominant language. Students could wander around booths representing everyday activities in a typical town, like Chuck Baird’s art supply, Helen Keller’s Job Placement, Veditz College and a café.

Lecturer in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development Jim Lipsky, a member of the Deaf community who also teaches at Northeastern, led the program this year.

Lipsky spoke with the Daily on the phone through a video relay service that allowed him to receive questions and relay answers while using sign language with an interpreter.

Lipsky, who has lectured on the Hill for 21 years, described the history of ASL at Tufts and the many trials faced by students who have yearned for more classes and an expansion of the program.

“When I was teaching Level 1, typically [the classes] were full, and this was under the Child Development department,” he said.

“They were very supportive of that, others weren’t, but it became very popular.”

Since the lectures incorporate visual means, such as PowerPoint presentations, limited enrollment is crucial to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to learn the materials properly.

The program’s introductory course, American Sign Language and the Deaf Community, is co-taught by Lipsky and Terrell Clark, who is also a lecturer in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development. Not only does the course give students the foundation of basic ASL, but it allows them to discover the rich history of the Deaf community and the culture surrounding it. In class, students learn about the legacies of members of the Deaf community, including Chuck Baird, Helen Keller, George Veditz and many others.

The Tufts program eventually expanded to include a second and third course.

Throughout this time, students petitioned persistently so that ASL could be used to fulfill Tufts’ foreign language requirement.

In May of this year, Tufts faculty approved a proposal that allowed ASL to fulfill Part I of the foreign language requirement.

In a response to the 2013 ASL Proposal, though, Chair of the Department of German, Russian and Asian Languages and Literatures Hosea Hirata and Chair of the Department of Romance Languages José Antonio Mazzotti stressed that while ASL may satisfy Part I, it is an American language.

“The primary reason for our opposition is that it is not a foreign language used by a foreign people. The second and equally important reason is because the proposal, perhaps unwittingly, interferes with our own departments’ mandate: to teach (modern) foreign languages and literatures/cultures,” they wrote in their response.

Though ASL courses can now fulfill the first half of the requirement, there are few resources on campus for Tufts students who wish to continue their education past the third and final ASL course.

Lipsky encourages students to get involved with the Boston Deaf community, as well as other programs at nearby universities, as a way to gain practical skills that reach beyond the classroom setting. He pointed out that there are opportunities at Gallaudet University — a university specifically for the education of the deaf and hard of hearing located in Washington, D.C. “There is a great opportunity to learn and be immersed in the culture of the deaf, to understand and, of course, to use the language on a daily basis,” Lipsky said. “There were two students who went to Gallaudet University for a semester, and they really enjoyed it.”

Even for new students, real-life ASL experience is not only possible but highly encouraged. Lauren Giglio, a junior who is currently in ASL 1, attended the simulation at Northeastern with only three classes worth of experience.

“There were ... situations where an emergency announcement would be shown on the giant TV screen telling us to ‘evacuate immediately’ for various reasons and to collect a specific item when evacuating,” Giglio told the Daily in an email. “If that item was not collected, you were not allowed to evacuate the pretend emergency. I think I died a few times.”

Although Giglio’s ASL use may not have been perfect, she noted that Lipsky is very encouraging.

“He is incredibly patient and has a way of communicating lessons to us with the aid of PowerPoints, book work and interactive partner/group work in class that helps us retain the vital signs we need to communicate thoughts in class,” she said.

As an instructor in the ASL programs at both Tufts and Northeastern, Lipsky has connected hearing students to each other and the Deaf community in Boston. At “A Deaf, Deaf World,” Tom Lauterborn, one of Lipsky’s former students, interpreted for Lipsky during the event. Lauterborn has deaf grandparents, and his mother can also interpret ASL. “I’ve been around ASL and the Deaf community for all of my life, pretty much,” he said.

While Lauterborn was pre-med at Northeastern, he decided to take advantage of the school’s notable ASL program as well.

As a recent graduate, he was able to find a job as an interpreter at Northeastern.

At the event, Lauterborn noted the variety of clubs, including a group hidden among the others where students were actually allowed to speak: The Bravewood Club.

“The Bravewoods were a family in England who taught deaf children mainly using the oral method, so they mainly tried to get them to speak and not use any sign language at all,” he said.

Later in the evening, Lauterborn interpreted for Lisa Gentile, a member of the Boston Deaf community, who volunteered to be the proprietor of the art supply store. For Gentile, ASL course events are a fantastic way to connect with new ASL students and the other deaf Bostonians who volunteer.

“It’s really nice that they’re all starting to learn it. It’ll take some time until they can pick up the language, but it’s a good thing, definitely,” Gentile said.

Although the Tufts ASL program is slowly growing to match the demand across the university, certain limitations continue to hold it back from greater accessibility. Giglio expressed her desire for change within the program.

“A few things that I wish could be changed would be the levels that are offered,” she said. “Right now there are only three levels for ASL/Deaf culture, which are good starting points, but could be even more beneficial with more levels devoted to the language.”

ixty-five million years ago, a meteorite six miles across struck the Earth, ejecting enough dirt and rock into the atmosphere to cause a global firestorm. Seventy percent of extant species were driven extinct, including the dinosaurs. The Yucatan Peninsula still bears the scar of that impact: a crater 110 miles wide.

Such cataclysms are rare, but similar events are not out of the question during our lifetimes. In 1908, the Tunguska Event was caused by a small meteorite that exploded above Russia, leveling over 800 square miles of forest but hurting nobody. A similar blast (recorded in all its visual glory by hundreds of dash cams) rocked Chelyabinsk this past February.

Fragments struck buildings, and the sound of the shockwave shattered glass windows throughout the city. Nearly 1,500 people were injured. The occasional incursion into our atmosphere by an asteroid may cause up a stir in the news, but what is being done to actually protect our planet from these space rocks?

In the 1998 film “Armageddon,” Bruce Willis and a ragtag crew of oil drillers fly off to nuke a killer asteroid. This solution is hardly reasonable: Blowing up a massive rock could lead to many smaller problems hurling toward us on unpredictable trajectories. Most solutions seek to deflect, not destroy, near-earth objects on a collision course. One idea is to use a focused laser to burn a small area of an asteroid, releasing gas and particles that push the massive body like a small jet engine. Another concept uses a “gravity tractor” that works by parking a small spacecraft near an object and dragging it away using its weak gravitational field. An alternative, elegant solution is to spray-paint the asteroid with a reflective coating. The photons that make up incoming light impart a greater pressure on the reflective area as they bounce off versus the darker parts of the asteroid, which absorb them. The force directs the object like a sail pulls a boat along. All of these methods can be used to make small course corrections, but they all hinge on the assumption that an asteroid is detected years or months in advance.

Thus, the root of the problem is that we cannot see most of the asteroids that menace us. The one that struck Chelyabinsk is estimated to have been around the size of a house. The meteorite that exploded over Tunguska a century ago was a little larger; experts have speculated that it was on the scale of about one to two football fields.

Currently, NASA thinks it knows about a quarter of the Tunguska sized rocks in our vicinity and very few of the smaller ones.

Although these asteroids do have the potential to devastate a small country, they are but grains of sand to our telescopes, which are designed to seek out objects on the scale of astronomical bodies. NASA’s continued effort over the last 15 years has mapped 10,000 Near Earth Objects. The European Union has launched its own program, called NEOshield, to account for all asteroids threatening the planet.

Detection has certainly not been left in the hands of governments: Astronauts Ed Lu and Russell Schweickart have started the B612 Foundation. They intend to launch the first privately funded infrared space telescope; the so-called Sentinel Mission is poised to map more asteroids in a month than NASA’s telescopes have so far.

Protecting the Earth from space rocks may not seem like an important task when the threat is not imminent. Fortunately, the effort is shaping up to be a global collaboration between the public and private sectors. Hopefully it will keep our species from going the way of the dinosaurs.

Petar Todorov is a senior majoring in chemistry. He can be reached at Petar.

Todorov@tufts.edu.

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Arts & Living

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Ballet Review

Megan Clark | Where’s the Craic?

‘In America’

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Courtesy Gene Schiavone / Boston Ballet

The Boston Ballet company expertly handled the difficult choreography of ‘La Bayadère.’

Boston Ballet amazes with production of ‘La Bayadère’ by

Drew Robertson

Daily Editorial Board

The Boston Ballet unveiled “La Bayadère” this weekend, the first fulllength ballet of its much anticipated 50th

La Bayadère Choreographed by Florence Clerc Boston Ballet 19 Clarendon Street, Boston season. Returning to its main venue — the Boston Opera House — for performances of “La Bayadère,” the company was in full form after two earlier events this fall. The more informal locations of productions like “Night of Stars” and “BB@Home” — staged at the Boston Common and the Boston Ballet’s Back Bay school and headquarters, respectively — provided the one-night performances with a unique atmosphere: The outdoor setting for “Night of Stars” was fun and refreshing, while “BB@Home” was a more intimate experience for viewers. Yet neither venue was able to truly

capture the excitement and luxuriousness of the Boston Opera House.

With a marble lobby, crystal chandeliers and intricate cream and gold ceiling ornamentation, the decor of the Boston Opera House alone promises a glamorous and unforgettable evening. The building itself often leaves visitors with high expectations for the featured productions, and “La Bayadère” certainly did not disappoint. From the moment the curtain rose to reveal the luscious setting in the jungles of India, audience members were transported to a romantic world of mysterious temples, sumptuous palaces and — most importantly — beautiful dancing.

A beloved piece of classical ballet, “La Bayadère” tells the tragic tale of complicated love. Nikiya, the best of the temple dancers — known as the bayadères — attracts the admiration and affection of young warrior Solor with her dancing.

However, when Solor becomes betrothed to the haughty princess Gamzatti, the two women become embroiled in a bitter and volatile conflict. A love triangle develops, bringing with it eruptions of passion, anger and jealousy — and catastrophic results.

Gallery Review

Campos-Pons exhibition displays identity, heritage by

Elizabeth Boston

Contributing Writer

An innovative and unique exhibition by artist Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons is currently on display at the Tufts University Art Gallery.

Campos-Pons is an Afro-Cuban artist who specializes in photography, video, sculpture, installations and performance art. The winner of a slew of awards — including the Bunting Fellowship in Visual Arts at Harvard in 1993 and the Rappaport Prize in 2007

— Campos-Pons is known primarily for her installation art and her ability to meld different media together in a cohesive and thought-provoking manner. The Boston-based artist frequently discusses cultural issues, autobiographical undertones and the struggles between identity and conformity in her pieces. These ideas are certainly evident in Campos-Pons’ on-campus exhibition, “My Mother Told Me.” see MAGDALENA, page 8

Originally choreographed by Marius Petipa for the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg in 1877, the Boston Ballet’s version of “La Bayadère” featured Florence Clerc’s later adaptation of the work. Though the ballet’s choreography is famously difficult, the Boston Ballet company generally rose to meet this challenge.

Jeffrey Cirio thrilled as Solor, performing technically demanding solos while exuding the deep feelings of a distraught lover — becoming an instant audience favorite in the process. Similarly, Misa Kuranga, dancing the part of Nikiya, gave many flawless solo performances, drawing on an unparalleled level of control during complex sequences and fouettés.

But despite the individual excellence of these two, their partner work was somewhat less impressive. Perhaps due to lack of trust or creative chemistry, Cirio and Kuranga’s combined performance remained rigid, and — at times — tense. In the first act of the ballet, characters Solor and Nikiya share a passionate encounter; unfortunately, in this particular scene the dancers seemed uncomfortsee BALLET, page 8

TV Review

Season four premiere of ‘The Walking Dead’ thrills by

Grace Segers

Daily Staff Writer

About 16.1 million people tuned in on Oct. 13 to see the fourth season premiere of “The Walking Dead” —

The Walking Dead Starring Andrew Lincoln, Steven Yuen, Norman Reedus

Airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC and it’s easy to see why. The show’s successful combination of genres has made it incredibly popular, despite setbacks in storytelling during the second and third seasons.

The first season of the show featured brilliant acting and excellent pacing. In the second and third seasons, however, “The Walking Dead” hit a rut. The travails of the zombie-fighting group within the series became increasingly static, as the characters were stuck in a farm and then in a prison. There were also conflicts behind the scenes, as an everrotating list of executive producers helmed the second and third seasons.

For the past few years, it seemed that

Elizabeth Boston for the Tufts Daily

‘Sugar/Bittersweet’ is a visual representation of a sugar cane field.

see WALKING, page 8

n America” (2002) is a semi-autobiographical film directed by Jim Sheridan and written by Sheridan and his daughters, Naomi and Kirsten. “In America” follows the story of the Sullivan family as they simultaneously try to adjust to life in New York City and heal after the death of their youngest child, Frankie. The family consists of Johnny, the playful yet temperamental father, who has not been able to come to terms with Frankie’s death; Sarah, the optimistic but struggling mother; Ariel, the comparatively carefree youngest daughter and Christy, the oldest daughter who is trying to keep the family afloat by communicating with her dead brother.

“In America” is a family affair. The film is loosely based on the Sheridan family’s immigration to America from Ireland, with aspects of Jim Sheridan’s childhood mixed in. In the film, the Sullivan family illegally enters the United States through Canada, traveling to New York so that Johnny can pursue his acting career. This situation mirrors the real-life circumstances of the Sheridans — with Johnny serving as the fictional stand-in for Jim. Similarly, Ariel and Christy are based on Naomi and Kirsten.

Emma and Sarah Bolger, who play Ariel and Christy, respectively, are also real-life sisters, furthering the familial aspect of the film.

The overarching narrative of Frankie’s death and its effects on the family comes from Jim Sheridan’s childhood. His own brother, also named Frankie, died at the age of 10, and the film is dedicated to his memory.

The film opens with a voiceover by 10-yearold Christy, who explains her relationship with Frankie — the dead brother with whom she continues to communicate. She says that Frankie now has the ability to grant her three wishes but that she has to be careful how she uses them. When American border guards question the family, dubious of their claim of “being on holiday,” Christy uses her first wish to get them in.

Christy, always filming her surroundings with a camcorder, narrates much of the movie, and the cinematography occasionally flips in order to show us what she sees through her camera. The movie is (sometimes literally) told through Christy’s lens.

Seeing her family’s pain, Christy tries to use her wishes to gain some sense of normalcy.

Since Frankie’s death, Johnny has become emotionally numb and, consequently, struggles to find acting jobs due to his inability to truly feel or express anything. Sarah originally seems to have handled Frankie’s death better than Johnny, but when she becomes pregnant and learns of potential dangers to herself and the child, she begins to view the birth of a healthy baby as a way to relive and reverse Frankie’s death. Christy tries to help her parents — particularly her father — heal, but eventually realizes that she too is viewing life from a distance — through the lens of her camera.

Despite the sad overarching narrative, “In America” features some humorous moments.

Following a heat wave, Johnny finally decides it’s time to get an air conditioner and, when he cannot get the cart that is carrying it over the curb, he ends up dragging the machine behind him down the middle of the street.

This, apparently, is an exact retelling of Jim Sheridan stealing an air conditioner and dragging it through the city.

In addition to their intra-familial relationships, the Sullivans also meet and briefly befriend Mateo, their downstairs neighbor.

Mateo, portrayed by Djimon Hounsou (who received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for the role), is alone and dying of AIDS. Nonetheless, when he and the Sullivans cross paths, they are able to offer each other wisdom and solace as they both grieve.

While “In America” is a definite tearjerker, the ending leaves the viewer with a sense of hope. We feel that this family is finally going to be okay.

Next week’s film: “The Crying Game.”

Megan Clark is a senior who is majoring in English and history. She can be reached at Megan.Clark@tufts.edu.

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Arts & Living

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Boston dancers bring classic ballet to life BALLET

continued from page 7

Jenesterov96 / Wikimedia Commons

The cast of ‘The Walking Dead’ delivers exceptional character development this season.

‘The Walking Dead’ season four returns with excitement of first season WALKING

continued from page 7

“The Walking Dead” was a good show struggling to be great, but not quite hitting the mark.

But new executive producer Scott Gimple seems to be bringing “The Walking Dead” back to its roots, with character-driven plotlines and more “walkers” (the zombies). The brilliance of the show has always been its attention to character development in the wake of the apocalypse, and this has never been more noticeable than in the first two episodes of the fourth season. One especially impressive performance can be seen in Melissa McBride’s Carol, a woman who was previously in an abusive relationship and is now a leader of the zombie pack. Her transformation from fragile to strong is one of the series’ most beautiful character arcs. Andrew Lincoln also delivers a wonderful performance as sheriff Rick Grimes, who

has always been the emotional soul of the show. Grimes’ progression from the moral voice of his group of survivors, to their dictatorial leader, to a quiet and broken farmer has been another stunning character development over the course of the series. It will be interesting to see Rick confront his past, as he becomes a leader once again in the face of new enemies.

This season, “The Walking Dead” seems to focus especially on fear, with threats facing the group from every front. Though the show is still set in the prison, there are enough elements to keep it exciting and fresh — for example, a new virus that is spreading throughout the area leads to tension and trepidation among characters and viewers alike.

But what is most thrilling — and terrifying — thus far is the influx of walkers. The second and third seasons chose to concentrate more on the human, rather than zombie, threat of the post-apocalyptic world. Although

this often provided interesting moral dilemmas, not even the sinister presence of the Governor (David Morrissey) can elicit the same fear that the walkers do. In the first two episodes alone, there have already been several epic battles between humans and walkers — one was memorably set in a grocery store. These brilliantly directed scenes get viewers’ adrenaline racing and remind us that “The Walking Dead” is a horror show as much as a thought-provoking drama.

The fourth season is shaping up to be excellent in every way imaginable, from the writing to the acting and special effects. The show’s stellar viewer ratings prove that “The Walking Dead” is not so much a television series as a weekly event that provides the audience with blood-pumping action and moral conflicts. If the season progresses with episodes similar to the first two, it will definitely be the show to watch this fall.

able, resulting in a few uncertain lifts and a lot of squandered potential.

Although certainly not disastrous for the production, these moments were missing the power they needed to transform a great duet into an extraordinary one. Thankfully, the pas de deux shared

by Cirio and Kathleen Breen Combes (Gamzatti) was much stronger, bringing an extra flourish and finish to their work.

The music, provided by a full orchestra and conducted by Jonathan McPhee, was also superb. Careful not to overpower the action on stage, the music beautifully supported the Boston Ballet dancers. Another production highlight was the intermittently bright and soft lighting (designed by John Cuff) in the final act of the ballet — during Solor’s hallucination in the jungle — which lent the eerie effect of twinkling stars and dappled moonlight to the scene.

Most interesting, however, were Sergiy Spevyakin’s contributions to the original set and costume design. Together, scenery and costuming created a thoughtprovoking dynamic in the color palette of the production. For instance, Act I, scene I overwhelmingly featured cool tones. With the dark, purplish-green hues of the jungle leaves and the bayadères and Solor all adorned in light blue shades, the colors complemented each other perfectly. While the middle sections of the work brought in progressively warmer tones — beige, gold and burnt orange — bright color was carefully rationed throughout the work.

Within this framework, the vibrant red of Nikiya’s costume during her fateful dance at Solor and Gamzatti’s engagement celebration is as vivid as a drop of ruby blood.

Though initially the choice to restrict color may seem strange given the vibrant and colorful setting of ancient India, it helps to heighten the contrast of passion and melancholy that brings emotional tension to “La Bayadère.”

“La Bayadère” will be showing at the Boston Opera House until Nov. 3. Tickets are available for purchase online at bostonballet.org or by calling (617) 695-6955.

‘My Mother Told Me’ celebrates Tufts’ Africana studies program MAGDALENA

continued from page 7

As a woman who has Nigerian, Chinese and Hispanic roots, CamposPons primarily addresses feelings about her heritage and explores how this has affected her identity as a woman and an artist in “My Mother Told Me.” Upon entering the gallery, visitors may initially feel confused or disoriented — the floor of the front room is peppered with tall, thin sculptures made of wood, glass and metal. Constructed of small, circular shapes and pointed spear-like poles, this piece, entitled “Sugar/Bittersweet,” was created to depict a sugar cane field — demonstrating how the sugar industry played a role in Campos-Pons’ childhood.

The exhibition also includes two groups of large, multi-paneled Polaroid compositions — another style for which Campos-Pons is known. The first of these pieces, “Flag Year 13. Color Code Venice,” consists of nine panels. In this vibrant composition, the viewer sees Campos-Pons dressed in an antique Chinese robe. In one hand, she dangles two ribbons — representing the distance between Boston, Mantazas, Cuba and Ife, Nigeria — all of which are significant locations in the artist’s life. She holds a birdcage in her hand and positions another on her head.

This pose represents the balance that Campos-Pons has to maintain in terms of her mixed heritage.

Another unique feature of the Campos-Pons exhibition is the inclusion of video, sound and light. “My Mother Told Me” contains two dark rooms, one of which has a vast display of six vertical ironing boards covered in photographic transfers and video tracks. On each ironing board is a

photo or video of a female member of Campos-Pons’ family. The floor of the piece, entitled “Spoken Softly with Mama,” is speckled with white irons, which — in conjunction with the ironing boards — hint at the once-common pressure for females to live conventionally and insubordinately.

Ironically, “My Mother Told Me” conveys a sense of completion and unity due to the fact that it is comprised of a mixture of media. The product of photos, videos, sound, metal, wood, linen and other materials, the exhibition serves as a magnifying glass into the evolution of Campos-Pons herself — a woman influenced by upbringing, heritage, class status, expatriation, gender and society.

Though it does not consist of typical paintbrush-to-canvas art, the exhibition is exemplary of the direction that visual art has been moving towards since the early 20th century. Art is not required to supply each viewer with the exact same message, nor does it need to be aesthetically pleasing to the eye. That is where the true beauty of this exhibit can be found: Though it is eccentric and unconventional, it still generates some sort of reaction, whether positive or negative.

“My Mother Told Me” displays facets of Campos-Pons’ identity, but it also encourages self-reflection. Perhaps that is why the exhibition is so successful: The artist provides visitors with a glimpse into her own heart, mind and past, while simultaneously pushing viewers to do the same.

Overall, the exhibit speaks volumes about Campos-Pons’ artistic ability and displays her immense capacity for innovation. If visitors enter with an open mind and a willingness to reflect,

Elizabeth Boston for the Tufts Daily

‘Flag Year 13. Color Code Venice’ displays physical distance in the artist’s heritage. they will leave utterly impressed.

The exhibition, which was scheduled to help celebrate the creation of the new Africana studies program

at Tufts, will run until Dec. 8 in the Tisch Gallery of the Aidekman Arts Center. Admission is free and open to the public.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

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The Tufts Daily Editorial | Op-Ed

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THE TUFTS DAILY Hannah R. Fingerhut Editor-in-Chief

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Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Editorial

University should expand ASL program

Last spring, the Tufts administration made the decision to allow American Sign Language (ASL) to fulfill Part I of the foreign language requirement for students. After a perennial debate as to whether the requirement should be revised to include ASL, university faculty voted to approve the proposal.

Now, the three available ASL classes — included within the Eliot Pearson Department of Child Development’s course listings — can be taken to count toward either Part I or Part II of the requirement.

Tufts’ recognition of ASL as a language in and of itself — instead of just as a feature of the child development curriculum — is a positive development. The growing size of the ASL program indicates that many students, not just child development majors, are interested in learning sign language.

For this reason, Tufts should consider offering an interdisciplinary ASL minor so that students can further pursue their interest in learning sign language. Though it is appropriate that ASL can count toward either part of the language requirement, and that the program should expand upon its three courses to offer more to students, there should be limitations in fulfilling the entire foreign language requirement with ASL. ASL is not like any other foreign language that Tufts offers. For one, it is essentially an American language, distinct from others such as British Sign Language and Auslan, the language of the deaf in Australia — both of which borrow from English but are fundamentally different. Additionally, there is no codified written form of ASL, which means that students are learn-

ing how to speak in their ASL classes, but not how to read or write, as they would for a foreign language.

The point of this requirement is to ensure that students graduate from the Hill with the ability to interact with at least one foreign community. The university needs to respect students’ desires to learn ASL without allowing this to completely replace the language and culture requirements that help them engage with the world outside of the United States’ borders.

Tufts recognition of ASL as an option for half of the foreign language requirement does just that. Yet given the growing interest in the program, there should be expanded course offerings and learning opportunities in a developed program and minor to allow students aspiring to master sign language the chance to do so.

Jehan Madhani

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Off the Hill | Columbia University

Compassion not compartmentalization by

Kyle Dontoh

Columbia Daily Spectator

Gerardo Romo’s recent opinion piece (“Legacies of trauma,” Oct. 21) is a strong and unmistakable call for University action to redress the injustices of the past, which, he posits, have left an indelible psychological imprint upon persons of color in this country. The “systematic depression” of persons of color at Columbia, he writes, is the result of the continued “colonization” of their minds by the legacy of “genocide and enslavement.” I do not intend to trivialize his own personal struggles and challenges, but his approach is misguided, as it makes generalizations of the experiences of Columbians and subsequently makes compartmentalizations based off of those generalizations.

Romo insists that certain subgroups of the broad category of “students of color” are wholly unaffected by the traumas he claims are so burdensome, and therefore manage to remain content. Those with backgrounds abroad or access to quality education, he says, “cannot relate to the struggles that many poor people of color go through in this country.” On what grounds does he feel able to make such a broad claim?

I will admit to having been lucky enough to come from a stable family, but does that mean I cannot relate to those struggles?

Does the fact that I did not grow up in a neighborhood “heavily policed ... with racist practices” mean that such challenges are beyond my comprehension, when my own mother fled from a repressive and murderous Marxist regime that would go on to kill 2 million of her country-men and

The Tufts Daily is a nonprofit, independent newspaper, published Monday through Friday during the academic year, and distributed free to the Tufts community. EDITORIAL POLICY 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. The content of letters, advertisements, signed columns, cartoons and graphics does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Tufts Daily editorial board.

-women? Is my ability to understand the challenge in rising above poverty through education hopelessly impaired by the fact I did not go to an “overcrowded school,” though my own father slept on a mat in a hut far from home as a child, just to go to school? Romo calls for us to understand, yet he makes the assumption that we inherently cannot.

In pathologizing the legacy of the past and attributing depression to “legacies of trauma,” Romo generalizes: Why must we assume that the depression of persons of color is the result of some common cause peculiar to them? Romo effectively asks us not to view people as individuals with their own set of experiences and traumas, but rather as simply a group of persons who are reacting identically to a shared trauma.

But how are these groups determined, particularly in the case of overlapping identities? What is to say that a queer person of color is facing depression as a result of the past and continuing oppression of persons of color, and not, for example, gender or sexuality-based discrimination?

I am inclined to think that there could be multiple causes; Romo admits as much in highlighting queer persons of color. Yet he calls for the redress of the legacy of “genocide and enslavement” of persons of color, rather than, for example, the historical and continuing discrimination of queer people. And, if we are to accept his paradigm of historically derived psychological imbalance, what places the redress of the factors causing depression of persons of color over those of any other underprivileged group or subgroup — women, blacks, former Dalits, the rural poor?

Is the depression of persons of color somehow more important than the depression of others? It’s quite obvious that being a person of color is not the leading cause of depression at Columbia. Romo says he knows of six people who have been forced to withdraw, in contrast with the hundreds of people treated by Counseling and Psychological Services yearly. So are we either to place their depression as being a greater cause for worry than all others or seek to redress all the possible factors of depression in all groups in a similar fashion? The former is openly discriminatory; the latter would entail replacing the curriculum with a series of cultural sensitivity and privilege-comprehension courses.

It is quite a relief, then, that it is misguided to regard depression as the result of historical injustice rather than the individual distresses of individual persons.

It is for that reason we have developed the psychiatric profession, and why we here at Columbia have a large and supportive mental health program. I make no claim to understand Romo’s own personal struggles better than he himself does, but it seems wrongheaded to adopt his vision based upon compartmentalization and generalization. What we can and should do, however, is ensure that we in our community are compassionate, understanding and tolerant of one another, that we accept our differences and celebrate our diversity, and that we vociferously and stridently reject discrimination and prejudice in all its forms. That, rather than assigning blame for the past, seems a better way to ensure the well-being of our community and help those among us facing such challenges overcome them.

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Op-Ed

Op-ED

Eloise Libre | Frankly Candid

On Holi and the Color Run Anjali Shankar

by

Being born and raised in the Hindu tradition, all the stories I have learned growing up are very different from western fairytales.

A lot of the cultural traditions are fiercely integral to the religion itself, and instead of first hearing the story of Rapunzel’s very long hair, I learned about how a young boy managed to survive being burned alive. It’s some heavy stuff. But, like any good story, it operates within the culture it is written or spoken in. We see how these kinds of parables shape everyday thinking in many ways. David and Goliath, for example, is an Abrahamic story that doesn’t just make us feel good about the underdog, but it shows us that greater intellect and technology (in the form of a slingshot) can triumph over brute force alone.

It also shows us that, with faith, one can overcome monstrous adversity. The story of Prahlada, and subsequently, the story of Holi, is very similar.

We are first introduced to Prahlada’s father, a vain king named Hiranyakashipu, who has been, through many turns of a longer story, granted what he believes is immortality (though by poor word choice, it really isn’t), and his sister Holika is invulnerable to fire. Hiranyakashipu thinks that he is the only one who should be worshipped as a god in his kingdom and mandates it to be so. His subjects, fearing for their lives, abandon their Hinduism, but his son keeps praying to Vishnu.

Hiranyakashipu is so infuriated with this that he attempts to kill his son three times.

Each time, Prahlada begins to pray, and the attempt fails. The third and final time, the king asks his sister to burn his son to death.

Holi lures the young boy to the fire and believes herself to be safe. But Prahlada survives the fire, while Holika does not.

Holi is a celebration of relief, and you can see it in the colors and the music — but it is also a triumph over the obstacles any person with faith has to overcome. In India, Holi is named for Holika’s death, but it is a celebration of Prahlada’s life — of his remaining steadfast even though his own family would persecute him for believing in what he does.

It is probably very natural for me to remem-

ber that story well. When I moved to the states, I was the only Hindu in my class. My beliefs were “weird,” and the fact that I didn’t celebrate Christmas was “weird.” I distinctly remember being seven and telling a family friend that I didn’t go to church. Her horrified reaction made me almost feel ashamed.

Even now, I feel lucky to have been raised Hindu. But I shouldn’t have been called on to defend anything. It’s easy for Hindu kids here to see themselves as Prahlada, where Holika is, quite honestly, everyone else.

As I’ve grown older, though, my culture is becoming less laughable and more “trendy.”

It is an interesting phenomenon to witness, when aspects of your deeply religious heritage are washed and wrung dry and become squeaky clean, context free, secular things.

A good example: After some controversy of yoga being a form of witchcraft, a panel of judges declared yoga to be absolutely American and nonreligious. That is patently false, though the claim that it is witchcraft is also absurd. Yoga is one of the six schools of orthodox Hindu philosophy, and I think that everyone should know that.

The truth is, I can point these things out, but I also do want to share my culture with you. Yoga is great for your health, and you probably have better core strength than I do.

There are many who don’t share my opinion, but it’s impossible to please everyone, and if your calling is to do something related to my culture, I don’t really mind, as long as you acknowledge where it comes from.

The Color Run is a different story, though.

I feel quietly ripped apart — as if I were dissected for the things that the American kids would find cool, and then they were taken from me. I don’t mind sharing Holi with others, but words cannot describe what it feels like to have Holi taken from me. So I at first didn’t talk about it.

I didn’t know that I wanted to. Some of my friends probably did the run, and some more of my friends, whom I do love very much, worked on hosting it. I know that the Tufts Association of South Asians sponsored it, but I don’t feel like that’s enough of a green light.

I wish this didn’t have to happen at Tufts. I wish, at least, that Tufts’ Hindu community

had had a chance to talk about this. I wish that any of the people I knew went, “Hey, you’re Hindu, is this okay?” Mostly, I wish that I said something earlier, but honestly, I feel as though the Hindu voice is only welcome when it is there to give goofy yet sage advice to the wandering and lost Judeo-Christian kid. I have to spout koans such as “we are all connected” or “we are all one” when not all Hindus believe that. There are as many variations in Hinduism as there are in Christianity, and more than a few would find this Color Run to be deeply hurtful.

I honestly believe the silly “we are all connected and of the same cloth” business, but I am not going to cut down an evergreen tree, decorate it tonight with a bunch of “holiday” ornaments and dance around it singing “holiday” songs. Because I am not Christian, I do not have that right. Because Christmas is about far more than the tree, and my taking of that symbol and forcing it into secularism is harming Christianity.

Sanatana dharma is the path of morality that goes, “Satyam bruyat priyam bruyat na bruyat satyam apriyam priyam ca nanrutam bruyat.” Speak truth in such a way that should be pleasing to others, never speak truth which might be unpleasant, never speak lies which might be pleasant.

I’m breaking that rule. It is hard for me to point out this level of appropriation to my friends. No one wants to be a person who steals from other cultures, who does not see the value in the whole, but takes the things that appeal to them. It’s going to hurt a lot of people on campus who just wanted to have fun or who just wanted to see other students having fun.

But in not saying anything, I am saying, “This is okay. I am all right with this; you can keep doing it.” That is a lie, but it is a pleasant one. The purpose of my speaking the truth needs to be good, and the way in which I speak the truth must be important. I believe Holi should be celebrated during Holi.

Anjali Shankar is a junior who is majoring in physics. She may be reached at Anjali.Shankar@tufts.edu.

Off the Hill | University of Minnesota Minneapolis

Turning off your news feed

by

Matthew Hoy

Minnesota Daily

Newsnight’s Jeremy Paxman interviewed British comedian Russell Brand last week, and according to Gawker, Brand “may have started a revolution.” Needless to say, the interview is making its rounds on social media.

Russell Brand did not begin a revolution last week. I know, a bunch of your Facebook friends thought he did, so every other story on your news feed linked to the interview on Gawker or another website.

In the video, the immaculately condescending Paxman asked trivial questions to the very funny, very distracting British comedian regarding his guest-edited, revolutionthemed issue of The New Statesman, a British political magazine. Throughout the interview, Brand denounced the power in voting to effect change regarding income equality, climate change and a disengaged political process.

Many of you may have listened to a bit of it, found his sarcasm in the face of disdain entertaining and agreed with some of the general ideas he was talking about. It’s possible some of you actually agreed with everything he was saying. But to treat this poor excuse for an interview as anything more than two oddly unqualified men arguing with each other about nothing is to delegitimize the real progress that the women and men who spend their lives working on humanity’s problems actually make.

It reminds me of a scene in “Wag the Dog,” David Mamet and Hilary Henkin’s spectacular 1997 black comedy about a group of political operatives and major Hollywood filmmakers who stage a war with Albania to distract the public from a presidential sex scandal.

In the scene, the filmmakers sit around and discuss how, even though they are currently engaged in a propaganda campaign to compel the American public to choose their

candidate, none of them vote.

The difference here is that Mamet and Henkin are laughing at both the absurdity of the political system and the people who are too disconnected to actively attempt to fix it.

And for all of Brand’s claims to the opposite, his suggestions, that young people ought not to vote and ought not to work within the system, will not make the world a better place.

To begin, let’s assess Brand’s common refrain that we all shouldn’t vote because people have been voting for centuries, and all it’s done is put us here, where inequality and environmental destruction run rampant. I am going to adopt an Americentrist voice here, as sifting through the entirety of world history takes more words than I have.

Not only does this apathy ignore the fact that for many people, simply achieving the right to vote required monumental political, military and social struggle; it also devalues the immense progress brought about within the system from laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

To Brand, the fact that hierarchy exists at all is evidence that any social mobility is meaningless, and those of lower social strata have no say. It’s especially ironic because, as he points out a number of times, he is a product of those lower social strata.

But his disregard for actual, measurable achievement does not stop in the past; it extends happily into the modern political climate, as well.

This comes from three major and very reasonable declarations Brand made:We shouldn’t destroy the planet, create massive economic disparity and ignore the needs of the people.

Each of these is an idea that the vast majority of reasonable people can get behind. Where Brand loses his way is in asserting that, since people have already voted and the world is extremely imperfect, the mechanism of voting is inherently broken.

Forget that fixing problems like global climate change will demand a comprehensive effort from the world’s governments. Forget that ensuring that human rights are upheld requires sufficiently motivated political entities. Ignore that the top one percent of U.S. citizens control more than a third of the wealth.

According to Brand, if those of us who believe that this concentration of wealth is immoral, universal human rights are important and we shouldn’t treat our planet like a dumpster and refuse to vote, the problems will improve. He neglects to specify how, but he assures us that abstaining from the political process is to no longer participate in an illusion.

Central to Brand’s argument is the assumption that politicians of all ideologies, parties and affiliations are ultimately the same. It’s the point that your resident Facebook troll with the “Ron Paul 2012” profile picture makes on every political post that you see. They all accept campaign donations, or so the story goes, so electing one is no different from electing another. Voting makes no difference, because candidates are not individuals with actual beliefs; they’re just talking puppets for the machine to control.

To Brand, Paul Wellstone and Newt Gingrich are one in the same within the paradigm. This is both philosophically and empirically incorrect. It doesn’t take a sociologist to understand that we would not be inching toward universal health care if Mitt Romney had been elected. If people did as Brand wanted and didn’t vote in 2012, that’s exactly what would have happened.

The criticisms that Brand offers are often legitimate and ought to be addressed by our elected officials quickly. His very tenuous outlines for solution, though, require an awful lot of mental gymnastics to justify, and, in reality, contribute more to the problem than to its solution.

So please stop sticking this in my news feed.

The Stall Seat Journal

I

will name my firstborn child ____.”

“I’m gonna love you ‘til you start looking back.” “I love this stall.” “So much of my identity is caught up with how my scholarly peers see me.”

“EXISTENTIAL CRISIS.” I would like to credit and thank the women of Tufts, who frequent the first stall in the basement Tisch restrooms, for their words of wisdom that have reached so many of us. The inside walls of those bathroom cubicles reveal thoughts, questions, cries for help, learned wisdom, doodles and compilations of silly information in list form (“If I could replace the sound of my sneeze with an animal call, I would sound like ____ “) that both entertain and inspire me with every visit to the porcelain throne.

Bathroom stalls at Tufts reveal a myriad of interesting graffiti. Some of the writing resonates universally: “The only person that can make you happy is yourself.” Some of it makes very little sense to me: “At the moment you realize that the broken string on your yo-yo was never connected to anything in the first place — Enlightenment!” Regardless, the writings on the stalls never fail to provide a thought-provoking bathroom break.

One of the best parts of the stall writing is the open-endedness. People leave titles of lists that prompt a variety of responses.

One such list, entitled “Before I die, I want to ____” has received particularly noteworthy answers: “Get published in nature”; “Be a rock star”; “Love myself and only myself”; “Live”; “Die”; “Premier a movie at Sundance”; “Have a lasting relationship”; “Be fluent in another language”; “Visit every national park in the United States”; “Be an Olympic medalist” and “Be respected in my career, home, life, etc.”

Some are lighthearted and others very heavy, but they all reflect a diverse mentality among the Tufts female population.

I enjoy reading the bathroom stall notes as an anonymous dialogue. The honesty of the walls reveals a candid slice of the collective Tufts mind. It is here that we pour out our hopes, fears, dreams and sexual misadventures, receive responses and reply to others. We interpret the words in deep, shallow and whimsical ways. Of course, every so often the notes succumb to a power wash or re-paint of the stalls.

Sad as this may be, it provides a fresh canvas for the next generation of mid-studysession emotional crises.

A few semesters ago, one stall note said something along the lines of, “Leave your books, go outside and gaze out from the roof for just for a few minutes. Take a deep breath, and allow yourself to gain perspective.” Though that message has since been erased, it remains etched in my mind because to me, the words clearly indicate the greater purpose of these bathroom stall notes: to take a break and gain perspective. Here, we learn that we are not alone in our feelings of angst, passion, boredom, sexual frustration or anything in between.

I wonder if this medium exists as an outlet for people elsewhere. Do the men at Tufts operate a similar exchange? Do college students elsewhere share in emotion and inspiration while doing their business? I hope so. Reading these notes — if nothing else — provides an excellent temporary escape from studying.

So, take a break from the books, relieve yourself and connect with your fellow Tufts ladies. Chances are, you will realize that you are not so alone in your whirlwind of emotions and stressors. Read, think and respond if you feel compelled to perpetuate the Stall Seat Journal — though by no means shall I condone the graffiti. As the first stall on the left in the Tisch basement reads, “Everyone writes on walls but me.”

Eloise Libre is a senior who is majoring in history. She may be reached at Eloise.

Libre@tufts.edu.

Op-ed Policy 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. Op-Ed cartoons are also welcomed for the Campus Canvas feature. All material is subject to editorial discretion and is not guaranteed to appear in the Daily. All material should be submitted to oped@tuftsdaily.com no later than noon on the day prior to the desired day of publication; authors must submit their telephone numbers and day-of availability for editing questions. Submissions may not be published elsewhere prior to their appearance in the Daily, including but not limited to other on- and off-campus newspapers, magazines, blogs and online news websites, as well as Facebook. Republishing of the same piece in a different source is permissible as long as the Daily is credited with originally running the article.

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Comics

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Doonesbury

Crossword

by

Garry Trudeau

Non Sequitur

Tuesday’s Solution

Married to the Sea

www.marriedtothesea.com

SUDOKU Level: Smashing pumpkins.

Late Night at the Daily

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Tuesday, October 29, 2013

The Tufts Daily

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The Tufts Daily

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Tuesday, October 29, 2013

The Tufts Daily

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Tufts looks to bring home National Championship WATER POLO

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Tufts continued its dominant form by racking up three more wins in the North Atlantic Division Championship, with wins over the U.S Coast Guard Academy, 9-7, and Bowdoin College, 14-8, before edging out division rivals Amherst, 16-13, to clinch the top spot.

One of the keys to the Jumbos’ success has been capitalizing on the talent of the team.

“We won Nationals [in 2009], so we’ve always known that we had the capability of winning, but we don’t practice like it or play very well during the tournament,” Austin Wood said. “We’ve been swimming a lot more this year than past years and putting a really big emphasis on conditioning, so very rarely have we gotten countered this year.”

Tri-captains Austin Wood, Field and Langbort double as both players and coaches, adding a unique dimension to the sport: The absence of a coach radically alters team dynamics.

“We’re coaches, but we’re also the teammates; it’s a very fun environment because we swim with [our teammates], eat with them, hang out with them on weekends and there’s no one figure that everyone has to listen to ... but this year we really feel like all the underclassmen trust the captains,” Austin Wood said.

Indeed, the element of trust has been crucial to the team’s success thus far.

“I trust everyone who’s in the pool and everyone who’s waiting to get in the pool to give them the ball, and everyone’s going to do the right thing and help each other out,” Field said.

This mentality has resonated strongly within a team that does not focus on any particular player, instead choosing to incorporate each member into their collective chemistry and dynamics.

“We really rely on a lot of our subs and a lot of our younger players,” Field said.

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loss. None of the sets were particularly close, with the Jumbos winning all three by at least eight points. Nulan stepped up to lead the offense with a team-high 10 kills. She also supplied three of Tufts’ seven service aces in the match. Kuhel chipped in seven kills with just one error in 13 attempts.

Kuhel was named to the Hall of Fame Invitational All-Tournament team for the second straight season.

Tufts has now won five games in a row — its longest winning streak of the season — with four of those wins coming in sweeps. The Jumbos appear to be playing their best volleyball of

Courtesy Inbar Fried

The men’s club water polo team defeated Amherst College on Oct. 20 by a score of 16-13 to capture the North Atlantic Division Championship.

“We have multiple guys scoring three to four goals a game, so it’s a cool dynamic because there’s not really pressure on any one person; if you contribute, you expect all your teammates to contribute,” Austin Wood added.

The team looks to carry this motivation and energy with them as they approach the end of the season.

“[Our divisional win] truly was a team effort,” Field said. “Even the people who didn’t get a minute in the water were screaming their heads off ... and that’s really representative of how the team has been.”

The Jumbos will close their fall season at the National Championship at Franklin and Marshall College this weekend.

the year as the season winds down and are showing improved chemistry and balance on the court.

“Our team is certainly connecting better,” Thompson said. “They are playing stronger, more confident volleyball, and our versatility has improved. Many players have experience in different positions now, which is allowing us to be flexible with our line-ups.”

With just two more games remaining on their schedule, Tufts will look to end its season on a high note by continuing their run of strong play during Saturday’s doubleheader against Colby and Simmons. Both games will be at home, where the Jumbos are 9-2

this year.

The Jumbos have all but guaranteed a spot for themselves in the postseason, as their 6-3 in-conference record has them positioned in fourth place in the NESCAC. Regardless of where they officially finish, Tufts is still focused on ending the regular season on a high note before moving on to the NESCAC playoffs set, to kick off on Nov. 8.

“We want to take it one day at a time,” Ingrum said. “We will prepare this week for Colby and Simmons and be ready for them when the time comes. We still want to work hard to improve and play at an even higher level than we are now.”

Quick turnaround for field hockey with Wednesday match FIELD HOCKEY

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“Steph did a great job corralling a rebound off of a corner and putting it right back towards the goal strong, and scored.”

As the second half progressed, the Continentals failed to threaten offensively. Meanwhile, the Jumbos pressured hard to gain a 13-1 advantage in shots and a 4-2 edge in penalty corner opportunities during the second stanza.

“On Saturday it was really cold, which we weren’t used to,” Jamison said. “But we managed to adjust and score in the second half. We worked on stick-to-stick passing and solid fundamentals, which helped us score [those two goals].”

Aaron Leibowitz | The Fan

On losing and Tufts football

A

Jumbos poised to finish season in top four of conference

VOLLEYBALL

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This week, Tufts has just two days to rebound from the long bus trip to Clinton. On Wednesday afternoon, Tufts will host Bowdoin on Bello Field, as the Jumbos and Polar Bears square off in their traditional regular season finale.

As has been the case in years past, the contest features two of the NESCAC’s top squads and the stakes are high: The implications of the result are crucial, as the conference tournament is slated for the upcoming weekend.

“Bowdoin is a very skilled team and every year it’s a great game,” Cannon said. “It’s going to be an intense game, and we are looking forward to the challenge.”

Going into the final contest of the regular season, Amherst controls its own fate. With a win, the Lord Jeffs

will secure the No. 1 seed in the tournament, due to trumping regular-season wins over Tufts and Bowdoin.

If the Lord Jeffs lose, however, the winner of Wednesday’s Tufts-Bowdoin tilt will go into the weekend as the top seed. The Jumbos are preparing for this circumstance, hoping to pounce on the top spot should conditions prove favorable. Either way, they know that a successful postseason begins with a win on Wednesday.

“Bowdoin is one of our biggest games of the season because they’re one of our biggest rivals,” Jamison said. “This game will have a huge impact on our seeding for NESCAC playoffs, so it’s really important that we come out prepared and play hard from start to finish.”

wise person once said that losing builds character. A wiser person once said that losing stinks and winning is way more fun.

When I was younger, I was the worst sore loser you could ever imagine. I would scream when I struck out in Little League and occasionally cry on the mound when I gave up runs. Watching my beloved Mets, I would chuck pillows at the TV when they lost. They usually lost.

Somewhere along the road, I stopped crying and throwing things when I failed. It was immature. It didn’t reflect well on the Leibowitz name. But even throughout my high school baseball years, I despised losing. I couldn’t stand striking out. I chewed over my mistakes for days. I never wanted to let myself or my teammates down.

In college, two factors forced me to finally loosen up. First, my athletic career ended.

Second, I realized that, if I wanted to pursue my dream of becoming a sports writer, I needed to watch games objectively and maintain an even keel. There’s no cheering in the press box — and there’s certainly no crying.

Now, when I put on my journalist’s hat, I attempt to push emotions aside and simply report what I see. But it’s impossible to separate myself as a person — a sports fan who hates to lose — from myself as a journalist.

For the past two years, I have covered the Tufts football team for the Daily. What I’ve seen is a whole lot of disappointment and a whole lot of losing, and that’s exactly what I’ve written.

Week after week, I have documented the team’s plight in as neutral a manner possible.

But to me, what’s happening on the field is not the full story. Of course, wins and losses matter, and the Jumbos have not won since 2010, enduring one defeat after the next in gut-wrenching fashion. On the field, they have failed, and everyone involved — coaches, players and administrators — bears some responsibility.

While it’s easy to say that losing builds character, the act of losing does not, in itself, make better human beings. Winning is the goal.

Losing stinks. But knowing how to respond to losing, on the other hand, is invaluable. This is where the Tufts football team continues to amaze me.

After a game, heads do not hang. Players do not quit. On Sundays, the team comes in ready to do anything humanly possible to win the following Saturday. This might sound like “coach-speak,” and any self-respecting sports journalist knows that coach-speak is often euphemistic BS. But this, I can assure you, is not that.

The Tufts football team has become the subject of frequent ridicule on the Hill, and don’t think the players don’t know it. But the Jumbos believe in themselves when no one else will. They tune out the noise and march forward, approaching their practices, film sessions, meetings and treatment sessions with unwavering focus and intensity.

Yes, most athletes do this. But these are Div. III athletes, students, college kids caught up in the longest losing streak in the country. Moping would be understandable. Anger would be justified. Embarrassment would be natural.

The Jumbos, though, have done what I could never do: taking the intense frustration that comes with losing and channeling it constructively. The players have not become apathetic or enraged. Instead, they have carried themselves with quiet determination, working tirelessly in search of that elusive victory.

Placed in a similar situation, I know from experience that I would lack the will to cope.

There’s nothing worse than losing. I admire the football team for approaching such a difficult stretch with equal parts passion and poise.

Aaron Leibowitz is a senior who is majoring in American studies. He can be reached at Aaron.Leibowitz@tufts.edu.

Sports

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tuftsdaily.com

Field Hockey

No. 3 Tufts wins seventh straight game at Hamilton by

Kate Klots

Daily Editorial Board

On Saturday, the No. 3 field hockey team notched its fifth straight conference victory, defeating Hamilton

FIELD HOCKEY (12-1 Overall, 8-1 NESCAC) at Clinton, N.Y., Saturday Tufts Hamilton

0 0

2 0

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in a 2-0 road decision that marked Tufts’ third straight win over the Continentals.

The win propelled the Jumbos to 8-1 in the conference, where they remain locked in a three-way tie with No. 10 Amherst and No. 2 Bowdoin.

Meanwhile, the loss — Hamilton’s eighth conference defeat of the season — dropped the Continentals to ninth place in conference standings, eliminating them from the upcoming NESCAC tournament.

After a scoreless first period, the Jumbos used a strong second-half start to push past the Continentals for the win. Just a minute and a half into the

second period, senior All-American center midfielder Emily Cannon possessed the ball off of a restart. Carrying the ball into the 16-meter circle, Cannon threaded a hard bounce shot through traffic and past NESCAC star keeper junior Victoria Trentini into the boards.

“We did a great job of moving the ball up the field and connecting our passes,” Cannon said. “My goal was a culmination of a great team effort doing that.”

Just minutes later, sophomore defender Alexandra Jamison inserted on a penalty corner, finding classmate Dakota Sikes-Keilp on the circle. SikesKeilp drove a hard shot at Trentini, but the Hamilton keeper managed to stave off the attempt. As the ball rebounded, senior co-captain midfielder Stephanie Wan pounced on it, sending a long-ball at the cage. After several defenders tipped the shot, it trickled past Trentini to give the Jumbos a 2-0 lead early in the second.

“We definitely improved as the game went on and focused on stepping up and playing well within our system, which led to our goals,” Cannon said. see FIELD HOCKEY, page 15

Caroline Geiling / The Tufts Daily

Sophomore Alexandra Jamison contributed to Tufts’ second goal with the insert on a corner that senior co-captain Stephanie Wan converted to give the Jumbos the 2-0 win.

Water Polo

Volleyball

Tufts takes North Atlantic division crown by

Alison Kuah

Contributing Writer

end at Mount Holyoke College by taking down the Owls 25-14, 25-19 and 25-8. The standout performances for the Jumbos came from Maccabee, who once again paced the team in kills with seven, along with junior Isabel Kuhel and sophomore Esme Nulan, who notched six kills apiece. First-year Emily Reder was the service leader with three aces, and junior Rebecca Rubin topped Tufts with six digs.

Head coach Cora Thompson explained that the key to success this weekend was staying consistent and preventing unforced errors. Controlling the tempo of the matches also helped lead the Jumbos to victory.

This was especially true in Friday’s opening match of the invitational against Brandeis, where Tufts beat the Judges for the second time this season and handed them their sixth straight

Tufts Water Polo club finished on top of the North Atlantic division, improving on their third place division finish last year, and will finish their season in the upcoming National Championships this weekend.

The Jumbos’ starting lineup consists of seniors Inbar Fried, Christopher Langbort, Steve Lessard and Austin Wood, junior Justin Choi and sophomores Calvin Liang and Harry Wood in a team that relies heavily on the experience that each player brings.

“Most of the seniors have at least eight years of experience playing water polo, freshmen around four years or more, since most started in high school or before that,” Austin Wood said.

The team started their season after the weekend of Sept. 21, playing a series of eight matches over two weekends. They clinched the No.1 spot at the North Atlantic Championships, ahead of last year’s division leader Amherst, who finished the tournament at No. 2.

Tufts began the season with three consecutive wins against Amherst, 7-3, Williams College, 17-13, and University of Massachusetts, Amherst, (UMass-Amherst), 12-11, before conceding one of two losses this season to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, 11-13.

In what Austin Wood claimed to be the turning point in the season, the Jumbos suffered a tough loss to UMass-Amherst, 6-7, over the weekend of Oct. 7.

“We hadn’t lost to [UMass-Amherst] in four years, but we came into the game really unprepared and unfocused,” Austin Wood said. “We had a big talk after that, and the team was pumped up, so after that game we kind of brought it all together.”

The team followed up the initial loss by accumulating wins over Williams College, 11-8, Amherst College, 7-4, and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, 10-7.

see VOLLEYBALL, page 15

see WATER POLO, page 15

Caroline Geiling / The Tufts Daily

Junior middle hitter Isabel Kuhel was named to the Hall of Fame Invitational’s All-Tournament team for the second year in a row.

Jumbos perfect at Hall of Fame Invitational by

Tyler Maher

Daily Editorial Board

Tufts volleyball won all three of its games this weekend in dominant fashion, sweeping all nine sets played

VOLLEYBALL (17-7 Overall, 6-3 NESCAC) at South Hadley, Mass., Saturday Tufts Westfield State

25 25 25 — 14 19 8 —

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at Northampton, Mass., Saturday Tufts Wheaton

25 25 25 — 15 20 15 —

3 0

at Northampton, Mass., Friday Tufts Brandeis

25 25 25 — 17 14 17 —

3 0

over the weekend against Brandeis University, Wheaton College and Westfield State, to go 3-0 at the 2013 Hall of Fame Invitational.

“We really stayed mentally focused this weekend,” junior tri-captain Jessica Ingrum said. “We kept the pace fast on our side of the net, and this allowed us to execute well through all the games.”

Tufts improved its record to 17-7 after taking both games of Saturday’s doubleheader, beating Wheaton in the first game at Smith College and Westfield State in the late game at Mount Holyoke. Wheaton lost for the fourth time in a row and saw its record fall to an even .500 (14-14). First-year Mary Maccabee was errorless while compiling 10 kills in 21 attempts.

Sophomore Carolina Berger was a force on defense, leading Tufts with 12 digs.

Berger also contributed three of the Jumbos’ eight service aces.

Tufts completed its perfect week-