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THE TUFTS DAILY

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Thursday, November 13, 2014

VOLUME LXVIII, NUMBER 45

Where You Read It First Est. 1980

Venezuelan journalist "Half the History" uncovers the speaks on press freedom lives of historic American women

by Patrick McGrath Daily Editorial Board

Boris Muñoz, Venezuelan journalist and 2010 fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, spoke yesterday about the freedom of the press in Venezuela. The event, titled “Freedom of the Press in Latin America: A Conversation with Boris Muñoz,” was hosted by Tufts Latin American Committee.

Muñoz, who has worked in many Latin American countries, focused primarily on his experience in Venezuela, which he described as a country overtaken by seven plagues. These include insecurity and street violence — Muñoz noted that Venezuela currently has one of the highest homicide rates — as well as inflation, institutional collapse and shortages in goods ranging from auto parts to medicine.

“[The medicine shortage] also has a very strong retribution on the health system, which is in crisis,” he added.

Muñoz also cited heavy political polarization, noting that political gridlock has made it difficult to pass policies and find a minimum consensus to put forward necessary reforms. He explained that this “creates an environment that is very, very toxic.”

Given the amount of problems that the country is facing, Muñoz said that it is a wonder that Venezuela is not a paradise for journalists, but explained that there has been a “progressive curtailing of freedom of speech” from the Venezuelan government.

“What happens in a place where information is tightly controlled?” Muñoz asked.

see FREEDOM, page 2

COurtesy Tufts University

online multimedia and other educational and artistic media, is to assemble a biography for these women, according to Burton. “[The project] combines extraordinary events with a representation of what lives were like,” she said.

As part of the project, the production team is combining audio content, writing, photography, research and interviews with selfproduced video content, Burton added. All this information will be available online for anyone to access on the project’s website, halfthehistory.com.

Burton stated that she began the project last year during her second year of teaching at Tufts after she was inspired by an opinion editorial she read about Jane Franklin, Benjamin Franklin’s sister, and the difficulties of telling her story. Though she intended

Award-winning screenplay writer Jennifer Burton directs “Half the History” in the Crane Room.

see HISTORY, page 2

by Emily Sen

Contributing Writer

Professor of Practice in the Department of Drama and Dance Jennifer Burton and the students of her Advanced

Production Seminar are working to bring under-told stories of American women to light through a multimedia project called “Half the History.”

The goal of the production, which combines short films,

Nobel prize winner discuss economic policy in Eurozone

by Patrick McGrath Daily Editorial Board

Sir Christoper Pissarides, the winner of the 2010 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, gave a presentation yesterday afternoon on the current state of affairs in the Eurozone for the Department of Economics’ 2014 Wellington Burnham Lecture.

Pissarides’ lecture began with an overview of the development of monetary and fiscal policies in the Eurozone and the deployment of the euro, given his interest in labor markets.

He added that, in retrospect, some mistakes were made in the euro’s introduction.

“I think we got some things terribly wrong in Europe,” he said.

Policymakers in the European Union (EU) were unaware of the serious problems with the union of the currency at the time, according to Pissarides. He said that they will now have to “take some decisions which no one seems to be willing to take.”

In looking toward the future, Pissarides said policymakers will have to reevaluate the types of policies that are really

needed and examine what has happened within the Eurozone.

“Observing what’s going on in Europe now has sort of provided evidence, which still hasn’t been tested formally,” he acknowledged.

In providing an overview of the Eurozone crisis, Pissarides began with the start of the currency union in the late 1990s, noting that “there was huge optimism here.” Before the launch of the euro, the EU had pursued smaller steps of integration, with the biggest change coming in the 1980s with the declaration of the single market.

JoHn Hampson / The Tufts Daily

Sir Christopher Pissarides spoke on the status of the labor market today and during past crises in the Eurozone.

Inside this issue

“The great European visionaries … saw the next step as the introduction of a single currency,” he noted.

While many were excited about the prospect of integration and its benefits, the financial crisis in 2008 revealed a number of problems in the Eurozone economy.

“As it turned out, though, there is … disappointment now about that process,” Pissarides said.

The crisis impacted the whole union, but impacted some member countries more than others through high unemployment rates and loss of income, he added.

Subsequently, the common belief has been that these problems were results of countries’ labor markets, but Pissarides explained that in his opinion, the fault lies with the macroeconomic policies pursued by the EU. Given that the crisis began as a debt crisis, fiscal policies have targeted debt, rather than paying attention to what is happening in the labor market, such as unemployment, wage growth or taxation, he said. He explained that this pursuit of fiscal policy to reduce debt has provoked a crisis that is essentially a crisis of managing a common currency when the core criteria for a currency union are not satisfied.

Pissarides underscored the inflexibility of labor markets in Europe and the need for reforms, citing labor market reforms in the Unted Kingdom in the 1980s as an example.

“I do believe that reforms in European labor markets are essential,” he explained,

adding that such reforms will be vital for competition and adaptability.

“Although we do need reforms in the labor market, they’re not going to take us out of the current recession,” Pissarides said.

Pissarides discussed the criteria for which the adoption of a common currency in an “optimal currency area” (OCA) will increase welfare and be economically beneficial, citing examples including the experiences of the United States and Germany after reunification.

“Countries that join the area should have similar economic structures and similar business cycles,” he listed as the first criteria. He said this will enable countries to have a common monetary policy that will suit everyone.

Pissarides added that there must also be both free labor and capital mobility so that imbalances in areas such as unemployment may be corrected. A third important reform, he said, was that the union should allow the possibility of fiscal transfers between countries, a controversial idea which rests upon solid ideas of partnership.

Examining whether the Eurozone satisfies these criteria, Pissarides noted that imbalances in labor mobility have not been corrected as Europeans have been unwilling to move due to strong connections to their home countries. He added that the European Commission has objected to too much mobility and many countries with see EUROZONE, page 2

Today’s sections

Sarabande’s fall show pairs dance with live music.

Women’s basketball sees most successful season yet.

see WEEKENDER, page 5

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Thursday, November 13, 2014

News

Muñoz evaluates the press situation in Venezuela

FREEDOM

continued from page 1

He underscored the role of media and journalism in allowing citizens to be critical of the government.

“The implementation of checks and balances … becomes almost impossible to practice,” Muñoz said. “Those that control … are not held accountable.”

The Venezuelan government has established different kinds of regulations and policies to protect itself from the influence of journalism under “the premise that journalists and media are serious threats to the government’s power,” he explained.

“If information is negative, the public perception is that the government is doing bad,” Muñoz said.

Thus, the government has looked to expand a hegemonic media landscape.

“Hegemony of the media and authoritarianism go hand in hand,” Muñoz noted.

Today, the possibility of establishing an effective authoritarian regime is nearly impossible

without controlling the public’s access to information, he said.

Venezuela now proscribes to a political regime which Muñoz described as “neo-authoritarianism,” which is in theory more open to some kinds of freedoms.

Muñoz also discussed the ideology and former political system of Hugo Chávez, the former president of Venezuela. He noted that Chávez was not authoritarian at the beginning of his regime, initially entering office with promises of reform and democratization.

“His authoritarianism appeared gradually, but at the same time, we can say that Chávez was totally aware of the importance of media when he came to power in 1999,” he said.

Muñoz explained that after Chávez’s election, the media began to attack the government directly. “[Chávez] already at that time in 1999 told one of his closest advisors that he wanted to pick a fight with private media, and he actually did,” he said.

Chávez portrayed private media as on the side of oligarchs

and began to openly confront media outlets around 1999 for the next decade, initiating a harsh period of confrontation that has been called a “media war,” according to Muñoz.

During this period, many private media outlets criticized the government on a daily basis, not only with information and opinion, but also through the fabrication of facts, ultimately leading to an attempted coup d’état against Chávez in 2002.

Chávez, however, survived, and he realized just how dangerous private media could be, according to Muñoz. The coup was bad for private media, as it created general distrust toward the role of private media in society and gave Chávez an opportunity to openly confront the press.

Chávez realized that he “needed to create a hegemonic media platform.”

After winning a 2004 recall referendum, Chávez began to develop a strategy which specifically mentioned media hegemony and the push for state-owned media platforms.

“The government also created a set of legislation to keep the private media and journalists under a tight leash,” Muñoz said.

Features of the new legislation included frequent presidential broadcasts on all channels simultaneously, denigrating remarks and threats against journalists and media owners and attacks on reporters, photographers and broadcasting facilities, according to Muñoz.

“Hegemony also meant real power,” he said. “The demonstration of this power was the closure of Radio Caracas Televisión [Internacional (RCTV)] in 2007.”

The refusal to renew RCTV’s broadcast license led to protests in May 2007.

“From that moment, the confrontation became even more aggressive — it went against radio [and] newspapers,” Muñoz said.

However, some public disapproval cautioned Chávez that he could only go so far, he added.

“Chávez died a year and a half ago — I think that his death signals the end of the hege-

mony period and starts a new period in which [President of Venezuela] Nicolás Maduro has demonstrated to be more subtle and more brutal at the same time,” Muñoz explained.

He underscored that the primary difference is that Chávez looked to keep the press suffocated but not dead, while Maduro is actively trying to annihilate the freedom of the press, launching a hostile overtaking of private media by buying out private news sources.

As an example, Muñoz cited the sale of Globovisión — the most important media source for the opposition — to a group of businessmen with close ties to the government last year.

“This is a new kind of strategy that in summary curtails freedom of the press inexorably, and it’s going to progressively annihilate it,” Muñoz said.

Nevertheless, Muñoz concluded that is is vital that journalists continue to employ all capacities to report, tell and denounce the “plagues” that affect Venezuelan society.

Pissarides discusses future of the Eurozone EUROZONE

continued from page 1

COurtesy Tufts UNiversity

Burton gets into character as Rachel Carson in “Half the History.”

Lastest research examines life of Belinda Royall HISTORY

continued from page 1

the project to be a short assignment about Franklin, it became clear to her that the project was much larger.

“It has definitely grown since we started,” sophomore Ceili Hale noted.

Hale became involved with the project last year.

Burton said the concept for “Half the History” was generated with the help of her students. The project represents a combined effort from herself, her students, her four sisters, other Tufts faculty and the surrounding community.

The goal to connect lesserknown historical information is growing not only at Tufts but also across the nation, according to Burton. She described how advances in resources through technology have made such information more accessible. “[The project is] tying into this larger process that is happening across the country, which is finding these stories and piecing them together,” Burton said.

She said she stumbled upon such broad gaps in historical content while studying Jane Franklin and her brother.

“[The siblings] wrote more letters to each other than they did to anyone else their entire lives … but for the first half of [Jane’s] life, her letters were lost … because no one thought to save [them],” she said, adding that the goal now is to piece together the rest of the story using the information available.

The production team is currently working on the story of Belinda Royall, a Ghanaian woman who was enslaved from ages 12 to 63 at the Royall House and Slave Quarters in Medford.

Royall obtained her freedom and petitioned Congress for a pension. “[She argued that] her labor had been important in making the wealth that was part of this estate, and she succeeded,” Burton said, adding that Royall was one of the first people granted reparations from the United States.

According to senior Deborah Frank, the direction the group is taking to tell the story consists of not only an educational approach, but also a slam poetry angle proposed by sophomore Max Ribbans. Frank said that students working on the project have a lot of freedom,

since Burton allows students to pursue their own ideas.

“We each get to tell [Burton] what we’re most interested in,” she said.

Hale noted that students involved in this project will be working with and shadowing professionals. Hale expressed excitement about getting to learn how to use sound equipment and hopes to apply these skills in a future profession. Frank, on the other hand, plans to work behind the camera and will help Burton direct.

Filming for the story of Belinda Royall will take place on Nov. 15 and 16 at Tufts and the Royall House. According to Burton, the Royall video should be completed by next semester once editing is complete.

The current challenge for the team is being able to represent the information in engaging ways without the proper computer science skills, Burton said. She added that she hopes to work with professionals to make the information as useful as possible to researchers and students, noting that spreading information about the topic is important in giving the project momentum.

labor issues have experienced a drain of their most educated citizens.

“When there is labor mobility, the people who moved are the qualified professionals, they are not the workers who are unemployed,” he said.

In regard to capital mobility, Pissarides explained that many people previously believed that capital would move to poorer countries because the return on investment is higher. In reality, the rates of return in countries such as Germany are higher than those in countries such as Greece, because there is more industry to back up new investments, productivity is higher and there is more demand. Institutions like the European Investment Bank have been unable to pick up the slack, Pissarides added.

“The money they have to spend is not nearly enough to correct imbalances,” he said.

Finally, Pissarides explained that the EU has explicitly prohibited fiscal transfers.

He noted that in currency unions such as the United States or Germany, fiscal transfers were allowed and ultimately necessary for economic growth.

In the Eurozone, there hasn’t been as strong of a connection between member states.

“No one feels European before they feel their own nationality,” he noted.

Moving back to the first criteria of the OCA, Pissarides questioned the degree of similarity between Eurozone economies.

“When we first started forming this union in [the] 1990s, countries still looked like they were similar,” he said, noting that they were all post-industrial service economies with around 20 percent industrial employment and interstate trade.

The most recent crisis has exposed a number of unanticipated differences between member states, especially in the large construction sectors of countries such as Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, Ireland and Spain, which saw large growth with their adoption of the euro, giving them unprecedented access to credit mar-

kets, according to Pissarides.

This construction bubble burst, however, and these countries bore the brunt of the economic crisis, he said.

“The implication was that some of the countries got a much bigger shock than the other countries,” he noted.

Unemployment therefore rose significantly in countries like Greece and Spain — over 15 percent from 2007 to 2012 — and the countries also experienced decreases in gross domestic product and real incomes, according to Pissarides. Instead of lower nominal wages causing increased employment, there was a decrease in aggregate demand, he said.

“What we’re seeing in fact is a recession shock that reduces aggregate demand and raises unemployment, and that’s followed by wage reductions that bring forth that fall in demand and raise unemployment further,” he said.

Pissarides underscored that with a recession, the proper policy is not to fight it with deflation and negative shocks, particularly when a country is facing large debts.

“If you’re going to try to fight recession by increasing the debt burden and reducing aggregate demand, you’re not going to do it — you’re going to get into a vicious circle,” he said.

Although EU institutions have continued to focus on labor market reform, examining Ireland and Spain — two countries with very different degrees of labor market flexibility — one can see they nonetheless had very similar responses, and thus the fault cannot lie fully with the labor market, Pissarides said.

As a lesson, Pissarides explained that the optimal response is to look for expansionary policies, such as monetary policy, to offset deflationary shocks.

Given the current restraints, Pissarides proposed debt forgiveness as the best solution to wiping out some of the debt, enabling debtor countries to start anew while taking control of their banking system to make sure the same issue does not arise again.

Features

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Miranda Willson | Ecofeminism for All

Climate change, climate justice

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Nicholas Pfosi / The Tufts Daily

Senior Katelyn Montalvo and sophomore Stephen Tran are members of the First Generation College Student Council, which aims to give students who consider themselves first generation a space to discuss their experiences.

New organization for first generation college students fosters safe space, combats stigma

by Kendall Todd Daily Editorial Board

For students who are the first in their generation to attend college, Tufts presents a unique set of challenges and stresses, particularly without the first hand experience of their family as support.

That’s where the First Generation College Student Council comes in.

According to senior Katelyn Montalvo, a faculty member in Dowling created the Council in the spring of 2012 to provide a community and support system for self-identifying first generation college students. The following year, Laura Doane, Dean of Orientation and Student Transition, took over.

Montalvo, the coordinator of the group, helped officially found the Council last year as her Tisch Scholars project. Though the Council is run through the Office of Transitions, it is a student-based group, she said.

“First generation students don’t really have a support network when they come to campus,” Montalvo said. “[The Council’s mission is] to create a support network and a community for first generation students.”

Tufts’ official definition of “first generation” is decidedly narrow, according to Montalvo. In order for a student to qualify as first generation, neither of his or her parents may hold a bachelor’s degree from any college in the United States. This excludes students like Montalvo, whose mother attended community college. Montalvo maintains that her mother’s years in college were different from the traditional fouryear experience, and thus Montalvo identifies herself as a first generation student.

According to Stephen Tran, a sophomore from Taunton, Mass., the Council has hosted events like a financial aid workshop, aimed at refreshing students’ memories about the financial aid application process and helping them reapply. Tran said that the Council also works across Boston, reaching out to first generation students on other campuses to extend their community.

One point that Montalvo emphasized was the group’s inclusiveness.

“If you identify as first generation, you are welcome to the Council,” she said.

Dulce Delgado, a senior from the Chicago area, has just become involved with the Council this year and described her experiences so far as rewarding. She shared that in addition to the sense of community she has gained, she has also enjoyed making friends with students from different classes.

“I really appreciate … the first generation community,” Delgado said. “[I have

been able to get] to know a couple of [first years] on a deeper level.”

Tran has been involved in the Council since his first semester at Tufts. Now the group’s social chair, Tran originally wanted to get involved in the Council to find others who shared his experiences. Though Tran has been involved in the Bridge to Liberal Arts Success at Tufts (BLAST) progran, he sought another support system, which he found in the Council.

Tran described his experiences applying to college as very different from most of his friends’ experiences. He shared that while most of his classmates’ parents had degrees, there was a lot of information that his parents were not able to share with him.

“They expected me to go to college, but at the same time they weren’t a help … in applying,” he said.

Delgado shared similar experiences, despite being in a college preparatory scholarship program. “[My parents] did not have the knowledge of how to maneuver a four-year university,” she said.

Delgado, Tran and Montalvo all shared that the existence of groups such as the Council and the BLAST programs were not a factor in their decisions to come to Tufts.

“All of these programs are super new,” Montalvo said. “I think there’s a lot more information now at Tufts and at other colleges about first generation students because it’s a growing movement, but when we were applying there was nothing out there.”

According to Delgado, the BLAST programs are a great start, but are rather exclusive. “There definitely needs to be something … to target these first generation students and bring them in and let them know ‘we’re going to help you, and you’re not going to be alone,’” Delgado said.

Montalvo shared that the group has helped her form and appreciate her first generation identity, and that the group has worked to bring this pride to others in the first generation community.

“First generation is really stigmatized when it shouldn’t be,” she said. “We’ve gone through so much and we’ve made it here, and we’re continuing.”

Delgado agreed that being a first generation student presents challenges that other students may not face. She also expressed concern that this is a struggle shared by other first generation students.

“As a first generation student, when I came on campus, I was looking for that comfort that everyone else seemed to have naturally,” Delgado said.

Montalvo also discussed her difficulties adjusting to college life. Though many identities were being pushed upon her, she

realized that her struggle lay elsewhere.

“I definitely did not feel like a part of this campus my first semester,” Montalvo said. “It wasn’t until second semester when a faculty member was saying that she was starting this council that I realized that’s what I was struggling with.”

Like Tran and Delgado, Montalvo expressed a sense of being at a disadvantage as a first generation student when she started her college career.

In a recent meeting, the Council discussed an article written by Teresa Heinz Housel, a first generation student who graduated almost twenty years ago. Housel urged universities to offer more help to other first generation students by providing opportunities to learn about their new environment.

While some supported the sentiments shared in the article, many expressed an aversion to the implication that first generation students need help. The discussion also involved cultural and gender identity issues as well as debates about the author’s position, privilege and perspective.

The group members shared insights into their own experiences, citing statistics they had heard about the first generation students on the Tufts campus.

Freshman Gregory Chin expressed his concern that despite the large population of first generation students on campus, the scale to which they have organized remains rather small.

According to Montalvo, the group consists of seven core members, but holds meetings that are open to everyone.

“You don’t necessarily have to be on the board to be a part of the council,” Montalvo said. “[Meetings and events are] open to any student who identifies as first generation or anyone who just wants to support [the group].”

According to Tran, the Council is hoping to develop a strong base and organize themselves in order to have a bigger presence on campus. In the long term, they aim to develop a mentorship program where they would pair underclassmen with upperclassmen and host bigger events, Tran said. Delgado added that they also hope to develop a relationship between undergraduates and alumni.

Tran expressed his sentiments about the perception of first generation students on campus and emphasized that they are not asking for help.

“Although we’re talking about how we’re ‘struggling,’ we’re not looking for people to pity us,” he said. “We’re just looking for an open space, a safe space, where we can discuss and learn from one another.”

hile studying in Talloires, France last summer, I visited the United Nations headquarters in Geneva with my Environmental Economics class and listened to two representatives from the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) discuss their work. They outlined a series of goals for sustainable development worldwide, one of which was the idea that sustainable development must happen in conjunction with poverty reduction.

At the end of the talk, I asked them if they had any specific policy ideas to help achieve that goal. The two representatives fumbled in their responses and essentially admitted that they didn’t have any specific policies in mind.

I don’t know whether these representatives’ disappointing responses to my question were reflective of the entire UNEP program. But I do know that solving climate change while decreasing international and national inequalities is one of the greatest challenges our generation faces.

Though we know how to reduce emissions — stop subsidizing fossil fuels and switch to renewables — we need to a) create political will, and b) address environmental injustices.

Climate change will exacerbate existing inequalities, as it most harshly impacts poor countries that lack resources to adapt to climate change and marginalized peoples within developing countries that already receive the least protection and benefits from their governments.

Of course, there are many other issues associated with climate change (loss of biodiversity, reduced food security, ocean acidification, etc.), but so many of them will disproportionately affect poorer, non-white, marginalized peoples. It is therefore illogical and unjust to solve climate change, a phenomenon that will increase inequality, if doing so continues to exacerbate inequalities.

We know that we can reduce emissions in the United States by taxing carbon emissions and eliminating fossil fuel subsidies. These taxes generally increase gas prices, encourage green energy and discourage gas-guzzling cars. Sounds smart, right? But the costs of increased gas prices could also increase our country’s ever-widening inequality gap, as low-income Americans would be forced to pay a higher portion of their income on gas. Furthermore, low-income neighborhoods often have the worst access to public transportation infrastructure as an alternative to driving.

Another way to reduce emissions is to invest in renewable infrastructure. Massachusetts has approved the country’s first offshore wind-energy plant, Cape Wind, off the coast of Nantucket Sound. But the project faces opposition from many groups, one being indigenous peoples.

According to indigenous representatives, the project would “destroy a sacred site and destroy cultural traditions.” Just as fossil fuel companies have historically extracted energy from indigenous lands, disregarding their cultural and human rights, nonrenewable energy companies will perpetuate similar practices if we do not establish policies that prohibit companies from violating human rights.

Measures to reduce emissions, such as carbon taxes, must include methods for low-income people to receive tax deductions so that they are not disproportionately affected by it. Clean public transport must be built for all peoples — not just people living near Boston’s Red Line but also people living near Roxbury, one of the most populated and racially diverse areas of Boston, where residents have the polluting, slow, unreliable Silver Line bus system as their only public transport option. Furthermore, building fossilfree infrastructure cannot be done with the same disregard for human rights as practiced by fossil fuel companies.

There are many issues stopping the world from addressing climate change — a big one is the money and power held by the fossil fuel industry, which certainly must be addressed. But it’s also important to ensure that the transition to clean energy is done justly, for the benefit of all peoples. Considering that the UNEP representatives in Geneva had no idea how to achieve this goal, our generation needs to do better as we (hopefully) shift away from fossil fuels.

Miranda Willson is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major. She can be reached at miranda.willson@tufts.edu.

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Weekender

Motion and music meet in Sarabande's fall show

by Drew Robertson Clad in sweatpants and sporting messy buns, Sarabande dancers made their way down Talbot Avenue this week, filling the studios of Jackson Dance Lab with the distinctive high-energy bustling that can only be attributed to days leading up to a show. Or, as it is affectionately named, “Hell Week.” Since last Sunday, these dancers have been working intensely to prepare for tonight: the first performance of Sarabande’s fall semester show “Little Bit of Love.”

Of course, the work doesn’t begin with Hell Week. “Little Bit of Love” is comprised of a number of dances, each the product of a unique group of performers under the direction of a different choreographer. The pieces that will appear tonight on the stage of Cohen auditorium have been in the works since the start of the semester, or even before.

Choreographer Kelly Woodruff, a senior, has been crafting her piece, “The Love There That’s Sleeping,” since the summer. Like the other pieces, “Sleeping” depends on the dancers’ and choreographer’s dedicated effort, but one thing sets

in the creative process. While Woodruff sifted through albums, brainstorming ideas for a song selection with Rothman and Schneer, the musicians simply joked, “We’ll just play it for you,” to which she enthusiastically replied, “OK, do that.” Together, Woodruff and The Bande agreed upon “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” (1968) by the Beatles.

From there, the project has been moving full-steam ahead. As a choreographer, Woodruff says she typically chooses her music first, then begins to develop the piece during her free time, experimenting in the studio, in her bedroom, and even (conceptually) during class. In the first weeks of the school year when The Bande was first forming, Woodruff attended the group’s jam sessions, both to get a feel for their developing musical style and to shape her choreography to fit it.

Eventually, the dancers and musicians came together to rehearse, though finding a time to meet was difficult given the complicated logistics of trying to fit together everyone’s cramped schedules, Woodruff noted.

The process, as Woodruff, Schneer and Rothman described it, has been highly collaborative. And as with any

it apart. Instead of using a prerecorded track, “Sleeping” dancers will perform to the live music of The Bande.

The Bande was assembled just this semester to perform live alongside Woodruff’s piece. Before coming up with their playful name, the group members were simply calling themselves “Kelly’s Dance Band.” Encompassing a wide range of musical talents, The Bande includes senior Andrew Schneer (vocalist, banjo player), senior Gabe Rothman (violin), junior Eric Broess (electric guitar), junior Kerem Gurol (electric bass) and senior Robert Mathai (drums).

Atypical for a Sarabande show, the idea to incorporate live music came early

collaboration, it has come with a few hurdles — some artistic, others technical.

Schneer explained that musically, a deviation of five to ten beats per minute between run-throughs of the same song, can be typical. But for dancers who must synchronize their steps to the beat, any small change can be frustrating.

“The biggest challenge has been the tempo,” Woodruff admitted. “I guess it’s something you don’t really notice until you set dancers on it, because it’s such a slight difference. But if it’s slightly faster or slightly slower, we notice it very quickly as we’re turning or jumping or leaping.”

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Nicholas Pfosi / The tufts daily

Senior choreographer Kelly Woodruff dances in Sarabande’s fall show “Little Bit of Love.”

Nicholas Pfosi / The tufts daily

Similarly, the lighting cues, which are normally timed down to the second and given as detailed instructions to sound booth technicians, will need to be adjusted, Woodruff pointed out with a laugh. And while The Bande can play in the floor space in front of the first row of seats to leave the full expanse of the stage free for the dancers, this too presents an issue. How will the stage crew light The Bande? House lights or an extra spot light seem like the only options.

Luckily, Schneer says the group is flexible.

“We’ll play in the dark if we have to,” he said cheerfully.

Schneer’s playful quip is just one example of the enthusiasm and optimism Woodruff & Co. have toward the project, despite the occasional issues they have had to troubleshoot. Woodruff was also quick to add the many creative upsides of working with live musicians.

“I think the part that I really like about it that I can tell [the musicians], ‘Can you make this stronger?’ or ‘I can’t really hear the drums here, can you make them more pronounced,’ or even ‘Gabe, can you make the violin part really sappy, make the audience cry,’ that kind of thing. You can’t do that with a recording.

You can’t alter it,” Woodruff said.

In addition to Woodruff’s dramatic adjustments, Schneer and Rothman explained that their version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” diverges from The Beatles’ rendition.

“It’s a very blues-driven piece,” said Rothman of the original. “We definitely take more of a folk spin on it, especially with the banjo … It doesn’t change the lyrical message — but it does change the feel of it.”

“It’s not just a novelty, it changes the final project a lot,” Rothman said, adding that The Bande’s adaptation of the song separates tonight’s performance from a typical dance show.

With the Bande’s distinct style in mind, Woodruff adjusted her choreography accordingly.

“I was going off what [the song] sounded like with them, versus just the Beatles recording that I had initially,” she said.

“If [Kelly] says she wants to build at the end, we build at the end,” Schneer said.“She says ‘jump,’ we say ‘how high?’”

“She says ‘slow down,’ we say ‘whoops!’” Rothman tacked on.

From the studio to the stage, the natural overlap between music and dance is a central focus for the piece.

“The closest thing to a concept that you could gather from [‘Sleeping’] is the range of emotion that you can show through music and through movement within a piece,” Woodruff said. “So, there are points when it’s very strong, there’s points when it’s a little more vulnerable, or points where it’s almost like daydreaming … It’s cool how you can express those feelings through music and movement and then put them together.”

Furthermore, this collaboration may be an extra reason for Tufts students to come to tonight’s show. Senior Ilona Balagula, a dancer in “Sleeping,” said that the live music performance has been a key selling point of the piece, and something that gets her friends and peers to perk up their ears when she mentions “Little Bit of Love.”

“I think the idea of different disciplines and art forms at Tufts coming together is something I’d like to see more of,” Schneer said. “I think it’s a great thing.”

Woodruff, for her part, expressed both satisfaction and excitement, as the end of Hell Week — not to mention the approach of opening night — marks the culmination of months of work and collaboration.

“Little Bit of Love” will be performed tonight at 9 p.m. and Saturday at 8 p.m. in Cohen auditorium. Tickets are free, but must be picked up from the Aidekman Box Office.

Nicholas Pfosi / The tufts daily

Senior Andrew Shneer plays in The Bande, accompanying Woodruff’s piece.

6

The Tufts Daily

Weekender

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Top Ten

Top ten Buzzfeed posts that prove that we should all just give up of the back of an M&M or Skittle and ask you to tell the difference.

9. “If Taylor Swift Lyrics Were About Hair Removal”: Someone got paid, like, a fair amount of money to look up weird stock photos of people being waxed which is totally messed up because we’ve been doing that for a really long time for free. Wtf.

8. “Watch This Soccer Fan Pick His Nose and Then Wipe It on a Woman’s Head”: The page links to a grainy video of a soccer fan who picks his nose and then wipes it on a woman’s head.

7. “Are You Secretly Canadian?”: I don’t need to take the quiz, Buzzfeed. No,

We at the Daily Arts department understand how important good online distractions are. Buzzfeed, the online “publication” known for its simple and oftentimes bizarre quizzes, pseudo-articles and listicles, has been drawing critics for years. Buzzfeed manages to produce insane amounts of content every day, content that grows progressively more and more irrelevant. So, as we sit around the Daily office, we have decided to share with you a definitive list of Buzzfeed’s most idiotic attempts at journalism in order to prove to you that nothing really matters. If this is the best we can do as humans, we should probably all just give up right now.

10. “Is This an M&M or a Skittle?”: OK, ready? This is a quiz. They show a picture

I’m not secretly Canadian. Go home … you’re drunk.

6. “Here’s What Happened When a Co-Worker Asked This Guy to Watch Her Plant”: TELL ME. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD — I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED.

5. “17 Things Every Vegan Must Eat in Glasgow”: Next list: “20 Things Every Loafer-Wearing Kale Addict Must Do in a Parisian Bathroom.”

4. “21 Problems Only Hurdlers Will Understand”: Are there REALLY enough hurdlers to warrant the existence of this list?! I bet all none of the hurdlers shared this list with all none of their Facebook friends who hurdle.

3. “12 Reasons Megan Washington Is Essentially All of Us”: Seriously, who the hell is Megan Washington?! How is this allowed?!

2. “What Teens on TV Look Like Compared to Teens in Real Life”: Is it different? I bet it’s different. Also, I bet you’re gonna use that slidy side-by-side picture thing. Ugh, that thing’s the worst.

1. “Which ‘Twilight’ Character Are You?”: -____-

—by Veronica Little

Artsy Nugget

Taylor Swift’s 'Blank Space' video officially erases the goodie girl image

by Nika Korchok Daily Editorial Board

“Blank Space,” Taylor Swift’s new single and accompanying music video, which debuted on Nov. 10, and has already garnered over 15 million views on YouTube, indicates a clear departure from the artist’s classic “good girl” persona. “You look like my next mistake,” she sings. Yup, Taylor Swift is officially cool now. What does this mean for the hipsters of the world who have been secretly adding her songs to their vintage ’80s cassette mixtapes for years? It’s trouble (trouble, trouble, trouble).

Taylor is an adult with a commanding hold on the music industry and the pop demographic. She is ballsy enough to take on major music streaming corporations and still sell more than a million copies of her new album “1989” (2014) within its first week of release.

She can write a catchy hook and provide a danceable chorus, all while looking pretty and staying relatable. It is a science and an art, and now Swift is showing the audience that she is completely aware of how she is portrayed and how tightly she controls her own image.

In the video, Swift traipses around a palatial estate that can only be described as the ideal setting for a Ralph Lauren polo campaign. She makes bedroom eyes at some Greek god of a male counterpart that, inevitably, leads to them carving their names into a tree together. Their relationship follows in typical Swift-video style: a beautiful, cutesy montage of love followed by the dramatic break-down.

But here is where the fracturing of the formula begins, and the fissure between new Taylor and classic Taylor only deepens. Swift isn’t sitting at a piano, crying soft beautiful tears over her old beau, a la “White Horse” (2008), nor is she trying to convince us that by wearing large frame glasses she is any less of a beauty queen, as in 2008’s “You Belong with Me.” Instead, this Swift wears a slinky cheetah print dress and writhes around on the shiny marble floor with enough mascara run-

ning around her eyes to supply several Maybelline ads.

Swift plays up a vindictive and crazy scorned lover so flawlessly that the viewer is moved to smile rather than shudder when she rips up oil paintings in the mansion’s pristine halls, or attacks her ex’s Porsche with a nine iron and then drops her man candy’s phone into a fountain with a smirk. With the

“craziness” that permeates the video, Swift perfectly combines the carefully crafted coolness she has developed of late with the trademark quirkiness that has earned her equal parts criticism and adoration. A quick shot of Swift kicking the tree bearing the carved heart and initials is the perfect example of this combo: She is still wielding an axe, but she wobbles slightly in her

heels, bringing her back down to earth just enough for her fans to still claim her as their queen. Satirizing the media, the “Starbucks lovers” who call Swift insane, she is bringing down the criticism of her work in a flourish that reads like a Joan Crawford breakdown: fabulous and terrifying. As her song promises, “Darling, I’m a nightmare, dressed like a daydream.”

Eva Rinaldi via Flickr Creative Commons

Taylor Swift ditches her good girl persona in the new music video, “Blank Space.”

Events Box

What’s up this weekend Looking to make your weekend artsy?

Check out these events!

Tufts Arts Career Night: Interested in a career in the arts? Join the Tufts Art History Society for a presentation with an informational discussion panel.

Professionals in the arts world who live in Boston will discuss their work, offer advice and answer student questions. Presenters set to speak include: Karin Goodfellow (Director, Boston Art Commission), Wing Ngan (Ink Design), Matthew Siegal (Chair, Conservation and Collections

Management, MFA) and Leah Triplett (Editor, Big Red & Shiny). Refreshments will be served. (Tonight beginning at 6 p.m. in the Alumnae Lounge. Admission is free.)

Tufts Orchestras Fall Concert: The Tufts University Symphony Orchestra and the Tufts Chamber Orchestra will be performing a joint concert to celebrate the fall season. Pieces performed will include both modern and classical selections: John Adams, Mozart and Tchaikovsky, along with the world premiere of “Glass Branches” by Will

Myers. (Saturday at 8 p.m. in Distler Performance Hall. Admission is free.)

3Ps Fall Major presents “The Children’s Hour”(1934): 3Ps present their fall show, a play titled “The Children’s Hour.” The play focuses on a small Virginia town in 1934 and the events that spiral out of control after a young girl tells lies about her teacher. (Performances will occur on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. in Balch Arena Theater. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased in the Aidekman Box Office or by calling 617-627-3493.)

Sunday at Tufts Community Concert Series: Eat! Drink! Sing! Tufts Concert Choir and Tufts Chambers Singers will be performing their fall concert with selections

by Britten, Handel and Muehleisen. Jamie Kirsch will be conducting the concert.

(Sunday at 3 p.m. in Distler Performance Hall. Admission is free. No tickets required.)

—by Nika Korchok

Thursday, November 13, 2014

The Tufts Daily

7

Weekender Nikki Blank | A SWUG's Life

Tufts, Tailored

It's all in the pants It was such a nice day yesterday and everyone was in high spirits! I saw so many colors; blue and green and pink and brown and grey. Everyone was layering in such creative ways. I especially loved Yaqi’s extra long cardigan, Chelsea’s polka-dot bag and Jason’s Jack Purcell sneakers. All these students managed to make comfy cool.

Big SWUGs don’t cry

I

“I start with my pants… what’s most com- “Pants set the tone. Comfort is always key Describe your style: “I love sneakers and a sweater… some- fortable slash what works best with my ... I’m a comfy hipster.” — Jason Adesman, giant sweater if I’m wearing that today sophomore thing like that.” — Yaqi Shen, 1G ... The shoes are kind of just whatever I want… and then I pick colors so because today was fall and cloudy I needed to wear green because it makes me happy.” — —by Jack Kamin Chelsea Hicks, senior

Artsy Jumbo

Courtesy of Soubhik Barari

Soubhik Barari develops his musical talent with home-grown band, Indian Twin.

Soubhik Barari, unapologetic and uncensored

by Timothy Charouk Daily Editorial Board

Junior Soubhik Barari is the modern renaissance man — a bad boy in a band who specializes in computer science and romance. He is redefining what it means to be in a band in college, managing his time well so that neither work nor play is sacrificed; the only victim is sleep.

Barari came to Tufts a well-rested and eager student of art; his college application was accompanied by portfolio pieces from junior and senior year of high school. While back then he cultivated the more mysterious, sensitive artist look, at Tufts Barari decided to change his image.

When he began his freshman year in college, he became the smart guy in a band.

“The girls notice you more when you’re playing the guitar rather than painting, ” he said.

Barari plays the guitar for Tufts-born band Indian Twin, and described its interesting origin.

“I was on the roommate search portal and I found this guy who was really into skating and The Smiths, so I chatted him up for a little and we became roommates,” Barari said.

“That guy” was Will Freeman, a bass player and vocalist, and together the pair found the band’s third and final member, fellow junior Thomas Colgrove (drums/ vocals), roaming Lewis Hall and beatboxing to Wu-Tang Clan. Barari rather obnoxiously suggested Colgrove listen to The Smiths instead; the rest is history.

Barari subsequently carved an important role for himself in the Tufts underground music scene. He feels that although Tufts itself doesn’t really provide many resources for bands to thrive, the Medford/Somerville area cultivates a very

creative and vibrant community through its many basement venues. Tufts bands have always found a home at the Crafts House, Fort Warner and the Crane Room, working with Applejam Productions to put on great shows. Barari has also found that Tufts students in general listen to the type of music that he enjoys playing — lo-fi indie rock — which has helped him achieve the mild success he now enjoys on campus. Unfortunately, the relaxed attitude this genre promotes prevents the band from making any long-term decisions and has thus left Barari uncertain about the future.

“Will is going abroad in the spring, which is surely going to dampen our meteoric rise to fame,” he said.

In addition to all the things he has undertaken, Barari has also begun a solo project as insurance for the possible dissolution of the band.

’m skipping the advice this week cause this SWUG needs to vent.

(Sorry?)

Break-up season is upon us.

It’s the inevitable time in senior year where people must leave behind what they love most. This decision is (usually) never mutual. It’s a heart breaking loss to realize that the things you love can come to an end. It’s time to move on, to grow up, to be independent. It’s time to try new things, explore new things, be new things. It’s time to let go of what was once most important, and to learn to be on your own. It’s time to remember all of the great times and all of the hard times. It’s time to start on the path to acceptance, starting with denial: How could something so great actually come to an end? It’s time to cry, and to reflect and to remember.

Of course, I am talking about the inevitable time when a sports season comes to an end.

Soccer was my first love, from when I was the ripe age of four (he was much older than me). From recreation leagues, to competitive travel teams, to the joy that is high school athletics, to finally playing in the NESCAC, this love has been long-standing and consistent. Sure, there were times when we took breaks. Every relationship needs some space, who wouldn’t when you’ve been with someone (or thing) for over 18 years? But you never forget your first love, and my friend Sheryl told me that the first cut is the deepest.

Never again will I put on that baby blue uniform and play for the school that I probably wouldn’t have gotten into without my sport. Gone are the days of having a reason to not go out, to stay dry and to keep in shape. Gone are the days of tailgate feasts, free home-cooked food and meal money. Gone are the days of getting my laundry done for me, of free physical therapy and lots of free grey t-shirts. But I have to say, thank god I’ll never have to take an ice bath again, or play soccer in the snow, or run a 300 yard sprint … unless I want to.

Some relationships end in NESCAC Championships or National Championships, but most end in disappointment and “there’s always next year.” Some flirt with the idea of getting back together with bids for the NCAA tournament, and others know that its over forever. “We can always be friends,” they say. “You’ll play in adult leagues,” they say. “You can always kick a ball around,” they say. I say no. It’s not the same. Playing competitive college soccer (or any college sport) is like being in a committed relationship. Ending that sport feels worse than any breakup I’ve been through so far, but surprisingly has involved the same amount of shopping and candy.

After being in a committed relationship for 18 years, all good things must come to an end. But it leaves me asking myself, “who am I?” and “what do I do with all of this free time?” and “can I still wear workout clothes every day to class?” Sure, there will be other loves, other passions and other hobbies, but none will shape my identity like soccer did. “’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” they say. That may be true in the end, but I’m still holding on hope for my invitation to the next World Cup, or at least the Maccabi Games.

Nikki Blank is a senior majoring in English. She can be reached at Nicole.

Blank@tufts.edu.

8

The Tufts Daily

THE TUFTS DAILY Alexander J. Schroeder Editor-in-Chief

Editorial

Justin Rheingold Lily Sieradzki Managing Editors

Patrick McGrath Executive News Editor Daniel Bottino News Editors Jenna Buckle Abigail Feldman Shana Friedman Nina Goldman Dana Guth Stephanie Haven Alexa Horwitz Audrey Michael Kathleen Schmidt Jei-Jei-Tan Denali Tietjen Melissa Wang Sarah Zheng Jessica Mow Executive Features Editor Maya Blackstone Features Editors Hannah Fingerhut Charlotte Gilliland Kendall Todd Jake Taber Shannon Vavra Sophie Dasinger Assistant Features Editors Mengqi Sun Drew Robertson Veronica Little Dana Guth Nika Korchok Timothy Charouk Abigail Feldman Charlotte Gilliland Grace Segers

Executive Arts Editor Senior Arts Editor Arts Editors Assistant Arts Editors

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Editorial | Op-ed

Editorial

Tufts should redefine "first generation" The First Generation Student Council’s effort to create a support network and community for those on campus who identify as a first generation college student is an important step in developing additional resources for these students. The Higher Education Act of 1965 considers a student to be “first generation” when neither of a student’s two parents hold a bachelor degree, or in the case of a single-parent family, when the primary caregiver does not hold a bachelor degree. However, the First Generation Student Council does not define “first generation,” allowing anyone who self-identifies as a first generation student to join. This is an important difference and should be implemented across university programs that work with first generation students.

For federal statistics Tufts must continue to report data according to this extremely narrow definition, but the uni-

versity should open up the definition of a first generation student on campus. In doing so, Tufts would be better able to target all students who need additional assistance navigating the bureaucratic collegiate system. By allowing more students to be included under the first generation category, the university will be better able to funnel students who need support to the numerous programs and free tutoring services we already have on campus.

According to the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, first generation students have higher transfer and drop out rates than students whose parents hold a bachelor’s degree, and they are less likely to graduate on time. Tufts has created programs that target first generation students in order to address these challenges.

Programs such as BLAST and BEST aim to decrease the disadvantages first generation students face by providing students with the opportunity to take two classes at Tufts

before matriculation. BLAST and BEST are great programs, but are available to a very select number of students. These programs not only take into consideration first generation status, but also income and the number of students from the same high school who were admitted into comparative colleges. By opening up the admittance into programs such as BLAST and BEST, more students will be able to benefit.

The Tufts First Generation Student Council is working to create a dialogue between first generation students and close the success gap on campus. By providing a safe space, offering mentoring opportunities and hosting informational events, this new group is making major strides to help students on campus.

Opening up the definition of who qualifies as a first generation student at Tufts is an important step in increasing the number of students who receive the support and community they need and deserve.

Amy Bu

Alex Connors Executive Sports Editor Marcus Budline Sports Editors Sam Gold Jake Indursky Alison Kuah Tyler Maher Jorge Monroy-Palacio Maclyn Senear Jason Schneiderman Chris Warren Steven Hefter Assistant Sports Editors Wil Glavin Annabelle Roberts Susan Kaufman Ruchira Parikh Olivia Montgomory Ray Bernoff Amy Bu Keran Chen Jehan Madhani Ty Enos Jennifer Lien Nicholas Golden Bailey Werner Naomi Ali Chloe Perez Nicholas Pfosi Evan Sayles Annie Levine Ethan Chan John Hampson Matthew Schreiber Christie Wu Maya Blackstone Alexander Knapp Kelly Fahey Caroline Ambros

Executive Op-Ed Editor Op-Ed Editors

Cartoonists

Editorialists

Executive Photo Editor Photo Administrator Sports Photographer Senior Staff Photographers Staff Photographers Stock Image Editor Social Media Editor

Rachel Sheldon Executive Multimedia Editor Blair Nodelman Senior Multimedia Editor Aastha Chadha Multimedia Editors Ethan Chan Jade Chan Kristie Le Tanay Modi Nimarta Narang Josh Podolsky Grace Segers

PRODUCTION

Andrew M. Stephens Production Director

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BUSINESS Daphne Wu

Executive Business Director Li Liang Receivables Manager Chris Chininis Ad Diresctor Jade Chan Ad Managers Kristie Le Tanay Modi Yiran Xu Ariel Gizzi Joshua Morris Amanda Saban P.O. Box 53018, Medford, MA 02155 617 627 3090 FAX 617 627 3910 daily@tuftsdaily.com

Tufts resorts to Buzzfeed to keep students’ attention.

Off the Hill | University of South Florida

Physician-assisted death is a necessary right

by Brandon Shaik The Oracle

Brittany Maynard, who became the face of the right-to-die movement following her diagnosis with a stage four malignant brain tumor, died Nov. 1 by assisted death.

Maynard moved from California to Oregon following her diagnosis to pass away on her own terms in one of only five states that allows assisted suicide, or death by choice in which the patient chooses the time of death and is assisted by a physician.

People who have terminal illnesses face a great deal of pain and a long process of accepting death. It’s difficult enough to be given an expiration date and be forced to live with it, but to suffer and have no a choice about it is inhumane.

Currently, Florida does not authorize physician-assisted suicide and, in such

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.

occurrences, the physician would be guilty of manslaughter.

Charles Hall, a Florida man who contracted HIV/AIDS from a blood transfusion during surgery, fought the Florida Supreme Court in 1996 for his right to an assisted death after being bedridden due to complications from the disease.

Hall was denied the right to such a death and eventually died from natural causes after suffering from what he said was indescribable pain, and was in the care of hospice, where terminally ill patients are cared for from the time of diagnosis until death.

While hospice provides dignified care for its patients, there is only so much it can do for patients in pain to keep them comfortable until death.

Because of Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act, 71 people were able to choose a dignified death in 2013. Of these, 68.4 percent had cancer, 53.5 percent held at least a bachelor’s

degree and 90 percent were ages 65 or older, according to a state health report.

Boo Archer Cole, a wellness coach in Alabama who works with terminally ill patients, claims that patients “have to feel it to heal it,” and Maynard couldn’t see past her pain, so she took medication to die, which gave her a “sense of power.”

Maynard was only one terminally ill patient who suffered from pain, and she was fortunate to have the choice to end her suffering. It was not a sense of power Maynard was looking for. She sought dignity in death rather than the humility of dying feeble and frail in a hospital bed.

Floridians who are faced with a terminal illness have a right to end their pain and suffering when they feel it’s necessary and to die a dignified death before physical debilitation takes over. The Florida Supreme Court has no right to put unwilling patients through that kind of pain.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters must be submitted by 2 p.m. and should be handed into the Daily office or sent to letters@tuftsdaily.com.

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The editors reserve the right to edit letters for clarity, space and length.

ADVERTISING POLICY All advertising copy is subject to the approval of the Editorin-Chief, Executive Board and Executive Business Director. A publication schedule and rate card are available upon request.

Thursday, November 13, 2014

The Tufts Daily

Off the Hill | University of Texas at Austin

On the 25th anniversary of Berlin Wall’s fall, has America lost its idealism?

by Jeremi Suri The Daily Texan

Newspapers, television and social media were filled this weekend with stories about the Berlin Wall. In case you were not paying attention, it came down 25 years ago, on Nov. 9, 1989. Thousands of young men and women, trapped in the East German police state, decided on that cool evening that they would no longer tolerate their collective imprisonment by a repressive regime. They pushed their way into the more prosperous and freer West Berlin, and they demanded rights and opportunities long denied. After decades of restriction, this movement was possible because the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, made it clear that he would not use force, as Moscow had in the past, to prevent popular change. Other foreign leaders, including Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, contributed to the atmosphere of peace and cooperation that encouraged people to take history into their own hands.

And they did, with enormous courage and speed. In a little more than two years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, East and West Germany were reunited, Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia held free elections and the Soviet Union disintegrated into 15 separate states. The global struggle between communism and capitalism ended with the collapse of the former. The persistent terror of thermonuclear war eased as the countries with the largest nuclear arsenals no longer threatened to launch these horrible weapons against one another. The Cold War era of fear and conflict opened into a period of great hope and newfound cooperation between

a new Russia, a new European Union and a revitalized United States.

It was a great time to be young. I remember it very well. When I entered high school in 1986 the Soviet Union was still the “evil empire.” When I graduated in 1990 the world was freer and safer than ever before. As we started college, my fellow students and I felt like we could do anything. The possibilities seemed endless. If citizens in East Germany could tear down the Berlin Wall, then we surely could do something big. After all, we had educational opportunities foreign citizens could only dream about, and we had access to resources they could not even imagine.

Our privilege in a time of great change inspired a deep sense of obligation. As children of the end of the Cold War, we felt it a mission to make the world a better place, to show that we could make the promises of the moment real. Many of my classmates did just that. They created Google, they invented life-saving medical procedures, they founded new human rights organizations, they became respected judges and some even wrote books and taught talented students. Our career paths included comfortable compensation but also awareness that there was something more. Watching the fall of the Berlin Wall at a formative moment in our lives, we were all idealists and true believers.

Slowly, however, the idealism from 1989 has faded throughout our society and the wider world. Maybe our expectations were too high, and we were bound to be disappointed. Maybe we overestimated ourselves and underestimated the corruption, sectarianism, violence and greed that remained present in a post-Cold War world. Maybe — and this one stings — we

did not live up to our own moral commitments. Yes, I mean all of us who received a burst of opportunity in 1989. Have we been true to our ideals and aspirations?

I am afraid the answer might be a qualified yes, at best. Our generation, now in our early 40s, contributes more than any before to philanthropy, but we also spend more of our time working than our predecessors. Are we working longer hours to build a better world? Is there a correlation between time in the office and contributions to society? My fear is that the relationship might be inversely correlated.

Despite the frequent criticisms we voice about our society today, we have mastered operating within the system rather than changing it. We are professionals, not revolutionaries; innovators, not reformers.

Instead of tearing down walls, we seem to spend more of our time reinforcing them and building new ones. For evidence of this, look at our southern border, our prisons, our gated communities and our airports. We limit people’s movement for security and we separate populations for control. We are less free and open as a society today than we were 25 years ago, and we have accepted that and learned to live with it.

The memory of 1989 should encourage us to question our present. The young men and women who brought down the Berlin Wall were tenacious in their pursuit of freedom and justice. They put their lives on the line for a dream of a better world, and they made it a reality. Isn’t it time we all did the same? There are plenty of good causes in need of attention. What our current world really needs is more citizens willing to tear down the walls rather than live comfortably within them.

Off the Hill | University of Southern California

Foreign language should be taught early on

by Claire Cahoon The Daily Trojan

It’s class registration time, and as many students know (perhaps begrudgingly), that means it’s time to make sure his or her foreign language requirement has been fulfilled. Some students are lucky to be proficient enough in another language to test out. Many others, however, will have to take between one and four extra semesters of language.

But learning a second language is far from just another course to check off the list.

A study done by an MIT economist found that an American who learns a foreign language gets an average earnings bonus of two percent. When applied to the average college graduate’s starting salary of around $45,000, this two percent adds an additional $67,000 to the graduate’s lifetime earnings, according to the Economist.

Another study, done by the Cardiff Business School, estimated that lack of proficiency in foreign languages costs Britain $80 billion every year.

American students can understand what these numbers imply for our own pockets and our government. Still, only 18 percent of Americans are well versed in a language other than English, while 53 percent of our European counterparts can speak at least two languages.

If statistics can’t convince you, let’s talk jobs. “We need diplomats, intelligence and foreign policy experts, politicians, military leaders, business leaders, scientists, physicians, entrepreneurs, managers, technicians, historians, artists and writers who are proficient in languages other than English,” a writer for Forbes so clearly put.

The United States isn’t the only country in the world, believe it or not (and English isn’t even our official language).

To anyone who has ever taken a class

in politics, sociology or business, it is inherently obvious that the United States must be able to function with the countries around us in order to survive.

And to ensure that survival, we must be able to speak the languages of the countries with which we interact.

“To prosper economically and to improve relations with other countries,” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in 2010, “Americans need to read speak and understand other languages.” And since understanding the basics of subjects starts in elementary school, it follows logically that second language acquisition should begin there too.

It would also seem linguistically much easier for younger children to acquire languages. In fact, if a child is learning two languages at a time, he or she will learn both at the same rate without one language inhibiting the other.

Unfortunately, the number of public elementary schools that offer foreign language education has declined from 24 percent in 1997 to 15 percent in 2008. In all middle schools, the number decreased from 75 to 58 percent. Only high schools still reinforce foreign language learning at the same rate, with 91 percent of high schools offering options to learn a foreign language.

Many attribute these cuts in language programs to the “No Child Left Behind” program, which enforces more traditional learning, like math and English-language reading, both of which are undeniably fundamental to a child’s education.

But what happens to children who learn a language other than English, enter the public school system and are henceforth taught only English? The answer is that they get left behind.

“Hard facts may be a good reason to, say, shut down an old steel mill that cannot withstand competition,” an article in the Economist stated. “But language is not a steel mill. There is far

9

Op-Ed

more at stake: not just people’s livelihoods, but their identities and cultural diversity itself.”

Michael Alison Chandler, a mother in Washington D.C., recently wrote a piece for the Washington Post detailing her struggles with finding an education for her son that incorporates proper language instruction. Her greatest fear is that her son will lose all the bilingualism he has learned at his advanced day care once he enters elementary and middle school. For well-off parents, private school is the best option, as private elementary schools are over three times more likely than public elementary schools to offer instruction in foreign language. For the rest of the general population, however, it becomes a battle with school boards and budget cuts in the public school system.

Dual-language immersion programs seem to offer the most hope for public schools. Instead of being taught normal classes in English and then offering a separate foreign language course, these programs provide instruction in two languages in multiple classes throughout the school day.

While these programs can be limiting in which languages they can teach, they are certainly the most theoretically feasible programs. Instead of hiring one math teacher and one foreign language teacher, schools can simply hire one math teacher who is bilingual. Perhaps this could be implemented slowly — the elementary schools with bilingual teachers available can begin immediately and those without bilingual teachers can wait until some are made available.

But the alternative, teaching only English — while some estimates project that only half of the world’s population will be speaking English by 2050 — is unacceptable. As a country, we cannot economically or practically afford to be left behind.

Walt Laws-MacDonald | Show Me the Money

Net neutrality and Netflix

N

etwork neutrality is the idea that all data should be treated the same. The phrase, which was coined in a 2003 paper by Columbia professor Tim Wu, focused on “broadband discrimination” — internet providers discriminating against certain consumers or content providers by slowing down their broadband connections.

Whereas Thomas Jefferson said, “All men are created equal,” Tim Wu — to paraphrase — said, “All data is created equal.”

But just as restrictions were later applied to Thomas Jefferson’s words — all men are created equal, if by men you mean white landowning males — various controls and constraints have been put on net neutrality.

For consumers, Netflix is great. Get out of class, head to Tisch, fire up a quick episode of the West Wing, do some IR reading in the background and be in and out in under 45 minutes. No pesky commercials, bulky box set DVDs or expensive cable subscriptions.

For internet service providers (ISP), Netflix is terrible. The video streaming service accounted for more than a third of all bandwidth usage in March 2014, up eight percent from the previous year.

Services like Netflix, YouTube, HBO GO and Amazon Prime eat up massive amounts of data. An hour of Netflix can use more than two gigabytes of data — the equivalent of nearly 500 songs or photos.

While ISPs usually don’t cap the amount of broadband data consumers can use, they have taken action against streaming services that take up such massive chunks of their bandwidth. From September 2013 to January 2014, download speeds for Netflix on Comcast dropped more than 30 percent — the result of obvious “throttling” by Comcast’s network.

Despite Comcast’s atrocious customer service record, the onus actually fell on Netflix.

The CEOs of Netflix and Comcast eventually sat down and agreed to a deal: Netflix would pay Comcast and Comcast would give Netflix customers faster download speeds.

Netflix didn’t really have a choice — their business is built around high bandwidth, and they would lose customers to other streaming sites if their service continued to suffer. Paying for priority keeps everyone happy.

Unfortunately, the Netflix-Comcast deal set an uneasy precedent for further developments in net neutrality. If Netflix can be forced to pay, why can’t Facebook, Twitter or your crazy uncle’s Tea Party-Mark Sanchez conspiracy blog? When content providers are forced to pay ISPs, net neutrality gets thrown out the window.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which holds authority on all things internet related, adopted basic net neutrality rules in 2010. In January, an appeals court ruled that their guidelines might be overreaching, which reopened the governmentlevel debate over net neutrality.

Net neutrality is for the good of the consumer. Without such regulations, ISPs like Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision would be able to charge more for special “fast lane” services, that would ramp up — i.e., not throttle — download speeds for popular websites.

ISPs, however, see net neutrality as another affront to their bottom lines. With cable television revenue sharply down, these companies are scrambling to find new sources of profit to cover what was once their primary business.

President Obama asked the FCC to adopt a pure form of net neutrality earlier this week, by reclassifying telecommunications companies as “common carriers” and allow the FCC greater authority over their practices.

The FCC and Congress will continue to debate net neutrality for years to come, and that’s a good thing. The legal landscape should change with the technological one.

But right now, we have dial-up laws for broadband internet.

Walt is a senior majoring in quantitative economics. He can be reached at Walt.

Laws_MacDonald@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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Thursday, November 13, 2014

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Editors’ Challenge | Week 11 Hey football fans! The Sports Editors are back with Week 11 of Editors’ Challenge. With all the rainy days lately, we’ve been watching a lot of movies in the office and ranking the performances by our favorite actor and sports fan: Tom Hanks.

Alex “Cast Away” Connors woke up all by himself in first place. He’s so far ahead of the rest of the competition, he sometimes feels like he’s stranded on an island. Where is everybody else?

Wilson?

Sam “Saving Private Ryan” Gold needs to be rescued. We sent a team out to look for him last week but they haven’t found him yet. Hopefully they can find him and get him home safely before he makes and more bad picks.

Jake “Forrest Gump” Indursky has had lots of very good weeks and lots of very bad weeks. He was in first place a quarter of the way though the season, but now he’s in 10th. His momma always said that every week this season has just been like a box of chocolates for Jake, he never knows what he’s gonna get.

Maclyn “Toy Story” Senear has always been a huge fan of the Pixar film. He dresses up as Woody every year for Halloween, and we couldn’t help but notice that he looks a little bit like Woody even when he’s not in costume.

Steven “Polar Express” Hefter faces a long uphill battle to get to first place, but he’s travelling faster in that direction than anyone else. All aboard the Steven Hefter bandwagon to the North Pole.

Choo choooo!

Alex “Charlie Wilson’s War” Schroeder hasn’t been seen much in the sports section this semester, as he’s been leading a covert operation for the U.S. Military, arming rebels against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Tyler “Sleepless In Seattle” Maher is so in love with his favorite team, the Patriots, that he spends most of his time watching romantic comedies and pretending that they were written about him and his one true love, Bill Belichick.

Jorge “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” Monroy-Palacio loves to talk smack about how close he is to first place. But since his record is 95-52 and he has now fallen all the way to fifth place, he can be described much more appropriately as “extremely loud” than “incredibly close” to first place.

Chris “The Da Vinci Code” Warren told a story about how he is going to win Editors’ Challenge.

It was a great story, but it’s not going to happen. “The greatest story ever told, is, in fact, the greatest story ever sold.”

Wil “Angels & Demons” Glavin is like a bad sequel of Chris Warren. He’s also not going to win, but unlike Chris, he isn’t even worth watching.

Alison “The Green Mile” Kuah, at 94-53, is green with jealousy because she’s a mile out of first place.

David Westby travelled all the way to the sports section along “The Road to Perdition” to offer his guest picks this week.

OVERALL LAST WEEK

Alex C 105-42 11-2

Chris 102-14 11-2

Steven 97-50 9-4

Maclyn 96-51 11-2

Jorge 95-52 11-2

Alison 94-53 10-3

Tyler 94-53 10-3

Wil 93-54 9-4

Alex S 90-57 10-3

Jake 82-65 3-10

Sam 63-84 9-4

GUEST David Westby

BUF at MIA MIN at CHI HOU at CLE ATL at CAR CIN at NO TB at WSH DEN at STL SF at NYG SEA at KC OAK at SD DET at ARI PHI at GB NE at IND PIT at TEN

MIA CHI CLE CAR NO WSH DEN SF SEA SD DET GB NE PIT

MIA MIN CLE ATL NO WSH DEN SF SEA SD ARI GB NE PIT

MIA CHI CLE ATL NO WSH DEN SF SEA SD ARI GB NE PIT

MIA MIN CLE CAR NO WSH DEN SF SEA SD ARI PHI NE PIT

BUF MIN HOU CAR CIN WSH DEN SF SEA SD ARI PHI NE PIT

MIA CHI CLE CAR NO WSH DEN SF SEA SD ARI GB NE PIT

MIA CHI CLE ATL NO WSH DEN SF SEA SD DET GB NE PIT

MIA CHI CLE ATL NO WSH DEN SF SEA SD ARI GB IND PIT

MIA CHI CLE ATL NO WSH DEN SF SEA SD ARI GB IND PIT

MIA MIN CLE CAR NO WSH DEN SF SEA SD ARI PHI NE PIT

MIA MIN CLE ATL NO TB DEN NYG SEA SD ARI GB IND PIT

MIA CHI CLE ATL NO WSH DEN SF SEA SD DET PHI NE PIT

Thursday, November 13, 2014

The Tufts Daily

11

Sports

Jumbos play first game just two weeks after first practice

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL continued from BACK

“Defense: that’s not going to change,” Berube said. “Especially because we don’t have a lot of practice time [at the beginning of the season], defense is a focus. We’re feeling strong and good about our team and individual defense. We’ve got that great communication, we’ve got that great help defense, so that’s definitely been our focus these first couple of weeks, like it’s been every year.”

The defense will be led by Kanner, who was named to the All-NESCAC Second Team while averaging 5.5 rebounds per game and a league-high 2.8 blocked shots per game. Returning sophomore Michela North will also be looking to grow in her role as an additional weapon for Tufts’ defense, expanding on a stellar freshman season where she led the team in rebounds (184) and field goal percentage (.590). As the 2013-2014 season got down to the wire, Berube experimented with the duo of North and Kanner, especially when playing against more physical teams, a strategy she could use again this upcoming season.

The Tufts offense might be overshadowed by the team’s defense, but it was strong enough to average a 15.8 point scoring margin in the 2013-2014 season. Point guard Morehead, who averaged a teamhigh 35.3 minutes per 40-minute game, will be at the helm offensively. She was the lone Tufts player named to the AllNESCAC First Team, dishing out 3.3 assists per game while registering a 2.6 assist-toturnover ratio. Morehead and Foley combined for nearly 100 3-pointers last season, and offered perimeter options for the team when Kanner and North drew attention from the defense inside the arc.

Foley, also an All-NESCAC Second Team selection, averaged 9.9 points a game (behind Kanner’s 12.2 points per game), 5.5 rebounds per game (behind North’s 5.9 rebounds per game) and a team-high 1.6 steals per game. The offense will rely on

its depth this season, with returning junior guard Emma Roberson looking for more minutes this season. Roberson averaged 20.9 minutes per game in 31 games last season, scoring nearly five points per game, behind Foley, Morehead and Liz Moynihan (LA ’14).

“Our greatest strength will be experience,” Berube said. “We have several starters coming back and [are] returning a really strong senior class that has got some great experience over the last couple of years and the Final Four last year. Our depth will be strong again, as it was last year. It was a big reason why we were as successful as we were.”

The team officially begins its season this weekend at the Ramada Roundball Invitational at the University of New England, and is looking to pick up where it left off last season. However, NESCAC policy only allows teams in the conference to begin official practice on Nov. 1, meaning that the team will be playing games this weekend after less than two weeks of practice.

“The way the calendar falls, it’s really tight with only 12 practices [before our first game],” Berube said. “This week will be a challenge playing a strong team and a strong state team, [University of New England], we know from last year, but it’s a challenge we always have — less practice time than the teams we play. The captains have been holding practices throughout the fall and they’ve done a great job in getting in shape, in playing a lot and in developing that chemistry.”

With so little time to prepare, the team’s leadership will be crucial in ensuring that the Jumbos are ready to compete well this weekend.

“The [captains] communicate really well with each other and they’re all different kinds of leaders, so they each bring something unique to that leadership front,” Berube said.

“It’s been great working with [the captains] throughout the fall on leadership.”

“We talk about chemistry on a team and

continued from BACK

records in all of the NESCAC last season, hopes to repeat his stellar results.

“On a personal level, this is my last season, so I’m trying to go out with a bang,” Schwietzer said. “Last year I went 17-1 during the regular season, and I feel that I have nowhere to go but up from there.”

According to Advani, the team will seek to improve upon its 33rd place in the national rankings.

“The whole team is looking to get some wins in the NESCAC, and I think we

have a great shot against some of them, since a lot of games were very close last season,” Advani said. “With the strong freshman class, I think we can beat teams like Northeastern and MIT that we had some unfortunate losses against last year. Overall I think the team is hoping to jump to the top 25 in the country.”

Schweitzer pinpoints the opening match against Wesleyan as one of the most important matches of the season.

“As a team, the most exciting matches will be this weekend against Wesleyan, [at] Nationals and [at] the NESCAC tour-

Nicholas Pfosi / The Tufts Daily

Senior point guard Kelsey Morehead attempts a layup during the team’s 55-35 victory over Castleton during the NCAA Tournament. chemistry is both on and off the court,” Kanner said. “Kelsey [Morehead] and Hannah [Foley] are my best friends off the court, and I think we’ve already proven that on the court. I think we have great communication, and we’ll continue that rapport on and off the court.”

nament,” Schweitzer said. “In previous years we have performed poorly in the NESCAC tournament, but the youth that we have on the team this year has instilled the ‘old-guard,’ as we call ourselves, with a vigor and burning desire to win that cannot be squelched.”

After the fall semester ends, the team will travel to Florida in order to further train and prepare for the end of the season.

“I’m most excited for our winter training trip to Florida this year,” Schweitzer said. “Two years ago we went and … there was a lot of intense fitness.”

Sailing

Tufts finishes third at Hap Moore Trophy

by Steven Hefter

Daily Editorial Board

The fifth-ranked co-ed sailing team competed in the Hap Moore Team Race over the weekend, hosted by Coast Guard. The Jumbos compiled a two-day record of 8-6 and finished in third place out of the 12 teams at the regatta.

Saturday came with great conditions for sailing, with a breeze of 4-7 knots that eventually got up to 10-14 knots.

On Sunday, the breeze was at 4-8 knots.

The first 44 races of the round robin occurred on Saturday, while the remaining 22 occurred on Sunday. The Jumbos ended the round robin with a 7-4 record, which earned them a spot in the final four. Joining Tufts in the final four were Harvard, Boston College and Brown, who finished the round robin with records of 9-2, 8-3 and 8-3, respectively. Tufts’ seven wins came against Army, Boston College, Conn. College, Columbia, Harvard, St. Mary’s and Vermont, while the four losses came against Brown, Coast Guard, Georgetown and Roger Williams.

Tufts struggled in the final four, finishing with a 1-2 record for a third place finish. The lone win of the final round came against Brown, with Tufts losing to both Harvard and Boston College.

Harvard won the regatta and Boston College finished as the runner-up.

“This past weekend showed us that we

are a good racing team but we still have a lot of work to do if we want to be ready to qualify for nationals come April,” senior tri-captain Sam Madden said.

Three teams of Jumbos sailed in the Hap Moore. One team consisted of senior skipper Alec Ruiz-Ramon and crew Madden, while the second team consisted of senior tri-captain skipper Dan Nickerson and classmate crew Jaime Maffeo. Rounding out the three pairs was the sophomore combination of skipper Scott Barbano and crew Caroline Atwood.

“We tried to take a lesson from each race, win or loss, and build on it,” RuizRamon said. “Making the final four was helpful in that we got to sail three more races and learn that extra little bit.”

Despite the promising result this past weekend, the Jumbos viewed the Hap Moore as a practice regatta for the Atlantic Coast Championships this weekend, which are also being held at Coast Guard.

“It was an opportunity for us to practice some team racing, which is only really sailed in the spring, and refocus for this coming weekend,” Madden said.

“It’s still very early to know how we will stack up in a season against Harvard and Boston College as we still are working on nailing the basics and learning as much as we can,” Ruiz-Ramon added.

Along with the coed team, the No. 15 ranked women’s team is also eye-

The many flags of basketball

L

Jumbos set their sights on a top 25 national ranking

MEN’S SQUASH

Steven Hefter | The Association

ing a good result at the Atlantic Coast Championships, which are being held on the Charles River at MIT. The last regatta for the women’s team was the Victorian Coffee Urn at Harvard over the weekend of Nov. 1, where the team earned an eighth place finish out of 18 teams, qualifying for the Atlantic Coast Championships.

“A good result at ACCs will help us climb higher in the rankings, and allow us to show that the Jumbos have a strong presence in women’s sailing,” sophomore MaryClaire Kiernan said. “This will be important in our push for a berth to [Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association] Nationals 2015.”

Both teams enter the ACCs highly ranked, and it is indicative of the overall state of the sailing program for which a culture of hard work, accountability and success has been established.

“The success of both the coed and women’s teams are a reflection of the hard work from entire team at practice,” Kiernan said. “Not everyone may get to sail the big events, but having the amount of talent and work ethic that we have on this team allows us all to push each other to be better sailors.”

“Both teams are looking for top finishes, while our co-ed team is looking to end our season on a high note after what has been one of the best fall seasons in recent record,” Madden said.

ast night, the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Houston Rockets faced off in an NBA game in Mexico City. If you can remember as far back as last season, the Wolves were slated to play a game in Mexico City against the Spurs, but smoke inside Mexico City Arena prevented the game from being played.

Before last night, the last regular-season game in Mexico occurred on Dec. 6, 1997 between the Dallas Mavericks and the Rockets.

It is important that two games have been scheduled in Mexico City Arena, a $300 million arena opened in 2012, in the past two seasons. Basketball is becoming a truly international game, and the statistics back it up.

This season, 101 international players from 37 different countries and territories will suit up in the NBA. This number breaks last season’s record of 92 international players and marks the first time in NBA history that more than 100 international players played in the league. The Spurs, the reigning NBA champions, lead the league in international players for the third straight year. The most notable of the Spurs’ nine international players are Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, but the likes of Boris Diaw, Tiago Splitter and Marco Belinelli helped propel them to the championship. Perhaps the lasting image of the 2014 Finals was, through all the confetti raining down on the champs, all the international Spurs draped in their home flags.

It is truly an image that exemplifies how popular basketball is around the world. In addition to the best players around the world coming to the United States to play in the NBA, U.S. players routinely play overseas. A comical example is Stephon Marbury, who once played under the bright lights of Madison Square Garden as a Knick.

Now Marbury is a star for the Beijing Ducks and has won Chinese Basketball Association titles in 2012 and 2014.

Adam Silver is always thinking about achieving higher exposure of the NBA brand around the world. Teams have been going on preseason tours in Europe for the past couple of seasons to increase its influence around the world. Silver is open to the idea of having teams in Europe, stating that in order for the model to work, there needs to be a cluster of teams there so that the logistics won’t be as burdensome as they already are.

Ultimately, this is why the existence of NBA franchises in Europe will be tricky. The traveling would be brutal not only for the teams based in Europe, who would have to come to the United States for stretches of games at a time, but also for West coast teams traveling to Europe. The NBA is discussing these types of ideas, and that is just what they are at this point: ideas. Franchises in Europe do not appear likely to be established anytime soon, but Silver will seemingly listen to any idea from anyone on how to market the NBA across the globe.

An interesting concept is if the NBA creates its own league in Europe. One issue with this idea is whether NBA stars will want to play for these teams.

If not, I find it hard to believe that many people will watch the games if they contain no intriguing storylines.

After all, there are unpopular games in the NBA today with teams based in the United States.

Therefore, the NBA is doing a great job of trying to expand its borders, but the truth is that it does not have to try that hard. Basketball is a global sport.

Steven Hefter is a junior majoring in economics. He can be reached at Steven.

Hefter@tufts.edu. He is also a Sports Editor for the Tufts Daily.

Sports

12

tuftsdaily.com

Men’s Squash

Tufts looks to makes strides in national rankings as winter season begins

by Jorge Monroy-Palacio

Daily Editorial Board

After strong preseason practice and training, the members of the men’s squash team feel that it is ready to once again take to the courts for a successful season. Tufts finished 6-18 last year, and are looking to begin with a bang in its season opener at Wesleyan on Saturday.

Two veteran players that are eager to commence the season are co-captains senior Zach Schweitzer and junior Aditya Advani. Though the team as a whole has been without many victories, both Schwietzer and Advani have led the team in individual wins the last two years. While both players hope that their individual success continues, they anticipate that the team victories will begin to follow suit.

Ranging from speed to strength, the team has used a wide variety of training methods for preseason practice.

“The team has done a herculean amount of offseason training including daily weight sessions, temperature acclimation training, wind resistance training, altitude training — in Colorado over the summer — and some more adventurous members of the team even took up kickboxing classes during the offseason to work on their explosive speed and reflexes,” Schweitzer said.

Most of the training for the squash team happens at Belmont Hill courts because Tufts does not own squash courts that fit the current court requirements. The team will have to play its home games elsewhere, but Tufts hopes for a strong showing regardless.

In regard to new talent, Advani feels confident that this year’s rookies are as talented and competitive as ever, and the

Nicholas Pfosi / The tufts daily

Tufts Men’s Squash defeated Boston College at the Belmont Hill courts. chances of increasing the team’s ranking are fairly high.

“We have a real good group of freshman who joined the team this year, and we are looking better than ever,” Advani said.

“There is a great energy on the team as well as a lot more depth. Everyone is competing fiercely to hold on to their spots. We have a very good chance at jumping in the rankings this year and I am sure that

we are going to get some big W’s against teams that [we] lost to last year.”

Schwietzer, who had one of the best see MEN’S SQUASH, page 11

women’s Basketball

Tufts looks to build on last season's Final Four success

by Alison Kuah Daily Editorial Board

This season, tri-captains Kelsey Morehead, Hayley Kanner and Hannah Foley will be returning for their senior years as anchors of the women’s basketball team — a team that is coming off of its most successful season in program history. The 2013-2014 Tufts team recorded an unprec-

edented 21-game win streak en route to its first NESCAC Championship, becoming just the third title-holder in the conference after Bowdoin and Amherst.

The win earned the Jumbos a bid to the NCAA Tournament, where they advanced to the Final Four, marking their best performance in program history.

But their success is a double-edged sword.

“A challenge coming off such a great season

is that we have a big target on our backs,” Foley said. “I think that coming from the Final Four last year got us really excited. It was such an unbelievable experience, so I think that’s going to motivate us again this year. We had a great season last year, but that doesn’t mean anything now — we’re a new team but we’re going to use that success to fuel us.”

But under the guidance of coach Carla Berube, four-time NESCAC Coach of the Year,

the Jumbos’ defense will look to continue their dominance in the NESCAC and build on a conference-best defense that allowed an average of just 49.4 points per game. The Jumbos were at the top of the NESCAC in field goal percentage against (.347), 3-point field goal percentage against (.269) and defensive rebounding (34.3 per game). see WOMEN’S BASKETBALL, page 11

Women’s Squash

Jumbos to kick off season Saturday at Wesleyan tournament

by Catherine Worley Contributing Writer

The nationally ranked No. 26 women’s squash team will enter its 2014 winter campaign with the Wesleyan Round Robin in Middletown, Conn. this weekend. Tufts will take on Wesleyan and William Smith College on Saturday as well as Smith College and Mount Holyoke College on Sunday.

“We should do well against Smith, William Smith and Mount Holyoke,” senior tri-captain Paige Dahlman said.

“Wesleyan will be a toss up.”

“I definitely think we have a chance of beating Wesleyan this year, however, it has not [happened] at my time at Tufts that we have beaten Wesleyan, so [it was] upwards of four years ago,” senior tricaptain Ann Bellinger said.

The team has five new players this year, four of whom are first-years. First -years Lauren Banner, Nellie Harvey, Gabi Salomon and Claudia Udolf have joined the ten-member roster, which is missing junior tri-captain Paget Stanco who is abroad for the semester.

This new dynamic is certainly different

from previous seasons. Bellinger noted how before the season started, she and Dahlman had been nervous about having essentially an entirely new team, but their concerns have dissipated since the team started working out together.

“Everyone gets along so well,” Bellinger said. “It feels like we’ve been on the team together for years, [as] opposed to not even a semester. Udolf, one of our freshmen, will be playing No. 1 in the fall, and Banner … will be playing four.”

Dahlman added that throughout the entire ladder, every player is relatively close in skill and incredibly competitive, so everyone spreads out well throughout the top nine.

Although the team has a relatively busy winter season, playing 10 matches in a three-week span, the majority of its matches will take place in the spring.

Stanco, who has played in the top spot in the past, will certainly change the line-up for the spring semester when she returns from her semester abroad.

Dahlman, however, has faith that the current roster will overcome any adversity that might arise with a top player’s absence.

“Even though Stanco is abroad, each person on the team last year has gotten better,” Dahlman said. “Plus, the fall season is going to be a time to see what we can do as a team. We need to figure out what we do well and what we need to work on. Thankfully, the matches we see in the spring are going to be the more important ones.”

After this weekend, the team will play Wellesley, Conn. College, Hamilton, Middlebury, Vassar and Colby before heading into winter break. Despite obviously wanting to perform well against these schools, the Jumbos will have a second opportunity to at least play Colby and Conn. College again in the spring.

The winter season consists mainly of individual matches, whereas the spring consists of both individual matches as well as the College Squash Association (CSA) Team Championships and the CSA Individual Championships. Although the Jumbos have a busy year ahead of themselves, Dahlman is confident in her unified team — a team that is pushing itself harder to make practice more productive, and hoping that its results in games reflect that.

Tufts Daily ARchives

Senior tri-captain Paige Dahlman will lead the team this semester.