Fall 2015 Issue 5 by Tufts Observer

TUFTS OBSERVER

NOVEMBER 23, 2015

VOLUME CXXVXVI, ISSUE 5

THE EXCLUSIVITY OF OFF-CAMPUS HOUSING PAGE 2

TUFTS VIOLATING TITLE IX AGAIN? PAGE 10

THE DECISIONS BEHIND FRONT PAGE COVERAGE PAGE 20 #gaps

Staff editor-in-chief Katharine Pong managing editor Moira Lavelle creative director Chelsea Newman news Nina Hofkosh-Hulbert Claire Selvin opinion Ben Kesslen Jamie Moore

November 23, 2015 Tufts Observer, since 1895

Volume CXXVXVI, Issue 5 Tufts’ Student Magazine

TABLE OF CONTENTS

arts & culture Xander Landen Carly Olson campus Gabby Bonfiglio Julia Doyle tech & innovation Dana Guth Tess Ross-Callahan poetry & prose Aishvarya Arora photography director Alison Graham photography editor Menglan Chen art director Eva Strauss assistant art director Rachel Cunningham

FEATURE The True Cost of Off-Campus Housing by Katie Saviano

NEWS The Cost of Care by Misha Linnehan

lead artists Tess Dennison Nina Hofkosh-Hulbert

ARTS & CULTURE Leap Before You Look

lead copy editor Liza Leonard

by Emily Lin

copy editors Will Hodge Emily Ng Maya Pace Emma Pinsky Lauren Samuel

OPINION Let’s Get to the Point by Julia Malleck

publicity director Yumi Casagrande publicity assistants Ashley Miller Kyle Scott KAITLYN JOHNSON

POETRY The Garden by Julia Doyle

web editors Lily Hartzell Greta Jochem

NEWS Framing Our Focus

by Liam Knox

NINA HOFKOSH-HULBERT

Contributors

ARTS & CULTURE Minding the Gap

Oğul Girgin, Adriana GuardansGodo, Kaitlyn Johnson, Sarah Kotis, Emily Lin, Jake Rochford

by Jordan Abosch

PHOTO INSET The Last Day

design team Zoe Baghdoyan Alexandra Benjamin Lynette Bian Chase Conley Franny Kamio Kayden Mimmack Astrid Weng Conrad Young

by Kaitlyn Johnson

Theme

POETRY The GI Bill and Me by Merissa Jaye

DANNY GARFIELD EMILY LIN

CAMPUS Silenced by Anonymity by Rowan Rice

POLICE BLOTTER TESS DENNISON

OPINION Remotely Present by Liza Leonard

by Moira Lavelle

For every story that is told, opinion that is expressed, and issue that is considered, there are those that are not. In this issue, we think about gaps created by lacking media coverage, neglectful policy decisions, changes in technology, and sometimes ourselves.

The Tufts Observer has been Tufts’ student publication of record since 1895. Our dedication to in-depth reporting, journalistic innovation, and honest dialogue has remained intact for over a century. Today, we offer insightful news analysis, cogent and diverse opinion pieces, creative writing, and lively reviews of current arts, entertainment, and culture. Through poignant writing and artistic elegance, we aim to entertain, inform, and above all challenge the Tufts community to effect positive change.

@tuftsobserver

www.tuftsobserver.org COVER BY CHELSEA NEWMAN

FEATURE

fter sophomore year, many Tufts students look forward to living off campus. Because housing on campus is only required and guaranteed for students’ first two years, off-campus housing is both a necessity and a significant part of Tufts culture. Between the current junior and senior classes, only 700 students live on campus. This means that the majority must navigate the housing market in Medford and Somerville. Off-campus housing is alluring because it has the potential to become a personal, intimate space for living and socializing. However, this opportunity is not equally available to everyone. As affordable housing becomes increasingly scarce in Medford and Somerville, students with fewer financial resources must navigate higher rent with limited campus resources to help them. The process of finding a house starts early, is hectic, and results in compromise. As students increasingly sign leases in midSeptember and early October, the pressure to commit to a house early can make students feel like they should take whatever housing they can get, even if it means compromising on how much they’re willing to spend. The tighter the time constraints, the harder it is to make an informed decision. Abdisalan Mohamed, a junior, commented, “My group and I are willing to go a little more expensive to get off campus… It’s worth it for me because the house can become a lot more personal than a dorm, I have more control over the furniture, the spaces can be much larger, and I want to get more experience dealing with housing for the future.” However, not every Tufts student can compromise on more expensive housing. And what happens when settling for expensive housing becomes the rule and no longer the exception? For Tufts students, increasing housing prices mean that finding off-campus housing that is consistent with, or cheaper than, the price of on-campus housing is becoming more difficult. Prices are rising each year, although it is difficult to track statistics on rent prices for Tufts students. Census data is only collected from permanent residents and most college students report that they are living permanently with their parents. Nevertheless, it cannot be contested that rent is rising. 2

Tufts Observer

November 23, 2015

FEATURE

“I have the lowest rent of anyone I know at $600 a month,” one senior stated. “Everyone else is at least $50 above that, and the landlord has said he plans on increasing the pricing next year.” A quick search on Zillow, a housing website, found rents in Somerville and Medford trending upwards of $925/month. Somerville and Medford have recently been enforcing housing ordinances that limit how many non-related individuals can live together in one house—no more than three in Medford, and four in Somerville. If households are found in violation of this ordinance, residents can be evicted. With this crackdown, affordability has become even more elusive, as rent gets divided among fewer people, making it even more difficult to find an apartment for a reasonable cost. At the beginning of this year, all Tufts students were forced to include a “local address” on their SIS accounts, and these addresses were then compiled into a directory and sent to the local governments of Medford and Somerville to ensure that students were in line with housing ordinances. This has sparked fears among students that though they signed the lease with the landlord knowing they are above the

limit, they will be found in violation of the ordinances and then evicted, leaving them without housing. Another obstacle to finding housing is how difficult it is for students to navigate transactions with landlords

When students pay inflated rents in neighborhoods that are not their own they become complicit in gentrification. during the housing search. Often landlords will advertise a lower price, but tell prospective renters a much higher cost in person. One landlord contacted by the Tufts Observer for this article declined to comment on the subject, saying they felt that “Tufts University has its fingers in the housing process and are scared that what they say will be used

against [them.]” While the landlord did not specify what Tufts could use against them, this quote reflects concern about Tufts’ heavy influence in off-campus real estate. This in turn can contribute to tenuous relationships between landlords and student renters. All this particularly affects lower-income students and students on financial aid. On-campus housing at Tufts for the 2015-2016 academic year costs $13,094. This hefty sum is divided into housing and a premium meal plan. If students receive room and board as part of their financial aid, they receive the same amount of money towards their off-campus housing. However, this amount of money is tied to the cost of tuition. Although tuition increases 3 to 5 percent every year and financial aid accounts for the increase, it does not explicitly address rising rent prices. Tufts Office of Financial Aid divides this sum by nine, for the nine months of an academic year, which translates into $1,450/month for rent, utilities and food. However, a lease is rarely nine months, which means that students must find a way to cover housing costs for three additional months. Divided 12 ways, the total monthly allotment of $1,091 for rent, utili-

THE TRUE COST OF OFF-CAMPUS HOUSING By Katie Saviano

November 23, 2015

Tufts Observer

FEATURE

The complexity and inherent inequality of housing can be characterized by Tufts’ lack of purposeful strategizing to make the offcampus housing experience more affordable and accessible to students. ties, and food, is hardly affordable in Medford and Somerville. This tight budget often requires students to earn money on the side in order to make ends meet. An anonymous Tufts student said, “This past summer I sublet an off-campus house usually occupied by Tufts students and had to work two jobs so that I could make rent payments. To overlook these realities is a blatant disregard of students’ needs and the true meaning of student affordability. Furthermore, many students hope to live off campus to reduce their living costs and live affordably, not simply maintain the high cost of life at Tufts. The Office of Residential Life at Tufts touts extensive resources for students looking to move off-campus, but these resources are largely outdated. The Director of the Office of Residential Life, Yolanda King, said to the Tufts Observer, “We currently provide information and post apartment listings on our website for students to utilize when conducting their housing search off campus. We also participated in the Off-Campus Housing info session that the Sophomore Class Council hosted. Finally, we had an Off-Campus Housing Fair in collaboration with Community Relations Office during Parents Weekend.” However, a quick search of the apartment listing found that the list was infrequently updated and many of the listings were far from Tufts, overpriced, and had leases too long or too short for an undergraduate student’s academic schedule. It becomes increasingly difficult to navigate life at Tufts when one has to accommodate complicating factors such as a commute. 4

Tufts Observer

November 23, 2015

Another student anonymously commented, “The housing workshop was not too helpful to be honest. None of the [panelists] seemed to alleviate any of the ‘myths’ surrounded by housing or relieve any stress. They basically perpetuated the myth that everyone signs in October and that no good housing will be found past the end of October. Though they verbally said “there’s housing to be found after October,” no one on the panel signed after October.” Furthermore, the panel was held in late October, which meant that it was useless to the majority of students, who had already signed in the beginning of the month. When the Tufts Observer interviewed Amy Piantedosi, Associate Director of the Office of Financial Aid, she said that she has told students going into housing groups that they can try to negotiate a lower cost of living with their housemates and landlord by, for example, “choosing a smaller room” and “offering to shovel the sidewalk in the wintertime” in order to pay less in rent (respectively). This suggestion puts the burden on lower-income students to compensate for factors outside of their control, and furthermore has negative implications for their emotional and mental health. Tufts students are fulltime students, and this request ignores the fact that many students are already working multiple jobs and cannot simply take on additional work in order to afford housing. Additionally, even if these negotiation strategies were employed, they would only decrease rent by a few hundred dollars per year at most.

It is this lack of support from the administration that pushes students who would prefer to live off campus into oncampus dorms. Another anonymous student who is currently an Residential Assistant (RA) commented, “I would say that a lot of motivation in becoming an RA stems from people not being able to find or not wanting to deal with finding off-campus housing. It definitely is a main drive for people to take a job they might not necessarily want to take. It’s challenging finding off-campus housing, and being an RA for a year alleviates that.” Howver, students on financial aid may need off-campus housing even more. A different student commented, “I’m poor and trans, and so finding affordable off-campus housing is vital for me. Tufts shuts down its dorms during the winter and essentially evicts its residents for about a month, which leaves those of us living on campus with very few options if we don’t want to be homeless. For me, as a trans student, this means returning home to an emotionally distressful and borderline unwelcome environment. Offcampus housing is vital for me to avoid these periods of eviction so that I don’t have to return home, both during the holidays and during the summer, but rent prices make it hard to afford.” Rachel Powers, the Housing Development Specialist with the City of Medford, agreed, saying, “Housing for students near Tufts is not affordable.” But the extreme costs of housing in the Medford and Somerville area do not just affect Tufts students. They are indicative of a larger trend. Powers continued, “[Housing in Medford] is not affordable for anyone.” The greater

FEATURE

Boston metropolitan area is experiencing a housing crisis, and there is an insufficient supply of housing, particularly rental housing. A national trend of migration back to urban areas, coupled with a growing population, has accentuated already limited housing supply. Powers further explained that that the greater Boston area, an “opportunity rich environment,” was fairly lucky in recovering from the recession. This attracted millennials and kept the job market flowing, further contributing to an increase in population. The Metropolitan Area Planning Council, which covers the greater Boston area, forecasts that there would need to be 400,000 additional housing units in the region by 2040 to cover changing trends. However, this is highly unlikely, and Powers predicts that housing prices will only get worse in the coming years, particularly if the Green Line does come to Medford. When analyzing the negative impacts of rising rents in Medford and Somerville on Tufts students, it is also

important to consider the gentrifying effects of students in these neighborhoods. As Tufts students rarely rent for more than two years, they are viewed by landlords as a population that can be overcharged. When students pay inflated rents in neighborhoods that are not their own they become complicit in gentrification. Furthermore, when they accept higher rents and the debt that comes with exaggerated costs, they become future victims in a cycle of displacement. The complexity and inherent inequality of housing can be characterized by Tufts’ lack of purposeful strategizing to make the off-campus housing experience more affordable and accessible to students. This negligence of lower income students will only continue if incoming class size grows as it has in recent years, making it more difficult for upperclassmen to live on campus. As one of the largest employers in Somerville, second in size to only the City of Somerville, Tufts’ economic prowess is enormous. As Tufts expands

and students continue to move off campus, it is Tufts’ responsibility to combat the gentrifying and invasive effects of this growth and work in collaboration with the surrounding communities, for the benefit of both students and permanent residents. The city of Medford is currently looking into partnerships with public, non-profit and for-profit developers in order to negotiate affordable units. In addition, Medford is attempting to develop inclusionary zoning, which would make affordable housing a policy, rather than a continued negotiation. Tufts must be held accountable for collaborating with the surrounding communities and supporting affordable housing policy changes. It must take concrete steps towards additional on-campus housing options, while also being conscious of the impacts of its expansion. But most importantly, Tufts must not only enact structural long-term changes but also develop compassionate practices to assist lower-income students in navigating the difficulties of off-campus housing.

November 23, 2015

Tufts Observer

NEWS

THE COST OF CARE

Our National Medicaid Gap

By Misha Linnehan

hen President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law in 2010, it was presented as a foolproof means to ensure that all Americans, regardless of age, wealth, health, or location, could afford health insurance. While its most famous provision mandated that all citizens obtain insurance, it also contained clauses creating extensive government infrastructure that made securing that insurance considerably easier. Government-run exchanges, subsidies for families with incomes up to 400 percent of the federal poverty line, and penalties for corporations employing more than 50 people who did not offer insurance were all provisions of the law designed specifically to make it easier to acquire health insurance. But there was one more provision that was key to easy access to healthcare 6

Tufts Observer

November 23, 2015

nationwide: the expansion of the Medicaid program, a government-run healthcare program for low-income individuals. Originally, a person’s eligibility for Medicaid was determined by state rules, which differed across the country. Some states had upper limits as low as 18 percent of the federal poverty line. With the passing of the ACA, that upper limit was to be cemented nationally at 133 percent of the poverty line, and was projected to cover an additional 17 million people. In order to pay for this expanded coverage, the law promised full federal funding of the program for the first three years and 90 percent of the financing on a permanent basis after that. Essentially, the federal government would be forcing states to widely expand their Medicaid coverage, but would be funding a vast majority of the expansion.

But since Medicaid is a state-administered program, the law could only pressure states—not force them—to expand their coverage. It did this by threatening to cut existing Medicaid funding for noncompliance. This was murky legal territory. In the case of National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, the Supreme Court ruled that such pressure was “too coercive” toward states. This decision gave each state the choice to expand Medicaid, with full federal support, or not. After it came down, 26 states decided not to expand their coverage. In states where expansion did not occur, a large group of low-income people was stranded without affordable health insurance. Since the law had been written with national expansion of Medicaid taken for granted, there were no subsidies available to anyone under 100 percent of ART BY SARAH KOTIS

NEWS

the poverty line. This created what is called the “Medicaid gap.” In many states where Medicaid was not expanded, many people were left with little or no support in buying health insurance—essentially forgotten by their state governments. One of these states was Maine. Under the charge of conservative Governor Paul LePage, the state refused additional federal funding and maintained its current standards for Medicaid eligibility. The Governor argued that federal funding was unreliable and could dissipate at any moment, leaving Mainers to foot the bill for a program he didn’t find necessary. The governor’s actions have had serious consequences for residents of his state. In comments to the Tufts Observer, State Representative Ryan Fecteau, a Democrat and outspoken supporter of Medicaid expansion, cited several examples of constituents who have been devastated by the policy. He remembered a local business owner who was in the gap, required regular medical attention for both herself and other members of her family, and was now forced to pay out of pocket—an expensive undertaking. “Her plea hit me once in the gut and once in the heart,” Fecteau said. He also mentioned a college student who described her new choice as “between her health and her textbooks.” Fecteau said that in the legislature, support for Medicaid expansion is divided pretty evenly by party lines, with Democrats calling for it and Republicans casting doubt. Conservative disapproval became particularly strong after the 2014 election, when LePage was reelected to the governorship with nearly half of the vote, giving conservative principles the appearance of popularity in the state. Maine’s struggle is a microcosm of a national problem—conservative politicians voicing fear about the federal government’s ability to fund Medicaid in the long term, and people losing possible coverage as a result. Distressingly, the states where expansion has been rejected are those where it is needed more. While the 26 states that have rejected the policy are home to about half of the US population, they hold 60 percent of the nation’s uninsured poor.

In correspondence with the Observer, Amy Lischko, Professor of Public Health at Tufts Medical School, explained this situation. “It is largely the poorer states that have not expanded—even 10 percent could add up to a significant price-tag in some states,” she said. In Mississippi, one of the least prosperous states in the country and a rejecter of Medicaid expansion, the bill would come out to $649 million per year—a price of several hundred dollars per recipient every year. In a state strapped for cash and loath to raise taxes, that price could be unsustainable. Still, Lischko describes expansion as a good deal for most states. A study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that “expansion does not impose

of office. In Maine, Fecteau’s wish is to get a supermajority of Democrats in the state legislature to override LePage’s vetoes of expansion bills. However, this is rather unlikely, and leftward movement in other state houses and governor’s mansions across the nation seems equally improbable. A recent piece by Vox’s Matthew Yglesias investigates nationwide failures of the Democratic Party in local organizing, leaving most state legislatures, governorships, and even Congressional seats firmly in Republican hands. “The Democratic Party is in much greater peril than its leaders or supporters recognize, and it has no plan to save itself,” he wrote. In lieu of political action, Lischko thinks that the only way to ensure uniform

Politics and funding aside, it is important to remember the core of this issue: millions of people are being essentially disregarded. substantial financial burdens on states,” and that it will “significantly reduce state costs for uncompensated care and related programs and offset some or potentially all of the increase in state Medicaid costs.” Yet conservative lawmakers continue their rampage against expansion. In Kentucky—one of the first states to expand Medicaid—the newly elected governor, Republican Matt Bevin, ran his campaign on a pledge to reverse expansion. This is particularly troubling because Kentucky was one of the states where expansion had the greatest effect—after implementation of the plan, the uninsured rate dropped from 13.3 percent to just over 6 percent. Now, people like Gary Ryan, a Kentucky patient with Hepatitis C, worry that Governor-Elect Bevin’s tenure could be “a lifethreatening thing,” since he would be in the Medicaid gap without the currently enacted expansion. Due to Republican intransigence on this issue, most proponents of the law think the only solution is to run them out

Medicaid expansion across the country is for the federal government to fund it entirely. But she also believes there is reason to hope many states will change their minds and expand in the coming years. “Part of the ACA assumes that more people will have insurance coverage because of Medicaid expansion and tax credits for insurance. Because of this, the federal government [will] begin decreasing payments that go to hospitals that care for the uninsured. As hospitals will lose a lot of funding, there will be pressure on states to expand.” Politics and funding aside, it is important to remember the core of this issue: millions of people are being essentially disregarded by their government, for no reason other than their income and their state of residence. The inability of government to act on this issue and help out many of its most vulnerable constituents is just another reminder that in the 21st century, equality under the law is still outside of our grasp. O November 23, 2015

Tufts Observer

ARTS & CULTURE

LEAP BEFORE YOU LOOK

Black Mountain College’s Experimental Education By Emily Lin

Tufts Observer

November 23, 2015

PHOTO OF GEODESIC DOME BY EMILY LIN

ARTS & CULTURE

n 1933, students at Black Mountain College did not have to pay a single dollar of tuition. Class sizes were small, there were only two required courses in the curriculum, and faculty included Bauhaus founder, Walter Gropius and National Medal of Arts winning composer, Merce Cunningham. At one point, Albert Einstein was a guest lecturer. There was no application to get in, and students could come and go as they pleased. The only catch? Sometimes they had to take out the trash. Originally a small liberal arts school tucked away in the rolling hills of the North Carolina’s Blue Ridge mountain range, Black Mountain College evolved during its 24-year tenure into what is now widely known as a legendary wellspring of the American avant-garde movement. Experimental, progressive, and often on the verge of bankruptcy, Black Mountain College embraced an arts-centric curriculum based on founder John Rice’s belief in the centrality of the artistic experience for inspiring students’ participation in a democratic society. In line with these values, students at Black Mountain College played active roles in their own education, building their own classrooms, and growing their own food. Last month, the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Boston debuted Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 19331957, a comprehensive look at the college’s legacy as a touchstone for modern art and its role in setting a precedent for progressive education rooted in interdisciplinary collaboration. The exhibition, which took four years to organize, is the ICA’s biggest curatorial undertaking to date, featuring over 200 works by nearly 100 artists and an extensive performing arts program. The ICA’s location in Boston makes it an especially fitting place for the first comprehensive exhibit on Black Mountain College. “It attracts many people of a student mindset, whether it’s actual students enrolled in universities but also people who simply consider themselves to be seeking knowledge in an academically rich environment,” said Tufts professor Eric Rosenberg, who specializes in American contemporary art. Founded during the darkest depths of the Great Depression, Black Mountain College taught its students how to cope with challenging circumstances during a particularly cash-strapped period of American history. Leap Before You Look captures the

creative ways in which students and teachers responded to scarcity converting this feeling into an ethos of determination and drive. The exhibit includes work by textile instructor Anni Albers, who created necklaces made of paper clips and bobby pins. It also displays a series of photographs of students and teachers working together to dig ditches and construct pylons for the foundations of what would become their classrooms. At Black Mountain College, students quite literally became the foundations of their own education, erecting buildings into the ground that they inhabited, and sowing the seeds of the plants that they consumed. One of the most famous pieces to come out of Black Mountain College was Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome, an architectural structure constructed from an open framework of overlapping circles. It offered a cost-effective means of providing shelter because it enclosed the larg-

At Black Mountain College, students quite literally became the foundations of their own education est volume of interior space with the least amount of surface area, without the need for internal braces. As an educational institution, Black Mountain College set a precedent by treating its classes as experimental laboratories, where the materialization of failure was embraced and encouraged. Fuller experimented with many different designs for his geodesic dome before he managed to erect it successfully. Even though his dome collapsed many times before standing on its own, he viewed these failures as useful for his students to learn about process, materials, and collaboration. “People felt an extraordinary degree of permission to experiment. Some of the experiments resulted in failures, but some of them resulted in really interesting ways of expanding our idea of the category of art,” said Helen Molesworth, curator of Leap Before You Look, in a press release.

Chantal Zakari, a professor at the School of Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) in Boston, teaches her students about Black Mountain College in her classes. Zakari sees the school as a model for how art should be taught today. “They really believed in hands on education, which is also how we understand contemporary art. The way to get to the objective is more important sometimes than the object that gets created. This emphasis on the process…comes from Black Mountain College,” said Zakari. By allowing students to share communal living quarters with the faculty and operate free from any form of administration, Black Mountain College fostered an atmosphere of interdisciplinary collaboration between the students and the teachers, who were largely seen as equals. “It wouldn’t be unusual for a dance [teacher] like Merce Cunningham to ask [student] Rauschenberg to paint the background set for his performance. They had a lot of respect for each other’s disciplines and were seeing everything as a collaborative effort,” Zakari said. Students at the college were even encouraged to apply concepts from their liberal arts classes to the works that they created in their fine arts classes—one painting in the exhibit shows a student’s abstract visual representation of a biological process that he had learned in a science class. This summer and fall, Professor Zakari has been serving on a faculty advising committee that is exploring how the SMFA and Tufts can expand their partnership, and sees Black Mountain College as an inspirational model for the interdisciplinary learning that she hopes to foster. While the committee is still in its preliminary stages, Zakari is still “personally very excited about the truly interdisciplinary connections that art students at the Museum School and Tufts liberal arts students can do with fine arts.” Currently, Tufts students, with the exception of dual-degree majors, are limited to taking night and weekend art classes at the SMFA—only art students through the museum school are allowed to take classes at the SMFA during the day. In the future, Zakari hopes to incorporate liberal arts students’ knowledge, in everything from engineering to poetry, into the study of fine arts. “For me, Black Mountain College is a very inspiring model, even though it cannot fully be recreated today.” November 23, 2015

Tufts Observer

OPINION

By Julia Malleck

LET’S GET TO THE POIN

he Women’s Varsity Fencing Team at Tufts has a somewhat facetious motto: “If we can’t beat them on the piste, we’ll beat them in the parking lot.” One morning in October, this motto became partly true. We were forced out of our practice space in Jackson Gym to make space for a men’s varsity team. So we moved to the parking lot to continue our practice. This was not the first time in the history of the team, nor even the first time this year, that we were kicked out of our practice space. There are two things, two bare minimum requirements, that I think a university should provide for a varsity team. They are: 1. Access to a physical space to exist and practice as a team. 2. Ability to compete with other teams. This year, Tufts has failed on both counts. First, we were kicked out of our 10

Tufts Observer

November 23, 2015

practice space on multiple occasions to make space for a men’s varsity team—not for them to practice or compete, but to prepare and pump-up for home games. Second, the Tufts administration failed to sign us up for half of our competitions this year. We only have four meets in our schedule. This will likely hurt our chances to qualify as many members of our team as possible for Regional Championships, a major and recurring seasonal goal. This year, we have not been given consistent space to exist as a group, and we are unable to consistently compete as a team. Many people are surprised to hear that Tufts has a varsity fencing team for women, but not for men (which speaks to the norms we have regarding women’s opportunities in sports). Our team exists because of a piece of federal civil rights law called Title IX. Title IX is a section of the Education Amendments of 1972 that prohibits exclusion or discrimination from educational programs or activities on the basis of sex. At Tufts,

we are most familiar with the school’s violation of Title IX with regards to sexual assault. But the law encompasses more than issues of sexual assault and harassment. It also enforces policies of nondiscrimination in everything from financial aid, to admissions, to athletics. Educational institutions that comply with Title IX, including Tufts, are able to receive federal funding. If found to be in violation of Title IX, an educational institution can potentially lose financial assistance. Tufts is required by Title IX to have equal opportunity for participation in athletics. That is why our varsity fencing team exists. Tufts created an equal number of men’s varsity and women’s varsity teams to satisfy the “equal opportunity” criterion. If Tufts did not provide equal opportunities, it would lose the funding it receives from the federal government. In the past, Tufts has been found to be in violation of Title IX with regards to ART BY TESS DENNISON

OPINION

sexual assault. I believe Tufts has been, and is currently, violating Title IX with regards to athletics. According to section 106.41 of Title IX, an educational institution must provide its men and women athletes with equal access to “equipment and supplies,” “scheduling of games and practices,” “provision of locker rooms, practice and competitive facilities,” and “publicity,” among other things. In my four years at this university, all four of these equal access requirements have been violated once, if not multiple times. This is an important issue, even if you couldn’t care less about sports, even if you’re not an athlete. It is important because college sports and athletics are one of the last remaining areas where it is acceptable to divide people according to sex and where the concept of sex is muddled with gender. Tufts may have introduced some gender-neutral bathrooms, but when it comes to athletics, female equals woman, male equals man, and the two groups are divided accordingly. It is also the one activity, in my four years at Tufts, where I have acutely felt discrimination and inequality because of my perceived and prescribed sex and gender. Let me also say that I don’t think Title IX is a perfect piece of legislation. Only in the past couple years has the law included nondiscrimination clauses for transgender and non-binary identities. The law as it pertains to athletics has not yet been changed to account for other identities. Since the athletics part of the law is written in a sex and (cis)gender binary, it reinforces certain social norms. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is just beginning to create policies regarding trans student athletes in the last year. Nonetheless, I am thankful that the legislation exists because it is one step in the right direction—it is the reason that my teammates and I can participate in college sports at the varsity level, even nominally. Despite Title IX’s requirements, Tufts has consistently violated our rights to equal opportunity and access in athletics over the past four years. To quote one of my teammates, “It feels like the administration doesn’t value us or respect us the same as other varsity teams.”

When I joined the team my freshman year, I had no idea that I would have to take on more than just the role of athlete. My teammates and I have become administrators, accountants, coaches, bureaucrats, event staff, and drivers. We’ve attended meets without any coaches present. Our vans have been pulled over by the police after meets because our student drivers were so exhausted (after waking up at 5 a.m. to drive, competing for eight hours, and driving back at around 10 p.m.) that they would swerve out of their lanes or miss stop signs. It is my understanding that varsity warm-up uniforms are replaced every four years. Our team has not had its uniform replaced in six, if not seven, years. We have no cohesive uniform to wear to meets because most of the jackets and pants are broken, torn, or missing.

I believe Tufts has been, and is currently, violating Title IX with regards to athletics. Let me go back to an anecdote from freshman year. This was the only year we were able to organize a meet at Tufts, against NYU. No one set up the space for our competition. When I arrived to compete in Jackson Gym, no Tufts administrator was present. There were no tables or chairs. No water was provided for athletes. No pistes were set up. We had only the waxed, wooden floor of the gym. Fencing is not supposed to take place on wood—it’s equivalent to playing football on concrete, or basketball on a turf field. In the end, my teammates and I had to run the entire meet ourselves. It was just us, a bunch of college kids, scrambling around to set up tables, directing the NYU athletes to a location five minutes away to get water from a Theater Department fountain. A Tufts

administrator showed up about halfway through the meet, stayed for fifteen minutes, and spoke to no one before disappearing again. Only a handful of Tufts students showed up to watch—the event was barely advertised. It is easy to dismiss these complaints: I’m just a whiny, privileged student at an elite university involved in a niche sport; a high-maintenance girl grumbling about how our vans aren’t roomy enough, and our practice space isn’t nice enough, and our uniforms aren’t stylish enough. But that is how women are reduced and shut up. That is how this team has stayed silent in the past; it is why I remained silent in the past. We’re taught as women to concede space: When the athletics department took our space to give to men, we didn’t say anything—it’s okay, they apologized. Athletics didn’t sign us up for meets—it’s okay, we changed coaches this year, and it must have been a difficult transition for them. But let me ask you this, Tufts: is there any other varsity team this year that is missing half of their games in their schedule? Would our fencing team ever kick out this particular men’s varsity team from their practice space? You can trivialize these complaints as much as you would like. You can say it isn’t as important as other issues of inequality on this campus. But the fact remains that Tufts has been violating federal civil rights law—again. It is my right to have equal opportunity at this university as an athlete. Just because we are a women’s team playing an obscure sport, and a Title IX team, does not mean you can ignore us. My teammates and I wake up at 6:30 a.m. four days a week to practice. We fence for two hours on Fridays. We work hard. We commit our time to the sport. We are proud to represent this school. I’m not asking for more funding. I’m not asking for more space. I’m asking that you give us space to exist. I am asking that you do not prioritize a men’s team’s needs over those of a women’s team’s. I am asking that you give us the chance to compete. I’m asking for respect—for our team, for our sport, and for us as athletes. It’s time for Tufts to make a commitment to us. November 23, 2015

Tufts Observer

POETRY

By Julia Doyle At the front of the room a man, slaughters a pig with his tongue. He slices O’s and N’s, moaning they crumple at the tip of his pointed black shoes. I want to tell him that there are no words left to take, there are no man words. I He’s so scared, she whispers in my ear while he reads I can only hear myself choking on his prose; it wrestles with my tongue and I keep my mouth closed to tease it apart when I’m sitting alone because I want to own something, but there are already a lot of things I get to hold. They’re stuck under my nails so I pick at the soft underbelly of my fingertips And think about how we would sit in the morning. I would crack your shell, floating in a bowl of chewed up cuticles and Fruit Loops and skim milk, while your fingers bleed into the breakfast, The bowl is bloody. I think it’s blooming. II It’s Wednesday and we’re in folding chairs looking your words are looking at me with eyes, cavernous bowls

Tufts Observer

November 23, 2015

overflowing, drool dripping down the edges of the half-filled room. Your voice clutches a monotone, I imagine it’s crafted after years of watching trains and metronomes and silent movies; I bite the inside of my cheek and an apricot swells in my knees, pressed against the afternoon’s smudged sliding glass doors behind you— I try to think about us, unraveling, two brown buttons undone, two brown eyes unbuttoned, shaky hands shearing fingernails, they litter the bathroom floor I think I would cry hyssop afterwards, after you’ve lifted my chin, and skinned me, after you’ve opened my jaw, and found the core, “oh” the scales shift, your bare feet no pointed black shoes, they dangle off my lips— III It’s noon, you’re hungry, rummaging in the garden or maybe I am—we could all fall now—hearing the clench of my stomach rumbling, cycling

ART BY NINA HOFKOSH-HULBERT

The L ast D ay

by Kaitlyn Johnson

Artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Statement The Last Day was shot in the summer of 2013. It features my mother and my paternal grandmother on the final day that I spent with her in which I felt she was fully present. She knew she was dying, so she was searching through her belongings trying to find important documents that we would need after she died. This series is a personal commemoration of her life, in all of its complexities.

POETRY

THE GI BILL AND ME By Merissa Jaye

it’s winter break and I spend evenings in my childhood bedroom listening to my dad’s Miles Davis albums and I visit the Fogg Museum with my mother, peer through tall glass in cool white rooms at diligently preserved vases and cracked oil paints and my mom asks why I don’t go pray anymore and I am shifting my feet and I am counting the words thick on my tongue like occupation, like violence, like blood, (see textbooks for intro to Peace and Justice Studies, see google, see bombs, see bodies, the cement walls, the ghosts of missing towns, see me at age 7 small and chubby holding blue crayons learning there was nothing and then there was Herzel and then then the desert bloomed) and I imagine my words refracting though my mother, my grandmother and stories recounting hiding the matzah and the plane ride and grandmothers of grandmothers who wrote letters about sitting in the belly of a boat and uncertainty and Jaye used to be Jerksky, and I hear something about how my grandpa got made fun of and no one would hire him and my dad tells me these stories like golf course, like kike, like embarrassed to look up, but the thing is my grandparents returned from war and got houses in the suburbs with bright blue swimming pools and my mom went to Yale and my Dad commuted to work in a shining volvo and wrote checks to the state of Israel and I just see the glare of these pools and sharp edges of well-trimmed suburban trees and I keep counting poison and the curses here, keep looking at the fences and what gets kept out and I know my mom is thinking about what gets kept out so don’t say anything and I just keep staring at the my mom though the warp in the glass and at the fractures in the vases and listening to the skips in the albums, and watch time swallow language whole

ART BY EVA STRAUSS

November 23, 2015

Tufts Observer

OPINION

REMOTELY M

y parents love to talk about the “good old days.” Whenever they recount their glorious college experiences, I think about how the way they interacted with the world around them differs from how I do now; though their stories may be altered from overuse or selective memory, they are useful as a point of comparison. A main difference between our experiences is my access to technology that allows me to be particularly tuned in to connections both here at school and elsewhere, but that doesn’t allow me to fully be away—our online sharing keeps us close and informed. My parents’ generation grew up without smartphones and laptops, and those who went to college did not have an extensive electronic connection to the rest of the world. Instead of toiling through a dramatic search process, my dad said that he never visited or even really researched his college before at-

“ 18

tending. It seems as though he just slipped away from home and into the unknown. In college, my parents called home on payphones in the lobbies of their dorms and would often go weeks without checking in with their families. They talk about making plans to meet someone in the dining hall and then actually meeting them there at the appointed time. Even more astonishing, they have regaled me with legends of arriving at the dining hall alone for dinner and then finding people to sit with. I get the impression from my parents that college was a rich landscape full of students looking up and seeing who was around and what was going on without phones to connect them elsewhere. When my parents left home for school, it was more of a total departure from their old lives. It was their time to move away to foster new relationships and interests separate from the life they left behind. This conjures up a romantic

idea of going away to find oneself, on one’s own without constant influences from back home or anywhere else. Conversely, I am never truly disconnected. Yes, there is physical separation from my hometown and family members, but I know that there are open avenues of communication through which photos and life updates flow constantly. The way I share my life allows me to be loosely connected to a number of people through social media, but it makes me disconnected from the opportunity to be fully away. Social media has infiltrated relationship dynamics in both college and non-college settings. Conversations at social events become recaps of information that has already been shared remotely through social media platforms. We facilitate connections, but in a less spontaneous way than meeting people in the “good old days” that I have heard so much about—days when dinner

I am thankful for access to technology that allows me to be in constant contact with people that I care about, but often these avenues of communication are over-saturated.”

Tufts Observer

November 23, 2015

OPINION

Y PRESENT By Liza Leonard

plans didn’t have to be premeditated and personal accomplishments were not touted on Facebook. I know that my family members keep up with me on social media, and I am glad that they do so that they can get a glimpse into my life and I into theirs. There is a feeling of community from afar because I know that my parents and aunts and uncles and cousins are interested in my life and I can be interested in theirs too without hours of phone calls and writing letters. Our ability to maintain these familial connections even after we leave home seems to be normal, and often expected. Even though my family is not especially tech-savvy, we have managed to maintain a group text thread, and even a larger Facebook chat—including second cousins—that gets sporadic use throughout the year. What connections and experiences have we missed because of our power to access the world and what have we gained? I know that my web of family and friends and acquaintances is ever-present through their online postings, which are sometimes more than I can handle. As I scroll through photos of people who seem to be some brand of Internet celebrity or cynical

comedian, I am pulled away from my own life at school, from studies, and from relationships with friends and professors. It is easy to be scattered, spreading my attention between immediate sights and textures and the possibility of the entire world in my hands for the looking. I believe that the experiences that I have missed out on have been those of “getting lost.” I am thankful for access to technology that allows me to be in constant contact with people that I care about, but often these avenues of communication are over-saturated. There is a sense of watchfulness among peers and family that is fun and helpful to a certain extent, but also stifling. The constant updates on what other people are doing that social media provides leaves less space for exploration and mistakes while away at college. A lot has changed since my parents attended college, but perhaps the need of college students to be fully away from home has not. I find myself away from home, wading through swaths of information about people on campus, loved ones elsewhere, and news from every continent, but never fully here either. Many people talk of the “Tufts Bubble,” but I feel as though my Tufts bubble has been

punctured by ever-flowing streams of information to the outside world. While I will not resist technology that helps me connect, I believe it is important to realize when our use of social media pulls us away from an experience or a place. I don’t want to be so distracted by virtual sharing that I am neither here at school nor away, but somewhere in an unfulfilling middle ground. We partake in our modern ritual of sharing and viewing information about each other because it helps us stay connected to the people we care about and to important information, and as college students this means we can be globally minded and aware without ever leaving campus. This means that our ties to others far away will be maintained at least virtually, that we can see what they are doing on their summer vacation even if we have not spoken to them on the phone in years, and that we will never have to look up in Dewick because we know exactly where our friends are sitting. This also means that we do not have the space to grow and explore without others watching our moves. Our generation is one that has access to the whole world and all of our people in it, but not one that has access to a complete departure.

November 23, 2015

Tufts Observer

NEWS

FRAMING OUR FOCUS In the age of digital metrics, readers control news coverage more than ever By Liam Knox

n 1787, Irish statesman Edmund Burke argued in front of the House of Commons that the press should be permitted to report during sessions. He argued: “there are Three Estates in Parliament;”— the clergy, the nobility, and the House of Commons—“but, in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sits a Fourth Estate far more important than them all.” Burke recognized the crucial role an independent press played in creating an informed electorate that could check the power of government and play an active role in society. With that crucial role comes a certain level of responsibility—the responsibility to determine for readers and viewers what information should be covered and to what extent. It would have been hard for Burke to predict that in just over two centuries

Tufts Observer

November 23, 2015

that responsibility would be shared by nearly every news-consuming member of the population. Today’s equivalent of Burke’s “Reporters’ Gallery” is the vast and multifaceted world of modern media—every outlet from CNN to the New York Times to online zines. While there are now more sources of information than ever, there is also a new trend in digital news that is both empowering and dangerous: mass data collection and its influence on content. Television news content has long been subject to the influence of viewer trends: The Nielsen ratings system allows network executives and stakeholders to see trends in viewer interest and make decisions for the news outlet based on that data. TV

news is therefore often less respected for its sheer journalistic integrity and viewed as “entertainment news.” However, as print news transitions to the web, it is becoming increasingly subject to the same kind of data capabilities and, therefore, the same consequences. Frank Sesno, the director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University and former Washington Bureau Chief for CNN, says the amount of information regarding reader trends available to print media corporations has increased tremendously in the digital age. “The [Washington] Post and The [New York] Times can see online how many people view a certain story, how much time they’re spending on it, what the bounce rate is … they have just as many if not more metrics as TV and networks used to have,” Sesno told the Tufts Observer. “This is…new with online news. In the days

ART BY JAKE ROCHFORD

NEWS

when newspapers were printing papers, there was no way to tell how many people were reading a story on page eight vs. page twelve. You only knew what your circulation was.” Now, print and online news outlets have the ability to know far more. News metrics detailing trends in readership and analytics on specific stories can give news organizations data on not only how many hits a story gets, but also how long the reader stays on the page. These metrics also show whether the reader clicked any embedded links to follow them through, and even what parts of the page the reader lingered on longest. There are significant consequences to this developing relationship between the digital news media and the news-consuming public, not all of them negative. For instance, such technology has led to the pseudo-democratization of the editorial process, bringing the public’s input into the decision-making processes of producers and editors, and customizing the news cycle according to what the readers want. However, John Ciampa, director of the Tufts Film and Media Studies (FMS) program, believes this is more dangerous than liberating. “To put that burden on the consumer is unreasonable,” Ciampa told the Tufts Observer. “There is some partnership between the consumers and the producers, but the onus should be on the producers to get out what’s important to the best of their ability, and not neglect that in lieu of what’s profitable or popular.” In other words, news outlets must not replace their responsibility to judge the newsworthiness of a story with the data now available, turning the news cycle into a haphazard democratic process instead of a thoughtfully assembled collection of information. “This may be a bit of an exaggeration, but you don’t go to a doctor expecting to correctly diagnose yourself. That’s the doctor’s job as a professional,” Ciampa said. “In the same way, it is incumbent on journalists as the professionals to present a broad spectrum of information.” Sesno, who still works for CNN and sometimes stands in for Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter, similarly argues that metrics can’t replace the professional judgment of editors and reporters: “There are two types of news outlets out there today:

those that follow metrics and the popularity of stories that already exist, and those that lead their audiences to stories they think are important or relevant, rather then following a trend,” he said. “Generally speaking, idea magazines like Vanity Fair or The Atlantic take their roles more seriously and do more to lead the public in terms of trying to set the agenda. Cable television follows the public. So, if a big story happens and they see big numbers on it they will ratchet up their coverage on it almost in real time.” Sesno added that papers like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal would probably be “somewhere in between.” A campaign to reform the type of metrics used in gathering news data has gained traction. The Associated Press-sponsored data collection site, metricsfornews.com, argues on its homepage that while it is crucial for data to be used in determin-

It is highly possible that readers and viewers are always one click away from being less informed—without even knowing it. ing news content, “Publishers can’t really quantify the nature of the content they produce or how the audience engages with it.” Thus they have designed a strategy for metrics called “News Analytics,” as opposed to the standard web analytics used by advertisers to target consumers online based on interest. Many strongly support the use of these metrics in determining what content to run, such as Andrea Iannuzzi—the editor of Italian newspaper l'Agenzia Giornali Locali, who, in his 2014 speech at the International Journalism Festival advocating for their wider use, compared the use of news analytics to “turning on a light.” But if the reading patterns of news consumers drive content, the public becomes responsible for the significant gaps in its own knowledge that have been cre-

ated by the omission of varying topics and stories from mainstream media. These gaps can skew a reader’s perspective on an issue or even on the state of world events. After all, if content is being driven by replicating stories that readers enjoy or value reading most, then those readers are far less likely to be exposed to stories that they may not necessarily enjoy or think about very often, such as the complex roots of poverty in America or the political corruption in Nigeria. Gaps in international coverage have widened over the past few decades. According to a 2007 report conducted by Pew Research Center and the Columbia School of Journalism, the number of news organizations with foreign bureaus has decreased by over 50 percent. “We’re a very parochial media, and there’s this assumption at the production level that Americans don’t care about these stories,” Sesno said. “The only reason civil war and conflict in Syria and Iraq is front page news unequivocally is because Americans are involved.” When news content is determined on a majority rules basis, there is also a concern about gaps in coverage for the disenfranchised. Julie Dobrow, co-director of the Tufts FMS program, has seen this problem grow in recent years. “There are large groups of people—racial, ethnic, gender, sexual orientation— who just routinely haven’t been covered by mainstream media,” Dobrow told the Observer. “So yeah, absolutely there have been huge gaps.” Recently, this gap has been evident in the American news coverage of the terrorist attacks that occurred over the past few weeks. Based on sheer exposure, it would be safe to say most, if not all, of the readers of this article know about the attacks in Paris two Fridays ago that resulted in the deaths of 129 civilians. It is far less commonly known that there were also two coinciding bombings in Beirut the day before, in which 43 people were killed and 200 were injured. This story conflicts with the straightforward “us versus them” narrative that underpins the Paris attacks, in which a Western country was targeted by foreign extremists. Furthermore, because France is a Western power, this type of violence is seen as more shocking to the Western media outlets that covered the Paris attacks than the attacks in Beirut. This raised November 23, 2015

Tufts Observer

NEWS

concern and outrage among many people who questioned the motives behind this erasure: “When my people died, they did not send the world in mourning. Their death was but an irrelevant fleck along the international news cycle, something that happens in those parts of the world,” wrote Lebanese doctor Elie Fares on his blog. This example of uneven coverage is just one of many illustrating what Ciampa believes is the “most dangerous gap” created by the influence of news analytics on content. “Is the news media reaching people who are disenfranchised or who just feel left out of the information loop? That’s a

Gaps in international coverage have widened over the past few decades. dangerous thing in a democracy,” he said. “You want news that’s relevant across all socio-economic divisions.” There are also concerns that metrics will only feed the beast of a capital-driven, profit-model news media. “Advertisers are also privy to all that information, so that in turn is going to dictate where they want to spend their money and how, which impacts the method of coverage for your given news organization,” Ciampa said. “I think there’s a cyclical thing happening where there’s a lot of influences coming back to the news room that it maybe didn’t have to deal with just a few short years ago.” This flow of capital has been known to drive news organizations to act with their bottom lines in mind rather than the needs of their audiences. When it comes to news organizations, the capitalist argument for the objective benefits of the profit model doesn’t hold up. Sheer demand for a particular type of story does not necessarily mean that news organizations should increase their supply and, in turn, decrease their output of content on less-desired stories. It was possible for news outlets to ignore this impetus when the only insight 22

Tufts Observer

November 23, 2015

into reader’s interests was overheard conversations about the day’s news, but now that readership trends can be tracked so closely, competition between publications has intensified around this definitive data. “When you have media that are not state-supported, like in this country, they have to get on the air, get on the web, get printed…there has to be some way of monetizing what they do,” Dobrow said. “I think that’s been a huge driver of what we do and don’t see.” If these unseen factors are so important in determining the content of the day’s news, then it is highly possible that readers and viewers are always one click away from being less informed without even knowing it. The metrics system is effective in gathering sincere data specifically because its participants are not aware of their roles as participants. However, according to Sesno, becoming an informed citizen isn’t a difficult task, and the responsibility shouldn’t lie solely with the journalists and news organizations themselves. News consumers should be more active in their involvement with the media. “It’s nice to point fingers at the media sometimes, but the fact of the matter is that there is virtually no member of the public today who could not be completely and pretty easily and very well informed,” Sesno said. “Because everybody who has a computer or smart phone or whatever it is has access to the Guardian, the Economist, the Times of London, The New York Times, the LA Times, Chicago Tribune… there is so much information out there that to sit back and blame the media as a member of the news-consuming public is a complete cop-out.” This surplus of information does not necessarily mean people are exposed to broader topics, however. “There’s more information, but people actually tend to read what they usually would, just in higher volumes,” Dobrow said. “If there’s more available, it doesn’t necessarily mean that people are diversifying.” Despite their difference of opinion on the effects of an expanding news world, Sesno and Dobrow do agree on the best possible solution to the problem of gaps in coverage: education.

“Media literacy could be taught in high school, and should be taught in college as well for sure, in order to expose students to and teach them about about different sources of information so they can be better-informed citizens,” Sesno said. Dobrow said that the Tufts FMS program strives to make media literacy a primary goal for all of classes under its banner, an indicator that misinformation and issue ignorance continue to be major problems for current college-age news consumers despite the increased number of news outlets. She argues this is an incredibly important skill set to have if the rapidly changing media world continues down its current path of data-driven complexity. “In about 20 years…you’ll be seeing a news landscape that probably looks quite different than what it is today,” Ciampa agreed. “I think what you’ll see is that there will be more choice than ever. A lot of it will be good, and a lot of it will be so-so, and a whole lot of it will be bad.” The responsibility lies in the hands of the news consumer to determine which is which—to recognize biases, avoid misinformation, cross check sources, and fill in the gaps. At the end of the day, this issue is about those readers. It’s about treating the news like the crucial cornerstone of democracy that it is, not as a cursory time-killer in which to engage only while in the waiting room or on the toilet. The gaps in news coverage—both in its breadth and depth—are increasingly being created by the news consuming habits of the very people who complain so frequently about them: the public. As CBS anchor Eric Sevareid said in his legendary 1977 farewell transmission, “In this time of dangerously passionate certainties…it is important to remember that ignorant and biased reporting has its counterpart in ignorant and biased reading and listening. We [reporters] do not speak into an intellectual or emotional void.” If this is still true, it’s time for journalists and news consumers alike to start acting like it.

NEWS

November 23, 2015

Tufts Observer

ARTS & CULTURE

MINDING THE GAP The Costs and Benefits of Taking Time Off After College By Jordan Abosch

Tufts Observer

November 23, 2015

ART BY ADRIANA GUARDANS-GODO

ARTS & CULTURE

ike many graduate students, Cody Valdes spends his days reading, writing, and TA-ing Tufts classes. He can be found in local cafes studying political philosophy for hours at a time and having conversations with students. But he’s different in one way: he isn’t earning a degree. After Valdes graduated Tufts in 2013, he didn’t feel ready to dive into a career path. He felt that before he could enter the workforce, he needed to solidify his worldview. So he returned to Tufts to work as a TA and independently continue his education. “It’s putting life on pause to think,” he said. “And to create the space to just dwell and write and form a character around your own beliefs.” Valdes is just one of many college graduates who has chosen to take a pause between graduation and a career in order to accomplish other objectives. While Valdes is studying philosophy, others spend time after college volunteering, traveling, or working on projects of interest. But while a post-college gap can be instrumental in aiding personal development and contributing to the world, it can come at a cost. Taking a pause can drain precious time and money, and can cause a student’s momentum after graduation to fade away. One of the most popular options for college graduates who do not dive directly into the workforce is the Peace Corps. In 2015, the Peace Corps reported they received almost 23,000 applications, which is a 32 percent increase from 2014. According to Dan Ingala, spokesperson for the Peace Corps’ Northeast office, 18 Tufts undergraduate alumni are currently serving 27-month periods around the world, and 546 Tufts alumni have served since the Peace Corps was established in 1961. Boston Peace Corps recruiter Lori Dunn volunteered with the organization for 27 months, teaching English in Azerbaijan. Dunn says that her immersion in Azerbaijan shifted her values, which in turn shifted her career choice. “What you want out of the world changes a little bit,” she said. “You might be willing to get paid a bit less for a cause that

you’re more passionate about, in a way that maybe you’re not as willing to right when you graduate college.” But there are many benefits to entering the workforce immediately after college. Before he graduated from Tufts in 2015, Vinny Amaru leveraged his previous internship at JP Morgan to secure a coveted spot as a full-time analyst. Amaru says JP Morgan recruiters look specifically for new graduates, so unless gap time is spent gaining experience at another bank, “you’re just shooting yourself in the foot.” While he sees value in exploring the world before beginning a career, Amaru enjoys learning about other cultures by studying their economies, which he does on the job. “While other people travel to experience the world, I can experience so much of the economic world at work, and that’s really cool to me.” Amaru says he has grown by “taking a step into adulthood” and starting his career. He is learning how to work long hours, navigate a large company, and take on real world responsibilities that he did not have to worry about in college. Amaru says he has developed confidence and a sense of identity through pursuing the next step in his life—plus, he enjoys financial independence. But some say that working toward a career and taking time off after school are not mutually exclusive. In Valdes’ eyes, taking the time to develop a coherent worldview is a necessary step toward a career, and teaching students has been “an enormous period of growth.” Ingala says that the Peace Corps offers hands-on experience in a wide variety of fields, including environmental development, health, technology, and agriculture. He says gaining experience in these fields can make volunteers marketable to employers and graduate programs when they return. He also notes that future employers know volunteer positions in the Peace Corps are competitive, and completion of the program speaks to employers about the volunteers’ character. “If you can manage the stress of having to put together your own teaching curriculum

in the language that you’re learning, you can handle other conventional problems,” Ingala said. In Dunn’s case, the same skills that enable her to be an effective consultant for Boston Nonprofits are the skills she learned from her experience in Azerbaijan. Regardless of its potential advantages and disadvantages, gap time is a luxury that requires a great degree of financial flexibility. Individuals who graduate college with large debts or the need to financially support others are likely to find the option unfeasible. Valdes acknowledges that the time he’s taking to study independently is a luxury, and feels lucky to have the opportunity. And despite feeling that he has grown significantly from taking extra time to examine the world around him,

“I’ve been trying to have an out-of-body experience, to look at myself and say ‘what do I stand for?’” Valdes sees downsides. “In a way,” he said, “I’ve been trying to have an out-of-body experience, to look at myself and say ‘what do I stand for?’ for two years, and the longer you do that the more your body actually becomes decrepit and ceases to be able to move.” He knows he can’t figure everything out by stopping to think—eventually he will need to learn from action. It took time, but he can now envision himself earning a master’s degree and becoming an educator. By taking a pause, Valdes is learning how to move forward. “If what I’ve done is I’ve veered off for two years into a dark forest and I’m about to come back onto the main trail, that’s okay in the big picture.”

November 23, 2015

Tufts Observer

CAMPUS

SILENCED BY ANONYMITY ice By Rowan R

oin one of Aditya Hurry’s tours of campus for prospective students and you will surely hear him characterize Tufts students as “passionate.” As a former Resident Assistant, current tour guide, and the Head of Public Relations for the Tufts Association of South Asians (TASA), Hurry says he has gleaned a wellrounded view of the Tufts student body. “If there is one common factor of every Tufts student, I’d say it’s passion—for the things they study, for the things they love, and for 26

Tufts Observer

November 23, 2015

the things their friends are passionate about,” Hurry announces on his tours. This Tufts passion means that Tufts students have opinions. Most recently, Tufts students have been interacting and communicating their opinions via anonymous social media sites like YikYak, which accumulates posts by location, and the Tufts Confessions Facebook page, started in 2013 by a previous Tufts student. Posts feature student voices on everything ranging from the new two-ply toilet paper in the academic buildings, to the 2016 presi-

dential race, to the student protests at Mizzou, reflecting both the playfulness of Tufts students and their ability to debate current social issues seriously. While some posts receive validating comments, others are criticized for their naiveté: on November 12, for example, one YikYak user wrote, “Let’s take a moment, amid the racism going on in schools elsewhere, to appreciate the caring and accepting environment we have proudly created here at Tufts.” The post received 71 up-votes and over 40 comments within five hours— ART BY TESS DENNISON

CAMPUS

some blatantly disagreeing with the original poster, others echoing the same sentiment. However, the fiery passion displayed online has not been continued offline by student publications, says junior Zach Merchant, who believes the primary purpose of a student newspaper is to “facilitate conversations.” While other schools’ newspapers “manage to engage in productive discussions over sensitive topics,” said Merchant, “at Tufts, it seems, those discussions are carried out more on YikYak and Tufts Confessions than in The Daily.” By identifying this growing trend, Merchant submits it to inquiry: why do Tufts students communicate through anonymous online forums and, subsequently, what are the effects? While Merchant does not deny the positive attributes of anonymous discourse—such as the opportunity for people normally marginalized in conversations to participate—he admits, “It’s tough to feel good about chiming in when the conversation is often centered around anonymous social platforms.” When the discussion exists only within the anonymous realm of social media, participants cannot be held accountable, nor can there be a follow-up discussion in person. Merchant insists that student publications must pick up this slack and continue the conversation by inviting and encouraging formal, public discourse in their content, potentially in the form of letters to the editor or responses through additional articles. Despite Merchant’s opinion, Tufts students continue to participate in online discussions over student publications. Junior Ashleigh Baker told the Tufts Observer in an email that when she wants to post “something very personal—something race related perhaps,” she prefers to use Facebook as an outlet. Judging student publications as indicative of only “the beliefs of the herd [of] Tufts students [who] like to agree with each other.” Baker said she wants to avoid being “over-edited.” Baker formed her opinion of student publications last spring when the Tufts Labor Coalition (TLC) protests, which received a lot of publicity from students both online and in print, took place after the Black Lives Matter demonstrations on campus. Because the Black Lives Matter movement was “on [her] mind everyday” and Baker, who is Black, is “conscious of [her]

skin color in every situation at this school,” she was disappointed in Tufts students who did not seem to have the same passion for the Black Lives Matter movement that they did during the TLC protests. Unfortunately she refrained from sharing her opinion outside of small groups “because synchronized opinions are hard to break apart.” She feels that unless they are dedicated to seeking out opposing opinions, Tufts students typically remain unchallenged. Expanding on Baker’s observations, Hurry cited the student population’s passion as a reason why Tufts students seem to shut down in the face of opposing viewpoints. “Tufts students are often thoughtlessly reactionary,” Hurry said in an email. Based on observations of his own friends’ status updates and pages like Tufts Confessions, Hurry believes he has identified a trend in the student body: “We’re quick to run to Facebook for some quick validation, get it, and then use that fuel against

When discussion exists only within the anonymous realm of social media, participants cannot be held accountable. anyone who opposes our views…educated and reasoned as [they] may be.” While Hurry encourages the use of social media as a tool to “spread awareness” about important issues, he believes that problems arise when people refuse to see the value in an opposing opinion. “Somehow immorality is conflated with having a differing opinion,” Hurry observed. He says this prevents us from engaging in productive arguments. If students were “to read an article that is diametrically opposite to what we think of the issue,” for example, and in turn to “take the time to let a complex issue marinate,” Hurry believes that arguments could be more productive. Instead, he says disapprovingly, arguments online tend to

devolve into nothing more than “Facebook comment pissing matches.” Student Nik Dean attributed this ruthlessness of online culture to “sheer human nature.” He explained to the Tufts Observer, “people are more brutal on anonymous sites…[because] people are more willing to be mean when no one knows it was them.” Behind a screen, regardless of anonymity, debaters are further distanced from the emotions of their opponents than when interacting face-toface, allowing a “harsh and mean” culture to exist “without penalty.” According to junior Quinn Metoyer, it is this aspect of social media that turns him away from online discussions—“the chance of being publicly humiliated [by] a rebuttal.” Metoyer commented, just as “people are hesitant to share their views on social media because it’s such a large population,” students in the classroom show lower confidence in their questions and thoughts when among more classmates. Metoyer’s observations make connections between the social media culture upon which our generation thrives and our interactions in person, connections of whose existence most of us are aware but cannot yet put our fingers on. As with any form of communication, there are trade-offs to these anonymous forums and social media communities, trade-offs that we as pioneers in the technological revolution are beginning to weigh. As Tufts students, we understand the activists, debaters, and intellectuals who graduated before us through both their actions and the media through which they communicated. But as millennials, we do not yet understand the full effects of our social media culture. The silence of students like Merchant and Baker introduces us to social media’s negative attributes, and Hurry believes online forums allow Tufts students to be thoughtlessly reactionary. The beauty of social media, and perhaps its greatest downfall, is its ability to change with its users; this means, however, that when we graduate, our Facebook profiles disappear from campus too, leaving future classes without any evidence of our thoughts, debates, or progress. Therefore, we must consider the best arenas for honest, open, public discussions about the campus that we have only four years to change. November 23, 2015

Tufts Observer

POLICE BLOTTER

Police Blotter

By Moira Lavelle

Pumpkin Posers

Friday, October 30 9:25 pm

Officers were walking around campus when they encountered two students with two pumpkins posing for pictures on top of Bowen gate. The students were asked to get down. Turns out stopping for photos is not advised. The students were quickly referred to the Dean of Students’ office.

Artistic Vision

Saturday, October 31 11:30 am

Officers received a call that there was vandalism on a Hillsides dorm. They came to find spray paint on the cement wall of the 80s tower. The spray paint read simply: “DIK.” A work order was put in with facilities to remove it. There are no suspects at this time.

Artist Revisited

Saturday, Oct 31 1:00pm

A fire alarm was activated in West Hall. Officers arrived to find a student was spray painting in their room. In that same room there were several bottles of alcohol. The spray-painter was not 21. The bottles were recovered by TUPD. No record was made of what the student was spray painting. There is no evidence the student was in any way working on a series of pieces that all read simply: “DIK.”

Tufts Observer

November 23, 2015

TUFTS OBSERVER SINCE 1895 www.tuftsobserver.org observer@tufts.edu @tuftsobserver

please recycle