Issue 2 Spring 2022

TUFTS OBSERVER

ISSUE 2 VOL CXXXIX

2 A KNOWN SECRET

TABLE OF CON TENTS

FEATURE • QING QING PAN AND AKBOTA SAUDABAYEVA

6 CENTERING BLACK EXPERIENCES CAMPUS • SEUN ADEKUNLE

9 WE’RE NOT GOING TO COMPOST POETRY • LEILA SKINNER

10 RUINS TO REDEMPTION VOICES • EUGENE IVEY

14 ART FOR THE FUTURE LINKS THE PAST TO THE PRESENT ARTS & CULTURE • ASHLEY GOMEZ

20 THE SIDECHAT SENSATION

CAMPUS • ELOISE VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

22 ACADEMIC EMPATHY IN CHRONIC CHAOS OPINION • LIANI ASTACIO AND MARIANA JANER-AGRELOT

24 IN CONSTANT MOTION

POETRY • SPENCER VERNIER

26 PARTY FOR ONE

VOICES • JONATHAN RAMIREZ

28 EXTENDING COMMUNITY THROUGH THE GREEN LINE OPINION • BRONWYN LEGG

EDITOR IN CHIEF: Aroha Mackay MANAGING EDITOR: Sabah Lokhandwala EDITOR EMERITUS: Josie Wagner CREATIVE DIRECTORS: Bao Lu Julia Steiner FEATURE EDITORS: Edith Philip Melanie Litwin NEWS EDITORS: Gracie Theobald-Williams Silvia Wang ARTS & CULTURE EDITORS: Juanita Asapokhai Sabrina Cabarcos OPINION EDITORS: Priyanka Sinha Meghan Smith CAMPUS EDITORS: Shira Ben-Ami Hanna Bregman

POETRY & PROSE EDITORS: Michelle Setiawan William Zhuang

STAFF WRITERS: Seun Adekunle Leah Cohen Clara Davis Ruby Goodman Layla Kennington Audrey Ledbetter Chloe Malley Aden Malone Akbota Saudabayeva Eloise Vaughan Williams Anica Zulch

VOICES EDITORS: Emara Saez Eden Weissman CREATIVE INSET: Brenna Trollinger ART DIRECTORS: Kate Bowers Misha Mehta

DESIGNERS: Emma Davis Uma Edulbehram Meguna Okawa Tara Steckler Miriam Vodosek Ines Wang Michael Wu

MULTIMEDIA DIRECTOR: Unnathy Neltulla MULTIMEDIA TEAM: Jasmine Chang Miela Efraim Pam Melgar

LEAD COPY EDITOR: Marco Pretell

PODCAST DIRECTOR: Caitlin Duffy PUBLICITY DIRECTOR: Janie Ingrassia PUBLICITY TEAM: Sophie Fishman Paola Ruiz Millie Todd

COPY EDITORS: Sophie Fishman Linda Kebichi Eli Marcus Emilia Nathan Jack Rogen Millie Todd Alexandra Ward

PODCAST TEAM: Noah DeYoung Julio Dominguez Alexis Enderle Gayatri Kalra Bronwyn Legg Grace Masiello Jaden Shemesh Jillian Yum STAFF ARTISTS: Brigid Cawley Aidan Chang Anna Cornish D Gateño Amanda Lipari Maxson Carina Lo Emmeline Meyers INVESTIGATIVE TEAM: Liani Astacio Hanna Bregman Eden Weissman CONTRIBUTORS: Eugene Ivey Qing Qing Pan Mariana Janer-Agrelot Leila Skinner Spencer Vernier Jonathan Ramirez Ashley Gomez

COMMUNITY No man is an island. We can extoll the virtues of selfsufficiency, insist upon our own independence, but in truth we will not persist as isolated atoms, extracted from each other. We are inseparable in our basic needs and our shared joy. Communities cannot help but be summoned into being; the clubs we coalesce into in college, the smile of an acquaintance on the street, or the comfort of our hometown friends. To form a community out of a set of strangers is as natural as taking a breath.

DESIGN AND PHOTO BY JULIA STEINER, COVER BY BAO LU

FEATURE

A KNOWN SECRET

ACADEMIC POWER STRUCTURES AND IMPUNITY

By Qing Qing Pan and Akbota Saudabayeva Content Warning: Mentions of sexual misconduct, rape, and abuse

T

hree graduate students in the Harvard Anthropology Department filed a lawsuit against the university on February 9 for mishandling years of Title IX complaints of sexual misconduct related to Professor John Comaroff, a renowned scholar of African and African American studies and Anthropology. His wife, Jean Comaroff, also a professor in the same departments, enabled retaliation efforts against the students.

The Comaroffs are distinguished husband-wife intellectuals who have amassed a powerful network of colleagues, having mentored hundreds of students who have since become professors themselves. This network, along with the star-status of the Comaroffs, protected them against allegations of abuse for decades.

Less than three miles from their Cambridge offices, the Tufts Anthropology Department knows the Comaroffs well. Their research is taught and discussed across gateway and upper-level seminar courses, as well as commonly cited in student and professor papers.

For many anthropology students, the Comaroffs are among the first scholars they familiarize themselves with.

Given the Comaroffs’ wide-ranging influence in academia at Tufts and beyond, the Comaroff case reveals how academic structures exacerbate power inequalities between students and professors, as well as prevent 2 TUFTS OBSERVER FEBRUARY 28, 2022

students from seeking support when faced with power-based harassment in a constrained academic job market.

ALLEGATIONS AGAINST COMAROFF AND FACULTY RESPONSE

John Comaroff ’s harassment allegations were first publicized in May 2020 by Harvard’s undergraduate student-run newspaper, the Harvard Crimson. The student plaintiffs initially filed their complaints with the Harvard Title IX offices and were reluctant to go public with their stories. However, Harvard faculty and decision-makers at the highest level continually disparaged the university’s Office of Dispute Resolution (ODR) process, and encouraged students to contact the press rather than the administration in order to see action taken.

The following fall, The Chronicle of Higher Education detailed further allegations. In the article, the student plaintiffs described almost a decade of discrimination, sexual abuse, and retaliation while working under Comaroff. In one episode of verbal harassment, Comaroff had musingly detailed and listed places in Africa where Lilia Kilburn, a lesbian graduate student under his advising, would be subject to rape and murder if her sexual identity was discovered.

Kilburn said this description was made in reference to the practice of

“corrective rape,” which sometimes occurs in regions of South Africa; however, she noted that Comaroff used “a tone you would use if you were talking about a movie you liked.”

After the publication of the Crimson and Chronicle articles, Harvard reopened the investigation on the plaintiff ’s allegations and placed Comaroff on paid administrative leave. In Spring 2021, Comaroff ’s administrative leave was made unpaid, and he was banned from teaching required courses and taking on additional graduate students for a year.

In response, 38 Harvard faculty members issued an open letter on February 4, titled “Open Letter from Concerned Faculty,” to defend Comaroff against the 2022 – 23 sanctions. The letter questioned the allegations against Comaroff’s descriptions of “corrective rape” to Kilburn and said it was “advice intended to protect an advisee from sexual harrassment.” The signatories criticized Harvard for opening a second investigation after these allegations.

In response, on February 10, another open letter titled “Anthropologists’ Response to Harvard Sexual Harrassment Stories” was drafted by Queen’s University Ontario Professor Sarah Shulist and New York University Professor Sameena Mulla to condemn the original letters defending John Comaroff. This letter was signed by three professors from the Tufts Anthropology Department: Department Chair

FEATURE and Associate Professor Amahl Bishara, Associate Professor Alex Blanchette, and Assistant Professor Nick Seaver.

By February 11, all but three signatories had retracted their signatures from the “Open Letter from Concerned Faculty,” claiming they “were lacking full information about the case” at the time of signing. Among the original signatories were several renowned Harvard professors and a former academic dean.

Seaver summarized the “Anthropologists’ Response to Harvard Sexual Harrassment Stories” letter, saying it came from a group of scholars who believe “there are things that anthropology as a discipline helps us think about—power and social institutions and so on. [The signatories argue that] the faculty who signed the original letter… seem to be neglecting a lot of what anthropologists should, in theory, know better about.”

Tufts anthropology Professor Sarah Pinto was critical of the apparent “contradiction” of abuse in the anthropology discipline. In a written statement to the Tufts Observer, Pinto stated, “[F]or many abusers, a public commitment to social justice, or other moral stance, is felt to give one license to abuse.”

Director of the Center for Awareness, Resources, and Education (CARE) Alexandra Donovan also spoke to the ways appearances disguise power-based harassment across disciplines. She said, “People think power looks in a particular way, and that it is obvious and that it is severe… when, in fact, just the power differential of being a professor and being a student already makes it exist.”

For Seaver, the “Open Letter from Concerned Faculty” relayed a disappointing message from Harvard faculty.

“We have all these faculty who are saying that students in precarious situations… are not going to have a lot of faculty come to their support,” he said.

ACADEMIC STRUCTURES THAT PROTECTED COMAROFF

Informal networks of prestige, such as the “star system” and academic “family trees,” prevent powerful profes-

sors such as Comaroff from facing repercussions in situations of harassment and serial abuse. In graduate programs, tenured advisors hold an outsized influence on the futures of their students.

The star system shows how certain faculty, such as the Comaroffs, can rise through tenure to have disproportionate influence and power in their field with impunity. “Stardom” within academia can be achieved by publishing popular research and from attending and/or teaching at well-funded graduate programs with large bodies of graduate students. Star professors act as assets for universities by attracting graduate students and grants from across the world.

This stardom is accompanied by the structure of “academic family trees,” wherein professors create descendants that replicate their advisor’s methodology and practice. Advisees build their own scholarships and careers based on their advisor’s research, and eventually go on to establish themselves as professors mentoring new students at other graduate programs. These family trees create vast networks of supportive colleagues citing one another, resulting in increased stardom and power for the original star professors who mentored them, such as the Comaroffs.

Academic family trees can also pass down misconduct. Anu Zaman, an undergraduate Harvard student who works as the the co-coordinator for the Harvard Task Force for Asian

American Progressive Advocacy and Studies, elaborated on the the insulated quality of academia, stating students “have been abused by their professors, and then they’re doing the exact same thing to people [as professors themselves].” To Zaman, the cycle of abuse is “all within the university, and the university is not tasked with helping grad students, but rather weeding people out.”

Seaver commented on how family trees place students in inherently vulnerable positions. “There’s a lot of power that advisors have over their advisees that is very hard to navigate ethically, even if you’re not doing shady stuff. Even if you’re trying to be a good advisor, there’s just a ton of power,” he said.

The competitive job market further feeds into the star system and family tree network, where students are at the mercy of their professors’ names and prestige for few job opportunities. Seaver said, “It’s like any of these other moments in the academic life cycle, it’s one where you’re dependent on a bunch of letters from other people attesting to the quality of your scholarship.”

Job prospects at these institutions narrow further with the tiny amount of tenure-track positions available.

Senior anthropology major Lydia Russell, who hopes to attend graduate school, spoke pessimistically about her career prospects. “There aren’t a lot of jobs in the social sciences or

DESIGN BY INES WANG, ART BY MISHA MEHTA AND AKBOTA SAUDABAYEVA, PHOTOS COURTESY OF TISCH ARCHIVES

FEBRUARY 28, 2022 TUFTS OBSERVER 3

FEATURE humanities. In academia right now, there are literally none.”

In an informal study published by anthropologist Grant Jun Otsuki titled “Academic Authority and Institutional Power in Anthropology,” the author explored supervisory relationships in cultural anthropology by researching dissertations, ProQuest, and archives dating back to the 1980s. His visual dataset, which consists of names connected to each other by lines of supervision, reveals Jean Comaroff is ranked first in number of supervisions with 65, and John Comaroff as seventh with 38.

Otsuki then displays the connections between the university where an anthropology student received their PhD and the university where that same student went on to advise a new PhD student. Powerful institutions like Harvard and the University of Chicago, where Comaroff taught, hire many of their own graduate students as faculty, which allows them to define what the field of anthropology looks like over the years.

The combination of Comaroff ’s star status, his extensive academic tree, and the personal leverage he held over his advisees’ career prospects allowed him to continue his abuse. Comaroff regularly threatened students who spoke out against his unwanted advances with retaliation, leading to the destruction of countless students’ academic careers.

STUDENT SUPPORT SYSTEMS THAT FAIL SURVIVORS

According to Pinto, missing from the larger discussions about academic abuse is the important question of how specific institutional policies—such as methods of “fact-finding,” legal disclosure, and other practices related to Title IX—protect abusers, create coercions, and constitute their own forms of abuse.

Title IX is a federal law that prohibits gender-based discimination in educational programs that receive federal funding.

Tufts has historically not been transparent with and resistant to reform on its sexual violence and private investigation policies, culminating in the federal government declaring Tufts in gross violation of Title IX for the mishandling of sexual misconduct complaints in 2014. Since then, the administration has implemented various 4 TUFTS OBSERVER FEBRUARY 28, 2022

changes, including hiring Donovan as a Sexual Misconduct Resource Specialist.

For Donovan, most cases at Tufts of power-based harassment never make it to the Tufts Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO). “It never makes it to someone wanting to report because that sets in motion, a path—a sort of chain of events— that people are terrified about.”

The fear of potential retaliation from their professors prevents most students from ever making a formal report. Once a student files a report through the OEO, all ensuing communications and student information become part of an investigation file due to legally mandated reporting policies.

According to Donovan, many students then choose to consult CARE instead, where they receive a confidential space to simply talk and explore potential options.

She said most students do not necessarily want to initiate disciplinary action, but just want to survive and ensure that they can continue with their academic careers.

Donovan additionally spoke to how in many schools, the Title IX coordinator can hold other academic appointments and connections in addition to the Title IX role. All of these vested interests can influence Title IX investigations. At Harvard, this administrative dynamic culminated in Comaroff obtaining Kilburn’s confidential mental health records from her private psychotherapy sessions and using them against her. Comaroff, after the aid of Harvard’s ODR, used these notes to claim Kilburn had imagined the sexual harrasement due to her post-traumatic stress disorder, which she had developed directly because of the abuse.

Russell reflected on the lack of space within broader academic institutions for students to process power-based harassment. “I’ve never once in my entire undergraduate career heard of someone having an experience of sexual misconduct and bringing it to the authorities and feeling satisfied with the outcome. I think that the environment that we’re in just fundamentally stigmatizes those conversations,” she said.

REFLECTING ON COMAROFF AT TUFTS Donovan said the Comaroff case has brought new awareness about CARE at Tufts. Since the case gained traction, an increased number of graduate students have visited the office, including those from the dental, medical, and veterinary schools.

FEATURE

Sana Aladin, a first-year master’s student at Tufts’ Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, said that although she has not directly experienced any professors’ abuses of power, the case affected how she feels about her graduate relationships.

“I didn’t realize how vulnerable someone at my level could be to [power-based abuse]…

Now, as I consider spending more time in school and in academia, I’m realizing I’d have to be more vigilant not just for myself but for others,” she said.

The Comaroff case is not contained to a single discipline, nor the confines of one campus. The circulation of letters, discussions within and outside departments, and frustrations of graduate students stuck in academic hierarchies and cycles of abuse are generating new expectations and attitudes towards academia.

An anonymous Tufts anthropology student reflected on the discomfort of learning about the Comaroff case. “As a survivor of sexual assault, hearing about that really rocked me as someone who’s moving into graduate school space… I care deeply about being in professional relationships where I’m being seen as a person—and that means being treated with respect.”

DESIGN BY INES WANG, ART BY MISHA MEHTA AND AKBOTA SAUDABAYEVA, PHOTOS COURTESY OF TISCH ARCHIVES

FEBRUARY 28, 2022 TUFTS OBSERVER 5

CAMPUS

CENTERING BLACK EXPERIENCES EXPLORING ANTI-RACIST PROGRAMMING AT TUFTS

By Seun Adekunle

T

he civil unrest of 2020, following the murder of George Floyd by policeman Derek Chauvin, brought renewed attention to the racism believed to be embedded in 21st century American institutions. Tufts University, like a myriad of other academic institutions, proclaimed its support for the Black Lives Matter movement. In 2021, Tufts announced its newfound “work to build a better Tufts where we will collaborate to advance equity, inclusion, healing, and justice for our own community, and… the wider world.”

Tufts appears to have taken steps towards this goal by “committing at least $25 million of university resources, over five years, to support the efforts” enumerated in the five workstreams held between 2020 and 2021. These include, among others, “anti-racism education,” “compositional diversity,” and a focus on representing “values of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” through public art as well as rebuild-

6 TUFTS OBSERVER FEBRUARY 28, 2022

ing campus safety and policing. Despite this, some Black students and faculty feel that the university’s rhetoric has largely remained unsubstantiated. Nevertheless, these students and faculty members assert that the development of that ideal community is not only achievable, but imperative.

The experiences of Black students at Tufts have ranged from wholly healthy, fascinating, and enriching episodes to ones mired with both camouflaged and overt prejudice. René LaPointe Jameson, a senior at Tufts, wrote in a statement to the Tufts Observer that although Tufts has provided her an “overall great college experience… [with] amazing relationships, opportunities, and skills,” she has been “repeatedly hurt” by the upholding of “elitism and racism inherent to academic institutions like Tufts.” She expounds on her challenges, revealing that she constantly navigates microaggressions, racism, and reminders that she exists “in a space

not meant to include [her].” She further explained that “as a Black student, [she has] to do so much more labor and thinking than [her] white peers, and it is something never acknowledged or compensated.”

Several students also revealed that their experiences within the Black community at Tufts have acted as a redeeming factor. Olly Ogbue, a sophomore and Co-Communications Chair of the Black Student Union, wrote in a statement to the Tufts Observer that Tufts has largely been an upgrade from her predominantly white high school because of the connections she has made with other Black students. “My relationships with other Black students are definitely my strongest. Having that community and affirmation is really helpful in navigating my experiences as a Black person on this campus,” wrote Ogbue. However, Ogbue has still encountered incidents that “have made [her] hyper-aware of [her] Blackness.”

Wanci Nana, a sophomore and member of the Black Men’s Group, an organization which works to provide “programs that promote a sense of integrity, pride, and honor for the Black community,” similarly wrote in a statement to the Tufts Observer that the diverse patchwork-like community at Tufts

CAMPUS

has instilled in him a penchant for personal growth and that his “experience has [been] and will continue to be life changing.”

Chidilim Menakaya, a junior, wrote in a statement to the Tufts Observer that Tufts has mostly been a “welcoming and comfortable space” wherein she has been “surprised by the amount of professors who care about creating inclusive spaces.” Conversely, Amma Agyei, senior and Tufts Community Union President, wrote in a statement to the Tufts Observer that her experience at Tufts “has had its ups and downs,” with the latter consisting of numerous experiences with students and faculty who perceive her as “inferior to them.” Ultimately, despite the differences in Black experiences on campus, the allure

vide me with the tools” needed to further effect change. She expands on this, arguing that “Tufts wants students to be critical thinkers… but not if we start to question them… and how they operate in ways that enforce racism, classism, and ableism.”

For example, she criticized the treatment of dining and custodial workers and human rights advocacy groups, such as Students for Justice in Palestine, as she feels their treatment communicates the institution’s attitudes towards developing safer environments for marginalized students and substantively challenging systems of oppression they inadvertently, or otherwise, perpetuate. The events held by Tufts University during Black History Month seem to be viewed by students in two vast-

what to do to make this place more equitable for years, and they didn’t listen until white people saw racial injustice as a legitimate problem in 2020. What does it say about a place that does not take racial injustice seriously until it is validated by white people?”

Another event series for MLK Day are the MLK Symposia—panels that feature Black local activists and student leaders in hopes of further celebrating the values of MLK. Agyei wrote that the MLK Symposia have produced speakers who “inspire [her] to achieve greater things and reach for [her] goals,” and that, on the whole, “they are definitely beneficial to the Black community at Tufts.” Moreover, Dr. Murdoch draws parallels between the MLK sympo-

THE EXPERIENCES OF BLACK STUDENTS AT TUFTS HAVE RANGED FROM WHOLLY HEALTHY, FASCINATING, AND ENRICHING EPISODES TO ONES MIRED WITH BOTH CAMOUFLAGED AND OVERT PREJUDICE.

of community as well as affirmation remains steadfast.

Culturally, the recognition of Black History Month remains an illuminative period wherein a critical spotlight is shined on the efforts of institutions to create invigorating environments that celebrate Black achievements and validate Black experiences. Dr. H. Adlai Murdoch, Director of Africana Studies and a professor in the Department of Romance Studies, wrote in a statement to the Tufts Observer that some events scheduled at Tufts do “unearth and highlight historical figures and moments that are typically glossed over.”

Other events scheduled are shallow and unaffecting, according to Nana, who wrote that the topics momentarily highlighted during Black History Month are relevant during other months besides February, rendering the brevity of these events dubious. Similarly, LaPointe Jameson wrote that she does not participate in events during Black History Month outside of the Africana Center, as they “seem performative or will not proDESIGN BY MEGUNA OKAWA, ART BY ANNA CORNISH

ly different categories: the constructive and informative events hosted by the Africana Center and the superficial others.

The acknowledgement and celebration of Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr, Coretta Scott King, and their accomplishments presents another panorama through which to explore how Tufts University lauds Black heroes and emboldens their students to follow the charge of these figures. Tufts holds community action days in which students are given the opportunity to “critically engage with MLK’s vision of a ‘revolution of values’ towards a ‘person-oriented society.’”

LaPointe Jameson wrote that although she enjoyed the discussions at these events, she believes that these events are not beneficial to the Black student body because Tufts has not fully committed to funding processes that develop equitable environments. “I am personally tired of all the discussions, all the committees, [and] all the focus groups Tufts wants Black students to do for free to fix things,” LaPointe Jameson wrote. “We’ve been telling them

sia and some of the events scheduled during Black History month. He wrote that they increase “students’ awareness of the key role played by Black people in the US and world history” and “serve as a counter to US-centered histories that tend to stress the accomplishments of select groups, of which Blacks are typically not a part.”

Black History Month and celebrations of MLK; however, are temporary, intersecting periods in which Tufts purportedly highlights and centers Black issues and voices. Black students have looked for other structural changes, particularly within the classroom, that fortify their understanding of global Black “experiences… that [carry] so much knowledge,” as Nana puts it.

One method adopted by Black students in pursuit of this mission is taking classes in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora (RCD) and other classes that utilize non-Western perspectives to analyze history, culture, and intellectual trends. Dr. Murdoch, who teaches numerous classes for the FEBRUARY 28, 2022 TUFTS OBSERVER 7

CAMPUS

Department of RCD, wrote that students tend to be “surprised [by] the information that they encounter,” and that, particularly, Black students are “very responsive to, and even inspired by, information on Black history and culture” discovered in these classes.

LaPointe Jameson, who studies environmental engineering with a “self-designed focus on race and justice,” wrote that she took a class called Colonialism in Global Perspective which made her a “better systems thinker,” an indispensable tool as an engineer. “It also taught me that most, if not all, of our environmental issues have social roots such as capitalism, colonialism, and white supremacy; degradation of the Earth is intertwined with degradation of the planet,” LaPointe Jameson wrote. This understanding has enriched her time at Tufts, community-building work, and engagement with different communities off-campus. Agyei writes that her professors at the Department of RCD were nicer and more understanding than her other professors and that “those classes were thought-provoking” and rife with enlightening discussions. Similarly, Nana 8 TUFTS OBSERVER FEBRUARY 28, 2022

writes that the classes helped him “dive deeper into [his] identities as both a Black man and an African American man as well.”

Rob Mack, Associate Provost and Chief Diversity Officer at Tufts, wrote in an email to the Observer that “[they] are proud of the work the Tufts community has done so far and continues to do,” and that “[they] saw our community step into the space of shared accountability for this work,” in reference to the implementation of “many of the workstreams’ 181 recommendations.”

Despite these developments, many continue to feel that there remains a large gap between the ideal humanizing and uplifting environment that Tufts promises its Black students and the reality at present.

Dr. Murdoch highlights the fact that an increase in the proportion of Black students with varying backgrounds has excited an interest in Black students about African history, culture, and other perspectives influenced by Black peoples, a process he believes has been crucial in the “continuing development of Tufts and its student body.” He further stressed that Tufts should increase “the number of faculty

offering courses related to American and international facets of the Black experience,” covering all regions whose histories are intertwined with Black history, as well as to hire Black faculty with expertise in other areas, arguing that they “should not be an anomaly or an exception, as they are now.”

LaPointe Jameson seconded this sentiment: “better recruitment, hiring, and retention of Black faculty and administrators,” as well as “hiring more Black professionals and staff for CMHS (Counseling and Mental Health Services)” at Tufts cultivates a healthy and safe environment for Black students. She added that “considerations of systems of oppression and equity” should be integrated into all classes, more money should be invested into the Africana Center and Center for STEM Diversity, and there should be better systems of accountability for racist professors and students. Ogbue wrote that “more work must be done to center Black voices and take action steps to fulfill what the community actually needs instead of empty words.”

Although, as Ogbue argues, Tufts has hitherto supported its Black students “more in name than in action,” the prospect of change remains unhindered. LaPointe Jameson wrote that her criticism “comes out of care for [Tufts] to grow urgently so it doesn’t perpetuate further harm,” and that she holds an “optimistic belief that [Tufts] can do better for [her] and other marginalized students.”

POETRY

we’re not going to compost

By Leila Skinner

Compost makes me angry.

I don’t get mad at the full dishwasher No hard feelings to the dirty bathtub.

But yesterday, I thrust my hand into the Bin full of banana peels and coffee grounds And pulled out a sun-kissed, juicy yellow pepper.

Rinsed it off, sliced it up, and had the Thin, golden bangles for lunch.

As the spice warmed my lips, I thought, Each day we’re moving closer to death.

I’m not worried about our death But the death of the world around us.

It’s not going to be us slowly composting, There will be no new life.

It’s going to be our forests on fire.

Our oceans rising up, swallowing us whole.

Toxic rain falling from the sky, poisoning our rivers, Droughts scalding us dry.

But I don’t get angry at the fires or the oceans.

I just get angry at the compost.

Look up “Tufts Eco Map” for resources on where to compost around Tufts campus.

DESIGN BY TARA STECKLER, ART BY AIDAN CHANG

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VOICES FEATURE

RUINS TO REDEMPTION ACCOUNTABILITY AND ACCEPTANCE

By Eugene Ivey

10 OBSERVEROBSERVER FEBRUARY 28, 2022SEPTEMBER 28, 2020 10 TUFTS TUFTS

VOICES FEATURE

Most of the fights I had were due to feeling singled out because I was small.

I didn’t seek out problems, nor did I shy away from them. I was prone to anger, so I reacted violently when faced with a threat. My mentality was that you either swim with the sharks or you drown. I swam with the sharks because I refused to be someone’s prey.

Joanne supported me through my stay at Plymouth, and her love never wavered. We didn’t discuss the case too often, but I remember her asking me during one of our conversations if I did it. I told her no, because at that time I believed I was not responsible for the man’s death since I did not pull the trigger nor intend for him to be killed.

Over the years, I came to understand that if not for my decisions, he would not have died that night. But back then, in the lead-up to the trial, I denied any wrongdoing. I reluctantly pleaded guilty after the first trial quickly resulted in a mistrial. I was alone in the courtroom when I pleaded.

Joanne arrived to my pleading late, as we had agreed that I would stand trial rather than plead guilty. Pleading guilty and accepting a

Due to privacy reasons, details about Eugene’s trial, sentencing, and time in the Department Disciplinary Unit (DDU) have been omitted. Eugene was indicted for aiding and abetting in an incident that led to another individual losing their life. Eugene is a “juvenile lifer,” one of 2,570 in the United States. He was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison under a plea agreement to avoid the penalty of life in prison without the chance of parole. A 2013 Supreme Court ruling said that mandatory life-in-prison sentences for juveniles were unconstitutional. This ruling allowed other “juvenile lifers” serving natural life sentences to become eligible for parole after serving 15 years of their sentence. In total, Eugene was incarcerated for 27 years.

I faced the ultimate penalty for my crime: life in prison. At Plymouth County Correctional Facility, where I was held in pretrial, I erected a tough guy facade; internally, I was nothing more than a scared little boy. At my booking, I was screaming in my head, “I’m just a kid, I’m only 17 years old!” I knew my silent cries didn’t matter. I was placed in a dorm room with about 60 hardened adult criminals and one correctional officer to supervise everyone.

Once I moved into a regular unit with my best friend, Erick, he broke down the do’s and don’ts. My only accomplishment at Plymouth, for which I was very proud, was earning my GED. Other than that, my stay at Plymouth was nothing more than a rerun of the time I spent in the Department of Youth Services.

DESIGN

BY JOHN DOE, ART BY JANE DOE DESIGN

BY UMA EDULBEHRAM, ART BY KATE BOWERS

life sentence with the possibility of parole after 15 years was surreal to me. “This can’t be happening,” I thought to myself, but it did happen. I was taken to prison that day.

When people ask me how I managed all those years in prison, I don’t have a definitive answer. I do know that reading helped save me. I was propelled to pick up books and read more than I already did. I always liked reading because it allowed me to expand my thoughts beyond my environment. It allowed me to see inside myself, paving a path for change.

Malcolm X’s autobiography was one of the books that was instrumental in helping me begin to change myself.

There’s a part of the book where he states: “In the hectic pace of the world today, there is no time for meditation or for deep thought. A prisoner has time that he can put to good use. I’d put prison second to college as the best place for a man to go if he needs to do some thinking. If he’s motivated, in prison he can change his life.”

His words struck a chord in me. I reckoned that if he could change in prison, so could I. I got tired of living the way I was living: being angry, hurting others, and having a dark cloud above me. I didn’t want to feel bitter any longer, and I knew that if I wanted to re-enter society, I had to change.

Change didn’t come overnight. I didn’t wake up one day and suddenly have an epiphany. Change, to me, meant learning who I was, how I got to where I was, figuring out where I wanted to go in life, and what I had to do to get there.

I remember the moment I first set an intention to change was around 2008. My

SEPTEMBER 28, 2020 FEBRUARY TUFTS 28, 2022OBSERVER TUFTS OBSERVER 11 11

VOICES

best friend Erick and I were in solitary confinement, known as the tier, together. If memory serves me correctly, a few days prior, we were extracted from our cells for disrupting the tier.

After getting extracted from my cell, I ended up in the hospital donning a smock. As I sat in that dirty, filthy smock, I felt I had hit rock bottom. I thought to myself, “This is the end of this madness!” So when we were back on the tier, I wrote Erick a letter telling him I was done, that we had to start taking responsibility for our actions.

My friendship and conversations with Erick helped me get through the DDU, or solitary confinement. We used to talk through the vents about books we read, family, our situations, etc. I remember times we stayed awake until 3:00 a.m. deep in discussion. We had known each other since we were kids, and he felt like a brother to me. We knew of each other’s struggles growing up.

12 TUFTS OBSERVER FEBRUARY 28, 2022 12 TUFTS OBSERVER SEPTEMBER 28, 2020

We acted out in prison together, but then we got tired of it all— tired of only being “criminals” in the world. We both knew we had something positive to offer the world if we could stop the cycle of acting out.

We made a pact to help each other make change.

Erick has now been out of prison for years. The pact we made to change our lives continues to inspire me to keep pushing forward and better myself.

When a few mental health programs had made their way over to the DDU, I signed up for them along with a program that dealt with anger.

After I completed them, I continued working on myself.

As I said, change doesn’t come overnight. I had a few more disciplinary infractions up until early 2009: the year of my initial parole hearing. I knew going into my parole hearing that I would be denied and given a five-year setback. However, I wanted to go forward with it to see what I needed to accomplish in order to be a viable candidate for parole.

When the parole officer did my prehearing interview, she came into the visiting room, looked at me, looked down at her papers, and then simply asked: “What happened?” I don’t think she expected to see a small individual across from her. I told her that I messed up, that I allowed my anger to cause me to make some bad decisions, and accepted responsibility for my actions.

The 2009 parole hearing was very emotional for me. It really hit me that someone lost his life because of my poor decision making. I never wanted anyone to die that night, but my actions led di-

rectly to his death. It’s a stark reality that I have to live with for the rest of my life.

After my hearing, I asked myself, “How could I ask my family and friends to support me when I haven’t been supporting myself?” I learned to not bottle up my emotions and to instead use my anger to fuel me to do good deeds.

When I received the denial from the parole board and read the summary, I was upset. I knew I was not the person summarized on that paper, but I also knew that I needed to demonstrate that I was something other than an accumulation of crimes and disciplinary reports. I was determined not to be discouraged by the parole decision. I doubled down on working harder.

I set goals for myself that I wanted to accomplish after my sentence was finished in the DDU.

“I GOT TIRED OF LIVING THE WAY I WAS LIVING: BEING ANGRY, HURTING OTHERS, AND HAVING A DARK CLOUD ABOVE ME. I DIDN’T WANT TO FEEL BITTER ANY LONGER, AND I KNEW THAT IF I WANTED TO RE-ENTER SOCIETY, I HAD TO CHANGE.“ After multiple years, I transferred out of the DDU in May 2014. I knew that returning back to the general population after spending so much time in solitary confinement would be challenging. It took a few weeks for me to get acclimated, and I

VOICES FEATURE W

“IN LIGHT OF THESE HARD TRUTHS, I MAKE NO EXCUSES.” was kept in the orientation block for almost four months, which hindered me from enrolling in programming.

I was frustrated, but I did not act out in anger. Instead, I reminded myself that everything is a process.

My patience proved to be rewarding. I was moved to a regular unit for a few weeks, then to the lifer’s unit where everyone and everything was calmer; the environment suited me well. I procured a job that I held for my entire stay there. I was part of the book club with other inmates and members of the community; we met once a week to discuss books chosen by the group. I earned my ServSafe certification and Foundations 1 in Culinary Arts. I completed the High Risk Offender Program, Violence Reduction, and the Reentry Seminar Series.

I helped usher in Restorative Justice, which provides opportunities for people who have been harmed and those who take responsibility for that harm to communicate and address their needs, eventually becoming a facilitator. Restorative Justice was by far the best program for me; it allowed me to see more clearly the harm and trauma I caused to my victim’s family, the community, my family, and myself. It allowed me to see that anger was a mask for my true feelings and emotions.

I also reached out to mental health services within the prison.

I wasn’t deemed an open mental health case, but I was fortu-

nate enough to be able to meet with the same mental health clinician once a month. This was a big step for me; I was able to talk about my feelings and process them in a more thoughtful and mature manner.

After four years, I was moved to a medium-security facility in May 2018. I was very happy and proud of myself for the changes I made in my life. The hard work had paid off.

Since the move, I completed a number of programs to further facilitate and strengthen my growth. I attended a Restorative Justice retreat where mothers who lost their children, victims of crime, judges, senators, victim advocates, and other notable members of different communities participated. It was very moving and rewarding to sit and have an open dialogue with people who suffered so much trauma in their lives.

Finally, I am currently enrolled in Tufts University/Bunker Hill Community College.

I am working on attaining an associate degree in liberal arts through a collaborative effort by both schools. This program

DESIGN BY UMA EDULBEHRAM, ART BY KATE BOWERS

has been truly amazing and transformative. I have learned so much about myself and the world at large. My professors are extraordinary. They have inspired hope in me: the hope that I can go back into society and be an ambassador for change in the community and the world. I plan to complete my bachelor’s and hope to earn a master’s in social work so that I can one day help youth and those in need.

I am now 42 years old. In reflecting on my journey, I realize that the chaos and dysfunction that permeated every aspect of my life had an adverse effect on me. I was exposed to some harmful behaviors that over time led me to harm others. In light of these hard truths, I make no excuses. I accept responsibility for my actions, and, moving forward, I hope to pay it forward by giving back.

FEBRUARY 28, 2022 TUFTS OBSERVER 13

ARTS & CULTURE

ART FOR THE FUTURE LINKS THE PAST TO THE PRESENT

By Ashley Gomez

“

I

f we can simply witness the destruction of another culture, we are sacrificing our own right to make culture. Anyone who has ever protested repression anywhere should consider the responsibility to defend the culture and rights of the Central American people.” This rousing message was written on the original poster created by artists involved in the Artists Call Against US Intervention in Central America movement, which launched in the 1980s. Art pieces created by members of Artists Call are featured in the Tufts University Art Galleries (TUAG) exhibit titled Art for the Future: Artists Call and Central American Solidarities, on display at both the Medford and SMFA campus until April 20. The exhibit weaves together the past, present, and the future effects of US intervention policies in Central America.

“Artists Call was essentially a group of over 1,100 artists coming together in solidarity and raising money for various causes in solidarity with Central American folks… and to further the self-determination of Central American people,” explained Abigail Satinsky, co-curator of the exhibit.

“Those were their goals and [the artists] had all different ways of trying to achieve it.

They did protest actions in the street, they had exhibitions in galleries, in museums, and they had poetry readings.” The exhibit provides historical context for the United States in Central America through the lens of artists and activists on the ground, and students are picking up on that.

Anneke Chan, a second-year combined degree student who works at the gallery and is a member of TUAG’s Student 14 TUFTS OBSERVER FEBRUARY 28, 2022

Programming Committee, reports that she is really impressed with the quality of work Tufts exhibits. “It seems to me like a very historically grounded exhibit,” Chan said.

Historically, imperialist American policies have defined the United States as a nation that has violently and illegally disrupted countries around the globe.

In the 1980s, US intervention in Central American countries like El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala contributed to

“IT WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT OUR PERSPECTIVES AS CURATORS BUT MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES ON THIS EVENT, ITS LEGACY, WHAT IT TELLS US, HOW WE CAN THINK ABOUT SOLIDARITY AMONGST ARTISTS.” political strife and bloodshed. For example, in 1981 the U.S aided the Salvadoran Army to carry out El Mozote, a massacre of more than 1,000 indigenous Salvadorans. This genocide is widely understood by historians to have been a violent attempt to suppress leftist politics and take away agency from Central Americans.

The exhibition has also made audiences aware of the omission of certain histories in high school education. Chan explains that the Artists Call movement and its cause is understudied. “There were a lot of things I didn’t learn in my high

school education,” Chan said. “I went to public school for high school, so my experience shows the way the US [education system] neglects US intervention…

It’s very eye-opening.” Art for the Future brings attention to the movement’s legacy, while also demanding that this history needs dire attention from people in the US. Art for the Future came to be when Satinsky approached co-curator Erina Dugan about her work on another exhibit, titled Northern Triangle, which featured the Artists Call poster with its original demands and signatures of the artists that supported it.

Satinsky reached out to Dugan for more information about Artists Call: “[Dugan] said she found this drove of materials, and [she thought] it’d be great together if we put on a show, and that’s what ended up happening,” Satinsky described.

“We asked the artists to look at the archives with us. It wasn’t supposed to be about our perspectives as curators but multiple perspectives on this event, its legacy, what it tells us, and how we can think about solidarity amongst artists.”

Most of the art and archival information displayed in the exhibit were produced during the original Artists Call movement in the 1980s; however, integrating certain pieces produced after the movement reminds us of the ways US intervention is still present in Central America today. When creating the exhibit, Satinsky said, “We

ARTS & CULTURE

asked Central American and Latinx artists to think about the legacy of US intervention in their lives and how we tell stories about the impact of the US in the region and in other means of Central American life.”

For example, Guatemalan artist Sandra Monterroso’s Expolaida, a performance art piece and installation, highlights the continuing of her Mayan Q’eqchi indigenous practices as a method of decolonization. The display of sustained indigenous practices by a Guatemalan artist shows that US intervention was not successful in maintaining cultural hegemony in the region, showcasing that these practices are still alive today.

Another installment in the exhibit titled Local Solidarities is a series of interviews with organizers and artists in the Greater Boston area whose work and/ or own lives center the stories of Central Americans and Latinx folks. Local Solidarities asserts that the work initiated by the artists of the Artists Call movement is in fact not done, as US Intervention in Central America still affects all Central Americans, including members of the Latinx diaspora. In an interview included in Local Solidarities, Gabriela Cartagena, an artist and organizer at City Life/Vida Urbana, a nonprofit in Boston, describes how her encounter with Movimiento Cosecha, an undocumented immigrant advocacy cam-

paign, exposed her to art that “embraced her [indigenous] identity,” despite how “El Salvador and Honduras, have been mestijazed [subject to racial mixing] because of centuries of colonial conquest.”

Geovani Cruz, a third-year SMFA student and Curator Fellow at TUAG, conducted the interviews and organized the series. He described his experience connecting with organizations featured in Local Solidarities: “At Tufts, you don’t have a lot of Latinx representation, specifically in my area at the SMFA. I can’t go up to a lot of professors and say ‘this is my work that reflects my identity.’ But these organizers who are building the future of the Latinx community inspired me,” Cruz said. As people living in the United States with Central American heritage, the legacy of Latinx students at Tufts is interwoven with US intervention.

SMFA students like Cruz honor the activism practiced by Artists Call by continuing the legacy of creating political art.

In Art for the Future, art not only transcends time, but also transcends borders and engages audience members.

Salvadoran artist Muriel Hasbun’s installation, Arte Voz, is an interactive installation that allows folks to record their reactions, stories, and heartbeats to the work of her art and other artists that were a part of Galería El Laberinto, a gallery of artistactivists in El Salvador in the 1980s. The audio recording feature, which is located in the exhibit, is also located in a community center in El Salvador and allows folks to feel and hear each other’s heartbeats across borders.

In regards to building a more progressive future for the Latinx art community, one of the main critiques of the show is the role that white artists had in the original Artists Call movement and how Art for the Future reckons with it. As with any social movement, white voices and allies are easily validated by audiences and are able to take the lead.

A clip from an interview conducted by SoHo Television in 1984 is included in the gallery and features three white artists— Leon Golub, Doug Ashford, and Lucy R. Lippard—describing and raising aware-

DESIGN BY MIRIAM VODOSEK, PHOTO COURTESY OF TUFTS UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY

ness for Artists Call. In the clip, one of the artists, Peter Golub mentions, “The art doesn’t have to be political, but the artist does.” Though white voices and artists are upheld in the mainstream and in the show, the work of artists like Indian-American Zarina, featured in the gallery, highlights the relationship between colonialism and US intervention and its effects on people of color around the globe.

Though the allyship of white artists was important, it is the Central American voices and art that give Artists Call, the campaign, and Art for the Future its power. At the SMFA campus, Solidarity Art by Mail, a collection of Latin American mail art, curated by Fatima Brecht and Josely Carvalho, shows how everyday people engage in political art making.

Chan spoke to the value of the Solidarity Art by Mail display. “There is a lot of elitism in white cubed-gallery spaces, and when you are addressing something that is affecting everyday people, they should have a say in the work being created.

Their work is much more valuable than any historian that is far more removed.”

Geovani Cruz’s activism outside of the exhibit also highlights the power of Central American and Latinx voices. Cruz coordinated Temporarily Living: Creating While Questioning, a student exhibition which centers the lives and stories of Central American artists at Tufts. “I wanted to portray those histories that we have and portray that in art, because a lot of underground artists aren’t seen, especially first-generation low income artists,” Cruz said. “How do we build a career off of our work, when our work is very personal and dear to us?”

TUAG’s spotlight on art inspired by US interventionism in Central America is, as Cruz puts it, “the first initial conversation, and it can’t end right now.” Cruz poses the question, “How can the gallery itself continue to help Central Americans right now?”

FEBRUARY 28, 2022 TUFTS OBSERVER 15

mun

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“Sharing comfortable silence” - Sabrina / “An effortless inclusion into a greater group of people” - Caitlin / “Safety in numbers” - Juanita / “Never feeling wholly alone” / “Helping others” - Miriam / “Looking out for one another” - Miriam / “Giving what you can and asking for (and receiving) what you need” - Melanie / “Acceptance” / “Finding people that feel like a sense of home to you; a place where you find comfort but are also pushed to be your best self” - Liani / “Solidarity” / “Feeling like there’s multiple people who are looking out for you and multiple people who you’re looking out for” - Gracie / “Being selfless” - Miriam / “A sense of belonging and accountability for one another” - Sophie / “Checking in on each other” - Linda / “Feeling safe to 100 percent be myself” - William / “Community feels like hope and like home” - Hanna / “Knowing that you receive and give unconditional love and support” Shira / “Feeling completely safe and fulfilled with the people around you” - Emara / “Feeling seen and heard and embraced for your differences and struggles” - Priyanka / “Making things make sense, together” - Bao / “People who understand you without exposition” - Dan / “Community means you never eat a whole tangerine—you share the pieces” - Akbota DESIGN BY BRENNA TROLLINGER

SOMERV com·mu·ni·ty a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.

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MEDFO DESIGN BY EMMA DAVIS

com·mu·ni·ty a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.

VILLE

CAMPUS

THE SIDECHAT SENSATION TUFTS’ MARKETPLACE OF INANE IDEAS

By Ellie Vaughan Williams

S

idechat is Tufts’ newest social media fixation: any individual with a Tufts email can sign up and start posting anonymously, posting anything, be it memes about Dewick chicken, jokes suggesting Tufts parties increase one’s rice purity score, or admissions of loneliness. The new anonymous platform, similar in form and function to ask.fm and Yik Yak, has started to outshine these long-standing pages. Before Sidechat, most students took to Instagram and Facebook to mock Tufts-specific experiences: Rejected from Brown? Worried about having intense bowel movements whilst studying at Tisch? Terrified of the Dewick vegan cutlet?

As college-aged students collectively face issues over who they are, how they behave, and how they impact others, Sidechat offers a cathartic way to express these concerns on a localized level. Posts about highly specific yet common experiences like choosing a testing center scan-

20 TUFTS OBSERVER FEBRUARY 28, 2022

ner or trying to use Markit make students feel less alone. Sophomore Pablo Duran said, “I think when I’m reading Sidechat [posts]… it’s like oh my god, I’m not the only one here.”

Sidechat doesn’t necessarily change the way students interact with each other in person, but it develops a sense of interconnectedness on campus. Sophomore Caitlin Walsh said, “I think [Sidechat] builds community in a theoretical sense…

It’s not going to increase my sense of community in who I interact with… but it will make me feel closer to the general student population of Tufts University. I feel like I’m more in touch, and I have more in common with [Tufts students] than I expected.” Sidechat offers an untraditional, as well as a sometimes absurd and explicit, means of community building.

Sophomore Maddy Porter said her favorite thing about Sidechat was that she could post her “absolutely unhinged

thoughts without having [her] name attached to them—not that they are damaging to anyone or mean thoughts, they’re just kind of deranged, and the optics of putting them on [her] Instagram story wouldn’t be good.” While Sidechat may be primarily comedic in function, there is also an almost out of place tenderness in some of the posts. Some students post about feeling alone, unworthy, or adrift, and the majority of responses are messages of kindness and support. Many Sidechat posts and interactions validate one another’s experiences by affirming that college is difficult, that Tufts is difficult, but that there are ways through it, even if it’s through small acts of kindness, like showing up for anonymous strangers in a reply post on Sidechat.

Memes and crude posts, however, have offered their own form of community support for Tufts students on and off Sidechat. Tufts affirmations (@tuftsaffirmations) posts bright and simple, 2010s era memes about the Tufts experience.

Tufts affirmations’ popularity is similar to Sidechat in that its engagement surged within a matter of days, and the account quickly gained the attention of Tufts undergraduates. However, to many of the students interviewed, @tuftsaffirmations is no longer in the same ballpark as Sidechat.

According to sophomore Thea Trosclair, there’s a unique appeal to Sidechat. “When Sidechat came out, I was like wow… this is [such] a community thing. Everyone is posting and everyone is responding, it’s not just liking memes.”

Posts receiving large upvotes and downvotes tend to be jokes about the most up-to-date events at Tufts. Following President Anthony Monaco’s announcement of resignation, Sidechats posts com-

CAMPUS

menting and mocking Monaco began to accumulate by the dozens. Trosclair explained that, through Sidechat, “I feel like I know a lot more stuff that’s going on in this school… like I found out about Tony Monaco retiring from Sidechat before I saw the email.” When, during the week of February 13th, Tufts students were placed in either the Modular Residential Units (Mods) or the overflow COVID hotel as a result of a spike in COVID cases, Sidechat users commented on the topic: “The Mods are like a petting zoo, but you can’t even pet them,” and “the mods [are] a greater social experiment than [Too Hot To Handle].” Pablo Duran explained, “[Sidechat is] what’s happening right now, the memes are the moment, you know.”

Unlike other Tufts-specific social media pages, Sidechat offers users the ability to post instantaneously and anonymously, creating a sense of authenticity. Prior to Sidechat, other accounts functioned mostly through the efforts of an administrator, who filtered content to ensure that posts adhere to the page’s standards. Sidechat posts, however, are not beholden to any figure of authority. The issue of anonymity brings up a clear problem that other online profiles do not have. In order for Sidechat to run as smoothly as other pages, Tufts students must be effectively able to selfmonitor their own posts as well as their anonymous interactions with others. According to Trosclair, “everything has been in the hands of a bunch of 19 year olds.”

DESIGN AND ART BY MEGUNA OKAWA

If there are no larger facilitator(s) at work, then the students must become responsible for the virtual public space that has been created by Sidechat.

Sidechat posts are ever-updating reflections of the moods and thoughts of Tufts students, but that means the posts are also reactionary. After Tufts reinstated COVID regulations, there were multiple aggressive and harmful posts and arguments on sidechat attacking immunocompromised students and those with chronic health issues. Some attempted to blame them for the tightening of COVID protocols. Trosclair explained, “People are saying things that they wouldn’t be able to say if they were showing face or having their name attached.” Sidechat may have begun innocently as a platform to air out engineering majors as romantically challenged and other trivial concerns, but now its role for the Tufts community is unclear.

Sidechat exemplifies how Tufts students can create connections online, showcasing the benefits and risks that exist within any community. Tufts students are responsible for navigating this balance through the relationships they build, the news they react to, and the memes they share.

“I THINK WHEN I’M READING SIDECHAT [POSTS]… IT’S LIKE OH MY GOD, I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE HERE.”

FEBRUARY 28, 2022 TUFTS OBSERVER 21

By Liani Astacio and Mariana Janer-Agrelot

ACADEMIC ACADEMIC EMPATHY EMPATHY ININ CHRONIC CHRONIC CHAOS CHAOS

OPINION

22 TUFTS OBSERVER FEBRUARY 28, 2022

W

ith the emergence of the rapidly-spreading Omicron variant, a delayed start to the in-person semester, and the continuing threat and possibility of new mutations, students have no way of knowing the direction the semester will take. In the past seven days, we have seen over 300 COVID positive cases on Tufts’ Medford-Somerville campus. Students, including one of the writers of this article, are being forced to isolate themselves in local hotels due to the fact that Tufts’ modular spaces have been completely filled. That the increase in COVID cases occurred after Tufts relaxed COVID restrictions highlights how unpredictable the COVID-19 crisis is and how vital safety-net-policies are for the wellbeing of our students.

The fact of the matter is that we are facing an unpredictable disease that is mutating frequently. New variants have thrown hospitals into crisis repeatedly, causing waves of stress and panic. At Tufts, many students still have virtual classes, despite the promise of complete in-person learning. The disorienting first days of virtual classes and the constant re-evaluation

of COVID policies prove the need for the reinstitution of the Exceptional Pass/Fail (EP/F) policy in order to promote equity and decrease stress on students. EP/F would give students the opportunity to take courses pass/fail, and still have the course count towards their degree requirements, which is a move to a more equitable grading policy.

An equitable grading policy at Tufts would give students the assurance that the university supports them in these unprecedented times. Specifically, the Tufts administration should take note of the efforts taken by students two years ago to implement the Exception Pass/Fail policy as an indication of how much support is still needed in order to navigate the current situation. As Tufts Community Union Senators, we both have heard how essential yet challenging the fight for this policy has been.

In March 2020, at the start of the COVID pandemic, three Tufts Community Union senators—our predecessors— called upon the Tufts administration to implement equitable grading policies.

The pandemic had left students confused,

OPINION

jobless, evicted from their residences, and navigating the unknown world of online learning. At that point, the necessity to implement a progressive pass/fail policy was of utmost importance. However, the implementation of EP/F did not come without consistent pressure from student activism. A change.org petition created by the 2019-2020 TCU Senate had to garner 3,890 signatures before senior administration agreed to bring the proposal to a meeting of Tufts faculty. Before the faculty vote, many undergraduate students began an email campaign to receive support from professors for equitable grading policies.

Without this mass email campaign led by Tufts students, the goal of achieving any equitable grading policies would likely not have been achieved last year.

Eventually, EP/F was instituted for the Spring 2020 and Fall 2020 semesters. Tufts re-adopted the policy in Spring 2021 after another faculty vote. However, the Tufts administration decided not to continue the policy for the 2021-2022 school year.

As TCU Senators, we have seen firsthand how much pressure must be applied to convince the Tufts administration to respond to our demands in support of our student body. We were able to implement EP/F for three semesters because of a focused and engaged student body with support from members of Tufts faculty.

If we want to implement these accommodations again, we will need the same level of support and motivation.

We’ve learned that if there is one thing administrators are willing to listen to, it is data, and we have the data to prove the value of the EP/F policy. A Student Feedback Survey conducted by the TCU Senate Administration & Policy Committee in 2020 found 63 percent of respondents indicated that the Exceptional Pass/Fail policy was “helpful to them in some way.” An additional 93 percent indicated that Tufts should either continue offering Exceptional Pass/ Fail or switch to Universal Pass/Fail for the Fall 2020 semester. Given the popularity of this measure and its benefits, why shouldn’t Tufts reinstate EP/F? The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the already present issues of educational and class inequality, with many people, especially the most marginalized, feeling the effects of the pandemic in a DESIGN BY MICHAEL WU, ART BY CHLOE GU

significant way. With the move to virtual or hybrid classes in 2020 and the Spring of 2021 and virtual classes for the first week of the Spring 2022 Semester, students are faced with multiple barriers. Access to stable Wi-Fi and a home environment conducive to studying is something that not all students can readily access, serving as a barrier to academic achievement, especially for low-income students. Moreover, the move to go virtual for the first week of Spring 2022 semester shows a clear understanding by the administration that the pandemic is still ongoing and poses a threat to our health and our ability to learn. This makes EP/F all the more necessary.

Additionally, students have to worry more about finances with a fluctuating economy caused by COVID-19 and its effects on multiple industries. The service industry is one economic sector impacted by the pandemic, which often employs a significant amount of young people, including students. With the strain on the service industry, many students experience not only a chaotic learning environment but also deal with increased financial stress, negatively impacting one’s ability to focus on learning. Moreover, many international students struggle to obtain visas to be able to study in the United States. Visas granted to international students went down by 87 percent in 2020, leaving students no choice but to take virtual classes, often at incredibly inconvenient hours, due to time differences. Based on these challenges, EP/F can be a good tool to help alleviate the stress of maintaining grades while students experience financial instability, visa issues, and an ever-changing world as a result of the pandemic. EP/F reduces the stress of maintaining grades, while still allowing students to achieve their major on time and gain credit for these courses, a significant

help to students in stressful and everchanging circumstances.

Moreover, online learning also presents a unique challenge to neurodivergent students. According to Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD), college students with ADHD often struggle with the lack of routines caused by online-learning and have difficulty with concentrating on the online learning modality. Moreover, the lack of variety and accountability in an online-learning format can cause students with ADHD to lose focus and suffer academically. Given this information, it is clear that Tufts students with ADHD who have to take class virtually, either because they are in isolation or because their classes are still virtual, are potentially prevented from achieving their full academic potential. We need to hold Tufts accountable for creating equitable policies for all students, regardless of ability status; reinstating EP/F policies could help address the added stress the pandemic puts on students who are neurodivergent. EP/F allows these students to work in a difficult environment without the added pressure of worrying about their GPA or avoiding challenging coursework they could benefit from because of the pressures and the uncertainty that their learning environment is adding. If Tufts is truly committed to “providing every student, faculty and staff member with the best possible experience, regardless of their ability,”

FEBRUARY 28, 2022 TUFTS OBSERVER 23

OPINION

they would continue with the EP/F policy that helps support the experiences of neurodivergent students.

Tufts’ refusal to reinstate EP/F is also disheartening, considering that several other universities have continued implementing COVID-19 academic accommodations to various degrees. For example, San Diego State University has decided to allow students to take courses for Credit or No Credit by the last day of classes, and courses passed with credit may be counted for certain majors. At Washington University in St. Louis, students are able to apply credit/no credit courses to their distribution requirements and to their degree, regardless of the status of the pandemic. Brown University, a peer institution of Tufts, has a similar policy. If these universities are able to make such accommodations during all semesters, regardless of the pandemic, why can’t Tufts accommodate students for another COVID semester?

In all of the cases provided, the universities made changes and instituted policies to best support student learning during the pandemic. Tufts, in comparison, has not made progress towards providing any academic accommodations for COVID-19 for Spring 2022, despite offering multiple virtual courses and having 305 positivetests in the seven days prior to the writing of this article, the highest number of cases in a seven-day period at Tufts since the start of the pandemic.

24 TUFTS OBSERVER FEBRUARY 28, 2022

While administrators may cite the potential impacts of EP/F grading on a students’ transcript, impacting graduate school admissions, we must understand that admissions’ standards during the pandemic are ever-evolving. Not every student’s path after university is graduate school. If Tufts fears a loss of academic prestige because of this policy, it should worry first about not having the proper resources to offer its current and future students, who have not experienced a normal year since 2020, in the event of another COVID spike. During a time so chaotic, Tufts should prioritize students’ mental and physical health in the moment, rather than focus on outsiders’ perceptions of the academic quality of a Tufts student.

As representatives of the student body, we want to see the administration listen to the student demands and interests that were clearly outlined in the TCU Senate survey to make Tufts a better and more equitable learning environment during another semester impacted by COVID-19.

We are still unsure about how long the pandemic will last, and it should not solely be the job of student government and student activism to get Tufts to produce equitable policies. Students cannot fight for the same policies over and over again; it should be clear that they are still necessary. Students should not be the sole champions for equity in an institution that has pledged its determination for progressive change.

DESIGN BY MICHAEL WU, ART BY CHLOE GU

POETRY

iinn ccoonnssttaannttmmoottiioonn

By Spencer Vernier

next to bedside tables, where we set these pieces of ourselves casting our lives away, in submission to white linens but more to calloused hands or sore legs more to thumbs running the eternal patterns in your face more to you attempting to find divinity in mine more to skin smooth like the gemstones i told you about more to bodies engulfed in the blaze of nudity and more to what intricate floods we let enter our hearts the daze of white-tipped waters overflowing, immense yet soft as they rush through the body like the tea you made me, as we sat there steam rising in the fullness of collective presence or like the flickers of life that played in your eyes as you took my hand that final december morning the silhouettes of your memory, taking shape where they first rose crawling onto a mattress, reaching out for you, enclosed in the left side of my chest, always blooming, always drawing me into you, your glow imprinted, not too far, soon, coming closer

DESIGN BY TARA STECKLER, ART BY ERIN MCCHESNEY

FEBRUARY 28, 2022 TUFTS OBSERVER 25

FEATURE VOICES

F O R Y T O R NE A P

By Jonathan Ramirez I used to find myself visited by the feeling of loneliness. Even after I was on campus for a couple weeks, even after I surrounded myself with people who seemed to want the best for me, loneliness sat at the edge of my bed every night.

It was a strange thing, really. This age, which was supposed to be marked by endless possibilities, was suddenly discolored by anxiety and homesickness. Turning eighteen and leaving home did not have

the allure it once did. The worst part was I knew about it. It seemed to me that being oblivious of the events that brought on emotional discomfort was a blessing, but I was cursed with a specific hell of being introspective. Of course, I didn’t blame myself entirely—at least not early on in the night as I sat on my bed coloring a blank page. The darker the night sky grew, the heavier it got to carry the reality of being by myself.

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I knew my interests had a lot to do with this situation: I had not found people who shared the same cultural background as me, the same humor, or the same insecurities. I was not going to force myself to keep company for the sake of not being alone. However, the moment the clock struck midnight most nights, gloom hung over my eyes, and, only by closing them, could I see any clearer.

FEATURE VOICES

One of the first times I hung out with a large group on the steps of Houston, I found myself drifting off to the back and staying there. Early on, I would talk to people left and right about my hometown, my major, and my hobbies, topics that were starters in forming a deeper connection. Yet, by the end of the conversation, nothing happened. Instead, I drifted to the back. The most painful part was no one noticed me drifting away. If anything, situations like these just reinforced my decision to not keep company around just for the sake of having someone around. Loneliness was a pain, but I knew pretending to be friends would be a killer.

Dinner was always a doozy, mainly because I ate alone. I knew, somewhere on campus, people my age were discovering themselves while eating food from Carm, talking about love and grief. Meanwhile, I sat in my room watching whatever TV show I was behind on, not knowing whether to fear or welcome death. I certainly had no idea on how to love or deal with the grief of feeling alone. I ate my dinner regardless. Before I went to sleep every night, I journaled my thoughts knowing someday these notes would come in handy.

Then winter arrived. Part of the reason why I wanted to study in the Northeast was the guaranteed snow. At first, I thought the snow would make amends with the worst in my life. It was exciting watching white particles fall from the sky, a reminder that nature had its own methods for bringing change into the world. But eventually the cold seeped through my window, covering all four walls in frost. In the afternoons, when the weather allowed, I would go for a walk around campus. In went my earphones, and out went the ambitions I had set for the day. My therapist later told me that this practice was the best thing I could have done for myself. She said locking myself up in my dorm was not a good idea.

I knew that I should’ve left my room more, but it was a COVID year. I was a freshman with no clue of who I was. Who was I looking for? What identities of mine would I want to present in my ideal community? Would it serve me any good to

think of these questions? These thoughts alone were obstacles themselves. I didn’t dwell much on these questions. Apparently, building expectations on the things you can’t control is not always wise.

The next few weeks were spent focusing on what I could control: my grades and the food I ate. Around this time, homesickness was a frequent visitor who forced unwelcomed overstays in my shoebox dorm.

After a few weeks, missing the presence of my family turned into a yearning for the way life had been in the past: a Wednesday afternoon in Texas with the sun melting on my face.

These thoughts, as much as I wanted to, were difficult to control. It reminded me of an article I read about nostalgia. In the 17th century, nostalgia was considered a psychopathological disorder, one that in many cases led to death. Despite being seen in Spanish soldiers during the Thirty Years War, this disease had traveled through centuries and across continents, landing on me and making a home out of an eighteen year old body whose world was just opening up.

Coincidentally, COVID-19 was also making its rounds, and though my immune system was strong enough to fight it back, it seemed like nostalgia was the stronger disease in my heart and mind. Of

“LONELINESS IS ONLY A REMINDER THAT YOU ARE ONLY HUMAN, AND THAT YOU WANT A COMMUNITY TO CONNECT WITH.” course, I knew nostalgia couldn’t kill me, at least not in the 21st century. What I was really scared of was losing the ability to experience the world. I decided then that no matter what the experience was, I would write it in my journal at night.

Gradually, the walks across campus became about the trees changing col-

DESIGN BY JOHN DOE, ART BY JANE DOE DESIGN BY UMA EDULBEHRAM, ART BY CARINA LO

ors and the squirrels zooming in front of my path and less about the absent people around me. I no longer measured every person by how likely they were to be my friend, and it was then that I began to feel a part of something, a sensation running through my body welcoming me to a new stage. Though COVID still persisted, restrictions had decreased and allowed for small in-person events, where I would come to learn from others that I was not alone in how I felt.

On one occasion, I recall admitting to someone who I had just met that the distance between Tufts and home had greatly affected me. She was from California and felt the exact same way. I was glad to have found a moment of comfort with her.

Looking back, I applaud my honesty. I had nothing to lose then, and it gave me the opportunity to connect with others in the way I had wished for. As I began to wrap up my first year at Tufts, I could see familiar faces in every space I walked into. My world was opening up. Saturation to the max. Everyone metaphorically cheering me on.

It became clear to me that we crave social connection; this natural drug is innate to us. Looking back, I see the journey I was on as instrumental to where I am now and who I am with. Loneliness is only a reminder that you are only human, and that you want a community to connect with.

In the months I spent alone, I learned that when you don’t have a community, every corner of the world becomes a place for you to try to make one. And every little detail about you becomes a labyrinth for others to walk through. And even if they don’t make it to the end, there’s something tender about opening up to a stranger. Vulnerability welcomes you into a new home and those lonely feelings soon vanish. The moment ends and life goes on. The party for one becomes a party for two, or for three, and eventually a party for all.

SEPTEMBER 28, 2020 9 FEBRUARYTUFTS 28, 2022 OBSERVER TUFTS OBSERVER 27

OPINION

EXTENDING COMMUNITY THROUGH THE GREEN LINE

By Bronwyn Legg

W

hen I was younger, I loved pressing the long, thin yellow strip at Traill street, the bus stop outside my house, which prompted the familiar overhead voice to belt out “stop requested.” The 73 bus route rides along Trapelo road, continues along Belmont Street and Mount Auburn Street before finally arriving at Harvard Station. When I was in high school, I would take the bus home when it was too cold to walk or bike. Nestled between elderly women with grocery bags in hand, high school and college students like me on the way to class, and middle-aged adults on the way to work, the 73 bus was a small part of each rider’s life. I remember the light bathing the stainless steel poles in 28 TUFTS OBSERVER FEBRUARY 28, 2022

golden warmth. More recent experiences with the Red Line have not been as fond, however. My friend recently attempted to take the Red Line into Boston from Tufts.

The Red Line stopped between Davis and Porter, and he was stuck on the train between the two stops for over an hour. As most Tufts students know, the Red Line is often unreliable, which is a major issue especially for those who rely on the MBTA daily. Unreliability is just one of many issues with the MBTA that impact transportation equity and must be changed.

The anticipated Green Line extension on Tufts Medford campus means that Tufts is on the cusp of being able to play a role in riders’ relationship with their commute.

Public transportation in a city as populated and well-resourced as Boston is a critical pillar of the community as well as a factor in fostering it. When transportation is inequitable due to high fees or out of date technology, it further exacerbates the societal cleavages that fail those who rely on the MBTA for their daily commute.

The extension provides an opportunity for Tufts students to promote equity, social justice, and strengthen relations with both surrounding towns and the greater Boston area. Tufts can set an example for the MBTA by creating a station that is designed for accessibility, efficiency, and the future of our community.

OPINION

With a weekday MBTA ridership of almost 600,000, the MBTA has no shortage of proposed projects, policies, and other solutions to accommodate the vast number of Bostonians using public transportation. In December of last year, the Boston City Council backed Mayor Michelle Wu’s plan for making three MBTA Bus routes free for at least two years. The move hopes to serve communities hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. This plan is to serve as a pilot program, a first step in Mayor Wu’s expressed sentiments that the MBTA should be free for all riders. Free ridership ensures more equitable access and removes a price barrier for those who need public transportation.

There are also many ways in which a strong transportation system can build and nourish the communities it serves.

Public transportation can lead to a decrease in traffic accidents as well as minimizing air pollution. Public transportation vehicles work within a city to interconnect various distinct communities. The benefits of public transportation are “amplified when the systems are planned and engineered for interconnectivity, high-quality user experience, and efficiency,” according to Remix, a transit-based startup from San Francisco. Affordable transportation makes trips to work, school, and medical appointments possible for workers, the elderly, and rural residents among others. This cultivates self-sustainability and allows for spending on other household necessities. When low-income families in Boston have access to reliable transportation, they also gain access to basic needs such as grocery shopping, school access, and medical care. According to a Health Affairs article, a “lack of access to public transportation disproportionately harms those who rely on it, including older adults, individuals with disabilities, and commuters.” Women, younger adults, Black workers, and low-income workers make up a disproportionately large group of commuters. According to the MAPC’s 2017 State of Equity Report, Black people spend on average 64 more hours of their life per year riding on public transit than

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DESIGN BY MICHAEL WU , ART BY BRIGID CAWLEY

white people. This demonstrates the link between inadequate public transportation and existing racial disparities and inequities.

Expanded access to public transportation has links to health equity as it also increases accessibility to “medical care, healthy food, vital services, employment, and social connections.” Public transportation is an indispensable good.

Boston has added more than 67,000 new residents and 120,000 jobs since 2010.

With issues such as overcrowding, variable train arrival times and schedules, the worst rush hour traffic in the country, and increased ridership, transportation is essential in the Somerville area. Somerville residents use public transportation at high levels— nearly one in three commuters use public transportation to get to work. 85 percent of Somerville residents travel outside the city for their employment. Due to heavy reliance on public transportation, employing the facets of successful, accessible, and efficient transportation are highly relevant to Somerville. The problems in Boston fall short of the ideals of an effective transportation system.

The addition of a Green Line stop on Tufts campus provides a major opportunity to foster a connection among the Tufts community members who share spaces of public transportation. In order to amplify the benefits of the Green Line extension and create accessibility, it is critical that strong walking, biking, and transit connections be provided between the stations and the surrounding neighborhoods in all directions. Walking to each station must be encouraged by providing well-lit, safe routes between the neighborhoods and the station. Cycling to each station must be accommodated by providing paths, on-street facilities and bicycle storage.

These policies facilitate easier utilization for those who need them and are examples of how facilities for public transportation can be made safer and more accessible.

It is vital that transportation in Boston is equitable, meaning fair fees, up to date technology, and proper functioning is critical in providing the best possible access for users of all abilities. Reliable transportation allows for social connection, access to necessities such as grocery shopping, medical care, as well as means for commuting to school and employment. If measures such as Michelle Wu’s pilot plan to transition the MBTA to a free public good are not taken, problems of equity that already exist in transportation in Boston will only be exacerbated.

Michelle Wu’s campaign platform included both the concrete plan to reduce fares and an idealistic vision for the future of transportation in Boston. Tufts students should encourage local politicians like Wu to invest in infrastructure. Furthermore, Tufts administrators must use their leverage to advocate for more accessibility as well as realization of broader goals for transportation equity as outlined by Wu. The Green Line extension is a tangible, real part of the region’s transportation system that we as members of the Tufts community have influence over. When considered through the lens of community, the Green Line extension provides a case study for Tufts and its surrounding constituents to exemplify the welfare that the MBTA can champion in nurturing connection and encouraging racial, social, and environmental justice through legislative policy.

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Fly High Smalls