Wednesday, February 10, 2016 by The Tufts Daily

The Daily examines the development of teaching Arabic at American colleges see FEATURES / PAGE 3

TUFTS MEN’S HOCKEY

Jumbo offense comes alive while dominating lowly Camels

Coen Brothers’ “Hail, Caesar” presents flashy homage to old Hollywood, fails to impress see ARTS AND LIVING / PAGE 5

SEE SPORTS / BACK PAGE THE

INDEPENDENT

STUDENT

N E W S PA P E R

TUFTS

UNIVERSITY

E S T. 1 9 8 0

T HE T UFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXXI, NUMBER 12

tuftsdaily.com

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

Student coalition awaits faculty vote on Indigenous People’s Day by Emma Steiner News Editor

Tufts Community Union ( TCU) Senate has twice passed a resolution to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day on all Arts and Sciences and Engineering (AS&E) academic calendars, but the institution of this change remains up to vote by the entire faculty voting body in March. The first resolution was passed on Sept. 28, 2014 but was voted down by the faculty body about four months later. The second was unanimously passed on Dec. 5, 2015 and awaits a vote, the exact date of which has not yet been decided, according to TCU Senator and Student Outreach Committee Chair Benya Kraus. “What we’re trying to do is disrupt that narrative that says that we as a society, as an institution, want to celebrate a history of genocide, pillaging, rape and thievery, and instead disrupt that and replace it with the narrative of the resistance and dignity and culture of indigenous peoples,” Kraus, a sophomore, said. The faculty is the last barrier in instituting this change, she said. In fact, the administration has little to no decision making power in this matter, Kraus said. The challenge now for Senate and the coalition behind Indigenous People’s Day at Tufts is to ensure faculty support and participation in the upcoming vote. According to Executive Director of Public Relations Kim Thurler, the administration is open to dialogue concerning this issue. “Tufts welcomes continued examination of this subject, which affects our individual schools’ academic calendars as well as the university-wide holiday calendar,” she told the Daily in an email. “We hope students, faculty and other community members will share their views so that there is a broad and thoughtful discussion.”

Committee strives to bring movement beyond the student community While it does not have an official vote in the committee, nor any veto power, Kraus said the administration remains an influential player. She hopes that the university will make an official, public announcement of the change, should the resolution pass.

Please recycle this newspaper

Partly Sunny 39 / 20

/thetuftsdaily

PETRINA CHAN / THE TUFTS DAILY

“President Monaco will be present [at the time of the faculty vote] and, while we understand that the administration doesn’t vote, they do have a voice,” she said. “We really want to build a coalition and see administrators really supporting this.” The resolution, if passed, would affect Tufts AS&E calendars but not the ones of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, the School of Dental Medicine, the School of Medicine or the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Kraus said. If approved by the undergraduate faculty, the resolution may be brought before another voting body to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day at all Tufts schools. “We have spoken with the deans from these schools…and we are interested in pursuing those venues as well,” she said. “There is a separate committee [for the other schools]. Once we get those faculty votes, we can keep on moving with this movement and try to get all the schools to do the same.” The resolution, originally written by Andrew Nuñez (LA ‘15) and Genesis Garcia (LA ‘15), has changed slightly

For breaking news, our content archive and exclusive content, visit tuftsdaily.com @tuftsdaily

tuftsdaily

since it was first passed by TCU Senate in 2014. One faculty objection to the original resolution was that it did not make enough concrete suggestions to acknowledge the history of indigenous people in the United States, according to Kraus. The newest resolution calls for programming on Indigenous People’s Day, which may potentially include education, fundraising and rallies, all focusing on indigenous people in the community, Kraus said. It is outside the faculty’s jurisdiction, however, to allocate funding for such events, she said.

The root of the cause Kraus and first-year Parker Breza, TCU Senate’s LGBT Community Representative, emphasized that Indigenous People’s Day at Tufts should prioritize indigenous voices, support indigenous peoples in the surrounding communities and encourage alliances between the university community and indigenous people, especially because of the location of Tufts Medford/ Somerville campus on land that once belonged to the Wampanoag Tribe. “It should be stated that Tufts

University sits on indigenous lands,” Kraus said. “We are implicit in this; we are part of the historic and [systemic] oppression of indigenous peoples, and I think its important that we realize that. While we cannot change the painful histories of Columbus’ conquest, we can do things to relearn all the things we learned about in elementary school to question: ‘Is this a person and an idea worth celebrating? Why did we learn the things we did in elementary [school]? What purpose? Whose purpose?’ and really shift our focus and our narrative to indigenous peoples.” Visiting Assistant Professor of Native American and Critical Indigenous Studies Matt Hooley said student activism to address the history of violence that Columbus represents and raise awareness around the issue is crucial to supplement the resolution. Simply changing the name of the holiday is not enough, he said. “Replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day requires a faculty vote, but it won’t succeed without see INDIGENOUS PEOPLE'S DAY, page 2

NEWS............................................1 FEATURES.................................4 ARTS & LIVING.......................5

COMICS....................................... 7 OPINION.....................................8 SPORTS............................ BACK

THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Wednesday, February 10, 2016

tuftsdaily.com

News News

T HE T UFTS D AILY Sarah Zheng Editor-in-Chief

EDITORIAL Nicholas Golden Mengqi Sun Managing Editors Nicholas Pfosi Associate Editor Arin Kerstein Executive News Editor Isha Fahad News Editors Abby Feldman Melissa Kain Sophie Lehrenbaum Emma Steiner Ariel Barbieri-Aghib Assistant News Editors Kyle Blacklock Gil Jacobson Robert Katz Liam Knox Catherine Perloff Vibhav Prakasam Hannah Uebele John “Joe” Walsh Kendall Todd Executive Features Editor Nicole Brooks Features Editors Nina Joung Jake Taber Diane Alexander Assistant Features Editors Constantinos Angelakis Emily Cheng Emma R. Rosenthal John Gallagher Executive Arts Editor Lancy Downs Arts Editors Justin Krakoff Josh Podolsky Jonah Allon Assistant Arts Editors Cassidy Olsen Eran Sabaner Hannah Hoang Dorie Campbell Emily Karl Erin Sifre Stephen Dennison Abigail Feldman Shannon Geary Allison Merola Fury Sheron Cassie Bardos Ian Clarke Miranda Chavez Jake Goldberg Emma Henderson Steven Honig Anita Ramaswamy Noah Weinflash

Executive Op-Ed Editor Op-Ed Editor Cartoonists

Editorialists

Maclyn Senear Executive Sports Editor Ray-Paul Biron Sports Editors Ross Dember Phillip Goldberg Alex Schroeder Chris Warren Yuan Jun Chee Assistant Sports Editors Maddie Payne Eddie Samuels Noah Smith Sofie Hecht Executive Photo Editor Alex Knapp Caroline Ambros Picture Tufts Editor Ray Bernoff Staff Photographers Katlyn Kreie Nora Nord Nicholas Pfosi Julia Press Evan Sayles

PRODUCTION Julie Doten

Production Director Astrid Weng Executive Layout Editor Jewel Castle Layout Editors Abbie Gantner Leila Li Allie Merola Brianna Mignano Mandip Pokharel Ellie Powers Annabelle Roberts Emily Sharp Andrew Stephens Sebastian Torrente Shirley Wang Creative Director Petrina Chan Executive Graphics Editor Allison Merola Graphics Editors Dana Pek Belinda Xian Jack Ronan Dan Strauss Meagan Adler Alison Beach Arthur Beckel Lancy Downs Alison Epstein Andrew Kager Melissa Kain Sarah Kalinowski Benjamin Kaminoff Reena Karasin Sophie Lehrenbaum Rachel Salzberg Arielle Sigel Caroline Watson Maxwell Bernstein Nitesh Gupta Evan Sayles

Executive Copy Editors Copy Editors

Executive Tech Manager Online Editor Social Media Editor

BUSINESS Yiran Xu

Executive Business Director Qinyue Yu Receivables Manager Evan Sayles Online Advertising Jay Hayes Ad Managers Joshua Morris Eva Sachar

Student coalition builds support leading to March vote INDIGENOUS PEOPLE'S DAY

continued from page 1 the committed organizing that students are doing on campus — students who want to address the ways we as a university reproduce long histories of political violence and domination,” he said. “I absolutely support this work and I’m grateful for it.” The coalition for Indigenous People’s Day at Tufts is currently partnered with the United American Indians of New England (UAINE), who have signed on to support the petition, Kraus said. Kraus said she hopes to bring members of UAINE to campus for a rally when TCU Senate delivers the petition signatures to the faculty voting body in March. According to a Feb. 4 Facebook post by Indigenous People’s Day at Tufts, more than 600 students, faculty members, alumni and community members have expressed their support by signing an online petition asking Tufts faculty to make the proposed change. In addition, 35 Tufts student organizations — political groups, performance groups, pre-professional groups, activist groups, language groups and spoken word groups — have signed on to express their support for the coalition, Kraus said. While there is a large amount of student support for the resolution, there is a very small percentage of the Tufts population that actually identifies as native or indigenous. According to the 2013 Council on Diversity Final Report, which includes the most recent data available, only .06 percent of Tufts students identified as American Indian or Alaska Native in 2012 and less than one percent of the faculty identified as American Indian or Alaska Native. Resolution Co-author Breza, who identifies as multi-racial, including native heritage, said Tufts must increase outreach and financial support for indigenous peoples in order to increase the number of native students on campus. “One of the big problems right now is that there just aren’t enough native students on campus,” Breza said. “We have multi-racial students who identify as native, such as myself, but no students who are solely native.” Hooley sees changing Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day as only a first step towards making Tufts more accepting and open to supporting indigenous populations. The next step, he said, is increasing outreach to indigenous communities. “Going forward, to be able to recruit more indigenous students, we need to organize ourselves to provide opportunities for those students to be successful,” he said. “Already faculty research and teaching is doing this work. But we also need more financial support for indigenous students and more opportunities to gather all students around indigenous intellectual and cultural production. That’s a central part of what I am trying to do here, in my own work and with my amazing students.”

A growing movement Hooley said the movement to observe Indigenous People’s Day is spreading. “There’s a growing student movement to confront the academy’s complicity in the projects of slavery and colonialism,” Hooley said. “This year

we’ve seen this in student-driven protests from Missouri to Yale. Just a few weeks ago, Brown University faculty voted to celebrate Indigenous People’s Day. The important thing is to understand that addressing ongoing U.S. colonialism is linked to other issues of race, gender, citizenship, etc.” Several other universities now observe Indigenous People’s Day instead of Columbus Day, including UC Berkeley, Cornell University and Brown University, according to Kraus and Hooley. Nine cities also celebrate Indigenous People’s Day on the second Monday of October, including Albuquerque, N.M; Anadarko, Okla; Portland, Ore; St. Paul, Minn; and Olympia, Wash., according to an Oct. 12, 2015 story from the Washington Post. As of 2015, about 16 states did not acknowledge Columbus Day as a federal holiday, including Alaska, Hawaii and Oregon. In addition, South Dakota has celebrated Native American Day since 1990, according to an Oct. 13, 2014 CNN story. Instituting Indigenous People’s Day and refusing to celebrate Columbus’ legacy of colonialism is a way of recognizing more than just the nation’s oppression of indigenous peoples, Breza said. Colonization of South American, African, Asian, Caribbean and other peoples by many Western and European countries has led to a skewed narrative in the United States that focuses on industry and development rather than the destructive, violent nature of colonialism, he said. “When we celebrate Columbus Day, we are celebrating a history of white supremacy and colonialism, so people of color, colonized people, can really relate to that experience of being silenced, erased and having histories, violent histories, completely wiped out,” Breza said. “[T]he history of white supremacy in our nation and colonialism in our nation is a shared history too. [It’s] not only something that indigenous peoples have experienced but also something that black people in the United States have too. It’s the same sort of racism that many people still experience here in the United States.”

Student effort to promote Indigenous People’s Day faces challenges According to Kraus, some faculty members have voiced concerns about the Columbus Celebrate Discovery Award, which is given to members of the Tufts faculty who have made significant discoveries in their fields. The award was established at Tufts in 1992 after the Massachusetts Christopher Columbus Quincentennial Commission and its affiliated nonprofit Celebrate Discovery! Inc. made a donation to the university. The award is intended to “honor the spirit of discovery,” according to the Office of the President’s website. In the past few years, the award has gone to faculty in the biomedical engineering, chemistry, microbiology and philosophy departments. Kraus said she was unsure about the specifics of the complaint, but speculated that it may be seen as a disrespect to the award to change Columbus Day’s name at Tufts. She and Breza pointed out the problems with celebrating Columbus’ legacy as a discoverer. “People say Columbus embodies the spirit of discovery, ignoring the fact that

Columbus didn’t discover anything,” Breza said. “Indigenous peoples had been living on this land for thousand upon thousands of years prior to him coming to these shores, as well as the fact that Leif Erikson actually was the first European to discover American 500 years prior to Columbus, so it’s just a complete misnomer and everyone acknowledges that.” Another complaint that has been brought up by some faculty and students is the potential that cutting Columbus Day might offend those of Italian American heritage, said Kraus. Speaking to Italian American students, however, Kraus said she found that found that many supported the change. “There has been some pushback that this might be a slight to the Italian American community in Tufts and in Medford/Somerville,” she said. “We’ve really listened to that, and we’ve joined in with students at Tufts who identify as Italian American but what we’ve been finding with a lot of Italian American students is that there are other aspects of the Italian American identity they’d rather focus on, other than the genocide of Christopher Columbus. Also if you look at [Columbus] historically, is he really Italian? There are a lot of mixed up feelings and sentiments.” A final challenge to changing the holiday is a general feeling of ambivalence, Kraus said. Many faculty and students agree that Columbus Day should not be celebrated but do not feel strongly that it should be replaced with Indigenous People’s Day, she said. Breza explained that simply changing the name of the day does not do enough to acknowledge those who were harmed by Columbus; instead it continues to ignore the violence and genocide committed by Europeans colonizing the Americas. “A lot of people say, ‘Why don’t we just celebrate nothing on that day?’ or ‘Why don’t we just call it discovery day?’ but those are arguments that are completely whitewashing in nature,” he said. “It’s just putting a new name on something that is already inherently racist and colonial instead of working against that. In order to really work against the colonial acts of Columbus, we need to completely decolonize the holiday, and that starts with renaming, but there is so much more that we have to do.” Hooley added that Tufts should be especially conscious of these implications because of its position as a school heavily involved in international relations. “I also hope faculty and students see that changing the name is a way of harnessing one of Tufts’ strengths — its commitment to the interventional force of critical thought,” he said. “The students and faculty organizing around this now gather in and beyond Tufts’ classrooms. This ability to link study and activism is something that distinguishes this university.” Kraus said that replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day at Tufts is a necessary first step towards changing the national narrative about colonialism and indigenous peoples on Tufts’ campuses. “I think the name change shows that we are making a conscious effort to… bring up a narrative that has so often gone historically silenced and also to really take note that those voices aren’t silent, they aren’t erased, they’re still there, they’re still living and they’re still resistant,” Kraus said. “We’d like there to be a holiday that celebrates that and not an additional holiday but one that replaces a holiday that shouldn’t be celebrated.”

Wednesday, February 10, 2016 | ADVERTISEMENT | THE TUFTS DAILY

tuftsdaily.com

SPring Career Fair 11:30 AM - 2:30 PM • Gantcher Center

TODAY!

1/4 AD

Meet 180+ organizations to learn about jobs & internships in marketing, communications, engineering, finance, government, business, consulting, non-profits, education, computer science, environmental, social services, & more.

Ab Initio (sponsor) ABA Consultation and Services LLC Academy for Urban School Leadership ACMi ActBlue AIR Worldwide Americorps at Phoenix Charter Academy AmeriCorps Legal Advocates of Massachusetts Analysis Group, Inc. Andover Companies Anheuser-Busch Applied Materials Aramco Arcadia Solutions Arista Networks Ascensus athenahealth Inc (sponsor) Avigilon Corporation Axiom Learning Bentley Academy Charter School BHE Big Brothers Big Sisters of Massachusetts Bay BioBridges Blueprint Schools Network BookBub Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center Breakthrough Greater Boston Brooke Charter Schools Bullhorn Bureau of Reclamation C Space C-4 Analytics Cambridge BioMarketing Carbon Black CB&I (sponsor) Censio Center for Arts at the Armory Charles River Development Christa McAuliffe Charter Public School Cigital, Inc Citizen Schools City of Cambridge City on a Hill Charter Public School City Year Cogo Labs College Advising Corps - Boston University Community Action Agency of Somerville (CAAS) Consigli Construction Co Corporate Accountability International Cradles to Crayons Curaspan Dartmouth College- Tuck Business Bridge Program Digital Media Academy Edgeworth Economics EditShare Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate EF Education First ENERNOC, INC. Epic EverQuote/AdHarmonics Eze Software Group Families for Excellent Schools

All class years • all majors

Family ACCESS of Newton Federal Bureau of Investigation Feeney Brothers Excavation Foresters Financial Services, Inc. Freudigman & Billings, LLC Galatea Associates, LLC GateHouse New England/Wicked Local Media GEI Consultants, Inc. Ginseng Education Google, Inc Gradient GZA GeoEnvironmental, Inc. H.H. Brown Haemonetics Harvard Business School HeartWare Hill Holliday Housing Families HPR Impact Intel Corporation Intrepid Pursuits ioMosaic Jacobs Jana Karen Clark and Company KIPP Massachusetts Lesley Ellis School LEWIS Liberty Mutual Listen, Inc LM HEAVY CIVIL CONSTRUCTION Management Solutions Market Metrics Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Massachusetts Division of Banks Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers MassDOT Match Education McAdam Financially Advanced McNeil Gray & Rice Strategic Communications MEDITECH MIT Lincoln Laboratory MITRE Corporation Monster Worldwide Mountbatten Institute Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Mystic River Watershed Association Nanigans New England Consulting Group New York Hotel Trades Council Next Jump Inc Novantas NuFit Media, Inc. Nurtury Office of the Governor Paint Nite Paraclete Park School Paytronix Systems, Inc. Peace Corps

1/2 AD

Pegasystems PIRG Campus Action Planted Playworks Massachusetts Practice Makes Perfect Prospect Hill Academy Charter School PTC Public Consulting Group Ramboll Environ RCS Learning Center REAL Software Systems LLC Red Hat Resources for Human Development Riverside Community Care Rockefeller University Roux Associates Inc SAGA Innovations Search Fund Accelerator Sensata Technologies Seyfarth Shaw LLP Shell TechWorks SHYFT Analytics Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc. Slalom Soldiers Field Park Children's Center Solstice Initiative Somerville Public Schools Sqrrl Success Academy Charter Schools Sun Life Financial Teach For America Tesla Motors Thompson Island Outward Bound Thorogood Associates TRACS, Inc. TripAdvisor Tufts University Tufts University Conference and Event Services and Tufts English Language Programs Tufts University Investment Office Two Ten Footwear Foundation U.S. Army ROTC U.S. Department of State U.S. Fund for UNICEF U.S. Marine Corps - Officer Programs U.S. Navy Officer Programs Uncommon Schools United Planet University of Massachusetts Medical School UP Education Network Urban Teachers USDA, Food Safety & Inspection Service UTC AEROSPACE SYSTEMS ViaSat, Inc. Vistaprint- a Cimpress company Walden Street School Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, P.C. Y.O.U., Inc. yet2. Youth Villages

1/8 AD

“Tufts Career Fair Plus” app • LinkedIn photo booth Sponsored by Tufts

Career Center &

4 tuftsdaily.com

Features

The politics of language: the teaching of Arabic in U.S. colleges by Sophie Lehrenbaum

“critical” language. Rastegar noted that Arabic News Editor study is inevitably a product of its environment, since the U.S. academia considers it Three times a week, sophomore Chase politically instrumental due to national interTroxell climbs to the very top of Olin Hall ests in the region. Still, he rejected the idea and, along with five other classmates, crowds that learning the language has become more into a tiny room with an excellent view of the about priming pupils as diplomats or executResidential Quad. They all file into the seats ing the agenda of the State Department. in front the row, awaiting the professor, who “A lot of what goes on in American uniwalks in, looks up and greets the class before versities…is affected by the larger political her, saying, “Marhaba.” Hello. The six Arabic climate and by the institutional relationships students dutifully respond to their teacher. that exist in government and universities, Class has begun. so Arabic is affected, and it does mean that Troxell, a computer science major, is in people come to Arabic sometimes with fairly his fourth semester studying Arabic, a lan- instrumental interests that they think they guage he decided to study during his first want to learn it…to join the ‘War On Terror,’ semester at Tufts. but people who design curriculum, teach the “My FOCUS mom would teach us Arabic classes [and] do the hard work, don’t see the phrases,” Troxell said. “I had a language world in those terms,” Rastegar said. requirement and I wanted something new, so Arabic Language Coordinator and Lecturer I took [Arabic].” Rana Abdul-Aziz echoed Rastegar’s sentiHe conceded, however, that he had a ments and explained that “al-Kitaab” has been slow start in his pursuit to learn Arabic. met with scorn in the past for introducing the “It was a lot like the first years of elemen- word “United Nations” a year or two before it tary school; we learned letters and how to say teaches “dog” or “cat” but asserted that this the letters for six or so weeks,” Troxell said. is to endow students with the vocabulary to “Letters, then words, and then how to put discuss pertinent academic subjects. them together. Kindergarten.” For Troxell, the course is designed fairly What may surprise people is that Troxell logically, in a way that is distinctly different has no motivation to pursue Arabic in a pro- from the roadmap of learning other languages fessional context. He plans to continue taking but practical in the context of the structures Arabic courses purely for the sake of improv- that are unique to Arabic. ing his language skills. “The language that we are learning is not Associate Professor of Arabic Kamran the language of ‘I want to go the movies’ or Rastegar explained that, while this sort of out- ‘my favorite color is red,’” Troxell said. “The look might be a departure from the status-quo language we are learning is a political lanof Arabic in academia in the United States, it guage, a language for news, a language for is fairly reflective of the Arabic study at Tufts. broadcasting.” “There was a huge sort of ramping up in Troxell explained how Arabic is divided into terms of the quantity of [Arabic] students two different ways of speaking. First, Fusha is a since after 9/11…[it became] much more formal way of speaking, which Troxell likened mainstream,” Rastegar said. “My experience to Shakespearian English. This is what the at Tufts is that a lot of students…take [Arabic] students learn first, as it introduces many of in the first year for diplomacy and drop out the grammatical structures that they need to of it after the first year. Students that we have conduct day to day conversation. who major in Arabic very rarely have interLater on, students learn the more colests in diplomacy or hardcore international loquial, everyday manner of speech called Relations stuff…[but are] interested in other Ammiya, which, Troxell explained, tends to applications.” vary a lot more from country to country. The correlation between the recent polit“[Initially, we were doing] a lot of drills and ical context and the notable rise in students [going through] sheets of questions you would studying Arabic certainly makes sense, get up and ask each other,” Troxell said. “The but as Stanford University sophomore content is a lot about what you want to do Madeleine Chang raised in her Sept. 30, in the future, or where you were from. [Now] 2015 article in the Stanford Daily, American there are a lot of moving parts, you have to academia has been propagating a pointed consider endings and the connotations of the politicization of Arabic study, and in addi- wordings … When you learn a word, you learn tion to vocabulary sheets and flashcards, the whole family of words that come with it.” learning the language now comes with an With regard to “al-Kitaab,” Abdul-Aziz underlying agenda. emphasized that teaching Arabic in the class“Arabic language’s ‘moment’ is being fund- room should not be conflated with the coned in a joint effort by the Departments of tent of the textbook, since the curriculum Defense, State and Education, which have is made up of many parts. In particular, she established various federal programs aimed noted that professors work to address some of at teaching college students Arabic and the book’s shortcomings by introducing supother critical languages,” Chang wrote in plemental material to the classroom. the Stanford Daily. “The ‘al-Kitaab’ textbook “With the introduction of the third edition was funded by a grant from the National in 2011, ‘al-Kitaab’ moved sharply towards Endowment for the Humanities (an indepen- teaching the Arabic dialects — in other words, dent federal agency).” Arabic as it is spoken in the home and [on] Chang highlighted the shortcomings of the the street, not as it is formally written or “al-Kitaab” textbook series, which graces the read aloud on news programs,” Abdul-Aziz shelves of college bookstores from Stanford, said. “Traditionally, nearly all Arabic programs CA to Medford, Mass. She pointed out how had taught only the formal Modern Standard early chapters of the textbook, which in con- Arabic. By introducing dialects and Modern gruent levels of learning Spanish or French Standard Arabic at the same time, the third would include colors and months, are riddled edition presents an Arabic much closer to that with vocabulary about the United Nations, the used by actual Arabs in their everyday lives. State Department and diplomacy. Thus, in those later editions, you see more and Naturally, at a school with as robust and more everyday vocabulary including colors popular an International Relations program early in the series’ introductory book.” as Tufts, it makes sense that students are purIn terms of ‘al-Kitaab,’ Abdul-Aziz recogsuing what the State Department deems a nizes that there is always a better way to teach

the language but believes that it is one of the most viable options for Arabic language learning in the classroom. “We also shouldn’t forget that ‘al-Kitaab’ is still substantially better than anything else on the market right now for the purposes of most students,” Abdul-Aziz said. “The other books are failing to produce students with the same level of oral proficiency and communicative competence.” She went on to explain that the lower-level introductory classes are taught with basic supplementary information, such as the different colors, along with more formal mechanics. She described Arabic 03 and 04 as courses designed to equip students with the skills necessary to study abroad in Arabic-speaking countries, while the upper levels are meant to cater to the interests of students. Additionally, the Department organizes programming such as themed film series that are designed to help students connect with the local and international Arabic-speaking community. Rastegar and Troxell both emphasized that learning Arabic at Tufts fosters a strong sense of community, which they believe is one of the most important elements of the program. “[We have students] who really interact with each other and…solidify relations and connections,” Rastegar said. “A sense of student community is what we do well. My experience is that not many universities put time and energy into that. I think that allows for students to organize and voice their interests … It takes students to kind of really push [ideas] ahead and make us give priority to doing programming on these things. We can respond to that…and get the students involved in a social way.” As for who brings the most to the classroom, Abdul-Aziz maintains that students who study cultural and linguistic aspects of Arabic purely out of interest tend to get ahead. “In my experience, people who are trying to learn the language without trying to grasp the culture plateau at a fairly low level of linguistic competence,” Abdul-Aziz said. “It’s not just about learning [that] door [is] baab and orange [is] burtuqaal. To reach advanced proficiency, you have to make a genuine effort to appreciate the cultural differences and similarities, so that you more deeply understand the perspective of your interlocutors.” Putting in that time and effort is exactly what Troxell intends to do, even if he will not be applying for a job as a government translator anytime soon. “I’ve spent a lot of time in Tisch, a lot of time with my classmates making skits, memorizing skits,” Troxell said. “It’s probably fifteen hours a week.” But he would not have it any differently. “Yeah, it’s good [stuff],” he said.

NICHOLAS PFOSI / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVE

Associate Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature Dr. Kamran Rastegar poses for a picture on Aug. 26, 2014 on the Academic Quad.

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

John Russell and Rayn Riel Bridge the Gap

Bridge the Gap

t’s winter again in Boston. Anyone who was here last year knows what that means—our ability to move about the city could come to a screeching halt in the blink of an eye. The MBTA (or the “T”) completely shut down last winter after repeated large storms, stranding thousands of travelers and creating severely overcrowded vehicles on services that did run. The T relies every day on outdated, overburdened and overstressed equipment, some of which was built a full 70 years ago. Before the storms that brought the T to a halt last winter, we knew that the MBTA had a maintenance backlog upward of $5 billion. It is now estimated to be upwards of $7 billion. If nothing more, last winter proved that the trend of procrastinating on putting together a plan to address the MBTA’s needs is materially harmful to the residents of eastern Massachusetts who currently rely on the T. Despite this, demand for transit services in Boston has been growing. Since 2010, the number of unlinked trips on the MBTA has increased by 15 percent. In the same time period, the population of the Boston area grew just six percent. Boston is hardly alone in seeing increasing demand for transit: all across the country, transit ridership is growing. Transit agencies across the United States handled more than 10.5 billion unlinked trips in 2014, a five percent increase from 9.95 billion in 2010. The population of the United States grew just three percent in the same period. While Boston’s elected officials wrestle over whether or not to fund the Green Line Extension, new transit services in other parts of the country, such as the new Green Line light rail in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota and the CTfastrak system in Hartford, Connecticut have been so successful that they are approaching their 2030 ridership goals nearly 15 years ahead of schedule. Clearly, there is a serious disconnect between Boston’s demand for transit and our leaders’ willingness to provide it. Right now, the state and city have agreed to spend almost $150 million to encourage General Electric to move its 800-person corporate headquarters to Boston, while the T’s new Fiscal and Management Control Board is doing its utmost to kill the MBTA’s popular late night service to save a mere $14 million. Our leaders are developing Boston as a hub of innovation, but not as a hub for transportation. It is this disconnect between Boston’s transit usage and our transit funding that we plan to explore through writing this column. Why are many cities across the country choosing to expand and improve the quality of their transit systems, while cities such as Boston are unable to come up with the political willpower to maintain the systems they have? Are Boston’s transit woes just political, or is it actually impossible for transit systems to be fiscally sustainable? Is it possible for cities such as Boston to not invest in transit, given that urban areas are seeing population growth at a significantly greater rate than the rest of the country? We look forward to sharing our ideas about transportation and its related social, economic, political and environmental effects with you over the course of this semester in our column, Bridge the Gap. John Russell is a senior majoring in Mathematics. He can reached at john.russell@ tufts.edu. Rayn Riel is a graduate student in City/Urban, Community and Regional Planning. He can be reached at Rayn. Riel@tufts.edu.

ARTS&LIVING

5 tuftsdaily.com

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

OSCARS COMMENTARY

Oscar’s Best Animated Short Film nominations strengthen claim of animation as a distinct medium

by Eran Sabaner

Assistant Arts Editor

“Best Animated Short Film” is one of the oldest categories of the Academy Awards, has been given by the organization every year since 1932. It is also arguably one of the most ignored. There are many reasons underlying the lack of attention the category has received, but primarily it is due to the fact that the public has little or no ability to see the nominated films. Also, compared to the blockbusters that are nominated for the Best Animation category, Best Animation Shorts are known to have small budgets and are mostly made by less experienced directors. That said, large movie studios, seeking an easy win, have lately decided to produce movies fitting this category. This year’s nominees are truly a mix in terms of country of production, size of studios and experience of directors. There are three foreign movies, a movie produced by the massive animation company Pixar and another made by a living animation legend. Almost none of these shorts is concerned with mass appeal. Thus they are bold, artistic movies that remind people why animation is an art form of its own. Pixar’s movie, “Sanjay’s Super Team” (2015) will look very familiar to those who have watched “The Good Dinosaur” (2015) in theaters. A sweet short that illustrates the significance of religion through a kid’s perspective, “Sanjay’s Super Team” also touches upon the generational gap in a profound way. It is certainly not the best Pixar short, but it is an important one as it features an Indian cast and centers on a non-Western religion. It is pleasant to see Indian characters from a studio that is known to have diversity problems in its movies.

PIXAR VIA TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

A still from Oscar nominee for Best Animation Short “Sanjay’s Super Team.” Gabriel Osorio Vargas’ “Bear Story” (2015) is likely to win this year’s race. A festival favorite, the Chilean picture illustrates an abducted circus bear’s struggles to return home. “Bear Story” is pleasant to look at but not exactly the most original movie. The dark horse of the category is definitely the Russian short “We Can’t Live Without Cosmos” (2015), which features the bittersweet tale of two astronaut best friends. It is witty, clever and very touching. The movie is reminiscent of this year’s Best Picture nominee “The Martian” (2015) not only because it is a space drama but also because it has the same affecting tone and feel. Another favorite is Richard Edmund Williams’ “The Prologue” (2015). Mainly known for his work as the Animation Director of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” (1988), Williams is one the most iconic animators alive today. For “The Prologue,” Williams collaborated with his wife Imogen Sutton. While “The Prologue” was shown, the children were advised to leave the room due to its mature content and very understandably so; the movie is very artistic and equally violent.

It proves how a seemingly naïve and childish medium like animation can be used to depict gore. The last nominee, “World of Tomorrow” (2015), is certainly the most ambitious effort. Part futuristic sci-fi and part satirical comedy, “World of Tomorrow” is clever but also laugh-outloud funny. While most short movies are not able to convey complex messages, “World of Tomorrow” is able to do so. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to state that the short is comparable to Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s famous 1943 picture book “The Little Prince,” in terms of profundity. Compared to “Inside Out” (2015) or “Anomalisa” (2015), the animation shorts are significantly less developed. However, they are undeniably more innovative and experimental. While animation features often attempt to imitate the language of live action films, animation shorts try to establish animation as its own medium. Perhaps it is best for these movies to be ignored, since lack of attention from the public leads directors and producers to take risks and attempt to create something unique.

MOVIE REVIEW

Friends, Romans, countrymen: ‘Hail, Caesar’ is missable by Jonah Allon Arts Editor

“Hail, Caesar,” released on Feb. 5, takes a pretty dim view of Tinseltown.

This is hardly surprising; the Coen brothers, who directed it, have a well-documented contempt for Hollywood, expressed both in interviews and in previous efforts like “Barton Fink.”(1991)

ALISON COHEN ROSA VIA TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

Scarlett Johansson in “Hail, Caesar!”

But modern Hollywood, widely seen as a cesspool of reckless hedonism and narcissistic entitlement, is now low-hanging fruit, and it is not in this film’s crosshairs. No, instead “Hail, Caesar” harkens back to the 1950s, when the film industry and those who labored away within it like a colony of ants could still make a plausible claim to innocence, or at the very least, naiveté. Joel and Ethan Coen, in typically cynical fashion, unmask that claim as illusory pretty quickly — the stars are just as much of a handful, the directors just as pretentious and the gossip journalists just as prying. In other words, very little distinguishes this world from Hollywood as we know it. Very little, that is, and a whole lot. In the 1950s, the all-encompassing paranoia see HAIL, CAESAR, page 6

Vidya Srinivasan Screen Time

Pilot

’m at my grandfather’s old flat tucked within a sprawling hospital complex in the heart of Chennai. It’s 3 a.m. and everyone else has kicked their jetlag and figured out how to sleep through the air conditioner, which keeps things at a balmy 5ºC. I’m GChatting a friend stateside about how bored I am when she makes the suggestion (injunction?) that changes everything. This, you see, is the night I learn about online streaming—the beginning of my ongoing love affair with television. Things move pretty fast after that. With an entire world of links at my fingertips, I quickly forget what it’s like to catch odd episodes of Kim Possible in waiting rooms and learn how to watch things sequentially and devotedly. I acquire favorite recappers and try to see what they see; I learn about ADR and lazy writing and how it’s okay, in some circles, to talk about fictional characters as if they’re your own hyper-attractive friends who never have their sh*t together. I start tracking my docket on SideReel. If I told you I’ve watched a lot of TV, you’d probably point out all of the New American Classics I haven’t seen (The Office (2005– 2013) , The Sopranos (1999–2007), Breaking Bad (2008-2013). Better to say I’ve watched an assortment of stuff, ranging from several years of the original Japanese Ninja Warrior (1997 – present) watched as a family affair to the Netflix original programming that fuels the thinkpiece-industrial complex. I want to try doing something with all of the hours I’ve logged watching the shows themselves, poring over recaps, drafting dissertation-length speculative iMessages and generally ruminating. That doesn’t mean it’ll be easy. Writing about TV feels both too frivolous (greetings, future employers! I promise I don’t think vampires exist) and too real, because the shows I think about often reflect parts of myself or my world. There is a particular intimacy to letting you in on how and why they sit in my head. Maybe I should imagine you reading this in your underwear. Also, I have no idea how to fill up these weeks. Should I only write about shows I like? Shows I recommend? Shows that pay me to promote them? (This criterion currently applies to no shows at all.) Let’s make some ground rules, so that you (I) don’t feel like I’m totally winging this: I’m not promising consistency. Some weeks, I’ll treat this like a full-series review; other weeks, I’m going to zero in on something in particular. Discretionary spoilers. I’m going to assume you know Orphan Black (2013–present) is about clones, but I won’t talk about how I still lie awake sometimes contemplating the last-second twist in the third season finale, which left _____’s life hanging in the balance. Talk to me on Twitter/Facebook, or in Eaton Lab! My hope is to achieve AV-Clubcomment-board civility and unabashed geekiness, but in real life. I’m cool with disagreements that aren’t rooted in different realities (White people, please don’t tell me if you don’t agree that a show has a race problem). Anyway. Some parting words from Marina and the Diamonds: “TV taught me how to feel / Now real life has no appeal.” Or something. Vidya Srinivasan is a senior majoring in international relations. She can be reached at vidya.srinivasan@tufts.edu.

THE TUFTS DAILY | Arts & Living | Wednesday, February 10, 2016

tuftsdaily.com

A&L

ARTS&LIVING

TV REVIEW

Fox finds success with impressive performance of ‘Grease: Live’ by Alison Epstein Staff Writer

“Grease:Live,” had me a blast, “Grease: Live” happened so fast! With NBC serving up several live TV musicals over the past several years, including “The Sound of Music” in 2013 and “The Wiz” in 2015, Fox decided to get into the game with its own version of “Grease.” Impossible to “hate-watch,” as viewers have done to many of the other live TV musicals, “Grease: Live” was almost non-stop fun. Even die-hard fans of earlier adaptions could appreciate the energy and wave of nostalgia that was present throughout the full three-hour event. Drawing primarily from the 1978 film adaptation of the 1971 Broadway hit and the 2007 Broadway revival, “Grease: Live” starred Julianne Hough (Sandy), Aaron Tveit (Danny) and Vanessa Hudgens (Rizzo), and featured other well-known names as well, including Keke Palmer (Marty), Carly Rae Jepsen (Frenchy), Mario Lopez ( Vince Fontaine) and Boyz II Men (collectively as the Teen Angel). There even was an appearance from the original Frenchy, Didi Conn, as The Frosty Palace waitress Vi. After a short scene of Sandy and Danny saying goodbye in front of a green screen that featured some unconvincing waves, the show got off to an energetic start with Jessie J singing “Grease” and roaming through the various sets and sound stages, even stopping backstage to take a quick selfie with The Pink Ladies. Right away, it was clear that this was no ordinary live TV musical. The set designers took advantage of the fact that this performance was on TV and not limited to a typical musical’s single stage to create a set that was a hybrid of the two media. There were several sound stages scattered through the lot, and before commercial breaks, cameras showed actors running between them, with some even hitching rides on golf carts. And for the finale, the actors jumped onto the carts and drove themselves from the gym set to the outdoor carnival set, all the while belting out the lyrics to “We Go Together.” Though this could definitely

FOX VIA TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

Vanessa Hudgens in Fox’s new musical “Grease: Live.” be considered cheesy and gimmicky, it mostly felt cute. Plus, watching the actors enjoying themselves was its own form of entertainment, as was catching a glimpse at their terrified faces when they almost crashed a golf cart. Hough’s portrayal of Sandy closely resembled Olivia Newton John’s in the 1978 film. Save for Newton John’s Australian accent and a last name change from Olsen to Young, the two Sandys were nearly identical. Hough’s dancing was expectedly amazing, and her singing, more surprisingly, was excellent as well. Tveit impressed vocally as Danny, and his biceps surely impressed viewers across the country, but he ultimately did not have the same Zuko swagger John Travolta possessed in the movie. And, unfortunately for Tveit, high-definition TV made his 32-year-old face hard to pass for 18. Hudgens was unsuccessful in capturing the same grit that Stockard Channing mustered as Rizzo in the

movie, but she was nonetheless a convincing leader of the Pink Ladies. Her performance of “There Are Worse Things I Could Do” was also a highlight of the night. Another standout was little-known actor Jordan Fisher as Doody, and he crooned his way into viewers’ hearts with his rendition of “Those Magic Changes.” The cherry on top of this already-great number was an ending that featured soaring harmonies between Fisher and Tveit. While there were no true weak links in the cast, invariably, some actors’ performances were weaker than others. Palmer flawlessly sang “Freddy My Love,” a typically overlooked song that is only in the stage musical, but her acting was exaggerated and a little grating. Palmer also ran into a similar problem as Jepsen — both chose to attempt some sort of 1950s accent that ultimately ended up sounding quasi-British and was completely distracting. Jepsen also provided the worst

three minutes of the entire show, by way of the original song written for her, “All I Need is an Angel.” Not only did her vocals leave something to be desired, but also the song lagged and did not match the tone of the other numbers. Probably the most unpleasant overall, however, was Elle McLemore as Patty; the shrillness of her voice and her over-the-top acting, particularly in the cheerleading tryout scene, is something the show probably could have done without. Although “Grease: Live” was not a flawless three hours, the weaker points are easily forgivable. Between the energy of ensemble numbers, particularly “Summer Nights,” the comedic strength of supporting players like Haneefah Wood as Blanche and Kether Donohue as Jan and the perfectly corny car chase scene — complete with flames and wind machines — “Grease: Live” was an absolute pleasure to watch. Grease (live!) is the word.

New Coen brothers Hollywood flick ‘Hail, Caesar’ falls flat HAIL, CAESAR

continued from page 5 about Communism — codified in the Hollywood blacklist — had a chokehold on the industry, heavily policing the output of major studios, including the fictional Capitol Pictures, where the movie’s action unfolds. All the films you see in production throughout “Hail, Caesar” (and there are a lot of them) are either light on substance or otherwise implicitly promoting normative American values, such as heterosexuality and the Judeo-Christian tradition. But their primary imperative is diverting their audiences. It’s entertainment as an opiate of the masses. Somewhat fittingly, then, a drugging sets the storyline into motion. Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), the dopey star of the titular movie being produced by Capitol Pictures, swills from a drugged chalice on set, passes out and is abducted by a group of

communists who call themselves The Future. The head of production for the studio, Eddie Mannix (an overly dour Josh Brolin), is tasked with finding him so they can wrap up the film. But he’s juggling a lot of other responsibilities. He has to clear a script with representatives of the major religions, which proves more difficult than it seems. He has to defuse a looming PR crisis involving one of his stars, DeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson), who is unmarried and pregnant. He has to resolve artistic differences between a young crooner-cum-actor, Hobie Doyle (a pitch-perfect Alden Ehrenrich) and his flummoxed director, Laurence Laurentz (a criminally under-utilized Ralph Fiennes). A pair of twin gossip reporters (both played by a marvelous Tilda Swinton) are hot on the scent of a story that he needs to squash. Meanwhile, the defense contractor Lockheed Martin is trying to

poach him, promising him better pay and fewer headaches. Clearly, there is never a dull moment for this man. Given all the rich elements in “Hail, Caesar” — a farcical, how-the-sausageis-made look at the inner workings of the 1950s film industry, a heavy dose of Marxism and an exploration of religion that toes the line between cheeky and sincere — it’s a wonder it doesn’t succeed. Sure, the movie has its moments, like a fantastically shot tap-dancing scene featuring Channing Tatum as the Hollywood heartthrob Burt Gurney (it’s better than it sounds), but moments like these only augment our disappointment by the end. They’re little glimpses of potential in an overall disappointing package, now off-limits for better projects. Ultimately, the film’s greatest transgression is that it fails to make us care. Plot threads are picked up then hastily resolved. Big reveals elicit more of

a sigh than a gasp. The climax — or what should have been the climax — deflates into a plodding denouement. The Coens might have consciously been trying to play with these standard narrative conventions, but attempting creative subversion isn’t a license for lazy storytelling. And besides, there’s nothing more conventional than Brolin’s Mannix, a man whose fervent devotion to his work, moral rectitude and utter lack of quirks render him flat, two-dimensional. A couple times in “Hail, Caesar,” we see him visiting the confessional booth, seeking to be absolved of his sins. But as the camera zooms out from the Capitol Pictures studio for the final shot, we understand where his true allegiance lies. This may be the universe he presides over, but it’s also the altar at which he worships. Sometimes his faith will be rewarded, and other times, as with this movie, it will be tested.

Wednesday, February 10, 2016 | Comics | THE TUFTS DAILY

tuftsdaily.com

Comics

LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Nick: “My aesthetic is cuddly.”

Comics

CROSSWORD

SUDOKU

JUMBLE

Difficulty Level: Choosing between wanting a snow day and not wanting to make up the work.

Tuesday’s Solution

NON SEQUITUR BY WILEY MILLER

8 tuftsdaily.com

Opinion EDITORIAL

Rhetoric or reality in discussing free speech This month, CBS News released a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll focused on Americans’ views regarding freedom of speech. Many questions were asked, yet one in particular is worth analyzing: should colleges concentrate more on fostering diverse points of view or fostering a place where students feel safe? According to those polls, 70 percent of Americans believe in the former, and such a response places them in good company. This past December, President Obama publicly addressed colleges’ inclination to censor disagreeable speech. In an NPR interview, the president said, “What I don’t want is a situation in which particular points of view that are presented respectfully and reasonably are shut down, and we have seen that sometimes happen.” The President also instructed students to “feel free to disagree with somebody, but don’t try to just shut them up.” The original polling results strongly suggest that colleges should serve as a diverse marketplace of ideas, yet the responses also beget a more important question: does America’s rhetoric match its reality? And if not, then is how we conceive of free speech sometimes limiting? A cursory search through recent news would suggest an answer to this question that would disappoint 70 percent of Americans, as well as President Obama. In this academic year alone, Georgetown Law School prohibited students from campaigning on campus for Bernie Sanders, and the South Carolina

State Legislature cut over $69,000 in funding for two of its schools after they assigned LGBT themed reading for their incoming freshman. Several years ago, three students at Modesto Junior College were told by campus police that they could not distribute pocket-sized Constitutions outside of their student center. Quite clearly there has been a disconnect between our state of mind and our state of reality that should lead us to ask: whose speech is protected? Why this has occurred is difficult to answer; yet the disconnect itself should not be hard to remedy. Afterall, our campus is what we want it to be. A slight reminder of what we, as students, should stand for can result in major changes. Upon closer analysis, the CBS poll is very misleading, as it implies that a university cannot foster both diversity of thought and student safety. As long as a campus is clear in how it defines each goal, they can be achieved simultaneously. Unconstitutional speech, in the form of true threats and intimidating statements, has been clearly defined by the Supreme Court. When speech crosses into this realm, it must be prohibited and condemned. For example, as this newspaper previously reported this past fall, students of color at the University of Missouri were met with death threats for speaking out against policies at their school; such threats must be condemned for crossing the line from being free expression

to illegal intimidation. The definitions supplied by the Supreme Court are tailored to circumstances in which one’s safety is legitimately threatened, and in accordance with these definitions, we as students must accept the silencing of such speech. By no means, however, does this censorship weaken the goal of diverse views, as any speech beyond these definitions’ scope must equally be accepted. This newspaper has previously stated that “free speech is an invaluable feature of civil society because of its capacity to challenge [perceptions that otherwise would not be tolerated].” In accordance with the above views, by its very nature, freedom of speech is designed to empower minority voices and opinions from majority censorship and the status quo. Those with power will always be interested in negating and limiting the speech of those without power. Free speech can only be truly free when we all speak a common language of truth in the face of power. In a polemic against his Parliament, the famous writer John Milton said that institutions of higher education ought to be mansion houses of liberty. If the Tufts community were to settle for any lesser standard of free speech and student safety than what the Supreme Court has prescribed, we would simply be another ivory tower. We must strive instead to make free speech free for all and especially those for whom speech is truly stifled.

BEYONCÉ WINS THE SUPER BOWL BY ALLISON MEROLA

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Pooja Sivaraman and Rebecca Solomon New York Style Dehli

Senti Solomon and Sivaraman

ebecca: This is our last New York Style Dehli. Pooja and I have been giving advice to the Tufts community for two years now and by that we mean our housemates who take advantage of our anonymous Google doc. Yes, Neva this was about you. It has become scarily apparent that this could be the last year Pooja and I live in the same city. Pooja has a lot of crucial functions in my life. She is my personal dictionary and thesaurus (this is the most exciting thing she has done with her English major). Honestly, I don’t know what I’ll do without her. Graduation is looming over us like a gray cloud and our only reprieve are your questions so let’s get started. Dear NYSD, How do I get rid of a cold? Rebecca: You often have to ride it out. Part of riding out colds for me is telling the person who gave it to me “I hate you” at least six times a day. However, reader, if you’re more well adjusted, stick to tea, lots of rest and NyQuil. Dear NYSD, What do you want to be when you grow up? Rebecca: No one wants to think about aging. I don’t think that I will ever grow up. I still listen to the Spice Girls and my palette has not expanded beyond sugary cereals. Moreover, my penchant for Olay will keep me youthful and blissful forever. Pooja: At five, I answered actress, at seven, ‘scientist’, at 13 author, at 17, a professional reader of things and at 21 a homeless poet. Dear NYSD, Is this going to be a rough winter? Pooja: My answer to this is — don’t let the current snow storm fool you. From my past experience with New England winters, I have learnt that the only credible sources for the weather report are from taxi drivers (no, not Uber drivers), and this year I was told by a very friendly employee of Medford cabs that this would be one of our worst winters yet. On the bright side, he also predicted that Bernie would be president and we would find a solution to global warming!

The Tufts Daily is a nonprofit, independent newspaper, published Monday through Friday during the academic year, and distributed free to the Tufts community. The content of letters, advertisements, signed columns, cartoons and graphics does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Tufts Daily editorial board. EDITORIALS Editorials represent the position of The Tufts Daily. Individual editors are not necessarily responsible for, or in agreement with, the policies and editorials of The Tufts Daily. OP-EDS The Op-Ed section of The Tufts Daily, an open forum for campus editorial commentary, is printed Monday through Thursday. The Daily welcomes submissions from all members of the Tufts community; the opinions expressed in the Op-Ed section do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Daily itself. Opinion articles on campus, national and international issues should be 600 to 1,200 words in length and submitted to oped@tuftsdaily.com. The editors reserve the right to edit letters for clarity, space and length. All material is subject to editorial discretion and is not guaranteed to appear in the Daily. Authors must submit their telephone numbers and day-of availability for editing questions. ADVERTISING All advertising copy is subject to the approval of the Editor-in-Chief, Executive Board and Executive Business Director.

Pooja: Rebecca’s intro just made me tear up, but in all honesty I don’t know what I will do when the NY has no more D. From spilling acid on herself freshman year to her calls asking “Is the ‘e’ in cafe ever silent,” NYSD is the 1.5 year culmination of a 3.5 year (occasionally hazardous) partnership. So on that note, here’s to another great and final semester! Pooja Sivaraman is a senior majoring in economics. She can be reached at pooja.sivaraman@tufts.edu. Rebecca Solomon is a senior majoring in economics. She can be reached at rebecca. solomon@tufts.edu.

Wednesday, February 10, 2016 | Opinion | THE TUFTS DAILY

tuftsdaily.com

Opinion

O p i n i on

OP-ED

Why I can’t support Bernie Sanders by Grace Segers Even though I’m currently studying abroad in London, I’ve been keeping apprised of news regarding the 2016 presidential campaign. In the past few weeks, I’ve noticed a subtle war between my Tufts friends who support Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination and those who support former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. This conflict has taken place over Facebook and Twitter and is mainly conducted via meme-sharing and hashtags. Still, it seems there is a significant divide between those who support Sanders’ candidacy and those who support Clinton’s. I’m a registered Democrat, and I’m a Clinton supporter but not necessarily because I like her policies more than Sanders’ ideas. I want to believe in the political revolution that Sanders is selling to his supporters, but unfortunately, the reality of the American political situation precludes me from supporting this election cycle’s “hope and change” candidate.

It’s very easy to get caught in the Tufts ideological bubble; we go to an extremely liberal university. However, the majority of the country does not share the beliefs of Tufts students. Most of the state legislatures have a Republican majority. Most of the state governors in the United States are Republicans. The Republican Party has a majority in Congress and will most likely remain in power in both the House and the Senate after the 2016 election. Even the Supreme Court has a conservative majority, with five members having been appointed by Republican presidents. If the Democratic nominee does not win the presidency in November 2016, Democrats will have severely diminished influence in the United States. If Senator Sanders is the Democratic nominee, I’m not confident that the American public will vote for him. Maybe Sanders would encourage youth turnout, but his candidacy would still divert older, more moderate voters. Regardless of whether the Republican nominee is Donald Trump or an establishment can-

didate, the political revolution Sanders wants to occur may not happen. I, personally, want a Democrat to be sworn into the White House in January 2017. My reasoning goes beyond simple ideological leanings; I do not want a Republican president because I am terrified of what that may mean for the country. More specifically, I am terrified of what that may mean for children who will be growing up like I did. I am the daughter of a single mother. I was raised in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City—if you’ve ever seen the Netflix show “Daredevil,” you’ll know that isn’t the nicest place to live. In my early childhood, my mother worked three jobs to put herself through university and get us out of that situation. A significant reason my mom was able to accomplish this is because of government assistance. When I was younger, we were on food stamps. We were receiving Medicaid. My mom was on a government program called “Women, Infants and Children,” which was created to support poorer mothers. Federal government programs helped my mother and me signifi-

cantly; they’re a large part of why we got out of the ghetto. They’re a large part of why I am able to go to Tufts on a full scholarship today. If a Republican president is in office, I don’t know what will happen to these government programs that helped my family when I was younger. I’m not supporting Senator Sanders for many reasons, but the primary one is this: I don’t believe that he can win against the eventual Republican candidate. I believe that Clinton can, and moreover, I like her and believe that she can get results. I wish that my fellow students supporting Sanders would take a moment to think about the implications of a Republican presidency. I was lucky enough to have the federal government to support me when I was young. I don’t want to see a generation of children without the opportunities that I had because a Republican was elected president over a Democratic socialist. Grace Segers is a junior majoring in political science. She can be reached at grace. segers@tufts.edu

Want to get campus news the moment it happens? Follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

/thetuftsdaily @tuftsdaily

Interested in being involved with Pre-Orientation 2016?

Apply to be on FOCUS Staff today!

As part of FOCUS staff, you will: v Help incoming Freshman transition to Tufts v Join a fun, caring, and enthusiastic team v Do community service in the Boston area Applications are open to everyone, no previous Pre-O involvement necessary! Email focus@tufts.edu for an application J

/tuftsdaily /tuftsdaily

THE TUFTS DAILY | ADVERTISEMENT | Wednesday, February 10, 2016

1/4

1/8 FULL AD 1/2

tuftsdaily.com

Wednesday, February 10, 2016 | Sports | THE TUFTS DAILY

tuftsdaily.com

Sports

Goldberg, Nugnes productive back on the ice ICE HOCKEY

continued from back fidence. We know we are a good hockey team. We know we can beat the best teams in the league. Sometimes it’s just one bad bounce. Our older guys are very important to our team and such but we are, at the end of the day, a little young. Sometimes we are prone to not bring our A-game every single shift every single game.” Conlin allowed six goals and stopped 27 shots while Essery stopped two shots and allowed two goals. Nugnes saved 18 shots and allowed one goal in his return from a lower body injury. His last game was a 46-save, three-goal-allowed effort against Trinity on Jan. 22. “[Nugnes] is still suffering,” Goldberg said. “He’s a trooper, I’d say. He’s battling everyday. He’ll have to have multiple surgeries in the offseason, but he’s still coming to practice and games, and he’s helping the team tremendously.” On Friday, the Jumbos got off to somewhat of a slow start when the league’s official scheduler accidentally omitted the game from its website and there were no referees scheduled to officiate. After an hour and a half delay, four NCAA-certified referees were found and the game was allowed to begin. The Jumbos wasted no time scoring after the first whistle. Ouellette fired a point-shot from the right side which sailed over Conlin’s shoulder into the net just past the two-minute mark. Two minutes and 20 seconds later, Goldberg crossed the blue line on a two-on-one fast break and kept the puck to score.

In the second period, Leary extended Tufts’ lead to three off an assist from Goldberg. Goldberg scored and assisted in both games. He missed the first seven games of this season with a concussion and 22 of 26 games his first year due to a broken collarbone. “I’m just glad to be back,” Goldberg said. “It’s good to know that I can start contributing again. I’ve missed the last two years basically, so I haven’t done much for the team, but now that the team is doing well and finding the right combination of guys, I think it’s good that I can start contributing and helping us win.” In the third period, senior Joe Birmingham got past Pulde at 17:32 and put the Camels on the board, but with only two and a half minutes remaining, the Camels were unable to muster enough pressure to score again. After Coach Jim Ward pulled Conlin, the Jumbos were able to force a turnover and Abbene attempted to pass to Flanagan. Flanagan recognized that the puck’s trajectory would carry it into the goal and allowed it through. The score remained 4-1 until the final whistle after the empty netter. Pulde saved 50 shots and allowed only one goal, while his Camels counterpart Conlin saved 42 shots and allowed three goals. After this weekend, Pulde leads the NESCAC in save percentage by 0.1 percent. He has saved 95.1 percent of shots thus far this season. Nugnes is fifth at 94.4 percent. Both games were in honor of the Green Dot Program which aims to

reduce instances of power-based personal violence through content development and intervention training. According to Norton, senior Dominic Granato and some of the younger players took the lead on bringing the Green Dot game to Tufts on Friday. Conn. College hosted its fifth annual Green Dot game on Saturday. “[That] it’s raising awareness is the biggest thing,” Abbene said. “Even at a very conscious school like Tufts you go into parties, and there are things you don’t even realize are wrong until you sit down and have a discussion about it. I think [Green Dot] is something that is important to have on campus. I think the game is a good start and hopefully it will become a yearly thing, and we can do more things even before the game … Maybe make it a school-wide thing.” “I think [Green Dot] is important, especially these days,” Goldberg said. “I haven’t [been] trained in Green Dot, but I know it basically means bystander intervention and prevention for sexual assault. So I think it’s important, especially being in a fraternity as well, that we start changing the culture from this sort of rape culture… We need to change that… [and we] really need to step in and start being proactive about it. There’s no better time than the first few years of college to help that stick in people’s minds.” Tufts looks to continue to stay competitive in the middle of the pack in the NESCAC with a pair of games this weekend at Amherst on Saturday and at Hamilton on Sunday.

Tufts upset in disappointing losses to Conn. College, Hamilton MEN'S SQUASH

continued from back College. Both Litman and Trehan earned wins for the Jumbos again in the second and sixth positions, with Litman coming out on top of a five-set battle and Trehan sweeping his opponent. Raskopf and sophomore Sandeep Rishi contributed wins to Tufts’ cause in the fifth and seventh positions as well. But the Continentals were able to pull off several straight-game wins of their own and just edged the Jumbos for the win. The team declined to comment further on the matches this weekend, instead focused on the future. “[Looking forward], we can reflect about what we did wrong, but what matters is the next two weeks of practice,” Fischer wrote. “We need to refocus and get ready for nationals at Yale.” The losses leave the Jumbos with a 7-8 record overall and force them to refocus their strategy leading up to nationals the weekend after next. In order to build morale, the team has fallen back on its small size for practices and cultivated a tight-knit mentality to prepare for its season finale. With a team comprised entirely of firstyears and sophomores, save for juniors Fischer and Austin James Brush, the Jumbos rely more on work ethic than experience. Tufts next hosts Brandeis at its home Belmont Hill courts on Tuesday at 8 p.m.

Eric Smiley Flashes of Brilliance

Curry, for 3

asketball is a game that demands a degree of physical dominance of its transcendent players. The enduring memory of Shaquille O’Neal, a dominant force in the NBA for many years, is a dunk of intense ferocity. For Michael Jordan, the image that sticks in the mind is his effortless glide from the free throw line towards the rim, tongue hanging out, a legend suspended in time and space. In these cases and many more, the inherent physical truth of basketball are revealed; although smaller players such as Muggsy Bogues and Spud Webb have enjoyed success in the NBA, there was always a ceiling on the limits of their rise, a frontier on the dominance they could achieve. Stephen Curry, the reigning league MVP and current NBA scoring leader, instills fear in opposing teams in a fundamentally different way. His shooting range is unparalleled in the history of the game; no one has ever shot a remotely similar volume at anything close to Curry’s efficiency. As great as Curry is, the enduring memory I will have decades from now is not a physical trait that Curry possesses or a feat that only he can realize, but a sense of inevitability that only he can provide when he is “heating up.” Whether in a game of Beer Pong in a fraternity basement or a game of pickup basketball where you get stuck with the guy wearing running shoes, there always lingers the faint possibility of “catching fire” – having several shots in a row find the bottom of the net (or cup). Of course, the elusive feeling of invulnerability lasts only until your ill-advised next shot clangs off the rim and you backpedal sheepishly down the court faking an elbow injury. Curry’s “fire” is somehow yet definitively different. Other shooters find their rhythm, but Curry’s unrivaled range is impossibly surpassed by both the quickness of his release and, perhaps most importantly, the boldness of his shot selection. Confidence, recklessness, cockiness. When Curry is hot, it’s not uncommon to see him pull up from four, five or six feet from behind the line. When he is hot, Curry will gallop the ball up the court in a rushed walk, exposing at the same time the restraint that encapsulates his smooth game and the eagerness, with which he wants to hoist his next shot. If the game is in Oakland, the loudest crowd in the NBA will rise from its seats and scream so loud that the roar permeates the broadcasters’ microphones and echoes through the television speakers. Curry will stop on a dime and hoist the ball from his hip in his unconventional but undeniably effective style. The defender will rise, to no avail, to contest the shot. The ball floats through the air, sometimes splashing the net and sometimes not. The outcome is irrelevant. In five, 10 or 50 years, I won’t remember whether the shot went in. For all of his incredible talents, what I will remember years from now about Stephen Curry, a David among a sea of Goliaths, are these moments when the ball had just left his hand, and I was absolutely sure that it was going in. Eric Smiley is a senior majoring in Mathematics. He can be reached at eric.smiley@tufts.edu.

12 tuftsdaily.com

Sports

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

HOCKEY

Tufts steamrolls Conn. College in pair of games honoring Green Dot program by Phillip Goldberg Sports Editor

Tufts Men’s Hockey defeated Conn. College 4-1 at home on Friday and then again 8-1 on Saturday while away. The wins improve Tufts’ record to 4-6-4 in conference play and 8-7-5 overall, vaulting the Jumbos into the seventh place in the NESCAC. They were tied for eighth with the White Mules last week. The Camels were unable to garner any points this weekend and were eliminated from playoff contention at 0-12-2 in conference. “It’s such a tight window between us, Colby, Wesleyan, Amherst [and] Bowdoin, and I feel like all of those teams are … still too close and nobody has really separated,” Coach Patrick Norton said. “With the eight points still…remaining there’s still a lot up for grabs. It helps to get those points but we certainly need to do our job the rest of the way in.” The eight points the Jumbos managed on Saturday were the most they have put up in a game since an 8-5 victory over the Hamilton Cardinals on Feb. 5, 2010. Junior Patrick Lackey started the scoring off at 9:27 in the first off an assist from junior Mike Leary and first-year Jefferson Martin. Senior co-captain Stewart Bell later found twine behind Conn. College senior goalie Tom Conlin with seven seconds remaining in the period.

Sophomore Nick Flanagan earned the assist on Bell’s fifth goal of the season. The Jumbos took their 2-0 lead into the second period. Conn. College junior Ryan Mowery was called for elbowing just before the first period ended, and first-year defenseman Conner Judson further disadvantaged the Camels when he interfered at the start of the second. With a six on four advantage, first-year Clay Berger, who is tied for the third most assists on the team with seven, scored the first goal of his collegiate career nine seconds into the second period. Sophomore Chad Goldberg assisted. Halfway through the period, Bell notched his second goal of the game on another power play to increase the deficit to 4-0. First-year David Lackner and junior Matt Pugh assisted. According to Norton, Bell had been frustrated with his lack of recent offensive production, but his two games at Conn. College tied him for the team lead with six on the season. “[Bell’s] tenacity is always among the best on the team,” Norton said. “He was able to find the back of the net a few times over the weekend, but he also made a couple of plays that helped us—back-checks, defensive plays, blocked shots—that helped us gain a little momentum.” Junior defenseman Sean Kavanagh scored two minutes later, and Pugh again

ALEX KNAPP / THE TUFTS DAILY

Tufts’ Hockey team routed Connecticut College in a 4-1 win on Friday, Feb. 5. assisted. The score, at 5-0, promised shutout, but Camels’ Captain, senior Tim DiPretoro scored his 12th goal of the season on a power play at the 14-minute mark of the second to stave off a perfect night for Jumbo sophomore goalie Nik Nugnes. Not content to sit on their lead, in the third period, the Jumbos scored twice within 52 seconds, beginning with Lackey’s goal at 8:12. Like Bell, Lackey scored twice on Saturday to finish the weekend with six goals on the season. Senior co-captain Brian Ouellette and first-year Nick Abbene assisted. The

Camels pulled Conlin after Lackey’s goal, but Goldberg scored on his substitute—junior Austin Essery—almost immediately. Sophomores Brian Brown and Trevor Davis assisted. At 12:30 in the third, Abbene fired a shot past Essery for his second goal of the weekend and the final score of the game. The score held at 8-1 for the remainder of the game. “I think it’s a momentum builder,” Abbene said. “I think it gives us some consee ICE HOCKEY, page 11

MEN'S SQUASH

Promising season for Jumbos culminates in rough make-or-break weekend at NESCACs by Isabel Banta

Contributing Writer

The men’s squash team had a disappointing series of matches in the opening days of the NESCAC tournament this weekend. Tufts finished the weekend without a win as they exited the tournament, having lost tough matches against Amherst in the opening round and against Conn. College and Hamilton in the consolation rounds. Following a 9-0 win against Boston

College last week, Tufts was looking forward to the tournament in order to mint a winning streak. The anticipation for the tournament was tangible. “We are looking at this tournament super optimistically and looking forward to Amherst,” sophomore Alec Goodrich said after the win against Boston College. Debuting at No. 9 in the NESCAC ranking, an improvement on Tufts’ No. 11 ranking in the NESCAC tournament last year, the Jumbos entered the tour-

ALEX KNAPP / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVE

Tufts men’s squash faced off against MIT on Jan. 27 at the Zesiger Squash Courts.

nament confident. Tufts, which entered the tournament with a 7-5 record in the season and several wins over NESCAC teams already under its belt, saw beating No. 8 ranked Amherst as an attainable feat, albeit a challenging one. That hope soon diminished though in the face of a Lord Jeff squad that came out strong against the Jumbos, refusing to surrender a single matchup and winning the match 9-0. Firstyear Brett Raskopf was the lone Jumbo on the day to avoid getting swept in straight sets, winning the first game 11-9 in the fifth position but ultimately falling in four games to the Lord Jeffs’ Darian Ehsani. “As a team, we were pretty amped to play in the NESCAC tournament, and we knew our match against Amherst was going to be a battle,” junior captain Daniel Fischer told the Daily in an email. “We unfortunately conceded all nine matches to them, but [their] guys played hard, and sometimes the results just don’t go your way.” Following the loss, Tufts competed in the consolation bracket in the tournament and faced both Conn. College and Hamilton on the Wesleyan courts on Saturday. The Jumbos entered Saturday’s matches having previously and decisively beaten both the Conn. College Camels and the Hamilton Continentals earlier in the season. But, perhaps still reeling from the hard loss from the pre-

vious day, they were unable to repeat those performances this weekend. The No. 11-seeded Camels faced the Jumbos first in the consolation round, and although the Jumbos entered ranked 27th nationally to the Camels 29th in the latest poll, the Camels managed to pull off the 5-4 upset. The Jumbos started the match from behind as sophomore Braden Chiulli fell in four games in the first position. But first-year Alan Litman, playing in the second spot for Tufts, won a hard-fought match to pull the Jumbos even. Firstyear Imran Trehan and Goodrich won in the sixth and seventh positions to keep Tufts in it, but it was still not enough after the Camels secured the win of the eighth position matchup. Sophomore John Patrick was perhaps the highlight of the match, battling through five full games in order to secure a victory for the Jumbos in the ninth position, though it did not change the result. “I was impressed at how high the intensity level was within the matches, and I don’t think we deserved to lose both matches,” Fischer told the Daily in an email. “Shout out to John Patrick who won 17-15 in the fifth game of a brutal match against Connecticut College.” In a close 5-4 defeat to Hamilton, Tufts’ second consolation match somewhat mirrored its first against Conn. see MEN'S SQUASH, page 11