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T HE T UFTS DAILY Thursday, April 6, 2023
VOLUME LXXXV, ISSUE 10
MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.
UNIVERSITY
Mouse infestation in SMFA dorm prompts months of complaints, exterminator visits by Ella Kamm
Deputy News Editor
Just before midnight on Feb. 27, several students gathered in a room on the third floor of 1047 Beacon St. to decide whether to kill a live mouse stuck in a glue trap. After months of submitting work orders and calling for assistance that night, it was clear to residents that no one would be coming to help. Together, the residents came to a conclusion: Killing the mouse was the right thing to do. After placing the mouse in a trash bag, one resident offered to step on it. This was not the building’s first mouse sighting; interviews with students and a resident assistant, as well as documents, emails, videos and photos obtained by the Daily, show that 1047 Beacon St., a first-year dorm for the School of the Museum of Fine Arts that houses up to 34 students, has been infested with rodents since October. Residents also allege that the university has been slow to respond, offering inadequate extermination services and sending residents with complaints through a sea of red tape, all while the infestation persists. In a statement to the Daily, Patrick Collins, Tufts’ executive director of media relations, said that the Office of
CHARLENE TSAI / THE TUFTS DAILY
1047 Beacon St., a first-year residence for SMFA students, is pictured. Residential Life and Learning takes concerns about mice “very seriously.” “ORLL has been in consistent communication with building ownership, facilities staff, and students,” Collins wrote. “It has been sharing a weekly communication with students with updates and has taken a number of steps, including offering students free food storage containers to limit open food in the building as well as temporary housing options on the Medford campus if they do not
feel comfortable on Beacon Street.” Alyson Costa, one of the first residents to see a mouse, has been alerting the administration to the issue since early October when she submitted a work order to deal with mice in her room. However, she said the process of getting the administration’s attention has been confusing and time consuming. Costa did not initially receive a response from the university, and no traps were
set in her room after the initial work order. “My work order was supposed to have been flagged [by an RA],” she said. “At that point, there’s absolutely no reason that the school should not have known about this.” An RA for the Beacon Street dorm, who spoke to the Daily on the condition of anonymity, said that they submitted a work order around the same time and that sticky traps were placed in the RA’s room shortly after. No mice were caught in
the traps, but they saw another mouse in their room in early November. At the same time, other residents spotted mice in their bedrooms and common areas. Cassandra Kellner, another resident of 1047 Beacon St., had her first mouse sighting after Thanksgiving Break. “I was sitting in my room … and I saw a mouse run across my floor,” Kellner said. The RA was hopeful that the university would address the problem while the building was largely empty over winter break. “I’m thinking, ‘We submitted work orders, hopefully they’ll bring an exterminator in over winter break when no one else is here,’” they said. But by January, the mice problem still endured. The RAs addressed the issue at a building-wide meeting at the beginning of the spring semester, where they instructed residents to avoid leaving food out in their rooms and to be careful about disposing of trash properly. Throughout February, residents began spotting mice more frequently and finding mouse droppings on desks and clothes. see MICE , page 2
UNIVERSITY
CNN’s Abby Phillip talks Trump indictment, journalism by Megan Reimer News Editor
Abby Phillip, CNN’s senior political correspondent and weekend anchor, was the featured guest speaker at the 15th Edward R. Murrow Forum on Issues in Journalism on April 3. Sponsored by Tisch College’s Solomont Speaker Series, the event was the first in-person Murrow Forum in four years. Joining Phillip in conversation was Tufts trustee Neil Shapiro (LA’80), the president and CEO of WNET in New York City, the largest public media enterprise in the United States. Phillip has previously worked at Politico, the Washington Post and
ABC News, covering the White House under Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump. She was included in Time’s 100 Next list and received the National Urban League’s Women of Power award in 2021. Phillip graduated from Harvard University in 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in government and currently lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband and daughter. Shapiro opened the event by asking Phillip to share her thoughts on former President Trump’s criminal indictment and its implications for the media industry. “It is definitely unprecedented and historic in its nature — for this country — but when you take it
in the broader context of this particular former president, I think that is more significant, that no other president has ever gotten to the point at which there was even sufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against them,” Phillip said. Phillip thinks Trump’s indictment is a “wake-up call” for the country. “In some people’s minds, this type of thing has become acceptable,” she said. “As a country, we have to decide whether or not [criminal prosecution] is something that we want to live with going into the future.” Phillip joined CNN in 2017 to cover the events of the Trump
administration as a White House correspondent. Trump wagged his finger at Phillip during a Q&A session and called her question “stupid” in 2018. “We need to resist the urge to buy into [Trump’s] outrage machine and instead provide more facts and context,” Phillip said. “As someone who covered Trump, the repetition of the lies was sometimes mind boggling. He just would repeat them exactly the same way over and over again.” Phillip started her career in the White House when she was just 21 years old, working for Politico as a White House correspondent during the Obama administration.
“I kept thinking to myself, ‘What am I doing here?’” Phillip said. “The Obama White House was very traditional [and] topdown, … but it was a great place to get my start because I really learned the institution of covering the White House, which is well preserved and protected by the correspondents.” As White House correspondent, Phillip said she experienced both the exciting and mundane parts of following presidents through their day-to-day lives. Phillip’s schedule could consist of anything from sitting in a van watching President Obama play golf to boarding see PHILLIP , page 2
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