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T he T ufts D aily THE
INDEPENDENT
STUDENT
NEWSPAPER
OF
TUFTS
UNIVERSITY
E S T. 1 9 8 0 Medford/Somerville Mass.
Tuesday, September 5, 2023
VOLUME LXXXVI, ISSUE 2
GRAPHIC BY BEX POVILL
UNIVERSITY
Q&A: University President Sunil Kumar discusses top priorities Daniel Vos
Executive News Editor
Sunil Kumar began his role as the 14th university president of Tufts on July 1, becoming the first person of color to serve in the position. Formerly provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Johns Hopkins University, Kumar also served as dean and the George Pratt
Shultz professor of operations management at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and was the Fred H. Merrill professor for operations, information and technology at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, where he worked for 14 years. Kumar sat down with the Daily on Aug. 30 for the first time since beginning his role. He discussed the projects he's focused on, stu-
dent protests and how he’s getting acquainted with Tufts. Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity. The Tufts Daily (TD): First of all, welcome to Tufts! What has the reception been like these past few months? Sunil Kumar (SK): It’s been outstanding. People had repeatedly told me how nice a community Tufts was, and it’s exceeded
all expectations. There’s some secret sauce here that makes people warm, welcoming, kind and vibrant, so it’s been very nice. And I had probably the best welcome gift possible, a night I’ll never forget: I got to throw out the first pitch for the Red Sox. That was a big deal for me and my wife. There was no other way I would get on the field of a Major League team. TD: Entering office, what are your top priorities?
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SK: I’m in week seven, so it’s not like I have fully formulated plans and positions on a lot of the topics we’re going to talk about; but I do want to say, in general, and I’ve said this before, there are four areas that I think of as kind of as broad priorities — or pillars, if you will. One is increasing access to Tufts. We have done well so far, see KUMAR, page 3
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University offers scholarship in response French program unveils to RAs’ demands for stipend new cultural studies major Aaron Gruen
Editor in Chief
Negotiations between Tufts and United Labor of Tufts Resident Assistants resumed on Thursday, with the university proposing compensation in the form of a $600 semesterly scholarship in addition to 80 meal swipes per semester. David Whittingham and Anisha Uppal-Sullivan, RAs who sit on the union’s bargaining committee, left the meeting feeling that they made progress. “I think yesterday was really great,” Uppal-Sullivan, a junior, told the Daily on Friday. “We do think that [the scholarship] number is too low for the amount of work that we do, but we think we’re finally making progress towards something real.” The bargaining session on Thursday began at 1 p.m., with around 70 students, mostly RAs, attending in support of ULTRA. At the onset of the session, which ran for six hours, the university counterproposed RAs’ demands for a cash stipend with an offer for $500 semesterly scholarships. After the figure was proposed, the bargaining committee raised questions about the scholarship,
particularly its name and function as opposed to a stipend. Dana Fleming, associate general counsel for the university, described the scholarship as a “neutral check in hand” during the meeting. When asked by the Daily to clarify the difference between RAs’ proposed stipends and Tufts’ proposed scholarships, the university declined to comment. Patrick Collins, executive director of media relations, wrote in an email that the university is committed to bargaining in good faith but “will not comment on specific proposals away from the table.” During a break in negotiations on Thursday, sophomore Jasmine Zoha, an RA, reacted to the university’s scholarship proposal. “The switch to using the word ‘scholarship’ threw us off. … I don’t know if that was intentional on their part to throw us off, but the word ‘stipend’ is what is usually used by other schools, so it was kind of weird to hear,” she told the Daily. The university’s offer of scholarships came two days after RAs picketed while first-year students moved into their dorms. RAs voted to authorize the strike after the university rejected their demands
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for compensation in the form of a stipend. While unanswered questions about the university’s proposed scholarship have caused concern amongst RAs, Uppal-Sullivan also said “there was a positive reaction to the fact that we could get the ball moving on some of these issues.” In addition to the scholarship proposal, the university’s latest proposed compensation package for RAs includes 80 meal swipes per semester in addition to three meals per day for the period RAs are on campus before first-years move in. The university also agreed in principle to the union’s request to modify the process by which RAs are discharged from their positions, entitling RAs to a meeting with a representative of the Office of Residential Life before job dismissal. Currently, the union is doing their own research to try to understand the implications of a scholarship, according to Uppal-Sullivan. In particular, she said, ULTRA wants assurances that scholarships will not affect other benefits RAs receive, including federal work study and current financial aid offers.
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see UNION, page 2
Estelle Anderson
Deputy News Editor
Tufts’ Department of Romance Studies will offer a new French & Francophone cultural studies major, in addition to a French Literary Studies track this Fall. The new major reflects a push within the department to teach languages from a broader, more worldly perspective, moving away from their primary focus on written works. “Understanding French culture is much richer … than how it has been taught, or had been taught. And I think we were a little behind,” Nina GerassiNavarro, chair of the Departme nt of Romance Studies, said. “The [French cultural studies] track … is really a shift from an overdetermined focus on literature.” French is the second program within the Department of Romance Studies to offer a cultural studies track, with the Spanish program being the first to do so in fall 2018, according to Gerassi-Navarro. French professor Anne-Christine Rice
noted that the need for a new major became clear to French teachers after they surveyed their students last year. “Mostly what we found was that [French students are] interested in a broad variety of courses,” Rice said. “They are interested in literature, but they are also interested in history, art history, music, politics, [international relations]-related courses, food systems, sustainability, all kinds of different topics. That really helped us decide that we need to offer a broader array of courses, taught in French, but that can tie in with their other interests.” Junior Ryan Stolarz, who plans to major in French & Francophone cultural studies, spoke to the advantages of studying French through a more comprehensive lens. “In high school, my French classes were all … heavily literature based,” Stolarz explained. “So when I came to Tufts, and I was doing that again, it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it would be cool if I could do classsee FRENCH, page 2
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