The Tufts Daily - October 6, 2021

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T HE T UFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXXXI, ISSUE 15

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

​​Commons to accept dinner swipes for students living at Hyatt, among other changes

by Ava Autry

Assistant News Editor

As of Sept. 27, the first-year students living at the Hyatt Place in Medford can use meal swipes at the Commons Marketplace. This is one of several changes enacted by Camille Lizarríbar, dean of student affairs, inspired in part by an op-ed written by Santiago Castillo Juarez, a Hyatt resident. This change is expected to alleviate some of the difficulties these students experience regarding getting meals in transit to and from the Medford/ Somerville campus.

“My [op-ed] was published on Monday September 20th…. that same week Dean Camille [Lizarríbar] held a town hall style meeting in the Hyatt where we were heard and solutions came very quickly,” Castillo Juarez wrote in an email to the Daily.

Director of Dining and Business Services Patti Klos outlined some of the expected changes in an email to the Daily. She noted that there will be no additional cost incurred to the first-year students on this updated plan.

“The 100 students living at the Hyatt will be able to order dinner to-go at Commons Marketplace using their meal swipes on the Mobile App,” Klos said.

David Chen, a student living at the Hyatt, said that despite these changes, there are limitations to the time and frequency at which students can access these additional swipes at the Commons.

“I actually haven’t tried [the Commons dinner swipes] yet because there are a few restraints,” Chen, a first-year student, said. “It has to be after 5 p.m., and there has to be an online order.”

However, even with these limitations, Chen looked forward to utilizing this new service, espe-

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Wednesday, October 6, 2021

cially with the recent addition of microwaves in students’ rooms.

“I think it’s going to be good because I have a microwave … so if I take out a sandwich, I could just heat it up for breakfast, and I don’t have to eat at the Hyatt Hotel,” Chen said.

As Chen mentioned, students also have access to a free breakfast buffet provided by the hotel for all guests. Additionally, they are able to order off the hotel menu but must use their own money to do so.

In an email to the Hyatt residents on Sept. 9, Tim Jordan, assistant director of residential education, outlined some of the regulations regarding dining hours and logistics.

“The Hyatt’s full menu is currently available TuesdaysSaturdays from 2pm to 10pm, with final orders accepted around 9:45pm,” Jordan wrote. “Individual cheese or pepperoni pizzas are the only items currently available 24/7, including on Sunday and Mondays.”

Chen noted that the time restraint leaves room for potential improvement but said his experience overall has been alright.

“I would hope they make an earlier [time], like 12 p.m., so I could have lunch at the hotel,” Chen said. “So far I feel like it’s pretty satisfactory. I don’t really ask for anything more here.”

Additionally, Jordan reminded students that certain requests may not be possible since it is a hotel kitchen and not a dining hall kitchen.

“The Hyatt’s kitchen cannot accommodate mass orders (ie 20+ students ordering at the same time) like kitchens on campus are able to handle, as their kitchen and see HYATT DINING, page 2

NICOLE GARAY / THE TUFTS DAILY

The Mayer Campus Center is pictured on Dec. 3, 2020.

ARTS / page 5

“I feel like I know you/ But we never met?” — fans finally see Bridgers live

Boston voters to decide whether to directly elect school committee

TOBIAS FU / THE TUFTS DAILY

Boston City Hall is pictured.

by Michael Weiskopf News Editor

A referendum on whether to allow Boston voters to elect school committee members will appear on the city’s ballot this November after the Boston City Council unanimously approved the ballot question on Sept. 15.

Out of the 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts, Boston is the only one where voters do not directly elect their school committee members.

Instead, the committee has been appointed by the city’s mayor since 1992, a change

first suggested by then-Mayor Raymond Flynn.

This November, a question will appear on Boston ballots asking voters whether they believe the city should return to an election system for its school committee. The referendum is expected to pass, as a poll conducted in June by The Boston Globe and Suffolk University found that only 6% of Bostonians support the current system of a fully appointed committee, 48% support a committee elected by voters and selected by the mayor and 39% support a fully elected one.

Lisa Green, a member of the steering committee of Bostonians for an Elected School Committee, explained how Boston’s education system could change if the referendum were to pass.

“Automatically you’d have a situation where your decision makers would be representing the people who have elected them and would be accountable to them,” Green said. “Often over the past 30 years, we’ve witnessed parents and community members and educators, especially Black and brown people, come

to make a lot of positive changes,” Schattle said. “We care very deeply about the student experience.”

To make Tisch Library more accessible to students, the entire library building is now open until 3 a.m. Before the pandemic, only one room in the library was open that late.

“We now have consistent hours, seven days a week with expanded hours, so we are now open from 7:45 in the morning,” Schattle said. “Librarians are once again available in different modalities, so if you want to … meet with a librarian, you can do that on Zoom, or you can do that in person.”

The removal of individual seat reservations and social

distancing requirements has allowed many more students to study together in Tisch.

“Since we’re not required to physically distance … it is nice to share your table with the person you are studying with,” Schattle said.

Rachel Madison, a senior, described the environment at Tisch Library last year as significantly less casual than it used to be. People were unable to regularly go study together or eat in the cafes as they did before the pandemic.

First-year Heidi Nguyen said she has enjoyed booking study rooms at Tisch to work collaboratively with friends.

see SCHOOLS, page 2

Easing of COVID-19 restrictions at Tisch Library allows for increased capacity, extended hours

by Evelyn Altschuler Contributing Writer

Tisch Library introduced a series of changes at the beginning of the fall semester in response to the COVID-19 situation on campus. With vaccination rates high, the library no longer requires individual seat reservations and social distancing. Additionally, the library is open to vaccinated community members and has extended its operating hours.

Dorothy Meaney, director of Tisch Library, and Erica Schattle, associate director of Tisch Library, said they are ecstatic that Tufts students are returning to Tisch Library.

“I think it’s been an exciting year because we’ve been able

FEATURES / page 3

SMFA evolves collaborative, experimental streak through the years

SPORTS / back

Positive team dynamics lead crew to succeed at first regatta

see TISCH, page 2 NEWS

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ARTS & POP CULTURE

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FUN & GAMES

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OPINION

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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Wednesday, October 6, 2021

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Lizarríbar responsive to Hyatt student feedback HYATT DINING

continued from page 1 staff are much smaller than a dining hall such as Dewick,” Jordan wrote in an email to the Daily.

Klos added that there are other potential changes still in the works.

“We are working with the management at the Hyatt to have them accept JumboCash for items they sell,” Klos said. “This is still in progress.”

Castillo Juarez, who, in a sense, got the ball rolling on these changes, emphasized his grati-

tude for modifications to dining, living standards and transportation. In addition, he highlighted the proactive nature of the administration. “[Dean Lizarríbar] has been incredibly accommodating, understanding and most

important of all proactive and actually has enacted effective solutions to our real problems,” Castillo Juarez said. “The administration also heard the concerns of other students and have assured us that they are working on it.”

Direct election of school committee members will result in greater accountability, according to proponents SCHOOLS

continued from page 1 and have to beg for resources that their schools lack… but [the committee] doesn’t listen to them, so it’s not accountable to them.”

Suleika Soto, a parent organizer for the Boston Education Justice Alliance, agreed with Green’s assessment of how the ballot question could change families’ experiences with the Boston Public Schools.

“I think it would be a more democratic process,” Soto said.

“We’re finally going to have a voice.

If Black and brown families feel like their kids are not being served the way that they should be, we’re finally going to … be able to vote for someone who we think is going to be able to provide those quality schools that we need.”

In 1992, as a result of the transition to an appointment system,

school committee members suddenly found themselves pushed out of their elected seats. One of these members was Jean McGuire, the first Black woman to serve on the committee and former executive director of the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO). She described the experience of losing her seat in 1992.

“Why are we going backwards?

We got away from King George in England, and we’re going backwards,” McGuire, who earned her master’s degree from Tufts, said.

Green agreed with McGuire that the switch to an appointed school committee was a step in the wrong direction, making committee members accountable only to the mayor and their policy.

“They’re serving the interests of the point of view of one person, the mayor,” Green said. “We’ve

seen in the past, in Boston, that the school committee has virtually always voted unanimously in lockstep with the mayor’s desires.”

Similarly, McGuire explained that the lack of resources in predominantly Black schools in Boston was what inspired her to run for school committee in the first place in 1981.

“I taught 43 kids in 36 seats in the oldest school that Louisa May Alcott built in 1843… I had no pencils,” McGuire said. “Paint chips hanging from the ceiling…

30 and 40 and 50 kids in a room… that’s why I had to run for school committee, because it was questioned, who are we educating, and for what?”

In the wake of the city council’s vote to approve the ballot question, Green stated that she felt hopeful about the referendum’s chances.

“It was really encouraging that there was a unanimous vote,” Green said. “I think it’s hard to ignore that this is a voting rights issue… You can really hear the public’s dissatisfaction with the current system, so I think [the councilors] all have to acknowledge that the people want change.”

Soto echoed Green’s optimism about the city council vote.

“They heard from the people,” she said. “I’m glad that it was passed unanimously. I think that people are finally starting to be heard, so I’m very excited for what’s to come.”

Now 90 years old, McGuire hinted that her involvement with the Boston education system may not be over just yet.

“I’m not in public office now, but if they have an elected school committee, I’m running,” McGuire said.

With fewer restrictions, libraries see increased traffic this fall TISCH

continued from page 1 According to Schattle, Tisch Library decreased its available seating from 1,200 seats to about 300 seats last year in response to COVID-19. The university’s indoor mask mandate still applies at Tisch, despite the easing of other requirements.

“We follow the guidelines of the university, so whatever Dr. Michael Jordan says we need to do, we need to do,” Meaney said. “There is not a requirement for social distancing, but there is definitely a requirement for masks in the building, which we will enforce.”

The library works alongside a committee to decide on appropriate policy changes and enforcement strategies.

“We do have a COVID operations committee at the library that meets when it needs to, to look at policies and spaces and how we’re spreading the word about what changes have happened,” Schattle said.

Schattle said that these changes have significantly increased the number of students in Tisch on a daily basis compared to last year.

“When I look at our building counts [and] our door counts … they look like [what]

they looked like two years ago,” Schattle said. “They’re very different from what they were last year.”

This year, Tisch has extended the duration for equipment-lending from the few hours permitted in past years to either one day or one week, according to Schattle.

Due to the necessity of technology during the pandemic, Tisch recognized the need to expand aspects of its computer lending program. Meaney and Schattle said they hope this results in a positive change that can meet the needs of the community.

“We did both upgrade and increase the number of lending laptops … in response to ongoing demand,” Meaney said.

“We’re working with TTS to think about that issue campus-wide.”

Meaney and Shattle enjoy seeing students returning to all of Tufts’ libraries.

“We’re really happy that people are finding their way back to the library spaces,” Meaney said.

“Tisch Library is the main library, but we also have the Lilly Music Library in Granoff and the library at the SMFA. We’re all part of the same organization, and it’s really wonderful to see students back in all those spaces again.”

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Now that the majority of students are vaccinated, many of the restrictions for Tisch Library from the previous academic year have been lifted.

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Features

3 Wednesday, October 6, 2021

SMFA at Tufts: A history of experimentation and collaboration

by Ari Navetta Features Editor

A spirit of experimentation permeates the history of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, formerly named School of Drawing and Painting, since its inception in 1876, just 22 years after Tufts enrolled its first class.

Collaboration between the schools has embodied this spirit from 1945 through their merging in 2015, offering valuable lessons on the importance of experimentation and adaptability at a critical reflection point in higher education.

From the School of Drawing and Painting to the SMFA The School of Drawing and Painting opened its doors from the basement of the Museum of Fine Arts in 1876. The MFA had been founded just six years earlier out of the Boston Athenaeum to house its overflowing collection of art before moving to a new location in Copley Square, where the Museum School was born.

“It was part of a movement at the time to fund arts and educational and cultural institutions such as MIT, Mass Art,” Darin Murphy, assistant director of the W. Van Alan Clark, Jr. Library, said. “They were kind of rolling the dice on fine art … because contemporary fine art — and those terms are problematic and loaded — is by its nature going to be new.”

The School of Drawing and Painting was officially incorporated as the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in 1901, bringing it firmly under the jurisdiction of the MFA. This transition came as a result of a $100,000 gift to the School, which could not be accepted without the merger.

In 1907, the MFA moved to its current location on Huntington Avenue, near the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. According to Murphy, the SMFA was housed in outbuildings on fair grounds

Sam Russo and David Wingens Potty Talk

Toilet philosophers Historian and philosopher Howard Zinn famously asked, “What is quality?” Clearly, the Tufts University Department of Philosophy does not care. Its headquarters, Miner Hall, houses two options for bathroom goers — or students tired of hearing about Marxism (kidding, kidding, Tufts students never tire of that). The two spaces offer a study in contrasts.

For a homier experience, we recommend venturing downstairs. Just outside the bath-

adjacent to the Museum and it would not receive its own dedicated space until 1927.

Throughout the history of the SMFA, there has been tension between the students, with their eyes on the global, ever-changing art world, and a faculty rooted in a more traditional philosophy of fine art.

“The founding of the Bauhaus, and the period of the Weimar Republic, and then the rise of fascism and Hitler are leading up to a point where noted and accomplished artists are fleeing Europe and coming to the US,” Murphy said. “They’re coming with experience that … may be suggesting a greater sense of urgency, that contemporary art is about — going back to Cézanne — the eye and the soul and the psyche.”

Murphy cites this period as the beginning of the School’s shift from a traditional academy of fine art. He acknowledges that decreased enrollment during the Great Depression further encouraged the School to change, ultimately allowing students greater freedom of expression.

The Museum School and Tufts A perfect storm of factors brought Tufts and the SMFA together in 1945 for the first in a long line of collaborations.

Leonard Carmichael, faculty member of the art department at Tufts before he became dean, was put in touch with Head of the SMFA Russell Smith while trying to revise Tufts’ art curriculum.

While surveying Tufts, Smith conceived of a way to solve the respective problems of Tufts and the SMFA in one fell swoop.

Following the end of World War II, the SMFA enjoyed increased interest as a result of the G.I. Bill, which provided educational funds to returning soldiers. The SMFA was not a degree-granting institution, however, meaning the aid did not apply to its students. A B.S. of education program established between the rooms, there is a comfy, if dated, sofa and a well-proportioned kitchenette. The coziness is not fully appreciated, however, until you enter the bathroom.

Seemingly constructed by P.T. Barnum himself, this lavatory’s Seussian web of piping and its turn-of-the-century wainscoting might convince you that those shoes in the stall next to you belong to Ralph Waldo Emerson himself.

The stalls are the perfect size for a preschool. They are of such a magnitude, in fact, that they do not even afford you the opportunity to pull your phone out of your pocket, perhaps a gentle push from the Department of Philosophy to forego the usual pre-wipe doomscrolling in favor of contemplating the difference between a toilet and a bowl.

ARI NAVETTA / THE TUFTS DAILY

The School of the Museum of Fine Arts is pictured on Sept. 22. two schools allowed SMFA students in the program access to federal funding and gave Tufts students access to the SMFA’s expertise in art education.

The SMFA was also struggling to compete with other prestigious art schools in the area, as many of them had begun to offer widely respected four-year

degrees. Matters worsened when the School’s accreditation was withheld, blocking aid to SMFA students except those in the B.S. of Ed. program.

After the SMFA was told it lacked the resources to confer degrees, Smith initiated a joint bachelor of fine arts program with Tufts in 1956. A master of

fine arts program with Tufts followed in 1959.

Interaction between the schools’ two campuses grew as well, with several SMFA students and faculty exhibiting their work at the Cohen Arts Center. The 1955 murals in Cohen were paint-

Upon finagling yourself out of your cell’s confines, you might reencounter the wainscoting and think to yourself, “Huh, what strange wainscoting.” Next, you’ll turn to a wall more crowded than Dewick at 11:49 a.m. on a Tuesday due to “supply chain interruptions” and a “well-publicized labor shortage.” (Well jeez, maybe it’s because you lay them off every summer.)

Once you’ve read all of the provided literature on the wall, you pivot to a sink that threatens tetanus. Its forceful and ill-distributed flow is likely to cause a good deal of splashback — not exactly how you want to look as you return to meta-ethics.

As you exit the bathroom on the men’s side, you’ll notice the disemheaded body of a man — or, as the sign proudly declares,

a “me” — and realize that you should have known something was amiss from the get-go.

For those who would prefer not to feel like a mime-in-training, there is the main floor’s all-gender restroom. It is, to put it lightly, cavernous. Oddly, there are three people chained down facing the wall and a light shining across from them. A strange setting for a toilet.

Aside from the Platonic re-enactment, however, we have no serious gripes. The bathroom is as Spartan as Thoreau’s cabin, with tiled white walls and floors the same russet color as the rust eating away at the lower floor’s sink.

As you sit on the toilet, you can enviously gaze through the large, unobscured window and see engineering students milling about the SEC, revealing

where all the money for repairing humanities facilities has gone. On a clear day, they might look back at you and laugh as they scarf down their Kindlevan paninis while all you have to rest your laurels on is dope wainscoting and a well-proportioned kitchenette.

Miner Hall downstairs: 2/10 — it led us to a Nietzschean conclusion: God is dead. +1 for the character though Miner Hall all-gender: 5/10 — large but cluttered with an existential crisis

see SMFA, page 4

Sam Russo is a junior studying computer science and cognitive and brain science. Sam can be reached at samuel.russo@tufts. edu. David Wingens is junior studying international relations.

David can be reached at david. wingens@tufts.edu.

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THE TUFTS DAILY | Features | Wednesday, October 6, 2021

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Merger rooted in desire to keep SMFA’s essence while helping support it financially

ARI NAVETTA / THE TUFTS DAILY

The old front entrance of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts is pictured on Sept. 22.

SMFA

continued from page 3 ed in part by SMFA alumnus and faculty member Matthew Boyhan.

An experimental approach to art education The postwar years initiated further growing pains for the SMFA as global events seeped into the art world, leading to highly experimental and emotional art-making at odds with some of the School’s philosophy.

“We’re soon going to have the Vietnam War raging, the civil rights movement,” Murphy said. “It’s 1966, the SMFA isn’t even having classes about conceptual art, and yet that is a global phenomenon, and stu-

dents are making their concerns heard.”

Smith, who had been at the SMFA for over 20 years, saw the writing on the wall and began planning for the School’s future.

While investigating new ventures abroad, the SMFA’s trustees initiated a change in leadership which resulted in Smith’s transition from head of the SMFA to secretary of the MFA. In 1968, William Bagnall was appointed to lead the School and set out to design a new way forward.

“It was decided that everybody who was connected with the school would be able to govern it,” Nancy Bauer, current dean of the SMFA, said. “There was going to be this

very flat governance structure, so the students had a say, the administration had a say, the alumni had a say, the trustees of the museum [had a say]. The idea was that there would be this incredible equality through the whole thing.”

Bagnall also oversaw the implementation of the review board system to replace a more typical grading structure.

“They basically take everything they make that term, they meet up with two students they may or may not know, two faculty members they may or may not know, and they kind of just have to tell an honest story about what happened to them that semester,” Bauer said.

These changes may seem like the spontaneous overthrow of a

rigid structure to some, but this is not the only explanation from Murphy’s perspective.

“My interpretation is that what is referred to as the 1968 revolution was a very deliberately planned shift in power to bring the SMFA more in keeping with the times,” Murphy said.

“In 1967 the Museum School underwent a period of selfstudy,” a 1977 edition of the Tufts Observer described.

No matter the impetus, the changes allowed SMFA students to create art in expressive and individual ways.

“With the review board came highly experimental art-making, which is also in keeping with art-making throughout the world at that time,” Murphy said. “It would have been absurd in 1969 to continue to pretend that there weren’t global problems, climate problems, patriarchy problems, racism, colonialism. It became wholly permissible for artists to challenge any and all hierarchies of injustice.”

SMFA at Tufts The relationship between Tufts and the SMFA continued to grow throughout the later part of the 20th century. A shuttle between the two campuses was proposed in 1972, and the Cohen Arts Center hosted a gallery of SMFA student work in 1980. One of the most decisive events in the schools’ joint history, however, came in the current millennium.

Since 2012, Nancy Bauer had been overseeing the SMFA’s department of visual and critical studies, led by Tufts faculty, as part of her role as a dean of academic affairs at Tufts. Shortly before she was set to step down as dean, Bauer heard from SMFA faculty that the School was having administrative difficulties, as were many art schools at the time. The MFA announced it was looking for a university to incorporate the School, and within 3 weeks, Tufts submitted a proposal written by Bauer.

“My vision was to take this funky, hippie-dippie art school, and keep it exactly the way it is and support it better,” Bauer said.

This vision proved largely popular with SMFA faculty.

“We have long-standing relationships with Tufts, and when it became clear that the School

of the Museum of Fine Arts as an entity managed by the Museum of Fine Arts was going to need a different type of support … we were immensely pleased when Tufts announced that it was going to be one of the parties at the table,” Murphy said.

The MFA accepted Tufts’ proposal, launching Bauer into a 6-month negotiation with the MFA over the transition. Bauer then planned to step down from her role and continue writing a book, but her work navigating the SMFA’s incorporation made her a natural choice for the first dean of the SMFA at Tufts. Despite never seeing herself in this role, Bauer eventually accepted. After 6 years as dean, Bauer will step down this December to continue writing and teaching philosophy at Tufts, which she has done since 1998.

According to Pam Hopkins, outreach archivist at Tufts Digital Collections and Archives, despite the challenges that accompany any transition of this sort, Tufts’ incorporation of the SMFA has been widely successful.

“From my own conversations in the past with faculty, they were really excited about Tufts taking on this new role, and they felt like Tufts was providing this great layer of support,” Hopkins said.

The merging of the schools allows students on both campuses to take advantage of the other’s resources.

“I was on the shuttle this morning, and all the seats were full,” Hopkins said. “I have known degree students at Tufts who have just gone there to take a ceramics class or a painting class or a metallurgy class.”

Bauer also encourages students to explore their interests to the fullest extent possible.

“It’s important to think about, ‘What’s my next step,’ but it’s also really great to just take classes that just make your heart sing,” she said. “What can happen when you do that is your whole life trajectory can change.

This is the one time you have to really play around and really take advantage of all of the different things. Obviously you can do something later on, but you can’t have this many choices all in one place.”

Arts & POP ARTS Pop CULTURE Culture

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Wednesday, October 6, 2021

A reunion with Phoebe Bridgers

Colette Smith Brands who deserve your dollars

Naclo Apparel and Aliya Wanek

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JACK CLOHISY / THE TUFTS DAILY

Phoebe Bridgers performed at Leader Bank Pavilion, an outdoor amphitheater located in South Boston, on Sept. 26.

Assistant Arts Editor

​​Over a year has passed since Phoebe Bridgers released her Grammy-nominated second LP “Punisher” (2020), and after the pandemic delayed most chances for Bridgers to perform live in front of her fans, she finally hit the road with her band on a reunion tour in September. Traveling nationwide, this is the first time Bridgers is able to perform her newest hits in front of audiences ready to break out their best screams for “I Know the End” and tears for the remainder of her catalogue.

The air was cool on Sept. 26, and the merchandise lines were full of eager Bridgers fans awaiting the sight of the signature skeleton suit she frequently dons during her live performances. Shirts and vinyl records plastered with skeleton outlines, pink guitars and ghosts were in abundance. The chill of the early fall air set the tone for the moody crowd ambitious to hear their favorite artist perform the time-appropriate “Halloween” (2020).

With the combination of a growing fanbase after “Punisher” was met with critical acclaim and a year-long drought of concert performances since then, fans were coming out in droves to see their favorite sad songstress.

Muna opened the first night of the Boston leg on Bridgers’ tour, and as their set neared its conclusion, Bridgers took the stage to perform the acts’ new collaboration “Silk Chiffon” (2021). Fingerless gloves and arm sleeves adorned with skeleton graphics were ubiquitous as fans

found their seats at the Leader Bank Pavilion. Once the venue was packed, fans began to grin behind their masks as Bridgers made her way onto stage with a black blazer and trousers accompanied by a shimmery white top beneath, resembling an iridescent rib cage.

When Bridgers opened with her set, fans were on their feet screaming along to the somber lyrics of “Kyoto” (2020), “Motion Sickness” (2017) and “Punisher.”

The visual graphics behind Bridgers displayed picturesque pop-up books related to their respective tracks from the “Punisher” album.

Bridgers took some time between tracks to introduce her band, explain the meaning behind her songs and tune her guitar. She noted a time in her life when she’d get out of bed twice a day, eat Krispy Kreme, and go back to sleep; a time she says sounds fun but was one of the darkest periods of her life. She followed this story with “Funeral” (2017), a track encapsulating this period of her life. Fans of Bridgers know that most of her discography revolves around heavier topics such as depression and anxiety, so it is of interest that these themes are what unite the fans. The audience screamed out “Jesus Christ, I’m so blue all the time/ And that’s just how I feel/ Always have and I always will.” This concert sounds more like the biggest group therapy session of all time than a star-studded concert in the heart of Boston.

As the night progresses, Bridgers tapped the songbook of her band Boygenius (with Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker) as she sings “Me & My Dog” (2018). It’s a fan favorite, and the versatility of Bridgers is not lost

on the audience. Not only is her own repertoire equipped with some of the greatest lyrical pieces, but her collaborations with a multitude of artists shine through too.

Within the title track of “Punisher,” Bridgers seems to note two types of fans: trust funds and punishers. A trust fund refers to a fan who is able to afford to travel the country and watch an artist as frequently as desired, and a punisher is a fan who incessantly fawns over the artist to no end. While surely some in the audience came from more privileged backgrounds, most clearly exuded that “punishing” quality of genuine admiration for the art produced by Bridgers. No song went without the choir of skeletons in the crowd chanting back the dark lyrics contained within the setlist.

As the final pop-up book visual went up in flames during Bridgers’ performance of “I Know the End,” the final song Bridgers shared with her audience was her take on Bo Burnham’s “That Funny Feeling” (2021). As with any Bridgers cover, one could easily take the track for her own song. Only a few days after the concert, Bridgers released the cover on music-streaming and sales platform Bandcamp to raise money for Texas abortion funds.

A year in the making, Bridgers crafted a well-performed and engaging set for her fans centering around her biggest hits to date. Transitioning her concert into all-outdoors facilities to be COVID-19 conscious added to the appeal of Bridgers to fans. Despite the masks, the venue was full of walking skeletons who had been dying to see Bridgers all year long.

Colette Smith is a senior studying quantitative economics. Colette can be reached at colette.smith@tufts.edu.

ION OF STA IAT TE OC

TERS RES FO

NATIONAL A SS

by Jack Clohisy

s temperatures start to drop and the leaves begin to turn, it is time to break out your fall wardrobe and, perhaps, look for some new additions for your closet. If this is the case, here are some fashionable fall options from Black-owned clothing brands.

The apparel industry is largely directed by us consumers, so if we use our voices — in other words, our dollars — we can push for the changes we want to see in an industry that has historically not given deserved attention to Black designers. A Stanford University study found that Black business owners had less access to capital when compared to white business owners.

While it is clear that work needs to be done to combat unequal access to capital on an institutional level, this conclusion also highlights that consumers must make conscious efforts to support Black-owned businesses so that they can survive without the same help from investors and banks.

The first brand to bring to your attention is Naclo Apparel, which is the work of Jamie Williams and Charles Royals. The partners both left behind their respective homes in Brooklyn and Los Angeles to return to their families in North Carolina due to COVID-19.

Seemingly bored in quarantine, Williams and Royals found a creative outlet using bleach processing on various articles in clothing. One thing led to another and, as their website states, “the brand has blossomed into a growing community of diversity and an expanded product offering.”

Some of my personal favorite offerings from the brand are the colorful biker short sets, which cost $45. Also, just in time for the fall, their bleached flannel button-downs, priced at $45, offer a great way to wear the classic plaid, but make it a bit more unique with the bleaching detail.

The other brand highlighted this week is Aliya Wanek, a womenswear label founded in 2016. When describing the brand’s mission, founder Aliya writes that, “It’s important for me to represent women of color in my work, especially black women as we are often viewed outside the standard of beauty.” She notes that sustainability is also a core part of the brand’s identity, shown by the brand’s employing natural fibers, living wages and zero waste packaging.

Regarding production of the garments, Aliya sews many of the garments herself and also working with two small factories and contractors local to the San Francisco Bay Area.

Pieces from the brand that would be perfect for the fall are its light-weight, loose-fitting Aruna Jacket and its wide color range of sweatshirts that are perfect for layering.

Each brand can be pricey and clearly not in everyone’s budget, but they are worth supporting if doing so is within your ability. Even with this support, it is just a small drop in the huge bucket of steps that we all need to take to help our society. This author hopes that you’ll consider the brands mentioned here and also educate yourself on other steps that you can take to support minority groups in your community and across the country.

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THE TUFTS DAILY | FUN & GAMES | Wednesday, October 6, 2021

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Opinion VIEWPOINT

“Lang lebe die Königin” — Long live the queen

7 Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Jacob Fridman A Better Consensus

Why rankedchoice voting is awesome

W

BY MIRIAM VODOSEK

by Makram Bekdache Contributing Writer

Sixteen years in power. Only monarchs, autocrats and dictators last this long in office. The exception is Angela Merkel: the German chancellor who has had exceptional success in navigating the many crises she has faced.

Merkel has overseen consistent growth in the German economy, which kept the country firmly on top of all European Union members in terms of GDP. While the country’s neighbors rack up billions in debt, Germany consistently posts budget surpluses, leading to a steady decrease in national debt since 2012. Merkel has also presided over one of the most comprehensive energy transitions in history: transitioning from fission reactors to other power sources.

But it is on the European stage that Merkel shone brightest. The “queen of Europe” is credited with having prevented the implosion of the bloc after the 2008 crisis when her government advocated for tough austerity measures to be imposed on affected countries.

Although this nearly drove Greece to leave the eurozone, through sheer diplomatic might Merkel managed to prevent the worst, keeping Greece in the EU and saving the shared currency and common market.

The chancellor also helped the EU navigate a refugee crisis in the mid2010s, taking in hundreds of thousands of immigrants and famously telling the German public “we can do this.”

Furthermore, she drove a harsh bargain with the United Kingdom during Brexit negotiations and forced the U.K. to make concessions and amendments to its initial plans.

Merkel’s decision to step down caused a seismic shock in the German and European political landscapes. She has been a formidable campaigner, leading her party to victory in four consecutive elections. Pundit predic-

tions that her Christian Democratic Union Party (CDU) and its Bavarian sister-party the Christian Social Union (CSU) would perform worse without her proved accurate as they saw their worst performance since their formation in the 1940s. The bloc lost its narrow plurality to the Social Democratic Party (SPD), a then-coalition partner, now favored to lead the next government. The SPD would have to negotiate with both the Greens and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) to muster a majority. These two smaller parties have diverging manifestos but have already embraced their kingmaker role.

It is now up to the bigger parties to try and offer the better deal to the duo.

Germany has never seen such political instability under Merkel. Some predict she might have to remain in office until 2022 and through the conclusion of coalition talks.

Throughout her 16 years in office, Merkel has rubbed shoulders with four French presidents, further highlighting her incredible longevity and the stability she secured for her country.

France and Germany are known as the power couple of Europe, especially now that Brexit has concluded. There is an implicit rivalry between the two nations, but Merkel’s leadership has maintained Germany’s lead, ensuring that she had veto power on all European decisions.

French President Emmanuel Macron is now likely to try and claim as much influence as possible on the European front, steadily developing his country’s diplomatic leverage. Macron has painted himself as a steward of an EU renaissance, advocating for what he calls European “strategic independence.” He led the formation of the EU’s first unified armed corps and spearheaded the call for the creation of EU-wide taxes within digital and environmental sectors. With Merkel out of the picture, any incoming German chancellor with less experience and standing might give

Macron room to take his project to the next level and earn greater influence on the world stage Angela Merkel also helped ensure Germany’s position as a staunch U.S. ally. The CDU is a strong proponent of NATO’s 2% defense spending minimum and supports the nuclear umbrella that the organization provides. Merkel has so far rejected France’s proposal for the EU to use French weapons instead — a key part of Macron’s strategic independence initiative. Nuclear weapons are unpopular in Germany; the SPD and both smaller parties are reluctant to fund an overhaul of nuclear capabilities, and the Greens flat-out oppose NATO’s 2% spending requirement. If the country doesn’t purchase new aircrafts by 2024, it will lose the capability to use American nuclear weapons. NATO’s European nuclear umbrella would be massively handicapped.

On the other hand, the United States may find more foreign-policy common ground with an incoming government.

While Merkel has been reluctant to criticize China — Germany’s top trade partner — the Greens and the FDP are much more openly anti-China, a stance that aligns more closely with that of the U.S. government. Under this new leadership, it can be expected that Germany may be harsher on the Asian giant and support America’s efforts to limit its expansionism.

The CDU routinely drowned out its coalition partners’ foreign policy opinions. Will the equally moderate SDP convince the Greens and the FDP to overlook their convictions? On the whole, Germany heads for a diminished role in EU leadership with a less independent opinion on the international scene. It will need some time to foster a new leader that will fill Angela Merkel’s bottomless shoes. Although the queen of Europe can afford to jostle her allies and engage in tough negotiations, the future German government may lack her leverage.

e all know how elections go: the most polarizing candidate or the bland incumbent often wins with less than half the overall vote, or the race has so many candidates that just a few hundred votes decide the winner. In 2016, Trump won the Republican primaries with 1,543 delegates, well over half.

However, he won only 44.95% of the popular vote. Flash forward to 2020, my own congressional district, Massachusetts’ 4th, had a nine-candidate Democratic primary. First place Jake Auchincloss beat second place Jesse Mermell, 22.4% to 21%, a margin of 2,145 votes in a race with over 157 thousands total. The other candidates had vote totals in the thousands, well over the 1.4% difference.

These results are not representative, and in the case of Trump, these ‘plurality’ wins can be disastrous. How do we stop such close wins and candidates who thrive on a minority of the electorate? The answer is rankedchoice voting.

It’s pretty simple: voters rank all the candidates in order of preference, and if no one gets more than 50% of the popular vote, the voters whose top choice did not win will see their votes transferred to their second-favorite candidates. This will continue until one candidate reaches more than 50%, which means that the candidate who wins will have the broadest consensus among the voters.

The recent Democratic mayoral primaries for New York City used this system for the first time, where Eric Adams, the candidate with the broadest support, won with 50.4% of the vote versus second-place Kathryn Garcia’s 49.6%. In a field with 13 candidates, just counting the first-ranked votes, Adams had a first-place plurality with nearly 31% of the vote. However, that would’ve been disastrous for public trust if that was it. Ranked-choice voting made it clear that Adams was the consensus candidate.

Now, I know that these are primaries and the system isn’t perfect. Parties’ leadership want maximum control over candidate selection, inactive ballots that don’t rank enough people down the ballot can throw off an election (New York City had a bit of that) and there are learning curves for election officials to adjust to the method (New York had some of this too). However, once more cities and states adopt the procedure, the kinks will be ironed out. Nearby Cambridge, Mass., and states like Alaska and Maine have adopted ranked-choice voting. Jared Golden won Maine’s 2nd Congressional District’s general election in 2018, but if not for ranked choice voting, minor candidates with a total of over 23,000 votes would have cost him the election by less than 1% of the vote, or roughly 2,000 votes. Courts then upheld rankedchoice voting after challenges from the losing incumbent.

Ranked choice voting eliminates spoiler, minoritarian and populist candidates, as well as separate runoff elections (looking at you, Georgia), and it leads to fewer candidates attacking each other, since appealing to other candidates’ voters is the point.

Massachusetts rejected the idea a year ago, but we can set an example here in Medford and Somerville and in our own communities.

Jacob Fridman is a first-year who has not yet declared a major. Jacob can be reached at jacob.fridman@tufts.edu.

8 Wednesday, October 6, 2021

SPORTS

tuftsdaily.com

Tufts rowing begins season by dominating at Head of the Riverfront

by Brigitte Wilson

Assistant Sports Editor

The Tufts men’s and women’s rowing teams had an impressive start to their season at the Head of the Riverfront this past weekend, with several boats placing in the top 15 of their respective events.

In the Men’s Open 8+ event of a 2.5 mile course, the men’s first varsity boat finished in first place with a time of 13:38.27.

The second varsity boat came in fifth with a time of 14:11.75, and the third and fourth varsity boats came in seventh and tenth, respectively. As there were 15 boats total in the men’s race, the Jumbos had a clear dominance over the event. The Tufts men’s team is led by senior co-captains Eoghan Downey and Henry Ross this year.

For the Women’s Open 8+ event, the women’s first varsity boat finished in a time of 15:54.47, placing second overall. With a time of 15:58.59, the women’s second varsity boat was close behind, finishing fourth in the race. The women’s third and fourth varsity boats came in 12th and 14th out of 24 boats total, also showing the depth of their team. Senior co-captain Alicia Heia reflected on the remarkable performance of the four women’s boats.

“I wouldn’t say it was a surprise, but it was a welcome confirmation of the work we’ve put in this year,” Heia said.

“We work really well together and bring positive energy. … We had some of the best energy that I’ve seen this team start off with in my four years at Tufts.”

In the weeks leading up to the first race of the season, the coaches had the first two varsity boats constantly switching places in order to find the perfect combination. The strength of these two top boats showed in the race results.

Oliver Fox Sports and Society

Privacy politics Last summer, NBA players said they were done playing America’s games. Fed up with national apathy with the senseless killing of Black Americans by law enforcement, the Milwaukee Bucks put their foot down and on Aug. 26, they boycotted their playoff game, changing how America’s elite athletes used their superstar platform. The game no longer just spoke for itself; the players had a loud voice too.

While this day was a clear indicator of the rise in power of

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The Tufts men’s rowing team is pictured at the season-opening Head of the Riverfront on the Connecticut River. “[The top two boats] were within four seconds of each other over the course of the race,” Heia said. “The depth and power is there.”

As the team got back into the swing of fall races after a long hiatus due to COVID-19, they were excited to be competitive amongst themselves as well as with other schools. One of the young talents, Isabelle Berman, competed in the women’s third varsity eight last weekend in her first collegiate race.

“The race was really great,” Berman, a first-year, said. “For everyone in the boat, it was the first race we’d done in awhile because of the pandemic, so it was great to have that feeling of

being in sync with the boat again.”

The relationship between the captains and coaches has furthered the success and motivation of the team.

“The captains and the coaches have a fantastic dynamic this year, and we’re able to collaborate really well which means the coaches and the team are on the same page,” Heia said. “We have a lot of motivation, which is clear in the results.”

Since there was a lot of talent within all of the boats, there was a sense of overall team spirit rather than just individual boat support. This sentiment was felt throughout the entire team, echoed by senior captains and first-years alike.

“We came into it without a decisive character from each boat, so we were competing as a whole program, which meant everyone was pulling for the team rather than just the eight people beside them,” Heia said.

Berman echoed this.

“Everyone on the team, no matter what boat they’re in, has that drive to train hard and do well in races,” Berman said. “There’s a big team culture of putting your all into each practice, which is what makes us all really fast.”

Furthermore, with only a handful of upperclassmen, the team is younger and will rely on the freshman and sophomore energy for the rest of the season more so than past years.

“We have a super young team and they are really motivated and adaptable,” Heia said. “They learn really fast and we’ve seen a huge curve already.”

As she looked toward the rest of the season, Berman was looking forward to getting faster and stronger each race and practice.

Heia was also excited about the potential of the team, especially considering how dedicated each rower has been thus far.

“We did well at this past regatta, but we have the potential to go even faster in the future,” Berman said.

Both the men’s and women’s teams will compete again at the Head of the Charles Regatta in Cambridge, Mass., on Oct. 23.

NBA players, it was by no means the beginning. Michael Jordan marketed his stardom to become a worldwide celebrity, and he leveraged that position to become the richest athlete of all time.

Jordan was the forerunner of NBA superstars becoming international cultural icons, but contemporary superstars such as Kyrie Irving of the Brooklyn Nets and Bradley Beal of the Washington Wizards have used their fame to actively speak out on social justice issues.

Today, though, those same superstars seem to want their neutrality back when asked if they were vaccinated against COVID-19. Irving and Beal are two such examples, but numerous NBA players have either outright said they are choosing not to get vaccinated or have made

ambiguous remarks that leave a great deal up to interpretation.

Beal and Irving are joined by fellow stars Jonathan Isaac, a forward for the Orlando Magic, and Andrew Wiggins, a forward for the Golden State Warriors, in a chorus demanding fans and media “respect their privacy” regarding why they chose not to protect themselves, their families, their fellow players and their coaching staff from a deadly virus that has now killed 4.8 million people.

Their position is a disgrace to themselves and to the NBA and an insult to the tireless work that frontline healthcare workers do every day. These men, who mobilized their unique position as cultural forces for good just over a year ago, now seem intent on doing the same to harm and

misinform their millions of fans and admirers.

Their claim to medical privacy is indefensible for two reasons.

First, nothing about a professional basketball player’s medical life is private. When Irving received knee surgery in 2015, the exact number of screws put in as well as the name and degrees of the surgeon were made public by Irving himself. When Wiggins missed two games in 2019, the entire world could see it was because of a left quad contusion. Both men seemed perfectly comfortable sharing their personal medical records with the world then.

Second, getting vaccinated against COVID-19 is not a private medical decision for anyone. An individual’s decision affects everyone around them, including their family, friends

and coaching staff. Any assertion that it is solely the business of the players themselves is wholly deaf to realities of a pandemic, something we’ve all become intimately familiar with.

Players like Irving and Beal are forcing the vaccine discussion in the NBA to be about division even when other superstars like LeBron James and Stephen Curry have been vaccinated, and we have seen the positive change that players can make when united for a common good. The NBA should be a united, pro-vaccine front, not this mess of internal squabbling that these deviants have created.

Oliver Fox is a first-year who has not yet declared a major. Oliver can be reached at oliver.fox@ tufts.edu.