2011-03-28.pdf

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Mostly Sunny 43/28

THE TUFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXI, NUMBER 36

Where You Read It First Est. 1980 TUFTSDAILY.COM

Monday, March 28, 2011

After Japanese earthquake and tsunami, Tufts club mobilizes by

Daphne Kolios

Daily Editorial Board

The Japanese Culture Club (JCC) has in the past two weeks raised over $6,000 to support relief efforts following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, surpassing its initial fundraising goal of $5,000, and will now set its sights higher. The club collected $6,457 as of March 22, according to JCC co-president Jason Moloney. Following this success, JCC has decided to aim for an additional $10,000, Moloney, a senior, said. All donations will be given to the

American Red Cross, he added. JCC began collecting donations at the Chinese Students Association (CSA) culture show shortly following the earthquake, according to JCC co-president Sho Igawa. The club also solicited contributions at the Mayer Campus Center and Dewick-MacPhie Dining Hall throughout the week preceding spring break, Igawa, a junior, said. The club additionally created a blog, titled Tufts Supports Japan which provides stories and news about the situsee JAPAN, page 2

Courtesy Mark Rafferty

Sophomores Anisha Reza and Maya Grodman lay down floor tiles in a New Orleans home as part of Tufts Christian Fellowship’s service trip over spring break.

Spring break trips support relief efforts in New Orleans by

Elizabeth McKay

Daily Editorial Board

While many Jumbos headed home or toward sandy beaches this spring break, some Tufts students went on a spring break trip of a different kind. Nearly 40 undergraduates spent their vacations in New Orleans as part of two separate Tufts-affiliated service trips. Both the Tufts Christian Fellowship (TCF) and the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service organized student volunteers to perform community service in the area. TCF organized its trip through the New England branch of the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, a national Christian campus organization. In the aftermath of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina, InterVarsity New England Global Service has sent college students to New Orleans to aid in cleanup efforts through its Katrina Relief Urban Plunge (KRUP) program, according to Tufts InterVarsity representative Andrew Ober. Ober and fellow representative

Alexandra Nesbeda (LA ’06) led a delegation that joined over 100 students from area colleges, including Wellesley and Colby Colleges. Volunteers worked on existing reconstruction projects, including some organized by Habitat for Humanity. In total, the TCF group comprised 27 Tufts students of diverse faith backgrounds, according to Ober. Senior Charles Skold, a student leader on the trip, saw a lot of work still left to be done in New Orleans, even more than five years after the disaster. “There’s a lot of the city that’s still struggling, a lot of the city that definitely needs a lot of help in terms of rebuilding and recovery,” Skold said. Nesbeda, who first traveled to New Orleans as an undergraduate in 2006, applauded InterVarsity’s commitment to continuing the rebuilding efforts even after Hurricane Katrina ceased to be breaking news. She estimated that it would take an additional five to 10 years for the city to fully recover. see NEW ORLEANS, page 2

Tufts follows national trend of curbing alcohol-infused events Spring Fling minus the alcohol, Winter Bash ticketed and shifted to an off-campus location, the Naked Quad Run (NQR) no more. Over the past two years, the administration has moved to tackle a perceived rise in alcohol abuse among students by changing major campuswide events associated with excessive alcohol consumption. The administration’s measures mirror those being taken by university officials around the country, and Director of Alcohol and Health Education Ian Wong believes they work. University President Lawrence Bacow this month announced that NQR would no longer occur. In its place, the university will embrace by

Ben Gittleson

Daily Editorial Board

a new tradition selected through a competition announced this month by student leaders. As of yesterday, they had received about 15 submissions through the contest, according to senior Sarah Habib, co-chair of the Programming Board. NQR and Spring Fling have in recent years shifted away from their original focuses, Wong said, and are now principally opportunities for a large number of students to get drunk together. During these events, students who do not usually abuse alcohol push their limits, resulting in higher rates of intoxication and greater numbers of undergraduates reaching local emergency rooms, he said. The university’s changes to major events have made an impact, Wong said. see ALCOHOL, page 4

Inside this issue

courtesy sho igawa

The Japanese Culture Club has collected donations in dining halls, through other clubs and online.

Somerville pledges funds for Assembly Sq. Orange Line stop by Jenny

White

Daily Editorial Board

The City of Somerville earlier this month decided to reroute federal stimulus funds from a project to extend a community bike path to the construction of a new Orange Line T station in Assembly Square. Somerville Transportation and Infrastructure Director Michael Lambert said the $3.5 million in federal funds were originally intended to support an expansion to Lowell Street of the Community Bike Path, which currently runs from Davis Square eastward to Cedar Street. Since the bike path’s design is not scheduled for completion and approval before the federal grant expires in September, Lambert said the city had to consider other options. “On the other hand, the Orange Line T station will be ready to go out to bid for construction in April,” Lambert told the Daily. Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) in 2009 announced plans for a jointly funded project to develop and rejuvenate the Assembly Square area through the construction of public infrastructure, including the Orange Line stop between the existing Sullivan Square and Wellington stations. The project was part of a longer-term effort to rebuild a 66.5-acre stretch of industrial space on the Mystic River waterfront. The Massachusetts Bay Transport Authority (MBTA) and the developer Federal Realty Investment Trust collaborated last month on an agreement that would allow them to move forward with construction on the stop.

In the meantime, Somerville has applied for a $500,000 grant from the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization’s Clean Air and Mobility Program to fund work on the community path’s extension sometime during the next year, Lambert said. He added that the city has already set aside $1.5 million for the path. The new Orange Line stop, along with the extension of the Green Line through Medford and Somerville slated for completion in 2015, is part of the city’s ongoing effort to improve public transit availability for its residents, Lambert said. “Right now, 15 [percent] of our residents live within a half-mile of a T stop,” Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone told the Daily in an e-mail. “Once the Green Line extension and the Assembly Square Orange Line station get built, then 85 [percent] of our residents will live within a half mile of a T stop.” The Orange Line station will help bring more private investors and ultimately a long-awaited urban renewal to Assembly Square, according to Lambert. “The T station is a critical first step to bringing serious economic development there,” he said. Once the bike path is paved from Cedar to Lowell in the coming year, another future expansion of the path will follow the Green Line extension, Somerville spokesman Michael Meehan told the Daily. Meehan compared the anticipated revitalization of Assembly Square to the resursee ASSEMBLY, page 2

Today’s sections

With spring weather around the corner, the Daily charts the best nearby parks for outdoor adventures.

CBS boasts a number of popular TV sitcoms, but the jokes are cheap and the content generic.

see FEATURES, page 3

see ARTS, page 5

News Features Arts | Living Editorial | Letters

1 3 5 8

Op-Ed Comics Classifieds Sports

9 10 12 Back


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