2011-2-11

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Mostly Sunny 29/21

THE TUFTS DAILY

TUFTSDAILY.COM

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2011

VOLUME LXI, NUMBER 11

Where You Read It First Est. 1980

Students, faculty will use one Campus center to get password for e-mail and computers bottle-recycling machine BY

DAPHNE KOLIOS

Daily Editorial Board

Students, faculty and staff will soon use a single password to both log into their Trumpeter e-mail accounts and access computers in the

labs, according to Director of Communications and Organizational Effectiveness for University Information Technology (UIT ) Dawn Irish. Irish said UIT initiated its Simplified Sign-On project in

response to complaints about the complexity of the old twopassword system. “Everybody on campus from faculty to staff, and especially students, have spoken up see PASSWORD, page 3

ASHLEY SEENAUTH/TUFTS DAILY

Students and faculty will soon use their computer lab passwords for both e-mail and computer logins.

Tufts merges its news sources into single website BY

RACHEL RAMPINO

Daily Editorial Board

University Relations this month launched a website, Tufts Now, that compiles various university media outlets into a single, interactive news source geared toward all members of the Tufts community. Now.tufts.edu, which went live Feb. 1, combines content formerly published in the Tufts Journal and Tufts E-News, Tufts’ official newspaper and online news source, respectively. The website is designed to act as a one-stop location for all Tufts-related news, according to Manager of Web Content and Strategy for Web Communications Georgiana Cohen. “Before, there was no home for all this different content. What we wanted to do here was bring everything together that’s telling the stories of Tufts,” Cohen said. In addition to Tufts faculty and students, freelance writers and external news sources will contribute to the website, according to Director of Public Relations Kim Thurler. The site will integrate a variety of web content, including feature articles and links to non-Tufts news sources, blogs and social media sites.

“We wanted to get the perspective of what external audiences are saying about Tufts, not just Tufts itself,” Thurler explained. The site features interactive elements like rotating book recommendations, a weekly poll and an “ask the expert” section. “A lot of these features are new. They’re actually things we added to this site compared to what we did on the Tufts Journal and E-news sites,” Taylor McNeil, senior news editor for the News Publications Group in Tufts University’s Office of Publications and former editor of the Tufts Journal, said. Visitors have the option to subscribe to a bi-weekly Tufts Now e-mail newsletter. McNeil encouraged users to contact University Relations with questions and suggestions. “We’re interested in learning how we can reflect back to Tufts what is going on at the university,” McNeil said. “We hope we’ll hear from students and other audiences.” Archived content from E-News and the Tufts Journal will continue to be accessible online. The staffs from the two websites have been merged and are see TUFTSNOW, page 2

Inside this issue

BY

MINYOUNG SONG

Daily Editorial Board

Jumbos looking to be more environmentally friendly will soon have one more way to do so — and make money at the same time. An automated machine for recycling empty containers will be installed in the Commons area of the Mayer Campus Center toward the end of February, a collaboration between Tufts Recycles!, an initiative of the Department of Facilities Services, and Greenbean Recycle, a software development company that leases the “reverse vending machines.” The machine will function similarly to grocery store bottle-return machines, into which users deposit bottles to receive a refund. The machine destined for the campus center, however, has some improvements. “A great part of this machine is that it cleans and keeps all of the materials separated so the recycled material is one hundred percent uncontaminated,” Shanker Sahai, the founder and chief executive officer of Greenbean Recycle, said. “It gives a higher value for the material.” Unlike its grocery-store counterparts, the machine leased to the university by Greenbean

Recycle will be able to discern recyclable materials from nonrecyclable ones. The machine will accept all containers but issue a five-cent refund only for those that can be recycled, according to Sahai. Recyclers will have the option of depositing the refund into a PayPal account or donating the money to one of a number of charitable organizations or on-campus student groups preselected by the business. Consumers can track their environmental impact via an online account, which also promotes competition by providing similar data on the progress made by friends, networks and other communities. Greenbean Recycle will also create various recycling challenges and offer rewards as incentives, according to Sahai. The company’s slogan, “What’s your impact?” prompts consumers to think about the consequences of their decisions, Sahai said. “We wanted the consumers to question themselves with regards to what their impacts are,” he said. Greenbean Recycle is the first venture of its kind targeting universities, according to Sahai. Other participating institutions include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Duke University. see RECYCLING, page 3

Advocacy group: Tufts one of worst colleges for free speech BY SARAH

KORONES

Daily Editorial Board

Whether it’s the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the decision to go trayless in the dining halls, it seems that Tufts students are always engaged in a debate of some sort. Though the university prides itself on open discussions and diverse opinions, Tufts has recently come under attack for violating the freedom of expression, raising the question about just how lively campus debates truly are. In a Jan. 27 article for the Huffington Post, President of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) Greg Lukianoff named Tufts as one of the 12 worst colleges for free speech. Citing two incidents from the 2006-07 academic year in which the university found conservative campus publication The Primary Source guilty of harassment, Lukianoff wrote that Tufts “has consistently adopted policies and practices that censor student speech.” The incidents in question involved the university’s decision that The Primary Source had violated Tufts’ non-discrimination policy after printing a controversial satire of affirmative action titled “O’ Come All Ye Black Folk” and another concerning Islamic extremism. The pieces, both of which were anon-

ymous, sparked intense controversy on campus at the time and elicited a hearing before the Committee on Student Life (CSL) after individual students filed harassment charges against the publication. The CSL in 2007 ruled that the Source was guilty of harassment and creating a hostile environment. The body also imposed a byline requirement on all articles, but Dean of Academic Affairs for Arts and Sciences James Glaser, who served as dean of undergraduate education at the time, overturned this portion of the ruling. He said at the time that a rule against anonymity amounted to punishment of free speech. Later, in November 2009, the Board of Trustees approved a university-wide Declaration on Freedom of Expression. The declaration stated that the freedom of expression was “fundamental to the academic enterprise,” but was “not absolute.” Though the Source controversy and subsequent CSL decision occurred over three years ago, they have landed Tufts not only a spot on Lukianoff’s “12 worst” list, but also one of six spots on FIRE’s “Red Alert” list. The list, which came out in August, named FIRE’s worst offenders see FREE SPEECH, page 2

Today’s Sections

Jonathan Bloom rails against American food waste in his new book.

One of the best women’s basketball teams Tufts has seen in years looks to end on a high note.

see ARTS, page 5

see SPORTS, page 8

News | Features Comics Arts | Living

1 4 5

Classifieds Sports

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