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THE TUFTS DAILY
TUFTSDAILY.COM
Friday, March 8, 2013
VOLUME LXV, NUMBER 31
Where You Read It First Est. 1980
Alpha Phi raises $13K for women’s health by
Patrick McGrath
Daily Editorial Board
The Tufts chapter of Alpha Phi raised a record $13,000 for women’s health at its annual Bid Your Heart Out event last Saturday, collecting bids at two auctions to far surpass the amount they have raised in previous years. “It’s such a fun event, and all the girls are so enthusiastic about it,” senior Jenna Rennert, who directed the fundraiser, said. “We always have great support from the entire chapter, and everybody loves to participate. I can only hope that we keep raising more and more money every year for our cause.” The event raised around $5,500 in its first year and almost $10,000 last year, according to Rennert. “We’re constantly trying to grow and improve,” Alpha Phi President Madeline Kern, a junior, said. “The progress from last year to this year, just in terms of money raised for our philanthropy, is unbelievable. I’m so shocked that we were able to do that but obviously very happy.” The event included both a silent auction in the Aidekman Arts Center’s Alumnae Lounge and a live auction in Cohen Auditorium, according to Alpha Phi Philanthropy co-chair Alexandra Zeitouni. “We had hors d’oeuvres and people just milled around,” Kern said. “It was really social.” Auction attendees bid on items from
categories including beauty, fashion, entertainment and food, according to Alpha Phi Vice President of Marketing Emily Rennert, a sophomore. Some of the items offered included lunch with University President Anthony Monaco, a gift card for Dave’s Fresh Pasta and a gift card to the Georgetown Cupcake. Spirit of Color kicked off the live auction event, where the Tufts Beezlebubs also performed. Emily Rennert explained that most of the items offered during the live auction were interactive ― she also said while someone of the auctions’ offerings were the same as those from previous years, were similar to those offered in years past, while others were different. “A lot of [sisters’] families will donate things — so that stuff was different,” she said. The sisters had been worried about turnout before the event when tickets had sold out beforehand, but the number of people who bought tickets at the door made up the difference, she added. “Going into these events, you can never tell what’s going to happen.” Jenna Rennert said. “I’m always a little hesitant. “I think the event went amazingly. We almost sold out in Cohen Auditorium, which is about 600 people. Almost every seat was filled. When I heard that number that night, I was shocked.” The auction is typically held during the see AUCTION, page 2
Robotics Club navigates first official semester fully charged by
Rebecca Sinai
Contributing Writer
Robots of “The Jeffersons”-style fiction are built to cook and clean, but the Tufts Robotics club is building a club around more creative concept. While this year is the club’s first as an officially recognized and funded organization, Tufts Robotics is highly active, with members meeting up to six days per week in the Botlab, otherwise known as Room 101 of Bray Laboratory. Tufts Robotics aims to provide students with an outlet to express their creativity, while engaging their critical thinking and problem-solving skills, its members said. According to the Tufts Robotics’ club website, the club’s goals are to “bring together like-minded individuals to share experience and have fun building robots,” and to “empower students with the possibility of getting their hands dirty and learning by doing.” The club’s president, junior Quinn Wongkew, has had an interest in robotics since childhood and took over leadership this year from last year’s graduating seniors. It was a daunting task, he said. “Since the seniors left, we realized there was a big hole that we needed to start filling,” he said. “We started brainstorming about how we could develop the club.” Wongkew said the club’s members displayed some of their projects to the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate as a part of the process of applying for official recognition.
“[I] and other representatives from Tufts Robotics had to show the [Senate] how 3D printers work,” he said. Wongkew said that 3D printers, which are used in the club’s projects, are just one example of the technological innovations that draw significant interest in robotics from the student body. As a result of heavy recruiting this year, the club consists of about half freshmen — the remaining members are sophomores, juniors and seniors. Wongkew said he is encouraged by the interest from freshmen and he hopes that this will allow Tufts Robotics to continue to grow and expand in the future. The club, which has about 14 regular members, provides several weekly opportunities for students to learn and practice their skills. Along with holding general membership meetings once a week, the club hosts four tutorials a week on a variety of topics in order to reach out to the wider Tufts community. These range from basic trainings on using Arduino microcontrollers, a form of open-source hardware, as well as electromechanical systems like the servo and the motor, according to the website. Students from any academic background and any level experience are welcome. “During first semester, we started by focusing on how to get people educated on basic Arduino, which is like the brain of the robot, slowly graduating them to cooler and more mechanical stuff of a see ROBOTICS, page 4
Inside this issue
Courtesy Jim MacKenzie
Brown University professor Jessica Wilson is scheduled to give the keynote address at tomorrow’s ninth annual Emerging Black Leaders symposium, at which two panels of speakers and student performances will focus on gender and race politics.
Black Leaders symposium to focus on gender, race politics
Daily Editorial Board The ninth annual Emerging Black Leaders symposium kicks off tomorrow at Cabot Auditorium, with speakers addressing this year’s theme, “Matters of the Body: A Cross Section of Gender, Race, Sexuality and Power.” This year’s event will feature keynote speaker Tricia Rose, a professor and chair of the Department of Africana Studies at Brown University, who will speak about race theory and gender politics, according to Jessica Wilson, one of the event’s organizers. Two panels will touch on “gender politics and also current events within gender and the African-American community, looking at [things like] misogynistic representations of black men and black women in culture and pop media, movies, music, etc.,” according to Wilson, a junior. The first panel, titled “Body & Politics: Black Gender Expression and Its Policies,” will focus specifically on gender’s historical construction, according to Jared Snead, who also helped to organize this year’s symposium. The four-person panel will include Tufts Associate Professor of English and American Studies Christina Sharpe, by Sarah
Zheng
as well as professors from Brown University and University of Maryland, College Park, he said. “All of them are academics, but in the end every time I read [their work] it’s like ... this is beautiful right here, this is speaking to me,” Snead, a senior, said. The second panel, “Body Politics: Being the Body in the Image,” will feature four speakers from various disciplines with perspectives ranging from careeres in journalism to activism Snead said. In between the two panels, the symposium will showcase various performances by student groups and individuals, according to Wilson. The lineup includes sophomore Amber Rose Johnson, who will be performing spoken word, and a rendition of jazz singer Nina Simone’s “Four Women,” which will be performed by event organizer Sarah Duarte, a junior, and three other students. A board of about 10 members began planning this year’s symposium in early September, according to Snead. Much thought went into the selection of a theme and the panelists, he said. “We chose a topic that’s salient to our community and pertinent to whatever see EBL, page 2
Today’s sections
ArtsEmerson tackles an inspired prodcution of Franz Kafka’s 1915 novella “The Metamorphosis.”
The women’s basketball team looks for a victory tonight against Amherst.
see ARTS, page 3
see SPORTS, back
News Arts & Living
1 3
Comics Sports
6 Back