The Tufts Daily - Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Sheep to Shawl, environmental lecture series present unique learning opportunities see FEATURES / PAGE 3

WOMEN’S SOCCER

Jumbos’ season falls at foot of Williams in Sweet 16

Lozakovich just misses the mark with new Tchaikovsky album see ARTS&LIVING / PAGE 4

SEE SPORTS / BACK PAGE

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VOLUME LXXVIII, ISSUE 54

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

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Stern presents Sackler report to Board of Trustees

by Alexander Thompson News Editor

Former U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Donald Stern presented the findings of his investigation into the relationship between Tufts, the opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma and its billionaire owners, the Sackler family, to the Tufts University Board of Trustees at a meeting on the weekend of Nov. 2. The investigation lasted seven months, starting in March and ending in October.

Patrick Collins, Tufts’ executive director of media relations, wrote in an email that Stern briefed the trustees on his final report and took questions during the Board’s executive session.

The investigation is intended to dissipate the cloud of controversy that has hovered over the Hill since a January legal complaint by the Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and a Tufts Daily investigation revealed close ties between Tufts University School of Medicine and questionable practices in

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Ballou Hall is pictured on Apr. 20, 2018. the Pain Research, Education and Policy master’s program.

Collins confirmed in an email to the Daily that the university will release

the report to the public before the end of the year.

The Board had much on its agenda beyond the Sackler controversy. Nine new

trustees, drawn mainly from the corporate and financial worlds, began their five-year terms at the meeting.

The new trustees include six elected by the current Board: Peter Fasolo, an executive vice president at the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson; Sam Ho (M’76), the chief medical officer at UnitedHealthcare; Rebecca Neary (LA’87), who co-chairs an advisory council to Tufts University President Anthony Monaco; Jonathan Pruzan (LA’90), the chief financial officer of Morgan Stanley; Cristiana Falcone Sorrell (F’01, N’01), an Italian journalist who now works at the World Economic Forum; Ted Tye (A’79), a Newton, Mass. real estate developer; and Mariann A. Youniss (LA’83), a Boston philanthropist.

Joining their ranks are Kenneth Fan (E’01, F’07), a Somerville-based biotech entrepreneur, and Lori Roth (LA’86), a New York City real estate investor, who were elected to the Board last year by the alumni.

see TRUSTEES, page 2

New summer program in Pavia, Italy bridges humanities, sciences

by Elie Levine News Editor

A study abroad opportunity in Pavia, Italy is the newest addition to Tufts’ growing roster of global programs. The five-anda-half-week program, beginning June 17, includes two required courses — one in computer science and another in Italian — totaling seven semester hour units.

Students can choose between two computer science courses, COMP 11 and COMP 52, helping the program appeal to computer science students of differing levels. The program enables engineering students to fulfill one humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS) requirement and one engineering requirement. COMP 52 fulfills major requirements for both computer science and data science majors. For other majors in the Tufts School of Engineering, both COMP 11 and COMP 52 can be applied towards degree requirements, according to Jennifer Stephan, dean of academic advising and undergraduate studies for the School of Engineering.

“Pavia is the first Tufts study abroad program specifically designed to benesee PAVIA, page 2

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Pavia was chosen in part because of an existing relationship between Tufts and the University of Pavia. A bridge in Pavia, Italy is pictured.

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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Tuesday, November 26, 2019

THE TUFTS DAILY Jessica Blough Editor in Chief

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Student trustee representatives report on committee meetings TRUSTEES

continued from page 1 Peter Dolan (A’78), the Board’s chairman, praised the new trustees who will govern the university for the next five years.

“We are fortunate to have such a dedicated and engaged group with demonstrated devotion to Tufts over many years as alumni or as Tufts parents,” he wrote in a statement to the Daily. “Their energy, thoughtfulness and experience in a variety of fields – academia, the non-profit sector, finance, international business and health care – will be invaluable to us as we lead the university forward in the coming years.”

The 11 constituent committees of the Board also met over the weekend to discuss issues ranging from the recently-released mental health report to a new investment advisory committee.

The Subcommittee on Student Affairs, which was created by the Board at their meeting a year ago, met for the first time with its two voting student members, Veronica Stewart-Frommer, a sophomore at the School of Arts and Sciences, and Caitlin Fai, a fourth-year student at Tufts University School of Medicine.

In a statement provided to the Daily, Kalahn Taylor-Clark (LA’99, M’01), the chair of the Subcommittee on Student Life, says she is pleased with the progress the committee has already made in its short existence and wrote that the addition of the two student representatives was “a welcome addition.”

Taylor-Clark, an executive at Sanofi U.S., a French pharmaceutical company, added that the committee’s current focus

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is on the report released in October by Tufts’ Mental Health Task Force.

“We’re very pleased with the progress that the University is making on this critical issue, and are committed to ensuring this remains a top area of focus for us,” Taylor-Clark wrote.

Stewart-Frommer said that the subcommittee spent the bulk of its meeting discussing the report and how to put its recommendations into practice.

According to Stewart-Frommer, the trustees raised issues of improving prevention and removing barriers, including the complexities of navigating health insurance and finding an outside practitioner.

Meanwhile, the Academic Affairs Committee, which oversees the Student Affairs Subcommittee, took a look at the new diversity and inclusion infrastructure the administration is working to implement, according to Philip Miller, the non-voting student trustee representative on the committee.

Miller, a senior, said that the trustees talked about the dissolution of the Office for Student Success and Advising which was announced at the beginning of the semester, as well as efforts to strengthen Group of Six identity centers.

The committee’s meeting concluded with a presentation on the new federal grants Tufts received in the past year, some of which run into the tens of millions, according to Miller.

Also that weekend, Audrey Leland, Tufts’ student and young alumni philanthropy officer, and Harry Kong, TCU Senator for the Class of 2020, gave a presentation to the Committee for University

Advancement on efforts to encourage student donations to the university.

Kevin Gleason, the non-voting student representative on the committee, said that the trustees were initially skeptical that such an initiative could work, but the numbers Kong and Leland presented show that students are indeed giving.

The status of the university’s current fundraising push, Brighter World, as well as the planned redesign of the Tufts website were also discussed, according to Gleason, a senior.

One major challenge facing the university’s fundraising efforts comes from the 2017 Trump tax reform which reduced the standard deduction on charitable donations.

“The university stands at a better spot than other schools, but of course this decline in charity has been going on for years and that this tax law has impacted a lot,” Gleason said.

The meeting of the Committee for Administration and Finance was also concerned with the university’s financial burdens, according to Charming Dube, the non-voting student representative on the committee.

Trustees mulled over strategies to tackle the deficits that have plagued Tufts’ constituent schools in recent years and led to a period of austerity, Dube, a senior, said.

“The big thing, which took up a lot of the time, was trying to figure out a way to minimize expenses and maximize revenue without having to raise tuition,” Dube said. “It also means that a lot of other places are going to be tightened up, or continue to be tightened up.”

Global education encourages engineering participation through Pavia program PAVIA

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continued from page 1 fit students in the School of Engineering,” Stephan told the Daily in an email.

Carmela Merolla, a lecturer in Italian, conceived of the idea for the program with Kevin Paquette, director of international programs and partnerships, and Mala Ghosh, senior director of study abroad and global education.

Merolla says the program grew out of Tufts students’ widespread interest in computer science. Computer science is by far the most popular major at Tufts, according to previous Daily reporting. She added that while many students in the School of Arts & Sciences choose to study abroad, fewer engineering students do, owing to tight schedules and strict requirements.

Merolla intended for the program to appeal to a wide range of students. In the presentation Merolla gave at two information sessions this fall, she chose an image of Pavia’s historic covered bridge for the title slide. The bridge, Merolla said, represents the program’s goal of bringing together humanities and sciences.

“This was really [intended] for students, not just in engineering, but for everyone who has a very tight schedule and cannot afford the whole semester abroad,” Merolla said.

According to Stephan, approximately 5% of students in the School of Engineering participated in semester-long abroad programs between 2012 and 2016. Merolla says the initial proposal for Tufts’ Pavia program was drafted in 2016. Since then, that number has increased to 14%. Paquette attributes this increase to the work of Stephan and Tufts Global Education.

Stephan added that she worked with Fio Omenetto, dean of research for the School

of Engineering who has close connections with the University of Pavia, to establish the program, and that computer science Professor Alva Couch helped develop the engineering side of the curriculum.

Unlike Tufts’ Chinese, Japanese, French and Spanish language programs, the Italian department does not currently offer a semester-abroad opportunity. Ghosh said this program fits in well with Tufts Global Education’s larger goal of expanding offerings based on student needs.

“We plan to create more programs abroad that will bring in students from the language departments where we do not offer semester programs. Another critical objective to create an assortment of programs for Engineering students who are seriously underserved in study abroad,” Ghosh told the Daily in an email. “We are optimistic that students will find this a well-designed and carefully crafted group international experience.”

Meals and lodging at the Palazzo Vistarino, a restored 18th-century imperial palace, are included in the $9,700 cost of the program, based at the University of Pavia.

On weekend excursions, students will have the opportunity to travel to Milan, to nearby Vigevano, where Leonardo da Vinci worked and attend a wine-tasting in the southern part of the province of Pavia. Venice is accessible by train, and the students will partake in a two-day trip to the Cinque Terre seaside villages on the Italian Riviera.

Pavia was chosen in part because of an existing relationship between Tufts and the University of Pavia, Merolla explained. Tufts professors have traveled there for lectures and courses and University of Pavia professors have come to Medford, she explained.

The program will include opportunities for Tufts students to develop inter-

T c b cultural skills and cross-cultural competencies, Merolla said. “Italian buddies” from the University of Pavia will spend time with Tufts students, familiarizing them with the city and helping them practice their Italian skills. Programming will also include a potluck dinner and Italian movie nights with follow-up cultural discussions.

A live-in resident director will also serve as a resource for students, Paquette said.

“That sounds like a lesson plan for one of my classes,” Merolla said. “The more we thought about it, the more it made sense to send these students abroad to acquire the skills that I’m not gonna say that otherwise they wouldn’t acquire, but it certainly really helps them to go abroad.”

Applications for this summer will remain open until Jan. 15, 2020. The program is capped at 24 students, Paquette said.

Students are encouraged to apply for financial aid online by Jan. 17. Federal loans and Pell Grants are available, in addition to separate scholarship money set aside for the program.

Paquette and Merolla stressed that they are looking for applications from students, especially underclassmen, who come from diverse academic backgrounds. Students must have a grade-point average of at least 2.75 and do not need to have a computer-science background, though the program can help computer science majors fulfill requirements. Applicants will hear back about acceptances by Jan. 31.

Since this is the program’s first iteration, its details are subject to change in future years. Ghosh said the organizers will consider offering the program earlier in the summer, or at the very end of the summer, to avoid interfering with summer internships and other courses.

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Features

Sheep to Shawl, other non-traditional courses offer diverse learning opportunities

3

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Alice Yoon and Madeleine Schwartz Bite-Sized Stories

Friendsgiving

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JUSTIN YU / THE TUFTS DAILY

Amy Goldstein, who will teach the spring 2020 course: Sheep to Shawl: A Hands-on Exploration (EXP-0016-S), poses with her sheep fur on Nov. 21.

by Evelyn McClure Contributing Writer

Although course registration season at Tufts can mean stress over getting into classes needed to graduate, it can also bring excitement for new, unusual course -options. In addition to traditional classes ,such as BIO 13 and ENG 01, Tufts preseents unique class offerings through the hExperimental College (ExCollege), as well eas through the Environmental Studies’ Cunningham Environmental nHoch Lectures.

These classes provide students with creative perspectives on topics rangh ing from Star Wars to immigration law. e Although many departments offer nontraditional, discussion-based classes, perehaps the most well-known come from the eExCollege. Amy Goldstein, assistant direcotor of the ExCollege, stated that most classees through the department are three SHUs e(semester-hour units) and letter-graded. ySome of these classes can be used to fulfill distribution requirements. l “They don’t usually count towards major -requirements as that is at the discretion of .the department, but we do have some that lget approved for distribution requirements. lComing up in the spring we have two courses ethat count as a natural science requirement and we have one that is approved for arts,” yGoldstein said. , Through the ExCollege, students are able mto take classes in a wide variety of subjects. sFor example, Goldstein is also teaching a tcourse this upcoming spring called Sheep -to Shawl (EXP-0016), which focuses on how -textiles are created from raw fiber. s “It’s kind of like a hybrid of this arty handsron course and also learning about the animals. It is a two-SHU course; part of it will ,be going to the farm and interacting with the eanimals and part of it will be learning all the -steps it takes to go from raw wool to a final -product,” Goldstein said. o Like many ExCollege courses, this class smeets at the intersection of multiple subjects, in this case art, anthropology and agriculture.

“The purpose of this course is to think about how we’ve gotten away from knowing where our clothes and textile came from and connecting that to the animals and the steps that people have done for hundreds if not thousands of years to turn that fiber into something you can wear,” she said.

The “Sheep to Shawl” course is part of the visiting lecturer series within the ExCollege.

“For the visiting lecturers, anyone in the Boston area can apply to teach a course. We get all these applications each semester. It all goes through a vetting process with a board of students and faculty,” she said.

In addition to visiting lecturer courses, like the one Goldstein will teach, there are two other types of courses offered through the ExCollege: sponsored and peer-taught. Sponsored courses are set up to allow other departments who are not able to through the registrar’s office around the university to offer a course.

“For example, RAD is a self-defense class offered by [the] Tufts University Police Department. The ExCollege is already set up as an academic department, whereas the police department isn’t, so they offer classes through us,” she said.

The other type of class offered through the ExCollege is peer-taught. These are classes that are designed and taught by upper-class students.

“Peer taught courses are pass/fail. We do this so that students are never giving letter grades to other students,” she said.

Beyond the ExCollege, other unique course offerings at Tufts can be found in the Hoch Cunningham Environmental Lectures.

This lecture series lasting the length of the semester is only taken for credit by 10 students, yet many more attend each talk. Sara Gomez, assistant director of the environmental studies program and the instructor for this course, discussed the community built through this lecture series.

“We have all kinds of people come to these talks each week and they are not just environmental studies students, we have engineering, biology and history students.

There is a very strong community of people

who care about the environment at Tufts and we see the series as a platform to meet other like-minded students, faculty or community members,” Gomez said.

Another purpose of this program is to provide students with examples of what types of careers lecturers have pursued with an environmental studies degree.

“We try to bring anyone from journalists to artists to policy-makers to researchers. We want to show people what it is like to work in environmental studies because it is such a broad field,” she said.

ExCollege classes and series like the Hoch Cunningham Environmental Lectures offer students unique opportunities, such as interacting with professionals in fields that interest them. When asked what she saw as the advantages of taking such classes, Gomez mentioned discussion-based learning.

“I think the best way of learning is by doing and taking ownership of something. I just don’t think that lecturing at someone for three hours is very effective at teaching a subject, so every time I teach, I make sure that at least 1/3 of the class is discussion-based,” she said.

Andra Preda, a first-year taking a twoSHU music class, agreed with Gomez. TwoSHU classes offer students opportunities to explore different areas of study that they might be interested in, without the added pressures of time commitment or weight towards overall GPA that a three-SHU class can present.

“I really like Javanese Gamelan because it’s a chill music class. I love that I get to learn a different type of music and culture but not stress too much about the class,” Preda said.

Amy Goldstein echoed Gomez when speaking to the most important aspect of an ExCollege or other two-SHU class, mentioning the participatory aspect.

“These classes are more project-based, usually it isn’t someone standing in front of a class lecturing. You won’t just have a midterm, a paper and then a final. Usually, there’s more interaction with the instructor, smallgroup work … students get to choose very creative projects,” Goldstein said.

hanksgiving is just around the corner, and for many, so is Friendsgiving! Even though many of us are busy with upcoming finals, cooking always brings our friends together. For this year, instead of a classic dinner, we decided that brunch was a better, time-friendlier option.

The prep began the night before with sourdough cinnamon rolls. This involved first mixing the milk, maple syrup and the sourdough starter, which is a fermented mixture of water and flour and requires a feeding of fresh flour every other day.

Having been a member of our household since last February, the starter is lovingly named The Yeasty Boys. Although most recipes call for instant yeast, we thought the Boys would add a nice tang to the rolls.

After adding white and wheat flour and resting for half an hour, we mixed in the much-needed salt and fat of butter and eggs. The dough was left to rise for a few hours and was then rolled out into a thin rectangle. With a rich layer of milk, cinnamon and brown sugar smothered on top, it was rolled into a log and placed into the fridge, which would make it easy to cut into rolls. They were then gingerly placed into a pie tin and left to rise overnight at room temperature.

Waking up the next morning, we popped the rolls straight into the oven and got working on the more nutritious dishes. The main entree of brunch was mini quiches, which started off by simply pressing cut pie crust into muffin tins lined with parchment. They were then filled with an assortment of fillings, including feta cheese, bell peppers, spinach, red onion, bacon and mushrooms. Making sure not to overfill them, we poured a seasoned egg and milk mixture into each of the crusts, and they were baked for a quick 20 minutes. With some of the leftover egg mixture, we whipped up a frittata, with mostly the same fillings, that quickly joined its quiche cousins in the oven. The oven was working hard that morning, as we also roasted thin strips of sweet potatoes and halved brussels sprouts.

Although it was brunch, that didn’t stop us from having plenty of desserts.

Along with the cinnamon rolls, there were two types of pie: a butternut squash pie with a graham cracker crust and a last-minute apple pie, thrown together with the leftover pie crust from the mini quiches.

Soon everything was ready to eat! We all gathered in our living room, surrounding the overflowing table as we all served up the food and began eating, sharing stories of our friendships that have lasted since freshman year. Thanksgiving is a time for reflection and gratitude, and arguably more importantly, good food.

We’re both so grateful for everyone who cooked with us this semester, and the Daily for letting us share their stories.

Shoutout to Fina!

We hope everyone has a restful and enjoyable Thanksgiving!

Alice Yoon is a senior studying chemistry.

Alice can be reached at alice.yoon@tufts. edu. Madeleine Schwartz is a senior studying political science and computer science.

Madeleine can be reached at madeleine. schwartz@tufts.edu.

4 Tuesday, November 26, 2019

ARTS&LIVING

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ALBUM REVIEW

Lozakovich hits the lows, stops a bit short of the highs in ‘None but the Lonely Heart’

by Aidan Menchaca Production Director

In the classical music world, new albums rarely make a huge splash. The core repertoire is anywhere from 400 to 100 years old, and in that time the most famous works have accrued decades of different interpretative traditions. For a new album to be big, it must provide something genuinely new to the canon.

For 18-year-old Swedish violinist Daniel Lozakovich, the October release of “None but the Lonely Heart” (2019), featuring a recording of Tchaikovsky’s “Violin Concerto in D” (1878) and other short arrangements from “Eugene Onegin” (1879) and “Souvenir d’un lieu cher” (1878) is an ambitious project. As his second full-length release after his recording of Bach’s two violin concertos and “Partita in D minor” (2018), Lozakovich attempts to vault himself into the higher echelons of the violin world, competing with nearly every famous violinist who’s taken on Tchaikovsky: Anne-Sophie Mutter, Itzhak Perlman, Isaac Stern and Yehudi Menuhin, to name a (very small) few.

The Violin Concerto is one of the most demanding works written for the violin.

Dedicated to Leopold Auer in 1878, Auer rejected the work because he felt it to

be unplayable. It was, instead, first performed by Hans Richter and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in 1881 to poor reviews due to the rushed nature of the performance. Its first critic, Eduard Hanslick, complained that the violin was “pulled about, torn, beaten black and blue.”

However, it has become a staple of the concerts around the world because of its challenge and lyricism, and precisely because it pushes the soloist and the listener to go to extremes with the instrument.

In the album, Lozakovich prefers a much more refined style to others who have played Tchaikovsky. This suits the slower movements of the Concerto and some of the smaller pieces but leaves the listener wanting more at some points. In the Allegro, he sticks to the rhythm of the piece and does not make much use of rubato — slowing down or speeding up the rhythm — but this all makes the piece feel rather flat.

He does not cut enough difference between the low and high points of the movement.

When the violin is supposed to cry in bar 89, he imparts no real emotion because he fails to differentiate his vibrato and phrasing from other sections. This forte doesn’t really have any character. In bar 185, the attack on the double stops is not sharp enough to convey the drama where it

should be intense, almost violent. Playing with a clean sound, he does not realize the drama of a piece marked by intense contrast in playing styles. The real challenge here is how to convey the lyricism and the thrashing sound which competes with it.

In the end, this movement is flawless technically, but fails to live up to Tchaikovsky’s triumphant, grand and bold sound.

Where Lozakovich does shine is in the second and third movements of the Concerto and the smaller arranged pieces. His playing in the Andante is sweet and glistening and the reservation of his violin here seems brooding and melancholic — all the traits which define Tchaikovsky’s musical style. Here, the notes flow together in a long musical stream of unbroken longing. In the finale, Lozakovich finally brings out the big guns. Here, the music is so electric and powerful that it is nearly impossible to not play vivacissimo, and Lozakovich does not disappoint. In the last two minutes of the piece we hear his real virtuosity as his bow creates an explosive sound while the orchestra gathers energy like a hurricane. It just keeps building until all that energy must be released. The experience he creates is cathartic and rapturous when the piece comes to a close.

The other small arrangements are the more intimate and most expressive parts of the album. In the title track “None but the Lonely Heart,” Tchaikovsky spins some of his most heartbreaking melodies. The pianist Stanislav Soloviev is quiet here, but the trading of the violin and the piano sets the scene of an internal dialogue of the lover bemusing his fate. Lozakovich is graceful and gentle on the famous pieces of “Souvenir d’un lieu cher.” In his rendition of Lensky’s Aria “Where have you gone, o golden days of my spring?” he might be at his best. Lozakovich captures the dejected fate of Lensky as he prepares to die but also the pleasure of remembering the sun and his wife Olga. Lozakovich’s light touch is needed here to convey the rapid evolution of Lensky’s mind and soaring thoughts about his beloved. Perhaps because they are more contained, Lozakovich is able to really thrive among Tchaikovsky’s smaller pieces.

All in all, “None but the Lonely Heart” is a well-balanced album and a testament to Tchaikovsky’s endless stream of melody.

While Lozakovich leaves the listener wanting more at times, his violin playing is still quite impressive. Let’s hope that he just decides to go a bit bigger next time — this reviewer will be waiting to listen.

Arts & Living

Tuesday, November 26, 2019 | Arts & Living | THE TUFTS DAILY

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FILM REVIEW

‘Better Days’ reveals the dark undertones of Chinese Gaokao and school bullying

‘Little Weirds’

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by Elaine Gao

Contributing Writer

After being pulled from the Berlin Film Festival at the last minute and banned

by Chinese censors for nearly a year, the Chinese film “Better Days” (2019) was finally released in mainland China on Oct. 25 and in the U.S. on Nov. 8.

The movie was adapted from the Chinese young adult novel “In His Youth, In Her Beauty” (2016) by Jiu Yuexi. The novel was involved in a controversy surrounding plagiarism of “Journey Under the Midnight Sun” (2015) by Japanese author Keigo Higashino, but the film adaptation of “In His Youth, In Her Beauty” was acclaimed.

The film is directed by Derek Tsang, known for his former work “Soul Mate” (2016). Although the movie tells a romantic crime coming-of-age story, its all-too-realistic portrayal of high school bullying and the stressful Gaokao (Chinese college entrance exam) reveals the darker side of adolescent struggles. As Tsang tells the story of high school student Chen Nian (Dongyu Zhou) and young street thug Xiao Bei (Jackson Yee) with their blood, sweat and tears, the audience gets to experience the mental trauma, the violent fighting and the budding romance between the two characters.

Unlike most of the coming-of-age movies, “Better Days” dives deep into the animalistic nature of adolescence — an age when kids are old enough to cause vital damage but not old enough to care. Such naïve cruelty grows vehemently under the stress of Gaokao and desperation to escape the bleak life in a third-tier Chinese city, where the movie takes place.

The story starts several weeks before Gaokao, with a teacher asking students to rearrange their seats according to their rankings from the mock test — those who score well get to sit in the front row and “those at the bottom might as well give up now.” Chen Nian, a shy but intelligent student who lives with her single mother, silently moves her chair to the front row under the vicious jealousy from her classmates. Under the morbidly competitive campus environment, Chen Nian’s brilliant academic standings certainly cause some hatred; a group of “mean girls,” who had recently bullied Chen’s best friend into jumping off an academic building and committing suicide, change their next target to Chen. Starting from minor offenses like alienating Chen, tearing apart her textbooks, pushing her off the stairs and hitting her with a volleyball, the clique soon escalates the offenses to shocking results.

Similar to Chen, who has no father and a single mother who is out of town hiding away from black market revenges, Xiao Bei is a young street thug, abandoned by his parents, who has learned to survive on

VIA IMDB

A promotional photo for ‘Better Days’ (2019) is pictured. stealing and seeking safety with his fists.

Chen meets Xiao Bei as he gets beaten up on the street in a gang fight. After Chen empathizes with his suffering and asks him “if he hurts,” the two form an emotional bond.

Xiao Bei decides to protect Chen; he becomes her shadow, following her from street to street to offer protection but always keeping a distance so that Chen will not be affiliated with the violence he commits. The story eventually reaches its climax the day before Gaokao when Xiao Bei takes revenge for Chen against the clique who bullies her. As Chen writes in her notebook: “All of us are living in the gutter, but some are staring at the stars,” the story ends on a hopeful note.

Chen scores well on Gaokao, a get-outof-jail ticket that will send her away from the evilness of the town. In this situation, Gaokao becomes a symbolic hope for both Chen and Xiao Bei; as Xiao Bei says, “Only if you win am I not losing.” However, with

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all the darkness and violence Xiao Bei and Chen have to carry, paradise once lost is lost forever with the last lingering innocence of their fierce adolescence.

As a movie, “Better Days” has several shortcomings — the pacing in the second half of the movie is unnecessarily slow and some of the more blatant scenes of school bullying are cut due to censorship — but has nonetheless caused a stir in Chinese society. The emotionally heavy story reminds the audience again and again of the burden adolescents have to carry: social class disparity, stress and insecurity projected as violence and malice in a harsh world and schools’ lack of attention to anything else besides test scores.

What would have become of Chen if there hadn’t been a Xiao Bei walking behind her in the shadow? And who should be responsible for their tragedy? The story of “Better Days” ends but leaves the audience thinking about the darker side of the imperfect education system.

TRASHING ONE EGG WASTES 55 GALLONS OF WATER

Little Weirds” (2019) by Jenny Slate is a journey. I struggled for a while trying to write this, to describe a book so weird yet so enjoyable.

And I’m still not sure you’ll understand.

Maybe you won’t until you pick it up yourself, which this hopefully gives you a push to do.

Slate is a comedian and actress from Milton, Mass. She was in “Zootopia” (2016) and “Big Mouth” (2017–), as well as a co-creator of the “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” YouTube series (2010–14) and books. I have never had any real experience with Slate before, but her voice is so infused into her words that readers sit back and watch as intimacy grows between you both.

She starts her book by saying, “This book is the act of pressing onward through an inner world that was dark and dismantled. This book is me putting myself back together so that I can dwell happily in our shared outer world” (page 9). Her own heartbreak and emotional distress and her larger heartbreak for the country after President Trump’s election drove her to this place that she had to work back up from through reflection and prose.

And then she invites you into her world, to see through her eyes and experience her journey to revival with her.

She lets pain bubble through beauty.

Each sentence is filled with charming prose, with imagination and delight.

Slate is completely and utterly vulnerable to you from the moment you pick up “Little Weirds.” This vulnerability is what allows you to heal with her. As she heals through her art, you let yourself be vulnerable to your own mind and parts of you join her in her artistic therapy.

“Little Weirds” is entertaining in an unconventional way. It doesn’t follow a standard narrative structure that a lot of memoirs have. Her writing is like random neurons firing in an honest, hilarious and relatable way. She uses innovative images to describe her emotions and desires from her childhood through different elements of her life. I wish I could use words like she does, with such creativity, ease and hilarity. She goes through her story, struggles with love, heartbreak and confusion, giving you peeks into every inner facet of herself.

At the end of her introduction, Slate gives the most striking invitation to her book that I can’t help but share with you all: “You have my permission to come into this space that is made out of broken-up pieces, of shards and perfect circles, slats and slices. It represents the space that I have found to house my spirit, which is from the universe. I was born to host this party. To be in the party, remind you of the party, live at the event, die at the event” (page 11).

And from that moment on page 11 I couldn’t leave her party if I tried. Within a world with so much hurt, sharing pain and healing is simply so important. Slate does it in a fresh and masterful way that leaves you comforted and entertained, almost forgetting the inner therapy she gifted you along the way.

Devina Bhalla is a sophomore studying sociology and English. Devina can be reached at devina.bhalla@tufts.edu.

THE TUFTS DAILY | FUN & GAMES | Tuesday, November 26, 2019

F &G FUN & GAMES

tuftsdaily.com LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Aidan: “Weird flex that you have so many keys.”

SUDOKU

LINDA C. BLACK ASTROLOGY

Sagittarius (Nov. 22–Dec. 21)

A new personal phase dawns with this New Moon in your sign. Take charge.

Grow your talents, capacities and skills to new levels.

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Sports

Tuesday, November 26, 2019 | Sports | THE TUFTS DAILY

Jumbos fall to Franklin & Marshall before Thanksgiving break

7

OPINION COLUMN

Deeksha Bathini Looking For Life, Destroying Life

Complex humanitarian emergencies

A

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RAY BERNOFF / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

A player swings at the ball in a match against Dickinson College at Harvard’s Murr Center on Jan. 20, 2016.

by Pranav Jain

__

Staff Writer

Men’s squash suffered a disappointing loss this weekend at the hands of higher-ranked Franklin & Marshall College, losing 0–9. Despite four of their matches going to four sets, Jumbos failed to convert a single match in their favor.

As Franklin & Marshall is ranked higher than Tufts, this loss did not come as a surprise.

“We were expected to lose this match [at] Franklin & Marshall as we had never played a team ranked as high before.

They are ranked No. 12 in the country and we are at No. 22,” first-year Vivaan Jaikishan said.

However, Tufts made up for the difference in ranking with solid intent and willpower, giving Franklin & Marshall a run for their money. Jaikishan, though happy with his performance, felt like this was a match worth winning.

“I think I played really well and could have won the game,” Jakishan said. “I was 9–5 up in the third set and 7–4 up in the first game which I lost. I think game-wise

we were up there with them; they were just much better on the day.”

First-year Shloke Sahay played through his match despite suffering from an injury.

“I did the best I could in the given situation but it wasn’t enough to win the match,” Sahay said. “I thought with enough rest and traveling I would be fine, but I clearly wasn’t.”

Sahay felt that the team wasn’t intimidated by the high ranking of their opponents and everyone played to their strengths.

“Everyone played their best,” Sahay said.

“No one gave up. There were not many unforced errors. Although they were the favorites, we tried not to make it a one-sided affair.”

First-year Sanjeev Jeyabalan, who managed to win a game in his match, spoke about the team’s preparation heading into their next match against the MIT Engineers, their arch-rivals.

“This match was just a part of our learning curve,” Jeyabalan said. “MIT lost to Franklin & Marshall too, so we think it will be a much closer match against them. The coach has talked to us individually about our games, and

all of us have different things we need to work on for our next match.”

Sahay too felt like there is a lot to learn from this match.

“We now know what our weaknesses are,” Sahay said. “Our training regiment will be the same but all of us now individually know where we are lacking, so we will focus more on those areas during training.”

Coming from a tropical country, both Jaikishan and Sahay have had to adjust to the new weather conditions here.

“It’s a different game altogether,” Jaikishan said. “It’s a different bounce so we’ve had to change our game after coming here to suit these courts.”

Despite this loss, the team is optimistic as the match against the MIT Engineers approaches.

“We are gonna continue to train hard,” said Jaikishan. “I’m certain that as we keep getting better, we will soon be at their level and will get the results that we want.”

The Jumbos will try to recover from this loss during the much-needed Thanksgiving break.

Refreshed and rejuvenated, they will be back in action on Dec. 5 against the MIT Engineers.

Up to 40% of businesses never recover after experiencing a major disaster. Do you have a plan to keep your business running if disaster strikes? For a free online tool that helps you develop an emergency plan, visit Ready.gov/business.

complex humanitarian emergency (CHE) is a “complex, multiparty, intra-state conflict” resulting in a humanitarian disaster, according to scholar of global health Richard Skolnik.

CHEs are multifaceted and pose enormous regional and international threats to security. They are inextricably intertwined with war, political turbulence, lack of food and human displacement, all of which result in high rates of mortality.

In 1975–85, there were about five CHEs annually. By the end of the last century, the average number rose to 40 CHEs per year. This is concerning because CHEs are crises and despite this, they remain overlooked. The current situation in Yemen, for example, is considered the worst humanitarian crisis since 1945, according to the United Nations.

Let me contextualize the situation in Yemen to emphasize the health ramifications of CHEs. As of 2019, over 14 million people in Yemen were at risk for death and starvation secondary to diarrheal diseases such as cholera. Approximately 17,700 civilians have been murdered or wounded during the armed conflict. About 3 million women and girls were more susceptible to violence. Often, human rights violations are employed during CHEs with intent to control populations. Rape, sexual abuse and torture are commonplace.

CHEs are typically long-lasting, spanning years or even decades, which perpetuates long-term disease transmission among populations. Offering aid in these arenas of political turmoil (e.g. civil wars) is often dangerous, and even when relief workers are dispatched, they are often targeted or banned from entry.

Healthcare infrastructure is often purposely destroyed during CHEs, which also makes it incredibly difficult for victims to get help and reduce epidemics.

When institutions necessary for human survival fail, many are forced to flee. You probably know what a refugee is, but you may have never heard the term Internally Displaced Person (IDP). This refers to a person who has fled but has not crossed an international border. Unlike refugees, the legal status of IDPs is not defined and therefore they are not eligible for amnesty in other nations.

Addressing CHEs is incredibly important because it has profound impacts on victims.

Disaster plans are the cornerstone for preparedness. For example, there are usually some predictors that indicate a lack of political stability, and using this information to create contingency plans is crucial. Placing materials such as first aid supplies, food surpluses and medication near areas susceptible to CHEs can be useful. Surveillance of health and humans is also necessary to monitor epidemics of disease.

Other necessary steps include providing adequate amounts of water, proper sanitation (one toilet for every 20 people within 50 feet), which also includes providing menstrual hygiene products, increasing access to soap and ensuring access to shelter. Providing a safe home will also help protect women from violence. Nutritional supplementation to prevent malnutrition and offering tangible means to control the spread of infectious disease are also vital.

CHEs are more common than you might think. They are happening as you read this, and their ramifications are catastrophic.

Deeksha Bathini is a junior studying community health. Deeksha can be reached at deeksha.bathini@tufts.edu.

Sports

8 Tuesday, November 26, 2019

David Meyer Postgame Press

tuftsdaily.com

Women’s soccer defeated by Williams 2–1 in Sweet 16

Scamstros scandal

H

ear the whistles. Hit the garbage can. Is this a performance of Stomp? No, this is the Houston Astros organization when an off-speed pitch is coming.

Supposedly. It seems fitting to me that one hundred years after the Black Sox scandal that shook baseball, we have a scandal of our own. The Houston Astros name does not lend itself so naturally to a nickname as the White Sox does to the Black Sox. With that said, I hope that this scandal goes down as the Scamstros. It has a nice ring to it.

What is the scandal? Well, the World Series champions in 2017 and runner-ups of the 2019 World Series have been accused of stealing signs of pitches. That would not be such a big deal if they stole them within the rules, but this scandal centers around the use of a camera that would feed the signs to an Astros member in the tunnel, who would hit a trash can if the signal was for an off-speed pitch. Other times, a specific whistle has been mentioned to signal the pitch. These techniques mean the Astros batter would know what type of pitch was coming, which is an incredible advantage.

How big of an advantage? Well, there are some stats that do not bode well for the Astros but clearly boded well for them when they won. The slugging percentage in the postseason for the Astros’ star, Jose Altuve, was an astounding .799 points higher at home than away. The batting average for the Astros as a team during the playoffs was over .100 points higher at home than away against offspeed pitches. All of these stats could show a clear advantage or could speak to other factors. But now with confirmation from former team members, such as pitcher Mike Fiers, the whole scandal becomes bigger and the proof more damning.

The confirmation of members who were in the organization and some interesting videos from creator Jomboy on YouTube have convinced a lot of the public that cheating did occur and offered an advantage to the Astros in their World-Series-winning run. There have been similar scandals before, with the Red Sox in the same year, but they did not win the World Series. The punishments may include lifetime bans or loss of draft picks, but I want their rings.

Of course, I say this knowing that it will not happen, as no professional team has ever had their championship title vacated. Yet, I think if you cheated and won in seven games in the World Series, maybe you would have lost had you not cheated. Maybe could be a probably.

Maybe it never even goes to seven.

I do not expect those ramifications.

And that could be unfair to certain parties involved. That said, how this is disciplined will be important in discouraging future teams from cheating.

Nothing would set a stronger example than revoking a title because cheating was involved. Either way, the Astros have marred their reputation.

David Meyer is a senior studying film and media studies. David can be reached at david.meyer@tufts.edu.

EVAN SLACK / THE TUFTS DAILY

Junior midfielder Hannah Isenhart battles for possession of the ball against a Conn. College player on Oct. 19.

by Jake Freudberg Sports Editor

The women’s soccer team was eliminated from the NCAA Tournament in the Sweet 16 round on Saturday in Mechanicsburg, Pa., losing 2­– 1 to the Williams Ephs, a perennial NCAA powerhouse.

With a familiar NESCAC rival as an opponent, it was bound to be a tough game for the Jumbos. Although at the end of the regular season the Jumbos were ranked No. 13, ahead of the No. 24 Ephs in the United Soccer Coaches national poll, the Ephs have not only been dominant against the Jumbos this season — they have won the last two NCAA national championships and three of the last four.

“I think we were very comfortable seeing [ Williams] again,” senior midfielder and co-captain Izzy Moore said in a postgame press conference. “We knew who they were and what they were going to do.”

The Ephs scored first early on in the first half. In the eighth minute, as the Jumbos tried to push the pace on offense, the Ephs defense cleared the ball to defender/midfielder Maria Chapman, who then made a long pass upfield to defender/forward Claire Tolliver. Just outside the box, Tolliver made a move to get past senior defender Sarah Maloney and then beat first-year goalkeeper Hayley Bernstein, finding the lower right side of the net.

Through the next 20 minutes, the Jumbos’ attack — led by juniors forward Sophie Lloyd, forward Liz Reed and midfielder Hannah Isenhart — continued to push forward. But the Jumbos struggled to create many solid scoring opportunities, often losing possession to the Ephs’ strong defense.

With 14 minutes remaining in the first half, the Ephs extended their lead to 2–0. Forward Brianna Binder took a

shot that was blocked by the Jumbos defense, but defender/midfielder/forward Alison Lu controlled the rebound, broke into the box, and placed a shot into the upper left corner of the goal.

The Jumbos quickly responded with a goal of their own. Reed fired a left-footed shot to the opposite side of the field from the top of the box, tucking it into the upper left corner just out of the reach of Ephs goalkeeper Chelsea Taylor.

“I’m very glad it went in,” Reed said in the postgame press conference. “It means everything to be able to support the team in that aspect. I hit it in, but it wasn’t just me who did it — it was the entire team.”

The Ephs defense stymied the Jumbos in the second half, benefiting from strong play from defenders Sarah Kelly and Nkem Iregbulem.

Perhaps the best chance for the Jumbos in the half came in the 63rd minute. A shot from Reed was deflected out of bounds, giving the Jumbos a corner kick; the Ephs cleared the cross on the corner kick, but Isenhart regained possession for the Jumbos. Isenhart took control and fired a shot, but it was saved by Taylor.

With just about 10 seconds left in regulation, Lloyd gave the Jumbos their final chance as she got a good look off of a loose ball. But her shot was saved, and the match came to a close with the Ephs walking off the field with a 2–1 victory to advance to the Elite Eight.

“The second half — I thought it was relatively even,” coach Martha Whiting told the Daily in an interview. “I will say they moved the ball really well in the second half. We took some pressure for a little bit, but I thought that we did have opportunities in their attacking third, and we countered pretty well. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be that day.”

At the end of the day, the Ephs had 10 shots (three on goal) to the Jumbos’

eight shots (four on goal). The Jumbos won the corner kick column 3–2, though the Ephs quickly cleared two of those three attempts.

Moore explained that despite some small mistakes that proved to be costly, the team showed resilience.

“I think it comes down to just the little mishaps,” Moore said in the press conference. “We then were resilient in the second half and I think it really shaped that second half and how we were playing. We never gave up and that’s the type of team we are.”

This game also continued on the Jumbos’ historical struggles against the Ephs: the last time the Jumbos beat the Ephs — in the regular season or postseason — was 2006.

“You try to put [the history] out of your head because this game stands alone and you have to play well in this one game,” Whiting said. “It’s hard to forget our history and the results in the past few years. We really try to just focus on that day and what we have to do that day. I thought that we did. We tried to be very present and play in the moment, and we did that.”

Williams continued on in the tournament, facing off against Messiah on Sunday afternoon to earn a spot in the Final Four. Messiah defeated Williams on penalty kicks after two overtime periods.

Whiting shared her final thoughts on the season.

“I really love this team,” Whiting said. “Each girl on the team brought something positive to the table. We’re bummed that we lost; it’s really horrible to lose, especially when you get that far.”

“But, we’re really proud of what we did this year,” Whiting added. “We’re probably more sad that this team is now over — this group, this wonderful group where everyone was on the same page, nobody complained and everybody worked hard every day.”