Students observe impact of music on LGBTQ visibility in Middle East see WEEKENDER / PAGE 5
INVESTIGATIVE REPORT
‘Private eyes: They’re watching you’
Students propose increased accessibility at Asian American Center see FEATURES / PAGE 6
SEE INVESTIGATIVE / PAGE 3
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T HE T UFTS DAILY
VOLUME LXXIV, ISSUE 56
tuftsdaily.com
Friday, December 1, 2017
MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.
Students propose increased accessibility at Asian American Center by Anar Kansara News Editor
Tufts students and community members are advocating for a more accessible Asian American Center in Start House, by relocating Asian American identity-based housing from the house so that the Center’s office is no longer located in a residential building. The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate unanimously passed a resolution on Nov. 19 calling for this change. The resolution was written by Asian American Center intern Ana Sofia Amieva-Wang, Asian American Community Senator Charlie Zhen, Diversity and Community Affairs Officer Shannon Lee and TCU Historian Jacqueline Chen. Challenges in current space The Asian American Center was created in 1983 “after an incident of blatant intentional racism due to pressure from the Asian American community and its allies,” the resolution stated. According to the resolution, the only space officially designated for the Asian American
Center is the office of Asian American Center Director Linell Yugawa. The office is located inside the Start House, which is the school’s Asian American identity-based house. The front door of the house is locked at all times due to its status as a residential space, and only residents and interns have card access, according to Amieva-Wang, a junior. Interns are present at the house during all Center hours to open the door for other students, she added. In an op-ed published on Nov. 20, Center intern Thao Ho wrote about how the inaccessibility of the space alienates students. Additionally, in a Nov. 13 op-ed, Start House resident Katy Lee mentioned that the shared space of the Center and the residence also pose problems of invasion of privacy. “The colocation of the Center and the House does not provide a good living space for the residents, either,” she wrote. “My housemates and I had our belongings stolen from our rooms when the common areas were being used for meetings.” The lack of control over the space also makes planning events difficult. For example, interns are not allowed to move furni-
ture because it is property of the Office of Residential Life and Learning (ResLife), Amieva-Wang said. According to Zhen, a junior, students have voiced concerns about the inaccessibility of the Asian American Center for quite a while. This past spring, Zhen released a survey asking about student opinions regarding the house, the locked door, and how they envisioned the space. In the survey, the vast majority of respondents said that an unlocked door would make them “significantly more inclined” or “slightly more inclined” to visit the Center, according to Zhen. A focus group he conducted also highlighted issues brought up by students, including how the Center did not fulfill the needs of the community, he said. Asian American Center Staff Assistant Fatima Blanca Munoz agreed that the locked door can make students who visit the Center uncomfortable. “[Students] basically have to ring the doorbell and announce why they’re there and what they’re doing there,” she said. “It’s a residential building, so it doesn’t feel as welcoming.” Amieva-Wang mentioned, that during a standard three-hour shift, frequently no
SEOHYUN SHIM / THE TUFTS DAILY
Charlie Zhen, one of the authors of the resolution urging Tufts to relocate Asian-American identity-based housing from the Asian American Center to make the center more accessible to the community as a whole, is pictured here on Nov. 20. one came into the Center. In fact, before she started working at the Center, she had not considered it a space in which she could seek community. After spending time there as an intern, however, her sentiment has changed. see ASIAN AMERICAN CENTER, page 2
Lesley Sachs discusses the battle for women’s rights at the Western Wall
Office of Sustainability publishes FY2016 Sustainability Report
Staff Writer
Staff Writer
by Charlie Driver
Lesley Sachs, executive director of Women of the Wall, an organization that advocates and organizes for the rights of women to pray freely at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, spoke about her organization and its movement at the Interfaith Center Wednesday night. The event was hosted by the Tufts Students for Two States coalition. The coalition is led by Tufts Hillel, also includes Tufts Friends of Israel and J Street U Tufts, and is part of the Visions of Peace initiative. Junior Sophia Lloyd-Thomas, co-president of Friends of Israel, introduced Sachs, who has served as the director of Women of the Wall since 2008. Previously, she worked at the Israel Women’s Network, served as executive director of the Israel Religious Action Center and received the National Council of Jewish Women’s Jewel Bellush Outstanding Israeli Feminist Award in 2014. After a brief video showing men mistreating women trying to pray with a Torah at the Wall, known in Hebrew as the Kotel, Sachs began to recount the history of her organization’s more than 30-year battle to have the same rights to pray as men. She explained that the rules that govern conduct at the Wall are rooted in a tradition
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defined by the ultra-Orthodox rabbis who have served as the Wall’s administrators since 1967. Sachs questioned this characteristic of the Wall. “Who decides that the custom of the place is the ultra-Orthodox custom?” she asked. Over time, Sachs said, the women’s section has shrunk after starting off the same size as the men’s section. She also noted that the dividing wall between the men’s and women’s sections grew to a current height of seven feet. see SACHS, page 2
SOPHIE DOLAN / THE TUFTS DAILY
In the Tufts Interfaith Center, Tufts Students for Two States presents Women of the Wall with speaker Lesley Sachs on Nov. 29.
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evansayles
by Jessica Blough
The Tufts University Office of Sustainability recently released its Campus Sustainability Progress Report for the 2016 fiscal year. The report details a slight decrease in both water and energy use since FY2014 on all Tufts campuses. Tufts had largely failed to achieve its 2013 goal, as detailed in the Campus Sustainability Council Report to decrease waste produced by three percent each year. However, Tina Woolston, program director of the Office of Sustainability, told the Daily in an email that Tufts did manage to reduce its waste production by three percent during fiscal year 2017. The Office of Sustainability partially attributes the aforementioned difficulties to the growing undergraduate population and construction on campus, according to Celia Bottger, programs intern at the Office of Sustainability. Much of the report focused on the recent changes made by Tufts Dining Services to promote sustainable practices, specifically in reducing food waste. Director of Dining and Business services Patti Klos attributed this focus to the large portion of water and energy that dining consumes in its food preparation, creation and cleanup. The report says that 16 percent of the Medford/Somerville campus’ waste is com-
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posted, although Klos explained that the ultimate goal is to reduce the amount of waste that is produced to zero. “Even if the number of people we’re serving grows, how do we reduce the amount of food that gets composted? Because that’s not your first choice; your first choice is to not prepare it, to have the food more closely match the demand,” Klos said. “When that’s not possible, then you try to find ways to repurpose it.” To reduce waste from the dining halls, Dining Services has begun to rely more on student-based efforts like Tufts Food Rescue Collaborative, which packages leftover food from Carmichael Dining Center and DewickMacphie Dining Center to be sent to Food for Free, a local nonprofit organization, according to the Tufts Environmental Studies Program website. Additionally, during fiscal year 2016, Tufts Dining hosted its inaugural Waste Less Dinner; the event was repeated this fall, and using data from the dinner, it was calculated that the average diner waste 1.2 ounces of food per meal, according to Klos. She stressed the importance of events like Waste Less Dinner in raising consciousness among students and encouraging them to think critically about the waste they produce. The Campus Sustainability Progress Report details the progress of the Eco-Reps Program. see SUSTAINABILITY REPORT, page 2
NEWS............................................1 INVESTIGATIVE....................3 COMICS.......................................4
WEEKENDER..........................5 FEATURES.................................6 SPORTS............................ BACK