Documentary explores relationship of truth to storytelling through famed Israeli writer Etgar Keret’s life, stories see ARTS&LIVING / PAGE 5
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
Jumbos win four straight behind record-setting offense
‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald’ fails to charm, loses its magic with labyrinthine plot see ARTS&LIVING / PAGE 5
SEE SPORTS / BACK PAGE
THE
INDEPENDENT
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T HE T UFTS DAILY
VOLUME LXXVI, ISSUE 50
tuftsdaily.com
Monday, November 26, 2018
MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.
Dark Money at Tufts, Part 1: Illuminating Tufts’ multimillion dollar donor network
DAVID NICKERSON / THE TUFTS DAILY
by David Nickerson
Executive Investigative Editor
Tufts has accepted over $22 million since 1985 from charitable foundations that have openly expressed a desire to promote their political agenda at institutes of higher education, or which have directly funded academically controversial, racially antagonistic
research at Tufts, a multiyear Daily investigation has discovered. Through an analysis of tax records made available by American Bridge 21st Century, Foundation Center and ProPublica — in addition to financial information publicly released by Tufts’ Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development — the Daily has charted the flow of controversial chari-
table donations the university has accepted over the last 33 years. Tufts’ continued acceptance of these funds is indicative of a donation review process that prioritizes the immediate on-campus implications of potential donations over the histories and motives of the donors. Monica Toft, director of the Center for Strategic Studies (CSS) at The Fletcher School
of Law and Diplomacy, and Richard Lerner, director of the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development, told the Daily that they accepted money from the Charles Koch Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation, respectively, without knowing about the organization’s political intentions or without fully understanding the highly controversial funding schemes these foundations have engaged in at Tufts and across the United States. The seven foundations included in this report are the John M. Olin Foundation, which gave $1,626,051; the Sarah Scaife Foundation, which gave $7,620,000; The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, which gave $1,018,250; the John Templeton Foundation, which gave $6,699,828; the Earhart Foundation, which gave $1,413,008; the Smith Richardson Foundation, which gave $1,193,017; and the Charles Koch Foundation, which pledged to donate $3,000,000 over a six-year period beginning in 2017. Some of the donations and grants given by these foundations have funded racially and religiously divisive research initiatives at Tufts. One such project was the now-closed Cultural Change Institute at Fletcher, which received financial support from the Templeton Foundation and the Smith Richardson Foundation. The Cultural Change Institute was founded in 2007 by former Fletcher adjunct professor and senior research fellow Lawrence Harrison, who also directed the institute from its establishment until he retired in 2010, according to Miguel Basáñez, who was named director following Harrison’s retirement. Fletcher tapped Harrison to direct the Cultural Change Institute in 2007, even see DARK MONEY, page 2
David Cochrane, longtime professor of biology, dies at 74 by Alexander Thompson Staff Writer
David E. Cochrane, who was a professor of biology at Tufts for 38 years before retiring in 2014, passed away in Essex Junction, Vt. on Nov. 7. Cochrane was born in Cold Spring, N.Y. in 1944 and grew up on a chicken farm in the nearby small town of Fishkill. Growing up on the farm, Cochrane developed a great passion for animals and studied animal science at Cornell University, according to his daughter Jessica King (LA ’02). King said that when Cochrane began pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of
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Vermont, his focus shifted to physiology. After a few years of pursuing postdoctoral study at Yale University, Cochrane arrived at Tufts in 1976. Longtime colleague Harry Bernheim, an associate professor of biology who started teaching at Tufts just three years after Cochrane did, described Cochrane as gentle, kind and brilliant. For much of both professors’ careers they taught General Physiology I and II together, leading students to dub the courses “The Harry and Dave Show,” according to Bernheim. “[Students] often said that [Cochrane] was like Mr. Rogers and had a California effect, whereas I was
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more East Coast and high strung, so we were sort of a complementary pair since my personality was somewhat different than his,” he said. “Students liked that one was calm and cool and one was frenetic and agitated.” King attributed comparisons to Fred Rogers to Cochrane’s warmhearted demeanor, as well as his habit of wearing zip-up sweaters reminiscent of the beloved PBS personality. In his own way, Cochrane had a knack for performance. Bernheim recounted an occasion when members of the biology department filmed a video for an ill colleague in which Cochrane taught physiology in character as Rogers.
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Cochrane was a performer with range too. Bernheim said that when teaching General Physiology II, he and Cochrane once performed a physiological version of Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner’s trademark 2000-year-old man comedy routine. King said her father made strong connections with his students. “I stopped by his office nearly every day to hang out and talk and there were always students there — always. At least one, usually multiple,” she said. “He was working with them, teaching them, meeting with them, talking on the
NEWS............................................1 ARTS & LIVING........................4 FUN & GAMES.........................6
see COCHRANE, page 3
FEATURES.................................8 OPINION.....................................9 SPORTS............................ BACK