The Tufts Daily - Monday, October 30, 2017

TUFTS FOOTBALL

Students share reasons for transfer from Tufts see FEATURES / PAGE 3

Late interception dooms Jumbos against Mammoths

‘Stranger Things’ season 2 brings old hits, new intrigue see ARTS&LIVING / PAGE 5

SEE SPORTS / BACK PAGE

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VOLUME LXXIV, ISSUE 36

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Monday, October 30, 2017

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Current, former employees raise concerns about working environment in Carmichael Dining Center

by Jesse Najarro News Editor

Earlier this month, Linda Furgala, a former Carmichael Dining Center employee who was fired and then reinstated two days later

by Tufts Dining in April of this year, left her position. Furgala, along with other current and former employees of Carmichael have raised concerns about workplace environment and poor management.

Furgala explained that she resigned as a result of a series of miscommunications between her and management and a toxic work environment that began to affect her health. For her, the root of the problem commenced when management began cutting her hours and when, later this summer, her position was terminated without any notification.

After not receiving a letter confirming her employment would continue past the summer, she sent several emails to Carmichael management and an email to Human Resources (HR).

Furgala said it was not until she visited HR in person that HR Business Partner Joseph Downey told Furgala that her position had been terminated.

She was reoffered her position by Director of Dining and Business Services Patti Klos on the day of matriculation. She accepted it only on the condition that she would not return to the same unhealthy working environment.

However, she said that conditions this fall did not change. Furgala noted that one problem is management punishing employees they don’t like. “[When I worked there] if you ask a manager a certain question and [they] don’t like it, they’ll have nothing to do with it, and they’ll cut your

schedule back, give you fewer hours or punish you with shifts that are worse,” she said. “There’s also some bullying that goes on that makes it very hostile and uncomfortable to work and yelling in front of students and other employees.”

Furgala said the treatment by lower-level management undermines her dignity as a worker.

“I give over 100 percent when I’m at that job, and I will help anybody, but when you are not respected and somebody yells at you in front of people and embarrasses you, that’s very disrespectful and that’s a form of bullying,” she said.

A current employee at Carmichael who spoke anonymously out of concern for losing her job corroborated Furgala’s claim about poor management and an unhealthy working environment.

“Management is just not the best,” she said. “It definitely can feel like a toxic environment a lot of the times because people don’t know how to speak to each other or respect one another. It’s [subliminally] hostile all the time, which is frustrating.”

The employee said she felt like management is scrutinizing her work constantly and is looking to criticize.

“I have been under this microscope and everything I do they’re watching, and I’m constantly running into problems and being criticized,” she said. “It’s really frustrating … They do this to a lot of people.”

Jacob Katsiaficas, a former student manager at Carmichael, who graduated in the spring and worked at the dining hall for all of his four years at Tufts, said he felt that he saw evidence of favoritism.

BEN KIM / THE TUFTS DAILY

Former Carmichael Dining Center staff member Linda Furgala swipes in a student on March 28.

“Sometimes you have coworkers who have disagreements, purely on a personal level, and then that evolves into rumors which can then end up in very real workplace consequences,” Katsiaficas said. “I don’t have any tangible proof that scheduling is dictated by favorites but it’s always felt that way anecdotally.”

He said while this behavior does not necessarily come from a bad place, it can have negative consequences in the workplace.

“I feel that people participate in this out of necessity, not out of legitimate ill intention. But it does feel that there is this kind of bullying where sometimes employees are pitted against each other by their peers or whatever or sometimes by management,” Katsiaficas said.

Katsiaficas said that Furgala was always treated particularly unfairly.

“There were some people who just didn’t personally get along with [Furgala], but as a result she was always under heavier scrutiny,” he said.

He noted that her role as a temp worker, instead of a full-time employee, may have contributed to her poorer treatment.

“There was also a disconnect in how temps are treated and other workers,” Katsiaficas said.

Furgala said she raised concerns about the working environment at Carmichael to lower- and upper-level management and said she was ignored. She and the anonymous employee added that the only forum to express concerns was oneon-one with managers and at employee meetings, which are poor avenues for doing so. see CARMICHAEL, page 2

Interfaith discussion group moves toward social action

by Charlie Driver Staff Writer

Conversation Action Faith and Education (CAFE) is undergoing reorganization this semester, in the hope of increasing its membership and activism.

The most immediately noticeable move planned by the group is a change of their name, swapping CAFE for COFFEE, Community OF Faith Exploration and Engagement, according to CAFE co-president Ann-Marie Lee. She said the name change was part of the group’s updated constitution which is pending approval from the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate.

Lee, a sophomore, explained she hoped this name would show a connection with the pre-orientation program of the same name while also marking it as a separate entity, something that was not clear during the organization’s first year of existence.

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The group is also working on becoming a larger force in the Tufts activism community.

“We had a lot of conversations, we had a lot of interfaith people, we had a lot of education, but we really missed out on action,” sophomore Andrew Schloss, co-president of CAFE, said.

One of the ways the group is aiming to do this is by constructing an interfaith library, a project led by sophomore Sal Herrera-Montesdeoca, who is a representative on the interfaith student council, a group run by the Tufts University Chaplaincy which brings together members from various student religious organizations.

CAFE is meeting in November to compile a list of books to buy, and will use funds allotted to them from TCU Senate and the chaplaincy, as well as private donations, to start putting together the library’s collection, Lee said.

While the library is an internal project, the group is also looking beyond itself to work on social justice projects. According to Lee,

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CAFE co-sponsors a Buddhist Mindfulness Sangha event that intends to provide a space for conversation and collective action. Discussion topics include Hurricanes Harvey and Irma or the Northern California wildfires.

CAFE is also discussing a partnership with another relatively new club on campus, the Left Unity Project (LUP), an organization dedicated to uniting Tufts’ social justice clubs to fight what it sees as oppressive systems. Lee said that the two groups are planning to work together to host a teach-in on colonialism, disaster relief and action in Puerto Rico. Lee is also a member of LUP. This is new ground for CAFE, Schloss noted.

“We don’t really have a history of working with social justice organizations,” he said, adding that there was some trepidation among members of the group at attaching themselves to the LUP, which is on record as an anti-capitalist organization.

Lee, on the other hand, saw no problem with the partnership and noted that the groups are

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working together based on a shared interest in disaster relief, rather than identical ideologies. see CAFE, page 2

FRANK MA / THE TUFTS DAILY

Co-Presidents of CAFE Tufts Interfaith Student Coalition, Andrew Schloss and Ann-Marie Lee, pose for a portrait.

NEWS............................................1 FEATURES.................................3 ARTS & LIVING.......................5

COMICS.......................................9 OPINION...................................10 SPORTS............................ BACK

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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Monday, October 30, 2017

THE TUFTS DAILY Gil Jacobson Editor-in-Chief

EDITORIAL

Eddie Samuels Joe Walsh Managing Editors Zachary Hertz Associate Editor Catherine Perloff Ariel Barbieri-Aghib Emily Burke Aneurin Canham-Clyne Daniel Caron Melissa Kain Anar Kansara Robert Katz Arin Kerstein Liam Knox Sophie Lehrenbaum Elie Levine Natasha Mayor Jesse Najarro Daniel Nelson Seohyun Shim Emma Steiner Hannah Uebele Juliana Furgala Kat Grellman Simran Lala Nina Joung Costa Angelakis Emma Damokosh Elie Levine Jessie Newman Sean Ong Emma Rosenthal Grace Yuh Michael Shames Fina Short

Cassidy Olsen John Gallagher Alison Epstein Justin Krakoff Libby Langsner Setenay Mufti Eran Sabaner Antonio Bertolino Tommy Gillespie Jack Ronan Arman Smigielski Maria Fong Shannon Geary Lydia Ra Rebecca Tang Deeksha Bathini Miranda Chavez Hannah Kahn Joseph Lim Sarah Nechamkin Madeleine Schwartz Maddie Payne Yuan Jun Chee Liam Finnegan Phillip Goldberg Savannah Mastrangelo Brad Schussel Caleb Symons Sam Weidner Sam Weitzman Liam Knox Angelie Xiong Ray Bernoff Ben Kim Rachael Meyer Vintus Okwonko Alexis Serino Seohyun Shim Ana Sophia Acosta Olivia Ireland

Executive News Editor News Editors

Linda Furgala resigns from position at Carmichael Dining Center CARMICHAEL

continued from page 1 The anonymous worker said these conditions make her dread going to work at Carmichael every day.

“It’s definitely something that needs to change because I dread going to work. I absolutely hate going to work now, and it’s really annoying,” she said. “I shouldn’t just have to force myself to do the work and most of the time the only reason I get through it is because I have so many friends that work

there [and the struggle of] trying to find another job to be quite honest.”

When Furgala complained about these issues with the workplace, she said management offered to transfer her to Dewick-MacPhie Dining Center. However, she declined the offer and decided to leave her job at Carmichael.

“What [management] did [when I arrived] was they pulled me in and tried to shuffle me out the back door by putting me in another location, but I was really feeling so sick and stressed. I had to go to the doctor. I can’t afford to live this way at

this point in my life,” Furgala said.

Peter Soucy, Carmichael’s unit manager, declined to comment on the matter.

Patrick Collins, executive director of public relations, told the Daily in an email that the university could not publicly comment on personnel matters.

“We are committed to treating all employees fairly and in accordance with our stated policies.

Because this is a personnel issue, and in order to protect the privacy of all involved, we are unable to provide additional comment,” he said.

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CAFE

continued from page 1 “CAFE is not endorsing LUP or endorsing any of LUP’s beliefs,” she said. “This is one step we’re taking towards CAFE’s goal of social justice.” She noted the similarities between the goals of the events CAFE is co-sponsoring with the Buddhist Sangha as well as the one with LUP as evidence that the group’s cooperation is rooted in single issues, rather than ideologies.

The group is moving their monthly meeting time to the weekends, to accommodate the members’ schedules, Lee said.

Beyond scheduling, CAFE’s meetings them-

selves will also be different. Rather than formal discussions, the group’s organizers want to hold more casual ‘coffee house’-style meetings, according to Lee and Herrera-Motesdeoca.

Schloss, Herrera-Motesdeoca and Lee all hope that CAFE can grow into a club for all members of the Tufts community, not only ones directly involved in religious organizations.

Herrera-Montesdeoca believes religion could play a more public role on campus given its importance to many members of the Tufts community.

“Currently there isn’t a big role for religion on campus because it’s not really an encouraged thing, but it’s a big part of many people’s identities,” he said.

Lee also emphasized that CAFE is a space for non-religious students as well as the more devout.

“You don’t have to be a part of a faith community on campus to be a person of faith on campus,“ she said. “We try to be very intentional in creating a space for non-religious students to attend to foster that interfaith dialogue.”

Schloss explained that the organization’s new focus on social justice highlights what unifies members of CAFE. “What CAFE sees as an important unifying point between all of these stories and all of these people is the commonality of making the world a more just place,” he said.

TCU Senate discusses progress of ongoing projects, hears funding requests

by Seohyun Shim News Editor

The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate met last night in the Sophia Gordon Multipurpose Room to discuss ongoing projects and hear supplementary funding requests.

TCU President Benya Kraus started the meeting, encouraging the body to attend the Senate Town Hall taking place tonight at 7 p.m. in Alumnae Lounge, to discuss spatial inequality and the Capen Village upperclassman housing project.

TCU Vice President Anna Del Castillo opened the floor for all senators to share progress on the projects they are working on.

Notable projects included efforts to open a Korean language class at Tufts and to amend the residency requirement. Some senators also noted that they are working on opening more gender-neutral bathrooms and increasing availability of feminine hygiene products in restrooms. The session was followed by a question-and-answer period.

Next, committee chairs took the floor to give updates. Education Committee Chair Phil Miller, a sophomore, said that a survey for a possible Korean language class at Tufts received more than 120 responses which were overwhelmingly positive. Services Committee Chair Malachy Donovan, a junior, announced that the Turkey Shuttle service will take place again this year on Nov. 21 and 22. There were no significant updates from other committees, according to their chairs.

After the announcement, the Senate heard six supplementary funding requests. The Senate did not hear a supplementary funding request from Tufts Republicans to bring to campus Ben Shapiro, a former editor at Breitbart News. Tufts Republicans decided to reschedule its funding request for a later date, according to the Senate’s Facebook page.

George Behrakis, president of Tufts Republicans, told the Daily in an email that his organization decided to postpone the hearing for the request, not to cancel the request itself. He said Tufts Republicans made this decision in response to Tufts Student Action and Tufts United for Immigrant Justice’s plan to “pack the room” with those against the funding request, because of “Shapiro’s history

of spreading fake news and fear-mongering, particularly around issues of immigration.”

“When we discovered on Saturday that some of the left-leaning groups on campus were mobilizing in order to oppose our request at the Senate meeting on Sunday, we thought it would be appropriate to request the Senate postpone the debate and vote on it in order to give ourselves time to prepare,” Behrakis, a sophomore, said.

Behrakis rejected criticism that Shapiro is a white supremacist. “[Shapiro] has routinely condemned the ideology of white supremacy and the groups and people that espouse such views. There is also a certain degree of irony in terming an orthodox Jew a white supremacist,” Behrakis said. “Similarly, he has never advocated hatred or violence towards any group of people, including people who may be homosexual or transgender.”

Shapiro caught media attention when he called transgender activist Zoey Tur by the wrong pronouns and described transgender people as mentally ill, among other incendiary remarks.

Behrakis added that he believes ideology shouldn’t be the basis for blocking a speaker from coming to Tufts.

“I don’t think disagreeing with certain views of a speaker is a legitimate reason for him to be blocked,” Behrakis said. “The notion that his views are too beyond the pale for him to have the opportunity to speak is something with which I wholeheartedly disagree.”

Meanwhile, the scheduled demonstration to protest the Allocations Board (ALBO)’s initial recommendation to fund the event has also been cancelled.

Ann-Marie Lee, one of the organizers of the protest, said that she believes TCU Senate has justification not to fund the Tufts Republicans’ speaker event.

“As someone who actively and vociferously engages in dangerous hate speech, I believe that the TCU Senate should not be helping [Shapiro] to come to campus, especially since the TCU is an organization whose purpose is to inclusively serve the student body to the best of its abilities, and [since] many TCU senators have promised to uplift and protect marginalized students, students who are directly implicated in the hateful language, actions and presence Ben Shapiro provides,” Lee, a sophomore, told the Daily in an email.

She added that a new protest has not formally been organized to her knowledge.

TCU Treasurer Emily Sim explained that ALBO recommended to provide $4,700 in funding for Tufts Republicans’ speaker event and that five ALBO members voted in favor, four against, and one abstaining for the request. She explained that Senate was not attempting to hide the funding request.

“We do not have an obligation to [publicize funding requests] because that is not in our bylaws. Our bylaws don’t stipulate that we are supposed to do that nor that we are not supposed to do that,” Sim told the Daily in an interview.

Sim also added that she thinks publicizing funding requests and ALBO’s recommendations beforehand may be unfair because the Senate does not share other potentially contentious funding requests.

“Obviously I knew that this will be a contentious request. So I did want to share with public personally, but that’s … my bias as a person and that wouldn’t be fair to other groups who have come in for other speakers that I know members of Tufts community would view also as contentious,” Sim said.

The body voted to match ALBO’s initial recommendations for the following groups: $5,117 in funding to the European Students’ Association (ESA), $2,990 to the Vietnamese Student Club (VSC), $704 to Teach-In-CORES, $450 to the Media Advocacy Board, $3,780 to Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and $7,420 to Tufts Relay for Life.

After supplementary funding, TCU Parliamentarian Adam Rapfogel announced the titles and abstracts of two upcoming Senate resolutions. Rapfogel first announced a resolution asking the university to relocate Asian-American special interest housing to make the Asian American Center more accessible to all students. The authors of this resolution are Ana Sofia Amieva-Wang, Shannon Lee and Charlie Zhen.

Also, Senate will hear a resolution that urges the university to install single-stall bathrooms in public educational and student resource buildings, encourage gender-inclusive signage and look into creating more multi-stall ,all-gender bathrooms. The authors of this resolution, according to Rapfogel, are Kraus, Lee, Grant Gebetsberger, Leticia Preiebe and Rebeca Becdach.

Then the meeting adjourned.

Monday, October 30, 2017

Features

Financial burdens, lack of diversity influence two students’ decision to leave Tufts

by Ameenah Rashid

tuftsdaily.com

Henry Stevens The Weekly Chirp

To mock a mockingbird

T

Contributing Writer

For some students, it was just a year ago. For others, it was two, three or even more. Deciding where to go for college is often a stressful part of the high school experience, but a final decision on where to attend may not be so final. For former Tufts students Yash Gurditta and Michael Lee, when the initial combination of excitement and nervousness died down, they had to make a serious decision of whether to stay at Tufts. These profiles reflect only a few of the reasons why some students can’t call Tufts home.

Yash Gurditta Yash Gurditta, a junior from a financially unstable home in New Jersey, originally fell in love with Tufts as a high school senior after he visited for the Voices of Tufts Diversity Experiences program, and he decided to apply Early Decision to what he thought was a highly diverse school.

Once he arrived in fall 2015, however, he discovered that he had trouble finding things in common with many of his peers.

“Over time I found it was hard to connect with people because of the demographic that Tufts is comprised of,” Gurditta said. “As a first-generation child of immigrants, one thing that I noticed was the disparity between students who are of a really high and a really low income.”

Gurditta found that, because he was used to a socio-economic background that was severely underrepresented at Tufts, it was difficult for him to initially connect with his peers.

“I did meet some people from a similar socio-economic background, but I always felt that the overwhelming majority didn’t really have an idea of what it was like growing up in the environment that I did, which in itself isn’t a big deal,” Gurditta said. “But it did make it harder when there were situations where I was struggling with certain things and there were less people around that I could go to and they would understand.”

Additionally, he discovered that the sense of community at Tufts was not what he had expected from his experiences in Voices. Rather than discovering a strong sense of community, he found it to be more divided and polarized.

“There was an interesting range of people at Tufts. There was a big prep school, athletic, Greek life group; there were a lot of outdoorsy kind[s] of people; there were the politics-based people and then there’s everyone else,” he said. “I didn’t fall into either of those three categories so I was kind of a floater for most of my two years. I feel like at Tufts if you’re not into really into one of those three things, it’s kind of difficult to find your group.”

Gurditta said that last year especially highlighted the divisions on campus.

“Because there was a lot going on last year between Greek life changing [and] the presidential election, the whole campus was kind of in disarray and out of whack,” he said. “That did

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COURTESY YASH GURDITTA

Yash Gurditta, a junior from a financially unstable home in New Jersey, transferred to Columbia University from Tufts. play a part too. The overall campus vibe felt polarized, and the sense of community felt almost taken away.”

This led to a difficult decision that took almost two years to make.

Ultimately, after his sophomore year, Gurditta applied as transfer student to other universities where he thought he would feel more comfortable with the rest of the student population.

“When I was looking for different schools to apply to, I looked for racial diversity and Pell Grant recipient rates because that’s a good indicator of socio-economic background, and I also looked for first-gen student population percentages,” Gurditta said. “It was not an easy decision to make at all but I knew I needed to give myself options.”

Gurditta said the decision to transfer out was one that was drawn out and difficult to make. On the very last day possible, he accepted a spot at Columbia University, where he is now a junior.

“When I got the decision letter, I remembered that I have two years of academic success that I could build off of and I have some great friends,” Gurditta said. “It is a process coming to a new school so there were a lot of variables and things to consider on the table, which made it very difficult, but the adjustment was a lot easier for me here then it was at Tufts.”

At Columbia, Gurditta said he has been able to integrate into the community on a deeper level.

“The Tufts adjustment took me probably a full semester whereas I felt right at home here within a matter of weeks,” Gurditta said. “I met some really awesome people right away, whereas I did at Tufts too, but it took awhile. At Tufts you meet a lot of people and you’re like ‘Wow, we have absolutely nothing in common.’ Here I feel like most people I’ve met with

I’ve been able to connect with about something. Overall I never really felt at home at Tufts.”

Michael Lee Michael Lee, a sophomore from California, made his decision to transfer after his first year at Tufts based on financial considerations.

“I did get an adequate amount of financial aid my first year which enabled my parents to pay about 60 percent of the tuition,” Lee said.

“However, after my sister graduated from USC they offered nothing,” Lee said. “This combined with the fact that my dad is approaching retiring age without a large amount of money saved through his 401k because of us moving here in 2002, made it very difficult to return to Tufts.”

Lee came to Tufts last fall because of his intended major in political science and his desire to attend a liberal arts college on the East Coast. This combination led him to believe Tufts would be a perfect fit.

“I did enjoy my time at Tufts. I fell in love with the changing seasons and I had amazing and interesting friends from all across the world,” he said.

“The people at Tufts are all incredibly unique but similar in the sense that they are genuine to who they are and this helped me really mature and open as an individual who had been an introvert too timid to voice an opinion. It was really my friends that made my time at Tufts incredibly enjoyable.”

Although Lee enjoyed his time Tufts, he found that he did not love it. This, combined with a huge reduction in financial aid, made the decision to transfer clear.

“The main reason I dropped out was because of the drastic drop in see TRANSFER, page 4

he undergraduate experience brings numerous changes to a student’s life, like living away from home and having a beer for the first time upon reaching the appropriate legal age. A perhaps less conspicuous change that occurs throughout our college years is an alteration in our verbal vocabulary.

Coming from many places, college students bring a wide variety of slang and phrases that they expose to their campus.

People from New Hampshire and Vermont are exposed to strange phrases like “hella” and “the Pats suck” by their California friends. Floridians start saying “wicked” after hanging out with Boston locals. And, occasionally, everyone starts saying random words like “lit,” “send,” and “fam,” after hearing them from some enthusiastic New Jersian at a party. The result? A chaotic concoction of verbal heterogeneity, integral to and beloved by the community.

Similar to college students, the northern mockingbird incorporates many different sounds into its song, which it sings repeatedly throughout the year to either attract a mate or defend its territory (hence the name mockingbird). Generally, it focuses on mimicking other bird songs and calls that it hears on a regular basis.

Around the Tufts campus, these include the song of the northern cardinal and the flight call of the American Goldfinch, among others. However, the mockingbird does not limit itself to other bird sounds — it will happily incorporate other sounds that it hears often into its song. Some examples of these non-avian sounds are car alarms and the rhythmic beeping of a truck in reverse. Next time you’re passing

by Pearson or Dewick, listen for the complex song of the resident mockingbird, or look for him on the very tops of trees.

The mockingbird’s expansive range (found everywhere in the United States besides the North Pacific and North Midwest) has exposed them to hundreds of different avian species, and as a result there have been hundreds of recorded mockingbird song variations across the country.

While mockingbirds in New Mexico mock the melodious chorus of gray vireos and scott’s orioles, mockingbirds to the north of us in Maine utilize the vocalizations of breeding warblers and finches. A study in Florida recorded 203 song variations for a single mockingbird (wow!!!). A single female finds a complex song featuring a diverse collection of sounds to be quite sexy, so males do not discriminate when adding sounds to their music library.

But, why do we do it? Do we think adding new words and phrases to our verbal arsenal bolsters our sexual appeal? Perhaps, but it seems rather unlikely. Why do we insist on describing a fun party as “lit,” the same word we use to describe igniting a fire in the past tense? How is it that we collectively altered the definition of the verb “send” to mean to go somewhere? The story is so simple for the mockingbird, but for us, I suppose it must remain a mystery.

With love, Henry Henry Stevens is a junior majoring in biology. Henry can be reached at henry. stevens@tufts.edu.

Interest in birds? Email me at tuftsornithologicalsociety@gmail.com.

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THE TUFTS DAILY | Features | Monday, October 30, 2017

tuftsdaily.com

Two students speak on why they couldn't call Tufts home TRANSFER

continued from page 3

COURTESY MICHAEL LEE

Michael Lee, a sophomore from California, made his decision to transfer from Tufts based on financial considerations.

financial aid provided by the university,” Lee said. “However, as I began to go through life at Tufts, I knew that I wouldn’t want to stay there for the rest of college and had my mind on transferring in the future. I feel like there were a lot of little reasons that led up to a constant discontentment with my time there.”

Lee also said that the environment at Tufts was more confined than the kind he was used to at home.

“I’m from San Diego, so everybody drives everywhere, and this kind of ‘expanded’ my world to more than just school, home and nearby areas, but at Tufts I felt very restricted to a small campus,” he said.

Lee is currently a sophomore at San Diego Miramar College working to fill up his prerequisites to transfer to the University of California San Diego.

While his parents are ecstatic that he is saving them thousands of dollars and his friends, the majority of whom go to UC schools, are excited that he moved back home, he still found the transition wasn’t entirely smooth.

“Logically the choice was pretty easy to make, but it’s never really easy to leave behind friends you can call family,” Lee said. “I recently got into an adult dance exhibition team, I’m training multiple times a week and working so I’m constantly busy but basically have no close friends. But I will admit that I am happier here doing the things I want in eternally warm weather.”

TRASHING ONE EGG WASTES 55 GALLONS OF WATER

senior commencement speaker

NOMINATIONS The Wendell Phillips Award

Each year, one graduating senior is chosen to be the class speaker at Commencement, and the speech takes place during the Baccalaureate Service. Established in 1896 and named for Wendell Phillips, the speech is intended to deliver a social justice message for our time.

Faculty, staff, and students may nominate seniors to apply to be the Wendell Phillips Speaker, and seniors many self-nominate. Nominees will be invited to apply by January with a resume of leadership and service activities and a recorded speech.

Applications are reviewed by the Committee on Student Life (CSL), who will invite finalists to audition at an open forum in March before selecting the winner. This award also carries a cash prize of approximately $900.

Wendell Phillips Nineteenth-century American lawyer, orator, fervent abolitionist, and advocate for women’s and Native People’s rights

Nominate today and learn more: http://chaplaincy.tufts.edu/wendellphillips For more information, please contact University Chaplain The Reverend Greg McGonigle at chaplaincy@tufts.edu or 617.627.3427.

Nomination Deadline: Tuesday, October 31, 2017 at 5 p.m.

Monday, October 30, 2017

ARTS&LIVING

5 tuftsdaily.com

‘House of Cards’ creator Michael Dobbs talks Tufts, politics, inspirations

by Julie Doten Staff Writer

Michael Dobbs, author and executive producer of “House of Cards” (2013–), spoke at the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life on Oct. 25. He graduated from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in 1977 with an M.A., M.A.L.D. and Ph.D in nuclear defense studies.

At the event, Dobbs discussed his time at Tufts, his life in politics and the journey he took from deputy chairman at Saatchi & Saatchi to award-winning author of the “House of Cards” trilogy that led to television adaptations by the BBC and Netflix.

Dobbs shared his memories of the Tufts atmosphere during a turbulent time in U.S. history and his perspective on the current political climate.

As a student at Tufts during the end of the Vietnam War, Dobbs knew a campus that, according to him, was strikingly different than the university that students today are familiar with. He recalled the intense and grave situations that students had to grapple with at the time, explaining that the National Guard troops were being deployed to university campuses and, in extreme instances, killing students at other schools in the midst of antiwar protests.

Noting the troubling political atmosphere the United States and the rest of world is currently facing, Dobbs claimed it is nothing we haven’t seen before. He touched upon the importance of learning from our mistakes, saying that democracy has adapted and moved on and will continue to do so.

Dobbs also shared stories of his time in politics as a member of the House of Lords and as chief of staff of the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher, former prime minister of the United Kingdom. His interactions with Thatcher — whom he described as very confrontational — were greatly important to his future career path.

Dobbs informed the audience that a particularly hurtful exchange with Thatcher was actually the stimulus to start writing “House of Cards.” After hours of attempting to start writing his first novel, Dobbs said that the only two letters he managed to write were “FU,” an unsubtle indication of his feelings toward Thatcher at the time, he explained laughing.

Those two expressive letters later transformed into the initials of his main character, antihero Francis Urquhart

(or Underwood, as known in the U.S. version). Dobbs drew upon his personal experiences in politics to form the plots and characters of his political thriller, notably his observations of what makes a great leader.

He discussed how leadership and power create an uncomfortable situation to be in and that great leaders are often uncomfortable people to be around. His personal experiences have caused Dobbs to believe that people of power have huge pressures put upon them and usually are driven by something they are haunted by in their personal lives. Dobbs made sure to clarify that Thatcher never pushed a journalist off a subway platform, even though he did say “every prime minister [he has] known wishes they had murdered a journalist.”

TV REVIEW

NETFLIX / TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

Millie Bobby Brown in “Stranger Things.” (2016–)

Season two of ‘Stranger Things’: Barb, Eggos, the Upside Down

by Julian Blatt

Contributing Writer

Spoiler alert: This article contains plot information from the recently released season of “Stranger Things.”

Almost a year has passed since Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) defeated the Demogorgon, and the small town of Hawkins, Indiana is peaceful and quiet once again. Or so it seems. What everyone’s favorite TV kids are about to discover will confirm their greatest fear — the Upside Down continues to lurk just underneath their feet, steadily growing deeper and deeper, and has given

rise to a new monster, one much darker and more threatening than the last.

Mirroring the first, season two opens with Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) and Will (Noah Schnapp) — he’s back! — playing a game. Instead of Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), however, (though D&D is indeed revisited this season) the four stand crammed together around an arcade machine.

The game, Dig Dug, is significant for a couple reasons: first, the name itself foreshadows Hopper’s (David Harbour) literal unearthing of the Upside Down.

Arguably more important, however, is that it introduces a new character to

the series. Max (Sadie Sinks) initially grabs the attention of the boys because she is different from any girl they have ever met. Who knew girls could skateboard or play video games? Due to her negligent parents and abusive stepbrother, Max is tough and resilient, qualities which earn the friendship, trust and respect of the boys and prove to be formidable in the final battle against the monster.

Ever since Will returned from the Upside Down, he has been tormented by recurring episodes in which he is yet again trapped in the other dimension, chased by a vine-like shadowy creature.

Whenever one of these episodes occurs,

Joyce (Winona Ryder) and Hopper take him to a doctor, who tells them there is nothing to worry about; unsurprisingly, the ‘doctor’ is actually a scientist on a research team monitoring the gradual expansion of the Upside Down. Scared and unsure of what to do, Will asks Bob (Sean Astin) — Joyce’s innocent and naïve yet caring boyfriend, whose enthusiasm for puzzles is a tremendous help in solving this season’s mystery — for advice. Bob regales Will with a tale from his youth, when he had nightmares of a clown who only stopped when he stood his ground and yelled at it to leave see STRANGER THINGS, page 6

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THE TUFTS DAILY | Arts & Living | Monday, October 30, 2017

tuftsdaily.com

Second season brings new characters, new evil to Hawkins STRANGER THINGS

continued from page 5

him alone. Unfortunately, when applied to the shadow monster (or Mind Flayer, in D&D terminology), this tactic leads to Will’s possession. The Mind Flayer is a virus of sorts, and he becomes its host.

Poor Will — while last season he was trapped in the Upside Down, now the Upside Down is inside him.

For the majority of the season, Hopper is the only one who knows Eleven’s whereabouts; he feeds her (mostly Eggos) and lets her “watch television” (which really means visiting Mike in the black space) and in return only asks her to follow three simple rules — the “Don’t Be Stupid” rules. The police are on the lookout for Eleven, believing her to be a Russian spy — good old ’80s paranoia — and these rules are intended to keep her safe. However, Eleven begins to equate Hopper to “Papa,” and runs away to her mother. While there, Eleven learns of Kali (Linnea Berthelsen), another girl

who had been abducted by Hawkins Laboratory. Eleven seeks her out, and discovers that she and her friends hunt down and kill the people who abducted and experimented on her. Kali trains Eleven to dig down deep inside herself —digging seems to be a motif this season — to find the anger necessary to defeat her enemies. Kali is basically the Yoda of the show. Kali also unintentionally inspires Eleven to return home and help her friends fight the Mind Flayer. In the end, Eleven not only rekindles her romance with Mike, but also becomes Hopper’s legally adopted daughter.

Meanwhile, love triangles abound.

Both Lucas and Dustin are interested in Max, but due to more well-intentioned advice this time from Steve, Dustin pretends to ignore her. Lucas, on the other hand, eagerly welcomes Max into their friend group and opens up about the events of the previous season, thus winning Max over. The bromance between Steve and Dustin develops because Steve also has a shat-

tered heart. Though Steve and Nancy both know they cannot tell Barb’s parents what really happened for fear of the Hawkins Lab men targeting their families, Nancy is overwhelmed with guilt and reaches a breaking point at a Halloween party, drunkenly claiming that everything, including their relationship, is “bullshit.” Jonathan is the one to take Nancy home… surprise surprise. Later he plans to go with her to tell the truth to Barb’s parents. Although the two are intercepted by spies from Hawkins Lab and threatened, Nancy records everything that is said. Their visit to a conspiracy theorist proves fruitful, not just because he helps them succeed in shutting down the lab and leaking the truth to the public, but also in that he is the one to finally convince Nancy and Jonathan to face their feelings for each other. Lastly, although Bob sacrifices himself so the others can escape from the lab (#JusticeforBob), his death opens up the possibility of a relationship between Joyce and Hopper.

Although that would make Will and

Eleven step-siblings, which might complicate things.

In the end, Eleven closes the gate to the Upside Down, and everyone is tearfully reunited and Barb finally gets a funeral — closure at last! A month later, it’s winter again, and the kids all dress up for the school’s Snow Ball. Nancy and Jonathan are adorably awkward together, and Lucas and Max share their first kiss. Even Will is asked to dance but his partner calls him “Zombie Boy,” which seems like a red flag. Dustin, who once again took Steve’s advice, is a despondent wallflower, but Nancy invites him to dance with her and comforts him, telling him that everything will be okay. However, Nancy might regret making this promise, since in the final shot the camera leaves the merry atmosphere of the school and slowly rotates 180 degrees, showing the Mind Flayer skulking in the Upside Down, red and blue storm clouds raging all around it. Hopefully we won’t have to wait another year and a half to find out what strange things happen next!

Teen militias? Yes, says ‘Riverdale’

COURTESY FRANK MICELOTTA/PICTUREGROUP/SIPA USA/TNS

The cast and executive producers of “Riverdale” speaks at a panel at the CW 2017 Winter TCA Tour at the Langham Hotel on Jan. 8, 2017 in Pasadena, Calif.

by Alison Epstein Arts Editor

At last, the “Riverdale” (2017–) we know and pretend not to love is back.

Only retrospection revealed that a lot actually happened in “Chapter Sixteen: The Watcher in the Woods,” because while watching it, it seemed like these kids were just running around doing nothing at all. The episode’s camp, reminiscent of season 1, made it easy to forget there is a serial killer on the loose and revel in the wacky, slightly off-kilter town of Riverdale.

First, the big reveal: the confirmation that there is in fact a serial killer in Riverdale, albeit, not a very competent one. As it turns out, Midge and Moose survived the car shooting.

Congratulations, Emilija Baranac, the actress who apparently still plays Midge.

The green-eyed killer introduced himself as the “Black Hood” in a letter

which arrived along with Fred Andrews’ wallet and Miss Grundy’s sunglasses in a package labeled “Coopers.” In this letter, the Black Hood explains that Riverdale is not an innocent town, and his mission is to cleanse it.

Accordingly, he shot “the adulterer” (Fred), the “child-predator” (Grundy) and the “drug- and sex-obsessed teens” (Moose and Midge). And since he has only so far successfully axed Grundy, one could argue that up until this point, he has done nothing but perform a public service. Additionally, the fallout from this threatening letter scares pregnant teen/less relevant Cooper sister Polly into fleeing the town for fear of being the next target, because the father of the baby she’s having out of wedlock is her cousin. Maybe this Black Hood guy has a point after all.

In a very Zodiac Killer move (does Ted Cruz’s dad have green eyes?), the Black Hood demands the letter be published

in the newspaper. Obviously, the sheriff and mayor decide that’s not a good idea, and morally challenged journalist Alice Cooper already has it set to run in the next day’s paper.

On to more important things: Kevin has a new hobby, and it’s called “night jogging,” aka casually cruising around the woods in order to find someone to kiss against a tree. This is the second of Kevin’s hookups that has resulted in the discovery of shooting victims — first Jason Blossom, and now Moose and Midge, whom he helps rescue after hearing the gunshots. Betty, always trying to be practical, suggests that maybe Kevin should try an online dating app like Grind’em (okay, Riverdale) instead of putting himself in potentially dangerous situations with a serial killer on the loose.

This does eventually lead to some surprisingly poignant moments, when Kevin explains to Betty that he doesn’t

have the same options for meeting people as she does, and he also has a sweet conversation with the still closeted Moose, when they express some solidarity. Betty also shines at the end of the episode, encouraging Kevin’s dad to start having more open conversations with him. This was, of course, thanks primarily to Cheryl, who, although being devastatingly absent from the majority of the action this week, shows some real emotional maturity in helping Betty understand why “night jogging” means so much to Kevin.

On the south side of Riverdale, Jughead spends most of the episode struggling to adjust to his new Wifiless, jingle jangle-filled school. Not sure which of those two things is more concerning. He does meet cute Serpent photographer and (probable) future Bughead home wrecker Toni Topaz, with whom he teams up to reinstate the school newspaper. His first mission is to write about how a group at Southside High, the Ghoulies, are the source of hard drugs in Riverdale. Way to fit in, Jughead. After working late on the story, Jughead is badly beaten by some shadowed figures. What did you think was going to happen, Jug? Frighteningly, Jughead lies to Betty about his bruises and tells her they are from a motorcycle accident.

Bughead, don’t you know honesty is the foundation of any solid relationship?

Toni Topaz isn’t even going to have a home to wreck.

Bughead isn’t the only couple facing obstacles this week. Veronica has her hands full with Archie, who has decided to exercise his Second Amendment rights and form a militia at the advice of her father. Archie names the army “the Red Circle” and recruits a bunch of gung-ho football players. His first assignment comes when a suspicious van starts following Ethel (Shannon Purser, formerly Barb of “Stranger Things”). And although Archie and Reggie don’t make it in time to catch the mystery person in the van, they do prevent Ethel from meeting a similar fate to her “Stranger Things” counterpart. Justice for Barb. see RIVERDALE, page 7

A&L A rts & L iving

Monday, October 30, 2017 | Arts & Living | THE TUFTS DAILY

Chapter 16 is a return to the campy wackiness of season 1 RIVERDALE

continued from page 6

Things ramp up even more when Archie accepts an invitation for dinner at the Lodges’. Hiram takes Archie into his study and convinces him that the Red Circle needs to go on the offensive against the Black Hood. Yes, Archie, definitely take advice from this convicted felon who isn’t even trusted by his own daughter. What could go wrong?

Everything can go wrong, because by the episode’s end, Archie has

recorded one of the most disturbing (but also truly hilarious) videos of all time. Surrounded by a bunch of football players — all of them wearing red hoods, very few of them wearing shirts — Archie informs the Black Hood, “We’re called the Red Circle, and we’re coming for you. We will find you, we will hunt you and we will end you.” Wow Archie, we’re all shaking in our boots. That part where you got uncomfortably close to the camera really sealed the deal.

And there’s Hiram smugly watching the video in his study in front of an abso-

lutely horrifying portrait of Veronica. All that money and you can’t hire a better artist, Hiram? Someone call The CW and make them give “Riverdale” a higher props budget, seriously.

Well, we’ve got a serial killer with a motive, and we’ve got Archie with a super cool, super safe militia. Only absolutely awful things can possibly be on the horizon, and with “Riverdale,” we wouldn’t have it any other way. Except with more Cheryl.

“Riverdale” airs on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on The CW. Full episodes available on cwtv.com and Netflix.

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Mina Ghobrial Thoughts From Places

Carmichael Hall Content warning: This column mentions blood/needles and HIV. he line that usually wraps around Carmichael Dining Center in the early hours of the afternoon was missing. Last Friday, the particular buzz of a hungry crowd of college students, freshly starved by lecture halls and study sessions, was absent. Instead, there was an eerie silence, save for the blaring rock music coming from the common room (prompting the reminder that I was hot blooded, and the challenge to check and see). The large white truck boldly labeled with a red cross and the handful of signs with arrows pointing toward the front entrance, gave notice that the blood drive was coming to a painfully slow close.

After trading a meal swipe for a Red Cross Rapid Pass scan, and the aroma of freshly baked goods for a finger prick, I found myself in an all-encompassing interview. The phlebotomist asked questions ranging from my sexual activity with partners who could have potentially had other partners that might have possibly had HIV, to how I was liking my long-term stay in Massachusetts. While more than half of her inquiries were prescribed to all donors, the rest were asked with an aura of warmth and interest.

Shortly after, I found myself lying face up, with blood flowing out of my vein and into a donor bag. Occasionally, there would be instructions to squeeze the stress ball in my hand, but more often than not, there would be nonchalant references to the Rock of Ages concert she’d attended four times or remarks about the time she visited my part of the country to see Bon Jovi (prompted by the reminder that I was hot blooded, and the challenge to check and see), only for a blizzard to cancel the show. The conversation bounced around from Halloween plans to potential dinner party ideas.

Overall, the experience was summed up by its sharpness. The sting of a needle was to be expected, but it was the biting contrast that really stuck out. Of the four stations set up to draw blood, only mine was filled. There was chatter among the staff of the Friday afternoon rush, but having already seen the signup sheet, I knew that seemed unlikely. Despite the fact that less than a fifth of the Tufts population was needed to fill every single bed for the entire week and that the experience itself was brief, pleasant and rewarding, that same sense of charity was simply missing. Nevertheless, even the insipid wait for donations was approached with a pleasant sense of charity.

The vast majority of students on campus had the ability and time to form a second snaking line around Carm. A 15-minute experience could have, as the brochures love to volunteer, saved three lives. While many students did in fact go on this brief detour to help others, most did not. Luckily, there are two more blood drives this year, and the capacity to limit the stabbing sharpness of the experience lies with the general Tufts population.

T

Mina Ghobrial is a first-year who has not yet declared a major. Mina can be reached at mina.ghobrial@tufts.edu, and this column can be followed on Instagram @thoughtsfromtufts.

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Nesi Altaras Looking out

1938: the end of history

H

ow you are taught history shapes the way you understand the world. For most of us, there is no choice about how we learn history, like what is included in our curriculum and what is not. In Turkey, history education is part of the national curriculum that everyone needs to study, and there are very few modifications allowed by schools. The nationally mandated history class goes through ancient civilization, early European history, Islamic history, Ottoman history and the history of the founding of the Turkish republic. Then, it ends. History in Turkey ends in 1938 with the death of Ataturk, the country’s founder.

Even without the issue of what is included in the curriculum and how it is weighted and framed, the peculiar fact is that history ends. This is not in an analytical Fukuyama sense, it is an issue of governmental control. Everything after the death of the national hero is tainted with politics and divisions, thus seen as ‘contemporary issues’ since they affect the Turkish body politic today. Millions of students graduate high school, and even college, without ever learning about the major figures in Turkey in most of the 20th century, or the fact that there have been multiple new constitutions, along with many coups. It is possible to leave the state education system by only knowing the longest serving Prime Minister and second president of the Republic Ismet Inonu as a military commander in the war of independence.

The implications are even scarier and explain some irrationalities displayed by Turkish people. The education system does not teach about the Holocaust — or any genocide for that matter — or about World War II. Is it then surprising that antisemitism is rampant and Hitler is not perceived to be the biggest villain of history? Most people who know Hitler know him from movies or other pop culture representations. Turks never learn about the Cold War or Vietnam or anything about the United States in an academic setting. After hearing about U.S. interventions in popular media and pop culture, of course they are prone to believe conspiracy theories.

This was not always the case. Before the 1980 coup, students learned about Turkish history up to the 1960 coup. They learned that the coup took place. They learned that World War II happened.

This practice of artificially ‘ending history’ promotes historical amnesia that has plagued Turkey to this day. People hold decontextualized opinions since they do not have a historical basis on which to analyze current politics. Sunday was the 94th anniversary of the Turkish Republic, and on this Republic Day I hope for Turkey to change, in many, many ways, for the better. One small way for it to be marginally better would be if we did not lie to ourselves about history and had the courage to teach about the 1940s. That should not be an unacceptable proposition in a society that proclaims it is a republic; it should not be scared of its citizens learning their own history.

Nesi Altaras is a junior majoring in international relations and economics. Nesi can be reached at nesi.altaras@tufts.edu.

Opinion

Monday, October 30, 2017

EDITORIAL

Sackler exposé brings Tufts to the hot seat A recent Esquire exposé that rocked the Internet revealed the Tufts’ Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences has indirectly profited from thousands of opioid-induced deaths. The Sackler family, champions of art and philanthropy, are also behind the success of OxyContin, a leading painkiller that is over-prescribed, sold on a mass scale and one of the most common opioids involved in overdose deaths. The Sackler family led a ruthless marketing campaign, as detailed in Esquire and The New Yorker, that led to massive overprescriptions and is a significant factor in the current opioid crisis.

As founders of the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma, the Sacklers’ role in producing and marketing the fatally addictive drug as a common painkiller is largely responsible for their $14 billion fortune. That fortune has been spread worldwide, from Harvard and Yale to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Louvre. Included among the Sackler empire is none other than Tufts, as our President Anthony Monaco bestowed an honorary doctorate to the late Raymond Sackler.

His praise for his benefactor provided the kicker for Esquire’s exposé: “It would

be impossible to calculate how many lives you have saved, how many scientific fields you have redefined, and how many new physicians, scientists, mathematicians, and engineers are doing important work as a result of your entrepreneurial spirit.” He concluded, “You are a world changer.” According to Tufts Now, 44 Americans die each day from overdoses of prescription painkillers. An opioid-addicted baby is born every half hour.

Despite Tufts’ ties to the Sackler name, however, it is one of many institutions that was deeply misled by the family’s false marketing scheme. Tufts has, in fact, taken it upon itself to promote resources on the opioid crisis, including its Program on Opioid Risk Management and a research seminar series at the School of Medicine. The School of Dental Medicine is leading efforts in Massachusetts to better educate dentists on the consequences of prescribing opioids.

And yet, the Tufts administration still has not openly acknowledged the Sacklers’ role in fueling the opioid crisis. In light of the recent exposés, Tufts should publicly recognize its own complicity in receiving money tainted by the epidemic, resolving to take an active

stance against it. In order to align its values, Tufts should change the name of its biomedical school to better reflect the mission of the institution. With any remaining funds from the Sackler family, Tufts should fund research grants for the opioid crisis and further support outreach programs for its victims.

Monaco and the Tufts Board of Trustees should revoke the honorary degree conferred on Raymond Sackler posthumously. There is past precedent for this. Bill Cosby, although never found guilty of sexual assault, had his honorary degree revoked by Tufts. Someone the university has honored has committed an egregious moral, if not illegal, offense, and the university must withdraw its support.

This is just another example of the suspect ways in which Tufts handles its finances behind closed doors. Tufts must be more vigilant and open about the ways in which it gets money, whom it names its institutions after and how it distributes funds. It can start by addressing the symbolic significance of its history with the Sackler family; though much damage has been done, it’s about time Tufts takes a stand.

CARTOON

BY SHANNON GEARY The Tufts Daily is a nonprofit, independent newspaper, published Monday through Friday during the academic year, and distributed free to the Tufts community.

The content of letters, advertisements, signed columns, cartoons and graphics does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Tufts Daily editorial board.

EDITORIALS Editorials represent the position of The Tufts Daily. Individual editors are not necessarily responsible for, or in agreement with, the policies and editorials of The Tufts Daily.

OP-EDS The Op-Ed section of The Tufts Daily, an open forum for campus editorial commentary, is printed Monday through Thursday. The Daily welcomes submissions from all members of the Tufts community; the opinions expressed in the Op-Ed section do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Daily itself. Opinion articles on campus, national and international issues should be 600 to 1,200 words in length and submitted to opinion@tuftsdaily.com. The editors reserve the right to edit letters for clarity, space and length. All material is subject to editorial discretion and is not guaranteed to appear in the Daily. Authors must submit their telephone numbers and day-of availability for editing questions.

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OP-ED

Tufts history

by Alexander E. Jaramillo Burgos During tours and first-year orientations, we all get the standard introduction to Tufts history and lore, mostly regarding the legend of Jumbo and his tail. If the guide is feeling particularly deep, they will recite Charles Tufts’ famous line when asked what he would do with “that bleak hill over in Medford.”

“I will put a light on it.”

As nice of a story as this is, an understanding of Tufts isn’t complete without its multifaceted history. As members of the greater Tufts community, we owe it to ourselves to engage critically with the history of the land around us.

When we think of history, we think of middle school quizzes asking us to name the three main differences between the Federalist and Anti-Federalist parties. In this context, it’s easy to scoff at the ivory tower discipline inapplicable to daily life.

When we travel to somewhere ‘historic,’ however, we realize that geographic history matters, as when we charge up Bunker (in reality Breed’s) Hill and yell, “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.”

At Tufts, discovering history is a bit more difficult. We tend to think that a history here begins with orientation and ends with graduation or is locked up in some dusty books in the history department.

However, the history around us serves as a record of America’s dark racial past, as well as a predecessor for our own modern progressivism. At one point, the land around Tufts served as a slaveholding plantation,

and at another, a site of the violent fight against slavery.

It must be noted that before European colonization, the Boston area was home to the Massachuset people. In the summers, they lived and fished around the natural harbor of Quonehassit, now Boston Harbor. During the frigid New England winters, they moved up the Charles and Mystic Rivers to the surrounding hills.

During early English colonization, the land surrounding Tufts was no stranger to slavery. Isaac Royall, owner and proprietor of the Royall House (just over a quarter mile from Cousens Gym), was part of one of the largest slaveholding families in the Thirteen Colonies. In the years preceding the American Revolution, slaves tended the land where we now play soccer, lacrosse and baseball. Perhaps, if they had a spare hour, they enjoyed the breeze and view at the top of Walnut Hill as we do now on Tisch roof. Belinda Sutton, one of Royall’s former slaves, repeatedly sought financial reparations for her servitude from the Royall estate from 1783 to 1793. Her petitions to the Massachusetts General Court are some of the first writings by an African-American woman. Today, the Royall House and Slave Quarters is a museum to the plantation’s barbaric history, right on George Street.

In the mid-1800s, the lands surrounding Tufts were home to the abolitionist fervor that gripped many in New England. Medford-born George Luther Stearns, a descendant of Puritans, lived on his estate where Cousens Gym now stands. As many still do, he commuted

into Boston for work as a businessman.

He and his wife Mary were fervent abolitionists and housed escaped slaves on the Underground Railroad on their way to Canada. The Stearns also hosted the abolitionist John Brown at their estate numerous times. Mary Stearns was so taken with his cause that the Stearns supported Brown with pikes and rifles in his 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry.

These are just a few stories of the many years that Tufts has endured. Today, we’re still pushing the edge of social justice, just as Mrs. Sutton and George and Mary Stearns did. However, it’s important to recognize the dance of privilege and power that has made its impact on the land around us for hundreds of years. You don’t have to be a history major to engage with the past. The hard work has already been done by the historians, archivists and archaeologists of various organizations like the Tufts Digital Collections and Archives, the African American Freedom Trail Project, and the Royall House and Slave Quarters for all of us to enjoy.

We must understand the history of the land we live, work and study on. So the next time you walk past the front of Cousens Gym, look for a small boulder with a plaque or check out the bearded busts by the Tisch Library reading room entrance. That’s all you need to reach back to the Tufts of 1853.

Alexander E. Jaramillo Burgos is a senior majoring in political science and history.

Alex can be reached at alexander.jaramillo@tufts.edu.

Tufts player hospitalized in loss, on road to recovery FOOTBALL

continued from back down 14–0 after the first quarter. On firstand-10 from Tufts’ 38-yard line, Sanders burst through a hole in the left side of his offensive line and sped through Amherst’s second level defense. Suddenly, there was nothing in front of him but green and Sanders sped to the end zone for a 62-yard score. The touchdown run was the longest of Sanders’ career and doubled his previous career-long run of 31 yards, which came against Hamilton in the first game of this season.

“I was running and I was like ‘Woah, I’ve been running for a pretty long time right now.

All right, here we are, ’” Sanders said. “And I saw [junior defensive back John Rak] and I was like ‘Aww he’s hawking me right now. I’ve got to keep it going.’ So basically I was using him to get me through because he was catching up to me.”

Amherst’s first two touchdowns were quarterback runs, as Eberth finished off Amherst’s first drive of the game with a one-yard plunge and then fooled everyone on a run to the right side of the end zone that left him untouched.

Amherst produced 471 yards of total offense with a shocking 315 coming through the air. Though Amherst’s aerial attack is efficient with a league-leading 9.1 yards per

attempt, it is hardly prolific, with the second fewest passing attempts in the league.

O’Regan was particularly effective against Tufts, racking up six receptions for 132 yards and a touchdown.

“We were obviously trying to stop the run,” Civetti said. “They’ve got two of the best tailbacks in the league. We were in some man coverage. We didn’t hit home enough on blitzes. We tried to pressure and I think their offensive line did a really great job. I thought [sophomore quarterback] Ollie Eberth did a great job with the ball in his hands. He got it out quick, didn’t take too many hits. And [junior wide receiver] Bo Berluti, I think, just did a fantastic job for them in the pass game.”

The Jumbo offense was a tale of two halves, as they failed to pick up even a first down until the start of the second quarter. After halftime, though, the Jumbos went the length of the field for their scores twice.

McDonald threw an interception on Tufts’ first drive, and the team has struggled with turnovers to begin games this season. On its first possession of games this season, Tufts has scored twice, punted twice, been intercepted twice (including against Amherst) and lost a fumble.

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“Dumb penalties on offense and turning the ball over, I think if you go look at the tape, the tale of the tape will tell you, you’ve got to protect the football,” Civetti said. “You can’t turn the ball over versus a team like that and expect to win. It’s unfortunate, it’s part of the game, it’s part of Ryan [McDonald] developing as a quarterback.

But if you look at our three losses, turnovers have been a clear indicator of why we didn’t win. It’s probably the most important stat out there.”

Tufts travels to Colby for its penultimate contest of the season at 1 p.m. on Saturday. Both teams are mathematically eliminated from the NESCAC championship race, but the game is on Colby’s Senior Day and the opportunity to win-out for their seniors is motivating both teams.

“It’s always a fight against Colby,” Dolan said. “That’s a good football team too. Every single year we’re in a dogfight with Colby. I can’t wait to get up there and avenge that loss we just had. Even more so than that, get a win for the seniors. These guys have two games left in their lives. We need to win these next two games for them. We’re locked and loaded for sure.”

Blurred lines, gender discrimination in international sport

M

any of us at Tufts are caught up in the various assignments, clubs and sports that allow us an opportunity to demonstrate our natural talents. Often, we take for granted the opportunity to participate in activities in which we excel. South African sprinter Caster Semenya does not have that luxury.

Semenya is a talented middle-distance runner and gold medalist in the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Semenya is also an intersex individual and demonstrates elevated levels of testosterone.

This condition is labeled hyperandrogenism.

As an 18-year-old, Semenya underwent embarrassing chromosome testing in 2009 after she was barred from competition. Her ban lasted just a few months, but the insensitivity and injustice on behalf of sports’ governing bodies has proved more persistent.

To preclude Semenya and other athletes like her from competing, in 2011 the International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF) imposed a testosterone-based restriction on female athletes.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAF) suspended the ban for two years in response to a suit brought by Indian sprinter Dutee Chand.The IAAF is pressing the issue and submitted further arguments for its position in September.

The IAAF’s approach is inconsistent with existing policies regarding naturally occurring biological differences in athletes, dangerous in that it negatively targets and portrays an already marginalized group and paternalistic for purporting to protect women’s sports from female athletes who are “too manly.”

Highlighting the hypocrisy of the IAAF is the case of Eero Mantyranta, a Finnish cross-country skier with seven Olympic medals to his name. Mantyranta “was found to have a genetic mutation that increases his hemoglobin level to about 50 percent higher than the average man’s,” The New York Times reported. The Journal of the American Medical Association found “no fundamental difference” between elevated hemoglobin and elevated testosterone.

Not that it should matter, but Semenya, despite her many achievements, is not nearly as dominant in her sport as swimmer Katie Ledecky and gymnast Simone Biles are in theirs. Neither Ledecky nor Biles have had their gender openly questioned. This suggests the criticism is about more than simply ability.

With physical features that do not conform to Western standards of beauty, Semenya is frequently accused of being too manly. These attacks are hurtful, even more so when they come from peers. Poland’s Joanna Jozwik and Great Britain’s Lynsey Sharp lobbed unfair and discriminatory comments at Semenya after she defeated them in Rio. Self-styled defenders of women’s sports overlook the inconvenient fact that men are not investigated for elevated levels of testosterone. If the hormone provides as significant an advantage as the IAAF says it does (it doesn’t), then wouldn’t allowing men to compete with elevated levels of testosterone be similarly unfair? The greatest fear of the IAAF ban’s proponents is a “gender apocalypse” rife with male imposters competing in women’s sports. This is not a serious idea, and sports institutions infringing on personal freedom is a dangerous trend.

Athletic competition is supposed to be a celebration of human achievement. That includes everyone, an ideal the international athletic community often fails to do. Semenya is leading the way, but it’s about time the rest of the world catches up.

Phillip Goldberg is a sports editor at the He is a senior majoring in political science and can be reached at phillip. goldberg@tufts.edu.

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Sports

Monday, October 30, 2017

FOOTBALL

ANGELIE XIONG / THE TUFTS DAILY

Junior defensive lineman Jared Ahsler congratulates sophomore running back Andrew Sanders for helping the Jumbos score in the second quarter during the game against Amherst on Oct. 28.

Second-half comeback falls just short against Amherst

by Phillip Goldberg Sports Editor

Only during Halloween weekend could the Jumbos’ hopes be bloodied, resurrected and laid back to rest in the span of three seconds. Visiting Amherst led by 11 points, 31–20, when Tufts scored a touchdown with just over a minute remaining. However, a failed twopoint conversion meant Tufts needed a touchdown to win.

First-year placekicker Matthew Alswanger kicked onsides and Tufts players flew to the ball, recovering it along the right sideline.

With the ball and a full minute of gametime to go, suddenly Tufts had its best chance to take the lead.

“Matt [Alswanger] did a great job placing the ball,” coach Jay Civetti said. “He’s really been hitting that thing really well. He’s been working incredibly hard at it. Amherst was trying to get lined up to us. I think they expected us to go the other way. And then when it came back towards our sidelines they weren’t fully aligned, which resulted in the outcome that you saw.”

The spirits of football had other ideas.

Junior quarterback Ryan McDonald threw an interception to Amherst’s sophomore defensive back John Ballard, killing Tufts’ comeback chances. The final score read 31–26 in favor of Amherst.

“We executed sometimes and then we had times where we didn’t execute,” junior wide receiver Jack Dolan said. “We didn’t do what we were supposed to do. We shot ourselves in the foot a couple times. But that’s how football is.”

In a particularly scary moment during the third quarter, Tufts junior linebacker Markus Edmunds was injured and lay unmoving on the field for roughly 10 minutes. He was even-

tually stretchered off the field to an ambulance and taken to the hospital.

“He’s obviously concern number one,” Dolan said. “He’s our brother, football comes second. Yesterday was the worst I’ve ever felt on the field. That was terrible. Because you’re just helpless. That’s our boy and we’re praying for him and we’re going to lift him up when he comes back. Everyone will breathe a sigh of relief when he’s back with us.”

Civetti visited Edmunds in the hospital and said he is in good spirits and on the road to recovery.

“Losing a game is hard to deal with, but you put a lot of things in perspective when you have a situation happen like what happened to Markus [Edmunds] out there,” Civetti said.

“It’s a scary moment and something that you don’t ever want to see. As important as winning is and football is, your health and who you are as a person and your concern for your teammates is, at the end of the day, what should matter most.”

The last time these two teams met, Tufts defeated Amherst 27–10 at Lehrman Stadium.

This time around, the Mammoths avenged their home-field loss by taking control at Ellis Oval. With the win, Amherst (6–1) remains second in the NESCAC to Trinity (7–0), while Tufts (4–3) drops to sixth.

To set up the crazy end-of-game sequence, Tufts drove all the way from its 19-yard line for a touchdown. First-year running back Mike Pedrini caught a short pass and added some tough after-the-catch yards for a first down.

A holding call set Tufts back 10 yards, but McDonald took off on the next play and was hit late out of bounds, resulting in a personal foul against Amherst. Lining up just behind midfield, McDonald found junior defensive back Frank Roche open along the right side-

line. Roche took the pass 30 yards, juking one defender and simply running through another before being pushed out of bounds.

A facemask penalty set the Jumbos up at the Mammoth 4-yard line and McDonald threw a bullet pass to the back of the end zone, hitting Dolan right in the chest. Tufts’ two-point conversion attempt failed, so the Jumbos settled for a 31–26 deficit.

Though the Jumbos never led, they kept the game within reach the entire contest.

Amherst’s largest lead came in the third quarter when Tufts held Amherst out of the end zone. The Mammoths settled for a field goal and junior placekicker John Rak’s 26-yard attempt sailed through the uprights to make the score 31–13.

Tufts responded on its next drive, which featured a number of chunk yardage plays. A facemask penalty against Amherst brought Tufts near midfield. Two straight offensive holding calls appeared to kill the drive, as Tufts faced a third-and-23 situation. Amherst backed off and four Tufts receivers ran deep, leaving plenty of space for McDonald to take off along the right sideline. He made it 44 yards, well past the first down marker, before he was pushed out of bounds. Sophomore running back Andrew Sanders punched in the 4-yard touchdown dive, his second score of the day. Alswanger’s kick was good and Tufts drew closer 31–20.

“We had our tackle [junior Tim Reitzenstein] demolish two kids in one movement and it was ridiculous,” Sanders said. “The [offensive line were beasts] the whole day. I can’t take any credit for yesterday. They made holes yesterday that a freight train could run through.”

The majority of the game’s scoring came in the first half, as Amherst only scored three points after the break to Tufts’ 13. The

Mammoths’ game-winning touchdown came with just under a minute to go in the first half. Sophomore wide receiver James O’Regan took his longest catch of the day, a 56-yard touchdown bomb from senior quarterback Reece Foy in Amherst’s two-minute offense, to the house for a 28–13 lead.

Foy started his sophomore season, but did not see the field his junior year and has received limited playing time as a senior.

He quarterbacked for just the one drive against Tufts, attempting four passes and connecting with O’Regan for a touchdown.

The prior drive, Tufts was set up with excellent field position on its own 46-yard line, as sophomore wide receiver Robert Jones returned the kickoff 25 yards. Jones nearly went for a touchdown, as he had beaten all of Amherst’s coverage team save the kicker, but was tripped up from behind. Passes to Dolan and junior wide receiver Dan de Leon along the sidelines helped Tufts advance the ball deep into Amherst territory. On third-and-10 from Amherst’s 17-yard line, McDonald threw a fade pass to Dolan, who took a hit from a safety in the air, but still managed to come down with the ball in the end zone. Tufts’ two-point conversion attempt failed and the Jumbos trailed 21–13.

Amherst touchdowns sandwiched Dolan’s first score. Amherst sophomore quarterback Ollie Eberth faked a run play and then passed to senior wide receiver Craig Carmilani over the middle for 36 yards. The Amherst offensive line helped push junior tailback Jack Hickey over the line, and Amherst tacked on its third touchdown of the day with 4:25 to go in the half.

Tufts had struggled to move the ball prior to its first touchdown, and the Jumbos were see FOOTBALL, page 11