The Tufts Daily - Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Alum Geoff Edgers discusses college experiences, career trajectory see FEATURES / PAGE 4

WOMEN’S TENNIS

Jumbos serve up big victory in season opener

Students should reject Birthright, seek more nuanced Israel engagement see OPINION / PAGE 9

SEE SPORTS / BACK PAGE

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T HE T UFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXXVII, ISSUE 35

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

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Former US Senator Jeff Flake speaks about political environment, disagreements with President Trump

by Liza Harris News Editor

Former U.S. Senator Jeff Flake spoke at Tufts on Tuesday night in ASEAN Auditorium as part of Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life’s Distinguished Speaker Series about his time in Congress and his experiences opposing President Trump’s rhetoric.

Flake, who served in the U.S. House for 12 years and in the U.S. Senate for six as a representative for Arizona, spoke with Professor of Political Science Deborah Schildkraut.

Flake spoke to his recent history of publicly disagreeing with President Trump and the Republican Party, something that many congressional Republicans have been hesitant to do.

“When the president speaks out or calls the press the enemy of the people, every Republican ought to stand up and say no,” Flake said during the talk.

The former senator also noted his surprise at how many of his former colleagues have been silent in criticizing Trump.

“To give in and concede that the president should be crude or vulgar or just mean and indecent, that has surprised me, how tolerant we’ve been. We don’t condone it if it’s from the other party, and we shouldn’t condone it from our own,” Flake said in an interview with the Daily before the lecture.

However, Flake voiced his disagreement with the opinion that his disapproval of the president should require him to vote against every policy the president supports.

“Some people say if you don’t want the president to have a second term, it’s incumbent on you to not vote for anything they do,” Flake said. “I don’t believe that. We want to see the president succeed.”

Flake cited Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s controversial statement in 2010, in which he said that it was his number one job to ensure President Obama was a one-term president. Flake said that this statement also deserved rebuke.

“I was critical of that as well,” Flake said. “I try — I don’t always succeed — but I try to put country above party.”

Flake commented on the current state of the Republican Party, arguing that it should return to its earlier principles.

“I think we ought to stand for traditional Republican values: economic freedom, limited government … those are the principles that animated the party for generations, and I think that’s what we will return to eventually,” Flake said.

Flake also stated his belief that the Republican Party should make a stronger attempt to appeal to young voters.

“Young people have been walking away from the party for awhile, and now they’re in a dead sprint. We ought to turn inward and say, ‘We’ve got to do something different,’” Flake said.

Flake cited climate change as an example of where he believes the party can improve.

“Young people are more concerned about the environment and want to see Republicans take responsible action to deal with climate change,” Flake told the Daily.

Flake mentioned that the Republican Party can appeal to younger voters on fiscal policy. “[The] Republican Party has always been the party of fiscal responsibility. Young people ought to be very concerned about where we are fiscally. We have a 22 trillion dollar debt, and we’re still racking up debt with a good economy,” Flake said.

While in the U.S. Senate, Flake introduced a bill that would implement a revenue-neutral carbon tax, meaning it would increase a tax on carbon while cutting taxes in other areas.

“I have felt for a long time that as a conservative, if you want less of something, you tax it, but you do it in a revenue neutral way, so you’re not picking winners and losers in the economy,” Flake said.

The former senator also spoke to his concern with current international relations and trade policy.

KYLE LUI / THE TUFTS DAILY

Former United States Senator Jeff Flake addresses the audience in ASEAN Auditorium as part of the Tisch College Distinguished Speaker Series on March 12.

“While we’re debating silly things about whether it’s a wall or a fence, other countries are moving on,” Flake told the Daily. “I think we’ve got to realize that we’re not the only game in town anymore, and we have less leeway to make mistakes because the world is globalized and we’re part of that. We can choose to try to remove ourselves but it’s only to our detriment.”

Flake also discussed his stance on AmericanCuban relations, naming his favorite moment in Congress as the time when he worked with colleagues across the aisle to release Alan Gross,

an American being imprisoned in Cuba, and to re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba.

“The most memorable moment came when we were about a half hour into the flight [back to the United States] and the pilot announced ‘We have now entered U.S. air space,’ and Alan Gross stood up and shook his fist and said, ‘Now I know I’m free.’ It just reminded me what a special country this is,” Flake said.

Flake acknowledged the divisive nature of contemporary politics and said in an interview see FLAKE, page 2

First Global Tufts Week celebrates international engagement on campus

by Rebecca Barker Contributing Writer

Tufts hosted the first annual Global Tufts Week from March 2–9, designed to highlight the global engagement of students, faculty and staff and promote dialogue between Tufts organizations and schools related to international issues, according to its website.

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Planning for the event first began this fall and was finalized in December, according to Senior International Officer and Associate Provost Diana Chigas. The event was organized by the Office of the Provost after Chigas and Christine Hollenhorst, program administrator in the Office of the Provost, noticed that the university lacked an event to celebrate its engagement in international affairs.

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“Part of what we want to do out of our office is really be able to shine a spotlight on a lot of the really interesting engagement going on, not just academic engagement and research work, but arts and cultural events, and student clubs and civic engagement … the whole range,” Chigas said.

The Office of the Provost felt an event like Global Tufts Week could be instrumental in

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celebrating Tufts’ international involvement and diversity. Global Tufts Week included around 40 events, according to Hollenhorst.

Events ranged from trivia nights, photography displays and film showings to more informational events like Tufts Table, which was hosted by the Office of the Provost, the

NEWS............................................1 FEATURES.................................4 ARTS & LIVING.......................6

see GLOBAL WEEK, page 3

FUN & GAMES.........................8 OPINION.....................................9 SPORTS............................ BACK

2

THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Wednesday, March 13, 2019

THE TUFTS DAILY Elie Levine Editor in Chief

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Tufts partners with miles2share carpooling app

EDITORIAL

David Levitsky Anita Ramaswamy Managing Editors Luke Allocco Jessica Blough Austin Clementi Charlie Driver Jenna Fleischer Juliana Furgala Kat Grellman Abbie Gruskin Liza Harris Zachary Hertz Gil Jacobson Rachael Meyer Catherine Perloff Seohyun Shim Hannah Uebele Joe Walsh Alejandra Carrillo Robert Kaplan Noah Richter Jilly Rolnick Alexander Thompson Grace Yuh Costa Angelakis Jenna Fleischer Sean Ong Michael Shames Fina Short Sidharth Anand Amelia Becker Mark Choi Sarah Crawford Mitch Lee Ellie Murphy Ananya Pavuluri

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BUSINESS Olivia Davis Executive Business Director

by Ellie Hewell

Contributing Writer

Tufts began a partnership with the carpooling app miles2share on March 1 to implement an exclusive carpooling network for students, faculty and staff within the Tufts community, according to Shoshana Blank, the education and outreach program administrator for the Office of Sustainability.

Miles2share connects riders and drivers with overlapping routes with ultimate goal of reducing carbon emissions through carpooling.

Currently, Tufts offers the service Bay State Commute to connect carpools in the community. Bay State Commute incentivizes green commuting through discounts and coupons awarded to users who record their environmentally friendly trips.

The Office of Sustainability endorses several other ride-share companies as well, including Turo, NuRide and RidePost.

Tufts will now use miles2share in conjunction with Bay State Commute so that those who wish to continue using the platform are still able to, according to Blank.

Once logged in, Tufts users enter their typical or one-time routes and are connected to others within the Tufts network going in the same direction. Riders pay $0.30 per mile, with $0.25 of the payment going to the driver and the remaining $0.05 going to the app as a service fee.

The owner of miles2share contacted the Office of Sustainability about a year ago and began working with the university to ensure the network was closed to Tufts, according to Blank.

“People are more likely to share rides if they can know that everyone in the platform would be a Tufts person,” she said.

Blank explained that the miles2share project is specifically aligned with Tufts’ Transportation Demand Management Strategies.

“It is basically, ‘How do you get people at Tufts to stop using single-occupancy vehicles and move towards alternative forms?’,” she said.

Blank referenced data from fiscal year 2017 regarding greenhouse gas emissions over all of Tufts’ campuses. Overall, faculty and staff commuting made up eight percent of the total emissions, student commuting made up five percent, directly financed air travel for the university made up 12 percent and study abroad air travel made up three percent.

In 2016, Tufts signed the Second Nature Climate Commitment, with one goal: become carbon neutral by 2050. Blank said the miles2share network is among several other initiatives that the Office of Sustainability has in place to work towards this goal.

These projects encourage public transportation and positively impact the environment by reducing transportation emissions. One such initiative is working towards the implementation of parking spots reserved for carpools. Others are trying to allow faculty and staff on all Tufts campuses to receive a 35 percent discount on their monthly T-passes and discounted annual rates for Zipcar memberships, according to Blank.

The implementation of miles2share carpooling would potentially impact greenhouse gas emissions from students, faculty and staff, Blank said.

Another example of a recently developed app to connect riders and drivers is the app CarTrek, founded by Tufts juniors Olive Baerde and Mikayla Rose.

Baerde distinguished CarTrek from other carpooling apps. Where miles2share focuses on daily commutes, CarTrek connects college students for medium- to long-distance travel.

However, both apps are concerned with reducing environmental impact, according to Baerde.

“In that regard, we help with saving the environment and ... [reducing our] carbon footprint, because we are covering larger distance where normally people don’t think about carpooling with each other,” Baerde said.

Michaela Morse, the recycling communications intern at the Office of Sustainability, recognized the importance of outreach and social media in rolling out a project such as miles2share.

“We can’t impact our goal to help the university reduce its waste and behave more sustainably unless we engage the community and get them involved in all these programs we offer,” Morse, a junior, said.

Co-president of Tufts Students for Environmental Awareness Leila Skinner noted that their group focuses on raising awareness about local environmental situations as well as building solidarity through collective movements to better the environment. “[Miles2share] seems like a great way to build community,” Skinner, a first-year, said. “You can choose who is inside your circle and I know, for a lot of people, … not riding with random people [is really important].”

Senator Flake addresses problems in the Republican Party at Tisch College event FLAKE

continued from page 1 that he believes the healing process must start with political leadership.

“You can’t put all the blame on the president, but he has taken advantage of rifts that are already there and driven them deeper. It starts at the top, you have to have a president that models better behavior. You have to have leadership in Congress that will do the same,” Flake said. “We have to govern in the end. We can’t continue to lurch from government shutdown to shutdown and accomplish little in between.”

Flake stated his belief that the incentives in politics must change in order for the country to move forward.

“Any big issue you can think of … the incentive is for public officials to immediately say where they are and rush to the corner,” Flake said. “[Political polarization] will only change when incentives change, and when politicians realize that the people want something different — when people realize that it’s ok to change your mind.”

Flake spoke about his life outside of the U.S. Senate, including what he misses and does not.

“[My least favorite part] was travel and being away from my family,” Flake said. “You miss a lot of baseball games and piano recitals.”

However, Flake noted that there are aspects of being in office that he misses.

“My wife turned to me a couple weeks ago and said, ‘We’ve gone a month without death threats.’ So it’s a little different,” Flake said to the Daily, laughing. “I obviously miss some aspects of being in office, like my colleagues.

There are a lot of good people in Washington on both sides of the aisle who are trying to do good things.”

CORRECTION The print version of the March 4 article ‘EPIIC Colloquium hosts 34th annual symposium’ states that the topic for next year’s symposium has not yet been announced. In fact, an email from the Experimental College gave information about the course. The article has been updated to reflect this change. The Daily regrets this error.

News

Wednesday, March 13, 2019 | News | THE TUFTS DAILY

3

Office of the Provost awards grants to fund Global Tufts Week GLOBAL WEEK

continued from page 1 Parade of Nations and the Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) symposium.

Students involved in Global Tufts Week noted that the Parade of Nations was a success, including Leelasena, who worked on the Parade of Nations and Global Tufts Week.

“It was really great to see people attend events celebrating specific cultures every night. These led up to the annual Parade of [Nations] Show, which was mine and most people’s favorite event,” first-year Leelasena told the Daily in an electronic message. “I observed Tufts’ international community come together to celebrate our presence on campus and our pride for where we are from.”

Leelasena was one of the people responsible for gathering the flags of the 32 nations represented and hanging them up around campus. She noted that these flags were also used to conclude the Parade of Nations show.

“Participants ran onto stage with their flag and … all 32 nations represented came together for a dance,” she said. “It was a special way to conclude the Parade of Nations show.”

The Office of the Provost helped facilitate and advertise the week’s programming through their calendar, according to Chigas.

“I think our goal was really more events rather than weeding things out,” Hollenhorst said. “We were really encouraging of really any type of event that people wanted to put on.”

Chigas echoed Hollenhorst’s sentiment, noting the variety in both the planned events and in the groups organizing them.

“The faculty are doing work, student clubs are doing work, there [are] all sorts of really interesting things that people are interested

ALONSO NICHOLS / TUFTS UNIVERSITY

Diana Chigas, Tufts associate provost, senior international officer and professor of the practice at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, poses for a photo outside of Ballou Hall on Sept. 7, 2016. in doing and they never get the exposure,” Chigas said. “The idea really is that it’s kind of self-organized.”

To help make all of the events possible, the Office of the Provost also provided students and faculty with resources; the office offered applications for small grants of up to $500 in January and was able to fully fund or supplement around 15 different events, according to Hollenhorst.

Scheduling Global Tufts Week began later than anticipated due to turnover in the Office of the Provost earlier this year, according to Chigas.

“It ended up being a pretty quick turnaround,” Chigas said. “We had to get Communications to help us organize the calendar, because the whole thing is really dependent on people being able to sign up and showcase their events, [which] took a little while.”

She noted that the Office of the Provost has bigger plans for Global Tufts Week in the future.

“This is the first year, and hopefully it will sort of grow, but we’re hoping to get more engagement across the university, and really sort of give a sense of how much is going

on at Tufts, both for students [and faculty],” Chigas said.

Hollenhorst said that she noticed an impressive range of creativity surrounding Global Tufts Week events.

“People were really creative with how they interpreted the theme and the week, and people seemed to really want to participate and showcase what they were doing,” she said. “I thought that was exciting to see especially for our first time. We didn’t really know what to expect so it’s been really, really cool to see.”

Senior Baccalaureate Speaker

FINALIST AUDITIONS

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2019 • NOON, GODDARD CHAPEL EACH FINALIST WILL PRESENT A 10 MINUTE SPEECH

THE 2019 FINALISTS ARE: Amira Al-Subaey Jaya Khetarpal Ria Mazumdar

Anna Del Castillo, A18 Wendell Phillips Speaker 2018

Light refreshments will be served. All are welcome to attend.

THE WENDELL PHILLIPS AWARD The Wendell Phillips Award was established in 1896 to honor Boston’s great orator and advocate for abolition and women’s and Native People’s rights. The award is given annually to a senior who demonstrates both marked ability as a speaker and a high sense of public responsibility. Selected by the Committee on Student Life, the winner is the one graduating senior invited to offer a speech as part of Commencement, and the speech takes place during the Baccalaureate Service. It is intended to deliver a social justice message for our time.

4 Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Features

tuftsdaily.com

Alumni Q&A: Geoff Edgers

COURTESY LILA HEMPEL-EDGERS

Geoff Edgers is pictured.

by Grace Yuh

Executive Features Editor

The Alumni Series aims to create a diverse collection of experiences at Tufts through highlighting notable alumni.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Geoff Edgers graduated from Tufts in 1992 with a bachelor’s degree in English. He is currently the national Arts reporter for The Washington Post and host of “Edge of Fame,” The Washington Post’s and WBUR’s collaborative podcast. The Tufts Daily spoke with Edgers on his experiences at Tufts and his journey as a journalist and author.

The Tufts Daily ( TD): Where did you hear about Tufts, and why did you decide to attend?

Geoff Edgers (GE): My father is a civil engineering professor at Tufts, and I grew up in Brookline, so Tufts was very well known. From the time I was a child, [I knew that] if I could get in, I would probably go to Tufts. First of all, it’s a great school but beyond that there was tuition remission, so I was able to attend without having to pay tuition, which was quite a benefit.

TD: Did you always plan on studying English?

GE: I really didn’t have a great plan when I got to Tufts — I just started.

One of my first classes was a class taught by Alan Leibowitz, who is now retired. He used to teach Melville, Hawthorne and Poe. I was not a great reader at that point, and I remember very distinctly I got something like a C on a paper on Moby Dick. He was very angry at me because I think he felt I hadn’t committed to it. You could tell he could see through my fake

attempt to do it. That hadn’t happened before, and it really shook me up. I was embarrassed but I also asked myself, “What am I doing?” It sounds simple and basic but if you don’t read good stuff, you’re not going to write well.

So I really became a voracious reader, hence the English major.

TD: What were some memorable classes you took at Tufts?

GE: I thought that History of Jazz with Michael Ullman was just amazing and really opened my eyes to music that I didn’t know at all. Jonathan Strong’s fiction class was also great. He just had a really great way of guiding you without telling you what to do.

The time I was at Tufts, I’d be in the same small creative writing classes with my best friends Patrick Healy (LA ’93) and Darin Strauss (LA ’92), who has gone on to write novels, as well as Adam Sacks (‘01), who became a magazine editor. We would be in the same 12- or 13-person creative writing classes, so Jonathan Strong and Michael Ullman were really important figures for us.

TD: In what ways has Tufts changed since you attended?

GE: Tufts didn’t have any kind of media or communications major. The only courses they had in that area were in the Experimental College. The physical structures have changed dramatically, like the music building was not in place. But it still feels like the same campus to me — it still feels like a cozy campus.

TD: What did you do for fun at Tufts?

GE: I liked to play guitar and I would hang out with people. Also, I would travel around with friends and also do stuff for [the Daily]. Doing work for outside newspapers also took up a lot of my time.

TD: What was your time at the Daily like?

GE: For a time, I was very involved and very passionate about it. I had a little bit of a conflict there because it could be a very suffocating place. I remember at a certain point I left for a little while and when I came back, it had become such an inside club. It was very hard for me to get back into it. I actually ran for Editor in Chief almost as an outsider. It led to them doing a very bizarre and entertaining vote on whether [they should] allow me to even to run and whether I could be eligible. I lost that by two votes, which was very funny to me because I think if I’d even [been allowed to] run, I still would have lost by two votes.

Frankly, that made me more aggressive about writing outside of the paper. I really enjoyed my time at the Daily as an Arts editor and a Sports editor but ultimately, I didn’t want to have the Daily be my entire life. There were kids who worked at the Daily who were making it their entire lives and I [was still friends] with people who were incredibly involved, but I also wanted to write for local newspapers.

TD: What was the most interesting story you worked on for the Daily?

GE: We did a very involved story on the housing office. We determined that there were people who were taking advantage of the system. They were basically using their friends in the office to get high lottery numbers.

Everything was done manually back then, so the housing lottery literally had tickets. We did an analysis and found that the same people were getting the top housing choices every year. [ We] not only broke it in the Daily, but were also able to sell the story to the New York Times.

TD: What local publications did you write for, and what was that experience like?

GE: The Arlington Advocate was one of them. The only way to get good at writing is by writing: It’s kind of a catch-22. It’s like, “How do you get good at it while you do it?” You have to get someone to hire you to do it. What I found was that there were all these papers around, and they were eager to get stories covered. There’s an endless amount of news in local places: Every town has like five meetings at night. I just went to them and said, “Look, you don’t need to pay me, I’ll do it for free.

Just make sure that there’s an editor and that I get my name in the paper.”

So I covered planning board meetings, bike trail openings, forums on domestic violence. I carried a camera around too and took pictures of people and asked them what they thought about, you know, the Red Sox. I just did the same things that you could do for the Daily except on a little bit of a more nitty-gritty level. I started getting bylines, so when I graduated, I had actual stories. They weren’t good stories, but I had something … The professional editing was [also] helpful in giving me perspective.

TD: What did you do after graduating from Tufts?

GE: As soon as I graduated, I traveled around Europe, and when I got home, I took a job as a reported at the Sudbury Town Crier, which is a weekly paper that still exists in Sudbury, Mass. I was their only reporter. I wrote eight stories a week; I wrote the editorials; I took pictures. If a horse got out and walked across the street, I was there. I went to the school committee meetings, I went to the finance committee meetings. I did the police beat and I worked like 90 hours a week, getting paid for 40 of them.

I worked that job for six months. I went on to a small daily paper for 10 months, then I went on to a bigger paper and worked that for a year. I kept trying to get ahead. I worked almost 12 years at the Boston Globe on staff as their local Arts reporter.

When the Washington Post expanded and created a national Arts reporter job, I applied and got the job. The post has been growing dramatically in the past few years and that’s what I get to do now.

TD: Why did you decide to become an Arts reporter specifically?

GE: I didn’t want to be a reviewer because I felt like I didn’t know the disciplines for that, like covering the symphony orchestra world. But I also wanted to do something special and I didn’t want to be a part of a pack following around politicians or just doing the same thing. What I found was that there weren’t many people writing about the arts as a serious magazine beat would, like doing profiles or investigative pieces, but in a very ambitious way. In some cases, you had an arts story that would come into a newsroom and they’d say “Oh it’s an arts story, give it to the intern.” I thought that they were amazing stories. There were amazing characters, things to turn over that weren’t being turned over. So that’s why I went into it.

see ALUMNI, page 5

F e at u r e s

Wednesday, March 13, 2019 | Features | THE TUFTS DAILY

Geoff Edgers speaks on experiences at Tufts ALUMNI

continued from page 4 TD: What advice would you give to students who are interested in journalism as a career, especially if there is no specific journalism school or major at their university?

GE: I would say that the things you learn in a journalism news writing class — structure, how to do a lede and how to use quotes — are not that hard to get accustomed to. The thing that makes you better is your work ethic and also your ability to learn a whole range of things — to read, to study things, to be curious, to ask questions, to learn how to communicate.

You can’t really teach that in a news-writing class. So to me, being able to get out of Tufts having read great books, having experimented with story form and having had instructors who were really dynamic, that to me was far more important than taking a class that told me how to do a background paragraph. I was able to track that stuff down by just reading the AP guide to news-writing.

TD: How might those students get involved in writing for local publications?

GE: Just be pretty confident and recognize that you’re offering a publication a smart and enthusiastic person who’s not going to charge them a lot. So just go for it. Also, there are stories everywhere and people don’t really know how to tell them. A lot of times you come home when you’re doing your assignment and you might tell somebody about what you did, or something you experienced or the way that someone talked to you. And then you go to write the story and you don’t put that in there. But usually, the thing we’re telling others about the story is what’s actually really interesting. It’s the thing that we shouldn’t forget. That’s my attitude: Live the story.

I love what I do, but also I’m never not doing it.

TD: What is one piece of advice you’d give to graduating seniors at Tufts?

GE: It’s pretty simple. Remember that there are so many people who’ve

gone to school before you have and there are all these accomplished people in all these fields. You shouldn’t forget that you can reach out to those people. It might seem scary to reach out, but humans are ego-driven people. Those people will be flattered to have a student come to them and say, “Hey, I like what you do. Can I meet with you to talk with you about how you got there?”

TD: What is one piece of advice you’d give to incoming first-years at Tufts?

GE: Don’t get stuck. Don’t let yourself get boxed in socially or professionally. Try to keep your options open so that you’re able to explore different ideas and different groups.

TD: Do you have any book recommendations?

GE: The “Beastie Boys Book” (2018) is pretty amazing. I also tell everybody to read “The Sellout” (2015) by Paul Beatty. Jonathon Strong is a wonderful writer — “Quit the Race” (2017) was an excellent book.

5

Nate Rubright Somerville with Townie Tim

Civic engagement

L

ike any good Somerville citizen, I see civic engagement as a necessary part of my residency. Before the word ‘politics’ was something to avoid in most conversations, it was a word people used to generalize their relationships and involvement with the community. Somerville has a culture of getting fired up, demanding change and voting to make it happen. Additionally, the history, population and location of this town make it both small enough for an individual citizen to make an impact, and big enough for that impact to carry relevance in the greater Boston community.

The messy part of talking civic engagement is its intersection with partisan politics. For the record, your guy Townie Tim is a proud independent. That said, not picking a side does not disqualify me from getting involved everywhere I can. Tip O’Neill liked to say “All politics is local,” and while there was a partisan opinion baked in that phrase, it was more about voting along the lines of the needs of your community. In my humble townie opinion, the more local the issue, the less it has to do with a national party, and the more it has to do with a group of my neighbors.

In college, your primary engagement with the community is with the student body on campus. This is a great place to start because it is a microcosm of your post-collegiate career. However, because of Tufts’ position in Somerville and Boston, there is a lot of opportunity to affect local change while you are a student.

Now, I can think of two main reasons it can be hard to visualize how to get involved with the Somerville community. First of all, you probably moved to Somerville to go to Tufts. The good news is that almost half the folks in Somerville are in a similar boat; they moved here from somewhere else.

This is a transient community, but an engaged one nonetheless. Be proud of your background and use it to bring new perspective to the challenges of this community.

Second, understanding the needs of a dynamic community can be intimidating. This will be true regardless of where you live, but it cannot prevent you from trying. The sooner you get over the fear of understanding a community, the sooner you can step in to help it. However, I do have a warning in this piece of advice: A lot of damage can be done in trying to fix a problem you might not understand. In my experience, unless you are a policy expert, you might never fully understand a particular topic. This is why your approach to civic engagement should be honest and humble. Maintain the posture of an active, curious and open neighbor in all of your community efforts.

Now, time to get moving. There are several Tufts organizations that engage in the community through workers’ rights ( Tufts Dining Action Coalition), housing ( Tufts Housing League) and the environment (Mystic River Watershed Association). I look forward to seeing you in the community.

Nate Rubright is a member of the Somerville community. Nate can be reached at nathan.rubright@gmail.com.

6 Wednesday, March 13, 2019

ARTS&LIVING

tuftsdaily.com

FILM RECOMMENDATIONS

Top 5 international films to watch now

MADELEINE OLIVER / THE TUFTS DAILY

The Somerville Theatre in Davis Square is pictured on Sept. 25.

by Tommy Gillespie

“Ever ybody Knows” is currently playing at the Somerville Theater.

After “Roma” (2018) won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, worldwide releases that premiered last year on the festival circuit and in their home countries are steadily flooding the U.S. market. Here are five that critics and audiences have branded must-sees.

“Birds of Passage” (2018), Colombia “Birds of Passage” was shortlisted as the Colombian entry for this year’s Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, ultimately just missing out on a nomination. The film, jointly directed by Cristina Gallego and Oscar nominee Ciro Guerra — who actually got divorced during the film’s production — retells the boom and bust of an indigenous family from the 1960s into the ’70s in the earliest stages of the Colombian drug conflicts. The saga-like narrative Gallego and Guerra craft has garnered glowing comparisons to “The Godfather” ser ies (1972, 1974, 1990), as the deeply traditional family depicted machinates between the immemorial past and the enticements of modernity, money and limitless power.

“Birds of Passage” is currently playing at the Landmark Kendall Square Cinema.

Arts Editor

“Everybody Knows” (2018), Spain/Iran Two-time Oscar-winning director Asghar Farhadi has teamed up with some of the biggest names in Spanish c in e ma (inc lu di n g su pe r- c ouple Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz) for the kidnapping thriller “Everybody Knows.” The film, which premiered at Cannes last spring and ran the festival gamut throughout the summer, finally arrived in the U.S. this November.

Cruz portrays Spanish expat Laura, who ventures home to a picturesque village for the first time in a number of years to attend a wedding. In the midst of the celebration, however, her ebullient teenage daughter, Irene (Carla Campra), goes missing, and the subsequent search for her daughter tangles deeply with Laura’s past.

“Transit” (2018), Germany The latest release from German director Chr istian Petzold, bestknown for post-WWII psychodrama

“Phoenix” (2014) and East Germanyset Cold War drama “Barbara” (2012), relocates its source material from the Second World War to today. Set in the present-day metropolis of Paris, “Transit” (2018), an adaptation of a 1944 novel of the same name by G er man Jewish refugee Anna Seghers, sees German soldiers swarming into the French capital.

When Georg (Franz Rogowski) adopts the identity of a dead man and ventures to Marseille, he finds himself trapped and taken with the mysterious Maria (Paula Beer). “Transit” has won critical praise for its eerie melding of past horrors of war with uncomfortable contemporary political realities.

“Transit” will start playing this Friday, March 15 at the Landmark Kendall Square Cinema.

“Ash Is Purest White” (2018), China Spanning 15 years in the relationship between Guo Bin (Liao Fan), a small-time cog in a local crime syndicate, and a woman, Qiao (Zhao Tao), who lands in prison trying to protect him, “Ash Is Purest White,” directed

by Jia Zhangke, serves as a chronicle of the headlong journey of China into

the throes of the digital age. Praise has been heaped upon lead actress Zhao Tao, whose character Qiao, after making a split-second decision to protect her lover, is slapped with a five-year prison sentence. Upon her release, she sets out to find him. Jia’s filmmaking has attracted accolades for its expansive style, and “Ash is Purest White” tracks the development of the world around its characters and their personal stories with equal attention.

“Climax” (2018), Belgium/France French-Argentine filmmaker Gaspar Noé follows in the footsteps of “Suspiria” (2018) with the LSD-tinged dance-horror trip “Climax.” When a company of young French dancers gather in an abandoned school building late one night for a rehearsal, they begin having intensely lifelike and unsettling visions upon learning that their drinks have been laced with LSD. Noé lends his evocative visual style to “Climax,” taking viewers down the rabbit hole with a film that has been described as “deranged,” “profanely funny” and “fantasmagoric.”

“Climax” is currently playing at the Landmark Kendall Square Cinema and AMC Boston Common.

7

TUFTS DAILY | Arts & Living | Wednesday, March 13, 2019 A r t s THE & L iving

Evan Zigmond Out on the Town

ALBUM REVIEW

Solange’s ‘When I Get Home’ is a well-crafted, nourishing experience

COURTESY ANOTHERMAG.COM

The cover of Solange’s ‘When I Get Home’ (2019) is pictured.

by Christopher Panella Arts Editor

On March 1, American singer and songwriter Solange released her fourth studio album, “When I Get Home” (2019). It was a relatively low-key release: no singles, no promotion — aside from an interview last October and a page on Black Planet — and barely any time for fans to prepare for the musical genius’ latest work of art.

And a work of art it is. While it may run a little on the shorter side, “When I Get Home” is an expertly crafted vibe of psychedelic jazz and spacey hiphop that might just hold up as one of the best releases of 2019.

As the title suggests, “When I Get Home” is about going home. But it isn’t necessarily going home for all listeners.

It’s Solange’s experience of her hometown, Houston, Texas, and the nostalgia that comes from the singer exploring the sensations of going home — the past, the changes, the new and the old.

“When I Get Home” blends all of this into something that is palpable for listeners. We get to ride in the passenger seat of Solange’s car while she shows us her hometown and plays us some jams, and while we might not relate to all of the memories — the album, in fact, feels like it isn’t about memories — the feeling of remembering is still equally enjoyable.

The album itself flows through 19 tracks, many of them shorter tracks or

interludes that allow the structure of “When I Get Home” to feel freer and spacious. Every song feels expansive, like it’s growing beyond the boundaries of anything Solange has released before. The repetitive opening, “Things I Imagined,” seems to invoke Solange’s sense of a return to home, allowing to listeners to begin to imagine the journey Solange is about to take us on.

It isn’t necessarily about how we take the journey, but rather the feeling the journey gives us. And in that way, the album excels.

Solange’s music has texture and taste.

“Way to the Show” is an almost saucy, bubbling slow hip-hop track. “Dreams” is a cosmic experience, and “Almeda” is a jazzier moment on the album, a wideawake moment for listeners as Solange lists many black and brown items before telling us that “Black faith still can’t be washed away, not even in that Florida water.” On other songs, Solange isn’t as ready to make announcements. On “My Skin My Logo,” her almost raspy voice sings over sparse beats. On “Jerrod,” Solange is deep in bright jazz and gives us some of the most beautiful vocals on the album before flowing directly into “Binz.”

One of the album’s clear highlights, “Sound of Rain,” comes near the end. The beats sound like futuristic rain: sharp but also cleansing. To any listener enjoying the album for the first time, it can almost seem like Solange is using this song to wash you before

the end. On “I’m a Witness,” Solange returns to the same sound from the album’s opening, signifying that the car ride is over. And sure, it might be difficult to walk away from “When I Get Home” with any sort of newfound knowledge or understanding, but that’s not what the album is here for. Rather, “When I Get Home” exists as a feeling in its 39-minute length.

The lyrics aren’t necessarily the focus of “When I Get Home.” Solange herself suggested this album is less about what she has to say — her previous album, “A Seat at the Table” (2016) already accomplished that. Regardless of her intentions, the album feels more like a nice joyride rather than a challenge to decode its lyrical meaning.

With all of the absolutely mind-numbingly amazing cosmic-pounding jazz, hip-hop and R&B on “When I Get Home,” it is quite an experience.

In these ways, “When I Get Home” might just be the best recent master class on how to create an album with layers of texture and feel. It’s a nourishing experience with so many different flavors, but it is just a little too short. Solange makes up for it by packing plenty into the album’s run, but it’s difficult not to want more at the end. Perhaps that’s what Solange was going for: “When I Get Home” is a spoonful of crunchy peanut butter, but when we go to scoop for more, the jar’s empty. We should’ve savored that last one more.

F

East Boston

or the 18 months that I’ve been in Greater Boston, East Boston has remained a mystery to me. Besides rides to the airport there, I haven’t really been at all. In my mind, East Boston exists separate from Boston proper, regardless of its actual location within the city limits. This probably has to do with the perceived effort it takes to get there by train compared to other parts of Boston. This past weekend, I decided to reserve a day to explore East Boston and finally dispel the figurative fog surrounding it. I came away satisfied with both the ease of the commute and the area itself.

Getting to East Boston may seem daunting at first glance, but the trip is simpler than it looks. I walked to Davis Square and hopped on one of the shuttle buses currently replacing train service between Alewife Station and Harvard Square. This replacement is only happening on weekends until April 8, but it is a hassle nonetheless.

One may avoid shuttle service by taking the MBTA 96 bus from Boston Avenue directly to Harvard. Once I got there, I took the Red Line inbound.

The Red Line doesn’t connect directly to East Boston’s Blue Line, so passengers must transfer twice, either via the Green Line or the Orange Line. I chose the Orange Line out of pure novelty. After transferring at Downtown Crossing, I rode one stop to State Street before transferring again to the Blue Line, now headed to Wonderland. Finally, I disembarked from the Blue Line at the Maverick stop, ready to absorb East Boston.

I emerged in Maverick Square and was greeted by a large painted mural of the square on a building to my left.

Walking southeast a few blocks, I discovered a pier with an incomparable view of downtown Boston across the bay. The bay itself was a beautiful teal hue, and I stood enjoying the skyline for quite a while. This is a very picturesque spot for those who would like a new Twitter cover photo.

After lounging around a while, I walked north on the East Boston Greenway to reach a branch of the Boston Public Library. With winter rendering the trees barren, the walking path didn’t have much to see, but I can tell that it will be beautiful when the trees have leaves. Despite the area being largely residential, there were still people everywhere enjoying the nice weather. Arriving at the library, I was shocked with the amount of interaction inside. There were kids everywhere; the library was running more than a few programs for them. Inside the small reading room, strangers who had come in at different times were whispering to each other. East Boston felt very community-oriented, which helped me to relax and enjoy my surroundings. On my way back to the T, two separate groups of strangers interacted with me. East Boston was a very friendly place, and I recommend visiting it to anyone who wants to experience an organic sense of community here in the city.

Evan Zigmond is a sophomore studying music. Evan can be reached at evan.zigmond@tufts.edu.

8

tuftsdaily.com

Wednesday, March 13, 2019 | FUN & GAMES | THE TUFTS DAILY

F &G FUN & GAMES

LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Elie: “Name a bigger flex than a Pilot G2.”

SUDOKU

LINDA C. BLACK ASTROLOGY

Pisces (Feb. 19–March 20)

Together, you can advance a shared financial plan. Align on priorities and determine who will do what. Resolve how to meet upcoming expenses. Replenish your reserves.

Difficulty Level: Please help, I’m being forced to come up with difficulty levels day after day against my free will.

Tuesday’s Solutions

CROSSWORD

Opinion

tuftsdaily.com

OP-ED

A call to reject Birthright

by Nathaniel Orbach On my recent trip to Israel, I noticed a 400-foot mural spanning the length of a major corridor in Ben Gurion Airport.

Titled “120 Years of Zionism,” the mural depicts the story of Israel from the first Zionist Congress at the end of the 19th century up to the present day. What the mural does not show is the history of the land on which the airport is located.

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the Jews needed this strategic land, located about halfway between Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv.

The problem, of course, was that this land was not unoccupied, but rather the site of a major Palestinian city: Lod. Israeli soldiers forcibly removed thousands of Palestinians from their homes in order to gain access to it. Many died as they were marched away from their families’ homes on the land that Ben Gurion airport stands on today.

Every year, over 40,000 of the people walking by the mural in Ben Gurion airport are participants on Birthright, a program that offers free 10-day trips to Israel for young Jews. These young Jews are unlikely to notice the stories erased by the one-sided narrative depicted on the wall at Ben Gurion Airport. While they will spend the next 10 days hearing from dozens of Israelis, none will hear

from Palestinians dealing with the realities of the occupation of the West Bank or life in Gaza. Without hearing directly from Palestinians, young Jews are far less likely to know or care about the dramatic actions being undertaken by Israel’s right-wing government, such as the demolition of Palestinian villages, incitement against Palestinian citizens of Israel and efforts to gradually annex the West Bank without granting Palestinians living there full civil rights.

In response to this erasure, dozens of J Street U chapters around the country released a petition last fall asking Birthright to add Palestinian speakers to their trips. More than 2,000 Jewish students signed the petition, and the Tufts petition alone received 246 signatures from Jewish students. In the months we’ve emailed, called and texted Birthright to ask whether the organization will consider adding even a single Palestinian speaker to its trips.

Birthright declined to answer. As young Jews who care deeply about both Israelis and Palestinians, we know that engaging honestly with Israel requires listening to Palestinians.

That’s why J Street U chapters around the country are releasing a pledge for young Jews who are committed to participating only in organized trips to Israel that

CARTOON

include meetings with both Israelis and Palestinians as well as meaningful discussions about the occupation and the status of minority groups in Israel. We want to show Birthright and other American Jewish organizations in America how many young Jews are passionate about grappling openly and honestly with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But we don’t just want to point out what’s wrong with how the situation in Israel is taught in the Jewish community; we also want to offer a model for what a nuanced, complex engagement with Israel can look like. That’s why we’re offering an alternative trip this summer that actually engages with Palestinians and the reality of Israel today.

Young Jews around the country no longer want to be forced to choose between caring about Israelis and caring about Palestinians. We do not want to choose between engaging with and caring about the future of Israel and learning about the horrors of the occupation. We hope that someday, young Jews walking through Ben Gurion Airport have the opportunity to see the full history of the country they are entering, no matter how challenging it might be.

Nathaniel Orbach is a first-year who has not yet declared a major. Nathaniel can be reached at nathaniel.orbach@tufts.edu.

The Fatigue of Lady Justice

BY SHANNON GEARY

9

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Deeksha Bathini America is dying

America’s aging population

I

t seems that when healthcare is advertised, markets gravitate towards billboards of children, adolescents and young adults. This marketing strategy ignores a large portion of the United States: the elderly. The baby boomer generation is now approaching retirement age, so what exactly does that mean for America? By 2035, the number of elderly people is projected to outnumber children for the first time in U.S. history. Needless to say, this demographic takes up a significant portion of our population, but the U.S. consistently underperforms in the area of geriatric medicine. When most people reach the age of 65, they are eligible for Medicare, thus making the geriatric population the only age group covered universally by health insurance. Why, then, does the U.S. rank so poorly in geriatric care compared to other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries?

Recently, it has become more common for primary care physicians (PCPs) to avoid caring for geriatric patients. With the ever-increasing responsibilities of PCPs in modern healthcare, it makes sense that the first vulnerable population to be sidelined would be geriatric patients. Contrary to popular belief, what we need right now is not PCPs. We need geriatricians, doctors that specialize in elderly care. But that’s not what’s happening.

Despite the growing number of older people, geriatric fellowship programs are struggling to fill slots even though the elderly desperately need this specialized care. While PCPs like family doctors are excellent at providing care to older people, the New England Journal of Medicine cites three reasons why geriatricians’ specialized skills are absolutely integral.

First, they are trained in age-related physiological processes and clinical diseases.

Second, they have a holistic approach to care, which is absolutely essential given that geriatric patients are more prone to having multiple chronic illnesses. Third, they are skilled in the art of shared decision-making where they take into account patient preferences and values. These skills are acquired during geriatric fellowships, which is why they are so important. Recently, the Trump administration slashed funding for already dwindling geriatric training budgets. We need more geriatricians if we want to provide optimal care for the elderly.

The elderly are likely the most economically vulnerable population in the country, with nearly 22 percent of all seniors spending $2,000 a year in out-of-pocket costs. In the United Kingdom, Norway, and Sweden, less than five percent of patients said they were financially struggling, compared with a quarter of Americans in the same cohort. Our system is ill-equipped to treat the elderly, and we owe it to them to do better.

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

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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10

THE TUFTS DAILY | Sports | Wednesday, March 13, 2019

tuftsdaily.com

Sports

Wednesday, March 13, 2019 | Sports | THE TUFTS DAILY

Fencing season ends following NCAA Regionals in Poughkeepsie, NY

11

Jeremy Goldstein Anti-Bostonian

How a power vacuum could doom the Celtics

I

EDDIE SAMUELS / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

Senior épéeist Annie Alaya lunges at an opponent at the Northeast Fencing Conference Multi-Meet hosted by Boston College on Jan. 28, 2018.

Assistant Sports Editor

The Jumbos wrapped up their 2018– 2019 season on Sunday in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where they participated in the NCAA Regionals hosted at Vassar College. None of the fencers that represented Tufts in Poughkeepsie qualified for the NCAA Fencing Championships, ending the team’s season.

“We were a little short-staffed this season … because we had a lot of injuries,” senior co-captain Zoe Howard said. “It was kind of a rocky season, but the [firstyears] fenced their hearts out and it was really great to watch them grow. I think I’m leaving this team in good hands.”

Six different women from all four classes represented the Jumbos in competition on Sunday: one senior, one junior, two sophomores and two first-years. Two fencers represented Tufts in foil: first-year Allison Cheng from Palo Alto, Calif. and Howard, who suited up for her final competition for the Jumbos. Three of the 39 competitors in saber were Jumbos: sophomores Lillie Ahearn and Subin Jeong were joined by junior Elliot Pavlovich.

Alone in the épée bracket for the Jumbos was their sixth and final competitor, firstyear Hannah Fruitman.

Fruitman led the way for the Jumbos in épée, finishing No. 23 out of 48 different competitors. Entering as the 35th seed in the competition’s division, Fruitman proved to be better than her seeding suggested. In the opening round, the first-

year from New York City, N.Y. dropped her first match but came back to win the final three matches in the round, advancing her to the quarterfinals. Fruitman’s day came to an end in the quarterfinals after she won just two of her six matches, putting her two spots shy of the 21 fencers who advanced to the semifinals. Her quarterfinal grouping proved to be a talented one; two of the seven fencers in her pool ended up finishing in the top seven after all matches were completed.

“She fenced well, only missing out on the third round by three touches. She still has three more years ahead of her,” coach David Sach told the Daily in an email.

Tufts’ three fencers in saber struggled on Sunday, finishing in the bottom five of the 39 women in the division at the competition. Although the three Jumbos came in as the last three seeds in the division, Pavlovich was able to advance into the quarterfinals after winning two of her first four matches. Pavlovich did not find the same success in the quarterfinal, though, as she dropped all six of her matches. Unlike Pavlovich, her teammates, who were making their NCAA Regionals debut in the saber division, were unable to advance to the quarterfinals, as Jeong won only one of her four matches and Ahearn left the weekend winless.

The Jumbos came into the meet on Sunday with their highest seeds in the foil division. Going into her third and final NCAA Regional appearance, Howard was seeded 25th, good enough for a bye in the

opening round of competition. Cheng, at the 29th seed, missed the cutoff for a firstround bye by only three spots. That didn’t prove to be an issue for Cheng, as she won all four of her opening round matches. Despite the Jumbos’ success in the opening round, they only collected one win in the quarterfinals between the two of them. Cheng won only one of her six matches while Howard was unable to win any of her six matches, resulting in their 31st and 33rd place finishes, respectively.

“As a [first-year], Allison [Cheng] fenced well all season [and] should be pleased of what she achieved during her first year,” Sach said.

Sunday’s meet marks the end of the season for the Jumbos and the official end of two collegiate fencing careers for senior co-captains Howard and Annie Ayala.

“I’ve seen the team grow a lot over the past four years,” Howard said. “It’s been a really incredible experience to be part of it. It’s been a major part of my overall Tufts experience … I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

Excluding Sunday’s meet, the Jumbos finished 8–13. The future looks bright for Tufts as the team is expected to return 10 of its 12 fencers next season.

“We have a lot of new recruits next year, which is exciting. But also [we] also lose two amazing seniors in Zoe Howard and Annie Ayala,” Sach said. “Overall I think that the recruits next year will have a positive impact on the squad and will give us much needed cover in some weapons.”

ION OF STA IAT TE OC

TERS RES FO

NATIONAL A SS

by Noah Stancroff

FO

U N D E D 192

0

t appears that a certain four-leaf clover of a franchise has lost one of its leaves.

In a whimper, the Celtics have been tailspinning for weeks upon weeks without one actor to pin the blame on. How on God’s Celtic-green earth did we get here?

This current Celtics gang is first and foremost a victim of its own success. Guru of the X’s and mastermind of the O’s, post-timeout play-calling wizard Brad Stevens has notably led a threadbare squad of spare parts and tempered expectations to win totals in the regular season that consistently equate to a sum greater than the collection of its individual parts.

Most players who have since departed have notably fallen off the deepest of cliffs since departing the C’s: Avery Bradley went from a second banana to trade filler, Jae Crowder from analytics 3-and-D stud to a bench piece and perhaps most notably, Isaiah Thomas went from superstar to sixth man. They were three of the five best Celtics players during the 2016–2017 season that made the Conference Finals. Now, they’re fodder with green tints.

Their 2014–2015 team shouldn’t have been anywhere within sniffing distance of the postseason, but Isaiah Thomas joined the squad midseason, went bonkers and pioneered the young cadre to the seventh seed. For 2015–2016, there were no major offseason additions (Amir Johnson doesn’t count), but Stevens and the crew secured home court in the first round in a season where Thomas became an allstar and Crowder produced a stunning 7.3 win shares. For 2016–2017 they splurged, breaking the bank for, at the time, slightly above-average Al Horford and used the Nets trade siege to select Jaylen Brown. With Al, Brown, IT, Crowder, Bradley, Johnson, Mahr-cus Smaht (non-Boston translation: Marcus Smart), Kelly “Game 7” Olynyk and not-yet scary Terry Rozier, they outlasted a wall of a Wizards side in seven to reach the conference finals before getting absolutely obliterated by the then-reigning champions and yet-to-be-humbled Cleveland Cavaliers.

The 2017–2018 season presented an interesting intersection. Jazzy signing Gordon Hayward didn’t last a half, and Kyrie Irving’s knee gave out for the playoffs, leading to a lack of a single “face” of the franchise for a postseason run. Would Stevens’s crafty play-calling garner the majority of the attention? Or would it be young phenom Jayson Tatum? Or wily veteran Al Horford, chasing his first ring? The faceless team was but one Lebron James master class away from the NBA finals.

On top of the three possibilities floated in the previous paragraph (and all certainly had merit), Irving and Hayward returned for the 2018–2019 season. Who should top the clover-filled pyramid in this emerging power vacuum? Maybe Irving for sheer star-power, perhaps Tatum because of his ascendency, conceivably Al or Hayward because of the size of their contracts or possibly even coach Stevens for the sake of continuity. The clear answer here is Irving, but picking one creates a clear and obvious cleavage that only leads to animosity. If the franchise unabashedly chooses Irving, the Lebron effect commences, where everyone else on the roster fears they could be heaped in a potential Anthony Davis exchange.

Choose wisely, Sir Ainge.

Jeremy Goldstein is a sophomore studying political science and film and media studies. Jeremy can be reached at jeremy. goldstein@tufts.edu.

12 tuftsdaily.com

Sports

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Women’s tennis trumps Trinity, heads to California for spring break

BEN KIM / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

Coach Kate Bayard speaks with her team during the women’s tennis home game against Williams at the Voute Tennis Courts on April 28, 2018.

by Jason Schwartz

Staff Writer

In its season opener, the No. 8 Tufts Women’s tennis team (1–0) defeated NESCAC rival Trinity in Hartford, Conn., comfortably winning 8–1 on Saturday afternoon.

The Jumbos’ doubles players dominated the court, with all three pairs winning their respective matches. The No. 2 doubles pair sophomore Kiara Rose and first-year Nicole Frankel swiftly defeated their opponents, doubles pair sophomore Lily Everett and senior co-captain Janie Weber of Trinity, 8–1.

The No. 1 doubles, first-years Maggie Dorr and Caroline Garrido, won 8–2.

Last on deck were first-year Anna Lowy and sophomore Patricia Obeid in the No. 3 position, who won 8–3.

“I think our doubles team are really what motivated us and jump-started us into the match,” Dorr said. “We came into the match with so much energy and we started off really strong, winning all three matches.”

The singles players shone with five of six players picking up victories. First, Garrido, in the No. 3 position for Tufts, defeated Trinity junior Krista Jiranek (6–0, 6–1). In the No. 1 game, Dorr posted an impressive 6–1, 6–2 victory over first-year Marta Drausnik. Dorr’s

match clinched the Jumbos’ victory over the Bantams as it marked the fifth win of the day.

The Jumbos’ roster consists mostly of first-years — four of the nine players matriculated this fall — who were high-end recruits like Dorr. The season opener puts the common belief that first-years tend to be inexperienced into question.

“We have a very young team this year; four out of our six players [who played] are [first-years], so it was nice to have a new team dynamic,” Obeid said.

“Going into the game, we had a slight disadvantage on doubles because the freshmen have less experience playing upperclassmen. Ultimately, we held it together and … we won all three of our doubles matches.”

The Manhattan native also analyzed Dorr’s outstanding performance. The first-year plays in the No. 1 position, a rarity in competitive college tennis.

“Maggie Dorr is a very aggressive player and mentally focused, which is very important,” Dorr said. “She was very patient, playing out each point to the best of her ability. Also, she played with a lot of strategy, placing the ball all over the court so that she got her opponents to move around.”

Obeid, the No. 2 singles player for the Jumbos, fought hard against her

opponent, junior Julia Brogan, but ultimately fell in three sets (4–6, 6–4, 10–6). Aside from the single loss, the Jumbos swept the singles deck with wins by Rose at No. 4 (6–1, 6–0), Lowy at No. 5 (6–3, 6–3) and Frankel at No. 6 (8–5).

Although the unranked Bantams were categorically a weaker team, the Jumbos did not let their guard down; they treated the match like any other.

Obeid gave a little insight into the team mentality before stepping onto the court to play Trinity.

“We beat Trinity pretty badly last year, so we had optimism going into the game, but we did not underestimate them by any means,” Obeid said.

“We just had to play our game like we usually do.”

The team has had a hard workout regimen in preparation for the Trinity game as well as for the entire spring season.

“We spent many hours in Gantcher [Center], spending a total 12 hours combined during Friday, Saturday and Sunday training and working out. But we have also been resting when we need to and taking care of our bodies,” Obeid added.

While most of us will be adjourning to our homes and sleeping for a week straight, the tennis team will travel to

sun-kissed California to play four different matches over spring break.

“It’s really refreshing to play in another area and playing against schools that are outside our conference. We’re really excited for that,” Obeid said.

Their busy itinerary begins with a match against the Redlands Bulldogs in Redlands, Calif. The Jumbos will journey to the South California Consortium, facing last year’s Div. III champions, the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Athenas.

Tufts anticipates an exciting match against the Athenas, hoping to avenge last year’s heart-breaking 5–4 loss.

The Jumbos continue to Whittier College where they face No. 4 NESCAC rivals Williams, a semifinalist in last year’s Div. III NCAA tournament. The Ephs toppled the Jumbos in both matches during last year’s spring season. In the first match, the Ephs won 8–1 in April and then swept the Jumbos 5–0 in the NESCAC tournament semifinal in May. The team’s Southern California rendezvous closes at Claremont, Calif. where they face No. 4 Pomona-Pitzer.

Dorr gave the Daily her spin on their team’s trip to the Golden State.

“I think it’s going to go really well,” Dorr said. “Our biggest competitor will be Williams; they’re a really strong team and when we played them in the fall they had really good competitors.”