The Tufts Daily - Friday, November 1, 2019

Page 1

In ‘The Laundromat,’ Soderbergh draws back to ‘The Big Short’ see ARTS&LIVING / PAGE 4

FOOTBALL

Jumbos hope for redeeming weekend after loss to Continentals

In MFA exhibit, Majeed contemplates space and history see ARTS&LIVING / PAGE 4

SEE SPORTS / BACK PAGE

THE

INDEPENDENT

STUDENT

N E W S PA P E R

OF

TUFTS

UNIVERSITY

E S T. 1 9 8 0

T HE T UFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXXVIII, ISSUE 39

Friday, November 1, 2019

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

tuftsdaily.com

Tufts medical students confront Monaco regarding Sacklers, Stern by Austin Clementi

Executive News Editor

Students with the Tufts University School of Medicine attended University President Anthony Monaco’s office hour on Monday to address what they called the university’s lack of action around its relationship to the Sackler family, Purdue Pharma and a seeming delay in the completion and release of former U.S. Attorney Donald Stern’s report on Tufts’ relationship with the family. According to Sarah Hemphill, a second-year medical student who attended the meeting, the students were also calling for the removal of the Sackler name from all of Tufts’ buildings and institutions. “The bottom line … is that taking the Sackler name down is the most significant public action the school can take to acknowledge the severity of the crisis and all eyes are going to be on how the trustees decide to handle this decision,” Hemphill said in an interview with the Daily after the office hour. Katie Stevenson, another second-year medical student, similarly spoke of the Sackler name as “synonymous” with the opioid crisis, meaning the removal of the name is essential. “There is a power in public symbols,” Stevenson said in an interview. “Changing the name is not sufficient in and of itself, but it represents a greater commitment and public commentary on Tufts’ relationship and connection to this crisis.” According to Stevenson, the removal of the name would be equally impactful for medical students.

ALEXANDER THOMPSON / THE TUFTS DAILY

The Arthur M. Sackler Center for Medical Education is pictured. “We want to graduate from here being proud of where we went to medical school, and be able to say that our school was on the right side of history and took the opportunity to be a leader when others weren’t,” she said. Hemphill added that, because Boston has been so deeply affected by the opioid crisis, publicly displaying the name on the building is harmful to residents affected by the crisis. According to Hemphill, deans and other administrators at the medical school no lon-

ger use the Sackler name in their communications. In particular, administrators referring to what is formally named the Arthur M. Sackler Center for Health Communications at 145 Harrison Ave. now refer to the building as the “Medical Education Building” or “Med-Ed.” However, Stevenson said that the students would not be satisfied until the Sackler name is officially erased from Tufts. Another point of contention for the students is the apparent delay in pub-

lication of the Stern Report. According to a Daily interview last semester with Monaco, he hoped the report would be released by the summer. However, the administration has otherwise never provided a guarantee that the report would be published by a specific time, Tufts’ Executive Director of Public Relations Patrick Collins told the Daily in an email.

see SACKLERS, page 2

Citing lack of progress in PILOT talks, Curtatone sets February deadline for Tufts by Alexander Thompson News Editor

Somerville officials were blunt about the lack of progress in negotiations with Tufts for a new payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) agreement in a community meeting held Wednesday night at the Somerville Public Library West Branch. Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone said that “nothing” had been resolved after 10 months of negotiations and announced that the city was setting a deadline of February 2020 for agreement to be reached. The other seven members of

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the committee unanimously agreed with the mayor. If the negotiations are not completed by then, “all bets are off,” Curtatone warned. PILOTs are voluntary agreements which the untaxed nonprofits sign with their host communities to compensate them for some of the property taxes they would pay were they not tax exempt. The university pays its PILOT in cash payment to the host communities’ general funds and in non-monetary benefits such as access to sports facilities, scholarships and opportunities for local high school students and community service done by students.

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The previous agreement expired at the end of 2018, and the two sides have been holding monthly negotiations since then. The eight members of the Somerville committee unanimously reported that little progress had been made since they last updated the community in an April briefing. Curtatone said that the only point in which there has been agreement is the city’s demand that there should be parity in Tufts’ cash PILOT payment to each host community. The university paid $450,000 to Somerville, Medford and Boston each

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for fiscal year 2019, which represented a 64% increase in payment for Somerville and Medford. At the meeting, however, the mayor and the residents in attendance lamented that this amount only represents about 8% of hypothetical property taxes for Somerville, instead of the 12.5% they hope to get. In addition, parity with Boston was only achieved through a cut to Boston’s PILOT payment. Beyond the cash payments, Tufts’ role in Somerville’s housing crisis was a key focus of both officials and residents.

NEWS............................................1 ARTS & LIVING.......................4

see PILOT, page 2

FUN & GAMES.........................5 SPORTS............................ BACK


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