Bridging Differences initiative fosters cooperative dialogue on important campus, national issues see FEATURES / PAGE 3
CREW TEAMS
Jumbos show success at Head of the Charles
Boston Asian American Film Festival revisits ‘The Joy Luck Club’ 25 years after its release see ARTS&LIVING / PAGE 5
SEE SPORTS / BACK PAGE
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T HE T UFTS DAILY
VOLUME LXXVI, ISSUE 32
tuftsdaily.com
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.
Students protest Tufts’ revised demonstration policies by Noah Shamus
Contributing Writer
More than 65 students gathered in front of Ballou Hall to protest changes to the Tufts student code of conduct yesterday at noon. The new policy requires protest groups expecting more than 25 people to register their protest in advance with the Office of Campus Life (OCL) and receive approval. The student protesters formed multiple groups and wrapped themselves in caution tape, never exceeding the 25 person limit per group. One of the students leading the event, junior Mauri Trimmer, criticized the university’s policy, expressing students’ fear of being silenced. “[The university] require[s] us to register five business days [before the protest],” Trimmer said. The protesters said that seeking event approval five business days in advance is not feasible for protests as the policy con-
flicts with the need for immediate action, citing protests following the Parkland, Fla. shooting and the dining hall workers’ effort to unionize. Alejandro Baez addressed the crowd through the microphone, saying “Registering our protests takes away all of our power.” Jessica Rosendorf, who was observing the protests, echoed Baez’s sentiment. “The whole point of protesting is to be spontaneous, not organized,” Rosendorf, a first-year, said. The protesters also criticized the uneven implementation of protest policies, a concern multiple student groups addressed in a letter to the Tufts administration. The letter was presented to Dean of Student Affairs Mary Pat McMahon and Director of Community Standards Kevin Kraft, according to a press release shared on Tufts Student Action’s Facebook page. The letter was signed by a large contingent of campus activist groups, including Tufts Labor Coalition, Students
for Justice in Palestine, Tufts Student Action, Tufts Housing League, Tufts Progressive Alliance, Jewish Voice for Peace, Tufts Climate Action, Left Unity Project, Action for Sexual Assault Prevention, South Asian Political Action Committee, United for Immigrant Justice, Tufts Asian Student Coalition, Students Against Incarceration and Tufts Dining Action Coalition. “We worry that this policy will be used to effectively discriminate against radical-leftist and [people of color] student groups,” the letter reads. Kraft previously told the Daily that the policy is in place for logistical and safety concerns and that the registration process will not discriminate events based on their contents. “OCL [doesn’t] do a content analysis by asking questions like ‘is this event a good idea, does Tufts want to support this kind of event, is this a good use of money?’” Kraft was quoted in a Sept. 10 article in the Daily.
Kraft told the Daily in September that the policy would assist the university in coordinating police presence on campus. He cited a protest last year which resulted in blocked traffic, noting that advance warning would help with planning road closures with the Tufts University Police Department. Trimmer criticized Kraft’s notion in the press release. “A police-guided protest isn’t protesting anything. Disruption is the power of public action!” Trimmer said. The protesters pointed to demonstrations last year at Wellesley College, where feedback from students, faculty and staff prompted Wellesley College President Paula Johnson to rescind an interim policy surrounding campus gatherings and protesters. Spencer Perry, a senior, said that the policy conflicts with the nature of protesting. see PROTEST, page 2
Nobel laureate in chemistry delivers lecture on directed evolution of enzymes by Nicolas Avalle
Contributing Writer
Frances Arnold, 2018 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was presented the Tufts’ Department of Chemistry’s Max Tishler Award in the Pearson Chemical Laboratory on Thursday. Arnold is the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology. She is the fifth woman and the first American woman to become a Nobel laureate in chemistry.
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Frances Arnold, 2018 winner of the Max Tishler Prize and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, poses for a photo.
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After a brief introduction by Arthur Utz, professor of chemistry and department chair, the award was presented by chemistry professor Krishna Kumar. Arnold delivered a lecture on her Nobel Prize-winning research regarding the directed evolution of enzymes to a packed lecture hall, with students, faculty and community members standing in the wings, before taking questions on her past work, accomplishments and future plans. The award presentation and lecture was followed by a reception in the Science and Engineering Complex, where lecture-goers were able to speak directly with Arnold. In the award citation, Kumar provided context for Arnold’s research that brought her to the attention of the Tishler Award panel. “She invented the field of what’s called directed evolution,” Kumar said. “[This] has lead to the creation of enzymes with greater stability and with the ability to catalyze reactions which are not in nature’s repertoire.” Arnold then accepted the award before delivering a lecture on the work that won her the Nobel Prize. Her work began at the University of California, Berkeley, at the beginning of what she described as the DNA revolution. Arnold spoke about her fascination in the chemistry with the natural world, and her methods of using biological processes to produce man-made chemicals.
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“Nature has discovered so much chemistry, but there’s more that’s been discovered by human beings,” she said. Arnold also discussed many of the roadblocks she faced along the way, including disbelief from her colleagues. “They’d say biology is really nice, but chemistry belongs to chemists,” she said. Despite this, Arnold’s research has already proven useful in simplifying a number of reactions once thought difficult and expanding a list of possible reactions using enzymes as catalysts. While implications of her research could prove useful in the production of biofuels and have expanded the applicability of enzymes to areas of chemistry where they had been irrelevant in the past, Arnold took digs at popular science publications that have taken her research out of context. “None of them read the paper,” she said, before poking fun at headlines claiming science fiction-esque possibilities from her findings. Utz told the Daily that the Tishler Award has been given out annually by the department since 2004. It is named after Tufts alumnus Max Tishler (A ’28), an accomplished chemist who is often considered the father of the modern pharmaceutical industry. Kumar, who was chair of the chemistry department when the Tishler lecture series began, also said the award recipient is chosen by a panel of faculty members in the
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chemistry department based on their achievements in the field. Since the award’s inception, the school has seen a number of impressive speakers present on their cutting-edge research. “Professor Arnold was the third Nobel Laureate to receive the [Tishler] Award,” Kumar said. “But this is the first instance we’ve invited a Nobel Laureate to speak before they received the prize.” Utz credited the higher-than-expected turnout for the event to the recent announcement of the Nobel Committee. “We anticipated after the announcement a few weeks ago that attendance would be up, so we hosted a livestream down the hall from the lecture, and had an online stream as well,” Utz said. “So I suspect we had even more people watching on their laptops at home.” While the crowd was predominantly members of the Tufts community, there were also visiting delegations of students and professors from other Boston schools in attendance, including Boston University and Northeastern University, some of whom spoke in the question-and-answer period after the lecture. According to Kumar, Arnold was chosen to receive the Tishler Award nearly six months before she was announced on Oct. 3 as one of this year’s Nobel laureates in chemistry.
NEWS............................................1 FEATURES.................................3 ARTS & LIVING.......................5
see NOBEL, page 2
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