The Tufts Daily - Wednesday, March 6, 2019

WOMEN’S LACROSSE

Work-study students discuss pressures, commitments see FEATURES / PAGE 4

Jumbos put on offensive clinic in win over Continentals

A call for trustee transparency see OPINION/ PAGE 10

SEE SPORTS/BACK PAGE

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T HE T UFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXXVII, ISSUE 30

Wednesday, March 6, 2019

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

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More than 800 people attend picket for dining workers, strike vote set for March 14

KYLE LUI / THE TUFTS DAILY

Tufts Dining workers and students are pictured marching in the ‘Picket for a Fair Dining Contract’ on March 5.

by Alexander Thompson Assistant News Editor

In a dramatic development in their seven-month campaign for a contract with the university, Tufts Dining workers will vote on whether to go on strike on March 14, according to UNITE HERE Local 26 President Brian Lang.

Lang made the announcement yesterday evening at a picket attended by more than 800 demonstrators, according to a count by Tufts Dining Action Coalition (TDAC), in front of Carmichael Hall.

“The next stage of this campaign begins over this next week,” he said. “Dining workers are going to begin a discussion amongst themselves about whether or not it makes sense to take the ultimate action, and that’s a strike.”

Several dining workers then unveiled a banner bearing the words “Tufts Dining: Ready to Strike!” above the pictures of over 100 dining workers who intend to vote in favor of the strike. Lang said that a substantial majority of the dining workers had already pledged to support a strike.

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“Tufts University can afford for one job to be enough for all workers. It was never a question of affordability, it’s a question of respect for human dignity,” Lang told the crowd through a megaphone. “This administration is getting increasingly isolated on this campus and in the communities around this campus.”

Lang said the rift would only worsen in the next few weeks unless the university accepted the workers’ demands, which he described as modest.

Patrick Collins, executive director of public relations for Tufts, said that the university respects the right of the workers and community members to express their opinions on the negotiations, and that the university is committed to reaching an agreement.

“We hope the union doesn’t go on strike,” Collins said in an email to the Daily. “We think doing so would hurt students and other members of our community and harm the union’s relationship with the university.”

Collins said that in the case of a strike, Tufts would be able to continue feeding students, but that services could be reduced.

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He said the university hopes to resolve the situation as soon as possible.

The dining workers first began their negotiations with Tufts in August 2018.

In an email to the Daily after the latest round of negotiations on Feb. 27, Mike Kramer, the lead negotiator for UNITE HERE Local 26, wrote that the sticking points were key economic issues, including wages and healthcare.

Collins said that both parties have made progress in the talks.

The crowd of demonstrators began to gather in front of Carmichael Hall around 4:15 p.m. for the picket. By 4:45 p.m., the line of marchers stretched from Wren Hall parking lot to the corner of Houston Hall and continued up to the F.W. Olin Center for Language and Culture Studies.

The crowd was made up of dining workers, students and community members chanting slogans including “What do we want? Fair Contract! When do we want it? Now!” and “If we don’t get it? Shut it down!” and toting signs that read “One Job Should Be Enough” and “Tony Monaco making the big bucks, why do you pay your workers peanuts?”

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Trisha O’Brien, a dining services attendant at Kindlevan Café who held the banner at the head of the procession as it moved to Dewick-MacPhie Dining Center, said that she would vote for the the strike because she thinks negotiations are not going well, and a strike is necessary in order for the workers to secure a fair contract.

O’Brien appealed to University President Anthony Monaco directly.

“Just work with us. Just listen to us. Just give us what every other college has,” she said.

Other dining workers who took part in the demonstration, like Jane Scoppa, a dining services attendant at Tower Café, also explained why they were going to support the strike.

“Tell [Monaco] to try supporting a family on what I bring in. I got a 14-cent raise three years in a row, then they raised the parking [fee] $10,” she said.

Georgia Kay, a member of TDAC, the group that organized the demonstrations, said that fault for a strike would lie with the university who have “forced the workers’ hand” by

NEWS............................................1 FEATURES.................................4 ARTS & LIVING.......................8

see PICKET, page 2

OPINION...................................10 SPORTS............................ BACK

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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Wednesday, March 6, 2019

THE TUFTS DAILY Elie Levine Editor in Chief

EDITORIAL

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Judith Altmann delivers Hillel’s keynote address on Holocaust and genocide education

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Mrs. Judith Altmann addresses the audience in ASEAN Auditorium as the speaker of the 2019 Keynote Address for the Cummings/Hillel Program for Holocaust and Genocide Education on March 5.

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Tufts Hillel hosted Judith Altmann, a Holocaust survivor and educator, as part of its Cummings/Hillel Program for Holocaust and Genocide Education last night for a lecture sharing her story of surviving disease, death marches and Auschwitz.

Altmann shared a number of heartbreaking stories, from witnessing the death of dozens of close family members to her eventual liberation by the British Army.

Altmann began her story by describing the rise of Hitler and eventual invasion of her home nation of Czechoslovakia.

“Week one [of Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia], us children couldn’t go to school. I met my friend Olga and she said ‘Judy, why aren’t you going to school today?’ ‘Because I’m Jewish,'” she said. “Every Jew had to wear the Star of David, and it had to be sewn on our sleeve and on our backs.”

Altmann then shared how the violence under German occupation quickly escalated; she described saving food, milk and

butter for other family members and hiring local peasants to deliver it.

“One day, the peasant came back and said, ‘I regret very much I could not deliver the food’ … but I witnessed her execution,” she said.

This was only the first story of Altmann losing a family member. After Altmann shared several other horrors she and her family underwent, she described her experience first arriving at a concentration camp, asking her captors where she had been taken.

“This is hell. There was a big sign [that read], ‘Work will liberate you,’” she said.

Altmann described, soon after arriving at the camp, seeing Joseph Mengele, who was infamous for sending Jews at concentration camps to their deaths.

“He was called the Angel of Death. He earned that name,” Altmann said.

“He pointed to me and my niece, he pointed to the left. The rest [of my family] marched on. My father put his hands on my head as he did every Friday night to bless us. He said ‘Judy, you will live.’”

Altmann said this was the last time she saw 24 members of her family.

“We went to the left, and they went to their deaths,” she said.

Altmann then shared her experiences in the camp, including the work she had to do dragging bodies from the camp’s crematorium to mass graves and the horrible conditions and memories she had of death marches.

Altmann also spoke on her experience as the British Army rapidly approached, and eventually liberated, the camp.

“Hitler saw he was losing the war … he gave an order that ‘if you see anyone coming to liberate [Jews], you give every prisoner a poisoned piece of bread,'” she said. “[Hitler] wanted the British to find dead bodies … that’s all he wanted.”

Fortunately for the camps inhabitants, the Germans never had the time to distribute the poisoned bread, Altmann said. The British liberated the camp shortly after.

“On a beautiful morning we saw soldiers in a different uniform [say] ‘you are free,’” Altmann said.

Altmann ended her talk to a standing ovation by the full auditorium. She then took questions from the audience.

In one question, an audience member asked Altmann about the prevalence of people who deny the Holocaust ever happened — people that believe Altmann’s story is fabricated.

“Tell them what you heard today … tell them to seek out Holocaust survivors and ask them about their lives,” she said. “Maybe you’ll be able to convince them and teach … that’s the only thing you can do — teach.”

George Behrakis, a junior who attended the event, told the Daily he was excited to hear that Altmann was this year’s keynote speaker. He noted how powerful Altmann’s story was.

“I was struck by how vivid her descriptions of these events were. I think it’s inspiring that she has devoted her life to speaking about this very difficult and tragic time and how she has persevered,” Behrakis said.

Josh Hochberg, a first-year who also attended the event, echoed Behrakis’ sentiment.

“What stuck out to me was her overall message on the importance of forgiveness … especially when how she returned [to the camps later in her life], she used it as an opportunity to empower and inspire others, rather than simply try to move on,” he said.

Students, community members affirm support of workers in case of strike PICKET

continued from page 1 refusing to accept their demands during negotiations. “[The dining workers] don’t want to go on strike. Nobody wants to go on strike,” Kay, a first-year, said. “It’s a huge sacrifice, but it’s what’s necessary for workers right now, for them to be taken seriously and for the university to finally listen to them and treat them with respect.”

In a statement to the Daily, the Tufts Community Union Senate Executive Board urged the administration to ensure the workers receive fair wages and benefits and affirmed their support for the workers in their campaign.

“Tufts prides itself on its commitment to civic engagement and treating all people with respect,” the statement read. “These contract negotiations are an opportunity for the university to practice what it preaches.”

Viola Wallace, a first-year who marched in the picket line, expressed her support for the strike.

Wallace said she was appalled that the dining workers still did not have a fair contract and that she would stand by the workers come what may, including a strike.

The draw of the protests did not stop at the boundaries of campus, with a

fair number of Somerville and Medford residents in attendance, including local public officials.

The president of the Somerville City Council Katjana Ballantyne marched in the demonstration alongside the dining workers, many of whom are her constituents, as she represents much of the area south of Tufts. She echoed the slogan written on the signs of the demonstrators, saying she wanted Tufts to become a example among Massachusetts institutions by paying their workers enough.

Medford resident Tom Lall, who is a UNITE HERE Local 26 member not employed at Tufts, came to show his support for his fellow union members.

“Greedy schools keep taking the money but don’t want to pay their workers. They need to show some respect,” he said.

The situation at Tufts is reminiscent of two recent contract struggles at Harvard University and Northeastern University between dining workers organized by UNITE HERE Local 26 and university administrations.

Lang used the former example to appeal to the crowd that listened as he made the announcement of the strike vote, drawing

parallels between the negotiations at Tufts and those at other schools.

After the Harvard dining workers unionized in 2016, they entered negotiations with the university. “[Harvard] University didn’t take it seriously. It was never a question of whether or not they could afford for one job to be enough on that campus,” Lang told the demonstrators at Tufts. “It took the courage of 750 dining hall workers at Harvard to say, enough is enough, ‘one job should be enough.’ And they went out on strike for 22 days to accomplish that.”

In 2017, dining workers at Northeastern University, also represented by UNITE HERE Local 26, voted to strike, but the strike was averted after the two sides reached a tentative agreement before it took place, according to the Huntington News, the independent student newspaper at Northeastern. Workers and students activists dubbed this a victory.

Yesterday’s demonstrations concluded around 6:30 p.m. outside Dewick with Lucson Aime, a first cook at Dewick, leading the crowd in chants of “We’ll be back!”

News

Wednesday, March 6, 2019 | News | THE TUFTS DAILY

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Protesters at Tufts picket for a fair dining contract

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KYLE LUI / THE TUFTS DAILY

ALICE YOON / THE TUFTS DAILY

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KYLE LUI / THE TUFTS DAILY

4 Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Nate Rubright Somerville with Townie Tim

Powderhouse Square

Features

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Work-study students balance commitments, find financial security

P

owderhouse Square was probably one of the first landmarks you saw when arriving at Tufts.

Sitting at the southernmost point of campus, the convergence of six streets makes for an intimidating spot.

The story around Powderhouse Square is pretty interesting, but you can find that information anywhere. What you cannot find is a helpful and humorous guide for navigating through it. Your friend the townie is here to fix that.

Let’s start with how to get through the square in a car. More than likely, if you are driving in college, that means you provide the primary mode of transportation for your entire friend group. Lots of folks in the car can be a problem, especially if you haven’t set out a specific list of draconian rules surrounding the aux cord or the A/C. This brings me to my first point: The Powderhouse demands your full attention. Pulling out into traffic is one of the most finessed moves you will make in a car. You have to come to a complete stop, check not only the oncoming cars in the circle, but the cars in the street to your immediate left, look for bikes and pedestrians and do this all while making sure the lights have not changed.

If you miss even one of these things, or think that no one is watching you, just remember: The British didn’t think anyone was watching when they stole all the powder out of the powder house in the adjacent park. But people did notice and those people started the Revolutionary War. So, you better make sure everything is shipshape in the car before entering the circle. Other than that, take it slow, be patient and give the right of way to cars already in the circle.

Now, let’s talk about how to cross as a pedestrian. I will start by extending the warning against distraction to this section as well. Far too often I have seen a clueless person wander into the crosswalk without looking at oncoming traffic.

It is true that pedestrians have the right of way on the crosswalk, but take a moment and be an advocate for your personal safety. On a rainy Somerville day, that grey coat can blend in pretty well with the sidewalk.

As far as crossing the square, there are handy buttons you should use to get the crossing sign activated. As a special note for those crossing from College Ave up to the right side of Broadway, use the smaller of the pedestrian signal buttons (the bigger one does not work) and cross only after the light changes and you see all the cars stop. When you do cross, make sure you hustle up — you only have 20 seconds. That’s a big span of pavement, and you don’t want to get caught in it.

Lastly, for those entering the circle on a bike, good luck. Even at the best of times, the odds are not in your favor.

I suggest finding an alternate route or becoming a pedestrian.

Nate Rubright is a columnist with the Features section of the Daily and is a member of the Somerville community. He can be reached at nathan.rubright@gmail.com.

ALINA STRILECKIS / THE TUFTS DAILY

Students work at the Steve Tisch Sports and Fitness Center, a work-study job on campus, on Feb. 27.

by Sean Ong

Features Editor

Some Tufts students have a light Friday schedule to start the weekend, but not sophomore Mrugank Bhusari, who starts his Friday with classes from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. This leaves him with just enough time to pick up a quick lunch from Hodgdon Food-on-the-Run before an afternoon shift at his work-study job with the Institute for Global Leadership (IGL) until 5 p.m. By the time the day ends, Bhusari is exhausted.

“I feel kind of drained,” Bhusari said.

“I have less energy … to do other things [throughout the day].”

Bhusari is not alone. In an email to the Daily, Patricia Reilly, director of financial aid, said about 1,500 undergraduate students, or about 27 percent of the student body, have work-study as a component of their financial aid packages.

“When we determine financial aid, we assume that in addition to direct costs for tuition fees, room and board, students will have indirect costs such as books, supplies and personal expenses. Workstudy allows students to earn money to cover these out-of-pocket expenses,” Reilly said. “[All] work-study earnings are paid directly to students — they do not get credited to the student account and are not used to pay the Tufts bill.”

However, a quarter of undergraduate financial aid recipients are not eligible for work-study, Reilly said. These include students who have “outside aid awards or special scholarships” which replace the work-study component, or students who are unable to work for various reasons, according to Reilly.

Tufts also offers its own work-study subsidy to a small number of students

who do not qualify for the Federal WorkStudy program, including international students like Bhusari. However, Bhusari said that he faced greater difficulty in finding a work-study job as an international student on a visa.

“First I have to see whether I can apply for this [job] as a non-American citizen,” Bhusari said. “I have work-study, but I don’t know where to avail those [funds] because I cannot work off campus, so I have to work on campus.”

In addition to his current position at the IGL, Bhusari also works as a research assistant to Justin Hollander, a professor of urban and environmental policy and planning. In total, Bhusari works on average eight to nine hours a week.

“As a research assistant … the hours aren’t certain, so I don’t know how much I am going to work every week,” Bhusari said. “With the IGL, it’s more consistent — I will be working these many hours so I will be getting paid for these many hours.”

Of the 76 students whom the Daily surveyed in February, 54 had work-study jobs, and these students worked an average of seven hours a week, with 12 students working 10 or more hours a week.

The Daily’s survey also asked students to rate the difficulty in finding a work-study job that they wanted — on a scale from one to seven, with seven being “extremely difficult.” The average rating was three.

Bhusari found the process of searching for a work-study job in his first semester at Tufts to be challenging.

“It’s … frustrating that there has to be so much effort to find a job, because it’s part of your aid package. So it’s expected that you will be earning [the income], but there’s no readily-given provisions to find those kinds of opportunities,” Bhusari said. “[I had to] ask people if

they knew that there were jobs at their workplace, maybe [to] help me to talk to the manager.”

In the end, Bhusari was able to find his current work-study jobs by being in the right place at the right time. He took a class with Hollander in his first semester and was hired when a research assistant position opened up in the semester after. He found out that the IGL was hiring for student workers through enrolling in the IGL-organized Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) colloquium.

“I wasn’t expecting [the positions],” Bhusari said. “It was more by luck and connections.”

Like Bhusari, first-year Hasan Khan found his work-study job through an unexpected opportunity. Khan was invited last summer to apply for a work-study-eligible position in the Student Communications Group, which produces multimedia content for the Tufts Office of Undergraduate Admissions, and was successful.

“I just happen to be very lucky; I managed to get a job that was eligible [for work-study]. If I hadn’t done that, I would have been probably very lost in the beginning [of the school year] and then also have to start the work-study process pretty late,” Khan said.

With this position in the admissions office starting immediately in the fall, Khan was able to earn the full workstudy income for which he is eligible.

“If I didn’t start when I did, like, from the beginning, working through my job that I already had, then I might not have made [the full work-study] amount,” Khan said.

see WORK-STUDY, page 5

Wednesday, March 6, 2019 | Features | THE TUFTS DAILY

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Students share work-study experiences at Tufts WORK-STUDY

continued from page 4 Khan knows of fellow first-years who had work-study as part of their financial aid package but were unable to find a work-study job until much later in the year.

“One of my good friends got her [work-study] job in late November.

Some people had difficulty starting their job because it was late enough in the semester [when they found their job],” Khan said.

Khan noted that student difficulties in finding a work-study job early in their first semester of college may stem from not having a thorough understanding of the details of the work-study program, such as what jobs are eligible and where to find them.

“As a student being admitted, and finally seeing my financial aid package, I had no idea really what [workstudy] was, what that would mean or what that would look like,” Khan said.

“It sounds like a job, but … over the summer, I thought — before I got the job — I was going to be assigned a job,” Khan said.

Bhusari echoed these sentiments, adding that part of his confusion also stemmed from being an international student who was unfamiliar with how college financial aid worked in the United States.

“I saw work study as a [part] of my aid package, and I had no clue what that

meant,” Bhusari said. “I didn’t know if I would get paid for working or if I had to work as part of a program — it was really unclear. And so, when I came [to Tufts], the first thing I found out that I didn’t have to … work as part of a program without pay. That is what I first thought it meant.”

Both Bhusari and Khan work on campus, where most work-study jobs are located. Reilly said that the majority of on-campus work-study jobs have traditionally been with employers such as the libraries, the Tisch Sports and Fitness Center and Dining Services, with “a small increase” in jobs in other areas such as research or tech support with Tufts Technology Services.

Besides working on campus, Reilly added that in 2017–2018, 140 students earned their work-study through the America Reads Challenge program with Tufts Literacy Corps or Tufts’ Jumpstart chapter, and 50 students earned their work-study at jobs in nonprofit organizations in the community.

The Daily also found that 13 of the 54 work-study students surveyed said they work off-campus, including senior Jason Theal.

Theal currently works about eight to nine hours a week as an after-school homework helper for Tufts Literacy Corps, which he has been a part of since the fall of his first year.

“I have an affinity for reading and literacy, so I thought it would be per-

fect,” Theal said. “I greatly enjoy reading myself, and it has been a personal project for me to help as many kids as I can to try and discover a joy for reading, or at least … see it as less taxing and troublesome as students sometimes feel, especially moving through middle school and high school, where it’s just a lot of reading.”

Theal said that planning his schedule to fit both work and school can be taxing. The days when Theal is needed at work and the schedule for the classes that he needs for the geological sciences major are fixed, and he is fully occupied for the entire duration of his work.

“The span of hours can be difficult to manage, because you are giving up a good portion of your afternoon to working with the kids, and, although rare, you can work [on] your own homework if the kids don’t have any homework, but that is not helpful to the kids and it’s not often enough to be counted on. So often, no homework gets done,” Theal said.

At the moment, Theal is not working any other jobs, but he has worked as a shelver at Tisch Library in the past.

Of the 54 students the Daily surveyed who indicated that they had work-study jobs, 18 students said they work additional hours — an average of eight per week — outside of their workstudy jobs.

Reilly said that students’ non-workstudy jobs or other on-campus commitments may affect how much of their

work-study awards they choose to use each year, adding that in 2017–2018, about 40 percent of work-study students earned at least 80 percent of their workstudy award.

While Theal had “no major complaints” about his work-study experience so far, he sounded a note of caution against exceeding one’s workstudy award.

“I, without realizing, had worked more hours than my work-study money was able to pay, and so I ended up running out of money to pay for my hours around early April. I ended up still going to work … but I wasn’t paid for [those hours], which was frustrating at the time,” Theal said. “It ended up causing a little bit of consternation on my part because I didn’t know it was about to happen, and I would have tried to alleviate the problem beforehand.”

Bhusari acknowledged the annoyance that other students may express at on-campus employers who would only hire students who are eligible for work-study, but noted that the income from a work-study job is necessary for students like himself to get by.

“From the perspective of the students who are getting those jobs … I don’t want to work 10 hours a week,” Bhusari said. “If someone else wants a job, I don’t want to take the job. It’s just that I need money, and I think that idea is not understood completely across everyone.”

ISABELLA MONTOYA / THE TUFTS DAILY

6

Wednesday, March 6, 2019 | ADVERTISEMENT | THE TUFTS DAILY

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MIGRATION in

The 34th Annual Norris and Margery Bendetson EPIIC International Symposium Thursday, March 7 4:00pm

KEYNOTE ADDRESS: SIR PAUL COLLIER, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD Author, Exodus: How Migration Is Changing our World; Director, International Growth Centre and Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford

7:00pm

BARRIERS TO BELONGING: INTEGRATION, ADAPTATION AND EXCLUSION • FOUAD BEN AHMED, liaison between residents and the local government in Département 93, Bondy, Paris • KAREN JACOBSEN, Henry J. Leir Professor in Global Migration, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University • The Rt Hon DAVID LAMMY, MP, Labour Member of Parliament, Tottenham • NESRINE MALIK, Columnist and Features Writer, The Guardian • The Hon RATNA OMIDVAR, C.M., O.Ont., Senator for Ontario, The Senate of Canada; Co-Author, Flight and Freedom: Stories of Escape to Canada

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HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT: 21ST CENTURY SLAVERY AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING • GEORGE NAUFAL, Research Fellow, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn, Germany • E. BENJAMIN SKINNER, Founder and President, Transparentem; Author, A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery • PETER TINTI, Journalist; Co-Author, Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Savior

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GENDER AND MIGRATION • ALIA MATA, International Organization for Migration, Northern Triangle • KATHLEEN NEWLAND, Senior Fellow and Co-Founder, Migration Policy Institute • HANNAH M POSTEL, PhD Candidate, Demography and Social Policy, Princeton University • ASTRID ZIEBARTH, Senior Migration Fellow, German Marshall Fund

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KEYNOTE ADDRESS: THE NEED FOR BETTER MANAGING INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION H.E. MR. MIROSLAV LAJCÁK Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, Slovak Republic; former President, United Nations General Assembly Seventy-Second Session

7:30PM

THE PARADOX OF SOVEREIGNTY AND GLOBAL MIGRATION • MARK KRIKORIAN, Executive Director, Center for Immigration Studies • LIAV ORGAD, Head, Project Group “International Citizenship Law”, WZB Berlin Social Science Center • LAURA RÓTOLO, Staff Counsel and Community Advocate, ACLU of Massachusetts

Wednesday, March 6, 2019 | FUN & GAMES | THE TUFTS DAILY

a Turbulent World March 7-9, 2019 Saturday, March 9 9:30AM

CITIES: MIGRATION’S FRONTLINE • ATYIA MARTIN, Chief Resilience Officer, City of Boston • SAMER SALIBA, Urban Technical Advisor, International Rescue Committee • JUSTIN STEIL, Assistant Professor of Law and Urban Planning, MIT

11:30AM

HOW SOUTH TO SOUTH MIGRATION IS SHAPING OUR WORLD • LEILA ABU GHEIDA, Regional Director, West Africa and Middle East Regional Office, FHI 360 • NIZAR EL FAKIH, President and Founder, Proiuris NGO, Venezuela; former Consultant Lawyer on Venezuela, Human Rights Watch • AYESHA JALAL, Mary Richardson Professor of History, Tufts University • ÇAĞLAR ÖZDEN, Lead Economist, Development Research Group, World Bank

2:30PM

EXPERT-LED, SMALL-GROUP DISCUSSION SESSIONS discussions wil include • Climate Refugees and Indonesia with Mariam Traore Chazalnoel, Associate Expert, Migration, Environment and Climate Change, International Organization for Migration • The Rohingya of Myanmar with Charlie Carstens, Ph.D. candidate, Buddhist Studies, Committee on the Study of Religion, Harvard University’s • The World Cup, Qatar and the GCC Model with George Naufal, Research Fellow, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn, Germany and Sarah Lee Whitson, Executive Director, Middle East and North Africa Division, Human Rights Watch • US/Mexico Border

with Adam Goodman (A’03), Assistant Professor, Latin American and Latino Studies and History, University of

Illinois at Chicago, and Kerri Talbot (A’96), Director of Federal Advocacy, Immigration Hub

• Debunking Economic Myths on Migration with Anna Hardman, Department of Economics, Tufts University

4:30PM

MOVEMENT AND ORDER: THE SECURITIZATION OF MIGRATION • RYAN BURKE, Associate Professor and Curriculum Director in the Department of Military & Strategic Studies at the U.S. Air Force Academy • ADAM GOODMAN, Assistant Professor, Latin American and Latino Studies and History, University of Illinois at Chicago • KERRI TALBOT, Director of Federal Advocacy, Immigration Hub; former Chief Counsel, U.S. Senator Robert Menendez • MONIKA WOHLFELD, German Chair for Peace Studies and Conflict Prevention, The Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies (MEDAC), University of Malta

For more information and registration: 617.627.3314 and tuftsgloballeadership.org

7

8 Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Arts & Living

tuftsdaily.com

‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ debuts its 11th season

COURTESY VH1 PRESS IMAGES

‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ season 11 contestants are pictured.

by Tommy Gillespie Arts Editor

Hey, cysters! Less than two weeks removed from the finale of “All Stars 4” (2018) “RuPaul’s Drag Race” (2009–) is back on our TV screens for its 11th season. The clownishness of that finale and jam-packed schedule for “Drag Race” have led some to (convincingly) suggest that it’s time for the show to slow down a little bit, but that’s mainly a conversation to be had about “All Stars.” Alas, we cannot dwell on these hang-ups because it’s time to meet the 15 queens vying for the title of America’s Next Drag Superstar.

The first queen to enter is one we’ve met before, Vanessa Vanjie Mateo. After sashaying away on last season’s first episode, her exit became without question the most memorable moment on season 10. Given the show’s recent penchant for bring-backs, Miss Vanjie sealed her berth in season 11 the minute she walked off the stage, and back in the Werk Room. She looks exquisite in red. Vanjie clearly did not come to play games, and she takes the opportunity to hide and size up her competition.

The next few queens slowly filter into the Werk Room. NYC-based Shuga Cain seems remarkably polished for a relative newcomer to drag, while veteran comedy queen Nina West has an impressive list of accolades and will surely excel in performance challenges.

Vietnamese-born Plastique Tiara is the first of the season’s international contingent to arrive, and she looks striking enough for Vanjie to gag over her.

Mercedes Iman Diamond is also an international queen, born in Kenya, and she immediately catches the queens’ attention with an ululating greeting. Mercedes then finds herself at the receiving end of the season’s first shade, courtesy of Nina West.

Scarlet Envy, self described as “Southern beauty and NYC grit,” enters next, though the other queens seem unconvinced by her — frankly, her look is oddly fun-sized in the wrong places, and the minimal makeup gives it an unfinished feeling.

Honey Davenport wears a black and yellow Club Hive-esque number, and Shuga describes her as a “legend” in New York.

Vanjie reveals her hiding place when the queens mention her obvious return, and another Davenport — A’keria Chanel — struts into the Werk Room. A’keria unapologetically claims her identity as a pageant queen, and her Miss Black Universe title marks her as one to watch.

A remote-control car attached to the train of a green gown precedes Yvie Oddly into the Werk Room, and “Denver’s commodity of drag oddity” elicits memories of Sharon Needles, perhaps combined with a more comedic version of Sasha Velour. This is not to call her derivative — Yvie appears to be a boldly singular queen whose presence will surely turn heads.

Silky Nutmeg Ganache produces a cookie from her cleavage upon entering, and her big personality quickly bounces off the Werk Room walls. Silky and A’keria are friends, which, combined with Silky’s antics irritating the other queens later in the episode, could foreshadow a Laganja EstranjaAdore Delano storyline in which Silky is accused of crafting an affected persona for the cameras. Just a guess!

Canadian-bred Brooke Lynn Hytes arrives dressed as a gay Mountie, and her classically-trained dance skills will likely aid her in later challenges. “Insta-fish” Ariel Versace is eager to prove that she can do more than just look pretty, and her early shade casts her as a potential villain. Rajah O’Hara also knows A’keria and cannot keep her earrings from falling off, while Kahanna Montrese, drag daughter of the legendary Coco, is “Drag Race’s” latest Vegas showgirl. Last to arrive is Soju, who is “just here to fight” with nunchucks and a tae kwon do-inspired lewk.

RuPaul struts down the stairs with a “hello, hello, hello” and introduces a photoshoot mini-challenge to be directed by the queens themselves. Scarlet Envy is first up, and after a little fake-out, season 3 winner Raja appears behind her, revealing the true nature of the mini-challenge:

to hold your own in a photoshoot with “Drag Race” legends like Raja, Ginger Minj, Sonique and Kimora Blac, for some reason.

It’s always fun to see past competitors, and the mini-challenge allows us to see which queens know their strengths and weaknesses the best.

That being said, we don’t get enough time for any real substance to any of the shoots, so Silky being announced as the winner of the mini-challenge feels neither here nor there. This also gives Silky the task of assignments for the main challenge, which gives the queens the task of crafting runway looks using the materials of past “Drag Race” contestants. Silky does so mostly based on whom she feels matches up best, declining the opportunity to sabotage her competitors.

In the Werk Room, Nina worries about her sewing skills, Vanjie cautions Soju that the judges will read her for lacking a silhouette and Silky gets on everybody’s nerves, particularly Honey’s and Ariel’s. Silky clearly aims to be one of the main personalities of the season, and whether this will turn everyone against her remains to be seen. Guest judge Miley Cyrus enters the Werk Room in a hilariously unconvincing disguise as a sound crew member, and the queens share a nice moment with her before hitting the mainstage.

On the mainstage, all 15 queens work the runway for the first time. Scarlet’s Violet Chachki-inspired number is characteristic, polished and very Carmen Sandiego, hopefully dismissing her weak entrance look as a blip. Ariel delivers a serviceable Laganja Estranja look embezzled with cannabis leaves, then presents a comically underwhelming reveal. Yvie echoes Alaska’s penchant for unusual materials with a plastic-wrap halo over her bald head, which is a fun look.

After the longest runway in “Drag Race” herstory, Ariel, Honey, Rajah, Scarlet, Shuga, Silky and Yvie are declared safe. Plastique (Sasha Velour) and Vanjie (Valentina) both receive positive critiques, but the top two are clearly Brooke Lynn and A’keria. Brooke

Lynn crafts a stunning Detox-inspired blue latex caped pantsuit with neon accents that feel very sci-fi and avant-garde, while A’keria (Bebe Zahara Benet) serves pageant-extraordinaire realness with a fivewigged headpiece that elicits a rare gag from Ru herself.

The bottom two is also clear; Nina and Mercedes’ outfits were slightly basic (and Nina’s looked like it was spangled with pimples), but Soju (Kim Chi) and Kahanna (Katya) are both complete messes. Soju tries to recreate the traditional Korean hanbok that Kim Chi memorably wore in season 8, but her dress looks less ethereal and undulating and more like it is held together with Scotch tape. Kahanna’s bizarre half-bodysuit is better-constructed, but she misunderstands the assignment and recycles the bra from her entrance look, a major “Drag Race” no-no.

After deliberation, Ru awards Brooke Lynn the first challenge win of the season, while Kahanna and Soju must lip-sync for their lives. The producers make the fun decision to use Hannah Montana’s “Best of Both Worlds,” which surely elicited screeches from gay bars across the country. It takes about 20 seconds for Soju’s fate to be sealed. Soju is clearly not a dance performer, and Kahanna prowls around the stage like a woman possessed, committing herself determinedly to the lip-sync and wiping the floor with Soju along the way. Kahanna does not seem like early-season cannon fodder, and she survives a major scare that will hopefully be a wake-up moment for her after Soju sashays away.

The sheer number of queens made the season 11 premiere feel rushed at times, but the episode did its work in establishing a new season of “Drag Race.” It’s sad to see Soju go, as she’d likely have been a supremely entertaining personality to have along this season, but no matter. We have 14 other queens to enjoy, and the premiere places them well to deliver the inimitable magic that keeps us coming back to “Drag Race” 11 seasons later.

Arts & Living Evan Zigmond Out on the Town

Roxbury Afro-American Art Museum

Wednesday, March 6, 2019 | Arts & Living | THE TUFTS DAILY

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TV REVIEW

Falling in love with Netflix’s ‘Dating Around’

G

oing off campus repeatedly is enriching in more ways than one. In addition to the thrill of seeing a new place, one can make connections between different institutions as they see more and more of the city. Learning about Boston’s distinguished individuals and the communities in which they live bestows character and humanity on an already interesting city. For example, during my recent visit to the Afro-American Art Museum in Roxbury, I viewed an exhibit that was actually collected by Antonio Inniss, who works as an SMFA shuttle driver.

Moments like that make me feel closer to Boston as a whole. Located southeast of Jackson Square, the museum offers unique exhibitions for a very agreeable price. Recently, I took the T over to Roxbury to see all that it had to offer.

This trip takes slightly longer than a trip to Park Street, for example, but it is quite simple, since buses are optional. I took the Davis Square shuttle to Davis and hopped on the Red Line headed inbound.

Once I got to Downtown Crossing, I transferred to the Orange Line headed to Forest Hills. The Orange Line trains feature what seem to be faux-wooden interiors, and have a novel ’70s quality to them. Getting off at Jackson Square, I elected to walk to the museum. One may also take the 44 bus from the T station to the museum for an additional $1.50. The route I took involved mostly side streets.

There was a nifty little hillock in between two houses that featured a view of downtown Boston, so if you love cityscapes, the walk may be preferable to the bus route.

Once I got there, I stopped and briefly took in the building itself. According to a plaque on the side of the museum, the Victorian-style building had been erected in 1872 as a private residence. It was later purchased by the National Center of Afro-American Artists Museum in 1976. Once inside, presenting my student ID to the receptionist knocked $1 off an already modest $5 price tag.

The art in their permanent collection was eye-catching and vibrant. I enjoyed the different types of art on display there, including a few intriguing collages. A hefty backstory accompanied most pieces, so I had a good guideline for how the artist interpreted their own work. There were quite a few pieces from former SMFA professors, as well as other local artists. Boston’s rich art history was foreign to me before the trip. I also learned a lot about Boston’s history of institutional racism, including the Boston busing crisis of the 1970s and 1980s. The exhibit that captivated me the most involved a series of handbags woven from cigarette packaging by inmates in U.S. prisons (this was the Inniss collection). The unmistakable American iconography of the packaging all over the bags, combined with educational tidbits about America’s dysfunctional prison system, gave me quite a lot to think about. For anyone curious about the creative expression of Boston’s African-American community, or Boston’s role in institutional racism, this museum has a lot to offer.

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

COURTESY NETFLIX

A scene from ‘Dating Around’ (2019–) is pictured.

by Daniel Klain

Contributing Writer

It’s another day and that means Netflix is still at it, trying to take over our every waking moment of free time.

This time, though, that does not only apply to the viewer, but the subject.

Recently, Netflix decided to journey into the genre of reality television, covering food and travel, similar to the programs found on the Food Network.

Netflix’s new show “Dating Around” (2019–), though, signifies a new venture into a totally different section of reality television: romance.

The premise for the show is simple. Each episode is centered around one person who goes on five first dates with five different strangers, and then ends up going on a second date with one of the five people.

At first, “Dating Around” can seem too awkward to be entertaining, but much like a first date, once it starts to open up it becomes a lot more engaging than expected.

“Dating Around” is clever in its production and style. Set in New York City during the summer, the show tries to capture the look of a modern romantic comedy, looking similar to Netflix’s romantic comedy summer hit “Set it Up” (2018). The restaurants and bars where the dates take place are typically nondescript with a sort of chic

modern aesthetic. They all appear as sort of idyllic places that people wish they were cool enough to know about without having to Google “cool places to eat in New York.” There is additionally some B-roll footage to show New York City in the summertime as a beautiful fun place with lively people.

A well-crafted, optimistic view of the city enhances the feeling of romance for the viewer.

Not only is the show smart with its setting and design, but also with its episodic structure. Each episode is completely independent of the other, and the premise is simple enough that as a viewer there’s no need to go in episodic order. Feel free to roam around based on episode descriptions and your curiosity. Looking even further in depth, each date in each episode follows the same structure. The location of the dates for a single episode is always the same; the main character of each episode also wears the same outfit for each of their first dates.

These choices act as independent variables, completely unaffected by certain circumstances, allowing the viewer to focus on what Netflix asserts as important: the actual date itself. With all these similarities, the viewer can basically act as though they are the main character of the episode, judging each date, who they like and who they don’t and pick who they think the main character should take on a second date as well as

who they would pick to go on a second date if they could.

This is where the show gets most intriguing. By creating a style that makes the viewer focus all their attention on the dates, “Dating Around” does a great job creating intrigue through diversity. The dates are interspersed throughout an episode, cutting back and forth between conversations. Along with this, Netflix chose both a diverse pool of dates and main characters; the show brings in people from many different races, ethnicities, socio-economic classes, sexual orientations and romantic backgrounds. Consequently, as the show stitches together multiple conversations between the main character and his different dates, the viewer sees all these different perspectives and how they influence who the main characters are and how they view the world. Before the audience knows it, the show becomes equally about romance as it is about how unique people are as individuals.

It is interesting to see Netflix on its global conquest take a fairly antithetical approach to the most popular romantic reality TV show, ABC’s “The Bachelor” (2002–). Overall, “Dating Around” is a pretty solid watch. With each episode clocking in at around a 30 minutes, it’s an easy fit into your TV schedule. There are moments of genuine honesty as well as some cringeworthy ones that makes for good entertainment.

TRASHING ONE EGG WASTES 55 GALLONS OF WATER

10 tuftsdaily.com

Deeksha Bathini America is dying

Language is key

T

he healthcare debate frequently takes the forefront of partisan politics, but there are many reasons why language like “Obamacare” and “Trumpcare” is problematic.

Associating presidential administrations with entire healthcare systems creates bias and misinformation. According to a report by the New York Times, one-third of Americans do not know that Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act are the same.

Of course people would be confused, and it’s naive to think otherwise. This begs the question: How much does the general public really know about the healthcare that they use?

As a disclaimer, this piece is not to shame Americans about their “lack of knowledge,” but rather to unveil a system that is so messy and labyrinthine that even myself, a student majoring in community health, struggles to reconcile its complexity. It’s an interesting concept to think about: You, as a consumer, purchase your health insurance plan. So, by virtue, you should be able to access your schedule of benefits (a list of all the services that are covered under your plan along with pricing) pretty easily. After all, you own it.

So, I tried it. I went out to actively find my schedule of benefits. I perused the internet, made phone calls, visited the website and asked my parents for help. After two entire weeks, I got my hands on it. I obtained three files — all in different locations on the internet — that explained each aspect of my health coverage: a 17-page schedule of benefits, a 77-page provider manual and a 72-page prescription drug formulary.

In each of these documents were words like “deductible,” “copayment,” “coinsurance” and “pre-authorization.” According The Washington Post, only 14 percent of all participants in a survey answered all four questions regarding “the most basic insurance features” correctly (deductible, copay, coinsurance and maximum out-of-pocket).

These words are not self-explanatory, so how exactly can we expect average Americans to effectively use a system that’s impossible for everyone to understand?

In every field, the language we use is important. In healthcare, it’s not just important, it’s essential. If only 11 percent of people can correctly estimate the cost of a four-day hospital visit (I was unable to accurately estimate the price using my schedule of benefits), we simply cannot expect patients to have value-based interactions with the healthcare sector. An important tenant of public health is “health literacy,” which is one’s ability to effectively understand and use health-related information. A goal of public health professionals is to promote health literacy, particularly among vulnerable, underserved populations; however, just based on the little experiment I did, that dream is a bit lofty.

Being vague is not the answer when it comes to public health, and this goes beyond just health insurance. We need to reevaluate how we distribute health-related information to patients in every sector of the workforce including food labels, consent forms, warning labels and online health information. It took five minutes of me scrolling aimlessly through my documents to learn a really important lesson: Deeksha is a sophomore studying community health. Deeksha can be reached at deeksha.bathini@tufts.edu.

Opinion

Wednesday, March 6, 2019

OP-ED

Transparency, Part 2: The Board of Trustees

by Jacqueline Chen and Jonah O’Mara Schwartz The Board of Trustees has wide-ranging powers, from deciding the new buildings that will pop up on campus, to establishing new academic programs, to selecting our university’s president. Yet, we don’t know much about them and rarely hear directly from them. The student body’s only points of contact with the board are three undergraduate trustee representatives, selected by Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate, who sit on the trustee committees of Academic Affairs, Administration & Finance and University Advancement. There are seven other committees for which students do not have any input or point of contact. Furthermore, our student representatives are not allowed to disclose much information to the student body and rarely speak at trustee meetings, making their role more symbolic than actually useful in communicating student voice.

Student voice is especially needed on the board considering how opaque and inaccessible the process of joining it is.

There are two pathways to becoming a voting member on the board, neither of which a current undergrad can pursue. First, one can become a large-scale donor to the school and be elected by current members, a route that is near impossible for the vast majority of recent graduates. Second, a candidate can run for one of the 10 Alumni Trustee positions, which are elected by Tufts alumni. This route requires wealth and connections, and candidates must first be vetted by an Alumni Council selection committee which determines whether candidate is eligible to run.

Earlier this year, Class of 2018 graduate Nathan Foster (LA ’18) ran a campaign to become an Alumni Trustee on a platform of increasing transparency and adding a younger voice to the board. He garnered the sup-

port of 13 student groups, including the Tufts Democrats and Tufts Progressive Alliance, and made sure to reach out to recent alumni.

TCU Senate passed a resolution endorsing his candidacy with a vote of 25–3–2. Despite a wellspring of grassroots support, the Alumni Council prevented him from even joining the ballot and having the opportunity to run in a fair election. There was no explanation from the Board as to why Foster was denied the opportunity to campaign despite the community’s obvious support. The four candidates approved for this year’s election have been out of their undergraduate careers for an average of 25 years, which includes a C-suite executive and a senior director of a real estate investment firm.

It seems even running for a spot as an alumni representative, the most accessible path to joining the board, requires candidates to be wealthy and in a solidly established career, two things that only come with time — it is nearly impossible for someone to join until long after their experience as a student is relevant. In other words, the implicit prerequisites for being on the board prohibit anyone with closer ties to the student body from having any power in the university.

This, in turn, points to one of the frustrating contradictions of the board: They are trying their best to make improvements to help the school and student body while at the same having recruitment and communication policies that lock out the very stakeholders that could provide them insight.

TCU Senate’s Administration & Policy Committee wishes to shed light on the fact that decisions affecting our lives at Tufts are made by a body of individuals who attended a very different looking Tufts and are out of touch with the experiences of Tufts students today. On average, it has been 35 years since a current board member has been an undergraduate at Tufts, with some never having had an undergraduate experience on cam-

pus. Though we understand that in some ways, it is beneficial to have a body that is not subject to the everyday ups and downs of student life, as current students and administrators are, the Board of Trustees must become more transparent and representative in order to properly govern the community it wishes to serve.

There are real challenges facing the student body. The increasing tuition, housing shortages and decreased funding for student life initiatives that support underrepresented groups on campus may feel like any other budget-line item to some of the current board members. These are issues that the board of Trustees may not be equipped to deal with without the perspective of current students or recent alumni. In the past, groups such as TCU Senate and Tufts Student Action (TSA) have pushed for budget transparency and for a seat at the table to help shape the policy that affects all of us every day. It is time for the entire Tufts community to stand up and demand that seat.

The current undergraduate student representatives must be allowed to attend all Board of Trustee meetings. Members of the Board of Trustees should have a meet and greet with the Tufts community at least once a year, in order to ensure they are in touch with current student needs. Finally, there should be real voting power for members of the community of which the board is in charge. Only then will the Board of Trustees be adequately equipped to make the difficult decisions that will shape our university for years to come.

Jacqueline Chen is a senior studying international relations. Jacqueline can be reached at jacqueline.chen@tufts.edu.

Jonah O’Mara Schwartz is a senior studying biochemistry and biotechnology. Jonah can be reached at jonah.schwartz@tufts.edu

CARTOON

Tony Monaco

BY MARIA FONG

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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Sports

Wednesday, March 6, 2019 | Sports | THE TUFTS DAILY

Tufts tennis prepares for cross-town rival Brandeis

11

Jeremy Goldstein Anti-Bostonian

Is Matt Damon the face of Boston basketball?

Columnist’s note: The last article in this mini-series delved into what the beginning of spring means for the Red Sox vs. Yankees rivalry. This week tackles another New Yorkversus-Boston dichotomy but in regards to the hardwood.

W RAY BERNOFF / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

Sophomore Boris Sorkin swings at the ball during a match against Middlebury in the Gantcher Center on April 8, 2018.

MEN'S TENNIS

continued from back page opponents, including No. 1 Middlebury, No. 2 Bowdoin and No. 5 Williams. Gregor and the team have taken the ranking as a sort of challenge, believing themselves to be at a similar level to their top 10 NESCAC brethren.

The journey towards this goal starts almost immediately with Saturday’s trip pitting them against No. 21 Brandeis.

“Our matchup with Brandeis is a good rivalry,” Bershtein said. “We’re close to them.

It’s always a competitive game. We really want to beat them.”

The NCAA rankings hint at what looks to be a competitive NESCAC season, but the feeling among the team is that Tufts is right in the thick of things. Even though Gregor hinted at the building nature of the season, there is little doubt the team can make a splash. Kamin mentioned the less desirable results from last season as a motivator for the coming spring.

“We obviously didn’t finish last season as strongly as we would have liked,” he said. “It definitely adds that extra motivation to prove to other teams that we should be [ranked] higher.”

Sorkin has the playoffs on his mind, and the feeling is shared around the locker room.

“I believe that we can rehabilitate and make NESCAC’s this year, after not qualifying for them two years in a row,” Sorkin said.

As the team gears up for the spring, a renewed hunger and sense of camaraderie acts as their fuel. The road ahead will be challenging, with a loaded NESCAC widely considered to be the best Div. III conference in the nation. The team is looking to build on its mental toughness and blaze onwards as a single, cohesive unit. Great things look to be in store for the Jumbos, and they start this Saturday with the highly anticipated road trip to Brandeis.

Seven different goalscorers highlight depth of attack or do something that you’d be scared to do otherwise. When you see confidence in someone else, it helps you have confidence in yourself and others on the team.”

The Jumbos’ domination of the draw was another factor that played an important role in the win, with the team gaining control in nearly two-thirds of its chances. Junior midfielder Lily Baldwin, who often takes a more defensive role on the team, is an expert at draw control and came up the field to gain that early advantage for the team. She was responsible for six of the Jumbos 20 draw controls throughout the game.

“The draw is critical in any game,” Norman said. “We always say that if you win the draw then you’ll win the game, because you’re getting more possessions and it can build momentum.”

On the defensive end, Tufts’ strength was highlighted by the low number of shots on goal that Hamilton was able to muster throughout the game. The Jumbos took 44 compared to only 26 by the Continentals.

“Making sure that we had twice as many draws as our opponent led to us taking more shots,” Shute explained. “Quite frankly we could have shot a little bit better, but we’re going to keep working at that. I think our defense did a good job — they are capable of holding opponents to a lower number of goals against. I was happy with the start and there’s a lot of good stuff to build off of.”

Due to cold weather, Tufts’ matchup against MIT this week was postponed, so the team looks ahead to a weekend game against Wellesley. The Jumbos take on the Blue on Saturday at noon on Bello Field.

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continued from back page she was able to take that take a few times in a row and find success for us. She’s had a great start to her collegiate career.”

One of Hamilton’s biggest weaknesses was their inability to capitalize on the free positions, which are like free throws in basketball, that they were awarded during Tufts’ run — the team went just 1–5 on such opportunities. A goal could have broken the Jumbos’ momentum and given the Continentals a chance to recover, but on two occasions they missed free positions that then resulted in a turnover in favor of the Jumbos.

“Our team’s momentum picked up when everyone gained confidence,” Norman said.

“Seeing others be confident on the field gives you confidence to make that risky pass

e should turn our attention on this winter and spring juncture to explore another cleavage between everyone’s favorite two northeastern pillars — New York and Boston, of course. Even if it doesn’t seem like it at Tufts, the machinations of spring have, well, sprung, evidenced by both the vigorously chirping birds and the sudden realization that spring break is only 10 days away.

My faded and jaded memories of Harleston Hall last year include the sound of the dribbling of basketballs littering the late afternoons in the springtime. The constant bouncing would manage to emanate through my shut window, and I would get the sudden urge to venture outside. You would run into an eclectic mix of downhill first-years, off-campus seniors and the local Somerville entourage.

These days, a blacktop in springtime often operates as the fulcrum of various communities. It’s the same fulcrum in Brooklyn as it is in Brookline. Courts are lined with slightly peeled cement, nets that have been mostly cut and a faint pastel-tinge that makes everything seem like you’re in the early ’70s.

Dozens of characters have graced these courts, some whose stories are more famous than others. Carmelo Anthony’s childhood apartment in Red Hook (learn your Brooklyn neighborhoods, everyone!) also overlooked a basketball court, though his hoop dreams lasted a bit longer than mine did. Julius Erving brought his high-flying dunk show from Long Island to Rucker Park, a Harlem classic (learn your Manhattan neighborhoods, too, though Harlem should be ubiquitously iconic) in every sense of the word. Not to be a footnote, Kareem AbdulJabbar plied his high school trade in the City, too.

A pair of heavyweight NBA free-agents also have direct ties to the New York City basketball scene. Kemba Walker, forever immortalized in Madison Square Garden lore (Cardiac Kemba!), could once again grace the New York hardwood and maybe even share a backcourt with Kyrie Irving, who hails from nearby New Jersey.

Of course, that drives Boston acrimony into the conversation. Here’s some more: The immortalizing image of Boston hoops to me is the fight scene in “Good Will Hunting” (1997) where Matt Damon utters, “Come on it’s me, Will, we went to kindergarten together,” before laying the hammer down on a fellow townie. However, for what the city may lack in brand names (and in this department it certainly does), it certainly doesn’t in clear identity. New York has one too, even sometimes when it has to reach a little bit by casting a young Ray Allen as Jesus Shuttlesworth to pair next to Denzel Washington in “He Got Game” (1998).

The psyches of both hoop cultures are aptly intertwined with the cities they represent. As a fan of good basketball and nice weather, I’m glad I’ve tasted both.

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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 6, 2019

Women’s lacrosse opens season with decisive conference win

RAY BERNOFF / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

Junior attacker Emily Games fights off a defender during a home game against Wellesley on March 14. 2018.

by Maddie Payne Sports Editor

The No. 10 Jumbos started their season off with a decisive 18–11 win against the Hamilton Continentals on Saturday.

Seven different goal scorers combined for 18 goals and 10 assists in a game that highlighted the depth and strength of this year’s team.

“The fact that we had seven scorers is great, because it means that we all trust each other on the field, and all have the talent to be able to be a threat against any defense,” senior attacker and returning NESCAC Player of the Year Dakota Adamec said.

The Jumbos were the first to strike, dizzying the Continentals defenders by whizzing the ball around their net for a full minute. After a number of passes,

junior midfielder Maddie Norman found space in the middle of the fan to convert sophomore midfielder Catherine Lawliss’ pass into a backhanded goal.

The Continentals battled back to take a brief 4–2 advantage. Sophomore midfielder Kirsten Grazewski put the Jumbos on the board for a third goal, before first-year attacker Colette Smith scored her first of five goals by aggressively pressuring Continentals senior goalie Hannah Burrall into dropping the ball. Smith scooped up the ground ball and fired an uncontested shot into the open goal from the eight-meter line to even the score at 4–4.

The score evened again at 5–5 with 5:29 remaining in the first half as the Jumbos adjusted to their opponent’s style of play. Hamilton did not pressure high on the Tufts attackers and instead played

a modified zone defense that Tufts was not anticipating. The team spent the first half figuring out how to take advantage.

Adamec and junior attacker Emily Games closed out the half with one goal off a one-on-one drive and one goal via a fast break that left Games streaking into the middle of the eight unmarked for an easy goal, respectively.

As the Jumbos settled into a more comfortable attacking rhythm, they stretched their lead out to 15–7. An astounding eight-goal run in the space of 14 minutes secured a lead that the Continentals couldn’t recover from. Adamec explained how the Jumbos were able to exploit Hamilton’s style of play.

“Since Hamilton didn’t pressure out it allowed us to control the ball movement — we were able to really set the pace and be patient with our looks,” she said. “It

also allowed us to have really fast ball movement. Since they were on their heels on the eight-meter and didn’t pressure out past the 12, [that] allowed us to just have a day.”

Smith’s strength on the attack was highlighted by her four goals during that stretch, with all four goals scored in the exact same manner. She took advantage of a weak matchup to repeatedly execute a strong left side crease take and fired low left-handed shots which found the back of the net.

“At half time we talked about giving Colette the space to go because we liked the matchup that she had,” coach Courtney Shute said. “She has great vision that if they had adjusted, we would have found another opportunity out of it. But

see WOMEN'S LACROSSE, page 11

Men’s tennis gears up for spring season with renewed fire, hunger

by Aiden Herrod

Contributing Writer

After a hard-earned break that started back in October, Tufts resumes its season this Saturday with a visit to Brandeis. After a shorter fall season where preparation and anticipation for the longer spring was always in the players’ and coaches’ minds, springtime has finally arrived. With it comes stiff competition and a Jumbos squad eager to meet it with everything it’s got. Junior co-captain Ethan Bershtein highlighted the team’s mindset. “[ The] guys are hungry to get back out there,” he said.

Coach Karl Gregor also emphasized the team’s excitement in the locker room as the season rapidly approaches.

“We’re a great young team with a lot of hunger,” he said. “It will be, in some ways, a building year, but I also think there’s potential for a lot of surprising upside where we could have better results than Tufts tennis has had in many years.”

As Gregor mentioned, the roster for the upcoming season is young. Of the 16 players on the spring roster, 10 of them are first-years or sophomores.

The expectations for this young group are higher after they had the full fall season to acclimate to the competitive college atmosphere, but the team is raw in some spots, particularly in doubles play where teamwork and chemistry play key roles.

“Since we have newer players, we’re usually in a deficit for doubles,” Gregor

said. “We’ve worked really hard at doubles this offseason.”

However, Gregor is incredibly happy with the guys he has. This is the first time he will be working with a team recruited and hand-picked completely by him (Gregor arrived at Tufts in 2015), and he has praised the culture that has come together for the spring season.

“Everyone has really bought in,” Gregor explained.

Senior co-captain Ross Kamin talked about the youth of the squad, sharing part of his mindset as he gears up to act as a leader and mentor to some of the younger players.

“It’s going to be a new challenge,” he said. “Our young players are all great players, and I’m excited to be there to give them all that I have, all of my experience.”

The conclusion of the fall season saw sophomore Boris Sorkin clinch the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Div. III Cup to cap off a brilliant individual season. Sorkin won three tournaments during the fall season and looks to build off of his big successes and hefty contributions to the team and its youthful core. “[Sorkin’s presence] helps us feel strong at the top, [so] that we can match up with any team’s No. 1,” Gregor said.

“That’s kind of risen the level of the entire team, seeing what he’s been able to accomplish.”

For the upcoming spring season, Tufts is No. 22 in the NCAA Div. III rankings. Also ranked are several NESCAC

see MEN'S TENNIS, page 11