Hillel program looks to facilitate relationships, honest conversation see FEATURES / PAGE 4
GOLF
Jumbos finish strong at NEIGA championship
Tufts should revisit its physical therapy, sports medicine policies see EDITORIAL / PAGE 9
SEE SPORTS / BACK PAGE
THE
VOLUME LXXVIII, ISSUE 36
INDEPENDENT
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T HE T UFTS DAILY Monday, October 28, 2019
MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.
Monaco says Sackler investigation complete, discusses mental health at town hall by Alexander Thompson News Editor
University President Anthony Monaco announced the completion of former U.S. Attorney Donald K. Stern’s report on Tufts’ ties to opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family in a town hall last Friday. The report will be presented to the Board of Trustees at its upcoming November meeting before being released to the public by the end of the year, Monaco said. “We’re hyperfocused on this, but I will have something to say publicly hopefully by the end of the calendar year,” Monaco said. The report was written after an independent investigation by Stern into donations to the university from the billionaire family widely blamed for the opioid epidemic and the influence that the family may have exerted over the university. These allegations surfaced in a lawsuit against the family brought by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and a Tufts Daily investigation. The town hall consisted of a 35 minute PowerPoint presentation covering a range of subjects, including the recently released Mental Health Task Force report, the newly created Bias Response Teams (BRTs) and the university’s budget, before taking a few audience questions at the end. Monaco devoted the biggest chunk of his presentation to mental health on campus.
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University President Anthony Monaco gave a presentation covering a range of topics, including the Stern Report, mental health and university finances at an Oct. 25 town hall in the Barnum Hall auditorium. The rate of students using Counseling Monaco explained that the increasing and Mental Health Services (CMHS) on severity of cases is even more worrying than campus has risen about 1% per year on the increasing quantity, as the university the Medford campus from around 14% of has seen a spike in cases of acute distress, students in 2005 to 28% this year, a rate including bipolar disorder, major depressive approximately five to 10% higher than the disorder, suicidal ideation and self harming. national average, according to Monaco. Monaco spoke sympathetically of the He explained that this was likely impact that these issues have on the stubecause Tufts has fewer barriers to access dents struggling with them, as well as the than other institutions and has higher impact on their friends, classmates, parquality services. ents and professors.
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“I can hear lots of students who feel stressed by having one of their friends go through this and feeling that they’re kind of watching out for them,” he said. “That’s not easy for students at this age.” He said the university did not have good policies for early identification of students with mental health issues compared to other universities and that the medical leave policy was difficult for students to navigate. “We cleaned all that up,” he said. The president also touched on the financial challenges the trend entails, especially the increased need for CMHS funding, personnel and facilities, and said he will work to secure philanthropic funding to confront the issue while chairing a steering committee to keep the university’s focus on the issue. Before he tackled mental health, the president began his town hall by addressing upcoming retirements, including Vice President for Finance and Treasurer Thomas McGurty, who will step down in December, as well as lauding successful efforts to secure a series of million-dollar federal grants and the reforms to the Confucius Institute on campus. The newly announced BRTs, which were created in response to a string of acts
see TOWN HALL, page 2
Panelists discuss decolonization, colonial struggles in Fletcher conference by Sofie Pedersen Contributing Writer
The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy hosted a conference titled “Decolonizing International Relations: Law, Development, Resistance” on Friday. The conference included a three-part panel. Each section highlighted a different aspect of decolonization. Sections were titled “Re-examining the Foundations and Practice of International Law, People Power,” “Strategic Non-violence Bottom Up Approaches,” and “Moving Beyond NorthSouth Development Practices.” The conference took place in the ASEAN Auditorium and lasted from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Attendance varied for each panel with around 50-100 people at each event. Three working sessions were also held after the first panel where participants
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of the conference got the opportunity to work and listen more closely to some of the panelists. These sessions lasted about 80 minutes each. The sessions were titled “Environmental Justice in Practice,” “Movement Methods” and “International Development in Practice.” Rachel Kyte, the dean of the Fletcher School, gave the welcoming address after the opening remarks, which were hosted by Danielle Tomlinson and Nigel Robinson, both graduate students at the Fletcher School. “It is an opportunity, an urgent opportunity, to examine our shared assumptions about the world,” Kyte said about the conference in her opening remarks for the audience. The second panel focused on resistance and decolonization in international relations. In particular, it addressed For breaking news, our content archive and exclusive content, visit tuftsdaily.com @tuftsdaily
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and critiqued the difference between violent resistance and civil resistance. The panelists featured Maria J. Stephan from the U.S. Institute of Peace, Sean Chabot from Eastern Washington University and Tufts Anthropology Department Chair Amahl Bishara. The panel was moderated by Professor Douglas A. Johnson from Harvard Kennedy School. The panel opened up to questions from the audience after its discussion. “Why are we engaging in violence? If I’m defending my way of life is that really violent? Or is that my way of being nonviolent in that moment? If I’m building my own way of life and communities, isn’t that also a form of nonviolence? Why don’t we see that as legitimate?” Chabot said during the discussion to explain the difficulties in labeling resistances as being either nonviolent or violent and how that can become problematic.
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“We want to also think about decolonizing civil resistance, and we might also think about histories of solidarity,” Bishara said. When an audience member expressed concern that the panel would be discussing crises and policies around the world without panelists from each region, Stephan suggested that more forums would be needed in the future. “I would recommend 10 other future panels, workshops and events involving leaders of resistance movements around the world and have them share their stories, their strategies and tactics and have the whole community engage with that,” she said. The third panel featured speakers including Sidi Omar, who is the UNESCO chair of philosophy for peace, Kyla Rathjen,
NEWS............................................1 FEATURES.................................4 ARTS & LIVING.......................6
see FLETCHER, page 2
FUN & GAMES.........................8 OPINION.....................................9 SPORTS............................ BACK