The Tufts Daily - Tuesday, February 5, 2019

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WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Ears for Peers reaches 30-year milestone see FEATURES / PAGE 4

Team dunks on Hamilton after loss to Amherst

Housing lottery reforms do not go far enough see OPINION / PAGE 9

SEE SPORTS / BACK PAGE

THE

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T HE T UFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXXVII, ISSUE 9

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Tuesday, February 5, 2019

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

Andrew Shiotani named as new director of International Center by Alejandra Carrillo Assistant News Editor

The Tufts community received an email announcing Andrew Shiotani as the new director of the International Center (I-Center) on Jan. 28. Shiotani assumes the leadership role of Jane Etish-Andrews, who retired after 35 years of work at Tufts. The I-Center provides immigration and student services to undergraduate and graduate students across all of Tufts’ schools. According to the email, Shiotani previously served as the associate director for International Student and Scholar Services at the University of Oregon in Eugene. He also worked as the program coordinator of the Office of Global Engagement at Seattle University, and associate director of the Office of International Services at Teachers College Columbia University in New York City. Shiotani expressed his excitement in joining the Tufts community in an interview with the Daily. “I am thrilled to be here at Tufts,” Shiotani said. “I’ve always known it to be a school that has an amazing array

of academic programs and students and faculty from around the world that are globally engaged and really highly committed to becoming leaders in their respective fields.” He also commended Etish-Andrews for the programs and opportunities the I-Center provided to students under her leadership. “There is a wonderful foundation of programs already in place to support students that includes the GO pre-orientation program,” he said. Shiotani also noted the university’s reputation as a factor that encouraged him to join the institution as director of the I-Center. “What really attracted me to Tufts was Tufts’ academic and international reputation,” Shiotani said. “It is an incredibly academically and culturally vibrant institution.” Having lived in Somerville 30 years ago, he established a long-term personal connection to Tufts. “I knew Tufts from then and my friends from college actually went to Tufts,” Shiotani said. “I’ve had personal connections with Tufts — it was not an unknown entity to me.”

Diana Chigas, senior international officer and associate provost, oversees the I-Center and spoke to the Daily about the change in organization of the center. She explained that, in the past, there were three offices: the International Center located on the Medford campus, the International Student and Scholar Advisor Office at the Fletcher School and an International Office in Boston for the Health Sciences campus. As of July 1, 2018 they were combined into one university-wide center located on the Medford campus. Chigas also acknowledged current differences between the I-Center and the Group of Six, of which the I-Center used to be a member. “When it was set up, the International Center was part of the School of Arts and Sciences and was set up the same as the other group of centers,” Chigas said. “The big difference with the I-Center is that it also has to do the visa services with student scholars and faculty. It’s not part of the Group of Six because it’s not reporting to the same person … now it serves a much larger constituency.” According to Chigas, though the I-Center is not similar in organization to

the Group of Six, it collaborates and cooperates with the other centers to provide support and programming for students. Chigas explained the selection of Shiotani as director of the I-Center, noting that his strong leadership skills added to his qualifications. “A lot of the I-Center was very undergraduate-focused so a lot of what we were looking at when we were looking for a new director was someone who was really good at the immigration stuff and someone who was committed to and has the experience in programming support for students,” she said. “Andrew was really knowledgeable and detail-oriented and very involved in creating orientation programs.” First-year student Haitong Du has had positive experiences with the I-Center, noting that its events and workshops have been very helpful to him. “In my experience the I-Center has been very competent in providing instructions on how students obtain certain legal documentation, and they also organize monthly events including workshop sessions to help see I-CENTER, page 2

Bernard Fraga discusses race, turnout gap at Tisch College Civic Life Lunch by Bridget Wall Staff Writer

The Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life hosted its first Civic Life Lunch of the semester on Feb. 4 featuring Bernard Fraga, a political science professor at Indiana University and author of “The Turnout Gap: Race, Ethnicity, and Political Inequality in a Diversifying America.” Fraga said that he has been working on research connected to the voter gap for several years, beginning with the research for his dissertation. “I think it is really pointing to an important trend and feature of American elections today,” Fraga explained. Fraga said that in light of the unprecedented results of the 2016 United States presidential election, it is important to look at the number of people who vote. Most of the time, surveys are used to represent the number of citizens who actually vote; however, respondents are more likely to report voting on a survey even if they did not actually vote in the election, according to Fraga. Fraga uses a database called Catalist to look at the number of eligible people who choose to vote. Some surveys report that 80 to 90 percent of eligible voters actually

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vote; however, the real data reveals that about 60 percent of eligible Americans vote in the presidential elections, and about 40 percent in the midterms, Fraga said. Voter-file based modeling also helps Fraga to look at the many disparities that exist within the population of voters. In his book, he hopes to address the question of why there are racial and ethnic differences in voter turnout. Fraga attributes this disparity to a lack of political mobilization for minority groups. “When a group has more influence in the electoral process, they are more likely to vote,” he said. This statement holds true in districts that have a majority-white voting population and districts with a majority minority population. Because the majority of voting districts are driven by white voters, their voter turnout is typically high because their needs are met, according to Fraga. Fraga has discovered that the racial turnout gap is greatly decreased, and sometimes even reversed, for voting districts with a nonwhite voting majority. In districts where there is a majority AfricanAmerican voting population, voter mobilization efforts differ from those in the rest of the country, according to Fraga.

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For example, there is an effort in Florida to mobilize African-American voters called Souls to the Polls, where AfricanAmerican voters can vote in elections after attending church. He said that these mobilization efforts work in other minority communities as well. “In heavily Latino districts, the turnout gap is cut in half,” Fraga said. Meghan O’Brien, a sophomore, chose to come to this event because of her interest in elections, and electoral reforms in particular. She connected Fraga’s research with her own work at a nonprofit in Boston, where she helps to look at policies that can be made to encourage more eligible people to vote. “I thought specifically his counter-factual that he presented, where he showed if voters of color had the same turnout rates as white people and what the differences would be, was especially striking,” she said. Peter de Guzman, the coordinator of JumboVote and student outreach coordinator for Tisch College, said the event was a collaboration between the organizations. “This event was born out of a focus of JumboVote and Tisch College to center

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race more because it is such an integral impact on political life and voting,” de Guzman said. It is part of a series at Tisch College called the Civic Life Lunches, where speakers are brought to Tufts in an informal setting for a presentation and discussion afterward. This informal setting allows time for questions following the speaker and differs from other formal events that Tisch College holds, such as their Distinguished Speaker Series events, according to de Guzman. Fraga said that encouraging voting will not necessarily change an election outcome. “There is not a difference in what people want; it’s a difference in who shows up,” he said. “We spend a lot of time disparaging individuals who don’t turn out to vote.” He recommended looking into the reasons why these individuals choose not to vote and identifying certain hurdles, rather than attacking these individuals for not doing their civic duty. “Focusing on voter engagement instead of voter suppression might be more of a solution,” Fraga said.

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

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


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