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THE TUFTS DAILY
TUFTSDAILY.COM
Friday, January 16, 2015
VOLUME LXVIV, NUMBER 2
Where You Read It First Est. 1980
Shehadi selected as new Fares Center director by Aaron Pomerance Assistant News Editor
The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy announced the selection of Nadim Shehadi as the new director of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies last month. Shehadi previously served as the director of Lebanese studies at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and worked for the European Union writing foreign policy and creating strategies for relations with the Middle East and North Africa. Shehadi will continue to serve as an associate fellow of the Chatham House in London, where he is the director of a program focused on Palestinian refugees in the Middle East. “[Shehadi] was a very good choice,” Leila Fawaz, the Issam M. Fares professor of Lebanese and Eastern Mediterranean Studies and founding director of the Fares Center, said. Fawaz led the Fares Center as founding director from its inauguration in 2001 until 2012. Fawaz added that a goal of the Fares Center is to “bring together different viewpoints” in order to communicate an understanding of the Middle East to students, notably
through studying relationships between the groups involved in Middle Eastern conflicts. Shehadi will “take Tufts a step higher,” Fawaz said. She hopes that as director of the program Shehadi will continue to develop the Fares Center as a largely student-run, discussion-based organization, that includes the Mediterranean Club. Student participation and research are important to the Mediterranean Club at the Fares Center, according to Fawaz. She said she believes that open discussion and diversity of opinion are what make the Fares Center successful, and that Shehadi will continue to develop the center according to these values. Ian Johnstone, academic dean and professor of international law at the Fletcher School, also explained that Shehadi’s experience directing research programs and working as a policymaker and advisor made him a good choice for the role. Shehadi has also served as a commentator on Middle Eastern affairs for various media outlets, including CNN and Al Jazeera. Johnstone, who was also one of the members of the see SHEHADI, page 2
Tufts Debate shows rapid growth by Sophie Dasinger Features Editor
The Tufts Debate Society, the only official student-run competitive debate team at Tufts, is coming off a strong semester in which it hosted a tournament and competed at the World Universities Debating Championship. According to senior Noah Kirsch, the team’s president, the team’s membership and skill have grown considerably in just a few short years. “When I was a freshman three years ago, we had about seven active members and a very limited tryout process,” Kirsch said. “Today, after our most competitive tryouts ever, we have almost 30 members, and are now ranked as one of the top 20 debate teams in the country.” According to Vice President Drew Latimer, the team saw its largest first-year class ever this past fall. First-year Nihaarika Sharma was one of these new members. After attending a number of general interest meetings for various student organizations, she elected to participate in the debate team despite entering college with the intention of continuing her Model U.N.
experience from high school. “What got me interested was the fact that … debate was the most focused on reasoning and your logic and critical thinking, which I thought was important in general,” Sharma said. Although everyone is welcome to try out and join the team, certain majors are more prevalent. “I’d say most people on the team do something in philosophy or social sciences,” Latimer said. According to Sharma, practices are held every Tuesday and Thursday. Members of the team are encouraged to bring potential debate topics to practices. Latimer explained that many of these stem from current events. “Every individual thinks about topics that are interesting to them and does research, and then before a debate round they present the topic, give a little bit of background information [and] both teams are able to ask questions,” Latimer said. Sharma attests that these practices are critical in gaining experience for the actual debates. “The more [practices] you go to, the better you get,” Sharma said. “[ The instructors] give us tips on different see DEBATE, page 2
Nicholas Pfosi / The Tufts Daily
Students listen to Tufts senior John Kelly speak during the Enough Is Enough Rally for Trans Rights on the Lower Campus Center Patio on Jan. 14.
Students rally against transphobia, declare 'enough is enough' by Emma Steiner Daily Staff Writer
Tufts students gathered at the Mayer Campus Center’s lower patio on Wednesday to speak out against transphobia, conversion therapy, gay/trans panic defense and institutionalized hatred. The rally, titled “Enough is Enough: Rally for Trans Rights,” was sparked by the suicide of transgender teen Leelah Alcorn in December, Jaquelyn Hyde, a first-year who organized the rally, said. Several students, as well as Director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Center Nino Testa, shared statements about their experiences as LGBT or gender nonconforming students. Rally organizer Taylor Strelevitz explained that sharing personal stories was an important way to raise awareness. “The statements were intended to share a breadth of different experiences and to really be an opportunity for people to use those experiences to inform and contextualize Leelah’s death and then use that to fuel further action,” Strelevitz, a senior, said. Though prompted by Alcorn’s suicide, Hyde explained that the rally was meant to bring to light the many forms of violence, including conversion therapy, that have caused Alcorn and many other transgender people to end their lives. In his speech, Testa described such forms of violence as “terrorism” because they cause members of the LGBT community to feel extreme fear and shame in their own communities. “Leelah is not just a figure, a trope, an icon; she was a person, and we failed her,” Testa told the crowd. “We didn’t offer her the world she deserved, and we will never know what she could have offered us. It is necessary to sit with the discomfort of the loss.” According to Strelevitz, the rally was also intended to raise
Inside this issue
awareness about the transphobia that occurs on the Tufts campus. “Transphobia exists here. It isn’t isolated to the Bible Belt or some random town in the middle of nowhere, it’s happening on our campus, it’s happening to people here and it’s really relevant,” she said. Strelevitz, Hyde and senior John Kelly, all of whom spoke at the rally, discussed their own experiences with namecalling and gender-related slurs on campus. “I don’t walk down [Professor’s] Row anymore,” Kelly said, “which makes it hard to get to Medical Services.” Health Services is one of a number of obstacles that transgender students face at Tufts, Hyde explained. According to Hyde, almost no gender surgeries are covered by the health care plan Tufts offers to students, and hormones are only covered in very specific situations. They also said that the policy regarding gender surgery was unclear. “I sent some emails back and forth to the office. What I got back was … ‘just type into the website “gender surgery” and see what you can find.’ I’m not really sure how to describe that kind of response beyond, I suppose, crass and dismissive,” Hyde said. On a more day-to-day level, Hyde said that changing preferred pronouns within Tufts’ systems is extremely difficult, which can lead to some uncomfortable situations in the classroom. “Its difficult to inform your professor ahead of time what pronouns you want them to use, but at the same time you can’t exactly comfortably raise your hand in the middle of a class of 200-some-odd people and say ‘excuse me, you just referred to me with the wrong pronouns,’” they said. Hyde explained that in order to avoid this situation, students must go to 200 Boston Ave. and ask to have an email sent to their professors. According to Hyde,
simply going through this process can be very stressful, adding that there is no distinct procedure for changing pronouns throughout all of Tufts’ systems. “On one hand, purposely misgendering someone and referring to them with the wrong pronouns is a form of harassment, but at the same time there is no way to specify the right pronouns after you have matriculated,” they said. Strelevitz emphasized the necessity of improving Tufts’ ability to support transgender students by offering adequate medical services, recognizing preferred gender pronouns and providing ubiquitous gender neutral housing and bathrooms. “What’s especially upsetting is that Tufts had been lauded as one of the best in terms of transfriendly health services in terms of college campuses, and then to hear a story like [Hyde’s] just shows how low the bar has been set,” Strelevitz said. Beyond Tufts, Strelevitz and Hyde hope to see an end to conversion therapy, gay/trans panic defense and LGBT hatred, as well as a changed attitude about transgender and gender nonconforming people. According to Hyde and Strelevitz, changing day-to-day interactions is essential to ending transphobia. These changes in attitude go beyond simply being aware of preferred pronouns, Hyde explained; they include eliminating assumptions about gender, combating heteronormative stereotypes and changing beauty standards for women and trans women alike. “Being a good ally is far beyond the step of correcting pronoun usage and not being directly transphobic,” Strelevitz said. “It’s volunteering for organizations, it’s putting your money where your mouth is and donating, it’s being there and being friends with people. It goes so much farther than getting the names right.”
Today’s sections
‘Galavant’ charms viewers with new twist on traditional tale.
Women’s track team looks to remain competitve despite members abroad.
see ARTS, page 3
see SPORTS, page 8
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