TuftsDaily09-24-2012

Page 1

Sunny 67/47

THE TUFTS DAILY

TUFTSDAILY.COM

monday, September 24, 2012

VOLUME LXIV, NUMBER 12

Where You Read It First Est. 1980

Davis Square protestors demand workers’ rights by Jenna

Buckle

Daily Editorial Board

Andrew Schneer / The Tufts Daily

Following safety concerns during last year’s Tufts Dance Collective performance, the Office for Campus Life has been working with the group to revamp the show’s structure.

Tufts Dance Collective reduces size, reforms structure Daphne Kolios

Daily Editorial Board

Tufts Dance Collective ( TDC) has reduced its number of dances and participants this fall as part of ongoing efforts to address logistical and safety concerns. An incident during last semester’s show in which body paint used for a dance inflicted damage to the walls of the Aidekman Arts Center prompted reevaluation of the group’s size and structure. At the request of the management of Cohen Auditorium, where TDC performances are held, the Office for Campus

Life (OCL) got involved to facilitate the implementation of a safer, more organized performance system, according to OCL Director Joe Golia. “We’re here to help them have a successful event and continue the future of this event,” Golia said. Following the paint incident last semester, the TDC Executive Board was told that this semester’s show would be put on hold pending changes, according to Golia. However, a Dec. 7 show date has now been set, senior Markus Willhite, a member of the TDC Board, said. Golia said the OCL has been

working with the TDC Board to evaluate possible changes that would guarantee the show’s safety and organization. “We’ve told them the shows can happen. They just have to make some adjustments,” Golia said. “The ball’s in their court.” The TDC Board this summer brainstormed ways to address the show’s organizational and safety shortcomings, according to Willhite. The primary concern for the TDC Board and OCL was reducing the number of participants, as the large size of the group of dancers made it difficult to see TDC, page 2

Tufts rises in U.S. News, Forbes college rankings by

Audrey Michael

Daily Editorial Board

Tufts received a boost in college rankings recently released by two national magazines. Tufts landed at No. 28 in U.S. News & World Report’s 2013 “Best National Universities” list unveiled on Sept. 12, up one spot from last year. Forbes Magazine’s annual ranking of 650 top colleges across the country now lists Tufts at No. 32, seven spots higher than its standing last year. Yet Tufts’ upward moment in these lists means little to many university officials and students, who dispute the importance of overall rankings in assessing the quality of a Tufts education. Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Lee Coffin acknowledged that rankings create a stir every year after

their release, but questioned the methodology used to calculate them. “On the magazine’s website, the editor of the college rankings issue, Robert Morse, acknowledges that ‘the intangibles that make up the college experience can’t be measured by a series of data points,’” Coffin told the Daily in an email. Director of Public Relations Kim Thurler agreed that the methodology used to determine rankings is potentially flawed and downplayed the importance of promoting the university through its rankings. “There is no doubt that some rankings are influential,” Thurler said in an email. “However, ranking methodology typically incorporates many components that vary greatly from one organization to the next and those

methodologies may or may not be sound.” Coffin said that the secondary statistics U.S. News produces are more useful in demonstrating a university’s quality than the rankings themselves. Tufts’ freshman retention rate of 96.5 percent is roughly the same as most “Top 30” universities, according to Coffin. The statistic that 69.1 percent of Tufts classes have 20 or fewer students is also comparable to other top universities, he added. “Those are very useful things for an applicant to know,” Coffin said. He noted that some universities may rank well overall but are lacking in certain secondary areas, such as fouryear graduation rates. Coffin pointed out in partic-

Inside this issue

see RANK, page 2

A group of approximately 20 protestors assembled outside of Diva Indian Bistro in Davis Square on Friday evening to rally against an alleged withholding of $130,000 in wages from immigrant employees. The protests at Diva have been going on for several months as part of a campaign advocating for a few immigrant workers who have been victims of wage theft, according to Patrick McDermott, Workers Rights Organizer at the Latin American immigrant rights organization Centro Presente. “The workers should have been paid a long time ago, and we’re not going anywhere until they get paid,” McDermott told Friday’s crowd. “We’re out here now to ask them to pay the workers every cent of what they owe.” The restaurant company that owns Diva, One World Cuisine, has been treating its immigrant employees unfairly by paying them illegally low wages, according to Lecturer in Tufts’ Department of Romance Languages Andrew Klatt, who attended the protest.

“Centro Presente is helping the workers, and they’re trying to inform the community that this criminal activity is going on here,” Klatt said. One World Cuisine owns numerous restaurants in the area, including Mumbai Chopstix on Newbury Street in Boston and Bukhara in Jamaica Plain. Immigrant workers at these restaurants — as well as at Diva — have not been adequately compensated for their labor, according to the Centro Presente website. The protest at Diva began at 6 p.m. on Friday and lasted for about an hour, with picketers circling in front of the restaurant, handing out informational leaflets and dissuading passersby from entering the restaurant. Centro Presente’s chants included “One World Cuisine, pay your workers!” and “Justice Now!” “These guys were hourly employees,” McDermott said. “These guys were working in the kitchen long weeks, for 72 to 78 hours. They’d go in at 10 or 11 in the morning. They’d get out at 11 at night, sometimes later on Thursday see DIVA, page 2

Tufts student sells spot in iPhone 5 line for $460 The debut of the iPhone 5 last week proved profitable for Tufts senior Brett Andler, who sold his spot in the Boylston Street Apple store line for $460 on Friday morning. Andler said a bidding war for his spot in line broke out among customers arriving at 7:30 a.m., half an hour before the store opened. He was No. 21 in line. “I didn’t have a price in mind,” Andler said. “I thought, if the price is right I’ll give it to them.” Camped out in line since Thursday afternoon, Andler said he began contemplating selling his spot at 4:00 a.m on Friday. With supplies purchased from a nearby Walgreens, Andler made a sign on neon green poster board that read, “Need to be @ work? Buy my spot up front!” He walked along the line a couple times, from Boylston Street to a side street and onto Newbury Street. Andler believes that people were hoping to purchase a new iPhone on their way to work, but after seeing how long the line was, they were willing to buy a spot in the front. “The people who got there at 4:00 a.m. were not interested [in buying my spot],” he said. “The real market was all the people coming at 7:30 [a.m.] or so.” Andler said the woman he sold his spot to was desperate to get the iPhone 5 because

her current mobile phone was broken, and she did not want to have to go phoneless until the store restocked. Apple store employees handed out note cards to everyone in the line at 6:30 a.m., guaranteeing them an iPhone 5, according to Andler. He decided to ask for two note cards with plans to only purchase one phone. Selling the extra card allowed him to buy a black, 64 GB iPhone 5 for $399. “I was planning on [waiting in line] for free. It was an added bonus,” Andler said. Andler said his decision to camp out Thursday was only partially rooted in the fact that he had not pre-ordered an iPhone 5. “I’m never going to do this as an old, real person, so I might as well do it as a stupid, college student,” he said. Andler, a mechanical engineering major, said he was able to network while waiting in line. A former electrical engineer who was impressed by Andler’s entrepreneurship even offered to put Andler in touch with friends. “There was absolutely no loss for me,” Andler said. “If I know that I can get a free phone out of it every time, then I would absolutely do it again.”

—by Melissa Mandelbaum

Today’s sections

Kate Bornstein, lecturing today in Cohen Auditorium, talks to the Daily about gender and Scientology.

Actor Karl Urban dishes on his starring role in “Dredd 3D.”

see FEATURES, page 3

see ARTS, page 5

News Features Arts & Living Editorial | Letters

1 3 5 8

Op-Ed Comics Classifieds Sports

9 10 11 Back


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.
TuftsDaily09-24-2012 by The Tufts Daily - Issuu