TuftsDaily10-22-2012

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THE TUFTS DAILY

Sunny 64/45

VOLUME LXIV, NUMBER 30

Where You Read It First Est. 1980 TUFTSDAILY.COM

monday, october 22, 2012

TCF loses official TCUJ recognition, plans to appeal by

Martha Shanahan

Daily Editorial Board

Courtesy Justin McCallum

The student dance group Sarabande will again be offering Open Dance Classes in the Jackson Dance Lab after its cancellation last month.

Sarabande Open Dance Class back after cancellation by

Melissa Mandelbaum Daily Editorial Board

Sarabande’s Open Dance Class has been reinstated after its initial discontinuation by the new Director of Dance Renata Celichowska last month. The weekly class is taught by members of the student dance ensemble Sarabande and open to all Tufts students interested in learning modern dance. The cancellation was due to a miscommunication with Celichowska, who expressed legal, safety and insurance concerns. Although the Department of Drama and Dance has no direct jurisdiction over Sarabande, the group must meet with the department each semester to reserve time in the Jackson Dance Lab for the classes. In early September, Sarabande was informed that they would not be allowed to use the space in Jackson for the Open

Dance Class, according to Sarabande President Kathryn Eckert, a senior. Celichowska then notified Sarabande via email on Sept. 28 that Open Dance Class could return as long as it was restricted to currently registered Tufts students, after discussing her concerns about Tufts’ liability for student injuries with Director of the Office for Campus Life Joseph Golia. Sarabande last Sunday held its first Open Dance Class of the semester, attended by seven students, coordinator of the classes Yessenia Rivas, a junior, said. Sarabande had hoped to have Open Dance Class participants perform in the group’s semester shows on Nov. 15 and 17, but the month-long halt on the class has prevented those plans from moving forward, Rivas said. The group expects to be able to have participants perform in the spring semes-

Patrick McGrath

Daily Editorial Board

Tufts Food Week will be held for the first time starting today, featuring a number of different events focusing on food and food-related issues. Food Week is organized by Tufts Food for Thought, a student group co-founded by seniors Emily Wyner and Mariah Gruner last October in response to the campus’ lack of an organization that addresses food-related issues such as the growth, production and preparation of food, according to Wyner. Tufts Food for Thought became a branch organization of Tufts Sustainability Collective in January. Food Week was planned to coincide with the national celebration of Food Day on Wednesday, according to Wyner, director and co-founder of Food for Thought. “The hope was that we just would broadly raise awareness for some of these issues,” she said. “So the idea was to have as many little events as we could in a week.” Events for the week include a film screening of the documentary “King Corn” and tours of the Davis Square Farmers Market and Tom Thumb’s Student Garden.

see TCF, page 2

see SARABANDE, page 2

Food Week kicks off today by

Tufts Christian Fellowship (TCF) has lost its official recognition as a Tufts Community Union (TCU) student group over alleged discriminatory clauses in the group’s constitutional requirements for its leaders. TCF leadership says the group plans to appeal the decision. The group’s Vision and Planning Team (VPT) failed to make revisions to their governing document that would bring it in line with the TCU Constitution’s non-discriminatory clause, Judiciary Chair Adam Sax, a senior, said. As an unrecognized group, TCF will lose the right to use the Tufts name in its title or at any activities, schedule events or reserve university space through the Office for Campus Life and request and receive funding allocated by the TCU Treasury, Sax said. TCF is the Tufts chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, an evangelical Christian mission on college campuses across the country, and also has ties to the university Chaplaincy. The group had been operating in a state of suspended recognition after the Judiciary found that the group’s consti-

tution excluded students from applying to leadership positions based on their beliefs. The clauses in question require that any TCF member who wishes to apply for a leadership role must adhere to a series of tenets called a Basis of Faith, or eight “basic Biblical truths of Christianity.” The Judiciary last month recommended that TCF move the belief-based leadership requirements from the constitution’s bylaws, which are legally binding, to its mission statement, which is not. By the first week of October, TCF had not submitted any amendments, so Sax set a deadline of Oct. 18 for the group to do so. “It was long enough for the [Judiciary] to say, ‘This is something that needs to start getting done,’” Sax said. The VPT solicited feedback from TCF members and submitted a proposal for a new draft to be reviewed by the Judiciary. The revised constitution, among other changes, shifted a clause requiring leaders to follow the Basis of Faith to the constitution’s opening article and reworded several clauses in the article on leadership selection. After reviewing the revised constitu-

Tufts Culinary Society on Thursday will be hosting a cooking demonstration for students interested in learning how to make butternut squash pasta and apple crisp. Some of the events hosted during Food Week are organized or co-sponsored by other organizations on campus, including Tufts Hillel, according to Wyner. Sara Gardner, a freshman, proposed the idea for Food Week during Food for Thought’s first meeting last month. “The first Food for Thought meeting was a giant brainstorm session of ideas of projects that we could do throughout the year relating to food, and so I brought out this idea,” Gardner said. Much of the early development and planning for Food Week was spearheaded by Gardner and senior Eric Siegel, but members of Food for Thought worked collaboratively to plan the week’s events, according to Gardner. “I would love to see people starting to really think about their food — where it comes from, what it’s made with, who does it affect, what does it affect beyond the immediate tangible action of eating,” she said. see FOOD, page 2

Inside this issue

Kyra Sturgill / The Tufts Daily

JumboBooks, a student-led textbook donation program, is looking to expand its services this semester.

Student launches textbook donation program by James

Pouliot

Daily Editorial Board

Students frustrated by high textbook costs may soon have another means of accessing books for their courses. This fall, sophomore Tyler Agyemang opened a campus-based book donation program to alleviate the cost and inconvenience of purchasing textbooks. JumboBooks, which currently exists as a Facebook page, is hoping to expand its audience to become a viable alternative to bookstores and rentals. Agyemang developed the idea for JumboBooks this summer when he real-

ized that he had hundreds of books in his home that he did not plan to read. He then decided to launch an on-campus hub for free, used textbooks on LibraryThing.com. The concept, however, has yet to get off the ground, Agyemang said. While a book “drop-off day” was announced earlier this semester, only 10 to 15 donors actually showed up, he said, adding that he received approximately 100 books. A general interest meeting scheduled for Oct. 16 in Hodgdon Hall went unattended, according to Agyemang. see TEXTBOOKS, page 2

Today’s sections

Tufts’ chapter of J Street U joins the IsraeliPalestinian conversation on campus.

Blue Man Group brings down the house at its College Media Night performance.

see FEATURES, page 3

see ARTS, page 5

News Features Arts & Living Comics

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Editorial | Op-Ed Op-Ed Classifieds Sports

8 9 10 Back


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