The Tufts Daily - Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Page 1

‘Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse’ remixes a Marvel classic see ARTS&LIVING / PAGE 4

JULIÁN CANCINO

Latino Center director says farewell

Women’s basketball falls to top-ranked Bowdoin after 12 straight wins see SPORTS / BACK PAGE

SEE OPINION / PAGE 8

THE

VOLUME LXXVII, ISSUE 1

INDEPENDENT

STUDENT

N E W S PA P E R

OF

TUFTS

UNIVERSITY

E S T. 1 9 8 0

T HE T UFTS DAILY tuftsdaily.com

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

Foster not chosen for Trustee ballot, student activists disappointed by Alexander Thompson Staff Writer

Nathan Foster (LA ‘18) ended his campaign for an alumni trustee seat on the Tufts University Board of Trustees on Dec. 18, after not being selected for the ballot by the Nominating Committee of the Tufts University Alumni Council. “While I respect this decision, it just shows the need for real democratic reforms,” Foster said in a video posted on his campaign’s Facebook page, announcing the end of his campaign. Deliberations of the Nominating Committee are confidential, according to Stephen Wermiel, the president of the Alumni Council. Foster had launched his campaign in September 2018, and wrote in a Sept. 18 op-ed in the Daily that he was running to make the Board more democratic and to address the increasing cost of attending Tufts. Foster’s campaign attracted significant support in the Tufts community. An endorsement letter posted on Foster’s campaign Facebook garnered 180 signatures from current students and alumni, according to documents provided by Foster. Thirteen student groups on campus including Tufts Progressive Alliance, Tufts Labor Coalition, and Tufts Democrats also endorsed Foster, according to a separate endorsement letter reviewed by the Daily. The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate passed resolution S. 18-10 endorsing Foster on Oct. 14 by a vote of 25-3, with two members abstaining.

Foster applied to become an alumni trustee, who, according to the Tufts Alumni and Friends website, comprise 10 of the 40 members of the Board. The application requires a potential candidate to be nominated or self-nominated to run in the election. Applicants are considered and nominees are chosen by the Nominating Committee, a 10-12 member group composed of members of the Alumni Council, an elected body of 250 alumni. The Nominating Committee chooses two nominees for each available alumni trustee seat, according to Wermiel. The seats currently held by Laurie Gabriel (J’76) and Hugh R. Roome III (A’74, F’77, FG’80, FG’80) are up for election, so Foster was competing for one of four nominations for a place on the ballot that will be emailed to all Tufts alumni in February. Wermiel told the Daily that 19 applicants had been considered, including Foster, and that Kenneth Fan (E’01, F’07), David Meyers (A’96), Lori Roth (J’86) and Sonja Weinkopf-Bartlett (J’90) had been selected. Wermiel informed Foster that he had not been selected for the ballot in a Dec. 13 email, reviewed by the Daily. The email said that this year was more competitive for candidates hoping to be Alumni Trustee than recent years. Foster criticized the nominee selection process as undemocratic. “I think that now a lot more people are aware that even for this relatively small number of Board of Trustee seats that are technically elected, the election is not the most important part of the process,” Foster said.

MADELEINE OLIVER / THE TUFTS DAILY

Nathan Foster (LA ‘18) poses for a portrait outside of Tisch Library on Sept. 18, 2018. Jonah O’Mara Schwartz, a Class of 2019 TCU senator and one of the co-authors of Senate resolution that endorsed Foster, said he joined the Senate to make change

at Tufts but has been consistently stymied by the inaccessibility of the Board, and see TRUSTEE , page 2

Tufts Admissions receives record number of applications for Class of 2023 by Anton Shenk Staff Writer

According to Karen Richardson, dean of admissions and enrollment management, Tufts Admissions received a record 22,725 applications to the Schools of Arts and Sciences and Engineering for the Class of 2023, an increase of 5.7 percent from the record-setting pool last year. Record numbers of applicants also submitted early decision (ED) applications, totaling nearly 2,500 applicants, an increase from 2,262 the previous year. Although the admissions department is still in the early stages of reviewing applications, Richardson has noticed similarities among early admissions applications.

Please recycle this newspaper

Mostly Sunny 41 / 17

/thetuftsdaily

“Applicants tell us they are attracted to Tufts because of our collaborative, inclusive culture, our first-rate and well-rounded curriculum, the residential feel of the campus, our smaller classes, opportunities for research and self-discovery and the ability to take part in various activities outside of the classroom,” she said in an email to the Daily. Noah Bedrosian, a first-year who applied ED last year, echoed many of the same sentiments, citing Tufts’ mix of opportunities in different fields and its strengths in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) as the reason he chose to apply ED. “I found myself wanting to apply ED simply because Tufts was my favorite school I toured,” Bedrosian told the Daily in an electronic message. “I think what really stood

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out was the focus on STEM and the ability to take classes in engineering, for me it was super vital to have that option/freedom. Along with that, I wanted a liberal arts environment that was politically active, and Tufts really fit that.” According to Richardson, 17 percent of applications for the Class of 2023 came from international students, matching the percentage from last year. The article also notes an increased number of applications to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts. According to Richardson, students interested in the BFA. program totaled 328, up from 271 last year, while applications for the combined degree BA/BFA program totaled 285, an increase from 219 applications.

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According to US News & World Report, students who apply ED to college programs generally do not receive the same opportunities to compare aid packages between schools as regular decision applicants. Director of Financial Aid and Co-Manager of Student Financial Services Patricia Reilly noted that Tufts has financial need in mind for all applicants. Reilly said that Tufts’ rising tuition has not made Tufts less accessible to students needing financial aid. She said she is proud of the university’s commitment to making the school accessible for students from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds, adding that a

NEWS............................................1 ARTS & LIVING.......................4 OPINION.....................................8

see ADMISSIONS, page 6

FUN & GAMES.........................9 SPORTS............................ BACK


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