Dear Editor:
Every year, at the beginning of September, Tufts students return to campus and to the adjoining neighborhoods of Medford and Somerville.
For the most part, they seem excited and happy to be here. But for many of the other residents of these neighborhoods - those of us who live our lives here: raise our children, try as best we can to fulfill all of our other duties and obligations, etc. - the return of the students is not a happy time. Often, we dread it.
We dread the loud music, drunken screams and honking cars on the streets in front of our homes at the middle of the night, the speeding cars and broken glass that make us worry for our children, the trash strewn all over, waiting to be picked up by the silent, anonymous laborers of the university - never (so far as I know) by the students themselves.
But perhaps even more than we dread any of these particular things, we dread the general attitude they betoken: the rude obliviousness, the utter lack of consideration for those who live their lives next to them.
Indeed, it seems safe to assume that the students are not even aware of the fact that this is how many of their neighbors feel; for if they were, surely they would do something about this. Surely, the students would not take it that they have an entitlement to enjoy themselves, which trumps their neighbors' entitlement to sleep at night, or to wake up to a street clean of plastic cups and broken glass.
Those of us who are lucky enough to meet the students in the classroom know that they are capable of wonderful sensitivity and reflectiveness. And one wonders: Must these young and bright people's first experience of independent life away from home take this form? Can't this first opportunity to take full responsibility for themselves rather encourage the students to take notice of the lives of others and to acknowledge the effects of their behavior on those who live next to them?
This would not mean not partying; it would only mean partying without doing anything to be ashamed of. After all, Tufts students are well known for being heavily invested in community service and activism all over the world.
Can't good-doing start a little closer to home?
Avner BazAssistant Professor Department of Philosophy
