Editor’s note: The Daily’s editorial department acknowledges that this article is premised on a conflict of interest. This article is a special feature for Commencement 2025 that does not represent the Daily’s standard journalistic practices.
Like many other first-year students arriving at Tufts, Aaron Gruen had little idea of how he’d spend his next four years of college. After auditioning for improv and a cappella groups in search of his niche, Gruen instead turned toward the Daily to try his hand at journalism.
Although initially unsure of where this commitment would take him, Gruen — now a graduating senior — leaves behind a legacy at the Daily defined by strong journalism and caring leadership, having guided the paper as editor-in-chief, executive news editor and executive investigative editor. “I had absolutely no intention of going where I am right now,” Gruen said of that first semester, adding that the Daily just “stuck.”
Like many new members of the Daily, Gruen neglected to attend his first DailyCon, the newspaper’s introductory training for new members. Soon after taking some photography assignments, Gruen wrote his first news story covering the end of Tufts’ Portuguese language program. From there, he was hooked.
The story “gained a lot of traction,” and he was eager to continue reporting. One of his next stories, which detailed the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on disability rights in Somerville, shaped his early conceptions of journalism. Emotional after interviewing a mother about her daughter’s passing during the pandemic, Gruen questioned whether or not reporting was for him.
“It took everything in my power to stay composed during the interview. As soon as I logged off of Zoom, I just broke down and sobbed,” he said. “At first, I thought, ‘This is a sign that I shouldn’t be doing this; journalists are supposed to be stoic and impassive and emotionless and unbiased.’”
But counter to the notion of rigidly objective journalism, Gruen decided to lean into his intense emotions and let empathy, a value he hopes to be remembered for, drive his storytelling.
“Feeling can be an asset; emotions make you invested. If a journalist is invested in the story, then readers will be invested in it,” Gruen said. “It shines through in the writing and the reporting.”
Since then, Gruen has played a key part in covering unprecedented stories on Tufts’ campus, including allegations of professional misconduct within the university’s admissions department. Taking three months to report, the publication of Gruen’s investigative story was a “formative moment” in his career that solidified his passion for journalism.
To established editors, it was clear early on that Gruen would take on leadership high up on the masthead. “I’m not at all surprised that he was extremely successful in his college journalism career,” Chloe Courtney Bohl (LA’24), a former editor-in-chief of the Daily and a friend of Gruen’s, said. As his editor, Courtney Bohl took note of Gruen’s tenacious and creative reporting.
“My impression of him was that he was just this energetic, inquisitive, really skilled and shrewd reporter,” Courtney Bohl said. “He clearly was so invested in the mission of the Daily and just put so much of himself into the role.”
As a junior, Gruen became editor-in-chief and led the newsroom during a fall semester marked by campus tension. He said that while serving on the managing board, he and his fellow members put special emphasis on making the Daily’s office a more welcoming space for newcomers.
“One of our priorities as a managing board was to give students, especially new students, somewhere they instantly felt included, respected and valued,” he said. “We also wanted to create an environment where students were having fun, and so we really tried to emphasize the community aspect of the Daily.”
In addition to his keen eye for journalism, Gruen is known for his consideration of others. At the end of a “whirlwind weekend” of reporting on a labor strike to be carried out by Tufts’ resident assistants, Courtney Bohl said that Gruen offered to prepare her a nicely-made pasta dinner as thanks. Gruen, a cooking aficionado, continues to frequently host and prepare dinners for members of the Daily.
“That was really Aaron in a nutshell,” Courtney Bohl said. “He’s so passionate and energetic about the work, but then he’s also a really good friend. It’s just been a joy working with him and becoming his friend.”
Another of Gruen’s friends and former colleagues, Caroline Vandis (LA’24), echoed Courtney Bohl’s praise for the graduating senior. Vandis noted that to her and many others, Gruen is a teacher and mentor. As a reporter once under Gruen’s leadership, I, too, consider myself among that group.
“He just taught so many people what it meant to be a part of the Daily,” Vandis said. “So many people look up to him and learn what they know from the Daily from him.”
Gruen himself expressed a deep appreciation for these mentor-mentee relationships formed in the Daily’s office and underscored showing up for others — as often manifested through side-by-side editing — as “one of the ultimate acts of care.”
“Everyone gets to grow and then help somebody else grow, and that process never ends at the Daily,” he said. “The most important part is showing a first-year or a sophomore that you — as a junior or a senior — care about them and their work and [want] them to succeed. That you have their back and that their work is not in vain. That they’re appreciated and respected.”
Although he doesn’t plan to pursue journalism after college, Gruen walks away with the hope to continue telling other people’s stories, now equipped with the skills the Daily gave him as a “writer, as an editor, as a human being.”
He has accrued dozens of bylines in the newsprint pages of the Daily since starting in 2021, and yet, it isn’t his coverage he’s finally most proud of. Instead, Gruen prizes the close friendships and memories he formed in the basement of Curtis Hall during late nights of difficult work on the newspaper.
“I didn’t think twice about them in the moment, but now looking back, I wish I could replay all those moments in my head,” Gruen said, highlighting time spent with his co-managing board members. “I still have those friends, but there’s something about being in that office and working together on a project you all love and care about. … It just so happened that the right people were there at the right time, and I don’t take that fact for granted.”
Members of 88th Managing Board — Henry Chandonnet, Julia Carpi, Kaitlyn Wells, Aaron Gruen, Olivia White and Caroline Vandis — are pictured from left to right, top to bottom. “Our papers we produced are a testament to our close bond,” Gruen said of the “dream team.”
