Archives
Women's Crew | Jumbos return from training trip ready to row
March 27It has been five months since the women's crew team competed at the Head of the Fish Regatta in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., raking in three sets of Fish Heads - equivalent to gold medals - as well as three silver medals and two fourth?place finishes.
Tufts Energy Conference to feature experts from around the world
March 26Tufts students are currently preparing for the seventh annual Tufts Energy Conference, a two?day event that that will explore energy issues in today's society and feature a variety of speakers.
Alyson Yee | Odd Jobs
March 25Because they're often targeted at children too young to appreciate art, animated movies can be undervalued. Big productions like "Avatar" (2009) get lots of coverage because of advances in computer graphics and special effects, but let's step back from the blue alien life forms and the fantastical battle scenes for a moment. Consider what makes a cartoon seem lifelike. There are all of the details of facial expressions and synchronizing mouth movements to voice tracks. Animators have to deal with hands, which are notoriously troublesome to render, and prevent gestures from being choppy and awkward. And then there's hair: a universal mammalian characteristic.
Men's Tennis | Notebook: Three players who could swing the season
March 15The men's tennis team's run at a return appearance in the NESCAC Tournament begins today at Middlebury. Last spring, the Jumbos reached the conference tournament for the first time since 2005, and with a deep lineup from top to bottom, they now look poised to do at least as well this season. Certain players will be particularly pivotal to the team's success, whether it's for their leadership, their adjustments to new roles, or their positions at the top of the lineup. Here is a look at three of those players:
Catholic Priest discusses search for Holocaust graves
March 13Father Patrick Desbois spoke about his search for unidentified mass graves from the Holocaust at Cohen Auditorium last night as part of the Cummings/Hillel Program for Holocaust and Genocide Education. The Roman Catholic priest is the co-founder and president of Yahad-In Unum, an organization dedicated to finding the bodies of 1.5 million Jews whom the Nazis killed in Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and Russia. Desbois shared information about this lesser-known era of the Holocaust, which he has devoted his life to uncovering. "If you are here today, you have already opened your eyes," Desbois said. "Cultivate your heart, cultivate your attention and then you will find the way." Desbois and his team have traveled across Eastern Europe since 2004 to record thousands of testimonials from eyewitnesses who saw the Nazis shoot Jews near their homes. Outside the lecture, Desbois sold his book, "The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest's Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews," which details many of their stories. "They were human, like you or me," Desbois said. "But they were buried like animals." Using information from the surviving witnesses and archives from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Desbois has discovered numerous graves across Eastern Europe. Before Desbois found the graves' locations, they were unmarked and hidden beneath plants that grew over the burial grounds. "If you go in the forest in these towns now, where lovers are walking, there are mass graves underneath them," he said. Desbois recounted several stories that eyewitnesses told him, including one where the Nazis took children from school and put them in a pit where they had to watch Nazis crush babies' heads. Scared to run away, the children were shot and killed. "The majority of people will sleep well when there's a genocide," Desbois said. "We have to be the ones who can't sleep well when there's a genocide occurring nearby or faraway." At the beginning of the night, Paul Shapiro, Director of the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, discussed how the censorship of the former Soviet Union originally restricted research of this phase of the Holocaust. "They were hidden in a cloud of Soviet anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial," Shapiro said of those killed in this part of the Holocaust. Even though the USSR fell in 1991 and the Museum was given access to the documents, prior to Desbois, people disregarded the validity of the information because it came from the Soviet Union. When Desbois started talking to the eyewitnesses, though, their accounts corroborated the data from the documents, Shapiro said. "I don't want to explain it," Desbois said. "I want to fight it. Today, we need fighters." The Cummings/Hillel Program began in 2010 when Trustee Emeritus William Cummings (A '58) and his wife, Joyce, donated funds to create a Holocaust and Genocide Education program through Tufts Hillel. Last semester, the program brought Holocaust survivor John Saunders to campus to share his story of surviving five concentration camps. Before he started to speak, Desbois showed the audience a video that chronicled the events of of the Holocaust with interviews from those who have stayed in the towns where they witnessed the shootings. The eyewitnesses he has interviewed wanted to retell the stories of what they saw, but did not have the opportunity before Yahad-In Unum began, Desbois said. "Interviews with couples are the most difficult because they each say that what the other is saying isn't true," he said. "But there's no doubt that the people did want to speak." After the lecture, Desbois took questions from several members of the audience who asked him how students could become more involved in his research as well as in working toward ending genocide. "If there is a genocide - you see someone killing children or raping women - please take a picture," he said to the students in the audience. "You are the only protection against genocide."
Concert Review | Ravel, Berlioz dominate uneven program for BSO
March 13ChristophEschenbach joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) last weekend as the guest conductor from the National Symphony Orchestra to head up a Hector Berlioz?centric program featuring the overture to "BenvenutoCellini" (1838), Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major (1931) with pianist C?©dricTiberghien and Berlioz's 1830 masterwork "SymphonieFantastique." All three works are squarely within the standard repertoire, and the performances were clean, clear and generally solid if a little unadventurous.
Women's Basketball | Barnosky, Kornegay named to D3hoops.com All-Northeast Region team
March 13Even after the women's basketball team's season concluded with a bitterly disappointing loss to St. Thomas in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament this past Friday, the squad got a bit of good news on Tuesday as seniors Tiffany Kornegay and co-captain Kate Barnosky were named to the D3hoops.com All-Northeast Region team. These are the first career All-Region honors for the team's only seniors, who also earned conference recognition for the first time last month by making the All-NESCAC second team. Barnosky, who was named to the All-Region third team, led the Jumbos in scoring with 9.2 points per game and grabbed 6.1 rebounds on average. The season was an incredible comeback effort by the Jumbos' team leader, who was forced to sit out most of last year with a knee injury. Her best effort came in the Round of 32 in the NCAA Tournament, when she posted 18 points and seven rebounds against Johns Hopkins to help Tufts advance to the Sweet 16 in Chicago. While Kornegay did not post quite the scoring numbers that Barnosky did, she did a bit of everything and was named the NESCAC Defensive Player of the Year. Kornegay, who was named to the All-Region fourth team, pulled down 8.7 rebounds per game, good for second in the NESCAC and an incredible feat for a 5-foot-6 guard. She also led the team with 2.8 assists per game and had her best performance in the first round of the NCAAs, putting up 15 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and three steals.
Students nominate faculty for new technology awards
March 12Students from all Tufts campuses from March 1 to March 17 can nominate teachers that display innovative use of technology for the first ever 2012 Teaching with Technology Awards. The awards are part of the Teaching with Technology Symposium to be held on May 23 and 24 at 55 Winthrop Street, Sheryl Barnes, assistant director of Educational & Scholarly Technology Services (ESTS) client services for University Information Technology (UIT), said. The idea for the awards has been under discussion by the ESTS division of UIT for years, UIT's Senior Faculty Development Consultant Rebecca Sholes said in an email. "It was only in the last year that we realized that the timing was right for the program and that we had the resources to make it happen," Sholes said. To submit a nomination, students must complete an online form that asks them which school and course the instructor being nominated is involved in and why and how the instructor should be selected for the award. UIT kept the nominating process simple to encourage as many nominations as possible, according to Director of Educational and Scholarly Technology Services Gina Siesing. Student nominators also had their names entered in a raffle for a $100 Amazon.com gift card. "Right now we have received nominations from all of the schools at Tufts so we're really excited about that," Barnes said. There are also no specific requirements regarding technology use that nominees must meet, Siesing said. "The term 'technology' really refers to any tool that an instructor is using in a course to support their teaching and enhance their students' learning," Sholes said. Nominations can be based on instructors' use of tools like smart-boards, i-Clickers, YouTube videos and films, in addition to learning management systems like Trunk and the Tufts University Sciences Knowledgebase, Sholes said. "The list could go on and on," she said. The nominations are also not for any specific award categories, Barnes said. "We decided to keep it relatively open-ended, so we'd have the flexibility to respond to whatever we got back in terms of nominations," she said. Four to six winners are going to be selected by a committee comprised of faculty and students from all three campuses, Barnes said. "We are now in the process of forming the committee and will be choosing people who play an important role in supporting teaching and learning across the university," Sholes said. The judging criteria the committee will use are still being determined, Sholes said. "We are hoping to have winners that represent the range of ways in which technology is being used to support student learning both inside and outside the classroom," Sholes said. "We're going to look at them all in detail and try to come up with a fair set of criteria," Barnes added. The Teaching with Technology Symposium is a re-work of a small, intensive three-day event that was called the Summer Institute, Barnes said. "The new Symposium is really a much bigger two-day conference open to anybody who wants to come," she said. Whereas the summer program consisted of about 15 pre-selected faculty members, Siesing said she anticipates the Symposium getting between 75 and 100 attendees.
Tufts Mock Trial to go to nationals
March 12Tufts Mock Trial spent this past weekend at the Opening Round Championship Series (ORCS) in White Plains, N.Y., where the Tufts A team qualified for nationals. Tufts A team and Tufts B team competed in the tournament with 26 other teams who qualified during regional tournaments scattered along the East Coast, according to sophomore Brian Pilchik, Officer of External Affairs for the team. The top six teams from the weekend's competition will advance to nationals, which will be held in Minneapolis, Minn., in April, according to Pilchik. Freshman Elisabeth Constantino won the highest-scoring Outstanding Witness Award in the competition, and Senior Nicholas LoCastro won both an Outstanding Witness Award and an Outstanding Attorney Award, which tied for the highest-scoring Outstanding Attorney Award given in the competition, Pilchik said. Tufts A team and Tufts B team attained the same final record of 5-3, but the two teams received different Combined Strength (CS) values, which are indicators of the difficulty level of a team's opponents, Pilchik said. Tufts A team received a higher CS value than Tufts B Team, and Tufts A team thus qualified for nationals. Although Tufts B team did not receive a bid, the team earned seventh place in the tournament. The two Tufts teams had the highest CS values among the top teams at the tournament, according to Pilchik. The six teams moving on to nationals from the East Coast are - in order of their finish - Columbia University, New York University, Brown University, Wellesley College, University of New Hampshire and Tufts. The scores for this weekend's tournament are as following:
| Show Me the Money!
March 12The weekly Op?Ed column "Show Me the Money!" by Walt Laws?MacDonald, which typically runs every Tuesday, will not run this week. The column will return immediately after spring break in the March 27 issue of the Daily.
Interfaith Social Action group fosters cooperative efforts on the Hill
March 12A student group is taking Tufts' commitment to active citizenship and diversity and combining them with a religious spin. The Interfaith Social Action group (ISA), which was officially recognized as a Tufts Community Union group last semester, is made up of students committed to social action through their religious beliefs.
Inside NCAA Basketball | Making sense of the tournament field
March 12With the end of the conference tournaments and selection of the 68 teams that will compete in the 2012 NCAA tournament, we are now entering the most exciting three weeks of the college basketball season, as fans around the country begin to fill in their March Madness brackets. For those that may not have followed this season as closely, here is a brief, region-by-region overview of the championship contenders and some Cinderella teams that could surprise us all. South The South region is led by No. 1 overall seed Kentucky. Although the Wildcats are young, they finished the 2011-12 season with 32 wins and are filled with NBA-level talent at every position. Freshman center Anthony Davis has been the key for Kentucky in the middle, leading the Wildcats with 14.4 points and 10 rebounds per game and setting SEC and NCAA records with nearly five blocked shots per game. Kentucky won't go unchallenged, though, and they could face defending national champion Connecticut in the second round and Indiana in the Sweet 16. The Hoosiers handed the Wildcats their first loss of the season in December when junior guard Christian Watford hit a game-winning three at the buzzer to put Indiana back on the college basketball map. One intriguing upset pick in the South is No. 12 seed VCU. The Rams already shocked the college basketball world last season by advancing to the Final Four as an 11-seed after beating Kansas in the Southwest regional finals. Led by senior forward Bradford Burgess and coach Shaka Smart - who many believe may be headed to Illinois next season - the Rams face fifth-seeded Wichita St. in the first round. West In the West, top-seeded Michigan State should have a relatively easy road in the first three rounds, but may hit a bump against Missouri in what could be an explosive Elite Eight matchup. The Spartans avenged a home loss to Ohio State at the end of the regular season by beating the Buckeyes in the Big Ten tournament finals, 68-64. One of the most physical teams in the country, Michigan State is led by All-American senior forward Draymond Green, who is averaging over 16 points and 10 rebounds per game this season. Missouri enters the NCAA tournament averaging 80.3 points per game, good for sixth in the country. The leading scorer for the Tigers is senior guard Marcus Denmon, who is averaging 17.6 points per game, but Missouri does a good job of getting everyone involved - four players averaged double-figure scoring numbers this season. Following what should be an easy win against 15-seed Norfolk St., Missouri will face the winner of Florida and Virginia in what could be a more difficult second-round matchup. East The East may be the least predictable region in this year's tournament. Top-seeded Syracuse, which went 31-2 overall this season, will have a tough Sweet 16 matchup against the winner of No. 4 Wisconsin and No. 5 Vanderbilt, assuming the Badgers and Commodores are able to advance. Wisconsin is led by senior guard Jordan Taylor, who is averaging nearly 15 points per game and is proficient in nearly every facet of the game. Moreover, the Badgers' swing offense should match up well against Syracuse's normally-stifling 2-3 zone, as Wisconsin shoots over 36 percent as a team from behind the arc. Vanderbilt is entering the 2012 tournament with arguably more momentum than anyone else, having just beaten No. 1 Kentucky in the SEC tournament finals, 71-64. A sexy upset pick, the Commodores may have the best three-point shooter in the country in junior guard John Jenkins. Jenkins made 129 of his 288 long-range attempts this season and averages nearly 20 points per game. No. 3 seed Florida State also adds to the depth of the East region. The Seminoles upset Duke and North Carolina en route to their first ever ACC tournament title. Led by coach Leonard Hamilton, Florida State always seems to play with a chip on its shoulder and should give No. 2 Ohio State a great run in the Sweet 16. Midwest In the Midwest region, the clear favorite is No. 1 seed North Carolina, who will be aided by the return of junior forward John Henson. The ACC Defensive Player of the Year didn't play in the Tar Heels' final two ACC tournament games after suffering a wrist injury in the quarterfinals against Maryland. Along with Henson, the Tar Heels are led by a slew of star post players such as senior center Tyler Zeller and sophomore forwards Harrison Barnes and Reggie Bullock. This size and experience in the paint should make the Tar Heels championship contenders if they are able to lock down defensively. The bottom half of the Midwest will likely produce a classic Sweet 16 matchup between perennial powerhouses Kansas and Georgetown. In the hunt for a No. 1 seed all season, the Jayhawks stumbled against Baylor in the Big 12 semifinals and found themselves relegated to No. 2. They are led by junior forward Thomas Robinson, who is averaging a double-double this season, and senior guard Tyshawn Taylor, who is second on the team in scoring and first in assists. The Hoyas may have a more difficult second-round matchup against the winner of San Diego St. and North Carolina St, but expect them to advance due to their dominance in the paint. Leading the way for Georgetown inside is center Henry Sims, who has come out of nowhere to average 11.1 points and 5.6 rebounds per game and will be called on to lock down the paint for Georgetown in the tournament.
Tufts student to appear on Jeopardy tonight
March 12Patrick Antle, a chemistry graduate student at Tufts, will appear as a contestant on tonight's episode of the television quiz show Jeopardy. After taking a preliminary online test of 50 eight-second questions last year, Antle was selected to audition in Boston four weeks later. Over the following four weeks, he studied every trivia book he could find, creating hundreds of flashcards covering decades' worth of cultural, historical, literary and religious information. During his four-day Boston audition, Patrick competed against forty other trivia fanatics per day for a spot on the show. "When the test was going on - the 50 questions - you could hear a pin drop in that room," he said. "It was serious." Following the written test, Patrick completed a mock game with other contestants and a personality interview. Six weeks later, Patrick was selected to fly to Los Angeles to compete on the show on November 30. Prior to auditioning, Antle played trivia at pub nights. His high school friend recommended he audition for the show, and after some consideration he decided the audition would at least provide for a funny story, if not an opportunity to learn from the experience and try again later. When asked about his decision to apply last summer, Patrick admitted that he is "kind of good at trivia." In seventh grade, he won his school's geography bee and was interviewed for the local paper. "I ended up just talking about Jeopardy, and half the article was about Jeopardy," he said. "It made it sound like I was some obsessed Jeopardy fan. The reporter predicted I would end up on the show." Antle described his training experience like that of a Rocky training montage. Every day after work he would study until one or two in the morning, and then wake up at 6 a.m. the next day to return to the lab. He estimates he created three or four thousand flashcards in preparation - "enough to kill a tree," he said. Using the Jeopardy archive and online forums, he searched for the key words and phrases frequently given in each clue. He explained that, while there is an entire subculture dedicated to analyzing the game, it ultimately comes down to knowing the information within a fraction of a second. "If I see it, it just sticks," he said. "You just have to have the sharpest memory of anyone you know."
Public access to contraception: Not a religious matter
March 12The current birth control controversy has been thoroughly politicized, but it is controversial precisely because some people, including the Catholic priesthood and many evangelicals, believe that artificial birth control is morally wrong. What is less often considered is the question of when it is morally right to bring a child into the world.
