Features

Columns

Tales from the T: MBTA-0001

By Kevin Zhang | October 5

The T, greater Boston’s transit system, is one of the quickest, cheapest ways to get around the city — but it can certainly be confusing for first-time riders. Maybe you’re from the suburbs and are too used to driving everywhere. Or maybe you’re from outside the U.S. and are too used to trains that actually run logically. In any case, here’s a brief, by no means comprehensive, guide on how to use the T. 

---

Features

Tufts resumes in-person tours, revamps program

By Delaney Clarke | October 4

Over the summer, Tufts University reinstated its in-person touring program, which had been conducted virtually since summer 2020. The program is now offering in-person, virtual and self-guided tour options throughout the fall semester.

---

Columns

Blind Luck: Date No. 1

By Emika Brown and Nick Januario | October 4

Welcome to Blind Luck,  your new favorite dose of drama and source of vicarious living. Your scheming hosts, Nick and Em, have turned their attention to all the potential loves and connections on the Tufts campus. Every week, we will set up two people on a blind date from sources of our own notes, our little birdies and YOU. If you have a pairing in mind or just a friend who’s down, send them along to nicholasjanuario@gmail.com. 

---

Features

Women of color take center stage in Boston mayoral race

By Saya Ameli Hajebi | October 1

After a long line of uncontested white male mayors for the city of Boston, the first Black mayor and first woman, Kim Janey, was sworn in as mayor of Boston in March 2021. Though Janey will not be mayor next year, the final frontrunners competing for the Nov. 2 seat are two women of color, Michelle Wu and Annissa Essaibi George, ready to continue carrying their torch and lead Boston out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

---

Columns

Spoonfuls: Guru the Caterer

By Sonia Richter | October 1

I grew up eating Rhode Island fried seafood dipped in white chowder, my mother’s hearty Russian borscht and my French-Canadian mémère’s meat pie — homey, no-frills food made from unwritten recipes with no want of potatoes. When COVID-19 began, I knew places like our favorite clam shop were just inching by. It was shocking to see more and more windows boarded up with ghosts of help wanted signs scrambling for staff overdue. In Medford and Somerville, places like Hulun Beir in Davis and The Dark Horse Public House in Magoun Square have since closed their doors, shocked by an epidemic which made eating out a newly daunting experience. Spots like these, which lack the campus reputation to keep business flowing, are undoubtedly hit the hardest by such notoriously unprecedented times.

---

Features

Layla Noor writes books that don’t exist yet

By Juanita Asapokhai | September 30

A young artist swaps her paintbrush for a keyboard and types her first creative work for an English class assignment.At 13, she publishes a short story on Wattpad, an online writing website that doubles as a digital library for self-published authors and a social media platform. As a high school senior, she takes a creative writing class and writes a poetry book for a final project; by the end of her first year of college, she has written a full-length book. These items stand out on the curriculum vitae of sophomore Layla Noor, who completed the first draft of her debut novel “Eclipsing Binary" last spring. 

---

---

Columns

The Vintage and the Vogue: Almond milk is Lindy

By Robert Kaplan and Michael Friedman | September 30

Michael: Hey Robert, what is “Lindy?”

---

Features

Effective Altruism club hopes to promote a deeper understanding of doing good on campus

By Mark Choi | September 29

Effective altruism is a philosophy and social movement concerned with finding the most effective ways to make the world a better place, according to Graeme McDonough, a junior on the Effective Altruism club’s executive board.

---

Columns

Potty Talk: Tisch Library

By David Wingens and Sam Russo | September 29

For the last three semesters, many buildings and facilities on campus have sat either empty or at severely reduced capacity. Scores of Jumbos have never seen Tufts' campus in all its glory, with students milling between classes and avoiding that person whom you haven't spoken to since they shared their deepest secrets with you during “Bridging the Herd.”

---

Features

TUSC, OCL discuss changes in social life for 2021–22 school year

By Owen Bonk | September 28

On June 1, Tufts University Infection Control Health Director Michael Jordan sent out an email describing much-anticipated changes in health guidelines for the fall 2021 semester. Among them were the addition of a vaccination requirement and the removal of outdoor mask mandates and physical distancing protocols. The changes were indicative of the potential for a socially safe semester. Naturally, those working for the Office for Campus Life and Tufts University Social Collective became optimistic about a return to near-normal social life at the university.

---

Columns

Tales from the T: Dumpster fire on rails

By Kevin Zhang | September 28

Welcome to Tales from the T part 2: Electric Boogaloo! Each week we’ll be diving into a story about the T and other forms of Boston transportation. Who knows, some of them might even be interesting.

---

Features

Diverse Minds aims to promote inclusion, education around neurodiversity on campus

By Sam Russo | September 24

Masking is something that most students have been discussing only in the past year and half, but for a smaller group of Tufts students, it’s a term that has been on their mind for nearly their whole lives. For neurodiverse people, masking means trying to hide their disabilities and pass as neurotypical. This is just one of many additional considerations that neurodiverse students at Tufts contend with, from ensuring that they can take tests in the environments given to them to making friends who share their experiences.

---

Features

Michael Ullman looks back on 45 years of teaching

By Katie Furey | September 22

Few people know Tufts as well as Michael Ullman, senior lecturer of English and music, who expects to retire soon. Ullman spent much of his childhood exploring the Medford/Somerville campus, as his father started working as a professor of sociology at Tufts in 1946, one year afterUllman was born. To this day, Ullman proudly keeps a plaque of his father’s first Tufts contract on his desk in the Granoff Music Center. 

---

Features

Renovated Somerville West Branch library offers dynamic space to community

By Amelia Becker | September 20

Many have walked by the West Branch of the Somerville Public Library on the way to Davis Square, watching the renovations over the years, without ever stepping foot inside. Built in the Classical Revival style, the West Branch has maintained many of its historic features since the renovations while adding modern upgrades to make the space more usable for the community. 

---

Features

Seniors share college wisdom with first-years

By Jillian Collins | September 16

Your new white sneakers are demolished from orientation week floors, the pre-orientation group chat is no longer active and you now have a take on the Carm vs. Dewick debate. Now what? Classes are starting and the daunting feeling of four years at Tufts might be creeping up on you. No need to fret; every Tufts student has been there. 

---

Features

Conversations on camp with Jo Michael Rezes

By Keira Myles | September 16

Jo Michael Rezes' existence rests in camp, the concept first established by Susan Sontag in her 1964 essay "Notes on 'Camp'" as an aesthetic absurdity that is artificial, passionate, serious; easy to see but hard to explain; and includes the seemingly unconnected examples of Tiffany lamps, Swan Lakeand women's clothes of the 1920s. As a Tufts Theatre and Performance Studies Ph.D. student and an ardent devotee of queer temporalities in camp, Rezes is instructing the new Experimental College course, “Camp: Bad Taste, Humor, and Cult Classics” this fall.

---

Features

A zen conversation with new Buddhist Chaplain Ji Hyang Padma

By Kayla Butera | September 14

A sedan intersects with a Trans Am car. Fiberglass flies everywhere. At 14 years old, Ji Hyang Padma, now the Buddhist Chaplain at Tufts University, witnessed a car crash that altered the course of her life. Though she was a naturally restless teenager, this car crash left her frozen.

---

Features

Boxed in by the pandemic: Tufts mime group shares enthusiasm for live semester

By Chris Duncan | September 14

How do live performers continue their work during a pandemic? A live performance's ability to affect the viewer hinges on the viewer and the performer being tangible to each other — meaning, most of the time, in the same room. That kind of energy does not translate well to Zoom.

---

Features

New and existing volunteer student organizations optimistically enter upcoming academic year

By Katie Furey | September 10

Despite the barriers to connecting with each other created by the COVID-19 pandemic, several Tufts students were able to create new communities during the 2020–21 academic year in the form of volunteer organizations. Two of these new clubs were Tufts chapters of the national organizations Project Sunshine and Camp Kesem. In addition, Teach-in-CORES was able to adapt to a new virtual format.  

---

Features

Transfer students look to increase their voice on campus

By Kayla Butera | September 10

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about a lot of moving pieces — and for some, this meant moving to another school. Transfer students experience hurdles in moving universities, ensuring their course credits follow them, and ultimately succeeding academically and socially in their new institution. That’s where the Tufts Transfer Student Association comes in.  

---