Features

Features

Students returning to Tufts following gap semesters and years reflect on unique, rewarding experiences

By Raga Chilakamarri | September 8

The uncertain circumstances prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic forced many students to carefully consider their plans for the 2020–21 academic year. While many chose to continue attending classes at Tufts as previously planned — enrolling either remotely or in person — others decided to take time off, engaging in a wide array of unique experiences.

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Features

Looking back on two years of pandemic education

By Ari Navetta | September 8

The pandemic has forced a reckoning in all aspects of education. While initially blindsiding educators and administrators across the world, looking back on the past two years, this process seems to have been a long time coming. COVID-19’s impacts on education continue to devastate, but they have also revealed the possibility of a new way forward — a more thoughtful, if complicated, way of teaching that emphasizes individual learning styles and allows experimentation to lead the way.

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Senior Profile: Bhargava conducts international research with focus on economics and human rights

By Kevin Du | May 11

After four demanding yet rewarding years, graduating senior Atrey Bhargava is ending his undergraduate career as the Wendell Philips Speaker of the 2021 Baccalaureate Ceremony at Tufts. Every year, this honor is awarded to one senior who demonstrates “both marked ability as a speaker and a high sense of public responsibility,” according to theUniversity Chaplaincy.

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Columns

Tales from the T: New train just dropped

By Kevin Zhang | May 11

I think by now it’s time to address the elephant in the station — and I don’t mean Jumbo’s flattened corpse. Let’s talk about the Green Line Extension, or GLX: What is its history, what will it bring, why did we spend $2 million to name one station, I mean seriously, who on Earth thought that was a good idea?

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Features

Senior Profile: Wiener soars during time at Tufts

By Kayla Butera | May 10

To say that Sarah Wiener was busy during her time at Tufts would be an understatement. Throughout her four years here, Wiener has become the Tufts Community Union president and a Tufts Wilderness Orientation leader, started a swim group, given campus tours, taught an Experimental College class and double majored in philosophy and political science, with a minor in colonial studies.  

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Features

Reflecting on civic education this year with CIRCLE's Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg

By Katie Furey | May 7

A goal of Educating for American Democracy is to make students feel empowered to be active participants in democracy when they grow older. According to Kawashima-Ginsberg, civic education and culture at the college level are a vital next step in the process of fostering democratic ideas among young people. She noted that, at Tufts, a culture of civic engagement already exists but can be improved upon.

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Senior Profile: Abraha rises to challenge, advocates for marginalized students

By Sam Russo | May 6

Many seniors are excited to enter the workforce when they graduate from Tufts. They have interesting new roles, are moving to new places or are looking forward to being financially independent. Graduating senior Eve Abraha is anticipating her next steps after graduating for a different reason, though.

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Columns

Transferable Skills: Audience of one

By Marco Sheng | May 6

They call it Commencement instead of graduation. I guess it's based on this idea that the transition from college bubble to adult stratosphere is full of amazing possibilities.

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From roommates to best friends: Stories of seniors who lived with their first-year roommates throughout college

By Jillian Collins | May 5

As the school year comes to a close, many goodbyes are in order. For a lucky few seniors, changing roommates was never necessary. Now they are facing the harsh reality of saying goodbye to the only roommate they’ve ever known. 

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Senior Profile: Gomez talks engineering, mentorship and everything in between

By Amelia Becker | May 5

Since high school, graduating senior Mateo Gomez knew that he wanted to study civil engineering in college. He also knew he wanted to move away from his home in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Boston seemed like the perfect place. 

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Features

Local sororities disaffiliate from national organizations, hope to build more inclusive communities

By Sarah Crawford and Olivia Tan | May 4

The Ivy and Thalia, two newly established local sororities, started accepting members this spring. Last fall, members of these new organizations disaffiliated from the national chapters of Alpha Phi and Chi Omega, respectively, partly in response to the criticism of Greek life on campus. Zoe Reid, a director of the membership application process for The Ivy, as well as Kelly Bernatchez and Ryen Delaney, co-executive directors of Thalia, hope that the local organizations will be more equitable and inclusive spaces for female-identifying and nonbinary students.

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Features

Tufts Mock Trial finishes 2nd at nationals in most successful season yet

By Delaney Clarke | May 4

Tufts Mock Trial’s A team placed second in its division at the American Mock Trial Association (AMTA) National Championship Tournament. The tournament took place over Zoom from April 16 to April 18.  This second-place win finished off a season that Tufts Mock Trial co-president and A team co-captain Bennett Demksy described as one of the strongest seasons in Tufts Mock Trial history. According to Demsky, the team placed better in tournaments than it had in previous seasons and achieved a higher number of individual awards than ever before.

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Columns

Coffee Talk: Uncommon Grounds

By Casey Cummings | May 4

Following a 7 a.m practice, nothing sounds better than a fat stack of pancakes. Luckily, Uncommon Grounds (which is on the way back from Tufts’ indoor practice tennis courts) in Watertown offers a fun selection of pancakes, waffles and french toast on their menu. Being the great students that we are, we placed our breakfast orders the night before so we would have enough time to eat our pancakes and make it back in time for our morning classes. Yet, choosing what to order off a menu where everything made my mouth water resulted in my scrolling through Uncommon Grounds’ menu for almost an hour. 

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Q&A: Deitsch describes anti-racism work of Public Art Workstream and Committee

By Kayla Butera | May 3

As director and chief curator of the Tufts University Art Galleries, Dina Deitsch has been committed to shifting the art on campus to better reflect diversity and inclusion in the community. Part of her plans under the Public Arts Committee are showcasing more artists and subjects who are Black, Indigenous and people of color. Her insights and plans seek to creatively pursue the question: How does our art influence the culture we create on campus?

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Alan and Susan Solomont honored with renamed Distinguished Speaker Series

By Ari Navetta | April 28

The Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life Distinguished Speaker Series will be renamed the Alan and Susan Solomont Distinguished Speaker Series in honor of Dean Alan Solomont (A’70) and his wife, Susan. The renaming will be announced today at the final Distinguished Speaker Series event of the semester, hosting primatologist Jane Goodall. Solomont is retiring at the end of the semester after seven years in the role of dean and a lifetime of involvement with Tufts University, starting with his undergraduate years.

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Columns

Coffee Talk: Mr. Crêpe

By Casey Cummings | April 28

Last year, as a first-year, Mr. Crêpe was my favorite restaurant. Ever. I could walk in at any time of the day and not feel bad about eating a crepe filled with Nutella and whipped cream; whether it was 8 a.m. or 8 p.m., a dessert crepe was always socially acceptable. After over a year of popping into Mr. Crêpe during almost every trip to Davis Square, I can now say that I am pretty experienced with making what to order a tough choice.

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Features

Technological Tools for Playful Learning introduces coding to children

By Owen Bonk | April 26

In the class, students are tasked with creating a curriculum around ScratchJr — a coding software that Bers helped develop — and using those lesson plans to teach children ages four to seven to code. Bers redesigned the curriculum to have her students teach over Zoom, using resources from the Eliot-Pearson Children’s School and DevTech, a Tufts-based research group for which Bers serves as the director.

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Columns

Tuff Talks: New and old relationships

By Jenny Lu | April 26

Dear J: I recently got into a new relationship with a boy at Tufts. I really like him and it's going well but we only have a couple more weeks together until we go back home for the summer (we live far away from each other). I think the long distance is going to be too hard on us since our relationship is still young. How should we handle it?

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Columns

Anthro Talks: Petro-masculinity

By Keira Myles | April 23

As clean and renewable energy systems pose threats to the fossil fuel capitalist order promised by 1950s America, Proud Boys and other petro-masculine populations feel a sense of powerlessness and have no choice but to perpetuate the authoritarian system of fossil fuel burning to cling to their identities. Petro-masculinity thus presents itself in global fossil rule, or governing that relies on immense fossil fuel consumption materially, through motor culture, and psycho-politically, through social identities like intense red meat consumption.

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Features

More than meets the eye: Somerville Theatre

By Lena Leavitt | April 22

The theater is a family business; only three families have ever owned it. After Joseph Hobbs built it in 1914 as part of his Hobbs building, which included a basement café, a bowling alley and billiards, the theater hit the ground running with weekly plays, vaudeville performances, opera shows and the hot new craze: films. 

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