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The Setonian
News

Somerville considers Curbside Compost Initiative

March 26

The City of Somerville recently created a new task force to review options for the development of a Curbside Composting Initiative. The idea was announced Feb. 25 by Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone and will be co-chaired by Ward 6 Alderman Rebekah Gewirtz, who is the vice chairperson of the Board of Alderman’s Committee on Energy and Environment. According to Gewirtz, the program would work toward the city’s sustainability and environmental goals. The initiative is part of a broader move to require businesses and residents to compost their leftover food. “Food scraps that fall into the trash go to landfills and emit significant carbon in the atmosphere which is a component of our global warming problem,” she said. Gewirtz explained that the creation of a program is not a new idea, and one already exists in the neighboring City of Cambridge. “The City of Cambridge does it so once residents bring their compost to a designated spot, in the spring they can pick up the composted soil for their garden,” she said. The city could also save money through such a program due to reduced costs in waste removal, Gewirtz said. She explained that City of Somerville residents generate 5,200 tons in food waste every year and the city estimated that it costs roughly $750,000 to remove and dispose of this waste. She said that other cities have demonstrated a significant decrease in the weight of trash and hopes that Somerville will make similar progress. According to Gewirtz, the program will be developed by a Curbside Composting Task Force, which is currently seeking applicants from the Somerville community. Members of the task force do not necessarily have to be experts on this initiative, but will instead consist of people with varying interests, Gewirtz said. “We’ve heard for some time that Somerville residents want to find a better way [to deal with this issue] than sending our food scraps off to a landfill or incinerator,” she said. Tufts’ Waste Reduction Program Manager Dawn Quirk said the city’s initiative is an important step in improving recycling. “I would advocate for Somerville’s effort to include a marketing component to encourage food conservation and waste reduction [because] estimates of total food wasted by Americans are quite astounding,” Quirk told the Daily in an email. Tufts Eco-Representative (Eco-Rep) Arshiya Goel explained that the university already has its own composting initiatives at the dining halls where all food waste and napkins are composted, and in the residence halls where eco-reps work. “Each dorm with an eco-rep has at least one bin, though some of them have more,” Goel, a junior, said. “We can compost fruit and vegetable scraps, eggshells, human hair and nails, unbleached paper towels among other things.” The university, however, does not have composting available in public spaces like the Mayer Campus Center, Goel explained. “We are working on expanding the program,” she said. “The more students compost in dorms, the greater worth the university would see in installing composting all over campus.” According to Goel, Somerville’s Curbside Composting Initiative would not directly affect the majority of Tufts students, but would benefit those who do not live in dorms. “I live off campus, and we pay a composting company to take our compost twice a month,” she said. “If Somerville actually begins curbside composting it will be great for us.” Quirk explained that the university would work with students to ensure their participation in the Curbside Composting Initiative. “Once Somerville has a curbside program, off-campus students living in Somerville could request reused 1-5 gallon kitchen collection buckets from Tufts Recycles! [supplied by Tufts Dining] to help with the effort,” she said. Gewirtz added that she hopes to have participation from the Tufts community. “Having Tufts involved would be beneficial, and students and faculty’s help would be great,” she said.

The Setonian
News

Film classes document women’s history

March 26

The Independent Film Production class is filming a promotional trailer on the Academic Quad this Sunday for a series about American women in history. The series, “Half the History,” was created in collaboration with Five Sisters Production Company and the Tufts Department of Drama and Dance. “There is a growing realization that ?in order to really understand our history fully and know all of the things that women have been doing [throughout] history, we need to look at other kinds of stories and look at history in a different way,” Professor of Filmmaking and Film Studies Jennifer Burton said. “Half the History” will tell the narrative of Jane Franklin, Benjamin Franklin’s sister, according to Burton. Because the film does not have an end date, future classes will also work on the project. “The point is to be able to give a teaser for what is to come later and to show that there are lots of women who did amazing things, and we don’t even know what their names are,” Maya Zeigler, a sophomore in Burton’s class, said. While the first episode will be completed after the end of the semester, Burton said she hopes the trailer will be finished and released in May. Burton got the idea for the first episode from Jill Lepore’s “Book of Ages,” which describes the life and opinions of Jane Franklin, according to Natasha Lee, a sophomore working on the project in the advanced film class. Franklin’s story provides an example of how gender has shaped people’s lives throughout history, Burton explained. “[The story] is really about how [Jane Franklin] spends a lot of time being pregnant and taking care of her kids as opposed to Ben Franklin who is out there working on his career, so it is a nice comparison,” Lee said. “At the same time, the book doesn’t present Jane as a victim — she is her own person.” The male-focused narrative of history has left out stories, including Jane Franklin’s, which are representative of how America became the country it is today, according to Lee. “There are a lot of people like Jane Franklin who are being forgotten,” she said. “Her story is extraordinary in her own way ... even though she might not have made significant political contributions like her brother did, her story is still part of history because this is how an ordinary woman lived, and that is important, too.” Looking for someone to play the role of Jane Franklin in the trailer, the production team is in its second round of auditions, according to Zeigler, one of the project’s casting directors. Tufts students, as well as union actors and actresses from around New England are auditioning for parts in the production, which will include 70 women, Zeigler said. In addition, historical re-enactors from the Minute Man National Park in Concord, Mass. and the Freedom Trail Foundation may help with the trailer and first films. As well as working with national parks and historic sites, the production team is working with the National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites, which is aligned with the “Half the History” mission and provided information for the script, Zeigler said. Once the film is finished, the class will give back to the partner organizations by sharing the film, which they can then show to others for educational purposes, Zeigler explained. She hopes the film will help people realize that the current version of history is incomplete. “I think the fact that we are working on a project that is run by students, students are acting in it and what it is about — which is telling the stories of people who haven’t been able to tell them over the course of time ... I believe that it makes people think,” Zeigler said. “It makes people realize that there is so much more than just what is put in front of you.” Burton agreed that the lack of female perspectives in current history textbooks is problematic. “Simply having stories where there are female characters that have character development in the story is something that gives viewers a sense of the complexity of female human experience, and that is something that has been missing in a lot of our media,” she said. In addition to providing viewers with a unique perspective on the experience of women throughout history, “Half the History” provides students in the advanced filmmaking class a great opportunity to develop film production skills, according to Burton. “Having the ability to have classes where you are able to have the time ... to think about what kinds of things we want to put out in the world, what kinds of things we want to spend our energy making, and then having these amazing new tools to be able to make those things, is just an incredible opportunity,” she said.

The Setonian
News

Wilson fellow discusses women’s rights and U.S. foreign policy

March 25

    Woodrow Wilson Center Fellow Alison Brysk spoke yesterday to a group of students and faculty about the way in which the U.S. government uses foreign policy initiatives to promote women’s rights around the world.     “The feedback that I get from my students is that they would like to hear more about gender issues in international relations so we wanted to do something about that,” Professor of Political Science Richard Eichenberg said. “I got together with a group of faculty ... and we decided to bring in several speakers.”     Gender issues are a growing component of foreign policy, according to Eichenberg.     “Issues of global gender equality are at least a nominally declared priority of American foreign policy around the world,” he said. “The programmatic activities have grown greatly and there are a number of initiatives under way in the foreign policy establishment ...  There’s a lot going on and we thought it was about time to publicize it a bit and engage [students] in a conversation.”     Eichenberg explained that he experienced difficulty finding a scholar who focused on women’s rights as a U.S. foreign policy objective. He added, however, that Brysk, the Mellichamp Professor of Global Governance in the Global and International Studies Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara, was the perfect person to discuss global gender initiatives.     Brysk said that her recent work on gender equality grew out of her previous research on human rights and human trafficking.     “I started working on this issue out of about 20 years of human rights scholarship and I had been running across a lot of issues related to gender, women’s rights, gender equity, women’s empowerment all along the way,” she said. “When I turned to this issue I wanted to know in what ways it follows a certain pattern with other human rights issues and in what ways there are distinctive concerns related to gender and related to identity issues and how that influences the concrete policy environment.”     A major problem in achieving global gender equality is violence, according to Brysk. She said that one in three women have experienced gender-based violence and one in five women have been subjected to sexual violence. She cited Malala Yousafzai as an example of her concerns.     “Here is a young woman who is finally gaining access to education, who is finally gaining some potential for realizing just the most basic conventional rights and equity in her society,” Brysk said. “What’s stopping her? It’s not law; it’s violence.”     The world is becoming increasingly aware of these violent incidents, especially with examples such as Yousafzai and the recent string of Indian rapes making world headlines, Brysk explained. However, she cautioned that the number of incidents has not decreased.     “Social sciences is starting to really approach this seriously and we’re beginning to get better data and better information and that means that we can use our analytic tools and figure out where [gender inequality and violence] is happening, why it is happening, what kinds of social processes are associated with this,” she said.     According to Brysk, some of these new approaches include framing women’s rights as a human rights issue and searching for various entry points in politics for gender equality.     “Health, law, security, migration are all part of the [gender equality] picture and along with that ... there’s a changing role of U.S. human rights policy,” she said. “We always criticize the U.S. for being too bilateral ... we always want to go it alone and sanction the people that we think are doing the wrong thing and not pay attention to global institutions. Women’s rights is one of the areas the U.S. collaborates the most with global institutions.”     This increased collaboration and international support occurs in a variety of ways, Brysk explained, including the use of sanctions, political pressure, humanitarian intervention and financial assistance. She said that while the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development give large sums of money to health and law enforcement initiatives benefiting women, the contribution pales in comparison to those of other countries, and that which is recommended by the UN.     Brysk also addressed a major roadblock in the distribution of U.S. assistance: the Helms Amendment, which prevents the government from helping any organization that provides or discusses abortions.     “Certain administrations managed to scoot around the information part of this, but this has wreaked havoc on our ability to support global health programs,” she said.     In addition to ensuring that women are not simply objects to be used as a means to achieve a political or social goal, Brysk said that the U.S. must resolve the ongoing domestic reproductive rights battle.     “How can we do what we need to do in the world and for the world when we are still denying women basic control of our bodies at home and trying to condition essential health services abroad?” she asked.     Overall, Brysk labeled the glass as half full and said that the U.S. is on the proper path to integrating the promotion of women’s rights in its foreign policy.     “We are doing pretty much some good things and we need to just evermore join with the global institutions and the local movements and some of the other countries that are doing good things,” she said. “Overall, U.S. cowboy foreign policy has got to grow up. Social change is a slow and spiraling process. Over time, in many fields we see improvement.”

The Setonian
News

Mass. Atty. General Coakley speaks at Tufts

March 25

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, a candidate for the democratic gubernatorial nomination, spoke at an event hosted by the Tufts Democrats yesterday evening. Coakley told the group of students that they should actively participate in the democratic process and should take advantage of the education opportunities offered by the university. “I think it is important that you are at least engaged tonight in hearing from somebody who is running for governor, [not only] because it is an important office, but [because] everyone we elect is important ... whether it’s your school committee, or your congresswoman,” she said. “I hope that whether you ever run yourselves or not, that you will stay engaged in making sure that democracy works.” Coakley, who graduated from Williams College in 1975, briefly discussed her own background and education. Regarding her own political experiences, she said that she is relatively new to political office. She first ran for an elected position in 1997. She explained that because she lives in Medford, she often passes Tufts. She also worked with the university during her time as the District Attorney of Middlesex County. In her current capacity as attorney general, she has worked on many issues, including sexual assault, financial malfeasance and workplace issues. “I had a chance as attorney general to do a lot of things, including trying to hold Wall Street accountable for basically gambling with a lot of our money and almost wrecking our economy,” she said. According to Coakley, this issue remains important in her campaign for governor. One of her goals for Massachusetts includes the promotion of a more prosperous but fair economy. She also spoke about the need for more privileged citizens to help those who are less fortunate. “It is, I think, incumbent on all of us to not only do well, as you all have as students, but [also] to do good, to think about the Commonwealth, to think about what it means for people who don’t have the advantage to be able to go to a college and get that education,” she said. If she becomes governor, Coakley said she would make improving access to quality education a major initiative of her administration. She said she would seek improvements from pre-kindergarten through college, and advocated for a longer and more structured school day for elementary school students. “Maybe, by the third grade, [a student] is not reading well, what’s the reason for that and how do we figure that out?” she asked. “If we do not get [children] back on track ... chances are good they are not going to be Tufts students, and they may drop out of school, and they may not have the advantages ... to get a good job and to have a livable wage.” As part of her education initiatives, Coakley proposed placing additional emphasis on computer science and good writing — skills that she said will be increasingly important to a wide range of new professions. She also expressed concern about climate change, and hopes to move the state toward a more environmentally friendly economy. “We need good people who will say, ‘We need to think about how we are going to reverse climate change, how we are going to get people around without driving cars, and what we are going to do for smart growth for Massachusetts,” she said. Health care policy was an additional concern Coakley addressed, and she said she would work to keep it affordable and to maintain its quality. She also discussed the suicide of her brother, who suffered from bipolar disorder, and said she hopes to improve the state’s mental healthcare system. “I understand, having lived with that, how difficult that is,” she said. “I think in 2014 we should in Massachusetts ... be treating our behavioral and our mental health the same way we do diabetes or heart concerns.” She concluded with an appeal to the broader population to assist future generations. “We can grow this economy for everybody, we are going to give you a chance to get on that ladder and do well, we are going to provide our best education possible ... so that you have a chance to compete in the future, that your kids will have a chance to compete in that future, hopefully with a cleaner climate,” she said. After her presentation, Coakley took questions from students about improving the economies of small towns and on what improvements are necessary for the mental healthcare system. She explained that she would provide support to small businesses and advocate for the creation of new industries in older mill towns. She also said she hopes to have Massachusetts increase its capacity for both the prevention and treatment of mental health issues.  

The Setonian
News

Despite progress for club sports, funds remain insufficient

March 13

Over the past few years, Tufts’ club sports has expanded to include more teams and, consequently, more students. As the program has grown, however, the process of managing and financing club sports has become increasingly complex.Three years ago marked the beginning of the expansion of the program, according to Assistant Director of Athletics Branwen Smith-King.“We had 11 club sports up until three years ago,” she said. “There [has] been this upswell of students just wanting to start [sports] clubs, or [who] were already unofficially in clubs ... Two or three years ago ... students were coming to us with a lot of requests, and we just didn’t feel good saying no.”In response, Tufts devised two types of club sports: tier 1 and tier II. Tier II clubs would receive, at least, access to oversight, the ability to use the Tufts name and the ability to compete against other schools. When tier II sports began, its teams received no funding from the school.“That’s when I got involved with club sports,” Smith-King said. “I was given the task of designing tier II. What we ended up doing in the first year was using ... buffer funding to help offset some expenses.”Smith-King manages most of the oversight for Tufts’ 22 tier I and tier II teams. Eventually, the athletic department began to receive allocated funds for club sports from the TCU Senate.“What was happening [was that] sport groups were going to the senate for approval,” Smith-King said. “That doesn’t make sense ... How can they approve a sports team without communicating to us about space? They were happy to hand that off to us.”This year, the athletic department’s monetary allocation for club sports was increased by an additional $35,000. The large increase, however, doesn’t necessarily mean adequate funding, according to Smith-King. Team members are required to pay a certain amount of dues, based on their numbers and the coverage that they received.“No matter what we do, we’re never going to be able to pay for everything,” Smith-King said. “[Even] varsity teams have to fundraise.”“The money gets allocated to each team, and then we have ... a buffer fund, which was developed years ago,” she added. “For instance, if hockey has a great season and they qualify for playoffs or a postseason tournament, that’s what that money [is] for.”Junior Carter Thallon, captain of men’s Ultimate Frisbee club team, said his team has received some funding, but much of the expenses were left to team members, particularly in regards to travel.“It might be a little under, but [we were allotted] around $2000,” he said. “We use it for rental cars, mainly. Dues this year were $350 a person ... and then people buy their own flights [to tournaments], which are about $300 a person. If we make nationals -- that’s another flight we have to buy.”Hannah Schuchert, co-captain of the women’s rugby, a tier 1 program, reiterated her team’s need for funding outside of the university’s resources.“We definitely can’t get everything we need with the money we get from Tufts,” Schuchert, a junior, said. “We look for funding for busses for the games ... We’re limited to places we can go to and from in one day because we haven't received funding for overnight [travel] or anything like that.”Schuchert also commented on the other expenses beyond travel that the team incurs.“We look for funding for equipment: balls, jerseys, rucking pads,” she said. “[Tufts Emergency Medical Services] is another thing we need funding for -- we need TEMS at every practice and every game. We would love to get more [funding]. We don’t get all that much from Tufts, from the club sports allotment.”Some sports, as to be expected, are more expensive than others. Clubs like ice hockey and skiing bear higher equipment, practice and travel costs. According to freshman Caitlin Thompson who competes on the equestrian team, group members pay $50 for each of their lessons.“That's the next goal -- to ... continue to get additional funding, so that we can help the more expensive sports operate and have students give less of their own money,” Smith-King said.Smith-King also discussed the financial inequality between the more expensive and less expensive sports.“What was happening was that teams that really didn’t need a big budget were getting enough to almost fund their team, whereas [for] some of the more expensive sports, it was barely a dip in the bucket,” Smith-King said.Smith-King discussed the ways in which the athletic department hopes to remedy some of the issues surrounding club sports’ funding.“We’re ... making the team leaders be more accountable, so 15 is the minimum number on club teams,” Smith-King said. “If we have a sport that’s only funding four or five kids, that’s not the purpose of the sport. We’ve had a few teams that have had challenges ... with their numbers ... I didn’t want to disband them, so what I did was say, ‘Okay, you’re not getting funding this year -- your goal is to increase your numbers.’”12

The Setonian
News

Associate Provost Mary Lee to leave Tufts after 27 years

March 13

After 27 years of service, former Associate Provost and Professor of Medicine Mary Lee will leave Tufts this fall to assume the prestigious six-month Kimitaka Kaga Visiting Professorship at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Medicine.

The Setonian
News

Department of Music seeks to unite on-campus music groups

March 12

Following spring break, students and faculty members alike will gather in the Granoff Music Center to participate in Tufts’ first-ever all night music festival. The event aims to provide students from both within and outside the music department with performance opportunities and to give students exposure to other on-campus artists with whom they may not yet be familiar. “[The festival] is a celebration of campus music,” Professor and Chair of the Department of Music John McDonald said. “We haven’t done that as purposefully before [with previous music department affiliated events].”Danna Solomon, the organizer of the Granoff All Night Music Festival and a staff assistant in the Department of Music, described the goals of the program, which will be held on March 28.“We have been trying to unify music at Tufts ... for the past couple of years,” Solomon said. “We were really looking for something unique to put on with our resources ... [We] conceived of the event as a way to bring music on campus together because I think that people [consider] the Tufts music scene and the Tufts music department [to be] very separate entities.”Solomon said that there is room for improvement in the relationship between the music department and the on-campus music scene.“I’m hoping that [this event] will redefine us in some ways,” Solomon said. “I think a lot of people don’t feel that the music department necessarily supports the music scene at Tufts.”This event will give students the opportunity to use Tufts facilities to perform — something which is not always possible for those who are uninvolved in the music department. The Granoff Music Center, which opened in 2007, features state-of-the-art performance spaces, most notably the Distler Performance Hall, according to McDonald.Those planning the event hope to take full advantage of the music center by having acts stationed throughout the building.“Obviously, the music department is an academic department, so we can’t support absolutely every [student musical group],” McDonald said. “We have limited space. This is a night where there are ... fewer limitations.”Junior Maeve Bell-Thornton, who is one of the students who helped to plan the event, also remarked on how the festival will bring increased attention to the Tufts music scene.“The music department, as this [all night event] shows, is really interested in reaching out to more of the student body,” Bell-Thornton said. She also noted that not all Tufts students are currently aware of the music department’s diverse resources and programming.“There are a lot of really great free concerts and performances that are offered,” she said. “I don’t think people are really aware of the music scene here.” Junior Gabe Rothman, who is performing in multiple acts at the event, echoed that sentiment.“I think our music department is a little underrated,” Rothman said. “I think the people that are involved in the department are really committed and really love the professors that they work with.” “A lot of the [department’s] concerts are very under-attended,” he added. “I think that a lot of people don’t really know a lot of the different groups that are going on ... [and] this [event] is kind of a way to bring some sort of attention to [the department] and show [the] campus that we have a pretty awesome music department ... and there are some cool things going on.”Since the opening of the Granoff Music Center, the department has strived to act as a resource for both students and the local community. The Community Music Program offers music classes for local children and teenagers on Saturdays, workshops with community musicians and a regular Community Concert series every Sunday. Most recently, Tufts Symphony Orchestra performed works from Beethoven, Bernstein and Shostakovich at the series.All of the festival participants are affiliated with Tufts, and the event will also include performances by faculty members and graduate students.“The final count for number of acts was something around 40 ... it [is] pretty extensive,” Solomon said. “We ended up having to shuffle the way that we wanted to present the music so we weren’t running until 6 a.m.” According to Solomon, performances will range in size from large ensembles, like the Tufts Wind Ensemble, to solo and duet acoustic acts. The festival’s schedule was designed to maintain variety throughout the night., and though students may come solely to see a specific act, they are encouraged to stay and make their own discoveries.“We’re hoping that people stick around and drum until the sun comes up,” Solomon said.The event will feature fundraisers to help student musicians perform outside of Tufts and go on tour. Entrance to the event, however, will remain free of charge.“A lot of Tufts students go on tour, but not all of the students can afford to travel,” Solomon said “We try to offer some scholarships, but we’ve recently lost a lot of the funding. We will be selling raffle tickets at the event, and we’re also securing a lot of sponsorships from local institutions.” 12

The Setonian
News

ExCollege celebrates 50 years of student inclusion, curriculum expansion

March 10

This year, the Experimental College (ExCollege) at Tufts University marks its 50th anniversary since it established its first course on comparative literature in 1964. After marking a new wave of interdisciplinary learning in liberal arts education, the program has continued to expand and adapt to the needs of student and faculty alike.“As far as we know, we are the oldest experimental college in the country,” said Robyn Gittleman, director of the ExCollege. “We are very much the program that people come to ... [when one] wants to start something up.”Associate Director of the Experimental College Howard Woolf discussed the origin of the program.“[Experimental College] was a term that had been known in higher education as [a] way ... to try things outside your bylaws, basically,” Woolf said. “And the first suggestion on [the] part of the faculty was ... [for] a way to teach courses that our departments won’t let us teach right now. And that’s how it began.”What started as a program aiming to expand course topics soon became a way to incorporate community members and students into the teaching process. Today, these voices are key elements of the ExCollege, according to Woolf. “It remained a faculty playground ... for a few years,” he said. “And then something interesting happened ... Within the first year in change, the faculty who were involved decided students should [also] be intimately involved in the planning and running of the place, and they invited students to be on the ExCollege board.” Additionally, within its first few years, professionals from the Boston area began to teach courses through the ExCollege.“These [ExCollege Instructors] were largely people who were activists in the greater Boston community,” Woolf said. “[They were] working on issues such as women’s sexuality, bussing issues in Boston at the time [and] neighborhood inequities.”In 2014, the ExCollege continues to examine modern-day issues from an academic perspective. This semester’s courses cover topics such as transgender studies, Obamacare, the democratic transition in Libya and the participatory culture within social media.Rebekah Stiles, a program assistant for the ExCollege, said she believes it is important to have a curriculum that is up-to-date in terms of current events.“We can be very immediate about what’s happening, regarding contemporary world, culture, social [and] economic issues,” Stiles said. “We can be there at the front line.”In addition to bringing in instructors from outside the Tufts community, within its first five years, the ExCollege began allowing students to teach classes, according to Woolf.“That was ... an idea that, for Tufts, was quite ... radically [and] culturally [different] in education — let students teach courses,” he said. “And that proliferated like mushrooms. There were 20 to 30 student-taught courses for a number of years and that program kind of split into two parts.”Now, students are able to create and teach elective courses offered to all Tufts students, and are also able to teach in either the Explorations or Perspectives programs, which offer peer advisory courses to first-year students.In the Explorations and Perspectives programs, upperclassmen can create their own courses, where they are able to act as both instructors and advisors for freshmen. Explorations courses cover a variety of subjects, while Perspectives courses focus more specifically on topics in film and media. Both programs provide important guidance to new students from peer and faculty advisors, according to Woolf.“Over the years we’ve had a few longitudinal studies done, and students who have gone through Explorations or Perspectives have done better,” Woolf said. “They’ve had an easier time of it. They’ve got[ten] their sea legs under them more quickly.”The leaders of Explorations and Perspectives classes also benefit from the programs. Senior Kaveh Veyssi taught a Perspectives course titled “The Business of Hollywood,” and says the experience was a positive one. “Learning about [the material] and having to do all this research for the class was, personally, a great thing,” Veyssi said. “It was essentially an outlet for me to share what I [had] learned.”A subcommittee of two students and one faculty member interviews prospective instructors for ExCollege courses, according to Stiles. The ExCollege board, which consists of five faculty members and five students, makes the final decision.“Everybody’s vote is exactly the same,” student board member junior Marcy Regalado said. “And there will be times [when] I’m sitting in a board meeting and a student will sway, easily, an adult in the room.”This kind of student-faculty dynamic makes for a department where the student opinion is appreciated, and where new programs can be nurtured and old programs can continue to thrive, according to fellow student board member junior Kumar Ramanathan.“I think all of those perspectives are really necessary in that these faculty members ... have a unique perspective on how teaching happens at Tufts and what’s being offered,” Ramanathan said. “The students do the same thing from the learning side. And then there’s [the] staff at the ExCollege, who really have the experience and the history ... they know what works [and] what doesn’t work.”12

The Setonian
News

Panelists discuss spread of renewable energy technologies

March 9

A group of industry professionals, professors and policy analysts discussed the spread of modern energy technology to developing countries during a Tufts Energy Conference panel presentation.The panel was moderated by director of the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy Kelly Sims Gallagher, who is also an associate professor of energy and environmental policy at The Fletcher School. Gallagher began the discussion by focusing on the difficulties emerging markets are facing in energy development.“Do emerging markets have the ability to leapfrog from 18th and 19th-century technologies that most developed countries used in the past?” Gallagher asked. “Can they leapfrog to cleaner, more efficient alternative technologies and systems? ... There is much evidence that countries fail to make this so called ‘leapfrog’ ... for a whole host of reasons.”Despite this pessimism, Gallagher explained that her new book, “The Globalization of Clean Energy Technology: Lessons from China,” takes a more hopeful perspective. One of the key barriers to the leapfrogging effect is the lack of an internal market for clean energy technologies in many developing countries, she said.“If there’s no so-called ‘natural market’, in other words an incentive in the marketplace for some technology that doesn’t naturally exist ... it’s very hard to get technology moving to that market,” Gallagher said. “That, I think, is the primary barrier — it’s that simple.”J. Dirck Stryker, the president and chief economist at Associates for International Resources and Development (AIRD) followed Gallagher with a presentation on increasing access to new fuel sources in developing countries. Stryker, who previously spent 26 years teaching at The Fletcher School, explained that, over the next few decades, it will be increasingly important to “serve the bottom of the [economic] pyramid” through new technologies and energy sources.Stryker said much of his recent work was focused on increasing energy access in Africa. Renewable energy sources are making it easier to expand this access.“The prices of renewable energy technologies have fallen and, in many cases, are cheaper than [getting] connected to the grid,” he said. “Electricity grids are extremely expensive to expand, and it’s much better if you have a source of renewable fuel that is independent.”Stryker also emphasized Gallagher’s point about the importance of understanding market dynamics.“Another factor here is to understand the local market and what is needed,” he said. “In many cases, we have things that come from the outside, and we don’t really understand what is already there ... [Energy development] requires a relatively high level of initiative on the part of entrepreneurs that will carry this forward.”Letha Tawney, a senior associate in the World Resources Institute’s Markets and Enterprise Program, followed with an analysis of what is meant by the concept of technological “leapfrogging.”“It’s a term you hear a lot but we’re very unspecific in what we mean,” Tawney said. “Do we mean that developing economies will skip some of our mistakes in our development path and move directly to match us? Or do we mean that in fact we’re all heading toward an unclear, unmapped low-carbon economy and they’re going to skip the [older technologies]?”Tawney explained that the answer is difficult to determine, but said that transferring current technologies and creating new ones are both important aspects of increasing energy access in the developing world. She cautioned, however, that a disconnect exists between policy makers, technology manufacturers and energy users.“You end up in these talking point discussions that don’t get down to the fundamentals,” she said. “That is because there are real constituencies that these people have to answer to and you have to talk to them to come up with the best practices ... Finally there [are] practitioners, people who have actually innovated. ...What practitioners have done is not [understood] by those in the policy world. ... We have to bridge [the gap] somehow.Eli Ben-Shoshan, director of strategic marketing at DuPont Industrial Biosciences, spoke last and examined the use of biofuels as a source of renewable energy in the developing world.Ben-Shoshan explained that DuPont has shifted much of its focus away from producing chemicals in order to expand its development of clean energy technologies. Some of these include seed coatings and genetically modified seeds that require less energy input, less water and have higher returns to yield, according to Ben-Shoshan.“We’re actually the largest specialty component manufacturer in solar on the planet,” he said. “We are making Kevlar films and photo voltaic cells and we make pastes that are used to connect components with in the cell. It’s all been about increasing the efficiency of solar over the years.” 12

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TCU Senate update

March 9

The Tufts Community Union Senate discussed the possibility of adding an International Community Representative to its ranks during its weekly meeting last night. The idea, which was proposed by freshman Senator Gauri Seth during the open forum period, was supported by several senators who argued that the international community needs a representative to help students with marginalization and cultural adjustment.

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Tufts Podcast Network focuses on storytelling through audio

March 6

Combining innovative technology with the tradition of oral storytelling, Tufts Podcast Network (TPN), a relatively new student group that creates audio broadcasts, has a simple mission: to bring people together through the sharing of thoughts and stories about the human experience.TPN provides the tools for students to let their voices be heard, according to sophomore Cooper McKim, the founder, president and executive producer of the group. The podcast medium also allows the audience to absorb information on their own time — a feature that sets podcasts apart from other forms of creative expression or journalism.“I think that podcasts are a little more soulful than ... a lot of the ways that people get news,” sophomore Alexander Landen, executive editor of TPN, said. “They’re very easy to listen to — you can just put them on when you’re making dinner or when you’re on Facebook.”Landen also discussed how podcasts can connect with listeners in different ways than standard print media.“Really good layering of sound and really good use of ... the human voice ... allows you to absorb this information in a way that’s easier than it is when you’re reading print,” Landen said.The medium also offers advantages to journalists, according Julie Dobrow, the director of Tufts’ Communication and Media Studies Program.“[Podcasts] give the journalist a little more leeway in terms of [production] time,” Dobrow told the Daily an email. “And for us as audience members, podcasting ostensibly opens up a lot more possibilities of things we could listen to, new ideas we could expose ourselves to, new perspectives.”The inspiration for Tufts Podcast Network came to McKim while he was on the metro in Washington, D.C. What began as the pursuit of a political career resulted in the discovery of an unexpected passion.“I did an internship over the summer ... and the only part I really enjoyed was my commute because I would listen to different interviews and a ... podcast series every day on my [way] to and from the Capitol,” McKim said. “I just kept finding new series that I really liked.”McKim decided that this was something he could do and that anyone could do. Moreover, he thought that podcasts could be a perfect outlet for the creativity and enthusiasm present in the Tufts community.After pitching the idea to the Tufts administration, the club was able to obtain funding and held its first official meeting in October of last semester. The club now has an executive board and an e-list of approximately 60 students who are interested in creating and publishing audio material, according to McKim.When he was in the process of creating the group, McKim initially approached Landen, who, coincidentally, had much experience in the broadcasting field.“I worked at an NPR station called WSHU Public ... in Fairfield, Conn. [where] I did a bunch of reporting [over the summer],” he said. “I also worked in New York City simultaneously at this radio station [called] WNYC, which is ... an NPR affiliate in NYC.”The TPN team has collaborated to create podcasts on a broad range of topics, but has primarily focused on submissions of fictional narratives. Now, members of the club are working on a diverse set of recordings, from a humorous social commentary show to an Amnesty International series that discusses human rights issues.“The podcast I’m doing now with my friend [junior] Michael Maskin is a fictional podcast where we basically just write a script ... sort of Calvin and Hobbes-esque,” McKim said.Other podcasts that have either already been produced or are currently in the works include sports updates, opinion pieces, and even a production that tells a story through a series of voicemails, according to Landen.TPN also hopes to broadcast more report-style podcasts that focus on campus news.“I’d be interested, as well, into getting more reporting kind of [broadcasts],” Landen said. “[I’d like] more ... campus stuff or roundtable discussions where you get professors and students who are interested in a certain topic. You get them together and there’s a moderator and you record that conversation and edit it up so it’s listenable ... I think that’s more the direction.”12

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Students honor member of Class of 2013 with fundraisers

March 5

The Singapore Students Association , LCS Cancer Outreach and International Club are hosting a week of fundraising events in honor of Vivien Lim, a member of the Class of 2013 who was unable to graduate after being diagnosed in May of 2012 with a rare form of salivary gland cancer. She passed away this this past September.

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