An eager crowd in Hotung erupted into an explosion of joyous screams and chants after counting down the seconds until the closing of West Coast polls and the official CNN projection that Sen. Barack Obama would be the 44th president of the United States.
Exit polling in Somerville and Medford indicated a resounding mandate for Barack Obama yesterday, as most citizens fell in line behind the Democratic nominee.
Over the last few weeks, hundreds of out-of-state students have requested and returned absentee ballots while those from Massachusetts have patiently waited until today to cast their votes. This week, the Daily asked students which issues were most important in helping them choose between the candidates. What is the most important issue of this election?
Popular satirical shows like "Saturday Night Live" and "The Daily Show" have been quick to jump on any blunders in speeches made by vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin during her recent campaign, but thanks to Tufts alum Jordan Kolasinski (LA '04), Palin's fans and critics now have even more ways to entertain themselves.
Students in the Class of 2012 received a very simple homework assignment from University President Lawrence Bacow during their matriculation ceremony. "All those who are eligible to vote are expected — perhaps I should say required — to vote in the upcoming election on Nov. 4," Bacow said.
Questions continue to swirl around a man who promised to send financial assistance from Italy to students hoping to canvass for Sen. Barack Obama in swing states, after the supposed benefactor pulled out on Oct. 25.
Eliza Bikvan makes her way down a driveway to a quaint, wooden house nestled in the rural New Hampshire trees. It is a nice scene, but after five hours of canvassing and with rain clouds looming overhead, she is business-minded. Her primary concern is to figure out which door to knock on.
Even when the Sunday sun glistens and the crisp fall wind beckons a potential afternoon spent outside, many Tufts students still find the day the most dreary, depressing one of the week. Looming papers, midterms and problem sets win over the beauty of nature, and it's off to the basement of Tisch for a day dealt to diligence.
During Dewick's slower hours, an employee stationed at the pizza oven spies a few hungry students wandering solemnly about the empty heated trays. She watches their crestfallen expressions as they recognize, drifting towards the sandwich bar, their doomed meal prospects.
Since taking over as the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) Center's new director at the beginning of the year, Tom Bourdon has focused on establishing an academic program dedicated to queer studies and increasing LGBT awareness on campus.
Massachusetts voters tomorrow will consider whether decriminalizing marijuana would lead to greater drug abuse and crime or provide relief from unnecessarily harsh laws and benefit law enforcement agencies and taxpayers.
A delegation of six U.S. university presidents will visit Iran thanks to an invitation from Sharif University of Technology President Saeed Sohrabpour in Tehran. With the sponsorship of the National Academy of Sciences, American scientists have been participating in an exchange program with Iran recently, establishing a forum for communication and a basis for understanding. The presidents' trip seeks to expand on these exchanges and further the progression of the two nations' educational ties. The trip has been sanctioned by the U.S. Department of State and is being organized by the Association of American Universities, a non-profit organization that concentrates on issues important to research universities. The Richard Lounsbery Foundation, which has been involved in the National Academy of Sciences' exchanges, will cover all the delegation's travel expenses. The presidents come from three private and three public institutions: Carnegie Mellon University; Cornell University; Rice University; the University of California, Davis; the University of Florida; and the University of Maryland, College Park. All schools have had some type of previous contact with Iranian educators. While the visit comes at a time of mounting tension between the U.S. administration and the Iranian government, Tufts University President Lawrence Bacow said this type of academic exchange between rivaling nations is not unprecedented. "Even during the Cold War, U.S. academics met with their colleagues in the Soviet Union," Bacow said in an e-mail. "Such contacts can pave the way for other diplomatic initiatives." Bacow credited these meetings with the eventually successful negotiations of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. University of Florida spokesperson Janine Sikes told the Daily that this trip is about more than political tensions. "This is not a political trip," Sikes said in an e-mail. "Rather, it is about strengthening scientific and educational ties." But the plan has drawn some criticism. The trip's press release on the Chronicle of Higher Education's Web site reveals a variety of sentiments on the issue. "Would they have visited South African universities under apartheid?" wrote one commenter named, "Alan." In addition to visiting various universities, the teachers will hold meetings with Iranian scientists and engineers, and conduct an open forum with the students of Sharif University. Robert Berdahl, president of the Association of American Universities, said in a press release, "Prior to the Iranian revolution in 1979, a very high percentage of the faculty at Iranian universities was educated in the United States; since that time, and especially since 9/11, that number has declined dramatically. We believe it is important to maintain and renew academic ties between our two countries as a means of laying the groundwork for greater understanding and rebuilding what was once a very healthy collaboration in science and higher education."
Students love to hate them, professors hate to give them, most colleges refuse to part with them ... and they are rampantly on the rise. Grades -- the catch-22 of the modern university -- have steadily increased in recent decades, and grade inflation is now a larger concern in the academic community than ever.
Despite the looming threat of a national recession, Boston College (BC) recently announced its most ambitious capital campaign in history, aiming to raise $1.5 billion by 2015. The "Light the World" campaign will help fund BC's strategic academic plan, which draws on feedback from BC community members, according to BC spokesperson Jack Dunn. "Three years ago, the university completed a strategic plan that involved the input of 200 BC students, employees, staff and alumni, all of whom helped set goals to address the school's most important needs," Dunn told the Daily. "This new capital campaign is the public announcement to support these strategic goals." According to Dunn, the plan will first target increasing financial aid and continuing to improve academic excellence, both of which will receive the most money. "Five hundred and seventy-five million dollars will be allocated towards academic excellence that will allow BC to hire 100 new faculty and fund more than a dozen new centers of learning," Dunn said. "In addition, $300 million will be allocated to financial aid, which the strategic plan indicated was another major priority to the BC community." Dunn added that over $225 million will be used to pay for new facilities, construction and renovation projects on campus. These projects include building four new academic buildings, a student center, a recreation complex and dormitories that will enable BC to house all of its undergraduate students in university housing. In addition, $175 million will go toward ongoing annual programs, $100 million to athletics and $125 million to student leadership programs, which according to Dunn are an important part of BC's identity. "A portion of the money from this campaign will help BC with many of our ongoing programs that help provide safe exploration opportunities for student leaders," Dunn said. "One of the many things that this will include is retreats that provide an intersection between intellectual and religious dimensions of the university." Along with raising financial capital, "Light the World" also seeks to almost double the number of alumni who give to BC from 23,000 to 40,000 alumni, Dunn said. Currently, Boston College has over 150,000 alumni. While the recent financial crisis may reduce alumni giving rates, Dunn remains confident that BC's capital campaign will meet its goal on time. "Obviously, the financial situation now is a daunting challenge for all institutions, but we think that there will be an economic recovery following this downturn," Dunn said. "We have confidence that our alumni over the course of seven years will allow us to meet our goal." Like Dunn, Tufts' Director of Donor Relations Christine Sanni is confident that Tufts will reach its goal in "Beyond Boundaries," its capital campaign that is shooting to bring in $1.2 billion by 2011. "So far, we haven't seen a change in giving this year; we're still on track for the $1.2 billion by the end of the campaign," Sanni said. "We have many donors who have not been impacted [by the financial crisis] and feel more obligated to give back to the university because they feel incredibly fortunate." Tufts' "Beyond Boundaries" campaign has raised $919 million to date. According to Sanni, the funds are designated to fall into three main areas, including additions to the university endowment, expendable gifts for immediate use and capital funds for construction of new buildings and enhancement of facilities. While Sanni noted that Tufts and BC have "slightly different" goals, she added that the two schools' campaigns both encourage a shared commitment to advancing public service. "One similarity between BC and Tufts is that there is definitely a commitment to the community on the part of students and administrators," Sanni said. "Just as Tufts is recognized for emphasizing the importance of active citizenship, BC also promotes a commitment to public service." Over the past two years, BC's "Light the World" campaign has raised over $520 million during its "quiet phase." Boston College's last financial campaign, which ended in 2003, raised over $440 million.
The Medford City Council voted on Oct. 14 to approve a $100,000 grant from a private organization to finance the construction of the city's first wind turbine. The Massachusetts Energy Consumers Alliance (Mass Energy) provided the grant to the Medford Clean Energy Committee, which will oversee the turbine project as part of a larger, city-wide initiative to "promote clean power options … and clean energy in Massachusetts," according to the committee's Web site. The turbine will be installed behind the John J. McGlynn School complex on Mystic Valley Parkway. According to Patricia Barry, director of the city's Energy and Environment Office, the turbine will produce 170,000 kilowatt hours in electricity per year. It will provide 10 percent of the McGlynn School's energy and save the city $25,000 in annual energy costs. The turbine will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 133 tons per year, which "is equivalent to burning about 13,700 gallons less gasoline," according to the committee's Web site. Barry said lessons on the turbine will be integrated into the McGlynn School's curriculum, helping to educate elementary and middle school students about alternative energy sources. McGlynn administrators purchased a program called Smartview that will allow children to track the wind turbine's progress. "[With Smartview,] the kids will be able to view right online what the wind speed [of the turbine] is and how much electricity we're producing from the wind," Barry told the Daily. "We've already started putting it into the curriculum." Construction of the turbine has already begun. "We've already installed the electrical structure, we're working on the foundation now," Barry said. If all goes well, Barry anticipates that the project will be completed by Dec. 31. In order to receive the grant from Mass Energy, Medford had to agree to certain conditions regarding the city's energy budget, including investing $100,000 in solar energy over five years. Barry said these stipulations were enacted to encourage the city to continue funding alternative energy sources. "Mass Energy wanted to see that the funding they gave us would be continually invested into other renewable projects," Barry said, describing one stipulation. The second stipulation is that the city must sell the turbine's Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) to Mass Energy, as opposed to other organizations. RECs, which are sellable certificates that provide proof that electricity has been generated from a renewable energy resource, are expected to pay for $53,550 of the turbine's funding. According to an article in the Medford Transcript, city council members were initially apprehensive about the grants conditions. City Councilor Paul Camuso was among them. "We have to be careful," Camuso said in the article. "We basically sign our rights away with Mass Energy here." But Barry is not worried. "There's really only two main provisions, and really, we should be doing this anyway," she said. Medford Mayor Michael McGlynn shares Barry's feelings. "The city shares Mass Energy's goal to promote alternative sources of energy," McGlynn told the Transcript. "These conditions were similar to ideas already being explored by city officials." "It's really a brilliant concept, the idea of continual investing in renewable energy," Barry said.
In veterinary medicine, a field once dominated by men, females are not merely increasing in number -- they are also showing signs of becoming the majority gender.
Professor of History Ayesha Jalal spoke in the Coolidge Room yesterday on the historical evolution of the concept of jihad and its implications for modern Islam. Jalal couched her largely historical lecture in a modern context, saying that the word jihad "has come to signify the tension between Muslims and the West." She added, "There is a popular notion that while not all Muslims are terrorists somehow all terrorists are Muslim." Jalal was the keynote speaker for the Dean of Arts and Sciences Robert Sternberg's Faculty Forum, an annual talk that features prominent Tufts professors. Past speakers have included Professor of Philosophy Daniel Dennett. Beginning her lecture by explaining that jihad literally means "to strive," Jalal distinguished between an interpretation of the term that focuses on a personal attempt to subdue the ego and the more widely used, contemporary meaning that emphasizes armed struggle against "the enemies of Islam." Modern interpretations of jihad break with the fundamental teachings of Islam by focusing on a concept that is not an intrinsic facet of faith, or iman, but is a manifestation of personal belief, or aqida, Jalal said. "Jihad in the modern Islamic world has become a weapon with which to threaten believers and nonbelievers alike," which is contradictory to the "high ethical values that derive from submission to Allah," Jalal said. Much of Jalal's speech centered on developments in South Asia. She said that although the current conflict between the West and religious extremists plays out on a global stage, and its "spatial center lies in Pakistan." Jalal highlighted the town of Balakot, situated in the northwest of Pakistan, as "the epicenter of jihad in South Asia." She called it the site of "the only real jihad ever to be fought on the subcontinent," describing the 1831 Battle of Balakot that pitted Sikhs against Muslims in an armed struggle still meaningful to contemporary militants. While Balakot has been used as a base for the terrorist organization Jamaat-ud-Dawa, when the earthquake of Oct. 8, 2005 struck, factional considerations were cast aside in the name of saving fellow Muslims from the devastation, Jalal said. "Where men had failed, could an act of God change the form of jihad in Pakistan?" Jalal asked, painting the incident as analogous to divergent interpretations of the term jihad and one that suggested a "new way to struggle in the name of Allah." Jalal said that the persistent difficulty of attaching an absolute definition to the word is representative of a larger split in theology and practice in the world of Islam. "The contested and fluid meanings of jihad in Muslim history suggest that the issue is not a settled one," Jalal said, adding that this ambiguity "underscores the imperative of continuing debates in the present and also the future." Jalal said that this internal struggle continues to diffuse the aims of contemporary militant groups and foster debates about the validity of movements such as the Taliban. The interpretation of jihad as warfare against infidels draws on a "wholly arbitrary distinction" between the concept of dar-ul-Islam, or Islam as "the abode of peace," and a violent concept that has no sanction in the Koran, Jalal said. Rejecting a "false dichotomy" between subjective context and immutable textual backing in intellectual history as "untenable," Jalal emphasized the nature of interpretations as varying between regions and eras. "It's not merely a question of Muslims diverging from theory in their practice, but even the theory changed in different historical circumstances," Jalal said. Jalal said that the concept of jihad as armed warfare became "far less salient" after the resolution of brutal conflicts that shook Islam in its formative years, as the perceived threat of enemies to the faith lessened. Focusing on South Asia as a focal point for contemporary debates regarding the nature of Islam and jihad, Jalal said that pre-independence India helped define the boundaries of Indian identity. "The revitalized concept of jihad as an ethical struggle" emerged in modern-day India in the 19th century, helping to foment anti-colonial sentiment and in cases draw together India's varied and disparate ethnic groups, Jalal said. Jalal said that the current understanding of jihad's meaning issues from the struggle of Afghan mujahideen against Soviet aggressors. "The decisive transformation in both the theory and practice in Southeast Asia was triggered by the Soviet invasion," she said. Jalal ended by urging a form of Islam that promotes "respect for fellow human beings, regardless of their ideological, or even religious, beliefs." Vali Nasr, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School, followed Jalal's talk. Nasr also serves as an adjunct senior fellow on the Council of Foreign Relations, an online resource on international affairs. Nasr cautioned against rigid examinations of complex concepts like jihad as if they are "context-free, as if the historical circumstances have been uniform." "We are where we are with jihad ... not because of Muslim certitude about jihad but exactly because of the incertitude that exists," he said. Given the mutability of the concept, Nasr said that the Muslim world should be adapting the word to give it a more progressive meaning that could play into the changing nature of the faith as a whole. "The solution for Muslims is not another interpretation in context but a reformation," Nasr said. "They ought to think about these issues very seriously." Nasr said that "the modern concept of Jihad was defined against the West in many ways" as a source of both ideological and political opposition and this construction must be rethought. Nasr also suggested that the ascension of Osama Bin Laden, whom he characterized as "the son of a Saudi billionaire with no real background in Islam," represents a democratization of the idea of Jihad making it so that "anyone can declare what are the laws and who is the target." As a result, the structure of Islamic authority hangs in the balance, Nasr said. "You might have a restoration of authority as to who interprets Islam, and you might have a complete breakdown," he said.
In recent years, Tufts' Fletcher Field has been the locale of many prominent events on campus, including commencement activities and the annual orientation barbeque. But Fletcher also hosts an entirely different wave of guests: canines.
The Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services (ALLIES) is leading its second annual "Intellectual Roundtable" this week, bringing dozens of military and academic experts to campus to discuss cooperation between civil and military enterprises. The three-day-long event is set to kick off tonight with a keynote address from Antonia Chayes, the author of "Planning for Intervention: International Cooperation in Conflict Management." The title of this year's roundtable is "Increasing National Participation in Security and Defense." Students and experts will examine the role of social sciences in the U.S. military and take a look at the military's connections to politics. These ties are particularly relevant given the high number of military officials who have endorsed a presidential candidate this cycle. Of particular interest will be Defense Secretary Robert Gates' Minerva initiative, which allocates millions of dollars to support academic researchers' work on projects that do things like examine the connections between religion and terrorism and archive documents on Chinese military doctrines. "That's probably one of the most important topics we're going to be discussing," said ALLIES member Chas Morrison, a sophomore. Minerva draws on the social sciences to improve war-fighting capacities, according to Morrison, a Tufts Community Union senator. While the initiative has tangible benefits, it has also received criticism regarding this type of intersection between academics and the military. The ALLIES symposium's programming will involve panel discussions, including "Strange Bedfellows? The DoD and the Social Sciences" and "The Imminent Challenge: Transitioning Security in Fragile States," and a screening of the film "Hidden Wounds," a documentary about soldiers coping with post-traumatic stress disorder. The symposium will close on Friday with a second keynote address, this one by Andrew Bacevich, author of "The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism." As of two weeks ago, ALLIES had received 20 confirmations of attendance from experts, including faculty from the U.S. Naval Academy at West Point, scholars from George Mason University and professors from the Fletcher School. But Morrison anticipates that there will be between 30 and 40 attendees. The panel discussions, which will each feature three or four experts, will be open to all students. ALLIES students and visiting students will also attend a number of smaller conferences with distinguished guests. Twenty to 30 Tufts students will take part in these conferences, where they will be joined by students from the Naval Academy and Air Force. "That's one of the really unique assets to an intellectual roundtable," Morrison said. "We're going to be sitting down with people from all sides of the table."
