The Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University (USDA HNRCA), in collaboration with the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, installed a new indoor garden on the Boston/Chinatown campus.
The Tufts Daily: What made you want to become a University chaplain? Was it something you always knew you wanted to do? Reverend Greg McGonigle: Its been a journey. I grew up in the Boston area, and my family is Catholic. Ive been interested in spirituality my whole life, and so I decided I wanted to go to a Catholic high school. It was, in fact, studying religion in school that raised a lot of questions for me about what I believe, and the relationship between facts and faith. It set me on a journey of exploring different faiths beyond Christianity.At the same time, I was taking literature classes that introduced me to the Transcendentalist period. I was studying beautiful writings about nature, and how we can connect with the divine through our own minds and through our experiences in nature. That was very appealing to me. When I got to college I ended up going to Brown University because I wanted to study world religions and because I liked the progressive atmosphere I found Unitarian Universalism, which is the tradition I now belong to myself. Its a tradition that has strong progressive ethical beliefs but is open theologically to a lot of different ways of understanding life and the universe. I found a home in Unitarian Universalism, and ended up going to Harvard Divinity School to continue studying religions. I had initially considered becoming a professor, but I started thinking of ministry as a way to bring together my interests in religion with my interests in caring for people and social justice. I knew I wanted to be in higher education, so I realized chaplaincy would allow me to combine all of my interests. TD: How did your family react to your change in faith? GM: My decision to move into a different faith tradition was not an easy one for my family at the beginning. It was difficult for all of us because theyre very committed to their faith and Im committed to mine. I never saw my becoming Unitarian Universalist as necessarily leaving Catholicism. Like languages, Catholicism was my first language in faith, and then I took on another but you never really lose the first one you learned. Thats why it wasnt a rejection; it was an embracing, an expansion for me. It was still very hard nonetheless, and I believe that process of both becoming confident in my own identity, as well as working through that with my family, taught me a lot, not only about myself, but also about how those sorts of situations can go an important lesson, especially working now with those in a university setting who are also experiencing big transitions in their lives, about studies, careers, loves, and beliefs. Q: What kind of work are chaplains engaged in? What is your role here at Tufts and what kinds of programs do you offer on campus? GM: We do four main things. First, we support religious and philosophical communities. Tufts has about 20 of them, and part of the work of the chaplains is supporting those groups, advising them and helping them to do the things they do. We work with the Freethought Society [and] nonreligious students as well. Second, we educate about religions in society and the world; we offer educational and cultural programming for the whole university. Third, we promote interfaith engagement. I work with the Interfaith Student Council, encouraging dialogue across traditions, mutual learning, and engagement on social justice issues people care about. The fourth piece is pastoral care; we do direct counseling, we provide support for people when unfortunate events occur, we do memorial services on campus, and we do weddings as well. We do some work in campus and community relations too, and collaborative programming with various academic departments and programs. Were hoping to do more with The Fletcher School around international issues, and with Tisch College around active citizenship. Those are some of the relationships were hoping to build in the next five to 10 years. Q: What have you seen this semester at Tufts that you would like to change? What would you like to accomplish in the coming years? GM: I would definitely like to grow some of the resources around the communities we have. We have amazing, vibrant, spiritual and philosophical communities and leaders doing amazing things. In addition to their 20 or so weekly gatherings, all of them offer many one-time programs speakers, retreats, service projects and musical opportunities. Were thinking about how we can better support and be a resource for those initiatives. Were also trying to cultivate the Interfaith Student Council, and help them to take the lead in getting the university engaged in religious pluralism and religious literacy. A very important part of my vision is that we adopt a collaborative, intersectional, and student empowerment approach seeing where the energy is for students and focusing our resources in those directions. At the same time were increasing resources for faculty and staff through collaborations with the new Wellness Center [for faculty and staff] and looking to provide more spiritual resources on Tufts Boston and Grafton campuses. We also need to explore support for the spiritual but not religious.12
Members of the Schools of Arts and Sciences and Engineering faculty voted in December to adopt a new policy on online courses.
As the average age of Somerville residents declines and new restaurants flock to the city, the town once known as Slum-erville has transformed its reputation.
About 130 students participated in Tufts latest, 24-hour hackathon, TuftsHack, which began Saturday afternoon.During the event that juniors Marcella Hastings and Will Clarkson organized, students worked in teams to develop and code software projects. Through the hackathon, students learned practical ...
The Tufts Mock Trial team qualified two delegations for next months American Mock Trial Associations Opening Round Championship Series (ORCS) where the teams will compete to participate in the National Championship Tournament.
Paul Schulte (F 88), a senior fellow at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, led a discussion last night on the growth of technology and its impact on the banking industry.
The Tufts Community Union Senate at its meeting yesterday unanimously passed a resolution calling on the administration to reform Tufts on-campus voter registration process.
Introduction to Yiddish Culture, a course taught for 42 years by the Alice and Nathan Gantcher University Professor of Judaic Studies Sol Gittleman, was cancelled on Jan. 15 after Gittleman experienced complications with his hip replacement surgery.
Through its admission outreach, Tufts has worked to brand itself as a community diverse in more ways than one. Through its Council on Diversity, the Tufts administration has taken steps to ensure that the universitys reputation of commitment to diversity is a reality.On Dec. 5, 2013, the Council on Diversity released its final report. Formally launched in March 2012, the Council spent over a year researching both the compositional diversity of the university and the campus climate toward inclusion. The report found that a commitment to a campus climate that fosters diversity was a common theme across campuses and produced recommendations for how each one can improve.Though the Councils research relied heavily on numerical data, it also conducted campus surveys and discussion groups in order to determine student opinions regarding diversity at Tufts. The Council organized three working groups that examined the university experience at the the undergraduate, graduate and administrative levels.Dean of Multicultural Affairs and Global Health at the School of Medicine Dr. Joyce Sackey chaired the Graduate and Professional Student Experience Working Group and commented on the process.We combed through reams and reams ... of data, Sackey said. While Tufts is, in general, a welcoming place and actually has diversity as one of its expressed values in its mission statement, we could do a better job of increasing ... compositional diversity.While she emphasized the importance of compositional diversity in admissions practices, Sackey said that it is equally important to ensure that students feel supported by the university once they are here.It isnt enough to just bring people here in numbers, she said. You need to create an environment where they all thrive [where] each student, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, family of origin ... would feel supported, respected and ... like they could succeed here.Sackey noted that the university can learn from the Tufts LGBTQ community, which reported a high approval rate of their support structures in a survey.One group that appears to be feeling supported and ... satisfied [is] the students in the LGBTQ community, she said. Thats a group that we should study more in terms of what kinds of structures we have in place that make [LGBTQ students] feel supported and welcome when they come to Tufts.The Council is committed to increasing access to financial aid. In order to do so, the university established the Financial Aid Initiative in 2012 with the goal of raising $25 million in financial aid endowment a goal that is to be matched by $25 million from unrestricted university funds. The initiative has already raised $22 million, according to a Dec. 5, 2013 TuftsNow article.Another focus of the report is the addition of a Chief Diversity Officer, who will work under the Office of the Provost to oversee the implementation of the Councils other proposals. Special Advisor to the Provost and Interim Dean of Tisch College Nancy Wilson is serving as head of the search committee for this new administrative position.Wilson explained that the Chief Diversity Officer would be a part of the Council on Diversity and would be charged with creating a separate coordinating committee, which would deal with the how-to of implementing the recommendations outlined in the report.The diversity coordinating committee ... will really build a community of practice, Wilson said. Its important to think of how [the Chief Diversity Officer] will actually get their job done.Wilson stated that she hopes the position can be filled before the end of this academic year. In order to do so, the university will hire a search firm to help refine the job description and narrow down the list of potential candidates.Weve been interviewing several of those firms, Wilson said. They will work with us to finalize not only the job description which is what this person will actually be doing but also the position description, which is: Whats the context for this? What are the expectations and why is the university doing this? Then, they will work with us to identify candidates.Adriana Zavala, an associate professor of art and art history, who chaired the Council on Diversity and headed the Undergraduate Student Experience Working Group, underscored the Councils commitment to expanding financial aid. She noted that there is room for improvement. Increasing our financial aid budget and using funds to ensure that all students have equal access to the opportunities a Tufts education offers is an important challenge, Zavala wrote in an email to the Daily. [University President Anthony Monaco] has made significant progress in fundraising, but more work still needs to be done. I am inspired by how seriously President Monaco takes this issue [and by] what he has accomplished already in raising funds to increase the financial aid budget.12
Tufts Hillel welcomed students and faculty for a dinner discussion titled Judaism: Religion or Culture? at the Granoff Family Hillel Center Thursday evening.
The Office for Campus Life (OCL) will sell additional Winter Ball tickets next week, after many students had problems purchasing event tickets when they first went on sale on Jan. 27.
The Institute for Global Leadership won a $200,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation last September to be spent over the course of two years.
The Joey was involved in a three-car pileup at around 10 a.m. Wednesday morning in front of the Mayer Campus Center.
Professor of Political Science Jeff Berry and Associate Professor of Sociology Sarah Sobieraj released a new book called The Outrage Industry: Political Opinion Media and the New Incivility in November 2013. The book, which explores how partisan cable and radio shows grab audience attention with emotional appeals, combines Tufts professors academic interests in politics and media. Berry spoke with the Daily to share some of his thoughts about their project. The Tufts Daily: What is your new book The Outrage Industry about? Jeffrey Berry: The book is about a particular genre of political commentary that Professor Sobieraj and I have labeled outrage. It is political rhetoric designed to make you angry. It plays with your emotions and evokes a variety of sentiments. Not only anger, but engagement. Reflection, but more than anything else, anger. You respond to the visceral rhetoric of the TV host or radio host in a very direct and emotional way. TD:: How did this idea for the book come along? JB: It was a bit of an accident. I hadnt ever studied the media before and I was a guest on The OReilly Factor on Fox News in 2004. They wanted someone to stand in for Senator [John] Kerry because he wouldnt go on the show during the presidential campaign of that year. It was a bizarre experience ... Flash forward about four years and Professor Sobieraj had gotten an invitation to apply for a grant with a grant program that was given by the Bernstein Family for interdisciplinary research ... But one of the requirements of the grant the university didnt make this up, it was the family that gave the money [was] that she had to work with a senior faculty member from another discipline. Professor Sobieraj had worked in the field of advocacy, which is my field interest groups and social movements so she suggested we get together. We decided that we would work on something together as opposed to me just being a mentor ... We talked more seriously about doing something book length ... [So] we decided to plunge ahead and write a book. TD: How did your similar backgrounds in advocacy aid your partnership? JB: It was more that our dissimilar backgrounds complemented each other. We didnt think alike. We saw things from different points of view and we had different strengths. There are parts of the book that she wrote that I couldnt have written, and there are a couple of chapters that I think she probably wouldnt have put in the book if she had written it by herself, that I wrote. So, I actually think that we complemented each other in [each] having expertise that the other didnt. And it made for a book that is expansive and that really cuts across three academic fields: political science, sociology and media studies. TD: What was the process of research like? JB: The process of writing and research took about five years and its a nice tough story in that along the way a number of students were involved in the research. They either got credit or were paid. But there were four in particular that were instrumental in producing content that we used in the book. They did a lot of the grunt work and I think that it was work that required some thought on their part, [they werent] just some mindless cogs on a wheel. One student worked on the Tea Party the 2010 primaries where the Tea Party really broke through. She developed a database that became the basis of Chapter Six in the book. Another student ... watched and listened to TV and radio programs that use [outrage] and took notes about the ways in which the hosts engender loyalty and, in a sense, interact with the audience things they do to make the audience loyal. She was very good at that, and she actually got her name on one of the papers. Then two other students worked with us ... to do a content analysis where we actually recorded what people said and analyzed it along 13 different variables that were different forms of outrage. And those students were terrific at it.TD:What were you hoping to accomplish with this project? JB:We wanted to shed light on this [outrage industry] in a way that makes people appreciate how it fits into the larger political system that it wasnt just Rush Limbaugh saying stupid things on the radio; that there was, in fact, a business. One of the themes of the book is that this [industry] is a business; that people and companies make money off of this, and so there is an incentive to be outrageous and to push the envelope of what you say to attract greater ratings and keep yourself controversial; to get yourself actually in the mainstream press where people are writing about you and what you say. Theres this incentive to be outrageous to attract ratings, which attracts sponsors, which allows you to change more for advertising rates 12
Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues, spoke in Cohen Auditorium last night as part of the Merrin Moral Voices Lecture series sponsored by Tufts Hillel.
Dining Services is currently holding a naming competition for the newly-opened Kosher Deli.
Last month, a sophomore at Harvard University falsely reported that shrapnel bombs had been placed around the campus to avoid taking a final exam, later claiming in his defense that he acted because of a large amount of academic pressure. While this is an extreme case of how stress can lead a student to act rashly, it calls into question the resources that are provided to college students across the country to help them cope with the pressures of being an undergraduate.According to Associate Dean of Orientation and Student Transition Laura Doane, if a similar situation were to arise at Tufts, the universitys emergency operations would be put into motion to deal with it appropriately.The sad thing is we do have emergency protocols in place. We hope we dont have to use them, she said.Julie Jampel, director of Training and Continuing Education at Counseling and Mental Health Service (CMHS), explained that one resource that aims to help students handle stress not only during emergencies, but throughout the semester is the support that the counseling center provides.Most students who call us for an appointment are able to schedule it within a couple of days, Jampel told the Daily in an email. At certain points in the semester, when we are especially busy, it may be necessary to wait a week or so for an appointment. However, we are able to accommodate those students who need to be seen urgently.Sophomore Emma Brenner-Bryant, co-president of Tufts Health Advocates (THA), a student advisory board to Tufts Health Service, relayed student concerns that counselors are not available enough.We consistently hear that you cant get in and make an appointment, she said.According to Brenner-Bryant, when THA has brought these student concerns to CMHS, the service reported that they would need more funding to accommodate these concerns. This lack of resources, Brenner-Bryant pointed out, can leave students without the care they require.Tufts students are the kind of kids who will keep it together and not say they need mental health services, Brenner-Bryant said. We pretend we can suck it up ... Students dont know how to handle it in a productive way. Theres a lot of drinking and partying to try [to] relax because were all so uptight and stressed during the school year.According to the CMHS, its primary goal is prevention of mental health problems a goal that can prove difficult without the proper amount of resources, like a sufficient number counselors.I personally dont think that Tufts has enough of a support system in place for those who need it, Brenner-Bryant explained.Dean John Barker was unable to comment on the amount of funding allocated per annum to the CMHS. The Mandatory Health Services Fee for the 2013-14 academic year is $710, according to the Bursar, and although all students pay this fee, only 25 percent of students use their health services resources annually, according to the service.Doane, in contrast to Brenner-Bryants concerns, affirmed her belief that the CMHS is prepared to provide the support it claims to offer.[The CMHS] is prepared for and really does see the gamut homesickness, general stress, adjusting to the college environment academically and socially, which is particularly true for first and second semester students, Doane said. Theyre well-equipped for students who are willing to harm themselves or others. Theyre trained clinicians.THA, however, has found that the setup of the CMHS is not aligned with most students needs for long-term counseling. According to the CMHS website, students with more complex mental health needs will be referred to off-campus clinicians.Another issue is they only have short-term counseling, Brenner-Bryant said. A lot of people are turned off by that. But then [students] dont have the resources to get off campus ... So the next question is: Would students be willing to pay more for the health services fee?Doane pointed out that the service is supposed to be accessible to all students, whether they have mental health problems or not.Not only is our support available and ready, but every student is expected to access that support, she said. It is better to start ... using [this] kind of support now rather than later.Doane noted that another year-round resource that students can access is Time Management and Study Strategies (TM & SS) Consulting, where students can work one-on-one with a consultant about anything from time management to test-taking strategies.TM & SS is the best non-secret on campus, Doane said. The idea behind that is that no matter how rigorous your high school curriculum, college coursework is different. I see students who do well in class, get the material and do well on homework, and then they bomb a test.Brenner-Bryant attributed a lot of student stress to excessive workloads, not to a lack of time management.12
Winter Ball, this years replacement for Winter Bash, will take place on Feb. 8 at Royale Boston from 6 to 10 p.m.
The Office of the President, the University Chaplaincy and the Africana Center celebrated the lives or Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela in a commemorative event at Goddard Chapel last Thursday.
