An unauthorized email purportedly announcing the death of University President Sunil Kumar was sent to Tufts community members on the morning of April 1, ending with the words “April Fools” and a call for heightened security measures.
The Department of Romance Studies is unveiling a new interdisciplinary major — aptly named Romance Studies — for the upcoming fall semester that will allow students to study two romance languages simultaneously. In addition, the French department has also tweaked requirements for the French minor to accommodate students with higher proficiency, with credit toward the six required courses beginning at French 4.
Tufts University accepted 10% of applicants to the undergraduate Class of 2028, the admissions office announced shortly after spring break. This year’s acceptance rate rose just half a percent above the record low acceptance rate set last year, just 9.5%.
For the first time, applicants to the Tufts Class of 2028 were given the option to be considered for the Tufts Civic Semester in their Tufts undergraduate applications. The Civic Semester, coordinated by Tisch College and student travel program organization Where There Be Dragons, gives newly admitted students the opportunity to engage in internships with civic organizations and to immerse themselves in local communities abroad, through excursions and living with host families.
On any given weekend morning, small crowds of students can be found waiting outside the Joyce Cummings Center entrance. Why? The building is closed to non-computer science students before 12 p.m. For this demographic, the following behavior is typical: fruitlessly pulling at the door handles, peering into the windows or awkward loitering until someone with the right keycard comes along.
TEDxTufts announced the speaker lineup for this year’s conference and a special exhibit that will be featured on the day of the conference. The conference, on April 13, is being presented as: “TEDxTufts Turns Ten: Refraction.” The speaker lineup for this year’s conference includes Bernadette Dineen, Cristobal Cea, David “Dee-1” Augustine, David Delvalle, Dr. Miguel Basáñez, Dr. Natalie Rubio, Nikhil Vootkur, Peter Kaldes, Sophia Day and Supreme Hassan.
For the sixth consecutive year, Tufts is hosting Global Tufts Month. Throughout the month of March, a series of collaboratively organized events will be put on following the theme “Humanitarian Aid: Working Together in Times of Conflict.”
Established in 1963, the Somerville Municipal Employees Association has since grown to represent more than 260 municipal workers, with bargaining units that cover everything from the Department of Public Works to the library department to school nurses. For more than 20 months, however, these vital city workers, prohibited by Massachusetts law from going on strike, have been working without a contract.
The Tufts Federalist Society hosted a panel about the criminal indictments against former United States President Donald Trump on March 1 in the Joyce Cummings Center. The panel consisted of Jeffery Cohen, associate professor of the practice at Boston College Law School; Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow at The Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank; and the moderator, Tufts’ own Eitan Hersh, an associate professor of political science and civic studies.
By March 1, sophomores in the School of Arts and Sciences were required to declare a primary major. This is a hard deadline for all second-year students, with class registration placed on hold upon failure to declare. While many have already decided on a major, others approached the deadline undeclared.
On Monday, Tufts announced a pilot program involving new changes to the registration process for undergraduate students. Engineering students will now register two days in advance for School of Engineering and select Arts and Sciences courses required for their degree progress — mostly those under the math, chemistry, biology and physics and astronomy departments — but will register for other classes simultaneously with Arts and Sciences students in their class year at randomly assigned times.
Club pickleball, founded this semester by sophomores Luke Steiner and Kekoa Pastron, aims to provide a space for students to be able to both learn the growing sport and play it competitively. Currently, the team has over 100 people on their roster and is only growing.
Jordin Sparks, Iyaz and Tkay Maidza will perform at this year’s Spring Fling, as announced by the Tufts University Social Collective on Monday. The concert will be held on April 20 from 12–5 p.m. on the Academic Quad. “We are excited to say that we have a headliner that is a woman,” TUSC co-concert coordinators Gus Tringale and Thomas Grant wrote in a message to the Daily. “From last year’s all male lineup, we looked forward to pivoting more female representation not only for diversity’s sake but to cover a wider base of musical taste at Tufts.”
On the evening of Feb. 29, the Rabb Room in Barnum Hall became a productive dialogue space consisting of Tufts undergraduates, Tufts Prison Initiative graduates, activists and government legislators, all gathered to discuss how to turn policies on paper into real change.
Kevin Outterson, a professor of health law, ethics and human rights at Boston University, spoke at The Fletcher School’s annual Dr. Maurice S. Segal Lecture on Feb. 29. Outterson’s talk, titled “The Social Ecology of Antimicrobial Resistance,” focused on the science, economics and accessibility of antimicrobial medicines.
Student demonstrators held a protest at Ballou Hall in support of Palestine on Nov. 17, 2023, demanding that Tufts end its ties to Israeli institutions and denounce Israel’s assault on Gaza. In the weeks following the protest, 18 students received disciplinary violations, one student had their study abroad privileges revoked and Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine publicly alleged on Instagram that Tufts University Police Department officers had engaged in physical and verbal harassment against students.
The Tufts Association of South Asians hosted its annual Culture Show in the Cohen Auditorium this past Saturday. The lively “C-Show” set was made up of 15 acts including four South Asian dance teams, four class dances, three solo acts, a guest performance and a comedy skit intertwined.
In an email sent to the wider Tufts community on Monday, University President Sunil Kumar condemned the three recently passed Tufts Community Union Senate resolutions that called on the university to cut ties to Israel and to acknowledge the Palestinian genocide in Gaza. Sent less than 12 hours after the Senate announced results around 3 a.m., Kumar’s email sparked a student protest and die-in at Barnum Hall on Tuesday.
The Tufts Undergraduate Law Review, the only of its kind on Tufts’ campus, will publish its first edition in April. The publication follows in the footsteps of other undergraduate law reviews, notably those of Brown and Harvard.
The Office of Equal Opportunity recently sent out a survey to the Tufts community seeking to gauge the prevalence of sexual misconduct on campus. OEO worked with the education consulting group Grand River Solutions to develop the survey and has been collecting responses since Feb. 12. Campus organizations that focus on sexual misconduct and sexual health will use the results to fine-tune their offerings.
