In an economic climate that seems to reflect nothing but pessimism, one finance expert chooses to see the glass as half-full. Financial journalist Farnoosh Torabi believes that young adults can lead a fun life without emptying out their bank accounts, and she's made it a priority to spread her message across the country.
Mind reading, a concept previously relegated to futuristic fantasy novels and late-night Miss Cleo advertisements, may no longer merely fall in the domain of science fiction. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) recently reported their discovery of a method to view and subsequently analyze the precise brain processes that occur as a person thinks about a specific word. Scientists say they are getting closer and closer to pinpointing the basic images and ideas that flash through a person's mind at any given moment.
How many times have you been walking into or out of Dewick when some overly aggressive freshman shoves a pamphlet in your face or asks you to complete a survey on the merits and/or drawbacks of bottled water, for instance? At Tufts, we are all simply unable to steer clear of nervy volunteers looking for signatures for a petition, more volunteers or, worst of all, donations. This campus is absolutely saturated with volunteerism and activism, which isn't a bad thing in a vacuum.
Following rowdy and drunken student behavior at last month's Winter Bash, Tufts Programming Board spoke out, condemning the student body's actions at the annual Gantcher Center dance.
While the recession has students cutting corners in their spending, professors have also seen them cutting corners in classes. Faculty have reported a record increase in both the number and severity of academic integrity violations to the administration during this academic year, and the number of infractions is on track to surpass previous years' totals, according to Judicial Affairs Officer Veronica Carter. The infringements have resulted in a large number of student suspensions, Carter said. Offenses range from plagiarism due to improper citation to bringing unauthorized materials into the classroom to defrauding the work-study program. In 2005, the Faculty of Arts, Sciences and Engineering established a standardized system of consequences for violations across different departments, according to Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman. "It established guidelines for both a disciplinary and a grading consequence," he said. Before the new system was instituted, professors used their discretion in cases they may have deemed to be less severe. After the reform, Reitman said, instructional staff and faculty members were obligated to report to university officials all suspected violations. Detecting plagiarism became easier for professors with the advent of Turnitin.com, an online database to which professors may require students to submit their writing. Turnitin cross-references submissions with Internet entries and previously submitted work. Over 150 Tufts professors regularly use Turnitin, which often catches students plagiarizing assignments which are several years old and which they consider to be safe to copy, according to Reitman. Due to Turnitin's effectiveness in detecting unoriginal work, most schools see a spike in plagiarism reports once professors start using the Web site, he said. Unlike other schools that use the service, however, Tufts has not seen academic violations taper off since the initial increase after more professors started using the database. Although any professor can use the site when work seems suspicious, professors are required to notify students when they use it routinely for course submissions. One student told the Daily that he was caught off-guard when Turnitin flagged his work as dubious. "My teacher didn't tell me about [it]," said the student, who requested anonymity to not jeopardize his future academic relationships. "All I got was this e-mail to meet with Veronica Carter." The meeting was particularly unexpected because the student did not intentionally borrow from other sources. "I didn't really copy someone else's thoughts, just facts that were verbatim," the student said. "I wasn't actively thinking that this was a good sentence to copy." The student was found guilty of a level I infraction, which includes indirect quoting and paraphrasing, as well as improper citation. Even though students know professors across campus use Turnitin, they are still surprised when their work is considered unauthentic, Reitman said. "There's this unrealistic invulnerability that some people feel that they're just not going to get their work nabbed for plagiarism," he said. "Students are always surprised when these things are found." Professor of Political Science Jeffrey Taliaferro said he has used Turnitin in the past, but he noted that it should not be considered a panacea and that professors should not rely on it as the only option to detect cheating. Taliaferro, who does not hold in-class exams, added that he has also seen students paraphrase, cite improperly and use unverifiable excuses for missing assignments. Among the three levels of academic integrity violations, suspensions can result from a level III offense or multiple level II offenses. Level II offenses can include direct borrowing of work without attribution and unauthorized collaboration. Level III offenses include, but are not limited to, cheating on an exam, falsifying data and plagiarizing large portions of a paper. All incoming freshmen are currently required to attend a seminar on academic integrity during their orientation. Carter also intends to work with student groups and the Judicial Advocates to raise the level of awareness of cheating on campus. "What I plan to do with the Academic Resource Center is try to get more information out to students … to let students know that they are held accountable for these actions," Carter said. "They're suspendable offenses. Students can get expelled."
Shepard Fairey, the renowned street artist behind the "Obey Giant" campaign and the Barack Obama "Hope" portrait, was arrested in Boston on Friday night on two outstanding warrants for tagging property without permission.
With nights full of homework, hall chats and episodes of "Gossip Girl," many college students view sleep as an ephemeral afterthought rather than a vital component of good mental and physical health. According to the McKinley Health Center, the average college student sleeps for only six hours per night, although the center recommends eight hours of sleep.
Every day, students, parents, teachers and prospective students explore the Web site of the School of Engineering; most, however, are unaware that the site was actually an assignment for a little-known group of undergraduate engineering students a few years ago. The site was designed by engineering psychology majors, who placed an intense emphasis on the psychology behind human thinking.
Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone has named Professor of Economics Daniel Richards to a committee that will explore how the city can best meet budgetary constraints during the recession.
Citing a growing trend in academia, a Tufts committee is questioning whether Advanced Placement (AP) credits are valid substitutes for college courses.
The Leonard Carmichael Society (LCS) celebrated its numerous partnerships with community organizations last night at an event in the Remis Sculpture Court. LCS members looked to use the gathering to give thanks to the people and groups that sustain its projects and to make headway with town-gown relations.
Wikipedia has become a staple of college procrastination. If not for the site's obscure and unregulated content, here's a look at some facts users might be missing out on: —Pokémon villain Miror B is a flamboyant disco fan who has his own quartet of dancing Ludicolo (a duck-like creature); —Squirrel meat is featured in some versions of the popular cookbook, "The Joy of Cooking." Squirrels can also serve as a substitute for chicken in most recipes; —Under the Travancore kingdom of Kerala, India, low caste women had to pay a tax for the right to cover their upper body; —Tony Blair's family often vacationed in Rossnowlagh, a beach resort near his mother Hazel's hometown of Ballyshannon in south Donegal in the Republic of Ireland; —Anthropaphagy is another term for eating human flesh; —Male French bulldogs are unable to mount females due to defects caused by inbreeding. In order to breed, female French bulldogs must be artificially inseminated; —Ketchup was originally made from mushrooms and not tomatoes; — Artist Shepard Fairey, a diabetic, DJs at many clubs under the name DJ Diabetic and Emcee Insulin.
As the recession chips away at Tufts' endowment and operating budget, the trustees will evaluate this weekend how the university is weathering the fiscal storm.
Always a controversial source of information, Wikipedia.org is trying to clean up its act.
Yesterday's article "Tufts' investing strategy places heavy emphasis on hedge funds" mistakenly featured a picture of Trustee Secretary Linda Dixon. The picture appeared due to a production mistake, not because Dixon has a connection to the story. The Feb. 4 article "Plans for Green Line extension moving forward" quoted Director of Community Relations Barbara Rubel as saying, "Just as students who live downhill have easy access to the Red Line in Davis Square, students who live uphill will be able to utilize the Green Line." This was a paraphrase, not a direct quote.
The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate will host a "fireside chat" on the effects of self-segregation tonight, with the goal of bringing together a diverse group of individuals to discuss on-campus diversity issues. The dialogue, sponsored by the Senate's Culture, Ethnicity and Community Affairs (CECA) Committee, hopes to explore the way that self-segregation affects the overall atmosphere at Tufts. All members of the Tufts community are invited to the event, which begins at 7:30 p.m. in Paige Hall's Crane Room. Sophomore Nedghie Adrien, the Pan-African Alliance representative on CECA, proposed the idea last semester. "It came about from different discussions I've had with friends about how different communities don't interact much with each other, and we wanted to have a discussion about why that is and why people separate themselves," Adrien said. "We want students to feel comfortable to express their different views." This event fits into CECA's goal of bringing different ethnic student groups together. "The group is meant to address any concerns about diversity issues on campus as well as campus relations with the Medford and Somerville communities," said CECA Co-Chair Ryan Heman, a sophomore. In the past, CECA has been responsible for holding the annual Culture Fest and working on different diversity projects across campus. The Senate's Community Representatives, who represent the Pan-African Alliance, the Association of Latin American Students, the Queer-Straight Alliance and the Asian American Alliance, sit on the committee along with six others. Representatives from the Africana Center, Asian American Center, International Center, Latino Center, LGBT Center and the Women's Center, collectively known as the "Group of Six," plan to attend the chat. "I think it's a really important issue and I'm looking forward to the conversation," said TCU President Duncan Pickard, a junior. Other cultural groups on campus, as well as Patrick Romero-Aldaz, director of fraternity and sorority affairs, were invited to the event. "There are a lot of different groups on campus talking about issues of diversity and we want to start a dialogue about that," Heman said. "We wanted to bring the various diverse communities together and talk about how each community is self-segregated from each other." "We're trying to get the most eclectic group of people to have a lot of different ideas and a good discussion," Adrien said. The chat also hopes to address any concealed frictions between groups or individuals on campus. "I think there are a lot of underlying tensions on campus along socioeconomic and racial lines," said sophomore Chas Morrison, chair of the Senate's Administration and Policy Committee. "I think this sort of discussion is very healthy to air these grievances out in the open and come to a mutual understanding." Morrison linked some of these divisions to the Primary Source controversy two years ago. "If people on campus can understand where people are coming from," he said, "that will produce a healthy dialogue that will lead to a healthier campus community." Representatives participating in the chat expressed hope that similar discussions will be able to continue and expand in the future. "We're looking towards larger sessions where the administration is involved and we'll hopefully have a faculty chairing the debate," Heman said. Adrien agreed, hoping that something — an event to reflect diversity or unity, or another dialogue — occurs in the future.
The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate will host a "fireside chat" on the effects of self-segregation tonight, with the goal of bringing together a diverse group of individuals to discuss on-campus diversity issues. The dialogue, sponsored by the Senate's Culture, Ethnicity and Community Affairs (CECA) committee, hopes to explore the way that self-segregation affects the overall atmosphere at Tufts. Sophomore Nedghie Adrien, the Pan African Alliance representative on CECA, proposed the idea last semester. "It came about from different discussions I've had with friends about how different communities don't interact much with each other, and we wanted to have a discussion about why that is and why people separate themselves," Adrien said. "We want students to feel comfortable to express their different views." This event fits into CECA's goal of bringing different ethnic student groups together. "The group is meant to address any concerns about diversity issues on campus as well as campus relations with the Medford and Somerville communities," CECA Co-Chair Ryan Heman, a sophomore, said. In the past, CECA has been responsible for holding the annual Culture Fest and working on different diversity projects across campus. Representatives from the Pan African Alliance, the Association of Latin American Students, the Queer Straight Alliance and the Asian American Alliance sit on the committee along with six others. Representatives from the Africana Center, Asian American Center, International Center, Latino Center, LGBT Center and the Women's Center, collectively known as the "Group of Six," will attend the chat. "I think it's a really important issue and I'm looking forward to the conversation," TCU President Duncan Pickard, a junior, said. Other cultural groups on campus, as well as Patrick Romero-Aldaz, director of fraternity and sorority affairs, were invited to the event, which begins at 7:30 p.m. in Paige Hall's Crane Room. "There are a lot of different groups on campus talking about issues of diversity and we want to start a dialogue about that," Heman said. "We wanted to bring the various diverse communities together and talk about how each community is self-segregated from each other." "We're trying to get the most eclectic group of people to have a lot of different ideas and a good discussion," Adrien said. The chat also hopes to address any concealed frictions between groups or individuals on campus. "I think there are a lot of underlying tensions on campus along socioeconomic and racial lines," said sophomore Chas Morrison, chair of the Senate's Administration and Policy Committee. "I think this sort of discussion is very healthy to air these grievances out in the open and come to a mutual understanding." Morrison linked some of these divisions to the Primary Source scandal two years ago. "If people on campus can understand where people are coming from," he said, "that will produce a healthy dialogue that will lead to a healthier campus community." Representatives participating in the chat expressed hope that similar discussions will be able to continue and expand in the future. "We're looking towards larger sessions where the administration is involved and we'll hopefully have a faculty chairing the debate," Heman said. Adrien agreed, hoping that something -- an event to reflect diversity or unity, or another dialogue -- occurs in the future.
Former U.S. Congressman Howard Wolpe spoke to an Experimental College class in Tisch Library yesterday about the process of building peace in post-conflict regions of the world, drawing specifically on his experiences directing initiatives in Africa. Wolpe emphasized the importance of cooperation for creating sustainable peace and democracy, pointing out flaws in conventional attitudes toward peacemaking. He discussed general keys to creating lasting peace before describing in greater detail the conflict resolution program he directed in Burundi. "The essential task of [conflict resolution] … is building a recognition of commonalities and interdependence," Wolpe said. "In divided societies, people have figured out how to compete. That's not the problem — it's figuring out how to cooperate." Wolpe serves as director of both the Africa Program and the Project on Leadership and Building State Capacity, at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is a former presidential special envoy to the Great Lakes Region in Africa and a former seven-term member of the U.S. Congress. As a congressman, he chaired the House Subcommittee on Africa for ten years. Wolpe began by speaking briefly about his participation in politics, touching on his initial experience with conflict resolution. "I ended up as President [Bill] Clinton's special envoy for five years in the Great Lakes Region of Africa," he said. "That set of experiences led me to come away feeling very disillusioned … [about the way] the United States and the international community in general goes about building peace." The traditional method of building peace treats conflict resolution as "a kind of template," according to Wolpe. This method assumes that the essence of democracy is competition, that the challenges of peace-building are rational within a Western framework and that social and political pressure combined with legal sanctions is the most effective means of deterring crime. Criticizing these conventional assumptions, Wolpe said that traditional peacemaking does not give divided societies a common ground on which to negotiate. "It mistakes differences in perceptions for conflicts over values," he added. Instead of the traditional approach toward conflict resolution, Wolpe believes the process should be human-based rather than institutionally based. He said peacemaking should focus more on recognizing the value of collaboration and on restoring fractured trust among the leaders of societies in conflict. "In some cases … it's a case of building [relationships] in the first place," he said. "A key challenge is to strengthen the communication and negotiation skills of key leaders," he added. Wolpe spoke specifically about his cooperative approach in the Burundi Leadership Training Program (BLTP), which came out of a proposal he presented to the World Bank. The program was established in 2002 as part of the Africa Program. Burundi, a small African nation that borders Rwanda, is divided by ethnic hostilities between two groups, the Hutus and the Tutsis. In Burundi, the BLTP held participant-based workshops involving role-playing and simulations, which allowed civil and political leaders to improve their cooperation and negotiation skills, as well as their abilities to analyze and resolve problems. The program has witnessed much success, Wolpe said, citing political party leaders who participated in the workshops as an example. After these leaders first received training, "they asked for the media to be present for their training so the media could see them collaborating instead of fighting," he said. Although Wolpe has directed resolution work in post-conflict settings, he would like to expand his workshops to also aid in conflict prevention. "My hope is that … we'll begin to get to the stage where we can do more of this on a preventative basis," he said. Wolpe's presentation occurred as part of a weekly speaker series run in conjunction with an ExCollege course entitled "The Role of Leadership in Conflict Transformation." This class, which counts toward the peace and justice studies major, hosts a high-profile speaker each week to discuss human-based approaches to conflict resolution. Executive director of the Project on Justice in Times of Transition Ina Breuer, founding co-chair of the Project on Justice in Times of Transition Tim Phillips and the classics department chair, Professor Bruce Hitchner, teach the class.
Tufts' graduate schools' admissions have been impacted by the current economic crisis in a variety of ways, but one trend appears to be a rise in doctoral applications to a number of programs.
This is the first in a two-part series exploring the university's investments. The next article will appear tomorrow.
