The Massachusetts Department of Correction announced on Jan. 24 its plans to close the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord, a medium-security men’s prison, by summer 2024, falling in line with Gov. Maura Healey’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget recommendation.
Club leaders from media, programming and performance groups met with Tufts Community Union Senate leaders in the Alumnae Lounge on Friday for a shared lunch, part of a five-part series where the TCU Senate invites different club presidents to lunch. These meetings were coordinated to discuss problems these clubs face and to foster a stronger connection between TCU Senate leaders and student organizations.
The City of Somerville has created an overnight warming center for unhoused residents that will stay open for the winter season. Located at The Armory at 191 Highland Ave., the new center is a partnership with two local nonprofits: Housing Families and the Somerville Homeless Coalition.
Community members gathered at the Somerville Public Library West Branch on Jan. 29 to critique an updated commercial area plan for Davis Square. Somerville city planners shared their progress on their plan to redesign Davis Square’s commercial core, then opened the floor to local residents for feedback.
In late January, Somerville became the first city in Massachusetts to pass a resolution calling for an enduring ceasefire in Gaza. The resolution, which was brought forth by City Council President Ben Ewen-Campen, was passed in a 9–2 vote after close to three hours of testimony and deliberation on Jan. 25.
The Tufts Community Union Senate heard and denied the Singaporean Indonesian Malaysian Students Association’s request to fund an additional off-campus retreat on Sunday, and heard from Dean of Students Camille Lizarríbar on her plans to promote “restorative justice” on campus in order to “build community” and “strengthen relationships among students.”
The university held its annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. celebration in the Joyce Cummings Center on Jan. 31, featuring keynote speaker Christian Walkes, who studies race and inequality within the U.S. education system as a PhD student at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. The event centered around the theme of a “single garment of destiny,” a concept first described by King in his 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” highlighting the shared nature of the future.
In March, students will have the opportunity to dedicate their spring breaks to civic engagement through a new program, Jumbo Spring Break, which was collaboratively designed over the last semester by the Dean of Students Office, Tufts Community Union Senate, Tisch College of Civic Life, Career Center and the Chaplaincy.
The Massachusetts House passed Bill H.4217, which protects employees’ right to paid time off in order to be able to vote. The bill is currently under consideration by the Senate Committee on Ways and Means. This bill would allow any employee to request paid time off on Election Day to exercise their right to vote in person with the condition that they give employers three business days’ notice.
Sanjana Paul, the co-founder and executive director of Earth Hacks, explored the philosophy of her nonprofit’s mission to make hackathons more environmentally conscious on Jan. 25. The event, titled “Hacking the Climate Crisis: Environmental Hackathons as a Vehicle for Justice-Centric Climate Action,” was part of the environmental studies department’s ongoing Hoch Cunningham lecture series.
More than 50 students gathered by the Mayer Campus Center’s lower patio and later marched through campus in an “emergency protest for Palestine” on Friday, organized by the Coalition for Palestinian Liberation at Tufts. The group’s first protest of 2024 follows a semester marked by activism over the Israel-Hamas war.
Hemispheres: The Tufts University Journal of International Affairs, the country’s oldest undergraduate international relations journal, officially launched its magazine counterpart on Jan. 24.
Maya Roman — the family member of two women kidnapped by the U.S.-labeled terrorist organization Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023 — spoke in front of over 120 students at Tufts Hillel on Wednesday. At the Hillel-branded “Critical Conversations” event, Roman spoke about her experience and subsequent activism to earn the release of Israeli hostages — including one of her family members still held captive.
The Tufts Beelzebubs performed at the annual holiday open house at the White House on Dec. 9, 2023. The a cappella group got a phone call two weeks before the performance and canceled a show they had planned for that day to fly to Washington, D.C., group members said.
The Tufts University School of Medicine hosted the latest addition to its Global Health Seminar series on Wednesday, which focused on the emergence of African-centered healing circles to address long-standing effects of anti-Blackness in the U.S. Entitled “A People’s Mental Health Movement: Sawubona and the Rise of Healing Circles,” the event primarily featured Dr. Evan Auguste, assistant professor of psychology at UMass Boston, discussing his role in co-developing, leading and scaling community healing circles.
For the first time since November, University President Sunil Kumar publicly addressed the Israel-Hamas war in relation to university activism in a video message emailed to the wider Tufts community on Tuesday.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu delivered her second annual State of the City address at the MGM Music Hall on Jan. 9, introducing new plans for housing developments and access to public education.
Representatives from the City of Somerville gathered feedback from community members at two public meetings earlier this month in order to update the city’s conservation and recreational development goals for the next seven years.
Closing a chapter of 33 years, Tufts’ Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences James M. Glaser will depart the university to begin tenure at Santa Clara University in California as its executive vice president and provost come July.
The Environmental Studies Program held its final Hoch Cunningham Environmental lecture series on Thursday, featuring Tyler McCullough (LA’17), manager of corporate climate action at the environmental advocacy firm Ceres. In the lecture titled “Investor Advocacy and Business Working to Address Climate Change,” McCullough discussed how Ceres facilitates corporate sustainability and how companies are transitioning to clean energy while maintaining financial ambition.
