The Division of Student Diversity and Inclusion announced a new identity center for Indigenous students at Tufts last fall, following recommendations from a workstream report the university published in early 2021. More recently, the university hired Vernon Miller to direct the center.
Professor of Philosophy Erin Kelly won a Pulitzer Prize in the biography category for “Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South” (2022),which Kelly co-authored with Winfred Rembert, the biography’s subject. Rembert, who died in 2021, received the prize posthumously.
Students and community members protested a Raytheon BBN career event hosted by the School of Engineering in Halligan Hall on May 2. The protest was the second demonstration against a defense contractor on Tufts’ campus in less than a week.
Tufts will continue to require indoor masking through May 31, according to a May 3 email from University Infection Control Health Director Michael Jordan. The university will also transition from required COVID-19 surveillance testing to voluntary testing on May 6.
The Somerville School Committee voted on April 25 to approve Real Life Learning Center’s application to establish a K–8 private school. The vote came after a months-long standoff between Somerville’s subcommittee on Education Programs and Instruction and Vida Real Church, the founders of RLLC, who say they were unfairly targeted based on their religious beliefs.
With 58% of the vote, Jaden Pena won the Tufts Community Union Senate presidential election on April 26–27. Both referendums on the ballot passed this year: one in favor of giving TCU the power to establish additional community senator seats, the other in favor of permitting the addition of two Indigenous community senator seats.
The Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life recognized the service and leadership of 19 undergraduate and graduate students with Presidential Awards for Civic Life at an April 22 ceremony in Breed Memorial Hall. Amber Asumda, Claudia Guetta, Emma Downs, Jay-Miguel Fonticella, Leanne Loo and Maycon Santos, all seniors, are this year’s undergraduate winners. Ricardo Moreno, Delia Burns, Lark Escobar,Avis Carrero, Logan Schwartz, Iris Montes, Joshua McLinden, Qimei Liu,Cora Evans, Charles Christopher Hines III, Anshelle Reen Tucker, Tara Ahmadi and Alex Coston are this year’s graduate winners.
The University Chaplaincy is hiring for the role of Africana spirituality chaplain. Its goal is to find a staff member who can aid in creating a space for worship and fellowship that is welcoming to students, staff and faculty who identify as members of the African diaspora.
A General Dynamics Mission Systems recruiting event in the Science and Engineering Complex was cut short on Monday evening when student and community protestors disrupted the event with chanting and civil disobedience.
Sheldon Krimsky, the Lenore Stern professor of humanities and social sciences in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, passed away unexpectedly over the weekend. James Glaser, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, informed the Tufts community of Krimsky’s passing in an April 25 email.
Elections for the 2022–23 Tufts Community Union president will take place from April 26 to 27. The three candidates are Max Morningstar, Jaden Pena and Enrique Rodriguez. All three are rising seniors. They spoke with the Daily about their experience, qualifications and campaign platforms.
Danielle Abrams, professor of the practice in the performance department at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, has passed away unexpectedly, Interim Dean of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Nate Harrison and Faculty Affairs Advisor to the Dean Eulogio Guzmán announced in an April 21 email to the Tufts community.
A message painted on the Tufts cannon by Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine was anonymously defaced on April 20. Tufts SJP painted the message — which read “Free Palestine” — for Israeli Apartheid Week, the club’s annual series of events raising awareness of “Israel’s apartheid system over the Palestinian people.” The cannon was found covered by blue spray paint on Thursday. The identity of the perpetrator remains unknown.
COVID-19 cases are on the decline following a surge on the Tufts' Medford/Somerville campus. The university reported 25 new cases on Friday, down from 79 new cases on April 12th, when Tufts set a record for the most positive cases reported in a single day. The previous record was set on Jan. 3 and April 8, when the university reported 68 cases in a day.
After selecting housing for the 2022–23 school year on April 7, rising sophomores received an email from the Office of Residential Life and Learning on April 8 informing them of plans to redo the selection process for all doubles and triples groups on April 11.Students who wished to select housing in the general selection category, originally scheduled for April 8, were told by ORLL that their registration would be moved to April 12.
The past week was active for many of the faith communities at Tufts, marking the celebration of Passover and Easter, the ongoing celebration of Ramadan and a belated Holi celebration. The University Chaplaincy offered in-person events to mark these holidays after two years of virtual celebrations.
The Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts announced the winners of the $100k New Ventures Competition following the virtual final round of competition on April 8. First-place winners included startups dedicated to technological innovation, advancements in wound care and building Black generational wealth.
The coronavirus is spreading more rapidly than ever before on Tufts’ campus, forcing hundreds of students and some professors back into their bedrooms and onto the Zoom screen in a routine that’s become all too familiar after two years of pandemic learning.
The city of Somerville partnered with Fenway Health in March to prepare for the opening of a supervised consumption site where people who use drugs can consume drugs in a safe environment under medical supervision to prevent overdoses. Somerville signed a $40,000 contract with the healthcare and research organization — which caters specifically to people in the LGBT community, people of color and other underserved communities — to determine optimal locations for the supervised consumption site, establish a community advisory board and study existing models of drug use monitoring to determine how the site should operate.
Taina McField was appointed the new associate dean for strategy at the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life this month, the university announced in a statement.
