Of court dates and SIM cards
This semester began in the shadow of last spring's massacre at Virginia Tech and sexual assault spree near campus.
The Cambridge Superior Court arraigned Nicholas Chacon in August for the assaults. He was arrested in May, and at his arraignment he was charged with aggravated rape, kidnapping, assault with a dangerous weapon, assault with intent to rape and indecent assault and battery on a person over 14 years of age.
In response to Virginia Tech, the administration began to use Send Word Now, which can contact members of the community should there be an emergency. When testing the software, the administration successfully reached 15,518 people through SMS messages, phone calls and e-mails.
Students were also reminded about on-campus safety after junior Jason Safer was robbed at gunpoint. He had his wallet and cell phone taken, but not his SIM card.
"I don't know why - they have a gun pointed to me - [but] I'm like, 'Oh, I don't want to start one of these Facebook groups,'" he said while recounting his state of mind when he asked the two perpetrators for the card.
TCU senators and Tufts University Police Department officers (see right) tried to find ways to prevent situations like this during their annual Safety Walk last month. They discussed ways to improve lighting, crosswalks and technology.
-by Marc Raifman
Busted
Tufts has been no stranger to controversy this fall. It began early when students found out that former Office of Residential Life and Learning Administrative Assistant Kenneth Hall was convicted over the summer as a sex offender.
Local police had been investigating Hall since 2004 under the suspicion that he gave a 12-year-old girl a cell phone so that she could take nude pictures of herself.
Hall was found guilty on counts of posing a child in a state of nudity, possession of child pornography, child enticement and possession of marijuana.
Later in the semester, the community learned that Director of Student Activities Jodie Nealley was fired for allegedly embezzling $300,000 from the university. She has admitted to taking a portion of that money, and the Middlesex County district attorney's office is investigating her. Tufts' Audit and Management Advisory Services Office is also examining her activities.
Nealley was involved with a number of on-campus groups, and student leaders were stunned to hear about the embezzlement.
"I never had any suspicion," TCU Treasurer Evan Dreifuss said. "This was completely out of the blue, and it was a shock."
-by Marc Raifman
Hear ye, hear ye
Biologist Lynn Margulis delivered the Richard E. Snyder Presidential Lecture in October, presenting her views about evolution.
Her theory, which was once very controversial, holds that many early life forms took shape and developed not as independently evolving organisms, but as symbiotically interacting individuals.
Margulis has found herself in contention with neo-Darwinists. "I am not a neo-Darwinist," she said. "I am a Darwinist."
Professor Stephen Walt (see right) of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government came to the Hill in November to argue that the Israel lobby has a disproportionate influence on American policies.
"Today, unconditional support for Israel helps fuel our terrorist problem and makes it harder, not easier, to deal with problems in the area," Walt said. "The special relationship is now a strategic liability."
Also in November, Director of the Institute for Global Leadership (IGL) Sherman Teichman and Political Science Professor Robert Devigne debated whether or not active citizenship should be an integral part of the Tufts education. Sherman advocated for an active citizenship curriculum, while Devigne was against it.
By the end of the debate, 64 audience members voted for Devigne. Twenty-eight supported Teichman and 20 abstained.
The Freethought Society also sponsored a debate this fall. Tufts philosopher Daniel Dennett and conservative author Dinesh D'Souza squared off in December. The question at hand was, "Is God a manmade invention?" Dennett said yes and D'Souza said no.
-by Lisa Granshaw
Up, down and across the aisle
Students returned to the Hill this fall to news that embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had resigned. His departure elicited an enthusiastic response from the Bay State's Congressional delegation.
"I think all of us in the delegation are on the record ... as urging Mr. Gonzales to step down, so this is something that obviously we think is a good thing," Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said.
The political fervor did not die down during the rest of the semester, as both the Tufts Democrats and Republicans were quite active.
The Massachusetts Alliance of College Republicans (MACR) held their annual convention at Tufts in October. A number of high-profile GOP speakers, including Massachusetts Republican Party Chairman Peter Torkildsen and former Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, were in attendance.
Democrats also joined Republicans at the convention to debate gun control and education. The debate (see left) took place between two MARC members and two members of the College Democrats of Massachusetts (CDM). Junior Dan Hartman, the president of the Tufts Republicans, was happy with the debate.
"I think ... we'll have more of these in the future," he said.
The Tufts Democrats, in turn, hosted their third annual Issues of the Future Symposium this month. Entitled "Challenges and Dilemmas of U.S. Civil-Military Relations in the 21st Century," it consisted of four panel discussions. Topics discussed included private military contractors and higher education.
-by Lisa Granshaw
Resolved to...
The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate announced three new committees this semester: the Task Force on Student Life, the Committee on the First-Year Experience and the Committee on Alcohol Policy. The Senate also conducted a survey of the student body over a 21-day period from mid-October to early November. The 37-question survey elicited responses from 1,327 students.
One question asked students to consider whether or not having a campus-wide wireless network is an inconvenience. Only 7.2 percent of respondents said it is not an inconvenience at all.
TCU President Neil DiBiase said that this makes sense. "It reaffirms what [I] already believed," he said. "Wireless is no longer a luxury on college campuses; it's now the norm."
In all, the Senate passed four resolutions this semester.
The first of these renamed the Senate's Professor of the Year Award. It will now be called the "Dr. Gerald R. Gill Professor of the Year Award" in honor of the late history teacher who was its first recipient in 1999.
"Students at Tufts think he exemplified what being a Tufts professor means," DiBiase said. "I think one of the best ways the Senate can memorialize Professor Gill is to challenge other faculty members to spread his legacy."
-by Bennett Kuhn
