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Facebook rule changes spark debate
March 5After a backlash prompted Facebook.com executives to do a virtual 180, they are now looking for feedback about the site's Terms of Use.
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Lottery e-mail causes confusion
March 5The general housing lottery, which began Tuesday and ended yesterday, hit a snag earlier this week after confusion resulted over the communication of lottery times.
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The intricate language of a visual art: Tufts graduate student pioneers research in the linguistics
March 4Not all teenage passions transition into lifelong vocations. Sports make few professional athletes out of high school players; garage bands rarely produce superstar musicians. Similarly, only a handful of comic artists emerge from the industry's vast following. Tufts psychology graduate student Neil Cohn falls into the rare category of those who have stuck with their adolescent passions. At age 14, Cohn was given a stack of Japanese manga comics direct from Japan through a friend who lived there. In one night, he devoured three of the 200-page volumes — without knowing a word of their Japanese script. "I was forced to understand fully through images," Cohn recalled. "I was engaging solely with the visual language." He explained that studies have shown that when people are limited to just one mode of communication — sound, movement, pictures — their use of this mode intensifies. Experiences with comics, Cohn continued, have attuned him to the particular modality of images. Cohn's exposure to comics in the Japanese context was instrumental in the formation of his ideas. A martial arts practitioner from a young age, Cohn was always keenly interested in Asian philosophy. This led him to pursue Asian studies in college and to spend a year as an exchange student in Japan, where he witnessed the ubiquity of manga in Japanese society. This exposure opened his mind to the broader applicability of comics' form. Over two-thirds of Japanese children imitate manga in everyday settings — evidence, Cohn argues, of a language-like use of images. Cohn is a pioneering theorist of "visual language," the language in which comics are written. In comics, images are used in a discrete sequential fashion sufficient to constitute a language, according to Cohn. The grammar of this language — the structure of these image sequences, how these sequences take on meaning — is the main focus of his current research. "Understanding [visual language] can help those who use it to have a way to analyze their own work," Cohn said. He suggests that acknowledging the visual language equips users with editing capabilities to enhance their work, much like in English and other written languages. "It means having a way to talk about [their work], a critical language." Cohn hopes that by recognizing the visual language, society may begin to expand its usage beyond comics. At present, he sees the visual language as being largely relegated to storytelling. "What you find in bookstores now is that you have the comics section, and then you have everything else," Cohn said. "The idea is that if visual language becomes pervasive, we would be getting more and more diverse types of visual language use, and it would emerge out of the sub-culture [of comics]." He envisions a world where publications would not be shelved by the language of their narration, but by their pages' content. "There would be no segmentation in bookstores by form ... you would find comics amongst other books that deal with the same subject matter, [such as] in the politics section." Cohn is working to reconfigure certain aspects of the culture of contemporary society, which views images as privileged objects exclusively created by the gifted. Language, on the other hand, is universal — everyone has the capacity for it. In demystifying images, he hopes to make the study of visual language something that anyone can appreciate and not leave its analysis limited to the artistically minded. Responses to Cohn's conception of the visual language have been varied, especially within the comics industry. Some have found it fulfilling and validating of their work, while others assert that his deconstruction of the art form takes away its mystery. "[People need to realize that] analyzing something doesn't degrade it at all," Cohn said. To the contrary, Cohn has received feedback expressing greater appreciation for comics because of insight gained from his research. "It depends on who you talk to." But from his standpoint, the divergent responses only serve to affirm his position. "The comics community is the language community of the visual language," he said. "It follows that they are wrapped up in the sense of identity intrinsic to the language." Cohn's Web site, emaki.net, is well-stocked with original illustrations and ruminations from his research. He also shares his ideas with undergraduates through the class Visual Linguistics of Comics, which is offered by the psychology department. In spite of all this, Cohn expressed a persisting sense of wonderment at the apparent appeal of his work. "I'm still fascinated that other people think it's a great idea." He hopes that the use of the visual language will become pervasive and his ideas will continue, even when he is no longer researching them. "It's great to do something you love, [something you are] passionate about," Cohn said. "I'm fortunate that what I chose is wide open — there's nothing but possibilities behind it. There's nothing to hold you back — you can do whatever you want. The fact that there's no precedent — that alone makes the research fun."
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ExCollege to host student-faculty trivia night event
March 4The Experimental College hopes to facilitate interaction between students and professors tonight with its first-ever "Faculty-Student Trivia Challenge."
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Economic downturn hinders students on the lookout for summer jobs, internships
March 4With summer on the horizon, many students are feeling the pressure to secure a summer job or internship. The conflict between students' drive for paid internships and the struggling economy has been a black cloud hovering above the heads of Jumbos on the hunt for employment. But as businesses struggle with the recession, internship prospects — especially paid ones — appear scarce. While some companies consider students to be low-cost alternatives to salaried workers, others are drastically cutting back funds for internship programs. "On one hand, unpaid interns would seem beneficial to an employer as a way of ramping up resources, especially when functioning with a leaner workforce," Jean Papalia, director of Career Services, said in an e-mail to the Daily. "That said, a solid internship requires supervision and training, which may not be available in downsized organizations — whether or not compensation is involved." Papalia explained that with the U.S. unemployment rate at 7.6 percent in January, there will undoubtedly be implications for hiring. Recent data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) indicates that employers expect to cut college hiring by 22 percent this year. "Of course, this varies by industry and geography; however, it's safe to say that there will be ramifications for internship hiring," Papalia said. "As thousands of workers are being laid off, employers may find it difficult to justify the resources to pay summer interns." Given that the biggest recommendation from career advisors is that students try internships in their fields of interest, many have tried, with varying degrees of success, to secure internships that they can afford. But in a wide number of cases, this effort has been an uphill battle. "It's sad because a lot of people would do internships, but it's hard to pay for housing and stuff if the internship isn't paid," sophomore Alyce Currier said. And regardless of the edge that internships give in landing jobs after graduation, many are unwilling to give up the possibility of making money over the summer. "If I could [do an unpaid internship], I would," sophomore Emma Albright said. "I do think [gaining work] experience could be a better reason [to do an internship] than for monetary reasons. But at this point I'm just not in the position to forfeit my summer. I need money for the next year." The availability of unpaid internships and lack of paid ones bring up questions of economic divides. While internship hiring is ideally based on merit, students with connections and those whose parents can afford to pay their room and board while they build their résumés may have a significant advantage over those who must spend the summer earning money instead of spending it. "The effects of the downturn have touched families across all demographics. From an anecdotal perspective, we've heard in the past that, for example, a parent might be willing to help with housing to subsidize a student in pursuing a valuable internship experience," Papalia said. "Given the economic recession, we cannot predict whether this is at all feasible in the coming year." For sophomore Nadia Ramos, the option is not feasible. "Fortunately, my parents would love to [support me through an unpaid internship], but they are not rich, and because of financial trouble they wouldn't be able to afford it," she said. In some cases, however, Ramos feels that it may be worth it to spend the money and gain the experience. "Even though some internships are unpaid, the experience you gain and the skills you learn will help you in the future, help you better understand the profession that you choose to go into," she said. Papalia expressed a similar opinion, noting that students are still pursuing internships as avidly as ever. "Regardless of economy, Tufts students are highly focused on internships, understanding their value in developing career focus and in marketing themselves for full-time positions after graduation," she said. "Thus, we would not report a change in the way students view internships, except that today most understand the need for casting a wider net and for flexibility and adaptability in terms of what might be available." She continued that students may be more likely to seek out part-time internships so that they can find paying jobs to fill financial gaps. With such weight on their minds, those who can may look to Mom and Dad for support, as some programs have popped up where students can pay for someone else to find an unpaid internship for them. According to sophomore Molly Dow, her parents would not hesitate to use such an internship program. "My parents are willing to pay for whatever is an extension of my education," she said. On the other hand, sophomore Zoe Schlag sees it differently. "They would definitely encourage me to get an internship, but they wouldn't pay," she said. "It's not really their responsibility." Meanwhile, some students find alternative ways to making a little extra cash besides summer jobs or internships. In Dow's case, she has found a means of securing funding for a research project in Latin America through the Institute for Global Leadership. And while opportunities for off-campus jobs may be slim pickings, Tufts continues to work to provide student jobs. Currier took full advantage of Tufts and encourages others to do the same. "Last summer, I had a job in the [Office of Alumni Relations and Advancement Communications] here at Tufts. It's not an off-campus internship, but it's very similar in terms of what I do," she said. "I feel like I got really lucky, because I know a lot of people who haven't been able to find anything. I'm just happy that I found something that is secure." This year, finding internship funding at Tufts may not be as easy as it was in the past. "There is a limited amount of funding available through Tufts for nonpaid summer internships, and we expect these will be in great demand this year," Papalia said. But she emphasized that internships are certainly still available. "Tufts students will land internships if they are able to be flexible, creative, and dedicate time and energy to the search process." Kerianne Okie contributed reporting to this article.
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Grassroots leaders for Israel and Palestine advocate a two-state solution
March 4An Israeli and a Palestinian representing a grassroots movement for peace told a small gathering of students in Eaton Hall on Tuesday night that moderates must overcome extremism and support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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New dean to raise diversity and global health issues at School of Medicine
March 4The first dean of multicultural affairs and global health at the School of Medicine officially began work on Monday. She will work on promoting diversity at the graduate school through the recruitment of underrepresented minorities and a focus on culture in education.
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Author engages students on personalities and AIDS
March 4Author and motivational speaker Scott Fried spoke last night to students about dealing with collisions between internal and external personalities in the context of living with HIV in a Pearson Hall lecture sponsored by the Queer Straight Alliance.
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ExCollege to host student-faculty trivia night
March 4The Experimental College hopes to facilitate interaction between students and professors tonight with its first-ever "Faculty-Student Trivia Challenge."
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Caryn Horowitz | The Cultural Culinarian
March 3Every time I go home, I am greeted by a stack of newspaper articles on my bed; my mom has a habit of cutting out clippings from our local papers and saving them for me to read. I normally just skim through the articles and then toss them in the recycling bin, but a piece with the headline "Students get credit for road trip assessing merits of Southern barbecue" caught my eye on my most recent trip home.
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Professors tackle genocide intervention in debate
March 3Amid instability in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, two Tufts professors grappled last night over the issue of the moral and political feasibility of military intervention in conflicts of genocide.
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Jospin to receive award
March 3Tufts Trustee Deb Jospin (LA '80) will receive this year's Light on the Hill Award in April, in recognition of her continuing outstanding impact on the Tufts community.
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United States cancer statistics
March 3The American Cancer Society projected that in 2008, approximately 745,180 men and 692,000 women would be diagnosed with cancer; approximately 294,120 cases in men and 271,530 in women would lead to death.
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Will Ehrenfeld | Stuff Tufts People Like
March 2Recently, TCU President Duncan Pickard wrote a really interesting letter to the editor, attempting to bring up issues of class on campus and encouraging conversations about the subject at Tufts. I wholeheartedly agree with his idea in this case and am grateful that the topic has been raised. Yet there are some pretty serious flaws in his letter, and I need, on one hand, to correct him and on the other, to discuss a few ideas that are not explicitly related.
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In Our Midst | Lauren Godles
March 2While her peers were preparing to make the rushed transition from the academics of high school to the rigorous curriculum of college, freshman Lauren Godles knew it was time to do something different.
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Cummings School takes in giraffe
March 2After an appearance on national television, Molly the giraffe, currently housed at Tufts' Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, is milking her brief time in the limelight for all it's worth.
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NYU rejects protestors' demands
March 2With none of their demands met and bags under their eyes, a handful of New York University (NYU) students threw in the towel last month. Now, with a meeting planned for Thursday, they are looking to expand their efforts.
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Mock trial request reignites debate over recovered funds
March 2The mock trial program's request for financial support has reignited a contentious debate within the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate about how the body should spend the recovered funds.
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Going once, going twice...
March 2Even though Mardi Gras was last Tuesday, Tufts students had the opportunity to keep celebrating on Thursday at this year's Mardi Gras-themed "Faculty Waits On You Dinner and Auction" (FWOYDA).
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Junior encourages others to explore Boston
March 1Next time you're in the mood for a spontaneous Thursday night excursion beyond the edges of campus, just check Facebook.
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