Lincoln University is about to graduate its first crop of students to have gone through college under what may be the school's most singular requirement: Students who have a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher must complete a fitness course in order to graduate.
Credibility is all that a news organization has. It is a common misconception that professional news media sell information; they, in fact, sell audiences to advertisers. If readers question the credibility of a newspaper, they will not read it, and the company will not survive. The editing and fact-checking process is essential to making money.
Today the United States is faced with a serious crisis in scientific literacy and education. In the midst of debate over the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, health care reform and the economy, this issue has receded further and further into the background. And yet the topic remains as salient as it has ever been. Our world is driven by scientific innovation and technology. Twenty-first century economies will be knowledge-based, science-oriented and dependent on workers in sectors like energy, biological sciences and information technology. The early by-products of this paradigm shift are already evident with the advent of personalized genetic testing, pharmacogenomic research, hybrid vehicles, advanced power sources and hundreds of other innovations and discoveries.
The Board of Trustees last week adopted a new Declaration on Freedom of Expression, which purports to simultaneously uphold free expression on campus while ensuring that such expression stays in line with Tufts' "community values." But the new policy is marked by hypocrisy, as it tries to accomplish the impossible task of promoting "the freedom of other community members to inquire and express themselves fully" while making sure that all community members "exercise freedom of expression and inquiry in ways that respect the human dignity of others."
Dear Editor, I wish to correct some misperceptions and faulty reasoning in your editorial published Thursday, Nov. 19, entitled "MBTA needs to get back on track." First of all, the MBTA is not "refusing to address" the safety issues in the system highlighted by the recent report. The MBTA has also not, in your words, committed "a glaring oversight." It is aware that the problems exist, and I doubt that executives are simply ignoring the issue. The MBTA system is much larger than the few pieces which Tufts students use or know to exist. Likewise, the T's finances are far more complicated than fares in, trains out.
Dear Editor, In the Oct. 19 edition of The Tufts Daily, an editorial about the recent campus power failure reported incorrect information about safety and security systems in university residence halls. Regrettably, efforts to have the Daily correct those errors have been unsuccessful.
Student health care plans are exempt from the rules that regulate insurance coverage to the general public. Insurance companies do not have to abide by a minimum coverage percentage for people in school. This allows Aetna Student Health, the company that provides Tufts' student health coverage, to put only 63 percent of insurance premiums towards medical coverage. The coverage that students on the Tufts plan receive has a capped limit on prescription drugs and mental health care, and is not enough to fund preventive care and dental procedures. State reform of student health care is necessary to ensure that students are receiving the maximum coverage that their premium can provide and that there are multiple premiums available for students with different health care needs.
Campus news outlets produce authoritative knowledge. They publish regularly, have an editing process and employ dozens of student journalists. Most readers believe they can learn and confirm facts by reading campus news.
Hey folks. We're almost there! I am super excited for Thanksgiving, a holiday I have often considered my favorite. Most likely, I will write a post on my blog next week about the Native Americans and the United States of Genocide and all that fun stuff. Right now, though, I would like to touch upon the topic of urban legends. The more accurate subject name is mass misconceptions, but I think urban legends sounds cooler, don't you?
Dear Editor, In an op-ed printed on Nov.19, Emily Rector defends the missile defense system that the Bush administration had advocated for Poland and the Czech Republic, but that the Obama administration is scaling back. Unfortunately, her defense and the film produced for the right-wing Heritage Foundation that she advertised are riddled with falsehoods.
There are plenty of soccer fans on campus, but very few follow the New England Revolution. The Revolution has been respectably successful. The team won the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup in 2007 and currently sits in third place in Major League Soccer's Eastern Conference. But the team shares Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. with the New England Patriots. Few Bostonians want to venture over 20 miles out of the city to watch a soccer game, especially considering the tepid interest in Major League Soccer in this country. And this is a fact that Robert Kraft (A '53), the Revolution's owner, recognizes. It is one of the main reasons behind his proposal to construct a soccer-specific stadium in Somerville's Inner Belt district. Not only is the urban location more practical for Boston residents, but Kraft sees great potential for a fan base in the surrounding area, which is full of immigrants from countries such as Brazil and Italy that are known to be more fanatical about the sport than the United States.
There were certainly a number of great events at Tufts over the past couple of weeks. There were three that didn't garner much, if any, attention in the Daily, but that nonetheless exemplified the best of what Tufts has to offer.
A month from yesterday marked the 50th birthday of El Salvador's relatively good-for-the-people president, Mauricio Funes. With 43 people murdered that same day, it also marked the "bloodiest day of the last decade," according to El Salvador's Policia National Civil (PNC). While it appears that the timing of Funes' birthday and the spike in murders is pretty much pure coincidence, it seems that the number hit a chord with the president. El Salvador has been notorious for its gang problems — which are often accused of being the root of gang issues in Mexico and Los Angeles — a fact that can be clearly seen in its annual homicide rates. Last year, gangs murdered 3,200 Salvadorans. No doubt this is a high number no matter the circumstance. But when we consider that the total population of El Salvador is around 5.8 million people (comparable to that of Houston, Texas), the number becomes all the more potent. Last month, the number of gang-related homicides this year reached 3,400 — 1,000 more than the number of deaths this time in 2008. It's hard not to sigh.
General George S. Patton summed up the American psyche quite well when he wrote, "After each of our wars, there has always been a great hue and cry to the effect that there will be no more wars, that disarmament is the sure road to health, happiness, and peace; and that by removing the fire department, we will remove fires." This is exactly President Obama's plan with regards to foreign policy: Remove the fire department in the hopes that it will remove the fires. Unfortunately, fires don't stop occurring just because there is no one to combat them.
Of all the states in the country, Massachusetts is arguably the most willing to pay substantial taxes in return for reliable services. In this respect, public servants are in an enviable position; and as a result, they owe it to the rest of this state's residents to provide creative solutions — or at least not backward ones.
In 2002, Tufts realized that, as an institution focused on international studies, it needed to expand its international alumni networks. At that time, there were only three overseas Tufts Alumni Chapters in existence. Now, six years later, that number has ballooned to 22, and the Tufts international network is still growing.
Democratic participation is a fine thing to advertise on an admissions tour. Many of us probably chose to come here because of the emphatic focus we were told that Tufts places on active citizenship. I even recall University President Lawrence Bacow himself insisting on 100-percent voter turnout for last year's presidential election in his welcome address to my class.
The Tufts Daily ran a news article on Thursday, Nov. 12 ("Senate denies funds for public editor"), explaining that the Allocations Board (ALBO) denied funding for the salary of the public editor. In the Daily article, Tufts Community Union (TCU) Treasurer Aaron Bartel explained that, "The general idea is that while the ALBO and the Senate appreciate the job the public editor does, we saw it as inappropriate to pay for a student at Tufts to make submissions to any publication." I disagree with the ALBO decision, and I want to explain why the ALBO should reassess the importance of the public editor position and approve funding for the Public Editor.
On Sunday, the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate passed a resolution suggesting reform to Tufts' current alcohol policy. The changes would mean that instead of being placed on probation one (pro-one) after their first offense, students would be required to take an alcohol education course. This is an attempt by the Senate to combat certain alcohol-related problems on campus through positive, proactive means, as opposed to relying on the threat of punishment as an empty deterrent.
