Editor’s note: The Daily’s editorial department acknowledges that this article is premised on a conflict of interest. This article is a special feature for Daily Week that does not represent the Daily’s standard journalistic practices.
Twelve piano practice rooms are tucked away in the basement of the Perry and Marty Granoff Music Center, but to those who know about them and utilize them, these rooms are an enclave of creativity and relaxation. At any hour, Tufts pianists who practice simply for their own pleasure can be found playing away in Granoff basement.
As of Sept. 25, 2022, over 25,000 immigrants were being detained in the United States by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and 66.3% of those detained had no criminal record, according to Syracuse University’s TRAC database. Despite these high numbers, U.S. immigration law is an unpopular topic among national news outlets and within pop culture at large.
Social media has been integrated in our lives for so long that sometimes we forget just how much it influences us. Whether it’s a quick scroll through Facebook between classes, a glimpse at a friend’s private Snapchat story for the latest updates on their life, or an hour-long TikTok binge watching people from around the world do the same 60-second dance, we’ve become accustomed to connecting with others instantaneously — for better or for worse.
Boston mayoral candidate Michelle Wu has decided to make Boston’s food system and economy one of her priorities if she prevails in the Nov. 2 election. Her plan, the Food Justice Agenda for a Resilient Boston, addresses the food system from a number of angles.
Few people know Tufts as well as Michael Ullman, senior lecturer of English and music, who expects to retire soon. Ullman spent much of his childhood exploring the Medford/Somerville campus, as his father started working as a professor of sociology at Tufts in 1946, one year afterUllman was born. To this day, Ullman proudly keeps a plaque of his father’s first Tufts contract on his desk in the Granoff Music Center.
Despite the barriers to connecting with each other created by the COVID-19 pandemic, several Tufts students were able to create new communities during the 2020–21 academic year in the form of volunteer organizations. Two of these new clubs were Tufts chapters of the national organizations Project Sunshine and Camp Kesem. In addition, Teach-in-CORES was able to adapt to a new virtual format.
A goal of Educating for American Democracy is to make students feel empowered to be active participants in democracy when they grow older. According to Kawashima-Ginsberg, civic education and culture at the college level are a vital next step in the process of fostering democratic ideas among young people. She noted that, at Tufts, a culture of civic engagement already exists but can be improved upon.
At this time last year, most Tufts religious and philosophical student organizations did not do any holiday programming, as students had just recently been sent home due to the COVID-19 pandemic and were still adjusting to virtual platforms such as Zoom. The story is much different this year, however, as students and staff have had a year to learn and adapt to both virtual and socially distant gatherings, and are unable to travel home to celebrate due to Tufts' travel policy.
Last St. Patrick’s Day came just shy of a week after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic and only a day after Tufts required that all students move out of on-campus housing. It was the first holiday we experienced in a pandemic, and many states were just beginning to enter almost total lockdown. So little was known about how the virus spread that wearing face masks was not yet the norm for most people in the United States.
