A number of students participated in a protest against Republican strategist Karl Rove during his visit to the Tufts campus yesterday. The Tufts Republicans invited Rove to speak at Tufts as a replacement for Herman Cain, who last month had cancelled his visit.
Students from groups such as the Tufts Occupiers and Students for Justice in Palestine donned masks and carried signs as they gathered to protest outside Cohen Auditorium, where Rove delivered his lecture. The main issue protestors brought up was Rove’s support for a number of controversial torture techniques, including waterboarding. Posters denouncing Rove and his alleged advocation of torture were also put up all over campus.
See today’s Daily for an interview with Rove and more information about his talk.
The Tufts Community Union Senate is planning to distribute free Ben and Jerry’s ice cream cones beginning at noon tomorrow.
Senate representatives will be at the corner of Packard and Professors Row to hand out free ice cream to students who let them know what changes they would like to see implemented on the Tufts campus. They will have 1,000 cones to give out with four available flavors: Chunky Monkey, New York Super Fudge Chunk, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and Berry Berry Sorbet.
Last week, the university announced that former Navy SEAL and humanitarian worker Eric Greitens will be this year’s commencement speaker. Here’s an overview of announced speakers at other schools:
Smith College: Jane Lynch, award-winning actress from Glee
Colby College: Tony Blair, former British prime minister
Oregon State University: Michelle Obama, first lady
Cornell University: Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City
Courtesy World Economic Forum via Wikimedia Commons
The university announced that Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus will deliver the Dean’s Lecture on April 20 at 4 p.m.
Yunus, a developmental economist, is considered to be the father of micro finance. He founded the Grameen Bank, which extends small loans to poor entrepreneurs in Bangladesh, who would otherwise not qualify for loans under traditional banks’ criteria. The Grameen Bank’s example has been hugely influential in the field of developmental economics and micro finance has become a poverty alleviation tool increasingly employed in communities all over the world. For their work, Yunus and the Grameen Bank received the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. More =>>
Tufts today announced that former Navy SEAL, humanitarian and author Eric Greitens will deliver this year’s university-wide commencement address on May 20.
Greitens is a decorated Navy SEAL officer who started a national nonprofit following his term of service in Iraq. The Mission Continues encourages veterans to serve in communities across the country through fellowships with nonprofit organizations.
He also authored “The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL,” a New York Times bestseller. Greitens graduated from Duke University in 1996 and got a masters and Ph.D from the University of Oxford.
Check out Greiten’s interview with Charlie Rose to find out more about this year’s commencement speaker and comment below to share your thoughts on his selection.
The Tufts Office of Undergraduate Admissions yesterday released Class of 2016 admissions decisions for students who had applied under Regular Decision.
According to Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Lee Coffin, the university admitted 21 percent of the 16,379-strong applicant pool, a record-low number. The acceptance rate is down from its previous record-low, which came during the last admissions cycle when 22 percent of applicants were admitted.
This marks the continued reversal of the trend of decreasing applicant pools and increasing acceptance rates seen during the recent economic recession.
You can find Coffin’s complete remarks on this year’s acceptance rate on the admissions website.
The most recent MBTA plan to resolve its huge budget deficit would entail a 23 percent fare hike for users but avoids extensive service cuts.
The plan is an improvement over previous MBTA budget-balancing proposals which would have involved steeper fare hikes and widespread service reductions. Those proposals met with criticism from both officials and the public in a series of hearings across the Greater Boston area.
The newest plan would take effect on July 1 if approved. The cost of a subway ride would increase by 30 cents to $2 with a CharlieCard and bus fares by 25 cents to $1.50. It would also lead to the elimination of four bus routes and weekend service on some commuter rail lines, but preserves the ferry service which had been on the chopping block. This will be the first fare increase since 2007.
Secretary of Transportation Richard Davey said that the newest plan tried to take into consideration findings from 30 public hearings and emails to the agency.
“We believe that this proposal reflects what our customers told us, which was largely, ‘Please do not cut our service as best you can, raise fares if you need to, but find a way to ensure that our service is preserved,’ ’’ Davey said in a statement.
Zadie Smith, author of prize-winning titles such as White Teeth, will this evening deliver a lecture in the Coolidge Room at Ballou Hall.
The prolific British writer is speaking as part of the Center for the Humanities at Tufts’ Distinguished Writer Series. Smith authored works such as The Autograph Man and On Beauty. White Teeth, her debut novel, was critically acclaimed, winning the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Whitbread First Novel Award, among other literary prizes. Her most recent novel, On Beauty, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction.
She is currently a tenured professor at New York University as part of its Creative Writing Program.
The lecture is free and open to the public. It will be followed by a Q&A session and a reception.
Tonight at 8 p.m., 3Ps will put on the second showing of its student-directed spring major production, Hamletmachine. Hamletmachine by Heiner Muller is a radical, post-modernist take on Shakespeare’s drama. The theme incorporates physical and dance theater to explore themes of wealth, privilege, activism and gender.
The Daily brings you a short preview of Hamletmachine, featuring clips from rehearsal and an interview with the direction Jonny Hendrickson, a senior.
The show will be performed tonight and tomorrow night at 8 p.m. in Balch Arena Theater. Tickets are $7 from th box office.
See the Daily’s full feature on the production of Hamletmachine here.
Head on down tomorrow to the Boloco on Boston Avenue near the Medford campus to pick up a free burrito as the restaurant chain commemorates its 15th birthday.
The chain has plans to hold a number of free burrito days until April 4 at its various locations. The Boston Avenue location is having its free burrito day tomorrow from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
As part of its celebrations, Boloco is also fundraising and hopes to raise $25,000 for the Life is good Playmakers, a charity that provides training and support for frontline childcare professionals who help children overcome life-threatening challenges.
