Tufts Magazine, Winter 2015

maga zine | winter 2015

L ooktufts magazine winter 2015  30 5 Discover 17 Act h e a lt h , s c i e n c e , a n d t e c h n o l o g y  o u r H u m a n i ta r i a n s , l e a d e r s , a n d i n n o v at o r s 8 m ind meld  The future of human intelligence may lie outside the physical brain  BY Jeff stibel, A95 18 COver  the pursuit of happiness  Tom Barefoot, A68, urges governments to rethink how they measure 14 h ouse of mirth  Architecture with a human face  progress  BY michael blanding BY ANN SUSSMAN, F86, AND JUSTIN B. HOLLANDER, A96 vets on campus  22 Part 1: a few good men and women  16 column  kids these days  When judgment trumps science  BY W. George Scarlett Our universities need students like my Marines  Quick Reads  6  health news from tufts  Stem cell BY Elliot Ackerman, A03, F03 therapy for pets, your brain on coffee, antidepressants 24 Part 2: Basic training  Military service and pregnancy, fluoride for babies | 7  DINOSAURS prepared Keith Wasserboehr, A16, for Tufts  AND POACHED EGGS | 13  WARDING OFF LIVER CANCER 15  CHARACTER SKETCH Ashley Magee, V95, and BY catherine o'neill grace the dog that ate 43½ socks 27 five secrets of the world's top innovators  My radio show guests are revolutionizing the way we live  by kara miller, G08 Quick Reads  25  Laurels | 26  Brilliant! Jumbo entrepreneurs and their big ideas Photo: timothy archibald; illustrations: gaby D'alessandro (happiness), david plunkert (mind meld)

29 Create 8 T h e c u lt u r e p a g e s 41 Connect 30 again i formed whole  A poet’s life after k e e p i n g u p w i t h t h e T u f t s c o m m u n i t y traumatic brain injury  BY Kara peters 42 thirteen visionaries  Thrills and spills in our 38 outrageous fortune  Hamlet on the presidential history  BY sol gittleman E! channel  BY Michelle Ray, J94 48 The Jumbo channel  Reliving the early days of 40 Game on  Rainy-day fun from our award-winning TUTV  BY kristin livingston, A05 board game designers  BY matt M. casey 54 Class Notes Quick Reads  35  Mixed Media  Our books and 60 In Memoriam creative milestones | 39  Character sketch  63 The Big Day  Jumbo weddings and unions Stacy Klein, G88, connects theater to the earth Quick Reads  47  investing in students  For a portfolio manager, it’s the natural thing to do 18 49  newswire | 50  Oh, the places they'll go The new bridge-year program | 52  a boost for tufts' environmental goals | 53  building tufts  A space for collaboration In Every Issue On the Cover 2 President's page Free The pursuit of speech is good speech happiness is back in style, thanks to 3 letters a movement to 4 the Editorial We change how we measure progress Learning to notice (page 18). 74 Take It From Me Perennial Illustration by Betsy Hayes gardens, literary agents, résumé-reading smarts, sports nutrition 76 elephotos

President’s Page Free Speech Is Good Speech Since its founding in 1852, Tufts has The seeds of social change are often sown on embraced a campus culture that college campuses. University students at Tufts and encourages the free and unfet- elsewhere have been leading voices in the civil rights, tered exchange of ideas. It is what environmental, labor, women’s, and peace movements. defines us as a university in Members of our community have challenged the pursuit of discovery and knowl- administration, and each other, on social and political edge, and it is what prepares our issues, most recently on fossil fuel divestment, sexual students to take on the complex assault, international affairs, and Tufts’ relations with challenges of our times. We can- its custodial staff and part-time faculty. I welcome and not have the benefits of education encourage these exchanges. With issues as complex as without being open to ideas that test these, we cannot broaden our insights without a full airing of many viewpoints. us and sometimes make us uncomfortable. Our own Declaration on Freedom of Expression at It is certainly not my expectation that every member Tufts University, which the Board of Trustees approved of our community will embrace every perspective and in November 2009, states: “Without freedom of expres- every point of view. My hope is that these debates and sion, community members cannot fully share their discussions are civil and respectful and that we always knowledge or test ideas on the anvil of open debate and engage in constructive dialogue, even though we may criticism. Without freedom of inquiry, community not always agree. Make no mistake, we will not tolerate members cannot search for new knowledge or chal- speech or conduct that involves threats, intimidation, lenge conventional wisdom.” or harassment or interferes with the rights of members Academic freedom has been fundamental to of our community to participate in campus life. At the American higher education since the early twentieth same time, we need to protect all points of view, no century. It is essential not only to the teaching and matter how unpopular or provocative, to advance our research of our faculty, but also to the contributions mission as an educational institution. they make to informed public debate on matters of consequence to our society. I have been deeply troubled by calls on our own Colleges and universities are also where young people and other university campuses to silence speech. At can freely examine their own assumptions, beliefs, and some institutions, commencement speakers have been perceptions through a diversity of lenses and develop the denied the right to be heard. Here at Tufts, we have critical-thinking skills that will shape their personal and been urged by members of our own community, both intellectual growth. It is our responsibility to encourage on and off campus, to cancel programs and speakers. opportunities for students to debate and contemplate a When debate is stifled, everyone loses. gamut of opinions, ideas, and viewpoints—in classroom discussions and readings, in the laboratory, in our stu- I strongly believe that the best response to offen- dios and performance halls, and through the speakers sive speech is more speech. And I fervently defend the and conferences we host on campus. These kinds of principles of academic freedom and the right of all exchanges, both formal and informal, will help our stu- members of this community to express their views dents become active and engaged citizens of the world. on any issue. These principles are the foundation of Tufts University and all of modern American higher education. Anthony P. Monaco President, Tufts University 2 tufts magazine  |  winter 2015 photo: alonso nichols

Letters THE REDESIGNED to the column by Gittleman himself TEACH FOR AMERICA replacing experienced educators MAGAZINE (“1914’s Long Tail”). I gave “Stress CAVEATS with inexpensive Teach for America and the Gums” (Health News from personnel. Many charter schools The makeover is a bonanza, and the Tufts) to my dentist. I’ve sent copies Thank you for Kathy Hubbard’s in low-income neighborhoods are notion of offering four magazines in of the Philip Starks column “Busy As article spotlighting Tufts grads who staffed primarily by such personnel. one is inspired. a Grandma” to everyone. choose to teach (Fall 2014). But the title of that article—“Time Out MEG LUTHIN, A07 In our household, which receives BOB HORNE, G60 to Teach”—is worrying and telling. seven alumni/ae magazines, Tufts BOOTHBAY HARBOR, MAINE I hope that these alums, unlike SEATTLE, WASHINGTON Magazine has always been read eighty percent of Teach for America cover to cover, more or less. Yes, Congratulations on the redesigned members, find their teaching expe- AN ELEPHANT TO some of the articles have been a bit Tufts Magazine. What an improve- riences enriching enough to keep REMEMBER wordy in the past. But not so now, ment! This issue afforded me them in the classroom beyond the and content has not been sacrificed. hours of enjoyable and informative two-year hitch. All of our children, I read “Elephant of the Hour” (Fall Other huge pluses are the jazzy new reading. It will be a challenge to especially those vulnerable 2014) with great interest, because layout and high-quality photos. maintain the same quality in future students in low-income schools, during my four years at Tufts, I had issues, but I’m sure you will do it. deserve the most experienced and the job of babysitting Jumbo at the KATHERINE HALL PAGE, G74 dedicated teachers—and the most Barnum Museum of Natural History IRVING NOVIC, A51 stable and nurturing environ- (now Barnum Hall) on Saturday LINCOLN, MASSACHUSETTS STUDIO CITY, CALIFORNIA ments—we can provide. and Sunday afternoons—preventing local kids and others from trying This truly is one of the best maga- You’ve turned an outstanding It’s also worth noting that while to sit on his trunk, pull his tail, or zines ever. Every piece in the rede- magazine into an even better one. Teach for America does place otherwise mistreat him. My most signed Fall 2014 issue affected me, Write on! Photo shoot on! recruits in hard-to-staff districts, memorable experience was the from the letters responding to “The that’s not always the case. Districts afternoon a very old, stooped-over Sol Decades” (Summer 2014), about TOD J. KAUFMAN, A75 with no teacher shortage are lady came in. Tears were running Tufts’ beloved University Professor CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA profusely down her cheeks as she and former provost Sol Gittleman, viewed Jumbo. She explained that she had been a trapeze artist and had ridden around on his back during circus shows. VINCENT MAINIERO, A53 MILFORD, CONNECTICUT CORRECTION (AND CONGRATULATIONS) Our notice about the new children’s book This Day in June, by Gayle E. Pitman, J94 (Mixed Media, Fall 2014), got the title wrong—we were a month off. Luckily, that didn’t prevent the American Library Association’s GLBT Round Table from honoring the work with a pres- tigious Stonewall Book Award. —Editor PATS POSSE. A Tufts contingent saw the hometown favorite New England Patriots defeat the Tufts Magazine welcomes Seattle Seahawks, 28–24, in Super Bowl XLIX at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Arizona your letters. Send them to on February 1. From left: Caitlin Friedensohn, A08; Peter Dolan, A78, A08P, chair of Tufts’ [email protected], or Editor, Board of Trustees; Nancy Bello, J69, A13P; John Bello, A68, A13P, a Tufts trustee; and Tufts Magazine, Tufts Publications, Christopher Dolan, A08. The Kraft family, owners of the Patriots, are longtime supporters of 80 George Street, Medford, MA Tufts who funded the Kraft Family Atrium in the Tisch Sports and Fitness Center and 02155. Letters are edited for length provided support to Tufts Hillel, among other gifts. and clarity. 3w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 | t u f t s m a g a z i n e

The Editorial We Piece of Cake Magazine One thing I’ve learned from The Great British Baking Show, aside volume 22, no. 2 from how much fun it would be to cook under a big tent on an w inter 2015 English country estate instead of in my little kitchen, is how hard it is to judge a cake. Before TGBBS, it was enough for the Editor cake to taste good. Now one worries about the “bake”—about David Brittan the crumb, the moisture, and (if yeast is involved) whether the [email protected] confection was adequately proofed. Are the layers even? Is the Editorial Director glaze too thin? The tiniest flaw will be caught by the show’s stern but Karen Bailey reasonable judges. And from now on, I’ll notice these things, too, as will [email protected] millions of other viewers. In that respect, cake appreciation is just like any other form of expertise. Design Director An expert learns to spot the relevant variables: which properties of a thing are Margot Grisar available to be noticed and which ones are worth paying attention to. Whether in [email protected] aesthetics or anesthesiology, it’s not so much what you know that counts as what you notice. Designer Ages ago, I taught music appreciation to undergraduates. To my surprise, these betsy hayes bright students often had trouble describing what they were listening to, except in [email protected] the vaguest terms. Then they’d discover the building blocks of music—concepts like pitch, timbre, meter, rhythm, harmony, and form—and suddenly they’d have News & Notes Editor a vocabulary for thinking about music and noticing differences. No longer could Heather Stephenson they claim of Baroque or blues, “It all sounds alike.” [email protected] Wine is the same way. Connoisseurs don’t just “like” a wine. They pay atten- tion to color, aroma, taste, and finish, and parse out all those flavor components Contributing Editors you read about on the bottle—“notes of cinnamon, cloves, pepper,” and all that. I Beth Horning doubt it takes superhuman powers to detect such characteristics, but most people Kara Peters don’t think to look for them, and consequently miss enjoying the complex package of sensations a fine wine has to offer. Columnists Science, of course, is built upon just this sort of informed observation. The Nicholas Dodman colors of stars, the spots on a butterfly wing, the temperature of an ocean cur- Sol Gittleman rent—to the person who is trained to notice them, these variables are important. Ronald Pies Often vitally so. In the hen scratching of an EKG, for example, a cardiologist Jeswald W. Salacuse divines T waves and U waves and Q waves (whatever those may be) and homes in W. George Scarlett on irregularities, potentially saving a life. Philip Starks But noticing can just as easily be a curse. I once asked a discerning Hollywood director if he enjoyed watching movies. “When they’re good,” he replied. Contributing Writer “Otherwise I fixate on everything that’s wrong.” He reminded me of my dermatol- Kristin Livingston, A05 ogist friend who can diagnose almost any skin disease in about three seconds— which puts her in the awkward position of noticing sometimes dire conditions in Class Notes strangers on the street. Faith Hruby If I had to choose, I’d rather be a noticer. Wouldn’t you? Fewer Victoria sponge Kathryn Klem cakes will meet our rising standards, but the ones that do will be sublime. Tufts Magazine (USPS #619-420, ISSN David Brittan #1535-5063) is published three times a Editor year by the Trustees of Tufts University. Direct magazine calls to 617.627.4287. 4 tufts magazine  |  winter 2015 Send correspondence to Tufts Magazine, Tufts Publications, 80 George Street, Medford, MA 02155, or email [email protected]. Tufts Magazine is distributed without charge to alumni, parents of current undergraduates, and other members of the Tufts community. Periodicals postage paid at Boston, MA, and additional mailing addresses. Postmaster: Send address changes to Development Records, Tufts University, 80 George Street, Medford, MA 02155. © 2015 Trustees of Tufts University http://go.tufts.edu/magazine Printed on recycled paper by Lane Press, Inc., South Burlington, VT Please recycle. photo: alonso nichols

Discover health, science, and technology photo: alonso Nichols Wide-Eyed This barred owl was a recent guest at the new Shalin Liu Healing Cage at Cummings School’s Wildlife Clinic. The cage gives raptors such as eagles, hawks, and owls room to strengthen their wings as they recover from illness or injury. Then it’s back into the wild. 5w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 | t u f t s m a g a z i n e

Discover health news from tufts CATS & DOGS with a force plate to show Shukitt-Hale, a USDA M EDICINE that animals improved their scientist at Tufts’ Human Stem Cell ability to bear weight? Or Nutrition Research Center Antidepressants Therapy for Pets did owners simply report on Aging, and colleagues and Preterm Births that their animals seemed fed nineteen-month-old rats Even though veterinary stem better? a diet enriched with what, The use of antidepres- cell science is in its infancy, for a human, would be the sants during pregnancy several companies are Another crucial question equivalent of zero, three, has increased dramatically already marketing therapies is whether the research five, ten, or fifteen cups of over the last two decades. based on it, most often behind the therapy was coffee per day. Then they Meanwhile, rates of preterm for arthritis or soft-tissue peer-reviewed—determined ran the subjects through birth in the United States injuries. Michael Kowaleski, to be valid by unbiased a battery of tests to evalu- have been climbing. Adam V93, an orthopedic surgeon experts in the field. And ate their balance, muscle Urato, a specialist in mater- who is conducting clinical was there a control group strength, spatial learning, nal-fetal medicine and trials of stem cell treatments of animals that received a and memory. The most sig- assistant professor at Tufts at Cummings School’s Foster placebo, such as a saline nificant improvement was in School of Medicine, doesn’t Hospital for Small Animals, injection? If so, how much the rats that got the ten-cup think that’s a coincidence. He says that before agreeing benefit did the stem cell equivalent. and his colleagues combed to such an approach, pet treatment produce compared through relevant research owners should ask their with the placebo? Also, was Next, the researchers conducted between 1993 and veterinarian several pointed the research “blind”? That is, repeated the experiment, 2012, and their meta-analy- questions. were owners and researchers giving the rats a caffeine sis of that data, published in unaware of which animals supplement to mimic what the online journal PLOS One, They should find out, first received the treatment and they had consumed from supports that view. of all, why the doctor is rec- which received the placebo, the coffee. The rats on the ommending stem cell ther- to ensure that expectations supplement performed better Of the forty-one studies his apy, how it compares with did not influence the results? than the control group, but group found on antidepres- other treatments, and what Finally, you should know not as well as those that had sants and preterm birth, thir- the evidence of its safety who funded the research, received coffee. Shukitt-Hale ty-nine showed an increased is. They should ask how the and whether a commercial notes that future studies risk, although not always a therapy’s effectiveness was concern stood to benefit from could look at how polyphe- statistically significant one. measured. In the case of it. (FROM CUMMINGS VETERINARY nols and, most likely, other Yet, he notes, “when you put an arthritis treatment, for MEDICINE) bioactive compounds in it all together in a meta-anal- example, were tests done coffee work together with ysis, what you find is roughly N U T R ITION caffeine to help the brain. a doubling of the risk of preterm birth in women who Your Brain on Coffee (FROM TUFTS NUTRITION) are on these medications into the third trimester.” He We know coffee is good for adds, “Several of the studies a bracing jolt of caffeine. But are showing very high rates it’s also rich in polyphenols, of preterm birth. Ten percent compounds that have been is considered a high rate. But linked to brain health. And a some of these studies are study published in the jour- showing rates as high as 25 nal Age suggests that while percent—and one was even caffeine has a good effect as high as 30.8 percent.” on the aging brain, other compounds in coffee do, too, Such findings contradict at least in rats. the popular wisdom. “The message that a lot of preg- For eight weeks, Barbara nant women and women of 6 tufts magazine | winter 2015 illustration: stuart bradford; photo: istockphoto

child-bearing age and their Dinosaurs and doctors get is that these Poached Eggs drugs are basically safe in pregnancy. That’s absolutely Not long ago, Irv Pitman, D41, a climb the trees to get at their eggs,” not what the science is show- ing.” (FROM TUFTS MEDICINE ) ninety-seven-year-old retired dentist, Pitman hypothesized. DENTAL read an article about dinosaurs that The pieces all seemed to fit together, Got Teeth? Use troubled him. His local New Jersey and Pitman was dying to know what Fluoride paper reported on the theory that the scientists would think of his idea. He It’s never too soon to start treating a baby’s teeth creatures had been wiped out by an wrote to several science magazines but with fluoride, according to new guidelines issued asteroid. But if the theory was right, never heard back. Then he had another by the American Dental Association. When the Pitman wondered, why did the smaller good idea: Why not write to Tufts? first tooth erupts, parents should begin brushing it and weaker mammals survive? Jacob Benner, a fossil expert in with tiny amounts of fluoride toothpaste. The advice, And why didn’t earlier aster- the Department of Earth and based on the ADA’s review of numerous recent studies of oid impacts—of which there Did hungry Ocean Sciences, answered childhood oral health trends, is a departure from the must have been many— mammals Pitman in a detailed letter. organization’s longstanding have a similarly devastating drive the giant “The idea triggered my recommendation that effect? The more he thought curiosity,” Benner wrote. children under age two should about the asteroid theory, the reptiles to “The hypothesis you propose not have fluoride beyond extinction? what’s in the water supply. more it sounded like bunk. is potentially valid, but would Cheen Loo, DI10, asso- ciate professor and interim Then a thought occurred to him: have to hold up to testing by chair of pediatric dentistry at Tufts, backs the revised ADA What if the mammals were to blame evidence from the fossil record.” And guidelines. At Tufts’ pediatric dental clinic, she says, “we for the dinosaurs’ demise? When there was the rub. No signs of mammals see a lot of kids coming in at the age of one-and-a-half or mammals arrived, “they were hun- interfering with dinosaur nests or eggs two, and they have cavities. Because of their young age, gry and low man on the food chain,” had been unearthed—no mammal we end up not being able to help them in the clinic, he wrote in a pithy summary of his footprints around nests, no bits of and have to treat them in the hospital operating room thinking. “Luckily, mammals love eggshell in mammal droppings. Alas, under general anesthesia. So we are really trying to prevent eggs, and dinosaur eggs were plentiful the poached-egg hypothesis of dinosaur that from happening.” (FROM TUFTS DENTAL MEDICINE) and not well looked after.” The eggs, extinction would remain untested and then, could have been the dinosaurian untestable, the inspired conjecture of an Achilles’ heel. Perhaps not coinciden- active mind. tally, the only dinosaur species to sur- But Pitman had what he wanted: vive were those that evolved into birds. an informed response. “It shows Tufts “Our earthbound mammals could not really cares,” he said.  —DAVID BRITTAN ILLUSTRATION: Peter Trusler; ©Australian Postal Corporation 1993 7w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 | t u f t s m a g a z i n e

Discover Mind MeldThe coming merger between human and machine intelligence By Jeff Stibel, A95  illustration by david plunkert for most of the past two million years, the human brain has been growing steadily. But something has recently changed. In a surprising reversal, human brains have actually been shrinking for the last 20,000 years or so. We have lost nearly a baseball-sized amount of matter from a brain that isn’t any larger than a football. The descent is rapid and pronounced. The anthropol- ogist John Hawks describes it as a “major downsizing in an evolutionary eye- blink.” If this pace is maintained, scientists predict that our brains will be no larger than those of our forebears, Homo erectus, within another 2,000 years. The reason that our brains are shrinking is simple: our biology is focused on survival, not intelligence. Larger brains were necessary to allow us to learn to use language, tools, and all of the innovations that allowed our species to thrive. But now that we have become civilized—domesticated, if you will—certain aspects of intelligence are less necessary. This is actually true of all animals: domesticated animals, including dogs, cats, hamsters, and birds, have ten to fifteen percent smaller brains than their counterparts in the wild. Because brains are so expen- sive to maintain, large brain sizes are selected out when nature sees no direct survival benefit. It is an inevitable fact of life. 8 tufts magazine | winter 2015

Credit: TK 9w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 | t u f t s m a g a z i n e

Discover Fortunately, another influence has professor of neurology to pursue his in Seattle, he connected the brain of a evolved over the past 20,000 years quest. rhesus monkey to an electrical meter that is making us smarter even as our and then watched in amazement as brains are shrinking: technology. At the time, psychic interest was the monkey learned how to control the Technology has allowed us to leapfrog relatively high. There were numerous level of the meter with nothing but its evolution, enabling our brains and academics devoted to the field, study- thoughts. bodies to do things that were otherwise ing at prestigious institutions such impossible biologically. We weren’t as Stanford and Duke, Oxford and While incredible, this insight didn’t born with wings, but we’ve created Cambridge. Still, it was largely consid- have much application in 1969. But airplanes, helicopters, hot air bal- ered bunk science, with most credible with the rapid development of silicon loons, and hang gliders. We don’t have academics focused on dispelling, chips, computers, and data networks, sufficient natural strength or speed to rather than proving, claims of psychic the technology now exists to connect bring down big game, but we’ve cre- ability. But one of those psychic beliefs people’s brains to the Internet, and it’s ated spears, rifles, and livestock farms. happened to be true. giving rise to a new breed of intelli- gence. Scientists in labs across the globe Now, as the Internet revolution That belief is the now well-un- are busy perfecting computer chips unfolds, we are seeing not merely an derstood notion that our brains that can be implanted in the human extension of mind but a unity of mind communicate electrically. This was a brain. In many ways, the results, if and machine, two networks coming radical idea at the time; after all, the successful, fit squarely in the realm of together as one. Our smaller brains electromagnetic field had only been “psychics.” There may be no such thing are in a quest to bypass nature’s intent discovered in 1865. But Berger found as paranormal activity, but make no and grow larger by proxy. It is not proof. He invented a device called the mistake that all of the following are a stretch of the imagination to electroencephalogram (you proba- possible and on the horizon: telepathy, believe we will one day have all of bly know it as an EEG) that recorded no problem; telekinesis, absolutely; the world’s information embedded brain waves. Using his new EEG, Berger clairvoyance, without question; ESP, in our minds via the Internet. was the first to demonstrate that our oh yeah. While not psychic, Hans neurons actually talk to one another, Berger may have been right all along. I n the late 1800s, a and they do so with electrical pulses. German astrono- He published his results in 1929. J an Scheuermann mer named Hans Berger fell off a As often happens with revolu- lifted a chocolate bar horse and was nearly tionary ideas, Berger’s EEG results to her mouth and trampled by cavalry. were either ignored or lambasted as took a bite. A grin He narrowly escaped injury but was trickery. This was, after all, preternat- spread across her forever changed by the incident, owing ural activity. But over the next decade, to the reaction of his sister. Though she enough independent scholars verified face as she declared, was miles away at the time, Berger’s the results that they became widely sister was instantly overcome with a accepted. Berger saw his findings as “One small nibble for a woman, one feeling that Hans was in trouble. evidence of the mind’s potential for Berger took this as evidence of the “psychic” activity, and he continued giant bite for BCI.” mind’s psychic ability and dedicated searching for more evidence until the the rest of his life to finding certain day he hanged himself in frustration. BCI stands for brain-computer proof. The rest of the scientific community Berger abandoned his study of went back to what it had always been interface, and Jan is one of only a few astronomy and enrolled in medical doing, “good science,” and largely school to gain an understanding of forgot about the electric neuron. people on earth using this technology, the brain that would allow him to prove a “correlation between objective That was the case until the biophysi- through two implanted chips attached activity in the brain and subjective cist Eberhard Fetz came along in 1969 psychic phenomena.” He later joined and elaborated on Berger’s discov- directly to the neurons in her brain. the University of Jena in Germany as ery. Fetz reasoned that if brains were controlled by electricity, then perhaps The first human brain implant was we could use our brains to control electrical devices. In a small primate conceived of by John Donoghue, a lab at the University of Washington neuroscientist at Brown University, and implanted in a paralyzed man in 2004. These dime-sized computer chips use a technology called BrainGate that directly connects the mind to comput- ers and the Internet. Having served as chairman of the BrainGate company, I have personally witnessed just how 10 t u f t s m a g a z i n e | w i n t e r 2 0 1 5

There may be no such thing as paranormal activity, but make no mistake that all of the following are possible and on the horizon: telepathy, no problem; telekinesis, absolutely; clairvoyance, without question; ESP, oh yeah. profound this innovation is. BrainGate will enable bionics, restore commu- J ust as human is an invention that allows people to nication abilities, and give disabled control electrical devices with nothing people previously unimaginable access intelligence is but their thoughts. The BrainGate chip to the world. expanding in the is implanted in the brain and attached direction of the to connectors outside of the skull, But imagine the ways in which the Internet, the Internet which are hooked up to computers world will change when any of us, that, in Jan Scheuermann’s case, were disabled or not, can connect our minds itself promises to get linked to a robotic arm. As a result, to computers. Scheuermann can feed herself choco- smarter and smarter. In fact, it could late by controlling the robotic arm with Computers have been creeping nothing but her thoughts. closer to our brains since their inven- prove to be the basis of the machine tion. What started as large mainframes A smart, vibrant woman in her early became desktops, then laptops, then intelligence that scientists have been fifties, Scheuermann has been unable tablets and smartphones that we hold to use her arms and legs since she was only inches from our faces, and now racing toward since the 1950s. diagnosed with a rare genetic disease Google Glass, which (albeit undergoing at the age of forty. “I have not moved a redesign) delivers the Internet in a The pursuit of artificial intelligence things for about ten years . . . . This is pair of eyeglasses. the ride of my life,” she said. “This is has been plagued by problems. For one, the roller coaster. This is skydiving.” Back in 2004, Google’s founders Other patients use brain-controlled told Playboy magazine that one day we keep changing the definition of intel- implants to communicate, control we’d have direct access to the Internet wheelchairs, write emails, and connect through brain implants, with “the ligence. In the 1960s, we said a computer to the Internet. entirety of the world’s information as just one of our thoughts.” A decade that could beat a backgammon cham- The technology is surprisingly later, the roadmap is taking shape. simple to understand. BrainGate While it may be years before implants pion would surely be intelligent. But in is merely tapping into the brain’s like BrainGate are safe enough to be electrical signals in the same way that commonplace—they require brain the 1970s, when Gammonoid beat Luigi Berger’s EEG and Fetz’s electrical surgery, after all—there are a host of meter did. The BrainGate chip, once brainwave sensors in development for Villa—the world champion backgam- attached to the motor cortex, reads use outside of the skull that will be the brain’s electrical signals and sends transformational for all of us: caps for mon player—by a score of 7–1, we them to a computer, which interprets measuring driver alertness, headbands them and sends along instructions to for monitoring sleep, helmets for decided that backgammon was too easy, other electrical devices like a robotic controlling video games. This could arm or a wheelchair. In that respect, lead to wearable EEG’s, implantable requiring only straightforward calcu- it’s not much different from using nanochips, or even technology that can your television remote to change the listen to our brain signals using the lations. We changed the rules to focus channel. Potentially the technology electromagnetic waves that pervade the air we breathe. on games of sophisticated rules and strategies, like chess. Yet when IBM’s Deep Blue computer beat the reigning chess champion, Gary Kasparov, in 1997, we changed the rules again. No longer were sophisticated calculations or logical decision making acts of intelli- gence. Perhaps when computers could answer human knowledge questions, then they’d be intelligent. Of course, we had to revise that theory in 2011 when IBM’s Watson computer soundly beat the best humans at Jeopardy. But all of these computers were horribly bad sports: they couldn’t say hello, shake hands, or make small talk of any kind. Each time a machine defies our w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 | t u f t s m a g a z i n e 11

Discover definition of intelligence we move to a a three-pound wrinkly lump of clay, performs amazing feats. The faultiness new definition. nor will it have cells or blood or fat. of the individual neuron allows for the Daniel Dennett, University Professor plasticity and adaptive nature of the We’ve done the same thing in and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of network as a whole. Intelligence cannot nature. We once argued that what Philosophy at Tufts—whom I consider be replicated by creating a bunch of set us apart from other animals was a mentor and a guide on the quest to switches, faulty or not. Instead, we our ability to use tools. Then we saw solving the mysteries of the mind—was must focus on the network. primates and crows using tools. So we an advocate of reverse engineering at changed our minds and said that what one point. But he recently changed Neurons may be good analogs for makes us intelligent is our ability to course, stating: “I’m trying to undo a transistors and maybe even computer use language. Then biologists taught mistake I made some years ago, and chips, but they’re not good building the first chimpanzee how to use sign rethink the idea that the way to under- blocks of intelligence. The neural net- language, and we decided that intel- stand the mind is to take it apart.” work is fundamental. The BrainGate ligence couldn’t be about language technology works because the chip after all. Next came self-conscious- Dennett’s mistake was to reduce the attaches not to a single neuron, but ness and awareness until experiments brain to the neuron in an attempt to to a network of neurons. Reading the unequivocally proved that dolphins are rebuild it. That is reducing the brain signals of a single neuron would tell us self-aware. With animal intelligence as one step too far, pushing us from the very little; it certainly wouldn’t allow well as machine intelligence, we keep edge of the forest to deep into the trees. BrainGate patients to move a robotic changing the goalposts. This is the danger in any kind of reverse arm or a computer cursor. Scientists engineering. Biologists reduced ant may never be able to reverse engineer There are those who believe we can the neuron, but they are increasingly able to interpret the communication of It is pretty clear the network. that an intelligent machine will look It is for this reason that the Internet is a better candidate for intelligence nothing like a than are computers. Computers are three-pound wrinkly perfect calculators composed of perfect transistors; they are like neurons as lump of clay. we once envisioned them. But the Internet has all the quirkiness of the transcend the moving goalposts. These colonies down to individuals, but we brain: it can work in parallel, it can bold adventurers have most recently have now learned that the ant network, communicate across broad distances, focused on brain science, attempting the colony, is the critical level. Reducing and it makes mistakes. Even though to reverse engineer the brain. As the flight to the feathers of a bird would not the Internet is at an early stage in its theory goes, once we understand all of have worked, but reducing it to wing- evolution, it can leverage the brain that the brain’s parts, we can recreate them span did the trick. Feathers are one step nature has given us. The convergence to build an intelligent system. too far, just as are ants and neurons. of computer networks and neural net- works is the key to creating real intelli- But there are two problems with Scientists have oversimplified the gence from artificial machines. It took this approach. First, the inner work- function of a neuron, treating it as a millions of years for humans to gain ings of the brain are largely a mystery. predictable switching device that fires intelligence, but with the human mind Neuroscience is making tremendous on and off. That would be incredibly as a guide, it may only take a century to progress, but it is still early. convenient if it were true. But neurons create Internet intelligence. are only logical when they work—and a The second issue with reverse engi- neuron misfires up to ninety percent of JEFF STIBEL, A95, is CEO of Dun & Bradstreet neering the brain is more fundamental. the time. Artificial intelligence almost Credibility Corporation and was previously CEO of Just as the Wright brothers didn’t learn universally ignores this fact. Web.com, Inc. He is the New York Times bestselling to fly by dissecting birds, we will not author of Breakpoint (Palgrave Macmillan), from learn to create intelligence by recreating Focusing on a single neuron’s which this article is adapted, and Wired for Thought a brain. It is pretty clear that an intel- on/off switch misses what is happening (Harvard). At Tufts, he sits on the Gordon Institute’s ligent machine will look nothing like with the network of neurons, which Entrepreneurial Leadership Advisory Board. 12 t u f t s m a g a z i n e | w i n t e r 2 0 1 5

Warding off Liver Cancer Could a hormone drug prevent the disease? By Michael Blanding W orldwide, liver cancer is the second leading cause When Rogers and his colleagues of cancer deaths after lung cancer, according to the tested pituitary hormones on liver World Health Organization. It’s particularly prev- cells, growth hormone showed little alent in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, effect. Prolactin, however, reduced where it is associated with hepatitis B and C viruses, inflammatory responses markedly. as well as toxins in food and water. Liver cancer is Rogers surmised that prolactin may also far more common in males, who get it twice to eight times as play a role in protecting women against often as females, depending on the country. This peculiarity has led liver cancer. He ran experiments with Arlin Rogers, head of pathology at Cummings School of Veterinary mice, including both females and males Medicine, to discover a promising route to staving off the disease. that could not produce prolactin. The Illnesses that are more prevalent in males, such as cardiovascular female mice without the prolactin disease, stem from chronic inflammation of body tissues. But why is gene developed cancer at dramatically inflammation more common in men than in women? The obvious higher rates than those with the gene. answer seemed to be sex hormones such as testosterone and estrogen. There was even a mild effect in the But Rogers found evidence in an obscure 1940s paper that the root male mice: those with prolactin got may instead lie in the pituitary gland, which releases growth hor- cancer at around the same rates as mone and prolactin (a hormone that helps nursing mothers those without, but exhibited only a produce milk). Cummings third of the tumors. School’s Arlin Rogers sees a link That finding holds promise for human patients. Drugs between liver cancer and that raise prolactin levels— the hormone prolactin—­ at used mostly for treating least in rats. Now he’s psychiatric or gastrointesti- studying data on nal disorders—have already humans. received FDA approval. Rogers tested one such drug in mice exposed to a chemical that induces liver cancer. Only twenty-two percent of male mice taking the drug contracted cancer, compared with a hundred percent of those not taking the drug. Rogers published his findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last summer. He’s now work- ing with statisticians at Tufts Medical Center to see if patients already taking these drugs are less prone to liver cancer. “We don’t think this is going to cure liver cancer,” Rogers says, “but it might help prevent it.” Michael Blanding is a Boston-based freelance writer and author of The Map Thief. photo: kelvin ma w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 | t u f t s m a g a z i n e 13

Discover House of Mirth Did that building just smile at me? By Ann Sussman, F86, and Justin B. Hollander, A96 Symmetrical windows that look like eyes. And, he says, our brains are always Centrally placed doors that resemble a nose or on alert to subconsciously read dots mouth. Such architectural quirks never fail to and lines that align in this man- captivate us. ner with no prompting on our part whatsoever. It turns out the reason lies deep in our evo- lutionary past: faces have been so important to If you need convincing, think about our survival that we are primed to identify them emoticons, the colons and semicolons rapidly and accurately, from infancy on. In fact, and other characters we deploy to the brain arrives in the world with a specialized region prepared for represent smiles, frowns, winks, and the task. The Nobel Prize–winning neuroscientist Eric Kandel refers to a range of other expressions. Adding the brain’s built-in blueprint as a “visual primitive”—it’s an oval with such marks to an email or text message two points for the eyes, a vertical line for a nose, and a horizontal line instantly conveys our feelings about a below for the mouth, as shown above. subject. The minimalist lines appear 14 t u f t s m a g a z i n e | w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 photos: agefotostock.com

Architecture with a human face (from left): an impassive-looking residence in CHA R ACTE R S K ETCH Silverton, Colorado; a historic house with a twinkle in its eye on the German island of Sylt; a startled church in Brandenburg, Germany; Manhattan’s Sock Doc grinning (or grimacing) “Pumpkin House,” near the George Washington Bridge. NAME: Ashley Magee, V95 to everyone as facial features and work is almost as though the designers were PROFESSION: Veterinary surgeon; like emotional shorthand. copying the pattern they knew best, the one of two on the staff of DoveLewis one preprogrammed into our brains Emergency Animal Hospital in Some buildings seem deliberately or and so significant for survival: the face. Portland, Oregon unconsciously designed to reflect the figural primitive. But even if they were Ann Sussman, F86, is an architect, artist, writer, and UNSHAKEABLY CONVINCED not, we might perceive a surprised or community organizer in Concord, Massachusetts. happy or scowling expression any- Justin B. Hollander, A96, is an associate OF: The importance of a positive way. Because of a phenomenon called professor of urban and environmental policy and outlook. “Patients that are willing pareidolia, we routinely discern faces planning at Tufts. The authors explore this and to get up and move even when it’s in places where they are not: in clouds, similar topics in their new book, Cognitive extremely painful—and that come the moon, a tortilla chip, or the burnt Architecture: Designing for How We Respond back for rechecks wagging their markings on a piece of toast. In the to the Built Environment (Routledge). tails—always seem to heal faster.” buildings presented above, however, it FINDS ESCAPE IN: Her dog, Sonny, and her horse, Ace. “In a world ruled photos: istockphoto; joyce dopkeen/the new york times/Redux by the cell phone, computer, and TV, these two guys get me outside into the fresh air and away from it all.” ALWAYS UP FOR: A surgical challenge. “I never mind waking up in the middle of the night to try to save someone’s pet. The thought of a complex or unusual case thrills me no matter how tired I am.” TRUE STORY: “One night a Great Dane was brought to the hospital with intractable vomiting and ab- dominal pain. Radiographs showed that his stomach was distended with foreign material, and when we operated, we were able to solve the age-old mystery of the missing socks, at least for the family in question. The dog had eaten forty-three and a half of the things, all different shapes, sizes, and colors. I only hope that he has been forbidden to enter the laundry room from now on.” 15

Discover Judgment Still CountsKIDS THESE DAYS analyses that many child development Don’t let the “science” fool you BY W. GEORGE SCARLETT specialists hold as gospel. President Lincoln often not so good, and may even be harm- “Evidenced-based practice” doesn’t received visitors who told ful—at least according to the “evi- account for the fact that our interpre- him he should do this or dence” from scientific studies where tations of “good” and “bad” behavior that because it was the there are reliable measures yielding are highly subjective. I worry about “will of God.” With char- data to be analyzed. an adolescent boy who comes from acteristic wit and logic, he a particular culture where “stupid” would respond, “If it is probable that Authoritative parents and teachers means “funny” and who responds to God would reveal his will to others on set rules and limits, but in contrast to his teacher’s joke by telling the teacher, a point so connected with my duty, it the authoritarian style, they explain the “That’s so stupid.” Unless the teacher might be supposed he would reveal it rules, sometimes involve the children is aware of this colloquial usage, he directly to me.” in making up the rules, help children or she will likely misinterpret the follow the rules, and provide guidance boy’s remark as disrespectful and Today, I think of Lincoln when I when children occasionally break the then impose some “evidenced-based” read so much advice about children, rules and suffer the consequences. punishment. advice presented as “evidence-based” and “best practice” and “grounded Often overlooked by science are Often, “evidence-based practice” in science.” Something about these the children who respond better to does not account for the value judg- hallowed terms suggests we should dis- a more powerful, more authoritar- ments made when we set goals for regard our own judgment—science has ian approach. Those children need a children. I worry about the first-grade revealed to us what we should do. Like “warm demander” (to use the current girl in an inclusive classroom who Lincoln, I don’t buy a good many of the happy phrase for capturing this style). is totally blind; the law requires her revelations supposedly coming from Warm demanders say “sit down,” “be teachers to develop an individualized on high. Certainly, when it comes to quiet,” “behave yourself,” with no rea- education program (IEP) that sets choosing a method for helping a child, sons or guidance given. They assume measurable goals. On the girl’s IEP is it makes sense to evaluate the evidence children know what is right and the goal “While wearing a dress, will behind one or another approach. But wrong. But in their voice, their body sit at meeting time with legs crossed.” in the end we are left to make good language, and their facial expression, No mention of a less quantifiable goal judgments—judgments that may run they convey the message “I’m on your such as “By the end of the school year, counter to what others claim to be “evi- side” (I think of the tough but caring she will have friends.” Rather than have dence-based” or “best practice.” football coach on the recent TV series us reach for the stars, “evidence-based Friday Night Lights). When all is going practice”—with its fixation on what is Consider the matter of deciding fine, warm demanders will laugh along easily measurable—can have us reach- which parenting or teaching style with a child, provide physical com- ing for the M&Ms. to adopt. Science has an answer: the fort, and show extraordinary warmth. “authoritative” style is best. In contrast, Unfortunately, the warm demander Sometimes, it might be our own best authoritarian and permissive styles are goes under the radar of the statistical practice to respond to those preaching their “evidence-based” child-rear- ing advice in the same way Lincoln responded to those who purported to know divine will. Brushing aside the flimsy claims, Lincoln would propose: “We must study the plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right.” W. GEORGE SCARLETT is a senior lecturer in and deputy chair of the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development. He is also general editor of the forthcoming SAGE Encyclopedia of Classroom Management. 16 t u f t s m a g a z i n e | w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 illustration: ward schumaker

Act Our humanitarians, leaders, and innovators Legends of Innovation In the late 1920s, Vannevar Bush, E1913, G1913, H32, invented a mechanical computer for solving differential equations (shown). You’d need a gizmo like that to gauge his impact on science and technology: Raytheon cofounder, MIT dean of engineering and VP, science advisor to President Roosevelt, and prime mover behind the National Science Foundation, he also dreamed up a system of hypertext (in the 1940s!) that would help shape the World Wide Web. If Bush were around today, you can bet Kara Miller, G08, would have him on her radio show, Innovation Hub, the inspiration for her article “Five Secrets of the World’s Top Innovators” (page 27). Courtesy MIT Museum w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 | t u f t s m a g a z i n e 17

Act Taking a cue from a small Buddhist kingdom, Tom Barefoot, A68, urges governments to rethink how they measure progress Pursuitthe Haopf piness by michael blanding illustr ation by Gaby D’Alessandro 18 t u f t s m a g a z i n e | w i n t e r 2 0 1 5

Credit: TK w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 | t u f t s m a g a z i n e 19

Act Q uick, what makes you happy? if you said economic recently adopted a measure called growth, you are in the minority. When most of us think about Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) that what gives us joy in life, it’s things like spending time with uses production data similar to GDP, friends and family, enjoying the outdoors, and volunteering but discounts growth due to rebuilding for a cause. And yet none of these things are contained in from natural disasters and includes the official measures of progress such as Gross National Product value of volunteerism and housework and Gross Domestic Product. and the cost of lost leisure time due to longer work hours. For decades, countries around the measure progress in nine domains, world have measured progress in purely including health, community vitality, Barefoot regards such steps as a sign economic terms: growth and con- and psychological well-being. of the growing importance of GNH. sumption. That provides a skewed view “Five years ago, I attended a confer- of development, says Tom Barefoot, In 2010, Bhutan expanded the con- ence of economists and no one knew A68, co-coordinator of Gross National cept, surveying the populace to create anything about it. Now, two states have Happiness USA, an organization that a GNH Index, which found that for- formally adopted well-being indicators.” aims to change the focus of govern- ty-one percent of the population quali- ment from increasing consumption fied as “happy,” meaning they achieved In government, that pace of progress to increasing well-being—and in a “sufficiency” in six out of the nine is lightning fast, says Barefoot, who few short years has already started to categories. But even those that were for the past thirty years has viewed change hearts and minds in state and unhappy were sufficient, on average, in bureaucracy close up as president of a municipal governments. five domains. And more importantly, computer networking company serv- the index gives the country the data to ing government clients. Before that, The idea really isn’t far-fetched. identify which classes of citizen are less Barefoot was for twelve years a board After all, the Founding Fathers in the member and president of Vermont Declaration of Independence extolled Tom Barefoot Public Interest Research Group, an the right to the pursuit of happiness. environmental advocacy body. But The focus on growth didn’t come until happy—including women, rural dwell- over the years, he’s become increasingly much later. “Gross National Product ers, and farmers—and what is making disillusioned by the polarization of came about from a need during the them unhappy, in order to better focus American politics into special interest Second World War to count produc- development efforts. groups, each pushing its own agenda. tion,” says Barefoot. “But GNP has “It’s grown to the point where the two never been intended as a measure of Now the concept seems to be sides in politics can’t even talk to each progress—that’s a total misuse of the catching on more broadly. In 2011, the other,” he says. figure. It does not count a number of United Nations passed a resolution to very important things.” study the matter, and countries from Once he discovered GNHUSA, he Canada to New Zealand have adopted latched onto the concept as a way to Hurricane Katrina, for example, some of its principles in their own create a third space to move beyond trashed the Gulf Coast, destroying mil- governments. In the United States, unproductive political infighting. Now lions of dollars’ worth of property, and both Vermont and Maryland have he helps plan conferences on GNH, yet it caused GNP to increase because coordinates the activities of various of all of the growth in construction working groups within the organi- in the area. “Another good example is zation, and implements happiness divorce,” says Barefoot. “Now you need surveys in his home state of Vermont. two refrigerators and two cars, so GNP “In stark contrast to the government goes up. But is the world better off?” gridlock we see all around us, happi- ness metrics looked to me like a way to Five years ago, a friend introduced have a real discussion about what peo- Barefoot to the concept of Gross ple want in their lives,” Barefoot says. National Happiness, the official metric for progress in the Himalayan What makes people happy? Not country of Bhutan. Since 1971, the wealth, according to the latest research. tiny Buddhist kingdom has used the A study in 2010 by two Princeton concept of GNH alongside GNP to researchers, including the Nobel Prize–winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, found that money does 20 t u f t s m a g a z i n e | w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 photo: George Soules

increase well-being, but only up to a In poll after a “development map” (vtgpi.org) to point. “In the U.S., that’s about seven- poll, people show where health and environmental ty-five thousand a year,” says Barefoot. development is needed alongside eco- “After that point, happiness levels out, say their nomic development. In the future, the and you can’t keep becoming happier work is out state plans to use this data in allocating by consuming more.” of balance budget spending. with the rest One thing that does make people of their life. Maryland adopted the GPI as an happy is altruism. In studies by the Yet the United official policy tool through executive Harvard Business School professor States is one of action by Governor Martin O’Malley in Michael Norton and the University the stingiest 2013, and a number of cities and towns of British Columbia psychologist countries are pursuing their own efforts in GNH. Elizabeth Dunn­—authors of Happy The city of Santa Monica, California, Money: The Science of Smarter when it for example, recently implemented a Spending—students were given twenty comes to “well-being survey,” polling residents dollars and told to use it either on vacation time, on their concerns, including financial themselves or on others. By the end of maternity stress, work-life imbalance, and worries the day, those who spent it on oth- leave, and about safety. The city plans on using ers reported more overall happiness. family sick the data to create a “well-being index” Researchers at the University of Zurich that can be used to integrate city last year even found that a part of leave. services. the brain called the temporoparietal junction is primed for thinking about with community, environment, and In Tufts’ own back yard, Somerville others’ needs. government. Barefoot sees such mea- was the first city in the country to con- surements as an important first step duct a household survey of happiness. What would make people happier? not only in raising awareness about the The city used data from the survey to In poll after poll, people say their work concept of well-being as opposed to change government priorities—for is out of balance with the rest of their material growth, but also in identifying example, by allocating more money to life, and that they don’t have enough areas on which government should the Department of Traffic and Parking time to spend with their friends focus in order to increase happiness. in response to citizen concerns. In and family. One recent Pew poll, for Those metrics “start to give us a frame- 2013, the city updated its SomerStat example, found that fifty-six percent work to show whether we are making project with a new mobile app that of working moms and fifty percent of progress on a set of goals,” he says. uses GPS data to measure exactly how working dads found it “very” or “some- happy residents feel at different places what” difficult to balance work and It was thanks to GNHUSA’s efforts and times in the city. family. Yet the United States is one of that Vermont passed its 2012 law the stingiest countries when it comes to including the use of the Genuine Barefoot and his fellow happiness vacation time and other rights such as Progress Indicator in setting priorities adherents take pride in the pace of maternity leave and family sick leave— for the state. As part of the law, the these accomplishments just a few ranking dead last in paid leave time in University of Vermont’s Gund Institute years after introducing the concept of a 2013 survey of developed nations by for Ecological Economics is track- GNH on a national level. As the idea the Center for Economic and Policy ing GPI over time and constructing spreads, they aim to make happiness as Research. “Everyone feels there are ubiquitous a concept as, say, sustain- issues with time balance,” Barefoot ability—cutting across both personal says. “A lot of help could come from awareness and government policy to government policy in maintaining that create a broader way of measuring and balance between life and work.” determining our priorities. If they suc- ceed, then one day soon governments Back in 2011, the Happiness Alliance won’t have to guess at how happy their in Seattle released its own national constituents are, or how to make them online survey (take it at happycounts. happier. org) to measure what really matters— including mental and material well-be- MICHAEL BLANDING is a Boston-based writer and a ing, work-life balance, and satisfaction frequent contributor to Tufts Magazine. w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 | t u f t s m a g a z i n e 21

Act A Few GoodVets on campus, part 1 Men andWomen Why universities need veterans By Elliot Ackerman, A03, F03 taken, the one they considered trav- eling once their enlistments were During my eight years as a Marine Corps officer, there complete. Their question would usually was one question I must’ve been asked a thousand lead to a bit of exposition from me— times. Up late on radio watch in the turret of a gun how to apply to university, liberal arts truck in Iraq’s barren Al-Anbar Province, or beneath versus the sciences, and maybe a good a blanket of stars on a hilltop outpost in the Hindu story from a frat party on College Ave. Kush, the privates and lance corporals I led always to add some color. Among the older wanted to know: “Hey, sir, what’s college like?” For most of these guys, college was the path not 22 t u f t s m a g a z i n e | w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 photo: ilker gurer

Ackerman, “Great, go to college first.” the dead from the First and Second photographed in “My Dad’s got a construction World Wars, as well as the Korean Istanbul—his home War. Then, clustered in a corner of the base while reporting on company, sir.” church, were other names, those few who died in Vietnam. As academic the Syrian Civil War—hopes “Great, go to college first.” institutions removed military recruit- ers and ROTC from their campuses, for dialogue between “Some friends of mine are mak- a rupture occurred in that era, one military and academic ing a killing in Silicon Valley, sir.” that echoes to this day and is only now being repaired. institutions. “Great, go to college first.” America’s military and academic At face value, my zeal for higher institutions may not always reflect one another’s values, nor should they, education stemmed from the doors but both are the cradles of this coun- try’s leadership. A dialogue must exist I knew it would open, and the ones I between the two. Just as the mili- tary provides every veteran with an knew would be closed without a degree. opportunity to attend college through the G.I. Bill and other programs, our But I’ve since realized this desire to see universities provide the military with the bulk of its officer corps through my Marines go on with their education programs such as ROTC. The two feed each other. It’s a tie that binds. was not born solely out of a love for The strength of Tufts has always them, but also a love for the univer- been its student body, attracting international and richly diverse sities they’d attend. Our universities classes. With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan concluding, an impor- need students like my Marines. tant voice is returning, one in search of knowledge and, at the same time, I came to Tufts in 1998 and left in able to dispense its own. A university that attracts such perspectives, along 2003 with degrees from the College with many others, will thrive. of Arts and Sciences and the Fletcher These wars have been going on for thirteen years. In thirteen more, School of Law and Diplomacy. In those my four-year-old daughter will be applying to colleges. When she steps five years, we went from a nation at onto the campus of her choosing, I hope she’ll be able sit in English 101, peace to a nation at war. Among more lean over to a classmate, and ask the reverse of the question I was asked than four thousand undergraduates, I those many years ago: “Hey, what’s the Marine Corps like?” was one of three students with any tie ELLIOT ACKERMAN, A03, F03, served five tours of duty to the military: two of us were in Naval in Iraq and Afghanistan and is the recipient of the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple ROTC, and one was a former Marine. Heart. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The New Republic, and he is the As Tufts grappled with issues of war author of a new novel, Green on Blue. He will be the Fletcher School’s first writer-in-residence this spring. and peace—whether to hold classes on September 12th, 2001, the debate sur- rounding the Iraq War—this important conversation felt incomplete. If a uni- versity is, at its most basic, a collection of voices educating each other, then one crucial voice seemed to be miss- ing. The veteran. That man or woman who has borne the brunt of war, lost friends, spent long deployments away from loved ones, felt the interminable noncommissioned officers, my enthu- boredom of standing watch mix with siasm for higher education became a the combustible terror and exhilaration bit of a running joke. If they knew one inherent in his or her duties. of the younger Marines was thinking During my time at Tufts, I lived of getting out of the Corps, their next off campus, near Harvard Square. question would be: “Did the lieutenant Now and again, I would wander give you his college talk yet?” into Memorial Church, dedicated I practically begged the Marines in on Armistice Day in 1932. Flanking my command to go to college once they The Sacrifice, a sculpture by Malvina finished their enlistments: Hoffman of a shrouded woman cra- “I’m thinking of taking a job as a dling a fallen soldier’s head in her lap, truck driver, sir.” long lists were etched into the walls, w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 | t u f t s m a g a z i n e 23

Act VETS O N CAMPUS , p a r t 2 Basic Training The navy prepared him for Tufts. A new scholarship opened the door.  by catherine o’neill grace W hen Keith Wasserboehr, A16, was working thir- with military experience or military teen-hour shifts as a U.S. Navy aviation mechanic ambitions: the Tufts ROTC/Veterans in Bahrain, German film studies was the last thing Scholarship. on his mind. But that class turned out to be one of his favorites during his first semester as an under- Before his stint in the navy, few would have seen Wasserboehr as graduate at Tufts. At twenty-six, he’s embarking on college material. Having endured what the prerequisites for a psychology major, hoping one day to work with he calls a “really tough childhood” in adolescents as a therapist. Wasserboehr is following this Reading, Massachusetts, he strug- dream thanks to a new scholarship created for people gled in high school. “I was an Wasserboehr, awful student—seventh the first recipient of worst in my graduating the new Tufts ROTC/ class,” he says. He enlisted Veterans scholarship, takes two months out of school. notes in Associate Professor Daniel Brown’s class on After basic training in Bertolt Brecht. the Great Lakes, he was assigned to the naval air station on Whidbey Island in Washington. His five years on active duty included deployments in Qatar and Bahrain. “I was never on a ship, which is odd for being in the navy,” he says, “but I worked on a plane that was too big to fit on ships”—the P3 Orion, a four-engine reconnaissance aircraft with a hundred-foot wingspan. Keeping the planes airworthy was a huge responsibility. “The pressure on the ground crew was intense,” Wasserboehr says. “We used to say we had eight days on, zero days off.” When he left the navy, with the rank of petty officer third class, a company in Connecticut offered him an aviation mechanic position, which he seriously considered taking. “I loved being an aviation mechanic,” he says. “I like working with my hands, and I loved the camaraderie.” But he had injured his back in the service and had degen- erative disc disease. “I just couldn’t do it,” he says. His wife talked him into going back to school instead. He enrolled in Middlesex Commu- 24 t u f t s m a g a z i n e | w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 photo: matthew healy

nity College, outside of Boston, where establish AMVETS Post 2008, in Wasserboehr says. “I want to thank the a counselor suggested he transfer to Belmont, Massachusetts, of which he is donors, both for supporting Tufts and Tufts. The university, he says, had commander. He has volunteered with for supporting veterans. In some places “never been on my radar screen.” But the Veterans History Project of the we are undersupported, but not here. It he applied and got in. Library of Congress. These activities means a lot to me and to other vets.” “brought me in contact with many The ROTC/Veterans Scholarship that veterans from all walks of life—and Arabian believes veterans have supports Wasserboehr was established brought me closer to Tufts,” he says. much to offer the university. “I admire in May 2014 with contributions from those who volunteer for service and go more than seventy Tufts alumni. One Arabian’s enthusiasm for Tufts had through the rigors of training,” he says. of those donors is attorney Gregory “badly waned” during the Vietnam Arabian, A54, who graduated from Tufts era, when student protests caused the These days Wasserboehr is more ROTC and rose to the rank of major in closure of ROTC units. “We had to concerned with the rigors of academia. the U.S. Air Force. He says Wasserboehr reverse this,” he says. “I became one “The kids here are so driven,” he says. is just the kind of student he had in of a handful of Tufts graduates who “Though I have more worldly experi- mind when he supported Tufts’ efforts formed Advocates for Tufts ROTC.” ence, it doesn’t give me a leg up at all. to raise money for the scholarship. But I bring a different perspective.” Without the ROTC/Veterans Arabian served in the air force Scholarship, attending Tufts full Catherine O’Neill Grace is a Boston-area magazine from 1954 into the 1980s and helped time would not have been possible, editor and book author. Laurels Game Changers Gaitonde, titled V.S. Gaitonde: at the University of Hong Kong; and Human Rights Painting as Process, Painting as ADAM TREANOR, F02, managing di- Four Tufts alums have been named Life, which travels to the Peggy rector of Falconhead Capital in New Advocate to the Forbes magazine “30 Under Guggenheim in Venice this fall. York City, have been appointed to 30” roster in recognition of their the Board of Advisors to the Fletcher SOFIA SHIELD, A14, received the roles as “game changers” in their New Advisors School. LISA G. MANN, E84, E18P, a Characters Unite Award from USA fields: ABENA AGYEMANG, A07, nation- senior vice president at Mondelez Network and Time Warner Cable al director of school partnerships KEVIN BOYLE, A78, the general International in East Hanover, in recognition of her efforts to at Families for Excellent Public counsel for the International Union New Jersey, is a new advisor to the combat hate and discrimination Schools; JON FREEMAN, G08, G12, of Police Associations, has been School of Engineering, and JUAN as a human rights advocate in the an assistant professor of psychol- named to the Board of Advisors F. CARRIZOSA, A80, F14, regional Los Angeles community. She is ogy at New York University; SCOTT for Athletics. New to the Board of manager of Latin America North for featured on-air in a PSA and online TRAVERS, A07, a vice president at Advisors to the School of Medicine the Royal Bank of Canada, is a new at charactersunite.com. Inspired by JPMorgan Chase & Company; and and the Sackler School of Graduate member of the International Board her grandparents, who survived the DANIELLE WEISBERG, A08, cofounder Biomedical Sciences are LAWRENCE of Advisors. DANIEL R. HEBERT, V01, Holocaust, Shield was cochair of of theSkimm, a daily “news-you- G. CETRULO, M12P, founding partner president of the Tufts Veterinary Tufts Against Genocide. need-to-know” email with more than of Cetrulo LLP in Boston; OLIVIA Alumni Association and the owner one million subscribers that recently HO CHENG, vice chair and founding of the Duxbury Animal Hospital, Making Waves partnered with Oprah.com. partner of BE Capital Partners in has joined the Board of Advisors Taipei, Taiwan; and AJAY SONDHI, to Cummings School of Veterinary JACK WHITEHEAD, E63, J01P, a G u gg e n h e i m C u r at o r M18P, of Singapore. BRAD M. MESLIN, Medicine. JEFFREY B. KINDLER, A77, scientist emeritus at the Woods F82, F84, senior managing director A11P, a Tufts trustee, is also an ad- Hole Oceanographic Institution, was AMARA ANTILLA, A08, has been of CSP Associates in Cambridge, visor to Tisch College; he is director awarded the 2014 Maurice Ewing promoted to assistant curator at the Massachusetts; COURTNEY of Starboard Capital Partners in Medal from the American Geophysical Guggenheim Museum. She worked RICHARDSON FUNG, F12, an assistant Southport, Connecticut. Union for his work in the ocean sci- on an exhibition about the Indian professor of international relations ences. His research has focused on modern painter Vasudeo Santu the complex fluid mechanics of the oceans and planetary interiors. w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 | t u f t s m a g a z i n e 25

Act brilliant!  Jumbo entrepreneurs and their big ideas By beth horning THREADS WORLDWIDE make twelve times more income than they Angela Yost, J99, cofounder had previously done. threadsworldwide.com LEAGUE OF KITCHENS launched in February 2014, BIG IDEA: Creating partner- has already garnered raves. ships between women in HACKERNEST Lisa Gross, MFA11, founder Conde Nast Traveler pro- developing countries who claimed that its workshops craft beautiful jewelry and Shaharris Beh, A05, cofounder BIG IDEA: New York City “might just be the coolest accessories—like the edgy, immigrants lead cooking foodie thing to do in the asymmetrical Tien bracelet BIG IDEA: A nonprofit workshops for groups of four city.” The business currently (made in Vietnam) or the devoted to creating sup- or five in their homes. New employs instructors from Mandovi purse (made in portive, Silicon Valley–like Yorkers enjoy culinary Argentina, Trinidad, Greece, India), which is fashioned communities outside of adventures from all over the Bangladesh, Korea, from recycled seat Silicon Valley. HackerNest world, and the immigrants Afghanistan, India, and belts—and women in the sponsors hardware hack- gain income. Gross, who Lebanon. Groups can sign up United States who can sell athons, job fairs, and other grew up savoring the food for either a full workshop, such creations by hosting events, including casual, her Korean grandmother with three and a half hours special “threads parties” in friendly gatherings where used to make, decided after of instruction and a full their communities. “We the focus is on connect- her grandmother’s death dinner ($149 per person), or focus on women because ing and having fun with that she wanted to cook a shorter session consisting they put ninety percent of peers, not networking. “We some of it herself. “I began of one and a half hours of their income back into their wanted to remove the cold using cookbooks and the instruction and a small meal family,” Yost explained in interaction created by want- Internet. Everything I made ($95 per person). And while the Pioneer Business ing to seem bigger than was good but not as good as carnivores will be well Review. you are, and strip away how my grandmother made served, vegetarians will be, STATUS: Yost founded the the pretentiousness of it,” she told ABC News. “So I too, with, for example, Denver-based Threads business-oriented events,” sort of had this fantasy of traditional Trinidadian Worldwide in November of Beh told the Canadian tech ‘Wouldn’t it be great if there katchourie, fritters made 2011 with her friends and news website BetaKit. was this other Korean from yellow split peas and fellow travel enthusiasts STATUS: When Beh and grandmother who I could served with mango chutney. Lindsay Herron and his entrepreneur brother learn from?’ ” leagueofkitchens.com Kara Weigand. Their JJ, along with their techie STATUS: League of Kitchens, artisan partners—in colleague Robin Toop, Cambodia, Ecuador, started HackerNest in Ethiopia, Guatemala, India, Toronto in 2011, it was Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, “a few nerds talking over Peru, and Vietnam—are drinks,” as their website thriving. The artisans in puts it. Since then, splinter Ecuador, for example, cells have run more than one hundred forty events in twenty different cities in eleven different countries. Currently, a “coders teaching coders” project is in the works to allow HackerNest communities across the globe to share expertise. hackernest.com 26 t u f t s m a g a z i n e | w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 photo: ingimage (food)

Five Secrets of the World’s Top Innovators My radio show guests have taught me a few things about entrepreneurship By Kara Miller, G08 In 1995, the legendary venture capitalist Roger machines—rather than using his engi- neering degree. McNamee watched Jeff Bezos lay out his idea for Doing something innovative almost a company. The concept was simple. Bezos would ensures that people will shake their heads at your decisions. When Hewlett- create an online bookstore, Amazon. You’d pick out Packard considered creating scientific calculators in the 1970s, focus groups a book, and Amazon would send it to you. “I just sat showed that the public had no inter- est in buying them. But Bill Hewlett there going, ‘Oh my gosh, this is great. I love books. ignored the research and gambled on his own instincts that a significant slice Kara Miller I’d buy a ton of books. I’m so glad they’re here,’ ” of consumers would pay for a handheld McNamee told me. “The notion that they were going calculator. Turns out he was right. to be as important as Wal-Mart was very hard to conceive of.” Which is often the nature of true innovation. It can seem trivial, marginal, even slightly nuts—until it changes the world. When I launched the public radio show Innovation Hub at WGBH in 2011, I was only vaguely aware that the people behind those world-changing ideas were becoming icons—that their reputations were inspiring legions of entrepreneurs, creating what McNamee calls a “social revolution.” The former chief oper- ating officer of eBay, Maynard Webb, put it to me this way: “At Stanford, in the graduating class . . . even if you got offered great jobs like at Google, that was kind of selling out. People wanted to start their own companies.” So, if you want to be an innova- tor—by starting your own company, reinventing someone else’s, or just add- ing doses of creativity to your everyday routine—how do you do it? Here are five lessons I’ve learned: 1. Take at least one crazy chance. Jeff Bezos walked away from a lucrative career in finance. Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of college and then turned down hefty offers for Facebook. And before computers were widespread, Atari’s founder, Nolan Bushnell, hacked together video games—and earned money by repairing pinball photo: meredith nierman/wgbh; illustration: michael austin w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 | t u f t s m a g a z i n e 27

Act Sure, taking a chance means risking back and forth between Facebook and nerdy things, like science and math.” failure, but for true innovators fail- Candy Crush. This kind of labeling can easily follow ure isn’t the end of the world. Travis us into the adult world. Kalanick saw multiple ventures fail While an employee at Hewlett- before cofounding Uber. Fred Smith Packard, Steve Wozniak sought out But I believe we’re in the middle of nearly went bankrupt starting a quiet stretches of time to develop the a nerd renaissance. Techies are feeling company called FedEx. And Jeff Bezos computer that would become the Apple inspired. Cash is flowing. Investment wasn’t at all sure that Amazon would I. He got to work early and stayed late in startups has shot up over the last few succeed. When Bezos approached early into the evening, fiddling with a project years, and by some estimates there are investors, according to biographer Brad that would change the world. now north of 15,000 such companies in Stone, “he told them all that there was Silicon Valley. a seventy percent chance they would 4. Embrace extreme creativity. One lose their money. So I think all along he of the most fascinating people I’ve Nerd culture is on the rise, too. knew that the odds were long and the ever interviewed is a guy named Jason Randall Munroe, for example, has risks were high, but he never allowed it Fried, who runs the web application become a phenomenon by creating a to stop him or slow him down.” company Basecamp. Fried has experi- physics-and-math-focused comic strip, mented with four-day weeks, he’s given xkcd. Monroe now lures millions of 2. Forget about balance. I once asked employees time to create independent readers a month, and his new book Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, who projects, and he’s more than willing to What If? recently landed at number one served as a Google VP, whether she’s allow colleagues to work from home, on the New York Times bestseller list. able to maintain work-life balance. even if home is in another part of the “Balance is a dangerous word,” Mayer country. “It’s unlikely that every best For a nerd like me, this is a cool said. “People think Google just hap- person in the world in their job hap- time to be focused on innovation. pened. It didn’t just happen. There was pens to be within a twenty-mile radius We’re living at a moment when the a crew of fifty of us, and a hundred of of our office,” Fried said. “That’s just public sector is looking for unortho- us, and two hundred of us doing one- not the way things work.” dox solutions to big problems, when hundred-plus hour weeks. And you information is increasingly available do it because you love it. And because By thinking creatively about his role to brilliant minds, and when gaps in you know that you’re doing something as CEO, Fried enables employees to be opportunity are forcing us to rethink important.” imaginative and take initiative, rather the economy. than worrying about punching a time Though building something great card. I have the amazing luck to sit in often means working incredibly hard, a studio, don earphones, and talk to Mayer said you can protect your sanity Creativity is also worth embracing the men and women who are revolu- by reserving time for the things that for another reason: rote jobs tend to be tionizing the way we live. People who matter most—whether that’s bowling low-paying (think fast-food workers are willing to face the odds, embrace with your friends on Thursday night or and supermarket clerks) or disappear- the discomfort of standing apart from coaching your kids’ soccer team. ing altogether (think bank tellers). “We the crowd, and opt for oddity over need creative learning,” Joi Ito, director assimilation. 3. Get some alone time. One of the most of MIT’s Media Lab, noted recently. striking—though rarely discussed— “The creativity is the thing that the Change is coming. I can hear it. facts about the technorati is that they computers can’t do. All the repetitive spend periods of time (a couple of physical and mental jobs will be taken KARA MILLER, G08, is the host and executive editor of hours a day, one day a week) eschew- over by computers.” Innovation Hub, a nationally broadcast radio show from ing tech. And they can be tougher on WGBH and PRI. Before earning a Ph.D. in English at limiting screen time for their kids than 5. Be a nerd. Being great at something Tufts she received a B.A. from Yale. most other parents. inevitably leads to nerdiness—and this isn’t a culture that always embraces Lessons from Jumbo Innovators Sherry Turkle, the author of Alone nerds. Despite the success of people like More than a dozen Tufts alumni innovators Together, has noted that we do some of Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, kids explore the nature of entrepreneurship at bit.ly/ our best thinking when we’re bored, still dislike the “nerd” label, according Jumbo_entrepreneurs. Steffan Hacker’s four-minute when we’re alone, when we’re singu- to David Anderegg, author of Nerds. video includes insights from Diane Hessan, J75, larly focused—not when we’re toggling “They’re anxious to avoid it. And other cofounder and chair of Communispace; Josh kids are very down on kids who do Goldman, A88, general partner at Norwest Venture Partners; Jack McDermott, A14, founder of Balbus Speech; and Faith Wallace-Gadsden, G14, founder of Archimedes Project. 28 t u f t s m a g a z i n e | w i n t e r 2 0 1 5

Create The culture pages photo: Lana Citowski Social Pyramid Julia Csekö, MFA13, used actual Barbie clothes to create Middle Gray, a piece that appeared in the recent show One Language Is Never Enough: Latino Artists of Southern New England, at Massachusetts’ Fitchburg Art Museum. The work is part of her Hybrids series, which the museum described as “soft, calligraphic sculptures that hover between fantasy and reality.” Csekö divides her time between Boston and Rio de Janeiro. w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 | t u f t s m a g a z i n e 29

Create By Kara Peters ForAmgeadinIphotograph by timothy archibald Whole Patrick Mahoney, A06, rebuilds his shattered life of words Shortly after midnight on october Ortlieb panniers with built-in reflective patches. 27, 2010, Patrick Mahoney was cycling He was pedaling along a flat two-lane stretch of home from the Stone Church, a bar and live music venue in Newmarket, New Route 33 in Stratham when a young woman in a Hampshire. He’d been out with some Honda Accord struck him from behind as she was friends after an evening poetry workshop led by sending a text. He hit the windshield, then flew David Rivard, a former instructor of his at Tufts forward ninety-four feet before landing on a grassy and the director of the M.F.A. program in writing patch of roadside, his head severely injured. He was at the University of New Hampshire. taken to nearby Portsmouth Regional Hospital, then transported by medevac to Massachusetts The weather was brisk, and there was a light General Hospital, where surgeons performed a cra- evening mist, but the twelve-mile distance niotomy, removing and preserving part of his skull home—an hour’s ride—was nothing for a guy while the right frontal lobe of his brain healed. who’d biked across the country a few years earlier. Mahoney was well versed in bike safety: He was The surgery went well, but doctors were still sober and wearing a helmet, as well as reflector grim. They told his family that given the extent stripes on his legs. His bike had a rear light and of the damage to Mahoney’s brain, his quality of life, if he pulled through, would be extremely 30 t u f t s m a g a z i n e | w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 Credit: TK

Credit: TK w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 | t u f t s m a g a z i n e 31

Create compromised. “One neurologist told and volunteered for the Berkeley-based R ivard recalled visiting my parents to face reality, go home, nonprofit Small Press Distribution, the ICU at Mass. General and move on with their lives,” he said which exposed him to a wide selection of a few days after Mahoney’s in a recent interview. “They were pretty contemporary poetry. “He was sending surgery. “It was heartbreak- offended.” me his work, and it was really strong,” ing and horrifying. It didn’t seem like said Rivard. “It was clear he’d been read- he was going to live, and if he did, his The third of five siblings in a ing a lot and was serious about writing.” physical ability and entire character close-knit Irish-American family— would be forever changed.” his mother, a nurse, emigrated from In September 2010, Mahoney Ireland in the 1970s—Mahoney was enrolled in the M.F.A. program at Sustained by a deep Catholic faith, intellectually curious and driven to UNH, where he received a teaching Mahoney’s large family rallied around achieve. At Tufts he majored in Spanish assistantship and had the opportunity him, never doubting that he would pull and in international letters and visual to work with Rivard, who had recently through. Two weeks after the accident, studies (“basically, comparative art and taken a tenured position there, and he opened his eyes for the first time literature,” he explained) and delved Charles Simic, a former poet laureate. and gave his mother a reassuring wink. into the work of writers like Jorge Luis By the time he moved to Spaulding Borges and Gabriel García Márquez. Then came the accident, and Rehabilitation Hospital, at the end of He ran cross-country, won division Mahoney’s promising future was put November, he was breathing with the titles in track, and graduated summa on hold. help of a tracheostomy tube, smiling, cum laude in 2006. and trying to write notes. His girl- Heaven friend, Anne, was another constant To Rivard, his poetry teacher, presence, and one of his first jottings Mahoney seemed “extremely disci- Where I want to be was a shakily scrawled “Dear Anne,” plined and ambitious,” yet at the same until I find out accompanied by a wobbly heart. time “affable and super friendly.” “He appeared very laid back,” Rivard said I’m already there. On December 1, using a speaking in a recent phone conversation. This world beyond valve on his trach tube, he managed to count from one to five and back and Mahoney played the guitar is inside the wool recite the middle names of each of his and wrote song lyrics but was offi- sweater my mother knit, family members. His memories of this cially seduced by verse in Rivard’s period are understandably muddled, but Introduction to Poetry course at Tufts, behind these eyes certain impressions stand out. “I was where he distinguished himself as one my fingertips touch hyperconscious of having that one-sided of the best in the class. “He wrote about form of interaction where you’re taking what a lot of undergrads write about— each morning. I live outside everything in, but you don’t have any- family, childhood, love relationships— lands long settled and embrace thing going out,” he remembered. but he had this very intense, quirky sense of image,” said Rivard. “There minutia—I smell the coffee Speech therapy and reading simple was also a kind of soulfulness to his ground, then taste it brewed. texts—Roald Dahl and the free Boston work, which you can’t really teach. His Metro were favorites—helped his poems had these two opposing quali- I feel the dirt road with my feet language recovery, which he recalled ties—melancholy and wildness—that through my black faded Chucks. as “simultaneously frustrating and a created an interesting tension.” huge relief.” Remastering the nuances The end of the road of inflection, body language, and Mahoney completed a senior goes well beyond sight. facial expressions remained difficult, honors thesis that combined a general and therapists worked with him to analysis of American poetry with thir- So I turn on tips of toes overcome the “flat affect” common in ty-three of his own poems, and after and I am breathing deeply— people with brain injuries. graduation, he used poetry to help him process his day job as a mental the air, tasting of oak-moss, Mahoney’s left side was partially health counselor. “You’re listening to my eyes—still closed. paralyzed for almost a year following people’s stories all the time,” he said. the accident, so regaining his mobility “Writing gave me an outlet for all the was an even bigger challenge. With experiences I was having at work.” an athlete’s discipline and intensive physical and occupational therapy, In 2007, he moved to San Francisco 32 t u f t s m a g a z i n e | w i n t e r 2 0 1 5

however, he was walking with minimal Flat Affect assistance by mid-January. The room I have always carried inside of me Then, after three months of solid looks and feels the same in my mind— progress, Mahoney was admitted to my wool socks on the wood floor Mass. General’s ICU with seizures— slide and spin, and I’m still not uncommon in people who’ve had traumatic brain injuries. He remained the heir to this creaking stool— unresponsive for several days, and his each hand rests on the opposite hip. family was told it could take weeks for I sit up straight and arch him to recover. By mid-February, he cat to cow at rest. took a few tentative steps aided by his physical therapist, and by the end of I speak to myself the poems I remember— the month was steadily improving. words with an inherent rhythm, wandering songs about clay pipes, lost birds, and America. He left Spaulding in April for There is tone Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center, in Greenfield, New Hampshire, to these words that echo where, at “maybe thirty percent better,” in this near empty room, in this space his focus turned to cognitive rehabil- in my head. I speak and hear itation. “At Crotched Mountain, they some type of music. believe that in order to get someone rehabilitated, you have to embrace what Perhaps we all send words, they were doing before the brain injury develop connections as the brain and use that as a guide,” said Mahoney. touches the tongue. Like a needle to a record “For me, that was writing.” spinning, speaking away the mystery of vinyl. His first assignment was to read a Candor and confidence are the album cover. book and prepare a presentation for Even with scratches, the record inside will play on, his therapy group. He chose Rats, by sound the same. In a way. I see clearly my own reflection Robert Sullivan, a natural and social in the glass as I look straight out these windows. history of the relationship between rats and humans. “The exercise was I still know how I look so refreshing, because it was the exact but how do I sound? opposite of that one-sided taking-ev- erything-in that I’d been experiencing. therapeutic writing he had done in the David Rivard and sat in on back-to- I felt like ‘the camera’s on me now,’ and past few months, his poetic ambitions back poetry workshops. But speaking it was really tempting to go on and on. had been overshadowed by the tasks of still required all his concentration, and I had to really work to stay relevant and daily living. he wasn’t writing much. “He really communicate clearly.” used the workshop as a way to exercise After spending a few months in his speech,” said Rivard. Crotched Mountain also had a New Jersey with his parents, he moved strong arts emphasis that appealed to to Cambridge with Anne in January M ahoney reenrolled at him. He learned how to read music and 2012, and the idea of writing slowly UNH in the fall of 2012, play the piano, and was encouraged to crept back into his life. He attended but his struggles were not take up juggling. “It’s good to relearn Community Rehab Care in Newton over. After the relative the things you did before, but learning four days a week and was eventually silence of his ordeal, he found himself new things is even better for rehabili- asked to moderate a writing therapy overcompensating. “Poetry is often tating your brain,” he explained. “A big group there. When the spring semes- part of recovery is creating those new ter started, he drove up to UNH with connections between brain cells.” By June, when Mahoney left Crotched Mountain, he was walk- ing unaided, conversing, and feeling much more confident. But despite the w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 | t u f t s m a g a z i n e 33

Create about what you don’t say, or saying inside of them, and they’re able to let gift of consciousness and gain more the most you can in the fewest words,” go and let the sounds tell them what to appreciation for seemingly little things, he said. “I kind of had the opposite put on the page,” he explained. “When like the amount of work it takes to walk approach at first because I had so much Patrick started writing again, it was like or count,” Mahoney said. I’d been wanting to say that my poems everything that was there before was Mahoney completed his master’s just sounded like ranting.” amplified. It became easier for him to degree last May. He and Anne are Rivard noticed the same thing. “His let go.” married and back in the Bay Area, and poems were filled with wonderful, The need to pay conscious attention he is embarking on a career as a writing wonderful stuff, and he was all over the to almost everything he did—not to and art therapist. He has just pub- place trying lots of different things— mention sheer gratitude for the gift of lished a book of poems, Towards Being from narrative scenes to gnarly, intense life—also sharpened Mahoney’s poetic Infinite (Piscataqua Press), under his lyrics. The struggle was to control and gifts. “You have to relearn everything Irish nom de plume, Padraig Mahou, a structure all of it, which was really you learned as a child, but you have the nod to his transformation of late. The what Patrick was having to do in book’s title shares its initials other areas of his life, too.” with “traumatic brain injury.” Mahoney waited patiently Ar Gach Aon Taohb Fittingly, the proceeds from its for nature to take its course. sale will go to a treatment facility “Gradually I went from sitting where Mahoney taught creative down with a pile of books, and So I’m after a walk in writing, the Krempels Center in sort of piecing things together, the woods— Portsmouth, New Hampshire. to being led by sound and on a path alongside Poems like “Plasticina,” in composing more slowly in fewer an icebound which he compares his brain to words,” he said. riverbed, left Play-Doh being molded anew Seizures were another major by some arborist— until “again I formed whole,” obstacle. He’d been diagnosed this past blue-green hot and “Flat Affect” (see page 33) with post-traumatic epilepsy, summer, the trees take the reader inside the frus- and suffered a grand mal epi- were felled so morning trations and epiphanies of his sode in the spring of 2013. He snow’d soften on ice caps. recovery. “Ar Gach Aon Taohb” bounced back, even despite the Sounds going soft (Irish Gaelic for “On Each Side”; heavy side effects of his anti- on step into step now, opposite) and “Heaven” (page seizure medication (“I could with sun-faded fog 32) convey Mahoney’s height- always tell when he had to go on to unearth an accent, ened sense of gratitude, while more meds,” Rivard said). to stretch this bit of sleep other poems look confidently Rivard was confident that on me still. toward a bright future. All are Mahoney would get his writing Nurtured by time bursting with sharp observa- chops back. “When he was at my words speak themselves tions, revelatory metaphors, and Crotched Mountain, he wrote tongue feels the shapes— a clear sense of what it means to this strange little piece about feel pliant, placid— be alive. chickens as part of some therapy I return to that higher plane, The idea of infinity reso- exercise,” he said. “There were having learned to speak again— nates with Patrick, because, he these quirky perceptions in it to know, to be, to get explained, “my recovery seemed that made me think, ‘Oh, yeah, awake or asleep, so unlikely, and now, even today, he’s going to be writing poetry into then or now seems limitless. Regardless of again. Whatever that thing is and how you speak what happens, your words, your that drives him to write is still says where you are: thoughts, your poems, your intact.’ ” from which bank sound may echo on.” Rivard thinks the accident of the river you stare— helped loosen Mahoney’s the river’s current KARA PETERS is a freelance writer and creativity in beneficial ways. runs the same way editor in Georgetown, Massachusetts. She “Poets start with language, with but each look downstream writes Tufts Magazine’s “Mixed Media” rhythms and sounds floating is in wholeness unique. department. 34 t u f t s m a g a z i n e | w i n t e r 2 0 1 5

Mixed Media  our books and creative milestones  By Kara Peters FICTION A Sister to Honor verse that vibrates with perceptive, the corrupt manipulation of “the Berkley intimate intensity. world’s most important number” Green On Blue: A Novel hurt ordinary investors. Scribner From Lucy Ferriss, G93, this riveting Selected Poems and timely novel tells the story of FutureCycle Press Round the Circle: Elliot Ackerman, A03, F03, a Afia Satar, the devout daughter of Experienced Doulas Share decorated veteran and author of a well-off Pakistani family. When Christopher Bursk, A65, has What They’ve Learned this issue’s “A Few Good Men and Afia travels to America to attend authored twelve books of poetry, from Hale Women” (page 22), is a deeply em- Smith College, her brother, Shahid, which he draws this rich collection pathetic writer. His new novel is the is entrusted to protect her. But when teeming with surprising observations Julie Brill, J92, gathers the wisdom first to interpret our recent wars from a photo surfaces of Afia holding on family, the passage of time, and of twenty-three doulas, profes- the perspective of a soldier in one of hands with an American boy, Shahid the puzzles and rewards of a full life. A sionals who support women and Afghanistan’s U.S.-sponsored tribal is called to erase the shame she has recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fel- their partners through pregnancy armies. Afghan narrator Aziz loses his brought on the family. lowships, he writes, “I owe much of my and birth. Aspiring doulas will parents in an insurgent attack, and beginnings as a writer to my studies in glean advice on encouraging the his brother, Ali, is brutally wounded in Devin Rhodes is Dead the English department at Tufts.” mother-baby bond, supporting spir- another. Driven by nang (honor) and Charlesbridge itual practices, marketing a doula badal (revenge), Aziz joins the Special NONFICTION business, and much more. Lashkar, a U.S.-funded militia. As he Jennifer Wolf Kam, J94, captures rises through the ranks, he begins the turbulence of adolescence Aspiring Adults Adrift All The Truth is Out: The to question his place in a tangled, through the story of best friends Chicago Week Politics Went Tabloid morally complex conflict that seems Cass and Devin and the mysterious Alfred A. Knopf to have no end in sight. events leading to Devin’s death. To follow up their acclaimed study of undergraduate learning, In 1987, Senator Gary Hart, of Horton and the Tomorrow is Too Late Academically Adrift, Richard Arum, Colorado, seemed to have the Kwuggerbug and More Lost Netherworld A85, and Josipa Roksa present un- Democratic presidential nomination Stories by Dr. Seuss settling data from the same cohort in the bag until one fateful week Random House Perrin Pring, A08, presents the of undergraduates as they haltingly when rumors of marital infideli- second installment in her sci-fi transition into postcollegiate life. ty—and the unprecedented media Charles D. Cohen, D87, is a dentist adventure series, The Ryo Myths— frenzy that followed—destroyed his by trade and a Seuss scholar in the successor to Appointment at the Open Secret: The Global political hopes forever. Matt Bai, spirit. He owns the most com- Edge of Forever. Banking Conspiracy that A90, a veteran journalist, weaves prehensive private collection of Swindled Investors Out of together the various technological Seussiana in the world, and here he All That’s Missing Billions and cultural threads—including the shares four “new” stories—featuring Candlewick Press Portfolio advent of electronic news gathering beloved characters and settings like and mobile satellites and a new Horton the Elephant, the Grinch, When his ailing grandfather lands Erin Arvedlund, J92, offers a grip- generation of reporters hungry to and Mulberry Street—that originally in the hospital, eleven-year-old Arlo ping insider account of the 2008 expose the next Watergate—that appeared in Redbook. sets out to find his only other family LIBOR (London Interbank Offered turned what once would have barely member—a grandmother he doesn’t Rate) scandal, revealing how registered as a minor private scandal remember meeting. Sarah Sullivan, J75, ponders the meaning of “home” and “family” in her touching debut. POETRY Broom Bordighera Press Joelle Biele, J91, chronicles the first years of her two children’s lives in w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 | t u f t s m a g a z i n e 35

Create into a major political paradigm shift. illegally funded Nicaraguan “Contra” looks at how successful enterprises Who’s Paying For Lunch? From this point on, every corner of a guerillas—and calls into question can navigate the clash between Verve Business Books politician’s life would be fair game our system’s ability to check the entrenched ways of operating and to a media eager to sate the public’s abuse of executive power. rapidly changing forms of work, Focusing on the challenges appetite for 24-hour “content.” The communication, and technology. unique to businesses in the United ironic result, laments Bai, is that our The Moment You Can’t Kingdom, Tamara Holm Howard, leaders, barricaded behind armies Ignore The Reject: Community, G81, provides a hands-on guide to of political consultants and carefully CFAR Politics, and Religion After setting up a sales department and calibrated comments, are more the Subject taking it to the next level. unknowable than ever. Barry Dornfield, A80, and Mal Fordham O’Connor point to culture as a key to Mango Iran-Contra: Reagan’s organizational success. Their book Through close readings of University Press of Florida Scandal and the Unchecked deconstructionists like Derrida, Abuse of Presidential Cixous, and Jean-Luc Nancy, Irving Award-winning recipes like Mango Power Goh, a fellow at the Center for the Eggs Benedict, Lamb-Mango Curry, University Press of Kansas Humanities at Tufts, traces the and Mango Pie earn Jen Karetnick, role of the reject in contemporary J90, her nickname of “Mango Mama.” This meticulously researched history French thought. Goh also co-edited by Malcolm Byrne, A77, revisits a Nancy Now, a collection of scholarly murky episode of American history— writing on Nancy’s contribution to the covert sale of arms to Iran, which continental philosophy. CREAT I V E voi c e Agency Change: Diplomatic Action Beyond the State Long Live the Letter Rowman and Littlefield Inspired by a trunk of letters from the early 1900s that Nina John Robert Kelley, A96, argues Sankovitch, J84, found in her backyard shed, Signed, Sealed, that diplomatic relationships are Delivered (Simon & Schuster) is a love letter to old-fashioned increasingly driven not by institu- letter writing and its unique potential for forging tender, intimate, tions but by individuals competing and lasting connections. Sankovich told Tufts Magazine: for power. Governments, he says, must retool their diplomatic efforts “When I think of the people who still write to me, they are people who are to deal with nonstate actors while leveraging state strength. creative in all aspects of their lives. They’re people who understand the importance of taking time to do something besides being on the computer. Studies are now showing True Yankees: The South how that kind of downtime opens you up to creativity. When you write a letter, you Seas and the Discovery of think about crafting interesting sentences; you think of metaphors that you might American Identity not have used in other settings. I think it does make you more creative. Johns Hopkins Writers and artists of the precomputer era wrote a ton of letters. The self-expres- After the American Revolution, the sion of letter writing fed into other areas. Georgia O’Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz wrote United States took advantage of its thousands of pages of letters to each other, and they were incredibly productive. flag to explore various ports of call in the Pacific and Indian oceans. I hear from young people in college who tell me that they get together and write Drawing on private journals, letters, letters—it has a kind of retro cool factor about it. It can be a great way to communi- ships’ logs, memoirs, and newspaper cate with teenagers about difficult subjects, because you avoid the awkward face-to- accounts, Dane A. Morrison, G83, face that can be so hard for them. demonstrates how these journeys helped Americans understand what it A good letter is any letter. I think that if people are weighed down by the idea that meant to be an independent nation. their letters have to be masterpieces, they won’t write them. Even a dashed-off letter shows you took the time to make a real connection with someone. For some people the prompt to write letters happens when they get some really beautiful stationery. ”Or you can just grab some scrap paper and see what happens. 36 t u f t s m a g a z i n e | w i n t e r 2 0 1 5

War is Not a Game: The New character. From Native American Germany,” appeared in the Winter TV Antiwar Soldiers and the pemmican (a blend of dried buffalo, 2014 issue of Tufts Magazine. Movement They Built berries, and fat) and English eel pie John Greco, F88, a producer at Rutgers to the “chop suey” introduced by Critical Knowledge Rocket Media Group, wrote and Chinese railroad workers and the Transfer produced Thinking Money: The Nan Levinson, lecturer in English meatloaf popularized to maxi- Harvard Business Review Psychology Behind Our Best and at Tufts, tells the story of Iraq mize rations during World War II, Worst Financial Decisions, which Veterans Against the War and their O’Connell offers insight into how Walter Swap, former dean of premiered on PBS in October. The quest to educate the country about the tastes of our shared past can the colleges at Tufts, and his documentary uses a mix of humor, the real meaning of “supporting the nourish our future. wife, Dorothy Leonard, emerita on-the-street interviews, and troops.” professor at Harvard Business expert insights to explore the field Donor Cultivation and the School, look at steps companies of behavioral economics—how our Emerging Africa: How Donor Lifecycle Map can take to preserve the expertise brains conspire with the market- Seventeen Countries Are Wiley of departing engineers, scientists, place to make us spend or save. Leading the Way and managers. Penguin Deborah Kaplan Polivy, J69, intro- duces a new framework for raising Web Africa is regarded by many as the funds and building, maintaining, last frontier in the global econom- and growing effective relation- The Bee: A Natural History Hillary Frank, J97, a This ic landscape. Kingsley Chiedu ships with donors. Her companion Princeton American Life contributor, hosts Moghalu, F92, deploys philosophy, website features practical tools and The Longest Shortest Time, a economics, and strategy to explain step-by-step guidance. It’s no secret that bees are dying at blog and podcast about the why realizing its potential will an alarming rate, but Noah Wilson- surprising struggles of early par- require the total transformation of Mr. Franchise Rich, G11, wants us to know just enthood. The December episode, the African mindset. how much we’ll lose when they’re “Love Yurts,” recounts the quirky As the founder/CEO of some of the gone. This gorgeously photo- romance of Perry Tancredi, Intertwingled world’s most successful fran- graphed volume is an ode to the A96, and Caitlin Gorman, J96, Semantic Studios chises—including Mr. Donut, which planet’s 20,000 bee species—how Tufts sweethearts who eloped, was purchased by Dunkin’ Donuts— they live, work, communicate, and divorced, and reunited after Perry Everything is connected, from code David Slater, A56, A84P, A85P, reproduce; why they’re disap- quit his job to build a yurt and to culture, says Peter Morville, A91P, provides the inside scoop on pearing; and how to get started in teach classes at Boulder Outdoor A91, in this collage of information franchise ownership. beekeeping. There’s even a section Survival School. architecture, systems thinking, on the symbolic roles they’ve played Buddhism, quantum entanglement, Out of Nazi Germany in in religion and politics. Rich is Oprah Winfrey’s network, OWN, and volleyball. Far from simply Time, a Gift to American the founder and chief scientific recently announced a digital con- designing software, information Science officer of Best Bees, a beekeeping tent partnership with theSkimm. architects are actually intervening American Philosophical Society service and research organization Started by Danielle Weisberg, in ecosystems—and in the infor- in Boston. See his TED talk at bit.ly/ A08, and Carly Zakin, theSkimm is mation age, we’re all information B. David Stollar, a professor emeri- bees_TED and his recent appear- a daily e-newsletter that delivers architects. tus at Tufts University School of ance on Ask This Old House at bit. a fresh spin on top news stories. Medicine, traces the journey of the ly/bees_TOH. OWN hopes to capitalize on the The American Plate: A Jewish biochemist Gerhard Schmidt younger audience theSkimm at- History of the United out of Hitler’s Germany to an tracts. Users can access exclusive States in 100 Bites eventual position at Tufts. Stollar’s video content at Youtube.com/ Sourcebooks related article, “A Way Out of own, where Weisberg and Zakin will editorialize on topics featured If you’ve been craving an American in their newsletter. history lesson you can sink your teeth into, look no further. Libby Send news of forthcoming books, performances, art shows, and other H. O’Connell, J76, chief historian creations to [email protected]. Review copies may be addressed to for the History Channel and A&E, Tufts Magazine, 80 George Street, Medford, MA 02155. serves up a delectable assortment of facts about the individuals, cul- tures, and recipes that have shaped both our national palate and our w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 | t u f t s m a g a z i n e 37

Create FOourttruangeeous Michelle Ray will never be royal, but her book will: The Royals, starring Elizabeth Hurley and Joan Collins, premieres March 15. My Hamlet novel, a TV series? Get thee to a nunnery!  By Michelle Ray, J94 M y love of Shakespeare began when I was a kid, sitting with my parents as they played a VHS Washington, D.C. The setting was tape of Zephirelli’s Romeo and Juliet. It was modern—which was fine: Hamlet’s pretty and romantic, but most wondrous was anxieties over power and family and that my mother, who never cried over anything, loss would be the same whether he was cried at the end. I knew I was in the presence of in tights or a hoody. The only thing that didn’t work for me was Ophelia. powerful storytelling. Why would a girl these days agree to Decades later, I went to see Hamlet in betray her boyfriend? And why would 38 t u f t s m a g a z i n e | w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 illustration: john rit ter

she kill herself over a boy? It didn’t my daughter attended a birthday CHARAC T ER S K E T CH make sense. At the end, as I dried party, on a three-way call with my two my tears on the way to the subway, I agents trying to figure out what my Theater in thought, “But what if Ophelia didn’t “demands” might be. The LA agent the Straw die?” And my story—the one that asked whether I wanted script approval would inspire a TV series starring if it became a TV series, and I said, NAME: Stacy Klein, G88 Elizabeth Hurley—was born. “Once it goes to TV, it’s not really my LIFE’S WORK: Serving as artistic story anymore.” It’s true. My story is director of Double Edge, a laborato- At this point, though, I still did not finite. Murders. Massive body count. ry theater she founded in 1982 that consider myself a writer. I loved stories, Curtain comes down. How could that builds collaboration, community, which was what drew me to major in possibly be spun out week after week? and the actor’s ability to tap pro- drama and to direct shows for Tufts’ Besides, I grew up in LA, and many of found inner resources 3Ps, Cup and Saucer, and Torn Ticket. my friends from high school and Tufts But I liked other people’s tales. In fact, are in “the business.” Everyone’s got SOURCE OF INSPIRATION: the most traumatizing class I ever took a project, a proposal, a promise, so I at Tufts was Creative Writing. Everyone thought there was no way my little old Committed fellow artists all over else had great stories to tell and told book would become a real show. the world. “In Central Europe, when them so much better than I seemed to. I started my career, folk culture and It was physically painful for me to have I took pleasure in the journey, theater culture were full of life. I saw to share my work aloud, a phobia that laughing at things like the line in the thirty-six performances in Poland took me until my second book signing contract that forbids my name or in 1976, and they were all different. to get over. But something about that likeness to be used for . . . personal Raw. Creative. Confrontive.” D.C. Hamlet made me want to write a hygiene products! If I’d thought a TV PIVOTAL DECISION: Buying a 105- novel. Turns out I was good at it. show would happen for real, I would acre former dairy farm in Ashfield, at least have asked to be granted a visit Massachusetts, in 1994 and moving I wanted everyone to know from to the set. But I’m not complaining. her theater there from the Boston the start that Ophelia went on living, Even though I haven’t been part of area. The new quarters enabled but I wanted the story to keep the most the process, I see stuff about the show Double Edge to welcome interna- famous scenes and lines. Except “To be online, and it has been a thrill to watch tional guests and offer immersive or not to be.” That seemed too fraught, it roll out. acting workshops with strenuous, so I left it out until my editor insisted I boundary-pushing physical training. write it in, which I did as a throwaway Falling for Hamlet never tried to be It could stage dreamlike “summer joke. What fascinated me was the idea high art, but The Royals (coming to the spectacles” like last summer’s of modern royalty—of how hard it is to E! channel) looks like it’s shaping up to be famous by birth in an era completely be high smut, and I can’t say I’m sorry. Shahrazad, which wound lacking in privacy. Hey, sex sells and I’m hoping this through fields, forests, show plays for a while. and hills to evoke My novel, Falling for Hamlet, was the mythical land- published by Little, Brown (I’m skip- My mother said she was scapes of the ping years of drama and excitement going to reread my book in Arabian Nights. here, but insert tears and celebrations anticipation of the pre- Ensemble at will), and I figured that would be miere, and I said, “Why? members could the end of the road for my version of It’s not the same.” I’m glad form bonds not Shakespeare. Except that my friends to see them carrying on only with each kept saying, “It reads like a movie. I can with what had fascinated other but with the see this on screen.” Others happened to me: the idea of modern land. “Moving to the think so, too. My agency, Erin Murphy royalty living with money and farm gave me an apprecia- Literary, works with the Gotham fame while the world watches. Group in Los Angeles to get books There’s still an Ophelia. She still likes tion of what it means to build a optioned for TV and film, and rather art. If anything else is similar, I’ll find community and care for the earth. It quickly it was purchased. out with the rest of the world on March gave my work a new meaning.” 15. And it makes me laugh that all this RECENT ACCOLADE: The 2013 The deal wasn’t glamorous. I came from a whim I had one evening Doris Duke Artist Award for her con- remember sitting outside one of those walking to the subway. tributions to American theater paint-your-own-pottery stores while Photo: Cariel Klein w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 | t u f t s m a g a z i n e 39

Create Game On  Ben Cichoski, A98, and Danny Mandel, A03, met at Tufts and have had Masters of old-fashioned amusement By Matt M. Casey sporadic collaborations ever since. They both worked at 38 Studios— W inter—the perfect time to hunker down with a warm the video game company founded beverage and a board game created by someone you by the former Red Sox pitcher Curt went to school with. At least three Jumbos have made Schilling—until it closed. Then they a name for themselves as board game designers. started their own game creation Check out some of their creations, grab a few friends, studio, Super Awesome Games, in and while away a chilly Saturday afternoon. Cumberland, Rhode Island. Rob Daviau, A92, once designed games for Hasbro and now has his own company, IronWall Games. During his career, he has created or Legendary Encounters (Upper helped create more than sixty titles, of which we present just a few: Deck Entertainment): This game puts players into the world of the first four Betrayal at House on the Hill (Hasbro): Players are thrust into the Alien movies. Players start with nearly midst of a horror movie. In the first half, they cooperatively explore a identical decks that they customize haunted house, picking up artifacts and equipment as they go. In the during the course of the game by second half, a random player becomes the villain in one of fifty horror recruiting characters from the films. movie scenarios. The rest of the group must defeat the villain to win. Multiple players can win by staying The game won the 2004 Origins Gamers’ Choice Award. alive and completing three challenges. But one player might be a traitor who Risk: 2210 A.D. (Hasbro): Daviau’s first spin on the classic wins only if everyone else loses. world-domination game casts players as generals in an experience that is both quicker and more balanced than the original. It intro- Gin Mummy (Super Awesome duces special units, defensive points, tactical cards, and a map that Games): This free game spins tradi- looks a little different each game. Risk: 2210 A.D. won the 2001 tional Rummy in a new direction. Origins Award for best science fiction or fantasy board game. It also Instead of earning points by playing led the way for other game designers to take the basic concepts of Risk sets and runs, players win by holding to new settings. an ace when the game ends. But hold- ing the ace at the wrong moment can Risk: Legacy (Hasbro): Here’s a game that remembers players’ cost a player the game. Download the actions from game to game. As they found cities or scar the land, rules at superawesomegames.net. players permanently adhere stickers to the board. Sometimes they open sealed boxes or envelopes that add new twists. A fifteen-game 97 Cent Space Battle (Super campaign of Risk: Legacy lasts several weeks. The game earned five Awesome Games): Another freebie. industry honors, including three Golden Geek Award nominations. Each player starts with twenty-two coins: one quarter, three dimes, six Viking Funeral (IronWall Games): Two players compete to attract nickels, and twelve pennies. Players Vikings to their mead hall by mourning the dead or winning a brawl take turns flipping their coins onto at the funeral—which may result in another funeral. The game the table (battlefield). Then they requires only a standard card deck you don’t mind destroying and the try to flick their fighters into their free rules posted at ironwallgames.com. opponent’s “headquarter” five times. Download the rules at superawesome- games.net. MATT M. CASEY is a freelance writer and the founder of CleverMoveGames.com. 40 t u f t s m a g a z i n e | w i n t e r 2 0 1 5

C nnect Keeping up with the Tufts community photo: kelvin ma SAILING TO VICTORY Tufts forward Gus Santos, A15, scored the winning goal against Illinois’ Wheaton College, cinching the first-ever NCAA National Championship for the men’s soccer team December 6 in Kansas City, Missouri. The Jumbos prevailed 4–2 in the game, and Santos was named the tournament’s top offensive player. w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 | t u f t s m a g a z i n e 41

Connect 13 V i s iona r i e s The presidents who built the Tufts we know and love By Sol Gittleman  illustr ation by se an mccabe by the time the universalist church got around the business of education—for which purpose a wealthy to starting its first college, in 1852, most of the other brick manufacturer, Charles Tufts, donated twenty Protestant denominations in the United States were acres spreading down from Walnut Hill in Medford, a way ahead. Hundreds of Calvinist, Methodist, Baptist, gift he later expanded to a hundred acres. Tufts College and Presbyterian colleges dotted the country, teaching enrolled its first class by 1854: seven students taught the Creation story from Genesis, assured that when the by four professors, all clergymen. And in charge of the Messiah returned, only members of their denomination proceedings was one of the most prominent Universalist would be saved; the rest would be sent to perdition. ministers in the country, Hosea Ballou II (who served 1853–1861). He was the first of thirteen Tufts presidents The Universalists had a much cheerier proposition: (not including two short-term interim heads), each of don’t worry, everyone would be saved! Nice folks. With whom would play a part in the college’s transformation. that all-embracing religious humanism, they set about 42 t u f t s m a g a z i n e | w i n t e r 2 0 1 5

Credit: TK w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 | t u f t s m a g a z i n e 43

Connect In the story of Tufts and its presidents Pennsylvania, Yale, and finally Princeton embraced basic we see the unique journey of American research and postgraduate study, even while holding on to higher education: at the outset, the dom- their tuition-paying undergraduates. The great Harvard inance of faith; then, after the Civil War, psychologist William James called the Ph.D. an “octopus” a need to support pragmatic learning as that would “strangle teaching.” part of the Industrial Revolution, with In this changing milieu, small church-affiliated col- professional schools of medicine, dental leges like Tufts were closing all over the country, and the medicine, and engineering; before World Hosea Ballou II survivors looked for any port in this storm. Tufts gave War I, the influence of the newly created up on Universalist ministers and turned to its first Ph.D. German degree, the Ph.D.; and after World War II, a quest president, Bumpus, who had done research at the Marine for balance between research and teaching, science and Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole humanities. The singular path we discovered for ourselves and the American Museum of Natural came with the help of thirteen visionaries. History. It took him only three years The first four presidents were Universalist ministers and to realize that the Tufts faculty, with a appropriately had something named after them. President single-minded love of teaching, was not Ballou got the first big building with the pillars, Ballou Hall; interested in the new research agenda, Alonzo Ames Miner (1862–1875), a smaller building (Miner and he abruptly left for the University of Hall). Elmer Hewitt Capen (1875–1905) gave his residence on Alonzo A. Miner Wisconsin in 1919. The sixth Tufts president was an Professors Row to the college, and they named it after him (Capen House). He deserved more, because he convinced alumnus, John Albert Cousens (1919–1937), who took over the trustee Phineas T. Barnum to build a science hall and to at a time of growing consternation over European ethnic donate his prized circus elephant, Jumbo, groups on college campuses. Dean Frank G. Wren (Wren to Tufts. Frederick W. Hamilton (1905– Hall) lamented in 1918 that “the foreign element is creeping 1912), the last clergyman-president, got in.” In 1922, Harvard conceived the unwritten law of New only a swimming pool for his efforts England higher education that limited the admission of East to solve a campus gender problem: the European Jews and Italian Catholics. Properly mannered female students who had been admitted German Jews had no difficulty, nor did the Irish Catholics, during President Capen’s term were tak- who had Notre Dame, Holy Cross, and Boston College. But ing away too many prizes from the male Elmer H. Capen the Russian Jews and Italians looked different! Quietly and students, so in 1911 Hamilton created without faculty input, President Cousens instituted ethnic Jackson College for Women. He also wanted a separate faculty, quotas the same year Harvard did. His eighteen-year term but there never was enough money for that. In fact, selling off ended when he died in office. land was the only way the little college could survive. The seventh and eighth Tufts Capen and Hamilton were Tufts alumni. William Leslie presidents were a tandem, ambitious Hooper, acting president from 1912 to 1914, was the first and beloved, determined to haul the Tufts president drawn from the faculty. He built a residence pleasant New England college with at 124 Professors Row that’s now Hooper Infirmary. consistently very good students and an By 1915, when Hermon Carey Bumpus assumed the pres- underachieving and contented faculty idency, American higher education had undergone a sea into the twentieth century. Both came change. The Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 had created the F. W. Hamilton out of the University of Rochester with Ph.D.s in psychology; each served for public state system that emphasized agriculture, mining, and manufacture—the “A&M” universities that eventually more than a decade and left in his mid-fifties for another would teach the majority of American career, unable to shake up the tranquil Tufts community. college students. And philanthro- Leonard Carmichael (1938–1952) and his hand-picked suc- pist-industrialists named Hopkins, cessor, Nils Wessell (1953–1966), inspired the students to Carnegie, Rockefeller, Stanford, Mellon, commit to community service, and the Leonard Carmichael Duke, and Cornell wanted to import Society, Tufts’ large student-run volunteer organization, is the German university model, with its an enduring tribute to its namesake. Tufts undergraduates Ph.D. research degree, thereby reduc- were out in the street helping others when their counterparts ing the distraction posed by immature H. C. Bumpus in Cambridge were still swallowing goldfish. undergraduates. Harvard, Columbia, Carmichael and Wessell sought faculty with Ph.D.s, 44 t u f t s m a g a z i n e | w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 photos: courtesy of tufts digital collections and archives

After a tense ten seconds, Jean Mayer, the trustees’ third-choice candidate, leaped from his chair and shouted, “I’ll do it!”—sending the university on the ride of a lifetime. promoted research as part of the mis- little interest to mainstream medical doctors. He landed at sion, even changed the name of Tufts Harvard’s School of Public Health, worked the hallways of College to Tufts University, got as far Washington, D.C., to make nutrition policy, and wanted as they could, and left. The trustees to be president of a university in Boston that had a medical begged both to stay. Wessell ended the school, so he could inoculate the disease-oriented medical student quotas before he departed in profession with the magic of prevention. 1965 and saw to the hiring of the first Professor Mayer had no hope at Harvard, so he tried non-Protestants in History (remember John A. Cousens Boston University: no sale. They selected John Silber in 1971 George Marcopoulos? Greek Orthodox) instead. He had already tried Tufts, but they picked Burt and English. (The latter might have been an accident. Who Hallowell in 1967. Always the optimist, Mayer was a candidate would have guessed, from a name like Sylvan Barnet, that once again at Tufts after Hallowell in 1976, and again he was the department had just hired its first Jew? He had a Harvard rejected; the presidency of Tufts was Ph.D. like everyone else and even wore a bow tie!) But with- offered to Harry Woolf, provost of Johns out financial resources, Tufts could go nowhere. The Board Hopkins. Normally, when a candidate of Trustees believed it was bad manners to ask alumni for remains in a presidential process until money, and Tufts floundered. the very end, he’s committed. So when When Burton Hallowell (1967–1976), a Princeton-trained the offer was made to Woolf, all expecta- economist, took over as ninth president, he looked forward Leonard tions were that he would accept imme- Carmichael diately. Instead he hesitated, and nearly to the challenge; instead, he got the 1960s. His tenure was two weeks later, to the shock of the marred by building occupations and demonstrations against the Vietnam War, parietals, and anything else that angry search committee, he declined. Panicky trustees went quickly students could blame on the university, until he threw in to the second choice, but he had already taken another job. the towel in 1975. He left Tufts with In desperation, they turned to the distant third choice: the a precariously balanced budget, little Frenchman from Harvard, whom no one really wanted. hope for fundraising, and a self-study An emergency meeting was called at the Boston Harvard report that described the next five years Club, and three embarrassed trustees offered Mayer the as dangerous, and the five after that as Tufts presidency, not knowing what to expect and worried potentially fatal. One local historian about either possible answer. After a tense ten seconds, of higher education wrote that Tufts Mayer leaped from his chair and shouted, “I’ll do it!” Tufts “might no longer be viable” as an aca- Nils Wessell University was about to begin the ride of a lifetime. demic institution. By the time he retired sixteen years later, he had trans- Then, at the darkest moment, the gods smiled on Walnut formed the university. Mayer had led two fundraising Hill. campaigns that brought in $400 million, an unimaginable amount for this diffident school with a history of not nothing in our history had prepared tufts for the asking alumni for money. He found arrival of Jean Mayer (1976–1992) as the tenth president. A soldier and scholar—he fought the Nazis with the Free another $100 million by going to the French and earned doctorates in chemistry and physiology from Yale and the Sorbonne—he settled in the United States Massachusetts congressional delegation. and became a leader in nutrition science, a field that was of Mayer, the nutritionist with a vision, knew that the medical researchers who Burton Hallowell ran the National Institutes of Health w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 | t u f t s m a g a z i n e 45

Connect award panels were not interested in well- presidencies, Tufts had raised $1 billion in twenty-five years, ness or prevention; they were interested a figure that would have left all previous Tufts presidents, only in disease. Mayer needed money trustees, and alumni in total disbelief. for his nutrition agenda. He found When Larry Bacow (2001–2011) became the twelfth Tufts two young Beltway lobbyists named president, the university was for the first time in its history Schlossberg and Cassidy, who had access prepared for an explosion of academic achievement. Bacow, to the powerful Massachusetts congress- who hailed from MIT, possessed the best qualities of his two man Tip O’Neill. Mayer charmed him Jean Mayer predecessors: Mayer’s vision, energy, brains, and charm, and and told him that Massachusetts senior DiBiaggio’s emotional intelligence and ability to deal with citizens desperately needed nutritional evaluations. A con- people of all classes. Jean Mayer had transformed a pleasant vinced O’Neill told the Department of Agriculture to put aside New England college into a dynamic research university that $10 million for a nutrition center at Tufts. When Agriculture still cherished undergraduates; it was bureaucrats questioned these instructions, O’Neill said, “Do Larry Bacow who took that university it and don’t ask why!” Thirty years later, two MIT economists, on a supercharged elevator ride toward writing in The National Bureau of Economics Working Papers, universal excellence. Bacow was also declared this moment “the birth of academic earmarks.” Jean aware that fundraising never stops. He Mayer had invented the academic pork barrel. To the annoy- took on one enormous campaign for ance of Penn and Cornell, he secured another $10 million for $1.2 billion, then handed the university a veterinary school for New England, and Tufts was on its way. John DiBiaggio over to Anthony P. Monaco, the thir- teenth president, in 2011. In Mayer’s second year, Admissions unexpectedly received three hundred more acceptances than its model predicted, Monaco is another first for Tufts: the first M.D., the first and the university hastily rented space in the Sheraton neuroscientist, the first president who, when he assumed Commander Hotel in Harvard Square office, instantly became one of the most respected research and arranged for shuttle transportation. scientists on the faculty. He knows how to build interdis- The Mayer whirlwind was in full force. ciplinary bridges across the university—in this day, an He made enemies, he made friends, he absolute necessity. He has also discovered for himself the charmed many and infuriated others; basic DNA of Tufts: an intimate teaching university where but his presidency was never dull. In everyone does research. From the start, his heart beat to the 1991 an exhausted Board of Trustees pulse of the undergraduates. At first, the humanities faculty pushed him out because its members Larry Bacow in Arts and Sciences was nervous: everyone knows how needed more order in their corporate important scientific research is to the reputation of the mod- lives. Jean Mayer was elevated to the honorific position of ern American university, and the construction plans seemed chancellor, and died a year later. He left a Tufts that would to emphasize science. Would this Ph.D.-physician tilt Tufts have been unrecognizable fifteen years earlier. awkwardly toward biomedical science The trustees found the orderly eleventh president they and funded research to the detriment wanted, someone who, for the first time in Tufts history, of the college, disturbing the balance had already led a university. In fact, John DiBiaggio (1992– between teaching and research? 2001) had been president twice, first at the University of It didn’t happen. Our commitment Connecticut and then at Michigan State. He was a dentist to undergraduate education was a strong and career administrator, a manager, an executive accus- Anthony P. pull for the Tufts president, as was Monaco our well-established drive to make the tomed to organization, delegation of authority, and consen- world a better place. We have reached sus: all the things Jean Mayer happily ignored. John DiBiaggio enjoyed his presidency more than any an equilibrium between teaching and research, between the other incumbent in Tufts history. He found a university with sciences, the humanities, social sciences, and arts. Among resources that it previously never knew. He was a charming, the thousands of colleges and universities in this country, outgoing, enormously friendly man, perfect for another Tufts has found its own unique pulse. major fundraising campaign, and he went on the road Thirteen presidents, each with his own legacy: an extraor- immediately. He was Tufts’ first professional president. By dinary journey, with more to come. the time he stepped down in 2001, Tufts had raised another $600 million, this time, significantly, from alumni now SOL GITTLEMAN, the Alice and Nathan Gantcher University Professor, has been a professor of German, Judaic studies, and biblical literature and is a former provost. ready and willing to give. Between the Mayer and DiBiaggio 46 t u f t s m a g a z i n e | w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 photos: brooks kraft (DiBiaggio); Alonso nichols (Bacow and monaco)

Investing in Students Wall Street financier Doug Rachlin, managing director of Neuberger Berman and a generous mentor of summer interns from Tufts, has created the Rachlin Family Endowed Scholarship. To this portfolio manager, it’s “a natural thing to do” By Lindsey Collins Doug Rachlin, A85, can attest to the value of mentorship and own careers. “I’m very impressed with professional guidance. As an economics major at Tufts he the enthusiasm and level of commit- built strong relationships with professors, including Daniel ment from today’s Tufts students,” Ounjian, then chair of the Department of Economics. says Rachlin, who returned to campus “Professor Ounjian was always very generous with his time in September to speak at the Tufts and provided me with invaluable advice on navigating my Finance Career Forum. Lending his career path,” says Rachlin. The student-teacher relationship endured life experience to students, he says, is for years after Rachlin graduated, and he donated to a scholarship in “a natural thing to do.” He adds: “I Ounjian’s memory following his death in 1993. want to help today’s students get the same exceptional Tufts education and Rachlin is as eager to help today’s students as Ounjian was to help experience that I enjoyed.” him. He served on the New York Tufts Alliance Executive Committee for many years, and has hired Tufts graduates in his position as manag- Double Your Impact.  As part of a ing director and portfolio manager at Neuberger Berman LLC in New university-wide drive to increase financial York City. Each year, Rachlin also offers a Tufts student the opportu- aid, Tufts is offering to match qualifying gifts of nity to work as a summer intern for his portfolio management team. $100,000 or more to endowed scholarships. To learn how to endow a scholarship through the initiative, Now, to support current and future students, he has created the contact Jeff Winey, director of principal and Rachlin Family Endowed Scholarship. His gift will be matched by Tufts leadership gifts, at 617.627.5468 or jeff.winey@ as part of a university-wide Financial Aid Initiative—doubling its impact. tufts.edu. Besides giving back financially, he enjoys sharing knowledge and passing the torch to the next generation as they prepare to launch their photo: robert caplin w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 | t u f t s m a g a z i n e 47

Connect TUTV gems included (from left) a Dating Game knockoff called Blind Date, parody commercials like this one for a product called Atomic Pop, Beelzebubs footage from a PBS special, and Trivia Triangle, a game show so popular it soon aired on local cable. CThhaenJnueml bo Liebman scored the original, clunky gear in a deal with the administration: Present at the creation of TUTV  By Kristin Livingston, A05 TUTV would tape child development classes and tennis lessons in exchange To an outsider, it’s just a room. Cracked tiled floors, for using the equipment to produce black walls, and glaring overhead light. A few fake shows during the off-hours. Thanks to potted plants in a corner and large, looming tripods. the station founders’ doggedness and But to Andy Liebman and Tony Bennis, back for a to inevitable technological leaps, the tour of their old stomping grounds on the third floor station has come a long way from the of Curtis Hall, the Tufts University Television studio days of “if you buy it, we’ll schlep it.” was a long-lost haven. Bennis, A79, pointed to a booth off the main studio and said, “Remember when Dan TUTV isn’t actually on TV any- wired up the control room?” To a bunch of kids who were jazzed about more, for one thing. Its thriving building their new venture in television from the ground up forty years YouTube station offers student films, ago, their engineer, Dan Winter, A81, was an unsung hero. “The quality music videos of Tufts bands, and of our news and studio production skyrocketed,” Bennis told his tour seasons of original web series like My guide, Danielle Bryant, A15, the current station manager. Gay Roommate and Jules and Monty. The latter program, a modern-day Quality wasn’t all that skyrocketed—the station also launched many Romeo and Juliet set on campus and careers over the years. For Liebman, A78, E14P, who founded the sta- in Somerville apartments, depicts love tion in 1977, Bennis, and several of their associates, TUTV was a door among warring fraternities—featuring to success in film and television. indie rock, a mix of Shakespearean and Tuftonian dialogue, and that trendy Bryant took her guests across the hall, where boxy equipment and days-gone-by filter. piles of tape and cable have given way to one slick cabinet of small cameras that made Bennis and Liebman shake their heads in envy. “We Filters. Quick cuts. Music. Bennis once had to ditch a guy from the van on our way to Middlebury in the contrasted these with the vaudevillian dead of winter,” Bennis recounted, because the collective weight of the lengths to which he and his peers went camera, deck, and monitor, plus the crew needed to tape a Jumbos foot- to finagle instant replay at basketball ball away game, had the fender trailing sparks on the highway. “Now games. He and the equipment would you just need this,” Liebman said, taking his iPhone out of his pocket. occupy a back bench in Cousens Gym, while the cameraman sat down front with the announcer, Jimmy Young, A79, the station’s sports director—who had a rope tied to his belt. “We didn’t have a mic to Jimmy, so whenever there was a shot we wanted to replay, I’d tug on the rope,” Bennis said. “One time there was a big, game-winning shot and I tugged so hard he fell on the floor.” On top of sports, the original TUTV had news and game shows, like 48 t u f t s m a g a z i n e | w i n t e r 2 0 1 5 photos: courtesy of mark Mastromatteo, A80