Con: Should Undergrads TA?
How does one become a TA? This is a question I have often asked myself, wondering about the qualifications—both on paper and in terms of character—necessary to get the position. It is clear that a Teaching Assistant (TA) must have some sort of familiarity with the class material, and they must have some connection to […]
Letter from the Editor (May 2026)
Dear Reader, I write to you now, at the close of The Tufts Tribune’s sophomore year, with both the same cautious optimism and sober resolve that we began the year with. Let us set our lands in order. This year, our team did a lot. We broke news on a new Tufts policy, designed in […]
Con: Should You Move Back to Your Hometown?
Growing up in a small town in the American South, one topic of conversation was a constant amongst my peers: growing up and moving to the big city. My friends and I would go on about the ignorance of the adults around us and how slowly life moved. So, when I was 14, I did […]
Pro: Should You Move Back to Your Hometown?
I love my small town. I love walking along its one main street and recognizing every other face I see. Above all else, I love the forced connection that a tight-knit community brings. Because of this, even though my major is International Relations, I know I’m moving back to my hometown. That being said, all […]
Pro: Is the Meme-ification of Politics Positive?
On Wednesday September 10th, 2025, at 12:23 pm on the Utah Valley University campus, Charlie James Kirk was shot and killed during his American Comeback Tour, a debate series across college campuses. Kirk was notorious for his right-wing beliefs, most of which he propagated through social media, podcasts, and YouTube channels such as Jubilee. Since […]
Faculty Forum: Pro: Should Tufts Ban Technology in the Classroom?
I ban the use of electronic devices in all the courses I currently teach. I don’t usually justify or explain this policy with students, at least not in a lengthy, defensive way, because most of the time students seem to just want to get on with the course contents. And anyway, a policy is a […]
Pro: Is Woke Dead?
To adequately answer the question “Is woke dead?,” it should first be asked, “What was woke?” Maybe more important, “Was it ever alive?” As a Gen Zer, I’m observing the cadaver, my pathologist’s scalpel in hand. I wasn’t there, in 1930, when the Pittsburgh Courier proclaimed “The Negro is Woke” in response to the Jim […]
Con: Is Woke Dead?
When Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him,” he didn’t mean that God had literally perished. He meant that society’s turn away from Christianity as the great moral authority left a vacuum where a shared value system had once lived. Without a creator of meaning, we were headed […]
Con: Should Somerville Ban Nicotine Purchase?
Somerville has rung the death knell for nicotine products and the businesses that sell them. On March 20, 2025, the Somerville Board of Health hosted a forum to discuss a proposed ordinance replacing the age to buy nicotine products with one based on birth year. Just five days later, on March 25, the ordinance was […]