1. A Fantastic Shift

It may take a few passes over the threshold of Hilary Scott's (F'87, '92) Somerville home to convince yourself that you are, in fact, still in Massachusetts, and the year is still 2009. Take a right past the wide-mouthed human head that doubles as a slot for visitor parking permits, walk beneath the triceratops and swimming hamburgers and through the back door. You have now officially entered his fantastical world.

This is where the magic happens.

Donned in a paint-spattered apron and headphones, Scott, a former lecturer at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, has spent the past 10 years working out of his home studio creating art for both community installations and personal enjoyment. Currently he can be found creating out of this world objects for the exhibit "Beyond Belief: The Curious Collection of Professor Rufus Excalibur Bell," at the Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester, Mass., through 2011.

"Professor Bell was the curator of curiosities at the Higgins Museum who went missing years ago," says Scott, explaining the premise of his exhibit, which attempts to trace, through mysterious crates of objects, the whereabouts of the imaginary professor who traveled the world in search of the stuff of legend and mythology.

Opening in June of this year, the exhibit contains 100 different items created by Scott, including a gargoyle skeleton "found in Notre Dame Cathedral," baby dragons and a shrunken head, and will evolve over the next two years as "new crates" arrive.

"Coming up on the agenda is a giant squid for the ceiling of the professor's office and the hand of a frost giant [giants from Norse mythology] may also be in the cards," Scott says.

An Untapped Resource

When you ask Scott how he went from being an academic to an artist, he will tell you that the two things are not as different as one might think.

"I suppose the idea of how one communicates or tries to control the perception of an audience-something I studied at Fletcher-is still what I am interested in, just in a different way."

Scott came to Fletcher in the mid-1980s because of a "fascination with the methodology of international relations," which quickly led into both a master's and a Ph.D. from the school and a lecturing position there, teaching international relations and American foreign policy.

Along with the growth of his academic life, Fletcher also became a catalyst for his personal life, introducing him to his wife, Gretchen (F'86), and the beginning of life as a family man.

"When my daughter Hannah ceased being a turnip, the way little people do, I started making toys for her, much like my dad did for me," Scott says. "Growing up, my house was filled with pictures my father had taken and I just found them to be wonderful and evocative, so I grew up feeling it was natural to surround yourself, almost in a bastion, with things you've created. I think I do funny and whimsical because of my children. "

Following in his father's footsteps, Scott had done photography for years, eventually taking over his father's position as photographer for the Boston Symphony Orchestra at their summer venue, Tanglewood, Stockbridge, Mass., but he wasn't recognized for his sculpture work until 1999, when Somerville held its first "open studios."

"I was certainly not an artist, but I opened my doors and people came in," says Scott who has been an annual participant since its inaugural year "It was amazing because I was getting that wonderful positive reinforcement that comes from teaching students, but this time it was from people looking at things that I had made."

Continuing to teach, Scott says his personal world began to change at the same time as the nation did-Sept. 11, 2001. His two lives as academic and artist began to collide when Somerville asked him to design a Sept. 11 memorial for Davis Square.

"It all seemed to dovetail," Scott says. "I was stopping teaching, but here I was being asked to do something that required using a Fletcher degree and an understanding of history and politics combined with art."

As his newfound career path developed, Scott divided his time between his commissioned pieces, various exhibits and community work, including leadership of Somerville Open Studios' educational partnerships, designing and implementing curriculum-based arts program for Somerville schools and working on projects through the Somerville Arts Council.

Educated Whimsy

As the Higgins exhibit evolves, Scott is constantly seeking new and creative pieces that will help tell the story of the different myths.

"I wanted to do something in relation to the tale of Sisyphus, which is the Greek myth of a man who has been condemned to push a rock up a hill," Scott says. "I didn't want to put a rock on display, so I started thinking about what kind of sandals a man would need to push a rock up a hill for all of eternity."

To create such items Scott tends to use a lot of different everyday materials that the untrained eye may only see for what it is-pine needles for the fur of a beast, pinecones for the scales of a sea monster and even art store googly eyes as rivets on a machine.

"I find myself getting into trouble when I go to Home Depot," Scott says with a laugh. "I say, 'Do you have anything that does this?' and they will say, 'Well, what are you going to use it for?' and I will say, 'Well, that wasn't my question.'"

From birds hanging on a ceiling painted like the sky to a taxidermy-style mounting of a three-headed dragon, Scott says all of his art tends to have a humorous edge to it.

Thanks to the exhibit at the Higgins, Scott says he has been opened up to a whole new world of creating art that can be accessible to both adults and children at the same time.

"This show is a suspension of disbelief," says Scott. "I don't want to say that any of these things are true, but how marvelous would it be if they were."

He adds, "It's been a wonderful ride so far, and I seem to be getting better at what I do. It's always great when people ask 'what's the best piece that you've made?' and I can say 'well, luckily, it's the piece that I've just finished!'"

Want to see more of Scott's recent exhibit? Be sure to check out the Winter issue of Tufts Magazine for pictorial from the Higgins Museum.

Story by Kaitlin Provencher, Web Communications
Video by Joanie Tobin, University Photography

2. Thinking Big

In a recent session of Daniel Dennett's Language and Mind course, nearly 100 students sit around wondering what it's like to be a bat.

They aren't daydreaming. Rather, they're considering a question posed in their assigned reading, a famous 1974 essay by philosopher Thomas Nagel called "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" In it, Nagel discusses the challenge of understanding consciousness and subjective experience.

"What did Nagel prove?" Dennett, the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy and University Professor, asks the class. One student suggests that Nagel showed you can't understand an subjective thing objectively.

"I think you're right," replies Dennett, "but what does that come to? Might it just be a matter of diminishing returns, where you run out of patience before you exhaust your convictions about your experience?"

That's a lot of deep thinking for one afternoon, but what's notable is that the students aren't philosophy majors. Many in fact are first-semester freshmen. They're just responding to one of the course requirements: to butt heads with the teacher.

"I tell the students that if you are like me, this is actually going to be a harder course for you, because it will be easier for you to agree with me," explains Dennett, author of more than 10 books, including Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life and Consciousness Explained. "That's not what I want. I want you to keep my feet to the fire."

Setting the Philosophical Table

Dennett has taught the class, geared toward freshman and sophomores, once a year for the past decade.

"This is my attempt to set the table for cognitive science and philosophy of cognitive science without any presuppositions," says Dennett, co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies. "What I'm mainly trying to do in this course is stretch their imagination, get them to think about things in ways that they haven't thought about before."

"Consciousness is at once the most familiar and at the same time one of the most difficult to understand things in our lives," says Steve Schaus, a second-year master's student in philosophy and one of the teaching assistants for the course. "In the context of this class, it's a good introduction to college in general, because it's about questioning things you take for granted."

Students turn in commentaries on assigned reading before each class, and Dennett himself mines those submissions to get a sense of how students have processed the material, often bringing up the students' questions or observations in class.

The Idea Lab

While the class asks students to stretch out their brains over some challenging topics, it also provides Dennett with an opportunity to develop his own thinking.
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"If I look back at my published work over the past 10 years, I could probably find a dozen places where the basic idea was something that first came to light in this class," says Dennett. "Not so much that the student typically formulated the idea, but they asked the question that provoked me to come up with the answer."

In addition, one of his paramount goals as a thinker is to make his concepts accessible, and an undergraduate classroom is the ideal laboratory for finding out whether he's met that goal.

"I've always made it a point, with anything I'm working on, to test fly it in a Tufts course," says Dennett. "My general rule of thumb is if I can't explain it to bright Tufts undergraduates, then I can't explain it. I don't understand it myself."

Back in the classroom, one student suggests that the best way to understand what it's like to be a bat is to exit your own consciousness and become a bat wholly.

"If we become a bat, do we lose the 'I'?" another student asks.

"Maybe that's just like dying," responds Dennett.

Up to the Challenge

While Dennett is a big name in the philosophy world-there are at least a dozen books about his work-students on the whole don't seem intimidated.

"My initial impressions are that in general Tufts students are pretty undaunted, even by a professor as well known as this," says Schaus. "There was one student up here after class today challenging something Professor Dennett said about whether numbers exist."

Freshman Liz Salowitz, who anticipates majoring in international relations and Spanish, registered for Dennett's course after hearing positive recommendations from friends about his work. She was surprised that a class with Dennett was available to her as a first-year student.

"There are certain times in life when you sit down and you're dumbstruck and you're like, 'Why am I this way? Why do I think so much about what I'm thinking about and why I'm thinking about it?'" she says. "You get stuck in this loop and he's trying to unwrap the loop for us, at least a little."

Salowitz says Dennett has been quite accessible to her and her classmates. "When he says he has office hours, he's sitting in his office waiting for students to come talk to him," she says. Once, she chatted with him for more than half an hour about a theory she was studying in another class.

While Dennett may take a fellow philosopher to task for shoddy logic or a shaky theory, he has nothing but patience for his students, says Schaus. "He reserves opprobrium for people he thinks should know better, like his professional colleagues."

For Dennett, the more challenges he gets to field, the better. This semester's class, he says, is "a particularly savvy group."

"This is a feisty bunch," he says. "I really like that. That's what makes life fun."

Story by Georgiana Cohen, Web Communications.

3. Green Briefs

Protesting Climate Change

On Oct. 24, Tufts students participated in the International Day of Climate Action, a day dedicated to promoting events around the world to raise awareness about the environment. Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning (UEP)student Libby Mahaffy (G'11) helped organize a rally that included a bicycle-powered blender for smoothies, performances by BEATS and speakers from Tufts Energy Forum and the Leadership Campaign/Massachusetts Power Shift, a state-wide student organization pushing for 100 percent clean electricity by 2020.

Despite inclement weather, students concerned about climate change came out to show their support.

Some Medford/Somerville residents also stopped by the event, according to Mahaffy, "and we drew crowds of kids when BEATS played." The campus rally was one of many in Boston that day, and more than 5,200 events took place globally. To check out videos of the day's events, go to 350.org.

The International Day of Climate Action also kicked off the Tufts Sleep Out, another Leadership Campaign event designed to raise awareness about the need for energy reform. Check out photos by Ian MacLellan (A'12) of the event, in which students camped out on both the Academic Quad and the Boston Common.

Students Take Action First

The Experimental College is known for its eclectic array of courses, and this semester is no exception. Among this fall's offerings are multiple courses focusing on the environment, including "Environmental Action: Shifting from Saying to Doing," co-taught by UEP student Dallase Scott (G'11) and Tina Woolston, project coordinator for the Office of Sustainability.

The course tries to get students to understand how their daily habits impact the environment, and make them greener where they can.

"Until college, we follow the pattern of our parents' lifestyle as far as our routine and consumption. But in college, we start creating our own behavior that will become habitual for the rest of our life," said Scott.

Students in the class organized a symposium on Nov. 7 that drew college students from across New England to discuss ways of promoting environmental change on campus. To keep up with the class' progress, check out the class blog.

Other ExCollege classes with environmental themes this fall are "Healing Plants: Culture and Ecology in South America" and "Climate Change and the Law."

Stories by Catherine Scott (A'11)

4. Field Hockey Team Lands First NESCAC Title

The Jumbo field hockey team defeated Trinity 3-2 on Nov. 8 to win the NESCAC championship for the first time. With the victory, Tufts (16-1) earns an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship Tournament.

The NCAA tournament berth is the fifth in team history for the Jumbos, currently ranked No. 4 in the nation. Last year, the team made it to the championship game, where they lost to Bowdoin 3-2 in overtime.

With a first-round bye, the Jumbos won't see action until the second round of the tournament. And for the second straight season, Tufts will host the second and third round games in the NCAA tournament, next weekend at Bello Field.

One of the team's leaders this season has been junior forward Tamara Brown, who last week was named NESCAC Player of the Week. Last month, Brown became the all-time leading scorer in Jumbo history when she netted her 98th point in a 7-0 win over Colby. In the championship game, she scored one of Tufts' three goals; junior midfielder Jess Perkins netted the other two scores.

Tufts' only loss of the season came to Trinity on Oct. 17, a 2-1 overtime defeat during Parents Weekend.

In other playoffs news, the top-seeded Tufts volleyball team (28-4) lost the NESCAC championship title match to Williams on Nov. 8, 3-0, but is expected to receive an at-large bid to the NCAA regional tournament.

Tufts will host the NCAA regional tournament Nov. 12-14 at the newly refurbished Cousens Gym.

For updates, visit the Tufts Athletics website.

5. Midterm Evaluation

With the holidays in sight, it's hard to believe the fall semester is more than half over. We checked in with some undergraduates to ask them what campus events stand out so far for them.

Interviews by Charlotte Steinway (A'10)

To keep track of campus happenings, visit the University Events Calendar.

6. Racing for a Cause

After a casual dinner conversation in the basement of the Granoff Family Hillel Center in 2005, the lives of hundreds of Rwandan orphans were changed for the better. And on Nov. 1, at the inaugural Tufts Race4Rwanda 5K run, the next chapter in a tale of continuing support for the victims of the 1994 Rwandan genocide will be written.

The Hillel-sponsored race will benefit a youth village for orphaned Rwandan teenage refugees started by Tufts graduate and trustee Seth Merrin (A'82) and his wife, Anne Heyman, who were inspired after hearing Paul Rusesabagina speak as part of the annual Moral Voices speaker series. Rusesabagina saved the lives of thousands of Rwandans by sheltering them in his hotel during the genocide and was the inspiration for the movie "Hotel Rwanda."

More than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in 1994 during a killing spree that lasted only 100 days. In addition to decimating nearly 15 percent of the population, the genocide left a legacy of amputees, rape victims and orphans.

When asked what the biggest problem facing Rwanda was today, Rusesabagina responded that in a country with 1.2 million orphans - 15 percent of the population - there is no future for that country unless you can figure out how to help those children.

His message resonated deeply with Heyman, who saw a connection between the Rwandan orphan population and the orphans from the Holocaust who fled to Israel after World War II. Many of the children orphaned by the Holocaust were welcomed into Israeli youth villages, which provided a hybrid of educational and living quarters. Heyman sought to use that model in Rwanda.

In 2007, with the help of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), Heyman founded the Agahoza Shalom Youth Village (ASYV). The village welcomed its inaugural class of 125 students in December 2008.

This past summer, 18 Tufts students visited the village through the JDC's summer short-term service trip program. Visiting the country left an indelible impression on the students, who wanted to do more.

"When we were in Rwanda, it was an experience that changed everyone's lives," said Ben Gittleson (A'11), co-coordinator of the Race4Rwanda. "Meeting the students that this race is helping really pushed us to do something big and to do something great, and to bring it back to our community."

Tufts Race4Rwanda co-coordinator Heather Blonsky (A'11) said the experience of being in a country devastated by genocide was powerful for the Jewish student delegation, as it resonated with their own, distant, past. "There's a certain connection in our people's history that you can't deny."

Tufts Rabbi Jeffrey Summit and President Lawrence S. Bacow visited the youth village for the opening ceremony this past June.

"Fifteen years ago, most of the world stood by as Rwanda literally was torn apart by genocide. We now have the opportunity to do something about it," Bacow said in a press release.

After the race, the organizers are holding a post-race program featuring information and photos from the youth village. A Fletcher School student who survived the Rwandan Genocide will also be speaking about his experience.

Race coordinators are hoping to make progress toward their fundraising goal of $18,000, which will support the needs of the new class of students arriving at the village in December. In the long term, the goal is for the village to become self-sustainable-and with a working farm on site and plans to build a revenue-generating guest house on the property, that goal is in sight.

Blonsky hopes to visit the village again in the future, both to see the changes it has undergone and to reconnect with the students she met last summer.

"My dream is to go back there when this first class graduates," she said. "It's hard to explain to people who haven't gone what an impact the trip made on us, but I think it's evident by the hard work we're putting into the race."

Story by Charlotte Steinway (A'10)

7. A Great Honor

Elaine Schuster, a notable philanthropist, parent of three Tufts graduates and grandparent of another, was nominated last month by President Barack Obama to serve as a U.S. representative to the 64th session of the General Assembly of the Union Nations.

Schuster's appointment would involve her representation of the United States to various U.N. bodies on specific topics of interest.

In an announcement issued by The White House earlier this week, President Obama said, "I am grateful for the willingness of these fine individuals to serve my administration and am confident that they will represent our nation well.I look forward to working with them in the coming months and years."

Schuster formerly served on the Board of Advocates of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service. In 2004, Schuster and her husband, Gerald A'82, established a $1 million fund to support faculty development and programs that encourage active citizenship.

The couple's three sons are Tufts alums: Mark (A'78), Scott (A'79) and Todd (A'82), as well as their daughter-in-law, Lauren (A'82), and their granddaughter, Elizabeth (A'08).

Schuster's background is in philanthropy, health care, education and civic activism. In 1995, she co-founded Operation P.E.A.C.E., a neighborhood development organization based in Atlanta that provides mentoring, tutoring and life skill training for inner-city children.

She has been an active fundraiser and advocate for health care organizations, including Partners Health Care, Franciscan Children's Hospital and Brigham & Women's Hospital.

For eight years, Schuster was a member of the President's Advisory Committee on the Arts. She also founded the Brandeis Center for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University, where she is a board member of the Women's Research Program. Schuster is also active in the Massachusetts State Democratic Party.

8. Four Years, Infinite Possibilities

Senior year-as a freshman, it can seem light years away. But for members of the Class of 2010, the reality is beginning to sink in.

For the past three years, five of those students have allowed us to share in the adventure of their undergraduate experience. As they begin the final chapter of their college career, they look back on their junior year and their expectations for what is yet to come. Four of the five decided to join in the junior year tradition of studying abroad, and option which 40 percent to 45 percent of Tufts students choose to participate in, while the other stuck to achieve leadership goals on the Hill.

Jane Song
Mukilteo, Wash.
Major: International Relations and East Asian Studies

When Jane Song decided to participate in the Tufts-in-China program in the fall of her junior year, her objectives were clear.

"I wanted to acquire a good understanding of China, with the goals of becoming proficient in Chinese, understanding what 'Chineseness' means and figuring out how this 'Chineseness' evolved to what is now contemporary China," she explains.

Tufts program at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, took Song through an intensive study of Mandarin.

Traveling around the country to Beijing, Xian, Shanghai, Chengdu and more, Song says the semester in China gave her more insight into the "Chinese way of life" than any of her previous visits to the country.

"I came back to the U.S. at the end of the semester with a feeling that I was better able to look at China without the foreign bias I had accumulated in my American studies," she says.

Song wanted to expand her interest in international education while learning more about the nonprofit sector, so to prepare for her final year at Tufts she decided to spend her summer interning for WorldTeach. Located in Cambridge, Mass., the international NGO sends hundreds of volunteers each year to teach in developing countries all around the world.

For Song, the WorldTeach internship helped solidify some of her plans.

"It reaffirmed my desire to work in international education sometime in the future," she says. "Education, especially international education and women's education, is something I am very passionate about, and being involved in it is definitely part of my long-term goal for the future."

Learn more about Song and her Tufts experience by reading about her experiences as a Tufts freshman and sophomore.

Andrew Mulherkar
Seattle, Wash.
Major: International Relations
Dual-degree candidate, New England Conservatory

For a musician, landing a first gig can be unforgettable. Add an international venue to the mix, and it can't get much better.

Studying in Argentina, Andrew Mulherkar found himself performing a duet in the apartment of a pianist and aspiring film-scorer and playing to crowds in a weekly jam session that lasted until the wee hours of the morning.

Mulherkar, who lived with a host family, says one of the more special moments of his trip was experiencing Easter in a different culture.

"We had homemade locro [corn and bean stew], platefuls of empanadas and three types of cake, followed by one of the guys there singing Argentinean folk songs to end the afternoon," Mulherkar says.

Unlike his fellow undergraduates' studies, Mulherkar's dual-degree program extends into a fifth year. He is hoping this year he can home his "traveler's sense of openness and optimism."

"I hope to use my experiences and those of my friends, in combination with my international relations major, to enhance my understanding of today's world."

Learn more about Mulherkar by reading about his experiences as a Tufts freshman and sophomore.

Shea Sullivan
Los Angeles, Calif.
Major: Music

Shea Sullivan's junior year encompassed the best of both worlds: Tufts in the fall and the Chicago-based Institute for European Studies program in Vienna in the spring.

While taking on a full load of classes on the Hill, Sullivan was excited to have experienced what she says is her "favorite class taken at Tufts so far"-Professor Lee Edelman's "Hitchcock: Cinema, Gender and Ideology."

"The ideas he suggested in class have changed the way I view and consider the motives and reason behind all types of creative work," Sullivan says.

Travelling to Austria in the spring brought a refreshingly different experience.

"Everything was new and it was very much like having a new start-similar to what I experienced as a freshman at Tufts," she says. "The school I went to was in an old palace; I shared an apartment that had elaborate wooden carving and a chandelier. This experience was like no other."

For Sullivan, part of the appeal of the Vienna program was its music curriculum, which allowed her to work with world-renowned teachers and put on a series of concerts.

"This was probably the most challenging part, because I was among performance majors who ate and slept in the practice rooms in hopes that one day they could be considered professional musicians," she says.

Sullivan, who plans to apply to medical school, returned to Los Angeles for a summer internship with Children's Hospital. With more than enough credits under her belt, Sullivan was able to take the fall semester off to continue her research, which examines liver cells in culture and the effect of the application of recombinant growth factor FGf10.

Learn more about Sullivan by reading about her experiences as a Tufts freshman and sophomore.

Brittany Cahoon
Altamonte Springs, Fla.
Major: Economics

For Brittany Cahoon, junior year was spent focusing on sisterhood and leadership on the Hill.

As an orientation leader last fall, Cahoon says she was happy to share in the beginning of the Tufts experience with the freshman class.

This spring, with the support of her sisters, Cahoon was elected president of the Alpha Omicron Pi sorority.

Over the summer, Cahoon, along with three of her sorority members, went to AOII's Convention in Tampa, Fla., where, for the second time in a row, the Tufts chapter was awarded the McCausland Cup.

"This award goes to the AOII chapter whose overall academic development is determined to be the most superior," Cahoon says. "It was such an honor to receive this award on my chapter's behalf."

Cahoon, how in her second semester as AOII president, says the group has been focusing on philanthropic work. This includes volunteering at an elementary school and pursuing opportunities with the Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center, supporting the national AOII philanthropic cause of juvenile arthritis.

Cahoon says she feels "bittersweet" as she heads into her senior year.

"Tufts has definitely left a mark on me and this year," she says, "I hope to leave a mark on Tufts!"

Learn more about Cahoon by reading about her experiences as a Tufts freshman and sophomore.

Edna Gonzalez
Las Vegas, Nev.
Major: American Studies

Though Edna Gonzalez spent her junior year more than 3,000 miles east of Tufts' Medford/Somerville campus, she says her time in the Tufts-in-London program made the world seem smaller.

"I realized there are people all over the world at this moment perhaps doing something similar to us and we are all at one point interconnected," she says.

Gonzalez says being in a foreign country renewed her pride in being an American. Seeing the international reaction to President Barack Obama's election victory was especially profound.

"A few fellow Tufts students and I went to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum on Inauguration day to take a picture with the wax statue of Obama that was being revealed," Gonzalez says. "I cannot put into words how great the media attention was on an international level."

Gonzalez also was able to immerse herself in Tufts' rich network abroad through the Tufts-in-London Alumni Association, helping facilitate a conference to discuss what the first 100 days of Obama's presidency would be like.

Returning to Tufts for the summer, Gonzalez split her time between taking summer courses and training to be a Latino Peer Leader for the freshman class through the Latino Center. This year, she is also stepping into the role of vice president for the Association of Latin American Students.

"I hope to enjoy and take full advantage of my last two semesters at Tufts," she says. "I never thought I would be saying that. Time has flown by."

Learn more about Gonzalez by reading about her experiences as a Tufts freshman and sophomore.

Note: Pacific Tuyishime was unavailable for comment.

Story by Kaitlin Provencher, Web Communications.

9. On the Right Note

With the fall semester not yet behind them, it has already been a landmark year for the Tufts Amalgamates, the university's oldest coed a cappella group. The group celebrated its 25th anniversary on Homecoming weekend, Oct. 9-11, and just a few weeks before had the honor of singing the national anthem in front of thousands of Red Sox fans at Fenway Park on Sept. 15.

At Homecoming weekend, 150 past members of the 'Mates were in attendance. "It's funny that this weird little tradition that goes on at college campuses across the country and can be as small as just a group of friends singing in a stairwell, is infused with such spirit from alumni and all the people who have passed through here," says Jason Edes (A'10), president of the group.

Founded in 1984, the 'Mates have performed all over the United States and beyond, including Disney World, Rockefeller Center in New York City and venues in Las Vegas, London and Dusseldorf, Germany. Along the way, they have collected a number of awards from the Contemporary A Cappella Society of America, including Best Song, Best Soloist and Best Mixed Collegiate Album.

"Traveling abroad and doing a cappella is always a wonderful experience, especially in Europe, because a lot of people have never seen it done before," says Edes. "We went to one school and were completely mobbed by a bunch of middle schoolers begging for autographs, which is one of the most surreal things I have experienced."

As the group continues to evolve, with new members coming on each year, the members all agree that while faces may change, the group continues to hold on to what they like to call its "'Mate-ness."

"We take the music seriously, but we don't take ourselves seriously," says Hunter Vanaria (A'11), one of the group's newer members. "The most important thing is to enjoy the group, because there is just a wonderful sense of community and family."

Vanaria adds, "I remember when I got in the group I had about 15 emails from people I didn't know, all alums congratulating me on getting in the group and telling me what a great experience it was going to be. It was a great beginning."

So what does it feel like to be a 'Mate as the group hits its 25th anniversary?

"There is a wonderful sense of being a part of something bigger and something truly worthwhile," says Edes. "It is that sense of connection that makes it special."

Story by Kaitlin Provencher, Web Communications
Photos by Joanie Tobin, University Photography

10. Bringing the Community into the Equation

In the long-running network show "Junkyard Wars," contestants are asked to complete an engineering challenge using only materials found in a junkyard. At noon on Oct. 25, Tufts will host the Somerville Mathematics Fund in its own version of the television show, known as the Scrapheap Showdown.

Now in its fifth year, each one hosted at Tufts, the Showdown consists of teams of high school students who complete a mathematical challenge with the materials given to them. They could be as simple as paper, tape and string or include ball bearings and power tools. The challenge, posed by the volunteer board members of the Somerville Mathematics Fund, can range from building paper bridges to see which will hold the most weight to constructing windmills that must lift a certain weight and use power to turn on a light.

Tufts Mathematics Professor Zbigniew Nitecki, a member of the board of the Somerville Mathematics Fund, participated in last year's Showdown and was particularly impressed with students' abilities.

"The bridges were amazing. The winning one held 42 pounds," Nitecki says. "The
students are really wonderful to watch."

The Somerville Mathematics Fund provides scholarships for students who reside in Somerville and show promise in math and science. The fund also organizes family math nights in the schools and a celebration of Pi Day (held March 14---3.14).
They will be celebrating their 10th anniversary next fall on Oct. 10 (10.10.10, naturally).

The goal, according to organization founder Erica Dakin Voolich, was to get young people thinking about their future and using math in any way they see fit, whether it be engineering, accounting or theoretical mathematics.

"Not only do we give out scholarships, but we want to do activities that are getting people excited about math and preparing them to use the scholarship," she says.

Voolich says many Tufts graduate students have helped out with the Showdown over the years, and she hopes that Tufts undergraduates will come to the Carzo Cage in Cousens Gym to watch this year's Showdown.

"Tufts has been very generous. It's a wonderful gift of space that we've been able to use," says Voolich.

Story by Catherine Scott, (A'11)