Evaluate This: A Timeline

Here's something not to mention on admissions tours: Every semester, Tufts wastes thousands of pieces of paper and hundreds of man-hours stuffing, collecting, and analyzing results of the one big, slow survey. It's called "course evaluations," and unlike most 21st-century universities, we still do them on paper. The process for changing that? Bureaucracy at its finest.

Tufts Course Evaluations: Keeping Scantron in Business

Play Bi-Play

Now that my mock trial season is over, I figured I'd need something to do for the next four weeks. Enter "Play by Play," the annual Tufts production featuring 10-minute plays written, directed, and performed by Tufts students. Last fall I watched the show, and couldn't help wishing I was in it. This year, unable to audition again for the all-freshman play, I resolved to feed my acting habit this fall with PBP. Turns out, I was in for a surprise.

The Balch Arena Theater at Tufts University

Only this Fall

The best performance I saw at Tufts my freshman year was "Oleanna." Hands-down, no question. It's a two-person play, it's full of anger and frustration, and it's hard to breathe normally after coming out of it. It's everything a play should be: dramatic, but realistic. No spontaneous singing, no elegant Shakespeare, no outrageous costumes: just real. Real enough to induce emotional reactions. This year, that play is "Next Fall," and it's going on now. If you didn't see it Thursday night, cancel your Friday or Saturday 8pm plans. You're going to the Balch Arena Theater. If you see one performance this year, make it this one.