Graphic by Sophie Nguyen
In an absurd moment of rhetoric, President Sunil Kumar of Tufts University, declared he had “concepts of a plan” to address the crippling state of the mods. His comment came during a live Q&A in which one student confronted him about his administration’s efforts. “President Kumar, you have long vowed to repeal and replace The Courts at Professors Row, also known as the mods. You have failed to accomplish that. You now say you’re going to keep the mods ‘unless we can do something much better.’ Last month, you said, ‘we’re working on it.’ So tonight, fourteen months after you assumed the presidency, do you have a plan and can you tell us what it is?” the student asked.
Kumar responded, “The mods are a lousy housing option. Always was. It’s not very good today. And what I said, that if we come up with something, and we are working on things, we’re going to do it and we’re going to replace it. But remember this, I inherited the mods because Monaco wouldn’t change it. They wouldn’t vote on it. They were unanimous. They wouldn’t vote to change it. If they would have done that, we would have had a much better option than the mods. But when it came up, they wouldn’t vote for it. I had a choice to make as I am President, do I save it and make it as good as it can be, never going to be great, or do I let it rot? And I felt I had an obligation, even though politically it would have been good to just let it rot and let it go away. I decided, and I told my people, the top people, and they’re very good people, I have a lot of good people in this, that administration. We read about the bad ones. We had some real bad ones too. And so do they. They have really bad ones. The difference is they don’t get rid of them. But let me just explain. I had a choice to make, do I save it and make it as good as it can be, or let it rot? And I saved it. I did the right thing. But it’s still never going to be great. And it’s too expensive for people. And what we will do is we’re looking at different plans. If we can come up with a plan that’s going to cost our people, our population less money and be better housing than the mods, then I would absolutely do it. But until then I’d run it as good as it can be run.”
“So just a yes or no, you still do not have a plan?” the student asked.
“I have concepts of a plan. I just became President. But if we come up with something, I would only change it if we come up with something better and less expensive. And there are concepts and options we have to do that. And you’ll be hearing about it in the not-too-distant future.”
