A Tufts News Day

It seems to Bostonist that news coverage of our area institutions of higher education tends to focus on the academic achievements of Harvard and MIT, or the sports achievements of BC (okay, maybe that's a simplistic statement but those schools do get much of the spotlight). So it's an exciting day northeast of the [Cambridge] border when Tufts University garners some media attention. And yesterday was exactly one such day. Unfortunately for Tufts, however, that news wasn't of the overwhelmingly positive variety.

The first story comes from the Globe News Briefs section that reports on the closing of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity after an "intoxicated student passed out and stopped breathing." Sure, Boston-area students get out-of-hand while intoxicated all the time, but this incident comes little more than a month after similar incident landed the fraternity on probation.

But excessive alcohol consumption seems to be the least of Tufts' worries today. Their very own Tufts Daily reports that Marcus Mattingly, a 23 year-old Senior, was arraigned yesterday in Somerville District Court after Medford police pulled him over in an unregistered car and found on him a 200 grams of Cocaine and various drug paraphernalia. A subsequent raid of his dorm room netted an additional 80 grams of cocaine and a significant stockpile of cash. Needless to say, Mattingly won't be in class today.

Sure, Tufts may seem to have an excessive drug and alcohol problem today. But when the dust settles and this is all forgotten tomorrow, Tufts will still be the only area college with a circus elephant for a mascot. Take that Ivys!