Tufaro used to gaslight many people into believing his last name is Obama.
Courtesy | Chris Tufaro
Chris Tufaro is a senior philosophy major from Pennsylvania. He is the rush chair and historian of Sigma Chi fraternity. He has also held the roles of magister and kustos (ritual chair). In 2021, he listened to Pitbull’s “Give Me Everything” 723 times.
Are you superstitious?
Maybe not superstitious, but I might be minorstitious. If I step on a crack with one foot, then I have to step on a different crack with the other foot, an equal number of times, or a greater number of times. If I don’t do it, then I know something bad is going to happen. And this occurs without fail every single time.
What one question would you like to ask Dr. Arnn?
Which student at Hillsdale has been your least favorite?
What is the craziest thing you’ve ever heard a prof say?
I don’t know if I should say the prof’s name, but everybody who knows the prof will know this story. I was in class my sophomore year, and we were talking about Aristotle and Aquinas. And we were talking about how the more intelligent you are, you should be better at sensing things: you should have better eyesight, that kind of thing. And he said, ‘If you don’t believe that smart people are better at sensing, just see how good smart people are at touching.’
What is your favorite quote?
When I was a freshman, I knew this senior, Woodrow Glaser ’23. He always used to say, ‘Worse things have happened to better people,’ and I think that’s true, and also funny to say to your friends when they’re complaining.
What is the most trouble you’ve gotten into?
When I was in fifth grade, I was on the swim team, and it was my birthday. Everything was crazy that day, and I found a golden class ring, and I put it in my bag because practice was starting, and I fully intended to give it to my parents. Then, three months later it’s completely out of my mind, my parents find it in my sister’s drawer, and ask her where it came from. She said, ‘Oh, I found it in Christopher’s bag.’ So then they put a notice out about the missing ring. I was trying to articulate why I wasn’t at fault. And I didn’t do a very good job of it, so I got in a ton of trouble. The guy had already bought a replacement, and he made my family pay him back for the replacement, which was like $2,000 and so then my parents made me pay it off by doing chores for them. I spent the next year and a half painting and stuff.
What was your dream job as a little kid?
I guess I vaguely wanted to be an architect, because I liked Legos. But the second I started doing something seriously as a kid, trying to pursue it as a job, I instantly started disliking it.
What is your advice to freshmen?
Don’t date. Do all the stupid things. Don’t not do something because you think it’s going to be dumb, because 1) it’s the only way you’re learning, and 2) it’s the only time you can do it, and it’s way more fun. A lot of freshmen are like ‘Oh, my 4.0 GPA’ – you’re not going to get a 4.0 GPA anyway. Don’t throw away your freshman year, because it’s the only time that you can actually have one. Don’t be afraid of changing your situation because you don’t like where you are.
What’s your best nickname?
I always introduce myself as Christopher. But everyone always shortens it to Chris, which is fine. I don’t mind it at all. But freshman year, there were a bunch of other Chrises, and so I became known as Chris Tufaro, as you know. So people abbreviated that because there are a lot of people at Hillsdale with really strange names. And I guess they must have thought that mine was one of them, because they started calling me ChrisTufaro, as one word. And so they would do that, and then they would ask me, ‘What’s your last name?’ So I started screwing with people, and I would say that my last name was Obama, and I convinced a bunch of people that that was my last name.
