The Justice, October 20, 2015

ARTS Page 18

FORUM Begin sexual assault education early 11

“BORIS’ KITCHEN”

SPORTS Women's soccer team wins in overtime 16 The Independent Student Newspaper

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B r a n d e is U n i v e r sit y S i n c e 1 9 4 9

Justice

Volume LXVIII, Number 6

www.thejustice.org

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

CAMPUS LIFE

STANDING UP

Talk focuses on campus accessibility ■ Community members

discussed ways to improve on-campus accessibility for students with disabilities.

By aVi GOLD JUSTICE EDITOR

Rabbi Elyse Winick ’86 led a roundtable discussion last Thursday entitled “Campus Life: Accessibility for People with Access and Functional Needs,” examining the state of accessibility on campus for students with various disabilities.

The talk included a discussion of two new positions that were created this year to help students who have disabilities.

Beth Rodgers-Kay, the director of Disabilities Services and Support, outlined the new positions during the course of the roundtable: a Web Accessibility Specialist in the Office of Communications and an Information Design Acces-

MICHELLE BANAYAN/the Justice

ADVOCATING CHANGE: Community members encourage adjunct and contract faculty members to unionize at Tuesday's Speak Out.

Community advocates for adjunct union at Speak Out ■ Students, professors

and community members spoke, listing the various reasons why adjunct faculty should unionize.

By mAX MORAN JUSTICE EDITOR

Brandeis Faculty Forward, a coalition of adjunct and contract faculty working to create a union at Brandeis, held their first major outreach event last Tuesday outside of the Usdan Student Center.

The “Speak Out” event involved several faculty, students and staff from across the University speaking about why they support non tenure-track faculty forming a union at Brandeis.

If a union is formed, it will represent adjunct and contract faculty members, who are not hired by the University with expectations of job security and are paid significantly less than tenured or tenure-track faculty. The Brandeis union will be represented by the Service Employees International Union Local 509, which is helping to organize the Brandeis Faculty Forward initiative.

Winning the vote requires a

50 percent plus one vote majority.

Brandeis Faculty Forward has not yet released any specific demands or requests for the University to act on.

Prof. Christopher Abrams (FA), who ran the event, told the Justice in an interview that he was “pleasantly surprised” with the student turnout for the Speak Out, saying that students were gathering at the table and asking questions even before the speakers began. The purpose of the event, according to Abrams, was to spread awareness of the unionization effort among students and faculty and earn signatures on an online petition in support of the unionization campaign. When asked why he felt it was important for students to be active in the issue when it will ultimately be decided by a faculty vote, Abrams replied that “we have felt all along that this effort is not just for our own betterment but actually to help preserve some of the character of Brandeis. Brandeis has baked right into its core the idea of social justice, of a collective voice for everyone.” In an email to the Justice, he stated that the campaign has received more than 50 union authorization cards but declined to give outspecific numbers.

The first speaker was Milagro

Santana, a Sodexo cashier and the Brandeis union steward for Sodexo staff members, who are represented

by UNITE HERE Local 26, a union for service industry workers in Boston. Santana said that she became the Brandeis union steward because she looks out for her fellow workers and said, “Having a union is a positive thing; you get your vacations, you get your personal time, you get sick time. … It gives us job security.” Sodexo employees unionized last year.

Next, Abrams addressed the crowd, saying that despite teaching at Brandeis for 11 years, he has never been hired for more than one year at a time and struggles to prove his employment record when he and his wife seek to refinance their home or apply for financial aid at daycares.

Prof. Mark Weinberg (ENG), a contract faculty member, spoke about how in order to make ends meet, he teaches at Boston University, Emerson College and Brandeis, meaning he has very little time to spend with his students.

He also noted that because students pay approximately $6,250 per class, the University receives $125,000 in a

sibility Specialist within Library and Technology Services.

Rodgers-Kay explained that the Web Accessibility Specialist — Sarah Ferguson — focuses on “looking at the University’s publicfacing web presence and [questions if] that presence [is] accessible.”

She added in a follow up email to the Justice that Ferguson’s duties “are to educate and lead the university in accessibility of the university’s web-based content presence and to train faculty and staff on how to make web-based content accessible.

With her technical leadership, she has a focus on promoting, assessing, and maintaining web accessibility, beginning with the university's public-facing web presence.”

Meanwhile, the Information Design Accessibility Specialist — currently an unfilled position — was designed to be “positioned deeper in the structure of Brandeis’s IT,

See CAMPUS LIFE, 7 ☛

Campus clubs

A-Board announces cuts to club budgets ■ In an email sent out to

club leaders, the Allocations Board announced that it cut funding for several clubs.

By hannah wulkan JUSTICE editor

Many clubs, both secured and chartered, had their budgets cut this year due to a lack of available funds, wrote Allocations Board Chair Alexander Mitchell ’17 in an email to club leaders on Wednesday. In the email, Mitchell explained that the A-Board received $450,000 in funding requests but only had $200,000 to distribute

See SPEAK OUT, 7 ☛

among the clubs that had requested funding.

“If your club did face a severe cut, please do not take it personally,” Mitchell wrote in the email.

“We have nothing against you, your club, your mission, or anything like that. We made every one of these decisions in keeping with A-board policy, and with the best interests of the Brandeis Community at heart, and every cut was made in the most objective and balanced manner possible.”

Mitchell continued to explain that the appeals process begins this week but that club leaders should not “an-

See BUDGET, 7 ☛

Printing with purpose

Coming home

Climate justice

A new club on campus is using 3D printers to create prosthetics for children.

Former Major League pitcher Nelson Figueroa '98 returned to Brandeis to become a member of the Joseph M. Linsey Hall of Fame.

 Journalist and activist Wen Stephenson called for a united and radical environmental movement in a talk on Thursday.

FEATURES 9 For tips or info email editor@thejustice.org

Waltham, Mass.

Let your voice be heard!

Submit letters to the editor online at www.thejustice.org

INDEX

SPORTS 16

ARTS SPORTS

17 13

EDITORIAL FEATURES

10 9

OPINION POLICE LOG

10 2

News 3

COPYRIGHT 2015 FREE AT BRANDEIS.

2

TUESDAY, October 20, 2015

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THE JUSTICE

NEWS SENATE LOG Senate recognizes two clubs and discusses outreach initiatives On Sunday, the Senate met to recognize clubs and discuss promoting transparency by recording all Senate votes.

The Senate heard from two clubs seeking recognition and chartering. Student representatives from the International Student Business Group stated that they wanted a club that will allow students to learn business techniques through cultural interaction and build up networking for both international and American students. The organization, they said, aims to promote longterm alumni networking. After a brief private debate, the Senate voted unanimously in favor of recognizing the club. The representatives then asked for chartering, claiming that they need funds to hold events and create projects that would also involve high school students.

After a lengthy private debate, the Senate voted 12-9, against chartering.

Student representatives from the Brandeis branch of Net Impact — an international non-profit organization — then approached the Senate and asked for recognition and chartering. The representatives said that their goal is to introduce projects that underscore the theme of social justice and enhance participants’ career skills simultaneously. After brief private debate, the senators voted unanimously in favor of recognizing the club.

The representatives then asked the Senate for chartering, stating that the national organization demands that each chapter cover transportation for national conferences and off-campus events. The Senate noted in a private debate that they were aware that Net Impact might struggle to continue if it has to wait for chartering for a long time. After a private debate, the Senate voted to grant them chartering.

The Senate then move to executive chair reports. The Student Union Treasurer, Nicole Lenchner ’16, briefly discussed the process that A-board-funded club activities go through in receiving compensation. If students purchase items from the supermarket or from stores like CVS, they are supposed to bring receipts to the Student Union office in order to receive a check. Lenchner noted that she would then check out the items listed by students to see if any were bought online. She added that any cost over $1000 should be authorized first by ABoard.

The Senate then transitioned to a discussion of new initiatives and ideas for the Student Union to increase outreach. Student Union President Nyah Macklin ’16 discussed the importance of the Senate’s interactions with its constituents, urging senators to reach out to the students they represent in order to gauge what issues the Senate should focus on.

Committee reports followed the discussion of initiatives. On the subject of the Senate Bylaws Committee’s proposed provision that the Senate record all votes, one senator argued that the provision was necessary in order to promote transparency and inform the student body of Senate decisions. Brian Hough ’17, Senator at Large, argued against that point, claiming that most students who pay attention to the voting process were student representatives asking for recognition and chartering. He also discussed how publicizing senators’ voting records can invite student lobbying on important votes.

The Senate then moved on to a discussion about the Joseph’s Boston-Cambridge shuttle schedule. One senator spoke about the shuttle’s arrival time, stating that the shuttles should arrive on time, rather than “late [by] an hour.” The Senate then moved into executive session.

POLICE LOG Medical Emergency

Oct. 12—A party in Usen Castle reported a prior knee injury.

BEMCo staff treated the party on the scene, and University Police transported the party to an urgent care facility for further care.

Oct. 12—A caller from the Golding Judaica Center reported a party passed out during a lecture. University Police and BEMCo responded and treated the party on the scene. State Police received the call via 911, and Cataldo ambulance responded.

The party refused further medical treatment.

Oct. 12—A party in North Quad notified University Police that a student was requesting BEMCo after stepping on a pencil four hours prior and had lead stuck in their foot. BEMCo treated the party, and University Police transported them to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care.

Oct. 15—Police received a report of a party in the Gosman

Sports and Convocation Center who bumped heads with another student. BEMCo was notified, and University Police transported the party to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care.

Oct. 15—A party in North Quad reported their roommate was feeling faint. BEMCo was notified and responded, requesting an ambulance. Cataldo ambulance was notified and transported the party to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care.

Oct. 16—A caller in North Quad reported an intoxicated party. BEMCo responded and requested Cataldo ambulance.

Cataldo transported the party to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care.

Oct. 16—Police received a phone call from a Community Adviser in Massell Quad concerning an intoxicated party.

BEMCo responded and requested Cataldo ambulance. Cataldo transported the party to NewtonWellesley Hospital for further care.

Oct. 17—Massachusetts State Police advised University Police about a 70-year-old party in the Faculty Center who had passed out. University Police and BEMCo responded and treated the party on the scene. The party was transported to Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital for further care via ambulance.

Oct. 18—Police received a report of an intoxicated party in the Ridgewood Quad. University Police and BEMCo responded, and the party was treated on the scene by BEMCo staff with a signed refusal for further care.

Oct. 18—Police received a report of an intoxicated party in the Foster Mods. University Police and BEMCo responded, and the party was then transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital by Cataldo ambulance for further care.

Oct. 18—Police received a report of two intoxicated parties in Rosenthal Quad. University Police and BEMCo responded and notified Cataldo ambulance.

WELL-VERSED

n A front-page News teaser incorrectly listed Lexi Oullette’s ’18 class year as 2017. (Oct. 13, page 1). n A News article incorrectly listed Talia Holtzman’s ’16 class year as 2017. (Oct. 13, page 7).

n A News article on the Chaplaincy failed to mention that Max Moran had contributed reporting.

(Oct. 13, page 3).

The Justice welcomes submissions for errors that warrant correction or clarification. Email editor@ thejustice.org.

Justice

the

www.thejustice.org

The Justice is the independent student newspaper of Brandeis University. The Justice is published every Tuesday of the academic year with the exception of examination and vacation periods.

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Oct. 16—Police received a report of past larceny of a laptop from the Schneider School. Police compiled a report on the incident and notified the Library and Technology Services security department.

Oct. 17—Police received a report of an unattended laptop stolen from the Goldfarb library.

University Police compiled a report on the incident and notified the LTS security department.

Vandalism

Oct. 13—The Athletics Director reported the vandalism of a John Deere tractor outside the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center, and University Police then compiled a report on the incident.

—compiled by Avi Gold.

Coalition App seeks to level the admissions playing field

CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS

n A front-page Sports teaser about the men’s soccer team used a photo of the women’s soccer team. (Oct. 13, page 1).

Larceny

BRIEF

—Daisy Chen

n A News article incorrectly stated that Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel commented on how many expulsions had occurred due to sexual assault convictions over the last two years. He commented on removals from campus over the last three years. (Oct. 13, page 7)

Both parties were then transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital by Cataldo ambulance for further care.

MORGAN BRILL/the Justice

Prof. Kirun Kapur (ENG), a recent addition to the University’s English Department, reads a selection of her poetry on Wednesday night.

Kapur is the winner of the Arts and Letters Rumi Prize in poetry.

The Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success, a new group of over 80 universities nationwide including all eight members of the Ivy League, have announced that they plan to develop a new “Coalition App” as an alternative to the Common Application. The Coalition Application is intended to uproot the application system, which coalition members claim prioritizes students from privileged backgrounds.

Coalition, a free website, would have a set of tools available to students to help them plan their applications and collect information on universities without the help of a college advisor. According to a Sept. 28 Inside Higher Ed article, Coalition members believe that in recent years, the college application process has been dominated by college advisors, Scholastic Aptitude Test tutors and other professionals who are paid to groom high school students for many top-tier universities. When families can’t afford these specialists, the members argue, capable students have a disadvantage when it comes to applying to schools.

Those students may not know about certain activities or pieces of information to include or exclude in their applications in order to get a leg up on the competition, members argue. The Coalition, members argue, would help students make the most of the information available to them.

As of press time, the University has not yet adopted the Coalition or made any formal statement on it. At the Oct. 9 faculty meeting, Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel commented that he thought the Coalition would cause similar problems to the Common App, namely that wealthier students could hire professionals to help them take advantage of the tools on the new website.

“There’s really no interface designed for schools that don’t have large college counseling centers, … let alone for schools that don’t know how to use the Common App,” he argued. “You can only imagine the type of prep school industry that is going to grow up around this system.”

The Coalition website was scheduled to be launched in January, though that date has now been pushed back to May 2016, according to Flagel.

—Abby Patkin

ANNOUNCEMENTS Film Screening “The Lives of Others”

Today’s undergraduate students were born half a decade after the fall of the Berlin wall. To them, German unification is a historical event. They have no memory of the divided Germany, of how the wall fell and of how German unification transformed both East and West Germany, indeed all of Europe. In our campus week celebrating the 25th anniversary of German unification, we aim to provide a historical overview from before, during and after German reunification, focusing on East and West German perspectives, beginning with a film series.

Today from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Mandel Center for the Humanities, room G03.

The Prostration Hemerology

Professor Enrique Jiménez is an Assyriologist who specializes in ancient Mesopotamian literature and scholarly works from the first millennium B.C.E. He obtained his Ph.D. in Madrid in 2012 and is the senior

editor at the Cuneiform Commentaries Project. His main publications include several articles on Babylonian literature. He is currently working on a monograph entitled “Babylonian Disputation Poems,” under contract with the series “Culture and History of the Ancient Near East.”

Thursday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Lown Center for Judaica Studies, room 315.

True Yankees

Dane Morrison is a Professor of History at Salem State University and the author of “True Yankees: the South Seas and the Discovery of American Identity.”

He will be speaking about his latest research, tracing early American voyages to the East Indies and exploring how representations of that experience in the public sphere contributed to the construction of an American national identity.

Thursday from 4 to 5 p.m. in the Mandel Center for Humanities Reading Room.

Comedy Show featuring Hari Kondabolu

Come see Hari Kondabolu perform live at Brandeis. Hari is a Brooklyn-based, Queens-raised comic who has appeared on late night talk shows such as “the Late Show with David Letterman,” “Conan” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”

He had his own television special air on Comedy Central and has performed at HBO’s Comedy Festival. The New York Times has called Hari “one of the most exciting political comics in stand-up today,” and he is bringing his talents to Brandeis.

Friday from 8:30 to 10:30 p.m. in the Spingold Theater Center.

Carnival on the Great Lawn

Get your adventurous spirit ready at Carnival. There will be a giant Criss Cross Collision inflatable course, an adorable petting zoo, fun games, free food and more.

Sunday from 12 to 4 p.m on the Shapiro Campus Center Great Lawn.

THE JUSTICE

HEATHER SCHILLER/the Justice

CELEBRATING ACCEPTANCE: Students show off rainbow-colored giveaways and mingle at the center’s opening on Wednesday.

Gender and Sexuality Center opens to public provide resources and promote visibility for LGBTQ+ students.

By Arianna Unger JUSTICE Senior WRITER

On Wednesday, the Brandeis Gender and Sexuality Center celebrated its grand opening ceremony in the Usdan Winter Lobby.

The ceremony marked the Center’s one year anniversary and its establishment of a permanent and independent office in Usdan Student Center.

Prior to this year, all the branches of Triskelion and the Queer Resource Center were housed inside Student Sexuality Information Services in the Shapiro Campus Center. In October of last year, these student organizations petitioned for a more prominent and independent location on campus where they could more easily provide

nally come to fruition.”

One Brandeis alum, Simon Zahn ’12 who spearheaded an initiative to establish such a center when he was an undergraduate, also attended the ceremony to show his support. “We want people to be engaged,” Tunador added.

“The Gender and Sexuality Center can also be offered as a respite from negativity that LGBTQ+ students may encounter on campus and elsewhere.”

Ashani Peterkin ’16, a student intern at the Center, also expressed his hopes for what the Center will accomplish in an interview with the Justice: “I think the Center is going to provide a space for LGBTQ+ students to come together. … We want it to be a home so when students come, they feel comfortable,” he said. “It will also hopefully make queer people on campus more visible.” The grand opening event was sponsored by the ICC. —Editor’s note: Justice copy editing staff member Sabrina Sung ’18 is an intern at the GSC.

Campus speaker

Author argues for climate justice ■ Wen Stephenson

advocated for a more radical and united climate justice movement in a talk on Thursday.

By ABBY PATKIN JUSTICE EDITOR

The majority of the burden from global warming — both environmental and economic — falls to the lower classes and minorities, author and climate justice activist Wen Stephenson argued in a lecture on Thursday. Stephenson also prescribed a more radical and unified movement to combat climate change.

Drawing on examples including the town of Port Arthur, Texas, Stephenson discussed in his lecture how the air pollution from the oil refineries there had caused respiratory illnesses and other ecological burdens for the people living there, especially those living in the housing projects who could not afford to move. He noted that — as is the case for those in Port Arthur and in poorer areas around the world — if an individual is living in that type of situation, “you’re probably not thinking about some future [environmental] catastrophe; you’re living in one.”

“We owe the developing world … a massive ecological debt,” he added.

Prof. Sabine von Mehring (GRALL) began by introducing Stephenson, briefly discussing his career as a journalist for publications including the Boston Globe and the Nation and as a climate justice activist in their shared hometown of Wayland, Mass.

Stephenson then took the podium, introducing his book, “What We’re Fighting for Now is Each Other,” which came out Oct. 6. Stephenson also emphasized that the book is “just words on paper, and unless they’re translated into actions, they’re really

not worth much.”

According to Stephenson, his involvement in the climate justice movement began in 2006 to 2007, when he started taking walks around his neighborhood and to nearby Walden Pond. Five years ago, he wrote an essay, “Walking Home from Walden,” which he says started his exploration of “what climate justice means in the current climate crisis.”

Climate justice, Stephenson argued in his lecture, is the unification of humans in an effort to protect and save other humans in the wake of growing climate change. He then read the audience a portion of Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience,” noting that Thoreau was not an environmentalist but more of a naturalist who was deeply in love with nature. For Thoreau to love nature, Stephenson elaborated, was for him to “act together” with other humans.

Stephenson likened this unity and radicalism to the climate justice movement, also drawing upon the statistic that 80 percent of the Arctic ice has melted. “The entire stability of the global climate system depends on the stability of the Arctic,” he added.

On the subject of his personal journey while researching and writing the book, Stephenson stated, “the personal narrative arc in this book is really the radicalization of a privileged, white, middle-aged, center-left, mainstream liberal journalist. But I wasn’t radicalized by a long-held ideological commitment. … I was radicalized by the justice, by the science, by the implications of the science.”

He also spoke about how the majority of the fallout from pollution and climate change falls to minorities.

“Even in the very near term, what is ‘catastrophic’ depends on where you live and who you are and more often than not, the color of your skin.”

For big oil companies like Exxon Mobil and Texaco, he added, “to deny the science, deceive the public and

3

Sex crimes against men in war zones addressed in talk ■ Maike Isaac argued that

students with access to resources. On Oct. 12, 2014, their request was approved by the Student Union, and a resolution was passed in support of a new Gender and Sexuality Center and a paid director for the center.

As stated on their website, the mission of the Gender and Sexuality Center is to “provide resources, positive visibility, an affirming space, and advocacy for lesbian, gay, same gender loving, bisexual, transgender, gender nonconforming, queer, questioning, intersex, and asexual students, staff, and faculty at Brandeis University.”

“Through education, community building, and programming for the entire university community, all are encouraged to participate in creating and maintaining an inclusive environment,” the website also notes.

In an interview with the Justice, Felix Tunador, the Intercultural Center’s current gender and sexuality coordinator, explained that “students have been trying to get this kind of center from the late ’90s, and now it has fi-

TUESDAY, OCTOber 20, 2015

Campus speaker

ENCOURAGING VISIBILITY

■ The center hopes to

●

obstruct any serious response to this catastrophe is to willfully allow the eradication of entire countries and cultures. It is to rob people — starting with the poorest and most vulnerable — of their land and their homes and livelihoods and lives … for profit, for political power. There’s a word for this: they’re crimes. They’re crimes against the earth, and they’re crimes against humanity.”

Stephenson suggested that society respond to this injustice with a “kind of radically transformative social and political movement,” adding that people must first acknowledge that the mainstream environmental movement has failed. “That fight was lost really before it began, because it was started so late,” he added. “There’s nothing left to lose but our humanity.”

Next, Stephenson transitioned to discussing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech at Riverside Heights, New York on the subject of the Vietnam War as a “national sin.” Stephenson argued that society should take note of King’s radicalism and apply it to the climate justice movement. The discussion then moved into a question-andanswer session.

Stephenson heard from several other audience members, additionally engaging in a debate with Prof. Lawrence Wangh (BIOL) about whether protecting human life or other organisms’ lives should be the priority of a climate justice movement.

Wangh argued that Stephenson did not consider the importance of keystone and other integral species enough in his call to action, while Stephenson responded that Wangh’s approach “devalued” human lives.

The event was co-sponsored by the Mandel Humanities Center Working Group on Climate Change, Brandeis Climate Justice, Faculty Against the Climate Threat, the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism and the Center for German and European Studies.

the prosecution of male rape as “violence” hindered an understanding of attacks on males in armed conflict.

By Morgan brill JUSTICE editor

According to scholar Maike Isaac, one common denominator of every war-conflict zone of the last 20 years is sexual abuse against men. Isaac argued in a lecture on Monday that the prevalence of male sexual assault underscores the importance of changing determinations that the International Criminal Court has made regarding such conflict.

In the program, Isaac explained that the issue of male rape in situations of war is a constant problem that goes unnoticed in the context of international law as part of a problem that she considers in the larger context of “generally a big understatement of the sexual violence against men.”

Isaac, who has spent the last year completing her Masters in Law thesis and exploring the International Criminal Court’s stance on rape and sexual assault, is currently interning at the Boston office of Physicians for Human Rights at a program researching and publishing information on sexual violence in war. Additionally, she explained in her lecture that “of over 4,000 international and national human rights organizations that have programs of advocacy and support for victims of sexual violence in war time, only three percent mention sexual violence against men in their programs.”

Her thesis focused on ten cases prosecuted in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, in which the definitions of rape in war zones were partially determined, she said. In the vast majority of the cases, the ICTY determined that the perpetrator had to commit the rape themselves and that rapes ordered by a third party were considered violence, and thus the third party could not be convicted of rape. Additionally, the ICTY only classified rape as a crime against humanity. Therefore, in cases in which the overarching umbrella accusation of committing a crime against humanity is not stated, it is impossible to convict a person of committing rape. These acts were then referred to as “other acts of violence” according to Isaac.

In her presentation, Isaac focused on three cases in which the tribunal synthesized their definitions of rape. The only case that served to widen the definition of rape, she said, was the third case she discussed, in which an officer named Ranko Cesic was convicted of rape for forcing two prisoners to hit each other and perform oral sex on each other. This case was integral in the context of earlier rulings, in that it was the first in which the perpetrator was not specifically involved in the action and the court was still able to convict, Isaac argued. All other cases served only to narrow these definitions, only convicting in cases of direct action.

As a final example, Isaac cited a case filed against Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, which was completed in 2013. This case was one of the first cases dealing with sexual violence committed against men that was tried by the ICC after its establishment. This case, which dealt with the forced penetration of men in the Central African Republic by soldiers, served to widen the definitions of rape for cases in which the rape was not carried out by the perpetrators themselves, but the perpetrator was still convicted of rape, Isaac said. This change in international law, which Isaac described as a “positive step forward,” was as significant as the “first serious attempt in international criminal law to consider sexual violence beyond its obvious wrong in the forced sexual act and to understand what makes sexual violence such a powerful means of warfare,” she argued.

Ultimately, Isaac determined that rapes of men in war zones typically go under-reported and are generally neglected by international law. Rape and sexual violence committed against men in war zones, which according to Isaac, “is meant to shatter societal structures and gender roles,” is generally only viewed as violence, which serves to further reinforce the common view that men are not targets of sexual abuse.

In recognizing that men who commit rape against men deserve to be prosecuted in the context of sexual violence, Isaac added, the International Criminal Court would play an important role in promoting understanding and recognition of violence against men in armed conflict.

The event was sponsored by the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life.

HEATHER SCHILLER/the Justice

ADDRESSING VIOLENCE: In her talk, Maike Isaac discussed her reasearch into the effect gender roles and societal pressure plays on how male sex crimes in are reported and prosecuted in armed areas in conflict worldwide.

THE JUSTICE

CAMPUS SPEAKER

’09 discussed the changing role of Jews in Poland’s publishing industry in the 19th century.

By Rachel Moore JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

On Tuesday, the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry hosted Karen Auerbach, Ph.D. ’09, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for a discussion on the book she is currently writing, “‘For God and Country’: Jewish Publishers of Polish Books in the Nineteenth Century.”

Auerbach was introduced to the audience by one of her former professors, Prof. Eugene Sheppard (NEJS).

In attendance was Prof. Antony Polonsky (NEJS), Auerbach’s former doctoral adviser. “It is humbling to be introduced by my former professor and to be speaking in front of my adviser and actually everyone I’ve worked with in this room who has had a big impact on my life and my career,” she told the audience.

In his introduction, Sheppard noted that Auerbach is someone who is “attune to not only issues of space … but also questions of generation — something that can be seen in her paper today.”

Auerbach then began her lecture, noting that the origins of her latest writing project began in her research for a seminar paper she wrote for Polonsky, during which he advised her to read “Israelita,” which she described as “a newspaper [for] those who identified themselves as … assimilated Jews.”

“In reading that newspaper, … the main theme that came out … was that these individuals were very concerned about their children’s identities, that they were raising their children in Polish culture, Polish society and how to maintain a connection to Judaism and Jewish identity in their children’s lives,” she said.

“There was one article that said, ‘We don’t have to give our children biblical names, we can give them Slavic names now, but they should still learn Hebrew.’”

Auerbach then explained that a major point of interest for her in her research was the conversions from Judaism to Catholicism that occurred during this time period. “For the parents, it was a choice, it may have been a choice that was both pragmatic in terms of belief and convenience. For the children it was organic, it was what they were raised in,” she said. “It was not a choice, … the connection of Polish and Catholicism were integrated identities. … It was a confused identity.”

She added that when researching this trend, she “turned to publishers because there has been research on assimilation of Jewish economic elites in the 19th century. Involve-

ment in Polish culture was central to their work. It was not just that they were involved in Polish culture, but that they were mediators of Polish culture,” she said. “Which writers were supported, … which books they had access to … helped to shape what ideas were circulated.”

In particular, Auerbach noted that she studied the Lewentals, one of the most prominent Jewish publishers of the time period, through the diary of Hortensja Lewental, the wife of Frances de Sales Lewental, who ran the publishing company. In the diary, Lewental describes the dayto-day struggle of assimilation and, as Auerbach noted, she serves as an example of a spiritual converter, though she did not convert until shortly before her death.

In order to formulate a conclusion of the changing role of Jews and changing opinions of Jews at this time, Auerbach stated that, “The two brief questions were: How their roles as cultural mediators shaped their own identities and changing identities and on the other hand, how did their background as Jews shape what they published.” Moreover, she asked “To what degree did shared spaces lead to integration?”

A complicating factor, she noted, was that, according to various sources she has read, “social interactions were very common, but actual intimate friendships [between the Jewish and the Polish] were very rare.”

She added that her book is going to be about the Lewental family but will focus on the theme of “a microhistory of Polish nationalism from below, how individuals from below experienced nationalism and how those experiences reflect evolving and conflicting conceptions of nationalism.”

Since earning her Ph.D. from Brandeis’s Near Eastern and Judaic Studies Department in 2009, Auerbach has held research positions at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies in Washington, D.C. and the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, as well as teaching positions at various universities, including Monash University in Melbourne, Australia and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where she is currently an Assistant Professor and a Stuart E. Eizenstat Fellow.

The event marked the institute’s first colloquium of the year. The Tauber Institute began hosting colloquia in 2001 as a forum for students and faculty to share their current academic work falling within any area of modern Jewish studies and exchange thoughts and ideas on the topic in question. The Tauber Institute has six more colloquia scheduled for the remainder of the academic year. The next colloquium will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 10, and Mirjam Zadoff of Indiana University will present her work “Mapping Affections: Shiduchim, Networks, and Love Stories in Modern Judaism.”

ABBY GRINBERG/the Justice

5

TOMMY GAO/the Justice

DISSECTING LANGUAGE: Bobby Gonzalez discussed how the term “Hispanic” covers a variety of cultures and identities.

Gonzalez notes influences on Hispanic and Latino identity ■ Motivational speaker

Bobby Gonzalez addressed multiculturalism and the Hispanic identity in the talk.

By Rachel Moore JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Nationally renowned storyteller, poet and multicultural motivational speaker Bobby Gonzalez was the featured guest at AHORA’s, Brandeis’s Hispanic and Latino Organization, coffee talk on Hispanic identity, coordinated by AHORA Event Coordinator Alana Alves ’17. In celebration of the conclusion of Hispanic Heritage Month, Gonzalez took the floor to discuss the importance of recognizing Hispanic identity as a blend of cultures and heritage that should be inclusive for everyone.

Gonzalez has toured the country to speak to college students on awareness about other cultures. He has performed storytelling at venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Museum of Television and Radio and the Detroit Institute of Art. As a poet, he has taken the stage at the National Museum of the American Indian, the University of North Dakota and the Nuyorican Poets Café in New York. Gonzalez has several publications, including his most recent book of poetry, which is titled “Taíno Zen: Poetry From The South Bronx Reservation.”

Gonzalez began by sharing to the crowd of students that this was his third visit to Brandeis. He inquired as to the Latino heritage of the audience members and then described his own heritage as a Puerto Rican and a Taíno — a Native American population that historically resided

on the islands of Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and Jamaica. His parents migrated to the United States from Puerto Rico in the 1940s. “They came here with no money, knew no English and had almost no formal education … and they put all three of us through college,” he said. “I’ve lectured at Yale University, University of Mississippi … not bad for a kid who grew up in the projects of the South Bronx.”

He described that he and others from his childhood neighborhood who were able to get a college education and leave behind the less fortunate parts of their youth are “an example of the American dream coming true. There’s a dark side to it, but a lot of us do break through.”

Gonzalez explained that Hispanic people “are an ethnic and racial mosaic; we have European ancestry, African, Indigenous, Asian, Arab, Jewish.” He explained that “when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, he wasn’t the only one leaving Spain,” as Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand were in the process of forcing out all non-Christians. Furthermore, Gonzalez noted that it is not just in the Americas where one finds this blend of heritage and ancestry.

Unfortunately, he noted, time and fear of discrimination have worn away the memory of this Hispanic identity. Gonzalez cited the results of a recent DNA testing in New Mexico: “A lot of people who thought they were just Mexican-American were actually Jewish … because people came [to the Americas] and had to hide that they were Jewish. … After several generations, [their families] forgot [that they were Jewish].”

Gonzalez continued along the same theme, discussing African influence

on Latino culture and identity. “Latinos, we’re a mixture of everything, and I’m very proud of my African heritage,” he said. But, “if you’re Latino, it’s very difficult to see that AfricanAmerican heritage reflected in Spanish-language TV. If you watch ‘The Novellas,’ [a Spanish-language television program] you never see black Latinos, except if she’s the maid … or the husband’s woman-on-the-side.”

The problem of misrepresentation, he continued, as well as the absence of recognition of black heritage in television, can be seen in other programs as well. “You have these shows like ‘Jerry Springer’ … you have this blonde woman holding the microphone — she’s always blonde — and on the stage are people of color, yelling at each other and beating each other up. And so far, we have never seen a black woman holding the microphone and a bunch of blonde people on stage beating each other up.” Gonzalez told the audience that he wants to witness a change in the racist and discriminatory manner of such television shows.

“That’s why we need young people like you to get in there, [and] write and produce shows … we need young Latinos to break ground.”

Gonzalez finished his discussion by driving home the point of the importance of diversity.

“It’s very important for us to accept diversity in others, and in ourselves,” he said, concluding with the statement: “it seems to be a human trait to create an ‘other.’” He then invited students to come up and share their own thoughts. Clayre Benzadon ’17 shared an original poem titled “Our Chocolate Moonshine.” Her reading was followed by Pamela Escano’s ’17 original piece of poetry.

Academics

Marsh appointed to advisory board ■ The University chose Ed

Marsh for his experience in business-to-business marketing and remote management.

By Abby Patkin JUSTICE editor

EVOLVING ROLES: Auerbach discussed how pressure to convert affected the role Jews played in the Polish publishing industry throughout the 19th century.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2015

SOUL-SEARCHING

Talk addresses Jews in Polish publishing ■ Karen Auerbach Ph.D.

●

On Sept. 28, the University appointed Ed Marsh, the founder of a global business advising firm and an expert in marketing, to the advisory board for its new Master of Science in Digital Marketing and Design degree.

Marsh is the founder and principal of Consilium Global Business Advisors, a firm that offers consultations to businesses in the United States looking to expand and market worldwide. He has expertise in B2B and B2G, or business-to-business and business-to-government marketing, respectively. Marsh previously served on the advisory board for the M.S. in Virtual Team Management and Communication program.

In an email to the Justice, Marsh wrote that he is looking forward to getting involved with the academic program. He wrote that, “I am a fan of learning — it’s simple. Education’s always been an important part of my life,” noting that his value for education stems partly from his grand-

mother, who founded the Norwood School, a private day school in Washington, D.C. According to Marsh, his involvement with the University began in 2012, when he met Michaele Whelan, then the vice provost for academic affairs, at an event hosted by the International Business School. The two discussed Whelan’s plans to “invigorate” the advisory board program for the Rabb School of Graduate Studies, and suggested that Marsh — who has experience running a company remotely — might be a good fit for its virtual team management program.

This program taught students how to manage companies and do business remotely, often with the use of computers and other technology.

Marsh wrote that he accepted the job partly due to his own experiences as a graduate student, writing that after graduating from Johns Hopkins University, he was “ready for a break from academics, but then started a pair of executive graduate degree programs while I was still in the Army. I’ve always regretted that ‘life got in the way’ of completing them, and have tremendous respect for folks that manage to complete programs while working, parenting, … and I love the remote capability that Brandeis incorporates in it’s GBS programs. I wanted to help.”

After the Virtual Team Management program was cancelled in 2014, Marsh was uninvolved with the University for a year but wrote that he was excited to be tapped by the University for its the new Digital Marketing and Design program.

Drawing upon his experience in digital marketing and design from both Consilium and other startups, Marsh also noted that he believes that the program should seek to tackle one of the biggest issues the industry is facing now: “a dissonance between marketing training and approach, and business objectives,” which hampers companies’ “ability to execute and create organizational friction.”

“Much of selling now happens virtually—and it happens in the form of education,” Marsh wrote. “That means that the role of [Chief Revenue Officer] … becomes important in managing the balance of activities that were traditionally considered marketing, but are now actually integral to selling. … That means that marketing leaders need to develop the business chops to sit at the table with the executive team and contribute strategic value.”

He added that the new program will attempt to solve this issue by concerning itself with “strategy and creation of enterprise value” as much as “technical and operational aspects.”

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THE JUSTICE

CONTINUED FROM 1

TOMMY GAO/the Justice

The University's Jewish Chaplain, Rabbi Elyse Winick '86 (left) and Student Union President Nyah Macklin '16 discusses methods of improving on-campus accessibility.

SPEAK OUT: Adjunct faculty “over-utilized” on campus class of 20 students, while the starting compensation of an adjunct for teaching that class is $5,000. “This is the future of education: better facilities, better grounds, better compensated administrators, not so much for the educators,” Weinberg said.

Divanna Eckels ’18, a member of the Brandeis Labor Coalition, spoke next to voice her club’s support for the union effort. Then, Andy Klatt, a professor of Spanish at Tufts University, spoke about how, as a result of unionization efforts, Tufts' faculty received multiyear contracts and a professional development fund to cover expenses for conferences and research.

Additionally, according to Klatt, Tufts’ contract faculty received pay raises between 21 and 41 percent and have meetings five times a year between administrators and union representatives.

According to a flyer distributed at the event, by Sept. 2016, all Tufts's part-time faculty will make at least $7,300 per course, and parttime lecturers will receive first notice and fair consideration for any full-time positions available.

This includes a guaranteed interview and the opportunity to find out why one was not offered the position from a dean or department head. Abrams said in an interview with the Justice that Faculty Forward would consider the Tufts model, among others, if the union was formed.

Noting that Brandeis treats adjunct faculty better than at other institutions currently unionizing, Klatt said “our colleagues at Lesley University, Bentley University, Boston University, Northeastern University, are … looking to us at

places like Tufts and Brandeis so that other people who have more exploitative administrations have something to aspire to.”

While introducing Prof. Gordon Fellman (SOC), Abrams stated that studies have shown that adjunct unionization would not increase tuition by a significant degree compared to other expenditures that increase tuition annually. When the Justice asked for his specific source, Abrams referred to a 2013 Kent State study, which found that unionization on average reduces a university’s direct expenses and core educational costs by one percent. A separate study done by the American Institutes of Research found that since 2006, between 30 and 32 percent of student tuition dollars on average go toward funding faculty salaries and other instruction costs.

Fellman, a tenured faculty member, said, “When I started teaching there were almost no adjuncts.

There were very few people in that role. … I think those of us who are going to meet the candidates for a [new University] president will want to keep in mind one of the major issues, which is ‘How are you going to handle the adjunct pay?’”

Prof. Kelly Reddie (Heller) and Ben Kreider, a Ph. D. candidate in the Heller School, then voiced their support for unionization on the principle that it is also a social justice issue.

Kreider, who is part of a working group researching work wealth and inequality at Heller, said, “There is fear on this campus. … People say Brandeis is this great university, and it is, but just talking to professors and asking them about this, they were very afraid.”

In an email to the Justice, Kreider elaborated that he’s found fac-

TUESDAY, October 20, 2015

7

CAMPUS LIFE: Sodexo works to make dining services more accessible

ADDRESSING CHANGE

CONTINUED FROM 1

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ulty “seem to believe that speaking in favor of the union could lead to retaliation. However, they were also in favor of having a union and voiced a number of concerns to me about a lack of transparency regarding pay and career advancement. This seems to indicate that they do not feel very secure in their jobs, and that they agree with the objectives of the union campaign.”

Kreider noted that the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 gives workers the right to unionize without fear of retaliation.

Prof. Amy Todd (Rabb) then spoke about her concerns, noting that adjunct faculty were never intended to be so over-utilized by universities when the model was invented.

“My salary is more than covered by what just two enrolled students pay to take [my] class,” Todd said.

“Those of us who teach online … have additional concerns as we see Brandeis seeking licensing rights to our course content. We have no voice in the agreements that we are presented with. We have very little voice in anything.”

Rabbi Tovah Spitzer, a member of the Massachusetts Board of Rabbis, then voiced her support, adding, “Brandeis has historic connections to the Jewish community, and there is no higher value in Judaism than teaching.”

Aaron Goodwin ’18 of BLC closed the first half of the event, noting, “These people are more than just teachers; they’re friends, and they’re mentors.”

In the second half of the event, union advocates took questions and comments from a crowd of students and faculty in the Alumni Lounge.

and the position is kind of somebody who knows about coding and … when we’ve got a product, this person can see if there’s an obstacle to accessibility [and address the issue],” Rodgers-Kay said at the event.

Winick began the roundtable explaining her personal connection to the topic, sharing that she was shocked by the insights she learned from leading Taglit Birthright trips to Israel designed for people with autism.

She also spoke about the lengths she went to in order to accommodate a blind student on a different Birthright trip and how it affected the rest of the participants.

“I found myself making everyone close their eyes and feel the vastness of the space as we stood on the edge of a valley … and what happened as a result was that everyone else in the group was at least as transformed as the student whose needs we were trying to meet,” Winick recalled.

“That’s something to take into account as well. … I’d like to suggest that we’re so accustomed to framing the world in particular ways that when we shift the framing to accommodate those who experience the world differently, we’re also the beneficiaries,” Winick added.

During the course of the roundtable, Kerry Patenaude, the assistant director of Disabilites Services and Support, stressed the “invisible disabilities,” like sensory disabilities or learning disabilities, that often get overlooked for the more obvious ones, like wheelchairs.

Haley Muth ’16, the president of the Brandeis American Sign Language Club, observed that more often than not, deaf people do not consider themselves disabled and that miscommunication leads to the deaf community becoming isolated, which can be negated by a welcoming and engaging attitude.

Patenaude also stressed the importance of screen readers, which help the visually-impaired interpret slides and readings during class, and pointed out the need for “universal design,” which is an approach to building products and designing courses in which all abled and disabled communities can use the product or access the information available.

Rodgers-Kay pointed out a number of problems with accessibility in the library, particularly that database vendors are not required to make their products compatible with screen readers, meaning visually-impaired students cannot access information available on

databases the University pays for.

While the panel agreed that this was not an issue which the University could tackle unilaterally, several speakers proposed that the University lead a coalition of Boston-based colleges and universities in demanding better access to such technology from database vendors.

Specific to Brandeis, RodgersKay noted that library aisles are not wide enough for wheelchair access and that elevators that are wheelchair-accessible are not clearly marked.

As the discussion opened up to attendees, Jade Lera ’17 spoke about her experiences eating on campus, stating that, as a blind student, she often struggles with dining options on campus.

“Most of the time, I only go to the dining halls if I have someone to go with, but I don’t want to feel like I have to do that,” she said. “I want to go to dinner just for the company.” Rodgers-Kay pointed out that while the accessibility of dining halls needs to be fixed, some places like Louis’ Deli offer students the opportunity to order ahead of time online, which can ease issues surrounding reading the menu or interacting with staff members.

In her email to the Justice, Rodgers-Kay noted that Disability Services has been working with Sodexo to improve accessibility in the dining halls.

“For example, a student who is blind can use a screen reader such as Mac VoiceOver to discover menus being offered and decide ahead of time what he or she might like to eat. When the student enters the dining area, knowing precisely what he or she wants — it is so much easier to locate that menu item. Additionally, when the floor plan or layout of the dining area, food stations or Hoot Store are kept consistent, students can learn and find what they're looking for with greater ease,” she wrote.

Rodgers-Kay ended the roundtable by pointing out that the University has consistently helped students with disabilities in the past.

Additionally, she mentioned that the Office of Disabilities Services for Undergraduates once worked with the Registrar in order to change the location of a class from the second floor to the first floor for a student who had mobility issues. “I think when I compare what is happening on this campus to what I know is happening on some other campuses, Brandeis is actually dong a pretty good job,” Rodgers-Kay said.

—Max Moran contributed reporting.

BUDGET: A-Board Chair warns clubs against coercion CONTINUED FROM 1 ticipate that our expectations will be any less stringent, or our pockets any deeper.”

He sent a follow-up email to club leaders on Thursday to clarify what is expected of club leaders during the appeals process, also specifying that coercion of A-Board members is not acceptable.

Giveaways will rarely be funded by

the A-Board, while “swag” will never funded, Mitchell wrote, and only Student Events is allowed to have alcohol at their events.

He added that all movie and television events must involve the purchasing of licensing rights, as it is copyright infringement to hold an official club event and watch a film that was taken out of the library or streamed on Netflix or a similar provider.

Addressing coercion of A-Board

members, he wrote, “There is an absolute zero-tolerance policy against bribes, kickbacks, threats, and intimidation. If you use any of these tactics to help your cause, then we will 1) reject your appeal on policy grounds and 2) add you to an internal blacklist to make sure you do not receive funding in the spring.”

He added, “Publicly airing your grievances with the A-Board, decisions, or its members may make us

less receptive to an appeal request.”

He continued by writing that the Allocations Board is “one of the few places that I feel students can still have their voices heard and make an impact in school policy. It really sickens me that some clubs would actively try to jeopardize that independence [by involving administrators] in order to secure more money for themselves.”

In his original email, Mitchell

wrote that the A-Board is adding policies to increase its transparency in the allocations process moving forward, including a Google Calendar with all A-Board funded events listed to “minimize the exclusivity of events in the future.

The appeals marathon runs until Monday, at which point club funding for the semester will be set.

Mitchell did not respond to request for comment by press time.

8

features

TUESDAY, October 20, 2015

just

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THE JUSTICE

VERBATIM | ANNE FRANK “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”

ON THIS DAY…

FUN FACT

In 1803, the U.S. Senate approved the Louisiana Purchase.

A toaster uses almost half as much energy as a full-sized oven.

A HISTORIAN’S DREAM: Prof.

David Hackett Fischer’s (HIST) bestselling book “Champlain’s Dream” inspired a French Canadian docudrama series called, “Le Rêve de Champlain.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVID HACKETT FISCHER

PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVID HACKETT FISCHER

A SMILING SUCCESS: Fischer’s numerous historical publications have won him a Pulitzer Prize and now a Pritzker Award in Literature.

From Pulitzer to Pritzker

Prof. David Hackett Fischer (HIST) will receive the Pritzker Award in Literature for Lifetime Achievement

By Kirby Kochanowski JUSTICE Contributing Writer

To Prof. David Hackett Fischer (HIST), “history is not only about the past: it’s about memories of the past, it’s about experiences of the present, and it’s about anticipation of the future,” Fischer said in an interview with the Justice. In describing his childhood, Fischer recalls growing up in the midst of great historical events like the Great Depression, World War II and the Cold War. Yet to Fischer — and no doubt to many others — these events were also family events. “War was very much a part of my own experience,” Fischer said.

Professor Fischer has turned that experience into expertise — with over 15 publications in the historical field gaining him international acclaim. Most of his work has a military focus, though Fischer is also interested in looking at the history of inequality in the world. Fischer works in the History Department at Brandeis, and his academic success has earned him the title of University Professor.

On Nov. 7, Fischer will travel with his wife to Chicago where he will accept the Pritzker Award for his lifetime achievement in military writing. The Pritzker Military Museum and Library is

a nonprofit organization dedicated to the understanding of military history. Each year, a panel of past winners honors a historian with the Pritzker Literature Award. Referring to the award, Fischer says, “It’s a great honor to be in [the company of past winners] and to work with the Pritzker family.”

This is not the first time Fischer has been recognized for his excellence in historical scholarship. His book, “Washington’s Crossing,” was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Historical Writing in 2005 and was a National Book Award Finalist. Fischer has also received the Irving Kristol Award from the American Enterprise Institute and in 1990, he was honored with the Carnegie Prize as Massachusetts Professor of the Year.

Fischer began teaching at Brandeis in the fall of 1962, and “I enjoy it as much now as I ever did,” said Fischer. During that time, Fischer has worked to develop a series of three topicfocused courses meant to replace the typical survey course offerings. By doing so, Fischer hopes to increase enrollment and pique student interest in history.

In his teaching, Fischer likes to look at history from an atypical perspective. “Much of academic history centered for many

decades…on an idea of history which made people into the objects of history rather than agents,” said Fischer. Instead, he looks at the specific choices made by people and how those choices have made a difference in the world.

Fischer believes that we are

“

History is not only about the past ... it’s about experiences of the present, and it’s about anticipation of the future.

DAVID HACKETT FISCHER

“in the early stages of a revolution in historical knowledge…as a consequence of the digital revolution.” Fischer’s work seems to be on the cusp of this revolution.

In 2014, his book “Champlain’s Dream” was used as inspiration for a Canadian docudrama series, “Le Rêve de Champlain,” which focused on the life of French ex-

plorer Samuel de Champlain. The series is currently only available in French, but a production has already begun filming an English version with a planned release in approximately one year.

Earlier this fall, the Canadian series was awarded the prestigious Prix Gémeaux for best digital production. The award was “for the breadth of the approach to people of many ages and conditions,” Fischer explained.

The producers of the Canadian series not only made the story of Champlain accessible through television but also produced expanded ways for children and adults to interact with the story on their tablets and through other media devices.

The series website is filled with videos, interactive games and behind-the-scenes footage dedicated to learning about Champlain, and the app created for children features more minigames, as well as a graphic novel.

“People get interested in history when they start thinking about it at an early age, … and we’re trying to use every tool that we can think of to reach people with history,” Fischer said.

Yet despite the progress made through digital media formats, a surprising trend emerged this past year: hardbound copies of Fischer’s books have outsold

their digital versions. In his books, Fischer works to make use of mass media and visual materials to “use the printed page in new ways,” he said.

Fischer’s next book is a history of slavery. “It’s about the extraordinary things that slaves succeeded in doing in the face of the horrors that were done to them,” he explained.

“The work slaves accomplished in regard to boatbuilding, animal care, ironwork and the complex development of language and culture is an incredible testament to their strength.

“I’m writing a book to celebrate all of this … and to celebrate these extraordinary achievements,” said Fischer.

In addition to this book, Fischer is also working on a book about a favorite subject of his: Marquis de Lafayette, the Revolutionary war hero.

Fischer’s breadth of historical scholarship is certainly impressive, but it is his ability to use modern approaches to learning and think proactively that truly make him unique in his field. As we move into the future, Fischer hopes that students and historians alike will turn to history because “[the past] can yield an enormous expansion of knowledge that we urgently need in the world today,” he said.

THE JUSTICE

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Tuesday, OCtober 20, 2015

LENDING A HAND: A member of the prosthetics club puts the final touches on his 3D-printed prosthetic hand.

PHOTOS BY MIHIR KHANNA/the Justice

Printing helping hands New club uses 3D printers to create prosthetics for children

By ERICA SChutzman JUSTICE contributing writer

As medical technology advances, 3D printing is revolutionizing the field of prosthetics, especially for children. The Brandeis Prosthetics Club is contributing to this innovative movement by printing and creating prosthetics for children, in the MakerLab of the Farber library.

The Brandeis Prosthetics Club was formed at the beginning of the Fall 2015 semester and is comprised of about 15 students. Still in the process of becoming recognized by the Student Union as a chartered club, it works to print prosthetic hands using the 3D printers in the Maker Lab. Liz Washington ’17, president of the club, founded the club at the beginning of the semester. She explained in an interview with the Justice that she has always been passionate about the prosthetics field and wanted to focus on a more specialized part of 3D printing. Washington went on to explain that the 3D printing club has been interested in printing hands for a while, and when she expressed her interest in prosthetics to the Service Coordinator of the MakerLab, Hazal Uzunkaya ’14, Uzunkaya suggested that she create a club that focused solely on printing prosthetics.

Uzunkaya worked at the MakerLab while she was a student at Brandeis.

After graduating with a major in Neuroscience and a minor in Physics, she became passionate about neural interfaces, which are systems that operate at the intersection of the nervous system and an internal or external device. While an undergraduate student at Brandeis, she printed her first hand out of flexible material and then ordered parts for a bionic prosthetic hand. Uzankaya is now the advisor to the prosthetics club.

“I hate to think of it as giving kids with ‘disability’ a normal life; why not turn this ‘disability’ into a benefit?

Let’s say you need to read your book after it is lights out. You can easily put a small LED flashlight into your thumb, and there, now your book is lit while you’re holding your book. Or, if you were working at a farmers’ market, you could put a scale in your arm, and instead of having to carry the vegetables to the scale, you can simply lift the bag of vegetables with your prosthetic hand and a small screen on your hand, shows the weight,” Uzankaya explained in an email with the Justice.

The club uses prosthetic templates from a global organization called eNABLE and is working to become certified through e-NABLE so that they can begin to print hands for people in the Boston area. “A single prosthetic can cost between $5,000 and $50,000 and kids grow quickly so they sometimes need two or three a year,” explained Washington. By partnering with e-NABLE, the club would be able to print free hands for children.

Once the prosthetics club becomes certified by e-NABLE, they will re-

ceive an email every time someone in the Boston area needs a prosthetic hand, and they will work with the family to determine a child’s exact measurements in order to print a hand that is the most functional for the child. In order to become certified by e-NABLE, club members have to send in models of hands they have printed for approval. Once members are certified, they can head a project and be connected with kids.

Priyam Shah ’17, one of the club’s research and development specialists, explained the positive impact that the lower costs of printing prosthetics will have on families: “Instead of having that amount of money spent, we could spend a lot less, which opens the doors to more people, it increases accessibility, and I think Brandeis is a university that really focuses on accessibility … so this is a good project for … the type of mindset students have here.”

The club is currently working on reaching out to professors and other organizations such as Boston Children’s Hospital to raise awareness about e-NABLE and is learning how to print more advanced prosthetics.

“If we’re going to want to innovate, we’re going to need people who know more than we do,” said Washington.

In addition to striving to become

certified by e-NABLE, the prosthetics club is also working to perfect their printed models.

“On the end of designing and printing a hand, if we were to do that for a client, a challenge would be getting the measurements right, making the hand the right size: if the hand is too big, then you can’t apply enough force to cause the tension strings to move, and so the hand would be useless — you couldn’t grip anything with it,” Shah explained. “We’ve been thinking a lot because these hands are for kids, and they [the hands] have open strings that would get attached to things; even the models we’ve made have broken over the few months we’ve had them…so we’re definitely trying to find ways to innovate [them] and make sure that every hand will last as long as the kid needs it to last,” added Washington. e-NABLE provides templates for 3D printed hands that maximize a hand’s functionality, but there are also a variety of creative templates.

“You could print 3D hands that look like the hands of princesses or there is also … a pattern to print a hand that looks like Iron Man’s hand. That’s more of the fun innovation part and less of the practical, but if a kid is going to have a plastic hand that you print for them, it might as well be

cool,” said Washington.

John Deny ’17, one of the club’s research and development specialists works with Shah in the Maker Lab. Both are interested in the intersection between health care and technology: “Prosthetics is a middle ground between emerging technology and medicine … it’s at the intercourse of two of our passions, and it’s something that we both really enjoy doing,” said Deny.

Washington, who is double majoring in Health: Science, Society and Policy and Sculpture, has always been interested in the health professions and helping people. “I wanted to go into medicine and helping people … [and] this is the middle ground between two of my passions, which is why I’ve always wanted to go into prosthetics … and figuring that out, that this was possible, made my career something I could work on [during] my time at college, which is amazing,” she said.

Vice president, David Landesman ’17, found his way to the prosthetics club through the 3D printing club.

In working with Uzankaya in the 3D printing club, he has printed and constructed a 3D hand before. He hopes that the club is only a few weeks away from being approved by e-NABLE. For the future of the club, Landes-

man hopes that they can establish a connection with the kids to keep updating their hands as they grow and to keep expanding technology. “I’m a neuroscience major, so I’m also interested in possibly bridging the gap and putting sensors on them to control — which is being done at places like the Massachusetts Institute of Tecnology, but we’d like to put our feet in the door,” Landesman said.

A junior at Brandeis and a member of the prosthetics club, Troia Reyes-Stone ’17 was curious about 3D printing technology and wanted use the technology to help kids. When asked what she’s enjoyed the most so far, she said, “I mean everything, the club — everyone here is really awesome. 3D printing is really interesting — it’s something new and challenging. Being able to build a hand and be like ‘this could be on someone, this could change someone’s life,’ is a really powerful experience.”

The prosthetics club “connects so many different areas of the sciences with hands-on learning, and I think that’s a really important thing,” Washington said. “We’re doing good for people and for kids and…what feels better than doing good for kids?”

— Brianna Majsiak contributed reporting.

A MODELED EXAMPLE: Founder and president of the club Liz Washington ’17 displays a prosthetic hand that was 3D printed in the Maker Lab.

HUMMING AND PRINTING: A 3D printer (center) is in the process of printing a prosthetic hand that can take up to 14 hours to complete.

FIRST-HAND: Isabelle Rosenblatt ’17 strings together her first prosthetic hand that will be submittied for approval through e-NABLE next week.

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10 TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2015 ● THE JUSTICE

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Max Moran, Editor in Chief Avi Gold, Managing Editor Hannah Wulkan, Deputy Editor Morgan Brill, Rebecca Lantner, Catherine Rosch, Jaime Kaiser and Grace Kwon, Associate Editors Abby Patkin, News Editor, Brianna Majsiak, Features Editor Jessica Goldstein, Forum Editor, Noah Hessdorf, Sports Editor Jaime Gropper, Arts Editor Michelle Banayan and Mihir Khanna, Photography Editors Emily Wishingrad, Online Editor Carmi Rothberg, Copy Editor Talia Zapinsky, Advertising Editor

EDITORIALS

Encourage adjunct faculty unionization efforts In 2011, according to the American Association of University Professors, 70 percent of college faculty were contingent, nontenure track professors, paid significantly less than their significantly smaller number of tenured colleagues. The rates of contingent faculty employed at universities has only continued to rise nationwide, and Brandeis is no exception. Just as at other campuses in the Boston area, the University’s adjunct staff has been pushing to form a union. Last Tuesday, faculty, students and staff organized outside the Usdan Student Center for a “Speak Out” event about Brandeis Faculty Forward, a coalition pushing for unionization. They have two main concerns:―job security and benefits.

This editorial board believes that the adjunct and contract faculty should form a union and formally endorses Faculty Forward’s efforts. Brandeis Faculty Forward has proven to be a group that engages transparently with the Brandeis community on a critical issue, as they showed through their Speak Out in front of the entire school.

The two main concerns adjunct faculty have are pay and benefits. Adjunct professors can make as little as $5,000 per class per semester. In a 20-person class, the University makes about $125,000 per class per semester. It is antithetical to the University’s message of social justice to pay adjunct professors so little, especially given the amount of money individual students are spending per class. In fact, some professors who spoke at the Speak Out shared

Enhance job security

how they have to work at multiple universities in the area just to make ends meet. It is unacceptable that those who teach and advise us are forced to live off of what is equivalent to the minimum wage. Additionally, adjunct faculty are not provided yearlong health coverage, even though they are Brandeis professors. This board firmly believes that all University professors deserve to make a living wage, one that is well above the current state minimum wage of nine dollars an hour.

Another issue facing adjunct faculty is a lack of job and financial security. Professors who are not on the tenure track are generally only hired on a semester or yearly basis. This makes it more challenging for them to plan for their futures or teach courses of a contentious nature because they do not have guaranteed financial security from one semester to the next. Because adjunct faculty do not know if they will be returning to the University the next semester, it makes it more challenging for them to advise or serve as a resource to students.

This board recognizes these concerns and agrees that professors at Brandeis deserve basic job protections and security.

Additionally, a study by Kent State found that unionization leads to universities using their funds more efficiently by one percent. Unionization is a wise fiscal move, in addition to an ethically just action. Job security and benefits of our faculty are well worth any imagined cost.

Review campus accessibility for the disabled In a roundtable discussion last Thursday, students and staff discussed accessibility issues to University services and gathered suggestions about how to make the University more disability-friendly.

As of yet, Disability Services have pursued a “bottom-up” approach to working with students with disabilities, developing individual plans to accommodate the needs of individual students. This “bottom-up” approach includes allowing students with specific learning disabilities to use laptops in class or have extra time on tests and making sure that students with physical disabilities or injuries can take BranVans to and from buildings for classes.

While this board approves of the personalized planning and attention brought on by this system, treating each issue separately does not excuse broader accessibility problems that require systemic change across the board.

Due to the age of campus infrastructure, we worry that the University may not be fully compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. When the Justice asked about the University’s ADA compliance status, officials did not respond with a clear answer. It is critical, both for students applying to the University and the broader consciousness of the University community, that this information is clearly stated and explained.

We urge the University to complete and publish a thorough examination of our buildings’ ADA compliance statuses for the University community to review. The first step to at last addressing this issue is clearly identifying which buildings need what renovations to achieve compliance, then estimating cost and determining strategies for achieving the goal. Publishing the findings and recommendations of such a study would give students, as well as donors, a better idea of what Brandeis

Publicize compliance status requires to achieve a more conducive learning environment.

In addition to this, we also know from the testimony of at least one student at the roundtable that the designs of both Usdan and Sherman Dining Halls make it nearly impossible for blind students to navigate the all-you-can-eat sections without having a friend or assistant explain each separate dish. Seeing as how meal plans are now a mandatory expense, the fact that dining halls might not be easily accessible to all students is inherently problematic. Also concerning were this student’s points about difficulty utilizing Screen Reader software with the tablets in Upper Usdan Dining Hall.

In addressing the changing needs of the student body, it seems that the University would be best served by acting preemptively in order to ensure that students can be comfortable from the outset.

We find it hard to believe that no donors to a university committed to social justice would be interested in supporting these changes, as they reinforce Brandeis’ fundamental character and encourage a broader range of qualified applicants, paying back the investment in the long run. Before any educated action, dismissive or affirmative, can be taken, however, clear data must first be gathered.

Students are entitled to their independence. In adhering more closely to a universal design which accommodates for differently abled students from the get-go, the University would be able to successfully ensure that this student body is both accommodating and diverse in its experiences and approaches to learning. It is in the best interest of the University to strive to accommodate for students needs before they arise.

GRACE KWON/the Justice

Views the News on

Last Tuesday, CNN hosted the first 2016 Democratic debate featuring candidates Hilary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley, Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee. The event, hosted in Las Vegas and moderated by CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, reached a new high in viewership: 11 percent of American homes with televisions tuned into the broadcast, according to CNN, beating the previous record of 8.9 percent in 2008.

Among the key issues discussed during the debate were American involvement in the Middle East, gun control and economic policy. Sanders and Clinton took time to address some of the key concerns of their campaigns, including the perception that Clinton flip-flops on issues and Sanders’s self-described political philosophy of democratic socialism. Who won the debate?

Dor Cohen ’16 Both Hilary Clinton and Bernie Sanders had a few soundbites during the debate, but ultimately no candidate stood out a great deal. A better question is “who lost,” and the biggest loser of the night was the audience.

In a debate widely hailed as focused on policy, there was actually very little depth in the moderator’s questions and the candidates’ answers.

Anderson Cooper did not grill Bernie Sanders on the cost of his proposals and how he will pay for them, did not press the candidates further on what specific actions they would take to rebuke Putin’s advance into the Middle East and did not push them to state what specific gun control measures they would implement, among other instances. Except for the beginning, the questions asked of the candidates were soft, and the candidates were able to present their fanciful platforms without scrutiny.

The American people were deprived of a complete understanding of the platforms of the candidates — a worrisome outcome that should be rectified in future debates.

Dor Cohen ’16 is the president of Brandeis Conservatives. He is also a columnist for the Justice.

Iona Feldman ’17 Optimistically speaking, the principal winner of Tuesday’s debate was not any one politician, but rather the social movements that effectively pressure them to take more progressive stances. Without disruptive protests by activists from Black Lives Matter, there would not have been a question testing their understanding of institutional racism. Without the growth of the global climate justice movement, we would not have seen such a willingness from the candidates to discuss climate change before being prompted by the moderator. The influence of Occupy Wall Street (on economic inequality), United We Dream (on undocumented youth interests) and the 2009 University of California tuition hike protests (on free higher education) were also felt. But for this to be a true “victory” for the movements, they must not be satisfied with any politician’s answer, no matter how well worded. Social change must be led by the grassroots: only then will the politicians follow.

Iona Feldman ’17 is a member of Brandeis Climate Justice.

Shaquan McDowell ’18

I’d agree with the polls that say Clinton won. This is not to dismiss Sanders as ineffective and unimportant. In various areas, including income inequality and global warming, Senator Sanders unquestionably deposed Former Secretary Clinton as regent. These points alone, points that resonate with the young demographic, generated a whirlwind of response via social media.

From this analysis, one could presume that Sanders was more successful in the debate, but that account would fail to factor in that the large majority of social media users are young people. While this is commendable, in judging the outcome entirely, it’s important to focus on the specific points made by the candidate. Secretary Clinton continued to outweigh Senator Sanders in the areas of foreign policy, economy, health care. Whether Sanders is too socialist or Clinton is untrustworthy is not the point of the debate; the point is to evaluate what they said in that evening, and to determine whose explanation is more accepted by the democratic base — that’s Clinton.

Shaquan McDowell is the co-president and co-founder of the Purple Party.

Noah Coolidge ’16 In the world of presidential debates, “winner” and “loser” are relative terms. Presidential debates are important because they give the public the opportunity to learn about different candidates, and they give candidates a way to get their messages out to voters. At this stage especially, name recognition and spreading a message is more important than success. Everyone did this, at least reasonably well, and no one made any horrible gaffes. The best way to measure the effectiveness of a debate performance is to look at two polls: one conducted before a debate and one conducted immediately afterward among viewers. In a CNN/ORC poll conducted Oct. 14 through 17 after the debate, Sanders got 33 percent to Clinton’s 56 percent. But in their previous poll, conducted September 17 through 19, Sanders had been at 28 percent and Clinton at 57 percent.

Sanders increased 5 percent and Clinton decreased by 1 percent, both inside the margin of error for comparison between the two polls. Even though a majority of those polled said that Clinton won the debate, the fact that she failed to gain additional support in the horserace means that the debate was simply a wash.

Noah Coolidge ’16 is a student leader for Brandeis for Bernie.

THE JUSTICE

READER COMMENTARY Anthropology backs adjunct unionization As the chair of the Brandeis Department of Anthropology, I am delighted to report that 100 percent of the anthropology department’s tenured and tenure-track faculty have signed the Brandeis Faculty Forward petition in support of a vote among faculty outside the tenure track for a union.

We did not discuss this issue as a department; each of us signed the petition on her or his own. In fact, I do not know the opinions of my departmental colleagues on the tenure track on unionization in general or at Brandeis. Those opinions are moot, since as tenured and tenure-track faculty, we would not be included in the vote nor would we be part of the union.

But we are unanimous in our admiration and respect for our colleagues outside the tenure track, in our belief that it is vital to address professional inequities in universities, and in our sense that all faculty (and all workers) need to feel supported and safe to have these conversations.

—Elizabeth Ferry (ANTH), chair of the department of anthropology

Criticize University’s exclusionary ID policy In response to your article “Commuters denied access to dorms (Oct.13), the following is an open letter sent to DCL: Hello, I would like to complain about the policy that doesn’t allow people living off campus to swipe into the residence halls. Students at Brandeis who live on-campus have the ability to swipe into any hall, not just the ones they live in, and it doesn’t make sense that students of Brandeis who happen to live off-campus have to be treated like strangers. Every time I am invited to a friend’s dorm, I have to have them come down and open the door, and this doesn’t make me feel very included in the campus that should be my home. I hope you will reconsider this policy.

—Arya Boudaie ’17

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TUESDAY, OCTOber 20, 2015

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Reaffirm commitment to European refugee crisis

By DYLAN HOFFMAN JUSTICE CONTIBUTING WRITER

The civil war in Syria has led to a massive increase in the number of asylum seekers entering the European Union. Germany has been extremely welcoming to the incoming refugees while other states, such as Italy, Slovenia and Hungary, have been more resistant to granting asylum-seekers residence. Recently, there has been growing disapproval in Germany towards Chancellor Angela Merkel’s generosity: her party is losing national support, and there has been a rise in anti-Islam demonstrations in Germany. The reasons for this recent wave of unrest range from logistical to nationalistic. Some of the concerns are legitimate. According to an Oct. 4 article in The Atlantic, the German registration system is becoming increasingly bogged down by new applications, and the settlement offices are running out of the resources necessary to settle the refugees in Germany. However, all of this does not mean that Germany or the greater European Union should close their borders. Rather, other European Union countries should follow Germany’s lead by accepting and settling more asylum seekers.

Ultimately, the strongest argument in favor of accepting more refugees is a simple question: what other choice is there? These are people who have already risked their lives making a dangerous journey to escape a country plagued by an authoritarian regime and a bloody civil war. If they are denied entry to European nations, they are left with a few bleak options. Return to their home country is not an option, so they are forced to continue a dangerous journey. According to an Amnesty International report released on Oct. 12, 86 percent of refugees end up in developing nations, which rarely have the resources necessary to offer proper shelter. While it would be ideal if other countries, such as Saudi Arabia, were to open their borders to asylum seekers, they haven’t, and it doesn’t appear that international pressure is going to be able to change that. This means that the responsibility falls on the European countries to take care of the refugees who have already traveled to Europe.

The alternative would be sending asylum

seekers to extended periods of suffering or their deaths. And while Germany is doing an admirable job, they cannot do it alone.

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European Union countries should follow Germany’s lead by accepting and settling more asylum-seekers.

According to The Atlantic, the strain on the German system is more due to administrative backlog than a lack of funding. If other European Union countries were to be as accepting towards refugees as Germany has been, it would go a long way in reducing the strain on the bureaucratic resources of the German system, which, according to an Oct. 3 Los Angeles Times article, expects to receive up to one million refugees this year.

This would allow them to be more thorough with background checks for incoming migrants, as well as process the new arrivals faster, meaning that they could be moved away from temporary camps and granted housing faster, which in turn would both accelerate the integration process while improving the conditions the refugees face.

One of the many arguments against offering residence to asylum seekers is that they receive financial support from the government, therefore putting a drain on the economy and adding an undue burden to already underfunded welfare programs. While this might be true in the short term, as Guntram Wolff argues in his Sept. 11 Financial Times op-ed, empirical evidence shows that the long-term economic effects of accepting immigrants is a net positive.

Because a lot of European countries are struggling with an aging population and dropping birth rates (Germany currently has the lowest birthrate in the world, according to a May 29 BBC article), the relative youth of the

asylum-seekers should be welcome. They will increase the available workforce in the European countries, adding much-needed stability to pension programs that will become increasingly strained as the current workforce ages.

Since increased immigration generally boosts the host country’s economy, we should look at other arguments against more generous asylum policies. One of the common arguments is that refugees pose a national security threat, that it is impossible to execute thorough background checks and that Germany might be allowing militants from the Islamic State into the country, alongside genuine refugees.

However, this line of reasoning is flawed.

As Daniel Altman wrote in a Sept. 8 Foreign Policy article, “[Refugees] are trying to escape extremism and violence, not ferment it.” Besides, are we really willing to send thousands of people back to a war zone because we think they might be terrorists? Even if there are terrorists among the refugees, they still have to apply for asylum before they are settled in the host country. That, along with the barriers to terrorism that exist in most countries (the police, etc.), make the risk of attacks negligible.

The same line of thinking applies to the argument that the refugees won’t be able to assimilate to the European cultures. Failed integration is simply not a reason to deny asylum. The choice is between letting thousands of people die and suffer in an impossible situation or providing them with safety and an improved quality of life. Even if they never do fully integrate, it is still an improvement in their situations and will provide long lasting benefits to the economies of the host countries. As the Foreign Policy article cited above argues, not only do they increase the size of the workforce, they also increase the consumer base, acting as a natural economic stimulant.

These people are fleeing a terrible situation, and the European Union has no choice but to act. The settling of migrants and asylum-seekers will provide long term economic benefits while posing a negligible threat to national security. More countries need to be as accepting as Germany, so the crisis can handled in a more complete way, and the asylum seekers can be treated with the dignity they deserve.

Begin teaching sexual assault prevention in high school curricula

By BEN FESHBACH JUSTICE CONTIBUTING WRITER

In the past few years, the topic of campus sexual violence has grown from relative obscurity in the political and news media to a regular item of discussion on television, in editorial pages and among policymakers. Last September, he White House started its own campaign to end campus sexual violence, “It’s On Us,” at the launch of which Vice President Joseph Biden vowed to “change the culture that asks the wrong questions.” Following the midterm elections last November, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) suggested that legislation dealing with sexual assault on campus might — just might — be one of those issues where Democrats and Republicans might be able to come together.

Some states have taken matters into their own hands as well; California, for instance, became the first state in the union to adopt an affirmative consent or “yes means yes” policy that applies to all colleges and universities operating in its jurisdiction. And, of course, individual colleges and universities have enacted school-specific reforms — sometimes due to pressure from students and sometimes due to a Department of Education investigation. Results from a recent survey by the Association of American Universities of 150,000 students at 27 universities nationwide, in which a little more than one in five women report being a victim of sexual assault, mean that despite the media coverage and despite the institutional reforms, we aren’t yet seeing any progress.

Here at Brandeis — where we are indeed a school under investigation by the Department of Education for Title IX violations due to how sexual assault is handled here on campus — 22 percent of women report in the most recent survey that they are a victim of sexual assault, according to the Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Misconduct.

A few caveats about how to interpret surveys like these: first, given how little time it has been since many universities have begun implementing their reforms, it’s not necessarily reasonable to expect immediate changes in such survey responses. Second, because this is an issue not only of policy but of culture, it may unfortunately be a while before universities experience a substan-

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tial shift in cultural behavior — even if new policies make it easier to find some measure of justice for victims of sexual violence. Nevertheless, these survey results warrant substantial concern (if not outrage), and they compel us to ask important questions about how we are approaching the issue of campus sexual violence in the first place.

Common wisdom holds that a shift in policy at the university level will somehow lend itself to a shift in mindset among university students.

However, this assumption fails to consider how monumentally important it is that we extend this conversation into high schools as well. We may now be in college, but preventing campus sexual violence begins far before we even consider filling out the Common Application. To not acknowledge this reality is, in my view, a monumental strategic mistake for all involved in preventing sexual violence on campus.

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Preventing campus sexual violence begins far before we even consider filling out the Common Application.

Let’s take a moment to examine sexual violence in middle and high school. According to a 2008 study of over 1,000 middle and high school students, published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 39.9 percent of middle school girls report having been sexually assaulted; among high school girls, the figure rises to 52.5 percent.

Now, this specific study does classify “kissed, hugged, touched” as sexual assault — which, in many contexts, it is — but even if you only accept a more narrow definition of sexual assault, the number of female high school students who report “attempted rape,” “oral sex,” “rape,” or “something else sexual” is still well over 20 percent.

I haven’t the column inches (nor the personal strength) to break down like I just did every piece of literature I’m about to cite, but here are a few of the most stomach-churning headlines, compiled

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in a November 2014 Al-Jazeera article: “In a given school year, 58 percent of 7th-12th graders experience sexual harassment”; “1 in 20 sexually harassed girls switches schools each year because of it”; “Middle school bullies are 4.6 times more likely to sexually harass”; “1 in 8 high school girls says she’s been raped”; “18 percent of teens report being sexually abused in their relationships”; “12 percent of teens admit that they’ve sexually abused someone they’re dating”; “60 percent of high schools boys find it acceptable to force sex on a girl in some circumstances”; and “Only half of high school rape victims told anyone about it. ” Across the nation, attempts to have nuanced and realistic discussions in sexual education classes have been stymied by conservatives advocating abstinence-only education. Because a nuanced discussion of sex is necessary to have a nuanced discussion of consent, a byproduct of such politics is that consent education is depressingly lacking in high school sex ed classes around the country; despite being the first, California is thus far the only state to teach affirmative consent in high schools as well.

Matt Rocheleau, a correspondent with the Boston Globe, points out that “experts and advocates said they recommend that — preferably before the school year starts or at least early in the semester — parents, or someone else the student is close with, talk through what they might try to do to prevent sexual assault and what they would do if they were to become a victim, witness, or

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perpetrator of the crime.” Well, duh. Except that a reasonable expectation that while students live under their parents’ roofs, they will learn about consent is simply not the case; one report by the Avon Foundation suggests that “73% of parents with children under the age of 18 have not discussed sexual assault with them.”

This is a failed moral calculus of staggering proportions. For victims of sexual assault, one of the most beautiful parts of the human experience is turned into a perverted denial of personal moral agency, almost always with life-altering consequences.

Moral agency, sexual agency in particular, doesn’t nebulously begin sometime around freshman orientation. So why are we treating it like it does? Vox’s Ezra Klein summarized the issue well when he said that sexual assault prevention advocates are trying to “change a culture of sexual entitlement.”

But this change must come earlier, and we have a crucial role in making that happen. Campus leaders are uniquely positioned to provide much-needed political capital in the effort to make consent education the norm in middle and high school sex-ed classes. Currently there is a bill on the floor of the United States Congress, the Teach Safe Relationships Act of 2015, that does just that. It has all of four — yes, four — cosponsors in the Senate. The bill’s advocates need us, and we need them. Time to start writing some letters.

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TUESDAY, oCTOBER 20, 2015

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THE JUSTICE

FORUM

Condemn discriminatory Alabama voting measures

By AMBER MILES JUSTICE contributing writer

At the end of September, Alabama announced it would close 31 part-time driver’s license offices as a result of the $11 million cut in the General Fund Budget appropriation to the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, according to a Sept. 30 WHNT News 19 article. Superficially, this may not seem particularly noteworthy: who cares if prospective drivers have to work a little harder for their licenses?

Unfortunately, a driver’s license is much more than a mere license to drive; it is legal identification — and in Alabama, it is practically one’s voting ballot. In 2014, Alabama enacted a law requiring people to have photo IDs to vote. As with many voter ID laws before it, legislators cited the prevention of voter fraud as their justification for creating a barrier to suffrage. Blindly taken at surface value, their justification seems the noble decision to choose the lesser of two evils, but the numbers tell a different story.

According to a 2014 article in the Washington Post, a study conducted by Professor Justin Levitt of Loyola Law School found that out of one billion ballots cast in general and primary elections from 2000 to 2014, 31 were the result of voter impersonation, the only type of fraud which voter ID laws are designed to prevent.

That’s a miniscule fraction of one percent. On the other hand, in 2015, the State of Alabama’s Official Election Center reported that there are 2,997,340 active and inactive registered voters. Of those nearly three million voters, up to 500,000 lack driver’s licenses, the most commonly used voter ID, according to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the majority of those 500,000 are comprised of low-income and minority voters.

Simply put, Alabama’s voter ID law discourages more than 16 percent of its voters from their right to political participation in order to prevent less than one percent of voter fraud incidents. As such, the ends absolutely does not justify the means.

Criticisms of the voter ID law aside, the closing of 31 offices as a result of Alabama’s new budget exacerbates a situation already unconducive to political participation. Under this new policy, residents of Alabama will have more difficulty obtaining their precious voter IDs. Low-income and black voters in particular will struggle as the office closures occurred “predominantly in rural counties with large black populations, high poverty rates and little to no public transportation,” according to Sherrilyn A. Ifill, the President and Director Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. As such, a large proportion of lowincome and African-American voters — now deprived of a local driver’s license office — will struggle to obtain or renew IDs. “The state of Alabama is balancing its budget on the backs

of the people who can least afford it,” Congresswoman Terri Sewell, the only Democrat to represent Alabama in Washington D.C., told ThinkProgress. “There’s no denying that the impact and effect is a disproportionate burden on low income communities. These are poor rural communities where people don’t have cars.

They struggle to get to their jobs, let alone to an ID office.”

Further, of the 10 Alabama counties with the highest percentage of non-white registered voters, the offices in eight of them have now closed, according to John Archibald of al.com, a local paper, and “every single county in which blacks make up more than 75 percent of registered voters will see their driver license office closed.”

The Alabama government concedes these facts but refuses to acknowledge the disproportionate impact its decision will have on low-income and minority voters. According to ThinkProgress, in a demonstration of profound ignorance, Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill addressed the issue by saying, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink … the fact that people don’t get them, that’s not our fault.”

The problem with this statement, however, is that the Alabama government is not leading any horses to water; in fact, its actions are more akin to putting up a wall around a water trough and denying certain horses access to the very water it boasts to distribute equally. But let’s assume, for a moment, that Alabama’s claims of aid have merit.

In a passive-aggressive letter, Governor Robert Bentley of Alabama tells Representative Sewell that voters in communities affected by the closures can go to mobile units charitably arranged by the state of Alabama to compensate for the closed offices. This seems a legitimate compromise — until one actually looks at the facts.

According to alabamavoterid.com, there will be about a dozen mobile units within the next month. The mobile units do not go to all of the effected counties, and they do not stop in the same county twice in the same month.

Further, the longest a mobile unit will be in any of the counties is four hours, but the vast majority will only last about two hours. These hours take place during the day, usually centered around lunchtime.

Bentley claims this perfunctory compromise will replace the 31 offices (each of which operated up to three days a week) with minimal burden to voters, and he isn’t entirely wrong.

This change, while potentially inconvenient, will likely have minimal impact on individuals with access to transportation who are secure enough in their salary jobs to take several hours off work in the middle of the day. Unfortunately, as both the NAACP and Representative Sewell have pointed out, the majority of the effected Alabama residents do not fit that

BEN JARRETT/the Justice

demographic. Their lower socioeconomic class will likely mean that the majority of them do not have access to reliable transportation and as many of them likely work hourly jobs, they will not be able to leave work to get an ID in the narrow timeframe allotted by this arrangement.

As such, the majority of people affected by these office closures will not be helped by the mobile units and will still struggle to obtain a driver’s license. In fact, this has already been proven: According to ThinkProgress, as of Oct. 6th, only 29 voters had obtained IDs via mobile units during 2015 — 29 people over the course of 10 months.

To put that number in perspective, one of the offices closing in Hunstville served 36,184 people, predominantly low-income and black voters in 2014, according to Lee Roop of al.com.

That’s tens of thousands served by a single office in nearly the same amount of time as all the mobile units in the state served 29 people. So, no, Governor Bentley, the mobile units are not sufficient compensation for closing 31 offices, each of which serve tens of thousands annually.

In a letter to the Alabama executive, Ifill and the NAACP demand justification of Alabama’s apparent violation of the U.S. Constitution and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Ifill implies that if Alabama does not correct its decision, the NAACP has grounds for “immediate legal action.”

As America heads into an election year, Alabama’s smothering of the voices of low-income and minority residents becomes increasingly alarming, and one can only hope pressures from civil rights organizations like the NAACP will push Alabama to reconsider its budget.

Ironically, just months after the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Selma march and the Voting Rights Act it precipitated, Alabama has taken a monumental step back in voting equality. Remembering the celebration, Rep. Sewell remarked, “We had 100 members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, and we all marched across that bridge and patted ourselves on the back and said, ‘We’ve truly overcome.’ Then, we came back to Washington and did nothing.”

And then Alabama began to regress.

Reevaluate United States’ military intervention policy

By KAT SEMERAU

JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Now the longest war in U.S. history, the 14 year U.S. presence in Afghanistan will continue to rage on. In an Oct. 15 statement, President Obama announced plans to keep 9,800 servicemen in Afghanistan through next year, breaking his 2012 campaign promise to cut forces there in half by 2016. Prolonging the war will also discredit its ceremonial ending. Last December in Kabul, U.S. and NATO allies unfurled a “resolute support” flag symbolizing the transition from active war to peripheral military support. Reversing this decision is a grave mistake by the Obama administration.

The announcement comes as a shock to many.

On Oct. 3, American forces bombed a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing 22, including three children. The hospital was run by, Doctors Without Borders, which operates in over seventy countries. President Joanne Liu is calling the strike “an attack on the Geneva Conventions.” She is demanding that the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission, a never-before-used group created at the Geneva Conventions, investigate whether the U.S. committed war crimes. Unfortunately, this tragedy is only the most recent proof of our irrational engagement in Afghanistan.

Recent efforts have been focused on training the Afghan military to defend against the Taliban. In fact, $65 billion dollars have been spent on building army and police forces since 2002 according to John Sopko, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. But this money may have well gone to waste.

Afghan forces have suffered heavy losses to the Taliban both in death toll and in securing important cities. Explanations from senior American army officials point to a lack of unity from Afghan soldiers. They claim there is poor allegiance to what is seen as an illegitimate Afghan government.

This story of failed military training is all too familiar — Iraq, Syria, Somalia and others

faced similar problems. In Syria, for instance, only five committed moderate fighters against the Islamic State remain, according to a Sept. 16 New York Times article, despite a $500 million effort to build an army. In June 2014, some 30,000 Iraqi soldiers fled attack from the Islamic State after being abandoned by their commanders.

The U.S. spent $25 billion dollars to train them.

“Our track record at building security forces over the past 15 years is miserable,” said Karl W. Eikenberry, a former military commander and United States ambassador in Afghanistan.

Even still, these efforts have been pursued vigilantly out of fear of the rise of extremism.

The United States does not want what happened in Iraq — the rise of a radical insurgency group — to happen in Afghanistan as well. Some officials believe the death of Taliban leader Mullah Omar this July will bring about dissension and possibly unify the Taliban and the Islamic State.

“Widespread knowledge of Mullah Omar’s death will exacerbate existing fractures within the Taliban and accelerate a power grab … ISIS will likely exploit these tensions,” says the Institute for the Study of War. However, this threat has been dismissed by United States Army General John F. Campbell himself. He states that the situations in the two countries are not alike and that Afghan do not believe in the ideology of the Islamic State. After all, the Taliban have their own destructive mission: establish definitive power over the Afghan people by imposing strict sharia law. In many cases, this jihadist struggle has been at odds with both ISIS and American forces alike.

Past intervention in the Middle East has shown that the U.S. has done more harm than good, and we are not only working at a deficit economically.

Caught in the midst of the violence in Kunduz were staff and patients in the Doctors Without Borders medical center. For an hour, an American AC-130 gunship fired at the hospital, believed to have been an outpost for Taliban fighters. The strike continued up to thirty minutes

after staff informed authorities that their target was a hospital. The attack ended up killing civilians, not Taliban members. One survivor, Lajos Zoltan, said of the attack, “There are no words to describe how terrible it was … in the intensive care unit six patients were burning in their beds.”

Despite this, many still believe American forces should fight. During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing three days after the attack, Campbell asked that “we provide our senior leadership options different than the current plan we are going with,” hinting at his previous requests to deploy more troops. Though he admitted that the strike was a mistake and accepted full responsibility, he still demanded American involvement. Obama obliged. More troops will go into Afghanistan, and more people will be killed.

Though President Obama personally apologized to Doctors Without Borders, many such apologies have gone unheard. Despite fourteen years of conflict, no one else has been offered condolences. And this strike was not the first of its kind. To date, over 26,000 civilian casualties have been reported according to the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs. This year alone has seen the record- breaking death of 1,500 Afghans, the result of both Taliban and American fighting.

Today, Taliban forces control more of Afghanistan than at any point since 2001, according to data collected by the United Nations. This recent wave of successful insurgency could be damning. An emboldened Taliban may go after even more territory and ultimately overthrow any remaining institutional stability. So far, major thoroughfares and government buildings have been raided. U.N. offices have been evacuated. The entire city of Kunduz was overrun in early October, the first provincial capital to fall, again, since 2001.

Clearly, the Afghan military is not ready to take on the Taliban on its own. Then again, the American military has not hit Taliban targets

with accuracy either.

It seems that the only effective strategy is for Americans to back the war economically. If this were the case, then the hospital in Kunduz would not have been attacked. Many other civilian casualties would also be avoided — the difference between American super-killing machines and guerilla warfare. The question is whether this peripheral support could assure victory over the Taliban. History seems to indicate so. The prime example of this strategy is in Israel, where U.S. dollars fund projects like the Iron Dome to defend the country against Hamas attacks. The success here has been significant.

Israel remains safe from rocket attacks to this day because of this support.

If this project cost ranges in the hundreds of millions, think of how Afghan soldiers could be supported with billions. Defensive mechanisms could be installed in every major city. Large rewards could be offered to whoever gave tips on the location of Taliban soldiers.

Drones equipped with face recognition technology could be used to spot invaders. The possibilities are infinite. Furthermore, Afghan troops could be supported with American intelligence and support from a strategic standpoint.

With our backing, they would surely be more prepared to fight and would probably be more inspired to in the first place. Once the battle is outfitted with American technology, there is no way that the primitively equipped Taliban could succeed. The Afghan army would be assured victory.

Despite all evidence against continuing the war, American’s fear of extremism has not let up. The hospital bombing will be deemed collateral damage, and American troops will double back. Since the lessons from the mistaken hospital strike have not take hold, Doctors Without Borders’ demand for justice will be answered by war hawks. For now, the military presence in Afghanistan will continue to combat terrorism, but someday in a year unknown, we will give up this delusion and come home.

THE JUSTICE

FIGUEROA: Four new members inducted to Hall of Fame CONTINUED FROM 16

favorite team, the New York Mets.

After a trade, the right-hander made his Major League debut for the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2000. He pitched nine seasons in total, playing for the Mets, Diamondbacks, Pittsburgh Pirates, Philadelphia Phillies, Houston Astros and Milwaukee Brewers.

Figueroa also spent seasons abroad, in the Mexican League, the Chinese Professional Baseball League and the Venezuela Winter League.

Figueroa noted that though it is rare for Division III players to make the Major Leagues, there was a certain camaraderie among the ones who actually did.

While that comfort was certainly present, there were some contrasts between the few players with backgrounds like Figueroa and the players who came from large storied college programs.

He remarked that one time the team was instructed to sign

baseballs, he randomly chose a spot on the ball, not knowing that the “sweet spot” he had chosen was normally reserved for the managers.

He was mocked by his teammates, who were accustomed to signing autographs and dealing with the life that comes with being a famous athlete, to which Figueroa had had no exposure.

Figueroa made history throughout his career, most notably when he became the first Mets pitcher to throw a complete game shutout at Citi Field, which he did on the final day of the 2009 MLB regular season.

He also helped bring Puerto Rico to the silver medal in the 2013 World Baseball Classic, on the back of his six-inning shutout of the United States in the quarterfinals.

This past season, Figueroa took over his new role as the pre/postgame analyst for Mets broadcast, which he has continued to be a part of as the Mets thrive in the 2015 MLB postseason.

●

tuesday, october 20, 2015

13

PHYSICAL BATTLE

DAISY CHEN/the Justice

DIRECT PASS: Midfielder Josh Ocel ’17 reaches back for a strike during the squad’s 2-0 defeat to Washington University in St. Louis.

MSOCCER: Squad defeats

WSOCCER: Judges Chicago in overtime thriller fall 1-0 to Chicago in conference clash CONTINUED FROM 16

CONTINUED FROM 16 volleyed a cross to the far post for the only goal of the game in the 43rd minute and, to boot, it was against the run of play, but that’s all it took for Chicago on Friday.

Spivack framed Sunday’s win in the context of the loss, stating, “Our loss against Chicago definitely hurt, but after the game we all knew that we needed to move on and get focused for Sunday's game. The loss fired us up, and we knew this was an absolute must-win.”

The Judges will take on regional competitor Westfield State at home on Wednesday at 7 p.m.

With only four contests left for the Judges to prove their worth, the team will need to stay focused.

The team looks to return to the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III National Tournament for the second-straight season after losing in the second round last season.

After the match against Westfield, the squad will face tough competition when they face UAA foes, Emory University, the University of Rochester and New York University.

The team in particular will look to avenge last season's crushing 2-0 loss at Rochester.

outshooting the Judges 5-3. Not only did they outshoot the Judges, they dominated set pieces in the first half and throughout the game, leading 7-0 and 11-0, respectively. In the half, Woodhouse made two saves and defenseman Stephen DiPietto ’19 cleared a ball off the line.

The chances were few and far between for the Judges in the first half, with none of their three shots in the first half challenging the Chicago defense.

In the second half, the pitch was slanted in favor of the Judges. The Judges outshot Chicago 8-5 after the halftime break.

After Woodhouse denied the Maroons’ Jorge Bilbao in the early minutes, the Judges started attacking more.

The Judges had two rips on net in the 55th minute, but Chicago goalkeeper Hill Bonin made impressive saves

on both attempts. In the 73rd minute, midfielder Jake Picard ’16 had one shot blocked and another cleared off the goal line by a Chicago defender.

In the 85th minute, the Judges broke the deadlock. Woodhouse’s punt bounced in the Chicago third, when forward Zach Vieira ’17 controlled the ball and played it through to the Chicago 18-yard box.

From there, forward Evan Jastremski ’17 gained space and placed it into the side netting. The goal was Jastremski’s first of the year, as he missed most of the season so far because of injury. The goal was his seventh career goal and third career game-winner.

The match was not as physical as earlier matches, with 21 total fouls, 12 by the Judges and nine by the Maroons. Defense continues to be a strength for the Judges. Making five saves, Woodhouse recorded another clean sheet. Their defense has helped the Judges in close games — 11 of their

12 wins have been one-goal affairs.

The win came a year after the Judges’ 1-0 loss in Chicago. With the win, the Judges lead narrowly the all-time series against the Maroons 15-11-2.

The Judges have nine days off until hosting Lassell College on Oct. 27 in what is their final non-conference game before a weekend road trip to Emory University and the University of Rochester.

On the season, the men are 12-2-1 overall, which includes 3-1 in the UAA conference.

With only four contests remaining on its schedule, the team will look to finish strong in order to secure a spot in the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III National Tournament.

Last season the team went all the way to the Elite Eight of the tournament, where it fell dissapointingly to the State University of New York at Oneonta.

VOLLEYBALL

Squad loses all four contests during conference showdown ■ Shea Decker-Jacoby

’19 compiled 10 kills in a 3-1 loss against New York University on Sunday.

By elan kane JUSTICE staff writer

The volleyball team went 0-4 this past weekend at their second University Athletic Association round robin of the season. The Judges, playing at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, lost to New York University 1-3 in their second game on Sunday, after losing to the University of Chicago 0-3 earlier in the day. On Saturday, the team lost 0-3 to both Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Rochester.

With the losses, the Judges fall to 3-20 overall and 0-7 in UAA play.

Despite the losses, captain and middle hitter Maddie Engeler ’16 said she is feeling optimistic about the

rest of the season. “I thought the team put out a strong effort this weekend,” Engeler said. “We played some tough competitors, but we know the areas we need to focus on this week in practice and are ready to come out strong back in New England. We are positive, determined and ready to finish the season with some wins.”

Judges 1, NYU 3 After Brandeis won the first set 2725, they lost the three that followed 17-25, 11-25 and 20-25, respectively.

Tied at 25 in the first set, the Judges notched a point on a kill from outside hitter Shea Decker-Jacoby ’19 to take one-point advantage. Decker-Jacoby tallied another kill immediately after the point to clinch the victory for Brandeis. Those were two of 10 kills that Decker-Jacoby compiled over the course of the match.

The Judges could not follow their first set victory with a similar performance in the second set, however. Though Brandeis tied the set

at 11 on a kill by outside hitter Grace Krumpack ‘19, NYU went on a 14-6 run to seal the set victory. NYU continued that run in the third set, as they scored 11 points before the Judges could score two points.

Brandeis remained close in the fourth set and led 9-8 after a NYU service error. They were unable to maintain that lead, though, and NYU pulled away late to win the set and match. For the set, the Judges tallied 38 kills.

Judges 0, Chicago 3 Brandeis lost in straight sets to the University of Chicago 19-25, 17-25 and 16-25, respectively.

In the opening set, the Judges stayed relatively close with Chicago, getting to within a 15-13 deficit after a service error from the Maroons.

Chicago opened the gap and took a 19-14 lead, but a kill by Engeler closed the gap to four points. The Judges got to within three points when Engeler notched another kill to make it 17-20,

but Chicago went on a 5-2 run to win the set.

After going down 0-1 in the second set, Brandeis could not gain the lead.

They stayed close to the Maroons throughout the first several points and tied the set at four points.

Chicago was relentless, though, and after reeling off four straight points, they did not allow the Judges to get to within two points.

The third set was a similar story for the Brandeis team.

The team tied the set at 6-6 following a kill from Summer Koop ’16 but could not take the lead as Chicago scored 19 of the next 29 points.

Judges 0, WashU 3 Brandeis lost in straight sets to Washington University, losing 13-25, 10-25 and 13-25.

Decker-Jacoby led the Judges with six digs and three kills. Middle hitter Jessica Kaufman ’17 tallied 3.5 points and outside hitter Jessie Moore ’18 tallied three points.

The Judges had five kills in the first set, three in the second set and seven in the third set.

Judges 0, Rochester 3 Brandeis lost to the Yellowjackets in three sets, losing the first set 20-25, the second set 13-25 and the third set 23-25.

Though the Judges lost the first two sets, they nearly won the third set. The Judges took a 17-16 lead after a kill from Engeler.

Rochester went on a 7-3 run, but the Judges responded and tied the set at 23 after another kill from Engeler, her sixth of the match.

Brandeis was unable to close out the set, however, and lost the final two points of the set.

Brandeis next plays this Friday at Amherst, Massachusetts against Wesleyan University at 7:30 p.m. as a part of the Hall of Fame Invitational.

The team will look to improve upon its overall record of 2-30, which includes 0-7 against UAA conference opponents this year.

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SPARK

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The 2nd Annual SPARK Awards provides funding as needed to cool new inventions in the education, computer science, social, economic, and arts areas!

ELIGIBILITY?

Brandeis Undergrads, Grad Students, Postdocs Faculty & Staff

DEADLINES!!

APPLICATION December 2nd | PRESENTATION January 29th

Interested? COME TO AN INFO SESSION: Tuesday, October 20, 12:30 - 1:30 p.m. (IBS, Sachar 115) Tuesday October 20, 5:00 - 6:00 p.m. (Volen, Room 101) Wednesday October 21, 12:00 - 1:00 p.m. (Heller, Room G4) Wednesday October 28th 2:30 – 3:30 pm (SSC, 1-03 Library) QUESTIONS? Email: otl@brandeis.edu Visit: www.brandeis.edu/otl/grants

THE JUSTICE

jUDGES BY THE NUMBERS aMen’s Soccer UAA STANDINGS UAA Conf.

W L D 3 1 0 3 1 0 2 1 1 2 1 0 1 1 0 1 2 1 0 1 3 0 4 0

Tuesday, october 20, 2015

15

SWIMMING & DIVING

TEAM STATS Goals

2015-2016 Statistics

JUDGES Case WashU Emory Carnegie Chicago Rochester NYU

●

Overall W L D 12 2 1 11 2 1 9 2 3 7 4 1 8 2 2 8 4 2 4 3 5 4 10 0

Pct. .800 .786 .643 .583 .667 .571 .333 .286

Jake Picard ’16 leads the team with three goals.

Player Goals Jake Picard 3 Josh Berg 2 Chris Bradley 2

Assists Josh Ocel ’17 leads the team with seven assists.

Player Assists Josh Ocel 7 Patrick Flahive 2 Stephen DePietto 1

UPCOMING GAMES: Today vs. Lasell Oct. 30 at Emory Nov. 1 at Rochester

WOMen’s Soccer UAA STANDINGS

TEAM STATS

2015-2016 Statistics

Goals

Carnegie WashU Chicago JUDGES Rochester NYU Case Emory

UAA Conf.

W L D 4 0 0 3 1 0 3 1 0 2 2 0 2 2 0 1 3 0 0 3 1 0 3 1

Overall W L D 13 0 1 12 2 0 10 4 0 12 2 1 6 5 1 9 4 0 7 4 3 7 6 1

Pct. .929 .867 .714 .800 .500 .692 .500 .500

UPCOMING GAMES: Tomorrow vs. Westfield St. Oct. 30 at Emory Nov. 1 at Rochester

Lea McDaniel ’17 leads the team with five goals.

Player Goals Lea McDaniel 5 Cidney Moscovitch 4 Holly Szafran 4

Assists Lea McDaniel ’17 leads the team with three assists.

Player Assists Lea McDaniel 3 Holly Szafran 3 Samantha Schwartz 3

VOLLEYBALL UAA STANDINGS

TEAM STATS Kills

2014-2015 Statistics UAA Conf. Overall

W L W L Pct. Emory 7 0 26 2 .929 WashU 6 1 25 2 .926 Case 5 2 21 5 .808 Carnegie 4 3 22 5 .815 Chicago 3 4 15 8 .652 Rochester 2 5 12 13 .480 NYU 1 6 11 13 .458 JUDGES 0 7 3 20 .130

UPCOMING GAMES: Oct. 28 at Lasell Oct. 31 vs. Babson Oct. 31 vs. Vassar

Grace Krumpack ’19 leads the team with 123 kills.

Player Kills Grace Krumpack 123 Maddie Engeler 111 Shea Decker-Jacoby 83 Jessie Moore 79

Digs Yvette Cho ’19 leads the team with 315 digs.

Player Digs Yvette Cho 315 Grace Krumpack 218 Allison Harmsworth 128 Leah Perlman 125

cross cOuntry Results from the Roger Williams Invitational this past Saturday.

TOP FINISHERS (Men’s)

TOP FINISHERS (Women’s)

8-Kilometer Run RUNNER TIME Liam Garvey 25:56.2 Mitchell Hutton 26:09.4 Quinton Hoey 26:21.2 Brian Sheppard 26:28.0

6-Kilometer Run RUNNER TIME Emily Bryson 21:50.5 Kelsey Whitaker 21:59.6 Lydia McCaleb 22:44.8 Maddie Dolins 22:55.6

UPCOMING MEET: The teams will continue their seasons at the UAA Championships on Oct. 31 at Franklin Park, Boston.

GRACE KWON/Justice File Photo

BUTTERFLY STROKE: Edan Zitelny ’17 competes against regional opponent Wheaton College at home during last season’s meet.

Squads fall short in opening meet of season ■ Zach Diamond ’18 finished in first place in the men’s 1000-yard freestyle race against Wheaton College.

By jerry miller JUSTICE staff writer

The men and women’s swimming and diving teams were unable to make a splash this weekend at their meet against Wheaton College. In the first scored event of the year, the Brandeis teams looked sluggish and were unable to come away with a win. The women’s team lost by 122 points, falling 206 to 84, while the men’s squad did not make much of an improvement, losing 177.5 to 107.5.

The event kicked off with the women’s 200-yard medley relay. Off to a slow start, the Judges’ A team was thoroughly beat by Wheaton’s A, B, and C teams, mustering up a meager two points for the event. Sherry Tu ’18 battled it out at the end with junior Kelley Baylis of Wheaton but was narrowly edged out by just over one second. The Judges’ B team finished the event in fifth place with a time of 2:08.35. The men’s team saw slight improvement, with the A team placing third. Evan Thom ’18 solidified the win with an impressive time of 22.79.

Yet with only two points, both teams looked to rebound in the next events.

The women’s 1000-yard freestyle looked promising, with Joanna Murphy ’18 bursting out of the gate.

Murphy dominated the scene, grabbing first place and a muchneeded nine points in just 11:22.69.

The rest of the team failed to keep up, and Brandeis only gained one more point in the event. With the women’s squad just barely staying afloat, the men’s team needed to redirect the audience’s attention. The team did just that, as Zach Diamond ’18 stole first place with a time of 10:23.49 and Sam Scudere-Weiss ’18 took home fourth in the men’s 1000 -yard freestyle with a finish of 11:52.81.

The 200-yard freestyle proved to be a difficult matchup for the team.

Kylie Herman ’19 carried the weight of the team and came out strong as she took the gold in the women’s 200yard freestyle with a time of 2:03.24.

Taku Harada ’18 and Cameron Braz ’17 had solid showings, winning second place and third place respectively, in under two minutes.

The backstroke and breaststroke events proved to be the bane of the team, as the Judges failed to make it above third place. Garnering only six and eight points for the men and women’s team respectively, the team seemed to be struggling.

The team made a small comeback in the 500-yard freestyle with Herman and Diamond taking first place and nine points for each squad.

The rest of the events did not go the Judge’s way, though, placing second only twice in the next six events, excluding diving.

But the Judges were not going to go down without a fight and showed a burst of energy as the meet came to an end. The Judges dominated the 200-yard freestyle relay.

The women’s team totaled thirteen points, taking first and third place, while the men’s squad made a significant fifteen-point dent with first-and-second place finishes.

Diamond remarked, “One of our team goals for this year is to have a ‘go-get-em’ mentality, meaning that we have to go give all we got, whether it be in practice or at meets. Keeping this mentality in mind, the team and I are looking forward to performing well at meets for the rest of the year.”

Ultimately, the meet came down to the peripheral players. While Brandeis took first in a few events, the rest of the team was unable to win the extra few points, which made a huge difference in the long run.

The team hopes to rebound and erase their early-season results next week at the University of Rochester Invitational.

cross country Teams earn strong overall finishes against regional foes at Connecticut College Invitational ■ Liam Garvey ’18 led the men’s side in the 8k race with a time of 25:56.2 for 23rd overall place.

By noah hessdorf JUSTICE editor

The men and women’s cross country teams posted solid finishes this past Saturday at the Connecticut College Cross Country Invitational, as the men finished in eighth out of 26 teams while the women finished in sixth out of 25.

Liam Garvey ’18 led the men in the eight-kilometer race as he finished with a time of 25:56.2 for a 23rd overall finish. Mitchell Hutton ’18 finished with a time of 26:09.4

for 31st place, while Quinton Hoey ’17 earned a 40th-place finish with a time of 26:21.2.

Brian Sheppard ’18 and Roger LaCroix ’18 finished in 49th and 51st place for the Judges, with times of 26:28.0 and 26:29.2, respectively.

Rounding out the Judges’ competitors were Matt Doran ’17 and Max Whitmore ’18.

Doran finished 68th place with a time of 26:49.7, while Whitmore ran the race in a time of 27:40.9, which was good enough for an 111th-place finish. The meet incorporated college competitors from mostly the New England region but included teams such as conference rival New York University and Carleton College in Minnesota.

The Judges were able to finish ahead of their University Athletic

Conference foe NYU while also beating out local rival the Tufts University Jumbos.

Sheppard was impressed with the squad’s performance.

He stated, “This meet we were happy to have a few injured runners back and we were using it as a building block for the rest of the season. It was Quinton’s and Mitch’s first race back and they both had pretty good ones.”

“I think the team performed pretty well all things considered.

Liam Garvey really stepped up and raced very well after so much time off,” Sheppard said.

The team ran well, especially considering that leading runner Ryan Stender ’19, who had been the top competitor for the Judges so far, was out of the meet with an

undisclosed injury.

The women’s side also had an impressive showing while securing a sixth-place finish.

Leading the Judges as she has all season was Emily Bryson ’19, who covered the six-kilometer course in a time of 21:50.5 for a ninth overall finish. While Bryson was the only member of the squad who finished in the top-10, other members of the team ran strong races.

Kelsey Whitaker ’16 finished in 13th place with a time of 21:59.6, while Lydia McCaleb ’17 earned a 32nd-place finish with a time of 22:44.8. Maddie Dolins ’17 ran the race with a time of 22:55.6 for a 38thplace finish, while Julia Bryson ’19 finished the meet with a time of 23:08.8, which was good enough for 46th place.

The final two Judges’ runners were Kyra Shreeve ’18 and Ashley Piccirillo-Horan ’17. Shreeve earned a 48th-place finish in a time of 23:12.5 and Piccirillo Horan finished in 61st place with a time of 23:38.8.

Earning top place in both competitions was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, while host Connecticut College finished in second place on the men’s side and Tufts earned a second place finish for the women. The team will next run at the UAA Championships on Oct. 31 at Franklin Park in Boston when they host fellow UAA sides.

Sheppard commented that “We have all the parts we need to do well at UAAs and regionals, we just need them to all come together on the same day.”

just

Sports

Page 16

DIVING IN The swimming and diving team opened its season against Wheaton College this past Saturday, p. 15.

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Waltham, Mass.

men’s soccer

ENSHRINED FOREVER

Judges go 1-1 on tough weekend

■ Forward Evan Jastremski

’17 scored an overtime goal in the victory against the University of Chicago.

By max byer JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

The No. 7 men’s soccer team split Homecoming weekend on Gordon Field against University Athletic Association foes as the Judges continued to struggle to maintain their offensive output. On Sunday, the Judges lost 2-0 at home to Washington University in St. Louis, while on Friday they defeated the University of Chicago 1-0 in overtime.

WashU 2, No. 7 Judges 0 The difference-maker against WashU came just 5:05 into the match after Judges goalkeeper Ben Woodhouse ’18 was beaten off his line

by Washington University junior Kevin Goon, who chipped the ball into the empty net. The Judges nearly equalized a few minutes later, but midfielder Michael Chaput’s 17 shot banged off the post; the Judges were unable to clean up the rebound.

The Bears added an insurance goal in the 61st minute, thanks to a header by senior forward Ryan Sproule. Sproule received a cross from senior Ike Witte and placed it past Woodhouse. The Judges turned up the tempo, putting nine shots on net, compared to the three they had in the first half.

While the Judges outshot the Bears 12-10, the Bears put more shots on net, 7-1. The Bears’ offensive domination included a comprehensive lead on set pieces, as they led 8-2 in number of corner kicks. It was an easy game for the Bears’ defense; junior goalkeeper Daniel Geanon did not have to make a save in the second half. On the bright side for the Judges, midfielder Josh Ocel ’17 had three shots, illustrating the balanced nature of the Judges’ midfield.

The game was moderately physical, with 23 combined fouls, 12 of which were called on the Judges.

One yellow card was issued. Ocel received a yellow card in the 61st minute for a challenge made near the flank in the defensive third.

No. 7 Judges 1, Chicago 0 (OT) The Maroons controlled play in the first half of Friday’s contest,

See MSOCCER, 13 ☛

WOMEN’S SOCCER

Team wins tightly contested UAA match

■ Midfielder Alec Spivack

CAROLINE GAO/the Justice

HALL OF FAME: Former pitcher Nelson Figueroa ’98 accepts a plaque establishing himself in the Brandeis Hall of Fame.

Figueroa ’98 reflects on baseball career ■ Nelson Figueroa ’98 was

among four new members inducted into the the Joseph M. Linsey Brandeis Athletics Hall of Fame on Saturday.

By NOAH HESSDORF JUSTICE editor

This past Saturday, former pitcher Nelson Figueroa ’98 was inducted as part of the 2015 class of the Joseph M. Linsey Brandeis Athletics Hall of Fame, which also elected contributor Israel “Ace” Weinstein, women’s tennis player Brenda Schafer ’77 and the 1957 to 1958 men’s basketball team. Figueroa is the first and only Brandeis alum to reach the ultimate pedestal in professional baseball: Major League Baseball. Before the ceremony on Saturday, the Justice was able to sit down with Figueroa to talk about a career which took him from a park in Waltham to the bright lights of Citi Field.

Growing up as a star pitcher in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Coney Island, Figueroa had not considered attending Brandeis — in fact, he had never even heard of it. Figueroa

had always imagined himself going to “[a] Big East powerhouse, or somewhere warm and sunny,” he said. While he had garnered interest from schools of this type, he received mostly negative feedback from them.

“They told me that I was too small. They said I would not play till probably junior year.”

Figueroa did not want to simply wait in the wings for his turn. He remarked that he “wanted to stand out. I’d rather be a big fish in a small pond.” Brandeis perfectly fit this opportunity, and that all became clear to him during a visit to Waltham with his summer league baseball team.

He was playing with his summer team at Niper Mayer Park, just a few a blocks away from Brandeis’s campus. At the time, members of the University’s baseball team lived in a house next to the park and came to watch the game that was taking place. The young Puerto RicanAmerican pitcher who dominated his competition impressed the players, who eventually talked Figueroa into considering Brandeis.

The genuine nature and friendliness of these older players is what attracted Figueroa to attending

the small Division III school, along with the challenging academics that went along with it. It did not hurt either that the coach at the time, Pete Varney, had an impressive pedigree that included MLB experience.

While adjusting to an environment that was a stark contrast from his Coney Island home was not easy, it was not long before Figueroa became an essential member of the Brandeis community, both on and off the field.

Figueroa starred while pitching for the team during the time that he was at Brandeis. Even more impressive, as he was only at school for three seasons, Figueroa compiled an ERA of 3.68 while striking out 168 batters and throwing 12 complete games, both good for top-10 in Brandeis history.

Figueroa attributes much of his success to Coach Varney, remarking that Varney “challenged me. He pushed me out of my comfort zone.”

He noted that things that Varney told him stayed with him during his career in the majors, and that the coach was always a second fatherfigure in his life.

Figueroa was drafted after his junior season by his hometown and

See FIGUEROA, 13 ☛

’16 scored the gamewinning goal in overtime against Washington University in St. Louis.

By dan rozel JUSTICE staff writer

It took 95 minutes, but Alec Spivack ’16 scored a howler off of a free kick to propel the Brandeis Judges (12-2-1, 2-2 UAA) to a 1-0 win in extra time on Sunday against the No. 7 Washington University in St. Louis Bears (12-2, 3-1 UAA).

Spivack’s goal came at a crucial time, as the Judges had dropped a game to the unranked University of Chicago earlier in the weekend, but this win was important in keeping pace both in the UAA and in the national rankings.

When asked about the goal, Spivack emphasized practice and visualization in securing the win.

“Holly (Szafran ’16) and I have worked on free kicks outside of practice time, but you don't always get the perfect spot for a free kick.

Yesterday, however, I was feeling it, and I had visualized the night before the game scoring an almost identical free kick. When we had the opportunity I just visualized myself scoring it, and then kicked the ball.” she said.

As for the feeling of beating Wash U, Spivack added, “I am so pumped to have beaten WashU in back-toback years. As weird as it sounds, I wasn't nervous; I didn't really think of anything other than kicking the ball. The only option at the time was to make the free kick, and I saw it in my mind so my body executed.”

In general, when asked about the morale of the team heading into a tough stretch of UAA games, the longtime captain added, “The UAA has 5 out of the 8 teams in the Top 25

in the nation, so every single game in the UAA is extremely tough. The other teams are receiving votes to break in the Top 25, so we have to show up to every game ready to go from kick off.”

This was an especially meaningful moment for Spivack as it came on the tail end of homecoming weekend. Spivack mentioned that her “parents and grandparents were at the game, and I wanted to play hard for them, and I was really hoping to score for them.”

It was the perfect way to cap off a homecoming weekend that the teams enjoyed.

“Everyone was really pumped to see the alums. “ said Spivack.

“It's an amazing experience knowing that your former teammates are coming to support you. I'm thankful that Brandeis has ramped up Homecoming weekend the past couple of years.”

Up until the free kick, the game had been a defensive lockdown in the midfield as both teams struggled to create meaningful opportunities on the offensive end.

The best opportunity came in the 72nd minute for the Judges as a header from forward Cidney Moscovitch ’17 was cleared off the line by defender Sam Ezratty ’16.

Otherwise, despite a good pace, the defensive lines for each team were solid, with Brandeis’s featured backs particularly shining under pressure from junior Wash U forward Olivia Lillegraven, last week’s UAA player of the week.

Goalkeeper Alexis Grossman ’17 also contributed three saves to the winning effort, with an especially important diving stop towards the end of regulation.

This win came on the heels of a loss to the University of Chicago Maroons on Friday night by a score of 1-0. Chicago junior Sophia Kim

See WSOCCER, 13 ☛

Vol. LXVIII #6

just

October 20, 2015

ARTS

Songs for a New World ÂťP. 18

Waltham, MA.

Images: Mike Lovett, Creative Commons. Design: Michelle Banayan/the Justice.

18

THE JUSTICE | TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2015

Comedy Show

Boris’ Kitchen delivers with old sketches

By Lizzie Grossman justice contributing writer

The lights in the Shapiro Campus Center multi-purpose room come on, revealing Mira Garin ’19 sleeping on a bed. Next to it, Yael Platt ’17 is dressed as an alarm clock. All is silent until Platt loudly imitates the blaring sound of an alarm clock.

The scene continues with the two characters battling each other, a race toward a finish line and a tug of war between two groups of people, one representing sleep and the other representing the alarm clock.

This sketch was the beginning of several other hilarious scenes in the annual “Old Shit Show,” hosted

by Boris’ Kitchen, a sketch comedy group at Brandeis created in 1987. Directed by Jason Kasman ’16 and assistant-directed by Andrew Agress ’17, this show had the room filled to capacity with Brandeis students, who were lined up from the door to the bottom of the stairs on Friday. After the humorous first scene and an introduction by Kasman, in which he welcomed the the three newest members of the troupe — Yael Matlow ’18, Garin, and Ben Astrachan ’19, the troupe went on to perform thirteen other sketches that had the audience laughing the entire night.

One sketch had Garin, Sarah Duffet ’17, Zephry Wright ’17, and Yaznil Baez ’16 portraying students in the Brandeis health center.

Satirizing the health center, the “students” came up to the “doctor” (Platt), asking advice about their minor health problems, such as a

cough and a sprained ankle, to each of which Platt responded by asking if they were pregnant.

In another sketch performed by Rodrigo Granados ’18 and Raphael Stigliano ’18, Granados portrayed a foreigner who did not understand American jokes. Stigliano tried to

tell him the infamous “orange you glad I didn’t say banana” knockknock joke, but Granados failed to appropriately understand the humor of the joke, laughing instead at the literal details of the joke, such as an orange answering the door.

At the end of the scene, Granados

exclaimed to the audience “I love these American jokes!”

In a popular sketch of the show, Matlow and Duffet portrayed girls painting their nails who made humorous attempts not to ruin them throughout the scene.

It was hilarious and relatable to

MAX ZASLOVE/the Justice

YOU’RE PREGNANT: Every ailment is diagnosed as pregnancy in Boris’ Kitchen sketch that satirizes the Brandeis Health Center.

theater

‘New World’ showcases song cycle

By Anna Stern justice Staff writer

The vast stage is filled with uneven geometric pieces representing mountains and other aspects of nature. The stage includes a four-person band and extends towards the audience, making for a more intimate theater experience. Above the stage, a round sun rises and falls to change the setting. Gabi Nail ’18 walks out and sings “A new world calls across the ocean, a new world calls across the sky.”

Her voice is pure and light and filled with yearning. From there, the audience is transported to a “new world” where emotions are deep and souls are bared. Thus begins “Songs for a New World.”

“Songs for a New World,” which took place in the Spingold Theater from Thursday 15 to Sunday 18 is a unique theater-going experience. The show was directed by Rachel Liff ’16.

Her direction effectively captures the meanings and emotions implied in each song. Music and lyrics were written by Jason Robert Brown, the composer behind musicals such as “The Last Five Years,” “13,” and “Bridges of Madison County”

The show was in a song cycle form, meaning that it consisted only of musical numbers with no concrete plot.

Even though each song was its own entity, they all had similar themes and fit together to create an abstract yet cohesive show. The songs were filled with stunning and complex harmonies as well as gorgeous melodies.

The costumes were simple, modern clothing that reflected the different styles of people in this world.

The cast consisted of five talented actors who each had their moments to shine in solos, as well as in duets and ensemble numbers. Each musical number had a different style that reflected Broadway, gospel and balladic influences.

While watching the show, I struggled to figure out the historical time period each song was trying to showcase. However, the titles of the musical numbers helped to clarify the context.

The third musical number, “On The Deck Of A Sailing Ship, 1492,” sounded like a soulful, gospel song.

These songs preach of freedom and salvation by God’s grace. This song conveyed the intense journey that settlers took to America in 1492 with

Christopher Columbus. Kiana Nwaobia ’17 sang this song with both passion and grace, as she did with all of her numbers. Adam Recht ’16, who soloed in both “Flying Home,” and “King of the World,” performed each song with soul and passion.

Rebecca Myers’s ’18 songs tended to serve as comic relief to the generally emotionally difficult show. Her song “Just One Step” portrayed a woman attempting to jump off the ledge of her penthouse because she is furious with her husband. She played the classic part of a New York middleage woman with a total accuracy that added a level of hilarity.

This song was filled with humorous moments and clever lyrics. Myers’ other shining moment was a song called “Surabaya-Santa,” in which she played Mrs. Claus telling her husband Santa of her plans to leave him.

However, not all of Meyers’ moments were filled with humor. She sang an emotional song called “Stars And The Moon,” in which she portrayed a woman who fulfills her dream of marrying rich but looks back and questions her decision.

Jason Theoharis ’17 and Nail sang a wonderful song called “The World

Was Dancing” which was about a man’s fear of failure regarding his family, education, and his fiancé, Amy. As Theoharis sang, Nail beautifully and gracefully danced a ballet.

Choreographed

by Sarai Warsoff ’16, “Songs For A New World” has moments of modern dance and movement, as well as the ballet performed by Nail.

Each number in the show was unique in its own way and portrayed a different aspect of the human condition. One number in particular, “The Flagmaker, 1775,” made me reflect on the American Revolution.

It was a story of a mother sewing the American flag and worried about the war for independence and its affects on her family. This show

watch these two girls do everything they could to not mess up their nails — such as refusing to pick up a book that a pregnant lady (Deesha Patel ’16) dropped, with the explanation of “We just did our nails!” The most iconic part of the scene was when Matlow was choking on cheese puffs and Duffet violently stepped on her back to try and save her as opposed to doing the Heimlich maneuver in order to avoid the consequences of destroying her just-painted nails.

Proceeds from the show were donated to Relay for Life, an organization that serves to celebrate cancer survivors, remember those who have lost their lives to cancer and fight against the disease. Members of Brandeis’ Relay for Life crew collected donations in bags labeled with the performers’ names from members of the audience, with the intention that the performer who raised the most money would get pied in the face at the end of the show.

Duffet was the winner of this contest and at the end of the show she had the opportunity to have a plate filled with shaving cream shoved in her face, much to the audience’s delight.“The Old Shit Show is a really great opportunity [to orient] all the freshmen, and it’s an introduction to how we work but also how theater in general works on the Brandeis campus,” said Kasman in an interview with the Justice after the show.

“Our three new people…were [really] phenomenal, and the best part is helping them to become a part of us, and become a part of Brandeis.”

SONG CYCLE: “Songs For A New World,” with music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, uniquely uses only songs to move the plot forward.

PHOTO COURTESY OF MIKE LOVETT

DANCING THROUGH LIFE: Jason Theoharis ’17 worries about failure in “The World was Dancing” while Gabi Nail ’18 performed a ballet.

PHOTO COURTESY OF MIKE LOVETT

heightened my appreciation for the privileges that we have by living in America, as well as for the difficult decisions that we face. If we look in the broader scope of our lives, we don’t realize the sacrifices made for our daily freedoms, freedoms that some people don’t have the privilege to experience.

19

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2015 | THE JUSTICE

Workshop

Morrison leads playwriting workshop

DAISY CHEN/the Justice

THE ART OF PLAYWRITING: Boston-based playwright and teacher Nina Louise Morrison discussed in a workshop how to best produce dynamic writing.

By max moran justice editor

Lily Shrayfer ’18 really needs Ayelet Shrek ’17 to leave. Shrek, shifting back and forth uncomfortably in her chair as Shrayfer stares past her, keeps gradually working up the courage to confess something important to her roommate and friend.

For a friend, though, Shrayfer is pretty disinterested. “Ah, man!”

She starts. “You know, you’ve just had a busy day, and you don’t want to hear people’s [expletive]?!

Like, crazy, someone, came up to me today and was like ‘I’ve got to talk about my feelings, and my father…’ I’m thinking, like, ‘get out of my face!’

As Shrayfer crosses back, Shrek looks down. “I feel like that was kind of passive-aggressive to me,” she mumbles. “Was it?” Shrayfer says with mock-surprise. “No, no!”

It’s at this point that Nina Lou-

ise Morrison, a Boston-based playwright and teacher, calls for the two actresses to stop the scene.

The two were performing as part of an open workshop with Morrison, hosted by the Brandeis Association of Rising Dramatists, a collaborative playwriting club, on Saturday.

The two performers were using long-form improvisation to demonstrate one of the fundamental aspects of good theater — conflict.

When Morrison gave Shrayfer a clear objective (get Shrek out of the room) and Shrek a clear objective (tell Shrayfer what’s bothering you), Morrison had asked the two actresses to make a scene where neither can accomplish their goal without the other one failing to do so. While there are any number of ways that the scene could have resolved itself, the reason it was interesting for the audience was because their goals jutted against each other. “Plays are about mo-

tivation,” Morrison told the audience. “Someone wanting something and doing something to go after what they want.”

This was just one piece of advice that Morrison gave at the open workshop. Morrison teaches playwriting at the University of New Hampshire and GrubCenter, a creative writing center in Boston.

She is also associated with Project: Project, a troupe that combines scripted storytelling with improvisation to collaboratively generate theater. Morrison began as an actor in college, but upon graduating, decided that she “wanted to write things that didn’t exist yet, particularly different types of parts for women, different types of stories for women, but also for everyone who I felt is marginalized by the way we tell stories, who are excluded or tokenized, villainized, misrepresented,” Morrison said.

At the workshop, Morrison guided BARD members through three

long-form improvisational scenes, and pointed out how they naturally used the different tactics and unspoken rules of communicating that lead to great written dialogue.

When Shrayfer began complaining about people asking her to listen to their problems, Morrison noted that Shrayfer hinted at what she wanted without directly stating it, an example of the old writer’s adage to “show, don’t tell.”

Later, Shrayfer contrasted a scene between two men in an elevator with a scene between two sisters on an awkward coffee date.

She described the first as a “lowcontext scene” and the second as a “high-context scene,” and pointed out that the more that people know about each other when they start a conversation, the less they explain to the other person when speaking.

For writers, this has pros and cons: on one hand, a high-context scene will often be more exciting and visceral, but it can also be more con-

fusing for a viewer who does not know these characters as well as they know each other.

To Morrison, writing comes in equal parts from observing the world around her and making observations about herself. She emphasized that the most powerful thing that theater can do is generate empathy, and this requires writers to be specific.

“Empathy is in the details. The things that I always find to feel really honest and true are things that are really specific.”

Above all, Morrison told the playwrights not to be self-conscious about their work or compare it to anyone else’s finished work in their minds. “A big part of writing,” she said, “is delaying that editing brain as much as you possibly can. Breathing and allowing yourself to just make stuff.

Make stuff really messy and bold and without overthinking it as much as you possibly can.”

Music

Creative Arts Award revived, awarded to soprano

PHOTO COURTESEY OF CLAUDIA HANSEN

SOPRANO SUPREME: Soprano Tony Arnold, the recipient of the revived Creative Arts Award, will spend a year-long residency engaging with students and faculty on campus.

By Emily wisHingrad justice editor

This year, the Division of the Creative Arts has reinstated the Creative Arts Award after a decadelong hiatus. Last Thursday, the Office of the Arts announced its newest recipient, soprano Tony Arnold.

In conjunction with receiving the

award, Arnold will serve a yearlong residency at the University, working on projects with students and faculty, lecturing and performing her own works.

The Creative Arts Award, founded in 1956, was usually awarded to multiple artists every year. Generally, three types of awards were given — “medals” were awarded to artists who “left an enduring mark

upon their times,” according to the Brandeis website. “Citations” were given to emerging artists understood to have big prospects, and “Notable Achievement Awards” were given to artists whose accomplishments were thought to exceed those who received medals and citations.

Artists such as William Carlos Williams, Vladimir Nabokov, Arthur Miller and Georgia O’Keeffe have been among the recipients.

In 1995, the award was converted into The Poses Institute of Arts, a program that gave grants and shortterm residencies on campus.

Chair of the Music department, Prof. Yu-Hi Chang (MUS) told the Justice that the initiative to bring back the Creative Arts award has been in the works for a few years now.

According to Chang, former Director of the Office of the Arts Scott Edmiston and dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Prof.

Eric Chaslaw (MUS) both independently proposed the idea of reinstating the award.

The initiative was spoken about informally at the Music Department faculty meeting, said Chang, and then brought to the School of the Creative Arts for approval.

In the past, the award ceremony in New York was the extent of the

Creative Arts Award’s impact on the Brandeis community. But as it is being reinstated, it is also being reinvented.

As such, Chang emphasized the importance of the yearlong residency in conjunction with the award: “We really would like to have someone to really engage in the Brandeis community [and] especially [interact] with our students. This is something we really feel really strong about,” she said.

So in looking for the recipient, the Department of the Creative Arts was looking for somebody who would work well within this vision. “We were looking for people, artists, who have great influence and impact in the world — for us it would be the music world — and then have the ability to reach out … to different issues in different disciplines,” said Chang.

Arnold is not new to Brandeis — she was in residence with the Music Department in 2013 for a short-term engagement. Now, she says, she is excited that she will be able to work with students and professors from multiple disciplines.

“Now my role is expanded beyond the music department, expanded beyond the composers … it’s really amazing to be asked to work on an institution-wide level,” she said in an interview with the Justice.

Arnold is expected to collaborate with the Fine Arts, Theater, English and Creativity, The Arts and Social Transformation departments among others.

But her role, Arnold told the Justice, is to facilitate discussion around these issues and help students navigate their own works and ideas. “They’ll bring the content in terms of what’s important to them and then I will help them navigate those waters,” she said.

One of the themes Arnold hopes to address during her residency is politics and its relation to the voice.

“Students are very politically engaged, or they want to be very politically engaged, and oftentimes they don’t know how to be politically engaged.

I don’t know how to be politically engaged. This is something that I think we all struggle with,” she said. In the spring, Arnold will engage with students even more directly by teaching an internship class that will be open to students of all disciplines.

The award ceremony for Arnold will take place on Nov. 18 at the Rose Art Museum, at which time Arnold will also perform, obtaining inspiration for her program from the “Lisa Yuskavage: The Brood and the LA/MA:’60s Pop From Both Coasts” exhibits currently on view.

20

TUESDAY, october 20, 2015 | THE JUSTICE

PHOTOS CORNER

Brandeis TALKS

INTERVIEW

How do you destress after midterms are over?

Rachel Liff ’16

Liff discusses process of directing “Songs For a New World” PHOTO COURTESY OF RACHEL LIFF

This week JustArts spoke with Rachel Liff ’16, who was the director for Brandeis Department of Theater Arts’ “Songs For a New World.” As a song cycle, the show consisted of only songs.

Shikha Chandrana ’17 “I watch really bad reality TV and hang with my friends.”

ROSHELLE SAUDIE/the Justice

BRANDEIS IN BLOOM: Roshelle Saudie ’18 took this photo close to the Brandeis sign on Saturday, Oct. 17. Saudie captured this shot by experimenting with the camera’s depth of field.

Featuring creative photos from our staff This feature showcases our photographers’ work capturing small moments around campus Mrudula Gadgil ’18 “I just do all the errands I’ve been putting off. So I do my laundry, wash my dishes [and] make my bed.”

Vineet Vishwanath ’18 “I have dinner with friends and just walk and admire the foliage.”

Ben Fong ’18 “I really like to go out for a 13mile run. You know, destress.”

—Compiled and photographed by Mihir Khanna/the Justice.

STAFF’S Top Ten

George Harrison Songs

By Jessica Goldstein justice EDITOR

I am a big fan of The Beatles, to say the least. However, I also believe there is a wrong answer to the question: “Who is your favorite Beatle?” Spotify recently released the collection of my favorite ex-Beatle, George Harrison. Here’s what I’m listening to non-stop!

1. “I Live For You” 2. “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)” 3. “Art of Dying” 4. “What is Life” 5. “Beautiful Girl” 6. “If Not For You” 7. “Living in the Material World” 8. “Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let it Roll)” 9. “Here Comes the Moon” 10. “All Things Must Pass

CROSSWORD ACROSS 1 – Corrida cheer 4 – Slug follower?

9 – Ceremonial Japanese mask 12 – Nocturnal flyer 13 – Sub 14 – “______ does the time go?”

16 – Polite dinner declination 20 – Stadium 21 – Out of energy 22 – Held in, with “up” 24 – Frequently 26 – Prefix before -system or -logy 29 – Gabor sister 30 – Hamilton’s killer 31 – Russian leader, pre-Revolution 32 – Informs 33 – Lyricist Gershwin 36 – To be, in Paris 37 – Pod member 38 – Actor Chris of Parks & Recreation 40 – Stock event (abbr.)

43 – Soul singer Redding 47 – “Ben-____” (Biblical movie) 48 – Colosseum locale 50 – Torn apart 51 – Neighbor of Yemen 53 – ____ Cycle, biological oxidation process 55 – Negative vote 56 – Fido 58 – One might do it to eyes, with “out” 60 – Impolite dinner declination 67 – Spec ____ 68 – Merit 69 – “47 ______” 70 – Hee preceder 71 – Buttocks 72 – L’isle ____-Dominique (Fr.) DOWN 1 - ____-Wan Kenobi 2 – Bathroom, for short 3 – Promise of many religions 4 – Exclamations of surprise 5 – Wager 6 – Before, to a poet 7 – Mafia kingpin 8 – Eng. Architect who built St. Paul’s Cathedral 9 – Least messy 10 – Explosives (abbr.)

11 – Informal greeting 15 – Clucking bird 17 – Break one’s fast 18 - _____-Zeneca (Pharmaceutical Corporation) 19 – YouTube video gamer (abbr.)

22 – Cat, for example 23 – Day before a holiday 24 – Kimono sash 25 – Expensive coat material 27 – Auto

!p

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RL: I was asked to direct it, I didn’t pick the show. I was asked to direct it and I was like “Yeah, I’ll direct it for the mainstage!” It was really exciting.

I really love this composer; it’s Jason Robert Brown, and he’s one of my favorites, and I love this show, so it was a really good fit.

JA: What was the process like for directing the show?

69 72

CROSSWORD COURTESY OF EVAN MAHNKEN

28 – Mining extract 31 – Type of sax 33 – Allow 34 – Pre-college test (abbr.)

38 – Vietnamese dish 39 – Pirate’s drink 40 – Annoy 41 – Tent preceder?

42 – Last letter of Greek alphabet 44 – Approximately 10,000,000,000 years, scientifically speaking 45 - ___ __ pickle 46 – Pig’s abode 49 – Dark, to the Bard 52 – Silent gesture of approval 54 – “Kama _____” 57 – One who attends, as a movie 59 – Pontiac model (abbr.)

60 – “I am ___ a crook” 61 – What a poet may do to a door?

62 – No, to a Scot 63 – _____ -la-la 64 – Opposite of LSR, in sports 65 – Lout 66 – Single

Rachel Liff: The show has no plot.

It’s a song cycle, that’s the way that I think about it is a life cycle, about life, love, struggle, community, family, responsibility and the choices we make and the choices that we need to make as split-second decisions. And what those choices lead to and how at the end of your life or the end of a great struggle, how you can give your knowledge and your wisdom in this world you’ve struggled to create to a new generation and prepare a new generation to take on their new world and figure it out for themselves.

JA: Why did you decide to direct the show?

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JustArts: Can you give a brief summary of “Songs For a New World?”

RL: I knew about it being a possibility since like December, but it wasn’t official until I think late February, and we announced it in March so I’ve been working on this show in earnest since late February, early March.

We announced auditions, we had auditions last semester, and then over the summer, I had to do a lot of work I had to come up to Brandeis and meet with designers and think about the set and the lights and all that stuff. Then in August, we started rehearsing and we rehearsed, the whole process was six weeks from rehearsal all the way to technical rehearsal, so putting the lights and the set and the sound, the actors, the costumes and everything together and then the show went up.

JA: What do you see as the main message of the show? What did you hope to accomplish with the show?

Solution to last issue’s crossword Crossword Copyright 2014 Tribune News Service, Inc.

SUDOKU INSTRUCTIONS: Place a number in the empty boxes in such a way that each row across, each column down and each small 9-box square contains all of the numbers from one to nine.

Solution to last issue’s sudoku

Sudoku Copyright 2014 Tribune News Service, Inc.

RL: It’s a tricky question and I don’t necessarily think that when you put on a show you need to be like ‘this is the moral of the story, and this is what I want people to think.’ I think that what I wanted people to leave with is an understanding of the emotional journey of the show because there was no plot and because it’s not so linear that it necessarily has a message to take away, but people left kind of understanding the emotional journey, I think that’s really what I was aiming for because it’s really the most important part to understand the emotional journeys of different people coming from different places and having different privileges and how they get through their life and how they come together as a community to build a different world. Understanding the emotions that go into that, I think, was probably the most important part to me.

—Jaime Gropper