The Justice, December 4, 2012 issue

ARTS Page 20

SPORTS Men’s basketball wins big 16

LAUGH FESTIVAL

FORUM LGBTQ conversion theory foolish 11 The Independent Student Newspaper

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of

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 LXV, Number 13

www.thejustice.org

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

HIGH DEMAND

administration

Drolette steps down as CFO ■ Marianne Cwalina will

be the new senior vice president of finance and chief financial officer.

By TATE HERBERT JUSTICE EDITOR

At the end of this calendar year, Frances Drolette will leave her position as senior vice president of finance and chief financial officer, announced Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Steven Manos last Tuesday. Marianne Cwalina, the current associate vice president of finance, will take over the role on Jan. 1.

Drolette wrote in an email to the Justice that the decision was not sudden, as she began speaking with University President Frederick Lawrence early this summer about reducing her hours and beginning to step down. When Manos joined Lawrence’s administration in August, “it provided an opportunity for Steve to manage some of the activities and initiatives of the senior finance staff, and I reduced my schedule in earnest.”

Drolette will leave her post “to pursue new professional and educational opportunities,” according to Manos’ email, which also lauded Drolette for having “made customer service a hallmark of Finance” and being “an island of stability during a period of great economic challenge.”

Drolette wrote that she will pursue opportunities similar to Brandeis, working in college or university administration “in a not-for-profit en-

vironment.” She also said that she is exploring the option of attending law school, which “would satisfy a ‘0lifelong-learning’ goal rather than a career objective.”

“I respect Drolette Fran’s decision,” said Mark Collins, senior vice president of administration, in an interview with the Justice. Collins added that Drolette, whom he has known for 20 years, is a “great colleague, mother, friend and just a great human being who I will miss greatly at Brandeis.”

The shift in administration was broadcast through emails sent to Brandeis faculty and staff over the course of a week. On Tuesday night, Manos announced that Drolette would be leaving the University. In a similar email sent yesterday, he announced that Cwalina would take over the position next year.

As for her legacy at Brandeis, Drolette wrote that she was “very proud of the silos that I have broken down both withn the Finance area, as well as across the University,” pointing to her collaboration with Collins on team-building programs among administrators and staff.

Drolette first joined Brandeis in 1976, becoming the associate director of budget and planning before she left the University for a position at Babson College in 1991, according to her biography on the Brandeis web-

See SVP, 7 ☛

Waltham, Mass.

JOSHUA LINTON/the Justice

STUDENT REACTIONS: The University is reviewing responses to a recently completed University-wide survey about dining services.

Univ taking bids for dining ■ Among the companies

receiving Requests for Proposal are Aramark, Sodexo and Chartwells.

By TATE HERBERT JUSTICE EDITOR

Big changes to dining services may be on the horizon as University administrators analyze the results of the most recent dining survey and consider updates and adaptations to be made over the course

of the next few years. While work on relatively minor adjustments in dining facilities will be underway in summer 2013, Senior Vice President of Administration Mark Collins said that the University will also send Requests for Proposals to several competing food service companies, including Aramark, in the coming weeks.

The survey was filled out by over 1,500 students in addition to 592 faculty and staff over the course of about a week, according to an email that Collins sent to the Brandeis community last Monday. Collins

said that the decision to send out RFPs was not a result of negative feedback from the survey.

“This is not an indictment of anybody. It’s a business decision to look at ... where we are, and where we want to get to at Brandeis. Where we want to get to has been informed somewhat by the survey,” he said, mentioning areas of dining such as variety, vegan and vegetarian options, cost and price value.

Aramark, Sodexo and Chartwells will all receive RFPs, said Collins. A

See DINING, 7 ☛

STUDENT LIFE

Dylan concert proposal fails after admin withholds approval ■ Jesse Manning ’13 has put

forward a new proposal for a one-day indoor concert.

By ANDREW WINGENS JUSTICE EDITOR

After several months of discussions and proposals, bringing Bob Dylan to campus for an extended SpringFest this spring is no longer on the table.

Jesse Manning ’13, an organizer of the proposal to bring Bob Dylan back to Brandeis for the 50th anniversary of his initial concert here, said that he could not move forward with the plan

because it was not approved by the administration within the necessary time frame.

“The time frame that we, the students, set up for ourselves ran out without getting a ‘yes,’ therefore we weren’t comfortable going forward with it. And the administration wasn’t comfortable saying yes by the time that our deadline was up,” he said.

Manning, general manager of WBRS and Student Union chief of staff, said he is now proposing an idea for an indoor one-day concert in Gosman Sports and Convocation Center rather than an outdoors folk festival.

Manning was careful to say that the

idea is still in the planning stages and hasn’t been vetted by all the necessary channels at the University. The event would include a headliner and several other bands from about 2 p.m. until 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 27, the day prior to SpringFest.

He declined to name the headliner, but said that it would be a “big name.”

Manning also declined to say how much the concert would cost or how much tickets would be sold for to nonBrandeis students, only saying that both would be less than the original plan for a Bob Dylan-centric folk festival.

Manning said in a previous inter-

ment by press time for this article. In an interview last month he expressed concerns about the original plan for a Bob Dylan folk festival.

The original plan proposed by the group of students, including Alex Pilger ’13 and Michael Zonenashvili ’13, was to have a two-day folk festival with the first day headlined by Bob Dylan. The festival would have been free for students and it would have been open to 4,300 people from off campus.

That plan then changed into a oneday folk festival headlined by Dylan

See DYLAN, 7 ☛

Campaign connection

Strong start

Lawrence abroad

Alex Goldstein ’06 has been working with Governor Deval Patrick for six years, acting as a field organizer, and later, press secretary.

 After falling in tough fashion to top opponents, the women’s basketball team rebounded with a vital win on the road.

 President Frederick Lawrence traveled to Israel last week to meet with alumni.

FEATURES 8

For tips or info email editor@thejustice.org

view that the tickets for the folk festival would have cost about $90 for non-Brandeis people. Flagel, in an interview with the Justice last month, had cited the cost of bringing Dylan to Brandeis at about $300,000. The total cost of the festival would have been undoubtedly higher with the additional costs associated with an open outdoor concert.

Manning said the concert would ideally be open to 5,000 non-students, which includes staff, alumni and others not within the Brandeis community, as well as 2,000 students, who could receive free tickets.

Flagel could not be reached for com-

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

INDEX

SPORTS 16

ARTS SPORTS

17 16

EDITORIAL FEATURES

10 8

OPINION POLICE LOG

10 2

News 3 COPYRIGHT 2012 FREE AT BRANDEIS. Email managing@thejustice.org for home delivery.

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TUESDAY, december 4, 2012

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THE JUSTICE

NEWS WIRE BRIEF

POLICE LOG

Colleges present varied info on costs

Medical Emergency

WASHINGTON—College is one of the biggest investments most people make, but it can be hard to estimate in advance just how big.

Congress stepped in a few years ago with a law requiring that colleges and universities offer an online tool to help families get a handle on it. For the past year, schools have had to post “net price calculators” on their websites for prospective students to determine the full cost of attending, minus scholarships and grants.

“By the time a family receives acceptances and financial aid letters in the spring, it’s too late for do-overs,” said Lynn O’Shaughnessy, the author of a consumer book about college costs, “The College Solution.”

“You can’t start the process all over again if the schools turned out to be stingy.”

But all net price calculators are not created equal, and schools have a lot of flexibility in how they present them. Indeed, an immediate problem is that some schools don’t make them very easy to find.

When you do find them, they can vary in complexity. Some calculators can take about 20 minutes to fill out because they require pulling information from tax returns and other family financial records. Others are quick and simple but give only an average estimate that might not match a student’s real-life situation.

Still, they provide an early, customized estimate, though schools make it clear that students still must apply for financial aid and that what they receive could be different.

The concept is simple: When students plug in their financial information, they receive estimated net prices based on what similar students paid in a previous year.

“It takes into consideration the institution’s financial aid policies, and gives a more accurate picture of what the out-of-pocket costs are likely to be for a family,” said Irene Jasper, the director of student lending at Duke University.

Some calculators also ask for grades, class ranks and SAT or ACT test scores to determine whether students are eligible for merit aid, which isn’t based on need. The more information, the better the estimate, O’Shaughnessy said.

Some selective private colleges already had embarked on the idea before it became a website requirement.

But because many now give only average amounts for grant awards, based on income, the net price calculators are “a good idea that’s been watered down,” said Robert Weinerman, a former financial aid officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is now an adviser at College Coach, a private college-admissions consulting firm.

Others said that more complicated versions could be daunting.

“I think they have the potential to be tremendously helpful, but two things will determine whether they really are: if people use them, and secondly, if they’re user-friendly,” said Michelle Asha Cooper, the president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy, a policy research group that focuses on helping low-income and minority students succeed in college.

Part of being user-friendly is being easy to find.

The Institute for College Access and Success, a nonprofit group that advocates for college affordability, said in a report last month that schools should put the net-price calculators in prominent places on their financial aid or costs pages so that potential applicants— and parents—who weren’t aware of the tools might discover them more easily.

Sacramento State University, for example, has a link under “resources” on its financial aid page. Tacoma Community College in Washington put the calculator on its student consumer information page, reached by clicking the “About TCC” tab on the home page.

Kim Matison in the Tacoma Community College financial aid office said her office had been talking about making the calculator more visible. The school was among 50 randomly selected two- and four-year colleges in a study of net price calculators by the Institute for College Access and Success. It found that about a quarter had no links on their costs or financial aid pages and three had no calculators at all.

—McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS n A photo title in Arts mistakenly described the play Non-Reality as a screenplay. It was a play performed on stage, not filmed. (Nov. 20, p. 19)

Nov. 19—University Police received a report of a male in Shapiro Residence Hall with flulike symptoms. At the party’s request, University Police and BEMCo responded, and he was transported to the Health Center via police cruiser.

Nov. 26—A student in Hassenfeld Residence Hall called complaining of abdominal pain.

BEMCo and an ambulance were notified for transport to the hospital, and the community development coordinator was notified.

Nov. 27—A student in Cable called University Police and requested that BEMCo respond to evaluate a case of hives. University Police and BEMCo responded, and the party was treated onscene by BEMCo with a signed refusal for further care.

Nov. 27—A college-aged female at the Health Center suffered from anaphylactic shock resulting from a soy product. An ambulance transported the party to the Newton-Wellesley Hospital.

Nov. 28—University Police received a report of a student having a possible seizure in the Heller School for Social Policy and Management. BEMCo was notified and an ambulance responded. The party was transported to the Newton-Wellesley Hospital via ambulance.

Dec. 2—A party in Shapiro Residence Hall reported their friend had flu-like symptoms and was having difficulty breathing. BEMCo treated the party on-scene with a signed refusal for further care.

Larceny

Justice

the

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Traffic

Nov. 19—A University Police officer on patrol in the South Residence Lot was flagged down because a driver had backed his vehicle into a parked car.

There was no obvious damage, and University Police compiled a brief report on the incident.

Harassment

Nov. 19—A student went to Stoneman to report that her laptop computer was stolen from her unlocked room in Village A. University Police compiled a report on the theft.

Nov. 27—A painting that was displayed in the Spingold Theater Center was taken. University Police compiled a report.

Nov. 30—A student reported via phone call that her laptop

Nov. 20—A male student who broke up with a female student entered a Foster Mod and was aggressively looking for her.

The caller stated she had locked herself in her bedroom.

The University Police responded and resolved the situation.

A report on the incident was compiled, and the community development coordinator was notified.

Miscellaneous

Nov. 22—When the manager at the Sherman Dining Hall opened for business in the morning, he found a male, non-employee sleeping behind the grill; he appeared intoxicated. The subject was arrested for trespassing and was transported to the Waltham Police Department for booking.

Nov. 27—A caller stated that a man was changing a tire in the rear of the Mandel Parking Lot, and he was not sure if the man was possibly stealing the rims off the vehicle. University Police located the person, and it was confirmed that he was the owner and was changing his tire.

Dec. 1—A caller in the Foster Mods reported that she was hanging out with some friends when one of them slapped her.

She did not want medical attention. University Police compiled a report on the incident, and an investigation will follow.

—compiled by Marielle Temkin

SENATE LOG

Senate considers clubs

JENNY CHENG/the Justice

Relaxation decoration Nikki Isaacs ’14 decorates a mug at a “Stressbuster” event held by Student Events on Friday in the Shapiro Campus Center. Students enjoyed free popcorn, cupcakes and massages in addition to the mugs.

The Senate held its weekly meeting on Sunday, voting to recognize one club, charter another and reconsider a third at a future meeting.

With 12 senators in attendance, the first order of business was the consideration of a Brandeis chapter of Alex’s Lemonade Stand, a foundation that seeks to “raise money and awareness of childhood cancer causes” and to “encourage and empower others, especially children, to get involved and make a difference for children with cancer,” according to the organization’s website.

The purpose of the Brandeis chapter will be to “give Brandeis University students the opportunity to join a national movement to find a cure for childhood cancer.”

The Senate voted unanimously to recognize the club.

Next, the Brandeis Vegan/Vegetarian Club, which was recognized by the Senate earlier this year, requested charter from the Senate for events and posters. The Senate voted to grant charter to the club.

The final club seeking to be chartered by the Senate was the Brandeis Triathlon Club, which seeks to “unite a community of student athletes who want to swim, bike, and/or run together for exercise or for competition,” according to their constitution.

The club was seeking charter for swim gear, open dinner events and competition fees. After a heated discussion, the Senate voted against chartering the club, but remained open to considering a revised proposal.

The meeting ended with Committee Chair Reports. Dining Committee coChair Danny Novak ’15 revealed that Einstein Bros. Bagels will “probably” be open 24 hours a day on Monday through Thursday next semester.

In Gloria Park’s ’14 Executive Senator report, she announced the creation of a new university committee called the Student Health Advisory Committee.

In the executive session that ended the meeting, senators were nominated to be Executive Senator next semester.

The voting for that position will take place at next week’s senate meeting.

—Sam Mintz

ANNOUNCEMENTS SEA Energy Reduction Pledge

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

computer was stolen from her room in Village B. University Police compiled a report on the theft.

Come by the Shapiro Campus Center Tuesday through Thursday and pledge to reduce your energy usage and receive a free sticker.

Tuesday at 11 a.m. to Thursday at 3 p.m. in the Shapiro Campus Center Atrium.

BLCU Presents: David Horowitz

Notable conservative author and speaker David Horowitz is coming to Brandeis. He will be discussing conservative values and beliefs. He will also discuss the topic of radical Islam and how it affects Israel’s existence. A question-and-answer session will follow.

Horowitz founded the David Horowitz Freedom Center which aims to combat the Left and anti-American campaigns. He has appeared on Fox News, MSNBC and CNN. Today from 8 to 10 p.m. in Shiffman room 219.

The Debate About Infant Male Circumcision

The recent debates about infant male circumcision in Germany and California have highlighted what is an older and more complicated discussion of ritual versus rights. This

debate was particularly important in Germany beginning in the Enlightenment, as it defined the boundaries of acceptable practice for Jews in their new role as full citizens of a national state. Today’s debate (unlike that of the 18th century) stresses the need for collaboration between Jews and Muslims in the contemporary world in redefining what it takes to make a good citizen.

Sander L. Gilman is a distinguished professor of the Liberal Arts and Sciences as well as Professor of Psychiatry at Emory University.

Thursday from 5 to 6:30 p.m. in the Mandel Center for the Humanities Reading Room.

Perpetuating Crime or Preserving Culture

Vidya Sri, founded of an organization called Gangashakti, is a survivor of forced marriage.

She will speak to educate and create awareness about this issue as a human rights issue.

Thursday from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in Irving Schneider and Family Building room G3.

Journalism Internship Event

Interested in journalism but don’t know

how to get involved?

Come to the 3rd floor of Brown to hear students discuss their journalism internships and to get information about how to get started on a journalism career. Snacks will be provided.

Thursday from 8 to 9 p.m. in the Brown building.

Mandel Lunch Seminar

At this lunch seminar, “Using Literacy Assessments to Inform Instruction in the Elementary School,” Prof. Shoshana Jacobs (ED) will take a close look at literacy assessment in elementary school. Participants will be guided through a variety of assessment possibilities of reading and writing and look at how we can use assessment data to inform and enrich teaching and learning.

Shoshana Jacobs is a literacy coach at the Conservatory Lab Charter School in Brighton, MA. Monday from 12:15 to 2 p.m. in the Abraham Shapiro Academic Center Room 204.

THE JUSTICE

By MARISSA DITKOWSKY JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

PHOTO COURTESY OF U.S. EMBASSY TEL AVIV

PRESIDENTIAL RECEPTION: U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro ’91 (left) applauds Lawrence at the event on Wednesday.

Lawrence visits alums, ambassador in Israel

Dan Shapiro ’91 and his wife Julie Fisher ’90 hosted an event for Brandeis alumni.

By SAM MINTZ JUSTICE EDITOR

University President Frederick Lawrence visited Israel on Wednesday to take part in an alumni event hosted by U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro ’91 and his wife Julie Fisher ’90. The event coincidentally occurred on the same day that Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire, ending a recent spell of violence that resulted in hundreds of fatalities.

According to a BrandeisNOW press release, the event “turned into a joyous celebration of the peace,” for the more than 200 alumni, parents and friends of the University who had convened at the ambassador’s home.

When his turn came to speak, Lawrence talked about the deep connection between Brandeis and Israel, which were both founded in 1948.

“Our students and faculty will be strengthened by our profoundly broad and sustained engagement with Israel’s institutions of higher learning,” he said, according to BrandeisNOW. “It’s a natural partnership given Brandeis’ identity as

3

Students going to Israel face dilemma

■ All University-sponsored study abroad and Birthright trips to Israel are happening as planned, with all of the usual precautions in place.

a nonsectarian, diverse university with deep roots in the Jewish community.”

Fisher wrote in an email to the Justice that she and Shapiro were very impressed with Lawrence when they met him for the first time. “President Lawrence is a terrific speaker and a warm and engaging person,” she wrote.

“He spoke movingly about the history of Brandeis and the impact the Brandeis experience has had on students and alumni as they move through their lives. It was really inspiring to hear him speak to such a highly-engaged group of Brandeis alums and friends.”

Though Fisher and Shapiro were “determined to hold the … event as scheduled,” according to BrandeisNOW, the welcome news of the ceasefire almost caused a slight hitch in the plan. “[Ambassador Shapiro] was late for the event because he was in meetings at the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem,” wrote Fisher in her email. “The guests expressed a lot of excitement and relief when they heard the news.”

In addition to Lawrence and Shapiro, other speakers at the event included Forsan Hussein ’00, CEO of Jerusalem YMCA, and Galia Golan-Gild ’60, an esteemed professor of government at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. The two “spoke of the profound impact their Brandeis experience had on their

TUESDAY, december 4, 2012

STUDY ABROAD

BRANDEIS IN ISRAEL

■ U.S. Ambassador to Israel

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lives and on what they were able to achieve in Israeli society because of it,” according to Fisher.

“Especially coming on the evening that a ceasefire was reached, this event really underscored the unique nature of the Brandeis-Israel relationship,” said Glen Shear ’81, president of the Alumni Club of Israel, according to BrandeisNOW. The event attracted a wide range of participants, according to Fisher.

“In attendance at the event were leaders from universities here in Israel who had the opportunity to hear more about Brandeis University directly from President Lawrence as well as alumni themselves.

There was even a student who is on her way to Brandeis as a freshman next semester,” she wrote.

“For Dan and I as Brandeis alumni, it was an absolute pleasure to be able to host a crowd of over 200 people coming together to celebrate Brandeis, an institution that we adore and that had a profound impact on our lives,” said Fisher. “It was wonderful that President Lawrence was able to be here to continue to strengthen the connection between Brandeis University in Waltham to the Brandeis community that is spread around the world.”

Lawrence’s trip to Israel followed a stop in London last Sunday to attend an annual event, the Alumni Club of Great Britain’s Alumni-Student Thanksgiving Day Tea.

Following the recent escalation between Israel and Gaza and the agreement to implement a ceasefire on Nov. 21, there have been no changes for students who are currently in Israel or planning to travel there through either study abroad programs or Taglit-Birthright Israel.

The Office of Study Abroad has been working to contact and support students and the families of students currently studying abroad in Israel, wrote Director of Study Abroad J. Scott Van Der Meid in an email to the Justice. Van Der Meid explained that the Brandeis University/Middlebury Program in Israel has not been, and will not be, suspended, and that so far, no students have withdrawn from the spring 2013 semester program.

Two students are currently studying abroad in Israel, and 14 plan to study abroad next semester.

“None of the students asked to return home. We have been talking with several students about their options for next semester should they no longer wish to go to Israel in the spring,” wrote Van Der Meid.

“Some students might switch to a different program; others are going to wait and see what comes this spring and others might consider deferring until the fall 2013 semester.”

The Office of Study Abroad has been working with the programs, study abroad organizations and local authorities to ensure the safety of students studying abroad, said Van Der Meid.

Taglit-Birthright Israel trips are run through the University’s chapter of Hillel during the winter annually. This year’s trip will depart on Dec. 26, but with the uncertainty surrounding how effective the current ceasefire will remain, some concerns have been expressed by students and the families of students who are planning to go to Israel.

According to Hillel Coordinator for Israel Engagement Eli Cohn, out of the 27 students currently registered to participate in this winter’s Birthright trip, none of the students have withdrawn due to security concerns at this point.

Allyson Eller ’15 still plans to go on Birthright this winter with the University, but is unsure of whether or not she will go should the ceasefire fail.

“My thoughts didn’t change. ... I felt like the situation in Israel escalates cyclically, so there is always

a chance of something happening,” wrote Eller in an email to the Justice.

According to Eller, her family expressed concerns, and her mother’s thoughts on the trip changed after the situation in Israel intensified.

“My mom said that a lot of my family members called her and asked her if I was still going, if the trip was still on, things like that,” wrote Eller. “We talked and decided that as long as the ceasefire holds, I can go, because it’s just as safe as any other time since there’s always the threat the situation will escalate again.”

Should a student feel uncomfortable with his or her trip due to safety reasons, the deposit required at the time of registration can be returned to that student, according to Cohn.

“We counsel all of our students that Birthright is not a program that is going anywhere, nor is Israel a country that’s going anywhere, and if this isn’t the right time for you to go, then that’s a choice that’s between you and your family, and certainly not something that we’re going to hold against you in any way,” said Cohn.

According to Cohn, Birthright takes several safety precautions regardless of the circumstances in Israel, including keeping phones containing Global Positioning Systems on all buses to track their locations at all times, and ensuring that no student leaves the group at any time. Safety is also confirmed consistently with the Situation Room in Israel throughout the trip.

In addition, there are certain areas that are off-limits regardless of the current situation, such as East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank. Therefore, the chance that the schedule of the trip will be affected by escalation is unlikely, according to Cohn.

“I’m very hopeful that the ceasefire will hold up, and I think it will, practically. Honestly, I don’t think it would’ve affected our itinerary all that much anyways,” said Cohn.

Despite the escalation and questions regarding the ceasefire, Cohn believes that the trip will be just as safe as any other time. Birthright began in 1999, and continued to operate through the Intifada in the early 2000s, the second Lebanon War in 2006 and Operation Cast Lead and the Gaza War in 2009. According to Cohn, all of these events occurred without harm to Birthright participants.

“Brandeis and the Office of Study Abroad is not in the business to promise any given location, including Waltham, is safe,” wrote Van Der Meid in his email. “Instead we see our role to work with reputable overseas partners and work together to inform our students and their families with as much information as possible about any situation on the ground.”

OBITUARY

Schneider, former trustee and Heller benefactor, dies at 93 ■ Irving Schneider was the

largest single benefactor of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management.

By ARIEL GLICKMAN JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Irving Schneider, University trustee emeritus and the largest benefactor of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management, died on Nov. 23 in Palm Beach, Fla. He was 93.

Schneider’s relationship with Brandeis can be traced to World War II, said Stuart Altman, Heller’s former dean and Sol C. Chaikin Professor of National Health Policy, in an interview with the Justice. When Schneider was in the U.S Army Air Corps, he befriended Abram Sachar who became the University’s first president in 1948.

Schneider served on the Board of Trustees from 1970 to 1994 and as vice chair from 1971 to 1983 and 1987 to 1993.

He was not only a leader at Brandeis, said Schneider Altman, but was also a co-chair and chief operating officer at Helmsley-Spear, Inc., a real estate company in New York where he worked for more than 50 years.

Though Schneider’s business was real estate, his passion was health care policy. From his success as a real estate agent in New York, he became an important donor to the Heller School, contributing $20 million to Brandeis—first to create the Schneider Institutes for Health Policy in 1978 and later for the con-

struction of the Irving Schneider and Family Building at the Heller School which was opened in 2006.

In 1991, he became a member of the Heller Board of Overseers.

“I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say without Irving Schneider, the Heller School would not be the school it is today,” said Altman. “He has been our largest benefactor. …

The Heller School … is one of the top social policy schools in the country [which is] to a large part related to the generosity of Irving.”

Schneider received an honorary doctorate of humane letters in 1983 due to his charitable gifts and dedication to Brandeis. Long Island University and Tel Aviv University also gave Schneider honorary degrees.

Schneider’s philanthropy also extended beyond Brandeis in his support for Jewish organizations and hospitals. “One of his greatest achievements was the building of the Schneider Children’s [Medical

Center] in Israel, the finest hospital of its kind in the Middle East,” said President Emeritus Jehuda Reinharz in an email to the Justice. The hospital, located in a suburb of Tel Aviv, cares for both Israeli and Arab children in and around Israel. It receives patients from as far as Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe and is the first and only children’s hospital in Israel, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “[U]ltimately, I think Irving became the largest single donor to the state of Israel,” said Altman, most of the money going toward what he defined as “a true world-class hospital” that “competes with the finest children’s hospitals in the world.”

Schneider’s family has also supported the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System for nearly 50 years. Schneider served on the board and as an honorary chairman until 2010 when he chose to devote his time and money to the Schneider

Children’s Medical Center of Israel.

Schneider was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. and graduated from the City College of New York in 1939.

He is survived by his daughters, Mindy Schneider Lesser ’75 and Lynn Schneider, both of whom are active at Brandeis, and four grandchildren: Jeremiah, Max, Katie and Jake. His wife, Helen, died in 2001.

Funeral services were held last Monday at Central Synagogue in New York City.

“Everyone here at Brandeis should recognize that … [he] was one of the really important forces to make Brandeis the world-class institution it is today,” said Altman.

University President Frederick Lawrence said, according to BrandeisNOW, “He embraced the Heller School’s mission—knowledge advancing social justice—and generously supported the pioneering work being done there. May his memory be a blessing.”

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TUESDAY, december 4, 2012

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THE JUSTICE

STUDENT UNION

THIRST FOR KNOWLEDGE

Amendments lead to little change in senator attendance ■ The changes to the

Constitution, passed in October, aimed to increase regular participation.

By ALLYSON CARTTER JUSTICE SENIOR WRITER

PHOTO COURTESY OF BRANDEISNOW

STAR STUDENT: Elizabeth Stoker ’13 received the Marshall Scholarship.

Students win prestigious scholarship and awards ■ Elizabeth Stoker ’13,

Brandeis’ fourth-ever Marshall Scholar, will study Christian ethics in Oxford.

By FIONA LOCKYER JUSTICE EDITOR

Tucked away in the Usdan Student Center is a small office that directs all fellowship efforts on campus. Joined by active professors, these are the forces that support the fellowship and award searches for students at Brandeis, whether they are searching in University or outside channels. This academic year, this support system has already seen great success: Last week, it was announced that four bright Brandeisians had made proposals that won prestigious awards. These ranged from plans to help midwives in Timor Leste to academic endeavors in Christian ethics. Shota Adamia ’15, Natan Odenheimer ’15 and Sarah van Buren ’13 have been announced as the 2012 Maurice J. and Fay B. Karpf and Ari Hahn Peace Awards winners, and Elizabeth Stoker ’13 is the fourth-ever Brandeisian to be awarded the Marshall Scholarship.

Sunday school to university theology

Elizabeth Stoker came to Waltham from Texas unaware of what she would learn from her undergraduate career. She had been active in her church previously, teaching Sunday school courses weekly to younger members of the church. During her Brandeis career, she majored in English and Sociology, with a minor in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, which helped her to define her academic interests in the sociology of religion. Now, she plans to follow her interests in Christian ethics to a doctorate degree, and hopefully to a university teaching position.

“I can’t stand to leave” university life, Stoker said in an interview with the Justice. As a professor, she will continue to pass on the information that surprised her so much in college—the sociology of religion, or what she calls “the part of religion that people live.”

For Stoker, who will use her Marshall Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford for a Masters of Philosophy in Christian Ethics, Christianity warrants study for its important role in politics. “[Christianity] is so polemical.

Maybe not everybody has a strong opinion on Hinduism or Shinto, but everybody has an opinion on Christianity and where Christianity sits in politics,” she explains. Moreover,

the social role of Christianity influences the narratives on different categories of society, including those with disabilities, like Stoker, who herself has epilepsy.

Stoker’s work does not end at Christianity, however. “I have been very involved with the Interfaith Chaplaincy; I think it’s a fantastic program here,” she says.

As a coordinator of the Waltham Group’s Hunger and Homelessness group, she believes that Brandeis is a very pluralistic and tolerant place.

van Buren

Adamia

Giving birth to a new culture

International time-traveler Sarah van Buren will Odenheimer lose one day on the way to Timor Leste, but some- how gain two days on her way back, she says in an interview with the Justice. While she is not exactly sure how the time change will work, she is sure of her plans in Timor Leste, a small island in the South Pacific where she will spend winter break.

Working through a student group where she is the director of internal operations, Project Plus One, van Buren will use her peace award to work to integrate domestic violence training into midwifery at a clinic where she has previously volunteered in Timor Leste.

Growing up in Japan, she “was raised in a community that was very open about the way that they treated women and women as defined as second-class citizens in many ways.”

As a Biology and International Global Studies double major with minors in Peace and Coexistence Studies and Women and Gender Studies, she hopes to become an obstetrician/ gynecologist who can address the reproductive needs of women in South Asia.

“I’m really focusing on health as a means of empowerment.”

“Not necessarily conflict”

“It’s not necessarily [about] conflict, … it’s more [about] disparities

among people,” Shota Adamia explains in an interview with the Justice about his Peace Award project.

For three weeks this winter, he will not focus on the ethnic conflict in Ireland in terms of how many people have died, but rather on the people who remain. From Dublin to Galloway, Adamia plans to travel to numerous small towns to gather people’s narratives and photos.

He says that his interest in the conflict in Northern Ireland, where Protestants and Catholics divided on the status of Northern Ireland have been in conflict for decades, is based on the lack of awareness that he has observed both at Brandeis and in the United States in general. “There are so many places in the world that don’t get coverage or awareness,” he explains.

His findings will be displayed on campus next April in a public exhibition, and hopefully in his home country of Georgia.

On Oct. 28 the Senate passed two amendments to the Student Union Constitution that addressed the lack of attendance at Senate meetings.

Vice President Gloria Park ’13 said in an interview with the Justice that there has not been a notable difference in attendance since the amendments were passed, but senators “have been more attentive in explaining why they’re missing a meeting.”

The first amendment stipulates that senators with three or more unexcused absences per semester will be removed from the position, and the second allows senators to vote by proxy.

There had previously been a system for recording excused and unexcused absences but no penalty system in place, said Class of 2013 Senator David Fisch in an interview.

Fisch is a member of the Ways and Means Committee, which proposed the amendments.

Should a senator be removed from the position, the student with the second-most votes in the original election would be given the opportunity to fill the position.

If abstain had received the second-most votes or if the student with the second-most votes does not want the position, the seat will remain unfilled until elections the following semester, according to Class of 2014 Senator and Executive Senator Ricky Rosen, who also chairs

the Ways and Means Committee.

The amendment aims to “ensure that students who had an active interest in serving on the Senate still ha[ve] an opportunity to participate, namely, when a Senator is not performing his or her duties,” said Rosen in an email to the Justice.

Senators with excused absences may vote by email or video-chat on amendments, Senate Money Resolutions and clubs that have been discussed at previous meetings, according to Rosen. “[W]e didn’t want to penalize senators who had excused absences that they could anticipate a week or so in advance,” Rosen wrote.

A primary concern for low attendance is that the Senate will not reach quorum, defined as half of the senators plus one, or 12 of the 23 senators, according to Park. Without this number of senators voting to pass a motion, the vote will not count because “technically no vote occurred,” said Fisch.

Low attendance can also mean that clubs that return from week to week may be speaking to a different group of senators, which requires repeating presentations and debates, Class of 2015 Senator Sneha Walia said in an interview with the Justice.

“It just eats up the time that we could be talking about … new information,” she said.

The issue of attendance is “not a new problem,” said Park.

According to Rosen, “This was something that the Senate discussed last year, but never formally implemented. At the beginning of the semester, some Senators were experiencing a bit of confusion about the level of commitment required of the position.”

“Students are elected to Senate positions and should be held accountable to commit to that,” said Walia.

Finding a home in diversity

Natan Odenheimer is a proud Jerusalemite, and he is an optimist.

It is easy to see how the diversity of his hometown colors his college experience. At Brandeis, he studies Philosophy and Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies as a double major.

Last year, he used a Crown Center for the Middle East Studies Summer Travel grant to travel to Jordan, where he stayed with an Arab-Israeli friend and learned Arabic. This year, he has won a Peace Award that will allow him to bring past Israeli combat soldiers and Arab-Israeli community leaders together to better know each other.

“It’s not making bridges for peace,” he says in an interview with the Justice. In fact, “I don’t even necessarily want to talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he continues. But he does want to address what he found to be a difficulty in adjusting back to civilian life after four years as a combat soldier in the Israeli army, that “for many people, [the division between enemy and friend] is between enemy Arab and friend Jewish, or not even Jewish, but Israeli-not-Arab.”

“I never thought that if someone is Arab, he’s bad, yet when for threeand-a-half, four years that you go through [the army], Arabs are the enemy, and it’s something you embrace and you’re less open,” he explains.

His peace project will seek to show these two groups that they do not always have to be in opposition. Like the other students who have won awards last week and in the past, Odenheimer is using his optimism to propel his role in a movement toward more peace.

JON EDELSTEIN/the Justice

HEAD OF THE TABLE: Student Union Vice President Gloria Park ’13 presides over Sunday’s Senate meeting in a conference room in the Shapiro Campus Center.

THE JUSTICE

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2012

5

GROWING DILEMMA

BRIEF Orthodox Rabbi Elliot Kaplowitz leaving to pursue opportunities Rabbi Elliot Kaplowitz ’02 and Toby Kaplowitz announced in an email to Hillel at Brandeis that they will be leaving the University at the end of the academic year to pursue “other opportunities to further [their] careers and prospects for [their] family.”

Kaplowitz, along with his wife, serves as the co-director of Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus at Brandeis, a program aimed at providing spiritual guidance to Jewish college students who attend secular universities.

They also work as advisors to Brandeis’ Orthodox Jewish community. He explained in an interview with the Justice that he and his wife made the decision to leave Brandeis to “explore and move on to other options.”

Kaplowitz said that he would like to see himself serving in a leadership role at a synagogue.

Toby currently works at a Jewish day school and hopes to become a director of one in the future.

The Kaplowitzes have worked at the University for over five years.

Rabbi Kaplowitz, who received a combined BA/MA in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies with a minor in Hebrew Language and Literature, also served Hillel at Brandeis as one of the advisors to the Jewish community.

President of Brandeis Orthodox Organization Kimmie Kfare ’14 said that “[w]hile their presence will certainly be missed ... the community looks forward to spending what’s left of this semester and next semester with them and are eager to be involved in the search process for the next

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JLIC couple.”

Kaplowitz said that he will look back fondly on the connections that he has made with students.

“It’s all about the relaKaplowitz tionships that I’m blessed to form [and] make with students that we’ve been able to guide through various life experiences,” he reflected. “I’ll miss those interactions [at] such a private, robust Jewish community, not only where I was rabbi of the Brandeis orthodox community [but also] part of Hillel, and ... involved with the non-Jewish community.”

Kaplowitz believes that he and his wife’s positions will be filled by the end of the academic year in a process led by Executive Director of Hillel Larry Sternberg ’78 and that there will be “heavy student involvement.” Kaplowitz said that the details, which are still being worked out, will be made known to the community soon.

Sternberg could not be reached for comment by press time.

“It’s bittersweet for us, but we’re excited about the opportunities we’re ready to pursue,” said Rabbi Kaplowitz. “This is really a special place and really an amazing, unique community that we have been able to be a part of.”

—Sara Dejene and Adam Rabinowitz.

JOSHUA LINTON/the Justice

POPULATION AND CHANGE: Seager speaks about population control to the assembled students at the lecture on Tuesday.

faculty

Prof Lanser chosen to lead literary group ■ Sue Lanser will serve as

vice president and president of the International Society for the Study of Narrative.

By shani abramowitz JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Prof. Susan S. Lanser (ENG) has been selected for the International Society for the Study of Narrative’s four-year presidential cycle, according to a Nov. 13 BrandeisNOW press release. Lanser’s appointment as second vice president is part of a four-year cycle in which she will become president of the association.

Lanser is the head of the Division of Humanities and a professor of English, Women’s and Gender Studies and Comparative Literature at Brandeis.

According to its website, the ISSN “is a nonprofit association of scholars dedicated to the investigation of narrative, its elements, techniques, and forms; its relations to other modes of discourse; its power and influence in culture past and present.”

According to the Nov. 13 press release, Lanser will begin her term immediately after the 2013 Modern Language Association convention and her first board meeting will take place in Manchester, England, this June. “[The position] entails professional service on top of one’s other responsibilities and scholarly projects, but it doesn’t affect one’s academic position,” she wrote in an email to the Justice.

Lanser wrote that the presidency position of the ISSN will have no effect on her positions at Brandeis.

“This is an organization that I have a very deep commitment to because it crosses so many disciplines in its focus on narrative,” Lanser said in a BrandeisNOW release. “The study of the narrative has been at the heart of my career from the beginning.”

According to the ISSN, “narrative” encompasses categories that range from the novel to graphic arts to medical cases histories.

“Professor Lanser’s election is an acknowlLanser edgement of the membership’s respect and appreciation for her decades of work as a narratologist,” said Emma Kafalenos, ISSN first vice president and director of undergraduate studies and senior lecturer in comparative literature at Washington University in St. Louis, according to BrandeisNOW. Kafalenos stated that Lanser’s appointment is a great honor.

“She’s been involved with our ongoing narrative theory panels for a number of years,” Kafalenos continued. “Her work is very impressive.”

According to BrandeisNOW, Lanser says she is looking forward to taking a role and shaping the next phase of the organization, which has an international focus.

Officers come from Europe, Israel and Australia, and are not only part of the organization, but part of the leadership as well.

Lanser previously served on the executive board of the ISSN. “My own work has been focused on narrative and narrative theory throughout my career,” she noted. “I am particularly known for having pioneered in feminist approaches to narrative, but I work on narrative quite broadly and teach courses on both narrative and the novel.”

“It is an honor to be elected to such a position and particularly to the presidency of the organization,” Lanser wrote. “Narrative pervades our lives and our scholarly disciplines, and the ISSN encourages us to better understand this mode of human communication and expression.”

Nonprofit CEO lectures about population issues ■ John Seager is the

president and CEO of Population Connection, based in Washington, D.C.

By Suzanne schatz JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

John Seager, President and CEO of Population Connection, lectured about population control last Tuesday during Prof. Charles Chester’s “ENVS 2A: Fundamentals of Environmental Challenges” class.

Seager discussed the roots of population growth and change that can help mitigate related problems, such as scarce resources and climate change.

Seager explained that the organization’s name is appropriate because the issue of population growth is connected to everything, including poverty, women’s rights, the economy, the environment, global justice and civil unrest.

Seager said he strongly believes in the right to privacy, which Justice Louis D. Brandeis is known for writing about and pioneering in an 1890 Harvard Law Review article. Seager followed this principle, saying the decision regarding “how many children to have is one of the most private, personal decisions anyone can ever make, and I don’t think anyone, anywhere has the right to tell you what to do. Ever.”

He went on to discuss the roots of population growth, and said the number of children women had in the United States dropped significantly during the 1960s and 1970s, because women put more thought into deciding how many children to have.

At that time, women increasingly wanted to ensure they were in stable situations before having children.

He credited the decreased birth rate to the increasing number of women going to college, the invention of

transformative technology such as the birth control pill, and changes in law and culture. Looking further back in history, Seager stated that the advent of modern public health and sanitation systems caused most of the population growth in America after the 1800s because it allowed more children to survive.

However, he said today natural population growth is happening in many undeveloped countries in some of the poorest places on Earth.

“This isn’t just about a lot of numbers on a spreadsheet, this is about seven billion people, each of whom has their own story and their own trajectory of their lives,” he said.

Seager said that the number of people the Earth can support depends on quality of life. For example, because producing animal protein uses more resources than producing plant protein, the Earth could only support about five billion people if everyone followed the meat-heavy American diet. Conversely, the Earth could support up to 40 billion people if everyone had the lifestyle of those living in the poorest regions of east Africa.

He said changes such as the shrinking of the Aral Sea, the highest extinction rate in millions of years and climate change are caused by human population and human consumption.

“Resources create limits,” he added. He stated that one out of every 10 people in the world face some level of water scarcity, even though we are not currently running out of fresh water. He then posed the hypothetical question of how you would get water from the Great Lakes to places like Africa, and how they would afford it.

Speaking about plans to reduce population growth and its related problems, Seager asked, “Is our plan, ‘well [Africa will] just stay really poor, and we’ll bring our emissions down over time … and we won’t

have to worry about them because they’re just going to stay mired in poverty?’ I don’t think that’s a very smart plan.”

Seager praised Iran’s and Mexico’s approaches to reducing population growth. Iran has increased women’s education and increased the availability of contraception, although some of its leaders are currently trying to reverse this. Iran requires citizens to take a family planning course before getting married, and its religious leaders promote the tranquility of smaller families. Similarly, Mexico has introduced a literacy program, family planning program and sex education. As a result, Iran has reduced the average number of children women have from 6.5 in 1985 to 2.3 today, and Mexico has reduced it from 6.8 in 1970 to 2.3 today.

“Within your working lifetime we can achieve global population stabilization through voluntary means,” Seagar said.

According to the Population Connection’s website, it works to achieve population stabilization through providing affordable birth control to women around the world who want it, educating people about unsustainable population growth and working with the government on family planning policy.

When asked what college students can do to help the issue of population growth, Seager said, “population growth relates to every single discipline that anybody here at Brandeis is studying … whether it’s the sciences, or history, or international relations, or sociology, or anthropology, they all relate to population.

My goal here is to get students, as they proceed with whatever they’re studying, to at least think about how it connects to human population growth, and as they get into their careers … [to] consider putting it on the short list of issues that [they] pay attention to.”

“Brandeis and The World”

Launch your international career through Peace Corps service.

OPen OFFiCe HOURS*

Tune in to David Huang’s WBRS 100.1 FM radio show, or listen at wbrs.org

Friday, December 7th 9:00a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Hiatt Career Center Usdan Student Center Room 15 *Call the Brandeis Career Services at (781) 736-3618 to make an appointment.

Air Times: 9:00-9:30a.m. Saturdays and 8:30-9:00a.m. on Sundays “From Brandeis and beyond, we deliver news and views. With international perspectives, lets’ listen together. This is Brandeis & The World, only on WBRS.”

Peace Corps www.peacecorps.gov -

855.855.1961

TUESDAY, december 4, 2012

SVP:

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THE JUSTICE

7

PEARLMAN ABUZZ

Finance leader departs CONTINUED FROM 1 site. She also received her masters in business administration from Northeastern University in 1991, and eventually became Babson’s director of financial planning and budgeting, and later its director of collaborative strategies as part of the president’s cabinet.

After a stint as associate dean for administration and finance at the Boston University School of Public Health, she returned to Brandeis in 2006. In 2010, following the resignation of Executive Vice President and COO Peter French, she became senior vice president of finance and CFO and reported directly to University President Frederick Lawrence.

In Manos’ words, she “stepped up” into a leadership position at a time when “major changes in ... administrative leadership” were occurring. During the 2009-2010 academic year, departures of key administrators included French and Vice President of Financial Affairs Maureen Murphy. Lawrence took office in January 2011.

In August of this year, the University hired Manos as SVP and COO, altering the chain of command so that Drolette and Collins report directly to Manos.

Cwalina began work at Brandeis just over a year ago, according to Manos. Cwalina was formerly the director of financial operations at Bentley University, where she worked on the University’s fiveyear strategic plan. “I expect this background to benefit the entire university as we begin an effort to identify more effective and efficient ways of doing business,” wrote Manos.

Cwalina did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

DYLAN: Potential risks end campaign CONTINUED FROM 1 with a “bigger” and separate SpringFest the following day. Ticket prices for the folk festival would have likely exceeded $90, according to Manning.

Flagel expressed skepticism about the viability of the original plan in an interview with the Justice in early November. The risks Flagel cited included the openness of the concert to the external community and the additional challenges that that openness would inevitably bring, such as increased security and traffic.

Manning said that the administration should be more “comfortable” with the indoor proposal because it is along the lines of something the University has done before—Commencement, for example, garners a large crowd each year.

“They do it for Commencement, they’ve done it for John Mayer, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton … So I don’t think it’s as much of an issue as it was with an outside event,” said Manning.

JOSH HOROWITZ/the Justice

Sociological sex education Steve Epstein, the John C. Shaffer Professor in the Humanities at Northwestern University, speaks at a Sociology Department event last Thursday called “Sexual Health as a Buzzword: Competing Stakes and Proliferating Agendas.”

DINING: Univ considering big changes CONTINUED FROM 1 few more contractors will probably be added to the list, but he declined to name them as of press time.

Collins cited examples of some questions that he would use to compare various dining operations, such as, “How much would they charge me for my current operations? How much would they charge me for enhancements to that current operation? Can I do it for less?

Can I do it better for less?”

Co-chair of the Senate Dining Committee and Class of 2015 Senator Daniel Novak said that while he sees the RFPs as a sign that administrators are taking students’ concerns to heart, the committee is more interested in working with Aaron Bennos, Aramark’s director of dining services for Brandeis, to address immediate issues.

“I personally feel that that shows ... they’re seeing that the students are unsatisfied with what’s going on,” said Novak in an interview with the Justice. “As a committee, we try to do what we can with Aramark, with what we have now,” he said, adding that it is “the University administration’s call” to either keep Brandeis’ contract with Aramark or switch to another provider.

Bennos did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

Aramark’s first contract with Brandeis took effect in July 1998. Before 1998, the University had run its

own dining operations “in-house.”

It was around that time, over a decade ago, that it last took bids for dining services, said Collins.

When that happened, all Brandeis dining employees were given the opportunity to transfer to Aramark.

Many took that opportunity, he said. This time around, should the University’s contract with Aramark not be renewed, Collins said that the goal is for a similar transition to take place with the new dining services provider. Student workers will be able to keep their jobs no matter what happens. The model of student workers in dining will stay, said Collins, but they may be moved directly to the payroll of Aramark or another company.

As of 2011, Aramark’s contract with the University was listed at $10.8 million, according to public IRS forms. The forms also mention that Aramark Chairman and former CEO Joseph Neubauer is the husband of University trustee Jeanette P. Lerman ’69.

The forms state that the contract “resulted from a competitive bid process and the normal procurement process.”

As for more immediate changes, there will be some upgrades to dining facilities over the summer involving seating. Arrangements will move from “navy style” seating at long tables with rows of chairs on either side, to a more intimate set-

ting with tables for smaller groups or duos. Some changes in the lighting and layout of dining halls are in the works for the summer, as well.

Plans may vary depending on the proposals received from contractors and other input.

“We need a substantial amount of work in our dining halls,” said Collins. “That cannot be done over the course of a single summer when you’ve got two dining halls and you’re feeding kosher students and non-kosher students.” He added that he expects new dining facilities to be constructed over the next two to three years.

While Aramark has presented the University with “attractive and aggressive proposals” to upgrade the dining halls in the past, the price of those upgrades has not been feasible until recently, said Collins.

In the survey results regarding quality versus quantity, “the allyou-can-eat component in Sherman is a winner” and is under consideration to be implemented at Usdan dining hall, he said. Usdan’s food quality was rated higher than Sherman’s in the survey results.

Adding an all-you-can-eat facility would also necessitate the designation of another area where students could go to purchase smaller items such as snacks and coffee without using a meal.

Overall, the results of the survey indicated that kosher students were

pleased with the state of dining, but wished options such as those available at Sherman were available at other facilities across campus.

According to Collins, one of the “dominant” issues mentioned in the surveys was price-value, which relates to things like the points to dollar ratio, the cost versus the quality of food and meal equivalency at certain times of day.

“The fact that students can go to Usdan who have a meal plan, and they still [have to] reach into their pocket for some extra coin” is a major area of concern, he said.

Whether or not Aramark stays on campus, the Senate Dining Committee chairs promised to try to address issues such as these.

“We’re here for the students ... so we’ll adapt to whoever’s here,” said co-Chair and Rosenthal Quad Senator Biana Gotlibovsky ’15.

However, while the committee may have an impact on small, dayto-day concerns, Novak pointed out that it ultimately has no say in the quality of the food served. “We don’t have an effect on that, you know?

And that’s why I feel like students want more than ... changing all these little things. They want big things.”

Members of the committee said that they were planning to host an open forum on dining during the first or second week of the spring semester.

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features

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2012

just

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THE JUSTICE

VERBATIM | PAUL NEWMAN The problem with getting older is you still remember how things used to be.

ON THIS DAY…

FUN FACT

In 1791, the first edition of The Observer, the world’s first Sunday newspaper, was published.

The greatest number of takes for one scene in a film is 324 in Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights.

Building a link between

government and media

PHOTO COURTESY OF ALEX GOLDSTEIN

CONTINUED DEVOTION: Goldstein (far right) has held eight positions working with Gov. Deval Patrick, including executive director of the Deval Patrick Committee and the Together PAC, as well as communications director.

Goldstein ’06 worked alongside Gov Patrick during the election

By ALEXA BALL JUSTICE contributing WRITER

“One thing I have learned in having these jobs is how much sacrifice it really takes to be a public servant and to be a public official. … It’s a real commitment and you can’t go into it with half of your heart. You have to be all in.”

Since his graduation in 2006, Brandeis alum Alex Goldstein has been proving to the community just how dedicated he is to becoming a force of good in the political sphere.

As the current executive director of Gov. Deval Patrick’s federal political action committee, TogetherPAC and former press secretary for Patrick, Goldstein says he takes pride in his status as a Brandeis alum.

Born and raised in Newton, Mass., Goldstein said he chose Brandeis because he “enjoyed the small student body and the very beautiful campus.”

Although his father also attended Brandeis, Goldstein said he felt no pressure to apply. “He actually went out of his way not to pressure me to go to Brandeis, and I sort of found it on my own,” he said.

After graduating in 2006 with a major in Politics and a minor in Journalism, Goldstein began his career in the political world with Governor Patrick.

Since volunteering for Patrick’s campaign while still in school, Goldstein has held eight different jobs.

“I came on officially as a paid staff the summer after I graduated in 2006,” he explained.

Goldstein started as regional field organizer, a position in which he “had a chunk of territory that [he] organized through the end of the campaign.”

After Patrick won the election, Goldstein came into his office and started work as assistant director of interactive media.

Oriented around new media, Goldstein said that this position was “very much before it’s time.”

Lacking the current capacity of so-

PHOTO COURTESY OF ALEX GOLDSTEIN

EARLY BEGINNINGS: Goldstein first started working for Governor Patrick as a regional field organizer after graduating in 2006. cial media such as Twitter and Facebook, the position did not turn out as intended.

Despite having never spoken to a reporter in his life, Goldstein then took a job as communications director for the Massachusetts Democratic Party, until the end of the 2008 presidential elections when he became press secretary for the Executive Office of Labor and Work Force Development in the Patrick administration.

During this time, his daily routine lasted from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Goldstein spent his time “working through stories, figuring out what

the administration’s message was, and what the public statements were on whatever the issue was.”

Goldstein explained that issues could range from an “inmate who escaped from a state prison, to the budget, or green energy, to tax credits. There are so many things that fall under the umbrella of government.”

Goldstein also advised Patrick on how to get his message out, and “worked to get him opportunities to talk with reporters throughout the day.”

Now, Goldstein is the executive director of TogetherPAC, a cam-

paign that focused on “giving [Patrick] a national voice in the 2012 election cycle, getting the president reelected, and working on local races such as Elizabeth Warren’s Senate race,” he said.

Goldstein claimed that his proudest moment was when Patrick won reelection in 2010.

When Goldstein worked with the campaign in December of 2009, Patrick’s ratings were low, and “a lot of people had counted him out politically. ... At that point, we did a gutcheck and recognized that we had a real story to tell and that we weren’t doing a good enough job telling it,”

he said.

After spending the next year fighting to educate the public on the accomplishments of Patrick, “to get that validation on election night that the voters agreed with us was definitely my proudest moment so far,” he said.

Goldstein’s greatest challenge has been “trying not to take things so personally when you feel that this person that you believe in so deeply, and whose work you believe in so deeply is being attacked ... and trying to stay on an even keel during some of those real emotional moments has always been a challenge,” he said.

When asked about his overall experience as a Brandeis student, Goldstein asserted that he “loved [his] Brandeis experience from start to finish.” His greatest influences came in the form of Prof. Eileen McNamara (JOUR) and Prof. Stephen Whitfield (AMST).

“I think I took every single course I was allowed to take that Eileen had to offer and found them all to be incredibly thought-provoking and stimulating. They made me realize that I was very interested in the media and its interplay with government and advocacy,” he said.

Goldstein’s advice for the up-andcoming professionals of Brandeis is that “the biggest attribute that will aid you in your journey is humility.”

After spending his first six months in politics “stuffing envelopes and spread-sheeting,” Goldstein said he was able to prove that “if you have a real willingness to do what you need to do without complaint ... you will get where you want to go.”

Goldstein also insisted that all Brandeis students must take pride in the University. “The more we take pride in our institution and what it’s given us, the more it will raise up all of us in our stature across the United States and across the world. The value of our degree is only as good as the students who represent it,” Goldstein said.

THE JUSTICE

PROGRAMMING PASSION: Cooper enjoyed being in Oman so she decided to stay and plan lectures for study abroad students.

PHOTO COURTESY OF CLAIRE COOPER

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TUESDAY, december 4, 2012

Exchanged

experiences in the

Arab world Alumni combine passion for teaching and traveling

By JEFFREY BOXER JUSTICE editor

PHOTO COURTESY OF ANNA KHANDROS

LASTING FRIENDSHIP: Cooper (left) and Khandros (right) used to exchange hopes and ideas about post-graduation travels.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ANNA KHANDROS

COMMUNITY BUILDING: Anna Khandros works with kids in after-school programs and health and environment clubs.

Three years ago they traveled the world—Claire Cooper ’11 spent her junior year abroad in Morocco, while Anna Khandros ’11 studied in Lebanon and spent her spring break traveling through Oman. Two years ago, they were back together, living in the Foster Mods for their senior year.

After graduating, the two returned to their globe-trotting ways, this time reversing roles—Cooper is a Fulbright Scholar teaching English in Oman, while Khandros works for the Peace Corps in Morocco.

“I came to Morocco knowing largely only what Claire had taught me,” Khandros said.

“When she received her invitation to go to Oman, everything she knew about Oman came from what I had told her because I had been there on spring break. I told her it was the most beautiful place and she had to go,” Khandros said.

Khandros is now eight months into the 27-month program, and Cooper fell in love with Oman and chose to stay for a second year. The two friends have come a long way from their days living together in Mod 10.

Khandros’ journey got off to a rough start—the day after graduating, she found out that her departure date had been pushed back from September 2011 to early 2012.

Morocco had always been her first choice, but budget cuts meant that she was changed to an assignment in Kazakhstan.

“It was definitely hard,” Khandros said. “They tell you not to quit your job because you never know what will happen, but it was … definitely hard finding out that I wouldn’t be doing what I wanted to be doing. It made me question my reasons for wanting to go in the first place.”

Khandros stuck with it, and her patience was soon rewarded—the Peace Corps chose to begin phasing volunteers out of Kazakhstan, and Khandros was reassigned to Morocco.

Khandros, who majored in Politics, joined nearly 120 other volunteers in the capital city of Rabat in March for training and arrived at her final site, Bou Anane, in May. Khandros, a Brooklyn, N.Y. native now finds herself three hours from the nearest city, six hours from the nearest supermarket and more than an hour away from the nearest Peace Corps volunteer.

“The region is one of the poorest, so the volunteers are more spread out,” she explained.

Working through associations and local community centers, Khandros has set up several after-school workshops for local youth.

She teaches everything from aerobics to clubs centered on health and the environment, but she says her focus has been on leadership and employability for the young adults.

“Right now there are clubs seven days a week, and it’s way harder than

I thought it would be,” Khandros said.

“Two years ago we used to both go out at night, and now I spend it teaching and reading,” Khandros said.

Cooper had an easier go of it, leaving for Oman as planned in September 2011. Cooper, who majored in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, spent 10 months teaching English at Caledonian College of Engineering in Muscat and fell in love with the country.

“It’s such a peaceful place,” she explained. “Everyone is extremely kind and helpful. It’s absolutely gorgeous.”

Cooper loved her time there so much that she decided to spend another year on the Arabian Peninsula.

After completing her program and returning home for the summer, Cooper took a job as a programming coordinator at the Center for International Learning in Muscat.

Cooper does a variety of jobs for the CIL, including planning trips and guest lectures for study abroad students.

Cooper is in Oman at a unique time— with the Arab Spring and social unrest spreading across the Middle East, the atmosphere in the country can be nerve-wracking at times.

“There’s a lot of tension in this society,” she said. “People are trying to figure out how much of globalization they want to accept and how they should maintain their cultural identity.”

Cooper said that it is an exciting time to be there because “Oman is a really unique development story. It was underdeveloped for a long time, but the Sultan took over in 1970 and changed it all.”

Both Khandros and Cooper credited their time at Brandeis with helping to prepare them for their journeys.

“I got a very strong academic understanding of the Middle East and Islamic influences,” Cooper said. “My life experience here [in Oman,] I can experience it through the lens of these academic concepts that I learned at Brandeis.

We always talk about the ‘Brandeis bubble,’ but I learned to talk to people with a wide range of geographic and socioeconomic backgrounds, and with a wide range of ideas.”

Khandros agreed, adding that talks with Cooper helped her realize that she wanted to travel after graduating.

“I used to crawl into Claire’s bed and we would talk every Saturday and Sunday morning,” she said. “We always had a lot of similar goals and interests.

We didn’t know what we wanted to do with our lives, but we both wanted to explore the world.”

Having not seen each other in nearly a year, Khandros and Cooper decided to meet up over winter break.

The duo will fly to Thailand in a few weeks along with Helen Shapiro ’11, who also lived in their Mod and now lives in Cambridge, Mass.

They will spend several weeks traveling the Southeast Asian country, and plan to spend New Year’s Eve together.

“It’ll be a Mod 10 reunion,” Khandros said. “I keep wondering if this is what our lives will be like—meeting up with each other in different places all over the world.”

9

10 TUESDAY, december 4, 2012 ● THE JUSTICE

Justice Justice

the the

Established 1949, Brandeis University

Brandeis University

Established 1949

Andrew Wingens, Editor in Chief Marielle Temkin, Managing Editor Eitan Cooper, Production Editor Fiona Lockyer, Deputy Editor Jeffrey Boxer, Shafaq Hasan, Nan Pang and Robyn Spector, Associate Editors Sam Mintz and Tate Herbert, News Editors Celine Hacobian, Features Editor Glen Chagi Chesir, Acting Forum Editor Adam Rabinowitz, Sports Editor Phil Gallagher and Jessie Miller, Arts Editors Jenny Cheng and Joshua Linton, Photography Editors Rachel Burkhoff, Layout Editor Sara Dejene, Online Editor Maya Riser-Kositsky, Copy Editor David Wolkoff, Advertising Editor

Consider quality in dining bids Colleges in a campus enviroment have a unique responsibility in addition to offering a quality education; providing a high standard of living for their students.

An integral part of any college living situation is the quality of the food.

The end of this academic year will mark the end of the contract between Brandeis University and Aramark, the dining services provider on campus. Brandeis is a unique dining services account because of the need for both kosher and nonkosher options, in addition to its lack of nearby alternatives. The attractiveness of the account, coupled with the student body’s apparent lack of satisfaction with Aramark, may have been contributing factors that led the University to send out requests for proposals from outside caterers.

This board hopes the decision as to which food service company will be chosen will be made on the overall balance between quality and affordability, not solely on the price of each bid.

In almost every facet of University operations, this board advocates for transparency—the dining service bid is no exception.

The student body has many opinions about the current dining services, evident by the near 50 percent response rate from the recent dining survey conducted

Include student input

by Senior Vice President of Administration Mark Collins, and deserves a voice in the selection process.

This board was pleased to see the administration steering initiatives like the dining survey and future open forum meetings about dining services, expected to occur in early spring.

However, attempts to include the student body in the selection process should not end here.

The results from the dining survey should be made public.

Additionally, condensed proposals from each food service company should be presented to the extended Brandeis community, facilitating the proper conversation that is needed for such a decision.

Initiatives such as these will lead to both a fiscally responsible and quality assured choice for dining services.

The current University dining services require major improvements and the upcoming selection process should bring those improvements to light.

We hope the University keeps the goal of improvement in mind when selecting a food service company, not just the bottom line.

NAN PANG/the Justice

Views the News on

A study by Northeastern University found that the majority of Americans are simultaneously satisfied with U.S. colleges and deeply concerned about the direction in which they are heading, rooted in rising tuition prices and decreased accessibility. Brandeis is no exception—proud of its accomplishments, while concerned about its future. Brandeis has chosen to steer its future path with a Strategic Plan. What do you think of the administration’s strategic planning process so far? What do you hope future stages of the plan will include?

Todd Kirkland ’13 So far, I think the strategic planning process is going well. The overall trajectory of the plan has been, on par. I think there was a lot of confusion and concern with the initial preliminary plan, primarily driven by the lack of detail. It was great to see the release of the task force reports so members of the community could have a better sense of potential tactical decisions to achieve some of their strategic goals.

I hope that as the process winds down that it continues to be an inclusive one. The proposed plan for the rest of the process appears to achieve that goal effectively and I am excited to see the final product.

Todd Kirkland ’13 is president of the Student Union and is on the Strategic Plan Steering committee.

Prof. Gordon Fellman (SOC)

Nationally, students, parents and faculty should demand serious cuts in military spending, higher taxes on the very rich and ending tax loopholes. The vast monies saved should support education and more.

Sharp youth will shun schools that ignore climate change. Brandeis should promote it as a core focus of our work. The strategic plan framework say little about the quality of teaching at Brandeis. Liberal arts education is about confronting history and culture, science, social science, humanities, the arts and the other and the self. The University is there to pique curiosity, encourage questioning and growth and hone critical analytic skills, all in relationships of faculty and students. How might we become better at all this? Brandeis students tend often to live with excessive stresses and strains. A proper strategic plan would address mental health of our students in college and beyond. In this vein, more could be done to build community effectively. Brandeis makes much of social justice. If we put our money where our mouth is, we need to examine where and how social justice appears in the curriculum, the mission and the realities of institutional practices and everyday life at Brandeis.

Senate disapoints The Student Union Senate is an organization that, first and foremost, strives to serve the needs of the Brandeis community.

Each senator is tasked with the goal of representing his or her constituents, and among his or her primary duties, to aim to advocate for these students during Senate meetings.

However, this board believes these needs are not being served. Several senators have missed three or more weekly meetings this semester and continue to exhibit only a sporadic commitment to their office.

In fact, Article Four of the Student Union bylaws states that, “senators shall attend all meetings of the Senate and committees on which they are assigned, except in extenuating circumstances may miss up to 2 Senate meetings per semester.”

As a response to this disregard, the Senate passed two amendments on Oct. 28 that prescribe a cap of three unexcused absences.

If a Senator exceeds this limit, he or she will be asked to leave the Senate. The seat will then be filled by the candidate with the second-most votes in the prior election.

If that runner-up chooses to forgo the opportunity, then a special election will be held the following semester to determine the new representative.

Yet, this board feels as if this resolution should not have been necessary. The lack of attendance is a pervasive problem in this year’s Senate. These students campaign for office with the desire to serve and advocate for their constituents’ needs and wishes.

The lack of consistent attendance at these meetings, they are not present to vote on key resolutions and to propose

Adhere to duties of office distinct initiatives that could better the welfare of the Brandeis community.

Furthermore, clubs that wish to be recognized or chartered at these meetings must stand before a different group of senators each week, and as a result, face a convoluted and redundant process. If anything, this policy serves as a referendum on the senators that are neglecting their duties.

These senators must keep in mind their obligation to the position that they are sworn into at the outset of the school year. After all, these students enter office with a constant reminder of the implications and significance of such a commitment.

If they then feel as if the commitment is too burdensome, and instead choose to forsake the duties of their office, it costs the student body.

In such a case the student body no longer has representatives to advocate for their interests in relations with administration and other key University figures. Prospective senators should be well-aware of the responsibility inherent in such a position. If this proves to be an issue, they should yield the office and election to those who can manage such an obligation.

We hope that this policy serves as a reminder to senators that their commitment should not be taken lightly, and will not need to be invoked in the future.

More significantly, though, we wish to express that senators must adhere to the duties of their office and attend meetings to fulfill their vital roles as student advocates.

Otherwise, the student body will continue to be deprived of its voice in the University decision-making process.

Gordon Fellman is a professor of Sociology.

Alex Thomson ’15 The strategic plan offers a pragmatic way forward for Brandeis. It is imperfect, as any framework would be, but it clearly lays out the priorities for the University’s future. I found the administration’s outreach to be wide in scope and allowed a very diverse array of opinions to be considered. Going forward, I hope the plan is implemented with the same level of enthusiasm in which it was debated and drafted. I would like to see social justice remain the bedrock of the plan and allow that to be the lens in which the University makes its key decisions. This plan should showcase Brandeis to the greater community in a way that exhibits all of the components that make our University so unique.

Alex Thomson ’15 is co-president of the Brandeis Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Elly Kalfus ’13 Having served on the Student Task Force of the Strategic Planning Committee last semester, I was initially encouraged by the University’s openness to hearing student input as to the school’s trajectory.

However, I have not seen much come from this. From the Strategic Planning documents I have read, the plan seems to have been condensed into a list of overarching themes applicable to any university, rather than Brandeis-specific. While students are forming groups of their own volition to address campus issues such as gender-inclusive facilities, divestment from fossil fuels and a lack of transportation, I have not heard about the administration addressing these issues or including them in their longer-term plans for the school’s future.

Meanwhile, the task force I was a part of was mysteriously put out of commission and the majority of students I talk to do not feel they have a voice in the strategic planning process.

Elly Kalfus ’13 is a Finance Board representative, member of the Brandeis Pluralism Alliance Steering Committee and a member of the Strategic Planning Student Task Force.

THE JUSTICE

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11

Senatorial fillibuster should be preserved Noah M.

Horwitz Civil Affairs

The president has just been reelected, and his party has just expanded its majority in the Senate to 55 seats.

However, knowing from precedent that the minority party in the Senate would again obstruct the administration’s priorities by the constant use of filibusters, action was taken.

The senate majority leader hatched a plan to reform the filibuster, which was derided by his critics, specifically the minority leader, as a “nuclear option.” I am not talking about current events; I’m talking about congress in the year 2005.

In 2005, the Senate Republicans, then the majority party, sought to reform the use of the filibuster, the obstructive tactic used to delay indefinitely the conclusion of a debate on a specific motion.

A filibuster, under current rules, may only be ended through a vote of three-fifths of the Senate (60 members).

Concerned that Senate Democrats would filibuster and kill progress on some of the more ambitious proposals of President Bush’s second term, including the privatization of Social Security, the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, moved to reform the filibuster to a simple majority vote.

The filibuster, as a tool of the Senate, has been a great ally for both the Democratic and Republican parties, allowing both to block, water-down or at least delay controversial bills.

Whereas the House of Representatives may pass impulsive legislation with regard to the public’s ever-changing mood, the Senate, through the use of a filibuster, is supposed to be a check.

While supporters of filibuster reform would argue that the practice subtracts from the democratic process, the fact is that the Senate is designed to mitigate the effects of the populace, with the filibuster being a necessary tool for that purpose.

Thomas Jefferson famously compared the Senate to a tea saucer, implying it is needed for cooling purposes.

The filibuster did not first arise until 1837, and has been an integral part of our government ever since.

While the fashion thereof has changed over

the years, such as the adoption of cloture— that is a motion to end a filibuster—in 1917, and the reduction of the votes needed for cloture from two-thirds to three-fifths in 1975, the principle of indefinite delay has persisted.

Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader at the time (and current Senate majority leader) cried foul at the idea, describing it as a “nuclear option,” implying that, like a nuclear strike, the demise of the filibuster would incite retaliation.

However, now that Reid is in the same position, the tables have turned. Harry Reid has moved to reform the filibuster by only allowing its use to end debate, rather than to prevent bringing a motion to the floor of the Senate.

Additionally, his proposal would force senators to actually filibuster bills rather than simply use the threat thereof. Essentially, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington style. However, talk still remains of gutting the tradition beyond those means.

In 2005, the conflict was solved after a socalled “Gang of 14,” represented by seven Democrats and seven Republicans, emerged to save the filibuster. Senate Democrats would be unwise and ungrateful to not return the favor.

Elections like those in 1992 or 2004 prove that one party, no matter how confident or powerful, could always be only two short years from being in the minority.

The filibuster, it occurs to me, is something that the majority party will perpetually loathe, and the minority party will perpetually love.

However, most of the specific reforms that Senator Reid is proposing are not all that unreasonable. These include only allowing filibusters to end debate, rather than simply bringing a motion to the floor.

The requirement that filibusters, rather than just the threat thereof, actually occur is perhaps the most important.

In this age of C-SPAN and a constantly televised congress, if a minority party spent days on end holding up all congressional action, public sentiment would surely turn against them.

Egregiously long filibusters of the past featured absurd topics such as reading out of phone books, obstructionist tactics that would not be tolerated today. Therefore, this provision would reform the filibuster’s abuse, without ending its true use, as a means of last resort.

As frustrating as delays and obstruction in our government may be, they have been ageold traditions since our origin, helping to en-

sure the principles of our constitution.

Our founding fathers formulated a convoluted government with checks and balances, rather than the somewhat direct government in the United Kingdom, because they felt democracy was best served when the impulsivity of the people was mitigated.

HANNAH KOBER/the Justice

While some reforms to the filibuster, such as the requirement that they actually occur when threatened, or that they only occur on a motion to end debate, are necessary, the filibuster itself must be preserved, to preserve the checks and balances that make our government so special.

Gay conversion theory antithetical to natural human condition Leah

Smith in a word

One of the central tenants of anthropology is that any given way of life is not universally true, but rather a unique construction of society, historical time and geopolitical location.

While it is easy to understand this concept in terms of societies that are foreign to us, it is very difficult to accept a view that says one’s own beliefs and way of life are not necessarily always right or true.

This idea becomes even more difficult to swallow when certain aspects of life—like gender roles and identities—are also bound up with biology and science, which are assumed to be necessarily true because they are “natural.”

Yet, countless cross-cultural studies have shown that in fact there are no universal genders.

While femininity and masculinity, or womanhood and manhood, may sometimes share a few similar attributes, these genders vary greatly across cultures.

This suggests that there is nothing biologically innate about them, but rather that, they

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too are constructions of society, time and location.

The same is true of the gender binary system, which argues that there are only two genders—man and woman—that are born of male and female biological bodies, and who are necessarily attracted to each other. Crosscultural studies also show that in various societies there are innumerable gender categories that do not fit into this binary.

Given my anthropological background, it is frustrating to me that practitioners of socalled gay conversion therapies believe that gay men have been denied the “natural” course of masculine development and can therefore be counseled back to “normal” masculinity.

According to a November 2012 New York Times article, gay conversion therapy is being challenged in court by several men who have prescribed to it.

The practitioners of the therapy claim “homosexuality is caused … by a stifling of normal masculine development, often by distant fathers and overbearing mothers or by early sexual abuse.”

The implication of such a claim is that the stifled masculinity can be “released” and the “victims” freed of their aberrant homosexuality.

This underlying theory of gay conversion therapy is deeply flawed on two separate counts.

The first flaw is the idea that there is a quantified thing as “normal” masculinity or

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masculine development.

Of course our society has constructed an ideal of masculinity: the illustrious machoman who brings home the dough for his wife and children, who is simultaneously tough and sensitive, but also never cries.

However, this ideal is not “natural.” Crosscultural studies on masculinity are proof that this particular gender is not coded in a malebodied individual’s DNA. Rather, it is constructed by the society into which the malebodied individual was born.

Thus, a male-bodied individual may not have an ideal masculine development, but this does not mean that the masculinity he does develop is necessarily wrong or unnatural.

The second flaw in this theory is the assumption that one’s gender and one’s sexuality are necessarily linked.

According to the practitioners of gay conversion therapy, gay men have not achieved “normal” masculinity because they are not attracted to women.

This assumption implies that to be a man one must necessarily be attracted to the opposite sex.

However, various cross-cultural studies have also shown that gender and sexuality are not always mutually exclusive.

For example, in many Native American societies, there are accepted gender categories in which a male-bodied individual can live as a woman and be attracted to other women.

The same could be true of female-bodied indi-

The Staff

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viduals, as well.

Examples like this one throw a wrench in the conventional gender binary system, which assumes that gender defines sexuality and vice versa.

Unfortunately, the assumptions that validate the underlying theory of gay conversion therapy are deeply ingrained in our society and thus incredibly difficult to change. However, these assumptions about “normal” masculinity, as well as our assumptions about “normal” femininity, are also extremely harmful not only to gay men and other malebodied individuals who do not fit into conventional masculinity, but also to straight men and women.

The idea that men or women should necessarily fit a constructed ideal of masculinity or femininity is extremely pervasive in our society.

This promotes a culture where men and women who do not fit the ideals of their respective sexes need to be counseled, beaten or otherwise reformed back to “normal” masculinity or feminity.

The fact that gay conversion therapy and the assumptions that underlie it are being challenged in court is a big step toward a more equal society.

However, if we want to achieve true equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer individuals, we must continue to subvert and challenge our tacitly held assumptions about “normal,” “natural” and “correct” masculinity and femininity.

Editorial Assistants Arts: Rachel Hughes, Eli Kaminsky Photos: Josh Horowitz, Olivia Pobiel Sports: Henry Loughlin Features: Jaime Kaiser News: Marissa Ditkowsky Staff Senior Writers: Josh Asen, Aaron Berke, Allyson Cartter, Dafna Fine Senior Photographer: Jon Edelstein, Alex Margolis, Tali Smookler, Jane Zitomer News: Shani Abramowitz, Ariel Glickman, Danielle Gross, Luke Hayslip, Raquel Kallas, Suzanne Schatz, Rachel Starr Features: Selene Campion, Rachel Miller, Gabrielle Santoro Forum: Michael Abrams, Aaron Fried, Noah M. Horwitz, Liz Posner, Leah Smith, Avi Snyder, Naomi Volk

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TUESDAY, DEcEMber 4, 2012

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THE JUSTICE

FORUM

Israeli LGBTQ community thriving and accepted

By DANIEL KOAS AND JOE BABEU Special to the justice

In the United States, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer rights movement has recently witnessed major triumphs in legislation, litigation and public support. Voters in three states—Maine, Maryland and Washington—passed legislation allowing marriage equality. Not only is this the first time such a ballot measure has passed, but it also underscores the shifting attitudes of the American people. Until a few years ago, gay men and women could not serve openly in the military, the federal government was defending the Defense of Marriage Act and until this November, no openly gay politicians were elected to the Unites States Senate.

While the LGBTQ rights movement is finally beginning to gain widespread support here in America, thousands of miles away in Israel, most of the battle has already been fought.

Israel, a country of over seven million and the only Jewish state in the world, is culturally inclusive and has passed varying legislation guaranteeing rights for its LGBTQ citizens.

Over the past few decades, it has passed laws prohibiting workplace discrimination based on sexuality and granting same-sex couples equality before the law, just to name a few.

Despite its volatile surroundings in the Middle East, Israel has chosen a path of equality.

First and foremost, the vast majority of Israel, with the exception of highly religious communities, is culturally inclusive and accepting.

There are numerous gay bars and clubs throughout the country, and the nation’s yearly pride parade in Tel Aviv draws over 100,000 participants. In fact, in 2011, Tel Aviv was named the Best Gay City in an international American Airlines competition that selects the most popular destinations among LGBTQ tourists, and a 2007 article in Out Magazine named Tel Aviv the “gay capital of the Middle East.”

This fact is even more impressive once you examine the policies of other countries in the region. Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran, among others, have penalties for homosexuality including prison time, corporal punishment and even death.

Furthermore, many Israeli movies and television shows openly depict same-sex romances, including the well-known 2002 film Yossi & Jagger which won awards at the Tribeca Film Festival and at other international film celebrations. Once again, this stands in stark contrast with the entertainment available in other countries in the region.

In terms of legislation, Israel has moved at a swift pace. While the United States’ Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy was not repealed until 2010, Israel has allowed gay citizens to serve openly in the military since the early 1990s. Additionally, in 1992, a law was introduced prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Other such laws have been passed, including a Supreme Court ruling stating that the partner of a gay employee at El Al, Israel’s national airline, is entitled to free airline tickets just as the spouse of any

MARA SASSOON /the Justice

other heterosexual employee.

The situation, however, is not yet perfect.

Despite a 2009 poll in Haaretz, a major Israeli newspaper, indicating that 61 percent of Israelis support gay marriage—a percentage much higher than the 51 percent of Americans who expressed support in a November CNN poll—same-sex marriages are not permitted in Israel. This is due to the fact that Israel is a Jewish state, with, according to a 2009 government study, eight percent of the population identifying as “ultra-Orthodox,” 12 percent identifying as “religious,” and 13 percent as “religiously observant.”

While being religious does not necessarily equate with not being supportive of gay marriage, Israel functions under the stricter Jewish requirements of Orthodox Judaism in order to ensure that even the most religious of its citizens feel comfortable under the law.

This means that only traditional marriages between a man and a woman can legally take place there. Nonetheless, unlike the United States and many other western countries, Israel recognizes all foreign marriages, including same-sex marriages. It thus comes as no surprise that many Israeli couples venture elsewhere to get married, and return to Israel to reap the benefits.

Additionally, many Israeli politicians from across the political spectrum support samesex marriage, including Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon of the governing right-of-center Likud Party; Shelly Yachimovich, head of the left-of-center Labor Party; Yair Lapid, head of the newly formed Yesh Atid Party; Zehava Gal-On, head of the left-wing Meretz party; and many other members of the Israeli parliament.

While it is clear that Israel still has prog-

ress to be made on the issue of LGBTQ rights, same-sex couples in Israel profit from the recognition of foreign same-sex marriages, equal benefits, equal pay and the clear support of the majority of Israeli citizens.

While attitudes are shifting slowly in the United States, and the Employment NonDiscrimination Act is once again a proposed piece of legislation, in Israel same-sex couples are fully equal before the law. As of now, it seems as though Israel will continue to pursue an agenda of equality, and will hopefully someday overcome the barriers blocking same-sex marriages from being performed in the country.

Daniel Koas ’15 is the membership coordinator of the Brandeis Israel Public Affairs Committee and Joe Babeu ’15 is the president of the Queer Policy Alliance.

American health care in dire need of spending cuts

By Jassen Lu JUSTICE staff writer

The health care discussion perennially dominates America’s agenda. Rarely can we listen to political conversations without hearing concerns about the health care crisis.

Needless to say, it is an escalating problem requiring prompt attention. Therefore, now is the time to tackle the health care problem of uncontrolled costs.

Since the 1970s, American health care expenditure has grown exponentially. According to Thomas Bodenheimer and Kevin Grumbach, a pair of health policy experts and authors, spending per person grew approximately 700 percent over the past 30 years, from $1,110 in 1980 to $8,086 in 2009. We spent about 9.2 percent of our gross domestic product on health care in 1980, but in 2009, we spent about 17.6 percent of GDP on health care, which equals $2.5 trillion. Bodenheimer adds that by 2019, expenditure will grow to equal 19.6 percent of the GDP. Such high costs are unsustainable. They prevent care access and devastate our national budgets, which already suffer high debts.

Moreover, the more we spend on health care, the less money we will have for other investments, such as education and defense.

Care quality is only partially dependent on our spending. According to Bodenheimer, while the United States spent $7,538 per capita for health care in 2008, Canada and the United Kingdom only had per capita costs of $4,079

and $3,129, respectively.

This example demonstrates that it is possible to provide care without bankrupting budgets.

While there are many factors driving health care costs, the most serious ones relate to the way we use health care. If we want effective and lasting cost-reduction, we need to address these cost-drivers.

Most American health care providers operate on a fee-for-service system. Under this setup, a provider receives a payment for each service a patient receives.

In FFS health care, a patient is billed for every vaccination, MRI scan and procedure that he gets.

This delivery system has greatly escalated expenditure over the past decades, because under FFS, providers have incentive to administer extra services in return for higher reimbursement.

Since patients are not generally knowledgeable about their needs, they tend to unquestioningly accept the provider’s recommendations. This acceptance is only fueled by the lack of financial concerns that normally comes with receiving extra treatments because of health insurance.

Unfortunately, many of these extra services are both expensive and counterproductive.

For instance, Bodenheimer cites that during the late 1990s, there was a 77 percent increase in spinal fusion surgeries in the United States, despite medical experts’ doubts regarding the wisdom of this procedure. For many patients,

this costly surgery often worsened their conditions, with surgical side effects commonly leading to prolonged hospitalization.

A second reason for America’s high costs rests on our desire to use every medical innovation that is released into the market.

There is a common belief that a new method will always function more effectively and efficiently.

Unfortunately, this is not always true in health care; the costs are often greater than the benefits provided. The new technology may perform the same procedures as the older technology did, but it may result in more negative side effects and higher costs.

Innovators continuously promote new medical technology, but it is rarely tested for cost-effectiveness before it is released for public use. An example is the recently developed da Vinci robot, a four-armed machine that innovators have touted as a breakthrough for prostate surgery.

However, oncologist Ezekiel J. Emanuel explains that while it appears to be an advance, the robot has yet to show true improvements in surgery, and some patients actually suffered negative side effects such as incontinence and erectile dysfunction after using this machine.

Moreover, the robot costs more than $1 million dollars to build, a price that is passed on to the patients.

While there are other reasons for America’s high care expenditures, these problems alone are quite daunting. Cuts in spending

will be necessary, but policymakers cannot reduce necessary care in the process, so reforms need to be gradual. We can start, however, by moving away from the FFS system, and implementing a system in which care quality, rather than financial gain, is the incentive for service.

Both patients and providers also need to be more prudent and ensure that selected treatments will yield benefits and are worth their cost.

We can also observe how Canada and the U.K. operate their health care systems and model some of our practices after theirs. Both countries use fewer pricey procedures than the United States does, and Bodenheimer says this reduced usage plays a major role in reducing their spending.

Simultaneously, many Canadian and British providers operate on limited-budget systems, which pressure providers to give only the necessary and beneficial services since their resources are limited.

Furthermore, despite their reduced spending, both countries still maintain near-universal care coverage for their citizens.

Our generation will decide the fate of American health care. The longer we wait to change our practices, the harder it will be to slow cost growth and undo its damages.

Today, we are already making difficult decisions on how to use our limited budgets. If we keep ignoring the problem, it will eventually deplete our ability to invest in the future and in health care itself.

THE JUSTICE

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TUESDAY, DECEMBEr 4, 2012

13

MBBALL: Judges continue to grind out wins

FOILING THE ATTACK

CONTINUED FROM 16

JENNY CHENG/the Justice

IN THE ZONE: Foil Noah Berman ’15 (left) competes against St. John’s University junior Wilfred Curioso during Sunday’s Brandeis Invitational, the team’s second meet.

Squad gains experience at home ■ The men’s and women’s

fencing squads tested their mettle at home this weekend.

By JEFFREY BOXER JUSTICE EDITOR

St. John’s University senior Daryl Homer finished in sixth place in men’s individual saber at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. He was undefeated on the season heading into last weekend’s Brandeis Invitational.

One thing he doesn't have on his résumé—a victory against saber Adam Mandel ’15.

Mandel upset Homer in the first bout of the round, out touching the Olympian 5-2 for a stunning upset, one of several standout performances for the men’s and women’s fencing teams.

The men’s team finished 1-3, defeating Johns Hopkins University but falling to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, St. John’s and Yale University. The women went 2-3, closing with victories against Yale and Johns Hopkins after losing to Cornell University, UNC and St. Johns.

“It went better than we expected,” captain Zoe Messinger ’13 said. “We faced some very difficult schools. We just wanted to represent our home turf, and we definitely did that.”

“Although our record was 1-3 on paper, it was a very good day of fencing,” added fellow captain Michael Zook ’13.

“With a few bouts going the other way or having someone like [foil] Julian [Cardillo ’14] back, we easily could have been 3-1.”

Cardillo, one of the conference’s top foils, is studying abroad in Rome this fall, but will be back on the team next semester.

The women started things off for the Judges, dropping an 18-9 decision to Cornell. The Judges won both saber and foil, but a 7-2 loss in épée clinched the match for the Big Red. The men started strongly against UNC, with saber winning 6-3 before losses in épée and foil gave UNC a 14-13 win. Mandel and foil Noah Berman ’15 led the way, each picking up three wins of their seven total wins in the match. Saber Ben Loft ’15 also impressed, picking up a victory against UNC captain Adam Austin, a junior. “[Loft] fenced unbelievably against their captain,” Mandel said.

“Throughout the day, he was fencing very consistently.”

The women lost 16-11 to UNC. Foil Caroline Mattos ’16 led the Judges, winning all three of her bouts against the Tar Heels.

Both the men and women lost 21-6 to St. Johns, but it was Mandel who

stole the show with his victory against Homer. The two have trained together at the Manhattan Fencing Club in New York City for the last three years, but it was their first time competing against each other in NCAA action. “[Homer] is an unbelievable fencer and I tremendously respect him,” Mandel said. “It can go any way on any given day, and it happened to go my way. I was able to see his actions clearly today and use my footwork and athleticism to my advantage.”

“It’s a testament to how dedicated he is and how prepared he is,” Zook said of Mandel. “He’s had this bout on his calendar for a few weeks now. He was ready to go out there and get the result, and he did that.”

The Judges next squared off against Yale, where the two sides split a couple of 14-13 decisions. Behind a 6-3 decision in saber, the Brandeis women pulled out the victory against the Bulldogs. Messinger led the squad, picking up victories in all three of her bouts.

On the men’s side, a 6-3 victory in saber wasn’t enough, as Yale took a 6-3 win in foil to even things up before winning the decisive bouts in épée. Mandel again won all three of his bouts, while épée Harry Kaufer ’13 won both of his appearances.

“Yale has been very competitive in the Ivy League recently, so I was really

pleased with how we competed,” Zook said. “The referee was the Harvard head coach, and he came up to us after and said ‘you guys fenced unbelievably.’”

Both squads took home victories against Johns Hopkins to close out the day. The men defeated the Blue Jays 17-10 behind a triple winner in each of the three weapons. Loft swept his bouts in saber, Berman continued his fine day with three wins in foil and Tom Hearne ’16 did the honors in épée.

“We were tired of losing by the time we faced Johns Hopkins,” Zook said.

“Everybody fenced really well against them.”

The women took a 15-12 victory against Johns Hopkins. The squad was led by two rookie épées—Sophia Glickman and Alexis Gremillion— both of whom won all three of their bouts.

The Judges are off until 2013, but both Messinger and Mandel said that the team will use the break to fix a few flaws and come back even stronger.

“It mentally prepares us,” Messinger said. “It teaches us that we really have to focus a lot more.”

“We came in very confident, maybe a little too confident,” Mandel said.

“By the [Jan. 26, 2013] meet at Brown [University] we will have become a much stronger squad.”

Track and field

Track teams perform well in opener ■ Athletes from the men’s and

women’s teams set the bar for their 2012-13 year.

By TARA GORDON JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

After three weeks of rest following a tough cross country season, the Brandeis distance squad was joined by sprinters, jumpers and throwers for the winter track and field team.

The Judges traveled to nearby Northeastern University in Boston for the Jay Carisella Invitational last Saturday, a non-scoring invitational. This meet also provided a good gauge of fitness for the runners, many of whom have not competed since last spring.

“It was good to have the teams finally compete after such a long break,” said assistant coach Mark Reytblat, who primarily trains the sprinters,

jumpers, hurdlers and throwers. “Alex [Kramer ’13] ran a good mile, Kim [Farrington ’13] had a great triple jump.

Vincent [Asante ’14] ran not as fast as he would have wanted in the 60 [meter dash], but he did well.”

Kicking off the day was the 60-meter hurdles event. Brandon Odze ’16 completed the distance in 11.52 seconds for 23rd-place. Following the hurdles was the 60-meter dash sprint, with Asante finishing eighth in 7.24 seconds. Jacob Wilhoite ’15 finished 38th in 7.69, while Adam Berger ’15 placed 40th with a time of 7.72. Asante’s time and place allowed him to advance to the finals, where he sprinted to a seventh-place in 7.10 seconds. On the women’s side, fellow veteran Brittany Bell ’13 completed the 60-meter race in 8.07 seconds, finishing twelfth overall.

The 200-meter sprint was another event that provided tough competition.

Asante, Odze, Wilhoite and Makalani Mack ’16 finished in 14th, 44th, 46th

and 48th places, respectively. On the women’s side, newcomer Tove Freeman ’16 finished 55th in 28.41.

In the 400-meter race, Josh HoffmanSenn ’13 finished 19th in 53.77, while Trevor Tuplin ’16 placed 22nd in 54.43.

Casey McGown ’13 and Anifreed Sinjour ’13 ran 1:01.78 and 1:03.24 for 21st and 25th-place, respectively.

The distance events featured a pair of top-six performances. In the 800 meter, Carl Lieberman ’16 made a promising collegiate track debut after his first cross-country season, running the four-lap race in 2:03.10 for sixth-place.

In the one mile run, Kramer placed fourth in 4:17.35.

In the men’s shot put, Kris Stinehart ’14 finished 12th with a throw of 11.69 meters. Jonathan Gilman ’15 threw 8.03 meters for 25th-place. On the women’s side, Alyssa Fenenbock ’15 threw the shot 7.10 meters for 24th place.

The jumps featured several standout performances. Kensai Hughes ’14

jumped 6.09 meters, finishing 10th while Brian Louis ’16 and Berger triple jumped 12.72 meters and 12.18 meters for seventh and 12th places, respectively.

Allison Callahan ’16 was the lone high jumper for the women, jumping 1.47 meters for 11th-place. Farrington and Bell long jumped 4.60 meters and 4.44 meters for 21st and 25th places, respectively. In the triple jump, Farrington also jumped 11.05 meters for a notable second place.

The next meet will be the Reggie Poyau Memorial Invitational hosted

by Brandeis on Dec. 7 at 5 p.m. Given that the meet will be held in the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center, Reytblat is hoping to see good performances on both sides.

“After the [Reggie Poyau Memorial Invitational], we have a long break,” he said, “so we want to go into the [winter] break with good performances to remember.”

took a 32-28 lead into halftime, and even though the visitors had the advantage at the break, it looked like it would be a tough game for the Judges to win on the road.

Point guard Gabe Moton ’14, who was named the University Athletic Association Player of the Week for his performances during the week of Nov. 26, contributed 12 points, eight rebounds and five assists in another well-rounded game for the Judges. Center Youri Dascy ’14 scored 12 points on 5-of-5 shooting and grabbed four rebounds, but played just 16 minutes because of foul trouble.

Forward Alex Stoyle ’14 scored six points and had eight rebounds, and forward Kevin Trotman ’16 played minutes down the stretch and finished with eight points.

“Our plan going into the second half was to pound the ball inside because we shot terribly in the first half and we were so much bigger than them,” Stoyle said. “But when Derek started to heat up, we knew we had to keep feeding him and get him more shots.”

Last Tuesday, the Judges defeated Clark University 67-58 at the Red Auerbach Arena.

The first half saw three ties and two lead changes, and the biggest lead stood at eight for the Judges at 16-8. The Judges took a 34-28 lead into halftime, but they had to fight for every basket.

The Judges opened the second half on a tear. Dascy scored the first three baskets, all jump hooks with his right hand, opening up the lead to 40-28 just one minute, 50 seconds into the half.

After the margin swelled to 14, the Cougars went on an 8-0 run to cut the lead to just six, 44-38.

Then, Clark started to crank up the pressure, as they cut the lead to four points twice in the last eight minutes. However, they would get no closer than that, allowing the Judges to run out the clock on a moderately comfortable victory.

Dascy led the Judges with 17 points on 8-of-12 shooting and 11 rebounds. Moton tallied 13 points, 10 rebounds and four assists. Guard Ben Bartoldus ’14 contributed 12 points on 3-of-12 shooting, and Stoyle added 11 points, six rebounds and four assists. Retos was held scoreless.

Graduate student forward Brian Vayda led the Cougars with 24 points, draining 7-of-12 from the field and all nine free throws.

However, the visitors had quite a bit of trouble shooting field goals, as only one other Clark player managed more than two—fellow graduate student forward DJ Bailey notched three field goals and a free-throw in scoring seven points for Clark.

Though Vadya posed a significant threat, Stoyle emphasized that the nullifying of his impact was a complete team effort.

“We knew [Vayda] was a great player and was going to get his [points],” said Stoyle. “I did my best to isolate him and not let him get easy shots but it came down to the rest of the team locking down their other guys and not letting them get going.”

Brandeis plays at Lasell College tonight at 8 p.m. After the battle against the Lasers, they come back home to face the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts on Wednesday.

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THE JUSTICE

●

TUESDAY, December 4, 2012

15

ATHLETE OF THE MONTH

jUDGES BY THE NUMBERS Men’s BASKETBALL UAA STANDINGS

TEAM STATS

Points Per Game

Not including Monday’s games UAA Conference

W L D W Rochester 0 0 0 8 WashU 0 0 0 7 NYU 0 0 0 4 JUDGES 0 0 0 5 Emory 0 0 0 5 Case 0 0 0 4 Chicago 0 0 0 4 Carnegie 0 0 0 1

Overall L D Pct. 0 0 .1000 0 0 .1000 0 0 .1000 1 0 .833 2 0 .714 2 0 .667 2 0 .667 6 0 .167

UPCOMING GAMES Tonight at Lasell Tomorrow vs. MCLA Saturday at Amherst

Gabe Moton ’14 leads the team with 14.6 points per game.

Player PPG Gabe Moton 14.6 Youri Dascy 11.6 Alex Stoyle 9.6 Ben Bartoldus 9.3

Rebonds Per Game Gabe Moton ’14 leads the team with 7.8 rebounds per game.

Player RPG Gabe Moton 7.8 Alex Stoyle 7.3 Youri Dascy 3.7 Anthony Trapasso 3.3

WOMen’s basketball UAA STANDINGS

TEAM STATS

Not including Monday’s games

Points Per Game

UAA Conference Overall

W L D W L D Pct. Emory 0 0 0 6 0 0 .1000 Rochester 0 0 0 5 1 0 .833 NYU 0 0 0 4 1 0 .800 WashU 0 0 0 4 1 0 .800 Carnegie 0 0 0 5 2 0 .714 JUDGES 0 0 0 3 3 0 .500 Case 0 0 0 3 3 0 .500 Chicago 0 0 0 1 4 0 .200

Hannah Cain ’15 leads the team with 8.1 points per game.

Player PPG Hannah Cain 8.1 Kasey Dean 7.8 Mikaela Garvin 7.1 Erika Higginbottom 7.0

UPCOMING GAMES Thursday vs. Endicott Saturday vs. Roger Williams Tuesday, Dec. 11 vs. Simmons

Rebounds Per Game Two players lead the squad with 5.5 rebounds per game.

Player RPG Erika Higginbottom 5.5 Hannah Cain 5.5 Samantha Anderson 3.6 Two tied with 3.1 JON EDELSTEIN/Justice File Photo

DENIED: Goalkeeper Blake Minchoff ’13 makes a diving save during the Judges’ 4-2 win over Clark University on Sept. 8.

FENCING Results from the Brandeis Invitational at home on Sunday, Dec. 2.

TOP FINISHERS (Men’s)

TOP FINISHERS (Women’s)

SABER Adam Mandel

VICTORIES 7 wins

SABER Zoe Messinger

FOIL Noah Berman

VICTORIES 7 wins

FOIL VICTORIES Caroline Mattos 11 wins

ÉPÉE Harry Kaufer

VICTORIES 4 wins

ÉPÉE VICTORIES Sophia Glickman 6 wins

VICTORIES 9 wins

UPCOMING MEET: The men’s and women’s teams will next compete at Wellesley College on Wednesday, Jan. 23.

Minchoff anchors the Judges in postseason ■ Blake Minchoff ’13 led the men’s soccer team into the NCAA Division III Tournament for the first time in 27 years.

By HENRY LOUGHLIN JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

TRACK AND FIELD Results from Saturday’s Jay Carisella Invitational at Northeastern.

NOTABLE FINISHES (Men’s)

NOTABLE FINISHES (Women’s)

60 METER DASH Vincent Asante

TIME 7.10

60 METER DASH Brittany Bell

TIME 8.07

400 METER DASH Josh Hoffman-Senn Trevor Tuplin

TIME 53.77 54.53

400 METER DASH Kim Farrington Brittany Bell

TIME 1:01.78 1:03.24

UPCOMING MEET: The men’s and women’s track teams will next compete at the Reggie Poyau Invitiational at home this Saturday.

When men’s soccer goalkeeper Blake Minchoff ’13 first played in net in middle school, it was because the goalie on his team got hurt and they needed a backup.

“I was the biggest kid on the team, and probably the most out of shape, so they threw me in goal,” he joked, making it clear that he hated the position.

Look at him now.

This past year, Minchoff quarterbacked a defense that allowed just 16 goals in 22 games and made it to the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Division III Tournament, the best run the program has experienced since 1985.

“I am thrilled with what we accomplished this year,” said Minchoff after

the season had finished. “We experienced something that not many soccer players got to experience.”

In high school, Minchoff reached out to men’s soccer coach Mike Coven, who watched some of his games.

Yet, his role as a collegiate starter didn’t come until his junior year. His first two years, he said, were humbling.

“The first two years, I was pretty intimidated. But I kept working hard and trying to improve.”

Then, at the beginning of the 201112 season, it was Minchoff’s turn. And he didn’t disappoint, allowing just 10 goals the entire season and earning All-UAA Honorable Mention while winning the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Championship.

This year, though, was supposed to be quite different. After graduating two top center backs Ari Silver ’12 and David McCoy ’12, both First Team All-UAA selections who, according to Minchoff, “helped fix some of [my] mistakes,” the team was expected to suffer a bit on defense.

However, a couple of tactical changes benefited the squad. First, Coven moved Joe Eisenbies ’13 from holding midfielder to center back, while also bringing in Matt Brondoli ’14 off the bench to fill the other central defense position.

And while the team gave up six more goals than it did last year, its 162-1 record and No. 17 national ranking were even more impressive than last year’s 12-5-1 finish.

For his performances, Minchoff was again named All-UAA Honorable Mention, while compiling a save percentage of 81.4 percent, including several highlight-reel stops during the first and second round games against Baruch College and Vassar College, respectively.

While the team will have a large void to fill in the net next season, Minchoff is confident that the squad will continue to improve.

“There are 15 really talented guys on our team who didn’t see the field this year,” he said. “Every year, the freshman class keeps getting better.”

PROFESSIONAL SPORTS BEAT Frustration surrounding Rondo’s ejection proves to be representative of Boston Celtics’ situation Though there are certain potentially volatile instances within every basketball game, some incidents can spark an inferno.

During the Boston Celtics’ game against the Brooklyn Nets last Wednesday night, Celtics point guard Rajon Rondo shoved Nets forward Kris Humphries after Humphries fouled Celtics forward Kevin Garnett. And though the incident seemed that it would be isolated because it was not that hard of a foul, a brawl ensued between the two teams.

As a result of the ensuing fight, various ejections were handed out, including ones to Nets forward Gerald Wallace, Humphries and Rondo.

Since the event happened in the second quarter, Rondo’s historic 10game assists streak came to a close;

he only passed for three assists prior to the ejection. Indeed, it was an unfortunate way for Rondo’s historic achievement to be curtailed.

Although the big story of the fight was that Rondo’s streak ended, light should be shed on something that was overlooked in the brawl: The Celtics are in trouble and need to get back to the basics.

While their offense is decent, Boston’s defense has allowed 97.9 points per game. In games in which they score 100 points or more, the Celtics are 5-4. This is a clear indication that the team’s defense, which was stellar back when it won the championship in 2007-2008, needs to help its offense. The imbalance between the effectiveness on offense and defense is proving problematic for the Celtics.

One way to solve this problem would be by rebounding. Boston does not do a lot of that. In fact, they do less of it than any other team in the NBA. This deficiency is a direct result of the Kendrick Perkins trade to Oklahoma City. Since Garnett does not record as many rebounds as he did earlier in his career, making a move for a big time center would help in the rebounds department.

This team is small in terms of height, but it is deep. It has one of the best starting fives in the league—point guard Rondo, forward Garnett, forward/guard Paul Pierce, forward Brandon Bass and guard Jason Terry.

After that, they have former sixth man of the year, guard Leandro Barbosa, injured guard Avery Bradley and another former sixth man of the

year—Terry.

The Celtics should be playing Barbosa more. The two times that he has played 20 minutes or more, he has scored 17 and 16 points. Bradley will deepen the team even more when he returns, but that might not be for another two weeks. Meanwhile, Terry has done everything asked of him. The 35-year-old is averaging 11.7 points per game in 28.4 minutes.

Boston’s bench actually gets even deeper. It has forward Jeff Green, guard Courtney Lee and forward Chris Wilcox. However, these guys have been underachieving.

Green’s shooting is not what it used to be, like when he was averaging 15.2 points and 5.6 rebounds per game for Oklahoma City. Lee is also not playing up to his potential.

He averaged more than 10 points per game twice in his career and is having his worst season in terms of statistics. Wilcox is also not what he used to be, and Boston could definitely use a guy who is what Wilcox was during his stint with the Seattle Sonics during the 2005-08 season, when he was averaging 14.1 points and 8.2 rebounds per game.

The Celtics are barely floating at 9-8, but they have not played well against the most-dominant teams in the league. They do have one win against Oklahoma City, but are 0-2 against the Nets, and they lost by 12 against the San Antonio Spurs. If this team wants to make some noise in the playoffs, it needs to do something.

— Ben Freudman

just

Sports

Page 16

HOLDING DOWN THE FORT Goalkeeper Blake Minchoff ’13 posted shutouts in the first two rounds of the NCAA Division III Tournament this month, p. 15.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Waltham, Mass.

Women’s Basketball

LEADING THE CHARGE

Judges rediscover winning ways with weekend success ■ After losing a couple of

close games against foes with national rankings, the women’s basketball team showed balance in its win.

By AVI GOLD JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

JOSHUA LINTON/the Justice

FIGHTING THROUGH ADVERSITY: Point guard Gabe Moton ’14 gets past two Clark University players during Tuesday’s home victory.

Men gain vital victories ■ Guard Derek Retos ’14

buried 23 points in a big road win at Becker College.

By JACOB MOSKOWITZ JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Something about Becker College brings out the best in guard Derek Retos ’14.

Retos scored 23 points—18 in the second half—to lead the Judges to a 77-62 road victory against Becker on Saturday. The victory stretches the Judges’ winning sterak to five

games and improves their record to 5-1 on the season.

Last season, Retos scored a career-high 28 points at home against Becker, shooting 8-for-13 from beyond the three-point arc. He nearly matched that on Saturday, going 7-for-11 from three-point territory, including six in a row in the second half.

“I have just been able to get in a good rhythm against them,” said Retos.

Before Saturday, Retos had not scored more than nine points in a game this season. He attributes the low scoring output to opponents’

strategies and credits his teammates for finding him when he had the hot hand on Saturday.

“Teams this season have really tried to limit my shots, so it's been difficult at times to get shots,” he said. “I always try to stay patient, let the game come to me and not force anything. Even though it can be frustrating to not score, that's what I have done and the patience paid off in the last game.”

The first half was a very unstable affair, as it featured four ties and four lead changes. The Judges

See MBBALL, 13 ☛

The women’s basketball team responded to a series of tough losses with a victory on Saturday afternoon over Daniel Webster College 71-53 at Mario Vagge Gymnasium in Nashua, N.H. The victory came after a loss to No. 16 Emmanuel College on Tuesday, when the team fell 62-46 in Red Auerbach Arena.

In addition to outplaying the 0-6 Daniel Webster team, the Judges, who are now 3-3, notched statistical advantages in all major offensive and defensive categories, highlighted by a 22-0 advantage in bench points and a 21-9 advantage in points off of turnovers.

“We did a much better job of taking care of the ball,” said coach Carol Simon of her team’s performance against the host Eagles. “We committed less turnovers and we were able to take advantage of our possessions.”

After previously struggling to put points on the board, the Judges had three players reach double figures as guards Hannah Cain ’15 and Kasey Dean ’14 scored 12 and 13 points, respectively. Forward Erika Higginbottom ’13 also added a season-high 13 points.

Eleven different Judges found the scoresheet. The scoring was headlined by Cain, Dean and Higginbottom, as well as guard Samantha Mancinelli ’16, who added a career-high nine points on nine shots.

The Judges were paced by nine rebounds from Higginbottom, seven from Mancinelli, and five from guard Mikaela Garvin ’15. Of the 14 players to see playing time, 13 of them added at least one rebound

and gave the Judges a 43-29 advantage in that category.

The Eagles were led by freshman guard Ashley Giampetruzzi and graduate student Vanessa Bosques, who contributed 21 and 19 points, respectively. The Judges forced 16 turnovers, and after struggling recently winning the turnover battle, the Judges turned Daniel Webster’s 16 turnovers into 21 points. Daniel Webster was also held to just 38 percent shooting, converting just 20 of the 53 shots they took. By comparison, the Judges shot 43 percent from the field, going 28-for-66 and 5-for-14 from three-point range.

Earlier in the week, the Judges fell to Emmanuel when the team could not find a way to break the visitor’s press. Emmanuel dominated the game from the start, beginning on a 16-4 run, and went into the locker room at halftime with a 33-14 lead.

The Judges shot just 25 percent from the field and committed 22 turnovers. Aside from Garvin, no member of the team scored in double figures, and two different starters were held scoreless. Emmanuel had two starters score 18 and 12 points respectively, and added 17 points from bench players.

The Judges struggled to break the press of a much physically larger Emmanuel team, and seemed to hit their stride late in the game.

They finished the game on a 24-12 run over the final 12 minutes, using quick substitutions and the hot shooting of Dean, who scored seven of the Judges final 13 points.

However, the late run wasn’t enough, as the Judges had dug themselves into too deep of a hole.

Simon said that lapses in focus have plagued the squad this season, saying that “we need to learn to play the entire 40 minutes.”

The Judges continue their season Monday at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. They then return home for games on Thursday and Saturday against Endicott College and Roger Williams University, respectively.

swimming and diving

Squads begin grueling stretch of meets with Wesleyan races ■ Max Fabian ’15 and Brian

Luk ’16 won their races, while Fallon Bushee ’16 recorded a victory in the 50yard freestyle event.

By ADAM RABINOWITZ JUSTICE EDITOR

The swimming and diving squads headed to Wesleyan University this past Saturday to begin a month-long stretch of road meets. The men and women started their December road trip on the right note, securing four first-place results and an array of top finishes.

While the men ultimately lost 17175 and the women suffered a 207-70 defeat to Wesleyan, David Lazarovich

’16 was impressed with the squad’s performance against a high-quality opponent.

“We had good times all across the board and really displayed a great attitude in this meet,” he said. “We hope to carry that into our meet against Clark [University].”

Sophomore transfer Max Fabian ’15 continued to make waves in his first season for the Judges, securing victories in the 500-yard and 1,000-yard freestyle races.

In addition to his 13-second lead in the 500-free, Fabian etched his name into the Brandeis history books with a finish of nine minutes, 56:44 seconds in the 1,000 yard event. Fabian’s finish proved to be 1.5 seconds faster than the previous record, which he set during the school opener versus Wheaton College on Oct. 20.

Fabian, in an email to the Justice, attributed his success to the support

of his teammates, as well as the leadership provided by coach Michael Kotch.

“I think the key factors in my performances this weekend have been the hard work our team has been putting in this season and the guidance of Coach Kotch, who has been a great coach and leader of the team this season,” he wrote.

Brian Luk ’16 secured yet another victory for the men, winning the 100yard freestyle meet in 48.98 seconds.

He managed to edge out the approaching Weselyan swimmer by 0.23 seconds. Luk fell just short of victories in the 100-yard butterfly and 50-yard freestyle meets, finishing in 0.18 seconds and 0.53 seconds, respectively.

Padraig Murphy ’14 rounded out the action for the men with a second-place finish in the 200-yard backstroke in 2:08.12.

The women also boasted several top performances versus the Cardinals,

including standout finishes from the first-years.

Fallon Bushee ’16 headlined the meet with a first-place result in the 50-yard freestyle meet, outracing her opponent by a mere five-hundredths of a second.

The rest of the squad, though, caught Wesleyan’s attention with a string of second-place finishes. Theresa Gaffney ’16 raced with a time of 11:52.90 in the 1,000-yard freestyle, while Lauren Cruz ’16 finished in 5:37.14 in the 500yard freestyle. Fay Laborio ’16 raced in the 100- and 200-yard backstroke events, earning times of 1:06.11 and 2:20.67, respectively.

Holly Spicer ’13 led the charge for the veterans of the squad, including a second-place result in the 200-yard breaststroke at a time of 2:34.22. Eliza Kopelman ’15 made a splash in the one and three-meter diving events, earning scores of 167.55 and 184.87 respec-

tively.

The squads resume action this Saturday at Clark, but as Lazarovich noted, the teams continue to improve and look to make a statement.

“We now have a good idea of how we work as a team,” he said. “We just have to harness this positive energy and apply it to our future meets, especially Saturday.”

Fabian echoed these sentiments, further noting that the squads’ chemistry has been essential for both individual and team success this season.

“We have been doing a very good job of pulling together as a team and working hard to progress both the team and each other as individuals to meet our goals for the season,” he wrote in an email to the Justice.

“As the season progresses, I think we can continue to lay the foundations for following years and continue to work hard in the pool.”

just just ARTS

February 7, December 4,2012 2012

‘Glass menagerie’

brings family into focus P. 21 Photos: Joshua Linton and Olivia Pobiel/the Justice. Design: Karina Wagenpfeil and Josh Horowitz/the Justice.

18

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2012 ● THE JUSTICE

POP CULTURE

INSIDE ON CAMPUS

19-21

■ Art at the Rose

19

■ ‘Spirit’ Book Review

19

■ Chums Coffeehouse

19

SCRAM member analyzes art at the Rose in response to a talk on visual cognition.

Anthropology class book explores cultural differences within the health care system.

Brian Erlichman ’15, performs his eclectic music as part of an ongoing coffeehouse series.

■ Sketch Comedy Festival

20

Boris’ Kitchen and other comedy groups amuse the audience with improv.

■ Folk Music Concert

20

The University wind ensemble captivates with traditional American music.

■ ‘Glass Menagerie’ Review

21

OFF CAMPUS

23

BTC production gives new life to classic American play about family dynamics.

■ ‘Twilight’ Film Review

23

The popular movie series entertains fans one last time with more substantial acting.

■ ‘Life of Pi’ Film Review

23

Beloved book-turned-movie makes innovative use of 3D graphics.

CALENDAR

Interview

by Erica Cooperberg

My fellow pop culture-ites, while I’m sure your last weeks of the semester are unsurprisingly stressful and chaotic, our famous friends are not nearly as predictable. This week’s column is dedicated to the surprising news in Hollywood because, let’s be real, you didn’t see any of this stuff coming.

When news broke in 2009 about Chris Brown’s alleged physical attack on Rihanna, it was all just a shocking myth—until the horrifying photo of a battered Rihanna was released, imploring seemingly everyone to turn their backs on the male singer. Brown was dropped from business deals—like his campaign with Wrigley gum—and his songs were pulled from radio stations’ playlists across the country.

While his future in the music industry seemed questionable at best, a revival of the Brown-Rihanna relationship seemed unequivocally out of the question—which is why it’s such a shock that the duo appears to be rekindling their roller-coaster romance.

In early 2012, the former couple announced their collaboration on two tracks, including Brown’s “Turn Up the Music.” Rumors of a romantic relationship between the two swirled for months, escalating in September when, at the Video Music Awards, in full view of cameras, Rihanna gave her ex a peck on the lips.

Since then, the pair has been spotted together at outings and parties and, just last Thursday, the songstress shared an Instagram picture in which she is straddling Brown. Even today, neither singer has publicly discussed what transpired that night back in 2009. So, are they officially a couple again? Didn’t see that coming...

Shifting from music to television, the pop culture world experienced some unfortunate information courtesy of a cast member of the comedy Modern Family. On Nov. 7, TMZ reported that fourteen-year-old Ariel Winter, who plays middle-child Alex Dunphy on the show, was placed in her older sister’s temporary guardianship as a result of their mother’s alleged physical

BTC director shares love for theater

 Paula Plum, an award-winning actress and director, joined with the Brandeis Theater Company to direct ‘The Glass Menagerie.’

Kirk McKoy/ MCT

FORBIDDEN LOVE: Rihanna reunites with Brown. and emotional abuse. Although Winter’s older brother vehemently denies the allegations, documents signed by the young starlet accuse her mother, Chrisoula Workman, of food deprivation, physical and verbal abuse through name-calling and slapping. For a girl who seems so well-adjusted, poised and mature, Winter’s allegations are all the more surprising.

I can’t completely confirm this last piece of gossip, but I have a solid hunch it’s true. Multiple sources are reporting that Jessica Simpson is pregnant! Experiencing some déjà vu? That’s because she only gave birth to her daughter, Maxwell, seven months ago. Simpson said she wanted to wait a bit to have another child. But sometimes life gets in the way of planning!

The only minor hitch? Simpson is currently a spokeswoman for Weight Watchers, having recently debuted her incredible post-baby slim down. Will she remain a spokeswoman for baby number two? The answer is the same as for most questions in Hollywood: only time will tell.

What’s happening in Arts on and off campus this week

ON-CAMPUS EVENTS

Music at Mandel: Middle East Ensemble Experience the mystical sounds of traditional Middle Eastern music, performed by students under the direction of ethnomusicologist Ann Lucas. The program, part of a series of concerts, is sponsored by the Mandel Center for Humanities.

Wednesday, Dec. 5 at noon in the Mandel Center for the Humanities.

Special Screening: ‘Portrait of Wally’

The Program in Film, Television and Interactive Media and the Edie and Lew Wasserman Fund invite you to a special screening of Portrait of Wally, followed by a chat with the producer David D’Arcy about Nazi loot in film and fact.

Wednesday, Dec. 5 from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Wasserman Cinematheque.

Poetry Reading by Susan Eisenberg Poet, activist, multimedia artist, and Women’s Studies Research Center Scholar Susan Eisenberg will read from a new body of work, I Don’t Remember: New Poems About What I’ve Been Trying to Forget.

Thursday, Dec. 6 from 4 to 5 p.m. in the Kniznick Gallery at the Women’s Studies Research Center.

Brandeis Cares Performance Presented by Tympanium Euphorium, this event is a Broadway revue benefit concert to raise money for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. There will also be a raffle and silent auction.

Friday, Dec.7 from 7 to 9 p.m. in Levin Ballroom. Tickets are $3 in advance and $5 at the door.

Brandeis Jazz Ensemble: Gerry Mulligan

This concert will salute the great jazz innovator Gerry Mulligan, whose music, said Dave Brubeck, is like “listening to the past, the present, and the future of jazz, all in one tune.”

Saturday, Dec. 8 at 5 p.m. in Slosberg Music Center.

VoiceMale Presents: Steamy Winter

Come see VoiceMale’s Fall Semester Show featuring their talented a cappella performers. Guest troupe MIT Chorallaries will also be joining the show.

Saturday, Dec. 8 at 7:30 p.m. in the Berlin Chapel.

Д‘Lost & Found’ Project

This experimental theater troupe features Russian-Jewish actors from the former Soviet Union and an affiliate of the Folksbiene National Yiddish Theater, performing an experimental, interactive play that explores the Russian-Jewish immigrant experience.

Followed by a question-and-answer session with the director. Sponsored by the Brandeis Genesis Institute.

Saturday, Dec. 8 at 8 p.m. in the Carl J. Shapiro Theater.

Olivia Pobiel/Justice File Photo

SHAKE IT: The Belly Dance Ensemble previously performed at the Fall Fest Variety Show in October.

Brandeis Adagio Dance Marathon

This will be Brandeis’s third year holding a dance marathon raising money for Boston Children’s Hospital. The event is a 6-hour long dance-a-thon with on-campus dance groups, free food, other activities (mask-making, twister, Xbox Kinect, DDR, photo-taking) and of course lots of dancing.

Saturday, Dec. 8 at 10 p.m. to Sunday, Dec. 9 at noon in Levin Ballroom.

Early Music Ensemble: A Light in the Darkness Dedicated to the repertoires of 15th-, 16thand 17th-century Europe, the EME offers music to illuminate the shortest days of the year.

Prof. Sarah Mead (MUS) leads the ensemble.

Sunday, Dec. 9 at 3 p.m. in Slosberg Music Center.

Rather Be Giraffes 10th Anniversary Show

Come celebrate the 10th anniversary of this fun-loving, coed, all-genre a cappella group.

Sunday, Dec. 9 from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Carl J. Shapiro Theater.

Belly Dance Ensemble’s Semester Show

This event is a free performance by the Belly Dance Ensemble featuring eclectic dance routines in group and solo pieces.

Sunday, Dec. 9 from 6 to 7 p.m. in the Shapiro Campus Center Atrium.

Brandeis-Wellesley Orchestra Enjoy excerpts from Humperdinck’s opera “Hansel and Gretel,” featuring guest singers Marion Dry, Pamela Dellal and Andrea Matthews; Ravel’s “Daphnis et Chloé,” Suite No. 2; and Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. Cosponsored by the Wellesley College Russian Department. Prof. Neal Hampton (MUS) will

be conducting.

Sunday, Dec. 9 at 7 pm in Slosberg Music Center.

Chamber Music Ensembles

Small groups perform in an intimate setting under the direction of the Lydian String Quartet’s Judith Eissenberg.

Monday, Dec. 10 at 7 p.m. in Slosberg Music Center.

OFF-CAMPUS EVENTS The Nutcracker

Presented by Jose Mateo Ballet Theater at The Sanctuary Theater, this classic holiday festivity is running this holiday season from Dec. 1 to Dec. 16.

Various showtimes on Thurs., Fri., Sat., Sun. from Dec. 6 to Dec. 14. Tickets are $50. The Sanctuary Theater, 400 Harvard St., Cambridge.

KISS 108 Jingle Ball

The annual radio station concert features performances by Justin Bieber, Train, The Wanted, Cher Lloyd, Karmin, Bridgit Mendler, Ed Sheeran, Alex Clare and Timeflies.

Thursday, Dec. 6 at TD Garden in Boston at 7 p.m.

‘Memphis’ In 2010, Memphis won four Tony awards, including Best Musical. This lively Broadway show is inspired by actual events in the 1950s with themes of segregation, fame and forbidden love.

Tuesday, Dec. 11 at 7:30 p.m. at the Citi Performing Arts Center: Emerson Colonial Theatre, 106 Boylston St., Boston. Tickets range from $27 to $129.

This week, JustArts had the chance to speak with Paula Plum, director of Brandeis Theater Company’s production of ‘The Glass Menagerie.’ She tells us about her experience directing a Brandeis production and gives some expert advice to young, aspiring actors.

JustArts: What brought you to Brandeis to direct The Glass Menagerie?

Paula Plum: Susan Dibble is the head of the Theater Department right now, and she and I have had a long artistic relationship. We’ve never worked together, but I’ve known her for years, and she and I have worked in the same organization. And she invited me this summer to direct the show. I’ve always loved Tennessee Williams. His women are haunting and disturbed and interesting and complicated, and I thought, “What a great project.” So it is Susan, really, who is to be credited with the choice. I didn’t choose the play myself.

JA: Have you ever previously directed a production of The Glass Menagerie or anything else by Tennessee Williams?

PP: No, I haven’t.

JA: So this was like a foray into this type of American theater for you?

PP: Yes. Although I’ve acted in Tennessee Williams plays, and I almost played the part of Amanda in The Glass Menagerie, I’ve never directed it. Primarily I’m an actress; it’s just recently that I’ve been getting a lot of directing jobs.

JA: Do you feel that your production of The Glass Menagerie is unique from others or has a special take on it?

PP: Well we were given a “white box”—I don’t know If you know what that is— JA: No. PP: Typically, one performs in a “black box,” the theater is dark and you can achieve a blackout effect. They just renovated the Merrick Theater over at Spingold [Theater Center]; they renovated it so that it can be a multi-use space for conferences, concerts, theater and classroom use. The walls are all white, and it’s not necessarily conducive to theater. But we made it work by—and I think my designers were ingenious—we addressed the white by adding more white, as opposed to working against it. So that the play, which is actually a dream—it’s a memory play—becomes much more ethereal because the design is whites and beiges and soft colors.

JA: What first inspired your interest in theater?

PP: [Laughs] Oh my gosh. When I was in Catholic school, I was in sixth grade, 11 years old, and the nuns—this is really groundbreaking for them and totally avant-garde and unexpectedly flexible, let me just underline all three of those—they allowed me, instead of writing book reports, to script scenes from the book that I was reading; cast my friends with myself always in the lead, of course; and act them out in front of the class.

JA: So that was the start of your theater career?

PP: That was the beginning. And I found out that they loved these little bits so much that I wrote and acted out that I got one day—I was doing Mary Poppins, this was before the movie came out, the nuns loved me so much that they had me take the day off of school, and they took my scene with my friends around to all the classes. And we performed it. I got to perform it 16 times. And I discovered that theater could get you out of school. [Laughs] JA: What are your reflections on working at Brandeis now that the show has been performed?

PP: It was a delight! The students are well trained, they’re lovely. They’re really overcommitted though—I really think they’re working all too hard. One of my students is carrying six classes, plus she has a job as a nanny.

It’s so hard to hold an academic schedule and then rehearse every night until 11 p.m. It’s not exactly different, however, from an actor’s professional life, because in real life, I had six parttime jobs. So, you know. I guess it’s preparing them for a life in the theater.

JA: What advice would you give to an undergraduate theater student interested in pursuing a professional acting career?

PP: Oh! Continue training, don’t ever stop taking classes. And the second thing is, theater is a business and you need to have a business plan, period. Most actors go out into the world starry-eyed and don’t understand that it’s called “show business,” not “show art,” and it really is important to know how to market yourself.

—Phil Gallagher

THE JUSTICE

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TUESDAY, december 4, 2012

19

ON CAMPUS concert review

Erlichman dazzles Chum’s ■ A student percussionist’s

intimate and original performance captivated a small audience Wednesday.

By Aliza gans JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

A man, a stage, a drum pad. The setup was minimal but the sounds created by Brian Erlichman ’15 at his coffeehouse performance in Cholmondeley’s last Wednesday night were deep and complex. Gun cock noises, cowbell and other classic drum sounds sampled from early drum machines (think the synthetic beats pioneered by early ’80s hip hop like Run DMC and Beastie Boys) were just a few of the effects Erlichman used in his show. I had never seen anything like this at Chum’s, or anywhere else, for that matter. This wasn’t a DJ at a dance party, where his music provides the backdrop for bumping and grinding. At this coffeehouse, the audience faced the stage swaying as Jews do during prayer, giving Erlichman and his casserole dish-sized drum pad all the attention.

While this weekday crowd consisted of a sizable group of Erlichman’s friends and other fellow music lovers, I could see him playing on a Saturday night, with more Brandeisians grooving to his beats.

Erlichman did not have any set tracks for his performance, which was slightly confusing, because there were clearly several defined breaks in his playing during which he changed the sound combination settings on

his drum pad. I would call these unnamed sections “movements” in his concert. However, Erlichman did play one composition, titled “Bill O’Reilly,” in which he sampled the voice of the famous Fox News political commentator combined with the innovative, low frequency, dark beats characteristic of Erlichman’s sound. Erlichman is obsessed with weaving clips of old and new songs into his creative compositions. His performance included samples from current artists like Major Lazer (dancehall reggae fusion), Slayer (heavy metal), Peter Tosh (reggae), Daft Punk (electronic) and Calle 13 (Latino rap), along with older bands like Earth Wind & Fire and The Temptations. One audience member, Jonah Trout ’15, also acknowledged a “strong AraabMUSIK influence” in Erlichman’s music because he also “innovates and blends heavy beats on the spot” making handmade tracks right on stage, verus playing pre-recorded songs.

The coffeehouse was Erlichman’s first solo performance at Brandeis. He has been playing drums since seventh grade; however, he finally decided to purchase a drum pad (Roland S-PDS Sampling Pad) in September and to experiment with electronic music.

“I’m from Columbus, Ohio, so I came here [as a first-year at Brandeis] and couldn’t bring my drum set,” explained Erlichman in an interview with the Justice, “and I didn’t want another year of playing in a practice room with drums I didn’t care for in Slosberg [Music Center].”

Erlichman’s debut at Chum’s is only the beginning of his percussion

pursuits at Brandeis. Erlichman’s beats are the soundtrack to an upcoming independent film, My Spilt Milk.

The film is a student collaboration between Erlichman, Benjamin David Krause ’15 and Joseph Martin Crook ’15. The trailer will be released by 2013.

Erlichman was overall pleased with his first performance. “The crowd was on point. I’m just glad people showed up and [I] got good feedback. That’s what I live for,” he said.

Fred Berger ’15, who Erlichman calls “my agent and ruthless pimp,” was instrumental in making the performance happen, according to Erlichman. Berger is the Live Music Director for WBRS so he seeks local Brandeis talent to showcase on a campus stage. “Brian’s a good friend of mine, and has a great taste in music.

He lives with me in our suite, so I hear him practicing all the time. I respect his commitment to his music,” said Berger in an interview with the Justice. “A lot of people went to his show to support him as a friend, but they emerged more than that. They instantly became fans of his music.”

I agree with this statement about Erlichman’s music, and the rest of the student performances in the Coffeehouse series at Chums. It is refreshing to see students who you encounter in the dining or lecture hall blossom on stage, with an audience of supportive students.

Belonging to a community that can gather on a random Wednesday night in our own college café, swaying to the eclectic beats of a musician friend is something I truly appreciate about Brandeis.

CULTURE CLASH

MANNY CRISOSTOMO/MCT

NEED FOR CHANGE: Yang remembers her daughter Lia, who recently passed away.

‘Spirit’ reflects cultural gap

■ The book, read in “ANTH

1A: Introduction to the Comparative Study of Human Societies,” chronicles a Hmong family’s efforts to seek aid for their daughter.

By jessie miller JUSTICE editor

JOSHUA LINTON/the Justice

DRUM WIZ: Erlichman plays a perfect balance of both classic and unprecedented beats for a lively crowd at Chums last Wednesday.

rose art museum

Sekuler explores art and the brain ■ Prof. Robert Sekuler

(PSYC) explored the human brain’s reaction to visual art.

By molly channon special to the justice

This article is part of an ongoing series about the Rose Art Museum written by members of Student Committee of the Rose Art Museum.

On Nov. 18, both art and psychology students were drawn to the Rose Art Museum to participate in a short tour and listen to Prof. Robert Sekuler’s (PSYC) lecture “The Art of Visual Cognition.” According to Sekuler, the brain’s response to a work of art is virtually instantaneous. This is reflected in our museum experience, contributing perhaps to the 27 second average that museum-goers spend looking at a piece of art work before moving on.

Just 27 seconds. This allows about a 10 second cursory glance and an additional seventeen to read the accompanying description. Sekuler described how aesthetic experiences activate certain areas of the brain, particularly the prefrontal cortex and the striatum, both associated with executive function, or our ability to make judgments.

Research has also been able to identify a significant increase in the area of the brain’s sensory regions when an individual is looking at a work of art that they like.

Sekuler also discussed a study that

examined visual preferences within which individuals were found to have a strong inclination toward certain compositional elements. He said that people specifically preferred looking at landscapes featuring mountains on the left, trees on the right, and a gathering of people and animals, though no conclusive evidence led to an explanation as why people enjoyed these elements over others. A simulated reproduction of the work including all of the preferred elements didn’t appear particularly appealing, and I could only think that individuals participating in the study wanted to look at something pleasant and easy to interpret. In Sekuler’s comparison of the simulated work to a 15th century Dutch landscape, it struck me as the kind of painting one might want to hang in their living room.

“Art at the Origin: The Early Sixties,” a current exhibit at the Rose curated by director of Academic Programs Dabney Hailey, reflects the energy of a time period that challenged preconceptions of art. Emerging postWWII from abstract expressionism during the late 1940s and 50s, minimalism and color field painting radically reduced the subject of the work from a complex surface to pure color and form. One of the pieces that Sekuler pointed out was Ellsworth Kelly’s “Blue White,” which hangs on the far right wall of the first floor of the exhibition. Kelly, an American artist and army veteran, focuses in his work on color relationships and abstract representation of organic shapes. In pre-

vious visits to the exhibition, I have often overlooked this work. The separation of simple blue and white shapes on the vast expanse of canvas can be less than inviting to a viewer unfamiliar with Kelly’s minimalist approach.

In our group tour, fervent glances toward the door and a shuffling of feet began amidst the group as a few tentative comments were made. “It looks perfect,” someone said, “almost like it’s been manufactured.”

In looking closer at “Blue White,” however, the simplicity in Kelly’s work suggests far more than meets the eye. The intimidating perfection of the piece almost makes it inhuman; there are no visible brushstrokes, no subtle variance in the two colors. And yet it is the marked simplicity that envelops the viewer, drawing attention to the forms and contrast between the bright blue and white, capturing the fragmented glimpse of the relationship between shapes caught in time. Without the distraction of a reality-imbedded surface, the simplified image enters into a conversation of contrasts. It is embracing this aspect of the work that allows the mind to expand its horizons—no landscapes or mountain ranges in sight.

In viewing a work of art like “Blue White,” our brain may work against us. While it has been suggested that certain elements in art are preferred over others, it remains that every individual develops a unique aesthetic taste. We may not be able to control our initial reaction to art, but we can always learn more from looking.

Of all the books I have read for school over the past ten years, I can confidently say that only a select few have truly proven to be a good read.

Some of those books have even left an indelible mark on my life as a student and an individual. For an anthropology class this semester, I was assigned The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, an anthropological case study in Merced, Calif. by Anne Fadiman.

Although hesitant at first, I was captured by Fadiman’s vivid prose within the first few pages. Her language is precise, but more importantly, she effectively creates an emotional connection with the reader through the use of anecdotes and scientific fieldwork evidence.

Originally published in 1997 and again in 2012—after Lia passed away—with a new afterword by Fadiman, Spirit painstakingly chronicles the medical journey of a young child, Lia Lee, who is born to Laotian immigrants to the United States, and whose family clashes with the American medical system while trying to receive treatment for her epilepsy. At its core, the book is an emotional example of real life medical anthropology and how the cultural differences of an immigrant family and western doctors complicate their interaction.

Lia was born in Merced in 1982 after her family’s difficult refugee journey from Laos to the U.S. after being persecuted by other Southeast Asia groups. Her father and mother, Nao Kao Lee and Foua Yang, are from Laos and belong to the Hmong ethnic group, which has historically been discriminated against, constantly fighting for their right to exist. Fadiman does an exquisite job capturing the essence of the Hmong people, which she attained from hours of fieldwork talking to the Lees and other Hmong families in Merced.

The Hmong are known for their resilience against adversity, according to Fadiman’s research, something that was vital as they fled their home country to refugee camps in Thailand due to violence and persecution. The Lees arrive in Merced, already an area with a substantial Hmong population, with no knowledge of English or American culture. At three months old, Lia suffers her first seizure, thus beginning a four year-long journey through the American medical system.

Because of the language and cultural barrier between the Lees and the American doctors, Lia’s condition is misdiagnosed, thus perpetuating the seizures until she is finally diagnosed with epilepsy by the doctors at Merced Community Medical Center.

From that point on, there is constant conflict between the Hmong and American medical practices in terms of Lia’s care. Her parents believe in Shaman ritual practices, in which a healer performs elaborate rituals that attempt to reunite the body with soul; in comparison, the American doctors believe that epilepsy is caused by overactive electric impulses in the brain. In terms of anthropological vocabulary, both groups are ethnocentric—viewing their culture as the correct way of doing something and not accepting that of other cultures.

Instead, I believe that Lia’s life could have turned out very different if both groups had been able to efficiently communicate and make compromises, like combining Western medical practices and the Hmong’s Shamanism.

Spirit has won many literary reviews, including The National Book Critics Circle Award, and is also required reading at many medical schools. Not only a good novel, Spirit exists to advocate for cross-cultural interaction and understanding, something all too needed in an increasingly global world Within the context of my anthropology class, I viewed this book as a case study of existing cultural boundaries and how attempts to lessen the divide are difficult to execute. Because of the language difference, medical beliefs and different cultural norms and values, the chances of effectively communicating about a complicated health matter are slim. Western medicine is based in science—doctors are extensively trained to know the human body and treat problems that arise. In the information presented in the book, the Hmong don’t understand medical practices that Westerners find commonplace, like drawing blood or taking medication for an illness.

Fadiman brilliantly layers her insight on these topics and conflicts while relaying Lia’s tragic story. In comparison to other anthropological fieldwork books I have read, Spirit captivated my interest for these very reasons. Fadiman was not just another anthropologist in a far-away land giving descriptions of a foreign culture. Instead, I grew attached to Lia and wanted to know her story.

My thoughts wandered between trying to imagine what I would do in a similar situation to how these types of cultural misunderstandings could be avoided in the future. Fadiman suggests ideas like having more interpreters who could help mediate cultural differences.

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TUESDAY, december 4, 2012

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THE JUSTICE

STIRRING UP LAUGHTER

Boris’ Kitchen show anything but sketchy ■ In a festival-style show,

Boris’ Kitchen joins forces with Chicago, Yale and Tufts to dish up a laugh-packed performance while hitting on serious subject matter.

By ADELINA SIMPSON JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

In a local café, a girl sits diligently reading her book, until she notices the boy sitting behind her. Suddenly aware of her every move, she glances back only to notice the silent self-conscious struggle he’s also enduring. They nervously edge their chairs closer, then back again, and so on, until that’s it, they can’t bear it any longer. Passionately, the on-key Tricia Miller ’12 delivers a hearty high-five to her funny partner, Christopher Knight ’14. So began Boris’ Kitchen’s 13th Annual Comedy Festival, which occured last Friday night and Saturday night.

Before the sketch comedy troupe took the stage, the hilarious EVIL troupe from Chicago, featuring Brandeis and Boris’ Kitchen alumni Sam Roos ’09 and Amy Thompson ’11, provoked the first bouts of laughter with their professional tricks. In one especially memorable sketch, they presented the 2013 dictionary. It includes a word that describes the gibberish apology you give after briskly bumping into a person in public.

In another sketch, Roos donned a half Phantom of the Opera mask in solidarity with the emotional scars the Chicago Transportation Security Agency left him with en route to Boston.

In Boris’ “Captain DUI” sketch, shown on a retractable movie screen, the mask prop appeared again, this time on Michael Frederikse ’15, the captain. Slurping a stupefying amount of alcohol, he fumbles with the emergency phone that’s ringing in his Rosenthal suite to tell him the mayor’s in trouble. He braces the jump off of a couple of bricks be-

fore swerving around Loop Road in his superhero car. Frederikse gave a clever performance as a drunk, delivering hilariously futile lines to the Brandeis Police.

Following Frederikse’s performance were two sketches written

by Ben Setel ’13 called “Vialis” and “Fuck History,” also presented on screen. The latter delivered a parody segment of a National Geographic show, tracing the origin of the word “fuck” all the way back to the original “motherfucks” in history. Setel’s most sophisticated sketch was “The Book of Chad,” named after a recently-found gospel. The audience cracked up as a priest assured his confessee, a humorously sheepish Jason Kasman ’16, that it’s not his fault: it’s Chad’s.

The idea of God, or lack thereof, sprinkled the set-list. Yoni Bronstein’s ’13 “The Nihilist,” garnered sympathetic giggles throughout the festival. At first he apathetically chewed a carrot.

In another appearance, he barely mustered the energy to hit a few bars on a xylophone. Finally, he appeared scribbling the same sentence repeatedly on a chalkboard: “God hates figs.”

Most of Bronstein’s sketches had an absurdist tone. In “It’s The S,” an upperclassman, played by a particulary expressive Deesha Patel ’16, couldn’t stop drooling over a pair of sketchers, glorifying in the sound and shape of the letter “S.” In “Swinging Crabs,” Bronstein ended a relationship between him and his lover, an oversized crab, becoming distracted by a flock of birds overhead.

The final sketch, “Dear Diary,” featured Karen Lengler ’15, posing believably as a young girl writing about ketchup and other harmless things to the tune of a cutesy voiceover. Disturbances turn deadly when her brother, an exuberant Dennis Hermida-Gonzalez ’16, arrives. She indifferently strangles him and pulls a gun on her father in an apt exit for the players before they returned the next night.

The Saturday performance featured Yale’s 5th Humour troupe and Tuft’s Major: Undecided.

JENNY CHENG/the Justice

PINCH ME: Deesha Patel ’16 of Boris’ Kitchen kept the audience crowing with clever costume changes during the group’s comedy festival last weekend.

JENNY CHENG/the Justice

PREISTLY HUMOR: Christopher Knight ’14 (left) and Jason Kasman ’16 (right) preach humor to the audience.

CONCERT REVIEW

Concert celebrates classic American tunes ■ At a patriotic display attended by listeners of all ages, Wind Ensemble explores American identity by highlighting the influence of Native American culture on our musical heritage.

By EMILY WISHINGRAD JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

On Sunday at 7 p.m., the Brandeis University Wind Ensemble, led by Prof. Thomas Souza (MUS), dazzled its audience with classic Americanstyle music. The music was upbeat, exciting and had the audience tapping their feet and nodding their heads the entire time. The pieces represented different parts of American culture and history from Cajun to Native American music.

The concert thus created a picture of American music not similar to the stereotypical Fourth of July parade-themed tunes but a compilation of music from all the different cultures across America. People of all generations attended the concert—seniors who may have danced to some of these classic American songs in their youth, as well as students, interested in learning about America’s musical traditions.

The program, in keeping with the theme of the concert, was extremely patriotic, emblazoned with stars and red stripes on a blue back-

ground. The ensemble was made up of both students and adults playing mostly winds, but there was also a percussion section, a piano and an upright bass. About 50 people attended.

The concert started off with a fast, loud and rhythmic piece called “Havendance,” composed by David Holsinger. As the program mentioned, Holsinger actually wrote the piece for his eight-year-old daughter, Haven, to dance to. However, he has noted that “if Haven had to dance to this piece today, her shoes would probably smoke” due to the extremely fast tempo and numerous amount of notes. During the piece there was an intense and direct communication between different sections of the ensemble as each took turns playing sectional solos.

The piece ended with a dramatic build-up of tension and an abrupt finish.

The next piece, “Songs of Earth, Water, Fire and Sky,” was a compilation of different dances, each representing a different Native American tribe. As the conductor said, the piece represents the authentic, ceremonial dances of the Native Americans across the United States.

The piece was rhythmic and had a celebratory feel. The percussion section used shakers, drums and bells to emulate traditional tribal instruments. At one point in the piece, the entire ensemble stopped playing and the members stomped their feet once simultaneously. This

OLIVIA POBIEL/the Justice

BLOWN AWAY: Ensemble sparks new appreciation for American musical heritage. small gesture was an interesting addition to the instrumental playing and served to remind the audience that this piece was constructed of tribal dances.

The next piece of the concert, composed by Robert Russell Bennett, was entitled “Suite of Old

American Dances.” The piece included five different 20th century, American ballroom dances: “Cakewalk,” “Schottische,” “Western One-Step,” “Wallflower Waltz” and “Rag.” Souza noted that compared to the previous piece, this work focused less on the authenticity of the

dances but on the stylistic aspects.

The pieces were catchy, upbeat and had a joyful feel.

According to the program, “Cakewalk” was a social dance in the 20th century—during social gatherings, many couples would start dancing and one by one they would be eliminated and the last couple standing would receive a cake as a prize. The only anomaly to the upbeat and fast dances was “Wallflower Waltz,” which was a slower, steadier and quieter piece.

The concert ended with “Cajun Folk Songs” by Frank Ticheli. According to the program, Cajun music has become “increasingly commercialized and Americanized throughout the twentieth century,” and this piece is an attempt to restore Cajun music back to its authentic roots. The “Cajun Folk Songs” were beautiful—crescendos and decrescendos were used effectively, creating waves of sound. Not knowing much about Cajun music, it is hard to say if the piece succeeded in bringing authenticity back to Cajun music, but the music was definitely unique—it was like nothing I had heard before.

This concert was a great success. It captured the heart and soul of classic American music and brought people together for a joyful night of entertainment. Next semester, the Wind Ensemble’s concert will be jazz-themed, which, based on the success of this semester’s concert, should be ‘wildly groovy.’

THE JUSTICE

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TUESDAY, December 4, 2012

AN AMERICAN STRUGGLE

‘Glass Menagerie’ sets a high bar ■ The BTC production

stands out with excellent acting, a unique set design and a classic American plot.

By Rachel Hughes JUSTICE Editorial Assistant

“Sold out? The entire weekend?”

I started panicking. I needed to get into this show. “We can put you on a waiting list,” the calm woman at the ticket booth offered. As I sat in the foyer of Spingold Theater Center, I met a man whose guest was unable to attend the Friday night performance and jumped at the opportunity to join him. I hurried down the hall to the newly renovated Merrick Theater, where Brandeis Theater Company’s production of Tennessee Williams’ classic play, The Glass Menagerie, was being performed. The play, which ran from Nov. 29 through Dec. 2, was directed by professional actress Paula Plum and featured a cast solely composed of Brandeis undergraduates.

Before the play began, the actors sat at the front of the white-walled cozy theater, in a modest 1930s St. Louis parlor. The set, designed by the scenic paint charge for BTC, Kristin Knutson, was immaculate–a clawfooted Davenport, wooden rocking chair and matching dining room setup, table lamps and a throw rug. The walls of the ‘apartment’ were draped with white, gauzy linens. Light-col-

ored laundry was strung up to dry.

The dreamy-white color scheme of the room reminded audience members that the play is simply a series of memories.

For those unfamiliar with Williams’ original script, the play is built upon two parallel premises: the dynamics of a broken American family, and the conflict one faces when he feels he lives an unfulfilled life.

The play is very much a reflection upon the past, present and future of each character.

The family, the Wingfields, is led by a washed-up Southern belle of a mother, Amanda (Ellyn Getz ’13), who struggles to protect her two adult children, Tom (Justy Kosek ’14) and Laura (Corrie Legge ’14), after their father, represented in the play only by a portrait hanging on the wall, runs away. Laura is plagued by a selfconsciousness about her crippled leg, and instead of leading a normal life, she sits at home most days and plays with her collection of glass figurines, which her mother calls ‘the glass menagerie.’ Tom, who narrates the play alone in between scenes with other characters, works grueling hours at a factory to keep the family afloat and spends his nights at the “movies,” always dissatisfied with his limiting job and dreaming of liberation from his family.

Plum’s direction of the play does more than animate the original script–it brings to life elements of the story that, even though I have read Williams’ script, I never quite seemed to get. In perhaps the single

most important scene, Laura shows her glass menagerie to gentleman caller Jim (Ahmed Kouddous ’14), who she is all too fond of, yet finds intimidating. Seeing the play acted out as opposed to reading it helped me to understand Laura in an entirely new way. While the script portrays Laura as potentially disturbed, Plum’s production shows that she is, in fact, more fragile than anything else.

Jim has just enjoyed supper with the Wingfields when Amanda leaves him alone with Laura, hoping to catalyze a romantic interaction.

The young man sweeps her up to dance to the victrola music but clumsily bumps a table upon which Laura’s favorite figurine, a glass unicorn, sits. It falls and its horn is broken off, and it becomes just a normal horse.

From the script, I gathered that this scene represented a loss of virginity, innocence and a crushing of dreams.

But under Plum’s direction, it became clear how violent the emotions in this scene are– Laura is not just disillusioned by the figurine breaking, she is devastated; it seems that this episode is something she is not to recover from.

Indeed, the entire play is laden with instances from which the characters are not to recover: like Amanda’s choice to marry an alcoholic dreamer who abandoned the family years ago, or Tom’s failure to pursue a life more promising than his meaningless factory job.

But even in the throws of such material, the actors incorporated comedy and skill into their delivery.

Amanda is quite difficult to take seriously, as she is the only character who dons an unflinching Mississippi accent established in her

youth growing up on the Delta. Even though her children have grown up in St. Louis and would not naturally have comparable accents, hers was so pronounced that it makes her seem a bit too comical when she is actually quite an angry character.

Getz’s stamina with a character as incessant and volatile as Amanda is nothing less than impressive, though the humor she injected into the role undermined the seriousness of Amanda’s manic nature. This is easily seen in a truly desperate Amanda’s still laughable attempts to court a suitor for her daughter.

Tom provides a valuable perspective to the audience, as he is the only one who sees the other characters as they truly are, and is separate from the circumstances that limit them. Jim and Laura both slide perfectly into their roles; the conversations they have about being comfortable with oneself despite one’s flaws are a pleasant balance to the tense relationship evident between Amanda and Tom. The beauty of BTC’s production of The Glass Menagerie lies in these students’ capacities to inject new, dynamic life into each character.

It was truly as if I was experiencing the story for the very first time.

JOSHUA LINTON/the Justice

TWO LEFT FEET: Laura, who never interacts with young people besides her brother, shyly gives her first dance to the family’s fast-talking dinner guest, Jim, in a moment of innocent bliss before the evening turns sour.

JOSHUA LINTON/the Justice

HARD WORKER: Tom, played by Justy Kosek ’14, works long hours at a factory to help support his dependent mother and sister.

JOSHUA LINTON/the Justice OLIVIA POBIEL/the Justice

PRIZED POSSESSION: Laura (Corrie Legge ’14) treasures her favorite figurine from her glass collection, called “the glass menagerie.”

FIRST IMPRESSION: Laura is primped by her mother Amanda (Ellyn Getz ’13) who is desperate to impress the suitor dinner guest.

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THE JUSTICE

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TUESDAY, december 4, 2012

23

film review

‘Life of Pi’ captures novel’s complexity ■ Director Ang Lee’s use of

3D techniques and stellar acting perfectly visualizes the relationships in Pi’s tense life.

By Yehuda Harel JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Life of Pi, the acclaimed novel, has been made into a movie, and a splendid movie at that.

As a novel, Life of Pi explored the inherent animalistic quality of the world alongside the morality apparent in human beings. These ideas take form in a boy named Pi who expresses his love for life by appealing to religions like Buddhism, Christianity and Islam.

His father brings the sharp hand of reason to reveal the dangerous nature of the world that Pi has been blind to.

As Pi becomes more aware of his surroundings, his family decides to move to Canada, where they will sell the animals from their zoo and seek a new life.

Their voyage is ruined by a storm that sinks their ship, leaving Pi on a lifeboat with an orangutan, a zebra, a hyena and a tiger. The animals expose Pi to the operation of the food chain. Only the tiger remains with Pi, and he must learn to live with the deadliest representation of the carnivorous world.

The film frames the story in the present, where an older Pi recounts his story to a Canadian writer, in hopes of convincing him of God’s existence. The doubt of God stems from the carnivorous quality of the world, seen in the sea that “swallows” the ship. After the storm, the audience only sees a calm ocean, as if no disaster ever happened.

When the tiger is fed, Pi does not have to worry. But the return of hunger to the tiger immediately threatens his existence. Praying will not feed the tiger. Yet Pi will not kill the tiger, because of his basic morality. He believes that the tiger has a soul. His father taught him that all he sees in the tiger

GBPublic_PR/MCT

MAN’S BEST FRIEND: Pi finds himself stranded with a hungry tiger and other animals while contemplating life values.

is a reflection of himself and nothing more. Even though Pi accepts that he only sees his reflection in the tiger, he does not dismiss the power of reflection. That means he does not dismiss the power to see in the eyes of the tiger something that is not there.

Director Ang Lee decided to bring this story to the screen using 3D cameras. Like Scorsese’s Hugo, Lee seeks to use 3D to bring the audience into the story. I felt like I was looking through a window, where these events were happening just beyond my reach. The film is shot realistically, making the scenes that much more engaging to the eye.

At the same time, Lee uses visual effects on the scenery to explore the religious complexity of Pi, stranded in the middle of the ocean. He captures the reflection of the sky in the ocean continuously to suggest a relationship between the two. One sees the clouds rolling underneath the boat, giving the illusion that boat is flying through space. The magnificent cinematography hints at the larger ideas of the novel, where the sky reflects on the surface of the ocean.

Suraj Sharma plays the role of the teenage Pi, and he manages to weigh the innocent aspect of his character with the aggressiveness he needs to live with the tiger. His expressions are sharply defined when he is angry, frightened and happy, making his role both moving and understandable. The adult Pi (Irrfan Khan) tells the story with a more subtle and steady expression. The difference between the two actors is that the older Pi has acquired maturity. Yet, the tension in his voice rises and his eyes redden when he recounts a part of the story that still haunts him.

Pi is both idealistic and realistic at the end of the film. He sees both how the world is and how the world could be. He does not decide which one is right. Both options are left on the table, leaving the audience to consider and to wonder what it means for an innocent boy to tame a deadly tiger.

film review

‘Twilight’ sparkles in finale ■ Though previous

installments of the vampire series failed to impress, the finale raises the standard.

By Aaron Berke JUSTICE Senior WRITER

Andrew Cooper/Summit Entertainment

FINAL TRIUMPH: Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson return to finish the saga.

It was a combination of morbid curiosity and obsessive completionism that prompted me to see the new Twilight film. Having sat through (sometimes suffering, sometimes begrudgingly enjoying) the past four films, seeing the final installment was as inevitable as picking at a hangnail.

And surprisingly, the movie is borderline good.

Truth be told, I’ve always kind of enjoyed the films. The premise was strangely intriguing—an emo girl drawn to a mysterious stranger who’s also a vampire who sparkles in the sun. Bizarre distortion of vampire mythology aside, the unique mythos established by book author Stephenie Meyer featured interesting material—rivalries between vampires and werewolves, a sinister vampire cult called the Volturi that manages other vampires and a female protagonist’s impending decision to stay a human or become one of the sparkling bloodsuckers.

Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 finds Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) a vampire at long last. She and hubby Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) now have a daughter, Renesme, and are determined to protect her from the threat of the Volturi, who seek to destroy all undead newborns. Renesme, however, is technically not undead, but the Volturi appear to care little about this. Meanwhile, Bella’s one-time love interest, werewolf Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), has “imprinted” on Renesme (kind of the equivalent of urinating on a tree, if Jacob and the tree were eventually

going to have sex). With Jacob’s life debt sworn, the Cullen clan prepare for the coming battle with the Volturi.

The movie’s plot is far too convoluted, but the story is actually strangely simple—Bella and Edward need to protect their daughter from the Volturi. That’s it. Yet the plot feels the need to throw in a variety of monkey wrenches. For example, Bella and Edward track down family members across the world who can vouch for their daughter’s mortality. This material could have been contained in a montage, but instead it’s stretched out for a good half hour. Meanwhile, the vampires seem to have gained superpowers between movies, with each Cullen now displaying unique traits such as telepathy, force fields and electricity. I don’t know when the Twilight vampires became the undead X-Men, and I’m sure it’s explained in the book, but the sudden development seems like little more than an excuse to fill up run-time with training sequences.

Of course, there’s the usual batch of overly sappy romantic scenes between Edward and Bella, though I’m happy to say they only take up about half the movie this time as opposed to three quarters in the previous installments. The actors have also dialed down the teen-angst overtures to the point where I actually don’t regurgitate a little every time they interact.

Once cardboard cut-out stiff, the actors have grown to the point of threedimensional believability. I particularly enjoyed Lautner’s performance.

He was always the best of the three, but now that Jacob’s done pining over Bella, Lautner gets to do things other than glare at Edward and preach about the dangers of vampires. He takes off his shirt amazingly, but only once. And it’s actually in a really funny scene between him and Bella’s father Charlie (Billy Burke, the franchise‘s best actor and character), whose sarcastic comic relief provides

an audience-lens into all the madness.

Also of note is actor Michael Sheen, who plays Aro, the leader of the Volturi. Sheen hams it up quite a bit, but to delightful effect. His theatrical cackling and slinky demeanor remind me of an odd crossbreed between Ian McDiarmid’s Emperor Palpatine and Andy Serkis’ Gollum (he also strikingly resembles the latter). Sheen’s antics make for a fun departure from the movie’s often too self-serious tone.

On a story level the movie is a mixed bag, but the direction is the movie’s saving grace. Director Bill Condon brings in some rare vitality, with improved pacing and a surprisingly suspenseful build toward a climactic battle between the Cullens and the Volturi.

There’s also a great twist at the end that manages to simultaneously amaze and disappoint. But regardless of the viewer’s reaction, it comes at the heel of an amazing battle sequence. It’s a departure from the book, but an essential one. Condon cleverly realized that after four plodding predecessors, the series deserved, nay needed, an epic action send-off. The fight becomes a blood bath featuring werewolf dismemberment and vampires tearing each others’ heads off.

Twilight may have sapped a certain amount of masculinity from male viewers dragged by their girlfriends, but it’s gloriously restored with this scene.

While there isn’t quite enough to call Breaking Dawn - Part 2 a great movie, it’s at least a fairly good one.

Twilight fans will certainly be happy, and non-fans actually have something to root for. All in all, it’s a sweet ending to a franchise intended for romantics, and in that light the movie can’t be faulted for its melodrama. That doesn’t excuse the dragged-out plot and sometimes ridiculous character interactions, but this time it’s presented in a package that’s worth opening. It even sparkles a little.

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TUESday, december 4, 2012 ● THE JUSTICE

TOP of the

ARTS ON VIEW

Brandeis

CHARTS

TALKS

Quote of the week

Top 10s for the week ending December 2

“The fact that students can go to Usdan who have a meal plan, and they still [have to] reach into their pocket for some extra coin” is a major area of concern.

- Senior Vice President for Administration Mark Collins, commenting on student meal plans in the context of the University’s decision to open bids for a campus food service provider.

(News, p. 1)

BOX OFFICE

1. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 2. Skyfall 3. Lincoln 4. Rise of the Guardians 5. Life of Pi 6. Wreck-It Ralph 7. Red Dawn 8. Flight 9. Silver Linings Playbook 10. Argo

What are your prefinals rituals?

NYT BESTSELLERS

OLIVIA POBIEL/the Justice

Jess Young ’15 “I drink a blue goodness smoothie every day, I sleep religiously 6-8 hours a night and I wear lucky dangling earrings because they make me feel good.”

Karan Malik ’15 “Before I go take an exam, I like to get really pumped up, so I listen to a particular song and this song is Lady Gaga’s ‘Marry the Night.’”

Rachel Nelson ’13 “I have lucky socks that I wear to every exam.”

BREATH OF FRESH AIR: Justice Photographer Olivia Pobiel ’15 took this photograph of a sheep while visiting her high school friend’s hobby farm in rural Minnesota during the summer of 2010.

ACROSS 1 “Rumble in the Jungle” champ 4 Hanging on every word 8 Crumb bum 14 Actor Chaney 15 Dotona map 16 Delphi’s claim to fame 17 Perspective-bending artist 19 “Beau Geste” novelist 20 Grade for a tween 21 Scottish hillside 23 Convent residents 24 Runner Sebastian et al.

26 Second and third in a sequence 28 Port relative 30 Sears rival 34 Subdue with a stun gun 35 Final Four initials 37 “Mercy!”

38 Penn Sta. users 39 Blues standard first recorded by Ma Rainey 41 KGB counterpart 42 Prettify 44 “Roots” author Haley 45 Game with a 32-card deck 46 “Never Give a Sucker an Even Break” star 48 How some beer is sold 50 Mil. plane for small runways 51 Civil wrong 52 Barbershop member 55 CNBC interviewees 58 Reverend’s residence 61 Pepsi alternative 63 Justice League publisher 65 Charm 66 Entry point 67 Kite on the links 68 “Who wants ice cream?” reply 69 Lid malady 70 Lamb mom DOWN 1 Poor box donations 2 Focal points 3 More than 4 Having deeper pockets 5 Hibachi residue 6 Roman commoner 7 Okla. or Dak., once 8 Inept sheep keeper 9 Circle part 10 Beginning 11 Color of raw silk 12 Narrow valley 13 Mil. bigwigs 18 Five-and-dime, e.g.

22 Game player’s haunts 25 iPad-to-iMac activity 27 Fourth prime minister of Israel 28 It may be bendy 29 One of three in Coca-Cola

CROSSWORD

iTUNES

1. Bruno Mars — “Locked Out of Heaven” 2. PSY — “Gangnam Style” 3. The Lumineers — “Ho Hey” 4. Ke$ha — “Die Young” 5. Alicia Keys — “Girl on Fire (feat.

Nicki Minaj) [Inferno Version]”

BILLBOARD

1. Rihanna — Unapologetic 2. Taylor Swift — Red 3. One Direction — Take Me Home 4. Phillip Phillips — The World from the Side of the Moon 5. Kid Rock — Rebel Soul 6. Rod Stewart — Merry Christmas, Baby 7. P!nk — The Truth About Love 8. Jason Aldean — Night Train 9. Led Zeppelin — Celebration Day 10. Keyshia Cole — Woman To Woman

30 Locks up 31 Cable venue for vintage sitcoms 32 Poland Spring competitor 33 Dublin-born poet 36 Pacifier site 39 Online tech news site 40 Parkway off-ramp 43 Meat- or fish-filled pastry 45 “Vamoose!”

47 Pin down 49 “Mercy!”

52 “Dracula” novelist Stoker 53 Peak 54 Fountain build-up 56 Track numbers 57 St. Andrew’s Day celebrant 59 Garbage barge 60 Salinger heroine 62 Apollo lander, briefly 64 Affectedly shy

Top of the Charts information provided

by Fandango, the New York Times, Billboard.com and Apple.com.

STAFF PLAYLIST

“The Grand Epic”

By NAN PANG Justice editor

Solution to last week’s crossword

Crossword Copyright 2012 MCT Campus, Inc.

Reed Zuckerman ’13 “I have a dance party in my suite before every final.”

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.

Alana Birnhak ’16 “I generally like to deactivate my Facebook a week in advance, and I drink a lot of coffee and stay up very late.”

—Compiled by and photos by Olivia Pobiel/the Justice

Fiction 1. Notorious Nineteen — Janet Evanovich 2. The Forgotten — David Baldacci 3. Agenda 21 — Glenn Beck with Harriet Parke 4. The Last Man — Vince Flynn 5. The Racketeer — John Grisham Nonfiction 1. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power — Jon Meacham 2. Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot — Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard 3. Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever ­— Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard 4. No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden — Mark Owen with Kevin Maurer 5. The Signal and The Noise ­— Nate Silver

Solution to last week’s sudoku

Sudoku Copyright 2012 MCT Campus, Inc.

I have neither the One Ring nor the Wardrobe, but whenever I turn on this playlist, I feel like I’m traveling across Middle Earth or voyaging to Atlantis. And then, I realize every little thing in my life is full of epic.

THE LIST 1. “Adiemus”—Karl Jenkins 2.

“Dream Chasers”—Future World Music 3. “Onward to Freedom”—Immediate Music 4. “Pompeii”—E.S. Posthumus 5. “Army of Justice”—Two Steps from Hell 6. “Kingdom of Avilion”—Jo Blankenburg 7. “Ocean Princess”—Thomas Bergersen 8. “Launch”—Trevor Rabin 9. “Now We Are Free”—Hans Zimmer 10. “My Name Is Lincoln”—Steve Jablonsky