ARTS PAGE 20
FORUM Making parties a priority 11
“PROSPECT I”
SPORTS Eder swims at NCAAs 16 THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER
the
OF
BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY SINCE 1949
Justice www.theJusticeOnline.com
Volume LX, Number 24
Waltham, Mass.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
BUDGET
RESIDENCE LIFE
Reinharz to ask Board for $2M
Students waitlisted in room selection
■ University President
Jehuda Reinharz will request $2M to help fill fiscal 2009’s $5M deficit, which would add $2M to the deficit of fiscal 2010. By NASHRAH RAHMAN JUSTICE EDITOR
University President Jehuda Reinharz will ask the Board of Trustees for an additional $2 million from the University reserves of $85 million to help close the $5 million budget deficit in fiscal 2009, thereby adding $2 million to the projected budget gap in fiscal 2010, he said at last Thursday’s faculty meeting. Reinharz explained at the meeting that applying the additional $2 million to cover the expenses for fiscal 2009 will increase the projected budget deficit for fiscal 2010 from $6.9 million to $8.9 million. “There will only be an impact on [fiscal] 2010 if the Board of Trustees requires a payback provision for the additional $2 million,” Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Peter French confirmed in an e-mail to the Justice. French wrote that the budget deficit of $5 million for fiscal 2009 will be covered in part by $2 million from the University reserves that Reinharz previously requested and a projected $1 million in bequests, which are gifts left behind in a will.
■ Six rising sophomores
could not obtain housing at their scheduled appointment times. Students received housing the next day. By SAM DATLOF JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
the residency requirement, he explained. There are more costs associated with first-year students because they are guaranteed housing and because more students have to be accepted to account for any who might leave in the four years that follow, Hewitt explained. In terms of the JBS, Jaffe explained in a previous interview that under the current model, if students take two JBSs, they would only be on campus for five semesters, which the UCC felt was not academically beneficial. Currently, students must complete 128 credits, equal to 16 credits for eight semesters. Hewitt explained that students can fulfill up to 16 credits with non-numeric credit gained from AP exams or foreign final exams such as the International Baccalaureate and can thereby graduate in seven semesters. The University Bulletin currently states that students must complete at least
Six students were waitlisted for sophomore housing after the completion of the sophomore housing lottery March 17, but they were eventually offered on-campus housing the next day, according to Assistant Director of Residence Life Jeremy Leiferman. First-years and sophomores are guaranteed on-campus housing. However, some students, like Rebecca Eisenrich ‘12 and Ellen Franz 12, were given the choice of whether they wanted to go on the waitlist or live in residence halls that ResLife had selected for them. Others, like Zachary Herman ’12, were not given a choice and were instead automatically placed on the housing waitlist. Associate Dean of Student Life Maggie Balch and Leiferman said that most of the rooms offered to waitlisted students were previously saved for medical purposes, for instance, a carpetless room for students with severe allergies. All students wishing to participate in the housing lottery were required to “check the box” in SAGE by January 31, “signifying their intent to live on campus the following semester,” according to an e-mail sent by Massell Quad Director Brian Koslowski to the Massell residents. The Residence Life staff uses the “box” to make an estimate as to the number of beds required each semester. Leiferman felt that because 769 out of 785 rising sophomores participated in this year’s room selection process it was difficult to accommodate on campus housing for all of them. As sophomores will no longer be housed in Scheffres, North Quad, it was more difficult to allocate housing, Leiferman said. He said that oneand-a-half years ago first-years were originally housed in Scheffres but in order to provide more housing to
See REQUIREMENT, 7 ☛
See HOUSING, 7 ☛
JULIAN AGIN-LIEBES/the Justice
THE DEFICIT EXPLAINED: University President Jehuda Reinharz explained his request for $2M at last week’s faculty meeting. Reinharz initially discussed his plans to ask the Board for an additional $2 million with the Senate Budget Council, the Faculty Budget Committee and eight administrators,
including Provost Marty Krauss and Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe, at a meeting on March 17 to address budget gaps for fiscal 2009 and 2010.
At a faculty meeting March 12 French said that the University reserves are projected to run out by the end of the next fiscal year and
See RESERVES, 7☛
ACADEMICS
UCC withdraws new residency requirement ■ The requirement, which
passed in its first reading, was withdrawn last week due to faculty concerns. By MIRANDA NEUBAUER JUSTICE SENIOR WRITER
The Undergraduate Curriculum Committee withdrew its motion to change the number of semesters a student must stay on campus from seven semesters to eight semesters due to faculty concerns about the proposal, Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe announced at last Thursday’s faculty meeting. Faculty and students said that they were concerned that the proposal would financially disadvantage students and inconvenience them. The faculty had passed the motion in a first reading at the previous faculty meeting March 12.
University Registrar Mark Hewitt explained that the reasoning behind the residency proposal had to do with the ability of students to accelerate their graduation and the implementation of the Justice Brandeis Semester, which affect University revenue and the academic experiences of students. “I thought that the [withdrawal] was extremely well-handled by [Jaffe],” Prof. Dirck Roosevelt (ED) said after the meeting. “Between the first reading and today, there was a lot of discussion on the faculty listserv … that requiring the eighth semester would discourage students who might really want to come here but for either financial [reasons] or for reasons of personal aspirations would want to come here in the hope that they could complete [their degree] in seven rather than eight semesters.” “We don’t know whether students are [increasingly] going to end up [graduating] early, whether they’ll
take two Justice Brandeis Semesters versus one, we don’t know,” Prof. Malcolm Watson (PSYC) said, suggesting that the faculty could revisit the proposal later when more details were known. “I don’t want to take away degrees of freedom, of self-determination from the students [to take fewer semesters].” With regard to the issue of acceleration, Hewitt said that about 6 percent of the Class of 2009 elected to graduate early. In the current financial climate where the University seeks to increase the number of students to increase revenue and students graduate early, “by not increasing [the residency requirement], then we are looking [at] an additional 40 or 50 [first-years] that we have to admit each year, on top of what has already been proposed for budget reasons,” he said. Original models for bringing 100 more students per class over four years as part of larger academic restructuring assumed a change in
The Pachanga story
Shifting to lifting
’DeisBikes begins
■ Insight into one of the most popular events on campus.
■ Dave Almeida ’09, a former member of the baseball team, competes in national weightlifting competitions.
■ The ’DeisBikes program launched yesterday; bikes are now available for rent.
FEATURES 8 For tips or info call Let your voice be heard! Submit letters to the editor online (781) 736-6397 at www.thejusticeonline.com
INDEX
SPORTS 14 ARTS
17
EDITORIAL FEATURES
10 8
OPINION POLICE LOG
11 2
SPORTS LETTERS
NEWS 5 16 11
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