The Justice, November 19, 2013

ARTS Page 21

SPORTS Women’s basketball opens with victory 15

ON THE EDGE

FORUM Professor responds to Collins departure 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 LXVI, Number 12

www.thejustice.org

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

ADMINISTRATION

ANOTHER SHOT

Reinharz’s pay in the spotlight ■ A Sunday Boston Globe

article brought President Emeritus Jehuda Reinharz’s salary into question.

By ANDREW WINGENS JUSTICE EDITOR

A front-page article in the Nov. 18 Sunday Boston Globe highlighted the salary and benefits packages afforded to former University presidents, with a focus on President Emeritus Jehuda Reinharz. Students and faculty reacted, voiceing their concern about Reinharz’s compensation but noting that excessive executive compensation is not an issue unique to Brandeis.

Reinharz’s salary and benefits, as reported by the Justice in a Sept. 24 article, totaled about $627,000 in 2011.

In 2009, his penultimate year as University president, Reinharz made about $1.5 million in salary, benefits and other compensation. Reinharz served as University president from 1994 until University President Frederick Lawrence took over on Jan. 1, 2011, making him the second-longest serving president of the University.

According to University administrators, Reinharz’s post-presidency salary has declined from its high in 2011. Reinharz’s total compensation is approximately $300,000 each year from 2012 through 2014. In 2014, Reinharz will be compensated as president emeritus until June at the same rate as 2012 and 2013, with a total compensation that year of about $160,000. After June 2014, Reinharz’s

MORGAN BRILLthe Justice

Tudor Livadaru ’14 splits a pair of Roger Williams defenders during the team’s 1-0 victory in the Second Round of the NCAA Tournament. See page 16 for full coverage.

ADMINISTRATION

Al-Quds partnership halted ■ The decision to suspend a

current partnership ensued after a controversial protest.

By PHIL GALLAGHER JUSTICE EDITOR

University President Frederick Lawrence has suspended the University’s formal academic partnership with Al-Quds University, a university in East Jerusalem, effective as of last night, and will “reevaluate the rela-

tionship as future events may warrant” according to a Nov. 18 BrandeisNOW press release. Al-Quds University’s statement regarding recent demonstrations on the Al-Quds campus that “involved demonstrators wearing black military gear, armed with fake automatic weapons, and who marched while waving flags and raising the traditional Nazi salute,” according to BrandeisNOW, was “unacceptable and inflammatory.”

BrandeisNOW reported that upon learning of the demonstrations, Lawrence “contacted Al-Quds President

Waltham, Mass.

Sari Nusseibeh and requested that he issue an unequivocal condemnation of the demonstrations” and “also requested that the condemnation be published in both Arabic and English.” The release explained that the University is “obliged to recognize intolerance when we see it, and we cannot—and will not—turn a blind eye to intolerance.”

The statement by Nusseibeh, which BrandeisNOW described as an English translation from Arabic, began by saying that Al-Quds “is often sub-

See AL-QUDS, 5 ☛

annual salary will be $180,000 as a half-time professor.

The Globe article questioned Reinharz’s current role on campus, stating that he does fulfill the usual roles of a History professor, as he does not teach classes nor does he supervise graduate students. “The chairwoman for Near Eastern and Judaic Studies said she did not even know whether he was officially a member of her department,” wrote the Globe.

Prof. Sylvia Barack Fishman (NEJS), the chairwoman of NEJS, however, wrote in an email to the Justice that “[t]he comments that the Globe reporter attributed to me were not accurate.” She stated that Reinharz is a member of the NEJS faculty.

“On a regular, ongoing basis, he is generous as a mentor and guide for graduate students and faculty members, and in donor stewardship and development. Professor Reinharz devotes considerable time and service to Brandeis University and to his research and publications,” wrote Fishman.

In an email to the Justice, Senior Vice President for Communications Ellen de Graffenreid listed Reinharz’s duties, which she said included helping with the presidential transition, cultivating and introducing Lawrence to donors, overseeing the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry and pursuing academic research.

According to the Globe, Reinharz was “noncommittal about how much time he devotes to Brandeis.”

“I’ve never worked at Brandeis by

See REINHARZ, 7 ☛

DINING SERVICES

Sodexo and University look to change meal plan options ■ Meal equivalencies could

potentially be replaced by a swipe system.

By SAMANTHA TOPPER JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

On Nov. 8, members of the Student Union, University administrators and representatives from Sodexo met to discuss a proposal for meal plan reform to be implemented at the start of the next academic year.

According to Jay DeGioia, Brandeis’ resident district manager for Dining Services, he called the meeting in response to student feedback that was garnered during the request for proposal process that took place last year.

At the meeting, Sodexo proposed several ideas for new types of meal plans, according to the Senate chair of the Dining Committee, Class of 2017 Senator David Heaton. In an email to the Justice, DeGioia said that “the meal plans proposed are a direct result of what [Sodexo was]

asked to deliver from the direction in the sales proposal” which the University gave out during the request for proposal process. Instead of meals, the potential new system would introduce the use of “swipes” that students would use at Sherman Dining Hall or Usdan Café, which will be converted over the summer into a resident dining hall facility comparable to Sherman, DeGioia said in an interview with the Justice.

The name “swipes” denotes how they differ from meals: these “swipes” would not be limited by

meal periods such as lunch and dinner, or disappear at the end of the week, but would be available for unrestricted use throughout the semester, Heaton said in an interview with the Justice. Proposed meal plans would provide students with options similar to those currently in place, with suggested plans that allow for the purchase of many swipes with a limited number of points, or fewer swipes but a larger amount of points, according to Heaton.

One proposed plan would vary vastly from any existing plans, ac-

See SODEXO, 7 ☛

Garden displays

Winning big

LNF Program cut

Students used miniature gardens to cultivate agricultural education.

 The men’s basketball team scored a record 119 points in a rout over Curry College

 The University plans to focus on implementing Living Learning Communities.

FEATURES 8 For tips or info email editor@thejustice.org

cording to DeGioia, who mentioned the implementation of an “all-access” plan that would give students an unlimited number of swipes for the entire semester, but very few points to use at retail locations such as Dunkin’ Donuts or Starbucks.

The University very likely will not decide to allow the use of meals at retail locations such as the Hoot Market due to the added expense and reduced control that DeGioia predicts will result when students have the ability to use unlimited meals at lo-

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INDEX

SPORTS 16 ARTS SPORTS

17 16

EDITORIAL FEATURES

10 8

OPINION POLICE LOG

10 2

READER COMMENTARY 11

News 3 COPYRIGHT 2013 FREE AT BRANDEIS. Email managing@thejustice.org for home delivery.

2

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2013

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THE JUSTICE

NEWS SENATE LOG

Senate begins Midnight Buffet plans At the Senate’s Sunday meeting, members voted to recognize two clubs and charter one. In addition, the Senate passed Senate Money Resolutions to fund the Midnight Buffet.

Philosophically Speaking addressed the Senate requesting a name change to the Brandeis Philosophy Journal. The representatives said that they believe the current name deters students from submitting work, as they are not sure what the journal is about.

In addition, the club wants to make the journal more structured and is undergoing a rebrand. The name change was unanimously approved.

Another club, which would be a University affiliate of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, addressed the Senate to request recognition and charter. NARAL, which is a national organization with state affiliates, has currently sought to introduce chapters on college campuses.

The representatives introducing the club stated that Boston University and Northeastern University currently have recognized chapters. The club was recognized with two abstentions and no objections.

The club requested charter in order to host events.

The representatives said that the funding would solely cover custodial costs and costs to reserve rooms on campus. The club was chartered with two abstentions and no objections.

The Student Language Exchange approached the Senate after adding to its constitution, as suggested by the Senate last week. The club, which seeks to recruit tutors to teach students languages that are not taught at the University, was unanimously recognized.

A $3,700 SMR for the food, drinks and decorations for Midnight Buffet was approved, in addition to a separate SMR for T-Shirts. The food SMR increased funding from last year to include more food, and the T-Shirt SMR includes 50 additional T-Shirts from last year. Both SMRs were approved. Executive Senator Annie Chen ’14 announced that she had a T-Shirt design ready to share with the Senate.

Class of 2017 Senator David Heaton delivered the Senate Dining Committee report. He said that there are still several possibilities being explored for the Stein, such as a sports bar or brick oven pizzeria.

According to Heaton, the possibility of bringing in another franchise is not off the table. Heaton also mentioned the possibility of bringing another franchise into the Usdan Student Center.

Class of 2015 Senator Anna Bessendorf delivered the Senate Sustainability Committee report. She said that the committee is currently working on its Brandeis Sustainability Fund proposals of getting toilets on campus with dual-flush capabilities, as well as adding a for-profit one acre farm to campus.

Chair of the Social Justice and Diversity Committee Senator-at-Large Naomi DePina ’16 said that a poetry slam will take place on Dec. 5 at 8 p.m.

The location is yet to be determined.

East Quad Senator Andrew Savage ’16 spoke on behalf of the Club Support Committee, and said that a list with several clubs that could potentially be dechartered has been compiled. He said that many of these clubs are defunct, and that up to eight will be presented by next week to be de-chartered.

Class of 2016 Senator Jon Jacob is currently working on an email notification system for the mailroom. Two proposals are in place: a simple email notification system or a card swipe kiosk with an email notification. According to Chen, the simple email system would require students to remember zone numbers for their packages, whereas the card swipe system would avoid that issue.

Jacob also approached five local businesses on Friday regarding his WhoCash initiative, including Carl’s Steak Subs, Tree Top Thai Cusuine, Sabatino’s Italian Kitchen, Asia Wok and B’aan Thai. According to Jacob, Carl’s Steak Subs, Tree Top and Sabatino’s are “on board,” but would like to know more about the percentage of commission they would make.

Savage announced that tables for East Quad have been delivered and are currently in East. He also wants to create a proposal to shorten quiet hours on weeknights during vacations when students do not have classes the next day.

Class of 2015 Senator Alison Zheng brought up issues with the BranVan in her report, and said that she would like to fix problems with pick-ups and drop-offs. In addition, senators discussed the possibility of requesting additional pick-up locations and having additional operators, as currently there is only one operator at a time answering phone calls from all University students.

—Marissa Ditkowsky

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

Justice

the

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POLICE LOG Medical Emergency

Nov. 12—A female student in Gordon Hall experienced difficulty breathing. University Police and BEMCo arrived and, after responding, arranged for transport to Golding Health Center.

Nov. 12—University Police received a report of a male student who suffered from a shoulder injury. BEMCo responded and arranged for police transport of the student to Golding Health Center.

Nov. 13—A student phoned University Police to report an intoxicated female in Scheffres Hall who was vomiting and refused to open the door. University Police arrived to address the situation, and, after ensuring her safety, left the scene as the student refused further care.

Nov. 13—University Police received a report of a student who slipped and fell in Upper Usdan. BEMCo was notified and promptly reported the need for an ambulance. The student was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further treatment.

Nov. 13—University Police received a report of a faculty member at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management that had been experiencing a diabetic reaction. BEMCo was notified and promptly reported the need for an ambulance but the faculty member refused further care.

Nov. 14—University Police received a report to assist in a voluntary psychiatric transport.

The student was transported to McLean Hospital for further treatment and the community development coordinator was immediately notified.

Nov. 14—University Police received a report of a female student in Ridgewood Quad who sustained a head injury and, while conscious, experienced short-term memory loss. BEMCo responded and the student was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further treatment.

Nov. 15—A student in Renfield Hall reported stomach cramping.

BEMCo responded and the student refused further care.

Nov. 17—A student in Rosenthal North reported that he fell out of his bed and injured his head. BEMCo and University Police responded, and shortly after, the student refused further care.

Disturbance

Nov. 12—A student outside Usen Hall notified University Police of excessively loud music outside the residence hall. University Police arrived at the scene but, by then, students were not present and the area was deemed to be quiet.

Nov. 16—A student at Charles River Road reported that a student in the apartment had an excessively loud party and threw glass bottles out her door. University Police arrived, determined that the party indeed was coming from the apartment above, and quickly dispersed the students there.

Larceny

Nov. 11—A Goldfarb Library staff member called University

Police to report a student’s iPad had been stolen. University Police compiled a report.

Nov. 14—A staff member reported that a catalytic converter had been stolen from a university van in the East Quad parking lot.

University Police then compiled a report of the incident.

Harassment

Nov. 11—A staff member at the University Bookstore reported receipt of an obscene phone call from an unknown party. University Police compiled a report of the incident.

Miscellaneous

Nov. 17—University Police received a report regarding a student who seemingly was lying in the bush outside Scheffres Hall.

University Police arrived and discovered that the “student” was in fact a Halloween prop. Students in the area were asked to remove the prop.

—compiled by Adam Rabinowitz

BRIEF

WEIMAR IN WALTHAM

Implementation groups formed for strategic plan

MORGAN BRILL/the Justice

Prof. Stephen Whitfield (AMST) spoke at the event “Weimar in Waltham: Brandeis University at the Beginning,” which was a part of a series titled “Exile and Persecution: German Exiles in the Americas.”

As part of the next step of enacting the strategic plan, Provost Steve Goldstein ’78 announced the formation of implementation groups at the Nov. 7 faculty meeting. The groups will work with Goldstein and Senior Adviser to the Provost Prof. Anita Hill (Heller) to translate the objectives outlined in the plan into actions and timelines.

“Each group is responsible for setting actions in motion, supporting and monitoring progress and reporting to me,” wrote Goldstein in an email to the Justice. “The groups will work with the community, governance bodies and offices so that changes in practices and policies receive appropriate review and approval.”

According to Goldstein, there will be six groups. Each group will focus on one of the major goals listed in the strategic plan: educational experience of students, interdisciplinary collaborations, faculty hiring and retention, school spirit and the alumni community, financial stability and proposal collection and evaluation.

Each group will be composed of “people from across the community,” led by a “team of faculty and senior administrators supported by staff,” Goldstein wrote.

“Group leaders will engage students, staff, faculty, alumni, trustees and friends to help develop actions that support various objectives of the strategic plan,” Goldstein wrote.

He added that the groups are reviewing the timetables and drafting measures to evaluate the success of the actions. Objectives and actions to be completed within 18 months will be defined as short-term, those to be completed in 36 months are defined as medium-term and those that will take longer will be long-term.

Projects that are dependent on “additional resources,” will progress according to the securement of those resources.

Goldstein states that he anticipates the groups to have completed their timelines and “metrics for measuring progress” by the beginning of next semester.

—Sara Dejene

ANNOUNCEMENTS Women in the German Parliament

Are women and men, mothers and fathers represented equally in the German Bundestag? Or does politics remain a male-dominated affair because the life script of most women includes children who do not fit the demanding time schedule of a politician? This question is highly relevant, given the current debate about a women’s quota for leadership positions in the German economy and in the European Union. We discuss the potential advantages and disadvantages of a “mother quota.”

Today from 2 to 3:30 p.m. in the Olin-Sang American Civilization Center Room 207.

Addressing crimes of sexual violence

The event will begin with a screening of Sexual Violence and the Triumph of Justice, a film about the emergence of relevant jurisprudence from the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

Leigh Swigart, director of programs in International Justice and Society at the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public

Life will review the recent judicial colloquium organized in the Netherlands by the Ethics Center in collaboration with Physicians for Human Rights and the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation. The event brought together judges from the Democratic Republic of the Congo with international judges from both criminal and human rights courts to share experiences and knowledge about adjudicating sexual violence cases under international and domestic law.

Today from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in the Abraham Shapiro Academic Complex Room 209.

Question and answer with Jonathan B. Miller

Jonathan B. Miller, the head of the Civil Rights Division of the Office of the Attorney General of Massachusetts, is coming to campus to speak and participate in a structured question-and-answer session.

Miller was instrumental in representing Massachusetts in front of the Supreme Court to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act. Miller will be speaking about his role in striking down DOMA and will discuss his

work advancing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual and queer rights in the Office of the Attorney General.

The session, facilitated by Prof. Michael Willrich (HIST), will delve into LGBTQ rights and the pending trans* rights legislation in Massachusetts.

Come with questions.

Today from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Mandel Center for the Humanities Atrium.

Exiles in exile

This talk concludes the Center for German and European Studies’ event series “Exile & Persecution: German Exiles in the Americas.” Following the screening of his 2002 documentary Exiliados en Exilio and question-andanswer session today, Rolando Vargas will address the Brandeis community once more in his talk, “Exiles in Exile: Germans during the Second World War in Colombia,” which will illuminate on further aspects of the exile experience in South America.

Tomorrow from 5 to 6:30 p.m. in the Mandel Center for the Humanities Room 228.

THE JUSTICE

focus on implementing more Living Learning Communities on campus.

By SARA DEJENE JUSTICE EDITOR

ABIGAIL ROTHSTEIN/the Justice

INSIDE THE HACKER WORLD: Parmy Olson talked about her book We are Anonymous and interest in the topic last Thursday.

Author discusses research on online hacktivist groups

By KATHRYN BRODY JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

On Thursday, the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism and the Department of Music co-hosted a lecture titled “Investigating the Hacktivists of Anonymous.” Parmy Olson, the author of We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymous and the Global Cyber Insurgency, visited Brandeis to talk about how she became interested in the groups known as Anonymous and LulzSec, as well as how she went about collecting the research for her book.

Olson’s book, which explores the shadowy realm of anonymous chat rooms and the groups of computer hackers who met there, inspired a rather unconventional response: the creation of a ballet.

Peter Van Zandt Lane M.F.A. ’08, Ph.D. ’13, an adjunct lecturer in the Music department, created the ballet HackPolitik to create a visual representation of what he saw as a “tension between freedom and security” on the Internet. The ballet focuses on three of the people Olson came in contact with during her investigation. The characters have painted faces masking their identity and wear black on a black background, thereby physically embodying the shrouded culture of “hacktivists,” people who hack for a purpose.

Lane said that he already wanted to compose a work based on the Internet, from both the appeal of tackling a very real and modern issue such as security online as well as how the anonymous online world felt like “a blank canvas,” but had difficulty finding a story. However, when discussing his take on Olson’s book, Lane said that when he read it, he found it to be “a version of the story that’s consistent,” and went on to create a ballet based on the book.

Olson, a writer for Forbes Magazine

3

LNF Program funds expire ■ The University plans to

■ Peter Van Zandt Lane Ph.D. ’13 discussed his ballet ‘HackPolitik,’ which was based on the book.

TUESDAY, November 19, 2013

academics

WE ARE ANONYMOUS

and a former reporter for BBC News, spent a year researching the world of the groups Anonymous and LulzSec, which are both groups of people who have never met except in online chat rooms under aliases and yet have hacked their way into FOX News, PayPal and even the homepage for the Central Intelligence Agency. The founding of these groups, as she found in her research, was the participants’ search for amusement. Jake Davis, the founder of LulzSec, an offshoot of Anonymous, told Olson that, at the core “there is nothing that Anonymous won’t laugh at or won’t want more of.” Anonymous is the group responsible for “trolling” and “memes” both of which are now ingrained trademarks of social media. Trolling the act of playing pranks on someone else via the Internet for either amusement or to provoke that person while memes consist of pictures with captions that somehow comment on the picture in entertaining ways.

For Anonymous and LulzSec, trolling was serious business and involved people from all parts of the world spamming or hacking into websites. The name “LulzSec” itself is shortened from “laughing at your security.” Olson witnessed from her computer numerous attacks on web pages for the Church of Scientology, the X Factor and FOX News. Olson said that the most well known of these pranks was when the organization hacked into PBS News Network and changed the main headline to “Tupac Still Alive in New Zealand.” She also noted that the article was very popular, getting thousands of hits. Olson said that a lot people had no idea that it was not real.

Olson also witnessed the dark side of the search for fun. In February 2011, she said that she “got a front row seat” to the attack on Aaron Barr, the chief executive officer of HBGary Federal, a company which sells security on the cyber level for the U.S. government. Barr was targeted by Anonymous because of an interview in which he claimed to have discovered the leaders behind the secretive group. Not long afterward, Olson received a message informing her about the cyber attack from the leader of Anonymous. The CEO’s home ad-

●

dress, telephone number and social security number were posted publicly on his Twitter account by members of Anonymous who had hacked into his account. Barr told Olson in an email a week later that he “was afraid to talk” because of the messages and verbal digs he encountered daily because of the hack.

According to Olson, researching a completely anonymous group of people was not simple. After the attack on FOX News, Olson wrote a blog article on her Forbes webpage saying that “the people who carried out this attack were the same people who attacked HBGary.” She published their online nicknames and received a message telling her to take down the post.

Later, she discovered that “Sabu,” one of the leaders of LulzSec, had become so enraged at her post that he vowed to “destroy Forbes.”

Lane and Kate Ladenheim, the choreographer of the ballet, keyed into the idea of an Internet identity. In an anonymous chat room, a person creates an alternate identity, much like an actor plays a character. In the book, Olson found out that one of these characters, “Kayla,” was actually a 24-year-old man and a veteran who fought for the British army in Afghanistan. As Kayla, he was a 16-year-old who taught herself how to hack from reading every book she could about computer coding. The action of creating an identity is inherently a performance, as Ladenheim noted, and she utilized this basic idea to bring the ballet to life. Anonymous and LulzSec were other platforms in which to play around with self-identification. The ballet thereby focuses on the ideas of identity, highlighting the amorphous nature of the Internet.

HackPolitik brings ballet into the modern era, successfully combining the traditional performance form with a contemporary story. The ballet also brings the world of anonymous hacktivists into the spotlight of the performance world, demonstrating the wide reaching influence of Anonymous and LulzSec.

To read more about Lane, See Arts, p. 22 ☛

The Lerman-Neubauer Fellowship Program, which serves “to recognize students with exceptional scholastic records,” is reaching the end of its set run as no more students after the Class of 2016 have been selected as fellows, according to Elizabeth Teurlay, the adviser for the program, in an interview with the Justice.

The program, which began in 2008, was set to run for a limited amount of years when it received its funding, according to Assistant Provost for Academic Affairs Kim Godsoe in an interview with the Justice. Current Lerman-Neubauer Fellows from the Classes of 2014, 2015 and 2016 will continue to receive their full benefits, which include two stipends for summer internships, money for textbooks and the opportunity to take specialized seminars until their graduation, but no new scholars were accepted for the Class of 2017, nor will any students from future incoming classes be selected according to Teurlay.

The program was funded by Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer ’69, who was a member of the University’s Board of Trustees until this past year.

However, Godsoe stated that LermanNeubauer’s departure from the Board is unrelated to the program’s closing. “[The University is] always trying different things to define the student experience. ... You see a lot of innovations in colleges,” Godsoe said. “And often times, those innovations are highlighted for a certain amount of

time.”

The focus, according to Godsoe, is now shifting toward Living Learning Communities, which falls under the supervision of Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel.

“Living Learning Communities is a broad term used in higher education to describe any programmed area of residence hall built around an common topic of interest,” Flagel wrote in an email to the Justice.

“There is ample literature that these programs can increase student satisfaction as well as retention rates in a variety of campus settings,” he later wrote.

Currently, the University is already running programs that fall under this umbrella, such as Common Cause Communities and Leader Scholar Communities. According to the website for the Department of Community Living, Common Cause Communities allow sophomores, juniors and seniors to live in on-campus residential areas while focusing on a “theme or common interest/passion.”

Leader Scholar Communities are for “first-year students who share an interest in leadership, academic and cocurricular learning in a residential setting.”

“The programs align with the goals in the strategic plan surrounding the intensive, personalized academic experiences that have always been a hallmark of our Brandeis educational experiences,” Flagel wrote.

According to Flagel, the University may look into “explor[ing] additional programs,” depending on the “outcomes” of its current programs.

“One is not better than the other,” said Godsoe in reference to programs like LNF and Living Learning Communities. “They just offer different benefits and different challenges.”

PANEL

People shape revolution ■ Speakers discussed the

importance of the “slightly important people.”

By JAY FEINSTEIN JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation at Brandeis sponsored a panel discussion titled “People in Revolution” on Thursday, which offered a multidisciplinary approach to revolutions.

The event was a part of the John E. Sawyer Seminars on the Comparative Study of Culture series “Rethinking the Age of Revolution,” History professor Kathleen DuVal of the University of North Carolina, art history professor Amy Freund of Texas Christian University and history professor Emma Rothschild of Harvard University and the University of Cambridge spoke about the people affected by the French and American Revolutions. The panel was the second event of a five-part series.

Professor Julia Gaffield of Georgia State University, who moderated the panel, said a discussion about individual people in revolution “helps us understand the big picture and the broad currents that swept through.”

According to DuVal, human history appeals to people because “we imagine ourselves in these roles and see how history relates to us,” and “we’re interested in how people are similar and different to us.”

DuVal spoke about the “slightly important people” during revolutions, people who helped shape revolutions but are not as well known. She said most people focus on a handful of founders and characters when studying history, speaking of the American Revolution. “They were important.

They had to do with the American Revolution, and they justified revolution through writing,” she said. “But there are important people beyond those few people.”

According to DuVal, the “slightly important people” had their own roles in revolution. “They tell us different stories that help us tell larger stories

and help tell us about the human condition,” she said.

DuVal went on to discuss the story of Bernardo de Gálvez, a Spanish military leader during the American Revolution, who she described to be one of those “slightly important people.”

He helped the 13 colonies by leading Spanish forces against Great Britain Freund spoke about painted portraits of people involved in the French Revolution. In particular, she spoke about portraits of ordinary and middle-class individuals. “Social class matters in context of revolution,” she said.

Freund said that the French Revolution was a time when military leadership was passed into the hands of members of the third estate and that portraits show this as a visual narrative. “I was surprised about how many portraits [created during the revolution] there were out there,” she said. “The portraits show how ordinary men shape the course of history,” she said.

Then, Rothschild spoke about how she has been trying to track down the records of 83 people who signed a prenuptial agreement during the French Revolution. Because the signatures portrayed friends of the bride and groom, she was able to see what people the couple knew. She used many documents, including marriage certificates, to learn about these people’s lives.

“It is important to see revolution in terms for people who were shaped by revolution, but didn’t shape it,” she said.

Prof. Susan Lanser (ENG), who directs the “Rethinking the Age of Revolution” seminar with Prof. Jane Kamensky (HIST), said in an interview with the Justice that the seminar looks to study revolution across disciplines. “Much of what we have today, we owe to the period of revolution,” Lanser said. “It changed a great deal of the world. Much of what we take for granted was not inevitable.”

According to Lanser, studying revolution “helps us see how the world was shaped and gives us a richer sense of the past.”

THE JUSTICE

PANEL

bVIEW holds discussion ■ The event on Tuesday

focused on issues currently faced by the Israeli Haredim.

By SARAH RONTAL JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Brandeis Visions for Israel in an Evolving World held an event on Tuesday about Israel’s ultra-Orthodox population, called Haredim. The event brought together about 60 students and faculty.

The Haredi population is perceived by many Israeli citizens as absorbing state resources without paying proper duties to the state, including military service, participation in the labor force and proper care toward gender equality, according to program materials. Speakers during the event and students in a followup discussion examined the other side of this debate, considering how history led to Haredi dependence on the state, why Haredi ideology developed apart from the rest of Israel and how Haredim would be affected by changes to the legislation that currently supports them.

“Even if we are afraid of [this topic], the ultra-Orthodox are our partners,” said bVIEW Co-Founder and Programming Director Gil Zamir ’15 in his opening remarks. Citing statistics that 700,000 of Israel’s eight million citizens are Haredi and that one in four Israeli children are educated at an ultra-Orthodox institution, Zamir emphasized that they are more than just a “parasite,” a term he heard them called when growing up on an Israeli kibbutz. “We believe that when thinking about Israel’s future we cannot disregard this topic, even if we are afraid of it,” he said.

Prof. Yehudah Mirsky (NEJS), an

ordained rabbi, and former Haredi Ysoscher Katz, director of a preparatory year program called Beit Midrash at the rabbinical school Yshivat Chovevei Torah, spoke at the event.

Mirsky discussed the history of the Haredi population, describing how their ideology developed into ultra-orthodoxy during the 20th century. Orthodoxy, which had developed into a myriad of groups, split between “the Old Yishuv,” or “the old Jewish collective,” and “the New Yishuv.” The rise of the Zionist movement and the world wars that vindicated the Zionist cause enabled Zionists to determine the “agenda of Jewish political life,” according to Mirsky. For this reason, “the old yishuv” was “never able on its own terms to attain a great position of leadership in the Jewish world,” Mirsky said. The old Jewish collective, which developed into the ultraOrthodox community, opposed the secularization of the most profound symbols of Jewish people and established its support from the state through the status quo agreements of 1947, which established their exemption from military service and arranged for them to receive funding for their institutions, according to Mirsky.

Ideological battles regarding the ultra-Orthodox in recent years, Mirsky said, have erupted in response to Israeli society becoming “remarkably secularized and sexualized.”

The “extraordinary bargaining power” ultra-Orthodox citizens had in the government allowed them to “negotiate almost anything,” Mirsky said. Recent elections, however, have “for the first time in many years” removed Orthodox parties from the cabinet in the Israeli government, he added.

Katz’s perspective on Haredim provided a different insight, as he had for most of his life been Haredi himself. “There is a logic and reason to their world,” he said. Modernization in Israel has led there to be only two options available to traditionalists, he said: ultra-Orthodoxy or ultra-secularism. The two groups have not yet met “core-to-core,” and instead have only encountered each other “periphery-to-periphery,” causing the issue to be unresolved.

Regarding critiques of gender relations in ultra-Orthodox communities, Katz said that ultra-Orthodox communities were more complex than simply being “male-centric.”

The public face, he said, was male, but the private was dependent on women. Though his argument did not defend the system as being gender-equal, his defense of the ultraOrthodox gender system depicted the system of dependency that appears to maintain unequal gender relations.

Shani Abramowitz ’14, logistics director of bVIEW, clarified bVIEW’s intentions in coordinating this event in an interview with the Justice.

“The point is to expose people to the other side of the narrative, because we’re so quick to label and generalize, explicitly with [the Haredi] community and the discussion that surrounds it,” said Abramowitz.

Chen Arad ’15, one of bVIEW’s co-founders, described the political situation that made the issue of Haredim particularly important to discuss. “There are no Haredi parties in the government right now,” he said. “So they are not there to prevent ... cutting of budgets for Haredis if they don’t join the military and all kinds of legislation that currently allows a high degree of not joining the military among Haredis.”

AL-QUDS: Community reacts CONTINUED FROM 1 jected to vilification campaigns by Jewish extremists with the purpose of discrediting its reputation as a prestigious academic institution.”

Nusseibeh also wrote that “students making a mock military display ... allow some people to capitalize on events in ways that misrepresent the university as promoting inhumane, anti-Semitic, fascist, and Nazi ideologies. Without these ideologies, there would not have been the massacre of the Jewish people in Europe; without the massacre, there would not have been the enduring Palestinian catastrophe.”

Earlier this week, Lawrence had sent Daniel Terris, director of the International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life and the project leader for the partnership between Brandeis and Al-Quds, Prof. Susan Lanser (ENG), and Prof.

Daniel Kryder (POL) to Israel to learn in greater detail the nature of demonstrations that took place on the Al-Quds campus, according to Terris. Terris, Lanser and Kryder and three faculty members from AlQuds University are together the recipients of a research grant from the Bronfman Brandeis-Israel Collaborative Research Initiative.

Terris, Kryder and Lanser sent a statement to the Justice after the partnership’s suspension, writing that “[w]e are still in the middle of the process of honoring President Lawrence’s request to find out what we can about the November 5 rally and Al-Quds University’s response to it.” They emphasized that “everything that we have learned on this trip so far has affirmed our conviction ... that the leadership of Al-Quds University is genuinely and courageously dedicated to the causes of peace and mutual respect.”

The demonstrations were first reported by Tom Gross, an independent Middle East analyst, on his website in a post dated Nov. 6. The Washington Free Beacon, an online newspaper that describes itself on its website as “[d]edicated to uncovering the stories that the professional left hopes will never see the light of day,” published a story dated Nov. 11 detailing the demonstra-

tions and reporting that Brandeis declined multiple requests for comment.

According to Senior Vice President for Communications Ellen de Graffenreid, the University had not been able to verify that the photographs were taken at Al-Quds University when the Washington Free Beacon had originally asked for a comment on the afternoon of Nov. 8.

On Nov. 11, Lawrence published a blog post condemning the demonstration and explaining that he was informed that the demonstration was not sanctioned by Al-Quds.

Lawrence published a second blog post on the demonstrations on Nov. 15, writing that the University should speak out “where such events [on campuses of our international partners] fly in the face of our communal values.”

Lawrence received Nusseibeh’s statement on the demonstrations on the evening of Nov. 17, according to BrandeisNOW. The partnership was suspended on Nov. 18, with the University’s action being made public that evening.

Daniel Koas ’16, the president of the Brandeis Israel Public Affairs Committee, said in an email to the Justice that he “fully support[s] the university’s decision to take a firm stand against such despicable acts, especially given the fact that AlQuds had the chance to condemn the demonstrations, but instead decided to release an inflammatory statement. While it is upsetting to lose a partner university that Brandeis has such a longstanding relationship with, the events of the past weeks have given the administration no choice.”

The campus organization Brandeis Students for Justice in Palestine provided a statement to the Justice regarding the suspension of the partnership. “BSJP is disappointed at Brandeis’s decision, which reflects the university’s double standard regarding social justice when it comes to Palestine.

We wish a quick recovery to the 40 injured students from the [Israel Defense Force] attack today on alQuds University. We urge Brandeis to evaluate the moral standing of other partner institutions as well: Technion, for a start, develops

drones and other deadly weapons,” the group wrote.

Chen Arad ’15, a co-director of Brandeis Visions for Israel in an Evolving World, expressed in an interview with the Justice his concern with the Al-Quds statement.

“I thought the statement was offensive, and I was very disappointed that there was no clear condemnation of the events there. I’m specifically disappointed because I feel that the best way to negate, to battle extremism, like the one that was very clearly ... exhibited in those demonstrations, is by strengthening moderates, is by dialogue between people who are interested in talking ... and through education,” he said.

Prof. Ilan Troen (NEJS), the director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, expressed his opinion in an email to the Justice that “it stretches the imagination to believe that such an outrage occurred without anyone in authority in the Al-Quds administration not being cognizant of it. Nothing less than a clear condemnation is appropriate of such an outrage.”

Profs. Shai Feldman (POL), director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Mari Fitzduff (Heller) and Alain Lempereur (Heller), former director and current director, respectively, of the M.A. program in Coexistence and Conflict could not be reached on Monday night by press time.

The partnership had its genesis from a visit by Nusseibeh to Brandeis in 1997 and was originally funded by a nearly one million dollar grant from the Ford Foundation, according to the partnership website. By press time, the partnership website had been taken down. Nusseibeh is listed as a member of the advisory board of the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life.

Dr. Khuloud Khayyat Dajani, the contact person at Al-Quds University listed on the former website for the academic partnership, could not be reached for comment by press time.

—Marissa Ditkowsky, Sam Mintz and Andrew Wingens contributed reporting.

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TUESDAY, november 19, 2013

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TALKING EDUCATION

MORGAN BRILL/the Justice

ACCESS TO THE BEST: Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel provided advice for and expressed his opinions on undocumented students.

Flagel works with BIEI on immigration issues ■ The talk on Wednesday

addressed the access illegal immigrants have to higher education.

By ZACHARY REID JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

On Wednesday afternoon, Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel led a discussion on undocumented students’ access to higher education, and the challenges they face when applying to American colleges and universities.

Following a brief introduction of his background in higher education, Flagel explained the different steps undocumented applicants face in the application process, including the actual application, admission and enrollment. He said that there are no federal laws preventing undocumented students from applying to institutions or prohibiting institutions from admitting said students. However, according to Flagel, “most institutions require an answer on citizenship status, which creates a de facto barrier” to prospective students. Such a response might prompt an institution not to admit the student based on this status, or on the admissions officer’s feelings on the issue of immigration.

Flagel highlighted that the Common Application admission process is a significant source of concern for undocumented students, saying that the “Common App holds the keys here: it contains a question on citizenship … and requires an answer.”

This effectively adds a national barrier to undocumented students, due to the vast number of institutions that rely on the Common Application, he said. According to the Office of Admissions’ website, Brandeis still requires the Common Application as a component of the individual’s overall application.

Arguing against this creation of another hurdle in the admissions process, Flagel said that “it is silly” for institutions to hold applicants’ undocumented status “against them [during the admissions process] when they may have had no say in the decision to come to this country at a young age.” He advocated instead for a further look into how to classify such applicants without labeling them negatively and creating more difficulties.

When asked about the low number of undocumented students studying at Brandeis, Flagel stated that the Office of Admissions is “not seeing many applications from undocumented students here.” He also said that for those who have applied, there is no definitive policy for undocumented students specifically.

Flagel said that while Brandeis does not discriminate against undoc-

umented applicants, their status does become problematic with the issue of funding. No undocumented student would be able to access federal aid, which includes grants, loans and work-study programs. To address this issue, some undocumented students label themselves as international students, a practice Flagel cautions against.

“This can push them into the process of getting an F1 visa,” said Flagel, which can further complicate the student’s admissions process. An F1 is a student visa that permits foreign nationals to study in the United States.

Rather, he advised that students should declare their undocumented status, saying that while counterintuitive, it is “safer to report oneself as undocumented than to apply for a student visa.” He later added that “there is no requirement whatsoever” for an institution to report an applicant’s status to the federal government, and that while this is not prohibited by the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, which only applies to matriculated students, he had never heard of an institution doing so.

When asked what Brandeis’s official position on undocumented students is by Estela Lozano ’15, co-president of the Brandeis Immigration Education Initiative, Flagel responded that Brandeis has “no restriction based on citizenship for admission or enrollment.” Flagel also announced that he is working with BIEI, a student-led organization that aims to facilitate the conversation about the various immigration issues facing Brandeis, Boston and the United States on a whole, on a video in which he will publicly state this policy; BIEI co-sponsored the discussion.

This statement was well received

by Lozano, who called this “a great step in showing [the University’s] position on undocumented students.”

Lozano also mentioned that BIEI is working to get the same statement written online in order to publicize the message to prospective undocumented applicants.

After the discussion, Lozano said in an interview with the Justice that she was pleased with the event, saying that Flagel “really knew his stuff” about the admissions process for undocumented students.

The discussion was also co-sponsored by the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life and the “Immigrant Support Services Practicum” course taught by associate director of the Ethics Center Marcia McPhee. There will be a follow-up event tomorrow from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Mandel Atrium, entitled “A Journey to the Dream,” during which a student from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management will discuss her experience as an undocumented graduate student at Brandeis.

Be the third caller to 781-736-5277 on Wednesday 11/13 and 11/20 at 7:30 PM to win a pair of tickets to MGMT at The Orpheum on Dec. 5!

TUESDAY, November 19, 2013

CONTINUED FROM 1

RAFAELLA SCHOR/the Justice

Neil Hertz, a retired literature professor and photographer, shared his illustrated reports of life in occupied territories outside of Jerusalem in a lecture last Tuesday.

REINHARZ: University defends admin salary much time he devotes to Brandeis.”

“I’ve never worked at Brandeis by the hour,” Reinharz told the Globe in an interview. Lawrence “asks for advice. I give it. And I don’t look at my watch.” According to the Globe, Reinharz spent the first year of Lawrence’s presidency on sabbatical.

Reinharz told the Globe that he is currently co-writing a book on the history of the donkey in literature.

“There are smart donkeys, stupid donkeys, evil donkeys, etc., and no one has ever contemplated this on a large scale,” Reinharz told the Globe.

“It’s probably the most ambitious topic I have ever contemplated.”

In an email to the Justice, Reinharz called the article “incomplete in its analysis.”

“Given all the time that I spent with the reporter as well as getting him answers and details on every question he asked, I thought he would have been more fair and balanced in his reporting,” he said. “I am committed to fulfilling my duties as President Emeritus and I intend to do just that.”

In response to the article in the Globe, members of the Brandeis community have expressed concern about the amount of compensation received by Reinharz. On Sunday, many students and alumni reposted the article to Facebook.

Junior Representative to the Board of Trustees Alex Thomson ’15 wrote in an email to the Justice that he would bring “the serious concerns students have with this to the Board of Trustees.”

“The Boston Globe piece sheds light on an issue that is not unique to Brandeis, as many universities

across the country have similar agreements with their past presidents,” wrote Thomson. “That being said, I am very concerned with the idea of raising tuition each year while we continue to pay Reinharz’s compensation.”

Chair of the Faculty Senate Prof.

Eric Chasalow (MUS) said faculty reaction to the article has been “mixed,” with “some anger and frustration.”

In an email to the Justice, Prof.

Sabine Von Mering (GRALL) wrote that “[l]ike elsewhere we now have some administrators who earn ten times what some faculty earn. And faculty are privileged compared for example to our cafeteria workers. That’s simply wrong and out of balance.

“Our alumni and our Board of Trustees should be national leaders in fighting this trend of growing income disparity. … We must practice what we preach. This includes our former President Reinharz. There is a donkey in one of the brothers Grimm’s fairy tales that shits gold.

President Reinharz should know better than to treat Brandeis like a donkey that shits gold.”

Chasalow wrote in an email to the Justice that “faculty are very concerned about all kinds of financially driven issues that Brandeis shares with all universities.”

“So naturally, out of context, the payments to Dr. Reinharz seem to be in competition with our goals,” wrote Chasalow. “But context does matter, and as president, Dr. Reinharz raised $1.2 billion, adding desperately needed endowed faculty chairs, sorely needed facilities, and significant student scholarship funds, more than quadrupling the

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SODEXO: A survey will be distributed to gauge student perspectives

PASTORAL IN PALESTINE

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endowment. In his role at the Mandel Foundation, he continues to make a significant contribution to the financial future of Brandeis.”

Prof. Mary Baine Campbell (ENG) drew attention to the reader comments on the online version of the article. “They don’t bode well for Brandeis fundraising or recruitment,” she wrote in an email to the Justice. “The interview seems an unfortunate lapse of judgment on the part of our former president, though the facts of the compensation stand by themselves as a bad advertisement.

“Maybe this will, at least inside Brandeis, lead to some soul searching and some changes,” said Campbell. “It’s wrong to pay people so much for doing so little when many other people at Brandeis are being paid less than a living wage for doing a lot,” wrote Campbell in an email to the Justice.

Several hours after the release of the Globe story, the University published a response on BrandeisNOW. “The decision by the Board of Trustees in 2009 to retain Jehuda Reinharz as President Emeritus was fully consistent with best practices for leadership succession planning,” read the statement. “According to an independent compensation review, his president emeritus compensation (which ends in July 2014) was just slightly above the median amount paid to retired presidents at peer institutions.”

In an email to the Justice, Reinharz responded to the Globe article by emphasizing his record at the University. “I am very proud of my record and hope to continue to be of service to Brandeis for many years to come,” he wrote.

cations with regulated prices.

Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel said in an interview with the Justice that the request for proposal catalyzed the Nov. 8 discussion over reforming meal plans at Brandeis. Students expressed dissatisfaction with their meal plans in focus groups during the request for proposal process, according to Flagel, with one major point being frustration over a perceived loss of value through meal equivalency at the University’s retail dining locations. Student dissatisfaction regarding meal plans has been ongoing however, according to Flagel, who said that negative student feedback regarding dining began before his arrival at the University.

Student Union President Ricky Rosen ’14 said in an interview with the Justice that this change would ease some of this financial loss students experience with their current meal plans by eliminating the current system of equivocating meals to a dollar value for use at retail dining locations. Rosen said The Stein acts as a good example of this loss. At The Stein students can use a meal to pay for only five dollars worth of food, whereas a meal at Sherman Dining Hall buys a dinner worth of over 10 dollars retail.

“At the end of the day, because the ratio [of money spent on meal plans to value purchased by meals and points] is unbalanced, students aren’t getting the most for their money. So we’re looking at removing those components and just having meal swipes at Sherman and Usdan,” instead of the current system where students use roughly equivocated meals at retail dining locations,” said Rosen. Sodexo, the Student Union and University administrators aim to implement new meal plans by the beginning of the fall 2014 semester, according to Rosen.

The introduction of swipes to replace meals made up only part of the proposal Sodexo brought to its meeting with University representatives. “Something [the University is] considering right now is having all on-campus housing students be on a meal plan,” Rosen told the Justice.

This proposal change would require all residential students to purchase some sort of meal plan, regardless of where on campus they live, said Rosen. According to Flagel, this idea also came about during the RFP process last year, during which the University hired consultant Ray E. Petit, president and founder of Petit Consulting, LLC, a company that, according to its website, provides “planning advice to foodservice and hospitality clients.” According to Flagel, in Petit’s analysis of the University, he called Brandeis “an outlier compared to other institutions” in having “only portions of the residential population on meal plans.”

DeGioia said that such a change could only benefit students in regard to on-campus dining: “the more participants, the better the quality, the better the offerings, the more offerings.” Flagel also said that he felt such a change would have a positive effect, telling the Justice that his “perception [is] that this was a direction that would really heighten the student experience.”

Student feedback will largely impact the decision of whether all residential students will need to purchase meal plans, according to Rosen, who said that such an option might make on-campus housing less desirable. By increasing the quality of the food and the pricing, however, Rosen opined that “students will be more willing to have some sort of uniform requirement for a meal plan.” In any case, Rosen said that such a drastic change in whom the University requires to purchase a meal plan would not be implemented until 2015 or 2016.

Another idea that the University wishes to consider would re-

quire all enrolled, undergraduate students to purchase some sort of meal plan, regardless of whether or not they live on campus. However, Rosen said that such a requirement has a “very small chance” of being enacted.

“Increasingly, other institutions are including some level of plan requirement even for off-campus students. That wasn’t met with as much enthusiasm by our students who were involved in discussing at the different forums [during the RFP process], so that hasn’t been envisioned [as of yet],” said Flagel.

Instead, the University has a goal to make the food on campus so good that off-campus students will be more interested in being on meal plans, according to Rosen.

“Something we’re considering is having a much cheaper option for off campus students which would include a limited amount of dining dollars and meal swipes so that way they’re able to eat [on campus] a few times a week, but they’re not bound to eating on campus every day” Rosen said.

Flagel, Rosen and DeGioia all said that student feedback will make up an important part of the decision-making process moving forward. Decisions regarding major changes to meal plans considered student feedback from past years, some even from students who have since graduated, according to Flagel. The meal plan ideas proposed at the Nov. 8 meeting did not consider any feedback received since Sodexo became Brandeis’ food service provider, according to DeGioia, but only feedback received

by Sodexo during the RFP process last year. Since the University Board of Trustees must approve a final proposal for meal plan options before students sign up for housing and pick their meal plans for the upcoming academic year, “time begins to work against [new] feedback inclusion for decisions this year,” said Flagel in an email to the Justice. Therefore updated feedback in reaction to Sodexo’s proposals will necessarily take a back seat to older student feedback, “but can be revisited as we move into the next [annual] cycle of meal plan development.”

“We need to, as we move forward, be looking at our student satisfaction levels and be looking at our perception of value levels and make sure that this is creating positive progress on all of those fronts for our students,” Flagel wrote.

According to Rosen, the Student Union will be sending out a survey to students in the next few weeks to ask students how they feel about meal equivalency and unlimited swipes, how many meal plan options they want to have and how they would feel about requiring all students to have meal plans. After receiving that data, the Student Union, University administrators and Sodexo plan to meet again to discuss what changes, if any, will be made before submitting the proposals to the University Board of Trustees. They likely will not enact any significant changes to the current proposal, however; in an email to the Justice, DeGioia said that though Sodexo retains interest in the results of the upcoming survey, the feedback “may only affect minor changes for next fall, but will definitely be considered for the future.”

The ultimate goals of the University and Sodexo, according to Flagel and DeGioia, respectively, are to cater to students’ needs and involve them in the decision-making process to come up with a system that pleases the majority, providing more flexibility and a more positive dining experience.

“There’s lots of other pieces of student input that we want to try to collect. I think it’s always a challenge but at some point decisions have to get made and not everyone’s going to be 100 percent satisfied with any decision. It’s not possible,” Flagel said, adding, “It’s Brandeis. I’m sure there’s always going to be a countervailent [sic] position somewhere.”

8

features

TUESDAY, novembER 19, 2013

just

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THE JUSTICE

VERBATIM | WOODY ALLEN What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists?

In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.

ON THIS DAY…

FUN FACT

In 1847, the second Canadian railway line, the Montreal and Lachine Railway, was opened.

All donkeys in Great Britain have been required to have a passport since 2004.

Gardens grow indoors JOSH HOROWITZ/the Justice

THINKING IN THE BOX: Garden Week displays were built in three locations, including the Carl J. Shapiro Campus Center atrium, pictured above.

Student initiative brings garden displays into campus buildings By casey pearlman JUSTICE contributing WRITER

PHOTO COURTESY OF JENNIFER MANDELBAUM

INTERN INSPIRATION: Mandelbaum ’14 was inspired to create the week after learning about urban agriculture as a Schiff Undergraduate Fellow.

PHOTO COURTESY OF JENNIFER MANDELBAUM

FARMING FUN: Agricultural activities were organized in conjuction with the garden displays, including a trip to Waltham Fields Community Farm.

Many people simply eat their food and don’t know or understand where it comes from. Jennifer Mandelbaum ’14 has planned an initiative she hopes will cultivate an appreciation among the campus community for locally grown and home grown products.

The initiative, co-sponsored by Health, Science, Society and Policy Department and the Brandeis Pluralism Alliance, with additional help from ’DeisBikes and Sodexo, is known as Brandeis Garden Week. A series of events were hosted in accordance with this initiative, and have been open to the entire Brandeis community. These events began on Nov. 11 and will continue through Nov. 20 for students to learn about garden education and urban agriculture in the Waltham community.

To kick off the program, Mandelbaum set up three garden displays around campus: one in the Shapiro Campus Center Atrium, one in the Carl J. Shapiro Science Center Lobby and one in Goldfarb Library near the entrance closest to the Usdan Student Center.

The displays are, according to Mandelbaum, “medium-sized containers, each with different plants in them and label[ed] so people can see what kinds of plants they are.” Next to the garden displays are posters that were made to “touch upon what garden education is and how it is used in different ways,” according to Mandelbaum.

The garden display posters were each slightly different and each related to the location of the garden displays. For example, the poster next to the display in the Shapiro Science Center explains a scientific and quantitative perspective, with information on how local schools are using gardening to teach measurements and test hypotheses of science experiments in which the students are participating.

The posters, Mandelbaum said, “are all different, but they convey similar messages: garden education is hands-on learning that can be applied to a number of academic subjects.”

Mandelbaum began thinking about this initiative last year when she became a Schiff Undergraduate Fellow. The fellowship that works with a “faculty sponsor to perform an innovative research or pedagogical project,” according to its website. As a fellow she studied urban agriculture and garden education in Waltham through working with schools, afterschool programs and local community farms.

“I feel that we sometimes live in a ‘Brandeis bubble’ and don’t realize a lot of what is going on off campus,” Mandelbaum said. After doing her research and learning all of this information, Mandelbaum “wanted to do something to share that with people on campus,” she said. By setting up the garden displays, she said that she hopes to “bring a little bit of urban gardening to the Brandeis community.”

Garden Week strives to promote the importance of people realizing “where their food is actually coming from and what is exactly in their food.” She hopes to accomplish this through the events she planned that incorporate the importance of fresh and local produce.

Because this is the first year of the initiative, Mandelbaum needed to get approval from the University administration to begin her project. According to Mandelbaum, getting the approval necessary to begin Garden Week was not difficult. At first, she said it was challenging to figure out whom to contact, but once she was directed to the right people, “it was very easy,” she said. “Everyone was really open to the idea.”

Garden Week included events such as a trip sponsored by ’DeisBikes, the opportunity to volunteer at Waltham Fields Community Farms and an afternoon of healthy cooking with Sodexo.

The ’DeisBikes trip, which took place last Saturday, was a bicycle ride through Waltham gardens that ended in the Waltham Fields Community Farm. While at the farm the bikers got to press their own apple cider and observe all of the produce on the farm. Jesse Koklas ’14, participated in the ’DeisBikes trip and wished “more people would get excited about coming to cool events like garden week,” she wrote in an email to the Justice.

Tanvi Bahuguna ’14 another participant of the garden bike trip, said that although she “didn’t really learn anything new … seeing the farm produce and pressing our own apple cider with the “bike press” was amazing and a lot of fun.”

Jennifer Largaespada ’16 participated in the Waltham Fields Community Farm volunteer event on Wednesday. Although she wished she could have gone to the farm earlier in the year when they were still harvesting, Largaespada said, “I did enjoy volunteering at the Waltham Fields Community Farm because I got to learn more about the resources that it makes available to the Waltham community.”

Although the cooking event has not yet happened, Mandelbaum said she is excited to be working with Sodexo in this event. At the event, which will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 20, the participants will be making either pumpkin or squash risotto, to be made with local foods that were sustainably grown, following the initiatives of the week.

In addition, after the cooking session, there will be a discussion about the importance of locally grown foods.

Mandelbaum said that she hopes Garden Week will help students to “put a little more thought to where their food comes from, and where it’s grown.”

She said that even though she will be graduating, “I’d definitely look into someone else who would be willing to do something like this again.”

THE JUSTICE

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TUESDAY, november 19, 2013

Returning to the

Renaissance MORGAN BRILL/the Justice

COMPARING COLONNA: Prof. Ramie Targoff (ENG) illustrated the evolution of Italian poet Vittoria Colonna in her talk at the Conference on Saturday.

Interdisciplinary conference draws Italian Renaissance scholars

By JAIME KAISER JUSTICE EDITOR

It can be difficult for the modern civilian to imagine historical figures as anything more than history: relics of a bygone age with little significance to the modern world. But through the work of scholars who study the lives of those who lived hundreds of years ago, we realize how they were, in fact, just as real as you are.

On Nov. 16, the New England Renaissance Conference was held at the Mandel Center for the Humanities, with presentations from notable Renaissance scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including English and history.

The event was sponsored by a programming grant from the Mandel Center for the Humanities and the Poses Grants for the Arts through the Dean of Arts and Sciences.

The morning session featured the Director of the Mandel Center for the Humanities Prof. Ramie Targoff (ENG) as well as with Kenneth Gouwens, an associate professor at the University of Connecticut and Oliver Tostmann, who was recently named the new Susan Morse Hilles Curator of European Art at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Modern Art. The morning session highlighted a series

DISCUSSED NOBLEWOMAN: Vittoria Colonna, an Italian Renaissa­nce writer, was the topic of conversation for all three morning conference speakers.

CREATIVE COMMONS

of papers revolving around the historical figure of Vittoria Colonna, an Italian noblewoman, one of the most famous poets of 16th-century Italy and the first woman to publish a book of her own poems in the history of Italian poetry. She was a symbol of chastity and piety to the public and not only did she write poetry, but she also ventured into prose later in her career.

Targoff’s lecture was titled, “Vittoria Colonna: A Life in Letters.” Targoff’s discussion dealt with Colonna’s transformation from an erotic poet, or one focused on love for the world around her to a devotional poet, or a poet focused on her relationship with the divine, through an analysis of two separate sonnet series.

The English professor went on to explain that first set of erotic sonnets, at least on a surface level, follow the conventions of Italian poet and scholar Francesco Petrarch.

The second series of poems on the other hand, “conforms to no existing pattern or genre within Italian Renaissance verse of the time,” she said.

One of Colonna’s lifelong struggles was a battle with her own conflicting emotions.

She felt divided by the earthly love she felt for her late husband and the love she had for God. Unlike Petrarch, whose love for his deceased wife was dependent on his love of God, “for Colonna by contrast, loving [be-

came] not a means but an actual stumbling block for her capacity to imagine heavenly salvation,” Targoff said. “She needed to forge a poetic mode that would not depend on the foundation of erotic poetry.”

Targoff concluded her presentation saying that Colonna unknowingly predicted the schism that would eventually develop in the decades following the Reformation in Europe, during which earthly and divine love were deemed incompatible by theologians like John Calvin. “In the broadest sense then,” said Targoff, “we might consider Colonna the first Protestant poet.”

In the second presentation, Gouwens presented his findings on male portrayals of female physical beauty in Renaissance Italy. He spent a particularly long time discussing one of Paolo Giovio’s writings.

It focused on outstanding noblewomen, a category that in which Colonna stood out.

“She combines in fully realized form qualities that which other women possessed only incompletely,” he said.

He said that “[Giovio’s] description of her physical attributes is remarkably explicit as we see and yet he sees those combining with her character, talents and intellect to form a harmonious hold,” Gouwens said.

In the final presentation, titled “Michelangelo’s ‘Pietà for Vittoria Colonna’ and Sculptors’ Drawings in the Renaissance,”

FAMOUS FRIENDS: Michelangelo created this portrait of Vittoria Colonna, his dear friend, titled, ‘La Pietà for Vittoria Colonna.’

CREATIVE COMMONS

Tostmann focused on the portrait of Colonna drawn by Michelangelo, who had a close friendship with Colonna.

As part of the presentation, Tostmann also discussed an upcoming exhibit at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston about the drawings of famous sculptors, premiering in Fall 2014. The exhibit will feature the “Pietà” along with other pieces.

The exhibit was developed by Michael Cole of Columbia University and Tostmann.

Jodie Austin, a Ph.D. candidate in the English department, attended the conference because it “presents a very interdisciplinary perspective on early modern literature and art ... this conference is interesting because it’s not only focusing on English literature, but it’s also making forays into Italian art and Italian literature as well so we have this nice kind of geographical and disciplinary intersection,” she said.

Austin also said that, “I think it’s important that more conferences like this be held on the Brandeis campus ... Brandeis has always felt a little outside the Boston consortium.” Emily Fine, also a Ph.D. candidate in the English department, explained that for her the conference is about community.

“I think this conference is important because it’s about building a community of scholars in New England focusing on similar things.”

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10 TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2013 ● THE JUSTICE

Justice Justice

the the

Established 1949, Brandeis University

Brandeis University

Established 1949

Tate Herbert, Editor in Chief Andrew Wingens, Senior Editor Adam Rabinowitz, Managing Editor Sam Mintz, Production Editor Phil Gallagher, Deputy Editor Rachel Burkhoff, Sara Dejene, Shafaq Hasan, Joshua Linton and Jessie Miller Associate Editors Marissa Ditkowsky, News Editor Jaime Kaiser, Features Editor Glen Chagi Chesir, Forum Editor Avi Gold, Acting Sports Editor Rachel Hughes and Emily Wishingrad, Arts Editors Josh Horowitz and Olivia Pobiel, Photography Editors Rebecca Lantner, Layout Editor Celine Hacobian, Online Editor Brittany Joyce, Copy Editor Schuyler Brass, Advertising Editor

The Al-Quds conundrum On Sunday, Al-Quds University, a collaborative international partner of Brandeis University based in East Jerusalem, issued a formal letter to its student body regarding a demonstration that was held on its campus the previous week. Due to the “unacceptable and inflammatory” nature of the Al-Quds statement and accompanying demonstration, Brandeis has officially suspended the international relationship, according to a BrandeisNOW press release. This board acknowledges the difficult situation the Al-Quds response placed Brandeis in, and therefore endorses the decision to suspend the rapport. Yet, it is truly unfortunate and disheartening for a relationship that has been an exemplar of dialogue in a perpetually tumultuous region to come to such an immediate termination.

The statement released by Al-Quds was both offensive in nature, and unproductive in terms of reaching a solution to the recent rift. The statement accuses “Jewish extremists” of exploiting “rare but nonetheless damaging events or scenes which occur on the campus of Al-Quds University, such as fist-fighting between students, or some students making a mock military display.” This kind of extreme rhetoric is not at all conducive to fostering a peaceful and open discussion

Promote civil discourse following the controversy surrounding the demonstrations.

The University has had a positive relationship with Al-Quds University, since a week-long visit by its president to Brandeis in 1997. Since 2003, visits from both schools have occurred. Daniel Terris, director of the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life, and representative for the now defunct university relationship, stated in an interview with the Justice that the relationship was initially created to “advance knowledge and help to build bridges across traditional divides.” It is truly a shame to see this university affiliation has been severed after such a long-standing beneficial relationship.

The conversation on the matter is so often convoluted and cluttered. This affiliation had been a true representation of two parties working together, of true dialogue occurring on a concrete issue.

It is disappointing that these two institutions could not come to a resolution at this time, but we hope that the University will make efforts to renew the relationship with Al-Quds University and continue to promote collaborative dialogue.

The repercussions of Reinharz An article on the front page of Sunday’s Boston Globe expanded upon a fact first published in the Justice on Sept. 24: University President Emeritus Jehuda Reinharz received more than $600,000 in compensation from Brandeis during the 2011 calendar year.

This board believes such a large salary, while in line with those of other recently retired presidents at peer institutions, is excessive and representative of a critical problem in higher education.

In 2011, Reinharz was second only to University President Frederick Lawrence in a ranking of the University’s highest paid employees. We do not deny that Reinharz has had, and continues to have, a tremendous impact on Brandeis through his prolific fundraising record, having raised $1.2 billion during his tenure. However, we question whether it was financially responsible to essentially pay two presidential salaries in 2011, as Reinharz’s salary almost matched that of Lawrence. Despite the fact that the decision to compensate Reinharz in this way was made years ago, our concern is especially relevant now. Brandeis is currently attempting to address a $6.5 million deficit through a partial issuing of savings in student services. It also presents a sharp contrast to the collective faculty who, according to a Nov. 12 Justice article, still feel like they have to fight with the Board of Trustees to ensure that they are not underpaid.

We believe that Reinharz’s salary is a symptom of a major spending problem in higher education.

The “golden parachute” phenomenon, in which past presidents or other administrators are given lucrative agreements after their time serving their positions, is representative of growing costs at colleges and universities in the United States

Reflective of national issue and is an additional sign of a troubling systemic problem.

According to a University response to the article, Reinharz’s president emeritus compensation was “just slightly above the median amount paid to retired presidents at peer institutions.” We believe that following a precedent set by a broken system is not a satisfactory reason for maintaining such a problematic practice. Brandeis should be a leader when it comes to controlling extravagant administrative salaries—not performing slightly below average.

However, we do not absolve Reinharz of responsibility. His comments representing Brandeis in the Globe article, such as when he said, “I am compensated according to my accomplishments. It’s the way America usually works,” were condescending and indifferent. Furthermore, Reinharz’ willingness to increase his own financial gain at the expense of the University’s growing financial burden does not paint a sympathetic picture of him.

While it would have been prudent for Reinharz to accept a more modest salary in 2011, we are glad that his salary is in fact on track to decrease. He is contractually in line to continue earning money as president emeritus until June 2014: he earned $287,500 in 2012 and 2013, and will earn $143,750 for 2014, after which he will annually be paid $180,000 as a half-time professor.

We urge Brandeis to take on a position of leadership when it comes to controlling the ballooning administrative salaries that already take quite a toll on the pervasive financial issues in higher education.

TZIPORAH THOMSON /the Justice

Views the News on

On Friday, President Barack Obama expressed interest toward reopening U.S. trade with Cuba, stating that it “doesn’t make sense” to continue a 47 year old trade embargo with the communist state. U.S.-Cuba relations have started to thaw in recent years: Americans are now permitted to visit the country on international tour groups, and college students can study abroad on the island. Congress also approved a special loophole in 2000 which allows private companies to sell half a billion dollars in food products to Cuba each year. Do you think President Obama will take the opportunity to lift the embargo, and if so, what do you believe will be the impact of the change?

Prof. Raysa Mederos (ROMS) I think it’s very unlikely that President Obama will take the political risk of totally lifting the embargo. Given how obstructive the Republicans have been on just about everything that Obama has attempted to achieve, he probably won’t want to get into an intense fight with the right-wing over an issue that isn’t a priority for his administration. Nonetheless, I think the president should do all he can to end the embargo before the end of his second term. The blockade (as the Cubans call it) has had a very harmful impact on the day-to-day lives of millions of Cubans. Basic necessities such as food and medicine are in short supply, in part, because of the embargo. And it’s crystal clear that the embargo has not—and will not—result in an expansion of political freedom in Cuba. So why continue it?

Prof. Raysa Mederos is a spanish language lecturer in the Romance Studies department, and a Cuban immigrant.

Sophia Baez ’15 Some Cubans see opening the metaphorical floodgates would give the Castros what they want: more money and power, and that Fidel will be in his castle, cackling that he had won the 50-year stalemate with the United States. On the other side, some Cubans believe that the Americans will be the knight on the white horse, there to save all those that are hungry and homeless. In my opinion, neither will happen. While speaking to my father I realized—how very interesting—that in the almost five years President Obama has been in office, nothing has been done for the Cuban people in terms of the embargo. While it might be cynical, the embargo is a political fiction. A year from now, Senate seats will be up for contest and an embargo being lifted after 50 years is definitely a topic to be discussed.

Sophia Baez ’15 is the head of AHORA! and a Cuban-American.

Aaron Zuckerman ’14 Despite the president’s call to end the Cuban embargo, it’s hard to say whether that will actually happen (see: Guantanamo). Restarting normal trade relations between the two nations should be seen as a priority. In almost 50 years, Cuba is no closer to democracy, and its citizens are the only ones whose quality of life is suffering. If the U.S. really wants to democratize Cuba, the policy should be to lift the people up, not try to bring the government down. Ending the embargo will benefit both countries.

American businesses gain access to a new market for their products, and the increased investment should allow Cubans to reap the benefits of democracy and a free market. Perhaps after that, the Cuban people will take the next step in forming a democracy of their own, but it’s not our job to expedite that by singling out their country’s leaders for punishment.

Aaron Zuckerman ’14 is a member of Young Americans for Liberty.

Abe Clark ’17 The United State’s embargo on Cuba is as counter-productive as it is hypocritical. While it is true that the Cuban government does significantly restrict the Cuban peoples’ rights to free speech and the free market, this does not necessarily warrant an embargo. The United States allows all accesses of travel and commerce to the world’s most despicable theocratic dictatorships in the Middle East, and even supports some of their governments with oil contracts. If President Obama really does want to alleviate the Cuban people from their economic and political distress, he ought to lift the embargo and promote peaceful democratic change from within. The trade embargo has had a drastically adverse effect on the Cuban economy, and as a government, we should not hold a country’s populace accountable for the political ideologies of its non-elected leaders; lifting the embargo would not only strengthen the Cuban economy, it would send a message that the United States promotes social change.

President Obama’s relationship with Cuba has so far been one of pragmatism and diplomacy, and he appears to be ready to move America past the fear ridden Cold War-era belligerency that has defined our foreign policy towards Cuba for the past 50 years.

Abe Clark ’17 is a History major.

THE JUSTICE

READER COMMENTARY Consider other uses for finances To the Editor: I am writing to you with regard to the article “A gilded goodbye for many private college leaders” by Todd Wallack, which appeared in the Nov. 17 issue of the Boston Globe.

As I’m sure you and your readers are aware, the central figure investigated in the article was former Brandeis president Jehuda Reinharz, who has continued to receive a sixfigure salary from the University since his retirement, on top of the even larger salary he is drawing from the Mandel Foundation despite an apparent lack of any duties as a professor or mentor to the campus community.

To say I am dismayed at this would be an understatement. Reinharz was already a divisive figure during my time on campus, and only became more so after the Rose Art Museum debacle. With the costs of higher education continuing to spiral out of the reach of many students, it seems unconscionable to me that Brandeis would offer him such a generous and long-term severance package, not to mention continuing to accord him the respect of membership in the faculty.

I was a beneficiary of a Presidential Scholarship as a student, which was the only thing that allowed me to attend the University without accumulating crippling amounts of debt.

How many more of those scholarships could have been distributed this year without the drain of Reinharz’s salary? How many more academically deserving students could have become part of the Brandeis community?

My wife and fellow alum also points out the irony of having students staffing the Phonathon solicitation efforts, working to shave off a bit of the financial burden of attendance at Brandeis, while the money they raise goes in part to line the pockets of a man who makes no tangible contribution to the University.

Having recently worked as an adjunct college instructor, it’s also disturbing to me to think of the many courses that graduate students and adjunct faculty are teaching at Brandeis right now, barely making ends meet, while Reinharz draws a salary and takes up a position that could both go to a deserving scholar who might actually interact with a student every once in a while.

I have a great fondness for Brandeis and its mission, and have looked forward to the day that I could afford to donate to the institution where I spent four wonderful years. As long as this situation persists, however, I not only cannot in good conscience give to the University, but feel as if the pride I hold in my education has been somewhat misplaced. Doubtless there are any number of my fellow alumni who feel similarly.

I am hopeful that other alumni and current students will make their feelings known to the administration with regard to this matter.

With any luck, President Lawrence and the Board of Trustees will find a resolution that takes the best interests of the Brandeis community—the entire Brandeis community, not just one man—into account.

—Patrick Hume ’07

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American identity includes all cultures Jassen

LU

Judge’s View

After spending four years in China, I returned to the United States when I was nine years old.

I barely spoke a word of English then so I stood out not only as the new student, but also as the new student who came from a country with a very different culture. I was nervous about my classmates excluding me for speaking a language that was new to them. I feared being branded as an undesirable misfit for embracing foreign ideas and customs, such as celebrating two New Years and eating hot pot, which is made by instantly stewing meats and vegetables. Some classmates told me that I was no longer in China and needed to distance myself from it. So I tried to assimilate into the culture of my classmates; I did not want them to exclude me for being “un-American” in their eyes.

More than a decade later though, despite my previous experiences, I feel exceptionally honored and proud to be Chinese, as I realized that my Chinese qualities gave me a sense of personal uniqueness. Nothing about my Chinese culture is “un-American,” for the idea of something being “un-American” is, by definition, a fallacy.

Because of this country’s multiculturalism, there is no overarching definition of what it means to be “American.” In reality, American culture is more of a collection of different cultures that all happen to dwell in the United States, each offering its unique contributions. No one has a monopoly over its meaning. Therefore, no American should feel obligated to relinquish his ethnic identity just to fit into a perception of what others may perceive as “American.”

Being American means being proud of your culture, and channeling that pride to contribute ideas and customs to your society. The cultural components that are now well-integrated into American society, such as Halloween, Christmas and Easter, became part of American culture because European immigrants remained proud of their homeland customs. In the Chinatowns throughout the country, the streets are festive during Chinese New Year because Chinese immigrants have continued the traditions their people had practiced for centuries. Spanish is even becoming a more widespread language in the United States as Hispanic immigrants have remained proud of their native language and chosen to retain it while learning English. They, along with immigrants of other cultures, added these customs to the American patchwork because they were proud to continue their heritage, rather than hide and end it.

By suppressing one’s ethnic culture, an individual stands to lose a big component of what it means to be part of this country. In doing so, he is abandoning this nation’s ideal of ethnic indi-

HEE JU KANG/the Justice

vidualism and diversity. The American identity celebrates the differences that distinguish an individual from the person beside him. By embracing his cultural uniqueness instead of melding into the dominant culture, he becomes more of an individual, and this is the most American thing a person can do.

Proponents of assimilation may argue that non-assimilation into “Americanism” can breed hostilities from those who may be averse to other cultures. But whatever negative notions one group may have against other culture, that group should accept that it has no monopoly over culture. Its prejudice is generated by the group’s preconceived notion that diversity is undesirable, rather than by the presence of different cultures.

Additionally, such hostilities often arise because one group fears the deleterious influences another culture might have on its existence.

However, this notion runs against the American idea that each person is entitled to the free practice of his culture. If one group acts hostile to another ethnicity and its culture, is that not an attempt to discourage and convert that ethnicity and to deprive it of its right to practice its unique customs? This “Americanization” is the

real “un-American” act. In America, holidays of many different cultures are celebrated, but that does not mean Christmas is at risk because Ramadan and Hanukkah are around.

Undeniably, there will be some people who will attempt to pressure others to shed their ethnic roots and assimilate into the greater population.

For those people who continue to act antagonistically toward a different culture, they should remember the Golden Rule, which commands people to treat others the way they wish to be treated themselves, with respect and tolerance.

They must realize that the tables may, and can, be turned at one point in time, and they, the antagonistic, may one day become the antagonized.

One should not be deterred from celebrating his ethnic culture, because it helps enhance his own identity.

It is those distinctions that create the multicultural salad bowl that America is famous for. In that bowl, different components come together to make a magnificent new dish, but one can still see the distinctly heterogeneous components that each add their own tastes to the dish. The idea may be ironic, but to be part of America, start by embracing your own ethnic identity.

Mark Collins et alia, departed: the students are watching

By HARry mairson Letter to the editor

To the Editor: At the end of December, my colleague and friend, Mark Collins, leaves Brandeis after 27 years working here. Most recently, he’s been the Senior Vice President for Administration. Was he fired? Do we accept at face value words from the University’s memo that he has “chosen to take advantage of other professional opportunities”? A more neutral description is evoked by the title of the Boston film, The Departed.

Why would someone who is in their late fifties—an unfathomable age to undergraduates— “choose” this? Someone with college-age children and financial responsibilities, forsaking professional security and salary and retirement in sight? Why would other senior administrators of Mark’s generation—Fran Drolette, Rick Sawyer, Suzanne Yates—depart similarly? It’s beyond me. Others who work here, of comparable age and seniority, look upon this upheaval with anxiety.

More likely, a new administration has cleaned house, evicting remnants of the old regime, replacing them with new blood pledging loyalty only to the new regime. This contemporary ritual, ubiquitous in corporate and institutional life, complements other practices of primitive societies: the need for scapegoats to be banished,

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carrying blame for the errors of others, and for rainmakers, to be sacrificed during droughts. We haven’t evolved that much.

What is “Brandeis community” supposed to mean when things like this happen? Either do away with the primordial practices, or with the communal fantasy. To maintain both is contradictory.

Holding the administration responsible for this primitive sacrifice of human resources is necessary, but not sufficient. Faculty and administration eye each other warily, but obviously we’re all employees, we work together, and across caste and clan divides, we inevitably develop friendships and loyalties. Why wouldn’t tenured faculty, with real job security, speak publicly to protect and defend colleagues we have greeted daily, and who have had their livelihoods removed?

At the start of academic year 2012-2013, at the first, most attended faculty meeting, I questioned President Lawrence about the clandestine process leading to the appointment of the current Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Manos. I spoke publicly and unambiguously to support Fran Drolette and Mark Collins, the Senior Vice Presidents for Finance and for Administration, who had been promoted to share the responsibilities of the previous COO, Mr. French. I respect Fran and Mark as decent colleagues who have carried

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a lot of water for Brandeis over many years.

My message to President Lawrence was simple: please don’t force out Fran and Mark. That this was coming next was obvious. The attending, silent faculty was unwilling to use its power of protected speech to endorse or criticize this message, reflecting a collapse of community.

President Lawrence expressed—in the redacted minutes—his putative “high regard” for these (now departed) senior colleagues. The news account in the Justice (“Questions aired at faculty meeting,” Sept. 11, 2012) described, pejoratively, my invoking “the so-called ‘golden rule.’ ” No, it’s simply the Golden Rule. Would the Justice ever write “the so-called ‘ten commandments’?”

I hope not.

After the announcement that Fran Drolette had “chosen to pursue new professional and educational opportunities,” I wrote to the chair of the Faculty Senate, Prof. Chasalow, urging him to take action, and received a response that “we are satisfied that the matter was handled appropriately.” Note the first person plural, dissipating responsibility, and the passive voice.

What kind of community is this? Is this family friendly? Or socially just? Social injustice occurs when in making an omelet, eggs are broken.

Some benefit, others don’t. The former usually have the means to explain that their actions were just, or at least OK: might makes right. That’s

The Staff

For information on joining the Justice, write to editor@ thejustice.org.

why it’s important to speak truth to power. We acknowledge that importance everywhere, except where we are.

Accepted mores at the confluence of sexuality and politics stress the importance of consensus.

But it is commonplace that in politics, if you can screw someone and get away with it, you do. If you can say it was consensual, even better. It’s an awful thing to watch.

All this matters at a university. To quote the title of a book by Theodore and Nancy Faust Sizer, the parents of the University’s general counsel, “The Students Are Watching”. With chapter titles like “Bluffing,” “Shoving,” “Fearing,” they assert that the moral education of students comes from watching the leadership of schools.

Their summary is on the mark for this communal failure: “How we adults live and work together provides a lesson. How a school functions insistently teaches ... Moral education for youth starts with us adults: the lives we lead and thus project; the routines by which we keep our classrooms, schools, and school systems ... The students watch us, all the time. We must honestly ponder what they see, and what we want them to learn from it.”

Harry Mairson is a professor of Computer Science at Brandeis.

Editorial Assistants Photos: Morgan Brill Forum: Max Moran Staff Senior Writers: Jacob Moskowitz, Henry Loughlin News: Jay Feinstein, Danielle Gross, Luke Hayslip, Ilana Kruger, Sarah Rontal, Samantha Topper Features: Rebecca Heller, Hee Ju Kang, Aditi Shah Forum: Jennie Bromberg, Daniel Koas, Aaron Fried, Noah M. Horwitz, Kahlil Oppenheimer, Catherine Rosch, Naomi Volk Sports: Elan Kane, Daniel Kanovich, Dan Rozel Arts: Aliza Gans, Kiran Gill, Arielle Gordon, Zachary Marlin, Alexandra Zelle Rettman, Mara Sassoon, Nate Shaffer, Aliza Vigderman

Photography: Zach Anziska, Jenny Cheng, Annie Fortnow, Wit Gan, Annie Kim, Abby Knecht, Bri Mussman, Leah Newman, Chelsea Polaniecki, Rafaella Schor, Adam Stern, Olivia Wang, Xiaoyu Yang Copy: Aliza Braverman, Kathryn Brody, Melanie Cytron, Eliza Kopelman, Mara Nussbaum Layout: Ashley Hebard, Elana Horowitz, Jassen Lu, Maya RiserKositsky, Lilah Zohar Illustrations: Hannah Kober, Tziporah Thompson

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TUESDAY, November 19, 2013

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THE JUSTICE

FORUM

Embrace chain restaurant presence for our campus Noah M.

HORWITZ Civil Affairs

HANNAH KOBER/the Justice

Don’t forget Haiyan By max moran JUSTICE editorial assistant

Last Friday, one of the most deadly natural disasters in Filipino history devastated the Leyte, Iloilo, Palawan and Cebu provinces of the poor island nation. Making landfall six times across the Phillipines, Typhoon Haiyan is now estimated to have killed over 3,500 people, displaced 1.9 million, and caused at least $10.5 million worth of property damage. The international community has responded with relief aid, as expected. The United States specifically donated $20 million and deployed several ground teams to evacuate and rebuild, but the sheer magnitude of destruction is still staggering. Several thousand people were still huddled on the Tacloban airport’s tarmac on Tuesday, desperate for a seat on one of only two 200-person airplanes lifting refugees out to the less damaged capital city of Manila. All begged for food. Few had eaten since the day before.

The New York Times’ front-page headline on Tuesday was the sale of a piece of artwork. “Study of Freud” by painter Francis Bacon purportedly sold for $142.4 million dollars, the most a piece of artwork has ever sold for at auction. The amount paid by Lock Kresler for a portrait of Francis Bacon’s friend is seven times more money than the United States government gave to the Philippines for recovery.

Think back over the past week. How many times did you hear about the tragedy in the Philippines? How many articles did you read, how many images did you see, from anywhere you receive news? How many conversations did you have with friends and family about the horrific event? If you’re like me, the answer to the last question is a guilty admission of “zero”. Though I skimmed through a few articles and saw a couple pictures, I was more concerned with my own affairs than some third-world nation’s troubles.

This speaks to a dangerous skepticism in our society. We have become so used to tragedies and so accustomed to hearing that records have broken and suffering is on an incomprehensible scale that we are no longer affected by it. Sure, we’ll donate a few dollars to the Red Cross effort, but we are not riveted to the television screen to see the latest developments, or constantly mashing refresh on our keyboards to find out the latest facts and figures.

The closest thing to a meaningful human interaction we have about natural disasters is a brief shake of the head, mumble of “global warming” and then moving on with our lives.

Although many of us were still young when it happened, no one can forget the impact Hurricane Katrina had on the American people. Photos were spread across every front page in the country and 24-hour news coverage followed the relief efforts for two full weeks. For long afterward, news and analysis refused to let the American people forget. It was horrible to see, but it reminded us all of our own humanity on a deep, fundamental level, and united a fiercely divided country in aiding its fellow man. USA Today reported that private donations to the relief effort—counting corporate donations and charity groups together—reached a record-breaking $2.7 billion dollars.

Then in 2010, something even more amazing happened. Faced with the Haitian earthquake disaster, a 7.0 on

the Richter scale whose epicenter was the capital city of one of the poorest countries on Earth, the American people broke their own record. According to the Huffington Post, we singlehandedly donated three billion dollars to the relief effort, putting people in housing, providing health care to thousands and taking the first critical steps for Port-au-Prince to recover.

Again, as the tragedy unfolded, it was everywhere: charity organizations started, videos of the quake itself surfaced on YouTube and on the most basic level, people talked to each other.

Though the island nation has still yet to completely recover, it would be impossible for the city to be at its current level were it not for first-world aid.

While it is far too early to have a total donation amount for U.S. aid to the Philippines, I would like to see the American people outdo themselves yet again. Sadly, this is looking less and less likely. In the days following the typhoon, top headlines on nbc.com were given to bickering Senate members, on National Public Radio to adjustments to the Obamacare website, and even, in the Washington Post, a drug bust.

Ordinary day in, day out news was considered more important than the largest natural disaster in a nation’s entire history. Haiyan still makes front pages, but in smaller articles, on the bottom of the page, allocated as a less important story. And people refuse to talk about the typhoon. In not one class, not one political conversation with my friends and family has the topic come up over the past several days. I can only hope my experience does not speak for the majority.

We’ve even begun to forget the tragedy of horrors we inflict on ourselves.

On Nov. 1, a man entered Los Angeles International Airport and fired an assault rifle, killing a TSA agent. I heard about this story while getting coffee with friends. One read off the CNN report, and we all shrugged and went back to our conversation.

As a Connecticut native, I remember my state’s shock and grief at the Newtown shooting. Candlelight vigils were held, sermons were uttered and heard, friends and acquaintances embraced and talked to each other. Seemingly everyone, including myself, knew someone directly affected by the tragedy. The political implications of arms control legislation versus second amendment rights did not matter as much as being there for one another and being generous to one another in whatever way we could.

To be sure, this was partly due to the extreme nature of the Newtown shooting: the victims were elementary school students. But I had been certain that the event had forever changed the residents of my state, making us so sensitive to the problem of this country’s mass shootings that we’d struggle to prevent anyone else from again having to endure what we had to endure.

Only a few months later, another crazed gunman had become just a brief topic of conversation while sipping hot chocolate.

I do not want to live in a society where the suffering of innocents and the tragedy of needless death is given equal weight to a pop star’s new look.

The onus is on the news media to prioritize the most important stories, forcing the people to pay attention. But the onus is also on each and every one of us to remember what it means to feel grief for someone we do not know. Remember what it means to feel human.

This past Sunday, the long-awaited Dunkin’ Donuts opened in the Village, just a few feet from where I live.

This development, along with the recent addition of Starbucks in the Goldfarb Library and Heller School for Social Policy and Management, is the most convincing evidence I have seen yet that the new Sodexo dining service will improve our food for the better.

While some at Brandeis clamor for more vegetarian options, more organic options, more fat-free options, I simply want food that tastes good. Furthermore, some would protest any type of chain restaurant or establishment. Common arguments against them would be that they unfairly corner the market or drive the smaller stores out of business. Health concerns do exist as well, but those could be equally applied to any type of restaurant. However, in my opinion, this is especially less true in Boston, where a strong local preference allows the “mom-and-pop” stores to thrive, but the animosity against the chains persist.

Chain restaurants exist for a reason. When non-local individuals arrive in a new setting, the familiarity of a chain restaurant gives them the reliability of a good and safe meal. The same goes for Brandeis.

Since I have never once seen a Brandeis eatery serve a lobster roll or clam chowder (Boston’s most famous food), chain restaurants would not cut down on the local cuisine on campus. Two thousand miles away in my native Houston, I regularly ate at both Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts, and I was pleased by the menu from each. Accordingly, I know what I am getting into before I ever open their doors. If I am choosing to frequent the restaurant, I probably have had a previous good experience with it.

Of course, it is true that the Brandeis affiliate will specifically be run by Sodexo, our dining service. That being said, while there are bound to be differences, I reckon they will be negligible, as are those with the Starbucks. The chains have a responsibility to uphold their reputations in any location their logo or likeness is used.

Therefore, we have been promised of a certain level of quality at these locations. While some would say the Starbucks in the library is of lesser quality than of those in the outside world, I believe it is superior to its predecessor.

When it comes to a generic Sodexo establishment, unfortunately, the same does not apply. I have been saddened to see a decline in the quality of food at the Usdan Student Center, compared to last year’s Aramark establishments.

The biggest exception to my sentiment, in terms of sheer quality of taste, has been the library coffee shop, a previous establishment replaced by a chain.

In fact, my quixotic alternative to Brandeis’ dining system would simply be privatization and outsourc-

ing of most of the food options. Outside restaurants and chains would take over. Meal plans would apply as vouchers to these restaurants, where dollar-to-dollar conversions would be preserved. The University would maintain a full-service cafeteria which would guarantee things such as kosher and gluten-free options. However, in this free-market solution, the contracted establishments would provide options to the specific groups, so as not to turn themselves off from a huge faction of the market. Indeed, many have already done so. The popular hamburger establishment Wendy’s has become well known as catering to the gluten-free lobby, Dunkin’ Donuts has a few dozen kosher franchises around the Northeast.

Chain restaurants are not engaging in an avaricious plot to corner the market and destroy competition. In fact, if more were introduced to campus, they would assure the opposite. At most dining halls around campus today, the prices are already inordinately expensive; chain restaurants and unmitigated (that is, free of Sodexo’s influence) competition would drive prices down.

But back to reality, Sodexo was right to seek out chain restaurants for Brandeis and should seek more.

The guaranteed quality and efficiency of an establishment you are already familiar with is a great asset and one that should not be taken lightly.

Brandeis students should celebrate the increased taste quality and frequent these oases of the outside world.

If you need me, I’ll be at the Dunkin’ outside my room.

Abolish “Stop and Frisk” policy to fix the problem, not just the symptoms

By Nelson Gilliat JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

The New York City Police Department is currently employing a shameful rights-violating policy called “Stop, Question, Frisk,” in which police arbitrarily stop and question hundreds of thousands of pedestrians annually and frisk them for both guns and drugs. According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, some five million New Yorkers have been stopped since its inception in 2002. According to the same report, roughly 90 percent of those five million are completely innocent, devoid of any guns or drugs. Furthermore, 90 percent of those stopped are blacks and Latinos, making minorities the overwhelming majority of this policy’s innocent victims.

Proponents falsely claim that it’s necessary to prevent crime and keep people safe, and point to NYC’s 29 percent violent crime drop from 2001 to 2010. Yet correlation is not causation, and there is no conclusive evidence that “Stop and Frisk” is responsible.

Indeed, most crime experts attribute the drop to “hot-spot policing,” where police concentrate in high-crime areas rather than spread themselves out.

Moreover, according to the FBI’s Crime Statistics, other large cities experienced larger crime declines without relying on stop and frisk abuses: 59 percent in Los Angeles, 56 percent in New Orleans, 49 percent in Dallas and 37 percent in Baltimore.

Most notably “Stop and Frisk” has not reduced the number of shooting victims in New York City. In 2002, there were 1,892 victims of gunfire and 97,296 stops; in 2011, there were still 1,821 victims of gunfire but a record 685,724 stops.

Even if it were true that “Stop and Frisk” reduces crime, it doesn’t justify violating people’s rights.

Those who think there’s a trade-off

between rights and security ought to heed Benjamin Franklin: “They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

It’s far more preferable to live in a free country with some crime than a totalitarian country with less crime.

“Stop and Frisk” is intrusive, ineffective, potentially racist and produces tremendous hostility and distrust towards police, which diminishes confidence in the rule of law. “Stop and Frisk” doesn’t reduce crime and protect individual rights. Rather, it allows police officers free reign to violate the rights of anyone they deem “suspicious.” Many New York Police Department officers abuse minorities with this power, seemingly preferring to bully and intimidate over “to protect and serve.”

Until racism is rejected, racial bias in law enforcement will continue in the form of racial profiling: the use of an individual’s race by law enforcement as a key factor in determining suspicious criminal activity. A person’s skin color has as much to do with the propensity to engage in criminal behavior as does a person’s weight, height, hair color, eye color and shoe size—absolutely nothing.

Proponents of racial profiling often point to statistics that show how most crime in NYC is committed by individuals of color. While this may be true, these statistics do not prove causation: an individual who happens to be of the same race as a criminal is no more likely to commit a crime by mere virtue of skin pigment. Nevertheless, the NYPD continues to use these statistics to justify their own racial biases, as seen in several YouTube videos of police verbally abusing several “Stop and Frisk” victims with racial epithets.

While the NYPD is legally barred from racial profiling, a bad Supreme Court ruling, Terry vs. Ohio (1968), has created a toxic legal atmosphere

for police to act on their racial biases.

It’s unconstitutional for police to detain and search citizens, a violation of liberty and privacy, unless there is a rational, objective justification for doing so according to an objective legal standard. This legal standard is commonly referred to as “probable cause.” Probable cause requires police to judge suspicious behavior in a strictly objective way: when there are obvious signs that criminal activity is in progress or about to take place.

The NYPD, however, does not determine suspicious behavior according to the standard of probable cause but rather on a much weaker, more subjective legal standard known as “reasonable suspicion.” Reasonable suspicion was introduced in Terry vs. Ohio to reduce both the quantity and the quality of information needed by police to objectively prove suspicious behavior.

In turn, the NYPD has exploited “reasonable suspicion” to create 10 vague and highly subjective criteria of suspicious behaviors that allow them to stop virtually anybody for any arbitrary reason—and only one of which is necessary. These include the notoriously abused “furtive movements,” cited in 50 percent of cases—as well as “suspicious bulge or object,” and “wearing clothes/ disguises commonly used in commission of crimes.” The subjectivity of these criteria allows the NYPD to get away with racial profiling.

Opponents of “Stop and Frisk,” are calling for “reforms” like police cameras to document pat-downs, a new police commissioner and an inspector general. This includes the Federal judge who ruled “Stop and Frisk” to be discriminatory and constitutionally illegal. While superficial “reforms” are helpful, they treat the symptoms, not the disease. Ineffective and unconstitutional government policies such as “Stop and Frisk” need to be banned, not “reformed.”

THE JUSTICE

home an overall victory in their meet versus Wesleyan University on Saturday.

By AVI GOLD JUSTICE EDITOR

MORGAN BRILL/the Justice

HUGGING IT OUT: Ben Applefield ’14, Tyler Savonen ’14 and Evan Jastremski ’17 celebrate with Coven’s Corner on Sunday.

MSOCCER: Wins put team through to NCAA Sweet 16 Hawks would mount.

Instead, it was Brandeis who struck in the 25th minute.

Midfielder Sam Ocel ’13 played a ball to the left wing, where left-back Ben Applefield ’14 was waiting. Applefield sent in a curling left-footed cross toward the center and forward Tyler Savonen ’15 sent a powerful header into the bottom left corner for a goal that sparked fervent celebrations.

“Applefield played a great ball,” said Savonen, who scored his 12th goal of the season. “The play leading up to it was really nice. I was in the right place at the right time.”

With 43 seconds left in the half, midfielder Tudor Livadaru ’14 sent a rocket of a shot from the left flank just wide. Despite the effort, the Judges held on to a 1-0 lead at the half.

Instead of trying to maintain its onegoal advantage, the Judges pressed forward for a second goal.

Applefield, in fact, almost provided a second assist in the 56th minute, as

13

Judges compete in home dual meeting ■ The teams could not bring

forward Michael Soboff ’15 rammed a point-blank shot at Pelloso from the left back’s cross.

The Judges were dominating the game, possessing the ball well and creating chances. Yet, as the score remained at 1-0, the potential for Roger Williams to take advantage of a defensive miscue increased.

With less than five minutes left, Sheldon looked to break the deadlock with a marauding run down the left wing. However, just as he prepared to shoot, Lanahan made a brilliant defensive play, knocking the ball off of Sheldon for a goal kick.

From there, the Judges ran out the clock to secure a monumentous 1-0 victory over the Hawks.

The Judges wasted little time getting on the board, meanwhile, on Saturday against Johnson & Wales.

Much like last year, the hosts established their supremacy early on.

After just one minute, 51 seconds, Savonen cut in from the right flank and crossed the ball to Michael Soboff ’15, who put the ball home to give the

November 19, 2013

sWIMMING AND DIVING

CELEBRATION CORNER

CONTINUED FROM 16

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Judges the early lead.

At the 4:54 mark, Soboff then became the provider, sending in a low cross from the left flank which Savonen put into the net for a 2-0 advantage over Johnson & Wales.

The Judges’ strong play in the center of the park was evident.

“I think our communication and the way we work together has been great,” said Livadaru.

Early in the second half, the Judges quickly extinguished any hopes of a Johnson & Wales comeback.

In the 49th minute, forward Evan Jastremski ’17 scored for the second straight game to make it 3-0, a lead that remained the rest of the way.

For the second straight year, Brandeis will face Williams College in the Round of 16 in Saturday’s matchup at a time to be determined. The Ephs defeated the Judges 1-0 in last season’s game.

However, given the strength of the team’s performance this season, Brandeis believes it has a great chance to win.

The men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams, in their home opener on Saturday against Wesleyan University at Joseph M. Linsey Sports Center, fought valiantly against the Cardinals but were not able to garner enough points to steal a victory.

The men picked up eight individual victories on the afternoon while the women gathered just one victory and a handful of second-place finishes on the afternoon.

“It’s a lot of fun [to swim at home],” said Max Fabian ’15. “Home meets are fun because you’ve got people there watching and everyone stepped up and did really well.”

The women, who fell by a final score of 217-35, began the day on a high note with a win in the 1000yard freestyle. Theresa Gaffney ’16 touched the wall ahead of Wesleyan junior Margaret Daly to finish the race with a time of 12 minutes, 5.60 seconds to Daly’s 12:21.18.

Gaffney just missed the podium in her next event—the 200-yard freestyle—when her time of 2:15.35 registered just eight one-hundreth of a second behind Wesleyan freshman Amy Hood.

Fabian said he was particularly impressed with the way Gaffney has grown into a leader for the women’s team so far. “[Gaffney is] a really hard worker and a great teammate,” he said. “She came a long way as a teammate and really is great to have on the team.

She does a really great job leading this year.”

The women’s team was also barely out-touched in the 50-yard freestyle, as Fallon Bushee ’16 fell to Wesleyan freshman Serena Zalkowitz by 10

milliseconds. Bushee’s time of 25.96 seconds was an improvement on her time during the prelims but was not enough to overcome Zalkowitz.

Elsewhere, the Judges received strong performances from Fabian, Brian Luk ’16 and Edan Zitelny ’17 to hold their own against a team with twice as many swimmers.

Although the men fell by a 132-105 margin, the Judges gained two wins from Fabian and three from both Luk and Zitelny.

Fabian continued to dominate the 1000-yard freestyle, recording a final time of 10:06.84, both an improvement on the preliminary time by two seconds and almost 23 seconds faster than the second-place finish. Fabian also took home a first-place finish in the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:57.59, nearly five seconds ahead of the second-place finisher.

Zitelny completed a strong day with wins in the 100-yard backstroke, 200-yard backstroke and 200-yard individual medley. He battled Wesleyan junior Stefan Brown in the 100yard backstroke and finished with a commanding three-second victory over his Wesleyan opponent. Zitelny snuck past Wesleyan freshman Nathan Courville, finishing just 17 milliseconds before his counterpart.

Zitelny once again edged an opponent in the 200-yard IM, securing a time of 2:06.84 that was just 21 milliseconds faster than Fabian’s own finish.

Zitelny impressed the veteran Fabian with his three wins for the day.

“He’s a great addition and he’s happy to break out,” said Fabian.

“I’m excited to see what he can do.”

The Judges’ eight individual wins were rounded out with three by Luk in the 200-yard, 50-yard and 100-yard events. Luk took home first in the 200-yard freestyle with a final time of 1:46.80, the 50-yard in 22.15, and finally, the 100-yard with a victory in 48.07 over Wesleyan senior captain Russell Madison.

Both teams return to the pool this Saturday, traveling across Waltham to face their local rivals in a meet at Bentley University.

JOSH HOROWITZ/the Justice

ABOVE THE WATER: Max Fabian ’15 races out to a lead during Saturday’s meet versus the visiting Wesleyan University Cardinals, during which he won two races.

fencing

Squads excel at matches versus top-tier regional opponents ■ The Judges used top

finishes from Julian Cardillo ’14 and Vikki Nunley ’14 to cap a successful weekend.

By adam rabinowitz JUSTICE EDITOR

Foilist Noah Berman ’15 entered the semifinals of the New England Intercollegiate Fencing Invitational on Nov. 2 with a chance to make an early statement.

However, Sacred Heart University sophomore foilist Andrew Holmes stood in the way, earning a hardfought 15-10 victory over Berman and the NEIFC championship.

The two met again this Saturday at the first Northeast Conference Fencing Meet at Brown University.

This time, Berman would not be deterred against a tough foe.

He topped Holmes by a 5-3 margin,

a win that served as a fitting symbol for the Judges’ success.

The men’s squad cruised to four victories, dominating Boston University by a 26-1 margin while also earning 21-6 victories over both University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of New Hampshire. The Judges also prevailed over the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whom they defeated by a 15-12 score.

The team’s only loss came—once again—at the hands of Sacred Heart, suffering a 15-12 defeat.

Coach William Shipman mentioned that while the squads came close to victory, a few key shortcomings resulted in defeat.

“It was disappointing that we didn’t beat Sacred Heart,” he said.

“We were strong as epeés but we didn’t quite get it. [They] out-hustled us and our energy levels weren’t quite there.”

Yet, in spite of the defeat to the Pioneers, he also alluded to the team’s

consistent successes.

“Overall, we displayed much of the same success,” Shipman said. “Saber and epeé showed improvement and men’s foil was strong once again.”

The women, meanwhile, earned five victories, recording 22 and 21 victories, respectively, against UMassAmherst and UNH. The Judges also defeated MIT and Wellesley College by 17-10 scores, yet fell just short in a hotly contested 14-13 loss against Sacred Heart.

The younger members of the team, particularly, dominated the day for the women. Saberist Ashley Jean ’17 took home 14 victories while fellow saberist Nina Sayles ’17 earned victories in nine of her 10 bouts.

The men’s saberists, though, stole the show, topping all five of their opponents and featuring four of the top 10 fencers in the weapon category. Yi Liu ’16 turned several heads, bursting onto the regional stage with an undefeated record against nine sa-

berists. All-American Adam Mandel ’15 sustained his success with an additional nine victories while Jess Ochs-Willard ’15 also cruised to an 8-2 record. Ben Loft ’15 rounded out the field with a formidable 7-3 mark.

The sophomores also came into their own, surging to the top of the épée category. Épéeists Sonya Glickman ’16 and Gwen Mowell ’16 teamed up for a notable 18 victories. Tom Hearne ’16 picked up seven victories to lead the way for the men.

Julian Cardillo ’14 earned a teamhigh 10 victories, outpacing the rest of the field. Len Grazian ’17 accumulated seven straight victories. The junior pair of Berman and Ethan Levy ’15, meanwhile, combined for an impressive 15 victories as opposed to just six losses.

On the women’s end, foilists Vikki Nunley ’14 and Caroline Mattos ’16 teamed up for 19 wins in 20 matches, including a 6-0 mark against Sacred Heart, widely regarded as one of the

best squads in the country. Foilist Emilia Dwyer ’16 went the distance in eight of her 11 bouts while foilist Chaya Schapiro ’17 cruised to seven straight wins.

The collection of impressive performances at Saturday’s meet paved the way for Brandeis to achieve a potentially unprecedented feat. With a victory over Brown, the squads have a chance to earn at least a split of the conference title.

“A win over Brown is absolutely critical,” said Shipman.

“We showed good depth, particularly for the women’s squads, and from here on in, every bout is going to be important.”

The Judges will next compete at the Brandeis Invitational on Dec. 8 against opponents such as Yale University, St. John’s University, Columbia University, Sacred Heart, the Air Force Academy and Cornell University. Cornell will send only their women’s team to the match.

14

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2013

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THE JUSTICE

Women’s Soccer

Team falls in heartbreaking loss at home ■ The Judges could not hold multiple

leads over Castleton State and fell in penalty kicks at home.

By avi gold JUSTICE editor

RAFAELLA SCHOR/the Justice

PUSHING FOR A GOAL: Julia McDermott ’17 takes the ball down the wing during Wednesday’s 3-2 loss to Castleton State in the Eastern College Athletic Conference Tournament quarterfinals that ended the Judges’ title hopes.

In a season marred by the injury bug, the women’s soccer team has found it necessary to overcome demanding situations at various points during the course of the year.

Last Wednesday on Gordon Field, the team could not work their magic and overcome a trying situation as they fell to Castleton State College 3-2 on penalty kicks in the quarterfinals of the Eastern College Athletic Conference Tournament.

Even in the loss, coach Denise Dallamora was proud of the way her team fought through a closely contested game.

“I thought we played very well up until the last eight minutes [of regulation],” she said.

“This is probably the first game where we’ve came back. I think we’re kind of young but we came together as a team.”

On a bitter cold night, neither the secondseeded Judges nor the seventh-seeded Spartans could muster many offensive chances, as Castleton State was held to five shots on goal in the first half while the Judges could only fire 12 shots of their own.

In the absence of forward Dara Spital ’15, whose year was cut short by injury, forward Sapir Edalati ’15 stepped up to the task of replacing Spital in a big way.

Edalati ended a three-game goalless streak with a strike in the 36th minute that staked the Judges to a 1-0 lead.

Midfielder Melissa Darling ’16—who had entered for injured forward Cidney Moscovtich ’17—crossed the ball to forward Michaela Friedman ’17 to set up the scoring play. Friedman sent the ball along the goal line past Castleton State freshman goalkeeper Jessica Binkowski where Edalati needed to just tap the ball into a wide-open net.

As the game crawled forward, it appeared that Edalati’s goal would prove to be the difference. The Judges controlled play for most of the second half, and found themselves with a number of scoring chances.

In the 52nd minute, Edalati was sent on goal

with a beautiful through ball and ended up in a one-on-one with Binkowski. It was Binkowski who rose to the task and saved Edalati’s breakaway attempt to keep the game tied at one.

Just two minutes before that, Binkowski stood tall to save a hard shot by forward Holly Szafran ’16 that could have doubled the Judges’ lead.

Dallamora stressed the importance of the Judges’ inability to score a second goal.

“We missed a few breakaways,” she explained. “We needed those cushions but we didn’t get them.”

Brandeis looked to run out the clock but could not do so as a chaotic final five minutes ensued with three goals and a 2-2 tie at the end of regulation.

After Castleton State tied the game in the 86th minute on a ball that was misplayed by goalie Michelle Savuto ’15, the Judges responded with what they thought was a late-game winner.

Szafran took a pass from Darling with just over two minutes remaining in the contest just inside the 18-yard box and slammed it home, but Castleton State responded with just 25.6 seconds remaining to tie the game at two goals.

Even though the Judges outshot the Spartans 7-0 in the two overtime periods and won three corner kicks and two free kicks, Brandeis could not find the winner at any point over the two 10-minute extra sessions.

The two teams moved to penalty kicks to decide the quarte rfinal, and Castleton State capitalized on a pair of Brandeis misses.

The Judges converted their first penalty kick but pushed the second attempt wide of the net. Savuto stood her ground and saved the Spartans’ second attempt, but could not be the hero as she missed the Judges fifth and final penalty kick.

Savuto’s shot bounced off of the top of the crossbar and over the net to seal the upset for the Spartans.

Even in the tough loss, Dallamora took pride in the way her young team responded to the difficult situations.

“I’m happy that a lot of the kids stepped up,” Dallamora explained. “There’s a really good freshman class and they’re going to step up [in the future].”

Brandeis ends their season at 10-6-3 overall, but can look forward to a revamped and healthy squad come next fall.

THE JUSTICE

jUDGES BY THE NUMBERS

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Tuesday, November 19, 2013

15

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Men’s Soccer UAA STANDINGS

TEAM STATS Goals

2013-2014 Statistics Overall W L D Pct. 15 2 2 .842 12 3 3 .750 11 5 2 .667 10 4 3 .676 16 4 1 .786 9 6 2 .558 6 7 4 .471 6 8 3 .441

UAA Conf.

W L D Rochester 5 1 1 Carnegie 4 1 2 Emory 4 1 2 WashU 3 2 2 JUDGES 3 3 1 Chicago 3 4 0 Case 1 5 1 NYU 0 6 1

EDITOR’S NOTE: The team will travel to the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAA Division III Tournament on Saturday.

Tyler Savonen ’15 leads the team with 12 goals.

Player Goals Tyler Savonen 12 Kyle Feather 9 Michael Soboff 6 Evan Jastremski 5

Assists Ben Applefield ’14 leads the team with 10 assists.

Player Assists Ben Applefield 10 Michael Soboff 10 Kyle Feather 5

WOMen’s Soccer UAA STANDINGS

TEAM STATS

2013-2014 Statistics

Goals

UAA Conf.

W L D WashU 7 0 0 Emory 6 1 0 Chicago 3 2 2 Carnegie 3 3 1 JUDGES 2 3 2 Rochester 1 3 3 Case 0 5 2 NYU 0 5 2

Overall W L D Pct. 19 1 0 .950 16 3 1 .825 11 5 3 .658 9 5 2 .625 10 6 3 .605 6 6 5 .500 8 9 2 .474 7 8 3 .472

EDITOR’S NOTE: The women concluded their season with a loss to Castleton State in the ECAC quarterfinals.

Sapir Edalati ’15 leads the team with nine goals.

Player Goals Sapir Edalati 9 Dara Spital 9 Holly Szafran 4 Melissa Darling 3

Assists Dara Spital ’15 leads the team with six assists.

Player Assists Dara Spital 6 Melissa Darling 3 Holly Szafran 3

VOLLEYBALL UAA STANDINGS

TEAM STATS Kills

2013-2014 Statistics UAA Conf.

W L Chicago 6 1 Emory 5 2 Carnegie 4 3 WashU 6 1 NYU 4 3 Case 2 5 Rochester 0 7 JUDGES 1 6

W L 27 11 33 4 25 10 27 8 28 8 16 17 9 27 10 25

Overall Pct. .711 .892 .714 .771 .778 .485 .250 .286

EDITOR’S NOTE: The volleyball team hosted the UAA Championships on Nov. 9 to conclude its season.

Liz Hood ’15 leads the team in kills with 434.

Player Kills Liz Hood 434 Si-Si Hensley 227 Carly Gutner-Davis 174 Rachael Dye 136

Digs Elsie Bernaiche ’15 leads the team in digs with 541.

Player Digs Elsie Bernaiche 541 Si-Si Hensley 389 Liz Hood 336 Amaris Brown 236

cross cOuntry Results from the Division III Cross Country Championships on Nov. 16.

TOP FINISHERS (Men’s)

TOP FINISHERS (Women’s)

RUNNER TIME Jarret Harrigan 25:54.5 Quinton Hoey 26:20.7 Grady Ward 26:27.9 Michael Rosenbach 26:58.0

RUNNER TIME 21:28.9 Amelia Lundkvist Maddie Dolins 21:53.2 Victoria Sanford 22:11.1 Kelsey Whitaker 22:19.7

UPCOMING EVENTS: The women’s team will compete at Division III National Championships this Saturday, to be held at Hanover College in Hanover, Ind.

JOSH HOROWIZ/the Justice

CRASHING THE NET: Niki Laskaris ’16 puts in a layup over a Colby College defender during the team’s 70-67 defeat on Saturday.

Team opens campaign with big win on Friday ■ The squad began their season with a win against Mount Ida before losing a close game to Colby College.

By Dan Rozel Justice staff writer

In an action-packed tip-off tournament in the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center this past weekend, the women’s basketball team had two strong games to open the season, winning their first against Mount Ida College 74-39 on Friday and just narrowly losing the championship of the invitational to Colby College by a final score of 70-67 on Saturday.

The championship game was a tightly fought contest throughout, with Colby making some key free throws and three pointers down the stretch to stave off a Brandeis charge. The charge was led by Judges guard Niki Laskaris ’16, with 21 bench points, and forward Nicolina Vitale ’14, who posted a double-double—15 points and 10 rebounds—in the narrow defeat.

Despite the defeat, Vitale was very impressed with the offensive prowess of the new-look Judges.

“The loss to Colby definitely hurt, but both games this weekend taught

us a lot.” she said. “We are building off last year in the sense of our work ethic and our identity as a team, but I think our energy is at a new level, and that’s making a big difference.”

The energy was well evident as the team marched back from a 33-25 halftime deficit against the Mules to take a quick lead thanks to two big turnovers caused by forward Paris Hodges ’17, who led the team in rebounds on the day.

Forward Tori Dobson ’16 had a strong showing off the bench, contributing six points of her own.

Brandeis’ second half lead would only get so far as four points in the second half by virtue of a mid-range jumper from Hodges, and from there it was a back and forth affair throughout the night.

Colby took full advantage of the early double-bonus that a relatively undisciplined Brandeis defense granted them to regain the lead.

Vitale commented on on allowing Colby these easy opportunities, noting that the team stands to improve their defense.

“Where we fell short was our half court defense, and we know that’s what we take pride in,” she explained. “It’s definitely something that’s going to be stressed in practice, and we will carry into the rest of the season.”

While the Colby loss was difficult, the Judges proved their scoring prowess should not be questioned, as their first game against a very shorthanded Mount Ida team showed in Friday’s win.

After an initially tight first eight minutes during which Mount Ida led 13-12, Brandeis poured on an impressive offensive assault led by Vitale and Hodges. Guard Heather Cain ’16 added five points and eight rebounds in a successful Brandeis debut for the transfer sophomore.

This first half ended on a decisive 27-3 run for Brandeis that had the crowd going wild.

Vitale led all scorers with 19 points and matched Cain’s game leading total of eight rebounds.

In what was an impressive showing on all fronts for Brandeis, the Judges’ ability to control a game from the beginning in particular stuck out for Vitale.

“Overall, it’s nice to know the team has that fight in them right from the beginning, and each day we are improving,” Vitale said. “We have a hard working and talented team, if we can continue that and do all the little things right, I think we have a very exciting season.”

Brandeis looks to build on their early-season successes with home games tonight and Saturday.

BOSTON Bruins BRIEF Bruins put away visiting Blue Jackets on the strength of Lucic’s overtime winner and good defense The Boston Bruins have found a way to win games even when they’re not in top form.

Left wing Milan Lucic scored the decisive tally with less than two minutes left in overtime for a 3-2 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets last Thursday night.

“You know I was able to block a shot, a lucky bounce,” Lucic said. “I was able to go out on a breakaway.

You know this is my first overtime goal that I’ve ever scored and it ends up being a big game with the last game on this homestand, which wound up being a successful one.”

While the game ended in favor of the Bruins, it didn’t begin as well for the hosts.

With seven minutes, 12 seconds left in the first period, Columbus struck first. Boston left Blue Jackets cen-

ter Mark Letestu unguarded behind the net, giving him plenty of time to pick a pass. Letestu then picked out left wing Blake Comeau, who was left with the simple task of slotting the puck past Boston backup goalkeeper Chad Johnson for a 1-0 lead.

The Bruins had a great chance, though, to tie things up a minute later. However, a shot from left wing Brad Marchand hit a crowd of bodies in front of the net and the score remained the same.

Boston then had a golden chance to put home the equalizer. A shot from right wing Reilly Smith created some havoc in front of the Columbus net.

After goalkeeper Sergei Bobrovsky was forced to come out of position, the puck came free to the back post where defenseman Dennis Seidenberg had a look at the net. However, Seidenberg

veered and put it just wide.

With 1:50 left in the period, though, Boston grabbed the equalizer. A slapshot from defenseman Zdeno Chara was deflected into the goal by left wing Loui Eriksson to knot the game up at 1-1.

Center Ryan Johansen had the first shot of the second period, which was easy enough for Johnson to handle.

Boston then added to its lead with 9:51 to go in the second. Left wing Shawn Thornton took a slap shot from the right circle that found its way into the top of the net, giving Bobrovsky no chance.

Just when it seemed that the Bruins had assumed control of the momentum, Columbus knotted the game up at 2-2. Left wing Nick Foligno finished from close range into the net to even the game’s momentum.

With 12:12 left in the game, defenseman Ryan Murray had a chance to put a pass from Foligno into an empty net at the back post. However, his stick missed the puck by a matter of inches and the chance went begging.

The Blue Jackets then began to dominate and the Bruins were on the ropes. Just 38 seconds later, right wing Cam Atkinson had an even better chance, hitting a close-range shot off the left post. Center Derek Mackenzie then thought he had scored with an effort from 10 feet out but Johnson made a miraculous save to keep the game tied. Defender Nikita Nikitin hit a shot from long range that Johnson would have been powerless to stop but fired just wide.

In overtime, Foligno looked to repeat his heroics, firing a snap-shot on net. However, Johnson made a smart

save, grabbing the puck out of the air to keep the Bruins alive.

Defenseman Jack Johnson fired a long-range slap-shot that seemed ticketed for the back of the net, which was saved by the Bruins netminder.

A lucky bounce led to the winning goal. Nikitin sent a shot from the side, which took a massive deflection off of Johnson before caroming up the ice to a wide-open Lucic, who then took the puck down on Bobrovsky and fired it home to win the game 3-2 in overtime.

Boston could not sustain its momentum, suffering a 4-2 defeat to the Ottawa Senators on Friday night.

The Bruins will take to the road to squaree off against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden tonight at 7:30 p.m.

— Henry Loughlin

just

Sports

Page 16

FENCING TEAMS EXCEL AT BROWN The men’s and women’s fencing teams both had strong overall matches to propel them to two first-place finishes, p. 13.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

MAKING HISTORY

Waltham, Mass.

MEN’S SOCCER

Judges get second shot to defeat Ephs ■ The men defeated Johnson

& Wales and Roger Williams on Sunday to advance to a rematch against Williams.

By HENRY LOUGHLIN JUSTICE Senior writer

For the second straight season, the men’s soccer team hosted the first two rounds of the NCAA Division III Tournament at Gordon Field.

And, for the second straight season, the Judges advanced to the Round of 16 with back-to-back victories.

After dominating Johnson & Wales University on Saturday by a score of 3-0, Brandeis beat Roger Williams University 1-0 on Sunday night.

While Saturday’s victory came rather easily, head coach Michael Coven was happy with the team’s performance on Sunday.

“I think we dominated play,” he said. “The boys never lost their composure, we controlled the tempo of the game and we possessed the ball well.”

Despite dominating early proceedings on Sunday, the Judges knew that the Hawks posed a threat. Given that

Roger Williams had benefited from several fortuitous plays in its 3-1 first round victory over Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey Newark, the rain provided a seemingly perfect setting for the Hawks to once again take advantage.

The visitors almost went up 1-0 in the 18th minute. A fast, right-wing cross played in from sophomore forward James Sheldon appeared to have been deflected into the net by Judges’ goalkeeper Joe Graffy ’15.

While some Roger Williams fans began to celebrate an apparent goal, the cheering was cut short as the ball had in fact dropped behind the goal for a corner kick and was then cleared.

The chance was a warning for the Judges, who were wary of the threat that Roger Williams senior forward Trevor Hoxsie—who scored 14 goals this season—posed.

“We knew he was good,” said center back Matt Brondoli ’14, who, along with fellow center-back Conor Lanahan ’16, limited the striker to just one shot. “The coaches warned us about him, but I think for the most part we just focused on our game.”

Yet, despite seizing the initiative, it would be the last threat that the

See MSOCCER, 13 ☛

Men’s basketball

PHOTO COURTESY OF Jan Volk/SPORTSPIX

FAST TIMES: Amelia Lundkvist ’14 (right) and Victoria Sanford ’14 (left) race in the UMass Dartmouth Invitational on September 21.

Women place in top five to secure spot at NCAAs ■ The squad will return to the

NCAA Championships for the first time since 2001 after several strong performances on Saturday in Gorham, Maine.

By Henry loughlin JUSTICE senior writer

While many of the other Brandeis sports teams have recently been making a name for themselves, the No. 22 women’s cross-country team has quietly become one of the best Division III programs in the country this year.

After a fifth-place finish at the New England Division III Regional Championships, held at the University of Southern Maine in Gorham, the team qualified for the NCAA Division III National Championships to be held next week at Hanover College in Indiana.

Led by Amelia Lundkvist ’14, who covered the six-kilometer course in 21 minutes, 28.85 seconds and was one of three Brandeis runners named All-New England, the team scored 168 points. Williams College won the meet, earning 44 points.

“It feels like a great accomplishment,” added Victoria Sanford ’14, who earned All-New England honors by virtue of her top-35 finish. “This is a goal that we’ve had in mind

since we got to Brandeis, so it was really exciting to finally achieve it. We worked extremely hard this summer and this season so far, so it's nice to see all our hard work pay off.”

Lundkvist echoed her teammate’s excitement about the news.

“It feels amazing, better than amazing, it’s hard to put into words,” she said. “It still feels surreal. I am so proud of this team.”

Additionally, the men’s squad tied for 17th place with Westfield State University, scoring 480 points.

Though Lundkvist has been the team’s leading runner for the entire season, she has certainly had some fast teammates to complement her individual efforts.

Maddie Dolins ’17, the University Athletic Association Rookie of the Year, covered the course in 21 minutes, 53.20 seconds, resulting in a 20th place finish and All-New England honors.

Sanford placed right behind Dolins, who also earned All-New England designation with her 31st place finish, running in 22:11.10. Kelsey Whitaker ’16 finished just outside the top 35, placing 38th in 22:19.68.

Brandeis’ top four runners each individually recorded less than six minutes per mile for their average pace—an impressive feat.

Ashley Picarillo ’17 was the team’s final scorer, running 22:56.19, which resulted in a 73rd place finish.

Additionally, Kate Farrell ’17 placed in 129th with a time of 24:11.39 while Maggie Hensel ’16 rounded out the field with a 132nd place finish, crossing the line at 24:13.61.

While the men’s squad didn’t qualify for the national championships, the Judges still had a number of impressive performances.

Jarret Harrigan ’16 was the top finisher for the Judges, crossing the line 50th overall. Harrigan completed the eight-kilometer course in 25:54.55, a 22 place improvement from his performance at the same meet last year.

Quinton Hoey ’17 capped his impressive first-year campaign, taking 76th in 26:20.71. Grady Ward ’16 was not far behind, taking 85th in 26:27.85. Michael Rosenbach ’16 barely cracked the 27-minute barrier, placing 111th in 26:58.00.

Matt Doran ’17 completed the scoring for the Judges, running the course in 27:47.39 for 161st place.

Given that the majority of the season’s training has already been done, the women are looking to simply fine tune their fitness.

“For this next week we're all really just working on making sure we're as fresh and well rested as we can be,” explained Sanford. “At this point, all the training is already done, we just need to fine tune it to be at our best for this weekend.”

The Division III Championships begin on Saturday at 11 a.m.

Squad earns historic point total in victory ■ The team scored the most

points ever under Coach Brian Meehan in a rout of visiting Curry College.

By jacob moskowitz JUSTICE senior writer

The men’s basketball season started off with a bang on Saturday, as the Judges dominated on both sides of the ball during a 111-59 victory over the Curry College Colonels at the Red Auerbach Arena. In the win, the Judges scored the most points ever under coach Brian Meehan, and the 52 point win is the biggest in 59 years.

It was not as if the game was supposed to be this easy for Brandeis.

Curry went 21-8 last season and lost by two points in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Brandeis’ victory, however, was effortless.

Rookie point guard Robinson Vilmont ’17 said the large margin of victory was because of good defense and playing hard.

“It came down to defense and rebounding,” he said. “We outrebounded Curry and didn’t turn the ball over too much.”

The Judges finished the game with 20 offensive rebounds and won the battle of the boards 56-36. They only turned the ball over 11 times, while forcing 15 turnovers by the Colonels.

After some first minute jitters and an 11-8 lead with 15 minutes, 4 seconds to go, Brandeis went on a 17-0 run to basically put the game out of reach, culminating in guard Derek Retos ’14 hitting two three pointers to end the run with a 28-8 lead. The Judges finished the half with a 62-31 lead and the game was never in doubt from that point forward.

The second half was more of the same as Brandeis kept building the lead. The starters played just a few minutes in the second half, giving the crowd a chance to witness forward

Kevin Trotman’s ’16 athleticism.

Trotman showed off on both ends of the court, starting with a great block after a turnover. A few plays later he drove to the basket and put in a giant reverse dunk, sending the crowd into a round of frenzied cheers.

Ten players came off the bench for the Judges and nobody saw fewer than eight minutes of playing time.

Every member of the Judges who entered the game scored.

Vilmont commented on how he coped with the build up to his first career game.

“My mindset was to hustle and play great overall defense,” he said. “I was successful because I put pressure on their point guard and rebounded the ball well.”

Meehan started four guards in the game, and this will probably be a trend all season long. Guard Ben Bartoldus ’14 was the second tallest player in the lineup at a mere six feet two inches. Vilmont and Colby Smith ’16 are both point guards, and Gabe Moton ’14 has played some point in the past. Forward Alex Stoyle ’14, the lone big man, rounded out the starting five.

Despite the small lineup, the Judges managed to play stout interior defense and outrebound Curry by a large margin. Vilmont was encouraged by the interesting lineup Meehan decided to employ.

“I like it,” he said. “It takes a lot of pressure off of me. All of our guards are skilled enough to take the ball up and push it up the court since we are an up-tempo team.”

Bartoldus led the way for the Judges with 15 points. Vilmont scored 13 and had six rebounds. Moton recorded a double-double, scoring 12 points and grabbing 12 rebounds while dishing out five assists. Retos came off the bench to connect on four triples and finished with 15 points.

The Judges play at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth tonight, with two home games later this week.

JustArts

MELA

Volume LXVI, Number 12

Your weekly guide to arts, movies, music and everything cultural at Brandeis and beyond

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Waltham, Mass.

Culture on display in vibrant performances p. 19

In this issue:

M.I.A.’s new album

“Paper Planes” artist back in the spotlight, P. 21

Ballet in Boston

‘Stuff Happens’

Political play steps outside the box, P. 20

‘EDGES’

Song cycle captures college years, P. 21

Talk at the Gardner Museum

Historian discusses art and text together, P. 23

Show inspired by “Anonymous” Internet vigilantes, P. 22

‘Thor’

Marvel Comics’ new film is a must-see, P. 23

18

justARTS

TUESDAY, november 19, 2013 | THE JUSTICE

CALENDAR

INTERVIEW

$

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

ON-CAMPUS EVENTS

Arctic Inspired: Science and Poetry from the Far North

Brandeis Prof. Elizabeth Bradfield (ENG) is a poet and naturalist who works on expedition ships in the Arctic and in the waters off Cape Cod. Bradfield will give an illustrated talk of Arctic inspiration that touches on musk ox, fossils, Sir John Franklin and much more. Presented by the Women in Science Initiative and the Women’s Studies Research Center as part of the Art of Science series.

Today at 6 p.m. in the Women’s Studies Research Center. This event is open to the public.

Poetry Reading: Richard Blanco

President Barack Obama chose Richard Blanco to be the fifth inaugural poet in history. Blanco is the author of four collections of poetry, including City of a Hundred Fires (1998), winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett National Poetry Prize; Nowhere But Here (2004); Directions to The Beach of the Dead (2005), winner of the PEN/American Center Beyond Margins Award; and Looking for The Gulf Motel (2012). Beacon Press will publish his new work For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey on Nov. 19, 2013. Blanco will sign copies of his books—which will be available for sale, including For All of Us, One Today—after the reading. This event is sponsored by the Hispanic Studies Program.

Thursday at 5 p.m. in the Presentation Room of the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Admissions Center.

Jennifer Yee Patron Services Coordinator at the Rose OLIVIA POBIEL/the Justice

This week JustArts sat down with Jennifer Yee, who was hired as patron services coordinator at the Rose Art Museum at the beginning of this year.

JustArts: Could you tell us a little about what you did before this position and what your new job entails here at the Rose?

Jennifer Yee: I’ve had a varied background that actually prepared me pretty well for this position. A lot of what could be considered unrelated skill sets came together here. Twenty to 22 years ago … I was here actually as a Brandeis police officer ... I worked with [Director of Public Saftey] Ed Callahan and a lot of veterans that are still here, at that time, I’d say half of whom I recognized when I came back here. After that I married [and then] I worked a lot of catering events, the retail sector, visitor services and I developed quite an art bend during that time.

I had always had it but I took actual drawing classes … So when I came back here [in 2007] I thought ‘what next?’ and that’s when a position called patron services came up and I thought ‘what is patron services?’ Well a lot of it is front of the house activities … I am sort of the face of the administration that deals directly with patrons. I do whatever is needed to help plan logistics, help coordinate events, help with security in terms of crowd control and safe passage when people initiate any events here at the Rose and also in training the student gallery guards.

JA: What would you say is the most difficult part of your job?

JY: I wouldn’t even call it difficult. I would call it challenging because there are many different aspects to the job so maybe the best answer to that question is deciding which hat to put on for that day—am I going to be doing visitor services? Am I going to focus on the security aspect, or am I going to focus on the day-to-day needs of a work order that needs to be put in?

JA: Was the SCRAM Jam a difficult event to deal with being in your position? Can you tell me a little about how you handled the security at that event?

JY: It’s always a challenge. I was actually pleased and surprised when I compared it to last year’s figures and the year before. ... We topped out at 707 people [this year]. So I’m almost glad I didn’t know that before the night went off. But so yes it’s a challenge, and you have to weigh that though against wanting people to enjoy themselves and striking that balance. While I’m observing, say, the numbers [of people] that are allowed by fire code or by what’s allowed in terms of agreements with art pieces that are on loan ... But I felt it was very successful. I was very proud of everybody—SCRAM, all the students, how they handled themselves because it was such a large number. And the feedback I got from that event was just incredible.

JA: How will you deal with security and safety of the new installation, “Light of Reason,” especially since it is an outdoor piece?

JY: We have talked about that. In fact that’s in the process right now. We are trying to determine what, if any specific issues are needed as far as lighting or as far as camera work or as far as just keeping an eye on the installation piece. We actually are developing protocol as we speak because we are actually beginning the whole process of defining all the terms of the installation.

JA: I had heard some rumors that you worked with magic and illusions. Can you tell us a little about that hobby?

JY: That actually began back in the late ’90s when I was taking classes to entertain my children and it kind of grew into performing for their class and their school and then later other schools. We [my husband and I] began collecting ... these large-scale illusions that we could work into our routine called “The Magic of Chinese New Year.” And that’s how it started ... It’s our avocation, not our vocation but we do work under [the name of] Yee Magic … It started as an interest and as it turned out there was a rumor in the family that I was related to a mystic medium … and it turned out that she was friends with Houdini—unusual because Houdini did not like mediums but they had an unusual respect for each other because she entertained and she kept it on an entertainment level … And the rest as they say is history.

—Emily Wishingrad

‘Cabaret’

At the dawn of the 1930s, a young American writer is drawn to the decadence of Berlin’s Kit Kat Klub and its outrageous singing star, Sally Bowles.

Their unlikely romance is juxtaposed against the rise of Hitler and the poignant courtship of landlady Fraulein Schneider by her Jewish suitor, Herr Schultz. Steven Bogart, who directed

the award-winning American Repertory Theater revival, brings a cuttingedge sensibility to this provocative Broadway musical classic.

Showing Thursday through Sunday at 8 p.m. at the Spingold Theater Center. Tickets are available online or at the Shapiro Campus Center Box Office.

General admission is $20; $15 for the Brandeis community and seniors and $5 for students.

‘The Children’s Hour’

Gossip triggers a shocking chain of events with extraordinary consequences at a boarding school for girls in 1930s New England. Find out why Lillian Hellman’s classic drama was banned in Boston in 1934. This production is produced by the student-run Hillel Theater Group.

Playing Thursday, Saturday and Sunday at 8 p.m., and at 2 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday in the Shapiro Campus Center Theater. Tickets are $5.

Music From China—New Music Brandeis

The Music From China ensemble performs new music written for them

by Brandeis Ph.D. composers Victoria Cheah, Richard Chowenhill, Emily Koh and Emily Eng ’15 Seunghee Lee and Jared Redmond. A reception will follow the concert.

Friday at 8 p.m. in the Slosberg Music Center. This event is free and open to the public.

Manginah

Brandeis’ premier, co-ed, Jewish a cappella group, Manginah, will be performing at their annual fall show this weekend. Come spend a pleasant afternoon listening to a mix of traditional and contemporary Israeli and Jewish music, showcasing the vocal talents of the entire group.

Sunday from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. in the Mandel Center for the Humanities, room G03. Tickets are $3 for students and $5 for general admission, and will

be on sale in both the Usdan Student Center and the Shapiro Campus Center through Friday.

Brandeis Wellesley Orchestra

Conducted by Prof. Neal Hampton (MUS), the program will begin with a pre-performance presentation by Brandeis’ Liane Curtis and Claire Fontijn, womens’ studies research study scholars of Wellesley College, and will continue with a performance of Symphony in E Minor, “Gaelic,” Op. 32 by Amy Beach.

The event is co-sponsored by the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center and the Brandeis University Music Department.

Sunday from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in Slosberg Music Center. This event is free and open to the public.

OFF-CAMPUS EVENTS

Boston Symphony Orchestra Presents: Mozart, Prokofiev and Schumann

Greek-born violin virtuoso and conductor Leonidas Kavakos returns in that dual role for Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 4. Kavakos then leads Serge Prokofiev’s delightful, Mozart and Haydn-inspired Classical Symphony. Closing the program is Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 2, composed in 1845 after a bout of deep depression, but ultimately, even miraculously, optimistic and affirmative in character.

Performances are ongoing at the Boston Symphony Hall. Tickets range from $37 to $126 and are available online at http://bso.org/.

P!NK at TD Garden

The Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter and pop culture icon is touring North America for the first time in four years in support of her album, The Truth About Love. Her tour will come to Boston this winter.

Dec. 5 at 7:30 p.m. at TD Garden in Boston. Tickets range from $53 to $140 and are available online at http://ticketmaster.com/.

Pop Culture n

ww week in pop culture has a snazzy This subtitle: celebrities getting injured. I’m not sure what was in the air, but the latest Hollywood headlines included reports of two big stars experiencing some pretty nasty injuries.

Various celebrity news outlets, such as People Magazine and The Huffington Post, reported that actor Zac Efron broke his jaw after he slipped in a pesky puddle of water outside his Los Angeles home on Nov. 10. Now the actor’s mouth is wired shut so that his jaw can heal. He also needed stitches for an additional gash he suffered from the fall.

Efron, 26, who has garnered much attention lately after the publicity of his rehab stints, is expected to make a full recovery from his injuries. He was supposed to promote his upcoming comedy film That Awkward Moment, but those plans have been derailed. Unfortunately, that also means he won’t be filming any musicals in the immediate future.

Yet another handsome actor had to be taken to the emergency room this week.

Here’s one sign that Jake Gyllenhaal is dedicated to his craft he required stitches after filming an emotional scene on the Los Angeles set of his crime drama film Nightcrawler. Gyllenhaal, 32, reportedly got so deep into character during the scene that, in a fit of rage, he punched his fists into a mirror.

The glass broke and cut his hands.

According to his rep, the actor received “numerous stitches.” Gyllenhaal has also captured attention for the pounds he shed for his role in Nightcrawler. Last month, the actor was photographed looking quite gaunt at the Hollywood Film Awards. He told People Magazine that he lost around 20 pounds. Talk about commitment!

In other news, actor Alec Baldwin found his name back in headlines for supposedly assaulting yet another photographer. Yes, he’s been involved in scuffles with photographers in the past, even pinning a paparazzo to a car back in August. On Thursday, TMZ posted a video of Baldwin, who has been involved in too many incidents where he has been caught using harsh, profanity-laden lan-

By Mara Sassoon

CREATIVE COMMONS

HIT AND RUN: Baldwin shoved another photographer, an assault caught on tape by TMZ. guage, shoving a photographer who was hot on the trail of the actor and his family. Baldwin yelled at the photographer and reportedly hurled a homophobic slur at him.

It doesn’t stop there. On Friday, TMZ posted video of Baldwin shoving another photographer near his Manhattan apartment. At one point, Baldwin knocked the camera out of the unrelenting photographer’s hand—even after the assault, the man continued to follow Baldwin down the sidewalk.

The actor also made headlines this week when his alleged stalker, Genevieve Sabourin, was sentenced to six months in jail. Sabourin, 41, a Canadian actress, was found guilty of stalking, harassment

and attempted contempt of court. Baldwin testified at the Nov. 12 trial.

Apparently, during his testimony, Sabourin made quite a few outbursts. Baldwin admitted that he first met the woman at a Montreal movie shoot in 2000. Then, nearly 10 years later, a mutual friend had Baldwin agree to meet with her for dinner to give some career advice. After that, Baldwin claimed that Sabourin began to bombard him with unwanted phone calls and emails. This trial was no doubt stressful for Baldwin but certainly no excuse for the alleged slur he made against that photographer.

That’s your pop culture fix this week, Brandeis—courtesy of some clumsy, passionate and, well, angry celebs.

ARTS COVER PHOTOS: JOSHUA LINTON and ABBY KNECHT/the Justice and Creative Commons. DESIGN: OLIVIA POBIEL/the Justice.

ON CAMPUS

THE JUSTICE | TUESDAY, november 19, 2013

19

theATER REVIEW

Quirky production lampoons “Dubya”

By ALIZA VIGDERMAN justice Staff writer

PHOTOS BY ABBY KNECHT

THE THINKER: Andre Agress ’17, who switched between playing both George Tenet and David Manning, sits pensively during a conversation onstage and waits to deliver a line with his characteristic dry humor.

Sitting under the disjointed blue lights of the Mandel Center for the Humanities Atrium, waiting to see a play that was to satirize the George W. Bush administration, I couldn’t help but feel like a cliché of a liberal arts college student.

At a school undeniably to the left, Bush, the impish, often confused-looking former president, feels like an easy target. Bring in the egg-headed Vice President Dick Cheney, the leathery Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the rest of the flummoxed administration, and you have a play sure to please the generally liberal audience of Brandeis. Republicans, I suggest you bring a book.

Stuff Happens, a play written by David Hare, was performed on Nov. 14, 15 and 17.

It was presented by the Free Play Theatre Cooperative, Brandeis’ experimental and social justice theater group. Stuff Happens follows the Bush administration post Sept. 11, 2001 as they decide who to invade by almost arbitrary tactics and made up reasoning.

About 50 seats surrounded the stage area on three sides, placing it in an intimate setting. The set included a minimal round of chairs, a desk, a bench which actors stood on to give speeches and a screen that provided backgrounds such as the Oval Office.

The play was well directed by Amanda Stern ’15 and the actors used the space well, generally allowing audience members from all sides to see and hear them. The space allowed for hilarious details which would not have been possible in a traditional theater setting. For example, at one point the Bush administration was looking at information about the then-President of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. From their seats alongside the stage area, the audience could see the administration’s papers had images of Barney the dinosaur, and a paper that said “Between a Rock and a Hard Place.”

Additionally, many of the actors’ subtle facial expressions were more visible, like the endearingly befuddled Bush, expertly played by Miriam Goldman ’14. Still, the space was not ideal for a theater performance, and sound sometimes drifted into the high ceiling.

In her directors’ statement, Stern said she tried to move away from the cliche jokes surrounding the characters in the script. The cast was both race and gender blind. Stern explains, “The personalities of the Bush administration truly ring larger than life, and it is my belief that a talented actor or actress of any race could find a way to convincingly portray these historical individuals.”

While the cast was able to portray these individuals convincingly, it became difficult for the audience to keep track of who was who. Not only were the actors blindly casted, but also double casted, making it sometimes necessary to refer to the playbill for further clarification. Stern also chose to have all of the actors take turns as narrators, which may have added to the confusion.

Overall, the play was well produced, and the actors were all strong, although some stood out more than others. Andrew Agress ’17, who portrayed George Tenet and David Manning, had true stage presence as he spoke in his deep deadpan. Sid Mehra ’17 chose a nerdy persona as Paul Wolfowitz, and spoke in a high-pitched nasally tone.

However, the true star was Miriam Goldman as the infamous “Dubya.” Goldman, employing a pleasant southern twang, encompassed Bush’s incompetence and childishness without being over the top.

One of the funniest moments occurred during a meeting between Bush and British prime minister Tony Blair at Bush’s Texas ranch. While Blair was contemplating what to do about Iraq, Bush loudly ate a snack as he trailed after Blair, deep in the middle of a philosophical crisis.

The play was funny, certainly, but underneath the laughter was underlying sadness that this was all much too real. While the play is by no means a documentary, and clearly takes comedic license, some of the most ridiculous quotes were taken verbatim from the offenders.

The play’s title comes from Donald Rumseld’s response to the April 2003 lootings in Baghdad. Rumsfeld said, “Stuff happens and it’s untidy, and freedom’s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.” During intermission, I overheard a conversation next to me. “I can’t decide if this play is funny or sad.” “Why can’t it be both?”

SIT BACK AND RELAX: Miriam Goldman ’14 receives a pep talk from Sara Fried ’15.

TOUGH TALK: Sarah Steiker ’17 (left) delivers some tense news to Aja Antoine ’17.

SAY WHAT?: Aja Antoine ’17 and Maya Cooper ’15 share a humorous conversational moment.

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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2013 | THE JUSTICE

FESTIVAL

MELA captivates audience with culture

PHOTOS BY JOSHUA LINTON/the Justice

HANDS UP: The background for the show reflected the fusion of cultures and celebratory feel of the night.

By ILANA KRUGER justice Staff writer

On Saturday night, the South Asian Students’ Association held the annual MELA show in the packed Levin ballroom. Mela, which means “fair” or “celebration” in Sanskrit, showcases undergraduate and graduate students’ talents in dance, music, poetry and more. The event celebrates the eight nations of South Asia: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

This year’s theme, “Rang: A Mosaic of Color,” was evident throughout the show. From the colorful background, a beautiful peacock with a flowing tail made up of different colored and patterned feathers against green hills, to the diverse, striking costumes of the performers, color was everywhere.

The event’s proceeds went to the organization Plan International, which helps children in developing countries have a better life by providing education, clean water, food, health care.

The emcees were Hunter Greer ’16, jokingly referred to as Hunter Green in the program, Natasha Qidwai ’13 and Nikhil Pallikonda ’16. They kept the show going in between performances with jokes that weren’t too over the top, and stayed on their feet even when there were some minor technical difficulties. All three were also in their respective class dances, and they balanced their roles nicely.

The first-year, sophomore, junior and senior dances each showcased each class’ talents and creativity.

KNOCK KNOCK: Emcees Nikhil Pallikonda ’16 and Hunter Greer ’16 told jokes in between performances.

The first-years’ dance showcased the different South Asian cultures, and the sophomores in their black pants and colorful patterned tops expressed their love of music and dance. The energetic juniors highlighted their male and female dancers in different segments and then came together as a whole, and the seniors put all of their energy and joy into their last MELA dance, sending dancers into the audience since they all couldn’t fit on the stage.

The performances weren’t all dances. Naman Patel ’15 gave a slam poetry performance. Patel flawlessly presented his poem about the mistreatment of women in India, blending Indian pop culture imagery with the harsh reality of rape, abuse and lack of rights that Indian women face. In the middle of the upbeat, lighthearted tone of the night, Patel’s performance reminded the audience that there are important social issues in South Asian countries that need to be addressed. Ullas Rao ’15 and Prayuth Naduthota ’15 gave a performance on bamboo instruments: Rao on the mridangam, a double-sided drum, and Naduthota on the South Indian flute. The duo, who are trained in Carnatic music, gave a melodic and entrancing performance. Naduthota and Rao, who have competed and performed nationally, brought traditional Indian music to add to the mosaic of cultural performances.

Different Indian dance styles were shown, including in the performance by Chak De ’Deis, Brandeis’ Bollywood fusion dance team. Inspired by Bollywood love stories, the introductory video showed the

10 performers forming five couples, each with a unique love story. The dance that followed was explosive and energetic, with the couples from the video dancing together and having a blast while showing everyone how talented they are. Brandeis Bhangra performed the Punjabi folk dance, to the audience’s enthusiastic enjoyment. Choreographed by Prasant Lokinendi M.A. ’14, Gauri Thaker ’14 and Rao, the dance featured colorful traditional garb and matching flags waved enthusiastically in the air by the dancers to the catchy music.

Neeraja Reddy M.A. ’15 performed the classical Indian dance of Bharatahatyam, commanding the audience’s attention by herself on the stage. Her movements were precise and fluid, following the beats of the music. The dance was comprised of different poses that represented the Hindi gods Vishnu and Shiva. I had never seen this type of dance before, and was entranced by her stunning performance.

The ladies of the So Unique Step Team showed us what they could do, at first with just the beats created by their hands and feet and then with some Indian and hip-hop background music. Their cohesiveness as a team as well as their individual talents were clear as they stomped and clapped and danced.

The event was a huge success, judging by the large audience of students, friends and family that filled Levin as well as its balconies. A sense of joy encompassed the room as each group or performer took the stage, and the audience was smiling and clapping the entire night.

JUST DANCE: Apoorva Polavarapu ’17 and Aditi Shah ’17 performed a Bharatahatyam routine.

DANCING QUEEN: Benjamin Hill ’14 swept Deepti Kanneganti ’14 off her feet in Chak De ’Deis’ dance.

THE JUSTICE | TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2013

21

THEATER REVIEW

‘EDGES’ has room for improvement

ABBY KNECHT/the Justice

TELL ME ABOUT IT: Katie Jacobs ’16 (left) and Eli Siegel ’14 (right) discreetly tell Bethany Adam ’15 (center) that the “perfect man” she is dating is actually gay, causing her to spin into a shocked musical number.

By RACHEL HUGHES justice EDITOR

During college, the toughest challenges sometimes arise not in class, but in forming relationships, falling in love and redefining family—all symptoms of growing up. To explore the challenges young people face, Tympanium Euphorium presented EDGES to the Brandeis community this weekend in the Shapiro Campus Center Theater. While EDGES seemed well rehearsed and the actors shared a stellar dynamic, the musical execution of the production fell flat at times.

At the Saturday night showing, even while the men’s soccer first round NCAA tournament game was taking place on Gordon Field, the theater was absolutely brimming with people excited to see EDGES. The show deviated from the traditional musical format in that it was a song cycle written

by Tony-nominated songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. Six undergraduate actors brought to life this hour-and-a-half long continuous musical show, which encompassed

13 songs and three short transitions. Each song focused on a snippet of the “growing up” story, like fights with siblings, helping friends out and overcoming trials in love.

The cast, made up of Bethany Adam ’15, Katie Jacobs ’16, Makalani Mack ’16, Jamie Semel ’17, Eli Siegel ’14 and Ray Trott ’16, worked splendidly together. They kept time to the lively and continuous instrumental performance of Natsuko Yamagata ’17, Brian Haungs ’15 and Melanie Cytron ’15, conducted by Emily Eng ’14. Though the show transitioned between songs that the actors performed all together in smaller groups and as solo pieces, I thought that the best musical moments of the show came during the group performances. The individual vocal performances did not deliver the level of technical and sonic quality needed to carry a solo piece, but when the cast sang together, the focus shifted to the group’s beautiful choral-style harmonies, which really added to the show.

One of the funniest moments in the show—and a crowd favorite too, as it garnered a roaring wave of applause—was a

song called “In Short,” performed by Semel.

The piece did not require immaculate vocals, and actually was made better by her erratic performance. Following a very cute piece about the first time a couple says, “I love you,” performed by Trott and Jacobs, Semel quietly took the stage and began her song by pleasantly talking about a guy she had been interested in and cared for.

Mid-sentence, she stalled and burst out into a hilarious rant, repeating “I just want you to f*cking die!” of her former love interest. Semel spent the rest of the song running around the stage, using bombastic and comically disarming body language to tell the audience the story of this love interest, how he wronged her and how she planned to exact her revenge. She was gasping, yelling and musing with total abandon, and put on a stellar and emotionally relatable performance.

Another audience favorite was the song “Man of My Dreams,” performed by Adam, Jacobs, Siegel and Mack. Adam raved to her friends, Jacobs and Siegel, about her perfect boyfriend, Mack. She danced around the

stage with such joy and sang about how her boyfriend keeps her apartment clean, goes to Broadway shows with her and never tires of shopping together.

The audience began cracking up as Jacobs and Siegel mouthed to each other “He’s gay,” while Adam twirled around the stage with innocent glee. I felt a bit uncomfortable as the songwriting employed the narrow, stereotypical idea of a gay man and even had the actors deliver a truncated line rhyming with “bag,” implying that they were to have used a homophobic slur. However, the audience was still able to laugh at the upbeat, pleasantly comic feel of the rest of the song.

Overall, I had a good time at EDGES and the end of the show found most of the audience on their feet giving the cast a standing ovation. The fantastic dynamic between the actors and the tremendous effort put forth by the instrumentalists and crew made for an enjoyable production, and a night full of laughs.

—Editor’s note: Melanie Cytron ’15 is a Justice copy staff member.

ALBUM REVIEW

M.I.A. mixes musical styles in ‘Matangi’

By CATHERINE ROSCH justice Staff writer

Very few artists can combine classical South Asian folk music, electronic beats and popular hip-hop in a way that appeals to a mass audience.

But Maya Arulpragasam did just that in her newest album, Matangi, which was released on Nov 5. The British-Tamil rapper, more popularly known as M.I.A. and known for popular hits “Paper Planes” and “Boyz” holds true to her quirky sound in Matangi, her first album since 2010.

Similar to M.I.A’s previous albums, Matangi, named after a Hindu goddess and the artist’s namesake, focuses on a variety of themes ranging from female sexuality, socio-political global issues and religious belief. The more serious concepts that come across in her lyrics are mixed with clever pop culture references and plenty of interesting beats and rhythms.

Nothing better exemplifies this mix of traditional and modern, pop and political, than the second song on the album, the titular “Matangi.” “Matangi” starts with a long, spoken list of various countries that are involved in political, ethnic or religious conflicts, such as Myanmar, Palestine, Bosnia and the United States. The song then transitions into lyrics about a variety of politically-loaded topics like war, perceptions of women, copyright and secret documents. The overall rhythm of the song has a pulsing electronic beat, but especially near the end, the contemporary sound is mixed with bhangra, traditional Indian folk music with a modern twist.

The song “Double Bubble Trouble,” one of my personal favorite songs from Matangi, starts out with a steady, electronic beat. From there, the song is a mix of a reggae sound and elements

CREATIVE COMMONS

SING IT OUT: Maya Arulpragasm, popularly known as M.I.A., released her new album, Matangi on Nov. 5. more traditional of pop music. The lyrics are very hard to understand, but that is part of what makes “Double Bubble Trouble” so enjoyable to listen to. It is remarkably easy just to get lost in the beat. “Warriors,” a fun, pop-infused piece that mixes a very traditional Indian sound with modern beats, further demonstrates M.I.A.’s abilities to mix very different genres that do not traditionally go together in a way that is fun to listen and dance to.

It was when M.I.A. tried to stay in a more tradi-

tionally “pop” direction without the political and social themes that she is known for that songs fell flat. “Bring the Noize” had an annoyingly repetitive beginning and was excessively autotuned.

The lyrics were next to impossible to understand and the various elements, from the different rhythms and confusing lyrics, were simply too many disparate pieces in one song. The same was true of “Only 1 U.” While the lyrics were clever, the repetition was heavy-handed and I got sick of the chorus within a minute of the song.

However, the exception to the rule that the pop songs were underwhelming was the hit song “Bad Girls.” Although overplayed, I will always love the intense bhangra opening and catchy chorus about female empowerment mixed with clever car metaphors.

Although repetitive, the chorus is fun to dance and sing along with, unlike some of the other songs on the album. Like the other great songs on Matangi, “Bad Girls” has great lyrics, a good beat for dancing and lots of symbolism about gender, money and sexuality.

Two songs especially stood out to me. “Y.A.L.A.” is a clever play on the concept of Y.O.L.O., or “you only live once,” a phrase made popular by her fellow rapper Drake. The lyrics start out by mocking people who subscribe to Y.O.L.O. before moving onto more serious themes like the flawed capitalism, race, drug use and violence.

The song ends with M.I.A. reflecting on the idea of reincarnation and her Hindu beliefs with lyrics about how, as M.I.A “back home where I come from we keep being born again and again and again that’s why they invented karma.” The pounding beat keeps the song light no matter how heavy the topic, and this is the ideal pump-up song: fast and easy to listen to.

“Exodus,” which features Canadian rhythm and blues artist The Weeknd, is one of the longest songs on the album and one of the most interesting. It starts off slow and soft, especially for M.I.A., and there is a feeling of static in the background. The static makes the song soothing and a welcomed release from M.I.A.’s usual fast and loud fare. The subversive lyrics about sexuality, conquest and exile take the song from just another electronic tune to a piece of music filled with depth.

22

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2013 | THE JUSTICE

DANCE

UNDERNEATH THE MASK: The Internet hacker/activist, or “hacktivist” group, Anonymous, whose members present themselves on the Internet wearing this characteristic mask, was the inspiration for a ballet called HackPolitik, created by Peter Van Zandt Lane MFA ’08, Ph.D. ’13.

CREATIVE COMMONS

w

‘‘Anonymous’’ group inspires new ballet

By NATE SHAFFER justice Staff writer

This weekend, the Junventas New Music Ensemble and The People Movers dance troupe premiered Peter Van Zandt Lane’s MFA ’08, Ph.D. ’13 ballet, HackPolitik, at the Boston University Dance Theater. This piece portrays the online relationships and actions of hackers from the ‘hacktivist’ group Anonymous.

The story and its characters are based on real events, recounted in Parmy Olson’s recent booklength exposé, We Are Anonymous. Lane and his collaborators capitalized on this story’s latent potential for abstract representation, retelling the story of lives lived on the internet solely through music and dance.

While finishing his doctorate at Brandeis last May, he felt he had to come up with a big project to announce his arrival as a composer. After securing partnerships with Juventas New Music ensemble, a Boston-based group dedicated to performing the works of composers under 35, and People Movers, an up-and-coming dance troupe from New York City, Lane moved forward with composing this full-length ballet.

This performance interested me in a special

way because it sought to be a new, meaningful and politically relevant work of art. As Lane said in a promotional video on his website, “it seems to me that the art of our time is uniquely suited to address the issues of our time. I think there are few issues as prevalent right now as how technology is reshaping the world.”

In addition to influencing the story itself, technology also plays a big role in Lane’s music.

Lane works on the cutting edge of “electroacoustic music,” a relatively new method for making music. This strategy combines acoustic sounds of traditional instruments (flute, piano, strings, etc.) with the enhanced possibilities of computer-generated sounds. In addition to pre-recorded soundscapes, Lane controlled the performance on his laptop, modifying the amplification of Juventas’ instruments in real time. These echoing and ambient effects sounded in such a way that it was often difficult to tell where the sounds were coming from; are the sounds coming from the instruments or the electronics? These sounds bent the line of what’s “real” and what is invented.

This idea of “real” versus invented was paralleled in the characters themselves. As these characters interacted only over the internet,

they were free to fashion identities at their discretion. One character, “Lorelai,” in real life a 28-year-old former military man, adopted the online identity of a 16-year-old girl. In real life, this person was transgender and the scene depicted the transformation of this character’s identity from male to female.

The grace of the soloist entranced me as the dancer’s movements melted into the sounds of the music itself—a simply developed, largely repetitive viola solo with sparse electronic accompaniment. There was palpable intimacy as the scene ended; you could hear the crestfallen breaths of the soloist as his face and limbs drooped toward the ground in despondency.

It’s worth mentioning this was the first ballet I had ever seen. The control and possibilities of the dancers’ movements amazed me at all times.

Though I’m ignorant towards the canon of classical dance, I was able to, in modest amounts, connect with the communicative aspects of their art. Their gestures—face-making, sticking their tongues out, and telling people “where to shove it”—captured the flippancy of Anonymous, whose members occasionally carry out large-scale technological pranks “just for the lulz”. Struggles for power and influence were

represented by physical struggles, which involved lots of lifting and throws; it was very fun to watch and rather amazing when you think about the sort of control it takes.

Although it’s difficult to quickly conclude to what extent any new work of art “succeeds” I feel no reservations in giving Lane and his collaborators congratulations on a touching and entirely fresh take on the world through his art.

Lane’s music is bizarre, wondrous and ethereal.

However, this piece did truly succeed in that I, as an audience member, connected with the characters and appreciated the collection of effects presented. With the help of the program notes, I felt that I was able to follow the abstractions presented and understand the story.

On all fronts, HackPolitik was thoroughly thought out and carefully rendered.

With this project a definite success, the audience was left to wonder, still reeling from the performance: what will Peter Van Zandt Lane do next?

To read more about Lane, See News, p. 3 ☛

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THE JUSTICE | TUESDAY, november 19, 2013

23

film review

Marvel Studios/MCT Campus

SUIT UP: The title character, Thor, braves all sorts of terror in the new action film.

‘Thor’ film tells a stunning visual story By jessie miller justice editor

Many of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films follow the same plotline: backstory, conflict, defeat or tragic moment and the inevitable triumph over evil. Thor: The Dark World is no exception, but that isn’t a bad thing. I left the theater stunned by the excitement and depth of the film. Since the 2008 release of Iron Man, Marvel and their film production team have created an entirely distinct realm of Hollywood, with each release building upon the trails of the last.

Thor: The Dark World begins with a flashback to a conflict long-forgotten by the characters between the Asgardians and the Dark Elf Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) over a powerful substance known as Aether. Asgard defeats the evil forces and hides the Aether deep beneath the earth, unbeknownst to them that Malekith and some of his followers es-

cape to their ship.

Flash forward to present day where we find Loki (Tom Hiddleston) imprisoned for his crimes committed on Earth in The Avengers; Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and his friends battle to create peace in the nine realms and Jane (Natalie Portman) is studying a scientific phenomenon in England where she discovers the Aether.

Awakened by the Aether’s energy, Malekith and his forces attack Asgard, resulting in great tragedy and one of the most impactful moments of the movie. Eccleston’s portrayal of the revenge-driven Malekith was decent but Malekith does not stand out on the list of bad guys. However, Malekith is clearly willing to do anything to gain the Aether, which will grant him endless power. Thor, angry about the destruction and Asgard’s helplessness, devises a plan to defeat Malekith for good but needs Loki’s help to escape from Asgard through a secret passage.

The relationship between Thor

and Loki develops a strange appeal throughout the film, as the viewer doesn’t trust Loki for his past actions but there is still a powerful bond between the two brothers. All of the previous Marvel films have not taken the opportunity to develop their relationship, but after suffering a common tragedy in the movie, the two are forced together.

The movie also reveals Hiddleston as capable of much more than the crazed, power-hungry character of Loki. Hiddleston displays the emotional complexity of a character tormented by his own decisions and ambitions, willing to do anything to prove his worthiness to rule. Beside this, Hiddleston also retains the comedic and sarcastic nature Loki is known for, thus proving Loki’s likeability—even as the ‘bad guy.’

The other power couple of the movie is Jane and Thor who, when the movie opens, haven’t seen each other for nearly two years. Thor is a warrior, but in comparison to his first movie, he develops much

more emotion—or humanity— through the relationships seen on screen. Portman is almost always flawless in her roles, though Thor always overshadows her whenever they share a scene, and the entire premise of the movie follows the plotline of Thor saving her from the dangers of the Aether. Regardless, Portman’s performance is reminiscent of her Star Wars days as Queen Amidala, a strong-headed woman motivated by love.

The movie also relies heavily on the talent of supporting actors, including Dr. Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård), Heimdall (Idris Elba) and Frigga (Rene Russo). Selvig, a scientist who works with Jane, is initially locked in a mental hospital after his traumatic experience during The Avengers, but returns now and helps save the world from devastation.

Heimdall is the all-seeing keeper of the Bifröst Bridge that unites the realms, and the sequel sees Heimdall play a much greater role in the plot as he helps Thor save

the day. Elba’s solemn tone and unyielding body language match perfectly with the man who knows everything about the realms and whose job it is to protect the gates of Asgard. Frigga, the wife of Odin and mother of Thor and Loki, also helps develop Loki’s emotional appeal; Frigga clearly loves her son and their scenes together are heartbreaking.

Though much of Thor: The Dark World draws on previous Marvel knowledge, I loved that the movie, was still accessible to people who know little about the Marvel Universe.

The movie is much more than an action-packed explosion of conflict and enemies; relationships and emotions compose a large part of the film. When tragedy falls, it is not just another warrior in battle but a character whose story you know. As an amateur Marvel enthusiast, I highly recommend the movie though it is even better knowing the plot of previous Marvel movies.

museum talk

Historian ponders relation between text and art By kiran gill justice Staff writer

Art historian Linda Nochlin delivered the second speech in the lecture series “The Art of Memory,” at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston on Thursday.

Nochlin’s lecture explored the work of the contemporary conceptual artist Sophie Calle, whose work is currently on view at the museum in the exhibition Sophie Calle: Last Seen.

Calle’s relationship with the Gardner Museum began in 1991 when she created a series of works that combined photographs and texts in response to the infamous, still unsolved 1990 theft at the museum. During the theft, 13 works were stolen, including Vermeer’s The Concert.

The series evolved from Calle’s interviews with curators, guards and other museum staff. Asking the staff to recall the stolen images, Cal-

le would combine their texts with images to create a commentary on the void that the missing works created.

Isabella Gardner stipulated that the museum would remain untouched following her death, and though the frames of the works were left behind by the thieves, the museum decided to remove them from view. In 1995, the museum decided to rehang the empty frames. Calle revisited her 1991 series by creat-

CREATIVE COMMONS

OVERARCHING THEME: The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston hosted art historian Linda Nochlin’s Thursday lecture.

ing the series What Do You See? in 2012. Rather than asking members to recall the lost paintings, she asked each visitor to respond to the framed blank spaces before them.

The experienced art historian Nochlin chose to explore the theme of absence and memory in Calle’s work by first tracing the long, historical relationship of text and image throughout history.

Nochlin called her project “The relationship between word and image embedded in a wider project of representation,” adding that “The basic relationship of text with image goes back to antiquity.”

In fact, Nochlin began her account of history with Homer’s Iliad, which was an extended exercise in ekphrasis, or a description of a visual work of art. The relationship between words and images sprang from an oral tradition, she added, and from ancient texts such as the Iliad, beautiful physical and metaphorical representations and descriptions of objects were produced.

For example, the Shield of Achilles, an object that was only verbally described, was interpreted and made tangible in the 1800s by artists such as John Flaxman and Angelo Monticelli.

Including the original ekphrasis relationship between image and text, two more have since been created: analytical art history and criticism. Art criticism sprang from a desire to produce a more objective, scientific way to speak about art—in essence, “art history without artists” as Nochlin said. Of the three, art criticism is, in Nochlin’s words, “the most propagandistic,” as it stipulates that a work is either “good” or is “abysmally bad.”

Nochlin concluded her historical

account by relating it to modern day art criticism. And, though Calle is working within the same themes, her work is a rejection of the imagetext relationship on which Nochlin elaborated.

Calle’s work, unlike previous works in history, is different because she does not attempt to produce a relationship between image and text.

Instead, Calle asks others outside the art world to participate. She wants others, not poets or art historians, to describe and paint and thus produce the relationship between image and word.

The visitors and museum staff who comment on the missing works are forced to draw or write about the work from memory. The final works are not the product of an individual, but rather a group of anonymous individuals with varied degrees of art education and literary skill.

Essentially, Calle’s images act as a visual text. The fragmented texts produced from multiple authors vary in content: from the asinine and boring comments to existential and profound comments. Though the most amusing comments are the ones where the individuals express how they honestly cannot recall the image, or actually, never even liked the famed work.

Calle’s work that is on view at the museum produces a relationship between image and word, and absence and memory. Taken as a whole, her exhibition at the Gardner works to reinstate how significant and important the original artwork is.

Try as we might, the aura and influence of an original piece cannot be replicated. There is no physical substitute for the true presence of original artwork.

24

TUESDAY, november 19, 2013 | THE JUSTICE

TOPof the

ARTS ON VIEW

Brandeis TALKS

CHARTS

Quote of the week

Top 10s for the week ending November 17

“We must practice what we preach. This includes our former President Reinharz. There is a donkey in one of the brothers Grimm’s fairy tales that shits gold.

President Reinharz should know better than to treat Brandeis like a donkey that shits gold.”

BOX OFFICE

1. Thor: The Dark World 3D 2. The Best Man Holiday 3. Las Vegas 4. Free Birds 5. Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa 6. Gravity 3D 7. Ender’s Game 8. 12 Years a Slave 9. Captain Phillips 10. About Time

— Prof. Sabine Von Mering (GRALL) about the compensation of President Emeritus Jehuda Reinharz (News, p. 1).

If you could invent a new donut flavor, what would it be?

NYT BESTSELLERS

ABBY KNECHT/the Justice

ACCIDENTALLY IN LOVE: Justice staff photographer Abby Knecht ’15 has been drawing different scenes from classic Disney movies in her free time and submitted this drawing of the balcony scene from Aladdin.

the justice wants to see your original artwork!

Ezra Skolnik ’14

Submit your photography or a photo of your original drawings, sculptures, paintings or works in other mediums to photos@thejustice.org to be featured in the next issue!

“Bacon. Obviously.”

CROSSWORD

Kelsey Lafer ’14 “Sushi donut because I love sushi.”

Nate Shammay ’14 “Wouldn’t it be cool if a regular donut had chocolate in the middle?”

Justin Lesser ’14 “Pumpkin mocha latte flavor.

It has all the things I love.”

ACROSS 1 Dick __ Dyke 4 “Little House on the Prairie ” girl 9 Series for George Eads 12 Greek letter 13 Lou Grant ’s portrayer 14 Likely 15 Skelton or Buttons 16 Glowed 17 Tit for __ 18 Actor Scott and his family 20 “The __ ”; Fran Drescher sitcom 22 Actress on “The Big Bang Theory ” 26 Become educated 27 “Austin Powers: The __ Who Shagged Me ”; Mike Myers film 28 Galloped 29 Maya ’s role on “Up All Night ” 32 Just right 35 Role on “Suburgatory ” 39 “Mike & __ ” 40 Actress Della 42 Web site address, for short 43 __ home; away 47 “One Day __ Time ” 48 Billy __ Williams 49 “Confessions of a Teenage __ Queen ”; Lindsay Lohan movie 50 __ up; arrange 51 Dishwasher cycle 52 Sevareid and Close 53 Curvy letter DOWN 1 Part of speech 2 “The __ ”; adventure series for George Peppard 3 Olympic gymnast Comaneci 4 Long-running adventure series about a collie 5 Bit of soot 6 Family card game 7 “The __& Stimpy Show ” 8 Sports building 9 Herb that will drive a kitty wild 10 One of the kids on “The Little Rascals ” 11 __-bitty; very small 19 Popeye ’s love 21 Pacino and Roker 23 Actress Bello 24 Pitt and Garrett 25 __ tube; swimming pool toy 29 Worshipper 30 “The Big __ ”; old Lee Majors western series 31 “__ in the Family ” 33 Vital blood vessels

Nonfiction

1. Things that Matter—Charles Krauthammer 2. Killing Jesus—Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard 3. Double Down—Mark Halperin and John Heilemann 4. The Bully Pulpet—Doris Kerns Goodwin 5. David and Goliath—Malcolm Gladwell

iTUNES

1. Lorde—“Royals” 2. One Republic—“Counting Stars” 3. Pitbull (feat. Ke$ha)— “Timber” 4. Imagine Dragons—“Demons” 5. Passenger—“Let Her Go”

BILLBOARD

1. Eminem—The Marshall Mathers LP 2 2. Celine Dion—Love Me Back To Life 3. The Robertsons— Duck The Halls: A Robertson Family Christmas 4. Katy Perry— Prism 5. Avril Lavigne—Avril Lavigne 6. Kelly Clarkson—Wrapped in Red 7. Drake—Nothing Was The Same 8. Lorde—Pure Heroine 9. Arcade Fire—Reflektor 10. Pentatonix—PTX: Vol. II Top of the Charts information provided

by Fandango, the New York Times, Billboard.com and Apple.com.

34 Caustic cleaning solution ingredient 36 Late actor and comedian Paul 37 Discontinue 38 Actor Rob 39 News journalist Roger 41 Dines 44 Bobby of hockey fame 45 Skater Babilonia 46 Cable channel that mainly airs movies

STAFF’S TOP TEN

Rock Albums

By MORGAN BRILL

justice EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Solution to last issue’s crossword Crossword Copyright 2012 MCT Campus, Inc.

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

Mariah Beck ’16 “Cinnamon blueberry with real blueberries not syrup.”

—Compiled by Josh Horowitz/ the Justice

Fiction 1. Sycamore Row—John Grisham 2. Mirage—Clive Cussler with Jack Du Brul 3. The Goldfinch— Donna Tartt 4. The Valley Of Amazement— Amy Tan 5. The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon—Stephen King

Solution to last issue’s sudoku

Sudoku Copyright 2012 MCT Campus, Inc.

As someone who has always been really into music, rock has been a constant on every playlist I have ever made. While my tastes are perpetually changing, these albums have remained pretty consistent. It is definitely easy to get bored of music when you listen to it too often; however, I don’t think I could ever get bored of any of these albums.

1. Tattoo You—The Rolling Stones 2. Who’s Next—The Who 3. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band—The Beatles 4. The Works—Queen 5. Quadrophenia—The Who 6. American Beauty—Grateful Dead 7. Pyromania—Def Leppard 8. Born to Run—Bruce Springsteen 9. Costello Music—The Fratellis 10. Hot Fuss—The Killers